Speaker 1: Instagram just got a reset button. Find out how the
Speaker 1: new tool can refresh your feed and make your scrolling
Speaker 1: feel brand new again. Want to snag the best holiday deals.
Speaker 1: We've got the top insider tips to save big and
Speaker 1: avoid Black Friday headaches this year. And there's a new
Speaker 1: kind of transportation on the horizon that's about to change
Speaker 1: how we travel, fast, silent and eco friendly. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you where it's happening and when, plus your tech questions answered.
Speaker 1: What's going on. I'm Richdmiro and this is rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: This is the show where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer your questions about technology. I believe
Speaker 1: the tech should be interesting, useful, and fun. Let's open
Speaker 1: up those phone lines at triple eight Rich one oh one.
Speaker 1: That's eight eight eight seven four to two, four to
Speaker 1: one zero one. Give me a call if you have
Speaker 1: a question about technology. Email is also open. Just go
Speaker 1: to rich on Tech dot tv and hit contact guests.
Speaker 1: This week, we've got Jacob Palmer from Best Reviews dot com.
Speaker 1: He's gonna share some top holiday gift recommendations. Then in
Speaker 1: the second hour, we've got Wirecutter to join us. Nathan
Speaker 1: Burrow will be here to share strategies for finding the
Speaker 1: best Black Friday deals and have some of their holiday
Speaker 1: gift recommendations.
Speaker 2: And later in the show bake.
Speaker 1: Bot Ai creator but Bet Papi, we'll explain how artificial
Speaker 1: intelligence is transforming the way that we bake and cook.
Speaker 1: She's got a very cool tool called bake bot Ai
Speaker 1: that we used it the other day. It was really fun.
Speaker 1: It's basically a chat GBT voice but to help you
Speaker 1: cook and it can modify recipes. She'll explain, very very cool. Well,
Speaker 1: it is the kickoff to the holiday shopping season. Amazon
Speaker 1: has started their sales, which means all of the other
Speaker 1: retailers have followed in line. That means Walmart, Best Buy, Target,
Speaker 1: just about every other store has to keep pace with
Speaker 1: Amazon because their prices are so competitive. So when Amazon
Speaker 1: kicks off their sales, the other stores do the same thing.
Speaker 1: And the reverse is true. Whenever another store has a sale,
Speaker 1: what does Amazon do? They pretty much match the price,
Speaker 1: and I guarantee this is very frustrating for retailers who
Speaker 1: negotiate exclusives and deals and then Amazon has a way
Speaker 1: of matching exactly what they do now with all this
Speaker 1: in mind, I've tested a lot of gadgets over the
Speaker 1: past year, and I am presenting to you some of
Speaker 1: my favorites. I think that these are all great gadgets
Speaker 1: for the holidays. If you're looking for a gift for someone,
Speaker 1: and don't just take my word for it. There are
Speaker 1: lots of other places you can look for recommendations. I
Speaker 1: figured I would just give you mine. Two other places
Speaker 1: that I like to look. Amazon has this Top one
Speaker 1: hundred Gift idea category and you can go through there,
Speaker 1: scroll through and see what they like. And then Google.
Speaker 1: This year, Google has something called the Holiday one hundred.
Speaker 1: These are trending gifts. So these are based on all
Speaker 1: the searches they saw. They looked at what people were
Speaker 1: searching for, and they came up with a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of gift ideas based on that. One of them is
Speaker 1: the Lego Tuxedo Cat. That's pretty awesome. They've got a
Speaker 1: Oh wow, see I just got an idea for my
Speaker 1: kid Uno Elite NFL card game. How cool is that.
Speaker 1: Let's see a pickleball paddle set. Yeah. So that's a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of stuff that Google has put up. I'll
Speaker 1: put the links on the website. Just go to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot tv and hit the light bulb icon
Speaker 1: up at the top. In real time you can find
Speaker 1: links to anything I mentioned. All right, So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: and this is also on my website. This is the
Speaker 1: rich on Tech Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide. Let's start with
Speaker 1: some essentials. I love this thing. It is on my desk,
Speaker 1: the Amazon Echo Spot. This is a compact smart speaker
Speaker 1: with a screen which shows you kind of the weather,
Speaker 1: anything that's responding to with a question, a little bit
Speaker 1: more information there, the music it's currently playing. It's just
Speaker 1: really handy to have a screen on your echo speaker.
Speaker 1: And this is forty five dollars on sale, perfect for
Speaker 1: your desk or your bedside table. It is so great.
Speaker 1: I love that thing. I use it every day in
Speaker 1: my office.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: When it comes to power banks, I am loving the
Speaker 1: Anchor mag Go power bank. So what I love about
Speaker 1: this and you can see that I love having information
Speaker 1: at my fingertips.
Speaker 2: This also has a screen on it.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure if you've used many power banks,
Speaker 1: but most of the time they either have no information
Speaker 1: at all about their battery level or it's it's very obscure.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, maybe four dots that light up
Speaker 1: or two dots that light up, and letting you know
Speaker 1: if it's twenty five percent seventy five percent. This has
Speaker 1: a screen that not only tells you the exact battery level,
Speaker 1: but also shows you what wattage it's using to charge
Speaker 1: something else, So when you plug something in, you can
Speaker 1: see if it's charging fast or slow, which I love.
Speaker 1: It also has an Apple Watch charger built in, so
Speaker 1: this not only has a cable USB you can plug
Speaker 1: stuff in, but it has an Apple Watch charger, so
Speaker 1: when you travel, that is one less cable you have
Speaker 1: to bring. This is fifty five bucks on sale if
Speaker 1: you're looking for a thin and lightweight Windows laptop with
Speaker 1: great performance. I love the Asus zen Book. This is
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars and it's slick. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: the MacBook Air of the Windows world. Now, this next
Speaker 1: thing is just the most tried and true gift I
Speaker 1: can think of the Aura digital picture frame. If you
Speaker 1: are stumped on what to get someone for the holidays,
Speaker 1: this is incredible. I gave this to my dad a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago when I was back home in
Speaker 1: New Jersey. I have never seen someone like a gift
Speaker 1: so much so quickly. He was adding pictures to this
Speaker 1: thing in seconds. So this is a Wi Fi enabled frame.
Speaker 1: You can upload unlimited photos to it. It's perfect for
Speaker 1: your parents or grandparents because you can add not only
Speaker 1: can they add photos to it, but you can too,
Speaker 1: right from your phone. If you're on the Samsung side
Speaker 1: of things and you want the gale Watch Ultra, it
Speaker 1: is a fantastic deal right now, four hundred and ninety dollars.
Speaker 1: It's typically six hundred and fifty. And this is their
Speaker 1: most rugged design. It's got long battery life, it's got
Speaker 1: cellular built in. Of course you have to pay for
Speaker 1: a cellular plan, but that's built in. And it's just
Speaker 1: a great watch. I really like. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful watch if you have a Samsung phone. All right,
Speaker 1: how about some of the unique and fun gift ideas.
Speaker 1: So this is one that it's funny. I tested this
Speaker 1: out of my home. It's called the below sixty air freshener,
Speaker 1: and it's it looks like you know, you can get
Speaker 1: an air freshener anywhere, but this one is promoted by
Speaker 1: Hillary Duff or yeah, Hillary.
Speaker 2: Duff and my wife.
Speaker 1: When I stopped testing this thing, She's like, what happened
Speaker 1: to that air freshener. I said, oh, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: done with it. I tested it, I liked it. We
Speaker 1: ran out of the sense. She goes, well, can you
Speaker 1: order more? That's when you know a product is good.
Speaker 1: So this not only looks cool, this is like a
Speaker 1: very nice looking air freshener. It's got fun sent names
Speaker 1: like Vanilla buys a timeshare in Paradise, so that's on well,
Speaker 1: you can get it. It used to be like one of
Speaker 1: those things you had to subscribe to. Now you can
Speaker 1: just order it on Amason. This is really fantastic. It's
Speaker 1: called the Clicker Phone Grip and Kickstand twenty bucks. Magnetically
Speaker 1: attaches to the back of your phone and it just
Speaker 1: lets you mount, like you know, prop up your phone
Speaker 1: so you can watch movies on it and things like that.
Speaker 1: The other one I like that's great for this is
Speaker 1: called the Gator Grip. So if you don't have mag
Speaker 1: Safe on your phone, get the Gator Grip. This is
Speaker 1: basically an oversized clothes pin that you just clip to
Speaker 1: the back of your phone and again twenty dollars lets
Speaker 1: you have hands free entertainment on planes. I use either
Speaker 1: one of these every single time I fly. It is
Speaker 1: just the greatest thing to watch stuff on your phone.
Speaker 1: I have Actually before I had these, was so desperate
Speaker 1: one time I figured out how to fold the in
Speaker 1: flight magazine to prop up my phone. I like took
Speaker 1: the magazine, I folded it backwards and made like a
Speaker 1: loop and then prop my phone up because you can't
Speaker 1: watch your phone flat on the surface on the tray
Speaker 1: in front of you. Now, this is that's something I
Speaker 1: saw at the Verizon holiday event the other night. It's
Speaker 1: called a mag Moji. Brilliant idea. It's a cute little
Speaker 1: stuffed animal that magnetically attaches to the back of your
Speaker 1: phone using mag Safe. These costs anywhere from fifteen to
Speaker 1: thirty dollars and they are sort of like a little purse,
Speaker 1: so there's like a little pocket that you can on
Speaker 1: zip inside. But it's just fun. You got a kid
Speaker 1: or a teenager, these are just kind of a fun
Speaker 1: little way to you know, express yourself and have a
Speaker 1: little stuffed animal on the back of your phone. That's
Speaker 1: called the mag Moji. This was a hit at last
Speaker 1: year's holiday party. Still going strong. At a much better price.
Speaker 1: This Sway Miniochi Karaoke Set. So this is a tiny
Speaker 1: karaoke machine. It fits in the palm of your hand.
Speaker 1: It's got a microphone wireless microphone, and it's also got
Speaker 1: cool led lights on it that light up while you sing.
Speaker 1: This thing is just thirty dollars. If you are looking
Speaker 1: for some karaoke fun at your next holiday party, check
Speaker 1: out the Sway Minioki Karaoke mic set. We had such
Speaker 1: a blast with this at our last holiday party. All right,
Speaker 1: couple other accessories. I love the cord brick. So now
Speaker 1: when you have a cable on your desk and you
Speaker 1: unplug your phone, the cables and it, like you know,
Speaker 1: sucks like a piece of spaghetti in your mouth, and
Speaker 1: it just goes to the back of the desk. So
Speaker 1: that is the cord brick. This is like a little
Speaker 1: weighted piece of rubber that has a bunch of grooves
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 2: You put your cords through those grooves.
Speaker 1: And now you can pull your cables out, but they're
Speaker 1: not going to slide back behind the desk. This is
Speaker 1: twelve bucks. I also spotted it at Low's but that's
Speaker 1: a great little device. I have it on all of
Speaker 1: my all of my desks. If you want a screen
Speaker 1: protector that's super cheap and easy to install, I love
Speaker 1: the Spegan screen protectors. They are sixteen dollars for a
Speaker 1: two pack. If you have a cracked screen on your
Speaker 1: phone right now, crack screen protector.
Speaker 2: Just buy this right now.
Speaker 1: Please. You don't need to have you don't need to
Speaker 1: pay fifty dollars to have someone at the mall install
Speaker 1: this thing for you. This Spgan is incredible. It does
Speaker 1: a great job, and it's so easy to install. All right,
Speaker 1: let's see what else here. Let's see before we go
Speaker 1: wise products. Remember whyse This is the company that made
Speaker 1: its name on a twenty dollars security camera. When that
Speaker 1: thing first came out, people were asking me, rich, is
Speaker 1: this legitimate? How can you have a security camera that's
Speaker 1: twenty dollars? Yes, and it's even cheaper right now during
Speaker 1: the holidays. Seventeen dollars for the Why's original security camera.
Speaker 1: Let's see what else here. The Mophy three to one
Speaker 1: travel charger. Last year, this was one hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: Right now it's seventy five dollars. If you have an
Speaker 1: iPhone on an Apple Watch, and AirPods. This is the
Speaker 1: best way to charge them all on the go in
Speaker 1: your hotel room. You plug one thing in and that's it.
Speaker 1: That's all you need to do to charge all three
Speaker 1: of those items. All right, I'll link up all of
Speaker 1: my holiday gift picks and I'm gonna continue to update
Speaker 1: that list.
Speaker 2: It's all on the website.
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech dot TV eight to eight rich one
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight seven four to two four one
Speaker 1: zero one. My name is rich Dmiro, and you are
Speaker 1: listening to rich on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you talking technology at
Speaker 1: Triple A rich one oh one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. I am a
Speaker 1: big believer in what's meant to be is meant to be.
Speaker 1: I've often thought about that, like, think about this is
Speaker 1: your life predetermined from the moment you get here until
Speaker 1: the end? Or do you have the ability to affect
Speaker 1: what happens in your life? That's a you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot to think about, but I am a big
Speaker 1: believer in kind of what happens. Sometimes something happens to
Speaker 1: you that you think is devastating or you think is
Speaker 1: really not a good thing, and maybe it's a good thing.
Speaker 2: Maybe it all works out for the better.
Speaker 1: That is the reason I have my car. Now that's
Speaker 1: the reason you have your car because of your philosophy.
Speaker 1: What was my philosophy?
Speaker 4: Which meant to be will be?
Speaker 1: What? Tell me explain? Okay, this is bobo, this is weird.
Speaker 1: You know my other car had a Camaro. As you
Speaker 1: went out, me and my wife have been talking about children.
Speaker 1: We want children, we want children, and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll put it off for like two years, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, let me, i can get a
Speaker 1: car in two years, but I'm not trying to have
Speaker 1: kids that old. All of a sudden. Okay, well, no
Speaker 1: car dies, so I have no choice but to buy
Speaker 1: a car, and I have to get a family friendly car.
Speaker 1: There you go, and now we're in the process. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say you had a
Speaker 1: butN in the oven.
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't tell you like that. Oh I don't know.
Speaker 1: I didn't know where that was going. But it's exciting.
Speaker 1: Now you're prepared. See, we are prepared. It all happens
Speaker 1: for a reason. You know, who has to prepare for something? Google,
Speaker 1: they have been under attack from the United States Justice Department.
Speaker 1: Remember a couple months ago, I told you how a
Speaker 1: judge did find that Google search ads were a monopoly.
Speaker 1: He didn't have a problem with the fact that Google
Speaker 1: runs a really good search engine, Like he said, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the search engine's really good. But the problem is it's
Speaker 1: so good and they've done all these deals and they've
Speaker 1: solidified their dominance in the search market that pretty much
Speaker 1: they have monopoly in those search ads. You know, those
Speaker 1: little ads you see when you Google search something, it's
Speaker 1: right at the top, those sponsored links. Well, now the
Speaker 1: Justice Department is pushing for Google to sell its Chrome browser,
Speaker 1: So this is, you know, they want them to divest
Speaker 1: this to another company, which would be really tricky because
Speaker 1: when you think Google, you think Chrome. When you think Chrome,
Speaker 1: you think Google. And it kind of has a lot
Speaker 1: of implications because is Chrome a business on its own?
Speaker 2: Would a company even want to buy that?
Speaker 1: And already, if you go on Chrome, you can, you know,
Speaker 1: you can choose any search engine you want through Chrome.
Speaker 1: Most people choose the search engine that's the default, which
Speaker 1: is Google, because it's so good. You can try another
Speaker 1: search engine, you usually come back. Now, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that Google isn't under a lot of pressure right now
Speaker 1: from other AI companies, right Chat GBT just added search
Speaker 1: on the web through THEIRS, of course you have to
Speaker 1: be a paying member for that. You've got Perplexity, which
Speaker 1: does really good web searches, and you've got a whole
Speaker 1: plethora of other search engines out there that you can
Speaker 1: choose from. But Google is still at this point the best.
Speaker 1: So what else do they want Google to do? They
Speaker 1: also want to prohibit Google from paying companies like Apple
Speaker 1: and Samsung to make sure it's search engine is the
Speaker 1: default on those devices. So like the iPhone, you buy that,
Speaker 1: you fire it up, you do a search, it's going
Speaker 1: to bring you to Google, Samsung, same thing. It's going
Speaker 1: to be Google is your default search engine. But they
Speaker 1: pay billions of dollars to be there, and so the
Speaker 1: Justice Department wants that to stop, and some other things.
Speaker 1: They also want Android to change. They're not going to
Speaker 1: say you got to sell Android, but they're saying you
Speaker 1: got to stop mandating your own services on Android devices.
Speaker 1: So typically when a manufacturer agrees to get Android for free,
Speaker 1: the operating system they have to put Gmail on there,
Speaker 1: They have to install a certain amount of Google apps
Speaker 1: on that phone. It's like a package deal. It's like Gmail, YouTube,
Speaker 1: Chrome Browser, obviously Google Play Store. And so if they
Speaker 1: don't do that, they can't use Android for free. And
Speaker 1: so the Justice Department is saying, maybe we should stop
Speaker 1: that as well. So this is not gonna happen overnight.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it's gonna happen at all, but that
Speaker 1: is what the Justice Department is pushing for. They want
Speaker 1: Google to kind of change its ways. But I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: and this is what always happens kind of with like
Speaker 1: the law and tech. Tech is so ahead of the
Speaker 1: law now already. I think Google runs a big business.
Speaker 1: They are very dominant in their world. But the problem
Speaker 1: is they are on the shakiest ground they have ever
Speaker 1: been on in any point in their history because of AI.
Speaker 1: And yes they have Gemini, Yes they're doing stuff of AI,
Speaker 1: but you've got these competitors coming out of nowhere. And
Speaker 1: by the way, they don't have the overhead that Google has,
Speaker 1: so they can do things a little bit more lean,
Speaker 1: they can do things differently. And so I do think
Speaker 1: that we're gonna see some talk about this stuff with Google,
Speaker 1: but I'm not sure anything's gonna happen. The earliest anything's
Speaker 1: can even hear on this is in April of next year,
Speaker 1: so we've got a while. Nothing's gonna change right now.
Speaker 1: I got a question here from Dave in Colorado. Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: is there software or something where I can save a
Speaker 1: website or URL forever, frozen in time so that I
Speaker 1: can open it in the future and it remains the same,
Speaker 1: or maybe a procedure I can use to save a
Speaker 1: page from the Internet for viewing later in its original content.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Dave. Yes, Dave, there is. The website is
Speaker 1: it's called archive dot Today, Archive dot Today, and so
Speaker 1: if you go there, you can pop in a URL
Speaker 1: and that will save the URL forever. Now, I guess
Speaker 1: as long as this website is around. So that's one
Speaker 1: way to do it. The other way is you can
Speaker 1: take a well, there's a couple apps. I like rain
Speaker 1: Drop raindrop dot io. I don't think it snapshots the URL,
Speaker 1: but it does save it's like a bookmarking site. So
Speaker 1: that's also a good way to save you URLs. And
Speaker 1: then Obsidian, they just came out with the web clipper.
Speaker 1: Obsidian just came out with the web clipper. It's completely
Speaker 1: free and that will save the web page. Maybe not
Speaker 1: in the same exact format, but in very similar And
Speaker 1: of course you can also use a screenshot app. What's
Speaker 1: the one that I like? I'm trying to find the
Speaker 1: name here, I'll come. I'll come up with it. After
Speaker 1: the break. Rich on Tech dot TV eighty eight rich
Speaker 1: one on one, Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at Triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one oh one. We'll get back to those
Speaker 1: phone lines in just a moment, but let's talk deals
Speaker 1: for the holiday shopping season. Joining me now is Jacob
Speaker 1: Palmer from Best Reviews dot com. This holiday season, what
Speaker 1: do you think are the deals there?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: Yeah, And the thing with this holiday season is is
Speaker 5: that there's more of an impetus to jump early because
Speaker 5: of how late Thanksgiving is. Right now is a great
Speaker 5: time to buy, and especially if you have any concerns
Speaker 5: about getting what you really want, the earlier you jump
Speaker 5: out of the better because of how late Thanksgiving is.
Speaker 1: Any early trends that you're seeing with pricing or products
Speaker 1: or what people are interested in, Yeah, basically across.
Speaker 3: The board is what we're so on.
Speaker 5: Pricing across the board we're seeing twenty percent is kind
Speaker 5: of the starting point for a good deal, and that's
Speaker 5: usually the case where we will usually say, hey, look
Speaker 5: for twenty percent of starting point, But the retailers are
Speaker 5: jumping at that now and they're making basically all of
Speaker 5: that across the board. In terms of the kinds of
Speaker 5: products that are really popular so far, obviously tech, obviously
Speaker 5: home those are always going to be huge, but a
Speaker 5: lot of luxury beauty right now and a lot of
Speaker 5: wellness and personal care stuff is what we're seeing as
Speaker 5: well in terms of what people are really jumping at,
Speaker 5: because we are seeing really good markdowns there as well,
Speaker 5: and it's such a competitive space that basically the sellers
Speaker 5: have to be able to put these big deals up
Speaker 5: to grab some market share.
Speaker 3: Let's start with what do you want to start with?
Speaker 5: So we should start with the best gift for kids.
Speaker 5: What we've got here is the climbing Gecko, and I'm
Speaker 5: excited to show you this one because it is just
Speaker 5: straight up cool and it's perfect for the younger kids.
Speaker 5: You know, if there's a teenager, they're not going to
Speaker 5: be blown away by this, but it's a super straightforward thing.
Speaker 5: It goes on to the wall and then you can
Speaker 5: climb around the wall and it's remote controlled so you
Speaker 5: can direct it all around the wall. It even works
Speaker 5: on the ceiling, so you can have a crawl on
Speaker 5: the ceiling. And I mean for a kid, you know,
Speaker 5: my kid is two years old, and then all the
Speaker 5: way up to you know, like that seven eight year
Speaker 5: old range. Like, it is a lot of fun, even
Speaker 5: if it is simple fun and it's a STEM gift. Yes,
Speaker 5: what's the price point on that. It's going to be
Speaker 5: around thirty dollars and so it's super reasonable, and you
Speaker 5: know it's also going to be marked down while supplies last.
Speaker 3: What's next?
Speaker 5: So next up, we've got the best for frequent flyers.
Speaker 5: It is the Beats Studio Pro over ear headphones. They
Speaker 5: have incredible noise cancelation, you know, the kind of thing
Speaker 5: that you expect. The technology there is so solid in
Speaker 5: terms of what you expect there. It's also got all
Speaker 5: the spatial audio, which I think has basically become kind
Speaker 5: of table stakes for all kinds of headphones. But it's
Speaker 5: got the audio quality, it's got the noise cancelation. But
Speaker 5: the reason why we are naming it the best for
Speaker 5: frequent flyers this holiday season is because of how comfortable
Speaker 5: it is. And it's the kind of headphones that if
Speaker 5: you fall asleep wearing them on the plane, you won't
Speaker 5: you know, wake up with a headache about it. So
Speaker 5: in the Bestity's testing lab, we've put it through about
Speaker 5: a half dozen of this kind of headphones with the
Speaker 5: biggest brands, you know, the biggest brands that you can
Speaker 5: think of, and this was the one that came out
Speaker 5: the top in terms of just comfortability, and so we
Speaker 5: like it for that. You know, if you're gonna be
Speaker 5: talking about the sound, and that's what you want to
Speaker 5: be going for. The Bows was our favorite. And then
Speaker 5: if you want compatibility with your iPhone, the AirPods Max
Speaker 5: are really solid.
Speaker 3: And what's the price point on these?
Speaker 5: These are a couple hundred bucks right now, and we're
Speaker 5: already seeing super good deals on these. And these are
Speaker 5: coming down to around two hundred and fifty dollars right now,
Speaker 5: down from their full list price.
Speaker 3: Which is closer to three hundred fifty three and hud
Speaker 3: five dollars.
Speaker 1: This is a common problem even in Los Angeles. You
Speaker 1: get to your kids ballgame and your hands are freezing.
Speaker 3: What if you got for that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so this is the Acopa handwarmer and they're rechargeable.
Speaker 5: The perfect stocking stuffer is what we're calling them this
Speaker 5: year because they're perfect for you know, the soccer mom,
Speaker 5: the hockey mom, or really anybody. Maybe you're going out
Speaker 5: to a tailgate and you're gonna be standing outside for
Speaker 5: a while. We kind of hated the old handwarmers because
Speaker 5: they're wasteful. You use them, they work for twenty minutes maybe,
Speaker 5: and then you throw them out. This is great because
Speaker 5: you know you've got it. You know that you know
Speaker 5: no matter what events coming up, you're gonna be covered.
Speaker 5: All you need to do is make sure you charge
Speaker 5: it ahead of time. They charge really fast. You can
Speaker 5: plug it in the car on the way to the
Speaker 5: hockey game and you'll be covered.
Speaker 3: In those ranks which are freezings.
Speaker 1: Literally price point on these very cheap lesson twenty dollars.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to the Fitbit. You've got a verse
Speaker 1: of four here. Why do you like that?
Speaker 3: It's one of Fitbit's newest models.
Speaker 5: It comes with all the fitness tracking and wellness stats
Speaker 5: that you've come to expect from Fitbit. You know, they
Speaker 5: were one of the absolute first, when it comes to
Speaker 5: this biometric hacking and checking that everybody is now into,
Speaker 5: and the verse of four is a great kind of
Speaker 5: evolution of it because it looks like the smart watches
Speaker 5: that people have come to know. You can wear it
Speaker 5: going to work and you're not gonna feel silly about
Speaker 5: it and be wondering, you know, should I be wearing
Speaker 5: this or not.
Speaker 3: But it also has great sleep tracking.
Speaker 5: When we put it to the test against a lot
Speaker 5: of others, it was our favorite for the sleep tracking,
Speaker 5: and I think what people are awakening to pardon the pun,
Speaker 5: is that sleep tracking really does matter to the overall
Speaker 5: wellness profile that people are putting together right now. So
Speaker 5: we love it for that, and so it's our best
Speaker 5: gift for the fitness enthusiast in your life, because you know,
Speaker 5: we're great for the run. It's got the GPS built
Speaker 5: into it, which we love as well, but it also
Speaker 5: is super well suited to be able to help you
Speaker 5: track your sleep and all those really important metrics that
Speaker 5: are going to help you maximize your wellness.
Speaker 3: And it works with iPhone and Android.
Speaker 5: And we're seeing it now in that hundred dollar range,
Speaker 5: so you know, more than one hundred dollars, but uh,
Speaker 5: you know it's it's definitely marked on right now and
Speaker 5: under two under two hundred and for the newest model.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's something that we're pretty excited to see
Speaker 5: on that price learrange.
Speaker 1: What is the lofty alarm clock?
Speaker 5: So the lofty alarm clock is basically the ultimate evolution
Speaker 5: of those alarm clocks that you would see in every
Speaker 5: hotel room that I think all of us grew up
Speaker 5: having in our rooms. But instead of a harsh red
Speaker 5: light beeping in your face and flashing in your face,
Speaker 5: it is super customizable.
Speaker 3: It also works as a white.
Speaker 5: Noise machine, and it can also have a bunch of
Speaker 5: different features on it that will allow you to really
Speaker 5: figure out how do you want to wake up, so
Speaker 5: you can set it to have a gentle reminder to
Speaker 5: wake up at one point if you're the kind of
Speaker 5: person who hits the snooze twenty times before you're willing
Speaker 5: to get out of bed. So then it also gets
Speaker 5: increasingly harsh, so you know you're not going to miss
Speaker 5: your meeting if this thing's really going at you.
Speaker 1: Just now, does this have a display on it?
Speaker 3: It does?
Speaker 5: Okay, it does, and you can customize it so you
Speaker 5: can use different color tones on it, you can pick
Speaker 5: what information it's showing you, and then also you can
Speaker 5: program it to go night blackout when you want to
Speaker 5: be sleeping, because there's a lot of studies out there
Speaker 5: now that any amount of light in your bedroom while
Speaker 5: you're trying to sleep is harmful for your sleep.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like a modern alarm clock that's been
Speaker 1: rethought for sort of how we work today.
Speaker 3: What's the price point. It's around one hundred and twiny
Speaker 3: dollars right now. Is it Internet connected?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, it's connected to and then you can control
Speaker 5: it from your phone as well. It's got like different
Speaker 5: settings on it that you can use through an app.
Speaker 3: Okay, I want that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gotta have some tunes. Tell me about the Soundcore speaker.
Speaker 5: So it's a Bluetooth speaker that I mean, as you
Speaker 5: can see, this thing is not a small one that
Speaker 5: you're gonna attach to your backpack. This is a formidable
Speaker 5: piece of equipment that we've.
Speaker 3: Got right now.
Speaker 5: And this is our best gift from a hidden gem brand.
Speaker 5: Because during these big shopping events, you're always looking to
Speaker 5: figure out like is this deal worth it? Are these
Speaker 5: you know, is this price too good to be true?
Speaker 5: And it bestially because we're always testing products to figure
Speaker 5: out like, is this lower price point product as good
Speaker 5: as some of the bigger names, and Anchor fits that
Speaker 5: bill perfectly because it sounds great.
Speaker 3: This is a powerful speaker.
Speaker 5: I mean, if you look in front of you, you can
Speaker 5: power the entire party, whether you're at the park, you're
Speaker 5: at a tailgate, you're in your backyard, wherever. This is
Speaker 5: going to keep everybody going. So we love it for that.
Speaker 5: But it's also super affordable, especially when you compare it
Speaker 5: to some of those bigger names like Bows or Sonas
Speaker 5: or something like that.
Speaker 1: I also like that it looks like there's some lights
Speaker 1: on the sides. Is it light up while it's playing
Speaker 1: the music?
Speaker 5: It will give you some lights on the side and
Speaker 5: it will go with the you know, the rhythm of
Speaker 5: the song that you're playing as well. So that's that's
Speaker 5: another fun quirk that, frankly is another thing that's happened
Speaker 5: with a lot of the higher end the Bluetooth speakers.
Speaker 5: But you're getting all these features from Anchor, which is
Speaker 5: always really impressive.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the Anchor Soundcore, what's the price point on this.
Speaker 5: This is gonna be a little bit more than one
Speaker 5: hundred dollars as well. But when you're getting these bigger ones,
Speaker 5: you know, over these holiday events, these can get up
Speaker 5: to you know, from the JBLS and those brands like that,
Speaker 5: these can get up to like two hundred, three hundred.
Speaker 3: Dollars depending on what you're looking at.
Speaker 1: Last, but not least, the theough gun. This looks like
Speaker 1: a newer model. It's kind of a compact model.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it seems like every year when we start
Speaker 5: talking about gifts, I started talking about Thera guns because
Speaker 5: of how well received they are. This is a model
Speaker 5: that's a little bit more affordable. So you're gonna see
Speaker 5: it around one hundred and sixty dollars right now marked down,
Speaker 5: So it's coming down from the bigger price point. But
Speaker 5: it also has evolved the technology itself, so on that
Speaker 5: led screen it has right there, it'll self guide you
Speaker 5: through the routine, and it's got all the other features
Speaker 5: that you've come to expect from Thera gun, whether it's
Speaker 5: the patent to triangular handle to help you kind of
Speaker 5: get deep into your own muscles, or you know, it's
Speaker 5: the way it helps the circulation or helps you get
Speaker 5: a better night's sleep because of the relaxing factor. And
Speaker 5: then it also comes with a few different attachments, so
Speaker 5: depending on what you want to be doing in terms
Speaker 5: of muscle relief, you can do it.
Speaker 1: And I've noticed a couple of improvements from the one
Speaker 1: I have. This has USB C which is a nice improvement.
Speaker 1: It's got the screen so you're kind of guided through
Speaker 1: instead of using like the phone app. And it's really
Speaker 1: small in compact, which is nice. What's the price point
Speaker 1: on the theragun Sense right now? We're seeing it for
Speaker 1: that one hundred and sixty hundred two hundred dollars range.
Speaker 1: And I do expect as the shot shopping goes on
Speaker 1: and as we get closer to the event, like especially
Speaker 1: Cyber Monday, I do expect them to probably keep coming
Speaker 1: down on that. Thank you, Jacob Palmer of best reviews
Speaker 1: dot com and just full disclosure. Best Reviews is owned
Speaker 1: by the same parent company as KTLA, the television station
Speaker 1: I work for. All right, get those phone calls in
Speaker 1: triple A Rich one one eight eight eight seven four
Speaker 1: two four one zero one more rich on Tech coming
Speaker 1: your way right after this. Welcome back to Rich on
Speaker 1: tech Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking Technology.
Speaker 1: The phone line for the show eight eight eight Rich
Speaker 1: one O one eight eight eight seven four to two
Speaker 1: four one zero one.
Speaker 2: The website for the show.
Speaker 1: Rich on tech dot tv doing the show notes a
Speaker 1: little bit different today, so they're still in the same place.
Speaker 1: If you hit the light bulb, it will take you
Speaker 1: to the show notes. This is episode ninety nine, and
Speaker 1: uh you can. It's just a little bit different. The
Speaker 1: format's different, but all the notes are there. They're there
Speaker 1: in real time. So if you want links to anything
Speaker 1: that Jacob Palmer from Best Reviews just mentioned, you can
Speaker 1: find them there, or anything that I mentioned earlier in
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: It is all there.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 1: Dave in Uh, let's see. Dave writes in, I missed
Speaker 1: it on your show. Please tell me the software you
Speaker 1: use to answer emails with your voice. I would like
Speaker 1: to compose emails with my voice and send them back.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So the thing that I mentioned on the show is
Speaker 1: called whisper flow wisp r flow that is available for
Speaker 1: Mac only, So that is a Mac Mac format right now,
Speaker 1: Windows and iOS and Android coming soon. It works really well.
Speaker 1: It's very accurate. You get two thousand words for free.
Speaker 1: I think a week after that you do have to
Speaker 1: pay so or a month.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's there's some sort of free level. I have not
Speaker 1: reached a point where I have to pay for anything,
Speaker 1: so that it works just fine. If you're on Windows,
Speaker 1: Windows and Mac by the way, both have built in
Speaker 1: voice to text, it might not be as good as
Speaker 1: this because this is AI powered. But on Windows, if
Speaker 1: you want to try this, you can turn on voice
Speaker 1: typing by pressing the Windows key plus H. That will
Speaker 1: bring up the hardware keyboard on your computer screen, and
Speaker 1: then press the microphone key next to the space bar,
Speaker 1: so Windows H plus the microphone key, and that will
Speaker 1: bring up the voice to text. On Windows eleven, let's
Speaker 1: see what it's like on Windows ten. Windows ten, yeah,
Speaker 1: same thing. So again that is how you do it
Speaker 1: on there, you know, it's it's one of these things
Speaker 1: where the dictation that we have, like especially on iPhone,
Speaker 1: is just it's not that good. Like I really rarely
Speaker 1: use it because it's not as fast as I want
Speaker 1: it to be. On Android it's very fast. If you're
Speaker 1: using g Board by Google, that's Google's keyboard, the voice
Speaker 1: to text is like incredible and it's really fast, especially
Speaker 1: if you're on a Pixel. If you're on a Samsung
Speaker 1: and you're using it, it's good. The Pixel is like
Speaker 1: somewhat I don't know a little bit better because it's
Speaker 1: goes back to what we were talking about. It's Google's products,
Speaker 1: so I guess they favored a little bit.
Speaker 3: Let's go to.
Speaker 2: Jerry in Irvine, California. Jerry, you're on with Rich HII Rich?
Speaker 8: How you doing today?
Speaker 2: I am doing fantastic.
Speaker 1: What's up?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 8: I have like the last five phones that I have
Speaker 8: bought over the years, and they have made me more
Speaker 8: or less use Gmail on them to activate them, and
Speaker 8: now I don't use any of them anymore. And I've
Speaker 8: been finding lately that when I've been trying to start
Speaker 8: up a new account, they have blacked me because I've
Speaker 8: already had a Gmail account. So how can I delete
Speaker 8: like four or five of them and then start from.
Speaker 1: Scratch delete the Gmail account? Yeah, like the whole thing.
Speaker 8: But like the whole thing. Yeah, because the phones were
Speaker 8: only used for a while until they died, and then
Speaker 8: the account was still active, so the system seems to
Speaker 8: think that I'm still using the account where the phone
Speaker 8: get so there's like five or six accounts out there
Speaker 8: with you know, they're basically connected to me that are
Speaker 8: being used okay, and I can't get to them any more.
Speaker 3: They don't know what their.
Speaker 8: Password is or what the actual address is because they're
Speaker 8: so old.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, there's two things you can do here. So
Speaker 1: there's number one. You can you can get rid of
Speaker 1: a device that has access to your account by going
Speaker 1: to Google dot com slash devices, and I recently did this,
Speaker 1: and there's a whole bunch. This will give you a
Speaker 1: list of every single device that has access to your
Speaker 1: Google account.
Speaker 2: So I'm looking at mine.
Speaker 1: I've got four sessions on Mac computers right now, I've
Speaker 1: got twelve sessions on Android devices. You know, I test
Speaker 1: a lot of devices, and it'll even tell you how inactive.
Speaker 1: Like so for instance, Google pixel fold says it's been
Speaker 1: inactive for ninety nine days because I was a test phone.
Speaker 1: I've not used it, and so that is a phone
Speaker 1: that I would when I click, I can sign out.
Speaker 1: I can sign myself out of Android. So that will
Speaker 1: get rid of that device off of my Android account. Now,
Speaker 1: in your in your case, these phones, if the batteries
Speaker 1: are dead, you haven't turned them on in a while,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. They're still going to be signed out
Speaker 1: if that phone is ever turned on again. As soon
Speaker 1: as it gets turned on and connected to the internet, boom,
Speaker 1: it's not going to have access to anything. So now
Speaker 1: the thing is, if there's stuff on those phones that
Speaker 1: you know is residing on the physical drive there or
Speaker 1: the storage on the phone, people would be able to
Speaker 1: access that if they were able to unlock your phone
Speaker 1: and open it and turn it on, so you know,
Speaker 1: all those things would have to happen. They probably wouldn't
Speaker 1: have your passcode. So anyway, that's the first way to
Speaker 1: do it. So again, go to Google dot Com. And
Speaker 1: this is something that's good to do in general. I
Speaker 1: know most people are not activating as many devices as
Speaker 1: I am, Like I'm always activating something on my account,
Speaker 1: so I'm always going through and getting rid of those.
Speaker 1: But that's Google dot Com slash devices. Okay. Now if
Speaker 1: you want to delete these Gmail accounts, that's a whole
Speaker 1: other thing. So that's actually deleting your Google account. And
Speaker 1: I I'm trying to see if it immediately deletes I
Speaker 1: feel like there's probably some sort of like waiting period
Speaker 1: where it probably deletes and then it probably still link
Speaker 1: for a while. I know Facebook did that for a while,
Speaker 1: but I'm trying to find the direct link to this.
Speaker 1: It's a support page. And if if you search for
Speaker 1: delete your Google account, the support page that comes up,
Speaker 1: which I'll put in the show notes, has a button
Speaker 1: that says delete Google account. Now I'm not going to
Speaker 1: tap that button because I don't want to start that process.
Speaker 1: I don't even want Google to think I'm doing that.
Speaker 1: But that's where you go. And so once you tap that,
Speaker 1: you will log in with your Google information, there will
Speaker 1: be some sort of verification, and then you will be
Speaker 1: able to delete that account. So those are the two
Speaker 1: places I would go to check to see if your
Speaker 1: account if you need to get rid of those Gmail.
Speaker 8: If I have one quick question on my desktop, what's
Speaker 8: a really good free email service to start with a
Speaker 8: separate from the phone.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say Yahoo is probably good after
Speaker 1: Gmail if you don't want to use Gmail. Yahoo just
Speaker 1: got like a big revamp, so they're really pushing there.
Speaker 8: Had cots for a while, and need transfer me o to.
Speaker 2: Yacht okay, so like automatically, So yeah.
Speaker 8: I want missing a few emails here and there, and
Speaker 8: people call me out, you respond and I never got it.
Speaker 1: But okay, well the other you can you can use that.
Speaker 1: There's proton Mail, which is very uh secure, and then
Speaker 1: there's Outlook. So Outlook is obviously Microsoft's mail, so you
Speaker 1: can use that as well. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different email providers out there. I'm not a big
Speaker 1: fan of some of the smaller ones, just because you know,
Speaker 1: it's just I think sticking with one of the bigger
Speaker 1: ones is probably better just because their software is going
Speaker 1: to be better. But I would I mean, if you
Speaker 1: want something that's secure, tried proton Mail. A lot of
Speaker 1: people are using that. There's a free level. Let's see
Speaker 1: what you get for free. Uh so you get a
Speaker 1: gig of storage for free. I would do that, do
Speaker 1: proton proton Mail is uh, you know, it's nice and secure.
Speaker 1: So and it's one gig for free, one user, one
Speaker 1: email address, and that's completely free every month.
Speaker 2: So I would do that.
Speaker 7: Jerry, excellent, Thank.
Speaker 8: You, Rich, I appreciate your time.
Speaker 1: Have a great day, all right, Thank you, Jerry, appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight Rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one A new trick
Speaker 1: in phishing scams might bypass your email security. It's all
Speaker 1: because it's hidden in image files. This is from a
Speaker 1: bleeping computer. They say that hackers are now using what's
Speaker 1: called SVG files. Those are scalable vector graphic files, and
Speaker 1: they're sneaking malware into your inbox through these files. So
Speaker 1: it typically when you get an email, it might have
Speaker 1: an attachment like a PDF or a JPEG, or you know,
Speaker 1: some other type of file name, and you recognize that
Speaker 1: and you say, I wasn't looking for this doc file
Speaker 1: or something. If you see an SVG file attached to
Speaker 1: an email, just I would disregard it because unless you're
Speaker 1: expecting it, it could be malware. It could be a problem.
Speaker 1: SVG attachments could be dangerous.
Speaker 2: Be careful out there.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one O one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. This is rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro
Speaker 1: here hanging out with you, talking technology. The phone line
Speaker 1: for the show eight eight eight rich one oh one
Speaker 1: eight eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: The website for the show richon Tech dot tv. If
Speaker 1: you want to link to anything I mentioned on the show.
Speaker 1: Just hit the light bulb. If you want to email me,
Speaker 1: hit contact and while you're there, be sure to sign
Speaker 1: up for the newsletter. I also have my Ultimate Holiday
Speaker 1: Gift Guide on the front page, so you can check
Speaker 1: out and get some ideas for some of the gadgets
Speaker 1: that I personally have tested and enjoy a lot, and
Speaker 1: pretty much the majority of them are on sale right now.
Speaker 1: John writes in Hey, Rich, I love to listen to
Speaker 1: you on KFI. Thanks for being a helpful person. I
Speaker 1: apparently locked myself out of my Facebook account. They just
Speaker 1: keep asking me to change my password over and over.
Speaker 1: I believe you said you can pay meta to access
Speaker 1: help on this. Please let me know what that URL
Speaker 1: would be. Thanks again, John. Okay, you are referring to
Speaker 1: the story of the woman in San Francisco who walked
Speaker 1: to Facebook headquarters because she was locked out of her account,
Speaker 1: and she banged on the door there.
Speaker 2: And said, hey, can you help me, and they're like no,
Speaker 2: and they gave.
Speaker 1: Her a print out actually with a piece of paper
Speaker 1: that gave her like all the different ways to get
Speaker 1: access to her account. The main way to get access
Speaker 1: to your account that is hacked on Facebook is Facebook
Speaker 1: Dot com slash hacked, Facebook dot com slash hacked. That
Speaker 1: will also work for Instagram. People have varying degrees of
Speaker 1: luck with that. Now here's how you get hacked. By
Speaker 1: the way, hackers are not trying to get into your account.
Speaker 1: What's happening is that you are clicking a link that
Speaker 1: you thought was a notification for something, and you're logging
Speaker 1: in and you're handing over your password and you don't
Speaker 1: have two factor authentication enabled. So to protect your Facebook account,
Speaker 1: Number one, do not log in to random Facebook account
Speaker 1: questionnaire kind of things where it's like, hey, did you
Speaker 1: see this picture someone shared of you? And you click
Speaker 1: and it makes you log in. Do not do that. Also,
Speaker 1: if you get a notification that says you've got a
Speaker 1: copyright infringement, you gotta log you gotta verify that.
Speaker 2: Do that's fake.
Speaker 3: Do not do that.
Speaker 1: Anytime you have to log into a Facebook account, anytime
Speaker 1: that login screen comes up, be very very critical of
Speaker 1: that screen. In fact, I would never I would just
Speaker 1: close out that screen and I would just go to
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com and see if Facebook comes up, and
Speaker 1: if it doesn't and you're there, then you can log in.
Speaker 1: The Other way is to turn on two factor authentication
Speaker 1: that will protect you if you did give your password out,
Speaker 1: that will at least keep the hackers from being able
Speaker 1: to access your account, and you can go back in
Speaker 1: and change your password once you realize the foolishness that
Speaker 1: you just participated in. Now to answer your question, what
Speaker 1: the woman did was she signed up for some thing
Speaker 1: called meta verified. This is a fifteen dollars a month
Speaker 1: service that basically gets you, you know, the VIP service
Speaker 1: for the help on your account. If you try to
Speaker 1: contact someone at Facebook, you're not going to get any help.
Speaker 1: But this has prioritized support, which means you can actually
Speaker 1: speak to a person and get help about your account.
Speaker 1: So what she did was she signed up for this,
Speaker 1: got the help, and then I'm assuming she canceled it.
Speaker 2: Now here's the thing.
Speaker 1: You have to have a It looks like you have
Speaker 1: to have a Facebook page, Instagram page, or a business profile.
Speaker 1: So this is not necessarily for regular folks. So unless
Speaker 1: you are running John a Facebook page for a business,
Speaker 1: I don't know if this will work for you. You can
Speaker 1: try it. You can go to the page, but it's
Speaker 1: called Facebook. It's called meta verified. The website, I mean
Speaker 1: the website's a little wonky, so I'll put it in
Speaker 1: the show notes. But it's Facebook dot com, slash business,
Speaker 1: slash tools, slash Meta, Dash verified dash for Dash business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna remember that, so just search meta verified
Speaker 1: and that should bring you to the page, says, Get
Speaker 1: a verified blue check on Instagram, Facebook and Meta and
Speaker 1: that maybe might help you get it back.
Speaker 2: Good question.
Speaker 1: Let's go to Jeff in Clearwater, Florida.
Speaker 2: Jeff, you're all with Rich?
Speaker 6: Hey Rich, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: I am doing fantastic, enjoy your show?
Speaker 6: Quick? Thank you listening since the really beginning. Maybe you
Speaker 6: could help me out a really perflexing problem I'm having
Speaker 6: with Google Voice, trying to get it set up for
Speaker 6: a little part time business that my wife and I
Speaker 6: are running. We established a you know, a phone number,
Speaker 6: a Google Voice phone number, which fortunately or unfortunately we've
Speaker 6: printed on Business Courage and a couple other things, so
Speaker 6: we've already invested in so it kind of stuck to
Speaker 6: that number. What we want and are trying to accomplish,
Speaker 6: is to port that Google Voice number over to a
Speaker 6: personal T mobile iPhone. It had that ring on that iPhone. Uh,
Speaker 6: and you know, cool, if we pick it up. But
Speaker 6: if we're not available, we don't pick it up. We
Speaker 6: want it to go and be answered by the Google
Speaker 6: Voice you know, business message that we've left over at
Speaker 6: Google Voice. Instead of doing that, it's being answered by
Speaker 6: the personal you know message that we've left on our iPhone.
Speaker 6: And it seems to me that I should be able
Speaker 6: to do that, but I can't. It's it's driving me
Speaker 6: in circle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a way to do it. There is
Speaker 1: a way to do it, but you can't. You can't
Speaker 1: have both things. You can't port the phone number or
Speaker 1: the Google Voice number to that device and have the
Speaker 1: Google Voice pick up the Google voicemail. So what you
Speaker 1: do is okay, the way you would set it up
Speaker 1: is you basically have to you set up that phone.
Speaker 1: So iPhone's a little weird with the Google Voice stuff
Speaker 1: because everything has to go through the Google Voice app.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 1: It doesn't like integrate into the dialer like it does
Speaker 1: on an Android phone. On Android phone, you can have
Speaker 1: Google Voice take over that entire phone, so you make
Speaker 1: calls from your native dialer, it will go through Google Voice.
Speaker 1: You can get calls through Google Voice. It's very seamless.
Speaker 1: But iPhone The way iPhone is set up is very
Speaker 1: very particular because everything's sandbox. You can't have Google Voice
Speaker 1: sort of take over the native dialer. Now, at that said,
Speaker 1: you could do exactly what you need. So what I'm
Speaker 1: hearing is you want people to be able to call
Speaker 1: this Google Voice number. It's going to ring your personal
Speaker 1: phone number, your personal phone, and then if you don't
Speaker 1: pick up that phone, it's just gonna go to Google
Speaker 1: Voice and not your personal voicemail.
Speaker 4: That's what we want, Okay, So there there.
Speaker 1: Is a setting that you have to go on your
Speaker 1: Let me think about this. So it's like basically a
Speaker 1: setting that you have to do on your T mobile,
Speaker 1: which is like busy no answer forward to Google Voice.
Speaker 2: So now here's the thing. It's going to forward.
Speaker 1: It's probably going to forward your regular calls to that
Speaker 1: line as well, if someone calls you like on your
Speaker 1: personal line.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's kind.
Speaker 2: But there's a way there there is.
Speaker 1: I think there's a way to do this because it's
Speaker 1: it's like a lot of little settings, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's a way to do what you're talking about. You're
Speaker 1: basically I think it's the busy no answer forwarding. I
Speaker 1: think that's what you want, because that means if you yeah,
Speaker 1: let's see, so this will send incoming calls to another
Speaker 1: number when your phone is busy or you don't answer
Speaker 1: after a certain number of rings. So I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out if they call your Google Voice and your phone,
Speaker 1: you don't want your your regular voicemail to pick up.
Speaker 1: That's what you don't want to happen.
Speaker 6: No, okay, And I think I want the business voicemail,
Speaker 6: you know, message from the Google Voice to pick up.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, the good news is, look, I think there is
Speaker 1: a way to do this. I've got to look into
Speaker 1: the It's been a while since I played with the
Speaker 1: Google Voice settings. The thing is, it takes a little
Speaker 1: bit to figure it out because there are a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of settings both on your phone and also you know,
Speaker 1: the Google Voice app. Now here's the other thing. Is
Speaker 1: your iPhone doing that thing where it's screening the calls
Speaker 1: on its own because Apple and iOS eighteen added like
Speaker 1: a new voicemail feature where it's like screening the calls itself.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know what you're talking about. We're using, by
Speaker 6: the way, thirty iPhone thirteen. So I'm not sure we
Speaker 6: have that full ability on thirteens. So I don't think
Speaker 6: we're doing that, you know, I don't see that we
Speaker 6: really have that ability. I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think the main thing that you have to
Speaker 1: do here, and I'm really like I used to so
Speaker 1: I was a Google Voice user from day one. It
Speaker 1: used to be called grand Central, and I I use
Speaker 1: this thing for years, I mean, and so I had
Speaker 1: it all figured out where basically if my phone didn't,
Speaker 1: I don't. I think the problem is I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that you can have your phone not pick up the
Speaker 1: Google Voice call but also not go to your regular voicemail.
Speaker 1: I think it's either one or the other. Yeah, the game,
Speaker 1: and why why do you want if this is a
Speaker 1: call a phone line for work, why do you need
Speaker 1: it to answer your Can't you just turn off your voicemail?
Speaker 6: Even turned off our person the personal voice bade? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: I suppose we could do that. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 6: just kind of a half. I guess we want best
Speaker 6: of both worlds, you know, service.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the only thing I can think of is
Speaker 1: that I think this is what what thelution is from before,
Speaker 1: is that there might be a way to have T
Speaker 1: Mobile answer your calls like later, like it might take.
Speaker 1: Like let's say, let's say Google voicemail will go to
Speaker 1: Gmail or Google Voice will give it three rings before
Speaker 1: it goes to its own voicemail. I think I think
Speaker 1: you can ask T Mobile to pick up their voicemail
Speaker 1: on the fourth ring. And I think that's sort of
Speaker 1: like the hack. Have you asked them if you could
Speaker 1: do that?
Speaker 6: You know, I didn't know who to talk to. I
Speaker 6: wanted to talk to you first.
Speaker 1: Well, you're not going to find anyone at Google Voice.
Speaker 1: I can guarantee that.
Speaker 6: Talk to After I talked to you, I should talk
Speaker 6: to T Mobile.
Speaker 1: I would see if you could. I would see if
Speaker 1: you can turn off or extend the calls the amount
Speaker 1: of rings before T Mobile's voicemail picks up. So let's
Speaker 1: say let's say right now, it's set up for three
Speaker 1: three rings, and then T Mobile picks up Google Google
Speaker 1: Voice by that time will go to its own voicemail.
Speaker 2: Okay, but I think I really do.
Speaker 1: I've got to think about this, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to take too much more time on this call because
Speaker 1: I know it's it's a very nuanced thing. But I
Speaker 1: think there is a way you can do this. But
Speaker 1: it turns out to be one of the sort of
Speaker 1: conditional call forwarding features on your phone line. So I
Speaker 1: think that's what it is. Jeff, send me an email.
Speaker 1: Go to the website rich on Tech dot tv hit contact,
Speaker 1: send me email.
Speaker 2: We will figure this out. I guarantee it.
Speaker 1: Eighty eight rich one on one eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four one zero one. This is rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Welcome back to rich On Tech. Rich DeMuro
Speaker 1: here hanging out with you, talking technology at triple eight
Speaker 1: rich one O one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Matthew and Murrieta call to
Speaker 1: let me know. He confirmed that what I was saying,
Speaker 1: uh is the right path for the Google Voice. So
Speaker 1: he basically said, yes, set your T Mobile voicemail to
Speaker 1: pick up in a longer number of rings than the
Speaker 1: Google Voice. So if your Google Voice picks up after
Speaker 1: three rings, set your T Mobile voicemail to pick up
Speaker 1: after four or five rings. And there are short codes
Speaker 1: on the website you can help to do that. Otherwise
Speaker 1: you could probably call Team Mobile to reset that.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Matthew and Marietta.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been a while, so I was actually all
Speaker 1: in on Google Voice for a while. The problem is
Speaker 1: Google has not really updated Google Voice in a big way.
Speaker 1: So yes, I still use it for a couple of
Speaker 1: texts and things like that, but it's kind of like
Speaker 1: if you're trying to integrate it into your car audio
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, and you're not and you're using
Speaker 1: an iPhone, it's really tricky. Android much easier because Android
Speaker 1: it just becomes your phone line. It's very very simple,
Speaker 1: but iPhone is very very tricky with that. If you
Speaker 1: have Amazon Music Unlimited, you just got free audiobooks. So
Speaker 1: Amazon is building Audible into Amazon Music Unlimited. So Amazon
Speaker 1: Music Unlimited is there kind of their Spotify. It's ten
Speaker 1: bucks a month for you know, all the music you
Speaker 1: want to listen to. But now they are adding audio
Speaker 1: books into the mix. So if you're a Prime member
Speaker 1: and you've got Amazon Music Unlimited, you can basically listen
Speaker 1: to one audiobook title a month. And it's kind of
Speaker 1: weird because Spotify gives you fifteen hours of audiobooks a month,
Speaker 1: you can listen to fifteen different books at an hour each.
Speaker 1: This service through Amazon only lets you listen to one
Speaker 1: title per month, so you can carry on into the
Speaker 1: next month if you don't finish it. But it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like you can start a new book until the
Speaker 1: next month. Again, so again, one audiobook per month from
Speaker 1: Audible's catalog. And I had someone email me this morning saying, Rich,
Speaker 1: I downloaded Audible. I'm a Prime member, I'm Amazon Music
Speaker 1: Onlimited member. I don't see anything about being free, and
Speaker 1: so I downloaded the Amazon app. I subscribe to the
Speaker 1: free trial, which, by the way, they're doing three free
Speaker 1: months right now, so you can just listen to three
Speaker 1: months of books for free. But if you go into
Speaker 1: Amazon Music, it's up at the top. It used to
Speaker 1: say music and podcasts. Now it says music, Audible and podcasts.
Speaker 1: You pop into Audible now you can listen. It says
Speaker 1: audio books from Audible are now included with Amazon Music Unlimited.
Speaker 1: Select one audiobook each month, so kind of a cool perk.
Speaker 1: And it's just an all out war between Amazon Music
Speaker 1: Unlimited and Spotify because Spotify added audiobooks a couple months ago.
Speaker 1: I found the Spotify audiobooks to be very convoluted. It
Speaker 1: kept it would not keep my place in the audiobook
Speaker 1: and so for that reason I just gave up on it.
Speaker 1: Now Audible works perfectly. It keeps your place across every device.
Speaker 1: For some reason, Spotify just could not get that right,
Speaker 1: so hopefully Amazon Music does. Uber is adding new features
Speaker 1: just in time for the holiday season. They've got a
Speaker 1: new car class Uber XXL. This has extra space. So
Speaker 1: this is for when I was traveling with my kids
Speaker 1: when they were younger. We had like literally a thousand
Speaker 1: things we were bringing with us. Two car seats, ten
Speaker 1: pieces of luggage, baby booms, boombox seat whatever they call
Speaker 1: those things.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's so so many things. So now Uber XXL. So
Speaker 1: I remember even when we got like the biggest car
Speaker 1: you could get through Uber to go to the airport,
Speaker 1: you still couldn't fit everything in there. We had luggage
Speaker 1: on our laps. So now XXL has room for six
Speaker 1: people and extra space. So it's probably like those like
Speaker 1: those tahoes or those suburbans that have like the extra
Speaker 1: extra back sprinter van. Yeah, there you go something big.
Speaker 1: So Uber XXL if you're looking for extra trunk, extra
Speaker 1: extra roomy seating, that's at sixty airports worldwide, and then
Speaker 1: what else. Oh, they also have a feature which I've
Speaker 1: already tested. This has been available in my Uber app
Speaker 1: for a while. So you know how when you're trying
Speaker 1: to get to the airport, you never know what time
Speaker 1: to leave your house. Well, Uber will let you just
Speaker 1: put in your flight number and they will say, here's
Speaker 1: what time we think we should pick you up. And
Speaker 1: so it kind of takes the legwork out of figuring
Speaker 1: out the departure time. Now I have a whole system.
Speaker 1: Now I also get to the airport about five minutes
Speaker 1: before my flight boards, which I don't reckomon end. I
Speaker 1: actually pride myself the last time I got to the airport,
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding, I waited about seven minutes before we
Speaker 1: board it, and I was I was last in line,
Speaker 1: which kind of sucked, but whatever, it was fine. But
Speaker 1: I pride myself on trying to ride that right up
Speaker 1: until the end. I don't recommend it. Don't do that.
Speaker 1: It's very stressful, but it's like a personal bragging right
Speaker 1: that I can be like, oh, I got to the
Speaker 1: airport like one minute to spare. No, don't do that.
Speaker 1: Get there with a lot of time to spare, especially
Speaker 1: if you don't fly a lot. But yeah, so I
Speaker 1: have a whole system where I will look at my
Speaker 1: boarding past time and I will do this whole math equation.
Speaker 1: It takes like takes like Russell Crowe. It wasn't him,
Speaker 1: beautiful mind takes like it takes like him to figure
Speaker 1: out what time to leave for me. It's like it's
Speaker 1: like a whiteboard with like thousands of dry erase equations
Speaker 1: on it for me to be like, Okay, that's what
Speaker 1: time I leave to the airport. No Google, Uh, Uber
Speaker 1: will figure it out for you. Plan ahead. That's with
Speaker 1: Uber Reserve, so that's if you're reserving a car, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, you got to check for these promos
Speaker 1: on Uber. They're doing a lot of promos these days,
Speaker 1: so check the app if you're in compare against lyft
Speaker 1: because it's not always the same price. Eighty to eight
Speaker 1: rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one. Coming up, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk to Wirecutter about some holiday deals. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: rich on Tech. Rich Demiro here hanging out with you
Speaker 1: talking technology at triple eight rich one o one eight
Speaker 1: eight eight seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: I see you holding on the phones. We'll get back
Speaker 1: to those in just a moment. If you want to
Speaker 1: email me you can go to the website Rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. Hit contact if you want to link
Speaker 1: to anything I mentioned, hit the light bulb that will
Speaker 1: bring you to the show notes for this show, it
Speaker 1: is episode ninety nine. Joining me now is Wirecutter Senior
Speaker 1: Deals editor Nathan Burrow. Nathan, welcome to the show. I
Speaker 1: bet this is a busy time of the year for you.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Rich. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. So let's let's talk Wirecutter. First off, explain we
Speaker 1: talk about it a lot. I talk about it a
Speaker 1: lot on the show because I refer to the reviews
Speaker 1: and ratings you guys have.
Speaker 2: I guess it's not real. I guess it is ratings.
Speaker 2: You don't.
Speaker 1: You don't give it a number rating, but you know
Speaker 1: you rate stuff, so I'm a big fan. Explain what
Speaker 1: Wirecutters all about.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Wirecutter is exactly what you said.
Speaker 9: We review products everything from bluetooth headphones to washing machines,
Speaker 9: and we have experts in each of those respected beats
Speaker 9: that take a look at all the options out there.
Speaker 4: We test the stuff that we review, so.
Speaker 9: It's not just you know, we're not We're not giving
Speaker 9: it a ratings site unseen, and ultimately our goal is.
Speaker 3: To explain that.
Speaker 1: Explain that because you know, ever since you guys pioneered
Speaker 1: this model, you know, every single newspaper, magazine, website has
Speaker 1: the best of lists, and they're really getting those a
Speaker 1: lot of the times by just literally looking at Amazon
Speaker 1: and saying, you know, this has a thousand ratings, that
Speaker 1: must mean it's a good product.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 9: There are a lot of sites there, a lot of
Speaker 9: review sites that are just basing things on Amazon reviews
Speaker 9: or basing things, I mean.
Speaker 4: To be frank on the work of people who have reviewed.
Speaker 9: The stuff elsewhere, whereas Wirecutter gets that stuff either in
Speaker 9: the residences of our writers or at our office and
Speaker 9: testing facility in New York, and we're actually testing the
Speaker 9: stuff out. I was there last week and they were
Speaker 9: testing the massage chairs, which was awesome. It was nice
Speaker 9: to hit the sage chairs on a break.
Speaker 2: That's a good day to be in there.
Speaker 3: Why not.
Speaker 1: We had we had someone in the studio yesterday talking
Speaker 1: about the thorough gun, you know, like that they've got.
Speaker 2: They've gotten a.
Speaker 1: Lot smaller over the years, but anyway, we were testing
Speaker 1: that out, so that was great. Okay, So wirecutter. This
Speaker 1: time of the year, this is when all the sales start.
Speaker 1: Amazon already kicked off their Black Friday a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago, which means all the other retailers follow suit.
Speaker 1: So what are the trends you're seeing this early on.
Speaker 4: Yep, that's exactly right. Amazon kicked off on Thursday.
Speaker 9: We anticipate, uh, you know, other retailers matching Amazon prices,
Speaker 9: and many already have. Walmart formally starts dair sale on
Speaker 9: this coming Monday. But what we're seeing so far are
Speaker 9: a couple of things.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 9: One, we're seeing the usual collection of electronics that are
Speaker 9: always gonna pop off this time of year. Uh So
Speaker 9: that means headphones, That means televisions.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 9: A brand called high Sense that we recommend, not necessarily
Speaker 9: a super well known brand, but it's it's a great
Speaker 9: value brand in TVs is offering amazing deals already, and
Speaker 9: we're seeing those via best Buy, via Amazon and via
Speaker 9: Walmart for that matter. We're also seeing kitchen appliances, uh,
Speaker 9: you know, things like uh stand mixers are are already
Speaker 9: seeing price drops toast drivens stuff like that. And and finally,
Speaker 9: like we're seeing sort of those those household mbs like
Speaker 9: air Pure fires, even even baby gear, uh you know,
Speaker 9: personal grooming gear like razors. It's very typical to see
Speaker 9: all that stuff go on sale.
Speaker 1: This time here, I've got the high sense and I
Speaker 1: love it. Mine is great, it's perfect, and it was
Speaker 1: so inexpensive. You know, when you used to buy a TV,
Speaker 1: it was like a big deal, and this was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. We bought the TV. I bought it
Speaker 1: from the best Buy app and it was in my
Speaker 1: house delivered within i'd say three hours.
Speaker 2: I was like, that is incredible.
Speaker 9: Yeah, absolutely, And that's one of the things that you
Speaker 9: know most most listeners probably already know this, but you
Speaker 9: really don't have to venture into stores to have a
Speaker 9: good shopping experience during Black Friday. Shopping online can get
Speaker 9: you the opportunity to quickly compare prices across retailers and
Speaker 9: also to leverage other opportunities to save, whether it's Wirecunter's
Speaker 9: deals coverage where we're highlighting the best prices out there,
Speaker 9: or whether it's you know, price tracking applications. A few
Speaker 9: of those that I personally use are called KIPA and
Speaker 9: Camel Camel Camel and what those allow you to do
Speaker 9: is they allow you to throw an Amazon URL into
Speaker 9: a search field, and basically it'll give you a bar
Speaker 9: graph of or a line graph rather of the price
Speaker 9: of a given item over time.
Speaker 4: And so so you're seeing like you're seeing this.
Speaker 9: TV was nine hundred dollars, you know, three or four
Speaker 9: months ago, and eight hundred dollars two months ago, and
Speaker 9: finally it's seen that significant.
Speaker 4: Drop to six point fifty.
Speaker 9: We always expect electronics to go down over time, but
Speaker 9: what we're looking for are those precipitous drops that are
Speaker 9: that are more significant than they would be at other
Speaker 9: times a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't go by the retail price or the
Speaker 1: MSRP or whatever the price they like, the original price
Speaker 1: they have listed there. I mean, ninety nine percent of
Speaker 1: the time, nobody's ever paid that price for that product.
Speaker 1: So it's better to look at these price drop charts
Speaker 1: to see has this price gone down before? And that's
Speaker 1: a good way to like kind of look forward. Like
Speaker 1: for instance, if you have your eye on a product
Speaker 1: and you pop the URL into like kipo or like
Speaker 1: you mentioned, Camel, Camel Camel, and you notice that this
Speaker 1: thing never goes on sale, you might as well just
Speaker 1: get it right now if you notice it's been on
Speaker 1: sale a bunch of times in the past and you
Speaker 1: know now it's time to wait for it to go
Speaker 1: on sale.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, I think that you have the capacity to anticipate
Speaker 9: when certain things are going to go on sale, and
Speaker 9: there are patterns that like I can identify and looking
Speaker 9: at a keep a chart where you're just like, oh, okay,
Speaker 9: this goes on sale every other month, and it's on
Speaker 9: sale every other month of twenty percent off and to
Speaker 9: your point, you know MSRP and generally like the percentages
Speaker 9: that retailers put out there in terms of the amount
Speaker 9: off during the season, really it's not something that I
Speaker 9: would trust, you know, where retailer is going to throw
Speaker 9: out a huge number like forty percent off, fifty percent off,
Speaker 9: and those.
Speaker 4: Deals are really few and far between.
Speaker 9: I would say the average amount that we see off
Speaker 9: and this is you know, these are deals that we
Speaker 9: have vetted, these are deals that we verify are great
Speaker 9: ones for our readers on Wirecutter picks usually falls between
Speaker 9: about twenty and twenty five percent off. That's the that's
Speaker 9: the best sort of you know, the media invest and
Speaker 9: then only very rarely do we see better than that.
Speaker 1: So if you're seeing something like right now, my kid
Speaker 1: wants a food composter, don't ask me why, but this
Speaker 1: is what he wants, and it's saying it's forty nine
Speaker 1: percent off. I guarantee. I bet if I put that
Speaker 1: into Camel Camel Cammell, I bet you that thing has
Speaker 1: gone on sale before. Because it's not really forty nine
Speaker 1: percent off, it probably doesn't sell for the list price
Speaker 1: the rest of the year. I'm guessing that's right.
Speaker 9: Especially like I imagine it might be that Vitamins FC fifty.
Speaker 9: We covered that, I think at some point, but it's yeah,
Speaker 9: that's that's a model that sees somewhat regular sales. There's
Speaker 9: a new one that came out I believe, made by
Speaker 9: a different brand in recent in recent months, and those
Speaker 9: are likely to see regular sales during windows like this,
Speaker 9: whether it's Black Friday or Amazon's events at at the
Speaker 9: time of the year.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing, like, this is the time
Speaker 1: to buy because after Cyber Monday, you're probably not going
Speaker 1: to get as good deals through the rest of the
Speaker 1: holiday shopping season. Is that usually true?
Speaker 9: Yes, I think you know. My personal feeling about Black
Speaker 9: Friday and cyber Monday is that it's it really is
Speaker 9: one of the last windows where you'll see great prices
Speaker 9: across retailers, not just the big retailers, but smaller retailers get.
Speaker 4: In on the act as well.
Speaker 9: So if you're somebody who prefers to shop smaller, that's
Speaker 9: an option. Or if you prefer to shop at direct
Speaker 9: to consumer retailers that you know, like like mattress retailers
Speaker 9: for instance, that that often are the only place where
Speaker 9: their product is available, this is a great time to
Speaker 9: do so. And then the sales are going to evaporate
Speaker 9: and we're not going to see them again for a second.
Speaker 1: Now you are you're following, you know, shopping every day?
Speaker 1: Are you following this new Netflix documentary? Have you heard
Speaker 1: of this thing, the one about shopping?
Speaker 9: I have not.
Speaker 4: What's the deal with the netflixie?
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's called by now the Shopping Conspiracy.
Speaker 1: And of course last night it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: number two on the top list of Netflix stuff to watch,
Speaker 1: because of course they put it out, you know, they
Speaker 1: put it out right now during the holiday shopping season,
Speaker 1: so it's all like the apparently it's like I don't know,
Speaker 1: I haven't watched it, but apparently it's like controversial because
Speaker 1: it's like basically all the ways that these retailers are
Speaker 1: getting you to like buy stuff, which, well, I.
Speaker 4: Will definitely check it out.
Speaker 9: Like one thing that I can say from personal experience
Speaker 9: is that these retailers are definitely trying to create what
Speaker 9: I would describe as a false sense of urgency during
Speaker 9: this time of year, where they really they really make
Speaker 9: you feel like, you know, whether it's with a countdown
Speaker 9: clock or whether it's with one of those bars that
Speaker 9: tells you how much of a given product is left
Speaker 9: that you have to grab it right now, and you
Speaker 9: have to do so without comparison shopping, without taking a
Speaker 9: more measured sort of research based approach, and I would
Speaker 9: discourage people from doing that. I think that people can
Speaker 9: can you know, take a beat really think about whether
Speaker 9: this product fits their their life, but also take beat
Speaker 9: to assess the prices that are out there on the internet,
Speaker 9: to assess comparable products, and to consult review sites to
Speaker 9: see if this product is something that's quality first and foremost.
Speaker 9: You know, it doesn't matter how good a deal you
Speaker 9: get if something is of an inferior quality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true. They do definitely put that. I
Speaker 1: will say the deals are there. There there are deals,
Speaker 1: And the thing is if you had your eye on something,
Speaker 1: that's when you can tell it's a deal. Because for me,
Speaker 1: I keep a lot of stuff in my Amazon sort
Speaker 1: of cart or that save for later, and so I
Speaker 1: have an idea of the prices. But if you're just
Speaker 1: going on these websites and you're just seeing you know,
Speaker 1: sixty percent off, eighty percent off, seventy four percent off,
Speaker 1: and you just say, oh, I got to get that.
Speaker 1: It's not always that that's the case. And so I
Speaker 1: think following things is probably a good thing to do,
Speaker 1: and also keeping those things in your cart. All right,
Speaker 1: Nathan Burrow from Wirecutter. Wirecutter dot com is the website
Speaker 1: I know you're going to be busy this weekend.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, It's in Why Times dot com, forward slash Wirecutter,
Speaker 9: and you can find our Black Friday coverage. We're covering
Speaker 9: all the early sales right now. We're covering sales from
Speaker 9: other retailers aside from Amazona Forest.
Speaker 4: All right, you're on the sale. I'm going so thank.
Speaker 1: You, Nathan, I appreciate it. Welcome back to rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro here hanging out with you talking technology. The
Speaker 1: phone line for the show eight eight eight rich one
Speaker 1: on one eight eight eight seven four to two, four
Speaker 1: to one zero one. Let's see the email for the show.
Speaker 1: Just go to the website rich on tech dot tv
Speaker 1: and hit contact. That will bring you right to my
Speaker 1: email address and whatever you're right in there will go
Speaker 1: to my uh inbox. And by the way, I know
Speaker 1: you're wondering what was the high sense TV that I bought.
Speaker 1: It was the U eight and it served me well.
Speaker 1: We've had it for many, many months now, and I'm
Speaker 1: happy to report that the price is exactly what I
Speaker 1: paid still, so it's not any cheaper. But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: and here's the trick. So it's saying the TV is
Speaker 1: nine hundred dollars, was fifteen hundred, saved six hundred dollars. Nobody,
Speaker 1: nobody really is paying fifteen hundred dollars like I paid
Speaker 1: nine hundred six months ago.
Speaker 2: So but it's a great TV. Love it Ed in
Speaker 2: Las Vegas. You're on with rich Ed. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 7: Thank you, rich I appreciate your time and your help.
Speaker 7: So I've been a long time Windows user. I'm buying
Speaker 7: by the way, rich. My wife sascept my email where
Speaker 7: she's hotmail okay, and the news narrator so it can
Speaker 7: read it to me. And we recently switched over to
Speaker 7: to Mac. My wife's got a Mac Minnie, and I
Speaker 7: am considering, you know, if she wants to go back
Speaker 7: to the Windows, which is likely, then I don't want
Speaker 7: to see in the machine back if I can use it.
Speaker 7: But she has tried and says that narrator doesn't work
Speaker 7: under Matt to read my email, so it wouldn't do
Speaker 7: me any good. Is there an alternative?
Speaker 1: Well, there's a couple of ways that are built into
Speaker 1: the Mac operating system, and one of them is they're
Speaker 1: mostly in the accessibility area of the computer, so I
Speaker 1: would look in there and see. But there's a there's
Speaker 1: one called spoken content, and so you know, you can
Speaker 1: select the text in that email and there's a shortcut
Speaker 1: that will read that text to you. So that's number one.
Speaker 1: So basically you just highlight any text and say, you know,
Speaker 1: use the shortcut key to and it'll read that out
Speaker 1: to you. So that's number one.
Speaker 7: Where I have to do that for every email or
Speaker 7: is it continuous?
Speaker 1: No, it's every email because that's a one time thing. So,
Speaker 1: and the second one is voiceover, which is similar, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the same, you know as that
Speaker 1: that says you it'll just start reading out whatever's on
Speaker 1: the screen. That's a little bit more automatic as I
Speaker 1: understand it, So that I mean.
Speaker 7: Other other things other than the email.
Speaker 1: Too, right, Yeah, I think so, because I you know,
Speaker 1: I I've seen that feature in action and I think
Speaker 1: it just starts to read everything that's on the screen.
Speaker 1: So that's number two. The other thing is, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a third party app and I'm trying to see,
Speaker 1: but this is the problem with this is that it's
Speaker 1: it looks like the same thing where it's just you
Speaker 1: have to feed the text into it, which is natural reader.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard of that one. And there's also
Speaker 1: speech AFY which is similar. They're both natural reader and
Speaker 1: speech of FI are both kind of like natural you know,
Speaker 1: speech to text programs. So speech a FI might actually
Speaker 1: be a pretty good way to do it. Let me
Speaker 1: just see. I'm trying to see if they have like
Speaker 1: a specific email a way to yeah, text to speech
Speaker 1: email reader, Yeah, I think. I mean the problem is
Speaker 1: again with this, you have to you have to put
Speaker 1: the text into the program for it to work.
Speaker 3: Right, How would that work?
Speaker 7: I mean, if I'm trying to I just move down
Speaker 7: an email now and I open it up, and then
Speaker 7: I paint I arrow down to go to the next email,
Speaker 7: you know, after I either leave the one that I've
Speaker 7: just read or I deleted one or the other. But
Speaker 7: then I get down to the next one.
Speaker 1: Right, and then when you go to the next one,
Speaker 1: you'd have to highlight that. Basically, all the systems I'm
Speaker 1: looking at you have to highlight the text for it
Speaker 1: to read it too out loud.
Speaker 7: That wouldn't work for me. I can't see the screen.
Speaker 1: Right, So that's a problem. The other thing is what
Speaker 1: about using the Outlook app? Like, have you tried that?
Speaker 1: Because they have a read aloud functionality in the Outlook
Speaker 1: app that I've got to see if it's on the
Speaker 1: Mac side of things, But that is a functionality inside
Speaker 1: the I'm looking here. Okay, this is uh, this is Windows.
Speaker 1: They just came out with the new Mac version of Outlook,
Speaker 1: and so I'm wondering if okay, here we go, hold on,
Speaker 1: this looks like it may have it.
Speaker 2: H Yeah, they do have a read aloud yep.
Speaker 1: So I would use that, can you can you can
Speaker 1: you download the email? Yeah, this is it's like a
Speaker 1: it's functionality built into Outlook, and so it's called read aloud.
Speaker 1: And so if you download the Outlook out Outlook app
Speaker 1: on your computer and you log in with your hotmail account, Uh,
Speaker 1: then I would just use that that read aloud functionality. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think that's going to do it. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably the best way to do it.
Speaker 7: Okay, sounds good. Thank you very much, rich I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: All right, let me know if that works out for you,
Speaker 1: Ed send me an email. Okay, all right, thanks for
Speaker 1: listening there in Las Vegas, eighty eight rich one on
Speaker 1: one eight eight eight.
Speaker 2: Seven four to two four one zero one.
Speaker 1: If there's one thing I've learned doing this show is
Speaker 1: that there are many many ways to solve a problem,
Speaker 1: and not every way is the best for everyone.
Speaker 2: So there's always and there's also always a way.
Speaker 1: That I don't know or I'm not aware of, and
Speaker 1: which another reason I love this show is because someone
Speaker 1: is bound to email and say this is the best
Speaker 1: way to do it, or this is what works for me,
Speaker 1: and so I really enjoy the community aspect. Of this
Speaker 1: show that we can find solutions for people that are
Speaker 1: that go beyond just what I can do on the
Speaker 1: fly here or my knowledge base. Uh okay, if you
Speaker 1: still have an iPhone with the iOS eight on it,
Speaker 1: this is I mean, we're talking really really old at
Speaker 1: this point because we're up to iOS eighteen, so you're
Speaker 1: talking ten years ago.
Speaker 2: But you know there's a lot of people out there.
Speaker 1: If you're still having an old iPhone with iOS eight,
Speaker 1: iCloud backups on this phone are not only going to stop,
Speaker 1: but they're going to be deleted as well unless you update.
Speaker 1: So starting December eighteenth, twenty twenty four, iCloud backups will
Speaker 1: not work on iPhones running iOS eight or earlier. So
Speaker 1: if you can update your device to iOS nine or newer,
Speaker 1: you gotta do that. And if you can't update the device,
Speaker 1: like if it doesn't update past iOS eight and you're
Speaker 1: still using it somehow, you can back up your your
Speaker 1: phone using a macor PC. So that is what what
Speaker 1: I would do. But again, you're you're talking really really
Speaker 1: old at this point.
Speaker 2: iOS eight.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's say iOS eight release date, you're talking
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, ten years So if you're still rocking, which
Speaker 1: you may just be aware. You gotta fix your iCloud.
Speaker 1: You got to get that backup somewhere else. Eighty eight
Speaker 1: rich one on one eight eight eight seven four to
Speaker 1: two four one zero one, rich on tech dot TV
Speaker 1: more after this, Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich
Speaker 1: DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology at Triple
Speaker 1: eight rich one on one. That's eight eight eight seven
Speaker 1: four to two four ones zero one. Coming up this hour,
Speaker 1: We've got the creator of bake ba Ai.
Speaker 2: But bet Papi.
Speaker 1: She is gonna explain how Ai is taken over the kitchen,
Speaker 1: and she'll probably tell me how to say her last
Speaker 1: name better than I just butchered it. You know it happens.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you about the best recipe apps too.
Speaker 1: But first I was looking around. We had ed in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas asking about reading aloud the emails, and it
Speaker 1: looks like that feature is not available anymore on the
Speaker 1: Outlook for Mac. I don't know if they got rid
Speaker 1: of it or what, but it is not there, and
Speaker 1: I switched. There's a new version of Outlook and there's
Speaker 1: a legacy Outlook. I looked in both and they're just
Speaker 1: that read aloud button. Is just not there for some reason.
Speaker 1: Now I know on the smartphone, you can look on
Speaker 1: the help site and it says that they've gotten rid
Speaker 1: of that on the smartphone. So I don't know why
Speaker 1: why would they get rid of something that's this helpful. Now,
Speaker 1: I did try to see what you could do with
Speaker 1: an email, and sure enough, you know, you can select
Speaker 1: text and just built in you can write, click it
Speaker 1: and it says speech start.
Speaker 10: Speaking, CALLI first among us.
Speaker 1: So it'll just read. It'll just read that. I have
Speaker 1: no idea how to stop it now that it's reading anyway,
Speaker 1: So you could do that, but that again, Ed said
Speaker 1: that he needs it to like read. So there's got
Speaker 1: to be a program where it kind of knows like, okay,
Speaker 1: I've advanced to the next email. I want to hear
Speaker 1: this email out loud. And it might just be specialized
Speaker 1: accessibility software versus what's built into the machine. All right,
Speaker 1: So I got an email from gosh I got I
Speaker 1: don't know the person's name, but they were in Alabama,
Speaker 1: and let's see, they asked for a recipe management app
Speaker 1: and they said that they basically, you know, find a
Speaker 1: lot of recipes on TikTok and Instagram and they want
Speaker 1: to save them in an app.
Speaker 2: So of course what did I do?
Speaker 1: I downloaded one, two, three, four, five, at least five
Speaker 1: apps to see which one I like the best, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go over them. Mela Emyla. This is an
Speaker 1: app that's just for iOS and Mac. Now, all these
Speaker 1: apps pretty much work the same way. They're free for
Speaker 1: a limited amount of recipes. So what happens is you
Speaker 1: start using it, you save your recipes, you like it,
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden you get your tenth
Speaker 1: or your eleventh or twelfth recipe and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: got to pay up if you want to add this one.
Speaker 1: You're like, ah, I wish I would have known that
Speaker 1: at the beginning, So.
Speaker 2: Now you know.
Speaker 1: So Mela gives you ten recipes for free, five dollars
Speaker 1: for more. Simple interface. Didn't work with the Instagram recipe,
Speaker 1: but it worked with the Food Network recipe. So Mela
Speaker 1: is good if you have iOS and Mac only. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the best of the bunch, but you know it worked.
Speaker 1: Recipe Keeper this one has been around forever. I think
Speaker 1: recipe Keeper and Paprika are the two like og recipe
Speaker 1: keeper apps. So the recipe Keeper works on all platforms,
Speaker 1: but all the apps are sold separately, so if you have,
Speaker 1: you know, a Mac computer and an I, you'd have
Speaker 1: to buy those two apps separately, which is a little odd.
Speaker 1: Free for up to twenty recipes, but let's you scan
Speaker 1: recipes from PDFs, photos or websites.
Speaker 2: It did work with Instagram recipes.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: This website is probably handy just to have in general.
Speaker 1: It's called just the recipe dot com. So you know
Speaker 1: how you go to a recipe website, it's got all
Speaker 1: the cluttered stuff on the recipe page. Well, you pop
Speaker 1: the url into this website and it cleans it up,
Speaker 1: and so it's completely free. It's got an Android app,
Speaker 1: it's got an iPhone app. But here's the thing. If
Speaker 1: you want to print out the recipe, it bugs you
Speaker 1: to pay. You can't even do it, so you just
Speaker 1: have to look at your screen. It's fine because it's
Speaker 1: nice and cleaned up, but you have to look at
Speaker 1: your screen. Crewton this is Apple Devices only, free from
Speaker 1: up to ten recipes. The best design of the bunch,
Speaker 1: really really nice design, and I love how it puts
Speaker 1: all this step by step instructions on their own screen
Speaker 1: so you can flip through really easily, and it supported
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways of importing recipes. I really
Speaker 1: like this one, but it's only available for iPhone, so
Speaker 1: I can't really I can't consider that one Umami. This
Speaker 1: one ended up becoming my favorite. So it works in
Speaker 1: iOS and Android. It's got a great design. You could
Speaker 1: use it for free, but they also have twenty bucks
Speaker 1: for the lifetime of the app, which I think is
Speaker 1: very fair. A lot of the other apps you have
Speaker 1: to pay per year. And everything worked, the TikTok, Instagram
Speaker 1: URLs worked, importing recipes was a little wonky at times,
Speaker 1: didn't always work perfectly, but they also have a browser extension.
Speaker 1: So overall, if you're gonna download one of these apps,
Speaker 1: I think Umami is the best one to download.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: After I did this story, I found another app that
Speaker 1: I actually really really like, and I actually think it's
Speaker 1: the best. But it's called Flavorish fla vo rsh dot
Speaker 1: ai and this hits all of the benchmarks I want.
Speaker 1: It's available for iOS, it's available for Android, it's available
Speaker 1: on the web. It's got ai I built in so
Speaker 1: it can import a recipe and it just looks incredible.
Speaker 1: But here's the catch. It is expensive. It's five bucks
Speaker 1: a month or fifty dollars for the year, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna get hooked on this. If you download this app,
Speaker 1: you're gonna fall in love with it because it's so good.
Speaker 1: It's so good at importing recipes from images. So if
Speaker 1: you have grandma's old recipes sitting there on a piece
Speaker 1: of paper printed out, you could take a picture of
Speaker 1: that and it will import it perfectly. But again, you
Speaker 1: only get five of those a month, or I guess
Speaker 1: five in general, and of course you're gonna burn through
Speaker 1: those pretty quick, and then you're gonna want to pay.
Speaker 1: And fifty dollars a year is kind of a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, if you add up over you know, ten years,
Speaker 1: do the math, it's kind of a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Let's see here, Let's let's let's go to Let's go
Speaker 1: to Carla Carla and Costa Mesa.
Speaker 2: Carla. You're on with Rich.
Speaker 6: Rich.
Speaker 11: How nice to talk to you. Thank you so much
Speaker 11: for taking my class.
Speaker 2: Absolutely low vision.
Speaker 11: I have been for like seven years. I have been
Speaker 11: very proactive in finding out everything I can to get
Speaker 11: because I can't drive anymore, read anymore, and so the
Speaker 11: most recent thing that I discussed that I wanted to
Speaker 11: pass along if everybody else knows about it. I have
Speaker 11: a Pixel seven pro cell phone and that's my mainstay.
Speaker 11: I discovered that all I need to do is ask
Speaker 11: my phone to read what's on the screen.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it reads.
Speaker 6: What it is on my screen?
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, this is This is one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I really like the the Android side of things.
Speaker 1: They've a lot of little things built in like that.
Speaker 1: Now I think iPhone has similar stuff. But yes, you
Speaker 1: can ask your phone to read what's on the screen.
Speaker 1: And what do you say, Just Hey Google, read what's
Speaker 1: on my screen?
Speaker 7: Oh no, I don't.
Speaker 11: It's not people doing it. But my phone is a
Speaker 11: Google phone. But all I have to do is say
Speaker 11: read what's on my screen, and then it kind of
Speaker 11: clicks and it and then it reads what's like a menu,
Speaker 11: it's on my screen.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: And you're not using the voiceover feature or the talkback feature.
Speaker 1: This is just you just say Hey Google.
Speaker 11: Right, it's not the Hey Google.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well you're breaking up a little bit.
Speaker 11: I just I just said, read what's on my screen? Damn,
Speaker 11: my friend just read what was on the screen.
Speaker 1: Interesting, Okay, well that's another way to do it. You know,
Speaker 1: there's also a an app on Android that's free and
Speaker 1: let's say, I believe it's called the Google Reader. Yeah,
Speaker 1: here it is. So so there's so many ways to
Speaker 1: do this, but yeah, so on Google you can say
Speaker 1: you can say, hey, Google, read this page, read it
Speaker 1: or read aloud.
Speaker 2: You can do that.
Speaker 1: There's also the feature I just mentioned, the talkback feature.
Speaker 1: And then there's also an Android Reader. There's an app,
Speaker 1: so you can go into Google Play and search for Reader,
Speaker 1: and I believe that's the app. ILL have to verify
Speaker 1: because I get to look it up. But it's a
Speaker 1: cool app. It's an accessibility app that works really well
Speaker 1: and it will read any page. And then of course,
Speaker 1: you know you can there's built in systems to do
Speaker 1: this as well, but there are yeah, let's see here.
Speaker 1: And then of course there's speech a FI. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many ways to do this, but there's one
Speaker 1: that Google makes that is probably the best one because
Speaker 1: it's it's completely free and here it is. It's called
Speaker 1: reading Mode. So if you have an Android phone, just
Speaker 1: go into Google Play and search for reading Mode. And
Speaker 1: this is completely free and not only does it read
Speaker 1: out loud what's on your screen anything, it also makes
Speaker 1: it easier to read it on the screen. So it
Speaker 1: puts everything in like very simple big font and it
Speaker 1: highlights as it's reading. So it's a real it's a
Speaker 1: hidden gem. And I don't know why, you know, people
Speaker 1: don't talk about this more, but it's called reading Mode
Speaker 1: on Google Play. It's made by Google. So when you're
Speaker 1: looking up this app, make sure you get the one
Speaker 1: that is made by Google. All right, I'm gonna put
Speaker 1: all these links on the website. Go to Rich on
Speaker 1: tech dot tv. Hit the light bulb icon up at
Speaker 1: the top if you want links to this show. It
Speaker 1: is episode ninety nine. We have shared a lot of
Speaker 1: great stuff here. I'm gonna put the recipe apps on
Speaker 1: there so you can get that link as well. While
Speaker 1: you're on the website, definitely sign up for the newsletter
Speaker 1: that is free comes out basically every Saturday, so there's
Speaker 1: a new issue right now, and if you want to
Speaker 1: email me, you can do that under contact. I've got
Speaker 1: the feedback today is just overflowing.
Speaker 3: I don't even know if.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be able to get to all of it
Speaker 1: coming up. We are going to talk about how AI
Speaker 1: is impacting the kitchen, plus more tech news. Right after this,
Speaker 1: Welcome back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging
Speaker 1: out with you talking technology. The website for the show
Speaker 1: is rich on Tech dot tv. And uh oh, just
Speaker 1: got an email from rod in Ukaipa. He said, what
Speaker 1: about Kurtana for outlook? Yes, that that is the way
Speaker 1: to read it on Windows though, So yes, Windows has
Speaker 1: it easily. Uh the Mac does not for some reason.
Speaker 1: So I guess you got to use Max. You know,
Speaker 1: with Mac it's just a little bit different because it's
Speaker 1: they're built in tools that you have to use. But
Speaker 1: I thought they had that read aloud feature. I guess
Speaker 1: they don't. Uh, you've heard a blue sky. A lot
Speaker 1: of people going to Blue Sky. I am on there
Speaker 1: at rich on Tech last week.
Speaker 2: Uh, I don't know what.
Speaker 1: I have a thousand people on there? What do I
Speaker 1: have now?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: A thousand people? I'm just kidding. No, I've got one
Speaker 1: point seven k that's not that much. I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of people blow up on this Blue Sky. I
Speaker 1: guess their skies are bluer than mine. But here people
Speaker 1: are using this app called blue Arc. Thank You. People
Speaker 1: are using this app called blue Arc to move their
Speaker 1: entire Twitter history to blue Sky. Why, Like, your tweets
Speaker 1: are not that great. You do not need to pay
Speaker 1: this is yet to pay a fee. It's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know whatever it is, it's not worth it. Your
Speaker 1: tweets are not that exciting, especially if there's something old
Speaker 1: that you were younger and young minded. Yeah, it might
Speaker 1: come back and bite chin, But I like the way
Speaker 1: you think, like just delete, just to go ahead and
Speaker 1: delete your tweet history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't even have a Twitter anymore if anybody
Speaker 2: has it.
Speaker 1: When I first started Twitter, I will I can't. I
Speaker 1: will tell this story. I would delete my tweet right
Speaker 1: after I wrote it because I thought that tweets were fleeting,
Speaker 1: so I would write something like going on you know,
Speaker 1: the Today Show to talk about technology in the next
Speaker 1: seven minutes, and then I would delete it when I
Speaker 1: was done, because like, why do you need to see
Speaker 1: that when I'm done with that? And then I realized
Speaker 1: that that was kind of silly. But anyway, you don't
Speaker 1: need to You don't need to bring your tweets over Instagram.
Speaker 1: You need a fresh start. They have a new feature
Speaker 1: that lets you wipe your recommendations.
Speaker 2: I love this.
Speaker 1: It's called a recommendations reset. It basically gives you a
Speaker 1: clean start. So all the stuff you know, you know
Speaker 1: how on Instagram or Facebook, you tap one thing and
Speaker 1: all of your posts start looking like that one thing.
Speaker 1: So my wife she tapped one Christmas cocktail that looked interesting.
Speaker 1: I think it was called like a moose Martini or something,
Speaker 1: or a Reindeer teeny whatever it was. It was cute,
Speaker 1: had like the little you know, cranberry you know, on it,
Speaker 1: a little sprig of something. Next thing, you know, every
Speaker 1: single thing in her feed is a Christmas cocktail and
Speaker 1: she keeps showing them to me. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: Rudolph's Ruby Red, you know, grapefruit drink, do whatever it is.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. They all have these funny
Speaker 1: little names. So this would be perfect for her. So
Speaker 1: Recommendations Reset is going to be inside Instagram. They're testing
Speaker 1: it right now. It's rolling out. You may have access
Speaker 1: if you want to check. It'll reset everything, so it
Speaker 1: won't you know, your followers will be there, all of
Speaker 1: your your stuff, but it'll just reset the algorithm, so
Speaker 1: that'll start giving you like new stuff in your feed.
Speaker 1: So if you go into your settings, it'll be under
Speaker 1: content preferences. So let's see if I have it yet. Okay, settings,
Speaker 1: content preferences, and so far I do not have it,
Speaker 1: So rolling out that means that's another word for like,
Speaker 1: you may get it in the next six months or so.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Roadblocks also rolling out some major updates to safety and
Speaker 1: parental controls. And I'm I'm not a fan of Roadblocks
Speaker 1: because I just don't like it.
Speaker 2: I do not like Roadblocks. My kids like it. I
Speaker 2: do not.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's worthless. Honestly, I'll just
Speaker 1: say it. I think that it's a it's a waste
Speaker 1: of time to play these games.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh, you like Roadblocks. I do play Robots with my goddaughter. Okay,
Speaker 1: Fortnite heavily. Okay, Fortnite okay, but Fortnite is becoming a
Speaker 1: newer Roadblocks. Okay, Well Fortnite's been around for a long time,
Speaker 1: so it's Roadblocks. Yeah, I mean, look, and nothing against
Speaker 1: the developers of Roadblocks games, which are other people. You know,
Speaker 1: this is crowdsourced, but they're kind of nonsense. You let's
Speaker 1: be honest, you're not accomplishing anything on a Roadblocks game
Speaker 1: goal or no, thank you, the where's the bell?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need the bell for that.
Speaker 1: Now, with a Nintendo game, you know, you you have
Speaker 1: a beginning, a middle, and an end. You can beat
Speaker 1: the game, you can, but these games just go on
Speaker 1: and on, and quite honestly, kids get addicted to them,
Speaker 1: and they and they can't stop playing, and the games
Speaker 1: use tactics to keep them in. So with all that said,
Speaker 1: I get it, millions of kids play these games every
Speaker 1: single month. We're not going to stop this from happening.
Speaker 1: It's going to happen. But I do like some of
Speaker 1: these things that that Roadblocks has built in to help
Speaker 1: parents manage it. So now you can remotely manage your
Speaker 1: kids accounts. You can set up screen time limits, you
Speaker 1: can monitor their friend list, and you can do it
Speaker 1: through your account. So if you're an adult, you can
Speaker 1: say say this is my kid's account, and you can
Speaker 1: go on to your computer and do this. Now, I
Speaker 1: will tell you in this way. I don't like Roadblocks.
Speaker 1: When I told my kid I was doing this, he
Speaker 1: was like, no, you're not, Like, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: give you access to my account. So that's the other side,
Speaker 1: and I think I have a feeling that he has
Speaker 1: already set up to be his age is older than
Speaker 1: he really is. Of course, because you can also say
Speaker 1: the games that your kids can play, what maturity level.
Speaker 1: And I have a feeling my kid has already set
Speaker 1: to like seventeen because he's like, you're not taking away
Speaker 1: my mature games, Like, how'd you even know that was
Speaker 1: a possibility? He just knew taking away your system? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: good luck. Yeah, it's okay. Kids under thirteen can no
Speaker 1: longer send direct messages outside of games. That was a
Speaker 1: big problem you had, like adults like interacting with kids,
Speaker 1: and that's you know, never necessarily a good thing on
Speaker 1: these games. And they're gonna have better labels for the uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the nature of in game experiences. So right
Speaker 1: now they're just labeled like one way. They're going to
Speaker 1: label them in a more direct way so you understand
Speaker 1: exactly what's happening in the game. And I will say,
Speaker 1: most of the games that I see my kids playing
Speaker 1: on this is pretty innocent.
Speaker 2: Some of them are not.
Speaker 1: But again, I think any of these parental controls is
Speaker 1: a good thing, all right. That's Rodblocks. Amazon unveiled the
Speaker 1: Echo Show twenty one. This is the largest smart display yet.
Speaker 1: They had the Echo Show fifteen. Now the twenty one
Speaker 1: has a twenty one inch screen. This is huge, four
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, and it's got a better camera, better audio,
Speaker 1: and built in compatibility for your smart home devices including
Speaker 1: Matter Zigbie and Wi Fi six e. So this acts
Speaker 1: as a photo frame, calendar, to do list.
Speaker 2: And we could just watch.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's basically a TV screen at this point
Speaker 1: that size four hundred bucks. The Echo Show fifteen is
Speaker 1: still available at three hundred dollars.
Speaker 2: All right, coming up, we are.
Speaker 1: Going to talk about AI in the kitchen. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about fixing up recipes and all the fun stuff
Speaker 1: you can do right here on rich on Tech. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to rich on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out
Speaker 1: with you, talking technology. The website for the show rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot TV. While you're there, you can check
Speaker 1: out my Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide, sign up for the newsletter.
Speaker 1: Hit the light bulb icon if you want notes for
Speaker 1: this show. This has show number ninety nine. I know
Speaker 1: we're on the verge of something big. Triple digits. My
Speaker 1: kid turned double digits and he was very excited, so triple.
Speaker 1: That's a big deal, even though it's just shows. I
Speaker 1: know it's not age, but hey, it means we've been
Speaker 1: around for a while and you can still get in.
Speaker 1: Actually i'd say you can get in on the feedback.
Speaker 1: But it's so overflowing that it took Bobo. I mean
Speaker 1: he was holding this thing up the stairs. He was
Speaker 1: just dragging. I mean, just thousands. It was so overfilled
Speaker 1: this week. So yeah, you're backers. There you go, all right,
Speaker 1: joining me now in studio. But Pepie Pepie, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I don't know why I stumble on your last name
Speaker 1: because it's it.
Speaker 10: Doesn't look like it says Pepie.
Speaker 1: It's spelled pep a j.
Speaker 10: It's Albanian.
Speaker 1: Albeit, there you go. Okay, uh, bake bought AI creator
Speaker 1: and also okay, so your website is bakespace dot com.
Speaker 1: You've had this for many years, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about sort of AI in the kitchen and how
Speaker 1: it's changing things. I think it's done a lot for
Speaker 1: I mean every industry, but cooking especially. So tell me
Speaker 1: about bake space. First off, why did you come.
Speaker 6: Up with this?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 12: Also, thank you so much for this opportunity to talk
Speaker 12: to your audience. I I I'm actually a fan as well.
Speaker 12: I listened to the show all the time. So to
Speaker 12: be here and see how the soup is being made
Speaker 12: is a And to meet Bobo in person.
Speaker 10: No, that's that was like the highlight. That was awesome.
Speaker 1: It was a little weird that you brought the you know,
Speaker 1: the Disney pen and the marker to get his autograph,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's fine.
Speaker 10: Hey, here's a celebrity. Here's a celebrity. So bake Space
Speaker 10: is a recipe community.
Speaker 12: So imagine like Facebook for foodies, where people can come
Speaker 12: create their own online kitchen, upload their own recipes, and
Speaker 12: swap them with the community of people who love to
Speaker 12: cook and bake. So it's not just baking, it's cooking,
Speaker 12: it's grilling. People make you know, homemade pet food.
Speaker 13: I mean there's oh my gosh, my kid was just
Speaker 13: talking about that yesterday. Okay, that actually happens, yes all
Speaker 13: the time. He was like, Dad, we should start a
Speaker 13: YouTube page where we prepare pet food.
Speaker 2: I was like, what are you talking about? And I'm
Speaker 2: not going to start and I don't care. No, I
Speaker 2: barely want to pet Well, people.
Speaker 10: Want to share their recipes.
Speaker 12: Recipes are all different types of recipes, and they come
Speaker 12: from all different places. Grandma, mom, you know, your favorite friend,
Speaker 12: you go you know, you go out and meet a
Speaker 12: friend and you're like, this recipe is amazing. You read
Speaker 12: a cookbook and you're like, wow, this is fantastic. And
Speaker 12: in two thousand and six when we launched, there really
Speaker 12: wasn't anything that connected home cooks in real time. A
Speaker 12: lot of things were blogs or forum posts, and also
Speaker 12: general social networking sites like MySpace, where it was like
Speaker 12: so big people would be like, how.
Speaker 3: Do I find them?
Speaker 12: People are into what I'm into, And so we launched
Speaker 12: bake Space and over the years we've done a lot
Speaker 12: of big innovations. You know, we launched a cookbook platform,
Speaker 12: We made profiles so that people can highlight their recipes.
Speaker 12: We also allowed them to sell their own cookbooks. And
Speaker 12: as I was looking at AI and thinking about how
Speaker 12: home cooks actually cook, most of what you see right
Speaker 12: now are recipe generators where it's like they let you,
Speaker 12: you know, select chicken and you know, coffee and whatever,
Speaker 12: and it's like, let's see what it's gonna make coffee chicken,
Speaker 12: I don't know, hey, maybe, and then it spits out
Speaker 12: something and you're like, well, I need to make a modification,
Speaker 12: and you're like, oh no, it only lets me make
Speaker 12: three recipes a month.
Speaker 10: And you're like, well, this kind of sucks.
Speaker 12: So I actually looked at We've had, you know, many
Speaker 12: years of working with home cooks directly, and I'm like,
Speaker 12: how are home cooks actually cooking? They're making modifications, they're
Speaker 12: asking cooking questions. They have a guest who's coming over,
Speaker 12: who's gluten free, and they're like, well, I want to
Speaker 12: make my recipe, but then how do I convert it?
Speaker 10: Yeah, all Bobo's going to be sad. But then, but
Speaker 10: you know, also with recipes.
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. I don't mind the gluten free. I
Speaker 2: I like all the things. I mean, here's what we
Speaker 2: were joking.
Speaker 1: We had a dinner party and legitimately, like you're literally
Speaker 1: asking everyone like, what's your deal?
Speaker 2: What's your deal? By the end of the night, we
Speaker 2: were drinking water.
Speaker 8: That was it.
Speaker 2: It's the only thing we could all have. Yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: that's sad.
Speaker 10: Well, you should come to one of my parties. I will,
Speaker 10: I will, I will treat you right.
Speaker 12: But a lot of people, you know, when they're making recipes,
Speaker 12: you know, they might go online and see like, oh,
Speaker 12: for an egg substitute, I can use apple sauce, but
Speaker 12: it's like, well, how much for that recipe? So when
Speaker 12: we started thinking about AI and this like smart kitchen,
Speaker 12: we started realizing that if we can empower home cooks
Speaker 12: to be able to go I have a question I
Speaker 12: have I want to make this recipe that just came
Speaker 12: to me. Or I have a great recipe for my grandmother,
Speaker 12: but I don't cook with lard, Like how can I
Speaker 12: be closer to her and make this recipe?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 12: So that's why we launched bake bot, and bakedot is
Speaker 12: available on bakespace dot com. It's totally free. It's in
Speaker 12: a couple of different places on the site. It's on
Speaker 12: every page as a pop up chat where you can
Speaker 12: just like ask your question, have it create a quick recipe.
Speaker 12: It's great for emergencies when you're like cooking and you accidentally,
Speaker 12: you know, you forget that the word divided is next
Speaker 12: to an ingredient and you're like, oh no, I just
Speaker 12: put the entire amount of salt in, Like what do
Speaker 12: I do? Do I have to change my baking or
Speaker 12: my cooking And that's that's a great place to use that.
Speaker 12: But then we also have a whole suite of tools
Speaker 12: that allow you to upload recipes and allow you to
Speaker 12: really dive deep into recipe development. So if I have
Speaker 12: an idea for something, I want to make pink cupcakes
Speaker 12: that are a Taylor Swift theme and that have gluten
Speaker 12: free frosting, and it's like, how am I going to
Speaker 12: find that on the web? Like that's what my daughter
Speaker 12: wants for her birthday. You can put something like that
Speaker 12: in and it will start talking to you. It'll start
Speaker 12: making the recipe perfectly. Once you make the recipe, it'll
Speaker 12: also make a really cool picture as well. And then
Speaker 12: the thing that we're really the proud of is that
Speaker 12: you can actually it saves it as a real recipe
Speaker 12: that's shaable, So it's not just like in a thread
Speaker 12: somewhere on a chat gpt you know, you know where
Speaker 12: you're never going to find it again, and you can't
Speaker 12: really Yes, you might be able to share the thread,
Speaker 12: but it doesn't really it doesn't. Yeah, you can exact exactly,
Speaker 12: but but you with with your community, with your friends
Speaker 12: and family, it's like it's hard for them to see that.
Speaker 12: Plus with chatchept, when you ask for a recipe. It
Speaker 12: doesn't know it's like a generalist. It doesn't know that
Speaker 12: you're a home cook.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is you have.
Speaker 1: You have kind of modified you know, and we have
Speaker 1: there are many AI chatbots out there. What you've done
Speaker 1: is you've crafted the prompts on the back end to say, like,
Speaker 1: here's the parameters. These are people that are cooking their
Speaker 1: home cooks. You've given it like these parameters to work with.
Speaker 1: So it's not just chatchabt general purpose everything. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: knows who you are kind of because it knows what
Speaker 1: you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 12: Well, it's like we've empowered it to tap into all
Speaker 12: the culinary knowledge. It's not just I just need any
Speaker 12: kind of recipe's I need something that's good.
Speaker 10: I need something that understands cooking.
Speaker 12: I need something that might be based on what my
Speaker 12: taste and my likes are, so it can really refine
Speaker 12: that experience.
Speaker 10: And you don't have to say, Hi, I'm a salon,
Speaker 10: I'm a chef. I need you to create this.
Speaker 12: Because I've done a ton of searches on with recipes
Speaker 12: on some of the general Chutgypt and other sites. Copilot
Speaker 12: a lot of them are really good, but when you
Speaker 12: start looking at how they actually display the recipes, sometimes
Speaker 12: it's missing ingredients, sometimes it's missing directions. Sometimes it has
Speaker 12: no calorie, it has no serving size, And you don't
Speaker 12: have to do that with bake Bot. It basically you
Speaker 12: just say I need a cupcake recipe that's vanilla and
Speaker 12: gluten free and it nut free and whatever it is
Speaker 12: you need, and it will give you all that information
Speaker 12: that you would normally expect in a recipe, and then
Speaker 12: if you make a modification, it'll actually change it to
Speaker 12: the size that you need. Lots of times you can go, oh,
Speaker 12: I know it is a good replacement, but I don't
Speaker 12: know how much of that to put in. So it'll
Speaker 12: actually look at the recipe and go, oh, you only
Speaker 12: need a half a cup. You know, that's very difficult
Speaker 12: in the culinary world to be able to just look
Speaker 12: at an ingredient.
Speaker 1: And go, what do I need to re sure that
Speaker 1: we tested this with a so we did a segment
Speaker 1: for TV that will air Monday on KTLA if you're
Speaker 1: in the LA area. But we took a handwritten recipe
Speaker 1: that was actually I didn't realize incomplete, like I only
Speaker 1: had the ingredients they didn't have.
Speaker 10: The directions, and I was like, what am I supposed
Speaker 10: to do with this? And I was like a big
Speaker 10: bot thank you.
Speaker 1: It was for a rhubarb pie. And so it was
Speaker 1: actually like Grandma McClellan's or something.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I got it from my sister in law. I don't
Speaker 1: know where she got it, but we took that. We
Speaker 1: put it into baked Bot. It came up with the
Speaker 1: actual directions for the pie, but it also we said
Speaker 1: we wanted to make it vegan, just to kind of
Speaker 1: test it out a little bit, and it substituted apple
Speaker 1: sauce I think for the eggs right, and we made
Speaker 1: it tasted great.
Speaker 6: It was good.
Speaker 10: I'd never had rhubarb before.
Speaker 1: And so I guess my question is a couple of
Speaker 1: minutes remaining here, what impact do you think these are
Speaker 1: going to have?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: Like, who should use these tools?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 12: People who want to feel empowered in the kitchen, people
Speaker 12: who you know. I can't tell you how many times
Speaker 12: I've looked online at a recipe and I'm like, this
Speaker 12: recipe looks amazing, but I don't have these ingredients, Like
Speaker 12: what else can I put in place of those ingredients.
Speaker 12: If I'm in the kitchen and I have a problem
Speaker 12: or I don't know what to make, or I'm trying
Speaker 12: to figure out I have ingredients and I want to
Speaker 12: make something at home, and I want to kind of
Speaker 12: like take my pantry and be like, I need to
Speaker 12: get rid of this food before it spoils. Those are
Speaker 12: the type of people I think would really benefit. When
Speaker 12: I think of bake bot, I think of it as
Speaker 12: imagine if you were in the kitchen and your best
Speaker 12: friend was in the kitchen with you, and a professional
Speaker 12: chef and your grandma, and they all were available twenty
Speaker 12: four to seven to basically give you every culinary answer,
Speaker 12: every recipe you know, and to give you confidence so
Speaker 12: that you know that when you go into the kitchen,
Speaker 12: like even if you don't have three of the ingredients,
Speaker 12: you can still make the recipe and it's still it's
Speaker 12: gonna be pretty darn good. So that that's the kind
Speaker 12: of community. And it's also built upon a community too.
Speaker 12: It's not just like you know, it's it's like a
Speaker 12: generator where it's like going somewhere and then you don't
Speaker 12: know where it's going.
Speaker 10: It's actually built on bakespace dot com so such.
Speaker 1: A change from the days when you wouldn't have an
Speaker 1: ingredient you asked your neighbor, you know, hey, can I
Speaker 1: get a cup of sugar or you know whatever.
Speaker 12: Many times I've been on pinterrest and I'm like, I
Speaker 12: have to go back to another page and I'm like ah,
Speaker 12: And that actually gave us the idea because people were
Speaker 12: leaving comments on pinchrest going you're missing an ingredient or
Speaker 12: you're missing something, and it will actually fill in the blank.
Speaker 12: Like when you're on the chat bot, you can say
Speaker 12: I love this recipe, it's chocolate, how can I make
Speaker 12: it vanilla?
Speaker 10: And it will make it for you. In the chat
Speaker 10: it will change it for you.
Speaker 12: And if you're logged into bake space, you can just
Speaker 12: say save and it'll save to your account.
Speaker 2: That is wild.
Speaker 1: So again, you've got bakespace dot com is the website.
Speaker 1: Bake Bot ai is the AI version of this. You've
Speaker 1: got chat if you just want to ask a question.
Speaker 1: You've got a recipe maker where you can actually make
Speaker 1: a recipe from scratch or optimize one. I'm guessing pantry magic,
Speaker 1: which is what you were talking about. You say, look,
Speaker 1: I've got garlic I've got green beans, I've got flour.
Speaker 2: What can I make?
Speaker 12: And it'll actually use what you have on hand. It
Speaker 12: won't be like I have three eggs and then I'll
Speaker 12: use one egg. It will use three eggs to make
Speaker 12: sure that you use that up.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the recipe Saver, which just saves
Speaker 1: your recipe. I'm guessing. And then recipe Uploader, which is
Speaker 1: what we used and it's kind of fun. It also
Speaker 1: has a little mascot, the Little Baked Bop, a little
Speaker 1: Bakebop mascot.
Speaker 2: Right, fun stuff, all right? But bet Papie Pepie, or.
Speaker 10: We should say on it like pie Pie.
Speaker 2: Why you just change your name.
Speaker 1: Pepie? Yes, there we go. Thank you, creator of bakespace
Speaker 1: dot com. Check it out bakespace dot com if you
Speaker 1: want AI in the kitchen. All right, coming up, it's
Speaker 1: the feedback your comments up next, Welcome back to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech. Rich DeMuro here hanging out with you, talking technology.
Speaker 1: The website for the show Richontech dot tv. And if
Speaker 1: you like this show, please do not keep us a secret.
Speaker 1: Why keep a good thing a secret? No screenshot your
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Speaker 1: or share link to the podcast, or share a photo
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Speaker 2: Don't do it while you're driving.
Speaker 1: Let other people know you are listening to rich on
Speaker 1: Tech and you enjoy it, and that way we share
Speaker 1: the wealth, we share the knowledge of this show and
Speaker 1: the fun of this show. I appreciate you doing that,
Speaker 1: and I'm at rich on Tech on social media if
Speaker 1: you want to tag me there. Lake Tahoe is going
Speaker 1: to get America's first flying electric ferry. So this is
Speaker 1: the Candela P twelve ferry. It's the first electric hydrofoil
Speaker 1: ferry in the US. And I can tell you I've
Speaker 1: already taken a ride on this thing, which is really cool,
Speaker 1: or at least their prototype, so if you're not familiar
Speaker 1: with the hydrofoil, it uses underwater wings to sort of
Speaker 1: lift the boat up and have it fly above the water.
Speaker 1: The wings are in the water, but the whole of
Speaker 1: the boat is actually up above the water, so that
Speaker 1: reduces drag. It makes this much more energy efficient because
Speaker 1: it's electric, it's zero mission, it's silent, creates little to
Speaker 1: no wake, and it's going to cut travel time in
Speaker 1: half at Lake Tahoe in California, so just thirty minutes
Speaker 1: from north to south shore, which could take two hours
Speaker 1: by car in winter.
Speaker 2: So this is going to come. It looks like next year.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: I took a ride on the Candela, just their prototype boat,
Speaker 1: up in San Francisco. I think it was two years ago,
Speaker 1: and it was pretty cool. I mean, this thing glides
Speaker 1: pretty fast and it just looks neat like it starts
Speaker 1: out in the water and then as it gets to speed,
Speaker 1: it lifts up out of the water for that efficient ride,
Speaker 1: and it's very quiet. Let's get to the feedback. Let's
Speaker 1: open it up with let's see Sid here. Sid writes
Speaker 1: in Hey Rich, my wife panicked when she opened her
Speaker 1: notes app and found nothing. Thank you for covering the
Speaker 1: topic in the recent podcast. I did turn the sink off,
Speaker 1: which gave the scary warning that your changes will be deleted.
Speaker 2: My wife was nervous, but I told her not to fret.
Speaker 1: I trust Rich, turn the sink back on, reboot to
Speaker 1: the phone, and voila, all the notes came back. Thanks
Speaker 1: as always, I'm glad it worked out for you. Christine
Speaker 1: writes in hey, thanks, for your kind words. I'll be
Speaker 1: listening as always this weekend. We all appreciate your expertise,
Speaker 1: good humor, and wonderfully down to earth style. Oh thank you, Christine.
Speaker 1: Appreciate that. Sean writes in I did not pay her
Speaker 1: a thing. Sewan writes in a tip about Google photo storage.
Speaker 1: When I upgraded from my Pixel four A to a
Speaker 1: Pixel eight Pro, I didn't want to lose my unlimited
Speaker 1: photo backup. I discovered that as long as photos are
Speaker 1: uploaded from the four A, they don't count towards storage,
Speaker 1: even if taken on another device. So I quick share
Speaker 1: photos from my Pixel eight Pro to my old phone
Speaker 1: and let it handle the uploads. Now I have unlimited
Speaker 1: storage and photos backed up on two devices. Sean, I
Speaker 1: love your hack, and yes I have an old pixel
Speaker 1: the original one that still has the unlimited storage. When
Speaker 1: Pixels first came out, they promised unlimited Google Photos storage,
Speaker 1: and of course that went away, but uh, yes, if
Speaker 1: you upload the photos from an old phone, you still
Speaker 1: get that unlimited storage.
Speaker 2: So I had like this whole setup.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm gonna use sync sink thing and
Speaker 1: like sink all the pictures and then I was like ah,
Speaker 1: I'll just pay for the storage.
Speaker 2: But glad you're doing it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Pat writes in.
Speaker 1: Hello as a cat owner, I paid special attention to
Speaker 1: your segment on cat trackers. Surprisingly, you failed to mention
Speaker 1: radio frequency trackers.
Speaker 2: That's what my cats wear. The company is called tab Cat.
Speaker 1: Light and sound from the controller indicate when you're headed
Speaker 1: in the right direction, and the signals intensify as you
Speaker 1: get closer.
Speaker 2: No subscription required. I use it every night.
Speaker 1: Batteries are long lasting, looks like it's a range of
Speaker 1: five hundred feet, and it's about one hundred bucks for
Speaker 1: the tab Cat if you want to check it out.
Speaker 1: Agnes writes in Hey Rich, I'm definitely not a techie, however,
Speaker 1: as I listen to you every Saturday and always learn
Speaker 1: something new. Just heard you talking about the Aura frame
Speaker 1: you got for your dad. My kid got one for
Speaker 1: my husband and me a couple of years ago, and
Speaker 1: we love it. It sits on our kitchen table. It
Speaker 1: brings a smile to our faces, seeing memories with our
Speaker 1: kids and grandkids, and yes, all of us add to it,
Speaker 1: which makes it amazing to see pictures we didn't add.
Speaker 1: I'm actually looking at my Aura as I type this email.
Speaker 1: Thanks for your great show and information. Thank you, Agnes.
Speaker 1: Let's see here, let's see tu. Oh my gosh, so
Speaker 1: many of these things, okay Dale. Dale writes in I
Speaker 1: heard your broadcast about AI generated papers. I tested a
Speaker 1: book I wrote years before AI existed. I tested it
Speaker 1: through plagiarism tools and surprisingly at fled as one hundred
Speaker 1: percent AI generated. Interestingly, when I dumbed it down to
Speaker 1: my writing to a sixth grade level, it was recognized
Speaker 1: as human writing. It suggests college students writing sophisticated papers
Speaker 1: could falsely be accused of cheating. Like your show, very informative.
Speaker 1: Let's see Ryan, Oh, we got to get this in
Speaker 1: for Ryan, Ryan from Santa Anna. It is my birthday
Speaker 1: on episode ninety nine. Can you give me a shout
Speaker 1: out on the radio. You've done a good job for taking.
Speaker 2: Over for Leo.
Speaker 1: Thanks Ryan, consider this your shout out. Happy birthday, buddy,
Speaker 1: Ryan from Santa Anna. Enjoy the day. There you go,
Speaker 1: let's see here. Oh my gosh. Jonathan writes in Jonathan
Speaker 1: from Pittsburgh about the caller who didn't have enough storage
Speaker 1: to update to iOS. My first thought was to suggest
Speaker 1: enabling optimized iPhone storage for photos. By the way, I
Speaker 1: always enjoy when you suggest cool accessories for the tech
Speaker 1: we already own. Those little things can make a big
Speaker 1: difference in how we enjoy our device. Yesday, Ken, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: and yes, if you're having trouble with doing something on
Speaker 1: your phone, optimized storage does let Apple optimize the physical
Speaker 1: storage on your phone. Let's see here.
Speaker 2: Do we have time for one more quick one?
Speaker 1: Sam says, I hear people ask about webcams all the
Speaker 1: time on the show. One option you haven't heard, haven't
Speaker 1: heard you mentioned is using an old phone. I use
Speaker 1: an older phone and a phone holder behind below my
Speaker 1: mirror and get a decent view of my drive wondering
Speaker 1: if there's something I need to be aware of. I
Speaker 1: can also be used as a home security camera with
Speaker 1: the Alfred app. I used it to monitor my hotel
Speaker 1: room when I'm out. Okay, all right, that's going to
Speaker 1: do it for this episode of the show. Links to
Speaker 1: everything I mentioned on the website rich on Tech dot tv.
Speaker 1: I'm on social media at rich on tech. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for listening. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Take the time
Speaker 1: to relax, enjoy being with your left ones. Don't forget
Speaker 1: to recharge with some downtime happy Thanksgiving. Thanks to everyone
Speaker 1: who makes this show possible. I'm Rich Tomiro. Talk to
Speaker 1: you real soon.