Speaker 1: Amazon revamps its Fire TV lineup, Ring has a new
Speaker 1: indoor drone, backing up iPhone pictures without the cloud, plus
Speaker 1: your tech questions answered.
Speaker 2: What's going on? I'm Rich Damiro and this is Rich on.
Speaker 1: Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff
Speaker 1: I think you should know about, and it's where I
Speaker 1: answer the questions that you send me. My name is
Speaker 1: Rich Dmiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining me today. Lots and lots
Speaker 1: of tech news. It is quite remarkable how many gadgets
Speaker 1: are coming out from now. It started, you know, back
Speaker 1: in August, and now we've got September, we have.
Speaker 2: October and November.
Speaker 1: Well, probably everything will be done by October end of
Speaker 1: October with the iPhone. But man, there are so many gadgets.
Speaker 1: It seems like it seems like a lot. But this
Speaker 1: is typically what happens during this time of the year.
Speaker 2: But it just seems.
Speaker 1: Super odd right now because we're in this pandemic. Everyone's
Speaker 1: home and I feel like these tech companies have been
Speaker 1: sort of capitalizing on the fact that we do want
Speaker 1: entertainment from home. We are you know, we want Zoom,
Speaker 1: we want computers. We want work from home stuff. Smartphones
Speaker 1: not so much. That's been a little bit of a
Speaker 1: challenge because who really wants to spend all that money
Speaker 1: on a new phone right now? But again, there have
Speaker 1: been a lot of announcements, and these things are planned
Speaker 1: for a long time, so it's not like these are
Speaker 1: a surprise. This is something that generally happens. It just
Speaker 1: seems odd right now for this time of the year.
Speaker 1: But I've been wearing the new Apple Watch Series six.
Speaker 2: I also have the.
Speaker 1: Se handy to kind of check out and I'm putting
Speaker 1: them through their paces. The Series six, I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, it's great. The loop band is cool. Took
Speaker 1: me a little bit to figure out the sizing on
Speaker 1: that because I put the first band on and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this thing is way too big, and
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that there were other sizes. So now
Speaker 1: I've got pretty much the right size. And you know,
Speaker 1: have I noticed anything different than the Series five?
Speaker 2: Not really.
Speaker 1: I mean it's definitely brighter, and the apps are a
Speaker 1: little bit faster, but you need to rush out an upgrade.
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 1: The oxygen stuff is interesting, but it's not enough for
Speaker 1: me to sort of think that you have to upgrade
Speaker 1: unless you have some sort of health issue that you
Speaker 1: want to you know, address with that. But the problem
Speaker 1: is Apple says that's not for health anyway. It's just
Speaker 1: for sort of awareness and fitness, and it's not a
Speaker 1: medical device. So and I think a lot of the
Speaker 1: features you get you get with the software update. Anyway,
Speaker 1: The se is much more compelling to me for the
Speaker 1: average person because it gives you pretty much everything you
Speaker 1: need for two hundred and seventy nine dollars. And the
Speaker 1: fact that they have that new family plan where you
Speaker 1: can put the you know, your kid on an Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool too. Two seventy nine for an Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: I think is a fantastic deal. I think I last
Speaker 1: week talked about how you don't get certain things like,
Speaker 1: you know, the new blood oxygen level, and you also
Speaker 1: don't get the uh oh, what's the other one, the ECG,
Speaker 1: and you don't get the always on display. But if
Speaker 1: you don't need those things and who cares, what's the
Speaker 1: big deal. Let's get to the first topic of the show,
Speaker 1: and that is Amazon. Amazon had a big event this week.
Speaker 1: This is the second time in a row they did
Speaker 1: not invite me to this event, and this one was virtual.
Speaker 2: Last year on this.
Speaker 1: Very show, I talked about how Amazon did not invite
Speaker 1: me to the event in Seattle. This year, they didn't
Speaker 1: even invite me to the virtual event. So I don't
Speaker 1: know what Amazon has against me. But here we go
Speaker 1: with some of their announcements. So they kind of revamped
Speaker 1: the Firestick lineup and the Echo lineup, and they had
Speaker 1: a bunch of ring announcements. I will be peppering them
Speaker 1: in throughout the show. But the main thing you need
Speaker 1: to know is that the fire TV stick is more powerful.
Speaker 2: It also has.
Speaker 1: HDR and Dolby at most support, and it's forty bucks
Speaker 1: and it also has new Wi Fi five gigahertz, which
Speaker 1: is great. It's got the Alexa Voice remote, which I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what I have on the four K.
Speaker 1: Maybe the other one didn't have that, but I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think it's kind of weird that
Speaker 1: they have two now. They also did a fire Stick
Speaker 1: light and this one's even cheaper at thirty dollars. But
Speaker 1: the thing I don't understand is why are they selling
Speaker 1: such cheap room like they have a thirty dollars model
Speaker 1: and a forty dollars model. They did not upgrade the
Speaker 1: Fire TV stick four K. What I don't understand that
Speaker 1: at all. Four K is where all the growth is,
Speaker 1: That's where all the TVs are. Why is Amazon still
Speaker 1: putting out a ten EIGHTYP device?
Speaker 2: I don't get it.
Speaker 1: Why so it doesn't doesn't make any sense. I'm I'm told,
Speaker 1: I get the pricing thing they want to make. Oh,
Speaker 1: thirty bucks you can get into streaming. You can get
Speaker 1: into streaming, but fifty bucks. I mean, just split the difference,
Speaker 1: make it forty five and give everyone four K as
Speaker 1: the entry level. Why do we have to have three
Speaker 1: different levels? It's confusing for the average person, and quite frankly,
Speaker 1: if you know, most a lot of people are upgrading
Speaker 1: four K TVs, so why are we getting them stuck
Speaker 1: with these ten ADP devices?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: fireTV experience is more personalized, blah blah blah. I mean
Speaker 1: it's already pretty good. I think that fireTV when I
Speaker 1: compare it to the Apple TV interface, which I get
Speaker 1: a lot more people use Roku and a lot more
Speaker 1: people use fire it's just very cluttered and it's like,
Speaker 1: sometimes all I want to see on the fireTV is
Speaker 1: like a list of the top movies, and I can't
Speaker 1: find them because it's so cluttered with like all the
Speaker 1: stuff that they want to promote.
Speaker 2: This is cool.
Speaker 1: They're gonna do user profiles now, so you have six
Speaker 1: six members of your household, all have personalized experiences. And
Speaker 1: the best part is you say, ay, switch to my
Speaker 1: profile and after an initition, she'll set up the A
Speaker 1: rhymes with MAMESA will automatically recognize your voice and switch.
Speaker 2: To your profile. So that's really cool right there. Now.
Speaker 1: The fire TV Cube is their most expensive device. I
Speaker 1: doubt many people are buying this. That's one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty dollars. Tough sell there when they're entry levels thirty.
Speaker 1: But the cool thing about that one is that you
Speaker 1: will be able to add a Logitech webcam to the
Speaker 1: fire TV Cube and call with Alexa over video. Oh
Speaker 1: I just said the word. But they're also going to
Speaker 1: add Zoom later on. So anyway, if you're interested in
Speaker 1: these things. The fire TV Stick, the new one starts
Speaker 1: at forty bucks. It'll be available next week, and the
Speaker 1: fire TV Stick Light is thirty dollars, begins shipping in
Speaker 1: the US next week as well. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to our first question. I am trying something new. These
Speaker 1: are new digitized question. You just out of here, let
Speaker 1: me just here we go.
Speaker 3: Do you know when or if the new iPad pro
Speaker 3: will be released? I'm having trouble with my iPad Air
Speaker 3: and want to upgrade. Not sure if it's worth waiting
Speaker 3: for an iPad Pro. I keep getting messages that I
Speaker 3: don't have access to websites like Corner Bakery and QVC,
Speaker 3: to name two, and I can't open a lot of websites.
Speaker 3: I get a message that Safari has lost connection to
Speaker 3: the server or the page doesn't open. I'm very frustrated.
Speaker 3: Thank you for any help you can give me. Mary Very,
Speaker 3: senior citizen.
Speaker 2: Mary Very, senior citizen.
Speaker 1: All right now, In case you can't tell, that is
Speaker 1: a digitized voice.
Speaker 2: It is so cool. I heard about this.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I heard it in another podcast
Speaker 1: or I listened to the technme ride home and the
Speaker 1: host there, Brian McCullough, was he did a whole segment
Speaker 1: on his podcast with a digitized voice. Because the idea is,
Speaker 1: you know, this guy has to spend every day reading
Speaker 1: his podcast after he writes it, and it's a whole
Speaker 1: big thing, and he's like, what if I one day
Speaker 1: could like synthesize my own voice, And so we did
Speaker 1: a whole segment. Anyway, this is not that, but these
Speaker 1: are special voices that they have synthesized in a program
Speaker 1: called Descript that you can use in your podcasts.
Speaker 2: And so, I mean.
Speaker 1: They're not perfect, but they're pretty interesting anyway, So you'll
Speaker 1: hear more of them throughout the show. But that's Mary's question,
Speaker 1: and it's an interesting question. So it sounds like Mary
Speaker 1: wants a new iPad Pro. And to answer your question,
Speaker 1: when the new iPad Pro is going to be released,
Speaker 1: I mean it's going to be released next month. They
Speaker 1: just announced it at the last event. And the new
Speaker 1: iPad Pro is great. It's got a lot of nice features.
Speaker 1: But I don't understand why. I mean, I'm having trouble
Speaker 1: with my iPad Air. So you have an iPad Air,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Number One, you say you're a very
Speaker 1: senior citizen. I don't think you need the iPad Pro.
Speaker 1: So I think you just need a regular iPad And
Speaker 1: I'm not convinced your iPad Air is necessarily needing an upgrade.
Speaker 1: I mean, these iPads last for a long long time.
Speaker 1: So and you're saying that you have like these lost
Speaker 1: connections to the server. So I think it sounds like
Speaker 1: some sort of network issue and that could be the
Speaker 1: Wi Fi that you're on, So I guess it would
Speaker 1: really depend on does this happen everywhere or just at
Speaker 1: your house. So that's the first thing I'd look at
Speaker 1: as your Wi Fi settings. And the second thing I
Speaker 1: do is do a reset network settings. So if you
Speaker 1: go into your iPad into your settings general reset reset
Speaker 1: network settings. This will clear out all the different things
Speaker 1: on your iPad, like any Wi Fi settings, passwords for
Speaker 1: your Wi Fi cellular settings, any VPNs you have, any apns,
Speaker 1: So that will help kind of get this thing back
Speaker 1: to normal. And if it's still happening after that, I
Speaker 1: would do a complete factory reset, and that means erasing
Speaker 1: everything off your iPad, starting it over from fresh, and
Speaker 1: then seeing if it works. If it still doesn't work,
Speaker 1: then I would go for the new iPad. And I
Speaker 1: don't think you need the iPad Pro. I think you
Speaker 1: just need the regular iPad. For three hundred and something bucks,
Speaker 1: I just bought one for my niece, so it's a
Speaker 1: shipping time.
Speaker 2: Is a while.
Speaker 1: It was like a month, so you know, you have
Speaker 1: to keep that in mind. You're not gonna get this
Speaker 1: thing overnight. I thought it was gonna be like, Oh,
Speaker 1: she gets it the next day. New not so not
Speaker 1: so fast. It's it's like four weeks out. And I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why there's such a delay. But when I
Speaker 1: was looking on Amazon, it was like, oh, next day delivery.
Speaker 1: But I like to buy direct from Apple because it's
Speaker 1: just uh, I'm then you don't have to If she
Speaker 1: needs help, like getting it fixed or whatever, she can
Speaker 1: go right into the Apple Store, no worries. I think
Speaker 1: Amazon's probably the same way, but I just don't know.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Mary, thanks for the question. Appreciate it, and
Speaker 1: try to breathe some new life into the iPad air
Speaker 1: before you spend that money on an upgrade. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the all new Echo family. So again,
Speaker 1: this was at Amazon's event, and this was a digital event,
Speaker 1: so they did the all new echos. So now the
Speaker 1: Echo has these spherical designs, So let's talk about the
Speaker 1: new Echo. The next generation Echo has a bright led
Speaker 1: ring light at the base of it so that you
Speaker 1: can it reflexed off your surface. So you can tell,
Speaker 1: kind of like when Alexa is oh gosh, I keep
Speaker 1: saying that, so you can tell when A is saying things.
Speaker 1: It also comes for the first time with a built
Speaker 1: in smart home hub with support for Zigbie, Bluetooth Low Energy,
Speaker 1: and Amazon Sidewalk. And out of those three with the
Speaker 1: funny names, Amazon Sidewalk is the most interesting. I haven't
Speaker 1: really talked about it on this podcast, but I was
Speaker 1: discussing it with a Bill Handle on KFI on the
Speaker 1: radio the other day, and it's just brilliant, brilliant, brilliant
Speaker 1: from Amazon, very dystopian at the same time, because how
Speaker 1: it works is that anyone who wants to be part
Speaker 1: of this network puts their device like a It basically
Speaker 1: comes from the ring devices. So if you have like
Speaker 1: a link a ring floodlight cam, and it's basically the
Speaker 1: ring devices that are always connected to the Internet and
Speaker 1: they're outside, and so they say, you say, hey, I'll
Speaker 1: donate a little bit of my Internet to this sidewalk network,
Speaker 1: and so a whole bunch of you do that, and
Speaker 1: Amazon aggregates that network and then creates their own network
Speaker 1: through these devices that then have a direct connection to
Speaker 1: the Internet through a bunch of people's home Wi Fi.
Speaker 2: So does that make any sense? It's really weird.
Speaker 1: But so imagine you have a Wi Fi connection at
Speaker 1: home with one of these Ring devices. You say, sure,
Speaker 1: I'll be kind of a spoke or a hub for
Speaker 1: this network, and you take a little bit of your
Speaker 1: Internet and you give it to that device all the time.
Speaker 1: Your neighbor is not part of the network. They're just
Speaker 1: a spoke. They have like an Echo. That Echo can
Speaker 1: tap into your your Ring device on the sidewalk network
Speaker 1: use a little bit of your Internet if their Internet
Speaker 1: goes out. That's kind of the idea here, is that
Speaker 1: they're creating a secondary network that kind of is alive
Speaker 1: at all times because chances are someone's device is up
Speaker 1: and running on their Internet connection. So if your whole
Speaker 1: neighborhood goes out, your Ring camera on your front door
Speaker 1: will still continue to work because you're tapping into this
Speaker 1: new sidewalk network and not just your Wi Fi. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's really really brilliant, kind of scary, but I think
Speaker 1: it's really cool. So that's the Echo and then you
Speaker 1: have the Echo Dot Kids edition. This comes in a
Speaker 1: colorful panda or tiger print and it's what is that?
Speaker 1: That one's sixty bucks.
Speaker 2: And they also have.
Speaker 1: This feature on it called Reading Sidekick, where Alexa can
Speaker 1: help kids build fluency and foster a love for reading.
Speaker 1: Alexa will take turns reading with your child, providing encouragement
Speaker 1: when they're reading well and offering support when they struggle.
Speaker 1: So I don't know how that's gonna work. I gotta
Speaker 1: see a demo of that, because does it read along
Speaker 1: with any book or just the books that they program
Speaker 1: for that. Then you've got the Echo Show ten and
Speaker 1: this is really interesting too. Imagine an Echo device. You know,
Speaker 1: these are the ones with the display that's sort of
Speaker 1: on a swivel mount. This is two hundred and fifty dollars,
Speaker 1: so very expensive. But it's got a ten inch HD
Speaker 1: display and it rotates as you walk around the room,
Speaker 1: so when you're on a video call, you can just
Speaker 1: kind of walk around naturally it will follow you not
Speaker 1: you know, it won't move, but it will just rotate
Speaker 1: left and right. I don't know if it goes up
Speaker 1: and down. But they say it's a brushless motor. So
Speaker 1: it's nice and quiet. But that's really cool because we're
Speaker 1: all getting into this whole you know, video chat thing,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, these smart displays are going to
Speaker 1: become more and more valuable because people have gotten so
Speaker 1: used to kind of chatting with people on them. You
Speaker 1: can also watch other things on them like Hulu plus
Speaker 1: Prime Video, Netflix, and that's cool. There's also a feature
Speaker 1: called Alexa gar so the Echo Show ten can pan
Speaker 1: the room and send you an alert if it detects
Speaker 1: someone in its field of view. So again, these things
Speaker 1: are getting really smart and just we are covering our
Speaker 1: homes in all kinds of ways that we never thought possible.
Speaker 1: And there is a camera shutter on this thing, so
Speaker 1: you can turn that off. You can also turn off
Speaker 1: the motion if you don't like it. So the Echo
Speaker 1: is a hundred bucks, the Echo Dot is fifty, the
Speaker 1: kids edition is sixty, and the Echo Show ten is
Speaker 1: two fifty that will ship in time for the holidays.
Speaker 1: And again, you know, it's nice that these things are
Speaker 1: all working with Zoom. It seems like it's gonna take
Speaker 1: a little bit, but it is pretty cool that Zoom
Speaker 1: is getting a lot of play on these new devices.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go to another question. This one comes
Speaker 1: from Javier.
Speaker 4: My kid always seems to go to YouTube because he
Speaker 4: finished his assignment early. He then gets carried away and
Speaker 4: forgets to check back to his classroom. Is there a
Speaker 4: way to block YouTube or at least just temporarily using
Speaker 4: a laptop running Windows ten. Thank you, Javier.
Speaker 1: Okay, good question, Javier. This happens to me as well,
Speaker 1: because my kids are obsessed with YouTube, well especially my
Speaker 1: little kid. My gosh, when I say obsessed, it is
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable the amount of influence these YouTubers have on
Speaker 1: small kids. And as a parent, it's kind of scary
Speaker 1: because I noticed my kids started talking about Chick fil
Speaker 1: A and you know, a couple other little things that
Speaker 1: this YouTuber loves.
Speaker 2: And it's like, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Hot Pockets was another one, and it's it's really I mean,
Speaker 1: I see the whole thing with like you know, whether
Speaker 1: these are sponsored opportunities or not, because not that kids care,
Speaker 1: but for parents, like I want to know, like is
Speaker 1: this guy talking about uh, Chick fil A because he
Speaker 1: loves it?
Speaker 2: Or is he being paid to do that? But I digress.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, there is a way to block YouTube, at
Speaker 1: least temporarily using a laptop running Windows ten. I would
Speaker 1: look at a website called next dns dot io, next
Speaker 1: dns dot io. And what this does is that it's
Speaker 1: basically a it changes the DNS on your or I
Speaker 1: guess you use it to change how your router looks
Speaker 1: up things. And so you can put in all kinds
Speaker 1: of you know, restrictions, so you can do all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff.
Speaker 2: Let me just go through some of these things. So
Speaker 2: let's see security, privacy.
Speaker 1: Hold on, it's saying it's saying that I'm I got
Speaker 1: to sign up because I've already set this thing up.
Speaker 1: Let me go into a different window here and try
Speaker 1: it this way. Let's see next dns try it now
Speaker 1: for free, and it's it's pretty much free. You just
Speaker 1: have to change a couple of settings on your router
Speaker 1: and this is it. But you can go in and
Speaker 1: put on Google Safe browsing, crypto jacking protection, let's see
Speaker 1: type squadting.
Speaker 2: Wow, all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: Privacy, you can block ads, you can block trackers, let's
Speaker 1: see parental controls. You can restrict access to a specific website,
Speaker 1: app or game or categories. You can turn on safe search,
Speaker 1: YouTube restricted mode. And the only thing that's kind of
Speaker 1: tricky about this is that it's coming from the router,
Speaker 1: and there's not really a timed way of doing this.
Speaker 1: You can't say, oh, I just want this website to
Speaker 1: be restricted from nine am to one pm while my
Speaker 1: kid is in school. But another thing you could do,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there's a whole bunch of like Chrome
Speaker 1: extensions that you can get to help on that Windows laptop.
Speaker 1: But I would also look into, if you want kind
Speaker 1: of a heavy duty situation, something called Circle and Circle
Speaker 1: is really good. You plug it into your router, and
Speaker 1: it's like you can control everything your kids do. You
Speaker 1: can control from the time they're able to access their
Speaker 1: devices how much time they're allowed. So, for instance, my
Speaker 1: kid gets a certain amount of time on YouTube every
Speaker 1: day on Minecraft and blocks, and believe me, they fight
Speaker 1: it every day. They When that times up, I get
Speaker 1: a little notification on my watch and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: here comes my kid marching in asking for more time.
Speaker 1: So that's another way of doing it. The other thing
Speaker 1: is if you're on you know, and I know you're
Speaker 1: on Windows, but if you're on an Apple device, you
Speaker 1: can use screen time and that's super simple to set up.
Speaker 1: But Windows ten, I think they have something called the
Speaker 1: family filter, because I have this on my kid's laptop
Speaker 1: as well. Let's see Windows Family Filter and yeah, so
Speaker 1: you got to go into Family.
Speaker 2: Let's see what's it called. I think it's.
Speaker 1: Microsoft Family dot Microsoft dot com. And then that way
Speaker 1: you can set up all the filters on your child's device.
Speaker 1: So you can do it. It's in you know, you believe me,
Speaker 1: you can. You can do this stuff. It takes a
Speaker 1: little bit of time to set it up, but again,
Speaker 1: once it's set up, it is you know, it's a
Speaker 1: little easier. It's on autopilot. But there are some things
Speaker 1: here and there. Like the other night, I was trying
Speaker 1: to watch something on I think it was, I don't know,
Speaker 1: was it Netflix in my bedroom and I was like,
Speaker 1: what is going on here?
Speaker 2: It will not work?
Speaker 1: And I remembered that everything gets cut off at seven
Speaker 1: pm because that's my kid's bedtime and the devices are
Speaker 1: on there, or at least the device in my bedroom,
Speaker 1: the firestick is linked to my kid's profile. So I
Speaker 1: had to go in and like extend his bedtime, and
Speaker 1: you know, it was fine. They do have provisions for
Speaker 1: that and circle, by the way, it's super easy. You
Speaker 1: can say, oh, give my kid an extra half an
Speaker 1: hour tonight as a reward for bedtime, or give my
Speaker 1: kid an extra hour on YouTube. Whatever. But it takes
Speaker 1: a little bit. It takes a little setting up. But
Speaker 1: that is the way to do it. And there are
Speaker 1: plenty of ways to do this stuff. Believe me, there's
Speaker 1: lots of smart people at these smart companies that have
Speaker 1: helped parents. It just takes a little time to set
Speaker 1: it up and sometimes it does cost a little bit.
Speaker 1: All right, now, let's talk about Ring.
Speaker 2: This is probably the most.
Speaker 1: Dramatic thing that was announced at the Amazon event. You know,
Speaker 1: Ring is owned by Amazon, and this is a Ring
Speaker 1: always on cam otherwise known as the Ring drone for
Speaker 1: your house. So the way they describe it is the
Speaker 1: autonomous indoor security camera that flies your chosen personalized paths
Speaker 1: so you can easily check in on your home for
Speaker 1: peace of mind. So it's a drone that sits in
Speaker 1: a cradle until it needs to go to work, and
Speaker 1: it flies around your house and gives you a view
Speaker 1: of what's going on your house.
Speaker 2: How cool is that?
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get this, and yes I will
Speaker 1: be getting this. I mean you got to give it
Speaker 1: to James simonov over at Ring. The inventor general there
Speaker 1: he I mean, I'm pretty sure he came up with
Speaker 1: this himself, and I love it. This goes back to
Speaker 1: kind of like the idea of this guy just being
Speaker 1: He's on the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just that smart coming up with these
Speaker 1: smart smart things.
Speaker 2: Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1: This is this guy who is a young guy is
Speaker 1: on that level. He came up with the video door bell,
Speaker 1: he came up with this drone. How smart is this?
Speaker 1: Let me give you a real world example.
Speaker 2: So I was. I flew to New Jersey one time.
Speaker 1: This was a couple of years ago, and next thing,
Speaker 1: no we land, we get to my dad's house. I
Speaker 1: get the alarm on my phone saying, you know, there
Speaker 1: is a fire in your house. Your fire alarm. Sorry,
Speaker 1: your fire alarm is going off. And I get the
Speaker 1: call from the alarm company. You know, we're sending the
Speaker 1: fire department. Wait, what what do you mean my house
Speaker 1: on fire? What?
Speaker 2: I got a check?
Speaker 1: At that point, I had no cameras in my house.
Speaker 1: I had no way of knowing if this was just
Speaker 1: a false alarm or a real fire.
Speaker 2: So what I do?
Speaker 1: I called my friend in the neighborhood, and I said,
Speaker 1: can you please go.
Speaker 2: Over to my house.
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm there. I'm dropping everything. I'm going right now.
Speaker 1: He runs over to my house just in time to
Speaker 1: see the fire truck and the firefighters ready to break
Speaker 1: in the back door to see what the deal is.
Speaker 1: There's no smoke, thank god. And he said, there's no smoke,
Speaker 1: but you know the firefighters are heard you want them
Speaker 1: to break open the door. I said, if there's no smoke,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. And so long story short,
Speaker 1: Now I have cameras and this exactly plays into that world.
Speaker 1: So if my fire alarm went off again, what would
Speaker 1: I do? I'd send up the drone. Hey, take a
Speaker 1: look around my house and tell me if my house
Speaker 1: is on fire or not.
Speaker 2: And hopefully it never is. But this is just I
Speaker 2: love it, love it, love it, love it.
Speaker 1: Now. There are a lot of privacy kind of factors
Speaker 1: built into this thing. And by the way, this drone
Speaker 1: flies automatically when you're away out of your house and
Speaker 1: the alarm is triggered in a way mode, so it
Speaker 1: automatically will fly a path to see what's happening. So
Speaker 1: even if you don't Let's say you're on a plane
Speaker 1: and something happens. This drone will capture video inside your
Speaker 1: house that you can watch later. The device rests in
Speaker 1: a base, The camera is physically blocked when it's docked,
Speaker 1: and it only starts recording when the device leaves the
Speaker 1: base and starts flying one of the preset paths. The
Speaker 1: camera also hums at a certain volume, so you know
Speaker 1: that it's recording. They say it's privacy that you can hear.
Speaker 1: Apparently this thing, I think it was two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars if I remember. Let's see do they even
Speaker 1: say Ring always on cam price?
Speaker 2: Two hundred fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: Oh, I can't wait to buy this. I cannot wait
Speaker 1: to get this. Can you pre order it?
Speaker 2: It says at the bottom of the thing I have.
Speaker 1: That's it's not been authorized by the FCC yet. It's
Speaker 1: not offered for sale until then. But I can't wait. Brilliant, brillion, brilliant.
Speaker 1: And this is when I say in previous podcasts, I've
Speaker 1: said that a lot of the momentum is behind Ring
Speaker 1: when you compare it to other companies that are doing
Speaker 1: home security. Ring is just there. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: have a couple of the Ring devices. I think it's
Speaker 1: time for some more because they really are putting a
Speaker 1: lot into their devices and into their R and D
Speaker 1: and into kind of having something that works with all
Speaker 1: different aspects of your home.
Speaker 2: So I love it. That's the Ring. What is it called?
Speaker 2: Let me.
Speaker 1: The ring always on cam? Everyone's calling it the drone?
Speaker 1: But yeah, the ring always on cam?
Speaker 2: How cool is that? Love it? Love it? Love it?
Speaker 1: Oh, time for another question, this question. Let's see, let's
Speaker 1: see who it's from.
Speaker 3: Hi, Rich, I saw your report this morning about Google
Speaker 3: Maps now showing COVID information, but when I checked my
Speaker 3: Google Map nothing was on there. Do I need to
Speaker 3: turn on that layer somehow? Or is this feature coming soon?
Speaker 3: Thanks for your help. I always love your reports. Thanks Tanya.
Speaker 1: All right, this was a report that I did on
Speaker 1: KTLA about Google Maps now showing COVID information. And this
Speaker 1: is always kind of the issue that I run into
Speaker 1: with being early on a lot of things, is that
Speaker 1: a lot of these tech companies announce stuff but it's
Speaker 1: not necessary available immediately, and so you ride that line.
Speaker 1: Do I want to be late and tell people when
Speaker 1: this actually shows up on my phone? Or do I
Speaker 1: want to tell you at the moment that it happens,
Speaker 1: and it's announced because I want you to be on
Speaker 1: the lookout for it, I.
Speaker 2: Err on the side of telling you as it happens.
Speaker 1: And this is the result sometimes where you probably went
Speaker 1: to Google Maps and you looked at the little layers
Speaker 1: functionality and where is it rich? Well, first let me
Speaker 1: explain what the story is. So on Google Maps, Google
Speaker 1: is now showing COVID information, which is just brilliant. And
Speaker 1: the way to see it is to open up Google Maps.
Speaker 1: If you look in the upper right hand corner, there's
Speaker 1: a little layers area where you can switch between satellite
Speaker 1: terrain and some of the map details like street view
Speaker 1: or bicycling or traffic, and eventually there will be a
Speaker 1: little map type called COVID or I guess map details
Speaker 1: called COVID. And this is great. Google is aggregating a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of COVID information from various databases and putting
Speaker 1: it right on the maps. So let's say you're visiting
Speaker 1: an area you want to see, hmm, is how's Bakersfield
Speaker 1: doing with COVID. You just zoom in and you'll be
Speaker 1: able to see how it's doing with cases, whether they're up,
Speaker 1: whether they're down, whether you know how many there are
Speaker 1: per one hundred thousand people. And you'll see it in
Speaker 1: different ways. There's some numbers, there's some color coding, there's
Speaker 1: some arrows trending up and down. But again, it's not
Speaker 1: there just yet on my phone.
Speaker 2: But it should be there. So just check.
Speaker 1: And I keep checking every day. Whenever I see a
Speaker 1: new feature that's really cool, I always want to. I
Speaker 1: always check for it on like a daily basis to
Speaker 1: see if it's there. And with Google, what they normally do,
Speaker 1: since they have so many people and so many devices,
Speaker 1: they don't send it out to everyone all at once
Speaker 1: because that would be bad. They don't want everyone's phone
Speaker 1: to crash if there is some sort of problem, so
Speaker 1: they send it out in waves. And that's what happened
Speaker 1: with this COVID one. And so all you have to
Speaker 1: do is just wait for it to hit your device.
Speaker 1: All right, let's move on to Samsung. I told you
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff this week with gadgets, but
Speaker 1: this phone. I told you I fell in love with
Speaker 1: the Samsung Galaxy Note twenty, right, And I really did.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's no doubt about it. I love that phone.
Speaker 1: I sit here every day and I miss it, and
Speaker 1: I love my iPhone, but honestly, I'm a little bored
Speaker 1: by it. Even with iOS fourteen, I'm just like, Eh,
Speaker 1: it's great. It does everything I want, but it's.
Speaker 2: Kind of a boring phone.
Speaker 1: And I say that because it just does everything so
Speaker 1: perfectly that it's like, oh, come on, Whereas something like
Speaker 1: the Note twenty. There, you know, there's things I loved
Speaker 1: and didn't like about it, but it just had so
Speaker 1: many little things going on and I was always discovering
Speaker 1: new stuff. Wasn't enough to make me switch and buy it, no,
Speaker 1: because it was too big. But the Galaxy S twenty
Speaker 1: Fan Edition, I'm trying to find out what's wrong with
Speaker 1: this because it seems like it would be a great
Speaker 1: phone for me. This is the it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a culmination of the S twenty series, or a mix,
Speaker 1: i should say, of the S.
Speaker 2: Twenty and the Note.
Speaker 1: So it's a premium flagship at a great price point
Speaker 1: six ninety nine already, it's on sale for five ninety
Speaker 1: nine on Amazon, and it has a lot of the
Speaker 1: features that people like about both of these devices, so
Speaker 1: super smooth display one hundred and twenty hrtz display AI
Speaker 1: powered camera. The best chipset that they have right now,
Speaker 1: which is the Snapdragon eight sixty five.
Speaker 2: Is that the plus? It is the let's say snap Dragon.
Speaker 2: How come they don't list that in an easy to
Speaker 2: find place.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't that be first on the spec sheet?
Speaker 2: Let's see? Oh yeah, Qualcom Snapdragon eight sixty five.
Speaker 1: So it's got that, it's got expandable storage, it's got
Speaker 1: a battery that lasts all day. The weird thing is
Speaker 1: it's got this thirty two megapixel front camera, which okay,
Speaker 1: I mean they never had that on the other ones,
Speaker 1: but now it's there. And if you remember, the big
Speaker 1: problem with the S twenty Ultra was that it had
Speaker 1: the focus issues. And so it's like, you know, I
Speaker 1: feel bad for people that bought that phone, and I
Speaker 1: in my review, I said it needs.
Speaker 2: To work out.
Speaker 1: Let's see what did I say? I will tell you
Speaker 1: exactly what I said. Let me look up KTLAS twenty Ultra.
Speaker 1: I said, Samsung Galaxy S twenty review. Amazing phone, but
Speaker 1: camera focus.
Speaker 2: Issues need to be solved.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure that you know they were solved
Speaker 1: for a big part of it, but I still think
Speaker 1: it was a little disappointing for that phone. Let's see
Speaker 1: what else U thirty times space soom, which means it's
Speaker 1: three times optical. The rest is being done digitally. They've
Speaker 1: got these great colors cloud, red, cloud, orange, cloud, lavender, cloud, mint, navy.
Speaker 2: And white. I mean, what more could you want?
Speaker 1: The haze effect, so it's not gonna hold all your fingerprints,
Speaker 1: It's got five g it's got a six point five
Speaker 1: inch screen for forty five hundred million hours, water and
Speaker 1: dust resistant. I think this is the perfect phone Samsung.
Speaker 1: On paper, this looks perfect. One hundred and twenty eight
Speaker 1: gigs of storage, six gigs of RAM, even expandable up
Speaker 1: to one terabyte with a microSD card.
Speaker 2: What more could you want?
Speaker 1: Starting availability October second, So Samsung is sending me one
Speaker 1: of these to test out. If I fall in love
Speaker 1: with it, I will let you know. But at this point,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what I would not like about this phone.
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like they just said, hey, what's
Speaker 1: good about our two devices? But maybe people don't want
Speaker 1: the Ultra. Maybe they don't need all that craziness. One
Speaker 1: hundred time zoom, fifty times zoom, all these little features
Speaker 1: that you know you might not use a stylist that
Speaker 1: Let's make a phone that's a little bit easier to
Speaker 1: handle and a little bit more accessible price point. So
Speaker 1: hopefully this is a winner, and I will keep you
Speaker 1: updated as I usually do here in the podcast.
Speaker 2: Let's get to another question.
Speaker 5: Hi, Rich, thank you for trying to keep people informed
Speaker 5: on the ever changing technology. I am a technology challenged
Speaker 5: grammar and was thinking about getting my seven year old
Speaker 5: grandson a watch for Can you recommend some that might
Speaker 5: be suitable but not with too many games and gadgets?
Speaker 5: Thank you for your time, Jamie.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I was abrupt cut off there. Thank you
Speaker 1: for your time, Jamie, Jamie, great question, and I think
Speaker 1: the answer to your question is drum roll please, I
Speaker 1: don't think.
Speaker 2: I have a drum roll, but let's see what's this one? Oh? Nothing,
Speaker 2: what's this one? No, that's not it?
Speaker 1: All right, I think the answer to your question is
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch se two hundred and seventy nine dollars.
Speaker 1: It is perfect for a child because it has all
Speaker 1: the features you need and it's Apple. It's gonna work great.
Speaker 1: Hopefully you or someone in your family has or someone
Speaker 1: in your let's see it granddaughter grandson has an iPhone
Speaker 1: to set it up because now they have this new
Speaker 1: feature called family set Up, and so you can set
Speaker 1: up an Apple Watch for your child. Now you need
Speaker 1: an Apple Watch cellular. So it's it's not gonna be
Speaker 1: just the two seventy nine. I believe you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to spend a little bit more. I think it's in
Speaker 1: three twenty nine, maybe so. But now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: You do not have to activate the cellular. They strongly
Speaker 1: recommend it, but you do not have to. Now, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna lose in that situation? If you're using
Speaker 1: this to keep track of your child or to communicate
Speaker 1: with them, It's only gonna work during Wi Fi. You
Speaker 1: know where they're in a Wi Fi network, and that's
Speaker 1: not gonna be everywhere. So I would highly recommend that
Speaker 1: you would get the cellular service if you truly want
Speaker 1: this child to be connected. Uh, That's what I'd recommend.
Speaker 1: But I'm not gonna recommend any of these other smart
Speaker 1: watches for kids because they're all pretty pretty much garbage.
Speaker 1: And Apple does have the best one. So if you
Speaker 1: want the best, and you want your child to be connected,
Speaker 1: and you want them, I don't know what. You didn't
Speaker 1: really give me a reason for their watch. But if
Speaker 1: it's connection, which is probably the only reason a seven
Speaker 1: or eight year old should have a watch, you know,
Speaker 1: you need to have them on cellular. But I think
Speaker 1: this is brilliant. The other ones I've seen out there,
Speaker 1: like the Gizmo and all these things are giant.
Speaker 2: It's like this giant.
Speaker 1: Apparatus on the tiny child's wrist. So go with the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch. See, it's a little bit more expensive, but
Speaker 1: I think it will deliver what you need. And if
Speaker 1: it's not, you know, the right time for it, save
Speaker 1: up and you know, maybe just get it, you know,
Speaker 1: next year or something like that. But that's a good question,
Speaker 1: and I'm so happy Apple did that because there are
Speaker 1: people out there that could benefit from their child having
Speaker 1: a smart watch to stay connected. All Right, we did
Speaker 1: this story on KTLA this week, and I knew it
Speaker 1: was gonna be popular, but I didn't realize just how
Speaker 1: popular it was gonna be. But Wow, this was popular.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna go through what we talked about,
Speaker 1: and the story was. I get so many emails people
Speaker 1: want to know how they can transfer photos off their
Speaker 1: iPhone to like sort of a flash drive without using iCloud.
Speaker 1: And to me, I personally don't see the point of
Speaker 1: this because the cloud is so easy. You've got Google Photos,
Speaker 1: you've got iCloud, But why would you want to make
Speaker 1: life tougher for yourself. Well, there's various people out there,
Speaker 1: and not one solution is for everyone, and so that's
Speaker 1: why I looked into the solution for this, and it's
Speaker 1: called the sand disc I Expand Flash Drive. They've been
Speaker 1: making these for many years now. This is not the
Speaker 1: first time I've heard of this, not the first time
Speaker 1: I've featured it on KTLA. But when I saw how
Speaker 1: many questions I was getting about people wanting to avoid
Speaker 1: the cloud and backup photos from their iPhone, I said, okay,
Speaker 1: well let's feature this thing. And so the one that
Speaker 1: they sent along is called the sand disc I Expand
Speaker 1: Flash Drive GO. It's their newest, latest, greatest. The device
Speaker 1: has a lightning jack on one side and then the
Speaker 1: other side is USB. And to me, it would be
Speaker 1: perfect if it was USBC, but it's not. It's just
Speaker 1: regular USBA, and so you need a converter for something
Speaker 1: like my computer. But it's a flash drive that plugs
Speaker 1: into your iPhone and it has special software from SanDisk
Speaker 1: and when you activate it, when you plug this little
Speaker 1: drive in, it says, hey, do you want us to
Speaker 1: open the software? It opens the software and it starts
Speaker 1: backing up your pictures from your camera roll immediately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that cool. Now, when I tested it, it
Speaker 2: was a little bit buggy.
Speaker 1: But it seems like there's been two software updates since
Speaker 1: I started testing it, and it seems to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more smoothed out, and so it's great. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't recommend this thing enough if you want to
Speaker 1: manually back up your photos on your iPhone. Now, people
Speaker 1: were asking me, when you back them up, can I
Speaker 1: delete them off my phone? No, just because you have
Speaker 1: them on this flash drive does not mean you can
Speaker 1: get rid of the originals on your phone. So if
Speaker 1: you're trying to free up storage on your iPhone, you
Speaker 1: need to actually transfer these off or actually copy them
Speaker 1: from this little flask drive to another place. You always
Speaker 1: have to have your pictures in two places. You cannot
Speaker 1: just have your pictures on one place. What happens to
Speaker 1: this flash drive? You drop it in water? Boom, goodbye,
Speaker 1: see ya? You misplace it?
Speaker 2: Goodbye? See you.
Speaker 1: So pick two places, and that's where you need.
Speaker 2: To back up your photos. So I am okay with this.
Speaker 1: If you want to have your photos on your iPhone
Speaker 1: and then back them up to this little device, and
Speaker 1: that's fine. That's fine. That's two places. They're on your phone,
Speaker 1: they're on your device. If your phone goes missing, oh
Speaker 1: I've got all the pictures on this little flash drive.
Speaker 1: If the flash drive goes missing, oh I've got all
Speaker 1: the pictures on my phone.
Speaker 2: You see how that works.
Speaker 1: If you're going to delete them off your phone, you
Speaker 1: need to find another hard drive and transfer the photos
Speaker 1: or sorry, copy the photos from the flash drive onto
Speaker 1: that other hard drive. So now you have them in
Speaker 1: two places you can safely delete them from your phone. Personally,
Speaker 1: I would copy them to a cloud service. I know
Speaker 1: you don't want it there, but that's what I do.
Speaker 1: And right now I'm a little bit not taking my
Speaker 1: own advice because right now I only have my pictures
Speaker 1: in Google Photos and on my phone. Actually right now
Speaker 1: they're only in Google Photos. But I'm in the process
Speaker 1: of consolidating everything and then what I'm gonna do is
Speaker 1: download my Google Photos library once every month or something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: But it's big.
Speaker 1: It's like a terabyte, so it's kind of a process.
Speaker 1: But that's what I would say. And then of course
Speaker 1: I get all the questions from the Android folks, Rich
Speaker 1: is there something similar for Android? Well, there is a
Speaker 1: sand Disk also makes something called the sand Disk Ultra
Speaker 1: Dual Drive LUX. And the question is do they make
Speaker 1: the same software, because you can plug any USBC drive
Speaker 1: into an Android phone and it will copy files back
Speaker 1: and forth for ninety nine percent of Android phones. Rather,
Speaker 1: but the software is the magic, because the software enables
Speaker 1: the automatic backup of your photos, and that's what you
Speaker 1: really want.
Speaker 2: So let's see.
Speaker 1: Sand disk I expand Android. Or let's just do Google
Speaker 1: Play and let's see if they have a Google Play
Speaker 1: app and see I don't know if they do. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: do they see I don't think they do. Let's see
Speaker 1: sand disk I expand Android. Let's see if oh gosh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they do. This is let's see
Speaker 1: for Android. H is there an app? I see a
Speaker 1: lot of flash drives. I'm looking for an app on
Speaker 1: their website, and so far I do not see one.
Speaker 1: I'll go all the way down to the bottom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, So I'm not really sure, but they
Speaker 1: do have a sand disc connect wireless stick and that
Speaker 1: might work.
Speaker 2: Here's a USB USB. Gosh, they have so many different models.
Speaker 2: But let's see.
Speaker 1: Do they have an app free up? Oh, sand disk
Speaker 1: Memory Zone app that looks like the app that you
Speaker 1: need sand Disc Memory Zone. Let me see when this
Speaker 1: was last updated, and it was last updated on September second,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Boom.
Speaker 1: You are good to go. So now you know sand
Speaker 1: disc check it out. Just look for a and disca
Speaker 1: drive that works with your Android phone, whether you have
Speaker 1: Micro USB or if you have the newer phones which
Speaker 1: have USBC. All right, finally, one more question here we go, Hi.
Speaker 6: Rich, how do I put a time limit on my
Speaker 6: grandson's iPhone and iPad and not online? I play one
Speaker 6: of the games when he's not with me on my iPad.
Speaker 6: He has my old iPhone and iPad. They're all connected
Speaker 6: to my Apple account.
Speaker 3: Midge.
Speaker 1: All right, super super easy set up screen time, and
Speaker 1: Midge screen time will enable you to put a time
Speaker 1: limit on that iPad. You say that you share the
Speaker 1: iPad with your grandson, so all you need to do
Speaker 1: is that when you're playing.
Speaker 2: It's super easy.
Speaker 1: It will just say, oh, time limit, And well, there's
Speaker 1: a couple things you can do. You can set just
Speaker 1: time limits for his apps and leave your app alone,
Speaker 1: or you can set time limits for all the gaming
Speaker 1: on there, and then when you go on there to play,
Speaker 1: you can you can just type in a code it
Speaker 1: says like, oh sorry, screen time, and you can just
Speaker 1: go in there and type it says more time, and
Speaker 1: you can just authorize it with your pin codes. You
Speaker 1: can make a little pin and that's it. That's why
Speaker 1: I do my kids with screen time as well. Super
Speaker 1: duper easy. So set up screen time. Go on the
Speaker 1: Apple support website search screen time, set it up on
Speaker 1: the iPhone and iPad and set up for your child
Speaker 1: or your grandson rather. And then when you go on
Speaker 1: there to play the game, it'll say, oh sorry, time limit.
Speaker 1: It's already been played for two hours. Games have been
Speaker 1: played on here. You just say, oh, give me, you know,
Speaker 1: another half an hour or I think it. I think
Speaker 1: they give you options, whether it's fifteen minutes or an hour.
Speaker 1: You just select one of those options and that's it.
Speaker 1: The child, you know, you can bypass the child because
Speaker 1: you are the adult.
Speaker 2: Midge.
Speaker 1: You know that, right, You are the adult, even though
Speaker 1: on this show your synthesized voice, So yes, that is going.
Speaker 2: To do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you would like to submit a question for me
Speaker 1: to answer, just go to you rich on tech dot
Speaker 1: tv and hit the email button at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the page. Also, i'd love it if you would rate
Speaker 1: and review this podcast so you can help other people
Speaker 1: discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com
Speaker 1: slash rich on tech and let me know what you
Speaker 1: liked or didn't like about the computerized voices. I think
Speaker 1: I haven't decided what I'm gonna do about the questions,
Speaker 1: but you know, I'm just trying new things and seeing
Speaker 1: what works what doesn't work. If you like me reading them,
Speaker 1: let me know. If you like someone else reading them,
Speaker 1: let me know. If you like the computer reading them,
Speaker 1: let me know. I thought it's kind of fun to
Speaker 1: have the computer because you know, this is a tech
Speaker 1: show and I just like the idea of it.
Speaker 2: But let me know.
Speaker 1: You can find me on social media at rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: I'm rich Timiro. Thank you so much for listening. Stay safe,
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you real soon.