Speaker 1: Google is bringing one of its best pixel features to
Speaker 1: many more phones, including the iPhone. How young consumers are
Speaker 1: driving Apple sales, The smartest new way to search Reddit,
Speaker 1: plus your tech questions answered. What is going on? I'm
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the show
Speaker 1: where I talk about the tech stuff I think you
Speaker 1: should know about. It's also the place where I answer
Speaker 1: your questions about technology. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA
Speaker 1: Channel five in Los Angeles. Still drying off from getting
Speaker 1: into the studio, Welcome to the show. Phone lines are
Speaker 1: open at one eight eight eight Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's triple eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: Give me a call if you have a question about technology.
Speaker 1: We'll take your calls, answer your questions, and just be
Speaker 1: here for you. As you know, I'm broadcasting live from
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, typically known for its sun and fun, but
Speaker 1: the last couple of days it has been all about rain.
Speaker 1: It has been snowing. There's been sleet, something called I
Speaker 1: think it's groppol. I don't know who calls it that.
Speaker 1: No one I know we has called it sleet. It
Speaker 1: has been non stop. It was so rainy over the
Speaker 1: past couple of days. You would not believe you're in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. It's so rainy and wet in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: the plants are like, okay, we'll never complain about being
Speaker 1: thirsty again. It's so rainy and wet in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: At this point, the ocean is jealous of the land.
Speaker 1: It is so rainy and wet. In Los Angeles. The
Speaker 1: four or five at this point is just one big
Speaker 1: slip in slide. It is so rainy and wet. In
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Umbrellas, yes, umbrellas are refusing to go outside.
Speaker 1: It is so rainy in Los Angeles. The Hollywood Sign
Speaker 1: is now surrounded by a moat. It's so rainy. In
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, studios just greenlit Noah's Ark two and this
Speaker 1: one I got. It's so rainy in Los Angeles. California
Speaker 1: Pizza Kitchen is now the Rainforest Cafe, still serving the
Speaker 1: same thing though it's so rainy. In Los Angeles, Apple
Speaker 1: rushed out a software update to enable underwater mode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll find it right next to airplane mode. It's so
Speaker 1: rainy in Los Angeles. Weather apps just gave up. And
Speaker 1: it's so rainy in Los Angeles. I had to take
Speaker 1: Uber canoe to the studio today. All right, I don't know.
Speaker 1: You know, look, the rain gets you a little, you know,
Speaker 1: cooped up, Like I was inside all night last night.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if, like the roof is gonna fly
Speaker 1: off with the wind. So I hope you enjoyed my
Speaker 1: dad jokes. I don't know, maybe let me know what
Speaker 1: you think. But in all seriousness, this rain is a
Speaker 1: very serious thing in California, in Los Angeles because we're
Speaker 1: just not used to it. So of course I'm a
Speaker 1: little introspective and thinking about weather apps. So I posted
Speaker 1: to my Instagram today at richon Tech a bunch of
Speaker 1: useful weather apps. Now here's the thing. Bill, one of
Speaker 1: the folks behind this show, actually talked about this very
Speaker 1: idea for one of the first shows. He said, rich
Speaker 1: you should talk about how dark sky is no longer
Speaker 1: a thing and Apple bought them and you know, some
Speaker 1: alternative weather apps. And I was like, Bill, do people
Speaker 1: really care? Let's be honest, there's there are two types
Speaker 1: of people in this world. People that care about the
Speaker 1: weather forecast and people that do not care about the
Speaker 1: weather forecast. My wife is a weather forecast fanatic. She
Speaker 1: checks her apps every minute of the day. It drives
Speaker 1: everything she does, from what she wears to work in
Speaker 1: the morning to what she plans for the afternoon to
Speaker 1: her drive. So let me give you a little background
Speaker 1: about dark Sky. So this was an app and a
Speaker 1: company that was very, very popular, and the reason they
Speaker 1: were popular is they had this really spot on notification
Speaker 1: technology that if it was going to start raining, they
Speaker 1: would send you a notification saying, hey, we're predicting rain
Speaker 1: in your area in the next seventeen minutes. You'd be like, what,
Speaker 1: how do they know? How do they do this? I
Speaker 1: don't know how they do it? But it was so
Speaker 1: good and it was pretty much the favored weather app
Speaker 1: for both Android users and some iOS users until Apple decided,
Speaker 1: you know what, this is pretty good technology, let's purchase it.
Speaker 1: So they purchased this technology. I think it was like
Speaker 1: back in a couple of years ago, and then immediately
Speaker 1: they shut down the Android app. So all the Android
Speaker 1: users were like, nap, sorry, no more, no more Dark
Speaker 1: Sky for you. And then they took the technology and
Speaker 1: they mixed it into their own weather app. So if
Speaker 1: you have an iPhone, you've probably seen those little notifications
Speaker 1: that say, hey, it's going to start raining your location
Speaker 1: in the next you know, eight minutes. That's all because
Speaker 1: of dark Sky. And then they're going ahead and they're
Speaker 1: going to shut down these other what's called an API,
Speaker 1: So other weather apps were able to tap into dark
Speaker 1: Sky and use that information to make their apps better.
Speaker 1: That's called an API. Well, now Apple is going to
Speaker 1: shut that off as of according to the website March
Speaker 1: thirty first, twenty twenty three. But I think they actually
Speaker 1: extended that. I think that was supposed to happen last year,
Speaker 1: but I think because of the pandemic and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: they said, Okay, we'll throw you a bone. We'll let
Speaker 1: it stay for a little bit longer. So all these
Speaker 1: apps that rely on dark Sky for this really cool
Speaker 1: technology are now suddenly like, okay, now what do we do?
Speaker 1: So I went through and I looked at some of
Speaker 1: my favorite apps and some of the useful apps out there,
Speaker 1: and I kind of did a little Instagram post. So
Speaker 1: if you want to check it out, go to go
Speaker 1: to my Instagram at rich on Tech and I'll go
Speaker 1: through some of these apps and some of them were
Speaker 1: suggested by users as well. But the first one is
Speaker 1: called Windy. This app is really great if you love
Speaker 1: full screen visualization. So if you just like seeing what
Speaker 1: it looks like around you outside from space, this is
Speaker 1: just a fantastic app for that because it lets you
Speaker 1: scroll through all different kinds of visualizations, whether it's precipitation,
Speaker 1: whether it's wind, whether it's lightning, and it's just a
Speaker 1: nice big map to see that and that big map
Speaker 1: animation sort of like what you see on the news. Right.
Speaker 1: So Windy is the app for you. If you like that.
Speaker 1: Then there's an app called Overdrop, and this is one
Speaker 1: of my favorites. This is a very minimalistic app. It's
Speaker 1: very beautiful. Some people are calling it the Dark Sky
Speaker 1: two point zero because it's easy to understand, it looks
Speaker 1: really good, it functions very good. All of the basics
Speaker 1: are on one page, so they've got these nice, beautiful animations.
Speaker 1: At the top. You could see exactly what you need
Speaker 1: to know, like the current conditions, the hourly forecast, and
Speaker 1: then you can scroll down and see the rest of
Speaker 1: what you need. Plus they do precipitation notifications and so
Speaker 1: if you like those notifications that used to get especially
Speaker 1: on Android from Dark Sky, Overdrop can maybe fill that
Speaker 1: void now Overdrop is still powered by dark Sky, but
Speaker 1: I was reading on their website and they said, no, no,
Speaker 1: we've got some tricks up our sleeve. We're gonna switch
Speaker 1: to some other providers once dark Guy goes away, but
Speaker 1: right now they're still able to use that one. Now,
Speaker 1: another app that's really bright and kind of fun, and
Speaker 1: this is a very good app. I recommended it to
Speaker 1: my mom and she used it for many many years
Speaker 1: is called Hello Weather, and again very much like Overdrop,
Speaker 1: but it's minimalistic. It's got nice, big kind of graphics.
Speaker 1: It's got big bar charts that just tell you what
Speaker 1: you need to know, so you get this nice, rich
Speaker 1: visualization of the week ahead. So I can see today
Speaker 1: we've got one hundred percent rain the forecast, Tomorrow it's
Speaker 1: fifty five percent. Monday it's back to one hundred percent,
Speaker 1: then Tuesday ninety five percent, Wednesday ninety percent. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: what is happening here in California? And then Thursday it'll
Speaker 1: be sunny. But I can see that really easily on
Speaker 1: this app. So that one is very nice and simple
Speaker 1: to use. Now this next app, you're gonna love her hate.
Speaker 1: It's called Carrot Weather, and I actually interviewed the founder
Speaker 1: of this app a couple of years ago, and it's
Speaker 1: so funny. Nice guy, but you go on this app
Speaker 1: and it is sooner for snarky and people love that
Speaker 1: about this app. So, if you want your weather with personality,
Speaker 1: Carrot Weather is where you got to go. So you
Speaker 1: can choose from You've got this slider and you can
Speaker 1: choose from whatever you want your weather to be. Like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you've got personality from just fun, sorry, just regular,
Speaker 1: Then you've got friendly, then you've got snarky, then you've
Speaker 1: got homicidal, and then you've got overkill, which may have
Speaker 1: the creative use of profanity in the forecasts. So if
Speaker 1: you like your forecast with profanity, Carrot Weather is the
Speaker 1: one you want. Now there's also a political slant to
Speaker 1: this one, so you can have a slider for how
Speaker 1: do you like your weather delivered? You can have a
Speaker 1: political centrist, liberal, conservative, libertarian, communist, or anarchist. I don't
Speaker 1: know what that means when it comes to weather, but
Speaker 1: you can try it out weather and people like it
Speaker 1: because it's also very simple. Then you've got an app
Speaker 1: called Underground. And the thing about Underground, it's actually I
Speaker 1: think it's like Weather Underground, but it's from the same
Speaker 1: folks that do the Weather Channel, which is now owned
Speaker 1: by IBM, which is not the same as the Weather
Speaker 1: Channel on your TV by the way, so they're different
Speaker 1: as far as I know. So the Weather Channel or
Speaker 1: Weather Underground Underground uses data from two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: thousand personal weather stations, so they boast these hyper local
Speaker 1: weather forecasts. It also collects some information from your phone sensors,
Speaker 1: and I know that the Weather Channel kind of got
Speaker 1: in trouble for that when people realized that they were
Speaker 1: using that information, so just be aware of that. But
Speaker 1: this one is really very simple. It's kind of basic,
Speaker 1: but it has all the information you need if you
Speaker 1: want to take that deep dive again, same company as
Speaker 1: the Weather Channel. And then finally we've got this app
Speaker 1: called climb Clime. This has a great radar imagery plus
Speaker 1: all the vitals. So if you just want to scroll
Speaker 1: through and see the wind, the visibility, the AQI, the humidity,
Speaker 1: and the moon phase all in one place, you got
Speaker 1: it on this app, plus the big radar screen. It
Speaker 1: also has notifications for precipitation, so if you like that
Speaker 1: it has it. It also has notifications for major changes
Speaker 1: like lightning or other things that are happening with the weather.
Speaker 1: Now those require payment. Like a lot of these apps
Speaker 1: are kind of the freemium model, which means the basics
Speaker 1: are free, but you're gonna pay for the rest. And
Speaker 1: this one out of all the apps, I mean, they
Speaker 1: all push kind of a paid product, but this one
Speaker 1: really pushes their paid product. I was getting a notification
Speaker 1: or a pop up screen to switch to the paid
Speaker 1: stuff like very very often on this one. So that's
Speaker 1: called climb anyway, let me know in the comments. Go
Speaker 1: to my Instagram at richon Tech, tell me which weather
Speaker 1: app is your favorite. Of course, if you have a
Speaker 1: local TV station in your area, like I work for KTLA,
Speaker 1: they have their own weather apps as well, so you
Speaker 1: can check those out because people like those because there's
Speaker 1: a real human behind them in their neighborhood is helping
Speaker 1: to program that information. But again, weather apps, uh, if
Speaker 1: you use one, let me know. I know. My wife
Speaker 1: has her favorite. She's checking it all the time and
Speaker 1: it's just the Weather Channel. After I posted this today,
Speaker 1: she goes, I'm just pretty basic. I used the Weather Channel.
Speaker 1: I said, that's fine. Whatever works for you. All right,
Speaker 1: phone lines are open at triple eight rich one O one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. Got a lot coming up on this show,
Speaker 1: Great guests. This week, we're going to talk to the
Speaker 1: director of the Worldwide Day of Unplugging. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about an app that's like Uber, but you can
Speaker 1: make money doing other people's dirty laundry. Plus, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about how young people continue to drive Apple sales.
Speaker 1: Plus your calls up next at triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: O one. You are listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. I'm Rich Demiro. This is
Speaker 1: the show where we talk about technology and answer the
Speaker 1: questions you have about technology. You can find me online
Speaker 1: at richontech dot TV. Alex is in Northridge kicking off
Speaker 1: this hour, Alex. Welcome to the show. How can I help? Hello, Alex,
Speaker 1: am I doing something wrong? Okay? Do I hear you? Alex?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, Let's try this once again, Alex. Are you there? Nope? Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess Alex. Give me a call back, Alex. That's
Speaker 1: what we can do there. All right, let's talk about
Speaker 1: this while we wait for Alex to get back on
Speaker 1: here Magic Eraser. This is a feature that is sort
Speaker 1: of the big feature from the Pixel phones. It is
Speaker 1: coming to more phones. This is a very big deal
Speaker 1: because I don't know if you watched the Super Bowl,
Speaker 1: but Magic Eraser was one of the biggest features that
Speaker 1: they advertised, and this commercial really landed with people. It
Speaker 1: was Google. They showed a whole bunch of pictures, whether
Speaker 1: it was including you know, some random person in the
Speaker 1: background or an x and they said, look, if you
Speaker 1: want to clean up your pictures and fix them up
Speaker 1: and get them right, try Magic Eraser. And this is
Speaker 1: a feature that's really been kind of the selling point
Speaker 1: of Pixel phones for many years now. It was launched
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was launched with a Pixel
Speaker 1: six perhaps, but it was exclusive to that phone, and
Speaker 1: then it came to the Pixel seven. And you know,
Speaker 1: Google's gotten a lot of mileage out of this because
Speaker 1: it allows you to just highlight something in a picture,
Speaker 1: whether that's a person or an object, tap a button
Speaker 1: and it disappears. And of course Google using artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: and all their machine learning to figure out how to
Speaker 1: do this and make the picture look pretty good. And
Speaker 1: so if you wanted this feature, you had to go
Speaker 1: to a Pixel and Samsung has a similar feature on
Speaker 1: their phones in Samsung Labs called Eraser, and it works
Speaker 1: pretty well. But again, Google kind of has the lock
Speaker 1: on this. Well now, they said in a blog post
Speaker 1: that Google Photos features are coming to not only more
Speaker 1: pixel phones, but anyone who pays for storage on Google
Speaker 1: that has an Android or an iOS phone. So if
Speaker 1: you want to access Magic Eraser, all you have to
Speaker 1: do is download Google Photos and be a paying member
Speaker 1: of Google one. So this means that you're paying for
Speaker 1: storage above and beyond the fifteen gigs that Google typically
Speaker 1: gives you included. So the plans are one hundred gigs
Speaker 1: starts at two dollars a month, two hundred gigs of
Speaker 1: storage starts at three dollars a month, two terabytes starts
Speaker 1: at ten dollars a month. And if you pay for
Speaker 1: any of those plans, you now have access to Magic Eraser,
Speaker 1: which is really cool on both Android and iOS. The
Speaker 1: other thing you're going to get is this new HDR
Speaker 1: video effect, So if you want to make your videos
Speaker 1: look better with HDR, you can now export them with
Speaker 1: this new effect, so it will balance dark foregrounds and
Speaker 1: bright backgrounds or vice. Versa and again machine learning, artificial intelligence.
Speaker 1: This is a huge deal that Google is now allowing
Speaker 1: this feature to work on so many more phones. It's
Speaker 1: rolling out now. So if you don't have it in
Speaker 1: your Google Photos just yet, you know, keep checking and
Speaker 1: make sure you have those updates. All right, I'm told
Speaker 1: Alex is back. Alex is in north Ridge unless I'm
Speaker 1: doing something wrong with the phones? Can you hear me, Alex, Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: I can. How are you welcome to the show? What
Speaker 1: can I help you with?
Speaker 3: First question? I found a mouse that has a Bluetooth
Speaker 3: adapters that I can plug into one computer and at
Speaker 3: the same time it tears via Bluetooth to a second computer,
Speaker 3: and there's a switch on it that I can switch
Speaker 3: between the two computers to use one mouse. The question is,
Speaker 3: do you know of a mouse that can control three
Speaker 3: computers at the same time? Not at the same time,
Speaker 3: you know, with a switch on it, I can flip
Speaker 3: to basically control each of those three computers.
Speaker 1: What are you running over here? What you got trading stocks?
Speaker 1: Or what's happening here?
Speaker 3: Not even close? No, it's f music applications.
Speaker 1: Music applications. Okay, so you've got a couple of different computers.
Speaker 1: You want to use one keyboard three computers, okay, and
Speaker 1: right now your mouse that you have can control two.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I found a mouse I forgot who the maker is,
Speaker 3: has a kind of a switch on amb okay, and
Speaker 3: the one way it connects via the built in kind
Speaker 3: of wireless to one computer and it comes one of
Speaker 3: those dongles that you can put into the second computer
Speaker 3: and it pairs via bluetooth to that dongle.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I think what you're going to have to do.
Speaker 1: There may be a mouse that does this, but I
Speaker 1: think from everything I'm seeing, it's pretty much going to
Speaker 1: be either a hardware solution, something called a KVM switch,
Speaker 1: which you know, I think we're popular back in the day,
Speaker 1: or if you run a large amount of computers, that
Speaker 1: could be something that you want to look into KVM switch.
Speaker 1: But I think software might work. So a couple of
Speaker 1: things just doing a quick little search here that I'm
Speaker 1: finding that may work. There is a Microsoft app called
Speaker 1: Mouse Without Borders and this says it can control up
Speaker 1: to four computers with a single mouse and keyboard. This
Speaker 1: is a product that has been out for a while.
Speaker 1: Says it was released in September twenty eleven, and so
Speaker 1: you know, that's something you can try, and it may
Speaker 1: work with the mouse that you have already. That's probably
Speaker 1: the easiest way. Now, that's given that these are all
Speaker 1: Microsoft computers, right are Windows computers? I should say if
Speaker 1: it's a combination of computers, then you might want to
Speaker 1: look at an app called Synergy. Synergy and Synergy lets
Speaker 1: you work up to three computers, and it does look
Speaker 1: like it works across Windows, Mac Os, Linux, and Raspberry
Speaker 1: Pie if you are running those Now you mentioned you're
Speaker 1: running a music program a lot of times if you're
Speaker 1: doing content creation, folks are working on a Mac computer.
Speaker 1: So I think that would be probably your best solution
Speaker 1: is either the switch or the Synergy. Alex. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: don't have time for your second questions. I got to
Speaker 1: run to break here, but thank you so much, and
Speaker 1: let me know if that works all right? Coming up,
Speaker 1: we are gonna do a great interview. This is something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people have debated. The blue versus
Speaker 1: the Green bubble article went viral this week that says
Speaker 1: gen Z users are so loyal to the iPhone and
Speaker 1: those blue bubbles that they sell a lot of Apple
Speaker 1: products plus your phone calls at Triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: on one eighty eight seven four to two, four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. You're listening to Rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. My name is Rich Demiro,
Speaker 1: tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. This
Speaker 1: is the show where we talk about technology and answer
Speaker 1: your questions. And one of the age old debates in
Speaker 1: technology is iPhone versus androids, specifically the green bubble versus
Speaker 1: the blue bubble or vice versa, depending on which side
Speaker 1: you're sitting on. And this was an article this week
Speaker 1: that went viral. It's in the Financial Times how Apple
Speaker 1: captured gen Z in the US and change their social circles.
Speaker 1: Patrick McGee is the author. He's joining me now, Patrick,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 5: Hey, Rich, glad to be here.
Speaker 1: So this article, I guess my first question is what
Speaker 1: was the thesis behind it? Like, why did you decide
Speaker 1: to write this? Because it really hit a nerve with
Speaker 1: a lot of folks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's just underappreciated by investors. Just how
Speaker 5: like what kind of good trajectory Apple is on over
Speaker 5: the next decade. So if you think about other big
Speaker 5: tech giants, right, gen Z doesn't particularly love Amazon. They
Speaker 5: use it, but they feel guilty. They think Facebook is
Speaker 5: for old people, and I don't know how many of
Speaker 5: them are really getting into the metaverse. Google is sort
Speaker 5: of being taken over by obviously chat GBT in the
Speaker 5: last few months, but even before that, you know TikTok
Speaker 5: where people are doing you know, sort of like video
Speaker 5: mapping as a way to sort of find a restaurant,
Speaker 5: right preferences are selected by people that they know or
Speaker 5: other TikTokers rather than a sort of Yelp type review
Speaker 5: that you might find through Google. So it just seems like,
Speaker 5: you know, big tech is obviously massive, but it doesn't
Speaker 5: necessarily have the next generation until you look at Apple,
Speaker 5: where not only is it sort of continuing to have
Speaker 5: a hold on the next generation, it's got a massive
Speaker 5: stay change where you've got upwards of ninety percent of
Speaker 5: American teenagers already have an iPhone and continue to want
Speaker 5: an iPhone for the next hand set.
Speaker 1: And the way that that kind of plays out is
Speaker 1: the fact that when Apple sells iPhones, they sell other
Speaker 1: things as well, like an iPad or an Apple Watch
Speaker 1: or AirPods. And you're you're saying that this is good
Speaker 1: for business in the future, basically because this generation is
Speaker 1: going to grow up really a meshed in this stuff.
Speaker 5: Yes, I mean, the Apple ecosystem is so sticky that
Speaker 5: if you are going off to college after having an
Speaker 5: iPhone in the past decade, you're not really thinking, hmm,
Speaker 5: I wonder what sort of laptop I should buy. You're
Speaker 5: really thinking what type of MacBooks should I buy? And
Speaker 5: I could say the same thing for headphones, certainly for
Speaker 5: smart watches. You know how many iPhone users have a
Speaker 5: non Apple smartwatch? Like it's just like anecdotally, I don't
Speaker 5: know anybody, are.
Speaker 1: There any I don't even know if there is one.
Speaker 1: I mean, what would you use like a garment. I
Speaker 1: had a guy at my work that, you know, he
Speaker 1: got a garment because he didn't want an Apple watch.
Speaker 1: He said it maybe wasn't as specific as he wanted
Speaker 1: for his workouts. And of course a week later he
Speaker 1: comes back, nag, I got the Apple Watch. And its
Speaker 1: just that's sort of what happens.
Speaker 5: Yes, And actually that's a that's a fair exception actually
Speaker 5: that even though in this anecdote it didn't work out.
Speaker 5: You know, garmin like the athletics scene would be a
Speaker 5: little bit different, But I was thinking more of like,
Speaker 5: who's buying like a Samsung or an Android watch? You know,
Speaker 5: picks a watch that that can work with Apple, but
Speaker 5: I don't think most people sort of care that it does.
Speaker 5: They would rather have an Apple Watch. But yeah, the
Speaker 5: Apple Watch Ultra is basically eating into the dominance that
Speaker 5: Garment has in watches for Ultra marath outons and the
Speaker 5: leg Now one.
Speaker 1: Of the big kind of delineations between the iOS and
Speaker 1: and Apple and of course Android is this whole idea
Speaker 1: of the blue bubble versus the green bubble, a problem
Speaker 1: that was sort of manufactured by Apple. But this was
Speaker 1: a really smart sort of business decision they made to
Speaker 1: withhold I message from Android.
Speaker 5: So yes and no, I think it was somewhat inadvertent.
Speaker 5: So when when I message was created, SMS was the default.
Speaker 5: Now in the year's sense, something called RCS Rich Communication
Speaker 5: Services has sort of become the norm on Google, I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: on Android, And why that matters is RCS is far
Speaker 5: superior to SMS when it comes to sharing rich media,
Speaker 5: so you know, high definition videos or pictures and you know,
Speaker 5: even things like emoticons and things like that. But Apple's
Speaker 5: sort of similar you know tool is I Message. So
Speaker 5: in a sense, Apple was actually just sort of like
Speaker 5: creating its own technology and releasing it to the iPhone
Speaker 5: at a time when I Message was superior to SMS,
Speaker 5: and so that was clever on their part. But what
Speaker 5: happened is, you know, I sort of like a sort
Speaker 5: of well, you know, so if you're messaging on I Message,
Speaker 5: all the messages are blue, just to show you, you know,
Speaker 5: it's not sort of trying to build a community. It's
Speaker 5: just telling you that everything's operating through IM message, right,
Speaker 5: But if you are either sort of on Wi Fi
Speaker 5: or operating on an Android, it will just show that
Speaker 5: it's a green that it will show its green purely
Speaker 5: to indicate that it's a different messaging like default system.
Speaker 5: Then it's sort of how you and I and teenagers
Speaker 5: sort of began to feel about that, right. And so
Speaker 5: what happens is it's not just this aesthetic thing between
Speaker 5: blue and green bubbles, and I think a lot of
Speaker 5: people wrongly think that it is. It's that if you
Speaker 5: have a group of iPhone users and accept into the
Speaker 5: group chat a single Android user, everybody's message goes green, right,
Speaker 5: Which is to say that instead of the rich media
Speaker 5: service I Message, you have SMS, which means that even
Speaker 5: if you're an iPhone user sending a message to another
Speaker 5: iPhone user, you're going to have glitchy system where the
Speaker 5: definition of the video and the pictures that you take
Speaker 5: and are not as good as they would be with
Speaker 5: I Message. So I just want to make that clear.
Speaker 5: It's not an aesthetic thing. And it was so sort
Speaker 5: of inadvertent on the part of Apple's part, But over
Speaker 5: the last decade, Apple has begun to understand that this
Speaker 5: is quite a selling point and that the sort of
Speaker 5: community elements that they inadvertently built has actually really paid
Speaker 5: off with them.
Speaker 1: Now, Google did a big or they tried to do
Speaker 1: sort of a big campaign last year that was all
Speaker 1: about kind of shaming Apple into saying, Apple, we've got
Speaker 1: this RCS, this Rich Communications service, which now you know,
Speaker 1: you've got I Message, but there's something that works across
Speaker 1: all phones called RCS, and you're still defaulting to SMS.
Speaker 1: So Apple, why are you holding your users back and
Speaker 1: the cross platform exchange back by not enabling this on
Speaker 1: your smartphones? And basically Apple just ignored this whole campaign,
Speaker 1: and I think it sort of fell flat with consumers
Speaker 1: that didn't really resonate. Do you think Apple's to blame
Speaker 1: here for not including rcs and their phones at this point?
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't believe there's any technical reason why
Speaker 5: Apple couldn't adopt OURCS. And the nice thing about this question,
Speaker 5: act is I think we pretty well know the answer
Speaker 5: because Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, was directly asked
Speaker 5: at an event held in Beverly Hills last autumn. And
Speaker 5: so somebody said, you know, my mom is in we're
Speaker 5: in South America, and you know, we can't exchange tech
Speaker 5: messages back and forth and videos back and forth without
Speaker 5: there being glitchous here and there because I have an iPhone,
Speaker 5: she is an Android. And Tipcok's answer, with a big laugh,
Speaker 5: was by your mom and iPhone.
Speaker 1: Which I don't like that answer. I mean, that's you know,
Speaker 1: come on, it's like, let's I don't know, I really
Speaker 1: find an issue with this. Now. I understand that I
Speaker 1: do like the whole IE message platform, and I do
Speaker 1: feel a certain way when I'm messaging people on I
Speaker 1: Message versus Android, because you just feel like you can
Speaker 1: exchange you know, a video or you know, a picture
Speaker 1: and it's going to come through at full resolution, and
Speaker 1: there's been problems like let's say you're at your kids
Speaker 1: baseball game and you know, you take a video of
Speaker 1: another kid and he gets a good you know, a
Speaker 1: good hit or something, and the parents like, oh, you
Speaker 1: share that with me, and you're like, cool, I'll just
Speaker 1: air drop it, and you're like, oh, you've got Android.
Speaker 1: I can't do that. It's a it's a real thing,
Speaker 1: not just for gen Z. By the way, we're talking
Speaker 1: to Patrick McGee. He is a tech reporter for the
Speaker 1: Financial Times, and we're talking about his article about how
Speaker 1: Apple Basically he believe that sales of Apple products are
Speaker 1: just going to increase because of gen Z's loyalty to
Speaker 1: these products. And one of the stats you put in
Speaker 1: your piece is that globally, for every one hundred iPhones shipped,
Speaker 1: Apple sells twenty six iPads, seventeen Apple watches, and thirty
Speaker 1: five AirPods. When it comes to Samsung, for every one
Speaker 1: hundred smartphones they ship, that leads to fewer than eleven tablets,
Speaker 1: six smart smart watches, and six wireless earbuds. That's probably
Speaker 1: because there's much more choice on the other side. I
Speaker 1: guess right, Oh.
Speaker 5: I don't know about that. I mean, that's actually that's
Speaker 5: interesting to ask. I mean, perhaps that's true. Yeah, it's
Speaker 5: definitely true that if you have any sort of Android device,
Speaker 5: most of the other adjacent Android products will work for
Speaker 5: your phone, which is to say, if you have a
Speaker 5: Pixel phone, you can get you know, Sampung buds and
Speaker 5: they will be totally fine. So yes, that's true. But
Speaker 5: I guess the point I'm trying to make is that
Speaker 5: when you're entrenched in the Apple ecosystem, very likely to
Speaker 5: buy more Apple products. That is very true true if
Speaker 5: you're in any of the Android universes.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that Samsung has worked, and I
Speaker 1: think the last two I would say, the last two
Speaker 1: events I went to from Samsung, they're really trying to
Speaker 1: bring that ecosystem closer. And in fact, I would almost argue,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, when you're using an iPhone, it's it's
Speaker 1: so seamless to work between a MacBook, an iPad, the
Speaker 1: air pods, it all works together really well. Apple TV.
Speaker 1: I went to purchase an app on my Apple TV
Speaker 1: last night and it said, hey, just authorize this on
Speaker 1: the iPhone, and I thought, oh, that was really cool.
Speaker 1: You just kind of click and use your face ID.
Speaker 1: But Samsung is really doing a lot of this now
Speaker 1: with sort of Windows and the other side of things,
Speaker 1: Like they're going more towards like okay, well you've got
Speaker 1: the Apple stuff, we'll do the Windows stuff. And so
Speaker 1: I think that that Samsung is making progress in that
Speaker 1: area too.
Speaker 5: So they absolutely are. But this is what I would say,
Speaker 5: They're never going to be able to do as good
Speaker 5: a job as Apple. And the clear reason why is
Speaker 5: you're mentioning Windows. Who on Windows it's not Samsung, right, right,
Speaker 5: So from the ground up, like literally from the chip
Speaker 5: level and software level, you know, on up, Apple designs
Speaker 5: its phones and systems in such a way that working
Speaker 5: together is not some sort of afterthought that's recrofitted into
Speaker 5: the system, right, It's just from the ground level. Samsung
Speaker 5: just not gonna be able to do that if they're
Speaker 5: still working on Android, which is the well, actually, you know,
Speaker 5: I'll come back to that in a second. They're not
Speaker 5: going to be able to do that if they're working
Speaker 5: with with you know, Windows on computers. But the point
Speaker 5: I was just about to make that I sort of
Speaker 5: corrected myself on is when it comes to owning the ecosystem,
Speaker 5: just on Android. The problem isn't that they can't make
Speaker 5: things work together. The problem is it doesn't have any
Speaker 5: walls in the garden, right, which is to say, things
Speaker 5: can work pretty well between Samsung devices, but any other
Speaker 5: Android maker can basically make that make the same push. Right.
Speaker 5: So with Apple, you're sort of locked in as a consumer, right.
Speaker 5: I know other computers that's going to run iOS. That's
Speaker 5: just not true, which.
Speaker 1: Is why with Andrew right, which is why Apple loves
Speaker 1: the walled garden of I message, which is very popular
Speaker 1: here in the US, But you talk to other folks
Speaker 1: outside the US, they're not as enthralled. Patrick, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to leave it there. Thank you so much. I'll
Speaker 1: put a link to you on your Twitter on my website.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot TV. Patrick McGee with Financial Times,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 5: Cheers, Rich, that was great.
Speaker 1: Thanks all right. Coming up in the show, more of
Speaker 1: your calls at Triple eight Rich one oh one. That's
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two, four to one
Speaker 1: zero one. We're gonna talk about the startup that lets
Speaker 1: you make money doing other people's dirty laundry, and later
Speaker 1: in the show, I've got the new Best way to
Speaker 1: Search Reddit. You're listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. My name is rich Jimuro hanging
Speaker 1: out with you here talking technology. Got a couple of
Speaker 1: direct messages on my Instagram at rich on Tech. Linda said,
Speaker 1: liked your dad jokes. Is dad joke a compliment or not?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but you know, kind of up there
Speaker 1: with the bot. I guess. I don't know. Is that
Speaker 1: a good thing or a bad thing? Love your jokes,
Speaker 1: Christina wrote in Christina, thank you. I appreciate it. Those
Speaker 1: jokes came to me when I woke up this morning
Speaker 1: because I listened. I think it was because I listened
Speaker 1: to the rain all night and I was just like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I just just was, So it was
Speaker 1: just comical, like we don't get this much rain where
Speaker 1: I live, and so you know, you got a joke
Speaker 1: about it. Let's tell you about PlayStation VR two. So
Speaker 1: you're probably familiar with the idea of virtual reality. You've
Speaker 1: got the Oculus well Sony has had another headset called
Speaker 1: the PlayStation VR and they're on their second generation of it.
Speaker 1: So the PlayStation VR two launched this week and it
Speaker 1: has some new features and unique features compared to some
Speaker 1: of the other VR headsets out there. Now, I saw
Speaker 1: this at CS, I did not try it out at CS,
Speaker 1: so I can't give you my personal opinion of this
Speaker 1: other than I think all of these products are very
Speaker 1: early stage. Unless you are an early adopter and you
Speaker 1: just love this stuff, I don't know if they're one
Speaker 1: hundred percent ready for prime time just yet, especially due
Speaker 1: to the price tags. These things are very expensive. This
Speaker 1: headset is five hundred and fifty dollars and that does
Speaker 1: not include the PlayStation five that you need to use
Speaker 1: this headset. But with all that said, it's got controllers
Speaker 1: with haptic feedback, so you can feel what's happening in
Speaker 1: the game, like Sony gave the example of whether you're
Speaker 1: pulling a bow string or you know, the vibration effects
Speaker 1: during an epic boss battle. It also knows where your
Speaker 1: fingers are on the on the the actual device itself.
Speaker 1: Then the headset itself has feedback. They're not calling it
Speaker 1: haptic feedback, but there's some vibrations that add an element
Speaker 1: of tactileness, so you can feel things like, you know,
Speaker 1: if something passes by your head, you can feel that,
Speaker 1: or if a you know, car whizz is by. You
Speaker 1: can feel that as well. Three D audio is also
Speaker 1: built in. Three D audio is a really cool feature
Speaker 1: which lets you hear audio all around you from coming
Speaker 1: from different angles. Kind of like when you're in the
Speaker 1: movie theater and they play that opening thing and it says,
Speaker 1: you know, the audios all around you. That's kind of
Speaker 1: like what's happening with earbuds right now, the high end earbuds.
Speaker 1: And speaking of audio, there's no audio built into this headset.
Speaker 1: You do need to use earbuds with this headset that
Speaker 1: are you know, built in as well, but it's not
Speaker 1: a speaker like many of the VR headsets. There's also
Speaker 1: eye tracking, so the headset knows where you're looking. It
Speaker 1: offers a display up to four k HDR, so pretty
Speaker 1: high resolution. That's one of the problems I have with
Speaker 1: the Oculus is the current Oculus. The resolution is not
Speaker 1: that great. You can definitely see the pixels for sure.
Speaker 1: Some of the games that launch include Horizon, Call of
Speaker 1: the Mountain, Grand Turismo, Star Wars, Resident Evil Village, and
Speaker 1: one I can't wait for Tetris Effect. I would play this,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. Again, you do need a PS five
Speaker 1: for the PlayStation VR two headset, and the reviews I'm
Speaker 1: reading are sort of mixed on whether this thing is
Speaker 1: comfortable or not so, but most everyone agrees it is
Speaker 1: a big upgrade from the first model. All right, now,
Speaker 1: let's go to Suzanne. Suzanne, you're on with Rich Are
Speaker 1: you there?
Speaker 6: I'm doing great?
Speaker 1: How are you? I'm doing great? Okay, I don't know
Speaker 1: what happened there, but welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: How can I that's all right?
Speaker 2: Good morning or afternoon.
Speaker 7: I need a new internet company. I love, love, love
Speaker 7: my current internet company, and I will give them a
Speaker 7: shout out if you want. They're phenomenal their service and
Speaker 7: that knowledge is great. However, my phone lines, which are
Speaker 7: owned by AG and T, are abysmal and will not
Speaker 7: be upgraded, so I have unreliable internet. The company that
Speaker 7: I pay is so great at responding, but if I
Speaker 7: can't rely on it, then it's you know, even it's
Speaker 7: just frustrating.
Speaker 2: I can't use cable.
Speaker 7: I wouldn't use my local cable company if they're the
Speaker 7: last thing in the world. I'd rather have nothing than that.
Speaker 7: Oh wow, I do need I do need an internet,
Speaker 7: and I do need landline. So I'm wondering what.
Speaker 2: I'm in Orange County, California.
Speaker 7: I have access to a lot of things. So I'm
Speaker 7: wondering what my options are at this point in the
Speaker 7: technology world.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, okay, if you don't why why do
Speaker 1: you not like the local and I have a feeling
Speaker 1: I know which local company you're talking about? Does it
Speaker 1: start with an F that's.
Speaker 7: An as, like Suze my first name.
Speaker 1: Oh it starts with an AS. Oh wow? Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess I could have guessed anything. Because people hate
Speaker 1: all the all the cable companies for some reason. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. I mean, I guess it's one of
Speaker 1: these things that you set up once and you know,
Speaker 1: you just kind of go with it. So if you're
Speaker 1: not willing to go with them, there's a couple of
Speaker 1: things you can do. I don't I thought you were
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere and you needed like a
Speaker 1: satellite provider. You know, that's very slow and not very expensive,
Speaker 1: and that's probably not your best bet, although you know,
Speaker 1: you could look into Starlink if you have a backyard.
Speaker 1: That's Elon Musk's you know, satellite internet, which I think
Speaker 1: is overkill. You live in a you know, a populated area,
Speaker 1: So the website that I would check out is allconnect
Speaker 1: dot com a L l C O n n ECT
Speaker 1: all connect dot com, and that is a website that
Speaker 1: sort of helps you figure out which providers are in
Speaker 1: your area, and so if you know if there's a
Speaker 1: provider that may you know. Sometimes these providers provide Internet
Speaker 1: in an area that are a smaller company, but they
Speaker 1: maybe use the lines of a different company. So you're
Speaker 1: still getting the nice, unique service that you want, and
Speaker 1: it sounds like you want that kind of hands on service,
Speaker 1: but it's being delivered through a line that maybe AT
Speaker 1: and T operates or Frontier Spectrum or who knows. But
Speaker 1: that's probably the best place to look is all connect
Speaker 1: dot com. If that doesn't work, I would maybe talk
Speaker 1: to some neighbors and see what they have, see if
Speaker 1: there's some local companies. Sometimes there's some companies that are
Speaker 1: just small businesses that serve There's one more company called
Speaker 1: Starry Internet. I don't know if they're by you, and
Speaker 1: I think they're having some trouble as well, but Storry
Speaker 1: Internet delivers internet wirelessly. You can check to see if
Speaker 1: they're available in your neighborhood. That's story dot com. But
Speaker 1: those are the best places to go. You know, I
Speaker 1: think starlink is overkill for you, But if you refuse
Speaker 1: to use your local provider, there's not many There's just
Speaker 1: not many options right now. Until we get more satellite
Speaker 1: internet options, Susanne, it's just not gonna be a thing.
Speaker 1: Coming up on the show, we're gonna talk about the
Speaker 1: startup that helps you make money doing other people's dirty laundry.
Speaker 1: Plus i'm gonna tell you about the new Chrome features
Speaker 1: that will save your battery and maybe even make Chrome
Speaker 1: run faster. Plus your calls at triple eight Rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one. You're listening to Rich on tech Michael.
Speaker 1: You are on with uh, I'm gonna call myself technical
Speaker 1: difficulties Rich today. How you doing pretty good?
Speaker 4: Thanks for taking my call. I'm an Android user, so
Speaker 4: I have the Amazon Prime app on my tablet in
Speaker 4: my phone for watching video for watching my movies. When
Speaker 4: I purchase a movie now on the app, it doesn't
Speaker 4: allow me to do that. It tells me I have
Speaker 4: to go to the the you know, go to their
Speaker 4: website to purchase the movie now. So I'm no longer
Speaker 4: able to purchase the movie through the app.
Speaker 1: I'm my Android, and you used to be able to exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I like the app, it's more convenient, but now
Speaker 4: I have to go to www dot Amazon, Prime Video
Speaker 4: dot com to purchase an app. Now, if it's a
Speaker 4: free if it's a free movie, it starts up no
Speaker 4: problem on the app, right.
Speaker 1: But if it's something like that, like a movie that
Speaker 1: you have to pay to rent or to purchase, you
Speaker 1: can't do it through the app anymore.
Speaker 4: Right, exactly. And I'm gonnaccount with them, So I'm not
Speaker 4: sure why that changed, or a contract that.
Speaker 1: Was canceled or Yeah, it's frustrating. And I'll explain what's
Speaker 1: going on here. And this is this is a change
Speaker 1: that we're seeing across the internet. And the big, the
Speaker 1: big thing that's happening here is that Amazon does not
Speaker 1: want to pay tax to Google. So both Google and
Speaker 1: Apple they charge companies that process any sort of digital
Speaker 1: transaction through their platform. They charge them a percentage of that. Now,
Speaker 1: there are different things, like if you're ordering DoorDash, usually
Speaker 1: they don't get a cut of that. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to digital goods, whether you are buying, you know,
Speaker 1: a subscription to a music service or a movie or
Speaker 1: pretty much anything an app for ninety nine cents. They
Speaker 1: are taking a cut of that. Whether it's you know, depends.
Speaker 1: Typically it's about thirty percent, sometimes could be fifteen, depending
Speaker 1: on that. So this comes into play. This is horrible
Speaker 1: for consumers, by the way, because I experienced this when
Speaker 1: I wrote my book and I sold it as an
Speaker 1: ebook and people were telling me, hey, Rich, I can't
Speaker 1: buy it through the Amazon app, And I said, wait, why,
Speaker 1: what do you mean you can't buy it on iPhone.
Speaker 1: Now this back when I did my book a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, it was different. On Android, you could
Speaker 1: buy the book through the Amazon app, but on iPhone
Speaker 1: you couldn't. But because the book was called one hundred
Speaker 1: and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone, people are
Speaker 1: buying it for the iPhone, so they wanted to buy
Speaker 1: it through the iPhone. Well, when you went to the
Speaker 1: Amazon app on iPhone, what it's say this this book
Speaker 1: is not available for purchase through the Amazon app, and
Speaker 1: people will be like, wait, why not? But it didn't
Speaker 1: give any explanation as to how you can purchase it.
Speaker 1: Same thing with this Android. Now you're saying that it's
Speaker 1: telling you to go to the website to actually purchase
Speaker 1: the movie, which is a good thing because it's saying like,
Speaker 1: here's what you have to do. But on Apple's rules,
Speaker 1: a lot of the times you can't tell the customer
Speaker 1: that they need to go somewhere else. So let's say
Speaker 1: you want to subscribe to something inside an app, and
Speaker 1: that app maker doesn't want to pay the thirty percent
Speaker 1: to Apple. All they can say is, we're sorry, you
Speaker 1: can't subscribe through this app. That's it. They can't say, hey,
Speaker 1: please go to www dot whatever dot com to subscribe.
Speaker 1: They can't say that because that's against Apple's rules. So
Speaker 1: this really comes into play with movies, with ebooks, with
Speaker 1: anything that is sort of a digital good that you're
Speaker 1: buying on your phone that's not happening through a web browser.
Speaker 1: If you're going through a web browser, it's fine, but
Speaker 1: most of the time people are buying things through apps,
Speaker 1: and that's what you're experiencing. So, Michael, what's changed here
Speaker 1: is that Amazon has said, you know what, we don't
Speaker 1: really feel like paying this tax anymore, so we're not
Speaker 1: going to let you you know, we're not going to
Speaker 1: let you buy these things through this app. We're going
Speaker 1: to make you go to the Apple or the Amazon
Speaker 1: website and I'm trying to look here on you know,
Speaker 1: Let's say, if I want to that movie Megan, which
Speaker 1: I know is available for rent or for purchase here. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if I go to Megan on the app here,
Speaker 1: the Prime app says available to buy, how do I
Speaker 1: watch this? And I click that it says how do
Speaker 1: I watch this rent or buy at Amazon dot com
Speaker 1: to watch in the Prime Video app? Now, if I
Speaker 1: go to the let's see, do I have the Prime
Speaker 1: Video app on my iPhone? I don't, so I have
Speaker 1: to download that to see what it says on there.
Speaker 1: But the reality is I just encountered this the other
Speaker 1: day with Spotify, and I actually took a screenshot because
Speaker 1: I was so I couldn't believe how this stuff happens
Speaker 1: and how it's so bad for consumers that just don't
Speaker 1: know any better, Like they just go, wait, I can't
Speaker 1: subscribe to Spotify through the iPhone. So if you go
Speaker 1: on the iPhone and try to subscribe to Spotify, it
Speaker 1: says missing premium, you're in luck, and it tells you
Speaker 1: what you can do, and it says you can't upgrade
Speaker 1: to premium in the app. We know it's not ideal,
Speaker 1: and that's it. Spotify cannot say anything else about how
Speaker 1: you can actually go to subscribe, which is just really
Speaker 1: really poor. If you go over to the Android side
Speaker 1: of things, it's a little bit better. You can subscribe
Speaker 1: inside the app and it says how do you want
Speaker 1: to pay? You can pay for premium directly through Spotify
Speaker 1: or using your Google Play account. Now, sometimes this is
Speaker 1: another thing that happens, and actually it's this is such
Speaker 1: a great question, Michael. If you are subscribing to a
Speaker 1: service through the app on iOS, oftentimes you will pay
Speaker 1: more for that service just because you're subscribing through the app. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, I'm trying to think of a good example,
Speaker 1: if you subscribe through Hulu through the iOS app, right,
Speaker 1: it will sometimes charge you a little bit more than
Speaker 1: you would pay if you just subscribe to Hulu through
Speaker 1: Hulu dot Com. You might pay a dollar, two dollars,
Speaker 1: three dollars more for that. So I don't even know
Speaker 1: if you can subscribe to Hulu anymore through iOS if
Speaker 1: you want. But the reality is this is a real,
Speaker 1: real problem, and I understand. Look, Apple came up with
Speaker 1: this incredible platform right, and Android has this incredible platform
Speaker 1: with so many customers that come through these doors because
Speaker 1: they're on Android or they're on the iPhone. So I
Speaker 1: understand why these companies believe that they deserve a cut
Speaker 1: of that money. At the same time, it does make
Speaker 1: it very tricky for consumers to not even understand what's
Speaker 1: happening here. Why can't I subscribe on my phone? Why
Speaker 1: can't I buy this ebook on my phone? Why can't
Speaker 1: I rent this movie on my phone unless it's through
Speaker 1: Apple or unless it's through Google Play, you can, you know,
Speaker 1: shop till you drop on those things. Another good example
Speaker 1: is on if you have YouTube TV, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're on Android, you can upgrade right through the app.
Speaker 1: If you're on iOS you can't. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different ways that this comes into play, and you
Speaker 1: just have to realize that these are big companies. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of money at stake. Thirty percent of a
Speaker 1: dollar times millions upon millions of people really adds up
Speaker 1: to a lot. And I feel like there's going to
Speaker 1: be some sort of change because it's really tough to
Speaker 1: think that. I mean, Fortnite is one of the biggest
Speaker 1: fighting this whole thing. But it's just really tough to
Speaker 1: think that. You know, consumers are really losing here in
Speaker 1: the fact that things are just not easy for them
Speaker 1: to do that you think would be simple. You know,
Speaker 1: if you want to purchase through your phone or you
Speaker 1: want to purchase through your computer, it should be the
Speaker 1: same thing. But it's just not. And it all really
Speaker 1: comes down to these rules. All right. Coming up on
Speaker 1: the show, we are going to talk to the startup
Speaker 1: that lets you make money doing other people's dirty laundry.
Speaker 1: Later in the show, podcasts are coming to another place,
Speaker 1: So I'll tell you the app that will soon have
Speaker 1: podcasts making it easier to listen to your favorite shows
Speaker 1: like this plus more of your questions At triple eight
Speaker 1: Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: to two four one zero one. You are listening to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here, Welcome back to Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. There are a lot of ways to work
Speaker 1: from home, but this gig is pretty unique. It's called
Speaker 1: Sudshare and it's the uber of laundry. Basically, you're picking
Speaker 1: up other people's laundry. You wash it at your house,
Speaker 1: then fold it and return it within twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: Then you get paid. Recently, I spoke with Sudshare CEO
Speaker 1: Mort Fertel about the company. My first question, how do
Speaker 1: you come up with the idea?
Speaker 8: Actually, my wife, they came up with it. One comment
Speaker 8: she made in twenty seventeen started the whole thing. She
Speaker 8: was home with our five kids, buried in laundry, and
Speaker 8: she's like, this is crazy. I can tap an app
Speaker 8: and get to the airport FaceTime some on the other
Speaker 8: side of the world, but I'm still doing laundry like
Speaker 8: my grandmother. And as always she was right. Technologies made
Speaker 8: everything so fast and easy, except for this chore that
Speaker 8: takes the longest that we hate the most, laundry. It's
Speaker 8: actually shocking if you think about it, that there's been
Speaker 8: We're in the midst of this technological revolution, and yet
Speaker 8: there's been no innovation in this space since the washer
Speaker 8: and dryer almost a century ago. And as a result,
Speaker 8: in America, we're spending thirteen billion hours and seventy five
Speaker 8: billion dollars a year doing something that literally no one
Speaker 8: wants to spend any time and money doing. There just
Speaker 8: hasn't been a good alternative. We like to say that
Speaker 8: there are three things certain in life, death, taxes and laundry.
Speaker 8: So sud share solves laundry. It's incredibly simple. You just
Speaker 8: tap the app and it's done, wash, dry, fold, pick
Speaker 8: up and delivery. We call it Life Without Laundry, and
Speaker 8: it's powered by this nationwide network of over two hundred
Speaker 8: thousand professional launderers.
Speaker 1: Next, I wanted to know how does sueddshare work. Exactly.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's very simple. So as a customer, you simply
Speaker 8: create an account on the app, you tap do my laundry.
Speaker 8: You take your laundry, you put it at your designated
Speaker 8: pickup location, for example your back door or your front porch,
Speaker 8: and you're done. You go on with your day. You
Speaker 8: enjoy your life, You go out on a date, you
Speaker 8: go exercise and spend time with your kids. You do
Speaker 8: what you really want to do, which is not laundry.
Speaker 8: Somebody comes, when of our launderers comes, they pick it up,
Speaker 8: they wash it, dry it, fold it and return it
Speaker 8: to you the next day.
Speaker 1: So who are these people that are doing my laundry?
Speaker 8: Such share is offering the first ever man annual labor
Speaker 8: work from home gig in the world. There's a lot
Speaker 8: of people that want to work from home, but they
Speaker 8: don't want to do it being tied to a desk.
Speaker 8: They want to be more active, or maybe they don't
Speaker 8: have the skills to sit behind a desk and work
Speaker 8: from home, but they want to work from home nonetheless.
Speaker 8: So this is the first ever manual labor work from
Speaker 8: home gig in the world where people take their laundry
Speaker 8: room and basically turn it into a work from home gig.
Speaker 8: We have a lot of for example, a lot of
Speaker 8: stay at home moms that need to keep an eye
Speaker 8: on their kids and they want a little they want
Speaker 8: to earn some extra income while they're doing it.
Speaker 1: This is the interesting part. Apparently you can make some
Speaker 1: decent money doing other people's dirty laundry.
Speaker 8: Our top ten sudsters are earning over five thousand dollars
Speaker 8: a month, the top one hundred launderers are earning over
Speaker 8: twenty one hundred dollars a month. And then we have
Speaker 8: thousands of sudstters that are doing it part time just
Speaker 8: to pay a bill or earn a little extra money.
Speaker 8: It's totally flexible. It's gigwork. You can work when you want,
Speaker 8: as much as you want, to make as much as
Speaker 8: you want.
Speaker 1: Once again, we're hearing from more Furtel CEO of a
Speaker 1: company called sud Share. They call themselves the Uber of Laundry.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know more about the people doing my laundry.
Speaker 1: Are they trained or vetted in any way?
Speaker 8: Yes, so they are vetted very carefully. They go through
Speaker 8: an ID check, they go through a background check, They
Speaker 8: also go through They also go through a series of
Speaker 8: articles and videos that explains best practices and explains also
Speaker 8: what customer expectations are, so they know exactly how to
Speaker 8: do the laundry, when is pick up, when is delivery,
Speaker 8: how you're supposed to fold it, how you're supposed to
Speaker 8: deliver it, how you're supposed to communicate with customers. And
Speaker 8: then we have also an algorithm that is rating the
Speaker 8: performance of the launderers on dozens of different factors, and
Speaker 8: the highest rated launderers get ranked the highest and get
Speaker 8: access to most of the orders. So we actually have
Speaker 8: about twenty percent of the launderers doing eighty percent of
Speaker 8: the of the orders, So the vast majority of our
Speaker 8: customers are serviced by the most experienced in best launderers.
Speaker 1: Fluff and folds have been around forever, so I was
Speaker 1: curious how sudshare compares themselves, So.
Speaker 8: Sudshare, you really can't compare it to a local laundry service.
Speaker 8: I'man a local laundry service. First of all, many of
Speaker 8: them don't pick up and deliver. You actually have to
Speaker 8: take it there. And you know, the whole point of
Speaker 8: this is for it to be convenient. So the beautiful
Speaker 8: thing about sudshare is you just tap the app, put
Speaker 8: the laundry at your pickup location, like your front door,
Speaker 8: and you're done. Everything is included, pick up delivery, wash,
Speaker 8: drive fold. All you have to do is get dressed,
Speaker 8: whereas with a local wash and fold, generally speaking, pick
Speaker 8: up and delivery is not included. And even if it is.
Speaker 8: We're a tech company, and so it's this seamless, frictionless
Speaker 8: experience on the app that makes everything so simple. And
Speaker 8: certainly your local fluff and fold company is not doesn't
Speaker 8: have that. You know that that tech experience. Next is
Speaker 8: such share conserviace sheeting no matter where you are, so
Speaker 8: it's not just when you're home, but it's when you
Speaker 8: go on vacation, when you travel for business. We're in
Speaker 8: five hundred markets nationwide, So as long as you've got
Speaker 8: your phone with you and you've got the app on
Speaker 8: your phone. You've got a such Share account and you
Speaker 8: can and you can place the laundry service order. So
Speaker 8: we have lots of people now that are traveling for
Speaker 8: business that are packing much lighter than they ever packed
Speaker 8: before because they're just using a laundry service while they're gone.
Speaker 1: And along those lines, I wanted to know what can
Speaker 1: I get laundered? This is not a dry cleaning service.
Speaker 8: We don't do dry clean but we launder everything. We
Speaker 8: don't do ironing, So if you have shirts that need
Speaker 8: to be ironed, you know, we can wash them and
Speaker 8: dry them and fold them, but we don't iron them.
Speaker 8: But beside besides that, you can get anything that you
Speaker 8: would normally put in your washer and dryer. You save
Speaker 8: yourself the time and aggravation and give it the suid Share.
Speaker 1: And if there's a problem like a rip or a
Speaker 1: stain that wasn't there before, what happens then yeah.
Speaker 8: So it's a dollar propound that includes pick up and delivery,
Speaker 8: and it also includes our famous garment protection plan, so
Speaker 8: if anything is lost or damaged, you're covered. And that's
Speaker 8: the other thing. Another nice thing about dealing with a
Speaker 8: national brand like Sudshare as opposed to your local mom
Speaker 8: and pop fluffing fold as if something happens, we've got
Speaker 8: you covered.
Speaker 1: And of course, one of the most important questions what
Speaker 1: about scent preferences. I know a lot of people are
Speaker 1: fanatical about how their closed smell or they don't want
Speaker 1: any smell at all, And of course the type of
Speaker 1: detergent that's used.
Speaker 8: When you place an order, you can enter any special
Speaker 8: instructions you might have and we will follow them. In
Speaker 8: terms of laundry detergent preferences, you can choose premium, scented, hypoergenic.
Speaker 8: That's for people that have sensitive skin and allergies and
Speaker 8: stuff like that. And then there's a third option also,
Speaker 8: which is provide your own. So if you're really really
Speaker 8: specific about the detergent you want us to use, simply
Speaker 8: include it with your laundry and we'll use it.
Speaker 1: Finally, I wanted to know what sudshare has learned in
Speaker 1: the several years it's been operating.
Speaker 8: The most common refrain we hear from people is, oh
Speaker 8: my god, I am never doing laundry again. It's like
Speaker 8: when they think about doing this, there's always some hesitation
Speaker 8: because they've never done it before, and it's a new
Speaker 8: way to deal with laundry and what happens if something
Speaker 8: gets lost, their damage and who's going to be doing
Speaker 8: and it's like all these questions, which of course we
Speaker 8: try to answer, but after people have their first experience,
Speaker 8: there's no more questions. It's just like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 8: this was unbelievable. All I have to do is get
Speaker 8: dressed and I just freed up like two to three
Speaker 8: hours of my week. It's just this magical experience. And
Speaker 8: so what I've learned is just to answer your question,
Speaker 8: what I've learned is that this is a real pain
Speaker 8: point for people, and the relief they experience when they
Speaker 8: realize that all they have to do is tap an
Speaker 8: app and it's done is magical.
Speaker 1: I also interviewed a sudster as they're called, and he
Speaker 1: told me he's making about two hundred dollars a week
Speaker 1: through the app and he's just doing it part time.
Speaker 1: At first, his friends and family couldn't believe it, but
Speaker 1: at this point he's actually gotten a few of them
Speaker 1: to sign up for the gig as well. Once again,
Speaker 1: the app is called Sudshare if you're looking to make
Speaker 1: some extra cash or he just wants someone else to
Speaker 1: do your laundry. Check it out. I've got my KTLA
Speaker 1: TV segment linked up on my website. Just go to
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot tv. More of your phone calls
Speaker 1: at Triple eight Rich one oh one and more rich
Speaker 1: on Tech show coming up after this. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you
Speaker 1: with your calls at Triple eight Rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four two four to one zero one.
Speaker 1: Sophia is in Temecula, Sophia, you're on with Rich. How
Speaker 1: can I help? Y?
Speaker 5: Rich?
Speaker 9: I am wondering if there's any way I can uh
Speaker 9: get internet with that paying sixty two dollars a month
Speaker 9: to my internet provider. I know there's hot spot and
Speaker 9: some other ways you can get it, and I don't
Speaker 9: work from home. I you know, it's just one person
Speaker 9: in my household, and I really don't need too much
Speaker 9: internet access, but I need your opinion.
Speaker 1: Do you have a smartphone?
Speaker 4: I do?
Speaker 1: And do you have Have you ever tried the hotspot
Speaker 1: feature on there?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 8: I have.
Speaker 9: I haven't because I don't know how it works at.
Speaker 1: Who's your internet through on your phone? Who's your cellular provider? Mobile. Okay,
Speaker 1: I would contact T Mobile if you do. You have
Speaker 1: an iPhone or Android iPhone? Okay, So iPhone has a
Speaker 1: system called, uh, you know, a personal hotspot, and if
Speaker 1: you want, you can activate that and it will give
Speaker 1: you internet, you know, when you need it through your
Speaker 1: cellular plan. Now you have to see if that's included
Speaker 1: on your plan. It may or may not be. And
Speaker 1: also the amount you get maybe limited. But if you're
Speaker 1: saying you don't need much, this could work. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it has its limitations. You would have to
Speaker 1: basically reconnect every time. It's not super convenient. And if
Speaker 1: you're trying to do something like stream TV or something
Speaker 1: like that through another device, you would have to connect
Speaker 1: that pretty much every time before you want to use it.
Speaker 1: The pairing process is once, but actually just making sure
Speaker 1: that it's connected would would probably take a little bit
Speaker 1: every time, unlike a typical you know, Wi Fi connection
Speaker 1: that would just always be there. So this one, this
Speaker 1: one kind of goes in and out.
Speaker 9: I don't watch TV.
Speaker 10: I don't like I said, it's very limited the time
Speaker 10: I spend on internet, you know. But yeah, so you
Speaker 10: you said to our call T Mobile.
Speaker 1: Yeah, call T Mobile. See just ask them, say hey,
Speaker 1: do I have do I have hot Spot on my
Speaker 1: cellular plan? And if they say yes, say how much
Speaker 1: do I get? Like what's my monthly allowance? If they say,
Speaker 1: you know, ten gigs or twenty gigs or fifty gigs,
Speaker 1: that's probably enough for what you're talking about. The Other
Speaker 1: thing you can inquire about if you want something that's
Speaker 1: cheaper than sixty two dollars a month. There's two things
Speaker 1: I'd recommend first, and we were talking about this a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier. T Mobile has something called T Mobile
Speaker 1: Home Internet and they are advertising pretty inexpensive plans, So
Speaker 1: that is going to be I believe it starts at
Speaker 1: fifty dollars a month, so that's going to be a
Speaker 1: little bit less than what you're paying. So that's twelve
Speaker 1: dollars right there. Verizon is advertising their home Internet I
Speaker 1: believe as low as twenty five dollars a month. So
Speaker 1: I think that's for customers only. It depends, like if
Speaker 1: you're a Verizon customer, but that may be something to
Speaker 1: look into. The Other thing you can do. I don't
Speaker 1: know what your income is, but there is a program
Speaker 1: through the FCC called the Affordable Connectivity Program so depending
Speaker 1: on your household income or also your eligibility for other programs.
Speaker 1: For instance, if you are on Medicaid or SNAP or SSI,
Speaker 1: or you get Federal Housing Assistants, or you have a
Speaker 1: Lifeline phone line, you can apply for this program which
Speaker 1: gives you a disc count of up to thirty dollars
Speaker 1: a month off of your internet service. And again this
Speaker 1: program is called the Affordable Connectivity Program. It's through the FCC,
Speaker 1: it's relatively new, and it works for your internet service.
Speaker 1: So if you're paying sixty two dollars a month and
Speaker 1: you qualify for this program, you can now pay thirty
Speaker 1: dollars less a month because you'll work with with your
Speaker 1: internet provider to give you that credit. So again that's
Speaker 1: called the FCC Affordable Connectivity Program. If you are eligible
Speaker 1: for there's a lot. There's a long list of eligibility,
Speaker 1: but the main ones are if you're on SNAP or
Speaker 1: Medicaid or WICK you do qualify for this program as well,
Speaker 1: so that's something that's a little bit new. You can
Speaker 1: go to Affordableconnectivity dot gov to do your application there,
Speaker 1: but Sophie, I think the hot spot will work. You
Speaker 1: can also get a mobile hotspot from T Mobile and
Speaker 1: even get a pay as you go one. But the
Speaker 1: problem is with that, it's just it's just a little
Speaker 1: bit like I feel like you don't really need that
Speaker 1: because you've already have it on your phone, So I
Speaker 1: don't really think that you need the separate hotspot, especially
Speaker 1: with how little you are using the internet according to
Speaker 1: what you're telling me here. So good question, check it
Speaker 1: out and hopefully one of those solutions works for you.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to Mic in Los Angeles. Mike,
Speaker 1: you're on with Rich.
Speaker 11: Hello, Rich, thank you for taking my call. Go Daddy
Speaker 11: is my web host service provider, my web hooster from
Speaker 11: my business website. It's very simple. They want to charge
Speaker 11: me for Microsoft three sixty five Essentials. Apparently I got
Speaker 11: that first year for free. I already paid for a
Speaker 11: Microsoft Office separately. Do I need that?
Speaker 1: I don't think. So this is well, do you have
Speaker 1: an email with them?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 11: I have a separate email that I've been using for years. Okay,
Speaker 11: you click on my website and you get to me,
Speaker 11: but it's not the Microsoft.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: So this three sixty five. I know you're calling it essentials.
Speaker 1: It looks like they call it business Basic Online. It
Speaker 1: gives you like a fifty gigabyte mailbox with a custom
Speaker 1: email domain, use three sixty five apps for the web,
Speaker 1: including Outlook, Word Excel, PowerPoint. In one note, you're telling
Speaker 1: me you already have that, so you really don't need that.
Speaker 1: Share files with one terabyte of one drive. You don't
Speaker 1: need that because you already subscribe. How much are you
Speaker 1: paying for the Microsoft subscription you have? I think, okay,
Speaker 1: so you're paying how much did you say a year?
Speaker 1: I lost you?
Speaker 4: There?
Speaker 11: A ninety nine dollars a year for the Microsoft Office
Speaker 11: got it?
Speaker 1: Okay? And so that that really includes a lot of
Speaker 1: the same things here. I don't think you need this.
Speaker 1: I think that you know, did you use any of
Speaker 1: the features through GoDaddy at all? Like that they gave
Speaker 1: you for this? Oh?
Speaker 4: Okay, not that I know of.
Speaker 11: I'm an idiot when it comes to this stuff. But no,
Speaker 11: I don't think I use any of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would just get rid of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're just using the website hosted by GoDaddy, it
Speaker 1: sounds like this is very separate and this is just
Speaker 1: an add on that they're trying to get you to
Speaker 1: pay the You know, how much are they charging you
Speaker 1: a month for this.
Speaker 11: How much do they want They wanted like seventy something
Speaker 11: dollars for the year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the only thing you can consider is
Speaker 1: you can I would do a comparison to see what
Speaker 1: you're paying separately and then seeing what this offers and
Speaker 1: how much this costs. If it's cheaper for the same product,
Speaker 1: then maybe it might be worth switching over. But that
Speaker 1: would be a little bit complicated because all of your
Speaker 1: email and everything that you're using is connected to this
Speaker 1: other account, so that could be a little bit tricky
Speaker 1: to kind of switch over. So I would say just
Speaker 1: dump it, and you don't really have to think twice
Speaker 1: because you're only using GoDaddy for the domain. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's the problem here is that you know,
Speaker 1: someone signs up for the domain, it costs them, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty bucks for the year. The name of the
Speaker 1: game is to then upsell those customers to as many
Speaker 1: other things as possible, and by giving them these free trials,
Speaker 1: you know, you forget about it, and before you know it,
Speaker 1: your credit card is charge for the seventy bucks. You're like, now,
Speaker 1: what's that ah, and you don't feel like calling in,
Speaker 1: and then they get the money and you'll call next year,
Speaker 1: and it's a whole you know, it's a whole big thing.
Speaker 1: This happens all the time.
Speaker 12: Okay.
Speaker 11: I was afraid if I didn't renew, people would go
Speaker 11: to my website and not be able to access a
Speaker 11: page or something. I didn't how that worked.
Speaker 1: As long as this is yeah, as long as this
Speaker 1: is a separate add on, it should not affect your
Speaker 1: hosting through GoDaddy. I would confirm to see what you
Speaker 1: pay for your hosting and if it says, you know,
Speaker 1: go Daddy hosting. Plus the domain, this sounds like it
Speaker 1: is a separate product that is not related to your
Speaker 1: actual website. This is an add on, especially with the
Speaker 1: with the email and the custom domain for the email address,
Speaker 1: which you know it sounds like you already have through
Speaker 1: other your other services.
Speaker 11: Anyway, Yes, great, all right, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it. All right, Mike, good luck with the website.
Speaker 1: Appreciate you calling in today. All right. Uh, podcasts coming
Speaker 1: to YouTube music. This was kind of a thing that
Speaker 1: was missing from YouTube music. According to the Hot Pod Summit,
Speaker 1: which was the on air fest in Brooklyn, New York,
Speaker 1: they have confirmed that podcasts are coming to YouTube Music. Now,
Speaker 1: YouTube Music was my preferred music app for so many years.
Speaker 1: I loved it because they bought a company, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: I can't even remember the name of it, but they
Speaker 1: had this one playlist that I loved. It was called
Speaker 1: the Blogged fifty and it was like the fifty hottest
Speaker 1: songs according to bloggers, and that was the reason why
Speaker 1: I loved YouTube Music. Now I still have a subscription,
Speaker 1: I don't use it as regularly, but it's one of
Speaker 1: those things that almost all of the other music apps
Speaker 1: have podcasts built in, except for YouTube Music. And so
Speaker 1: now the fact that YouTube Music will be getting podcasts
Speaker 1: I think is a good thing. It'll help more people
Speaker 1: discover them, it'll help people have them all in one place.
Speaker 1: They didn't really say when this is going to happen,
Speaker 1: but the big question is will you be able to
Speaker 1: listen to the podcast even when your screen is locked,
Speaker 1: And according to what they mentioned at this on AirFest
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, it sounds like you'll be able to. With YouTube.
Speaker 1: The problem is if you're not a subscriber to YouTube
Speaker 1: and you're listening to a podcast that is uploaded to YouTube,
Speaker 1: if you lock your screen, you're not going to hear it,
Speaker 1: the audio stops. It doesn't continue in the background unless
Speaker 1: you're a premium subscriber. And so apparently with YouTube Music,
Speaker 1: you will get to be able to listen to the
Speaker 1: podcast even with your screen locked, and this is coming
Speaker 1: very soon in the US only. At this point, YouTube
Speaker 1: has been kind of tinkering with the idea of podcasts.
Speaker 1: A lot of people upload shows like this to YouTube,
Speaker 1: even if there's no video. They'll just upload the audio
Speaker 1: and have kind of a waveform or something on there.
Speaker 1: I've even experimented with this because YouTube is just sort
Speaker 1: of a place where people listen and watch a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, and so why not put your podcast up
Speaker 1: there even though it doesn't have video. So YouTube is
Speaker 1: kind of warming up to that idea and helping creators
Speaker 1: have more tools to be able to do that in
Speaker 1: a more native way than right now, which you have
Speaker 1: to use a third party tool to kind of create
Speaker 1: we ate that video file that then uploads to YouTube,
Speaker 1: because you can't just upload the audio file. It doesn't
Speaker 1: accept that all right, Coming up on the show, We've
Speaker 1: got more of your calls at Triple eight rich one
Speaker 1: oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four to two,
Speaker 1: four to one zero one uh. Later in the show,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to the founder of the Day
Speaker 1: of Unplugging. This is a day that's coming up next
Speaker 1: weekend that wants you to give up your smartphone for
Speaker 1: a single day, twenty four hours. Could you do it?
Speaker 1: I did it one year. I'll tell you about my thoughts.
Speaker 1: Plus how supermarkets. Yes, the supermarket loves your data. They
Speaker 1: might be worse than Google when it comes to slurping
Speaker 1: up all of your data. You're listening to Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: More of your calls and tech news after this. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Rich on Tech. My name is Rich DeMuro,
Speaker 1: tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles, hanging
Speaker 1: out here talking technology, answering your questions at triple eight
Speaker 1: Rich one oh one. That's eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: four to one zero one. Typically in the show, I
Speaker 1: tell you what I posted to Instagram that week, but
Speaker 1: let's see this week, not much. I didn't really post
Speaker 1: anything this week, so I will tell you. I'm Matt
Speaker 1: rich on Tech, but most of the time I'm posting stories,
Speaker 1: so sometimes I'll post actual posts. Vicky is in San Diego. Vicky,
Speaker 1: You're on with Rich. Hello, Vicky, Hi, Rich Hi, Hi.
Speaker 6: I wanted to ask you a question. I have a
Speaker 6: place that's in a remote rural area that I use
Speaker 6: as a seasonal place to go to, and I very
Speaker 6: very rarely go there in the winter time, and I
Speaker 6: was wondering if there's some kind of camera I could
Speaker 6: get because I have animal tracks, and like, I went
Speaker 6: up there last week and then the RV cover blew
Speaker 6: over and I just wanted to record auditor. So when
Speaker 6: I go out there, I kind of have an idea
Speaker 6: about what happened. But I don't have any Internet service
Speaker 6: out there.
Speaker 1: So you want a camera that operates without internet like
Speaker 1: a So most of the security cameras want internet. Do
Speaker 1: you want to be able to monitor this at all?
Speaker 6: Well, I don't need to have it live like a
Speaker 6: live seat or anything like that. It just for my
Speaker 6: own comfort level to kind of get an idea about
Speaker 6: what happened, or if there's some you know, traffic around
Speaker 6: there that shouldn't be there.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm trying to think. I know that there's I
Speaker 1: mean most of the cameras. Do you have internet at
Speaker 1: all to set up the camera?
Speaker 6: I do? I mean I have a phone I could
Speaker 6: like to try.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm thinking most of the cameras, like
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the wisecams, the r Low I mean,
Speaker 1: have you looked at all these to see if they
Speaker 1: would work with this situation? Have you looked at these brands?
Speaker 6: No? No, no again?
Speaker 1: So why's w y ze? Wisecam is the one that
Speaker 1: first comes to mind?
Speaker 12: Now?
Speaker 1: I know the wysecam has an SD card that can
Speaker 1: record continuously twenty four to seven. But to set up
Speaker 1: this camera, you typically need internet. Now, there could be
Speaker 1: there could be a scenario where you might be able
Speaker 1: to set it up at your home and your WiFi
Speaker 1: and then bring it over there and set and you know,
Speaker 1: set it down there. But that's I can't guarantee that
Speaker 1: camera is going to continue working when it's not connected
Speaker 1: to Wi Fi. It may, it may for a certain
Speaker 1: amount of time, but I don't know if it would
Speaker 1: r Low. I know Arlow has at least one model.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this. Uh, it's got an LTE model.
Speaker 1: Would you want a camera that had built in cellular
Speaker 1: like would that work? Or is there no internet connection?
Speaker 1: Like no cellular connection in that area?
Speaker 6: I have absolutely even like starlink or whatever that's called,
Speaker 6: that's not even out there.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's really remote, so you're just yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So I think, honestly, I think the best the best
Speaker 1: thing to do in this case is probably just go
Speaker 1: on Amazon and just find have you looked on Amazon
Speaker 1: for one of these little kind of security cameras that
Speaker 1: has an SD card?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: No, okay, So I would I would just search on
Speaker 1: their security camera SD card and see what comes up.
Speaker 1: You're basically going to just have a camera that's mounted
Speaker 1: that is just continuously recording, and that's it. And how
Speaker 1: many days are you going in between visiting these places?
Speaker 6: It depends maybe once every three weeks.
Speaker 1: Okay, three weeks.
Speaker 6: I mean you're gonna have to so during the winter time.
Speaker 6: In the summer, I go there, you know, once a week.
Speaker 1: Okay. So most of these cameras that are doing the
Speaker 1: continuous recording, if it's just as a small cheap camera,
Speaker 1: many of them use like a thirty two gigabyte card,
Speaker 1: which is really only going to record several hours of video.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure that you can get you know,
Speaker 1: three weeks worth of video on one of these little cameras.
Speaker 6: Oh do you know if they if they have some
Speaker 6: that are like sensor activated.
Speaker 1: Well again, I mean you're getting into you know, these
Speaker 1: cameras that are a little bit smarter if you're going
Speaker 1: to start doing sensor because then it needs Now do
Speaker 1: you have a power situation here, like do you have
Speaker 1: power to this camera or is this on battery as well?
Speaker 6: Oh I can, I can get power to it.
Speaker 1: Okay. So I think the bottom line here is you're
Speaker 1: going to need some sort of camera that is not
Speaker 1: one of these main brands that like the Why's or
Speaker 1: the r Low. I think it's just going to be
Speaker 1: sort of a small off brand camera. The other thing,
Speaker 1: I mean, you could set up a GoPro and just
Speaker 1: put that on and just let that record. But again,
Speaker 1: I don't know how long that's going to record, because
Speaker 1: you also need something that's probably weather proof I'm guessing.
Speaker 6: Right probably Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't have a camera off the top of
Speaker 1: my head that's going to fit this solution because it
Speaker 1: seems like it's a very unique thing. But the things
Speaker 1: that I would look at is I would check Wise,
Speaker 1: I would check Rlow, Arlo, and then I would also
Speaker 1: there used to be a brand called Canary. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they're still around anymore. Oh, yeah they are,
Speaker 1: but they're okay. But that's going to be a cellular camera,
Speaker 1: but you may be able to it may work without cellular.
Speaker 1: If you look up that that's canary c A n
Speaker 1: A R Y do I S. And there's also there's
Speaker 1: also another one. There's so many. It's so funny when
Speaker 1: I go to like c S, I see all these things.
Speaker 1: There's another one called it's it's not kangaroo, it's can
Speaker 1: garu k A n g A r o O. And
Speaker 1: that one. What's unique about that is it may not
Speaker 1: capture video per se, but it could capture like little
Speaker 1: clips and things. And they've got a whole bunch of products.
Speaker 1: They have an indoor outdoor camera as well. That might
Speaker 1: work for you. So I gave you a lot of options.
Speaker 1: It just really depends on kind of this a very
Speaker 1: unique situation. So I think that it's just going to
Speaker 1: be a matter of which one sort of you look
Speaker 1: at the features, you say, oh that's gonna work. That's
Speaker 1: gonna work for my situation here.
Speaker 6: All right, Well, you gave me a lot of good information.
Speaker 6: I appreciate it and appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one may this kangaroo may work. It looks
Speaker 1: like you know, it may work for you, and it's
Speaker 1: only sixty bucks, so definitely check that one out. All right,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for the question, Vicky and San Diego.
Speaker 1: You're listening to rich on Tech. Coming up, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about the day of unplugging. Could you give up
Speaker 1: your smartphone for twenty four hours? I don't know, rich
Speaker 1: on Tech coming back at you after this. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here talking technology and
Speaker 1: taking your calls at Triple eight. Rich one on one.
Speaker 1: Weird Science one of my favorite movies as a kid.
Speaker 1: You know, when I was a kid, they played the
Speaker 1: same movies over and over. It's not like today, like
Speaker 1: last night, where I'm looking through one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: streaming options to find something to watch. You just watched
Speaker 1: whatever was on TV at the time. And Weird Science.
Speaker 1: All these movies were just like on HBO and like
Speaker 1: the cable channels, over and over and over, so you
Speaker 1: really got to know them too much choice nowadays, that's
Speaker 1: for sure. All right. Joining me now is Kim Annimberg Cavallo,
Speaker 1: the executive director of the Unplugged Collaborative, and this year,
Speaker 1: instead of the National Day of Unplugging. It is now
Speaker 1: the Global Day of Unplugging, a day when you are
Speaker 1: asked to go without your phone for a full twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. It is happening from sundown Friday, March third
Speaker 1: to sundown Saturday, March fourth. Kim, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining me today.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much, Rich for having me.
Speaker 1: Now, we've done stories on KTLA about this, and I
Speaker 1: believe it was the day the year before last year
Speaker 1: when I did this challenge and I gave up my phone.
Speaker 1: I put it in a little bag and I did
Speaker 1: not use it for a full twenty four hours. It
Speaker 1: was tough. Do you hear that from folks?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. And the thing about Global Day of Unplugging
Speaker 2: formerly National Day of Unplugging, is that it's really not
Speaker 2: about doing a full twenty four our digital detoks. Some
Speaker 2: people do that, but a lot of people will just
Speaker 2: take the day to learn about their own habits, to
Speaker 2: reflect on them, to do maybe a one hour, you know,
Speaker 2: meal with friends without devices, walk their dog without their
Speaker 2: phone for the first time. It's really almost like New
Speaker 2: Year's Eve, where you know, we reflect on kind of
Speaker 2: the year before, what were our tech habits and how
Speaker 2: do we want to change them and improve them.
Speaker 1: It's also kind of observing your own kind of reaction
Speaker 1: to this situation, Like we just take for granted when
Speaker 1: you leave your house, they say you only go back
Speaker 1: for a couple of things your keys, your wallet, and
Speaker 1: your phone. So it's this kind of habit that we've
Speaker 1: formed where it's an important one, like you do need
Speaker 1: to stay connected and if something ever happened, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the argument. You got to have your phone. You
Speaker 1: want to take a picture, you got to have your phone.
Speaker 1: You want to pay for something, got to have your phone.
Speaker 1: So tell me the benefits of unplugging from tech anology
Speaker 1: for a little bit.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I mean, if we just get
Speaker 2: to the basics of your physical well being. You know,
Speaker 2: when we're sitting at our computers or hunching over our
Speaker 2: phones many hours in the day, that really takes a
Speaker 2: toll on your spine, your neck, your eyes. So there's that,
Speaker 2: and then there's the mental well being, the sense of
Speaker 2: you know, just being isolated, which seems interesting to most
Speaker 2: of us because technology has given us this great gift
Speaker 2: of being connected twenty four to seven. But if you're
Speaker 2: scrolling on social media or you're incessantly answering texts or emails,
Speaker 2: you can get a sense of being isolated and lonely.
Speaker 2: And so what we encourage with Global dat I'm plugging
Speaker 2: is really to you know, our mission is to elevate
Speaker 2: human connection over digital engagement, and we want people to
Speaker 2: come together to really embrace the people around them in person.
Speaker 1: So what do you do? So tell me some of
Speaker 1: the things. I know in years past you've had activities planned.
Speaker 1: What can I do? I mean, do I go out
Speaker 1: to dinner with friends? I mean these are things I
Speaker 1: do typically, But do I leave my phone in the car? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean that's always great if you're going to have
Speaker 2: dinner with friends. One of the fun games that I
Speaker 2: think has been going on for a decade now is
Speaker 2: people put their phones in the middle of the table
Speaker 2: and anyone who touches it first pays for dinner. Oh
Speaker 2: that's always a fun, fun game to play. And you know,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of ways, and we actually have the
Speaker 2: idea that it's gone from national and glo to global.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of people in different countries now
Speaker 2: that are taking this campaign and leading it in their country.
Speaker 2: So different parts of the world are doing different things,
Speaker 2: and we have an Unplugged Map, so people are putting
Speaker 2: their events on the map, so you can check out
Speaker 2: things that are happening in your city. And if you
Speaker 2: don't see something in your city and you want to
Speaker 2: put something on there, maybe you do a meetup in
Speaker 2: the park and you encourage people to come and take
Speaker 2: a hike, or there's a lot of really fun things.
Speaker 2: We have about two hundred plus ideas of things to
Speaker 2: do on Global Day of Unplugging or any day of
Speaker 2: the year that you'd like to unplug, and so there's
Speaker 2: a lot of really fun ideas.
Speaker 1: All Right, we're talking to kim Annaberg Cavallo. She is
Speaker 1: the Unplugged Collaboratives executive director. We're speaking about the Global
Speaker 1: Day of Unplugging, which is happening next weekend Friday March
Speaker 1: third through Saturday March fourth. They're asking you to give
Speaker 1: up your phone technology for a day or even a
Speaker 1: couple hours for the day. I'd say go for the
Speaker 1: whole day. That's what I did, and it was it
Speaker 1: was a big challenge, but I really felt good afterwards.
Speaker 1: The website is Unplugcollaborative dot org. So you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're a tech entrepreneur. I mean, you know, in charge
Speaker 1: of this nonprofit. I assume you have to use your
Speaker 1: phone a lot. So how do you monitor and kind
Speaker 1: of you know, balance your own tech habits when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with all of this stuff. I'm sure people are
Speaker 1: emailing you and texting you all day about this.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's the ironic part about this time year.
Speaker 2: The first quarter of every year is really challenging, extra
Speaker 2: challenging for me because there is a lot of in
Speaker 2: bround inquiries and a lot of conversations going on online.
Speaker 2: I just have to be really laser focused on my
Speaker 2: digital wellbeing and you know, keep up the habits of
Speaker 2: For me, it's really important to sleep with my phone
Speaker 2: outside of the bedroom. That doesn't necessarily bother everyone, but
Speaker 2: for me it really does because it's not so much
Speaker 2: about falling asleep, but it's the morning that gets me,
Speaker 2: because the alarm clock if I use it from my
Speaker 2: phone and then I pick it up and then for
Speaker 2: some reason, you know, an hour later, I've gone all
Speaker 2: the way through Instagram, I've made deposits and bank accounts.
Speaker 2: I'm you know, it's just like searching for things to
Speaker 2: do on the phone, and I don't move as quickly
Speaker 2: and don't do all the things that my morning routine,
Speaker 2: which is meditate, do yoga, do the things that'll really
Speaker 2: set me up for a better day. So that's something
Speaker 2: that I had to just be extra cautious about during
Speaker 2: this time of the year. Yeah, I think that's that's
Speaker 2: what I think is the hardest part about it. And
Speaker 2: when you say, you know, oh, people take you know,
Speaker 2: the twenty four hours, I think the other thing that
Speaker 2: we really are careful about is not shaming people because
Speaker 2: if you do take it and it's hard, that is
Speaker 2: a challenge and it would be illuminating to learn from that.
Speaker 2: But if for some reason it doesn't work out for
Speaker 2: the full twenty four hours, that's informative too, and it's
Speaker 2: something to talk about. And you know, it's global day
Speaker 2: of I'm Plugging is one day a year because we
Speaker 2: do put a lot of effort into this, but it
Speaker 2: can be any day of the year, and we hope
Speaker 2: that people bring this habit into their daily lives as well.
Speaker 1: And I think learning from your habits is really the
Speaker 1: most important aspect of this is that, like you said,
Speaker 1: and everyone can identify with this. You know, you search
Speaker 1: for something to do on your phone. Sometimes I pick
Speaker 1: up my phone and I kind of forget what I
Speaker 1: even picked it up for. And I think notifications are
Speaker 1: a big part of that. You get one notification and
Speaker 1: it starts you down this path of Oh, let me
Speaker 1: check my Instagram now, let me check my Twitter now,
Speaker 1: let me check my email now. And these are things
Speaker 1: that don't necessarily need to be checked incessantly all day long. Now.
Speaker 1: I remember when I posted about the National Day of
Speaker 1: Unplugging when it was still national instead of global. You know,
Speaker 1: some people were negative about it. They said, Rich, why
Speaker 1: why bother? My phone is my life, My phone is everything.
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem. I don't need to do this.
Speaker 1: What do you say to that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, the idea that we think of a
Speaker 2: kind of like Earth Day, you know, I mean, we
Speaker 2: should all be, you know, thinking about the planet and
Speaker 2: conservation every day of the year. But the idea that
Speaker 2: we come together one time of year and really put
Speaker 2: our energy and our collective energy, and we get to
Speaker 2: bring our communities together around that idea is really powerful.
Speaker 2: And it's the same for Global Day of Unplugging. It's
Speaker 2: an opportunity to bring people together around an idea that
Speaker 2: you know, yes, we want to have these habits on
Speaker 2: the daily and even if you don't want to have
Speaker 2: those habits, that's habits, that's okay too. But to elevate
Speaker 2: human connection, I don't know how anybody can argue about
Speaker 2: against that, and we should, you know, think about just ways.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have people for the last fourteen years, schools,
Speaker 2: religious institutions, companies, other organizations, nonprofit organizations. They really take
Speaker 2: this opportunity every year to come together in person and
Speaker 2: do something screen free that will bring a deeper connection
Speaker 2: to each other and have fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is important. Kim Annabercavallo, executive director of
Speaker 1: the Unplugged Collaborative, Thanks so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. Rich You're really, you know, help having
Speaker 2: people learn about technology and embrace technology and learn balance.
Speaker 2: You do such a great job and we so appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And I'll be honest, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to learn the balance in my life as well.
Speaker 1: There are times when I feel like I am definitely
Speaker 1: overdoing it with the screens. It's part of my job.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I like to disconnect as well,
Speaker 1: So if you want to do that. Global Day of
Speaker 1: Unplugging twenty twenty three is happening March third through fourth.
Speaker 1: I'll put a link to the website on mind. Just
Speaker 1: go to rich on tech dot tv if you want
Speaker 1: to participate and just do it. Just try it, Just
Speaker 1: try even even half the day. Believe me, it is
Speaker 1: a challenge. You will feel so good and you'll definitely
Speaker 1: your hands will feel like you're like, what's going on.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with my hands because
Speaker 1: you're so used to just picking up your phone. All right,
Speaker 1: more of your phone calls. We're going to close out
Speaker 1: the show after this triple eight Rich one O one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you how supermarkets, Yes, supermarkets are
Speaker 1: spying on you. You are listening to Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Doug is in Torrents. Doug.
Speaker 1: You're on with Rich Hey.
Speaker 12: Rich Hi is Doug. Yes, I live in a guest
Speaker 12: house on my landlord has given me free direct TV
Speaker 12: for over fifteen years, and I do have a smart TV,
Speaker 12: but I'm looking for a way that I can have
Speaker 12: like a box or something where I can be able
Speaker 12: to stream things and watch like network television, because I
Speaker 12: DVR different shows and things and I'm just kind of
Speaker 12: loss of which thing to go to next.
Speaker 1: Will you have internet even though you're not gonna have
Speaker 1: the Direct TV?
Speaker 12: Yeah, I already have internet with AT and T because
Speaker 12: I have a landline with my internet.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, the good news is there are many many
Speaker 1: ways to get free streaming. Now you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: put up with ads if you don't want to pay,
Speaker 1: and this is just a star so you can start
Speaker 1: with this and then decide what you want to pay
Speaker 1: for later on. It's been nice to have that Direct TV,
Speaker 1: but at this point, if you're not having that, you
Speaker 1: can still watch a lot of stuff, in fact, almost
Speaker 1: everything except you know, maybe some of the newest movies
Speaker 1: and things. But the difference is you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: put up with ads, and you're not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to DVR stuff unless you're paying. As far as I know,
Speaker 1: there's not really an online DVR that is free. But
Speaker 1: with that said, I mean the first place to start
Speaker 1: is a site like or an app called Pluto TV.
Speaker 1: So I'd recommend that you have a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: channels it's owned by Viacoms. You're gonna get a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of CBS stuff as well. The thing is, you
Speaker 1: need to get a streaming stick first. You said you
Speaker 1: have a smart TV, but I don't. I'd I'd rather
Speaker 1: you have a streaming stick. I think that either Roku
Speaker 1: or fire TV stick is going to be the best.
Speaker 1: You can get one for very inexpensive, you know, the
Speaker 1: fire TV stick maybe thirty five dollars, and then you
Speaker 1: can start to download these things. Pluto TV's my first stop.
Speaker 1: I'd install YouTube. YouTube has a ton of stuff. They
Speaker 1: have a ton of free streaming stuff. Live streams is
Speaker 1: on there, so you can watch a lot of live
Speaker 1: streaming news through there. To Be to Be, I believe
Speaker 1: is owned by Fox and so to Be you're gonna
Speaker 1: get a lot of the Fox programming and they're gonna
Speaker 1: have a whole bunch of stuff to watch for free
Speaker 1: as well. Then Amazon has something called free V f
Speaker 1: R E E V E E Amazon Free V and
Speaker 1: so you're gonna get a whole bunch of the Amazon
Speaker 1: stuff streaming free through there. You see where I'm going here,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that you can get. Now
Speaker 1: there's another site or another app called Crackle, and so
Speaker 1: Crackle will have a lot of Hollywood movies, so you
Speaker 1: can get a whole bunch of stuff there. Sometimes you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to deal with ads on there as well.
Speaker 1: And Crackle at one point was I guess it's still
Speaker 1: owned by Sony. Sony, so Crackle is Sony, so you'll
Speaker 1: probably get a lot of Sony things there as well.
Speaker 1: A new one that I talked about on the show
Speaker 1: last week is called Sling Free Stream. So this is
Speaker 1: Sling TV. They have something called free Stream, which is
Speaker 1: their free streaming service, and you can just download the app.
Speaker 1: It's the Sling app and you can watch that for
Speaker 1: free as well. And finally there's one called Zoomo x
Speaker 1: U m O. This is owned by Comcast, and you
Speaker 1: can get that and they have a bunch of news
Speaker 1: programming on there. Now, if you're in the Los Angeles area,
Speaker 1: you might figure out, well, how do I watch like
Speaker 1: my over the air channels? Many of the over the
Speaker 1: air channels will be included in some sort of app.
Speaker 1: But if you want something like KTLA, the channel that
Speaker 1: I'm on, we have our own app. It's called KTLA Plus,
Speaker 1: and so you can stream the news on there, and
Speaker 1: I was doing this yesterday and it works just fine,
Speaker 1: and you can download it. It's totally free. And again,
Speaker 1: this is a lot of stuff that I'm giving you.
Speaker 1: You don't necessarily need to download all of these, but
Speaker 1: this is giving you a wide range of options. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're telling me you want to stream sports, like
Speaker 1: if you're really into following a certain sport, you may
Speaker 1: have to subscribe to that sports streaming package, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the major league sports have them. The challenges
Speaker 1: if you're in a local market, many times the games
Speaker 1: that are played locally you can't watch. So if it's
Speaker 1: a game that's happening here in Los Angeles, you probably
Speaker 1: won't be able to watch that. Most of the time,
Speaker 1: you can watch the out of town games, so that
Speaker 1: gets a little bit tricky. Sports definitely gets a little
Speaker 1: tricky when you want free, but any other programming, there's
Speaker 1: really a lot of it. And I mentioned earlier when
Speaker 1: it comes to things like new movies, you may not
Speaker 1: be able to access those per se, but I can't
Speaker 1: even access them unless I pay. So you also mentioned
Speaker 1: some sort of box to get everything for free. I
Speaker 1: know those are out there. I do not recommend them.
Speaker 1: People call them the black boxes or whatever, but it
Speaker 1: gets you know, all IPTV boxes. I don't recommend those.
Speaker 1: They're operating in a gray area. They may work, they
Speaker 1: may not. It's not going to be fun. The other
Speaker 1: thing I like about the Amazon Fire TV stick is
Speaker 1: that includes a web browser. So anything that you may
Speaker 1: not be able to access through an app, you can
Speaker 1: just bring up on the web browser and so you
Speaker 1: can stream pretty much anything that's online, you'll be able
Speaker 1: to view it through there. So, Doug, that's a great question.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry you have to give up your free direct
Speaker 1: TV after so many years. Ugh. Free is always the best,
Speaker 1: isn't it. But hopefully I get you some apps that
Speaker 1: you can get started on your streaming journey. All right,
Speaker 1: before we go, let me tell you about the supermarket.
Speaker 1: Can you believe that your supermarket is spying on you? Yes,
Speaker 1: it is big supermarket companies. They you know that little
Speaker 1: club card that you scan when you check out, That
Speaker 1: is not to give you coupons and to give you discounts. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's what it's doing on the surface, But what it's
Speaker 1: really doing is building a very big picture of who
Speaker 1: you are and what you shop for. And what you purchased.
Speaker 1: And that's the reason why these companies want you to
Speaker 1: sign up. Almost every grocery store at this point, almost
Speaker 1: every store at this point, you go in there and
Speaker 1: they say, hey, we'll give you, you know, five percent
Speaker 1: off or ten percent off or you know, a coupon
Speaker 1: for signing up for our club card. And it used
Speaker 1: to be fun when these things first came out. It
Speaker 1: was great, but you had a whole keychain of remember
Speaker 1: your keychain was just filled with like one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty different club cards. They were all those tiny little
Speaker 1: things and they defined who you were, you know, whether
Speaker 1: you had your you know, whatever company that you like
Speaker 1: to shop at, well these cards. This is a great article.
Speaker 1: It's from the markup dot org and it says, forget
Speaker 1: milk and egg. Supermarkets are having a fire sale on
Speaker 1: data about you. Now. They focus on Kroger because it's
Speaker 1: one of the biggest grocery companies. But what they say
Speaker 1: is that when you walk into that store, and this
Speaker 1: happens with a lot of stores, there are things called
Speaker 1: bluetooth beacons which record your presence. They ping your phone
Speaker 1: and that will help you get personalized offers. Your location
Speaker 1: in the store is tracked. Maybe even your facial recognition
Speaker 1: data is tracked. Once you use that membership card, all
Speaker 1: that information gets siphoned off into this big data set
Speaker 1: and they know exactly what you purchased, and they can
Speaker 1: help mix that with other data. So they may take
Speaker 1: data that they know about you from other sources, whether
Speaker 1: it's your credit report or whether it's your marketing databases
Speaker 1: that they've purchased from other companies, and they will mix
Speaker 1: all that stuff together to know that you just had
Speaker 1: a kid, you need diapers and baby formula, and they're
Speaker 1: going to send you more ads for that and or
Speaker 1: coupons for that stuff. If you look closely at a
Speaker 1: majority of these postcards you get in the mail from
Speaker 1: big companies, they are printed uniquely for you. I got
Speaker 1: one the other day from a company, and it was
Speaker 1: filled with just the products that I had purchased from
Speaker 1: that retailer. And it looked like the same thing they
Speaker 1: send to everyone, but no, it was specifically just for me.
Speaker 1: The Markup says on a website promoting Kroger's data business,
Speaker 1: they have thirty five plus petabytes of customer data and
Speaker 1: this is data that they say is sixty six percent
Speaker 1: larger than the US Library of Congress's digital collection, which
Speaker 1: clocked in at twenty one petabytes in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: So a grocery company knows more about Americans than the
Speaker 1: Library of Congress information. Yeah, these companies have a thing
Speaker 1: or two. They know what they're doing. They employ very
Speaker 1: smart data scientists to get us to spend our hard
Speaker 1: earned cash. If you don't think it's happening to you,
Speaker 1: it absolutely is. Don't be fooled. All right, thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening this week. That is Gonna do It.
Speaker 1: I know we had a couple of technical difficulties this show,
Speaker 1: but thanks for holding on and hanging on and listening
Speaker 1: to my dad jokes at the beginning of the show
Speaker 1: That's gonna do it for this week. You can find
Speaker 1: me on social media. I am at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: I put everything we talked about today on my website,
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot TV. Don't forget to check out
Speaker 1: my KTLA TV segments. My name is rich Demiro. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. There are so many ways you
Speaker 1: can spend a rainy day and your time. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate you spending it right here with me. I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you real soon.