Speaker 1: Duck Duck, don't pass Go, Google lets you go back
Speaker 1: in time. Walmart expands drone delivery. Plus your tech questions Answered.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the
Speaker 1: podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
Speaker 1: you should know about. It's also the place where I
Speaker 1: answer the questions you send me. I'm a tech reporter
Speaker 1: at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Usually I open
Speaker 1: the show by saying, I hope you are having a
Speaker 1: fantastic day.
Speaker 2: But honestly, with everything that's been going on in the.
Speaker 1: News lately, I try not to let that seep into
Speaker 1: my show, but you know, with what's happening in Texas,
Speaker 1: it's just inevitable. I can't. I am a human being.
Speaker 1: I cannot just ignore what's going on. And so with
Speaker 1: that said, I have had a very very very heavy
Speaker 1: heart for the past couple of days. Just learned about
Speaker 1: that story when I was hopping on a plane back
Speaker 1: from Las Vegas and I just, you know, quickly was
Speaker 1: going to turn off my phone and I saw a headline.
Speaker 2: I'm like, wait a second, that can't be right.
Speaker 1: That number can't be right, and that number just continue
Speaker 1: to grow and it just you know, I've got two kids.
Speaker 1: Obviously this effects or I guess it touches everyone, but
Speaker 1: when you have.
Speaker 2: Kids, especially in school at that.
Speaker 1: Age, it's really really just I mean, basically, it's just
Speaker 1: really tough. So anyway, I've been on the news for
Speaker 1: the past couple of days. I haven't really said anything,
Speaker 1: but it's just one of those things where anything and
Speaker 1: everything I talk about at this point just seems so
Speaker 1: insignificant compared to what those families are going through, what
Speaker 1: those children went through, what those teachers went through. And
Speaker 1: so I do want to let you know that I
Speaker 1: am thinking about all of those families, and you know,
Speaker 1: we've got to have something change here in America because
Speaker 1: I can't. I just can't keep watching this stuff happen.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what the solution is. I think
Speaker 1: I have an idea, but it's just definitely seems like
Speaker 1: it's it's really tough to find.
Speaker 2: Some sort of solution that people can agree on.
Speaker 1: Anyway, With that said, let's get to the first sort
Speaker 1: of topic of the day.
Speaker 2: So I have been using this.
Speaker 1: I did a story on this probably a year ago,
Speaker 1: and it's a story on this website called Privacy dot
Speaker 1: com and it was part of a bigger story. But
Speaker 1: what this website allows you to do is pretty much
Speaker 1: use your debit card or your bank account online and
Speaker 1: it creates one time disposable use credit cards. And so
Speaker 1: you might be thinking, well, why would I need this,
Speaker 1: I already have a credit card. Well, when you've had
Speaker 1: your credit card taken twice in the past three months
Speaker 1: like I have now, to be fair, the first time
Speaker 1: my credit card number was stolen, I don't know how.
Speaker 1: The second time, I left my credit card at a restaurant,
Speaker 1: And so I don't know if I told you this,
Speaker 1: but I went to Disneyland and I did not use
Speaker 1: my credit card at all the entire day. I used
Speaker 1: Tap to Pay for every single transaction except when I
Speaker 1: was in the restaurant. And when I went to the restaurant,
Speaker 1: you could not use tap to pay. You have to
Speaker 1: use your card. And so if you listen to my podcast,
Speaker 1: you know I have a rule. If my card leaves
Speaker 1: my hand, I'm always default. Okay, let me just go
Speaker 1: through my rules. I default to Tap to pay and
Speaker 1: my debit card. So default is if I'm paying for something,
Speaker 1: I use tap to pay, which is you know, Apple
Speaker 1: pay or Android pay, and I will tap to pay
Speaker 1: using my debit card unless it's a huge purchase, and
Speaker 1: then I'll use my credit card usually, but anyway, so
Speaker 1: that's the number one.
Speaker 2: If they don't accept tap to pay.
Speaker 1: I will use my debit card card as long as
Speaker 1: I can insert it into you know, the chip reader.
Speaker 1: If they don't have a chip reader, or if my
Speaker 1: card leaves my hand, So if it physically leaves my hand,
Speaker 1: I will use my credit card because it's a little
Speaker 1: bit safer. If my number gets out there, I don't
Speaker 1: care as much. But anyway, so at the restaurant, I
Speaker 1: use my credit card, and of course I forget it.
Speaker 1: The one time that I use my card in the
Speaker 1: entire day, I leave it at the restaurant. Now maybe
Speaker 1: it had to do with the glass of wine I had,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I left it there. And this
Speaker 1: was the Lamplighter Lounge, by the way. So the funny
Speaker 1: thing is the I won't even go into that anyway.
Speaker 1: It's just someone at the someone at the Lamplighter Lounge
Speaker 1: at Disneyland got my got a nice souvenir from me.
Speaker 1: But the point is I just got that card because
Speaker 1: a couple months earlier, back in February, I use my
Speaker 1: card at another place and it was instantly stolen. Now
Speaker 1: I'm not accusing the restaurant of stealing it, but seems
Speaker 1: like a coincidence. I pull out my card and within
Speaker 1: five minutes I get a text to my phone saying
Speaker 1: that your card number has been used at a gas
Speaker 1: station in Iowa or something like that. And I was like, what,
Speaker 1: So this time my card was not actually used. I
Speaker 1: locked it from the app as soon as I realized
Speaker 1: I left it there, ordered a new one, got it,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's just of course, I just updated
Speaker 1: all the automatic payments on that card, and now I've
Speaker 1: got to do it all again.
Speaker 2: So it's not very fun. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I tell you all of that because I do have
Speaker 1: rules for using my card, but I'm now trying to
Speaker 1: protect my card number even more than I have in
Speaker 1: the past, and so I've started to use PayPal when possible,
Speaker 1: and I've also started to use Apple pay when possible
Speaker 1: online like on the web when you're buying stuff. And
Speaker 1: then this privacy dot com kind of pulls up the
Speaker 1: rear because you can use your debit card anywhere with
Speaker 1: this privacy dot com because it will.
Speaker 2: Generate a one time credit card number for you.
Speaker 1: And what's really cool about that is it has a
Speaker 1: secondary thing that you can do is as soon as
Speaker 1: that card is used one time, it burns out, so
Speaker 1: it can't be used again, which is even safer. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, I ordered these I'm sure it's snake oil,
Speaker 1: but I ordered these like probiotic pills that I saw
Speaker 1: someone advertising on Instagram and I said, oh, that's interesting,
Speaker 1: and so I ordered them. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: of course, it's a monthly thing where they want you
Speaker 1: to buy it every month, and I said, I'm not
Speaker 1: ready for another subscription, so I use the one time
Speaker 1: card they charged it. It will not work again. So
Speaker 1: now when I forget inevitably to renew that or you know,
Speaker 1: to cancel or whatever, I will, it will tell me like, hey,
Speaker 1: your credit card didn't go through, and I'll go, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why I use that Privacy dot Com card. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I tell you all this because I think it's a
Speaker 1: useful tool.
Speaker 2: It's totally free.
Speaker 1: They make money based on the you like how many
Speaker 1: times you use it. So I think with the free program,
Speaker 1: you get like twelve one time cards a month, which
Speaker 1: is more than enough for me. They've got an iOS app.
Speaker 1: You can use it on the web, you know, you
Speaker 1: basically just go to the website, generate a card number,
Speaker 1: copy and paste it into the merchant and boom. So
Speaker 1: it's a really handy little way to just kind of
Speaker 1: put one more barrier between you and your information. And
Speaker 1: what I like about it is that it enables me
Speaker 1: to use my debit card on the web. So typically
Speaker 1: I do not use my debit card on the web
Speaker 1: because obviously and I want my debit card number out there.
Speaker 1: And PayPal has definitely helped me get around that because
Speaker 1: now I'll use PayPal when that's available. But it's it's
Speaker 1: just nice to have options. And the cool thing about
Speaker 1: privacy dot com is that it is used anywhere a
Speaker 1: credit card is used, like the system doesn't know anything different.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you can make up different rules.
Speaker 1: You can say, I only want this card to work
Speaker 1: for up to twenty five dollars a month, I only
Speaker 1: want this card to work for a total of one
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. I only want this card to work one time.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different things you can do
Speaker 1: to it. Pretty cool website. I think they're in the
Speaker 1: process of rebranding to a different name perhaps, but it's
Speaker 1: just one more thing to have.
Speaker 2: I'll put a link in the show notes so you
Speaker 2: can check it out.
Speaker 1: But I've been using it a lot because, like I said,
Speaker 1: when you lose your credit card, you realize just how
Speaker 1: annoying it is to have to change your number on
Speaker 1: all those different things.
Speaker 2: So, by the way, if.
Speaker 1: You are listening on Instagram, yes, there is no video.
Speaker 1: There is no video on Instagram. I just didn't feel
Speaker 1: like going on camera. You know, I go on camera
Speaker 1: for eight hours every morning, and so sometimes I just
Speaker 1: don't feel like being on camera when I'm doing a podcast,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's a little distracting because I end up
Speaker 1: looking at myself in the video and not what I'm.
Speaker 2: Supposed to be doing, which is audio.
Speaker 1: So that's why you're not seeing any video if you
Speaker 1: are watching on Instagram. All right, let's get to the
Speaker 1: first question of the show. Let's see Kathy says, hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: do you know a good way to sync my social
Speaker 1: media and contacts? Ooh, Kathy, this is a great question
Speaker 1: if you would have asked me five or ten years ago.
Speaker 1: And the reason is that no these social Okay, so
Speaker 1: I hear you. I absolutely loved the days when I
Speaker 1: could sync my address book on the iPhone with Facebook
Speaker 1: and or Instagram and or Twitter and or all.
Speaker 2: These other services.
Speaker 1: There was always these third party apps that you could
Speaker 1: use to do it. But the problem is, do you
Speaker 1: remember that whole Cambridge Analytica thing. So even before that,
Speaker 1: these social networks really started clamping down on how you
Speaker 1: can export information in a bulk way, especially contact information.
Speaker 2: So it used to be really easy.
Speaker 1: I used to use a service, I think it was
Speaker 1: called sink me where you could go in and just say, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to sink all my contact pictures. Ares there's
Speaker 1: a million, i'man there's so many services. My address book
Speaker 1: is actually so disorganized because I tried so much any
Speaker 1: of these sync services over the years. My favorite to
Speaker 1: this day was something called Plaxo. And this was started
Speaker 1: way back when, and what was so brilliant about Plaxo
Speaker 1: is that you didn't have to update someone's information. You
Speaker 1: would send them a link it's probably back then over email,
Speaker 1: and it would say, hey, can is all your information
Speaker 1: look correct? Can you just update whatever information is wrong?
Speaker 1: And they can go in and change their phone number,
Speaker 1: they could change their website, their address, whatever, and it
Speaker 1: would automatically sync to your address book. And I thought
Speaker 1: that was so brilliant. It crashed and burned. I mean,
Speaker 1: someone bought them, but you know, for pennies on the dollar.
Speaker 1: And the reality is, at this point I couldn't even
Speaker 1: recommend a service like that because most people, due to
Speaker 1: privacy concerns, would not feel comfortable filling in their information
Speaker 1: on a web form like that. They would think it's
Speaker 1: some sort of spam. So it's a great question. I
Speaker 1: wish it was still available.
Speaker 2: It's not. Now. There is one app that I.
Speaker 1: Really like that that I think is really a good one,
Speaker 1: and it is called contact Picks. And so what this
Speaker 1: contact pix does. It's called contact Picks. It's for iOS,
Speaker 1: and it's a great little simple app. And what it
Speaker 1: does is it just goes through your address book and
Speaker 1: it helps you add images to your address book and
Speaker 1: that's it.
Speaker 2: It's very simple.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that most people are on Google
Speaker 1: in some fashion with their profile picture right, whether it's
Speaker 1: from LinkedIn, whether it's from Facebook, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: there's some scrubbed picture of you somewhere on Google, and
Speaker 1: So what it does is it just easily helps you
Speaker 1: search the person in your co or all the people
Speaker 1: in your contacts for a picture, and it helps you
Speaker 1: easily format that picture and put it into your contacts.
Speaker 1: It's such a great app. Often I'll go through my
Speaker 1: address book and just pick a bunch of random people
Speaker 1: to add their photo to their contact list, but for
Speaker 1: their contact card, I should say, but it's really a
Speaker 1: great app. And I know there's a if you just
Speaker 1: search contact picks iOS app.
Speaker 2: Let's see if it comes up. I don't know, I
Speaker 2: have to. I'm gonna have to.
Speaker 1: Put like, oh, yeah, the first the first result does
Speaker 1: come up. But if you want to look at the app,
Speaker 1: oh interesting, now they've got the wrong wrong link there,
Speaker 1: So definitely don't do that.
Speaker 2: Okay, I have to.
Speaker 1: I'll put the link in the in the show notes
Speaker 1: because that's definitely something that needs to be added there.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about a kind of a big
Speaker 1: story of the week.
Speaker 2: Duck Duck Go.
Speaker 1: You know duck duck Go as a privacy centric web page,
Speaker 1: right or search engine. I should say, So people like
Speaker 1: duck duck Go because you can search privately, it doesn't
Speaker 1: track you and that's mostly true, except it just so
Speaker 1: happens that a security re searcher named Zach Edwards discovered
Speaker 1: a little something. He discovered that while duck duck go
Speaker 1: does indeed block third party tracking cookies from the likes
Speaker 1: of Google and Facebook and other companies, it somehow gives
Speaker 1: Microsoft a pass. Why does it give Microsoft a pass? Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out duck duck go has a deal with Microsoft,
Speaker 1: and so they let their trackers slip through and track you.
Speaker 1: Now do they track you as big as some of
Speaker 1: the other trackers have the potential to do.
Speaker 2: Maybe not, but we don't really know.
Speaker 1: And the fact that the fact that duck duck Go
Speaker 1: didn't really disclose this in a simple, straightforward manner is
Speaker 1: very concerning for a company that prides itself on privacy.
Speaker 1: And so I'll give them a big not very good.
Speaker 2: So what do we do? Where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: Number one, duck says, And the CEO of duc dot
Speaker 1: go is really defending this tactic.
Speaker 2: Obviously, duck dot go is.
Speaker 1: Getting a lot of money from Microsoft to do this
Speaker 1: and to let their trackers slide and third party cookies.
Speaker 1: If you didn't see my report on KTLA third party
Speaker 1: cookies are basically the tracking cookies that follow you all
Speaker 1: around the web. They're the reason why you search for
Speaker 1: new bedding on overstock dot com, and it follows you
Speaker 1: around to every other website in the world. Now, there
Speaker 1: is a couple of ways to block those third party
Speaker 1: tracking cookies. You can install one of these privacy extensions
Speaker 1: on Chrome. Chrome actually has the ability to do it
Speaker 1: built in. If you go to settings, which are the
Speaker 1: three little dots in the upper right hand corner, and
Speaker 1: then click settings and then you go to let's see
Speaker 1: Privacy and Security, and then you go to cookies and
Speaker 1: other site data, and then there is an option to
Speaker 1: blurt block third party cookies, and so when you do that,
Speaker 1: it will block third party cookies. What's a third partycookie? Well, again,
Speaker 1: it's all of these ad networks basically they tell these
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a win win situation. So if you
Speaker 1: run a website, let's say you run overstock dot com, Well,
Speaker 1: you want to have the most third party cookies you
Speaker 1: can on there because you're getting data fed to you
Speaker 1: so that the ads on your website are more relevant
Speaker 1: and you're making more money when someone clicks on them,
Speaker 1: or they may even click to your own website.
Speaker 2: So let's say I go to Let's just say I
Speaker 2: go to two websites.
Speaker 1: Let's say let's say first I go to best Buy
Speaker 1: dot com and I search for toaster ovens, right, and
Speaker 1: I kind of look at toaster ovens and I spend
Speaker 1: a little bit of time kind of narrowing it down
Speaker 1: to two that I keep kind of looking at. Well,
Speaker 1: those little tracking cookies kind of monitor not only what
Speaker 1: I'm looking at, but how long I spent on the page,
Speaker 1: who I am, all the information that they can possibly
Speaker 1: gather about me. And now I leave best Buy and
Speaker 1: I go to let's say, Bloomingdale's dot com, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, on Bloomingdale's homepage, I see an ad
Speaker 1: for the toaster I want, and it's a little bit
Speaker 1: cheaper than it was at best Buy. Or let's say
Speaker 1: I go to Target dot com and they have a
Speaker 1: banner on the homepage and it's like, hey, here's this
Speaker 1: toaster that you might be interested in, and it's five
Speaker 1: bucks cheaper, and I go, Wow, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: And so now Target gets the sale.
Speaker 1: The little you know, marketing cookie got some money because
Speaker 1: they helped make a sale. And you know it all
Speaker 1: kind of works out and then best Buy.
Speaker 2: You say, well what about best Buy? They didn't you
Speaker 2: know what, how do they get it? Well, they get
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: On the on the other end, they'll get some money
Speaker 1: when someone else comes to their website and does something similar,
Speaker 1: or there's just an AD that's served up on their
Speaker 1: website that they make some money on.
Speaker 2: That's targeted to you.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of reasons why websites want to
Speaker 1: put these things on there. It helps them track their customers,
Speaker 1: helps them, you know, serve up better ads, helps them
Speaker 1: get better lead. All this good stuff, which is good
Speaker 1: for marketers, not so good for the average person.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Look, I block a lot of these things, so I
Speaker 1: don't see a lot of this stuff, and you could too,
Speaker 1: But I do block them on Chrome because why have
Speaker 1: your data out there if you don't need to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes things a little bit more complicated. Yes, you
Speaker 1: may be missing out on a couple of special offers
Speaker 1: that websites may offer up to you, but now websites
Speaker 1: are leaning on email and sort of direct messaging to
Speaker 1: get those things to you. Or when you do go
Speaker 1: to a website that does have these ads, still still
Speaker 1: serve something up to you that maybe has a little
Speaker 1: better deal or a promo code or something.
Speaker 2: So, but again is stuff. A lot of this stuff
Speaker 2: just clutters the web. Okay, where was I?
Speaker 1: So you can block these things if you'd like. Duck
Speaker 1: Ducco is very quick to point out that the tracking
Speaker 1: only happens on their iOS and android apps, their browsers
Speaker 1: that they that they deliver to those platforms that are
Speaker 1: privacy centric browsers. It does not this this behavior does
Speaker 1: not happen on the website, and so they wanted to
Speaker 1: make sure that was very clear. Now, personally, I think
Speaker 1: that Duck Duck goes a little blemished because of this
Speaker 1: whole thing. And I think that that's, you know, something
Speaker 1: that you've taken into consideration. That there wasn't a big
Speaker 1: pop up that said, hey, when we're blocking stuff, we
Speaker 1: are going to be blocking most except not Microsoft. And
Speaker 1: maybe that does happen on the on the browser, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I don't really use that browser. Now what
Speaker 1: do I recommend? So a couple things. Number One, if
Speaker 1: you want a mobile browser that does block a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff, you've got an option called Brave which is
Speaker 1: on desktop, and I think they have a mobile browser also,
Speaker 1: Firefox Focus, and I like Firefox because it's Mozilla, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, an organization that's really trying to bring privacy
Speaker 1: to the web, and so I think I kind of
Speaker 1: trust them. And then the other thing you can do is, uh,
Speaker 1: there's a website called startpage dot com, which I also
Speaker 1: recommended recently, and they try to really block a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff as well. So a couple of options there.
Speaker 1: But you know, the reality is I still use Google,
Speaker 1: I still use Chrome, and you know, look, I understand
Speaker 1: that a lot of this stuff is being tracked, and
Speaker 1: probably more so than you can ever imagine. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I do like the functionality I get
Speaker 1: out of it. And that's what it really comes down to,
Speaker 1: is that do you like the functionality? Do you like
Speaker 1: like I love Google web search results, and I'm not
Speaker 1: ready to give those up for either start page or
Speaker 1: duc duck goes, even though I did look at start
Speaker 1: Page's results and they did seem to be pretty good.
Speaker 1: Duck Duck Go I haven't tested in a while, but
Speaker 1: the last time I tested, I was not impressed. So
Speaker 1: just take it with a grain of salt and just
Speaker 1: something to keep in mind as you look for a
Speaker 1: more privacy.
Speaker 2: Centric search engine.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the next question of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Scott says, do you have any information on how services
Speaker 1: like Spectrum work compared to Verizon and whose network they use.
Speaker 1: Spectrum is cheaper than Verizon, but is it as good?
Speaker 1: All right, So, Scott, I think I kind of talked
Speaker 1: about this in the last show, but I'll just go
Speaker 1: over it again. But I'm not switching to Spectrum Mobile.
Speaker 2: Now. I know they're heavily advertising.
Speaker 1: I know that they are cheaper than Verizon, but you
Speaker 1: have to realize switching to them comes with a lot
Speaker 1: of caveats. Now, I know, because I hear from a
Speaker 1: lot of you that you have Spectrum Mobile and you
Speaker 1: have it and you love it, and it's fine and
Speaker 1: it works and you're saving money and that's fantastic.
Speaker 2: And I always say this on the show. If it
Speaker 2: works for you, that's great.
Speaker 1: I'm just giving you kind of my reasoning as to
Speaker 1: why I wouldn't do this and why you just need
Speaker 1: to kind of be careful about switching because there are
Speaker 1: some caveats. Number one, let's take a look at how
Speaker 1: much they charge. So, yes, it is cheaper The big
Speaker 1: price they advertise is twenty nine to ninety nine per
Speaker 1: month for unlimited five G unlimited talk, text and data.
Speaker 1: That's amazing thirty bucks a month, but when you do
Speaker 1: it you look a little bit closer, it's actually that's
Speaker 1: for you have to have two lines to get that price,
Speaker 1: so you're actually paying sixty dollars a month. Now, sixty
Speaker 1: dollars a month for two lines of unlimited service is
Speaker 1: still really really good, but there's another caveat. You have
Speaker 1: to have Spectrum Internet, So if you don't have Spectrum Internet,
Speaker 1: it's an extra twenty dollars. Now we're up to eighty
Speaker 1: dollars for two lines, which again is still pretty good
Speaker 1: forty dollars a line, but you can do better. This
Speaker 1: works on Verizon and SODA's Visible, and Visible is as
Speaker 1: cheap as twenty five dollars a month unlimited, with really
Speaker 1: no caveats, as long as you join one of their
Speaker 1: party pay plans, which pretty much anyone can join as
Speaker 1: long as you find one online, or you can join
Speaker 1: a friends whatever. There's like groups dedicated to party play
Speaker 1: party pay plans, so again that's a lot cheaper with
Speaker 1: less caveats. This is also ten dollars for an Apple
Speaker 1: Watch fee that I leave visible as five dollars. And
Speaker 1: then if you don't have Spectrum, I mentioned that it's
Speaker 1: an additional twenty dollars. So if you are thinking of
Speaker 1: leaving Spectrum for your internet service, now you're paying twenty
Speaker 1: dollars extra, and now the savings are really starting to dwindle. Also,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of little gotcha's with their plans. So
Speaker 1: with this really inexpensive plan, you don't get HD streaming,
Speaker 1: and when you go to their pricing info, it's really annoying.
Speaker 1: It's like almost impossible to see the pricing info. But
Speaker 1: you basically get twenty gigs of full speed data and
Speaker 1: then after that it's reduced down to one megabit per second,
Speaker 1: which is like, oh my gosh, that's like crawling. You
Speaker 1: are going to have so much trouble using this. If
Speaker 1: you use more than twenty gigs of data on this
Speaker 1: line videos DVD quality, you can pay an extra ten
Speaker 1: dollars a month twenty dollars a month for those two
Speaker 1: lines to get the thirty gigs of data usage plus
Speaker 1: HD video. Now, by the way, if you don't have
Speaker 1: if you don't have the Spectrum Internet. It's forty five
Speaker 1: dollars aligned per month. So when you look at forty
Speaker 1: five a month, Visible is a much better deal. It's
Speaker 1: going to give you similar kind of service, and personally,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be linked to any other thing
Speaker 1: that you have to keep going.
Speaker 2: And so you know, I.
Speaker 1: Just it's really tough because I just don't like some
Speaker 1: of these business practices, and that's why I would not
Speaker 1: do this.
Speaker 2: But again, if.
Speaker 1: You're sticking with it, if you like it, if you
Speaker 1: have it, if it works for you, it's fine. They
Speaker 1: also have this data plan that's really inexpensive that is
Speaker 1: fourteen dollars per gig So if you just want a
Speaker 1: really cheap phone that you can just use for mostly
Speaker 1: calls and text, fourteen bucks a month gets you one
Speaker 1: gigabyte of data if you're mostly on Wi Fi. So
Speaker 1: good question. But yeah, this is the thing, this is
Speaker 1: the stuff. You have to just be on the lookout
Speaker 1: for those gotchas. That's really what's important. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get to the next story of the day. Apple has
Speaker 1: a new deadline for in app account deletion, so this
Speaker 1: is from nine to five mac. They spotted a little
Speaker 1: provision in the app Store terms for developers. So a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, Apple announced a change in the guidelines.
Speaker 2: If you want to publish an.
Speaker 1: App through Apple, you have to if you let people
Speaker 1: create an account through your app, you also have to
Speaker 1: let them delete their entire account through your app. Now,
Speaker 1: according to nine to five Mac, this requirement has been
Speaker 1: delayed a couple of times, but now there's a new
Speaker 1: deadline of June thirtieth, twenty twenty two. So what that
Speaker 1: deadline says If you let someone sign up for an app,
Speaker 1: which a lot of apps do, you have to let
Speaker 1: them delete not just the app, but their entire account
Speaker 1: from that app. So you have to say, oh, I
Speaker 1: signed up for this app. I'm not just deleting this app.
Speaker 1: I want to delete my entire account. And not just
Speaker 1: your account, but all the data associated with that count Now.
Speaker 1: I think this is a very smart move on Apple's part, because,
Speaker 1: let's face it, it's very easy to download an app, sign
Speaker 1: up in a couple of clicks, and then never use
Speaker 1: it again, and now your data is floating around forever
Speaker 1: and if you want to go delete your account, most
Speaker 1: of these apps have no provisions for deleting your account
Speaker 1: unless it's a very big app. There's a website that
Speaker 1: I like. I don't know if it's still around. Let's see,
Speaker 1: it's just delete dot me. Just delete dot me, and
Speaker 1: that will help you find out how to close out
Speaker 1: some of these accounts. Like let's Blue Apron. Very easy
Speaker 1: to delete your account. It's one link, one click, and
Speaker 1: it will help you get right to the page to
Speaker 1: delete your account. Bitley very easy. Select why it gives
Speaker 1: you like a little kind of Barnes and Noble impossible. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's not possible to delete your Barnes and Noble account.
Speaker 1: The best you can do is delete any personal information
Speaker 1: you have stored in their website. So again, it just
Speaker 1: gives you all these kind of different things. The website
Speaker 1: is just delete me. But anyway, this is a great thing.
Speaker 1: Apple is really really on this hardcore mission of kind
Speaker 1: of empowering the consumer, especially when it comes to privacy.
Speaker 1: I think they've really hung their hat on this. We're
Speaker 1: seeing so many of these companies, like these social media
Speaker 1: networks like Facebook and Snapchat, they are really having some trouble,
Speaker 1: even Twitter, because you know, Apple introduced this no cross
Speaker 1: party app tracking. So what that means is that you
Speaker 1: know you have that little option. We download an app
Speaker 1: that says, hey, don't track me across the web and
Speaker 1: across other apps, and most people are gonna say no
Speaker 1: yes to that, like don't track me, And that's really
Speaker 1: affecting the bottom line. Remember all that stuff I just
Speaker 1: mentioned about, you know how if you look for the
Speaker 1: toaster in one place and you look for the toaster
Speaker 1: and the other that's basically the equivalent of Apple saying
Speaker 1: we're not allowing third party cookies across our whole phone.
Speaker 1: And we're kind of doing that at the phone level.
Speaker 1: And so it's a pretty big deal for these companies.
Speaker 1: They're losing tens of millions, if not potentially billions of
Speaker 1: dollars of lost revenue because they just can't track users
Speaker 1: as easily as.
Speaker 2: They used to. It used to be free for all
Speaker 2: on the web.
Speaker 1: You signed up for something, and your information floated all around,
Speaker 1: followed you everywhere you possibly went on the web until
Speaker 1: they converted you. And now it's just a lot tougher
Speaker 1: for them to do that. When you go to Twitter,
Speaker 1: you go to Facebook, you go to Instagram, you go
Speaker 1: to Snapchat, you're just not bringing that whole luggage set,
Speaker 1: whole suitcase of information about you, saying, hey, here's all
Speaker 1: my searches, here's everything I looked up. Here's my demographics,
Speaker 1: Here's who I am, Here's how much money I make,
Speaker 1: here's my job. Here take it, okay, now, market me
Speaker 1: everything you possibly can. And so it's just a lot
Speaker 1: tougher for them to sell ads against that, because the
Speaker 1: ads have to be much more general. Anyway, all that
Speaker 1: to say that this will be happening inside apps, and
Speaker 1: what's going to happen, and I already see this happening,
Speaker 1: is that a lot of apps are just going to
Speaker 1: give up on account creation and just make it so
Speaker 1: you have to create your account on the website or
Speaker 1: on the desktop. Oh and then once you create your
Speaker 1: account on the website or the desktop, then you can
Speaker 1: go log into the app. So they're going to get
Speaker 1: around it, of course, any way they can.
Speaker 2: That's just one.
Speaker 1: Way that they will get around it. But I do
Speaker 1: like that apples doing this because I do think it
Speaker 1: gives consumers just a little bit more empowerment over their
Speaker 1: personal data. All Right, Jane says, I've purchased a new
Speaker 1: Mac computer and I want to back up the old
Speaker 1: one as a precaution. Can you recommend a device to
Speaker 1: do that. Thanks, Jane, Jane, very very easy. In fact,
Speaker 1: I just purchased one of these myself. I got quite
Speaker 1: the deal on every day Slick Deals their front page.
Speaker 1: And it's funny, I was shopping for a hard drive.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, did I get third party cookieat and
Speaker 1: that's why I saw this? Now, probably not, But every
Speaker 1: day on slickdeals dot net, I go there and they've
Speaker 1: got a list of like kind of the top deals
Speaker 1: on the web at any given time, and so I
Speaker 1: kind of just checked that every single day.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: So I was looking for a hard drive on Amazon,
Speaker 1: a five terabyte hard drive. It's about one hundred and
Speaker 1: ten dollars on Amazon. And then I saw one on
Speaker 1: slick Deals, a refurbished one, which is fine for my uses,
Speaker 1: and it was only sixty bucks, and so I ordered
Speaker 1: it off eBay refurbished, got it like basically the next day.
Speaker 1: And now I need to download my entire Google Photos
Speaker 1: account to that hard drive as a backup. And so
Speaker 1: that's not what you want to do, Jane. What you
Speaker 1: want to do is back up your Mac computer. And
Speaker 1: the Max have this great feature built into them called
Speaker 1: time Machine.
Speaker 2: And it's very very easy.
Speaker 1: If you want to find it, just go ahead and
Speaker 1: type do command space bar on your machine and type
Speaker 1: in time machine and that should bring you into your
Speaker 1: applications or system preferences for time machine.
Speaker 2: And what time machine does once.
Speaker 1: You do it is all you have to do is
Speaker 1: set a hard drive and external hard drive as your
Speaker 1: time machine, and when that's plugged in, your computer will
Speaker 1: just back up to that hard drive every minute it can.
Speaker 1: So it'll do backups by I think it's by the minute,
Speaker 1: and then by the hour, and then by the day,
Speaker 1: and then by the year, and so or by the
Speaker 1: month and then by the year. So at any given
Speaker 1: time you have these snapshots of your system that you
Speaker 1: can really hone in on. And so if you lost something,
Speaker 1: you know, a year ago, you can go back and
Speaker 1: kind of retrieve it, and if you lost something a
Speaker 1: day ago, you can retrieve it. And so I personally
Speaker 1: don't use that anymore because I don't back up my
Speaker 1: computer in a big way anymore. I back up just
Speaker 1: the stuff to the cloud, So I don't use that,
Speaker 1: but it is a fantastic method for backing up a
Speaker 1: macimmuter very easily. And by the way, if you have
Speaker 1: a Windows computer, this same exact thing is built into
Speaker 1: it as well. I think it's just called Windows backup.
Speaker 1: And so if you go into Windows ten, I think, oh,
Speaker 1: here it is file history. It's called and so you know,
Speaker 1: if you go in there and just just set a
Speaker 1: hard drive, it's in the start menu settings, Update and Security,
Speaker 1: backup at a drive and just just plug in an
Speaker 1: external drive, set that as your location for your backup,
Speaker 1: and just do it. And so you should definitely be
Speaker 1: doing this if if if you are not backing up
Speaker 1: things to the cloud, like I am so personally, the
Speaker 1: only things I don't have anything local on my computer
Speaker 1: that I that I can't lose, So everything I use
Speaker 1: is all from the cloud. So I use Google Docs
Speaker 1: for my docs, I use Google Photos for my photos.
Speaker 1: If I'm storing any documents in my computer, I will
Speaker 1: just use the iCloud drive finder and so that way
Speaker 1: I can have those anywhere I need them. Or I
Speaker 1: use Dropbox for any of my work stuff. So I
Speaker 1: use a lot of different things, but they're all in
Speaker 1: the cloud. Of course, gmails in the cloud. So if
Speaker 1: you don't do that, if you have a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that you kind of just keep on your hard drive. Definitely,
Speaker 1: definitely back it up, and that's the easiest way to
Speaker 1: do it, Jane. And once you back up your computer,
Speaker 1: then you can erase that computer and you can donate
Speaker 1: it or give it to someone, or you know, just
Speaker 1: take it to a recycling center or whatever. But definitely
Speaker 1: don't get rid of that old one without deleting everything
Speaker 1: off of it.
Speaker 2: Great, great question, Jane. All right, let's get to the
Speaker 2: next story of the day.
Speaker 1: Google is testing this smaller street View camera system, which
Speaker 1: is kind of cool. So can you believe that StreetView
Speaker 1: launched fifteen years ago this week?
Speaker 2: I just can't. Like, I remember when.
Speaker 1: StreetView started and I thought it was that's the coolest
Speaker 1: thing I had ever experienced in my life. And I
Speaker 1: think about this on a daily basis. Google has taken
Speaker 1: a picture of every corner of the world, and we
Speaker 1: take for granted that when you're visiting another city, you
Speaker 1: can see exactly.
Speaker 2: What the exterior of your hotel looks like.
Speaker 1: You can walk down the street a little bit and
Speaker 1: see if there's a Starbucks or seven to eleven or
Speaker 1: something else that you might need.
Speaker 2: Once you get there.
Speaker 1: You can walk down your childhood's street and see what
Speaker 1: your house looks like. Now these are things that just
Speaker 1: weren't possible back in the day, and now they are
Speaker 1: and so this is just amazing and the fact that
Speaker 1: we have this is just truly remarkable. We take it
Speaker 1: for granted. And I know, Google this big evil corporation
Speaker 1: that does all this stuff, but you know, they do
Speaker 1: a lot of cool stuff and StreetView is one of
Speaker 1: those cool things. So anyway, they now have a smaller,
Speaker 1: modular street view camera system, which is going to allow
Speaker 1: them to get street view imagery from even more places
Speaker 1: around the world that they couldn't get it before, or
Speaker 1: maybe take those pictures more often, because you know, the
Speaker 1: whole thing about street view is as soon as they
Speaker 1: take those pictures, it's like, now what you got to
Speaker 1: take them again because things change so quickly. So StreetView,
Speaker 1: by the way, a little bit of trivia in case
Speaker 1: you're ever on Jeopardy. StreetView first launched in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: New York, Las Vegas, Miami, and Denver. But what they're
Speaker 1: doing that's now cool is a feature that's been available
Speaker 1: on the desktop for a while, but now they're giving
Speaker 1: it to you on mobile. And this is a feature
Speaker 1: that allows you to go back in time and kind
Speaker 1: of access the historical pictures for that location. So if
Speaker 1: you have a house on a street or a business,
Speaker 1: you can go back and see all the different times
Speaker 1: they took StreetView pictures to see how that business or
Speaker 1: house or whatever has evolved over the years.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: Now, Look, they're not gonna have a ton it's not
Speaker 1: going to be like you can flip through like a
Speaker 1: you know, like you can do a hyper lapse of
Speaker 1: this thing. Like, No, they might have two or three
Speaker 1: years represented because they don't take these pictures very very often.
Speaker 1: For bigger places, they may, But I think that's a
Speaker 1: really cool feature. In fact, this kind of parlays and
Speaker 1: it kind of makes this app idea I've had forever
Speaker 1: kind of move. But I thought it'd be really cool
Speaker 1: to have an app that would let you go and
Speaker 1: see what a place looked like in the past. So
Speaker 1: let's say there was a restaurant that you loved as
Speaker 1: a kid on your street or down down your block.
Speaker 1: You could go in there and see what that restaurant
Speaker 1: is now, or you can see how a restaurant looked
Speaker 1: twenty years ago or thirty years ago or forty years ago. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously there's no street View thirty forty years ago, so
Speaker 1: someone could kind of build this in to this to
Speaker 1: a street View style app, or even maybe if StreetView
Speaker 1: has an API that allows you to use it, maybe
Speaker 1: someone could use that and just build in the.
Speaker 2: Old historical pictures.
Speaker 1: And I think there were a couple of apps like
Speaker 1: this out there, but nothing that was like perfect.
Speaker 2: But I thought that was a pretty cool idea.
Speaker 1: So I just love the idea of being able to
Speaker 1: see all this stuff and it's just kind of fun.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the next question of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Rick Hope, Paul as well, love your segments on Channel five.
Speaker 1: I follow you on Instagram. I'm looking for a recommendation
Speaker 1: to help organize my calendars.
Speaker 2: I fit golf clubs.
Speaker 1: I'm a great club fitter, trying to get better at
Speaker 1: my administration duties. My territory is a bunch of California,
Speaker 1: includes Arizona, New Mexico. I've got club fitters in all
Speaker 1: those regions. My goal is to have a common calendar
Speaker 1: for all. I know Google has one, but I thought
Speaker 1: i'd check with you first. The one device we have
Speaker 1: in common is an iPad. But we all have computers
Speaker 1: as well. Appreciate any input. Thank you, Jim, So Jim,
Speaker 1: great question. I do this with my family. I do
Speaker 1: this with Oh did I already do this question?
Speaker 2: Maybe I did? But use it.
Speaker 1: I just use Google Calendar, and you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: very very simple, and it's very easily shared. It works
Speaker 1: across a wide variety of devices, whether you have iPhone,
Speaker 1: whether you have iPad, whether you have whatever you got,
Speaker 1: it's going to work Android. So Google, and you mentioned
Speaker 1: that in your email is definitely a good option. Now,
Speaker 1: the other option I would look into is if your
Speaker 1: company uses sort of a suite like whether they use Google,
Speaker 1: whether they use Microsoft, whether they use another third party.
Speaker 1: If they do, you might want to use the one
Speaker 1: that's linked to your corporate email. And so, for instance,
Speaker 1: for my work, we use Microsoft and we use three
Speaker 1: sixty five. And so if I was starting a work
Speaker 1: calendar with people that I only interfaced with work.
Speaker 2: I would probably use that because.
Speaker 1: It would interface with my work email client. But I
Speaker 1: use Google, and I share it with a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of people. I've got shared calendars with my wife, I've
Speaker 1: got them shared with my some of my employee or
Speaker 1: my photographer at work. I've got it shared with my
Speaker 1: family members back home and so it works very well. Now,
Speaker 1: the other thing, since you do have an iPad you
Speaker 1: might want to look into is iCloud, and so you
Speaker 1: can do a shared iCloud calendar and that's going to
Speaker 1: integrate really nicely into the calendar app on the iPad.
Speaker 1: If you want to just use that, it's simple, but
Speaker 1: that would require someone to set up the iCloud account
Speaker 1: with the calendar and then share it out and of
Speaker 1: obviously someone kind of being the administrator of that.
Speaker 2: But that's going to be true of any of these.
Speaker 2: So those are the things I'd recommend, you know.
Speaker 1: The big ones are Google, Microsoft Outlook, and then the iCloud,
Speaker 1: and there's probably some others out there that I'm not
Speaker 1: thinking about right now. I'm sure there's many many corporate solutions,
Speaker 1: but I would say those calendar options are probably the best.
Speaker 1: So have fun on the golf course. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: play a lot. I never really took up golf. I
Speaker 1: did for a little bit. My father in law and
Speaker 1: my brother in law are obsessed about golf. I mean
Speaker 1: to the point of, you know, when I'm hanging out
Speaker 1: with them, I'm almost edged out of the conversation because
Speaker 1: I just don't talk golf. I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 1: I tried playing golf when it was worst timing ever.
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I've got to take up golf.
Speaker 1: My father in law plays it, my brother in law
Speaker 1: plays it. I've got to play golf. And so you
Speaker 1: have never seen a more excited father in law in
Speaker 1: your entire life than me saying, Hey, I'm going to
Speaker 1: take up golf. And it was like the eyes just
Speaker 1: lit up, like finally I've gotten my goal of having
Speaker 1: a son in law that plays golf. And so we
Speaker 1: started playing and I, you know, got the clubs. I
Speaker 1: got the shoes, hand me down clubs. I got the
Speaker 1: golf bag, hand me down golf bag. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: on the golf course on the weekends on Saturday. I'm
Speaker 1: going to hit balls after work. And then we were
Speaker 1: going to have our first kid, and that was all
Speaker 1: derailed because six months to before you have a kid
Speaker 1: is not the time to pick up golf.
Speaker 2: Because once I had my kid, there was just no
Speaker 2: time for golf at all.
Speaker 1: And now it's it's funny because that my kid is
Speaker 1: ten years old, my oldest, and it seems like, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems like just yesterday I was I was trying
Speaker 1: to pick up this sport and it's been a decade.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's wow.
Speaker 1: I got to think about that for a moment. Is
Speaker 1: he really ten? Oh that's unbelievable. And so I think
Speaker 1: he's turning ten this year. Actually, Oh my gosh, what
Speaker 1: a major fail. Anyway, Yeah, so the point is, don't
Speaker 1: try to pick up golf right before you're having a kid.
Speaker 2: And it's really fun.
Speaker 1: I just you know, I didn't really get good at
Speaker 1: it in a quick way, but I did think it
Speaker 1: was fun. Also, to me, it was really tough to
Speaker 1: justify spending you know, five hours with you know, on
Speaker 1: a golf course on a Saturday morning, you know, with
Speaker 1: the kid and you know, the first kid, and all
Speaker 1: the things I had to do, and it was just
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: So I do see the appeal of it though, for sure.
Speaker 1: I mean, the beauty of these golf courses, hanging out
Speaker 1: with the guys or your friends. It's just so fun
Speaker 1: and it's just it's a I mean, it's a frustrating game,
Speaker 1: but it's also a very fun game. And really it's
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of quality time with your friends.
Speaker 1: So I get it. I have nothing against golf, believe me.
Speaker 1: If I could, if someone can magically impart the golf
Speaker 1: skills to me, I would definitely take it. And uh yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: all right, let's get to the next Uh what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do?
Speaker 2: Should I do another question? Let me do another question,
Speaker 2: Let's do another question? Why not?
Speaker 1: Margie says, I watched your segment on creating space on
Speaker 1: an iPhone.
Speaker 2: I'm confused.
Speaker 1: Uh oh, that's never good. If I follow the instruction
Speaker 1: to turn on optimize iPhone storage, does that stop photos
Speaker 1: from being deleted from my iCloud. I couldn't tell if
Speaker 1: that was an alternative for them being deleted or just
Speaker 1: going to a different subject. In other words, is it
Speaker 1: always the case that if I delete a photo from
Speaker 1: my iPhone, it will be deleted from the iCloud? I
Speaker 1: wanted to clarify before I delete any Thank you for
Speaker 1: the important information you give us. The answer is yes,
Speaker 1: they will be deleted. The iPhone is a mirror of iCloud, and.
Speaker 2: That's just the way it is.
Speaker 1: So if you have what I recommended in my segment,
Speaker 1: if you're trying to free up space on the iPhone
Speaker 1: is to make sure in your iCloud Iphotos storage options
Speaker 1: on your phone is to have something called Optimize iPhone
Speaker 1: Storage turned on. And what that does is it keeps
Speaker 1: a low res version of the photos on your phone,
Speaker 1: so you can still scroll through them, but then it
Speaker 1: keeps the full res version in the cloud, and so
Speaker 1: it can it can really free up a lot of
Speaker 1: space on your phone by not holding that high resolution
Speaker 1: picture on your device. It's still there, it's just in
Speaker 1: the cloud and when you need it, when you tap,
Speaker 1: it just comes back magically.
Speaker 2: So what happens when you delete something from your phone.
Speaker 1: You might be thinking, well, I can delete it from
Speaker 1: my iPhone and it's safe and sound in the cloud.
Speaker 2: No it's not.
Speaker 1: It is absolutely not safe. Anything that you delete from
Speaker 1: your iPhone is going to be deleted from iCloud.
Speaker 2: That's just the way it works. Now.
Speaker 1: This is why I recommend third party apps like Google Photos.
Speaker 2: I like Iedrive Photos as well.
Speaker 1: If you want something that's really inexpensive, Amazon Photos is good.
Speaker 1: If you have Amazon Prime, you can use drop Box,
Speaker 1: you can use one box, one Box, you can use
Speaker 1: one drive. I mean there's a million photo storage apps
Speaker 1: out there, and the reason I like those apps slightly
Speaker 1: better than iCloud is that it's a little bit more straightforward.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a one way sync.
Speaker 1: So you know when you're deleting a picture in Google
Speaker 1: Photos that it is deleting off your phone and from
Speaker 1: Google Photos. But it's not as clear when you're deleting
Speaker 1: a picture off of iCloud or off of your photos
Speaker 1: app on your iPhone that it's deleting out of your iCloud.
Speaker 2: So that's why I use Google Photos. I just feel
Speaker 2: like it's.
Speaker 1: Much easier because it's a one way sync. The pictures
Speaker 1: go up, they don't come back down, and they just
Speaker 1: stay up there on less. I go into Google Photos
Speaker 1: and kind of just kind of pare down things, which
Speaker 1: I mentioned in my last podcast. I'll just take some time,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll just take some time at the end
Speaker 1: of the day and just go through my Google Photos
Speaker 1: and just kind of like pare down a couple of
Speaker 1: big videos. I'll just look through and be like, do
Speaker 1: I really need this stuff anymore?
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've been editing a lot of those reels lately, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the video that I shoot for that
Speaker 1: I don't need.
Speaker 2: After I make the reel, because it's.
Speaker 1: Just kind of nonsense, not nonsense video, but it's just
Speaker 1: b roll that we just don't need anymore. And so
Speaker 1: you know that's that's something I can just go through
Speaker 1: and delete. But good question, and just you know, back up,
Speaker 1: back up, back up, back up, back up, that's what
Speaker 1: you need to do.
Speaker 2: Back up your stuff, back that phone up. All right.
Speaker 1: Next story here, Walmart is expanding drone delivery. And this
Speaker 1: is really this is kind of tough to believe. And
Speaker 1: the reason why I don't fully believe all this stuff
Speaker 1: is because I've reached out to so many of these
Speaker 1: companies that are doing stuff like this, and they always
Speaker 1: tell me no, no, no, no, no no, we don't
Speaker 1: want you to cover this. We're not ready, We're not ready,
Speaker 1: We're not ready. So I see this headline from CNBC
Speaker 1: that says Walmart is expanding its drone delivery to reach
Speaker 1: four million households. Yet, I can guarantee you if I
Speaker 1: emailed Walmart and said, hey, can I come out to
Speaker 1: Arizona or Texas or Utah and check this out in person,
Speaker 1: they'd say, no, not right now, We're not ready for primetime.
Speaker 1: When companies tell me they're not ready to have me
Speaker 1: cover something. I'm always a little bit suspect to the technology.
Speaker 1: So now I'm not saying I have not asked Walmart
Speaker 1: to do this, and I'm I'm just saying in general,
Speaker 1: this happens a lot. But this is really hard to believe.
Speaker 1: So Walmart is expanding drone delivery across six states with
Speaker 1: this operator called drone Up. So they've got thirty seven
Speaker 1: sites that they are delivering from across six states. Now
Speaker 1: that sounds like a lot, but when you do the math,
Speaker 1: it's four million people. And the whole point of this
Speaker 1: idea of these brick and mortar stores is that Walmart,
Speaker 1: like this article says, ninety percent of Americans live within
Speaker 1: ten minutes of a Walmart. That's amazing, right until you
Speaker 1: read the fine print. So the deliveries by air are
Speaker 1: being fulfilled from a total of thirty seven stores, but
Speaker 1: thirty four of those are run by drone Up, which
Speaker 1: means these are probably what's called a dark store, which.
Speaker 2: Means no one can actually go in those stores.
Speaker 1: So it's a warehouse that is like a Walmart, but
Speaker 1: there's no public facing part of that Walmart. So really
Speaker 1: only three of their stores are actually delivering these drones
Speaker 1: from So how do these drones work? This is quite unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Customers who live within the range of a Walmart Delivery
Speaker 1: drone site and order thousands of items between eight am
Speaker 1: and eight pm. Drone Delivery has a four dollars fee.
Speaker 1: You can order up to ten pounds. The order is
Speaker 1: picked and packaged and loaded onto a drone and then
Speaker 1: it's flown remotely by a certified pilot to your driveway
Speaker 1: or yard, and a cable on the drone slowly lowers
Speaker 1: the package. Now, I don't know about you, but I've
Speaker 1: got kids, and if I get a drone delivery, I
Speaker 1: can guarantee you my kids are running out into the
Speaker 1: backyard or the driveway, and what's the first thing they're
Speaker 1: gonna do. They're gonna yank on that drone cable And
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Number one is very dangerous? What
Speaker 1: if that drone falls on them? Number two? What if
Speaker 1: they get tangled up in this cable? Number three?
Speaker 2: That's gonna mess things up in general.
Speaker 1: Number four. This sounds amazing, but the reality of a
Speaker 1: drone landing in your driveway or backyard, it just seems
Speaker 1: a little bit unrealistic, especially in urban areas. Now, maybe
Speaker 1: they're testing this in more suburban or remote areas where
Speaker 1: it's a little wider uh swath that these things can
Speaker 1: land on, but it seems pretty pretty wild. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love that they're doing this, Believe, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1: I think this it's amazing. I mean, what people are
Speaker 1: ordering this is just so so ironic. At one store,
Speaker 1: the top seller for drone delivery is get this Hamburger helper. Now,
Speaker 1: how bad do you need Hamburger helper that you are
Speaker 1: paying three ninety nine on top of your your Walmart
Speaker 1: price for a by the way, hamburger helper at Walmart?
Speaker 1: What is it a dollar ninety eight? So you're paying
Speaker 1: three ninety nine to get Hamburger helper delivered to your
Speaker 1: house by drone. That just doesn't sound right. Other frequent
Speaker 1: items delivered by drone are batteries, trash bags, laundry, detergent,
Speaker 1: Welch's fruit snacks. I mean, come on, what I mean,
Speaker 1: I get it where it's just you know, the things
Speaker 1: that people get delivered that you just, you know, don't
Speaker 1: really feel like going out for. But that's just really
Speaker 1: really I mean here's all this amazing technology.
Speaker 2: I could I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was gonna say I would see getting
Speaker 1: baby formula or something like that, but it's like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, you can't even get that right now, When
Speaker 1: has that ever happened in the history of America. Walmart's
Speaker 1: going to use the drones to make money in another way.
Speaker 1: According to this article from CNBC, it's going to sell
Speaker 1: photographs taken by the drones to municipalities and local businesses
Speaker 1: like construction or real estate companies. So what does that mean?
Speaker 1: They're going to be taking pictures as they go along
Speaker 1: of all these neighborhoods, kind of like a street view camera.
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes sense because they're flying low and
Speaker 1: they can get really clear pictures of things, and it's
Speaker 1: probably just automatic as they're sailing away. But what an
Speaker 1: interesting Oh my gosh. All right, since I do have
Speaker 1: a couple of you on Instagram, I will take a
Speaker 1: few questions from Instagram, So get those questions in while
Speaker 1: I read the final story, and then I'll do a
Speaker 1: couple questions off Instagram before I go.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see here.
Speaker 1: This is Microsoft had their big the Old conference this week,
Speaker 1: and you know, This is kind of a little bit
Speaker 1: more you know, I try to keep this show consumer focused.
Speaker 1: Build is a little bit more developer focused, or I
Speaker 1: guess a lot developer focused. But one of the things
Speaker 1: that they introduced is called power platform, and they introduced
Speaker 1: something called power pages. And what I like about this
Speaker 1: is it's a simple way for businesses to create modern
Speaker 1: and secure websites without a lot of code. So you
Speaker 1: can start designing a website from the ground up. You
Speaker 1: can add text, video, images, forms, and you can use
Speaker 1: one of the templates to get started. So again, this
Speaker 1: is called power Pages. I just feel like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of kind of website builders out there that are
Speaker 1: not very good or cost a lot of money, and
Speaker 1: so there are you know, I haven't done this in
Speaker 1: a while, built a business website, but you know, try
Speaker 1: to use these tools that like this is probably a
Speaker 1: decent one. I know Google has one, but you know
Speaker 1: there's I just wanted to mention.
Speaker 2: It because it's called power pages.
Speaker 1: And it's something just to help you make easy website sites.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see if we've got any questions now
Speaker 1: on the chat. Let's see here, someone, let's see s
Speaker 1: more stup to get the names on here. Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: can you download iCloud photos? And if so, how will
Speaker 1: it take the pictures off my phone?
Speaker 2: If I do that?
Speaker 1: Someone told me, and I've not tested this in a while,
Speaker 1: but someone said, you can go to iCloud dot com
Speaker 1: and download the photos. The other way to download them
Speaker 1: is to go to the photos app on a Mac
Speaker 1: and you can download them from there. But once you
Speaker 1: download them, you'd still have to delete them off your phone,
Speaker 1: so it wouldn't really it wouldn't delete them if you
Speaker 1: downloaded them from a different way.
Speaker 2: They used to have a.
Speaker 1: Way that you could do it third party, but of course,
Speaker 1: you know, Google Photos, iCloud, they've all kind of cut
Speaker 1: off third party access to their websites and so you
Speaker 1: can't really download these things easily now. They do that
Speaker 1: mostly for security reasons and mostly so you don't mess
Speaker 1: things up, but it's also, you know, they're just trying
Speaker 1: to control the entire situation.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: Mama Laura says, what's the best smartphone for older people?
Speaker 1: My mom has an iPhone, but I'm thinking of getting
Speaker 1: her a Jitterbug. I have no problem with the jitterbug
Speaker 1: if it's a you know what, I don't like about
Speaker 1: the Jitterbug is that you have to go with their service,
Speaker 1: and obviously Jitterbug is going to be just a little
Speaker 1: bit more expensive maybe than going with your own thing.
Speaker 1: But I do like how these phones are kind of simple.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're the most powerful phones in the world.
Speaker 1: I think that there might be some contracts with these phones,
Speaker 1: but they do offer a flip phone, which I think
Speaker 1: is really nice. The other alternative to the flip phone
Speaker 1: is look up Alcatl Alca t E L and they've
Speaker 1: got Alcatl still makes some flip phones and you've got
Speaker 1: it from T Mobile, maybe a couple other but I
Speaker 1: would go on Amazon personally, I would just go on
Speaker 1: Amazon and look up unlocked flip phone and let's.
Speaker 2: Just see what they've got here.
Speaker 1: So they've got a three G flip phone that'll work
Speaker 1: on AT and T or T Mobile. And they've got
Speaker 1: a zte flip phone that'll work on T Mobile. They've
Speaker 1: got another flip phone that will work on T Mobile.
Speaker 1: Most of them are T Mobile, but you can go
Speaker 1: with the Samsung z flip Now just kidding, that's like
Speaker 1: a nine hundred dollars phone.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you've got oh here we go. This is
Speaker 2: really good.
Speaker 1: Alcatel Go Flip forty forty four four g LT unlocked
Speaker 1: for all carriers. That is going to be fantastic. That
Speaker 1: means you can use it on AT and T, you
Speaker 1: can use it on T Mobile, you can use it
Speaker 1: on Mint, you can use it on straight Talk. So
Speaker 1: what I would do is get one of these phones
Speaker 1: for a hundred bucks, and then I would just go
Speaker 1: to Target. I would go to best Buy, maybe just
Speaker 1: Target or Walmart, and I would go get one of
Speaker 1: these prepaid plans and just go for the cheapest plan.
Speaker 1: Like if you're if your senior in does not need
Speaker 1: a lot of minutes, just literally go with like the
Speaker 1: cheapest plan that you can get monthly for ten dollars
Speaker 1: for just like.
Speaker 2: Mostly calls and text.
Speaker 1: So that's what I would recommend doing because that's gonna
Speaker 1: be the cheapest and the easiest overall.
Speaker 2: Let's see here.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, so many questions here, thoughts on radiation
Speaker 1: from wireless earbuds versus wired I've seen some people sharing concerns.
Speaker 1: You know, look, I think there's always concern I just
Speaker 1: don't I don't personally think there's a lot of concern
Speaker 1: with the wireless. The thing I'm most concerned about, honestly
Speaker 1: is the fact that I wear an Apple watch that
Speaker 1: has a lte A cellular and a Wi Fi connection
Speaker 1: that is bearing down into my wrist all day long.
Speaker 2: And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's been a lot of studies about you know,
Speaker 1: cancer and wireless radiation. None of them have been truly
Speaker 1: conclusive in a huge way, and so most of the
Speaker 1: people have been going under the guise of these things
Speaker 1: are generally safe. But it's also only been you know what,
Speaker 1: thirty years that we've had these things forty years perhaps maybe, Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I do think that it's something to be concerned about.
Speaker 2: I think it's.
Speaker 1: It's something that you know, I definitely think about, But
Speaker 1: I just I just don't know what I can you know,
Speaker 1: what you can do about it? All right, Let's see
Speaker 1: another question here, financed with Jessica says, do you know
Speaker 1: any good websites for kids to learn how to code?
Speaker 1: I would definitely check out Swift Playgrounds. I mean that's
Speaker 1: really like Apple's Swift Playgrounds is like fantastic and you
Speaker 1: can code like it kind of teach you the basics
Speaker 1: of coding Apple apps, and we know that Apple is
Speaker 1: kind of king of apps, so I would definitely start there.
Speaker 1: My kids played with it last summer during the pandemic
Speaker 1: and it was pretty cool. They it's like a little
Speaker 1: game that you play that you learn how to code
Speaker 1: and then code dot org. I would definitely try checking
Speaker 1: out code dot org as well. And that's that's another
Speaker 1: one where you can go and that's totally free. L
Speaker 1: pexso says Amazon Photos or Google which one's better?
Speaker 2: Personally?
Speaker 1: Like Google Photos, but if you just want a simple
Speaker 1: way that's free. If you have Amazon Prime membership, definitely
Speaker 1: go with Amazon Photos.
Speaker 2: They've got a lot of the same features.
Speaker 1: It's not as fully featured as Google Photos, but Amazon
Speaker 1: Photos is actually still pretty good, So I would do that.
Speaker 1: How do I get Google Authenticator app to work on
Speaker 1: my iPhone? I used to have an Android but lost
Speaker 1: it and now have iPhone. I can't use it on
Speaker 1: my iPhone frustrating.
Speaker 2: I don't know why.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Google Authenticator. The way it works is
Speaker 1: that you have to transfer it to another device while
Speaker 1: you have it active on the other device. Now that
Speaker 1: may have changed. It's been a while since I used Authenticator.
Speaker 1: A couple alternatives is Microsoft Authenticator and then also something
Speaker 1: called auth the au thy and so I think that
Speaker 1: those are slightly better than Google Authenticator. But I also
Speaker 1: think that you if you reset up Google Authenticator, they
Speaker 1: now have an option that makes it work a little
Speaker 1: bit better across multiple devices. Oh my gosh, what how
Speaker 1: did that happen so fast? I feel like I just
Speaker 1: sat down to do this podcast. That sound means that's gonna.
Speaker 2: Do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
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 hit the email icon. Also,
Speaker 1: I would love it if you would rate and review
Speaker 1: this podcast. Just go to the listening app of your
Speaker 1: choice write a quick line about what you like about
Speaker 1: this show to help other people understand why they should listen.
Speaker 2: You can find me on social media.
Speaker 1: I am at rich on Tech, and no matter where
Speaker 1: you live in the US, you can download the free
Speaker 1: KTLA plus app on Apple TV, fireTV, and Roku. Not
Speaker 1: only can you watch the live stream of KTLA, but
Speaker 1: you can also 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 with me. Stay safe,
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you real soon