Employees are suing over going back to work

This episode explores the legal and ethical challenges of mandating employees to return to office post-COVID, including specific lawsuits and broader implications for workplace dynamics.

1. Companies are increasingly mandating return-to-office policies, leading to legal challenges from employees.
2. Specific cases, such as the Connecticut lawsuit, highlight the tension between employee health concerns and corporate policies.
3. Technological solutions and corporate strategies are central to managing the transition back to physical workspaces.
4. There's a significant public interest in the balance between maintaining productivity and respecting employee well-being.
5. The discussion extends into related areas such as online security, data privacy, and the influence of technology on workplace dynamics.

1: Introduction to the issue

Kim introduces the topic of employees suing over return-to-office mandates, setting the stage for a discussion on the intersection of technology, legal rights, and corporate policies. Kim Komando: "Can employers fire workers who refuse to come back in the office? That's the big question today."

2: Case study analysis

Detailed examination of a Connecticut lawsuit involving an office worker fired for not returning to the office due to health concerns, illustrating broader legal implications. Kim Komando: "In Connecticut, an office worker was fired even with his doctor's note after refusing to come back to the office."

3: Broader implications

Discussion on how technology and corporate policies are shaping the modern workplace, including insights on data privacy and online security. Kim Komando: "With people returning to work, there's also a need to ensure data privacy and online security are maintained."

1. Understand your rights as an employee regarding workplace mandates and health accommodations.
2. Employers should consider flexible work policies to accommodate diverse employee needs.
3. Use technology responsibly to enhance productivity without compromising employee privacy.
4. Stay informed about legal developments related to workplace rights and COVID-19 policies.
5. Engage in dialogue with employers about concerns related to return-to-office mandates.

With the COVID emergency long gone, can employers fire workers who refuse to come back into the office? Plus, Apple Watch gets the FDA green light, why you should power down, and watch for this TSA scam.

People

Kim Komando

Companies

Disney, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Citibank, Google

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

None

Content Warnings:

None

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Kim Commando
Hey, it's Kim Commando today, your daily podcast to keep you up to date with all things digital and beyond. And I'd love to have you be a part of our podcast. You can make an appointment to speak with me. Just head over to commando.com. And on the top right there's a button that says email, Kim. Fill that out, and that's it. I always like to kick things off with something fun and super interesting. Oh, my gosh. I just looked at my chrome browser. I had about 25 different tabs open in the browser. You know, I do this because I just keep opening up one thing after another thing after another thing after another thing. But that's nothing compared to Hazel. Oh, my gosh. This is all over the Internet. I don't know if you saw it, but Hazel is a software engineer and she is a self professed tab hoarder. She shared a screenshot on x with nearly 7500 tabs open on her Firefox browser. Whoa. What's going on? Yeah, over the last two years. And so she was like, how come, you know, things are crashing? Well, the exact number, 7470 firefox tabs, in case you're wondering, it only takes 70 megabytes of memory, but she likes to be able to go back in time and see where she was six months ago, or three months ago, or whatever it may be, sounds a little strange. So if you're like, hazel, here's a magical keystroke just for you. Command shift w. If you're on a Mac, that's control shift w. If you're on windows, what does that do? Automatically closes all your browser tabs. Love that. And that's just an example of the transference of intellect and fun that happens here on the Kim commando show. Because, after all, I'm America's beloved digital goddess, and you're about ready to get more tech smarts, because every single thing is now a tech thing. And if you're a brand new listener to the show, welcome. So glad to have you with us. And if you're already a listener, welcome back. You look amazing. Oh, my gosh. Have you lost some weight? Yes. I knew that you did. Now you can find my award winning show in over 420 top stations across the United States. You can find us streaming as a podcast, as a webcast over inside the commando community. And just a reminder that you can also get the Kim commando show commercial free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And yes, I did say commercial free. Now, from each and every one of you, I need two things. Number one, I need you to tell one person about the show. That's the easiest and the best way for us to continue to grow the show. And number two, tell me what you want to hear more about. Just head over to the website commando.com dot. That's the official homepage, of course, with a k, and there's a link at the top that says, email Kim. Alrighty then. Every single day I go to at least, I don't know, probably like Hazel, go to all these different websites, keep those tabs open at least 35 or 40 to make sure that we're both up to date on all things digital. And here are the top five things you need to know about tech. It's happening right now. We're going to start with number one, COVID. Long gone. It's over. So the question is, can employers fire workers who refuse to come back in the office? Okay, well, I know you can say, well, I like working from home or I'm more productive at the office. But study after study proves that companies actually work more effectively with people back in the office. And that's why companies everywhere are mandating these return to work policies. And they have been. So we're talking about Disney, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Citibank, Google, even my company. Well, here's what's going on. In Connecticut, an office worker with a heart problem and anxiety was fired, even with his doctor's note after refusing to come back to the office. And now he's suing. Now, it's noteworthy that before COVID he had these heart conditions and everything else. He had no problem going back to work. So this lawsuit is just one of many that's being filed across the country, not a slam dunk for the employer. So it's definitely one for us to watch. Moving on to number two. No one is ready to say that Tesla is in over its head, at least not yet. But a new and different investigation to the failure of Tesla's self driving mode. The resulting injuries, deaths, property damage is casting this shadow over the company. You see, until now, Tesla has faced only a few civil suits resulting from its autopilot crashes and deaths. Now, the feds have provided really only a slap in Tesla's face by warning drivers that, hey, you know, the autopilot isn't exactly safe. But now federal prosecutors are thinking that Tesla committed wire and securities fraud by misleading not only its customers, but also its investors with false reports about the capabilities of Tesla's self driving abilities. So if they're able to charge the company with a deception to lure investors and in the process pump up the stock, that's serious business. That actually could send someone to jail. All right, moving on to number three. Let's talk about your Apple Watch. Apple stands accused of basically stealing the tech that is inside the Apple Watch used to measure your body's vital blood oxygen levels. Well, that particular Apple Watch feature has been disabled because they're trying to figure out who owns what and probably who to pay off who. But good news for both Apple and heart patients worldwide. You see, millions of Americans have been diagnosed with Afib. Millions more have it, and they just don't know it. Afib increases the risk of stroke and even death. And from the beginning, Apple claimed that his watch could detect if you were experiencing Afib, and if so, can send that electrocardiogram right to your doctor. Until now, it's really only been a marketing point. But this is big news. The FDA just gave the green light for clinical trials to see just how good the Apple Watch really is. So if it does pass FDA clearance, what does this mean to you? Okay. You might be able to get your insurance to pay for a new Apple Watch for you. All right, moving on to number four. When it first appeared, say, 20 years ago, LinkedIn was this professional site, anything but cool. But suddenly, LinkedIn has become a genuine hotspot where everyone wants to be a work fluencer, a thought leader, a LinkedIn superstar. Yes. And to help them get there, the market for paid freelance LinkedIn profile ghost writers is just booming. So LinkedIn is now in the coveted 1 billion users club. Wow. Some LinkedIn influencers have tens of millions of followers, but they didn't get there alone. Behind the scenes, many work fluencers, that's what they're calling themselves, hire an army of freelance ghost writers to boost their profiles and to come up with their LinkedIn posts. Now, the reason why I'm passing this along is that you're planning to hire someone that you saw on LinkedIn because you said, oh, my gosh, their writing is so engaging and dynamic. Think again. Do your homework to make sure that there's not a ghost behind every single thing that they've written. Oh. On a completely different note, do you know that LinkedIn is now one of the hottest dating sites? Yes. I was talking to one of the young women here at the studios, and she said, yeah. She goes, at least you know that they have a job. Yeah, there is that. All right, finally, this coming in at number five, here's how you fix almost any tech device. Could be your iPhone, your laptop, your router, your tv, even your home appliance. When something doesn't work, say it just goes sideways, and they always do. No matter who you call for help, the very first question is going to be, have you tried turning it off and then turning it back on? And then you're like, oh, I did that already. You did that already. But, you know, you really didn't. But you don't want to tell the it person. That's. You're like, oh, yeah, I tried that. Well, here's the deal. About 95% of the time, it just works. Here's why. Every tech device requires at least some computer memory deep inside. Now, the longer that this gadget or gizmo runs without a restart, the more cluttered that memory becomes. Then you have bits and pieces of software problems. So you turn it off for just a few seconds and then back on. It just wipes out all that memory and think of the device. It just gets a fresh start. So the next time someone asks you if you know how to fix their gadget problem, you may just be their hero. If you remember this question, have you tried turning it on and off? Hmm? Have you tried that? All right, coming up. Oh, wow. This is a great tip. You're gonna love it. How you can buy unclaimed USP's and Amazon packages. We're also gonna talk about tin foil. Yeah, not a tinfoil hat. Talking about putting tinfoil around your keys. And also how to record on your phone in the event of an emergency. This is something that you need to know. Oh, in travelers, there's a TSA scam. I need to warn you about that, too. And of course, we have all of your green phone calls. And you have me, Kim commando. Okay, say it with me right now. Winfromkim.com. Winfromkim.com dot. Come on, one more time. Winfromkim.com. Okay. The reason why I want you to remember that address is because that's where you can win great stuff from the show, from me. And right now, we're giving away a brand new iPhone 15 valued at $799. So if you go to winfromkim.com, you just give us your email address, then you're entered to win that iPhone. Now, what's the catch? The catch is, is that you have to get at least a few issues of my free newsletter, which you're going to love. Okay. We're talking about device advice, tech news, scam alerts, security alerts, dark web alerts. I mean, it's all boiled into one great newsletter that over a half a million people love every single day. So go to winfromkim.com. Once again, that's win from kim.com. All right, let's see. Tom in Columbia, South Carolina. You're our first caller today. Hi there, Tom.

Tom
Finally, I listen to you. I'm not going to tell you how many years show my age, but, Kim, there's a website called t e mu. Unbelievable prices. There's no way they could make a profit. I did order something from them. It came in. But now I'm afraid they've got my information. I'm sure it's chinese based, and I'm worried. Should I be worried?

Kim Commando
Well, it's called Timu. That's what it's called. What did you buy?

Tom
I bought a little socket thing and a caulking for a bathtub caulking strip.

Kim Commando
Okay. Is it. Okay, is it good quality, or.

Tom
Yeah, yeah. I was really surprised at the price. I mean, they lost when they shipped it to me. I mean, it wouldn't be a $7 order.

Kim Commando
And see, here's the thing. What's happening is that, Timo, a lot of people are shopping on Teemo because the prices are incredibly low. The quality is average. You're not going to get great stuff. And it does come directly from China, so it takes a while for you to get it. So we're not talking about overnight shipping or same day delivery from Amazon. But what TMU does is it's making money other ways, and it's making money with your data. So, like, for example, you could have your fingerprint and your face scan. If you used it on your phone, it could have access to your camera, your gps location, your photos, whatever it may be. It has access to your private conversation with friends, if you logged into your bank account, if your password, your credit card info. I mean, basically what Timo does is it gets everything that it can. Now, Teemo is also related to another company that is called Pinduoduo, which is a holding company that, guess what they're all based in. You said it, China. Okay, okay. So. So when you're using Teemo, you're getting low prices, but, you know, nothing in life is free or cheap. Right? So in return, it's also collecting a lot of your data that's going to be shared with communist China. That's just the way it is. So a lot of people say, oh, my gosh. So, you know, but it's such great prices and such. This. It's like, okay, yeah, okay, it is. But, you know, if you're okay with everything in your phone or your computer going to communist China, I guess you'd be all right with using it. But now Timo says that they, you know, they've gone in front of Washington, said, oh, no, that's not us. We don't do that. We store things locally, just like tick tock. Okay. Tick tock is another one. Okay. So is Bytedance. Bytedance is owned by. TikTok. Is owned by Bytedance. Pardon me, you have lemonade and capcut, Camscanner, Shein Turbo. VPN is also a chinese VPN. Wechat, UC browser. There's also a program called share it. These are all chinese owned companies. And, you know, it's. A lot of people will say to me, Tom, well, what's the big deal? What's the big deal? That China has all my information. What is it? Well, you know, okay, they're building a profile on every single American that they can. So that's a big deal. But I'll tell you what my real concern is. Of course they're building a profile. They know exactly where we're located and who we're just seeing and who we're talking to and who, whatever it may be. But my concern is a bigger picture, because imagine this tomorrow. What if communist China wanted to do something evil? Not that they would ever do that, right? Okay. But let's say they just woke up one day and said, we're not going to be the nice people we are anymore, right? So if they have tick tock on 150 million american phones, which they have, and I don't know how many Teemo accounts are on these phones as well, but just imagine for just a moment the chaos that would be ensnarled across our entire country. The riots, people scrambling, the murders, accidents. If they were to just use this power that they have on 150 million american phones to put out a message that says, North Korea is sending a nuke bomb right now to the United States. You need to be with your family.

Susan
Gosh.

Kim Commando
Okay.

Tom
And it's not illegal.

Kim Commando
Okay? So I don't care that they have your biometrics. I don't use it. Okay. I don't I'm really concerned about the power that they have to take over the power grid, to do denial of service attacks, to do anything that they want, because now they have complete and full access to these phones. Now, whether or not they're going to do it, I hope not. I don't hear anybody in Washington talking about it other than they keep saying that we need to get, you know, China out of our midst. We need to make sure that TikTok doesn't have all the controls that they have. And people in the military shouldn't be using t moo, and people in the military shouldn't be using TikTok. That's already calmed down, and, you know, but I'm hoping my military servicemen and women, they're smarter than that, than a lot of people that, you know and I know that are walking around the streets, you know, half brained and half drugged up or whatever's wrong with them. Right. So I probably went on a tangent, and I'm sorry for that, but you.

Tom
Sound like I should be contacting my representatives in Washington.

Kim Commando
I think you should be. I think. I think, you know, and that's what I've been working on that behind the scenes myself with, with our representatives, because I don't know if. Don't know if they fully comprehend the power that we have given our adversaries by allowing these apps to become just a normal day to day operation. And also the, I mean, not for nothing, but the productivity hit that we're taking with people spending 4 hours a day on TikTok. Please. There is more to life there is than just watching videos. Tom, thank you for your call today. If you want to know more about Teemu, in case you want to share it with your representative, I've got a lot of information posted over@commando.com dot. Just search for Teemu. That's Temu. And then you'll see some articles that I've written for USA Today, and I've also written them for our website as well. And again, Tom, thank you for your call. Hey, listen, I love to help everybody out. And so if you're sitting there saying, oh, Kim, I have a question for you about my digital life, about my business, whatever it may be, you know, just don't sit there and don't leave it on social media. Yeah, I want you to go to this one place. Go to commando.com. And then there's a link that says email. Kim, I read every single note that you send me there. Every single note. Every single one. Right now, somebody's going oh, tell me if you get this one, Kim. Commando. I don't believe you. Okay. I don't respond to those. I don't play games. I don't have time for that again. Go to commando.com and hit that link that says email, Kim. All right, let's switch gears a little bit. Do you ever wonder what happens to orders at the USP's or Amazon? They just can't deliver. Well, it gets sold online, often at really cheap prices. Now, there are a few websites where you can bid on what's called unclaimed packages. One of the websites is govdeals.com, which they have contracts with the USP's to auction undelivered goods. Now, you're not bidding on some mystery box. You don't even know what's in there. You actually see a photo and description of each item. Now, I. Another website to check is liquidation.com. Dot. Now, the great thing about this site is that you can actually filter by brand or by retailer. And they've got all the big brands. They're talking about Home Depot, Walmart, Target, and of course, Amazon. Now, in the auction details, you get a brief description. When the auction's closing. Some products that you are bidding on have been returned. They may not be in great condition. And once you buy something, just know there's no way for you to return it. Okay? You cannot return your purchased, unreturned goods. Those sites again, govdeals.com and liquidation.com. All right, still to come, quick tip on how to record video in the event of an emergency on your phone here on the Kim commando show. All right, there's a major TSA scam I need to warn you about, because after all, vacation season is here, or maybe in your case, my case, right around the corner, hopefully sometime this summer. And of course, we have all of your phone calls. But before we get to all of that, true or false? Listen closely. True or false, wrapping the keys to your car in aluminum foil is a great idea. Is that true or is that false? Okay, let me tell you. Here's the scoop. If you have a fairly recent car, the days of fumbling with your car keys are over. Because now we have key fobs. These are remote keyless systems or electronics that are built into the car. Recognizes the radio signals coming from a fob. So as long as the key fob is a few yards away from the car, you can use the fob to unlock the car, open the trunk, close the windows, even start the car. In my event, in my case, when I get close to my new car is that it actually just unlocks the car automatically. I don't even have to hit the button anymore. Now, the problem with all these whiz bang electronics is that car thieves can buy inexpensive signal boosters. Okay, here's why. And here's what they're doing with it. Even though your keys are in your house, thieves can remotely unlock your car, start it, and then drive away. You wouldn't even know. So what can you do? You can block your key fob signal so that the signal booster won't work with it. So the answer is true. You can wrap your car keys in aluminum foil and that fob, better yet, here's what I've done, is that you line a small box with foil, and then you put that where you would normally put your keys. And since foil is a conductor of electricity, it blocks the radio waves and will stop those car thieves. And I know some people say, like, well, can I put my car keys in the microwave? You can, but just remember that they're there. A friend of mine actually puts her car keys. I'm not talking about her car keys. I mean her fob inside the refrigerator. Cause she's like, you know, when she gets milk in the morning for her coffee, she's like, oh, there are my keys. I'm like, okay, whatever floats your butt. Let's see. Susan in Seattle, Washington. Glad to have you with us.

Susan
My parents used to live with me, and recently, because of just finances and things, we had to move them to a care home, which has like a max of six residents, and they have one caregiver assigned for 24 hours. And they do have people. There's just a lot of appointments that get made, and sometimes I make appointments for them. And so my question is, is there some kind of software that, and also sometimes I'm wondering, like, when did they have a shower or how much did they eat? I don't want to pester the caregivers and bother them because they're busy. Just to get a sense, like, you know, some kind of software that could be used that we could all input information in so we could check, oh, they can't have that appointment because there's already one on that day. And sometimes these physical therapy appointments get made the day of, and then they show up 3 hours later, you know, and it's like, oh, for another appointment?

Kim Commando
Yes. It's like, we need some more communication here. So it's a small home, only six residents. Right?

Susan
Right.

Kim Commando
Are they using any type of management software now?

Susan
I think they are. And it's probably just for the staff, but they're still. And, you know, they have a lot of good things going for them. I mean, you know, I love this beautiful place, but there's things that just get missed and, you know, I just feel like if there's something the family can be part of as well, so.

Kim Commando
You know, it's like, well, it's your mom and dad, right. And you want to make sure that they're okay, and you want to get peace of mind, too. And it's a difficult transition. I've been there. It's very, very difficult because it's like. It's because you knew how you would care for them and you expect that level of care and you want to make sure that they are doing that because, like I said, it's your parents. Right. It's just this whole respect and care and love that puts you into this place that you probably didn't expect to be, say, five years ago or ten years ago. Right.

Susan
Right.

Kim Commando
And you still want to have. You still want them to have a sense of independence. What I would do is I'd go to the care facility and explain to them, obviously, maybe you've already done this. My concerns, the transparency that I want to see with my parents. I want to know when they have eaten. I want to be able to help you pick their meals because I know what they like and what they don't like. And as far as these appointments go, is that we need to have more communication. I understand about the physical therapy because that used to happen to me and my mom, too. It'd be like, she's like, physical therapy is coming at 02:00 and I'm like, yeah, but we're supposed to be at the Mayo clinic at 130. Okay. So I'm not really sure how we're going to be able to do this. So we have to move one thing, and I think we have to move the physical therapy instead of the Mayo point because it's so much more difficult to get that mail appointment. So barring that, if their system won't allow you to log in, is that there are other systems that they might want to look at. The one that I have some familiarity with is called point click care. It's point to click care. I don't know what the financial arrangement, what they cost or what they would charge for a six person facility versus a 50 person facility or whatever it may be, but that's the one that I have some familiarity with that I was able to see. What exactly was going on with my mom at any particular moment. Now, barring that, if that doesn't work, you could always set up or suggest to them that they set up a Google workspace, and that Google workspace, they could have a calendar per person that they could set up that would be HIPAA compliant. And then you'd be able to see what appointments have been scheduled for your parents, and then you'd be able to say, okay, this is where, these are the times that I have available. And then they could also put notes in there and the caregivers could put notes in that say, you know, mom and dad enjoyed watching jeopardy. Or don't give them chicken Parmesan again because they didn't like it, that type of thing.

Susan
Sure. Yeah.

Kim Commando
And so that may be just an idea for you to approach them with. And it wouldn't be difficult for, to set up. And I bet the other children or whoever is responsible for the other people in that facility, they would really appreciate that, too. I know I would. Wouldn't you? I mean, be wonderful.

Susan
Yes.

Kim Commando
To be able to do that. Now, is there wifi here?

Susan
Yes.

Kim Commando
Okay. Have you ever heard me talk about the Amazon echo show?

Susan
Yes.

Kim Commando
So that may be something that you might want to put in your parents room. So that, so that this way, anytime that they need you, they can just say, you know, Alexa, call Susan or drop in on Susan, and then your app or your Amazon echo show will just pop up and mom and dad will be right there. And accordingly, you can say, drop in on mom and dad. And then their screen would just automatically light up. So this way you're not worried about, like, you know, them answering the phone, picking up the phone, whatever it may be, and it just gives you total peace of mind. I mean, I've been, you know, like I said, I've been in this situation, and it really helped me to have that echo show so that at any given moment, I can just, I could see what my mom was doing and vice versa. Because, you know, it's all about peace of mind, really, and making sure that they are 100% comfortable in this facility and 100% getting the care level that you would give them at home. And if you need any help afterwards, Susan, just know I'm always here for you. Okay. Imagine you're going on vacation. You have to pass through TSA to get your gate. But as you are fumbling around, take off your belt, your shoes, put those electronics in a bin. You get targeted the moment your gear moves onto the conveyor belt, headed towards that x ray machine. Two people move past you in that screening area. Here's what happened next. The first person goes through security without a hitch. The second person has a belt on something in his pocket that alerts the TSA agents and it stops you from passing. So your laptop has gone through on the conveyor belt, and you know the deal, all right? You see it coming, it ends up in the hands of the first person, who then walks away with it. So that's why when you're traveling, always, always keep an eye on your expensive electronics. And in case it does ever go missing, whatever device you have, just turn on the find my. Find my device, find my. Whatever it is. So this way, you can actually pinpoint it. All right, at still to come, we have more of your great phone calls, as well as how to record video on your phone in the event of an emergency. And, of course, you have me, Kim Commando. If you're just missing me, I want you to make sure that you get all of me. What? What are you talking about? Wherever you get your podcast, just search for Kim Commander today, that's our podcast. We do live three times a week on YouTube. By the way, that's YouTube.com kimcommando. And then we also have this other podcast that's going like crazy. It's called the daily tech update. Every day you get one news story and you get one digital trick, and that's the daily tech update. Each one's about five minutes, and you're going to love it. So again, the daily tech update and Kim commando today. All right, David in Sacramento, California. Glad to have you with us.

David
Well, I've got a lot of time on my hands because I retired and I started to digitize my photos so I can pass them on to my kids, whether they like it or not. And I've noticed that some of the pictures, quite a few of the pictures have started to fade. And I'm trying to. You know, it doesn't really seem to matter. Like, I've got two photos from the same time, but it's different photo paper. And so I'm trying to bring back some of the vibrancy that is slowly disappearing. And I wanted to know if you had any recommended programs, because I know I could take them somewhere, but that would be. That would be a lot of money. So I have a scanner and I.

Kim Commando
Have a computer, and then you have a phone.

David
And I have a phone.

Kim Commando
Okay. There's an app for your phone. We're going to start there. And it's called Google photo scan. What I love about Google photo scan is aside from it's free. And, you know, we all like free. Free is good. Yeah. Is that. It really does a tremendous job of being able to take a picture of a picture and then it will enhance the picture.

David
Okay, that's cool.

Kim Commando
And so what's also very nice about this is that when you want to take a picture of a picture in a photo frame is that you don't have to take it out of the photo frame. Right.

Susan
Okay.

Kim Commando
And you don't have to take it out of the photo albums. Remember those, because sometimes when you try to take the photo out, you know, kind of all rips apart. Okay. And so this allows you to take the photo of a photo without you necessarily having to scan it. Now, of course you can take them out and you can scan them. That's not a big deal. And just keep in mind, you don't need to save that at 2400 dpi. Maybe, you know, just 600 dpi is fine, especially if you're going to print it again. It only sees 150 dpi on the screen anyway. So if you're just going to share them digitally, I probably wouldn't go higher than 300 just because there's no real use at this point for doing that. Now, if you have photos that are missing, say, I don't know, part of an arm or it's just really bad, that's where you can start using AI. And AI will try to restore old photos. It will sharpen some blurry images, like you said, make it more vibrant, enhance the colors, improve the photo quality significantly. There's a program called Remini that's R E mini, r e m I n. I've used it. I've used it myself. It's actually pretty good. There's another one called Vance AI photo restorer. It's really good at restoring faded colors and repairing damage to the photos, like if it's been creased or if it's been scratched. Basically, you just upload the photo at any of these sites and then AI does the rest. They always give you a free trial membership where only so many photos. And after that you have to pay. And then there's a third one called myheritage. And myheritage is really good for, I'm talking about old degraded images. I mean, ones from like the 18 hundreds, the 1920s portraits. And so if you have any of those, that's where you want to go. So. But this is a whole process. And then don't forget, you gotta keep it organized. Right. You know, sure. Because that's where a lot of people, they just scan. And when you scan it, it's like image one, two, three, image 123512. And you're like, okay, who is who? So, you know, I have found that, too, when tasked with this, with my mom, is that we, I actually did like, you know, it was this generation of the Williams family, so to speak. And, and then these were the folks in New York. These are the folks in, in Long island or wherever they were, Massachusetts. And so that allowed that. And then afterwards, I put together a YouTube video, almost like put together a slideshow and then saved it as a private video up on YouTube and then shared that with all my family members and friends, which was actually kind of fun because then people started commenting and doing things like that. But I'm glad you said that. You have a lot of time, okay. Because it does take a lot of time. And so as you're scanning, keep them in Google photos because you're on Android, and if you're on iPhone, then you want to keep it in Apple photos. And so that this way, over time, you can also do some facial recognition. So you can say, these are all the pictures of Aunt May. These are all the pictures of Uncle Max. And then it will go through and then say, oh, Aunt May's here. Is this aunt May or is this Uncle Max? And so it'll start learning as well, which makes it really easy to start organizing it.

David
Okay, so now I have an iPhone. So I still use that Google.

Kim Commando
Well, you could use, yeah, you could use Google photos on. You can still use Google photo scan. Absolutely. And you can also, you still use Google Photos. You can put it on iphotos if you want as well. And I actually have that set up because I'm on an iPhone as well, is that I have it set up with Google photos, that my iPhone photos are actually also available to me on Google Photos. And why do I do that? Because I've been around tech for a really long time, and it's like I just don't want to lose anything. I'm kind of really paranoid about that whole thing in my life. So I try to have as many backups as possible. Google Photoscan. And then Remini look at that advance AI photo restorer. And then also myheritage. And David, thank you for your call. Now, if you just missed all that, I'm going to put it, I'm going to write this up maybe as a tip inside of our newsletter. So if you're not already getting our newsletter called the current you're just going to dig it. Head over to Getchim.com dot. Once again, that's Getchim.com to sign up. You know, there are things with your devices that you need to do and you need to just set it up and you need to do it on your phone and on your loved ones phones. I'm first of all talking about medical ids. If you haven't done that, haven't set that up, let's say that you can't speak for yourself, but your phone's sitting there. Emergency services can actually open your phone and look at any type of medication that you're taking. Okay, this is a digital trick that I hope that you never, ever have to use how to record video on your phone fast in situations like maybe you're in some type of altercation or you're in danger or you've been pulled over by the police. First, let's talk about how to record video on an iPhone in an emergency. Okay, when the screen is locked on your iPhone, press the power button on the side. You don't need to open your phone. A lot of people think that you need to do that. Just press the camera button on the lower right for about 2 seconds, press and hold the shutter button and that's the magic. Photo mode will instantly turn into video mode and a video starts recording. Okay, you should try this. Just try it. See if you can do it this way. You know how to do it in the event of emergency. Now there are so many different Android phones, I can't give you these slam dunk steps that are going to work for everyone. Generally, you're going to double tap that power button to bring up the camera app, then press and hold on the shutter button, just like on an iPhone to take a video, to double tap on that power button and press and hold. And don't forget to enter to win that iPhone@winfromkim.com.

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