Speaker 1: A camera shootout iPhone versus Pixel. Uber launches a rewards program.
Speaker 1: Apple recalls some of its gadgets. Amazon kicks off Black
Speaker 1: Friday early, and Spotify comes to the Apple Watch well
Speaker 1: kind of sort of what's going on. I'm Rich Demiro.
Speaker 1: This is Rich on Tech and this is a longer
Speaker 1: version of the show where I'm gonna go over some
Speaker 1: of the hottest topics in the tech world happening this week.
Speaker 1: Not everything, but this is the stuff that I think
Speaker 1: you should know about. And let's start with Amazon, because
Speaker 1: they are kicking off Black Friday a little bit early.
Speaker 1: Seven days of deals. They've got lots of them. They're
Speaker 1: calling it seven Days of Black Friday Deals, and now
Speaker 1: through November twenty third, which is Black Friday. Amazon is
Speaker 1: just really trying to do a lot of stuff to
Speaker 1: get you to shop on their website. And Amazon is
Speaker 1: kind of a powerhouse when it comes to to Black Friday.
Speaker 1: They do all these exclusive deals. Prime members, I feel
Speaker 1: like have been a little bit edged out this year
Speaker 1: because now Amazon is offering free shipping with no minimum
Speaker 1: purchase to everyone, not just Prime members this holiday season,
Speaker 1: and for Prime members they're giving free same day shipping,
Speaker 1: so I did order something the other day. It was
Speaker 1: actually thirty five dollars for free same day shipping, and
Speaker 1: I saw the credit on my order where it said
Speaker 1: it will give me that for free. So if you're
Speaker 1: a Prime member, you're not totally out. They are giving
Speaker 1: you some perks as well for that one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty dollars you pay for the year.
Speaker 2: So what are some of these.
Speaker 1: Deals that Amazon has going on. Well, the majority of
Speaker 1: them are on Amazon devices. Obviously, this is when Amazon
Speaker 1: pulls out all the stops, so they are discounting these heavily.
Speaker 1: Let me go over some of those Amazon devices. So
Speaker 1: starting November sixteenth, if you have your eye on one
Speaker 1: of the Fire tablets, those are anywhere from thirty to
Speaker 1: fifty dollars off. So, for instance, the all new Fire
Speaker 1: HD ten tablet is one hundred bucks versus one fifty
Speaker 1: starting November eighteenth, the new fireTV Stick four K, which
Speaker 1: is kind of their highest powered stick, is fifteen dollars off,
Speaker 1: so that's only thirty five dollars. On November twenty second,
Speaker 1: you can get the all new Echo Dot for twenty
Speaker 1: four dollars. You can get the all new Echo Plus
Speaker 1: for one hundred and nine dollars, which is forty dollars off.
Speaker 1: You can get an Amazon Smart plug for just five
Speaker 1: dollars with any Echo purchase, or you can get the
Speaker 1: Kindle paper White for forty dollars off. That's eighty dollars.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I actually purchased is this
Speaker 1: new fireTV recast, which is their new DVR for over
Speaker 1: the air. I paid two hundred and twenty nine dollars
Speaker 1: for that, and it's on sale now for one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty dollars. So I'm actually gonna go ahead and
Speaker 1: call up Amazon and see if they will honor the
Speaker 1: new price, because that's fifty dollars. That's a significant amount
Speaker 1: of money. They also have some deals on TVs. Fifty
Speaker 1: dollars off a Toshiba thirty two inch TV, the fireTV Edition,
Speaker 1: which I really like. By the way, this has Amazon
Speaker 1: software built into it. That's only one hundred and thirty dollars.
Speaker 1: Or if you want a bigger TV, you can get
Speaker 1: a Toshiba fifty inch four KTV, again a fireTV Edition,
Speaker 1: for only three hundred dollars. And if you have Amazon's
Speaker 1: assistant lurking in your house, and if you have Amazon's
Speaker 1: assistant in your house, I will not say the name
Speaker 1: starting November seventeenth at nine pm Pacific until November twenty.
Speaker 1: First you can ask her what are my deals, and
Speaker 1: Prime members will get exclusive early access to some Amazon
Speaker 1: device deals. Moving on to Apple now, they've launched a
Speaker 1: couple of repair programs to know about. The first is
Speaker 1: for the thirteen inch non touchbar MacBook Pro. That's the
Speaker 1: computer that I have. Apparently these have an issue with
Speaker 1: their solid state drives, which basically might crash. And when
Speaker 1: a solid state drive crashes, it is not pretty.
Speaker 2: You do lo everything.
Speaker 1: It's not like a regular hard drive where you might
Speaker 1: be able to recover some of the data on it.
Speaker 2: So this is serious.
Speaker 1: If you have a MacBook Pro one of the newer
Speaker 1: models between June twenty seventeen and June twenty eighteen, you'd
Speaker 1: definitely want to go to this Apple website, pop in
Speaker 1: your serial number and see if it's one of those affected.
Speaker 1: It's only the one twenty eight gigabyte and two fifty
Speaker 1: six gigabyte size hard drives on those devices, So if
Speaker 1: you have one of those that sounds like your MacBook
Speaker 1: Pro even remotely, you might as well just pop your
Speaker 1: serial number in.
Speaker 2: I put mine in.
Speaker 1: I actually have a five hundred and twelve gigabyte drive,
Speaker 1: so mine was not affected according to the Apple website,
Speaker 1: but if it is, they will do a free repair.
Speaker 1: And on the iPhone ten, Apple says some devices might
Speaker 1: have touch issues because of a component inside that is failing.
Speaker 1: The display might not respond to your touch, it might
Speaker 1: respond only sometimes, or it might react like you're touching
Speaker 1: it even though you're not. So again, this is something
Speaker 1: that Apple will repair for, and you can put your
Speaker 1: serial number into their website. It will tell you if
Speaker 1: it's affected. But if you have an issue with your phone,
Speaker 1: like a crack screen, they're not just gonna go ahead
Speaker 1: and give you a new device. In fact, I found
Speaker 1: this out the hard way when I brought my wife's
Speaker 1: device in for a repair. I thought they would just
Speaker 1: give me a fully refurbished model, just swap it out.
Speaker 1: They said, oh no, we noticed there's a scratch on
Speaker 1: her screen. We will actually repair the device inside after
Speaker 1: you accept our terms. And I got back the same
Speaker 1: exact phone that I dropped off there. So don't think
Speaker 1: you're gonna get an upgrade just because Apple is repairing
Speaker 1: your device. This I thought was pretty interesting. Uber is
Speaker 1: launching a rewards program, and I am a rewards program guy.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are out there. I
Speaker 1: think American Airlines actually invented the first major airline rewards program,
Speaker 1: and now we know that just about every product, service, website,
Speaker 1: retailer they love these rewards programs.
Speaker 2: Why because they get in there.
Speaker 1: And if you think about it, the way that all
Speaker 1: these rewards programs work is they kind of muddle the math,
Speaker 1: so you don't really know. Like let's say, for instance, Walgreens.
Speaker 1: You know they've got like a thousand points if you
Speaker 1: buy this product, and five thousand points you have to
Speaker 1: save up to get a dollar off whatever it is.
Speaker 1: The reality is we can't do this math in our head.
Speaker 1: It doesn't automatically translate for the money we're spending to
Speaker 1: what the rewards we get. So it's kind of this
Speaker 1: mystical thing where we just keep spending. Like the Starbucks
Speaker 1: rewards program. I know it's one hundred and twenty five stars.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I get those stars, but I do.
Speaker 1: And once I get those stars, I know I get
Speaker 1: that free drink, which, by the way, always buy the
Speaker 1: most expensive drink. When you get those when you redeem
Speaker 1: those stars, because it could be, you know, the most
Speaker 1: expensive drink and you.
Speaker 2: Still get it for free.
Speaker 1: Uber Rewards is their first program. There's four membership levels.
Speaker 1: You've got Blue, You've got Gold, You've got Platinum and Diamond,
Speaker 1: and basically anyone can sign up for free. And once
Speaker 1: you're in the program, you get one point per dollar
Speaker 1: spent on Uber Pool and Uber Eats, two points for
Speaker 1: Uber Uber XL, select three points for Black and Black
Speaker 1: SUV and then once you get five hundred points, you
Speaker 1: go from Blue to Gold. Then at twenty five hundred
Speaker 1: points you go to Platinum. Then at seventy five hundred
Speaker 1: points you get to Diamond, which is a status I
Speaker 1: want to achieve. Earning speriods are six months long, so
Speaker 1: basically you have six months to earn the points that
Speaker 1: you need for the next kind of jump in your status,
Speaker 1: and then once you get to that status, you get
Speaker 1: to keep it for the rest of those six months
Speaker 1: plus the next six months. So it's basically a rolling
Speaker 1: six month program. So let's say it's February, you reach
Speaker 1: the Platinum tier. Six months after you know, let's say
Speaker 1: there's four months left for those six months, you would
Speaker 1: have four months plus another six months after that. So
Speaker 1: what are the perks of this new program. Well, the
Speaker 1: number one thing you get when you reach Gold is
Speaker 1: flexible cancelations. So that's kind of nice because right now
Speaker 1: Uber has really kind of made canceling a little bit
Speaker 1: tougher because if you cancel, you meet get hit with
Speaker 1: this little fee that you can get reversed if you
Speaker 1: go into the app, into the help section and say
Speaker 1: hey Uber and you explain the situation, which I've done
Speaker 1: many times, they will credit that fee almost instantly. But still,
Speaker 1: this is kind of nice because it's it's pretty much
Speaker 1: automatic that you get those fees or you get that
Speaker 1: flexible cancelation. You also get priority support. Now once you
Speaker 1: get to Gold, you get price protection on a route,
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool, so you can lock in
Speaker 1: lower prices between your two favorite places on uber x.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you commute using uber x from
Speaker 1: your house to work. You can use that as you're
Speaker 1: two locked in locations, and whether it is surge pricing
Speaker 1: or not, you're going to get a pretty good price
Speaker 1: on your route between those two places. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of a nice thing as well. Then once you're platinum,
Speaker 1: you get priority pickups to reduce weight times at airports,
Speaker 1: which is really nice. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: complain about how long it takes to get picked up
Speaker 1: at Lax with Uber. I did this one. It did
Speaker 1: take a long time. I ended up using the taxi
Speaker 1: line after that, and I have gone back to Uber
Speaker 1: on several occasions. I haven't found it to be that long,
Speaker 1: but they do. They haven't been some sort of waiting
Speaker 1: area that takes them a while to get through in Lax.
Speaker 1: Traffic in general has gotten pretty bad around that horseshoe
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with it, so I think that's part
Speaker 1: of the problem as well. And if you want to
Speaker 1: get to the highest level, this is diamond. Diamond gets
Speaker 1: dedicated phone support twenty four to seven, and my favorite part,
Speaker 1: complementary surprise upgrades from Uber X to premium products like
Speaker 1: Uber Black at no extra charge. And I love this.
Speaker 1: You get access to the best drivers, which I always
Speaker 1: thought was kind of a good idea. I know when
Speaker 1: Uber first started they said that the best passengers were
Speaker 1: linked up with the best driver. So if you were
Speaker 1: a five star passenger, their algorithm would try to pair
Speaker 1: you with five star drivers. I don't think that happens anymore,
Speaker 1: just based on personal experience where I have a pretty
Speaker 1: decent score, but I can tell you I'm getting drivers
Speaker 1: that are not very good. Sometimes it feels like it's
Speaker 1: their first stage driving. So Uber Reward starts in nine
Speaker 1: cities immediately. Those nine cities are Miami, New Jersey, Denver, Tampa,
Speaker 1: New York, Washington, d C, Philadelphia, Atlanta, and San Diego.
Speaker 1: The good news is if you're not on one of
Speaker 1: those lists, they will be rolling it out everywhere very
Speaker 1: soon in the next few months. But every dollar you
Speaker 1: spend today will actually count towards your first status when
Speaker 1: the program launches in your city, So that's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Rich on Tech podcast. This is
Speaker 1: where I talk technology and help you get the most
Speaker 1: out of your gadgets. We're talking about some of the
Speaker 1: top tech stories this week and the things that I
Speaker 1: think you should know. Moving on now, Spotify finally came
Speaker 1: out with an app for Apple Watch. So if you
Speaker 1: update your Spotify app on your iPhone, you'll notice there
Speaker 1: is a new companion app for your Apple Watch.
Speaker 2: It's not the.
Speaker 1: App that everyone wanted. What everyone wants right now on
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch is Spotify to allow you to download
Speaker 1: your songs to your watch. So good case could use.
Speaker 1: Case scenario would be me, I went for a run
Speaker 1: yesterday just with the Apple Watch and the AirPods. It'd
Speaker 1: be great if I could just use my Spotify playlist
Speaker 1: on the Apple Watch, even though I don't have a
Speaker 1: cellular connection as I kind of run along without my phone.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the dream we're looking forward to here
Speaker 1: that is not happening.
Speaker 2: What you do get is the.
Speaker 1: Ability to control your playlist, so you can actually go
Speaker 1: on your Apple Watch, choose one of your Spotify playlists,
Speaker 1: have it start playing. Then you can direct where you
Speaker 1: want that to play, whether it plays on sort of
Speaker 1: a speaker, an airplay speaker, or your phone.
Speaker 2: You can do that.
Speaker 1: You can also listen to your podcast again basically just
Speaker 1: controlling them. And you can also heart songs, so if
Speaker 1: you see a song that you like, or you're listening
Speaker 1: to your phone and you hear a song that you
Speaker 1: like on Spotify, you can just lift up your watch
Speaker 1: and from your wrist give that song a little heart
Speaker 1: and it will be in your library so you can
Speaker 1: find it again easy later. The reality is we can't
Speaker 1: wait for the offline listening feature to come to the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch. And they do say that this is kind
Speaker 1: of the first version of this whole thing, and there
Speaker 1: will be more updates coming soon.
Speaker 2: I cannot wait.
Speaker 1: And yes, one of those updates will be the ability
Speaker 1: to listen to your music and podcasts offline. There are
Speaker 1: so many great rivalries in this world. If you're in
Speaker 1: the LA area this weekend, it's a big football weekend,
Speaker 1: it's USC versus UCLA. Of course, you've got coke versus Pepsi.
Speaker 1: But I like to think of the biggest one of all,
Speaker 1: Google versus Apple, and that's when it comes to these smartphones.
Speaker 1: I think a bigger rivalry is really Apple versus Samsung
Speaker 1: in years past. But here's the thing. The iPhone has
Speaker 1: the most popular camera in the world. Right This is
Speaker 1: the camera that is in everyone's pocket. You pull it out,
Speaker 1: you take a picture, you're on your merry way.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, along comes the pixel from Google. And this really
Speaker 1: shakes things up because the camera uh on the Google
Speaker 1: pixel is so good. It's almost scary how good the
Speaker 1: camera is on the pixel. And I'm not saying the
Speaker 1: pictures always look better in every situation. I think that
Speaker 1: the iPhone takes some fantastic, realistic looking pictures, but the
Speaker 1: pixel really shows you what you can do with a
Speaker 1: smartphone camera with one lens with a little bit of
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence backing it up. Now, the new iPhone ten
Speaker 1: S has this feature called smart HDR, which combines multiple
Speaker 1: frames for one great looking shot on the pixel. They've
Speaker 1: been doing this for a long time. They call it
Speaker 1: HDR plus, and they kind of back this all, like
Speaker 1: I said, with a little artificial intelligence. And so they're
Speaker 1: taking several pictures at once, mixing the best attributes of
Speaker 1: those pictures, and in Google's case, kind of bumping it
Speaker 1: up just a little bit with what they've learned from
Speaker 1: their computational awareness of these things. So Google does a
Speaker 1: really nice job of kind of really making pictures pop,
Speaker 1: and they are very clear. So I took both phones
Speaker 1: to Times Square couple weeks ago to see, you know,
Speaker 1: how they performed side by side. I bought this little
Speaker 1: thing on Amazon, kind of a little holder where both
Speaker 1: phones are able to snap in side by side and
Speaker 1: you can hold it up and take both pictures at
Speaker 1: the same exact time. And so the first thing I
Speaker 1: did was take some video of me walking, and look,
Speaker 1: the video looked perfect on both phones. Now, I used
Speaker 1: to think that the Pixel had better stabilization than the iPhone,
Speaker 1: but I'll be honest, when I was walking, I couldn't
Speaker 1: really tell the difference between these two.
Speaker 2: The only thing I.
Speaker 1: Could really tell is that the audio definitely sounded better
Speaker 1: on the iPhone for sure. So I also think the
Speaker 1: video on the iPhone has a much more cinematic look
Speaker 1: than it does on the Pixel. I think the Pixel
Speaker 1: does a great job with the video, but I think
Speaker 1: the iPhone just has much more of a Hollywood look
Speaker 1: to it. Then we took some portrait shots. I had
Speaker 1: my brother Justin on hand with me, so we took
Speaker 1: some portrait shots of him, and again, both of these
Speaker 1: things look great. The Pixel kind of looked brighter and
Speaker 1: the shot from the p pixel is slightly wider, But again,
Speaker 1: the portrait shot on both the Pixel and the iPhone
Speaker 1: was great. On the iPhone, you can adjust the background
Speaker 1: after you take it, which is kind of a nice
Speaker 1: feature that they recently rolled out. Then we took a
Speaker 1: picture of Times Square, just kind of a standard picture
Speaker 1: that you know a million people take every single day.
Speaker 1: Pixel really nailed that picture because when you think about
Speaker 1: times square, there's kind of a sky in the background.
Speaker 1: You've got a bunch of bright video screens all around you,
Speaker 1: and then you have a bunch of things in the middle, people, places, stuff,
Speaker 1: and it's really tough for a camera to get all
Speaker 1: those things in focus and to also get them to
Speaker 1: have the right levels all at the same time. So
Speaker 1: on the iPhone, I noticed that a lot of the
Speaker 1: bright video screens were blown out, But on the pixel,
Speaker 1: it really nailed this shot. And this is where the
Speaker 1: pixel excels when it is a complicated lighting situation. When
Speaker 1: it's a complicated shot, maybe not too much light, the
Speaker 1: pixel really performs very well in those circumstances. Definitely won
Speaker 1: that one. Now, we took some selfies. Took a selfie
Speaker 1: with my brother, and I will say that both of
Speaker 1: them look great. Selfies on the pixel are very very clear,
Speaker 1: even in lower light. So I think selfies on the
Speaker 1: iPhone look great mainly in bright light. Right, So if
Speaker 1: you look at the pixel, I think the skin looks
Speaker 1: smoother on there. That could be what they're doing on
Speaker 1: the pixel in post processing, but they both look fantastic.
Speaker 1: The background was also more in focus on the pixel
Speaker 1: as well. But here's where I think the iPhone is better.
Speaker 1: I think faces look more realistic. So the shape of
Speaker 1: our head actually seems to look more realistic the shape
Speaker 1: of our face on the iPhone. And maybe that's due
Speaker 1: to the lens. Maybe that's due that it's a slightly
Speaker 1: it's not as wide of a shot as it is
Speaker 1: on the pixel. But I thought that the shape of
Speaker 1: our faces definitely look more realistic on iPhone. But the
Speaker 1: one thing you can't do on iPhone, and this has
Speaker 1: always been a problem, and I've talked about this for
Speaker 1: so long, but on the iPhone, the selfie lens is
Speaker 1: so close up and everyone's taking these group self picture
Speaker 1: selfie pictures. It's really tough to get your friends in
Speaker 1: the shot, right. So Google now has this thing called
Speaker 1: super Wide, so you can actually take a super wide
Speaker 1: picture with the selfie camera because there's two lenses on
Speaker 1: the front. One's a super wide angle, and so you
Speaker 1: just pop out basically to that other lens while you're
Speaker 1: taking a selfie, and man, you can fit a lot
Speaker 1: of people into those pictures. It's pretty amazing. So the
Speaker 1: pixel wins on that one, for sure. But I've seen
Speaker 1: people struggle with trying to fit a lot of people
Speaker 1: into their iPhone shots many many times, and unless you
Speaker 1: have a really long arm, it's impossible. That's why the
Speaker 1: selfie stick was invented. See the selfie stick was made
Speaker 1: for the iPhone. When you talk about the Samsungs of
Speaker 1: the world, a lot of the Android devices always had
Speaker 1: a wider front facing camera lens, and that's why you
Speaker 1: could always kind of get a better shot on the
Speaker 1: selfie camera when you had a group of people. When
Speaker 1: it's just one person, I actually think the iPhone looks better,
Speaker 1: but when you have a group of people definitely helps
Speaker 1: have one of these Android cameras with the wider lens.
Speaker 1: As for other pictures, just kind of standard shots, I
Speaker 1: really thought the Pixel was going to blow away the iPhone,
Speaker 1: but it didn't. I think they both look really really
Speaker 1: good these days, and I think you'll be happy with
Speaker 1: either one of them. I think slightly in more scenarios,
Speaker 1: the Pixel is going to take clearer pictures, kind of
Speaker 1: more vibrant pictures, but the iPhone is a very good
Speaker 1: everyday shooter.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: One thing they just added to the Pixel, the Pixel
Speaker 1: three and some other pixels as well. Is this feature
Speaker 1: called night Sight, and I just got it on my
Speaker 1: device today, and so I took a picture on the
Speaker 1: rooftop of our garage and I wanted to see kind
Speaker 1: of what it looked like, right, what it looked like
Speaker 1: in almost near darkness. It was the city scape skyline
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. So I will tell you the iPhone
Speaker 1: did a nice job right in basically near darkness, everything
Speaker 1: is very clear, it's just not as bright. So when
Speaker 1: you look at the one that was taken on the pixel,
Speaker 1: it is very bright. And what the pixels do? They
Speaker 1: have a whole blog post about this, but they're basically
Speaker 1: making you hold the camera still for a little bit longer.
Speaker 1: And this will take a bunch of different pictures, it'll
Speaker 1: take a bunch of different data in and it is
Speaker 1: then mixing all that data and capturing all that light
Speaker 1: to sort of minimize noise. Let's see, before you press
Speaker 1: the shutter button, nightsite measures your natural handshake. Oh, that's interesting,
Speaker 1: as well as how much motion is in the scene.
Speaker 1: If pixel is stable and the scene is still, night
Speaker 1: Site will spend more time capturing light to minimize noise.
Speaker 1: If there's more movement. Night Sight will use shorter exposure,
Speaker 1: capturing less light to minimize blur. Anyway, your pictures are
Speaker 1: gonna look fantastic if you're using that night site. But again,
Speaker 1: it's not real life. Like what I saw in real
Speaker 1: life looked different than what the pixel captured. It was
Speaker 1: much brighter, much more vibrant. So and when it compared
Speaker 1: to the iPhone, the iPhone was kind of darker than
Speaker 1: what my eye saw. So I think the perfect picture
Speaker 1: is somewhere in the middle. You guys know, I'm always
Speaker 1: talking about two factor authentication. This is something that you
Speaker 1: must absolutely, one hundred percent have turned on for all
Speaker 1: of your accounts at this point. If you are still
Speaker 1: just logging in with a password and a username, you
Speaker 1: must stop because you need this extra layer of authentication.
Speaker 1: And what it does is when you log into any
Speaker 1: one of your accounts, you'll get a text to your
Speaker 1: phone with a special code. You have to enter that
Speaker 1: code before the login is approved and proceeds. So the
Speaker 1: idea here is that if a bad person has access
Speaker 1: to your account, they somehow got your password, they go
Speaker 1: to log into your Google account. Google says, huh, that's weird.
Speaker 1: This doesn't seem to be coming from the user's normal
Speaker 1: computer or the normal location that user is in. We
Speaker 1: send this code. So they send a text to the
Speaker 1: phone of the user, and the user gets the text,
Speaker 1: but the bad guy doesn't get it, and so the
Speaker 1: bad guy just sits there waiting for this to go through.
Speaker 1: It doesn't happen because that text is not entered. So
Speaker 1: again it's two layers of authentic. It's called two factor authentication.
Speaker 1: Almost all of the major apps and websites support it.
Speaker 1: Definitely turn it on. But here's the problem. We now
Speaker 1: have the issue with two factor authentication, and according to
Speaker 1: tech Crunch, they found a major security lapse with a
Speaker 1: massive database containing tens of millions of text messages, including
Speaker 1: these two factor authentication codes. The server was from a
Speaker 1: company in San Diego. It wasn't protected with a password,
Speaker 1: and it's Voxox. I think it is the name of
Speaker 1: the company. But basically they were able to kind of
Speaker 1: go through this database and see a whole bunch of stuff,
Speaker 1: including all these short codes that people had requested. And
Speaker 1: the idea here is that if someone had access to
Speaker 1: this database and was getting those codes in real time,
Speaker 1: they could intercept these logins and use those codes, which
Speaker 1: is very dangerous. It sounds very scary. Now, the reality is,
Speaker 1: I don't think that anyone got these codes. They could have.
Speaker 1: And the other reality is that these codes are only
Speaker 1: good for a short period of time and they're only
Speaker 1: one time use. So when you get that code to
Speaker 1: your phone, unless it's intercepted almost instantly by a breach
Speaker 1: like this, someone would be able to use it, but
Speaker 1: not the second time. So it only works one time
Speaker 1: now for this reason, and I think we're going to
Speaker 1: start hearing more about apps like this. You probably want
Speaker 1: to start using and I know, another layer of protection,
Speaker 1: another layer of complication. But there are apps out there
Speaker 1: that actually let you generate these codes right on the app.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever worked at a company that requires
Speaker 1: one of these little they have these little keyfobs basically
Speaker 1: that just set there and generate a different code every
Speaker 1: twenty five thirty seconds, and you needed that code to
Speaker 1: log in each Rate is a company that used to
Speaker 1: give this out to some of their banking clients. Maybe
Speaker 1: they still do, but now there are apps that can
Speaker 1: do the same functionality on your So one of them
Speaker 1: that's very popular is called authi au THHY And once
Speaker 1: you authorize that it will generate all those codes on
Speaker 1: your device, so they're not texted to you. You actually
Speaker 1: go into this app. It's secure. You see the code
Speaker 1: and you can use it, and the code changes every
Speaker 1: couple of seconds. The other popular one is called Google Authenticator,
Speaker 1: and Microsoft has an authenticator app. There's several of them
Speaker 1: out there, but you basically link them up to your account.
Speaker 1: The danger in all this versus the text message is
Speaker 1: that if you somehow lose your log into that app,
Speaker 1: it is kind of a pain to reset up all
Speaker 1: those authentications because you have linked that app to your account,
Speaker 1: and the accounts don't necessarily like when you get rid
Speaker 1: of that because they see that as a potential security
Speaker 1: flaw so or a security hole. Anyway, check them out
Speaker 1: and definitely turn on the two factor authentication for sure.
Speaker 1: There's so much good stuff happening. I got a demo
Speaker 1: of these the Roku TV wireless speakers, went to Roku's
Speaker 1: one of their satellite offices, I guess it was in
Speaker 1: Santa Monica. They gave me a little demo of these things,
Speaker 1: and I thought these were such a great idea. So
Speaker 1: these are wireless speakers that Roku has come out with
Speaker 1: and they're plug and play, so you literally just plug
Speaker 1: them in behind your TV, or you know, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess you would plug them in on the sides
Speaker 1: of your couch or maybe on the sides your TV.
Speaker 1: Either way, whatever your setup is, if you want to
Speaker 1: use them as in the front or on the back, whatever.
Speaker 1: But the reality is they're usually two hundred dollars. Right now,
Speaker 1: they're one hundred and fifty bucks from November sixteenth through
Speaker 1: Cyber Monday November twenty sixth. So my advice, if you
Speaker 1: have a Roku TV, think about getting these because they
Speaker 1: will They will make your sound experience from that TV
Speaker 1: so much better. And even the best TVs these days
Speaker 1: still don't have good speakers. Think about it. A TV
Speaker 1: is like ninety nine percent screen. The speakers aren't afterthought, right,
Speaker 1: so you're not gonna get good sound quality. Personally, I
Speaker 1: use Sonos and I've got the sons bar and I've
Speaker 1: got the two speakers behind me on the either side
Speaker 1: of my couch. That's actually a recent thing I set up.
Speaker 1: It just came to me. I was like, wait, can
Speaker 1: I use surround sound with Sonos? Sure enough, you can,
Speaker 1: and it's just fantastic. You hear the little nuances of
Speaker 1: the surround sound behind you, everything just sounds better. So
Speaker 1: if you have a Roku TV, this is a way
Speaker 1: to get that without setting things up, and the sonas
Speaker 1: was pretty darn easy. It's also plug and play. But
Speaker 1: if you're familiar with the concept of a standard surround
Speaker 1: sound system, I have never ever recommended one of those
Speaker 1: because they're so complicated. Who wants to run wires from
Speaker 1: their TV all the way to the back of their
Speaker 1: couch unless you are an expert in home wiring. I
Speaker 1: don't even know how you get those wires there. It's
Speaker 1: always been such a pain, not a clean setup, not easy.
Speaker 1: This is super easy. So once it's paired, all the
Speaker 1: audio from your TV is going through these wireless speakers.
Speaker 2: But here's the catch.
Speaker 1: This is not something that you can add to a
Speaker 1: Roku box. And that was my first instinct when I
Speaker 1: heard about these. I thought, oh my gosh, this is
Speaker 1: such a great thing for all the Roku users out there,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of them, right not so
Speaker 1: you have to have one of these Roku TVs, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people do. Believe me, it's a very
Speaker 1: popular device. But this is something that you should look
Speaker 1: into if you have a Roku TV. I hope Roku
Speaker 1: is somehow able to figure out how to do this
Speaker 1: for all the Roku users out there, because this extra
Speaker 1: speaker system is just so much nicer to have.
Speaker 2: It really does make life better.
Speaker 1: And finally, if you are a content creator, I know
Speaker 1: everyone's trying to up their game on Instagram and on
Speaker 1: Facebook and all these different Basically Instagram is where it's
Speaker 1: at these days. But a app that I use called Buffer,
Speaker 1: which is really handy. I've been using this thing for
Speaker 1: several years now, but it helps you schedule your tweets,
Speaker 1: it helps you tweet out using an app, It helps
Speaker 1: you just do social media in.
Speaker 2: A little bit of a better way.
Speaker 1: But they always come out with some cool tools to
Speaker 1: help you accomplish these things. Now they have this new
Speaker 1: Instagram Stories creator.
Speaker 2: So if you're.
Speaker 1: Creating stories for Instagram for your job, for you know,
Speaker 1: if you're in social media, or maybe just personally and
Speaker 1: you want to kind of up your game, maybe you're
Speaker 1: an influencer, or you know, it's just just for personal
Speaker 1: use as well and you just want to make your
Speaker 1: Instagram stories look better. Yes, there's a lot of tools
Speaker 1: and apps and things that can help you do this,
Speaker 1: but this is right online. It's a web tool again.
Speaker 1: It's called stories Creator from Buffer and it helps you
Speaker 1: create these little graphics very quickly. And they say they
Speaker 1: wanted to focus on the foundation of a good story,
Speaker 1: which are simple elements that keep your attention, which is
Speaker 1: basically graphics, text, and a background image or color. So
Speaker 1: you can basically choose kind of a template that they have.
Speaker 1: You can add your picture, you can add you know,
Speaker 1: your background image, like I said, some graphics, some text,
Speaker 1: and then you can download them and share them to Instagram.
Speaker 1: They have over twenty five different fonts, alignments. You can
Speaker 1: even add a background highlight to make it stand out.
Speaker 1: You could even use PNG, which is cool because PNG
Speaker 1: a lot of times you can't really do that from
Speaker 1: the iPhone, but you can do it from.
Speaker 2: This Story's Creator.
Speaker 1: And it also has an overlight which is really cool.
Speaker 1: So this is my favorite part. It actually shows you
Speaker 1: what is blocked by all the sort of user interface
Speaker 1: elements on an Instagram story, which is you know, where
Speaker 1: you can send a message, where your little profile is
Speaker 1: in the upper left hand corner. All that good stuff
Speaker 1: is shown on screen, so you can make sure that
Speaker 1: none of your elements are blocked on these stories. So
Speaker 1: all you have to do is create these things and
Speaker 1: you can download and you know, air drop them to
Speaker 1: your phone or however you get them to your phone,
Speaker 1: email them to yourself, and then you can post them
Speaker 1: to Instagram Stories. Now, this is a very simple tool.
Speaker 1: I've kind of tried it out. It wasn't exactly working
Speaker 1: properly yesterday for me when I first tried it. That
Speaker 1: was probably because it was the first day. But I
Speaker 1: do think that these kind of things are good to
Speaker 1: know about. So again the Buffer Stories creator, and also
Speaker 1: check out the Buffer app as well. It's a really
Speaker 1: handy tool for scheduling tweets and things like that. I've
Speaker 1: used it to kind of space out some of my
Speaker 1: tweets since I don't want to bombarde you guys with everything,
Speaker 1: but I know I don't want to forget to tweet something,
Speaker 1: so I'll just kind of put them in my queue
Speaker 1: and remember to tweet them later sometimes.
Speaker 2: And the other thing.
Speaker 1: If you want to really up your game when it
Speaker 1: comes to Instagram and social media in general, there is
Speaker 1: a fantastic, fantastic app called spark Post and this is
Speaker 1: from Adobe, Adobe spark Post is the king of social
Speaker 1: media apps when it comes to designing beautiful graphics, beautiful stories,
Speaker 1: beautiful whatever.
Speaker 2: You can create it.
Speaker 1: You might spend a lot of time doing it, but
Speaker 1: it will help you do it, and it is free,
Speaker 1: but you do have to sign up for an account
Speaker 1: through Adobe to make it happen. I've definitely used that
Speaker 1: on occasion. I think that many times it's easier for
Speaker 1: me to just kind of post a story organically and
Speaker 1: use the tools that are built into Instagram, because sometimes
Speaker 1: it just gets a little bit overwhelming to try to
Speaker 1: create this amazing graphic that looks solely so overproduced, and
Speaker 1: people don't necessarily care, especially for what I'm posting. I
Speaker 1: think if you worked at a business or a brand,
Speaker 1: maybe people would care more. But for me, I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to get my stories out that I work on
Speaker 1: in various ways, and it doesn't need to be super
Speaker 1: super duper pretty. But again, I've used this in the past,
Speaker 1: and it's called Adobe spark Post. The other thing that
Speaker 1: I've been looking at with Instagram is this new app
Speaker 1: called story locks. Well it's new to me, but this
Speaker 1: actually gives you some templates for your stories very very simple,
Speaker 1: but they do give you some templates that you can
Speaker 1: add some pictures in make them look a little bit
Speaker 1: better than what Instagram gives you. And finally, the other
Speaker 1: Instagram tool that I've used in the past, and I'm
Speaker 1: not a big hashtag person, I probably should be for
Speaker 1: discoverability of my posts, but the one that I like
Speaker 1: is called lee Tags Lee Tags. So again, if you're
Speaker 1: doing any sort of social media for yourself, your company,
Speaker 1: a business, a product, a brand, these are some of
Speaker 1: the tools that you can use to kind of up
Speaker 1: your game. All right, Thanks so much for listening to
Speaker 1: the podcast. If you want more information on anything I
Speaker 1: talked about here, you can go to my website richontech
Speaker 1: dot tv, or you can check the show notes. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed this and
Speaker 1: have a fantastic day, night, weekend, morning, wherever you are,
Speaker 1: whatever you're doing however you're listening, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2: I'm rich Demiro. I'll talk to you real soon.