Google breathes new life into old computers

Sony reinvents earbuds with LinkBuds; Google unveils Chrome OS Flex; Instagram lets you "like" Stories; Uber gives users a detailed breakdown of their passenger rating; New App tests you for reading glasses; Facebook renames the News Feed "Feed."Listeners ask what the best Android phone is for about $500, how to save money on an Amazon Prime membership, swapping SIM cards to a new device, which antivirus software to use for iPhone, how to clear search history on Instagram and a recommendation for an inexpensive but clear security camera.LinksFollow RichSign up for Rich's NewsletterSony LinkBudsChrome OS FlexInstagram Story LikesUber detailed ratingsHow to see detailed Uber ratingsEye testing AppFacebook renames FeedSave on Amazon PrimeWyze security camerasSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Sony reinvents the earbuds for an always on world. Google's
new software turns any computer into a Chromebook, an app
that lets you do an I test right from your smartphone,
plus your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich
Schemiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where
I talk about the tech stuff I think you should

(00:30):
know about. It's also the place where I answer the
questions you send me. I'm a tech reporter at KTLA
Channel five in Los Angeles. Welcome to the show man.
It feels good to be doing a show that's proper
this week, because last week was just you have no idea.
So I so I had a problem with my board

(00:52):
where whenever I would talk or even not talk, it
would just have this like hum and so it sounded
just like a metallic I don't know what the deal was,
and so I spent like two hours trying different MIC setups,
doing different things, moving the board into different plug outlets.
I thought maybe it was like the wiring or something,
and nothing worked. So I ended up recording the podcast

(01:13):
like directly into my computer with like a USB MIC.
I think I don't even remember how I did it
because I blocked it all out. But long story short,
when I picked up the board to like put it
away later on, somehow it shook and I heard like
a rattling inside my podcasting board and so my mixer,
and so I'm like, wait a second to what's going on.

(01:34):
And I think it's some sort of like little piece
that came detached inside, probably from my lack of proper
transport when I took it to different places like Chattanooga,
in Las Vegas and other places. I've taken it back
and forth to the station, and so I think that
whatever that little metal thing is in there, whenever it

(01:54):
hits something else, it creates some sort of circuit in
the board that makes the hum. So anyway, what I
did was, this is my hack, which I can't believe
I'm saying this even, but I shook the board to
get the little rattling part like into the corner of
the board so that hopefully it just stays in like
a corner, not touching any metal. And I left my board.

(02:16):
Oh gosh, I can't believe that's what I'm doing. Anyway,
I'm gonna have the engineers at the station take a
look at it. Hopefully they can take this thing apart
and see what's inside there. I'll be curious what actually
what actually messed this thing up. Anyway, So if you
saw me on Instagram or Facebook at rich on Tech,
you already know this. But this is my This week

(02:38):
marks my eleventh year at KTLA Los Angeles. I cannot
believe it. So, since you're the podcast listener and this
doesn't you go out wide, I can tell you a
little secret story. But when I joined KTLA, they literally
offered me ninety days. Ninety days now, given I had

(03:02):
a fantastic job at another station across town. I wasn't
on air, but I was behind the scenes and I
had a very very good gig, and it was something
that was, you know, I'd never done before. It was
you know, as a producer basically, but it was really cool.
And you know, I was building something and they come
to me and they're like, hey, you want to do
this really cool thing. It's it was like everything I

(03:23):
wanted to do. It's like my dream to be on
air doing technology. But the reality was they were like, Okay,
we'll try you out for ninety days and we'll go
from there. I'm like, who wha hold on I'm not
leaving a really good job, and I had a kid
on the way. I'm not leaving a really good job
to go somewhere that's you know, offering me ninety days
like that is not going to happen. So I knew

(03:45):
that this was a great opportunity, but I really had
to just be firm in that because I didn't want
to mess up my life, especially with a kid on
the way. And quickly I realized as an adult, you
mess up your life in many different ways. But I
was a little bit younger and you know, didn't realize that.
But anyway, I digress, So long story short. I think
they gave me like a year or two contract, and yeah,

(04:07):
it's been eleven ever since. So anyway, I don't want
to bore you with all my details in my life,
but it's been an amazing ride. It's been a really
fun time there. KTLA for the most part, has not
changed since I've been there. I mean, yeah, there's been
like some changes in management and things like that, but
my core job has remained the same, and quite honestly,
it's really funny because the easy way to do my

(04:28):
job is to just scare people all day long. And
to tell them the worst things about technology and how
your phone is spying on you and all this good stuff.
But I don't do any of that. I actually take
a much more positive approach to technology. But I also
let people know what I think they need to know
and not just the lowest common denominator of trying to

(04:50):
scare you every chance I can. Now, I think that
it's very smart for people to be informed, but I
also kind of cut through a lot of the clutter
of stuff that I don't think you need to really
care about, and so I'm not going to give that
stuff the light of day. Honestly, for many many years,
I didn't even cover Apple rumors because I had a
rule that if it was a rumor, like why would

(05:10):
I cover it? It's not something that's happened, Like, well,
this is literally speculation, and so I didn't do that
for a long time. The Apple rumors are kind of
avoidable at this point, which you know, and people kind
of like them, myself included so and quite frankly, a
lot of them come true at this point. So anyway,
that's my story, My my entire goal. Every story that
I present on air is something or on my Facebook

(05:33):
or on my Twitter or on whatever it is, is
really something that either I find interesting, is something that
is an indicator of something to come, or is something
that you know you should find useful when it comes
to tech. So that's really what guides me, not just
the flash and trash that so many other people just
do to get clicks and listens and all that stuff

(05:55):
and views. And maybe that's why I'm not more popular.
Maybe I should start trying that for the next ten years.
But no, I'm just kidding. So let's get to the
first story of the week, Sony earbuds. These link buds
they're called. This was an interesting one because Sony comes
to me, and now that this is all out there,
I can give you a little bit of the backstory.

(06:16):
But Sony comes to me and they're like, Okay, we've
got something super secretive, you know, can you sign this,
can you talk? You know, can you do this? And
it's like, okay, sure, what what is this? They wouldn't
tell me a thing before they sent me whatever the
thing was, and so I'm like, all right, I haven't
heard from Sony in a long time. I'm just gonna
sort of trust them to send me something that's interesting
and we'll see I mean, obviously I don't have to

(06:38):
cover it if I open this thing up and it's
not very cool. So I get this box that is
just like super heavy. I'm like, what in the world
is this? And you know, open up this box you
can see some other people. I don't do a lot
of unboxings, but some other you know folks do, so
you can see what they did with the unboxing. But
it's like it came in this like wildly, like a

(06:59):
lie laborate locked box that you opened and there's some
sort of like Sony's take on an NFT in there.
I think, I don't know, but anyway, you open it
up and finally get smaller and smaller. So you find
these little link buds, and these are wireless earbuds that
have a really unique design and style, and the whole
point of them is that you leave them in your
ears pretty much all day long so that you can

(07:20):
listen to your music, take phone calls, but also hear
the world around you. So they've got this really unique
open ring design they call it, which kind of pops
into your ear. It almost looks like you rotated the
link buds apart and they're small, they're lightweight. Obviously it's sony,
so they have really good audio quality and they don't

(07:40):
they're not noise cancellation headphones because that would require them
to be always on, but they are, you know, they
do kind of I guess they have like a clear
voice functionality so that you can, you know, people can
hear you better when you talk. But a couple of
the unique features three of them that I want to
talk about adaptive volume control, so this automatically brings up
the volume higher and lower based on your surroundings. Then

(08:03):
there's this thing they call wide tap area, so there's
a little sensor inside these link buds. Usually you have
to kind of tap the actual earbud, but that puts
some pressure on your ear every time you do it.
So with this, you can actually tap on your cheekbone
right in front of the earbud, and there's a little
vibration sensor inside the link buds that you will know
if you're double tapping or triple tapping to pause your

(08:23):
music or do something else. And then finally there's something
called speak to Chat, and this I thought at first
was really really cool because what it does is when
you talk, it pauses your music. Oh my gosh, amazing.
Well then I quickly realized on my first run that
number one, I talk to myself a lot. Anytime you
talk to yourself, the earbuds are going to pause. Anytime

(08:46):
you cough, they're gonna pause. If you talk to someone else,
they're gonna pause, which is kind of the point, but
I actually ended up having to turn that feature off
because it just wasn't working enough for me. So anyway,
really really neat earbuds. There are one hundred and eighty
to me, I will say I don't find them to
be the most comfortable in my ears. They're They're just fine.

(09:08):
I think that some other earbuds feel better. Personally, I'm
not a big earbuds person in general, Like I am
not one of those people that keeps earbuds in all
the time, even if I'm in the airport or whatever.
I just I put them in when I need them,
I take them out when I don't, And honestly, I
just I'm not a huge, huge earbuds person. And so
these are cool, and I love that Sony is trying
something totally new and refreshing and different. And I think

(09:31):
they've succeeded, honestly. And this is the other thing about
doing reviews kind of under embargo, is that I had
these in my hand, and you know, I didn't know
what anyone else was gonna think of them. So I
had to write my review and come up with all
this stuff before you know, you see anyone else's and
that's typically what I do in general. But it's just
really interesting. When I saw some of the first reviews

(09:51):
coming out, I was like, okay, these you know, I
didn't really read them, but I saw some of the
headlines and it seemed like everyone sort of agrees that
these things are pretty well done, and Sony is definitely
doing a pretty good job of doing something different here.
So anyway, Sony link Bud's if you want to learn
more information about them. All right, so far this is

(10:14):
going so much better than the last one. So happy.
It's like my board is just working properly and that's
exciting enough. First question, Hey, Rich, without telling me too
many trade secrets, can you help me decide on a
new phone? I usually purchase them out right, so I
want to keep the cost around five hundred. Here's what
I need. Number one got to be Android. I had
Apple one time and hated it. Number two with like

(10:35):
five G keeping up with the Joneses. Number three basic features.
I'm not that worried about a fancy camera or waking
me up on time. Just making calls and taking pictures.
That's interesting. Number four maybe waterproof. I might drop it
in a puddle or a pool if you can help me.
Would like to know your thoughts. Thank you, Larry. Larry,
I have one word for you, and that is Pixel six.

(10:57):
That is going to be the best phone for you. Now,
it's a little more expensive than your budget, which is
five hundred, but this phone is six hundred. You might
be able to find it, you know, if you trade
in something, or you know, maybe someone has it on
a deal if you sign up for five or something.
But I think that's gonna be the best. And the
reason why I think that's the best case scenario for

(11:18):
you is that you want Android, you want five G,
you want basic features. This has very simple software that's
constantly updated, or at least it should be by Google
for at least I think it's five years. It's going
to be well water resistant. Nothing's truly waterproof, but it's fine.
It's got a good level of water resistance, It's a
decently smaller size than the Pixel six Pro. It's got

(11:41):
a good camera probably well, it's got the best camera
you can get out there, so that's good news. And yes,
it will wake you up on time, even though it's
not important to you, but you never know when you
want to set an alarm. Now. The closest competition to
this phone would probably be the Samsung Galaxy S twenty
one fe. It is the same price typically on so
it's six hundred dollars on sale. The only difference, I mean,

(12:03):
it's really a matter of preference. Do you want Samsung,
do you want Google. I would go with Google just
because it's a little bit more, it's a little bit
simpler to kind of use than a Samsung. But if
you want Samsung, if you prefer that, and go ahead.
I am absolutely loving the latest Samsung S twenty two series,

(12:23):
and so I have no problem recommending the Samsung. The
S twenty one is excellent as well. It's a great phone.
I do think the camera is going to be better
on the pixel for that price, so that's what I'd recommend.
Those two phones are probably the best bang for your
book at that price. Tag. All right, speaking of Google,
this I think is just phenomenal. I can't get over

(12:45):
how exciting this is. Maybe not for me, but for
a lot of people out there that have either an
older computer or that work at some sort of nonprofit
or a school or even a business. Maybe not so much.
I mean they want it for business anyway. This is
Chrome os flex. This is a chrome basically, it's software

(13:06):
from Google that turns any old Mac or PC into
a chromebook. And you're probably familiar with the idea of
a chromebook. All the kids were using them during the pandemic.
That's what the schools were handing out like candy. And
so it's a very simple computer. It's kind of like
what I was talking about with the pixel. It's simple,
it works, it's fast, it's speedy. So even on an

(13:29):
old computer, this can work. I read up to like
computers up to thirteen years old. Let's just say ten
years old. Ten year old computers pretty old. But you
put this Chrome os flex on it, which is a
free operating system that you download from Google. It's primarily
aimed at businesses in schools, but I think it looks
like anyone can just download it and install it, but

(13:50):
you get all the benefits of sort of a Chromebook
on these old PCs or max which those benefits are
that it boots up really fast, it doesn't slow down
that much over time time, system updates happen in the background.
There's no worry about viruses because everything is sandboxed, and
you know, it's all. It doesn't even have much to
like run on the system. It's like mostly running from

(14:11):
the cloud. Now, the downside of this is that it's
mostly meant for things very simple tasks web surfing, watching YouTube,
you know, looking at photos, doing your emails, those kind
of things. You're not going to be editing a wildly
elaborate video on this thing. You're not going to be
doing photoshop on it. Yes, you can do those things

(14:33):
if they operate in the cloud, but this is primarily
a cloud computer. I think you can install some Android
apps on there, so that would work as well. But
the reality is, and of course you have Google Assistant.
This is just such a cool way that Google has
immediately breathed, breathed, given a breath of new life. I
don't know how to say that, but just some breathe

(14:56):
some fresh air into an old computer. So if you
have an old computer around your house you might have
thrown away. This is an amazing way that you can
now install this software on that computer and give it
to someone, give it to a young kid, or you
can give it donate it to a charity, or you know,
just whatever. There's so many great things about this and
the fact that Google is fully supporting this, at least

(15:17):
for now. We all know Google has a very short
attention span, but I do think that they will see
that this is very popular and continue to kind of
work on this system. Again. It's called Chrome os Flex
And just by mentioning this on TV just a response
I got clearly there onto something now. I did a
story a couple of years ago with a guy named

(15:37):
the Laptop Elf, and he does this on the side,
so he would take donations of old computers and he
would really go to town on getting everything installed in
that computer. But it was not easy because there was
no sort of like Chrome os that you could just
download and easily install it was. There were some variations

(15:58):
on it out there, but nothing official from Google that
you can do. So Google making this official and offering
it up for free, I think is a huge win
for so many people out there, so thank you Google
and check it out Chrome os Flex. You can actually
just try it out on your current computer, which I'm
going to do by running it off off of a

(16:19):
USB drive. You can boot your computer up directly from
there and then or I guess you can boot Chrome
os flex directly from there and then if you like it,
you can actually install it on your Mac or PC.
All right, let's get to the next question. Carol says, Hey, Rich,

(16:39):
I just saw your segment on Amazon Prime rate increases.
One of your suggestions was to combine household accounts. I'm
wondering if we combine ours, would one of us lose
our shopping history. Always enjoy your news spots. Thank you, Carol, Carol,
good question. Yes, Today on the news, I talked about
how Amazon Prime is raising prices for their membership from

(17:01):
one nineteen a year to one thirty nine a year
with tax in California, that's about one hundred and fifty
bucks a year. And this charge always gets me by
surprise because it happens on like January second, and I
get a charge for like one hundred and forty bucks
or this year was one hundred and thirty and I
was like, wait, what I buy for one hundred and
thirty dollars? I was hacked and then I realized, oh, no,
Prime just renewed. Now, I will tell you I did

(17:23):
two hundred and thirty five orders on Prime last year.
There's no way I'm giving up Amazon Prime. I ordered
something two things this week, well, many many things this week.
I probably placed four orders this week. But you know,
in La where I live, the orders literally come either
well same day. I'm not seeing as much anymore, but
especially next day. I mean same day used to be

(17:45):
a thing. I don't. It definitely doesn't show up as
much on many products as I order, but the next
day definitely is like kind of the standard same day sometimes.
And then of course you know you've got Amazon the
groceries with the two hour delivery. I mean, there's just
so many benefits backup of the pictures. I use that
as my kind of my photo backup for my backup
of my backup. I watched like one or two Amazon

(18:07):
Prime movies last year, so that's cool. I mean, if
those are like five six bucks each, if you rented them,
then there you go. That's twelve dollars right there. So
there are so many benefits to Amazon. I don't think
anyone can keep up with them or catch up to
them at this point. It's gonna take a lot Like Walmart,
Target they are, it's gonna take a while for them
to figure out the logistics of this. I mean, Amazon

(18:28):
has it down. I mean ninety nine percent of the
deliveries now come from Amazon vans or the flex workers
you know, the gig workers whatever. I mean, it's quite amazing,
or the uh postal people. So no matter what it is,
really really like fast and it's efficient. Like they know
that if something is small, lightweight and they can just

(18:49):
slide it into the post office, it arrives with your
your postal carrier, you know, the next day or something.
I mean, it's pretty pretty remarkable anyway. So yes, they're
raising their rate to one point forty. And one of
the things I mentioned is this lesser known option with
Amazon that lets you share your membership with one adult
in your household and a couple of teenagers and a

(19:11):
couple kids. Now, yes, did Amazon imagine this to be
so that mom and dad could have their own accounts, probably,
But the reality is Amazon is very loose about the
definition of household and I looked at all their documentation.
It never says you need to live under the same roof.
It never says that. Now. I'm sure Amazon has ways

(19:32):
of cross checking people and making sure you're not just
selling half of your membership to someone on eBay or whatever,
but the reality is you are. I just said that
like seventeen times. But here's the thing, I'll just switch
to another cliche. If you have someone like this woman
is saying, like Carol is saying, can we you know,

(19:54):
it sounds like they have two different accounts in their household,
Like that's wild. Why are you paying double? No combine
those accounts and would they lose your shopping history? I
don't think so. I mean, think about it. This is
just a premium upgrade to an account you already have.
It's kind of like upgrading to Spotify premium or any
other any other online service where it has a basic

(20:16):
free service and then you can upgrade to a paid plan.
So that's pretty much the same thing that's happening here.
You have an Amazon account, now you're just layering on
Prime membership on top of it. I don't think there'd
be any reason why they would suddenly just delete your
entire shopping history. So if you have two accounts in
your home, absolutely get that shared through your account, and

(20:38):
you can do that. I'll put the link in the notes,
but it's basically Amazon Household. I think you google Amazon
Prime household and you can find the link through that. Yeah,
And you know, it's one of these things where I'll
be quite honest, I believe there was a time when
I did share my account with someone, a family member

(21:00):
that maybe didn't live with me, and I'm pretty sure
it worked just fine. Now I'm not saying that was
many many years ago. I wasn't really sure. Again, I
kind of just saw that I said you could share.
Maybe they've changed the wording, but back then it seemed
like you just share your Prime membership with like six people.
I think it was like six people at the time,
And so I did. I shared it with a whole
bunch of people, and they all had their own accounts,

(21:21):
they all had their own ordering system. But I paid
the bill at the end of the year, which is
kind of a common theme with a lot of my
family members on my accounts. That's another story for another day.
All right, let's talk about Instagram. Instagram a very simple
simple feature update. But Instagram is now allowing you to

(21:42):
like stories. There's not much more to say other than that,
and I will explain why I think that this is
really important for someone like me. So I post a story,
I've got a bunch of followers on Instagram, and people
immediately start replying. Now, the only two ways to reply
to a story historically on Instagram is to either use

(22:03):
one of their pre programmed emojis that pops up when
you tap into the little response field, or you can
type a message in that same field. And so you
can imagine with someone like me, with you know, over
one hundred thousand people on Instagram, even if you know
one percent of people respond, that's one hundred responses, right,
And so that is all messages. And if people are

(22:25):
just responding with a clapping hand emoji or a love
or a you know whatever these little emojis they give you,
or like a quick note that says like cool, awesome,
thank you great, that's a lot for me to go
through when it comes to looking at my dms, and
so it really does kind of clutter up my dms,
and I try to go through all of them to
reply to everyone. And so sometimes they just like things

(22:47):
back this or that. So now I think Instagram really
has a user the user experience in mind, and kind
of streamlining it with this feature. Because now if people
like my story, which is kind of like a common
thing to do, you just like it just like you
would a picture. It will just go on your story
page that only you can see, so you can see

(23:08):
sort of the insights to your story, like how many
people looked at it, how many people clicked your links,
that kind of stuff. This will just reside on there.
So it's a very easy way to kind of just
build some more analytics into your stories, but also let
people respond to them in a way that's much more
fluid if they don't really have anything to say. It's
just easier and so a lot less clutter there. Now,

(23:30):
the way you do it is you're gonna see a
little heart icon right in between the text box under
a story and the little airplane that lets you share
that story to someone else. But or I guess send
that story. I don't know what the little share thing does.
I gotta look, but I guess I can check right now.
I've got Instagram right here on my phone, so let's
see if I go to someone's story. Okay, yeah, it

(23:51):
lets you send it to someone else. So the point
is this is just so much easier. I have not
seen this yet up here on my Instagram, but usually
Instagram is one of these I don't know why. Instagram
is one of these services that announces things and then
does it so much later, like it takes. It could
take a month for this feature to show up on
my Instagram. But at least now you know you've got

(24:13):
the heads up. You'll soon be able to like stories
on Instagram. And absolutely if you want to continue responding
to my stories with emojis or a couple of words
here and there, I will take it. But if you
want to just like them and say, Rich, hey, I
like this, thank you, don't even need whatever implied thank you,
then I'm totally cool with that too, all right, Mark says, hey,

(24:37):
Rich your recent review of the s twenty two, when
you moved your iPhone simcard to the Samsung device, it
got me thinking. Do service providers normally charge for an
extra device when you do that, or do they only
look at the simcard as the device, no matter what
hardware it's plugged into. If the latter, I can see
using whatever hardware suits the setting you're currently in, for instance,

(24:58):
plugging your SIM into a tablet if you're taking class notes,
then switching to a smartphone when you're on the run
and want to use a smaller device. Thanks Mark, Mark.
This opens up a fascinating discussion because I'll be quite honest,
I have switched SIM cards into so many different devices
over the years, but when I switched my iPhone SIM
into the Galaxy S twenty two Ultra, it was the

(25:21):
first time in years that I had switched a SIM
card into not a non upgrade phone, And so the
last time when I upgraded my phone to the new iPhone,
I actually had to go into the Verizon store to
complete the process because something about my SIM card with
the old phone. I guess it was like a four
G SIM card. They wanted to give me a five

(25:42):
G SIM card my phone was not working properly. I
don't think they charged me for that, but I do you.
It's interesting because as soon as I put that simcard
in the new phone, I got a text message from
Verizon saying, hey, we noticed that you switched your SIM.
Please go to the website to confirm that this was

(26:03):
a change. I was like, Ah, they're gonna charge me
thirty bucks, aren't they for switching the SIM. Now, I
don't think they did that, but they could, and I
think in the past with other providers, I have definitely
swapped out simcards to different devices, and I've had no
problems with that because usually the device registers itself on
the network. But with all of that said, I don't

(26:25):
recommend that you do this regularly because there's a couple things.
Number One, they may flag your account for fraud and
then you have a whole headache. Number Two, it's not
very feasible to switch your SIM card from a tablet
to a smaller device every time you need to do that.
That's just going to be a total pain, and I
would not recommend doing that. I would recommend getting a
data only line or just linking up your tablet to

(26:49):
your phone with a hotspot situation. But Mark, it's so
funny that you wrote me this because I literally thought
of this same exact possibility when I switch that simcard,
because I got that message on my phone. But typically,
I will say, in my experience, I've never had a
problem moving a SIM into a different device. The only

(27:09):
time I've run into issues is with unreleased devices. So
let's say someone like A OnePlus sends me a device
that is before it's released, and it's you know, a
couple weeks before the public has it. Sometimes I've seen
that if a device is not approved on a you know,
a carrier's network, And this really only happens with Verizon

(27:30):
that and sometimes AT and T. But sometimes that device
will not get all of the features. So it may
not pick up a five G signal, it may not
work with voicemail, it may not do Wi Fi calling.
But those those things are pretty rare and they're pretty
limited in scope, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.
But in general, what I would do is if you

(27:50):
move your SIM card, I would if you're just a
regular person that's doing this, I would go on your account,
make sure everything's on the up and up, and make
sure your provider knows about it, just because you do
your The thing is, you never want your phone to
go out or stop working in a situation when you
really need it. Now, all phones will dial nine one one,
whether they have a simcard in them or not, at

(28:11):
least that's my understanding, So you should be okay there,
But in general I would say that nine one one
is one level of sort of like Lifeline. You need that,
but just being able to use your phone with data
and calling someone else is a whole other thing, and
you don't want to lose that access either. So good question,
thanks for asking, and uh really really got me to
think on that one. All right, let's talk Uber. So

(28:35):
Uber is a service that I have used since day
one when it launched in Los Angeles. I've probably told
you the story before, but I will never forget. So
I lived in New York before Los Angeles, and we
had these things called car services, right, and so where
I worked at snet, once in a while, they would
give you this voucher that was like one of those

(28:56):
old credit card vouchers, like the carbon copy papers, and
they would say, here you go, Rich, we know you're
working late tonight, go ahead, take a car service home.
Or hey, Rich, we're having a holiday party. Don't drive home,
or you know, take a don't take a cab home, here,
take a car service. And so you get these little
slips once in a while. It was extremely expensive. You know,

(29:17):
you didn't even know what it costs because the car
service would just charge your company. They had a deal
in the back end to make it a little bit
more reasonable, but it's very expensive. Then Uber comes along
and Uber is like, oh, we're doing this for everyone.
Wait what on demand? Wait what? And so I'll never
forget getting picked up to go to this party in
Santa Monica and the Uber picked me up and it

(29:37):
was like a twenty five dollars ride and I was like, wait, what,
how in the world is this possible? Now, maybe it
was more than twenty five dollars. I can't really remember,
but I know that. All I know is that I
took Uber so much. And back in the day, it
was just town cars, so it was this really like
fancy service with a driver that would get out and
open your door for you. And then they came out

(29:58):
with Uber X, and you know, obviously it's just kind
of expanded, and now they have different levels of service,
so you can choose everything from the fanciest to a
car pool. But I tell you all this because Uber.
The idea of Uber has always been, well when it
first started, was that you would rate the driver and
the driver would rate you. And so they almost came

(30:18):
up with this eBay esque perfect store system, whereas the
best drivers would get the best passenger, So everyone was
always striving to be better, right, and that would make
the service kind of almost like at checks and balance, right,
And so you saw this little rating. At one point,
you never knew your rating. But then Uber finally showed

(30:39):
you your rating, and that was a step and it
was out of five. And then now today, starting now
this week, you can actually see a breakdown of your ratings.
So you can see out of your last five hundred drives,
how drivers rated you. Now I have like a four
point eighty five, you want to hover around a four
point nine, four point eight five, anything higher than they think.

(31:00):
You're a new writer, so they may not want to
take you anything lower. And you know, you're kind of
like you know, who knows. So you can see these
ratings if you go into this what's called Privacy center.
And I'm not sure why Uber did not just make
it so that you tap on your rating on your
profile and it brings you to see your breakdown. That
would make the most sense, but they didn't do that.

(31:21):
They made this like seventeen taps. So I'm not gonna
I'll explain it here, but you have to go to
my Instagram at rich on Tech to see the step
by step instructions. But what you want to do is
go to the settings menu, so you tap U. Oh gosh,
you know, I actually wrote this down on my Instagram.
It's much easier to understand than what let me just

(31:41):
get to that, much easier to understand than what Uber
themselves actually wrote down. So okay, so here's what you do.
You go, you open the Uber app, you tap your
profile picture, you tap Settings, you tap Privacy, then you
tap Privacy Center, then you tap c summary, then you
tap view my ratings. That's one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven steps when they could have made this two steps.

(32:02):
Open the app, tap your rating, Boom, you see your breakdown.
But and what does this all mean? Not much? I mean,
I do have some one stars in there. I have
no idea how I got those, but it's just one
of those things where you can see. I guess it's
just giving us more transparency into this whole system, and
that's kind of what the deal is. So if you
want to see it, go to my Instagram and see

(32:23):
the step by step instructions. I made a little video
about it. But oh, I wanted to mention. The best
way to avoid a bad rating ready, don't slam the door.
Uber says it's easy to accidentally slam a door if
you're not thinking about it, and drivers have consistently sighted
door slams as a reason why they deduct stars. And

(32:43):
I will tell you I often travel with my kids
in the Uber and airports and things like that, and yes,
they do slam the door a lot, and so or
maybe my wife slams the door. I don't know if
someone slam the door, that's for sure. All right, let's
get to the next question on the podcast. Hey, Rich,
I wonder if you can recommend a safe method to

(33:06):
scan my iPhone twelve for any viruses and something to
safely remove them if any are found. I've checked the internet,
which I have difficulty trusting, and found these names recommended
Total av Norton, McAfee, McAfee, sorry, Bitdefender, Panda. Obviously, I
would prefer a free app, at least initially to see
if there's anything there i'd recommend. I'd appreciate any guidance

(33:29):
you can provide. Thank you very much, Jim. Jim, I'm
gonna give you the big old You absolutely do not
need to scan your iPhone for viruses. You just don't.
Why is that, may I ask? Number one, if you
look at any of these apps, if you search total
av and I iPhone, you will never see the word virus. Okay,

(33:57):
because guess what. There is not a known virus for
the iPhone. There never has been, there probably won't be.
There probably won't be. Now there are risks on the iPhone,
and there are malware on the iPhone, which maybe you
might think that's a virus, but the reality is the
classic virus you don't even see. It doesn't even say.

(34:18):
If I search virus on this website, does not bring
up anything. And the reason why is because total av
knows that they would be kicked out of the app
store if they said the word virus, and so they don't.
Now I will tell you, I get probably the most
emails out of my entire life about total AV. So

(34:40):
they are doing one heck of a job advertising all
of the scary things that can happen to your iPhone.
But let me tell you, there is almost nothing that
can happen. The worst thing that can happen on the
iPhone at this point are two major things. Number One,
there is malicious software that is made by certain organizations

(35:04):
that can infiltrate your phone without you knowing and can
can log everything. Can you know, it can really kind
of hack your phone in a way that is just
you wouldn't even think of, but it can be done now.
It is very rare and often it is targeted to
highly specific individuals. Those individuals are heads of state, people

(35:26):
with high net worths, people that are you know, high
journalists that have you know that are that are you know,
someone that's like a state department doesn't like them and
they want to keep track of them. So those are
kind of the threats that are out there for the
average person. The biggest threat on your iPhone is you
and and clicking things that are not meant to be clicked.

(35:48):
So if you get a link on your phone from
a spam text and you click it, that's going to
be the biggest problem. And really the biggest problem there
is probably going to be phishing because they say, oh, hey,
jam you need to log into your Amazon account and
just confirm this charge, and you click that and you
log in without thinking. The next thing, you know, your
phone your account is compromised. Now am I saying there's

(36:13):
no such thing as a virus for the iPhone, absolutely not.
There's always a possibility, there's always a potential. Just in
my ten years of covering the iPhone, I have yet
to see a wide, a mass market virus for the
iPhone that a lot of people are getting infected with. Now.
The other thing about the iPhone is that it is sandboxed,

(36:35):
so every app sort of runs only in itself and
it does not really interact with the other apps or
even the operating system at large in a big way.
So it's just almost impossible for someone to write a
program that worms its way in. Now, there's always exploits,
and there's always people that are trying to figure this

(36:55):
stuff out, and yes, it could happen. But do you
need one of these apps on your phone to scan
for viruses? Absolutely not. What I would do is number one,
if you want a VPN, that's fine. That's something totally
different that that kind of protects your privacy and your browsing.
If you want to protect your browsing, that's another thing.
Use a use a web browser like Duck Duck Go

(37:16):
or Firefox Focus that covers all your tracks. That's a
that's a whole nother thing. But if you want something
that's gonna scan your phone the way it scans a
Windows PC for viruses, you just don't need it. Now.
Don't take this just for me. I've gotten this question
so many times that I did a segment and I
called up a security person that knows iOS and knows

(37:38):
security and they told me the same exact thing. They said, Yep, Rich,
pretty much nobody needs it now. An Android, they did say,
it's probably beneficial. Android operating system is totally different than
the iOS operating system. They're getting similar, but they're not
the same. iOS does not allow apps access to a
lot of things, whereas Android it's much more integrated. So yes,

(38:01):
apps do have a bit more freedom, and so there
are more things that can go wrong, and we do
see a lot more malware on the Android side of things.
Most of the time it's stuff that's taking advantage of
permissions or it's doing stuff in the background that it shouldn't.
So the way against that is to again, just use
your common sense when you download an app. And I'll

(38:22):
be honest, I'm a tech a very savvy tech person,
and I fell for this the other day. I downloaded
an app. I was setting up the S twenty two
Ultra and I wanted to download Google Calendar, and I
guess I typed in Google Calendar and I clicked the
first link that was you know, it looked like a link,
but it was for Google Calendar. It was just an
AD that was masquerading. I must have missed it. Maybe

(38:44):
I was tired, whatever, just didn't notice a little ad symbol.
I start installing this app and it's like, first thing
I get is like a big AD and I'm like,
wait what Google has ads? Wait what? And then it's like, okay,
log into your calendar. I'm like, wait what. I've never
had to log into Google Calendar. So I back out.
The ic is so similar to Google Calendar icon and
I look at the name of the app again and

(39:05):
sure enough it was like, very similar to Google Calendar,
but it wasn't. And I was like, look at this.
If this can happen to me, yeah, this is how
these people get preyed upon, All these people that download stuff. Again,
Google billion billion, billion billions dollar business, right and their
business all comes from ads. What do people do when

(39:26):
they search on Google? They just look at the first
link and Google knows it. They just click that link,
and nine times out of ten it is an AD.
It is not the organic search link are search result,
I should say, And that is very important. And this
is why, honestly I would recommend some sort of ad

(39:46):
blocker on your system because these are just misleading people
half the time. And so you know, it's just one
of these things where I do think people are being
very misled. And a lot of times it happens with travel.
So when you star search for a hotel, you think
you're making the reservation with the actual hotel. Now you
just got a link from some random a travel site

(40:08):
that's advertising top of the list, and now you're booking
through them. You book your hotel room, it's non refundable,
there's no there's no questions asked, there's no refunds, you
can't get a hold of someone, and now you know
you're you're out the two hundred bucks if you need
to change your hotel room or switch things. So again,
it takes a level of savviness that I'm not I'm
not going to fault people for, but you know, some

(40:29):
of these systems are built to help people fail, and
you really really need to be on your guard and
so yes, with iPhone twelve, you're not going to need
a virus software. But does that mean nothing can happen
to your phone? No, I think there's I think many
worse things can happen than a virus. And ninety nine
point nine percent of those things are you clicking a
link that you shouldn't be clicking, or typing in information

(40:51):
into a password that you shouldn't be clicking, or putting in,
or getting fooled in some way. And so that's what
I think is more important to focus on than installing
some sort of app that you think is going to
save you. Just you know, you just need to be
you just need to realize this stuff. And so, Jim,
I'm not picking on you. I'm just saying you raised

(41:11):
a very good question, and these companies clearly advertise based
on fear and saying, hey, you need something to protect
your iPhone, when the reality is we need to learn
more as humans about social engineering and how that is
truly how I would say most people get hacked these days.

(41:32):
All right, let's move on to the next story. This
is this is pretty wild. This. You know, we see
lots of industries being impacted by the smartphone and things
that you can do on your smartphone that you were
never able to do before, and now you can take
it an at home vision test through your smartphone. And
so this is a first of its kind vision test

(41:53):
for something call let's see if I can get this right?
Press press be Oh did I get that right? Press bopia.
That's we'll just call it that. So press biopia is
an age related vision condition affecting eighty five percent of
people over forty. And so what it does is if

(42:15):
you know someone like this, you know what's happened. All
of a sudden, They're holding their menu just a little bit.
It's either let's see is it closer or further? Let's see?
Uh it is, let's see it is. It causes people
to have difficulties seeing up close, and they find themselves

(42:37):
having to hold a menu, phone or book at arm's
length distance to see properly. You probably know someone that
you see that you've seen holding something a little far
away and kind of adjusting their vision. So I tried
out this app. It's actually really cool. It's called the
my Reader Number app. It's three dollars by the way.
It's from a company called iq e y e que.

(42:57):
I'll put the link in the show notes. But you
hold your phone up to your nose and then you
and there's some text on the screen, and you just
slowly bring your phone back until the item comes into focus.
And it uses some sort of sensor on the iPhone.
At least I think this is IOWA. Is it iOS only? Um?
It doesn't save it. Yeah, it's only iOS for now,

(43:19):
But it uses some sort of sensor. I'm guessing the
depth sensor to see how far away your phone is
and when your eyes come into focus. And so clearly
there's a measurement of if you're you know, eighteen inches away,
then clearly you might need some help. If you're five
inches away, you probably don't. But I came up okay,
So that's good news. But it's a really neat little

(43:40):
test that you can take it home. It's three dollars,
it's one time, and it's you can use it as
many times as you want. It's a one time fee. Now,
this this situation is very easy to fix. I guess
just magnifying glasses can can fix it, like you know, lenses,
magnifying lenses, I should say. And so I guess the

(44:00):
bottom line for this app is to not only educate consumers,
but also maybe there's a sales portion where they sell
you glasses. They give you the information you need to
figure out what reading glasses you should get, what strength
you should get. So I guess they're saying that a
lot of people. Yeah, it just looks like a lot

(44:20):
of people just kind of guess at the store, like
what prescription. I don't know if it's a prescription per se,
but it's just you know, you just kind of pick
out what might work for you, whereas this app can
give you actual specifics on sort of what you need,
like how much magnification you need. So anyway, I thought

(44:41):
this was really cool. This is called the my iq
My Reader Number app, and it's a personalized results for
reading and computer glasses. So check it out. It's just
something cool to try and see how it works for you.
I'm not a doctor, so I can't vouch for the
fact that it's a replacement obviously for any sort of

(45:02):
professional opinion. But if it's something that you were just
doing on your own and you want to supplement that,
then kind of seems cool, all right, Bob writes in
Google Chromebook Software. Hey, Rich I write this note from
a very low end Dell inspa on fourteen that used
to be too aggravating to use. It was very slow
on the network and constantly telling me the disk space

(45:24):
was too low. It had only three gigabytes available from
the included Windows ten that came with it. I had
to use an SD card to store files. After using
the free Chromebook Google software, it is now a fantastic
little laptop. Performance is very good and available disk space
is around nineteen gigabytes. Google hit a home run with

(45:44):
this one regards Bob desktop support person that is fantastic
to hear. Bob, of course, is talking about the Chrome
OS Flex, so it sounds like he was faster than
me and installing this on his Dell in Sprawn the
old computer. So I'll be quite honest, I may be
installing this on my mom's computer because she does not

(46:06):
do anything on her computer that requires the Windows software.
It's been slow since day one when I bought her
this computer, and this will make it much more secure,
and pretty much all she does is use Chrome, so
I think that this is a perfect use case to
do that. In fact, I've been itching for a flight
home to New Jersey. So maybe this is what I do.

(46:27):
Maybe I'll go home, I'll do a story on installing
the software on her computer. Sounds like a win when
love when things work out like that. Anyway, Bob, thanks
for the feedback. I cannot wait to try this again.
It sounds exactly like what I was saying that It's
just really one of these things that Google did a
nice job for helping breathe new life into these old systems.

(46:49):
All right, very quick story with Facebook. Facebook is renaming
the news feed. It is now called ready for this,
drum roll, please feed the feed. Not nothing, it's just feed.
So they announced this on Twitter. They said, starting today,
our newsfeed will now be known as feed happy Scrolling,

(47:10):
and it has been known as the news feed since
the feature was introduced more than fifteen years ago, according
to The Verge, which is just wild that we've been
using Facebook for that long. But here's the thing. I
think that Facebook wants to get away from news in
their in their language, because it delineates if there is
a news product on Facebook, which I'm not sure there is.

(47:32):
Is there a newsproductnews dot Facebook dot com? Let me say, uh,
there is oh Facebook News? Interesting? Yeah, there totally is
a news I didn't even know that. Wow, it's like
a whole news thing. I guess it's interesting. It's from
some of your so oh, that's really into It's like
a news page. I keep saying that that Facebook is
basically the AOL of twenty twenty two. It's the same thing.

(47:54):
You've got your video chat, you've got your video messaging,
you've got everything except email. You know, you're surfing different things,
You're looking at people's posts, you're surfing the web in there.
I mean not really, but you know, but it's basically
if you installed it would not be too wild to
have a Facebook operating system, right that just like the
Chrome operating system that it just installs on a laptop

(48:15):
and everything you do is through Facebook. If they had email,
it would be possible. I meany, I've got videos on there,
they've got news, they've got your feed, they've got messaging.
I mean, there's so many things you can do on Facebook.
It's just basically the AOL of twenty twenty two. But anyway,
what was I saying, So the news feed? Yeah, so
there is a news product. So I think that feed
just represents something that is more you know, we had

(48:37):
this whole thing with misinformation and fake news and the
election and politics and Cambridge Analytica, and so I think
they just want to get away from the fact that, hey, look,
whatever's in this feed, like, we're not really the arbiters
of all things fair and just in this feed, we're
just sort of letting your friends have a free for all.

(48:57):
And so that's why it's called the feed. It's not
the news feed any more. So that's my take on it. Now,
say what you will about Facebook, It's still a very
popular place where people go. And I would venture to
say that the number one place people get news these
days is probably the Facebook feed, probably YouTube, probably Instagram.

(49:18):
I mean it's kind of scary, quite honestly. And this
is why it goes back to what I do as
a reporter, is I try to, you know, put things
out there that are that are good and factual. I mean,
that's like the number one goal obviously, but not everyone
does that. I mean I see stuff on TikTok that's
just like it's is it true? And I'm not. I

(49:39):
don't want to knock the younger generation, but I mean
a lot of their information is coming from TikTok, and
that is just scary because you see these things on TikTok,
these new challenges, and my kids will you know, my
kids will give me theories. My kid now says, hey, Dad,
you know I saw on YouTube that this and this.
I'm like, that's not true. Oh that is not true

(50:01):
at all. Well it's just a theory. Well stop watching theories.
But the problem is the YouTube algorithm will just keep
serving up all the same garbage that you start watching,
and it will just continue to feed on itself. It's
like a it's just like a circular hamster wheel of
like trash that it will just continue to feed to
you if you go down that path. And you know,

(50:22):
people do go down these paths. And it's like my
feed is like ninety nine percent smartphone videos, you know,
people reviewing phones and camera tests and all stuff, because
that's what I primarily watch on YouTube. And so it's
just one of these things where I don't know what
the answer is. I don't have an answer. I mean,
I think editors are the answer, obviously, and I think
that that reputable news sources are the answer. But I

(50:44):
will tell you that when I post stuff on Facebook
in the news feed. People are always saying rich, that's
not true. Like they're literally fighting me a newsperson, a
journalist who is paid by a news organization to research
and to post stuff that's factual, and they're saying rich,
fake news, that's not real, or that's not new, there's
nothing new to this, And I'm like, I don't even
want to fight back because I'm like, I'm sorry, but

(51:07):
this is real and it is new, and it is news,
and whether you like to believe it or not, that's
just the way it is. So all right, they go
off enough there, all right, Hey, my name is Kitty.
Hopefully you can help with a simple question about my
Instagram account. Since I'm new to Instagram today, I noticed
my clear search history was missing from the security section

(51:29):
of my Instagram settings, and now I don't know where
to find it. Is this a new upgrade for Instagram
or did they do away with that? I don't know
how to clear out my Instagram search history now. Thank you.
Any info can help, Thank you, sincerely, Kitty g Ktla
Rich Demiro viewer, So, Kitty, great question. In fact, you know,
it could be quite embarrassing because you might search for

(51:51):
something that maybe you don't want other people to see.
Or maybe you just search for something quickly and now
all of a sudden it's on your search history and
if someone picks up your phone they see it, and
you're just like, I don't you know you need to
explain something. Why should you have to explain yourself. You're
an adult. You can search whatever you want, okay, But
the reality is that, uh, you know, if you want

(52:13):
to clear this search history out, here's what you need
to do. So, uh, go into your Instagram, tap in
the search field and it says see all. So you
tap there and then it will say recent searches clear all.
You hit clear all and there you go and your
searches will be cleared out. Good. Good question, kitty, And

(52:33):
you know, hey, clear out that stuff. Do what you want.
It's your life, and uh you know I'm not gonna
fault you for it. All Right, time for one more question. Uh, Hey, Rich,
my wife and I watch you regularly for many years
on KTLA and always enjoy your tech updates. We need
a recommendation for an inexpensive but clear video security camps.

(52:54):
Anything you suggest is greatly appreciated. Thanks for your continuing excellence,
Best regards Dwayne and Jackie in his spy Yeah, California,
super easy. I'm just gonna recommend the Wyse cameras. Wy
Z not to be confused with Ways, but Wyze is
just fantastic. The cameras are twenty thirty bucks. You can

(53:15):
get a whole bunch of them. They have every type
of camera you need, whether it's wireless, completely wireless, or
a camera you plug in, or a weather proof camera
or a camera that pans back and forth, they will
they have something for everything you need and it's just simple,
it's easy. I think they're a great value. Camera quality
is excellent, and they've just really done a nice job

(53:35):
over the years of continuing to evolve their cameras. It's
a bunch of guys or a bunch of people from
they used to work at Amazon, and they saw clearly
how Amazon created its own products and sold those very
good deals when it comes to like the Echo stuff
and all those and just said, hey, I think we
can do that too, and they came up with cameras.
And the cameras are very very good. I've been using

(53:58):
them for a very long time and I've never had
an issue, and I'm quite impressed with what they do.
Oh wow, you know what that sound means. That's gonna
do it for this episode of the show. If you
would like to submit a question for me to answer,
just go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash
rich on Tech hit the big blue send email button,

(54:19):
or go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit
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so feel free to rate this week. Just go to
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(54:40):
people understand why they should listen. That is the best
thing you can do, and thank you so much for
doing that. Just explain to people why you like this show.
You can find me on all social media at rich
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(55:01):
watch all of my TV segments on demand. My name
is rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are
so many ways you can spend an hour of your time.
I do appreciate you spending it with me. I will
talk to you real soon.