The Tech Guy Episode 1920 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte (00:00:02):
Podcasts. You love from people you trust. This is TWI. Hi, this is Leo Laport and this is my tech guy podcast. This show originally aired on the premier networks on Sunday 21, August, 2022. This is episode 1,920. Enjoy the tech eye podcast is brought to you by Noom with their psychology first approach Noom weight empowers you to build more sustainable habits and behaviors. Sign up for your trial at noom.com/twit. Well, Hey, Hey. Hey, how are you today? Leo LaPorte here, the tech guy. It's time to talk computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smartphone, smart watches, space, EVs virtual reality goggles. Whatever's on your mind. If it has to do with tech, this is the place for it. Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo is the phone number. We all struggle. We wrestle daily each and every one of us with technology in some form or fashion. And this is the place you can come.
Leo Laporte (00:01:12):
The safe space. <Laugh> where no technology, no AI is listening in and we can talk about the robots freely. What do you think? You know, if I, if this show, let's say this show makes it to, I don't know, 2100 or a hundred years from now. How about that? 21, 22. Do you think the conversation will be like I, Leo, I, I can't speak too loudly because the AI might be listening, but it seems to be acting strangely <laugh> I, you know, I completely think that's possible. I completely think that's possible. We're we're headed that way. Aren't we it's I don't know it, it's looking at me funny.
Leo Laporte (00:02:04):
It's inside the house. We're we, I mean, already, even in, in the year 2022, we're kind of struggling with technology that is not responsive to our human needs inflicted on us by other humans. Yes. So there's that, but nevertheless, you know, you're caught in a cut in a loop. There's a story in the New York times today about a father who's baby boy was having trouble medical trouble. And he called the doctor and they said, send a picture of the problem. And he did. But the problem was you know, you know an intimate part of the kid's anatomy, but, you know, I've, the doctor will often ask you now, and this was during COVID, so it's not unusual for the doctor said, you know, strange mole, okay. Send me a picture. Right. I'll and then we can go from there. So not unusual, not weird.
Leo Laporte (00:03:12):
The father complied. I think he even sent a video. What the father didn't think about was that his phone as, as might, maybe yours is automatically uploaded everything, all the pictures and video to Google, perhaps yours does that too, or, or perhaps it does it to Apple's iCloud or, or others. And maybe, you know, I don't know, maybe, you know that these companies are running scanners, artificial intelligence, not human scanners that look at those pictures and decide, Hey, wait a minute, this is problematic. And then send them to NCMEC. That's the national center for missing and exploited children, because they're concerned it might be CSAM, child, sex, abuse material, you know, illegal Nickmick has a database of such material, compares it to that first. And then if it doesn't match, which I'm sure in this case, it did not then a human looks at it and says trouble.
Leo Laporte (00:04:33):
Google immediately disabled his Gmail account and called the police called the police. The police in San Francisco investigated and said, oh yeah, it's what you said. It is. No crime occurred. In fact, they sent him a letter in December of last year saying you you've been investigated. We set search warrants to Google and your ISP, your internet search provider, an investigator looked at everything in your Google account, your internet searches, your location, history, your messages, any documents, photos, or video stored with Google, which on many phones is everything. And ruled that no crime occurred case closed. The investigator wrote, I determined the incident did not meet the elements of a crime, no crime occurred. So the father said, could you tell Google I'm innocent? Because everything I do is in Google might, might not only my mail, but I have a Google five phone. So that was disconnected. Everything I do with Google was, was blocked and disconnected. The police officer said, you ha you have to talk to Google. There there's nothing I can do. Once again, the dad appealed the case to Google even sent them the police report saying no crime has occurred. Your two months later, his account permanently deleted,
Leo Laporte (00:06:12):
Gone. His phone number changed. His email changed, which made it very difficult for him. <Laugh> to pursue this right decade old Google account, gone phone number, gone, all those documents, all those photos stored with Google
Leo Laporte (00:06:38):
Being a giant artificial intelligence had decided the great and powerful Oz has decided. And that's then doesn't matter what the police say. Doesn't matter at all. Doesn't matter the story. What's the message here. I don't know. Maybe be, I guess, you know next time your physician says, can you send me a picture, fax it? I don't <laugh> I don't know what the answer is, but this is an important thing to remember that everything, you know, if you have an iPhone, everything is going to apple, unless you explicitly turn it all off. If you have an Android phone is all going to Google and whoever makes the phone, unless you explicitly turn it off. Most of it, leave it on because it's a backup. It's a convenience. Did the father do anything wrong? No. Did Google do something wrong? Yes. Is there anything that can be done? No. He did contact a lawyer lawyer said, well, yeah, you could Sue, but it's gonna cost you. And the dad decided, yeah, I'm not gonna, I can't spend the $7,000. I'm gonna need to retain this lawyer and, and Sue. So he didn't, there's an example of the AI. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:08:01):
In the year 20, 22 already providing problems. SI mark Zuckerberg, Facebook fellow, remember him posted a you know, their, they announced their new Facebook virtual reality thing. <Laugh> and mark, you know, all excited about this, posted a picture of himself to massive mockery on the internet.
Leo Laporte (00:08:31):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:08:32):
That they spent $10 billion in many years creating this. And that's what they got said. The internet
Leo Laporte (00:08:40):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:08:42):
Oh yeah, New York times columnist. Kevin Ru said the graphics were worse than a, a 2008. We video game
Leo Laporte (00:08:54):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:08:55):
I gouging ugly, says Twitter, an international laughing stock. <Laugh> Zuck, I guess saw them cuz Friday he announced <laugh> horizon. World's this is the virtual reality world horizon world. We're gonna see big updates, big updates. Mark said in his best robot voice, cuz I think mark might be an AI. I know the photo I posted earlier this week was pretty basic. It was taken very quickly to celebrate a launch <laugh> we are capable of much more and it will be improving very quickly. Okay. 10 billion, significant resource. In fact, Facebook says, this is the next big thing we're gonna, we're not even gonna be a social network anymore. We're gonna be a virtual reality environment, horizon worlds, but we're gonna make mark look better next time. <Laugh> have you seen it? Cuz he doesn't look it doesn't it's not mm-hmm it's not good. <Laugh> I took it quickly. Mark mark. You're you're one of the richest men in the world owner outright of one of the biggest, most fancy ex company. I mean what kind, who, what kind of company could spend 10 billion in a year on a project.
Leo Laporte (00:10:24):
This is not the first time mark has posted strange stuff. Remember 4th of July last year he posted a video of him holding an American flag on a, on a, on a surfboard. <Laugh> surfing on the wake of a, of a boat. Remember that? Well, I am just like a normal human. He says honest, I am, I am a metaverse skeptic. I'm a, you know what? I, it didn't used to be this way, but I become skeptical about many, many things in the, the technology space I used to be one of those wide-eyed optimist embracing every new development, every new gadget. Isn't this great. The iPhone seven. Oh my gosh. The best iPhone. Since the iPhone six, you know that kind of guy, but I've been doing this a long time. <Laugh> it's hard not to turn to a little bit of a cynic.
Leo Laporte (00:11:21):
You, you know, you come to me and say web three, gonna be the latest, greatest thing. And I go, yeah. Okay. As long as you don't ask for my money, well, no, we need your money. No Bitcoin gonna be huge. Nope. Virtual reality. The next big thing, eh, makes me a little nauseated actually. I guess I'm a boomer. <Laugh> I guess I'm a boomer. I apologize if you're all excited about web three and cryptocurrency and virtual reality and augmented reality, I apologize. And you know, I will be the first to eat my virtual hat. Should this stuff take off right here on the air. On the national airwaves coast to coast eighty eight, eighty eight, ask Leo that's the phone number. If you want to call and talk about tech, that's the number to call 8 8 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6 to free from anywhere in the us or Canada. Outside that area. You Skype website tech guy labs.com. Your calls next. Hey Shaffer.
Kim Schaffer (00:12:19):
Hey, <laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:12:21):
Cute outfit.
Kim Schaffer (00:12:22):
Thanks.
Leo Laporte (00:12:23):
I like it. Are you expecting warm weather?
Kim Schaffer (00:12:26):
I am. Okay. <laugh> it has been.
Leo Laporte (00:12:29):
I know, you know, I miss it cause I'm inside all day in the air.
Kim Schaffer (00:12:32):
Air conditioning. Yeah. And it's overly air conditioned in here.
Leo Laporte (00:12:34):
It's highly air conditioned. Yep. And I heard that it was like 96 degrees yesterday.
Kim Schaffer (00:12:40):
Oh yeah. I was going through the Nevada narrows and my car said 96 and said, I'm glad I'm in this car with air conditioning. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:12:47):
Today. They say 80, but it could be worse. We just they've been wrong a lot.
Kim Schaffer (00:12:53):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:12:54):
Yeah. Got to a hundred last week. Oh
Kim Schaffer (00:12:57):
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I live in San Rael, but
Leo Laporte (00:13:02):
Is San Rael San Rafael's cooler than here? Correct.
Kim Schaffer (00:13:04):
Cooler than where I live. So I live in a little valley where it's like 10 or 15 degrees hotter than the oh Lord temperature says
Leo Laporte (00:13:12):
And we moved to Petaluma all those years ago. More, 30 years ago we moved here cuz it was slightly, it was warmer and sunnier than San Francisco, which is
Kim Schaffer (00:13:19):
Oh for
Leo Laporte (00:13:20):
Sure. Socked in most of the summer. I
Kim Schaffer (00:13:23):
Remember. Yeah. That's where people go for relief. Yeah. <laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:13:26):
I remember 4th of July party we had in San Francisco, we had a people came from Marin. So they're in shorts and tank tops and we had to lend them coats and gloves and well
Kim Schaffer (00:13:36):
That's the that's the gimmick is everybody goes into San Francisco and has to buy the SF flee hoodie. <Laugh> yeah. That's it's so cold there. They think, oh it's California. It'll be
Leo Laporte (00:13:46):
Warm. I vividly remember laughing at tourists on the golden gate bridge as they froze, shivering froze their way
Kim Schaffer (00:13:56):
In the bay area. We have this thing called micro climates.
Leo Laporte (00:13:59):
<Laugh> yeah. Yeah. The, I mean the bridge is, is ice cold all the time. I mean it's most it's like winter, it doesn't snow, but it's like winter,
Kim Schaffer (00:14:08):
But the whole country's been going through a heat wave. And have you seen all the memes online of like San Francisco? Just laughing <laugh> we're
Leo Laporte (00:14:15):
Like, yeah, we're the only cold place, but we still have a drought. And that drought is now spreading to the whole Southwest. Yep. Arizona is just drying up and they're Yik KA Rumba,
Kim Schaffer (00:14:30):
Dead bodies in lake Mead. Cuz it's so low.
Leo Laporte (00:14:32):
I know. Isn't that weird?
Kim Schaffer (00:14:33):
So bizarre. They're gonna find so many people. I have
Leo Laporte (00:14:35):
A isn't that weird, you know? Do you ever watch the show? Yellowstone?
Kim Schaffer (00:14:40):
I need to, my whole family loves it and I have, I, I, I cannot get past the dead horse scene in the first episode.
Leo Laporte (00:14:47):
Yeah. There's a place they call the train station. <Laugh> that? You know, when they wanna cuz it's basically the Sopranos in a ranch. So when they wanna off somebody, they say, oh, we'll give you a ride to the train station. <Laugh> and they, and it's a, it's a gully out of state just across state lines. And you know, their thought is, well, nobody will ever see this, but I think it's like lake meat. I think someday I think someday, someday somebody's gonna go. Whoa, what happened here?
Kim Schaffer (00:15:18):
Yeah. Yep. That's
Leo Laporte (00:15:21):
It. It's just TV. Probably. There's no such,
Kim Schaffer (00:15:24):
Except this is real life in lake meat
Leo Laporte (00:15:27):
Is kind of real. Yeah.
Kim Schaffer (00:15:30):
A lot of stuff happened in Las Vegas in the what? Fifties,
Leo Laporte (00:15:34):
I guess. You're right. That's that's where probably if you were a gangster. Yep. That's what you
Kim Schaffer (00:15:39):
They'll never find them. They'll be
Leo Laporte (00:15:41):
Thousands of 50 in the year. 21, 22. <Laugh> all. Let's let's do a thing here. Let's do the thing. I feel the music wrapping up. It
Kim Schaffer (00:15:52):
Is wrapping up
Leo Laporte (00:15:54):
Little Stevie. Wonder to introduce the one, the only Kim Schaffer.
Kim Schaffer (00:15:58):
Good
Leo Laporte (00:15:59):
Morning. We have to introduce her because she is the one, your first contact. When you approach the show before you can poke me with a stick, you have to go to the zookeeper <laugh> and, and say, Hey, let me in. And Kim is like the, the, the, the, the keeper of the, the zoo. <Laugh>
Kim Schaffer (00:16:17):
I'm pretty easy. Maybe a little too nice. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:16:21):
Are you too nice?
Kim Schaffer (00:16:22):
I think so. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:16:23):
Yeah. You're very nice. Everybody always says that. Oh, you're lucky to have Kim. Yeah. In fact, that's really my life. They say the same thing about my wife.
Kim Schaffer (00:16:32):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:16:32):
They say the same thing about John, our studio, man. Oh, you're lucky to have them. That
Kim Schaffer (00:16:36):
Is true.
Leo Laporte (00:16:37):
What did I do to be so lucky?
Kim Schaffer (00:16:40):
You won the,
Leo Laporte (00:16:41):
I won the lottery.
Kim Schaffer (00:16:42):
<Laugh> lottery of life.
Leo Laporte (00:16:43):
The lottery of life. I'm a lucky, lucky guy. Although the implication is you don't deserve it. I,
Kim Schaffer (00:16:49):
I don't think so.
Leo Laporte (00:16:50):
I don't know. I know. I don't think that's. I know what they're saying's
Kim Schaffer (00:16:54):
Very lucky. You
Leo Laporte (00:16:55):
Blessed. I'm just lucky. Yes. That's just the way it is. Who should I who should I start with?
Kim Schaffer (00:16:59):
Let's go to Chuck in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He might have their lady called lost her email address and
Leo Laporte (00:17:06):
Oh yeah. This was a Yahoo problem. Way back.
Kim Schaffer (00:17:09):
He had a test of whether that account is still.
Leo Laporte (00:17:12):
I
Kim Schaffer (00:17:12):
Love it in existence.
Leo Laporte (00:17:13):
I love it. That our audience is still solving problems from weeks weeks gone by, Hey Chuck, Leo Laport, D tech guy.
Caller 1 (00:17:24):
Hey Leo. Listen, I had a possible solution and it used to work in the old days, but when you sent an email to a nonexistent account, it usually bounced and I'm oh
Leo Laporte (00:17:37):
Yeah. That's a good idea. I didn't even think of that. Yeah. So she sent, tried to send an email, obviously from a different account or had a friend send an email to her or just ask her friends, what are you getting when you try to send me email? And if it doesn't say, oh, no such person at this account. Well, at least that, that address exists her. I think the fear is that yeah, it exists, but somebody else has access to it.
Caller 1 (00:18:01):
Yeah. the other two things slight question is I was going to fault you on saying Abacus, but then I checked myself and found that it's not Abacha. It is also Abacus.
Leo Laporte (00:18:17):
It's not a Latin word. Right?
Caller 1 (00:18:20):
Is that well, it is a Latin word.
Leo Laporte (00:18:21):
Oh, it is well, so Latin. It would be Abacus. Abaki Aquia, Aqua quad, queer, queer quiz. I remember that.
Caller 1 (00:18:29):
No, but I checked that and it, they do allow for Abacus.
Leo Laporte (00:18:33):
Oh, that's good. What a relief.
Caller 1 (00:18:35):
And also for
Leo Laporte (00:18:37):
Believe me, I wouldn't be surprised if I was completely wrong. So <laugh>
Caller 1 (00:18:42):
No, no, you're right.
Leo Laporte (00:18:43):
Abacus. Now what's the plural of mouse.
Caller 1 (00:18:47):
Well, I was wondering what, what's the Pearl of buses bus. What's the Pearl of a
Leo Laporte (00:18:51):
Bus right? There you
Caller 1 (00:18:52):
Go. A bus would be a buy
Leo Laporte (00:18:54):
Buy. It's a buy two buses is a buy. Yeah. That's I studied. I was, I feel very fortunate I'm of a certain age where in fact we studied Latin in high school and it was very useful. Still is to, for my comprehension.
Caller 1 (00:19:09):
I've got a few years on you too. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:19:12):
Did you study Latin in school?
Caller 1 (00:19:14):
No, I studied French.
Leo Laporte (00:19:15):
Yeah. Me too. French Latin. And then I got to college and I got cocky and I said, let me study ancient Greek. That'll be useful.
Caller 1 (00:19:24):
I speak modern Greek.
Leo Laporte (00:19:25):
Do you, are you Greek? Yeah.
Caller 1 (00:19:27):
No stand. And
Leo Laporte (00:19:30):
How do you, how is it that you come to speak Greek?
Caller 1 (00:19:34):
My first basis station air force station was in Greece.
Leo Laporte (00:19:38):
Beautiful love Greece
Caller 1 (00:19:40):
During the, during the Vietnam years. And I met Adrian Kau. Were there?
Leo Laporte (00:19:46):
No kidding. He's the good born in Vietnam,
Caller 1 (00:19:51):
Right?
Leo Laporte (00:19:51):
Yeah. Played by Robin Williams.
Caller 1 (00:19:54):
Right, right.
Leo Laporte (00:19:56):
Wow. Adrian Kau. Yeah, he was he was, he made famous by that movie. Was he a cool guy?
Caller 1 (00:20:03):
Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:20:04):
He said, good morning, Chuck.
Caller 1 (00:20:06):
He was very popular there. Even this was in the, this was on the island of Creek
Leo Laporte (00:20:12):
Uhhuh. So he was a DJ on armed forces, radio and Creek. Right. Nice. Well, there's a, there's a brush with celebrity, you know, next time you see that every once in a while, they they'll say that on Twitter. So share your brush with fame and you could say, well, I met Adrian CRO now and people go who <laugh>. Who's that? All right. Well thank you Chuck. I appreciate the wait, wait, wait. Oh, there's more wait, but wait, there's more. Yeah.
Caller 1 (00:20:40):
Two things, two slight things more last week you said being left these week. Yes. the word sinister.
Leo Laporte (00:20:50):
Ah, yes. Another Latin word. It
Caller 1 (00:20:52):
Also.
Leo Laporte (00:20:53):
And you know what applies sinister means left, but you know what right. Is
Leo Laporte (00:21:00):
No Dexter as in dextrous. Oh yes,
Caller 1 (00:21:02):
Yes, yes.
Leo Laporte (00:21:03):
Right. So we left. These are sinister and you, right. These are dextrous. How wood
Caller 1 (00:21:09):
And one other slight thing you came back from a cruise is, but you never say where you went.
Leo Laporte (00:21:15):
Oh, we went to Alaska.
Caller 1 (00:21:17):
Ah, Alaska. So you went on Holland America.
Leo Laporte (00:21:20):
We did on Holland. Very good. Yes. Holland America. We went on the Dyma was a TWI cruise, which, which sounds like it's a bad thing, but it's a good thing. It was we took 111 of our podcast listeners and I think a few radio listeners. Hello? on that cruise. It was great fun.
Caller 1 (00:21:38):
Oh yeah. I, I, I did Holland America down the Mexican Riviera
Leo Laporte (00:21:43):
Done that one too. Yeah. Yeah. Done
Caller 1 (00:21:46):
That one too. I like that. They had a, they had a skating rink. There,
Leo Laporte (00:21:50):
They did on the, on the boat. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's the new thing. I don't, you know, their boats are so big. They're like little apartment complexes. I went on one that had bumper cars or rock climbing wall. Yeah, I did that. Para shooting, surfing all on the boat. Hey, got a run. Thank you. Chuck. Sam bull. Sam car guy coming up.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:15):
Good morning, Vietnam.
Leo Laporte (00:22:20):
Hello Samuel.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:22):
Hello Leo.
Leo Laporte (00:22:24):
Ooh, you are sitting in front of a
Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:28):
Dodge charger, Daytona S RT.
Leo Laporte (00:22:31):
I want to hear that sound. The V8 sound coming into outta that fine powerful engine. Do you think I could
Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:38):
Find it? Can you hear it now? Is that coming through?
Leo Laporte (00:22:40):
No. Are you playing it?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:42):
It should be playing.
Leo Laporte (00:22:44):
Let me see if I can get it in line here. Yeah, I got it.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:52):
That's why, that's why I had the video. I was hoping to be able to play it through for you. Good old Dodge. What have you done
Leo Laporte (00:22:58):
This time? This is some YouTuber is gonna talk for an hour before he plays it. Here it is. Here it is. Let's see. Hey, if you want, how it going? Youtubers. I hate you.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:10):
There we go. Can you, you should be able to hear it from my no feed. No, not at all.
Leo Laporte (00:23:19):
Not at all.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:20):
Doesn't exactly. Sound like a V8. It's it's a, it's a different kind of sound.
Leo Laporte (00:23:24):
It's a fake V8 electric feed. Now, are they doing that?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:27):
That's the ban sheet. Oh, it is. That's the name of the power train. They call it the ban sheet power train,
Leo Laporte (00:23:31):
But it's electric. Yeah, but this is not the sound of the ban sheet. This is the sound they recorded.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:37):
Right? It's the sound. They, the sound they made up to represent the ban sheet
Leo Laporte (00:23:42):
Here. It is not that, is that just something that, what is that? Yeah,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:48):
That's, that's basically it idling.
Leo Laporte (00:23:50):
It sounds like electronic music.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:54):
Well then as it revs you'll hear it.
Leo Laporte (00:24:00):
It's the frat Sonic chambered exhaust system.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:05):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:24:05):
Frat Sonic. Did they? They made that up.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:09):
They did the, the the logo, the, the Dodge logo, which is the old three Delta logo. 1960. Wow. Ringing back for this. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:24:20):
It's very electronic. That's interesting. Yeah. I guess they didn't want it to sound that
Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:24):
Logo on the front. Yeah. That's called the frat SOG, which is a, which is the designer made that name up. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:24:32):
Wow. Wow. Actually, you know, wouldn't this is the Mo this is the new, the next, but it's a concept, right? It's not a, it, it,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:40):
Well, it's a concept, but a production version's coming in 20, 24. See, I can, that's gonna be very much like this.
Leo Laporte (00:24:45):
I kinda like the idea of a muscle car. You know, you still get a muscle car, but it's electric muscles.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:51):
Well, and that's, that's the whole point here. That's that's what I'm gonna talk about.
Leo Laporte (00:24:54):
Yeah. Yeah. Frat Zog. Yes. He said frat Zog. Yep. He did. He said it <laugh> FRA frat Zog. Wow. Wow. All I could say is, wow, good. This'll be fun to talk about. Actually, there's so much automotive news. Now, as I go through my news stuff, I see all this automotive stuff now just it's it's really happening. But I was a little distressed when I saw that. What was it? Was it GM plans to make half of its vehicles electric by 2050? And I thought 20, no,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:39):
No, no, no, no. 2030
Leo Laporte (00:25:41):
Somebody said 20, 50. I don't know who it was. And I thought, God, I'll be 96 years old.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:46):
No, every, every auto maker is well ahead of that. Of them are targeting at least at least 50% by 2030. Yeah. some, you know, some, some brands like Volvo Jaguar are planning to be fully electric by 2030. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:26:04):
Why, why your sevens says EVs are not the future. They're a daydream. The reality of which is taking a rather long time to sink in the denial and delusion. I wonder who's really in denial delusion
Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:18):
Here. He's he's wrong.
Leo Laporte (00:26:20):
<Laugh> you just wait and see
Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:22):
They are, they are real. Yeah. I drive 'em all the time.
Leo Laporte (00:26:25):
I, all we have now is a bolt. Yeah. A mini and a Mustang, all of which are EVs battery electric vehicles, but I am diluted clearly.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:37):
We all are, I guess,
Leo Laporte (00:26:38):
And I have to say not having gone to a gas station in a couple of years, the delusion is strong. You just wait and see
Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:46):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:26:50):
The vision is a daydream. Well, we'll see. It may well be that car personal car ownership dies, but we'll see, Hey, it's time to talk cars. I'm doing it already with Sam AB Sam. He's a principal researcher at guide house insights. This is his day job, but he also does the great podcast wheel bearings. You'll find that@wheelbearings.media and wherever you get your podcasts. And today Sammy is sitting in front of a very nice Dodge charger. Hello, Sam.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:18):
Hello, Leo. How are you this week?
Leo Laporte (00:27:20):
I'm great.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:23):
So this week is, is a big week in the, in the car biz. Yes. Cause right now down in Monterey south of you guys the pebble beach concourses is going on. This has been Monterey oh week and has been lovely, all kinds of fancy stuff unveiled there and, and Mike podcast, cohost Roberto, Baldwin's been down there, lucky dog over the last several days, hobnobbing with the fancy people. <Laugh> is it come
Leo Laporte (00:27:48):
Cool?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:49):
Yeah. Meanwhile, I was back here in Detroit cuz yesterday was the annual Woodward dream cruises. And so this is this massive event that's been going on for many, many years on Woodward avenue in Detroit. Oh, that's fun. People getting out their, their cool cars and interesting cars and sometimes not so interesting cars and just driving up and down Woodward avenue, but
Leo Laporte (00:28:11):
That's it that's every Saturday in Petaluma.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:13):
Well, yeah. And it is most Saturdays on Woodward avenue too. Okay, good. But, but, but, but this particular Saturday is when they have, you have about a million people actually go out and nice bit along along the sidewalks and everything all the way up and down, like about a 10 mile stretch of Woodward from Detroit up to Pontiac to watch these cars and as part of the, this celebration of automotive culture for a number of years, you know, some, some of the auto makers that are based here in Detroit have been doing some, some special events, some announcements and Dodge which, you know, has really transformed itself into a muscle car brand over the last decade, especially the last five or six years since they launched the, the supercharge Hellcat V eights has been doing some, some stuff they do.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:04):
Earlier in the week they did something called roadkill nights at a local racetrack nearby where they you know, people come in and, and drag race. And earlier this week they unveiled a couple of new products. Oh, they made several, they made several announcements. The first big announcement was that by the end of next year, the Hellcat V eight will be dead. Gas powered, the gas powered Dodge charger, and challenger will end production by the end of 2023. They followed that up the next night by introducing the Dodge Hornet, which is their new plugin hybrid, compact crossover. And then on Wednesday night, they showed off this car and if you're watching the stream right now, you can see behind me, the Dodge charger Daytona S RT last year was Lantis, which is the parent company of Dodge and 13 other brands had their EV day to announce their, their, their roadmap for EVs. They talked about Dodge going electric and introducing an American emus car in 2023
Leo Laporte (00:30:06):
E muscle
Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:07):
E muscle.
Leo Laporte (00:30:07):
But you know, the most, most important part of a muscle car, cuz I used to own a Mustang mm-hmm <affirmative> GT 5.0 is how you gonna do that with electric?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:20):
Well, and, and this is one of the challenges with, with going electric because you know, with, with internal combustion engines, you know, different engines have different sounds, different fields, you know, you can create product differentiation by the way, the engine sounds and vibrates and everything and electric motors are all pretty much the same. So the guys at Dodge decided to have a little fun with this vehicle and, and with their upcoming vehicles. So, you know, we know, you know, we've seen from Tesla that an electric car can be just as much of a muscle car as anything with a big, giant super truck. Well
Leo Laporte (00:30:55):
Better really? I mean,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:56):
Better, quicker. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:30:57):
Quicker. I had much better pickup on my electric Mustang ma than I did on my GT five point. Oh,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:03):
Right. Yeah. And so you're gonna have that in this car when the production model comes out in 2024, but then it wouldn't be any different from a Tesla in that respect. So yeah. Tesla came up with something different
Leo Laporte (00:31:16):
When they, when they get fast.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:20):
They, so they, they created something that they have filed for a patent on called the frat Sonic chambered exhaust. Wait,
Leo Laporte (00:31:27):
What? The frat Sonic
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:29):
Chamber chambered exhaust
Leo Laporte (00:31:30):
Exhaust this, play that for
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:32):
You. Yeah. Well here let me, let me try. No, no
Leo Laporte (00:31:34):
You can't. I have it. Let me play it for you. This sounds like a Marvel movie sound effect. That's actually gonna come out of the car. It's it's playing through a speaker though, right? It's not
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:49):
Sort of, yes. It's, it's more, it's more than that. It's not just a speaker. So as they, as you know, Dodge, the head of Dodge described it to me, you know, it's a transducer, which of course speaker
Leo Laporte (00:32:02):
Is as a speaker <laugh> it's speaker, FRA Sonic transducer chamber. It's an FST.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:10):
It goes into this resonance chamber and a series of wipe,
Leo Laporte (00:32:14):
Oh listen, the revs. Wow. But that's clear. They're not, they're not trying to make it sound analog. I mean, you could record an analog. Oh
Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:21):
Yeah. Engine rev and, and that's been done. Yeah. Others have done that.
Leo Laporte (00:32:24):
They wanna make it sound a little electronic.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:27):
Yeah. Yeah. And you know, different, different automakers are doing different solutions for their, their sounds. I mean, you've got a little rumbling sound when you put your mock into its unbridled mode BMW hired front Han Zimmer the movie composer. Yeah. To do the soundtrack for their EVs.
Leo Laporte (00:32:46):
Yeah. Why not make it sound different?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:48):
Yeah. And so Dodge has come up with, with this system that looks at the accelerator pedal position, the gear position, the load speed to try to match the sound to what the vehicle's doing. And it doesn't sound like, like a VA,
Leo Laporte (00:33:04):
This is what it should sound like a tie fighter. <Laugh> sorry.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:10):
<Laugh> so the, but one of the interesting details they said that this, you know, full, you know, full acceleration, maximum acceleration, this thing will be able to go up to 126 decibels, the same sound as the Hellcat. That's
Leo Laporte (00:33:24):
Be that's ear damage. Don't no, stop it. Yeah. <Laugh>
Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:27):
No, what's the, it's the same, the same sound level as the Hellcat.
Leo Laporte (00:33:31):
Why would they do that?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:33):
I don't know.
Leo Laporte (00:33:34):
That should be illegal. Yeah. That should be illegal. I know that some states in Florida, they had, they may had to make it illegal that people were playing really loud sounds from their car. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> no, that's just noise pollution.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:49):
Yeah. And, and it won't be doing that all the time. You know, I think I suspect what they're gonna do is probably do some geofencing. So if you're at a drag strip
Leo Laporte (00:33:58):
And then it could do it
Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:59):
Running at a drag strip. Yeah. It's not, it's probably not gonna do that. Are
Leo Laporte (00:34:02):
They gonna have somebody in the chat room says Vegas, Wayne says, should they should have a, so a solenoid that rocks the car when the
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:10):
Don't give 'em any ideas probably will.
Leo Laporte (00:34:12):
I think this is really just trying to convince the muscle cart crowd that this is really a muscle car and you know what, that's a short term fools errand, you know, if I think in the long run, make it fast, make it look good, make it work well. And they'll come along. It's silly to have 120 de Abel engine roar playing out of a speaker. That's crazy.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:38):
Yes. That, that volume is pretty crazy. Yeah. but it does sound really loud,
Leo Laporte (00:34:43):
Although that is how
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:44):
Loud I, I heard it on Wednesday night and it does sound pretty.
Leo Laporte (00:34:46):
Yeah. That's how loud my friend Harley is <laugh>. Yeah. I always know when he is arriving out front
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:53):
<Laugh> and it's the same, it's the same volume as the current V8 charger and challenger with the hell cat engine. Wow. So it's not any louder. And so you know, this is, this is coming in 2024. This
Leo Laporte (00:35:05):
User 62 55 says, why don't you just put baseball cards in the spokes of the tires and, and <laugh> cause that's what it is. It's like a kid going, look at me, got big loud engine.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:21):
If you want to hear more about this. When I later this afternoon, when I put up the new episode of wheel bearings, I've got interviews with Tim ESCU, who is the head of Dodge and Mickey Bly, who is the head of or he's he's head of global propulsion systems for Solanis. And I've also got an interview in there with Jim Owens, who I talked to on Friday, who is the marketing and brand manager for Mustang and Shelby at Ford and must, and Ford's gonna be unveiling the new and
Leo Laporte (00:35:50):
EV Shelby
Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:51):
Mustang in
Leo Laporte (00:35:52):
Oh, it's it's a Mustang body. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's wheel bearings.media. Yep. Very nice. Sam AB Sam. He is he's a guy who studies this for a living at guide house insights. He's also the podcaster wheel bearings.media. Thank you, Sam Leola port. Thank
Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:09):
You, Leo.
Leo Laporte (00:36:12):
I always, when I'm looking, there's so many EVs on the road out here now that you can't, and they can't no longer can you tell, they don't look like martini olives anymore. They, you know, they look like real cars. So I just, every time I just look for tailpipes, no tailpipe, <laugh>, it's an EV sometimes it's the only way you could tell these days.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:31):
And sometimes not even then, because most of the hybrids usually hide the tailpipe behind the, the bumper cover and the back. So you can't even interesting the tailpipe on those either.
Leo Laporte (00:36:39):
Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. would you like to take control of the radio for a few minutes? Certainly. Oh, thank you.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:50):
I give it to you. So Eric Tuckman or no, sorry. One, Brian says fake smoke out the tailpipe. No plans for that at this time. But you know, they don't talk about future products. So I wouldn't, it could happen. I wouldn't have rule it past them.
Leo Laporte (00:37:05):
It could happen.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:06):
They, they, they prob I don't think they'll have smoke up the tailpipes, but they will in fact be able to generate a lot of smoke from tire spin <laugh> at the drag strap. When you, when you stand on this thing, that's true.
Leo Laporte (00:37:17):
That's a good point.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:18):
Yes. They, they haven't, they haven't said exactly how much power this thing's gonna have. But they said that it will be faster than the Hellcat in every spec. Wow. And the, the current Hellcat red eye is like 807 horsepower. But it also doesn't have all wheel drive and doesn't have electric motors. So it doesn't have that instant torque. So this you know, this, this will UN certainly be quicker, even if it doesn't necessarily have as much power. But they've said that it's gonna come out with three power levels from the factory, and then using things like software updates, you'll be able to upgrade to, you know, up to six at least six other power levels. So they're gonna have a lot of options for customizing this thing. Wow. let's see scooter X says Tim Stevens got to drive some nice vehicles last week. Yeah. Tim, Tim usually gets to drive some nice vehicles.
Leo Laporte (00:38:14):
He is no longer at CNET. I was so sad. Sad
Sam Abuelsamid (00:38:16):
To see. No, he he has separated from CNET. Yeah. And I'm not at Liberty to talk about what went on there, but I've, I've heard some stuff and it's, it's unfortunate.
Leo Laporte (00:38:27):
You tell me off the air or I'll ask Tim, but yeah. Oh
Sam Abuelsamid (00:38:30):
Yeah. It's it's, I mean, it's all part of the whole private equity thing.
Leo Laporte (00:38:34):
Yeah. Red ventures. Yep. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, let's that's really sad. Yeah.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:38:40):
Yeah. I mean, they, they they've gutted the,
Leo Laporte (00:38:43):
I don't think they have roadshow video. There's no roadshow or is there
Sam Abuelsamid (00:38:46):
No, they, they, they changed roadshow back to CNET autos. Right. and they got rid of the entire video team. There's only four people left on scene at autos now. Oh, that's sad. So they got rid of quite a few people which is unfortunate.
Leo Laporte (00:39:00):
Yeah. Well, we knew this would happen once you, once, you know, equity company, you know, companies get ahold of you. That's the first thing they do is start to save money.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:09):
Yep. So Joe S Texas grid can't handle cold weather. How are they gonna handle people switching to EVs? And, and this is a, a major issue. You know, we,
Leo Laporte (00:39:21):
I would submit that's a problem for Texas as opposed to EVs, but okay. Well,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:25):
It, it is a problem, particularly problem for Texas poorly
Leo Laporte (00:39:28):
Run grid. <Laugh>.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:30):
Yeah. And, and it's independent from the rest of the grid across the country. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:39:34):
That's part of the problem.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:35):
Yeah. but you know, there, even in, even in the rest of the country, we need some significant upgrades to the grid. Sure. Absolutely. you know, we have enough power generation capability. What we, you know, I, I was, I had coffee last week with somebody from one of the utilities here in Michigan. And she said, she told me, you know, the challenge is to get the electrons to the right place at the right time. You know, they've, they've got plenty of electrons. They just, they have to distribute it them better. And so we're seeing a variety of things going on. And I I'll talk a little bit more about that in the next segment, if you want. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:40:10):
Good stick around. Awesome. Sure. We'll talk in a bit. Thank you, Sam. The tech eye podcast is brought to you by Noom. You may have noticed how SELT, how handsome, how trim and fit I am. Maybe you haven't noticed that have you, you, I know you've noticed it with my wife. We've been doing Noom. I love the Noom. One of our one of the chatters who was on the cruise with us. I don't won't name names, cuz I don't wanna embarrass him. He, I said, I didn't recognize him. I knew he was gonna be on the cruise. I said, where are you? And he said, I'm right here. I went what he said, yeah, I lost 60 pounds. I said, how'd you do it? I said, he said, Noom. I listened to your ads. Noom. I love Noom. Noom. Weight is a way to lose weight without a diet. It's understanding it's knowledge. And that's, what's so important because knowledge is power. And if you understand why you eat what you're eating, why you're eating it, you have control over it. And so there's no bad foods. You don't have to suffer. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:41:24):
I asked him, he said, no, I love it. He's still on it. And so is Lisa. Lisa is now a, has a, a life member, you know, after, after you've you've reached your goal weight, which she has. And then you continue to maintain. And then eventually you get the zoom, you know, lifetime achievement award. I don't know what they call it, but I'm jealous cuz I'm not yet there. But she is. I lost about 20 pounds with, with Noom. She didn't need to lose as much. I think she's lost 10 looks great. She did it at first. Cuz she wanted to support me. I said, I'm gonna do Noom. This is about a year and a half ago, year ago I said, I'm gonna do Noom. She said, okay. And after I did it for few days, she said, you know, I should do it too.
Leo Laporte (00:42:01):
I said, good, great. You don't need to. But she did. She said, well I have a few pounds. I'd like to lose. As you get older, you know, this is one of the things that happens as you get older, every decade. It's another 10 pounds. Right? Well I gotta tell you I've done every diet in the world, but Noom weight is not a diet. It's a psychology first approach that helps you build sustainable habits with lasting results. Noom weight has now helped 3.6 million people lose weight. Every journey's different. So when you do Noom weight, you get an app on your iPhone or your Android device. It helps you track what you're eating, but it also has lessons. But your lessons are different. Mine were different than leases. The, because our goals were different. It's based on scientific principles like cognitive behavioral therapy. You might have heard of C, B T.
Leo Laporte (00:42:52):
It's all about understanding your relationship with food. For instance, I learned, I am a fog eater. I sometimes I don't even taste the food. So one of the first things, one of the first things we did with Noom turn off the TV, put down the phone, put it away, choose slowly, taste. Every bite makes just by itself. It makes a big, big, big difference. Noom. The other thing that ING with Noom, you get the plan, you get the lessons, you also get a group that you can participate in. Some people like groups, I'm not a big group guy. You also get a coach. I'm more of a coach worked with a coach. First, one of the first things that happened about two weeks in, I ate a hot dog. I said, oh, I'm sorry. I hate a hot dog. She said, no, no that's not.
Leo Laporte (00:43:31):
That's okay. I said what? She said, oh no, there's no bad foods on Noom. It's not about restricting what you can or can't eat. It focuses on progress instead of perfection and learning, right? So you lose the desire for stuff. You, that's not good for you in a way because you understand why you're eating it. And by the way, you can even choose how much of your coach you get. How much of the group, how much, how long the lessons are. You can have five minute daily check-ins if you want, you can have 'em weekly. There are off days, of course, num weight helps you get back on track, active, numerous lose an average of 15 pounds and 16 weeks. It's that's actually I lost a little more than that. 95% of customers say new weight is a good long term solution. I have kept it off even through a cruise.
Leo Laporte (00:44:19):
In fact, they did not game weight on the cruise. Lisa lost a pound on the cruise makes me so mad. New Noom is based in science. In fact, they've published more than 30 peer reviewed scientific articles aimed at practitioner scientists, the public and your user, their users of course, about how they work, what their methods are, you know, used to be. I'd come home from a day of work and I stuffed my face and I wasn't even aware of it. I helped nom help me understand that. Help me think about it. Help me understand why I did it. It wasn't stop doing that. I don't have to lock food away in a lockbox. <Laugh> it wasn't at all that he saids go ahead and eat that, but understand what's going on. And then just a few simple things that I slowly learned over time.
Leo Laporte (00:45:06):
And that behavior disappeared. I used to be a big snacker, you know, late at night, late at night snacker. Haven't done that in in months, years, I guess since I've been doing it for about a year and a half, stay focused on what's important to you with nom, weight's psychological based approach. Sign up for your trial at noom.com/twit. Now, when you go there, you're gonna answer a lot of questions. And if the first time I thought, well, this is a lot of questions, but that's so they can tailor. This is very tailored to you and what you need. So do answer those questions, you know, give 'em all the information, be honest. It really, really works. It really, really helps N om, noom.com/twi. Do, do do that though, because I think if you, if you like me, I've been on every day, you know, some of you know, how many diets I've been on every diet in the world and yeah, some of 'em work, but I didn't feel healthy.
Leo Laporte (00:46:00):
This one is great. We're having a soup and salad tonight. Thanks to Lisa. It's good. If you can get your partner to do it too, it really is noom.com/twit sign up for your trial today. I asked her, I chatter. I said, can I, can I use you in the, in the new ad? He said, yeah, sure. And he said, I could use his name, but I'm not gonna use his name, but 60 pounds. And I did not recognize him. He looks great noom.com/twi. Now back to the tech guy geek on the radi. He calls himself Leo, the K. And he's gonna take another call. Ken is on the line from Talmage. Oh, Ohio. Hello, Ken.
Caller 2 (00:46:44):
Hello, Leo. How are you?
Leo Laporte (00:46:45):
I'm great. How are you?
Caller 2 (00:46:47):
I'm good. And this is this is one of the things I've been waiting to do for a long time. Give you a call concerning Linux. I'm a Linux user. I've used windows as well, but right now I use a Linux MX Linux 19. And I'm very, very happy with it. And I'm wondered if you could talk or elaborate a little bit about whether it's secure enough to use for banking business or stock broker account, that sort of thing. Security wise,
Leo Laporte (00:47:25):
I would say. Absolutely. So let me tell people what Linux is. I think probably if you listen to this show, you've heard the name. There are two main commercial operating systems. Actually I really should say there are four commercial operating systems, windows, Mac OS iOS, which is Apple's iPhone and an iPad operating system. And Android. Those are commercial they're, they're owned by companies. Although Android is at root open source based on Linux of all things, which makes Linux the most used operating system in the world, because it's a free opens free as in not no cost necessarily, but free as in liberated open source operating system. That is very good. It is as good as Mac OS. I'd say it's better than windows. Not developed by one man or one company by, by thousands who contribute and work on it as, as is the case with open source projects.
Leo Laporte (00:48:26):
And so as a result, I think Linux has matured over time to it's become easier to use. It does almost everything windows does. And in fact, you can run many windows programs on Linux using compatibility layers like wine and proton. So Linux is I think increasingly a very good choice for desktop users. Certainly when you go on the web, more than half of the websites you visit are running on some form of Unix, either, either BSD or Linux you, so you're using it every day, all the time. If you have an Android phone, you're using it. So is it secure? You know, it's kind of, no operating system is perfect. All operating systems have flaws. Linux absolutely has flaws. There've been some very well known, highly publicized flaws and programs that people use on Linux, like open SSH, but because it's open source, in my opinion, more people are looking at it working on it and trying to fix it.
Leo Laporte (00:49:23):
And patches come out very rapidly. You know, if you tell, and this has happened, if you tell apple, Hey, there's a flaw on your software. It's making its your users vulnerable. Apple can decide not to fix it. They did for a long time with a very important flaw or apple can say, yeah, we better fix it as they just did. They just updated iOS, iPad OS and Mac OS all at once, because there was a massive zero day flaw. So bad things happen to all operating systems. The question really is how easy is it to get it fixed? And I would say Linux is right up there probably superior in some ways to the commercial operating systems. Now you do wanna choose a secure Linux. You use MX Linux, which I've never used. Do you like it?
Caller 2 (00:50:06):
Oh, very much. Yeah. I I, I started out years ago with Linda's.
Leo Laporte (00:50:12):
Yeah, this was, this was an attempt to make a, a windows compatible Linux or comparable Linux that kind of drifted off. It was under the EISs of a guy who kind of lost interest, but which, which, which now the other thing about Linux is great is choice. So with MX Linux and many others, you have a choice of desktop environment. Which one do you like?
Caller 2 (00:50:32):
Well, I have it on both. I use it on desktop and I have a couple of laptops that it's also installed on. And I've not found a computer yet that it won't load up and run. That's true. This particular version. I don't know if they're all like that, but this MX Linux 19 I know it's not the latest, but it works. It makes every, everything I've got work fine.
Leo Laporte (00:50:54):
That's the other thing about Linux because it's free and open sourced. Many, many people have said I'm gonna make my version. And so you're choosing, you can choose from they call 'em distributions or distros for short. And you could choose from hundreds of distros. If you go to distro, watch.org, you can see some of the more popular ones. I use a distro called Manjaro recommend pop OS for a lot of people, but there is a huge variety. And underneath it's always the Linux kernel, which is, I think fundamentally very secure and always is getting updated. So your kernel is very secure, not necess. And then on top of the kernel, of course, like as with any operating system, you install applications and some of them are less secure than others. So it's one thing that's required of all computer users is you keep up to date, you pay attention to updates. I think Linux has a very good update story. Any, any version modern version links will notify you when there's updates, there may be updates almost daily because you have a lot of different programs running, but if you apply those, I think you're as secure. If not more secure, certainly secure enough to do anything you're gonna do on windows or Mac.
Caller 2 (00:52:03):
Yeah. Yes. This, this Linux that I use it updates when, and it'll show you that you need an update. Yep. It'll notify you. Yep. And you can take a deep breath and click update and it's done by the time you need to take another breath.
Leo Laporte (00:52:18):
That's the other thing I love, you know, windows is constantly saying, okay, you're gonna have to restart. You're gonna restart. Do it overnight, do it. Now we're gonna restart. We had this problem yesterday. Kim's computer where he started right before the beginning of the show. We weren't sure if we had to come up with a backup plan, cuz windows had decided, well, it's time to kind of update. Linux will never do that to you. You do sometimes need to restart. If the kernel gets updated, you have to restart, which is monthly maybe, but you don't have to, and you can do it whenever you feel like it. They'll just put a little notice up saying, yeah, you wanna, you know, if you want all of these updates to work, now you can continue to run Linnux as you are. But if you want the new kernel, you'll have to restart. I think it's a very, I think it's the B honestly every time I buy a windows machine, it's just the clock starts. It's only a matter of time before I throw my hands up and <laugh> say, all right, I'm gonna put Lennox on it. <Laugh> I just give up often. So there you have it there, you have it. I agree with you.
Caller 2 (00:53:19):
Yeah. On the on Lenux. Are you confident in that, that clam TK virus scanner. And is it, is it enough?
Leo Laporte (00:53:31):
Well, here's the funny thing about clam is it's essentially scanning for windows viruses. <Laugh> not for, oh, because as a computer user, you have to be very careful about these windows guys. There's so many viruses out there. So if you send an attachment or you send somebody a file, you really wanna make sure it's, it's, it's not harmful to you on Linux, but you wanna make sure it's not gonna harm then. And that's mostly what clam is is used for, to check for windows viruses. There are not a lot of Linux viruses and they are almost always patched immediately. Partly that's because if you're a bad guy and you have a choice between going after a billion and a half computers, or, you know, a hundred million computers, you're gonna go after the billion. Right? So most viruses are written four windows a because they're many places you can attack it.
Leo Laporte (00:54:21):
And B because that's where the money is, you know, you Rob banks, cuz that's where the money is. So Linux by virtue to some degree of its obscurity also benefits also benefits. Yeah. But clam is good. I there's no reason not to use clam. I don't if you, if you are sending attachments and files to windows users, you probably should use clam. You know, clam TK is the graphic interface version of the clam antivirus tool. So TK just means it's a gooey as opposed to command line. That's the one thing perhaps it stops people from using Lennox is it's, it, it, it does a lot of the tools are command line, you know, like the dos prompt as opposed to graphical, but you can live in the graphics environment, if you, if you don't want to hit the command line.
Leo Laporte (00:55:07):
I think it's, I think I like the command line myself. Yeah. I mean, I think you, I would not remember antivirus. All of this antivirus stuff is really aimed at windows users and they don't do anything really on mobile devices. There is some usefulness on Mac O S cuz there are viruses out there as Macow S gets more and more use, but honestly, anti the whole antivirus in this virus industry is, is designed for people who use windows, Linux. You don't have to worry. Does that make sense? <Laugh> does that it does. Does that reassure you, go ahead, go forth and use Linux with pride. Thanks. I do. <Laugh> yay.
Caller 2 (00:55:47):
So much
Leo Laporte (00:55:47):
For the call. Thank you for the call. Ken, have a great one. Leo LePort the tech guy and I've just irritated. 99% of our audience just pissed off at me now. All right, Sam, you better reassure them. This is not a communist conspiracy.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:56:11):
<Laugh> no, not, not by any stretch of the
Leo Laporte (00:56:14):
Imagination. First EVs then Linux. What is this world coming to? Well,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:56:19):
You know, most of those
Leo Laporte (00:56:20):
Evs are running Linux. I know. So I
Sam Abuelsamid (00:56:22):
Know is it,
Leo Laporte (00:56:24):
Is that actually that's interesting. So it's not, it's not other R tosses like windows Microsoft's
Sam Abuelsamid (00:56:29):
Car or they, most of 'em are actually running a variety of OSS. Yeah. There's there's usually most cars have some Linux in them somewhere. There's often some Q and X there's green software, right? Does a realtime OS there's there's several others. Interestingly. next year GM is gonna start launching some cars with their new TFI software platform, which you can think of it kind of the way that Android is structured, the way Android is architected. So Android has Linux underneath, there's a Linux kernel and then there's this Android layer that has all the APIs in there that, and you know, developers, you know, write their apps, you know, calling those APIs to get access to signals, sensor signals and data and things like that. And to, and to do things, they go through those APIs while Altify is going to be a similar kind of structure for GM as they move to a more centralized compute architecture where you'll have this middleware layer that is similar to the Android layer on a phone or other device.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:57:37):
And then the, the functions that currently run individual electronic control units scattered around the car are going to be moved onto this. They're gonna be rewritten moved onto that, so that instead of having an ECU separate for your electronic stability control system, they'll just take that and move that on toy and port it to that platform. And then it will get the, the signals from the various sensors through the tify layer and send the commands back to the actuators through tify and tify is going to be running on top of red hat, Linux. Oh, red hat. Interesting is doing an automotive Linux. So that's gonna be the core operating system for GM vehicles starting next year. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of different OSS out there. And, but Linux is an increasingly important one in EVs as well as other cars.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:58:33):
Interesting. but to address one of the things that's been going on here in, in the chat about the grid and you know, how, you know, how, how that's gonna be handled. As I mentioned in the, in the last break, I think there are there's enough power generating capacity in the us to support our needs. That's not the issue. The issue we have is the distribution, the grid that gets the power from power stations from dams, from solar farms, wind farms, nuclear plants to the end users. That's what has not necessarily kept up. And some places it's worse than others, Texas has a problem because they decided that they didn't wanna be part of the national grid and, and be able to transmit power in and out of Texas. You know, if they, if they have a problem, you know, locally, they didn't wanna be able to get power from Oklahoma or Arkansas.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:59:31):
And you know, they're gonna have to deal with that problem. But what was also mentioned was in California, for example where there have been a lot of problems over the last, particularly over the last decade with not, you know, with rolling blackouts, you know, when they have periods of, of peak demand, you know, when it gets very hot and you have, especially in the middle of the day, you have your peak power demand and the system can't keep up the grid. Can't keep up with sending that power. And in some cases that has led to power lines and transformers going down and causing fires, which just makes the problem worse. And so PG and E, which is your local utility they're Leo they are doing a test program right now with general motors and with Ford.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:00:23):
And it's a pilot right now, but they'll pro by the end of the year, they're gonna, they're doing it. They're doing lab testing right now, by the end of the year, they're gonna start inviting customers and participate in this using what's known as a demand response system with bidirectional charging. So we've talked previously about the F-150 lightning which has a home power backup capability. It's got bidirectional charging, so you can put power in. You can, when you plug in an F-150 lightning, you can put power into it to charge the battery, or when you need that power, you can take it back out again. And the the Hyundai ionic five and key V six also have this vehicle to load capability to take power out not at, not at as high a level as the, the Ford, but but they're doing this.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:01:09):
GM's gonna be adding this into their EVs. And the, the Ford system, the way it works is it's all currently, it's all controlled locally. So if you get a lightning and you get the home integration kit, if it detects your power going out to your home, it flips the transfer switch to disconnect your home from the grid, and automatically starts pulling power from the battery in your truck down to a certain level. You can set a minimum threshold. And I think it defaults to about 30% so you can have enough power to go somewhere else and charge it up if you need to. And you know, but you know, with the, the typical amount of power consumption in a, in a typical American home which is where else, I, I think it's like less it's enough it's enough that you can power a typical American home without shutting anything off for about three days.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:01:58):
And if you start turning off UN essential things, you can go up to 10 days off the light battery and the lighting. What they're, what PG and E is doing with GM and Ford is they're testing controlling this remotely. So that for customers that opt in if PG and E detects that their demand is getting up close to the limits of what they can transmit then what they can do is send a signal out to vehicles that are plugged in and have them automatically switch, switch, and take those houses temporarily off the grid for an hour or two, and power those homes off the EV that's plugged in. And then what that does, it brings down the load brings down the demand on the grid so that they can keep up and they can actually avoid, potentially avoid these rolling blackouts and brownouts.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:02:52):
And then as the demand level goes down again, then they can bring those, those homes back online and, and charge those vehicles back up again. So this is one of the potential ways that they're looking at. There's a lot of, a lot of potential solutions to this. You know, obviously more major overhaul of the grid is a key component of this as well. And that's something that we're gonna be seeing a lot more of over the next several years. And, and some of that, the the infrastructure bill that was passed earlier this year includes some funding to support that. So I think, you know, that, and also when you look at the, the number of EVs that we're going to have on the road in the next decade I was mentioning something in the, in the chat about this, you know, we have I was just looking at the at a database the other day.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:03:41):
There's currently over 290 million registered vehicles in the United States. When, you know, even in a good year when we don't have supply chain problems, we've never sold more than about 17 and a half million new vehicles a year. So at 17 million vehicles a year to replace the entire vehicle fleet is going to take several decades. You know, it's going to be a long time before we don't have any gas vehicles left on the road. You know, we first, you know, we don't have enough capacity to build batteries and we don't have the materials to build the batteries, you know, to turn them over that much faster. And, you know, frankly people cannot afford to buy all new vehicles, you know, in the next 10 years. So even with the, for, you know, at my company guide house insights, where we do, one of the things we do is forecasting of demand for technologies.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:04:31):
You know, our, our forecast is, you know, in 2030 you know, about 34, 30 5% of new vehicles sold are going to be EVs. It might be a little higher than that, but even, even at that, by 20, 30, less than 10% of the vehicles on the road in the us will be electric. So it's not going to be, you know, that big of a load. We, we actually have some time to make these grid upgrades. And in combination with doing things like demand response and bidirectional charging you know, I think we, we should be fine, you know, in terms of being able to support the number of EVs that are actually going to be built and sold in that timeframe.
Leo Laporte (01:05:12):
Mr. Sam Abul, Sam, well spoken. Well done. I just don't want any, I just don't want people to panic. Don't panic have a great week. You too. I will see you next time. See you. Thank you, sir. Bye bye. On, well, Hey, Hey. Hey, how are you today? Leo? Leport here. Yes. I'm your tech guy, a geek on the radio. My gosh, who thought that was a good idea? Well, <laugh> you really wanna know <laugh> I know I can name names but thank them. I thank them profusely. The people at KFI who first put me on the air, Robin Berta, Luci and company, and and the people at the premier radio network, who, for some reason, I just don't know why think this is a good idea. And I am not gonna look to a gift radio show in the mouse.
Leo Laporte (01:06:04):
No, sir. Eighty eight eighty eight ask Leo is the phone number. If you're listening, I guess you probably think it's a good idea too, or you just can't believe it. And it's like, oh, really a four legged kitty cat. Oh, gotta see that. 88, 88 Asli August. That's not too unusual. That's the phone number anywhere in the us or Canada, outside that area, you can use Skype out something like that. Call 88, 88. ASCL the website. And I mentioned this because you know, you're listening you thinking, oh, oh, that that might be useful. I should remember that maybe worse you're driving and you pull out a pad and paper, no stop. We put it all down there for you on the website and it's free and there's no charge. And you just wander on in and get that information. It's tech guy labs.com, tech guy labs dot com. And we put links up there. Eventually there'll be a transcript of the show with time codes. There'll be a audio of the show and video of the show. So everything's there. And and you can find what you want. In fact, on Sundays, we even put our musical director, professor Laura's playlist up there, so you can get all the songs that she's played in the interstitial music, tech skylab.com. This is episode 1920. Hey, we're in the roaring twenties.
Leo Laporte (01:07:29):
Let's see. Do you think we'll ever make it to the year 2000? <Laugh> it's only 80 more shows I'm gonna guess. Yes. I'm gonna guess. Maybe back to the phones we go Dan, on the line, New York, New York. Hello, Dan.
Caller 3 (01:07:44):
Hello, Leo. Love the show. Thank you. Thank
Leo Laporte (01:07:46):
You so much. Welcome.
Caller 3 (01:07:48):
Thanks. Thanks. So here's the deal? I'm comedian in New York. Nice.
Leo Laporte (01:07:53):
And that's exciting. Stand, stand up comic,
Caller 3 (01:07:58):
Stand up comic, mostly serving the Indian community and
Leo Laporte (01:08:02):
Indian as in east Indian or west Indian as in native Americans. <Laugh>
Caller 3 (01:08:08):
The true Indian, Indian, Indian,
Leo Laporte (01:08:10):
The, the east Indians. Okay.
Caller 3 (01:08:12):
Right, right. And so I have made friends with a, a actress in India, a Bollywood actress. Who's sort of a big, and I'm a small, medium at most. And we wanted do a podcast together. Oh, but she's in yeah. She's in India and I'm in New York and I'm wondering what hardware we should get. Totally
Leo Laporte (01:08:37):
Doable. I've I've because I don't know if you know, we have a podcast network couple of dozen shows. Many of our guests hosts are anywhere in the world. In fact, little later on will talk to Chris Marwar from Germany. You'd never know have we have guest hosts in Asia all over the world. So that's not a problem. We used to use Skype for that Skype, either audio or video, but of late, we found zoom is easily the best quality audio and video. And zoom makes it very easy for you to record this. You can even record a zoom call with separate channels for each caller. So if she starts coughing, while you're talking, you can just cut that out or vice versa.
Caller 3 (01:09:25):
So yeah, this is not gonna be live. It's gonna be recorded.
Leo Laporte (01:09:28):
Yeah. So you can you record it on zoom, but you can then edit it for putting it out as a podcast, easy to do. Oh. And anything you could, that you would do zoom with, you can do it with, I mean, obviously you can improve the cameras and improve the microphones over your laptop, camera and Mike. But that's kind of all up to you. If you, in my opinion, if you want to go out and get the best podcasting microphone sure. Makes it it's the MV seven.
Leo Laporte (01:09:57):
Okay. Based on a, it's not cheap 269 bucks, but it plugs right into your computer. And it's based on the very famous SM seven B that most radio stations use. So each, each of you could have that, that would give you very good audio going into the computer. And then if you wanted to get a better camera, frankly you can use your smartphone as a camera. I my, the best cam I've tried, 'em all the best camera I have at home is my iPhone connected to my Mac with a program called camo C a M O, but there, but you can use Android phones as well. And they're various programs to make it possible. Are you on windows or Mac?
Caller 3 (01:10:35):
I'm on windows. She's on Mac. We're gonna be audio.
Leo Laporte (01:10:39):
Oh, then that's easy. Then that's easy. And honestly, you don't need to go. I mean, the, the MV seven is the kind of the you know, state of the art. So you don't need to go that far. But I have to say one thing I have noticed the better the microphone, the better, better, the sound rather the, the better your podcast. Do you think the audience will be primarily in India?
Caller 3 (01:11:01):
It'll be, well, my audience is Indians in America and her audience is millions or maybe even tens of millions in India. Nice. It's sort of like gonna be a hybrid. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:11:13):
Nice. And do, can you do it in English or do you have to do it in Hindi or
Caller 3 (01:11:18):
<Laugh> no, it it's gonna be all in,
Leo Laporte (01:11:20):
In English. In everybody speaks English. I've
Caller 3 (01:11:22):
Done a lot of, yeah. Yeah. I've done a lot of shows in India and, and, and, you know, it's all, I've always performed in English.
Leo Laporte (01:11:27):
Yes. There are. So there's so many languages in India. Any language you chose would in a, in a way kind of say, oh, you know, you can't listen to this. You know, if you, if you, if you're hi, you can't listen to Bengali, if you're yeah. Right. Yeah. If you're Moratti well, you better not listen to it in Boto and et cetera, et cetera. <Laugh> so I understand that English is probably the easiest to do that's. That's exciting. That's very exciting. I think you've gotta, you'll do well. And, and, you know, because of the popularity of Bollywood, not just in India, but worldwide, I don't tell anybody, but I think you have a good shot at selling this at some point to one of the big podcasts networks. You know what the trend in podcasting, whether it's iHeart or Spotify or any of the other big companies now who are very big in podcasts is celebrities.
Leo Laporte (01:12:18):
They love a celebrity podcast cuz they come with a built in audience. So if your co-host is one of the most popular Bollywood stars, you're gonna get a approached pretty quickly and I'll tell you why that's a good thing. There's a bad thing. And it's a good thing. It's a good thing because it's very hard as an independent podcast to sell advertising, to make any money at it. If you don't care about money, if it's just for your own fund, that's, that's the best. But it, most of the time people wanna make a little money on it. At least to cover expenses. Selling advertising nowadays is very tough because of Spotify and iHeart and all these other big companies who are eating it up, eating up all the advertising in the podcast industry. So it's really nice to be picked up by somebody big who can help you with that part of it.
Caller 3 (01:13:02):
Cool. And has anyone offered you or have you already been picked up or
Leo Laporte (01:13:05):
No. No. And I'll tell you why, first of all, no celebrities, if we had a Bollywood star on here, man, it'd be easy, but mostly it's because people still to this day go, oh, technology. That's such a niche. Nobody, you know? So if you look at the podcasts that are being picked up, the Joe, Rogans the call, her daddies, the ringer these are, these are much more general interest podcasts. They're talking about men's issues. Women's issues and sports <laugh>
Caller 3 (01:13:33):
Oh, well I love, I love this through your podcast. I listen. Thank you Jim. Because my mind used to go crazy this know, and now I listen to you at the gym. It's weird to hear you talk slow so slowly like,
Leo Laporte (01:13:43):
Oh, you listen in high speed. So you think I'm drunk right now is what happens.
Caller 3 (01:13:47):
I listen to, I listen to triple speed.
Leo Laporte (01:13:49):
Oh my gosh. So I'm talking like this and, and, and, and then now you hear me or no. Sure. Like I'm a little bit tipsy. I'm sorry about that. I'm not tipsy. I'm assure you
Caller 3 (01:14:00):
When someone speaks as clearly as you do, it's really easy to listen to double and then you can get up to triple
Leo Laporte (01:14:06):
Pretty easy. Oh Lord. I'm gonna have to start slurring my words clearly. <Laugh> Hey, good luck. Call us back Dan, when you launch it, thank you. I'd love to hear it. I'd love to promote it. That sounds so much fun. And what is the subject gonna be?
Caller 3 (01:14:21):
Well, you know, talk about what it's like to be in entertainment and, and then we wanna get, you know, we want to get like celebrities to come on. Like you shots on Adela.
Leo Laporte (01:14:31):
It's only the second largest population in the world. I think you might find an audience
Caller 3 (01:14:37):
And it's the largest English speaking audience. Exactly.
Leo Laporte (01:14:41):
Yeah. You couldn't do better. I wish I'd thought of it. <Laugh> what do you have a name for it yet?
Caller 3 (01:14:48):
Oh, not just yet. No.
Leo Laporte (01:14:49):
Well, call me back when you do. We'll give it a big plug.
Caller 3 (01:14:52):
Thank you so much. Good
Leo Laporte (01:14:53):
Luck, Dan. That's exciting. I think that's a great idea. Ah, start me up. That was how many people remember what that was the seam song for? Obviously it's the rolling stones. Do you remember windows 95? Remember that? That was the theme. How much do you think they had to pay Mick company for? <Laugh> the windows 95 to make, start me up the windows 95 jingle. Oh, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. (888) 827-5536. We're talking high tech. Me and Doug from Utta California. Hello, Doug.
Caller 4 (01:15:37):
Hey Leo. How are you today?
Leo Laporte (01:15:39):
I'm great. How are you?
Caller 4 (01:15:42):
It's hot down here.
Leo Laporte (01:15:44):
Yes. Yes. That's why I've locked myself in an air conditioned room.
Caller 4 (01:15:49):
<Laugh> trying to survive.
Leo Laporte (01:15:51):
I shall not emerge to the sun that fireball in the sky goes away. Go away. <Laugh> what can I do for you?
Caller 4 (01:15:59):
Well, security question. I've been a victim of identity theft several times in the last couple, three years.
Leo Laporte (01:16:06):
Several times. Oh no, that shouldn't happen to anybody even once. Oh,
Caller 4 (01:16:12):
I understand. And I'm super careful, super careful. I listen to you. So that makes me even more careful. And
Leo Laporte (01:16:20):
How do you know how that happened?
Caller 4 (01:16:23):
No, not really.
Leo Laporte (01:16:24):
It's there's all sorts of ways it can happen. Of course, people can go through your trash. That's actually one of the most common ways I don't know about you, but I get credit card solicitations at least weekly. And all it takes is one of those. And somebody can poses you. Right?
Caller 4 (01:16:39):
And, and I shred all of those
Leo Laporte (01:16:41):
So good man. You are careful. Then of course, online, there's always a risk that your credentials could be show up in a breach. You know, companies are root often these days. I don't even it's happens so often. I don't even report it anymore. Broken into, by bad guys who then get access to your credentials to steal your identity. Usually they would need, well, it depends what you mean by identity theft. Typically what I'd mean is somebody assuming your identity and getting credit cards in your name and starting to buy stuff. And of course they have no intent of paying off those credit cards. So it ends up being a black mark on your credit report to get a credit card. Usually you need a social security number, a birth date. Sometimes you need additional documentation, but if they can get that information, man, you're really at risk.
Caller 4 (01:17:31):
Well, that's exactly what's happened. And originally we, we think it was a family member who sold that information on the
Leo Laporte (01:17:38):
Oh nice. Oh, that's great. Oh, I'm so sorry. That is the worst. How low can you go?
Caller 4 (01:17:46):
But more recently. And, and here's my, my tech question. I'm concerned about a man in the middle attack and, and I'm asking your expertise. I've, you know, set up a separate router on my system. So I'm the only one going through the router. I set up a VPN.
Leo Laporte (01:18:12):
You really are cautious, I guess, once burned twice shy.
Caller 4 (01:18:17):
Is there any way anybody can do a men in the middle attack if they're between me and the is, you know, where the ISP connects yeah. To
Leo Laporte (01:18:27):
The internet. So first let me explain for those listening what he means. If you think about it, you know, if you have a, let's say you've got a transaction with your bank, you're talking to your bank, you say I want to, you know, send some money. That's just between you and the bank. It's a two person conversation. What if somebody could get in between and intercept the traffic in both directions, then that'd be a major security breach. That's called a man in the middle, get it third party in between those two parties. And there are lots of ways you can do a man in the middle. For instance in messaging apps and this nation states and others do this in messaging apps, they might create without your knowledge, or even being able to see it, a group that looks like it's a two person conversation, but they're in the group UN UN unnoticed unobserved, but they see all the traffic.
Leo Laporte (01:19:20):
That's a very common man in the middle. A man you're talking about a man in middle, over the internet. That's a lot harder to do to intercept your traffic, especially if it's HTTPS secured traffic, which almost all traffic is nowadays. Certainly all financial traffic is it's very hard to get in the middle of that. Yes, if you're, if your router, for instance, has a security flaw and they can get into your router, they can live there and be a man in the middle. But once it exits your router on the way to the bank going over the public internet if it's encrypted, it's very hard to get in the middle. You know, one of the ways the the federal government got in the middle, you know, your, your data is encrypted on your phone, but they got it in transit, right?
Leo Laporte (01:20:11):
So that's, that's kind of a man in the middle, right? In transit via either via breaking into your is P there was a whistleblower from, at and T who said, yeah, the federal government has a, a room in San Francisco at, at and T if you're in, not at and T or phone, but if you're an at T internet customer, they're intercepting all traffic. Boy, we were shocked when we learned this some years ago. So all of that can happen. That's not gonna cause an entity theft though, because they're not the government's not bad. Well, they're bad guys, but not, they're not gonna steal money from you. They have, they have means to do that called the IRS. They don't need to do it in any other way. So you make sure your routers secure. Absolutely. Make sure there's another way to do it would if, if I were able to get a Trojan horse on your computer, I could observe everything you're doing.
Leo Laporte (01:21:06):
That's something by the way that people try all the time. You've, we've heard about those calls. Hello, this is windows. You've gotta bug. We wanna fix it. Just give us control of your computer. And you D they, you do, you go, oh my God, what's going on? And what is the first thing they do? They put a remote access Trojan on your computer. So they can from then on, see everything you're doing. But you sound like you're extremely cautious. You're doing your security updates. You're patching your router, your operating system, all the apps. I don't think that's the whole Leo Laport, the tech guy. Let's let's continue down this road though. I'm curious what else could be going on? It's just,
Caller 4 (01:21:46):
You know, like it a, well use a coffee shop as an, as an analogy.
Leo Laporte (01:21:52):
And that's why we say use a VPN. So, but a coffee shop, even now, these days is much less dangerous than it used to be.
Caller 4 (01:21:59):
Okay. If there's somebody between my router and the, the, the entry point, the POI Poe of, of where the internet comes into the property.
Leo Laporte (01:22:14):
Sure. They could put a listening device there, but again, if you're a traffic is encrypted by, and that means going to a secure website, which is everywhere, right? You go to Amazon, your bank everywhere. These days, Facebook everywhere's HTTPS. By the time it exits your computer, it's encrypted and cannot be read.
Caller 4 (01:22:33):
And does the VPN increase at
Leo Laporte (01:22:35):
Encryption? Not really. It's the same. It's just putting an encryption within encryption. So, okay. A VPN is of less use these days because so much traffic is encrypted. Not all traffic used to be. I mean, this used to be an easy thing to do. You'd go to a coffee shop and your, and your email password is flying through the air unencrypted boy, that's a terrible attack, but nowadays, no email system is unencrypted. They're all HTTPS. Mm. But a VPN that's the idea of a VPN is if there is unencrypted traffic, we're gonna encrypt the entire tunnel. There is a risk with a VPN, because unless you choose a good provider, they see it unencrypted. They see what you would see if you were at a coffee shop without a VPN. Now, again, that's less, less of a problem these days cuz everything's HTTPS.
Caller 4 (01:23:22):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:23:22):
So I, and then, so, so you, the one time you got hacked, well, okay. You had a, you had a, you know, evil family member. Yeah. You don't know how you got, I got attacked the other times though.
Caller 4 (01:23:35):
Not really. It's it's I don't know where I get my internet form right now. Yeah. We live on a property with APRI, with a property owner.
Leo Laporte (01:23:49):
Yeah. So stuff's going through him. He could in theory, look at it again. When you go to your bank, look, it should say HTTPS. And, and you know, if you're really paranoid, look at the certificate and make sure the certificate is owned by that company, the bank, he can't do anything with it. It's just not usable.
Caller 4 (01:24:08):
All right. Well that makes me feel better. I, I am using a VPN. I was just wondering if a tour, if using tour would
Leo Laporte (01:24:15):
No tour. So tour is an anonymizing tool, not a security tool. So tour, which means you go through multiple servers does have a massive flaw, which is, if anybody owns the exit server, you're screwed and lots of government agencies, including our own have been buying up and setting up tour exit servers because they know, oh yeah, well somebody's up to no good. So let's own the exit server. So they see all that traffic again, you're protected if the traffic is encrypted and that's really the key and that's why Google pushed so hard for something called HTTPS everywhere. And now it is pretty much I think most sites, if in fact, you'll get a warning these days, if you go to a site that's not HTTPS. So that's protecting you. That means from your computer to theirs, it's encrypted even a man in the middles, just gonna see a bunch of garbage.
Caller 4 (01:25:07):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:25:07):
So I think you, I think you're pretty good. Yeah. I think you're, you know, you're clearly savvy about all this tour is not honestly a very useful thing anymore. VPN is only useful for unencrypted traffic. There's not a lot of that anymore. You know, I, if you're on a hotel internet or a cruise ship or a coffee shop, you know, a public internet sure. Use a VPN. Why not? But choose wisely, cuz the VPN now is, is like your neighbor <laugh>
Caller 4 (01:25:38):
Well, I'm using express VPN, which I good man used to
Leo Laporte (01:25:41):
Be good man.
Caller 4 (01:25:42):
Used to be one of your,
Leo Laporte (01:25:43):
That's still a sponsor. Yep.
Caller 4 (01:25:45):
Sponsor.
Leo Laporte (01:25:45):
Yeah. And I trust them. They were acquired recently and people have been worried a little bit by the company that acquired them. But I have done a lot of digging and talked to them and I'm satisfied that they continue to do everything. Right.
Caller 4 (01:25:57):
Okay. Well I'll let you go. One quick question. Yeah. Are you allowed and visitors?
Leo Laporte (01:26:01):
Not
Caller 4 (01:26:01):
Yet
Leo Laporte (01:26:02):
To you? Not yet. Not with the latest variants. I'll let you know though. I'd love to meet you.
Caller 4 (01:26:09):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:26:09):
Thanks Dan. I mean, sorry Doug. Take care. Everybody loves Mabo. Mambos the best. I'm not talking. MABA not MABA snake Mabo. The dance Leo Laport, the tech guy, 88, 88. Ask Leo. Normally Chris Marwar, our photo guy would be joining us. He's away again this week. He'll be back next week. Chris is scouting and I'm really happy to hear this, his next photo trip. So he's going out, he's driving around scouting, sh places, locations for his next photo trip. He stopped, you know, during COVID he stopped doing the photo workshops, travel used to travel all over the world to do that. I'm glad to hear he's getting back on the, on the horse cuz I I'm gonna do the next one. <Laugh> 88 88. Ask Leah. Let's continue on with the show Bens on the line from Los Angeles. Hi Ben.
Caller 5 (01:27:02):
Hi Ali. I have a question for you. Sure. so how are you doing today?
Leo Laporte (01:27:09):
I am great. How are you?
Caller 5 (01:27:11):
I'm good. Good. So first of all, I'm going back to school for AutoCAD.
Leo Laporte (01:27:16):
Awesome. I have, we had, you know, yesterday I got a call from a guy he's an architect. He's been an architect for decades using AutoCAD since the earliest days he loves it. What are you thinking about doing
Caller 5 (01:27:31):
For civil engineers? Making maps. Perfect.
Leo Laporte (01:27:34):
Wonderful.
Caller 5 (01:27:35):
Yes. So my mind's like a three part question. A which computer should I use? Should I use a Microsoft or office or a MacBook? And if, if it works with a MacBook, I have a 2019 MacBook pro. Is there any softwares for that?
Leo Laporte (01:27:56):
Mm, so most people use AutoCAD. I'm sad to say use windows, but the good news is auto Autodesk. The makers of AutoCAD do make it for Mac OS. In fact, they even make it for M one as well as for the Intel. Yours is an Intel Mac. Probably be great. You know you, you're not gonna have too much trouble. Wait a minute, let me see Autodesk. Let me just make sure 3d modeling, CAD rendering, animation, VFX, and digital imagery. So the one thing you should check and you could do it at the Autodesk site, you're gonna be using a specific part of AutoCAD that is for civil engineering. I would make sure that that tool set, they have a bunch of different tool sets is Mac capable. I'm sure it is. But ask your teachers or ask the school, which tool sets.
Leo Laporte (01:28:52):
Those are the add-ons to AutoCAD, which tool set do I need to use for my classes. Okay. And the other thing is ask them about student pricing, cuz AutoCAD is almost $2,000 a year. You probably <laugh>. You probably wanna get the student pricing. I'm sure they have it because they really want to get you hooked <laugh> as a student. So that you'll be using it in your work life forever and ever and ever. I, yeah. Yeah. So almost all these companies offer very good student pricing, but you'll have to get that probably through the school.
Leo Laporte (01:29:25):
Okay. And then I would ask the school because they may even have laptop recommendations, but your old MacBook is fine. That's gonna be fine. As I told the guy yesterday, the difference is not whether it works or not works. The difference is how much time it takes to do what you want to do. And sometimes you're gonna get up and get a cup of coffee while it's rendering your design or whatever. That's, that's normal. You what you're paying for when you get a much more expensive computer is just speed. Not it works. It works. It's just slower.
Caller 5 (01:29:59):
Yeah, no, I understand that. I cause the problem is I'm on a limited budget and I, I, I got my max from work. I worked for home Depot. Nice. So they, they offered pricing for, for, for employees. So
Leo Laporte (01:30:17):
Very good.
Caller 5 (01:30:19):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:30:20):
Yeah. Look are you, the schools should help you with this stuff, right? Okay. So call them maybe the, you know, sometimes it's the burster. Sometimes it's the university bookstore, but find out who, you know, do you guys have sell computers? Do you sell AutoCAD? Do you, you know, tell me what, tell me what I need for the classes. You might even want to talk to a professor in that department and say, what do you recommend? It's not so much what the tech guy recommends. It's what they recommend. Cause they know what software you're gonna be using and so forth. There are sh I should mention, there are free CAD programs out there, open source CAD programs out there that are compatible with AutoCAD that will run AutoCAD files and so forth. But that doesn't matter if the school says, no, no, you need AutoCAD <laugh> so that's why you have to talk to the school.
Leo Laporte (01:31:13):
You have to say, well, what do I need? You know, and if they say, well, you can use tinker CAD, it's free. You can use that. Oh, nice. Or sketch up or whatever you can use that. Okay, good. But you need to ask them AutoCAD is, is pretty pricey. <Laugh> they have a light version. They do have a student package and so forth probably to do it through the, the student package. You probably need to do it through the school, but if you go to, I'll put a link to their educationPage@autodesk.com. If you go there, you'll get a, you'll get an idea of what they offer and and then call the school. That's true for any student. I peop a lot of times parents, you know, we're getting to that time of year where you're gonna be going off to school, your, your kid is going to college or going to technical school and parents call and say, what should we get? 'em Always a good idea to call to school. They may have discounts that you can't get at regular stores. They certainly have the knowledge of what you might need. It'll save you a lot of time. Hey, good luck, Ben. That's exciting. Oh,
Caller 5 (01:32:21):
Real one last question. Sure. So the program are they transferable, like if I use a Mac and they needed people on a it like windows is that, is, are
Leo Laporte (01:32:35):
Those usually, I don't know, off the top, my head, if AutoCAD is AutoCAD is a pretty high, it used to be at least a pretty highly protected program. You know, a lot of, a lot of copy protection check, you should be able to check on the site. Can I use a Mac serial number on windows? I'm sure you can. Certainly the files are I would expect that what you could, you know, when you buy a license, usually it licenses it for one or two machines. The, the, your question is appropriate. Does, does a license on, if I activate it on a Mac, can I still use it to activate it on a, on a windows machine is my second machine. And then the other question is if I don't use this machine, can I deactivate it? Usually you can and move it to another machine. Almost always. You can do that.
Caller 5 (01:33:18):
Okay,
Leo Laporte (01:33:18):
Good. But, but you have to let's see yeah, I'll have to ask them. I'm not sure off the top of my head. Yeah. But I can thank you very much. Oh, the educational version of AutoCAD is free. Yay. So that'll eliminate all of these licensing issues. That's nice. And we have a number of people in the chat room saying no problem. You can use it on Mac and PC. And of course the free version. You're not gonna have any trouble with.
Caller 5 (01:33:47):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:33:48):
That's great. Good news. Hey, good luck. Are you excited?
Caller 5 (01:33:53):
I'm very excited. A career change.
Leo Laporte (01:33:56):
Yeah,
Caller 5 (01:33:56):
I'm very,
Leo Laporte (01:33:57):
Yeah. Yeah. But now you can wear a tie to work. It'll be great.
Caller 5 (01:34:02):
Are going from home.
Leo Laporte (01:34:03):
You can work from home even better. You don't have to wear anything.
Caller 5 (01:34:07):
<Laugh> yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:34:09):
I think work from home is the best thing ever. Awesome. Well, congratulations and, and, and good on you for having the initiative to say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do something. I'm gonna take, take some charge of my life here. Good for you. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Thank you. Good luck to you. That's awesome. <Laugh> well, you have to wear some clothes. I mean, <laugh> just, you know, just please wear pants at least. Okay. Just for me. <Laugh> eighty eight, eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. There is a lot of talk in the chat room about free stuff. But I have to say if AutoCAD for students is free, that's, you know, that's the crem de lock crem. That's probably used more often than business than anywhere or anything. Highly recommended. You learn that if you learn AutoCAD you're it's you're ready to, you know, use any tool Gumby in our chat room says, please always wear business casual. When work from home, you'll never know when, when the zoom will ring. That's true. I just keep a shirt on the chair. <Laugh> I can pull it on and just make sure you don't stand up. Eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo. That's the phone number? Tech guy labs.com. Where if your calls right after this,
Leo Laporte (01:35:38):
I literally do keep a shirt handy just in case you never know
Leo Laporte (01:35:46):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:35:49):
So F 10 and then I can change what's in the various things here. Oh, okay. 5, 6, 4, 3, 3, 3. But it's not there. It's where am I gonna change? This? Which me is this one? Oh, I have to go to six. There you go. Now. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Now we got a double, a double fisted chat room. Very nice. Very nice. But I'll go back to five here for the rest of the show. Good. Very good. Special K. Oh, oh, I for, oh, I like that. Even better. That's less of a, less of a long, long haul.
Leo Laporte (01:37:00):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:37:03):
Thank you. I forgot about that. <Laugh> hashtag self cheers.
Leo Laporte (01:37:07):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:37:10):
<Laugh> oh yeah. Ah, this is good. I like having both chats in there. That's me. I'm the magic man. Leo LaPorte, the tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. (888) 827-5536. Hopefully from anywhere in the us or Canada. Terry's on the land. On the line from land O lakes, Florida. Hello, Terry.
Caller 6 (01:37:42):
Hey, how are you?
Leo Laporte (01:37:44):
I'm great. How are you?
Caller 6 (01:37:46):
I'm well, thanks. My are actually in the car. We're driving and we were had phones and phones. I'm sorry. Camera security cameras. Yeah. And the phone company made us upgrade our RO router modem. Well, I think it's a two part thing. And never since then, we can't communicate with our cameras. I've tried to go to blink to see if there was like an upgraded hub. I've been not successful. I'm hoping you have some.
Leo Laporte (01:38:16):
Okay. So let me backtrack a little bit, cause I'm, I'm not completely following this. So you have these telephones or cameras, which is it? Say again? Cameras. I'm sorry. Camera. Oh, good. Alright. That makes more sense. Yeah. One of the problems is that wink changed their setup, used to have a free base station. Did you get the email when they told you it's not free anymore?
Caller 6 (01:38:46):
I've been paying them a
Leo Laporte (01:38:48):
Okay. Good
Caller 6 (01:38:48):
Amount of money
Leo Laporte (01:38:49):
Month. Okay, good. Cause that was something that upset. A lot of people, they had a wink hub and all of a sudden they found out, wait, what are you gonna have to, you're gonna charge me now. I have to subscribe. But you are fully subscribed. That's good. Five bucks a month, right?
Caller 6 (01:39:03):
Yeah. It's like six and change, I think. Oh, okay. I think there, they charge you. If you have more than one, camera
Leo Laporte (01:39:09):
It, something. Got it. So you get a little extra cause you have multiple cameras. So that's so that's first thing. It's good. Your wink subscription is up to date. You had to change your router out due to what?
Caller 6 (01:39:23):
The, the phone company cable provider said. We're sending you one. You will install
Leo Laporte (01:39:29):
It. Okay. Who's your, who's your internet service provider?
Caller 6 (01:39:34):
I think it's spectrum.
Leo Laporte (01:39:35):
Spectrum. Okay. So spectrum sent you a new cable modem slash router. All in one unit. You plugged it in? Yes. All of a sudden the cameras go. What? yeah. Did you set it up with the same login as before? Same password?
Caller 6 (01:39:51):
I can't get to it. It doesn't see it cuz it doesn't, it doesn't support 5.0 or 5g or whatever it's called
Leo Laporte (01:40:01):
Now. I'm really confused. Okay. So you got a new router, but nothing works at all. Even your laptop,
Caller 6 (01:40:07):
Many things work, some things don't
Leo Laporte (01:40:09):
Many things work. Oh good. Many things work. Okay. And you didn't change your password or anything. You just kind of, they put it in cuz normally a router will have a login and password that you need to use. Otherwise your neighbors are gonna start using it. If it's what we call an open wifi network,
Caller 6 (01:40:27):
We have that it's not the problem is that the win hub and the blink hub don't support 5g. So that's right. Trying to
Leo Laporte (01:40:36):
That's. That is correct. You need two point 4g that router should support both.
Caller 6 (01:40:42):
Yeah. But it doesn't seem to work backwards.
Leo Laporte (01:40:45):
<Laugh> no, it doesn't work backwards. You're exactly right. So here's the thing that you're gonna, this is trick, but I think what you're gonna need to do do is disable. You're gonna need to go into the router and, and to do that, you're gonna go to the, one of the laptops that you can access the router with. And there should have been instructions on how you log into the router's settings. Yes, you you'll log into the router settings. It'll ask you for a password. You land, enter that password and then look for a page in the router settings that says, turn off the 5g radio. You've got multiple radios in there for each band. The 5g radio may be confusing. The wink based station. Oh, in which case all you have to do is turn off just temporarily turn off the 5g until the wink work.
Leo Laporte (01:41:36):
And then they go, oh, I see. Now I was on the wrong one sometimes frequently in order to save confusion, companies will have the same exact name for the 5g. And the two point 4g routers, even though they're discrete frequencies, it'll be the same name. I do that in my house, but that can confuse some devices that can't handle 5g. They'll join. They'll think they're joining the two point 4g, but they're really joining the 5g and then they get no connectivity. I think that's what's happening to your wink. So you have to somehow convince the wink, not to join the 5g, join the two point 4g. So there are a couple of things you could do. I mentioned one, which is turn off at least temporarily the 5g until the wink works. Then usually you can turn the 5g back on and the wink shouldn't rejoin the 5g.
Leo Laporte (01:42:24):
If it does, then you might need to give names to the two frequencies. You might have to say our house 2.4 and our house five, just as long as they're distinct and then tell the wink, join the 2.4. My friend do not try to join the five. Right? So you could actually, somebody's telling me on spectrum. They have an app that might be easier to do that on the app. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'll do that. Yeah. See if the app will do that, there is another way to do this. This is the, <laugh> the manual way to do this. And I don't really recommend this 5g does not travel as far or as well as two point 4g. It's great for in-house but as you get farther away, it's weaker. Sometimes the solution, I don't know how you're gonna do this with the cameras. But, but sometimes the solution is to get farther away from the router, like put the router one in the house and the wink base station as far away from, as you can, sometimes it will then drop the five saying, well that's too weak and go to the 2.4 by itself.
Leo Laporte (01:43:32):
I think if you know, so there's three different things you can do. Try just turning off the 5g. If you can, if the spectrum app lets you do that. And, and then maybe the wink will join the 2.4 and then you can turn it back on again. And maybe everything will stay the same. If not sometimes these, you know, these devices are dumb, these internet of things, things, and they might go, oh, oh look, five's back. Let's join that. They shouldn't, but they might. And then they will stop working again. In that case, you'll need to rename 2.4 and five and you can name 'em anything you want. But just as long as they're distinct names and tell the wink, join the 2.4, failing that walk away farther and farther and farther. <Laugh> I hope any, I hope that helps. Thanks Terry. It's great to talk to you. 88 88, ask Leo, Elroy. I'm sorry. Eloy is on the line from Los Angeles. Hi Eloy,
Caller 7 (01:44:26):
Leo. How sir. Wonderful.
Leo Laporte (01:44:28):
How are you?
Caller 7 (01:44:30):
I'm well, thanks.
Leo Laporte (01:44:31):
Glad to have you welcome.
Caller 7 (01:44:33):
Hey I am a small system integrator audio video contractor. Nice. I I'm trying to catch up with technology because you know, that's growing dog years,
Leo Laporte (01:44:45):
It's changing every five seconds. How do you think I feel,
Caller 7 (01:44:50):
Oh, I know. I wanna get an iPad that has a specific app for a device that's connecting for a client. And I just only want that thing to show that app only and not go back to the
Leo Laporte (01:45:01):
Homepage. Oh yeah. You wanna lock the iPad down,
Caller 7 (01:45:05):
Correct?
Leo Laporte (01:45:06):
Yeah. And app apple has this feature for kids, but it'll work with clients cuz they're kind of like kids it's called guided access.
Leo Laporte (01:45:17):
And the reason is when you're at a restaurant and you want the kid to shut up and you give 'em finish and Feb, you don't want 'em to actually dly zoom into work. So <laugh> so you'd go to it's in the accessibility settings. That's the only weird thing they've hidden it away as, as often the case in accessibility. Totally. But you could search if you go to setting, search for guided access you'll set a passcode cuz you don't want your five year old to figure out how to get around it. Right. And then it'll be locked down into one app and you can go to that iPad and enter the passcode and say, no, no let's let's use the iPad. So it's the key that you really, all you need here is the words guided access.
Caller 7 (01:45:58):
So I don't need to delete anything else on home page and
Leo Laporte (01:46:02):
Get to, as I said, it's designed to be able to give an iPad to a kid and have 'em stay where in the app that you launched and kids and clients very similar.
Caller 7 (01:46:13):
It's true.
Leo Laporte (01:46:13):
Yeah. True. So you're just gonna get, you know, don't tell 'em what you've done, but they'll only be able to won that run app. So I guess you're using it as a kind of remote control app, something like that.
Caller 7 (01:46:21):
And then how about if they, if, if they let the thing power off
Leo Laporte (01:46:25):
Are same thing. It'll power back up into the same app.
Caller 7 (01:46:29):
Okay, good. Yeah. They, you know, somebody loses it unplugged overnight to come back and
Leo Laporte (01:46:33):
Yep. Yep. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. You actually go to the, I'll put a link in the show notes, but go to the guided access page. There's a lot of stuff you can do with it. And you may get some ideas. Leo Laport de tech guy. Well, Hey, Hey, Hey, how are you today? Leo? LePort here. Time to talk computers, the internet home theater, digital photography, smartphone smart watches, phone number eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6 to free from anywhere in the us or Canada. Of course you could still call that number if you use Skype out from anywhere in the world. 88, 88 ly our website is tech guy labs.com. And I mentioned that because everything you hear on the show will put links and so forth up at the website. So you can go there. You don't have to write anything down, even transcripts, audio and video from the show. After a couple of days will all go@techguylabs.com. And this is episode 1920. If you're looking specifically for this information from today's shows back to the phone, we go Dave on the line from Boise, Idaho. Hello Dave.
Caller 8 (01:47:46):
Good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you guys?
Leo Laporte (01:47:48):
I am well, how are you?
Caller 8 (01:47:50):
Not, not too bad. It seems like if this, if today had a theme, it would be wifi issues. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:47:58):
That's pretty much every day. <Laugh>
Caller 8 (01:48:00):
Yeah. Hey, I just set up a, well, a couple days ago, a an Orbi a light mesh route.
Leo Laporte (01:48:10):
Very nice net gears. Orbi is their mesh system and it's a very good one.
Caller 8 (01:48:14):
Yes. Yes. I am so far very happy with it. Good. I get above the speeds that I'm paying for.
Leo Laporte (01:48:23):
Wow. And I, I that's that's that's rare. Usually the, the speed they tell you is the absolute maximum you could ever get under perfect visions with the wind at your back. But I guess your ISP is generous. That's good.
Caller 8 (01:48:36):
I, I guess so. And I tried different speed test apps to make sure that it was correct. Good.
Leo Laporte (01:48:42):
You know. Good,
Caller 8 (01:48:43):
Good. So my issue is I got everything set up be, and this is, you know, it's it's oh, it's wifi six. And the issue is some of my, I guess I could say older pieces of equipment, a printer, a couple of older TVs. I could not get them to connect before.
Leo Laporte (01:49:09):
Oh dear.
Caller 8 (01:49:11):
Yeah. For WPA three. And I couldn't get those to connect and I did everything. I've looked on the internet. I tried to find issues, you know, some way to solve the issues. So I thought, let me try downgrading that to WPA two and see if that's the problem. Well, it is yeah. The three things connected again.
Leo Laporte (01:49:35):
That's not surprising.
Caller 8 (01:49:38):
Yeah. So, so is the, is it just because the smart TV is four years old? Yes.
Leo Laporte (01:49:44):
Is they didn't know about WPA three. Let me explain what we're talking about here. When you're using a wireless networking system, any wifi system, wifi, you ideally you'd, you'd like to encrypt it so that somebody just sitting around can't see what you're doing. They can't join it. And so we use an encryption system. The original wifi encryption system was w E P wireless encrypted, or I'm sorry, wireless equivalent, wired equivalent protocol. That's what it stands for. Wired equivalent protocol. In other words, they were saying, oh, this is as safe as wired. Well, it turns out it wasn't <laugh> they, the wifi Alliance designed it without consulting any experts. And they designed it so poorly that it was easily broken. So then they went back and they did WPA wireless protected access. And that had some problems. So they said, well, we'll do WPA two.
Leo Laporte (01:50:37):
That was good for a while. Then somebody found a crack to that. So they, they, they announced WPA three, you actually are, have a device that's so modern. It supports the latest protocols, wifi six and WPA three, you got the latest Orbi but not everything it has to be understood on both ends. Obviously, you know, if the Orbis encrypting it, using a technology that is not available in the TV, well, you're outta luck now. Here's the good news. Yes. If everything were WPA three compatible it would be preferred, but WPA two is not easily cracked. It's not it. Somebody has to sit on your curb for many hours and collect enough data packets from you to, to, to break WPA two. It's not gonna happen. So don't worry about it. Use WPA two. This is not unusual. Unfortunately WPA three was ratified in 2018. So your TV, you know, it it's earlier than that, basically.
Caller 8 (01:51:38):
Yes. and so one of the things here, and it actually is a, is a note at the bottom of the, or BF, it says note six gigahertz, wifi supports only WPA three encryption. Oh, well what, so that's kinda a bummer.
Leo Laporte (01:51:54):
<Laugh> what, well, the good news is that TV definitely doesn't have a six gigahertz radio in it. <Laugh> I think what they, I wonder if that means you, you you're, it turns off the six gigahertz radio. That's interesting. Do you have any wifi six devices?
Caller 8 (01:52:18):
I D than this router? I do not believe so. And my, my iPhone, my iPad, your
Leo Laporte (01:52:24):
Iphone might be, I think the latest, the latest iPhones, wifi six, there's actually six E and I believe there's an RB that supports six E I don't know if you got that one, but
Caller 8 (01:52:35):
No, no, no, no. That's upgrade from what I have. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:52:40):
Six requires devices that support wifi six. And by the way, in most cases you won't see a difference at, at best, you know, 10%. You're already getting more than your internet service provider offers. I think you're fine.
Caller 8 (01:52:54):
Security issue too,
Leo Laporte (01:52:56):
You know? Yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn't worry about it at this point. All right. That's interesting. I'll have to look into that. That could be read two ways. It could be that we're gonna turn off the wifi six radio, right. Or it could be the wifi six radio stays, but I bet you can't say, oh, well, okay. So for wifi six devices let's use WPA three. They would all support it. Obviously they're all new devices, but you probably can't set two different encryption protocols, or maybe you can look in the settings, see if the, no,
Caller 8 (01:53:27):
No. They're not able to believe me. I've done my homework the last two nights. That's
Leo Laporte (01:53:31):
Fascinating. So that is that's, that's a drawback. I'm wondering if that's a requirement of the wifi Alliance. If you're gonna support six, you gotta do WPA three. I don't know. That's interesting.
Caller 8 (01:53:46):
Yeah. Or, or, yeah, I mean for, yeah, for six gig gig, it needs to have that. And I I'm guessing just like, probably with everything as time goes on the all new devices, all new smart TVs, all new printers, all that will have,
Leo Laporte (01:54:01):
Oh yeah. Everything will be WPA three. Everything releases today is WPA three. For sure. Yeah. but, but again, the problem with WPA two is not it's, it's, it's a very, in my opinion, it's not, it's a minor problem. The real trick is to use a good password. Don't don't just say monkey 1, 2, 3. And normally I don't really use a very strong password for wifi cuz I figure well, who cares, but if you are worried the better the password, the stronger WPA two is.
Caller 8 (01:54:31):
Yeah. Okay. Well, I really do appreciate your time. I guess it is probably the fact that I just have some old equipment laying around and those were the three items that did not connect to it. So I appreciate you.
Leo Laporte (01:54:44):
How interesting you told me some, you've taught me something today. And I'm glad to know because that's, you know, as you pointed out, somebody's gonna call me <laugh> and say my wifi isn't working. <Laugh> on my TV. Yes, sir. And now I will know why. Yeah.
Caller 8 (01:55:00):
All right. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:55:00):
Thank you. Hey, thank you for calling. Yeah. Nothing to worry about. Use WPA two. That's fine. If WPA three is available and everything works with WPA three. Yes, that would be preferable. But WPA two with a good password, long, strong password is fine. Somebody'd have to you'd notice. <Laugh> let's put it that way. You'd notice somebody camping out in your backyard for several hours. And boy, who's gonna do that just to access somebody's wifi. You know, if this, this more, all of, a lot of the security stuff we hear about, isn't an issue for a normal person. It's an issue for people who work for agencies with three lettered names. It's an issue for journalists in Saudi Arabia. It's not an issue for normal people. Yeah. If I were Scarlet Johansen, I'd make sure WPA three was turned on, but the rest of us, you know, fine. No problem. Who wants my, nobody wants my wifi traffic. Eighty eight eighty eight, ask Leo the phone number (888) 827-5536, toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada, outside that area. You could use Skype out. Lots of calls still to come in we're to try to call the Arctic and rod pile. Just a bit hug pants.
Leo Laporte (01:56:23):
<Laugh> whatever happened to hot pads. <Laugh> like on the point, a tech guy, 88, 88 asked Leo that's the phone number? Eight, eight eighty eight, two seven five five three six to free from anywhere in the us or Canada. 45 minutes to go on the show. So it's, it's still a chance to get in like Henrietta from Oceanside, California. Hello, Henrietta.
Caller 9 (01:56:47):
Hello. How are you?
Leo Laporte (01:56:49):
I am well, how are you?
Caller 9 (01:56:50):
I'm doing well also.
Leo Laporte (01:56:51):
Good.
Caller 9 (01:56:54):
I, my husband and I did the update that you suggested a few days ago
Leo Laporte (01:56:57):
Now I'm worried what happened.
Caller 9 (01:56:59):
Okay. Well, it went fine. We both phones and I, I just purchased a new phone a couple of months ago and I transferred all my information from my old phone to my new phone, but it, it all stayed on the old phone also. So I just kept it and I use it to listen to YouTube music. But this morning when I got up, it's got a screen as if it's a brand new phone and it wants me to set it up and on my new phone, it sent me an apple ID code for setting it up.
Leo Laporte (01:57:27):
Oh, how funny?
Caller 9 (01:57:29):
Yeah. And I don't, I don't have a separate telephone line for that one. Like I said, I was just using it for listening to I music here in the house.
Leo Laporte (01:57:35):
Yeah. You should be able to keep doing that. I'm not sure what happened. And maybe, you know, apple did just put out an urgent update to the iPhone, which every, and, and by the way, in the Mac, which everybody should apply because this is, you know, this there's another update. Did we just had an update? Yeah. There's another update. This one's actually pretty important. You need to be on 15.6 0.1,
Caller 9 (01:58:01):
Right? That's what we have.
Leo Laporte (01:58:02):
Oh, you already have that. Okay. And I wonder if that old phone maybe did that not had that not been updated?
Caller 9 (01:58:09):
Probably not. Yeah. Because like I said, I only used it for music and I didn't see any messages on it until this morning when it affected like a new phone.
Leo Laporte (01:58:16):
Yeah. So overnight it updated. And this is important because this flaw that apple discovered is what we call a zero day. It means no one knew about it until we saw it being used by bad guys. Yeah. So they wanted to fix that right away. And it is the case on the iPhone that after, you know a few weeks of, or a few days just depends, the iPhone will self update will auto update. So that's what happened. And in that process, I guess the iPhone said, Hey, wait a minute. <Laugh> who am I? <Laugh> I think it's completely safe to log into it and use it. It's as if it were an iPad or an an I an IPO. That's how you're using it, basically as an iPod touch. Right. You don't have to have a SIM in it, but you do have to be logged into your apple account. So I've seen logged in. Yeah. I've seen this happen before with an update where apple just, I think proactively says, let's just make sure this is who we, you know, this really is Henrietta's phone. So just log in with your normal iCloud account on that phone. And I think you'll be fine. It's not gonna not,
Caller 9 (01:59:25):
I use that apple code that they gave me if they ask for a code.
Leo Laporte (01:59:28):
Yeah. The phone, your new phone will pop up a code. Yeah. And say, Hey, somebody's trying to log into the old phone. And this low, you know, this person is an ocean side and they show a little map. Is that okay? And you say, yes. Allow and then to say, okay, well, here's the six digit number and that's the one you'll have to enter into the new phone. I mean the old phone.
Caller 9 (01:59:46):
Okay. But my new phone, it won't be affected
Leo Laporte (01:59:49):
As far as I know. No, absolutely not. Cause did, did you put a SIM card in, or is it an EIM?
Caller 9 (01:59:55):
It's a SIM card. Well, I'm not sure. I thought it was a SIM
Leo Laporte (01:59:59):
Card. When you went to the new phone, did you trans, did you take a little chip outta the old phone and put it in the new one or yes. Yes. Good. That that's, that means that that new phone is your phone. And because it has that chip, the old phone, can't be your phone.
Caller 9 (02:00:13):
Okay. And it's sent the message to that new phone because that's the only phone
Leo Laporte (02:00:18):
It has. Yeah. That's, what's logged into your apple account. If you had a Mac and an iPad, it would send it to that as well.
Caller 9 (02:00:23):
Yeah. I didn't think it would let me log. Well, no, I think the iCloud, yeah, it should. It is on, on the, on the old phone because sometimes when I'm looking at the messages, I get current messages on my old iPhone.
Leo Laporte (02:00:34):
I think it has to be, I'm not sure. I think apple insists. Yeah. But the good, and, and from time to time when the phone reboots, it might do that, I've had that happen with an update. I don't know. Okay. I don't know what Apple's magic formula is for when they do or don't do it, but I think that's what happened and that's fine. Just enter in the credentials and continue on
Caller 9 (02:00:53):
And it's safe. It should be safe.
Leo Laporte (02:00:55):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Caller 9 (02:00:57):
Okay. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate,
Leo Laporte (02:00:59):
Oh my pleasure. It's a good question. And yeah, the good news, or maybe it's a bad news. I don't know. The good news is you'll continue to get Apple's messages on that old phone, cuz that's not a phone function. This is a very confusing thing about messages. You know, in the old days on your phone, you flip phone, you would get messages via SMS. Those are SMS messages and the phone company routed them through its own system and, and so forth. People though started to move to programs like Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, telegram signal, there's dozens of these messaging programs. They don't use the phone company's technology. They don't use SMS. They use just plain old data, cell phone data. And so apple, because they wanted to insist that you continue to use messages, not what's app, not that Facebook program, not Google Hangouts, not somebody else's problem.
Leo Laporte (02:01:59):
They wanted you to use Apple's messages decided, all right, we're gonna make messages, handle both SMS messages over the phone systems, technology and data based messages over, you know, the data connection, wifi cellular, whatever that connection is. So your old phone, which no longer has a phone number and is no longer attached to the phone. Company's SMS message system will not get SMS messages, but they'll continue to get the data portion of those messages. This is a source of infinite confusion. I might add with Apple's messaging program. In fact, Google just recently launched a campaign, which is destined to failure to lobby apple, to start using their SMS compatible system called RCS. And the idea being well, you know, apple messages is so dominant. In fact is the only program you can use on an iPhone. We're gonna have to strong arm apple into using RCS so that we will be equal to them on the Android phones.
Leo Laporte (02:03:06):
Yeah, no, <laugh> nice. Try Google. <Laugh> all that's gonna happen is is, and apple users are just gonna laugh at you and say, who cares? I don't care. Purple, blue, green. I don't care what color your bubble is. And the only, I think maybe the point of this it's time for apple to fix texting is to get Congress to do something about it. In fact, they have a hashtag hashtag get the message. In fact, if you click the link on the webpage, it'll create a tweet, complete tweet for you. Apple stop breaking my texting experience. Hashtag get the message. Android.Com/Get the message. Yeah, no, not gonna tweet that. Sorry, Android. <Laugh> it's just, it's just silly. They're buying ads. You'll probably see an ad on the TV. Just warning you get the message apple, just so you know, for your background on this, Google's been pushing this rich communication system for some time, for a long time. Even the phone companies didn't want to do it. They were very completely happy with SMS and its partner MMS. In some cases they were even making money on it. They didn't care, but this blue bubble green bubble thing, Google's just, you know, desperate to kind of get parody with apple. I think it's, it's destined to fill here. Leo Laport, the tech guy.
Leo Laporte (02:04:40):
I don't, I just don't think we need to create more division. We got enough division in this country. Why make more team blue team green, forget the teams. You know, I just like playing this song. I don't, we don't need rod pile. We just play this song cuz it makes me feel good. Rod pile, our space guy would normally join us. At this time he is up at the Arctic circle in a, in a par a part of the frozen north that and NASA uses for testing rovers and other Mars equipment because it's such a Mars like environment and Rod's up there covering it for space.com and his a Astra magazine that's his publication for the national space society. So we don't know the problem is he's up there. We don't know if he can hear us or reach us or anything.
Leo Laporte (02:05:34):
So he has to call via satellite phone. So I thought if I play the music, maybe in it, through the ether, rod will get the message up in the up in the Arctic circle and, and call us via arid satellite phone. But it may be that he just can't. So no, no space news today. Rod does do a podcast. You can listen to this week in space and I think they pre-recorded it. I don't think they're doing that from the Arctic circle twi.tv/t w I S this week in space. I think there was a lot of space news actually. So I'm kind of sad. We didn't get rod on. And there were a few things I was gonna tell him, you know, like he, maybe he didn't know cuz he was at a touch, but he is, he is spending the month on Mars via the architect circle kind of cool kind of cool.
Leo Laporte (02:06:29):
His articles by the way, are currently appearing on space.com. If you go to space.com, you could see some images and his story about how, how he's up there and what he's doing up there when the rovers and so forth. It's very cool. It's very cool. But you know what the good news is. It means I have more time for you. 88, 88, ask Leah, when is he gonna be back? Somebody's asking it's a four week trip. So I think he'll probably be back in September couple weeks. David's on the line from orange county, California. Our next call. Hi David.
Caller 10 (02:07:05):
Hello Leo. I, I spoke to you last week. I had the seven year old unsupported Samsung phone and you suggested maybe buying a new one, which I did. And the reason I'm calling is I was shocked that almost all these phones now don't have notification lights. Yeah. And I found that to be the most useful thing on my,
Leo Laporte (02:07:26):
I that's a good point. I forgot about that. They used to have colored lights that would show up the the Samsung does have edge that edge display and it's it's it's cuz it, I don't which one did you get?
Caller 10 (02:07:42):
The SC 21? The 21 F E.
Leo Laporte (02:07:45):
Yeah. So that's a curve display. So you'll notice there's kind of a little lip on the edge. If you turn on the edge display, it will show colors on that lip, on that edge that you can kind of use as an air Zas notification light. But yeah, David, I'm sorry that there are two things that seemed to have disappeared in the infinite wisdom of phone manufacturers. He phone jacks and notification lights.
Caller 10 (02:08:10):
That's exactly what I was gonna say. Yes.
Leo Laporte (02:08:12):
Yeah. It drives me nuts. I love my headphone Jack
Caller 10 (02:08:15):
Useful thing.
Leo Laporte (02:08:16):
Yes. There's one thing. And I'm praying, you know, we're gonna find out what the new apple iPhone is gonna look like. September 7th is the rumor and I'm just praying that apple doesn't take the they're the last phone that has a physical silence switch. That's so retro. I can't believe apple still puts that on their phone. I have a feeling this maybe the end of the light on that one. And then there's a rumor next year that they'll eliminate the lightning port. That there'll be no ports on their phone. Good Lord. What <laugh> what are they thinking?
Caller 10 (02:08:48):
So to battery because I'm checking it every Friday. I know. See if I missed a text or I know,
Leo Laporte (02:08:53):
I mean, there's no fix for that except take a look at the edge menu the edge screens. Okay. In your settings. And then you can leave the phone on the desk, you know, with the edge showing. And it is kind of like a notification light. In fact, it's, it's even more sophisticated, but I, yeah, I don't know if there's any any phones left that
Caller 10 (02:09:11):
<Laugh> no, they took me in Verizon. They said the whole store doesn't have any
Leo Laporte (02:09:14):
Unbelievable
Caller 10 (02:09:15):
Lights.
Leo Laporte (02:09:16):
Unbelievable.
Caller 10 (02:09:17):
And I'm just wondering why people accept that as, as the norm. Yes. You know, it should be,
Leo Laporte (02:09:22):
You know, there is one there's one company and I wouldn't recommend the phone, but the nothing phone is, has a whole back of L E D lights that they can use as notifications. So the nothing phone is, I guess the last one. Oh, and here's one from APO the here's the phone you're never gonna hear about Reno seven pro <laugh>. It does have an L E D. That's the last two. That's it? The nothing phone and the Reno seven pro stick with your Fe. I think you're much. You're gonna be much happier in the long run. That's a better phone. Yeah.
Caller 10 (02:09:52):
Okay. Thank you.
Leo Laporte (02:09:53):
You're welcome. Yeah. I guess what you could do is set up a what? We've got rod pile. What? All right, well, I'll, I'll come up with a solution for that. Another time let's, let's go to a space or at least Mars space guy, rod pile, you must have heard the music and said, oh, it's time.
Rod Pyle (02:10:11):
<Laugh> I wish I could hear your show. <Laugh> just satellite to drift overhead. It kept disconnecting me. So,
Leo Laporte (02:10:20):
Oh, so you were trying to call, but this, but the satellite has to be right over your head. Wow.
Rod Pyle (02:10:25):
Oh yeah. Cause we go for long periods where we'll get a blip and then we try to dial rejected and yada, yada. But here we are.
Leo Laporte (02:10:33):
So, Hey, I just read your space.com column are a month on Mars, treking across the Arctic. Your pictures are coming across flags and footprints on the moon. Actually. You just posted that one. Very cool stuff. Really cool stuff.
Rod Pyle (02:10:51):
Yeah. So I think we're up to about five posts. I've got a little of 14 coming, so they're running a little behind, but we got another little under a week here. We did get the weather to turn on us. Unfortunately, so we got some kind of ice station, zebra weather going on.
Leo Laporte (02:11:06):
Oh no, it's
Rod Pyle (02:11:09):
The raining sideways and the winds and you know, triple, triple woo talk. And we just sit and shiver in our 10.
Leo Laporte (02:11:15):
Oh, that does not sound fun. Oh,
Rod Pyle (02:11:18):
Well for the adventure, you know? Yeah. So tell Lisa, preparing to come up to bring a lot of wool and you,
Leo Laporte (02:11:25):
Yeah. Yeah. We're not going that way. I don't think have you gotten a chance to no, no. <Laugh> I know you you're at the hot and Mars project base. I know. Have you had, what, what, what cool things have you been doing when, when it's not snowing sideways?
Rod Pyle (02:11:42):
Well, it, so it hasn't snowed yet. It's all been, been icy rain. We've gone on three traverses. So they've got a fleet of ATVs up here and a couple of Humvees, the Humvees aren't being used this season, but we took the ATVs out. We did, you know, like 30, 40 mile traverses into the crater and around the crater and picking up samples. And then we, there was an ATV that they had left an altered vehicle. They had left about 16 miles away. Last season, they were here 20 18, 20 19. And they decided to go retrieve it. So we all went trembling out there. And it's this Kawasaki, I think of 2012 vintage ATV that have been sitting out there for four years. And you know, it's not like there's a problem with the neighborhood. Nobody's gonna steal it. Right. Cause there's nobody here. <Laugh> but we got there. We charged the battery for little gas in it. Things started up like it was just off the factory floor. It was
Leo Laporte (02:12:35):
Unbelievable. Oh, that's fantastic. So you went on a rescue mission. That's cool.
Rod Pyle (02:12:42):
<Inaudible> they were a little further down to visit the Humvee that they have, that they had left about five more miles down the road. Cause they were trying to, trying to identify the best trail to the coast of the island. Cause they wanted to bring a pressurized NASA Rover in that way. So they were trying to trail blaze it with the Humvees, but they got about halfway there and then mud was just so bad that had, they had to stop. So that one they'll bring back all the next year. And then once we got there, we did some experiments with a with a drone that for recon and was very exciting and fun to watch and I'm documenting it. It's great.
Leo Laporte (02:13:19):
So you helped create the flag for this 20, 22 season at the Arctic.
Rod Pyle (02:13:26):
I
Leo Laporte (02:13:30):
Tell me about the flag. Oh, we're losing we're I think the satellite is no longer overhead. <Laugh>
Rod Pyle (02:13:40):
Internet of
Leo Laporte (02:13:43):
Yeah, it's breaking up. This is a gr this is a, is this an old flag? The the, the HG Wells Martian probe. Yeah. We lost him standing a stride, the earth with the angry red planet flag behind it. I love that one. Look, if you wanna see the flags, this one honors Ernest Shackleton and his effort to reach south pole in 1907, go to space.com. Whole series of articles by rod up there in the Arctic. He'll be back home soon. Leola Porte. Teka well, I'm sorry. It was truncated, but it was awesome. It was awesome to hear from Rodney safe travels. Yeah. It's amazing. It's sat. That is a real plug for the Kawasaki. Isn't it? Rod? Nick of the north <laugh> oh rod, we lost you. I'm sorry. Oh. Oh, we lost you. I'm sorry rod. We're out. We're in the podcast now we're out of the main thing. Those flags are cool though. Yeah, no.
Rod Pyle (02:14:50):
Yeah. next week I'll be back on, on Terra FEMA next Sunday. So we'll have a regular
Leo Laporte (02:14:55):
Call. Okay. Now tell me the truth. Did you grow a big Arctic beard?
Rod Pyle (02:15:00):
It's certainly gotten shaggy. Yeah. And unfortunately I think I bring an Arctic belly to go with it. Cause we'd be eating a lot of high carb foods. So we'll see what I got back. You can't
Leo Laporte (02:15:09):
Gain weight up there. Burning calories galore.
Rod Pyle (02:15:14):
That's what I thought. But the chance will snug. We'll see.
Leo Laporte (02:15:19):
<Laugh> well, I hope I've hope you've been having fun. It sounds like you have I'm sure though. You'll be glad to get home too.
Rod Pyle (02:15:27):
Yeah, absolutely. I would just be glad to be somewhere where it stays above 40 degrees. Most of the time. That'll be good. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:15:34):
What an adventure though. I mean, this is a, you and I are never going to get this space. I don't think, but at least you got to do this. That's cool.
Rod Pyle (02:15:42):
Well, and after being here and this place is so much like Mars, there's not a plant. There's not a coat bottle. There's no graffiti. There's no garbage. There's no roads. Even for scale for a photograph, there's no trees. So I really feel like you're on another planet and I try to feel like I've done it. I don't have to sit in the spaceship for seven months to get there. So nice. I'm good to go.
Leo Laporte (02:16:05):
Yeah. I feel like there's plenty to explore on good old planet earth. I'm content to do that.
Rod Pyle (02:16:12):
I, I think so. I'll I'll I'll join you for that. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:16:16):
Ron. A pleasure. Thank you so much. I can't wait to talk to you next week.
Rod Pyle (02:16:20):
Thanks. Take care.
Leo Laporte (02:16:21):
All right. Rod pile in the great white north. Thank you for letting me be your tech guy. Once again, man, who I did, I did. I win the lottery or what? Thanks to our great musical director. Lauren does such a good job playing the music and thanks to Kim Kim Schaffer who answers your phone calls and gets you on the air. And thanks. Most of all, those of you who listen to the show and you know, keep sending signals to the, the folks in the, in the in the, in the big office, building down the road that yes, people listen to Leo, keep it on the air, please. Thank you. <Laugh> I am my, I thank you my father. Thanks you my brother. Thanks you my sister. Thanks. You and I thank you. 88 88. Ask Leo. Let's keep taking calls till they, till they pull the plug. We're gonna keep taking calls. Larry is on the line for Manhattan beach, California. Hello, Larry.
Caller 11 (02:17:27):
Hey Leo, how are you?
Leo Laporte (02:17:29):
I am well, how are you?
Caller 11 (02:17:30):
I've been this good. I've mentioned this before. I'm a recovering windows user.
Leo Laporte (02:17:34):
Oh, I'm so sorry. I, yeah.
Caller 11 (02:17:36):
And also I took you, I know I took your advice a number of years ago and started using last pass. So I didn't have to remember all my passwords. Good man. I was always on pullups on my next, the other day. And I noticed that my M one Mac has version 4.1 of LastPass and it doesn't want to upgrade. And my MacBook pro Intel is version 4.4 of LastPass. And you can add last pass as a extension to safari. My Android has 5.1 last pass on. Do I even need the last pass application on my max? Or do you just need the browser extension and leave it at that? And what the heck is going on with last pass and apple?
Leo Laporte (02:18:22):
Yeah, last pass, which was a sponsor. And for years was my number one choice in password managers. I know still a very good password manager. You know, what happened to them? They were purchased by log me in several years ago, log me in, then sold them. In fact, they sold it all to an equity company and the equity group spun out last pass. So the, I think this is good news in the long run for last pass. They are now a standalone company once again. So they've gone through some transitions and of course, every time there's a transition, you know, products come and go and so forth. The last thing I heard from last pass, and I think this is still true is that they don't wanna make a standalone app for the M one max, that they are in fact, gonna continue to support M one as a browser extension. But so you won't need the app anymore. This is by the way, the exact opposite of what they used to say, which is don't install the browser extension, install the app, and then we'll automatically put the browser extension on whatever browsers you use. It's, it's, it's, it's very confusing. But as I said, I think the confusion comes from the fact that new masters every few years is not never a good thing, but I think finally last pastor start to settle down. So yeah, I understand your confusion. <Laugh>
Caller 11 (02:19:43):
I mean, so would your advice be to just delete the apps off the, off the MacBook sheet?
Leo Laporte (02:19:49):
It's, you know, here's the good news about Apple's M one strategy they provide this thing called Rosetta Rosetta two in the case of the M one that is an, a translation layer between Intel and the M one Silicon that works very, very well. And there's no reason not to continue to use it as far as I'm concerned. You know, I'm a, you know, I understand I'm a kind of a purist I can, you know, initially when I first got my M one, oh, I'm not gonna install any of that Intel stuff, but as it turns out, there's still a lot of programs you, you might want. And so I would say yes, it's fine. It continue to use the app. Let me just see what I'm I'm at the last pass release notes. I'm just curious in what they're saying about this. They do have the new and improved save and fill experience
Caller 11 (02:20:38):
Anything about this's online.
Leo Laporte (02:20:40):
Yeah. Told you <laugh>. Well, yeah, cuz a lot of people are like, what's what what's going on. I would say continue to use the app until they deprecate it until they say don't use the app anymore.
Caller 11 (02:20:53):
It's not in the app store, by the way, if app store what you will not find it.
Leo Laporte (02:20:59):
So they, they put out with version 1.1 of the app, they put out support for Monterey the latest operating system. It looks like, I mean, looks like they're still developing it this, but this was may of this year, the most recent release, which is 4.9, 9.0. And that sounds to me like that's the browser extension, right. That came out July 8th. And I don't see any release of the app past may. So it may well be even for windows, believe it or not, it may well be that they are just, this is a new strategy. I, I don't know anybody over there anymore, so I don't have anybody to, especially
Caller 11 (02:21:45):
All I have is the browser extension.
Leo Laporte (02:21:46):
Yeah. I think they've done it on both both platforms. They had a UWP windows app that you could get in the windows store. I don't know if that's gone as well. This is interesting. Yeah. I'll have to lemme do some research. I'll call somebody over there. Say who who's in charge now <laugh> tell me <laugh> what's going on with last pass. If at some point you really, I mean, I like the app, but really most of the time you use it in the browser. Right. In fact, when I need a password, I just go to the browser and use the extension. So right. I think I'm, I'm on bullish for the future of last pass because they spun it out as a standalone. I, I think that that was the right thing.
Caller 11 (02:22:29):
I know you like bit wardens. So, so the question is how painful is it to switch from last pass?
Leo Laporte (02:22:34):
Oh, it's okay. It's easy. <Laugh> so bit warden is a sponsor. They replaced last pass when last pass decided to go through these changes. And I actually love I've. I really prefer bit Rodden cuz it's open source. And one of the things last pass did at the end of the, you know, line on this when they were still with the equity investment company was they turned off the free version and made people upgrade. And now there was a lot of anger over that bit warden, which is open source will always have a free version that's full featured. The transition is trivial. Last pass will save. You will export your passwords. Actually that might be one reason to keep that app going, cuz that they used to say that's the best way to export it. So maybe now's the time while the app is available export from the app into a CSV or last pass format and bit warden will import that directly without any loss of content. The only thing I noticed, maybe some trouble with I I always put my pictures of my driver's license and passport in my password manager. I think I had to take new pictures as I remember, but, but all of the passwords came through fine. So it's a very easy transition to make and, and yeah, to, I mean, if you ask me yeah, I know bit warden is a sponsor, but I do prefer it to last pass and it's under constant update. Yeah.
Caller 11 (02:24:02):
One more, one more really quick thing. I don't, I think it's quick. Anyway, if I could I keep sending messages from apple that my iCloud storage is getting full and to my knowledge, I'm not storing anything.
Leo Laporte (02:24:13):
Oh you are. You just don't know it. <Laugh> so go to icloud.com log onto your account there and they'll tell you what you've got photos go up there. You may be backing up. It is by default on Mac O S your desktop and your documents. If that's the case. Yeah. You'll fill it up fast, but you can turn that off and Apple's Apple's iCloud is more expensive than a lot of other solutions. Well, the time has cubed to say goodbye to all our friends and family. Thank you so much for joining me on the tech guys show, remember we put show notes up on the website and this is free. There's no charge. You don't have to gimme your email or anything like that. It's completely free. And private tech guy labs.com Micah, and and John will be putting up the links as time goes by.
Leo Laporte (02:24:59):
We'll also get audio and video from the show, our podcast version of the show, tech guy labs.com episode 1920, a little plug for the podcast network. When you get there, you'll see many other shows I do all week long for the geek in all of us twit.tv. So tech guy labs.com and I'll see you there. Meanwhile, have a great geek week byebye. Well, that's it for the tech guy show for today. Thank you so much much for being here and don't forget twit T w I T. It stands for this week@techandyoufinditattwit.tv, including the podcasts for this show. We talk about windows and windows weekly, Macintosh on Mac break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple watches on iOS today. Security and security. Now, I mean, I can go on and on and on. And of course the big show every Sunday afternoon, this week in tech, you'll find it all at twit TV and I'll be back next week with another great tech guys show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you next time.