Speaker 1: Netflix raising prices, Netflix tests paid subscriptions, faster cellular internet
Speaker 1: rolls out in a big way, Plus your tech questions answered?
Speaker 1: What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich
Speaker 1: on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech
Speaker 1: stuff I think you should know about. It's also the
Speaker 1: place where I answer the questions you send me what
Speaker 1: is going on? I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel
Speaker 1: five in Los Angeles. Did I already say what's going on?
Speaker 1: I think I did to What's going on in just
Speaker 1: the span of thirty seconds. Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 1: I know last week I was off. I was out
Speaker 1: sick because of you know what. And the funny thing
Speaker 1: is I didn't even have it. So, you know, everyone
Speaker 1: thought that I would get sick at CEF in Las
Speaker 1: Vegas and I would get you know, COVID, and I didn't.
Speaker 1: I made it through just fine, and I come home
Speaker 1: to my kid who has it and proceeds to infect
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the house, not including myself or my
Speaker 1: other kid. So my wife and one of my kids
Speaker 1: had it and she got it pretty bad. So it
Speaker 1: is a serious thing. I somehow escaped it. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how, but I'll take that for now. But that's
Speaker 1: why I wasn't here last week. And let me tell
Speaker 1: you a scrambling for those COVID tests when you need
Speaker 1: them the most. Oh my gosh, that was like the
Speaker 1: trickiest thing. I'm going to talk about later in the
Speaker 1: show my experience with that and the whole new website
Speaker 1: that the government has, and we'll talk about that a
Speaker 1: little bit. I know, I don't want to get too
Speaker 1: much into that because I know it's a topic that
Speaker 1: a we're kind of sick of hearing about and be
Speaker 1: you know, everyone has their own thoughts on it, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into that whole section. All
Speaker 1: I'm saying is that for us here it was real.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a solid week of realness and
Speaker 1: the Demro house, so you know, it can happen to anyone, Okay.
Speaker 1: So I asked on my Facebook page, let's see what
Speaker 1: was the question that I asked here? I said, what
Speaker 1: is your current favorite tech gadget besides your phone? And
Speaker 1: the comments just coming in fast, all kinds. I'm getting
Speaker 1: so many great ideas. Chair speaker, voice enhancing TV soundbar
Speaker 1: my fitbit Amberly says, I'm not sure if this is
Speaker 1: considered a gadget. But I love the Apple Watch I
Speaker 1: got for Christmas. Jerry says, probably my Amazon Fire TV Box.
Speaker 1: It's kept me sane while working from home the past
Speaker 1: twenty one months. Alejandro says my Sony walkman. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Maybe he's kidding. Let's see, Louis says,
Speaker 1: my iPad, since it's faster than my Windows PC. Jordan
Speaker 1: says his m one Mac Pro sixteen with monitor and
Speaker 1: iPad sidecar. Wow, that's a pretty good setup. James says
Speaker 1: his Bosh electric drill. Yeah. I hear the tim the
Speaker 1: tool man Taylor in that one. Let's see what else.
Speaker 1: Lynnette says, or kindle paper white signature reader. I've got
Speaker 1: to start reading. I really fell off. I really fell
Speaker 1: off the train. What do you call it? Fell off
Speaker 1: the bus? I don't know, whatever you call it, but
Speaker 1: I really fell off whatever you fall off these days,
Speaker 1: I fell off. I was reading so well up until
Speaker 1: about the holidays, and then it just kind of took
Speaker 1: a nose dive. And I don't know why. I just
Speaker 1: I was just like glued to my phone for some reason.
Speaker 1: And so some of that comes with not having a
Speaker 1: good book to read. I feel like if you're like
Speaker 1: I finished a really good book and then I was
Speaker 1: trying other books and they just weren't doing it for me.
Speaker 1: So I just downloaded another book today I will see.
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna like that one more. But it's
Speaker 1: all about the good book, right, Like, if you are
Speaker 1: starting to read a book and you get into it,
Speaker 1: it should just be automatic. You shouldn't really have to
Speaker 1: even think much about it. It should just work. And
Speaker 1: so you know a good book when that happens, and
Speaker 1: so it's kind of a natural thing. So if you're
Speaker 1: really forcing yourself to read a book, I used to
Speaker 1: do that and finish it. Now I'm just like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do that. Like why you know, reading
Speaker 1: is tough enough. I feel like in this day and age,
Speaker 1: like we just were so like screen centric and everything
Speaker 1: is like fast, and I mean you Instagram reels and
Speaker 1: TikTok and it's like it's like stimulation overload. And then
Speaker 1: we go to this book that's like kind of boring
Speaker 1: and you fall asleep and you start reading it. That
Speaker 1: should not be happening. It should be like a really
Speaker 1: great experience where you can't put the book down, and
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember with the last book I read
Speaker 1: that was like that. Oh, I think it was The
Speaker 1: Silent Patient, and it was it was really good. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like a it's just an easy read, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those like kind of beach reads. All right,
Speaker 1: let's see what Tommy said his fitbit or his eight
Speaker 1: k TV. Wow. Let's see what else do we have.
Speaker 1: Karen says the Volkswagen ID four electric car. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good one. Kelly says, my tile for my tortoise.
Speaker 1: You gotta tile on your tortoise to keep track of
Speaker 1: your tortoise. Huh. Stephanie, another vote for the Kindle, heather,
Speaker 1: vote for the Amazon fire tablet. Let's see, Joshua the
Speaker 1: Cardo motorcycle helmet, Bluetooth. Okay, that's cool. Richard says the
Speaker 1: heated steering wheel. Oh wow. Chris says my kindle. I
Speaker 1: read at least twelve to fourteen hours a week. Ps.
Speaker 1: I am a ninety year old. Wow, that's awesome. So
Speaker 1: a lot of people with their kindles. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: look at this. Irwin says my super fast iPad on wheels.
Speaker 1: He's got a video of the self driving mode on
Speaker 1: his Tesla. Anyway, if you want to get in on
Speaker 1: the question what's your current favorite tech gadget besides your phone?
Speaker 1: You can go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash Rich on tech. All right, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: first big story of the week. It's not that big
Speaker 1: of a story because I mean, what are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: I feel like we've talked about this before with the
Speaker 1: other streaming services when they raise prices. But Netflix is
Speaker 1: raising prices once again a dollar to two dollars per
Speaker 1: month depending on the plan. So this is the first
Speaker 1: rate increase since it was about four hundred and forty
Speaker 1: days since they announce the one before this, so just
Speaker 1: over a year. And you know, it comes at a
Speaker 1: hard time because with the pandemic, you know, people have
Speaker 1: been trying to cut back and people have been you know,
Speaker 1: just I mean, this is like their lifeline for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Is your is your Netflix? You know,
Speaker 1: it's like this is the connection to the entertainment that
Speaker 1: they need. And so Netflix, it's like one of these
Speaker 1: things are at this point. Okay, so let's go over
Speaker 1: the plans. I mean, at this point, you know you're
Speaker 1: talking plans, so the Standard plan, which does not include
Speaker 1: any sort of like HD streaming, is like nine to
Speaker 1: ninety nine a month, and then the the okay, the
Speaker 1: standard plan which has you know, which is the one
Speaker 1: that most people have. That's the middle plan that includes
Speaker 1: just HD. Sorry scratch what I said about the nine
Speaker 1: and nine. I'm not sure if that's right. But the
Speaker 1: Standard plan, which is like the middle plan, that's fifteen
Speaker 1: forty nine a month. That's up from thirteen ninety nine
Speaker 1: a month, okay, And that includes HD and two simultaneous streams.
Speaker 1: Then you go up to the Ultra HD, which is
Speaker 1: the plan that I have, which gives you four K
Speaker 1: and I think four streams at a time because I
Speaker 1: need those because the one time I logged in when
Speaker 1: someone was maybe how do we call it sharing my account?
Speaker 1: They you know, I couldn't watch the show that I
Speaker 1: wanted to watch. So I had to upgrade my plan
Speaker 1: so that I can make sure that doesn't happen again.
Speaker 1: And so that's going up by two dollars a month.
Speaker 1: So if you look at that, that was seventeen ninety nine.
Speaker 1: Now it's nineteen ninety nine a month. And I guess
Speaker 1: the basic plan is nine ninety nine. It used to
Speaker 1: be eight ninety nine. So here's the thing. This makes
Speaker 1: Netflix really expensive when it comes to streaming services. Twenty
Speaker 1: dollars a month. Now, for some of you listening, you
Speaker 1: may say, Rich, that's fine. I mean, I watch so
Speaker 1: much Netflix, it's not a big deal. Twenty dollars a
Speaker 1: month is still a pretty good value for what I get,
Speaker 1: and I would agree with that. A one movie ticket,
Speaker 1: you know, in LA, could be seventeen ninety nine eighteen.
Speaker 1: I haven't been in a while, but that's how much
Speaker 1: they used to be. So the reality is it's not
Speaker 1: all on her. I mean, twenty dollars for a full
Speaker 1: month of entertainment. But the problem is when you layer
Speaker 1: on the other services that you have, and you've got
Speaker 1: Disney Plus, you've got Amazon Prime, which is you know,
Speaker 1: it's mixed in with the Prime membership. You've got Hulu,
Speaker 1: You've got all these other little services as well, Disney Plus,
Speaker 1: Hbo Max. So I mean I'm paying for all those
Speaker 1: including and YouTube as well. So I've got a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of these services. Now when I add them up,
Speaker 1: I think I added them up one time, even on
Speaker 1: this podcast, and I think it came out to like
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty bucks a month, maybe even less
Speaker 1: than that, And so when you look at it that way,
Speaker 1: it's still a pretty good value. I mean, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like what you paid for cable back in the day,
Speaker 1: except this you can come and go as you please.
Speaker 1: So even though the prices are definitely in line with
Speaker 1: what we were paying, there's much more flexibility and you
Speaker 1: don't need to subscribe to everything all at once. So
Speaker 1: if you just have a young kid, maybe you've got
Speaker 1: Netflix for the parents and Disney for the kids and
Speaker 1: you're done. Maybe you're an adult, you just have HBO
Speaker 1: and Netflix and nothing else. So I mean, it just
Speaker 1: really depends. You can pick and choose, and I think
Speaker 1: that's the biggest benefit we're seeing over these over the
Speaker 1: standard cable and I you know, from what I saw
Speaker 1: on my Facebook page when people are commenting about this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: some people are complaining, but a majority of the people said, look,
Speaker 1: you know what, it's a dollar or two a month,
Speaker 1: it's really not that big of a deal. I think
Speaker 1: the bigger deal is really the fact that we're just
Speaker 1: seeing Netflix raise prices very in a similar fashion to
Speaker 1: the way that cable raise prices like clockwork. Every year
Speaker 1: you get that little bill insert that said, oh, your
Speaker 1: rates are going up, And now I feel like that's
Speaker 1: kind of what Netflix is doing, because they want a
Speaker 1: long time without raising rates, and now it just seems
Speaker 1: like that's the new thing where they just go ahead
Speaker 1: and raise rates. All right, let's get to the first
Speaker 1: question of the show. Valerie says, which are the best
Speaker 1: ad blockers? I keep getting pop ups about them? Are
Speaker 1: they a scam? No, they're not a scam. You can
Speaker 1: definitely use an ad blocker on your computer and on
Speaker 1: your phone, so on iOS and Android. It works a
Speaker 1: little bit differently. On Android. There's much more flexibility, of course,
Speaker 1: so you can install pretty much whatever you want. I
Speaker 1: like the one called ad Guard, and so there's a
Speaker 1: couple of ways you can install it. The easiest way
Speaker 1: is to go into your connections under your Wi Fi
Speaker 1: and it says like more and it's like your DNS
Speaker 1: and you literally can just pop in I think it's
Speaker 1: DNS dot adguard dot com and it will literally just
Speaker 1: block all the ads on your phone, like at the
Speaker 1: network level. It's pretty pretty simple. It's very clean. The
Speaker 1: only thing I don't like about it is when you
Speaker 1: come across an AD on your phone, it's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of gibberish. Like there's just a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff there, like all the coding that it takes to
Speaker 1: like put that AD there. It's like the link or whatever,
Speaker 1: and so it's just annoying to like scroll through and
Speaker 1: see that. Now on the iPhone, it's a little bit cleaner.
Speaker 1: What it does is it just eradicates the AD completely
Speaker 1: so you don't even see it. But it's not system
Speaker 1: wide the Android. It can be system wide on the iPhone,
Speaker 1: it's really only inside Safari. And inside Safari you have
Speaker 1: to install what's like basically what's called an AD blocker,
Speaker 1: And so if you go into you basically enable it.
Speaker 1: Once you install it, you install it from the app Store,
Speaker 1: and then you enable it inside Safari and it just
Speaker 1: kind of blocks the ads inside Safari. And so you know,
Speaker 1: there's a benefit. It's not just the ads, it's really
Speaker 1: privacy protection as well that you're getting. And a lot
Speaker 1: of the times these ads can sometimes they can be
Speaker 1: in you know, or try to install malware on your phone.
Speaker 1: A lot of those pop ups that you see that
Speaker 1: says the FBI, is looking at your phone, or FBI
Speaker 1: warning or virus warning. Those are being served up by
Speaker 1: malicious ads and they're not meant to be doing that,
Speaker 1: but sometimes they just slip through because a lot of
Speaker 1: the ADS systems are automated, and so the bad actors
Speaker 1: can put these ads in and sure they're approved automatically,
Speaker 1: but then of course an hour or so later, they're
Speaker 1: not a proved and in that time they've already done
Speaker 1: enough damage. So I would definitely recommend the ad guard
Speaker 1: for iOS and also for Android. There's also I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of them on on iOS, like Crystal
Speaker 1: I think is another one, but there's a whole bunch.
Speaker 1: You can also install the Firefox what's it called Firefox
Speaker 1: Focus web browser and you can you can toggle on that.
Speaker 1: It has its own Safari ad blocker as well built
Speaker 1: in there, so it's a little different. Let me, I've
Speaker 1: it's been a long time since I enabled this, so
Speaker 1: let me go into my settings and see what the
Speaker 1: deal is that you go into settings and then Safari
Speaker 1: and let's see does it have okay here it is?
Speaker 1: So you go all the way down under the settings
Speaker 1: and Safari and it says content blockers and then you
Speaker 1: can do use content blockers on all websites, and so
Speaker 1: that's the way you do it there. But you can
Speaker 1: do it that way. You can also download the Brave
Speaker 1: browser for either phone and that will block the ads
Speaker 1: on there as well. Or you can download that for
Speaker 1: your desktop too. Now on desktop for Chrome, I like
Speaker 1: the u Block Origin ad blocker, and that's a good
Speaker 1: one because it's nice and lightweight. I mean it's used
Speaker 1: by ten million people and it's a very like simple
Speaker 1: ad blocking software for that, so good question. And you
Speaker 1: know it's they have their place. Like sometimes it's annoying
Speaker 1: because if you're trying to click on an AD and
Speaker 1: you can't. It's like, especially with Google Results, like a
Speaker 1: lot of times I want to click an AD because
Speaker 1: it's like the most direct link that I want, and
Speaker 1: it's like sometimes it's broken. So there is a downside
Speaker 1: to doing it. You just have to weigh the pros
Speaker 1: and the cons of whether it works for you. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about you probably saw this in the news.
Speaker 1: It was everywhere, but the whole deal with the airlines
Speaker 1: and the five G networks around the airports. So of course,
Speaker 1: in typical fashion, with anything that's tech related. There's there's
Speaker 1: just a lot of like, you know, bad narratives out there,
Speaker 1: misleading narratives, or just a lot of stuff that you know,
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, is this real, Like what's the deal?
Speaker 1: So I looked into some of the things that is
Speaker 1: going on with this whole you know, with the whole
Speaker 1: five G. So the main thing is that AT and
Speaker 1: T and Verizon this week they both activated their five
Speaker 1: G networks in the C band, which is a super
Speaker 1: fast spectrum. And so the reality is that the five
Speaker 1: G networks nationwide or at least wherever they put these
Speaker 1: are going to be a lot faster. And so they
Speaker 1: really really are. And I can tell you just in
Speaker 1: my experience just driving around town in the past twenty
Speaker 1: four hours, I can't believe how many places now have
Speaker 1: this ultra wide band. And so with AT and T,
Speaker 1: they opened it up in let's see, eight metro areas,
Speaker 1: and those metro areas include Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Fort Worth, Detroit, Houston, Jacksonville, Orlando,
Speaker 1: and South Florida. And so that's where they did it.
Speaker 1: Now Verizon went a little wider with this and they
Speaker 1: are doing one hundred million people in the in the
Speaker 1: US this month, so five G ultra, So that's seventeen
Speaker 1: hundred cities across the nation that they're opening up this
Speaker 1: ultra wideband network, and that means that you know what
Speaker 1: I've seen in LA, it's it's pretty expansive. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm catching this signal in a lot more places now
Speaker 1: in just the past forty eight hours. And it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty awesome because once you have this signal, it is fast.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm talking really fast, like I'm talking faster
Speaker 1: than your Internet at home. Fast, like a gig down
Speaker 1: in a perfect world. And so you might notice on
Speaker 1: your phone if you look in the upper you know,
Speaker 1: upper corner of your phone where your your five G
Speaker 1: signal typically lives. On AT and T, if you're on
Speaker 1: that newer network, it'll say five G plus, it'll have
Speaker 1: a little plus. And on Verizon if you're on the
Speaker 1: five G the super fast one, it'll say five G UW.
Speaker 1: And when you see UW, you immediately go to Netflix
Speaker 1: and you download a movie or download something or do
Speaker 1: anything that involves a lot of horsepower with downloading stuff
Speaker 1: from the internet. Because it is really really fast, you'll
Speaker 1: burn through whatever data plan you have, you don't have
Speaker 1: unlimited in about one second. Okay, So that is what's
Speaker 1: happening with these with the five g Okay. Now when
Speaker 1: it comes to the airport, Oh and by the way,
Speaker 1: you have to have a certain device to take advantage.
Speaker 1: Now it's typically the newer devices. So we're talking the
Speaker 1: Galaxy S twenty one lineup, the Z fold, the z Flip,
Speaker 1: the Pixel six and Pixel six Pro which are coming
Speaker 1: soon with support who knows what that means when it
Speaker 1: comes to Google, and then all the iPhone twelves and
Speaker 1: iPhone thirteen's. So if you have one of those phones,
Speaker 1: those are the phones that will take advantage of the
Speaker 1: new five networks there and on AT and T. I
Speaker 1: don't have a list of the phones, but you can
Speaker 1: imagine it's pretty much the same same kind of thing.
Speaker 1: The newer phones will take advantage of that. Now, what
Speaker 1: happened with the planes? Okay, So around the airports, there's
Speaker 1: a concern that this new network is very close to
Speaker 1: the frequency that the altimeters on the airplanes use. Now
Speaker 1: we are talking just the last twenty seconds of a flight,
Speaker 1: and it's very important in those last twenty seconds because
Speaker 1: the plane is touching down, and it needs to know
Speaker 1: or the pilot needs to know exactly how far that
Speaker 1: plane is from the ground. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: ever been on a plane when it lands and it
Speaker 1: kind of does that not a hard landing, because that's like,
Speaker 1: I think that's a term for like a you know,
Speaker 1: really hard landing. But I'm saying just one of those
Speaker 1: landings where you know, the plane hits the ground just
Speaker 1: a little bit harder than you thought it would. And
Speaker 1: that's all because it is very precise when these airlines
Speaker 1: are bringing the plane down. It's it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it starts with a than feet and a five hundred,
Speaker 1: you know whatever, two hundred one, and it's gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: imagine bringing this giant thing that weighs so much and
Speaker 1: just tapping it to the ground ever so lightly, because
Speaker 1: if you tap it really hard, you know, you're gonna
Speaker 1: mess that thing up. And so that's why the last
Speaker 1: little portion of that flight is very crucial. So the
Speaker 1: whole thing is that the last twenty seconds are critical.
Speaker 1: They're worried that these altimeters could be influenced by the
Speaker 1: five G. We're not really sure if that's one hundred
Speaker 1: percent the case, but that's the concern. And so I
Speaker 1: was reading this thing from the FCC and they said, well,
Speaker 1: what about other countries they do this, And so in
Speaker 1: places like France they have they have done a buffer
Speaker 1: zone around the airport's kind of like what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here in the US. And also the antennas are
Speaker 1: turned down towards the ground instead of up, they're not
Speaker 1: aimed up around the airports. That helps the frequency kind
Speaker 1: of stay more towards the ground and not up towards
Speaker 1: the sky towards the plane to interfere. And also the
Speaker 1: power that we're we're letting the carriers activate their networks
Speaker 1: at here is apparently a little higher than the power
Speaker 1: that they're allowed to use over in Europe. So those
Speaker 1: are kind of some of the reasons that they're concerned.
Speaker 1: I've heard other things that maybe this is kind of
Speaker 1: a political thing or just you know, a bureaucratic thing.
Speaker 1: You know, the government agencies are kind of fighting. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's all there's so much like what's going on with this?
Speaker 1: Because also why did it take you know, everyone knew
Speaker 1: what days these networks were going to light up. Why
Speaker 1: did it take until the last minute for this whole
Speaker 1: thing to kind of develop, you know, where they said, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to give another two week time period to
Speaker 1: kind of sort things out. So in the meantime, the
Speaker 1: wireless companies have lit up the spectrum in places that
Speaker 1: are not the airports, and they've kind of built these
Speaker 1: buffer zones around the airports. So that's what's happening and
Speaker 1: with these with this whole situation, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: very odd, you know, but that's what's happening. So now
Speaker 1: you know, all right, let's get to another question here, Rich,
Speaker 1: can you help me understand something please. I just read
Speaker 1: an article about clearing apples Safari browser issues and recommendations
Speaker 1: to clear history and website data. I happen to notice
Speaker 1: that in the Apple setting Safari all the way at
Speaker 1: the bottom is a section called experimental features, and certain
Speaker 1: things are on. What are experimental features? And should there
Speaker 1: be features turned on? I appreciate your time and all
Speaker 1: the great tips you give on your site and your broadcast. Respectfully, Mark, Mark,
Speaker 1: very respectfully. I would not play in there unless you
Speaker 1: have a reason to. Because I'm looking at this and
Speaker 1: I you know, I never really looked at this, but
Speaker 1: this is okay, experimental features are all kinds of like
Speaker 1: wild things that you just don't need to worry about.
Speaker 1: This is if you are a developer. This is if
Speaker 1: you need to enable a very specific feature to test
Speaker 1: something out inside Safari, or if something's not working properly
Speaker 1: and you know what you're doing. But for the average
Speaker 1: person that's using their iPhone, there is no need to
Speaker 1: look at that whatsoever. The closest thing I can think
Speaker 1: of is on Chrome, there is a similar thing called flags,
Speaker 1: and what those do is they activate kind of internal
Speaker 1: features in Chrome. So for instance, if you want to
Speaker 1: try out a new feature, or you want to test something,
Speaker 1: or you want to kind of change the browser to
Speaker 1: work in a way that you want it to, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of little toggles you can find inside the
Speaker 1: Chrome flags. And yes, I've messed with those a bunch
Speaker 1: of times, and it looks very similar to what's inside
Speaker 1: that advance that you were talking about in Safari. But
Speaker 1: for most people, unless you know what you're doing, or
Speaker 1: unless you're enabling a very specific feature that someone's writing about,
Speaker 1: like in a blog post, there's really no need to
Speaker 1: mess with that stuff. So that's I would just kind
Speaker 1: of leave that stuff alone. Hopefully that helps you out there.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about Instagram, everyone's favorite social media network.
Speaker 1: Instagram is testing out subscriptions, monthly subscriptions, and so these
Speaker 1: subscriptions are kind of emulating what was launched on Facebook
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. But with subscriptions, you basically get to
Speaker 1: charge your followers to follow you. Now, not all of
Speaker 1: your followers. They can you know, you can decide how
Speaker 1: much do you want to charge, and you can go
Speaker 1: from ninety nine cents a month to one hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a month, which is that's a lot. I mean, one
Speaker 1: hundred bucks a month. That's like some serious, serious coin.
Speaker 1: Ninety nine cents is pretty good. I think that's a
Speaker 1: nice number. You know, maybe like the sweet spot, I
Speaker 1: mean depends on the creator. You know. The thing is,
Speaker 1: you know, by the time you know, you take out
Speaker 1: all these levies from these tech companies, you know, the
Speaker 1: standard like thirty percent or whatever. You know, ninety nine
Speaker 1: cents becomes seventy cents, two dollars becomes you know, whatever
Speaker 1: that is in math. But one thing that's interesting about
Speaker 1: this is that Facebook has said they are not taking
Speaker 1: any fees until twenty twenty three at the earliest. Now,
Speaker 1: that sounds really far away, but we're already into January
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, so that's really only eleven months.
Speaker 1: But what they're trying to do is get people to
Speaker 1: use this. They're trying to get people on board and
Speaker 1: also give these creators a little taste of the cast
Speaker 1: that they can make on Instagram. Now a couple things
Speaker 1: that you'll be able to do. So if you are
Speaker 1: if you subscribe to someone, you would get to see
Speaker 1: live broadcasts that are exclusive to subscribers. Now, I think
Speaker 1: this is brilliant for someone like me because let's say
Speaker 1: that I took this tech show to Instagram, and you
Speaker 1: know you've been texting me, you've been emailing me, and
Speaker 1: I never answer your question. Well, let's say I do
Speaker 1: an exclusive show every week just for subscribers. The chances
Speaker 1: of you getting your question answered are a lot better
Speaker 1: because it's going to be much more intimate, much more exclusive.
Speaker 1: So that is just one example of a way that
Speaker 1: this could work out in everyone's favor. And you pay
Speaker 1: two bucks a month, it's not that much money or
Speaker 1: whatever it would be, and you feel like you've gotten
Speaker 1: your money's worth because now you have kind of a
Speaker 1: personal tech tech help person. And that's just one way
Speaker 1: of doing it. Subscriber stories, so you can do stories
Speaker 1: that are just for subscribers. And if you've ever used
Speaker 1: the feature on Instagram that lets you do su a
Speaker 1: story just for your close friends, this is very similar,
Speaker 1: except it's just for subscribers. And the other one is
Speaker 1: subscriber badges. And this is kind of like if you've
Speaker 1: ever been on Facebook, if you've seen the badge it's
Speaker 1: called top top Fan. Maybe only I can see that,
Speaker 1: but maybe you can see it too, if you're a
Speaker 1: top fan of someone. But you will get a subscriber
Speaker 1: badge next to your comments and messages, so that me,
Speaker 1: as a creator can see that you are a subscriber,
Speaker 1: and I would scroll down the list and say, oh,
Speaker 1: let me let me throw them a bone, let me
Speaker 1: answer their their message or their or reply to their comment,
Speaker 1: because they're paying me a couple bucks a month. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I'm doing any of this. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying in theory, this is how I see it working.
Speaker 1: And so that is right now being tested with just
Speaker 1: a handful of creators. But I think this has a
Speaker 1: lot of power but here's the problem with all of
Speaker 1: these systems. So if you know anything about Patreon, they
Speaker 1: kind of pioneered this idea of going direct to your
Speaker 1: fan base, right to your subscribers. But the problem is
Speaker 1: there are now too many ways to do this. Twitter
Speaker 1: has their version, TikTok said they're going to do something
Speaker 1: similar to this. Instagram has it, Facebook has it, and
Speaker 1: then there's a million and one other you know, like
Speaker 1: obviously only Fans was kind of they popularized it, but
Speaker 1: for more adult reasons, and so this is kind of
Speaker 1: like if you imagine it's only fans, but for everyone,
Speaker 1: and only fans I think even tried to pivot into
Speaker 1: being for everyone, but that name is just so synonymous
Speaker 1: with adult content at this point that I think they're
Speaker 1: gonna have a really tough time getting you know, mainstream
Speaker 1: folks on there to be on that platform. But Instagram
Speaker 1: has a really good thing going and this could really
Speaker 1: take off. But the other thing is, okay, so then
Speaker 1: you have podcasts. You know, you could subscribe through Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: so let you know, it's just there's too much going on,
Speaker 1: and so what someone needs to do is figure out
Speaker 1: a platform that works with all of these that's universal.
Speaker 1: Or on the flip side, you know, if I'm paying
Speaker 1: three dollars a month, which doesn't seem to be a
Speaker 1: lot of money, but if I'm paying that for like
Speaker 1: five people, or YouTube has it as well. So if
Speaker 1: I'm paying that, let's say I'm paying the four I've seen.
Speaker 1: Most of the people I've seen are like two ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month or three ninety nine or four ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month, which is fine, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: great number for a creator that you listen to their
Speaker 1: podcast every day, or you love looking at their stuff
Speaker 1: on Instagram, or you really learn from them. But when
Speaker 1: you start adding these up and you support three, four, five,
Speaker 1: six seven creators, I mean, and that could really add
Speaker 1: up to a lot every month, and I think that's
Speaker 1: the biggest issue. So what I think would be a
Speaker 1: better system is sort of one monthly bucket that you
Speaker 1: put your money into and that is distributed among all
Speaker 1: of the ways that you interact with people. So if
Speaker 1: I look at your story on Instagram and you're a
Speaker 1: creator and you're kind of in this system, then you
Speaker 1: know a portion of my I mean, it's tough to explain,
Speaker 1: but let's okay, let me just give you this example.
Speaker 1: Let's say I have Let's say I put in ten
Speaker 1: dollars a month into this little this bucket, okay, and
Speaker 1: I look at, let's just make it really easy, ten
Speaker 1: different things that month. I look at a story from
Speaker 1: you on Instagram, I listen to a podcast from someone
Speaker 1: else on Apple, I watch a YouTube video from someone else,
Speaker 1: and I do ten different things. But all of those
Speaker 1: ten things on the back end are somehow linked up
Speaker 1: to this little bucket. And so at the end of
Speaker 1: the month, the bucket goes, Okay, what did Rich do
Speaker 1: this month? He looked at this person's story, He looked
Speaker 1: at that Facebook video, looked at that YouTube video, he
Speaker 1: listened to that podcast. We divided up. Every one of
Speaker 1: those people gets a dollar because he looked at ten
Speaker 1: things and he gives ten dollars a month, and if
Speaker 1: he looked at one thing that month, that one person
Speaker 1: would get his ten dollars. So that is a system
Speaker 1: that I think would be really cool. Yes, it would
Speaker 1: take a lot, and I guarantee it would never work
Speaker 1: because none of these main platforms are going to get
Speaker 1: in on something that is universal and you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a Switzerland of payment systems. Now, if someone can
Speaker 1: get them on board, it would be amazing, It really
Speaker 1: really would. And so that's where I see it being
Speaker 1: much easier because I love supporting people. You know, I
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts, I watch people on YouTube. But right
Speaker 1: now I'm not doing the individual subscriptions because it just
Speaker 1: gets kind of messy, like why is this person more
Speaker 1: valuable to me than this person? Maybe one month I
Speaker 1: watch a bunch of their stuff. The next month, I
Speaker 1: don't watch any of their stuff, And so I'd rather
Speaker 1: have my money directed to the places that it it
Speaker 1: should go that month, right, because it's kind of like
Speaker 1: you're directly rewarding for what you're looking at. So I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's that's kind of my idea. I think
Speaker 1: that would be a really really cool way of doing it.
Speaker 1: I just don't see it happening. And ten dollars a
Speaker 1: month seems whatever you want. Let's say you're you're rolling
Speaker 1: in it and you're saying, oh, a hundred bucks a month,
Speaker 1: no big deal, and I'll divide that up between everyone.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just such a cool way of doing
Speaker 1: it that I wish someone would come up with that.
Speaker 1: But you know, these these platforms like to really silo
Speaker 1: you and keep you kind of separate from everything else.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, there's been a lot of
Speaker 1: talk about this Web three, and I think when that
Speaker 1: is being built, a lot of this stuff is going
Speaker 1: to be much more decentralized and much more cryptocurrency based
Speaker 1: and much more blockchain based. And I think we're going
Speaker 1: to see a lot more opportunities to do stuff like
Speaker 1: this versus right now where we are just looking at
Speaker 1: big platforms like Facebook and Instagram and YouTube and you know,
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts can trolling such a large swath of our
Speaker 1: entertainment and the way that we do things, the way
Speaker 1: that we pay for things. But I think in the future,
Speaker 1: as the Web is being rewritten, we will see a
Speaker 1: lot more of this stuff linking up on the back
Speaker 1: end because a lot more of it's going to be decentralized.
Speaker 1: I at least hope that happens. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to the next question. This question comes from Chip in
Speaker 1: Long Beach. Hey, Rich, I recently made the mistake of
Speaker 1: purchasing the Apple AirTag thinking it would work with Samsung
Speaker 1: Android phone as a true tracker. I found out it
Speaker 1: does not function in that way. I want to purchase
Speaker 1: a tracker for the purpose of monitoring my car if
Speaker 1: it's ever stolen. What tracking device would you recommend for
Speaker 1: this purpose? All right, well, I'm assuming you return the
Speaker 1: air tag. You probably could have activated the air tag
Speaker 1: with like an iPad. That would work if you have
Speaker 1: an iPad, but if you have an Android, maybe you don't.
Speaker 1: So the thing I would probably recommend at this point
Speaker 1: is a TILE tracker. And the reason I would recommend
Speaker 1: Tile is for two things. Number One, Tile is, you know,
Speaker 1: they're like the number two out there, and so they're
Speaker 1: going to be big and people know about them. And
Speaker 1: I think their network is pretty good, especially with the
Speaker 1: acquisition that they were acquired by Life three sixty, which
Speaker 1: is installed on you know, thirty million phones, and so
Speaker 1: that immediately is going to help this finding network grow.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not sure that's happening just yet, but that's
Speaker 1: the plan. And so Tile went from just being on
Speaker 1: a bunch of different phones. I don't know how many
Speaker 1: phones they had in their network, but now I mean,
Speaker 1: with thirty million phones, that's a pretty good number. And
Speaker 1: so the way that these finding networks work is that
Speaker 1: the phones anonymously sort of scan Bluetooth around them and
Speaker 1: when they see something, they report the location back to
Speaker 1: the server, and then when you look for your item,
Speaker 1: it says, oh, yeah, we know wh your item is.
Speaker 1: It's right here. That would be probably the best one.
Speaker 1: Now you can go with another one. The other one
Speaker 1: i'd recommend is probably from uh Tea Mobile and they
Speaker 1: have a tracker I think it's called the sync up,
Speaker 1: and that one would be good because it has it
Speaker 1: has real GPS built in, so you're always gonna get
Speaker 1: a true, actual location. But the problem is with that,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to pay a monthly fee, and if
Speaker 1: you don't have Tea Mobile, it's kind of complicated because
Speaker 1: I think the monthly fee is more, But that would
Speaker 1: be the way to go if you want something that's dedicated,
Speaker 1: and in the case of a car, you could probably
Speaker 1: figure out a way to keep this thing plugged in
Speaker 1: to like a USB outlet in your car that just
Speaker 1: kind of keeps it powered up all the time, because
Speaker 1: the downside of the GPS one is that it's not
Speaker 1: gonna it's gonna lose its charge over a couple of days,
Speaker 1: whereas the tile tracker is you know, one battery for
Speaker 1: a year, or something like that. And so the air
Speaker 1: attack would be great if you could I think the
Speaker 1: air attack would be the best if if you could
Speaker 1: somehow activate it on your account. And I think that
Speaker 1: you need to use an iPad to activate the air tag.
Speaker 1: Let me see what Apple says here. So if you
Speaker 1: look at air tag, let's see iPad. So you can
Speaker 1: activate with iPhone iPad or an iPod touch. So if
Speaker 1: you have anything any one of those things, you'd be
Speaker 1: able to do it. It's funny that you can't do
Speaker 1: it with a Mac computer, which just doesn't really make sense.
Speaker 1: But anyway, if you have one of those three things,
Speaker 1: I think Find my Network is the biggest and the best.
Speaker 1: In fact, I had to use it yesterday. Now I
Speaker 1: didn't have to go to the Find my I just
Speaker 1: had to go to So there's it's kind of weird
Speaker 1: because there's a find my Network and then there's just
Speaker 1: like kind of find my stuff. So I was looking
Speaker 1: for my air pods yesterday. I was going out on
Speaker 1: a run and I'm telling you, I could not find
Speaker 1: them for the life of me. I'm like, where did
Speaker 1: they go? I was using them at work, I came home,
Speaker 1: they were in my bag and they were just disappeared.
Speaker 1: They they had literally disappeared, and so I'm like, ah,
Speaker 1: I must have left them, or maybe they fell out
Speaker 1: of my bag, or maybe I left them on my
Speaker 1: desk at work. I'm like, oh, let me try to
Speaker 1: find my and so I fire up Find My on
Speaker 1: my phone and it's saying that the I can't hear
Speaker 1: the sound. You know, the AirPods play a sound you
Speaker 1: can you can't hear it unless they're really really out
Speaker 1: in the open. So I'm like, all right, so let
Speaker 1: me try the proximity finding, and so it says like, hey,
Speaker 1: we connected to your AirPods. They're here, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's no way, I'm looking everywhere for them. So it
Speaker 1: turns out that I kept doing like where it shows
Speaker 1: you exactly where it is like proximity. It's like signals
Speaker 1: getting weaker, so it's like it's almost like a honing
Speaker 1: device where it hone's right in. And so I'm standing
Speaker 1: right in front of my kitchen table and it's saying
Speaker 1: they're here, They're right here in front of you, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, they're not. I'm looking at my table
Speaker 1: and my wife goes, oh, are they my backpack. Turns
Speaker 1: out I took them out to put them on the
Speaker 1: table to go running. She thought they were hers. She
Speaker 1: just grabbed them, put them through them in her and
Speaker 1: so she pulls two pairs of AirPods out of her
Speaker 1: bag and she says, oh, and I said, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: that explains it. So anyway, it was a pretty good
Speaker 1: use of the whole find my system. But that's really, uh,
Speaker 1: that's really the best one out there, I think. But
Speaker 1: Tyle probably number two. All right, so let's talk about it.
Speaker 1: We want to talk about COVID stuff. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: guess so's it's it's late enough into the show. So
Speaker 1: the COVID tests, I you know, of course, when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with COVID in your house, the whole thing is
Speaker 1: like these COVID tests because you want to make sure
Speaker 1: that everyone is clear and free and clear. And so
Speaker 1: a couple things. Number one, the US government came out
Speaker 1: with their free COVID website, which if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast, I'm assuming you're savvy enough that you've already
Speaker 1: gone to this website and ordered your tests. If you
Speaker 1: have not, I would recommend that you do, because if
Speaker 1: you're like me. I was kind of making fun of
Speaker 1: the tests in the stores, saying, oh, come on, who
Speaker 1: needs all these? And sure enough, when you have a
Speaker 1: COVID scare, you do need them, and so it really
Speaker 1: helps to have them. And I was making fun of
Speaker 1: them six months ago saying, oh, look, they can't even
Speaker 1: sell these things, and then you know, a couple weeks
Speaker 1: ago you couldn't even get them. So if you go
Speaker 1: to COVID tests dot gov, you can get four free
Speaker 1: at home COVID nineteen tests and they will ship free.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of bogus websites out there, so be
Speaker 1: sure you're going to the official one, which is COVID
Speaker 1: tests dot gov. And you know it wouldn't be a
Speaker 1: government website if it wasn't a little confusing. And I
Speaker 1: think it is a bit confusing because it's simple to use,
Speaker 1: don't get me wrong, But the website that it links
Speaker 1: you to is USPS dot com. So when you click
Speaker 1: the big link on the homepage of the of the
Speaker 1: main website, it brings you to this special dot USPS
Speaker 1: dot com slash test kiss website, which is not ideal
Speaker 1: because if you're looking to you know, scam people or
Speaker 1: mislead people. That now gives you two opportunities to do this,
Speaker 1: because you can slightly misspell the first url, and then
Speaker 1: since it takes you to a completely different link to
Speaker 1: actually order them, you can then misspell that one, and
Speaker 1: now you're two clicks in and you can really mislead people.
Speaker 1: So I think most people probably got it right. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there's an element of some people who are being
Speaker 1: misled and bogus sites and this and that, but hopefully
Speaker 1: most people got this right. So I ordered mine pretty simple.
Speaker 1: You put your address in. I know some people had
Speaker 1: issues if they have an apartment that they live in.
Speaker 1: Hopefully that's been fixed. But I thought this was pretty
Speaker 1: smart by the US government to kind of piggyback on
Speaker 1: USPS dot com because they have a database of all
Speaker 1: the addresses in the US and so they can kind
Speaker 1: of mark them as ordered or not. Obviously, they've got
Speaker 1: the fulfillment down because of the post Office. So all
Speaker 1: I know is that these postal carriers are going to
Speaker 1: be delivering a lot of tests to people's houses in
Speaker 1: the next couple of week weeks. It says about seven
Speaker 1: to ten days to get them. Now, once you've done that,
Speaker 1: if you feel like that's not enough and you need
Speaker 1: to get more tests. You can order them online, and
Speaker 1: I think that's the easiest. I tried to. I made
Speaker 1: the mistake of trying to go to a couple stores
Speaker 1: and you get like you get into the front door
Speaker 1: and you're like, hey, do you have anything, like no,
Speaker 1: no COVID tests, and they point to like one thousand
Speaker 1: laser printed signs on the store door, and I'm like, oh, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: sorry for asking, but you can use I ordered mine
Speaker 1: from CVS dot com and Walmart dot com and they
Speaker 1: both came in about three days. There's a certain amount
Speaker 1: that you can order. I ordered kind of the maximum
Speaker 1: from both, so I had a bunch. And believe me,
Speaker 1: you need them. If you're doing these tests every other
Speaker 1: day like we were for a while, it's like, you
Speaker 1: do need these tests. You need multiple tests. And so anyway,
Speaker 1: if you want to see some of these websites, it's
Speaker 1: funny because Wall Street Journal did an article about these
Speaker 1: in stock websites. We've talked about them before for things
Speaker 1: like PlayStation five and XPO the new Xbox, and now
Speaker 1: they have they at one point were listing products like
Speaker 1: you know, hand sanitizer, and lysol wipes, and now they're
Speaker 1: listing COVID tests. So websites like now in stock dot net,
Speaker 1: zuler dot com, hotstock dot io, and Brickseek, which originally
Speaker 1: started as a lego finding website, are now all showing
Speaker 1: links for COVID tests and whether they're in stock. Now,
Speaker 1: I will tell you just in my experience, they're not
Speaker 1: the most accurate when it says they're in stock. You
Speaker 1: can go to the Walgreen's website and they're actually not
Speaker 1: in stock. But I did find the Walmart stuff. I
Speaker 1: just kind of kept refreshing the page and it worked
Speaker 1: and I ordered them and they were on their way.
Speaker 1: And the same thing with the CVS ones that I ordered.
Speaker 1: So just if you need them, it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that you know, you kind of I feel like
Speaker 1: it's just easier than driving around. It really will just
Speaker 1: save you kind of a little headache there. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the next question. Let's see this comes
Speaker 1: from Let's see who is it Dennis. Dennis says, I
Speaker 1: wonder if you can help me with a problem I'm
Speaker 1: having concerning boost Mobile. Someone is telling me that they're
Speaker 1: doing away with three g January first, twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: But I have a four G boost Mobile phone. I
Speaker 1: called boost Mobile. They said, yes, three g's going away.
Speaker 1: I need a new phone, but they will not answer
Speaker 1: me whether four G will work on their existing network
Speaker 1: after three G goes away. Do you have any information
Speaker 1: on whether four G will continue to work or whether
Speaker 1: I need to get a new phone. Are they just
Speaker 1: trying to get me to buy a new phone with
Speaker 1: five G? Thank you, Dennis. So here is the deal, Dennis.
Speaker 1: Boost Mobile used to run on the Sprint network, and
Speaker 1: so Sprint had three G, they had four G they
Speaker 1: I believe did they had five G. I don't even
Speaker 1: if they made it to five G by the time
Speaker 1: they were purchased. So Sprint was purchased by T Mobile.
Speaker 1: T Mobile is slow but surely dismantling the Sprint network
Speaker 1: to get folks over onto the T Mobile network. And
Speaker 1: T Mobile has four G and five G. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if T Mobile is shut down their three G yet.
Speaker 1: But so what they're saying is it's a little confusing
Speaker 1: because if you have one of these older handsets and
Speaker 1: they're shutting down three G, that means in June of
Speaker 1: twenty sorry, in April of twenty twenty two. It looks
Speaker 1: like they're shutting down the three G and four G
Speaker 1: on Sprint, So that means that anyone that's on those
Speaker 1: networks needs to move over to a T Mobile network.
Speaker 1: So I think that's what's happening with your phone. I
Speaker 1: don't think they're misleading you, but it sounds like you
Speaker 1: don't have that much You don't have that much time
Speaker 1: left to get your phone switched over. So if I
Speaker 1: were you, I would upgrade to get to get over
Speaker 1: on the T Mobile network. That's really very confusing. But
Speaker 1: the bottom line is, if you have a Boost Mobile
Speaker 1: phone that's a little bit old, three g's going away. Yes,
Speaker 1: your phone supports four G, but four G is also
Speaker 1: going away because of the Sprint stuff. It's not going
Speaker 1: away in general. Yes, if you had a T Mobile
Speaker 1: phone T Mobile compatible phone, it would just go to
Speaker 1: four G. But since you probably have a Sprint phone
Speaker 1: from Boost Mobile, you're still in that Sprint network. When
Speaker 1: three G goes away and then four G goes away,
Speaker 1: your phone's not gonna work. So they're trying to get
Speaker 1: you onto T Mobile, which, yes, your phone will have
Speaker 1: four G and five G with T Mobile, but T
Speaker 1: Mobile is not putting that away anytime soon, so I
Speaker 1: would definitely get the upgrade. See what you're thinking, offer
Speaker 1: you and move on. Okay, I tried something out that's
Speaker 1: really really cool and this is Oh wait, I skipped
Speaker 1: a story. Hold on, let's talk about Samsung's S twenty
Speaker 1: one FE. This is their Fan Edition phone. I think
Speaker 1: I talked about it on the podcast from CS but
Speaker 1: i'll I did get one to test, and so I'll
Speaker 1: just give you my thoughts on it. And it comes
Speaker 1: at an interesting time because the new Samsung devices, the
Speaker 1: S twenty two's, are going to launch in February. That's
Speaker 1: when they typically launch, and so I'm expecting that to happen.
Speaker 1: But the S twenty one FE came out just a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, and this is called the Fan Edition.
Speaker 1: The S twenty Fan Edition was very, very popular, and
Speaker 1: so they came out this S twenty one FE, but
Speaker 1: it was like way delayed for some reason. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why. They never really gave an example. So this
Speaker 1: is a phone that's sort of less expensive than a flagship,
Speaker 1: but it has all the essential features that you need.
Speaker 1: And so I talked to Ben shown at nine to
Speaker 1: five Google. He's a senior editor. I love following him
Speaker 1: on Twitter because he's always talking about Android stuff and
Speaker 1: specifically mostly the Pixel and so I just love seeing
Speaker 1: kind of his take on things. So I talked to
Speaker 1: him about this phone, and he thought it was a
Speaker 1: great phone. I mean, I kind of thought it was
Speaker 1: a great phone just using it. I was like, this
Speaker 1: is a really nice little device. It's the perfect size,
Speaker 1: it's got a great screen, it's got all the features
Speaker 1: you need, like a fast processor. It's got a decent
Speaker 1: amount of memory. You know, I'm talking the RAM and
Speaker 1: then the storage. It starts at I believe one twenty eight,
Speaker 1: so you've got plenty of storage there for most people.
Speaker 1: And it's got all of like the features that you need,
Speaker 1: like the three cameras. It's got a good selfie camera.
Speaker 1: It's made of you know, plastic instead of glass and metal,
Speaker 1: so it's a little I mean, of course, I'm sure
Speaker 1: there's some metal in there, but in the frame, but
Speaker 1: like the glass, the phone is plastic mostly, and so
Speaker 1: it looks like a baby version of the S twenty
Speaker 1: one Ultra. And it's just a really nice phone. And
Speaker 1: Ben said the same thing. He said that this is
Speaker 1: a crowd pleasing phone. It's gonna get three years of
Speaker 1: major updates and other year of security updates. It's got
Speaker 1: Android twelve built in, which is the latest Android. It's
Speaker 1: got a wireless charging capability, comes in a bunch of
Speaker 1: fun colors like graphite, all of lavender and white. But
Speaker 1: then we get to the price. And here's where it
Speaker 1: gets kind of complicated, because this phone retails for six
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety nine dollars. Now out of the gate,
Speaker 1: they were offering one hundred dollars discount. So let's just
Speaker 1: say that this phone is really five hundred and ninety
Speaker 1: nine dollars, which puts it squarely in line with the
Speaker 1: Pixel six. Now, the Pixel six, I would argue, takes
Speaker 1: better pictures, even though I haven't personally tested that phone.
Speaker 1: I've been testing the Pixel six Pro. But the Pixel
Speaker 1: always takes great pictures. They're always a little bit ahead
Speaker 1: of Samsung. But I will say I think Samsung's cameras
Speaker 1: have come a really long way and they're doing a
Speaker 1: great job. And I would almost argue I would actually
Speaker 1: I will argue that Samsung software is more refined at
Speaker 1: this point. Now I get that Pixel software is much simpler,
Speaker 1: and I do prefer the Pixel software over the Samsung software.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to like software updates and just
Speaker 1: kind of you know, Samsung's been doing it a lot longer,
Speaker 1: and so I feel like their side of things is
Speaker 1: just much more stable, right, They've been doing it for
Speaker 1: a while, they know what they're doing. Their updates come
Speaker 1: out like clockwork at this point, whereas on the Pixel
Speaker 1: side of things, yeah, not so great. And I don't
Speaker 1: understand what Google's problem is with these Pixel updates, but
Speaker 1: they're just so like all over the place, and the
Speaker 1: software is like, you know, kind of jittery sometimes, and
Speaker 1: it's like I just don't understand why by Google can't
Speaker 1: get this stuff right. They make Android, why they make
Speaker 1: the Pixel, Why can't they make the pixel like so perfect?
Speaker 1: So it really comes down to do you want the
Speaker 1: Pixel that has a better camera or do you want
Speaker 1: the Samsung which has you know, kind of that Samsung
Speaker 1: brand appeal and kind of more accessories, a better ecosystem.
Speaker 1: So it really comes down But the bottom line, I
Speaker 1: think for this phone, if the price is right for you,
Speaker 1: So if you're purchasing this phone at a really good deal,
Speaker 1: if you have a good trade in or if you
Speaker 1: like Samsung, it's gonna be a perfectly good phone. The
Speaker 1: only caveat you need to know is that the new
Speaker 1: S twenty two models are likely going to come out
Speaker 1: in February. So if you're thinking of upgrading to those
Speaker 1: want the latest, greatest, you know, the new S twenty two,
Speaker 1: like standard model, which I would compare this one against,
Speaker 1: is probably going to be about two hundred dollars more
Speaker 1: than this. Maybe it might start at like seven ninety nine,
Speaker 1: eight ninety nine perhaps, so you know it's going to
Speaker 1: be more expensive, but it's going to be a higher
Speaker 1: end phone because it's going to be a flagship versus
Speaker 1: this fan edition. So that's kind of what you need
Speaker 1: to know about the S twenty one f E. It's
Speaker 1: a great little phone. Like Ben said in his review,
Speaker 1: it's a crowd pleasing device. It's just one of those
Speaker 1: phones that's it's going to have a long lifetime with
Speaker 1: the way that they sell Samsung devices, because people are
Speaker 1: going to go into you know, T Mobile for the
Speaker 1: S twenty two and they're going to see this phone
Speaker 1: that's a couple hundred bucks cheaper, and they say what's
Speaker 1: the difference, and the person at T Mobile or Verizon
Speaker 1: or eighteens's going to say not much, honestly, like you
Speaker 1: might as well just get this one. So that's why
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure I had this review out there,
Speaker 1: because I think that a lot of people are going
Speaker 1: to purchase this phone. The one thing you do need
Speaker 1: to know about it there is no micro SD card
Speaker 1: slot like there was last year. All right. Next question
Speaker 1: comes from Let's see Kathy says, if a picture is
Speaker 1: sent to someone in Google Cloud, can it be deleted
Speaker 1: forever or is it still in Google for someone to
Speaker 1: run across. Interesting question. So, Kathy, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're talking about Google Photos or a photo that's just
Speaker 1: opened on the web, on the Internet that's just out there.
Speaker 1: But let's just say with Google Photos, let's say you
Speaker 1: sent or maybe through Google messaging. But let's say you
Speaker 1: have a picture in Google Photos and I delete that
Speaker 1: picture number one. It sits in my Google Photos for
Speaker 1: thirty days until it's deleted out of my Google Photos.
Speaker 1: So if you look at and this is pretty standard
Speaker 1: the way the iPhone works, the way Google Photos works.
Speaker 1: When you delete something, it's not actually deleted immediately. It's
Speaker 1: deleted in it's moved to a delete folder, and it
Speaker 1: sits there for thirty days, a rolling thirty days, so
Speaker 1: on the thirtieth day or whatever, it will automatically self destruct. Now,
Speaker 1: if you want to get rid of those things a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier, you can go and empty either the
Speaker 1: trash or the recently deleted or depending on how your
Speaker 1: cloud program calls it. Now that's number one, So it's
Speaker 1: gone for all intense purposes, it's gone. Now. Is it
Speaker 1: still on the Google server somewhere for at least a
Speaker 1: period of time? Yeah? Probably? Is it there forever? Probably not, so,
Speaker 1: I would imagine, and I'm not sure if this is
Speaker 1: documented or not. I'm just kind of saying what I
Speaker 1: think how I think Google operates. I would imagine that
Speaker 1: once it's deleted from your trash inside Google Photos, it
Speaker 1: then lingers on the Google Cloud for a period of time,
Speaker 1: let's say, like ninety days or something, just to you know,
Speaker 1: make sure if there's any legal issues or if there's
Speaker 1: any problems, or you know, probably mostly legal or even backups.
Speaker 1: If there's a backup of it. It just might take
Speaker 1: a little bit for all the deletion command to propagate
Speaker 1: through everything, and it might be delayed for a reason.
Speaker 1: And so that's kind of the main answer that I
Speaker 1: would give to that. Now, the second part of your
Speaker 1: answer is is it still in Google for someone to
Speaker 1: run across that part, I would say no, if the
Speaker 1: person running across it is just a regular person. Now,
Speaker 1: if it's someone inside Google that either wants to find
Speaker 1: this thing or needs to find it for some sort
Speaker 1: of legal reason, yeah, they might still be able to
Speaker 1: access it even if it is deleted from you. So
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty standard practice when it comes to
Speaker 1: deleting anything online. Like they always say, when something is
Speaker 1: put online, it's not truly ever gone. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's, you know, a generalization, but that's the mindset
Speaker 1: that we should keep when we do put stuff online,
Speaker 1: that it's not really going away ever. Now, I think
Speaker 1: that's relying to the referring to the public Internet, Like
Speaker 1: if you upload a picture to a website that's public, yeah,
Speaker 1: that picture is going to be there forever because anyone
Speaker 1: can download it and propagate it and continue to propagate
Speaker 1: it forever. So that's that's the answer that I would
Speaker 1: give for that. All right, now, let's talk about this
Speaker 1: cool feature that's rolling out at Hyatt Hotels. It's called
Speaker 1: room keys in Apple Wallet. And I'm not going to
Speaker 1: spend a whole bunch of time on this, but there's
Speaker 1: only six hotels in America that do this, including the
Speaker 1: ANDAs Maui in Hawaii, a resort in Key West, the
Speaker 1: Hyatt House in Chicago, the Hyatt House in Dallas, the
Speaker 1: Hiatt Place in Silicon Valley, and the Hyatt Regency in
Speaker 1: Long Beach. I went to the Higatt Regency in Long
Speaker 1: Beach to test this out, and yes, it's a key
Speaker 1: inside your Apple Wallet. Now you might be saying, rich,
Speaker 1: I've done this before. I've used my phone as a
Speaker 1: key for a hotel room. It's kind of annoying, but
Speaker 1: there is a major difference here. The major difference is
Speaker 1: that you do not need to do anything special with
Speaker 1: your phone once you download you know, of course, you
Speaker 1: have to download the Hide app. You need to check
Speaker 1: in online and it will tell you when your key
Speaker 1: is ready and it puts it inside Apple walle But
Speaker 1: once that happens, there is nothing special you need to
Speaker 1: do except just hold your phone up to the door
Speaker 1: to unlock it. You don't need to unlock your phone.
Speaker 1: You don't need to call up an app. You don't
Speaker 1: need to call up the key nothing. They've programmed this
Speaker 1: so that when you go put your phone near the door,
Speaker 1: the door talks to your phone and says, hey, can
Speaker 1: you call up Rich's a hotel room key and unlock
Speaker 1: this door? And it does it, and it's brilliant. Happens
Speaker 1: in under three seconds and might even be quicker than
Speaker 1: that might be a second. But the goal with Hyatt,
Speaker 1: they said they told me that the goal was under
Speaker 1: three seconds. And it's really fast. It's really easy, and
Speaker 1: it's different than the app because it's using NFC. The
Speaker 1: If you've ever used an app as your hotel room key,
Speaker 1: it is not fun. I've done it a bunch of
Speaker 1: times because I wanted to try it and use it
Speaker 1: and feel like I was on the cutting edge. But
Speaker 1: it's not a very good system because it is Bluetooth
Speaker 1: and you have to basically open up you have to
Speaker 1: unlock your phone, you have to open up the app,
Speaker 1: and then you have to activate the key. And when
Speaker 1: it's activating the key, it's just basically firing out a
Speaker 1: Bluetooth signal at the door to say that you're in
Speaker 1: front of it. Not a very good system. It still works,
Speaker 1: and yeah, a lot of hotels are enabled with that.
Speaker 1: That's why this is so different because it is a
Speaker 1: very specific technology. It is firing off NFC. Now. I
Speaker 1: think that we are going to see this in use
Speaker 1: in so many places in the future. I mean, right now,
Speaker 1: I have a card key for my work that I
Speaker 1: use to open the door at work. It's a you know,
Speaker 1: it's an RFID key that is definitely going to replace
Speaker 1: by phones in the future, getting in and out of
Speaker 1: parking garages. I mean, all these things where you have
Speaker 1: some sort of plastic key card are all going to
Speaker 1: replace by the phones. And I'm not just talking iPhone.
Speaker 1: You know, this will happen with Android two. It just
Speaker 1: so happens that iPhone. You know, Apple is such a
Speaker 1: big brand and it has so many users that it's
Speaker 1: an easy sell right now. And so I asked Hyatt
Speaker 1: and said, hey, is this going to come to Android
Speaker 1: And they said, yeah, we'd love to, but it's not
Speaker 1: right now because I'm not even sure that Google has
Speaker 1: the framework. I'm sure they do. Actually, I know they
Speaker 1: do because you can unlock BMW's with the Google walle
Speaker 1: as well, so or Google Digital Key or whatever so
Speaker 1: it's happening more and more. It just takes a lot
Speaker 1: to sort of program this stuff, but I will tell you,
Speaker 1: having tried it out, it is magical. It is amazing,
Speaker 1: and it's the first time I think that the phone
Speaker 1: can truly replace a plastic hotel room key card. Previously,
Speaker 1: if you were a nerd, if you were kind of
Speaker 1: on the cutting edge, you just wanted to prove it
Speaker 1: to yourself that you can use your phone as a
Speaker 1: key for your hotel room. Yes, it works, and it
Speaker 1: will continue to work, but it's just not as smooth,
Speaker 1: not as fast, not as seamless as it is when
Speaker 1: your phone is programmed to do this. And I'm telling
Speaker 1: you it's so easy and magical that you just hold
Speaker 1: your phone near the door and it unlocks, and it's
Speaker 1: just so great because you don't have to do anything
Speaker 1: in advance of bringing up that key. So good job.
Speaker 1: If you happen to be at any one of those
Speaker 1: high hotels, definitely definitely check it out, all right, Kyle says,
Speaker 1: Oh wow, this is kind of works with what we were
Speaker 1: talking about. Kyle says. It was a credit card sized
Speaker 1: device that is kept on your person and used to
Speaker 1: keep hackers from stealing your credit card info. I know
Speaker 1: it was quite a while ago. I know. Thanks. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Kyle wants to know what that device was. The
Speaker 1: only thing I can think of that you're talking about
Speaker 1: is a company called Silent Pocket, and so they do
Speaker 1: things called Faraday bags, and Faraday means that it's no
Speaker 1: signals can come into the bag, no signals can leave
Speaker 1: the bag. And so we did a story with these
Speaker 1: folks a while ago, and you know, their whole thing
Speaker 1: is that it blocks all everything in and out. You
Speaker 1: can block your cellular connection, r if ID, you can
Speaker 1: satellite navigation, GPS, camera, weather, bluetooth, I mean everything you put.
Speaker 1: You put your phone in this bag, and it is
Speaker 1: it is locked out. In fact, I still have the
Speaker 1: bag that they gave me as a sample, and I
Speaker 1: put my phone in it the other day because I
Speaker 1: wanted just a total break from reality. And so I
Speaker 1: just threw my phone in this bag. And yeah, it
Speaker 1: didn't didn't do anything. It's just kind of it just
Speaker 1: kind of it cuts off the signal. But the cool
Speaker 1: thing is it actually doesn't ruin your battery. And so
Speaker 1: I asked the guy with a company, like, what's the
Speaker 1: deal with the battery doesn't drain it, And he said, no,
Speaker 1: the phone just kind of goes into a low you know,
Speaker 1: a low power mode or something that it you know,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not constantly. Remember the old days of
Speaker 1: cell phones, if you had no signal, it would search
Speaker 1: and it would just literally drain your battery. That doesn't
Speaker 1: really happen anymore because phones have gotten a little bit
Speaker 1: more sophisticated. And so when I put my phone in
Speaker 1: this pouch, it didn't really drain the battery. But that's
Speaker 1: what I think it is. The website is Silent Pocket,
Speaker 1: or the company is Silent Pocket, and the website is
Speaker 1: sl and T sl and T. It looks like they
Speaker 1: kind of change their name from Silent Pocket to just
Speaker 1: Silent SLNT. And they have everything. They've got wallets, sleeves, bags,
Speaker 1: key key, fob guards, they've got all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: So if you want to protect, you know, protect your signal,
Speaker 1: you can do it. All right, let's talk I guess
Speaker 1: this is our final story. Let's talk about word All.
Speaker 1: Have you played word all? Wordle is this word game
Speaker 1: that everyone seems to be playing overnight, And the whole
Speaker 1: thing about this word game wordle is that it was.
Speaker 1: It's just a simple online word game, and it became popular.
Speaker 1: I think the first mention was in the New York
Speaker 1: Times over Thanksgiving, and it kind of built from there.
Speaker 1: And the reason why it built is because everyone was
Speaker 1: sharing these little cubes, these green and yellow cubes on
Speaker 1: their social media. And what that reveals. It's actually bragging.
Speaker 1: It's showing how it says wordle a number and then
Speaker 1: a number out of a number out of six. And
Speaker 1: so wordle is the name of the game. Two twelve
Speaker 1: means it's a two hundred and twelfth wordle. Five means
Speaker 1: that it's you got it in five out of six tries.
Speaker 1: And so it's a fun little game. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: I've been playing it on and off. But you guess five.
Speaker 1: You have six guesses, six chances to guess a five
Speaker 1: letter word. It's just one puzzle every single day. You know.
Speaker 1: If you like crosswords and other sort of puzzles, that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of what it is. And so when you
Speaker 1: guess a word, the correct letters are highlighted. Green means
Speaker 1: the letters in the right spot, and yellow means a
Speaker 1: letter is in the wrong is in the word, but
Speaker 1: in the wrong spot, so you need to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out, you know, where, how to get those letters,
Speaker 1: you know, in the right places. This was created by
Speaker 1: a New York based software developer named Josh Wordle not
Speaker 1: not wordle Wa. This was a pet project. And the
Speaker 1: thing that's confusing about this game is that it's only
Speaker 1: available at this random website called power Language dot co
Speaker 1: dot uk slash Wordle and that's led a lot of
Speaker 1: people to try to download apps for this game, which
Speaker 1: there are none. I mean, there's no official app and
Speaker 1: there's no need to pay to play, so you can
Speaker 1: just add a shortcut to your home screen in Safari
Speaker 1: if you want to just play this thing every day.
Speaker 1: So people are sharing it on social media. That's kind
Speaker 1: of the main thing is that's really what spread this virally,
Speaker 1: is that you can share your results and people are like,
Speaker 1: what is that? And then they start playing, and then
Speaker 1: they get hooked and next thing you know, they're playing
Speaker 1: it too. Now semi spoiler alert, I'm going to give
Speaker 1: you a couple of words that you can start with
Speaker 1: that really helps. So if you've ever watched Wheel of Fortune,
Speaker 1: you know that the word rst or the letters rst
Speaker 1: lne are always the first letters that people guess when
Speaker 1: they go on Wheel of Fortune to solve the final puzzle.
Speaker 1: And after a bunch of years, if you're old enough
Speaker 1: to remember, they now give you rst lne. That wasn't
Speaker 1: he's a thing. But so many people when they get
Speaker 1: to the final round just that R S t len E.
Speaker 1: And so now Wheel of Fortune gives you those and
Speaker 1: then you pick your extra whatever three or four letters,
Speaker 1: and so these are these are kind of the equivalent
Speaker 1: of R S T len E. And I got some
Speaker 1: of these from Evan Bernholds. He's a Sunday crossword writer
Speaker 1: for the Washington Post. And also I talked to an
Speaker 1: expert in word games named Amanda Raftkin, and so she
Speaker 1: shared some of these. So these are the tips from them.
Speaker 1: A lot of people like to start with arise A R, I,
Speaker 1: S C because it gives you three different vowel vowels
Speaker 1: and R and an S, which are all very common letters.
Speaker 1: Other hot words to start with include audi uh, how
Speaker 1: do you say it out to you? Out of you?
Speaker 1: It's a French word out you. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to say it, A D I e U and or
Speaker 1: is it a do? No? It's not a due and
Speaker 1: then followed another word is front, so front is another one,
Speaker 1: and so all of those have a lot of common letters.
Speaker 1: So anyway, if you want to try wordle give it
Speaker 1: a try. I'll put the link on my website at
Speaker 1: Richontech dot tv. Well well, well look at that sound.
Speaker 1: That sound means we have come to the end of
Speaker 1: another show. That's going to do it for this episode.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
Speaker 1: you can go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com
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Speaker 1: watch all of my TV segments on demand. It's my
Speaker 1: special treat to you. My name is rich Demiro. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening. There are so many ways you
Speaker 1: can spend an hour of your time. I do appreciate
Speaker 1: you spending with me. I will talk to you real soon.