Japan tech, social media safety & travel pillow pick (144, Oct 18, 2025)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
California to require warning labels on social media. Apple TV
Plus gets a new name and a new partner, free
cell phone service for Californians. Plus, Your tech questions answered.
What's going on?

Speaker 2 (00:15):
I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
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 at triple A rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(00:40):
zero one, triple a rich one oh one. Give me
a call if you have a question about technology. Email
is also open. Just go to Rich on tech dot
tv and hit contact rich on tech dot TV hit
contact Guests. This week, Julia Storm, digital wellness educator and

(01:01):
founder of Reconnect, is going to help us break down
California's new social media warning label law and Instagram's new
PG thirteen teen content rules. Later, we've got Rebecca Griffiths
from Assurant. She's going to talk about trading in your
mobile phone and getting the most for your money or
the most for your trade in well. A very warm

(01:22):
welcome to you. Thanks for joining me on the show.
Back from Tokyo, Japan this week. Was there for c
TECH Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies. This is one of
Japan's probably their largest tech showcase was held near Tokyo.
I've been going for about off and on for about

(01:43):
a decade now, and it's always fun. I mean it's
really the first time I went, it just made me
realize how many Japanese tech companies there are. I mean
all the brands, you know, Mitsubishi, Hatachi, Panasonic, Nissan, Toyota,
I mean, the list goes on and on, Sony, There's
just so many, and so they all come together and,
you know, show off what they're working on.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Now.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
It used to be a ton of hardware. Now obviously
things have changed. So a lot of it's AI, a
lot of it's smart mobility, a lot of this talk
of this, you know, digital society. Not all that stuff
is happening, but you know a lot of it is.
So I did a whole post about just all the
things in the way, the ways that Japan has changed

(02:25):
in the ten years that I've been going, and just
how easy international travel has gotten in the past.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I would say last three.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
Years especially, So I'll talk about a little bit about
that later in the show, but I figured it'd be
fun to tell you about some of the things I
saw at the show. I mean, one of them is
going viral. This I'll just start with that one because
it's kind of kind of the coolest thing I saw.
This is from Honda. It's called the Uni One. It's
a personal mobility device. Now, lots of people have been

(02:53):
debating the merits over this device, saying, oh, come on,
it's just a world of wally.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
But let me explain with this.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
It's sort of a self balancing personal transport device from Honda.
So you sit in this chair with wheels. It's got
gyroscopes and all this kind of stuff. But it's a
motorized if you think of like a motorized scooter, but
without any controls. And so you sit in this thing
and you just lean where you want to go and

(03:19):
it goes. Now, I said in my Instagram, it feels
like it's reading your mind. Everyone's construing that as I
was saying, Oh, it does not read your mind. No,
it does not read your mind. It reads your movements.
But it's quite incredible how it can figure out which
direction you want to go just by slightly leaning in
those directions. And so I tried this thing. I sat

(03:41):
on it and it was just so cool. And people
are debating like, oh, well, is this a wheelchair? It's
going to be too expensive. Is it for you know,
is it for people that just don't want to walk?
What is it for? Well, it's for all of the above,
whatever you want it to be. And that's the beauty
of innovation is that companies innovate and we figure out
how we want to use it. Could it be used

(04:03):
for someone that's less than mobile, absolutely, Could it be
used for someone that doesn't feel like walking. Yes, could
also be used for someone who has an issue with
their foot right now temporarily and wants to get around
a museum.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
So Again, the possibilities on this kind of thing are endless.
If you want to see that, go to my instagram
at Richon Tech. It's so smooth and just so incredible.
It's just it keeps getting shares and views because it's
just it's one of those things you see and you're like, okay,
and yes, Disneyland could use it, a museum could.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Use it, Airports could use it.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Actually, When I was in the airport in Tokyo, I
thought this was pretty cool. They had these scooters, you
know how they have these people that can drive you
around the airport if you're you know, got a bum
leg or something like that. These are automated, so anyone.
They just had them sitting there. These chairs. You sit
in them and then you scan a QR code, You
say which gate you need to go to, and the
thing will take you to the gate all by itself, autonomously.

(04:56):
I thought that was so cooild. I wish I would
have tried it out, but I didn't. But I thought
that was really Let's see what else? Oh, this was
interesting at TDK. You know, I try so many things
and I'm like, I don't know what this thing's gonna do.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
To me or whatever.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
But TDK was showing off this laser module that projects
images directly onto your retina.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
What could possibly go wrong?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
But I put it on and it projected this little
tiny display onto my eyeball and it was cool.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
I mean you could see.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
You know, this could be used for heads up displays
and smart glasses, any kind of wearables. And the reality
is that this is going to happen the idea of
you wearing something on your face or even in the
future contact lenses with information displayed in your line of sight.
That is going to happen. It's already happening. I mean,

(05:44):
Meta is selling a pair of glasses that does just
this for eight hundred dollars. Google was very very early
in this many many years ago with something called Google
Glass fifteen hundred dollars back in the day.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Very limited.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
But again it's been hercolating for years and now we're
finally getting to the point where these companies are figuring
it out. They're making the technology smaller, they're making it
less invasive, they're making it easier, and it's going to happen.
So TDK working on that. Sony was interesting. They had
this thing called the Rion Pocket. This is a wearable
personal air conditioner and heater. So you wear this thing

(06:21):
around your neck kind of goes on your back. It
sits on your back and it cools you or warms
you using I don't know how you explain this, but
Peltier tech.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
So it's just I guess somehow it just.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
Warms you and cools you through your own body. And
this was an example of something that an employee came
up with in their innovation program where he was traveling
to Shanghai. It was super hot outside, said he was sweating,
and then we went inside to the office he was freezing,
and he said, there's got to be a better way,
and so why not have this personal wearable air conditioning

(06:56):
and heating system. So I thought that was pretty neat.
And we're already again, we're already seeing that with all
these trade shows I go to. People are wearing these
things that are they go around their necks and they
have fans on them. But the next version I've seen
is kind of like this where it sits on your
neck and it cools you through like conduction. So I

(07:20):
tried that at CES this year, and again these are
things that are just gonna get cheaper and they're gonna
get better, and we're.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
Just gonna have them. I thought this was neat.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
I saw for the first time ever, first time I've
ever seen this at a trade show Apple Vision pro
in the wild. So they were showing off like technology
or I guess society in twenty fifty and you put
this Apple. It was a cool, cool display they had,
but you would sit in this room and you would
just kind of explore where They're thinking that the physical

(07:48):
and digital worlds are going to merge in the future,
so they're using Apple Vision Pro. I thought that was
pretty cool. Let's see this robots everywhere. I mean, so
many robots in the friend I'm seeing with robots are
companion robots that are powered by AI. So Sharp had
one called pocket Tomo, which is short for Pocket Friend,

(08:10):
and it had you know, microphone speaker, GPS camera on
it so it can remember what you talked to it about,
remember where you are, and it can act as sort
of a little memory bank, but also a little companion.
It can talk back to you. So that was from Sharp.
And then they had another one called Romi. This was
from a startup. Same thing, you know, just sits there,

(08:32):
it chats with you. I don't know if that one
had a camera on it, but it did have Chatubtai
built in and it kind of adapts its personality to
you over time. Made by Japanese robotics company Mirror Robotics,
but again conversational robots. What else did I see? Oh,
this was kind of cool. A helio X solar micro

(08:53):
mobility scooter. Why didn't I think of this a solar
powered scooter. I mean, these things sit out in the
sun all day, had a bunch of solar pannels on it,
and it was inspired by an earthquake in Japan and
back in twenty eleven where charging things was tough, and
that means getting around was tough. So this guy came
up with this solar powered scooter doesn't need to be
plugged in. And yes it did have a space to

(09:14):
charge your phone. You need that, of course.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
Let's see.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
Okay, I saw an earbud with a built in camera.
So again, now we have glasses with cameras built in,
why not have them in your earbuds? And this makes
a lot of sense, And so JVC Kenwoods showing off
a prototype of little earbuds that had built in cameras
and they were using them.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
They were showing off two demos.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
First, if you meet someone in real life at a
party or something or at a meeting, it will take
a snapshot of that person and then it will recall
that person's name somehow, it links it up with their
business card or whatever they said to you or whatever,
and it will store that information.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
The next time.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
You can just ask your earbud, Hey, who was that?
When you see them again, or who is this? And
it will tell you details of that obviously need to
be worked out. Then they had a store safety system
for workers. So we've already seen workers getting body cameras.
Now this is sort of another version of that, where
you wear this little earpiece and if you have an
employee or sorry, a customer that comes in that's being abusive,

(10:13):
you can snap a picture of them and send that
audio to your coworker or your supervisor in real time.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
So that was there, and then oh, Plaud, I thought
this was cool.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
I don't know if you're familiar with this company, Plaud,
but they are doing a really good job of making
this little AI power digital recorder. Remember those micro cassette
recorders back in the day. Well, now they've got the
digital version of that, which looks like a credit card
or records transcribes, generates these searchable summaries. They've already had
a version. Now they've got a pro version which has

(10:43):
more microphones and a little tiny screen, plus up to
fifty hours of battery life.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
And they said it's been a hit.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Journalists love them. Anyone who's in meetings all day loves
this thing. They've got over a million users worldwide, so
that is incredible. And it just goes to show that
even in today's day and age, you can still have
a new idea and still do really well with it.
Because this is a startup and they have actually killed it.
They're doing so well. I met the team. They had

(11:10):
a whole bunch of them there and they were just
so so great to be on TV and to chat
with me, And I told them I've been using the
device and it's just super super cool. So let's plaud
all right, I'll link all this up on the website.
Rich on tech dot TV coming up. We're gonna take
some of your calls at eight eight eight rich one
oh one eight eight eight seven four to two four

(11:31):
one zero one. Plus uh, I'll tell you about how
Japan has gotten easier over the years when it comes
to traveling. There you are listening to rich on tech.
My name is rich jamiro Get those calls in eight
eight eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one back after this.

(11:54):
A couple items of note. I'm not gonna spend too
much time on this because it's this an ex expensive laptop.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Actually it's not that bad.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
But you know, Apple came out a new processor this week,
the M five, So they just you know, Apple has
started making their own processors a couple of years ago,
and they've just been doing such a great job. They're
so powerful, they and they last a long time. Like
if you bought the M one MacBook Air right now,
which sells for like, you know, five hundred bucks or something,

(12:22):
it's still just as good. My wife uses that. I
can tell you it's fine. I mean she you know,
browses the web, whatever, it checks your email, it's fine.
And that you're talking what five years ago this came out.
Now at this point, it's still powerful. So now they've
got this M five and they put it in a
fourteen inch MacBook Pro starts at sixteen hundred bucks, same
price as last year. They did not come out with

(12:46):
the M five Pro or Max. Those are the higher
end chips. They did not do that this year or
just yet, I should say. And it's faster obviously, the
battery life up to twenty four hours, which is just wild.
Ships on October twenty second pre orders. Now, now I
will tell you I bought the fourteen inch MacBook Pro
a couple of years ago. I would never get that

(13:07):
size again. I cannot recommend that size, and I'll tell
you why. Because we live in a world of AI,
and so what's happening is people are using their web
browser and then they're using AI on the side. And
so if you have a screen that's just fourteen inches,
that is not gonna give you enough real estate to
have your AI app on the right hand side of

(13:28):
your web browser. Now, web browsers are getting AI built in.
More and more of that we're seeing. But the reality
is I couldn't get rid of this size laptop fast enough.
So I recommend I've got right now, I've got I
think mine's a fifteen inch I would say, yeah, fifteen inch,
I would say fifteen inch minimum.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
No matter what you're getting, it just gives you more
real estate.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
You're gonna you're gonna like it better if you're going
fourteen inch. It's just you're gonna feel a little cramped.
That's the way I feel. This is just this is
me talking as someone who tests a lot of laptow
I just like a bigger screen.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
So that's coming out. Let's see what else happened this week.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Oh, Amazon hiring two hundred and fifty thousand workers for
the holidays, same amount as last year. So if you're
looking for a I mean they're doing full time, part
time and seasonal workers. Fulfillment centers, delivery operations, New opportunities
in rural areas average twenty three dollars an hour with benefits.
Seasonal workers get about nineteen bucks an hour flexible hours,

(14:29):
potential for long term.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Let's see what else.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Amazon says A lot of these jobs do turn into
career paths. Many managers start as temporary hires. Amazon dot
Com slash Local Jobs Amazon dot com slash Local Jobs,
which updates weekly through December. Now, I will tell you
I am amazed at Amazon. I don't know how they
do it, and what they built is just it's unfathomable. Actually,

(14:57):
like the fact that now when you order stuff on Amazon,
at least where I live, it tells you we can
get that to you same day, within a couple hours,
Like we'll give you a if you log on in
the morning at nine am, They're like, oh, we'll deliver that.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
To you from four to eight pm. What how now
I get it?

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Yes, there's there's instant delivery drone delivery all this stuff everywhere,
but like, this is Amazon. The logistics of this company
are just wild. And I watch the Amazon trucks come
down my street every single day and I feel bad
for these people. I'm like, I can't believe you've got
to go to these houses every day, but like, or
come to my house and deliver something.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
But they're doing it anyway.

Speaker 1 (15:33):
They're driving my street anyway because chances are someone on.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
My street is ordering something.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
So where they stop at the house down the street
and mine, that's actually more efficient. So look at it
that way, and I'll tell you, like I get it.
I love shopping in store. I try to shop in store,
but the problem is Amazon has everything all the time,
and especially when you go to the store. When I've
made it an effort to go into a store and
I'm like, I'm going to buy this yere, guess what happens.

(15:59):
They don't have size, they don't have the product in stock,
they have one left that's open and someone stole the
product out of it. Or you can't even shop in
the store because you know certain stores, everything's locked up
and you got to ask for someone to come over.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
To open up a locked cabinet for you.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
So it's really tough to compute with Amazon at this
point because you get exactly what you want. You've got
a thousand options, and it comes to your house that day.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
So I get it. It's a it's a tough battle
for these other retailers.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
And I don't want Main Street USA to go away,
but it's just how do you compute with Amazon and
what they're doing. At least we still have restaurants you
gotta go after that. Eighty eight rich one on one
eighty eight seven four to two four one zero one.
California passed a whole bunch of new rules this week.
I'm going to talk all about that with our guests
coming up, Julia Storm, founder of Reconnect. We'll talk about

(16:50):
California's new social media warning label and Instagram's new PG
thirteen rules coming up right here on rich On Tech.

Speaker 2 (17:02):
This week.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
California just doing a lot of stuff when it comes
to AI chatbots social media, and then Instagram layered on
some new rules as well. So California passed a law
regulating these AI chatbots, now the first state to regulate
these AI companion chatbots. Of course, we've heard tragic cases

(17:22):
involving teens and all these conversations they're having. So this
takes effect on January first, twenty twenty six. And then
also California is going to make social media apps show
mental health warnings to kids, kind of like what we
saw on cigarette packs. Now that's going to happen here
in California. So that's happening. And then Instagram, you know,
they don't want any rules from outside places. They want

(17:44):
to do their own stuff. So Instagram, you know, said
this week we're gonna make PG thirteen rules, you know,
like fourteen accounts, So PG thirteen content by default if
an account is figured out to be a thirteen plus kid,
you know, thirteen to eighteen, similar to what you might
see in a PG thirteen movie. So to break down
all of this, Julia Storm is joining me. She is

(18:07):
a digital wellness educator and founder of Reconnect Reconnect Dashfamilies
dot com. Reconnect Dashfamilies dot com. Julia, thanks for joining me,
my pleasure, Thanks for having me. All right, so let's
break some of this down. First off, we've got this
new the warning label. Do you think this is gonna work?

(18:27):
I mean, so if you're on Instagram, you're you're thirteen
to eighteen. AI figures out even if you lie about
your age, it will figure out that you're thirteen. It'll
show you this warning label that says all kinds of stuff.
Do you think that's gonna work?

Speaker 3 (18:39):
I mean, you know, Rich, it's a little bit hard
to tell until we see it in effect. I mean
my understanding is that the label will continue to pop
up after prolonged you So it's gonna pop up once
in the beginning, and then you can bypass that, and
then it's gonna pop up after three hours, which frankly
is a long time to be on.

Speaker 1 (18:59):
There, on there for three hours after the first pop up.
I mean, there's there's no pop up that's going to
change that kind of exactly.

Speaker 3 (19:06):
That's what I'm thinking too. So I think it might
make it frustrating to stay on the app after an
extended period of time, because.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
The second one has to time out. It doesn't go
you can't just click through it. It's like, I think
it stays on there for like thirty seconds.

Speaker 3 (19:18):
It stays on for thirty seconds, and then it starts
popping up every hour. But as you just mentioned, you know,
if you're on there for a three plus hours straight.
We've got like a much bigger problem that a warning
label is not going.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
To take care of. Now.

Speaker 3 (19:30):
I mean, I do think that if social media warning
labels become the norm, you know, maybe across the entire country,
maybe that sort of serves to change the culture ultimately,
maybe it sort of puts it more in people's heads
that this is a really serious issue. I just don't
think it's a one and done. I think it's more

(19:50):
of like a trigger, like a cultural trigger to raise awareness.
Maybe in future generations it'll have an impact, but I'm
not sure the impact that it'll have on current teams
and twins.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
And so this will apply to platforms like Instagram, Snapchat,
and TikTok. And the other thing is that, you know,
I think what's happening here is we're finally realizing as
a society that these apps are not the healthiest thing,
especially for teens. Now. I see adults all the time
that are just as scrolling just as much as teens.
But you know, they're adults. They could do what they

(20:23):
want with their lives, right, but teens are in this
kind of formative years time of their lives that they
don't necessarily need to be on the screens and be
exposed to all of this stuff all at once. So
I think that's kind of the delineation. But I think
we're realizing as a society that like, this stuff is
not necessarily good, and it's taking some of these rules
to kind of put that in front of people's faces.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
Yeah, I mean I think that that's true. And you know,
I talk to a lot of kids and a lot
of teenagers, and they too are really sort of coming
to the realization that it's just it's not healthy for them.
Now does that get them off of it? Not necessarily,
not because they don't want to, but because it's really
really hard to get off.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, and that's the problem. I mean, I see that
with my kids. Now, I've two kids. They both have
very different personalities, but one for sure watches way more
shorts and things like that, and it's just kind of
drawn into that. And I've seen that with kids in general,
Like when my kids are out with other friends, there
are some kids who can handle this stuff and they,
you know, even though maybe they shouldn't be exposed to
what they're exposed to, they can say, Okay, it's time

(21:29):
to log off. I'm done. Other kids they can't, and
it's a lot tougher for them. And I think that
some of these, you know, the platforms may not prey
on that, but they they don't necessarily help with that,
you know, and maybe these kind of things do. Yeah, Okay,
we've got Instagram now doing this PG thirteen content guidelines

(21:49):
by default, so teams under eighteen are automatically placed in
this thirteen plus content setting.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
They can't opt out. And what do you make of this?

Speaker 5 (21:59):
Well, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
I mean, theoretically, it means that the algorithms that decide
what content is going to show up and a child's
feed will be programmed to filter content based on, you know,
parameters that align with current PG thirteen movie guidelines, like
you know, some violence, but it shouldn't be extreme or realistic,
you know, a little bit of language, very brief sex,

(22:20):
so you know, just tamping it all down. I don't know,
I mean, I think it's gonna be hard to know
again until we're in it. It's going to be a
mixed bag. If your kid currently has a feed that's
more you know, in the sort of rated R realm
in terms of what they're seeing, then yeah, it might
have an impact, but if your child is seeing mostly

(22:42):
things that are somewhat age appropriate, maybe it won't be
as noticeable. I mean, hopefully it can put some guardrails
around the content that's most inappropriate are most harmful now,
But what it doesn't really do, which we were sort
of hinting at before, is it really doesn't address how
addictive the endless scroll is, or doesn't address notifications, it

(23:06):
doesn't address likes, and actually those three factors are a
huge problem for kids in terms of their mental health.
So it's not really just about the content that they see. Yes,
that's one piece of it, but it's really about the
other ways in which these platforms hold and grip kids attention.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
That's really the problem. That is a problem.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
And the other thing is that this is only Instagram
and TikTok is the eight hundred pound gorilla in the
room that is not doing this. And I know all
these platforms are saying that they're trying to do things,
which I do agree. I think they're making these tiny
little improvements, I think, but it's still tiny. Like we're
talking like if the problem is one hundred percent, we're

(23:51):
at like one percent right now.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
So It's not something.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
That's just like, oh, you change the PG thirteen and
everything is just rosy. It's not that easy because kids,
by the way, are on a bunch of different platforms,
and they're interacting with these platforms in ways that adults don't.
Like you said, notifications and likes. I mean, these kids
will pour over the people that have looked at their
stories and who has liked it and who has not,
and they'll take note of that, whereas I don't think

(24:16):
as an adult, like I don't even have my notifications
on for any of this stuff right right.

Speaker 3 (24:21):
And I mean, to be honest, it's like it's pretty
shortsighted because the social media platforms of today are not
the social media platforms of tomorrow. And so sure, great
Instagram does something, maybe it sets a precedent, but if
you don't have actual regulation, then it doesn't matter what
Instagram does because the next Instagram or the next TikTok

(24:44):
doesn't have to abide.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
By it, which is what they gravitate towards. Once these
rules happen and this thing gets boring and they go, okay,
well now I'm moving on.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
That's enough for me not to use this. So what
do you.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Okay, so you're an expert in all this stuff, you
deal with parents, you deal with kids, Tell me what
you're seeing out there and what you recommend.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
Around social media specifically.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, in general, like all this stuff, like just you know,
this whole world we're in.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean what I see most is parents who
are very overwhelmed, who feel stressed out, in a lot
of fighting in families, and it really is just like
it's eating away at the bond, you know, between parents
and kids, and it just brings this level of stress,
this undercurrent of pension and stress in the house that

(25:29):
parents are just totally.

Speaker 4 (25:30):
Fed up with. And also I think they have.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
A really hard time with being the screen time police,
you know, and to be honest, that tends to fall
more on moms than on dads, and they're just tired
of it. And what I sort of tend to recommend
is a paradigm shift, you know, I really want parents
to accept the world that we're in, as upsetting as

(25:54):
it might be for them, and go from screen time
police to screen time ally because being the police officer,
it's only going to get you so far. And you know,
trust me, once your kids are tweens and teens. You're
not going to be able to police them in the
same way a teenager is going to see and do
what they want to see and do. So stepping in

(26:15):
more as a mentor, as an ally, getting curious about
your child's online world, asking them open ended questions about it,
not just lecturing and restricting, I think ultimately that goes
a much longer way. Now, that doesn't mean you don't
have you boundaries, because kids, you know, their brains aren't
developed and they have a hard time with self regulation,

(26:37):
so you have to create some boundaries. But at the
same time, I just think what we're trying to do
is give them the skills right so that as they
grow older they will stop and think. They'll be the
critical thinkers and the conscious users.

Speaker 4 (26:51):
Of their devices.

Speaker 3 (26:52):
And the only way you do that is by really
engaging with them in thoughtful conversations about all this stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
That is so chups true, and that is it's a struggle.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
I know it's a struggle in my house at times,
and it really is tough because all the kids are
on there, all their friends are on there, and it's
so tough to say, like, Okay, let's do something else
besides this, because why would you not want to be
on this endless source of entertainment all day long with
your friends. I mean it makes sense, you know, if
they're outside, that's what you want to do too.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Back in the day.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
We're going to leave it there, Julia Storm. The website
is reconnect dashfamilies dot com. I'll put a link to
your website and your tips and tricks on there on
my website. Richon tech dot tv. Thanks for joining me today, Julia.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Thanks so much.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Rich Take care all right.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Coming up, we're going to talk about the gadget of
the week. It is solar powered, and I'll tell you
why Apple TV plus is getting a new name Plus.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
We'll take some of.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Your calls at eighty eight Rich one oh one eighty
eight seven four to two four one zero one back
after this, let's go to Charlene in Hawaiian Gardens.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Sounds fancy or on with rich.

Speaker 5 (28:07):
Good morning, Thank you for taking my call. I was
explaining to the person that took the information that I
have the Zoom on my husband's computer and forgive me,
I do not know what the computer is outside is
an HP okay? Whenever the computer doesn't update for some reason,

(28:29):
I can get on Zoom just fine. They can see me,
I can hear them, but they can't hear me. So
when it did it sometime back, I went to all
these websites trying to find a cure for the ailment
of the Zoom and I did find a website that
had me follow some steps. I want to say that

(28:49):
I had to do something in the in the in
the what in the command? It was a command I
think I don't remember.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
To be honest, you've got it.

Speaker 5 (29:00):
I did that and it fixed it, okay, but then
it updated and did it again, and I can't find
that website.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Okay, Well there's I mean, it sounds like you just
need to change the can you not You said you
can't hear They can't hear.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
You, right, they can't hear me.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
So it sounds like the wrong microphone is selected. If
I had to guess, Because this happens all the time
on Zoom. I'm not sure why the settings don't stick,
but it happens to me all the time. But there
is a way to go into the settings before you
connect to a call. So if you open up Zoom
on your computer right now and just go to the
menu and it says settings. There is a way to
look at your video and your audio settings. So if

(29:41):
you go into your audio settings, it'll say the speaker
that you're on, and for me, I've got one, two, three, four, five,
six different things i can choose from.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
And then you want to look at microphone.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
So if you go to microphone, you've got you may
have different microphones that you want that your computer has
on its system, and you just may be selecting one
that you're not on. So once you select that microphone,
you should see those little green bars moving that lets
your lets you know that your microphone is working. And
then they also have a test microphone option in the

(30:12):
settings where you can test your microphone that way.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
So that's what I would do.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
If all that's not working, then you have to figure
out if it's a it's a problem with Zoom, or
if it's a problem with your computer. And so there's
a whole bunch of websites where you can go on
and check your microphone or your headset or whatever. One
of them is webcam mictest dot com, webcam mictest dot com.
You go there and you can check your webcam, you

(30:38):
can check your microphone or your headphones. Just tap microphone
and just say start test and it will ask you
for access to your browser to do the test. And
once you do that, I'm seeing myself right now. So
again I'll put this all up on the website rich
on tech dot TV. Hopefully you get all fixed up
with your zoom there and you can cure and see people.

(31:00):
Thanks for the call, Charlene eighty to eight rich one
oh one eighty eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Back after this, Donna wrote in on the website.
She says, I have photo albums scanned and they're presently
in my company's dropbox folder. I want to share the
scanned albums with my family for about six months so

(31:23):
everyone can download what they want. I've been looking for
a way to share. Google only lets you share with
five people. I need about a terabyte of space. Amazon
only lets you share with a limited number of people.
I'm wondering what suggestions you have, Donna. You can share
with an unlimited number of people. You are confusing two
different things. You are confusing sharing the account itself and

(31:44):
sharing the content.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
In that account.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
So when it comes to Google one, like you mentioned, yes,
you can share that with up to five people, five
family members. That is the actual account space, but anyone
can generate a link from these cloud services is containing
the stuff that you've uploaded, and you can share that
with the world. So if you went into your Google
Photos after you uploaded a terabyte of stuff, and you

(32:10):
just clicked every single picture on there, or an album
that contained all these pictures, and you said share, and
you posted that on social media, anyone that has access
to that link could download those pictures. So it's not
limited by the amount of people you can share the
account with, it's just how you generate that share link.
And so I would recommend you mentioned Amazon. If you

(32:30):
have Amazon Prime, for sure, use Amazon Photos because it's free.
It's unlimited and free. So upload all the pictures to
Amazon Photos, make an album, and then you just take
that album, you click it and there'll be a little
share icon and you click link. And there's ways to
share with people. You can share as like a group,

(32:51):
but the easiest way is just to share a link.
So you generate a link, and once you generate that link,
you just email that to your friends and family and
now they can see all all of the photos in
that album. They could download the ones they want and
that's it. They can't add anything, they can't change anything,
but they can access and download anything that you've shared.
So again, you have to remember there's a difference between

(33:13):
sharing the account itself and sharing content that you've uploaded
to the account. All content that you share online has
to live somewhere, and someone needs to pay for that storage.
And so in essence, you're paying for the storage, but
anyone can download from that storage because they're just a bystander.
They're just downloading. You're the one uploading and storing it there. Now,

(33:33):
if you stop paying, that stuff would go away. So again,
I think Amazon Photos is a great, free, easy way
to do this again. Put it into an album, generate
the share link, and then you can share that out
to your friends and family. And then if you ever
want to get rid of these share links, like if
you want to stop sharing, you can just go into
your settings and turn off that share link.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Hope that helps. Let's go to Kathy in Los Angeles. Kathy,
you're on with rich.

Speaker 4 (34:00):
Me.

Speaker 6 (34:02):
Hello, Hi, Hi, okay, I'm on the premiem right now.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Oh stay safe, no.

Speaker 6 (34:08):
No, no, I'm It's a two prong question what to
do with old keyboards, old cords, power chords. I have
a new in the box, old compact wired keyboard that
comes with a wired mouth. Okay, A friend of mine

(34:31):
st keep it because if your keyboard on my my
Dell laptop goes bad, I can always plug it in
and use it.

Speaker 5 (34:44):
Is that is that true?

Speaker 7 (34:46):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (34:47):
Is it a USB keyboard? Compact has been around? I
mean that's that's like a retired brand. I feel like,
so this has got to be old.

Speaker 6 (34:54):
Uh yeah, yeah, no USB?

Speaker 5 (34:59):
It is USB?

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Okay, okay, well, if it's USB, yes, you could theoretically
plug it into your laptop.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
But here's the deal.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
You know, you're you're preparing for a scenario that a
has never happened to me. I've never had a keyboard
go bad on my laptop number two.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
You know this is old. I would just get rid
of it.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
You can buy a keyboard on Amazon for like eight
bucks if you needed it, if you if it came
to that, and it's going to be a modern keyboard,
and you could buy a mouse for about three dollars.
So it's you know, it's it's not something that you
need to take up space in your home and keep
for this doomsday scenario. Now, if you have the space
and you just want to keep it, fine, then you know,

(35:38):
go ahead. But I'm not convinced that this is a
USB mouse that will fit into your computer. I'm it may,
but I can't remember the last time that Compac has
sold a mouse. And I'm trying to let me see,
when did Compact go out of business. Let's see, let's see,
I'm trying to see here. Okay, two thousand and twenty

(36:00):
twenty five. The brand is Okay is currently licensed the
third parties outside the US.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
It looks like it was.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Operating until okay, yeah, HP to twenty thirteen when it
was discontinued. Okay, so you're talking something from you know,
at least ten years ago. I would probably just get
rid of this. You could put on eBay. So if
it's in, if it's new in the box, nib as
we say on eBay, I would put it on eBay.
I mean there might be a collector out there that

(36:27):
wants something like this in the box. If that's the case,
that's kind of cool. Otherwise I would just when you
need a keyboard and mouse, just order Amazon Basics or
Amazon Essentials on Amazon, and you can let's say, let's
see how much a keyboard is Amazon. So the Amazon
Basics keyboard, Okay, I was a little a little lower

(36:48):
on my price. It's eleven sixty nine. So oh a keyboard,
wired keyboard and mouse bundle is twenty dollars. So I
don't I don't really think you need to worry about
keeping this thing for the future. Now, when it comes
to the other cables that you have, if you have
a bunch of stuff around the house that you want
to get rid of, Staples is a fantastic place to

(37:08):
recycle stuff. They take everything within reason. You can go
on their website and see exactly what they take. But
they're really good. Best Buy has a recycling program as well.
You can do that. And if you don't want to
bring stuff into the store, best Buy has this cool
thing where they will ship you a box. You pay
a certain amount for the box. I don't know if
it's twenty five dollars, whatever it is, but they'll ship
you a box and you just load that box up

(37:31):
at home with all of your cables and things, all
your old tech electronics, throw it in the box.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Again within reason.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
There's certain things that are allowed certain things that aren't,
and then you just slap a label on it and
bring it to the UPS store or whatever and they
will take care of all that stuff. Apple Store you
can also recycle stuff there as well, So if you
want to bring stuff into the Apple Store, even if
it's not Apple, they will take it. And you can
go on their website and see what they'll take for recycling.
And it's pretty generous. All of these recycling pro are

(38:00):
pretty generous, and I think some of it is funded
by the states that you live in, so that's why
they're getting a little help there. And also they refurbish
some of it, sell some of whatever they do with it.
But again, you want to look for a place that's
going to be reputable. And if you don't know how
to get the data off these machines, some of these
places promised to do that in a secure manner for you.

(38:21):
So if you can't power something up, you can't turn
it on, you bring it to Staples. They say that
they will take care of it for you. And I
did go to one of these facilities that does this
and I watch them. They take this computer out of
the box, they turn it on if they can get
it on and then they immediately wipe all the data
off of it and then recycle the parts and junk it.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
And it's pretty wild to see this process.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Thanks for the call, Kathy, and appreciate you listening to
the show. Speaking of Apple, Apple TV Plus is getting
a new name.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
When did this launch?

Speaker 1 (38:52):
I think Apple TV Plus launched around twenty nineteen and
everything was Plus plus plus, Disney Plus.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
And then you had Max bo Max.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Everything's a Max or A Plus, and then I was
gonna make a joke there, but I decided against it.
And then now you know they're slimming it down. Now
it's just Apple TV. That's not confusing. Now you've got
Apple TV the app, you've got Apple TV the box,
and now you've got Apple TV the service, which is
a premium service. So it is changing to Apple TV

(39:24):
on now, I guess. And so just know that twelve
ninety nine a month seven day free trial. If you
buy a new Apple product, you get a couple months free.
I'll be honest, I've subscribed to Apple TV Plus since
day one, and it's probably the service I get the
least value out of.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
But it's in a bundle now.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
And by the way, the first year was free, and
then I just kept paying and twelve ninety nine a month.
I would find it hard to pay that, I think
because I'm not really watching a whole bunch of stuff.
Although I am watching a new show on there, so
I take that all back. It's all worth it. I
think it's called Knife's Edge, Knife Edge, and it's basically
about these restaurants that are trying to get a Michelin star,

(40:04):
which I never really cared about because I'm not the
fancy food eater, you know, like they serve you that
little tiny thing in the middle of the plate with
like three It always has some sort of fish egg
on it, like a caviar egg.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
I guess that's fancy, but not to me. Like if
I see that, I'm like, can I scrape that off?
To like, sir, that's the best part the caviat I'm like,
don't know anyway, So I am watching that show and
then F one. Finally, all the money that I've spent
on Apple tv Plus over the past six years is
all coming to a head. I didn't see F one

(40:35):
in the movie theaters because I knew it was coming
to Apple TV Plus. Because Apple financed it, and so
I said, I know this is gonna be on streaming,
and so December twelfth, I cannot wait. I'm gonna get
all whatever five hundred dollars I've paid over the past
five years to Apple TV plus.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
That is gonna be the movie I get my value
out of.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
So if you were like me and you didn't see
in the theaters, or maybe you did see it, you
want to see it again? F one coming to Apple
TV plus or sorry Apple TV on December twelfth, and
I will tell you that's going to break every record
they have, all of their sign ups, all of their streaming.
That is going to break it all. And by the way,
I joke about Apple DV plus being my least, you know,

(41:14):
return on an investment. I also watch Platonic, which I
think is hilarious. I watched The Studio, which I thought
was hilarious. And my wife watches Shrinking, which she loves.
So there is value. And if you watch, you know,
the Friday night baseball stuff, it's there.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Some of the movies have been hit or miss, but
again there you have it all right.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Coming up, we'll take some more of your calls.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
I'll tell you why Google is making it easier to
hide ads on its search results. But there is a
catch to that, plus much more right here coming up
on rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Rich Demiro here, hanging out out with you, talking technology

(42:01):
Triple eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Coming up.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
In the next segment, we're going to talk to Rebecca
Griffiths from Assurant. She's going to talk about the best
ways to get the most money for your phone if
you're thinking about trading it in.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
Let's go to fill in San Diego. Phil, you're on
with rich.

Speaker 7 (42:22):
Hey, thanks for taking my call. I want to thank you.
I always learned something from your show. I always try
and get at least an hour of you in every week,
so thank you.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
Well, I'm glad you're learning. That's my biggest goal here
is just to help and inform, so I'm glad that's working.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Thank you.

Speaker 7 (42:40):
We'll see what we can do here. Now I'm calling
on the behalf of a friend, a friend of a friend,
and I may be a little short on details, but
I'll call her Holly. I heard Holly's story in a
grief group where people lose somebody and they go for
grief a grief group, grief recovery, and she lost her

(43:03):
teenage son recently as a good kid. Nothing the fairy
is going on. She can't get into his phone. In fact,
he got a pink iPhone because he was going to
turn it down to his sister.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
So he's a good po So sorry.

Speaker 7 (43:16):
To hear that, Thank you. She's having trouble get in
and finding a way to get into his iPhone. She
wants to figure out later into his computers. Currently, her
husband has talked with several groups that know about this.
They have an Apple phone manager helping them, a live person,
and there's a lawyer coming in and talking about seven

(43:38):
thousand dollars to help them get into this. I don't
know where. I know a lot of people in the
in the country go through this with deceased people, and
I don't know what the story is up now, what's
current about? How do people get into somebody's iPhone or

(43:58):
computer after' there to see there?

Speaker 1 (44:02):
There's the The short answer is there's not an easy way,
and it's it's it may never be away. So typically
what happens is the iPhone is encrypted and without the
the passcode on that phone or a way to you know,
if you're a legacy contact, if you're if those things
are not accessible, it's really impossible. Now there may be

(44:24):
ways around that, but I'm saying what's easy. And so
there's not like a setting on the phone or setting
on the Apple account where you just go, oh, this
person has passed away. I'd like to I'm you know,
I'm their parent, or I'm there whatever I would like
to get in.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
You can't just do that.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
It's it's the way that these phones are set up
as they are private by design, and so that's great
for people that want to protect their privacy. Not so
great when someone is no longer here and you want
to get access to their device. Now, are there systems
that may be able to break that encryption and may
be able to get into that device. Absolutely, and law
enforcem uses those They are expensive, they're not available to

(45:03):
the general public. And I'm not sure who this iPhone
manager is. I've never heard of that. That is definitely
I don't believe someone at Apple. I don't think they
assign iPhone managers to folks. But a couple couple of things.
Number One, if you're listening to this and you want
someone to be able to access your account in the future,
you need to do what's called a legacy contact. Go

(45:25):
into your Apple account on your iPhone, set up what's
called a legacy contact. That means it will give you,
it will assign someone a special code. If you ever
pass away and you have no more access to your phone,
someone else will get a message that says, hey, you
can now access this person's phone. You can do that
with Facebook. You can also do that with Google. That's
number one. If you want to access requests or request

(45:49):
access from Apple, you can do that, but you need
legal documentation. So at a very minimum, you're going to
need a death certificate and a court order saying that
there's a reason why you need to access this phone.
And so you can get in touch with Apple with
that information, submit that on their website, and you can
work through that system. But that is not a simple

(46:11):
thing to do. Again, you have to have that core order.
So why is this so complicated. It's complicated for a
reason because if Apple made an easy backdoor to every
single person's phone out there. Guess who else has access
to that back door? The governments, the law enforcements out there,
and yeah, you might say, okay, we live in the US, fine, whatever,

(46:32):
but there are international governments that would love to get
access to millions upon millions of people's iPhones. So this
is a very tricky topic, and it's a very tricky
place because these tech companies want to encrypt things to
make sure nobody can get into these accounts. But then
on the backside, it's tough for family members to get
in when someone passes.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Get in easily, I should say. So those are the
main ways to do it.

Speaker 1 (46:57):
If you have access to the child's pin code that
unlocks the phone, you could you know, obviously that's very easy,
and you can use a program like I Amazing to
download everything from that phone. But that is that's going
to require having access to the phone, which you said.
In this group they mentioned they do not, but that's

(47:17):
what I would do. Those are the avenues. You can
take take the phone to an Apple store, see what
the Apple store rep says. If they say something different
than I said, I'd be curious to hear what they say.
And I'm sure there's a million people promising the ability
to unlock and open this phone. I would just be
very careful before I pay seven thousand dollars to do that.
You better, you better, really need something on that device.

(47:38):
And I understand this is a very very sensitive topic
with your child and you want to see what they
had on there, and of course preserve their memories as well.
Thanks for the call, Phil, appreciate it. Eighty to eight
rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. Coming up, we'll talk trading
in your phone for maximum cash. Nancy writes in I'm

(48:02):
trying to sell things on Facebook Marketplace and want to
use a second phone number so I don't have to
give out my real one. Is there a free or
cheap way to do that? Yes, there are many, many,
many ways to do this. Uh, Google Voice obviously free
easy way to do that. Then you've got apps, so
many apps. Text Free is one of them, Sideline is

(48:23):
another burner, Hushed Hushed is probably more for like the
dating apps, but that'll work as well. But they all
let you create a separate phone number for calls and texts.
Some of them cost money, some of them are free,
some are free with ads. But that's the easiest way
to do it if you want to protect yourself from
spam calls and just in general. You know, once you
put your phone your phone number out there on one

(48:44):
of these things, it's like you're it's out there. So
I've got a Google Voice, I've used Burner in the past,
text Free, They're all pretty easy. You just have to
sign up and you know know what you're getting into
and there you go. But lots of ways to do that, Nancy,
thanks for the email. If you want to email me
Rich on tech dot TV hit contact. All right, it

(49:05):
is phone season, a lot of people buying new smartphones
trading in their old smartphones. Here to talk about that
is Rebecca Griffiths from Assurant Mobile Trade and Expert.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Rebecca, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (49:19):
Thank you for having me, Rich.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
So explain what Assurant is. How where would I trade
in the phone with Assurant.

Speaker 8 (49:26):
So, Assurant is a device life cycle and services company
that helps everything from protecting your phone to being able
to enroll in early upgrade programs to trade in which
is what we're talking about today.

Speaker 4 (49:41):
And within our.

Speaker 8 (49:43):
Connective living business, that's where mobile devices come into play
and you wouldn't actually reach Assurant directly. We actually support
the ecosystem behind the scenes, so we provide the trade
in programs that help power behind your local carriers, your retailers,
your equipment manu manufacturers, and that's where you would go
to trade in those phones. So whomever is your carrier

(50:05):
or operator today, or if you want to do it
at your local big box retailler or online with your
phone model of choice.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
Yeah, there's a lot of options.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Actually, got it?

Speaker 1 (50:17):
Okay, So you guys, you're the behind the scenes folks
that power all of the trade in programs and insurance
programs out there. Can you buy uh No, you can't
buy insurance directly from you, huh.

Speaker 8 (50:29):
We're going to offer that through your local provider. So
then we're that behind the scenes, so we'll help make
good on all the fulfillment. You can reach us and
kind of connect to us once you're enrolled, but really
it's important that that relationship remains. So if you have
your telecom provider or maybe even with your cable operator today, right,

(50:49):
there's a great offering there for mobile customers as well.
And when you go to sign up and you buy
that new device, that's the key time, right, So when
you're buying that new device and you want to look
at do you want to protect this device?

Speaker 4 (51:02):
So you might think about that then.

Speaker 8 (51:03):
But the other thing is that device holds a lot
of value that's already in your pocket. And that's where
trading comes into play. So you want to look at, hey,
what can I get for this device when I'm ready
to move to my next one?

Speaker 4 (51:16):
How much is this one still worth?

Speaker 8 (51:18):
And so whomever you're buying your new device from, it
has become so popular to offer a trade in program
that you're going to find that just about anywhere. When
you're buying that new cell phone or even that new
smartwatch today, you can trade in a lot of different
categories and so that's.

Speaker 4 (51:33):
When you're going to do it.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
And you guys came out with this report I mentioned
on the show a couple weeks ago, this trade in report.
You said that the value to consumers is up. What
does that mean exactly?

Speaker 4 (51:47):
Yeah, So it's kind of exciting.

Speaker 8 (51:49):
So what we do is we kind of keep our
finger on the pulls of where the trade and ecosystem
is at and how active consumers are participating in it,
and so what we saw that this last quarter in
Q two that compared to last year, the same quarter
that we saw a lot more activity in trade and
whereas Q two can be a little bit slower sometimes

(52:10):
there's not as many new phone releases, which is normally
what prompts people to move to that next device. They
want the latest and the greatest, and so we saw
that being a lot higher in Q two, and that
was really kind of those correlating factors.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
There's a lot more promotions.

Speaker 8 (52:26):
That were in market that drive people to go in
and trade their device, and then there's people who are
ready to move to new capabilities that are out there.
So we're seeing kind of that trend picking up and
we're expecting it to be even stronger as we're in
the middle of Q three right now.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
I was going to say, so Q two is like
April to June, that's before a lot of these big
phones come out, right, That's right.

Speaker 8 (52:51):
So April to June what you'll see offers in market
back to that retail season, like dads and Grads, right,
Like those types of things that happened. So we did
see some of that where there was a lot of
appeal of people to move into what we would call
like the the N minus one generation, so not that
latest that's coming out, but people knowing that new devices

(53:13):
that are coming out, they can get a really good deal.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
On that device that's in market today.

Speaker 8 (53:17):
Oh we got a lot of that activity driving it
where there was before the next one comes out.

Speaker 4 (53:22):
But this one's still really good, right, go buy that
new one now.

Speaker 8 (53:25):
So that that's what we saw a much bigger uptick
than we did last year at the same time.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
So funny, so many people tell me they do that.
They're like, I know, I know the new iPhone's coming out,
so I'm going to get the one that's before it
because it's going to be cheaper when that new one
comes out.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
So that's that's a strategy a lot of people use.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
So why would someone want to trade in their old
device instead of keeping it, you know, in a drawer
at home in case something breaks on their new device.

Speaker 8 (53:50):
Oh, so many reasons, let's just start with that. A
lot of times people think I'll keep that as a backup,
but in reality, once you've moved to that new device,
it's really hard to go back to a previous generation device,
and there's the hassle of moving things, and so instead
what happens is that device get stuck in their drawer
and and it's it's kind of like a rotting banana, right,

(54:10):
like just losing value every single day. And so instead,
if you can trade it in the same time, you're
going to get the most money put back in pocket.
And this is the other cool side. You're doing something
good for the environment. So not only are you keeping
out landfills, but when you're trading that device just because
you're done with it, many of these devices go on
to have a second and sometimes third life, so they

(54:32):
go back into that ecosystem. They get referved, cleaned up,
and then used back again, either in certified pre own programs,
sometimes as a program fix and replace, and so there's
there's a lot of use. And that's kind of about participation,
and you know, we're all looking to say, how can
we do good for the environment and be part of,

(54:53):
you know, more of a circular economy.

Speaker 4 (54:55):
And this is a great way.

Speaker 8 (54:56):
So it's not only like good for mind your pocketbook,
but it's also doing that good for the environment, keeping
that device going rather than just letting it.

Speaker 4 (55:04):
Waste in the drawer.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
How do you I mean, which devices I guess are
having the most value right now?

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Is it always the iPhone typically or what you know?

Speaker 4 (55:13):
It really goes back to it.

Speaker 8 (55:16):
It follows so I think people are really comfortable with autos,
right You think of your car that you have, and
a car that is going to be the most premium
or the latest is going to hold the most value.
And that same type of thought process goes to smartphones.
So it used to be like ten years ago plus,
we didn't even think of, you know, these devices as

(55:36):
holding that much value.

Speaker 4 (55:37):
We have the like you know, the old candy bar style,
et cetera.

Speaker 8 (55:40):
But today these devices they are really little powerful computers
that are in our pocket.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
And so the more premium the.

Speaker 8 (55:46):
Device is, that's going to dictate how much value it is.
So those ones that are more expensive that first time around,
they're going to hold that value.

Speaker 4 (55:54):
And then also the better condition that it is.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Right about that yeah.

Speaker 8 (55:59):
Yeah, yeah, and that that is definitely So those are
the biggest drivers. So that for sure that that make
model coming out, and then the condition that it is
really drives that value. If that device is damaged, depending
on the level of damage, that'll drive down that value
pretty quickly.

Speaker 1 (56:16):
Right, Okay, so that that's my final question. We've got
about a minute left. You know, the accessories, like if
you put a case on it, you have a screen protector.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
You know, some people like to.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Go you know, caseless, they like to you know, just
use their like this is the way my phone should be.
But when it comes to that trade in, you can
really boost your value if your device is in like
really good condition one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (56:37):
And those are great tips for all of us to
take away.

Speaker 8 (56:41):
Keep that case on there, keep that stream protector because
when you know, not only is it going to be
in good shape for you, but when you're ready to
trade it in, you're going to get the best value
for it when you.

Speaker 4 (56:50):
Upgrade to that next device.

Speaker 8 (56:52):
And then the other things is when you're ready to
trade in, go through and make sure you wipe it,
make sure you like you get it ready, and you
do your research of what are the best promote motions
that are in market when you're ready to buy the
next device, and that's how you're going to get the
most value out of it.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
And at the end of the day, if I couldn't
wipe it, would you guys? Do that securely?

Speaker 8 (57:09):
Absolutely absolutely use a reputable reputable company when you go
U trade it in and you know that part of
that process on the back end, they're sending it to
full R two facilities that are ensuring there's complete data
wipe and security and sending that back out. So you
want to make sure you get your information off because
those are you know, that's important data that you need.
But then also know that if you're using any of

(57:31):
those reputable companies, they're doing that on the back end.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
All right, Rebecca Griffiths, thanks so much for joining me
today from Insurant.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Really appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (57:38):
You're welcome. Thanks again.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
All right, I'll put a link on the website rich
on Tech dot TV to Assurant. You've probably heard of
them though, if you have insurance on your phone through
your carrier or whatever. All right, eighty eight rich one
O one eight eight eight seven four to two four
one zero one. Coming up, I'll take some more of
your calls, some of your emails.

Speaker 2 (57:57):
Let's see what else.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
We're going to talk about connectivity and things that changed
in Japan over the years. And Google is adding a
hide ads button. I'll explain that coming up right here
on rich on Tech. I posted a great app, great
website on my newsletter this week, Rich on tech dot TV.

(58:20):
It is called vert v e r T. The website
is v er t dot sh And what's great about
this website is it just converts any document that you
have that you need converted. Don't even worry if it's supported.
They're all supported images, audio, documents, and video. And the
neat thing about it is that all the processing is

(58:42):
done on your device, so that means that it's private,
and it's open source, so people can see the source
code on this, and it's just really easy. You got
an image, you got an old image, you want to
throw it in there, It'll convert it into a JPEG.
You got some sort of old audio file, or you
just want to convert an audio file, throw it in there.
It'll convert it into whatever you want. Documents, everything except

(59:04):
the only one that's not support is PDF.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
I've noticed.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
That's the first thing I tried to drag in. I
was like, oh, let me grab the text. Can't do that.
But everything else epubs, ODT, whatever that is, json, CSV,
And then video is supported, so all those old videos.
You may have a tiny old video on your from
your smartphone or your your regular flip phone back in
the day, some random format like I don't know what

(59:28):
was just mts M two ts m og flv vob
all those random formats that are lingering on your system
that don't open. Throw it into here. Now that is
done on their server, so just you know, that's just
know that. But otherwise, I mean, this thing is really cool.
Vert dot sh the website for the show Rich on

(59:51):
tech dot TV. I'll put a link there if you're
googling stuff, and I already had this happen on my Google.
But you can now hide ads in your Google search results,
but first you have to scroll past them. So basically
the change here. Let me see.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Let me see if I can bring this up on
my computer.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
It's just tough to Let's see if I type in
best sports, let's just put in best mattresses because that
one there's usually a lot of ads for it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
So I'm looking to see.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Yeah, okay, so I don't I think you have to
be logged in on your account to have this happen.
But it showed up on my account the other day.
But it was like basically, you go to your search
results and up at the top all those are sponsored.
Typically now you're going to see one label that says sponsored,
and then a couple of ads, and then once you
scroll past them, there's a button that says hide sponsored results,

(01:00:41):
and you can just hide those. Now, I don't know
why you'd want to do that every time. I mean,
it seems like a lot of work, but at least
it's an option I think that you know. For many
years and Google makes a ton of money on this,
people are confused as to what's a sponsored result and
what's not. Now I'm not saying Google doesn't properly label these.
They do, but people just ignore that label. But when
you're going on Google, the top results are typically sponsored

(01:01:03):
unless you have some sort of ad blocker running on
your system. But now they're giving you that option to
hide those sponsored results after you scroll past them, which
is handy, but I mean, who's going to take.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
The time to do that every single time.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
If you live in California, you can now get a
free phone line and a free smartphone. This is through
Total Wireless and they are owned by Verizon, so you're
going to get a great network. But basically they're launching
this new California Lifeline program with California if you're eligible.

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
You can get.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Unlimited talk, text, and six gigs of data for zero
dollars a month. Now, that's after you qualify for the program.
It's usually like twenty nine dollars and then they get
some sort of government grant or assistance to pay that.
That twenty nine dollars all directly done so you don't
have to worry about it. You also get a free
smartphone if you want unlimited data eleven bucks per month,

(01:01:53):
which is pretty good. So to qualify, you have to
be enrolled in one of these programs, one of these
government programs like CalFresh or medical or you know, one
of the you know, if you're on one of these programs,
you qualify for this. Basically you can apply online or
in store. There's no contracts, no credit checks, and I
put the website. It's kind of a weird website, but

(01:02:14):
it's www dot MYGDP benefit dot com slash TWCA, Total
Wireless California. I'll link that up on the website because
it's it's way too tough to remember, but my gdpbeenefit
dot com slash TWCA and you have to put the
www in front of it or else it doesn't work.

(01:02:34):
So if you want, you can go to my Instagram
at rich on Tech. I've got this post. But if
you're on one of those programs and you want a
free phone line, like why not get it? I think
it's funded through the other phone lines, right, Like, if
you're paying for a phone line, I think you pay
a small amount that funds these other free programs for
everyone to have this. So again, California, other states have

(01:02:55):
similar things. Let's see here. Gerald writes in Hey, rich
my phone says I have compromised passwords? How do I
change them by letting the password app handle it? Good question. Well,
if you're using let's see, would you say you're on iPhone.
If you're on iPhone, Apple has that built in password manager,
that's probably given you that warning. So if you go

(01:03:18):
into settings, password Security Recommendations, you'll see a list of
those compromised logins, and then they'll have a link that
says change password on website. The password manager doesn't necessarily
change the password. Now, some of them do have that
functionality where they can go out and directly change that password.
It's been a while since I've seen that, but they do.

(01:03:38):
Some of them do have that functionality. I think dash
Lane has it. I think last pass might have had it.
But otherwise, all you have to do is go directly
to the website change and go to the change password link,
so you can say forgot password or just change password.
And then once you're on that website, the password manager,
when it gets to that field where it says enter
your new password, it will suggest it'll spring into action

(01:04:01):
and suggest a new password, and you can accept that
password and then save it to the password manager. And
all of the password managers pretty much work the same
way in this regards. So the thing is, if you're
using a password manager, you have to remember to use
it to both generate the password and save that password.
There's nothing worse, I'm sure there are, but there's nothing

(01:04:23):
worse than when you generate a password using your password
manager and then it doesn't automatically save that password and
you're like, where did that password just go? So a
lot of the password managers will have a password generator history,
and if worse comes to worse and you didn't it
didn't pop up to save that password, you can go
into the history and look at the passwords that you generated,

(01:04:45):
and usually it should say the last date and time
that you generated a password, you can copy that and
manually enter it into your password manager. But the thing
about people and password managers, they don't want to use
them because they see them as like too complicated. They're
actually very easy once you get in to the habit
of using them, and on your smartphone and on your browser,
you need to decide which program you're using as your

(01:05:08):
password manager, because the problem is all of these phones
and platforms have their own password manager that tries to
pop up and intercept all this stuff and work because
they want you to use their password manager. But you
get to decide which password manager you want to use.
So whether you're on Android or iPhone, you can go
into your settings and decide which password manager you want. So,

(01:05:31):
for instance, on Android, it's under typically under autofil, So
if you type in in the settings in the search autofill,
it'll say under passwords, pass keys, and autofill, choose your
preferred service, and you can go in there and choose
the service that you want to pop up when you're using.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Your password manager.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
Same thing on the iPhone, search for autofill or passwords,
and there's a place where you decide you don't need
to use Apple's password app. In fact, I really like
a third party app like bitwarden because it's it works
everywhere equally eighty eight rich one oh one eighty eight
seven four to two, four to one zero one. Back
after this, we had a Divina right in from Littleton,

(01:06:25):
Colorado who listens on KOA love the show, learn a
lot from you each week.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
Another thing about Apple TV.

Speaker 1 (01:06:31):
Starting next year, they're going to have the rights to
the F one races for the next five years. Yes,
I meant to mention that as well on the show,
and I just did so. Yes, Apple and Formula one
have signed a five year exclusive broadcast deal. Next season,
every F one practice, qualifying, Sprint, and Grand Prix will
stream on Apple TV. Obviously, Apple did really well with

(01:06:56):
F one, the movie highest grossing sports film ever made,
six hundred and twenty nine million worldwide. Really really that?

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
That's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
My son loves sports movies, that's all he watches. He
loves those kind of movies, so I can't wait to
watch this with him December twelfth. Anyway, the F one
content will also appear across all of Apple's properties, And
there you have it. Apple is a force to be
reckoned with at this point. I mean, now they're doing
baseball games, now they're doing F one, they have a

(01:07:31):
movie studio, TV studio, you know, all the gadgets they make,
it's just unbelievable, Like how much bigger can this company get?
And the irony of Apple, the irony of Apple, and
I hope I'm telling this story right. But back in
the day when Apple wanted whatever the deal was with

(01:07:51):
their name, it was a whole thing with Apple, the
you know the British company set up by the Beatles, right,
it was this whole thing where like Apple wanted to
use the term Apple.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
I think it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
I see, I should have looked this up before I
told this story. But the whole thing was that Apple
was like, we are never gonna sell music, so you
can give us this name. See I'm already you know,
I'm not even gonna tell the story. I'll tell it
after I look it up because I want to get
the story right. But long story short, the irony is
that Apple now sells everything. I mean, what doesn't Apple

(01:08:23):
sell at this point, books, music, TV shows, movies, gadgets.
I mean, it's just it's just wild. Yeah, Well, when's
the car coming out. I don't know Adam wants the car,
but I think they gave up in the car. But
it would be a perfect fit, perfect fit. They already
have showrooms in every mall in the world. You can

(01:08:44):
drive a car in there. And now that f one's
done so well, maybe they will make a car. Maybe
they'll buy the rights of that too. Nathan is in Arcadia. Nathan,
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 9 (01:08:55):
Hi. Rich, My wife and I just bought a Hyacins TV.
Spectrum is our cable provider. The problem we're having is
with the Spectrum remote. If I when I hit the
system button, it'll turn off both the box and the TV.
And if I hit the system button again, it'll turn

(01:09:16):
on the box and the TV. But if I come
back ten fifteen minutes later, which is normal, and I
hit the system button, it only turns on the box
and not the TV.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
So the first time it turns it on every time,
and then the second time it doesn't.

Speaker 9 (01:09:34):
If I turn it on right away within a minute
or two after turning it off, it'll turn on the television.
If I come back ten fifteen minutes later, it only turns.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
On the box, okay, and not the TV.

Speaker 9 (01:09:49):
Have an answer.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Well, I think it depends on You can turn.

Speaker 9 (01:09:52):
On the TV using the license right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Right of course? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:09:56):
Yeah, but you want the one remote to do both,
which is what the universal remote is supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
I think.

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
So, first off, this is working through line of sight. Correct,
this is not an RF remote, do you know that?
It's like, so you have to aim it at the TV, right, yeah? Okay,
And then the batteries are fresh I'm guessing right, brand
new batteries. And now, so the thing what I'm thinking is,
and I have a high sense TV, I don't use

(01:10:22):
a universal remote with it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
I just use the included remote.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
But I'm thinking that sometimes these TVs have a sort
of a little time out period, or you need to
hold the power on button a little bit longer. I'm
wondering if this thing is not firing long enough to
correctly turn this on the second time after the TV's
gone into like a little bit of a deeper sleep.
That's my only thought. So when you press the the

(01:10:48):
power button on your remote, do you hold that down
for like a second or two?

Speaker 9 (01:10:53):
I think I hold it down for like half a second,
but not not much longer.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Okay, Now, who programmed this remote for you.

Speaker 9 (01:11:04):
What it came programmed. But I went and got another
remote and I programmed it and I got the I
put and then I called up Spectrum and they walked
me through programming it, and so they did I guess
over the phone.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
Okay, So, I mean, the only other thing I can
think of is perhaps this remote. I mean, the fact
that it's turning the TV on and off means that
it's clearly working.

Speaker 2 (01:11:29):
For that model. But it could be that maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
It is not fully programmed, but it's just weird that
it would work to power it on. So basically, okay,
you can always power it on the first time, and
then you can always turn it off the first time.
But then after fifteen minutes of like you come back
into the room when it's off, you're like, oh, I
want to turn this TV back on, nothing happens.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
Just the cable box goes on, right.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Yeah. Yeah, that's a tricky one.

Speaker 2 (01:11:57):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:57):
The only thing I can say is is that is
there a button on the remote you can program for
just the TV power or is it just one universal
power button?

Speaker 9 (01:12:06):
Yeah, there's a button I can do for just the TV.
And I've tried that.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
And that won't work to turn it on and off. No,
it won't turn back on.

Speaker 9 (01:12:16):
It won't turn back on.

Speaker 2 (01:12:18):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
Well, the only other thing I can think of is
go into your Have you gone into the high Sense settings?

Speaker 9 (01:12:26):
You mean to their website, No, like on.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
Your TV itself. This is a smart TV.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
I'm guessing right, right, Okay, I would go into the
high Sense settings and see if there's anything that says sleep.
Wondering if this TV is going into a deeper sleep
and the remote that it comes with might unlock that,
you know, the deeper sleep. But if you go into
your settings, there might be a setting. I feel like
I remember changing something on my TV that basically makes

(01:12:53):
it so that it goes into a deeper sleep for
energy conservation. There might be a setting there that you
can you can toggle that might keep the TV in
a more awake state, that might allow it to come
on at any time, even after you've turned it off recently.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
So that's the only thing I.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Can think of, Nathan, that's a challenging situation. I will
tell you that universal remotes are good, but sometimes they
are not perfect, and that could be that you're experiencing
this frustrating problem it may not be solvable, but I
would go into the settings on the high sense. This
sounds like it's a problem with the high sense. Sounds

(01:13:31):
like something's not firing for long enough, and also the
high sense is not receiving that information quick enough. So
thanks for the call, appreciate it. That is frustrating. I've
I've just gotten to my high sense remote because it's
the easiest, and I use the high Sense built in
Google TV because it just works. And I had the
whole remote with the every and I'll be honest, every

(01:13:53):
remote I've had with the Apple TV and with the Firestick,
they all seem to work for a period of time
and all of a sudd and they just stop working
for something like one of the small like it doesn't
change the input, it doesn't change the volume, it doesn't
power it on or off, like something changes in that
system for some reason. And yes, you can go through
and repair it and stuff, but it's just like, why

(01:14:15):
can't it be simpler? Why can't this stuff just work?
Steve from Beaumont writes in Hey Rich, Apple charges nine
hundred for the iPad Air thirteen inch with two hundred
and fifty six gigs of storage, but the same iPad
is seven forty nine on Amazon, brand new, not refurbished.
How is that possible? Good question. Apple never discounts its

(01:14:35):
products ever. There's never a sale at the Apple Store.
But if you're an authorized reseller, you could do whatever
you want. Amazon can sell this for half the price.
They just take a loss on it. It's been going
on forever. You have to remember, when a product sells
for nine hundred dollars, it does not cost nine hundred
dollars to make. It might cost, you know, whatever the

(01:14:58):
cost of that product is. Might Amazon might buy it
for five hundred. So if they're selling for seven forty nine,
they're still making two hundred and fifty bucks on it.
If they're selling it for the full price, they're making
even more. This is just I'm not a sales expert,
but the way I understand it is that there's always
a wholesale price that a business is buying a product at.

(01:15:20):
And it's like when I was selling my book, right
there was a cost of that book and whatever it was,
let's say it was four dollars and seventeen cents, I
don't remember what it was, but I would sell the book.
I think it was twenty dollars on Amazon, and then
it was twenty five if you bought it in person
with an autograph, and so there was a range of

(01:15:42):
whatever I made on that book was between ten and
fifteen dollars depending on what it sold for. Now, Amazon
would go through and that book was selling when it
was like number one on the tech books, Amazon would
discount it. The higher it went on the charts, the
more Amazon would discount because then people would buy it more.
And so they're still making a profit even at when

(01:16:03):
they were selling it for twelve dollars, because the cost
of that book was like four And I don't know,
I'm just giving you random numbers here.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
I don't remember what the pricing was.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
But it's again, Amazon themselves would discount things when they
got popular because they knew what that bottom line price
was that they as long as they are above that,
they're still making money on it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:22):
So that's how Amazon does it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
That's how every retailer does it, is that they they
come up with whatever they want to do, and they know,
by the way, on Amazon, and maybe not so much Amazon,
but other stores, we call them we I'm not not
a store owner, but you know they call it a
loss leader. They sell things for really cheap on blackfront
because they know you're probably gonna come in there and
buy something else. Yes, do people hack the system and

(01:16:44):
buy just that thing and save a bunch of money.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
Absolutely, But chances are you're going to buy something else.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
Eighty eight rich one oh one eighty eight seven four
to two four one zero one. Coming up this hour,
we're going to talk to Eric O'Neill, a former FBI operative.
He's going to talk about protecting yourself from the biggest
online threats, plus your questions, your calls, your emails, the feedbacks.
Coming up later and coming up right after this, I'll
talk about my trip to Japan right here on rich

(01:17:12):
On Tech. Just found a cool website, United starlinktracker dot com.
So United Airlines this week did a big press event
with a bunch of journalists, invited them out to Denver
to fly on their first mainline aircraft, a Boeing seven

(01:17:36):
thirty seven.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
Then now is equipped with starlink.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
So if you know what United's doing, They've been equipping
all of their express planes. Those are the little ones,
usually the e J E R J one seventy five's.
They you know, they operate under SkyWest or whatever. They've
been outfitting all those and now they're doing the mainline
and they've got one, I guess one plane. But this
website is great because it tracks the I remember when

(01:18:02):
this is so wild, Like I'm a big United Airlines
person because I fly a lot between the two coasts
and that's what I've been taking for twenty five years.
And you know, old habits die hard whatever. But anyway, well,
I'm from you know, I'm from New Jersey, so I
fly into Newark. That's where I fly into and that's
where United flies into. That's their hub. So I'm sticking

(01:18:23):
with it, you know. And I tell you this because
there was a point on United when I was waiting
for them to install Wi Fi on their planes, like
we're talking ten years ago, and they used to have
a little Wi Fi installation tracker on their website where
you can see, and I was like waiting for the
day when Wi Fi would.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
Be on my flight.

Speaker 1 (01:18:42):
And now it's on every flight and it's by the way,
eight bucks, which is so cheap. I mean, I connected.
I flew back from Tokyo connected to the Wi Fi.
I mean, how am I connected to Wi Fi from
Tokyo to Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
Just it works.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
Now they're doing Starlink, which is going to be absolutely incredible,
fifty times faster than you know, typical Wi Fi on
the plane. Anyway, this website tracks the planes that have it,
and so you can look it up and it's got
the main line. They've got one plane, it's got the
tail number for all these planes. So if you're on
end seven seven five two five, looks like it's mostly
out of Denver, Denver just keeps going back and forth

(01:19:20):
to seeing Denver and all these other little cities. But anyway,
Starlink's going to be free for Mileage Plus members and
it's just going to be super fast. It's just amazing.
You have to watch a fifteen second ad before connecting,
and everyone that tried it on this flight seem like
they loved it, and I just I can't wait, Like

(01:19:41):
it's gonna it's gonna change working.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
In the sky. Like right now.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
I typically if I fly anywhere, I want to be
back home in time for Friday because I want to
plan the show for the weekend. But now it's like, no,
I'll just I'll fly back on Friday because I can
use Wi Fi in the sky that actually works and
it's super fast. Speaking of my trip to Japan, I
outlined a lot of it in my newsletter this week.

(01:20:05):
Rich on tech dot tv if you want to sign up.
But I was there for c Tech. This is kind
of like their cees, you know, but in you.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
Know, Japan, Tokyo.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
So I've been going to the show for about a decade,
and I find it so fascinating the changes in Japan
since I've been going. I've been staying at the same hotel,
same convention center, but every time I go there, something's
changed just a little bit. So my first trip, I
will never forget this. And I don't know if I've
ever told this story on the air, but I was

(01:20:36):
flying to Japan. This show is always in October, and
I land in Japan, and this was the first time
I was going. I get there and my phone will
not connect, like there's just no signal. And this was
back before you know, e SIMS and everything was easy
and all the international roaming and plans and all this
stuff you had to still pay for, like international roaming,
and so I turn on my phone, I thought I

(01:20:58):
had roaming. I did not whatever it was did not work,
and so the hotel. It was like an hour to
get to the hotel. By the time I got off
the plane got to the hotel, it was probably over
two hours I was not with a connection in addition
to my whole travel day, so probably eighteen hours total.
I get to my hotel and I was meeting my
colleagues who were already on the ground. I make it

(01:21:19):
to my hotel, I unpack, I go up to their
room to meet them, say hello, and they're like, Rich,
you're so calm.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
I'm like, why wouldn't I be calm? They're like, well,
you heard the news. What news? Steve Jobs passed away? What.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
I was like, wait what? And I knew he was sick,
but you know, it's it was just like a surprise.
And so I'm like, can I check my email on
your Like, you guys have your system figured out? So
I go there, I check my email on their computer
and I must have had two hundred emails from all
over the world.

Speaker 2 (01:21:49):
Number one, you know with the news. Number two?

Speaker 1 (01:21:51):
Where are you? Number three? How come you're not responding?
Number four? Can you do an interview? And I missed
all of it, every single bit of it. Every single
interview that you know, people requested this and that I
missed it all because I was eighteen hours into this
new cycle and that was it and there was nothing
I could do. And I never felt so out of
control and just so helpless in that situation. Also sad,

(01:22:14):
but it's just that was it. Anyway, fast forward to today.
You're on the plane, you have connection, you get off
the plane. Both of my plans I have both my
premium plan I have in this cheaper plan I have,
they both have international roaming included. So it's just like seamless.
Before it was like you couldn't en I couldn't even

(01:22:35):
find I remember being in Japan not even finding an
ATM that would take my debit card. Now everywhere is
tapped to pay, every atm works, the Wi Fi is everywhere,
by the way, roaming is everywhere. They also have this
thing called the Sueka Card. It's like kind of their
metro card that's digital. You can literally sign up for
this thing using Apple Pay right on your iPhone. Google Maps,

(01:22:57):
I mean navigating Japan, so we made it around everywhere
just by looking at Google Maps. Oh my gosh Ai
Literally Ai is like having the smartest travel companion in
the world. I'm not kidding you. Just upload a sign
in any language. Don't even explain it. It will just

(01:23:19):
explain the sign to you. I'll come back and tell
you what it all means. Unbelievable eight A eight rich
one O one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. I'll link up the ramin spot
I found that was so amazing on the website.

Speaker 2 (01:23:32):
Rich on tech dot TV. Back after this, Welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:23:41):
Back to rich on tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
with you talking technology website rich on tech dot TV.
I was talking about my trip to Japan. I've got
to tell you I packed the best travel pillow I've
ever found. I know it's not a gadget, but I
would consider it gear. And I have flown for twenty

(01:24:02):
five years. I will tell you I have never slept
better on a plane in my entire life. In my
entire life. In fact, I don't even try to sleep
on planes because it's so uncomfortable. I don't try to
use one of those U pillows because they do not work.
This is so wild, I don't okay, I'll tell you
how I found it. Actually, i'll tell you how I

(01:24:24):
found this travel pillow. I asked CHATCHBT and Google Gemini
for the best travel pillows, right, and they both came
up with their own independent list. And guess which pillow
was on both lists? And I said that one must
be good. And it's called the Turtle TRTL And what's
neat about now? I'm not the first person to discover

(01:24:45):
this pillow, by the way, it's a clearly it's a
known thing because I'm looking at the website Conde Nast
buzzfeeds strategists New York Times Sunday Riley, I just didn't
know about this, and it is fantastic. It's almost like
it's not even a pillow, almost more like a neck brace.
So you put this little brace and it's all covered

(01:25:07):
in like felt, so it feels really nice. But you
put this on the side of your neck and then
you wrap this thing around you and at velcroz so
it stays put. It is unbelievable. I am telling you,
if you buy one travel accessory this year, this is it.
And it's a little bit more expensive. Yes, I will
admit I think I paid fifty bucks for this thing,

(01:25:29):
which is a lot for a travel pillow, But it's
cheap compared to first class. You can sit in an
economy seat in the middle and sleep like a baby.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
No big deal.

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):
Okay, two million people have bought this pillow already. Okay,
so I'm not the first to discover it, but I'm
telling you it is so good. I couldn't wait to
get back on my flight just to put this thing on.
I'm like, hold on, because the first flight, I was like,
all right, this is the first time I'm using this.
I slept pretty well. Maybe I was just tired. Second flight, no,
same thing. I just slept again. I mean, it was really,

(01:26:01):
really incredible. I'll put that on the website. Rich on
tech dot TV. By the way, speaking of gear that
I brought to Japan, I did detail every single thing
that I brought, all the gadgets. I call it What's
in I mean, they do this on YouTube. It's called
What's in my Bag? So I did what's in my
travel bag and my newsletter this week, and everything from

(01:26:21):
the backpack to the phones I packed, to the iPad
to the kindle, everything I bring I put in this list.
It's all right there, and it's all detailed. So I
you know, I'll tell you I mean it's backpack, it's phones, iPad, Kindle. Well,
actually I was testing a Kindle alternative my MacBook. Mike's

(01:26:42):
a tripod. Cables. I explain exactly which cables, the power bank,
I use, the Meta ray band glasses, which were great
for jogging, by the way, all the accessories, the Ethernet cable,
the Ethernet adapter, USBC card, a tablet, stand ad, Gaffer's
tape roll. Yes, I bring Gaffer's tape on every trip

(01:27:02):
I go on, and it is coming handy so many times.
The air tags alcohol wipes, motion sensor for my bathroom
like a little night light.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
I know, I'm a little baby.

Speaker 1 (01:27:14):
I need a night light in the bathroom, Yes I do.
I don't want that. I don't want to turn on
the light in the middle of the night. You wake up,
you reset your whole body. A little tiny night light
comes on. It's nice carbon monoxide detector. I didn't even
need my travel adapter. You know, half of these places
you go you don't even need an adapter anymore because
they either have a USB port in the room or

(01:27:36):
your regular plugs just plug right in. Like in Japan,
the standard plugs not a three prong, but a regular
plug will plug right in and most of the power adapters.
If you look on the back of the tiny tiny writing,
they say something like they are voltage from like one
twenty to two forty, so it actually has almost a
little converter built into the Now, I'm not an expert

(01:27:58):
in this stuff, so don't, like, you know, don't don't email.

Speaker 2 (01:28:00):
Me, be like Rich, you're that's a lie, Like it's.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
I know, but there's something that like it can handle
a wide range of power and still not melt. Now,
if you're talking about a hair dryer or something like that,
sometimes you know you do need a proper voltage converter. Anyway,
it's all on the website, Rich on tech dot TV.

Speaker 2 (01:28:18):
Go there. Uh, let's see.

Speaker 1 (01:28:20):
Jennifer writes in Hey, Rich, I enjoy your morning segments
on TV. I wanted to ask about chat GBT. Is
there a way to verify how accurate it's answers are.
Some of my friends take everything it says is fact,
and I'm hoping to show them that it's not always right.

Speaker 2 (01:28:34):
Oh, you want to show them.

Speaker 1 (01:28:37):
That's the best when people try to get you like
it's always like when you post something on social media,
there's always the fact checker that comes on board and
like explains what's really happening. It's like, okay, I get it.
We're just trying to have fun. Sometimes, She says she's
also uneasy about AI in general. I still prefer good
old fashioned research. Well, you're the only one, Jennifer, because

(01:28:57):
no one else cares about that anymore. I'm being a
little facetious, But the reality is, I'm not kidding. People
have gotten so lazy that when they search something on Google,
they just look at what's what's called the AI overview
or those little answers that come up. You know how
it like shows you other things people are asking, and

(01:29:18):
people just expand that and like read the tiny thing
that's written there, and they'll take that as gospel. The
reality is, no, I am a journalist. You cannot just
take what you see highlighted on a Google search result
page as the answer. Even when you see the AI
mode or the AI answers, it's not always right. Now,
I will tell you AI mode is really good. Okay, interesting,

(01:29:45):
I'm reading what it says about this interesting, But the
AI overview can be wrong. When it first came out,
you remember it was telling people to put rocks or
glue on their pizza and eat rocks. Now it's gotten
a lot better since those days. But in general, when
it comes to AI, you cannot take what it says
for granted, you have to imagine there are some issues

(01:30:07):
there and there could be some errors. And so if
you're an expert in an area, just Google search and
look at the AI results or chat gybt some of
the things that you know about to be true and
it doesn't always get everything perfect. So what can you
do to fact check this? Well, you got to just
use your judgment. You got to go in and if
it's if it's giving you a fact. Like when I

(01:30:28):
said this f the Partnership, I talked about that F
one movie, right, the Partnership follows Apple's success with F one,
the highest grossing sports film ever at six hundred and
twenty nine million worldwide. So I can take that from
chat gybt and go into Gemini and say fact check okay,
and I'm gonna put that sentence in. And what Google's

(01:30:48):
gonna do is go to the Internet and it's going
to look for things that say that that's true or not.
And so what does this say F one. It's the
highest gross sports film ever. This is true. Multiple sources
confirm that the film has surpassed previous records. The worldwide
gross is six hundred and twenty nine million, essentially true.

(01:31:10):
Many reports cite that. So now we're gonna ask what
was the previous highest grossing sports film ever before F one?
And let's see what it tells us. And we're getting
an answer. The previous the previous highest grossing sports film

(01:31:34):
worldwide was Cars two.

Speaker 2 (01:31:37):
Now is that a sports film?

Speaker 1 (01:31:40):
I don't know, okay, And AI kind of understands that
there's something a little weird about that, which centered on
an international auto racing competition. I mean, okay, I think
that's a little bit exaggerated. If you strictly consider only
live action films or pure sports dramas, the previous record

(01:32:03):
would be different. Okay, I'm gonna say I don't think
Cars two qualifies. And let's see what AI says. And
this is what's so fun about AI again. You are
able to talk to an interface with this AI as
if it was okay, see, and this is where it
just goes downhill Forrest Gump.

Speaker 2 (01:32:24):
That was not a sports movie? Was it? Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:32:27):
That was not a sports movie. That is crazy? Yeah,
like what's happening?

Speaker 5 (01:32:33):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
Was there a game of ping pong? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:32:35):
Okay, there was fast five? Okay that maybe I see.
I wouldn't even consider that.

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):
A sports movie.

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
I guess if you're talking about fictionalized sports. But to me,
a sports movie'd be like Rudy right, like that's a
sports movie? Or was it blind Side? Was that it
or the Blind? Something was something like blind in the
title the blind Side. Yeah, that's a sports movie. I
didn't se see it, but it's a sports movie anyway, Jennifer.
To answer your question, you just got to you gotta

(01:33:06):
do some extra searching if you are in doubt of
something you're seeing online, which ninety nine percent of the
time when I'm scrolling, yes I am. You got to
cross check in fact checked, fact check. I will tell
you this is how fake some of this stuff is
you see online. Now, I cover technology for a living,
so I'm pretty well versed in tech and I can
tell when things are a little Ofesometimes I was experimenting

(01:33:29):
with TikTok and just kind of watching. You know, I
don't go on TikTok regularly, but I will go on
there from time to time to kind of check it out.
That doesn't mean I don't watch shorts. I watch shorts
on Instagram and stuff, but I'm not kidding. Two things
I noticed, well, i'll tell you the first thing I
noticed the other day when I was scrolling through TikTok,
just kind of testing it out, Like, what's all the
hype here? You see the same stuff over and over

(01:33:53):
and over done different ways. I'm not kidding that Taylor
Swift Opa Lite song or whatever it's called. Every single
real is using that song, and it's always like some
aesthetic people are showing off or something, you know, whatever
they're showing, it's just like somehow related to that song
because it's a trending song, so people want to capitalize

(01:34:13):
on that. That's number one, number two, And this was
This was a couple of years ago. There was a
thing going around a TikTok where people were cutting open
an iPhone box and in the iPhone box was a
secret case for the iPhone. Now I knew that was
not true, but after watching fifteen people cut open an
iPhone box with an exact erazor blade, I had to
go literally into my closet and find an old iPhone box,

(01:34:37):
and I'm like, let me see. And the old iPhone
boxes were a lot thicker than they are today because
of the you know, they didn't have as much environmental
stuff like now it's all like paper and much more compact,
and nothing's included with the iPhone except the iPhone now
maybe a cable, and so back in the day, the
boxes worth thicker.

Speaker 2 (01:34:55):
I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 (01:34:56):
I went into my closet, even though I knew this
was fake, and I said, I took out a box.
I cut it open the way that they did it,
very carefully, and sure enough there was no case inside,
and I knew it was fake, but I couldn't tell
you how many of these I watched where someone pulled
a case out of the iPhone box, a clear little case,
and it was just like, I sat there and just
laughed to myself. So, yes, there is misinformation, fake news.

(01:35:21):
All this stuff is happening on social media and on AI.
I don't think AI tries to do that, but it
just happens based on how AI is made. There are hallucinations,
It makes mistakes. So I'm glad you're fact checking. Jennifer.
Please spread the word about fact checking Okay, what do
we we gotta go to break? Right, Okay, we're going
to break. Let me do one more thing? Could I

(01:35:43):
do one more thing?

Speaker 2 (01:35:43):
Yeah? Okay, I'm getting the thumbs up.

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):
Wayne from Appleton, Wisconsin writs in hey, Rich, I listened
to on w hby, thank you and on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:35:51):
I've got a big music collection.

Speaker 1 (01:35:53):
I play through CarPlay, but the volume levels are all
over the place. I'm constantly turning the knob up and
down between songs. Is there a Windows program that can
make all my MP three's the same volume level?

Speaker 2 (01:36:03):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:36:04):
Thanks for tuning in way and appreciate you listening. Try
the program called MP three gain. It'll analyze your tracks
and adjust their volume. And I do not believe you
have to re encode them, which is nice, but just
test on a couple of files first before doing this
to your whole library. But yes, if you have a
collection from over the years, these things have wide ranging

(01:36:24):
volume levels. MP three gain. MP three gain is the
oh it's a free software. I believe that you can
use to do that all right. Eighty eight rich one
oh one is the phone number. Eighty eight seven four
to two four one zero one.

Speaker 2 (01:36:38):
Coming up. We are going to open up the feedback.

Speaker 1 (01:36:41):
Yes, I can't believe it's that time already coming up
right here on Rich on Tech, Nasa writes in I
called in about my Netflix and Amazon Prime apps not
working on my Sony TV after switching to T mobiles

(01:37:03):
wireless Internet. Yes, I remember troubleshooting. I tried everything you
suggested and then finally called T Mobile. Turns out, because
I bought my router under a business account, it had
safe search enabled, which blocks streaming. See I would have
never figured that out. Once they removed it, everything worked properly.
Just wanted to share in case it helped someone else.
Great tip, And this is why I love the questions

(01:37:27):
that come into this show, because some of them are
just they're a mystery, and it's like everything I know
about tech, I'm like.

Speaker 2 (01:37:32):
That doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (01:37:34):
And you can give the advice that you know to
be true, but there's always something that might be in
the background, like that you bought it through the business
account they had this feature enabled. Thanks for the update there.
Mickey writes in, Hey.

Speaker 2 (01:37:45):
Rich, I'm wondering why you don't talk.

Speaker 1 (01:37:47):
About the TCL sixty x five G. It has this
cool feature that switches the screen from black and white,
kind of like an ink mode. It's great for reading
or browsing Amazon without all the color glare. I've had
TCL phones before, or even the first one you talked
about back in the day, and they still work great.
This one's under two hundred and just works. I thought
you might just want to check it out, Mickey, Yes,

(01:38:08):
I have been testing. They call it next paper. That's
their technology. It's kind of like a mix of e
INC and a standard display. So I've got a tablet
from TCL that has that on it and it kind
of reads like a kindle, but then you can flip
it into full color mode. The thing is, I don't
think the screen looks as good as a dedicated kindle

(01:38:29):
with the e ink, nor do I think the screen
looks as good when it's a dedicated iPad. So if
you want something that's in the middle, yeah you're gonna
give up a little bit on each side. But you know,
I think it's a great thing. And TCL, I think,
you know, they're not as mentioned much with the smartphones,
but they do have some decent smartphones and their stuff
is actually pretty clean when you get it. DH writes

(01:38:51):
in about my Amazon issue. Remember I told you last
week that I had some issues with my Amazon Prime
delivery not getting delivered. DH says you can contact Amazon.
They should have just replaced the undelivered items. It happened
to me once the delivery photo showed a completely different apartment.
I checked nearby units, couldn't find it. Contact and Amazon.
They sent replacements right away. Just a tip for next time.

(01:39:14):
Leo writes in regarding your Amazon non delivery, I've had
the same thing happen more than once, even down to
checking my ring camera. Usually the package shows up the
next day. Sometimes it never does. I think it's just
a lazy driver. I've had good luck with Amazon's phone support.
If you call and explain what happened, they'll credit your
account for the miss discount.

Speaker 2 (01:39:32):
And he gave the phone number for Amazon. Yeah. I
didn't want to call Amazon. That's the thing. I didn't
want to deal with that, so yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:39:40):
Sarah writes in great show, Great Guests, Your scam experts
comments were spot on. In your newsletter, you mentioned Amazon
missing and delivery. I don't think it's a rare miss.
It's happened to me twice in the past couple of months.
I don't even order that much. I won't speculate on
where those packages end up, all right, So clearly yes,
with Amazon delivering millions upon millions of packages a day,
they're bound to get law stolen, whatever, redirected, misdirected.

Speaker 2 (01:40:03):
Next time I will call.

Speaker 1 (01:40:04):
Frank writes in after looking you up on Facebook, I
have to say not what I expected. You present yourself
very professionally, and today on air when you mentioned you
don't answer texts cool to all things strived for, I
don't know what that means.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
Thanks for all your years of help. Rich have a
blessed week. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:20):
I'm glad I'm more professional than I sound, probably just.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
Because they took a good picture. Let's see Andy. Oh no,
that's not it. What do we have here?

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):
Susan writes in I love your show. I make sure
to listen to the podcast every week. I've learned so much.

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:36):
I want to thank you for your Prime Day recommendation.
I bought the Lenovo laptop you mentioned after my old
one died, and I absolutely love it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:42):
You're the best. Oh, thank you, Susan.

Speaker 1 (01:40:45):
And finally, Robert writes in thanks for the public service
that you do your calming presence and approach, train your
audience to hopefully not respond emotionally to the tactics of scammers.
It's so important to slow down and think about things
before reacting to most things in life, but we need
constant reminders. That applies to emails and social media. Yes, Robert,
slow down, think before you act. I think my parents

(01:41:08):
told me that when I was a kid. That's going
to do it. For this episode, you can find links
to everything on the website rich on Tech dot TV.
You can find me on social media at rich on Tech.
Next week, Scott Stein of Cina is going to talk
about Samsung's new VR headset they're launching, and the CEO
of Vey this is a rental car service that drives
the car to you remotely.

Speaker 2 (01:41:28):
What thanks so much for listening. So many ways you
can spend your time.

Speaker 1 (01:41:31):
I appreciate you spending it right here with me. Please
don't text and drive, don't dive, drive distracted.

Speaker 2 (01:41:36):
Thanks everyone who makes this show possible. My name is
rich Dedmiro. I will talk to you real soon.

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Rich DeMuro

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