iPhone’s hidden security update, CSUN assistive tech & scan your phone for spyware (166, March 21, 2026)

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3:08cents to 11 a.m. A new iPhone hack can steal nearly everything on your device and you might not even tap anything. The scam so convincing, even a tech CEO almost fell for it. And your house might be online in more places than you think, I'll show you how to take those images down. Plus, your tech questions answered, what's going on, I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech. This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about, it's also the place where I answer, your questions about technology, I believe the tech should be interesting, useful and fun. Alright, here we go, Kim, you're ready. Let's open up those phone lines, triple 8, Rich 101, that's 888-742-4101, triple 8, Rich 101. Give me a call if you have a question about technology or need some tech advice.

4:08Channel is also open, just go to richontech.tv and hit contact, richontech.tv and hit contact. Alright guests, this week we've got highlights from the 41st annual CSUN assistive technology conference, we've got Lita Shai from Wirecutter, she's going to talk about the standout tech from their new best new picks list. And later in the show, Patricia Egger from Proton is going to explain the company's new born private initiative, basically helping you reserve an email address for your kid that's private and secure from day one. Well I hope you're having a fantastic day, my name is Rich Demiro, thanks so much for joining me on the show, we got a lot planned for you but I figured I would start with this because it's kind of unique, it's something we don't typically see on the iPhone in a widespread way, but security researchers uncovered a powerful new iPhone hacking tool called Darksword.

5:15Darksword, just one swath and your phone can be leveled. This one's a big deal because it's not your typical scam or app, it's a series of exploits. That's basically vulnerabilities that can take over your phone. Now before you get too crazy and all this stuff, I will tell you this mostly affects older devices running older software. So I'm not trying to scare you here, I'm just trying to explain the kind of scary new future that we live in already, because we don't typically see this kind of stuff for the iPhone. Now in some cases the way this works, you literally just have to visit a website and that could trigger the attack. So if the website is compromised, that's it. And then attackers can access messages, photos, passwords, crypto wallets, basically everything on your device, which is kind of news to me, because I thought that everything on the iPhone was sort of like sandbox, I didn't think that was possible. And this attack has been global, they've had attacks spotted in places like Ukraine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Malaysia. And what's different here is that typically we see iPhone exploits target high profile

6:20individuals, right? How we say heads of state journalists, people like that, right? They're highly targeted, but this tool could be used much more broadly. And that's what's scary about it. Someone might download it and just say, all right, let's just try to get a whole bunch of people. The other thing is that it is very tough to detect. So the good news is Apple's already patched the vulnerabilities as they quickly do with these types of issues. But if you have a phone that is running iOS 18 and you have not updated it to the latest security patch, do that now. Now, if you're on iOS 26, you're already fine. But iOS 18 is still being run at about 20% of phones. So the big takeaway today, if you do one thing, update your phone right now to the latest iOS or at least get the latest iOS 18 security patch, because Apple with this latest update to the iPhone, the operating system, they kind of split where you can stay on the old operating system, but still get critical security updates. So if you don't want your phone to change very much, they'll do that for a while.

7:22They haven't said how long they're going to do that, but they're doing it at least right now. You can also enable lockdown mode for extra protection. So if you're a high-risk target, right, you're a CEO of a company, you are a very prominent journalist. Like I said, you're a head of state. You probably want to enable this lockdown mode. And this is a really strict way of operating your device. So for instance, for messages, all attachments are blocked, right? So images, video, audio, link previews, those are not going to be available if you're doing this. Web browsing, they're going to block certain web technologies, right? So some websites are not going to load properly, they're not going to function properly. But again, it's to keep these exploits from happening. FaceTime, incoming FaceTime calls are blocked unless you previously call that person or had contact with them in the past 30 days. That's interesting. Photos, when you share photos, location information is excluded. They should do that for everyone, by the way, Apple. When you share a photo, there is no reason that location information needs to be included

8:23in there. So let's just make that for everyone. Device connections, to connect to an iPad or an iPhone, to connect those to another accessory or a computer, you have to unlock your device. That's smart. That should be standard, too. Your device will automatically join non-secure Wi-Fi networks and configuration profiles can't be installed. So that is lockdown mode, very, very secure way of operating an iPhone. Not everyone needs it, but a lot of people are toggling that on because it does give you that extra protection. But I think this shows that the iPhone is not bulletproof. You have to keep your device updated. That is the most important takeaway here. Now one thing I mentioned on my Instagram this week is that Apple did a new type of update, an update in a place that you might not typically look. I've never seen this before. So if you go to settings, privacy and security, scroll all the way down to what's called background security improvements. Apple released this new security update called iOS 26.3.1, A, we've never seen an A security

9:28update. This is a brand new thing. So again, settings, privacy and security, background security improvements, you'll see a little update there. It should automatically install eventually. But if you want to install it right now, you can tap install. We could find that on my Instagram at rich on tech. I've got the instructions on that. There's also an app that you might want to download. This can actually scan your iPhone for signs of spyware. It's completely free. It's called iVerify. I Verify. And it's actually called iVerifyBasic. So that's what it's called when you look it up in the app store. iVerifyBasic. It is free. It'll scan your phone for any sorts of malware or spyware, which I think is really smart to do. It's also available for Android. But the thing about Android is, for some reason, they're charging 99 cents. I'm not sure why, but I downloaded it on my Android just to be safe as well. And by the way, if you're on Android, if you're on Samsung, there are three places you want to look to update your phone.

10:29So you want to look at the Google Play Store, update your apps there. Then you want to do your operating system update. So you can go and look there for your operating system. And then you also want to do the Galaxy Store. Don't forget about that one. Galaxy Store is also a place you want to update because they may have some updates as well. Oh, there's actually four. Then you have the Google Play System update. So if you go into settings, security and privacy, under updates, you'll see it says Google Play System update. You also want to check there because Google typically, oh, and look at that, I need an update. So Google will typically put updates through there as well. So a lot of places to look for updates on your phone, make sure you update them. That is very, very important. Real quick, a little note of irony this week or the company that helps protect your identity, just confirmed a data breach impacting about 900,000 people. I was one of them, all my little personal information, all the dark web monitoring systems

11:32that I have. They all sent me an email this week saying, rich, your information's out there. The contact information names, email addresses, some cases, phone numbers and home addresses. The good news is this did not include social security numbers, passwords or financial information. So that's the good news, but the bad news is this is a company that is that people are paying to protect their identity and they had a data breach and guess how it happened. One of their employees was tricked into giving access to one of their behind the scenes systems over the phone. Someone called them and I don't know what they said on the phone call, but they somehow convinced them to give them access. So they grabbed about 12 gigabytes of data before it took about an hour for the company to realize, uh oh, and they stopped them. But still, what do you have to be on lookout for like any sort of phishing emails or texts pretending to be aura or other services at this point because they could be highly targeted to you and also customized with your information. So bottom line, no financial data was taken here, but your contact info could be used

12:35for more targeted scams. It's probably stuff that's already out there, but since it's fresh, hackers get their hands on it and they start to use it again. So just be aware of that. All right. We got a lot to talk about on the show, 888, Rich 101, 888, 742, 4101. Once again, the website richontech.tv. I will link up that app I mentioned, the iVerify app, and I'll also link up everything you need to know about that iPhone security update and that iPhone dark sword malware. All right. We'll be back in just a little bit. Welcome back to Richon Tech, Rich Demiro here. Looking out with you, Talking Technology, Triple 8, Rich 101, 888, 742, 4101. Let's go to Gary in, is it Indio, California?

13:38Yes, it is. Welcome to the show. I think. I don't know if you have any of the information up, but I have a brother's printer, a wireless one, and I want to hook it up to my laptop, and my modem is an euro that the frontier replaced with it. Oh, wow. They're giving out euros now. It doesn't have a WPS button to push to think it to Wi-Fi. Yes. So, I know exactly the printer you have, because I had that printer for many years, and I believe WPS, which stands for Wi-Fi Protected Setup, that is a very outdated protocol at this point. It used to be the easiest way to connect your gadgets, because you would basically put your router into a receiving mode, and then you would just tap the button on your device,

14:39and they would pair up. But apparently, someone that's much smarter than me decided that that is not a good system anymore. Yes, that's right. So, they stopped putting it in there and believe me. I had that printer for many, many years, and went through many routers, and all of a sudden they stopped shipping with that feature, and I was like, wait a second. Am I missing something? This was the easiest way to do things. So, you are going to have to set up this printer the old-fashioned way, which is by linking it to the network. Are you not seeing the network, or is it just, it's kind of a pain, right? Because that brother, there's no easy way to do that, right? I remember you have to do something kind of silly to get that connected. Correct. There's no screener in here. Yeah, there's no screen. That's right. I'm trying to remember the system for it, and I think it was like, I don't remember what it was, but it's a little bit convoluted, but you can do it, and thankfully you only have to do it once a year, or once like every 10 years or something for you.

15:39So, do you have access to the instruction book of that brother? You can find that online. Probably, yeah. Okay. The only tip I would give you is you may want to switch your Euro router. Do you have the Euro app downloaded? I don't think so. When I called Frontier about it, they said they would give me an older router back if I wanted. Okay. Well, I mean, I don't know if I would do that, but inside, if you can download the Euro app and link up, which I'm sure you could, there is a system, or there is an option under Settings, let's see here, which is, okay. So if you go under Settings, and it says Advanced Networking, it says Erosimple, no, that's not it. Hold on. There is a way to, I'm trying to look where this is, uh-oh, DHC, okay, IP, ISP Settings. Okay.

16:39There is a, I'm not finding the setting here. There is a troubleshooting. There it is. Okay. So if you go into troubleshooting, and then it says my device won't connect, you can say my device is 2.4GHz only, and it will basically turn off the 5GHz and 6GHz networks just for a couple minutes while you connect, I think it's like 10 minutes, to give that printer a little bit of time to connect to that 2.4GHz network, and then it will be smooth selling from there on out. Okay. Great. All right. That is all. Thanks for the help. Gary, thanks for the call today from Indio. Uh, yeah, that's, that's, you know, I say we don't do printer questions on this show, but we end up doing a printer question every single time. So it just seems to happen. 888, rich 101, 888, 742, 4101. Uh, let's see here. This story is kind of, we were talking about scams in the, in the first, you know, like

17:40that, basically that aura app had gotten, someone got tricked into handing over access to one of their corporate systems and they got a whole bunch of data taken. This, uh, new scam comes from Matt Mullenweg. He is the, uh, CEO of WordPress, so very tech savvy guy. He wrote a blog post that said, this scam that attacked him almost got him. So here's how it happens. So you can watch out for this, uh, basically he's just sitting there, mining his own business and all of a sudden all of his Apple devices start lighting up with notifications, uh, password reset notifications, his iPhone, his Apple watch, his Mac, all at once. Now, that's step one of the scam as he explains it, overwhelm you and make you think your attack, your account is under attack, okay? The scammers did something really clever. They basically contacted Apple support pretending to be him and opened up a real support case. Now this is a public guy. So they were able to kind of piece together some information about him, call the, uh, Apple support, open up that support case and that sent real Apple emails from Apple

18:45servers to his email address. So they didn't go to spam and you know how I tell you, hey, check the email address, make sure it's legitimate. These were. So your spidey sense would not go up right now. If you're a person sitting at home, you go, oh my gosh, I'm under attack. I'm getting all these password resets. Now I got an email from Apple next. And this was the part that was really interesting. He gets a phone call from quote unquote, Apple support and the guy sounds pretty good. He's calm. He's knowledgeable. They even chitchat about security advice saying, hey, you know, you need to lock this stuff down. And at first he didn't necessarily know this was fake, but then I think he realized it was. And so here's when the trap happened. They texted Matt a link to quote unquote, fix the issue. And inside that link, this was the fake website that was actually trying to steal his information. So the fake website even showed that real case ID from that Apple support page that or there's Apple support emails. So he knew immediately this was fake and he told the guy he called him out.

19:47And what do you think happened? Immediately the person hung up. So the key takeaway here, Apple is not going to call you out of the blue to ask you about your account security or to help you. Never tap links and text or emails for account security. Please go directly to your settings or apple.com yourself. This stuff is getting out of control. It's getting really bad. And remember, my little tip I told you weeks ago, there is a call recording functionality on every phone right now. Samsung's got it. Pixel's got it. So does the iPhone. And when you enable that call recording, it says this call maybe this call is being recorded. Those scammers will hang up instantly when they hear that. So just toggle on the call recording when you think you got a scammer. It's a great way of knowing if they're real or fake because the fake ones are going to hang up instantly. They don't want to be recorded. All right, 888, rich 101, 888, 742, 410, back with the CSUN assistive tech conference after this. In the X-well hall, welcome back to rich on tech, rich to Miro here hanging out with you

20:50talking technology, triple eight, rich 101, 888, 742, 4101. The website is rich on tech.tv. We'll get back to those phone lines in just a moment. But this week I spent some time at one of the, actually it was last week at one of the biggest accessibility tech shows in the world. It is the CSUN assistive technology conference in Anaheim. And today I'm sharing some of the most impressive things I saw. Hi, I'm Julia Santiago and I'm the managing director for the CSUN Center on Disabilities and we're the host of the annual CSUN assistive technology conference. So tell me about the CSUN assistive technology conference. What is this conference all about? Well we're an accessibility conference and assistive technology for people with disabilities. We run the full diverse gamut on disability and types of disability and types of technology. We have about 130 exhibitors and they are showcasing products and services really intended to help eliminate barriers and increase access for people with disabilities.

21:55How is that involved over the years because of technology? You know, it's evolved quite a bit. This is our 41st conference and so if you can imagine over 41 years, a lot of technological advancements. I would say the biggest change that we're seeing, I would say change, but the biggest focus that we're now seeing is heavily in AI and a lot of AI types of products and services. But it's a lot of just in terms of the development of AI and its use in accessibility is a pretty large focus this year. And what's the benefit of all this? The impact I think is really what our mission is, and our mission is to make an inclusive world without any barriers to anyone so that people can participate in their lives to the fullest except. My name is Hans Jürgen Weiber and I'm the founder of Be My Eyes. How'd you come up with this idea? Well, being blind myself, it was pretty straightforward and the short story is that one day I met

23:00a guy and he was telling me he was using a FaceTime and then he said, but I always have to think about rules to call. And then I was thinking, oh, maybe we can make a group you can call. So that was kind of how I got into all this and yeah, it's a long story, but that's how it started. And that's amazing though. So the idea now is that you have the world on call. Within the last few days, we have reached two milestones. One is that we now have 1 million blinds and low-vegan people signed up for Be My Eyes. And we have 10 million volunteers all over the world. You can get assistance in 185 different languages and no matter where in the world you are, if you have access to the internet, you can get assistance from Be My Eyes in whatever language we speak. What's next for Be My Eyes?

24:01Is there any improvement to the service you'd like to see? Is there anything that you'd like to change or moving forward here? Yeah, we have just launched a Be My Eyes workplace corner. The unemployment rate among blind people is like 70%, which is kind of insane. And we hope that Be My Eyes workbook is a laptop program where you, if you have a job or you're seeking a job, say you have a job and then most likely at some point you will get a PDF file that is not accessible. But then you hit two keys and then you will have a description. If that's not enough, you can press on two other keys and you can connect your computer with a colleague. The colleague can see your screen. You can even have a colleague take over your computer to help you do something.

25:05So you are up and running again. Our hope is that this will benefit blind people in job situations and make it more accessible to be in the job market. The company name is Luna from the Netherlands. And your name? My name is Pierre Kegels and I'm the director of business development. What are you showing off here? We have a new pair of glasses which we have developed for people who are night blind. Our main target audience will be people with RP that tend to become completely blind after dark. So what we do is we have a pair of glasses with a very light sensitive camera in here and everything that the camera sees is being displayed inside the glass but brighter. So when people wear them at night, it's like you switched on a light. So people get their autonomy again and go out by their cells to a restaurant. Even inside a restaurant, they don't have to ask somebody else to walk with them to the restaurant they can find it by themselves. Our CEO, he has RP themselves and at the age of 30, he just thought, I don't want to be

26:07the one having to ask the rest of my life somebody to help me. I want to have a device that really helps me and if it helps me, it helps a lot of people. And price point? Almost $5,000. And what do you think of that price point for something like this? Well, based on the fact that half of our pre-orders are from the US, people are willing to pay for their autonomy. Maybe the company is Mesmo Technologies and my name is John Gray and I'm the director of business development and we have a brand new product called Bridge and Bridge provides real-time captioning for businesses in the workplace. So if you have hearing loss like myself, I've got my hearing aids in and I'm in the workplace and I have just a traditional desk phone or a computer, however you take phone calls, the problem is they can't provide captioning. So I struggle on a phone call to know what's happening, right? I can't hear it, but with the Bridge unit, I can connect it to any desk funer computer and it provides me real-time captioning just like this on the phone call so I can read

27:12everything that you're saying. So from an accessibility point of view, it's wonderful because then I don't, I'm not at a disadvantage at work, right? What do you make of the advancements we've seen in this technology? It's amazing. Just me 10 years ago, could AI be using, could be doing this captioning this or did we have to have a live person? I would have told you 10 years ago, no, it's not ready. Today, I would tell you AI, we can't live without it. Our system is very fast and very accurate and it's all AI-based. So our ASR automatic speech recognition, ASR, our ASR speech engine is incredibly fast and accurate and it's just a wonderful thing. It's where technology is going now and we're taking full advantage of it to make sure that we can provide those accessible features, right? And average person, can they just download like one of your apps or yeah, the intercaption app is free and can be downloaded right off the app or the play store? For Bridge, you can literally go to our website, a business, mostly would pay for that. And they can go to our website, it's bridgecaption.com.

28:16I'm John Taylor, a senior vice president at LG Electronics, USA. We have a number of highlights this year. First and foremost is what we call the comfort kit, which is a series of accessories that can be incorporated into your existing appliances that help people that might have some mobility issues to help use these things in a more simple fashion. Of course, AI and IoT is at the center of everything we do in our homes and our lifestyles today. And we're showing how our smart home platform, thank you on, integrates across the board with our appliances to help give you audio commands and visual identifications. When, for instance, if you leave the door open on your refrigerator and you're hearing impaired, you'll actually have a light that'll remind you to close the door. And then the TV obviously center for every home showing off a lot of accessibility features that are probably built into almost every LG TV. Tell me about those. Across the board, LG has built accessibility features into our televisions. We were an early pioneer in close captioning, and today it really goes much beyond that

29:18with AI, of course, you can have captions in any language that will be in real time that doesn't really depend on the broadcaster providing it. But beyond that, you know, the ability to actually blow up the image on the screen, change the font size, additional audio explanations, and I just saw a demonstration I hadn't seen before that allows you to even adjust not just the volume, but the pace of the introduction of the explanations that are giving to you in an audio fashion to really help someone who's visually impaired walks through the entire and enjoy the entire TV experience and much better than ever before. All right, there you have it, the 41st annual CSUN assistive tech conference. If you want to see more of my coverage, video coverage from there, you can go to the website richontech.tv, 888, rich 101, 888, 742, 410, more of your calls, plus I'll tell you how to hide your home from the internet when we return.

30:24Welcome back to richontech, rich tomorrow here. Let's go to Jack in Riverside, you're on with rich. I rich, how you doing? I'm doing well. How about yourself? I'm OK. Since I've been on hold, I've been rethinking my question. I'm not sure if you're going to make sounds, but I'll give it a shot. Let's see. So, I have a bunch of devices. I have, like, echo devices, ring cams and doorbells. I have windows 11. I do use chat, GBT, and of course, Gmail accounts. And I feel like they're not all working together to be as productive as I can. And I'm not sure if that's a possibility to bring everything to one sort of a hub kind of thing, or if I need to buy a different, you know, like all iOS or all Android products. So there's interesting. You're talking about something that I think about on a daily basis, because I test just about everything, every platform sitting in front of me right now.

31:25I've got my Mac computer and Android, a Windows PC, an iPhone, and a Pixel. And so, and by the way, I use Alexa, I use ring, I also use Google Nest. So we're the same. We're the same. I use chat GBT. I also use Gemini. What else did you mention? Alexa? Yeah. So, I mean, Gmail. So here's the thing. Yeah. What you're talking about is something that I have kind of thought about in recent years. Tech companies used to be where they would all kind of work together really well, right? And the problem is every one of these services that you're talking about, they're all owned by a big conglomerate, right? So Echo, owned by Amazon, Ring, now owned by Amazon, Windows 11, Microsoft, chat GBT, independent, Gmail is Google, Android is Google, iPhone is Apple. So the problem is all of these things don't necessarily work together in a smooth fashion,

32:27because these companies want to silo you into using all their products. And it... Well, that's what I was saying. Like, if I don't mind, like, if I had to give up, you know, the Android devices or something to go to, I, I'll Apple, you know, so that's a better chance, everything will be concert. I mean, is that possible? I mean, not really, I mean, look, here's the way I see it. What I see is that you should be able to pick what you want to use and what you're talking about, there's a bunch of different things. So let's say you went all iPhone, like, Ring is still going to work with iPhone, but you're not going to be able to do any sort of voice commands to Siri to control Ring, whereas you would be able to do that with an Alexa device, right? Or if you had a fire TV device, when someone rings your Ring doorbell, that video pops up on your, on your TV screen, same thing with Nest. If you have a Google TV device and you had a Nest doorbell, when someone rings the doorbell, you'd be able to see that on your TV screen. So my feeling is that you pick the best for the job.

33:28And I think it sounds like you've picked a lot of things that you like. I don't think there's a way to weave them all together. And believe me, I think about this stuff a lot, because, you know, I want to use Gemini, because it has access to my email and my calendar, right? But Chat GBT is better overall for daily use. So what I end up doing is use Chat GBT for everything. And then when I have to add something to my calendar or tap into my Gmail, I will go to Gemini and do that or make an image. So is Chat GBT maybe the best future option to bring everything together? I think there, I think Chat GBT works really well. Have you looked into the connections on Chat GBT and under the settings? I have not. Okay. So there is a, let's see where they call it here. I think it's called apps. So if you look under apps, they have a whole bunch of things that you can connect to your Chat GBT. And what I have connected, you can connect Gmail. I don't know. Can you connect Outlook?

34:28Let's see. Let's see if Microsoft, no, Microsoft's not on there, obviously. But you can connect Gmail, you can connect, there's a whole, there's a whole laundry list of things that you can connect. Canva, Apple Music, Expedia, Lovable, Spotify, Target. So I mean, you know, that's one way of doing it. Canva also lets you do something like that as well. Sorry. Okay. Not Canva. Claude. What is that? Claude is like another, you know, another AI system. So it's kind of like a Chat GBT, except it's made by Anthropic. But here's the deal. Okay. So I think you're struggling in a situation where it's not that easy. There are so many great tools out there to just say, oh yeah, I'm going to go Apple so I can pick everything that Apple works with nicely. Some people do that. You know, the Apple ecosystem, they really enjoy that. I personally don't like that because then now you're going to go out and look for a home kit doorbell or a home kit video camera because that works with Apple. Why? Those might not be as good as a ring camera, right? So in all of these things have apps for your phone.

35:29So I think that at this point, you still kind of have to just use these things individually. Link them up when you can and just keep in mind as you're building your system and picking products, find stuff that works with other things. So for instance, and I know we're talking about this for a long time. But like, for instance, I'm using Microsoft to do as my task manager, not Google tasks because I think Microsoft to do is one of the best task managers out there, one of the best to do lists. And I made it work with the iPhone and Siri on the side because now I can talk to Siri and just say remind me to do this and it goes right into my Microsoft and it took me a couple of minutes to figure that out. But I picked Microsoft because of that functionality, over say something like to do list or something like that. So again, it's these little decisions that you make that could make your systems a little bit easier. You have one for one quick question. Sure. Okay. I bought a refurbished S25 FE and it did not come with the visual voicemail.

36:30Okay. And I contacted the seller and they said, we'll just send it back and I've contacted my provider or self provider and they're saying, well, no, it has to be, I guess, the phones. Yeah. So when any suggestions on how to, is there defending it back if there's another option? Unless your provider has an app you can download to get that visual voicemail, sometimes that is just built in at the operating system level and you're not going to be able to recreate that unless the phone has specific software for that carrier. It really varies by carrier. Obviously, Apple has made it on the iPhone platform agnostic. So you just, you know, you get on the cell network and next thing you know, you've got visual voicemail for most providers on Android. It doesn't necessarily work that way. So for instance, like Mint mobile, I believe you can download an app and get your visual voicemail, but some other MVNOs may not be like that. I'm assuming you're on an MVNO or is it a main network? You have a spectrum mobile. Yeah. I guess it was Verizon or something. Yeah. So they may not, unless it's provisioned specifically for that phone, it may not, it,

37:32unless they can let you download an app for your voicemail, it may not do that. Okay. All right. I really appreciate it. All right. Jack, appreciate it. Thanks for the kind words. 888, Rich 101, 888, 742, 4101. Did this segment on TV thought I'd mention it here? You know, your home is in more places online than you think, right? You look at Google Street View, old real estate listings. You can actually go in and ask to blur out your home. Some people like to do this for privacy concerns. I'm not fully convinced. It's the best thing to do, but I'm just telling you that you can do it. Google Street View lets you blur it. Apple Maps lets you blur your home. There's also a lesser known mapping service owned by Meta called Mapillary, M-A-P-I-L-L-L-A-R-Y. That has crowdsourced photos and your home can be on there. What about inside your house? My house was on here for so long and I kept trying to figure out how to get these pictures

38:33off and I finally did. But on Redfin, you can log in and hide the listing photos. On Zillow, you can remove your listing photos as well. So those are two big places and then when I presented this story, of course, people were emailing me other websites. So basically any website that has your personal information on there, you can go in and ask them to get rid of that or blur it out. Keep in mind, if you do this at least on Google Street View, on Google Maps, once you ask to blur, it is permanent. There is no going back. But I put all these instructions, I'll link them up on the website, richontech.tv. They're all a little bit different, you just have to know where to look. But typically you look under the menu when you find a picture of your home. Under Street View, it's a reported problem, it's in the lower right-hand corner. On Apple Maps, you have to do it from a desktop, it says report an issue. But I'll put all these instructions on the website, richontech.tv, if you want to learn how to get rid of your home from the internet. You are listening to RichonTech back after this.

39:36Keeping system secure is more complicated than ever, especially with AI agents transforming how businesses operate. That's where Delinia comes in. Organizations today need an identity security partner that evolves as fast as they do. Delinia provides the modern enterprise with calm and controlled identity security, built for the AI era, enabling businesses to defend access in real time with confidence. Delinia meets you where you are, reducing security and compliance risk, no matter how complex, automated or distributed the environment. The Delinia platform ensures the right identities have the right access at the right moment. So innovation, productivity, and agent AI transformation can proceed without interruption. Because when nothing out of the ordinary happens, that's extraordinary. That's identity security at work. One more at delinia.com, that's d-e-l-i-n-e-a.com. Exima is unpredictable, but you can flair less with ebglyce, a once monthly treatment

40:38for moderate to superior eczema. After an initial four-month or longer dosing phase, about four and ten people taking ebglyce, achieved itch relief and glare are almost glare skin at sixteen weeks, and most of those people maintain skin that's still more glare at one year with monthly dosing. EMPGlyce, LibreKizumap, LBKZ, a 250mg per 2mL injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 lbs or 40kg with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin, or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies. EMPGlyce can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebglyce. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebglyce. Before starting ebglyce, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about ebglyce and visit ebglyce.lily.com or call 1-800-LilyRx or 1-105-4-5-5-9-7-9. We're lost. It feels like we're going round in circles. I'm going to ask that man for directions.

41:39Hi there. We're trying to get to the state fairgrounds. Well, you're going to take a lift at the old oak tree at this here road. Nah, I'm just kidding. Let me get my phone out. How is there signal out here? T-Mobile and U.S. cellular are coming together, so the network out here is huge. We get the same great signal as the city, saving a boatload with benefits. And there's a five-year price guarantee, too. OK, here's the turn. Actually, can you pull up the way to a T-Mobile store? America's best network just got bigger. Switch to T-Mobile today and get built in benefits the other guys leave out. Plus, our five-year price guarantee. And now T-Mobile is available at U.S. cellular stores in Martinsburg. Best mobile network based on analysis by Oak Loaf's speed test intelligence data second half of 2025. Bigger network. Designation of T-Mobile and U.S. cellular's network footprints will enhance the T-Mobile network's coverage. Price guarantee on talk text and data, exclusions like taxes and fees apply, see T-Mobile.com for details. Mmm. One ice coffee. 99 cents, please. For real? No way. Mmm. Ah.

42:40Mmm. One ice coffee. 99 cents, please. For real? No way. Mmm. What a deal. Your new morning groove. Ice coffee from McDonald's. Any size for just 99 cents to 11 a.m. Price and participation may vary. Can I be combined with any other offer? Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. Texting privacy policy in terms of conditions posted at TextingTurbs.us. Texting rules you for occurring on a media text marketing message. Just message your data. It may apply or play. Stopped out. Visit ISSA online for details. Tired of the 9-5 grind. Looking for something different that's flexible, fulfilling and pays well? How do you like to get paid to work out? Now you can. With ISSA, the global leader in the world. The global leader in the world. The global leader in the world. The global leader in the world. The global leader in the world. The global leader in the world. With ISSA, the global leader in personal fitness certification. There's a huge demand for certified personal trainers right now. And once you get ISSA certified, they guarantee you'll get a job. Trainers can make as much as $100 an hour. Yes, I said $100 an hour. And with ISSA, you can be certified in as little as six weeks. You do everything at your own pace. And 100% online. Pursue your passion in specializations like yoga.

43:40Nutrition or strength training. Get certified and live your life on your terms. Work at a gym. Start your own business or a side hustle. Whatever works for you. Just don't wait. Get your free personal training evaluation kit today. Get certified in as little as six weeks. And ISSA guarantees you'll get a job. Text gym to 323232. Text gym to 323232. Gym to 32323232. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich Demuro here hanging out with you talking technology. One of my favorite country singers right now, Ella Langley. 26 years old. So many great songs already, including this one. I just have this on repeat all the time. 888 rich 101 888 742 4101. The website for the show is rich on tech.tv. Welcome to the show. I mentioned earlier that I verify app that checks for spyware. Already have a few of you sending me screenshots of your phone saying, Look, I'm good.

44:40I'm clear. Thankfully. I hope that's the way it is. Let's see. This hour, we've got the wire cutter joining us. They're going to talk. They've got this new list called best new picks. And so we're going to pick their brain about that. No pun intended. And talk about some of the products on there. And later in the show, we've got Patricia Egger from Proton. Are you familiar with Proton? They're the company that's, they're out of Switzerland. And very privacy focused. So it's almost like everything that Google offers, like drive, email, all that stuff. But it's a very privacy centric. So all end to end encrypted. And people really like their products. Anyway, they've got a new thing called born private. Which is about basically reserving a private email address for your kid at birth. It's funny. Bobo. He, you know, he had a kid. And his wife, we went out to dinner a couple of weeks ago, was saying that you guys set up an email address for your kid.

45:43And she will email this. I thought was brilliant. She will email the email address. Like when she has a cute little moment or a memory. So when your kid gets to be whatever age, you know, when they can read their email, they're going to have all these memories that your wife wrote in. That's such a cool idea. So I don't want to take the credit because this was all her idea. And even when she did, I was like, yo, that's dope. Like you can send messages to him, sent pictures and stuff like that. And I was like, yo, that's actually pretty good. When he gets old enough, he can go back and see everything. Yeah. I mean, it's such a good idea too because you can keep like a, you know, a notebook or a diary. Yeah. But like my wife, we go through, like we have that diary of like my first baby or whatever. She filled out the first page and that was it. But I mean, if you think about it, you're always on a device. So you just send an email to an email address is perfect. Oh my gosh, it's such a great idea. Anyway, so we'll talk about that later in the show. What, you know, how you can do that with that email. Or if that will work because I know what we'll see. We'll find out. All right.

46:43Let's go to Linda in Burbank. Line three. Linda, you're on with Rich. Yeah, Rich, I remember this was like some weeks or months or so ago. I didn't have a chance to call in when you were talking about. If anyone is had to do without a cell phone. Sure. Yeah. There was a time, it was a time trip I had to do with a cell phone. And this was, okay, let's see, was it, I'm with consumer cellular. Okay. And peer talk, he sounded like it had a good deal. So I switched peer talk. And it was taking a long time for the port. Oh, no. Uh-oh. And while the port thing got through, didn't get, for the port thing got through, you know, my phone was off. And then when I was with peer talk, then I heard a bear deal with consumer cellular.

47:46I went back to consumer cellular. And it took a long time to transfer back over again. Uh-oh. Well. And so. So you were lost. Your phone number was in Never Never Land for a little bit. Yeah. So this is the experience I had to do without a phone. And what did you do? Twitter, your thumbs? I was going dessert. Yeah. Well, I will, and this is, this might have been the, now, is everything on the up and up now? Like is all your phone working now? Sounds like it is. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Good. And who did you settle with? Who's your provider? Oh, peer talk. Okay. And do you like them? Yeah. Okay. Good. Good. I mean, we, I think, yeah. Well, so what happened with me, and I think maybe this is the story that you were referring to, I, I was switching, you know, I, I test phones for a living. So I wasn't switching providers, but I was switching my SIM from one phone to another. And usually it's a pretty straightforward process.

48:46Well, this time I tried switching, and it, my phone, my number left my, my first phone, and it never made its way to the second phone. So it was in this never, never land. And of course, it was the afternoon. It's when I pick up the kids. My wife is calling me all this stuff. Nobody could get ahold of me. Because my phone number would just ring, and that was it. It wouldn't do, it wouldn't connect, because there was no number. And so I called my provider, and they didn't believe it was me. They said, sorry, we can't, we can't verify it's you because we have no way of verifying. Typically, they'll send you a text to your number. And if you have a second line on the account, they may use that as well. Well, they couldn't do that because I don't have a second line on my account. So they're like, sorry, we have no way of verifying you. And I said, oh my gosh, like just asking me anything. And sure enough, they're just like, no, we can't trust you. And I said, okay, what do I have to do? You have to go into a store. So I had to go into a store, and the guy said, okay, well, I can't verify you. I have to wait. I have to try to verify you three times before our system will finally let me in.

49:48I mean, so I was actually happy that it was that secure, but man, going without a phone. Now, I had other phone lines because I've lost a test line from different companies to try out their service. But my phone number was not working. That is not a position you want to be in, especially when your kids are at school, your wife's trying to call you, you know, people are trying to call you, whatever. Anyone else is fine. It's just like the bear, you know, the core folks, you need them to be able to get in touch with you. Anyway, thanks for the call, Linda. Let's go to Marcel in Brooklyn, Marcel. What's up? Hey, Rich, I'm calling from New York. I just call you many times ago to talk about the caption on Instagram. But what about this one here? I just log in on my app here on my tablets. And it says it will be ready for this. Yeah. Login has aspired, but it's also the extension denied login error.

50:48It's taking place of March of this year, but especially of last year, Dave will be definitely blocked. All of all users on this app. So prepare to this. How could I fix or everyone there fixed at X via Twitter to give these logins and users back on? Well, I'm not understanding. So you're trying to use the X app on your iPad and it's not working. No, no, no, no. I'm talking about both. One here from Amazon and one from the Android. The Android is fine, but the Amazon tablet here is says it's my five or seven tablet. My uncle Colleen gave it to me from many years ago. But I just download the app. And of course, I create this account. I have the password. I have the pass key. I have the, also my username is MIRA29. It's still there. But can the user here come back on from a section denied login error?

51:49Well, do you have some sort of ad blocker on your tablet? Do you have, you know, maybe this, are they still supporting this, this app on the tablet at all? No, no, no, Chef X Twitter. Yeah, I know. Oh, you're just saying X like just you're going to the website. Yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, got it. Got it. Got it. Okay, so can you try different browser and can you try clearing all the cash and history and cookies on that browser? Have you tried that? Yes. I also have the pass key and two app A to keep away from hackers. Oh, good. Smart. Oh, good. Smart. And of course, the authentication app. Oh, look at you. You've got all your security ducks in a row. I love it. That is very smart because the two factor authentication app is actually better. Well, number one, I think Twitter, unless you're a premium paid subscriber, you can't use text codes anymore. So you have to go to the authentication app.

52:49The one I like, which one you use, and I like proton authenticator. Oh, yeah. Also, I have to use the Google Authenticator. Okay. All right. Well, Google Authenticator is okay, but it keeps you kind of locked into Google. Okay. So what I would say is a couple of things. First off, Marcel, I would try to, if you can, I think the silk browser is what they have on the fire tablets. See if you can download a different browser to that tablet and see if you can use that to log into X. That's the, that's the main thing. If you can log in on a different browser, then we know this problem is on the silk browser. Silk browser is a little different. It's a little more unique than other browsers out there. Because I feel like it does some stuff in the background like caches, websites, and things. Maybe not anymore. But I would try that. Try logging in with a different browser and see if that works. Otherwise, if you're able to download the X app on that tablet, maybe go that route and just use X or, you know, maybe just stop doom scrolling.

53:49That's another option. I mean, that maybe, you know, who knows? I mean, maybe, maybe just leave X on your phone and you'll be fine. So maybe, I don't know. You know, it's one of these things where to me on my tablet, it's like mostly for consumption. Like, I just want to sit there and like watch stuff or read stuff. So for me, like, the social media is better. Just relegate it to my phone and I keep it there. But anyway, hopefully you get a figured out myself. Sounds like you know your stuff and you will, it will just be a matter of time before you're back up and scrolling again. Thanks for the call today all the way from Brooklyn 888 rich 101 888 742 4101. I shouldn't say all the way from Brooklyn. If you're listening in New York City, you're like, what do you mean all the way? I mean, I get it's like a train ride away. It's not that far. It depends. You're listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome back to Rich on Tech, Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology.

54:53I mean, I had to play one of Bobo's favorite songs. Joey is. It's a good song. You know, I poo-pooed this movie for so long. I was like, I'm not watching that. Like, come on. Sat down with the kids, watched it. It was so good. And. They're making a sequel. Oh, I know. Oh, I know. But you know the sequel can't be as good. It's very rare that the sequel is good as the first one. Yeah, it is very rare. You know what the movie is that they always mention that the sequel is better than the first. Then the first. Which is that? The Godfather. Now, I'm not like a movie buff. Okay. So I don't, but people say that I think it's like one of the examples of the second was better than the first. I don't know because I don't think I ever saw the second. I only saw the first. I can. Is that the one where you go say hello to my little friend? That's the wrong movie. That's the one, right? That's Scarface. Oh, that's Scarface. Oh, my God. Was there a Scarface too? No, there was a prequel. It was called Carlito's way.

55:53Oh, prequel. Okay, that's you know those are. I'm not, I've never been a fan of prequel. No, because you know who lives and you know who doesn't because you're already seen the after effect. Yeah. Yeah, like the Star Wars prequels, they were hit and miss with me. Oh, the Star Wars nerds will put all the movies in order. Yeah. You know, because like it's like this starts with like that, the newer movies like at the beginning. I don't, I don't understand any of that stuff. I just, I just want to sit down and watch a movie. Oh, you know what my wife and I started watching, um, I had to subscribe to Paramount Plus for this. Let me, I got a look for the name. It's called the Madison. If you want to, do you ever hear that show Yellowstone? Yeah. It's like, you know, epic kind of like, you know, out in the middle of nowhere. This isn't that same vein. It's called the Madison. It's with Michelle. I have a fight for. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard of it, but I haven't watched it yet. Michelle Pufyfer. Pufyfer. It's nice. Me and Brittany are now finishing up one piece, the live action on Netflix. Oh, okay. Yes. I've watched over a thousand of the animated because I'm, you know, wow, animated hit.

56:57But we have now, she's into the live action version and it's pretty good watch. Okay. That in, um, it's a show that comes on Fox. I can't even think of the name of it. That sounds great. Uh, it's the lady she was a cleaner. And now she's a cop. She does like the crimes for them. Okay. Well, you think of that. I'll, I'll tell you more about Madison. It's, uh, if you want to show that is sad, um, slow, poignant, is that a word, poignant? Yes. Um, and a little bit funny. That's the Madison. It's, it's good. I'm really enjoying it. I really, really, I'm enjoying it because I love this idea of like being out in the middle of nowhere and like how life is so different than it is in like city life. So anyway, if you want to check it out, I subscribe to Paramount Plus for, uh, 99 cents for two months. So, uh, remember the big list, Google this, the big, I'm going to Google it as I do it. The big. That's name of it. Okay.

57:58High potential. I've heard that. That's on, that's on ABC. Oh, so ABC. We watch it a whole. So, okay. Yeah. Uh, the big list of streaming deals. If you are signing up for a streaming service, do not sign up until you go to my friend Jared Newman, friend of the show, he's been on many times. He does a court cutter weekly, great newsletter, but he does the big list of streaming deals. If there is a deal on a streaming service, it's on this. So before I sign up for Paramount Plus, I went to his website and it said a dollar for two months of premium. And sure enough, it worked. It worked. And if you're a new subscriber, you'll get $3 per month for two months of premium. So anyway, I'll link that up on the website, richontech.tv. Uh, let's go to Dorothy in Whittier, California. Dorothy, welcome to the show. Oh, thank you so much, Rich. I so appreciate you taking my phone call. What are you watching on streaming? Oh, my goodness. I watch HBO, Hulu. You name it.

58:59I'm a Paramount. I watch everything on streaming. Are you going to watch Madison? I think I'm going to have to give it a try. Okay. Slow. It's kind of boring. Um, I'm really selling it. Okay. Yeah, at this point, I think I would give anything a try. It's great. It's great. I really like it. Anyway, what's your question? So my question is, I have a Samsung 24 cell phone and over the last few weeks, I had them losing text. And if anybody sent me any pictures within those texts, I've been losing that as well. So for instance, like three weeks ago, I was in Vegas with my daughter. I went to send her a picture. And as I went to send her a picture, her name, nothing was there. I lost everything. I mean, every single text we've ever sent to each other over all these years as well as pictures. And then I got home and about a week later, I looked at all my contact lists and went into various people. And I noticed I was losing years of text and content, meaning if they sent me a picture.

1:00:04Because not all pictures, I move over to my gallery. Right. I leave my pictures, you know, in the content of the text. All of that is gone. And then just the other day, the same thing happened with my husband. I mean, and this is years and years of obviously text and stuff like that. Same thing happened. He's completely gone. What? Yeah. So I took it to Verizon because they're my carrier. Sure. And they looked at my phone. They checked all my different settings to make sure I didn't say like, oh, like delete in 30 days or something like that. All of my settings were perfect. So then they suggested, well, why don't you go to the Samsung store? So I did that. When fair, they checked everything. I'm even saying, is there something mechanically wrong with my phone? And they're like, we can't explain this. Your stuff just went poop. And I'm like, what? That is wild. Is there any lesson that we can learn from this? Is this continuing to happen? It is. It is. Like I said, like two days ago, I lost everything. Oh my gosh.

1:01:05And the bad thing is, my daughter just got married in October. So all of these pictures that my friends have sent me gone. Oh my gosh. Okay. It sounds like this could be like a running out of space on your phone or something like that. I don't know. But here's what I would tell you to do. There's a program called SMS Backup and Restore. Moving forward, you might want to run that every week just to make sure you have a copy of your messages somewhere in the cloud. Or a physical copy. The other thing is, I would run on your phone. There's an app files by Google. There is a cleanup functionality on that app. I would run that and just to see. And obviously, I would do all the software updates on your phone that I mentioned earlier in the show. So do the Samsung software updates. Do the security updates. Do the Google Play update. Do the Galaxy Store updates. And I would restart your phone. Make sure that's all updated. And also, if you're not using Google Messages, maybe you're still using the old version of

1:02:09the Samsung Messages app, switch to Google Messages. But that is very unfortunate, Dorothy. And I've never heard of such a thing. I've heard of people deleting text threads by accident, but it sounds like something else bigger is going on here. I hope you figure that out. Thanks for the call today. 8-8-Rich 101, 8-8-7-4-2-4-101. Click with Wirecutter after this. Welcome back to Rich on Tech, Rich Demiro here, hanging out with you, talking technology, AAA, Rich 101, AAA, Rich 101. We'll get back to the phone lines in just a moment. But first, on the line, we've got Lita Shai. She is the editorial director for Wirecutter. They've got a new feature called Best New Picks. So she's here to explain all that. Lita, thanks for joining me. Hi, Rich. Thanks for having us. So first off, explain with the Wirecutters all about. We've had some guests on from Wirecutter.

1:03:09One of my favorite websites explained what it's all about. Yeah, Wirecutter, we've been around for 15 years this year. And our goal is to recommend what really matters. And that means in all areas of anyone's life. So we have everything from, we do have a lot of tech recommendations. So we have a lot of other types of recommendations. So we launched Beauty last year. We also have Home Decor. We have Style. So whatever you're in the market for, we probably have some research for you that can help. And how do you pick these things? Yes. Well, that actually kind of is part of why we wanted to do this Best New Picks Awards. But we are evaluating tens of thousands of products every single year across our newsroom. And it involves a lot of really deep research, a lot of reporting, a lot of obviously testing the actual product. And so after once all of that is complete, and that includes the actual investigating and the beat expertise of all of our writers and editors who actually know what these products,

1:04:10all of the new products in these categories. Only after that's kind of done is when we're truly recommending something and where it appears on our site. And that goes, so that kind of whittles down the products from tens of thousands of products all the way down to 3,000 products, which is still a lot, but it is the culmination of a lot of hard work in the back end that a lot of times people don't see. Yeah, I talk to a couple of your editors from time to time, we do TV segments with them and they tell me about the testing process. And it's way more in depth than you may think. Like specifically, I'm thinking of the hearing aid stuff that I've been told about, the headphones, you really do get a lot of people to test this stuff and try it out and it's not just like, hey, I tried this and it's cool here, here's a recommendation. It's like very in depth. It's very in depth, absolutely. I like to say that the writing a guide can take months, it's a month long, sometimes years long process and it builds upon all of the expertise that these writers and editors have

1:05:12kind of gathered over the years from talking with experts and other people. All right, so tell me about this best new picks. How's it different than your regular recommendations? Yeah, so best new picks. We, it's our very first awards franchise here are a wire cutter and we're super excited about it because we think of it as a celebration of all of our favorite picks, kind of products that we've designated as picks over the past year. So as I said before, we're evaluating tens of thousands of products and then we decide on around 3,000 every year. Of those 3,000, this list of 71 are the ones that we truly can't stop talking about. We have them in our homes. We recommend them to our friends and family. All of those kind of products that stick with us and have stayed with us over the past year. There's a lot of tech on this list. So a lot of tech, like let's, you want to give me a pick or what? Yeah, I mean, I will preface this with saying that I am on the kind of let it scale of the spectrum when it comes to the wire cutter expertise. So I ever see it the lifestyle categories but there are so many great tech options in here.

1:06:16One that I really like that is like maybe a little bit tech but it kind of speaks to my desire to be a bird watcher in my life. But it's the smart, the birdify smart bird home. It is solar powered. So it doesn't require any sort of pick hookups and it kind of feeds video and notification to an app on your phone. So it's really easy to kind of just see a bird family in action and kind of you can see them build the nest, see them lay the eggs. And I think it's just so really cute and fun and really great present for people who maybe aren't super tech savvy. Yeah, and it's not that expensive. I've seen these digital bird feeders and some of them can get very expensive. So this one's around $100, which is cool. And then I also like how you say what we like. Oh, it's solar powered, like you said, which is really neat. And then it says flaws but not deal breakers. So you kind of give people the good and the bad. Yeah, that is definitely one of our core tents at wire cutter. We want to really make sure that people understand. Not just all the good things but where it can go wrong and make a decision for themselves

1:07:17that makes sense for their life. You got another one that you want to mention? Yeah, I mean, I really enjoy the, I love that vintage check is making it come back as an elder millennial who, you know, kind of remembered when phone said buttons. And I, one of the things that made an appearance investing picks from our AV team is the, I don't actually know how to pronounce it but the CYR10 trend seat portable CD player. So we published a brand new guide to portable CD players. Can you believe it? Yeah, right in the last few months. And this one, we had a caller on this show about they wanted a portable CD player for their Tesla. And I'm not kidding, it was like a recurring theme for like three shows because everyone was chiming in about it. Why would you need that? And other people said, yes, that's great. I mean, so these things are, they do serve a purpose but keep going. Yeah, CD players are back. And so now you have a reason to use all of the dusty CDs that are somewhere in your storage.

1:08:17So this was a really great option from our portable CD guide that our AV team really loved. It's, I believe it's around $300. It's Bluetooth enabled. It kind of works with all the technology you already have and it's just a really great way to use your old CDs. It's actually way cheaper. It's only $99. I'm looking on Amazon right now. So it's the, it's the, I don't know the company the CYTrin, I don't know, but it gets good ratings. You know, you guys have rated it really well and $99 if you want to play, it's got Bluetooth. So you can use speakers, headphones, has a rechargeable battery. So you don't have to like put batteries in it. Kind of cool. I mean, there you go. I mean, there's so much, I mean, I'm looking at it. There's, you know, this has everything from home to core to other stuff. But like the tech section has speakers. Let's see what else. It's got this little ebook, like an eink tablet. It's got obviously the Sony headphones that everyone loves, the noise cancellation. It's got an OLED TV. It's got the switch too, which people love.

1:09:17The outdoor lights, everyone's stringing up on their home now. So I mean, there's a lot of things on here. What's the plan for this? How often is this going to be updated these best new picks? So this is a new annual awards program that we're doing. It involved, again, it involved a lot of testing throughout the year, obviously, to make the pick. But then the way that we kind of came up with this group of 71 winners that are writers and editors on in our newsroom nominated, who all the products that they thought were their favorites of the year, we went through an entire selection process. So that in itself took a few months to do. And we're excited to kind of get the ball rolling on the next year's iteration of this franchise. But we're just really excited to give our readers another way to experience all the picks that we have on our site. All right, final question. I know a lot of these awards, you know, these to get into the running for the awards, you have to pay, like a lot of these websites will make you pay to enter. Do you guys do that? No, we do not do pay for play at Wirecutter.

1:10:19We adhere to the New York Times ethics standards. And so those are on the site, you can read them. But we are never sponsored. We don't accept money or recommend anything. These any product that you see on our site is something that our editors and writers have truly tested and recommend themselves without any sort of outside influence. Nice. All right, you can find it. Is there a short way to find this link or what? To get to? No, we don't have a short link, but you can go to nwytimes.com slash Wirecutter. And then just in the search tab, just search best new picks. And you'll find it there. OK, I see it. The winners of our 2026 Best New Picks Awards, if you want to check them out. I will link it up on my website as well. RichonTech.tv. Lita Shai, thanks so much for joining me today from the Wirecutter. Thank you, Rich. All right, 888, Rich 101, 888, 742, 410. We'll get back to those phone lines. Plus, I'm going to tell you about Amazon pushing delivery speeds to the limit. You can now get stuff in one hour or three hours,

1:11:22but it's going to cost you. Even if you're a prime member, I'll explain coming up next. Welcome back to RichonTech. Rich Demiro here, hanging out with you, talking technology. This is American Girls from Harry Styles. He must have come out with a new album, because any time an artist comes out the new album, they start playing all the music from the album. Then you're like, oh, that's a good song. Oh, that's a good song. So he's got this one in Aperture, which, you know, Harry Styles, I think he was in that boy band, the one direction or something. And he was. OK, I mean, I'm not like a boy band person, but he's got good music. Are you a Swiftie? That's right. I mean, I like Taylor. I think we're going to play her today. But I'm telling you, he's got two, I mean, every, his songs are good. Let's go to Aperture. When we play Aperture, that's one of my favorite beats right now. Let's go to Laura in Youngstown, Ohio.

1:12:23You're on with Rich. Hi there. Hi there. I'm running a problem with my PC. It's a desktop. It's running Windows 10. It's the Lenovo. And what happens is, once I turn it on, I could, it runs for about five minutes, and then it freezes up. And so then I have to kind of manually shut it down. And so then, you know, it comes on again. And same thing, about five minutes into it, it just stops. It just stops. Comes to a halt. Is this something that's new happening or is this something that's been going on for a while? No, it just started like two days ago. OK, have you done any software updates recently?

1:13:26No. OK, so number one, you're running Windows 10. Are you on the extended security updates program? Hi, yeah. OK, good. OK, good. So there's not really any major updates for your system anymore, except for security updates. That's number one. So make sure you're doing those. It could be a couple of things when it's not starting up properly. It could be a hardware failure. So it could be that your system's overheating or it could be that a component is failing. And that's why it's working for a couple of minutes before it overheats or something is failing in the RAM or the drive or whatever. So that could be one of those things. How old is this? Did you mention that? Maybe eight years, 10 years. I'm not sure. So it's definitely getting up there. So that could be a possibility. What I would do is two things. Number one, there's a free program called Microsoft PC Manager. Have you heard of this? No. OK, so I would download that and run that and see if you can just optimize your system,

1:14:29do a health check. You can kind of do a cleaning. There's like a whole bunch of little tools on there that I would try to, if you can, I mean, if you can get this thing installed in the five minutes. I tried to run malware, but it's not enough time. OK, so every time it's five minutes, OK, it's kind of like an action movie. You've got like five minutes to disable the bomb. OK, so in that case, what I would do is you can look at the MS config. So there's a way to start your computer up. It's called like a safe boot. So it's going to be where it's not going to boot up every one of your programs. Like when you run your computer, when you turn it on, it's loading like a whole bunch of stuff, right? These little programs you can install it over the years. So that's part of the problem is one of those could be creating an issue. So what I would do is I never know which ones could get rid of. Yeah, well, there is a, um, there's a great app for that. It's called should I delete?

1:15:31Let's see, I got a, oh gosh, what's it called? Should I delete it? Let me say should I delete that? I think it should I delete it? Yeah, should, oh, here it is. Should I remove it? So if you ever have a question, go to this website, should I remove it.com? You can type in the name of the program, and it will tell you like, yeah, you can easily remove that program. No problem. It's a bloatware. So anyway, I'll put that link on the website. Anyway, but if you go to this MS config, and then you look at the options you have, you can do a diagnostic startup. And so once you do that, it will basically just load the main things your computer needs to run. And if you can load that, and you can start up your computer, and it stays on past the five minutes, you know it's something on your computer, and it's not the hardware, it's some sort of software that you have installed that is interfering, and then you can go through and start to look in your startup programs, and see if you can delete some programs that you no longer need or use. So that's the first thing to do is,

1:16:31and how do I get to the MS config? Just type it in at the bottom of the search, and just type in MS config, and then you type that, it'll bring you to system configurator, and you'll see you have startup selection, normal, or diagnostic, and then there's also, you know, there's a couple of things in here. You can, you know, do a boot into safe mode. Safe mode is like super, super. It's just doing like the absolute necessity, but I would start with that general, and just do the selective startup, or sorry, the diagnostic startup. The diagnostic, okay. And see what that, see if you can get past the five minutes on there, and if you can, you might download the Microsoft PC Manager, and you know scan your computer, do the health check, and go from there, and then, you know, I'll definitely remove any programs that you no longer need or use. Okay, and then if I can get it to, should I put it in safe mode, would that give me enough time to like,

1:17:31do a health check, or whatever? The safe mode. Or will that not work? It should work. It just depends. Safe mode is pretty basic, so you can try that. If I would try the first thing, the diagnostic startup first, if that doesn't work, then I'd boot into safe mode, and try that and see. But I think that the diagnostic startup is gonna just do the basics, and I think that if you can get the basics, and your computer still works, then you can move from there to see like, okay, my computer's fine, the hardware's fine, it's just a software issue, and then you can go through and kind of hopefully clean that up. So. And the only place I could clean that up is the startup. Yeah, well, the PC manager. From the startup. Yeah, I mean, I would go. Oh, let me see manager will tell me, the Microsoft PC manager. Yeah, that'll give you some options for things, and you know, and that'll, that's a good program to kind of just like, see what's happening with your computer. I'm seeing if I have my, do I even have it? Yeah, I do have it. But I was gonna see, because you can go in there,

1:18:32and I haven't, don't have it installed in this computer, interesting. But yeah, I would do that, and just see what that one says. And then I would go through into your programs, and try to just, you know, get rid of programs that you don't need, that you're not using, restart the thing, and hopefully we bring this computer back to life. But I would say, Laura, that, you know, after 10 years, it's probably time to start thinking about a new computer. You've got to October, when your security updates are gonna run out, so I plan on getting something new. If you can get this thing up and running, you still got to plan on getting something new after October. There's ways of rescuing this computer. You can install Chrome OS flex on it. You can install Linux Mint on it, if you want to just browse the web and do simple things, but it just depends what you want to do on this computer. Yeah, you can also do a clean install of windows to kind of start everything fresh, but that's a little bit much for a computer that's 10 years old, I think. Thanks for the call today. Appreciate it. Hopefully you get that thing going.

1:19:32And yes, I will link it up. I actually know that a lot of you were looking at the website to get the link I mentioned about the streaming services. I did put it on there. I forgot, and I just put it on there. So it is there. Amazon has new ultra fast delivery options. We're talking one hour and three hour delivery on tens of thousands of items. And this is already live in hundreds of cities for the one hour delivery and more than 2,000 cities for the three hour delivery. Now the funny thing is I've been going to this website that Amazon says to go to, which is Amazon.com slash get it fast and it keeps saying unavailable for me. So maybe they're still rolling this out in a bunch of places, but the long of the short of it is that they're talking, they've got groceries on here, everyday essentials, electronics, clothes, medications. But here's the thing. If you want one hour delivery, even as a prime member, you're still gonna have to pay $10 for that delivery. If you want three hour delivery, you can pay $5.

1:20:34This is all about convenience, and obviously, it is all about the competition. We know you can order things off Uber now. You can order things off DoorDash. There's many ways go puff, I think is another one. There's many ways of getting things to your home fast. And Amazon is like, hold on, hold on, we invented fast shipping. We want to be there too. And before you poo poo paying all this money for something fast, I had to do this. I was doing my show remote. I needed a 100 foot ethernet cable and I got it on DoorDash from Best Buy. Took 45 minutes to get it to my dad's house and I could not believe what a lifesaver that was. So people do need this stuff, even though I'm not paying $9.99 for one hour delivery, unless I ever need it, like really, really need it. Amazon.com slash get it fast if you want to check it out, see if it's available by you. 888-8-8-8-8-7-4-2-4-1-0-1, more rich on tech coming your way, right after this. Keeping system secure is more complicated than ever,

1:21:34especially with AI agents transforming how businesses operate. That's where Delinia comes in. Organizations today need an identity security partner that evolves as fast as they do. Delinia provides the modern enterprise with calm and controlled identity security built for the AI era, enabling businesses to defend access in real time with confidence. Delinia meets you where you are, reducing security and compliance risk, no matter how complex, automated, or distributed the environment. The Delinia platform ensures the right identities have the right access at the right moment. So innovation, productivity, and a gentick AI transformation can proceed without interruption. Because when nothing out of the ordinary happens, that's extraordinary. That's identity security at work. Learn more at delinia.com. That's d-e-l-i-n-e-a.com. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from Eczema.

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1:23:35Hi there, we're trying to get to the state fairgrounds. Well, you're going to take a lift at the old oak tree at this here road. Nah, I'm just kidding. Let me get my phone out. How is there signal out here? T-Mobile and U.S. cellular are coming together, so the network out here is huge. We get the same great signal as the city, saving a boatload with benefits. And there's a five-year price guarantee, too. Okay, here's the turn. Actually, can you pull up the way to a T-Mobile store? America's best network just got bigger, switched to T-Mobile today and get built-in benefits the other guys leave out. Plus, our five-year price guarantee. And now, T-Mobile is available at U.S. cellular stores in Martinsburg. Best mobile network based on analysis by Oak Loaf Speed Test Intelligence Data 2nd half of 2025. Bigger network. The combination of T-Mobile and U.S. cellular's network footprints will enhance the T-Mobile network's coverage. Price guarantee on talk, text, and data. Exclusions like taxes and fees apply. See T-Mobile.com for details. Mm, what a nice coffee. 99 cents, please. For real? No way. Mm, what a deal.

1:24:38Your new morning groove. Ice coffee from McDonald's. Any size for just 99 cents to 11 a.m. Price and participation may vary. Cannot be combined with any other offer. But uh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh. Texting privacy policy in terms of conditions posted at texting terms.us. Texting roles you for occurring on a media text marketing messages. Message data may apply or play. Stopped out. Is it ISSA online for details? Higher doesn't work. It's not working. It's not working. It's not working. It's not working. Stopped out. Is it ISSA online for details? Tired of the 9 to 5 grind. Looking for something different that's flexible, fulfilling, and pay as well? How do you like to get paid to work out? Now you can, with ISSA, the global leader in personal fitness certification. There's a huge demand for certified personal trainers right now. And once you get ISSA certified, they guarantee you'll get a job. Trainers can make as much as $100 an hour. Yes, I said $100 an hour. And with ISSA, you can be certified in as little as six weeks. You do everything at your own pace. And 100% online. Pursue your passion in specializations like yoga, nutrition, or strength training.

1:25:38Get certified and live your life on your terms. Work at a gym. Start your own business or a side hustle. Whatever works for you. Just don't wait. Get your free personal training evaluation kit today. Get certified in as little as six weeks. And ISSA guarantees you'll get a job. Text Lift to 323232. Text Lift to 323232. Lift to 323232. Welcome back to Rich on Tech. Rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here. Hanging out with you. Talking technology. Triple eight. Rich 101. Eight eight eight seven four two four one zero one. This is the other Harry style song. Aperture. It's got this really long intro and a really long outro. It's just like this great beat. And it took me a while to get used to it or to really enjoy it. And now it's like I can't get enough. And so, yes, I just paid $1,729 and sold my blood to get tickets to a Harry style. I was kidding. I mean, some of these tickets have gotten out of control. Apparently they are for his concerts. Eight eight eight Rich 101.

1:26:38Eight eight seven four two four one zero one. So a quick story time. Maybe not that quick. But this week, this was just while I know if you follow me on social media and you get my newsletter rich on tech.tv, you know that I've had kind of a bad run with automobiles lately. Like I had mine accident back in September. My wife was involved in an auto accident a couple of weeks ago. And then out of the blue, I get a phone call. Hi Rich, this is, I'm not going to give their name or the company. With rental car company, we see that you damaged your car to the tune of $2,500 and your last rental. Which credit card would you like to use to take care of that? I said, excuse me. What? Next thing you know, we are getting into it. I have no idea who this person is. Now the company, yes, I did rent a car from them. And I said, okay, give me some more identifying information, okay? And so they start to give me all this information.

1:27:38I'm like, okay, they kind of have all my info. I'm like, but ma'am, all this information you can get online. Like it's just public info out there. Like my name, you know, whatever. But they did have like info about when I actually rented a car. But I'm on social media. So, prevalently, that like, I probably said that I rented a car that weekend. Anyway, so she's like, she kept pushing me to just give a credit card number to take care of this charge. Slight on scene. I'm like, I didn't damage your car. I'm not, I'm not going to just pay a $2,500 bill no way. Do people actually do this? Probably, that's why they do this. So anyway, so I'm thinking this is probably a scam. So I said send me, I said send me an email with all the info. We don't have your email address. How do you not have my email address? I rented a car from you. You have all this other info except my email. Now, I don't know if they were trying to trick me or something. But I said, all right, well then send me a letter. So she had my home address. So she said, okay, fine, I'll send a letter. But she was very angry about it. And so, I hang up. She gives me a phone number to call back. Obviously, I don't call back that number.

1:28:39So I go on the website of the company. I call their number. It took me forever to get a human. And finally, they look it up. And they said, oh yeah, this is actually legitimate. I said, what? Said I didn't damage this car. Okay, well, you got to take it up with these people. So I call back. And long story short, I get another person who just immediately gets into the, okay, which card would you like? We need to figure out this quickly before we send it to collections. All this stuff. I'm like, ma'am, I'm not just paying a bill that I don't believe is mine, right? Like, I'm sorry, I didn't damage this car. So I go, get me a supervisor. Oh, it's going to take a long time to get a supervisor. You're not going to be happy. You're going to, it's going to take a long time. I'll wait. So finally, I wait like 10 minutes for the supervisor. And I will tell you, I get the supervisor. And we got off to a little bit of a rocky start, you know, because I'm kind of huffing and puffing. But he turned out to be very nice. And I was like, sir, I rented cars for 20 years. I've never had a problem. You come at me a month after this rental is returned. Send me the information. He had my email address. Somehow, he was able to send me an email.

1:29:40So he sends me an email with all the pictures they took of this damage. And I go, okay, explain this to me. When I returned this car, it had this many miles on it. You took these damage pictures at this many miles, which is many miles after I returned it. So in that time, anything could have happened. Your sales associate could have driven this thing into the wall. Like someone else could have rented it. And he's like, okay, you kind of got us there. I said, yeah. And also, I didn't do this damage. So he goes, actually, I'm looking at the pictures. And this, some of this damage looks old. And some of it looks rusty. And yeah, you're right. This car was driven after you returned it. And so I was like, and he was kind of turning in my favor. And I said, all right, well, let's clear this up right now. I'm not paying this. Let's clear it up. And he was like, you know what? That's what we're going to do. I said, well, thank you. I said, well, how do I keep this from happening in the future? And this is my takeaway. I know it's taking me a while to get there. But my key takeaway is what I've already told you to do is take pictures of all four sides of your rental car.

1:30:42You have to. And in this case, I didn't. Of course, the one time that there's a problem, I didn't take pictures of the rental car. So take pictures of all four sides when you rent it, when you return it. Make sure you have that. That's the best you can do. Because if they come at you with something like this, you don't have it. You know, they could just put you on for this money. And then he then said, you know, you could buy the insurance, which I don't typically do. And he said, you know, you can, this, this airport that you rented at is actually one of our worst defenders for doing stuff like this. I'm like, okay. So you know, this happens all the time. My point is, take the pictures. Also, you know, I have a credit card that has what's called primary rental car insurance. There are only a handful of credit cards that offer that. Most of them are secondary, which means if you were to actually not accept the rental car company's insurance and you get your, you know, you're using your own, you're going to have to go through your primary insurance, which is, you know, not something you necessarily want to do.

1:31:44So if you have, and your credit card pops in at secondary, so anything your main insurance doesn't cover, they'll cover. So I would look for a credit card that has primary rental car insurance, something that I've always demanded of my credit card. Because I do think that it would come in handy in a situation like this. Not that I damaged this car, but if I did, you know, you can rely on that. So anyway, that's my story. What I mean, this really got me going. I was really like, hold on, how do I even prove that I didn't do this damage? But as soon as they sent me those pictures with the odometer, I was like, okay, that's my key right there. I returned this car at this odometer number. They returned it. They took these pictures out of there. And I said, by the way, you had a human, check the car when I returned it. That human would have said something if there was a problem, right? So come on. I'm getting worked up just talking about that. All right, let's go to Thatcher in Santa Barbara. Thatcher, you're on with Rich. Okay, I think Thatcher left us.

1:32:45Let's go to Robert. Oh, Thatcher, are you there? No, he's not. Let's go to. Okay, line. Oh, did I take the wrong line? No. I can't even tell what line this is. Line five. All right, let's go to Robert and Huntington Beach, you're on with Rich. Robert, are you there? All right, what's happening here? Bobo, what am I doing wrong here? Robert, are you there? No, okay. All right, I give up. I will do an email question while we figure out what's going on with the phone lines. Kim says lines might be messed up. Okay. All right, let's see. Let's try one more time here. Robert, are you there? No. Okay. I don't know. I don't know. Who knows? You know, let's see. Oh, now Bobo is saying try the other side. Hello, Robert. Are you there? No. No, I just seem silly. Mary in Huntington Beach writes in, Hey Rich, I watch you on KTLA. I really like your information and you personally.

1:33:46Oh, thank you. That was nice. I'm looking for your recommendation for a safe subscription app. Thank you. Two subscription apps I like. Number one, Bobby. This is a very simple option. You manually enter your subscription. So it doesn't connect to your bank accounts, which means, you know, less of your personal information is shared. But it's not going to be as automatic as the second one I'm going to recommend, which is rocket money. So rocket money can automatically find those subscriptions. This started out as a company called TrueBill. They do a great job, but you have to link up your bank or credit card accounts, which means you have to give them access to your financial information, which means they're probably monetizing your data. In some, you know, in some way. So if you want the maximum privacy, I'd go with Bobby. If you want automatic tracking, probably rocket money is more convenient. There's actually a lot of apps out there, a lot of smaller apps for keeping track of subscriptions. You can also just keep a spreadsheet. There's also another app I like, but it is paid. It's called Monarch Money, which is fantastic when you do have to link up your accounts, but it's all private because you pay for it, right?

1:34:50So if you're paying for the service, they're probably not monetizing off you. If you're not paying for the service, they're monetizing off your data. So Monarch is a great one, but again, that Bobby app. Let me see if there's like a certain way you have to do this just to type it in here, Subscription app. Bobby, it's called Bobbyapp.co. Bobbyapp.co. That one is only on iOS. Anyway, if you have an app that you like for subscriptions, email me. Hello at richontech.tv. I'll mention it in the next segment. 888, rich 101, 888, 742, 4101. We will try to get our phone lines working again when we come back right after this. Welcome back to richontech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you, talking technology, triple eight, rich 101, 888, 742, 4101.

1:35:50The website for the show is richontech.tv. Once you're there, tap the, let's see, tap about. And you've got the richontech checklist. So follow me on Instagram at richontech, sign up for my free newsletter, and then subscribe to my podcast. That's the on-demand version of this show. So those are the three things. If you like what you hear here, that's what you do. Richontech.tv, tap about, and follow the richontech checklist. How many are you signed up with? Hopefully all of them. Let's go to Wilmer. Yes, I'm here. In Santa Monica. What's up? Okay. I'm thinking, oh my god, because somebody come out last time before I can get the answer. They can hung up on me or whatever. Put me back on hold. Oh gosh. Well, I don't know. We lost every other callers. You're our last hope. Oh well. Thank God. Better make it good.

1:36:50What's up? What's happening? I had some previous emails and a phone number. Years and years ago now, it's probably been about three years or four years now. And I don't have that information. And yesterday I went into a place to download, in order to join the jammer, or whatever, I had to download the app. And it could get on my phone so I could just show them the phone when I walk in there, or whatever. And I was unable to do that because when I went in to retreat my ID password, it said that it would send me a text, but it would send it to the old address. And I no longer have that Apple ID or anything. Or I don't even have that email to the old address. I did what happened to write down some old emails if that will help.

1:37:50Okay. So basically, you're talking iPhone. Is that it? Or are you talking Android? Yes. Yes, iPhone. Okay. So iPhone, you have your iPhone, but when you went to download an app, it said, hey, we want to verify this before you download the app. And you couldn't verify it. Your Apple ID is not correct. And well, I got the one that I wrote down here. I have an old email. Okay. Well, I have the old password written down here by views before in the past. Okay. Now, I don't have my telephone number. Right. They're trying to text you something. When you go into your settings, does it, when you tap your name up at the top, is the email under your name the one that you would expect it to be or no? Yeah. No. The new one is because I created the new one. My nephew helped me to do that or whatever. And he's computer savvy. I'm computer dumb. You know, you've seen those books for dummies. Yes. I know. On that, when I fall into that category. Okay. So when you went to authorize this iTunes store, whatever, I don't even know if they call it that anymore,

1:38:55just the app download, it was a different Apple ID. No. Yeah. It said it wasn't right. Okay. And I figured, and they said, we'll send your proof of whatever to the old, not they didn't say the old, but to your email address. Well, I had since then changed the email address to this new email address. And I'm unable to download anything because they don't have a verification of me changing anything because they don't have the new address. Okay. Well, I think at the end of the day, this is probably going to require a visit to the Apple store to see what's going on because I can't really picture what's happening here because if you're signed in with your Apple ID, I'm not sure why it's asking for a different ID. No, I'm not signed in with the Apple ID. They said we're unable to retrieve that app.

1:39:57Oh. Got it. So what I would recommend is you probably, have you tried this, I forgot that Apple.com. Have you tried that? Yes. I did everything with my nephew or whatever. Okay. And that's where they try to set you up with the email where they send you the thing and you can't do it. And they send me the correction to my email address, but that old email is where they sent it. They didn't send it to the new one. Right. Okay. I see. It's sounds like you've got some different accounts here, like a mix of old. Now, you said you had a new one? Yeah. Old accounts, two old accounts. Okay. And one old, a phone number. Okay. And here's, okay. So here's my main question. Why can't you just sign up for a new Apple ID and start fresh since you haven't used these in so long? Well, that's what I wanted to do. But they're saying your information is associated with the old stuff. Well, no. I wonder if I could, because I will do that.

1:40:57I'll just have to write it down word for word or what? Identifiable information on the, on the air here. But here's, here's what I would do. At the end of the day, it sounds to me like there's, you have an old Apple ID account that you can no longer access because they're trying to text that recovery code to your, your, your, um, an old phone number that you no longer have access to, which happens over time. This is why I always like an authentication app versus a text message, but that's a whole other story you set this up way before. Um, so if it's not working, if you can't recover your account by going to iForgot.appl.com, I would go to the Apple store, explain the issue to them. They will have you either try to, um, they will know the process of trying to get you back on this Apple ID, or they may have you sign up for a new one using new information and a new phone number that is not linked to an old account because it sounds like sometimes these accounts get so far down the line that, you know, there's no way of recovering them.

1:42:01But it just depends. It depends on what they can do. So I'm not able to help you over the air here, um, because I can't really give you like a, you know, hey, this is what you have to do and it'll just fix it all like it doesn't sound like it's that easy. Um, if you were able to sign up with a new Apple ID, that's probably what I'd recommend using a new phone number and a new email address that you have not used previously. Um, that would probably be the easiest way to avoid, uh, you know, going into an Apple store. But otherwise, other than that, I think, I think you go to the Apple store. That's the beauty of having Apple is that, you know, head, head to the third street promenade and, uh, you know, it's a beautiful store going there and, and someone at the genius bar can help you there. Thanks for the call, Wilmer. And please, once you figure it out, email me, hello at richontek.tv and let me know what the solution was so that we can share it here on the show. And other people who may have a similar issue, um, don't have to go through that. Thanks for the call today. Uh, Tony and New Jersey says, hey, I'm listening to all your podcasts. I know you test a lot of screen protectors. I've got a Samsung S25 Ultra.

1:43:08Uh, the screen protectors just don't work. Swipe ingestures are fine, but finger lock on fingerprint unlock never works. I've even enabled touch sensitivity and it still won't read any recommendations. No. I actually had to pull the screen protector off the Samsung because it was interfering with the fingerprint reader so bad. Best I can say is press a little bit harder to register your fingerprint. Um, that's the only tip I've gotten from the screen protector people. 88 rich 101 richontek.tv Welcome back to richontek rich tomorrow here hanging out with you talking technology. Uh, playing some of my favorite tunes recently. This is somber s o m b r. They've got a lot of great, uh, great songs. I'm really enjoying right now. So that's somber. Also one of Taylor Swift's favorites. So take that. Uh, okay. We've got Patricia Egger on head of security at proton. I talked about proton. They're the security first company. They offer email and all kinds of other services.

1:44:11Uh, but they have this new thing called born private. And this is a new initiative to kind of create an email address for your child when they're first born and protect their digital identity from day one. So Patricia, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks. So tell me about what where did this come from this whole like born private and did I explain it explain what the initiative is first off? Sure. So the initiative is really for one for parents call to action for them to protect their kids online. Um, proton to the survey earlier this year that showed that a majority of parents are concerned about the their kids digital privacy or their online privacy and are actively looking for ways to protect their kids. And there's there's a sense of lack of agency like people don't know what to do. People don't know how to to help their kids and to protect them. And so this is what the the born private initiative is is really basically setting your kids up for, you know, success online later on.

1:45:17Um, and that basically means you reserve an email address from them, a proton email address for them, and it basically stays dormant for 10 to 15 years until the kid is ready to use it. And that's all that comes for a dollar, which is donated to the proton foundation. And so the idea here is that if you were to sign up with a big tech email address, what they would deactivate it if you didn't use it for a couple of years or something. Typically, typically emails do get deactivated or revoked if you don't use them at all. And so this is like a legal guarantee that we that proton set up for anyone who starts an email through this campaign that they can keep it for 15 years before they don't need to touch it in the meantime. Interesting. And so what do you think the advantages of proton email? You know, because I've talked about proton on the show before, you guys offer a lot of different products. I'm looking, you got mail, you've got calendar, you've got a meeting app, you've got the authenticator, which I absolutely love and recommend.

1:46:22You've got proton pass, which is a password manager VPN drive docs sheets more than I even realized. So explain what proton is all about in general. So in general, proton is a tech company, but it focuses on building privacy focused digital tools. So the goal is really to give our users control over their personal data. And this was founded in 2014. We started with proton mail, as you mentioned, and then since then expanded to a whole suite of other online tools, as you mentioned, VPN password manager, et cetera, et cetera. And what does that mean? You guys a lot of your stuff is end to end encrypted. What does that mean to the average person? Yeah, so basically there's some cryptography and whatnot in the background, but what it means to users is essentially that we, even as employees at proton, cannot access the contents of our users emails, for instance. So we can't go ahead, go snooping, we can't also give it to anyone else, so whether it's law enforcement or anyone, you know, if there's a data breach, the data would be encrypted and so it's not really useful.

1:47:33So that's a major difference if you compare it to the, you know, the big tech email providers that most people use. So you talk about this, let's back to this whole born private initiative, where you basically reserve your child's email address at birth. So you said that this keeps it private. It kind of like, you know, keeps your identity private at the beginning. So is that different than reserving it? Because once you put their name and information into another, you know, big tech database, what it just gets like sucked into like all the other data that they have or what? Yeah, so the classic or the standard email company will is based off of ads, right? And so they monetize their users data. So whenever you start when you put your foot in the door there, they're going to, they're going to start gathering information about you and creating that profile, whether you're a kid, whether you're an adult, it doesn't matter. And so that's, that's what starts and that's the trigger and what's really important to understand, I think, about email is that it's oftentimes kind of the glue that sticks all of the various pieces of your digital identity together.

1:48:40And so that's why it's a really important part of somebody's online presence or their online identities is that email because it's going to be, it's going to be linking all those pieces together. And so basically with proton, there's nothing happening with that digital identity until your, you know, the kid is old enough to start using it. And that's a pretty big difference from again, the usual email providers out there. Now this is the other, now here's a question because we were talking Bobo, my producer here, he recently had a child and they set up an email address and the wife, his wife sends a little emails of like memories and stuff to that email address, which I thought was kind of cool. But just to be clear here, this email address is not to, it's not like an inbox that can collect stuff over those 15 years. Is that, is that right? Yeah, correct. So it's, it stays empty for until you activate it and then it's just a normal email account. But in the meantime, it stays empty and it doesn't, there's no tracking of the child and none of that.

1:49:43Okay. And so what's been the response to this? I mean, what, what is, what's been the, it's only been a couple days since you guys announced this, but have you gotten a lot of reservations and that dollar is really a ghostier foundation, right? Yeah, exactly. It goes to the foundation, which is legally obliged to protect privacy above profits. So that's, that's also something that sets proton apart. But I think, I mean, at least in the, the parents and people around me, I think people were really excited about it. And, and to me personally, it's also what I, what I really like about this campaign. And I know it's probably not what the, the people who created it actually were, you know, intending to do. But I think it's the, there's a, there's an education element here that, that I think is really important, which is, you know, parents really need to understand for themselves, what all of this means because they cannot protect their kids if they don't, if they don't understand and they can't, they start by protecting themselves.

1:50:45So I think that has been, I mean, I think in that sense, it's been quite successful, at least people around me who really realize, okay, like I'm a parent, this is, I have this responsibility to do to not just protect my kids, you know, on the street and in the playground and whatever, but also online. Yeah, and it's, it's not easy. And especially when they start getting their own gadgets, that's, that's when it really gets tough. Patricia Egger, how can folks find this online? Where do they go for this information? So they go to proton.me and I think then it's slash mail and then slash born private. And if you just Google proton born private, you'll, you'll find that, you'll find the page. And I'll put a link on my website, richontech.tv. I know it's getting late over there in Switzerland. Thanks for joining me today on the show. My pleasure. Thank you so much. Alright, thanks so much for being on Patricia Egger, head of security at proton. Again, the website is proton.me. Alright, we are going to take a quick break and then we're going to open up the feedback. Oh my gosh. Where is it? The feedback is really filled this week.

1:51:53So I'm going to try to get through as much as humanly possible. You are listening to richontech. Welcome back to richon tech rich demiro here hang out with you talking technology. So I will tell you. My week looks a little bit like this any free moment I have in my life. I am sitting down to my computer and reading your emails. No joke. I get that many from you. It is almost a full-time job at this point. And I do read them. I do look at them. I do try to reply. I do have a backlog most days. So if you don't get a reply for me and you know a quick amount of time just understand that there are a lot of these that I'm getting. And I do try to make them, you know, weave them into my newsletter, the show, send you thank you notes, whatever. But just know that I do read them. If you want to email me it is richontech.tv. You just hit contact up at the top and that will send your email. Rest assured it does make its way to my inbox.

1:52:56Rod says I just want to say you're doing an amazing job keeping us up to date with all the tech craziness these days. I'm a big fan. Thank you, Rod. Gary in Connecticut. Hey Rich. I asked you about recycling old cell phones and end up trying one of those ecoATM kiosks. There's a bunch around me here in Connecticut. I had three Samsung sitting on top of my fridge. I didn't want to throw them away and the process is easy. You enter the phone on the website. They give you a code to use at the kiosk. If you have more than one phone it's a little annoying because there's no way to enter a code after selling the first one. All three of my phones worked but had cracked screens. I got $23 each. Honestly it was worth it just to finally get rid of them. The kiosk pays in cash or Venmo. Thanks Gary. I think they just installed one by me. I want to try that out with an old phone. Steve says hey Rich, after hearing the segment about AT&T's 150th anniversary of the telephone call I was thinking how far we've come. One big improvement in the modern phone world. No more long distance charges. That is so true. I remember switching to like MCI for like cheaper long distances at some point.

1:54:02All the commercials would be about long distance on TV back in the day. Chris in Colorado listening on 850 AM KOA Denver says I've listened to your show quite a few times. I'm usually driving so I don't get to call in. I'd like to get on your mailing list for some of the cool stuff you talk about. I'm not very tech savvy but you've really helped me quite in a few areas. I don't feel so stupid about that stuff anymore. Thanks for doing a great job on the show. Rich on tech.tv hit newsletter if you want to sign up. Thank you. Doug I was looking to upgrade my 15 year old MacBook Pro but kept holding off because of the prices. Then I heard you talk about the MacBook Neo for $599 and as a retired person that's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much. Doug this is why I talk about this stuff. Now the MacBook Neo is going to talk about no matter what but this is why you know people sit there in the back. Rich you recommended this or you talk about that. It's like there are many people in this world and everyone has a different want a different need and so that's why I'm always just kind of mentioning as much as humanly possible because there's always someone out there that can use the information.

1:55:07Alex is listening in the UK over KFI I guess on the live stream. Just following up on the caller asking about a Chromebook with an external monitor keyboard and mouse. Many Chromebooks can connect to a monitor using HDMI USB C or another adapter depending on the model. Most also support external keyboards and mice because Chromebooks often have limited ports you might need a USB hub though Bluetooth accessories are another option. Yeah I kind of missed the boat on that one Alex because the caller asked about that and I wasn't really sure but clearly you can. They also have those chrome boxes I guess they're called the like the almost looks like a Mac many but it's a Chrome Chrome OS. Norma says in Los Angeles Hey Rich just wanted to say a big thank you for the useful information you share in your newsletters and on TV. I've been following you since I retired from the city of Los Angeles as a computer systems analyst five years ago your updates help keep me up with the latest tech and I really appreciate it.

1:56:07Oh well thank you Norma appreciate that and you know your stuff if you're a computer systems analyst you probably know more than I do about this stuff Tony Hey Rich just wanted to say thanks for recommending the backup SMS app for Android. I installed it on my Galaxy S25 Ultra and tested both the backup and restore features it worked flawlessly I like to so much I ended up giving the pro version a review. I gave you credit for the recommendation looking forward to the podcast and the newsletter thanks again you're an absolute tech gem wow a tech gem that that program is called SMS backup and restore. So a lot of people want to backup their text messages or print them out on Android is very easy on iPhone not so easy there are apps that can do it but they are third party and they do cost money. So I'm amazing is one of them and soft dough Reno they have one I think it's called alt tunes that can do it let's see that can do it as well.

1:57:09Where is it alt tunes yeah let's see what else moving down the list here Bernie says hey Rich I recently finished the laws of human nature book and I thought it was great on many levels I especially liked how the author woven historical events and people throughout the book I was actually surprised to hear you mention it. Yes I mentioned that in my newsletter that I started listening to that book when a book is really big like the laws of human nature is really like it's a lot I like to listen to it because it is hefty but I am enjoying it and teaching me a lot about people I know all about narcissists now. Bobo just looked up I got your attention you're not a narcissist believe me you're there's deep narcissists which is my new favorite word that's when you're truly a narcissist what I'm not you're not I'm too insecure all you're not secure actually a lot of narcissists are deep down people people mistake narcissism for insecurity.

1:58:11Maybe I am or they mistake insecurity for narcissism actually so insecure narcissists yeah there you go find find that couch buddy Rita I put an air tag in my husband's glasses because the glasses case because I was constantly hearing have you see my glasses but it was bulky and I worried about scratching the lenses I found a glasses case called the spot minders glasses case that has built in tracking works with apples find my it looks just like a normal case but you see exactly where your glasses are I can't be the only one dealing with this problem. It's funny spot minders just sent me a tracker to test out for the first time so I will be seeing how their stuff works but there you go spot minders oh Kim says narcissists are narcissists because they are insecure oh see what do we know Bobo we don't we just don't know less says I've been listening to your radio show since the beginning I haven't missed an episode first off thanks for being so helpful you're also very entertaining I also have to say I agree with your wife that your newslet

1:59:11letters can get a bit wordy but I still read them every day okay you know what less I'm not going to read the rest of years no I want to say what did she say that oh a long time ago my wife she reads my newsletters and she goes you know they're a little long I'm like I know I'm giving people their monies work you're breaking it down yeah I'm giving you value it's called yes and every time I try to sit down I said I'm going to make this one short I can't you can't it's just there's too much to say next week I'll just send out one line I'll be like thanks for reading this was supposed to have our back yeah he wants it less says I want to share a more analog idea for emergency contacts when you're out running or working late I've been using the road ID wristband for more than a decade has my name city and my phone numbers for my wife sons and daughter thankfully I've never had an accident but makes me feel more secure wearing it during workouts might be worth mentioning yes the road ID wristbands I have one of these for my kids when they were little and I had them on the risk as I was like oh my gosh my kid went missing like you know walks off or whatever like how do I how do anyone know who they are and one time we did lose my kid Parker in a pumpkin patch I'm not kidding we want our friends this he was like one year old

2:00:19and we get to the front we're all checking out with our pumpkins we have all the stuff we're buying and everyone looks around like do you have Parker no do you have Parker no thankfully they had gates around this pumpkin patch I think this is the first time telling the stories I'm so embarrassed we were so scared oh my gosh that was really bad Mike yeah it was it was don't ever let that happen don't we found them thankfully Mike just want to say thanks for your emails and your radio show great information thanks for sharing your knowledge John gives a ham radio thanks I just want to say thanks for doing rich on tech I can always find a tidbit or two that's really helpful you cover so many things I have no idea how you keep track of it all but you do a good job 73 73 we know is the ham radio slang for something like thank you probably just butchered that too that's going to do it for this episode of the show you can find links to everything I mentioned on the website just go to rich on tech dot TV can find me on social media if you're not following me on Instagram it is at rich on tech

2:01:25that is where I post all the stuff that I think you should know when it comes to Instagram slot a lot of got a good stuff there all right coming up next week let me take a look we're going to be talking about the Opel app which is a way to surf social media less and We've got a cyber security expert. Oh, it's going to explain why turning off location services doesn't necessarily stop smartphone tracking Five privacy settings you should change right now. Thanks so much for listening there are so many ways you can spend your time I really do appreciate you spending it right here with me one reminder before I go please do not drive distracted those text can wait If I can do it you can do it and believe me I'm bored in my car to sometimes and I Let's leave the phone alone Thanks everyone who makes this show possible Bobo Kim my name is Rich Tamiro. I will talk to you real soon Organizations today need an identity security partner that evolves as fast as they do Delinia provides the modern enterprise with calm and controlled

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