Speaker 1: Twitter gets in on stories. At and T puts a
Speaker 1: high tech spin on old school cable TV, our police
Speaker 1: departments testing terminator style facial recognition, plus your tech questions answered?
Speaker 1: What is going on? I'm Rich Dmiro and this is
Speaker 1: Rich on Tech, the podcast where we talk about the
Speaker 1: tech stuff I think you should know about and I
Speaker 1: answer the questions that you send me. My name is
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Producer Megan cannot be here today, so joining me is
Speaker 1: producer Bobby Hello.
Speaker 2: Who has his own podcast. Yeah, I do here at KTLA.
Speaker 2: I'm producing all the podcasts here. Jason's my own.
Speaker 1: Yours is called Spoken Dreams Dreams. Yeah, it's a very
Speaker 1: exciting podcast. We're going to tell folks more about it
Speaker 1: a little bit later on in the show. But Bobby,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing this. You are gonna
Speaker 1: read the questions that people have submitted to me.
Speaker 2: I am, I'm really excited to be here. I know
Speaker 2: Megan is like some big shoes to fill on this show.
Speaker 2: So I'm I'm I'm I'm thrilled.
Speaker 1: What do you think is so? Why do you think
Speaker 1: people love podcasts so much? Because you're the podcast producer here.
Speaker 1: Why do you think they've taken America by storm or
Speaker 1: the world really when they've been around for so long.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's. Uh. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: things in media are cyclical. Is podcasting me is almost
Speaker 2: a return to like radio and that kind of intimacy
Speaker 2: that you have with radio, Especially when people are listening
Speaker 2: to podcasts through headphones and on their drive to work
Speaker 2: and on their drive home from work. I think it's
Speaker 2: it's kind of an intimate moment. It almost feels like
Speaker 2: you're spending time with friends when you're putting on your
Speaker 2: favorite podcast week to week.
Speaker 1: So I think that's kind of in my case, those
Speaker 1: are my only friends. I just imagine I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: the guy who does who's the guy that's married to
Speaker 1: Kirsten Bell that does like the Big Deck che Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like him and I are friends. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know DEKs Shepherd, I know Conan O'Brien, all these
Speaker 1: people that I listened to on a daily basis, Like
Speaker 1: I just feel like I know, and then I'll tweet
Speaker 1: them and they'll never tweet me back exactly.
Speaker 2: It's like my real life friends as well too. It's
Speaker 2: this podcast is like the only opportunity I have to
Speaker 2: talk to people, and people talk back.
Speaker 1: It's a one way street though, unfortunately. But here is
Speaker 1: the thing. And people that have emailed me know this.
Speaker 1: When you email me on the rich on Tech podcast,
Speaker 1: I will actually email you back. So people email me
Speaker 1: all the time and I respond within thirty seconds because
Speaker 1: I'm not doing anything else, and they're always surprised. I'm like,
Speaker 1: why are you surprised? What else do you think I'm
Speaker 1: doing in my life?
Speaker 2: Your go go go. It's almost like like a second
Speaker 2: job for you. Is you you come into KTLA, you
Speaker 2: do your work here, and then you go home and
Speaker 2: you're still working and you're talking to people, and that's it.
Speaker 1: No one else will talk to me. My friends don't care.
Speaker 1: My wife like she doesn't want anything to do with me.
Speaker 2: It's like the more time away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's she gets home, she's got you know, got
Speaker 1: stuff to do. The kids they're playing minecraft. Ah. But
Speaker 1: we digress. Let's talk about coronavirus because it is the
Speaker 1: number one topic in the world right now. And I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna go crazy over coronavirus except to say that
Speaker 1: I did go to a couple stores yesterday because I
Speaker 1: was like, let's see if this is really a thing,
Speaker 1: and sure enough it is really. Everything was sold out.
Speaker 1: I'm two different stores.
Speaker 2: It's crazy. I've been seeing stuff like online and Facebook too,
Speaker 2: people going to Costco and Target and like no water,
Speaker 2: no wipes, no toilet paper, paper towels.
Speaker 1: Crazy. I don't really understand the toilet paper and paper towels,
Speaker 1: but I mean, I guess you need that stuff. Like
Speaker 1: generally you're like, well, if I'm getting all the hand
Speaker 1: sanitizer in the world, I might as well get this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I went to a grocery store. People were
Speaker 1: pulling the Lysol wipes they just got a shipment in.
Speaker 1: As they were putting them on the shelf, people were
Speaker 1: just pulling them off. Then I went to Target entire shelves,
Speaker 1: like entire aisles, empty, Wild, which was wild. And then
Speaker 1: on Amazon. I mean, when have you ever lived in
Speaker 1: a time when you cannot order something you want in Amazon?
Speaker 1: It's like literally out of stock.
Speaker 2: I did not know it extended to Amazon.
Speaker 1: Yes, you cannot buy hand sanitizer on Amazon right now.
Speaker 2: I knew it started with the masks. Everybody was trying
Speaker 2: to get the masks, and now it's it's like end
Speaker 2: of days, like everyone's crawling into their bomb shelter trying
Speaker 2: to stock up on things.
Speaker 1: It's very odd. I mean, I get that it's a concern,
Speaker 1: but it is I've never seen anything like this. So
Speaker 1: it's affecting the tech world as well. Major tech conferences
Speaker 1: have been canceled, including Google, Io, Facebook's F eight event,
Speaker 1: Mobile World Congress. This is the one that started it
Speaker 1: all back in February. This was in Barcelona, and according
Speaker 1: to estimates from the website Recode, they linked up with
Speaker 1: a company called predict hq. It's so far costs the
Speaker 1: tech industry five hundred million dollars. And you know, you
Speaker 1: think about the travel, the restaurants, all these things, the hotels, airlines,
Speaker 1: so this was the losses to airlines, hotels, restaurants, and
Speaker 1: transportation providers. So that's not just like what the other
Speaker 1: what the companies make on these things. Let's see what
Speaker 1: else did they mention that was interesting? The games develop
Speaker 1: the Game Developers Conference. This was scheduled for March, so
Speaker 1: that's been postponed, not one hundred percent canceled. And things
Speaker 1: that might be on the chopping block are things like
Speaker 1: south By Southwest, which is happening in Austin. A lot
Speaker 1: of the big companies have pulled out of that conference,
Speaker 1: but they still say they're having it. By the time
Speaker 1: you listen to this, that could be canceled. And then
Speaker 1: there's one a little bit down the line. But here
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles they do what's called E three, which
Speaker 1: is the big video games conference that is now kind
Speaker 1: of up in the air. And Sony, which is a
Speaker 1: big company, they've pulled out of that a long time
Speaker 1: ago just because they don't agree with the way the
Speaker 1: show is going, so they're not going to be there.
Speaker 1: So maybe it might be a good chance for them
Speaker 1: to just be like, you know what, let's just regroup
Speaker 1: next year. And of course, all these major companies like
Speaker 1: Twitter and Square and Amazon have told either their folks
Speaker 1: to work at home or to not work at all. No, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: you know what, just don't work.
Speaker 2: Just don't work, don't come in.
Speaker 1: All right, producer Bobby, that is your cue. Oh, those
Speaker 1: are people typing in, typing in emails to us. Ah,
Speaker 1: And so that's your cue that it's your turn. The question.
Speaker 2: We have some emails that have come through. This first
Speaker 2: one is from David. David is a huge fan of
Speaker 2: the podcast and you and producer Megan, So sorry, David,
Speaker 2: you're stuck with me today, but I will pass a
Speaker 2: message along to Megan. He's got a question about pixel
Speaker 2: book and MacBook Air. So he's got a daughter. She's
Speaker 2: starting high school in the fall. She really wants the
Speaker 2: MacBook Air, but the school is Google based. So now
Speaker 2: he's been looking at the Google pixel Book Go and
Speaker 2: he wants to get her a good computer that maybe
Speaker 2: will last a couple of years, maybe her entire high
Speaker 2: school career. But he comes from an iPhone family and
Speaker 2: Apple family, but with everything at the school being Google based,
Speaker 2: he thinks that might work out better. So he's trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what he should do here. And he
Speaker 2: also mentions that price is no option.
Speaker 1: Oh wow wow from a good family.
Speaker 2: Yes, so about a difference of one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: two hundred bucks. So he says it's not a huge kud.
Speaker 1: That's interesting because it's not. I feel like pixel books
Speaker 1: are way cheaper. Maybe he's looking at a high end
Speaker 1: pixel book. Does he mention if this is for college
Speaker 1: or high school, because he says, my daughter's just starting school. Yes,
Speaker 1: he says high school. High school. Okay, so she'll be
Speaker 1: there for four years. So my feeling here, here's what
Speaker 1: I think we should do. I think that maybe since
Speaker 1: the school is Google based. Now, it depends what he says.
Speaker 1: He's saying Google based, Like does that mean they use
Speaker 1: Gmail and you know, the Google Suite of Apps?
Speaker 2: Because yeah, that wasn't that wasn't particularly specified. But that's
Speaker 2: what I was wondering too, And I I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I when I was in school, there was nothing.
Speaker 1: There was like slates. They had a slab that you
Speaker 1: rode on with chalk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like a chalkboard.
Speaker 1: So you're way younger. The term Google.
Speaker 2: Based school, I'm not too sure. But my guess my
Speaker 2: interpretation was that maybe they're using like Google Suite of yeah,
Speaker 2: like all the docs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which it's fine. You can do that on a
Speaker 1: MacBook and you know, and a lot of these schools
Speaker 1: use chromebooks because they're inexpensive, and so that's why many
Speaker 1: schools have taken to the whole chromebook thing and what
Speaker 1: you're running on. You know, if they are running a
Speaker 1: Google Suite of Apps, you can do that on a MacBook,
Speaker 1: no problem. So I would Here's what I would do.
Speaker 1: I would I would see what your daughter wants. Number one,
Speaker 1: because some people are more creative, Like, if she's at
Speaker 1: all inclined to be creative, you probably want to go MacBook.
Speaker 1: Because if she's going to be editing video or working
Speaker 1: with her pictures in a bigger way than just Google photos,
Speaker 1: I think that that lends itself to having a MacBook.
Speaker 1: And also maybe she wants to listen to podcasts, or
Speaker 1: maybe she wants to manage her music. There's many more
Speaker 1: things you can do on a MacBook than you can
Speaker 1: do on a pixel book. Pixel book is great if
Speaker 1: she is only writing papers, if she's only surfing the web,
Speaker 1: only going on YouTube to watch videos, and that's pretty
Speaker 1: much it.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: If you're creating videos for YouTube, go with the MacBook.
Speaker 1: But that's my recommendation. My bigger plan would be this,
Speaker 1: if she's not at all inclined to create stuff, then
Speaker 1: I say go with the pixel book for the four
Speaker 1: years she's in high school. Then maybe graduate to a
Speaker 1: MacBook for the four years of college, and that way
Speaker 1: you kind of get the best of both worlds, and
Speaker 1: then she can decide what she sort of likes going forward.
Speaker 1: Pixel Books are generally a little bit underpowered and very basic,
Speaker 1: so it's not as flexible as a full fledged computer. Personally,
Speaker 1: I go with a MacBook. I love the pixel books,
Speaker 1: but being a creative type or thinking I'm creative type,
Speaker 1: I like to have the ability to work with files
Speaker 1: and work with audio and work with video, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of what you get when it comes to the
Speaker 1: pixel Book versus the Chrome, or sorry, the Chromebook versus
Speaker 1: the versus the MacBooks. Good first question, Yeah, what about
Speaker 1: longevity that they both pretty solid? I think, I mean
Speaker 1: a MacBook you could easily get four years out of
Speaker 1: a pixel Book actually has an expiration date. So if
Speaker 1: you google a Chromebook end of life, there's actually for
Speaker 1: every Chromebook that comes out, Google gives you a date
Speaker 1: as to when they're gonna serve the last software update,
Speaker 1: so pretty much a death date for that device. And
Speaker 1: so you can look for any device like let's say
Speaker 1: you get an a Sus Chromebit C S ten, the
Speaker 1: auto update expiration date is November twenty twenty. If you
Speaker 1: get a Chromebook tablet CEE T one hundred from Asus
Speaker 1: August twenty twenty three, you have Intel. Now does it
Speaker 1: mean it's gonna stop working after that. No, but it's
Speaker 1: just gonna it may actually I don't even know, but
Speaker 1: it definitely stops getting any software updates anyway. Good first question,
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Twitter now, Bobby, You're on Twitter. Everyone's
Speaker 1: kind of like bailed on Twitter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for the podcast, that's it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't. It just doesn't resonate as much as a
Speaker 1: lot of other things. It depends on what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You know, some people their only platform is Twitter, some
Speaker 1: people their only platform is Instagram. But it seems to
Speaker 1: me the bell of the ball right now is Instagram.
Speaker 1: Everyone sort of loves Instagram. Facebook used to have that territory,
Speaker 1: and Facebook still has the most users. But I see,
Speaker 1: just you know, in my own data and just from
Speaker 1: what me and my wife do, we're on Facebook to
Speaker 1: a much lesser extent, whereas if I'm at the line
Speaker 1: at Starbucks, every single person is on Instagram and especially
Speaker 1: Instagram Stories, which is why Twitter is now testing a
Speaker 1: new feature called Fleets. These are their brand of Instagram Stories,
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of a story that deletes after
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. And the best way to describe this
Speaker 1: is it is an Instagram story, except It lives on
Speaker 1: the Twitter platform, which is great if you're not a
Speaker 1: big adopter of Instagram and you want to use more Twitter,
Speaker 1: if you're all on, Like we have a guy here,
Speaker 1: Chris Shawl, one of our anchors. He only uses Twitter
Speaker 1: and so this would be perfect for him, because you
Speaker 1: don't want to post necessarily everything to Twitter because it
Speaker 1: lasts forever. But this is a twenty four hour thing.
Speaker 1: It's ephemeral, it goes away. You can be funnier, you
Speaker 1: can be short lived, you can be quirkier, you can
Speaker 1: post what you're eating, and it doesn't really matter. Now,
Speaker 1: this does not mean that it's never you know, people
Speaker 1: can't screenshot it. It can still be screenshot and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. And the other thing is that people cannot
Speaker 1: kind of retweet these just like a story. They can't
Speaker 1: like it. All they can do is reply via direct
Speaker 1: message if you have that feature turned on. And Twitter
Speaker 1: is testing fleets in Brazil. First, I don't know why
Speaker 1: they test so many things in Brazil. Happens all the time.
Speaker 1: They must have a large user base of people that
Speaker 1: are open to new things. In Brazil. They're like, oh, sure,
Speaker 1: we'll try this new feature. I think this sounds like
Speaker 1: a winner though, because it gives more flexibility to the
Speaker 1: Twitter platform. And I've actually thought about this myself. I
Speaker 1: actually think Twitter is the perfect social media platform because
Speaker 1: if you think about what you can do on Twitter,
Speaker 1: minus the limitations of how long your tweet can be,
Speaker 1: you can send links, you can put videos up there,
Speaker 1: you can put pictures, you can do things that are
Speaker 1: kind of fun and stupid, you can do things long form.
Speaker 1: It's a great conduit. And by adding the stories it
Speaker 1: makes it even more robust. The downside to Twitter is
Speaker 1: the user base. There just aren't that many users.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking too, like why this late in
Speaker 2: the game. This seems like something that you know, Snapchat
Speaker 2: was doing for a long time, and then Instagram was
Speaker 2: doing for a long time, and then Facebook adopted it.
Speaker 2: Why why not?
Speaker 1: I think it's money, It's it's can we get more
Speaker 1: people to use this platform? And I think that the
Speaker 1: biggest problem with Twitter is it's stalled. It kind of
Speaker 1: you have your Twitter users, and a lot of it
Speaker 1: is journalists, political media. But the average person if you
Speaker 1: go to a high school and you say, hey, are
Speaker 1: you guys using Twitter? Not really, They're using Instagram or Snapchat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so that's a problem for Twitter. They need to
Speaker 1: grow the next generation of tweeters.
Speaker 2: Yeah, tweeties, tweetyes, tweetees, tweety birds. Okay, I guess that
Speaker 2: means we get a new question coming in here. This
Speaker 2: is another one regarding a MacBook Pro. This is from Joni.
Speaker 2: Joni is another fan of your podcast. She says, I'm
Speaker 2: getting a new MacBook Pro laptop this week after drenching
Speaker 2: my MacBook Air with water.
Speaker 1: Ouch. Isn't it an opportunity?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, she's got two of the four elements there
Speaker 2: water air.
Speaker 1: She just needs fireing her.
Speaker 2: Is it an opportunity to start from scratch and install
Speaker 2: all my apps and settings manually rather than load the
Speaker 2: backup from time Machine. I haven't had any real issues
Speaker 2: with the computer, but after seven years, I'm sure there
Speaker 2: is some garbage on the backup that I don't need
Speaker 2: or want. What do you.
Speaker 1: Think I think she hit upon exactly what my advice
Speaker 1: is going to be here. She has the time Machine backup,
Speaker 1: which is fantastic. Always have a backup of your computer.
Speaker 1: But the reality is she's been using this computer for
Speaker 1: seven years. Time Machine on Mac does an amazing job
Speaker 1: of connecting that device to your new computer, carrying everything
Speaker 1: over all your files, all your stuff. But like she said,
Speaker 1: it also brings over all the garbage. So those are
Speaker 1: little fragments of apps that you've deleted and files that
Speaker 1: you no longer need, and just settings that you might
Speaker 1: have changed at one point that maybe you want a
Speaker 1: fresh start. I personally, when I get a new computer,
Speaker 1: always do a fresh start because it just feels good.
Speaker 1: It's like spring cleaning. It is frustrating in certain aspects
Speaker 1: because you do have to go through and think about, oh, man,
Speaker 1: my wife, I always connected to that network. Now you
Speaker 1: get to type it in again, or I always had
Speaker 1: that setting, my computer always changed to dark mode at
Speaker 1: six pm. Oh I got to go back in and
Speaker 1: all these things that you've kind of tweaked over seven
Speaker 1: years that have built up, they will all be gone.
Speaker 1: So that's the downside. The positive side is that you
Speaker 1: get a fast computer. There's nothing extra there, there's nothing
Speaker 1: running in the background that you haven't specifically kind of
Speaker 1: thought about. Because you're going to now install all your
Speaker 1: programs again. You're going to drag over just the files
Speaker 1: that you need, and you're going to start with settings
Speaker 1: that are fresh, so you have a chance to kind
Speaker 1: of see what Apple is presenting you, and you have
Speaker 1: a chance to kind of lead your computer in the
Speaker 1: way that you want to and kind of give up
Speaker 1: that seven years of whatever you picked. You know, in
Speaker 1: the moment, you now have kind of a fresh, fresh
Speaker 1: look at everything. I will say, the one thing that
Speaker 1: I change every single time when I first get a
Speaker 1: brand new Mac or restart it or whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: refresh it is the way that Apple tries to force
Speaker 1: you to when you pull two fingers down on your trackpad,
Speaker 1: it actually is reverse. So when you're scrolling, they call
Speaker 1: it natural scroll. Yeah, and I just for some reason,
Speaker 1: I've always scrolled with pulling two fingers down like they
Speaker 1: want to do opposite. Like, okay, I get it. If
Speaker 1: you're pushing two fingers up, it's pushing the page up,
Speaker 1: and if you're pulling them down, it's pulling. It's just reverse.
Speaker 1: To me, it's it's anyway. So I always change that setting,
Speaker 1: literally the first thing I ever do when I get
Speaker 1: a Mac. And then when I go to someone else's
Speaker 1: computer that has not changed that setting. For instance, producer
Speaker 1: Megan I was on her computer the other day secretly
Speaker 1: looking at stuff when she left. Yeah, yeah, we all.
Speaker 2: Do that, right of course.
Speaker 1: And I went to use her track pad and I
Speaker 1: was like, I can't do this. It's like it's totally different,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to change it for her, but then
Speaker 1: I was like, nah, I don't think I'm it's not
Speaker 1: my right.
Speaker 2: Maybe she does it as like an added security measure. Yeah,
Speaker 2: like they got in my computer, but now I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna be able to Now they're not gonna be able
Speaker 2: to navigate.
Speaker 1: Rich will not be able to figure out how to scroll.
Speaker 1: So I think it's great that she's getting a new computer.
Speaker 1: And I love the fact that she was backing up
Speaker 1: her old one because that's very important. But I like
Speaker 1: the idea of just taking the taking the Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: grab a cup of coffee, and just you know, start
Speaker 1: fresh with this thing. It's a brand new computer. It's
Speaker 1: it's always it's always good to have a fresh start.
Speaker 1: Bobby at and T is putting a new spin on
Speaker 1: the classic cable TV service you know and hate. They
Speaker 1: have a new service called AT and T TV, and
Speaker 1: it's actually not a bad service because it lands squarely
Speaker 1: between cord cutting and the holdouts of standard cable. When
Speaker 1: people cut the cord, they all of a sudden go
Speaker 1: into this frenzy of like some people are fine, like obviously,
Speaker 1: like some people like I know what I'm doing, it's great. Whatever.
Speaker 1: Then you have a lot of other people who kind
Speaker 1: of like my parents, who are like, well, I do
Speaker 1: watch the Food Network. How do I get that? Now?
Speaker 1: It's like, ooh, you wanted that, Well, you don't have
Speaker 1: that anymore. I wanted my local channels. How do you
Speaker 1: get that? Oh I can't. You can't really get those
Speaker 1: with you know, some of the streaming services do have them,
Speaker 1: or all these random cable channels. I like to watch Bravo,
Speaker 1: I like to watch, you know, my news, you know,
Speaker 1: cable news. Okay, So what AT and T is doing
Speaker 1: is they are now giving you cable TV service that
Speaker 1: actually streams through the Internet. But it's not your typical
Speaker 1: streaming app like YouTube TV or all these things. It's
Speaker 1: called AT and T TV, And when you sign up,
Speaker 1: they will send you an Android powered box, a cable box,
Speaker 1: a cable box of the future, let's say, which actually
Speaker 1: uses kind of Google Android on the back end, and
Speaker 1: so you get your live channels which are now streaming
Speaker 1: over the Internet, So you plug it into your high
Speaker 1: speed Internet and you get your live channels just like
Speaker 1: you would. It looks like a program grid everything, except
Speaker 1: instead of the channels being delivered through Cox Cable the
Speaker 1: way they used to do, they're just coming over your Internet.
Speaker 1: So it looks the same, but it performs the same,
Speaker 1: but it's delivered different It's delivered over IP Internet protocol.
Speaker 1: But here's the other part that I think some people
Speaker 1: will like. You also have your apps on the same
Speaker 1: exact platform, so where you have your local channels and
Speaker 1: your cable channels. Then all of a sudden, with one
Speaker 1: hit of the remote, now you can be watching Netflix.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to a lot of these other systems,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have a cable box plus an
Speaker 1: Apple TV, let's say you have to switch inputs to
Speaker 1: flip flop between those two. Now, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of effort made to kind of bridge that gap, and
Speaker 1: I think that AT and T is doing something here
Speaker 1: to kind of rescue a portion of their business that
Speaker 1: they know is going away. And it does appeal to
Speaker 1: a lot of different people like my parents who may
Speaker 1: not be ready. My mom cut the cord, my dad
Speaker 1: cannot do it, but someone like him this might be
Speaker 1: good for because the price is going to be better
Speaker 1: than what you get with classic cable, but not by much.
Speaker 1: So here is the catch to this whole thing, because
Speaker 1: you're going to be seeing advertising like crazy for this
Speaker 1: at TV is the price is really cheap when you
Speaker 1: start out, and just like regular cable, and especially if
Speaker 1: you had like Direct TV, it was super cheap to start.
Speaker 1: In that second year, the prices went crazy up, and
Speaker 1: that's what happens with this. So your first year, you
Speaker 1: can get your TV for thirty nine to ninety nine
Speaker 1: a month for twelve months, and then you can get
Speaker 1: high speed internet bundle it for thirty nine ninety nine
Speaker 1: a month, which sounds amazing eighty bucks a month for
Speaker 1: TV and internet. I pay seventy for just internet and
Speaker 1: it's way slower than this. But in the second year
Speaker 1: the prices jump up like crazy, So the first bundle
Speaker 1: goes up to ninety three dollars a month instead of
Speaker 1: fifty dollars a month. Pikes, so it you know, and
Speaker 1: I actually did the math on this to see because
Speaker 1: it's really tricky. Like I went on their website and
Speaker 1: I kind of put all my information in there, which
Speaker 1: you know, it kind of took a little bit, and
Speaker 1: I did, like the whole thing soup to nuts, and
Speaker 1: I figured out, like, how much is this going to
Speaker 1: cost me over to you, because then you can divide
Speaker 1: it by twenty four months and see how much it
Speaker 1: actually costs. And if I haven't made this clear, you
Speaker 1: do have to sign a to year contract. Oh so
Speaker 1: that's why you can't just jump out after the first year. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I did the math and here's what I came
Speaker 1: up with. So the TV was forty dollars times twelve
Speaker 1: months for the first year, then the Internet was fifty
Speaker 1: times twelve. Have to pay ten dollars service fee for
Speaker 1: your box rental. That's six hundred dollars plus four to
Speaker 1: eighty in the first year. Then the second year the
Speaker 1: TV jumps to ninety three dollars minimum times twelve, and
Speaker 1: then Internet jumps to seventy times twelve, so eight forty.
Speaker 1: So the total you spend over the two years is
Speaker 1: two thousand and thirty six dollars man not including any taxes,
Speaker 1: fees or regional sports fees, which is another nine dollars
Speaker 1: a month. So it came out to about eighty five
Speaker 1: dollars a month before all those taxes and feet, which
Speaker 1: I'm guessing is really about one hundred bucks a month.
Speaker 1: So again I'm paying seventy so I'm actually, if you
Speaker 1: look at it that way, you're paying thirty more dollars
Speaker 1: for TV, which I don't pay for TV right now.
Speaker 1: I have I cut the cord, so I have antenna
Speaker 1: and that's free. So again, this is really geared towards
Speaker 1: those I would call them hesitant cord cutters. They want
Speaker 1: to see what's on the other side, but they're not
Speaker 1: ready to give up their cable. This is a good
Speaker 1: middle ground.
Speaker 2: I see. That's good.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: We have another viewer question here. This is from Gabby.
Speaker 2: She posted this to your Facebook. She says, Rich, I'm
Speaker 2: computer illiterate. I am a computer illiterate lady looking for
Speaker 2: a type of photostick to upload all my photos. I'm
Speaker 2: looking at various types. I see one photostick for mobile phones,
Speaker 2: another for PC. Is there one for both? Or do
Speaker 2: I need to get two different sticks. I don't want
Speaker 2: to have to upload to my PC because it's on
Speaker 2: its last leg, and they PC and phone have entirely
Speaker 2: different photos. I just want to load all my photos
Speaker 2: from both hmm, okay, so photosticks, photo sticks.
Speaker 1: This is a tricky one. I get this question a lot,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of confusing to me because I really
Speaker 1: like to back up all my stuff, like either to
Speaker 1: iCloud or to Google Photos. But I guess there's a
Speaker 1: certain element of folks out there who do not like
Speaker 1: their stuff living in the cloud. They don't trust the cloud,
Speaker 1: they just don't like it, and I think this falls
Speaker 1: under that. And so a lot of times I recommend
Speaker 1: a device, and I think there's a lot of these
Speaker 1: little photosticks advertised on Facebook and on Instagram. I don't
Speaker 1: recommend the one that's advertised whatever it is. I forget
Speaker 1: what the big name is, but it's it looks very scammy.
Speaker 1: You go to their website, it starts a timer of
Speaker 1: like you only have ten minutes to get this perfect
Speaker 1: price or whatever. Two dollars. Yeah, and then you know,
Speaker 1: I tried emailing the company. They never email me back,
Speaker 1: which is a bad sign. As a journalist. You know
Speaker 1: they should at least say, hey, we're not interested in
Speaker 1: talking to you or sending you a sample so you
Speaker 1: can try it out. So I want to try it, sure,
Speaker 1: because if it's fine, I don't mind recommending it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be from a big name company for
Speaker 1: me to recommend it. But with all that said, the
Speaker 1: product that I do like is from a company named
Speaker 1: sand Disk and it's called the i Expand IXPA n
Speaker 1: D and I have tested this out. It works. It's
Speaker 1: not perfect, but the reality is it looks like a
Speaker 1: flash drive. One end plugs into the port on your phone,
Speaker 1: and in this case she would get the Android version
Speaker 1: that would plug into the bottom of her phone. The
Speaker 1: other side plugs into her computer, which is a standard
Speaker 1: USB or if you have an iPhone and be a
Speaker 1: lightning and then USB. So the ideas you plug it
Speaker 1: into your phone, it takes all the pictures off, puts
Speaker 1: it on the sole drive, and then you can plug
Speaker 1: it in your computer, back them up whatever, put them
Speaker 1: on your computer, or you can take photos from your computer,
Speaker 1: put them on the drive, consolidate them all. It's a
Speaker 1: very I feel like it's a very messy process. It's
Speaker 1: not the best thing to do, but if that's what
Speaker 1: you want to do, it works. So again i'd recommend
Speaker 1: the i expand flash drive. And I'm looking for like
Speaker 1: a secondary product that I could also recommend that might
Speaker 1: work similarly. And this actually looks really cool from leaf
Speaker 1: L E e F. They have a access C micro
Speaker 1: SD reader for USB C, which means it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a little flash a little card reader that plugs
Speaker 1: into the bottom of your phone, and then you can
Speaker 1: plug a card into it like a micro SD card,
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool, and then you give us
Speaker 1: copy all your pictures that way. The only problem with
Speaker 1: this is she's saying she's computer alliterate. It is not
Speaker 1: that easy on an Android phone to just copy all
Speaker 1: your pictures onto this directory without knowing what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I'd be able to do it, but someone that's not
Speaker 1: as computer savvy is not gonna be able to do that,
Speaker 1: which is why I go back to the sand disc.
Speaker 1: Their software will actually help you do that. You download
Speaker 1: an app and it says, hey, do you want to
Speaker 1: back up your pictures, and it will help you do that. Now,
Speaker 1: with all that said, I think your best case scenario
Speaker 1: is just download Google Photos on your phone, download it
Speaker 1: on your computer, have it back up all the photos
Speaker 1: that it finds on both places, and put them into
Speaker 1: one big library. And I think that's a lot easier
Speaker 1: and it's free.
Speaker 2: Sure, so definitely all.
Speaker 1: Right, Speaking of the iPhone, Apple is going to pay
Speaker 1: up to five hundred million dollars to settle a US
Speaker 1: lawsuit over slow phones. This is coming from Reuters. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is all over that whole thing where they slowed
Speaker 1: down phones. Remember this whole thing where it was like
Speaker 1: they throttled the battery. And Apple made me really mad
Speaker 1: about this because people would always say to me, Rich,
Speaker 1: I feel like my phone is slowing down over the years,
Speaker 1: and I always be like, no, it's not your phone
Speaker 1: that's slowing down. It's actually the software that's getting more complicated.
Speaker 2: And it's making older phones can't keep up.
Speaker 1: Exactly. Now, that is still true, but it was also
Speaker 1: true that Apple was slowing down the phones because not
Speaker 1: to get you. The lawsuit says it's to get you
Speaker 1: to buy a replacement phone or a replacement battery, but
Speaker 1: in reality, it was really to make sure that your
Speaker 1: phone would still perform smoothly. Because Apple's known for this
Speaker 1: kind of buttery experience, and so they realized early on,
Speaker 1: like hold on Facebook, app is like nearing like four
Speaker 1: hundred megabytes or whatever, like if you've got if you're rocking,
Speaker 1: like an iPhone six. It's gonna be really tough for
Speaker 1: your phone to run that app without crashing crashing, So
Speaker 1: let's let's let's smooth out the experience on this phone
Speaker 1: so that that app runs better. It might close out
Speaker 1: some of your other apps in the background, it might
Speaker 1: slow down things like the touch response, but you'll still
Speaker 1: feel like as an end user that your phone is
Speaker 1: working nicely even though things are a little slower. Well,
Speaker 1: Apple got in a little bit of trouble for that
Speaker 1: took a little heat, so they lowered the price of
Speaker 1: a battery replacement to like for a while, they were
Speaker 1: doing them for free.
Speaker 2: I think I remember that. It was kind of like
Speaker 2: when they got when they kind of caught caught quote
Speaker 2: unquote cot Yeah, they're like, we'll just bring it in,
Speaker 2: we'll swap it out for free from yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I don't say anything to anyone, but the
Speaker 1: batteries used to be eighty bucks to replace. Now they're thirty.
Speaker 1: But I do believe when I was writing my first
Speaker 1: book that I did write in there that they were
Speaker 1: it was totally free, and then the price was going
Speaker 1: up to thirty you know, after that free grace period
Speaker 1: or whatever. But your phone had to qualify. Long story short, Apple,
Speaker 1: is it looks like you may have twenty five dollars
Speaker 1: coming your way if you bought an iPhone six six plus,
Speaker 1: you know, any iPhone six basically, any iPhone seven or
Speaker 1: an iPhone s did you.
Speaker 2: That I think I do? I think I had a
Speaker 2: six or a success. I know I had a seven
Speaker 2: in I had one somewhere. But how do they verify this?
Speaker 2: Do they just kind of like know who their uses are?
Speaker 1: And you know it may be where Apple supplies them
Speaker 1: with a list or maybe one of those things where
Speaker 1: you have to like you'll get like an email and
Speaker 1: then you have to like sign up, and then three
Speaker 1: years later, you know you're you're literally ready to like
Speaker 1: pack up and move out of LA and then it's
Speaker 1: like you get this twenty five dollars check.
Speaker 2: You're like, yeah, I can eat for another week.
Speaker 1: So anyway, don't hold your breath for that one. But
Speaker 1: that is what's happening with the the iPhone. Bobby Producer, Bobby.
Speaker 2: We've got another question here from Sherry. This is on
Speaker 2: your Facebook. She wants to know about the mirror. She says,
Speaker 2: have you seen the mirror? I have and I hate
Speaker 2: what I see in it every day.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're talking about just your personal year.
Speaker 2: No, but yeah, she's actually talking about the mirror you
Speaker 2: put up on the wall and it's like a live
Speaker 2: personal trainer and an exercise Yeah, you use for exercise. She
Speaker 2: wants to know your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a couple of these things. This is so
Speaker 1: you know Peloton, right, Yes, So they kind of unleash
Speaker 1: the beast of like all like, oh my gosh, people
Speaker 1: are into fitness at home. Let's figure out what we
Speaker 1: can do with technology and make everything in the world.
Speaker 1: So the mirror was one that kind of went viral
Speaker 1: online and it basically showed a mirror on your wall,
Speaker 1: but like a magical mirror that shows you how to
Speaker 1: work out, and it will give you feedback and like
Speaker 1: if you're stretching wrong or whatever. It's cool. I have
Speaker 1: not personally tested this, so I can't tell you whether
Speaker 1: it's cool or not. What I can tell you is
Speaker 1: that I think that a lot of these things are
Speaker 1: going to shake out over the years. Do I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna have magic mirrors in the future that will
Speaker 1: help us work out? Absolutely, it makes sense have a
Speaker 1: giant screen in your house. You got a trainer on there.
Speaker 1: They just help you lead you through a workout, they
Speaker 1: give you some response. We did a story with a
Speaker 1: website called open fit, which is an app uses your
Speaker 1: iPhone and the trainer can actually look through your camera.
Speaker 1: I heard about this and watch you and give you feedback. Now,
Speaker 1: well that's probably gonna be what's built into this mirror
Speaker 1: thing as well. So if not, if it's not already,
Speaker 1: I mean it may be, but I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: mirror online. It's at minimum fifteen hundred bucks. That's a lot. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have an expensive gym membership, maybe that sounds cheaper.
Speaker 1: But and the peloton is twenty five hundred bucks, so
Speaker 1: it's cheaper than that. But let's be honest right now,
Speaker 1: this is a first gen product. I can't imagine it's
Speaker 1: probably slick, and I'm sure the viral video was great,
Speaker 1: but I can imagine that it's going to be that
Speaker 1: great first out of the gate, even in the first
Speaker 1: couple of years out of the gate. This is an
Speaker 1: expensive product. You're gonna put it on your wall. I
Speaker 1: mean you have to mount it, you got to keep
Speaker 1: it up to date. It probably comes with a monthly fee.
Speaker 1: That you have to pay, and so by the time
Speaker 1: you add all these things up. I think that this
Speaker 1: is right now, probably best for the early adopters, the
Speaker 1: really super techie types, and maybe someone who's sharing this with,
Speaker 1: you know, if they have a little fitness duty or
Speaker 1: something they just want to try it out and whatever.
Speaker 1: But I think for the average person it's probably not
Speaker 1: best to invest in this technology just yet.
Speaker 2: Just buy a mirror from the store for like fifteen
Speaker 2: bucks and watch YouTube videos and then you can exercise
Speaker 2: in front of the mirror for.
Speaker 1: Fat But that's the thing. And I think that there's
Speaker 1: one called Tonal, which I did not actually go and
Speaker 1: test that, but Megan producer Megan did and she came
Speaker 1: away impressed. And I have seen this in different places.
Speaker 1: And so again you have a lot of these new
Speaker 1: technologies that are kind of vuying for attention. It's gonna
Speaker 1: shake out. You know, they may be acquired. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're a large company that's a big fitness company,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna let all this stuff go by it.
Speaker 1: You know, you're not gonna let it go like you're
Speaker 1: if you're life cycle or whatever, you're probably doing stuff
Speaker 1: like this and you're you know you're you're probably buying
Speaker 1: some of this. I actually purchased. I saw this at
Speaker 1: c Yes, and I went and bought it, the Bowflex
Speaker 1: version of the Peloton, okay, And the reason I bought
Speaker 1: it is because the Peloton's twenty five hundred bucks. The
Speaker 1: Bowflex one. Gosh, I forget how much it is total,
Speaker 1: but it was like, you know, you have to I pay, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the extra service fee for like installation and whatever.
Speaker 1: But it was like half the price of the Peloton.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I got it is because there's
Speaker 1: no service fee. Every month, you actually put your own
Speaker 1: iPad where the Peloton screen would be. I see, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay for that giant screen. You
Speaker 1: don't have to pay for the Peloton. And I thought
Speaker 1: this was just a great thing at half the price
Speaker 1: or less than half to have it home because now
Speaker 1: I can do like a twenty minute thirty minute workout. Now.
Speaker 1: I bought that like two months ago, and I still
Speaker 1: haven't gotten it, so I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: But they did tell me they said it was so
Speaker 1: popular that it's actually sold out. They said it was
Speaker 1: sold out for at least forty five days. So I've
Speaker 1: just been waiting to get this thing, and it shows
Speaker 1: that people do have an interest in alternatives. But again,
Speaker 1: to answer the question, I think that you kind of
Speaker 1: wait on a lot of this stuff. The bike that
Speaker 1: I bought is a standard spin bike, except you have
Speaker 1: a place for an iPad, so it's not very high tech,
Speaker 1: it's not very crazy. But if you look at Flywheel,
Speaker 1: that was an alternative to Peloton, and they went out
Speaker 1: of business, or at least or biked it whatever happened,
Speaker 1: they're now Peloton I think sued them and they're giving
Speaker 1: those people a Peltm bike. So if you invested in
Speaker 1: one of these flywheels, it's okay because you're getting the
Speaker 1: other bike. But still it just goes to show that
Speaker 1: all these new technologies, when they're especially big and expensive.
Speaker 2: Everyone kind of jumps in and then you get cheaper
Speaker 2: versions and versions that don't last, and so it's best
Speaker 2: to bide your time, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I'm an early adopter of a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to a fifteen hundred dollars one
Speaker 1: trick pony mirror that you put on your wall, you
Speaker 1: probably want to wait a little bit. And like you said,
Speaker 1: go to YouTube. Go to Apple TV, buy an Apple TV
Speaker 1: for two hundred bucks, set it up on your TV,
Speaker 1: and watch videos from YouTube, and you'll probably be okay
Speaker 1: for now. Or just hire a personal trainer. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: aren't they cheap?
Speaker 2: I don't know, never used one.
Speaker 1: I actually did when I was in college and doing
Speaker 1: the whole like stupid credit card debt thing. I you know,
Speaker 1: when I had give you car credit cards and like,
Speaker 1: of course you're stupid, like seventeen whatever, You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have all this money. Yeah, like whatever limit you
Speaker 1: got in that card that was, now how much money
Speaker 1: you had, right, you know?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And so I went to twenty four Hour Fitness and
Speaker 1: I literally bought a package of like personal training things
Speaker 1: for like it probably was like two hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: dollars at the time, but now that I think about it,
Speaker 1: it's it felt like it was probably like one thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: you know, but I have no idea how much it was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was more than I could afford on personal training.
Speaker 1: And I go there and I had this personal trainer
Speaker 1: that was like an actor, you know, and so he
Speaker 1: would literally be like he didn't care about what he
Speaker 1: was doing. What I was doing. He'd be like, all right,
Speaker 1: go on the bike for five minutes to warm up.
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, And I literally did only one
Speaker 1: of the classes or maybe two, and that was it,
Speaker 1: and I was so I wasted all this money. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's my only experience of the Personal Trainer. So anyway,
Speaker 1: all right, let's talk a little personal assistance, Google Assistant
Speaker 1: and Alexa. A couple of new features I want to
Speaker 1: tell you about. So two on Alexa that are are
Speaker 1: pretty cool. The first I think is really convenient is
Speaker 1: now you can ask a I'll say, a tell me
Speaker 1: when there's a severe weather alert, and when there's a
Speaker 1: weather alert in your area, she will chime in and
Speaker 1: tell you. I think that is an amazing feature because
Speaker 1: if you think about it, I mean, we do have
Speaker 1: our phones with us all the time, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's kind of cool that just
Speaker 1: you're in your house and I get it. In Los
Speaker 1: Angeles we don't really have this. But I used to
Speaker 1: live in Shreveport, Louisiana, where severe weather were alerts were
Speaker 1: actually a thing where you might have a flash flood,
Speaker 1: or you might have or a tornado. Yeah, or like heavy,
Speaker 1: heavy rain that just comes out of nowhere. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so to have that in your living room and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're watching TV or maybe you know,
Speaker 1: your wife is commuting home and you're like, you know,
Speaker 1: just waiting there, and all of a sudden you hear
Speaker 1: this thing like, oh, let me, let me tell them.
Speaker 1: I mean there, it is really cool. Or in a
Speaker 1: case of tornado, like take cover.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we just had that big tornado in Nashville
Speaker 2: that yes, created a bunch of it was a station.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it was like at least nine deaths
Speaker 1: when I saw which.
Speaker 2: Is it's grown up, it's I think it's in the twenties.
Speaker 1: Oh my, I mean, it's it's crazy to think that happens.
Speaker 1: But like I remember, And here's the thing, Like some
Speaker 1: people were discussing like, well, how do they not know
Speaker 1: that this thing was approaching? You don't know with tornadoes,
Speaker 1: you know, there may be there could be one in
Speaker 1: your area. You have no idea where it's gonna touch down.
Speaker 1: You have no idea the path, and you have no
Speaker 1: idea the destruction. They can predict as much as they want,
Speaker 1: but the reality is it's really tricky. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: saw this firsthand because like I remember going through, you know,
Speaker 1: as a reporter and shre report. We'd go through these
Speaker 1: neighborhoods that were, you know, where there's a tornado that
Speaker 1: came through, and you couldn't know with certainty. Now, with
Speaker 1: all the cell phones, you probably would know more than
Speaker 1: be forks or so many cameras everywhere, but back in
Speaker 1: the day, it's like, oh, this area and you could
Speaker 1: just tell by the way the trees were twisted. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: if it was actually a twister, yeah, you know, call
Speaker 1: them anyway. So that's the Alexa one, which I thought
Speaker 1: was really cool. So set that up and see how
Speaker 1: it is. I don't know how well it works, but
Speaker 1: it's kind of cool. And Google Assistant meanwhile on Android
Speaker 1: has a really cool new feature that can read any
Speaker 1: web page. And I tried this this morning and it
Speaker 1: is just one of those features that is just it's brilliant.
Speaker 1: And I personally don't really have a need for this
Speaker 1: per se, but I think for as an assistive technology,
Speaker 1: if you have low vision, or if you're losing your
Speaker 1: vision or any sort of disability. When it comes to that,
Speaker 1: I think that this is amazing. All you have to
Speaker 1: say when you're on a web page, is h Google
Speaker 1: read this page, and Google Assistant springs into action and
Speaker 1: it starts reading the whole page. It'll be like from
Speaker 1: the New York Times. It'll say the title and it'll
Speaker 1: just start reading the page, and it reads it in
Speaker 1: a voice that is pretty impressive, like you would think
Speaker 1: it's a robot. Overlord, how good this thing can? It
Speaker 1: can read better than I can. Let's put it out way.
Speaker 1: I mean, seriously, it really sounds really good.
Speaker 2: I mean, we've come such a long way from remember
Speaker 2: on the old PCs the text to speech and you
Speaker 2: could type in something and then yes, it would read
Speaker 2: it back in a weird voice. But now it's like
Speaker 2: you can't almost not even tell it's actual.
Speaker 1: Let me hear here we go.
Speaker 2: This is the one plus. We'll now repair your device
Speaker 2: on your doorstep, but only in India by Damian Wilde.
Speaker 2: One plus is really.
Speaker 1: Pumping resources and investment into the Indian market with exclusive
Speaker 1: features for fans and device owners in the region. So
Speaker 1: that's it. Reading cool. Okay, Now here's another feature that's
Speaker 1: really cool. And I show this off on my Twitter
Speaker 1: at Rich DeMuro. If you are looking at a web page,
Speaker 1: say in Spanish. Oh, by the way, it will just
Speaker 1: read it in English two to zero colo colo of
Speaker 1: Chile on data. So this is some sort of step
Speaker 1: football match and it's written in a different language. I
Speaker 1: think it's Spanish translating, and she's just reading it in
Speaker 1: English in real time, and you can choose what language
Speaker 1: you want to be read in. I mean, talk about
Speaker 1: the idea of you stumble upon and Google Chrome has
Speaker 1: done this for a long time, but you stumble upon
Speaker 1: a web page that's written in a different language, and
Speaker 1: you know how it says, would we like to translate?
Speaker 1: Just that feature is amazing on your desktop. But now
Speaker 1: the fact that anyone can just be on a web
Speaker 1: page and had the and have it read to them
Speaker 1: in their language is just This is the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that just is truly amazing. And Google continues to
Speaker 1: push the envelope with this artificial intelligence and the way
Speaker 1: that it parses the article. I mean, it read the title,
Speaker 1: it read who it was from, and then it read
Speaker 1: the article. Now I did notice it kind of stumbled
Speaker 1: when there was an embedded tweet in the article. It
Speaker 1: kind of read the tweet, which you would do anyway,
Speaker 1: as a human, but it just kind of it didn't
Speaker 1: really get there's a difference between there. I guess see exactly. Okay,
Speaker 1: Producer Bobby, I think this is your last question. Oh
Speaker 1: last question. Let's make it make it a good one.
Speaker 2: Let's see how about this one from Kim Kim is
Speaker 2: asking about job apps. She says there's an increasing issue
Speaker 2: with finding legit jobs on sites and apps. She keeps
Speaker 2: getting contacted by people in other countries. She sends her resume,
Speaker 2: they never contact her. She's an independent contractor. She works
Speaker 2: in IT fieldwork like migrations, imaging, and installation, and she
Speaker 2: doesn't think it should be this hard. So she's wondering
Speaker 2: about any legitimate job apps where she'll have luck and
Speaker 2: not get weird spammy calls from this is she really
Speaker 2: stumbled upon a very good point here. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if this happens to you with the because you
Speaker 2: manage the podcasts, and every podcast has like an email
Speaker 2: address on like iTunes that's associated. Do you get like
Speaker 2: a bunch of random emails from time to time? I do?
Speaker 2: From time to time, I do. I get a lot
Speaker 2: of weird It's it's tough to tell because because my
Speaker 2: podcasts are linked to my work email, and even through
Speaker 2: our work emails sometimes we get just like weird, weird emails,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I do. I did kind of notice an
Speaker 2: increase of just strange.
Speaker 1: It's just strange, and it's tough because we have to
Speaker 1: kind of go through them and figure out is this legit?
Speaker 1: Is this not legit? I got I got a couple.
Speaker 1: I got one yesterday and one today. One yesterday was
Speaker 1: saying that there was an image on my website that hey,
Speaker 1: we love that you're using our image on your website,
Speaker 1: but that's actually ours and she have to pay us
Speaker 1: for that. And I was like, oh, that's interesting because
Speaker 1: I got that image from Google, so like Google sent
Speaker 1: it to me like the press people, and so I
Speaker 1: was like, that's weird, said to a little research, and
Speaker 1: I googled where this email address came from. And it's
Speaker 1: totally a shell blog. It's totally bogus. And I realized,
Speaker 1: think about it. They send that automated email to a
Speaker 1: million people a day, and one person goes, oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, let me pay or let me take it down,
Speaker 1: or let me, you know, fix that, or send you
Speaker 1: money exactly, and it's just it's such a brilliant scam
Speaker 1: and this is happening. So to get back to her
Speaker 1: question about the jobs, it's really tough. My dad runs
Speaker 1: a small business and so I get his emails for
Speaker 1: a small business, and it is unbelievable how much spam
Speaker 1: he gets from people purporting to be yelp. Hey, let
Speaker 1: me help you get a better YELP rating people being
Speaker 1: on Google. Hey, do you want to be on the
Speaker 1: first search? We work with Google? Yeah, you know, they
Speaker 1: don't necessarily say they are Google. We work with Google.
Speaker 1: Well what does that mean? And for him, he's running
Speaker 1: his business, he's busy. Of course he'd like more calls
Speaker 1: or of course he'd like more clicks to his website.
Speaker 1: So sometimes he'll respond to these people and I'm like, now,
Speaker 1: this is totally bogus. These people are literally just trying
Speaker 1: to get you on pay them, give them a credit
Speaker 1: card fee, whatever it is. And just so it's the
Speaker 1: same thing with its job stuff. It's really tough because
Speaker 1: you've got to put yourself out there and put your
Speaker 1: resume and your information to get these leads, especially as
Speaker 1: an independent contractor. But then you're going to get all
Speaker 1: the garbage as well, people just slamming you with all
Speaker 1: kinds of crap that you don't need to. You know
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't be taxed with going through, but you
Speaker 1: have to. And that's kind of the name of the
Speaker 1: game with the Internet is that you really need to
Speaker 1: be on your toes. And I actually emailed this person
Speaker 1: back and ask them if they read what they were
Speaker 1: using like LinkedIn or you know whatever, and they said,
Speaker 1: it happens across all these sites. So and I'm on
Speaker 1: LinkedIn and I get spammed on there. You know, people
Speaker 1: just hey, we saw your article. Can you do a
Speaker 1: story on this? Now? It looks like it's a pitch,
Speaker 1: but it's really not. It's just like spam most of
Speaker 1: the time. So I don't really have good advice, except
Speaker 1: my main advice is, whenever you're writing your email address
Speaker 1: on these different things, I always write out Rick at
Speaker 1: KTLA dot com, like the word at at and then
Speaker 1: KTLA and then dot com. And the reason I always
Speaker 1: send that whenever I'm typing out my email address to
Speaker 1: someone or putting it on a website or sending it
Speaker 1: through a message, is that if there's a spider out
Speaker 1: there that's that's crawling for email addresses, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a little bit trickier for them to figure out that
Speaker 1: that's my email address. Good tip, And I don't mind.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I just gave it out on here.
Speaker 1: I don't care if you email me because a human
Speaker 1: has to listen to that now and say, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna email Rich. That's fine. But if it's now, if
Speaker 1: a transcript of this makes it out somewhere, it's gonna say,
Speaker 1: you know Rich at KTLA dot com. And that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean as much to a spider. Right now, these spiders
Speaker 1: might have gotten more sophisticated, and maybe it does mean more.
Speaker 1: And so I just kind of gave oh now, I'm
Speaker 1: just kidding, but I think that's kind of my best
Speaker 1: advice is really just protect your personal information. You have
Speaker 1: to put it out there to be on these sites,
Speaker 1: but just protect it as best you can. So that's
Speaker 1: a that's a good question. Okay, real quick, because I
Speaker 1: did I did tease this and I want to mention
Speaker 1: this story before we go, but this just blew my mind.
Speaker 1: This company, Wolfcom one zero, did an exclusive with the
Speaker 1: kind of showing what they're what technology they are selling
Speaker 1: to police departments and the bottom line is it is
Speaker 1: that terminator technology where when they're looking at someone through
Speaker 1: their police cam, it circles the person's face, scans against
Speaker 1: the database of known offenders, and identifies says like outstanding warrant,
Speaker 1: wanted for felony, missing person, And so you can see
Speaker 1: how this could be good for the missing person thing.
Speaker 1: But if you're the person with the outstanding warrant, you
Speaker 1: wanted felony, I mean, look at that. It's crazy. But
Speaker 1: this is the future. I mean, I have no doubt
Speaker 1: with facial recognition, it is going to be the wild West.
Speaker 2: It's like RoboCop.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's the word. I was RoboCop, not terminator.
Speaker 2: They do too. It's all those kind of.
Speaker 1: But if you look at this, uh, the little video
Speaker 1: is just phenomenal and it's just it's wild, but it's
Speaker 1: the reality of what's happening. It's already happening with license plates.
Speaker 1: As police are driving through cities, their cars are scanning
Speaker 1: license plates and it's like, oh, flag that one, flag,
Speaker 1: that one, that one's a stolen car.
Speaker 2: That there was just a story that we had the
Speaker 2: other day. I don't remember what the crime was, but
Speaker 2: that's how they caught. The guy was just an officer
Speaker 2: driving along in his car. There's a license plate that
Speaker 2: we've been looking for.
Speaker 1: But just extrapolate that onto everything. Yeah, I mean faces
Speaker 1: and just it's just it's so wild. I mean, I
Speaker 1: love it in certain extents because it does make our
Speaker 1: world safer, but it's also really scary because the implications
Speaker 1: of used to be you could evade things a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying people should evade the cops if
Speaker 1: they're wanted or whatever, but it used to be like
Speaker 1: there was some work involved. But it always goes back
Speaker 1: to this example that I had as a kid. I
Speaker 1: always thought, in the future, when you sped on a freeway,
Speaker 1: what's going to keep technology from knowing that your car
Speaker 1: is speeding, reporting that to the law enforcement, and outspits
Speaker 1: a ticket from your dashboard? What is keeping us from
Speaker 1: having that? Nothing? Right now, your car knows how fast
Speaker 1: you're going, so does Google Map, so does.
Speaker 2: Your GPS everything.
Speaker 1: So what's the only thing keeping that from happening is
Speaker 1: that nobody's implemented that. Now do we need laws against that?
Speaker 1: I don't know, Because what's the rule about speeding? Is
Speaker 1: it only when you're caught that you get the ticket
Speaker 1: or is it that I don't know. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's really it's these kind of things that technology will
Speaker 1: enable us to do, but should we do them?
Speaker 2: Science fiction is science reality?
Speaker 1: Now exactly? You said it. You said it very well,
Speaker 1: Producer Bobby. Oh my gosh, can you believe it? That's
Speaker 1: gonna do it for this episode of the show. If
Speaker 1: you want links to what we talked about, you can
Speaker 1: take a look at the show notes, and if you
Speaker 1: have a question for me, you can go to rich
Speaker 1: on Tech dot tv hit that contact button and we
Speaker 1: would appreciate it if you rate and review this podcast.
Speaker 1: It helps other people discover it. Just go to rate
Speaker 1: this podcast dot com, slash rich on tech and just
Speaker 1: put in your little review. Producer Bobby. Tell folks how
Speaker 1: they can find you and your podcast. They can find
Speaker 1: me on Instagram. I'm at sounds like Bobby and all
Speaker 1: our podcasts are at KTLA dot com, slash podcast I
Speaker 1: do Spoken Dreams. You can find that on the website
Speaker 1: or on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Stitcher, everywhere that you
Speaker 1: find this podcast, you can find all our kt l
Speaker 1: A podcasts. And thanks for that. I'm looking at some
Speaker 1: of the reviews and Tony the Great One said, Wow,
Speaker 1: one of the greatest tech guys out there and absolutely
Speaker 1: must listen to, even if you're not tech savvy. He
Speaker 1: explains it in English. Kudos to you, Rich, thanks for
Speaker 1: all that you do. That'll probably be better if you
Speaker 1: read that, Bobby right.
Speaker 2: A little self congratulated, but hey, that's okay.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for doing this, Bobby, I do appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I'm Richidmiro. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to
Speaker 1: you real soon.