Speaker 1: T mobiles, compelling new plan, bring cameras, get a brand
Speaker 1: new view, and KTLA comes to your TV screen in
Speaker 1: a whole new way. Oh plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm Rich Damiro and this is Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer the questions you send me. My
Speaker 1: name is Rich Damiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. Thanks for tuning me in today. Welcome
Speaker 1: to our friends watching on Facebook for a rare behind
Speaker 1: the scenes look at the recording of the podcast. I
Speaker 1: used to do that all the time, and then I
Speaker 1: kind of stopped because I get I get distracted by
Speaker 1: the comments on the screen. But you did get to
Speaker 1: see me do my little dan, which is real. I
Speaker 1: do that every time. That's my little dance in the intro.
Speaker 1: I kind of pump myself up for this podcast because
Speaker 1: it is one of the most exciting things that I
Speaker 1: do throughout the week.
Speaker 2: I mean, it just is.
Speaker 1: I love talking on the podcast. If you watch me
Speaker 1: on KTLA, yeah you might catch me for like a
Speaker 1: second or two. You know, it's like blink and you
Speaker 1: might miss me, but.
Speaker 2: This is wheight.
Speaker 1: This is where I get to talk for as long
Speaker 1: as I want, and that makes it a lot of
Speaker 1: fun for me.
Speaker 2: Now, this was a big week.
Speaker 1: We got a lot of things going on the stories
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the beginning. We landed on Mars, which
Speaker 1: is really cool and this is not so cool. We
Speaker 1: launched a new app for KTLA. We did have one
Speaker 1: thing happen not so nice, and that is FRI's Electronics
Speaker 1: is closing. I know, so sad for Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: other places that had this electronics retailer. Now I'm a
Speaker 1: tech nerd, I you know, I'm one of those people
Speaker 1: that grew up going to Radio Shack. I grew up
Speaker 1: just browsing in all the local electronics stores that we
Speaker 1: had where I grew up in New Jersey, which was
Speaker 1: Radio Shack, and trying to remember some of the other ones.
Speaker 1: There is one called like the Whiz Circuit City was
Speaker 1: one of them. There was a lot, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of these things that when you're a nerd,
Speaker 1: you just want to go into these stores and be
Speaker 1: immersed in this world of technology and gadgets and TVs,
Speaker 1: and you just want to talk to other nerds too,
Speaker 1: and you know, we got to do that on the internet,
Speaker 1: but going into one of these stores was like the
Speaker 1: reality of it where you just got to, you know,
Speaker 1: talk with someone that knew what you're talking about. And
Speaker 1: especially Radio Shack, that's really where I remember. I know
Speaker 1: it's a little old school, but that's really where I remember.
Speaker 2: Going in.
Speaker 1: You'd be like, I need a part to do this,
Speaker 1: I need this thing that does that, and you would
Speaker 1: just get this person that sat there and talked your
Speaker 1: ear off about you know, the pros and cons of
Speaker 1: gold plated You know, remember when when Radio Shack had
Speaker 1: like the the like regular stuff and then they had
Speaker 1: like the gold plated stuff that was like supposedly so
Speaker 1: much better. It was just more expensive and the people
Speaker 1: in there would always be like, Ah, you don't need that.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't really need that. So, uh, radio
Speaker 1: Shack all right, But we are talking about Fries Electronics. Now,
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in southern California, so to me,
Speaker 1: Fries was this place where you can go in Southern
Speaker 1: California that was really cool, and mostly because it was
Speaker 1: like the last of its kind. I mean, best Buy
Speaker 1: is fantastic for a purpose, but it's no Fries.
Speaker 2: You know, best Buy has mainstream stuff.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if you look in the little corners of
Speaker 1: the store you might find some little do dads and things.
Speaker 1: But FRI's was really the kind of place where if
Speaker 1: you needed a certain type of like soldering iron or
Speaker 1: a certain cable or a certain whatever, you could find it,
Speaker 1: especially if you wanted to build your own computer. And
Speaker 1: I know Microcenter is the new place that kind of
Speaker 1: has all this stuff that my brother actually worked there
Speaker 1: for a period of time, and yeah, that's like, that's
Speaker 1: like next level nerd because he was doing the section
Speaker 1: where like you build your own computer, where they had
Speaker 1: like this this whole area where it would show you
Speaker 1: all the prices, the current prices of the components for
Speaker 1: building your own computer. Now that gets real real nerdy
Speaker 1: right there. Love that kind of stuff. Now, surprisingly this
Speaker 1: may come as a surprise to uh some of you.
Speaker 1: I never built my own computer. I always wanted to,
Speaker 1: but I never did. Now I configured my own computer.
Speaker 1: So there was a company called Gateway two thousand back
Speaker 1: in the day. I feel like retro stuff. This is
Speaker 1: really bringing it back. There's a company called Gateway two
Speaker 1: thousand back in the day, and I made my own
Speaker 1: computer through them, you know you would you'd pick all
Speaker 1: your components, and I picked like the best stuff, like
Speaker 1: the most memory, the best graphics card, the best everything,
Speaker 1: and had it shipped. And it was this big box
Speaker 1: that looked like a cow well it was like cow
Speaker 1: cow what it was you called cows skin, you know,
Speaker 1: like I had the blotches on it, you know, like
Speaker 1: the black and white.
Speaker 2: Oh it's just so good times.
Speaker 1: I mean, I it's just so interesting because I feel
Speaker 1: like so much of this stuff is just lost at
Speaker 1: this point. And I don't want to sound like one
Speaker 1: of those people with the tiny violins that's you know,
Speaker 1: begrudgingly moving into the future, because I embraced the future.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, there was some simpler times
Speaker 1: in this world where you walked into a store. Oh,
Speaker 1: crazy Eddy. That was another one, Crazy Eddie.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And this just brought back another memory where you would
Speaker 1: go into the store. You'd get this Sunday paper where
Speaker 1: they had all the prices of these electronics listed in
Speaker 1: the back, and you would take that to a place
Speaker 1: like Crazy Eddy, and they would price match whatever price
Speaker 1: you found from some obscure retailer.
Speaker 2: In New York City.
Speaker 1: Maybe this was an East Coast thing, but man, oh man,
Speaker 1: these were such good times. I would go in with
Speaker 1: my dad and we'd find a VCR and be like
Speaker 1: six to have electronics in New York City? Has it
Speaker 1: for one hundred and ninety Probably at that time, it
Speaker 1: was probably like six hundred and ninety seven dollars, And
Speaker 1: you're selling it for six hundred and ninety nine dollars,
Speaker 1: and they're like, all right, fine, we'll price match it.
Speaker 2: And they would bring it from the back of the store.
Speaker 1: They'd bring it up and you load it into your
Speaker 1: car and you'd bring it home and you'd unwrap this thing. Now,
Speaker 1: with my job, I mean testing electronics for a living.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't tell you how many things I
Speaker 1: just have stacked up that I haven't even opened yet
Speaker 1: because I still need to test them. And that beauty
Speaker 1: of like opening gadgets and ripping off the little pieces
Speaker 1: and you know, the plastic wrap is like it's still fun,
Speaker 1: but it's just it's different. You know, it's a different,
Speaker 1: different experience. But anyway, Fries, sorry to see you go
Speaker 1: closing all thirty Let's see how many stores thirty one
Speaker 1: stores after thirty six years in business. This they say
Speaker 1: it's because of you know, COVID nineteen changes in the
Speaker 1: in the retail industry.
Speaker 2: It was just a lot. So they said, you know what,
Speaker 2: peace out.
Speaker 1: We're done, and uh, February twenty fourth, they started their
Speaker 1: wind down process.
Speaker 2: And that's it. I mean, from what I'm hearing, it's.
Speaker 1: Like people, the door are closed, so really sad to
Speaker 1: see something else go. And I don't know is Best
Speaker 1: Buy going to be next eventually?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know that I get most of my
Speaker 1: stuff from from Amazon, and you know, I do buy
Speaker 1: from best Buy when I can, But it's just it's
Speaker 1: a different world nowadays.
Speaker 2: So anyway, all.
Speaker 1: Right, let's move on to the I'm going to talk
Speaker 1: about the top story of the week. According to my
Speaker 1: concentration of viewers, which I am on KTLA in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: A majority of people that found me listen to me
Speaker 1: have ever heard of me? Found me through KTLA. I
Speaker 1: mean that's where I've worked for the past ten years,
Speaker 1: as I spoke about on my last podcast. But this
Speaker 1: is a huge week for KTLA because we finally have
Speaker 1: a streaming app. Haley Loujah, do I have a phone
Speaker 1: clapping No, no, no, okay, I don't have any clapping sounds.
Speaker 1: I always want the applause sounds like guess that don't
Speaker 1: have them. But KTLA Plus is our new streaming app.
Speaker 1: It's for smart TVs, which are Amazon fireTV, Apple TV,
Speaker 1: and Roku. And what this does is this KTLA plus
Speaker 1: app allows you to watch KTLA live programming anywhere you live.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say in the US. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you can watch it anywhere else in the world,
Speaker 1: but as long as you are in the US, you
Speaker 1: can download this app to your Broku, your Apple TV,
Speaker 1: or your Amazon fireTV and you can watch us.
Speaker 2: You can watch us live.
Speaker 1: But more importantly for me, you can watch my segments
Speaker 1: anytime of the day. And the coolest part is that
Speaker 1: they are all in a row on this app. So
Speaker 1: once you're watching the app, you can scroll down and
Speaker 1: see technology section and there I am. And I love
Speaker 1: it because my family can now watch and that's probably
Speaker 1: all who cares, so anyway, it's good for them. But no,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some people out there in the US
Speaker 1: that would like to be able to follow me. I
Speaker 1: get that you follow me on Facebook and social media
Speaker 1: and Instagram.
Speaker 2: And all these things.
Speaker 1: But to just be able to see the segment that
Speaker 1: airs on TV is different. It's it's a it's a
Speaker 1: different experience. And yeah, you can watch it live and
Speaker 1: you can watch it on the web. But let's be honest,
Speaker 1: who's going to the web every day the internet to
Speaker 1: like watch my segment? You're probably not doing that. Ktla
Speaker 1: dot com, slash tech, You're probably not doing that. So
Speaker 1: now when you're sitting down on your couch after you know,
Speaker 1: long day at work or whatever, and you just or
Speaker 1: a Saturday afternoon, you say, oh yeah, KTLA plus Rich
Speaker 1: damiro let me watch. Let me watch a couple of
Speaker 1: his stories. You get catch up on my last like
Speaker 1: five ten stories in a matter of minutes. So I
Speaker 1: find that really cool.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: This is just a beginning. I've gotten so many questions
Speaker 1: about the app. Why isn't it available on here?
Speaker 2: What's what? When are you gonna be on YouTube TV? Guys?
Speaker 2: This is just the start. We are just getting.
Speaker 1: Like I've been at KTLA for ten years and streaming
Speaker 1: on your TV has been such a popular question. We
Speaker 1: are finally there and now we will move on from here.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I'm not in charge of this app,
Speaker 1: and so it's it's the KTLA bosses.
Speaker 2: That do this, not me.
Speaker 1: I just am the you know, I'm just someone that
Speaker 1: works there, and I am also blessed by this app
Speaker 1: as well. But I do know that they are putting
Speaker 1: a lot of resources and effort into this app to
Speaker 1: make it better and to also expand what you're going
Speaker 1: to see on it. So I can't really speak more
Speaker 1: to what you're going to see, but there's going to
Speaker 1: be a lot more, a lot more on there in
Speaker 1: the future, so it's going to be very cool, very exciting.
Speaker 1: And download it ktla plus. Just search ktla on either Amazon,
Speaker 1: Fire TV, on Roku, or Apple TV. It works really well.
Speaker 1: It's a great app, and it's slick, it does what
Speaker 1: you need, and uh, it's just there, so go download it.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the first question of the podcast.
Speaker 2: Let's see here. David says, yes, let's see.
Speaker 1: Hey, Rich, My wife and I are huge fans of
Speaker 1: your segments on KTLA. We are only keeping direct TV
Speaker 1: currently to be able to watch KTLA. But now I saw,
Speaker 1: oh wow, this is a perfect segue into this. But
Speaker 1: now I saw KTLA Plus is out and we are
Speaker 1: looking to cut the cord. My question is can I
Speaker 1: find this app on a newer Samsung Smart TV. We
Speaker 1: have the Apple TV app integrated into the TV, but
Speaker 1: for some reason, I can't find the app.
Speaker 2: Thanks David.
Speaker 1: This is a great question, David, and this is one
Speaker 1: of the nuances of the Apple TV app is so
Speaker 1: confusing because it doesn't make any sense your Apple TV
Speaker 1: and I've talked about this on the podcast. Apple TV
Speaker 1: app is an app that's available on various platforms to
Speaker 1: deliver Apple TV plus programming, Apple TV channels, I believe,
Speaker 1: and also Apple TV the iTunes stuff that you've purchased
Speaker 1: in Apple TV, So I know it's very confusing. Then
Speaker 1: you have an Apple TV device, which is like it's
Speaker 1: a whole nother thing, like that's like a physical box
Speaker 1: that sits under your TV. So a lot of people
Speaker 1: are confused because when you say Apple TV, they go, oh,
Speaker 1: I have that. You have the app and Apple TV
Speaker 1: app is a little different from the Apple TV box
Speaker 1: that allows you to download lots of apps. So David,
Speaker 1: you can't get it through the Apple TV app at
Speaker 1: least right now. That could change in the future. Who knows,
Speaker 1: but if you want it with the Samsung Smart TV,
Speaker 1: what I would recommend is just buying a fire TV stick.
Speaker 1: So buy the fire TV stick from Amazon. They're a
Speaker 1: great deal, and get the four K one and just
Speaker 1: plug it into your TV. And I think that would
Speaker 1: be the best way to go. And you can just
Speaker 1: replace your Samsung Smart TV fully. So just take your
Speaker 1: TV from Samsung, plug it into the back whatever Hdmi
Speaker 1: one too, you use, that's where you keep your TV.
Speaker 1: Now and now that you have KTLA streaming on there,
Speaker 1: you've got ktla, you can download all the apps that
Speaker 1: you need. You said you're going to cancel Direct TV,
Speaker 1: get rid of it, and now you can and you know,
Speaker 1: download HBO Max, download Let's see what are the other ones, HBO.
Speaker 2: Max, Hulu YouTube.
Speaker 1: I mean by the time, you know, just pick and
Speaker 1: choose what you want to watch, so you know Netflix
Speaker 1: of course, but just download the apps that you want
Speaker 1: go streaming. And I think between ktla for your news
Speaker 1: and your other apps for your entertainment and programming, you
Speaker 1: can download if you want to go totally free, you
Speaker 1: can download things like to be TV. You can download
Speaker 1: the Amazon if you're getting a firestick has built in
Speaker 1: programming that's free. So there's Pluto TV, which is free.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of stuff that you can watch.
Speaker 1: Roku channel is free, although I don't think they offer
Speaker 1: that one on the fire TV. But the point is,
Speaker 1: even if you didn't want to pay a nickel for
Speaker 1: any sort of programming on your fire stick, you could
Speaker 1: still find a ton of stuff to watch. Yes, it
Speaker 1: will be ad supported, but to me, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't have cable. I cut the cord about I think
Speaker 1: it was two years ago, and I was a little
Speaker 1: scary because I'm so used to just that grid and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. But I'll be honest, I have not
Speaker 1: missed it at all. If I need to watch something
Speaker 1: I have not had, there's been no lack of like,
Speaker 1: oh I need to find something to watch and I can't.
Speaker 1: I've had KTLA over antenna for a long time, so
Speaker 1: I can get it that way. Now it's even easier
Speaker 1: because I've got the Plus app. I haven't taken I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna take down my antenna just yet because you know,
Speaker 1: I with my antenna, I have DVR service and so
Speaker 1: I can you know, pause the channel, which I think
Speaker 1: you can do on the Ktla Plus app. I just
Speaker 1: don't think you could rewind like I can online. So anyway,
Speaker 1: good question, and I know there's gonna be a lot
Speaker 1: of them. The number one question I'm getting about the
Speaker 1: Ktla plus app, by the way.
Speaker 2: Is when it opens up, it opens.
Speaker 1: As a box on your screen where the video is
Speaker 1: playing inside a box that's surrounded in blue. And everyone's like,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be better if it was full screen? And yes,
Speaker 1: just press the okay button on your remote or press
Speaker 1: select on your remote, or if you have an Apple TV,
Speaker 1: just hit that kind of touch pad area and it
Speaker 1: will bring the video full screen. So that's what you
Speaker 1: want to do, And great question, David. Just yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's what I think you should do.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Let's get to the next big story of the week.
Speaker 1: And I'm not telling you this story because I think
Speaker 1: you should switch to T Mobile tomorrow, although I'm certainly
Speaker 1: tempted to do just that. I know a lot of
Speaker 1: people love T Mobile. They set the bar when it
Speaker 1: comes to pricing. They always have fantastic pricing. And now
Speaker 1: they've got this new plan called Magenta Max. And what's
Speaker 1: cool about this plan compared to every other cell phone
Speaker 1: plan out there is that it does not slow you
Speaker 1: down no matter how much data you use, which is
Speaker 1: a huge deal. So you can get this plan and
Speaker 1: as much four G and five G data that you
Speaker 1: want you can use on your smartphone, and they give
Speaker 1: the example of you know, even two hundred gigabytes no problem.
Speaker 1: So there's gonna be a lot of people that put
Speaker 1: this to the test. Now I'm pretty impressed because every
Speaker 1: single cell phone plan that I know of has some
Speaker 1: sort of limit, even if you're on an unlimited plan.
Speaker 1: So if you are on say AT and T or
Speaker 1: Verizon on one of their unlimited plans, when you start
Speaker 1: to use a lot of data, like fifty gigabytes or more,
Speaker 1: guess what happens. They will slow you down if the
Speaker 1: network is congested. Now, they don't explain this, they don't
Speaker 1: really say this, but they they do it in the
Speaker 1: background without necessarily you knowing. Sometimes they'll tell you with
Speaker 1: the text, sometimes they won't. I've never seen it really
Speaker 1: happen in a big way. I guess, you know, most
Speaker 1: of the time, I'm using like thirty gigs a month,
Speaker 1: so maybe I'm not hitting that. But there are some
Speaker 1: you know, real power users out there. Even more so
Speaker 1: than I am that just use a ton of data.
Speaker 1: And the fact that these plans are called unlimited is
Speaker 1: a little bit like, Okay, it's unlimited to.
Speaker 2: A point if you use a lot.
Speaker 1: If you actually try to go unlimited, you can't, so
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of an interesting thing. But the other
Speaker 1: thing that's great about this plan, Magenta Max from T Mobile,
Speaker 1: is that they also let you stream video in four K,
Speaker 1: which is amazing. Now they say up to four K.
Speaker 1: So here's what I think they will do with this plan.
Speaker 1: I bet I just have a feeling I don't. I
Speaker 1: have a hunch that when you sign up for this plan,
Speaker 1: the default streaming is probably HD and you have to
Speaker 1: go in to your settings on T Mobile on the
Speaker 1: app and actually switch it to say four K. But
Speaker 1: I'm just guessing that because this is another little trick
Speaker 1: the other carriers do. So if you have Verizon or
Speaker 1: AT and T or even T Mobile and you have
Speaker 1: streaming is generally defaulting at four to eighty, which is
Speaker 1: DVD quality. It's very low resolution, and even though you
Speaker 1: have a five G connection or a fast four G connection,
Speaker 1: they still do that because it saves them money.
Speaker 2: They don't have to.
Speaker 1: They don't have to transfer as much data to your
Speaker 1: phone to send through that like high clear resolution video. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're on one of these unlimited plans from AT
Speaker 1: and T or Verizon, you can go in and change
Speaker 1: your resolution to a little bit higher, like I did
Speaker 1: that on my Verizon plan.
Speaker 2: I switched it A to HD.
Speaker 1: Yeah, HD, I think, And so even though you know
Speaker 1: by default it's four eighty. So my point is you
Speaker 1: can go in there and do that, and you should
Speaker 1: if you you know, if you want to get the
Speaker 1: most out of your paying for it, you might as well. So,
Speaker 1: but this one you'll get up to four K. Now
Speaker 1: on mine, I can only get up to TENNY I
Speaker 1: think it's seven to twenty anyway, on a cell phone
Speaker 1: most of the time it doesn't really matter. But hey,
Speaker 1: if I have a five G connection. All these carriers
Speaker 1: are so excited about five G. They make such a
Speaker 1: big deal out of it. Well, let me use five G.
Speaker 1: Let me use like the speed of your network. And
Speaker 1: that's what T Mobile's saying. The other thing you get
Speaker 1: is forty gigs of mobile hotspot and that's really good too.
Speaker 1: I was in my hotel in Seattle and I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure if they charged for Wi Fi or not, so
Speaker 1: I kept off their Wi Fi for like the first
Speaker 1: two days I was there before I just got frustrated
Speaker 1: and ended up doing it anyway, but I was using
Speaker 1: my hot Spot on my phone, and sure enough, after
Speaker 1: I used up all the hot Spot data, it was worthless.
Speaker 1: It was it was absolutely worthless to use, and I
Speaker 1: had to.
Speaker 2: That's when I signed up for the other thing. Anyway.
Speaker 1: Let's see, so now Core plans on the Magenta. If
Speaker 1: you're on one of these T Mobile plans, they're upping
Speaker 1: your premium data from fifty gigs to one hundred gigs,
Speaker 1: which is pretty good, and your hot Spot data from
Speaker 1: three gigs to five gigs, all at no additional costs.
Speaker 2: So, no matter what, the reason why I tell you.
Speaker 1: This is because what I love about T Mobile, even
Speaker 1: though I'm not ready to switch them just yet, I
Speaker 1: love that they continue to push the envelope and they
Speaker 1: keep these carriers on their toes. And I was a
Speaker 1: little bit worried about this because they purchased Sprint, and
Speaker 1: now what's the point, what's the what's their point in
Speaker 1: trying to you know, compete anymore? Because it's either you
Speaker 1: go with AT and T, you go with Verizon, or
Speaker 1: you go with T Mobile. It's like you got to
Speaker 1: pick which one you want, and they can all pretty much.
Speaker 1: They all pretty much do the same thing. I think
Speaker 1: that there are nuances with their plans and with their networks,
Speaker 1: and but this is this plan really pushes the other
Speaker 1: guys to maybe try a little bit harder, and we'll
Speaker 1: see if they do. I don't know if they will.
Speaker 1: They may not because they all have so many customers
Speaker 1: that they just may not care. But it's still good
Speaker 1: that T Mobile's doing this now. The price of this
Speaker 1: plan is also pretty good. They haven't said one line
Speaker 1: I believe is ninety dollars, but you can get this
Speaker 1: is wild. You can get three lines, three lines for
Speaker 1: forty seven dollars per month per line, So forty seven
Speaker 1: times three is one hundred and forty one dollars for
Speaker 1: three lines of unlimited five G wireless plus forty gigs
Speaker 1: of hotspot.
Speaker 2: That is a major win.
Speaker 1: So if T Mobile works the way you like it
Speaker 1: in the area that you live, definitely something that you
Speaker 1: might want to look into. All right, let's get it
Speaker 1: into the next question. Debbie writes in my husband has
Speaker 1: a nineteen seventy five corvette. He is looking to retro
Speaker 1: fit a backup camera for the vehicle. Do you have
Speaker 1: any suggestions for a system that would include a screen
Speaker 1: along with the camera. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Debbie.
Speaker 1: Now I suggested to Debbie there was this company that
Speaker 1: was at CS for a while called Pearl. And this
Speaker 1: was a company that would you know, because if you're
Speaker 1: outfitting this nineteen seventy five corvette, you probably don't want
Speaker 1: to like put like a little screen in the in
Speaker 1: the you know, dashboard, because you don't probably have that,
Speaker 1: but you probably do have a smartphone, and so you
Speaker 1: could use your smartphone as a screen. And that was
Speaker 1: kind of my idea behind this recommendation. And this company
Speaker 1: is called PEERL PEA r L and I remember the
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at it right now in the web.
Speaker 1: It's like a frame that goes around your license plate
Speaker 1: that has a camera. But then that camera, I believe
Speaker 1: if is wireless to your phone. So you put your
Speaker 1: phone on your dashboard and then you can watch a
Speaker 1: wireless stream from this camera on the back. Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is clunky, it's not ideal, it's not as not
Speaker 1: as smooth as say, you know, a built in rear
Speaker 1: view camera on your car, but this is a nineteen
Speaker 1: to seventy five car. You didn't you know, you didn't
Speaker 1: have it back then. So this is a device called
Speaker 1: Pearl rear Vision. It looks like they were purchased by
Speaker 1: another company, but and it is out of stock right now,
Speaker 1: which I don't know what that means, if they're no
Speaker 1: longer doing this or what. But it's a three hundred
Speaker 1: dollars device. So that's what I'd recommend, Pearl backup cam versus.
Speaker 2: That's a good A good tip.
Speaker 1: By the way, pro tip for you, if you ever
Speaker 1: need to find something similar to what you're looking at
Speaker 1: on the web, just type in on Google the name
Speaker 1: of the product or even the name of the website,
Speaker 1: and just say versus VS and watch what happens. It
Speaker 1: will pre populate something that someone else always types in
Speaker 1: over time to compare. So if I puts let's give
Speaker 1: me a product, let's see here. If I put in Sony,
Speaker 1: Sony versus Sony versus Samsung TV, Sony versus Lgo, Led,
Speaker 1: Sony versus Cannon, Sony versus Microsoft, Let's see if I.
Speaker 2: Put in something like let's see this one works.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I put in Daily Harvest, which is this
Speaker 1: company that I like that makes like healthy shakes and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I I don't know any other company that does that,
Speaker 1: But I typed in Daily Harvest versus, and look what
Speaker 1: comes up, Splendid Spoon. Never heard of Splendid Spoon, but
Speaker 1: clearly that's what people are comparing and sure enough ready
Speaker 1: to eat plant based smoothies, soups and more. So again,
Speaker 1: that's a very very simple tactic for Google Search that
Speaker 1: I use every day. I mean I use almost every
Speaker 1: single the versus search. But it's so simple, it's so easy.
Speaker 1: And now you know, so I did not find anything
Speaker 1: versus for the backup camera, but that's what I'd recommend.
Speaker 1: You could also find like a million backup cameras that
Speaker 1: integrate into license plates on Amazon. I just can't vouch
Speaker 1: for the quality of those license plate cameras. Let's move
Speaker 1: on to some news from Netflix. Netflix introduce a new
Speaker 1: feature called smart Downloads a couple of years ago. Now
Speaker 1: they're introducing a new feature called Downloads for You and
Speaker 1: Downloads for You automatically downloads movies or TV shows to
Speaker 1: your mobile device, and it does this based on what
Speaker 1: it thinks you might want to watch, so you know,
Speaker 1: Netflix knows a lot about you based on what you've
Speaker 1: watched before. This, I think is a brilliant feature for
Speaker 1: anyone who travels like myself back in the day when
Speaker 1: I did travel a lot, because the thing you do
Speaker 1: before you get on the plane every night or the
Speaker 1: night before is you scramble to like find something on
Speaker 1: Netflix that you might want to watch on the plane.
Speaker 1: So this downloads for you. You just say how much
Speaker 1: how many gigabytes you want to use on your device
Speaker 1: one gig, three gigs, five gigs, whatever, and you say
Speaker 1: turn on and boom, it will automatically download shows and
Speaker 1: movies and documentaries or whatever you watch on Netflix to
Speaker 1: your iPad or your mobile device. I should say it
Speaker 1: doesn't work on iPad just yet because it's only Android
Speaker 1: right now. But I think it's a brilliant feature and
Speaker 1: I think it's super smart, and I think it's great
Speaker 1: for kids as well. So if you have a kid
Speaker 1: with a tablet, it's got to be an Android tablet
Speaker 1: right now, but you would just you know, you'd always
Speaker 1: have something for them to watch. Especially, this can come
Speaker 1: into play in the car because if you're if they're
Speaker 1: watching their tablet in the car, you don't have to
Speaker 1: think about downloading new stuff for them all the time.
Speaker 1: This just has like a you know, an at the
Speaker 1: ready kind of selection of things for them.
Speaker 2: YouTube Music does something similar to this.
Speaker 1: They have a playlist that's uh, forget what it's called,
Speaker 1: but it's like the for you playlist or something. But
Speaker 1: you just say how many gigs you want to use
Speaker 1: on your phone or I think it's by them. It's
Speaker 1: how many songs you want, and you could always have
Speaker 1: like fifty songs that are available to you that are
Speaker 1: just downloaded your phone and fresh. Now I will tell
Speaker 1: you here's the problem, and here's why I don't think
Speaker 1: they launched on iOS. On iOS, when you put a
Speaker 1: when you put an app to sleep, like when you
Speaker 1: put it in the background, that app can't do anything
Speaker 1: anymore unless it's an Apple app, and that's a whole
Speaker 1: other can of worms. I'm not going to get into here.
Speaker 2: They have special privileges.
Speaker 1: But if it's a regular app like Netflix, Netflix can't
Speaker 1: really do anything in the background. Once in a while,
Speaker 1: it can if background refreshes on, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: it kind of just stays static. And I noticed this
Speaker 1: with my with my iPhone and YouTube music, that playlist
Speaker 1: would not update in the background because it just couldn't.
Speaker 1: It couldn't fetch the data it needed. So I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, an Android it can. And so that's why
Speaker 1: I think Netflix is introducing this on Android, and if
Speaker 1: it works pretty well and people like it, which I
Speaker 1: think they will, hopefully they'll find some way to expand
Speaker 1: it to iOS. All right, Next question, Darla, Hey, rich,
Speaker 1: I have a question. I have a fire stick. Got
Speaker 1: lots of questions today about streaming services. I have a
Speaker 1: fire stick. Should I add another such as Roku? I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get rid of all my cable bills? Thanks
Speaker 1: so much, your loyal follower. Uh, Darla, if you have
Speaker 1: a fire stick, you don't need Roku. I mean you
Speaker 1: only need one of these things because they're the same.
Speaker 1: I mean, a firestick in a Roku is pretty much
Speaker 1: the same thing. It's just a competing brand. It's like
Speaker 1: coke versus PEPSI. So what benefits do you get by
Speaker 1: having both? I don't really see any now. I would
Speaker 1: say what you need to do is you need to decide, well, Okay,
Speaker 1: you already have the fire Stick, so no, I don't
Speaker 1: think you need another one. I mean unless you're just
Speaker 1: like totally trying to be fancy here. I mean, yes,
Speaker 1: for me here, I do have a Firestick, a Roku,
Speaker 1: and an Apple TV for testing purposes because I want
Speaker 1: to see how things work on the various platforms. But
Speaker 1: just as an average person, you only need to pick one.
Speaker 1: And yes, they all do offer slightly different things. So
Speaker 1: as John is pointing out in the live chat on
Speaker 1: Facebook right now, he says, some apps are on one
Speaker 1: and not the other.
Speaker 2: So that is very true.
Speaker 1: So what you need to do now, I think that's
Speaker 1: less true today than it ever was, because I don't
Speaker 1: think at this point there's many holdouts on one platform
Speaker 1: versus the other.
Speaker 2: But some do have advantages.
Speaker 1: So if you are a major free viewer of stuff
Speaker 1: on Prime, you might want to go with the Firestick
Speaker 1: because it's going to be Amazon. If you really like
Speaker 1: the Roku channel, which has a lot of free content
Speaker 1: from Roku, I believe that's only available on Roku at
Speaker 1: this point. And mobile apps so iOS and Android, but
Speaker 1: I don't believe you can get that on either Apple
Speaker 1: TV or Firestick. But there is a great place to
Speaker 1: find this information, and what it's called is untangled dot tv.
Speaker 1: And that's the website that I always recommend people look
Speaker 1: at because you can pop in the programming that you
Speaker 1: want and it will tell you what platforms have that programming.
Speaker 1: H c neet used to keep a good list streaming.
Speaker 2: Apps. Ce neet used to keep a really good list.
Speaker 1: It was like a it was like a let's see.
Speaker 2: If I can find it, uh spreadsheet.
Speaker 1: It was like a spreadsheet of every single streaming app
Speaker 1: and which, uh, which places these things were on. So
Speaker 1: uh this was okay, so this was mostly for not
Speaker 1: necessarily streaming apps, but okay, this is a this is
Speaker 1: mostly yeah, it's still they still have it. I'll link
Speaker 1: this up in the uh this now you know what
Speaker 1: that's for, like YouTube and all that stuff. But anyway
Speaker 1: you can go, especially on Roku, you can search and
Speaker 1: see what channels are supporting or what I would do
Speaker 1: is just go to like this specific channel. So if
Speaker 1: you wanted to watch Peacock, like if that was your
Speaker 1: main thing that you wanted to watch, I would go
Speaker 1: Peacock and then I would see what devices and platforms
Speaker 1: it is available on. So Peacock is on web browsers,
Speaker 1: it's on tablets, Android and iOS. It's on Android TV,
Speaker 1: it's on Apple TV, it's on Roku, it's on Chrome Cast,
Speaker 1: it's on LG, it's on PlayStation, it's on video, it's
Speaker 1: on Xbox. Okay, hold on, I did not see anything
Speaker 1: about fire I did not, So there you have it,
Speaker 1: if and this is why we do things the way
Speaker 1: we do them.
Speaker 2: We investigate.
Speaker 1: So if you only want to watch Peacock, that does
Speaker 1: not seem to be available on Fire TV. So if
Speaker 1: you want that, you probably want to go with Broku.
Speaker 1: So that's how you figure things out, all right, speaking
Speaker 1: of things on different platforms, this is just really quick.
Speaker 1: But Amazon Music is now on Android TV, and Amazon
Speaker 1: Music is an app if you subscribe through Amazon, you know,
Speaker 1: like they're Spotify. There is YouTube, there is Apple Music.
Speaker 1: Amazon also has their own music app. And the reason
Speaker 1: why a lot of people like Amazon is because the
Speaker 1: little I'm talking too fast, slow down rich, is because
Speaker 1: it is cheaper than the rest. So if you want
Speaker 1: just one person subscribing, and I think they probably have
Speaker 1: a family plan too, that's also a little bit cheaper.
Speaker 1: But if you are just paying for Music, and most
Speaker 1: of the services ninety nine percent of them are ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month. Amazon Music, if you are a Prime member,
Speaker 1: is only seven ninety nine a month, which saves you
Speaker 1: two dollars a month or twenty four dollars a year,
Speaker 1: which could translate into something else for you. So and
Speaker 1: for that reason, if you like Amazon and you don't,
Speaker 1: really you're not very like, you know, you're not very selective,
Speaker 1: like you just want access to music, and you're not like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, like it works just fine. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get the same stuff. In fact, in some
Speaker 1: ways it's better because it's simpler and it's integrated into.
Speaker 2: Your echo and all that stuff. So you know.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Amazon Music made its way to Google TV and
Speaker 1: Android TV. So if you have been wanting a proper
Speaker 1: Amazon Music app on these platforms, now you have it.
Speaker 2: So here's what you get.
Speaker 1: If you're on Amazon Music Unlimited, that is the one
Speaker 1: that you pay for, right, you have access to seventy
Speaker 1: million songs. If you don't pay a dime and you
Speaker 1: are just on Prime, you just have a Prime membership,
Speaker 1: you can also use Amazon Music and it's ad free
Speaker 1: and it will give you one thousand playlists and stations
Speaker 1: as well as two million songs, so you can listen
Speaker 1: to those two million songs AD free. It's not gonna
Speaker 1: be every song, so you can't request every single song
Speaker 1: that you want to listen to. But if you don't
Speaker 1: want to hear ads and you're a Prime member, you
Speaker 1: can still access that for or free included in Prime.
Speaker 1: And if you just want to listen to music like
Speaker 1: the radio and just stream stuff, you can do that.
Speaker 1: And Amazon Music can also give you stuff, but it's
Speaker 1: AD supported. So there's really three tiers here. If you're
Speaker 1: hearing me, if you're paying for Amazon Music Unlimited, specifically
Speaker 1: eight bucks a month, all the music you can think of. Right,
Speaker 1: if you're just a Prime member, you can access free
Speaker 1: music two million songs, not every song, but again AD free,
Speaker 1: and then anyone can listen AD supported just on the
Speaker 1: Amazon Music App. Now, when they sent me this information
Speaker 1: about the Amazon Music App, they mentioned some stations, and
Speaker 1: I downloaded this to my phone and I checked it
Speaker 1: out in the car and I've been listening NonStop to
Speaker 1: their Chill electronic station. I'm a big fan of a
Speaker 1: station on SiriusXM called XM Chill I just think it's
Speaker 1: the best kind of like working, relaxing, studying, reading music
Speaker 1: and it's.
Speaker 2: Just chill music. It's just like chill out.
Speaker 1: It's just like, you know, not like not like house
Speaker 1: like you know, like I don't know how to explain it,
Speaker 1: but if you listen to it, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: an easy going station. And the first time I ever
Speaker 1: discovered it, I was actually in the backseat of an
Speaker 1: Uber going to JFK in New York City and the
Speaker 1: Uber driver had this station on on Serious XM, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, this.
Speaker 2: Is such a good station.
Speaker 1: It's just so relaxing and smooth and like electronic. And
Speaker 1: I think the name for it is like down tempo
Speaker 1: instrumentals or down tempo music. They have if you're a
Speaker 1: serious XM subscriber and you have the app, they actually
Speaker 1: have an XM Chill that is instrumental only, So if
Speaker 1: I really want to kick it up a notch, I'll
Speaker 1: listen to that.
Speaker 2: And there's no words. So I love that too.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Amazon Music has it and it's called Chill Electronic
Speaker 1: and I listened to it for the past couple of
Speaker 1: days and it is It's very close.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I also did a little research, and I, you know,
Speaker 1: because I'm an Apple Music subscriber and I wanted to
Speaker 1: know what was similar to XM Chill on Apple Music,
Speaker 1: and I found out it is either Today's Chill or
Speaker 1: the Chill Radio station. So anyway, I really like this
Speaker 1: Chill music. I think it's really relaxing and nice, and
Speaker 1: I think that Amazon does a really good job.
Speaker 2: But you can find it on other services as well.
Speaker 2: That was a lot about Chill.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks for watching, by the way, on the
Speaker 1: Facebook for those of you that are still watching. Hanging
Speaker 1: on here. I don't usually stream this, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of fun. And the reason I don't really stream this
Speaker 1: on my Facebook pages because if I'm watching on Facebook,
Speaker 1: I want to have my answers, my questions answered that
Speaker 1: I'm asking on the screen. Now, some people might just
Speaker 1: listen like you know, the background, like radio, but I might,
Speaker 1: you know, if I was listening for the absolute best experience,
Speaker 1: it would be rich would be answering questions that we're asking.
Speaker 1: And I'm really not doing that because I kind of
Speaker 1: have an agenda with this show that oh, typical news person,
Speaker 1: they've got an agenda. No, I'm just kidding, not that
Speaker 1: kind of agenda. I just have like a rundown of
Speaker 1: all the stuff that people ask me all the time,
Speaker 1: and I take those questions and I put the ones
Speaker 1: that I see over and over kind of on my podcast,
Speaker 1: because I feel like that appeals to the broadest amount
Speaker 1: of folks out there listening.
Speaker 2: So that's the thing.
Speaker 1: If I was going to do this show specifically for Facebook,
Speaker 1: I would be sitting there answering the questions. And that's
Speaker 1: the ultimate goal is to do this show twice a week,
Speaker 1: where one is like live questions and one is kind
Speaker 1: of the other questions I get because not everyone wants
Speaker 1: to ask a question live. All right, next question here,
Speaker 1: Henry says, I have a quick question. I have a desktop,
Speaker 1: a laptop, and an iPad. However, I play with my
Speaker 1: Kindle Fire HD the most.
Speaker 2: HD ten.
Speaker 1: I read ebooks and sometimes watch movies. I also downloaded
Speaker 1: a word processor. My question is do you have any
Speaker 1: information if the Kindle Fire HD will be selling an
Speaker 1: updated model? Henry, I do not have the information on that,
Speaker 1: and I looked at the HD ten on their website,
Speaker 1: and if this was an iPad, I'd be able to tell.
Speaker 2: You pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: I use a website called mac Rumors Buyer's Guide, and
Speaker 1: what they do is they track exactly when the last
Speaker 1: iPad or anything Apple came out, and they tell you, Okay,
Speaker 1: generally Apple updates their iPad every three hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: five days, and it's been two hundred and twelve days
Speaker 1: since the last updates, so you might want to wait
Speaker 1: one hundred days for the next one. I don't know
Speaker 1: if a website that does that for the Kindle, but
Speaker 1: I do know that the Kindle came out last in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen according to their website, and so could they
Speaker 1: update it again perhaps, But this came out in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: it's twenty twenty one. They could And what Amazon does.
Speaker 1: They literally just just spring this stuff on you. They
Speaker 1: just toss out a new tablet. It's like, oh here
Speaker 1: it is, boom, new tablet is available. And so I
Speaker 1: if I was you, Henry, maybe you just wait a
Speaker 1: little bit and see. But if you just want to
Speaker 1: get it, I think that Let's see, what are the
Speaker 1: specs on the ten? The HD ten is like their
Speaker 1: top of the line. Let's see, it's got ten inch screen,
Speaker 1: it's got HD thirty two or sixty four gigs a
Speaker 1: RAM expandable.
Speaker 2: It's got the same.
Speaker 1: Processor as the Fire HD eight which I d the plus,
Speaker 1: which I have tested, and it's fine, nothing special. It's
Speaker 1: got USBC which is modern. It's got four hours of
Speaker 1: charging time, it's got the dual speakers. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: wireless charging, which the HD eight does, although I don't
Speaker 1: think with tablets you need that very much.
Speaker 2: It's got a year will limited warranty.
Speaker 1: It's got their same dumpy camera that they have on
Speaker 1: all of them, two megapixel front facing. So I mean,
Speaker 1: you could wait a little bit, but if you just
Speaker 1: need it, just go ahead and get it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's inexpensive enough where it's one hundred and fifty dollars,
Speaker 1: what I would recommend. I would recommend waiting for a
Speaker 1: price cut because I'm looking at the price on this.
Speaker 2: Let's go to Camel Camel ca. This is how I
Speaker 2: research stuff.
Speaker 1: I go to Camel Camel Camel, I type in the
Speaker 1: URL from the page on Amazon, and it tells me
Speaker 1: that this thing. Many times it's gone down to as
Speaker 1: cheap as eighty bucks, but that was a while ago,
Speaker 1: but it usually it drops to about i'd say one
Speaker 1: hundred and ten dollars, yeah, all the way down to yeah,
Speaker 1: one hundred bucks. So I would wait for a discount
Speaker 1: on this, So set a price alert on Camel Camel
Speaker 1: Camel for this device and buy it when the price
Speaker 1: goes down when you get a little drop. And Amazon
Speaker 1: again does that just very randomly. So there you go.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's get to the next story, which is
Speaker 1: a ring has a new video doorbell, and this is
Speaker 1: the Video Doorbell Pro too, So this is a wired doorbell.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's for everyone, but if you know,
Speaker 1: because most people are installing rings kind of like they
Speaker 1: just stick them on their front door. They don't really
Speaker 1: they don't really wire them. But I telling you this
Speaker 1: because there's some new features built into this doorbell that
Speaker 1: are pretty cool. One of them is called well, it
Speaker 1: uses three D motion detection. So what this means is
Speaker 1: it has a little radar sensor basically that can tell you.
Speaker 1: So Number one, you get less false positives for like
Speaker 1: things like birds and stuff that might set off your
Speaker 1: motion detection, so that's going to be number one. Number two,
Speaker 1: it actually will tell you the path someone took to
Speaker 1: get to your front door, which I'm just saying front door,
Speaker 1: like that's where you have this installed, but anywhere you
Speaker 1: have it installed. So it's using this motion sen sensing,
Speaker 1: this three D motion sensing to see where someone walked up,
Speaker 1: so if they came from the side of your house,
Speaker 1: that came from like the front. So I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just like next level. And I looked at the little
Speaker 1: picture that they showed of like how this works, and
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. Shows like a little heat map of
Speaker 1: like how they walked up to your house. Then they
Speaker 1: have a feature called bird's eye view, which kind of
Speaker 1: gives you a top down level of like I said,
Speaker 1: where they walked. But I mean, it's just it's really
Speaker 1: really cool, and it's just my point is that this
Speaker 1: is this is getting real, like the home security stuff.
Speaker 1: And this is why I always mention on this show
Speaker 1: why I really like Ring and A yes, I want
Speaker 1: to switch everything over to Ring in my home. I
Speaker 1: haven't done it just yet, but I just think that
Speaker 1: they have so much going on and more so than
Speaker 1: anyone else out there, and that's why I like this company,
Speaker 1: and so I think that this is really cool. The
Speaker 1: other new feature on this camera compared to previous cameras
Speaker 1: is they now have head to toe video. So you know,
Speaker 1: Ring video doorbells are kind of you know, you know,
Speaker 1: like a wide angle view. This now has head to
Speaker 1: toe so you can see the full picture of the
Speaker 1: person that walks up to your door, even when they're
Speaker 1: close up to the doorbell. So this will help for
Speaker 1: packages seeing like what's on the ground in front of
Speaker 1: your door. So those are the two major new features.
Speaker 1: Ring Video Doorbell Pro two is available for pre order now.
Speaker 1: It's two hundred and fifty dollars. It ships on March
Speaker 1: thirty first. And you've got the original Ring Video Doorbell
Speaker 1: Pro that's one seventy and then the Ring Video Doorbell
Speaker 1: three is one eighty and again, these video doorbells do
Speaker 1: go on sale from time to time, so I would
Speaker 1: look out for some deals on those if you want
Speaker 1: to want to pay a little bit less. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the next question from Francisco. Francisco says,
Speaker 1: what is the best and easiest robo killer app in
Speaker 1: the Android play Store. I appreciate your insight on KTLA.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Frank.
Speaker 1: I would recommend you know, honestly, I don't really like
Speaker 1: a lot of the third party ones. I don't think
Speaker 1: they're very good. At this point, the robo callers have
Speaker 1: gotten so good that they can evade half these systems.
Speaker 1: They're just so good at this stuff. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know what the deal is they they just keep
Speaker 1: outwitting these these carriers. But what I would recommend is,
Speaker 1: let's see, it doesn't say what your carrier is, but
Speaker 1: I would just recommend downloading the robo or the the
Speaker 1: call filter app from your carrier. So if you have Verizon,
Speaker 1: they've got Verizon Call Filter at and T I think
Speaker 1: it's called call Protect, and then T Mobile has one
Speaker 1: I think it's called Scam Protection. But I would do
Speaker 1: that because all three carriers have it.
Speaker 2: It's free.
Speaker 1: Now some of them charge. They try to charge you
Speaker 1: a premium for some features. Ignore it. Just don't pay
Speaker 1: whatever it is like that. You know, when you download
Speaker 1: the app, it'll like try to get you to pay
Speaker 1: like three dollars a month. Don't do it. Just do
Speaker 1: the free one. I've got it installed on mine. I've
Speaker 1: got the Verizon call Filter and you know it'll catch
Speaker 1: a it'll catch a spam call from time to time.
Speaker 1: I did have to block one manually yesterday, but I
Speaker 1: would do that now. The other one that I have
Speaker 1: done a story with was robo Killer. That was an
Speaker 1: app and you can do that. That one, you know,
Speaker 1: was pretty good. Again, a lot of these try to
Speaker 1: push you to a paid you know, a paid subscription,
Speaker 1: So even Robokiller, I always look up on the app
Speaker 1: I when I go, when I when I'm looking at
Speaker 1: any app, I always scroll down. If you do this,
Speaker 1: you always scroll down and look under the section that
Speaker 1: says in app purchases, and that will give you a
Speaker 1: good idea of even if a free app is actually free,
Speaker 1: most of them are not. So when I look at
Speaker 1: this robo killer app, which is free, oh.
Speaker 2: My gosh, that's so cool.
Speaker 1: Scroll down, go to the in app purchases and look
Speaker 1: at the different in app purchases membership three dollars, three
Speaker 1: ninety nine, twenty nine, ninety nine, four ninety nine, a
Speaker 1: dollar ninety nine, forty dollars, ninety nine cents three ninety nine,
Speaker 1: twenty nine, ninety nine, and three ninety nine. The only
Speaker 1: active ones are are let's see three ninety nine a month,
Speaker 1: thirty dollars or.
Speaker 2: Five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: So the what that information also tells me, and this
Speaker 1: is I'm kind of giving you the secrets to how
Speaker 1: to analyze things here. It also tells me, like let's
Speaker 1: say I was downloading like a food tracking app. This
Speaker 1: was a couple months ago, and I wanted to know,
Speaker 1: like you know, they say when you first download it, oh,
Speaker 1: it's sixty dollars a year to sign up. But if
Speaker 1: you go into the in app purchases, you'll notice a
Speaker 1: twenty nine ninety nine. And that's what happens is with
Speaker 1: Apple and app has to list all of their in
Speaker 1: app purchases through the app like what they offer. And
Speaker 1: so if one of them is fifty nine ninety nine,
Speaker 1: the other one is twenty nine ninety nine, what does
Speaker 1: that tell me? That tells me that if I don't
Speaker 1: sign up during that first time I download the app,
Speaker 1: and they try to push you towards it, after a
Speaker 1: couple of days or weeks of using the app, they're
Speaker 1: gonna say, oh, we have a special for you. It's
Speaker 1: only twenty nine ninety nine for the year, and nine
Speaker 1: times out of ten that works. But this little in
Speaker 1: app purchases area of the App Store can tell you.
Speaker 1: It can give you a little indication of does an
Speaker 1: app have a cheaper yearly priced than what they say.
Speaker 1: So if you go to an app like a Peloton, right,
Speaker 1: let's see if they even list it, because I'm not
Speaker 1: sure you can subscribe through the app. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Let me say so if I go to the Peloton app,
Speaker 1: or let's let's look at Aptive, because I bet you
Speaker 1: you can Aaptiv okay.
Speaker 2: So if I go to.
Speaker 1: Aptive iOS and I see, let's see here, okay, Aptive
Speaker 1: number one audio fitness app, and I scroll down offers
Speaker 1: in app purchases, So here are the options nine ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month, fourteen ninety nine a month, ninety nine,
Speaker 1: ninety nine, ninety nine, ninety nine, eleven, ninety nine, forty
Speaker 1: nine ninety nine, twenty four, ninety nine, ninety nine, ninety nine,
Speaker 1: nine ninety nine, and sixty nine ninety nine. So what
Speaker 1: does that tell me? That tells me that sometimes they
Speaker 1: offer a deal of fifty dollars for the year or
Speaker 1: sixty nine ninety nine for a year, and you don't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to pay the ninety nine ninety nine a year.
Speaker 1: So again, this is just ways of kind of figuring
Speaker 1: out things. So when I sign up for Aptive, they
Speaker 1: first wanted ninety nine bucks a year. Then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, after a couple of weeks, it was like,
Speaker 1: after my free trial, hey we'll give you fifty bucks,
Speaker 1: and boom, that's what I sign up for. I have
Speaker 1: since canceled. Sadly, I've and I still have it till
Speaker 1: I think March. But I since canceled because now I
Speaker 1: have Peloton and Apple Fitness Plus and so I just
Speaker 1: don't need appt to of anymore. But I still think
Speaker 1: it's a fantastic app. It really is for audio guided workouts.
Speaker 1: They've been doing more video as well. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk about Let's see what did I mentioned at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the show.
Speaker 2: I don't want to, okay, I want to make sure. Okay,
Speaker 2: I got those two.
Speaker 1: Okay, Let's talk about some new features coming to Android.
Speaker 1: A couple of features coming to many Android phones. Number
Speaker 1: one a password checkup tool. If you're using Google's password filler,
Speaker 1: they will now check your passwords to see if they've
Speaker 1: been exposed. I thought this was really cool if you're
Speaker 1: using messages. This happens to me all the time because
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of family on the East Coast
Speaker 1: and they'll actually it doesn't matter anyone they text me
Speaker 1: at you know, when I go to sleep, which is early,
Speaker 1: and then I will want to text them back early
Speaker 1: when I get up in the morning, but it's too
Speaker 1: early to text them, and so I'm always Wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be so nice if I could just schedule a text,
Speaker 1: like type it and then just say later. You could
Speaker 1: do this in Gmail with an outlook, you know, you
Speaker 1: send an email and it sends it at like one
Speaker 1: PM or something. Well now and the messages app on Android,
Speaker 1: all you have to do is press and hold the
Speaker 1: send button and it will say okay when you want
Speaker 1: to schedule this, and you can just send the message
Speaker 1: a little bit later, which is so cool because what
Speaker 1: happens to me is someone will text me at night,
Speaker 1: I see it in the morning when I get up,
Speaker 1: but it's too early to text them back, and then
Speaker 1: I end up forgetting about their text altogether. Let's see,
Speaker 1: Google Assistant is going to have some new things which
Speaker 1: it's gonna look a little different when your phone is locked.
Speaker 1: It's gonna have more information on the lock screen so
Speaker 1: you can see what you're doing there. Dark mode in
Speaker 1: Google Maps Android Auto is now getting custom wallpapers, and
Speaker 1: I thought this was kind of weird, but they're now
Speaker 1: going to let you play games voice activated games like
Speaker 1: trivia and Jeopardy in your car. And I haven't tested this,
Speaker 1: but I need to. This reminds me I want to
Speaker 1: test this, but it sounds a little dangerous. But I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Google did their homework on this.
Speaker 2: But little dicey there.
Speaker 1: But all I have to say is, hey, G started
Speaker 1: play a game to get started, and G replaced that
Speaker 1: with the forward Google.
Speaker 2: They also have new.
Speaker 1: Shortcuts on the launch screen and that's about it. So anyway,
Speaker 1: what I love about Android and you know iOS as well,
Speaker 1: is that they're always adding new features. And this is
Speaker 1: what makes me love both Android and iOS in different ways.
Speaker 1: So when I read those features on Android, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I want to use Android again. And then when I
Speaker 1: see the features on iOS, I'm like, ah, I want
Speaker 1: to use iOS. So it's like it's always you know,
Speaker 1: competition is good because these two companies are always trying
Speaker 1: to introduce new features for the end user. Leo says, Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: since we have become email pen pals, I realize that
Speaker 1: I've not thanked you for the KTLA feature you did
Speaker 1: on us last January. The Laptop ELF Project. Seeing that
Speaker 1: report encouraged me to contact David, who runs the Laptop
Speaker 1: Elf to see if I could help in any way.
Speaker 1: Although I'm a retired dentist, I'd become a pretty good
Speaker 1: technician over the years. We got together and I offered
Speaker 1: him my services and we've been working together ever since.
Speaker 1: This way he can concentrate a bit more on searching
Speaker 1: for donations while I refurbish and repair them. I'll go
Speaker 1: deep and swap motherboards, move a screen from one lap
Speaker 1: to another. We are always in need of more computers, phones,
Speaker 1: and tablets, so any help from you would be appreciated.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Leo.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what Leo is talking about here? I did
Speaker 1: a story on this thing called this project. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can call it an organization.
Speaker 1: It was just one guy at the time, a guy
Speaker 1: named David, and he started to think called the Laptop
Speaker 1: Elf Project. And what he did was, this was in
Speaker 1: Redondo Beach, California. He would just collect old computers and
Speaker 1: laptops that people thought were like they didn't need any more,
Speaker 1: they just thought were no good and he would take
Speaker 1: them and he would completely refurbish them. So he would
Speaker 1: you know, format the hard drive, clean them up. He
Speaker 1: would do full on diagnostic tests, and he would install
Speaker 1: like software on him.
Speaker 2: I think he was.
Speaker 1: Using like like he would do like a Chrome book,
Speaker 1: like convert these things into chromebooks, which you know, even
Speaker 1: if there are Windows laptop he was anyway, he just
Speaker 1: did a really good job of converting these laptops and
Speaker 1: tablets into something that someone else could use, someone a
Speaker 1: little bit less fortunate, So like a child that might
Speaker 1: not have access to this, or an after school organization
Speaker 1: that needed a bunch of computers and they didn't care
Speaker 1: if they were big and bulky and old, as long
Speaker 1: as they can run the web on them. Most of
Speaker 1: the time. That's finer word processing. Everything's done in the
Speaker 1: cloud now that the students need. So it was a
Speaker 1: fantastic story. I featured David in his laptop elf project
Speaker 1: and he got a lot of response. And clearly Leo
Speaker 1: saw this story and said I could help out, and
Speaker 1: he did. So this is amazing, this is what I need.
Speaker 1: My clapping, but Leo happy to help. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: did it. And that's a fantastic story.
Speaker 2: So check it out.
Speaker 1: Just google laptop elf probably pecked DeMuro Ktla and there
Speaker 1: it is. Laptop Elf refurbishes old laptops, gives them to
Speaker 1: the needy. And this was on January twenty fourth, twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: so just about a year ago.
Speaker 2: I did that. Wow, that was right before? Was that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Right before COVID, because now it's twenty twenty one. Wild, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Did I mention we landed on Mars? I think I did, right, wild?
Speaker 1: So that is just so wild to me. I was
Speaker 1: reading that the Mars rover landed at like twelve thousand
Speaker 1: miles an hour or something insane, like, how do these
Speaker 1: people do that? How do they know how to send
Speaker 1: a Mars rover from Earth all the way over to
Speaker 1: Mars and land it on that planet and then do
Speaker 1: stuff and control it and send back video and now audio.
Speaker 1: I mean, oh my gosh, is this amazing?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: I know we've done it before, but still it boggles
Speaker 1: my mind that this little rover was traveling through outer
Speaker 1: space somehow. Lots of math is involved. My kids are
Speaker 1: always asking me why do I have to do math?
Speaker 1: Someone needed a lot of math to figure out how
Speaker 1: do you make this trajectory from Earth to Mars? I mean,
Speaker 1: isn't this stuff just mind boggling when you really think
Speaker 1: about it. This little device was traveling autonomously through space
Speaker 1: for days and months, and just how do you do it?
Speaker 1: I don't understand it, but it's amazing. I love that
Speaker 1: we have people that know how to do this stuff.
Speaker 1: And I watched the video of the landing. I'm doing
Speaker 1: a story next week on KTLA about one of the microphones,
Speaker 1: since this is the first time that we got audio
Speaker 1: from Mars. I talked to a guy who helped put
Speaker 1: the microphone on this thing. And he's not even a
Speaker 1: NASA guy. He's like a he's a musician and he
Speaker 1: was just like obsessed without her space. And he wrote
Speaker 1: to NASA a proposal saying, hey, can I help you
Speaker 1: pick the microphone?
Speaker 2: And he accepted and he did it. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: so cool.
Speaker 1: Perseverance touchdown February eighteenth, twenty twenty one. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you think this is all just funning games for
Speaker 1: the NASA folks, it's not. They're doing this stuff for
Speaker 1: a reason. Astrobiology research, including the search for signs of
Speaker 1: ancient microbial life on Mars. Could you imagine, oh, this
Speaker 1: would be the best case scenario. Can you imagine if
Speaker 1: that Perseverance is just sitting there doing its own thing,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, like another little spaceship lands there,
Speaker 1: and it's like some alien walks out.
Speaker 2: I mean, could you imagine the video.
Speaker 1: I'm sure people have already faked that, but I don't
Speaker 1: think that's gonna happen, but it would be really cool.
Speaker 1: They're also looking for the planets geology and past climate.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be the first mission to collect and I
Speaker 1: guess cash Martian Rock paving the way for human exploration
Speaker 1: of the Red planet. So next up, people on Mars.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't I could not imagine going
Speaker 1: to Mars. That's just like mind boggling. I think a
Speaker 1: flight from here to like, you know, China is long,
Speaker 1: Like I've been on those flights shang Hei. It's like
Speaker 1: seventeen hour. Oh no, what was it? That was really long? Yeah,
Speaker 1: China was pretty long, but I think the longest I've
Speaker 1: been on was New Zealand.
Speaker 2: That was pretty long. And Mars. I don't know. I
Speaker 2: doubt those.
Speaker 1: Guys are watching Guys and Gals. I doubt they are
Speaker 1: watching Netflix on that flight. I don't think they I
Speaker 1: don't know what they're doing. I mean, it's just like
Speaker 1: lots of lots of time up there. Well that sound
Speaker 1: means it is going to be the end of this show.
Speaker 1: If you would like to submit a question for me
Speaker 1: to answer, there are two ways to do it. You
Speaker 1: can go to rich on Tech dot tv slash podcast,
Speaker 1: hit the microphone button and leave a voicemail, or go
Speaker 1: to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash rich on
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Speaker 1: I'm not advertising this thing, right, It's just me and
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Speaker 2: As you can see, look at this, this is the
Speaker 2: budget right here.
Speaker 1: But we do love the thousands of you that listen
Speaker 1: every week, so I do appreciate it. And the email
Speaker 1: and honestly, the amount of emails I get off this
Speaker 1: show it rivals the emails I get off TV now
Speaker 1: at this point, which is pretty wild to me. Go
Speaker 1: to ratethpodcast dot com slash rich on Tech, leave your
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Speaker 1: at rich on Tech. In case you don't know my name,
Speaker 1: rich Demiro. Thanks so much, for listening, Stay safe, I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you real soon.