Speaker 1: Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter. Are you really muted
Speaker 1: on your video call? Netflix? Does the double thumbs up?
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 sent me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA
Speaker 1: Channel five in Los Angeles. It seems like there is
Speaker 1: never a dull moment in the tech industry these days.
Speaker 1: We've got new phones, we've got new services, You've got
Speaker 1: all kinds of things happening, and the big news this week,
Speaker 1: and by the time you listen to this show, this
Speaker 1: could have changed. Because this is such a dynamic situation.
Speaker 1: But Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter outright forty
Speaker 1: three billion dollar deal fifty four dollars and twenty cents
Speaker 1: per stock. He is, you know, sort of a this
Speaker 1: is kind of a controversial thing. I mean, the reaction
Speaker 1: I've seen on Twitter has been fast, it's been furious,
Speaker 1: it's been you know, some people think it's going to
Speaker 1: be a good thing. Some people think it's going to
Speaker 1: be a bad thing. But the reality is it's a thing,
Speaker 1: and so again forty three billion dollar deal. Elon Musk
Speaker 1: said that, you know, he wants to buy Twitter because
Speaker 1: he believes in its potential to be the platform for
Speaker 1: free speech around the globe, and he thinks free speech
Speaker 1: is a societal imperative. But he thinks that the company
Speaker 1: cannot survive or thrive. I guess, he says, I realized
Speaker 1: the company will neither thrive nor serve this imperative in
Speaker 1: its current form and needs to be transformed as a
Speaker 1: private company. So he is offering to one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of Twitter. Now, he says that this is his offer.
Speaker 1: Fifty four dollars and twenty cents is a fifty four
Speaker 1: percent premium over the day he began investing in Twitter.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he can look at the filings and see
Speaker 1: when he started investing. I think that was at the
Speaker 1: end of last year, and a thirty eight percent premium
Speaker 1: over the day the investment was publicly announced. Twitter has
Speaker 1: extraordinary potential. I will unlock it. That's what Elon Musk said. Now,
Speaker 1: this has been a roller coaster because we know that
Speaker 1: it was revealed that Elon Musk bought nine percent stock
Speaker 1: in the company then the company offered him a board seat.
Speaker 1: Then he said no, I'm not going to join the board.
Speaker 1: And then he started asking weird questions on Twitter, like,
Speaker 1: you know, does Twitter protect free speech? You know, just
Speaker 1: all these weird kind of odd things, and some things
Speaker 1: got deleted. And it's interesting to watch his rise and
Speaker 1: also the kind of transformation into a very polarizing, controversial person.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously he has very successful company with with Tesla.
Speaker 1: He is doing really interesting things with SpaceX, and you know,
Speaker 1: obviously he came from PayPal and made a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of money there and did some interesting things there. He's
Speaker 1: outspoken and he is a forward thinker. But should he
Speaker 1: be in charge of Twitter? A lot of people say no.
Speaker 1: I'm just reading the comments today on tech Meme, they
Speaker 1: linked up a bunch of the tweets. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think more tweets than I've ever seen from anyone or
Speaker 1: any particular story. Just a lot of people, the good,
Speaker 1: the bad, the ugly, and let's be honest, what a
Speaker 1: lot of people are concerned about is this idea of
Speaker 1: free speech on Twitter. Twitter has blocked one of their
Speaker 1: most prolific tweeters. You remember former President Trump and you know,
Speaker 1: Trump had I think he had about eighty million followers.
Speaker 1: And this was another thing that that Elon did. He
Speaker 1: tweeted out a list of people and he said, is
Speaker 1: Twitter dead? You know, these people rarely tweet and they're
Speaker 1: like the top, you know, they have the top followers
Speaker 1: on Twitter. So it's it's really controversial. It's really interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, should Twitter be handled or run by one person?
Speaker 1: Right now? Twitter is a publicly traded company. It's got
Speaker 1: a board. And keep in mind this is a consumer podcast,
Speaker 1: and to be quite honest, I don't talk about Twitter
Speaker 1: a whole lot in this podcast because I don't think
Speaker 1: Twitter is a very consumer oriented company. Like I don't
Speaker 1: think average consumers are on Twitter. And it's clear that,
Speaker 1: you know, if you look at their user base, they've
Speaker 1: got you know, over two hundred million active users daily,
Speaker 1: but only a portion of them are in US, maybe
Speaker 1: something like fifty sixty million of them. So when you
Speaker 1: look at that compared to something like Facebook and Instagram
Speaker 1: and you know these other places out there, you know,
Speaker 1: Twitter is just a blip, and so is Snapchat. Really
Speaker 1: the two big ones are Instagram and Facebook when it
Speaker 1: comes to social media, and so Twitter is small. But
Speaker 1: that's part of the argument is should Twitter be bigger?
Speaker 1: Should Twitter have more of an impact in the US?
Speaker 1: Should it not just be the news folks and the
Speaker 1: entertainment folks. And now, of course TikTok is another huge
Speaker 1: one and growing very fast, so we'll follow this. I
Speaker 1: think that for the average person, I think it really
Speaker 1: the deciding factor if if Elon is in charge, I
Speaker 1: think changes they're feeling about Twitter. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: journalists on Twitter who may not want to support it
Speaker 1: as much anymore. Or there's some people on Twitter, you
Speaker 1: know that that kind of lean left or right that
Speaker 1: may feel like Twitter would become much more of a
Speaker 1: conservative place. So you know, I'm not giving you my
Speaker 1: my feeling on whether that's right or wrong or what
Speaker 1: you know, people should think about. But I'm just giving
Speaker 1: you all the facts and kind of what is what's
Speaker 1: percolating around the community. And that's really what it is,
Speaker 1: is what does this social media network want to be?
Speaker 1: Does it want to be a voice of the right,
Speaker 1: Does it want to be a voice of the left.
Speaker 1: Does it want to be a voice somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: Should they be censoring people, should they be you know,
Speaker 1: just is it? What should Twitter be? And so those
Speaker 1: are a lot of questions that need to be answered.
Speaker 1: Do I think that Elon Musk is going to finalize
Speaker 1: purchase of Twitter. I'm not really sure. I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of this is is just kind of shaking
Speaker 1: things up a little bit. We'll see. But Twitter's also
Speaker 1: a company they answer to shareholders. This is a lot
Speaker 1: of money, and so it's just kind of one of
Speaker 1: those things that we will follow. And it's quite fun
Speaker 1: to watch. I'll be honest as a tech person, it's
Speaker 1: quite fun to watch. It's fun to see the reactions.
Speaker 1: It's fun to see all of the different positioning of people.
Speaker 1: And anyway, so we'll see what happens. By the time
Speaker 1: you listen to this. It could all be mute. It
Speaker 1: could all be a moot point anyway, because Elon may
Speaker 1: drop out of the contention for purchasing Twitter. He may
Speaker 1: say nevermind, I changed my mind. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to the first question of the show. Let's see where
Speaker 1: are we? Gina says, I have a question about wi fi.
Speaker 1: If you're at a Starbucks or McDonald's or any other
Speaker 1: retail outlet on their WiFi, how susceptible are you to
Speaker 1: being hacked? Can you safely use Wi Fi at a
Speaker 1: hotel or on a ship? Several years ago, I was
Speaker 1: on a cruise. When we landed, many people got off
Speaker 1: and access their phones through a Wi Fi connection at
Speaker 1: the port. Later that day many were complaining their phones
Speaker 1: had been hacked. So I never use outside Wi Fi.
Speaker 1: Just wondering if Wi Fi is safer. Thanks for responding, Gina. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, everyone has a story of someone who something
Speaker 1: happened to them. The fact that a bunch of these
Speaker 1: people got off at a port and their phone was hacked,
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure that happened. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: this whole idea of you know, everyone has a story
Speaker 1: about something thing, right, And I think that in general
Speaker 1: public Wi Fi is quite safe and I think you'll
Speaker 1: be okay. Starbucks, McDonald's, I mean those companies I think
Speaker 1: are probably the most safe. I mean, the chances of
Speaker 1: someone getting in and messing with McDonald's or Starbucks WiFi
Speaker 1: is pretty pretty low. Now, what I do my banking
Speaker 1: on a Wi Fi network? And the answer is no,
Speaker 1: would I check my email? Probably? I think it'll be fine.
Speaker 1: Don't forget that when you check these services most of
Speaker 1: them are going through a secure layer to access that service,
Speaker 1: So it's not just like flying over the public internet
Speaker 1: to access your information. When you go from your phone
Speaker 1: to Gmail or something like that, it's using a secure
Speaker 1: kind of transmission socket to access that information, So it's
Speaker 1: not just kind of putting your information out there. And
Speaker 1: if someone were to sniff that network, typically as long
Speaker 1: as it's a secure as long as it's over a
Speaker 1: secure connection, you know, from you know, a Gmail or
Speaker 1: encrypted or whatever, it will be fine. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: be able to see what you're doing. Now, are there
Speaker 1: a million and one ways that this could be a problem. Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, someone could could set up a fake network
Speaker 1: and they could just log all the traffic that's happening
Speaker 1: on that network. Someone could log all the unencrypted traffic
Speaker 1: over a network and see what's happening there. But typically
Speaker 1: when you're exchanging passwords and you're logging into things, most
Speaker 1: of that is done over encrypted connections. So I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna be okay. But again I would still err
Speaker 1: on the side of what am I doing on this network?
Speaker 1: So if I'm just doing social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 1: you know, watching YouTube, it's gonna be fine. But if
Speaker 1: I'm doing my banking, if I'm doing my budget, if
Speaker 1: I'm doing you know, something that's really really highly secure,
Speaker 1: I would not use a public network in general, but
Speaker 1: for vacation things like that. On a cruise ship, you'll
Speaker 1: probably be fine. Now, if you want, you can step
Speaker 1: up your connection to a VPN, it'll be a little
Speaker 1: bit safer. There's a lot of them out there that
Speaker 1: people like, you know. I would just google top rated
Speaker 1: VPNs and see from a reputable source like Wirecutter or
Speaker 1: you know, PC mag or something like that, and see
Speaker 1: what they recommend. But I think that, you know, if
Speaker 1: you want to step it up to that, that'd be fine.
Speaker 1: But in general, I would make sure that you are
Speaker 1: accessing things over a secure connection when you're you're going
Speaker 1: to a website that requires that. I would also use
Speaker 1: LTE if you can. Now, if you're on a cruise ship,
Speaker 1: you probably can't use your cellular connection, so you're gonna
Speaker 1: be on their Wi Fi. I would just be really
Speaker 1: concerned about the Wi Fi networks that I connect to,
Speaker 1: So typically I do not connect to a lot of
Speaker 1: random Wi Fi networks. Typically I will connect to a
Speaker 1: network if it's trusted, if it's from a place I know,
Speaker 1: or if it's from a provider I know, I don't
Speaker 1: just you know, find an open network. Remember the days
Speaker 1: where you just find an open network and you connect
Speaker 1: to it and you'd be like, oh cool, I found
Speaker 1: free Wi Fi. I think that my privacy is much
Speaker 1: more important than saving a few megabytes of data on
Speaker 1: my plan, so I always default to cellular in general.
Speaker 1: Now there's another whole thing that I think is actually
Speaker 1: more important here, and that's the Wi Fi at your work.
Speaker 1: So I think that Wi Fi at work everyone connects
Speaker 1: to their Wi Fi at their employer, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times to connect to that Wi Fi, you may
Speaker 1: have to download some sort of security profile to your
Speaker 1: device to be able to get onto that network. And
Speaker 1: I think that that actually has more potential for issues
Speaker 1: than a different network that doesn't require that, because when
Speaker 1: you download one of these trust certificates to your phone
Speaker 1: or to your computer, it's giving that Wi Fi network
Speaker 1: a little bit more free rain on your device than
Speaker 1: a network that doesn't require that. And so what can
Speaker 1: they do at your work, Well, you know, they may
Speaker 1: be able to monitor the websites that you're going to
Speaker 1: they may able to see when you come and go.
Speaker 1: There's a lot they can do, actually, depending on what
Speaker 1: your company wants to do and how they want to
Speaker 1: slice and dicee the data that they're collecting if they
Speaker 1: collect that data. So I personally always am very very
Speaker 1: cautious about when I connect to Wi Fi and why
Speaker 1: and how and for how long and the networks that
Speaker 1: I use. So, Gina, I think it's good that you're
Speaker 1: thinking about this stuff. I think that if you're just
Speaker 1: casually using the Wi Fi network, you'll be fine. But
Speaker 1: anytime that you are just a little bit more critical
Speaker 1: of the network, I think that's a smart thing in general. Well,
Speaker 1: along those lines, let's talk about your video conferencing app. So,
Speaker 1: you know, what do we all do when we go
Speaker 1: on something like Zoom or teams or FaceTime or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, you mute yourself when you don't want to
Speaker 1: be heard by the person on the other end. But
Speaker 1: did you ever think that perhaps the video conferencing app
Speaker 1: itself might still be listening to you. They're just not
Speaker 1: transmitting that audio to the person on the other end. Interesting,
Speaker 1: So it turns out these video conferencing apps might still
Speaker 1: be listening to you even when your mic is muted.
Speaker 1: This is a study from the University of Wisconsin. Students
Speaker 1: there took a look at how popular video chat apps
Speaker 1: collect data even when the mic is off, and in
Speaker 1: a majority of cases, when you press mute, the apps
Speaker 1: still access your microphone and many still collect audio snippets.
Speaker 1: So to protect your privacy, experts recommend using what's called
Speaker 1: the double mute, and this means muting the app, so
Speaker 1: pressing that mute button on the app, but also pressing
Speaker 1: a mute button on a piece of hardware like on
Speaker 1: your headset or the settings on your computer, pressing mute there.
Speaker 1: So therefore you have muted both access to your microphone
Speaker 1: from your computer at a system level and also through
Speaker 1: the app. Now, the study did not reveal specific app
Speaker 1: names that may be coming later because they're going to
Speaker 1: present these findings at a private conference later this summer.
Speaker 1: But this is one of those things that it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the stuff that you wonder about when you
Speaker 1: use these apps, like, Okay, well I'm muted to the
Speaker 1: person on the other side, but the app never said
Speaker 1: that I was muted to them. And so with this
Speaker 1: study found is that yeah, a lot of these apps
Speaker 1: are still collecting little snippets here and there. Some of
Speaker 1: them are still collecting a bunch of information about your
Speaker 1: audio even when you're muted. And so it's kind of
Speaker 1: concerning that when you think your privacy is intact, it
Speaker 1: may not be. And now this study actually took it
Speaker 1: a step step further. They analyzed some of the audio
Speaker 1: using a pretty crude algorithm to see if they could
Speaker 1: figure out what you were doing in the background, like
Speaker 1: washing dishes or watching TV or whatever. And their algorithm
Speaker 1: was able to figure out what you were doing in many,
Speaker 1: many cases. And so again when you think about someone
Speaker 1: like Facebook or or you know, Zoom whatever, you know
Speaker 1: they have very sophisticated systems and computers and people, and
Speaker 1: so what could they do with this audio? They could say, well,
Speaker 1: we know that ninety seven percent of people are washing dishes,
Speaker 1: that the audio sounds like this, so let's send them
Speaker 1: some ads about dishwashing detergent. Who knows. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: these programs are free in the majority of cases. If
Speaker 1: you're not paying for it, you know that you're the product.
Speaker 1: So I found this study to be really interesting. I
Speaker 1: think it's it needs They kind of threw it out
Speaker 1: there without a ton of like background data. Like they
Speaker 1: didn't really say which apps this could be they test,
Speaker 1: I mean they said they tested, like, well, they test.
Speaker 1: I think it said like two hundred apps they tested.
Speaker 1: Oh no, they asked two hundred and twenty three video
Speaker 1: conferencing users. Okay, but they didn't say which apps. But
Speaker 1: they tried out many different video conferencing apps on major
Speaker 1: operating systems including iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac checking to
Speaker 1: see if the app still access to microphone when it
Speaker 1: was muted. Now, if you have an eye iPhone or
Speaker 1: an Android on Android, they now have a system wide
Speaker 1: toggle in the settings to cut off access to your microphone,
Speaker 1: which you know you can do by you know, dragging
Speaker 1: down your notification bar. On iOS, it will tell you
Speaker 1: when it's accessing your microphone, but it doesn't necessarily let
Speaker 1: you turn off access unless you go into the settings
Speaker 1: for the app. But that would be kind of a
Speaker 1: problem because you'd never be able to use the app.
Speaker 1: So I guess my advice if you're really, really truly
Speaker 1: concerned about your privacy is to use a pair of
Speaker 1: plug in headphones for your computer or your phone that
Speaker 1: has a physical mute button as well. That way you know,
Speaker 1: you're muting your audio at the source, at the microphone
Speaker 1: and also through the app itself. All right, Kenneth writes
Speaker 1: in when I joined cal State Northridge Alumni Association, one
Speaker 1: of the benefits was to allow me to have a
Speaker 1: school related email addrect Thus at my CSUN dot edu.
Speaker 1: I've had that as my primary email address for several years.
Speaker 1: I have that as my identifying name on many different
Speaker 1: providers like Walmart and Amazon. Yesterday, I was informed by
Speaker 1: it that SASUN by the end of June, the email
Speaker 1: account will be terminated. As such, all alumni member accounts
Speaker 1: will be terminated. Only current students and faculty will be
Speaker 1: able to continue with those school accounts. This is due
Speaker 1: to a reduction in the storage space that Google is
Speaker 1: allowing universities. Yes, Google, when it first arrived said free, free, free, forever,
Speaker 1: will continue to increase your storage space forever. And then
Speaker 1: forever came and they said, oh, never mind, let's not
Speaker 1: do that anymore. Let's charge you after fifteen gigabytes. That
Speaker 1: happened a couple years ago. As such, I wrote that
Speaker 1: he didn't write that as such, that was just an aside.
Speaker 1: As such, he says, I'm going to have to jump
Speaker 1: through a lot of hoops, get a new Gmail address,
Speaker 1: download my stuff to that address, and then contact all
Speaker 1: the others with whom I use my former address. So
Speaker 1: Kenneth did not actually ask a question in here, You
Speaker 1: just kind of left a comment. And I guess this
Speaker 1: is kind of a warning to other people that, yeah,
Speaker 1: you need to be careful when you choose your email address,
Speaker 1: because if you're going with a provider that is maybe
Speaker 1: not going to be there in the future, you might
Speaker 1: want to rethink. So the safest thing to do is
Speaker 1: probably to get your own domain and pay for email
Speaker 1: through that because you can continually do that, and you
Speaker 1: know kind of if you're paying for it, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be able to get that hosted. Obviously, I think Gmail
Speaker 1: is pretty safe. I think Outlook is pretty safe. Yahoo
Speaker 1: and not so much. I probably wouldn't choose them at
Speaker 1: this point. But a lot of people also have similar
Speaker 1: problems with their cable company. So they will use their
Speaker 1: cable company's email address, and next thing you know, they
Speaker 1: move or they switch providers, and now what do you
Speaker 1: do Because you've got all your stuff linked in and
Speaker 1: the problem with the email addresses is that they are
Speaker 1: your recovery email address for many many accounts, and so
Speaker 1: if you forget your password, oh hey, let's just email
Speaker 1: you a password or your a temporary link to your
Speaker 1: email address. And if that email address is not in
Speaker 1: use anymore, well now you're kind of out of luck.
Speaker 1: Because some of the bigger companies give you alternative recovery methods,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the other ones just don't. It's
Speaker 1: just your email. So I think that this is a
Speaker 1: good kind of just warning to not use random email addresses,
Speaker 1: as good as they may seem at the time, for
Speaker 1: future reference. So I know that I have an alumni
Speaker 1: email address as well. I've used that. I did use
Speaker 1: it pretty much exclusively is my email for a very
Speaker 1: long time, and then the writing was kind of on
Speaker 1: the wall that I didn't really want to use that
Speaker 1: anymore after Gmail came out. And of course I always
Speaker 1: have my hesitation with Gmail, because you know, it is Google,
Speaker 1: and so you're kind of showing your allegiance to one
Speaker 1: major corporation, and so I didn't like that idea. But
Speaker 1: Gmail seems to be a really good email provider. It's
Speaker 1: worked for me for many years, so I do use
Speaker 1: that one as well. As a couple others. I've I've
Speaker 1: got some help self hosted emails as well. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I think that you go
Speaker 1: with a provider that's pretty big so that you don't
Speaker 1: get stuck in one of these in one of these
Speaker 1: situations where you kind of have to back yourself out.
Speaker 1: And so I think outlook, let's see largest email providers.
Speaker 1: So I think there's like proton Mail is a big one.
Speaker 1: Let's see what else do we have here? Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: this is from twenty sixteen. Come on, you've got to
Speaker 1: have a better provider than that, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Oh, AOL,
Speaker 1: Oh gosh. I wouldn't have AOL, that's for sure. Let's
Speaker 1: see what else is there. I remember when there was
Speaker 1: an email called Juno, and this was back kind of
Speaker 1: back in the day when I think AOL was king
Speaker 1: and AOL cast money, and so if you had an
Speaker 1: AOL account, fine, that was great. But Juno came along
Speaker 1: and it was free email and it had a little
Speaker 1: tagline at the bottom, and I think ads on the
Speaker 1: web service, like the actual app that you downloaded your
Speaker 1: computer had ads on it, and so Juno, I thought,
Speaker 1: was like the best email in the world, because I
Speaker 1: was like, I get this for free. It works outside AOL,
Speaker 1: It's never gonna change. It's so great. I had like
Speaker 1: an awesome email address because I was like one of
Speaker 1: the first users. So my email was like super easy,
Speaker 1: like richdat Juno dot com or something like that, and
Speaker 1: so I just loved it. And then of course that evolved.
Speaker 1: It got bought by I think net zero. Do you
Speaker 1: remember that name? Man, all these things net zero? I
Speaker 1: think is that even around anymore? I don't know. Let's see,
Speaker 1: no net zero brings you to Norton three sixty so
Speaker 1: net zero is gone. Wow, just so wild? How all
Speaker 1: these things? Oh my gosh, it brought me to the
Speaker 1: net zero search page, like a search But yeah, that
Speaker 1: was there. I mean, there was a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: in the early days of the Internet that kind of
Speaker 1: was available and then it went away. Another one that
Speaker 1: actually have been quite impressed with over the years that's
Speaker 1: been around forever is Google Voice. So I've had a
Speaker 1: phone number with them since day one when it was
Speaker 1: called Oh my gosh, I'm trying to remember what Google
Speaker 1: Voice was before Google Voice previous name, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: it was like Cloud grand Central, Grand Central, So I
Speaker 1: got grand Central. I was working at c NEET at
Speaker 1: the time, and I thought it was the coolest thing
Speaker 1: ever to have this phone number that rang all of
Speaker 1: your different devices. So I don't know why I needed that.
Speaker 1: I mean, back in the day, you had a landline,
Speaker 1: you had your cell phone, and you had your home phone,
Speaker 1: so there were three places where someone could potentially reach you.
Speaker 1: And so I thought Grand Central, the fact that you
Speaker 1: could just give out one phone number and it reached
Speaker 1: you had all these different phones at the same time
Speaker 1: was so amazing. And I'm pretty sure the phone number
Speaker 1: I have with that with Google Voice is the same
Speaker 1: phone number I've had since Grand Central launched in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two thousand and six, and it, by the way,
Speaker 1: was not very it was it was not around very
Speaker 1: long before Google purchased it. So Google purchased it in
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven for just a mere fifty million dollars.
Speaker 1: So that's what became Google Voice, if you remember that.
Speaker 1: I love giving little history lessons because you kind of
Speaker 1: forget about this stuff. I mean, I've been doing this
Speaker 1: for a while and I am I'm one of those
Speaker 1: people that loves to sign up for stuff the day
Speaker 1: it comes out. I think, you know, it used to
Speaker 1: be a lot. There used to be a lot more
Speaker 1: services that came out that were really cutting edge and
Speaker 1: really cool and just free and kind of changed your
Speaker 1: life in a sign up and you're like, this is
Speaker 1: really cool and it's free. This is really cool and
Speaker 1: it's free. This is really awesome and it's free. And
Speaker 1: now I feel like that's not so much the case anymore.
Speaker 1: I think many, I mean things are still coming out
Speaker 1: that are really awesome. I think that many of these
Speaker 1: companies have gotten hip to the either the freemium model
Speaker 1: where you know you're gonna get a feature or two
Speaker 1: for free, but the rest of it is going to
Speaker 1: be pretty highly locked down and paid, or they just
Speaker 1: come out and it's just like now we're just paid,
Speaker 1: and we've got to be because there's just no way
Speaker 1: we can do this without being paid. I remember Who's
Speaker 1: Sweet was another one. So Who's Sweet was this service
Speaker 1: that it just it linked up all of your different
Speaker 1: social media networks and you can post one thing and
Speaker 1: it would go to all the different networks. And I
Speaker 1: thought that was so cool until I just Deine told me,
Speaker 1: I'll never forget this. We were hosting cs together and
Speaker 1: I just Deine. I was you know, asking, I was
Speaker 1: picking her brain. I'm like, Justine, how do you have
Speaker 1: so many followers in so many places? And how do
Speaker 1: you keep up with it? And this was, you know,
Speaker 1: you're going on ten years ago, so this was like
Speaker 1: the early days of social media. And she was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: whatever you do, do not cross post. Whatever you do,
Speaker 1: don't cross posts. People want to build their own little
Speaker 1: communities and their own little places, and so the post
Speaker 1: that you have in one place does not necessarily work
Speaker 1: in another place. And that really held with me for
Speaker 1: so many years, and I would I would try to
Speaker 1: be very unique and have a unique voice on all
Speaker 1: my different social media platforms. And then flash flash forward
Speaker 1: ten years. Justine and I hosted a CES couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, and I said, Justine, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you remember telling me this, but you remember telling me that,
Speaker 1: you know, we should be different on all these different
Speaker 1: platforms and personalize the stuff. And she goes, oh, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no way I can do that anymore. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that advice doesn't hold true anymore. And I was like, what,
Speaker 1: I've been following this advice for so long, but here's
Speaker 1: the thing. It's still good advice, and of course we
Speaker 1: discussed it a little bit more. Of course, you want
Speaker 1: to create the You can have similar content, but you
Speaker 1: adapt it for the different social media network. So what
Speaker 1: a lot of people do when I see this all
Speaker 1: the time, they post an Instagram post on Facebook like
Speaker 1: the actual maybe a link to it, or they post
Speaker 1: a link to a YouTube video. And the reality is
Speaker 1: Facebook does not reward that. They reward what's called a
Speaker 1: native upload of a video or a native link or
Speaker 1: you know, links these days on Facebook don't really do
Speaker 1: well at all. But you know, they want native content,
Speaker 1: content that is uploaded through their system in their format.
Speaker 1: So if you look at something like Instagram when they
Speaker 1: came out with their copycat of TikTok, they you know,
Speaker 1: people are just downloading their tiktoks and uploading them to
Speaker 1: Instagram reels and they said, you know this is just
Speaker 1: because I already make this piece of content. It's the
Speaker 1: same format, it's vertical, it's the same timeframe. Let me
Speaker 1: just upload it to Instagram, and Instagram sensing danger because
Speaker 1: they didn't want people to just you didn't want reels
Speaker 1: to be a TikTok copycat. That it was and literally
Speaker 1: just show TikTok videos. They got hip to that, and
Speaker 1: they ended up putting in their algorithm a filter that
Speaker 1: would look for you know how when you download a
Speaker 1: TikTok video, it puts your username and TikTok kind of
Speaker 1: bounces around the screen like that DVD logo on the
Speaker 1: TV screen. It kind of bounces around your TikTok video. Well,
Speaker 1: Instagram's algorithm searches for that, and if it sees that
Speaker 1: on your video that watermark, it says, Okay, we see
Speaker 1: what this person's doing here. We're gonna demote that. And
Speaker 1: so they demote that video. So, yes, you'll still see
Speaker 1: those videos, and if it's a popular video, of course
Speaker 1: it's still gonna go viral with that even on there
Speaker 1: if a lot of people catch wind of it. But
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that's built in because Instagram
Speaker 1: wants to reward original content. Now, could you just upload
Speaker 1: the same exact video to both services? Yes, you can,
Speaker 1: but again and that's much more in a native format
Speaker 1: because you're not just downloading something that you uploaded from
Speaker 1: TikTok and using TikTok, you know, editing functionality and all
Speaker 1: that stuff and then uploading it to Instagram. So again,
Speaker 1: it's just this kind of stuff happens with all these
Speaker 1: social networks. They want to be their own social network.
Speaker 1: They want you to have your own kind of voice
Speaker 1: and your own you know, they want you to use
Speaker 1: it the way that you engage with your viewers and
Speaker 1: not just sending stuff to ten different networks at once.
Speaker 1: So I think at the beginning, when we were trying
Speaker 1: to handle all these different things, that worked out great.
Speaker 1: But as Justine realized and as I realized, as you
Speaker 1: went along, like these these services became so different and
Speaker 1: kind of what people expected from them became different. Like
Speaker 1: on Instagram, you would post a picture, you know, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily just post a screenshot of your
Speaker 1: latest article that you posted to the website or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And so again, by by
Speaker 1: putting those things in a format that the social media
Speaker 1: network wanted, would help you in that social media network
Speaker 1: gain viewers and followers and also interact with those followers.
Speaker 1: And they rewarded that, and they still do in a
Speaker 1: big way. I mean, this is very very apparent on
Speaker 1: Facebook to me that when you test out some of
Speaker 1: the new things that Facebook is doing, like reels, they
Speaker 1: are really really rewarding you with that by showing those
Speaker 1: to way more people. They're kind of over correcting for
Speaker 1: those things, and so they're sending your reels to a
Speaker 1: lot more people than that would typically see them. But
Speaker 1: as these things mature, the numbers go down and people
Speaker 1: are like, hey, wait, hold on, how come I was
Speaker 1: getting so many views at the beginning and now I'm
Speaker 1: not getting those same views. I haven't really changed anything. Well,
Speaker 1: what's changed is that Instagram got what they wanted. They
Speaker 1: got everyone to get comfortable with using reels, to uploading
Speaker 1: to reels, to selecting reels, to watching reels, and now
Speaker 1: they don't need your help as much in uploading that
Speaker 1: stuff because the mass amounts of people are uploading stuff.
Speaker 1: So they're like, all right, we're good now, so we'll
Speaker 1: just now we'll just show your videos to a small
Speaker 1: subset of people once again, like we were going to
Speaker 1: in the beginning. I don't know what that story was.
Speaker 1: I don't even know where how did I get on
Speaker 1: that tangent with that story? Oh? Email, Yes, that was
Speaker 1: the email question. So to answer your question, choose an
Speaker 1: email that you can stick with all right, let's get
Speaker 1: to a story about Fitbit. Fitbit devices we'll soon be
Speaker 1: able to tell their users about potential heart issues. Fitbit's
Speaker 1: got an approval from the FDA to use an algorithm
Speaker 1: came up with that identifies atrial fibrillation. This is a
Speaker 1: fib that's a form of a regular heart rhythm that
Speaker 1: affects more than thirty million people, and those people are
Speaker 1: more susceptible to strokes. So the big challenge here is, yes,
Speaker 1: you might say, rich, dude, rich, come on, I listened
Speaker 1: to the show. I know that the Apple Watch has
Speaker 1: had this feature forever. Come on, Rich, Well, two things
Speaker 1: on that. Number one, I don't think that the Apple
Speaker 1: Watch does this in the background. I believe that you
Speaker 1: still have to trigger a manual. If I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this watch here and I go to heart or ECG,
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily take a reading in the background. You
Speaker 1: have to put your fingers and complete kind of this
Speaker 1: circuit on your watch for it to take a reading.
Speaker 1: And if you have a heart issue, maybe people do that,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple times a day. But the kind
Speaker 1: of idealized version of this is that you would you're wearable,
Speaker 1: would be doing this in the background all the time.
Speaker 1: But I think the problem with that is that it
Speaker 1: uses a lot of battery, it uses a lot of resources,
Speaker 1: and that has been a challenge until now. And that's
Speaker 1: when Google or I should say Alphabet that owns Fitbit,
Speaker 1: they have come up with this algorithm that kind of
Speaker 1: looks at the data that your watch is collecting all
Speaker 1: the time and analyzes that data for signs of a
Speaker 1: FIB and then they will notify you if there is
Speaker 1: something unusual. This does not replace a doctor, doesn't replace
Speaker 1: the equipment you would typically use to do a real
Speaker 1: reading or a thorough reading. But it is a really
Speaker 1: really good start and the fact that this gotten FDA
Speaker 1: approval is huge. Basically, it gives the wearers of fitbit
Speaker 1: specific models of Fitbit, this is not all of them,
Speaker 1: and it gives them, you know, another way to track
Speaker 1: their health. And I think that is a really really
Speaker 1: good thing. So the Apple Watch, I think is fantastic.
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing. I think it's saved a lot
Speaker 1: of lives. I think that it is telling people when
Speaker 1: their heart rate is low, when their heart rate is high,
Speaker 1: when they're breathing, is having an issue. I think it
Speaker 1: does that but also it can do these manual heart
Speaker 1: rate readings. So I think that this is a really
Speaker 1: good thing the fact that Apple users are enjoying. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it also tells you, you know, if you fall, it
Speaker 1: can call for help. So I think that these wearables
Speaker 1: are getting to a place where they are going to
Speaker 1: become so commonplace. And it's like, why would you not
Speaker 1: have one of these things on your wrist? I get
Speaker 1: the privacy implication, sure, but I feel like the security
Speaker 1: blanket that they offer is starting to outweigh any sort
Speaker 1: of privacy concerns you may have about these devices. And
Speaker 1: so to me, I mean, look at we've got Google
Speaker 1: with their They've got things that can I mean, there's
Speaker 1: just so much of this going on. I tested the
Speaker 1: Google Home that can you know, measure your respiration at
Speaker 1: night without even touching you. I mean it just looks
Speaker 1: at the waves like it uses like micro micro radar
Speaker 1: to like sense the up and down of your lungs,
Speaker 1: and it can it can figure out issues there and
Speaker 1: tell you how you slept. I mean, we've got the
Speaker 1: Aura ring that does a whole bunch of stuff. I'd
Speaker 1: still like to test that one out. That's the one
Speaker 1: wearable that i'd really like to try out that I
Speaker 1: have not tried, and it just seems like it'd be
Speaker 1: a really cool thing. But I will say, I think
Speaker 1: this is great. I'm so glad that Phippit got this.
Speaker 1: It's going to be coming to certain models of the Sense,
Speaker 1: the Versa, the Charge, and the Inspire. My only problem
Speaker 1: with fitbit is that they seem to take a lot
Speaker 1: longer to introduce software features on their devices versus the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch. Apple Watch has this nice cadence of regular
Speaker 1: software updates with watch os, kind of like iOS. It
Speaker 1: just comes out regularly and there's always something new and
Speaker 1: things are always getting better. I feel like and maybe
Speaker 1: I just haven't worn a fitbit in a while. I
Speaker 1: feel like the Fippit is just a little bit behind.
Speaker 1: Like they announce these things whenever the fitbit comes out.
Speaker 1: They always say like, oh, we're gonna have a blood
Speaker 1: oxygen sensor, but it takes like another six months to
Speaker 1: a year to arrive on people's wrists. So I think
Speaker 1: that hopefully you know now that pipbit is getting much
Speaker 1: more integrated with Google and I should say alphabet, I
Speaker 1: I guess hopefully there you know, there's more kind of
Speaker 1: force behind them to work more closely in getting these
Speaker 1: things to people's wrists faster. But I am all for it.
Speaker 1: I really think that, uh. I mean one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I wear the Apple Watch is that I really
Speaker 1: feel like it's like an almost like a safety blanket
Speaker 1: where you know, if you go out running and you fall,
Speaker 1: like imagine you're hiking in the middle of nowhere by yourself,
Speaker 1: which you know you may do once in a while,
Speaker 1: and you know, you fall and your watch calls for help.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's really really important, and it just doesn't
Speaker 1: you know, if you didn't it's it could be the
Speaker 1: difference between life and death. I mean, it really really can.
Speaker 1: So let's get to another question. Let's see, Uh, Collette says,
Speaker 1: I am puzzled. Oh, it says you. I guess the
Speaker 1: subject is USB thumb drives. Uh for photo, I guess photostick.
Speaker 1: I am puzzled. At one site the reviews oh for
Speaker 1: the above are great, and on another site I should
Speaker 1: not buy. I have an Android tablet and HP Envy computer.
Speaker 1: My husband has a Tashiba laptop and an Android phone.
Speaker 1: I would like to take all the photos from each
Speaker 1: and put them into one spot. What do you suggest
Speaker 1: to someone with minimal tech knowledge? Thank you, Collet collect well,
Speaker 1: I would suggest Google Photos. I mean that would be
Speaker 1: my first choice in this situation. I think whenever someone
Speaker 1: wants to consolidate their photos, I think Google Photos is
Speaker 1: the best. You can install it on every single one
Speaker 1: of those devices you just mentioned. You can also do
Speaker 1: a family share account and so you can have the
Speaker 1: photos from both your husband's devices and yours merge. It
Speaker 1: works great, It's slicing and dicing, and the search is
Speaker 1: just unbelievable. The cloud backup is phenomenal. I would recommend,
Speaker 1: of course, having it on a different backup somewhere else,
Speaker 1: but you know, you can do that down the line.
Speaker 1: But I think that Google Photos would definitely be the
Speaker 1: best way to go. You originally asked about the photostick
Speaker 1: by Omni. Now I don't know what the photostick by
Speaker 1: Omni is, but I have a guess, and I guess
Speaker 1: that I probably would not recommend that. So I'm searching
Speaker 1: for a photostick by Omni and yeah, let's gosh, let's see.
Speaker 1: So just looking at the website. Immediately looking at the website,
Speaker 1: it's one of those websites that is just something I
Speaker 1: would not purchase something from. So it's it's got the
Speaker 1: pop up that says someone from Lincoln, Kansas just purchased
Speaker 1: the photo stick. Omni. Oh my gosh. Just now, when
Speaker 1: I happen to go to your website, someone just purchased one,
Speaker 1: and you're telling me about that. Okay. Also you can
Speaker 1: see the pricing. It's like retail is seventy four, this
Speaker 1: is fifty nine ninety nine. Then you've got retail. So
Speaker 1: basically they're selling a one and twenty eight gigabyte Oh
Speaker 1: someone else just bought one from Hagerman, Idaho. Huh. And
Speaker 1: they're selling a two hundred and fifty six gigabyte flash
Speaker 1: storage drive that looks like a drive that I used
Speaker 1: to get at events giving out like candy for free
Speaker 1: for one hundred and fifty dollars. Now, if their software
Speaker 1: was like unbelievable, yeah, that would be amazing, so I
Speaker 1: would I would recommend it. But it I just don't
Speaker 1: think that any of this is good, So I'm not
Speaker 1: knocking them. I have not tested this. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but the reality is, uh oh, I just got a
Speaker 1: special offer when I went to click away from the
Speaker 1: website they said, Okay, you can get an extra one
Speaker 1: for forty percent off. So it's just one of these
Speaker 1: websites that is just I don't like it. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: order from there, so if you want, if you want. Oh,
Speaker 1: and it also says okay, it says as featured on CBS,
Speaker 1: Yahoo and Business Insider, so let's go to Yahoo or okay.
Speaker 1: So interesting this. I just can't trust this. It's so weird.
Speaker 1: They have this like report from a website and the
Speaker 1: author you can't click on it, so this is like,
Speaker 1: it looks like it's a website. It's so interesting. It
Speaker 1: looks like it's a website from a TV station in Houston.
Speaker 1: But usually you could click on the author's name so
Speaker 1: that you can see all the things that this author wrote.
Speaker 1: And I can't seem to find that author. But you
Speaker 1: know what, I don't you know what? Actually this author
Speaker 1: does look legit. Let's see. Let me just try one
Speaker 1: more thing. Weird, what our email address? Let's try one
Speaker 1: more thing here? Okay, So it looks like this is
Speaker 1: a consumer author or a consumer reporter in Houston, so
Speaker 1: she may have she may have actually tested this for real,
Speaker 1: so that could be legit let's see on on Okay,
Speaker 1: on Yahoo they are using a press release, so they
Speaker 1: are literally just linked up to a press release that
Speaker 1: is not an actual news story. And then h on
Speaker 1: Business Insider, they are linking to a press release of
Speaker 1: their own writing. So for all these reasons, absolutely not
Speaker 1: what I purchase this. Now you can purchase it. It might
Speaker 1: be just fine, but I'm giving my advice. You're tuned
Speaker 1: into the rich On Tech Show. So this is why.
Speaker 1: Those are all the reasons why when I research a product,
Speaker 1: I would not purchase it. So what I would purchase
Speaker 1: is something called the sand Disc sand Disk I expand
Speaker 1: and they make various versions. You will want the one
Speaker 1: that works with the Android phones, and so they have
Speaker 1: and I Expand. I think it's either the duel or
Speaker 1: let's see they have the let's see shop. Oh come on,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for this thing portable drives. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: find the sand disc I Expand that I would get,
Speaker 1: and they have Anyway, if you just go to sand
Speaker 1: Disc I Expand, they have a whole bunch of the
Speaker 1: one that I featured on KTLA was really good. So
Speaker 1: I just search. Okay, here we go. Ktla USB Drives
Speaker 1: and this one is called the sand Disc I expand
Speaker 1: Flash drive. Lucks ooh, lucks this is this is deluxe
Speaker 1: because it has Lucks in the name. And what I
Speaker 1: like about this drive is that it's got iPhone on
Speaker 1: one side, a connector for lightning, and then USB C
Speaker 1: on the other. You may just need USB with those
Speaker 1: different devices, but I'd recommend USBC because you both have
Speaker 1: Android phones and so you can plug that into the
Speaker 1: bottom of both of those phones. But great question, I
Speaker 1: would say, when it comes to the tech questions that
Speaker 1: I get, should I get a USB? These things must
Speaker 1: advertise like like I can't believe, but the USB drive
Speaker 1: for backup photos is probably the top, if not the
Speaker 1: top question, one of the top three questions I get.
Speaker 1: And it's it's truly remarkable how these companies advertise because
Speaker 1: these they're just everywhere, so many questions about them. So anyway,
Speaker 1: there you go. There's my answer. All right, Netflix introducing
Speaker 1: the double thumbs up for even better recommendation. So not
Speaker 1: a big story, not much time to spend on this,
Speaker 1: or I don't want to spend a bunch of time
Speaker 1: on this, but there will be a new option for
Speaker 1: you when you're rating shows on Netflix, and it is
Speaker 1: the double thumbs up. Not to be confused with the
Speaker 1: two thumbs up. Two thumbs up is Ciskel and eber
Speaker 1: Late movie critics that pretty much defined the entire industry.
Speaker 1: But this is the two thumbs up. Oh I just
Speaker 1: got it on mine. Okay, so I just got it
Speaker 1: on my Netflix app and you tap rate, and now
Speaker 1: it gives you a down, a thumbs up. A thumbs
Speaker 1: down says not for me. One thumbs up is I
Speaker 1: like this. Two thumbs up is I love this, And
Speaker 1: so when you click that two thumbs up, it will
Speaker 1: signify that you want more shows like that for your
Speaker 1: personalized recommendations, and that's what you are going to get.
Speaker 1: So they just found that the one thumbs up was
Speaker 1: just a little I'll lean in the ratings because you
Speaker 1: might like something, but you're not like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I love this. Like there are certain shows I like,
Speaker 1: but then there are shows that I love, love, love,
Speaker 1: and so actually I should go into Netflix. I never
Speaker 1: really thought about this. I don't really use a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of Netflix, but I should go in and rate
Speaker 1: the shows that I do like so that I can
Speaker 1: get really good like maybe I'll discover shows that I like.
Speaker 1: I never thought about doing that, but I'm gonna. I'm
Speaker 1: actually gonna do that with some shows and movies because
Speaker 1: that way I can get stuff that I like. And
Speaker 1: then maybe I'll watch more Netflix and get my twenty
Speaker 1: dollars a month worth. I know, everyone that's using my
Speaker 1: account gets there, gets my money's worth, that's for sure. Uh.
Speaker 1: Let's see what do we want to go to next?
Speaker 1: All right, okay, let's go to Marylyn. Marilyn says, I'd
Speaker 1: like to understand why developers need access to my personal
Speaker 1: information such as photos, contacts, media, ability to make and
Speaker 1: or manage phone calls in order to play a game
Speaker 1: I've downloaded. Is it really necessary to give them access
Speaker 1: to my handset or tablet? Thanks anti cookie, anti cookie,
Speaker 1: anti cookie, absolutely not. They do not need this personal information.
Speaker 1: This is a data grab. They are trying to get
Speaker 1: as much information out of you as possible because they
Speaker 1: can sell more ads to you, or better yet, they
Speaker 1: can collect information about you and then use that information
Speaker 1: to sell your data to other people and make some
Speaker 1: quick cash off of that as well sell that to
Speaker 1: data brokers. So I love the fact that you are
Speaker 1: actually aware of this. I love the fact that you
Speaker 1: are cognizant of it and you are noticing this. But
Speaker 1: when you download an app, be very very careful and
Speaker 1: methodical about the screens that follow the download. You're going
Speaker 1: to get questions about all kinds of stuff. Can we
Speaker 1: have access to your gpsqu have access to your precise location,
Speaker 1: we have access to your contacts, we have access to
Speaker 1: your calendar, we have access to your you know, can
Speaker 1: we track you across apps? All these different things? Location?
Speaker 1: You know, like she said, contacts, media, photos, And Apple
Speaker 1: has gotten really good about letting you you know. It
Speaker 1: used to be on Android and Apple when you said yes,
Speaker 1: it would just be like a blanket yes to like
Speaker 1: a lot of different things. Now they've definitely parsed it
Speaker 1: out on both operating systems, and Android actually takes it
Speaker 1: a step further. So if you don't use an app
Speaker 1: for a while, they they revoke they're called permissions. They
Speaker 1: actually revoke the permissions of that app. So let's say
Speaker 1: you downloaded some random game that is stopping up all
Speaker 1: of the data it can because it's just kind of
Speaker 1: one of those apps. Well, let's say don't play that
Speaker 1: game in six months, Google in the background says we
Speaker 1: noticed that Rich hasn't been playing this game, and also,
Speaker 1: why do you need access to all Virtus stuff in
Speaker 1: the background here, So we are just going to revoke
Speaker 1: that access until he opens up this app again, and
Speaker 1: then we're going to ask him again if you want
Speaker 1: to give his location. And I think that is a
Speaker 1: huge win for the operating system. On Android and Apple,
Speaker 1: you can go ahead and revoke permissions and take them
Speaker 1: back after the fact, but it doesn't do it automatically,
Speaker 1: but it'd be nice if it did, and maybe it
Speaker 1: will in a future update. Who knows. I mean, WWDC
Speaker 1: is just around the corner. And at this point, I
Speaker 1: feel like the features that Apple and Android keep adding
Speaker 1: are like very similar on both ends. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we have this, Oh we have this, we have that,
Speaker 1: we have this, and it's like they're just kind of
Speaker 1: like neck and neck at this point with the different
Speaker 1: features they have. But with that said, always always be
Speaker 1: very critical about any of the permissions that you give,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to your photos. If you're using
Speaker 1: like a photo editing app and it says allow access
Speaker 1: to all your photos, just say, hmm, does it need
Speaker 1: all my photos or can I just like, let's say
Speaker 1: you just wanted to download an app to like retouch
Speaker 1: a picture once because you just need to do something,
Speaker 1: just give it access to that one picture. That's why
Speaker 1: it says on Apple allow access to all photos or
Speaker 1: select media. That's what that means. You select that one
Speaker 1: picture and say, okay, you can have this picture, but
Speaker 1: you can't have all the rest of my pictures because
Speaker 1: these companies could, you know, kind of slurp up some
Speaker 1: of the data from your the metadata from your other
Speaker 1: pictures and kind of see where you take them and
Speaker 1: that gives an idea of where you go. So believe me,
Speaker 1: these these app developers can be very sneaky, sneaky and
Speaker 1: it's it's a lot of it is very legal. You know,
Speaker 1: if they're if you're given access to your your location,
Speaker 1: you know these apps will ping that access even when
Speaker 1: you're not using it. And so that's another question that
Speaker 1: Apple now asks. It says, do you want to give
Speaker 1: permission to use your location all the time or only
Speaker 1: when you're using the app? Now all the time is
Speaker 1: way more valuable to them because they can see all
Speaker 1: the different places that you go, and they know that
Speaker 1: if you go into that coffee shop every single morning
Speaker 1: you pause there for two minutes. They know that you're frequenting,
Speaker 1: you know, Jim's Coffee on Second Street in Seattle. And
Speaker 1: now they can have an advertiser that wants to advertise
Speaker 1: against that and say, hey, why don't you come to
Speaker 1: Jones Coffee on Third Street and they can send you
Speaker 1: a coupon so or targeting ad or whatever they want
Speaker 1: to do. So there's a reason for all of this
Speaker 1: stuff and why these apps want so much information. It
Speaker 1: is your job, as a consumer sad as it is,
Speaker 1: to kind of sift through and think about, hmm, do
Speaker 1: I need to give them this information? And I sit
Speaker 1: here as a very as a smart tech person, and
Speaker 1: I sit there and I go, okay, now, what's the
Speaker 1: implication of not letting ways have access to my information
Speaker 1: at all times? And the implication is now Ways doesn't
Speaker 1: know where I am and it can't send me a
Speaker 1: time to leave notification. So there are some reasons why
Speaker 1: you might want to give these apps certain access that
Speaker 1: they are requesting. It's up to you to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out and connect the dots as to why they
Speaker 1: need that. The famous example, and I almost hate to
Speaker 1: use this because it's been so long. But the famous
Speaker 1: example is that all the flashlight apps back in the
Speaker 1: day that would ask for all the permissions and really
Speaker 1: it was a flashlight app which was probably built into
Speaker 1: your phone, but it was just collecting so much data
Speaker 1: while you had that app installed on your phone, because
Speaker 1: then they were selling it to different companies. So same
Speaker 1: thing with a lot of weather apps. They do that
Speaker 1: as well. So you just have to be very careful
Speaker 1: about what data you give up. And if you don't
Speaker 1: really care, then don't care. But I think you should
Speaker 1: be concerned with any of the data that you are
Speaker 1: willingly giving up on a daily basis. Good question, anti
Speaker 1: cookie all right, Speaking of Google Photos, the unlimited Google
Speaker 1: Photos backup is coming back. I can't believe this, but
Speaker 1: just for T Mobile customers, ugh, this is according to
Speaker 1: nine to five Google, Google and T Mobile seem to
Speaker 1: have a pretty good partnership going. But soon T Mobile
Speaker 1: customers will be able to pay fifteen dollars a month
Speaker 1: for unlimited Google Photos backup. Now, fifteen dollars a month
Speaker 1: might sound like a lot, but right now I'm paying
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars a month for I think five terribile
Speaker 1: of I guess Google Drive access. Now here's the thing,
Speaker 1: the unlimited Google Photos backup. I'm not exactly sure if
Speaker 1: this would refer to new photos moving forward or all
Speaker 1: of your photos in Google Like, once you activate this
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars option, does it magically unlock all that space
Speaker 1: in your Google Drive that's being used by your Google Photos.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, and I don't really know. They don't
Speaker 1: really explain it in here, but this new two So
Speaker 1: basically you get two terabytes of Google Drive storage plus
Speaker 1: unlimited Google Photos. So that would be a really, really
Speaker 1: big win. In fact, that'd be pretty compelling to me
Speaker 1: because I would save ten dollars a month by switching
Speaker 1: to T Mobile just to get this one feature. Now,
Speaker 1: I've been around the block long enough to know that
Speaker 1: features come and go, so I would probably not base
Speaker 1: my switching of a wireless carrier on this one feature
Speaker 1: because who knows how long this partnership is going to last.
Speaker 1: Who knows how long the unlimited photos deal is going
Speaker 1: to last, and then you got to switch again if
Speaker 1: if something changes or they raise the price or it's
Speaker 1: not as competitive. But I would say, if you have
Speaker 1: T Mobile and you have a lot of Google Photos.
Speaker 1: You're paying fifteen dollars a month for Google Drive storage
Speaker 1: or something like that. I would definitely look into this
Speaker 1: because the ability to store photos and videos in full
Speaker 1: resolution is pretty awesome, especially if you're like me and
Speaker 1: you have over two I'm going on three terabytes of
Speaker 1: Google Photos, just Google Photos. Oh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's not true. That's not just Google Photos. Let me
Speaker 1: say how much I have in Google Photos. If you
Speaker 1: want to check to see how much storage're using Google
Speaker 1: just go to one dot Google dot com and then
Speaker 1: tap storage and I'm using two point three terabytes of
Speaker 1: five gigs. That is one hundred and twenty one gigabytes
Speaker 1: in Google Drive, thirty five gigs in Gmail. How the
Speaker 1: heck do I have thirty five gigabytes of Gmail? I
Speaker 1: have no idea two point two terabytes of Google Photos,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, I'd like to get that unlimited. That'd
Speaker 1: be amazing, because you know, the old pixels were unlimited,
Speaker 1: And by the way, I still have the original Pixel
Speaker 1: which was unlimited, and you can still use it for unlimited.
Speaker 1: So some people have kind of hacked together a system
Speaker 1: where you take a picture on your your current phone
Speaker 1: and it sends it to that that pixel, and then
Speaker 1: that pixel uploads it, so you still get to save
Speaker 1: that full resolution. If I was a little bit more
Speaker 1: of the old nerd that I was, I'd probably do that.
Speaker 1: I'd probably set that up. But at this point I'm
Speaker 1: more about convenience, and I don't really want to have
Speaker 1: like a Google Pixel server sitting in my house just
Speaker 1: to upload pictures. And I'd be like, because the problem is,
Speaker 1: let's say you're out on vacation and this happens. You
Speaker 1: take your the majority of your pictures on vacation, so
Speaker 1: now now you're waiting to get home to back up
Speaker 1: all these pictures that are on your phone, and I
Speaker 1: think that's very, very dangerous to not have those backed
Speaker 1: up in real time when you're on vacation. By the way,
Speaker 1: when I'm on vacation, I typically will turn on my
Speaker 1: I typically turn off this is this gets a little complicated,
Speaker 1: but in Google Photos, you have the option to only
Speaker 1: upload over cellular and so are sorry only upload over
Speaker 1: Wi Fi, And so typically to save battery, I will
Speaker 1: leave that turned on because most of the time I
Speaker 1: will you know, I'll be I'll be in you know,
Speaker 1: I'll be home at the end of the day, and
Speaker 1: I'll get into my Wi Fi zone and I will
Speaker 1: have those photos that I took throughout the day uploaded. Now,
Speaker 1: when I'm on vacation, it's it's kind of tricky because
Speaker 1: I want my photos to be uploaded in real time,
Speaker 1: because when you're on vacation, you are doing a lot
Speaker 1: of things that you don't typically do. You're in a
Speaker 1: lot of places that you wouldn't be in. You're in
Speaker 1: a lot of situations that you wouldn't be in. And
Speaker 1: I'm talking like, you know, boats and flying on airplanes
Speaker 1: and all these different things where you may lose your phone.
Speaker 1: And if you lose your phone, and let's say you
Speaker 1: have all these photos set to back up on Wi
Speaker 1: Fi only, you may not make it back to your
Speaker 1: hotel room before these photos get uploaded, and now you've
Speaker 1: lost a day's worth of photos because you were taking
Speaker 1: them all day. You drop your phone down an elevator
Speaker 1: shaft at the hotel, and now it's gone and at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, and now all those photos
Speaker 1: are just locked on that phone forever. So typically I
Speaker 1: will turn on the cellular uploads when I'm on vacation
Speaker 1: because that's when those pictures are the most precious. The
Speaker 1: downside of that is that you are now eating through
Speaker 1: your phone's battery a lot faster because uploading your photos
Speaker 1: over cellular takes a lot more battery. And so it's
Speaker 1: this kind of like this gentle dance that I have
Speaker 1: when I'm on vacation that I want my photos to
Speaker 1: be uploaded, but I also want to preserve my battery life.
Speaker 1: So I kind of sometimes do it in the middle
Speaker 1: where I'll let the photos go up over cellular, but
Speaker 1: not the videos because the videos really eat up a
Speaker 1: lot of the battery. And so it's just little things
Speaker 1: to think about. I mean, this is I just tell
Speaker 1: you this stuff because it's this kind of stuff that
Speaker 1: keeps me up at night, and I kind of really
Speaker 1: try to digest a lot of it and come up
Speaker 1: with like good systems, but you know, it doesn't always work.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of like what my feeling is. So
Speaker 1: get those pictures backed up, please, please, please please please.
Speaker 1: All right, let's do one more question from Jan Hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: Bob and I are nearing seventy need a smart TV.
Speaker 1: We like local news and weather. We're huge sports fans
Speaker 1: and have learned how to stream on Netflix. What featureshould
Speaker 1: we look for in purchasing a fifty inch center stand.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that just means fifty inch TV. Uh, Thanks
Speaker 1: Jen so Jan. I would recommend the Roku TCL six
Speaker 1: series Roku TV. I think that's going to give you
Speaker 1: everything you need. It's gonna be a fantastic price, It's
Speaker 1: gonna have Roku built in, and so you don't have
Speaker 1: to deal with like a third party kind of smart
Speaker 1: TV situation. You don't have to deal with a not
Speaker 1: a very good smart TV situation. If I had my way,
Speaker 1: I'd probably recommend the Apple TV as an add on
Speaker 1: to any TV. So just find a good TV that
Speaker 1: you like and then add the Apple TV. But that's expensive.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you have an iPhone because you
Speaker 1: didn't mention if you have an iPhone, but I think
Speaker 1: that the built in is probably the easiest way to go.
Speaker 1: My second choice would probably be one of the Amazon
Speaker 1: TVs that has the fire TV software built in, and
Speaker 1: or perhaps just getting a fire TV stick that you
Speaker 1: can attach to a smart to a TV. This idea
Speaker 1: of the smart TV I typically don't like because I
Speaker 1: feel like the software is updated more frequently on the
Speaker 1: standalone sticks and devices. But when it comes to like
Speaker 1: Roku and Fire, a lot of those TVs maybe not
Speaker 1: if they're from third parties or not updated, but the
Speaker 1: TCL is updated, I know. And also the Amazon TVs
Speaker 1: are updated if they come from Amazon. So I think
Speaker 1: it's the Omni series is the one that you want
Speaker 1: to look for. So those are the TVs that I'd
Speaker 1: recommend if you're going built in. Otherwise, I'd say just
Speaker 1: get any old TV that you like at Costco and
Speaker 1: then just get the add on, which is either the
Speaker 1: Fire TV stick or the Roku box or the Apple TV,
Speaker 1: and in my preference would probably be probably Apple TV
Speaker 1: and then maybe fireTV stick, the Max, and then the Roku,
Speaker 1: and I'd go with a Roku device not a stick
Speaker 1: because the sticks are historically underpowered. I do like the Max.
Speaker 1: I think that one's fine, but I think the Roku,
Speaker 1: the really cheap Roku sticks like twenty five bucks, is
Speaker 1: going to be very underpowered, especially if you're cutting the
Speaker 1: cord and you're using that for everything. Oh wow, look
Speaker 1: at that. That audio means it's the end of the show.
Speaker 1: That's gonna do it for this episode, If you'd like
Speaker 1: to submit a question, for me to answer. Go to
Speaker 1: my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech,
Speaker 1: hit the big blue send email button, or go to
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Speaker 1: quick line about what you like about this show to
Speaker 1: help other people understand why they should listen. You can
Speaker 1: find me on social media. I am at rich on Tech,
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Speaker 1: and Roku. Once you do, scroll the tech section and
Speaker 1: watch all of my TV segments on demand. My name
Speaker 1: is rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are
Speaker 1: so many ways you can spend an hour of your time.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you real soon.