Speaker 1: Best Buy unveils a smaller store. Google Maps begins work
Speaker 1: on its metaverse, an unlimited plan for just twenty five
Speaker 1: bucks a month plus Your tech questions answered? What's going
Speaker 1: on on Richdemiro And this is Rich on Tech, the
Speaker 1: podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
Speaker 1: you should know about and I answer the questions you
Speaker 1: send me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. Welcome to the show, Welcome to my
Speaker 1: friends on Instagram Live. Well, that's gonna do it for
Speaker 1: this episode of the show. Oh, it's just kidding. I
Speaker 1: was reading the at the end of the script. Oh
Speaker 1: it's Friday where I am. You know, it could be Monday,
Speaker 1: could be Tuesday, could be any day when you're listening,
Speaker 1: but today is Friday when I record this. So welcome
Speaker 1: to the weekend. If you are listening to this before
Speaker 1: the weekend starts, if you listen to it after the weekend,
Speaker 1: prep for your next weekend. So it looks like my
Speaker 1: wife and kids are joining on the live stream as
Speaker 1: well this week. Let me just explain one cool thing
Speaker 1: about and I already I think I explained this last week.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I don't want to tell the same story.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think, when did.
Speaker 2: I go to that? Yeah? I did? All right, Uh,
Speaker 2: do I have a story for this week? I don't
Speaker 2: really have a story for this this week.
Speaker 1: Usually I start the show with like a little, tiny story,
Speaker 1: but I am so unprepared that, oh, you know.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you I got fitted for a suit this week.
Speaker 1: So I was listening to a podcast, and I guess
Speaker 1: this goes to show the power of social media marketing.
Speaker 2: But I was listening to a podcast that I love.
Speaker 1: It's called The All In Pod and it's hosted by
Speaker 1: Jason Calacanis and others. And he mentioned Indo Indo Chino,
Speaker 1: Indo Chino, Indo Chino suits and he's like, oh, should
Speaker 1: get an Endochino suit. He just mentioned it in passing
Speaker 1: on the podcast, and I looked it up. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. So it's like a tech startup,
Speaker 1: but they're doing suits. So you go in there and
Speaker 1: you get measured for a suit and they make this
Speaker 1: custom suit and then they ship it to you. And
Speaker 1: so I go into the Americana at the Glendelle Americana
Speaker 1: make my appointment.
Speaker 2: This little guy like measures me, you know, I call
Speaker 2: him little guy.
Speaker 1: I mean he's like he was like a younger guy,
Speaker 1: younger than me, I guess, And so he measures me
Speaker 1: all up and you know, he's you know, taken every
Speaker 1: single like it's unbelievable how many little measurements. Maybe this
Speaker 1: is just typical if you get a fitted sue. I've
Speaker 1: never done that before, so I usually buy like a
Speaker 1: you know, off the shelf kind of thing or off
Speaker 1: the rack. And so anyway, I got all measured up
Speaker 1: and my suit is arriving in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 2: And I thought it was pretty cool. So we'll see now.
Speaker 1: The neat thing is that once you have all of
Speaker 1: your sizes in their system, now you can just log
Speaker 1: in on the website and buy another sue.
Speaker 2: And so I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So if this suit fits, which I hope it does,
Speaker 1: it better fit well with all the measurements they took.
Speaker 2: It would be really cool to just be able.
Speaker 1: To go on there when I save up again for
Speaker 1: another suit and just buy another one in a different
Speaker 1: color or something.
Speaker 2: But I've been to, you know, a couple weddings, and I'm.
Speaker 1: Always like this guy that you know, there's always like
Speaker 1: these guys at weddings that just look better than everyone else,
Speaker 1: like they just dress nicer.
Speaker 2: And I've never been that guy.
Speaker 1: I'm always like the kind of you know, I'll wear
Speaker 1: something nice, but it's never that nice. And so after
Speaker 1: this last wedding, I went to like my brother looked
Speaker 1: really good, my brother in law looked really good, and
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get a
Speaker 1: nice suit for my next wedding. And so I've got
Speaker 1: a wedding coming up, and not mine. My wedding was
Speaker 1: a long time ago, but I got a wedding coming up,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if this is gonna make it
Speaker 1: in time, but I figured, you know what, let's look
Speaker 1: nice and you can really customize everything, Like I thought
Speaker 1: when they start started going through, like oh do you
Speaker 1: want brown buttons?
Speaker 2: Do you want green buttons? Do you want black buttons?
Speaker 2: Do you want the notch to be this way?
Speaker 1: Do you want the Everything was a custom and so
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, here comes the sales pitch, and
Speaker 1: sure enough, everything's included in the price, and Jessica's ore
Speaker 1: j Jay Singh is asking what the pricing is, like,
Speaker 1: very reasonable, I think for a custom suit.
Speaker 2: It was like four hundred and.
Speaker 1: Fifty dollars for the base suit, and then they go
Speaker 1: up from there. I just got the base and so
Speaker 1: everything's included in that price, and they do run deals
Speaker 1: like I got like twenty five bucks off because I
Speaker 1: was like a first time customer. So yeah, it's expensive,
Speaker 1: but it's something that you hopefully wear for a long time.
Speaker 1: And at the same time I asked the guy, I
Speaker 1: was like, well, what if I start like working out,
Speaker 1: Like what if I'm what if I get bigger than
Speaker 1: this suit or whatever? And he's like, don't, Like, okay,
Speaker 1: So I guess I have to stay just.
Speaker 2: The way I am. All right, let's get to the
Speaker 2: first story of the week. Oh wow, pause to poor connection.
Speaker 2: Let's get to the first story of the week.
Speaker 1: Best Buy is testing out a new, smaller format digital
Speaker 1: first store. What does this sound like? It sounds like
Speaker 1: the Apple Store, So first ever digital first store. This
Speaker 1: is a five thousand square foot store in I think
Speaker 1: it's in North Carolina and so open.
Speaker 2: It opened this week. And here's the deal.
Speaker 1: So instead of having a bunch of stuff all stocked,
Speaker 1: you know, stacked up to the ceiling, this store has
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff on you know kind of displays
Speaker 1: and then you scan a QR code if you want
Speaker 1: to buy it, and then they bring it up to you,
Speaker 1: just like the Apple Store.
Speaker 2: So the Apple Store.
Speaker 1: Doesn't have like thousands of Mac computers stacked up. Remember
Speaker 1: like the old big box stores, I mean Best Buy,
Speaker 1: I guess you know, they would have a computer monitor.
Speaker 1: They'd have three hundred of them stacked up in the
Speaker 1: center of the store. You just pick one up and go.
Speaker 1: And so they realize that stores are getting smaller. They
Speaker 1: don't need all this space, and so why not just
Speaker 1: have a smaller format store. People are so used to
Speaker 1: using their phones. They scan the QR code, the associate
Speaker 1: brings it out from the back, You finish the transaction,
Speaker 1: and you go. So they've got home audio, theater, home theater,
Speaker 1: audio computing, headphones, wearables, fitness, cell phones, cameras, smart home,
Speaker 1: small appliances. There are no big appliances, but they will
Speaker 1: have TV. So they do have TVs, but these are
Speaker 1: all curated. So the idea is that this curated selection
Speaker 1: is like a couple of things, not a lot of things.
Speaker 1: And Steve It's funny mentioned on the Instagram Live they
Speaker 1: used to call that service merchandise. And absolutely when I
Speaker 1: grew up in New Jersey, we had service merchandise and
Speaker 1: there was these big there wasn't even anything on display.
Speaker 1: It's just these big giant books that you would flip
Speaker 1: through like a catalog and you would write down the
Speaker 1: numbers on this little piece of paper.
Speaker 2: You would give it to the associate.
Speaker 1: They would ring everything up and then you'd watch these
Speaker 1: giant box come skidding down some sort of like weird
Speaker 1: conveyor belt system they had. It was so weird as
Speaker 1: a kid to see that, but I thought it was
Speaker 1: really cool because it was very efficient. And you know,
Speaker 1: over the years we got to this like self service
Speaker 1: model with these big box stores, and now we're sort
Speaker 1: of going back to the idea of, well, we don't
Speaker 1: necessarily need all this stock up front, like this new
Speaker 1: Amazon style store. You know, all the stock is in
Speaker 1: the back and you scan it and then they bring
Speaker 1: it to you. Now, we were just in there at
Speaker 1: the Americana as well, and I'll be honest, it was
Speaker 1: a little bit of a process. You know, you scan
Speaker 1: the stuff, the clothes you want to try on with
Speaker 1: the barcode, and then they bring it to you.
Speaker 2: And it took a while.
Speaker 1: It was like a good ten minutes and with two
Speaker 1: kids running around the store. My wife, you know, we
Speaker 1: were like, I don't know if we want to do this.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we want to wait, but we
Speaker 1: decided that it's the best if you're if you're by
Speaker 1: yourself and you have a lot of time, because she
Speaker 1: was like, I'll just buy it on Amazon. I'll buy
Speaker 1: the two sizes and return it. And I said, well,
Speaker 1: we're right here. Why go through all that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of waste by buying the medium and
Speaker 1: the large size or the small and the extra whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, because that's what a lot of people do
Speaker 1: and they buy clothes online.
Speaker 2: It's it's kind of this.
Speaker 1: You know, you try it and you have to return
Speaker 1: the one that doesn't fit. And so by having that
Speaker 1: store there, you can try them on in the store,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you have your time, if you've
Speaker 1: got the patience, it's actually a better experience because you
Speaker 1: leave with what you need and you know the size
Speaker 1: that you want because you've tried it on. I bought
Speaker 1: some jeans there. I bought Amazon jeans, Amazon Essentials. They're
Speaker 1: not honestly, I've worn them a couple of times they're
Speaker 1: not my favorite jeans. It's funny, after all these years,
Speaker 1: I came back to Levi's that I was putting them
Speaker 1: on this morning, and I was like, God, I really
Speaker 1: like these genes, Like they're just standard Levi's jeans. And
Speaker 1: for me, I'm the kind of person once I find
Speaker 1: something that fits, I just keep buying that over and over.
Speaker 1: Like I like this one T shirt from Coals of
Speaker 1: all places, and I got one of them from my
Speaker 1: mom as a gift.
Speaker 2: I put it on, I was like, oh, I like
Speaker 2: the way this fits. It's a little stretchy.
Speaker 1: It just it when it washes, it doesn't like get
Speaker 1: all bent out of shape. And so I went back
Speaker 1: to Coles and I literally bought every single color of
Speaker 1: that T shirt and every you know, that's it. It's
Speaker 1: just like in these genes, I'm going to buy another
Speaker 1: pair of these genes when I like them.
Speaker 2: Also, Target genes fit very well. The Good Fellow brand.
Speaker 2: I like those as well.
Speaker 1: Anyway, this store is already open, and they do have
Speaker 1: stuff where you can grab and go, like kind of
Speaker 1: like cases, you know, phone cases and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: so they do have anyway, it's kind of a departure
Speaker 1: for Best bikesse we think of them as a big
Speaker 1: box store, but this digital first, small format store is
Speaker 1: kind of like the new way of the world. I
Speaker 1: don't think we're going to see them building a lot
Speaker 1: of giant big box stores in the future. Maybe I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: but I think that this idea of kind of bridging
Speaker 1: that digital and kind of physical gap is kind of
Speaker 1: like the new way of the world. We'll say, all right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the first question of the podcast. Sharon
Speaker 1: writes in do I need Windows Defender on my Samsung
Speaker 1: Galaxy S twenty one? And to be quite honest, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know that Microsoft had sort of an anti
Speaker 1: virus program for Android. Microsoft Defender is what I recommend
Speaker 1: you should have on your computer if you're running Windows.
Speaker 1: It's built into Windows eleven, and so I would recommend
Speaker 1: you having that up to date, having that active. And
Speaker 1: I don't really know if you necessarily need a separate
Speaker 1: antivirus program on your computer. The number one way that
Speaker 1: viruses get on computers these days is really through malware
Speaker 1: when you are clicking links that come in through email
Speaker 1: and so most of the time when you're surfing the web,
Speaker 1: you're probably not going to get a side I call
Speaker 1: it like a side by.
Speaker 2: Download of an app.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really if you're downloading an app that's
Speaker 1: an executable like an ex app, and you double click it,
Speaker 1: those are the biggest danger to your system. But Windows
Speaker 1: has gotten really good about figuring out, you know, trusted
Speaker 1: developers and trusted apps versus untrusted apps. So if you're
Speaker 1: downloading some random app and it's untrusted, you'll get a
Speaker 1: message on your computer saying, hey, do you really want
Speaker 1: to run this? You know, PDFs can also be a concern,
Speaker 1: and also word files, like real word files that have
Speaker 1: macros in them can also be a problem. On your phone,
Speaker 1: I think things are a little bit less scary because
Speaker 1: you know, on Android, yes you can install an APK
Speaker 1: like an application, you can sideload it, which means you
Speaker 1: can get that from anywhere. But again, the phones have
Speaker 1: gotten a little bit smarter about saying, hey, you sure
Speaker 1: you want to run this application? It can harm your system,
Speaker 1: so it gives you that little like pause.
Speaker 2: So let's see.
Speaker 1: Microsoft Defender is a unified online security app provides individuals
Speaker 1: online security for your personal life. It doesn't really say
Speaker 1: what it does, but it looks like, yeah, it looks
Speaker 1: like it just kind of protects. It scans your apps,
Speaker 1: It scans your link malware, web protection, and history, so
Speaker 1: it can't hurt. Look, if you feel like you are
Speaker 1: clicking a bunch of stuff, get a bunch of random
Speaker 1: apps on your phone, sure this can't hurt. I personally
Speaker 1: think that most of the time, your biggest protection is
Speaker 1: to really just know what you're clicking, the links that
Speaker 1: you're clicking, the apps that you're downloading, and whatever you're doing.
Speaker 1: Just always be cautious. I think the biggest one of
Speaker 1: the biggest problems too is phishing. So when you get
Speaker 1: these emails from Amazon that says, hey, did you just
Speaker 1: make a six hundred and fifty dollars five dollars purchase?
Speaker 1: If not, don't worry, just click this link or give
Speaker 1: us a phone call. And that's really where you get nabbed,
Speaker 1: because those are just scam artists that are waiting for
Speaker 1: your phone call. And when you call them, they say, okay,
Speaker 1: let's verify your Amazon account. Please give me your email address.
Speaker 1: You give them that, okay, Now we're going to send
Speaker 1: you a link or a text to your phone with
Speaker 1: a code. Please give us that code so we can
Speaker 1: verify it to you. And as soon as you give
Speaker 1: them that code, they steal your account. So that's what
Speaker 1: you need to really be concerned about, more so than
Speaker 1: just you know, these blanket defender programs that give you
Speaker 1: maybe a false sense of security. I think that you
Speaker 1: really really need to just stay on your toes when
Speaker 1: it comes to what you're doing on the internet. All right,
Speaker 1: what should I talk about next? Let's see, I thought
Speaker 1: this was interesting.
Speaker 2: Boost Mobile. Remember Boost Mobile?
Speaker 1: So Boost Mobile is now owned by Dish Network or
Speaker 1: I guess they don't even know if they're Dish network.
Speaker 2: I think it's just.
Speaker 1: Called Dish I is called Dish Network. So Boost is
Speaker 1: coming back. You know, remember boost was it used to
Speaker 1: be It was owned by Sprint at one point. Then
Speaker 1: I think it was owned by T Mobile at one
Speaker 1: point they sold it to Dish. So now they're relaunching
Speaker 1: this entire, this entire wireless carrier and it runs I
Speaker 1: asked them, I said, hey, what is this run on?
Speaker 1: And they told me it runs on a combination of
Speaker 1: T Mobile and AT and T. Now I'm guessing it
Speaker 1: leans more towards the T Mobile than the AT and
Speaker 1: T but I could be wrong.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: So if T Mobile works really well in your area,
Speaker 1: then maybe this is a good thing. But it's it's
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars a month for unlimited. It's not a
Speaker 1: temporary promotion. There's no you know, like Mint Mobile is
Speaker 1: really good, but they do require you to pay like
Speaker 1: three months at a time to get their best rates.
Speaker 1: And so also, you know, Visible is really good and
Speaker 1: they have a twenty five dollars plan, but you have
Speaker 1: to be in like a family like a pay plan thing,
Speaker 1: which is easy to do. But you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of the carriers, when you see the prices advertised, they
Speaker 1: are because you're buying four lines. Like it's very misleading
Speaker 1: when you're seeing these ads on TV or these ads online.
Speaker 1: It's like Verizon forty dollars, fifty dollars. That's as if
Speaker 1: you're buying four lines. So if you have one line,
Speaker 1: it's way more expensive. It's like closer to ninety dollars.
Speaker 1: So this is twenty five dollars unlimited. They say it's
Speaker 1: about fifty percent less than what consumers pay for the
Speaker 1: same five G networks on other carriers, And it's twenty five.
Speaker 2: Dollars a month.
Speaker 1: You get unlimited talk, unlimited text, and five G when
Speaker 1: you're on autopay, so you do have to be on
Speaker 1: auto pay. This is sort of a prepaid plan, but
Speaker 1: it's you know, you just put on autopay and you're good.
Speaker 2: So what I recommend this.
Speaker 1: I have requested boost Mobile to send me a SIM
Speaker 1: card to test it out, so they will send me that.
Speaker 1: I'll get that in the next couple of weeks. I
Speaker 1: will test it out. I'll put it in a phone.
Speaker 1: I will just kind of put it through its motion,
Speaker 1: see how it is, See what the speeds you're like,
Speaker 1: See if I become slowed down at any time during
Speaker 1: the month. But you know, they I think the fine
Speaker 1: print says that if you use over thirty gigabytes, they
Speaker 1: can slow you down. And that's like every wireless carrier.
Speaker 1: I think T Mobile does have a plan, and AT
Speaker 1: and T have plans that are like premium plans that
Speaker 1: say we will not slow you down no matter what.
Speaker 2: But you just have to make sure.
Speaker 1: I think for most people, if you're just using this regularly,
Speaker 1: you're not going to run into that giant that throttling
Speaker 1: unless you're doing a ton on your phone, but I
Speaker 1: think for the average person you'll be fine. So twenty
Speaker 1: five bucks definitely something they consider. Again, I think this
Speaker 1: is gonna probably lean heavily on T Mobile, some on
Speaker 1: AT and T. But again that's another thing that I'll
Speaker 1: test when I'm in my testing is see kind of
Speaker 1: like what kind of eighteen you know, if it's saying
Speaker 1: it's on the AT and T network or if it's
Speaker 1: saying it's.
Speaker 2: On the T Mobile network.
Speaker 1: Extra long nails Honey says, they do slow you down,
Speaker 1: So okay, there you go. So I think that I
Speaker 1: have Verizon personally, and honestly, I keep waiting for the
Speaker 1: day when they slow me down, and they pretty much
Speaker 1: never do. And I use a ton of data, Like
Speaker 1: I'm talking tons and tons of data. So it's one
Speaker 1: of these things where I think if you're just using
Speaker 1: it regularly, it should be fine. If you're in a
Speaker 1: congested area, it could be a little bit, a little
Speaker 1: bit trickier. All right, let's get to the next question
Speaker 1: of the podcast here. All right, Derek says, hey, Rich,
Speaker 1: are you a big fan of air time? If so,
Speaker 1: when you attach them to luggage, do you hide them
Speaker 1: in a pouch or do you attach them to the
Speaker 1: outside for others to see. What are your favorite air
Speaker 1: tag accessories? Also, besides luggage, backpacking keys, what other areas
Speaker 1: are air tags useful? Enjoy the Day, Love the Podcast, Derek, Derek,
Speaker 1: I am a big fan of air tags. I think
Speaker 1: they're fantastic. Although I've been using them for a year.
Speaker 1: And I will tell you a story. My wife did
Speaker 1: lose an air tag at the beach when I first
Speaker 1: gave it to her for her keys. I guess she
Speaker 1: detached her keys from the air tag for some reason,
Speaker 1: I don't know why, left it at the beach and
Speaker 1: we did find it a year later. So it was
Speaker 1: still just kind of percolating down at the beach at
Speaker 1: a restaurant and it was still there. Someone put it
Speaker 1: at the I guess the Lost and Found and they
Speaker 1: had it there. So we were at the beach and
Speaker 1: I said, oh my gosh, this is still here. Let's
Speaker 1: go inside and see if if it's you know, with
Speaker 1: the Lost and Found folks, And sure enough they it
Speaker 1: was beeping in the Lost and Found and it was
Speaker 1: still there. So there's been plenty of stories of people
Speaker 1: of finding these things. My one tip to you right now,
Speaker 1: if you've been using an air tag since they came out.
Speaker 2: I would definitely check on.
Speaker 1: The battery situation because batteries are going dead on these things,
Speaker 1: because it's been about a year.
Speaker 2: So I have air tags on my luggage.
Speaker 1: I've got them on my keys, what else I've I've
Speaker 1: put them in my kid's pocket when we went to Disneyland,
Speaker 1: and I just kind of like, had you know, an
Speaker 1: air tag there, you know, you could put them anywhere.
Speaker 1: Whatever you want, whatever you want to keep track of,
Speaker 1: you can do it now. Like I said, that was
Speaker 1: a rare case scenario with the keys with my wife.
Speaker 1: I have yet to have to use these things, but
Speaker 1: I have seen where things are. So I've looked on
Speaker 1: the find my app and I've seen, Okay, my backpack
Speaker 1: is here.
Speaker 2: I know my keys are here.
Speaker 1: But I haven't had a real like mission to find
Speaker 1: something that I've needed that's been attached to an air tag,
Speaker 1: like my keys, or like a lost wallet.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't have one of my wallet. I
Speaker 2: wish I did.
Speaker 1: There's something called Chipolt low Spot and that works with
Speaker 1: defind my network, and so you can get that and
Speaker 1: it did do make a It's called the card Spot
Speaker 1: and that is a card that slips into your wallet
Speaker 1: that does use to find my network. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like an air Tag, but it's a different brand,
Speaker 1: but it still uses Apples Find my Network, which is
Speaker 1: the best in the business. I think someone asked on
Speaker 1: the on the comments Tile versus AirTag. Look, you know, Tile,
Speaker 1: I have not tested in a long time, so I
Speaker 1: should probably retest that. But Tile's finding network is just
Speaker 1: not as great as Apples. Apple is using every iPhone
Speaker 1: and every iPad and every MacBook computer in the world
Speaker 1: to find your stuff. There are a lot of those.
Speaker 1: Tile is using Amazon devices that people have opted to
Speaker 1: let them use. I guess they haven't if they haven't
Speaker 1: opted out, and so that has the potential to be bigger.
Speaker 1: They're also using the Life three sixty app at this point,
Speaker 1: and so Tile was purchased by Life three sixty, and
Speaker 1: anyone who has that app installed in their phone theoretically
Speaker 1: will begin to help find TILE devices. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that has happened just yet. I'm sure it takes
Speaker 1: a little bit of time for this stuff to actually
Speaker 1: start working, but that will make the TILE very competitive
Speaker 1: with the air Tag.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent, But I still think the air tag
Speaker 1: is just designed better, Like it's just the overall like
Speaker 1: the fact that it's built into all of the Apple
Speaker 1: products really makes it very, very advantageous for finding stuff.
Speaker 2: So for your luggage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when I was in Europe, I checked to see
Speaker 1: if my luggage had made it, and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: the luggage is at this airport, So I thought that
Speaker 1: was kind of cool. Even before you know it comes
Speaker 1: out in the luggage conveyor belt. So there's little there's
Speaker 1: a little advantages to air tags. They're kind of those
Speaker 1: things you just set and forget. You just kind of
Speaker 1: put them on stuff and then you just forget about
Speaker 1: it until you need it, and when you do need it,
Speaker 1: it's kind of handy. I know, there are air tag
Speaker 1: accessories for pets. You can put it around the pets
Speaker 1: collar like you get like an air tag for their collar,
Speaker 1: or you can get a caller that has like an
Speaker 1: air tag hanger on it. Also for kids, I know,
Speaker 1: they make a band like an air tag band, but
Speaker 1: you have to keep in mind air tags do not
Speaker 1: have built in GPS, so they will rely on a
Speaker 1: phone or device being nearby for them to be located.
Speaker 1: So if there's no phone or whatever, Like let's say
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of a desert. Let's say you
Speaker 1: dropped your kid in like the middle of a desert
Speaker 1: and you walked away. You know you would not it
Speaker 1: would show you the last known location of that air tag,
Speaker 1: But if your kids started walking towards you, it may
Speaker 1: not show that location because there's nothing that that little
Speaker 1: air tag can ping off of to get a new location.
Speaker 1: So you have to understand how air tags work to
Speaker 1: understand why they're brilliant. But also there are limitations of
Speaker 1: that system.
Speaker 2: So if you just.
Speaker 1: Dropped an AirTag out of an airplane into like a forest,
Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't be able to locate that unless a
Speaker 1: hiker walked by the air tag and it pinged that
Speaker 1: little iPhone in the hiker's pocket and then it said, okay,
Speaker 1: now I've got a lock on this location. For respect
Speaker 1: to the luggage, Derek, I know that you should probably
Speaker 1: put them inside your luggage because you probably want them
Speaker 1: hidden from people. I just think it looks cool on
Speaker 1: my luggage, so I leave it.
Speaker 2: On the outside. It's like a kind of like hanging
Speaker 2: off the luggage.
Speaker 1: So I think It just looks cooler that way, and
Speaker 1: so I keep it on the outside. Yes, someone could
Speaker 1: theoretically just snatch the air tag and throw it away
Speaker 1: and then steal my luggage, but you know what, that's
Speaker 1: the risk I'm willing to take just to look cool.
Speaker 1: All right, good question. Let's get to another topic of
Speaker 1: the show. Facebook is raising the price of the Oculus Quest.
Speaker 1: This is theoretically called the Meta Quest two. This is
Speaker 1: their virtual reality headset. It's gonna cost one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: more starting August first. Kind of odd for a product
Speaker 1: that's been out for two years for them to raise
Speaker 1: the price. But let's be honest, every price has gone
Speaker 1: up in the past year or so, past year, past
Speaker 1: two years. I can't think of a product or service
Speaker 1: that I subscribe to that has not gone up. If
Speaker 1: you pay for gas, if you pay for groceries, if
Speaker 1: you pay for you know, every single little service that
Speaker 1: I subscribe to, they have all gone up.
Speaker 2: And so it's just the reality of our times. Right now.
Speaker 1: Everything's getting more expensive, and that includes gadgets, I mean
Speaker 1: these things. What I've noticed with gadgets is there's two
Speaker 1: ways they can do it. Well, there's two ways I
Speaker 1: guess prices can go up in general. Number one, they
Speaker 1: can just raise the price, or number two, they can
Speaker 1: cut back on something that is maybe included with that gadget.
Speaker 1: So with this metaquest too, this is you know, Facebook's
Speaker 1: virtual reality goggles that are very, very popular, by the way,
Speaker 1: they are just raising the price by one hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I was listening to the tech Meum Ride Home podcast
Speaker 1: and they said that they were going to include a
Speaker 1: game now that they didn't include before. And but you know,
Speaker 1: the reality is, if you have your eye on one
Speaker 1: of these headsets, maybe you want to purchase it before
Speaker 1: the first but you know, don't rush out and get it.
Speaker 2: If you can't.
Speaker 1: These things typically go on sale, and so I have
Speaker 1: a feeling that even though the price is going up
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars, when it comes time during the holidays
Speaker 1: for these sales to start, the prices you know, will
Speaker 1: go down, maybe probably by fifty dollars, maybe not by
Speaker 1: one hundred dollars. So that'll still make it fifty dollars
Speaker 1: more than it is today. But you know, it's one
Speaker 1: of these things. Just to know that it's happening. Now,
Speaker 1: Facebook's coming out with another version of their VR headset,
Speaker 1: but apparently that's going to be eight hundred dollars, so
Speaker 1: if you're waiting for like the new and improved version,
Speaker 1: probably gonna be even more expensive. But just something to
Speaker 1: keep an eye on. And Gaby says on the Instagram chat,
Speaker 1: my gym membership is still the.
Speaker 2: Same, yay.
Speaker 1: I had a gym membership and every year, like clockwork,
Speaker 1: it would just go up every single year by five
Speaker 1: bucks ten bucks. And it was just so kind of
Speaker 1: annoying because the service at the gym kept going down
Speaker 1: and the price just kept going up. And it was
Speaker 1: an expensive gym to begin with. So you know, I
Speaker 1: keep seeing that nine to ninety nine advertised price for
Speaker 1: the Planet Fitness, and I'm like, how are they doing
Speaker 1: that for nine ninety nine a month.
Speaker 2: I don't get it.
Speaker 1: I don't understand how a gym could be ten bucks
Speaker 1: a month. That's an amazing price, and I'm tempted to
Speaker 1: join just for that price tag because I just want
Speaker 1: to see like what a gym is like for nine
Speaker 1: to nine. I mean, that's that's like quite the price tag.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the next question of the podcast.
Speaker 1: Melissa says, when I open up my Safari on iOS.
Speaker 1: I see a section below that reads privacy report? Should
Speaker 1: I or can I delete this information on my phone
Speaker 1: but continue having the app on for.
Speaker 2: Does the privacy report matter? I opened it up on iOS.
Speaker 2: I don't remember turning it on, but it looks good.
Speaker 1: It looks like it's obviously giving me a report on
Speaker 1: my privacy. I'm sure glad that you are so good
Speaker 1: at what you do. Thanks for getting back to me
Speaker 1: with my questions, Melissa, Melissa, this is a feature that's
Speaker 1: built into Safari on iOS and on also on the desktop.
Speaker 1: So Safari has something built in called third party cookie blocking,
Speaker 1: and it also.
Speaker 2: It does a lot like Safari does a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff for privacy purposes.
Speaker 1: Let me open up Safari on my computer just to
Speaker 1: see what it says. So it blocks trackers by default.
Speaker 2: Oh see, I don't have this like okay, So there's
Speaker 2: a okay. So it blocks trackers from profiling you.
Speaker 1: It just basically blocks and prevents trackers from viewing your
Speaker 1: IP address and showing you across websites and following you
Speaker 1: across websites. So it does cross site trackers. It blocks
Speaker 1: those intelligent tracking prevention uses on device Machine learning to
Speaker 1: identify trackers and accessing identifying information. iCloud Private Relay adds
Speaker 1: a layer of protection by preventing websites from viewing your
Speaker 1: IP address. So even if a website, even if the
Speaker 1: trackers are blocked on a website, the websites still know
Speaker 1: your IP address. And Phil is saying incognito mode, the
Speaker 1: fallacy about incognito mode is that it protects your privacy. Now,
Speaker 1: what incognito mode does is all it does is keep
Speaker 1: a record of whatever websites you went to off of
Speaker 1: your browsing history. It does not keep those websites from
Speaker 1: being able to identify who you are by your IP
Speaker 1: address and other methods. So if you're visiting a website
Speaker 1: over and over, that website can recognize that it's you
Speaker 1: coming back because they've identified.
Speaker 2: Your IP address.
Speaker 1: Now, some of the newer browsers like Safari, will cloud
Speaker 1: or will cloak your IP address or change it, and
Speaker 1: so that it makes it a little bit tougher, But
Speaker 1: believe me, these companies are very smart. Incognito mode does
Speaker 1: not protect your employer from seeing the website that you're
Speaker 1: going to, or your Internet service providers.
Speaker 2: I've said this before.
Speaker 1: Whoever is providing your internet connection, that pipe that gets
Speaker 1: you onto the Internet, whether it is you know, Spectrum
Speaker 1: or AT and T or a hotel Wi Fi, they
Speaker 1: can still see the websites that you're going to. They
Speaker 1: may not be able to see what you're doing on
Speaker 1: those websites, you know, the search terms that you're doing,
Speaker 1: or your banking or your email, but they can see
Speaker 1: that you visited, say Gmail or overstock dot com or
Speaker 1: whatever website that you might be going to. So keep
Speaker 1: in mind that this, you know, this idea of private
Speaker 1: browsing is only so private. A VPN is a better
Speaker 1: way of doing that. If you really want to protect
Speaker 1: the website address that you're going to, you need to
Speaker 1: look for a no log VPN. Last I interviewed a
Speaker 1: VPN expert. He recommended MOLVAD, which was the VPN of
Speaker 1: his choice.
Speaker 2: M u lll v A D And you have to
Speaker 2: pay for it.
Speaker 1: I think it's like five bucks a month at least,
Speaker 1: let's see how much it is. Pricing is one month
Speaker 1: yet five dollars a month, so you know you're gonna
Speaker 1: pay for this stuff. These this free ride with all
Speaker 1: these services are just over so anyway to answer your question,
Speaker 1: Melissa about this privacy report. It's totally fine. It's nice
Speaker 1: to see it. If you don't like, you can turn
Speaker 1: it off. So when you're on that page, when you
Speaker 1: open up a new page on Safari, just scroll down.
Speaker 1: There's an edit button. You can press edit, and then
Speaker 1: you can just toggle that privacy.
Speaker 2: Report on or off.
Speaker 1: JK says, VPNs are recommended for people who use the
Speaker 1: dark web. Unfortunately, they have less government oversight but more
Speaker 1: international military protection. So yeah, that's another thing the VPNs
Speaker 1: could be good for. If you're in a foreign country
Speaker 1: that does not allow access to the website that you
Speaker 1: are trying to make it to, Like in China, if
Speaker 1: you're trying to use Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. A
Speaker 1: lot of these websites are blocked and so you know,
Speaker 1: you just can't get to them unless you have a VPN.
Speaker 1: I've been in that I've been in that place, and
Speaker 1: believe me, it's just really frustrating that you can't access
Speaker 1: just very standard websites. Mando says non tech question. Have
Speaker 1: you ever been to San Diego Comic Con? Thoughts on
Speaker 1: the experience?
Speaker 2: Yes, I have.
Speaker 1: I did not go this year, but I've been many
Speaker 1: years in the past, and it's really fun. People that
Speaker 1: go to comic con are very kind. Some of them
Speaker 1: look very scary because they're in like these get ups,
Speaker 1: you know, like the I don't know if there are
Speaker 1: a lots, I guess you can still dress up, but
Speaker 1: they're in like you know, like these when what was
Speaker 1: that show that was really popular, The Walking Dead, So
Speaker 1: you'd see these people like you know, look like zombies
Speaker 1: and this, or they're like all these like clowns and
Speaker 1: evil clowns and stuff, and like they look really scary,
Speaker 1: but they're like the nicest people ever.
Speaker 2: I always found that to be funny.
Speaker 1: Whenever, like I've done a lot of behind the scenes
Speaker 1: stuff with like you know, like a scary farm or
Speaker 1: like whatever, like not scary farm, and the people are
Speaker 1: all dressed up and with the chainsaw, but like they're
Speaker 1: just really nice, like an actor or something. It's very odd. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's get to another topic of the podcast.
Speaker 2: Let's see what I want to talk about.
Speaker 1: Oh, Spotify is discontinuing their car Thing. So Spotify came
Speaker 1: up with this thing called car Thing. Let me know
Speaker 1: if you use it in the comments or if you've
Speaker 1: got one of these things. So this The idea of
Speaker 1: car thing is that you were able to use Spotify
Speaker 1: in a car that only had an auxiliary input, and
Speaker 1: that auxiliary input was you know you typically need like
Speaker 1: an I don't know, like an R whatever. The point is,
Speaker 1: this was like a little gadget that had a screen
Speaker 1: and a rotating wheel and it just made it really
Speaker 1: easy to use Spotify in an older car. And I
Speaker 1: guess nobody used it, so I guess it was not
Speaker 1: very popular.
Speaker 2: So Spotify is going to take a thirty.
Speaker 1: One million dollar charge, basically a write off, like they
Speaker 1: have thirty one million dollars related to this product that
Speaker 1: is not going to see the light of day. I
Speaker 1: got an email saying, hey, do you want to buy
Speaker 1: one for fifty percent off? I think the thing was
Speaker 1: invite only when it started. I emailed Spotify said hey
Speaker 1: can I get one to test? Never heard back, So
Speaker 1: I guess who won in this situation, Spotify. Maybe if
Speaker 1: you had more people reviewing it, maybe it would have
Speaker 1: worked better, maybe it would have gotten the word out more.
Speaker 1: But they ignored me on that. And this was ninety
Speaker 1: dollars when it started. Now it is fifty percent off
Speaker 1: of that, so forty five dollars, but they're discontinuing it.
Speaker 1: So if you have one, it will work, it will
Speaker 1: continue to work. But it's just one of these things
Speaker 1: that mister fit Urn says. I stopped using Spotify and
Speaker 1: just use serious XM and iTunes.
Speaker 2: I use Spotify.
Speaker 1: I actually had to subscribe to Spotify when I got
Speaker 1: my Tesla because that is the service that is integrated
Speaker 1: into the Tesla, and I love it. I mean, Spotify,
Speaker 1: I think is really really good.
Speaker 2: But I also get.
Speaker 1: YouTube music included for free with my YouTube membership, and
Speaker 1: so personally, if I had a choice, I would just
Speaker 1: use YouTube. Now I was using Apple Music when my
Speaker 1: Apple Watch would only work with Apple Music. And this
Speaker 1: is the thing that really bugs me about all of
Speaker 1: this stuff, every one of these companies. You know, I've
Speaker 1: said this before. It's just it's I'm like a broken
Speaker 1: record on this. But it used to be when tech started.
Speaker 1: The people who started these tech companies, they had our
Speaker 1: best intentions at mind, right, So when you started like
Speaker 1: YouTube music or whatever it was, whatever the product was,
Speaker 1: these were nerds that started it, and nerds kind of
Speaker 1: like things to be open source, and they like things
Speaker 1: to be you know, available to everyone. Because that's what
Speaker 1: the Internet was all about at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Well, then as.
Speaker 1: Corporate interests kind of applied their way more into all
Speaker 1: of these services like a YouTube Music or an Apple
Speaker 1: Music or a Spotify, they say, well, let's let's make
Speaker 1: this only work with this product because we have a
Speaker 1: deal with We have a deal with Samsung on the
Speaker 1: on their watches now, so only Spotify is gonna work there.
Speaker 1: We have a deal with Tesla, only Spotify is gonna
Speaker 1: work there. Apple we make the HomePod, We're only gonna
Speaker 1: let Apple Music work on that. And oh we'll throw
Speaker 1: your bone, We'll let Pandora work on that. But it's
Speaker 1: kind of complicated. I mean, it's just not fun for
Speaker 1: the average consumer to have to deal with all of
Speaker 1: these silos.
Speaker 2: Like I'm looking around my house and I'm like, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: that device only works with that service and this device.
Speaker 2: I actually wanted to come up with a spreadsheet of
Speaker 2: the perfect music service.
Speaker 1: I was gonna list all my things like Tesla HomePod, Sonos.
Speaker 1: Sonos is the only product around that works with everything.
Speaker 1: They are truly the Switzerland of streaming services. But little
Speaker 1: caveat here when they came out with their voice service
Speaker 1: their voice service does not work with Spotify or YouTube Music,
Speaker 1: two of the biggest music services out there. So it's
Speaker 1: like I literally need a spreadsheet to figure out which
Speaker 1: one to subscribe to because not everything works with everything
Speaker 1: out there, and it's very, very frustrating for the average consumer. Anyway,
Speaker 1: So Spotify car thing is dead. I'm probably not gonna
Speaker 1: hear about that, but it makes sense. I mean, what
Speaker 1: was the what was the point of Spotify car thing?
Speaker 1: I mean, how many people still have old cars that
Speaker 1: they that want to plug a high tech.
Speaker 2: Little Spotify into.
Speaker 1: I think that those people have cell phones and they've
Speaker 1: already figured out that they could just if they have
Speaker 1: an oxport, they just plug in their cell phone into
Speaker 1: that oxport. And if they don't have an oxport, we're
Speaker 1: talking really old cars, they probably already.
Speaker 2: Got an FM transmitter.
Speaker 1: And if they have a really old car, they probably
Speaker 1: got a cassette tape that goes into their phone. So
Speaker 1: this expensive car thing that requires a subscription to Spotify
Speaker 1: only appeals to a very very small amount of people,
Speaker 1: and so I think that that's why this was not
Speaker 1: very popular. When you're talking Spotify, by the way, has
Speaker 1: four hundred and thirty three million followers are a subscribers
Speaker 1: or I guess active users. That's not subscribers, active users,
Speaker 1: I should say, I think it's just a tiny percentage
Speaker 1: of those fall into that category of Oh, I really
Speaker 1: want this high tech thing, but I'm a connect it
Speaker 1: in an old school way. And John says the fact
Speaker 1: that Tesla's don't have car play baffles me one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Every day I look at that screen, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: Tesla's done a nice thing like this is this is
Speaker 1: it's pretty. But just give me CarPlay. Why do you
Speaker 1: have to reinvent the wheel? Just give me CarPlay, Give
Speaker 1: me Android Auto. With one software update, Tesla can make
Speaker 1: the would make so many drivers infinitely happier by just
Speaker 1: enabling car play on that giant, beautiful screen.
Speaker 2: Just let me have it. Why do I need to
Speaker 2: use your weird screen that like, I just I don't
Speaker 2: want to go off.
Speaker 1: But it's just like it's just every single day my
Speaker 1: wife gets in my car and she has serious XM.
Speaker 1: She loves it because guess what she gets serious XM.
Speaker 1: When she gets into her car, it starts playing. It's
Speaker 1: always playing, it's always working, it's no fiddling.
Speaker 2: I get into my car.
Speaker 1: Every single time I need to press five or ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen buttons to get music going. It's never continuing
Speaker 1: because Spotify does this weird thing where when you play
Speaker 1: it in your house, it stops in your car. When
Speaker 1: you play it in your car, it stops in your house,
Speaker 1: and when you choose a different station at home, it
Speaker 1: transfers that to your When you open the door of
Speaker 1: the car, it stops in the house.
Speaker 2: It's like this.
Speaker 1: They engineered it to like be seamless, but it actually
Speaker 1: does not work out. So for me, I would just
Speaker 1: rather just have something that starts playing when I open
Speaker 1: my car door.
Speaker 2: And yes, the radio does that, which is fine, and I.
Speaker 1: Do have so many I do have actually like a
Speaker 1: failsafe when my because sometimes, by the way, the serious
Speaker 1: does not download. It has to stream every time, so
Speaker 1: nothing's like on your car. So where I live, for
Speaker 1: some reason, it just doesn't like the signal. So I
Speaker 1: get into my car and it's like just spinning, spinning, spinning,
Speaker 1: until I drive like all the way to the freeway,
Speaker 1: and then finally it comes to like, h, I know,
Speaker 1: first world problems, first world problems.
Speaker 2: I know. Let's get you another question. U. This is
Speaker 2: not a question, it's a comment.
Speaker 1: Kathy says, Hey, Rich, We're sitting in our beautiful Hilton
Speaker 1: condo in way Kalowa, Hawaii by Kona, with the news
Speaker 1: on in the background, and suddenly.
Speaker 2: We hear a very familiar voice.
Speaker 1: Our Rich sure gets around heart and flower. Ah, that's
Speaker 1: so nice of you, Kathy. Yeah, people don't realize that
Speaker 1: I'm on in Los Angeles, but the segment is sent
Speaker 1: out to like one hundred TV stations and they just
Speaker 1: run it when they want to, And so Hawaii apparently
Speaker 1: likes to run it a lot. And so I always
Speaker 1: say every time I get an email from Hawaii, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I need to go there. I need to see what
Speaker 1: my segment looks like on TV in Hawaii. Don't you
Speaker 1: think I think that makes a lot of sense. But yes,
Speaker 1: I love my viewers in Hawaii. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for watching. It's funny every time someone from LA travels
Speaker 1: somewhere else, they have the TV on and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I pop up. Because our company owns so
Speaker 1: many TV stations all around the world, No, not around
Speaker 1: the world, just around the US, and you'd be surprised.
Speaker 1: You'd be surprised. We're rich on tech pops up. All right,
Speaker 1: since that wasn't a really question, I will ask another question.
Speaker 1: Jerry says, how to remove your personal info from.
Speaker 2: Google search results.
Speaker 1: I also saw this from Discover any thoughts and he
Speaker 1: included a picture of Discover's privacy protection and I got
Speaker 1: a bunch of emails about this. So privacy protection from
Speaker 1: Discover is a new perk, and if you have it,
Speaker 1: I guess they've been sending people emails about this perk.
Speaker 1: And what they do is this is according to the
Speaker 1: point Sky website. You can enable this new privacy protection
Speaker 1: in the Discover mobile app. It's free for credit card
Speaker 1: and banking customers. Once you enable it, it searches ten
Speaker 1: common websites that collect and sell personal information online that
Speaker 1: includes data like your name, your address, your age, your
Speaker 1: phone number, and it covers the following annoying websites and
Speaker 1: tell us binverified yellowpages dot com, addresses dot com, people
Speaker 1: Looker dot com, any Who dot com, instant peoplefinder dot com,
Speaker 1: people smart dot com, us search dot com, zabasearch dot Com.
Speaker 1: It will search these sites every ninety days and if
Speaker 1: it finds a match, it will submit an opt out
Speaker 1: request on your behalf. So I say one hundred percent
Speaker 1: do this. If this is offered as a privacy choice,
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: I have done many segments with a woman named Haley Kaplan.
Speaker 1: She has a website called what Isprivacy dot com and
Speaker 1: she is fantastic about this stuff. So my advice is
Speaker 1: to get your personal information off as many.
Speaker 2: Websites as possible.
Speaker 1: Why it's just annoying Number one. Number two, it's just
Speaker 1: it's anytime you buy a house or do any sort
Speaker 1: of public transaction, your information is out there. Now is
Speaker 1: it bad if you're just an average regular person. I
Speaker 1: mean it's it's annoying at most, but it could be
Speaker 1: scary at best if people are trying to figure out
Speaker 1: who you are, where you live, all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: Your phone number could be used for spam, your email address, whatever.
Speaker 1: So if you can opt out automatically using this free service,
Speaker 1: I would one hundred percent do that. The other thing
Speaker 1: is you can manually opt out of these websites, and
Speaker 1: I've done it myself. It is a very big process.
Speaker 1: It is not easy. I've actually consulted with Haley about
Speaker 1: getting some of my information off some of the tougher websites.
Speaker 1: Google lets you do this, but it's not easy. It's
Speaker 1: it's not for the faint of heart. It is almost
Speaker 1: impossible to find a way to get your information off
Speaker 1: these sites. But when you do it, they a lot
Speaker 1: of times. It's a process, but it does work and
Speaker 1: you can get your information off of there. It just
Speaker 1: pops up again if you do another transaction, so you
Speaker 1: just have to you know, know that it's not going
Speaker 1: to be perfect. You know, you get off of one,
Speaker 1: it could be on another. But I would do this
Speaker 1: if discovers offering this for free, one hundred percent do it.
Speaker 2: I would definitely do that.
Speaker 1: The less information you have out there about yourself, the better.
Speaker 1: Any app to block phone numbers not listed on my
Speaker 1: phone book asks on Instagram. On iPhone, you can go
Speaker 1: into phone settings and you can block onknown numbers, block
Speaker 1: unknown callers. It is I personally would not do this
Speaker 1: because I feel like, I don't know, you just don't
Speaker 1: want to.
Speaker 2: I just I don't know. I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't want to block all these people that I
Speaker 1: don't know, because what if I get a call from
Speaker 1: someone that I want.
Speaker 2: So here's how you do it. If you want to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Go to settings, go to phone, scroll down, and there's
Speaker 1: a thing called tap silence unknown callers. You tap it
Speaker 1: and you turn it on silenced Unknown numbers are silenced
Speaker 1: or sent your voicemail and they will appear in your
Speaker 1: recent call list. I personally don't want to do that
Speaker 1: because it just I'd rather get the spam calls than
Speaker 1: have calls blocked, because sometimes unknown numbers are important. Could
Speaker 1: be your kid's school, could be could be anything. So
Speaker 1: I'd just rather pick up the phone number if it's random.
Speaker 1: And I will pick up random calls every once in
Speaker 1: a while. Sometimes I'll just let them go to voicemail.
Speaker 1: Other times I will I'll just pick them up and
Speaker 1: just say, hey, what's going on?
Speaker 2: Who is this? Usually you can tell in a second
Speaker 2: if it's spam. All right?
Speaker 1: Uh oh, speaking of spam, this is something that I
Speaker 1: think you should do immediately. Google Calendar has this new
Speaker 1: and I would do this. So do you remember back
Speaker 1: in the day. I don't know if it happens as
Speaker 1: much anymore, but back in the day, people were getting
Speaker 1: a lot of calendar spam. So you would go on
Speaker 1: your calendar and you would look and there'd be an
Speaker 1: event listed there that is a spam event, and what
Speaker 1: they were trying to make you do is click some
Speaker 1: sort of link in the event calendar event bad stuff,
Speaker 1: and so this was really really annoying for a while
Speaker 1: when the spammer's recognize that they can do this or
Speaker 1: realize they can do it, and there was really no
Speaker 1: way to turn it off very easily. There were some methods,
Speaker 1: but now Google has come up with a method. So
Speaker 1: now to keep your Google Calendar free from spam, there's
Speaker 1: an option to display events on your calendar only if
Speaker 1: they come from a sender you know. If you select
Speaker 1: this option, you'll still get email event invitations from unknown senders,
Speaker 1: but they will only appear on your calendar after you accept.
Speaker 1: So what you need to do is go into your
Speaker 1: Google Calendar, go into your settings, go to your event settings,
Speaker 1: and there is a section called add invitations to my
Speaker 1: calendar only if the sender is known, and so you
Speaker 1: select that and basically it will include people in your
Speaker 1: company domain. It will keep people in your contact list,
Speaker 1: keep people that you've interacted with before.
Speaker 2: But if you get.
Speaker 1: A random person sending you a calendar invite that's probably spam.
Speaker 1: It will just not put it automatically on your calendar.
Speaker 1: It will just send it to your email and say, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to put this? Do you want to
Speaker 1: accept this and put this on your calendar. I think
Speaker 1: that's a great little feature. I'm definitely turning that on.
Speaker 2: For sure.
Speaker 1: NESSA says, can you do that with iPhones? Yes, you
Speaker 1: would have to do this setting though in Google Calendar
Speaker 1: on the web. So go on the web, go to
Speaker 1: Google Calendar, put those in your settings and then you
Speaker 1: should be able to that would take that would still
Speaker 1: take hold.
Speaker 2: On your iPhone.
Speaker 1: So good little tip there for Google brand new feature.
Speaker 1: And I got a lot of people on the chat
Speaker 1: talking about the spam callers. Yes, all of the major
Speaker 1: carriers offer a spam filtering app, so AT and T
Speaker 1: has Call Protect, Verizon has Call Filter, and T Mobile
Speaker 1: has Scamguard. You can download those apps, you can activate them,
Speaker 1: and they will help. Doesn't it doesn't get every call,
Speaker 1: believe me, I still get spam callers, but it is
Speaker 1: something that definitely helps. So if you want install it,
Speaker 1: it's free. All the major carriers have something that does
Speaker 1: help with spam, so for sure do that. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the next email, all right, let's see.
Speaker 1: Diana says, Hey, Rich, I love your podcast. Last night,
Speaker 1: I was looking at my iPhone for some travel reservations
Speaker 1: that I store in my Gmail folder. As I click
Speaker 1: to open the folder, I watch all current to December
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, stored mail disappear. I checked another folder, same
Speaker 1: thing happened. It's happening to all current to twenty twenty disappeared.
Speaker 1: Why I'm afraid to check another folder? What's happening? I
Speaker 1: have all Apple products. I checked my iPad, same thing gone.
Speaker 1: Help Diana, Diana, this could be a fluke, but it
Speaker 1: also could be in your settings.
Speaker 2: Sometimes.
Speaker 1: I think that these email services only keep a certain
Speaker 1: amount of emails, like going back to a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time.
Speaker 2: So if it's from.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty to current, that is odd that they would
Speaker 1: be disappearing. If it's before twenty twenty, it could be
Speaker 1: the fact that they just don't sink email before that.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure which one it is. I personally
Speaker 1: don't use the mail app on my iPhone. I use Gmail.
Speaker 1: I do have the mail app logged in for a reason,
Speaker 1: that is so that serie can identify people in callers. Okay,
Speaker 1: a little aside so you ever, if someone ever calls
Speaker 1: your phone and you know how it says maybe and
Speaker 1: it's got the person's name, they say, it's getting that
Speaker 1: is it's using signals from your text messages and your emails.
Speaker 1: So if someone sends you an email and they have
Speaker 1: a signature underneath their email with their phone number, that
Speaker 1: next time that person calls, even if they're not in
Speaker 1: your address book, Siri says, oh, I remember that person
Speaker 1: had their phone number in their signature and it was
Speaker 1: this person's name. Now they're calling from that phone number.
Speaker 1: I will say, maybe it's John from the bank's office
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, whoever it was. So that's where
Speaker 1: they're getting that information for maybe. And for that reason,
Speaker 1: that's why I always log into my Gmail on my
Speaker 1: phone through the mail app, because that's where Siri is
Speaker 1: gathering that information. Siri can't look into the Gmail app,
Speaker 1: but they can look into the mail app, and so
Speaker 1: that's where I use that feature to come in handy.
Speaker 1: So it's a great little feature because especially with me
Speaker 1: and my job and you know, other jobs. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people are you know, are
Speaker 1: calling you. If you're a realtor, you're getting calls from
Speaker 1: various people that might have emailed you. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're a journalist like I am, I'm always getting pr
Speaker 1: people calling me, and so I can identify those people
Speaker 1: because they sent me an email at some point and
Speaker 1: in their email signature was their phone number, and so
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, okay, that's that person.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: So Diana, what I would do is, if this is
Speaker 1: continuing to happen, I would delete the Gmail out of
Speaker 1: your settings and I would just reset it up and
Speaker 1: hopefully that would trigger it to download the emails once again.
Speaker 2: But this seems like a fluke.
Speaker 1: Maybe had a bad connection, maybe setting got changed. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that it's meant to work this way.
Speaker 1: I mean, you should have a certain amount of back
Speaker 1: email on your phone. I know it doesn't download all
Speaker 1: of it at the same time, because that could be
Speaker 1: a significant amount of email. But if it's something before
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, that would make sense that maybe your phone
Speaker 1: just doesn't have that email stored locally. And sometimes when
Speaker 1: you search on your phone, it takes a little longer
Speaker 1: because it's actually searching online. When the iPhone first came out,
Speaker 1: this was kind of a major problem because connectivity on
Speaker 1: the iPhone was so bad when it first came out,
Speaker 1: So anything that had to go to the cloud, like
Speaker 1: when you're searching your email, it was really bad because
Speaker 1: it was looking on your you know, it was looking
Speaker 1: on the server for any sort of emails that weren't
Speaker 1: locally stored, and it was just like game over, like
Speaker 1: you're not finding that email for an hour. Because the
Speaker 1: AT and T network at that point was so bad
Speaker 1: that it was just having an early iPhone. Oh it was.
Speaker 1: It was horrible the connectivity. Even though this phone was
Speaker 1: so magical and so amazing, the AT and T network
Speaker 1: was so nascent, it was so new that it just
Speaker 1: was painful and it was the only by the way,
Speaker 1: the only network you can get the iPhone on for
Speaker 1: many many years was was AT and T. And I
Speaker 1: will never forget the day that Verizon had the iPhone.
Speaker 1: I ran into the Verizon store and got it, and
Speaker 1: I got the I switched to Verizon that because the
Speaker 1: network was just so much better. Anyway, what's next, another story?
Speaker 1: Do we have time for another story?
Speaker 2: Yes we do?
Speaker 1: Oh as I predicted the Pixel six A. I talked
Speaker 1: about it in last week's podcast. Pixel six A is
Speaker 1: the new budget phone to beat fantastic budget phone if
Speaker 1: you can deal with a slower than typical fingerprint reader
Speaker 1: and a slower than typical screen. Otherwise, the camera is fantastic,
Speaker 1: the price is fantastic, the software is fantastic, the size
Speaker 1: is fantastic. Everything about the Pixel six A is really
Speaker 1: good for a basic budget phone, except the price tag.
Speaker 2: I predicted that the price tag of four fifty would.
Speaker 1: Go down to three ninety nine, which is much more
Speaker 1: reasonable for this phone. In fact, I would even I
Speaker 1: would even predict that during the holidays, this phone is
Speaker 1: going to be three hundred and forty nine dollars, which
Speaker 1: is one hundred dollars off the price tag right now.
Speaker 1: Lo and behold nine to five Google reporting that Pixel
Speaker 1: six A is basically three hundred and ninety nine dollars
Speaker 1: right now because they're giving you a.
Speaker 2: Fifty dollars Google Store credit if you buy it now.
Speaker 1: That's not fifty dollars off the price of the phone,
Speaker 1: but it is fifty dollars that you can use towards
Speaker 1: something else, which I know you have to find something
Speaker 1: else to buy. But at the same time, you know
Speaker 1: you can get a case for free. That's that's thirty dollars.
Speaker 1: The leather case is fifty, so it.
Speaker 2: Kind of is like fifty dollars off the price of
Speaker 2: the phone.
Speaker 1: So anyway I called it, I knew it was going
Speaker 1: to happen. I'm pegging the price point for this phone
Speaker 1: to be about three hundred and ninety nine dollars, not
Speaker 1: four fifty. I think I will either even predict that
Speaker 1: it's going to go down to three forty nine during
Speaker 1: the holidays, so be on the lookout for that. If
Speaker 1: you have your eye on this phone. No need to
Speaker 1: get it today. Pixel phones age, I think they age decently.
Speaker 2: With the software, but you have to, you know, just
Speaker 2: keep your eye.
Speaker 1: I don't think you need to get it right now,
Speaker 1: but definitely a budget phone that I will recommend throughout
Speaker 1: the next year. Wendy's says, Hey, Rich, do you know
Speaker 1: of any website that tracks when a hotel has undergone
Speaker 1: a major remodel or basic refresh. I know I can
Speaker 1: call the hotel and ask, but when you're trying to
Speaker 1: choose among several hotel choices, it would be much easier
Speaker 1: to look up on a website. Thanks for your recent
Speaker 1: video about trip Advisor. I love the tricks you demonstrate
Speaker 1: on everything. Thanks again, Wendy, Wendy, I thought I was
Speaker 1: the only crazy person that actually cared about when a
Speaker 1: hotel was last remodeled, but I guess I'm not. So
Speaker 1: I'm glad to know that there are other people like
Speaker 1: myself that like to stay in fresh and clean hotel
Speaker 1: rooms or brand new hotels, hotels that were just built.
Speaker 1: I do not know of a website that aggregates this
Speaker 1: information for every hotel.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I've seen this information on hotel listings, you know, every
Speaker 1: once in a while you'll see it says hotel remodel
Speaker 1: twenty eight, twenty twenty whatever.
Speaker 2: I think. On the Mariot app.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they list this, but it's not one of those
Speaker 1: things that is always readily available.
Speaker 2: And I agree.
Speaker 1: I think that trip Advisor would be a perfect place
Speaker 1: for this information to be listed, because I love it
Speaker 1: if if a hotel was remodeled five years ago, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: that hotel is gonna be a little bit nicer than
Speaker 1: a hotel that was remodeled, you know, fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1: So I don't know of an app that does this.
Speaker 1: If you know of an app that does this, please
Speaker 1: let me know. Hello at richontech dot TV and if
Speaker 1: you're not following me on Instagram, please follow me. I
Speaker 1: am at rich on tech I've been trying to do
Speaker 1: more reels. I've been trying to do more informational reels.
Speaker 1: Like sometimes I just know certain little tips and tricks
Speaker 1: and I'm like, uh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Not everyone knows that.
Speaker 1: Like I'll be doing something in front of a friend
Speaker 1: or family member, or I'll be fixing their phone and
Speaker 1: I do something real quick and they're like, wait, what
Speaker 1: was that? You can put your phone on on low
Speaker 1: power mode?
Speaker 2: How'd you do that?
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you didn't know that, Okay, let
Speaker 1: me show you how to do it. So I've been
Speaker 1: trying to put a little bit of those tips. But
Speaker 1: the problem is, I'm always worried that people are gonna
Speaker 1: make fun of me on Instagram for being like rich
Speaker 1: everyone knows that tip, come on, give me a break.
Speaker 1: That's like the most basic tip ever. But I have
Speaker 1: to ride this line of there are a lot of
Speaker 1: people out there that do not know technology, and so yes,
Speaker 1: if you're following me on Instagram, maybe you know technology,
Speaker 1: maybe you've known that tip forever, but there's also you
Speaker 1: know one hundred other people that have never seen that tip. Like,
Speaker 1: for instance, something I use all the time on my
Speaker 1: web browser is a command shift T, which will bring
Speaker 1: up the last tab that you close, like if you
Speaker 1: close the tab.
Speaker 2: I use this every single day.
Speaker 1: If you close the tab by accident, you need to
Speaker 1: open it back up, you just command shift to and
Speaker 1: it's like boom, it opens up the last tab. And
Speaker 1: so that's like one of those things that I know.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, should I share that as a tip?
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's worth the sixty second reels,
Speaker 1: but maybe it is. AnyWho, All right, do I have
Speaker 1: any other stories I want to talk about?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, one other thing.
Speaker 1: Oh, this is another thing I did on Instagram reels.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Instagram reels take way longer to
Speaker 1: make than you might think. So I am working a
Speaker 1: full day at my TV job and then I'm trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, do another like Instagram reel and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: let me just bang this out real quick, and it's
Speaker 1: like no, it's it takes an hour an hour, and
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 2: To actually do some of these reels.
Speaker 1: So forgive me if I'm not doing a reel every
Speaker 1: single day. What I see, Lasagna is saying any update
Speaker 1: on the Endo Chino story. No, no updates just yet.
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten any you know, anything yet. I haven't
Speaker 1: got my suit yet. So I will update you and
Speaker 1: maybe i'll do like a fitting, Like I'll.
Speaker 2: Do like a little little swing with my suit, all right.
Speaker 1: So on Instagram, I did a video about this map
Speaker 1: update on Google Maps. I thought it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: So Google Maps has now turned one hundred landmarks into
Speaker 1: these photo realistic aerial views, popular landmarks in Barcelona, London,
Speaker 1: New York, San Francisco.
Speaker 2: And Tokyo.
Speaker 1: And this is their first step towards this immersive view
Speaker 1: and this is gonna be phenomenal when it actually happens.
Speaker 2: So let me tell you about these.
Speaker 1: What you want to do is go on your Google Maps,
Speaker 1: look up something like and I looked up like one
Speaker 1: hundred of these things to see which ones they have.
Speaker 1: They have a bunch leaning Tower of Pisa, Empire, State Building, London,
Speaker 1: I Statue, Liberty, Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, Buckingham Palace, Palace
Speaker 1: of Versailles in France. So look up one of those
Speaker 1: things I just mentioned and you'll see underneath on Google
Speaker 1: Maps like a little three sixty spinning version of it.
Speaker 1: Tap that and you'll see Google has created these like
Speaker 1: photo realistic views of these popular landmarks that you can
Speaker 1: look at right now. They're very basic, they're kind of rudimentary,
Speaker 1: but this is all working towards what Google calls immersive view.
Speaker 1: So in the future, very near future, they're using AI
Speaker 1: to pair all those street view images that you that
Speaker 1: they've taken over the years with satellite and aerial imagery.
Speaker 1: So basically the idea that they're what they're doing is
Speaker 1: they will they will eventually let you walk around anywhere
Speaker 1: in the world virtually. So right now, yeaes StreetView. You
Speaker 1: can walk down the street, you can look left, you
Speaker 1: can look right. It's not very good. But what they're
Speaker 1: gonna do is they're gonna merge where you can fly
Speaker 1: swoop down into something, look at the street, stand around,
Speaker 1: look around, then walk into a restaurant that's on that street,
Speaker 1: and see what that restaurant looks like. So this is
Speaker 1: stuff that is going to be incredible. Obviously, it is
Speaker 1: well suited for VR virtual reality. Google knows that in
Speaker 1: the future we're gonna put on these VR headsets like
Speaker 1: the one I was talking about earlier, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: just like it. For say, for instance, if you're going
Speaker 1: to Rome or if you're going to Paris, you're gonna
Speaker 1: walk to your hotel. You're gonna walk down the street
Speaker 1: where your hotel is, you're gonna look up at your hotel.
Speaker 1: Then you're gonna walk into your hotel and check it out.
Speaker 1: And they're building that right now. It is so so cool.
Speaker 1: I am so excited about that, and we'll see how
Speaker 1: cool it is. I I have very high hopes for this.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be like street View, but very immersive and
Speaker 1: just way more than what we have today. So this
Speaker 1: little these little landmarks and aerial three D is just
Speaker 1: kind of a small indication of what's to come.
Speaker 2: And I think it's gonna be really cool. So look
Speaker 2: one of those up.
Speaker 1: See how they made them, See how they look kind
Speaker 1: of like you're like, wait, is that computer generated?
Speaker 2: Is that a real video? Is that a picture?
Speaker 1: It's all of it mixed together, So very very cool Google.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see if I can do one more
Speaker 1: question before we have to go. Ruth says, I enjoy
Speaker 1: your segment on Fox eight News in Cleveland, Ohio. I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that you have a segment on tablets. I've always
Speaker 1: had a Kindle. I'd like to stay with them. I
Speaker 1: do jigsaw puzzles, I read, and I do word games
Speaker 1: on my tablet. I don't need high power, but I
Speaker 1: do like to download my books and puzzles. Extra storage
Speaker 1: is necessary. Thanks ruth an Um. Yeah, I think you
Speaker 1: stick with the fire HD ten or ten plus. I
Speaker 1: think that's going to be your best tablet. The fire tablets,
Speaker 1: I don't recommend all of the time, but I do
Speaker 1: recommend in specific use case scenarios. If you're reading books,
Speaker 1: if you're watching movies, that's all you care about. You
Speaker 1: don't need to download a bunch of apps. You're not
Speaker 1: really even surfing the web that much because I don't
Speaker 1: think it's a very good experience on the kindle tablets.
Speaker 1: Absolutely what you're talking about, jigsaw puzzles, word games, reading,
Speaker 1: downloading books and puzzles, extra storage. This has got all
Speaker 1: of those things covered. Fire HD ten or ten plus.
Speaker 1: Get it on sale if you can. They've got a
Speaker 1: bunch of sales with the Amazon stuff. We just had
Speaker 1: them on sale for Prime Day, so they probably will
Speaker 1: go on sale right around back to school again, but definitely,
Speaker 1: I think that's a good thing to check out. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for the question, Ruthann, and thanks for watching
Speaker 1: Fox A Cleveland. That's a powerhouse station out there that's.
Speaker 2: Going to do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
Speaker 1: go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash rich
Speaker 1: on Tech, hit the Big Blues send email button, or
Speaker 1: go to rich on Tech dot tv hit the email icon.
Speaker 1: If you're on Instagram, hang out because I will talk
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Speaker 1: on Tech. If you follow me on social media, please
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Speaker 1: I'm going to be able to reach more people unless
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Speaker 1: I follow this guy. He's given me some cool stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, I like what he does. Follow him as well.
Speaker 1: No matter where you live in the US, you can
Speaker 1: download the free ktla plus app on Apple TV, Fire TV,
Speaker 1: and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the tech section,
Speaker 1: you can watch all of my TV segments on demand.
Speaker 1: You know, TV is my primary job, so my TV
Speaker 1: segments are really fun. They're interesting, they're useful, so watch
Speaker 1: them on that fire on that KTLA plus app. My
Speaker 1: name is rich Dmiro. Thanks so much for listening. There
Speaker 1: are so many ways you can spend an hour of
Speaker 1: your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here
Speaker 1: with me. I'm gonna talk to you real soon.
Speaker 2: Take care, Tandon