Speaker 1: Initial thoughts on the Samsung Galaxy S ten, a way
Speaker 1: to get discounted gift cards, cameras on the plane, and
Speaker 1: Google's hidden microphone. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This
Speaker 1: is rich On Tech. Welcome to the podcast where I
Speaker 1: talk about this stuff I think you should know about
Speaker 1: that happened in the world of tech. Omrich Demiro, tech
Speaker 1: reporter at KTLA five News in Los Angeles, also at
Speaker 1: richon Tech, dot TV and Man. This week, wooa lots
Speaker 1: of good stuff. Samsung finally taken the wraps off the
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy S ten, their flagship smartphone. I was in
Speaker 1: San Francisco for the big unveiling they call it Unpacked,
Speaker 1: and it was a good one. We saw a lot
Speaker 1: of new stuff from Samsung. Now this is the show
Speaker 1: where I talk about this stuff that I think average
Speaker 1: consumers should know about. So foldable phone, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to go into all the details on that, the five
Speaker 1: G phone, not going to go into all the details
Speaker 1: on that, because what I think you need to know
Speaker 1: about those two devices is skip them for now. Foldable phone,
Speaker 1: very first generation. That is something that early adopters are
Speaker 1: going to get, something that just a very select crew
Speaker 1: of people are going to be interested in well, I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people will be interested in it.
Speaker 1: I don't think a lot of people will actually purchase it,
Speaker 1: and I don't think the average consumer should purchase it
Speaker 1: because it's a first generation technology. It's something that is
Speaker 1: very rough around the edges, something that will get better
Speaker 1: with time. So I say wait on that one. When
Speaker 1: it comes to the five G phone, same kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I don't think you need a five G phone right now.
Speaker 1: I don't think that the five G phone that Samsung
Speaker 1: is delivering will be the phone that you need just yet.
Speaker 1: I think the four G LTE phones will be just
Speaker 1: fine for at least the next year or so. Maybe
Speaker 1: next year will have those networks in a better place
Speaker 1: where they will be much more useful. I could be wrong.
Speaker 1: I know Verizon said they're gonna have thirty markets doing
Speaker 1: five G in this year, but the extent of what
Speaker 1: that coverage is gonna be, how it's gonna work, if
Speaker 1: it's gonna be bulky, but there's gonna be some growing
Speaker 1: pains at the beginning. I say stick with the four
Speaker 1: G LTE let the guys like me try out the
Speaker 1: five G networks. See if they work, and then you
Speaker 1: can go ahead and see if that works for you.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the S ten because this is
Speaker 1: a very big lineup. There are three different phones, and
Speaker 1: you've got the S ten E, you've got the S
Speaker 1: ten and the S ten plus the S ten E
Speaker 1: is kind of the iPhone ten R of the group.
Speaker 1: So this one has a five point eight in screen.
Speaker 1: It's not their best screen. It's a full HD versus
Speaker 1: a quad HD, but again it's got most of what
Speaker 1: you need. It only has a rear camera with only
Speaker 1: dual cameras on the back instead of a triple camera,
Speaker 1: and there is no fingerprint sensor in the screen. There's
Speaker 1: also not a let's see what else is that? I
Speaker 1: think that's about it. I mean, it's basically it. The
Speaker 1: differences are, yeah, there's no finger sensor in the screen,
Speaker 1: and there's not the triple camera array on the back,
Speaker 1: and the screen is just a little bit less than
Speaker 1: the higher end models. But again, this is entry level
Speaker 1: device seven hundred and fifty dollars and it's gonna be
Speaker 1: good if you just kind of like the idea of
Speaker 1: a nice small device that is gonna work. You get
Speaker 1: a lot of the great specs. You know, the same
Speaker 1: kind of processor and stuff, but you're just not getting
Speaker 1: every single thing that these upper phones have. But is
Speaker 1: it a good phone? Yeah? I think so. I mean
Speaker 1: I didn't have too much hands on time with that one.
Speaker 1: I think the phone that most people are gonna be
Speaker 1: interested in is the Galaxy S ten and the S
Speaker 1: ten plus. So the S ten is basically just a
Speaker 1: smaller version of the S ten plus. The main difference
Speaker 1: here again is on the S ten plus there is
Speaker 1: an extra camera on the front, so it's not really
Speaker 1: a camera, it's a depth sensor. And what that depth
Speaker 1: sensor allows you to do is take better selfies, especially
Speaker 1: when you're doing selfies with some of the fun, cool
Speaker 1: little tricks that they have built in, like the live
Speaker 1: focus selfies so you know at the blurry backgrounds. But
Speaker 1: real quick, this phone is beautiful. I've been playing with
Speaker 1: it ever since they announced it. It is the best
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy device I've ever seen, probably one of the
Speaker 1: best smartphones I've ever seen, and yes that includes the iPhone.
Speaker 1: I think the iPhone is still an amazing device, but
Speaker 1: what Samsung has delivered is something that has a lot
Speaker 1: less compromises than almost any device out there. So the
Speaker 1: big difference is number one, the cameras are cut out
Speaker 1: of the front of the display. Now they call it
Speaker 1: the Infinity O display. So when you actually go to
Speaker 1: take a picture with the selfie cam, you'll see the
Speaker 1: little selfie cam lights up like this little ring around
Speaker 1: it lights up to let you know where the selfie
Speaker 1: camera is, because that's how sort of hidden in the screen.
Speaker 1: When you have a white screen, you could definitely see
Speaker 1: where it is. Otherwise on other screens you might not
Speaker 1: even notice where the cameras are. On the front. On
Speaker 1: the back of the device, you've got three cameras, so
Speaker 1: you've got a wide angle lens, you've got a regular lens,
Speaker 1: and then a telephoto lens, so you are covered in
Speaker 1: so many different aspects of taking video and also taking pictures.
Speaker 1: The wide angle is so much fun. From what I've seen,
Speaker 1: it's not as clear, not as good as perhaps the
Speaker 1: standard the standard lens, but it is still really good
Speaker 1: and it's just so much fun to have this trio
Speaker 1: of lenses. And I always think of the example of
Speaker 1: when you're at like, you know, your kids recital, They're
Speaker 1: on stage somewhere and you're all the way in the back.
Speaker 1: It's really nice to be able to flip right into
Speaker 1: that telephoto zoom right from your phone. That's actually someone
Speaker 1: asked me today, well, what's the difference. I can just
Speaker 1: zoom in on my phone. No, the difference is when
Speaker 1: you're zooming in using pinch to zoom on a typical device,
Speaker 1: you're literally just zooming in on that picture. It's the
Speaker 1: same amount of pixels, it's the same amount of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's the picture quality is degrading significantly when you use
Speaker 1: a pinch to zoom. When you're actually using a lens
Speaker 1: to zoom, you're getting optical zoom, which means the lens
Speaker 1: is physically taking you closer to what you're trying to capture,
Speaker 1: and the quality is going to be better. So those
Speaker 1: are the main things. The fingerprint scanner is in the
Speaker 1: front of the screen. I'm finding this is not ideal,
Speaker 1: but it works. I've actually turned on face recognition on
Speaker 1: the S ten and that's actually working a little bit
Speaker 1: better for me. And don't forget this is new. This
Speaker 1: device is still in beta. It's not the software is
Speaker 1: not the final shipping version of the software. So hopefully
Speaker 1: after some software updates, before the device comes out, we
Speaker 1: will see some polish, but right now I can tell
Speaker 1: things are a little rough around the edges. But it
Speaker 1: does ship with Android nine. It also has their new
Speaker 1: one UI interface, which is really good. If you can tell,
Speaker 1: I can't say enough good stuff about this device. I
Speaker 1: think the S ten will be the first device that
Speaker 1: seriously has iPhone users contemplating a switch, and I think
Speaker 1: the reason for that is a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 1: Number one, you get a device that has so many
Speaker 1: different features, like all the things you want. You get
Speaker 1: the fingerprint scan, you get expandable memory, you get a
Speaker 1: headphone jack, you get this amazingly great screen, You get
Speaker 1: a ton of based storage one hundred and twenty eight gigabytes,
Speaker 1: so there's so much to love. You get the triple cameras,
Speaker 1: you get all the software features you need, and then
Speaker 1: you know, you get to the price, and the price
Speaker 1: is on par It's a good price, and it just
Speaker 1: seems like Samsung has really listened to users and is
Speaker 1: making a device that works for a lot of different people,
Speaker 1: and that's why I'm really loving it. And the other
Speaker 1: thing you get wireless power share. This is the feature
Speaker 1: that lets you rest another device on top of the
Speaker 1: back of your device, and you can charge that device.
Speaker 1: As long as it's CHI certified, you can charge it.
Speaker 1: And that includes an iPhone or Samsung's new Galaxy Buds,
Speaker 1: which are their earbuds, So that's kind of like the
Speaker 1: Samsung Galaxy S ten A in a nutshell. They've got
Speaker 1: faster wireless charging, so wireless two point zero, so if
Speaker 1: you do plug it in, it's gonna are sorry. Wireless
Speaker 1: charging is faster, it's got still the water and dust resistance,
Speaker 1: it's got the better processor. It's got Samsung Pay that
Speaker 1: works everywhere, right, So Samsung Pay uses something called MST
Speaker 1: which means you can use Samsung Pay to Tap to
Speaker 1: pay even at places that don't necessarily accept mobile payments.
Speaker 1: And what they're doing is they're actually sending through your
Speaker 1: credit information through a wireless almost like a transceiver instead
Speaker 1: of NFC, So it's sending that signal magnetically to the
Speaker 1: little strip reader that normally reads the magnetic strip. It's
Speaker 1: basically turning your phone into an emulated magnetic strip that
Speaker 1: the reader thinks is it's just being swiped. So that's
Speaker 1: pretty brilliant. They bought a company many years ago a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago that they incorporate I think it
Speaker 1: was called loop, but I can't remember, but that was
Speaker 1: a brilliant move on their part. Now, obviously the whole
Speaker 1: world has turned towards mobile payments, but still in the
Speaker 1: past three four years now that they've had this, it's
Speaker 1: helped a lot of people use Samsung Pay in a
Speaker 1: lot of places where other things are not accepted. Also,
Speaker 1: the storage, like I said, one hundred and twenty eight
Speaker 1: gigs is standard, but you can get up to a
Speaker 1: terabyte of storage on board, by the way, and then
Speaker 1: on top of that, you can add five hundred and
Speaker 1: twelve gigs in a micro SD card. So, by the way,
Speaker 1: to get the one terabyte of storage, you have to
Speaker 1: buy a special version of the phone, a ceramic version.
Speaker 1: This is a premium model. They have it in black
Speaker 1: and white, and I held it. It's very nice. It's
Speaker 1: the phone that I want, but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: spend the extra money for it, because I don't really
Speaker 1: see the point. If you're putting your phone in the case,
Speaker 1: you're just spending extra money for the ceramic and you
Speaker 1: don't really need it. But if you want to get
Speaker 1: that one terabyte you have to go ceramic, so otherwise
Speaker 1: you can go up to five hundred and twelve on
Speaker 1: the on the devices. But yeah, kind of crazy that
Speaker 1: you can get this much. So pricing starts, like I said,
Speaker 1: seven fifty for the Galaxy S ten eight, ninety nine
Speaker 1: for the Galaxy S ten nine to ninety nine for
Speaker 1: the Galaxy S ten plus, and I would tell you
Speaker 1: to definitely check out the promotions they have going for
Speaker 1: pre orders because if you pre order this device, you
Speaker 1: can get up to five hundred and fifty dollars as
Speaker 1: a trade in credit using your old device. Now to
Speaker 1: get the five point fifty you have to have a
Speaker 1: pretty recent device like the Galaxy S nine or the
Speaker 1: No eight. But again they're giving you a lot of
Speaker 1: money on top of what you normally get for your
Speaker 1: trade in, So go to Samsung dot com and check
Speaker 1: out how much you would get. You also get the
Speaker 1: free wireless earbuds if you preorder. That's one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty dollars value, and compare what your carrier would give
Speaker 1: you because sometimes your carriers will do something pretty good
Speaker 1: as well. There's also a student discount that you can get,
Speaker 1: so if you're a student, Samsung does offer an educational discount,
Speaker 1: and I tried it out. It's it's basically signing up
Speaker 1: with a dot edu email address. That's how they verify
Speaker 1: that you're a student. So if you have one of those,
Speaker 1: you should qualify your teacher. Student you've got a dot edu,
Speaker 1: you can qualify. They're giving you up to ten percent
Speaker 1: off on the regular models, on the new models, and
Speaker 1: a little bit more on the older models. So if
Speaker 1: you price it out, you can upgrade to this new
Speaker 1: device for a pretty decent amount that I think is
Speaker 1: pretty good. I mean, I will tell you the selfie
Speaker 1: camera on the S ten has gotten significantly better than
Speaker 1: the S nine. The camera on the back I don't
Speaker 1: I can't say yet that it's significantly better, but I
Speaker 1: will tell you that it's significantly more fun because you
Speaker 1: do have the wide angle lens. And having a wide
Speaker 1: angle lens is just so fantastic in a variety of situations.
Speaker 1: You can get creative with it, shooting video. It's so
Speaker 1: much fun because you can get that nice wide angle.
Speaker 1: So it is a great thing to have, and I
Speaker 1: think if you have a Galaxy and you're thinking of upgrading,
Speaker 1: definitely make the switch. During that pre order time, especially
Speaker 1: if you have an iPhone and you're thinking about moving
Speaker 1: over to the dark side. And Okay, don't come at
Speaker 1: me for saying the dark side. I'm sorry. I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: It's just another side. But if you're thinking of moving
Speaker 1: over to Android from the iPhone, this is the device
Speaker 1: that could take you to that side, and you, I
Speaker 1: think would be pretty happy. Now you're not gonna get
Speaker 1: I message and you're not gonna get you know, some
Speaker 1: of the other things that Apple. I think Apple still
Speaker 1: does CarPlay better. I think that some of the features
Speaker 1: inside the apps are better. Like oh my gosh, I
Speaker 1: can just tell you when I use Facebook, the creator
Speaker 1: app on iPhone versus Android, it's like night and day.
Speaker 1: On Android, it seems like I'm using a program that's
Speaker 1: like ten years old. On iPhone it seems just amazing,
Speaker 1: Like you get every feature. So Instagram, I will tell you,
Speaker 1: I think that Instagram is neck and neck. So on
Speaker 1: both devices, Instagram is nearly the same experience, which is
Speaker 1: really nice. One of the few apps I've seen to
Speaker 1: do that. Twitter is another. They're pretty much the same
Speaker 1: on both platforms, and we're seeing more and more of
Speaker 1: this where it used to be, iPhone always had the
Speaker 1: better app and now we're seeing where Android is getting
Speaker 1: better at that some of the features still not there.
Speaker 1: When it comes to video editing, a lot of the
Speaker 1: better apps are on iPhone. But during the event, they
Speaker 1: did announce that my favorite editing program right now, Adobe
Speaker 1: Premier Rush is coming to the Samsung Galaxy S ten
Speaker 1: first and I cannot wait for that. I pay ten
Speaker 1: bucks a month with that program. I use it on
Speaker 1: my computer and on my phone. I love, love, love
Speaker 1: Adobe Rush. So that's coming to the S ten. Believe me,
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna be getting this phone. I think
Speaker 1: it might be my next phone. I know, crazy to think,
Speaker 1: but I really really like this device. And one thing
Speaker 1: that's really good about Samsung listening to their customers is
Speaker 1: they are finally gonna let folks remap the Bixi Bixby button.
Speaker 1: So the bixb button is on the side of the
Speaker 1: last couple of generations of their Android devices. On the Galaxy,
Speaker 1: it's right below the volume button. Many of you may
Speaker 1: have tried to push the button for or mistakenly push
Speaker 1: the button. Now they will let you remap it to
Speaker 1: something else, so if you want it to open. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know Google or Google Assistant or another app
Speaker 1: you can have it do that. I cannot wait. I
Speaker 1: will be remapping my Bixby button when I can, and
Speaker 1: I can't do it just yet. That feature has not
Speaker 1: made it to my review unit, but the day will
Speaker 1: come and I will be very excited about that. Nothing
Speaker 1: against Bixby. I'm just not ready for another virtual assistant
Speaker 1: in my life. And finally, one more thing they announced.
Speaker 1: There's just so many things to talk about with the
Speaker 1: S ten, but there is built in support for Instagram
Speaker 1: right from your camera, which is kind of cool because
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but if you ever tried
Speaker 1: to do a story on Instagram, you take a picture
Speaker 1: in your camera and then you go to post it
Speaker 1: to Instagram Stories and it doesn't line up right. You're
Speaker 1: taking a picture in four x three on your phone
Speaker 1: and then you're putting it on Instagram Stories, which is
Speaker 1: closer to nine by sixteen, so the whole proportions are
Speaker 1: all off, so you either have to like try again
Speaker 1: or zoom in or zoom out whatever, and it just
Speaker 1: doesn't look good. So now on the S ten, you
Speaker 1: can take a picture in Instagram mode and so well,
Speaker 1: really Instagram Stories mode, and when you do that, your
Speaker 1: entire screen fills to show you what your story would
Speaker 1: look like taking that picture. So and then once you
Speaker 1: take it, your screen literally turns into kind of Instagram
Speaker 1: Stories where you can add all the little things on
Speaker 1: top and just send right to your story. So that's
Speaker 1: another cool feature. I got to say one hundred percent
Speaker 1: impressed with what Samsung did this time around. Good job, Samsung, Apple.
Speaker 1: I understand you're doing a fantastic job as well, but
Speaker 1: Samsung is definitely giving you a run for your money
Speaker 1: this time around. By the way, on this week's show,
Speaker 1: there will not be any phone calls. I was up
Speaker 1: in San Francisco for the big Samsung event, so that
Speaker 1: kind of took all my time. I was not able
Speaker 1: to do the calls. So during this podcast there won't
Speaker 1: be calls. But don't worry, they're not going away. I
Speaker 1: will just have to bring them back in next week's show.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about Ambient Mode. This is the feature
Speaker 1: on your Google smart displays like your Google Home Hub
Speaker 1: and Chromecast that features one of my favorite features, all
Speaker 1: your photos. Right, so I have it set to show
Speaker 1: curated photos, or actually I used to curate. Now, I
Speaker 1: just kind of let Google do it. They can just
Speaker 1: pick some of your recent best pictures. You can also
Speaker 1: do news, you can do artwork or whatever you want. Right. So,
Speaker 1: one thing that has always been kind of interesting is
Speaker 1: Google's algorithm for selecting which pictures are shown on the display. Well,
Speaker 1: Android Police says that you know, Google's algorithm definitely looks
Speaker 1: at your pictures before displaying them, so it filters out
Speaker 1: the bad ones. Right, So, anything that's like blurry, anything
Speaker 1: that doesn't have someone smiling, terrible resolution, Google tries to
Speaker 1: keep those off your smart displays. Right, Well, if you
Speaker 1: want those on your smart display, there's now a feature
Speaker 1: that you can turn on, and it's called, let's see
Speaker 1: what it's called. Uh, where is this called? Uh, objectively
Speaker 1: bad photos. So Google calls the new feature objectively bad Photos.
Speaker 1: So you can go into your Google Home app, select
Speaker 1: a device, find the personal Photo curation option, and select
Speaker 1: live albums, and then you can turn on the objectively
Speaker 1: bad photos and yes, Google will start to put your
Speaker 1: bad pictures into the mix. I don't know why you'd
Speaker 1: want to do that, but you know, at least Google's
Speaker 1: giving you options now. I think sometimes there's a couple
Speaker 1: other things you need to know about this, because I'm
Speaker 1: kind of personally fascinated by the pictures that Google chooses.
Speaker 1: In fact, I love looking at these pictures, especially the
Speaker 1: ones on my smart display that Google kind of does
Speaker 1: mashups of. So they'll put like a picture of my
Speaker 1: kid from like when he was little to when you
Speaker 1: know he's now, and it's pretty cool that they do
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Or they'll show like the other day,
Speaker 1: they showed both me and my kid eating smores and
Speaker 1: we were in two separate pictures, but they put those
Speaker 1: pictures together side by side, so it had me taking
Speaker 1: a bite of the s'mores and then my little kid
Speaker 1: taking a picture a bite of the s'mores. So it
Speaker 1: has like almost like a sense of humor, a sense
Speaker 1: of like wonder where it's like, hey, let's surprise you
Speaker 1: with some of these pictures and some of the things
Speaker 1: we do with them. So I love that idea. Now,
Speaker 1: a couple of other things. Android Police mentions if you
Speaker 1: want to include a picture in your you know, your
Speaker 1: Google photos, like algorithm whatever, if you do a favorite,
Speaker 1: if you favored it, it will show up eventually. Those
Speaker 1: are not filtered out so this happened on Twitter. I
Speaker 1: saw a tweet about one downside of using the pixel
Speaker 1: as a work camera of Vlad from the Verge tweeted
Speaker 1: that a lot of photos show up on his Google
Speaker 1: Home Hub right, and so he said he should he
Speaker 1: you know, there should be a way to like kind
Speaker 1: of filter some pictures out. So I said, yeah, my
Speaker 1: favorite is when my work pictures show up at my
Speaker 1: Google Home Hub in between me pictures of me and
Speaker 1: the kids, right, So all of a sudden, you'll be
Speaker 1: looking at me and the kids of the pumpkin patch,
Speaker 1: and the next thing, you know, like the one plus
Speaker 1: six ' t will like show up from every angle right.
Speaker 1: And then Liz Phillips on my Twitter also said she
Speaker 1: takes pictures of her pantry and fridge before she goes
Speaker 1: grocery shopping so she knows what to buy, and those
Speaker 1: pictures show up on her display in between family pictures.
Speaker 1: Then Reja from Google tweeted he said, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like your pantry is a piece of art. But if
Speaker 1: you don't like a photo that's showing, you can say
Speaker 1: to your device, remove this photo and it will archive
Speaker 1: it for you, or you can go into Google Photos
Speaker 1: and archive a picture and it will not show up
Speaker 1: on Google's curated list. So I thought that was kind
Speaker 1: of a cool little tidbit. So bottom line, if you
Speaker 1: have a Google Home Hub and you see a picture
Speaker 1: on it that you don't like, just tell Google remove
Speaker 1: this photo, and it will archive that photo and it
Speaker 1: won't show it again. It won't delete it, but it
Speaker 1: just won't show it again. Or if you know there's
Speaker 1: a picture on your Google Photos that you don't want
Speaker 1: to be displayed on your Google Home Hub, all you
Speaker 1: have to do is just go into Google Photos and
Speaker 1: archive it and it will not show you that picture.
Speaker 1: I found this one interesting. Airlines now apparently have cameras
Speaker 1: built into the seatback entertainment systems in front of you.
Speaker 1: So I did this story on KTLA. I think it
Speaker 1: was this week, or maybe it was last week Singapore Airlines.
Speaker 1: Someone flying on Singapore Airlines noticed a little camera staring
Speaker 1: back at them from the seat front in front of
Speaker 1: them or the seatback in front of them, and they're like,
Speaker 1: what's this for, And Singapore Airlines said, Nope, we don't
Speaker 1: use those, but they are installed by the manufacturer in
Speaker 1: our inflight entertainment system and they're just there, but they're
Speaker 1: not activated. But it's kind of weird to have a
Speaker 1: little camera staring at you right the whole time you're
Speaker 1: on a flight. So then BuzzFeed News said that American
Speaker 1: Airlines confirm to them that the cameras are on some
Speaker 1: of their planes as well, and American Airlines told them
Speaker 1: they've never been activated and American is not considering using them.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering, like, well, what are these cameras for.
Speaker 1: So American Airlines says that manufacturers have included them for
Speaker 1: possible future uses such as hand gestures to control inflight entertainment.
Speaker 1: So one of these things that's kind of interesting. But
Speaker 1: the reality is anything that's a camera, anything that is hackable,
Speaker 1: could potentially be used against us. And it's just one
Speaker 1: of these things. It's kind of weird, like maybe airlines
Speaker 1: in the future will have a DVR of everything that's
Speaker 1: happening on their plane, because we have seen incidences on planes,
Speaker 1: and I don't think planes have security cameras. Maybe they do,
Speaker 1: we don't generally see that if they do. But now
Speaker 1: that these cameras are there, we just need to be
Speaker 1: aware of them, and we just need to know they're there,
Speaker 1: but I don't know what would you do? Would I?
Speaker 1: I don't know if i'd cover it up? If you know,
Speaker 1: we've done so many stories on how people cover up
Speaker 1: their webcams on their computer. Would you cover up the
Speaker 1: webcam that's in front of you on the plane, even
Speaker 1: if the airline says that they're not using it, they're
Speaker 1: not activating it. I don't know, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: weird to see this thing staring back at you the
Speaker 1: whole time. And along the same note, Google says that
Speaker 1: a microphone that was built into its Nest device was
Speaker 1: never supposed to be a secret, even though the company
Speaker 1: never told people about the microphone. So Nest Secure is
Speaker 1: their security system, and in early February, according to a
Speaker 1: Business Insider article, the company told users that it was
Speaker 1: going to be getting an update which wouldn Google Assistant. Well,
Speaker 1: to use Google Assistant, how do you activate it? Well,
Speaker 1: you have to be able to have a microphone to
Speaker 1: hear you say those keywords that will activate it. Right,
Speaker 1: we all know what they are. But next users were
Speaker 1: kind of scratching their heads, going, hold on, I didn't
Speaker 1: think there was a microphone on this And according to
Speaker 1: the original tech specs that were out there online, there
Speaker 1: was no microphone listed for the Nest Secure, and so
Speaker 1: in Business Insider reached out to Google. The company said
Speaker 1: that they had made an error. The on device microphone
Speaker 1: quote was never intended to be a secret and should
Speaker 1: have been listed in the text specs. That was an
Speaker 1: error on our part. The microphone has never been on
Speaker 1: and is only activated when users specifically enable the option.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. We are so highly sensitive about
Speaker 1: all this stuff nowadays that if you're going to put
Speaker 1: a microphone in your house, you want to know that
Speaker 1: the device you're putting in your home has a microphone. Right,
Speaker 1: whether it's activated or not is a moot point, but
Speaker 1: you want to know that it's on there. So personally,
Speaker 1: I think that the next Secure is it's that'll be
Speaker 1: a good thing that has a microphone because it actually
Speaker 1: is there originally was there, so they can put features
Speaker 1: on there, like the ability to detect broken glass. So
Speaker 1: I know a lot of these smart smoke detectors can
Speaker 1: actually or smart alarm systems can detect the sound of
Speaker 1: a smoke detector and also a carbon monoxide detector broken glass,
Speaker 1: So it makes sense that it would be there. But
Speaker 1: this was probably an innocent mistake on Google's part. But
Speaker 1: the idea that we're putting these things in our homes
Speaker 1: that had a microphone on them that we didn't know
Speaker 1: about is kind of weird. So I don't think Google
Speaker 1: is trying to hide anything. But look, if you're a
Speaker 1: tech company you're putting out a product, make sure you
Speaker 1: have in the specs what this product is capable of,
Speaker 1: even if it's something that could be you know, coming
Speaker 1: down the road, Like the technical details of the product
Speaker 1: should be available for anyone to see whether or not
Speaker 1: they're enabled. Like let's say something has NFC but it's
Speaker 1: not enabled. We'll just let us know that there's NFC
Speaker 1: on it. Right. It's kind of like the credit cards
Speaker 1: that the people are getting, they've got this new little
Speaker 1: wave on them because now they're kind of not just
Speaker 1: chip enabled, but they're also getting NFC enabled, so you'll
Speaker 1: be able to tap your credit card at checkout like
Speaker 1: you would your phone. Well, just tell us make sure
Speaker 1: we know that that's on there, because some people would
Speaker 1: like to know that. A couple of apps to tell
Speaker 1: you about this week that I'm kind of enjoying lately.
Speaker 1: One of them is called Rais. I've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but I just used it a couple times in the
Speaker 1: last week. I kind of revisited it after a while.
Speaker 1: I hadn't been using it. But Raise is a mobile
Speaker 1: app that lets you buy gift cards. So people sell
Speaker 1: their unwanted gift cards through the app and then you
Speaker 1: can purchase them through the app at a discount, and
Speaker 1: the discounts range some you know, what I've noticed with
Speaker 1: the discounts is that depending on the popularity of the place,
Speaker 1: obviously you're gonna get less of a discount on that
Speaker 1: gift card. The less popular places, the bigger the discount.
Speaker 1: So I used this the other day at PF Chang's.
Speaker 1: I bought the gift card online. I think I saved
Speaker 1: about twelve percent. Wasn't a huge amount of money, but
Speaker 1: you know, on a fifty dollars gift card, I think
Speaker 1: I bought it for forty two dollars eight bucks, right, Hey,
Speaker 1: every little dollar counts. So I got the gift card.
Speaker 1: It was delivered to a mobile wallet inside Raise, and
Speaker 1: that was a little tricky. At checkout, I had to
Speaker 1: write down the number of the gift card on the
Speaker 1: back of my receipt. When I gave it to the server,
Speaker 1: he took it, typed it into the computer or whatever,
Speaker 1: took the fifty bucks off, and you know, I paid
Speaker 1: the rest of my credit card and went on with life,
Speaker 1: and the server did not think it was weird at all.
Speaker 1: So I was a little bit worried because I didn't
Speaker 1: know if the server would be like, no, you have
Speaker 1: to have the physical card with you or what. But
Speaker 1: there's a couple of ways these gift cards work. Number One,
Speaker 1: the thing you need to know about is some of
Speaker 1: them are delivered instantly, some or not. So I made
Speaker 1: this mistake at home Depot a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: when I used Raise and I bought a gift card
Speaker 1: and it was not delivered instantly. It took I think
Speaker 1: a couple of hours to get to my mobile wallet,
Speaker 1: and so here I was inside home Depot with my
Speaker 1: purchase and I basically just had to make the purchase
Speaker 1: on my credit card because the gift card had not
Speaker 1: arrived yet, right, So I ended up having to use
Speaker 1: the gift card the next time I went to home Depot.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you have a house, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be in home Depot a lot so it really didn't matter.
Speaker 1: But that's one thing that you need to be aware of.
Speaker 1: So when I did the PF Chang's one, I made
Speaker 1: sure that it said instant delivery, and it did, and
Speaker 1: it was in my wallet within i'd say five minutes.
Speaker 1: That's the number one. Number two. Some of the gift
Speaker 1: cards you can only use in store. Some you can
Speaker 1: use online, So just be you have to be very
Speaker 1: aware when you're buying these discounted gift cards the limitations
Speaker 1: and how they're delivered and how you can use them.
Speaker 1: So that's the main thing you need to know. The
Speaker 1: other thing is some of them are easier to use
Speaker 1: than others because, like you know, some of them you
Speaker 1: can actually just scan the code from the card at
Speaker 1: the retailer and you can use it that way. Others,
Speaker 1: like mine, which was the PF Chang's one, you had
Speaker 1: to write the number down. It's a long number. It's
Speaker 1: like a sixteen digit number plus a pin code, and
Speaker 1: the you know, the server had to type it all in.
Speaker 1: But it works. It's a great place to look if
Speaker 1: you want to get a discounted gift card. I would
Speaker 1: not recommend gifting these gift cards to people it's more
Speaker 1: like for yourself if you're just trying to say some money.
Speaker 1: But if you save five percent here, ten percent there,
Speaker 1: it's pretty good. And Raise says all their transactions are
Speaker 1: backed by a one year money back guarantee and it
Speaker 1: does work for Android or iOS. So if you want
Speaker 1: to try Raise, you can actually find a link in
Speaker 1: the show notes. I've got a referral link where you
Speaker 1: can get five dollars off your first purchase if you
Speaker 1: want to try it out. But yeah, kind of cool.
Speaker 1: So the other app that I've used in the past,
Speaker 1: and they just started a news service, is called lug.
Speaker 1: Lug is really cool because they basically allow you to
Speaker 1: you know, if you buy something giant at Costco, doesn't
Speaker 1: fit in your car head you get it home, right,
Speaker 1: you got to either use some service that they recommend,
Speaker 1: or you have to use delivery from the store or whatever. Well,
Speaker 1: lug will kind of is kind of like on demand
Speaker 1: Postmates slash Uber for anything that you buy that's big, right,
Speaker 1: And so that's always been a thing that they do.
Speaker 1: If you need a table moved, they'll move the table
Speaker 1: across town. They send a guy with a truck and
Speaker 1: you know, and he'll move the stuff for you. It's
Speaker 1: pretty simple, like one or two items, you know, and
Speaker 1: I paid I think fifty bucks. I got something delivered
Speaker 1: from a what was it cost? Plus? World Market. I
Speaker 1: got like a what was it A It was like
Speaker 1: a shelving unit that was too big to fit in
Speaker 1: my car. I think I paid fifty bucks something like that,
Speaker 1: and I just you know, it was delivered right to
Speaker 1: my house. It was great. The guys came, they dropped
Speaker 1: it off. It was perfect. So now what they're doing
Speaker 1: is shop with lug is a little bit different because
Speaker 1: now you can actually shop right through the app for
Speaker 1: favorite things from your favorite stores. They've got Ikea, Target,
Speaker 1: West Elm, and World Market, among others, and they curated
Speaker 1: a bunch of products. So these are like big, bulky products.
Speaker 1: We're not talking oatmeal here. We're talking shelving units. We're
Speaker 1: talking coffee tables, couches, stuff like that. And so you
Speaker 1: can go on their app, you can order it and
Speaker 1: if you order it by same by five pm, you
Speaker 1: can get delivered the same day by friendly five star
Speaker 1: vetted luggers and luggers are basically uber drivers or Ubers
Speaker 1: style drivers. They're just third party people that say, have
Speaker 1: a pickup truck. I've got some muscles and I don't
Speaker 1: mind moving stuff for people. And you do pick a
Speaker 1: one hour delivery window, and you can do this up
Speaker 1: to seven days in advance. So let's say you order
Speaker 1: something today, but you want it delivered on Saturday when
Speaker 1: you're home from nine to ten am. Schedule it all
Speaker 1: on the app and boom, now you can you know, look,
Speaker 1: I think that with furniture, you kind of want to
Speaker 1: see it in the store. But I know we're changing
Speaker 1: to all online stuff, but yeah, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: new way to buy stuff and it's from the store.
Speaker 1: So what I think a lot of people will do
Speaker 1: is they'll just go into the store, take a look
Speaker 1: at the furniture they want, and then just order it
Speaker 1: right from the app and have it shipped to their house.
Speaker 1: But again, it's called Shop with Lug. The app is
Speaker 1: available for iOS and Android. This new feature is available
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, La San Diego, Sacramento, Seattle, Portland, and Denver.
Speaker 1: And again, the experience I had with Lug was pretty good,
Speaker 1: So check them out. And if you don't like what
Speaker 1: you get from this new Shop with Lug, they will
Speaker 1: let you return anything for free for up to thirty days.
Speaker 1: Remember those emails that were going around that were kind
Speaker 1: of sextortion emails, So they would say, oh, we found
Speaker 1: you doing something little scandalous on your computer. We got
Speaker 1: it on your webcam, we saw the websites you were
Speaker 1: going to, and it was this email that said you
Speaker 1: got to pay up or else we're going to release
Speaker 1: this video to your friends and family. And it was
Speaker 1: pretty convincing because it had like your real name, it
Speaker 1: had your address. Some of these were mailed to people's
Speaker 1: homes well. According to an article in Cyberscoop written by
Speaker 1: Jeff Stone, these things worked even though if you look
Speaker 1: at them you think they're crazy, because you're like, who
Speaker 1: would fall for this? Apparently they did, to the tune
Speaker 1: of three hundred and thirty two thousand dollars since July
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen. So a company named Digital Shadows examined seven
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety thousand of these attempts sent to eighty
Speaker 1: nine thousand email recipients and found that people do fall
Speaker 1: for them. So they found thirty one hundred people worldwide
Speaker 1: sent bitcoin to ninety two different addresses. That's how they
Speaker 1: get you, they say, got to send bitcoin to this
Speaker 1: address or else we're going to release this video. They
Speaker 1: also found job postings giving people annual salaries of thirty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for people that are willing to aim sextortion
Speaker 1: claims at corporate executives and lawyers. So I don't know
Speaker 1: where the intersection is there of these highly paid executives
Speaker 1: and lawyers that you don't want anything out in the
Speaker 1: open about them, and so next thing you know, they'll
Speaker 1: pay up, or I guess they're willing to pay up
Speaker 1: more so than other people. But one of the postings
Speaker 1: for the job says it's not unheard of to get
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars from a single target. And the
Speaker 1: Digital Shadows also noted that the job posting was full
Speaker 1: of spelling errors, and they also had no evidence to
Speaker 1: back up their claims. But it just goes to show
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of people in this world.
Speaker 1: Not all of them are listening to a podcast like
Speaker 1: this that's explaining the latest and greatest it's happening in tech,
Speaker 1: and in this case, the worst kind of stuff that's
Speaker 1: happening in tech. But you have to be you just
Speaker 1: have to be aware of this stuff and I think
Speaker 1: that for ninety nine point nine percent of people, they
Speaker 1: read their email, they see that it's totally spelling errors
Speaker 1: and it looks like it was written from a different country.
Speaker 1: And you know, Google has done a better job of
Speaker 1: in Gmail showing you that this is seems fraudulent, just
Speaker 1: does not seem on the up and up. So I
Speaker 1: think we've gotten better with this stuff, but the reality
Speaker 1: is people still fall for it, and with this specific one,
Speaker 1: you know, I got the email, A couple other people
Speaker 1: got the email. I've got a bunch of viewers sending
Speaker 1: me this email saying that they got it, and it
Speaker 1: gives you pause. You know, you sit there and you think, well,
Speaker 1: can someone tap into my webcam? You know, and it's
Speaker 1: just one of those things. Again, clearly the scam works
Speaker 1: because they got three hundred and thirty two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: out of people. And again this is just the emails
Speaker 1: and kind of the research that one company did. Who
Speaker 1: knows how prevalent and how much more money was done
Speaker 1: by anyone else trying this out, but just good stuff
Speaker 1: to be aware of. Finally, I'll end the podcast today
Speaker 1: with a new segment I call you got to help
Speaker 1: me out? Folks, because sometimes you know more than I do.
Speaker 1: And this email from Brian Waters came to me and
Speaker 1: he says, can you recommend a program to organize my
Speaker 1: music on a PC? Thank you? Now, it has been
Speaker 1: a long time since I have organized my music. Number one,
Speaker 1: I've gone all streaming. Number two. The only program I
Speaker 1: used to use back in the past was iTunes. Then
Speaker 1: I had another program I think it was called like
Speaker 1: tunes tunes Fixed, that would like add the names and
Speaker 1: titles to things. But you know then iTunes did that,
Speaker 1: So I mean Windows Music Media Player back in the day.
Speaker 1: But I just do not have a physical music collection.
Speaker 1: I don't want a physical music collection anymore, or a
Speaker 1: digital music collection, whatever you want to call it. I'm
Speaker 1: all online. So if you can recommend an app on
Speaker 1: PC that helps Brian organize all of his music, that
Speaker 1: would be a help to me. You can submit it
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech Just find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: rich Demiro submit it there, or you can email me
Speaker 1: at my website rich on Tech dot tv. Otherwise, just
Speaker 1: get in touch with me, I don't care. Just DM
Speaker 1: me on Instagram whatever you want. Just let me know
Speaker 1: if you have a suggestion for Brian to organize his
Speaker 1: music and I will include it in a future podcast
Speaker 1: and we'll see if this works. And if you have
Speaker 1: a question for me, of course you can also ask
Speaker 1: that on the website as well. Well, that's gonna take
Speaker 1: us to the end of the show. Just a couple
Speaker 1: of things of note. If you've been following me on Instagram,
Speaker 1: I've been doing a lot more videos on there, So
Speaker 1: if you want to see all my S ten coverage,
Speaker 1: I've got it all on there Instagram at rich on
Speaker 1: Tech also got some other stuff on there if you
Speaker 1: want to see some sample pictures I've taken with the
Speaker 1: S ten. I also visit a restaurant in San Francisco
Speaker 1: called Creator, where a robot makes your burger. I thought
Speaker 1: that was pretty cool. I know, if you guys have
Speaker 1: followed me, you know I went to the place in
Speaker 1: Pasadena called Caliburger that also did something similar. This is
Speaker 1: totally different. This is more like a giant machine that
Speaker 1: crafts your burger. So that was kind of cool. I
Speaker 1: did a little video on that. Otherwise, find me on Facebook, Facebook,
Speaker 1: dot com, slash rich on Tech. Thanks to everyone who's
Speaker 1: purchased the book. As usual, one hundred and one handy
Speaker 1: tech tips for the iPhone, and please. The best thing
Speaker 1: you can do with this podcast is to share it
Speaker 1: with your friends. So let your friends know that you're
Speaker 1: listening to the rich on Tech podcast, or you know.
Speaker 1: You can do that just by recommending it to them,
Speaker 1: or you can take a screenshot of it and share
Speaker 1: it on social media. That really helps as well. All
Speaker 1: the links of things I talk about just go to
Speaker 1: my website rich on tech dot tv, Mridge Demiro. Be
Speaker 1: sure to catch me on KTLA here in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: every morning five am, seven am and nine am hours otherwise,
Speaker 1: I will see you on social media. Mrige Demiro, rich
Speaker 1: on tech dot Tv. I'll talk to you real soon