2025’s hottest tech gifts without overpaying, Android finally AirDrops iPhone, auto-clip every grocery coupon (149, Nov 22, 2025)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The tech gifts that are on every twenty twenty five
holiday list, and how to get them without overpaying. Google
makes Android work with airdrop, but will it last? And
never clip grocery store coupons ever? Again the free tool
that does it for you, plus your tech questions answered.

(00:20):
What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich
on Tech. This is the show where I talk about
the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's
also the place where I answer your questions about technology.
I believe that tech should be interesting, useful and fun.
Phone lines are open at triple eight Rich one oh one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one

(00:43):
zero one. Give me a call if you have a
question about technology. Email is also open. Just go to
richon tech dot tv and hit contact. All right, we're
doing things a little different this week. All the music
you hear is requested from you. So this song Lovely
Day by Bill Withers is from Heidi. She dedicates it

(01:06):
to her family and friends. Great song, fun way to
start the show. All Right. Guests this week Nathan Burrow,
you know him from Wirecutter. He's going to share the
best tested tech gifts this season, and smart ways to
save and later in the show this is a huge
growth area AI in healthcare. Doctor Adam Oskowitz, co founder

(01:30):
of Doctronic, is going to talk about how AI can
help patients and doctors alike. Well, I hope you're having
a fantastic day. This is I always call it the
slide into the holidays, but specifically this week is the
slide right into Thanksgiving, which I think is one of
the best holidays because it brings everyone together. Everyone were

(01:53):
my wife and I were shopping for a Thanksgiving dinner
and the shelves were already sort of like you know,
pick through and not just some things were sold out.
We couldn't find the mini marshmallows we wanted. But my
point was, as I was driving home, I said, whose
idea was it to have every person in America have
the same exact meal on a single day. I mean,

(02:15):
that takes a lot to do that, and so I
never really thought about that in the past, But yeah,
we're all making the same meal. So personally, I always
look forward to the stuffing my mom's recipe, and then
the candied sweet potatoes, which is also my mom's recipe. Ironically,
we were thinking about this all the recipes because my wife,

(02:35):
you know, she has this fond memory of eating pumpkin
pie that her grandma made. And when you ask your family,
like where did you get the recipe? Nine times out
of ten it was on the label of the food
back in the day, and they just sort of changed
it as things went along. So it's like, oh yeah,
my secret family recipe for my pumpkin pie was on
the can of Libby's. It's like my sausage stuffing was

(02:58):
from Jimmy Dean. But that's how it happened back in
the day. I mean, there was no Internet. People were
not Either had to pass a recipe to a friend,
or you passed it down in the family members, or
you probably just found it on the label of the
favorite food that you bought. Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving this week.
I could not believe this happened. I just couldn't believe it.

(03:20):
Google somehow figured out a way to make its Android phones,
specifically the Pixel ten series, work with Apple's air Drop. Now,
if you remember in the past companies that have tried
to make things work with Apple, when Apple specifically blocks
this from working, Apple somehow makes a little change that
keeps this from continuing in the future. Now, they haven't

(03:43):
done that yet with this air Drop situation, but it
could be a matter of time or Apple could finally say,
you know what, with all the pressure and regulations against
us at this point, especially over in Europe, maybe we
should just let this happen. So what Apple, what Google
did is they basic looked at air drop and they said, okay,
how do we make the pixel work with air drop?

(04:04):
How do we make Android work with air drop? They
did not hack anything. They just looked into the way
the system works, and then they just took their quick Share,
which is their version of you know, if you have
an Android phone, quick Share is your version of air Drop.
And so what they did was they just looked at
it and they said, all right, how can we make
quick share work with air drop? And they did it.
They coded it with some very smart people, and they

(04:26):
didn't just hack this together. These are people that tested
this to make sure it is secure, to make sure
it is safe, to make sure there is no workaround
involved here. They just somehow made the pixels show up
on the iPhones and vice versa. So now if you
have a Pixel ten series you can go and air
drop photos and videos from that device to an Apple device.

(04:49):
And that's not just the iPhone, that's any Apple device
that supports air drop and vice versa. So if you
have an iPhone and you've got a Pixel friend, you
can now swap photos with them very easily. Google says
all of the transfers are device to device. They are
not routed through any server or cloud storage. Nothing is logged,
no extra data is collected beyond the transfer. Now, this

(05:11):
is available on the Pixel ten series at launch, and
they want to make this available to all Android phones.
But try it as I might, I could not get
it to work on the Samsung. Even downloading their little
helper app you gotta download did not work. But this
is great for the holidays. I know Pixel ten still
a very small amount of people that have that device,
but if this could get shared to all Android devices

(05:34):
over the next couple of months, that would be game changing.
Now it's really up to Apple. Are they going to
stop this? I think if they did, they would have
to have a really good reason. We remember what they
did with Beeper. They tried to make I Message available
on Android and Apple said, uh uh, no way, and
they changed everything so that program would not work anymore. Now.

(05:56):
Apple could do this easily because all they have to
do is write something into the code that says verre
not sharing to an Apple device. It's not gonna work.
But will they do that? I think it would be
downright evil for them to do that. I don't think
it would be right for them to do that. Clearly,
this system can work between devices and for people like
myself that are always mixing devices and using different things,
it really is game changing. And by the way, just

(06:18):
in general holiday parties, Hey, you took that picture on
your pixel because you've got a great camera. Can you
share it to me?

Speaker 2 (06:23):
No?

Speaker 1 (06:23):
I can't. I got to text it to you, which
is fine because RCS. But still so, Apple, please don't
ruin a good thing. And Google, kudos to you for fighting.
I mean, this is like the two goliaths, right, like
Google is huge, Apple is huge. And Google, by the way,
did not work with Apple on this. They made that
clear in their blog posts. They said we hope to

(06:44):
work with Apple in the future about making this a
permanent thing or something to that effect. The other big
news this week, Roadblocks is now requiring facial basically facial
age checks, so they're using AI to figure out the
age of users, and then they put them into a
category under nine, nine to twelve, thirteen to fifteen, sixteen

(07:07):
to seventeen, eighteen to twenty or twenty one plus. Now,
if your kid plays Roadblocks, your grandkids. There's been some
issues on Roadblocks with inappropriate chats, inappropriate content, and this
happens pretty regularly, and Roadblocks knows this, but of course
they don't want to be regulated, just like every other
tech company out there, so they try to put these
things in place before the regulations, before the regulators kind

(07:31):
of figure stuff out and say, oh, hold on, maybe
kids shouldn't be playing this game that's just unchecked for
hours of every day. And parents, they know Roadblocks, but
they don't really know what their kids are doing. They
just hear the noises, They hear the kids yelling, screaming,
playing with their friends. So what's going to happen? And
this has already started to roll out, although it's not
required here in the US until January. But your kid,

(07:53):
if they're playing Roadblocks, they've probably already seen a message
that says, hey, verify your age using a selfie, and
so what it does. They're using this third party company
called Persona, which a lot of these digital IDs use.
But your kid holds their iPad up to their face,
it takes a video selfie. They turn left right to

(08:14):
kind of verify and make sure it's a live person,
and then it uses the facial identification to figure out
how old the kid is or the user, and then
they put them in a group nine to twelve, like
I said, thirteen to fifteen, sixteen to seventeen, and then
kids are only allowed to chat with other users in
their similar age groups. Now, kids under nine chat by

(08:36):
default is turned off unless a parent turns it back
on after the age check. So that's interesting. And if
your kid plays these games, you know that chat is
a huge part of video games and kids don't want this,
by the way, at all. I think for parents it's
a good thing because you don't want your kids. If
your kid is nine, they don't need to be chatting
with someone that's eighteen or twenty one. Now there is

(08:57):
a way to have them chat with their verified friends
or family members that might be older. You can do that,
but the chat is monitored by AI. They do have
filtering for kids under thirteen. But I'll be honest, my
kid was telling me all the stuff that he's seen
in Roadblock's chat, and you know, not all of it's good.

(09:18):
So this what's interesting about this whole facial ID verification
is that my kid has already asked me if he
can somehow cheat the system because his friend already cheated
the system somehow he got in eighteen, And now my
kid wants to be eighteen because if he gets his
real age, which is younger than that, he's not gonna
be able to chat with his friend. But I'm not

(09:39):
gonna let my kid break this rule so that he
can chat with eighteen and twenty year olds.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
No way.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
So parents are gonna have to have you know, they're
gonna have to figure out where they stand on this.
Do they want to help their kids fake this? You know,
because the parent can sit there in front of the
ID and do the check for the kid and their
age will come up as older, But then the kid
won't be able to chat with their friends if they
do the real thing. So I think this is a
pretty good system. I don't think it's going to be perfect,

(10:04):
but I think it's better than nothing. And so that's
going to be rolling out. You don't have to do
it just yet. I would say maybe wait a little bit,
let's let this settle in. It's only been a couple
of days where Roadblocks has done this in the US.
You have until January to do it, so maybe wait
just a couple of weeks to see how this works out.
All right? Coming up, we are going to talk about

(10:26):
the worst passwords of twenty twenty five. I've got the
top worst password right here. It's pretty bad. It's pretty
easy to figure out. Plus, we've got the details on
that major outage this week, that cloud Flare outage. We're
going to talk about that. We've got the gadget of
the week. Of course, your emails just overflowing my inbox
and your calls at triple eight rich one oh one

(10:48):
eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Thanks so much for joining me this weekend. More rich
on Tech on its way right after this. The website
for the show is richon tech dot tv, so you

(11:09):
can go there. This is episode one. If you want
links to anything I mentioned, maybe you want to sign
up for the podcast, the newsletter, whatever it is. It
is all there linked up and everything I mentioned, including
our guests. You can find links to all of it
right there. Let's go to Raymond in the San Fernando Valley.
You're on with Rich Hi.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
They're Rich.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Hi.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
Got an easy question for you.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
We just bought a brand new twenty five subrew cross Trick,
which I really like.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Oh nice, people love superus oop.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
So what I need to do is I want to
get a dashcam for it.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
What do you recommend, Crucial, you live in LA, you
need you need a dash cam. The amount of things
I capture on my dash cam is unbelievable. Now, my
cameras are built into my car. I've got a Tesla,
so they are all built in. But I'm not kidding.
It is like a superpower. Because I'm on the High
Freeway yesterday and I'm not kidding. I'm like, why is

(12:03):
this slowing down? This guy in front of me does
like a pit maneuver on another car because he was
so angry at this other driver on the freeway, and
so every driver behind him had to slow down and
go around this this wild whatever was happening on the freeway.
And this guy gets out of his car and he

(12:24):
just like wants to start with this truck driver. It's like, dude,
what is happening here, what is going on? Anyway? I
captured it on my cash camp because it's just like,
what is happening? I was the first car behind them anyway.
So here here's what you want to look for. Number one,
you know the resolution of the camera. Most of these
cameras are ten eighty P. If you want to go

(12:45):
four K. That's going to allow you to get things
like license plates more clearly, or identifying characteristics when you are,
you know, out and about. So TENAD may not cut it.
You may get something. You may capture some video you
try to zoom in you're like, oh, I can't see
that license plate. So that's number one. Number two the
field of view. Wider field of view means that you're
going to see more in the video that you're capturing,

(13:08):
So anywhere from one hundred and forty to one hundred
and seventy degrees that's going to be good. Make sure
that you get either low light or low light night
vision or low light cameras not if that's not advertised
on the camera that you're getting, it probably doesn't have that,
so at night you're not going to see as well.
That's number That's the next one. The other feature that
you really want is called loop recording. So this means

(13:31):
that the camera is just going to continuously record most
of the time to a micro SD card. If you
get one of these cameras that has a cellular connection,
that's going to be slightly better just because if the
camera was stolen or your car was stolen, you might
be able to still capture some of that video because
it was uploaded to the cloud. But that's going to
be a lot more expensive, and those cameras that have

(13:52):
not taken off in a huge way just because of
the cost. I think. The other thing is a G
sensor that means that you're a if it's bumped while
it's parked, the camera will automatically trigger a recording, and
so that is going to be a great way to
capture if something happens to in a parking lot when
you're not in the car or something like that. Now,

(14:13):
as for brands, this is tricky because I'll be honest,
the camera that I love ring made and they're no
longer making it, or they're no longer selling it, whatever
they're doing. But didn't really work out. But that one
was great because I had the cellular built in it
records front and back, and it was just such an
easy camera to install. But it's just I don't know
why they're not doing that anyway. So the brands that

(14:34):
come up in reviews over and over that people like
are Vofo. I know it's a funny name, but these
sell a lot on Amazon. For some reason. People really
like them because I guess the combination of price and
what you get is really good. So Vofo. The next
one that people really seem to like is Van True.

(14:56):
And I've seen all these brands out and about at cs,
so you know, they're all like they've been in the
kind of the marketplace for a long time. But Van
True is another one, and I'm trying to see how
much theirs goes for on Amazon. So Van True right now,
everything is on Black Friday specials. They've got one anywhere
from ninety nine dollars up to two hundred and sixty five.

(15:19):
And that ninety nine dollars one, you know's got great reviews,
got a lot of buyers, so that one might not
be bad at all to get. That's the Van True
E one pro four K. Look at that night vision
so mentions everything I just said Garman obviously tried in
True Brand in this space and then next space. They
are out of the UK. They are very popular as well,

(15:41):
so you can find them. Let me see if they're
on Amazon next space. Sure enough they are on Oh
are they?

Speaker 3 (15:47):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (15:48):
They are, and they've got one that's ten ADP for
one hundred and twenty nine dollars. That's on sale for
eighty dollars. So those are some great options, great things
to look for. I think the dash cam just gives
you piece of mind. For sure. I really enjoy having it,
and for me, it's more of capturing kind of all
the nonsense that I see on a daily basis on
the streets driving. But it's good for if you're ever

(16:10):
in an accident, or you just need some reassurance that
if something happens to your car, you've got a license
plate there. Good question, Raymond, Thanks so much for that.
Let's see can we oh one minute? Okay, let's see here.
What can I do in one minute?

Speaker 6 (16:24):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Let me tell you about this cloud flare outage. We
had this giant outage this week on Tuesday. This was
all related to cloud flare. You probably haven't heard of
that name, but it's basically a company that helps the
Internet run. It helps major websites stay safe and stay fast.
They uploaded a file to their system that just took

(16:44):
down their entire system because that file kept doubling in
size and it just crashed all their servers. So a
lot of these companies that relied on cloud Flare, they
were seeing error messages, and in turn, we were seeing
error messages trying to access the Internet on Tuesday. It
was not a security issue. It was not cybersecurity related.
It was not a hack. Cloud Flare wants us to

(17:05):
know that. But the bigger issue here is that because
so much of the Internet is controlled by these major
cloud companies, when they go down, we feel the effects
in a much bigger way than we ever did before.
Eight eight eight rich one oh one eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Coming up, we'll
tell you about the worst passwords of twenty twenty five

(17:27):
plus more year calls right here. We'll get to the
phone lines in just a moment, but first let's do
the gadget of the week. I thought this was interesting.
The mill. This is a high tech food recycling device
for your kitchen. It's being developed by Matt Rogers, the

(17:50):
creator of the Nest thermostat, which we love, and now
he wants to sort of reinvent how we handle food waste.
And there's been a lot of companies. When I've gone
to these trade shows, I've seen a lot of basically
smart garbage cans that do this, but nobody's really gotten
it right just yet, because people are just so used
to not doing anything with their food scraps except throwing

(18:11):
them out. Now, unless you are someone who's composting them yourself,
or you have a little compost or whatever, but this
is kind of an appliance for your home called Mill
and their entire startup, which has raised a ton of money,
is focusing on turning these kitchen scraps that you collect
into lightweight, odor free food grounds, just like you know

(18:31):
coffee grounds. So the device dries and grinds food waste overnight,
which can shrink forty pounds of scraps into eight pounds
of dry material. And I love this idea because my
trash can is always so filled with just stuff that
you know, it's just it breaks down. Why should it
be thrown out? And these little grounds could be stored
for months, They could be mixed into soil used in

(18:53):
your gardens or mill has a service where they will
collect them for reuse. And the goal is not just
to sell people this gadget. It's also to reduce garbage
truck weight, lower collection costs, cut down diesel use, all
that good stuff for the environment. And these engineers are
treating this as people don't want food scraps in their home.

(19:13):
Who wants to have garbage sitting in their home? Who
wants to have stinky food sitting their home? So the
whole thing, the whole point of this device is how
do we eliminate any friction between people wanting this? And
there's one more side of this that's you know, it's
going to keep people from adopting it, and that's the price.
It's a thousand bucks for this trash can. So that's
a lot for a trash can. Now, if you've gotten

(19:34):
one of those simple human trash cans, those are expensive too,
Don't get me wrong, They're like two hundred dollars. So
I am very intrigued by this device. It's you can
rent it for thirty five dollars monthly. They say tens
of thousands of homes are already using them, and the
device is simple. If you can eat it, you can
put it in the mill. And they believe that this

(19:55):
might be as common in homes as dishwashers. You know,
those weren't in homes where now they're in every home practically.
But anyway, I thought this was really cool. I did
test a device that's similar a couple of years ago
called Loami lm I, and this was a device that
would would that sat on your countertop. It was also
kind of expensive. Let's see how much this one is

(20:16):
now they're up to loam me three. Let's see two
hundred and ninety nine dollars. That's three hundred and fifty
dollars off, and you have to pay per year for
a subscription. But that was a little bit more complicated
because it was smaller, but it was on your countertop,
so it's a little bit different. This, I think seems
like a little bit of a better idea because it's
just kind of a trash can. It's like a smart

(20:37):
trash can. You throw your stuff in, you just let
it do its thing. Let's go to David and Costa Mesa. David,
you're on with Rich, Good morning, sir.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
A couple questions. One is I want to get a
new iPhone to seventeen nice, and do I just go
to Apple and buy it there? Or is like, is
everybody the same price, everybody's eleven hundred bucks say?

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Or well, it depends on what promotions you have. But
the Apple Store, I do believe is one of the
best places to get it because their employees are sort
of impartial. They will look at the deals that you
have from your cell phone company, Like they can tap
into the same system that you might you know, have
at Verizon or AT and T and give you those
same deals and maybe a better deal, you know, on

(21:21):
trade in whatever, because you're going with your carrier. So
I would always say the Apple Store is a great
place to buy it because those folks know a lot.
They know the ins and outs of the phone and
all of the deals from across the carriers.

Speaker 5 (21:34):
Good good, okay. And the second part is when I
get everything transfer over to my new phone, like I've
done all these things that you've recommended, Let's say, for security,
do this, turn this on, turn this off, blah blah blah.
Is that all going to automatically go over when it
switches over to I need to do it all over again.

Speaker 1 (21:50):
Almost all of your settings will carry over the iPhone
when it goes. When you transfer an old iPhone to
a new iPhone, it's almost as if you just took
the drive out of that old phone and popped it
in the new one. It's almost mirrored from the old one. Now,
there are some exceptions to that, and Apple does sometimes
reset a few of the settings or they may not
carry over. But I would say ninety nine point nine

(22:12):
percent of the stuff on your old phone it's almost
seamless to the new device, which is really cool. Now
they do add some new things on the new device,
like some new apps and stuff. If you haven't updated
to iOS twenty six, you'll find some new things there
and new options. But I think overall you're going to
find when was the last time you updated your iPhone
to a new one?

Speaker 5 (22:32):
I have the I think the fourteen Okay.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
So it's only been three years. But I think that
ninety nine percent of that stuff's going to follow over.
I would say, before you go and you bring this in,
make sure you do a full backup of it. That way,
if anything doesn't carry over, you can always do that
that process again, or you can just look at your
old device or your old backup and get the stuff
that you need from there. Are you going to be

(22:56):
trading in this old device?

Speaker 3 (22:58):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (22:58):
Yeah, okay, so is it in good shape?

Speaker 3 (23:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (23:02):
So I think it's like three fifty or four hundred bucks.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Okay, so and some of these, you know, these trade
in values could be higher if you go through your carrier.
The Apple Store will walk you through it. Like basically,
there's one trade in value if you sell it direct
to Apple, but there's another if you do a trade
in with your carrier. Because the reasoning is that your
carrier wants you to stay with them, and so they're

(23:24):
giving you more money for your phone. But what they
do is they kind of spread it out over the
next two or three years just because they want you
to stick with them. So my advice on that angle
is that if you're if you're happy with your carrier
and you know you're paying a premium for your phone.
You know you're paying one hundred dollars a month for
your Verizon Unlimited plan or your AT and T versus
something like a visible or a mint. If you're happy

(23:47):
with that and you're fine with that, take the discount.
If you're going to stick with them for the next
two or three years because you're almost putting losing money
if you're not doing that now, Yes, it will lock
you into that carrier and that expensive plan, But if
you're gonna do that anyway, why not? That's my theory
on that. So don't be scared to take the If
they say, hey, we can give you a new iPhone

(24:09):
for eleven hundred dollars off if you stick with Verizon
or whatever, AIGHTE and T or T Mobile for the
next two to three years, you know, I say, why not?
If you're happy with your service, you're not going to switch.
Why not do that anyway? David, good question there in
Costa Mesa. I know a lot of people are gonna
be upgrading this season. Apple is doing their Apple never
puts stuff on sale. Ever, you'll never find a sale

(24:30):
in Apple products through Apple. Third parties will do that.
But what Apple does maybe twice a year Black Friday
and then Back to School. They will typically do a
bonus with purchase. So right now you can get up
to a two hundred and fifty dollars gift card with
your purchase of a device. So iPhone, if you buy
an iPhone. Interesting, it's only on the sixteens, so iPhone

(24:54):
sixteen or sixteen E. They'll get up to a seventy
five dollars gift card, I Pad a to one hundred
dollars gift card, Mac up to two hundred and fifty
dollars gift card, Apple Watch up to a fifty dollars
gift card. That's pretty good if you buy a series
eleven and then AirPods TV. But here's the thing. If
you're buying one of these gadgets, like if you're buying

(25:16):
like the AirPods or the AirPods Max, you don't even
need to go through Apple. What Amazon does? They look
at the price, the difference in what Apple's giving you.
So let's say the Apple Watch series eleven. Apple's giving
you a fifty dollars gift card that typically costs four
hundred dollars. What does Amazon do? I can guarantee you
right now, if I go to Amazon's website and I

(25:37):
look up Apple Watch Series eleven, I guarantee you they're
selling it for three forty nine out the door. Let's see, Uh, okay, well,
little wrong, they're selling it for three seventy nine. But
maybe the sales haven't started. But my point is what
Amazon typically does is they monitor all the other deals
out there and they just kind of match them with
their pricing. Eight to eight rich one oh one eight

(25:58):
eight eight seven four to two for one zero one.
We'll take more of your calls next and I will
tell you the top password of twenty twenty five. It's
a bad one. Plus, I've got the trends in younger users,
older users, and how you can protect yourself by doing
the right thing with your passwords right here on rich

(26:18):
on Tech. Let's go to Erica in Corona, Erica. You're
on with rich.

Speaker 6 (26:31):
Hi, Rich, thank you for taking my call. I am
not too savvy when it comes to my email on
my iPhone, but I need to know. I this has
happened twice where I send an email not to a

(26:54):
friend or family, but then a few days late or
I get the same email I spent with a follow
up tab on the email.

Speaker 7 (27:08):
What does that mean?

Speaker 6 (27:09):
Who spends that email?

Speaker 1 (27:11):
That is a feature are using? Did you mention what
you're using? Is that Gmail? I'm guessing.

Speaker 6 (27:17):
No, I'm not sure what I'm using is in my
iPhone email?

Speaker 1 (27:23):
What's your email address?

Speaker 3 (27:25):
Well?

Speaker 1 (27:25):
I mean, sorry, don't don't tell me. I mean, is
it Gmail? Is it Yahoo?

Speaker 6 (27:30):
It's not a email?

Speaker 8 (27:32):
Is that.

Speaker 9 (27:36):
iCloud?

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Okay? So I think so this this feature is okay.
So Gmail has this feature it's called nudges, and then
Apple Mail they have it as well, and I believe
it's part of Apple Intelligence. I don't use Apple Mail,
so I don't see this. But I think what's happening
is it is basically reminding you to write or kind

(27:59):
of follow up with this message because nothing happened. So
I'm guessing these are happening on messages that someone didn't
reply to in a timely manner.

Speaker 6 (28:10):
So okay, even if I didn't market as doing that,
or it just happens automatically.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
Right exactly. So I think I think that's what's happening. Now,
i'd have to look in the settings to see where
you can turn that off. I'm sure it's in the mail.
Let's see if we can go into the mail app.
I'm going to go into my settings here, let's go
into apps and mail. So you don't like getting these, huh, Well, I.

Speaker 6 (28:39):
Dude, it doesn't bother me. It's just that I don't
know it's not worth an email coming.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yeah, nobody's nobody's looking at your messages or anything like that.
So it's just a reminder to say, hey, you know something,
you know you you basically you sent this email a
couple of days ago, nobody replied do you want to
follow up or do you want to kind of look
at it just to see And these things kind of
help me. I have the same thing in Gmail and
I'm like, oh, I forgot I sent that email. Let
me follow up at that person because they never wrote

(29:06):
me back. So I'm looking in here, and if I
look in the Apple Intelligence suggestions, so show an app. Okay,
So I think what it's doing is it's let's see
if there's a way to turn this off. I'm not sure.
I see that swipe options, ask before privacy. Oh there
it is messages right there. You can turn it off
in settings apps Mail, and then follow up suggestions, you

(29:31):
can turn it off there. So if you go if
you don't want these things, if they're really bugging you, Erica,
you can just turn them off in the settings. And
if you're on Gmail and you're seeing these same nudges,
it's called nudges. So if you go into Gmail, and
you go into settings and just search nudges. You'll see
it says suggest emails to reply to, suggest emails to

(29:52):
follow up on Erica if they don't bug you, nobody's
scanning your mail, nobody's looking at your mail. This is
just an AI feed mature that Apple has built in
to help you stay on top of emails that you
might have forgotten about. Great question today, Thanks so much
for the call. All Right, America's top password of twenty
twenty five is drum roll please. I'm just seeing how

(30:15):
fast Adam can do this. Adam is in for Bobo.
There we go.

Speaker 3 (30:20):
That was.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
The top password of twenty twenty five is admin. This
is according to nord pass, who scanned all the passwords
that are you know out there on the open web
two hundred most common passwords their annual list, Admin is
number one. Guess what number two is? You already know
it is password number one two three four five one two, three, four,

(30:42):
five six are top picks no matter how old you are.
Younger users rarely use names in their passwords, but older
users are more likely used names. Most popular names include Veronica, Maria,
and Susannah. So if those are in your password right now,
as you hear me saying this, you got to change
your password. Globally, one, two, three, four, five six remains

(31:05):
the most common password now. There is an increase in
special characters this year, but most are still pretty weak
patterns like password with instead of an A, it would
be an AT sign or instead of a W, or
a zero sorry instead of an O, it'd be a zero.
Let's see. Experts warn that week and you've reused passwords

(31:27):
fuel about eighty percent of data breaches. Nord Pass says
password habits have improved not really much over the years,
despite years of education, people like me yelling into microphones
for years saying please use a strong password. Now we
have these pass keys, but people aren't really using those
as much because they're they feel like they don't really

(31:49):
know how they work. I really, I mean I use them.
I've set them up for a couple of my websites,
but since I still have to do two factor authentication,
I'm like, how's that any easier than just use my
password manager? So here are the safety tips. Strong unique
password for every account that you have. Use a password manager.

(32:09):
Bitwarden is completely free. You can use that or use
one that you find that you like. I don't care
if it's one password, I don't care if it's Google passwords.
You can even use Apple passwords, even though I do
not like things that don't work across all platforms. Try
using Apple passwords. If you switch to an Android phone,
not going to happen. So all your passwords are going

(32:29):
to be locked up into Apple. You got to figure
out how to get them into Google, which you can.
You can export them, but it's kind of a pain.
Dash Lane also a very good password manager. Just pick
one and start using it. And I know it's scary
to start using these password managers, but once you get
the hang of it, it's actually really fun because you
feel more secure. So today, go through download one of

(32:51):
these things. Sign up. The main thing to know about
the password manager on your phone is you have to
go into the settings and make sure that you choose
just that password manager on your device, whether it's iPhone
or Android, and on your computer download the extension for
your browser. But once you set that up, your password
manager basically springs into action when you tap in the

(33:12):
password field on any device that you're working on, and
it'll say, do you want us to suggest a strong password, yes,
and then it saves it in the password manager. The
next time you go to that app and you go
to log in, it remembers the website, so it kind
of pairs them together on the back end, and next
time you go to that website, it says, oh, do
you want us to put this password in that you

(33:33):
made for this past this website? And it's pretty easy. Yes.
Does it take a little bit longer sometimes? Absolutely, That's
the whole point. Once you three four five six, you
reuse those passwords everywhere hacker gets access to one, they're
going to use it across all different websites. Eight to eight,
rich one O one eight eight seven four two four
one zero one More of you coming up next this hour,

(34:03):
We've got Nathan Burrow, senior deals editor at Wirecutter. He's
going to talk about the holiday shopping season, some of
the best tested gifts and ways to save. Let's see here,
got a question here from email from Phil Can you
recommend the most senior friendly way to help a senior
scan documents then archive or send them to others. I've

(34:26):
tried explaining scanning with the iPhone notes app and Genius Scan.
Both can be confusing. The biggest challenge seems to be
attaching the scan file afterwards. Any recommendations for a simple
point and shoot scan method, Phil, Yes, Phil. If the
phone is updated to iOS twenty six, you can use
the new Preview app that is for viewing PDFs, editing PDFs,

(34:50):
and scanning PDFs. It makes it so easy. Open the
Preview app, tap the big scan documents button, and then
once you scan, there's a little share icon. It's that
square with the arrow pointing out of it. Just tap
that and then choose who you want your recipient to be.
You can choose your email, your messaging, whatever you want.
That's really it. I mean, there's a million ways to

(35:12):
do this on the iPhone, but they've built in the
simplest way, and that's that new Preview app. So if
you ever need to fill out a PDF, or sign
a PDF, or scan a PDF or view a PDF,
it's all in that app. Let's go to Jeff and
Newport Beach. What's up, Jeff? Hey, that's gone, it's going well.

Speaker 4 (35:33):
Hopefully this is hopefully this is.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
An easy one, so real fast background.

Speaker 10 (35:38):
I'm on my second iPhone.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
The first one was.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
A fifteen Promax and now I'm on the seventeen promax.
I think I had this problem on my fifteen. Somehow
I fixed it, but I don't remember what I did,
because the problem is when I hear a song, I
use shazam, and I shazam it. The song comes up
and I save it to a playlist that I created
in Apple Music. Okay, And in Apple Music, I.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
Think in the fifteen it had this problem.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
I fixed it because it only came.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Up and put the song in there once.

Speaker 2 (36:10):
Well, now I see the song in there twice for
every single song on my playlist. I'm thinking it's a
sink problem somewhere, but I don't know.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
So there is an option when you are making playlists
on Apple Music to add the same song twice, Like
it'll say, do you want us to add duplicates or
do you not want to add duplicates? Okay? So the
question is where to find that setting. So when you're
adding this song, you're adding it into two separate playlists

(36:41):
or the same playlist, the exact same playlist, okay, And
it's adding it again even if it's already in that.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
If I go back to the way I noticed it is,
you know, the music playing and all of a sudden,
the song plays twice.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
I'm like, why is it playing twice?

Speaker 2 (36:54):
And then I finally look at the playlist in every
single song and probably the ones that I've done, even
when I had the iPhone fifteen, but every single song
is duplicated twice.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
Okay, all right, so I think it's well, you mean
it's duplicated twice every time, or it's it because you're
adding it twice.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
No, it's like it's like, you know ABC song, You'll
see ABC song twice.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Oh that's interesting. It sounds like something. Are you using
Apple Music like you pay for it? I'm gonna say, yes, Okay,
how do you not know? I am who's paying your bills? Jeff?

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Well, no, well I don't pay attention to it. You know,
the Apple charges you for this and that and everything else.
So it's like I'm gonna say the answer is yes.

Speaker 1 (37:41):
Okay. I'm gonna say okay. So here's the thing I'm
looking in the the Apple Music and this. Have you
tried this on your computer to see if you get
the same problem?

Speaker 3 (37:50):
No?

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Okay, do you have a Mac computer or no?

Speaker 3 (37:53):
No, just you know the regular windows.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
Okay, so I believe they have Apple Music on Windows.
They they a separate app because obviously they have I
don't know actually, but on my Mac, my stuff all
sinks over with the iPhone. So I'm looking at this
and hmm, okay, let's see here. I'm looking for any
sort of option that says to to duplicate or not duplicate.

(38:19):
What I would say is, have you tried, let's see
there's a there's an option to kind of like sync
your entire library again, have you tried signing out and
signing back in?

Speaker 3 (38:29):
No?

Speaker 1 (38:29):
Okay, let me see if that's an option on here,
because I know with iPhone everything's sort of like tied
together with it. Yeah, I'm not I'm not seeing okay,
I'm not seeing an option that has anything to do
with duplicates right now. Like it's weird because on iPhone
you have to go into the settings to find the options,
and in the app it's just a weird way they
set things up. So let me see here. Music. Okay,

(38:50):
so they've got search, add playlist songs. Okay, that might
be it. I'm wondering if that's it. Okay. What I
would do is, here's what I would do, just to
see if you can get this to stop. But I
would go into the settings on your iPhone and you
have to go into settings, app Apps and then music, okay,

(39:14):
and then in there you're gonna see an option for library.
It says add playlist songs and then add favorite songs.
So maybe try toggling those off and see if that
if the problem still happens, and then you can toggle
them back on if it doesn't. The other thing you
can do is click that sync library, maybe turn that
off and then turn it back on, like turn it off,

(39:35):
restart your phone, turn it back on, and see if
that helps. I'm just I don't see anything specifically dealing
with the same songs inside the playlist, which, yeah, it's
kind of that's a that's a tricky one. I know.
I do know that when I make a playlist, it
will say do you want the same song? If you

(39:55):
drag it in twice, it will it will give you
an option of do you want the same song in
there twice or not? But otherwise that's a that's a
tricky one, Jeff, I think you're gonna have to to
look around in those settings. I don't I don't have
an immediate answer for you if that doesn't work, you know,
you can go to the Apple store and ask them
make an appointment. See what they say. It could just

(40:15):
be yeah, it just sounds like there's something going on
there that I it. Yeah, that's weird. That's a weird one.
Thanks for the call. Appreciate it. Eight eight eight rich
one oh one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one. I will continue to investigate that
because I'm curious now. Uh, I told you this on

(40:37):
my newsletter. I thought this was so cool. We talked
about this last week, the Amazon autobi thing. So this
is the feature on Amazon where if you go to
an item on your phone, you tap that little rufus
Ai icon you say, set a price alert. You can
have Amazon automatically place the order for you when the
product reaches the price that you want. So it's almost

(40:57):
like price line, like name your own price. But obviously,
you know Amazon prices change all the time, and if
you're not sitting at your computer looking at that item
when the price changes, you may not know. So they
have this price alert feature, which now you may be saying,
why would Amazon do this, why would they give people
this ability? Well, it's going to convert more sales. That's
the bottom line. So long story short, I put this

(41:19):
power strip. I wanted the super Danny power strip. It's
got like a million outlets and all this stuff on it.
And I put that in my price alert, and I said,
you know what, this thing's twenty five dollars. Let me
see if you can get it to me for twenty
and so I set my price alert for under twenty dollars.
I woke up this morning and lo and behold, I
got an email from Amazon saying your order has been placed.

(41:42):
Sure item was under twenty dollars. It fell to nineteen
ninety nine, so we automatically placed your order. And I
was like, wait what. It took me a second to
remember that I placed this autobi alert. But pretty cool.
So if you want to try this yourself, you have
to do it on the Amazon app on your mobile device.
Just search for an item, any item, and once you
have an item on your screen, just tap that little

(42:03):
rufous icon in the lower right hand corner. It looks
like AI, that little sparkly AI thing, and then just
say to rufus, set a price alert, and that will
give you options to get just a price alert, or
there's an option to actually have Amazon auto buy the
item for you. So it worked. It did exactly what
I wanted it to. And I don't know. I'm a

(42:25):
believer now because there's so many things I'm watching the
price on on Amazon. I'll buy it. I just would
like the price to be a little bit better. If
it goes on sale for fifty dollars less, I'd like
to buy it at that price. And it also gives
you the historic pricing so you can better set your price.
Eight to eight rich one oh one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. Coming up,

(42:45):
I'll tell you about the new service that makes it
so that you can clip all those digital grocery coupons
in your grocery store app automatically. That's really cool. Plus
your calls eight eight eight rich one on one eight
eight eight seven four to two one zero one. Back

(43:08):
to the phone lines, go to Richard in Malibu. You're
on with rich Hetty.

Speaker 11 (43:14):
How are you?

Speaker 5 (43:14):
Thanks for taking my call?

Speaker 1 (43:15):
Absolutely? What's up?

Speaker 11 (43:17):
I have an Apple phone and I want to know
why is it that even though I'll turn Bluetooth thoff,
I'll come back and somehow magically it turned itself back on.

Speaker 5 (43:28):
How can I prevent that? Why won't my setting stay.

Speaker 11 (43:30):
In the off position?

Speaker 5 (43:31):
And it's the same thing with the Wi Fi.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, okay, So here's the deal. There are two ways
to turn off Wi Fi and Bluetooth on the iPhone.
When you swipe down from the upper right hand corner,
that brings up what's called the control center. When you
tap the Wi Fi off or you tap the Bluetooth off,
it is not turning off Wi Fi or Bluetooth on

(43:55):
your phone completely. It's just turning off that immediate connection
that you have right now, and certain devices may turn
it back on, and certain Wi Fi networks may toggle
it back on when it comes into contact with those.
So the reason for that is because Apple realize that
people will turn off their Wi Fi or turn off

(44:15):
their Bluetooth and forget to turn it back on. So
they have some provisions in place for the phone to
smartly reactivate it when it thinks it should do that.
And that may be when let's just say, let's say
you get to work in the morning and you hate
your WiFi at work, and so you go on the
right you swipe down and you tap the little WiFi

(44:36):
to turn it off at work well. Then when you
get home you love your WiFi, your phone recognizes that
you got home, and it magically turns that Wi Fi
back on and connects to your home network because it
realized that when you turned it off, you probably just
wanted it off for a certain amount of time. Now,
this can cause some issues. It can also cause some confusion.
If you want to really turn off the Wi Fi

(45:00):
and the Bluetooth on your iPhone until you turn it
back on, you have to go into settings, and that's
how you can turn it off completely. And that means
your phone, the Wi Fi and Bluetooth on your phone
is not in a dormant state. It is an off state.
And so if you go into settings and you go
to Wi Fi right now because I just tapped it off,

(45:21):
in the control center says not connected. But then there's
a toggle switch and if I tap that toggle switch,
it will turn off my WiFi indefinitely until I turn
it back on again. Same thing with Bluetooth. You can
turn it off for you know, indefinite amounts of time. Now,
once you do that, invariably, you will forget to turn

(45:41):
it back On's that's why Apple came up with the
other system. And by the way, the Android side of
things is the same way, and so that's just more
for ease of use. Most of the time people are
forgetting that they're turning these off turning them on, and
so you're most of the time just toggling off that
connection for a period of time before your phone decides

(46:03):
to turn it back on. And that's why you're seeing that. Richard,
great question. Thanks for the call today. Do you appreciate it.
Let's see here, let's do we have time to go
to another one. We'll see Mitch in Littleton. You're on
with rich Mitch, you're on.

Speaker 7 (46:17):
With rich.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
And you don't know it. By the way, excellent primo
bumper music. Really like a bumper music critic.

Speaker 1 (46:26):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
Yeah, I had a maybe it's self answered. I recently
have last year or so lost to relatives passed away
and they one had a Apple excuse me, Apple lap
laptop and the other had a lapp Apple notebook and

(46:50):
needed one of them left there. They're password they had
password protected. Is there absolutely no way I can get
into the to utilize them myself?

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Or yeah? I mean, do you want to use their
information or just the computer?

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Just yeah, just the computer. Okay, I update up date
the apps, you know, and I he neither one them
or anything that I need. You know, their information, their
data is not uh, you know, not emergency relevant or anything.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Okay. So there's there's a couple of things you can do.
You can get in touch with Apple if you go
to their support page, which I'll link up on the
UH on the show notes, you can. So all Apple
products have what's called an activation lock, So you could
I could tell you directions on how to format that
computer and get it back to factory. But when you
go to set up that computer, it's going to say, hey,

(47:46):
we noticed that this computer is registered to this person,
and by the way, I'm sorry for your loss. But
it's going to say their email address or their account number,
or their their Apple I D is going to say, hey,
can you put in their password to unlo this computer.
It's not going to unlock their data, but it's just
going to allow you to kind of take control of
that computer. That's called activation lock, and so if you

(48:08):
don't have their password, you're not gonna be able to
get past that when you format this computer and reset it.
Now you can request from Apple help with that and
if you show them a death certificate or a reason
there's I don't know what the exact it's generally it's
a death certificate. So if you have that for these people,
you can send that to Apple and they will help

(48:30):
you remove that activation lock as long as you can
prove a couple of things. I've never gone through this process,
so I can't tell you exactly how tough or how
easy it is. But if you have this computer, you've
got the information, I would say it's in your best
interest to contact Apple and just say, hey, here's the situation.
Can I get this activation lock removed? They will remove that,

(48:50):
and then once they have it removed, you can go
through and set up that computer as new and then
use it, but you will not have access to their information.
If you want access their information, then it would take
a much larger request to Apple. That typically requires a
core order or some sort of legal documentation to get

(49:11):
that done, and I'm not even sure that's a guarantee
for the rest of you. Please set up what's called
a legacy contact access key. You can do it on Apple,
you can do it on Facebook, you can do it
on Google. It basically allows someone to access your account
in the in the When You If You Die, basically

(49:31):
eighty eight rich one oh one. We're going to talk
Black Friday deals. Coming up next, We've got Nathan Burrow,
senior deals editor at Wirecutter. He's going to talk about
the holiday shopping season, some of the best tested gifts.
It's only been a couple of days. I know Amazon

(49:51):
started on the twentieth, so it's you know, once they start,
it's like you got to be in it.

Speaker 9 (49:56):
Absolutely. Amazon kind of leads the dance for these holiday
sale events, and you'll see a lot of other major
retailers start their sales around the same time when Amazon
goes live with theirs early, as they did this year.

Speaker 12 (50:09):
So we're seeing a lot of sales from all over
the place, and we're going.

Speaker 9 (50:13):
To see even more next week.

Speaker 12 (50:14):
We're looking forward to seeing some some sales from smaller
direct consumer you know, retailers next week.

Speaker 9 (50:21):
That's when we're likely to see those.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
My advice is literally to not shop until this week
for the whole year, because any company that you want
to buy something from, it is going to be on sale.
I mean, we talked about this mill. This thing is gadget.
It's like a thousand dollars trash can that like composts
your stuff it's on sale. I mean anything you go
to any website, they're going to be I use jopform

(50:47):
for some of my emails, you know, like people they
email me like, hey, do you want sixty percent off
for the year. It's like, it's just no matter what
if you're a website or a product or service, you're
going to be putting your stuff on sale this week.
But how do you know if it's a good deal
or not one?

Speaker 9 (51:02):
You know, just make sure that you're not following sort
of the hype train.

Speaker 12 (51:06):
I think that you know, retailers are going to tell
you that the deals are incredible.

Speaker 9 (51:11):
They're incentivized to make every discount sound amazing.

Speaker 12 (51:14):
So I like using trackers to sort of determine just
how good a deal.

Speaker 9 (51:19):
Is relative to its price history.

Speaker 12 (51:23):
There are third party price trackers like Kipa and Camel
Camel Camel that lets you track Amazon prices and Amazon
matches pretty much everyone, so you can get a sense
of what the what the prices are at other retailers
as well using tools like that.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Okay, so here and you may not have the answer
to this question, but like, where do you track prices
or compare prices for products that are not on Amazon? Like,
let's just say I'm looking up a dice in vacuum, right, Like,
where do I go to compare that price from a
bunch of retailers?

Speaker 9 (51:53):
Absolutely in house, we compare it to our own history.

Speaker 12 (51:56):
But of course a lot of people don't have the
benefit of having posted fifty thousand deals. So what I
would recommend is there is an old school Internet tool
called the wayback Machine.

Speaker 9 (52:08):
It's part of a website called the Internet.

Speaker 12 (52:11):
Archive, and you can go and what you'll find is
screen caps of various retailers that people have taken over
the years. That gives you an idea of the trajectory
of pricing, because there'll be a screen cap of you know,
a washing machine in July twenty twenty four for a
fourth of July sale, and you'll be able to compare
that to the price that you see.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
Now, what about something like Google Shopping or Yahoo's Shopping.
I mean, I was looking at Google Shopping and it
seems like I think they don't include Amazon.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Is that?

Speaker 1 (52:39):
And is everything on Google Shopping sort of like pay
to play? Like is all their information like just advertisers
or what Well.

Speaker 9 (52:47):
It's not entirely pay to play.

Speaker 12 (52:49):
I think, you know, we can safely assume that that
Google is going to be sort of self self dealing
when it comes to the results that you see there.
As you mentioned, Amazon is not included among those results.
A lot of major retailers that are not included among
those results, and so it is to your benefit to
go and to either do a more refined search than

(53:11):
just the product name that includes the name of the
retailer that you're trying to get information on that will
generally actually produce a result, or just go to the
retailer directly to verify.

Speaker 9 (53:22):
It has gotten harder though, with Google shopping.

Speaker 1 (53:26):
What's an underrated tech gift that you can recommend?

Speaker 12 (53:30):
One underrated tech gift that our staffers are just loving
is somewhat counterintuitively, the Netview bird fi feeder. It is
a smart bird feeder with a camera inside, and everybody
on the Wirecutter staff is buying it for their parents,
like a lot of us have, you know, aging parents,
You know, so many of us do, and they love

(53:52):
the fact that they can check out birds as they
feed up close, you know, with this little camera it
comes with a solar panel, the one we recommend, so.

Speaker 9 (54:01):
They don't have to go and take it down and
charge it periodically. And so it's kind of a cool,
cool little thing for wildlife enthusiasts.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
That's really I've got two of these at my place
right now to set up because you know, I've I've
heard about them, I've seen them. I think it's cool.
I'm curious, and you know, they snap pictures of the
birds and text it to you. I mean, it sounds
cool and it seems cool. But anyway, I haven't tested
them just yet, so I'll have more to say on those,
and you know, a couple of months once I get
through those. Let's see what else here. Apple and Android

(54:33):
those are always like Apple stuff. What's the deal with
discounts on that?

Speaker 9 (54:37):
So Apple stuff is pretty good.

Speaker 12 (54:40):
I would say that a lot of sales are probably
as low as we're going to see them, which is
to say, we're seeing deals on MacBooks, We're seeing deals
on iPads, We're seeing deals on the newest Apple watches.

Speaker 9 (54:53):
Android tones are also on sale, as are Android tablets.
You know, we don't we sort of recommend Android tablets,
but certainly we think the iPad probably divides the best
tablet experience. iPhones aren't really on sale, and that's pretty typical.
iPhones tend to really only be discounted as part of

(55:14):
promotions that are related to service providers. They aren't that
well discounted any other time.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
Now. I love the Wirecutter, by the way, So I'm
always on looking at things that you guys are rating
and the reviews and all that stuff. So what do
you think sets you apart from you know, people see recommendations.
I'm putting my fingers in air quotes right now all
over the web. What can you give us a little
insight into kind of like what makes Wirecutter different and
what we should look forward to trust, Like, there's so

(55:43):
much advertorial out there now where literally people will send
me a website that is one hundred percent set up
just to sell them a product, and they're saying, hey, Rich,
what do you think about this review? Like that's not
a review, it's literally just an ad yep.

Speaker 9 (55:56):
One.

Speaker 12 (55:58):
The main thing that really set where our Cutter part
is that we are comprised of experts in the various
sort of product categories that we cover, and we actually
test the stuff. We spend a lot of time testing
products in our homes in sort of real world use.

Speaker 9 (56:14):
We spend time at our office in New York.

Speaker 12 (56:18):
We have testing days where all the staffers can go
in and test products. We have panels, diverse panels of
testers that come in and test them. We have kids
come in and test our picks for kids, and so
these we were able to listit these actual insights about
the products from people who have used them, filter that

(56:38):
through our expertise, and really produce recommendations that are meaningful
for people. And I would say that even our coverage
of Black Friday, our coverage of Prime Day, our coverage
of pre Christmas sales. Like my team, the deal's team
at Wirecutter is part of the editorial team, and we
hold ourselves to really strict standards. Nothing makes the Deals

(57:01):
page that doesn't qualify with our pretty strict rubric for
the things that need to go up so d during
an event like this, we're really only posting the best
of the best, deal wise, and it's also on stuff
that has been expert vetted and recommended, and so.

Speaker 9 (57:19):
Basically you're getting great value on great products.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
Yeah, there's got to be And by the way, it's
wirecutter dot com. Check out the Black Friday coverage. They
literally do such a great job with sourcing these deals
and making sure it's stuff that's all not just a deal,
but also like they recommend it in their testing. So
I love that. But Nathan, I've also I've read this article.
You know, there's so many websites now they're like ten
best baby strollers, But if you read it really closely,

(57:44):
they're not even testing the items. They're literally just looking
at the number of reviews on Amazon and just coming
up with a list based on that. Can you do
you believe that's true?

Speaker 12 (57:56):
Yes, I mean a lot of sites out out there
do not get the products in person. And I would
add that we you know, we pay for the products
that we test and and then donate them. It's it's
not something where we're receiving you know, sample items, you
know gratus and you know are somehow incentivized to provide
a good review. As a result, a lot of these

(58:19):
sites are using Amazon reviews almost exclusively, or other reviews.
We incorporate those as a data point in terms of
like assessing the long term reliability of products. But but
it's certainly, you know, very small compared to all of
the different sort of uh you know, data points that

(58:41):
we bring into the picture when we review something.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
All right, check it out wirecutter dot com. Bookmarket for
the holiday season. Lots of great reviews, lots of great recommendations,
and of course they are spending the time looking for
the deals, so you don't have to. Nathan Burrow, thanks
for joining me today. Thanks rich All right, coming up,
I'll tellell you about the new tool that can help
you clip those digital grocery store coupons. That's really cool. Plus,

(59:06):
if you're a teacher, you can get free chatch ebt
and more of your questions at eight a eight rich
one on one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one website, richon tech dot TV. Back
after this, Wayne is on the line.

Speaker 4 (59:29):
Hey, recently I bought I one plus thirteen and I'm
a diehard one plus I I tried to migrate all
my data from the eleven to the thirteen, and my
carriers Altra Mobile recently that I sweeched out of t Mobile.

Speaker 13 (59:50):
Wait, what's what's the carrier's name? Al tram Mobile Ultra Okay,
got it? Yeah, and then oh the yep, as you
fifty for eight gig membership, that's great. But anyway, I
try to mostly as I have a lot of info
on the eleven. How can I migrate all my data

(01:00:13):
to the thirteen and or so to the transfer?

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
Well, it's pretty straightforward. How did have you set up
the new phone yet?

Speaker 4 (01:00:24):
Not yet?

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Okay? Got it? Okay. So it's very easy, and if
you're going one plus to one plus, it's going to
be even easier because they are you know, they're they're
cut from the same cloth. So all you have to
do is number one. Back up your old phone. Make
sure you have your data backed up. I'm talking WhatsApp,
I'm talking your Google photos, I'm talking whatever you have

(01:00:45):
on that phone. Make sure it is backed up. However,
you typically back things up, whether that's your Google account,
whether that's whatever it is. And make sure WhatsApp if
you use that specifically, go into there and make sure
that that stuff is backed up. Then once you have
everything backed up and your phone is one hundred percent
you know, in the cloud or somehow on a computer, whatever,

(01:01:05):
then you open up the box for the new phone.
You go through the settings and it will just flow
you through. It'll say Hey, welcome to this phone. Are
you transferring from another device? And is it a one
plus device? And you go through that, you tap yes,
your phones. You will put them side by side wirelessly.
They will transfer all of the data from the old

(01:01:27):
phone to the new phone, and that process will take
you know, maybe fifteen minutes, whatever it is. And then
once all the data is downloaded to your new phone,
it will say, okay, you can turn off your old
phone whatever, and then it will then finish the process
of downloading all of the apps to your new device,
making sure all the settings are the same. But the

(01:01:48):
main thing to do is not bother these phones once
this process starts, because if you bother these phones in
the middle of the process, something's going to go wrong
and not everything's going to transfer over. So that's the
main thing. But if you're going one plus to one plus,
you're going to iPhone to iPhone, you're going pixel to pixel,
you're going Samsung to Samsung. It is so easy these

(01:02:09):
days to migrate from one phone to another. You can
do it so quickly and with almost no fuss. Now,
some apps, when you get to your new phone, they'll
they'll ask you to log in again. But your Google account,
and all these main things that you change on the
old device will still be there now. That also brings
its own set of issues when you go to your
new phone. Anything that was weird on your old phone,

(01:02:32):
any little settings that you change that you forgot about,
those are all going to be changed on your new device.
So if you change something it's a little wonky on
your old device, it might be wonky on your new device.
That's why I prefer setting up a device as new.
But I get that not everyone wants to do that
because it takes longer. You gotta download everything manually, You
got to go through all your settings, you gotta log
into all your accounts. But there is something nice about

(01:02:54):
setting up a phone. I call it from scratch or
a clean install, as we used to say with computers.
So there is something to say for that. But I
understand most people don't do that. I'm a weirdo. I
do that, and when I tried, I'll be house. I tried.
I said, this is so easy. But I tried doing
the iPhone to iPhone thing and nothing came over on

(01:03:15):
my iPhone for some reason, when I switched it to
the seventeen last time, I don't know what happened in
the middle of the transfer, but nothing. It was like
half apps were downloaded. It was a kind of a pain.
But that's not going to happen to you, Wayne, I
can guarantee it. So really, all you need to do
is open up that new phone next to the old phone,
make sure it's charged up, and then just go through

(01:03:36):
the process. It will ask you if you want to
transfer everything from your old phone. You can use a
cable too. You can plug a cable from your old
phone into the new phone. Sometimes that's faster, but quite honestly,
the wireless works really well nowadays. And then once you
get that new phone, just go through and kind of
what I do is I open up all my apps
and just see if they're logged in, see if they're there,

(01:03:58):
and just make sure everything's working the way I like it.
Good question, Wayne, Good upgrade. The one plus thirteen is
last year's device, but they just come out with the fifteen.
But actually the camera is a little bit better on
the thirteen.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
Sneaky, sneaky one plus Thanks for the call today. Eight
to eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one uh you know
how you go to the grocery store and you've got
the grocery store app, and they've got all those coupons
inside the app that you have to digitally clip. Well,
if you go through those one by one, you're gonna
spend seven hours trying to clip these digital coupons. So
guess what nobody ever does that. It probably cliped one

(01:04:33):
or two at the top and that's it. So this, uh,
this extension or app or whatever you want to call it,
it's called save wise, Get savewise dot com. They just
came out with a new feature that will automatically clip
all of those grocery store coupons at the same time
inside the app. So it's a free service inside the browser.

(01:04:54):
Extension supports more than three thousand stores, including Kroger, Safeway, Albertson's, Von's.
If you're in southern California, Ralphs is not That's the
first one I tried, of course, and I email the developer.
I said, hey, it doesn't work on Ralph's. He's like, oh,
that's the one store we're still working on. So they're
working on Ralphs. But you log into your you basically
log into your store account on your computer and then

(01:05:16):
the little extension pops up and it says, hey, do
you want us to clip all these coupons for you?
And you say yeah, and it goes through like I
had on I think it was Vonn's I did. It
was like five hundred and seventy two coupons. It took
about two minutes, but it does it all automatically and
you just watch it goes ting ding ding ding ding ding,
and then all your coupons are clips. So and then
when you go to the store you can just buy

(01:05:36):
the stuff that you want, and anything that has a
coupon that's digital, it will grab that coupon and apply
it much better than the manual way. And so Android
this app, if you download this save wise app, which
does a lot more than just this. It's kind of
an all in one kind of shopping thing. But if
you download the app, they've got iOS and browser extensions

(01:05:57):
and then Android is coming soon. So if you want
to this out, it's called get savewise dot com slash
Grocery and I'll put the link on my on my
richon tech dot TV. It's a really cool thing because
I love I like those digital coupons because they can't
save you a lot of money, but no one clips them.
No one does. No one can be bothered. And the
grocery stores know that. That's why they put a million

(01:06:18):
of them in there. So you get bored, you you
scroll through, you go, Okay, I'm not looking through all
these products. No way. If you're a teacher, you can
get free chat GPT for teachers through twenty twenty seven.
I know the irony of teachers using chat GBT. Apparently
they're some of the best customers. So if you're a teacher,
it's free for verified USK through twelve teachers through June

(01:06:39):
twenty twenty seven. Chat GPT for teachers. I'm not sure.
If there's a website, I'll put the way. I'll put
the link for the website on my rich on tech
dot TV in the show notes. This is episode one
back after this. Okay, so you got iPhone twelve, you've

(01:07:00):
heard that if it's still working, I don't look. I
talk about upgrading and getting new stuff. But if what
you have works, do not pay a dime to get
it upgraded. Now, I do like when people save up
for the next thing. I do say that, like, if
you you know the iPhone twelve. You're talking, You're gonna
get probably another year out of it right now. Let's see,
hold on, you have a twelve Okay, so right now,

(01:07:21):
the way I go is iOS twenty six supports the
iPhone eleven and up, which means iOS twenty seven will
probably support the iPhone twelve and up, which means you
still have a good two solid years before you might,
you know, have to get a new one because iOS
twenty eight is probably not going to support your phone.
So you've got like a good two years of this

(01:07:42):
phone if it's still working for you. With that said,
the call recording is a feature that was built into
iOS twenty six, So if you've updated your phone you
should have that. Have you updated your phone to iOS
twenty six?

Speaker 13 (01:07:56):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
I have not, Adam, where's our just kidding? There you go? Okay,
So if you update your phone to iOS twenty six,
you can have the call recording. It is a feature
that is software based in the latest iOS, and once
you update your phone, when you are on a call,

(01:08:18):
you will see what looks like a You basically have
to tap there's like three dots on your screen, and
then you tap that and then it'll say call recording,
and you tap that and both people in that call
are going to hear that tone that says this call
is being recorded. And that's it. And you can save

(01:08:39):
those calls. You can see the transcripts of them. All
of your calls that are recorded are inside the notes app.
So that's it. Now, let's see. I'm trying to see
if there's a way to I don't think you can
record every call by the fall. I don't think that's
a let me see, is that an option. I don't
know if that's an option. So you're gonna update your
phone just to do this or what?

Speaker 6 (01:09:01):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:09:01):
Well, you know, I.

Speaker 6 (01:09:04):
It was just interesting to me. I will update my phone, okay,
so that I can play around with that and just
I mean, I don't think I have a needs for it,
but you know, always learning something new.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Well, I will tell you my little hack with the
call recording, and it works every single time. If you
get a telemarketer that calls you, just literally most of
the time it's a scam person. Like if it's like
a cable company or someone that's legitimate, they don't really care,
but like you could try it with them. But if
you get like a scam call and they try to
say like, hey, we need your credit card number, whatever

(01:09:35):
it is you know, you get sometimes these calls get
through if you tap that call recording, they hang up
as soon as they hear that. Every single time. It
is so wild. So it's like my little, my little
hack for getting rid of these calls that you don't
want to talk to. And then sometimes when I'm calling
a company, if I want to take notes or something,
and I don't want to take notes, I'll just record
the call and once they hear that, then that's basically

(01:09:58):
the call is being recorded. As long as they stay
on the line, they're theoretically, I guess okay with that.
I'm not a lawyer. I don't know what the legal
aspect of that is, but that seems to be the
way it works. All right, Candace, thanks for the call today,
Appreciate it. All right, have a great day. Let's see here.
Let's go to Hugh in San Diego. Hugh, you're on

(01:10:19):
with Rich.

Speaker 14 (01:10:21):
Hey, Rich, how are you?

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
I'm doing well? What is happening? Sounds like you got
some issues with your Samsung yees, sir.

Speaker 15 (01:10:28):
So I'm looking at the home screen right now.

Speaker 14 (01:10:30):
And last week weekend.

Speaker 7 (01:10:32):
I put it on, I thought silent mode, and then
I took it off. And now the four main buttons
on the bottom of the phone, the messages and the
email and the voice recording, those buttons are dead.

Speaker 15 (01:10:47):
And in the upper left hand corner the time, it's
like like it looks like a broken digital clock with
every number. But if I open an app, it'll clean
up and the numbers, the time will clear up, and
I'll push these buttons on the bottom and.

Speaker 14 (01:11:04):
They're just like dead. They don't work at all, But
every other app does open.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Okay. Is it so once you open an app, does
everything look normal?

Speaker 3 (01:11:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Okay, so it's not a screen issue, it's an actual
issue with the phone, like the software. Okay, have you
gone in have you done all of your software updates?

Speaker 4 (01:11:25):
Yes?

Speaker 16 (01:11:26):
Even I walked through a chat GPT and I try
all of his suggestions and nothing happened.

Speaker 1 (01:11:33):
Well they I mean, I'm not kidding, and I love
chat GBT, but it literally makes up things that do
not exist. Literally. I was asking it today. I said,
I have an iPhone and Android. I want to use
both at the same time. How do I do that?
It was like, oh, download the official Apple Messages for
Android app and you'll be able to check your message.
I was like, there is no Apple Messages for Android app, Like,

(01:11:54):
where are you coming up with this stuff? Anyway? So
you got to take all that stuff with a grain
of salt. But what I would do is go into
your let's see if this is the right one device
care Okay, so there is, uh, let's see here. I'm
trying to find out a way to we can kind
of clean up this device. I what do you think

(01:12:15):
is happening? Because you you can't so okay, you can't
tap the phone icon in the lower left hand corner.
But if you go into your app drawer, can you
activate it that way?

Speaker 10 (01:12:24):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Can does the phone app still work?

Speaker 3 (01:12:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:12:27):
So what I did is just kind of a jury
rig fix.

Speaker 16 (01:12:30):
I pulled it out of there and put it on
the home screen and.

Speaker 14 (01:12:36):
And that's how I'm using it now. So yeah, it
does work.

Speaker 16 (01:12:39):
I have it on up above in like the general area,
but on the bottom like home row if you will,
it doesn't work there.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
That's so weird. And you're you're sure that you have
nothing nothing on this phone, like an accessibility feature or
anything like that that you turned on by accident.

Speaker 14 (01:12:59):
Boy, that's that's a million dollar question.

Speaker 3 (01:13:02):
I don't know.

Speaker 16 (01:13:03):
I don't know.

Speaker 14 (01:13:04):
I all I did was last week, like I said,
I put on safe mode and then I switched it
out and then it just kind of went haywire from there.

Speaker 16 (01:13:14):
And and like I said, I'm looking at the phone
right now, and and it's clean.

Speaker 15 (01:13:21):
The numbers are clean.

Speaker 16 (01:13:22):
But if I close that app, then the numbers go
all haywire again.

Speaker 1 (01:13:27):
Okay, Well, there is one thing you can try to do,
and this may you know, it may clear it up,
it may not. But if you go into reset, there
is an option. There's two options I would do the
I would do this option. First. There's one that's called
reset Accessibility Settings. And what that will do is if
you happen to put some sort of setting on there

(01:13:47):
that's messing this up, then now do you go into
your setting slot and like toggle and play with things
or no.

Speaker 14 (01:13:53):
Yeah, I did the whole reset, and and that that
screwed up everything else, and I had to like re download,
but I have to, like all my apps need to like.

Speaker 15 (01:14:02):
Be re re given permissions.

Speaker 16 (01:14:05):
And all that.

Speaker 1 (01:14:06):
Yes, exactly, So that's okay, So you tried that. Yeah,
interesting Okay, it's tough for me to understand what's happening
here without seeing this device. But the weird thing is
at the bottom of the screen, it's weird. And at
the top where the time is, it's also weird. Yeah,
that's a head scratcher here. You may have to uh,
you may have to bring I don't know what what

(01:14:27):
what that could be other than the resetting the settings.
The only thing you could do is if you you know,
if you don't have a place to bring this, you
can reset your whole phone into factory. But that's you
know you're talking, that's one hundred percent. You got to
change everything. I can't think of a of a setting
on a Samsung phone that would do this. But if
you want, if you want to send me an email,

(01:14:48):
I can talk to the Samsung folks and see if
they have any idea what this might be. Maybe send
me a screenshot as well, So go to the website
rich on tech dot tv, or just send it to
hello at rich on tech dot tv and maybe I
can get it to someone at Samsung that can sort
of take a look. That's that's a head scratcher. That
is really weird. You just you know, you said, you

(01:15:09):
put your phone into silent mode, you take it out,
and everything nothing's working anymore. That's that's a weird one.
Thanks for the call today, appreciate it. Coming up, I've
got ten gift ideas, ten gadgets that are on every
list this year. I've played with almost all of them.
You actually, I think, actually, I think, yeah, almost every

(01:15:30):
single one of these. So we'll talk about that coming up.
Plus later we're gonna talk about how AI is affecting
the medical field, good and bad. You are listening to
Rich on tech, all right, Let's get to the ten

(01:15:52):
tech gifts on every list this season. There are some
things that just span it all right, Like if you're
asking what are the hottest gifts this holiday season, Rich,
these are them And I have played with almost all
of these, so I can vouch for them. Number one,
I wonder if I shoot this backwards, is it more interesting?

(01:16:13):
Are they in any Let's see? Do you know what
I'm gonna do these backwards? Let's see them backwards. Number
ten the four pack of Apple air tags. Everyone loves
an air tag, Everyone loves to track their stuff. This
is a great stocking stuffer. For the third year in
a Row. Air Tags are a top ten sellar. They're useful,

(01:16:34):
they're cheap. You can put them in everything right now.
The price. Oh, I've wrote down all these prices too.
Hold on, let me see if I can bring this
up real quick. Air Tag okay, So on Google. This
is the problem though, as we learned in our interview.
So you can go on Google and I'm gonna put
all links to all these things. You can compare prices
right now. A four pack of air tags is sixty

(01:16:56):
five bucks almost everywhere, usually ninety nine. And you can
go on Google Shopping to compare these prices and you
can set a it tracks the price. The problem is
it doesn't include Amazon, which is where a lot of
people shop. But if you like to shop at other places,
it's all there, Best Buy, Walmart, Staples, Target, BJ's. Let's
see what else is on here. Verizon, Low's Lows sells

(01:17:18):
air tags okay. Air Tags number nine or a frame
crowd pleaser. This is a digital frame that lets you
send photos from your phone to your frame or a
friend and family members frame. That is the magic of it.
Lots of models to choose from. This is about one
hundred and forty dollars on sale. Target's got It Container Store,

(01:17:41):
Home Depot, the Aura Carver Great great gift. Number eight
Mediquest three VR Applevision pro way too expensive for most people.
Mediquest three is the VR headset for everyone. It's got
a lot of games, it's got good features, and the
price right now, it's expense of four ninety nine. They
also make a less expensive version as well. Let's see

(01:18:04):
we're okay on number eight, number seven, number seven. Apple
Watch series eleven. Yes, everyone wants an Apple Watch that
has an iPhone. This is thinner, it's lighter, it's got
the blood pressure trend monitoring, the hypertension alerts. Right now,
it's about three hundred and fifty dollars typically four hundred,
so that's a great deal. Sony noise canceling headphones the

(01:18:26):
XM fives. Now there is an XM six don't email me,
but for the price, the XM fives at two forty
eight give you almost everything you need. The only thing
you don't get here, let's see here what I wrote
this down, so I actually did my research here. You
typically don't get the foldable aspect of the new ones,
and you can listen to the new ones while you

(01:18:49):
charge them. But for the price. The XM fives are
excellent and every reviewer I know loves these headphones. Number
five Kindle paper white. Get the signature edition. It's got
better auto adjusting, Light's got wireless charging. It's one hundred
and fifty dollars right now, down from one ninety nine. Amazing.
All right on with the list. Wor these in today

(01:19:09):
to the radio station ray band Metas smart glasses just
the best, the best smart glasses out there right now.
They do everything. They take pictures, they take videos, they
answer AI questions. You've got two versions to choose from.
The new version is going to be much more expensive
than the older version, but they're about the same, really
really cool. Number three or a ring four. This is

(01:19:30):
a ring that tracks your health. People love this thing,
you know, doesn't. You can use it on an iPhone,
Use it on an Android. Two hundred and forty nine
dollars right now starting price. Remember you, I think there
is a subscription with this, so just be careful with that.
Check it out before you buy it. Number two Apple
AirPods Pro three. These are fantastic. I bring them on

(01:19:51):
every flight. I bring them pretty much everywhere they are
down to a new low of two hundred and nineteen dollars,
pretty much their first discount ever. Noise cancelation is incredible.
They work with the iPhone. They are fantastic. Apple AirPods
Pro three and number one on the Gift wish list
this year. Nintendo Switch to It was popular last year,
still going to be popular this year. Four hundred and

(01:20:13):
forty nine dollars. Go with a bundle. That's where you
get the best bang for your buck. Because you're going
to buy a game anyway, might as well get included
for about the same price. I'll put all these gadgets
on the website rich on tech dot TV. Coming up,
AI and medicine. Right here on rich on Tech. You

(01:20:35):
are listening to rich on Tech. This is the show
where we talked about the tech stuff I want you
to know about. We also answer your questions. Everything's on
the website that we've talked about. If you're still trying
to write down those ten tech gifts I just shared,
that's at rich on Tech dot tv. Show notes are
right at the top of the web page, so go
there and you can get links to all of those.

(01:20:57):
I don't know about you, but you know we're using
AI for just about everything these days, including health, including wellness,
including shopping. But here to talk about health and medical
specifically is doctor Adam Oskwitz with UH Doctronic doctor. Thanks
for joining me.

Speaker 10 (01:21:16):
Thanks so much for having me so, it's wonderful to
be here. And I love the uh the ambrosia salad
reference at the beginning.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
Do you remember that stuff?

Speaker 8 (01:21:24):
You're dating yourself a little bit there. I think it's
a little bit before me.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
I don't think. I don't think people do that anymore.
I mean probably because it's like, is like a direct
attack on your heart. So what is doctronic? Explain what
that is all about?

Speaker 10 (01:21:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:21:39):
Thanks thanks for asking.

Speaker 10 (01:21:41):
I mean, the easiest way to understand Doctronic is it's
an AI doctor. And we use that phrase because people
just understand what that means. You can come to our
website and it feels like you're visiting a doctor. You
can ask it questions about a new diagnosis, about chronic conditions,
about your general health, about medications, and it's gonna interact
with you. It's it's going to ask you questions to

(01:22:03):
try and tease that information, and just like a good doctor,
it's going to try and give you personalized information at
the end of the conversation. That could be in the
form of a problem list or a differential diagnosis and
a treatment plan that you can actually act on.

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
So how is this different than just you know, searching Google,
using chat GBT, Like, how is your AI different?

Speaker 10 (01:22:25):
So, first and foremost is designed to function like a doctor,
So it's going to actually ask you questions and.

Speaker 8 (01:22:30):
Try and steering you towards the right kind of treatment
that way.

Speaker 10 (01:22:34):
It's also built on a bedrock of evidence based guidelines,
so we don't just pull information from the Internet.

Speaker 8 (01:22:39):
We don't pull information from an LM.

Speaker 10 (01:22:42):
Everything that is given to you is based on thousands
of guidelines that have been created in order to make
sure that we're following the best recommendations.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
So I always made the joke for many years when
people would google their health symptoms. The end result was
You're going to die no matter what. It's like you
have a little.

Speaker 8 (01:23:01):
For your answer and you're gonna die eventually.

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
No matter what, You're gonna die. Like it's just like
it's just that some dark humor there, but you know
what I mean, Like it always is like at the
end of whatever you Google, Like you have a cut
on your finger, that's it. You've got an infection, it's
gonna fester, your finger's gonna be chopped off, then your
body it's just done. So how do you balance like that,
like is this thing going to just tell you like, hey,

(01:23:25):
this is really bad? Or how do you kind of
work with that idea that you know, we don't know
what this stuff is and like how do you know
you're putting your symptoms in they're so random sometimes Yeah,
I mean I think.

Speaker 10 (01:23:36):
We've all experienced that moment where we go to Google
or WebMD and we put something in there and we're like,
oh my gosh, I'm gonna die right uh, And it's
it's never accurate, right because it's not personalized.

Speaker 8 (01:23:48):
It's basically just giving you generalized information. And so the
critical thing here is to really just understand what you're saying.

Speaker 10 (01:23:53):
Just like when you I'm gonna come back to this
many times, just when you go see a doctor, they're
not they're not just going to give you an answer
right up front. They're gonna actually ask go, tell me
a little bit more about this headache so that.

Speaker 8 (01:24:03):
They can get contact.

Speaker 10 (01:24:04):
So it doesn't like lead down to the path of
it being you know, the worst thing.

Speaker 1 (01:24:07):
Possible now I see on Doctronic. Basically, there's this interesting
feature where it says, after we chat, if you want
to have a video visit with a top doctor for
thirty nine dollars, you can do that. So how much
of this can you, like, what can you get for
free using Doctronic versus that thirty nine dollars you know,
for the appointment, Like, explain that.

Speaker 8 (01:24:29):
Yeah, So the AI is always free and always will be.
We very much believe that.

Speaker 10 (01:24:35):
And it's by default anonymous, which is important, so you
can calm and actually chat with Doctronic, and we even
at Doctronic can't know who you are. That's how we
set up the system. When you're ready and you want
to sort of take that next step. Let's just say
you're chatting with the system and you get a new
diagnosis and you're thinking a medication.

Speaker 8 (01:24:53):
You can then opt in and say.

Speaker 10 (01:24:54):
I want to see a doctor and it's your choice,
just like when you want to go see.

Speaker 8 (01:24:58):
A doctor without the an AI.

Speaker 10 (01:25:01):
The key here is that we're sort of vertically integrated
with a fifty state telet practice. So when you press
that button, then you say I want to see a doctor.
Everything you've just chatted with the AI about is sent
off to one of our physicians and then you can
see them. Usually it takes about five minutes. So it
really does streamline care to be able to.

Speaker 1 (01:25:19):
Do that interesting, and I just kind of put in,
you know, I like how it does almost in the
same way a doctor would like it starts asking questions,
but then it asks like really smart follow up questions
as well, just like a you know, a doctor's office would.

Speaker 8 (01:25:34):
Yeah, I mean that's what it's designed to do.

Speaker 10 (01:25:35):
I think a lot of us have used AI before, right,
and it just feels very superficial when you use it.
It's not directional, and there's nothing that you can actually
take from it beyond just getting information.

Speaker 8 (01:25:46):
And so we've built Doctronic differently. It's really supposed to
be for you to take ownership of your health.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
Now, you talked about privacy. Obviously, whenever people are sharing
medical information, you got to what are the privacy implication here?

Speaker 3 (01:26:00):
Are you?

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
I mean, how much of my information is stored or
shared or sold whatever, you know, because I'm sharing some
pretty intimate stuff here sometimes.

Speaker 8 (01:26:10):
Yeah, No, it's important. So we take data very seriously.

Speaker 10 (01:26:14):
I think from just like a conceptual standpoint, I'll go
back to this, it's anonymous by default, and anonymous is
different than us not knowing or storing your data.

Speaker 9 (01:26:24):
It means that we literally.

Speaker 10 (01:26:26):
Can't actually know who you are, and that protects you.
So you can always use the system without us actually
knowing who you are and eventually storing your data. Now,
if you want to store it and you want to
have a long term relationship with the company and come
back so that.

Speaker 8 (01:26:39):
It remembers each time, you can do that as well.
And if you do choose to do that, we.

Speaker 10 (01:26:44):
Have made the decision that your data is yours and
you can always delete it, you can always take it
wherever you want, and that that data needs to be protected.
So we obviously use the most you know, highest standards
for making sure that that data is secure.

Speaker 3 (01:27:01):
You know.

Speaker 10 (01:27:01):
I feel like traditionally healthcare systems have always taken the
stance that the data is theirs, right, and it's very
hard as a posient to actually go get that data
when you need it correct and I think that's a mistake,
right and then so that's one of the reasons why
we've made it so easy for people to actually own
their data with the system.

Speaker 1 (01:27:19):
We're talking with doctor Adam Oskowitz, co founder of Doctronic.
This is an AI doctor, and it says right on
the home page, you've already helped over eighteen million times,
which is amazing. What do you think of AI's impact
in medicine, because I feel like it is going to
really accelerate things in a big way.

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:27:41):
I think that we quite honestly are at the penicillin
moment in medicine right now as AI starts taking shape.
And when you think about it, medicine has always had
this fundamental math problem that you would never have enough
doctors to meet this, you know, the demand of patients.
Right you could have ten times more doctors and you
still would be able to meet the demands of patients.

Speaker 8 (01:28:01):
And when you think about it, you actually get your
own medical care.

Speaker 10 (01:28:04):
You don't go see a doctor oftentimes when you're sick,
because you know how difficult it is. With AI, all
that changes, right, We are no longer gated by you know,
having enough doctors, and eventually, when we get systems that
are rigorous enough, we'll be able to provide high quality
healthcare to anyone anywhere, anytime, for free or almost free,
and that's really going to transform the way people actually

(01:28:25):
engage with the healthcare system and how they own their
own health.

Speaker 1 (01:28:30):
Is there a flip side to this? We have to
be careful with just getting sort of advice from a
general AI. I know, you built yours to be much
safer because it's specifically for medical advice. But you know,
people are already, like we said, they're already going on WebMD,
they're already going on Google, and there's a million and
one chatbots out there. I mean, the self care of health.

(01:28:52):
You know, it's kind of could be dangerous.

Speaker 10 (01:28:55):
Absolutely, I totally agree with that. I think we need
to do this. We need to do this small, We
need to do this securely. Every single you know, company
out there or institution that's using this needs to earn
the trust of patients. And so I tell that to
people when they come to Doctronic. You know, don't trust
us right out of the gate. We should earn your trust,
utilize it, double check it, you know, be skeptical.

Speaker 8 (01:29:17):
At first.

Speaker 10 (01:29:18):
I'm confident that we'll earn the trust of our users,
but in other instances, I wouldn't trust any random chatbot
out there, and I certainly wouldn't trust potentially chat gpt
to tell me exactly what I need to know.

Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
And real quick, we got like just a couple of
seconds here, Like, if you get that video visit with
a doctor, can you get like a prescription or something
like that? Can they do that?

Speaker 8 (01:29:39):
Yeah, you can get prescriptions. Well, we can order labs, referrals.

Speaker 10 (01:29:43):
We are an advanced primary care practice, so everything you
could get at a primary care office we can provide
that as well.

Speaker 1 (01:29:49):
Wow, okay, the website Doctronic dot ai Doctronic dot ai,
d o C t R O n C dot AI.
I will link that up on my website. Rich on
tech dot tv. Doctor Adam Oskwitz, co founder of Doctronic,
thanks so much for joining me today. Thanks so much,
rich Now, can you help me with this rash on

(01:30:10):
my arm? No, kid, that's like the old doctor joke.
Every party you go to, it's like me when I
go to any party, it's like, hey, can you take
a look at my iPhone? Is things doing something kind
of weirdy? All right, thanks so much for joining me.
All right, coming up, we are going to open up
the feedback. These are the emails the comments and the
questions I get from you. There's no way I can

(01:30:31):
get through them all, but I will do my best.
You are listening to rich on tech. I know lots
you are looking for those gift gift ideas I mentioned.
They are all on the website rich on tech dot TV.
Just head there and it should be the top story

(01:30:52):
episode one. All ten of those products are listed. There
should be at least. Okay, let's get to the feedbag. Yep,
there they are, Keith writes in thank you for your
newsletters and radio show. They help to inform many people
about tech issues, including me. I have a book recommendation
for you. It's if anyone builds it, everyone dies, why

(01:31:16):
superhuman AI would kill us? All? Okay, that's Keith. I
will put that on my reading list along with my
book about the End of the World. Thank you for that.
Andy from Akron, Ohio says, Hey, the woman who deleted
the C plus plus DLL, it could be in the
recycling bin. I might have missed it if that was
already checked. But she just needs to search for recycling bin,

(01:31:37):
open up and hopefully the files are still there and
she can restore them. Thank you, Andy and Samuel along
the same notes regarding the woman who deleted files. There's
a command line program that can look for system missing
files and replace them. It's called System file Checker. Just
run SFC slash scan now. Ooh, that's a good one,
SFC slash scan now. Jammy and Larry say, hey, Rich,

(01:32:03):
my wife and I emailed you a few times. You've
been so helpful. Just wanted to let you know we're
really enjoying the deer Abbey format. As usual, we're picking
up some great tips. Yes, this is the newsletter I
talked about earlier. That's the I call it deer abby
It's just basically a Q and a newsletter, kind of
like this show. Gretchen says, I saw your story and
I was listening to your podcast like I do every week,

(01:32:24):
and I had to comment. I've had two Chevy Tahoes,
both with CarPlay, and I love it. I just read
gms getting rid of car play switching to their own system.
I really hope they changed their minds, because I'd be
devastated to buy another Tahoe without car play. Well, Gretchen,
it seems to be happening. Maybe they will change their minds,
but I'm not sure. I think we had another email

(01:32:45):
about car play. Let's see here. Now you know what.
I'm just wasting time. I'll just move on. Kim in
Los Angeles says that fingerprint lock you talked about is
so cool. I used to leave my reading glasses on
my gym lock just so I could see the time
any numbers. The fingerprint lock is a total game changer.
Thanks for sharing it. Yes, that's the Benji lock, Benji lock,

(01:33:07):
fingerprint padlock. It's so cool. Hey, rich my compliments on
the reader's question segment of your newsletter. I always learned something.
Your version on the air is also great. I like
that you keep a brisk pace with callers and with
the interview guests. Especially appreciated is the way you question
your guests direct and to the point, without a lot
of preamble. Keep up the good work, Mike and carlsbad. Mike,

(01:33:29):
you are on the rich On Tech cheerleader team. Thank you.
Uh oh, here we go. I'm wondering why is Tesla
picking up car play but GM's dropping it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:40):
Why?

Speaker 6 (01:33:40):
Why?

Speaker 3 (01:33:41):
Why?

Speaker 1 (01:33:41):
I was recently driving in Ireland. Car play was so
handy for directions. It would have been much more challenging
without it. Thanks Steven. I think I read that last
week somehow. What happened there? Mike in Los Angeles says,
I've been an IT consultant for more than thirty years.
I wanted to raise an issue I never hear anyone
talk about when it comes to pass keys. They're great
because you don't need long passwords, but there's a dark side.

(01:34:02):
People forget on a Windows computer, the only thing standing
between someone and every account you've set up with passkeys, Amazon, Google, Banks,
email is your four to six digit Windows pin. I
see it all the time. People give that pin to roommates,
friends or families so they can look something up, not
realizing they're giving away access to everything. Passkeys are great
when used right, but only if people treat their PIN

(01:34:24):
like a bank code. Once someone has your pin, everything
protected with the pass key is wide open. Mike, thanks
for that reminder. I need to check that out on
my computer to see if that is the case. But
if it is, be careful. Do not give out. Don't
give out your pin anywhere. Don't give it out on
your phone, your computer. It just unlocks way too much.
Mike in Orange County says, I saw your feature on

(01:34:45):
TV about phone cases. I saw your recommendation of the
Spegan Super Thin case. I've used them for about fifteen years.
My phones have always survived the occasional drop. I don't
need the screen protection since I'm pretty careful as always.
Grateful for your advice. Thanks Mike. Yes, I've got the
Spegan Ultra Hybrid on my iPhone right now. Love that case.
It's like fifteen bucks on Amazon. It is incredible. I'll

(01:35:09):
put a link to it on the website. The other
one I really really like is the case Tofy Clear
Impact or Impact Clear case Defy Impact Clear. It's got
a built in kickstand. It's such a cool case for
your phone. Let's see here. We got a lot of
messages about the woman who couldn't access or the man
the guy who couldn't access Facebook Messenger. PJ says, in

(01:35:32):
regards to speaking to an AI computer, think way back
to the original Star Trek. They talk to their shipboard computers,
no keyboards. They also had tablet computers. Our cell phones
replicated the look of their communicators. Many other things too.
I just keep forgetting to write them to a list.
You are right, what seemed very far off on Star
Trek is basically reality. Now, is there anything that happened

(01:35:55):
on Star Trek that they did that we haven't gotten yet?
Probably like the body scan. I'm not a huge Star
Trek person, but wasn't there like a body scan? Yeah?
I know, bemba. Oh we haven't done beam me up?
Oh yet? No, we have not done yeah space trial
or I guess just teleporting. Yeah, we have not done that.
I can't wait for that. You're gonna look a little

(01:36:16):
bit weird, like a little bit melted gobbledegook, like when
your eyes might be droopy by the time he gets
to the other place. But hey, you've just traveled the
whole world without really doing anything. Uh okay. Francis says,
I have Cox Internet and got an email to increase
my speed. In the past, when I had Cox Cable,
they'd offer HBO or something for a few months for free,

(01:36:37):
and then if I canceled before the trial ended, my
whole package would change and costs more.

Speaker 10 (01:36:41):
So.

Speaker 1 (01:36:41):
Before I accepted this speed boost, I called and after
ten minutes of questioning the rep I learned that if
I took the free offer, my current fifty dollars plan
would disappear, and after canceling the faster speed. I have
to pay thirty dollars more each month to get my
old speedback. They don't tell you that I'm sick of
these cable companies. Uh Tang is nearby, but I'd need
seven neighbors to sign on, and Starlink is adding a

(01:37:02):
demand premium. I'm really hoping Amazons satellites arrive soon. I
love your segments. That is a great, great thing. That
is a great point, Francis that if you are on
one of these what they call grandfathered in plans and
you accept a new plan as a trial, that they say, oh,
you can always go back. You know, you can always

(01:37:23):
get rid of it. But they don't tell you that
you can't go back to your original plan because it's grandfather.
That's interesting, Gerald says, Hey, a Rich since listening to
your show, I can tell you have the skills with
a Z to pay the bills with the Z. I
don't know what that means, but thank you, Gerald. I
will take that as a compliment number one. All right,

(01:37:44):
that is going to do it for this episode of
the show. If you can believe it. You can find
links to everything I mentioned on my website. Just go
to Rich on tech dot tv. All of those tech
gifts I mentioned are linked up there. Please go and
check them out. Please sign up my newsletter if you
haven't already done that. I'm gonna send out a newsletter
this week early so that you can get all I'm

(01:38:06):
gonna put. I've got a Now, I was gonna say
something that probably wouldn't have sounded right. I've got all
of my best holiday shopping tips in one place on
the newsletter, So please go to the website. Rich on
tech dot tv, sign up with your email, get it
for free. Have a fantastic Thanksgiving. Thanks so much for listening.
There are so many ways you can spend your time
I appreciate you spending it right here with me. Thanks
to Adam in for Bobo who had a baby, congrats,

(01:38:29):
and Kim on phones. My name is Rich Demiro. I
will talk to you real soon

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