Speaker 1: Samsung sets a date for its next smartphones AirTag safety
Speaker 1: one oh one, an easier way to get into a
Speaker 1: Tesla plus your tech questions answered? What is going on?
Speaker 1: I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the
Speaker 1: podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
Speaker 1: you should know about. It's also the place where I
Speaker 1: answer the questions you send me. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome on
Speaker 1: the Tech Reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning me in. Do you tune in a podcast?
Speaker 1: I don't know however you found me. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: whether you're listening on Twitter spaces right now, or whether
Speaker 1: you're listening on Facebook or just downloading the podcast. Is
Speaker 1: it old school to actually download a podcast now? I
Speaker 1: think it is. That's the old school way of getting
Speaker 1: this show. So I started up something new again. I
Speaker 1: started my newsletter and so I've had a substack for
Speaker 1: many years, probably since the first day it arrives. It's
Speaker 1: been probably like three or four years now, kind of
Speaker 1: stopped during COVID. But you know, here's the thing. I
Speaker 1: get so many questions from people, and I try to
Speaker 1: answer them on this podcast. But a lot of times
Speaker 1: are just simple like easy little things. And so I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, you know, what, wouldn't it be cool
Speaker 1: if I just kind of used my podcast or my
Speaker 1: newsletter to kind of just tell people quick little tech tidbits,
Speaker 1: you know, like how to scan in a document, or
Speaker 1: what's the best app for this, or what's the best
Speaker 1: website for this? You know, I come across all kinds
Speaker 1: of cool stuff all the time, so why not just
Speaker 1: share that knowledge quickly and easily. So that's what I
Speaker 1: started doing today with my first news newsletter that is
Speaker 1: rich on Tech Tips, and it's through substack, So it's
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot substack dot com if you want
Speaker 1: to subscribe. And the funny thing is I told you,
Speaker 1: you know, I've got a I don't know, fifteen something
Speaker 1: or let's see here, thirteen thousand subscribers, and so I
Speaker 1: you know, of course they get this surprise email today
Speaker 1: because they all found out, you know, they've all subscribed
Speaker 1: at some different point in some different way, and so
Speaker 1: you know, they probably were surprised today to get an
Speaker 1: email for me after so many years. So I said, look,
Speaker 1: if you don't like it, just unsubscribed. There's no hard feelings.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to get it, and it's funny.
Speaker 1: I thought people would unsubscribe, and now that I'm looking,
Speaker 1: I've actually gained subscribers already this morning, So I guess
Speaker 1: people do like the the quick tips. I will send
Speaker 1: them out again. If you want to subscribe, go to
Speaker 1: rich on tech dot substack dot com. That's the way
Speaker 1: to do it. In other news, I really need to
Speaker 1: format my computer because my computer is the MacBook Pro
Speaker 1: nine let's see twenty nineteen sixteen inch and it is
Speaker 1: so slow. And it's not my computer that's slow. It's
Speaker 1: really just Google Chrome. I don't know what the deal
Speaker 1: is with Chrome. Yes, I have a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: extensions running, but they're all essential to what I do.
Speaker 1: Like every single extension I have is something I need,
Speaker 1: and so I don't know if that's slowing it down
Speaker 1: or what. But I know it's really slow because it's
Speaker 1: gotten to the point where checking my email is actually
Speaker 1: a chore on Gmail. And I know it's Chrome because
Speaker 1: if I go to Safari on my computer, it's a breeze.
Speaker 1: It's super fast, it's super easy. It's just not my
Speaker 1: preferred and so the problem there is that I just
Speaker 1: need to be able to you know, check my email
Speaker 1: on Chrome. It seems like such a small thing, but
Speaker 1: it's really tough. So I think later today I'm going
Speaker 1: to tackle the issue of formatting my computer and just
Speaker 1: redoing it and starting from scratch, because you know, when
Speaker 1: you're testing stuff like I am all the time, you're
Speaker 1: just always installing apps, and you're always trying new things
Speaker 1: and changing settings, and sometimes you forget to change them back,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you forget to uninstall. And so that's my plan,
Speaker 1: hopefully that my plan is to get through one more
Speaker 1: year of this computer and then when the new Mac
Speaker 1: I don't know if they're gonna be called M two
Speaker 1: chips come out, I can get that one, because it's
Speaker 1: gonna take Apple a little bit to work out the
Speaker 1: kinks with those new computers. All right, let's get to
Speaker 1: the first story of the week. Samsung is now telling
Speaker 1: us when their next event will be, and it is
Speaker 1: on February ninth, twenty twenty two. This is the next
Speaker 1: Galaxy Unpack event Unpacked event. It will be happening virtually.
Speaker 1: And I was looking at my notes. The last actual
Speaker 1: tech event I went to, the last major tech unveiling
Speaker 1: was I believe it was February eleventh, twenty twenty. It
Speaker 1: was Samsung up in San Francisco, and I remember specifically
Speaker 1: we went up there thinking like, oh man, this new
Speaker 1: coronavirus thing, like what's going on with it? And they
Speaker 1: had all these signs. You had to take your temperature.
Speaker 1: You didn't have to wear a mask, but you had
Speaker 1: to take a temperature, and it was kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, a hokey thing, like I'll give me a break.
Speaker 1: And of course that was the last major event and
Speaker 1: we probably all dodged a bullet there because I came
Speaker 1: back okay, and I'm still okay. I mean, I as
Speaker 1: far as I know, I still have not gotten this thing.
Speaker 1: So even though a couple of people in my family
Speaker 1: have gotten it, and so many people I know have
Speaker 1: gotten it, so it feels like it's just a matter
Speaker 1: of time at this point. But anyway, so what are
Speaker 1: we gonna see at this event? The S twenty two,
Speaker 1: which is their new you know, the the update to
Speaker 1: their popular flagship phones. So we have probably three models
Speaker 1: we're looking at, the S twenty two, S twenty two Plus,
Speaker 1: and the S twenty two Ultra. And that's in line
Speaker 1: with what they've had before. So these are their flagship phones,
Speaker 1: not foldables this time. I don't think we're gonna see
Speaker 1: anything with foldables. But their little teaser trailer is all
Speaker 1: about light, says break the rules of light. And I
Speaker 1: think the main thing we're gonna see with these phones
Speaker 1: is improved nighttime photography, maybe nighttime video. But I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I really, you know, I say this every time there's
Speaker 1: a new Android. I'm always like, I'm ready to switch.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm tempted to switch now. It's tough because when
Speaker 1: you're creating content like I am, the iPhone really really
Speaker 1: is like an amazing workhorse for that, and so I
Speaker 1: really just every time I try to switch to an Android,
Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, but this does this so much better
Speaker 1: for a little like any kind of like video editing
Speaker 1: and like just little tiny like apps just somehow work
Speaker 1: better on the iPhone. Except for Google's apps, a lot
Speaker 1: of those work better, and a lot of the apps anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into the Android versus iPhone debate,
Speaker 1: but anyway we'll see. Maybe this will be the phone
Speaker 1: that takes that carries me over. I thought it was
Speaker 1: gonna be the Pixel. The Pixel has so far not
Speaker 1: done that for me, so I hope that the S
Speaker 1: twenty two, probably the Ultra, would be the nicest one
Speaker 1: for me. We'll see anyway, February ninth, Stay tuned, we'll
Speaker 1: see what happens. All right, let's get to the first question.
Speaker 1: The subject line is mac Os Monterey, and Sandy says, hi,
Speaker 1: do I install or do I hold off? Thanks? A
Speaker 1: good question. So if you asked Rich five years ago.
Speaker 1: Five years ago, Rich would have said absolutely, install it immediately.
Speaker 1: Now new Rich says, eh, just just hold off. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, if there's a reason why you need to
Speaker 1: install it. Sure, like if you're looking through the mac
Speaker 1: Os Monterey website that Apple has set up and you
Speaker 1: see a feature that you just have to have, then
Speaker 1: absolutely go for it. But let's look through some of
Speaker 1: the features. FaceTime updates, redesign, Safari, Universal Control, and shortcuts,
Speaker 1: stay in the moment with Focus. So far, all those
Speaker 1: things are telling me it's a big old oh sorry,
Speaker 1: wrong one. That's what I meant to do. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you really need FaceTime improvements? Do you really need
Speaker 1: share Play? Do you really need Focus? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So unless you need any of those things, right, this moment,
Speaker 1: then I would just hold off. Now, I will say
Speaker 1: there is one thing that I am enjoying on the update,
Speaker 1: and I the update, and that is in the notes app,
Speaker 1: which I now use quite religiously. They added support for hashtags,
Speaker 1: and that is quite convenient because you can put hashtags
Speaker 1: in your notes and then you can create a smart
Speaker 1: folder that will sort just just the notes that have
Speaker 1: those hashtags attached. So for that reason, it's a good update.
Speaker 1: But otherwise, I mean, I think you kind of wait
Speaker 1: a little bit. There's no reason to rush into it
Speaker 1: if you like how things are working. You know, it
Speaker 1: takes these companies a little bit of time to update
Speaker 1: their app, so I don't think there's any harm. I
Speaker 1: haven't noticed any anything bad about Monterey since I installed it.
Speaker 1: I did wait a couple months, or maybe like thirty days.
Speaker 1: I can't remember how long I waited, but you know,
Speaker 1: I waited a little bit, and it's fine. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's contributing to my Chrome woes for being so slow,
Speaker 1: because Safari and everything else is very, very snappy. So
Speaker 1: I would say just wait a little bit and then
Speaker 1: go for it, or if you just want to go
Speaker 1: for it, just just dive right in. Speaking of operating systems,
Speaker 1: Windows eleven. So this is an example of a lot
Speaker 1: of people have asked me, Rich, do I update to
Speaker 1: Windows eleven. The main reason to update for these programs
Speaker 1: is that, you know, you get the new features, but
Speaker 1: you also get the security. Now a lot of times
Speaker 1: the manufacturers have realized that why force people into getting
Speaker 1: the new versions of these programs just to get the
Speaker 1: security updates. So a lot of times they're detaching the
Speaker 1: security update from the actual OS. So you can still
Speaker 1: update just the security of your system and you know,
Speaker 1: still have a good protection there, but not have the
Speaker 1: latest operating system. And Windows has always sort of been
Speaker 1: good about that, but you know, eventually these things they
Speaker 1: push you to get it because it's just easier for
Speaker 1: everyone to have people on the latest software. So Windows eleven,
Speaker 1: I have not updated to that one yet. I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: It's on my list of things to do, and eventually
Speaker 1: I will. My kid keeps asking me, He's like, you're
Speaker 1: gonna update, you can update. I'm like, well, is there
Speaker 1: anything you need on Windows eleven? Like why do you
Speaker 1: need it so badly? And I will say the feedback
Speaker 1: that I've seen with Windows eleven has not been the best,
Speaker 1: especially with the taskbar. People have not been happy with that.
Speaker 1: So it looks like they're going to do some taskbar improvements,
Speaker 1: a redesign notepad, a redesign media player app, and the
Speaker 1: big thing is that you will be able to if
Speaker 1: you want to get on this public preview, you can
Speaker 1: have Android apps running on Windows eleven. This did not
Speaker 1: launch with the original Windows eleven. It was delayed. Now
Speaker 1: it is coming, but only in a beta, so you
Speaker 1: have to be part of that beta to get this,
Speaker 1: and it's only a limited number of apps from apples
Speaker 1: are Amazon's App Store, which is kind of weird. Whyouldn't
Speaker 1: they just go with Google Play? But it's just kind
Speaker 1: of odd, right, It's like, why are you on Amazon's
Speaker 1: App Store on Windows? Like just it's just very strange.
Speaker 1: But why wouldn't they support Google Play just on Windows.
Speaker 1: It would make a lot more sense. Also, in this
Speaker 1: blog post that Panos Penei wrote said that Windows ten
Speaker 1: and Windows eleven or now on a one point four
Speaker 1: billion devices each. One point four billion devices they're running on,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. And the PC market definitely saw
Speaker 1: a lot of growth throughout the pandemic things that we
Speaker 1: already kind of knew or suspected, but now they're putting
Speaker 1: in writing and another thing I don't use the I
Speaker 1: know of this widget. I didn't realize it was gone,
Speaker 1: But according to the Verge, the weather widget is also
Speaker 1: returning to the taskbar, which I guess people were up
Speaker 1: in arms that the weather widget was gone, which, of course,
Speaker 1: I mean people love their weather, like people like my
Speaker 1: wife is obsessed with the weather. I'm talking, I mean,
Speaker 1: looking at apps like It's just wild how much time
Speaker 1: and effort she puts into the weather. We live in
Speaker 1: southern California. To me, there's no such thing as weather.
Speaker 1: I walk outside, I say, is it cold? Like? Literally,
Speaker 1: the only decision I need to make with weather in
Speaker 1: Southern California is do I need an umbrella when I'm
Speaker 1: walking outside? And ninety nine percent of the time will
Speaker 1: just run to my car if unless it's like torrential torrential.
Speaker 1: And the other is if I'm if I need to
Speaker 1: bring a sweatshirt, which pretty much I always have my
Speaker 1: car anyway. And if I'm going on a run, do
Speaker 1: I wear long sleeves or short sleeves? That's it. I
Speaker 1: don't really put a lot of thought into the weather
Speaker 1: here because it's just unnecessary. So anyway, some people love
Speaker 1: the weather and I understand that, and especially on those
Speaker 1: nice days. So the weather widget is returning to the taskbar.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get to the next question of the day.
Speaker 1: Larry says, Hey, Rich, my whole family really loves your
Speaker 1: segments on KTLA. Thank you, Larry. I have a technology
Speaker 1: question for you. What is the best way to manage
Speaker 1: my kid's connectivity time on certain devices PS three gaming
Speaker 1: PC but still allow them to access the Internet for
Speaker 1: school work. It seems like you would need something that
Speaker 1: is device specific. I'd appreciate any any advice. Larry in
Speaker 1: Redondo Beach. Larry, I've got the perfect solution for you. You
Speaker 1: are gonna love it. Your kids are gonna hate it.
Speaker 1: It is called Circle and this device was originally either
Speaker 1: it was like out of Disney Labs, or it was
Speaker 1: someone from Disney or is in partnership with Disney. But
Speaker 1: now it's kind of its own thing. So if you
Speaker 1: go to the website, it's Meetcircle dot com. This is
Speaker 1: a small box that you plug into your Internet. It
Speaker 1: costs ten dollars a month. I believe when you first
Speaker 1: purchase it. It comes with your subscription, but it is realistically
Speaker 1: the best way to manage every single device on your network,
Speaker 1: and they give you really really good tools. And so
Speaker 1: if you've tried screen time or you've tried like some
Speaker 1: of the printal settings in Eero, they're all fine, and
Speaker 1: I use a combination of both of those. But Circle
Speaker 1: is just a one stop shop for everything you need.
Speaker 1: So what you do is you basically create profiles for
Speaker 1: your kids. So let's say you have two kids. You
Speaker 1: go in there, you say, here's Johnny, here's Judy. Here
Speaker 1: are their devices. So you mark which devices are theirs,
Speaker 1: and then you say what they can do. So during
Speaker 1: the weekdays, I want to give my kids an hour's
Speaker 1: worth of roadblocks every day. Boom, you can do it
Speaker 1: right through the app. I want to block TikTok, Boom,
Speaker 1: you can do that right through the Circle app. I
Speaker 1: want to turn off the Internet for them at eight
Speaker 1: pm every night. It can do that. I want to
Speaker 1: limit them to thirty minutes worth of YouTube every day.
Speaker 1: It can do that. And the reason why it does
Speaker 1: this is because it kind of monitors all the network traffic.
Speaker 1: It plugs physically into your network, and so you can
Speaker 1: have it do all of the stuff or only look
Speaker 1: at the devices that your kids are using, and so
Speaker 1: it's really really great. It can also of course block
Speaker 1: all of these sites you don't want them going to,
Speaker 1: like you know, it has built in filters for like
Speaker 1: social media, adult sites, whatever. You can do all that,
Speaker 1: so it's very very good. It's the only system I
Speaker 1: know of besides screen Time that will actually time out
Speaker 1: their time on these various apps and things. And screen Time,
Speaker 1: of course only works on the iOS devices and so
Speaker 1: you can't really you know, if you have an Apple
Speaker 1: TV and they're watching YouTube on there, there's not much
Speaker 1: you can do to time it out. To say, I
Speaker 1: only want them to be able to watch YouTube on
Speaker 1: Apple TV or on fireTV for a half an hour
Speaker 1: each day. Circle can handle that. So again, the website
Speaker 1: is meetcircle dot com. It is fantastic. I've used it
Speaker 1: in my house. I do not have an active subscription
Speaker 1: right now because we've been making do with with the
Speaker 1: a combination of screen time and euro parental controls. It's
Speaker 1: not perfect, but it's worked pretty well. But the problem
Speaker 1: is with my Eero, I have to physically block YouTube
Speaker 1: on the entire network or else. The kids will watch
Speaker 1: it until their eyeballs fall out, and so that's not ideal.
Speaker 1: I'd rather say, hey, kids, you can watch YouTube every day.
Speaker 1: I don't mind them watching like a half an hour
Speaker 1: of YouTube or maybe even an hour, but it needs
Speaker 1: to time out after that. And with Eero you can't
Speaker 1: do that. With Circle you can. So that's my recommendation definitely.
Speaker 1: You know, the device is gonna cost like one hundred
Speaker 1: bucks or something, but it is. It is well well
Speaker 1: worth it, and it will save you a lot of
Speaker 1: headaches or create some new ones. All right, let's talk
Speaker 1: about a new feature coming soon to the iPhone. I
Speaker 1: demoed this on my Instagram last night. It's so funny
Speaker 1: how long it takes to do a quick This was
Speaker 1: a fifty two second Instagram video and my son and
Speaker 1: I must have recorded it for, you know, maybe seven
Speaker 1: or eight times, and it probably took us a half
Speaker 1: an hour start to finish for a fifty two second video.
Speaker 1: Why you ask, because I want it to be perfect.
Speaker 1: I you know, he was recording. My kid is eight
Speaker 1: or sorry ten, and you know he was doing a
Speaker 1: great job. He's a great photography. He's really really good photographer.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's quite impressive how good his mind is
Speaker 1: when it comes to like the ie for what you're seeing.
Speaker 1: But there was a main part of this thing is
Speaker 1: that if you're using face ID with your iPhone, I
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that people saw when my mask
Speaker 1: was on and when I was looking at the phone.
Speaker 1: And you also need to be able to see the
Speaker 1: lock on the phone screen and see the phone on lock.
Speaker 1: So it's a little bit of like finagling to get
Speaker 1: that all right, and so we had to do it
Speaker 1: a couple of times to get it all perfect. And
Speaker 1: you know, anytime you're working with a phone, there's always
Speaker 1: a you know, text message comes in or something like that.
Speaker 1: So anyway, we got it right. If you want to
Speaker 1: watch the video, it's on Instagram. I think it came
Speaker 1: out pretty good. It's you know, it's very simple, but
Speaker 1: it gets the point across. The new feature in iOS
Speaker 1: fifteen point four lets you use a face mask with
Speaker 1: with face ID, and so now you can have an
Speaker 1: option when you update your phone to wear a mask
Speaker 1: and still have your phone onlock. And I think this
Speaker 1: is really really key because previously you had to have
Speaker 1: an Apple Watch for this feature to work, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't always perfect. It works most of the time, but
Speaker 1: you know, you have to have a three four, five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars accessory just to unlock your phone. So now
Speaker 1: Apple says they've they've figured out their algorithm and they
Speaker 1: can look at your eyes and use just the kind
Speaker 1: of unique features of your eyes and around them, I
Speaker 1: don't know, wrinkles, like who knows what they're looking at,
Speaker 1: and it can figure out if if it's you or not.
Speaker 1: Now they do have a warning that this is not
Speaker 1: as secure as standard face ID, and of course that
Speaker 1: makes sense. You're covering up excuse me, you're covering up
Speaker 1: half your face and you're you know, still getting this
Speaker 1: unlock effect. So I set it up last night. It
Speaker 1: works really well. I have not tested to see if
Speaker 1: it works with like payments, but I assume it would
Speaker 1: because if you're using face ID, it's still face ID.
Speaker 1: So maybe I'll get a message when I try to
Speaker 1: use tap to pay and it says, you know you
Speaker 1: can't do it, but it seems like you can use
Speaker 1: face ID to uh to do whatever you can with
Speaker 1: the with the mask on. At this point, so you know,
Speaker 1: we're two years in a lot of places. I mean
Speaker 1: here in La the mask mandate is still just as
Speaker 1: just as intense, shall we say, as it was at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the pandemic. In fact, there was it's
Speaker 1: tough to remember this, but there was a period of
Speaker 1: about three golden weeks in Los Angeles when you did
Speaker 1: not have to wear a mask. And I came back
Speaker 1: to work and it was like, oh, we're done. It's
Speaker 1: so great. And then all of a sudden, it was
Speaker 1: like back to masks. So it's a nice thing to have. Hopefully,
Speaker 1: fingers crossed, we will not need this feature for much longer,
Speaker 1: although there are certain parts of the world where people
Speaker 1: wear masks regularly and for doctors and things. So it's
Speaker 1: probably a good thing that Apple did this. I'm just so,
Speaker 1: I'm just curious. Oh here, Oh, according to mac Rumors
Speaker 1: says face ID with a mask can authenticate Apple pay payments.
Speaker 1: Oh there you go, so you could use it for
Speaker 1: Apple pay. So there it pays to read, pays to read.
Speaker 1: It sounds great and I think that it's a really
Speaker 1: nice feature. It works really well. If you want to
Speaker 1: see the demo, it's it's pretty amazing. I actually put
Speaker 1: the mask over my face and my eyes, and as
Speaker 1: soon as I pull down the mask while I'm looking
Speaker 1: looking at the phone, you immediately see the phone on
Speaker 1: lock as soon as my eyes are revealed, and it
Speaker 1: goes to the home screen. So they did a really
Speaker 1: good job. I hope it's as secure. I think it's Look,
Speaker 1: if it's Apple and they're doing this, and especially if
Speaker 1: they're allowing payments, it's probably pretty secure. Just maybe not.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're a mathematician, it's not like one
Speaker 1: hundred percent secure compared to the other standard face idea
Speaker 1: that they've had all right, air tags. Hey, Rich, is
Speaker 1: there any guidance on false hits on the Android tracker detector?
Speaker 1: I recently got three consecutive hits while driving with other
Speaker 1: cars nearby. Later I got nothing. Thanks Jerry and Sherman Oaks. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Jerry is talking about air tags. I did a
Speaker 1: story on KTLA this week about air tag safety because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of misconceptions out there, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of fear mongering, there's a lot of you know, just
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that's floating around, as you may imagine.
Speaker 1: And I have this theory with the news world right now,
Speaker 1: is that you really have to think about this, like,
Speaker 1: we are in a time when have we ever seen
Speaker 1: so many ways of getting to us with a story.
Speaker 1: And if there's a juicy story, like air tags are
Speaker 1: really scary and they're being used to track people and
Speaker 1: steal cars. So that's a great headline and a great story,
Speaker 1: every news outlet in the world is going to pick
Speaker 1: up on that. Now, they're all gonna have different amounts
Speaker 1: of facts in there. They're gonna have different amounts of
Speaker 1: truths in there, They're gonna have different amounts of like
Speaker 1: actual news and information in there. A lot of times
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, there's a story about people stealing cars
Speaker 1: with these air tags, and we don't really ever hear
Speaker 1: of the actual like where did this happen, what city
Speaker 1: was it in, who did it, how did they do it?
Speaker 1: You know, we don't know the full story all the time.
Speaker 1: But again, there's so many outlets out there, whether you're
Speaker 1: on TikTok, whether you're on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, regular news
Speaker 1: media websites, TV news, cable news, YouTube, instagram, shorts reels.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many ways that people text messages,
Speaker 1: people text you, people text me stories all the time, Hey,
Speaker 1: you see this? Do you see that? And you know
Speaker 1: it's from like MSN dot com or like Yahoo dot com.
Speaker 1: It's like, come on, you know, It's like I hold
Speaker 1: my tech stories to a little higher standard than some
Speaker 1: of these random websites that they show up on. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I tell you that because I am a tech person,
Speaker 1: I know how technology works. And yes, there are implications
Speaker 1: of the air tag that could be used for tracking,
Speaker 1: and they could be scary. And in fact, I think
Speaker 1: this is the best tracker ever invented in the entire
Speaker 1: history of mankind because they're twenty nine dollars and they
Speaker 1: work really well. And so I did a story on
Speaker 1: KTLA to kind of explain what air tags are all about,
Speaker 1: what you need to know, what's real, what's fake, and
Speaker 1: just understanding the technology. So the main thing to know
Speaker 1: is that if you want to use air tags to
Speaker 1: track your stuff, they're amazing. If someone wants to use
Speaker 1: an air tag to track you, yeah they probably could
Speaker 1: or your car. And the reason why that is is
Speaker 1: because air tags are constantly pinging almost a billion Apple
Speaker 1: devices around the world in this fine my network, and
Speaker 1: so chances are these air tags are are kind of
Speaker 1: the location is being updated on a very regular basis
Speaker 1: and with pretty good accuracy. So what do you need
Speaker 1: to know about these things? Yes, we've definitely seen instances
Speaker 1: of people using them to track people and also to
Speaker 1: steal cars and you know, but also a ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of people are using them on a daily basis
Speaker 1: just to do good things like track their keys and
Speaker 1: track their luggage and see where their kids are. And
Speaker 1: so that's all good, but you need to know that, yes,
Speaker 1: there could be an instance where someone could slip one
Speaker 1: of these into your purse or pocket or stuff and
Speaker 1: now they can see where you go. And your phone
Speaker 1: is supposed to notify you, that is if you have
Speaker 1: an iPhone, and so you'll get a message after a
Speaker 1: couple of hours when you know, because the iPhone is
Speaker 1: always kind of tracking these things and saying like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: we see this air tag but it's not yours, but
Speaker 1: it's been traveling with you for the last six hours.
Speaker 1: We think that's kind of weird, and so it will
Speaker 1: alert you and say that on your phone, and then
Speaker 1: in that case you need to you know, you can
Speaker 1: tap the top of the air tag with your phone
Speaker 1: and you can see the owner information but if this
Speaker 1: is a you know, an evil person putting this on you,
Speaker 1: I doubt that owner information is gonna be any good.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna be a real phone number. Oh hey,
Speaker 1: uh uh, did you just try to track me with
Speaker 1: this air tag? Yes? That was me. Oh okay, thank you.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to make sure. No, you gotta you
Speaker 1: gotta unplug this thing and you know, get the serial
Speaker 1: number to the police. And so that's the recommendation. Don't
Speaker 1: drive home with it, don't don't go home, go to
Speaker 1: a safe place. If you think one of these things
Speaker 1: is on you, and you know, get it off of
Speaker 1: you and or your car, and you know, get that
Speaker 1: get that serial number before you take it apart. And
Speaker 1: so that's you know, that's what you need to know.
Speaker 1: It's kind of scary. And the reality of this situation
Speaker 1: is if you have an iPhone, yeah, it's supposed to know.
Speaker 1: But how long does that notification take? Because Apple has
Speaker 1: to ride a line here of we don't want to
Speaker 1: be notifying people every twenty seconds that there's an air
Speaker 1: tag nearby, but we also want to give them a
Speaker 1: heads up if we think this thing is tracking them.
Speaker 1: So how long do we wait to tell that person. Now,
Speaker 1: you could be on a train going from LA to
Speaker 1: San Diego and there's a bunch of air tags around
Speaker 1: you that are traveling with you, but they're not tracking
Speaker 1: you per se, They're not on your person. And so
Speaker 1: Apple has to write their algorithms to ride that fine line.
Speaker 1: And that's tricky. Now. The other thing to know is
Speaker 1: that if you have an Android phone, Yeah, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get a notification because it's Android, and you know,
Speaker 1: we all know Apple's relationship with Android. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: do much. But they do have an app called Tracker Detect,
Speaker 1: and this will scan for unknown air tags. Now that
Speaker 1: sounds great, but here's the reality of that. How many
Speaker 1: times are you gonna sit there and scan for unknown
Speaker 1: air tags? Are you gonna do this every day when
Speaker 1: you wake up? Are you gonna do this in your
Speaker 1: car every time you get into it, every time you
Speaker 1: leave work? I mean, you'd go mad just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out if there's an air tag tracking you. So
Speaker 1: what would make a person scan around them for an
Speaker 1: air tag? Maybe if you broke up with an X
Speaker 1: and it was a bad breakup and you thought someone
Speaker 1: was tracking you, Yes, that's a good idea maybe you
Speaker 1: had an feeling that someone was tracking you in your car.
Speaker 1: So yeah, but the reality is, like I said, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like this. I mean, I don't know how
Speaker 1: do you go down that route of like when do
Speaker 1: you scan for these things? So, yes, if you have
Speaker 1: an iPhone, it's nice and it works hopefully, but if
Speaker 1: you have an Android, it definitely gets a little trickier.
Speaker 1: To disable one of these air tags. You press the
Speaker 1: two sides together, you twist them apart, and the battery
Speaker 1: will fall out. And again I did say that you
Speaker 1: can tap any phone to an air tag, So if
Speaker 1: you have an Android or an iPhone, these air tags
Speaker 1: have NFC, so if you tap a phone to them,
Speaker 1: it will bring up a website that tells you the
Speaker 1: information about that air tag, whether it's legitimate owner information
Speaker 1: or whether it's the air tag serial number, or if
Speaker 1: the air tag is marked as lost. The person could
Speaker 1: put their phone number or email address in there. Now,
Speaker 1: that was all a very long story. To get back
Speaker 1: to Jerry's question in Sherman Oaks, is there any guidance
Speaker 1: on false hits on the Android tracker? I recently got
Speaker 1: three consecutive hits while driving Jerry, you said while driving,
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? You were driving there was
Speaker 1: air tags nearby at some point because fellow drivers had
Speaker 1: some air tags, and then all of a sudden those
Speaker 1: drivers moved away from you. So yeah, you got nothing
Speaker 1: later on, So that's gonna happen. Now. I tested the
Speaker 1: Android tracker in my home because I have a bunch
Speaker 1: of air tags on my stuff. And it's interesting because
Speaker 1: it says it will track unknown air tags. So the
Speaker 1: air tags in my house, it does not pick up
Speaker 1: unless I put my iPhone in a Faraday bag. And
Speaker 1: a Faraday bag if you're not familiar with what that is,
Speaker 1: it's a bag that locks out all signals in and out.
Speaker 1: So I have one from this company called Silent Pocket.
Speaker 1: Now they're called edging, I think just silent. But I
Speaker 1: put my phone in there and as soon as I
Speaker 1: put my iPhone in there, then I ran the scan
Speaker 1: once again and sure enough, the air tag showed up.
Speaker 1: So the the scanner app is smart enough to know
Speaker 1: when these are unknown tags. So let me give you
Speaker 1: an example that Let's say someone comes over to your
Speaker 1: house a friend and they've got an air tag on
Speaker 1: their body with you know, on their keychain, and they've
Speaker 1: got their iPhone in their pocket as well, and you
Speaker 1: run this little Android tracker scanner or sorry tracker to
Speaker 1: tech scanner in your house while your friend is there,
Speaker 1: and you say, oh, this is an unknown air tag.
Speaker 1: It's my friend's air tag, it's not mine. Well, it's
Speaker 1: smart enough to know when you do that scan that
Speaker 1: that air tag is not unknown because the person who
Speaker 1: owns it is with you, so it's not tracking you,
Speaker 1: they're tracking their own stuff. So that's an example of,
Speaker 1: you know, the smarts that Apple has built into this system.
Speaker 1: And that's just on the surface level. There are so
Speaker 1: many things that I'm sure Apple has taken into consideration.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, like I said,
Speaker 1: the thesis on the air tag is that these are good.
Speaker 1: They're really good at what they do, and so yes,
Speaker 1: people are going to use them for evil. Just like
Speaker 1: any other technology ever invented in the history of mankind.
Speaker 1: People find good uses, people find bad uses, and hopefully
Speaker 1: the good outweighs the bad. But like anything else, it's
Speaker 1: the same exact thing. I mean, knives can be really
Speaker 1: bad if they're used against another person, but they're really
Speaker 1: good for chopping up your salad. So again, this is
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that we have to take into consideration.
Speaker 1: I don't think that we should just say air tags
Speaker 1: need to be banned because they could be used for
Speaker 1: these nefarious purposes. We have to realize that there is
Speaker 1: always align with anything that we have. You think about
Speaker 1: a car. It drives you places and it's amazing, it
Speaker 1: gets you across the country. But that same car, if
Speaker 1: it hits a person, could be really really bad, and
Speaker 1: it's really dangerous. It's a dangerous item that we are
Speaker 1: driving every single day. But again, we have to weigh
Speaker 1: the pros and the cons, the safety and the danger.
Speaker 1: And that's the same thing with these air tags. They
Speaker 1: are pretty amazing there, and I think that the system
Speaker 1: around them will continue to be evolved. I think the
Speaker 1: android part specifically is a little tricky with these things,
Speaker 1: but that's anyway. I probably spent way too much time
Speaker 1: on the air tags. But there you have it, all right,
Speaker 1: Let's go to the next story. Facebook. You know, they
Speaker 1: change their name to Meta. I'm not gonna spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time on this, but I just wanted to
Speaker 1: mention it because so many people got the oculus quest
Speaker 1: over the holidays. Now I've talked about this before. Everyone
Speaker 1: in my fingers are in quotes right now. Everyone hates Facebook, right,
Speaker 1: I personally do not. I think Facebook has done some
Speaker 1: amazing things in this world for connecting people. But you know,
Speaker 1: you may think they're evil, you may not. I've got,
Speaker 1: you know, a one hundred and forty three thousand followers
Speaker 1: on my Facebook page. And by the way, just in
Speaker 1: the last month, I think that's up twenty thousand followers,
Speaker 1: and so, yes, people are still on there. New people
Speaker 1: are still on there. People still get their information from there,
Speaker 1: People still connect with family members on their People still
Speaker 1: use Facebook, whether you like to believe it or not.
Speaker 1: Instagram is owned by Facebook. Do people done a lot
Speaker 1: of changes, so it's certainly different than than when it
Speaker 1: was invented. But you know, Facebook is on this. I
Speaker 1: don't know why they want to change everything to meta.
Speaker 1: So the bottom line is they're changing the name of
Speaker 1: the Oculus Quest to Meta Quest. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that's very smart because Meta is being thrown around in
Speaker 1: the news as sort of the you know, this new
Speaker 1: evil company because it's Facebook. It's the new name for Facebook.
Speaker 1: You can't hide from us Facebook, You change your name.
Speaker 1: We still are onto you. And so why change this
Speaker 1: product that has transcended the Facebook hate and and gotten
Speaker 1: into so many homes over the holidays. Why are you
Speaker 1: changing the name now to metaquest? Now You're gonna just
Speaker 1: make people not like it because it's more associated with Facebook. Now, yes,
Speaker 1: Oculus is owned by Facebook or you know, it's a
Speaker 1: part of Facebook. They purchased Oculus, and you do need apparently,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, a Facebook log in to
Speaker 1: use Oculus, which a lot of people have a problem with.
Speaker 1: But again, it's one of these things where now it's
Speaker 1: called metaquest. It got a lot of blowback online. People
Speaker 1: are just trashing Meta for doing this, and it's just
Speaker 1: one of those things where I feel like they should
Speaker 1: should have left it. But I get it. Facebook is
Speaker 1: on this huge like you know, they want meta metaverse
Speaker 1: to be a thing, and so that's why, I guess,
Speaker 1: because the Oculus quest is like the best entree into
Speaker 1: the metaverse at this point, and so that's it. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. I yeah, that's there's not much more
Speaker 1: to mention about that. Anyway. If you have an Oculus
Speaker 1: and you love it, which a lot of people have
Speaker 1: told me, they do, it's going to change its name.
Speaker 1: Cell Phone carriers is the subject line of the next question.
Speaker 1: Good morning, rich Do you have any recommendations for cell
Speaker 1: phone carriers. I'm currently with Verizon. Your friend Leo Laporte
Speaker 1: recommends Visible, but I've had no luck signing up with them.
Speaker 1: So do you have anybody alike? Thanks to your time, Richard,
Speaker 1: Uh Well, I thought Leo liked Mint because he was
Speaker 1: they were a sponsor, but maybe Visible, maybe he's talked
Speaker 1: about it. I think Visible is excellent. I think Mint
Speaker 1: is really great. I think Cricket is really great. It
Speaker 1: depends what you need. So you're with Verizon and so
Speaker 1: you're on a network that's really really good, and so
Speaker 1: I would recommend that you switch over to Visible. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know why you're having no luck signing up
Speaker 1: with them. I'm not sure what that means now. I
Speaker 1: know in the past people have had issues with Visible
Speaker 1: because it's a virtual carrier, so it's owned by Verizon.
Speaker 1: But the way they originally it is you had to
Speaker 1: order a SIM card. It was only very specific phones
Speaker 1: that would work with it, and you had to wait
Speaker 1: for that SIM and there's no customer service that you
Speaker 1: could call or maybe you could call them, but there's
Speaker 1: no stores you can walk into. And that was part
Speaker 1: of the whole thing, is that they were kind of
Speaker 1: aimed at, like the younger generation that wants the DIY stuff,
Speaker 1: and it was a little bit tricky for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. But if you can get in on their network,
Speaker 1: once you're in, it's really great and it's forty dollars unlimited.
Speaker 1: But if you sign up for a party plan, it's
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars unlimited. And the trick about the party
Speaker 1: plan is that you don't need to gather four friends
Speaker 1: to get that twenty five dollars deal. You can join
Speaker 1: anyone's party plan. So people swap these party plan links
Speaker 1: in Reddit or online or just ask anyone and you
Speaker 1: can get onto this plan for twenty five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: I know people that have done this. It's easy, it's real,
Speaker 1: and it's only twenty five dollars a month unlimited on
Speaker 1: Verizon for everything you need. Now, when I say everything
Speaker 1: you need, there are some caveats. You don't get the
Speaker 1: full throttle of the Verizon network, so you are not yes,
Speaker 1: you'll get five G, but you're not gonna get those
Speaker 1: crazy blazing download speeds that their network is capable of.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get a solid, reputable network that works pretty
Speaker 1: much everywhere you need it to work, but you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get the full, the full download and upload speeds.
Speaker 1: And they do that because they're charging you twenty five
Speaker 1: dollars a month. What do you expect they're not you
Speaker 1: know the plan that the standard plans for Verizon, or
Speaker 1: you know they're up at ninety dollars a month, eighty
Speaker 1: dollars a month, seventy dollars a month. So what do
Speaker 1: you think they're doing for twenty five They're they're limiting
Speaker 1: you in certain areas. Now for ninety nine point nine
Speaker 1: percent of people, that does not matter. You're not me.
Speaker 1: You're not uploading giant video files into the cloud, you're
Speaker 1: not downloading things, you're not posting to social media all
Speaker 1: the time, these huge files. So it's not that big
Speaker 1: of a deal. If you're on Netflix, you're on YouTube,
Speaker 1: you're sending emails, you're sending texts. That's all going to
Speaker 1: be fine. Visible Now, I do have a problem with
Speaker 1: the video resolution you get. I believe it's fury ADP,
Speaker 1: which is like DVD quality. So I don't. I'm not
Speaker 1: a fan of that. I personally could not deal with
Speaker 1: that on my cell phone. I would not do that.
Speaker 1: But most people don't care about that, and they they're
Speaker 1: just fine. They're like, look, I'm looking at a tiny screen.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter anyway. And I'm saving a ton
Speaker 1: of money every month. My Verizon bill is insane every month.
Speaker 1: It's just like every month, I'm like, oh, how much
Speaker 1: am I spending this month? It's leveled out, but it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's just one of those things. It's it's
Speaker 1: probably my number two bill. It's like it's that high.
Speaker 1: It's pretty expensive. But the other one I do like
Speaker 1: is Mint Mobile. The difference with Mint is that it's
Speaker 1: on the T Mobile network, and if it works where
Speaker 1: you are and where you live and where you work,
Speaker 1: that's fine. I personally find T Mobile to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more hit or miss than Verizon, but I
Speaker 1: don't use it full time. I only test on it,
Speaker 1: and so maybe that's why. But and all these networks,
Speaker 1: by the way, have got a lot better in the
Speaker 1: past couple of weeks due to this whole five G
Speaker 1: the C band and all these new new spectrum that
Speaker 1: they're opening up. So to me, a lot of it
Speaker 1: is like just personal preference of where do you live,
Speaker 1: where do you work, and how much do you want
Speaker 1: to spend. What I like about MEN, and I have
Speaker 1: a family member that's on MEN, is that we pay
Speaker 1: the bill once a year, and my family member does
Speaker 1: not have to worry about their bill for an entire year.
Speaker 1: And it's like we're talking three hundred dollars for the
Speaker 1: entire year, and this family member does not need a
Speaker 1: lot of data, so it's super easy. It works. And
Speaker 1: when they tell people that they pay their bill once
Speaker 1: a month, once a year and they get unlimited everything
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, maybe it's not unlimited, but it
Speaker 1: feels like it is to them. Everyone's like, wait, what,
Speaker 1: I'm paying one hundred bucks over here to at and
Speaker 1: tier one hundred and fifty of this or that or
Speaker 1: three hundred or four hundred. Cell phone bills are really
Speaker 1: really expensive. These carriers are not joking around. They are
Speaker 1: they're making money handover fists and it is pretty apparent.
Speaker 1: And you know, yes, they run these networks, but again
Speaker 1: it's it's you're paying a premium for these networks ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of the time, so all right, is that
Speaker 1: the question? I think we got the question. All right,
Speaker 1: let's uh, let's move on to well, since we're talking
Speaker 1: about carriers, let's talk about AT and T. This I
Speaker 1: thought was pretty cool. AT and T is now the
Speaker 1: fastest major internet provider. They are just they're doing now
Speaker 1: two gigabyte plans and five gigabyte plans, so five gig
Speaker 1: speed and two gig speed right now at my house,
Speaker 1: I have a thousand. I thought that was a lot.
Speaker 1: Now they have two and five tiers, so you can
Speaker 1: get and this is the best part with AT and
Speaker 1: T fiber and a lot of these fiber offerings, the
Speaker 1: network speed is the same up and down. So if
Speaker 1: you subscribe to Spectrum, let's say it's they advertise four
Speaker 1: hundred right, four hundred down is pretty much their standard.
Speaker 1: But if you have to search the website, by the
Speaker 1: way to find this. But if you finally find what
Speaker 1: the upload speed is, four hundred is the download speed.
Speaker 1: If you look for the upload, it's usually about thirty
Speaker 1: to forty. So it's like it's it's considerably less. I
Speaker 1: guess that's what ten times less? Is that ten times
Speaker 1: less or one? Yeah, ten times less? So now again
Speaker 1: for ninety nine point nine percent of people. Not a
Speaker 1: big deal. Most people are downloading things, or downloading Netflix,
Speaker 1: or downloading YouTube or streaming YouTube. I should say, they're
Speaker 1: downloading files. They're not uploading a whole bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: like I am. And so I want that upload speed
Speaker 1: to be really fast because I'm working with large video
Speaker 1: files form my job, and so I want the upload
Speaker 1: and the download to be super fast. And so this
Speaker 1: now is available for five point two million customers in
Speaker 1: seventy metro areas parts of seventy metro areas. I should say,
Speaker 1: because even if they say that this is in your city,
Speaker 1: these super fast speeds, they may not be at your
Speaker 1: exact house. And so I checked my address. They have
Speaker 1: not updated the two gig and five gig speeds here,
Speaker 1: but it would be kind of fun. I don't even
Speaker 1: need a thousand, but I mean I do, but I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's probably overkill, but it's it's in you know,
Speaker 1: cities including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas. And they also changed
Speaker 1: their their plans for new customers. They're making things a
Speaker 1: little simpler. So if you have aight and T five,
Speaker 1: no equipment fees, no any no contract no data caps,
Speaker 1: no price increase at twelve months, and let's see what else.
Speaker 1: They also say that they've gotten up to ten gigabyte,
Speaker 1: so it's ten gigabytes per second. I guess that's a
Speaker 1: gbps speeds in their labs. And so the two gigabyte
Speaker 1: plan is one hundred and ten dollars a month. The
Speaker 1: five gigabyte plan is one hundred and eighty dollars a
Speaker 1: month plus taxes. And if you're on business it's way
Speaker 1: more expensive. It's two twenty five a month and three
Speaker 1: ninety five a month. Now, I can't really imagine why
Speaker 1: someone needs a two gig downloads or two gig speed
Speaker 1: for their Internet. I thought a thousand was pretty wild,
Speaker 1: but you know, there are use cases. If you're running
Speaker 1: a home business, if you're you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: you're a video editor, you're working with giant files. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are there are reasons why people need this stuff.
Speaker 1: So anyway, just something to be on the lookout for.
Speaker 1: Uh att. How do you find out if it's buy
Speaker 1: in your area? Let me see if there's a website
Speaker 1: I can give you uh att dot com slash fiber fast.
Speaker 1: Att dot com slash fiber fast and I should probably
Speaker 1: mention that AT and T is a sponsor of my
Speaker 1: KTLA segment. They had nothing to do with me mentioning
Speaker 1: it here. They don't. I mean, you know, I barely
Speaker 1: talk to them like maybe once or twice a year
Speaker 1: about stuff, and you know it's believe me. So there
Speaker 1: you go. Okay. Uh Mamy says, Hey, Rich, I wonder
Speaker 1: do you have a suggestion on how I can block
Speaker 1: spam text These texts are getting on my nerves. Some
Speaker 1: are in groups, some are not. They mostly are about sex.
Speaker 1: I hate them. They text me all day. Help. Thanks,
Speaker 1: you know, Mami, I've talked about this on the podcast before.
Speaker 1: These these spam come and go. Depends if you've gotten
Speaker 1: on a list. It depends if the hackers or the
Speaker 1: spammers have gotten a fresh list of email or you know,
Speaker 1: phone numbers, and then they just they spam the heck
Speaker 1: out of them and then they move on. So the
Speaker 1: best thing I would say to do is, if you
Speaker 1: want to, you can turn on the filter unknown Senders
Speaker 1: setting in your I messages and so if you turn
Speaker 1: that on, what they do is they will filter any
Speaker 1: messages that are from people that are not in your
Speaker 1: address book into a separate little area. Now, personally, I
Speaker 1: don't like that because I always forget to check that
Speaker 1: other area and some legitimate email text can go in
Speaker 1: there as well. So what I've done is I just
Speaker 1: deal with them. This week, in particular, the past two weeks,
Speaker 1: I've gotten a whole bunch of spam texts. They're all
Speaker 1: the same format, they're all kind of the same thing,
Speaker 1: and it's just one of those things where I know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's gonna come and go, and so next
Speaker 1: week it'll probably be a little bit better, and so
Speaker 1: I just kind of deal with it. You delete them.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's I mean, unless they're waking you up
Speaker 1: at night, which you shove your phone on, do not
Speaker 1: disturb anyway. I mean, it's really like, you get a text,
Speaker 1: you look at it, it's like, okay, come on now.
Speaker 1: If you're getting a lot, like you said, you're getting
Speaker 1: all day, that's kind of annoying, and blocking them or
Speaker 1: whatever is probably not going to do anything unless they're
Speaker 1: coming from the same number. So maybe turn that on
Speaker 1: for the next week or so and see see if
Speaker 1: that helps. All right, next story, you know, I love
Speaker 1: my Tesla. I actually got my first repair done on
Speaker 1: the Tesla. I think I mentioned this, but my Tesla
Speaker 1: when it rained here in Los Angeles, the rear tail
Speaker 1: light filled up with water. I mean, come on, Tesla,
Speaker 1: you gotta do better than that. And it's funny. My
Speaker 1: last two cars I've had a problem with the rear
Speaker 1: light filling up with water. So I was in the
Speaker 1: car wash with my son and he was like with
Speaker 1: my last car and he's like, Dad, the car is
Speaker 1: the car wash is dripping on me. And I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I love window open. I said, no, I didn't leave
Speaker 1: a windo open. What's going on? I look in the
Speaker 1: back and sure enough, from the roof of my car
Speaker 1: it's dripping in, And I said, what is going on?
Speaker 1: So I brought my car to the dealer and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I always see this a lot. Yeah, it's just the
Speaker 1: way they seated the uh the uh the rubber gasket
Speaker 1: on the back of here. We'll replace it. Like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: let's I have a car, a brand new car that
Speaker 1: the water just comes in from the roof, Like, isn't
Speaker 1: that like Car one oh one? That that doesn't happen anyway,
Speaker 1: So it happened in my last car. Then it happens
Speaker 1: on the Tesla, which you know, it's kind of annoying.
Speaker 1: And so it took me a while to submit a
Speaker 1: ticket for the repair because I just didn't know how
Speaker 1: the repairs worked. I figured I had to go to
Speaker 1: the Tesla place. I gotta take my car. It's gonna
Speaker 1: take forever. I got to get a loaner if they
Speaker 1: even offer that. Well, it turns out you do it
Speaker 1: all through the app and they immediately give you a day.
Speaker 1: You know, you pick a day in a time right
Speaker 1: through the app and they come right to your house
Speaker 1: and they fix it. And by the way, it took
Speaker 1: two weeks for the appointment, but then it took literally
Speaker 1: three minutes for the repair. And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: do you see this a lot? I always this, This
Speaker 1: is a key question to ask anyone that's fixing anything
Speaker 1: that you have. Always ask do you see this a lot?
Speaker 1: And you'll be surprised at their answers, because ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent of the time your problem is very, very common,
Speaker 1: and they'll never tell you that. They'll never offer that up.
Speaker 1: Like the repair guy for the Tesla's not going to
Speaker 1: come over and say, oh, I just did five repairs
Speaker 1: like this today. They never say that. But if you
Speaker 1: ask that direct question, it comes from my background as
Speaker 1: a journalist. If you ask that direct question, hey, do
Speaker 1: you see a lot of this issue? You'll see their
Speaker 1: response is just light up their face them like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we see this all the time. Like the guy was
Speaker 1: telling me, Yeah, we had a you know, a faulty
Speaker 1: par and now it's been you know, they updated the
Speaker 1: par and now it's much better and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, okay, so I'd be the person to
Speaker 1: deal with this. And so anyway, I tell you all
Speaker 1: that because there is a new faster way to get
Speaker 1: into a Tesla. A startup named Autonomy has a Tesla
Speaker 1: Model three subscription program. This is a startup out of
Speaker 1: Santa Monica and it lets you subscribe to a Tesla.
Speaker 1: It's a month to month contract. You have to do
Speaker 1: a three month minimum. You can order your vehicle in
Speaker 1: about ten minutes on their website or on the app,
Speaker 1: and that's it. Now. I don't know how long it
Speaker 1: takes to get one of these cars. They say they
Speaker 1: have about five hundred orders placed right now and they're
Speaker 1: hoping for ten thousand by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: But they have low mileage Tesla threes available. Later they're
Speaker 1: going to do other teslas. The subscriptions include maintenance and
Speaker 1: roadside assistance, which I thought that the Tesla included anyway,
Speaker 1: but whatever. And you can do your payments from five
Speaker 1: to fifty a month with a fifty five hundred dollars
Speaker 1: start fee or up to one thousand dollars a month
Speaker 1: with the start fee of one thousand dollars. And you
Speaker 1: need also to put down a five hundred dollars security deposit.
Speaker 1: There's a reservation deposit of one hundred bucks. And the
Speaker 1: term is month to month with three months minimum. Right now,
Speaker 1: it's only in California. New markets opening soon. So this
Speaker 1: is an interesting twist because already it's pretty easy to
Speaker 1: like lease a Tesla from Tesla. But you're talking if
Speaker 1: you're gonna lease, you're you're looking at you know, a minimum.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, whatever their term is. I think
Speaker 1: it's three years, four years, five years, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe they have twelve month leases, but
Speaker 1: with this it's month to month. So maybe you're just
Speaker 1: tiptoeing into an ev. Maybe you just want to get
Speaker 1: a taste for it. Maybe you're in town for a
Speaker 1: year for a new job or something. Maybe you just
Speaker 1: have gobs of money. Because I'm not getting into the
Speaker 1: financial aspect of this, I'm not sure it's the most
Speaker 1: financially sound decision. But then again, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of people out there that have a lot of
Speaker 1: discretionary cash and they don't care. I mean, to me,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just like it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a twist on a lease, except with no you know,
Speaker 1: there's no contract. So maybe people like that idea. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that the you know, there's a whole generation
Speaker 1: coming up that likes everything on demand and they like
Speaker 1: everything month to month. They like everything to be a payment,
Speaker 1: and they like everything to be understandable and the expectation
Speaker 1: of regularity. I guess that's sounds really weird. I need
Speaker 1: I need a toilet flush sound when I say that word.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so that's it Autonomy Tesla three subscription. There
Speaker 1: you go. And I guess this is the same guy
Speaker 1: who started Gosh, what was it? I think it was
Speaker 1: True Car, True Car and cars Direct. Same people, So
Speaker 1: there you go, all right, Valerie says, why does this
Speaker 1: keep coming up when I'm trying to go to Etsy
Speaker 1: dot com. This loads instead of the Etsy dot com
Speaker 1: home page. And she sent me a big old link
Speaker 1: that is join Honey. And if you look at this,
Speaker 1: it is a big link that is all about getting
Speaker 1: you to sign up for Honey. So what's happening on
Speaker 1: your computer, Valerie, is that you have malware on your computer,
Speaker 1: some sort of program. It could be a browser hijacker,
Speaker 1: a redirect, something is causing this this page to redirect
Speaker 1: to this Honey advertisement. It could be another extension on
Speaker 1: your computer. It could be malware on your computer at large. Sorry,
Speaker 1: it could be an extension on your Chrome browser. It
Speaker 1: could be malware at large. A lot of times. A
Speaker 1: lot of times this comes from third party software that
Speaker 1: you install on your computer. That may be what's called
Speaker 1: a browser helper. So that's what i'd look for. I
Speaker 1: would go through all of your extensions on Chrome. And
Speaker 1: if you want to do that, if you look in
Speaker 1: the upper right hand corner of Chrome, there's like a
Speaker 1: little puzzle piece that will show you all of your
Speaker 1: extensions and get rid of the ones you don't want.
Speaker 1: You can click the three little dots and say remove
Speaker 1: from Chrome. And I would go through there. I go
Speaker 1: through mine all the time to make sure that I
Speaker 1: don't have any on there that I don't need, and
Speaker 1: so you know, be brutal, just remove stuff. If you
Speaker 1: see one on there, you're like, what is this? Just
Speaker 1: get rid of it. You're not going to ruin your browser. Now.
Speaker 1: On your computer, I would do a scan with malware bytes,
Speaker 1: and you know they have a free offering, so just
Speaker 1: ignore all the overtures to subscribe. But I would just
Speaker 1: do that and get that and scan your computer and
Speaker 1: see if you have any programs on there that are
Speaker 1: not supposed to be there, or just go through your
Speaker 1: list of applications and uninstall anything that you don't need
Speaker 1: that may look suspicious. I see this all the time
Speaker 1: on people's computers that I'm trying to help out. They've
Speaker 1: got some sort of software on there that's that's purportedly
Speaker 1: to help them, but in reality it does not help
Speaker 1: them at all. So that's that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: All right. Let's get to the next story here. FTC
Speaker 1: says US consumers lost seven hundred and seventy million dollars
Speaker 1: in social media scams in twenty twenty one. That's up
Speaker 1: eighteen times from twenty seventeen. That's the headline from tech Crunch.
Speaker 1: And the reason I mentioned this is because you think
Speaker 1: that only old people are susceptible to these scams, right.
Speaker 1: I used to do these stories all the time when
Speaker 1: I was called the troubleshooter over at KTAL Channel six
Speaker 1: in Shreveport, Louisiana. And there's always some elderly person that
Speaker 1: was got a phone call and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: they're giving their credit card number over the phone, or
Speaker 1: their bank account or they got a letter in the
Speaker 1: mail and they were totally scammed. This happened all the time.
Speaker 1: People get their bank accounts cleared out. And you might think, Haha,
Speaker 1: that's only for the olds. No, no, no, it happens
Speaker 1: to young people. In fact, I would say that young
Speaker 1: people are even more susceptible at this point. And some
Speaker 1: of this research from the FTC supports that because young
Speaker 1: people guess what's happening to them? They're getting defrauded on
Speaker 1: social media platforms. And so what's happening is because social
Speaker 1: media has built this little world of like, you know,
Speaker 1: people to people kind of transactions, you can get scammed
Speaker 1: a lot easier because things look like they're coming from
Speaker 1: your friends. Your friends post something and you fall prey
Speaker 1: to it. I see, I've gotten many, many, many of
Speaker 1: these emails about cryptocurrency scams where somehow they take over
Speaker 1: someone's Instagram and then they post a story that says, oh,
Speaker 1: I just got you know, one hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 1: for free through this new app, like sign up with
Speaker 1: my link below, and your friends see that and go,
Speaker 1: oh that's cool, and they sign up and now they're defrauded.
Speaker 1: And it's defrauded even a word. I don't even know,
Speaker 1: but anyway, that's what I would say. And this stuff.
Speaker 1: There's this whole article on tech crunches I'll link up
Speaker 1: in the show notes, but it goes through all this stuff.
Speaker 1: But you just need to know that this is still happening,
Speaker 1: and just because you think you're smarter than the average bear,
Speaker 1: it does not necessarily make you immune from all these
Speaker 1: scams that are going around out there. So, for instance, myself,
Speaker 1: I was checking my email this morning, I got an
Speaker 1: email from the IRS saying, oh, this didn't work. This
Speaker 1: itn there's a taxpayer number, like, here's a pdf, check
Speaker 1: it out now. I was tempted to click it immediately
Speaker 1: and see what the deal was. And I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: hold on, what email address are they sending this to?
Speaker 1: And why is the IRS sending me an email? And
Speaker 1: so again I kind of like, you know, immediately again
Speaker 1: I immediately went and checked and saw that that was happening.
Speaker 1: And so anyway, Wow, I'm really embarrassed right now. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure that I had I'm pretty sure that I
Speaker 1: had the microphone off the entire time while I was
Speaker 1: while I was broadcasting to Twitter this entire time. I
Speaker 1: can't believe it. Oh wow, Okay, well you live and
Speaker 1: you learn rich. That was a big old, big old mistake. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'll learn for next time anyway. So my point is
Speaker 1: just just be aware, just always, always, always if it's
Speaker 1: something that seems like it's like a Amazon thing or
Speaker 1: like I had someone come into my office the other
Speaker 1: day saying, hey, I placed an order for an iPhone
Speaker 1: and then I got this message from Apple that says, hey,
Speaker 1: you need to call about your order. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of odd. And I looked at the email. Looked very legit,
Speaker 1: it looked like it came from Apple. It had the
Speaker 1: person's order number on it, and I couldn't tell. I said, look,
Speaker 1: I said, here's what I would do, And if you're wondering,
Speaker 1: just take a cool off period twenty four hours. Let
Speaker 1: cool off, you know what I mean. If this is
Speaker 1: something that's real, most likely they're going to email you again.
Speaker 1: And because I couldn't really tell, and I didn't want
Speaker 1: to call the phone number in the email because I
Speaker 1: didn't know if that phone number was legitimate or not,
Speaker 1: so I just said, hey, just cool off. If Apple
Speaker 1: needs to contact you, they'll get in touch with you again,
Speaker 1: and so, or you can go ahead and call Apple's
Speaker 1: phone number directly, like if you go to Apple dot com,
Speaker 1: scroll to the bottom of the website and call the
Speaker 1: phone number there, that's a better way of doing it
Speaker 1: than calling a random phone number that arrives in an email.
Speaker 1: So just be on guard. No matter what your level
Speaker 1: of savviness is, it's just always best to just just
Speaker 1: be a critical thinker with all of this stuff. So
Speaker 1: let's see, I don't want to end on a bad one. Ah,
Speaker 1: this person's so mean to me. But ah, okay, I
Speaker 1: guess I guess I'll just tackle it here we go,
Speaker 1: all right, Howard says, your spot's on the news. Why
Speaker 1: do you use music under all of your stories. It's
Speaker 1: hard to hear your voice. The story today about Hyatt
Speaker 1: today sure sounds like a paid commercial for Hyatt, was it?
Speaker 1: Mariott and Hilton have been doing this for years, Howard. So, Howard,
Speaker 1: let's just break this down. Number One, music under the stories.
Speaker 1: You know what that's been going on ever since I
Speaker 1: started the Tech Report at KTLA. I actually am not
Speaker 1: a fan of the music in the stories, and so
Speaker 1: I have actually said many times I don't want the
Speaker 1: music because it is distracting, and I think that it's
Speaker 1: also it's a crutch. Sometimes when we're trying to formulate
Speaker 1: a story, it's much easier to make almost like a
Speaker 1: music video story than it is to actually come up
Speaker 1: with what we call in the business NAT sounds, And
Speaker 1: so I personally like building stories using NAT sounds, which
Speaker 1: is natural sound, which is like if you're looking at
Speaker 1: a boat in the ocean, you would hear the splash
Speaker 1: of the waves, and you hear the horn there and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Whereas if you're just doing a music
Speaker 1: under your story, you can just have a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of montage, you know, a whole bunch of clips of
Speaker 1: this story and it just looks great and it sounds great,
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit lazier when it comes to editing.
Speaker 1: But people have gotten so used to music under stories
Speaker 1: with things like YouTube, MTV and all these different you know,
Speaker 1: news magazines, they all use music, and so yeah, I
Speaker 1: actually don't like the music either, and so I've I've
Speaker 1: definitely ninety nine point nine percent of the time when
Speaker 1: my stories come back to me, I tell the editor
Speaker 1: please lower the music every single time. And I know
Speaker 1: there's a certain level we have the music at every
Speaker 1: time and it's standardized, but it still feels too loud
Speaker 1: to me. So I agree with you on that one.
Speaker 1: I'll give you that point. Now, the story today about
Speaker 1: Hyatt sure sounds like a paid commercial for Hyatt, was it?
Speaker 1: So I will tell you in my history of KTLA, yes,
Speaker 1: we have done sponsored segments and it's all highly coordinated
Speaker 1: through teams. Now, I will tell you that does not
Speaker 1: happen very often. In fact, I can tell you in
Speaker 1: the past five years, I think we've done two sponsored
Speaker 1: segments and they were very clearly marked that these were
Speaker 1: sponsored segments. And even when we do those, there's never
Speaker 1: been any editorial oversight by a third party. I always
Speaker 1: have the final say in anything that I put on air,
Speaker 1: and so well, okay, the boss is always the final say,
Speaker 1: if they choose. But my point is, no one is
Speaker 1: sitting there telling me what to do, what to write,
Speaker 1: how to say it. In any of my pieces, I
Speaker 1: am covering tech news when there's new things that are interesting.
Speaker 1: Sure they may look like a commercial because we're featuring
Speaker 1: a product or a service or something that's new, but
Speaker 1: it's me explaining my take on what they're offering. And
Speaker 1: so with Hyatt specifically, what you're referencing is this new
Speaker 1: digital key that they offer through Apple Wallet, and so
Speaker 1: it's called room key in Apple Wallet. And yes, it
Speaker 1: was a nuanced story, and I will give you that,
Speaker 1: but the thing was, I tried to explain to my
Speaker 1: story many many times why this is different from what
Speaker 1: Mariott and Hilton offer. I've used Mariott and Hilton's offerings
Speaker 1: as well, and yes, you can use your phone as
Speaker 1: a key with both Marriott Hotels and Hilton Hotels, and
Speaker 1: also MGM Hotels and some other hotel chains. But the
Speaker 1: big difference, and I mentioned this in my piece, is
Speaker 1: that that requires an app. It requires you to unlock
Speaker 1: your phone, open the app, activate the key, and hold
Speaker 1: the key near your phone use or near the door
Speaker 1: using Bluetooth. Now, the new Apple Wallet system uses NFC
Speaker 1: or RFID, I can't remember, but it uses a system
Speaker 1: that's a lot easier. You do not have to unlock
Speaker 1: your phone, and it's integrated into the base of the
Speaker 1: phone itself. So once you get this key and Apple Wallet,
Speaker 1: you do not have to unlock your phone to use it,
Speaker 1: you don't have to open your phone to use it,
Speaker 1: you don't have to open an app to use it,
Speaker 1: and it works a heck of a lot faster. I
Speaker 1: thought I made that point pretty clear. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people came down on me on Facebook and
Speaker 1: Twitter and Instagram, or not so much Twitter, but Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram, saying, oh, Rich, come on, I've used this
Speaker 1: feature so many times, and yes, so did I about
Speaker 1: two weeks before at the MGM hotel in Las Vegas,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be forward thinking and tech thinking
Speaker 1: and all this stuff, and it was such a pain
Speaker 1: to use the app as my key the entire time
Speaker 1: I was there, because it's just so annoyed of a
Speaker 1: process to like activate the key, and when you got
Speaker 1: to the elevator, you had to make sure your key
Speaker 1: was ready or else the doors were closed by the
Speaker 1: time you got to activate, and there's no signal in
Speaker 1: the elevator, so I couldn't even use the key because
Speaker 1: it has to open up the app and get the key.
Speaker 1: With this Apple wallet thing, it's all that all that
Speaker 1: stuff is thrown away. The key is physically stored on
Speaker 1: your phone, so it's actually a whole lot better. It
Speaker 1: doesn't require a wireless connection like a cellular connection because
Speaker 1: the key is embedded into the phone itself, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't require it, you know, to open and activate. So anyway, Howard,
Speaker 1: I understand, I'm always open to any sort of constructive
Speaker 1: criticism about what I do on TV one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: I'm very transparent with what I do, and my end
Speaker 1: goal with everything that I do, no matter where I post,
Speaker 1: no matter what I do, is to help people and
Speaker 1: to really be as fair as possible in both the
Speaker 1: process and what I'm posting about. And so I really
Speaker 1: truly think that's that's what guides what I do anywhere
Speaker 1: I do it, whether it's TV instead Facebook, Twitter, now
Speaker 1: YouTube shorts, I've been doing a lot more of those
Speaker 1: so anyway, thanks for the email. I do appreciate it,
Speaker 1: all right. That sound means it's going to do it
Speaker 1: for the end of the show. That means it's going
Speaker 1: to do it for this episode of the show. If
Speaker 1: you'd like submit a question for me to answer, just
Speaker 1: go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich
Speaker 1: on Tech hit the big blue send email button, or
Speaker 1: go to rich on Tech dot tv and hit the
Speaker 1: email icon. I would love it if you would rate
Speaker 1: and review this podcast. Just go to the listening app
Speaker 1: of your choice and write a quick line about what
Speaker 1: you like about this show to help other people understand
Speaker 1: why they should listen. I did get two new reviews
Speaker 1: this week. One said that you didn't talk about the
Speaker 1: Tesla on the way to Vegas and that was a
Speaker 1: total I can't believe I didn't talk about that. I
Speaker 1: should have, but it was a great drive and it
Speaker 1: was it's so perfect. You can find me on social media.
Speaker 1: I am at rich on Tech and no matter where
Speaker 1: you live in the US, you can download the free
Speaker 1: Ktla plus app on Apple, TV, fireTV, and Roku. Once
Speaker 1: you do, scroll to the technology section and watch all
Speaker 1: of my TV segments on demand. My name is Richard Demiel,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways
Speaker 1: you can spend an hour of your time. I do
Speaker 1: appreciate you spending it with me. I'll talk to you
Speaker 1: real soon