Speaker 1: Amazon sets this year's Prime Day. Air tags get their
Speaker 1: first major update.
Speaker 2: The website that will.
Speaker 1: Buy your old gadgets for cash, even if they're broken.
Speaker 1: Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich
Speaker 1: Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where
Speaker 1: I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
Speaker 1: know about. It's also the place where I answer the
Speaker 1: questions you send me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA
Speaker 1: Channel five in Los Angeles. Hope you are having a
Speaker 1: fantastic day. We are into the summer. I don't even
Speaker 1: know is it summer just yet?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could be listening to this next year
Speaker 1: for all I know, or you could be listening to
Speaker 1: it last year. If you're a time traveler, that would
Speaker 1: be interesting, butrobably wouldn't be listening to a podcast. You'd
Speaker 1: be so rich that why would you be listening to
Speaker 1: a podcast? I mean, seriously, you would be on an
Speaker 1: island somewhere living off your bitcoin if you sold it
Speaker 1: right before the giant bitcoin dip of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: you'd be much smarter than me. Let's see, so I
Speaker 1: was going through my I'm on this quest, you know,
Speaker 1: to kind of clear out my Google drive, get things organized,
Speaker 1: get it all backed up, and it is quite the process.
Speaker 1: Everything's the process right when you as we acquire more
Speaker 1: tech and digital stuff. But I was going through my
Speaker 1: drive and I found all I went through and like
Speaker 1: did a search for all my old audio files so
Speaker 1: I can finally get them into one place. Of course,
Speaker 1: I had like hundreds of duplicates, Like these files are
Speaker 1: just duplicated one, two, three, four. Like I have this
Speaker 1: thing where I can never like just delete stuff. I
Speaker 1: always have to like make a copy of it just
Speaker 1: in case before I delete there's like a backup, and
Speaker 1: that makes all these extra files. Anyway, what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is that I found a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: old files that, like, if you've been listening to the
Speaker 1: podcast for a long time, they've all had their place
Speaker 1: in the podcast throughout the year.
Speaker 2: So like this one, uh, I don't know, these were like.
Speaker 1: This was like the music that I would use for
Speaker 1: like the end of the show. Sounds like you're in
Speaker 1: like a nightclub.
Speaker 2: What about this one? You know, I'm obsessed with radio.
Speaker 1: I've always loved radio my entire life, growing up as
Speaker 1: zero one hundred New York and it's just like all
Speaker 1: radio sounded like this back in the day. You're listening
Speaker 1: to whtz Z one hundred New York. And then like
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, like all these little likes, this
Speaker 1: was the one I always wanted. Drum roll, drum roll please,
Speaker 1: Yes we have the new winner of the Amazon Echo.
Speaker 1: Say hello, how about this one? Like all this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, like you are tuned in to the war.
Speaker 1: It's leading broadcaster from the top of the Empire State Building.
Speaker 2: And then this was my intro initiating rich on Tech.
Speaker 1: This was from DJ Ski. He made a couple of
Speaker 1: intros for me back in the day. And then this,
Speaker 1: if you remember, was the original intro to the podcast
Speaker 1: a long time ago. Not the original, but it was
Speaker 1: definitely one of the one of the there's been many,
Speaker 1: is it permutation, permutations, permutations, permutations. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you say that word. I always say that a lot.
Speaker 1: Someone should do a clip of me saying I don't
Speaker 1: know how you say that word. Why did I grow
Speaker 1: up not knowing how to say words? You know, I
Speaker 1: grew up in New Jersey, where I'm not kidding. I
Speaker 1: called a drawer a draw until I got to college
Speaker 1: and I'll never forget. I told my roommate who was
Speaker 1: from Torrents, and I was like, Hey, can you open
Speaker 1: that draw? And he's like, what what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Draw?
Speaker 1: Yeah, open that draw. Go take look at yourself in
Speaker 1: the mirror, the mirror. What Let me have a glass
Speaker 1: of water. I mean literally the things that I said.
Speaker 1: And it's ironic that I become a broadcaster because this
Speaker 1: the way I spoke for so long was just everything
Speaker 1: was wrong, and it's a lot of it still is,
Speaker 1: which is you know, that's just who I am. Like
Speaker 1: I still say button and everyone's like, isn't it button
Speaker 1: butt in? Uh, take a look, take a lift at
Speaker 1: the fountain, and then press the button. You know, I
Speaker 1: just this is who I am. I'm from New Jersey.
Speaker 2: It's like just the way I grew up.
Speaker 1: But the ironic thing is going to USC was pretty
Speaker 1: good for me because I'll never forget literally sitting down
Speaker 1: in a circle with a whole bunch of people in
Speaker 1: my dorm room freshman year and they would just like
Speaker 1: I was like this weird specimen, right, Like I'd just
Speaker 1: be this weirdo from New Jersey that they were like, so,
Speaker 1: how do you say this? Word and I'm like Oregon
Speaker 1: and they're like no, no, no, it's Oregon, and I'm like okay,
Speaker 1: and we'd go through like for like an hour.
Speaker 2: Uh. Anyway, I digress, as I generally do. Let's talk
Speaker 2: about out.
Speaker 1: Uh. I guess I'm not going to go with the
Speaker 1: top story of the week right now. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go with what I think is a really important and
Speaker 1: fun story. We did it on KTLA today and it's
Speaker 1: a website that will pay you cash for the gadgets.
Speaker 2: Laying around your house. Now. I know there's a.
Speaker 1: Bunch of these websites, like Gazelle. Swap a Glide is
Speaker 1: another one that I used to talk about a lot,
Speaker 1: but I guess they're back. They were gone for like
Speaker 1: a while, but and Gazelle even was gone for a
Speaker 1: while like they weren't doing it. But anyway, So when
Speaker 1: I heard about this website, Gizmo Go, I had never
Speaker 1: heard of it before, and I was like, huh, that's
Speaker 1: I mean, it's rare that I haven't heard of something
Speaker 1: like that's you know, in a main space like gadget refunds.
Speaker 1: And I think what's happened with a lot of these
Speaker 1: gadgets is that people sell them back to the carriers
Speaker 1: and people sell them back to Apple. But the reality
Speaker 1: is there's three levels of getting rid of your old gadgets.
Speaker 1: Number one is if you just have old gadgets that
Speaker 1: kind of you don't want to throw out in the
Speaker 1: trash because they are you know, they're bad for the
Speaker 1: environment to throw out. That's like an old, super old
Speaker 1: device that's worth like almost nothing, right, like ten dollars,
Speaker 1: five dollars or zero.
Speaker 2: That's one level.
Speaker 1: Then you've got the next level where you know it's
Speaker 1: worth something and you can trade it in and get
Speaker 1: some good cash for it, which is generally like if
Speaker 1: you have last year's iPhone, you want to upgrade to
Speaker 1: the new one. And then there's this middle ground of
Speaker 1: just like a bunch of random stuff that you might have,
Speaker 1: like an older phone that's like it's not really not
Speaker 1: worth anything, but it might be worth something. So anyway,
Speaker 1: that's where this website comes in. Now you know those
Speaker 1: levels of selling stuff, so you're always going to get
Speaker 1: the most with what I call a person to person
Speaker 1: exchange or or sale. So the best way to do
Speaker 1: it is to sell it to a friend. Right, So
Speaker 1: if you put on Facebook, hey, I've got this old iPhone.
Speaker 1: Here's how much i'll sell it for it. You're always
Speaker 1: gonna get the most from a friend or a family
Speaker 1: member because you're doing the transaction in cash. You're not
Speaker 1: paying any fees. You don't have to pay transaction fees,
Speaker 1: PayPal fees, whatever. Right, that's always the best way, and
Speaker 1: you know, you feel good knowing that it's a family
Speaker 1: member or friend that's getting it.
Speaker 2: The next way is eBay.
Speaker 1: You're always going to get a good amount on eBay,
Speaker 1: and you've got a national audience, so you can sell
Speaker 1: to anyone in the US. You may think your iPhone
Speaker 1: five is you know, worthless, but there's someone out there
Speaker 1: that may have an iPhone five hooked up to their
Speaker 1: telephone system to pipe in music for their you know,
Speaker 1: their their hold music for an office or something. You know,
Speaker 1: you just never know what these situations are. And so
Speaker 1: that's another good way. And then you have the middle way,
Speaker 1: which is like Gazelle, Swapa and this new one Gizmo Go,
Speaker 1: which you're going to give you more cash than say
Speaker 1: trading it into the carriers. The carriers usually give you
Speaker 1: the least amount of cash because you know it's a
Speaker 1: it's a volume transaction for them, they're just kind of
Speaker 1: doing it as a courtesy. And then they don't they
Speaker 1: don't really care about the transaction. They just want to
Speaker 1: get you into a new phone on a new twenty
Speaker 1: four to thirty month contract or whatever you call it
Speaker 1: payment plan. So they're just doing this to make it
Speaker 1: easy for you to like not have any barrier to entry.
Speaker 1: So they're not going to give you the most, but
Speaker 1: it's gonna be fine. And then sometimes they run deals
Speaker 1: like Samsung often when a new phone comes out, will
Speaker 1: give you a little bit more, or Apple or any
Speaker 1: of these companies they'll give you like a little bit
Speaker 1: more T Mobile, Verizon, AT and T just because again
Speaker 1: they're trying to get you to upgrade. Anyway, all that
Speaker 1: is said that when I heard about Gizmo Go, I
Speaker 1: was like, huh, I never heard of them. And then
Speaker 1: it turns out they're in Chino, which is in nearby
Speaker 1: city in Los Angeles, probably like an hour away maybe,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, can I visit and see
Speaker 1: the operation and see how these things work? And sure
Speaker 1: enough they said yeah, And so I went down there
Speaker 1: and oh, my gosh, the amount of gadgets that were
Speaker 1: in this warehouse was just wild. Just stack to the
Speaker 1: walls or stack to the ceiling, I should say. And
Speaker 1: so they do two things. They do like mass recycling.
Speaker 1: Like let's say your target and you're upgrading all your
Speaker 1: point of sale systems, you'll just ship all your old
Speaker 1: ones to this company. They may give you a little
Speaker 1: price for them, or you know, I don't know how
Speaker 1: they do it, but you know, they must either charge
Speaker 1: you or they'll just take them for free. And then
Speaker 1: they'll reclaim the metals out of these things and recycle
Speaker 1: them properly, because there's a whole business in that. And
Speaker 1: then the consumer side of things, they'll take your electronics.
Speaker 1: And so the electronics they'll take is basically, you know, laptops, tablets.
Speaker 1: Let's see what else, computers, gaming, consoles, cameras, lenses, drones,
Speaker 1: smart watches, even iPods.
Speaker 2: And the website gives you an estimate.
Speaker 1: And you know, I did not tell I was at
Speaker 1: a little sneaky on this story because I went to
Speaker 1: Gizmo Go. It seemed great, you know, they led me around,
Speaker 1: showed me everything. But then I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: since I haven't heard of this company, I just want
Speaker 1: to make sure that it works the way they're telling me.
Speaker 1: And so after I got back, I actually took my
Speaker 1: kid's old iPad. He had an iPad mini that the
Speaker 1: screen was cracked. It was sitting in my garage. I
Speaker 1: had done previous estimates. It said it was worth about
Speaker 1: thirty bucks on one of these other websites, and so
Speaker 1: I was like, ah, it's not really worth my time,
Speaker 1: and so I put this on gizmo Go and they
Speaker 1: said we'll give you eighty bucks. I was like, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: they said they would pay top dollar, and sure enough
Speaker 1: they did. So I sent it in and Gizmo Goo
Speaker 1: kept asking, Hey, when's the story airing?
Speaker 2: When's the story airing?
Speaker 1: And I kept like putting them off because I was
Speaker 1: waiting for this iPad to come through and get my money,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to see as a regular person.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to tell them that I was doing
Speaker 1: this because you know, then they would go find the
Speaker 1: iPad and kind of fast track it. I wanted to
Speaker 1: see what the average person would go through. So sure enough,
Speaker 1: in about a week, and it was over a holiday weekend,
Speaker 1: I got my eighty dollars. Eighty dollars and fifty five
Speaker 1: cents in my PayPal account. I was very happy the
Speaker 1: whole process worked out as they promised, and now I
Speaker 1: can recommend Gizmo Go Gizmo like gizmo go dot com.
Speaker 1: They take it all and it's a great process. It's
Speaker 1: pretty quick. They'll pay via PayPal, and I guess it'll
Speaker 1: be my new place to get rid of old stuff
Speaker 1: if I need to. And you can even send in
Speaker 1: stuff like if it's totally worth nothing, just send it
Speaker 1: to them and they'll get it properly recycled, which is
Speaker 1: also really nice. So you can see the story on
Speaker 1: my website. Rich on tech dot tv look for the
Speaker 1: cash for Old Gadgets story and there you go. Don't
Speaker 1: throw stuff in the trash. Batteries and old electronics, do
Speaker 1: not do it. Not good for the environment.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Terry has a very long question, but I'll try to
Speaker 1: paraphrase it. But she says, I just watched you recommend
Speaker 1: two USB drives to download photos from Android to the
Speaker 1: USB and then download the photos from the flash drive
Speaker 1: to a computer. I have a similar situation. I want
Speaker 1: to transfer all my text messages. I purchased a Samsung
Speaker 1: Duo Type C flash drive. No problem, downloading the text
Speaker 1: onto the USB. But Samsung only allowed a very small
Speaker 1: sample of texts that could be viewed.
Speaker 2: I was told I.
Speaker 1: Would need to purchase droid Transfer to download them to
Speaker 1: my laptop. You identify two drives, will they handle these texts?
Speaker 1: And it just goes on and on. But the reality
Speaker 1: is so droid Transfer is a paid service. You do
Speaker 1: not need it. You do not need that program. You
Speaker 1: don't need to pay at all. The program that will
Speaker 1: do this all for free is called SMS Backup and Restore.
Speaker 1: SMS Backup and Restore. It's been around forever, It's gone
Speaker 1: through a couple of owners. It is completely free. They
Speaker 1: do have a paid version. I'm not sure what that does.
Speaker 1: I think I paid for at some point. It might
Speaker 1: be like four dollars and fifty cents, maybe no ads
Speaker 1: or something. But you can easily use that to back
Speaker 1: up your SMS messages on an Android. Now, on an iPhone,
Speaker 1: yes it gets a little trickier, but you're not talking
Speaker 1: about iPhone Apple. You know good old Apple. They like
Speaker 1: to lock things down. So just accessing your text messages,
Speaker 1: the things that you have created on your phone is
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it's so tough. It's I'm a tech
Speaker 1: person and I can't figure it out. Yes, there are
Speaker 1: some apps like Samsung Smart Switch and OnePlus that will
Speaker 1: tap into your iPhone and bring those messages over to
Speaker 1: your new phone sometimes, but it is really, really tricky,
Speaker 1: and for the average person that just you just want
Speaker 1: to see your texts in your Google Drive, it's nearly
Speaker 1: impots with the iPhone. Yes, there's a bunch of software
Speaker 1: that can do it. It's a weird file, it's a
Speaker 1: weird format, and it's just the way Apple rolls. And
Speaker 1: so with iPhone, yes, it's it's a lot tougher. And
Speaker 1: people tell me all the time here Rich, you know,
Speaker 1: I would like to restore or download my messages from iCloud.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, not gonna be able to do it.
Speaker 1: To restore them from my cloud, you have to literally
Speaker 1: format your phone and start fresh. And that's the way
Speaker 1: you have to back them up from my cloud and
Speaker 1: then on you know, if you just want to download them,
Speaker 1: like just have a nice like backup of your text messages,
Speaker 1: oh good luck with that. There's really no app even
Speaker 1: on the iPhone that can easily do that. And I
Speaker 1: say easily because someone's gonna email me and say, rich
Speaker 1: you can do this. No, no, no, it's not easy. Like
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. You know, I'm a tech person. I
Speaker 1: look at this stuff all day long. I'm always looking
Speaker 1: for simple solutions. SMS backup and restore is totally simple
Speaker 1: and easy. Sorry, that's my producer or my editor texting me,
Speaker 1: so hold on. Let me text him back and say cool.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, remember the days when you weren't interrupted every
Speaker 1: two seconds with something? But it just happens, you know,
Speaker 1: So anyway, where was I? That's the program. Since you
Speaker 1: said you're on an Android, SMS backup and restore is
Speaker 1: the program to use. It will work easily if you
Speaker 1: have a solution for the iPhone that's simple, easy, And
Speaker 1: you know for your messages, tell me, I don't think
Speaker 1: there is one. It's just Apple likes to make things
Speaker 1: really complicated because guess what, it keeps you in the
Speaker 1: Apple ecosystem.
Speaker 2: You know, your messages are in.
Speaker 1: iCloud somewhere, you just don't really know how to access
Speaker 1: them very easily, and neither do I, And so you
Speaker 1: can't just go on iCloud dot com and say, hey,
Speaker 1: download my texts or my I messages.
Speaker 2: You just can't do it.
Speaker 1: As far as I know, and Apple will continue to
Speaker 1: make things tricky for us. I think they're getting better, Honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to knock Apple. I think I think
Speaker 1: that it was the way their system was built to
Speaker 1: be safe and secure.
Speaker 2: Like with respect to text.
Speaker 1: Messages, they don't want a bunch as because every app
Speaker 1: would love to tap into those, right, So it used
Speaker 1: to be on Android, like every app could just access
Speaker 1: your messages, no big deal. But it becomes this security
Speaker 1: issue because there's a lot of information in those messages
Speaker 1: and so by having every app read them can be
Speaker 1: a potential security issue. So Apple says, well, let's lock
Speaker 1: them down. But they need to make these things a
Speaker 1: little bit easier because they have them locked down. But
Speaker 1: give us a simple way to kind of get the
Speaker 1: information when we need it, right, especially for something like
Speaker 1: a simple backup that's not iCloud. All right, I'm done
Speaker 1: with that. All right, Let's talk about Prime Day. This
Speaker 1: is happening on June twenty first and June twenty second.
Speaker 1: The headline says two days of epic savings on more
Speaker 1: than two million deals globally. Oh my gosh, this is
Speaker 1: so big, and this is when I need my little
Speaker 1: bump bump bum sound effect that I don't have. Prime
Speaker 1: Day will feature can't miss deals from top brands like Levi's,
Speaker 1: I Robots, Samsung, and Redkin. Oh my gosh, I gotta
Speaker 1: get that shampoo I've always wanted at ten percent off.
Speaker 1: Uh So, And they're also pushing small businesses because you know,
Speaker 1: Amazon gets a gets a lot of uh hassle for being,
Speaker 1: you know, putting small businesses out of work, but you
Speaker 1: know it does it do support a lot of small
Speaker 1: businesses in the fact that any of them can sell
Speaker 1: on Amazon. Whether that's a nice process, I don't really know,
Speaker 1: I know whatever. So it's happening June twenty first, June
Speaker 1: twenty second. I'll be honest, I always think that Prime
Speaker 1: Day is kind of a letdown. And what I do
Speaker 1: on I'll just give you my two things that I
Speaker 1: do on Prime Day. Number one, I kind of stop
Speaker 1: buying big things on Amazon until Prime Day. I just
Speaker 1: put them in my cart. And if I need something,
Speaker 1: I'm not talking ten dollars things. I'm talking like you know,
Speaker 1: right now, I've got this whole push to buy like
Speaker 1: these huge light bulbs right, And so I'll put those
Speaker 1: in my car and I'll just let them sit. I've
Speaker 1: got a Synology Network attached storage system just sitting in
Speaker 1: my car. I've got a hard drive that i want
Speaker 1: ten terabytes, just sitting in my car. So I will
Speaker 1: sit those things in my car and then on Prime Day,
Speaker 1: I will see if the prices come down, and if
Speaker 1: they do, I'll buy. If not, then I'll just you know,
Speaker 1: move out my life and purchase them at some point.
Speaker 1: That's really I think the best way to approach Prime
Speaker 1: Day if for sitting there just looking for stuff to buy,
Speaker 1: it's just like, ugh, it's just it's like a whole effort, right,
Speaker 1: So put the stuff that you want to buy in
Speaker 1: your cart, and then on Prime Day the twenty first,
Speaker 1: twenty second, see if it's on sale. That's my number
Speaker 1: one advice.
Speaker 2: Number two. There's a couple of things.
Speaker 1: Oh, all Amazon products. So if you're in the market
Speaker 1: for anything from Amazon or Ring, like an echo or
Speaker 1: a ring, you know, lights or anything from Ring, just
Speaker 1: put it, you know, put again, put it in your cart.
Speaker 2: The price should drop.
Speaker 1: Amazon devices go on sale during Prime Day big time,
Speaker 1: So that's the best time to buy those, right, Now
Speaker 1: there's two deals you can take advantage of three really
Speaker 1: starting on Monday, June seventh through Sunday June twentieth, you'll
Speaker 1: get a ten dollars credit to use on Prime Day
Speaker 1: if you spend ten dollars on select small business products
Speaker 1: in Amazon's store, so they will have I believe it's
Speaker 1: Amazon dot Com slash Support Small and so you can
Speaker 1: look for that if you want to get a ten
Speaker 1: dollars credit, or you can do a ten dollars promotional credit.
Speaker 1: Now through June twentieth, if you purchase forty dollars in
Speaker 1: Prime branded Amazon gift cards, you can get a ten
Speaker 1: dollars gift promotional certificate to use on Amazon.
Speaker 2: So, oh wow. Interesting.
Speaker 1: So the one gift card is sold out, so there
Speaker 1: was two gift cards. I actually think I brought the
Speaker 1: wrong one. I did this, and I think I got
Speaker 1: taken because you have to buy the Prime Day E
Speaker 1: gift card and or this Prime card that came in
Speaker 1: a ten which I didn't get. So I bought the
Speaker 1: E gift card, but I just bought an Amazon gift
Speaker 1: card like a standard one.
Speaker 2: It was not the Prime gift card.
Speaker 1: And I don't think that I actually purchased the one
Speaker 1: that qualifies, so little fine print there, and with a
Speaker 1: lot of these things, you know you always have to
Speaker 1: follow directions perfectly to get at the free money. I
Speaker 1: think I did it wrong. So if you do it,
Speaker 1: just make sure that you buy the Prime day e
Speaker 1: gift card for forty bucks. You can apply it to
Speaker 1: your account and then you should get a ten dollars
Speaker 1: gift card after that. All right, let's get to the
Speaker 1: next question. Paul says, Hey, Rich, my iCloud storage is full.
Speaker 1: I only have four hundred and eighty four photos and
Speaker 1: ten ten second videos. I saw there's a way to
Speaker 1: add storage with a cloud without a monthly fee. You
Speaker 1: also mentioned an iPhone flash drive that goes into the
Speaker 1: charging port on my iPhone eight plus. Is best buy
Speaker 1: the best place to go now that the death of
Speaker 1: Fries has happened. A couple of things to unpack here, Paul,
Speaker 1: I can't believe your iCloud storage is full with only
Speaker 1: five hundred pictures and ten videos, but you know it happens.
Speaker 1: Is there a way around adding cloud storage without the
Speaker 1: monthly fee? So I wouldn't typically recommend this, but because
Speaker 1: you don't have that much stored in the cloud. You
Speaker 1: can just look into getting a different account, like maybe
Speaker 1: start Google Photos and just put your videos and photos
Speaker 1: in there and that will clear up your storage and
Speaker 1: eCloud and that would be free, because I bet you'd
Speaker 1: be under the fifteen gigabytes because now that's that's all
Speaker 1: they give you on You can go with Amazon if
Speaker 1: you have Prime, you can go with Amazon Prime Photos.
Speaker 1: You can put them there and that's free and you
Speaker 1: get five gigs of videos, which I think your ten
Speaker 1: ten second videos would be under. So you can do
Speaker 1: it that way. Or you can open up a one
Speaker 1: drive account and put them in there and you do
Speaker 1: get five gigabytes there. That's Microsoft one Drive. Now typically
Speaker 1: I would not I would say just you know, if
Speaker 1: I was recommending for you, I would pay the I
Speaker 1: think it's ninety nine cents for fifty gigs on iCloud.
Speaker 1: I would recommend doing that. It's a dollar a month.
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to pay the monthly fee,
Speaker 1: but you know it is a buck, and I bet
Speaker 1: you spend a buck somewhere throughout the month. That's not like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, a big return on your money. So
Speaker 1: I know it's twelve dollars a year. It's not the
Speaker 1: answer you wanted, but it just makes life a little
Speaker 1: bit easier. And since it doesn't sound like you are
Speaker 1: spending a lot of or using a lot of storage,
Speaker 1: I think you should be okay for a long time
Speaker 1: with that fifty gigs. And you're asking about the flash drive.
Speaker 1: I mean, by the time you spend forty dollars on
Speaker 1: the flash drive, forty to fifty bucks, you know, that
Speaker 1: could pay for like three years of the cloud storage
Speaker 1: on your on your iCloud. So that's what I would
Speaker 1: go with. I think that would be the simplest, easiest
Speaker 1: way for you to do that. And that's what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say. All right, Well, Apple is already doing kind
Speaker 1: of the first big update for the air tags. According
Speaker 1: to Sinet, they are going to add a little bit
Speaker 1: a little more security to these things, especially for Android users.
Speaker 1: So number one, let's see, So if you the whole
Speaker 1: thing about these air tags is that. And by the way,
Speaker 1: these things have been around for a month now and
Speaker 1: we haven't heard one major like oh my gosh, like
Speaker 1: this stalking situation happened because of air tags. We haven't
Speaker 1: heard any of that. And the only thing I've seen
Speaker 1: is that. You know, everyone I've talked to is just
Speaker 1: thinks these things are amazing because you clip them and
Speaker 1: you forget about them, and when you need them, they're there,
Speaker 1: And I think they're pretty amazing. I've got one of
Speaker 1: my keychain and it's just like one of those things
Speaker 1: that's just okay, you know, you just know it's there
Speaker 1: when you need it. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people feel that way. And yes, there are some privacy concerns,
Speaker 1: so Apple is addressing those. Number One, it used to
Speaker 1: be a couple of days before an air tag that
Speaker 1: was kind of clinging on to you would play a sound.
Speaker 1: Now they're gonna play a sound anywhere between eight and
Speaker 1: twenty four hours of it being kind of around you.
Speaker 1: And Apple's not giving you the exact time because they
Speaker 1: don't want people to plot around that. Right, Like they
Speaker 1: knew it was eight hours, they would do their nefarious
Speaker 1: measures in seven hours before the thing dinged, right, So
Speaker 1: they're not going to say when this thing's gonna be.
Speaker 2: Then.
Speaker 1: Apple is developing an app, according to Cnepp, for Android
Speaker 1: devices that will help people detect an air tag that's
Speaker 1: traveling with them. And so the iPhone obviously has this
Speaker 1: built in, but Android will be released later this year.
Speaker 1: Now that's kind of weird though, because you know what,
Speaker 1: so every Android person now has to download this app
Speaker 1: to keep air tags from stalking them. Like, it's kind
Speaker 1: of weird, right, So it's not a perfect situation. It's
Speaker 1: not a perfect solution, but it is one solution in
Speaker 1: one way that if you are kind of a little
Speaker 1: bit paranoid about these things, or you're in a bad
Speaker 1: situation and you just worry about this, then yeah, you
Speaker 1: can get this app on your phone and hopefully, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: is it going to stop all instances of stalking or whatever.
Speaker 1: Probably not, but it could help. And it just I
Speaker 1: think it's more for the user to feel better knowing, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'm an Android, so I'm kind of left out
Speaker 1: of this whole find my situation. But I can put
Speaker 1: this on my phone and feel a little bit better
Speaker 1: knowing that I will be able to detect these things
Speaker 1: if they happen to be near me.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Kiki from California says, Hey, Rich, I love your show.
Speaker 1: It's so informative and a source I can trust. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you just want it to know if there are
Speaker 1: any reputable trustworthy sites that offer free Microsoft Office software downloads,
Speaker 1: not an introductory offer free lifetime. I lost my job
Speaker 1: to COVID. I had to buy an inexpensive computer to
Speaker 1: search for jobs. It doesn't have any software loaded, and
Speaker 1: I need Microsoft Office.
Speaker 2: Can you help? Thank you? Kiki in California.
Speaker 1: Kiki, Well, I'm sorry to hear about you losing your
Speaker 1: job due to COVID. I'm sorry. I know what happened
Speaker 1: to a lot of people. But the good news is
Speaker 1: there are a lot of jobs out there right now,
Speaker 1: so hopefully you'll land on your feet. And it sounds
Speaker 1: like you spent your money on this computer, which you
Speaker 1: know is a good step. I'm glad you got that
Speaker 1: because you need it in today's day and age to
Speaker 1: look for a job. But this Microsoft Office situation, I
Speaker 1: think that I get this question a lot, which is
Speaker 1: kind of odd. You don't need it. You don't need
Speaker 1: Microsoft Office now. If you have it, or if you
Speaker 1: have access to it, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's great. Like I love it.
Speaker 1: I mean it's I don't use it personally, I mean
Speaker 1: I use it for work. We have you know, our
Speaker 1: company does have a deal with Microsoft to use teams
Speaker 1: and all the Office three six five.
Speaker 2: And it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: In fact, one of my favorite features on Word that
Speaker 1: you may not even know about is the transcription feature.
Speaker 1: You can upload basically as far as I can tell
Speaker 1: an unlimited amount of audio to Microsoft Word and it
Speaker 1: will transcribe it word for word, and it's pretty phenomenal,
Speaker 1: and it'll even put time codes and stuff. I think
Speaker 1: it's it's really good. I used it a couple of
Speaker 1: days ago twice for two different little things I needed
Speaker 1: and it worked perfectly.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Actually, I'll tell you what I used it for. This
Speaker 1: was just a this is embarrassing, But I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what I used it for. Are So I've been listening
Speaker 1: to Bobby Flay and his daughter Sophie Flay's new podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh what's it called?
Speaker 1: Something about food? I don't know what's cooking? I don't
Speaker 1: what's it. I don't even know what it's called. Let
Speaker 1: me see what it's called.
Speaker 2: What is it called? It is recently updated? Where is it? Oh?
Speaker 2: How embarrassing is this? Oh?
Speaker 1: Always hungry, that's what it's called. So I've always loved
Speaker 1: Bobby Flay. I've just I don't know why, Like I
Speaker 1: just always have loved Bobby Flay, and so when he came,
Speaker 1: you know, and his daughter is a reporter here in town,
Speaker 1: and so I followed her for a while. She does
Speaker 1: she's a really cool kind of this new age reporter
Speaker 1: that they it's like they call him m MJ's where
Speaker 1: they shoot their own stuff, but they take it even
Speaker 1: a level further. She is just focused on a single
Speaker 1: area of LA and I think it's like either Echo
Speaker 1: Park or Silver Laker. It's like one of the cool
Speaker 1: like neighborhoods, you know. And so she just literally like
Speaker 1: you know, goes around and like finds cool restaurants, opening
Speaker 1: things that are happening in the community. And she does
Speaker 1: it all herself, like she produces, she edits whatever she
Speaker 1: puts it on air, I think on social media anyway.
Speaker 1: So I've been following her and then when I saw that,
Speaker 1: you know, they have a podcast, I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: of course, easy listen, and I've just loved every episode.
Speaker 1: They just talk about one type of food each episode
Speaker 1: and Bobby gives kind of his tips on how to
Speaker 1: do it and his thoughts. Anyway, long story short, Bobby
Speaker 1: mentioned one of his favorite bakeries in Los Angeles and
Speaker 1: he said it really quick, and I was in the car,
Speaker 1: so I just told Siri to you know, remember this
Speaker 1: name of this bakery. But the way I said it,
Speaker 1: I totally butchered it, like I didn't get the right thing.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, how in the world am
Speaker 1: I going to find the name of this bakery. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna listen to the whole podcast again. And for
Speaker 1: some reason, Apple, if you're listening, can you make a
Speaker 1: bookmark on a podcast? Just? Can you please give us
Speaker 1: the ability to bookmark a spot in a podcast? It
Speaker 1: would be such an easy thing, Right you're listening in
Speaker 1: the car, they say something interesting, you bookmark it, and
Speaker 1: you come back to it. I mean, why is that
Speaker 1: such a It's such a winning feature.
Speaker 2: Just please someone come up with that.
Speaker 1: So anyway, so I couldn't book mark, I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: how am I gonna find this without listening to the
Speaker 1: entire podcast again? And it occurred to me that I
Speaker 1: could transcribe the entire podcast using Microsoft Word and so
Speaker 1: I downloaded the podcast, I uploaded it to Microsoft Word.
Speaker 1: It gave me a transcription within like, you know, a
Speaker 1: minute or two, and I searched for the word bakery
Speaker 1: and sure enough I found the bakery and I will
Speaker 1: tell you what the name is. It's Tartin t a
Speaker 1: r t i n E. Tartin Bakery. So next time
Speaker 1: I'm in Santa Monica, I will have to go to
Speaker 1: Tartin Bakery because that's the one that Bobby said is
Speaker 1: his favorite. And so they also, by the way, have
Speaker 1: locations all over the world. They have them in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area, Los Angeles, and then Korea. So yeah, interesting, right,
Speaker 1: So that was a long story, but I gotta say,
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just such a brilliant This is why.
Speaker 1: This is why I'm so happy that you listened to
Speaker 1: a like this, not to hear me drone on and
Speaker 1: on about all this stuff, but it's all about building
Speaker 1: that that base of knowledge in your head.
Speaker 2: You may have.
Speaker 1: You may say, Rich, you're going on and on about
Speaker 1: this transcription feature. Well, yeah, until the day comes that
Speaker 1: you need something like that, and then you go, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I remember Rich talking about that, And that's
Speaker 1: why we do stuff like this. That's why we enrich
Speaker 1: our brains with knowledge. And yeah, you may say I'm
Speaker 1: not a tech person, I'm not at this, but like
Speaker 1: you may be at work and someone says, oh, I
Speaker 1: got this whole big thing, this interview I did with someone,
Speaker 1: and I gotta find this one thing that they talked about.
Speaker 1: And your light comes on and you say to your boss, like,
Speaker 1: I can do that.
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 1: I can find where he said the uh where he
Speaker 1: referenced Tokyo. And you're like, really, and this hour long
Speaker 1: thing that I talked to him, Oh yeah, I can
Speaker 1: find Tokyo. Let me let me show it and you
Speaker 1: and you take the audio and you upload it to
Speaker 1: Microsoft three sixty five into a word and you search
Speaker 1: for Tokyo and next thing you know, you here's what
Speaker 1: he said. The best restaurant in Tokyo and the best
Speaker 1: hotel to stay out are these two. And you're like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, and your boss just gives you a race.
Speaker 1: So that's why we do this kind of stuff. And
Speaker 1: that's why you know, I, as a tech person listen
Speaker 1: to other people and other stuff because I'm always looking
Speaker 1: for cool new tips. I don't know it all and
Speaker 1: again it's not something you might use today, but you
Speaker 1: never know. And that's it's like one of these things.
Speaker 1: It's just building that reference. Like this is as the
Speaker 1: older I get, I wonder like what is my value
Speaker 1: as a human or as a person, or as a
Speaker 1: tech reporter, or as a parent or as a friend.
Speaker 1: It's like it's really just you build up kind of
Speaker 1: layers of things. And so as a parent, you know,
Speaker 1: when I see a new parent, I'm like, ah, I
Speaker 1: remember those days, like and you know, and you give
Speaker 1: them a little bit of advice on something or whatever.
Speaker 1: Or as a as an employee, you know you've been
Speaker 1: there for a long time and you know a new
Speaker 1: person comes on board and you're like, okay, let me,
Speaker 1: let me show you the ropes here. So if everyone
Speaker 1: was fresh and new and you know, clean to something,
Speaker 1: it would be a bad because we need people that
Speaker 1: bring perspective to things. And that's why, you know, I
Speaker 1: get it when you're little and your grandpa starts going
Speaker 1: off about something, You're like, oh, come on, grandpa, I
Speaker 1: know how to do it better on my phone with
Speaker 1: an app and just hear them out because you know
Speaker 1: things have changed, but a lot of it. You know,
Speaker 1: they say history repeats itself. I mean you just have
Speaker 1: to just just be open to that perspective around you, right,
Speaker 1: Just be open to it because you never know when
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a little nugget that might really help
Speaker 1: you in the future. All right, So to answer your question, Kiki,
Speaker 1: that was a very long roundabout way. You don't need
Speaker 1: Microsoft Office for free. After I just said how great
Speaker 1: it is, I think you need Google Docs. You can
Speaker 1: always subscribe to Microsoft Office later if you actually need it,
Speaker 1: but micro Google Docs will do just what you need.
Speaker 1: Go to Docs dot Google dot com. It's what I
Speaker 1: use for ninety nine percent of what I do on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. It works phenomenally, it's free, and it
Speaker 1: just does what you need and you'll be able to
Speaker 1: make your resume, You'll be able to make documents, spreadsheets,
Speaker 1: slide presentations, whatever you need, you'll be able to do
Speaker 1: it there. And if you need Microsoft Office as you
Speaker 1: go along, if there's a feature that Docs doesn't have
Speaker 1: that you need, then you can go ahead and when
Speaker 1: you've got your feet on the ground, maybe subscribe for
Speaker 1: seven bucks a month to Office three six five and
Speaker 1: go that route. All right, good question, very long winded answer,
Speaker 1: but I hope that I made some sense there. Speaking
Speaker 1: of Microsoft, let's just make this the Microsoft podcast. Microsoft
Speaker 1: is going to reveal the next generation of Windows on
Speaker 1: should I do my drum roll.
Speaker 2: Let's do let's do the drum roll? Please? Hold on?
Speaker 2: How do I get my drum roll again? Hold on?
Speaker 1: Oh, this is a really really great podcast, Rich. Oh,
Speaker 1: you're just so on top of things here. Let's let's
Speaker 1: start this over. Let's see where is my drum roll? Okay,
Speaker 1: it is ready, it is right about.
Speaker 2: Drum roll please.
Speaker 1: June twenty fourth, Microsoft will reveal the next generation of Windows.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: You know my friend Bald Brian does the sound effects
Speaker 1: for the Adam Kroller Show. He would be so embarrassed.
Speaker 1: I know he doesn't listen to this podcast because he's
Speaker 1: a good friend, and they don't do that. I always
Speaker 1: had this idea that you just mention a bunch of
Speaker 1: random people in your podcast every week and then they
Speaker 1: clearly like you'll know if they're listening because they'd.
Speaker 2: Be like, oh, I heard you mentioned me. But that
Speaker 2: never happens.
Speaker 1: But anyway, So he does the audio for the Adam
Speaker 1: Kroller Show, and he's so The reason why he's had
Speaker 1: his job for so long there is because he's so
Speaker 1: quick witted and he's so fast. What you just saw
Speaker 1: is the one opposite of that. It's just like, Rich,
Speaker 1: it took you fifteen minutes to get a drop, as
Speaker 1: they call them. I think he calls him a drop anyway.
Speaker 1: So Microsoft detailing the next generation of Windows. The events
Speaker 1: happening on June twenty fourth, probably going to be virtual,
Speaker 1: I think, as everything has been, but they'll have a CEO,
Speaker 1: Satya Na Nadella is going to be there, and then
Speaker 1: Chief Product Officer Panos Piney.
Speaker 2: Who I have met.
Speaker 1: He came to the KTLA studios when the first Surface
Speaker 1: launched to do a personal one on one with me, which,
Speaker 1: like I've said in the podcast before, he'd never do that. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, this guy went from you know, I mean
Speaker 1: he was big back then he was like the main designer,
Speaker 1: but now he's like chief product officer and he's he's
Speaker 1: like big time because Microsoft has had a lot of
Speaker 1: success with their Surface lineup and he has been kind
Speaker 1: of the guiding force for that. So these are two
Speaker 1: big names, and so what is what are those two
Speaker 1: big names tell us that this is going to be
Speaker 1: focused on software but also how it works with their hardware,
Speaker 1: because the hardware, the hardware side of things with these
Speaker 1: big tech companies has become just as important. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously we know with Apple, but Microsoft, yes, same thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're you know, they've had a lot of
Speaker 1: success with Windows, but a lot of their success has
Speaker 1: been integrations with things. You know, how does office work
Speaker 1: with their laptops or how does office work across a
Speaker 1: lot of different devices? Right, how does it work with
Speaker 1: Samsung devices? And of course how do they optimize their
Speaker 1: software and services to work on their stuff? But everyone's
Speaker 1: stuff too, So the fact that they're both going to
Speaker 1: be there tells me a lot about the next generation
Speaker 1: of Windows. They did not see a lot of success
Speaker 1: with their little dual screen devices, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that those are going away. So maybe they'll have a
Speaker 1: two point zero or something, or a new approach to
Speaker 1: those devices. Because I think there's one thing that's pretty
Speaker 1: clear in our world is that more screens are happening.
Speaker 1: We're not getting less screens. We're getting more screens. Screens
Speaker 1: are everywhere, and Microsoft doesn't want to miss the boat.
Speaker 1: You know, when screens come to everything, right, don't forget
Speaker 1: you know, right now we've got all these little smart
Speaker 1: speakers and you know they're getting screens. TVs are getting
Speaker 1: are sorry not TVs. TVs are getting screens. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. No, all these little smart devices,
Speaker 1: the first step was to connect them to the internet.
Speaker 1: The next step is to give them a screen. And
Speaker 1: you know, we've seen this with you know a lot
Speaker 1: of little things like refrigerators, appliances. They're all getting screens, grills,
Speaker 1: everything's getting a screen. And Microsoft does not want to
Speaker 1: miss the boat on running their software on these screens.
Speaker 1: So anyway, eleven am Eastern, eight am Pacific, June twenty fourth, Oh,
Speaker 1: why do you have to Why do you have to
Speaker 1: do this to me? Microsoft? Eight am Pacific? You're in Seattle.
Speaker 1: Why would you do eight am? Why couldn't you just
Speaker 1: split the difference and do like, you know, what's a
Speaker 1: nice time on the East coast and West coast?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Maybe eleven am ten am Pacific, which would be like
Speaker 1: what one pm Eastern? You know, I'm from New Jersey
Speaker 1: and I still can't get the time right. I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is. Why is it so tough for
Speaker 1: me to do this? The other thing that Microsoft said
Speaker 1: is that they were they this Windows ten X, this
Speaker 1: operating system that they were making that was like a
Speaker 1: lot simpler and kind of like, you know, just like
Speaker 1: super easy and for for dual screens that apparently is
Speaker 1: not happening. I think what they're gonna do is just
Speaker 1: make one operating system that works on various things. I
Speaker 1: think that's you know, these operating systems get really really complicated,
Speaker 1: because it's kind of like Apple. They've got one thing
Speaker 1: going on with their desktop systems, like the you know,
Speaker 1: the mac os, and then they've got iPad os.
Speaker 2: But you've got people that.
Speaker 1: Are kind of like, okay, you're they're going between both,
Speaker 1: and it's really complicated to have like a totally different
Speaker 1: methodology of doing things on two devices that you use.
Speaker 1: So and I know Microsoft tried, like remember back in
Speaker 1: the day, like the Microsoft Windows Phones. They were literally
Speaker 1: like a tiny version of Windows that ran on phones.
Speaker 1: And so then they came out with Windows Mobile, which
Speaker 1: was a totally completely you know, different an operating system
Speaker 1: with the tiles. But it goes to show that we
Speaker 1: have seen so many, you know, just variations of this
Speaker 1: stuff over the years. Like these companies are just are
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out in real time, and we're
Speaker 1: here for the ride, and it's not always easy, it's
Speaker 1: not always simple, but things are progressing all right, Steve
Speaker 1: says my late model Samsung four k Q ninety Oh
Speaker 1: good system, Wow, Steve. Nice Nice TV is not yet
Speaker 1: making KTLA plus available. Deep in its instruction manual, Samsung
Speaker 1: seems to suggest there's a manual way of downloading apps.
Speaker 1: I haven't tried any luck with that. Do you know
Speaker 1: a way of manually downloading the KTLA plus app? I
Speaker 1: suspect suspect Samsung and other TV makers are waiting for
Speaker 1: very for a little financial incentive to add more streaming apps.
Speaker 1: I don't think Roku lists everything. Thank you, Steve and Colton. Steve,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what operating system the Samsung
Speaker 1: smart TVs work on. I don't know if it's their
Speaker 1: own thing or what. But I know they have their
Speaker 1: own app store, but I'm not sure if it's Android based.
Speaker 2: I know the Sony's.
Speaker 1: Are, I don't know what the what the Samsung's use.
Speaker 1: I haven't I haven't tested these you ever, I don't
Speaker 1: think but anyway, So to answer your question, so this
Speaker 1: is why I always recommend just skip the smart TV
Speaker 1: and just get a smart device. And if you've listened
Speaker 1: to this podcast, you've heard my reasoning for this. Okay,
Speaker 1: and I'll just go through it once again. So Ktla
Speaker 1: Plus our app is available on Apple TV, Roku, and
Speaker 1: Fire TV. And of course, as soon as we said that,
Speaker 1: everyone comes out of the woodwork saying, Rich, how come
Speaker 1: it's not on this platform? Rich, how come it's not
Speaker 1: on the Sony TVs. How Come it's not on the
Speaker 1: Samsung TVs. How Come it's not on Visio. How Come
Speaker 1: it's not on Chrome Cast. How come it's not on
Speaker 1: It's like, yes, there are a million platforms out there
Speaker 1: to get your your content on your TV. The reason
Speaker 1: I'm assuming our corporate folks decided on Roku, Apple and
Speaker 1: Amazon is because those are the three largest platforms. And
Speaker 1: after that, yes, there's a whole long tail of other platforms,
Speaker 1: but it drops off a cliff pretty quickly. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people using Chrome Cast and Android TV,
Speaker 1: but not as many as Roku and not as many
Speaker 1: as Amazon.
Speaker 2: I mean, Amazon and.
Speaker 1: Roku are just the two biggest out there. Apple TV,
Speaker 1: you know you have to sort of have an app there.
Speaker 1: Everyone does. It's it's like, you know, it's might not
Speaker 1: be as big as the other platforms, especially when you
Speaker 1: look at the iPhone, but it is it is kind
Speaker 1: of a standard platform, and it's easy to develop for
Speaker 1: and and of course it does beautiful things. So I
Speaker 1: think that's another reason we're there. I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: not part of that situation. I don't you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not like the developer of this app. But I would
Speaker 1: say that's kind of the reasoning. And that's why when
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, I like my Samsung Smart TV
Speaker 1: and it's just easy, the apps are integrated, Well, that's great.
Speaker 1: You run into an app that you want that they
Speaker 1: don't have, and a lot of this long tail of apps,
Speaker 1: and I would consider ktla plus to be one of those.
Speaker 1: They're not on all these random, you know, platforms because
Speaker 1: just be too cost prohibitive to be on those. Yeah, ideally,
Speaker 1: you know. And if you're like an HBO Max, like, yes,
Speaker 1: you have like your entire business is streaming, so you
Speaker 1: have a lot of people that are trying to plan
Speaker 1: for this. But even HBO Max took a long time
Speaker 1: to get to every platform, and they may not still
Speaker 1: be there. May still not be there. So my recommendation, uh,
Speaker 1: get a firestick, get a get a Roku and plug
Speaker 1: it into the back of the TV. You can get
Speaker 1: one for under fifty bucks. I would say that's the
Speaker 1: best way to go if you want the biggest selection
Speaker 1: of your apps, and not just the biggest selection, but
Speaker 1: also apps that are updated the most, you know, if
Speaker 1: the Again, when you go through the big app developers,
Speaker 1: even if you're a Hulu or an HBO Max or
Speaker 1: a Disney Plus or a YouTube TV, you're going to
Speaker 1: update the apps that are on the biggest platforms first.
Speaker 1: You're gonna update them with your newest features, your latest features,
Speaker 1: and your best features because that's where a majority of
Speaker 1: your customers are. If you see that, you know, ten
Speaker 1: thousand people are streaming through an Android Shield TV, you're
Speaker 1: gonna say, Okay, that's great, and we love those customers.
Speaker 1: But you know we're gonna get to that Apple when
Speaker 1: we can, because we've got to put our our priorities
Speaker 1: and our and our our energies in places that will
Speaker 1: affect the most people. So, Steve, I'm not just saying
Speaker 1: like go out and buy something, but again, it's an
Speaker 1: easy solution, and I think it's a better solution than
Speaker 1: what Samsung offers you on screen. And I know there's
Speaker 1: some ads on screen with Samsung. If you want to
Speaker 1: avoid those. You know, you can get an Apple TV
Speaker 1: that's really fancy. But I'm guessing you're not an Apple
Speaker 1: guy because it says sent from mail for Windows ten
Speaker 1: and you've got a Samsung TV. So I'm guessing that
Speaker 1: maybe you're an Android slash, you know, non Apple person,
Speaker 1: which is fine, and so maybe you know. I personally
Speaker 1: think the the Roku or the fireTV are fantastic solutions
Speaker 1: for streaming if you want something that's inexpensive. I was
Speaker 1: using the fire TV last night. The old I mean,
Speaker 1: I've gotten old firestick. I'm talking. It's like from twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: The thing was fine. I mean, the only thing you'll
Speaker 1: notice with the older devices is that it takes a
Speaker 1: little bit longer to load the apps. Like on Apple TV,
Speaker 1: it's pretty fast. On the Roku Ultra, it's pretty fast.
Speaker 1: But like when you start getting into these lower end
Speaker 1: devices that are twenty five thirty forty bucks, it's just
Speaker 1: gonna take a little bit longer to load your favorite apps.
Speaker 2: That's the main downside.
Speaker 1: As long as they're four k HDR all this stuff like,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be fine for the picture once it's playing,
Speaker 1: doesn't take much to play the video. It's just a
Speaker 1: matter of like how long do these things take to
Speaker 1: load your favorite apps?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: The response time, that's really where you notice the difference.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about Amazon. Speaking of Amazon, everything
Speaker 1: just rolls into each other. Amazon's sidewalk is bubbling up
Speaker 1: once again. I did a story on this back in
Speaker 1: I think it was like December, and gosh.
Speaker 2: When was that.
Speaker 1: Let me see, I did the story on December fourth.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's December fourth.
Speaker 2: Oh. This is cool.
Speaker 1: Because I'm my computer connected, I can actually pipe in
Speaker 1: here's the story.
Speaker 2: Look at this. Here's what I used.
Speaker 1: Here's what I Said's network called sidewalk. It's powered by
Speaker 1: a portion of home Internet connections along with millions of
Speaker 1: ring and echo devices installed in homes across America. If
Speaker 1: you have one of these devices, you'll help power the
Speaker 1: network by default. Okay, So anyway, so that's I feel
Speaker 1: like now I feel like I'm really on the radio
Speaker 1: here because that's like kind of you know, they they
Speaker 1: play like little clips of like news. In a recent email,
Speaker 1: Amazon says, side, I don't know, I just love it. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what do you need to know about sidewalk? So
Speaker 1: Sidewalk is Amazon's.
Speaker 2: New you know.
Speaker 1: It's basically a low low power, low frequency network that
Speaker 1: will long range, by the way, that is powered by
Speaker 1: Amazon devices like echos, a lot of echos, and then
Speaker 1: ring devices, but not the thing they left out was
Speaker 1: the doorbell, the video doorbell. So that's like the number
Speaker 1: one ring device that is not part of this network.
Speaker 1: So if you have one of those and that's your
Speaker 1: only ring device, you don't have to worry about being
Speaker 1: part of the sidewalk network. Now, if you have an
Speaker 1: echo or you have some of the higher end ring
Speaker 1: devices like the floodlights, those are part of the echo
Speaker 1: network and are the ring the sidewalk network. And I
Speaker 1: think they did that, and they did all these things
Speaker 1: that are that are wired right, so they have a
Speaker 1: constant connection to power and a constant connection to the Internet.
Speaker 1: And so what these devices do is they take a
Speaker 1: little tiny bit of your bandwidth and they rebroadcast it
Speaker 1: out as part of this mesh network, which is a
Speaker 1: new network called the Sidewalk Network. And I think this
Speaker 1: is brilliant. I think it's really smart. I think it's
Speaker 1: actually going to be very helpful in the future. But
Speaker 1: I know it's scary because it's using our internet. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's that scary. I think that Amazon did
Speaker 1: their homework. They figured out a way to use a
Speaker 1: tiny bit of your bandwidth.
Speaker 2: I think they said.
Speaker 1: It's like under, let's see what they say, five hundred
Speaker 1: megabytes a month. Five hundred let's see, yeah, five hundred
Speaker 1: megabytes a month. So you're not like they're not using
Speaker 1: all your Internet.
Speaker 2: They're not.
Speaker 1: Okay, the number one headline I'm seeing everywhere is Amazon Evil.
Speaker 1: Amazon is sharing your WiFi with your neighbors.
Speaker 2: Bump, bump, bump. That is not true.
Speaker 1: You cannot just latch onto this Wi Fi connection you
Speaker 1: do not have.
Speaker 2: You can't go on your phone and say, oh, let
Speaker 2: me connect to the sidewalk network.
Speaker 1: Because it's free, and I'll just cancel my internet at
Speaker 1: home and I'll just use my contents. He used my
Speaker 1: neighbor's Wi Fi. No, that's not how it works. What
Speaker 1: this is doing, Okay, there's a couple of things this
Speaker 1: is doing that's gonna make your life actually a lot better.
Speaker 2: So let's say you have.
Speaker 1: A ring video doorbell, right and you're setting it up
Speaker 1: for the first time, and this thing is for some
Speaker 1: reason you're just having trouble setting it up and it's
Speaker 1: not working. Well, maybe this device is sniffing around and
Speaker 1: it actually senses the sidewalk network and it says oh.
Speaker 1: And then you call Ring tech support and they say, well,
Speaker 1: hold on, let me give me the serial number on
Speaker 1: that Ring device and you say, well, here it is,
Speaker 1: and they go, okay, we see what the problem is
Speaker 1: because they can connect to it through the sidewalk network.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not saying that's possible today, I'm not even sure.
Speaker 1: But these are just ideas of how Amazon's going to
Speaker 1: use this, okay. And then they say, okay, we can.
Speaker 1: We can flip this switch. Do you mind if we
Speaker 1: flip this switch for you and we'll get this work
Speaker 1: in And then you say yeah, and you say okay,
Speaker 1: and they help guide you along and boom, now you're
Speaker 1: up and running. That's one scenario. Another scenario, you've got
Speaker 1: a TILE device, and Tile is kind of an early
Speaker 1: early ally of the sidewalk network, and the Tile, which
Speaker 1: generally has been limited in past years to just working
Speaker 1: off of random people's Bluetooth on their phones, now it
Speaker 1: can use this sidewalk network to have connectivity no matter
Speaker 1: where it is as long as this sidewalk network is nearby.
Speaker 1: And so apparently the sidewalk network does not need a
Speaker 1: lot of nodes for it to cover a wide swath
Speaker 1: of area. So if you know a couple people in
Speaker 1: your neighborhood leave this thing turned on, it could be
Speaker 1: a very powerful network. And yes it's evil, it's Amazon,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, but when you lose your dog and
Speaker 1: you've got a tile connected to it, you'll really appreciate
Speaker 1: the power of the sidewalk network.
Speaker 2: Or when you lose.
Speaker 1: Let's say you lose power at your house and you're
Speaker 1: on vacation and your devices can still connect to the
Speaker 1: sidewalk network to sort of keep them in a state
Speaker 1: that is sort of still protecting your house. You know,
Speaker 1: you may not have all the functionality, but you might
Speaker 1: not be able to stream video and stuff, but maybe
Speaker 1: they'll still have enough to just kind of keep alerts
Speaker 1: going or whatever. You'll be like, oh, that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1: So again, you know, I think that we need to
Speaker 1: keep a critical eye when it comes to anything that
Speaker 1: big tech does.
Speaker 2: But I think that these stories are a little.
Speaker 1: Bit overblown sometimes and it makes the average person just
Speaker 1: say no, I will not do that. I'm not letting
Speaker 1: Amazon share my Wi Fi with my neighbors. Well, that's
Speaker 1: not what's happening here. And when you think about what's
Speaker 1: happening and you think about how we can create a
Speaker 1: network that you know, it may bring prices down from
Speaker 1: you know, this network has the potential to compete with
Speaker 1: something like Verizon or AT and T or T Mobile,
Speaker 1: because now you can empower a whole bunch of these
Speaker 1: new devices that may connect to the sidewalk network and
Speaker 1: have connectivity all the time to do little tiny things like,
Speaker 1: you know, check in on GPS or whatever. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe in the future it could even check email.
Speaker 2: Who knows.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying this. This network has a lot of
Speaker 1: potential to do a lot of cool things in the future.
Speaker 1: Why should we just immediately cut it off and say no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be a part of that without
Speaker 1: any reasoning, I personally am leaving mine on. I'm leaving
Speaker 1: it on on my gadgets. I have a couple of
Speaker 1: them here that will will latch on. I'm happy to
Speaker 1: help this thing take off, because you know, when you
Speaker 1: look at something like and I don't want to knock
Speaker 1: Apple again, but when you look at something like Apples
Speaker 1: find my network. Oh, it's pretty much turned on by
Speaker 1: default with every iPhone user in the world, which is
Speaker 1: you know, they say, nearly a billion devices. No one
Speaker 1: cried about that. No one said, oh, Apples so evil
Speaker 1: for doing this. They said, oh, my gosh, Apple is
Speaker 1: so cool that I can use these find my you know, tags,
Speaker 1: to these air tags to find my stuff all over
Speaker 1: the world. Now that's great, but why don't we have
Speaker 1: some competition? And Amazon is building something that could potentially
Speaker 1: compete with find my and give Apple a run for
Speaker 1: their money and importantly give us consumers a choice. And
Speaker 1: so now that Apple air tags, yeah, thirty bucks doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like a big deal, but now we may see
Speaker 1: these things come down to five dollars because other people
Speaker 1: can tap into sidewalk and make devices that are just
Speaker 1: as powerful, just as great. And you know, now we
Speaker 1: have choices, consumers. So I think that's what you need
Speaker 1: to know about sidewalk. It is your opportunity to turn
Speaker 1: it off if you like. You can opt out in
Speaker 1: the settings on the Ring app or on the Alexa app.
Speaker 1: Just go into your settings and look for Amazon Sidewalk.
Speaker 2: I guess I can.
Speaker 1: Give you the the full you know, whatever you want
Speaker 1: what I just do here, But if you look at
Speaker 1: let's see where is it? So the settings, it's Alexa
Speaker 1: on your iPhone or Android, Tap more, tap settings, type
Speaker 1: account settings, tap Amazon sidewalk, and then toggle off on
Speaker 1: the Ring app. It's Ring And then it's not exactly
Speaker 1: where you would think it would be. I have to
Speaker 1: look in my I did it on a Facebook post,
Speaker 1: so you can.
Speaker 2: Let's see here where is it?
Speaker 1: Hold on, I gotta gotta scroll down. Let's see where
Speaker 1: it's How do you opt out with.
Speaker 2: A Ring device?
Speaker 1: It is Ring app menu, which is the three bars
Speaker 1: at the top, left, control center, and then Amazon sidewalk.
Speaker 1: So there you have it. I mean, make your own decisions.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just one opinion, and I'm an optimist
Speaker 1: when it comes to tech. So my opinion maybe not
Speaker 1: what you think, and that's fine. So I'm just giving
Speaker 1: you mind so you can understand why I'm staying on
Speaker 1: board with this thing unless Amazon proves me wrong, and
Speaker 1: if they do, then I will turn it off. But
Speaker 1: right now I feel like I'm contributing to something that
Speaker 1: has potential to be pretty cool, pretty powerful, and pretty helpful.
Speaker 1: For other people, and that's why I'm doing it.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So Richard, I did a story on how to avoid
Speaker 1: robo calls, and Richard put in his suggestion. The main
Speaker 1: point of the story, and I think I went through
Speaker 1: this last week, was that you download the app from
Speaker 1: your carrier, you install on your phone, and you can
Speaker 1: stop the robo calls that way. But then some people
Speaker 1: you know, got a lot of response. By the way,
Speaker 1: but Richard emailed in and said, I have a suggestion
Speaker 1: to help avoid robo calls. So here's what he did.
Speaker 1: He edited all of his contacts to a favorite same
Speaker 1: ring tone. When that ringtone is ringing, no problem answering
Speaker 1: these calls. It's a friendly call for all other incoming calls.
Speaker 1: Have a default ring tone that you know is for
Speaker 1: unknown callers that you can ignore. Let it go to voicemail.
Speaker 1: If someone needs to contact you, they can leave a
Speaker 1: message and you can have your unanswered message saying I
Speaker 1: do not answer any unknown numbers while I'm driving. Uh oh, sorry,
Speaker 1: I do not answer any unknown phone numbers or while
Speaker 1: I'm driving. Please leave a brief message if you wish
Speaker 1: me to call you back.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 1: It takes time to edit each contact, but it's worth it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean this is something that is an
Speaker 1: alternative to sort of all these apps, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of like it's almost like a do not disturb. Like
Speaker 1: on my iPhone, you know, I have a feature called
Speaker 1: do not Disturb, and you know, you put your friends
Speaker 1: in there and your your family and while you're sleeping
Speaker 1: at night, if they need to call you or they
Speaker 1: need to get through, it will still ring. But for
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of other people, if they're not on
Speaker 1: that starred list or you know an Android, it's starred
Speaker 1: on iPhone, it's favorites. If they're not on that list,
Speaker 1: it's not going to ring your phone. And so that's
Speaker 1: pretty useful. That's that's another way of doing it. You
Speaker 1: can just leave your phone on do not Disturb all
Speaker 1: the time. But then you know, just add your friends
Speaker 1: to your favorites list and anyone on that list will
Speaker 1: be able to call you.
Speaker 2: Now, the only time that doesn't.
Speaker 1: Work is in a real emergency where it could be
Speaker 1: you know, someone calling you that may not be calling
Speaker 1: from a number that's on your preferred list. And so
Speaker 1: in that case, there are provisions apples thought of all
Speaker 1: this so is Android, if someone calls you a couple
Speaker 1: times in like fifteen minutes time period, it will still open,
Speaker 1: it will still ring your phone. So the first time
Speaker 1: they call, it won't ring. But you know, if you're
Speaker 1: an emergency, you know, call someone a couple times, right,
Speaker 1: You're trying to get a hold of them, and so
Speaker 1: you're trying to get their attention. And usually spammers don't
Speaker 1: call a whole bunch of times in a row. But
Speaker 1: so I think, Richard, your suggestion is a good one.
Speaker 1: It's it's one option, right. There's a lot of ways
Speaker 1: to do things with tech, and that's just one option,
Speaker 1: and I think that's a it's a good one. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit of work, but you know, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta you gotta spend the time to get the
Speaker 1: return right. All right, let's talk about this as our
Speaker 1: maybe our final story United. I'm so excited about this
Speaker 1: bringing back supersonic speeds. They're buying fifteen aircraft from a
Speaker 1: company called Boom Supersonic. And the cool thing about these
Speaker 1: supersonic planes is that not only do they look cool
Speaker 1: even though they're an artist rendering, they will go twice
Speaker 1: the speed of your typical airliner and So as for
Speaker 1: someone who flies from LA to New York a lot,
Speaker 1: I think this would be just so cool to go.
Speaker 1: It's like twenty five hundred miles by plane, so it's
Speaker 1: like usually anywhere between four and six hours, So just
Speaker 1: cut that in half. So to get to from LA
Speaker 1: to New York, New York to LA in two hours
Speaker 1: or maybe three hours is would be groundbreaking.
Speaker 2: It'd be really really cool.
Speaker 1: Now, apparently after I posted that, people said, well, they
Speaker 1: don't really use SuperSonics over the trans continental because I
Speaker 1: guess the sonic boom is too much. But I don't
Speaker 1: really know, so I mean, maybe they'll do this in
Speaker 1: the future. But these airliners are expected to run by
Speaker 1: twenty twenty nine. It's gonna be the first large commercial
Speaker 1: aircraft to be net zero carbon from day one. They're
Speaker 1: gonna roll out in twenty twenty five, fly out fly
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six, and carry passengers by twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 1: And so the sonic boom situation, all the all of
Speaker 1: the examples they gave of routes were all from you know,
Speaker 1: places that were like international, right, and so let's see
Speaker 1: what were the examples they gave Newark to London in
Speaker 1: three and a half hours, Newark to Frankfurt four and
Speaker 1: a half hours, San Francisco.
Speaker 2: To Tokyo in six hours.
Speaker 1: And of course they showed how beautiful the interior space
Speaker 1: is on these things, and they look awesome. But again,
Speaker 1: this is not gonna be cheap. This is not something
Speaker 1: that you and I will just be taking on a
Speaker 1: regular basis. Maybe you will, I don't know, probably not me,
Speaker 1: because it's my dream to fly first class from coast
Speaker 1: to coast once in a while, which you know has
Speaker 1: happened in the past, but it's not my regular and
Speaker 1: that's my ultimate dream, is to just be able to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: All the time.
Speaker 1: I had a friend who worked for a big company
Speaker 1: and they got to fly first class to London. That
Speaker 1: was like the standard, like they flew well business class,
Speaker 1: I guess, and that's like my dream because can you
Speaker 1: imagine just the creature comforts of lying flat. I got
Speaker 1: to do this once to Europe. I was working a
Speaker 1: job and they flew me business class and it was
Speaker 1: just like I got off that flight and I said
Speaker 1: I could I could fly to Europe every day if
Speaker 1: I wanted to with this with the way I flew there,
Speaker 1: Because you had a nice dinner, you watched a nice movie,
Speaker 1: and then oh you laid your flat, your seat flat,
Speaker 1: and you went to bed and you slept in like
Speaker 1: a real bed, basically over to Europe, and it was
Speaker 1: just unbelievable. But most of the time on a plane,
Speaker 1: I'm in a cramp sea. You know, if I can,
Speaker 1: if I'm lucky, I'll get economy plus, which is amazing,
Speaker 1: you know, it's that's enough. But it would be nice
Speaker 1: to have that live flat or that nice big seat anyway,
Speaker 1: but this one would be a lot more expensive. You know,
Speaker 1: you're talking you know, five ten thousand dollars for a seat.
Speaker 1: Perhaps we don't know because all this is brand new,
Speaker 1: and also we don't know if they'll be doing you know,
Speaker 1: you know, LA to New York or if it'll be
Speaker 1: just international stuff. But anyway, I thought it was pretty
Speaker 1: cool because supersonic flights, you know, they were they were
Speaker 1: they had them at some point with the concord, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden they took them away. And
Speaker 1: now it's like we're getting back to where we were,
Speaker 1: but in like a new high tech maybe the technology
Speaker 1: has gotten better, who knows, But thank you Unitas for
Speaker 1: doing that pretty cool?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: All right, let's see do we have anything else? Or
Speaker 1: is it the end of the show? I think it is.
Speaker 1: Actually yeah, that music means it is the end of
Speaker 1: the show. That's gonna do it for this episode. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
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Speaker 2: Then scroll all the.
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Speaker 1: who I am, what I'm all about, and my my
Speaker 1: interesting sense of humor. There's always a little humor mixed
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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways
Speaker 1: you can spend an hour of your time. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate you spending it with me. Stay safe, I will
Speaker 1: talk to you real soon