Speaker 1: Apple sets a date for its next big event. Facebook
Speaker 1: makes smart sunglasses that actually look pretty good. Amazon has
Speaker 1: new smart TVs. Plus your tech questions Answered. What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro 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. It's also the place where I
Speaker 1: answer the questions you send me. I'm the tech reporter
Speaker 1: at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. This show is
Speaker 1: geared towards the tech. Well, how do I explain? It's
Speaker 1: it's consumer tech, so you know, obviously it appeals to
Speaker 1: people that are that are super into tech because they
Speaker 1: want to hear how I answer these questions, and they
Speaker 1: want to, you know, maybe pick up a thing or
Speaker 1: two that maybe they don't even know about. But the
Speaker 1: average person can listen to the show and really learned something,
Speaker 1: and that's that's kind of always been the charge of
Speaker 1: the show. I'm on TV in Los Angeles and other
Speaker 1: cities around the nation, and so I get a lot
Speaker 1: of emails from people. You know, it's just seeing me
Speaker 1: on TV and saying, Hey, I'm gonna ask this random
Speaker 1: dude a question about technology, and then they get really
Speaker 1: surprised when I send them back an answer and that
Speaker 1: becomes this podcast, and so it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the questions are very much
Speaker 1: similar that I get. I see the same ones over
Speaker 1: the years, you know, dealing with Wi Fi, dealing with
Speaker 1: account hacking, dealing with iPhone upgrades, dealing with iPhone versus Android,
Speaker 1: dealing with the best cheap smartphone. So there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like recurring themes that I get, which is but
Speaker 1: a lot of people have, you know, even though their
Speaker 1: situation is unique, it does, I guess, translate to a
Speaker 1: lot of different people out there that are listening. So
Speaker 1: that's the purpose of the show. Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1: I've talked about this before, but more and more of
Speaker 1: you are listening, which is really really nice, So thank
Speaker 1: you for that. It feels good. It feels good to
Speaker 1: know that people like this show they continue to listen
Speaker 1: to it. And let's just get into the first big
Speaker 1: story of the week. California. California Apple announced their special
Speaker 1: event is happening on Tuesday, September fourteenth at ten am Pacific.
Speaker 1: The tagline is California Streaming and the invitation that they
Speaker 1: sent to myself along with other journalists which really isn't
Speaker 1: an invitation. Anyone can watch this on YouTube. So it's
Speaker 1: not like the old days where I used to fly
Speaker 1: up to San Francisco or San Jose or Coopertino or
Speaker 1: wherever I would go. Apple in the past held their
Speaker 1: events in assorted places all around San Francisco. You know,
Speaker 1: these cool old theaters. Sometimes they were on campus, other
Speaker 1: times they were just you know, they were everywhere convention centers.
Speaker 1: Now they've you know, they've built their own Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: Theater in Coupertino. They got to use it, I believe,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, three times. Maybe we were up
Speaker 1: there before COVID shut everything down. So that's the reality
Speaker 1: of this. Oh sorry, I got I got spooked for
Speaker 1: a second. I'm trying a new setup. I'm testing a
Speaker 1: mobile setup with my mixer board here. So I've got
Speaker 1: it connected to this little battery called an omni charge.
Speaker 1: And this omni charge thing is like the Rolls Royce
Speaker 1: of portable batteries. It's twenty thousand million amps. It's got
Speaker 1: a regular AC plug on it, then it has USB,
Speaker 1: then it has USB C. Then it also has a
Speaker 1: barrel port, which I think is for charging. And then
Speaker 1: it has wireless on top. So if you want something
Speaker 1: that just can power anything anywhere, even with a regular plug,
Speaker 1: this thing is really cool. A little upwards of one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, but it's so I'm testing plugging in my
Speaker 1: mixture into this device to see if I can take
Speaker 1: my show on the road, so to say, and not
Speaker 1: need a plug wherever I go. And so I just
Speaker 1: got spooked out because this the display went off on it.
Speaker 1: But I'm at eighty eight percent and I've been on
Speaker 1: for four minutes, so I think we're good. And I
Speaker 1: started at ninety percent. So I'm kind of seeing how
Speaker 1: much battery this thing if it can get me through
Speaker 1: a whole show, which hopefully it can. Anyway, if you
Speaker 1: listen to the show, well you know I digress. So
Speaker 1: let's get back to the Apple event September fourteenth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, happening at ten am Pacific. So, like past
Speaker 1: events in the past year and a half, this is
Speaker 1: going to be recorded. It doesn't seem to be live.
Speaker 1: It says broadcasting from Apple Park. It does not say
Speaker 1: live streaming from Apple Park. So what's going to be
Speaker 1: announced at this event? Obviously iPhone thirteen, we don't know
Speaker 1: if that's going to be the exact name of it,
Speaker 1: but that's the model. Then we have the Apple Watch
Speaker 1: Series seven. Those are the two things that we're pretty
Speaker 1: much guaranteed to see during this event, and the rest
Speaker 1: is all up in the air. There could be some
Speaker 1: new AirPods they you know, since it's California streaming, I
Speaker 1: have to imagine they're going to blend in something about
Speaker 1: the Apple TV Plus service. I mean, why would they say.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe they're just making a joke California Streaming,
Speaker 1: but I don't know. It seems like maybe Apple TV
Speaker 1: Plus is in there. We haven't heard much from Apple
Speaker 1: TV Plus in a while. So the iPhone thirteen, if
Speaker 1: you're holding out for this at this point, obviously don't
Speaker 1: buy a new smartphone, but if you're holding out for
Speaker 1: the iPhone thirteen, doesn't seem to be a whole lot
Speaker 1: different from the iPhone twelve, but same form factors. Basically,
Speaker 1: they're going to use the same housing for these phones,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna have the mini to the max. And
Speaker 1: the main thing is faster chips. Mac rumor says faster
Speaker 1: five G tech. I'm not sure what that means. They
Speaker 1: say the biggest change will be the one hundred twenty
Speaker 1: Hurtz Pro Motion display for the Pro Models, which would
Speaker 1: be really cool. So that's smoother scrolling when you're on
Speaker 1: things like Twitter and Facebook and all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: And then always on display has been a rumor. I
Speaker 1: don't know that would be a huge I mean, I'll
Speaker 1: just explain why I love always once because I miss
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff. On my Pixel it's always showing
Speaker 1: me the weather, the time, and my next appointment. And
Speaker 1: on the iPhone, the screen I just call it dead
Speaker 1: because it's just there, and I miss appointments all the
Speaker 1: time because of this. Now you can blame that on me.
Speaker 1: You could say, Rich, well, you're you're lazy, You're not
Speaker 1: that smart. You know, maybe you're just not really with it.
Speaker 1: But I mean, yeah, sure I could take the blame.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna blame it on my phone because that's
Speaker 1: what I like to do. I like to place the
Speaker 1: blame somewhere else. So my phone does not alert me,
Speaker 1: and I've got the Apple Watch on and it gives
Speaker 1: me the little notifications for meetings, like a half an
Speaker 1: hour before and then ten minutes before, and I still
Speaker 1: miss stuff. I don't know what happens here, it's like,
Speaker 1: what is going on? So on my pixel you can't
Speaker 1: miss it because it shows you the next meeting for
Speaker 1: like so long and you just you know, your phone's
Speaker 1: right next to you. So anyway, always on would be
Speaker 1: really cool. As for the Apple Watch, apparently it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a little flattered design look more like the iPhone
Speaker 1: which iPhone design At this point, the iPhone twelve to
Speaker 1: me has the perfect smartphone design. In fact, in the
Speaker 1: year that is launched, I have not held a phone
Speaker 1: that feels better in the hand than the iPhone twelve.
Speaker 1: So Apple did a really really nice job on that.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it. I'm not going to go into
Speaker 1: like all the rumors, but the bottom line is when
Speaker 1: the new stuff comes out, the old stuff is either discontinued.
Speaker 1: So there could be this scenario where the iPhone twelve
Speaker 1: will no longer be available and it will be the
Speaker 1: iPhone eleven and the iPhone thirteen. Sometimes they throw us
Speaker 1: that loop, and I'm not a big fan of that,
Speaker 1: but prices definitely come down for stuff in the past
Speaker 1: because you know the reason why they do that is
Speaker 1: because if you're sitting there in the Apple store and
Speaker 1: you can go, well, I can get the iPhone twelve,
Speaker 1: or I can go iPhone thirteen. We'll all save money
Speaker 1: and go iPhone twelve. They don't want you to do that.
Speaker 1: They want you to go with the newest, latest, greatest,
Speaker 1: So they make you They put a little challenge in
Speaker 1: your way. They say, well, you get your choice of
Speaker 1: the iPhone eleven or the iPhone thirteen. You're like, oh gosh,
Speaker 1: iPhone eleven it's like two years old. It's like, eh,
Speaker 1: two year old smartphone. Oh no way, and so therefore
Speaker 1: you spend more money on the iPhone thirteen. Anyway. Can't
Speaker 1: wait to see what Apple launches. Should be exciting California
Speaker 1: streaming September fourteenth, ten am Pacific. I will be there
Speaker 1: virtually of course. All right, let's get to the first question.
Speaker 1: Dan said, a while back, you mentioned some of the
Speaker 1: better free virus detectors for Mac computers. Any chance of
Speaker 1: an update to that list? Thanks Dan and Carrie Illinois. Dan,
Speaker 1: I use a website for this. Basically I always recommend
Speaker 1: a vast or AVG, but apparently a vast I think
Speaker 1: we talked about it in the show is being purchased
Speaker 1: by Norton I'm not sure what that's going to do
Speaker 1: to the quality of the antivirus. I'm sure in some
Speaker 1: ways it'll be better. In some ways it'll be worse
Speaker 1: because they're probably gonna try to sell you on more things.
Speaker 1: But he's a website called avdashtest dot org and you
Speaker 1: can look at the best anti virus for home business smartphones. Now,
Speaker 1: I personally don't think you need antivirus on a Mac
Speaker 1: computer at this point in time. But if you really
Speaker 1: want to feel secure, then sure, go ahead. I just
Speaker 1: don't think that you need it. I actually think that
Speaker 1: people these days need more protection against social engineering hacks
Speaker 1: than actual viruses, because we're kind of hip to viruses
Speaker 1: that you know, Oh here's a PDF, open it up immediately,
Speaker 1: and also run this macro so that we can take
Speaker 1: over your system. Like most people don't fall well, maybe
Speaker 1: some people do, but at this point, you know, we're
Speaker 1: not really a lot of our stuff is being done
Speaker 1: in the cloud, and it just doesn't have the same
Speaker 1: amount of issues as it used to when we were
Speaker 1: exchanging files all the time, and especially word documents and
Speaker 1: stuff like that that might have macros that run that
Speaker 1: take over your system or install spyware. So I just
Speaker 1: don't think we need it, really, but if you want it,
Speaker 1: you can get it. But a vast is what they're
Speaker 1: saying is their number one top pick for security for
Speaker 1: mac os, So I would go with that for now,
Speaker 1: but I don't necessarily think you need it. And the
Speaker 1: social engineering I was talking about really comes down to
Speaker 1: things that get email to you and trick you, or
Speaker 1: things that get texted to you and trick you, or
Speaker 1: websites that try to trick you. That I think is
Speaker 1: a much bigger problem and one that is not easily
Speaker 1: solved by some of this antivirus. You can't antivirus could
Speaker 1: maybe identify the website is a little bit odd, but
Speaker 1: it can't keep you from putting your password in there
Speaker 1: and then now being hacked. So that's what i'd recommend,
Speaker 1: and a good question because people love their antivirus. That's
Speaker 1: for sure. Big business this antivirus stuff. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get to the next story. Facebook. Oh how appropriate that
Speaker 1: I said story. Facebook has a new pair of smart
Speaker 1: sunglasses called ray Band Stories. These are going on sale
Speaker 1: for two hundred and ninety nine dollars and I have
Speaker 1: not gotten mind just yet. Facebook is sending me a
Speaker 1: reviewers unit. They sent them to everyone. You know, I've
Speaker 1: realized that I'm on the B list or maybe even
Speaker 1: C or D of these reviewer units. So it's fine.
Speaker 1: I've come to accept that. But that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: just I'm happy to be on these lists, honestly, because
Speaker 1: not everyone is. And so the fact that Facebook reached
Speaker 1: out and said, hey, we can get you a pair
Speaker 1: of these things if you'd like, if you'd want to
Speaker 1: test them out, I say sure. And then the next
Speaker 1: day I see that every reviewer in the world has
Speaker 1: got them two weeks ago. So that's fine, but I'll
Speaker 1: take it. I'll take it. I'll take it. So Facebook
Speaker 1: ray Bands Stories they're called. So these are sunglasses that
Speaker 1: actually look really cool. They look like normal or I
Speaker 1: should say typical ray bands the wayfarers. They've got two
Speaker 1: front facing cameras in them for capturing videos and photos.
Speaker 1: Then they have this new app from Facebook called Facebook
Speaker 1: View and so that app connects to the camera. You
Speaker 1: can take pictures by saying Hey Facebook, which is another
Speaker 1: yet another wake word. I'm gonna say, why aww, yet
Speaker 1: another wake word. So now we have Hey Facebook, it'll
Speaker 1: take a video or a picture. I'm not sure which one.
Speaker 1: I guess you can say, hey Facebook, take a video
Speaker 1: or hey Facebook, take a picture. That's the extent of
Speaker 1: that right now. But the cool thing is these clips
Speaker 1: can be shared to any app on your phone, not
Speaker 1: just Facebook or Instagram. And I'll be honest, like, I
Speaker 1: think this is really really cool. And the way that
Speaker 1: these look, the way that they function, I feel like
Speaker 1: these could be the sunglasses that actually break through into mainstream. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's gonna happen overnight, but for me personally,
Speaker 1: I'm on so many stories. I'm on so many different
Speaker 1: shoots and stuff, and I see a lot of cool
Speaker 1: stuff and it takes a lot of work to sit
Speaker 1: there and remember to Facebook or story or Instagram stories
Speaker 1: or whatever. And I just don't do it because I
Speaker 1: just forget and the to have these on all the
Speaker 1: time and just kind of you know, tap at a
Speaker 1: little shutter button on your temple and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: it records a little clip and then you can share
Speaker 1: it later on. I think that's really cool. Now. The
Speaker 1: other thing, quite honestly, that keeps me and I'm very
Speaker 1: honest with you, because you're a listener of this podcast,
Speaker 1: and I don't say all this stuff on TV, but
Speaker 1: when you're listening ear to ear to what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: I think that I have a responsibility to be, you know,
Speaker 1: open and honest with you because you're spending all this
Speaker 1: time listening to my voice. And so quite honestly, one
Speaker 1: of the reasons I don't share so much on Instagram
Speaker 1: Stories is I'm on TV. I'm a public figure. You know,
Speaker 1: probably not everyone likes me out there, and you know,
Speaker 1: if I'm sitting there in real time sharing every restaurant
Speaker 1: I'm eating at, or sharing every single place I'm at
Speaker 1: in real time, there could definitely be some security concerns there.
Speaker 1: I don't think the average person has that. Perhaps they
Speaker 1: do with an X that could be keeping watch over them,
Speaker 1: or you know, if some one is just I mean,
Speaker 1: look at you. Think about how much information we put
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Facebook these days. I mean, you can
Speaker 1: see where or get an understanding of someone is in
Speaker 1: almost near real time, so it is a concern. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I've talked about this thing where Instagram should really have
Speaker 1: a delayed post feature where you can post in real time,
Speaker 1: but it will just delay your post for you know,
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. I mean, that would be perfect. You
Speaker 1: don't have to do it for every post, but I
Speaker 1: think that would be a really smart thing for them
Speaker 1: to do, not just for engagement, because I think more
Speaker 1: people would share if they knew that this was not
Speaker 1: going to be shared for twenty four hours. And I
Speaker 1: get it, Yes, there are some things you want to
Speaker 1: share in the moment, but most things can wait. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're watching kind of a film reel off someone's life,
Speaker 1: like does it really matter if you see them in
Speaker 1: that moment at that cool hotel in Miami or the
Speaker 1: next day, it doesn't really matter, And depending on when
Speaker 1: you look at the story, it could be twenty four
Speaker 1: hours later anyway. So the reality is I think that
Speaker 1: that would be a really cool way to drive engagement
Speaker 1: and also make people feel a little bit more secure,
Speaker 1: And especially with these glasses coming out, because if I
Speaker 1: had a delayed post feature, I would probably post like
Speaker 1: everything I do, because why not, it's kind of fun
Speaker 1: to share. So these glasses, if they're reminding you of Spectacles,
Speaker 1: which are from Snapchat, Yes, now I tested Spectacles and
Speaker 1: I will tell you they were not my cup of tea.
Speaker 1: They only worked with Snapchat, and yeah, you could export
Speaker 1: the video and post it to other apps, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't very easy and they didn't look very good. They
Speaker 1: looked very like these are glasses with a camera in them,
Speaker 1: and I think Snapchat was going for that, but I
Speaker 1: think that really kind of burned them in the end,
Speaker 1: because no one wants to wear those. These look like
Speaker 1: regular sunglasses, and in fact, people may not realize that
Speaker 1: they are cameras. So the other cool thing about these
Speaker 1: is that they've got Bluetooth built in, so you can
Speaker 1: take calls, you can listen to music or podcasts, and
Speaker 1: from what I remember with the Echo frames from Amazon,
Speaker 1: I loved that ambient audio feature. Just being able to
Speaker 1: listen to music without my ears being plugged up or
Speaker 1: being able to take phone calls was really cool. Except
Speaker 1: in the case of those glasses, they were just window glasses,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't really something that I wanted to wear
Speaker 1: when I didn't need to be wearing glasses. So these
Speaker 1: are sunglasses, which I wear a lot. I live in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and so these I'm very very excited for.
Speaker 1: These five megapixel camera on These things can capture. According
Speaker 1: to the Verge, over three dozen thirty second video clips
Speaker 1: or five hundred photos before the memory fills up and
Speaker 1: you know it's a battery. And also some lights to
Speaker 1: indicate that you're recording or when you need to to
Speaker 1: charge these things. And so again, I don't think the
Speaker 1: audio and video quality on these are going to be
Speaker 1: the best. You know, this is miniature stuff that is
Speaker 1: very first generation, so I think it's going to get better.
Speaker 1: But from what I saw on Instagram a couple of
Speaker 1: the people Joshua Vagara that shared some one of these
Speaker 1: influencers that I follow, I thought the video quality that
Speaker 1: he shared looked awesome. I mean, I thought it looked great,
Speaker 1: and it looks really fun. He was like taking the
Speaker 1: glasses off, turning him around, looking at himself. I mean,
Speaker 1: I thought it was really cool. So anyway, two hundred
Speaker 1: and nine and nine dollars available right now. I will
Speaker 1: have more on them in the future when I get
Speaker 1: to test them out. Batteries holding steady at eighty five percent, well,
Speaker 1: I guess it's not really holding steady, but batteries at
Speaker 1: eighty five percent and we're yeah, about a quarter of
Speaker 1: the way through, So that's pretty good, Nina writes in Hello,
Speaker 1: do you have any suggestions for transferring eight millimeters videotapes
Speaker 1: to digital files. The camera they were shot on is
Speaker 1: no longer working, Thank you, Nina, Nina. I did a
Speaker 1: story on this many years ago on KTLA and I
Speaker 1: transferred a bunch of my stuff. It is. It is
Speaker 1: a long process. It's not quick, and it's not easy.
Speaker 1: And a lot of times, like you said, the camera
Speaker 1: that you have, you no longer have access to, or
Speaker 1: it doesn't work, or it's just not very good. And
Speaker 1: so I think that doing it yourself is fun and
Speaker 1: it's in you know, it's an easy DIY. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe not easy, but it's a it's a DIY that
Speaker 1: you can do and accomplish because it's not overly complicated.
Speaker 1: You basically get one of these devices which i'll mention,
Speaker 1: you connect your camera or your video player to it,
Speaker 1: and then you record on your computer. And then the
Speaker 1: toughest part is actually the files, like whether you trim
Speaker 1: them or chop them or whatever you do, but toss
Speaker 1: them all in Google Photos no matter what, because it
Speaker 1: identifies the people inside those photos and even the places
Speaker 1: in the videos, sorry I should say in the videos.
Speaker 1: And so it's it's really, really powerful stuff, and so
Speaker 1: I can go and check out all the photos of
Speaker 1: my grandma, you know, even though I didn't even know
Speaker 1: she was in some of these birthday party videos, but
Speaker 1: there she is, you know, So that's really neat. Okay.
Speaker 1: Two I tested were el Gato Video Capture for Mac
Speaker 1: and the Roxio Easy VHS to DVD three for PC.
Speaker 1: Both of these are pretty much the same. They are
Speaker 1: a dongle that you plug in via us BE to
Speaker 1: your computer and then you use the little cables I
Speaker 1: think they're called RCA cables to plug in your video player. Now,
Speaker 1: you said that your cam quorder no longer works, So
Speaker 1: what I would recommend for that eight millimeter is I
Speaker 1: would go on eBay and you can buy a cam quarder. Now,
Speaker 1: before you do that, I would just talk to some
Speaker 1: family and friends. That's what I did, and you can
Speaker 1: borrow one of these. Someone's got it laying around the
Speaker 1: house and oh, yeah, I've got that. So I borrowed
Speaker 1: a VCR from my father in law and I borrowed
Speaker 1: a trying to remember where did I get the VHS camera?
Speaker 1: Was it? I don't remember? The sorry, the whatever camera
Speaker 1: I used? I use an eight millimeter and I don't
Speaker 1: really remember where I got it. I think maybe I
Speaker 1: bought it on Amazon. I can't remember. Sorry, on eBay,
Speaker 1: I can't remember. But anyway, they're both back to their
Speaker 1: rightful owners. So yeah, I'm trying to remember where I
Speaker 1: got the camera. Anyway, That's what i'd recommend now, if
Speaker 1: you don't feel comfortable doing it yourself, if you feel
Speaker 1: like a I don't want to deal with this, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do it, I would just recommend
Speaker 1: going on Yelp and you can find someone that will
Speaker 1: do this near you. And so all I would do
Speaker 1: is type in VHS and even if you just type
Speaker 1: that in the AI will take over and it should
Speaker 1: Let's see, if I type VHS, it'll immediately VHS to digital,
Speaker 1: VHS to DVD. You type VHS to digital and you
Speaker 1: will find all kinds of places near you. So my
Speaker 1: thing is that I don't really want to send these
Speaker 1: out because these are my precious video tapes, and so
Speaker 1: I want these done locally, and I want them at
Speaker 1: a place where I can bring them in. And so
Speaker 1: you will find people that you know, someone just has
Speaker 1: a little you know, camera shop or a video production
Speaker 1: facility or whatever and they just do this on the side,
Speaker 1: or they do it as their business, but no matter what,
Speaker 1: call them up, ask them if they do it on location,
Speaker 1: and how much it is per tape usually it's fifteen
Speaker 1: twenty bucks a tape, and how they deliver you the
Speaker 1: final product, which these days should be digital not. You
Speaker 1: don't want them on DVD because that's way too complicated
Speaker 1: to ever rip again. Or I should say transfer to
Speaker 1: digital because I've got all all this stuff on DVD
Speaker 1: from when I was a reporter in Louisiana, and getting
Speaker 1: that onto a digital format that's not DVD like a
Speaker 1: you know, just a regular file is kind of a process,
Speaker 1: and so I would not recommend getting them on DVD
Speaker 1: at this point. All right, let's talk Amazon. Amazon is
Speaker 1: coming out with its own TVs, and Amazon is really
Speaker 1: they are. I'm reading this book Amazon Unbound right now,
Speaker 1: which is an excellent book all about Amazon and all
Speaker 1: about how evil Amazon is and how bad they are
Speaker 1: and how terrible Jeff Bezos is, which I joke because
Speaker 1: that's kind of like the point of the book, like
Speaker 1: it's just like everything is just terrible about Amazon, which
Speaker 1: is conflicting to me because I mean, I really like Amazon,
Speaker 1: and I think the impact that Amazon has had in
Speaker 1: my life has been amazing. So let me give you example.
Speaker 1: Everyone says Amazon is evil, right, Okay, so let's go
Speaker 1: to Target and buy the stuff that you need, or
Speaker 1: let's go to a local place and buy the stuff
Speaker 1: that you need. Let me give you an example from
Speaker 1: my personal experience. My kid needed stuff for baseball, and
Speaker 1: so you know, you can go to the local sports
Speaker 1: shop and they may or may not have what he
Speaker 1: needs in stock, and if it's in stock, it's not
Speaker 1: guaranteed to be in his size. Where on Amazon you
Speaker 1: can search, you can read reviews, you can ask friends,
Speaker 1: and what's the link of this thing? So I understand
Speaker 1: there's this thing of like Amazon has just pulverized so
Speaker 1: many businesses. But you know, it's this is the natural
Speaker 1: progression of our world. I mean, you can't stop it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't like the old days of the mom and
Speaker 1: pop on Main Street, like is just not happening anymore.
Speaker 1: Like nobody's sitting there saying, oh, I'm gonna start a
Speaker 1: small you know whatever. Now you can still do that
Speaker 1: and be successful. And by the way, you can sell
Speaker 1: your stuff on Amazon and Etsy and all kinds of
Speaker 1: other places, and so it's not like it doesn't happen anymore.
Speaker 1: But this this whole idea that Amazon is just pure evil,
Speaker 1: Like I'm just not sure I agree with that. And
Speaker 1: I think that, you know, Amazon is on a lot
Speaker 1: of things in recent years to get better. And you
Speaker 1: have to remember this is a new company. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: they've been around for twenty something years at this point,
Speaker 1: but a lot of these companies are finding their way
Speaker 1: in the world. And yeah, what Amazon did on day
Speaker 1: one may not be the same thing that they did
Speaker 1: day you know, forty five thousand, which it's interesting I
Speaker 1: mentioned day one, but that's Amazon's mantra is they actually
Speaker 1: want to do things as you would do them on
Speaker 1: day one. Like and I'll give you an example for myself.
Speaker 1: I've been at my job for ten years, and so
Speaker 1: there are things that I do that I find myself
Speaker 1: wanting to change, but I can't because it is human
Speaker 1: nature to just continue doing things the way that you
Speaker 1: do them. And I sit there and I'm like, ah, Rich,
Speaker 1: you should really try to do this differently. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: but I know this works, and I know that this
Speaker 1: is the way I've done it in the past, and
Speaker 1: so we want to challenge ourselves and we want to
Speaker 1: continue growing and evolving. And so that's that day one
Speaker 1: mantra of Amazon, which you know, you got to give
Speaker 1: them credit for. And I think that we all need
Speaker 1: a little bit of that. And so sometimes I will
Speaker 1: lenge myself to do things on my own or in
Speaker 1: different ways, and it may not always work out, but
Speaker 1: that is kind of like what I've personally realized is
Speaker 1: a way to continue growing as an individual and as
Speaker 1: an employee and as a presenter or whatever, you know, journalist. Anyway,
Speaker 1: all of that to say, Amazon has its own new
Speaker 1: TVs and so these are called the Omnia TVs. And
Speaker 1: I had some notes, Okay, Omnia series smart TVs. They've
Speaker 1: got four K ultra HD. And the big new feature
Speaker 1: here is that these are Amazon TVs. Like they're branded Amazon.
Speaker 1: They're not TCL, they're not Visio, they are not Toshiba,
Speaker 1: they're not Pioneer, they're not Westinghouse, they're not Insignia. They
Speaker 1: are Amazon. And so it's called fire TV Omni series.
Speaker 1: Oh Omni, I say, Omnia Omni. Omnia is a club
Speaker 1: in Vegas. So four K ultra HD and the big
Speaker 1: thing is this new hands free alex A feature, And
Speaker 1: the hands free feature is that you can basically ask
Speaker 1: alex A all kinds of stuff like, hey, tune into
Speaker 1: Channel five, or tune into the ballgame, Hey play some
Speaker 1: new play a newly released movie, which why would you
Speaker 1: ever ask that? Play newly released movies? Like, oh, I
Speaker 1: guess you can ask like play whatever the movie name is, okay,
Speaker 1: And you can also find your favorite TV show. So basically,
Speaker 1: they've built in a souped up version of alex or
Speaker 1: alex A that can really just get you to stuff
Speaker 1: without a lot of searching. And we need that because
Speaker 1: that's that's a necessary thing. So they've got four k
Speaker 1: Ultra HD. And let's see some of the other features
Speaker 1: of these TVs that I had Oh right here, sorry, okay,
Speaker 1: I did have notes. Wow, look at this. So they've
Speaker 1: got a forty three inch all the way up to
Speaker 1: seventy five inch models, and they've got support for HDR
Speaker 1: Dolby Digital Plus. Does it have Dolby at Mos Dolby
Speaker 1: at Mos. The other thing is you can, oh, the
Speaker 1: TVs don't seem to have doll No, the TVs do
Speaker 1: not have Dolby at most because only the new firestick
Speaker 1: does it looks like? But anyway, these TVs are an
Speaker 1: amazing deal, and in fact, I may be tempted to
Speaker 1: purchase this. I was gonna get the Google TV, but
Speaker 1: now I'm like, hmm. Amazon is definitely a larger platform
Speaker 1: than Google is. And this TV ready for this is
Speaker 1: eight hundred and twenty nine dollars for a sixty five
Speaker 1: inch TV. I mean, that is just unbelievable to me
Speaker 1: that I can get a really nice TV for that price.
Speaker 1: So also, you can hook up Echo speakers like the
Speaker 1: Echo Studio and other Echo smart speakers wirelessly for immersive sounds.
Speaker 1: That's kind of cool if you want to, like you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, Amazon has just built such a great ecosystem
Speaker 1: with all their Echo products and alex A products, so
Speaker 1: you're not going to be law at a loss for
Speaker 1: stuff to connect to this, right. It works with ring doorbell,
Speaker 1: so if someone rings your doorbell, you'll see their video
Speaker 1: on your screen. So there's just so many things that
Speaker 1: this really. It works with cable it works with streaming,
Speaker 1: it works with music, gaming, all kinds of stuff. It's
Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of that fire TV cube that
Speaker 1: kind of controlled your cable box and stuff, except now
Speaker 1: that's built into this TV. So I think this is
Speaker 1: very compelling. TikTok is also going to be on here. Wow,
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, that's a win. I haven't watched
Speaker 1: TikTok on the big screen, but there is some interesting
Speaker 1: stuff on there. I will say. Also, you can connect
Speaker 1: a webcam to the back of this TV and you
Speaker 1: can do zoom, you can do alex a calling video calling.
Speaker 1: So I mean there is a lot that you can
Speaker 1: do with this TV. I think it's a really fantastic value.
Speaker 1: So and a lot of people love the Fire platform,
Speaker 1: the Fire TV platform, so it's just an easy win
Speaker 1: to just go with the TV that has built in. Now,
Speaker 1: if you've listened to this podcast for a long time,
Speaker 1: you're thinking yourself rich dude, bro, you never say you
Speaker 1: always say not to go with a TV that has
Speaker 1: a software smart's built in, And yes, I agree, and
Speaker 1: very good catch on my part or on your part
Speaker 1: about me. But here's the thing. This is a platform
Speaker 1: that is pretty well developed. This is a platform that
Speaker 1: is established. It's a platform that is dominant, and I
Speaker 1: don't really see an issue if you want this TV
Speaker 1: at this price and you want something that's very simple.
Speaker 1: I don't really see a huge issue in recommending this.
Speaker 1: So yes, I always like the fact that you can
Speaker 1: be independent and purchase your TV separately and then add
Speaker 1: a streaming stick or a box to the TV and
Speaker 1: the software is better and it's updated more. But I
Speaker 1: don't think that's the case here. I think that you'll
Speaker 1: be just fine with this, and so for that reason,
Speaker 1: I'm going to recommend it and say go for it
Speaker 1: if you want it. I may this may be my
Speaker 1: next TV. Let's see when's it a available. It is
Speaker 1: available October twenty seventh, So let me give you some
Speaker 1: of the pricing. Forty three inches four hundred about four
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, fifty inches five hundred, fifty five inch, five
Speaker 1: to sixty sixty five inch eight twenty nine and seventy
Speaker 1: five inch is eleven hundred bucks. That is unbelievable. Now,
Speaker 1: they also came out with the new Fire TV Stick
Speaker 1: four K Max. This is the first time they've updated
Speaker 1: the Fire TV stick in a while. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit more expensive. It's fifty five dollars, but it's forty
Speaker 1: percent more powerful than before, and it has Wi Fi
Speaker 1: six and it also supports four K four k UHD
Speaker 1: HDR and HD ten plus, as well as Dolby Vision
Speaker 1: and Dolby Atmos, so you are covered and you can
Speaker 1: connect the same speakers wirelessly. So this little Firestick Max
Speaker 1: is excellent. I would not recommend buying that right now
Speaker 1: because it is fifty four ninety nine, which means it
Speaker 1: is priced to go on sale. This will be on
Speaker 1: sale for forty four ninety nine. It'll be on sale
Speaker 1: for fifty dollars, So fifty five dollars. Yes, it's not
Speaker 1: that expensive in the scheme of things, but I know
Speaker 1: you can get it for cheaper. And so what I
Speaker 1: would do is just put an alert on Camel Camel
Speaker 1: Camel and pop in this fire TV stick for Kmax,
Speaker 1: and you'll get an alert this is hey, this thing's
Speaker 1: on sale. It will go on sale. I guarantee it,
Speaker 1: So just wait for that, all right, Let's get to
Speaker 1: the next question, Daniel says rich. When my wife uses
Speaker 1: her iPhone to pay at Starbucks, her screen goes dark
Speaker 1: or blackened. To get back to white screen, she has
Speaker 1: to swipe up and reset the brightness. Is there a
Speaker 1: reason for this? Starbucks is the only place that does this.
Speaker 1: It looks like it's an older model iPhone, thank you, Daniel, Daniel.
Speaker 1: What's happening here is that the phone is automatically adjusting
Speaker 1: the brightness to let her scan the code to pay
Speaker 1: for things at Starbucks. And what's happening is somehow, well,
Speaker 1: it's going darker after it's done, or it times out
Speaker 1: or something, or maybe this phone is just a little
Speaker 1: bit older and it doesn't want to it's not coded
Speaker 1: properly with the software. But that is what's happening. It's
Speaker 1: something to do some of these apps where you scan
Speaker 1: the screen, like whether it's a you know, an app
Speaker 1: for your boarding pass or an app at the grocery
Speaker 1: store or you know, the target app. They all basically
Speaker 1: do this thing where they boost the brightness of your
Speaker 1: screen to make it so that it's easier for the
Speaker 1: laser to scan the screen. And it used to be
Speaker 1: a real problem. Now it works much better than it
Speaker 1: used to, and a lot of places are actually instead
Speaker 1: of using standard barcodes or using QR codes, which is
Speaker 1: a lot easier because it's image recognition versus actually scanning lines,
Speaker 1: and so for that reason, it's a lot easier for
Speaker 1: these systems to recognize the QR codes, and that's why
Speaker 1: you've seen such a strong adoption of those. But in
Speaker 1: this case, something's going something's going wrong. It's it's something
Speaker 1: you know. I'd recommend uninstalling the app and reinstalling it,
Speaker 1: restart the phone. But I think it could be that
Speaker 1: this phone is just maybe not coded properly for this
Speaker 1: for what's happening here, because you're saying the screen is
Speaker 1: going dark when in reality the screen should brighten up
Speaker 1: and then usually it was, so when the thinking is
Speaker 1: happening is it's brightening up, and then it's when the
Speaker 1: phone is adjusting back down to the standard brightness. It's
Speaker 1: bringing it way down and way too down. The only
Speaker 1: other thing I'd do is I go into your settings
Speaker 1: on your phone and make sure that automatic brightness under
Speaker 1: display is is chosen. I would show you exactly how
Speaker 1: to get there, but I'm on my Facebook broadcasting live
Speaker 1: here to Facebook rooms, and so I can't go into
Speaker 1: my settings without I'm not sure if it stays live
Speaker 1: in the background. So that's what I would do, is
Speaker 1: just go into your display settings on your iPhone settings
Speaker 1: display and look for anything with brightness and there should
Speaker 1: be an automatic one, and that should that should help
Speaker 1: you out there. But yeah, that's an odd problem. But
Speaker 1: you know that, Daniel, the new iPhone thirteen's coming out,
Speaker 1: so you can just buy a new one. Just kidding.
Speaker 1: I know every every tech person ever, like back for
Speaker 1: like ten years, would be like, oh, the solution of
Speaker 1: this problem is just buy something new. So no, we should.
Speaker 1: We should have the stuff that we have, work with
Speaker 1: with what we want to work. So that's the way
Speaker 1: it should happen. Hulu is raising prices and I posted
Speaker 1: this on my Facebook page and I was kind of
Speaker 1: a little snarky, and I said, you know, did you
Speaker 1: think that streaming would be any different than cable? I mean,
Speaker 1: really we are. We are a couple of years into
Speaker 1: streaming and guess what, everyone cut the cord so that
Speaker 1: they could save money. And is it really saving much money? Maybe?
Speaker 1: But I think there are some advantages to streaming that
Speaker 1: are still true. That's still hold true and number one, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's just talk about Hulu first before I go
Speaker 1: into my diatribe about this. Is that? What does that mean? Diatribe?
Speaker 1: Why sometimes I say these words I don't even know
Speaker 1: what they mean. Diatribe a forceful or bitter verbal attack
Speaker 1: against something. Okay, yuess that is a diatribe. Uh. So
Speaker 1: Hulu is raising the prices on October eighth, So plans
Speaker 1: are going up by a buck. So if you pay
Speaker 1: six dollars, you're gonna be paying seven dollars for the ads.
Speaker 1: If you pay twelve dollars, you'll be paying thirteen dollars
Speaker 1: for no ads, which is what I pay for. But
Speaker 1: mine's part of this like weird bundle, so which I
Speaker 1: didn't realize until I went and checked my prices and
Speaker 1: I said, oh, you're part of that Disney Plus bundle.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, I don't even know. I
Speaker 1: got ESPN Plus, So I get ESPN plus, Hulu Plus
Speaker 1: and Disney Plus or is it Hulu? Yeah, Hulu Plus, No,
Speaker 1: just Hulu? Yeah, I guess I don't know anyway, So
Speaker 1: what is the deal with this? Yeah, these prices are
Speaker 1: going up, these these streaming services they lord us in
Speaker 1: with with lo Loo prices, we all canceled cable and
Speaker 1: now we're on we're on the wagon with these things.
Speaker 1: We are we are on the train and it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's great. I love the streaming stuff. I think
Speaker 1: it it's an amazing thing. To have access to I
Speaker 1: like it. It's simple. But what I don't like is
Speaker 1: that everything's scattered. Now. You know, when someone mentions a
Speaker 1: TV show, you got to run through your laundry list
Speaker 1: of cable of services and be like, oh is it
Speaker 1: on that channel? Oh is it on I don't even
Speaker 1: know where that's playing. So but and if you don't subscribe,
Speaker 1: you gotta subscribe, Like the Paul Patrol movie my kid
Speaker 1: wanted to watch, so I did, like the thirty day
Speaker 1: free trial of of what's it called? I could see
Speaker 1: the Little Mountain Paramount Plus so that was from August
Speaker 1: twentieth or about August seventeenth, probably gonna expire about September seventeenth.
Speaker 1: And by the way, one little tip, you do know
Speaker 1: that you can cancel subscriptions before they expire. That's like
Speaker 1: an unknown thing that like ninety nine percent of people
Speaker 1: don't really realize. But yeah, when I subscribe to Paramount,
Speaker 1: as soon as I subscribe, I just go in and cancel,
Speaker 1: and that way you don't get charged for the next month,
Speaker 1: by surprise. And you can do this on Apple, on iPhone,
Speaker 1: on Android, on all these things that you have to
Speaker 1: cancel online. Now the only one I've noticed that doesn't
Speaker 1: do it, and I've mentioned this before is Apple themselves.
Speaker 1: They say, oh, if you cancel, we're gonna take your
Speaker 1: subscription away immediately, which is kind of like a way
Speaker 1: of keeping you being like, ah, let me just let
Speaker 1: me just inch a little closer to that renewal date,
Speaker 1: and then of course you forget and you get charged,
Speaker 1: like in the case of me with various things, but
Speaker 1: it's mostly like that was Apple News. Plus I did that.
Speaker 1: It was like ten bucks. I was going on some flights,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to subscribe to that, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll just you know, I'll just cancel it right away,
Speaker 1: and I couldn't. And I was like, oh, I'll remember
Speaker 1: to cancel it. Of course I didn't, and I've paid
Speaker 1: another It's only ten bucks, but still so yes, sorry,
Speaker 1: Hulu they're doing They're really trying to push people towards
Speaker 1: the Disney Bundle, which is gonna be fourteen dollars a month.
Speaker 1: That's still the same price, but that includes Hulu with ads,
Speaker 1: which I'm not a fan of. I like to have
Speaker 1: my stuff ad free, so I pay a little bit
Speaker 1: more for that premium, and I guess what was my
Speaker 1: big point about this. The big point about all these
Speaker 1: streaming services is that, yeah, it's a little bit more complicated,
Speaker 1: but the reality is you can cancel and start up
Speaker 1: at any time, and it's so much easier than it
Speaker 1: was in the past. You know, in the past, you'd
Speaker 1: have to call the cable company, which meant most people
Speaker 1: that subscribe to HBO or the Disney Channel kept it
Speaker 1: forever because there's no way you're gonna sit there on
Speaker 1: the phone with a cable person, who, by the way,
Speaker 1: can also convince you to keep it or give you
Speaker 1: a deal to keep it. And you know, it's just
Speaker 1: way more work. And so with the with the self
Speaker 1: service stuff. I mean, when you go to like whenever
Speaker 1: Netflix sends out like a price increase email, they're like,
Speaker 1: you know, you can always cancel your account. Like they
Speaker 1: just like stand there with their their hands on their
Speaker 1: on their hips and they're like, you know, you can
Speaker 1: cancel if you'd like to. You're like, oh, okay, Netflix,
Speaker 1: I mean, my gosh, I've been a subscriber for so long,
Speaker 1: but I mean that's what I mean to you, Okay,
Speaker 1: I can go to my account and cancel. Uh. What
Speaker 1: was my other point? My other point is that I
Speaker 1: got in like a big huff and a puff when
Speaker 1: I saw this, and I'm like, all right, this is
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous. All the streaming services they keep going
Speaker 1: up by you know, I pay eighteen bucks a month
Speaker 1: for YouTube. I pay sixteen a month for Spotify. So
Speaker 1: I went through and I added up all of my
Speaker 1: subscriptions and I was like, I'm gonna see how much
Speaker 1: I'm paying for all these things, and it came out
Speaker 1: to like sixty five dollars a month. And I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, granted, yeah, it's more than it used to be.
Speaker 1: Like when Netflix first came out, it's like nine bucks
Speaker 1: and that was it. And then all these other things
Speaker 1: came out, and of course you're watching one show on
Speaker 1: each one of these services, and you need the music
Speaker 1: for the whole family. I need YouTube Premium for the
Speaker 1: whole family. And I was like, okay, sixty five ninety
Speaker 1: nine or sixty five dollars is not all that terribly
Speaker 1: bad for all of these services. I get to watch
Speaker 1: a show on anything I want basically with no ads,
Speaker 1: so that's not too bad. And when I told my wife,
Speaker 1: she's like, yeah, that's really not that bad. Isn't that
Speaker 1: still cheaper than cable? And yeah, I think we're paying
Speaker 1: two hundred a month for direct TV and that included
Speaker 1: our internet service back in the day. And now I'm
Speaker 1: paying like ninety for Internet and then sixty five for this,
Speaker 1: so you know, almost almost too, but not quite there.
Speaker 1: So I'm still a little bit saving, but it's still
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean, it's still like when I look
Speaker 1: at YouTube seventeen bucks a month, Like, am I really
Speaker 1: watching seventeen dollars worth of YouTube a month? I don't think.
Speaker 1: So that includes the music service, but I've grown to
Speaker 1: love Spotify and I just can't give that up now.
Speaker 1: So now I had to subscribe to that. So I
Speaker 1: was using the free YouTube music that was included, and
Speaker 1: I just once I got a little taste of Spotify,
Speaker 1: really really tough to go away from that at this point.
Speaker 1: So prices are going up, that's the bottom line, and
Speaker 1: they will continue to go off, that's for sure, all right,
Speaker 1: Lynn says Rich. Does there exist a way to send
Speaker 1: an auto response back to junk mail or is there
Speaker 1: a way to set one up? Lately I've been getting
Speaker 1: a chunk of thirty a day at one time from
Speaker 1: one center in the UK. This is an addition to
Speaker 1: regular junk mail. I blocked them every day. This has
Speaker 1: been going on for a few weeks and they have
Speaker 1: a they've figured out a way around the blocking. If
Speaker 1: they got a response back saying you've been blocked for
Speaker 1: every one of these pieces of junk mail sent, it
Speaker 1: could easily shut them down. It might also create a
Speaker 1: way to curtail the junk mail business going forward. Thank you.
Speaker 1: My non Facebook friend asked me to reach out to you, Lynn. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you, Lynn. But here's the thing. You do not
Speaker 1: want to send them back a message that says you've
Speaker 1: been blocked. Don't do that. What that does is it
Speaker 1: tells them that you are reading this message, and you
Speaker 1: are an active participant in this email account, and you
Speaker 1: are ready to receive messages at any time and the
Speaker 1: email works. So you do not want to do that.
Speaker 1: That is number one. Number two when it comes to
Speaker 1: these senders. A lot of this stuff comes in waves
Speaker 1: right now. I've just I've been getting a lot of
Speaker 1: the very similar junk email. It's the similar. It's just
Speaker 1: everything looks the same. It's like one line, then a
Speaker 1: big graphic in the middle and that's it. And I've
Speaker 1: been getting a lot of that, and it's probably because
Speaker 1: we've seen a lot of recent hacks and my email
Speaker 1: address is floating around and what do I do? I
Speaker 1: just delete them? So, Lynn, what I think is the
Speaker 1: better solution here is two things. Number One, you can
Speaker 1: use the report spam button on your email. Most of
Speaker 1: the emails have it, so if you're using, you know
Speaker 1: whether it's Gmail or whether it's Yahoo or anything else.
Speaker 1: Usually there is a way to report an email as spam,
Speaker 1: and so on Gmail, I can see it right up
Speaker 1: at the top. It says report spam. Looks like a
Speaker 1: circle with a little exclamation exclamation mark. Isn't that weird?
Speaker 1: Don't we say? Let me just say you ever wonder
Speaker 1: you ever notice how you say words really fast and
Speaker 1: they are not actually the words like explanation mark, explanation
Speaker 1: explanation mark. It almost sounds like I'm saying explanation mark. No,
Speaker 1: it's an exclamation mark. So but who says that? Who
Speaker 1: enunciates an exclamation mark? Maybe some people do. I don't.
Speaker 1: So you can do that. But I think what's better,
Speaker 1: and this is I think something that is really really
Speaker 1: he to do in your email is I would not
Speaker 1: load images on my email because every email these days
Speaker 1: is it's got a little a little bit of baggage
Speaker 1: connected to it. And that baggage is what's called a
Speaker 1: tracking pixel. And that little tracking pixel is so tiny
Speaker 1: you can never see it with the naked eye. But
Speaker 1: what it does is it reports back a lot of information.
Speaker 1: It reports back when you opened an email. It reports
Speaker 1: back the IP address that you open the email from,
Speaker 1: so they know your location. And it might even report
Speaker 1: back the type of device that you opened the email on.
Speaker 1: So all that information basically tells the spammers and the
Speaker 1: scammers that, oh, we got a good one. We got
Speaker 1: a hot lead right here. We got Lind's email address,
Speaker 1: and it is a good one because she keeps responding
Speaker 1: to us. Hey, I'm not here, I'm not here, I'm
Speaker 1: not here. Please stop doing this, and we're gonna keep
Speaker 1: doing it. So go into your email settings, whether you're
Speaker 1: on Gmail or Yahoo or anything. And Gmail settings have
Speaker 1: gotten very complicated by the way. Look for something that
Speaker 1: says images, and under the Gmail general settings it says
Speaker 1: images always display external images, or ask before displaying external images.
Speaker 1: I have the ask before displaying external images clicked and
Speaker 1: You can also do this on your smartphone as well.
Speaker 1: And what that does is it pretty much stops these
Speaker 1: tracking pixels from working because if the tracking pixel is
Speaker 1: not loading, cannot it cannot send back information about how
Speaker 1: it was loaded and where it was loaded and who
Speaker 1: loaded it, and so you basically stop these scammers in
Speaker 1: their tracks. And so it's a it's an easy way.
Speaker 1: It's not fool proof, but it's an easy way to
Speaker 1: kind of just give one more line of defense between
Speaker 1: you and these scam artists. And so I've got it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is it more annoying? Of course all these emails on
Speaker 1: my phone. When I get an email that I want
Speaker 1: to look at the picture, I have to press display
Speaker 1: external images each time manually. But that's fine because it's
Speaker 1: really emails that I want to interact with, and yeah,
Speaker 1: they're immediately sending tracking pixels. Now, another side of this
Speaker 1: is that a lot of the PR professionals that I
Speaker 1: know and love and that send me emails, a lot
Speaker 1: of them use tracking pixels in their emails. And why
Speaker 1: do they do that, Well, they want to see if
Speaker 1: a journalist like myself read their pitch and open their email,
Speaker 1: and then they can harass me the next day and say, hey,
Speaker 1: just following up here on my email, And if you
Speaker 1: have that enabled, they know that you read it at
Speaker 1: eight thirty in the morning and you didn't respond, and
Speaker 1: so they at least knew it got in front of
Speaker 1: your eyeballs. So I have that turned off. And it
Speaker 1: probably frustrates a lot of people because when they get
Speaker 1: a report of all the journalists that they sent an
Speaker 1: email to mine comes up rich on tech as a
Speaker 1: big question mark. We don't know did Rich open it?
Speaker 1: We can't tell, and so that frustrates them. So make
Speaker 1: them work for their mone a little bit harder, That's
Speaker 1: what I do. So that's what I'd recommend doing. Don't
Speaker 1: load external images by default on your email, and it
Speaker 1: will keep you just a little little bit safer. Next story,
Speaker 1: and talked about this on KTLA today. This is the
Speaker 1: surprising way that hackers gain access to your Facebook account
Speaker 1: and the best way to keep them out. This is
Speaker 1: a story that was about six months in progress because
Speaker 1: I get so many emails from people that say, hey,
Speaker 1: Rich I was hacked on Facebook. Can you help? And
Speaker 1: they want my help, But then I say, okay, will
Speaker 1: you go on TV and talk about it? And I
Speaker 1: can use your your story to kind of be the
Speaker 1: bedrock of a big story on TV that can help
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And they all say, oh, no, on, on,
Speaker 1: I want to do that. Okay, Well I finally found
Speaker 1: one person who you know I email back. Every time
Speaker 1: I say, well, you talk about this on TV, everyone
Speaker 1: says no, except for this woman, Pam del Ray. She's
Speaker 1: a realtor in Arcadia, California, which is near Pasadena. And
Speaker 1: she said, cherylll go on TV. And I said, really,
Speaker 1: you'll go on TV? Okay, yes, won the jackpot and
Speaker 1: I kept thinking it was too good to be true,
Speaker 1: but she sure enough. We got to her office. She
Speaker 1: talked to me about what happened, and she got hacked
Speaker 1: on Facebook. They took over her account, they took over
Speaker 1: other accounts, and I actually emailed Facebook as well, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: can we talk to someone at Facebook? Like how do
Speaker 1: these people hack these accounts? Why do they hack them?
Speaker 1: And much to my surprise, Facebook said, sure, will give
Speaker 1: you someone. It took them a real long time, but
Speaker 1: they did deliver someone and the person explained how and
Speaker 1: why these hackers do it. And when I say, the
Speaker 1: surprising way that hackers do it. They're not actually most
Speaker 1: of the time hacking directly through your Facebook. What they're
Speaker 1: doing is they're figuring out your easy to figure out
Speaker 1: password on your email and that's how they're getting into
Speaker 1: your Facebook accounts. So once they have your email, they
Speaker 1: have it's so much more valuable because now they can
Speaker 1: unlock all of your accounts from banking to Venmo, to PayPal,
Speaker 1: to Facebook to Instagram. And what they do is they
Speaker 1: have Okay, so first they gain access to your email account.
Speaker 1: Now they've taken it over. You can't get into your email.
Speaker 1: Now they go to Facebook and they do I need
Speaker 1: a password reset. And that password reset guess where it goes.
Speaker 1: It delivers right to the email account that they now
Speaker 1: have control over, and so they can reset your Facebook account.
Speaker 1: They can reset your Venmo account, your Instagram, your PayPal,
Speaker 1: and that's what they proceed to do. So how do
Speaker 1: you keep this from happening to you? You know what
Speaker 1: I'm going to say if you've been listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: it is all about a little magical thing called two
Speaker 1: factor authentication. Two factor authentication means that even if they
Speaker 1: got access to your email account, now they go to
Speaker 1: log into your Facebook account and Facebook says, Okay, we
Speaker 1: see it's you, but we need you to type in
Speaker 1: this other code that we're going to text your phone
Speaker 1: or it's going to be generated by an app like
Speaker 1: authy or Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator. And the hacker goes, oh, crap,
Speaker 1: can I say that on a podcast? I guess I
Speaker 1: can probably say anything. Oh no, I what am I
Speaker 1: gonna do? I can't. I don't have this extra code,
Speaker 1: And they are foiled. They are stopped in their tracks
Speaker 1: and Scooby Doo comes by and they proceed to pull
Speaker 1: the mask off of the hacker and reveal their true identity.
Speaker 1: Did I make that joke in the last podcast? I
Speaker 1: think I did. Sometimes I forget, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: week between podcasts, and I just you know, it's like
Speaker 1: a fresh it's a fresh start every week because you know,
Speaker 1: new people are listening every week, so you could be
Speaker 1: newly listening and not get any of the references. So
Speaker 1: best way to protect yourself go and enable two factor
Speaker 1: authentication not just on your Facebook account, but also on
Speaker 1: your email, and not just on your email, but also
Speaker 1: on your bank And not just on your bank, but
Speaker 1: on any account that you log into that supports it
Speaker 1: that you hold near and dear to your heart. Anything
Speaker 1: with banking, credit cards, email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, anything, Google,
Speaker 1: get two factor authentication enabled on it. Get yourself an app.
Speaker 1: That's the easiest way to do it, an app like
Speaker 1: authy or Google Authenticator or Microsoft Authenticator. And once you
Speaker 1: set up the app, it'll give you know, it kind
Speaker 1: of links into all these accounts and generates codes for
Speaker 1: all these different accounts. It's much more secure than getting
Speaker 1: a text message to your phone. But I Am not
Speaker 1: going to scoff for the text message. If that's where
Speaker 1: you want to start, just start with the text a
Speaker 1: text code to your phone number, and it's still better
Speaker 1: than nothing. So that's what you want to do on Facebook.
Speaker 1: I've got the article on how to set it up
Speaker 1: on the show notes. The other thing you can do
Speaker 1: for Facebook is set up trusted contacts. This is where
Speaker 1: you pick two or three friends that they will contact
Speaker 1: and say, hey, is rich DeMuro really who he says
Speaker 1: he is? And then they give that person a code
Speaker 1: that they can give you, and then it'll help you
Speaker 1: get back into your account. And then finally, if you
Speaker 1: do get locked out Facebook dot Com slash hacked is
Speaker 1: the place to go. And yeah, you're not necessarily going
Speaker 1: to get your account back immediately or ever, but that
Speaker 1: is the best way to go and do it. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, Facebook said, look, this is not a Facebook issue,
Speaker 1: this is a this is an entire Internet issue. And
Speaker 1: I would agree with that. Facebook is just one of
Speaker 1: the bigger places it happens because oh they've got you know,
Speaker 1: two point seven billion people on there. That's a lot
Speaker 1: of people to hack, all right. Ross Craig writes in
Speaker 1: Good Morning, Rich My wife received a low heart rate
Speaker 1: notification from her Apple Watch Series six. Her heart rate
Speaker 1: was down to thirty five beats per minute. We proceeded
Speaker 1: to our hospital to the emergency room. She was hooked
Speaker 1: up to an ECG or EKG. They noticed the issue
Speaker 1: with her heart. The machine was going nuts. They came
Speaker 1: in with the crash cart and had her hooked up
Speaker 1: just in case she took a turn for the worse.
Speaker 1: The cardiologist said she would need a temporary pacemaker. I
Speaker 1: was in the room when they did this. The next
Speaker 1: day she had a permanent pacemaker installed. Please have your
Speaker 1: listeners seek medical attention if they're resting in their watch
Speaker 1: gets a warning of a low or high heart rate.
Speaker 1: We never thought to try out ECG on her watch.
Speaker 1: Ross in Saint John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Wow, Ross,
Speaker 1: thank you for sharing that story. I know Ross is
Speaker 1: a regular listener of the podcast, so I'm glad that
Speaker 1: you shared this. And it's scary, but I'm glad your
Speaker 1: wife got the help she needed. I'm glad that the
Speaker 1: Apple Watch did its job. But yes, this is a
Speaker 1: great reminder to set up these health features on your
Speaker 1: Apple Watch. You can go into the Apple Watch app
Speaker 1: on your iPhone and what I do, and this is
Speaker 1: what I do for everything, whether I'm a you know,
Speaker 1: I go through every single setting on every single device
Speaker 1: I have. Why because I want to see what's available
Speaker 1: to me. So on Apple Watch, I will just go
Speaker 1: through the Apple Watch app and just back out of
Speaker 1: every menu back in, go in, go out, go in,
Speaker 1: go out, and just follow every menu tree and just
Speaker 1: see like, what does this thing do? What are these
Speaker 1: features that it has. I'll do the same thing when
Speaker 1: iOS fifteen comes out on the iPhone. I'll just go
Speaker 1: through and see what every single one of my options are.
Speaker 1: And the reason why you want to do that is
Speaker 1: because you may have set up this watch really fast
Speaker 1: and really, you know, without really paying attention. And now
Speaker 1: it's a year in and you may not have activated
Speaker 1: the heart rate notifications when you first set it up,
Speaker 1: or you may not have activated the activity feature or
Speaker 1: the noise feature. You know, the Apple Watch can tell
Speaker 1: you when you're in a loud environment that's gonna be
Speaker 1: too loud for your years and eventually hurt them. So
Speaker 1: go in and check out these features. And it's a
Speaker 1: good reminder to do that. I love the Apple Watch.
Speaker 1: I've said over and over. You know, it's going to
Speaker 1: be really tough for me when I go to the
Speaker 1: Pixel six later this year when that comes out. If
Speaker 1: I indeed switch, I've got to figure out a system
Speaker 1: where I can keep the Apple Watch and ideally keep
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch with cellular, because the way I see
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch with cellular, it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: life saving device because if I'm on a run and
Speaker 1: I fall and I can't call nine one one, the
Speaker 1: watch is going to do it for me. And that
Speaker 1: is some pretty powerful stuff. And this thing is just
Speaker 1: going to continue to get more powerful. It's already giving
Speaker 1: people alerts when their heart rate is too high or
Speaker 1: too low. It's already giving people notifications when the noise
Speaker 1: level is at a place that might do some irreparable
Speaker 1: damage to their ears. It's already at a place where
Speaker 1: if you fall and take a hard fall, it will
Speaker 1: call nine one one for you or text your family
Speaker 1: and friends. So this thing is amazing, and it really
Speaker 1: just keeps getting better, and to me, it's one of
Speaker 1: these things where I can't imagine my life without it
Speaker 1: because it's just so smart, and it's kind of like
Speaker 1: an extension of my body at this point, Like if
Speaker 1: I fall in a random place, hopefully there's cellular service,
Speaker 1: I will get help, hopefully because my Apple Watch will
Speaker 1: call for it. If I'm at a concert or in
Speaker 1: a and an environment that I don't realize is really loud,
Speaker 1: like I can shift and figure out how to keep
Speaker 1: myself safe. So it's an amazing, amazing device, And I
Speaker 1: thank you for your input, and I hope your wife
Speaker 1: gets healthy. Okay, let's get onto this last story before
Speaker 1: I go. But Rumba, their latest robotic vacuum, will not
Speaker 1: how should we say, distribute pet waste all over your floor.
Speaker 1: And I'm being very kind when I do this, But
Speaker 1: apparently there's a problem with roomba's And I don't have
Speaker 1: a dog, but apparently with rumbas, they used to run
Speaker 1: over pet droppings and smear them over all over people's
Speaker 1: floors and you would come home to a real, real
Speaker 1: big mess, when the whole point of the roomba was
Speaker 1: to not have a mess when you came home. And
Speaker 1: I've noticed this with my Rumba, which I absolutely adore.
Speaker 1: It will go over cables and suck those up, and
Speaker 1: that's a problem. And I haven't gotten the deal with
Speaker 1: the dog stuff. But this thing otherwise is fantastic. But
Speaker 1: the new Rumba, the J seven plus, is the top
Speaker 1: of line vacuum. It comes in at about and fifty dollars,
Speaker 1: but it's got new software that now recognizes chords, which
Speaker 1: is amazing and pet waste, and so it will it
Speaker 1: will avoid these things at all costs. And if you
Speaker 1: look at this stuff that Rumba posted on their twitter,
Speaker 1: the CEO posted on his Twitter page, it's pretty funny, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, they did it kind of tongue in chic,
Speaker 1: but they did. They made like a hundred pieces of
Speaker 1: pet poop and in different shapes and sizes and just
Speaker 1: it's so like Oh my gosh, Like, this is what
Speaker 1: they had to do. They had to teach the AI
Speaker 1: these little cameras in the rumba to recognize what it
Speaker 1: looks like and make sure that it doesn't run it over.
Speaker 1: And that's what they did. And so if you want
Speaker 1: a little chuckle, I'll put the link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: But it's it's pretty funny. I got a what's the
Speaker 1: guy here? It is Colin Angle. That's his name. Colin
Speaker 1: Ang is the uh I guess? Is he the CEO
Speaker 1: of Rumba. Yeah, CEO and founder of I Robot. Wow.
Speaker 1: Oh I Robot, the company that runs Rumba. But anyway,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, so if you get the new one. Now,
Speaker 1: for the rest of us that have older rumbas, the
Speaker 1: reality is that hopefully this will be built in eventually
Speaker 1: with a software update or trickle its way down to
Speaker 1: some of these cheaper rumbas. That is the hope. Oh
Speaker 1: listen to that sound music to my ears, maybe not
Speaker 1: to yours. Maybe you're like rich, keep going, Please do
Speaker 1: one more question. No, I've gotta gotta go. That sound
Speaker 1: means it's gonna do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you'd like submit an answer for me or question
Speaker 1: for me to answer. This is not jeopardy. You submit
Speaker 1: the questions, I give you the answers. Just go to
Speaker 1: my Facebook page, Facebook, dot com, slash rich on Tech
Speaker 1: hit the big blue send email button. You can also
Speaker 1: go to my website rich on Tech dot tv and
Speaker 1: look for the email icon. Also, I would love it
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Speaker 1: rate this podcast dot com, slash rich on Tech, or
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Speaker 1: to do it inside the Apple Podcasts app or whatever
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Speaker 1: many years to get that username, so please put it
Speaker 1: to good use by hitting that follow, subscribe, follow, whatever
Speaker 1: button however it is on the social media network. Don't
Speaker 1: keep me a secret. Tell your friends about me. No
Speaker 1: matter where you live in the US. You can download
Speaker 1: the free Ktla plus app on Apple TV, Fire TV,
Speaker 1: and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the tech section
Speaker 1: and watch all of my TV segments on demand. I've
Speaker 1: said this before, but that is where I shine TV.
Speaker 1: I do TV segments that are so fun, and they're
Speaker 1: so thoughtful and thoughtfully crafted, hand crafted, So watch them
Speaker 1: there on your big screen TV. My name is rich Demiro.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways
Speaker 1: you can spend an hour of your time. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate you spending it with me. I will talk to
Speaker 1: you real soon. H