Speaker 1: Microsoft gives us their vision for the metaverse. Facebook ditches
Speaker 1: facial recognition, the two factor tech scam you need to
Speaker 1: know about? Plus your tech questions answered? What is going on?
Speaker 1: Amriche Demiro And this is rich on Tech, the podcast
Speaker 1: where I talk about the tech stuff I think you
Speaker 1: should know about. It's also the place where I answer
Speaker 1: the questions you send me. I'm the tech reporter at
Speaker 1: KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Thank you if you
Speaker 1: are tuning in on the Facebook page Facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash rich on Tech. I am live streaming today's show
Speaker 1: on the page. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It
Speaker 1: just sort of depends on how I'm feeling. But I
Speaker 1: do want to say thank you for listening to this podcast.
Speaker 1: So I've been doing this podcast for I think about
Speaker 1: three hundred and something episodes. It has changed form factors,
Speaker 1: well not form factors. It's always been audio. Well, it's
Speaker 1: been audio and video. It's changed kind of formats so
Speaker 1: many different times over the years. Went from like a
Speaker 1: shorter podcast to a longer podcast, to a interview format.
Speaker 1: But this seems to be the best one right here.
Speaker 1: I do wish that I well, anyway, I tell you
Speaker 1: all this because October was the best month ever for
Speaker 1: the show, so we had the most downloads and it's
Speaker 1: been on an upward trajectory for the past I don't know,
Speaker 1: well since it started. Actually, So thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you tuning in and giving me a listen.
Speaker 1: And the goal of this show has always been to
Speaker 1: take live calls. But live calls are a tricky thing
Speaker 1: because you have to do the show at a certain
Speaker 1: time each week. You got to get people to call in,
Speaker 1: which is not too tough, but you know, it's just
Speaker 1: one of those things where the questions that people send
Speaker 1: me have you know, that way I can pick the
Speaker 1: ones that I like that people send. I mean, I
Speaker 1: get so many of them, but I try to pick
Speaker 1: ones that have like the broadest appeal to other people
Speaker 1: as well, and they're just interesting in whatever. Anyway, So
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to the show. I do appreciate it,
Speaker 1: and thanks for your continued downloads and listening and emails.
Speaker 1: I do want to say that after all my complaining,
Speaker 1: I did get a Pixel six pro in my hands.
Speaker 1: So here it is. Oh you can't see on the
Speaker 1: podcast because you're you're listening, but it is a It
Speaker 1: is definitely, I will say, the best phone that Google
Speaker 1: has ever made. There's just no doubt about it. I
Speaker 1: can already tells it's excellent. The photo quality is excellent,
Speaker 1: the screen is really nice, the software is nice. But
Speaker 1: with that said, there are a lot of quirks on
Speaker 1: this phone that I think ninety nine percent of them
Speaker 1: will be fixed with software updates, so I'm not too worried.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fingerprint reader is just as slow as
Speaker 1: other reviewers have said. That's probably the biggest downside of
Speaker 1: this phone at this pay point. The second biggest downside
Speaker 1: is the size. It is a huge, huge, huge phone,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm okay with big phones, but I've sort
Speaker 1: of gotten used to the sweet form factor of the
Speaker 1: standard iPhone. I call it the two in the middle,
Speaker 1: the iPhone thirteen and the thirteen Pro, and last year
Speaker 1: the twelve and the twelve Pro. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: It's just one of these things where having a smaller
Speaker 1: I love the big screen because you can do a
Speaker 1: lot more on it. You know, you can watch videos.
Speaker 1: It just gives you a bigger canvas for things. But
Speaker 1: I don't like it because it's just so much tougher
Speaker 1: to sort of manipulate on a daily basis. Like today,
Speaker 1: I was trying to take a selfie. I know, bad example,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's things that we do, and typically
Speaker 1: I just I can easily hold my iPhone in one
Speaker 1: hand take a selfie, no problem. I can do it
Speaker 1: all one handed. There's no you know, there's no kind
Speaker 1: of wrangling the phone with two hands, and with this phone,
Speaker 1: there's just a lot of wrangling with two hands. So
Speaker 1: I think it's one of those things you can get
Speaker 1: used to. I've also got really used to these squared
Speaker 1: off edges on the iPhone, and I'm going back to
Speaker 1: round edges on here, and that's also tough because it's
Speaker 1: just not as comfortable in your hand. But overall, if
Speaker 1: you want an Android phone, I've only had this for
Speaker 1: twenty four hours and I can already tell you it's
Speaker 1: the best Android phone probably of the past decade. Well
Speaker 1: maybe not that the first pixel was really sort of
Speaker 1: magical for me because it really showed the power of Google,
Speaker 1: and maybe the second pixel, but this one is really
Speaker 1: really fantastic. So if you can deal with the large size,
Speaker 1: I think you'll really like it. I'm still forming my
Speaker 1: full review these are just sort of my initial impressions
Speaker 1: after twenty four hours. The other thing is, I don't know,
Speaker 1: if you need the Pro, you could probably go at
Speaker 1: the slightly smaller six. They did not send me the six,
Speaker 1: so I don't have that to compare the size, but
Speaker 1: I imagine it's just a little bit smaller than the Pro,
Speaker 1: and the Pro really only gives you a faster refresh
Speaker 1: rate and the improved zoom camera. So if you don't
Speaker 1: need those two things, save the three hundred dollars and
Speaker 1: go with the lesser one. Anyway, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: first impression of the Pixel six Pro, and I just
Speaker 1: think that it's like one of these things where it
Speaker 1: finally feels like Google made a phone that like is
Speaker 1: really good, like not just the camera, like the software
Speaker 1: is really nice. Battery life leaves a little to be
Speaker 1: desired right now, but some people are saying there's like
Speaker 1: a two week kind of break in period where it
Speaker 1: learns your battery use and gets better. But it's just
Speaker 1: very googly, and I'm looking forward to trying this out,
Speaker 1: although it's going to be tough for me to give
Speaker 1: up the iPhone and I'm not sure I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: that I will let you know I've not switched my
Speaker 1: sim card at this point. All right, let's get into
Speaker 1: the first story of the week, Facebook by any other
Speaker 1: name ditching the facial recognition of their business. So this
Speaker 1: is kind of a surprise announcement. But you know, Facebook
Speaker 1: is now called Meta. I didn't cover that in last
Speaker 1: week's episode because it happened after my deadline, basically after
Speaker 1: I recorded the show. But Facebook parent company is now
Speaker 1: called Meta. You know that you've seen it in the news.
Speaker 1: Nothing is changing about the apps that you use from Facebook.
Speaker 1: They are all continuing to be called what they're called,
Speaker 1: so Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus. They are all just now
Speaker 1: under a bigger umbrella of a company named Meta instead
Speaker 1: of Facebook. I know, not really that confusing, but it
Speaker 1: just seems like it would be. But it's not. So.
Speaker 1: Meta said that they're shutting down the face recognition system
Speaker 1: on Facebook, and they say it's part of a company
Speaker 1: wide move to limit the use of facial recognition in
Speaker 1: their products. And the main way that you saw facial
Speaker 1: recognition on Facebook was when you uploaded a picture, you
Speaker 1: would see your friends suggested in tags. Now it's been
Speaker 1: a while since I've used Facebook personally. I use it
Speaker 1: for my public page, but personally I don't really use it.
Speaker 1: I've kind of switched over to Instagram for that. So
Speaker 1: it's been a while. But this was really the first
Speaker 1: introduction that many of us had to face recognition, and
Speaker 1: when those little tags popped up, we were like, whoa,
Speaker 1: what is that? Wow? How do they know? Well, it's
Speaker 1: not that tough, I mean facial recognition. At this point,
Speaker 1: we're ten years in. It's pretty standard. I mean Google
Speaker 1: Photos has I mean everything has it. Google Photos has it,
Speaker 1: Apple Photos has it. You've got it on your iPhone
Speaker 1: to unlock it. It was on the pixel last year
Speaker 1: to unlock it. So it's it's been around, but Facebook
Speaker 1: or a meta. The reason they are giving for this
Speaker 1: change is they say, you know what, there's so many
Speaker 1: concerns about the place of this in society, and regulators
Speaker 1: are still trying to figure out rules governing its use.
Speaker 1: We are just going to drop it for now until
Speaker 1: things sort of settle down and we can figure out
Speaker 1: how best to use this. They're not going to press
Speaker 1: delete on the face recognition software on their servers. They're
Speaker 1: not going to get rid of all the work that
Speaker 1: they've done over the past ten years, but they are
Speaker 1: going to stop using it and they are going to
Speaker 1: delete all of the faces that they have recognized. So
Speaker 1: they're going to delete more than a billion people's individual
Speaker 1: facial recognition templates in this process. So if they have
Speaker 1: been able to recognize you in the past, they will
Speaker 1: be deleting that stockpile of data around faces. So that's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. Is this a surprise? So I think that
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a surprise, but Facebook is really
Speaker 1: trying to change its image at this point. I think
Speaker 1: that there's been a lot of They've been bounced around
Speaker 1: in the news a lot, and I see the writing
Speaker 1: on the wall. I mean, I think it's a really
Speaker 1: they're in a really tough spot because Facebook, for so
Speaker 1: many years was the de facto standard and it's still
Speaker 1: pretty much is for a social network. But in my experience,
Speaker 1: just looking at my group of friends, we're not really
Speaker 1: on Facebook. We're not really exchanging things on Facebook like
Speaker 1: we used to, and so I think that that's a
Speaker 1: pretty big deal for them that they need to figure out. Okay,
Speaker 1: our users are going to TikTok, well, not even going
Speaker 1: to TikTok, they're new users are going right to TikTok.
Speaker 1: Existing users are still there, but they're kind of phasing
Speaker 1: it out of their lives. And then when it comes
Speaker 1: to Instagram, it's still pretty much a powerhouse, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of danger there in people leaving Instagram and
Speaker 1: it's not the same as Facebook. Facebook still has a
Speaker 1: place for sharing certain things like stories and pictures and
Speaker 1: this and that, but I don't know. So anyway, that's
Speaker 1: what they're doing, and no more facial recognition on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and we'll continue to watch and see what happens with that.
Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, Facebook says that things like
Speaker 1: the iPhone that do facial recognition, it's all happening on
Speaker 1: the device, and so they think that that's a better
Speaker 1: model instead of building these databases of people's faces. So
Speaker 1: that's something that I would probably agree with. All right,
Speaker 1: First question of the day, high Rich, please help I
Speaker 1: get at least five Instagram follow requests a day. I
Speaker 1: have a private account. I searched on Google how to
Speaker 1: stop them. I thought I took care of it, but
Speaker 1: I still get the requests. I would appreciate your help.
Speaker 1: Thank you as always. Marsha Marsha Marsha. Marsha, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure there is a way to blanket stop follow requests
Speaker 1: on Instagram. You have a private account, which means people
Speaker 1: can't see what you're posting. You're probably already friends with
Speaker 1: the people that you want to be friends with. So
Speaker 1: I would say, except for the nuisance of notifications, which
Speaker 1: I believe you can probably turn off in settings, I
Speaker 1: would think that's the best way to do it, and
Speaker 1: just once a month go through and delete the friend requests.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, I'm not even sure. I
Speaker 1: never even saw friend requests, but my account is public,
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't have any friend requests on Facebook. But
Speaker 1: if you have them, I would just go through, maybe
Speaker 1: once a month, and just delete the friend requests that
Speaker 1: you have. So if we look at notifications here, let's
Speaker 1: see followers and following. So it looks like you might
Speaker 1: be able to change some of those things in your
Speaker 1: notifications settings. I can't seem to tell just because I
Speaker 1: don't have that enabled on my account. Like, my account
Speaker 1: is public, so anyone they don't have to request me,
Speaker 1: they just have to basically, you know, that's it. They
Speaker 1: just basically have to follow me. And so I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe Facebook, I think this would be an interesting I mean,
Speaker 1: it goes against their sort of the whole point of
Speaker 1: Instagram and all these companies is they want to grow.
Speaker 1: They want to grow the network, and the more people
Speaker 1: that you have in your network, the more you're going
Speaker 1: to use it, the more you're gonna check in. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of one of those things that is counterintuitive
Speaker 1: to what they want to accomplish. But we've seen them
Speaker 1: change things before in the past that are counterintuitive, so
Speaker 1: things like saying, hey, you've been on here, or you're
Speaker 1: all caught up, or you know, timers and how much
Speaker 1: you've been on your account. So it's not out of
Speaker 1: the question that they might add a setting that lets
Speaker 1: you turn off all follow requests. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's that huge of a priority for them,
Speaker 1: because if you have these notifications turned off, then it's
Speaker 1: not that big of a deal because they're not really
Speaker 1: doing any harm. It's probably mostly bots, to be honest,
Speaker 1: But I can see how in the case of maybe
Speaker 1: a younger user, say for instance, a minor that's just
Speaker 1: you know, starting out with their account, maybe someone that's thirteen,
Speaker 1: they get these bots that are, you know, usually scantily
Speaker 1: clad women requesting, you know, a friendship on Instagram, and
Speaker 1: then you click and there's of course spam, and it's
Speaker 1: a website that you might not want your child going to.
Speaker 1: So I can see that argument for why Instagram should
Speaker 1: take care of this problem and let people turn off
Speaker 1: follow requests completely. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: friend requests are are part and parcel of both Instagram,
Speaker 1: Facebook and almost all of the social media networks out there,
Speaker 1: so it might be tough for them to completely completely
Speaker 1: stop this. But good question, and thanks for asking. All right,
Speaker 1: let's talk about Microsoft Mesh Mesh for Microsoft teams, and
Speaker 1: I actually think this is really really cool. And so
Speaker 1: we've heard of this idea of the metaverse. The metaverse
Speaker 1: is this Internet that exists in a virtual world, and
Speaker 1: so what can you do in the metaverse. You can
Speaker 1: it's kind of like virtual reality, it's kind of like
Speaker 1: mixed reality. It's whatever you want it to be. The
Speaker 1: metaverse is imagine the Internet, but much more three dimensional,
Speaker 1: much more a place you can explore in VR ar XR,
Speaker 1: which I guess is kind of like a mixed reality.
Speaker 1: So this is going to take a while. For us
Speaker 1: to all get used to the idea of and also
Speaker 1: of course get in there. And if you've used a
Speaker 1: virtual reality headset, sure you've been in a portion of it.
Speaker 1: But until you've actually interacted with other humans in the
Speaker 1: metaverse or explored places that are much more interactive, I
Speaker 1: don't think that we've really truly gotten to appreciate what
Speaker 1: this world will hold for us. And these companies are
Speaker 1: working on it. We know that Facebook was really the
Speaker 1: first to popularize popularize the word, and now Microsoft is
Speaker 1: using the same word, and so they specifically called out
Speaker 1: the metaverse and said here's what we think is our
Speaker 1: idea of it. And they're starting small, but it's a
Speaker 1: really cool idea. And the idea is that in Microsoft Teams,
Speaker 1: you can create an avatar of yourself that you can
Speaker 1: use to video chat. And you might say, rich, there's
Speaker 1: been companies that can do this, and there's been ways
Speaker 1: of doing this, absolutely, but this is Microsoft Teams. This
Speaker 1: is a big deal. This is a program that a
Speaker 1: lot of companies use. And I think that what's magical
Speaker 1: about this solution is that it's almost like so simple
Speaker 1: that why did we not think of this before? And
Speaker 1: so what you do is you create your little avatar
Speaker 1: and right now it's just a torso they're leaving out
Speaker 1: the bottom half and you kind of float around this
Speaker 1: world where you can meet up in a virtual room
Speaker 1: or at the very basic functionality of this, instead of
Speaker 1: logging onto your standard video chat on teams or you
Speaker 1: know zoom as we call it, or more commonly call it,
Speaker 1: you would show up as a as an avatar. And
Speaker 1: so what does that mean. Well, it means that you
Speaker 1: can be in your pajamas and you can be in,
Speaker 1: you know, something that might not be you know, the
Speaker 1: not appropriate. I'm not saying you should show up in
Speaker 1: something that's not appropriate for work, but something that you know,
Speaker 1: you may just be more casual. But the reality is
Speaker 1: you're in your avatar and so you look very professional
Speaker 1: because you're wearing a suit or however you design yourself
Speaker 1: to look and that avatar. Think of this, it's so
Speaker 1: brilliant that it's it's kind of tough for me to explain,
Speaker 1: but think of this as remember how blurring your back
Speaker 1: was such a big deal in the Zoom days. Well,
Speaker 1: imagine this is the digital equivalent of blurring your background.
Speaker 1: But you're blurring your entire being, so that you can
Speaker 1: show up and sit in front of your computer and
Speaker 1: have your microphone on and talk to people, but the
Speaker 1: avatar is what they see, and so your mouth is moving.
Speaker 1: You can show things off, you can show off your PowerPoint,
Speaker 1: you can do a presentation, and it's just one step
Speaker 1: into the metaverse. It's kind of like a very easy
Speaker 1: tiptoe for people because if you're in a place, let's
Speaker 1: say you're taking a conference call at your home, or
Speaker 1: you're taking a conference call in your car as a
Speaker 1: passenger of course, or maybe in the backseat of an
Speaker 1: uber as you drive to the airport, why do you
Speaker 1: have to show up as yourself? Why can't you show
Speaker 1: up as your avatar and people can just see you
Speaker 1: and hear you, but you know, they get that sort
Speaker 1: of cartoonized version of you. So I think this is
Speaker 1: a really brilliant idea. This is going to roll out
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two in something called Mesh for Microsoft Teams,
Speaker 1: but there's a whole bunch of other features as well.
Speaker 1: You can have virtual meeting rooms. So I just think
Speaker 1: this is a great idea. It's so smart. I think
Speaker 1: Zoom needs to do something very similar because a lot
Speaker 1: of people use Zoom and there are programs that allow
Speaker 1: you to do this kind of as a third party,
Speaker 1: so you can get like a helper program for your
Speaker 1: video camera that would enable you to become anything. And
Speaker 1: one of the big ones is actually made from Snapchat.
Speaker 1: It's oh gosh, what is it called video? It's like
Speaker 1: Snapchat avatar app. Let me see what it's actually called.
Speaker 1: It's not bit moji, but it was the app. Remember
Speaker 1: this story with the person who turned into a potato.
Speaker 1: That was this app. Oh, snap camera app. That's what
Speaker 1: it's called. Now, before you install it, I would just
Speaker 1: warn against installing it because once you install this app
Speaker 1: on your computer, it will turn you into a potato
Speaker 1: and you will be showing up on your Zoom calls
Speaker 1: as a potato because you will not be able to
Speaker 1: figure out how to turn this thing off. Believe me
Speaker 1: me as a tech person, it's complicated to turn this off.
Speaker 1: Your webcam always sort of defaults. Think of it as
Speaker 1: a program that sort of takes over your webcam and
Speaker 1: kind of inserts a new image in between you and Zoom.
Speaker 1: And so if you're not totally savvy on your computer,
Speaker 1: it could be a little tricky to turn that off,
Speaker 1: and that's why that person turned into a potato last
Speaker 1: year and they couldn't get that off their screen because
Speaker 1: they didn't know how to turn this feature off. But
Speaker 1: it does work, and they have a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: different lenses and they're pretty wild. I mean, you could
Speaker 1: turn yourself into so many different things. So if you
Speaker 1: want a similar feature, that's kind of where you can
Speaker 1: get it right now. But I just think this is
Speaker 1: a really simple, fun, interesting way of getting people into
Speaker 1: this quote unquote metaverse. It's fun, it's easy, and in fact,
Speaker 1: I think it would be really cool if I had
Speaker 1: you know, I should do this right now. I should
Speaker 1: just do this with a snap camera. I should just
Speaker 1: start doing my podcast weekly, because when I'm doing my podcast,
Speaker 1: do I really feel like sitting there in front of
Speaker 1: a camera every week? I don't know. I mean, I
Speaker 1: sit in front of a camera all day for my
Speaker 1: my TV job. My podcast is supposed to be more
Speaker 1: relaxed because I'm I don't need to be in front
Speaker 1: of the camera. But it is kind of fun if
Speaker 1: you were watching it on YouTube to kind of see
Speaker 1: a an avatar representation of me. And maybe maybe this
Speaker 1: is something that I would do, so kind of cool. Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened there, something something when went
Speaker 1: awry on the uh on the Facebook page. So the
Speaker 1: live room stopped, but I will continue going. Matthew has
Speaker 1: some feedback on the podcast. I got a couple of
Speaker 1: emails about the last podcast I was talking about. I
Speaker 1: was giving an answer to a question about someone asked
Speaker 1: if you can schedule a text message on the iPhone
Speaker 1: and I said, no, not easily, and on the Android,
Speaker 1: it's just sort of build into Android messages. You long
Speaker 1: pressed the little arrow when you go to send, and
Speaker 1: it will give you the option to schedule. Well, Matthew
Speaker 1: wrote in and said that one question someone had I
Speaker 1: had heard on your podcast last week about being able
Speaker 1: to set up a text message at a different time.
Speaker 1: You can actually do that with the shortcuts app that
Speaker 1: Apple has, And you're right, Matthew, that is one way
Speaker 1: of doing it. But remember I gear this podcast towards
Speaker 1: the average tech consumer, and to be quite honest, the
Speaker 1: shortcuts functionality on the iPhone is very, very powerful and
Speaker 1: it's actually pretty amazing what Apple did with that. It
Speaker 1: reminded me when it first came out of the Tasker
Speaker 1: functionality on Android, which for Android power users was always
Speaker 1: such an amazing app because you could schedule your phone
Speaker 1: to do all kinds of stuff automatically. And the iPhone
Speaker 1: came out with a much more streamlined, and some would
Speaker 1: say much more maybe not as powerful, much more consumer
Speaker 1: friendly version of shortcuts, but it never really took off.
Speaker 1: But yes, you can do all kinds of stuff with
Speaker 1: shortcuts if you put your mind to it, and if
Speaker 1: you actually program them in, or you can just find
Speaker 1: them online and adopt them as your own. And Marvin
Speaker 1: also chimed in and say, hey, Rich, you can send
Speaker 1: delayed texts on an iPhone. I do it every day
Speaker 1: and night. Just set up a shortcut automation. It's easy. Thanks,
Speaker 1: love your shows, Marvin. And yes, Marvin again, I agree
Speaker 1: you could do it. I know you say it's easy,
Speaker 1: but I just don't know if for the average person
Speaker 1: it's very easy. So I did also have one more
Speaker 1: person send me a text that basically said they created
Speaker 1: their own shortcuts and they sent me them. I never
Speaker 1: really tested it out, but you can do it. It's
Speaker 1: definitely doable. So yes, I'm always open to responses to
Speaker 1: the answers. I give on the podcast, and in some cases,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, sometimes I'm looking for answers myself, and
Speaker 1: so the more we can get people to collaborate, the better,
Speaker 1: See says Holiday. Tech spending is going to reach one
Speaker 1: hundred and forty two point five billion dollars in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, which is a half of a percentage increased
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty. Now, the fact that it's actually increasing
Speaker 1: is it's probably not a surprise. I mean, we've we've
Speaker 1: heard so much with the economy and with inflation right now.
Speaker 1: So far tech gadgets have not price wise been fully impacted,
Speaker 1: like we're seeing prices sort of stay the same, except
Speaker 1: for Sonos. They actually did raise the price on all
Speaker 1: of their products. Tesla, the Tesla that I purchased, actually
Speaker 1: was perfect timing because the price went up no less
Speaker 1: than four thousand dollars on the exact car that I purchased.
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is because Tesla you know,
Speaker 1: typically have to wait you know, three to six months
Speaker 1: to get a Tesla, and so they are hedging against
Speaker 1: future inflation. So yeah, the car might not cost two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars more four thousand dollars more right now, to make,
Speaker 1: but in six months when people actually pay their bills
Speaker 1: for those Teslas they ordered right now, the economy or whatever,
Speaker 1: the parts may have gotten to a place where they
Speaker 1: are more expensive. And so I think I had perfect
Speaker 1: timing with mine. And by the way, I continue to absolutely,
Speaker 1: absolutely love my car. I got my first software update,
Speaker 1: I think I mentioned it last week in the show.
Speaker 1: And I also installed the charger now in my garage.
Speaker 1: So it's just it literally like once you have all
Speaker 1: this stuff set up, like I really really want to
Speaker 1: get my wife one of these cars because I love
Speaker 1: it so much, but she does not need a new car.
Speaker 1: So I am resisting and we're not doing that right now, right,
Speaker 1: We're not doing it. No, we are not. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: what are the top five tech wish list items for
Speaker 1: consumers in twenty twenty one? Number one smartphones and so
Speaker 1: smartphones number one, number two, laptops and notebook computers number three,
Speaker 1: wearable devices, which actually jumped from fifth last year now
Speaker 1: they're up to number three, And I think the interest
Speaker 1: in the Apple Watch is a huge driver in that,
Speaker 1: although they don't specifically say that, Television's number four and
Speaker 1: then tied video game consoles and tablets and e readers. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that video game console sort of drop down
Speaker 1: the list a little bit just because there is not
Speaker 1: a new, brand new console this year. We saw that
Speaker 1: last year during the holidays, and so maybe people who
Speaker 1: got those or that were interested already got those. But
Speaker 1: the reality is the Xbox and the PlayStation five still
Speaker 1: seem pretty elusive even this year, and so I'm sure
Speaker 1: people will be purchasing those in big numbers. But when
Speaker 1: when you compare them to smartphones and laptops and wearables
Speaker 1: and TVs, definitely those are higher up on the list
Speaker 1: because I would say video game consoles are a little
Speaker 1: bit more niche for most people, Like if they want that,
Speaker 1: they've sort of you just go in and buy it,
Speaker 1: like you've you've wanted to have, You've you've had your
Speaker 1: eye on that for a while now. The other interesting
Speaker 1: part about this release is that smartphone replacement rates are
Speaker 1: now reaching four plus years, so smartphone interest during this
Speaker 1: holiday season is expected to be strong. CTA says, these
Speaker 1: are the folks that put on cs. By the way,
Speaker 1: forty eight percent of holiday tech shoppers expect to purchase
Speaker 1: one as a gift, up from forty one percent in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. And that makes a lot of sense because
Speaker 1: the iPhone thirteen and you've got you've got phones this
Speaker 1: year that were probably the best reviewed phones of any
Speaker 1: year I can remember. So you've got the iPhone thirteen,
Speaker 1: which is probably the best reviewed phone I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Then you've got the foldables from Samsung, which were very
Speaker 1: well received, especially the Z the z Flip three that's
Speaker 1: the smaller the fold great, but yeah, it's it's very
Speaker 1: so it's not totally mainstream, but the Flip people said, hey,
Speaker 1: this is a great alternative to the standard Samsung phones.
Speaker 1: The S twenty one Ultra well reviewed. And then you've
Speaker 1: got the Pixel six and Pixel six Pro, which are
Speaker 1: also really well reviewed phones. And so I can definitely
Speaker 1: see I think this holiday season will probably be the
Speaker 1: highest sales we've ever seen for smartphones, just because all
Speaker 1: of the stars are aligned. You've got great phones, and
Speaker 1: people are sort of looking for that upgrade. Maybe they
Speaker 1: held off and since they're seeing all the reviews come
Speaker 1: out for these phones equally as well, Like you can't
Speaker 1: go wrong whether you go with the S twenty one Ultra,
Speaker 1: whether you got the Pixel six Pro, whether you go
Speaker 1: with the flip or whether you go with the iPhone,
Speaker 1: you're going to get a fantastic phone. Now, there are
Speaker 1: preferences in there, and I have my preferences, but there's
Speaker 1: you know, you can't go wrong. If you want a foldable,
Speaker 1: there you go. Twenty nine percent of people, according to
Speaker 1: this are going to buy a foldable. Also, work at
Speaker 1: home continues to play out according to the CTA. Printers,
Speaker 1: desktop computers, and monitors also high on the list of
Speaker 1: things that people will purchase. I just purchased a brand
Speaker 1: new HP printer. I talked about it on the show
Speaker 1: I Believe, and it's been good. I mean it's been
Speaker 1: it's been ten years I think since I purchased a printer.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that is not really top
Speaker 1: of the list, but when you get one, it's kind
Speaker 1: of nice. Kids are enjoying the color printing. Broaderick says
Speaker 1: Oculus would be cheaper to get it now or should
Speaker 1: I wait until the hollid Hollywood holiday sales? Thanks uh oh, Broaderick.
Speaker 1: This perfectly fits into what I was just talking about.
Speaker 1: But I would I would wait. Oculus is probably one
Speaker 1: of those things that will go down in price over
Speaker 1: Black Friday and during the holiday shopping season. So what
Speaker 1: I would do is set up a couple of price alerts.
Speaker 1: So I would do, do they even sell this on
Speaker 1: ammaz on Oculus Let's see, let's see Oculus Quest two.
Speaker 1: Yes they do, Okay, So Oculus Quest two is two
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety nine dollars for the one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty eight gigabyte version, and let's just see if the
Speaker 1: price on that has gone down at all. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to Camel Camel Camel, and I'm gonna pop this
Speaker 1: into their little system and see if the price has
Speaker 1: ever gone down and ooh, it is not so interesting.
Speaker 1: Price has never changed on Amazon as long as this
Speaker 1: thing has been on Amazon. So I would say what
Speaker 1: they might do. You might not get a discount, but
Speaker 1: you might get a bundle situation going on, or they
Speaker 1: might bundle like a you know, an extra maybe not
Speaker 1: an extra controller, but I don't know what you'd get bundled,
Speaker 1: maybe an extra game, maybe some sort of extra accessory.
Speaker 1: But at this point, it doesn't look like the price
Speaker 1: historically has gone down. But at the same time, uh,
Speaker 1: it probably will. I mean you'll probably get something for
Speaker 1: oh wow, sorry, I'm a little distracted. I'm on Amazon's
Speaker 1: website right now, and my pal Tricia Hirschberger is on
Speaker 1: the banner. I guess she's on celebrating Amazon's or Alexa's
Speaker 1: birthday with Amazon Shopping Live. That's so funny. Trisha is
Speaker 1: a gosh. She's a friend that we used to run
Speaker 1: around a lot with. Oh there's a group of us
Speaker 1: in LA that used to run around a lot at
Speaker 1: these tech events and she was one of them. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's cool. Good to see her doing so well. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I digress as I typically do. But the yeah Oculus
Speaker 1: quest too. I don't know. It might go down in price,
Speaker 1: it might not, but I would definitely if you've waited
Speaker 1: this long, I would say just wait in general and
Speaker 1: just see what kind of deal you might get a
Speaker 1: you might get a discount somewhere, or some sort of
Speaker 1: gift card thrown in. I was trying to look and
Speaker 1: see if there was any sort of deals last year.
Speaker 1: I didn't at first glance, didn't really see that, but
Speaker 1: you never know, so good question. Always at this point,
Speaker 1: always a good time to sort of wait through the
Speaker 1: holidays for some of those deals. If you've got your
Speaker 1: eye on a tech product. All right, So I talked
Speaker 1: about Facebook's new camera sunglasses called ray Band Stories. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how much I went into them on the
Speaker 1: last show or previous shows. Maybe I mentioned that I
Speaker 1: was using them, but I will give you my review now.
Speaker 1: I did this review on KTLA, and so they're called
Speaker 1: the ray Band Stories. These are Facebook sunglasses. There's a camera,
Speaker 1: there's a microphone, and there's speakers so you can capture
Speaker 1: what you see. So I put these on for probably
Speaker 1: warm for you know, on and off for two weeks,
Speaker 1: three weeks, whatever, and they're really fun. They are definitely
Speaker 1: the best camera sunglasses I've ever put on, and I've
Speaker 1: put on several pairs, especially the ones from Snapchat and
Speaker 1: maybe some others, but these are the best. They look
Speaker 1: and feel like regular sunglasses. They're lightweight, they've got the
Speaker 1: everything was for a first generation these were These really
Speaker 1: nailed it. Now. The number one thing that I kind
Speaker 1: of figured is the privacy factor is a big one.
Speaker 1: So I kind of felt like when I put them on,
Speaker 1: like I was almost doing something wrong, Like I was
Speaker 1: a little not creepy, but you know, I was kind
Speaker 1: of like, I don't know, skirting the law or something like.
Speaker 1: People need to know that these have a camera in them.
Speaker 1: And yes, there's a little light on them that lets
Speaker 1: you know when you're that let other people know when
Speaker 1: you're recording as well as yourself. But do people expect
Speaker 1: to be recorded with a pair of sunglasses? Not necessarily,
Speaker 1: and so that was one thing. But you know, they
Speaker 1: are fun. They are three hundred dollars, so they're expensive,
Speaker 1: but they do look a lot like my regular ray bands.
Speaker 1: The stems are just a bit thicker. They also come
Speaker 1: in that charging case I mentioned, which charges it a
Speaker 1: couple of times. I think maybe the rated is I
Speaker 1: don't know how many times, but it was fine. So
Speaker 1: you would plug in the charging case, charge them in there,
Speaker 1: and then it would charge them up a couple of
Speaker 1: times after you charge them. So battery life was just
Speaker 1: okay on the glasses, but I never I never like
Speaker 1: ran out. But if you have the the Hey Facebook
Speaker 1: functionality turned on, it definitely uses the battery much longer,
Speaker 1: are much faster than it does if you just press
Speaker 1: the shutter button on it. And if you press the
Speaker 1: shutter button, it'll capture up to thirty seconds of video
Speaker 1: and you can also press a hold to capture photos,
Speaker 1: so video is definitely preferred. Let's be honest. These are
Speaker 1: They're called ray Band Stories. The whole point of these
Speaker 1: glasses is that you can share what's happening in front
Speaker 1: of you to your Instagram Stories or to your Facebook Stories.
Speaker 1: But you can also export this video to work on
Speaker 1: any social media app. In fact, the app that you
Speaker 1: use to sort of sync these glasses is called Facebook.
Speaker 1: It's not even Facebook, it's just called View. And so
Speaker 1: when you open up this app, it'll show you all
Speaker 1: the stuff that you recorded. You can download that video
Speaker 1: to your phone and then edit it. It can make
Speaker 1: little highlight reels, or it can share it out as well. Now,
Speaker 1: the process to share that or to sync that video
Speaker 1: from the glasses to your actual phone is a bit
Speaker 1: convoluted because they give you like a little preview thumbnail,
Speaker 1: but then it's like still downloading the background. So I
Speaker 1: kept like wondering, like, wait is this done? And on
Speaker 1: Android it downloads a lot better in the background, but
Speaker 1: on iOS not so much. Just the way iOS is built,
Speaker 1: you have to kind of sit there with the app
Speaker 1: open and make sure that you download these things so
Speaker 1: the video images and videos look great in bright light
Speaker 1: quality is not so good in low light, and it's
Speaker 1: fun to capture life's little moments. I mean, there's no
Speaker 1: denying that these things are really fun, but the video
Speaker 1: is just okay. In fact, a lot of it is
Speaker 1: not usable. And even myself, who is a video professional,
Speaker 1: found myself with a lot of video that just was
Speaker 1: too wobbly. It was all over the place. I'm looking around,
Speaker 1: I'm darting my eyes all around. And there's one weird
Speaker 1: thing about these glasses that I think you should know
Speaker 1: is that what you're looking at is not necessarily what
Speaker 1: the glasses are capturing. So I feel like the glasses
Speaker 1: are tuned to a bit of a higher point of
Speaker 1: view than your eyes where they look naturally. And that's
Speaker 1: a problem because when I was looking at something like
Speaker 1: a smartphone, Let's say I had something in my hand
Speaker 1: that I wanted to show you, it would only capture
Speaker 1: like half of that because the glasses need to be
Speaker 1: like much further looking down, like she almost need to
Speaker 1: like really aim your neck down or your chin down
Speaker 1: to capture what you're truly looking at. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of weird, and actually, I would say that's the
Speaker 1: biggest downside of these things, is that they just weren't
Speaker 1: really capturing what I was specifically looking at, which I
Speaker 1: think is kind of a problem. But otherwise they are
Speaker 1: really cool. I think they're going to continue to get better.
Speaker 1: I think they're going to work on the stabilization the
Speaker 1: image quality. But it does remove sort of that barrier
Speaker 1: to social sharing, and that may or may not be
Speaker 1: a good thing. But three hundred dollars available now in
Speaker 1: a bunch of stores, including Sunglass Hut. All Right, Keith says,
Speaker 1: good afternoon, mister Demiro. My name is Keith. I'm a
Speaker 1: forty nine year old quadraplegic who has been mentoring, training,
Speaker 1: and co coaching basketball players for more than thirty years.
Speaker 1: Well at least I was until the pandemic, sooner than later.
Speaker 1: I hope to get back to doing what I love best,
Speaker 1: and I would like to be able to record my
Speaker 1: activities in coaching, but also my adventures when traveling. My
Speaker 1: question for you, which cell phone would you suggest as
Speaker 1: best for someone who is a quadriplegic. I have no
Speaker 1: use in my upper body, but soon I hope to
Speaker 1: have a robotic arm, but until then I would need
Speaker 1: something that has the most accessibility with voice command. I
Speaker 1: look forward to your thoughts on the subject. Have a
Speaker 1: great day, Keith. This person that emailed me has no
Speaker 1: use of their upper body, and I can tell just
Speaker 1: from this email that Keith is an amazing person with
Speaker 1: an amazing outlook on life. He has been mentoring, training,
Speaker 1: and coaching basketball players for more than thirty years. I mean,
Speaker 1: just I don't even have words for this right now
Speaker 1: when I read this, and I'm just sitting here saying
Speaker 1: this person is amazing, And the fact that he's just
Speaker 1: emailing and explaining his situation in life, and just me
Speaker 1: understanding that I can already tell that Keith is a positive,
Speaker 1: amazing person is pretty cool that I can tell that
Speaker 1: through his email. So Keith, number one, keep up the
Speaker 1: amazing work, keep up that amazing attitude. I bet you're
Speaker 1: an amazing coach for these players. With that said, which
Speaker 1: phone do I think is the best for someone like you?
Speaker 1: I have not. Now there's a couple of things here.
Speaker 1: You want to you record your activities in coaching and
Speaker 1: also your adventures when traveling, but you want voice command. Now,
Speaker 1: the iPhone is probably the best when it comes to
Speaker 1: video overall, and you know, recording things just setting it
Speaker 1: and forgetting it. There's a lot of accessories that you
Speaker 1: can use, like a tripod to set it up. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to voice command, I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: that's the best phone out there. But you know, especially
Speaker 1: if you're going to be trying to do tech and
Speaker 1: things or just in general using your voice for this
Speaker 1: to command this phone. So Apple does have a lot
Speaker 1: of accessibility features, and I think they've done a really
Speaker 1: great job with their accessibility features. In fact, some of
Speaker 1: them have become so popular they sort of crossed over
Speaker 1: into mainstream use. But with that said, I think that
Speaker 1: the phone to look at would maybe be the new
Speaker 1: Pixel six. And the reason for that is that the
Speaker 1: voice command on Google is pretty phenomenal, not just the
Speaker 1: transcription that you get, but also the things that you
Speaker 1: can do with this phone just by asking it to
Speaker 1: do things. And it's interesting because Google did the entire
Speaker 1: announcement for the Pixel six without really putting a lot
Speaker 1: of emphasis into the Google Assistant as they had in
Speaker 1: years past. But it's pretty powerful in reaching into the
Speaker 1: far corners of this phone in being able to do
Speaker 1: a lot of functionality that you might not be able
Speaker 1: to do on the iPhone and so so I would
Speaker 1: I would take a look at that, and if there's
Speaker 1: a way that you can, you know, get one of
Speaker 1: these phones to play with or take a look at,
Speaker 1: I would definitely do that before you make a purchase,
Speaker 1: and maybe also go to the Apple Store and kind
Speaker 1: of check out some of the accessibility settings on the
Speaker 1: iPhone and see which one you think might do a
Speaker 1: better job in assisting you with what you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 1: But you say voice command, I don't know, I'm thinking
Speaker 1: voice command. Google is pretty much the leader when it
Speaker 1: comes to voice control. So I would I would probably,
Speaker 1: I would probably look there first. Good question, Keith, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. Zoom is going to start having advertisements. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we knew this was probably gonna happen. It's been a
Speaker 1: free ride on Zoom for a very long time. So
Speaker 1: you have to keep in mind Zoom started out as
Speaker 1: a service for enterprise users. What does that mean enterprise?
Speaker 1: These are companies with big bucks. These are companies to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're not going to create our own video chat system,
Speaker 1: we are going to use Zoom to video chat with colleagues.
Speaker 1: And when you think about it, video chat has always
Speaker 1: been around. We've been for a long time now. I
Speaker 1: mean we've had FaceTime, we've had Skype, we've had some
Speaker 1: sort of video chat functionality for a long time. But
Speaker 1: when the pandemic hit, Zoom became a proprietary eponym for
Speaker 1: video chat or web chatting whatever you want, or video
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, video meetings, and now
Speaker 1: everyone says, you know, this is this is it, this
Speaker 1: is uh you know, when you want to take a
Speaker 1: video call, it's Zoom. And free users have enjoyed a
Speaker 1: lot of the same features that paid users have enjoyed,
Speaker 1: with that exception of the forty minute limit on Zoom
Speaker 1: free meetings, but otherwise it's been pretty amazing how many
Speaker 1: people have used Zoom without paying a penny to Zoom.
Speaker 1: And that costs Room money. I mean, they've got to
Speaker 1: pay for servers, they've got to pay for develop and
Speaker 1: they've been kind of floating this bill for a long time,
Speaker 1: but now they need to pay it. And so they said,
Speaker 1: beginning today, we are going to start rolling out ads
Speaker 1: on a browser page for free users, and so free users,
Speaker 1: so free to free users. So this is someone who
Speaker 1: is making a free call to another Zoom user. They
Speaker 1: will see an advertisement on their web browser at the
Speaker 1: end of the meeting, and it's very small. It's one
Speaker 1: little banner page right now and or one little banner
Speaker 1: ad right now, And that's how they're going to pay
Speaker 1: for a portion of what they're doing. I don't think
Speaker 1: that's going to take in a lot of money. Maybe
Speaker 1: it will because there's so many calls being placed on Zoom,
Speaker 1: But the main thing that they want you to know
Speaker 1: is that this is rolling out. You may not see
Speaker 1: it immediately. They got to pay their bills. That's what
Speaker 1: they're explaining. And there is one thing that the blog
Speaker 1: post says they want to be very clear about. They
Speaker 1: have updated their privacy statement to say they will not
Speaker 1: use meetings, webinars, or any messages that you send through Zoom,
Speaker 1: specifically audio, video files and messages, any chats for marketing
Speaker 1: promotions or third party advertising. So what they're saying is
Speaker 1: they're not going to use the contents of your meeting
Speaker 1: to target ads against you. So if you were doing
Speaker 1: a meeting about you know, Instagram influencers and you were
Speaker 1: talking about you know, marketing tactics, they would not put
Speaker 1: an ad for hoot Suite on your on your page
Speaker 1: because they know that you're talking about marketing. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you won't see that ad because there's
Speaker 1: other ways of targeting you, and that might involve cookies,
Speaker 1: that might involve third party content that you've you know,
Speaker 1: websites that you've gone to, So don't be surprised if
Speaker 1: you see stuff that could be related to your field
Speaker 1: of work. But they're saying that you know your your
Speaker 1: content is not being scanned to target these ads towards you,
Speaker 1: which is nice. I'm glad they clarified that. But anyway,
Speaker 1: ads on Zoom coming soon or maybe already there. Ryan
Speaker 1: writes in Hello, how do I set my Android phone
Speaker 1: to announce who the caller is? I can't find it
Speaker 1: on your website? Sincerely, Ryan, Uh Ryan. I know the
Speaker 1: website is kind of tricky sometimes to find stuff, but
Speaker 1: here's the best way of finding something that I've mentioned
Speaker 1: on TV or on social media or anywhere that you
Speaker 1: hear me. The best way is to google me. So
Speaker 1: google when I when someone says, uh, you know, caller ID,
Speaker 1: so I would type caller I d announce ktla DeMuro
Speaker 1: And when I do that, I see the story that
Speaker 1: I mentioned this I think I mentioned this in and
Speaker 1: this this is called how to uh here are some
Speaker 1: of the latest ways to stop spam calls. And so
Speaker 1: let's see, did I mention this. I didn't announce I
Speaker 1: didn't mention it in there, but let's see im now
Speaker 1: maybe I mentioned it on TVs and passing or something. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So the way to do this on an Android phone
Speaker 1: is you have to download the phone by Google app.
Speaker 1: And if you download the phone by Google App, go
Speaker 1: into the settings. This will replace your standard phone call
Speaker 1: system on the Android. You can do that under Advanced
Speaker 1: you'll see something called caller ID announcement. You flip that
Speaker 1: on and then your phone will speak the caller ID
Speaker 1: information when someone calls. I actually have this turned on
Speaker 1: on my iPhone, and you know, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that's kind of nice. I don't get a ton
Speaker 1: of phone calls that I answer. I mean, I you know,
Speaker 1: most people text nowadays, and if they're calling you, they
Speaker 1: text you first, which is I find a little odd,
Speaker 1: but that's the way people do it. Whenever I call people,
Speaker 1: you know, this is kind of the scenario. Someone I'm
Speaker 1: emailing with, I'm like, hey, can I call you real quick?
Speaker 1: And they're like no, They're like, uh, you can call
Speaker 1: next Tuesday at two o'clock. I'm like, oh, okay, I
Speaker 1: thought you were at your email. But today I did this.
Speaker 1: Just this morning, I emailed someone about a story. They
Speaker 1: wrote me back and I said, hey, you have a
Speaker 1: couple of minutes to hop on a call, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: I gave my phone number and they called right away.
Speaker 1: And so anyway, that's how you set it up. Download
Speaker 1: the phone by Google app, look under caller ID announcement
Speaker 1: under advance. I don't think that Samsung has a way
Speaker 1: to do this built into their phones, so if they do,
Speaker 1: I could be mistaken. But you can just go into
Speaker 1: your phone settings on Samsung and see if they have
Speaker 1: anything that says caller ID announcement. They very well may.
Speaker 1: I just don't have a Samsung in front of me
Speaker 1: right now to test that. On iPhone you can do
Speaker 1: it as well. It is under the phone settings in
Speaker 1: your phone, so just go ahead and you can turn
Speaker 1: that on. I have it turned on. It's it's a
Speaker 1: little jarring because it does announce publicly. You know, if
Speaker 1: someone's around you, they'll hear who's calling you, and so
Speaker 1: you may or may not like that. But that's how
Speaker 1: that's how you turn it on. Good question, Ryan, thanks
Speaker 1: listening to the show and asking. Oh, speaking of phone calls,
Speaker 1: this I thought was a really interesting new scam from
Speaker 1: reported by Vice Motherboard, which is their kind of tech
Speaker 1: section there. Joseph Cox, Joseph Cox is the reporter on this,
Speaker 1: and this is a really interesting scam, one that I
Speaker 1: was not aware of, and it's it's quite brilliant actually.
Speaker 1: But here's what they do. So you know how, you're okay,
Speaker 1: there's so many layers to this, but you know how
Speaker 1: when you're I always say, don't use the same password
Speaker 1: over and over. Okay, Well there's a reason for that
Speaker 1: because right now on the internet, one of your old
Speaker 1: passwords is floating around with your email address. It just is.
Speaker 1: And so what happens is, there's been so many data
Speaker 1: breaches over the years. What these hackers do is they
Speaker 1: buy a whole bunch of user names and passwords and
Speaker 1: then they go ahead they try them, and so they
Speaker 1: try to see which combinations work and on different websites.
Speaker 1: So if you're using the same email address and password
Speaker 1: on a different website than the one that was originally hacked, well,
Speaker 1: now they have access to that website. And this has
Speaker 1: happened to me. I can tell you firsthand because a
Speaker 1: website that I used was hacked and thankfully I had
Speaker 1: a specific password on that website. Because this password's out there.
Speaker 1: I know it is because I got an alert on
Speaker 1: my monitoring situation that I subscribe to, and so or
Speaker 1: monitoring service I should say. And so I said, hey,
Speaker 1: this password has been hacked. We found it not just
Speaker 1: with your password, but here's your email address and also
Speaker 1: your address and all this other information. And so they
Speaker 1: have that. But I've always talked about how you should
Speaker 1: always use two factor authentication, and what that does is
Speaker 1: when someone logs in with your information, it will send
Speaker 1: you a code to your phone or you use your
Speaker 1: authentication app, which is a better way of doing it
Speaker 1: to authenticate this log in. Well, the scam artists know
Speaker 1: that people are starting to use this two factor authentication.
Speaker 1: So how do you get around that. Well, here's what
Speaker 1: they do. They now log into your they now have
Speaker 1: let's say they have your website, your email and password,
Speaker 1: and they're ready to try to log into your bank account.
Speaker 1: So what they'll do is they will call you and
Speaker 1: say they'll use these automated bots. And so these automated
Speaker 1: bots will call you. You'll get a voice a message
Speaker 1: on your phone, not a message like a phone call
Speaker 1: that says, Hello, this is PayPal. Someone is trying to
Speaker 1: log into your account. Please, we have just texted you
Speaker 1: with a one time password. Please type in that password
Speaker 1: so we can secure your account. And this might be
Speaker 1: for Apple, this might be for PayPal, Amazon, Coinbase, all
Speaker 1: kinds of different banks. And you say, oh gosh, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, thank you for finding this this breach. Let
Speaker 1: me type in this code, and sure enough the code
Speaker 1: comes right, it's your phone. As you are listening to
Speaker 1: this message, you type in the code, and guess what
Speaker 1: just happened. You actually just gave access to your account
Speaker 1: to the hackers. Because now they have the two factor
Speaker 1: authentication code to your account. And what are they going
Speaker 1: to do? Immediately? They're going to go ahead and change
Speaker 1: the password. They're going to turn off two factor or
Speaker 1: change it to their information. And now they're gonna they're
Speaker 1: going to take all your information that they can and
Speaker 1: all your money and whatever they can do. And so
Speaker 1: this is something that's really scary. It's something that could
Speaker 1: trick even a smart savvy tech person, because it's so
Speaker 1: new and it's so unique, and so this is something
Speaker 1: that you just have to be aware of. Do not
Speaker 1: give those two factor authentication codes to anyone, and just
Speaker 1: be very anytime you're logging into a website. I know
Speaker 1: we want to do these things very quickly. And I
Speaker 1: know that people use these variations of passwords and they
Speaker 1: think they've got it down and they think it's not
Speaker 1: going to happen to them. But I'm telling you, I've
Speaker 1: told you once, I've told you twice, I will tell
Speaker 1: you a thousand times. Please be careful with your credentials.
Speaker 1: Please use a password manager. Please use unique passwords for
Speaker 1: every website that you are logging into, even when you
Speaker 1: sign up on your phone. I know you want to
Speaker 1: do it so fast. I'm guilty of this. Just take
Speaker 1: the extra sixty seconds to go into your password manager,
Speaker 1: create a password, save the log in information, copy and paste,
Speaker 1: and then put it into the field that says password,
Speaker 1: and then set up two factor authentication. And then anytime
Speaker 1: you're logging into one of your accounts, just just think
Speaker 1: before you type in any of this information, look at
Speaker 1: the website you're typing it into. Look at the two
Speaker 1: factor authentication code. Make sure that you're actually trying to
Speaker 1: get into a website at the time you're being sent
Speaker 1: one of these things, and just take a deep breath
Speaker 1: and just realize that there are people that are actively
Speaker 1: trying to get a hold of your account. And if
Speaker 1: you can just take a little bit of extra time
Speaker 1: to create those passwords and those logins, and then take
Speaker 1: your extra time to log in with the two factor
Speaker 1: and make sure everything is verified, it will. Believe me,
Speaker 1: it will save you a big headache in the future.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna go ahead. I already contacted Joseph at
Speaker 1: Motherboard to do a story about this for TV. I
Speaker 1: think this is something that people really really need to
Speaker 1: know about on a very basic consumer level. The fact
Speaker 1: that this is happening is pretty scary. Brenda writes in Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: I hope you and your family had a great Halloween.
Speaker 1: I've been debating about downloading the new iOS fifteen point
Speaker 1: one to my iPhone eleven pro, but I finally caved in. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: I keep getting an error message, so I don't really
Speaker 1: know what could be wrong. Hopefully you can give me
Speaker 1: some recommendations. PS. Thanks for always posting cool stuff Brenda s.
Speaker 1: Brenda also attached a screenshot that says unable to install
Speaker 1: update and error occurred installing iOS fifteen point one. Okay, hey,
Speaker 1: let's break this down. Brenda number one, hope you and
Speaker 1: your family had a great Halloween. Yes we did. The
Speaker 1: kids went out with their friends, We had all the
Speaker 1: adults over, We had nice dinner before and then we
Speaker 1: all went out trick or treating, and then we came
Speaker 1: back and we continued to have some fun while the
Speaker 1: kids all looked at their candy dumped it on the floor.
Speaker 1: So it was really fun. The only thing that was
Speaker 1: missing this year was the brand new Pixel. So Halloween
Speaker 1: every year is literally when I get to test out
Speaker 1: the nightsight prowess on the new Google Pixel. And since
Speaker 1: I didn't have mine in time, I was using the
Speaker 1: iPhone thirteen Pro, which I have to say has gotten
Speaker 1: really good. I mean, I just think that the iPhone
Speaker 1: thirteen Pro camera overall and the device is just so good.
Speaker 1: It's it's like, it's like pretty much my my perfect phone.
Speaker 1: Dare I say, except for some of the features of iOS,
Speaker 1: but even that has gotten so good that, you know,
Speaker 1: there are some things I like about Android better. But
Speaker 1: iOS has gotten so good and the ecosystem. So anyway,
Speaker 1: we had a great time. Halloween was awesome and we
Speaker 1: didn't get a ton of trigger truders. But we came
Speaker 1: back to the house so late that we did the
Speaker 1: thing where we left out the candy on the doorstep,
Speaker 1: and people were respectful and took the candy. But I've
Speaker 1: got my video cameras anyway outside the front door, so
Speaker 1: I would have seen if anyone was too too wild
Speaker 1: with that. Thanks for posting cool stuff. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I do try to post cool stuff, and it's funny
Speaker 1: when I post stuff to my social media, like good example,
Speaker 1: I posted a video of the cart escalator at Target,
Speaker 1: and I was in Target, and I've seen the cart
Speaker 1: escalator a thousand times, but it never ceases to amaze
Speaker 1: me because it's so mesmerizing. You know, you put your
Speaker 1: cart on this little escalator, it latches into the bottom
Speaker 1: of it and it brings it up to the second
Speaker 1: floor or down to the first floor. Here in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: they're very commonplace because you know, Land is at a
Speaker 1: very very tight premium here and so they build these
Speaker 1: Targets and other stores that are several floors high. You know,
Speaker 1: usually two floors maybe I don't think I've seen a three,
Speaker 1: but in other places they're not. But anyway, I just
Speaker 1: posted this saying like, hey, this never ceases to amaze me.
Speaker 1: It's also quite frightening because I always think of like
Speaker 1: getting stuck in this thing and like just it ripping
Speaker 1: you apart, because it's like this machine that is just
Speaker 1: you know, it's grabbing this cart at the bottom, and
Speaker 1: like there's all these pieces and it's just really it's
Speaker 1: like an escalator somewhat exposed. So like, escalators are still dangerous.
Speaker 1: Believe me, I had to save someone of the lax
Speaker 1: one time who fell backwards and I caught them, thank god,
Speaker 1: but you know, I had to like hold them up,
Speaker 1: and it was you know, these things you can lose
Speaker 1: your Don't take an escalator for granted. They are very
Speaker 1: dangerous and if you lose your footing while on an escalator,
Speaker 1: especially with luggage or whatever, believe me, in a matter
Speaker 1: of seconds you could be hurt. And so don't you know,
Speaker 1: don't think that an escalator, don't don't be on your phone,
Speaker 1: don't do anything like stay stay on task when you're
Speaker 1: on the escalator. It is. It is a dangerous piece
Speaker 1: of machinery, and I feel like the car escalator is
Speaker 1: even more dangerous because a lot of it's exposed to
Speaker 1: be able to grab onto the car. Anyway, I posted
Speaker 1: that video not thinking much about it, and it sort
Speaker 1: of blew up on social media because people were amazed
Speaker 1: by it. They had not seen it before. They're also
Speaker 1: amazed by it if they had seen it. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you like when I post cool stuff, because
Speaker 1: sometimes it just post stuff that I find interesting, and
Speaker 1: I have no idea if people are gonna like it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: what to do about this unable to install update. What
Speaker 1: I would recommend is you probably have filled up your
Speaker 1: phone and it's not able to get the space that
Speaker 1: it needs to actually download and install the software update
Speaker 1: on your iPhone. That's what I'm guessing. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things where apples should probably be able to figure
Speaker 1: out a way around this, but they can't. And so
Speaker 1: I would go through and delete maybe a couple of apps,
Speaker 1: maybe a couple of big videos that are backed up,
Speaker 1: and try it again and see if you can install
Speaker 1: the update. All right, now, we're gonna get hungry and
Speaker 1: at the time i'm recording this, I am hungry. I'm
Speaker 1: really hungry. And yesterday I had a chance to try
Speaker 1: the new mcplant Burger at McDonald's. And before you say, rich, rich, rich,
Speaker 1: how is all this food talk tech? Give me a break.
Speaker 1: You just like to go eat food at these places
Speaker 1: and talk about it, And yeah, that's part of it.
Speaker 1: I do. But I'm also fascinated. You know that I'm
Speaker 1: very much into this plant based stuff. Not because I
Speaker 1: am a vegetarian or a vegan. I'm not. I love
Speaker 1: a steak on a Saturday night. Believe me, my wife
Speaker 1: and I that's our favorite meal. So the mcplant burger
Speaker 1: is now at McDonald's. It's at eight US restaurants. And
Speaker 1: the reason why this is tech is because they're using
Speaker 1: Beyond meat patty, and this patty is exclusive to McDonald's.
Speaker 1: This is not the same patty that you would buy
Speaker 1: in the grocery store from Beyond. So if you want
Speaker 1: to try this version of the patty, you have to
Speaker 1: go to McDonald's. And the reason once you taste this patty,
Speaker 1: you know that it is a McDonald's specific patty. So
Speaker 1: this burger has it's it's not a big mac it's
Speaker 1: more like a quarter pounder with cheese. So it's got
Speaker 1: the beyond patty, which is made from let's see, what's
Speaker 1: it made from? Rice, peas, potatoes and other things. It's
Speaker 1: served on a sesame seed bun. It's got tomato, lettuce, pickles, onions, mayonnaise, ketchup,
Speaker 1: and mustard, and then a slice of American cheese. Now,
Speaker 1: notice some of those ingredients are not vegan. Mayonnaise and
Speaker 1: American cheese, So if you want to make this vegan,
Speaker 1: it's not really possible. Even for the fact, well, you
Speaker 1: can leave those things out, but they do say that
Speaker 1: the meat is griddled on the same grill as the
Speaker 1: meat patties the standard burger. So if you're trying to
Speaker 1: be vegan, you know, maybe you don't care about that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I imagine some people do if you're
Speaker 1: a strict vegan. So I tasted this burger and I
Speaker 1: got to say it was excellent. It tasted just like
Speaker 1: what you would expect from a McDonald's burger. It was
Speaker 1: really good. I actually ate one and a half of
Speaker 1: these burgers because I recorded all my videos for KTLA
Speaker 1: and then social media, so I had to eat one
Speaker 1: and then another Well, I didn't have to eat the
Speaker 1: full thing. I ate it because I liked it. It
Speaker 1: was really good. The burger itself is a little mushier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the standard burger is probably going to be a little
Speaker 1: bit more satisfying, because if that's what you're used to.
Speaker 1: Like me, I am a meat eater, so I am
Speaker 1: used to the standard burger flavor and taste and the
Speaker 1: way it feels. But at the same time, I also
Speaker 1: really appreciate a plant based burger if done well. And
Speaker 1: I think Beyond doing them really well. And Beyond is tech.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying this is a Franken patty, but
Speaker 1: the technology is used to recreate the feeling and taste
Speaker 1: of a meat product. And so I've been inside Beyond
Speaker 1: Meats facility, and believe me, they employ a lot of
Speaker 1: food technologists. And what these food scientists do is they
Speaker 1: sit there all day breaking down meat to a molecular
Speaker 1: level to figure out what makes it taste this way,
Speaker 1: what makes it feel this way in your mouth, what
Speaker 1: makes it break up a certain way, what makes it
Speaker 1: smell a certain way, and what makes it smell another
Speaker 1: way when it cooks. And so for all these reasons.
Speaker 1: I'm not defending my segments on plant based food because
Speaker 1: it is technology. In fact, a lot of the food
Speaker 1: that we eat today, sadly is technology. Sad or for
Speaker 1: better or worse, I should say not sadly. Some of
Speaker 1: it's really good because we're able to feed people in
Speaker 1: ways that we were never able to feed them in
Speaker 1: a mass way before. Now you can argue me on
Speaker 1: McDonald's whether it's good or bad, whether they should be
Speaker 1: doing this, but the reality is it's options. It's just
Speaker 1: another option for people that go to McDonald's. If I
Speaker 1: go to McDonald's with my kids, and typically I'm not
Speaker 1: going to eat a burger, you know, because I've already
Speaker 1: had meat that day or whatever, this gives me another
Speaker 1: option to say, Okay, cool, I'll get the plant based burger.
Speaker 1: And the nutrition facts on this thing. It's about five
Speaker 1: hundred calories for this burger. It does have, you know,
Speaker 1: a decent amount of fat and saturated fat, not so
Speaker 1: much cholesterol. I think it was like eight percent, about
Speaker 1: forty five percent of your sodium, and about twenty two
Speaker 1: grams of protein. So they're not there. There is nothing
Speaker 1: in the marketing materials at McDonald's or beyond that says
Speaker 1: this is a healthy alternative to a burger. No, they
Speaker 1: just say it is an option, and that's all it
Speaker 1: is at this point, is an option. McDonald's is testing
Speaker 1: this at eight restaurants. I'll tell you the locations, Irving
Speaker 1: and Carrollton, Texas, Cedar Falls, Iowa, Jennings and Lake Charles, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: and then Elsigundo and Manhattan Beach, California. I visited the
Speaker 1: Manhattan Beach, California location. We will see if they expand
Speaker 1: this to more locations. I knew it there. It is
Speaker 1: that music means that's gonna do it for this episode
Speaker 1: of the show. If you would like to submit a
Speaker 1: question for me to answer, just go to my Facebook page,
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech hit the big
Speaker 1: blue send email button, or you can go to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot tv and hit the email icon. Also,
Speaker 1: I would love it if you would rate and review
Speaker 1: the podcast. If you've been listening for a while and
Speaker 1: you've figured out what you like about this show, it
Speaker 1: would really help me out if you would go to
Speaker 1: the listening app of your choice and write a quick
Speaker 1: line about what you like about this show to help
Speaker 1: others understand why they should listen. There are so many
Speaker 1: podcasts out there, but if you explain what you like,
Speaker 1: even if it's just something very specific, that may help
Speaker 1: someone decide to subscribe or listen. You can find me
Speaker 1: on social media. I am at rich on Tech on Facebook,
Speaker 1: on Instagram, on Twitter, and if you want to see
Speaker 1: my taste test of the McDonald's mcplant Berger and all
Speaker 1: the stuff I talk about, you can find most of
Speaker 1: those videos on Facebook and Instagram, and of course my website,
Speaker 1: and no matter where you live in the US, you
Speaker 1: can download the free KTLA plus app on Apple, TV,
Speaker 1: Fire TV, and Roku. Once you do, scroll down to
Speaker 1: the tech section and watch all of my TV segments
Speaker 1: on demand. I always say TV is where I do
Speaker 1: my best work. It's definitely a big part of my life,
Speaker 1: so please watch my TV segments. They are a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. My name is Richard Demiro. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening. There are so many ways you can spend
Speaker 1: an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending
Speaker 1: with me. I will talk to you real soon.