Favorite apps of 2025, spam calls explanined & removing duplicate photos (153, December 20, 2025)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Meta's AI glasses can now help you hear better. Google
six hundred and thirty million dollar play store settlement could
mean cash back in your pocket. Texas, who's major TV
makers for spying on you? Allegedly? Plus your tech questions answered?
What's going on? I'm Rich Tamiro and this is Rich
on Tech. This is the show where I talk about

(00:22):
the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's
also the place where I answer your questions about technology.
I believe that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun.
Let's open up those phone lines at triple eight rich
one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to
two four one zero one. Eight eight eight seven four

(00:42):
to two four to one zero one. Give me a
call if you have a question about technology. Maybe you're
doing some last minute holiday shopping, trying to decide between
a couple of things. Uh, maybe you have a question
about upgrading whatever it is. Give me a call eight
eight eight rich one oh one. This will be a
fun show because it is the holiday season and this
is my holiday show. Email is also open. Just go

(01:06):
to rich on tech dot tv and hit contact rich
on tech dot TV. Hit contact. I'm gonna try to
get through some of the just a small amount of
the messages I get on a weekly basis from you.
So I feel like this show is a great time
to kind of reconnect and you know, just kind of

(01:26):
go through all the stuff that we need to do
to get through the end of the year.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Here.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I know, the holidays are coming up and everyone's busy.
You're cooking, you're cleaning. You know, you've got family in
town or maybe they're coming into town, maybe reflecting on
the year that was, thinking about what you want to
do in the new year.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
This is a great time of the.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Year for a lot of people, and it could be
a tough time of the year as well, So I
understand that too, But we're gonna make it a fun
one today, and so I figured what I would do well.
First off, I'm gonna be reading what people are thankful
for this year. So if you commented on my Instagram
at rich on Tech or on my Facebook page, I'm
gonna read some of your comments about what you're thankful for.
Ryan is thankful for his faith and for his wife

(02:06):
and daughters. Marcia in California is thankful for her health
after beating cancer. Ronda is thankful for reconnecting with her
brother after decades apart. I'll be reading some of those
throughout the show. I'll be sharing some of my favorite
holiday tunes with you. But I also wanted to talk
about my favorite apps of the year. So I know
Google chooses theirs, Apple chooses theirs, but I have mine,

(02:29):
and I do have a pretty big rule with my apps.
I really like apps that are cross platform. The reason
is twofold number one. I regularly switch between iPhone and Android,
so I want to be locked into anything in particular, right.
I mean, Apple makes great apps on their iPhone, but
if I start using their notes app, if I go
to my Android, I.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Can't access any of that. I don't like that. Now.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
The other thing is that a lot of apps, of course,
sometimes they work better on like an Apple phone or
an iPhone whatever. I try to still just go with
the app that I think is going to be the
best cross platform because I believe that technology should connect people,
not divide them. And I Message is one of these
examples that we've seen in the past. You know, ten
years of the iPhone blue bubbles people, you know, with Android,

(03:14):
they had these green bubbles for so long, and it
was like people that had iPhone thought they were less
than That should not be happening. In the tech world.
We have what's called protocols, we have what's called standards.
When I send an email to you, it goes to you,
no matter where you live in the entire world, no
matter what device you're accessing it on.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
That is amazing. That's the way tech should be.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Now.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
RCS has fixed a lot of the whole messaging thing.
But you know, the Internet was made for cross compatibility.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
It was made for standards.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
And you know, I love Apple, but a lot of
the stuff that they do favors themselves. And so this
is why when I talk about some of my apps,
you'll notice, Yes, there's some that just work on the iPhone,
but I try to find apps that work on everything.
So first off, aerolow, you've probably heard of me talk
about this. This is my go to eSIM for international travel.
I've used them a bunch. It's easy, it's easy to

(04:02):
set up, it's reliable. It's worked every time except once
for me on a pixel in Japan, but otherwise it's
been great all trails. This is an app that kind
of got me into hiking. I love how you can
find a great hike near you with lots of great filters.
And I love the feature. I know it's on the
Apple Watch. They only have it of course there that
shows you a compass so you can track your route
with precision. I love that you can still do it

(04:24):
from your phone, but it's nice to have it on
your watch as well. When I want a wallpaper, I'm
using Backdrops and they started on Android and they have
expanded to iOS, so that's a great app. It's called
Backdrops Bitwarden. I switched to bitwarden this year for my
password manager, and it is fantastic. It's free, it's cross platform.
It does pretty much every single thing you need for free.

(04:47):
And I was paying like sixty dollars a year for
my password manager. Now I'm not paying anything. Blip this
is a newer app that I'm using. It kind of
feels like air drop for everything you do need an
Internet connection. But the ney thing about this is that
once you set it up on all your different devices,
you can share files between them just as easy as
drag and drop, and everything's named and it just kind

(05:08):
of appears there. So that's called Blip and it's pretty cool.
Now this one's Android only. It's called Caffeine and I
love this, especially around the holidays, because it keeps your
screen awake for a certain amount of time. You can
say fifteen minutes an hour. Your screen will not go
to sleep. What's that good for? Well, when you're following
a recipe that's on your phone, your screen won't go
dead every couple of minutes, or any kind of instructions.

(05:29):
When you're trying to fix something or follow instructions, you
can just tap Caffeine your phone will stay on. And yes,
this is Android only. Canny Crush Solitaire. This was Google's
App of the Year for pickup and play games and
I've been playing it.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
I love it. It's so fun.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
It's just a solitaire game, but like kind of with
a sweet twist.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
So I like that Canva.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
If you ever see my basic social media designs and
my graphics, it's all done on Canva. I love it
because it's simple, it's easy, and it's basically just the
print Shop of twenty twenty five twenty twenty six. It
really is such an easy to use app. I love
it and maybe one day I'll take it to the
next level and get a little better with my designs.
But you know, my main goal is to get you useful,

(06:13):
actionable information in a speedy manner. So that's why my
stuff doesn't always look as polished as you know some
other tech people out there. Chat gbt turned out to
be the AI I used most this year. I trained
it for a lot of my workflows, so things I
do over and over I haven't programmed into projects I've
talked about it, like my wine shooser, my bookshooser, just

(06:35):
so many things I've programmed into this to make it
easy to do the stuff I do over and over.
Plus it really knows me. So I love that Clever Cleaner.
This is the only free iPhone cleanup app that I
actually recommend. There's no ads, it's free, it's unlimited, it
works great. Again, it's called Clever Cleaner. If you're trying
to free up some storage on your iPhone before you
take all those holiday pictures, definitely download this one. Clever Cleaner.

(07:00):
Drop box is great. It's my work hard drive in
the cloud. I love it because it's separate from my
personal drive and I just keep everything there. All of
my TV segments, all of my radio segments, it's all
in the cloud in Dropbox. It's easy to file, it's
easy to upload, it's easy to share, easy to search.
I just love it. Edits This is a new one
this year. This is Instagram's free editing app, and I

(07:22):
love that they came out with it on iPhone and Android.
It's got solid features, so you can do a lot
of the stuff you need to do.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
There's a couple of things that aren't.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
There that I wish were, but for a free editing app,
it is quite impressive. And I think that Instagram gives
your videos a little more reach when you upload from it.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
That's just a theory.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Maybe they do that, but I think that they give
them a little extra juice because they're favoring their own program. Now,
these two programs are the same name, but they're different developers.
It's called email Me, and I've got one on Android
and it's basically a one tap shortcut to email myself notes.
I absolutely just use this program every single day of
my life. It's the same on iOS. It's called email Me,

(08:02):
but it's a different developer, but it's the same exact idea.
It's just much much more polished, many more features. But
I'll put links to all of these, by the way,
on my website, rich on tech dot TV, because I
know I'm telling you a lot very fast. Fae, this
is travel insurance you can make. It's all done in
a modern way right from your phone. We interviewed them
on this very show and I've downloaded the app. So

(08:24):
for international travel insurance. It's a really easy way to
kind of have travel insurance quickly and make claims and
get money quickly.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
It's great.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Fig fig This is a food scanner for allergens. So
if you have someone in your family that has allergies,
you tell this app what the allergy is and then
you basically scan any food label and it will tell you, hey,
are there nuts in that?

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Is there?

Speaker 4 (08:49):
We?

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Is there gluten? Whatever you're allergic to. So that is
a great app to have. Flighty if you're traveling this
holiday season. Flighty is the fantastic best flight tracking app
I've ever used. It's iOS only. It's annoying that it's
not Android. It's been around for years now, three I
think three years, and it's still iOS only, and I

(09:12):
understand a lot of people are on iOS and you know,
it's just please come to Android. Please, You'll make so
many more travelers happy. We need Flighty on Android. It
is the best flight tracking app and I love it
because not only does it tell you know all the information,
all the potential delays and all the stuff you need
to know. I mean, it goes into the nerdy territory

(09:32):
of telling you how old your plane is, like what
year it was first put in service, how many times
you've been on that plane, how many times you've been
on that route, and it gives you a passport at
the end of the year, so you can see just
how many times you've flown and how many hours you've
been delayed and all this good stuff. So fly Finn

(09:53):
this is another good one. I love this one. This
is Tender for taxes, So you connect all of your
accounts to fly Finn and then it will it will
use AI to find what it thinks are deductions, so
you get to swipe through and say, Okay, yes that
was a deduction, that was not a deduction. It is
such a fantastic app. I've used them for the past
couple of years. Again, we interviewed them on this show

(10:14):
and it just kind of makes doing your taxes so
much easier. And by the way, at the end of
the year, you can send all the info that you've
used to your accountant, or you can have them do
your taxes and they will button it all up for
you and do that. Then we've got Glimpse Notifications. If
you're a Samsung user, you need to download this app
because it turns your Samsung notifications into something much more

(10:37):
useful because it lights up the screen with your notification.
So if you're just sitting there on Samsung, you may
see a little notification icon, but this lights up your
screen exactly the way that the iPhone does and the
way the pixel does, so it makes your screen, your
lock screen, so much more useful. That's Glimpse Notifications. All right,

(10:58):
I've got many more. I'm gonna keep going here, but
we got to take a break, so I will continue
my list of favorite apps for twenty twenty five when
we return, but first we will.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Take some of your calls.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Eighty to eight Rich one O one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one. If you
want to see this full list, it is on my website.
Richon tech Dot tv back after this with more of
my favorite apps of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Welcome back to Rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at
Triple eight rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one, doing a holiday
show today, playing some of my favorite holiday tunes, reading
some of the things that you are thankful for after
your comments on my Instagram at rich on Tech and

(11:46):
my Facebook page rich on Tech. Joseph is thankful that
his wife Vera is healthy after a year battling breast cancer.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Congratulations.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
And Debbie is thankful for her two teenage grandsons who
live with her, while Eva is thankful for friends, family,
good health, and faith.

Speaker 5 (12:06):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
I know what Bobo is thankful for.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
We're gonna get to him in a little bit because
he's got we finally, you know, we've got Bobo has
been kind of off because well he's got a new
little new little baby in the home. So we're gonna
talk to him about what he's thankful for. And I
have a feeling I already know, right, I mean, I
kind of.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
All right.

Speaker 1 (12:26):
So before the break, we were going through some of
my favorite apps, and I've got them all linked up
on the website rich on Tech dot TV. We got
as far as g Glimpse Notifications. But these are all
listed on the website, and so these are the apps
that I've kind of relied on throughout the year. I'm
always downloading new apps, I'm always trying new things, and

(12:47):
so these are the apps I kind of relied on
over and over. So the last one I mentioned was
Glimpse Notifications for Samsung users. Really handy app. I will
tell you. Gemini was also something that I used. But
it's interesting because Google Ai has been a slower burn
for me like I've been using. So I started out
using Claude, then I went to Open Ai, Chat GBT,

(13:09):
and then Gemini has really been adding a lot of features.
So number one when it comes to Google, their AI search,
their AI mode is just absolutely fantastic. Like I think
ninety nine percent of my web searches are now AI mode,
and Google knows that it's going to end up replacing
the standard search I think. But also their Nano banana.
Their image generation is just so good. But I will

(13:32):
tell you a little preview of this week's stories that
Chat GBT upgraded their image generation this week, so we'll
talk about that in a little bit. But the other
thing I've really come to kind of like is how
Google has built Gemini into all of their products.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
So I'm planning for CS.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
I'm getting all these emails about CS and appointments, and
this is the first year where in my Gmail I
have a one click button that says add to calendar,
so I don't have to go through and make these
calendar appointments block things out. It'll just scan the email,
find the pertinent information and put out on my calendar.
And then, of course you have Gemini built into Google Chrome,
so I've been using that to help me reply to

(14:10):
my emails in a faster way. I mean, it's really
really useful and handy and also searching my email. So
I will give Gemini high marks for certain things that
I need, especially tied to my Google products. So if
you're not using that, definitely download Gemini to your phone
and try the image generation for sure.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
Make some fun holiday pictures, all right? What else?

Speaker 1 (14:30):
Just Watch This is an app that I use to
track my movies that I want to watch and also
find where they're streaming. So I've tried all the different
apps that track where movies are playing and this and
that I love Just Watch because it's simple, it's easy.
It's not the best designed app in the world, but
it has all the features I need, including the Rotten
Tomatoes scores. You can sort your watch list. You can

(14:53):
filter by just the things that are on your streaming services.
So let's say you have one hundred movies you want
to watch, but only twenty of them are on the
services that you're paying for. You can filter out just
those twenty, and then you can take it a step
further and filter those just by you know, IMDb rating,
popularity trending. If you want to sort by runtime, which

(15:14):
I really want to, you have to pay a couple
of dollars a month so they know that, like, okay
for me, I want to sort by the shortest movie
so I cannot fall asleep on a Friday night. I
gotta pay for that, which I have not done just yet,
but I'm very tempted to do it. So that's just
watch and then we've got Libby. Libby is a fantastic app.
Some of you might be familiar with it. It lets
you get free library books, which you can read on

(15:37):
the Libby app, but you can also send them to
your Kindle and that is just such a useful feature.
I absolutely love this feature because I feel guilty that
I've gotten almost every book I read for free. But
why should I feel guilty. I'm paying taxes in the
city I live in, and the local library is how
they're getting this. So the Libby app will team up

(15:59):
with local library to give you these books and take
advantage of these books that your library's paying for so
they want people to read them.

Speaker 2 (16:07):
Now.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
I will give you my tip. The pro tip with
Libby is go straight to the skip the line section.
You're gonna find all of the latest books that people
that you can you can borrow immediately because there is
a line, you know, when you're getting an ebook from
your library, they only have a certain amount of digital copies.
So it's all regulated kind of through Libby, and so
sometimes you do have to wait to read the book

(16:27):
you want. But if you go to skip the line,
you're gonna find all these great books. Oh okay, we
gotta get quicker here. Uh okay, we got metior. That's
my favorite speed test app, me et e o R
The Michelin Guide. I'm not a huge like you know,
tiny food, fancy food portion person, but it's kind of
fun to see what's highly rated when you're traveling, so
micheline Guide you could download Monarch Money. This is probably

(16:49):
one of my favorite apps of twenty twenty five. It
replaced Men, it replaced Rocket Money, and I think it
is amazing for tracking your overall money, your net worth,
and all of your re curring transactions and subscriptions. They
do charge you for this, but I think it's walworth
the money. Moonlit m oo n l I T T
with two t's. This is a moon moon phase tracking

(17:11):
app that I kind of like. Let's see what else
we have here. Obsidian my notes app this year became Obsidian.
I like it because it keeps all of my notes local,
which I just love. Adobe Premiere Mobile. This is excellent
for mobile video editing. Proton Authenticator. This is a two
factor authentication app. I love Speechify to read articles out loud.

(17:32):
I love that upside to get cash back on gas
and groceries. Ways, Whisper Memos, Whisper Flow, You've talked, I've
talked about that, and a new one I like is
called Zoe Food Scores. I love that one. And then
weather by Tomorrow. This is great for storm and hurricane tracking.
I absolutely love it all right. This is all linked
up on my website, rich on tech dot tv. My

(17:53):
top apps of twenty twenty five eighty eight rich one
oh one eighty eight seven four to two four one
zero one.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology triple
eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven four
to two four one zero one. The website is rich
on tech dot TV. I know a lot of you
are looking for those list of top apps of the year.
Just go straight to rich on tech dot TV. It
is front and center. You could also go to the

(18:24):
show notes. This is episode one fifty three, but the
title of the post is the apps I relied on
in twenty twenty five. Just click that and you'll get
a full list of all of those apps. We're saying
what people are thankful for this holiday season. Greg and
Garding Grove is thankful for his new job, his son,
and his health.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Megan and.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Manitistic, I don't know how to say that is thankful
for her husband and for each new day that's a
good one. And Alana is thankful for her extended family
and close friends. If you want to comment rich on
Tech on Instagram, let's go to market Lake Elson or
you're on with Rich.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Yeah, Rich, Hi, I'm having Hi, I'm having problems with
the TV volume. The I like the full sound, you know,
I would have the Megablaster sound bar, and the white
wants it quiet. I went out and bought a new
TV and you know, so it was Bleachers compatible.

Speaker 6 (19:25):
Okay, and I but it's only one or the other,
right right, play on the bluetooths with my headset and
then still play on the speakers on the TV.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
So I'm one of us doesn't get to listen to
it that way.

Speaker 3 (19:40):
Yeah, that can you have.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Any suggestion on what I can do?

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (19:44):
You know, as far as I know, it is typically
one or the other. So that is. That is how
all the TVs that I've tested work. It's there's not
really a way that I know of, and I'm sure
there is, but I have not seen a way to say, like, hey,
come out of the speed and also come out of
this bluetooth you know, to these headphones. So that is

(20:05):
that is an issue. Can you both wear headphones? I
mean it's not ideal, but I know, Yeah. The only
thing I can think of is you could try.

Speaker 3 (20:18):
You could try.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
I'm trying to think like even with the streaming devices
I've tested, like they all basically as soon as you
put on those headphones, it mutes the sound on the TV.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
So did you what type of TV?

Speaker 7 (20:29):
Is this?

Speaker 4 (20:31):
LG?

Speaker 2 (20:31):
A brand new one, just a couple of months old,
and the one before then was a dumb TV. Okay,
it just didn't have any kind of Is there any
type of cake ability like that at all?

Speaker 1 (20:44):
I'm trying to think if there is a way. Have
you looked in all the settings?

Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yes? And I went through it and I couldn't find
where it said play both of them. And the sound
quality coming out of the bluetooth wasn't that great going
to my shocks, you know, my earbuds right right. And
I was wondering if they sold something like a little

(21:12):
box that would you know, make it transmit both ways
or something like that, or a sound bar that would
play the music through the sound bar and through the bluetooth.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
Yeah, That's That's what I'm thinking, is you might need
some third party hardware here that basically takes the audio
from the TV, like maybe use like the optical output
or some sort of output, and then it brings it
into another device and then that device will do both
a speaker. I mean, look, at the end of the day,
there are ways of doing this. It's just how much
effort do you want to put into it and how

(21:45):
much you want to spend to do it. Like you
can obviously route audio in a million different ways. You know,
you can get an audio mixing board and do this
in a heartbeat. But it's like, you know, how much
effort do you want to put in how tough do
you want it to be when you try on your
TV to get this sound in two different places? And
is it going to two different places every time? Is
it just sometimes? But I'd have to look at the
equipment that you'd need. I'm looking online to see if

(22:08):
there's any you know, if there's anything that like would
work here. It's there's an article I'm looking at that
is using some sort of like a transmitter with a
pass through functionality, and so that transmitter would transmit to
both the headphones and then the sound system and you
would basically set up with a splitter to get that

(22:29):
audio to both places. But then you know, there's a
lot of things. It's it's kind of involved. So I
have to look at this and see I would I
would take another look. I'm also looking at lgtvs, and
there the simultaneous use of the sound out, and some
articles do say that you're able to do both at
the same time. There's it says some of them say

(22:49):
there's an option for TV speaker plus headphones. But I'm
I'm you know, I don't have an LGTV in front
of me, so I can't verify that. So I'm looking
I'm looking under Okay. So it's saying that's it could
be under the accessibility settings.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
So have you looked under those?

Speaker 2 (23:10):
I went through most of the stuff when I first
set up the television, trying to figure out how to
do it, and yeah, the only thing I could do
is get it to play you or I figured it
would be in a and another piece of equipment that
would do the job. They used to advertise something like
that on TV a hundred years ago.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
Or the TV years.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
The guy.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Could be yeah, yeah, I mean that's that. I'm looking
at this.

Speaker 3 (23:38):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (23:38):
So here's uh, okay, so you've got TV ears, I'm
looking at those to see what their system does. So
digital connectivity in room technology, so that means only works
in the room, and let's see doctors recommend TV ears
digital comes with both.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
Okay, so it works with digital.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
So here's the question, can you set great volume control
from TV? So it looks so it looks like they
have one person wearing these and the other person listening
to the TV. So this might be something you can
look into because it looks like it comes a little transmitter,
let's see. But I'm trying to see if you can
both listen at the same time. That's the thing, Okay, Now,

(24:19):
see tv ars allows you to move around, mute the
television and delivers a sound directly to your ears without interruption.
But you want both at the same time. So yeah,
So anyway, I'd have to look into this more, but
it sounds like something that can be done. It's just
a matter of the equipment you need, and I'd have
to look at the equipment to recommend.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
But it's a good question. Mark.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
I think I'm gonna have to address it on the
next show. But keep, you know, keep looking at those
settings and see if they're on there and see if
it's something that you might be able to set up
on this TV without any extra equipment. But it is
one of those things that I get it you know,
someone wants to listen to the speakers and you want
to listen to the headphones. It makes sense, right, and
it's it's doable. It's just a little bit trickier than

(25:04):
you know than at first glance. Thanks for the call today, Mark.
We appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Thank you for your help.

Speaker 8 (25:09):
All right.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yes, one of those things where you know, not everything
is going to be as straightforward as just setting it
up and going into the settings and finding that. But
it's it's you know, there's different people that need different
setups and it can be done. Believe me, it can
always be done. It's just like I said, how tricky
do you want it? Do you want this situation to be?

(25:32):
You know, Mark, he's still there?

Speaker 9 (25:36):
You are?

Speaker 6 (25:36):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (25:37):
All right?

Speaker 1 (25:37):
So this happened a couple of weeks ago. Clearly the
mute button on my phone is not working. How ironic
in this, you know, as a question like this, But
there's a button. Okay, let's see now if I do that.
Are you still there?

Speaker 2 (25:49):
Mark?

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Okay, he's still there? This is hilarious. Okay, So this
was happening a couple of weeks ago. Are you still
there now?

Speaker 3 (25:57):
Oh my gosh? Okay, let's try this out. Okay, now
how about now? Oh now he's gone? How mean? Okay?
So anyway, now things change?

Speaker 10 (26:11):
Is that what you wanted to do or you wanted
to put him more hold?

Speaker 1 (26:14):
I usually like to put people on hold, so it's
not just an abrupt like dial tone because then they
can hear me. All right, that's the one above it. Okay,
well it's just they're not working right now. But anyway,
maybe it's Yeah. Anyway, Bobo, since you're on the mic,
do we have a minute to talk?

Speaker 5 (26:29):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Okay, So first off, welcome back, congratulations.

Speaker 10 (26:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
You have a new baby boy. Tell us about tell
us his name? Can you want?

Speaker 11 (26:39):
His name is Casein. I will tell you his name.
His name is Casein. He is a month and a half.

Speaker 3 (26:45):
And how's it going?

Speaker 5 (26:45):
It is?

Speaker 11 (26:46):
It is an adjustment after twenty one years of a
break from baby life.

Speaker 10 (26:51):
It's an adjustment. But I'm incredibly happy.

Speaker 11 (26:54):
He's a handsome little kid doing all the things that
he needs to do, you know, cry for us to
serve him when he needs So it's an amazing experience.

Speaker 10 (27:04):
Man, I'm happy.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
And how's your wife doing.

Speaker 11 (27:07):
She's great, she's amazing, she's still recovering. But she's at
the house, you know, with him.

Speaker 10 (27:13):
Well, I'm here.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
With you, so you're in the thick of it, changing diapers,
making bottles, making up in the middle of the night,
all that good stuff.

Speaker 10 (27:21):
Not sleeping a solid four hours without him fussing.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Yeah, are you using any technology TV?

Speaker 11 (27:27):
Because he likes the lights, so when the TV's on,
especially anime for some reason, heating it, maybe because it's me.
If he sees cartoons on TV, he just locks in
and he's just like.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Oh, look, colors and stuff. Yeah, Oh my gosh, I
remember those days. Bubble guppies and Mickey Mouse play Clubhouse.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
That was it.

Speaker 11 (27:45):
Now, I will say the phone that you gave him,
he saw it and won't stop looking at it.

Speaker 10 (27:51):
But he doesn't grasp of holding yet.

Speaker 11 (27:54):
So I'm waiting for him to understand how to hold
something so I can give it to him and see
what he does with it.

Speaker 1 (27:58):
I gave Bobo Baby's first cell phone. Yeah, so it's
not a real cell phone. No, I'm not that crazy,
but here was fun. All right, Well, congratulations, I know
you're thankful this holiday season. Maybe first Christmas is going
to be very fun. Eighty to eight rich one oh
one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
zero one. That's the phone line to call if you

(28:19):
want to get in. Let's do a question from We
got a very quick Okay, let's do a question from.
Patricia wrote in from whole Massachusetts. I donated to a
political organization during the last election cycle. It's ever since
it's been a total nightmare. I'm getting at least fifty
texts a day from them. I even tried paying a
service to help scrub my information that turned out to

(28:41):
be a fraud. It's reached the point of harassment. I
only contributed once in twenty twenty four. Now I can't
get off their list. Is there a way to make
these stop? Patricia? The number one way is to reply
stop to the messages. If it is a legitimate organization,
this is a law where they have to honor that
opt out request. So try responding stop and if you

(29:02):
get an automated message back, that is a good sign.
If you're not getting automated messages back immediately, that means
that this is much scammier and it's going to be
a lot tougher to stop these. So you might need
to report junk on your smartphone or forward the text
to seven seven two six, which is spammed eighty eight
rich one oh one eighty eight seven four to two

(29:23):
four to one zero one more rich on Tech after
this welcome back to rich on Tech. Nick is thankful
for his family, close friends, his cat Zoe, and his health.
Connie wrote in to say she's thankful for her son,
her job and waking up each day. That's a good one.
And Noel is thankful for her family and for another day.

(29:46):
So if you want to submit what you are thankful for,
just go to my Instagram at rich on Tech Larry
and San Clement. He says he might have a solution
for the headset issue.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
What is it?

Speaker 12 (29:56):
Hi, rich Hey, I have the exact same problem, and
I saw with a product called a vent tree Oprah
a Vaudree.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Oh that's the website I was on. Okay, that's the
one that they were They were explaining how to do this. Okay,
So it's how much is this product?

Speaker 12 (30:13):
It's not cheap, it's in the one hundred and fifty
to two hundred bucks, but it works perfectly. Because I'm
my hearing's not great and my wife hates it when
this thing gets turned up. So the audio input goes
into this device. It's then then to the to the

(30:34):
headset that that volume is controllable. Then there's a pass
through that goes from the device into the sound bar,
and Marcia can control hers independently of my headset. It
works beautifully, Okay.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
And what's the what's the name of the PRODUCTY And
I see the I see the website.

Speaker 12 (30:53):
I the last time I bought it was called Opera
Opera Music Opera.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
Hmm, okay, I'm looking.

Speaker 12 (30:58):
At they have five or six different kinds.

Speaker 9 (31:02):
Uh.

Speaker 12 (31:02):
Some of them are just devices, some are devices plus headsets.
But they it worked like arm.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Okay, so, but the website is a vantry dot com.
I'll link it up on our website. And yes, they
seem to have almost all of the products for this
very solution. Like they they just have a million different ways.
And by the way, it's not just for consumers. They've
got like professional they're just basically like an audio solutions company.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
And so they've got a whole bunch of stuff.

Speaker 12 (31:30):
And and I went through exactly what you were talking about.
I tried, oh, multiple tuners, I tried different uh, you know,
all kinds of things and one of the issues is
you need something that is low latency, so that it's
the lip sync is.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
Okay, right, and that's the thing.

Speaker 12 (31:47):
Yeah, Aventre uses this technology called something like low latency,
so you know, the lip sinc Is exact for both
me and my wife. It's it's and it's it also
has long range, right, you know, most Bluetooth is like
thirty three feet. This thing can go two hundred two, okay.

Speaker 1 (32:10):
And right on their website it says frequently asked questions,
can my TV speakers work at the same time?

Speaker 3 (32:15):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Over Oh interesting, Over seventy percent of TVs allow simultaneous
headphone and speaker output.

Speaker 3 (32:21):
That's interesting. But yeah, you're right, you need the latency.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
But this is like, like you said, this is a
company that is focused fully on these kind of solutions
for what Mark was talking about.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
So I'm going to link this up on the website.

Speaker 12 (32:35):
Right, And and I did look at the the TV ears,
but that's very low quality. That's not even SD quality.
This stuff is sort of HD quality. I mean you
really get a very very nice found the note and
the they're over the here, so it cuts out you know,

(32:55):
ambient noise in the in the literal. I mean it's
the first solution.

Speaker 3 (33:00):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Well, I love to hear from someone that actually is
using it. So thanks for that, Larry, appreciate it. How
is uh San Clementy today?

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Was it foggy in the morning a little bit?

Speaker 12 (33:09):
But it's beautiful. We're living the beautiful life. So I
called you once before from Macula and we moved here
and we're just couldn't be more than life.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
Oh, it is a It is a beautiful area.

Speaker 1 (33:19):
I went to a wedding there once and uh, actually
there's a restaurant there south of Knicks.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
Have you heard of it?

Speaker 5 (33:25):
Oh?

Speaker 12 (33:25):
Yeah, we go to there to go there and his
original restaurant Nick all the time.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
Okay, so he's got Nixon south of Knicks. And I
like the butter cake there. That that stuff is. Oh
my gosh, that is some good good stuff.

Speaker 12 (33:37):
Great well, Chris, thank you so much. I listen every weekend.
Love all of your advice. Go through the newsletter. I mean,
I'm all in.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
All right, Well, I love to hear it. Larry, thank you.
Have a happy holiday.

Speaker 12 (33:47):
Okay, you do the thing, take care, thank you?

Speaker 1 (33:49):
All right, there you have it, all right, I'll put
that on the website of Van Tree A V A
N T R EE. And yeah, they've they have all
kinds of I mean there's even like a that they
got an airplane adapter. I mean they've got everything so
long range adapter, they've they've got so many accessorieson it
looks like this is a company that sort of engineered
all of this stuff to solve the problems that people

(34:12):
have with this. With the audio, let's go to Joe
in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Joe, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 4 (34:20):
Yes can you hear me?

Speaker 3 (34:21):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (34:22):
Okay, I'm a Samsung A sixteen phone and what Verizon
I swear on five G? This thing only has a
range of about forty eight hundred feet, aren't they self
on tower's supposed to go at least three or four
or five miles?

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Good question? Now, what do you mean you only have
a range?

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Like you mean it flips into four G when you
get far from the tower or what.

Speaker 4 (34:47):
Well it tries to it's just dead after less than
a mile and you can say the tower too.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
Well, here's the deal.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
So five G is the is the new And I'm
not an expert in four G five G, but from
what I understand. And five G obviously is a new protocol,
and it's it's better because it can be way faster
than four G. And there's different bands of five G.
So five G is actually divided up into three different types,
which is like a low band, a mid band, and

(35:15):
a high band. So my favorite is actually what Verizon offers,
which they call it millimeter wave. And so when you
get that five G high band in a place like
a sports stadium or if you're in the main area,
it is so fast you cannot believe it, like you're
talking speeds of like a gig or faster. But the
problem is you really need line of sight for these

(35:37):
for these for these signals to work the super high
end five G. So the companies use a combination of things.
So in general, four G the signal travels way longer
and it goes through buildings a lot easier. Five G
your signal is going to be a lot faster, but
there are many more considerations on that signal and how

(35:58):
it's set up. So if you're talking the super fast
speeds of five G, those don't travel very far at all,
like we're talking, you know, could be one thousand feet
if you're talking the midband on five G, you might
just have a couple miles and that's kind of the
sweet spot.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
But then if you're talking.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
The low band, that is a lot slower, much slower speeds,
but those signals travel way further. So you can imagine
if you're a cell company, you are trying to figure
out which one of these bands to put in different
places so that you can tap, you know, help your
customers out in the best way. So if you're in
a rural area, you probably want that low band because

(36:34):
it's going to cover a wider range in that five G.
But yes, I would say in general, five g's not
typically going to reach as far as a four G
signal in many places, but you know, five g's pretty
much everywhere. Now, thanks for the call today, appreciate it.
Eighty to eight Rich one O one eight eight eight
seven four to two four one zero one.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at
triple A. Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two four one zero one. Welcome to another
hour of the show. We are talking about what people
are thankful for. I ask people on my social media
at rich on Tech, on Instagram, and Facebook what they're
thankful for. Karen wrote in and said she's thankful for family,

(37:19):
good health, a home, and her fur baby. Carol is
thankful for her new husband. Joanne is thankful for waking
up every day, and Debbie is thankful she'll be celebrating
Christmas Christmas with family next month? So is that January?

Speaker 3 (37:37):
I guess? So let's see what else?

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Oh, this week, you got to check out my Is
it on Instagram?

Speaker 8 (37:43):
Yet?

Speaker 1 (37:43):
It's on Instagram? At rich On Tech. I went through
the drive through and my order number. You would not
believe what it was. My kids were in the car
with me, and you know this whole six seven trend,
Well that was part of my order number. But the
first two letters were really surprising. Did you see this?

Speaker 5 (38:03):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (38:04):
Can I use the phonetic like the the military to
say like fox trot?

Speaker 5 (38:10):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (38:10):
What's the other one? Umbrella?

Speaker 7 (38:11):
Maybe?

Speaker 5 (38:12):
Yeah? It is?

Speaker 3 (38:13):
So is fox trot.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Umbrella six seven? And I had to say that except
just the initials.

Speaker 11 (38:20):
You looked so happy to do it though, like a
little giddy ol boy.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
But I didn't know, Like I was like, Okay, this
person is just gonna erupt at me the order taker,
like they're just gonna like and no reaction whatsoever from them.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
Yeah, none at all. That was what was funny about it.

Speaker 1 (38:35):
You were so like giddy, well because I couldn't believe
I just say that out loud, and this part, I'm like,
what is the reaction going to be from this person?

Speaker 4 (38:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (38:43):
So, and then my kids, you know, they're like, you
gotta post this, you gotta post this, you gotta post this.
I'm like, I don't know if I can post it,
Like it's kind.

Speaker 3 (38:48):
Of mean what I'm saying.

Speaker 10 (38:49):
No, it's not. Actually, you can't control the order number
you got.

Speaker 11 (38:53):
Nobody told them to pick two uh alphabets and then
two numerical numbers or.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
So that were just like I and so I actually
I never played the lottery. I've only played it like
maybe once in my life. And I went out and
I bought a lottery ticket that night because but you
didn't win. I didn't win, obviously, but I didn't even
know how to play the lottery. I go to the
I went to like a little like liquor store and
I'm like, hey, five bucks for the lottery. The guys like,
you can't do five dollars. I'm like, what do you
mean two bucks each? See you know, because I play,

(39:20):
I didn't know. So he's like, you could do two
four six. I'm like, what do you mean by that?

Speaker 10 (39:24):
That's the power ball. The mega is five bucks a ticket.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Five dollars for one ticket one number, yeah, for one number,
like one number one?

Speaker 10 (39:32):
Okay for one yeah?

Speaker 3 (39:33):
Now do you pick your numbers or do you you
let them go?

Speaker 10 (39:36):
It depends on how much I'm spending.

Speaker 11 (39:38):
If I do twenty, I'll spend ten dollars on my
own picks and then five one quick picks.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Okay, quick picks. There you see we're learning stuff. Let's
go to a sound so boogie. Let's go to Tristan
in Silmar. Tristan, you're on with Rich.

Speaker 8 (39:56):
Hey, Rich, this is Tristan. I'm just the obvious video editor.

Speaker 3 (40:01):
Tristan.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
We're really having some trouble with your connection. I'm hearing
a lot of crackling, So.

Speaker 8 (40:06):
How about now?

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Nope, still there, but keep going.

Speaker 10 (40:09):
Okay.

Speaker 8 (40:10):
I'm just the hobbyist video editor and I work on
a PC. And I chose the PC because I know
there's a lot of programs that go well with PC
and Max not so much, just that they want to
do more.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, you gotta try call
them back because this is this connection is just going
to drive people nuts in their car. So well, let's
come back to you. Tristan calls back and.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Uh, we'll see. Let me see if I can do this.
Let's see.

Speaker 1 (40:36):
Okay, So calls back and let's see if we can
get a better connection there. Let's go to Joe in
Los Angeles. Joe, You're on with rich.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Ry Rich Hi, one time, first time.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Caller, Nice, Welcome.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
I have a question.

Speaker 13 (40:49):
I have a damn sung S twenty four Ultra, and
I drive a truck for my job as a living nice,
and I have a Bluetooth head set, and so I
have I have my my phone connected to the car
Bluetooth as audio only, okay, and my headset as calls only.

(41:14):
My understanding is I could do audio with my phone
to multiple speakers at the same time to play the
same audio correct. But I'm wondering.

Speaker 7 (41:23):
If I'm able to do a phone call on my
phone and added stream iHeartRadio to the car at the
same time if I'm out of the AM range.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yes, because you're on the magical device, which is the Samsung.
So this this has a great feature that you've probably
never ever noticed, and it's called separate app sound.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
Have you heard of that?

Speaker 13 (41:50):
I might have actually my research, but I don't think
I was able to figure out how to functioned it.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Okay, So what you're talking about. The first thing is
the multi speakers. That's something called Aura Cast, which I
believe is also built into the Samsung. But that's if
you want to let's say you want three you have
three different Bluetooth speakers, and you want them all be
connected to your phone at the same time and like
broadcast the same signal. You can do that with a
feature called our Cast, and I believe that's supported by

(42:18):
Samsung as well.

Speaker 7 (42:19):
I know.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah, okay, but that's not what you're talking about. You
want to actually separate the audio. And I actually do
this on a regular basis in my car because I'll
tell you what's happening. So if I'm in my car
and I'm stopped and I'm listening to music, then I
want to watch something on my phone. What happens is
it wants to send that audio from whatever I'm watching
to the Bluetooth on my car, but I'm not in

(42:42):
Bluetooth on my car. I'm listening to music, so I
want that audio to play on my phone itself. So
what I do is I call it's called Separate App Sound.
And so if you go into your settings under Sounds
and Vibration, you'll see Separate App Sound listed and you
can turn it on and then it tells you which
app and which audio device you want to use. So

(43:05):
you go through your apps and let's see here. So
if we go through our apps, you can send certain
audio from your app to the speakers or to the
you know, just however you want it to go.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
You could your base. It's like basically an audio router.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
So that's the that's the setting I would look in
to see if you can if you can do that.
Now here's the trick, because you're talking about audio, Bluetooth
audio right like from your phone, uh and also to
the well you're talking about two things. You're talking audio
from an app, which I know you can do. But
then you're talking about you want the Bluetooth headset to

(43:40):
always connect, you know, to your headset and not the car,
So that you're gonna have to just take a look
and see if it allows you to do that, because
I know you can separate out app sounds. Like let's
say you want anytime you play music from uh TikTok
to go to your Bluetooth speaker, you can set it
to always do that. And then let's say every time
you have app music from your iHeartRadio app to go

(44:03):
to your car's bluetooth, you.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Can do that.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
So it's really like it's kind of like a little router.
But you have to see if it'll allow you to
do that with your phone audio because that's kind of
a separate thing. I have not done it for that,
so you have to check to see if it's available
for that. But it may or may not allow you
to do that. So that's the place to look. Though
it's called separate app sound. It is in your settings
under sounds and vibration. And let me just tell you,

(44:28):
I mean, this is one of the things. This is
one of the reasons why people love the Samsungs over
some of the other devices out there, like the one
that rhymes with iPhone, is because they give you so
many options. Now, I will tell you I think Apple
in the past year or two has gotten a whole
lot better with their options on things like it used
to be just Apple stuff. You can do Apple stuff with.

(44:49):
I think they've gotten a lot better by adding things
like the camera control button and the live activities and
the action button on the side, but they still limit
you in a lot of ways and on some of
that security reasons, but a lot of it is just
like Apple takes a little bit longer to add some
of these things, whereas Samsung they just give it you
all like right away, like they're just like, hey, we're
giving you like a thousand features.

Speaker 3 (45:10):
You're gonna buy this phone.

Speaker 1 (45:11):
You may not even figure out these features in the
time you have this phone, but when you need them.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
They're there.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
And so that's what a lot of people love about
the Samsung and Android side of things is that for
many years it has been way more customizable and it
works the way you want to work versus the way
people in Cooper Tino say, we would like your phone
to work this way. Samsung, you can change almost any
aspect of your device with a software download, with a

(45:37):
tweak with stuff like that. So that's why this week's
gadget of the Week is the Meta ray Ban glasses.
I'm gonna call them the gadget of the year because
they are just so amazing.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
I love them.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
Not only can you take pictures on them, but you
can also listen to your audio, you can take calls.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Let's see what else can you do.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
They're adding a new feature this week called Conversation Focus,
So it almost turns these metaglasses into makeshift hearing assistance
in noisy places. So they're using the microphone to listen
to the person that you're talking to, and then it
basically pipes that audio into your ears. Now, these are
open ear speakers, so you can still hear everything around you,

(46:18):
but it kind of amplifies the person's voice that you're
talking to. That is just amazing and the fact that
they just added that overnight to these glasses. So I'm
gonna call the Meta ray bands the gadget of the
year because they just do so much stuff.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
I love them. I've relied on them now.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
For months, and I just think they keep getting better
and better, and this is rolling out to early access
users and I just think it keeps making these gadgets better.
It's almost like the iPhone back in the day, where
they just kept adding new features, like software features that
transforms it.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
Now the metaglasses are getting that, so I really like that.
And they also have so many.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Great accessibility features. So if you're thinking of a gift,
I really really think these things are crowd pleaser. It's
a little weird because it gets into some gray areas
when you like, you know, you're at a stadium, you
go into the men's room, You're wearing these Glasses' like
you got a camera on your face.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Kind of weird. You know, you got to think about
that sometimes.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
But yeah, Gadget of the Week is sponsored by Shopback.
I got a message from Steve. He says, hey, Rich,
I love Shopback. I used it on a best buy
promo and got fifty dollars back on my Samsung TV.
That was so cool. Thanks so much. I love your show. Yes,
if you're still doing your holiday shopping, you gotta know
about shopback.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
I've been using it. I love it.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
It's not like any other cash back app, because I
know what you're thinking. They're clunky, they're complicated, They're not
worth the hassle. Shopback is completely different. It's the only
major app that actually works on Amazon. That means when
you're buying gifts, you can get cash backs. Don't tell anyone.
It's not complicated. You download it, you shop like you
typically do, and real cash will show up in your
PayPal account. It's not points, it's actual money. Right now,

(47:57):
they're running elevated holiday rates. You can check out the
website to see the latest and it works at all
the stores you're already shopping at, stores like Best Buy, Target, Walmart,
and their rates are three to ten times higher than competitors.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
And again, don't tell anyone.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
It stacks on top of any sale prices or any
promo codes or any coupons you might find. Set it
up once. It takes two minutes, then it runs automatically.
Go to a website it's supported. Boom, you're gonna get
your cash back. New users get a twenty dollars bonus
with my code rich on Tech. Twenty dollars bonus with
code rich on Tech. So go to shopback dot com

(48:32):
and use my code rich on Tech.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Five thousand stores. It actually works.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Coming up more of your calls eight eight eight rich
one on one eight eight eight seven four to two
four one zero one more.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Show right after this. Welcome back to rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Oh, we're reading what people are thankful for Marie is
thankful for another day of life in time with family.
Louise is thankful for her parents, family and health, while
but Bet is thankful for her grandchildren. All right, sounds
like Tristan's got a better connection Tristan and Silmar.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
What's up?

Speaker 4 (49:12):
Hey?

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Is my reception so much better? What'd you do?

Speaker 8 (49:15):
Okay? All I did was call back?

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Oh yeah, you know. Sometimes it happens.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
My wife will call me in the car and she beg,
you sound like a crazy robot, and I'm like, all right,
hang up, let's try again.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
It's just I don't know why it happens, but it does.

Speaker 8 (49:27):
I think I might have picked up a better signal
on a different tower or something. I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
Okay, cool, Well, what's up?

Speaker 8 (49:34):
So I do video editing, but just as a hobby,
And so I didn't get like the biggest Mac in
the world, you know, and I use a laptop. So
what I did was I bought an HP that at
the time, it was about a year and a half ago.
It has a rise in five with its own graphics card,
and it has sixty four megs of memory, so it's
got a lot of memory.

Speaker 3 (49:53):
Wow.

Speaker 8 (49:54):
Yeah, But my video editing is slew and even in
proxy mode, which you know, I don't down to seven
twenty T. It's just it's just slower than I think
it should be. So I ran across this video on
YouTube where a guy was explaining that Mac the reason,
one of the reasons they do so well is their codec,

(50:14):
the two sixty four and two sixty five codec. Their
their motherboards can decode those those instantly. As he has
an issue sometimes with one or the other that it
doesn't do it very well. Just wondering if that's my issue.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
It could be what type of video are you putting
into this computer? And what You're just doing this for fun?

Speaker 8 (50:39):
Yeah, it's just for fun, but it is four K
and I use different cameras Gopro's phone, my Apple phone,
or my Sony. So I'm not sure what algorithms these
guys are using differently.

Speaker 5 (50:51):
If that's part of it, well.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
I will tell you this. So I I edit on
a Mac.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
I've been editing on a Mac for forever, and I
will tell you that I have even a low powered
Mac right now, like I've got a MacBook Air, which
is you know, it's got the M three chip.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
It's not even the latest chip. I think they're up
to M five.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
It's got twenty four gigs of memory and I can
cut through four K video no problem, and I cut it.
I edit all my stuff on here for TV.

Speaker 8 (51:20):
Yeah, I wish I just would have.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
It doesn't even hiccup.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Now, I will tell you, because this is a MacBook Air,
it's definitely slower than my MacBook Pro. Like when I'm
exuporting it's it's definitely slower and importing. But I mean
I have even like the most basic Mac can edit
really well.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
And same goes for the iPhone.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
I mean, if you look at editing on the iPhone
versus sort of an Android, I mean it's much faster
on the on the iPhone. Now that could have to
do with Codex and things like that, but you know,
I think with the PCs. Now here's the flip side.
You know, at my TV station I work for, we
use PCs for editing. My editor uses a PC for editing.

(51:59):
But I will tell you he complains a lot. He
does complain that there there's a lot of compatibility issues.
There's a lot of things are slower, things that I
could drag and drop into my final cut, he has
to first render into a different format so that it
works smoothly. So I don't I think it can be done,
and I think plenty of people edit on PCs. But

(52:19):
if you're looking for like the least amount of headaches,
and you are coming you know, from video from popular
gadgets like you mentioned the iPhone and the GoPro, you know,
it's probably going to be an easier experience. But with
that said, I think that what's happening on yours with
that four K video that probably is a little bit
tough for that processor you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (52:38):
You said a rise in five maybe.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
Yeah, so you know that's on that's a mid grade,
that's a mid level processor, right, Like you want realistically
like something like a you know, I don't know, rise
in seven or nine right to get.

Speaker 8 (52:53):
Like a gaming computer almost right.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Right, So I guess it comes down to you is
really finding what program using to edit.

Speaker 8 (53:02):
I'm even using cap cut because it's faster than you know,
some of the more power hungry Premiere pros and stuff.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
I mean, I'm confused as to why it's so bad.
I mean, it shouldn't be that bad, especially with all
that memory. I mean it really shouldn't be. So are
you trying to do like simple things or is this
really complex edits?

Speaker 8 (53:22):
It could it could be that I'm getting more down
to detail stuff, and it could be that there's just
more it needs more performance.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
And is it during the edit or is it when
you're actually exporting.

Speaker 8 (53:35):
It's not exporting because I don't really I'm not in
a rush, so exporting can take forever. I don't care.
But it's during the edit.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
Interesting. I mean, I'm looking at the system.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
Let's see the system requirements for cap cut Windows ten,
Intel Core three or above.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
That's nothing.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Four gigs of RAM, Intel graphics like built in storage
two gigs. I mean, I'm surprised. I feel like, maybe
is there something else going on in this can couters
or some sort of like, uh, I don't know, anti
virus program or something that's running in the background. Have
you looked at the startup and saw what starts up
on this computer?

Speaker 8 (54:10):
I can. I can look into that for sure. I know,
like this last one it was my daughter's wedding. Yeah,
and it's it's almost a terabyte in data that it's
trying to process.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Okay, well, that is a lot that is a lot,
for sure, That is a lot. All right, I gotta run, Tristan.
They're playing me off here. But I think you should
be able to edit on this computer. I think you
might want to look into some settings and and just
see if you can hit that sweet spot where you
can actually smoothly edit on cap cut, because I think
that it's it's equipped enough to be able to handle that.

(54:40):
Coming up, we're going to talk how to protect your
account on Facebook right here on rich on Tech. Welcome
back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
with you, talking technology at triple eight rich one on one.
That's eight eight eight seven four to two four to
one zero one eight eight eight rich one on one.
You got a tech quot, give me a call. We're

(55:01):
happy to have you. Email is also an option. You
can go to the website it's rich on Tech dot TV.
Hit contact rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact.
Let's see here we are saying what people are thankful for.
It is the holiday season. I am amped up. We
had dinner with some friends last night, little holiday dinner,

(55:23):
so fun. It's just there's something about this season that
you know you've got to spend it with people that
you love, or at least people you like.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
You know.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
If you can't love just like you know, just do something.
But yeah, it's just it's cozy. Vicky is thankful for family, friends,
and her four grand babies. Elsa is thankful for her
family and her granddaughter and all the snow outside. I'm
just kidding, get it, Elsa.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Bobo is not listening. Susan is Oh you are.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
Susan is a thankful for good health after recent surgery.

Speaker 3 (56:03):
Thank you, Susan. That is you.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
You should be thankful for that. That is that is
great to hear. If you want to comment at richon
Tech on Instagram, if you've bought an app or a
power up on your Android phone in the last couple
of years, Google might owe you some cash. Google has
agreed to pay six hundred and thirty million dollars to
settle a massive antitrust lawsuit brought on by all fifty states.

(56:27):
The claim was that Google allegedly monopolized the Playstore and
forced people to pay too much for apps and and
app purchases. So, if you had an Android phone between
August sixteenth, twenty sixteen and September thirtieth, twenty twenty three,
and you made some sort of purchase on Google Play
or through an app you're in, and that's a lot
of people.

Speaker 3 (56:46):
You don't have to fill out a claim form.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
If you're eligible, you're going to get a payment via
email associated with your Playstore profile. Everyone is guaranteed at
least two dollars, but your payout could be hired depending
on how much you spent on apps and micro transactions.
So if you were spending a lot on all those
candy Crush in app purchases, yeah you can definitely you'll

(57:11):
probably be getting some more money here.

Speaker 3 (57:12):
All right.

Speaker 1 (57:12):
Final court hearing is set for April thirtieth, twenty twenty six,
so it's going to be a bit before you get
any of that. And one quick question I see our
guest is here. We'll get to our guests from a
meta in just a moment, but one quick question here
from Yvonne in Santa Monica. She says, I've heard you
talk about scanning old photos with a phone, but I'd
rather do this on my computer. I've got a scanner, printer,

(57:33):
copy or combo. I use I don't want a bunch
of pictures living on my phone. What's a reliable program
I should use for scanning photos on a computer, very simple.
Your your printer or your your printer combo comes with
a program. So if you have epsin, HP, Canon Brother,
they all have a companion app that you can download
for your computer. So for APSIN, it's called epsin Scan,

(57:55):
HP Scan, Canon Scan Utility Brother iPrint In Scan. So
go to the website of your all in one and
download that software and then it will find your printer
on your network and you'll be able to scan right
to your computer. Now, if you want something a little
bit different, or you maybe have an old scanner or
you can't find your software, there is a piece of

(58:16):
software called view Scan v U E s c A
N and they say they reverse engineered over seventy four
hundred different scanners and included the built in drivers so
you can keep using the scanner you already have. Now
it is a free trial so you can see if
your scanner works. You can try it out and then
it's let's see if you purchase it. It's about thirty

(58:36):
four bucks a year. That's again view Scan v U
E s C A N. And I'll put that all
on the website. Rich on tech Dot TV.

Speaker 5 (58:46):
All right.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
Joining me now is Kate Ross with Meta to talk
about their new centralized support hub so you can recover
your hacked account and keep all of your stuff secure.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
Kate, welcome to the show.

Speaker 14 (59:00):
Hey, thanks so much, Rich, good to see.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Yeah, okay, let's se why am I getting this?

Speaker 8 (59:06):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (59:06):
I got mute myself here? Well you think it's my
first day doing this? Feels I guess sometimes. Okay, So
let's talk about this Meta centralized support hub. So the
common questions I get people say their accounts have been hacked,
or they lose access because they've broken some terms of
service or something. Can you speak to those two things

(59:26):
or those what you see on your end?

Speaker 14 (59:29):
Yeah, So I think we definitely hear a lot of
frustration from folks whose accounts are hacked and they're not
able to get access. But to your point, also folks
that might have their accounts, you know, incorrectly removed. And
so we are working really hard to make sure that
we are getting this right. We're using AI to help
make these systems better and more efficient, and so I

(59:51):
do think that the centralized support hub is going to
be a huge support for people that are experiencing tons
of issues. So basically what we've done is we've responded
to feedback from folks that are just frustrated with how
hard it is to figure this out. There's so many
different tabs and tools, and I personally understand because I
feel the same way when I'm trying to make updates

(01:00:11):
to my accounts or help my family and friends.

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
Through this process as well.

Speaker 14 (01:00:15):
So what we are rolling out is a centralized hub
that will make it really easy to find everything that
you need to secure your account or update your settings.
It's all going to be in one place across Facebook
and Instagram so that you can access more quickly. It's
also going to include a search function that's powered by

(01:00:35):
AI to make sure that you're able to find what
you need faster. And I think what's really exciting too,
just to show that how we're expanding AI to support
some of this work, we're also testing a personalized messaging
system within Facebook that you can actually work with this
AI tool to understand directly what's going on with your account,

(01:00:55):
how to get quick personalized advice. So I think that's
the type of tool, rules personalized quick that you're going
to start seeing us rollout as its technology just gets
more efficient.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Okay, so I'm looking at the website.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
It's Meta dot com, and you can tell me if
there's a shorter way to get here. But it's Meta
dot com, Slash Account, Dash Recovery, dash support, So I'm
not sure if there's like a short link, but that's
that's where you can access it. Meta dot Com, Slash Account,
Dash Recovery, Slash or Dash support. And you go there
and it's got all the main things people always ask me,

(01:01:28):
like my Facebook account was hacked, my Messenger account, I
can't access the email or mobile number on my Messenger account,
my Instagram was hacked, I can't access my email. And
then at the bottom, oh, here it is I was
banned from one or more platforms. So all of these
common questions are front and center, and so you can
go there and click and see what's happening and understand

(01:01:49):
how to get regain access or you fix your account
whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
So it's pretty smart.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
And you've said that this has helped reduce issues by
like thirty percent already.

Speaker 14 (01:02:00):
Yeah, so that specifically, the thirty percent number is related
to accounts that are kind of incorrectly removed, and so
that's just an example of how as our systems get better,
we're going to be making less mistakes. But on the
other side, we do also want to improve the time
to remedy these mistakes. So that's why you're seeing kind

(01:02:23):
of quicker resolution rates as well. So if you do
file one of these appeal processes, we're working to make
sure that those issues are resolved even more quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:02:33):
And I mean when people get their account blocked, right
Like let's say, let's say you're just a regular Instagram user,
all of a sudden, you wake up and this happened
to me, by the way, where you just wake up
and it's like, sorry, you you know you did something
wrong in your account, you broke some rule, and now
we're banning you within like ninety days unless you appeal.
What can you tell people when they see that message, Like,

(01:02:53):
I know they freak out instantly because you know this
is their lives. Can you get the help and recover
you need in that situation if you really didn't do
something wrong.

Speaker 14 (01:03:02):
Absolutely, yeah, I would say definitely go through that appeals process.
We are using AI tools to help kind of get
those solutions resolved way more quickly, and I think those
times will improve over time as well as the technology improves.
And then also I would say, you know, one of
the big reasons too that we do see some people

(01:03:24):
have their accounts incorrectly flagged is because it's been hacked.
So you might have someone that's incorrectly accessed your account
and is maybe doing things that really do violate our policies,
but that isn't you as the user. So I would
say on the front end, another way that you can
kind of prevent this moving forward is making sure that
you're doing what you can to protect your accounts. So
I would say, definitely go through our security check process,

(01:03:47):
turn on things like two factor authentication. Just make sure
that you're really doing what you can to make sure
that bad actors can't access your account, because that is
one of the main reasons that folks might get these
messages and be used why their accounts have come down.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
Yeah, and I am in the past keys are are
coming up, and it's interesting because past keys make the
logins a lot easier and it obviously very secure, but
I think people have been hesitant to set them up
because not everyone understands exactly what that's all about. But
they are easy to set up once you have a
password manager. It's quite easy actually, so definitely don't be
scared of the past key. Like, even if you set

(01:04:23):
it up, you can still log in your other ways.
It's just one more option. But the two factor for sure.
You know, I've been preaching about that forever. You've got
to set that up on your accounts. You have to.
It's like a it's just a non starter, especially for
these Facebook and Instagram accounts because we do so much here.
The other thing is how do people get hacked? I mean,

(01:04:44):
like what is happening there? Because like people say, oh,
I was hacked? Is there someone that's literally I mean,
I'm sure there aren't some instances someone trying to get
into someone's account, But isn't most of the time you're
like kind of tricked into giving up your account.

Speaker 5 (01:04:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 14 (01:04:57):
Absolutely, I mean I think you can think you can
imagine things like maybe you're using a really simple password,
or you know the same password for all of your things, right,
or you know, you're someone might send you a phishing
request and you might think that you're logging into a
correct website, but you put in your credentials and it's
actually a bad actor that's harvesting that information. So it's

(01:05:19):
really important that you're super vigilant when you're sharing information online.
Definitely always check like ur L links, make sure that
they're legitimate, make sure it's a place maybe that you've
typed in directly sometimes as opposed to clicking links and emails,
and just be really thoughtful if you if you are
at all hesitant, were concerned, maybe call someone, log out,

(01:05:39):
log back in, just double check. Because these bad actors
are getting really really sophisticated. And while AI is helping
you know, us to catch bad actors more quickly, it's
also you know, it's tools that that these bad actors
are using to make their stuff seem more legitimate.

Speaker 10 (01:05:56):
So it's just important to be vigilant.

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
All right, There you have it from Kate Ross, Meta spokesperson.
Appreciate you coming on the show today.

Speaker 5 (01:06:02):
Awesome, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
All right again. The website, you gotta check it out.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
It's the account Metta's account Recovery hub. So if you
have some problems with Instagram, threads, Meta, Facebook, any of
those accounts, you can go here and get help for
a variety of issues.

Speaker 3 (01:06:18):
I'll put the link on my website.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
Rich on tech dot TV eighty eight rich one O
zero one back after this, Welcome back to rich on tech.
You didn't think I could play all Christmas songs without
at least one Honkah song. I mean, maybe this isn't
the best honkkah song, but it's you know, it's it's.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Adam sim It's Adam Sandler.

Speaker 9 (01:06:43):
Come.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
I mean, this song has just done you know, bananas
over the years. So welcome back to the show. Eighty
to eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
four to two for one zero one. The website for
the show is rich on tech dot TV. This week,
Texas said they are suing the world's biggest TV brands,

(01:07:06):
saying that their smart TVs are a mass surveillance system
disguised as a flat screen. So they're suing Samsung, LG,
Sony High Sense in TCL saying they're spying on users
through their smart TVs without any real consent. The lawsuit
is all about this ACR technology, which we've talked about.

(01:07:28):
It basically scans your screen and they say it takes
a snapshot of your TV every five hundred milliseconds to
monitor what you're watching in real time. And by the way,
it monitors everything that goes on the screen, so it's
not just like cable TV. It's not just like ratings
on TV. It is Netflix, gaming consoles, Blu ray players,

(01:07:49):
anything that comes across that screen can be scanned and
then sent back for advertising and they kind of figure
out what's happening on your TV. And apparently they sell
all this stuff for big profits, which we know now.
If you remember, back in I think it was twenty seventeen,
Visio settled a big you know, they had a big

(01:08:11):
settlement with the FTC over this, saying that they spied
on people, and that was kind of a turning point
for Visio in general because a lot of people didn't
know that this was happening. Now I think people are
a little bit more aware of it. And the companies
claim that this is all opt in, but the problem is,
like most things, they don't make it easy to opt out,

(01:08:32):
and they don't make it easy to find the setting,
and most people don't even think about this setting. So
if you have a new TV, don't just agree to
everything that you see on the menu as you're setting
up that TV.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
So if you want to change this.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
Look for something called automatic content recognition in the settings
Viewing information services, interest based ads. Let's see what else
do they call it here? Let's see viewing. I mean,
every TV has a different way of doing this, So
smart TV experience that's what high Sense calls it. So

(01:09:10):
no matter what TV you have, go through your settings,
go through the privacy settings and look for anything that
is related to advertising or smart TV settings that have
to do with a personalized experience, because all that means
is that they are scanning the stuff that's happening on
your screen so that they can aggregate that data and

(01:09:33):
sell it and make a lot of money.

Speaker 3 (01:09:34):
Now you've already paid for your TV.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Why should you be supporting these companies with your viewing habits?
Why there's no reason to do that. Let's see here
what else we got. We got so many emails from people.
I'm trying to see if we got through. Let's get
through some of the other stories this week before we
get to more calls.

Speaker 3 (01:09:53):
Here.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
Instagram in your living room This week, I was testing
Instagram on TV. They have a new app for the
Fire TV, and I'll be honest, I downloaded it and
I sat there and I watched Instagram reels for like
twenty minutes, and I noticed the difference is when you're
watching video on your TV, you kind of sit back

(01:10:16):
and relax and watch more of the video.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
And that's probably exactly why they're doing this now.

Speaker 1 (01:10:22):
If you remember, back in the day, a vertical video
on a TV, nobody would stand for that because the
TV is horizontal. You've got this giant, big screen in
your living room and you're watching a tiny sliver of
video down the middle. Well, now people don't care because
that's how we consume a lot of our videos, and
so no problem. You can have Instagram on your TV
and sit there and enjoy it, just like you might

(01:10:43):
enjoy a TV show that costs millions of dollars to
make in her horizontal format. But I noticed that I
was spending more time watching the reels, I was engaging
with them more, and I just overall thought it was
pretty cool because on my phone, my finger is little
early sitting there ready to flip to the next reel,
But when you're watching on TV, that's not the case

(01:11:06):
because you're on your couch.

Speaker 3 (01:11:08):
So anyway, check it out.

Speaker 1 (01:11:09):
Instagram for TV is available now on Fire TV sticks.
I do want to take a moment for something a
little bit more personal and important. We did lose someone
in the tech community this week, Lamar Wilson. Lamar was
a creator, a YouTuber, and someone many people knew for
his joy If you watched his videos speaking of reels

(01:11:32):
and Instagram, he was on there. He was always smiling,
opening up gadgets, talking about gaming, talking about all the
latest tech stuff, and of course trying the latest flavors
of oreos. All that energy was real and it came
through in everything he did. He was such a pro.
A couple of years ago, Lamar and I had lunch.
We talked about the business, the creator economy, our early

(01:11:55):
days in tech. We both sold electronics back in the day,
and he made he was making this shift from long
form YouTube videos and he said, I'm gonna try this thing.
I'm gonna do short form content like reels like all
in before it was popular like it is now everyone
does reels, But back then it was like it was
a chance he was taking. Now, we didn't see each

(01:12:15):
other in person, but we did text a lot, especially
after my car accident.

Speaker 3 (01:12:18):
He was checking in on me.

Speaker 1 (01:12:19):
This was just a couple of months ago making sure
I was okay, and as it turns out, he was
the one who needed checking in on. So remember, no
matter how someone looks on the outside, you don't always
know what is happening on the inside. Especially when it
comes to social media, it is so one sided. You
can see people's joy, you can see their highlights, their successes,

(01:12:39):
but they can still be struggling off camera. So please,
my word to you today, check in on your friends.
Don't just give him the likes, the comments and text messages,
but spend real time together, in real life when you can.
Lamar and I were always saying, oh, we should got together,
We should get together. You got to get together. Ask
how they're doing, Really understand how your friend doing. Let

(01:13:00):
them know how important they are to you. Everyone in
this world has value. Rest in peace, Lamar Wilson. Welcome
back to rich On Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out
with you talking technology at Triple A rich one oh

(01:13:21):
zero one. What a fun holiday show we've had so far.
And this is one of my all time favorite songs
from one of my all time favorite movies, Christmas Vacation.
I have not watched it yet this year, but I
definitely it's been a tradition in my life and my
family forever. I mean, I've been watching this movie since

(01:13:45):
I was a kid. Practically. What year did it come out?
Christmas Vacation nineteen eighty nine. Oh my gosh. My wife
actually visited the set. She grew up in Los Angeles
and visited the set of Christmas Vacation, and I think
they were they were filming the scene with like Ruby
Sue and a little kid, and my wife was like,

(01:14:07):
I was so jealous of her. You know, this little
actress gets to be in this movie. They were like
the same age. I guess, I don't know, never seen it?
What where's that buzzer sound? Never seen Christmas Vacation?

Speaker 3 (01:14:22):
All right?

Speaker 1 (01:14:22):
So what you have to do when you get home,
sit down with your little little guy, make it the
new tradition.

Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
How old does he know? He's what? A month and
a half A perfect time to start.

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
Really got to start those those traditions early, Bobo. But
it's it's funny. I mean, I don't know, see, for me,
it's not necessarily about the movie. It's about what we
did with my family.

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
So it's like you know.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
I'm sure you have something like a tradition that you've done,
whether it's like making like cookies.

Speaker 3 (01:14:49):
Or you know, whatever it is.

Speaker 11 (01:14:50):
There's a movie, uh now, I can't even think of
the name of it, and it escaped my mind.

Speaker 10 (01:14:56):
Originally was in black and white. They remade it in color.
Was the movie.

Speaker 3 (01:15:00):
It's a Wonderful life, wonderful life.

Speaker 11 (01:15:01):
Okay, yeah, you watch that every scene now, ye see.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
I'll be honest.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
Carrey Grinch though, Okay, I don't. I don't even know
if I've seen the Jim Carrey. Maybe I'll watch what.
I don't think i've seen that.

Speaker 3 (01:15:12):
That's the best one. Okay, I'll watch that tonight. So
we both got okay, Jim Carrey Grinch, Okay, got it.
But I will tell you it's a wonderful life.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
See for me, is a much bigger lift than National
Like that's a that's a big, heavy, long movie, whereas
Christmas Vacation is like a quick hour and a half.

Speaker 3 (01:15:29):
You're you're in, you're out, you're done, and it's silly.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
It's a wonderful life, like I've watched it as my
dad loves that movie. My wife does, and so he
puts it on every year, loves it, you know. But
for me, it's like a little bit more like I
sat through it a couple of years ago. It's like
I don't need to do that again for a while.
No offense to anyone who loves that movie. By the way,
we've been talking about things people are thankful for on
my Instagram at rich on Tech. The comments are coming
in on my Facebook as well. Daniel says he's thankful

(01:15:55):
for his wife, kids and extended family. Gigi in Los
Angeles is thankful for friends and fai family who helps
celebrate her dad's life. Sorry for your loss, Gigi, and
Mark is thankful for his grandkids. Eighty eight rich one
on one eighty eight seven four to two four one
zero one. Let's see, Mike writes in. Mike Ky says

(01:16:16):
Rich I've been a realtor for over forty years, so
you can imagine how many files I've accumulated. What's the
best software you recommend for finding and removing duplicate photos
on Windows ten?

Speaker 3 (01:16:25):
I need to clean up my drive. Thanks. Yes, this
is a huge problem.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):
Many of us don't want to do this because we
don't want to mess something up, and we don't want
to delete something that we need later, So I would
suggest there's an app that I've tested, Duplicate Duplicate Photos
Fixer Pro. And you know, keep in mind, people give
me a hard time, so I recommend stuff and you
find out you got to pay for it. Anything that's

(01:16:51):
going to be worth what it does, nine times out
of ten you got to pay for it. So you know,
you can try this program for free. But you know
this one actually it's for four ninety nine. So you
know you're gonna have to pay for stuff if you
want it to do the things that you want to do,
So this one will do it. They've got a version
for Mac, for Windows, for Android, for iOS, and it

(01:17:14):
does it does a good job. So let's see. Can
you download the Windows version before paying? Looks like the
Mac one you have to pay first. Anyway, it's called
Duplicate photos Fixer dot Com. The other one I like,
I think it's called Remo Duplicate, Remo Duplicate.

Speaker 3 (01:17:32):
Let's see here. Sorry, I gotta find the actual Remo Duplicate.
It is really tough to type and talk at the
same time. I've learned that one thing.

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
But there's another one I like it's called Remo Duplicate
Photos Remover, and that one I've tested as well, and
they've got a version for everything Windows, Mac, Android, and iPhone,
and so you can download that one as well. And
I think these are all kind of the same thing,
like free trials and then you can, you know, I
see if it works, and then you can use it

(01:18:02):
later on Wow, look at that, get your free access
code for full version.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
For Android you can get it completely free. So again
that's remosoftware dot com. So those two places, Mike, and
do a backup first before you end up starting to
make changes there. Karen writes in from stocked in, Hey, Rich,
I have a Samsung S twenty one. I need to
print out some text messages. What's the easiest way to
do that? Well, the easiest way is to take a

(01:18:29):
screenshot and print it out, but that's not very efficient.
So if you want something clean and organized, I would
check out the app called SMS Backup and Restore. SMS
Backup and Restore. I've been using it forever. It's easy,
it's free, it's on Android now.

Speaker 5 (01:18:45):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
The next question I'm going to get is, Rich, how
do I do this on the iPhone. I know you
would think that Apple would give you a way to
print out your text messages or at least tap into them. No,
they don't, so you have to use a third party program.
There's two that I like, Imazing Imazing dot com, and
then the other one is alt Tunes. So this is

(01:19:06):
kind of like the the iTunes that Apple did not build,
and it's available on Windows only. I Amazing is available
on MACANPC, but alt Tunes is available just on Windows,
and it's it's got everything that you wish Apple would
give you the ability to drag and drop music onto
your phone, ability to drag and drop photos, download your messages,

(01:19:28):
your call history, back it up, it gives you. It's
basically this stuff that Apple does not give you, and
I'm not sure why, but you can get it all
there and I'll put this all on the website. Rich
on tech dot tv, so anything I mentioned will be
on the website.

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
Rich on tech dot TV.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
William says, Hey, Rich, I love the show. I still
rely on a landline mainly to send and receive facts
is I'd love to port that number to a cell
phone or something mobile that could work with my fact scanner.
Sometimes I can fax to my computer and email it,
but other times I need to send a fax directly
back to another fax number. Any tricks to make this
easier without keeping a traditional landline, Well, if you want

(01:20:07):
to keep your number, you've got to port it to
a service. You can poort it to something like Umaoma
and they will work with traditional facts.

Speaker 3 (01:20:16):
Hardware costs a lot less than your landline.

Speaker 1 (01:20:19):
Every month, it'll be a one time fee for the hardware,
and then I think you have to pay taxes and
fees every month faxes and fees. If you're open at
ditching the fax machine completely, you can use a service
like efacts or fax Plus or dropbox facts. And you
know you're saying this, sometimes you got to send directly
to another facts. Anything you need to send, you'd be

(01:20:40):
able to just take a picture of with your phone
and send it to a fax machine that way. So
if you just want the absolute cheapest way to do this,
you don't even need to keep that number anymore. You
would just sign up for one of these services. They'll
give you a couple of faxes for free. If you're
doing a ton you'll have to pay a little bit.
But both of these options will let you send and
receive standard faxes. So it really comes down to like

(01:21:03):
do you want to keep hardware or do you want
to go fully digital?

Speaker 3 (01:21:05):
I think I think William, you can go fully digital.
You're not. I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:21:09):
Unless you're like a doctor, You're probably not sending and
receiving that many factes. This is just something that you know,
a lot of people don't need to do anymore. So
maybe for doing it occasionally, just use one of these
services along with your phone. The other thing, people have
told me that they have luck with magic Jack for faxing,
and magic Jack, I believe, is just like a one

(01:21:29):
time fee of like fifty dollars and it's a it's
the same thing. It's like a voipe phone service app.
But here's the deal. If you look on magic Jack's website,
they say that fax machines are not officially supported, so
you can't. You know, it just depends on I haven't
tested the magic app in a while, but people are
telling me, like they're emailing me as of this week saying, yeah, Rich,

(01:21:52):
I've used the magic Jack for facts as it works fine.
So just keep in mind you may get that it
may not work. Uma I know works flair did their
twenty twenty five Year in review. They said global Internet
traffic surged by nineteen percent this year, and for the
first time, ai bot traffic is rival rank rival ling

(01:22:13):
human traffic. How wild is that there are more ai
bots on the Internet than there are humans? What Google
bot is the king, responsible for nearly five percent of
all web requests, and of course they are scraping the Internet.
This is why I really like Google AI mode, because
they have such up to date information. Anything you talk about,

(01:22:35):
it's in there instantly. And I'll be honest, I hate
to I'm not gonna say what I do anymore because
I don't want to give people ideas. Twenty twenty five
was the year of hyper volumetric attacks. Cloud Flair blocked
massive denial of service attacks, which were the largest ever recorded.
The most popular sites Google and Facebook still number one

(01:22:57):
and number two globally. However, TikTok saw a surprising drop,
falling four spots in the overall rankings, probably because of
the uncertainty of that platform, but I think it's here
to stay. In the US, Starlink, massive growth traffic from
SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet more than doubled this year as
it expanded into twenty new countries. It's becoming a lifeline,

(01:23:20):
and not just underserved areas, but pretty much anywhere out
in the sea, places that don't have internet RVs boats.
People love starlink because you can get it anywhere. It's
pretty amazing. Now watch your email inbox. Over five percent
of all emails sent this year were malicious. Malicious emails.

(01:23:41):
You gotta be careful and privacy milestone. More than fifty
two percent of human web traffic is now protected by
post quantum encryption. That's new tech designed to keep data
safe from even future supercomputers. That means that a lot
of the traffic we're seeing on the web is encrypted
so well that even computers in the future that will

(01:24:02):
be able to break our standard encryption won't be able
to break that encryption. That's a good thing for human privacy,
all right. Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight
eight seven four to two four one zero one. All
this stuff I talk about is linked up on the
website rich on Tech dot tv. Don't forget to follow
the podcast, follow me on social media.

Speaker 3 (01:24:22):
And don't forget to sign up for my newsletter.

Speaker 1 (01:24:24):
It's all at Richontech dot TV more rich on Tech coming.

Speaker 3 (01:24:28):
Your way right after this.

Speaker 1 (01:24:32):
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
out with you talking technology triple eight rich one O
zero one. But asking folks what they are thankful for.
Just going through some of the latest comments here on
my Facebook page at rich on Tech.

Speaker 3 (01:24:50):
Let's see here.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
Cindy says, I'm thankful so much for so much my health,
my family, good neighbors, joy my grandson brings me. I'm
thankful for the knowledge you share with us.

Speaker 3 (01:25:03):
It helps. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
Peter says for you keeping us up on all the tech.
Thanks rich and he shared a picture of him and
his family. They're all in there. They're Santa hats. That's great.
Let's see who else do we have here, Robin says,
being alive, So that's nice. Yolanda, I'm thankful for my family, Barbara.
I'm thankful for good health for me and my family.

(01:25:27):
I have a wonderful son and daughter in law. I
also have the best ever granddaughter and grandson. I am
very blessed. Absolutely, you know, good family. I was telling
my wife, you know about you know this family. Over
the holidays. I'm like, look, you have to seed a
little bit of yourself to the family structure, and that

(01:25:48):
means not everything that's going to happen over the holidays
is going to be completely pleasant for you. Right the
way people act, you get a lot of people together
in one place, everyone has kind of different things that
they're working with and different things that they want, different
ways that they act, So it's not always going to
be perfect. And you just have to realize that going
in and if you do, you'll be fine. If you

(01:26:11):
fight that, you will not be fine. You will not
have a good time. This is new this week Alexa
plus can now answer your doorbell. Amazon is launching something
called Alexa Plus Greetings. Let's your ring doorbell talk to
people at your door like an assistant, not just play
canned recordings. So what happens is it uses AI to

(01:26:32):
recognize what's happening outside when someone rings your bell, so
it can understand if it's a delivery person in a
uniform with a box or just a neighbor stopping by.
And then you can tell Alexa instructions on how to
deal with this stuff, so you can say, you know,
if my delivery gets here, today, tell them to put
it behind the planner, or if a salesperson comes by,

(01:26:53):
tell them we're not interested. So you can actually teach
Alexa how to respond to people, which is interesting, and
then of course you'll get a recording about all this
stuff and Alexic can go back and forth of them.
It's gonna be a little weird. I haven't tested this.
I'm curious to see how it works. So here's the
catch though, it's not going to work on a majority
of the Ring doorbells out there, at least not yet.

(01:27:15):
So Number one, you do need a Ring home premium plans.
You have to be paying for Ring a subscription plan,
and then you need one of their probably one of
their best doorbells out there, the wired Doorbell Pro or
the Plus, which you know that's not a lot of people,
like a lot of people have these Ring doorbells with batteries.
So it's not just I don't as far as I
can tell, I don't think it's going to work on

(01:27:36):
a non wired ring doorbell, which cuts out a lot
of people. Now I talked about I've always talked about
how good Gemini is at images ever since they came
up with this Nano Banana upgrade. Well, guess what chat
GPT decided to do this week. They decided to upgrade
their image processing. Now they have GPT Image one point

(01:27:59):
five and their main standout feature is the ability to
make precise edits just like nano banana. If you want
to just change one thing in a picture while keeping
the rest of the image the same, now chat gbt
can do that. It also generates images four times faster,
meaning less waiting. It also does better text rendering. So

(01:28:20):
you'll also notice in chatch ebt in the sidebar there
is a new images section where you can find preset
filters and trending prompts. So if you go to chat gibt,
I found this on my phone. So if you go
to the images on chatchybt, now they're really trying to
push you to do stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:28:39):
So it says star in your own holiday short.

Speaker 1 (01:28:41):
It's got all these styles that you can do for
your images.

Speaker 3 (01:28:45):
It gives you all these suggested stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
And I made if you look at my Instagram stories,
I made an album cover of me as Bing Crosby,
the one of those famous like you know albums that
he you know. I always see this pop up in
my music player, and anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:29:01):
It's it is good.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
I don't know if I'm gonna switch back to chatch
ebt for images because my default is just to use
Gemini for images and chattybt for everything else. But now
I may use it for images more. Let's see here
we've got h Gail. Gail is in Covena. Gail, You're
on with Rich.

Speaker 15 (01:29:21):
Hi. Hey, I watched you on Channel five every day
and I follow you on Instagram, and I think I
get your news, pucker. But I have a question that
I have. I don't know if I'm sure to mention
this or not, but I have seen your promotion for LifeLock.

(01:29:42):
Is it LifeLock LifeLock okay anyway? Or your support of
it anyway. I just discovered I was just surfing and
avoiding other Christmas things, and I saw that somebody has

(01:30:03):
put in information on math quests about our address being
like a little stop and go kind of place by
the freeway for coffee, you know, little.

Speaker 1 (01:30:18):
They turned your house into a into a seven to eleven.

Speaker 15 (01:30:22):
Well sort of that kind of thing. But on math quest.

Speaker 1 (01:30:26):
Like they marked your house is like a place you
can stop and get like little snacks and coffee.

Speaker 5 (01:30:31):
Is that true?

Speaker 15 (01:30:33):
Is it true?

Speaker 3 (01:30:35):
Are you like selling hot chocolate outside in the front yard?

Speaker 15 (01:30:40):
No, you know, in fact, most people would never find us.
We're in Cavena in Kavena Hills, which has all been
you know, was originally like all host property area. And
so anyway, how if I you know, I've been thinking

(01:31:03):
about it, if I sign up the subscribe to.

Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
Whatever.

Speaker 15 (01:31:10):
I can't remember the one that you're.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
You're trying to You're trying to take this down.

Speaker 15 (01:31:15):
I'm trying to take it. Yeah, but you know, when
I went to the map.

Speaker 3 (01:31:18):
Quest site, Okay, hang on there, they're playing.

Speaker 6 (01:31:22):
I do that.

Speaker 15 (01:31:23):
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:31:24):
Yeah, exactly. Well that's the thing. Okay, you gotta you
gotta submit. I'm looking at the site. It says there's
a way to report and error. I think you need
to do that. I'll link it up on the website, Gail.
I'll explain more after the break. You're listening to rich
on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro
here hanging out with you, talking technology the website for

(01:31:45):
the show rich on Tech dot TV. Bobo's telling me,
I gotta watch Doctor Seuss is how the Grinch Stole Christmas,
the live action one, not the not the cartoon. This
is the one with Jim Carrey. Yes, looks like it
came out in two thousand. I can't believe I never
saw this. So I'm gonna I'm gonna download this and
watch it Jim Carrey. And it's free, by the way,

(01:32:07):
Well I say free, it's included if you have Prime,
so Amazon Prime. And it's actually leaving Prime in twelve days,
so which I guess corresponds at the end of the year.
But are you really gonna watch that come January first?
Well maybe January first, you might January.

Speaker 3 (01:32:22):
Second, I would. Yeah. Well, you say you watch it
every year, so it's a great movie.

Speaker 10 (01:32:26):
I will.

Speaker 1 (01:32:27):
I will tell you next time I see you what
I think.

Speaker 10 (01:32:30):
Out one of the text When you've done watch.

Speaker 3 (01:32:31):
It, okay, I will text you.

Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
We've got Matt Bazenco on from Nomo Robo. This is
a service that can help you take control of your
spam calls.

Speaker 3 (01:32:42):
Matt, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 5 (01:32:44):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (01:32:45):
So explain Nomo Robo.

Speaker 1 (01:32:47):
I believe started as like a landline filtering service, right,
is that true? Can you explain a little bit about
the company.

Speaker 5 (01:32:54):
Yeah, sure, and in fact, that's exactly right.

Speaker 9 (01:32:56):
So back in twenty fifteen, I think it was, the
FTC was running a series of contests for kind of
startup companies to try and win a prize basically by
demonstrating effective call blocking technology. And so the technology that
was invented at the time by our founder Aaron Foss

(01:33:17):
used something that's called sim ring simultaneously simultaneous ring, which
which basically is ringing two phone lines at the same time.
And so what he did was he put together a
system where if you called a given phone number at
the same time, it would ring a number that he owned,
and when it rang that number, that number would look

(01:33:38):
at who is calling it, it would compare it against
the database of calls that we knew to be bad,
and then if it was a bad call, if it
showed up in that you know, block list, basically it
would just put the call off all together. And so
the takeaway of that for the customer was that if
their phone rang just once, it meant somebody was calling them,

(01:33:59):
probably from a bad number, and if it rang a
second time, that it was a call that was okay
to pick up. And that was kind of the genesis
of the company, and you know, we've been in business
now for ten going into eleven years and come a
long way since.

Speaker 3 (01:34:11):
Wow, So now what are you offering.

Speaker 1 (01:34:13):
I mean, you've got I'm looking at this this app
called Nomo Robo Max. I'm guessing that's one of your offerings. Yeah,
I mean spam calls and all of these things. I
mean it's not just the spam calls. I mean I
get a ton of them. I also get the text messages,
which I know people get as well. How bad of
a problem is this for people with their cell phones?
And why is it so bad? Why can't the carriers

(01:34:34):
figure this stuff out? Yeah, it's a great question.

Speaker 5 (01:34:37):
So you know the problem, the problem ebbs and flows.

Speaker 9 (01:34:40):
We've been seeing an uptick, you know, recently over the
past couple of months in terms of the problem increasing again. Unfortunately,
one thing that was seeing going into next year is
we're seeing texts are starting to overtake calls in terms
of the preferred kind of attack vector, if you will.
So for a very long time, it was predominantly and
text was kind of, you know, maybe ten fifteen percent

(01:35:03):
of the problem, but it's getting close to fifty to
fifty and I think at some point next year it's
actually gonna swap to where texts are a bigger problem
than the phone calls, you know, in terms of in
terms of the carriers and really everybody that's trying to
solve this problem. The reality is that the bad guys,
you know, they're running businesses, right, They're not legitimate businesses,

(01:35:23):
but they are businesses nonetheless, and they find efficient, new,
you know, effective, inexpensive ways to try new technologies, new
ways of attacking people, and you know, ultimately are still
able to get through in a lot of cases. One
thing that I think has been very efficient for the

(01:35:45):
bad guys, unfortunately, is the implementation of AI. So in
the old days, say three or four years ago, they
were still relying largely on just you know.

Speaker 5 (01:35:54):
Basically carpet bombing a bunch.

Speaker 9 (01:35:56):
Of numbers, right like looking at your area code, calling
from a number in the same code, and then just
going through all of the seven digit combinations they could
find in that area code, which is not super effective
because a lot of those numbers don't exist.

Speaker 5 (01:36:09):
People aren't going to pick up.

Speaker 9 (01:36:11):
People sort of got wise to those tactics, and so
what they've done instead is they've gone the AI route.

Speaker 5 (01:36:16):
They've said, Okay, we're going to use AI.

Speaker 9 (01:36:18):
We're going to create a profile of kind of our
target target for lack of a better term.

Speaker 5 (01:36:24):
And we're going to go mine the dark web and
the regular web.

Speaker 1 (01:36:27):
And I'm wondering if this was going to happen. I
thought that this would be a possibility. So interesting. So yeah,
they so they are a little bit more targeted than
in years past.

Speaker 5 (01:36:38):
That's that's absolutely right.

Speaker 9 (01:36:39):
And you know, when you think about it, all of
these scams, all scams in general, really they're a confidence game, right.
They're looking to make you think that you're they're your
friend and they're going to help you out and they've
got something for you. And the more information about you
that they can show up to that confidence game with,
the more credible they appear, and the more credible they appear,
the more like you are to start run in your

(01:37:01):
mouth and giving them a bunch of information you probably
shouldn't be given them.

Speaker 3 (01:37:05):
I had.

Speaker 1 (01:37:05):
Okay, so this is kind of what you're talking about.
But I you know, I get people email me pr
people email me all the time and they say like, hey,
you know, we want to bring you out to this event.
We want to, you know, take you here, we want
to do this whatever. And so for one of them,
I actually had to write back to the person and say,
you know, I need you to confirm that you're real,
like that this is like you have to They had
to give me some piece of information that that you know,

(01:37:26):
wasn't a scam so that I can confirm that they
were like actually a legitimate organization. And it took me
a bit to figure that out. And I said to them,
I'm sorry I have to do this, but like I
don't know you, and you're asking for this information and
this that so I need we need to kind of
verify this. And it's such a weird world that we
live in now that we even have to think that way.
But it's probably just going to get worse that we

(01:37:47):
have to do that.

Speaker 5 (01:37:49):
Yeah, it really is. And I think you're right.

Speaker 9 (01:37:51):
I think the more information that gets out there about us,
you know, the more and more defensive we have to be,
and we have to be really careful about what we
tell to someone on the other side of the phone,
especially if they called us.

Speaker 1 (01:38:01):
Are people really answering these texts that I'm getting on
a daily basis saying like Hey, how are you? Are
you available for a moment? Like I just there's a
laundry list of things these people say to you. What
is the end game there? If I respond to this person,
what is the end game? What are they trying to
get out of me?

Speaker 12 (01:38:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (01:38:18):
You know again, it's a confidence game, right, And they
use all those very different opening phrases because that helps
them slip by the filters.

Speaker 7 (01:38:26):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:38:26):
If it's always.

Speaker 9 (01:38:28):
Something different, it makes it very different or very difficult
rather for those filters to catch that. But what they're
trying to do is they're trying to get you to
think there's somebody interesting, there's somebody cool, there's somebody you
might want to hang out with. And once they get
you kind of on the hook, the next thing that
they do is they try to get you off of
whatever phone app you're using, whether it's you know, Android

(01:38:49):
messages or Apple messages or whatever, and into one of
these much looser environments like WhatsApp or like Telegram, where
it's much easier and for them to manipulate kind of
the conversation to do things like get you to click
on links that will actually run applications inside of Telegram,

(01:39:09):
and then basically they start being able to tap into,
you know, your phone, tap into your data.

Speaker 5 (01:39:15):
Those types of things.

Speaker 9 (01:39:15):
There are a whole bunch of off the shelf toolkits
that are kind of out there again that lets you
spin up, you know, fake websites, stake anything pretty much
inside of say Telegram, and get people to click on
links and start giving you information. And because going back
to your question about the carriers Telegram, what's happened, you know,

(01:39:36):
pretty much unless you are that ecosystem, you can't see
what's going on there.

Speaker 5 (01:39:40):
We can't even see that.

Speaker 9 (01:39:41):
So it becomes very difficult to protect people in those
environments because there's there's really no rules.

Speaker 1 (01:39:46):
We had a woman a couple of weeks ago that
call this set of celebrity had reached out to her
and wanted to be friends, and they wanted to take
the conversation offline to I think it was email or something,
and I said, why do you think this celebrity wants
to be your friend?

Speaker 3 (01:39:59):
Like, come on, you got to in.

Speaker 1 (01:40:01):
But issue is convinced, and it's it's really scary because
you know, there's so many people out there and everyone
is kind of dealing with their own stuff and kind
of You know, some people are dealing with things very
quickly and they're not thinking fast or they're not thinking
slow enough. So what is your advice for people as
we go into the holidays, as we go into the
new year, how do we protect ourselves? Yeah, so you

(01:40:23):
know you've got to take seconds to tell me. No,
I'm just kidding.

Speaker 5 (01:40:26):
You know, the bad guys pray on three things.

Speaker 9 (01:40:29):
They pray on urgency, they pray on threat of financial
loss or gain, and they pray on sense of authority,
and so they're always trying to use those levers against you.

Speaker 5 (01:40:39):
An urgency is the most dangerous one.

Speaker 9 (01:40:41):
If someone's putting in a position where they're making it
sound like if you don't answer right now, you're going
to have big problems.

Speaker 5 (01:40:46):
The reality is.

Speaker 9 (01:40:47):
If you do answer right now, you're probably going to
have big problems because you're going to do something you're
not going to be able to unwind. So anytime somebody
is trying to really press you like that, that's the
time to step back and say, wait a second, like
this seems too good to be true, or it seems
it's weird to be true, or what have you. I'm
going to take my time I'm not going to answer
this question. I'll figure out another way to verify this,
whether it's calling them back or going to their.

Speaker 5 (01:41:08):
Website or what have you.

Speaker 9 (01:41:10):
But you know, really just not letting yourself get put
into that position where you're, you know, you're feeling like
you're being pressured to do something immediately.

Speaker 1 (01:41:19):
And how good is this normal robo app? I mean
people are going to be looking this up to see
if they should get it. I mean, will it help
with spam calls and spam texts and all that good stuff?

Speaker 9 (01:41:28):
You know, absolutely it will. We boast round a ninety
nine percent rate of accuracy. We kind of have two
levels of protection we provide. The first is we have
a large database of phone numbers that we have seen
before or that we have just seen that we know
to be bad.

Speaker 5 (01:41:43):
And we block those immediately.

Speaker 9 (01:41:45):
And then the second level is if for some reason
a phone number passes that test, the next thing that
happens is when that call connects to you. If you
have not seen that call before, it's not in your contacts,
if we don't know who that might be, we basically
run it through a screen or where we say, hey,
the person that you're calling is using Nomo robo. You
need to tell us who you are, you need to
tell us why you're calling, and then we analyze that

(01:42:06):
audio and we make a decision whether or not to
hand it over to the user, and then the user,
if we do hand it over, the user can also
make thro own decision as to you know, Okay, so
it says it's my kid's school, it looks like my
kid's schoolcumber cool, And they'll go ahead and answer that,
and if not, they can just let it go to
voicemail and listen to it later. And what we find
is through that screening process, almost never is a robo

(01:42:27):
caller going to work their way through that process. It's
just too hard, it takes too much time. They know
you're a savvy consumer and you're thinking about what you're doing,
and you're probably not a good target, and they'll just
hang up and move on to the next person.

Speaker 3 (01:42:39):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
The website is Nomo robo dot com. Great insights. Matt
really appreciate it. I mean, it's just so frustrating when
you when you know, we don't get many phone calls
anymore these days, and when you look at your phone
and it's just it happens to me in the middle
of everything, like every meeting I'm in every it's like
it's so embarrassing. I'm like looking down at my phone
and of course my watch and it's like, oh, that's spam.

(01:43:02):
It's just so like frustrating. So thanks for the information.
Really appreciate it. Have a great holiday, Great thanks for
having me.

Speaker 5 (01:43:08):
Same to you.

Speaker 1 (01:43:09):
All right, Matt Zenko from Nomo Robo. All right, coming up,
we are going to open up the feedback. There's no
way I can get through it all, but I will
try to get through as much of what you emailed
me this week as possible. Right here on rich on Tech.
Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging

(01:43:30):
out with you, talking technology, the website, rich on Tech
dot TV. Everything I mentioned is there. We're saying what
we're thankful for. I will chime in with what I'm
thankful for, my friends, my family, my kids, my wife,
let's see my jobs. Being able to do this every

(01:43:51):
week with you, I am thankful for so many things.
I had the car accident this year, which really kind
of shifted my paradigm in life. Like I said, I've
always enjoyed being here and doing what I do. But
now I have a new appreciation that this can all
be taken away at any moment and you are not
in control of that. That is a really something I
never thought of in my life. Like I was just

(01:44:13):
cruising through life literally and figuratively until that happened and
it was like boom, out of nowhere. It's like, wait, what,
I'm not in control? Well, hold on what this can
all just be taken away? So please enjoy what you
have gratitude. It is tough sometimes to think about that
in our hectic, everyday lives, but just stop the scrolling

(01:44:35):
for a moment and just think about how amazing it
is that we are all here and how amazing our
world is.

Speaker 3 (01:44:43):
I'm not kidding.

Speaker 1 (01:44:45):
When it's sunny outside, just go outside and like just
touch the grass with your feet and just put your eyes,
like close your eyes and look at the sun. I'm
not getting all woo woo here, but it's like there
is something to it, and it really is a mirror
that we're all here. So that that's my spot, all right.
So when I tell you, I get a lot of feedback.

(01:45:06):
This is what we didn't get to in this year's shows.
So every week, I print out all the emails that
I get and I save them for the next week.
This is about half of twenty twenty five. This is
what we didn't get to this show.

Speaker 10 (01:45:19):
It's a book.

Speaker 1 (01:45:20):
It's a book. I mean, it's wild anyway. I mean
you could hear you to hear it. You probably can't
because these mics are so you probably can't hear that.

Speaker 10 (01:45:28):
Oh no, you can hear it.

Speaker 3 (01:45:29):
Okay, you can hear it anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:45:30):
So I do appreciate you sending these messages to me,
and I do try to answer a lot of them.
I can't get to all of them on the air.
But okay, here we go. Let's see here. Nancy writes
in Hey, Rich, I love your segments on KTLA and
your newsletters. I'm sending a huge thank you because my
computer recently hit me with that Microsoft locked screen and
started talking to me. I freaked out, but I immediately

(01:45:52):
turned the computer off and went to your website. I
was able to confirm it was just a scam. That
little bit of confirmation did so much for my peace
of mind. Truly priceless.

Speaker 3 (01:46:01):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:46:01):
Yes, remember all to plus f four. If that ever happens,
you can turn that off can stop it. Richard in Hilton,
New York, listening at Wham says, I wanted to share
a budget cell service that's worked great for me and
my wife. We've been using Tello for about a year.
I pay five dollars a month for unlimited text and
one hundred voice minutes. My wife pays six dollars for
a plan with more data. You can easily customize with

(01:46:25):
more minutes or data. They run on T Mobile. The
big surprise has been the customer service. It's twenty four
to seven and you get a real person in the US.
We've had zero problems. We love it. Yes, Tello doesn't
always get mentioned. I don't think they have any advertising budget,
but they are good. They are very customizable. Muriel says,
Merry Christmas, rich to you and your family. I appreciate
everything you do helping us make the sense of the

(01:46:46):
latest tech and pointing us in the right directions. I'm
seventy six years young and not very tech savvy, but
I've learned a few things and tried some of the
tips you've shared. I enjoy watching you. Merry Christmas and
a happy New Year, Muriel, Merry Christmas and a Happy
New Year to you as well. Nick writes in I
agree with you on the dummies books. I use them
as introductions and for immediate learning, non advanced topics. That's

(01:47:08):
what I tell people good title, bad title, good book.
Otherwise they might think I'm insulting them. Thanks for a
great show. Thank you, Nick, Charles and Diamond Bar. I
wanted to share a workground for anyone who still wants
to keep a land line but occasionally needs to facts.

Speaker 3 (01:47:24):
Oh, here it is.

Speaker 1 (01:47:24):
I use magic Jack. It costs thirty five dollars a year.
When I need to send a fact, I unplug my
desk phone from the landline, connect the magic Jack directly
to my hp printer, scan the send the pages disconnected
and switch everything back. I only send a few facts
as a year, and it works fine. I haven't need
to receive a facts in years, so this setup covers everything.
I love watching you on KTLA. Thank you, Charles. Yes,

(01:47:46):
I said magic Jack is not officially supported, but hey,
if it works, it works.

Speaker 3 (01:47:51):
Pam, thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (01:47:52):
As a senior citizen who used to be pretty sech
tech savy, you have a real gift. You make me
feel better about what I know Instead of being overwhelmed
by what I I do not. My husband and I
watch KTLA every morning and every night. You are the best.

Speaker 3 (01:48:04):
Thank you, Pam.

Speaker 1 (01:48:05):
You get the gold Star today for that. Charles says.
One tip for anyone needing Comcast service when you set
up a service call, always have the request marked with
company employee only only. That way you don't have to
worry about getting a third party contractor who may or
may not have limited training.

Speaker 3 (01:48:22):
Huh, that's interesting, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:48:25):
Sometimes customer service is based solely on who you get.
Donna in Tennessee says, I love your emails and newsletters.
We move from Mission Viejo to Mount Juliet, Tennessee, and
we saw you on the local news here in Nashville.
I'm glad you're not only in California. More people need
to know how great you are. Thank you, Donna. You
get the gold Star too. Remember I do pick these emails,

(01:48:47):
so they may be a little biased. Mm says hey, Rich,
I was listening when a caller said they were having
trouble connecting an older iPad to a new router. When
I upgraded my spectrum, it combined two point four five
gigaherts into one network. Anytime I need to connect an
older device that only works on two point four, I
have to log into the Spectrum website, temporarily switched a

(01:49:08):
router to two point four and the device will connect.

Speaker 3 (01:49:11):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:49:13):
Alona in Edmunds Washington says, thank you. Okay, very very simple,
very easy. Diane says your show is wonderful, A must
do Saturday activity for me. Jennaro says rich Over my
ninety years, I've seen a lot. I've never seen things
change this fast. Staying current is stressful and expensive, and
that's most frightening, how much fakery there is. I'm not

(01:49:35):
a techie, but I stay tuned to you because you
make me feel safer and better able to protect my privacy.
You do a great job helping people understand what's real
and what isn't. Thank you, Thank you, o MG, that's
going to do it for this episode of the show.
I cannot believe three years of this show just like that.
You can find links to everything I mentioned on my website.
Rich on Tech dot TV can find me on social media.

(01:49:57):
I am at rich on Tech. As we head into
the holiday, I hope you get to slow down a bit,
spend some time with your friends and family. Take a
moment to reflect on all the things we're grateful for.
Thank you so much for listening. There are so many
ways you can spend your time. I really appreciate you
spending it right here with me. Please do not drive distracted.
Those texts can wait. Thanks to everyone who makes this

(01:50:17):
show possible. Bobo on the board, Kim on phones, engineer,
Matt adam On fill in, Bill, Julie, and most of
all you, thank you for listening. My name is rich Dmiro.
Have a wonderful holiday. I will talk to you real soon.

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