Speaker 1: Samsung sets a date for us to see some new
Speaker 1: foldable phones. Duck Duck Go has a new way to
Speaker 1: protect your email. Should Netflix show emergency alerts? Plus your
Speaker 1: tech questions answered? What is going on? I'm Rich Demiro.
Speaker 1: This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk
Speaker 1: about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
Speaker 1: It's also the place where I answer the questions you
Speaker 1: send me. Once again, my name is Rich Demiro, tech
Speaker 1: reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Well, I
Speaker 1: think the last time I talked to you, I was
Speaker 1: back at work. I'm actually doing the podcast for the
Speaker 1: first time in over a year and a half back
Speaker 1: at the KTLA studio, so that is a major, major difference.
Speaker 1: Ah feels good. The main reason it feels so good
Speaker 1: is because my studio here is much more climate controlled
Speaker 1: than my foul what's the word foucs faux faux fox studio,
Speaker 1: my faux studio at home. So it's nice to be home,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of nice to be here, although the
Speaker 1: time I'm doing this much earlier. If you're listening on
Speaker 1: on the Facebook Audio rooms, which welcome to everyone listening
Speaker 1: on the Facebook Audio rooms, you you are awesome for
Speaker 1: tuning in. It's such a cool thing. I'm I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: I am so enamored with this Facebook audio rooms. And
Speaker 1: the reason why is because I've got my following on Facebook,
Speaker 1: which I think last count there's like eight hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty six thousand of you. So awesome for that, and
Speaker 1: so i can put a Facebook room on there and
Speaker 1: you can listen in while I'm doing this live, and
Speaker 1: then of course it goes out as a podcast. Now,
Speaker 1: the big goal eventually, and I'm still you know, trying
Speaker 1: to work this out with but the big goal is
Speaker 1: to do a TV show. And that's kind of like
Speaker 1: what would be the ideal situation with live callers and
Speaker 1: everything would be produced and it would just be so
Speaker 1: much better. So that's eventually what the goal is. I'm
Speaker 1: still working on it. I mean, look, baby steps. We
Speaker 1: just got back into the studio, so and you know
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles things are still pretty tight here, you know,
Speaker 1: with the masks and the you know, all the different
Speaker 1: rules and stuff. So I'm just working my way through
Speaker 1: all this. But the big thing this week, of course,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos went into space. It was such a sight
Speaker 1: to see and it's just when I watched something like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up with the whole space race
Speaker 1: and well, maybe not grew up with it, but you know,
Speaker 1: space is a big part of my life. You know,
Speaker 1: space is such a fascinating topic for someone like myself
Speaker 1: that covers technology because when you really think about it,
Speaker 1: when you think about the fact that we've gone to
Speaker 1: outer space over the years, back in the day, like
Speaker 1: I'm talking the sixties, like, how in the world did
Speaker 1: these people figure this stuff out? I mean, we're very
Speaker 1: cutting edge at this point. We have high tech computers
Speaker 1: and all kinds of rockets and ships and whatever. But
Speaker 1: back in the sixties, to go to space was a
Speaker 1: whole different world. I mean, the technology that they had
Speaker 1: was very different. And so anyway, watching Jeff Bezos go
Speaker 1: into space with three other folks, you had the richest
Speaker 1: man in the world, the oldest person in the world
Speaker 1: who also happened to be a woman, and then the
Speaker 1: youngest person in the world, and then of course Jeff
Speaker 1: Bezos's brother. I mean, what an interesting crew right to
Speaker 1: go up there and experience that. I read something where
Speaker 1: the woman that went up was kind of like not
Speaker 1: that impressed with the view because she was like, well,
Speaker 1: it was cool, but it wasn't like the whole earth,
Speaker 1: which I mean, what are you gonna do? You know,
Speaker 1: maybe there's another ride. But the fact that we now
Speaker 1: have people going up every people I'm and these are
Speaker 1: not typical people, but I mean I guess they are.
Speaker 1: In the case of the young guy, he was like
Speaker 1: eighteen or nineteen. I mean, these are pretty much every
Speaker 1: day people. They didn't train like astronauts. In fact, there's
Speaker 1: some debate over whether we should even call them astronauts.
Speaker 1: But no matter what, they have forged a path that
Speaker 1: is just you can't you can't close it up. That's it.
Speaker 1: It's like it has been unlocked. We saw Sir Richard
Speaker 1: Branson go into outer space, and now I have the
Speaker 1: I was telling my kids this. I have now spoken
Speaker 1: in person to two people that have gone into outer space.
Speaker 1: Buzz Aldrin I met him at an event in the
Speaker 1: New Mexico Desert a couple of years ago, and not
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos, but Sir Richard Branson. I interviewed him a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. So I've now talked to two
Speaker 1: people that have gone to outer space. Just so wild. Anyway,
Speaker 1: my job has taken me to very very interesting places
Speaker 1: in my life. I often post about it on my
Speaker 1: Instagram just how grateful I am for the experiences that
Speaker 1: this job covering technology has given me. And it's never
Speaker 1: lost on me. Believe me, I work hard, I do
Speaker 1: my stuff. I'm always doing something, but it's never lost
Speaker 1: on me just how cool some of these opportunities have been.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the first topic of the show. Samsung,
Speaker 1: something we talk about often in the tech world. It's
Speaker 1: typically a battle between Samsung and Apple. But I don't
Speaker 1: really see it that way as much as maybe some
Speaker 1: other people do, or maybe it just makes a good headline,
Speaker 1: but they are two very different companies. But Samsung set
Speaker 1: a date for their next event. It's August eleventh. It's
Speaker 1: going to be called Galaxy Unpacked. And the tagline of
Speaker 1: the invitation says, get ready to unfold And what do
Speaker 1: we think that means? Of course we know what it means.
Speaker 1: They're going to show off the latest Samsung Galaxy Z
Speaker 1: flip and the Galaxy Z Fold. These are two phones
Speaker 1: that fold up. There might also be some other surprise
Speaker 1: in there, maybe a new smart watch something like that.
Speaker 1: But I've had I had a chance to play with
Speaker 1: both of these phones review them. In fact, the first
Speaker 1: model in the second model, so I believe this is
Speaker 1: the third generation, which is just again, it's just wild
Speaker 1: that we're on our third generation of foldables. Apple has
Speaker 1: not gotten to their first generation of foldables. But we
Speaker 1: all see where this is headed. Foldables are going to
Speaker 1: be a force in the mobile computing industry no matter what.
Speaker 1: It's just inevitable, and from everything I've seen the not
Speaker 1: so much the first generation, but definitely the second generation
Speaker 1: of these devices. They're really really cool, and I'm considering
Speaker 1: one for sure. I don't think the camera's there just
Speaker 1: yet on these devices for me to switch over, but
Speaker 1: I do. And I think the form factor on the
Speaker 1: Galaxy fold was a little bulky for me, but still
Speaker 1: pretty cool. The z Flip is a great form factor,
Speaker 1: but again it's just not as high powered speck wise
Speaker 1: as a phone that I want. I mean, I've talked
Speaker 1: about the iPhone twelve Pro that I've carried for the
Speaker 1: past year, and it just really is the one to be.
Speaker 1: It's so phenomenal it impresses me every day. In fact,
Speaker 1: something as simple as this live stream I would not
Speaker 1: be able to do on an Android like the As
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, the Facebook Audio Rooms feature
Speaker 1: is only available on the iOS version of the Facebook app.
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure who can listen to it, because
Speaker 1: sometimes I see it as being available, other times I don't.
Speaker 1: But it's just one of these things where iOS definitely
Speaker 1: gets some of these software features earlier and more polished,
Speaker 1: whereas Android gets the hardware features a little bit earlier.
Speaker 1: So either way, no matter how you look at it,
Speaker 1: we are living in a really, really good time for smartphones.
Speaker 1: Some might even say it's boring because you know, I'm
Speaker 1: at this point, I'm not reviewing as many phones as
Speaker 1: before because they don't do as well on TV. Quite frankly,
Speaker 1: it's just people have you know, they keep their phones
Speaker 1: for three years. They're not really looking to switch, and
Speaker 1: when they do, they're just doing some research online to
Speaker 1: kind of see, like, okay, well which one shall I
Speaker 1: upgrade to? And that makes a lot of sense. It
Speaker 1: used to be oh wow, this is a new feature
Speaker 1: on the iPhone. We have touch ID, we have face ID,
Speaker 1: we have a third camera, we have a telephoto camera,
Speaker 1: we have a foldable screen. But now a lot of
Speaker 1: those things are just kind of if you're playing poker.
Speaker 1: What do they call it house stakes? I don't know
Speaker 1: if that is that the term, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: it's one of these things where you just kind of
Speaker 1: expect that your phone is going to have these things,
Speaker 1: even on the low end. So I'll still continue to
Speaker 1: especially with the Samsung, the big flagship devices. I'll definitely
Speaker 1: take a look at them for hands on experience. I'll
Speaker 1: definitely review them for TV when appropriate. But it's just
Speaker 1: not like it used to be, where any manufacturer used
Speaker 1: to send me a phone and I would review it
Speaker 1: because it's like, well, what does this offer that's different,
Speaker 1: unique and better than the competition. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to the first question of the show. Hey Rich, based
Speaker 1: on your presentation on WPIX Channel eleven in New York,
Speaker 1: I ordered the Villo Mesh system. The only issue is
Speaker 1: I cannot get the app set up for Android phones.
Speaker 1: I tried contacting them using WhatsApp. I get no response.
Speaker 1: Do you have any contact information? The woman on your
Speaker 1: piece or he said AD actually seemed helpful. It's on
Speaker 1: an AD, but I feel stuck. Thank you and appreciate
Speaker 1: any help. Tom So. I got a couple of these
Speaker 1: messages after I featured this Villo system. And just to
Speaker 1: be clear here, I do not get paid by a
Speaker 1: company to feature anything on TV. That's just not the
Speaker 1: way it works. I get paid by KTLA Television to
Speaker 1: do a technology report, and I go out and I
Speaker 1: just cover stuff. And so it might seem tricky because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people out there that do
Speaker 1: sponsored things and this and that. That's not me. I
Speaker 1: don't do that. So I just I get paid by
Speaker 1: KTLA and that's it. I go to cool places, I
Speaker 1: get to go and see cool people, and my paycheck
Speaker 1: comes from KTLA. So it's not an ad. Although you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes when you're featuring a product, people just don't see
Speaker 1: the delineation. It's like, oh, well he's shown it on TV.
Speaker 1: They must have paid them. That's just not what happens
Speaker 1: with me. But anyway, I did have to look into
Speaker 1: this because I got a couple emails from folks somewhere
Speaker 1: angry saying, Rich, I bought this based on your recommendation
Speaker 1: and I can't set it up using my Android phone.
Speaker 1: I said, well, that can't be right because I tested
Speaker 1: it with Android and iOS and there was definitely an
Speaker 1: Android app when I tested it, and sure enough. The
Speaker 1: response I got from the company was this. It caught
Speaker 1: us by complete surprise. On Tuesday, we got a notification
Speaker 1: from Google that our app was pulled from the store.
Speaker 1: They gave us the reason that we did not call
Speaker 1: out in our privacy policy that users have the option
Speaker 1: to upload an image as their profile picture. It's pretty common,
Speaker 1: but so apparently our word in the terms of service
Speaker 1: was not sufficient for Google. We immediately took steps to
Speaker 1: amend the policy and resubmitted the app the same day.
Speaker 1: We're waiting for Google to improve and approve and reinstate
Speaker 1: the app, but we've made the APK available for download,
Speaker 1: and they gave a link. And that is one of
Speaker 1: the beauty the beauties of Android is that if you know,
Speaker 1: if something happens with Android and an app, you could
Speaker 1: what's called sideload an app. So you can still get
Speaker 1: the Villo app. What's called an APK, you download that
Speaker 1: you installed on your phone and it still works. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's easier and simpler to go through the official Google
Speaker 1: Play Store, but you do have this option, so I
Speaker 1: expect the app to be available again. There's no problem
Speaker 1: with Villo. There's you know, this is a technicality and
Speaker 1: privacy is so big these days that all these companies
Speaker 1: are taking it very seriously. So you can go to
Speaker 1: the website, download the APK. I'll put the link in
Speaker 1: my notes. Otherwise you can wait for it to be available,
Speaker 1: but the APK will do it pretty much the same way,
Speaker 1: all right. Next story of the week is Facebook and
Speaker 1: specifically Instagram. They have some new content restricter sliders. I
Speaker 1: don't know what you want to call it, but they
Speaker 1: call it sensitive content control on Instagram. So this allows
Speaker 1: you to decide how much sensitive content shows up in
Speaker 1: Explore and if you've ever gone to the Explore page,
Speaker 1: depending on what you've looked at in the past, it
Speaker 1: kind of takes on a life of its own. And
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, at some point with my Explore page,
Speaker 1: it was a lot of there's a lot of bikini
Speaker 1: clad women. I don't know what that tells you about
Speaker 1: some of the posts on my Instagram. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but you know, you click things, you look at stuff,
Speaker 1: and next thing you know, your Explore page could be
Speaker 1: filled with stuff that may be sexually suggestive or even violent,
Speaker 1: and Facebook and Instagram know that, and it just kind
Speaker 1: of happens because what do they want to do. They
Speaker 1: want to get you to click, So they're going to
Speaker 1: show you the stuff that's going to make you click,
Speaker 1: and so I ended up on my Explore page, I
Speaker 1: ended up. And you can try this as well, because
Speaker 1: it's kind of sick of seeing this stuff. And if
Speaker 1: you press and hold a picture on your Explore page,
Speaker 1: it will bring up something that says not interested, and
Speaker 1: so you can do that to kind of train the
Speaker 1: algorithm to stop showing you some of this trash. But
Speaker 1: what they're going to do is introduce this new sensitive
Speaker 1: content control in the app, so you can decide do
Speaker 1: you want to see more of this kind of stuff?
Speaker 1: Do you want to see less of this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff or even more of this kind of stuff? And
Speaker 1: one exception to this, the allow option is not available
Speaker 1: to people under eighteen, which is a relief to myself
Speaker 1: a parent who doesn't necessarily want their kids seeing some
Speaker 1: of this stuff. And TikTok is another one. You know,
Speaker 1: you scroll through TikTok and you can see a lot
Speaker 1: of things that you might not be expected. And my
Speaker 1: kids will often take my phone and ask to, you know,
Speaker 1: take a look at it, and it concerns me because
Speaker 1: what are they exposed to by looking at this stuff?
Speaker 1: So of course it's my account, so I can't really
Speaker 1: there's only so much I can do, even on Instagram.
Speaker 1: But if you want to try this and see these
Speaker 1: these content sliders for yourself, you can go into settings
Speaker 1: and then account and then look for sensitive Content Control.
Speaker 1: Again it's allow you and this this feature will say
Speaker 1: you may see photos and videos that could be upsetting
Speaker 1: or offensive. Limit is the default. You may see some
Speaker 1: photos and videos that could be upsetting or offensive, and
Speaker 1: limit even more you'll see fewer photos and videos that
Speaker 1: could be upsetting or offensive. And I think that Instagram
Speaker 1: is kind of hedging its bets here. They can't cut
Speaker 1: out everything because people always find ways around this stuff.
Speaker 1: But that's you know, that's an option for you to
Speaker 1: go in and change it. And maybe you don't care,
Speaker 1: maybe you like seeing whatever you're seeing. That's fine. But
Speaker 1: to me, the important thing is to know that you
Speaker 1: can press and hold a picture on your explore page
Speaker 1: and you can hide it, and then the algorithm will
Speaker 1: learn from that and say, okay, let's not show as
Speaker 1: many of these types of things. And for me, it's
Speaker 1: actually opened up a newer world on my Instagram Explore
Speaker 1: page one. That's actually slightly more useful because now I'm
Speaker 1: seeing more tech stuff, more of the stuff that I
Speaker 1: actually would like to interact with. All right, next question.
Speaker 1: Bolts Pro is the headline, Hey, Rich, have you heard
Speaker 1: of this charger? What do you think of it? Thanks
Speaker 1: Valerie w Well. I get a lot of emails from
Speaker 1: people about this boltz pro and I have to look
Speaker 1: it up. I assume it's some sort of item that's
Speaker 1: being heavily advertised on social media, and sure enough, when
Speaker 1: I look it up, of course, you just see a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of websites about this. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: When you go to the main page of bolts Pro,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those websites that's pretty much a
Speaker 1: I don't want to call it a scam, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely not what it seems to be. It tries to
Speaker 1: make it look like it's on a blog and it's
Speaker 1: a review, and guess what it's not. It's what's called
Speaker 1: an advertorial, which means it's a charger that's you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a charger, that's all it is, that has
Speaker 1: four USB ports and it's you know, supposedly so fast,
Speaker 1: and it's not. But I would just recommend getting a
Speaker 1: charger on Amazon from Anchor and just search for a
Speaker 1: USB C charger or whatever you need. But this is
Speaker 1: totally an advertisement that's made to look like a blog post,
Speaker 1: and if you try to look for legitimate reviews, there
Speaker 1: just aren't any, which is also bad. And you can't
Speaker 1: buy it on Amazon, which is also bad. So don't
Speaker 1: worry about this Bolts pro. I would not purchase it.
Speaker 1: I would just look for an Anchor charger on Amazon.
Speaker 1: You want a twenty watch charger, if you want something
Speaker 1: that's going to be fast, you want to look for
Speaker 1: a Qualcom Quick Charge if you want something that's going
Speaker 1: to charge your phone faster. But that's what I would
Speaker 1: look at. You don't need this Bolts thing anything that's
Speaker 1: advertised on social media and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you look for it on Amazon. If you can't find
Speaker 1: on Amazon, that's a red flag as well. It's just
Speaker 1: one of these things where they just heavily concentrate the
Speaker 1: advertising big time and they will get sales off of it.
Speaker 1: But the reality is there are much better deals out there.
Speaker 1: And if you see these websites that give you like
Speaker 1: high pressure sales tactics, they're also bogus. So that's what
Speaker 1: I think about that. All right, just saying hi to
Speaker 1: the folks on Facebook. Let me give a shout out
Speaker 1: to the folks in the front row. These are people
Speaker 1: who have sent stars to me. Roshan, Shafie, Stanley, JC, Soak, Jinhang,
Speaker 1: Pamela and Yogish. Thanks for being in the front row.
Speaker 1: Thanks for sending those stars my way. I do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And this is so much fun to be able to
Speaker 1: do this with you, It really is. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk about email protection. Take a sip of my tea here.
Speaker 1: This is from duck duck Go, and this is a
Speaker 1: new way to protect your email. They call it very
Speaker 1: very standard name here email protection. That's what they call
Speaker 1: it now, duck duck Go. I'll be honest, I do
Speaker 1: not use duck duck Go. I get a lot of
Speaker 1: emails about people saying they want more secure and more
Speaker 1: privacy centric search engines. I just don't think duck duck go.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just check this real quick. Let's do a
Speaker 1: quick search. I just don't think duck duck go gives
Speaker 1: me the search results that I want. They're just not
Speaker 1: as oh gosh, how do I say this up to
Speaker 1: day as current, as thorough as something that Google's going
Speaker 1: to give you. And if you want a search engine
Speaker 1: that's maybe a little bit of an alternative to Google,
Speaker 1: I would check out Niva and ee v A, and
Speaker 1: I do think that that one is more along the
Speaker 1: lines of the quality of Google. And so although I
Speaker 1: don't use them either, I still just use Google. I
Speaker 1: really love Google, and it's just that's what I like.
Speaker 1: But if you use Duck, Duck Go or Brave or
Speaker 1: any of these other things and it works for you,
Speaker 1: then fine, that's that's great. It just for me personally,
Speaker 1: as a reporter, I'm doing so much research on stuff
Speaker 1: that's brand new and I need like very new results.
Speaker 1: It's tough to get that from these other search engines.
Speaker 1: With all that said, I do think that what Duck
Speaker 1: dot go is cool is doing is cool. I do
Speaker 1: think this email protection is great. And basically what you
Speaker 1: do is you sign up for a duck at a
Speaker 1: you know, an email address that's at duck dot com,
Speaker 1: and you send emails there. And what they do is
Speaker 1: they realize that a lot of people don't want to
Speaker 1: switch email providers. So what they do is they just
Speaker 1: forward the email to your regular inbox, so whether that's
Speaker 1: Gmail or Yahoo or whatever, but they remove the email
Speaker 1: trackers and so that is a really cool service. They
Speaker 1: don't look at your emails, they don't track your emails themselves,
Speaker 1: but you might be surprised. According to their blog post,
Speaker 1: and I knew this to know that seventy percent of
Speaker 1: emails contain some sort of trackers that detect when you've
Speaker 1: opened the message, where you've opened the message, and what
Speaker 1: device you're using to open that message. And for this reason,
Speaker 1: I go into my Gmail and I turn off external images.
Speaker 1: So when all these people send me messages with a
Speaker 1: tiny tracking pixel embedded in that image, guess what, it
Speaker 1: doesn't load. And they're really sad. Now there may be
Speaker 1: other ways, other clues that they're using to see if
Speaker 1: I've opened their email. When you click on links, a
Speaker 1: lot of times those links are tracked. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so many ways for these companies and people to do
Speaker 1: this and spammers, and it all goes into these big
Speaker 1: databases that you know, kind of figure out who you are.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's one thing you can do. You can
Speaker 1: sign up for this duck email address. You can also
Speaker 1: create a unique private email addresses that you can just
Speaker 1: dispose of when you're done. So let's say you sign
Speaker 1: up for a free trial on a website and you know,
Speaker 1: maybe don't need a credit card or whatever, but you
Speaker 1: don't want to be bombarded with all those emails afterwards
Speaker 1: to say please sign up, here's a better deal, here's
Speaker 1: a better deal. You can just deactivate that email address
Speaker 1: and you won't get a new email from them. So
Speaker 1: Duck dot go Email protection is free. You sign up
Speaker 1: for it through the app, and unfortunately it is a
Speaker 1: it is a invite only at this point, so you
Speaker 1: have to download the Duck dot Go for iOS or Android,
Speaker 1: open up the settings Beta Protection email Protection, and then
Speaker 1: join the private waitlist. And Duck dot Go is really
Speaker 1: serious about this. They think that this is about as
Speaker 1: important as using a unique password on every website that
Speaker 1: you go to. So I don't know. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: got a lot of email addresses, so I'm probably not
Speaker 1: going to sign up for this allthough. So I kind
Speaker 1: of like the idea of getting a rich on tech
Speaker 1: at duck dot com. And now that I just said
Speaker 1: that I should probably get it because someone else is
Speaker 1: gonna jump on it. Don't jump on that, please, all right.
Speaker 1: Next next question comes from Pat. It says, buy styles
Speaker 1: scene on TV Rich. Is there an app for identifying
Speaker 1: clothing or home items in TV shows? I love some
Speaker 1: clothes on Netflix, on furniture on d Y. I DIY shows,
Speaker 1: but I can't find it online. I enjoy your show
Speaker 1: at five thirty. I enjoy your shoe each five thirty
Speaker 1: eight am on KTLI. Now is that a Freudian slip
Speaker 1: your shoe because you're talking about buying the stuff that
Speaker 1: you see on TV? I don't think so. But if
Speaker 1: you're gonna buy my shoes, they'd probably be all birds
Speaker 1: because that's what I typically wear on TV, and I
Speaker 1: love them. By the way, I've got both the running
Speaker 1: and the regular. It's funny you say this, Pat, because
Speaker 1: this has been regarded over the years as the holy
Speaker 1: grail of TV. Interactive TV. They talked about this for years,
Speaker 1: how the Internet was going to change TV forever and
Speaker 1: let folks buy stuff that they see in one click
Speaker 1: on their TV screens, and guess what, it never happened. Now,
Speaker 1: if you ask me, Netflix should do this because They've
Speaker 1: got everything in place to be able to do this.
Speaker 1: They know what you're watching, they know when you're watching,
Speaker 1: they can sync it up with their app, they can
Speaker 1: put it in the app, they can I mean, they
Speaker 1: just have the ability to do this. So do the
Speaker 1: other online streaming services too, but Netflix especially, nobody's done
Speaker 1: it really as far as I know. I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: some apps that can help, but I think the closest
Speaker 1: thing that you might be able to use is Google
Speaker 1: Lens and or Amazon. They can let you take a
Speaker 1: snapshot and scan the picture for what people are wearing
Speaker 1: that picture. Now, maybe not the exact brand, but you know,
Speaker 1: maybe similar to what they're wearing. So that's what I
Speaker 1: would write. Commend downloading and see if you can if
Speaker 1: you can identify some of that stuff. So yeah, really
Speaker 1: really cool. It would be cool. But to me, a
Speaker 1: lot of this stuff is, you know, if they don't
Speaker 1: have a deal with it, they don't want to sell it.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons why this hasn't happened, not
Speaker 1: just the fact that it's not. It's definitely doable, that's
Speaker 1: for sure, all right. There's been a lot of talk
Speaker 1: this week about Apple's new mag Safe battery pack. A
Speaker 1: lot of people have been emailing me about this. I
Speaker 1: just discounted it immediately, like I do with a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff. I don't know why, and then you know,
Speaker 1: as more you know reviews or people chatter about it
Speaker 1: or people email me about it, then I give things
Speaker 1: a second look. But sometimes I'm just like, ah, do
Speaker 1: you really need a mag Safe battery pack? Like mag
Speaker 1: Safe has been I would say underwhelming at most. I
Speaker 1: think it has a lot of potential, but I don't
Speaker 1: think we're fully seeing that potential realized. And I use
Speaker 1: myself as an example. I mean, I've had mag Safe
Speaker 1: for a year now, or almost a year, and I
Speaker 1: don't have any mag Safe accessories. I wanted to buy some,
Speaker 1: but I just, you know, it's like every time I
Speaker 1: want to get them, I'm like, Eh, do I really
Speaker 1: need that? And so I have been hesitant. I tried
Speaker 1: one in my car. I talked about it last week.
Speaker 1: I got it. It didn't really work. It was like
Speaker 1: a holder for my phone. A battery pack is, I
Speaker 1: guess good for travel, but I haven't been traveling very much,
Speaker 1: so I've not really seen myself in a place where
Speaker 1: I need the extended battery pack maybe at CES this year.
Speaker 1: If it actually happens in person, I'll need this. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: I think I will do a segment on these things
Speaker 1: because I got so many emails about them, so I
Speaker 1: guess people do have a use for them, and I
Speaker 1: have to remember sometimes it's not always all about me.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's about other folks. But anyway, i'more has a
Speaker 1: great review on this thing, and so this is Christine
Speaker 1: Chan who wrote the review. And they looked at it
Speaker 1: and said that, you know, it took ten months for
Speaker 1: Apple to make one of these things. It's ninety nine dollars.
Speaker 1: It comes to in one color white. It is not made
Speaker 1: of silicone like you thought the old smart battery cases
Speaker 1: before it. It's actually a hard plastic more like the
Speaker 1: MacBook from two thousand and six, so that's interesting. There
Speaker 1: is a single lightning port at the bottom, as well
Speaker 1: as an LED status indicator. And of course, if you
Speaker 1: just like to stay in the Apple ecosystem, this is
Speaker 1: the one you want to get, no matter what. Now.
Speaker 1: The reviewer said they were surprised at how strong the
Speaker 1: magnetic attachment is, although it's not as strong as the
Speaker 1: pop sockets pop grip which is funny because I've also
Speaker 1: wanted to get a pop sockets pop grip for mag Safe,
Speaker 1: which I've been dragging my feet on as well. Maybe
Speaker 1: I should just order all this mag stuff stuff. But
Speaker 1: the ones people are comparing it against are the Anchor
Speaker 1: and the Mofi, so maybe those are the two I'll get.
Speaker 1: I'll compare these. But from other places I've read, apparently
Speaker 1: this doesn't charge your phone with a full charge if
Speaker 1: you have an iPhone twelve Pro. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: if you have an iPhone twelve, it's the only reason
Speaker 1: you really get this because the otherwise, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: talking all the pro all the iPhone twelves, like whether
Speaker 1: it's the twelve, the twelve Pro, twelve Pro Max, because
Speaker 1: those are the only iPhones so far the have mag Safe.
Speaker 1: It fits on the iPhone twelve Mini as well. Now
Speaker 1: here's the thing that I immediately discounted. The charging rate
Speaker 1: is only five watts, and you can go up to
Speaker 1: fifteen watts with wireless on an iPhone with a different charger,
Speaker 1: and so it's like, ah, this is a real trickle
Speaker 1: charge for this thing. But one thing that this review says,
Speaker 1: if you plug the mag Safe battery pack in with
Speaker 1: a lightning cable. Then it acts like a regular mag
Speaker 1: safe charger with a full fifteen watts of charging output.
Speaker 1: So here's the scenario. I see. You bring your lightning cable,
Speaker 1: you bring this charger, and this is now the bedside
Speaker 1: charger for when you travel, but you get the added
Speaker 1: benefit of having a full battery pack for you know,
Speaker 1: taken on the go. So let me give you the
Speaker 1: full scenario. You get to the hotel room, you plug
Speaker 1: this battery pack in, you lay your phone on top.
Speaker 1: It charges your phone and it also charges that battery.
Speaker 1: Then when you leave the hotel room, you take your
Speaker 1: phone and this mag say fully charged battery pack, and
Speaker 1: that should definitely get you throughout the day to be
Speaker 1: charged up and ready to go until you make it
Speaker 1: back to the hotel room later on in the day.
Speaker 1: So that would be the scenario that I would see
Speaker 1: working pretty well. But the conclusion is, let's see, what's
Speaker 1: the conclusion of this review. The conclusion is that, let's see,
Speaker 1: it's expensive, it doesn't have the greatest capacity, the battery
Speaker 1: can wiggle when it's attached, it can feel bulky, and
Speaker 1: it's only available in that one color. But again, if
Speaker 1: you need it, and you want it, and you like
Speaker 1: the Apple stuff and you want to stay in the ecosystem,
Speaker 1: then I think it looks pretty cool. I was originally
Speaker 1: going to get it, and then I was kind of
Speaker 1: like eh. When I saw the five Watch charging, I
Speaker 1: was like, Eh, that's kind of a non starter. But
Speaker 1: I do like the idea of having an extra battery
Speaker 1: pack with me when I travel. So if it's one
Speaker 1: that magnetically attaches to the back of my phone for ease,
Speaker 1: then that does make life easier. Plus I can use
Speaker 1: it as a charger. But I'm going to compare it
Speaker 1: against these other two battery packs and see which one
Speaker 1: I think works for me. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the next question. Bruce says, good morning, Rich, I have
Speaker 1: a question on the iPhone eleven. How come when you
Speaker 1: receive text messages you don't know the time they were
Speaker 1: sent or received. I always see the time I send them,
Speaker 1: but not the other way around. Thank you for your time,
Speaker 1: Bruce and Michigan Bruce Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, you didn't read
Speaker 1: my book. I know, I know this was This was
Speaker 1: one of the biggest tips in my original book one
Speaker 1: hundred and one well, the original book, let's see iPhone book.
Speaker 1: I got to look up my own book because it's
Speaker 1: been so long, I can't remember that it was. The
Speaker 1: original book was one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips
Speaker 1: for the iPhone, and then it was one hundred and
Speaker 1: one iPhone Tips and Tricks. But this original book was
Speaker 1: you know, I had my original one hundred and one tips.
Speaker 1: I just thought everyone should know. And by the way,
Speaker 1: this was a best seller on Amazon. It did really
Speaker 1: really well. I did a second version of it and
Speaker 1: it still has four and a half stars, which is amazing.
Speaker 1: The second book has also four and a half stars,
Speaker 1: which is really really our four point six stars on Amazon.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's really really tough to get. So people
Speaker 1: love these books I wrote. I stopped at iOS thirteen,
Speaker 1: and to be completely honest, we had a new company
Speaker 1: come in and I was unsure about whether I was
Speaker 1: allowed to sell my book with my contract, you know,
Speaker 1: here at the station, and I guess I'm getting into
Speaker 1: a little bit of inside baseball maybe confidential stuff, but
Speaker 1: I was just unsure, and so I was treading lightly.
Speaker 1: I took you know, I didn't take it down for sale,
Speaker 1: but I just didn't really advertise it anymore. And so
Speaker 1: I feel like at this point, I don't think my
Speaker 1: company would be not allowing me to do this to
Speaker 1: sell this book. So I'm seriously looking into a way
Speaker 1: of bringing this back and updating it for the new
Speaker 1: iOS because iOS fifteen actually has a lot of new
Speaker 1: features and so and honestly, a lot of these things
Speaker 1: are just tried and true tricks on the iPhone that
Speaker 1: people just don't know. And so you just keep this
Speaker 1: book on your coffee table and you kind of just
Speaker 1: look at it and refer to it. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: long story short, you can still buy the books on Amazon,
Speaker 1: and yes, they will still help you. You just might
Speaker 1: run into a scenario where it's not completely up to
Speaker 1: date for the latest operating system and that you know
Speaker 1: that's not gonna happen with all the tips, but it
Speaker 1: can happen with some of the tips. But anyway, to
Speaker 1: answer your question, Bruce, the solution is to just look
Speaker 1: in the message list. And I'm not talking the main
Speaker 1: message list. I'm saying, like, go into a conversation of
Speaker 1: messages and just put your finger on the right side
Speaker 1: of the screen and swipe to the left, and that
Speaker 1: will reveal the time stamps for all of the messages,
Speaker 1: and that is the easiest way to see when messages
Speaker 1: were sent and received. Yes, your iPhone kind of time
Speaker 1: stamps things like in the center of the screen at
Speaker 1: random times. I don't know how they decide, maybe it's
Speaker 1: every day whatever. But if you want to see all
Speaker 1: the exact time stamps, yeah, just swipe from the right
Speaker 1: to the left and that's it. That will bring you
Speaker 1: to it. Let's talk about Venmo, my favorite app that
Speaker 1: I used to hate. Now I kind of like it.
Speaker 1: I told you I played poker at my friend's house
Speaker 1: last Friday night and we did something different. We all
Speaker 1: used Venmo to pay for the the buy in and
Speaker 1: then we got cashed out with Venmo. And by the way,
Speaker 1: my friend Bald Brian Brian Bishop, he's on the Krolla show.
Speaker 1: He told me that everyone's self reported winnings, like their
Speaker 1: final count of their chips was actually exactly right, which
Speaker 1: thumbs up for honesty with my friends, So that was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. I actually won, so that was kind of fun.
Speaker 1: Not a lot of money, but I did win and
Speaker 1: I got my payout via Venmo, which was cool. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I like Venmo as long as you don't. You know,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's good for simple things, but not
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. But anyway, I'll talk about that too.
Speaker 1: But they revealed an updated look to the Venmo app.
Speaker 1: So at some point you will open your Venmo app
Speaker 1: and it's going to look completely different and you'll smile
Speaker 1: to yourself and say, oh, yeah, Rich, talk about this.
Speaker 1: It hasn't happened on my app just yet. These companies
Speaker 1: typically roll these things out. They take time, but a
Speaker 1: couple of things are changing. Number one gone is the
Speaker 1: Global Feed. The Global feed has been a source of
Speaker 1: contention and entertainment for folks and also people that don't
Speaker 1: realize that if you don't change the privacy settings, it
Speaker 1: shows whatever you do on Venmo to everyone in the world.
Speaker 1: I hated that about Venmo. I just thought that that
Speaker 1: was so dumb, and I always changed my privacy settings
Speaker 1: immediately so that it was just private among me and
Speaker 1: my not even me and my friends, just private among
Speaker 1: me and the person I'm transacting with. A lot of
Speaker 1: people like the feed among their friends because they can
Speaker 1: it's just fun, you see. You know, oh, Rich played
Speaker 1: poker with these folks, and you know, you see that
Speaker 1: on there, and it's fun and there's a little fomo
Speaker 1: involved and whatever. But I don't even do that. But
Speaker 1: I'm fine if you leave that aspect open, as long
Speaker 1: as you know that it's open. But anyway, Venmo's getting
Speaker 1: rid of the global feed. They said that it no
Speaker 1: longer serves their seventy million users because it's not meaningful
Speaker 1: anymore to them, which I get that's totally true. But
Speaker 1: they did it because there's just, you know, this emphasis
Speaker 1: on privacy. There's gonna be a much bigger focus on
Speaker 1: the Venmo credit card, the debit card, the crypto. All
Speaker 1: that is more front and center. Now. The privacy controls
Speaker 1: they already introduced, we talked about them. This allows you
Speaker 1: to control your friend list so that people can't creep
Speaker 1: on your friend list. You can lock that down in
Speaker 1: the settings as well, so you can select public, friends
Speaker 1: only or private for your friend's list. And you can
Speaker 1: also choose how you want your profile to appear if
Speaker 1: you appear on other people's friends lists. So that could
Speaker 1: get interesting, you know, like you could someone could potentially
Speaker 1: be looking through someone's friend list and see you, and
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, that's interesting. Rich interacts with this person. Hmm, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll just keep that in the back of my head.
Speaker 1: The other big thing that they kind of hit, of course,
Speaker 1: in their blog post, but this week they are rolling
Speaker 1: out a new toggle switch when you make a transaction
Speaker 1: that says, hey, by the way, did you pay for
Speaker 1: goods or services with this with this transaction? And if
Speaker 1: you toggle that on, the seller is going to pay
Speaker 1: a fee and you're going to be covered by a
Speaker 1: purchase protection. Now, as a user, and I talked about
Speaker 1: this in my last podcast, I like this because if
Speaker 1: I'm paying someone for something as a business transaction, I
Speaker 1: want to be protected in case something goes wrong, and
Speaker 1: whether that's I don't get my goods, the service is bad, whatever,
Speaker 1: I want to be able to have that little bit
Speaker 1: of protection between me and my money. And if you
Speaker 1: do this as a personal transaction, and yeah, there's some
Speaker 1: protections built in, but not really and you're kind of
Speaker 1: out of luck. So if you toggle this switch, which
Speaker 1: Venmo thinks people will do, the seller's gonna have to
Speaker 1: pay some money. Already. Sellers are complaining about this, which
Speaker 1: I understand. Who wants to pay more than you have to?
Speaker 1: But I see it as kind of a cost of
Speaker 1: doing business. And I get it. Business is expensive. It's
Speaker 1: not cheap. When I sold my book, I talked about this,
Speaker 1: it was very expensive. I had to give you know,
Speaker 1: ten percent here, thirty percent here, you know, up to
Speaker 1: fifty percent to other places to you know, sell what
Speaker 1: I wrote, which is mine. But I couldn't have done
Speaker 1: it without these services, these platforms, and so for that reason,
Speaker 1: I was very happy to hand over my money and
Speaker 1: take the portion that I was welcome to. So you're
Speaker 1: not going to see it immediately. But again, let's say
Speaker 1: you go get a haircut with someone, and you know,
Speaker 1: you put it in there as a private, you know,
Speaker 1: person a person transaction. Now you might toggle it as
Speaker 1: a service or a good and you might not think
Speaker 1: twice about doing it, and next thing you know, they're
Speaker 1: gonna pay a little percentage on top of that. So
Speaker 1: just something to be aware of, something to know. And
Speaker 1: I think it's good that they're doing this because Venmo
Speaker 1: has become way more than just a way to pay
Speaker 1: friends and divvy up tabs and stuff like that. It
Speaker 1: has become a force in payments and so they are
Speaker 1: recognizing that, and of course they want to cut as well.
Speaker 1: Of more of this money. Because if you if you
Speaker 1: use vemo as a personal payment service and just wait
Speaker 1: for the money to take its its little time to
Speaker 1: get into your account, you could use venmo forever without
Speaker 1: paying a dime. And of course they don't want that.
Speaker 1: They want you to pay. They want you to pay,
Speaker 1: and so that's what these services nudge you to do.
Speaker 1: All right. Just want to say thanks to the folks
Speaker 1: in the front row on the Facebook. It's still a
Speaker 1: lot of the same folks, Stanley, JC, sock Jinhang and
Speaker 1: yogash Thanks for being in the front row and sending
Speaker 1: those stars. And thanks to everyone else that's listening and
Speaker 1: giving me those thumbs up up to keep going thumbs up.
Speaker 1: I love it. It's such a fun thing I've done
Speaker 1: in my time as a tech reporter. I've done so
Speaker 1: many different variations of live and I like the live
Speaker 1: on camera stuff, but the live audio is such a
Speaker 1: fun thing, especially when I could eventually bring people on board.
Speaker 1: Still figuring out the best way to do that, AJ
Speaker 1: says best video download Hey Rich, what's the best video downloader?
Speaker 1: And social media apps to manage multiple accounts? Thanks aj,
Speaker 1: aj best social media downloader I know of is called
Speaker 1: the soft O Reno YouTube Converter too. It works with
Speaker 1: a lot of different services YouTube, Instagram, Facebook. You can
Speaker 1: download videos from that, hopefully they're your own, because I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't condone downloading videos that you don't own.
Speaker 1: But there's another one called Twitter Video Downloader dot com,
Speaker 1: which I also like for downloading your own Twitter videos
Speaker 1: off of Twitter, because you never download someone else's, right.
Speaker 1: But those are the Those are the websites that I
Speaker 1: would recommend or the services that I would recommend for
Speaker 1: those super easy. Soft Reno is going to cost some money,
Speaker 1: maybe twenty bucks, thirty bucks, I can't remember how much
Speaker 1: it costs. I bought it so long ago or I
Speaker 1: got it so long ago, i should say. And it
Speaker 1: just works really really great. It's not there's no spyware
Speaker 1: on it. There's no there's no you know, ads and
Speaker 1: all this other stuff. So it's a it's a legitimate
Speaker 1: software that works really really well. So good question, all right,
Speaker 1: Uh should Netflix air emergency alerts? That is the question
Speaker 1: posed by the Hollywood Reporter And they have a great
Speaker 1: guy that that covers all things like legal when it
Speaker 1: comes to I guess legal politics, whatever, when it comes
Speaker 1: to entertainment. His name's Eric Gardner, and he said that
Speaker 1: they're talking Congress is talking about the feasibility of making
Speaker 1: streaming services have to air these emergency alert system notifications.
Speaker 1: So if you have ever watched TV and growing up
Speaker 1: as a kid, you know, eighties nineties, like you always
Speaker 1: heard these things on TV that you know that sound right,
Speaker 1: and you technically you can't even play it on TV
Speaker 1: without breaking some sort of rule, like you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to play this on the radio or TV. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I could play it in a podcast because that's not
Speaker 1: regulated by the FCC, but I don't have the audio,
Speaker 1: but you know, the sounds like it, and it's like
Speaker 1: it plays that sound that we all know. And then
Speaker 1: it says this has been a warning test of the
Speaker 1: emergency alert system. Had this been a real test, this
Speaker 1: would be followed by instructions to you know, stop, drop
Speaker 1: and roll or whatever. In the nineteen sixties, according to
Speaker 1: this article, this was established to warren Americans to get
Speaker 1: into bomb shelters in the event of a nuclear attack
Speaker 1: by the Soviet Union. Later, all broadcast stations and cable
Speaker 1: and satellite operators were required to install and maintain the system. Now,
Speaker 1: the trick here is that cable satellite a little bit
Speaker 1: different from broadcast, but I guess they still fell under
Speaker 1: some of those same regulations because you had to use
Speaker 1: a cable and blah whatever. But when it comes to streaming,
Speaker 1: they are not currently regulated by anyone. And if you've
Speaker 1: watched some of these shows on Netflix, you know that
Speaker 1: they can show whatever they want and they can say
Speaker 1: whatever they want, and so the idea that they would
Speaker 1: have to show these emergency alerts makes sense because a
Speaker 1: lot of times your TV is on these streaming services
Speaker 1: and not on a standard broadcast or cable or satellite channel.
Speaker 1: But on the flip side, the proposed the people on
Speaker 1: the other side say, you know what, We've all got
Speaker 1: cell phones, and if you've gotten one of these alerts
Speaker 1: on your cell phone, you know they've made their way there.
Speaker 1: And so why do we need this on our streaming services?
Speaker 1: And not to mention it would be it'd be kind
Speaker 1: of tricky for Netflix and all these services to in
Speaker 1: to make this work. I'm sure they could do it,
Speaker 1: but it definitely would be a little tricky. I don't
Speaker 1: know where I stand on this. I think that it's
Speaker 1: one of these things where we have so much access
Speaker 1: to information these days and very quick access. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure we need it through Netflix, but I would almost
Speaker 1: argue it'd be better to serve it up through the
Speaker 1: TV itself, because then it could just go overlay the
Speaker 1: screen no matter what you're on, whether you're on cable TV, whatever.
Speaker 1: And most TVs are connected to the Internet these days,
Speaker 1: so they could technically do that, but not every TV
Speaker 1: is connected to the Internet at all times, so it's
Speaker 1: definitely a tricky situation. But anyway, it's one of the
Speaker 1: things are considering. I thought it was fascinating because it
Speaker 1: just goes to show our world is evolving in such
Speaker 1: a unique way. You know, when you're whether you're just
Speaker 1: everything when it comes to cars, when it comes to
Speaker 1: the way we do things, you know, cellular like data,
Speaker 1: like it used to be like phone calls went through
Speaker 1: a certain type of antenna, but now they're all served
Speaker 1: through through data and they're like literally not even going
Speaker 1: through a standard like I don't even know what they
Speaker 1: went through before, but it was definitely not data. It
Speaker 1: was like a antenna. It was like an RF signal
Speaker 1: at some point, right and now it's just a digital
Speaker 1: bits of ones and zeros that it converts your voice into.
Speaker 1: So as we evolve with tech, these laws and these regulations,
Speaker 1: they all have to catch up to the way that
Speaker 1: we're doing things. And I just find that fascinating because
Speaker 1: it leaves a lot of things open for new interpretations. Now,
Speaker 1: by the way, you can comment on the Facebook audio.
Speaker 1: I just don't see those for some reason while it's live.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but it just they are there.
Speaker 1: Jennifer says good morning, And I always joke that people
Speaker 1: say good morning when they email me because they always
Speaker 1: see me on TV and they go, oh, let me
Speaker 1: email him. I just saw him on TV, and then
Speaker 1: they email me like right after they saw me on TV,
Speaker 1: so they always say good morning. With Uber and Lyft prices,
Speaker 1: skyrot rocketing, is there an app to use for taxis
Speaker 1: in Ocla County? Thank you, Jennifer. Jennifer, I had to
Speaker 1: go back into the depths of my memory to remember
Speaker 1: what the app was that I used to use. It
Speaker 1: used to be called Taxi Magic. When Uber and Lyft
Speaker 1: first started, and I've told this story a million times,
Speaker 1: they invited me to a party in Santa Monica and
Speaker 1: they said, we're picking you up in an Uber and
Speaker 1: I said, what is an Uber? And they said, it's
Speaker 1: a car service that comes to you on demand through
Speaker 1: an app. And I said, what, what in the world
Speaker 1: is that? Because I knew what a car service was,
Speaker 1: because I'd lived in New York City and I knew
Speaker 1: what a taxi was, but a car service was prohibitively
Speaker 1: expensive for the everyday person like myself. It would be,
Speaker 1: you know, a minimum of fifty dollars to go anywhere,
Speaker 1: and much much more if you're going somewhere. And so
Speaker 1: I said, wait what And I remember this, this taxi
Speaker 1: or this car came to my house. It was like
Speaker 1: a chauffeured car back in the day that you like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's more of a black car town service,
Speaker 1: and it was like twenty three bucks to go to
Speaker 1: Santa Monica. And I just couldn't believe it. And my
Speaker 1: wife and I were early adopters of this service. We
Speaker 1: tested it out and we took it all over Los
Speaker 1: Angeles because it was so cheap and we just couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. I was like, there's no way this is
Speaker 1: gonna last. Well, the black car, the town car service definitely,
Speaker 1: it lasted, but it's way more expensive. And of course
Speaker 1: you've got things like Uber, x Uber Shared, You've got Lyft,
Speaker 1: You've got all these different services. And to take an
Speaker 1: actual town car service at this point, or an Uber
Speaker 1: Excel which not xcel, the Uber, they have so many
Speaker 1: names for them. They have Premiere, they have Lux, they
Speaker 1: have Suv. But to take any of those high end ones,
Speaker 1: it's definitely very cost prohibitive. But to take the cheap ones,
Speaker 1: it's cheap. But yes, you're right, Jennifer. This is a
Speaker 1: long answer to tell you that Uber and Lyft have
Speaker 1: gotten very expensive during the pandemic, and that is due
Speaker 1: to a lot of things, a lot of law changes
Speaker 1: in California, a lot of fee, a lot of added fees,
Speaker 1: a lot of surg charges, and also, quite frankly, they
Speaker 1: just don't have the people working it like they used to.
Speaker 1: So the demand is there, but the supply is just
Speaker 1: not there. And so to answer your question, the app
Speaker 1: is called curb c RB. I don't know how good
Speaker 1: they are. I have not used them in many many years.
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure where they stand with their app.
Speaker 1: But that is the app that used to kind of
Speaker 1: collate the taxi services into an app. It was definitely
Speaker 1: hit or miss in my tests. Sometimes it worked, sometimes
Speaker 1: it didn't. But if you want to compare the prices,
Speaker 1: you can do that. Now. The other way to compare
Speaker 1: prices is to actually use Google Maps. So if you
Speaker 1: put in your address in Google Maps, you can go
Speaker 1: to the top and you know, navigate as you typically would,
Speaker 1: but look at the top. There's a little icon next
Speaker 1: to it's like car. It's a car, and then I
Speaker 1: think it's bike and train. And then there's a little
Speaker 1: guy with his hand up or a little person with
Speaker 1: their hand up, looks like they're hailing a taxi. I
Speaker 1: think they have a suitcase in their hand. If you
Speaker 1: tap that, it will let you see how much prices
Speaker 1: are for different car service options. So it can look
Speaker 1: at Lyft, it can look at Uber and whatever else
Speaker 1: they may have in that service or in that service area.
Speaker 1: And now it may be a paid thing. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but at the very least it can help you realize
Speaker 1: that sometimes Uber and Lyft could be very different pricing,
Speaker 1: and so it's just good to kind of just do
Speaker 1: a quick glance. Maybe you have a preference, maybe you don't.
Speaker 1: I was using Lyft for a long time, but then
Speaker 1: I recently switched back to Uber. So it just really
Speaker 1: depends what service you want to use, or if you're
Speaker 1: service agnostic, you might be able to save five to
Speaker 1: ten you know, even more money depending on which one
Speaker 1: of these services that you use. So good question, good question.
Speaker 1: The FTC has voted to enforce right to repair. This
Speaker 1: is a topic that comes up every so often. Now
Speaker 1: you might be thinking, well, can't you just bring your
Speaker 1: phone in to get it repaired? You know these U
Speaker 1: break I fixed places, Yeah, you can, but a lot
Speaker 1: of times unless they're an authorized facility, they don't have
Speaker 1: access to all of the goodies that it takes to
Speaker 1: help them actually repair these things in a in an
Speaker 1: authorized way. So you bring your phone to a third
Speaker 1: party place that does not have an authorized service, and
Speaker 1: next thing you know, your warranty is is out and
Speaker 1: anything that goes wrong with your phone you're there. You know,
Speaker 1: you go back to the company, Apple, Samsung, whoever, and
Speaker 1: they're like, ah, sorry, you got this thing repaired with
Speaker 1: some random dude, and we're not gonna be sorry. We
Speaker 1: don't know if you broke this thing when you got
Speaker 1: it repaired, and now you're you're out of luck for
Speaker 1: the next year or two. So Wire talks about the
Speaker 1: fact that the FTC is going to clamp down a
Speaker 1: little bit on these right to repair laws and I
Speaker 1: guess have existed but have not been really enforced, but
Speaker 1: now they're going to enforce them. And this is not
Speaker 1: just for smartphones. This is for things like tractors, cars.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're getting into this place where electronics are
Speaker 1: so specialized that just to repair them. I mean, I
Speaker 1: watched the guy you break I fix like crack open
Speaker 1: an iPhone and I couldn't believe. It's just there's too
Speaker 1: much glue in there. There's too many little parts, little screws,
Speaker 1: specialized screws that you need a special screwdriver to open
Speaker 1: them with. And I will tell you I opened up
Speaker 1: my iPod. This is going way back. I'm talking at
Speaker 1: least ten years ago, probably closer to fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: when you can open up an iPod and you can
Speaker 1: order a kit from Amazon with a new battery. This
Speaker 1: is when the batteries would go dead and so you
Speaker 1: could put it in a fresh battery and boom, you're
Speaker 1: on your way and the battery charge would last longer. Again. Well,
Speaker 1: the toughest part was really getting the glue off the bottom,
Speaker 1: like taking the bottom off without ruining the connection, because
Speaker 1: there's a connection that it's all just like glued together
Speaker 1: and really really complicated. So I did it. It worked.
Speaker 1: It's tough to get the thing back to normal or
Speaker 1: back to the way it was, so a lot of
Speaker 1: times they use like a dryer, like a heat a
Speaker 1: little bit of a heat source to like to get
Speaker 1: the glue to be gummed up a little bit. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it's just one of these things where it should get
Speaker 1: a little bit easier. We'll see what happens. But I
Speaker 1: think a lot of times this has to do with
Speaker 1: farmers too, like farm equipment. I've read a lot of
Speaker 1: articles about how like John Deere and all these big
Speaker 1: companies that make this farm equipment, like you basically have to,
Speaker 1: you know, have an authorized repair or else you're gonna
Speaker 1: get on the bad side of the farm folks. It's
Speaker 1: just the way it works. So anyway, so they argue
Speaker 1: that that independent repair shops should have the same software,
Speaker 1: diagnostic diagnostic tools and all all the things that the
Speaker 1: parts the documentation that authorized shops have. That's the main
Speaker 1: thing here. And then the people on the other side
Speaker 1: say that it could be dangerous, Like you know, you
Speaker 1: replace your own battery and you know some guy down
Speaker 1: the street does it for you, and you don't know
Speaker 1: what the quality of their work is and there could
Speaker 1: be a major problem and your phone could explode in
Speaker 1: your pocket. So I do see that side of it,
Speaker 1: and I do worry about that stuff with an unauthorized person.
Speaker 1: But you know there are some smart people out there.
Speaker 1: I did a story many many years ago with a
Speaker 1: guy that was called the the iPod Repair Surgeon, and
Speaker 1: he was out of his garage in I forget where
Speaker 1: he was somewhere in LA. And this guy had a
Speaker 1: line down the street for people to repair their iPods
Speaker 1: and he had a fantastic business. And I don't think
Speaker 1: he was an authorized repair and I'm pretty sure people
Speaker 1: were very very happy with the repairs that he did
Speaker 1: on their products. So Joe Kempy was his name. It's
Speaker 1: still around. I just don't think he's doing those repairs anymore.
Speaker 1: But he had a great business, the iPods Surgeon. He
Speaker 1: told me that I put him on the map with
Speaker 1: my story I did with him at KKEL nine News.
Speaker 1: This is yeah, we're going way back. But him and
Speaker 1: I kept in touch for many years. He was such
Speaker 1: a great guy, really, just such a cool little business.
Speaker 1: He ran out of his place for that. Darryl says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I have a question. I have an iPhone ten R.
Speaker 1: I've been on the Sprint network. They're switching to Tea Mobile.
Speaker 1: They sent me a new SIM. They told me to
Speaker 1: back up my old voicemails before I install it. I
Speaker 1: have some voicemails I'd like to keep, but too many
Speaker 1: to individually sent. My question is would my voicemails be
Speaker 1: saved on the SIM card? Can I retrieve them later?
Speaker 1: Is there an easy way to save those voicemails? I
Speaker 1: love your shows, your podcasts, and your sign copy of
Speaker 1: your book. Thanks for helping make us help make sense
Speaker 1: of our electronics. Daryl. Thank you, Daryl. I appreciate the
Speaker 1: kind words. No, you cannot. The voicemails are not saved
Speaker 1: on the SIM. In fact, when you switch your SIM
Speaker 1: to that new Team Mobile one, you are gonna lose
Speaker 1: all of those voicemails that were saved on the Sprint network.
Speaker 1: So what you need to do is save those voicemails,
Speaker 1: do not lose them. You can go on the iPhone
Speaker 1: and you say, yeah, iPhone, ten rs. You've got an iPhone.
Speaker 1: On the iPhone, you can save the voicemails by going
Speaker 1: into your voicemail and there's a little share button and
Speaker 1: when you go share, when you click on a voicemail,
Speaker 1: just save that voicemail. Just download it basically, and I
Speaker 1: would save it to something like Google Drive. You can
Speaker 1: save it to Dropbox, you can save it to iCloud drive,
Speaker 1: whatever you do, or files. Just save it somewhere. You
Speaker 1: can email it to yourself, email the audio. They're usually
Speaker 1: tiny files. But once you finish that, once you switch
Speaker 1: that sim those voicemails are gone. I get so many
Speaker 1: emails from people that say, rich, I had a loved
Speaker 1: one on my voicemail that left me a voicemail and
Speaker 1: they passed away, and is there a way I could
Speaker 1: retrieve their voicemail? I deleted it. No, you cannot, and
Speaker 1: it's really really sad. So at the very least, if
Speaker 1: you cannot figure out any way. If you have an Android,
Speaker 1: you know there might be some programs that can help
Speaker 1: you save those voicemails, but they don't have the same
Speaker 1: like save functionality as the as the iPhone. The ease
Speaker 1: of use but just play the play the voicemail out
Speaker 1: loud and ask a friend to record it on the
Speaker 1: voice recorder on their phone and email it to you.
Speaker 1: No matter what, get these things off your phone. If
Speaker 1: you have a headphone jack, you can connect that to
Speaker 1: your computer's headphone jack and use the record program to
Speaker 1: just record those. Uh. There's many ways of doing this.
Speaker 1: Plug it into your iPhone or your iPod. Plug your
Speaker 1: your Android into a friend's sorry iPad and use the
Speaker 1: recorder app to record if the iPad has a headphone jack,
Speaker 1: which they typically do. No matter what, just use a
Speaker 1: little recorder app or save these things from your iPhone.
Speaker 1: If you have an important voicemail, save it. That is
Speaker 1: the only way you can keep it. Uh. Finally, one
Speaker 1: more tip Tony. I know Tony. He is a fan
Speaker 1: of the podcast. He's often tweeting me, So Tony, thanks
Speaker 1: for your uh your tweets, your emails and listening to
Speaker 1: the podcast. He sent in a tech tip for blocking spam.
Speaker 1: We talked about sam spam calls last week. He says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I have a number which has an area code in
Speaker 1: another state. That way, if I ever get a call
Speaker 1: from the area code, it is almost always a spam call,
Speaker 1: and that is great advice. I never thought about doing that.
Speaker 1: But my phone number is similar. It's an LA phone number,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely not exactly where I live, but it's
Speaker 1: it's close. So yeah, good, good, good. I don't know
Speaker 1: what I was gonna say. It's getting towards the end
Speaker 1: of the podcast, so I was gonna say, good tip.
Speaker 1: But one more thing I did want to mention. Google
Speaker 1: is simplifying its backup system on Android. Hallelujah. This is
Speaker 1: from Will Saddleberg on Android Police, and basically they are
Speaker 1: I guess they're first reporting nine to five's report that
Speaker 1: the Google one app is finally getting a little bit
Speaker 1: more user friendly and they're gonna make it easier to
Speaker 1: see the apps, the photos, the videos, the SMS messages,
Speaker 1: your call history, and device settings that are on this app.
Speaker 1: So with Google, the backup has always been really weird.
Speaker 1: It's gotten a lot better in recent years where you
Speaker 1: can actually restore a phone. But iPhone is kind of
Speaker 1: the king of this. But definitely I would say one
Speaker 1: plus push the envelope. Samsung with smart Switch, and now
Speaker 1: Google with Google One, they've definitely all gotten a lot better.
Speaker 1: And about switching from one Android to another about bringing
Speaker 1: pretty much almost all of your settings and apps and
Speaker 1: whatever you need your text messages from one device to another.
Speaker 1: But anyway, they're making it a little bit clearer by
Speaker 1: putting it all in this Google one app, which I
Speaker 1: think will be a lot clearer to most people. So
Speaker 1: I'm very happy about that. Oh no, that sounds you
Speaker 1: know what it means. It means. That is the end
Speaker 1: of the show. Thanks so much for listening to this episode.
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Speaker 1: a question for me to answer, Oh, I've got a
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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways
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Speaker 1: appreciate you spending it with me. Stay safe, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: talk to you real soon. Bye.