Speaker 1: Ring has a new camera for your front door. There
Speaker 1: are more places to get your iPhone repaired. Why you
Speaker 1: should log into your apps every once in a while.
Speaker 1: Plus we're playing the new Harry Potter game. What's going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on Tech, the podcast
Speaker 1: where I talk about the stuff I think you should
Speaker 1: know about happening in the tech world. Plus we're answering
Speaker 1: your tech questions. Joining me is producer Megan Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Hello, how are you?
Speaker 3: I am doing fantastic.
Speaker 1: I do want to start with an apology though, because
Speaker 1: we had last week's show that we did from China,
Speaker 1: which was great. I mean, I thought it was really
Speaker 1: interesting the content, but the actual quality of the podcast
Speaker 1: was not up to par. And you know us, we
Speaker 1: are sicklers on quality. Oh yeah, so every I feel
Speaker 1: like every podcast we've done so far has sounded different.
Speaker 3: But that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Podcasting is still emerging, right, and you know, even though
Speaker 1: it's I was doing podcasting at Sina about fifteen years ago, but.
Speaker 3: It's still new, right. It's new to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: But I think our mistake last week was trying a
Speaker 1: new mobile setup when we went to China. We tried
Speaker 1: new microphones, we tried everything was different how we recorded
Speaker 1: the show, and if we were total pros, like with audio, we.
Speaker 3: Would find that would be fine. But we're not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so we were talking into the wrong end
Speaker 1: of the microphone. I don't know, we might have been
Speaker 1: so long story short. If you listen to the podcast,
Speaker 1: which a lot of you did, thank you. That's not
Speaker 1: our that's not our main like, we're not that's not us.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, if this one sounds really bad, we are trying
Speaker 1: new equipment again.
Speaker 2: Then we're going to be really sad.
Speaker 3: Then we'll just give up.
Speaker 1: But let's start with the story. Maybe this is the
Speaker 1: biggest story of the week. It's probably the most complicated
Speaker 1: story of the week for most people. But I do
Speaker 1: think it could have potential impact. So we've heard a
Speaker 1: lot about bitcoin, we've heard a lot about cryptocurrency. Nobody
Speaker 1: has been able to make it work in a big,
Speaker 1: meaningful way just yet. And now some people might fight
Speaker 1: me on that, but the reality is, are you using crypto?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: Am I No, We're two kind of normal people.
Speaker 1: I do have okay, full disclosure, I do have twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars worth of cryptocurrency.
Speaker 4: To my name something. So it's like, you know, then
Speaker 4: I have invested.
Speaker 1: Well so, and it's funny that you call an investment
Speaker 1: because when I bought that, I did it as a
Speaker 1: test to see. I bought it through the square cash app,
Speaker 1: and it went down and down and down, and I
Speaker 1: just checked it and it actually is back up to
Speaker 1: twenty four dollars and sixty cents. So over the past
Speaker 1: like year or two, I've only lost like.
Speaker 3: Forty forty cents and it still can go up.
Speaker 1: So I'm hoping that by the time I retire, I
Speaker 1: just forget about that. And it's like, oh, no, oh,
Speaker 1: what's this? A million bucks just sitting there in crypto.
Speaker 2: I don't think it grows like that.
Speaker 3: No, probably not so uh.
Speaker 1: Facebook is basically pioneering the charge for a new type
Speaker 1: of simple global currency called Libra, and this is backed.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because they're backing it by the blockchain.
Speaker 3: Which is you know, technology for a digital currency basically.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of companies on board here, so
Speaker 1: if anyone can make this happen, it could be Facebook.
Speaker 1: And what they would want you to do is use
Speaker 1: this cryptocurrency to it would be integrated into the Facebook
Speaker 1: App into WhatsApp into Facebook Messenger. So basically, if I
Speaker 1: owed you twenty bucks, I could pay you right through there,
Speaker 1: kind of like what you do with Venmo. But the
Speaker 1: way Venmo works is it's all backed by your checking
Speaker 1: account or your bank account or.
Speaker 3: Your credit card.
Speaker 1: Right, this would be backed by none of those things.
Speaker 1: You would basically just have this currency like it would
Speaker 1: be its own thing. So, I know, doesn't that sound complicated?
Speaker 2: So complicated, So you'd have to.
Speaker 1: Buy it somehow, and then once you buy it, that
Speaker 1: is your currency. So the idea is is that of
Speaker 1: enough people and places accept the currency, it then takes off.
Speaker 1: So think about visa MasterCard for example.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: The only reason those work they're not really a currency.
Speaker 1: They're just a way to pay right. So you still
Speaker 1: have to pay the bill with real money at the
Speaker 1: end of the month, right or you know, depending portion
Speaker 1: of the bill, right, Yeah, hopefully you're.
Speaker 3: Paying the whole thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the reality is the reason why vis a master
Speaker 1: card are so like I will take it from you,
Speaker 1: you'll take it from me, whatever, or a business takes
Speaker 1: it is because it's accepted everywhere, right, and people have
Speaker 1: established that, like, Okay, these are true, these are real,
Speaker 1: like we take it. So with Libra and this whole
Speaker 1: new cryptocurrency, if enough people take it, it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well I can use my Libra at.
Speaker 3: Starbucks exactly.
Speaker 2: Or but where I get confused is so then you
Speaker 2: would pay at the end of the month libra.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: See, that's where it gets kind of weird. It's just
Speaker 1: you just kind of keep your money in there. That's
Speaker 1: the weird thing. It's like it's just becomes your money.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and so what they're doing and there's it's
Speaker 1: also even more weird because there's another thing. It's called
Speaker 1: let's see, it's like libra, there's I don't even know
Speaker 1: if I'm saying it right.
Speaker 2: I truly want to understand how this works.
Speaker 3: So well, I'm not going to be the one to
Speaker 3: explain it. No, I know, I know understand by the way.
Speaker 2: I've had like five people try to explain it to me.
Speaker 1: And I've had when I did the crypto story, like cryptocurrency,
Speaker 1: we did like crypto one on one again like the
Speaker 1: creator Yeah, no, we had like a guy who's a
Speaker 1: good crypto guy, and I have a friend that does
Speaker 1: crypto stuff. But I still it's like you don't really
Speaker 1: understand it. It's a currency that's like kind of made
Speaker 1: out of thin air. Right now, this one will be
Speaker 1: backed by actual currency, which is making it more stable,
Speaker 1: which makes it more appealing to people. Anyway, long story short,
Speaker 1: that's what you need to know is that Facebook might
Speaker 1: take over the whole world when it comes to money.
Speaker 1: But the other companies that are on board with this,
Speaker 1: and this is why it might work. Listen to these names, MasterCard, PayPal, Stripe, Visa, eBay, Lift, Spotify, Uber.
Speaker 3: And a whole bunch of others.
Speaker 1: So what that tells me is that at the very least,
Speaker 1: you'll be able to use this currency among all those things.
Speaker 3: And if you think about those things, that's a lot.
Speaker 1: So now you can, let's say, you can use your
Speaker 1: Libra currency to pay your master Card account at the
Speaker 1: end of the month.
Speaker 3: So again, it's getting real and getting real. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1: So anyway, we'll just have to keep on kind of
Speaker 1: up to date on everything that Facebook's doing with that.
Speaker 1: It's not going to happen overnight, but it probably will
Speaker 1: happen soon.
Speaker 2: So you would use like some of your twenty five dollars.
Speaker 1: To buy a Starbucks exactly right, like I would instead
Speaker 1: of like right now that that bitcoin that I have
Speaker 1: exists inside that app, I can't do anything with it
Speaker 1: except pay other people who like use bitcoin.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: But let's say Starbucks I want to buy like a
Speaker 1: ten dollars gift card and they're like, oh, we accept
Speaker 1: this bitcoin.
Speaker 3: I just use it.
Speaker 1: And same thing with this new one from Facebook. It's
Speaker 1: like if I can use it to pay you back
Speaker 1: for you know whatever, like you go out and run
Speaker 1: get a coffee, I can be like, oh, here's three dollars,
Speaker 1: you know, through my app.
Speaker 2: Got it? So interesting?
Speaker 3: All right, So let's let's start with the first question.
Speaker 2: I love this next question. It's from Lily Alala and
Speaker 2: she wrote on your Facebook page, Hey, Rich, thank you
Speaker 2: for all of the useful information you provide during your
Speaker 2: segment on Katley News. I have a question. Do you
Speaker 2: have any suggestions or can you recommend a good Android
Speaker 2: app for locating or keeping track of my kids? I
Speaker 2: have twelve year old twins, they both have phones. I
Speaker 2: need peace of mind. Please let me know.
Speaker 3: Okay, And what was the name again?
Speaker 2: Lily?
Speaker 3: Lily?
Speaker 1: So this is a question I get all the time.
Speaker 1: People want to be able to track their kids. And
Speaker 1: it makes sense if they have a cell phone, you
Speaker 1: want to be able to track them. Why not, right,
Speaker 1: So there are tools that are built into iOS. And
Speaker 1: she didn't really mention what kind of phones her kids have.
Speaker 1: I feel like she would have mentioned if if they
Speaker 1: had iPhones.
Speaker 2: Movie. Yeah, but she says she has an Android.
Speaker 3: Oh, she has an Android.
Speaker 2: She set a good Android app.
Speaker 3: Oh, so there you go, she wants Android. Okay. So
Speaker 3: on iPhone, obviously they have the app called find My.
Speaker 3: They changed it. It used to be called find my iPhone.
Speaker 3: Now it's just called find My.
Speaker 1: So that would work on the iPhone side of things.
Speaker 1: But if you're a mixed family and you have like
Speaker 1: Android and you have iOS in the family, you want
Speaker 1: an app that works across both of those things. And
Speaker 1: so the app that I recommend to most people is
Speaker 1: called Life three sixty.
Speaker 3: Have you heard of this?
Speaker 1: So it's kind of the most popular one out there
Speaker 1: that basically at the bottom line kind of thing is
Speaker 1: it tracks you. You know, you sign it up on
Speaker 1: your phones and you can see where your kids are
Speaker 1: on a map. That's the basic thing. Now, that's free,
Speaker 1: But if you really want to get the most use
Speaker 1: out of it, you're gonna have to pay because what
Speaker 1: I found when I tested.
Speaker 3: It is that the free stuff.
Speaker 1: Is fine, but the location's not updated as much as
Speaker 1: you want. It's not real time, Like there's a little
Speaker 1: caveats that you after using it for like two days,
Speaker 1: you're like, this would be better if I paid for it.
Speaker 1: So with that in mind, you know, try it out,
Speaker 1: start it out, see how it works, and I think
Speaker 1: it's going to do exactly what you need. They have
Speaker 1: a lot of features in there, like I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so many features. You can get a text when your
Speaker 1: kid gets to school, you can get a text when
Speaker 1: your kid leaves school. You can get see how fast
Speaker 1: they're going on a map, Like if they're driving, you
Speaker 1: can get a crash detection. So if they crash, god forbid,
Speaker 1: you'll get it. Hopefully it's a fender bender, you'll get
Speaker 1: alert about that. So again, they've built pretty much the
Speaker 1: app that parents want to be able to track their kids. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you know your kids have to be on board because
Speaker 1: they can uninstall it or whatever.
Speaker 3: You can probably password protect it, but.
Speaker 1: Again, once you use it, so like with the free
Speaker 1: it's zero, with plus it's three dollars a month, and
Speaker 1: with driver Protect all those driver features, it's seven to
Speaker 1: ninety nine a month. So I, as a parent, small
Speaker 1: price to pay. When I'm ready to do this with
Speaker 1: my kids, I think three dollars a month is just fine.
Speaker 1: So again, like little things that they change, So place
Speaker 1: alerts with free, you only get two with the free,
Speaker 1: plus you get unlimited history. You only get two days
Speaker 1: with the free. You get thirty days with unlimited crime reports.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know what that is.
Speaker 1: But again, so really it comes down to how much
Speaker 1: of the location do you get with the free versus
Speaker 1: the paid. So but Lily, that's going to do it
Speaker 1: for you Life three sixty dot com and it works
Speaker 1: on you know, various apps, iOS and Android cool. So
Speaker 1: speaking of Apple is partnering with Best Buy for expanded
Speaker 1: repair service. So in the past, if you wanted to
Speaker 1: get your iPhone repaired, you could do it at a
Speaker 1: bunch of places, but Apple likes when you do it
Speaker 1: at their place because it keeps your phone in warranty
Speaker 1: right and also if you have Apple Care, it will
Speaker 1: be included in your Apple Care price. If you go
Speaker 1: to an Apple store or one of their authorized retailers,
Speaker 1: which you know, in a city like LA, we have
Speaker 1: a lot of these little like Mac stores, right, you know,
Speaker 1: like I think there's like Melrose Mac and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But if you live in like the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: you don't really have access to a lot of places,
Speaker 1: including the Apple store.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: You might have a best Buy in your city, but
Speaker 1: not an Apple store. Well, now best Buy is an
Speaker 1: official repair place for Apple. And what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Thousand Best Buys across the US will now provide expert
Speaker 1: service and repairs for Apple products.
Speaker 3: So that means if you have Apple Care, you can
Speaker 3: bring your phone in there.
Speaker 1: They'll do all the stuff under warranty, which is really nice,
Speaker 1: and it's also backed by Apple. So if there's a
Speaker 1: problem with the repair down the line, they're not like, well,
Speaker 1: where'd you bring this, You're like, oh, best Buy. They're like, sorry,
Speaker 1: we can't do anything because they've ruined your phone. Now
Speaker 1: that repair is still covered under Apple.
Speaker 4: So that's cool.
Speaker 3: It is cool, and especially you.
Speaker 1: Know, again, this is a story for the rest of
Speaker 1: the US, not Los Angeles per se, because in LA
Speaker 1: you've got a million.
Speaker 3: Apple stores there.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, probably ten of them in like
Speaker 1: a five mile radius. But if you're in somewhere like
Speaker 1: they mentioned a couple cities Yuma, Arizona, Sioux City, Iowa,
Speaker 1: Twin Falls, Idaho, Casper, Wyoming, Bismarck, North Dakota. Those all
Speaker 1: have Best Buys, but they didn't have an Apple store.
Speaker 1: So now in those places you can easily go and
Speaker 1: get your phone fixed or any Apple product.
Speaker 3: Walman. On the subject of phones, let me talk about Walmart.
Speaker 1: They are expanding Walmart dot Com to let you fully
Speaker 1: upgrade your phone online. So before you had to do
Speaker 1: this in store. And this is not like a huge deal,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of big. Walmart is big, right, A
Speaker 1: lot of people know Walmart for better prices and a
Speaker 1: lot of times Walmart sells cell phones at a discount.
Speaker 1: So now you can do the entire upgrade process online
Speaker 1: if you have AT and T, so right now they're
Speaker 1: just starting with AT and T. But you go to
Speaker 1: Walmart dot Com, you choose your you know your plan,
Speaker 1: your device, your payment plan. They handle all that stuff
Speaker 1: just like you would if you were at the store.
Speaker 1: But you can do it online. You get the device
Speaker 1: within two days and you activate it and it's done.
Speaker 1: So why would you want to choose Walmart dot Com
Speaker 1: over AT and T or anyplace else, well they might
Speaker 1: have a better deal, Sony. You can shop around, right,
Speaker 1: So historically, if you were with AT and T, you'd
Speaker 1: probably be able to go to AT and T dot
Speaker 1: com to upgrade your phone, or you can go into
Speaker 1: a store, or you can go to best Buy. But
Speaker 1: I don't think best Buy does it online. Maybe they do,
Speaker 1: but I don't think they do. But now you can
Speaker 1: go to Walmart dot com and like just check the prices.
Speaker 1: And so what I've seen is they say phones are
Speaker 1: up to two hundred dollars less, so you could get
Speaker 1: a discount on that. They're offering the iPhone ten at
Speaker 1: three hundred dollars off, So it's five hundred dollars for
Speaker 1: the sixty four gigabyte model, which is good. That's the ten,
Speaker 1: not the ten s right. But again, so what I
Speaker 1: saw is that the price has worked out to about
Speaker 1: eight dollars a month less than if you did this
Speaker 1: straight up through AT and T. So eight bucks a month,
Speaker 1: I mean I call that free Spotify, yeah, even though
Speaker 1: Spotify is ten.
Speaker 2: Spotify free Hulu right, yeah, true?
Speaker 3: All right, Megan, you're up okay.
Speaker 2: So your next question comes from actually a top fan
Speaker 2: on Facebook. Her name is mom slogo slug o gone. Okay, okay, anyways,
Speaker 2: question on reverse phone look up. I can't seem to
Speaker 2: find a legit free have some information when looking up
Speaker 2: phone numbers. Cannot find a website where it shows if
Speaker 2: the number is a scammer or not. Can you help?
Speaker 4: Thank you?
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of websites that do this,
Speaker 1: but most of them are total bogus, Like you don't
Speaker 1: want to go down those websites because what happens is
Speaker 1: you've seen it.
Speaker 3: What's the one that you mentioned earlier, Spocho, Yes, Spokyo.
Speaker 1: So there's like a whole bunch of these like Spoko
Speaker 1: and like my Life and my Way and all these.
Speaker 4: Weird like people search websites.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that generally give you just enough information, but then
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, pay fifty dollars to get more information
Speaker 1: about this person or whatever it is. And it's really
Speaker 1: like it gets you in because there is publicly available
Speaker 1: information that they scrape and they put on there, so
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, they must have it, but then it's
Speaker 1: like it's just it's not very well done. So long
Speaker 1: story short, what I would recommend, very simple is whitepages
Speaker 1: dot com. So I've been using this for a while.
Speaker 1: I used to have this app on my phone. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they still do an app or not,
Speaker 1: but I used to have it on my Android where
Speaker 1: it would just when I got a phone call, it
Speaker 1: would just show me the name, which was super easy.
Speaker 1: Now with spam and robo calls, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how many phone how many phone numbers you're looking up?
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, and I'd say the name Slugo or
Speaker 1: whatever it was.
Speaker 3: But it's like, you know, the White Pages.
Speaker 1: So I just did a quick search and it does
Speaker 1: have some good information on phone numbers. A lot of times,
Speaker 1: they want you to pay about two dollars and fifty
Speaker 1: cents a month for twenty lookups. So again all this information, like,
Speaker 1: I don't really know of a free place anymore to
Speaker 1: look up a phone number. You can try googling a
Speaker 1: lot of times what I do. And yeah, if it's
Speaker 1: if it's a business phone number, it's going to show
Speaker 1: up in Google.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: If it's not a business phone number, it's not going
Speaker 1: to show up, you know. But like a lot of times,
Speaker 1: and if it's a scam phone number, a lot of
Speaker 1: times it'll say like known scammer or something like that.
Speaker 3: So it really depends.
Speaker 1: But if you're looking to manually look up numbers online,
Speaker 1: I think whitepages dot com is probably going to be
Speaker 1: like the most legit place to do that. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to see who owns them at this point it's owned
Speaker 1: by I don't know who it's owned by. It's just
Speaker 1: white Pages, I guess.
Speaker 3: So anyway, good question about us. Let's see what they say.
Speaker 3: But they all do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, White Pages was found in nineteen ninety seven, so
Speaker 1: Wow's that's like that's old for.
Speaker 2: The web, twenty two years old. Wow?
Speaker 4: All right, speaking of I always say that.
Speaker 1: Speaking of speaking of I'm not going to speak of it.
Speaker 1: But Ring has a new camera you're familiar with Ring
Speaker 1: that goes the Ring video doorbell that kind of made
Speaker 1: the first video doorbell and made that product very popular. Well,
Speaker 1: they've been adding slowly but surely a lot of different
Speaker 1: products their lineup.
Speaker 3: The latest is called.
Speaker 4: The Ring Door Ring Door View Cam.
Speaker 3: And this is a it's basically they call it what
Speaker 3: are they call it, like a peepole right on your door.
Speaker 1: This replaces the people with a camera, so it's super
Speaker 1: easy to install. No screws, no installation, no wires, no nothing.
Speaker 1: You charge this thing up, you pop out your old peopole,
Speaker 1: and you push this thing in. So the way it
Speaker 1: looks is it looks like a ring video doorbell, but
Speaker 1: a little bit smaller, with.
Speaker 3: Kind of like a pipe at the end, imagine that,
Speaker 3: or like a hollow tube that pushes through your door.
Speaker 1: So it's held onto your door on the backside with
Speaker 1: like some sort of you know, mounting or whatever. Okay,
Speaker 1: and then on the front it just sits on the
Speaker 1: front of your door flush.
Speaker 2: So you have to screw through your door well where
Speaker 2: the people.
Speaker 1: You should have an opening through your door where the
Speaker 1: people were, so you remove that and then you push
Speaker 1: this thing through your door and just attach it. So
Speaker 1: the reviewer for cnet said that it was a little
Speaker 1: flimsy feeling because you know, there is really no mounting hardware.
Speaker 3: It just kind of pops onto your door.
Speaker 1: But she said that's not really a deal breaker, although
Speaker 1: she does think that one hundred and ninety nine dollars
Speaker 1: is a little expensive for this, because it seems a
Speaker 1: little bit cheaper than their typical doorbell that you know,
Speaker 1: you put on the side of the door, that you
Speaker 1: you know, comes with a bunch of mounting screws and it's.
Speaker 3: A little bit more official.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I love this idea because
Speaker 1: ring Ring is basically trying to put a camera on
Speaker 1: every home in America.
Speaker 3: However they can do it right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this this is really aimed at sort of apartment.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, it's for like apartments probably,
Speaker 2: and a lot of apartments.
Speaker 1: Like I'm trying to think my old apartment if we
Speaker 1: had we did have a I feel like we did
Speaker 1: have a peep hole.
Speaker 3: But I feel like it must be.
Speaker 1: A standardized size, right, because if they're selling this product,
Speaker 1: maybe it comes with some adapters and stuff, but to
Speaker 1: make it that easy to attach your door, it must
Speaker 1: just be a standardized peopole size that they drill through
Speaker 1: and like put this little mounting hardware on, Which makes sense.
Speaker 2: That's a good question for Google.
Speaker 3: Is there a standard people size?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's the deal. So the only downside of
Speaker 1: this device, according to c net, is that it's a
Speaker 1: little bit expensive, and you also have to pay three
Speaker 1: dollars a month if you want any cloud storage at all.
Speaker 3: So the way all.
Speaker 1: Ring devices work, they can live stream the video, which
Speaker 1: is fine. If someone rings your doorbell, you can view
Speaker 1: the person on your phone say hi, yes, and.
Speaker 3: No to them. But as soon as you disconnect.
Speaker 1: That call, it's like boom, that's gone. So if you
Speaker 1: want a record of anything, you have to pay.
Speaker 3: And so I pay. I think it's thirty dollars a year.
Speaker 1: Maybe I think they've raised that price because if she's
Speaker 1: saying three dollars a month, that's thirty six dollars a year.
Speaker 1: So and the reason why she really doesn't like that
Speaker 1: payment is because Apple announced that their last event that
Speaker 1: if video cameras like security cameras, enable home Kit, which
Speaker 1: is their smart home platform, you'll get ten.
Speaker 3: Days of free clip storage. So that's in ten days.
Speaker 1: Is all you really need is like two or three days,
Speaker 1: right right, Because it's like if someone came to your
Speaker 1: house and robbed it, you're not going to find out
Speaker 1: two weeks later, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Unless you're on vacation, yes, but.
Speaker 1: When you still know though, you still know you because
Speaker 1: you get an alert to your phone, unless you're on
Speaker 1: a remote vacation where you don't check your email or
Speaker 1: text messages or anything.
Speaker 2: You don't have neighbors, Yeah, pay attention.
Speaker 3: Which is probably true, like neighbors probably don't yea true
Speaker 3: true neighbors these days. I mean they're just like like
Speaker 3: they look away, right.
Speaker 2: I did. By the way, google what is the standard
Speaker 2: peep hole size? Okay, and the only thing I can
Speaker 2: find is just like the height. Okay, So it says
Speaker 2: the average height is between four and five and a
Speaker 2: half feet from the ground.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, that's weird.
Speaker 1: That's okay, I see four and five feet.
Speaker 3: No, that's standard, that's standard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you don't want it like super high.
Speaker 3: Yeah, forty three inches above the floor. That's the standard,
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 1: But there must be a standard like drill size that like,
Speaker 1: you know, because if you're making peep holes, he it
Speaker 1: must be a standard piece of hardware that you know.
Speaker 3: Anyway, that makes the people, yes, that makes it stay
Speaker 3: to your sounds like people.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, okay, So next question comes from Devin.
Speaker 2: It's about Venmo sharing. So he says, I enjoy watching
Speaker 2: your segments on KTLA, and I just saw a piece
Speaker 2: on this morning show about Venmo transaction sharing. Isn't the
Speaker 2: sharing a primary component of the app. My friends and
Speaker 2: I have ours set to public because it's always been
Speaker 2: that way, and I just assumed that was part of
Speaker 2: the social aspect for the app. Typically there aren't very
Speaker 2: many details. The amount or banking info is never included.
Speaker 2: It's typically just an emoji of food or tickets and
Speaker 2: then to the person who you paid to. Are there
Speaker 2: additional details that are shared that we may not know about?
Speaker 3: All right? So you know I'm a big Venmo hater.
Speaker 3: I refuse to use Venmo. So here's the thing.
Speaker 4: I lease it all the time, I know, and everyone does.
Speaker 1: We talked about this on TV and the reason the
Speaker 1: reason the story came up that this researcher because Venmo
Speaker 1: most a majority of Venmo payments are public because by default,
Speaker 1: when you make a payment, it's public. They don't by default,
Speaker 1: when you make a payment on Venmo, it's it's the
Speaker 1: details republic.
Speaker 2: Right. Well, I always actually do I do private.
Speaker 3: Right, but you change it? But the default is public, right?
Speaker 1: But right there's when you think about a default, a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't change the default. So this researcher said, hey,
Speaker 1: look we scraped like seven thousand transactions. We found that
Speaker 1: people are paying for drugs. We found all people put
Speaker 1: things in the memo line.
Speaker 2: That they don't even pay drugs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, or maybe a drug emoji. I mean there's
Speaker 3: a lot of people.
Speaker 4: Out there right an they're drug Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, Megan, maybe you're not paying for drugs
Speaker 1: through Venmo, but some people are.
Speaker 2: Yes. I guess yeah, you obviously aren't because you don't
Speaker 2: use venmo so or drugs.
Speaker 3: So I guess that's a good thing for me. I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't have it all. Yeah, just cross it. I
Speaker 3: don't have a use for either.
Speaker 1: But but I have seen people put like little wine glasses,
Speaker 1: you know, like I because a lot of people will
Speaker 1: get drinks at a bar and they'll split the payment.
Speaker 1: You know, I'll venmo you the ten dollars for that
Speaker 1: drink or whatever. So you'd you know, a little cocktail
Speaker 1: glass or whatever, little shamps so anyway, so I little
Speaker 1: finger foods. Yeah, so pooh poop latter. So my point
Speaker 1: is I said I didn't like Venmo for a couple
Speaker 1: of reasons, and I have not used Venmo in many years,
Speaker 1: even though everyone every it always comes up whenever my
Speaker 1: wife is like, oh we got to pay this person
Speaker 1: for this at school or whatever, and I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: not doing it. I'm not signing up for Venmo because
Speaker 1: I did sign up when when I first had my
Speaker 1: kids in school. I, of course, you know, got on
Speaker 1: the Venmo train and I noticed three things. Number one,
Speaker 1: the public aspect. I made a couple of payments and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, more commenting on the payment. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, what these are public?
Speaker 3: People can see these? Why why does anyone need to
Speaker 3: know my business?
Speaker 2: Still comments on the payment?
Speaker 3: Isn't that a thing? Mean like like them? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like if you send it to someone, they might
Speaker 2: the person you send it to you might like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah what I'm saying, No, you can like and comment on.
Speaker 2: I never write on people I know.
Speaker 1: We're clearly you're abnormal. You're an abnormal Venmo user. So
Speaker 1: that was the number one thing I noticed. The second
Speaker 1: thing I noticed is that back in the day, and
Speaker 1: I think this has changed, you had to link your
Speaker 1: bank account and not necessarily a debit card. Right, So
Speaker 1: I'm fine with linking my debit card, although I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily I'd rather link a credit card. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like that buffer between the payment and my bank account.
Speaker 3: Right, but a debit card is a little step closer.
Speaker 1: And my bank account number is like, no, thank you,
Speaker 1: I'm not giving that to anyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's the second thing I didn't like is that
Speaker 1: it had to interface with my bank and I didn't
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 3: I wanted to use my credit card. That was the
Speaker 3: second thing.
Speaker 1: Third thing was when I had a balance of Let's
Speaker 1: say I had a balance of fifty dollars and I
Speaker 1: make a payment to you of twenty five dollars for
Speaker 1: some apps. It took the payment out of my checking
Speaker 1: account once again, instead of out of my Venmo balance.
Speaker 1: I think that might be a default thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always thought that it would. I mean that
Speaker 2: obviously happens. Still, I just don't get that, Like, why
Speaker 2: doesn't it get taken out of the current balance.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you why.
Speaker 1: Because Venmo is collecting interest on millions of users balances
Speaker 1: without them realizing that every time they make a new payment,
Speaker 1: they're collecting a new payment from your bank account. And
Speaker 1: that's the third thing I did not like about this.
Speaker 1: And so again, these are the reasons why I don't
Speaker 1: like Venmo, and these are also the reasons why I
Speaker 1: really like Square Cash, which is kind of the competitor
Speaker 1: that has never taken off, you know, Square Square Cash.
Speaker 3: I've been talking about it for years.
Speaker 2: It just cares.
Speaker 3: No one cares. They're not using it.
Speaker 2: So if I venmo someone twenty dollars from my debit card,
Speaker 2: because if I did it for my credit card, I
Speaker 2: would get charged in.
Speaker 3: You get charged a percentage, right like Venmo will.
Speaker 2: Be like twenty two or twenty one or whatever. So
Speaker 2: if I've them with someone twenty dollars, like, where my
Speaker 2: being charged interest from.
Speaker 3: My joh, They're they're getting interest. Venmo is basically like
Speaker 3: by them from.
Speaker 2: Wells Fargo or well from America.
Speaker 1: Whoever they have their account with. They're like, let's say
Speaker 1: Venmo has a million dollars in their little bank account.
Speaker 1: They're collecting interest on that money as people use their service. Now,
Speaker 1: to be fair, Venmo is losing a ton of money.
Speaker 1: There's a crazy article about how venmo is, Like it
Speaker 1: was in the Wall Street Journal. If I can find
Speaker 1: it would be so great.
Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal Venmo.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'll just google that.
Speaker 1: So Venmo has forty million users and literally they cannot
Speaker 1: turn a profit. So uh, this story, let's see Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, it was just an insane story ads on that.
Speaker 3: Ads on venmo.
Speaker 1: Interesting Anyway, long story short, you know they I just
Speaker 1: don't like venmo, so that's it. I don't use it.
Speaker 1: I will use anything else. The thing that I do use,
Speaker 1: and I ask everyone to set it up when I
Speaker 1: need to do a payment, it's called Zell and Zell
Speaker 1: is built into your bank so there's no sign up.
Speaker 4: Use that sometimes it's like in your bank account app.
Speaker 1: It's amazing and the money goes in instantly. It Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no like middleman.
Speaker 3: There's not. It's just done, straight up done.
Speaker 2: But so are additional details shared, like.
Speaker 1: Well, the details that are shared are no. The details
Speaker 1: that are shared.
Speaker 2: Are just what's there is that I can see is your.
Speaker 1: Name, how much you paid someone, and also what it
Speaker 1: was for Pai. No, you don't see how much you paid.
Speaker 1: You just see that you paid someone. So anyway, Uh,
Speaker 1: that's my that's my rant on venmo. So I'm not
Speaker 1: judging you. If you use it, it's fine. It's a
Speaker 1: personal preference for me. And also security thing with the
Speaker 1: whole debit card thing. Okay, speaking of security, since I
Speaker 1: always say speaking of now whenever I transition to a
Speaker 1: new story, So I'll just have to stop doing that.
Speaker 1: But this is this is fascinating and something that I
Speaker 1: think is very important and something that I've kind of
Speaker 1: known for a while, but I've never seen an actual
Speaker 1: report on it. Cyberscoop dot Com says that when you
Speaker 1: stop using an app, or you kind of let an
Speaker 1: app like dormant, you're more likely to have that app
Speaker 1: broken into.
Speaker 3: By a hacker.
Speaker 1: And this makes a ton of sense because think about it,
Speaker 1: you haven't used an app in a while. All of
Speaker 1: a sudden you get an email and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: your account was you know, logged into. You're like, wait,
Speaker 1: what haven't used that in forever? Well, here's the reason
Speaker 1: why it's okay, let me give you the details. Number
Speaker 1: one sixty five percent accounts that experience an account take
Speaker 1: over an attack. Basically, when someone logs in with your
Speaker 1: username and password, like your legit stuff, they just figured
Speaker 1: it out they have not been Those accounts have usually
Speaker 1: not been accessed by their true owner in more than
Speaker 1: ninety days. So basically, when an account is dormant for
Speaker 1: a while, it's easier for a crook to get in,
Speaker 1: and they also steal stuff from you. So a lot
Speaker 1: of times they'll do this with like loyalty points like
Speaker 1: your you know, United points, your Southwest points, because a
Speaker 1: lot of times people don't check those all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so by the time you notice that your points are gone,
Speaker 1: it's like too late. It's like, oh my gosh, what happened.
Speaker 1: It might steal money from like a.
Speaker 4: Bank account that you don't log into a lot.
Speaker 3: Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So here's why this is a problem. So when you
Speaker 1: log into your accounts, like you log into your bank account,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming like, you know, a couple times a week, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: well every time you do that ten times a day, Yeah,
Speaker 1: ten times a day you're waiting for those Venmo payments
Speaker 1: to clear your bank account.
Speaker 2: Takes time.
Speaker 1: So every time you log in, your bank gets a
Speaker 1: little record of which device you used to log in,
Speaker 1: where you logged in from, how you logged in, time
Speaker 1: of day.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It builds a little kind of log of who Megan
Speaker 1: is and when she logs in and how she logs in.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That's why when someone from Russia logs in, they go
Speaker 1: hold on, Megan's never logged in from Russia, Like, what's
Speaker 1: going on here? We know that the last thirty five
Speaker 1: times she logged in from the Hollywood area. We're gonna
Speaker 1: block that Russia log in. Well, if you don't log
Speaker 1: in for a long time, guess what happens the system exactly,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have much to go on. So if you
Speaker 1: log in from Tampa, Florida, or New Jersey or Colorado,
Speaker 1: it's like, well, we don't really know, so they just
Speaker 1: let it proceed. So, you know, obviously depending on the
Speaker 1: level of sophistication with their pro you know, with their security.
Speaker 1: So that's why you should log into your apps, you know,
Speaker 1: every you know, month or so.
Speaker 2: You're talking about banks, right or anything?
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean anything anything that could be taken over
Speaker 1: your email address, your bank, your loyalty points, any account
Speaker 1: that you have that is you you know, if you
Speaker 1: have an old Instagram account, let's say, you know, if
Speaker 1: you don't log in, these computers, these fraud detection systems
Speaker 1: don't really have much to go on. So again that's
Speaker 1: I thought that was really fascinating because it makes sense.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. Also, let me just I.
Speaker 1: Thought this was also interesting in this article. So you
Speaker 1: always wonder how do these people break into your account? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: where do they get my password. So two common techniques
Speaker 1: for getting into people's accounts. Number one is credential stuffing.
Speaker 1: This is when scammers take the credentials that they've found online,
Speaker 1: like when services get hacked, it's like twenty five million
Speaker 1: user name and passwords were leaked online. They'll take those
Speaker 1: and they will just literally try them in as many
Speaker 1: services as possible, Like they have a a an app
Speaker 1: that will literally a program that will just automate that,
Speaker 1: and they'll try every combination in Yahoo and Google and whatever, whatever, whatep.
Speaker 1: The next one is called password spraying. This is a
Speaker 1: little bit more imprecise, and they just use scripted bots
Speaker 1: to basically test commonly used passwords against random user names.
Speaker 1: So that's not gonna work. So basically they can go
Speaker 1: through like John John Doe, John Doe one two three,
Speaker 1: and then they'll try like password one, password two, password
Speaker 1: one two three.
Speaker 3: And that's why they say them.
Speaker 1: See, this is the thing about all this security stuff.
Speaker 1: Many times it does, yeah, but not all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And so a lot of times what these hackers are
Speaker 1: doing is they're praying on systems that are a little
Speaker 1: bit unsophisticated. Yeah, and so that's why I always say,
Speaker 1: you don't want to use the same password across a
Speaker 1: bunch of sites because you might use your password for Gmail,
Speaker 1: which has very sophisticated log in, you know, hacker detection,
Speaker 1: but you might use that same password at your random
Speaker 1: you know whatever account. Yeah, and next thing, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like that account is hacked, and now they just
Speaker 1: take that password and they use it at Gmail.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That's why you don't want to use the same bad
Speaker 1: password at two different places. Because I'm not worried about
Speaker 1: Gmail getting hacked necessarily, I'm worried about the random account
Speaker 1: that you set up with, you know, Michael's flowershop dot com,
Speaker 1: and now using that same password on Gmail, and Michael's
Speaker 1: flower Shop gets hacked, and now the hackers try that
Speaker 1: password and use her name across a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: other bigger websites, and.
Speaker 3: In that case, they just have your stuff.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So Google is going to let that go through because
Speaker 1: unless they figure out it seems suspicious.
Speaker 2: Right. That's why I love the fingerprint thing.
Speaker 3: Fingerprint's great. I mean, that's that's also good.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times she has to be backed
Speaker 1: up by your password, you know. So Instagram along these
Speaker 1: lines is testing a new way. You ever hear about
Speaker 1: people that get locked out of their Instagram accounts, like
Speaker 1: this happened to my cousin the other day. She basically
Speaker 1: sent me a text or my brother did, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: she's locked out of her account because someone just stole
Speaker 1: her stuff and now she can't get back in because
Speaker 1: they changed her email and phone number, and so now
Speaker 1: she can't get any of her recovery stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: you go on you say I need my recovery. Instagram
Speaker 1: is finally kind of getting hip to this and saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, We're gonna make it a little bit
Speaker 1: easier for you to regain access to your hacked account.
Speaker 3: So here's how they're doing it.
Speaker 1: If you put your password in a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: times and it doesn't work, and they recognize that because
Speaker 1: they notice that you're logging in from like the same
Speaker 1: phone that you normally log in from, but it's not working,
Speaker 1: they will now give you a link to basically enter
Speaker 1: the email address and phone number that you use to
Speaker 1: sign up when you are used to sign up to Instagram,
Speaker 1: so their system remembers this stuff, of course, right right,
Speaker 1: And so once you verify that, they will send a
Speaker 1: six digit code.
Speaker 3: To your phone.
Speaker 2: Okay, good like Twitter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and lets you log in basically, that's good.
Speaker 1: So again they're using sophisticated algorithms to figure out like
Speaker 1: Megan logged in twenty five times from this iPhone from
Speaker 1: this area from these IP addresses KTLA her house. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, we at this random log in from Russia.
Speaker 2: I use Russia again, Yes, because obviously China they can't
Speaker 2: even get on.
Speaker 1: Yes, China they're not trying to. Yeah, we don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about them and know what it is. They
Speaker 1: can't even get to those IP addresses.
Speaker 3: So again Russia.
Speaker 1: They go wait a second, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: this IP, this random IP account from Russia changed her
Speaker 1: password and her phone number.
Speaker 3: That's kind of weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now we see little old Megan trying to log
Speaker 1: in from Hollywood again from Okay, young Meghan, it's.
Speaker 2: Okay, little old Megan, that's fine.
Speaker 1: So logging in from her iPhone again from the same
Speaker 1: place she's normally logged into one hundred times and she
Speaker 1: can't get in. Now we're gonna throw herr bone. We're
Speaker 1: gonna give her this one time code and we're gonna say, look,
Speaker 1: go ahead, get into your account, and then they also
Speaker 1: freeze the username so that you you know, it's like
Speaker 1: because a lot of times these hackers will take you
Speaker 1: and then they'll take your username and they'll sell it
Speaker 1: them the black mark or whatever they're they're going to
Speaker 1: freeze that.
Speaker 3: I know, there's a lot that goes on, Megan, It's
Speaker 3: lot to keep up with.
Speaker 4: It's such a scary world, especially if you're on Instagram.
Speaker 2: Geez okay, So our next question comes from Vincent Reyes
Speaker 2: Apple Watch or Fitbit. I know, I feel like we
Speaker 2: talk about the Apple Watch in every podcast, but he
Speaker 2: wants to know. Basically, his wife's birthday is coming up
Speaker 2: and he's been debating if he wants to get his
Speaker 2: wife an Apple Watch or the fitbit versa. He has
Speaker 2: an Apple Watch and the battery life is what makes
Speaker 2: him dislike the purchase, and unless they made significant strides
Speaker 2: in longer battery life, he doesn't want to purchase another
Speaker 2: Apple Watch for his wife. And then he says he
Speaker 2: likes the fipbit because of the battery life, but not
Speaker 2: sure if his wife would prefer the Apple Watch. I
Speaker 2: would like your thoughts as to why lean one way
Speaker 2: or the other.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you probably know my answer. Yes, right, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna recommend the Apple Watch. Here's why I've I've
Speaker 1: had the Fitbit Versa. I bought that and I used
Speaker 1: it for like a year, I think maybe six months
Speaker 1: a year, and I loved it because I'm a big runner.
Speaker 1: I love having that data of running. And I thought,
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to smart devices, I think
Speaker 1: the Fitbit Versa and the Apple Watch, and probably the
Speaker 1: Galaxy the new one, the Galaxy you Watch Active or
Speaker 1: whatever it's called, are probably the three best at this point.
Speaker 1: But here's why I like the Apple Watch the best.
Speaker 1: You say, your wife has an iPhone, it's going to
Speaker 1: work the best with iPhone. I am sitting here when
Speaker 1: I look at my Apple Watch, like there are little
Speaker 1: things that pop up on the screen that just amaze me.
Speaker 1: It's like, literally it kind of has learned when I
Speaker 1: work out during the day, so all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'll just get like a little button that says start
Speaker 1: a workout, and it's like, oh, I don't have to
Speaker 1: like go through the settings any of that stuff. Obviously,
Speaker 1: and the verse I believe does this as well. But
Speaker 1: when you start a workout, and I know that the
Speaker 1: Samsung devices do this. It automatically recognizes that. So when
Speaker 1: I start running with you know for and normally I
Speaker 1: do start the workout before I start running. But a
Speaker 1: lot of time, if you're just doing something physically active,
Speaker 1: like if you're hiking or whatever, or you're taking a
Speaker 1: long walk, all of a sudden, it will say, hey,
Speaker 1: we notice that you're doing something active.
Speaker 3: Do you want to record that workout?
Speaker 1: And it will back time so it remembers like if
Speaker 1: you hop on your bike and start taking a long
Speaker 1: bike ride, it will go back to the first minute
Speaker 1: that it noticed that you started biking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's kind of fun. I know you want
Speaker 3: one of these now, So I like that aspect.
Speaker 1: Now, the battery life is definitely the biggest downside of
Speaker 1: the Apple Watch. But what I've just gotten a customer
Speaker 1: doing is at night, before you go to sleep, you
Speaker 1: take off your Apple Watch, you put it on the charger.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: So what is the battery life to me?
Speaker 3: I don't even know, Like it's just it's a day.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it as it ever died only when you.
Speaker 1: Do crazy exercise. So like yesterday, I didn't really do
Speaker 1: that much exercise. My battery was at ten percent right
Speaker 1: when I was going to sleep. Okay, it's just kind
Speaker 1: of weird because that doesn't normally happen. Some nights it's
Speaker 1: at like you know, I don't even look. I don't
Speaker 1: look because it doesn't matter. I use it for the day.
Speaker 1: It gets through the day. Now some people may say
Speaker 1: it gets through a day and a half, maybe two days.
Speaker 1: But what I notice if you do any sort of
Speaker 1: physical activity for like a half an hour or longer,
Speaker 1: especially an hour, that's going to drain your battery significantly
Speaker 1: because it's using the GPS and all the sensors in
Speaker 1: your watch. So it's taking your heart rate more, it's
Speaker 1: doing more GPS.
Speaker 3: That's why the battery goes.
Speaker 2: That's what about playing music and like Bluetooth, that doesn't really.
Speaker 3: Not as much.
Speaker 1: I mean it will, it will affect it, but not
Speaker 1: as much as the workouts. When your workout is on,
Speaker 1: it's firing every sensor in that phone to get the
Speaker 1: most accurate data about your workout.
Speaker 3: So that's why it's taking up the battery more.
Speaker 1: Right, So the fipbit versa, the biggest benefit is basically
Speaker 1: I think you need to ask your wife in a
Speaker 1: sly way because you don't want her to know because
Speaker 1: it's a birthday present. Just be like, is sleep tracking
Speaker 1: important to you? So that's the main advantage of the
Speaker 1: fitbit versa is two things. Number one sleep tracking. You
Speaker 1: can track your sleep and I love that data. But
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that you sort of have
Speaker 1: to give up if you're on an Apple Watch.
Speaker 3: It's kind of fun.
Speaker 1: The fitbit will tell you exactly how long you slept,
Speaker 1: when you tossed and turned, when you had deep sleep,
Speaker 1: when you woke up, when you went to bed.
Speaker 4: It's really cool. You also get about four days of
Speaker 4: battery life.
Speaker 3: With that one.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, how do you charge it?
Speaker 1: So you basically with that one, you just kind of
Speaker 1: charge it like whenever you feel like it. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think for a lot of people, the
Speaker 1: routine is before you get into the shower, just put
Speaker 1: it on the charger.
Speaker 2: Oh, so got it.
Speaker 1: That's you know, twenty minutes here or there. Oh for space,
Speaker 1: I mean it depends how lot you're spending an hour,
Speaker 1: an hour or two here, yeah, whatever, your bath, yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: take a bath, put it on the thing. So oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, we have so many more things to get through.
Speaker 1: So we played the uh wizarding with the new Harry
Speaker 1: Potter game. This is called Harry Potter Wizards Unit. I
Speaker 1: went to an event at Universal Studios in Hollywood on
Speaker 1: Tuesday night.
Speaker 3: It was a lot of fun. It was. It was
Speaker 3: a lot of like YouTube.
Speaker 1: Influencers, a lot of people I didn't recognize, you know,
Speaker 1: like sometimes it's like tech journalists sometimes you know, it
Speaker 1: depends on the event, right, this one was a lot
Speaker 1: of like it was like a mixed crowd of like YouTubers,
Speaker 1: print people, game video game people. But you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It wasn't like I was anyway. So long
Speaker 1: story short, we got to play the new game. And
Speaker 1: this is a game that is very similar to what
Speaker 1: Pokemon Go is, except with Harry Potter. It's made by
Speaker 1: the same company Niantic. It's also made by a company
Speaker 1: called WB Games, which I guess is part of Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming, but you are a new recruit in working
Speaker 1: within the Statue of Secrecy Task Force. Does that make
Speaker 1: any sense any that? No, you're helping solve the mystery
Speaker 1: of the calamity. Does that make any sense?
Speaker 2: No, Okay, Well, I'm not a Harry Potter.
Speaker 3: You're not. I thought you were a Harry Potter.
Speaker 2: Has No I watched I watched all the.
Speaker 3: Moviesay, and you don't know what the calamity is? Did
Speaker 3: you watch them with your eyes closed?
Speaker 2: I didn't take notes.
Speaker 3: Let's just okay.
Speaker 1: So players will be able to explore their real world
Speaker 1: neighborhoods and cities to discover mysterious artifacts, cast spells and
Speaker 1: counter fantastic beast and iconic characters. So I am not
Speaker 1: a Harry Potter person. I read the first the first
Speaker 1: half of the first book, and I found it very interesting.
Speaker 3: I actually really liked it. I just never really got
Speaker 3: into it.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so again there this is like there's like muggles,
Speaker 1: like people throw around all these A muggle is like
Speaker 1: a regular person today.
Speaker 3: No, I knew that, Yes I did. I knew that
Speaker 3: there's muggles.
Speaker 1: So your job the beauty of this game, and I
Speaker 1: here's my thoughts on the game. If you are just
Speaker 1: kind of an average gamer that finds things really interesting
Speaker 1: and technology really interesting, I think you'll find this interesting
Speaker 1: because it uses augmented reality, so it puts the game
Speaker 1: in the world around you. So when you're in your neighborhood,
Speaker 1: you see the streets on a map of your neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and you walk around and find stuff and find these
Speaker 1: little challenges. And what I understand the challenges to be
Speaker 1: is I saw like some kid that was like entrapped
Speaker 1: in thorns, and I had to wave my magic wand
Speaker 1: to like free him, and then I collect that kid,
Speaker 1: and that's like kind of like I won like that
Speaker 1: little part of the game, right. And then I saw
Speaker 1: like a slug that was in like this big massive
Speaker 1: like moving like you know, yucky bowlb or whatever, right,
Speaker 1: and I had to like wave my wand and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: cast a spell on.
Speaker 4: That slug to like the wand your phone.
Speaker 1: Your wand is your finger on the phone screen, Okay,
Speaker 1: And every spell you have to trace like a little
Speaker 1: spell on the screen. Maybe that's just for the beginner
Speaker 1: part of the game. Maybe towards the end you have
Speaker 1: to like figure.
Speaker 3: Out the spell. I don't know. Interesting, Yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 1: Only did like four or five of these little things.
Speaker 1: But I will say a couple things. Number One, all
Speaker 1: the people in the little Harry Potter world that we
Speaker 1: were in, like we're obsessed with the game. Watching me
Speaker 1: play it, they're like, what is that?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 1: They're Harry Potter fans, So maybe that's not telling right.
Speaker 1: But I think that this will be an interesting game
Speaker 1: because it's available Friday, June twenty first on iOS and Android.
Speaker 1: It's free to download. Of course there will be in
Speaker 1: app purchases, But I think this will be interesting because
Speaker 1: here's the thing. When Pokemon Go came out, it had
Speaker 1: a built in audience of video game nerds, right. People
Speaker 1: were very familiar with the Pokemon video games that played
Speaker 1: Pokemon Go and it became this huge sensation. It brought
Speaker 1: in other people as well, people that like mobile games
Speaker 1: with Harry Potter. The Harry Potter fan base might be
Speaker 1: bigger than Pokemon, but a lot of those people just
Speaker 1: know it from the books and the movies. They're not
Speaker 1: necessarily video game players, right. And I think that's the
Speaker 1: challenge this game might have is it could be super popular,
Speaker 1: it could eclipse Pokemon Go, or it might not be
Speaker 1: as popular because the muggles that play, is that what
Speaker 1: they're called?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the regular people that play.
Speaker 2: But I feel like the people that are into it
Speaker 2: don't want to be called No, they.
Speaker 3: Don't want to be a Muggle. They think they're enough.
Speaker 4: Ye see all these weird bletherin.
Speaker 3: Oh what does that mean?
Speaker 2: Oh Lytherin, You're going to hurt people's feeling.
Speaker 3: I do like the butter beer. I tried that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I did go on two rides.
Speaker 2: I have a question about game. So if you have it,
Speaker 2: So if I get the game and I'm like walking around, well,
Speaker 2: I get notifications when like there's.
Speaker 4: Something I think, so I don't.
Speaker 2: That was the Pokemon Go. That's how Pokemon Go like
Speaker 2: became so popular, is like people would literally walk to
Speaker 2: like parts of La or whatever just to like get
Speaker 2: that special dinosaur or whatever they were called.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I think that's all part of it.
Speaker 1: That is part of Niantics set on stage that a
Speaker 1: big part of the game is helping you explore your
Speaker 1: world around you, gotcha, So you know, it gets you
Speaker 1: out and about and like you might go to a
Speaker 1: park in La that like everyone says this Muggle dwarf
Speaker 1: is at that park with the bench and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I gotta go Buggle pick up there. And so I
Speaker 1: think that's a big part of the game. Or yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's it. That's going to do it for the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the more is there.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for listening. Please subscribe to the show.
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Speaker 4: Producer, Megan, did you enjoy the show?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Today, it was fun. What by fast?
Speaker 1: Do you think the audio is going to be better
Speaker 1: than the show from China?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And have you recovered from your jet lag. I don't
Speaker 1: think so, no, I know it took a while.
Speaker 3: This time.
Speaker 2: It's hard to like go to sleep because I'm so
Speaker 2: used to staying up all night because that was China
Speaker 2: for us, because it was like at five pm in China.
Speaker 2: It's a big time yeah, big time change.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm Richdmiro, thanks so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: Have a great day. We will talk to you real
Speaker 1: soon