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

This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. 1969. Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl. He fought up Willy Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, I'll tell you that story and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. The guy was a spy. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Talking to your kids about the dangers of vaping can be hard. Getting them to listen to hot gossip is easy. So here's some drama you could share with your kid. Dude, did you hear about Cassie and Jake? No, but did you hear that vaping can cause irreversible lung damage and nicotine affects brain development? Nuh-uh. You don't need to gossip if you want to have an open conversation about vaping. So if you want to get tips on when and how to talk to your kids, visit talkaboutvaping.org. Brought to you by the American Lung Association and the Ad Council. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, it's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, We're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers. We're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Meta's AI glasses can now help you hear better. Google's $630 million 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 DeMuro, and this is Rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe that tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open up those phone lines at 888-RICH-101. That's 888-742-4101. 888-742-4101. 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. Maybe you have a question about upgrading. Whatever it is, give me a call, 888-RICH-101. This will be a fun show because it is the holiday season, and this is my holiday show. Email is also open. Just go to richontech.tv and hit contact. Rich on Tech dot TV hit contact. I'm going to 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 go through all the stuff that we need to do to get through the end of the year here. 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. This is a great time of the 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 going to make it a fun one today. And so I figured what I would do, well, first off, I'm going to 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 going to read some of your comments about what you're thankful for. Ryan is thankful for his faith and for his wife and daughters. Marsha in California is thankful for her health after beating cancer. Rhonda 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. 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 don't 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 can't access any of that. I don't like that. Now, 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 iMessage is one of these examples that we've seen in the past 10 years of the iPhone. Blue bubbles. People with Android, 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. That is amazing. That's the way tech should be. Now, RCS has fixed a lot of the whole messaging thing, but the internet was made for cross-compatibility. It was made for standards. And I love Apple, but a lot of the stuff 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, Aerolo, you've probably heard 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 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. AllTrails, 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. This shows you a compass so you can track your route with precision. I love that. You can still do it 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, and I was paying like $60 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 AirDrop for everything. You do need an internet connection. But the neat thing about this app 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 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 15 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 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. Candy Crush Solitaire. This was Google's app of the year for pick-up-and-play games. And I've been playing it. I love it. It's so fun. It's just a solitaire game but, like, kind of with a sweet twist. So I like that. Canva, 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 2025, 2026. 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, actionable information in a speedy manner. so that's why my stuff doesn't always look as polished as some other tech people out there. ChatGBT turned out to be the AI I use most this year. I trained it for a lot of my workflows, so things I do over and over, I have them programmed into projects. I've talked about it, like my wine chooser, my book chooser, just 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. Dropbox 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 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. There's a couple things that aren't 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. That's just a theory. 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, but it's a different developer. But it's the same exact idea. It's just much more polished, many more features. But I'll put links to all of these, by the way. on my website, richontech.tv, because I know I'm telling you a lot very fast. Faye, this is travel insurance. 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 for international travel insurance, it's a really easy way to kind of have travel insurance quickly and make claims and get money quickly. It's great. FIG, F-I-G. 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? Is there wheat? 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 understand a lot of people are on iOS and 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 all the information, all the potential delays and all the stuff you need to know, I mean, it goes into the nerdy territory 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 FlyFin, this is another good one. I love this one. This is Tinder for taxes. So you connect all of your accounts to FlyFin, and then it will use AI to find what it thinks are deductions. So you can just 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 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 because it turns your Samsung notifications into something much more 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, I've got many more. I'm going to keep going here, but we've got to take a break. So I will continue my list of favorite apps for 2025 when we return. But first, we will take some of your calls. 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101. If you want to see this full list, it is on my website, richontech.tv. Back after this with more of my favorite apps of 2025. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here, hanging out with you talking technology at 888-RICH-101-888-888. 742-4101 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 my Facebook page Rich on Tech Joseph is thankful that his wife Vera is healthy after a year battling breast cancer congratulations and Debbie is thankful for her two teenage grandsons who live with her while Eva is thankful for friends, family, good health, and faith. Thank you. I know what Bobo is thankful for. We're going to 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 baby in the home. So we're going to talk to him about what he's thankful for. And I have a feeling I already know, right? I mean, I kind of think I... I would hope so. All right. So before the break, we were going through some of my favorite apps, and I've got them all linked up on the website, richontech.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 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 OpenAI, ChatGBT, 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 99% 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 tell you a little preview of this week's stories that ChatGBT 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. So I'm planning for CES. I'm getting all these emails about CES 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 and block things out. It'll just scan the email, find the pertinent information and put it 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 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. Make some fun holiday pictures. All right, what else? 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 filter by just the things that are on your streaming services. So let's say you have 100 movies you want to watch, but only 20 of them are on the services that you're paying for. You can filter out just those 20, and then you can take it a step further and filter those just by IMDB rating, popularity, trending. If you want to sort by runtime, which I really want to, you have to pay a couple dollars a month. So they know that like, okay, for me, I want to sort by the shortest movie so I can not fall asleep on a Friday night. I got to 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 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 with local libraries to give you these books and take advantage of these e-books that your library is paying for. So they want people to read them. Now I will give you my tip. The pro tip with Libby is go straight to the skip the line section, you're going to find all of the latest books that people, that you can borrow immediately because there is a line. You know, when you're getting an e-book 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 you want. But if you go to skip the line, you're going to find all these great books. Oh, okay. We got to get quicker here. Okay. We got Meteor. That's my favorite speed test app, M-E-T-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 Michelin guide, you could download. Monarch Money, this is probably one of my favorite apps of 2025. It replaced Mint, it replaced Rocket Money, and I think it is amazing for tracking your overall money, your net worth, and all of your recurring transactions and subscriptions. They do charge you for this, but I think it's well worth the money. Moonlit, M-O-O-N-L-I-T-T with two Ts. This is a moon phase tracking 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. I love that. Upside to get cash back on gas and groceries. Waze, whisper memos, whisper flow. 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. Alright, this is all linked up on my website richontech.tv my top apps of 2025. 888-RICH-101 888-742-4101 Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology. 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101. The website is richontech.tv. I know a lot of you are looking for those list of top apps of the year. Just go straight to richontech.tv. It is front and center. You could also go to the show notes. This is episode 153. But the title of the post is The Apps I Relied On in 2025. 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 in Garden Grove is thankful for his new job, his son, and his health. Megan in 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, richontech on Instagram. Let's go to Mark in Lake Elsinore. You're on with Rich. Yes. Hi, Rich. Hi. I'm having problems with the TV volume. I like the full sound. I would have the Mega Blaster sound bar, and the wife wants it quiet. I went out and bought a new TV, and so it was Bluetooth compatible. Okay. But it's only one or the other. Right, right. It won't play on the Bluetooth with my headset and then still play on the speakers on the TV. So one of us doesn't get to listen to it that way. Yeah, that could. Do you have any suggestion on what I can do? You know, as far as I know, it is typically one or the other. So that is how all the TVs that I've tested work. 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 speakers and also come out of this Bluetooth, you know, to these headphones. So that is an issue. Can you both wear headphones? I mean, it's not ideal. I know. Yeah. The only thing I can think of is you could try, you could try, 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. So what type of TV is this? LG, a brand new one, just a couple of months old, and the one before then was a dumb TV. It just didn't have any kind of, I would see if there were any type of capability like that at all. I'm trying to think if there is a way. Have you looked in all the settings? Yes. 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. I was wondering if they sold something like a little 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. Yeah, 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 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 much do you want to spend to do it. You can obviously route audio in a million different ways. You can get an audio mixing board and do this in a heartbeat. But it's like, how much effort do you want to put in? How tough do you want it to be when you turn 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 there's anything that would work here. 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 audio to both places. But then, you know, there's a lot of things. It's kind of involved, so I have to look at this and see. I would take another look. I'm also looking at LG TVs and the simultaneous use of the sound out. And some articles do say that you're able to do both at the same time. Some of them say there's an option for TV speaker plus headphones. But I don't have an LG TV in front of me, so I can't verify that. So I'm looking under, okay, so it's saying that it could be under the accessibility settings. So have you looked under those? Yeah, 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 was get it to play either or. I figured it would be another piece of equipment that would do the job. They used to advertise something like that on TV 100 years ago. Yeah, the TV years? The guy was, could be, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at this. Okay, so we've got TV ears. I'm looking at those to see what their system does. So digital connectivity, in-room technology, so that means it only works in the room. And let's see, doctors recommend TV ears digital. It comes with both. Okay, so it works with digital. So here's the question. Can you separate volume control from TV? 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 with 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, see, TV ears 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. But it's a good question, Mark. I think I'm going to have to address it on the next show. But 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. Someone wants to listen to the speakers and you want to listen to the headphones. It makes sense, right? and it's doable, it's just a little bit trickier than at first glance. Thanks for the call today, Mark. We appreciate it. Thank you for your help. All right. Yeah, it's one of those things where not everything is going to be as straightforward as just setting it up and going into the settings and finding that. But 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? You know, Mark, are you still there? Oh, you are. Okay. Oh, yeah. All right. So this happened a couple of weeks ago. Clearly, the mute button on my phone is not working. How ironic in a question like this. But there's a button. Okay, let's see now. If I do that. Are you still there, Mark? Yes. Okay, still there. This is hilarious. Okay, so this was happening a couple of weeks ago. Are you still there now? Yes, right here. Oh, my God. Okay, let's try this. Okay, now. How about now? Oh, now he's gone. How mean. Okay. So, anyway. Now things change. Is that what you wanted to do or you wanted to put him on hold? 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? Sure. Okay. So, first off, welcome back. Congratulations. Thank you. You have a new baby boy. I have a son. Tell us his name. Can you? His name is Kacen. I will tell you his name. His name is Kacen. He is a month and a half. And how's it going? It is an adjustment after 21 years of a break from baby life. It's an adjustment, but I'm incredibly happy. 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, man. I'm happy. And how's your wife doing? She's great. She's amazing. She's still recovering, but she's at the house, you know, with him while I'm here with you. So you're in the thick of it, changing diapers, making bottles, waking up in the middle of the night, all that good stuff. Not sleeping a solid four hours without him fussing. Yeah. Yeah. Are you using any technology? TV, because he likes the lights. So when the TV's on, especially anime, for some reason, maybe it's because of me, if he sees cartoons on TV, he just locks in. And he's just like, oh, look, colors and stuff. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. I remember those days. Bubble Guppies and Mickey Mouse play Clubhouse. That was it. Now, I will say the phone that you gave him, he saw it and won't stop looking at it. but he doesn't grasp of holding yet. 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. I gave Bobo baby first cell phone It not a real cell phone No I not that crazy but it was fun All right well congratulations I know you thankful this holiday season Baby first Christmas is going to be very fun 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. That's the phone line to call if you want to get in. Let's do a question from, we've got a very quick, okay. Let's do a question from Patricia wrote in from Hull, Massachusetts. I donated to a political organization during the last election cycle. Ever since, it's been a total nightmare. I'm getting at least 50 texts a day from them. I even tried paying a service to help scrub my information. That turned out to be a fraud. It's reached the point of harassment. I only contributed once in 2024. 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 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 7726, which is spam. 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. 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 Noelle is thankful for her family and for another day. So if you want to submit what you are thankful for, just go to my Instagram, at Rich on Tech. Larry in San Clemente says he might have a solution for the headset issue. What is it? Hi, Rich. I have the exact same problem, and I solved it with a product called Avantri Oprah. Avantri. Oh, that's the website I was on. Okay, that's the one that they were explaining how to do this. Okay, so how much is this product? It's not cheap. It's in the $150 to $200, but it works perfectly because my hearing's not great, and my wife hates it when the thing gets turned up. So the audio input goes into this device. It then sends to the headset. Headset volume is controllable. Then there's a pass-through that goes from the device into the sound bar. and Marsha can control hers independently of my headset. It works beautifully. Okay. And what's the name of the product again? I see the website. The last time I bought it, it was called Opera. Opera. It's music, Opera. Hmm. Okay, I'm looking. They have five or six different kinds. Some of them are just devices. Some are devices plus headsets, but it works like a charm. Okay, but the website is Avantree.com. I'll link it up on our website. And, yes, they seem to have almost all of the products for this very solution. They just have a million different ways. And, by the way, it's not just for consumers. They've got professional. They're just basically like an audio solutions company, and so they've got a whole bunch of stuff. Right, and I went through exactly what you were talking about. I tried multiple tuners. I tried different, you know, all kinds of things. And one of the issues is you need something that is low latency so that the lip sync is okay. Right. And that's the thing. Yeah. Avantree uses this technology called something like low latency. So, you know, the lip sync is exact for both me and my wife. And it also has long range. Right. You know, most Bluetooth is like 33 feet. This thing can go 200 feet. Okay, and right on their website, it says frequently asked questions. Can my TV speakers work at the same time? Yes. Oh, interesting. Over 70% of TVs allow simultaneous headphone and speaker output. That's interesting. But, yeah, you're right. You need the latency. But this is, like you said, this is a company that is focused fully on these kind of solutions for what Mark was talking about. So I'm going to link this up on the website. Right. And I did look at the TV ears, but that's very low quality. That's not even SD quality. So this stuff is sort of HD quality. I mean, you really get a very, very nice sound in those headsets. And they're over the ear, so it cuts out ambient noise in the living room. I mean, it's the perfect solution. Okay. Well, I'd love to hear from someone that actually is using it. So thanks for that, Larry. Appreciate it. How was San Clemente today? Was it foggy in the morning? A little bit, but it's beautiful. We're living a beautiful life. I called you once before from Comecula, and we moved here, and we just couldn't be more than light. Oh, it is a beautiful area. I went to a wedding there once. Actually, there's a restaurant there south of Nick's. Have you heard of it? Oh, yeah. We go there and his original restaurant, Nick's, all the time. Okay, so he's got Nick's in south of Nick's, and I like the butter cake there. That stuff is, oh, my gosh. That is some good stuff. Yeah, that's great. Well, Rich, thank you so much. I listen every weekend. Love all of your advice. Go through the newsletter. I'm in. I'm all in. All right. Well, I'd love to hear it, Larry. Thank you. Have a happy holiday. Okay. You do the same. Take care. Thank you. All right. There you have it. All right. I'll put that on the website, Avantree, A-V-A-N-T-R-E-E. And, yeah, they have all kinds of, I mean, there's even like a, they've got an airplane adapter. I mean, they've got everything. So a long-range adapter. They've got so many accessories. And it looks like this is a company that sort of engineered all of this stuff to solve the problems that people have with this audio. Let's go to Joe in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Joe, you're on with Rich. Yes, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, I'm a Samsung A16 phone. And with Verizon, I swear, on 5G, this thing only has a range of about 4,800 feet. But aren't these cell phone towers supposed to go at least three, four, five miles? Good question. I'm in the hill, yeah, man. Now, what do you mean you only have a range? You mean it flips into 4G when you get far from the tower or what? Well, it tries to. It's just dead after less than a mile. And you can see the tower, too. Well, here's the deal. So 5G is the new, and I'm not an expert in 4G, 5G, But from what I understand, 5G obviously is a new protocol, and it's better because it can be way faster than 4G. And there's different bands of 5G. So 5G is actually divided up into three different types, which is like a low band, a mid band, and a high band. So my favorite is actually what Verizon offers, which they call it millimeter wave. And so when you get that 5G high band in a place like a sports stadium or if you're in a 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 signals to work, the super high-end 5G. So the companies use a combination of things. So in general, 4G, the signal travels way longer and it goes through buildings a lot easier. 5G, your signal is going to be a lot faster, but there are many more considerations on that signal and how it's set up. So if you're talking the super fast speeds of 5G, those don't travel very far at all. Like we're talking, you know, could be a thousand feet. If you're talking the mid-band on 5G, you might just have a couple miles, and that's kind of the sweet spot. But then if you're talking 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 help your customers out in the best way. So if you're in a rural area, you probably want that low band because it's going to cover a wider range in that 5G. But yes, I would say in general, 5G is not typically going to reach as far as a 4G signal in many places. But 5G is pretty much everywhere now. Thanks for the call today. I appreciate it. 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated. And black America is out of breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's Alma Mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong with a podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. You can now binge all episodes of The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. The guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelt's, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman? And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock before writing a hit James Bond film. How did the secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids? The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Talking to your kids about the dangers of vaping can be hard. Getting them to listen to hot gossip is easy. So here's some drama you could share with your kid. Dude, did you hear about Cassie and Jake? No, but did you hear that vaping can cause irreversible lung damage and nicotine affects brain development? Nuh-uh. You don't need to gossip if you want to have an open conversation about vaping. So if you want to get tips on when and how to talk to your kids, visit talkaboutvaping.org. Brought to you by the American Lung Association and the Ad Council. Hey everyone, it's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers. We're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you. Talking Technology at 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. Welcome to another hour of the show. We are talking about what people are thankful for. I asked 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, 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 with family next month. So is that January? I guess so. Let's see, what else? Oh, this week, you've got to check out my, is it on Instagram? Yeah, it's on Instagram, at Rich on Tech. I went through the drive-thru, and my order number, you would not believe what it was. My kids were in the car with me, and you know this whole 6-7 trend? Well, that was part of my order number, but the first two letters were really surprising. Did you see this? Yes. Can I use the phonetic, like the military, to say like Foxtrot? Yes. What's the other one? Umbrella, maybe? Yeah, it is. So it's Foxtrot Umbrella 6-7. Yeah. And I had to say that, except just the initials. You looked so happy to do it, though, like a little giddy-poo boy. But I didn't know, like, I was like, okay, this person is just going to erupt at me, the order taker. Like, they're just going to, like, and no reaction whatsoever from them. Yeah, none at all. That was what was funny about it. You were so, like, giddy. Well, because I couldn't believe I had to say that out loud. And this person, I'm like, what is the reaction going to be from this person? Yeah. So, and then my kids, you know, they're like, you got to post this, you got to post this, you got to post this. I'm like, I don't know if I can post it. Like, it's kind of mean what I'm saying. No, it's not, actually. You can't control the order number you got. Nobody told them to pick two alphabets and then two numerical numbers. That were just like, 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 guy's like, you can't do five dollars. I'm like, what do you mean? Two bucks each. See, you know. Because I play. I didn't know. So he's like, you could do two, four, six. I'm like, what do you mean by that? That's the Powerball. The Mega is five bucks a ticket. Five dollars for one ticket? For one number, yeah. For one number? Like for one group of numbers. One group. For one, yeah. Now, do you pick your numbers or do you let them go random? Me? It depends on how much I'm spending. If I do 20, I'll spend $10 on my own picks and then five on Quick Picks. Okay. Quick Picks. There you go. See, we're learning stuff. Let's go to... You sound so bougie. let's go to tristan in silmar uh tristan you're on with rich hey rich this is tristan i'm just a hobbyist uh video editor tristan we're really having some trouble with your connection i'm hearing a lot of crackling so how about now no still there but keep going okay i'm just a hobbyist video editor and i work on a pc and i chose the pc because i know there's a lot of programs that that go well with PC and Max not so much just because they want to be more. You've got to try calling back because this connection is just going to drive people nuts in their car. Let's come back to you, Tristan. Call us back and we'll see. Let me see if I can do this. So call us 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. Hi, Rich. Hi. Long time, first time caller. Nice. Welcome. I have a question. I have a Samsung S24 Ultra, and I drive a truck for my job as a living. Nice. And I have a Bluetooth headset, and so I have my phone connected to the car Bluetooth as audio only. Okay. And my headset as calls only. So 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 if I'm able to do a phone call on my phone and add it stream iHeartRadio to the car at the same time if I'm out of the AM range. Yes, because you're on the magical device, which is the Samsung. So this has a great feature that you've probably never, ever noticed, and it's called Separate App Sound. Have you heard of that? I might have actually in my research, but I don't think I'll be able to figure out how to function it. Okay. So what you're talking about, the first thing is the multiple speakers. That's something called AuraCast, which I believe is also built into the Samsung. but that's if you want to, let's say you have three different Bluetooth speakers and you want them to all be connected to your phone at the same time and broadcast the same signal. You can do that with a feature called AuraCast, and I believe that's supported by Samsung as well. That I know about. 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 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 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. You're basically, it's like basically an audio router. So that's the, that, that's the setting I would look in to see if you can do that. Now, here's the trick. Because you're talking about audio, Bluetooth audio, right, like from your phone 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 always connect to your headset and not the car. So that you're going to 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 TikTok to go to your Bluetooth speaker, you can set it to always do that. And then let's say every time you have music from your iHeartRadio app to go to your car's Bluetooth, you can do that. 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, 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. I think they've gotten a lot better by adding things like the camera control button and the live activities and the, you know, the, 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 where a Samsung, they just give it to you all like right away. Like they're just like, Hey, we're giving you like a thousand features, you're going to buy this phone. You may not even figure out these features in the time you have this phone, but when you need them, they're there. 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 Cupertino 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 tweak, with stuff like that. So that's why. This week's gadget of the week is the Meta Ray-Ban glasses. I'm going to call them the gadget of the year because they are just so amazing. I love them. Not only can you take pictures on them, but you can also listen to your audio. You can take calls. Let's see, what else can you do? They're adding a new feature this week called conversation focus. So it almost turns these Meta glasses into makeshift hearing assistants 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, 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 going to call the Meta Ray-Bans the Gadget of the Year because they just do so much stuff. I love them. I've relied on them now 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. Now the MetaGlasses are getting that. So I really like that. And they also have so many great accessibility features. So if you're thinking of a gift, I really, really think these things are a crowd pleaser. It's a little weird because it gets into some gray areas when you're at a stadium, you go into the men's room, you're wearing these glasses. It's like you've got a camera on your face. Kind of weird. You've got to think about that sometimes. 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 $50 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 got to know about Shopback. I've been using it. I love it. It's not like any other cashback 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 cashback. 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, 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. And, again, don't tell anyone. 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 going to get your cash back. New users get a $20 bonus with my code RICHONTECH. $20 bonus with code RICHONTECH. So go to shopback.com and use my code RICHONTECH. 5,000 stores, it actually works. Coming up, more of your calls, 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. More show right after this. welcome back to rich on tech oh we're reading uh what people are thankful for uh marie is thankful for another day of life in time with family louise is thankful for her parents family and health while babette is thankful for her grandchildren all right sounds like tristan's got a better connection tristan and silmar what's up hey is my reception better so much better what'd you do Okay. All I did was call back. Oh, yeah. You know, sometimes that happens. My wife will call me in the car, and she'll be like, you sound like a crazy robot. And I'm like, all right, hang up. Let's try again. I don't know why it happens, but it does. I think I might have picked up a better signal on a different tower or something. I'm not sure. Okay, cool. Well, what's up? 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 Ryzen 5 with its own graphics card, and it has 64 megs of memory, so it's got a lot of memory. Oh, wow, yeah. But my video editing is slow. And even in proxy mode, which I dumbed down to 720p, 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, one of the reasons they do so well is their codec, the 264 and 265 codec, their motherboards can decode those instantly. And PC has an issue sometimes with one or the other that it doesn't do it very well. I'm just wondering if that's my issue. It could be. what type of video are you putting into this computer? You're just doing this for fun? Yeah, it's just for fun, but it is 4K, and I use different cameras, GoPros, phone, my Apple phone, or my Sony, so I'm not sure what algorithms these guys are using differently, if that's part of it. Well, I will tell you this. So I edit on a Mac. I've been editing on a Mac 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 M3 chip. It's not even the latest chip. I think they're up to M5. It's got 24 gigs of memory, and I can cut through 4K video no problem. And I cut it. I edit all my stuff on here for TV. Yeah, I wish I just would have. It doesn't even hiccup. Now, I will tell you, because this is a MacBook Air, it's definitely slower than my MacBook Pro. Like, when I'm exporting, it's definitely slower in importing. But, I mean, even, like, the most basic Mac can edit really well. And same goes for the iPhone. I mean, if you look at editing on the iPhone versus sort of an Android, I mean, it's much faster on the iPhone. Now, that could have to do with codecs 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. But I will tell you, he complains a lot. He does complain that 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 think it can be done, and I think plenty of people edit on PCs. But if you're looking for the least amount of headaches and you are coming from video, from popular gadgets, like you mentioned, the iPhone and the GoPro, it's probably going to be an easier experience. But with that said, I think what's happening on yours with that 4K video, that probably is a little bit tough for that processor you're talking about. You said you had a Ryzen 5 maybe? Yeah. So, you know, that's a mid-level processor, right? Like you want realistically something like a, I don't know, Ryzen 7 or 9, right? Yeah, like a gaming computer almost, right? Right. So I guess it comes down to you as really finding what program are you using to edit? I'm even using CapTut because it's faster than, you know, some of the more power-hungry Premiere Pros and stuff. 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? It could be that I'm getting more down to detail stuff, and it could be that it needs more performance. And is it during the edit, or is it when you're actually exporting? It's not exporting, because I'm not in a rush, so exporting can take forever. I don't care, but it's during the edit. Interesting. I mean, I'm looking at the system requirements for CapCut, Windows 10, Intel Core 3 or above. That's nothing. four gigs of RAM, Intel graphics built in, storage two gigs. I mean, I'm surprised. I feel like maybe is there something else going on in this computer? Is there some sort of, I don't know, antivirus program or something that's running in the background? Have you looked at the startup and saw what starts up on this computer? I can look into that for sure. I know this last one, it was my daughter's wedding, and it's almost a terabyte in data that it's trying to process. them. Okay, well that is a lot. That is a lot for sure. That is a lot. All right, I got to 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 just see if you can hit that sweet spot where you can actually smoothly edit on CapCut because I think that it's equipped enough to be able to handle that. 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 888-RICH-101. That's 888-742-4101. 888-RICH-101. You got a tech question, give me a call. We're happy to have you. Email is also an option. You can go to the website. It's richontech.tv. Hit contact. richontech and hit contact Let 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 so fun it's just there's something about this season that you know you got to spend it with people that you love uh or at least people you like you know if you can't love just like You know, just do something. But, yeah, it's just cozy. Vicki is thankful for family, friends, and her four grandbabies. Elsa is thankful for her family and her granddaughter and all the snow outside. No, I'm just kidding. Get it, Elsa? Bobo is not listening. Susan is especially thankful for good health after recent surgery. Thank you, Susan. And you should be thankful for that. That is great to hear. If you want to comment, at richontech 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 $630 million to settle a massive antitrust lawsuit brought on by all 50 states. The claim was that Google allegedly monopolized the Play Store and forced people to pay too much for apps and in-app purchases. So if you had an Android phone between August 16th, 2016, and September 30th, 2023, and you made some sort of purchase on Google Play or through an app, you're in. That's a lot of people. You don't have to fill out a claim form. If you're eligible, you're going to get a payment via email associated with your Play Store profile. Everyone is guaranteed at least $2, but your payout could be higher depending on how much you spent on apps and microtransactions. So if you were spending a lot on all those Candy Crush in-app purchases, yeah, you'll probably be getting some more money here. All right, final court hearing is set for April 30th, 2026, 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 guest from 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, copier 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 printer combo comes with a program. So if you have Epson, HP, Canon, Brother, they all have a companion app that you can download for your computer. So for Epson, it's called Epson Scan, HP Scan, Canon Scan Utility, Brother iPrint and Scan. So just 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 software called ViewScan, V-U-E-S-C-A-N, and they say they reverse engineered over 7,400 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 $34 a year. That's, again, ViewScan, V-U-E-S-C-A-N. And I'll put that all on the website, richontech.tv. All right, 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. Kate, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks so much, Rich. Good to see you. Yeah. Okay, let's see. Why am I getting this? Oh, I got to mute myself here. Well, you think it's my first day doing this. It feels like it 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? Are those what you see on your end? 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 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 to my accounts or help my family and friends through this process as well. 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 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 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, how to get quick, personalized advice. So I think that's the type of tools, personalized, quick, that you're going to start seeing us roll out as this technology just gets more efficient. Okay, so I'm looking at the website. It's meta.com. And you can tell me if there's a shorter way to get here, but it's meta.com slash account dash recovery dash support. So I'm not sure if there's like a short link, but that's where you can access it, meta.com slash account dash recovery dash support. and you go there and it's got all the main things people always ask me, 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 how to get regain access or, you know, fix your account, whatever it is. So it's pretty smart. And you've said that this has helped reduce issues by like 30% already. Yeah. So that specifically, the 30% 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 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. And I mean, when people get their account blocked, right? Like, 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 did something wrong in your account, you broke some rule and now we're banning you within like 90 days unless you appeal. What can you tell people when they see that message? Like I know they freak out instantly because, you know, this is their lives. Can you get the help and recovery you need in that situation if you really didn't do something wrong? 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 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, 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 confused why their accounts have come down. Yeah, and the pass keys are coming up And it's interesting because pass keys make the logins a lot easier and 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 pass key. Like, even if you set 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 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, 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 are in 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? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I 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, 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 really important that you're super vigilant when you're sharing information online. Definitely always check, like, URL 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 or concerned, maybe call someone, log out, 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 these bad actors are using to make their stuff seem more legitimate. minute. So it's just important to be vigilant. All right. There you have it from Kate Ross, Meta spokesperson. Appreciate you coming on the show today. Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. All right. Again, the website, you got to check it out. It's the account Meta's account recovery hub. So if you're having problems with Instagram, threads, Meta, Facebook, any of those accounts, you can go here and get help for a variety of issues. I'll put the link on my website, richontech.tv 888-RICH-101 888-742-4101 back after this Welcome back to Rich on Tech You didn't think I could play all Christmas songs without at least one Hanukkah song I mean maybe this isn't the best Hanukkah song but it's Adam Sandler I mean this song has just done bananas over the years So welcome back to the show. 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. The website for the show is richontech.tv. This week, Texas said they are suing the world's biggest TV brands, saying that their smart TVs are a mass surveillance system disguised as a flat screen. So they're suing Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense, and 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. It basically scans your screen. And they say it takes a snapshot of your TV every 500 milliseconds to monitor what you're watching in real time. And by the way, it monitors everything that goes on that 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. Anything that comes across that screen can be scanned and then sent back for advertising. And, you know, 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 2017, Vizio settled a big, big, you know, They had a big settlement with the FTC over this, saying that they spied on people. And that was kind of a turning point for Vizio 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, 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. So if you want to change this, 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 Hisense calls it. So 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 sell it and make a lot of money. Now, you've already paid for your TV. 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 here. 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 20 minutes. And I noticed the difference is when you're watching video on your TV, you kind of sit back and relax and watch more of the video. And that's probably exactly why they're doing this. Now, if you remember back in the day, 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 enjoy a TV show that costs millions of dollars to make in 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 literally sitting there ready to flip to the next reel. But when you're watching on TV, that's not the case because you're on your couch. So anyway, check it out. 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 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 days in tech. We both sold electronics back in the day. And he was making this shift from long-form YouTube videos. And he said, I'm going to try this thing. I'm going to 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 a chance he was taking. Now, we didn't see each other in person, but we did text a lot, especially after my car accident. He was checking in on me. 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, but they can still be struggling off camera. So please, my word to you today, check in on your friends. Don't just give them 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 get together, we should get together. You've got to get together. Ask how they're doing. Really understand how your friends are doing. Let them know how important they are to you. Everyone in this world has value. Rest in peace, Lamar Wilson. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lamuba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated, and black America is at a breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. to be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should, and it will blow your mind. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong with a podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. You can now binge all episodes of The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl, the writer who thought up Willy Wonka, Matilda, and the BFG. But did you know he was also a spy? Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life. His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans. What? And he was really good at it. You probably won't believe it either. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. The guy was a spy. Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelts? Played poker with Harry Truman. And had a long affair with a congresswoman. And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film. How did the secret agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever? And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids? The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Talking to your kids about the dangers of vaping can be hard. Getting them to listen to hot gossip is easy. So here's some drama you could share with your kid. Dude, did you hear about Cassie and Jake? No, but did you hear that vaping can cause irreversible lung damage and nicotine affects brain development? Nuh-uh. You don't need to gossip if you want to have an open conversation about vaping. So if you want to get tips on when and how to talk to your kids, visit TalkAboutVaping.org. Brought to you by the American Lung Association and the Ad Council. Hey, everyone. It's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week, we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, We're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers. We're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101. 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 I was a kid, practically. What year did it come out? Christmas Vacation, 1989. 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 filming this scene with, like, Ruby Sue, the little kid. And my wife was like, 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 it. Never seen Christmas Vacation? All right. So what you have to do when you get home, sit down with your little guy. Make it the new tradition. How old is he now? He's, what, a month? A month and a half. A perfect time to start. Really? Got to start those traditions early, Bobo. But 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. So it's like, you know, I'm sure you have something like a tradition that you've done, whether it's like making like cookies or, you know, whatever it is. There's a movie. Now I can't even think of the name of it, and it escapes my mind. It originally was in black and white. They remade it in color. What's the movie? It's A Wonderful Life? A Wonderful Life. Okay. You watch that? Every single year. Not Grinch. See, I'll be honest. Jim Carrey Grinch, though. Okay. I don't even know if I've seen the Jim Carrey. Maybe I'll watch that. What? I don't think I've seen that. Dude, that's the best one ever. Okay, I'll watch that. Tonight. So we both got homework assignments. Okay. Jim Carrey Grinch. Okay, got it. But I will tell you, It's A Wonderful Life. See, for me, it's a much bigger lift than National... Like, that's a big, heavy, long movie. Whereas Christmas Vacation is like a quick hour and a half. You're in, you're out, you're done, and it's silly. It's a wonderful life. Like, I've watched it. That's my dad loves that movie. Yeah, 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 years ago. I was like, all right, 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 for his wife, kids, and extended family. Gigi in Los Angeles is thankful for friends and family who helped celebrate her dad's life. Sorry if you're lost, Gigi. And Mark is thankful for his grandkids. 888-RICH-101, 888-742-4101. Let's see. Mike writes in. Mike K says, Rich, I've been a realtor for over 40 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 10? I need to clean up my drive. Thanks. Yes, this is a huge problem. 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 Photos Fixer Pro. And, you know, keep in mind, people give me a hard time because I recommend stuff, and you find out you've got to pay for it. Anything that's going to be worth what it does, nine times out of ten, you've got to pay for it. So, you know, you can try this program for free, but, you know, this one actually is $4.99. So, you know, you're going to 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 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.com. The other one I like, I think it's called Remo duplicate, Remo duplicate. Let's see here. Sorry, I got to find the actual Remo duplicate. It is really tough to type and talk at the same time. I've learned that one thing. 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 try it, see if it works, and then you can use it later on. Wow, look at that. Get your free access code for full version. Oh, wow. For Android, you can get it completely free. So again, that's remosoftware.com. So those two places, Mike, and do a backup first before you end up starting to make changes there. Karen writes in from Stockton. Hey, Rich, I have a Samsung S21. I need to print out some text messages. What's the easiest way to do that? Well, the easiest way is to take a screenshot and print that 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, 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.com, and then the other one is Alt Tunes. So this is kind of like the iTunes that Apple did not build. and it's available on Windows only. iMazing is available on Mac and PC, but Alt Tunes is available just on Windows. And 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, your call history, back it up. It's basically the 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, richontech.tv. So anything I mention will be on the website, richontech.tv. William says, hey, Rich, I love the show. I still rely on a landline mainly to send and receive faxes. I'd love to port that number to a cell phone or something mobile that could work with my fax 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 to keep your number, you've got to port it to a service. You can port it to something like Ooma, O-O-M-A, and they will work with traditional fax hardware. It costs a lot less than your landline 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 to ditching the fax machine completely, you can use a service like eFax or Fax Plus or Dropbox Fax. And, you know, you're saying that sometimes you've got to send directly to another fax. Anything you need to send, you'd be 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, do you want to keep hardware or do you want to go fully digital? I think, William, you can go fully digital. Unless you're like a doctor, you're probably not sending and receiving that many faxes. This is just something that a lot of people don't need to do anymore. So maybe if you're 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 MagicJack for faxing. And MagicJack, I believe, is just like a one-time fee of like $50. And it's the same thing. It's like a VoIP phone service app. But here's the deal. If you look on MagicJack'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, I've used the MagicJack for faxes. It works fine. So just keep in mind, you may get that. It may not work. Uma, I know, works. Cloudflare did their 2025 year in review. They said global Internet traffic surged by 19% this year. And for the first time, AI bot traffic is rivaling 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 5 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 information Anything you talk about, it's in there instantly. And I'll be honest, I hate to say what I do anymore, because I don't want to give people ideas. 2025 was the year of hyper-volumetric attacks. Cloudflare blocked massive denial of service attacks, which were the largest ever recorded. The most popular sites, Google and Facebook, still number one 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 U.S. Starlink, massive growth. Traffic from SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet more than doubled this year as it expanded into 20 new countries. It's becoming a lifeline in 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 5% of all emails sent this year were malicious. Malicious emails. You've got to be careful. And privacy milestone, more than 52% 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 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. 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101. All this stuff I talk about is linked up on the website. RichOnTech.tv. Don't forget to follow the podcast, follow me on social media, and don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's all at RichOnTech.tv. More Rich on Tech coming your way right after this. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology, 888-RICH-101-888-742-4101. 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. Let's see here. Cindy says, I'm thankful so much for so much. My health, my family, good neighbors. The joy my grandson brings me. I'm thankful for the knowledge you share with us. It helps. Thank you. 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 their 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, 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 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 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. lets 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 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, 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 Alexa can go back and forth with them. It's going to be a little weird. I haven't tested this. I'm curious to see how it works, though. Here's the catch, though. It's not going to work on a majority of the Ring doorbells out there, at least not yet. So, number one, you do need a Ring Home Premium Plan, so you have to be paying for Ring subscription plan. And then you need 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 as far as I can tell, I don't think it's going to work on a non-wired ring doorbell, which cuts out a lot of people. Now, I've always talked about how good Gemini is at images ever since they came up with this Nano Banana upgrade. Well, guess what ChatGPT decided to do this week? They decided to upgrade their image processing. Now they have GPT Image 1.5, 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 ChatGPT can do that. It also generates images four times faster, meaning less waiting. It also does better text rendering. So you'll also notice in ChatGPT in the sidebar, there is a new images section where you can find preset filters and trending prompts. So if you go to ChatGPT, I found this on my phone. So if you go to the images on ChatGPT now, they're really trying to push you to do stuff. So it says star in your own holiday short. It's got all these styles that you can do for your images. It gives you all these suggested stuff. And I made, if you look at my Instagram stories, I made an album cover of me as Bing Crosby, one of those famous albums that he, I always see this pop up on my music player. And anyway, it is good. I don't know if I'm going to switch back to ChatGBT for images because my default is just to use Gemini for images and ChatGBT for everything else. But now I may use it for images more. Let's see here. We've got Gail. Gail is in Covina. Gail, you're on with Rich. Hi. Hey, I watch you on Channel 5 every day. Thank you. And I follow you on Instagram, and I think I get your newsletter. But I have a question that I have. I don't know if I'm supposed to mention this or not, but I have seen your promotion for LifeLock. Is it LifeLock? LifeLock, okay. Anyway, for your support of it, anyway, I just discovered I was just surfing and avoiding other Christmas things. And I saw that somebody has put in information on MapQuest about our address being like a little stop-and-go kind of place by the freeway. for coffee, you know, little. They turned your house into a 7-Eleven? Well, sort of, that kind of thing, but on MathQuest. What? Like they marked your house as like a place you can stop and get like little snacks and coffee? Exactly. Is that true? Is it true? No. Are you like selling hot chocolate outside in the front yard? No. You know, in fact, most people would never find us. We're in Covena, in Covena Hills, which has all been, you know, was originally like all horse property area. And so, anyway, how, if I, you know, I've been thinking about it. If I sign up, if I subscribe to whatever, I can't remember the one that you're trying to take this down. I'm trying to take it. Yeah, but, you know, when I went to the MapQuest site. Okay, hang on. They're playing us off. To try to undo that, it's crazy. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's the thing. Okay, you got to submit. I'm looking at the site. It says there's a way to report an 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 DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology. The website for the show, richontech.tv. Bobo's telling me I've got to watch Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the live-action one, not the cartoon. This is the one with Jim Carrey. Yes. Looks like it came out in 2000. I can't believe I never saw this, So I'm going to download this and watch it. Oh, yeah, Jim Carrey. And it's free, by the way. Well, I say free. It's included if you have Prime. So Amazon Prime. And it's actually leaving Prime in 12 days, which I guess corresponds with the end of the year. But are you really going to watch that come January 1st? Well, maybe January 1st you might. January 2nd? I would. Yeah. Well, you say you watch it every year. It's a great movie. I will tell you next time I see you what I think. I want to text when you're done watching. Okay, I will text you. We've got Matt Bezenko on from Nomorobo. This is a service that can help you take control of your spam calls. Matt, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. So explain, Nomorobo, I believe, started as like a landline filtering service, right? Is that true? Can you explain a little bit about the company? Yeah, sure. And in fact, that's exactly right. So back in 2015, 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, used something that's called SIM ring, simultaneous ring, 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 at who was 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 cut the call off altogether. And so the takeaway of that for the customer was that if their phone rang just once, it meant somebody was calling them probably from a bad number. And if it rang a second time, then 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 10, going into 11 years, and come a long way since. Wow. So now what are you offering? I mean, you've got – I'm looking at this app called Nomorobo 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 figure this stuff out? Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, the problem ebbs and flows. 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 we're 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 phone and text was kind of, you know, maybe 10, 15 percent of the problem. But it's getting close to 50-50, and I think at some point next year, it's actually going to 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, 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 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, basically carpet bombing a bunch of numbers, right? Like looking at your area code, calling from a number in the same area 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. People aren't going to pick up. People sort of got wise to those tactics. And so what they've done instead is they've gone the AI route. They've said, okay, we're going to use AI. We're going to create a profile of kind of our target, for lack of a better term, and we're going to go mine the dark web and the regular web. I was wondering if this was going to happen. I thought that this would be a possibility. So interesting. So, yeah, so they are a little bit more targeted than in years past. That's absolutely right. 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 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 likely you are to start running your mouth and giving them a bunch of information you probably shouldn't be giving them. I had, 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, you know, 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 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 have to do that. Yeah, it really is. And I think you're right. 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. 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 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? Yeah. 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. Right. If it's always 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 messages or Apple messages or whatever, and into one of these much looser environments like WhatsApp or like Telegram, where it's much easier 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. And then basically they start being able to tap into, you know, your phone, tap into your data, those types of things. 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, fake 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 and WhatsApp, you know, pretty much unless you are that ecosystem, you can't see what's going on there. We can't even see that. So it becomes very difficult to protect people in those environments because there's really no rules. We had a woman a couple weeks ago that called that said a 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? Like, come on. But she was convinced. And 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 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've got 10 seconds to tell me. No, I'm just kidding. The bad guys prey on three things. They prey on urgency, they prey on threat of financial loss or gain, and they prey on sense of authority. And so they're always trying to use those levers against you. And urgency is the most dangerous one. If someone's putting you in a position where they're making it sound like if you don't answer right now, you're going to have big problems, the reality is 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 too 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 website or what have you. But, you know, really just not letting yourself get put into that position where, you know, you're feeling like you're being pressured to do something immediately. And how good is this Nomorobo 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? Yeah, absolutely it will. We boast around a 99% 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, and we block those immediately. 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, if it's not in your contacts, if we don't know who that might be, we basically run it through a screener where we say, hey, the person that you're calling is using Nomorobo. You need to tell us who you are. You need to tell us why you're calling. And then we analyze that 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 their own decision as to, you know, okay, so it says it's my kid's school. It looks like my kid's school number. 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-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. All right. The website is nomorobo.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 I'm 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. It's just so, like, frustrating. So thanks for the information. Really appreciate it. Have a great holiday. Great. Thanks for having me. Same to you. All right. Matt Vizenko from Nomorobo. 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 DeMuro here, hanging out with you talking technology. The website, richontech.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 week with you. I'm 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 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 for a moment and just think about how amazing it is that we are all here and how amazing our world is. I'm not kidding. When it's sunny outside, just go outside and just touch the grass with your feet and just 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 miracle that we're all here. So that's my spot. All right, so when I tell you I get a lot of feedback, 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 2025. This is what we didn't get to this year. It's a book. It's a book. I mean, it's wild. Anyway, I mean, you can hear it. You probably can't because these mics are so... You probably can't hear that. Oh, no, you can hear it. Okay, you can hear it. Anyway, 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 lock screen and started talking to me. I freaked out, but I immediately 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. Thank you. Yes, remember, Alt plus F4. If that ever happens, you can turn that off. You 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 Telo for about a year. I pay $5 a month for unlimited text and 100 voice minutes. My wife pays $6 for a plan with more data. You can easily customize with more minutes or data. They run on T-Mobile. The big surprise has been the customer service. It's 24-7, and you get a real person in the U.S. 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're very customizable. Muriel says, Merry Christmas, Rich, to you and your family. I appreciate everything you do, helping us make the sense of the latest tech and pointing us in the right directions. I'm 76 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 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, not advanced topics. That's 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 in Diamond Bar wanted to share a workaround for anyone who still wants to keep a landline but occasionally needs to fax oh here it is I use MagicJack it costs $35 a year when I need to send a fax I unplug my desk phone from the landline connect the MagicJack directly to my HP printer send the pages disconnect it and switch everything back I only send a few faxes a year and it works fine I haven't need to receive a fax in years so this setup covers everything I love watching you on KTLA Thank you, Charles. Yes, I said Magic Jack is not officially supported, but hey, if it works, it works. Pam, thank you so much. As a senior citizen who used to be pretty tech savvy, you have a real gift. You make me feel better about what I know instead of being overwhelmed by what I do not. My husband and I watch KTLA every morning and every night. You are the best. Thank you, Pam. 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. That way you don't have to worry about getting a third-party contractor who may or may not have limited training. Huh, that's interesting. Okay. Sometimes customer service is based solely on who you get. Donna in Tennessee says, I love your emails and newsletters. We moved 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 got the gold star too. Remember, I do pick these emails, 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 2.4 and 5 gigahertz into one network. Anytime I need to connect an older device that only works on 2.4, I have to log into the Spectrum website, temporarily switch the router to 2.4 and the device will connect. Yes. Alona in Edmonds, Washington says, thank you. Okay. Very, very simple. Very easy. Diane says, your show is wonderful. A must-do Saturday activity for me. Gennaro says, Rich, over my 90 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 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. OMG, 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, richontech.tv. You can find me on social media. I am at richontech. As we head into the holidays, 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 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 D'Amiro. Have a wonderful holiday. I will talk to you real soon. 1969 Malcolm and Martin are gone America is in crisis and at Morehouse College the students make their move these students including a young Samuel L. Jackson locked up the members of the Board of Trustees including Martin Luther King Sr. it's the true story of protest and rebellion in black American history that you'll never forget I'm Hans Charles I'm Menelik Lumumba listen to the A-Building on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roald Dahl. He thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, I'll tell you that story and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. The guy was a spy. Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Talking to your kids about the dangers of vaping can be hard. Getting them to listen to hot gossip is easy. So here's some drama you could share with your kid. Dude, did you hear about Cassie and Jake? No, but did you hear that vaping can cause irreversible lung damage and nicotine affects brain development? Nuh-uh. You don't need to gossip if you want to have an open conversation about vaping. So if you want to get tips on when and how to talk to your kids, visit TalkAboutVaping.org. Brought to you by the American Lung Association and the Ad Council. Hey, everyone. It's Emily Simpson and Shane Simpson from the Legally Brunette podcast. Each week, we're bringing you true crime through a legal lens. Whether you want all the facts on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie or you still need to wrap your head around the ditty verdict, we're breaking it all down step by step. And we're not just lawyers. We're also husband and wife. It makes for some pretty entertaining episodes. Listen to Legally Brunette on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Traynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying and drugs. No, I am not your guru. Back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.