Speaker 1: New summer travel tools from Google. How to check the
Speaker 1: battery on your air Tags and passwords might be a
Speaker 1: thing of the past. Oh plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer the questions you send me. Once again,
Speaker 1: my name is Rich Demiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel
Speaker 1: five in Los Angeles. What is going on? Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show. Welcome if you're listening on Twitter spaces. Still
Speaker 1: a lot going on in the tech world just never
Speaker 1: never ends, huh. But kind of fun stuff, a lot
Speaker 1: of cool stuff to talk about, like a lot of
Speaker 1: like a lot of like new tools that I want
Speaker 1: to talk about this week, like just handy, handy stuff.
Speaker 1: So let me just give you a background on me
Speaker 1: and kind of my philosophy on what I like to
Speaker 1: talk about both on TV and on this podcast. There
Speaker 1: are so many people out there that love to talk rumors, speculation,
Speaker 1: hot takes. You know, you can find opinions all over
Speaker 1: the web. But personally, I don't care. I want good information,
Speaker 1: I want news I can use. I want tools, I
Speaker 1: want tips. I want things that I sit there and
Speaker 1: I'm like, Rich, stop talking, because I need to write
Speaker 1: this down. I need to like, hold on, wait what
Speaker 1: was that app? Hold on? What was that? So ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of the people that meet me in real
Speaker 1: life IRL, they they literally, without fail, say hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I loved your tip on this, or Rich, I downloaded
Speaker 1: that app you mentioned, or Rich, I got this phone
Speaker 1: because of your review. That's the kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: I want to do. So when you look at technology
Speaker 1: news on TV, on the web, pretty much anywhere unless
Speaker 1: you're on these real enthusiast sites, a lot of it
Speaker 1: is just like you know, it's a lot of like
Speaker 1: what what did Elon say today? What is Elon going
Speaker 1: to do? To Twitter? And everyone has an opinion on
Speaker 1: this stuff, and personally, I think it's fun, and of
Speaker 1: course you want to look at some of that stuff.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, I don't, to be honest, you know,
Speaker 1: even with the Apple roomor stuff. It's like for years
Speaker 1: on TV, I just didn't cover Apple rumors. I mean,
Speaker 1: anyone can write up an Apple rumor, and now you know,
Speaker 1: I'll report on some of them and some of the
Speaker 1: more I guess the more reputable sources. But the reality is,
Speaker 1: like I want to know what new products are out
Speaker 1: whether I should buy them, what new apps are useful,
Speaker 1: what new features are out there. Those are the kind
Speaker 1: of things that I think are the most useful. So
Speaker 1: I am in a constant battle with kind of the hype,
Speaker 1: the clickbait, the you know, just anyone and everyone that
Speaker 1: wants to lead me into this direction of you know,
Speaker 1: stuff that it's like almost like uh, popcorn. You know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like you're sitting there with your popcorn
Speaker 1: just eating and like, oh yeah, that's you know, the
Speaker 1: stuff that makes you angry, the stuff that makes you happy,
Speaker 1: the stuff that makes you sad. I I've always tried,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying look, I mean I try to
Speaker 1: hold this stuff to a higher standard. It doesn't always happen,
Speaker 1: but in general, Like if you're wondering why I'm not
Speaker 1: super controversial or why I'm not super edgy, that's the reason.
Speaker 1: I just want this to be a show and my
Speaker 1: reports to be a place where you learn cool stuff
Speaker 1: about technology, you see cool stuff, and you can use
Speaker 1: the stuff that I talk about. So I could scare
Speaker 1: you every day with privacy stuff. I could make you
Speaker 1: fear for your you know, security of your phone. I
Speaker 1: can make you tell you that you need to update
Speaker 1: Chrome every day. That's just not how I roll. I
Speaker 1: will tell you when I think there's something that you
Speaker 1: need to know about security, about you know, your privacy,
Speaker 1: of course I will tell you that stuff, but just
Speaker 1: kind of making these large giant statements about you know,
Speaker 1: you should be scared or your location or you know.
Speaker 1: One of my favorites is like, you know, there's always
Speaker 1: these roundups of like you know, Android apps that are
Speaker 1: stealing information on your phone. Nine times out of ten,
Speaker 1: those apps are sideloaded by a tiny percentage of people
Speaker 1: in a different country, and they have no bearing on
Speaker 1: the average person here in the US, which is my
Speaker 1: primary audience. And so it's like, yeah, I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: like what steps you should take to protect your phone.
Speaker 1: Like if you're sideloading apps and you even know what
Speaker 1: that is, you're probably a little tech savva the most
Speaker 1: people anyway, so you already know what the dangers are
Speaker 1: of sideloading an app, Especially when it comes to the iPhone.
Speaker 1: You know, there's always you know, is it spying on you?
Speaker 1: Is that this is that like I'll talk about that stuff,
Speaker 1: but just to put these blanket statements, like the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, you download an app and it's just
Speaker 1: literally taking over your iPhone and suddenly spying on your
Speaker 1: every move and using your cameras and this and that,
Speaker 1: like it generally does not happen. So I'll talk about
Speaker 1: this stuff, but in general, that's where I'm coming from.
Speaker 1: I just kind of wanted to get that out there
Speaker 1: so that you understand, if you know, if there's a
Speaker 1: certain story I don't mention, or like a rumor in
Speaker 1: the news that I'm just avoiding, there's a reason behind
Speaker 1: my madness. There's a reason why I cover this stuff
Speaker 1: that I do. All right, without further ado, let's get
Speaker 1: into the first story of the week. Twitter, everyone's favorite
Speaker 1: topic right now, is testing a new Twitter circle feature.
Speaker 1: So this is so you can share your tweets with
Speaker 1: a smaller group of people, and this makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. Instagram has this close Friends feature, which I
Speaker 1: really like because I've got a lot of followers on
Speaker 1: Instagram and I love them, but they're not all my
Speaker 1: family members and close friends, and sometimes I'm just sharing
Speaker 1: stuff that's a little bit more family oriented or it's
Speaker 1: not secret, but it's just like you know, maybe it's
Speaker 1: just more Yeah, it's mostly just family oriented or where
Speaker 1: I am at a certain place or time that might
Speaker 1: not need to be public information. So I'll use that
Speaker 1: close friends feature a lot. You can tell when someone
Speaker 1: is showing you something on your close friends list because
Speaker 1: I think there's a little green circle around the story
Speaker 1: or around the person that's sharing the story, and so
Speaker 1: you can tell that that's meant for just your eyes
Speaker 1: and not everyone's eyes. And Twitter kind of testing the
Speaker 1: same thing. You'll be able to share tweets with up
Speaker 1: two one hundred and fifty people in this inner circle,
Speaker 1: and you can change those people at any time. It
Speaker 1: doesn't I don't. Let's see, does it tell you when
Speaker 1: you're added or deleted from this circle? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, you can edit your participants at any time.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I mean, look, there's gonna be there's going
Speaker 1: to be some changes at Twitter over the next six
Speaker 1: months to a year. Obviously it's got new ownership, so
Speaker 1: or it's going to have new ownership, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: see a lot of changes. I hope they make it better.
Speaker 1: I love Twitter, I really do. I've said this on
Speaker 1: this show before. I think it's a great social network.
Speaker 1: I think that I mentioned this on Twitter. Actually, how
Speaker 1: Instagram to me has just become a complete mess with
Speaker 1: all the changes and things that they're doing there trying
Speaker 1: to really I mean, look, everyone is scared of reals, sorry,
Speaker 1: of TikTok, and so you have the TikTok influence is
Speaker 1: so apparent on Facebook and Instagram it's not even funny.
Speaker 1: I mean they literally if they could just switch out
Speaker 1: everything in Facebook and Instagram to become reels when you
Speaker 1: open up the app, they would, But they want to
Speaker 1: tread carefully because they know that people didn't sign up
Speaker 1: for that necessarily, and so they they want to make
Speaker 1: sure that they're not missing out on the bandwagon when
Speaker 1: it comes to the TikTok style videos. But they also
Speaker 1: don't want to alienate every single person that's already using
Speaker 1: the app. So, but if you've noticed, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a bunch maybe not so much on Instagram, on a Facebook,
Speaker 1: but on Instagram, the TikTok influence is just so apparent,
Speaker 1: and they're doing such a bad job compared to TikTok.
Speaker 1: When you open up TikTok it opens up full screen
Speaker 1: into the videos. You flip up and you switch through
Speaker 1: the videos. It's a very simple experience. Instagram has like
Speaker 1: one thousand and one ways you can browse Instagram at
Speaker 1: this point, and it's just getting very crowded, very confusing,
Speaker 1: and I feel like they've lost direction on what they
Speaker 1: want to be and we'll just see what happens with
Speaker 1: that whole situation. I mean, they really I think that
Speaker 1: the uh, the one minute short is like literally my
Speaker 1: favorite storytelling method right now. I used to be a
Speaker 1: guy who literally hated vertical video. I thought it was evil,
Speaker 1: and now I'm not kidding. I stay up at awake
Speaker 1: at night just thinking about making reels and one minute
Speaker 1: really impactful videos for this for these platforms, because it's
Speaker 1: such a powerful way to reach people. You have one minute.
Speaker 1: You have to be succinct. I mean, it's all of
Speaker 1: my training in journalism because it combines video, pictures and audio,
Speaker 1: and I like actually narrating them because that's my world.
Speaker 1: I mean, I write packages for a living. That's what
Speaker 1: we call our stories on TV. They're called a package,
Speaker 1: and they're short. They're only a minute thirty and so
Speaker 1: real is a minute but it's vertical, so it's a
Speaker 1: little bit tougher to squeeze in your video in that way,
Speaker 1: but also you have to be really succinct, tell a story,
Speaker 1: capture their attention. I personally am obsessed with it. I
Speaker 1: think it's such a cool genre of video at this point,
Speaker 1: and I'd bet everything it's going to become the only
Speaker 1: thing on mobile after a couple of years. All right,
Speaker 1: you heard those clacking sounds. That means time for our
Speaker 1: first question. Hello, Rich, I have poor vision. It's very
Speaker 1: difficult for me to read letters and documents. I only
Speaker 1: use an iPad for the Internet and communicating. What would
Speaker 1: be the best way for me to import a document
Speaker 1: to my iPad and have the screen reader read it
Speaker 1: to me. I try a scanner called doxy Go, but
Speaker 1: the iPad would not read the file. I have a
Speaker 1: first generation ten inch iPad which is running iOS fifteen.
Speaker 1: Do you have any suggestions? Keep up the good work, Thanks,
Speaker 1: Bob Bob. I think that you just use the scanning,
Speaker 1: the tech scanning feature that's built into iOS. So if
Speaker 1: you notice on the notes app, they've actually made it
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to access. So if you go
Speaker 1: you open notes and you compose a new note. There's
Speaker 1: a little camera icon and when you tap that above
Speaker 1: the keyboard, there's an option for tech scanning, And so
Speaker 1: you just tap that thing, you know, it opens up
Speaker 1: the camera on your phone. You hold it over some
Speaker 1: text and literally it doesn't even miss a beat. It
Speaker 1: will scan the text, convert it, you know, from text
Speaker 1: ocr whatever you call it, and insert that text into
Speaker 1: a document on your phone. And then after you do that,
Speaker 1: you can use the built in screen reader on iOS.
Speaker 1: It's under accessibility to speak what you're listen what you're
Speaker 1: seeing on your screen, so super super easy. All of
Speaker 1: the tools are built into the iPad. Apple has done
Speaker 1: some really nice things with accessibility and helping you take
Speaker 1: advantage of the things that you know, we take for granted,
Speaker 1: and that's vision. So I think that they've done a
Speaker 1: really good job with the importing of text. I think
Speaker 1: they've done a really good job with the speaking of text.
Speaker 1: And this is the beauty of the iPhone in general,
Speaker 1: is that there are just so many little features built in.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like an onion. You don't know. If
Speaker 1: you don't need them, you don't even think about them,
Speaker 1: But when you need them, you can use them, and
Speaker 1: Apple has them there for you. So that would be
Speaker 1: my recommendation that one two punch. So again, you take
Speaker 1: the document, you scan it with the text scan feature,
Speaker 1: and then use the screen reader to actually have the
Speaker 1: iPad read it out to you. Great question, Bob, and
Speaker 1: thanks for emailing me. All right, let's get to the
Speaker 1: next story of the day. Apple, Google and Microsoft are
Speaker 1: looking to we're going to figure out how to get
Speaker 1: rid of passwords, and we've seen a little progress in
Speaker 1: this area, but ninety nine percent of the time you
Speaker 1: still got to use a password to log in. We're
Speaker 1: seeing more use of those what's called magic links, which
Speaker 1: you put your email address into a website and they
Speaker 1: email you a link and that link takes you to
Speaker 1: log in. It could be a little complicated on the
Speaker 1: iPhone because of the architecture of the operating system depending
Speaker 1: on what app you're using for your email, but I
Speaker 1: won't get into that. But this is a good thing.
Speaker 1: So Microsoft, Google, and Apple have joined the FIDO Alliance.
Speaker 1: That has nothing to do with all fight out is
Speaker 1: short for Fast Identity Online, and so what they want
Speaker 1: to do is help you log into apps and websites
Speaker 1: with things like fingerprint readers, face scanners, or your phone.
Speaker 1: Now we already see a level of this on Google
Speaker 1: and some other apps as well, but a lot of
Speaker 1: these apps are getting away from the SMS confirmation codes
Speaker 1: to say are you who you say you are, and
Speaker 1: they're switching to at least for Google, when you log
Speaker 1: into a Google property, it will say okay, now open
Speaker 1: up your iPhone and open up Gmail and tell us
Speaker 1: you know and click the yes you know confirmation code.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that if a hacker was trying
Speaker 1: to log into your Google account on a computer somewhere,
Speaker 1: they probably don't have your smartphone, and so by saying okay,
Speaker 1: we'll open up the Google app on your smartphone and
Speaker 1: confirm that it's you, the hacker would be like, ohh
Speaker 1: foiled again. But you, as a as a person that
Speaker 1: actually owns that account, could say, oh, yeah, my phone's here.
Speaker 1: Let me open up Gmail and you say, yeah, that's me.
Speaker 1: You click the confirmation code or the screen or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Sometimes it's a button, sometimes it's a number,
Speaker 1: and you know it confirms it it's you, because it's
Speaker 1: trying two different ways of making sure it's you. You've
Speaker 1: got your log in and then also that secondary authentication
Speaker 1: sometimes we call that two factor authentication, but this is
Speaker 1: just a different way. It's not texted to you. It
Speaker 1: is actually a confirmation screen, so we can see more
Speaker 1: things like that. Like next time you go to Amazon
Speaker 1: on your computer, it might say, hey, open up the
Speaker 1: Amazon app on your phone and boom, is this you
Speaker 1: trying to log in? You say yes, and it just
Speaker 1: logs you in without having to use a password. Now
Speaker 1: does this mean that all passwords are going away forever?
Speaker 1: Probably not. We're still going to need sort of a
Speaker 1: master password for things, or you know, a password to
Speaker 1: get in the first time. I think this is more
Speaker 1: geared towards relogging in or accessing websites on different things.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I mean it could be you know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe they'll figure out a way to get rid
Speaker 1: of the password altogether. I don't know. But the other
Speaker 1: thing that they're doing is they said, according to the
Speaker 1: cenet article, that they are working on something as soon
Speaker 1: as the end of this year, So we might have
Speaker 1: devices powered by software from Apple, Google, and Microsoft in
Speaker 1: the next year that take advantage of this Fido technology.
Speaker 1: So kind of cool, very exciting. I did an interview.
Speaker 1: I'll have this on KTLA soon. But I did an
Speaker 1: interview with a security expert, really really great interview. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. Sometimes I do interviews and they're just
Speaker 1: not that good. Other times I do interviews and I
Speaker 1: just wish I had kind of a live interview show
Speaker 1: because I want every single thing that person says on
Speaker 1: TV because it's just so good. And this was an
Speaker 1: example of that. This guy's name was Roger Grimes. He's
Speaker 1: a security expert with oh gosh, what's it NOB four
Speaker 1: or something like that, but he just the things he
Speaker 1: was saying were just so great about our passwords and
Speaker 1: how hackers are hacking us. And all I have I
Speaker 1: have to say is if you are not using strong passwords,
Speaker 1: strong unique passwords, if you think you're able to make
Speaker 1: up passwords that you know you have the upper hand,
Speaker 1: you don't. These hackers are relentless and they are working
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven to hack our stuff. And if
Speaker 1: you think you're coming up with these little c passwords,
Speaker 1: I use my dog's name plus twenty plus an explanation point.
Speaker 1: Now not gonna happen. These guys are cracking. Guys in
Speaker 1: Galas are cracking I think, he said, eighteen digit codes
Speaker 1: at this point, if they are made by humans, if
Speaker 1: they're randomly generated by a password service like a you know,
Speaker 1: a last pass or a dash lane or any sort
Speaker 1: of password generator, he said, eleven characters is kind of
Speaker 1: the magic spot where they still can't crack that easily
Speaker 1: or even at all. He said, So the last person
Speaker 1: I interviewed from Bitwarden, he said, I think sixteen was
Speaker 1: his magic number. That he said that was overkill, but
Speaker 1: it kind of preps you for the future of how
Speaker 1: these hackers are getting even more sophisticated. So sixteen, So
Speaker 1: anywhere between eleven and sixteen randomly generated characters are going
Speaker 1: to protect you at this point, plus of course two
Speaker 1: factor authentication. But do it. I'm not kidding. The other
Speaker 1: thing he mentioned that I thought was kind of cool
Speaker 1: and I had not really thought of this, But something
Speaker 1: you can do is if you can't use a password
Speaker 1: generator like let's say, for instance, typing logging into your laptop. Now,
Speaker 1: on my laptop, I've got a fingerprint scanner, but there
Speaker 1: are times that I still need to use my password,
Speaker 1: and so I'll be honest, it's I shouldn't say this,
Speaker 1: but it's a simpler password because I know I have
Speaker 1: to type it all the time. But he did say
Speaker 1: that if you want to, you know, have to type
Speaker 1: something in all the time, use what's called a pass phrase.
Speaker 1: And so you can say something like I always eat
Speaker 1: watermelon in the summer with salt exclamation point, you know,
Speaker 1: something like that, where that's you know, that's really tough
Speaker 1: for someone to figure out. That's still pretty long and random.
Speaker 1: And so you can try something like a pass phrase
Speaker 1: if you must use a password that you are creating.
Speaker 1: All right, moving right along here, let's get to the
Speaker 1: next question of the show. Barry says, hey, Rich, what
Speaker 1: was the app you talked about for sports card values?
Speaker 1: I may be sitting on a small fortune, thanks Barry. Barry.
Speaker 1: The app is called collects coll X. We featured this
Speaker 1: on KTLA and ooh do we get a response? So,
Speaker 1: if you're like me, you collected baseball cards when you
Speaker 1: were a kid, and what was the biggest challenge of
Speaker 1: those cards finding the good ones? Right? You always wondered
Speaker 1: if you had a really good card in your collection. Now,
Speaker 1: I grew up at a time before the internet was huge,
Speaker 1: and so there wasn't like an eBay you could just
Speaker 1: search on. There were actually guides. I think he called
Speaker 1: it the Beckett Guide. I kind of remember this. I had,
Speaker 1: like the pink pages with the little tiny writing and
Speaker 1: the card values in there. But again you had to
Speaker 1: buy that book. And as a broke kid, I wasn't
Speaker 1: buying that book. So what did you do? You just
Speaker 1: talked to your friends, Hey, Adam, do you know if
Speaker 1: this card is worth anything? And you'd always have that
Speaker 1: one friend that could go through your collection and kind
Speaker 1: of size it up and see if you had any
Speaker 1: good cards in there. Well, now kids today don't need
Speaker 1: to do any of that. Father and son team out
Speaker 1: of New Jersey came up with this app called collect Colx.
Speaker 1: You installed on your phone and basically you scan the
Speaker 1: baseball card. It kind of looks for prices on various sites,
Speaker 1: including eBay and the Beckett Guide and all these different places,
Speaker 1: aggregates those into an average price, and it tells you
Speaker 1: how much the card is approximately worth. Brilliant IDEA kid
Speaker 1: is ten years old going to do very good things
Speaker 1: in this life. The dad, I guess, had some background
Speaker 1: in image recognition, so that's the app. Brilliant and I
Speaker 1: can't wait to go home and scan all my cards
Speaker 1: in my old binder. I'm also going to do a
Speaker 1: reels about this because I've got to get the SAP
Speaker 1: out there. It's so cool. Now. On this note, I
Speaker 1: got an email. Hey, Rich I've been collecting baseball cards
Speaker 1: my entire life. I saw your segment this morning about collects.
Speaker 1: Have you received any input from the app. I've had
Speaker 1: a chance to use it, and I'd like to know
Speaker 1: what I'd like you to know what I think of it.
Speaker 1: It's easy to use. Just take a picture of the
Speaker 1: front and back of your card. So far, I've done
Speaker 1: twelve and they are all graded. After scanning the third card,
Speaker 1: the app slows down and freezes. I think that once
Speaker 1: kinks are worked out, it will not do that. Some
Speaker 1: of the cards are mislabeled, especially the ones with multiple players.
Speaker 1: This is easily fixed by editing the picture. The prices
Speaker 1: seem to be about right, although slightly off, meaning they
Speaker 1: are displaying a lower value than other sites which price cards,
Speaker 1: but for the most part they are good. Could rather
Speaker 1: me not use his full name, which I typically don't
Speaker 1: do on the show, but he said he would give
Speaker 1: this site a B plus. I'll share this app with
Speaker 1: my friends and family. Thanks for talking about this product.
Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah, there you go. It sounds like a
Speaker 1: pretty glowing review. And again, you know, I'm pretty early
Speaker 1: on this app. It's a pretty brand new app. But again,
Speaker 1: this will continue to be evolved and tweak, and I
Speaker 1: think that it's just one of these things that as
Speaker 1: a kid like, can you I can't imagine having this
Speaker 1: as a kid like with all the work I had
Speaker 1: to do to figure out the price of one baseball card,
Speaker 1: the fact that you can just scan them and get
Speaker 1: and look, these prices are not gonna be exact. It's
Speaker 1: not gonna be the exact amount you're gonna sell it for,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna give you a ballpark figure, no pun intended, right,
Speaker 1: So I think that that's a cool app. C l
Speaker 1: l x iOS Android download it. They work with all
Speaker 1: sports cards right now, and then Pokemon cards are coming soon.
Speaker 1: All right, on to the next story. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: summer travel with Google. So, if you've listened to this
Speaker 1: podcast a lot, which sorry if you have, just kidding,
Speaker 1: Why why am I so self deprecating? People love this show?
Speaker 1: I get emails every day. I mean, you know, here's
Speaker 1: the deal. I'm on TV, I'm on social media, and
Speaker 1: I'm on this podcast, and I'm on the radio. And
Speaker 1: so among those four things, I will tell you it's
Speaker 1: a pretty equal number of people that come up to
Speaker 1: me and say in real life, like where they like
Speaker 1: hearing me. Like a lot of people like the radio.
Speaker 1: A lot of people email me about the podcast, or
Speaker 1: even in real life like I was at the gym
Speaker 1: the other day and this guy comes up to me
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm a big fan of the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, podcast, That's that's hardcore. Like that's like
Speaker 1: a super fan. Social media, you know, when I meet
Speaker 1: kind of like people at the schools and stuff, like
Speaker 1: a lot of it social media, and then of course TV.
Speaker 1: You know people just kind of baseline when you just
Speaker 1: you know, see it rich. But you know, so there's
Speaker 1: there's something to be said for all the mediums that
Speaker 1: I go to. And so anyway, if you've listened to
Speaker 1: this podcast, I don't know why I mentioned that, it's
Speaker 1: just you know, look, you're listening to my show. So
Speaker 1: I just sometimes I go off on tangents, but if
Speaker 1: you listen to this show, you know, I love Google
Speaker 1: Flights or Google Travel in general. I always I'm on
Speaker 1: Google Flights every single day. Every single day I search
Speaker 1: for something on Google Flights. I might be eyeing a trip,
Speaker 1: I might be just tracking a price, I might be
Speaker 1: just dreaming whatever. But starting today, Google Google Flights has
Speaker 1: always been able to track prices. I've got three or
Speaker 1: four airfares being tracked at any given time for future
Speaker 1: trips I want to take. But now they have a
Speaker 1: really cool feature. And this makes so much sense because
Speaker 1: Google has so much information. They are the They are
Speaker 1: just so smart about slicing and dicing data that this
Speaker 1: just makes so much sense. Because Google knows when flights
Speaker 1: are unusually cheap, well, now they can tell you when
Speaker 1: that happens. So beginning now, you can start tracking prices
Speaker 1: to find deals for any dates, not just specific dates.
Speaker 1: So if you want to go to Rome or Tokyo
Speaker 1: or anywhere, just pop that into the calendar, press search,
Speaker 1: and then when you press search, let me do this.
Speaker 1: I can actually show you. So when you search the
Speaker 1: dates flights, okay, where to let's just say Tokyo to you. Okay,
Speaker 1: oh okay, You press search and there's a new little
Speaker 1: button button that's called any dates. It's actually a toggle.
Speaker 1: You toggle that on and now you'll get emails when
Speaker 1: prices are unusually low for those trips. So yeah, there's
Speaker 1: always gonna be days that are cheap. But when Google notices, huh,
Speaker 1: this flight typically goes for six hundred dollars right now,
Speaker 1: it's three hundred. Let's email Rich. That's what you're gonna get.
Speaker 1: It's totally brilliant. It's for any dates, so you have
Speaker 1: to be flexible, obviously, but if you are, you can
Speaker 1: nab some really good prices. Do I have any of
Speaker 1: these tracked yet? I don't think I do. I should
Speaker 1: do one right now, because I don't have anything tracked
Speaker 1: at this point. Oh I do. I want to go
Speaker 1: to a Raleigh, North Carolina, and I've got that. I've
Speaker 1: got a little alert for that area, EXU. I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to visit, so it's been a long time. Last
Speaker 1: time I was there see some family down there, was
Speaker 1: like in the nineties. So I want to see that
Speaker 1: place anyway, So I've got that on my little tracker.
Speaker 1: I know it's not the most glamorous place in the world,
Speaker 1: but that's that's where I'm tracking now. I didn't notice
Speaker 1: this is the first time around. But there's also this
Speaker 1: new tool which is super super cool if you want
Speaker 1: to drive. And during the pandemic we were driving a lot.
Speaker 1: We still are. When we went on vacation recently, we
Speaker 1: drove to Scottsdale because I just didn't feel like flying,
Speaker 1: you know, with a pandemic and you know, it's just
Speaker 1: everything being so kind of all over the place. I
Speaker 1: was like, ah, it's just easier to drive right now.
Speaker 1: It's more, you know, more guaranteed. So we drove to Scottsdale.
Speaker 1: But this is a really cool feature that if you
Speaker 1: go to Google dot com slash travel, slash explore. Now
Speaker 1: when you look, there's a new kind of icon that
Speaker 1: says explore nearby. You'll see it on the map. You
Speaker 1: tap that and whatever city you are looking from, like
Speaker 1: here in my case it's Los Angeles. It now shows
Speaker 1: me all the cool places I can drive to Santa Barbara, Bakersfield, Calico,
Speaker 1: Big Bear, Joshua Tree, San Diego, Laguna Beach, Malibu, Passo
Speaker 1: Robles and so these are driving places and it tells
Speaker 1: you how far it is to drive three hours uh
Speaker 1: in the case of Passo Robles. So this is another
Speaker 1: way to just explore the world around you. Of course,
Speaker 1: all those places I mentioned you've probably heard of if
Speaker 1: you live in Los Angeles, but you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of neat. Maybe you're in you know, maybe you're in
Speaker 1: a new city like Dallas, Texas for a while. And
Speaker 1: let's see. So if I go Dallas and now I'm
Speaker 1: in Dallas, Texas, Okay, what's going on? Why are you
Speaker 1: not showing me Dallas. Shouldn't you snap to Dallas? There?
Speaker 1: It is explore Nearby, So places I can go from
Speaker 1: there are Wichita Falls, Lake Texoma, Paris, Broken Broken Bow, Jefferson,
Speaker 1: Lake Fork, Tyler, Waco, brown Wood, Fort Worth, Possum Kingdom.
Speaker 1: Whatever that is Nackotish. I know how to pronounce that
Speaker 1: because I lived in uh in that area. It looks
Speaker 1: like naa, naaa, naka, goat Godoci's but it's Nacotish. I
Speaker 1: think it's. Oh, maybe it is Nacagosties. Maybe Nacodish was
Speaker 1: in Louisiana. Anyway, uh No, I think Nacodish was in
Speaker 1: text I don't know. It's been a while since I
Speaker 1: lived there. But anyway, really really cool feature. Check it out.
Speaker 1: It's called Explore near by moving right along, let's get
Speaker 1: to the next question. On the podcast, GLORIOA says, Hey, Rich.
Speaker 1: First of all, I appreciate all the new technology you provide,
Speaker 1: always interesting and informative. Here's an issue. My iPhone became disabled.
Speaker 1: I got locked out. My password wouldn't work because I
Speaker 1: tried too many times. I know you're busy. Long story.
Speaker 1: I didn't have iclouds I don't have my pictures backed up.
Speaker 1: I know it's my fault. Can't blame anyone but myself.
Speaker 1: Went to the Apple store. All they can do is
Speaker 1: give me the answer. They couldn't get my pictures because
Speaker 1: I don't have iCloud. I'm reaching out. I'm begging you
Speaker 1: if you have a solution or know some options. How
Speaker 1: do I get access to my pictures. I still have
Speaker 1: the phone, of course, I had to get a new
Speaker 1: phone to start all over. Ugh. I've heard of websites
Speaker 1: that offer to retrieve your pictures, but I haven't done
Speaker 1: so I'm hesitant that it could be a scam. Any
Speaker 1: information could be helpful. I know it's a long shot,
Speaker 1: so you can be straight with me, even though it
Speaker 1: might hurt. Thank you, Gloria. Well, Gloria I'm going to
Speaker 1: be straight with you. You can't. There's just no way
Speaker 1: to get these pictures off this phone. As far as
Speaker 1: I know, these phones are encrypted. If you don't have
Speaker 1: the pass code. I don't think any software that's that's
Speaker 1: for the mere mortal that's not you know, ten thousand
Speaker 1: dollars is going to be able to retrieve pictures off
Speaker 1: this phone and unencrypt them. So I don't know how
Speaker 1: you forgot the password on your phone. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you use your phone every day, I'm kind of how
Speaker 1: do you forget that? I don't know. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: there's they're okay, I'll tell you a story. So long
Speaker 1: story short. You know, these companies send me phones to
Speaker 1: test out, and Samsung sent me a phone once. I
Speaker 1: guess I set up the phone in my sleep because
Speaker 1: I set it up and I totally forgot Well then
Speaker 1: a week later I was using it for a shoot
Speaker 1: and I'm like literally emailing the Samsung person because I
Speaker 1: turned on the phone in the morning and I can't
Speaker 1: you know, early in the morning, we're about to shoot
Speaker 1: this segment and I needed it and I I'm like, wait,
Speaker 1: why is this phone of a passcode on it? I
Speaker 1: didn't set this phone up. I forgot that I set
Speaker 1: the phone up. And so I'm sitting there like typing
Speaker 1: in a million random pass codes, but I know at
Speaker 1: a certain point's gonna lock me out, so I don't
Speaker 1: really want to keep typing them in. So I called
Speaker 1: the Samsung people. I say, hey, why'd you send me
Speaker 1: a phone that's already activated with all of someone's stuff
Speaker 1: on it and passcode and this. And I said, no,
Speaker 1: we didn't, and let me check, let me check, let
Speaker 1: me check. And they come back. They said, now that
Speaker 1: phone was not activated when we sent it to you.
Speaker 1: And I said, ah, long story short, I totally forgot
Speaker 1: that I had set up this phone, and so I
Speaker 1: tried a passcode that I typically used for my tester phones.
Speaker 1: That wasn't it. Then finally, after all these thoughts and
Speaker 1: like just going over it in my head, I said,
Speaker 1: all right, let me try this. Try to passcode. It worked.
Speaker 1: It was a pass code that I never used. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I used it, if I was trying
Speaker 1: to be different whatever, So anyway, it could have been
Speaker 1: really bad because if I would have locked out everyone
Speaker 1: on that phone. Now, yeah, there's you can format the
Speaker 1: phone to factory conditions and get it back to start.
Speaker 1: But you're going to lose everything on that phone. And
Speaker 1: my case didn't matter in this case, Yeah, it matters.
Speaker 1: Your phone is now. I'm confused why you had to
Speaker 1: get a new phone. I thought you could actually just
Speaker 1: if the phone is linked to your account. Yeah, these iPhones,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know the ins and outs. I
Speaker 1: know that it once the phone is activated to your account,
Speaker 1: it's extremely tough, if not impossible, for someone else to
Speaker 1: activate that phone, which is why I always say, why
Speaker 1: do people steal iPhones? You can't do anything with it
Speaker 1: if it's already been activated. Now, if they figure out
Speaker 1: your iCloud passwords, sure, but if you don't have the
Speaker 1: pass code and you don't have the iCloud, I don't
Speaker 1: know a way of getting these pictures off the phone.
Speaker 1: I really don't, But this is why. And I don't
Speaker 1: want to harp on this, but I'm not kidding. I
Speaker 1: get these emails every day, at least a couple times
Speaker 1: a week, and it's just someone who's lost their pictures
Speaker 1: because they didn't back them up. And I really I know, Gloria,
Speaker 1: you said that, you know I could be straight with you.
Speaker 1: And just you know, I know it's my fault and
Speaker 1: this and that, but like, why are these pictures not
Speaker 1: backed up? There are just too many options to back
Speaker 1: up pictures that they need to be backed up. Every
Speaker 1: single picture should be backed up. Use Google Photos, use iCloud.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to pay for iCloud, maybe you're
Speaker 1: an Amazon Prime member, use the Amazon Photos app. It's
Speaker 1: free unlimited storage for Prime members. If you don't want
Speaker 1: any of that stuff, you want a third party app,
Speaker 1: use Iedrive Photos ninety nine cents for the first year
Speaker 1: unlimited backups, ten bucks every year after that, ten dollars
Speaker 1: a year for peace of mind of all those precious photos.
Speaker 1: This happened to my father. He you know, I set
Speaker 1: up Google Photos on his phone, but on the iPhone,
Speaker 1: you do have to open up Google Photos every once
Speaker 1: in a while for it to be useful, for it
Speaker 1: to actually trigger and back up. Maybe that's changed now.
Speaker 1: I think maybe it activates in the background once in
Speaker 1: a while, But this was at a time when it didn't.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling you it was really sad because my
Speaker 1: dad lost his phone and there goes all the pictures.
Speaker 1: They were all gone and there's nothing I can do
Speaker 1: about it. This is the reason why my mom has
Speaker 1: an Android is because she had an iPhone and she
Speaker 1: was really frustrated that her pictures were not showing up
Speaker 1: in Google Photos on her desktop. And I said, Mom,
Speaker 1: you gotta open up Google Photos every once in a
Speaker 1: while for it to start kind of for it to
Speaker 1: trigger and for it to start sinking. Yes, I know
Speaker 1: iCloud has been blessed with background activity on the iPhone.
Speaker 1: I wonder how that works, but yes, iCloud will do
Speaker 1: it all the time. So if you have iCloud, yes,
Speaker 1: your pictures will be backed up. Unless you're not in
Speaker 1: Wi Fi, unless you're you know, not charging whatever's there's
Speaker 1: reasons that you know it won't back up. But most
Speaker 1: of the time you're plugging in your phone every night,
Speaker 1: your pictures will be backed up. So I've talked about
Speaker 1: this on the show before. But when I'm on vacation,
Speaker 1: I know it uses a ton of cellular data, but
Speaker 1: I actually switch on my cellular backup for Google Photos
Speaker 1: when I go on vacation because I'm taking so many
Speaker 1: pictures throughout the day that I can't wait until I
Speaker 1: get back into my hotel room to upload those pictures.
Speaker 1: I lost my phone at some point in my trip,
Speaker 1: if it fell off over the side of the boat,
Speaker 1: or if it dropped off the side of a building,
Speaker 1: or if I just you know, lost it down the
Speaker 1: elevator shaft or a grate. There goes all my pictures.
Speaker 1: They're gone, because all those pictures I took in the
Speaker 1: last couple hours would be gone. So for that reason,
Speaker 1: every time I go on vacation, I go into Google Photos,
Speaker 1: I toggle on cellular backup, and I let it use
Speaker 1: all that cellular data. Yes, it uses a lot more battery,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, my photos and videos are
Speaker 1: safe and secure throughout the day, versus waiting until I
Speaker 1: get back to my hotel room, getting back on Wi Fi,
Speaker 1: getting back on charging, and having Google Photos flip into action. So, Gloria,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. You know, take it to a data recovery specialist.
Speaker 1: See what they say. You know, go on YELP search
Speaker 1: data recovery, and someone local in your areas. See if
Speaker 1: they can do it. Maybe they know better than I do.
Speaker 1: If they do, let me know. And if you're listening
Speaker 1: to the podcast, you know, a way of getting this
Speaker 1: these photos off this phone that is that is locked
Speaker 1: and encrypted, let me know, because I don't think that's possible.
Speaker 1: If it was, every law enforcement in America would be
Speaker 1: doing this with phones that they recover. And I know
Speaker 1: that there's things like a great key which can do it,
Speaker 1: but that's like a ten thousand dollars a month device.
Speaker 1: That's not something that the mere mortal can afford to
Speaker 1: have access to or even have access to. So sorry
Speaker 1: about that, but you know, I am. I think the
Speaker 1: takeaway for everyone is that you got to have your
Speaker 1: pictures backed up. That's just the bottom line, all right.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, sorry to say this, but this Facebook
Speaker 1: or sorry this Facebook. Sorry to say, but this podcast
Speaker 1: is going away. Yep, that's what's happening. Going away. Oh sorry,
Speaker 1: just on Facebook. I should probably clarify that no more
Speaker 1: podcasts on Facebook as of June third. This is kind
Speaker 1: of bittersweet for me because quite honestly, I was getting
Speaker 1: really used to a lot of downloads of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Once Facebook invited me to the podcast platform on Facebook,
Speaker 1: I immediately put my RSS feed in there, and so every
Speaker 1: time I did a show, it would import into the
Speaker 1: native player on Facebook automatically. And I was telling I
Speaker 1: was getting I was getting thousand I mean tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of listens from this or I should say in
Speaker 1: the tens of thousands. So it was a lot, and
Speaker 1: it was like, Wow, I'm now tapping into all these
Speaker 1: people on my Facebook page and they're actually getting a
Speaker 1: little taste in my podcast. Now, not a lot of
Speaker 1: them's took not everyone stuck around, because I clearly noticed
Speaker 1: in the past couple of months that Facebook gave up
Speaker 1: on this because they just stopped pushing that podcast to people.
Speaker 1: So let me just quickly explain how Facebook works. Facebook
Speaker 1: is only interested in what Facebook is interested in. So
Speaker 1: when you post something like a picture or a video
Speaker 1: or a link or a podcast or a reels, whatever
Speaker 1: Facebook is interested in promoting at that time, that's what
Speaker 1: gets sent out to your followers. I have eight hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand followers on Facebook. I post a link
Speaker 1: from my KTLA website and guess what, A thousand people
Speaker 1: see it. Now do you really think only a thousand
Speaker 1: people that I'm that follow me are interested in my
Speaker 1: links from ktla? Probably not, but Facebook is not interested
Speaker 1: in propagating that link. I can post a video that
Speaker 1: I shot on my iPhone of me getting an ice
Speaker 1: cream cone and putting a you know, taking a scoop
Speaker 1: out of that ice cream cone, and it will get
Speaker 1: three thousand, four thousand, five thousand, six thousand views. Do
Speaker 1: you think more people are interested in that than the
Speaker 1: article that I crafted on the KTLA website. No. But
Speaker 1: Facebook wants to become a destination for video, and so
Speaker 1: that's why when you natively upload a video to Facebook,
Speaker 1: they show it to more people. For a while, podcasts
Speaker 1: was the hot thing. That's what Facebook was all interested in.
Speaker 1: So what were they doing. They were over serving my
Speaker 1: podcast to my followers, and so more people were hearing it,
Speaker 1: more people were seeing it presented on their feed, and
Speaker 1: if they stopped for five seconds to listen to it,
Speaker 1: that counted as a listen. Now that's a whole nother thing.
Speaker 1: Is that really a listen? I don't think so, but
Speaker 1: that's how they were counting it, which boosted my podcast listenership.
Speaker 1: Then when Facebook got bored and tired and realized that
Speaker 1: TikTok is eating their lunch, they said, oh, never mind,
Speaker 1: we'll leave the podcast to everyone else. We'll do reels.
Speaker 1: And now what they're doing is they are over correcting
Speaker 1: on reels. So I've now had two reels that are
Speaker 1: in the million views club. One of my reels has
Speaker 1: done over three million views, one is on track to
Speaker 1: doing a million views. Are those reels any better than
Speaker 1: this long form podcast where I give a lot of
Speaker 1: information and talk to people about stuff. No, but it's
Speaker 1: what Facebook wants to promote. So after a year, Facebook
Speaker 1: says no more podcasts were done, removing them all together.
Speaker 1: Starting June third, gonna stop its short form audio product
Speaker 1: called soundbites, which I don't even know what that was,
Speaker 1: and it's Central Audio Hub. This is all according to Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: And of course what are they pushing now short form
Speaker 1: videos called reels to compete with TikTok. So anyway, if
Speaker 1: you were one of the few dedicated listeners on Facebook,
Speaker 1: don't be surprised if you no longer see my podcast there.
Speaker 1: The good news is you can use any audio app
Speaker 1: you want to listen to my podcast. It is still
Speaker 1: available on all of those apps. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to the next question of the show. Debbie says, I
Speaker 1: have an iPhone eleven with the latest update, I'm no
Speaker 1: longer able to use face ID with a face mask,
Speaker 1: and my Apple Watch it is only available with an
Speaker 1: iPhone twelve. I've been using this feature for the past
Speaker 1: one and a half years, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I cannot use it. I would love for you to
Speaker 1: look into this and why Apple decided to make this change.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Debbie in Temecula, Debbie, Debbie, Debbie.
Speaker 1: They didn't change this, So you're actually confusing two things.
Speaker 1: There are two features that allow you to unlock the
Speaker 1: iPhone with face with a face mask. Now. The first
Speaker 1: is the one you're referring to, which has been around
Speaker 1: for a year and a half, and that is the
Speaker 1: ability to unlock the iPhone with an Apple Watch. And
Speaker 1: so they added this feature, which makes a whole lot
Speaker 1: of sense. In fact, I think I talked about it
Speaker 1: on the show before they added it, or mentioned it
Speaker 1: in a tweet or something, and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: Android has been doing this forever where if you're wearing
Speaker 1: a Bluetooth device, you can unlock your phone because it
Speaker 1: knows that Bluetooth device is nearby. And Apple took a
Speaker 1: little different approach. It took a little smarter approach. Once
Speaker 1: the watch is put on your wrist and then unlocked
Speaker 1: as long as it stays on your wrist. It will
Speaker 1: continue to unlock your phone, and if you're wearing a
Speaker 1: face mask, it will still unlock your phone. And so
Speaker 1: that is a feature that's been around for a year
Speaker 1: and a half. You need the iPhone ten and up
Speaker 1: because it uses face ID to authenticate the fact that
Speaker 1: you are wearing a mask and wearing an Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: and it says, all right, we're gonna trust that this
Speaker 1: is you and here we go. Now. The other feature,
Speaker 1: and the new one that you cannot use, is the
Speaker 1: ability to not have an Apple Watch and use face
Speaker 1: ID with a face mask. That's different. So what Apple
Speaker 1: is doing there is all the people that don't have
Speaker 1: an Apple Watch if they have face ID on a
Speaker 1: newer iPhone. You're right, it is the iPhone twelve and up.
Speaker 1: You can still unlock your iPhone with face ID, even
Speaker 1: if you're wearing a face mask. And the way they
Speaker 1: do this is they look at the nuances in your eyes.
Speaker 1: So something about your eyes, whether it's the wrinkles around
Speaker 1: your eyes or whether it's just the shape of the eyes.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they're doing, but that's what they're
Speaker 1: doing to verify it is who you say you are.
Speaker 1: You're right, that feature is not available to you. The
Speaker 1: Apple Watch unlocked feature is available to you as long
Speaker 1: as you have an Apple Watch and as long as
Speaker 1: you have an iPhone ten and up. So what I
Speaker 1: suspect happened is with this latest software update, it just
Speaker 1: got toggled off and you just have to go back
Speaker 1: into settings and toggle it back on. So what my
Speaker 1: advice would be is to go into Settings, go into
Speaker 1: face unlock or face ID whatever they call it on there,
Speaker 1: and just look for the unlock with Apple Watch, toggle,
Speaker 1: turn it back on. It'll probably verify your face ID
Speaker 1: and then it'll work again. So there you go, super
Speaker 1: super easy. All right. So nos one of my favorite gadgets,
Speaker 1: but I feel like Sonos is in a very precarious
Speaker 1: position because it's, let's be honest, it's a speaker for
Speaker 1: the well to do. It's not a speaker for the
Speaker 1: average person because people are just not buying these things.
Speaker 1: They're too expensive. So I love Sonos and I've had
Speaker 1: it for a long time. I'm quite invested in the ecosystem.
Speaker 1: I think it's the best whole home audio system, and
Speaker 1: so for that reason, I've taken, you know, ten years
Speaker 1: to build a speaker in every room. Not build I
Speaker 1: mean put a speaker in every room. I didn't do
Speaker 1: it overnight. It took a long time, but I do
Speaker 1: have one in every room, and I absolutely love it
Speaker 1: because I can have the same music in every room.
Speaker 1: I can have different music in every room. I can
Speaker 1: you know, I can do basically, It's just an amazing
Speaker 1: synced up audio system. And it also works with my TV.
Speaker 1: So let's say I'm listening to a football game on
Speaker 1: my TV or watching a football game, I can have
Speaker 1: that audio pipe throughout the entire house. So there's just
Speaker 1: so much flexibility. The one thing that Sonos is severely
Speaker 1: lacking in, and this is what tempted me to switch
Speaker 1: to like either the Apple speakers in every room or
Speaker 1: the Google speakers in every room, or the Echo speakers
Speaker 1: in every room, which by the way, are a heck
Speaker 1: of a lot cheaper than Sonos and they have voice
Speaker 1: built in, and so it'd be a lot easier to
Speaker 1: command your music. But the thing that's not not that
Speaker 1: easy is to group your music. Now, it's gotten better,
Speaker 1: but sons is still kind of the best when it
Speaker 1: comes to grouping and un grouping and having groups. The
Speaker 1: one thing, like I said, they were very bad at
Speaker 1: is voice control. And there's there's voice support built into
Speaker 1: one of my speakers. I can use, you know, the
Speaker 1: Google Assistant or I think maybe the alex A, but
Speaker 1: it's just it's not good and so I've never used it. Well. Now,
Speaker 1: according to The Verge, Sonos is prepping to introduce its
Speaker 1: own voice assistant in the next few weeks. It's gonna
Speaker 1: let customers control music on all of their speakers. So
Speaker 1: this is gonna run on the S two software and
Speaker 1: let's see, it's going to serve as an alternative to
Speaker 1: Amazon alex A and Google Assistant. It's going to work
Speaker 1: with Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, Deezer, and Sonos Radio.
Speaker 1: If you noticed I did not mention the two most
Speaker 1: popular music services out there are sorry at least one,
Speaker 1: Spotify and YouTube Music. So for me this isda because
Speaker 1: I use Spotify and to not be able to do
Speaker 1: that is going to be a problem. But you're going
Speaker 1: to be able to say hey, Sons and it will
Speaker 1: wake up your speaker and play audio. I think that's
Speaker 1: really cool and I can't wait to have this because
Speaker 1: I need it and every day I come home and
Speaker 1: I play one of you know, three or four playlists,
Speaker 1: and they are on different services. Sometimes a're on iHeart,
Speaker 1: sometimes are on Spotify, sometimes they're on YouTube Music, and
Speaker 1: so sometimes you're on Serious XM. So to be able
Speaker 1: to say, hey, hey, sons, play the Highway on Serious XM,
Speaker 1: that'd be amazing. Now I probably will be able to say,
Speaker 1: play the Highway on Serious XM in all my rooms
Speaker 1: and change the volume to twenty percent. You know, That's
Speaker 1: basically what I do every day. So I have to
Speaker 1: kind of like it's just this. It's it's such a
Speaker 1: routine that I can't believe Sonos has not built in
Speaker 1: shortcuts that say this Highway on Series XM on all
Speaker 1: these rooms or just these two rooms, and at thirty
Speaker 1: percent volume. Like every day when I come home, I
Speaker 1: want to do the same thing. I want to play
Speaker 1: music throughout my house and it's one playlist and it's
Speaker 1: just you know, at a certain music volume, not too loud,
Speaker 1: not too soft. And I just have never been able
Speaker 1: to do that, and I would love to be able
Speaker 1: to do that easily, and it sounds like this audio
Speaker 1: service will be able to do that. I'm telling you
Speaker 1: this all. And I started out by saying Sonos is
Speaker 1: not a speaker system for the average person because this
Speaker 1: is great, But quite honestly, the speakers from Echo or
Speaker 1: Amazon and Google and even Apple at this point with
Speaker 1: their home Pod Mini are just much more affordable, much easier.
Speaker 1: They may not give you the same flexibility, and they
Speaker 1: may not be as robust as a Sonos system, but
Speaker 1: for for ninety nine percent of setups, they're probably going
Speaker 1: to be just fine. With that said, if you want
Speaker 1: the best setup, definitely go Sonos. Bill says, hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: Verizon five G Home Internet has become available in my area.
Speaker 1: I currently have cable modem with Vonage connected to my router.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find out if I can do the
Speaker 1: same with the Verizon five G router they supply I
Speaker 1: can't seem to get an answer from Verizon customer service
Speaker 1: for sell support is decent, but not for five G
Speaker 1: home Internet. Do you know if vontage would work if
Speaker 1: I plug the Vantage box into this five G router?
Speaker 1: Can't find a thing when searching for this answer. That's
Speaker 1: probably because it's so new. I said that another question,
Speaker 1: I currently have a TP link Mesh system in my
Speaker 1: house with great coverage. While I get the same coverage
Speaker 1: with what Verizon sends me, I wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: use the mesh anymore. Well, a couple of things. I
Speaker 1: don't see why vonage would not work unless Verizon specifically
Speaker 1: blocks it. So they may block vontage from working with
Speaker 1: this system. I don't think they do, because it's basically
Speaker 1: just like a regular you know, it's like regular Internet,
Speaker 1: except it comes through through five G. So with this
Speaker 1: five G home Internet is is a box. You've probably
Speaker 1: seen them advertised heavily on TV. T Mobile and Verizon
Speaker 1: have them. What it is is imagine the router that
Speaker 1: you are, the modem and router that you get from
Speaker 1: your cable company. Cable guy comes to your house, He
Speaker 1: runs the wires, he plugs it in, the Wi Fi
Speaker 1: lights up, it sends a signal throughout your house. Everyone's good,
Speaker 1: but you got to wait at home for a couple
Speaker 1: hours for the cable person to come to your house
Speaker 1: to install it. This is fully through the cellular signals,
Speaker 1: so you will get the box. You sign up Verizon
Speaker 1: or T Mobile, they send you the box to your house.
Speaker 1: You unbox it, you plug it in near a window.
Speaker 1: It grabs a cellular signal from the five G super speedy,
Speaker 1: five G high bandwidth networks that these companies have, and
Speaker 1: it takes that signal, it transforms it into a Wi
Speaker 1: Fi signal and sends that Wi Fi signal throughout your house.
Speaker 1: So think of this as basically a giant hotspot for
Speaker 1: your entire house. And it works great. I've tested the
Speaker 1: Verizon one. It was fantastic. Not available at my home. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I don't get a five G signal here sadly, but
Speaker 1: when it does, I probably we'll switch because it's just
Speaker 1: so I love the efficiency of it, the fact that
Speaker 1: you put this thing near a window, it's pulling in
Speaker 1: a signal, nice and clean, no wires, and it then
Speaker 1: boomerangs that signal throughout your house. So I think vontage
Speaker 1: would work. I would say, you know, post it, sorry,
Speaker 1: post it, try it, subscribe, try it, don't cancel your
Speaker 1: other one. Subscribe. I'm sure there's like a thirty day
Speaker 1: window where you can try this thing out, or fifteen days,
Speaker 1: plug it in, set it all up. If it doesn't work,
Speaker 1: send it back. The other thing is, I don't see
Speaker 1: why you would not be able to use your TP
Speaker 1: link system. There are two Ethernet ports on the back
Speaker 1: of this thing, so you can plug in your Mesh
Speaker 1: Wi Fi system there and then disable the internal Wi
Speaker 1: Fi on the five G box. I did go into
Speaker 1: the box and look at the settings, and it seemed
Speaker 1: like you had all the pretty standard settings that you
Speaker 1: would get on any router from your cable company. You
Speaker 1: just got to go in type in that like one
Speaker 1: nine to two dot one six eight dot one dot
Speaker 1: one or whatever it's called, and that will bring you
Speaker 1: to all the settings. But I was thoroughly, thoroughly impressed
Speaker 1: with this five G home Internet. Verizon also allows you
Speaker 1: to take it wherever you want, so if you have
Speaker 1: an RV and you need an address, you got to
Speaker 1: link it up to an address where it's available. But
Speaker 1: if you have an RV and you want internet in
Speaker 1: your RV, you can subscribe to this. It's only fifty
Speaker 1: bucks a month. I think it starts as cheap as
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars a month. It's very competitive, but highly
Speaker 1: highly recommend it. If your cable company is not very good,
Speaker 1: If you're paying a lot, you're unhappy, don't switch from
Speaker 1: cable just because I'm telling you this is cool. If
Speaker 1: you're paying a decent price with your cable Your service
Speaker 1: is good, your speed is fine, just stick with it.
Speaker 1: But once they stick it to you with the higher price,
Speaker 1: then you can say, well, I've got this other option
Speaker 1: that's only fifty or twenty five dollars a month. I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna switch. And that is the way that
Speaker 1: you get a better deal with your cable company. Then
Speaker 1: you can still stick with them. But if they play hardball,
Speaker 1: you say, all right, fine, let me switch and you
Speaker 1: can order this, make sure it all works, and then
Speaker 1: go ahead and cancel. But these cable companies know they
Speaker 1: kind of have a lock on things right now, so
Speaker 1: they're not really negotiating very much. But with these new
Speaker 1: systems coming on board, like the T Mobile five G
Speaker 1: and the Verizon five G when you mentioned that, they
Speaker 1: do know that that competition is there. They also know
Speaker 1: that the speed is probably not as fast as what
Speaker 1: you're getting. But what I can tell you is that
Speaker 1: the speed you're gonna get from these five G services,
Speaker 1: as long as they're like, you know, pretty decent fifty sixty,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be like perfectly fine for anything that you're
Speaker 1: trying to do like watch you know, Netflix, or you know,
Speaker 1: upload download. As long as you're not doing like wild wild,
Speaker 1: you know, video editing from home or things like that
Speaker 1: where you need to exchange big files up and down,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be just fine. All right, Bill, let me
Speaker 1: know what happens with that. All right? Two stories, aren't no?
Speaker 1: I guess one story. This is a really quick story.
Speaker 1: So maybe let's do a couple in a row here
Speaker 1: Amazon Apple Music is hitting Amazon fireTV. Oh sorry, let
Speaker 1: me just restart there. Apple Music is arriving on Roku devices.
Speaker 1: So if you're an Apple Music subscriber and you had Roku,
Speaker 1: that combination was not very good because you weren't able
Speaker 1: to access what you pay for on the Roku. Well
Speaker 1: now you can so Apple Music the app is available
Speaker 1: on Roku devices. All your ninety million songs, all your
Speaker 1: thirty thousand playlists, add free experience if you're a subscriber,
Speaker 1: is all on their Apple Music Radio. It's all there,
Speaker 1: So it's there. Not much to say if you want
Speaker 1: to subscribe for a free trial ten dollars a month.
Speaker 1: But what's really cool about this? If you had Roku
Speaker 1: and you were frustrated because you weren't able to access
Speaker 1: your paid Apple Music subscription. It is now there. Why
Speaker 1: wasn't it there yesterday or the day before, the day before. Well,
Speaker 1: let's say it's all about the money. And Roku is
Speaker 1: this platform that is pretty smart. They realized early on
Speaker 1: that they are just a conduit to these apps, and
Speaker 1: so they do negotiate with these apps to get them
Speaker 1: on their platform, and they say, hey, look, you know,
Speaker 1: if someone signs up through our platform for that ten
Speaker 1: dollars a month, we want a little cut of that.
Speaker 1: And so they do get a cut of that money.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying from specific knowledge. I'm just saying from
Speaker 1: the information that I've learned about Roku over the years.
Speaker 1: This is why Roku kind of when you see it,
Speaker 1: it almost feels like a cable company. Every once in
Speaker 1: a while, they have these big spats with like YouTube
Speaker 1: TV or YouTube or any of these apps that are
Speaker 1: on there. All of a sudden, they'll be like, well,
Speaker 1: there's no more YouTube on Roku and they're like, what
Speaker 1: I thought YouTube could just submit an app to the
Speaker 1: Roku app Store. Not so fast, you know, they want
Speaker 1: to or YouTube TV whatever. They want to negotiate because
Speaker 1: they know that people are spending money to sign up
Speaker 1: and so they want a little kickback on that. They
Speaker 1: want a little cut of that little cut of that action.
Speaker 1: They also do ad sales. So if you are let's
Speaker 1: say Filo, and you are on Roku, and this is
Speaker 1: all just kind of extrapolating the knowledge that as I
Speaker 1: understand it with Roku. But let's say your Filo. You say,
Speaker 1: all right, Filo, we know that you serve up ads
Speaker 1: on your shows. We want a thirty second AD as
Speaker 1: part of keeping your service on our platform. We want
Speaker 1: a third second ad every for every one hour watched
Speaker 1: of Filo on Roku. We want thirty seconds given to us.
Speaker 1: And we could do whatever we want that we can
Speaker 1: sell it, we can use it to promote our products,
Speaker 1: whatever we want. We get a thirty second ad inventory
Speaker 1: and they say all right. And so that way Roku
Speaker 1: is sort of quote unquote getting paid or they can
Speaker 1: sell that ad time through their own service and make
Speaker 1: money on this the apps that are that are streaming
Speaker 1: through them. So it's pretty smart. It makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. It's not as like Switzerland as you may
Speaker 1: think or as it may be presented, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty thorough service and they're just kind of
Speaker 1: planning for the future where you know, people buy these
Speaker 1: boxes once and then they continue to stream on them
Speaker 1: for you know, three five years or you know, something
Speaker 1: like that. All right, we'll get to another question, and
Speaker 1: this is from Kathy. She says, hey, Rich, have any
Speaker 1: have you had any luck with apps that help you
Speaker 1: get rid of duplicate photos on your phone? And she
Speaker 1: sent through a link of a random app I've not
Speaker 1: heard of, But the app that I like is called
Speaker 1: Gemini gem I Ni Gemini Photos. It is. I think
Speaker 1: it costs a couple of bucks, but it's made by
Speaker 1: mac Paul, which I really like. They're actually based over
Speaker 1: in Ukraine, So thoughts and prayers going out to all
Speaker 1: of their employees over there. You're the access twenty dollars,
Speaker 1: monthly access five dollars, unlimited access sixteen dollars, so they've
Speaker 1: got a couple of different pricing plans to choose from.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it can remove blurry photos, it can remove
Speaker 1: duplicate photos. Just remember that whenever you are going through
Speaker 1: your photos, make sure they are backed up first. Again,
Speaker 1: make sure they are backed up. All right, we'll probably
Speaker 1: end on this how to check your air tags battery
Speaker 1: level one year after launch. This is an article from
Speaker 1: Apple Insider very timely, if you can believe it. Air
Speaker 1: tags have been out for about a year and the
Speaker 1: batteries last about a year, which means your air tags
Speaker 1: may be going dead. So if you have these things
Speaker 1: set up, which are just amazing, your iPhone will notify
Speaker 1: you when the battery is going dead and you can
Speaker 1: replace that battery. It takes the standard. I think it's
Speaker 1: like a COO thirty two or whatever it's called. I
Speaker 1: don't what is it. Air tag battery type CR twenty
Speaker 1: thirty two, CR twenty thirty two. So maybe buy a
Speaker 1: couple of those on Amazon right now or at the
Speaker 1: local store, just to anticipate some of these going dead.
Speaker 1: So the air tags last for about a year, depending
Speaker 1: on how much you're using them. The one year battery
Speaker 1: life is based on an everyday use of four play
Speaker 1: sound events and one precision finding event per day, so
Speaker 1: if you're not trying to find it on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: these batteries are gonna last longer than a year, probably
Speaker 1: a year and a half. I've got a bunch of
Speaker 1: these things. I checked all the batteries on mine and
Speaker 1: they are all going strong. They look like they're about
Speaker 1: seventy five percent still full. So how do you do it?
Speaker 1: Open your on your iPhone, open up the find my
Speaker 1: app type items in the bottom row, and then tap
Speaker 1: on one of the air tags and when you when
Speaker 1: that pops up, look for the battery icon in the
Speaker 1: top header. It does not show you a percentage, which
Speaker 1: is kind of annoying. I wish it did, but it
Speaker 1: does show you kind of just a battery icon and
Speaker 1: how much it's filled up. So it could be a
Speaker 1: range of like, you know, it could be twenty percent
Speaker 1: taken down, it could be fifty percent. You know, you
Speaker 1: just have to use your just use your judgment on
Speaker 1: how much that's actually what it's showing you. But again,
Speaker 1: maybe have some of these extra batteries on hand now
Speaker 1: knowing that some of these things are going to go dead.
Speaker 1: All right, One more story this I thought was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Amazon is going to introduce virtual product placement. So the
Speaker 1: Amazon's got this free v This is their new IMDbTV
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like competing with two B and Pluto,
Speaker 1: but they've got a bunch of free content on this
Speaker 1: free V. Fr ee v E used to be called
Speaker 1: IMDb TV. So if you're watching Reacher or Jack Ryan
Speaker 1: or Bosh or Making the Cut or Leverage Redemption, you
Speaker 1: may see products and those shows that have been virtually
Speaker 1: added later. How wild is that now? I think this
Speaker 1: has been talked about in Hollywood. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: the holy Grail of advertising because think about it. If
Speaker 1: you are on Let's say you're Seinfeld, you shot this
Speaker 1: show thirty years ago. Whatever billboards are in that show
Speaker 1: are highly irrelevant. The products don't look the same. You know,
Speaker 1: they pull out of Coca Cola. It doesn't, you know,
Speaker 1: look the same at all. But imagine that you shot
Speaker 1: this show in a way that that product was a
Speaker 1: green screen or I don't know how they're doing this exactly,
Speaker 1: but they maybe they have billboards in the show that
Speaker 1: are green screens. Maybe they're using products that are coated
Speaker 1: in green. Whatever it is, you know, they pick up
Speaker 1: a can of soda, it could be whatever the advertisers
Speaker 1: want to advertise at that very moment. So these things
Speaker 1: could be inserted on the fly as you're watching the show.
Speaker 1: And also, by the way, based on who you are,
Speaker 1: So for me, Rich Demiro, when I'm watching, they may
Speaker 1: advertise a Coke zero because they know that my profile
Speaker 1: shows and I don't drink sugary sodas. But for you,
Speaker 1: they may advertise the latest Mountain Dew with extra caffeine
Speaker 1: because your your profile says that you love that. So
Speaker 1: I think this is fascinating. I think it's amazing. I
Speaker 1: know it's totally scary, oh my gosh, but it's really cool.
Speaker 1: And for brands and for you know, making money, these
Speaker 1: shows are free, this is another way to monetize those shows.
Speaker 1: So pretty, pretty fascinating stuff. I thought that was awesome.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. I'm gonna go scan through some of
Speaker 1: these shows now and see if I can spot the
Speaker 1: product placements that are put in there virtually, because that
Speaker 1: is just such a cool concept I am. I am
Speaker 1: just so like just amazed at stuff like that and
Speaker 1: leave it up to a smart company like Amazon to
Speaker 1: do that. Oh wow, that sound means that's gonna do
Speaker 1: it for this episode of the show. If you would
Speaker 1: like to submit a question for me to answer, just
Speaker 1: go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich
Speaker 1: on Tech hit the big blue send email button, or
Speaker 1: go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit the
Speaker 1: email icon. If you have not checked out my YouTube lately,
Speaker 1: I'm putting a lot of my shorts there as well,
Speaker 1: So I don't know how you find me on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Just search rich on Tech, I guess, and check out
Speaker 1: some of the shorts. You can find me on all
Speaker 1: social media at rich on Tech. Also, I would love
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Speaker 1: go to the listening app of your choice, write a
Speaker 1: quick line about what you like about this show to
Speaker 1: help other people understand why they should listen. And no
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Speaker 1: Once you do, scroll to the tech section and watch
Speaker 1: all of my TV segments on demand. My name is
Speaker 1: rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so
Speaker 1: many ways you can spend an hour of your time.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you real soon.