Speaker 1: It's the Zoom boom.
Speaker 2: Apple plays nice with Amazon turning your wisecam into a webcam,
Speaker 2: and an interview with the folks behind Libby, an app
Speaker 2: that lets you read books for free. Oh yeah, and
Speaker 2: your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Dmiro
Speaker 2: and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I
Speaker 2: talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about.
Speaker 2: Plus I answer the questions that you send me. My
Speaker 2: name is Rich Demiro. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA
Speaker 2: Channel five in Los Angeles. I am safe at home
Speaker 2: in casey can't tell. Also safe at home is producer Megan,
Speaker 2: who is still trying to work through all of her
Speaker 2: Wi Fi issues.
Speaker 1: Megan, how's it.
Speaker 3: Going pretty good?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: I think we're we're on day two of the Wi
Speaker 3: Fi working pretty well. I have one hundred and twenty
Speaker 3: megabytes per second right now on fast dot com. So
Speaker 3: I think that that's a good sign that we're finally
Speaker 3: getting our Wi Fi in order.
Speaker 1: That is a good sign.
Speaker 2: Asked dot com is a good website that you mentioned,
Speaker 2: That's that's kind of my go to for a quick
Speaker 2: test of internet speed and a lot of people this
Speaker 2: week and last week and the week before have been
Speaker 2: putting a lot of thought into their internet because we
Speaker 2: realized just how much we rely on it when we're
Speaker 2: working from home, you know, the occasional going home watching Netflix.
Speaker 2: You know, usually things are gonna work. I mean, sometimes
Speaker 2: there's a little buffering at night because a lot of
Speaker 2: people are on. But this has been a load on
Speaker 2: these networks like we've never seen before. And I keep
Speaker 2: getting emails from all the companies saying how increased the
Speaker 2: network demand is, and I'm like, that's great, and we
Speaker 2: all know that, but like I'm not going to sit
Speaker 2: there and say those stats on KTLA, like we all
Speaker 2: get it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's stressed. Just make sure it works for.
Speaker 3: Us, right, Yeah, exactly. I mean I just kind of
Speaker 3: tweeted back from the other day because it like went
Speaker 3: out again for like the billion time, and then it
Speaker 3: came back on mysteriously an hour later, So yeah.
Speaker 1: It's been again.
Speaker 2: And the way that cable I'm actually thinking of switching
Speaker 2: to a fiber network here, because the way cable works
Speaker 2: is you're sharing your connection with a lot of different
Speaker 2: people in your neighborhood, and so when when the network
Speaker 2: is used a lot, you will notice an issue with
Speaker 2: your network when your neighbors are using it a lot,
Speaker 2: versus some of the fiber networks, you know, like the
Speaker 2: old kind of I don't know, the AT and t's
Speaker 2: of the world, the FiOS of the world. Those are
Speaker 2: more of a dedicated line. So whatever speed you have,
Speaker 2: it kind of just works for you. But let's get
Speaker 2: into our first topic of the podcast, which is Zoom.
Speaker 2: Everybody is using Zoom, Megan, did you ever use Zoom
Speaker 2: before the whole Zoom boom?
Speaker 3: No. I had never heard of Zoom before.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because I had used it, you know, once
Speaker 2: in the past. It's always interesting whenever I hear something
Speaker 2: that becomes popular in the tech world. When I go
Speaker 2: to download it on my iPhone and like, I already
Speaker 2: saw that I downloaded it as sometime in the past,
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I've already tried the SAP out Like
Speaker 2: House Party was another example when that became popular. Now
Speaker 2: I looked to download it to try it out, and
Speaker 2: I had that little cloud with the arrow pointing down,
Speaker 2: you know, which means you've downloaded this before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, Zoom.
Speaker 2: They're apologizing because we've seen Look, I don't think Zoom
Speaker 2: is a bad company. I know they've gotten just kind
Speaker 2: of torn up in the press because there's been so
Speaker 2: many issues with Zoom, but the reality is this company
Speaker 2: and they put out a blog post that said, hey,
Speaker 2: look we didn't anticipate this either.
Speaker 1: We were built as a corporate product.
Speaker 2: We went from ten million video calls a day to
Speaker 2: two hundred million participants a day.
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
Speaker 2: They say that it was built for large companies, which
Speaker 2: means there is an IT department behind them, which means
Speaker 2: when Zoom gets installed in your computer, the IT department
Speaker 2: goes through and kind of figures out all the options
Speaker 2: that work for your company and the privacy options. So
Speaker 2: they didn't know that people were going to be having
Speaker 2: virtual happy here and talking to their friends and doing
Speaker 2: presentations and learning from school. So the amount of change
Speaker 2: in just a couple of weeks with Zoom has been astronomical.
Speaker 2: Zoom's purpose at this point is to really capitalize on
Speaker 2: whatever they can, because they don't want to just be
Speaker 2: a one trick pony that people use during this time
Speaker 2: and then forget about right right right, And to me,
Speaker 2: the beauty of Zoom is now it's become a proprietary
Speaker 2: eponym where you say Hey, you want to get on
Speaker 2: Zoom and you don't have to explain what that means
Speaker 2: to people. You don't have to say, oh, download this
Speaker 2: app and sign app.
Speaker 1: And you literally can. It's so easy to get on
Speaker 1: a Zoom call.
Speaker 2: My five year old can do it.
Speaker 3: It's amazing, Like it's just so simple.
Speaker 2: So they've also had zoom bombers, which these are people
Speaker 2: crashing Zoom calls. So long story short, Zoom says they
Speaker 2: are going to try to do better. Are they are
Speaker 2: rolling with the punches and trying to figure out how
Speaker 2: they can improve their app. It's not like they, you know,
Speaker 2: had any heads up on this thing. So they said
Speaker 2: for the next ninety days, they're shifting everything except working
Speaker 2: on trust, safety and privacy issues. So that's number one.
Speaker 2: They are going to test their program to make sure
Speaker 2: that they can, you know, make sure that people can't
Speaker 2: break into it as much like they want to make
Speaker 2: sure everything is solid, and they also want to make
Speaker 2: sure it's a little bit easier for consumers to use
Speaker 2: as well. They've got all kinds of webinars and instructions
Speaker 2: and all kinds of things to make it a little
Speaker 2: bit easier. And I understand that because the FBI came
Speaker 2: out the big warning about Zoom, and I'm just going
Speaker 2: to go through some of their tips, which are really good.
Speaker 2: We did a Zoom story and I gave some of
Speaker 2: my tips there. The FBI tips kind of echo what
Speaker 2: I mentioned. So number one, don't make your meetings or
Speaker 2: classrooms public. That's that's like number one, make a private
Speaker 2: conversation that way nobody can hop in.
Speaker 1: Don't post a link to one.
Speaker 2: Of your meetings on social media or in a public place.
Speaker 1: I made that mistake.
Speaker 2: I told you this, Megan, and oh my gosh, within
Speaker 2: a second, I had, you know, thirty people in there
Speaker 2: and they were just doing the craziest things I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: I was like, it was scary. Can I believe? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Manage your screen sharing options. So in Zoom, you want
Speaker 2: to change your screen sharing to host only, and you
Speaker 2: want to make sure that you're running the most updated
Speaker 2: software on Zoom so that you have access to all
Speaker 2: of the things you need.
Speaker 3: So, so, do you need to have a quick question
Speaker 3: about Zoom? Do you see to have the app on
Speaker 3: your phone? If someone sends you a link to your phone,
Speaker 3: does it automatically open or you have to have.
Speaker 2: The app on the phone. On the phone, you have
Speaker 2: to have the app. You can't do it in the
Speaker 2: web browser on the phone, but on your computer. And
Speaker 2: this is one of the things I take a little
Speaker 2: bit of a problem with, Like Zoom basically runs in
Speaker 2: the web browser one hundred percent, but they try to
Speaker 2: force you to use the app.
Speaker 1: You can literally.
Speaker 2: If you go to Zoom dot us and let's say Megan,
Speaker 2: you start a Zoom on your computer, you just go
Speaker 2: to join a meeting on the laptop and you type
Speaker 2: in the meeting I D and next thing you know,
Speaker 2: you'll be joined up. But they try to make you
Speaker 2: open the app and so you and some people have
Speaker 2: come out with extensions for Chrome that will force it
Speaker 2: to just open it in the browser because the browser
Speaker 2: is kind of safer, you know, because it's not you're
Speaker 2: not downloading software to your computer, so but on your
Speaker 2: phone you do need the software.
Speaker 1: So okay, But that's.
Speaker 2: That's also the beauty of the simplicity is that you know,
Speaker 2: you can, I can, I can text you a link
Speaker 2: to it of meeting and next thing, no, you're on
Speaker 2: on your phone.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really amazing how easy.
Speaker 3: To make so simple.
Speaker 1: All right, First, question.
Speaker 3: Yes. Our first question comes from Debbie. It has to
Speaker 3: do with Zoom. I'm using Zoom to interact with a
Speaker 3: death population. It keeps freezing or several windows go blank.
Speaker 3: It is a problem when you are depending on the
Speaker 3: image to convey the message, asl is a visual language.
Speaker 3: What can I do to help make Zoom death friendly.
Speaker 2: Well, I think she's saying that it kind of flickers
Speaker 2: in and out. I don't think that that's any problem
Speaker 2: that she has personally with her computer or her setup.
Speaker 1: I think that's just Zoom in general.
Speaker 2: Like I said, they've been experiencing such a large amount
Speaker 2: of people on this platform, and I think for all
Speaker 2: said and done, they've held up pretty well, like you
Speaker 2: hadn't been like a major Zoom outage. But with that said,
Speaker 2: when I am on zoom A, the video quality is
Speaker 2: not that great. And b I do notice that it
Speaker 2: does say your internet connection is unstable, when yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not really sure it is. I think that's just their
Speaker 2: way of saying like something's wrong right now. So I
Speaker 2: think that's what's happening with her. I don't really think
Speaker 2: there's much she can do. You can try a different
Speaker 2: program and see if that works. But also it depends
Speaker 2: how you're Yeah, I mean it's really like there's also yeah,
Speaker 2: I would just try it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, aren't the settings on Zoom set to like low?
Speaker 3: Like can you make the your quality better? Want and
Speaker 3: like use more battery on your computer?
Speaker 2: You can, and you can go into your settings because
Speaker 2: HD is not enabled by default. But if she's having
Speaker 2: trouble with it in non HD, then I assume maybe
Speaker 2: with HD it might even be more trouble. But I'm
Speaker 2: not sure. I mean, it really comes down to the
Speaker 2: fact that I think that she It's just one of
Speaker 2: these things where this is not a perfect system. Zoom
Speaker 2: is not you know, you're not even paying for it
Speaker 2: most of the time, so you'll have to understand there
Speaker 2: are going to be some limitations to it. But this
Speaker 2: next story may actually help because Facebook is seeing an
Speaker 2: opportunity here to kind of swoop in and grab some
Speaker 2: of the people that are getting frustrated with Zoom, and
Speaker 2: they have released new desktop apps for Facebook Messenger. And
Speaker 2: Facebook Messenger has been around forever. There's been video chat
Speaker 2: inside Facebook Messenger for a long time, but now they
Speaker 2: released a Messenger app for mac Os and Windows, and
Speaker 2: it's totally free.
Speaker 1: And the cool thing.
Speaker 2: About Facebook Messenger versus Zoom for your video calls is twofold.
Speaker 2: Number one, the calls are unlimited, so you don't have
Speaker 2: to worry about that forty minute limit on Zoom, which
Speaker 2: is cool. The second thing, and I actually don't see
Speaker 2: this as a very big advantage anymore, is that everyone's
Speaker 2: on Facebook, so that you don't have to sign up
Speaker 2: for a new account.
Speaker 1: You're already on Facebook.
Speaker 2: So if you download Messenger, you just log in with
Speaker 2: your Facebook account and boom, you can find your friends
Speaker 2: very easily. But the thing about Zoom is it got
Speaker 2: so popular so fast that now pretty much everyone is
Speaker 2: on Zoom, and so that's not really an advantage anymore
Speaker 2: for Facebook. But at the same time, this may be
Speaker 2: a higher quality video experience. I don't know, it's been
Speaker 2: a while since I used Facebook Messenger. I did install
Speaker 2: this on my computer and I like it. But the
Speaker 2: problem is you get fatigue from this stuff. How many
Speaker 2: times are you going to tell your friends a different
Speaker 2: way to connect, you know, with my family, particularly, you know,
Speaker 2: I told them all, hey, download Google Duo, and then
Speaker 2: we went to Zoo, and I can't tell them, hey,
Speaker 2: now let's try a Facebook Messenger again.
Speaker 1: They kill me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everyone gets annoyed.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But I use house Party the other day with for
Speaker 3: a segment that we're doing and it worked really great too,
Speaker 3: and it's fun, like you can play games and stuff.
Speaker 1: So that was fun. How was the video quality, Well, it.
Speaker 3: Was kind of blurry, but it still worked, like I could,
Speaker 3: you know understand everyone, It wasn't like completely laggy.
Speaker 2: I think when we get that like crystal clear video
Speaker 2: and audio through these services, that's going to be pretty amazing,
Speaker 2: because that's really the missing piece here. I mean, we've
Speaker 2: seen so many people go remote in this stay at
Speaker 2: home thing, but the video quality and the audio quality
Speaker 2: is still just not there. It's it's still it's better
Speaker 2: than it ever has been, but it's still not like, wow,
Speaker 2: you're right there in the room with me even now
Speaker 2: we talk. I mean we're using FaceTime audio to connect
Speaker 2: and it's just I could tell it's not that good.
Speaker 2: And so when you do get a good connection, and
Speaker 2: especially when it's crystal clear, I think that's kind of
Speaker 2: like the last that's going to be amazing when that happens.
Speaker 3: So is that like what five G hopes to accomplish?
Speaker 1: I think so I think better bandwidth.
Speaker 2: I also think the problem with most of these services
Speaker 2: is that they were engineered with imagining that people don't
Speaker 2: have a very good connection, so they never really had
Speaker 2: to worry about They were really more worried about making
Speaker 2: it a consistent connection across a variety of devices and speed,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, they had to take into
Speaker 2: consideration that some people have really slow internet speeds and
Speaker 2: some have really fast so I think they tweaked that
Speaker 2: technology first.
Speaker 1: I think the.
Speaker 2: Next kind of wave will be who can have the
Speaker 2: highest quality video and audio chat?
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, you're up, all right? This next ques
Speaker 3: incomes from Lori. Hello, Rich, hope you and your family
Speaker 3: are well. How do I transfer my Dropox photos to
Speaker 3: Amazon Photos?
Speaker 2: M So she's ditching Dropbox for Amazon, and why not?
Speaker 2: You get free unlimited photo storage with your Amazon Prime membership,
Speaker 2: and Dropbox is going to charge you after a certain
Speaker 2: amount of uploads, so why not?
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The only thing you have to keep in mind, and
Speaker 2: this is why I haven't really migrated over to Amazon,
Speaker 2: is that if you ever give up your Prime membership,
Speaker 2: you better get those pictures out of there pretty quick,
Speaker 2: otherwise you're looking at I think it's sixty bucks a
Speaker 2: year for the service, wow, which actually is cheaper than
Speaker 2: what I pay. I pay ten dollars a month for
Speaker 2: Google Drive for all my photos. But anyway, so what
Speaker 2: you need to do if you've got them on Dropbox,
Speaker 2: So there's two things. If they're all on Dropbox but
Speaker 2: also on your computer, because Dropbox can sync in different ways.
Speaker 1: Like let's say you.
Speaker 2: Have a whole bunch of stuff on Dropbox, but you
Speaker 2: only have one file that you actually are one folder
Speaker 2: that you actually want physically sync to your computer. Sometimes
Speaker 2: people do that to save space, like they'll keep stuff
Speaker 2: in the cloud, but they'll say, okay, anything in this folder,
Speaker 2: actually keep a copy of it on my desktop. So
Speaker 2: you need to figure out do you have all your
Speaker 2: pictures on your computer or are they actually only in
Speaker 2: the Dropbox cloud. If they're only in the Dropbox cloud,
Speaker 2: you need to start by making sure you sync everything
Speaker 2: to your computer so a physical copy of your photo
Speaker 2: is residing on your computer's hard drive and not just
Speaker 2: in the Dropbox cloud. Now, that can cause some problems
Speaker 2: because not everyone's laptop drive might be able to accommodate
Speaker 2: all of your photo collection. And that's why a lot
Speaker 2: of people went to the cloud because they don't want
Speaker 2: to deal with all the storage being taken up on
Speaker 2: their laptop.
Speaker 1: So that's number one.
Speaker 2: Number two, all you do is go to Amazon the
Speaker 2: photos website and let me see what that is, Amazon Photos.
Speaker 2: It's actually kind of funny. It's Amazon dot Com slash
Speaker 2: Amazon dash Photos and there is a desktop app. So
Speaker 2: once you download the desktop app, you would point it
Speaker 2: to the folder where all of your photos are stored
Speaker 2: in on your hard drive and let it go to town.
Speaker 2: It's probably gonna take a while for that to upload,
Speaker 2: depending on how many pictures you have.
Speaker 1: Did that all make sense, Megan?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. I do feel like I need
Speaker 3: to start using the Amazon because that's a great way
Speaker 3: to just you know, stack up your photos.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: It's full resolution, which is different. Google Photos is unlimited free,
Speaker 2: but it's not at the full resolution. So if your
Speaker 2: photos are over a certain megapixel and I believe it's
Speaker 2: twelve or sixteen, I can't remember, but it will upload
Speaker 2: at what's called a high quality version. Now, for ninety
Speaker 2: nine point nine percent of people, that's gonna be just fine,
Speaker 2: But for me, I just I can't deal with the
Speaker 2: idea of not having my original pictures, Like, I don't
Speaker 2: want any algorithm to compress my pictures. So that's why
Speaker 2: I pay the ten dollars a month, and that's why
Speaker 2: the Amazon One, if you're already paying for Prime, is
Speaker 2: kind of nice because it is unlimited.
Speaker 1: Full resolution photo storage.
Speaker 2: But Amazon knows, they're very smart. They know that the
Speaker 2: more pictures you have in there, the more you're going
Speaker 2: to be renewing that Amazon Prime membership every year because
Speaker 2: you don't want to lose your pictures.
Speaker 1: This is fun.
Speaker 2: Did you see the story Megan of the guy who
Speaker 2: turned himself into a potato head by accident on Zoom?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I saw that.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I saw that story. It keeps percolating on
Speaker 2: the news, and I downloaded an app called snap Camera
Speaker 2: to kind of recreate this.
Speaker 1: So that's the story behind it. This guy. I don't
Speaker 1: know if if he did it or if his kids
Speaker 1: did it, whoever did.
Speaker 2: It, But there's an app called snap Camera, and this
Speaker 2: comes from Snapchat and it basically turns you into a
Speaker 2: bunch of funny things, kind of like if I had
Speaker 2: to give you an example, you know, on Instagram they
Speaker 2: have those filters where you can look a certain way
Speaker 2: or you know whatever. That yes, and I think Snapchat
Speaker 2: started him right, but maybe not right. Well so, so
Speaker 2: Snapchat has a desktop app that does that same thing.
Speaker 1: But here's the magic of it.
Speaker 2: You can once you download this desktop app, you can
Speaker 2: use those same exact filters or lenses as they call them,
Speaker 2: across any of your video chatting apps. So you can
Speaker 2: use it in Zoom, you can use it in Google Hangouts,
Speaker 2: you can use it in Skype. You become your camera
Speaker 2: on your system, becomes the snap camera. It's like another
Speaker 2: input on your system. Now, this is what got this
Speaker 2: guy in trouble is because whoever set this thing up,
Speaker 2: he didn't realize that he could switch cameras back to
Speaker 2: his regular webcam on his laptop and he couldn't figure
Speaker 2: out how to do that apparently.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: I downloaded this app.
Speaker 2: I'm actually gonna do a little video on how to
Speaker 2: use this app for my social media because I think
Speaker 2: that people are seeing the potato story and I I've
Speaker 2: looked at all the Potato stories and a lot of
Speaker 2: them aren't explaining how to do this and how to
Speaker 2: most importantly turn it off.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to do that.
Speaker 2: But anyway, if you're interested, just google Snap Camera and
Speaker 2: you can download it for your computer and use it
Speaker 2: in Zoom or in any of your other ones. And
Speaker 2: by the way, if you're using it in Zoom, the
Speaker 2: way that you turn it off. I will give you
Speaker 2: this right now because you need to know. This is
Speaker 2: when you're in a meeting, you want to go down
Speaker 2: to where it says stop video, and you press a
Speaker 2: little arrow next to it and it says select a camera,
Speaker 2: and Snap camera will give you the potato head and
Speaker 2: then your FaceTime, HD camera or whatever your webcam is
Speaker 2: on your computer will be back to your normal camera
Speaker 2: that everyone knows and loves.
Speaker 3: All right, Megan, Okay, this next question comes from Tims.
Speaker 3: I was looking to see if you had anything posted
Speaker 3: about recommendations or any success or Is it all scams
Speaker 3: guarding plug in TV antenna products that claim to give
Speaker 3: you instant access to local channels.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's so funny, Megan, because when I get these questions,
Speaker 2: I get them like a lot of them, all at once.
Speaker 2: So clearly someone made an advertisement on Facebook or did
Speaker 2: a big buy on TV, because I got a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of these questions all at once, and these things
Speaker 2: have different names, but the way I understand them is
Speaker 2: they I don't know if they're like they plug into
Speaker 2: the USB on your computer some of them, and then
Speaker 2: other ones just I guess are our little tiny antenna
Speaker 2: that you can plug into the back of your TV.
Speaker 2: But the bottom line is I love that you're trying
Speaker 2: to get over the air reception and people forget that
Speaker 2: you can get that, and it's very good depending on
Speaker 2: where you live. For instance, I have an antenna on
Speaker 2: my home and I get all the channels for free
Speaker 2: that are over the air and they come in perfectly.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, it's great and it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: But the reality is if you you don't want to
Speaker 2: go on your roof and install an antenna, which would
Speaker 2: be the best placement.
Speaker 1: The second thing is just to see.
Speaker 2: If an antenna works in your home. And so I've
Speaker 2: tried different antennas in my office and some of them
Speaker 2: work really really well. And so the two that I
Speaker 2: recommend is from Mohuhu. I like the Leaf, which is
Speaker 2: a really small antenna that it's almost like a piece
Speaker 2: of paper you can put on your wall. Some people
Speaker 2: may have good luck with that. The other one I
Speaker 2: like is the glide, and the glide is more power,
Speaker 2: is more powerful, but it will help you get.
Speaker 1: Some channels that are more further out.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, and right now, this is a bad
Speaker 2: example because it's really tough to get stuff on Amazon
Speaker 2: right now. But in normal times, if you order one
Speaker 2: of these on Amazon, just try it out, try it
Speaker 2: in a couple of different places around your home, and
Speaker 2: if you can get reception perfect, if you can't return
Speaker 2: the thing, I mean, that's you know, no one really
Speaker 2: knows what the reception is going to be like at
Speaker 2: your house until you put up an antenna because there's
Speaker 2: just too many variables.
Speaker 3: I think that's really smart and I feel like right
Speaker 3: now also people might be thinking, like, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: going to cancel my cable. Like if people need to
Speaker 3: save up money or they need extra money, they might
Speaker 3: be canceling. Like I feel like entertainment's the first to go, and.
Speaker 2: So I I know, but I feel like I feel
Speaker 2: like my entertainment is the first that I want to
Speaker 2: spend more on because I subscribed. I think I mentioned this,
Speaker 2: but I subscribe to Hulu and HBO. Of course I
Speaker 2: got the bills for those I saw. My credit card
Speaker 2: was charged, and I was like, oh, it's like fifteen
Speaker 2: bucks for HBO, twelve for Hulu.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a lot for you know, just maybe.
Speaker 3: Maybe he's choosing I mean, I don't know, someone might
Speaker 3: choose internet over cable, you know, just like having Wi
Speaker 3: Fi and just paying for Wi Fi.
Speaker 2: And yeah, and the reality is you can get a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff for free nowadays. And in fact, a
Speaker 2: lot of these companies that offer paid stuff are offering
Speaker 2: free areas where you can watch stuff, like I know
Speaker 2: Roku that's a huge popular feature on them. It's called
Speaker 2: like I think it's Roku, the Roku channel. And then
Speaker 2: I know Pluto TV is really popular. Two b t
Speaker 2: Ubi is really popular, and there's a there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of them that all have stuff now don't forget their
Speaker 2: their ads supported. You know, there's Voodoo, there's Crackle.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of these.
Speaker 2: I think Netflix is the only one that doesn't have
Speaker 2: any free things to watch, except I do know Netflix
Speaker 2: did have that one movie that All the Boys or
Speaker 2: whatever it was called.
Speaker 3: Remember that movie the Yeah to All the Boys I
Speaker 3: loved before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think they gave that out for free,
Speaker 2: whereas anyone can watch that I think that was like
Speaker 2: one of their things, but I think we're gonna see
Speaker 2: that a lot more because something like a Disney Plus.
Speaker 2: It's kind of it's tricky for them because you know
Speaker 2: you're gonna get a lot of stuff. But imagine how
Speaker 2: many more people would download the app if they knew
Speaker 2: they can get a couple of things for free on there, right.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's true. Or they could put ads on
Speaker 3: it and they get.
Speaker 1: Free And I know that, I know that.
Speaker 2: What's the other app that does this? Apple TV Plus.
Speaker 2: They have a lot of stuff for free on their app.
Speaker 2: You can watch like either like the first or second
Speaker 2: episode of things for free, and then of course after that,
Speaker 2: if you get hooked on it, you're gonna have to pay.
Speaker 2: But a lot of these things are doing that. But
Speaker 2: a good question about the Antenna's try it out. Speaking
Speaker 2: of Apple and video, this is a first Apple is
Speaker 2: now while Amazon is now actually selling videos through their
Speaker 2: Apple apps. And I know that doesn't sound like a
Speaker 2: big deal if you're on an Android device because everything
Speaker 2: sort of works the same, but on Apple devices it's
Speaker 2: been really tricky for digital purchases in the past, including
Speaker 2: things like if you're on Amazon Prime Video, and you
Speaker 2: wanted to rent a movie because that's your primary way
Speaker 2: of watching things, you weren't able to do that through
Speaker 2: the Amazon app on your phone. And the reason why
Speaker 2: you weren't is not because it was illegal, it's because
Speaker 2: the developers didn't want to put that functionality in. Because
Speaker 2: any purchase that goes through ap Apple, they have to
Speaker 2: give Apple a thirty percent cut of that purchase, and
Speaker 2: so this is pretty typical for apps. If an app
Speaker 2: sells for a dollar, they are giving thirty cents of
Speaker 2: that dollar to Apple. And that's why things like if
Speaker 2: you look at Netflix, you can't really sign up or
Speaker 2: pay for Netflix through Apple. If you download the Netflix
Speaker 2: app on your iPhone, it just says, hey, go to
Speaker 2: Netflix dot com and sign up. There's other apps that
Speaker 2: do that. I think Spotify does that as well. I
Speaker 2: think you used to be able to sign up for
Speaker 2: Spotify through Apple and then they took that functionality away.
Speaker 2: And some of these apps actually charge more if you
Speaker 2: go through the Apple purchase. So it might be eleven
Speaker 2: ninety nine to subscribe to a music service through Apple,
Speaker 2: but then if you go to their actual website, it's
Speaker 2: only nine ninety nine. So again This is a pretty
Speaker 2: big change because now it's kind of breaking down those barriers.
Speaker 2: And I love that Apple and Amazon are doing this,
Speaker 2: I hope. And this was actually something that came up
Speaker 2: when I was selling my book. A lot of people
Speaker 2: would ask me, Hey, Rich, I can't buy your book.
Speaker 2: It says not available for purchase through the Kindle app.
Speaker 2: And how confusing is that to people? They just figured, oh,
Speaker 2: you can't buy this because they don't want to give
Speaker 2: all those books that they sell. Imagine you've got to
Speaker 2: give thirty percent of that to Apple.
Speaker 1: So hopefully that will change too.
Speaker 2: I hope that you can soon buy Kindle books through
Speaker 2: the Kindle app on iPhone That would be pretty amazing,
Speaker 2: or on more importantly.
Speaker 1: The iPad.
Speaker 3: All right, This next question comes from Lisa hi Rich.
Speaker 3: How safe is Google pay now that some are saying
Speaker 3: to use Wait sorry, how safe is Google pay now?
Speaker 3: Some are saying to use it but not to touch
Speaker 3: card keypads or the use of use of tash. I'm
Speaker 3: a little leery of using it.
Speaker 1: Totally safe.
Speaker 2: Google pay, uh is the answer to Apple pay. So
Speaker 2: do use Apple Pay on your iPhone? I do, and
Speaker 2: so I've I've recommended all these mobile wallets for a
Speaker 2: long time, and the reason why I recommend them is
Speaker 2: because they're actually safer than swiping your card. Now, I
Speaker 2: said swiping your card, because now most credit cards have
Speaker 2: a chip in them and debit cards, and so I
Speaker 2: can't really say that tapping your phone is safer than
Speaker 2: actually tapping. Sorry, I can't say that tapping your phone
Speaker 2: is safer than using the chip in your card, because
Speaker 2: they both work in the same way. They both generate
Speaker 2: a one time number that is passed on to the retailer.
Speaker 2: And what that means is, do you remember when that
Speaker 2: big Target hack happened when they all then?
Speaker 1: Do you remember that when.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a couple of years ago, it was
Speaker 2: a big deal and it was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: anyone who used their credit card or debit card at Target,
Speaker 2: you you were, you know, at risk because the hackers
Speaker 2: got millions and millions of card numbers. And that was
Speaker 2: back before we had chip cards. Now, when you use
Speaker 2: your chip card at a retailer, and I'm talking when
Speaker 2: you dip instead of swipe, right, only basically the only
Speaker 2: place we finally we swipe anymore is the gas station.
Speaker 1: Otherwise your chip is it's.
Speaker 2: Pretty much how you're paying everywhere else. Now, when you
Speaker 2: dip that chip card, it is transmitting a one time
Speaker 2: card number to the to the merchant. So what that
Speaker 2: means is if a hacker got that number or intercepted it,
Speaker 2: it would not work. It just it just dissipates after
Speaker 2: that one time use. And I guess online we still
Speaker 2: use our credit cards, right, actually typing in the number.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so that's another place.
Speaker 1: Where you are at risk.
Speaker 2: And so if you can use Google Pay online, or
Speaker 2: if you can use one of these third party services.
Speaker 2: I know they've got like Google, what's the other one?
Speaker 2: I think Apple pay works online for a certain number
Speaker 2: of retailers. Anyway, long story short, Yes, this is totally safe.
Speaker 2: It is a better way to pay in general versus swiping,
Speaker 2: but it is kind of the same as dipping your
Speaker 2: chip into or dipping your card into the chip reader.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and it's also much more convenient because I
Speaker 2: thought about this the other day when I was at
Speaker 2: the grocery store checking out and I had to use
Speaker 2: my pin number, and I was like, eh, gross, I
Speaker 2: got to touch this disgusting pin pad after all these
Speaker 2: you know, people have touched it in these COVID times. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I was thinking it would be cool if the companies,
Speaker 2: like the credit card companies would lift the requirements, like
Speaker 2: right now it's like under like twenty five or fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: You don't have to put your pin number in or
Speaker 2: your uh, you don't have to sign oh whatever.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I don't think that's true. Actually, never mind, I
Speaker 1: think that was I don't scratch that last part. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that that's still the case. But anyway, good question.
Speaker 3: Interesting. It is interesting because, like I've noticed, because I've
Speaker 3: been trying to use Apple Pay whenever I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: at the pharmacy or whatever, and they always say like
Speaker 3: I'll be like, oh, do you guys have Apple Pay
Speaker 3: And they'll say like yeah, but it doesn't really work.
Speaker 3: And it's just like, come.
Speaker 2: I And what does that mean when people say that.
Speaker 2: They say that all the time, like, well, it doesn't
Speaker 2: really work.
Speaker 1: What I mean, it doesn't work. It either works or
Speaker 1: it doesn't, you know exactly. Yeah, I was at it.
Speaker 2: I was at a tiny diner in Solving, and they
Speaker 2: had do you remember when I did the story on
Speaker 2: the square terminal? Were you working with me at that point?
Speaker 2: It was like, I flew up to San Francisco. It
Speaker 2: was like a little thing that you would uh anyway, Square.
Speaker 2: I got to interview the guy who started Twitter.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, I don't know. I don't think I was
Speaker 3: with you, Okay.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So I saw this Square terminal, which is like
Speaker 2: to me, if you're a small business, get the Square terminal.
Speaker 2: It is the best payment system ever. It looks like
Speaker 2: a little iPhone display and it just is so beautiful
Speaker 2: as a method for taking my money. I am so
Speaker 2: happy to spend my money at your business. And I
Speaker 2: did the story on this thing, and I never saw
Speaker 2: one in real life until this was, you know, like
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago, when I was solving before
Speaker 2: you couldn't leave your house, and this diner had one
Speaker 2: of these little Square terminals. And I just assumed that
Speaker 2: this person at the desk was going to say, oh,
Speaker 2: you can't use Apple Pay. We don't know how to
Speaker 2: use it with this. And I was all ready to
Speaker 2: like try to just shove my phone right next to
Speaker 2: it to like get it to like click, you know,
Speaker 2: And she was like, she's like, oh, are you using
Speaker 2: Apple Pay?
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, you know about it? She's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: just tap and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, yes, So don't judge a book by its
Speaker 2: cover and assume because it's a small, rinky dink kind
Speaker 2: of business, they don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: That was my.
Speaker 2: You know, that was my terribleness coming through.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so I was. I was nicely surprised. I
Speaker 1: was shocked.
Speaker 2: And so anyway, I don't remember what the topic was,
Speaker 2: but I love I love when businesses take the tap
Speaker 2: to pay. It is my absolute favorite thing, that is
Speaker 2: for sure. Okay, let me get through two quick stories
Speaker 2: before we get to my interview with Libby. First off,
Speaker 2: if you can't find a web right now, and I
Speaker 2: know there's a lot of people that have been searching
Speaker 2: for them, yeah, they're all sold out everywhere. Wise, if
Speaker 2: you have one of these cheap Wise cameras laying around
Speaker 2: your house, the company has put out firmware that will
Speaker 2: turn your wisecam into a webcam. So if you really
Speaker 2: need one of these things, you can download the firmware,
Speaker 2: install it on the wisecam, and instead of becoming a
Speaker 2: security camera, it will become a temporary webcamera that you
Speaker 2: can use with your computer. This is not they made
Speaker 2: it easy, but believe me, it's not going to be
Speaker 2: very simple to use. You know, this is not something
Speaker 2: my mom would do, but it's something that if you're
Speaker 2: a little bit of a nerd, you can do this
Speaker 2: and it's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: You just put the software on it.
Speaker 2: It's called flashing the software, and next thing you know,
Speaker 2: your wisecam becomes a webcam. When this whole COVID thing
Speaker 2: blows over in three or four years, you can put
Speaker 2: it back to being a security camera. And by the way,
Speaker 2: it can't be both at the same time. They tested
Speaker 2: it with Zoom, Go to Meeting, Blue Jeans, Google Hangouts, Skype,
Speaker 2: and Cisco. The other thing is, if you have a
Speaker 2: Samsung Galaxy S ten or Note ten, you are getting
Speaker 2: some Galaxy S twenty features, which is really nice. So
Speaker 2: starting Friday, April third, there's gonna be a software update
Speaker 2: that's going to roll out to give you several features
Speaker 2: that launched with the S ten, including single Take, which
Speaker 2: is a way to tap the shutter button once and
Speaker 2: have your phone take all kinds of pictures wide slow mo, telephoto,
Speaker 2: and the other one is night Hyperlapse, night Mode, Filters
Speaker 2: Pro Video, clean View, which groups together the same shots
Speaker 2: in your gallery, and quick Crop which lets you crop
Speaker 2: pictures fast, and quick Share which lets you share things
Speaker 2: kind of like air drop style to your friends. If
Speaker 2: you've listened to this podcast for a while, you know
Speaker 2: one of my favorite new apps.
Speaker 1: Is called Libby.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily a new app, but new to me and
Speaker 2: I have so far read several books with it for free,
Speaker 2: all through my local library. But here to describe exactly
Speaker 2: what it is and give me a better understanding of
Speaker 2: how the app works is Steve Potash. He is with Overdrive,
Speaker 2: which makes Libby. Steve Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Rich, and I appreciate your support of our public
Speaker 4: libraries and benefiting from it.
Speaker 2: I imagine you guys are seeing increased demand. But let's
Speaker 2: just start with what Libby is.
Speaker 4: Libby is the free app available to all readers of
Speaker 4: all ages, and with the library card, the books are free.
Speaker 4: In the US, you can borrow a ebook, a popular
Speaker 4: ebook from the public library and then say I want
Speaker 4: to read with Kindle and it will automatically appear in
Speaker 4: your Kindle either device or in your Kindle reading app.
Speaker 4: And I really want to mention the audiobook player in
Speaker 4: Libby has been gaining so much love for the majority
Speaker 4: of Americans who've yet to discovered the real pleasure of
Speaker 4: having a story run to you. And almost every one
Speaker 4: of the best sellers is available either as a free
Speaker 4: ebook from the library or as an audiobook, both in Libby.
Speaker 2: All right, so tell me about the process of getting
Speaker 2: these books. So what I've done is I've sort of
Speaker 2: started using Libby as my book reading list, so when
Speaker 2: I hear about a book, I just add it to
Speaker 2: my list.
Speaker 1: Because there are some weights for these books.
Speaker 4: I can tell you that the books that the public
Speaker 4: library makes available for citizens to borrow, they are all
Speaker 4: paid for, and it is a tremendous source of ongoing
Speaker 4: revenue and earnings, both for the publishers and more importantly,
Speaker 4: the authors and agents. If the library has ten copies
Speaker 4: of a new bestseller, the first ten people that would
Speaker 4: walk in the branch and borrow it get to borrow it,
Speaker 4: and others would be on a wait list. That same
Speaker 4: system now is in the virtual library with Libby. But
Speaker 4: I'm also proud to say that many libraries are now
Speaker 4: adopting a sign taneous use or always available model.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Now I've also seen sometimes where I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's like just a little award or something where it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's your lucky day. You can get this book right now.
Speaker 2: What's that all about?
Speaker 4: So LAPL and San Diego County Libraries are using this
Speaker 4: Lucky Day feature. So if you're readers in Libby or
Speaker 4: at LAPL dot overdrive dot com or SDCL dot overdrive
Speaker 4: dot com, they can check their browser a dozen times
Speaker 4: a day, so even if they are in a weight list,
Speaker 4: you may just see it pop into the homepage and
Speaker 4: you can borrow it immediately.
Speaker 1: Oh I like that.
Speaker 4: So you can borrow all the ebooks and audiobooks and
Speaker 4: magazines and never worry about them being late. There's never
Speaker 4: a fine or late fee because at the end of
Speaker 4: the lending period, which libraries or the user can set,
Speaker 4: the books automatically expire and return themselves to the collection.
Speaker 2: Now that's one thing I have a question about, because
Speaker 2: you know, for some of these books I see it's
Speaker 2: like twenty one days, and what if you're not able
Speaker 2: to finish that book in those twenty one days.
Speaker 4: Well, Libby has a very cool feature called renew and
Speaker 4: if you are getting to the end of your lending
Speaker 4: period and you have a chapters ago, you can see
Speaker 4: if it's available for you to extend the loan. But
Speaker 4: if there are many people waiting for that book, you
Speaker 4: may have to get at the back of the line. Again,
Speaker 4: since you had your turn.
Speaker 2: Can you talk about the increase in downloads? Have you
Speaker 2: seen more interest in Libby ever since We've all been
Speaker 2: kind of recommended to stay at home, Rich that's.
Speaker 4: A mild understatement. It's become mission critical that Overdrive and
Speaker 4: Libby not only be prepared to onboard millions of first
Speaker 4: time users over these last two plus weeks. Livvy will
Speaker 4: see if you don't have a library card, it will
Speaker 4: prompt you. Would you like to get an instant card
Speaker 4: using your mobile cell phone number.
Speaker 2: Steve Potash from Overdrive, thank you for joining me to
Speaker 2: talk about Libby. I am just about to finish my
Speaker 2: book on Uber called super Pumped, which I got through Libby.
Speaker 2: I've got my wife signed up on the app, so
Speaker 2: she's going to start using it. Megan, are you using
Speaker 2: it at all?
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 3: You know it's hard when, like certain things, you have
Speaker 3: to wait like a couple of weeks. More So, I
Speaker 3: have been like reading regular books and I do have
Speaker 3: a book on Libby that I've been trying to finish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my advice is to really set up a list
Speaker 2: of books that you want to read so that way
Speaker 2: when one of them comes available, something will come available.
Speaker 2: But that's my advice is, don't just try to find
Speaker 2: a book and start reading it that day, because you
Speaker 2: may be a little disappointed to find that it's not available.
Speaker 2: So make your book reading list on Libby and then
Speaker 2: it will notify you when a book is available to read,
Speaker 2: and then you can download it to your Kindle. Such
Speaker 2: a cool service. That's going to do it for this
Speaker 2: episode of the show. For links to what we talked about,
Speaker 2: take a look at the show notes. And we'd love
Speaker 2: it if you would rate and review this podcast. I mean,
Speaker 2: let's be honest, what else do you have to do
Speaker 2: these days? We're all kind of sitting at home. If
Speaker 2: you do that, it helps other people discover it. Just
Speaker 2: go to rate this podcast dot com, slash rich on Tech,
Speaker 2: or we'd love it if you texted the link to
Speaker 2: a friend. Let me read a recent review. Sue and
Speaker 2: Camerio says rich on Tech always delivers great information.
Speaker 1: Love his podcast TV spots.
Speaker 2: I'm such a techy dinosaur, but I can pick up
Speaker 2: nice tidbits to help me get a bit more up
Speaker 2: to speed. Well, thank you Sue and came rio U.
Speaker 2: Producer Megan. Where can folks find you?
Speaker 3: I'm on Twitter at producer.
Speaker 2: Megan, and you can find me safe at home and
Speaker 2: on social media at rich On Tech. I am so
Speaker 2: ready to get back to normal life. I hope that
Speaker 2: we can very soon. But stay saye, folks, I'm rich
Speaker 2: tomorrow On behalf of myself, Producer Megan, and everyone that
Speaker 2: helps get this show to your ears.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. We will talk to you real soon