Speaker 1: Microsoft puts Windows in the cloud, Twitter says goodbye to fleets.
Speaker 1: There's a new wake word for Echo devices. Plus your
Speaker 1: tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and
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. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. Welcome to the show. Welcome to my
Speaker 1: friends listening on Facebook from all over the world. I've
Speaker 1: been loving this Facebook spaces thing, and right now I'm
Speaker 1: just using it to sort of broadcast my podcast as
Speaker 1: I do it. But believe me, my plan and I
Speaker 1: just realized you can actually schedule a spaces is to
Speaker 1: schedule a space each week where you know what time
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen, when to tune in, and you can
Speaker 1: come with your questions and I will answer them live.
Speaker 1: But for right now, thanks for tuning in, Thanks for
Speaker 1: sending those stars. I do appreciate it. And this is
Speaker 1: where I talk about all the good stuff of the week.
Speaker 1: I was off last week, so thanks for tuned in.
Speaker 1: This week. I went to Las Vegas over the weekend
Speaker 1: and wow, Wow, Wow, what a fun trip. It was
Speaker 1: really really amazing. We ate, we drank, we played. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just so great. We went to this place
Speaker 1: called a Megamart, which I had no idea what it was,
Speaker 1: but I knew I was going to Las Vegas, and
Speaker 1: I happen to get a pitch for this like interactive exhibit.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you want to call it, but
Speaker 1: I didn't really know what it was all about, but
Speaker 1: I you know, they sent me the two tickets and
Speaker 1: I said, all right, let me check it out, and
Speaker 1: so we went there. Just thankfully I scheduled it for
Speaker 1: early in the day because this thing you can spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time here and I won't go into
Speaker 1: all of it, but it's kind of like an immersive
Speaker 1: interactive art experience. And thankfully we had a pr person
Speaker 1: to sort of lead us around, because if they would
Speaker 1: have just set me out in there, I would would
Speaker 1: not have known what to do. So on the surface,
Speaker 1: it's this really interesting grocery store where everything is just
Speaker 1: not exactly right, like all the names of the products
Speaker 1: and stuff, Like one of the names of the the
Speaker 1: cereals is like simply not spiders or something like that.
Speaker 1: And there's just all this stuff and the products are real,
Speaker 1: by the way, a lot of them. In fact, you
Speaker 1: can buy them apparently, so but once you go into
Speaker 1: this place, you realize there's like hidden passageways that bring
Speaker 1: you into the depths of the actual immersive exhibit and
Speaker 1: you could just sit there and explore It's there's like
Speaker 1: a whole storyline. There's lights, there's songs, there's like these
Speaker 1: immersive like sound rooms. There's slides. I went down the
Speaker 1: slide and it was a little rough on my back,
Speaker 1: pretty fast slide. There's like three of them, so be
Speaker 1: ready for that. It was just really really fun and
Speaker 1: interesting and they actually it took me a while to
Speaker 1: figure out because I didn't do the whole storyline thing, like,
Speaker 1: I didn't investigate it for myself. But when I interviewed
Speaker 1: the folks from Miao Wolf who makes Omegomart, I know
Speaker 1: these names are just wild. They explain the whole thing.
Speaker 1: So spoiler alert, I'm not going to tell you what
Speaker 1: it's all about, but I might do a YouTube video
Speaker 1: to like explain, because I feel like if I went
Speaker 1: through that whole thing and didn't know what it was
Speaker 1: all about, I'd want to know what it actually was, Like,
Speaker 1: what did I just experience? So it's at a place
Speaker 1: called Area fifteen in Las Vegas, off the strip that's
Speaker 1: kind of like a big adult playground. I say adult playground,
Speaker 1: but it's really kids are in there. There's ziplining, it's
Speaker 1: all black light, there's like a cool restaurant in there.
Speaker 1: So I was just unprepared for this whole experience, but
Speaker 1: it was it was amazing. And I also visited Resorts World,
Speaker 1: which is a new casino in Las Vegas, which has
Speaker 1: this giant like the whole building itself outside is like
Speaker 1: one giant billboard. It's like one of the biggest in
Speaker 1: the world. So that was really cool and it's funny.
Speaker 1: I came back. I didn't you know, it was just
Speaker 1: on vacation in Las Vegas. And when I came back,
Speaker 1: I had so much video that I had shot that
Speaker 1: I said, Oh, I'm doing a story for KTLA about
Speaker 1: all this stuff. So today on KTLA, I ended up
Speaker 1: putting all these little things together that I saw in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, including Omega mart and it was a very
Speaker 1: popular story. People were emailing me saying, Oh, I heard
Speaker 1: about this place. That's so cool. Ah, So anyway, lots
Speaker 1: of fun there. Definitely crowded there, but it was fun.
Speaker 1: We had we ate, Oh my gosh, we ate. I
Speaker 1: listened to I've talked about it before Bobby Flay's podcast
Speaker 1: Always Hungry with his daughter Sophie, and so we ended
Speaker 1: up going to Bobby Flay's new restaurant, Amalfie. So thanks
Speaker 1: Sophie for getting us in there, by the way, and
Speaker 1: we got the best treatment. Oh my gosh. We had
Speaker 1: such a great dinner at a Malfie. If you go
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas, you have to go. It was just phenomenal.
Speaker 1: They gave us the best table in the house. I'll
Speaker 1: just be honest, because they just did, and it was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: The people were coming up to us. We ordered like
Speaker 1: such great things. You know, my wife and I like
Speaker 1: to split everything, so you know, we just it was
Speaker 1: so great. Such a The restaurant basically has like a
Speaker 1: what amounts to like an Italian fish market. Inside. You
Speaker 1: walk over, you take a look at all the fresh fish,
Speaker 1: and then you end up ordering one of those fish
Speaker 1: and they make it to your suiting and we're sort
Speaker 1: of whimps. So we didn't get it like fully, you know,
Speaker 1: like a fish on your plate like we got it
Speaker 1: fill aid, but it was it was so good. We
Speaker 1: also went to Giada's restaurant, which was awesome, and then
Speaker 1: we also went to this place called Bavetts, which is
Speaker 1: a really cool, like nineteen twenties French style speakeasy steakhouse.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it was just ah, it was so fun. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's enough about my talk about Las Vegas. You want
Speaker 1: to know more, just tweet me or social media me.
Speaker 1: But let's start with the first story of the week.
Speaker 1: This is a big, big shift in the way that
Speaker 1: we use computers, and I think Microsoft is probably kicking
Speaker 1: itself for not having launched this a year ago, but
Speaker 1: nonetheless it will forever change the way we compute. It's
Speaker 1: it's Windows three sixty five Cloud PC. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the dream of being able to run a
Speaker 1: computer in the cloud on any platform is now available. Well,
Speaker 1: it's going to be available August second. And it's the
Speaker 1: idea of this cloud PC, which we've heard about for
Speaker 1: so long, but it's never really happened, and it's probably
Speaker 1: happened in different ways. In fact, you know, if you
Speaker 1: think about it for my entire year and a half
Speaker 1: at home, I was remoting in from my Mac computer
Speaker 1: to my Windows computer at work, and for all intents
Speaker 1: and purposes, I was using a cloud PC. Everything I
Speaker 1: was doing on there was happening at my workstation at work.
Speaker 1: But I was using my Mac and I was using
Speaker 1: not a web browser. I was using you know, Microsoft,
Speaker 1: what do they call it? Remote Remote Access? I think
Speaker 1: it's called I don't even know where it is. Where
Speaker 1: is it? It's called Microsoft Remote Desktop. And that's a
Speaker 1: program that I have to install. But with this, you'll
Speaker 1: actually be able to just open up a web browser
Speaker 1: and log into a virtual PC that doesn't exist anywhere.
Speaker 1: It only exists on the cloud. And what's really neat
Speaker 1: about this is that you can use any computer you want.
Speaker 1: You can use a smartphone, you can use a web
Speaker 1: browser on your Mac, you can use a web browser
Speaker 1: on a PC. You can use a web browser at
Speaker 1: the hotel computer if you ever decided to do that,
Speaker 1: which I would never ever do, because the one thing
Speaker 1: that the hotel or the security expert at Chrome at
Speaker 1: Google told me when I interviewed her is she said
Speaker 1: she would never ever use a public shared computer at
Speaker 1: a hotel. Now, this is actually an example of why
Speaker 1: this could change that because think about it, if you
Speaker 1: just logged into a PC in the cloud, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: really have to worry about security because all the security
Speaker 1: is handled on the cloud. I mean, it's really really phenomenal.
Speaker 1: So Windows ten, Windows eleven will be on this instant
Speaker 1: boot up. All your applications, all your tools, all your
Speaker 1: settings are consistent no matter what, and so you can
Speaker 1: get your work done on an iPad, you can do
Speaker 1: it on a computer. You just move through any computer
Speaker 1: that you have access to with a keyboard and a
Speaker 1: mouse or not. Even you can sit down to the
Speaker 1: same exact desktop. If I feel like I'm under selling this,
Speaker 1: I think i am. Because this is such a huge
Speaker 1: shift in the way that we use computers. You no
Speaker 1: longer need to update your computer with all these software
Speaker 1: things and all this like Microsoft's gonna handle all that
Speaker 1: for you. On the back end. You don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about the amount of RAM on your computer because
Speaker 1: your computer is going to be so fast because it's
Speaker 1: actually just streaming the computer experience. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: basically how Netflix works the same no matter what device
Speaker 1: you access it on. Now we can think about Windows
Speaker 1: being the same. You don't really, it doesn't matter like
Speaker 1: Netflix works the same whether you use it on a
Speaker 1: Roku or on an iPad or anywhere you use it.
Speaker 1: Part of the magic is how or Amazon are sorry
Speaker 1: getting ahead of myself, how Netflix has optimized that to
Speaker 1: work so well everywhere. So August second, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: that's when this is going to be available. It's mainly
Speaker 1: based at organizations, but you know, anyone can use this,
Speaker 1: and I think that we are in for a real
Speaker 1: treat when it comes to the future of computing. And
Speaker 1: I cannot wait to try this out. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get to the first question. Uh, Zora Aida Da Zora
Speaker 1: Aida says, Hey, Rich, glad to see you back on
Speaker 1: the set at KTLA. Yes, that was exciting. Thank you
Speaker 1: for always enlightening us with your tech wisdom. Question for you.
Speaker 1: We have older cars with no Bluetooth, but it has
Speaker 1: an oxport. I just noticed some ox to Bluetooth adapters
Speaker 1: on the market and was wondering if you can recommend one. Again,
Speaker 1: I appreciate your insight and thanks for answering my question.
Speaker 1: Zor Aida. Uh, well, I'm actually gonna defer to my
Speaker 1: pal Brian Tongue on this one. When we did a
Speaker 1: segment with him over the holidays, he recommended a ox
Speaker 1: Bluetooth adapter that he uses on the plane by twelve South.
Speaker 1: It's called Airfly, and that is the one that I'd
Speaker 1: recommend because that's a great you know, if he's recommending it,
Speaker 1: it's got to be good. And since he recommended it,
Speaker 1: I have seen this at places like Amazon Store. I've
Speaker 1: seen other people recommend it, and it's just kind of
Speaker 1: like a standard, like a gold standard of like this
Speaker 1: what you what you're talking about? So you can connect.
Speaker 1: You can use it as an ox in adapter for
Speaker 1: your car, your boat, or your non Bluetooth speaker. It's
Speaker 1: got sixteen hours of battery life, which is really nice,
Speaker 1: and it's forty five dollars, so I think that's gonna
Speaker 1: be a great way to do it. You could also
Speaker 1: connect two pairs of headphones if you want to use
Speaker 1: it the other way, like if you wanted to transmit
Speaker 1: from a device, But Airfly duo I think is the
Speaker 1: way to do it. They have one, two, three, four different,
Speaker 1: four different ones of these ones of these four different,
Speaker 1: so the classic might be the best one to go.
Speaker 1: It's only thirty so just see what you need, see
Speaker 1: which one suit you. But that's what i'd recommend. And
Speaker 1: the other thing is if you if your phone, and
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you have a newer phone that does not
Speaker 1: have a headphone jack, but if you have a headphone
Speaker 1: jack on your phone, that's the easiest way to connect
Speaker 1: it to your car. I know it's not wireless, but
Speaker 1: you're gonna get the best sound quality if you just
Speaker 1: connected that way. So good question and a good question
Speaker 1: to start things off with. All right, let's talk about fleets.
Speaker 1: This is something that Twitter introduced just about eight months
Speaker 1: ago and guess what it's going away? So Twitter Fleets
Speaker 1: is was Twitter's answer to stories that everyone else has,
Speaker 1: and stories are, you know, these little things that have
Speaker 1: become very popular. It's kind of like if you think
Speaker 1: about Snapchat back in the day, like they invented it,
Speaker 1: Instagram took it, ran with it, and now everyone has
Speaker 1: a version of stories, you know, like all these apps.
Speaker 1: Facebook has it, Instagram has it, Snapchat has it. It's
Speaker 1: just it's kind of like an ephemeral expiring post usually
Speaker 1: sixteen by nine vertical, and Twitter introduced it, but I
Speaker 1: was always kind of it was kind of a head
Speaker 1: scratcher to me because to me, Twitter at its core
Speaker 1: is already ephemeral and even though tweets don't expire like
Speaker 1: stories do, to me, when you tweet something, there's a life,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a shelf life on it. It doesn't
Speaker 1: last forever, and it does, and yes, they can come
Speaker 1: back to haunt you, but and so could a story.
Speaker 1: But to me, Twitter was always kind of like a
Speaker 1: in the moment kind of thing where you tweet and
Speaker 1: it goes, and you know, people forget about it until
Speaker 1: they need to until they need to remember about it.
Speaker 1: So fleets are going away on August third. Fleets were
Speaker 1: meant to be a lower barrier of entry for conversations.
Speaker 1: Twitter thought that more people would use them because they
Speaker 1: did expire and it might feel like it wasn't as
Speaker 1: much pressure as like a well crafted tweet. But guess what,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. But here is what is going to happen.
Speaker 1: Twitter is not going to get rid of the fleet composer,
Speaker 1: so they will continue to build that into the Twitter composer,
Speaker 1: so there'll be the text formatting options and stickers. So
Speaker 1: I think what they realize is that just build this
Speaker 1: into Twitter, and it's the same thing. People are gonna
Speaker 1: use these cool ways of making tweets. That's the thing
Speaker 1: that the Twitter composer doesn't have right now, a way
Speaker 1: to like, you know, type in you know, fun text
Speaker 1: or affect pictures and this and that. They're small ways.
Speaker 1: But now they're gonna make it basically the idea of
Speaker 1: a story into a tweet. Now what's gonna happen to
Speaker 1: the top of the timeline. They're gonna put their spaces
Speaker 1: product there. And you might be saying, rich, aren't you
Speaker 1: using a spaces like product right now? Yes, I am,
Speaker 1: but I'm using it on Facebook. And I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: the reason why I like it on Facebook versus Twitter
Speaker 1: is because my audience is on Facebook. Yes, I've got
Speaker 1: a small audience on Twitter, but my Facebook audience is
Speaker 1: much larger and I can reach many more people. And honestly,
Speaker 1: the type of people that I reach the most, which
Speaker 1: is your average everyday person and is on Facebook and
Speaker 1: Twitter is a little bit more of a little bit
Speaker 1: more of a techie because to be on Twitter you
Speaker 1: have to be a little bit more involved in kind
Speaker 1: of I don't know, like you have to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more technical, like Facebook is kind of for
Speaker 1: the every person. And Twitter. If you're on there and
Speaker 1: you're especially using it a lot, you're either in media,
Speaker 1: you're in tech. You're definitely it's a little bit different
Speaker 1: than the Facebook audience, and for me, my audience is
Speaker 1: much more on Facebook. So that's why I'm using the
Speaker 1: Facebook Audio Rooms thing, which is very similar. Anyway, fleets
Speaker 1: did not last very long. There's a million and one
Speaker 1: jokes there about them not lasting long, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to make them. I'm just going to go into
Speaker 1: my next question. All right, Carrie says need some advice.
Speaker 1: What would be the best hot spot to buy when
Speaker 1: working on the road or traveling? Can you buy a
Speaker 1: hot spot that you can hardwire to your laptop. I
Speaker 1: want to do some traveling, but need to make sure
Speaker 1: I have a good connection. Thanks in advance for all
Speaker 1: your help To answer your question, Carrie, I don't think
Speaker 1: that you need a hardwired hot spot. I've traveled around
Speaker 1: the world with my wireless hotspots and somehow I've been
Speaker 1: able to manage just fine. So and I do a
Speaker 1: lot of video stuff, I do a lot of social media,
Speaker 1: and the types of stuff that I'm doing does require
Speaker 1: big files, usually streaming. So I don't think that you
Speaker 1: need to hard wire now if you want to, you can,
Speaker 1: And I think that number one, you don't necessarily need
Speaker 1: a dedicated hot spot. Now, there are reasons to have those,
Speaker 1: and the reasons for those, and the reasons why I
Speaker 1: like a dedicated hot spot is you plug it in
Speaker 1: and it is a nice dedicated Wi Fi network wherever
Speaker 1: you are. So whether you're in the car, or whether
Speaker 1: you're in a hotel room or at an event, it's
Speaker 1: just kind of a nice solid connection that is different
Speaker 1: from your smartphone. And so for that reason, it's nice
Speaker 1: to just get into a hotel room, plug in your hotspot,
Speaker 1: your computer and your device is recognize it and it
Speaker 1: just sits there the whole weekend or you know whatever,
Speaker 1: however long you're in that hotel room. Same thing. If
Speaker 1: you're in a car, you're on a you know, let's
Speaker 1: say you're on a road trip, you plug in the
Speaker 1: hot spot using you know, the auxport whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: the power adapter, and now you have just a hot
Speaker 1: spot that's always powered, it's always ready to go, and
Speaker 1: a bunch of people in your car can connect to it,
Speaker 1: and if someone else is driving like my wife and
Speaker 1: I will sometimes you know, she'll drive for an hour
Speaker 1: so I can catch up on social media. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's the reality of our road trips at this point.
Speaker 1: But when I'm on my road trips, I get a
Speaker 1: lot of good stuff for social media. So if you
Speaker 1: want to do a hardwired thing, you can actually connect
Speaker 1: the iPhone to your computer via a hardwired connection. I
Speaker 1: believe it's been a while, but I think it's just
Speaker 1: a tethered connection to your iPhone. I have not done
Speaker 1: that in a long time, but I think there's an
Speaker 1: option to do that in your personal hotspot. But I
Speaker 1: would just use the personal hotspot feature on your iPhone
Speaker 1: or your your smartphone. If it gets to be where
Speaker 1: it just doesn't work, then I would look into something else.
Speaker 1: But uh, and then if you're going to get a
Speaker 1: dedicated hot spot, I would just get one from your carrier.
Speaker 1: That's gonna be the easiest to do because you know,
Speaker 1: you'll just it'll just be the same connection. If you
Speaker 1: really want to take things to the next level, if
Speaker 1: you really need a good connection, I would go with
Speaker 1: the carrier that's opposite of your cell phone carrier. So
Speaker 1: that way Let's just say, for example, you have AT
Speaker 1: and T as your cell phone, maybe get a Verizon
Speaker 1: hot spot and that way you are covered in a
Speaker 1: much bigger way when you're traveling versus just being narrowed
Speaker 1: down to one network. So take your pick. You know,
Speaker 1: you can go tea Mobile. There's also a hot spot
Speaker 1: that's unlocked. If you search ZT hotspot. You can buy
Speaker 1: an unlocked hot spot and just pop in a SIM
Speaker 1: card and use it that way. So it really just depends.
Speaker 1: There's so many ways of doing this that you know,
Speaker 1: there's not not one size fits all, but those are
Speaker 1: those are sort of the big options that I think
Speaker 1: would work for most people. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the next story. This is a story I did on
Speaker 1: KTLA that of course blew up. I got so many
Speaker 1: messages about this. This is a startup called Villo and
Speaker 1: they came out with a sixty dollars whole house mesh
Speaker 1: Wi Fi system. And I hope I didn't do this
Speaker 1: already in the podcast, but this is you know, if
Speaker 1: you look at one of these mesh networking systems, they're expensive.
Speaker 1: You know, I have one from Ero, Google Wi Fi
Speaker 1: is another one Neckgear Orb there's a whole bunch of them.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is they are very expensive, especially
Speaker 1: if you want to get the Wi Fi six like
Speaker 1: the newer versions like the one I bought retails for
Speaker 1: six hundred bucks. I got it for cheaper since I
Speaker 1: bought it on Prime Day, but it or maybe was
Speaker 1: it near Prime Day whatever, I didn't pay that much
Speaker 1: for it, but it was definitely expensive. So Villo, When
Speaker 1: you know they pitched me on this sixty dollars system,
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, well you got my interest, but
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that it worked, and I
Speaker 1: have to say I was very impressed with it. Sixty bucks.
Speaker 1: You plug it into your router and you set it
Speaker 1: up the first one using the app, and then you
Speaker 1: set up the second one and the third one by
Speaker 1: putting them in different places around your house. But they
Speaker 1: just find each other, which I thought was really cool.
Speaker 1: So that was a nice spin on the whole mesh network,
Speaker 1: which usually takes a little setting up. This one. You
Speaker 1: just plug them in and boom, it's all set up.
Speaker 1: The signal was great. I found the signal throughout the house.
Speaker 1: I set it up at the same time as my ero,
Speaker 1: so I didn't want to interrupt my ero. But if
Speaker 1: you want to switch to a new Wi Fi network,
Speaker 1: you know, just use the same network and password name,
Speaker 1: network name and password and all your gadgets will follow over.
Speaker 1: They will find the new network, and so you know,
Speaker 1: the reality is is this as good as the super
Speaker 1: expensive systems? I thought it's I think for ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of people, this is going to be just fine.
Speaker 1: Was my euro a little bit faster? Probably? But is it,
Speaker 1: you know, ten times the price faster? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: I thought that the app was really nice. There was
Speaker 1: like three software updates, well I should say, I would
Speaker 1: say firmware updates for the system in the time I had.
Speaker 1: I was using it for a couple of weeks, so
Speaker 1: that goes to show me that the company's always trying
Speaker 1: to make this thing better. The speeds were great, and
Speaker 1: I think that if you're looking to upgrade the system
Speaker 1: or the Wi Fi signal that typically is included with
Speaker 1: your cable modem, then yes, this is a great way
Speaker 1: to do that. Now, I got a lot of questions
Speaker 1: and it made me realize that people don't really understand
Speaker 1: these systems. So a mesh network does not replace your
Speaker 1: Internet connection. You still need to subscribe to a spectrum
Speaker 1: or a FiOS or an AT and T fiber or
Speaker 1: a Comcast. What this does is it plugs into the
Speaker 1: modem or the box that your cable company or your
Speaker 1: internet service brider gives you, and then this controls the
Speaker 1: Wi Fi signal. And so what you would do is
Speaker 1: you would disable the Wi Fi signal that's emanated from
Speaker 1: the box that your company provides you, and you would
Speaker 1: use this as your Wi Fi signal. So that's the
Speaker 1: big thing that a lot of people did not understand.
Speaker 1: And another thing I like about this Villo system is
Speaker 1: that not only is it inexpensive, but there are Ethernet
Speaker 1: ports on the back, which a lot of these systems
Speaker 1: don't have. So you get it looks like up to
Speaker 1: three Ethernet ports on the back, which is really cool.
Speaker 1: I don't know if all three of them are usable
Speaker 1: on all of them, but at least two are I
Speaker 1: know that for a fact, so that's also kind of cool.
Speaker 1: A sixty dollars three pack covers a forty five hundred
Speaker 1: square foot home. I think those numbers are always a
Speaker 1: bit inflated. I think if you have a forty five
Speaker 1: hundred square foot home. Well, number one, good for you.
Speaker 1: Number two I'd probably get another one of these, depending
Speaker 1: on the coverage. But it all depends on the coverage
Speaker 1: you get. In my place, it's not that big, but
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's an older place, so the walls
Speaker 1: are thick whatever, and it's just like Internet does not
Speaker 1: like to go through the walls here. So for me,
Speaker 1: I use a three system and I do not have
Speaker 1: a forty five square foot home full disclosure, and the
Speaker 1: three seems to work for me. That's it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would take a look at this review. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put show notes in the shows. I got an email
Speaker 1: from a viewer or a listener rather and they said, Rich,
Speaker 1: you know, I love the show, but you're killing me.
Speaker 1: Smalls said, you're killing me by not having the show
Speaker 1: notes anymore. And I said, all right, I agree. Like
Speaker 1: I'm doing a show that's purportedly for the average tech
Speaker 1: person and I don't include links in my show notes.
Speaker 1: Like that's that's a big. Uh, that's a big on
Speaker 1: my part. So I'm going to bring back the show notes.
Speaker 1: If you've been missing them, look in the show notes,
Speaker 1: because I do talk about a lot of stuff that's
Speaker 1: that's quite useful and interesting, and I definitely need the
Speaker 1: show notes to go along with them. So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: the Villo router. I'll put it in the show notes,
Speaker 1: So look for it, and if you have any questions
Speaker 1: about it, let me know. All right, D says or
Speaker 1: Denise says. Thanks for all your good tips. You've helped
Speaker 1: me out a lot. Right now, I'm trying to guess
Speaker 1: when Apple will release the iPad twenty twenty one, not
Speaker 1: the pro. I want a Wi Fi plus cellular. I'll
Speaker 1: probably get an eighth generation if it's too long for
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty one. I can't find any links or
Speaker 1: any leaks. I trust to see when it will happen.
Speaker 1: Do you have a good guess? Also, what do you
Speaker 1: think of the mini versus the regular? I'd probably use
Speaker 1: the device on cellular when I go out of the house.
Speaker 1: I don't trust public Wi Fi. The size is tempting.
Speaker 1: I trust you. Can you please advise? Thank you Denise
Speaker 1: for trusting me. Number one, the regular iPad typically comes
Speaker 1: out in October, so that's when historically comes out. But
Speaker 1: don't take my word for it. There's a place that
Speaker 1: I look and it's called Buyer's Guide dot MacRumors dot com,
Speaker 1: and what they do is they have every single iPad
Speaker 1: cataloged and it will tell you exactly when the last
Speaker 1: one came out. So to answer your question about the
Speaker 1: standard iPad, if you tup, if you look at the
Speaker 1: iPad right now, it's neutral. It's been three hundred and
Speaker 1: four days since they last released one, and the typical
Speaker 1: release cycle is five hundred and seventy nine days, which
Speaker 1: leads me to believe that we're not going to see
Speaker 1: another one for another three hundred days. So now it
Speaker 1: just sort of depends with the iPad. So I would say,
Speaker 1: right now they're recommending a neutral, which means you could
Speaker 1: buy it and take a chance, or you can just wait.
Speaker 1: So I personally would just I'd probably just get it
Speaker 1: because I feel like it's been I feel like the
Speaker 1: one that they have right now is just fine, or
Speaker 1: you can wait, you know, you can wait for a
Speaker 1: little bit longer. Now. With respect to the Mini, that
Speaker 1: is a whole different beast. The Mini they always seem
Speaker 1: to give up on, and the average for the Mini
Speaker 1: is about five hundred days. Right now, it's been eight
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty one day since the last release, so
Speaker 1: it has been a long time. I believe I bought
Speaker 1: my kids the last iPad Mini and it was a
Speaker 1: long time ago, so actually it might have been the
Speaker 1: one before this. So with the mini, definitely don't buy,
Speaker 1: and you can wait for a new one. I would
Speaker 1: hope that they would come out with a new one
Speaker 1: because I think that is a perfect size. But again
Speaker 1: it's it's really I would not get the current one,
Speaker 1: and you can wait for a new one, but there's
Speaker 1: no guarantee that the new one's going to be there.
Speaker 1: So bottom line, check out buyers Guide dot MacRumors dot
Speaker 1: com for your true insight. But you have to decide
Speaker 1: with respect to the whole cellular situation. I think you're
Speaker 1: right in not trusting public Wi Fi, But to be
Speaker 1: totally honest, I think it's fine. I mean, you're unless
Speaker 1: you're connecting to really sketchy Wi Fi networks. Most of
Speaker 1: the Wi Fi these days is pretty well locked down.
Speaker 1: I think you'll be just fine on it if you're
Speaker 1: you know, using Hotel Wi Fi, Starbucks WiFi, whatever, Especially
Speaker 1: on an iPad. I mean, iPad is not a computer.
Speaker 1: Even if someone were to get into your iPad, there's
Speaker 1: almost nothing they can do. And yes they can deliver malware,
Speaker 1: but it would be it would have to be a
Speaker 1: pretty big hack for them to ruin your iPad if
Speaker 1: you're just like a casual person connecting to you know,
Speaker 1: trusted public networks, And yes, there's always a chance. And
Speaker 1: I think it's good that you're you're being critical of
Speaker 1: these networks, and I think that's very smart. But I
Speaker 1: think you'll be okay for the most part. But with
Speaker 1: that said, if you have the money to go cellular
Speaker 1: and you like the this security of cellular, yeah go
Speaker 1: cellular for sure. I always prefer cellular over Wi Fi
Speaker 1: when possible, and so that is definitely something I'm not
Speaker 1: going to not recommend. But I think if in general,
Speaker 1: you're probably going to be safe a majority of the time.
Speaker 1: All Right, speaking of security and encryption, RING is now
Speaker 1: giving end to end encryption to everyone. I believe this
Speaker 1: was something they had a while ago, but I guess
Speaker 1: maybe I never really covered it. But the reason I
Speaker 1: would look the end to end encryption thing is great.
Speaker 1: So what Ring, What that means is that no one
Speaker 1: can see your video, not even RING, not even anyone
Speaker 1: like It's it's really once you set this up. Your
Speaker 1: your video is pretty safe from your camera, like someone's
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to get in and hack it
Speaker 1: and view your videos now. By default, Ring says that
Speaker 1: they encrypt customer videos when they're uploaded to the cloud,
Speaker 1: which means in transit and when they're stored, and that's
Speaker 1: at rest. But you can now have opt into end
Speaker 1: to end encryption, which means only you can view the
Speaker 1: videos on your enrolled mobile device. And so you go
Speaker 1: into the control center in the Ring app and you
Speaker 1: can turn this on. Now. Once you turn this on,
Speaker 1: because it is such high security, you do lose a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of features. And some of those features include
Speaker 1: viewing it on an Echo device. So if you're used
Speaker 1: to viewing your your doorbell when someone rings it on
Speaker 1: your Echo device, that is not possible. There's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of other things that you lose as well. There
Speaker 1: is a web page that explains it all. This is
Speaker 1: a big deal, you know, if you're gonna, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna enable this, there's definitely some drawbacks. Now, if you
Speaker 1: have a battery powered video doorbell, it's a non starter.
Speaker 1: Those don't even support end to end encryption, and I
Speaker 1: believe the reason for that is probably because the battery
Speaker 1: this thing, it probably probably requires more power to do this,
Speaker 1: And so it looks like only the wired video doorbells
Speaker 1: and security cameras support this. So if you're doing strictly,
Speaker 1: you know, anything that is not wired, it's not going
Speaker 1: to work. So the any or sorry, anything battery powered
Speaker 1: is just not going to work. So if you go
Speaker 1: into your Ring app, you go into control center and
Speaker 1: you tab video Management, Advanced settings and to end encryption
Speaker 1: and got it, and that's it, and you have to
Speaker 1: enroll your mobile device. It's a whole big thing. So
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, this is it's you know,
Speaker 1: for some people it might be overkilled. For others, you
Speaker 1: might think it's the most secure way of using your camera.
Speaker 1: But if you're only using a wired device and maybe
Speaker 1: one smartphone, I'm unclear if you can use it with
Speaker 1: multiple smartphones, but if you're only using one, I would
Speaker 1: probably enable it, you know, for the most security, Like
Speaker 1: why not, there's no downside, doesn't cost you any extra,
Speaker 1: so I'd probably do it and you know, enjoy those
Speaker 1: benefits of feeling and had encryption is always going to
Speaker 1: be the most secure, No matter what you're using, whether
Speaker 1: it's messaging, whether it's a video product, whether it's you
Speaker 1: know anything, all right, Next question from Kim. She says,
Speaker 1: quick tech question. We live on a very social street
Speaker 1: and we've had a group text going over the past
Speaker 1: couple of years. COVID pushed a lot of people here
Speaker 1: working from home. More new homes are being built and
Speaker 1: more people are moving to our street. Needless to say,
Speaker 1: our text group has maxed out, so we consider going
Speaker 1: to WhatsApp. Are there any other user friendly group text
Speaker 1: apps that we should consider having everyone use? Let me
Speaker 1: know your thoughts. We have one person who acts as
Speaker 1: our admit I Straighter and they add and delete names
Speaker 1: and phone numbers as needed. Thanks in advance, Kim. Uh. Kim, Well,
Speaker 1: I would WhatsApp is a good option. I mean, so
Speaker 1: what you're saying is you have a bunch of people
Speaker 1: in your in your neighborhood on a private group text chat.
Speaker 1: So that's good and I think that's a great thing
Speaker 1: to do. Uh. The app that I'd recommend, WhatsApp is fine,
Speaker 1: but some here's the problem when you start like shopping apps.
Speaker 1: Everyone has a problem with every app. If if you
Speaker 1: talk about signal way too secure. It's like overkill. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's end to end encrypted and it's like super secure,
Speaker 1: but like getting everyone on that is gonna be kind
Speaker 1: of tough, and basically it would be a lesson in
Speaker 1: just convincing people to do it. So that's that's out.
Speaker 1: Facebook Messenger. Yeah, everyone has Facebook, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't and they feel like Facebook is you know,
Speaker 1: for some reason or not, they don't like it. So
Speaker 1: Facebook messengers out. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, and of
Speaker 1: course they had that big thing with all the chain
Speaker 1: in their privacy policy, so people got a little skittish
Speaker 1: around Facebook or WhatsApp Messenger, so they don't want to
Speaker 1: use that. So the one that I would recommend is
Speaker 1: is Telegram, and that's what I use for my big
Speaker 1: group text chatting, and it has been great. I got
Speaker 1: my entire family on board and we've been using it
Speaker 1: for a couple of years now and it's fantastic. Now
Speaker 1: the rest of the world has seemed in the meantime
Speaker 1: to discover Telegram, and so I see every single day
Speaker 1: people signing up for it and I get a new
Speaker 1: a message, Oh you you know your friend, this person,
Speaker 1: this person, anyone in my address book has signed up
Speaker 1: for Telegram, and so clearly people like it. It's easy.
Speaker 1: I think it has all the features that you need.
Speaker 1: You can add people, you can delete people. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like and if you're asking me, Rich, why not
Speaker 1: just recommend I Message? Well, I Message doesn't work across platforms,
Speaker 1: so there's gonna be a lot of people left out
Speaker 1: if you use something like I Message. And that's why
Speaker 1: I always always prefer using a third party app over
Speaker 1: something like I Message, because I Message is easy, it's slick.
Speaker 1: I know you've got all your ie message groups going on,
Speaker 1: but personally, when I get into those groups, it makes
Speaker 1: me feel sad because I do not like things that
Speaker 1: are not cross platform because technology should work across everything,
Speaker 1: and in this world that we're building, a lot of
Speaker 1: the stuff is starting to work and only, uh, only
Speaker 1: this works with this, and only that works with that,
Speaker 1: and only That's not the way tech was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Tech was supposed to be universal. And the more silos
Speaker 1: that you go down, the more one way streets that
Speaker 1: you go down. Yeah, everything works so nicely, but there's
Speaker 1: a price to be paid for that, and the price
Speaker 1: is that people are left out. And so just for example,
Speaker 1: I've got one group that's a group text on I
Speaker 1: message that you know, everyone is on iPhone and it
Speaker 1: works so beautifully. And then I've got another one where
Speaker 1: we've got a couple people that are on Android and
Speaker 1: it just doesn't work as nicely. When people like the message,
Speaker 1: it says Ranch liked your you know, whatever the message was,
Speaker 1: you know, like spell it out. And so that's why
Speaker 1: I like I love Telegram because it works the same
Speaker 1: no matter what device you're using. I don't have to
Speaker 1: ask my friends, oh, are you on Android or iPhone
Speaker 1: because it determines how this group is gonna work. No,
Speaker 1: you're on Telegram, You're on Telegram. Everything works the same.
Speaker 1: So long answer short, That's what I would recommend, Kim.
Speaker 1: I think that's the best way to do it. Oh,
Speaker 1: speaking of neighborhoods, Verizon has a new feature in their
Speaker 1: call filter app. If you're not using a call filter app,
Speaker 1: I highly recommend that you install it on your device.
Speaker 1: If you're on AT and T, there's this called call Protect.
Speaker 1: If you're on T Mobile, it's called scam Shield, and
Speaker 1: if you're on Verizon, it's called call Filter. Now, all
Speaker 1: three of these apps are free, but like any good
Speaker 1: carrier would do, they are gonna try to upsell you.
Speaker 1: They're gonna try to upsell you on a subscription, and
Speaker 1: I don't think you need it. It just adds more
Speaker 1: features that it's it's like, you just don't need to
Speaker 1: just go with the free app. You'll be fine. It'll
Speaker 1: help block calls, but once you install these apps, they
Speaker 1: will cut down on some of the spam calls. Now,
Speaker 1: with that said, there is one thing that's very very
Speaker 1: frustrating with spammers right or scam calls, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call them, and that is the neighborhood call. And
Speaker 1: the way that Verizon describes this is it's called called
Speaker 1: neighbor or neighborhood spoofing. They trick you into answering the
Speaker 1: call because these calls have the same area code and
Speaker 1: prefix as yours. Now, it's not coming from your neighbor's house.
Speaker 1: It's coming from some computer where they've just programmed it
Speaker 1: to say. Oh, if you're dialing Rich's number and he
Speaker 1: is three one oh five fivey five, make sure that
Speaker 1: when you dial, the outgoing number looks like three wine
Speaker 1: oh five fixy five one two one two, Because Rich
Speaker 1: is one, two, one three or whatever, right, so it
Speaker 1: makes you think. It just plays a trick on your mind.
Speaker 1: You're saying, oh, wow, this looks a lot like my
Speaker 1: phone number. I should probably answer it. And you answer
Speaker 1: it in nine times out of ten, it's nothing. It's bogus,
Speaker 1: it's a scammer, it's a call it's a scam artist. Whatever.
Speaker 1: So now Verizon, inside this app, there's a little toggle
Speaker 1: if you go to call management and other filters, all
Speaker 1: you have to do, okay, So you go to management
Speaker 1: section and then under the block filters app, just look
Speaker 1: for neighborhood filter. You turn it on and it will
Speaker 1: block the numbers that are similar to yours. And yes,
Speaker 1: if you have a significant other or a friend that
Speaker 1: lives nearby that you both have the same similar number,
Speaker 1: you want to make sure they're in your contacts to
Speaker 1: make sure that their phone number does ring your phone
Speaker 1: and they come through. But otherwise, this is a great feature.
Speaker 1: I turned it on on my phone, and you know,
Speaker 1: we'll say it seems to work. Just know that the
Speaker 1: more of these filters that you turn on, the more
Speaker 1: of these spam filters, the more of these unknown caller filters,
Speaker 1: the more of these apps that you install, the more
Speaker 1: calls that are going to go straight to voicemail. And
Speaker 1: so if you're like me and you like to answer
Speaker 1: a lot of random numbers, because I've got a lot
Speaker 1: of random people call me all the time because my
Speaker 1: phone number is sort of out there, got a lot
Speaker 1: of peer there are people that call me a lot.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm in the news business. People call me,
Speaker 1: you know, And so I do want to keep my
Speaker 1: number out there as much as possible because I don't
Speaker 1: I don't want to be unreachable. I mean, yes, I
Speaker 1: will not answer a lot of calls if I think
Speaker 1: the number's bogus, or I'll wait for it to you know,
Speaker 1: go to voicemail and then they'll text me whatever. But anyway,
Speaker 1: the more lines of defense you have, the more it's
Speaker 1: going to be tough for people to get a hold
Speaker 1: of you if there was ever sort of an emergency
Speaker 1: or a random number. Like I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1: So because I had this feature enabled the just the
Speaker 1: spam filters, I was getting an Uber the other day
Speaker 1: and the Uber driver kept trying to call and I
Speaker 1: think I told this story on the podcast last week,
Speaker 1: but whatever, but I couldn't the call didn't come through
Speaker 1: because it kept going right to voicemail because I was
Speaker 1: somehow that number was identified as a spam number and
Speaker 1: it just you know, kept getting blocked, so the driver
Speaker 1: was not able to get a hold of me. And
Speaker 1: you can't call back some of these numbers, like if
Speaker 1: an uber calls you, it's basically a one way number
Speaker 1: that they use to like call out, but you can't
Speaker 1: call that number back in. So just be aware of
Speaker 1: these limitations, and you know, make sure that your important
Speaker 1: contacts are in your address book and that should help
Speaker 1: with a lot, including things like doctors, dentists, all that
Speaker 1: good stuff. All right, let's get to the next question.
Speaker 1: Paula says, I recently saw a segment on selling back
Speaker 1: electronics and I can't find it. I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you could give me the name of that company. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of old iPads to sell back. Thank you, Paula. Well,
Speaker 1: the company is Gizmo Go. And I just had someone
Speaker 1: at work actually ask me about this company, local company
Speaker 1: in California. Where were they Chino, I believe, And I went.
Speaker 1: I visited them and I'd never heard of them before
Speaker 1: I did the story. So I wanted to check them out.
Speaker 1: Actually sent in my kids old iPad mini. I got
Speaker 1: eighty bucks for it. Went through the whole thing, and
Speaker 1: the cool thing is that this company pays you money
Speaker 1: even if your product is damaged. So for my kids iPad,
Speaker 1: for example, Apple was offering me thirty dollars and when
Speaker 1: I did gizmo gos estimate, it was eighty and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, that's really good. Fifty dollars more. Sure enough,
Speaker 1: I sent it in. They give you a one of
Speaker 1: these prepaid shipping labels. I had a box, you know,
Speaker 1: I get all this Amazon stuff, so I just put it,
Speaker 1: you know, in an old Amazon box, sent it off
Speaker 1: and a week later I had my eighty dollars via PayPal.
Speaker 1: So it worked really well. It's called gizmogo dot com.
Speaker 1: I'll put a link in the show notes, but I
Speaker 1: highly recommend them. Even if you don't get a lot
Speaker 1: for your stuff, you should definitely. You know, you can
Speaker 1: send them a box of like your old electronics that
Speaker 1: you no longer need, and they'll recycle them properly. Because
Speaker 1: you don't want to throw this stuff out, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: But gizmo go is the website, and you know, just
Speaker 1: give them a try. I mean, there's no you know,
Speaker 1: you don't have to just because if you if you
Speaker 1: get an estimate, doesn't mean you actually have to sell
Speaker 1: it to them. But definitely check it out if you
Speaker 1: need a box to leave and send you a box,
Speaker 1: which is also really really cool. So all right, let's
Speaker 1: move on to the next story. Amazon, you know what
Speaker 1: do you what do you call the A word? I
Speaker 1: don't even know because I don't want to say it
Speaker 1: on here because it activates way too many things. But
Speaker 1: do you now have two new voices that you can
Speaker 1: use instead of the standard Chalmolexa voice. So they have
Speaker 1: Samuel L. Jackson. I guess was on there at one point.
Speaker 1: I guess he's a top selling digital purchase on Amazon
Speaker 1: the day it launched. Wow, Well now they have two
Speaker 1: new celebrities, Melissa McCarthy and Shaquille O'Neal. And so now
Speaker 1: there's three. So you have Samuel L. Jackson, Melissa McCarthy,
Speaker 1: and Shaquille O'Neal. So if you want to switch your
Speaker 1: voice to these personalities, you have to pay five dollars,
Speaker 1: which you know that's kind of a lot, but maybe not.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's kind of cool. If you're a
Speaker 1: fan of these two folks, which why would you not be?
Speaker 1: You can pay five dollars and now they could be
Speaker 1: your your voice. This is happening right now, it's available.
Speaker 1: You can ask for the new voice several ways. You
Speaker 1: can say a word change your voice, and they'll give
Speaker 1: you the new options. But there's also a new wake
Speaker 1: word for you know who. And I thought this was
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. So I'm not sure if you know this,
Speaker 1: but you can change your They call it the wake word,
Speaker 1: you know the word that you say to trigger you
Speaker 1: know who. You can change that to computer, Echo, Amazon
Speaker 1: and as well as a Lexa. Oh is that going
Speaker 1: to activate it? But you can now select ziggy as well.
Speaker 1: So ziggy is a new word. So I was on
Speaker 1: Twitter kind of talking with a couple of folks and saying, well,
Speaker 1: what's the deal with ziggy? Like is there some pop
Speaker 1: culture reference that I don't know about? Like why is
Speaker 1: it ziggy? And I was talking with tech with Bratt.
Speaker 1: He runs a YouTube channel and he's cool. He does
Speaker 1: a lot of smart home stuff, and he was saying,
Speaker 1: I think it's just a word that a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't use. But then my pal Dave Malcoff, another reporter,
Speaker 1: was saying that it might be some reference to something,
Speaker 1: so I don't know, But anyway, ziggy, you probably don't
Speaker 1: say ziggy very much right in your house, so I
Speaker 1: guess that's a good wake word. The other words too,
Speaker 1: you don't really well. Amazon were always saying did you
Speaker 1: order that on Amazon? So anyway, it's all available and
Speaker 1: it's just you know, the other options for the things.
Speaker 1: I will say, I've been testing out an Echo device
Speaker 1: Echo Show five. I am very impressed. I am still
Speaker 1: very very impressed. I really wrote off the Amazon service
Speaker 1: like for all this smart home stuff for a long
Speaker 1: long time, and I'm eating my words because I feel
Speaker 1: like they are doing a great job. They have a
Speaker 1: great ecosystem, they have so many products, their stuff does
Speaker 1: really well. I think that the voice capabilities have come
Speaker 1: a long way, and I've just been very very impressed
Speaker 1: with what I've seen and I continue to test it,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know, I think it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Next question comes from Chris. He says, when I'm working
Speaker 1: mobile detailing, I'm using my iPhone too to listen to
Speaker 1: Pandora Bluetooth to my headphones. When I get a call
Speaker 1: or message. I have to stop everything. Oh maybe it's
Speaker 1: an iPhone eleven. I have to stop everything to tend
Speaker 1: to the phone. It even messes up my bluetooth. Is
Speaker 1: there a setting I can use? I do not like
Speaker 1: to use, like do not disturb or something, because if
Speaker 1: I don't check my phone, it keeps beeping in my
Speaker 1: ears until I do. It's a pain in the rear.
Speaker 1: Rich sent for my iPhone, So I'm guessing iPhone eleven maybe,
Speaker 1: But no matter which iPhone you have this, I've never
Speaker 1: really had this problem. Number one, my iPhone is on
Speaker 1: do not Disturb the entire day twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: I actually never take it off do not disturb. Now.
Speaker 1: I work in television. I'm always recording something and I'm
Speaker 1: always in a studio, and so I can't have my
Speaker 1: phone ringing or binging at any time. So I've never
Speaker 1: I've never experienced this. Now. I also don't wear headphones
Speaker 1: for a long period of time. But when I do,
Speaker 1: I'm wearing them when I'm running and my phone goes
Speaker 1: into automatic do not just st mode as soon as
Speaker 1: I start a workout, so and I do get messages
Speaker 1: along the way, And I've never had my phone bing Now.
Speaker 1: The only exception to this is when you have a
Speaker 1: pair of air pods in and you get a text
Speaker 1: message and Siri will read you the text message. So, Chris,
Speaker 1: my advice to you is to turn on do not disturb.
Speaker 1: I would turn on do not disturb. You can also
Speaker 1: flip the side switch on your phone. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it's called. There's a little rocker on the side
Speaker 1: that basically turns it from audio to silent, and so
Speaker 1: I would flip that as well when you're detailing, and
Speaker 1: that way that should take care of it. But I
Speaker 1: think that should do it. I mean, like I said,
Speaker 1: I've never had this problem with these things binging in
Speaker 1: my ears, and so I think that that has to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that I always have my phone
Speaker 1: on do not Disturb. So what I'd recommend is just
Speaker 1: keep it on do not disturb and hopefully that will
Speaker 1: take care of it. ESPN Plus, speaking of price, ESPN
Speaker 1: Plus is going up. It's going up by a buck
Speaker 1: a month, which you know, like like I always say
Speaker 1: in this podcast, not gonna make or break you. But
Speaker 1: now ESPN Plus is gonna rise to six ninety nine
Speaker 1: a month, up from five ninety nine, this according to Variety.
Speaker 1: And apparently according to Variety, they raised the subscription last
Speaker 1: year from four ninety nine to five ninety nine. So
Speaker 1: this just keeps going up. And this is something that
Speaker 1: I've talked about in the podcast over and over. We
Speaker 1: did not switch to streaming services to save money. Maybe
Speaker 1: back in the day, day one, we saved a couple
Speaker 1: of bucks by save by switching, But now there is
Speaker 1: no money to be saved. In fact, you may be
Speaker 1: approaching what you paid for cable. You may eclipse it.
Speaker 1: Like in my case. The big difference is that you
Speaker 1: are in control. You can turn this on, you can
Speaker 1: turn this off, you can start it, you can stop it,
Speaker 1: unlike cable. Let's say, how to subscription to HBO. Back
Speaker 1: in the day, Yes you could subscribe for six months
Speaker 1: and then call your cable operator and cancel, but realistically,
Speaker 1: who did that? Not many people. So what happened was
Speaker 1: you would always you know, I call it the rounding effect.
Speaker 1: You know, you'd have your cable for a little bit
Speaker 1: or your subscription for a little bit more than you
Speaker 1: needed it. And that's just the way the game that
Speaker 1: they played. And so now you can't play games now
Speaker 1: if you want to cancel ESPN because they raised it
Speaker 1: a dollar, you can. If you want to start it
Speaker 1: up again when they bring the cricket match that you
Speaker 1: like to streaming, then you can. And so all we
Speaker 1: have now at this point is a choice. And these
Speaker 1: things just keep getting more and more expensive. I mean,
Speaker 1: all the prices just keep going up. There's price creep
Speaker 1: on these streaming services. Is it causing me to cancel them? No,
Speaker 1: although I will say I am not currently subscribed to
Speaker 1: Apple tv Plus. They did not raise their price. It's
Speaker 1: still the launch price of four to ninety nine a month.
Speaker 1: But on July first, when they were going to start
Speaker 1: charging me, I said, I just don't need this. There's
Speaker 1: no there's nothing I'm watching on Apple tv Plus right now. Now.
Speaker 1: That will change when the second season of the Morning
Speaker 1: Show comes out. And I know everyone loves ted Lasso.
Speaker 1: I have not watched that, but I know people love it,
Speaker 1: and so if I was a Ted Lasso fan, which
Speaker 1: I think that new season is starting. You know, they
Speaker 1: time these things where they're you know, if there's one
Speaker 1: show at any given time, that's all they need, that's
Speaker 1: all they need to keep you hooked on these things.
Speaker 1: And it's just the way it is. So again, the
Speaker 1: best way to get Disney Plus or the ESPN Plus
Speaker 1: service is realistically to subscribe to Disney this what do
Speaker 1: they call it, the Disney Plus. It's like the bundle,
Speaker 1: so it's Disney Plus Hulu and also ESPN Plus. That
Speaker 1: trio is staying firm at thirteen ninety nine a month,
Speaker 1: so according to Variety, that's thirty percent less than the
Speaker 1: cost of buying all three services individually. Let's get to
Speaker 1: another question here. Joanne says, hey, Rich, I received a
Speaker 1: notice from YouTube announcing many of my family videos that
Speaker 1: are currently unlisted will be set to private, thus changing
Speaker 1: the URL. I provided my family a copy of the
Speaker 1: URLs of these videos. Now I need to change It's
Speaker 1: a huge amount of work. I wish I had another
Speaker 1: option back then, but YouTube is it? An easier solution
Speaker 1: to preserving these precious memories would be to take off
Speaker 1: all my family videos and put them on hard drives
Speaker 1: from my family members to copy to their computers with
Speaker 1: a drive to keep as a backup. Well, that doesn't
Speaker 1: sound easier, but anyway, to each his own. My question
Speaker 1: is is there a bulk way to download three hundred
Speaker 1: family videos I've uploaded on YouTube, collected over the years
Speaker 1: to preserve on an external hard drive. It did some research.
Speaker 1: It looks like you need some special software. There are
Speaker 1: so many options, many of which I'm sure not safe.
Speaker 1: I've read about a product called m m MM, which
Speaker 1: looks to be legit, but who knows. Uh, Okay, Joe Ane,
Speaker 1: couple things Number one, I don't think that. I mean,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you got a big collection here, so
Speaker 1: that's definitely an issue. Now. I wonder if once they
Speaker 1: change these unlisted URLs to private, if you can just
Speaker 1: make a private playlist and then just share that playlist
Speaker 1: with the family members, and then they'd have to log
Speaker 1: in to see those videos. I don't know. I didn't
Speaker 1: put a lot of I got this same email that
Speaker 1: you got. But to me, when I share an unlisted video, like,
Speaker 1: I don't really I'm not expecting it to last very long.
Speaker 1: Like that's basically for people to watch for a little bit,
Speaker 1: they're not really going back to whatever. So I don't
Speaker 1: have the same issue. Even though a lot of my
Speaker 1: unlisted videos are family videos, but when they go private,
Speaker 1: it's not like my family members are watching them over
Speaker 1: and over, so the solution about downloading them to your
Speaker 1: hard drive, you can absolutely do that. That's well within
Speaker 1: your rights on YouTube, these are your videos. The number
Speaker 1: one way to do that is Google Takeout, And if
Speaker 1: you just go to Google Takeout, you can select your
Speaker 1: YouTube videos and they will zip them up and they
Speaker 1: will send them to you in an email and you
Speaker 1: can download all of them and put them on a
Speaker 1: hard drive. That is one way of doing it. The
Speaker 1: other way you can do it is with a video
Speaker 1: downloader program, and the one that I like is called
Speaker 1: soft O Reno YouTube Converter too. And You're right, there
Speaker 1: is a lot of sketchy software out there that purports
Speaker 1: to do this. I'm sure some of it works, but
Speaker 1: the one that I found, soft Reno YouTube Converter two,
Speaker 1: works the absolute best. It is dropped it easy, pop
Speaker 1: in a URL. All you have to do is copy
Speaker 1: and paste it and are actually just copy it and
Speaker 1: the app, as long as it's running on your computer
Speaker 1: will notice the clipboard and it will say, okay, what
Speaker 1: format do you want this video in? And you can
Speaker 1: convert it to video audio a ring tone. You can
Speaker 1: go as high as I think twenty one sixty P.
Speaker 1: You can do ten ADP seven to twenty P four
Speaker 1: eighty or three sixty and you could save it to
Speaker 1: your computer, your phone, your iPod, Apple Music. It's very,
Speaker 1: very full featured. It is really fantastic. So that would
Speaker 1: be my recommendation after takeout. If takeout doesn't work for you,
Speaker 1: then I would just do it annually with the YouTube converter.
Speaker 1: So good question. Hope that helps all right. Speaking of Apple,
Speaker 1: they came out with a mag Safe battery pack for
Speaker 1: the iPhone twelve, available now for ninety nine dollars. And
Speaker 1: if you've seen these smart battery cases from Apple before,
Speaker 1: this one's a little bit different because it is not
Speaker 1: a case. It is literally just a like a little
Speaker 1: bump that magnetically attaches to back to the back of
Speaker 1: your phone if you have a mag Safe phone. Now,
Speaker 1: there's been some unofficial mag Safe battery packs for a while.
Speaker 1: I have not tested any of these. In fact, I
Speaker 1: I mean I probably should get one, but to be
Speaker 1: quite honest, I'm typically in a place where I can
Speaker 1: charge my phone at some point during the day, and
Speaker 1: if I'm not, like you know, I mean, if I'm
Speaker 1: the only time I really need to recharge my phone
Speaker 1: out and about is when like if I happen to
Speaker 1: be at like a conference like a CS or something,
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe an maybe maybe an Apple event.
Speaker 1: But realistically, ninety nine point nine percent of the time,
Speaker 1: I am a power user of my smartphone, and I
Speaker 1: don't run out of battery because I make sure that
Speaker 1: I am fully charged before I'm getting into that situation
Speaker 1: where I'm going to be away from a plug for
Speaker 1: a long period of time. And I mean basically I
Speaker 1: can only imagine. I mean, you have to eat at
Speaker 1: some point. So if you're even if your worst case
Speaker 1: scenario you get at somewhere at seven am and you
Speaker 1: go through one pm, I mean that's you know, six hours,
Speaker 1: and your phone maybe would die during that time or
Speaker 1: it's really close to death. But for me, you know,
Speaker 1: most of the time, I will bring like a portable
Speaker 1: battery pack. I'll plug it in at some point, or
Speaker 1: I'll plug it into a plug in the wall. But anyway,
Speaker 1: if you need one of these things, you just like
Speaker 1: to have a lot of extra juice. Ninety nine bucks
Speaker 1: is it's expensive, it's on the high end of things,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of like, you know, it's from Apple,
Speaker 1: so it's gonna work. Really well. The battery itself charges
Speaker 1: with a lightning cable, which is nice, which means if
Speaker 1: you just carry around an iPhone, you've already got the
Speaker 1: cable to charge this thing. You can also pass through
Speaker 1: charge your iPhone. This is all according to nine to
Speaker 1: five mac Apple recommends using a twenty watt USBC charger
Speaker 1: to charge this for the fastest charging time. What else,
Speaker 1: The battery pack is really really slow. It's a five
Speaker 1: watt charge, which is I think just about a quarter
Speaker 1: It's about twenty five percent of what you could get
Speaker 1: if you plugged in your phone. So this is another
Speaker 1: reason why don't like these wireless battery packs. They're just
Speaker 1: too slow. I mean, they're really like there's such a
Speaker 1: trickle that like, it's fine if you have a long
Speaker 1: runway to charge your phone, but you'd you'd probably be
Speaker 1: better just plugging your phone in for twenty minutes and
Speaker 1: just getting the amount of juice that you get during
Speaker 1: that time. The other thing that's kind of cool is
Speaker 1: that the battery percentage for the case will appear in
Speaker 1: the battery widget and on the lock screen, which is
Speaker 1: probably something that gives it a little of a step
Speaker 1: ahead of some of the other battery packs out there.
Speaker 1: That's about it. I don't know. I'm actually tempted to
Speaker 1: buy this, to be honest, because I've been very lax
Speaker 1: on the mag Safe accessories. I haven't even gotten the wallet.
Speaker 1: My wife and I joke every time all I've been
Speaker 1: wanting is one of these mag Safe wallets, and I
Speaker 1: keep not buying it, and I just I should just
Speaker 1: buy one, because every time I'm going out, like tonight,
Speaker 1: I'm going out to my friend's house, and of course
Speaker 1: it's a perfect example. All I need is my ID
Speaker 1: and a credit card. That's it. You know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to a poker game, and it's like my friend is
Speaker 1: not accepting cash anymore, so I have to use Venmo.
Speaker 1: So I don't need any things at my phone and
Speaker 1: my credit card and my or my debit card rather
Speaker 1: and my my ID and so all I need is
Speaker 1: a little mag Safe wallet and that's it, and I'd
Speaker 1: be perfectly fine, but I've yet to purchase one, even
Speaker 1: though I've wanted one for six months. Anyway, all right, well,
Speaker 1: that sound means that's gonna do it for this show.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. If you have a
Speaker 1: question for me, you'd like me to answer, Just go
Speaker 1: to my Facebook Creatsfacebook dot com slash rich on Tech,
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Speaker 1: it's some rich person talking about technology like you know,
Speaker 1: or it has or has to do with money or whatever.
Speaker 1: So explain, like, hey, I like this show because Rich
Speaker 1: explains things in an easy to understand way. I mean,
Speaker 1: that would be ideal. You can find me on social media.
Speaker 1: I'm at Rich on Tech on all social media platforms,
Speaker 1: and no matter where you live in the US, it's
Speaker 1: fun to listen to me. But you can also watch
Speaker 1: me on TV on your big screen. Download the free
Speaker 1: ktla plus app on Apple TV, Fire Tv, and Roku,
Speaker 1: then scroll down to the tech section and you can
Speaker 1: watch all of my TV segments on demand. They are
Speaker 1: pulled directly from KTLA. You can see what I look
Speaker 1: at and sound like on live TV, but of course
Speaker 1: record it and play later. I'm Rich Demiro. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening. There are so many ways you can
Speaker 1: spend an hour of your time. I do appreciate you
Speaker 1: spending it with me. Stay safe, I will talk to
Speaker 1: you real soon