Speaker 1: Amazon unveils a kindle you can write on. Google shuts
Speaker 1: down yet another service, t Mobile gives customers more free
Speaker 1: in flight Wi Fi plus Your tech questions answered? What's
Speaker 1: going on on? Rich Demiro? And this is Rich on Tech,
Speaker 1: the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I
Speaker 1: think you should know about. It's also the place right
Speaker 1: answer the questions you send me What's going on on?
Speaker 1: Rich Demiro? Oh? Did I already say that I'm the
Speaker 1: tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the folks watching on Instagram live. From time
Speaker 1: to time, I will Instagram live depending on my mood. Really,
Speaker 1: that's what it comes down to, because it is a
Speaker 1: different level of show to have live viewers, you know,
Speaker 1: watching what you say. Responding. People are are sitting there
Speaker 1: commenting on stuff. You know, everyone's trying to get a
Speaker 1: little joke in there that that might catch my eye.
Speaker 1: So I get it. It's it's a whole different show.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's a lot of fun. If you're watching
Speaker 1: the show on Instagram, you might have noticed I'm wearing
Speaker 1: a new ring. So long story short, my wife got
Speaker 1: me the aur A ring for my birthday. Oh you
Speaker 1: are a And I've been wearing it for a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. I had to exchange it for a bigger
Speaker 1: size because they said go small, and then I did,
Speaker 1: and I felt like my circulation was being cut off.
Speaker 1: So I got the bigger size and you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's I if the best way to describe this ring
Speaker 1: is sort of the anti Apple Watch. There are there's
Speaker 1: no screen on it, there's no fancy like you know, notifications,
Speaker 1: it doesn't vibrate. It just literally watches your metrics throughout
Speaker 1: the day and especially at night. And so the app
Speaker 1: really kind of gives you guidance on how you're feeling
Speaker 1: and why you're feeling that way. So it gives you
Speaker 1: like a score for each day, like I think it's
Speaker 1: called the readiness score, And so if you get something
Speaker 1: like a ninety, you feel good. If you get something
Speaker 1: like an eighty, you're like ugh, if you get like
Speaker 1: a seventy or sixty, you're like, Okay, what am I
Speaker 1: doing right now? I got to go back to sleep.
Speaker 1: So it's really been interesting and I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: full review of this soon. I'm still forming my opinions.
Speaker 1: I will say if you have an Apple Watch, you
Speaker 1: don't need the Aura. If you have the Aura, you
Speaker 1: don't need the Apple Watch. I'm wearing both right now,
Speaker 1: and it's definitely it's like too much. It's like I
Speaker 1: just feel like everything I do, every move I make,
Speaker 1: is like being recorded and processed and somehow sliced and
Speaker 1: diced and like it's just too much. And so I
Speaker 1: actually went back to my regular watch. I had to
Speaker 1: bring it to a watch shop to get the battery
Speaker 1: replaced and then to get the clasp fixed, and I
Speaker 1: put that on for a while. But then I and
Speaker 1: I realized, without having an Apple Watch, it is so calming,
Speaker 1: Like I can't tell you if you've worn an Apple
Speaker 1: Watch for a long time like I have. I'm just
Speaker 1: so used to being interrupted all the time with little
Speaker 1: pings and dings and up but up up, and without that,
Speaker 1: it was like life was so silent for the while,
Speaker 1: and I was missing things, like people would be like
Speaker 1: where are you, you know, like I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: my phone is in the other room. It's really you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a really different experience because you're checking your
Speaker 1: phone every once in a while and uh uh, Coco
Speaker 1: on the on the comments says it is hard to
Speaker 1: wear an Apple watch to bed, so better where a ring.
Speaker 1: I agree, but my wife now calls me et because
Speaker 1: the ring at night is really firing these sensors and
Speaker 1: so it lights up. I think it's red, and you're
Speaker 1: literally like, because it's nighttime in your room, you can
Speaker 1: see this so bright, and uh, it's it's really it's
Speaker 1: so funny because if you and anyway, and there's a
Speaker 1: whole nother side of doing your sleep metrics, which is
Speaker 1: the anxiety side of things, like where you're worried about
Speaker 1: your sleep metrics because you're awake, and so that's a
Speaker 1: whole other side of like when you don't, like typically
Speaker 1: I don't wear my Apple watch or anything to you know,
Speaker 1: like any ring or whatever to bed because it's just
Speaker 1: too like nerve wracking, like sleep should be a nice
Speaker 1: kind of like relaxing time. And so anyway, there's a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of complications. And believe me, we are just
Speaker 1: at the beginning of all this stuff. But I will say,
Speaker 1: if you want something that's calm and interesting but still
Speaker 1: getting your stats, the Aura ring is really unique. It's expensive.
Speaker 1: It's about I think three hundred dollars plus the monthly
Speaker 1: service I think is like five or six dollars. So
Speaker 1: I'll do a full review and kind of put some
Speaker 1: of my thoughts into a TV segment, but it is
Speaker 1: it's different. I don't know if I'm gonna stick with it.
Speaker 1: I'll be totally honest, and I've told my wife, I said,
Speaker 1: please don't buy me tech because you know, I test
Speaker 1: out a lot of tech and I go through a
Speaker 1: lot of it and it's tough for me to stick
Speaker 1: with one thing for a long time. And so the
Speaker 1: ring is great. But I do really enjoy my Apple Watch,
Speaker 1: and I realized that after a couple of days of
Speaker 1: not wearing it, like I kind of really really like that.
Speaker 1: So we'll see. All right, let's get to the first
Speaker 1: topic of the show. Amazon is having another Prime Day sale,
Speaker 1: and you're probably tired of hearing about Prime Day because
Speaker 1: Amazon seems to have a bunch of these and only
Speaker 1: historically has happened once a year. But this is the
Speaker 1: second one. So it's happening October eleventh and October twelfth.
Speaker 1: Not too many details on this Prime Day, so I'm
Speaker 1: not going to spend a whole bunch of time on it.
Speaker 1: Other than you should know about it. I always recommend
Speaker 1: that you put stuff that you want in your shopping
Speaker 1: cart now so that you can see if the price
Speaker 1: drops on it later. Don't just go around buying stuff
Speaker 1: just to buy it. But this is kind of an idea.
Speaker 1: The idea behind this is to give you an early
Speaker 1: kickoff to the holiday shopping season. And they are doing
Speaker 1: something and I think is very very smart. They're doing
Speaker 1: a top one hundred list of some of the most
Speaker 1: popular and giftable items. So notice they don't say of
Speaker 1: just the most popular items, because if they did that,
Speaker 1: it'd be filled with like you know, filters for your
Speaker 1: air conditioning system and stuff like that. So it's probably
Speaker 1: it is. I'm sure it's curated, and so they'll put
Speaker 1: stuff on there that's interesting, but they'll also put popular
Speaker 1: items on there. So top one hundred list I think
Speaker 1: is really smart because on a day like Prime Day,
Speaker 1: sometimes you're kind of looking for stuff to buy, like
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily need anything, and so you're just kind
Speaker 1: of like looking around the site and you end up
Speaker 1: buying like a you know, some sort of weird like
Speaker 1: you know, smoothie straw that or something I don't know whatever,
Speaker 1: and so by having that top one hundred list, it'll
Speaker 1: give people more ideas. So that's basically it. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to spend any more time on sun Prime Day.
Speaker 1: All I know is that I've got to I've got
Speaker 1: I'm gonna talk about a bunch of the Amazon products
Speaker 1: that they unveiled this week, and I've got my eye
Speaker 1: and a bunch of them, like I want to buy
Speaker 1: the TV, the Kindle, the Fire TV Cube, and so
Speaker 1: I will be watching the prices of those items over
Speaker 1: Prime Day. So let's get to the first question of
Speaker 1: the show. All right, Jim says, Howdy, I'm taking a
Speaker 1: page out of your book, and it looks like paramount
Speaker 1: Plus is one of the services that will let you
Speaker 1: cancel before the trial membership ends and lets you keep
Speaker 1: using it until the actual renewal date. Thanks for the tip,
Speaker 1: and he forwarded his Paramount Plus subscription has been canceled,
Speaker 1: but you can still use it until October sixteenth, and so, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a great tip here, and I think this
Speaker 1: is one of the smartest pro tips. When you you
Speaker 1: know people, they it's very easy to get these free
Speaker 1: trials of services. But what happens is you forget about it,
Speaker 1: and their entire mo is to get you to forget
Speaker 1: about the fact that you subscribe to that service and
Speaker 1: then boom, you will be paying an extra month of
Speaker 1: that service. And I talked about this in the last show,
Speaker 1: I believe, and I think that's why Jim emailed. But
Speaker 1: I did that Panera like free coffee thing, and it
Speaker 1: was like free for three months, and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: of course I'll remember to cancel this, like I've got
Speaker 1: three months to cancel, and s off looking at my
Speaker 1: statement on my card, and next thing, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like eleven ninety nine for Panera. I'm like, ah, they
Speaker 1: got me Panera, And so that eleven ninety nine paid
Speaker 1: for all the Panera that, you know, the two or
Speaker 1: three coffees that I got for free for those three months.
Speaker 1: Same thing with these streaming services. I'm guilty of it.
Speaker 1: I forget all the time to cancel. But my one
Speaker 1: pro tip is that you can go and cancel a
Speaker 1: majority of these services as soon as you sign up.
Speaker 1: I know it sounds counterintuitive, but you can sign up
Speaker 1: for something like Paramount Plus and then immediately cancel it.
Speaker 1: Go into your settings and cancel it and it'll still
Speaker 1: allow you to use that service through the time that
Speaker 1: your free trial goes through. And not every service lets
Speaker 1: you do this. I've noticed with a lot of the
Speaker 1: Apple services, surprisingly as soon as you cancel, it's like,
Speaker 1: now you're done, we cut you off immediately, So that's
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. But I would say a majority of
Speaker 1: the services let you stay using the service until the
Speaker 1: time runs out on your free trial, so little pro tip.
Speaker 1: And it also works on things that you subscribe to
Speaker 1: on your phone. So if you subscribe through Apple on iTunes,
Speaker 1: you can go into iCloud and then subscriptions and cancel
Speaker 1: those and even a day or two after you subscribe,
Speaker 1: and it should still let you use those. It's very
Speaker 1: convenient for apps that have like a short free trial
Speaker 1: like three days and then it's like three ninety nine
Speaker 1: a week or something. You're definitely going to forget comments
Speaker 1: coming in on the live stream, bd Castle says, just
Speaker 1: said reminder on your calendar when to cancel. Yes, I
Speaker 1: absolutely do that for sure. That's another good way. Rosa says,
Speaker 1: my husband adds it to his calendar. Yeah. I do
Speaker 1: that as well, but sometimes I forget to see it
Speaker 1: on my calendar or it's not a convenient time when
Speaker 1: I see my calendar to actually go ahead and cancel it.
Speaker 1: And Sarah says, or Sra says, you can ask Siri
Speaker 1: to remind you twenty nine days from now to cancel
Speaker 1: your subscription. That works really great. That is a very
Speaker 1: smart thing. Take advantage of those voices and reminders, whether
Speaker 1: it's Google, whether it's Siri, those are very handy. Even
Speaker 1: if you have you know, alex A in your house,
Speaker 1: you can ask her and she will. She will help
Speaker 1: you keep tabs on that as well. So all good
Speaker 1: ways to avoid paying for things that you don't need
Speaker 1: to pay for. All right, let's talk Google. And this
Speaker 1: is a major problem I have with Google is that
Speaker 1: they are all over the place. I've talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but you just can't trust Google to continue a product
Speaker 1: that they come out with. And one of those products
Speaker 1: that many people thought they would never back or never
Speaker 1: continue is called Stadia. Stadia is a controller that is
Speaker 1: it uses Chrome casts and it streams your video games
Speaker 1: to your TV. So it was just a piece of
Speaker 1: hardware that literally really never needed to be upgraded because
Speaker 1: it was the like, Okay, let me explain this in
Speaker 1: a better way. So the when you're playing a game
Speaker 1: on your TV, it's actually being played on a giant
Speaker 1: supercomputer somewhere on a server farm that Google runs or whatever,
Speaker 1: and then it's just being streamed to your TV like that.
Speaker 1: Gameplay is being streamed to your TV and real time,
Speaker 1: just like Netflix. And so the idea is that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't need to spend money on a big expensive console.
Speaker 1: You would just need any controller that could play this game.
Speaker 1: And everything was being run through the cloud, and so
Speaker 1: it's basically always up to date, it's always fast, there's
Speaker 1: no lag, it's like you know. But this took a
Speaker 1: lot of technical know how to get this to work
Speaker 1: properly because video games are all about latency. Like you
Speaker 1: want when you press that a button, you want that
Speaker 1: thing to fire right immediately. You can't have a delay
Speaker 1: between pressing a button and having something happen on the screen.
Speaker 1: And so that's what Google figured out how to do
Speaker 1: with this streaming. Well, that was all great, but apparently,
Speaker 1: according to Google, the streaming games for consumers that's built
Speaker 1: on a strong technology foundation, but it hasn't gained the
Speaker 1: traction with users that we expected. So they'll be winding
Speaker 1: down Stadia. So that's sad. So here's the cool thing
Speaker 1: that that Google is doing. They're refunding all Stadia hardware
Speaker 1: purchases made through the Google Store and all game and
Speaker 1: add on content purchases that were made through the Google
Speaker 1: Stadia Store. Players will continue to have access to their
Speaker 1: games library through January eighteenth, and they expect all refunds
Speaker 1: to be completed by mid January, so not all is lost.
Speaker 1: Google says that they're going to use the technology that
Speaker 1: they figured out for things like YouTube, Google Play, and
Speaker 1: their augmented reality efforts. So there's something here to this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's really really kind of sad that. You know,
Speaker 1: Stadia was this thing that a lot of people didn't
Speaker 1: want to get invested in because they figured Google might
Speaker 1: shut it down, and their worst fear came true. Google
Speaker 1: shut it down. All right, let's get to the next
Speaker 1: quest question of the show. Carol says, Hey, Rich, I
Speaker 1: think I heard you say that those of us who
Speaker 1: have a z flip three can upgrade to the z
Speaker 1: Flip four for one hundred dollars. How do we do that?
Speaker 1: And then a follow up said, I'm hoping the battery,
Speaker 1: life and camera are better. What do you think is
Speaker 1: it worth the hassle of the upgrade? And I say absolutely. Now,
Speaker 1: what Carol was referring to is that for a while,
Speaker 1: Samsung was doing a deal where if you bought the
Speaker 1: new z Flip four and traded in the three, it
Speaker 1: would only cost you one hundred dollars to upgrade. So
Speaker 1: you send them your old phone, you send them a
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, and they'll send you the brand new phone.
Speaker 1: And in my review of the z Flip four, I
Speaker 1: found it to be a very pleasant experience. It's totally different.
Speaker 1: It's a phone that flips like a flip phone, but
Speaker 1: it's got a nice big screen inside. So just imagine
Speaker 1: your typical Samsung phone, but it flips closed right like
Speaker 1: an old flip phone, like a Motorol erasor and you
Speaker 1: have all the beauty of a smartphone. They made the
Speaker 1: outer screen bigger, more functionable, they made the cameras better,
Speaker 1: they made the battery last longer. I felt like this
Speaker 1: phone was really really fun. It's not for me because
Speaker 1: I need a phone with a stronger camera setup because
Speaker 1: I'm doing a lot of creation stuff on there for
Speaker 1: TV and also for social media, but for general kind
Speaker 1: of social media if you're not trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: you know, do a huge bunch a ton of stuff,
Speaker 1: it'd be just fine. Like the camera is just fine
Speaker 1: on this thing. I found the front facing camera left
Speaker 1: a little bit desired for me personally, but you know,
Speaker 1: they've improved it and so, and it folds in half
Speaker 1: so it fits in your pocket, and it's a really
Speaker 1: nice little phone. And I think it's come a long
Speaker 1: way since the first generation. And so Carol was saying,
Speaker 1: should she do the upgrade? Is it worth the hassle?
Speaker 1: And I say absolutely. I mean for one hundred dollars. Now,
Speaker 1: the one hundred dollars deal, as far as I could tell,
Speaker 1: is gone. I think it's closer to two to three
Speaker 1: hundred dollars to upgrade. But at the same time, three
Speaker 1: hundred bucks to upgrade your phone to the brand new one.
Speaker 1: One's gonna have a better camera, better battery, a more
Speaker 1: useful screen, you're gonna reset the clock on the hinge mechanism.
Speaker 1: I think that it's it's definitely worth it, so I
Speaker 1: say go for it. The flip for is probably at
Speaker 1: this point the only foldable phone that I would recommend
Speaker 1: in a big way. The fold is really fantastic. That
Speaker 1: one opens and closes like a greeting card. But the
Speaker 1: problem with that is that it's a very small it's
Speaker 1: just a it appeals to a very small group of
Speaker 1: people that need something like that because the technology is
Speaker 1: not fully there yet. The fold is still a little
Speaker 1: bit chunky. It's a little bit bulky, it's a little
Speaker 1: bit heavy. So I really really like that phone, but
Speaker 1: I just don't think that it's ready for prime time
Speaker 1: just yet for the average person. If you want a
Speaker 1: foldable and you've made that your life, and you've made
Speaker 1: it your life mission to have something like that, like
Speaker 1: I only want a phone that's going to do both
Speaker 1: a tablet and a phone, then yeah, the fold is fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's a great situation. But the price is still really
Speaker 1: expensive as well, at eight hundred dollars, So i'd recommend
Speaker 1: the flip over the fold, just for the average person. Also,
Speaker 1: if the screen on the outside was just a little
Speaker 1: bit bigger on the fold, it might have convinced me
Speaker 1: to switch, because there are some advantages, especially for someone
Speaker 1: that travels a lot, of having that foldable phone. It's
Speaker 1: just such a such a cool device. So great question, Carol,
Speaker 1: and good luck with the new phone. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk about a new kindle. This is so Amazon this
Speaker 1: week had their big Amazon Fall event where they talk
Speaker 1: about all of the gadgets that they are going to
Speaker 1: launch over the holidays, and they just throw a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
Speaker 1: And because it's Amazon, because they are you know, really interesting,
Speaker 1: you know, smart about their prices and stuff and their promotions,
Speaker 1: they will sell a ton of these gadgets. They may
Speaker 1: not sell all of them to the same amount, but
Speaker 1: they will sell a lot of these. Now, one of
Speaker 1: these is it's a little bit of an unknown. We'll
Speaker 1: see if this works or not. But it's called the
Speaker 1: Amazon Kindle Scribe. And this is the first kindle that
Speaker 1: lets you not only read, but also write on the screen.
Speaker 1: It is a ten point two inch screen. It's the
Speaker 1: same kind of screen that you see on your typical kindle,
Speaker 1: but now it responds to writing, so you can use
Speaker 1: this included pen to write on the screen. It's a
Speaker 1: frontlet display. It includes the pen. The price is very high,
Speaker 1: especially for a kindle. It's three hundred and thirty nine dollars,
Speaker 1: which uh ah, quite honestly, I would not pay that
Speaker 1: for this. I think that the target price for me
Speaker 1: on this is two ninety nine, which I know is
Speaker 1: still wildly expensive for a kindle, But you have to
Speaker 1: remember that you're also getting a notepad in this, and
Speaker 1: it's a really cool notepad because you can take you know,
Speaker 1: digital notes on it. And you might be saying, well,
Speaker 1: for three hundred and three forty, I can get an iPad. Well,
Speaker 1: the iPad is great, and I agree, and you can
Speaker 1: write on the screen, but the you know, the pen
Speaker 1: is going to the pencil Apple pencil is going to
Speaker 1: cost you another one hundred dollars. Your minimum for the
Speaker 1: Apple pencil with the with the iPad is going to
Speaker 1: be you know, you're looking at four to five hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for that situation here you're talking. I think the
Speaker 1: target price is closer to three hundred, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's one hundred dollars, but you're not getting all the
Speaker 1: apps and stuff that you would get an iPad. So
Speaker 1: let's just imagine that this is more for the person
Speaker 1: who wants that kindle e paper experience but also kind
Speaker 1: of likes the idea of having a notepad that you
Speaker 1: can write in. And I'm kind of a notepad. Guy,
Speaker 1: I like pen and paper, even though you know, the
Speaker 1: older I get, the less I use it because the
Speaker 1: more I kind of like put stuff into my phone.
Speaker 1: But I still love the idea of it. So what
Speaker 1: can you do with this thing? You can write in
Speaker 1: the margins of the book that you're reading, So if
Speaker 1: you're I'm a big fan of highlighting passages in my
Speaker 1: kindle books that I read, and so you can do that.
Speaker 1: You can now write things in addition to take notes.
Speaker 1: In addition to the highlighting, you can organize with to
Speaker 1: do lists. You can use it as your planner, which
Speaker 1: would be kind of cool. I like that idea of
Speaker 1: a calendar. You make journal entries, you could review documents
Speaker 1: that you imported from your phone or computer. And again
Speaker 1: it's all sort of distraction free. Because it's a kindle,
Speaker 1: you can't do too much on it. But the fact
Speaker 1: that you can use this as a as a notepad,
Speaker 1: to me is very appealing. USBC charging. The battery is
Speaker 1: designed to last much longer than the standard you know,
Speaker 1: you know, like a iPad battery. Let's say, so you're talking,
Speaker 1: you know, weeks or months depending on how you use
Speaker 1: this thing. It's not gonna last months if you're writing
Speaker 1: on it on a daily basis, But again, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the basics of this kindle scribe. I think that
Speaker 1: the reality is we're gonna have to see how this
Speaker 1: is because it's a bigger kindle than most people are
Speaker 1: used to. So is it gonna be comfortable for reading?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I have not tested this personally, but
Speaker 1: I think they've got some of these things right. Where
Speaker 1: it comes with the pen, there's a basic pen that
Speaker 1: never needs to be charged, so it's you're never gonna
Speaker 1: be in that situation where you want to use this
Speaker 1: pen and you can't because you need to charge it up.
Speaker 1: The magnetically attaches to the side of the device, just
Speaker 1: like a wood on an iPad. And then there's a
Speaker 1: premium pen, which I think they probably should have made
Speaker 1: this whole thing a premium pen. But the premium pen
Speaker 1: is a dedicated, dedicated eraser on the top, plus a
Speaker 1: customizable shortcut button. I think that they should just make
Speaker 1: that the default pen. And the cool thing is all
Speaker 1: of your documents are backed up to the cloud for free,
Speaker 1: which I really like, and in twenty twenty three you'll
Speaker 1: be able to access those documents via the Kindle app,
Speaker 1: which again I feel like this should have been something
Speaker 1: out of the gate where you can take a note
Speaker 1: on your Kindle scribe and you can see that note
Speaker 1: on your phone in the Kindle app. But you know, look,
Speaker 1: these things sometimes take a little bit of time. I
Speaker 1: also like to send a Kindle feature. Now, this is
Speaker 1: a feature. If you don't have this installed on your computer,
Speaker 1: this is something you might want to look into. So
Speaker 1: I use a service called Pocket, which allows me to
Speaker 1: read articles later, and so it's in this kind of nice,
Speaker 1: uncluttered fashion where you can look at these things when
Speaker 1: you have time to, like really read a long article.
Speaker 1: The problem is I always forget to open up Pocket
Speaker 1: on my smartphone, and so I never end up reading
Speaker 1: these articles that I bookmark to read later. So with
Speaker 1: the Kindle, I do open my Kindle pretty much on
Speaker 1: a nightly basis at home, so I can see you
Speaker 1: can get into a routine of every night you just
Speaker 1: open up your Kindle, you read some of the articles
Speaker 1: that you sent to your Kindle from your computer throughout
Speaker 1: the day, and then you read your book for a
Speaker 1: half an hour or forty five minutes at night. So
Speaker 1: they're definitely onto something and then you kind of journal
Speaker 1: jot down. I think I'm a big fan of journaling,
Speaker 1: even though I don't really do it on a daily
Speaker 1: basis as much as i'd like to, But I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan. I was doing for a while, I was
Speaker 1: writing down three things that made me happy that day
Speaker 1: and just writing that down in a journal. I don't
Speaker 1: even remember what the name of the journal is because
Speaker 1: I don't I didn't use it enough. I think it's
Speaker 1: called Day one and let's see. And it really was
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to do every night, Like just think
Speaker 1: about I know, we go through our lives and there's
Speaker 1: so many things that frustrate us during the day, and
Speaker 1: you know, if you live in Los Angeles, like the
Speaker 1: city could really you know, bring it down in certain ways,
Speaker 1: especially with all the problems we're having right now. But
Speaker 1: I think that if you write down, yeah, like someone
Speaker 1: on the Instagram sete of Gratitude journal, that's yeah, that's
Speaker 1: pretty much what it is. But if you start writing
Speaker 1: down things that make you happy, you kind of remember
Speaker 1: that it doesn't take much throughout your day to make
Speaker 1: you happy, Like sometimes just you know a little bit
Speaker 1: of an interaction with your friends or family or your children,
Speaker 1: or something someone says to you in passing, or you know,
Speaker 1: just even getting like a coffee in the afternoon and
Speaker 1: like really enjoying that or you know whatever, it is
Speaker 1: just the sun shining, like and you write those things
Speaker 1: down at the end of your day and you really
Speaker 1: reflect on like, wow, these are things that you kind
Speaker 1: of overlook in your daily life because we're just so
Speaker 1: busy and you know, just just everything is just so
Speaker 1: like busy these days. But if you just started sort
Speaker 1: of think about these little things that really are just
Speaker 1: like you know, we had the cats in the house
Speaker 1: when we were fostering, like just like sitting with you know,
Speaker 1: petting the cat for the you know, for an hour
Speaker 1: in the afternoon or whatever. You know, it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's just so so like nice and calming. And so
Speaker 1: just write those things down and you reflect and your
Speaker 1: brain starts to get wired to recognize all these little
Speaker 1: things that make you happy. And then now you just
Speaker 1: start recognizing more of them. So anyway, this is not
Speaker 1: a self help podcast, but you know, sometimes it is
Speaker 1: kind of nice. So, oh, I don't sometimes these usernames
Speaker 1: I don't know how to say, but miter boo says,
Speaker 1: I like to do this with my students. Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: funny because when I was in school, we never heard
Speaker 1: about happiness or how you're feeling, or gratitude or any
Speaker 1: of these things that now kids are exposed to all
Speaker 1: the time, and I think it's a really good thing.
Speaker 1: Todda nineteen sixty three says, any idea the launch date
Speaker 1: for the pixel Watch, Well, the launch event is next
Speaker 1: Friday in your city. And then the launch date, I
Speaker 1: think expected is the fourteenth of October. So I don't
Speaker 1: quote me because they haven't announced that publicly. Well they
Speaker 1: haven't announced it. Sorry, I don't know what the launch
Speaker 1: date is, but I do know when the event is,
Speaker 1: and so usually you know, these things are available a
Speaker 1: week or two or three after the launch. I know,
Speaker 1: very highly anticipated to have a nice, simple Android watch,
Speaker 1: especially that pixel Watch. So yeah, all right, let's get
Speaker 1: to the next question of the show. Karen says, I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if I should turn on cross site tracking. Not
Speaker 1: sure what this is. Thank you, Karen, sent from my iPhone. No, Karen,
Speaker 1: you want to turn off cross site tracking? And so
Speaker 1: people are finally getting hip to this idea that we
Speaker 1: are tracked in so many different ways. When you visit
Speaker 1: one website, it reports to another website. They all report
Speaker 1: back to you know, these advertising forms and these data
Speaker 1: collection firms. So yeah, you want to turn on turn
Speaker 1: off cross site tracking as much as possible. And I
Speaker 1: turn it off on Chrome. And if you look on Chrome,
Speaker 1: it's third party cookies are being blocked. If I go
Speaker 1: to this website, it blocked thirty third party cookies. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? That means that when I go to
Speaker 1: a website to shop for something, it's reporting my activity
Speaker 1: to thirty different tracking companies and other websites. And so
Speaker 1: what does that mean? It means that when I visit
Speaker 1: one of those websites, or if I just surf the
Speaker 1: web at large, I may now start getting ads for
Speaker 1: the product that I looked at on that first website.
Speaker 1: So here's how to turn this off in Chrome. Just
Speaker 1: go to the menu which is in the upper right
Speaker 1: hand corner. It's the three little dots. Then you go
Speaker 1: to settings, and then you go to let's see here,
Speaker 1: I think it is privacy and security, and then you
Speaker 1: go to cookies and other site data, and there's an
Speaker 1: option to allow all cookies or block third party cookies
Speaker 1: in incognito, or block third party cookies, or block all cookies.
Speaker 1: I do not recommend blocking all cookies. That will make
Speaker 1: your life a nightmare because then things like your login
Speaker 1: are not saved and you'll have to log into websites
Speaker 1: every single time. But third party cookies you can safely block,
Speaker 1: and that means that different websites can't see your browsing
Speaker 1: across different websites. So it's just really it makes it
Speaker 1: so that websites can't really talk to each other and say, oh,
Speaker 1: Rich visited here and looked at the blanket that we're
Speaker 1: selling that's embroidered with his kid's name, and then they'll
Speaker 1: try to sell you a blanket that's embroidered for cheaper
Speaker 1: or whatever. Now, on Safari and a lot of the
Speaker 1: newer browsers, this stuff is starting to be blocked by default.
Speaker 1: So if you're using something like Firefox or Safari, basically
Speaker 1: anything except Chrome, it's all this third party stuff is
Speaker 1: blocked mostly by default, even on the iPhone if you're
Speaker 1: using Safari, But if you're using something like Chrome, you
Speaker 1: do need to turn this feature on so you can
Speaker 1: block third party cookies. Also somewhat related is that when
Speaker 1: you're opening up an app for the first time, it's
Speaker 1: going to ask you allow it says, can allow app
Speaker 1: to track you across apps. You want to say no
Speaker 1: to that question. It seems like you might want to
Speaker 1: say yes, but you want to say no. You do
Speaker 1: not want to allow apps to cross track you because
Speaker 1: that means it's the same thing that I just talked
Speaker 1: about with the web browsers, except it's inside apps on
Speaker 1: your iPhone. And so when Apple did that and they
Speaker 1: gave customers the option for that, it really really changed
Speaker 1: the advertising industry because advertisers no longer have this really
Speaker 1: rich data set about which apps people are using and
Speaker 1: which apps which where people what people do inside those
Speaker 1: apps on the iPhone. E Flores says, have we been
Speaker 1: heard from our phones for ads? I just noticed by
Speaker 1: talking about buying something and not searching for I'll get
Speaker 1: an ad later for that product. This has been a
Speaker 1: common occurrence for me any many years. Know, your phone's
Speaker 1: not listening to what you say out loud, but it
Speaker 1: is using a lot of different cues to help figure
Speaker 1: out whether it's just show you an AD, And many
Speaker 1: times it does feel like we're getting ads for stuff
Speaker 1: that we talk about in passing with our friends. But
Speaker 1: the social media companies and all the advertising companies swear
Speaker 1: swear swear that they are not listening to the microphones
Speaker 1: on our phones, and I would tend to agree with that.
Speaker 1: So I don't have any evidence that says they are listening,
Speaker 1: but I do have a lot of evidence that says
Speaker 1: they're not listening. And it just seems very unrealistic for
Speaker 1: them to be processing, you know, thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: minutes of conversations every second to figure out what people
Speaker 1: are speaking. And also that's a privacy nightmare if they
Speaker 1: were really found to be doing that, which you know,
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen news kind of news segments where
Speaker 1: people really test this, they like really truly test it,
Speaker 1: it never works. Like they'll be like, oh, I just
Speaker 1: mentioned about going to this secret island in the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: and they name something random and then they wait for
Speaker 1: an ad to show up for that island and it
Speaker 1: never does. Now, if you search for islands or search
Speaker 1: for an island vacation, yeah, the chances are you're gonna
Speaker 1: get a lot of ads for advertising against island vacations.
Speaker 1: And so it happens. Believe me, people mentioned a new
Speaker 1: mattress that they got to their friends, and next thing
Speaker 1: you know, you know, they get an AD for that mattress.
Speaker 1: And it's because they're using a lot of cues and
Speaker 1: a lot of signals. And so some of those cues
Speaker 1: and signals are that they know that your friend just
Speaker 1: bought that mattress, they know that you were around your
Speaker 1: friend's phone, and so they say, hey, they might have
Speaker 1: talked about this mattress. Let's send them an AD for that.
Speaker 1: Just read three sixteen says best smart TV. I always
Speaker 1: recommend the TCL, the TCL sixth series. I think the
Speaker 1: TCL six series is probably one of my favorite TVs,
Speaker 1: So I will recommend that, but I will also Now
Speaker 1: I think I'm gonna start recommending, but I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to test this first. This is another thing that was
Speaker 1: mentioned at the Earth announced at the Amazon event. It's
Speaker 1: called the fire TV omni q LED series. And so
Speaker 1: this is Amazon's like top of the line television QLED.
Speaker 1: It's not O LED, but it's still it's a really
Speaker 1: nice display technology. And so this smart TV. The number
Speaker 1: one feature that I really like about it is that
Speaker 1: it doubles as a picture frame when you are not
Speaker 1: using it, and I really really enjoy that feature. It's
Speaker 1: something that Samsung has had on a TV called the
Speaker 1: Frame for a long time, but it's something that I
Speaker 1: think every TV should have because I love seeing my
Speaker 1: family photos in the background when I'm not using my TV,
Speaker 1: and so the fact that these TVs are smart enough
Speaker 1: to do that is something I really like. So this
Speaker 1: new q LED series has fire TV built in, it's
Speaker 1: got hands free Alexa. Plus it has this new ambient
Speaker 1: feature and so it's always on when you're not using it.
Speaker 1: And so this TV has little sensors in it to
Speaker 1: know that if you're not home, it's going to turn
Speaker 1: the screen off, but if you're home, it's going to
Speaker 1: turn the screen on and it's going to display whether
Speaker 1: it's pictures or artwork or information like the weather, and
Speaker 1: so I think that's really really cool. It's got the
Speaker 1: hands free Alexa. This is going to be available for
Speaker 1: pre order for eight hundred dollars for the sixty five
Speaker 1: inch model, and then they also have a seventy five
Speaker 1: inch model. Again, it's called the fire TV Omnique QLED series,
Speaker 1: And again I think this is probably the biggest competition
Speaker 1: I've seen for my recommendation over the TCL six series,
Speaker 1: which I've been recommending for many, many years, and people
Speaker 1: love them. And they do have some new models available,
Speaker 1: as I see in the comments that yes there are
Speaker 1: new models available of the sixth series, so those were
Speaker 1: recently updated, so be sure you're getting the newer model
Speaker 1: if you want the latest and greatest features on the
Speaker 1: sixth series. But the sixth series from TCL has Roku
Speaker 1: built in and it just has It's really hit its
Speaker 1: stride with like being one of the best smart TVs
Speaker 1: out there, just because it's been around for a really
Speaker 1: long time now. A lot of people have purchased it,
Speaker 1: including a lot of people that listen to me, and
Speaker 1: the feedback I've gotten is that it's just fantastic. Now
Speaker 1: here's the only caveat, I would say, And this happens
Speaker 1: over and over. People go in for the TCL six series,
Speaker 1: which you know is a bit more of a premium
Speaker 1: price tag compared to some of the other TCL five
Speaker 1: four series, And so people go into best Buy looking
Speaker 1: for the six series and they say, I can get
Speaker 1: the five series for like two hundred dollars cheaper. They
Speaker 1: buy the five series and I'm just telling you go
Speaker 1: with the six series unless you're putting it in a
Speaker 1: spare room that you don't need all of the best features.
Speaker 1: Then you know, then you can go with the five
Speaker 1: series or the four series or something like that. But
Speaker 1: if you're getting it for your main TV, spend a
Speaker 1: little extra. You know how much time we spend watching
Speaker 1: our TVs. Spend the extra two hundred dollars to get
Speaker 1: something that's that's an upgrade from you know, the other stuff.
Speaker 1: Can you say the name of the TV again? You
Speaker 1: say so fast? Yes, The TCL series is my overall
Speaker 1: pick for a smart TV. Otherwise, I like the lg
Speaker 1: C seven for an OLED that's a really premium set.
Speaker 1: And now I haven't tested this yet, but the fire
Speaker 1: TV omni qled series is something that I think is
Speaker 1: going to be a really nice TV for a lot
Speaker 1: of people as well. Cheryl says, Hey, Rich, I need
Speaker 1: your help. I keep getting the Recapsha puzzle to complete
Speaker 1: with each and every website I want to visit. With Google,
Speaker 1: it seems impossible to talk to a real human at Google. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm hoping you can help. What could have gone
Speaker 1: wrong to turn this annoying chore on each and every
Speaker 1: time I want to search for something. I think it
Speaker 1: has to do with Google, but I'm not sure. I'm
Speaker 1: using my MacBook Pro with up to date software. I'm
Speaker 1: usually browsing with Safari. Can you help solve this annoying problem?
Speaker 1: Thank you? Cheryl from San Diego. Cheryl, these Recapsha puzzles
Speaker 1: you've probably seen. They are super duper annoying. But what
Speaker 1: they do is, and you've seen them before, it basically says,
Speaker 1: please identify all of the squares with a red light
Speaker 1: in them, or a traffic light, or a bike or
Speaker 1: a I got one the other day that have all
Speaker 1: dead plants in them. I'm like, what is this? Dead plants? Like,
Speaker 1: what is that all about? And so you've seen them before.
Speaker 1: It takes a while. It takes an average of thirty
Speaker 1: seconds to complete one of these puzzles. But what they're
Speaker 1: doing is they're trying to make sure you're not a robot,
Speaker 1: because what happens is robots they'll send, you know, people
Speaker 1: will create bots that do certain things on a website
Speaker 1: like check the prices, check airfare, book things, reserve things,
Speaker 1: and companies don't like this because it puts a big
Speaker 1: tax on their system. And also they don't want robots
Speaker 1: booking airfares or reserving all the PS fives that are available,
Speaker 1: or scooping up tickets to a concert, So they put
Speaker 1: these recapture puzzles in place so that a real human
Speaker 1: has to move the mouse and make sure that they're
Speaker 1: doing something that a computer or a robot can't or
Speaker 1: an automated system can't do. But yes, they're annoying for
Speaker 1: you and I, and they're coming up with ways of
Speaker 1: making these easier. But until then, I see them all
Speaker 1: the time. They're super annoying, But and I get them
Speaker 1: wrong half the time, like, wait, is that red light
Speaker 1: on the edge of that other little square or is
Speaker 1: it only in that square? And then you pick it
Speaker 1: and then it's not right, And so it's a whole
Speaker 1: big thing. If they did if they did Seinfeld today,
Speaker 1: recapture puzzles would definitely be a part of the show
Speaker 1: for sure. But I digress. So what can you do
Speaker 1: about this? Usually when you're seeing a lot of these
Speaker 1: things over and over, there's something happening on your computer
Speaker 1: that is not right, whether there's something running in the background,
Speaker 1: whether your IP address is doing something kind of weird,
Speaker 1: whether you have a helper app on your computer that's
Speaker 1: doing something funky. So what I would do is, if
Speaker 1: you're using Safari, because I was gonna say if're using Chrome,
Speaker 1: I would go through and get rid of all the extensions,
Speaker 1: or at least pause them temporarily and see if this
Speaker 1: key happening. But you say you're using Safari, which historically
Speaker 1: does not have a lot of extensions, But I'd still
Speaker 1: go into Safari and check out your extensions and make
Speaker 1: sure you don't have anything. Usually, helper apps are the
Speaker 1: culprit in things like this or a VPN. If you're
Speaker 1: using a VPN, so first things first, I would I
Speaker 1: would update all the software on your computer. Then I
Speaker 1: would go through and I would uninstall anything on your
Speaker 1: computer you don't need or you don't use, whether it's
Speaker 1: a VPN or a helper program or whatever you're not using.
Speaker 1: Uninstall it, and then you can restart your computer. If
Speaker 1: you need a good program to help you uninstall stuff,
Speaker 1: I recommend clean my MacX. That's a really fantastic program
Speaker 1: to help you get rid of stuff. It may cost
Speaker 1: you something, but I do really like that program and
Speaker 1: so it works really well. The other thing is try
Speaker 1: a different web browser, so you can try Chrome and
Speaker 1: see if this still happens on Chrome. If none of
Speaker 1: that stuff works, I would go through your Chrome extensions
Speaker 1: or your Safari extensions and see if you have anything
Speaker 1: installed there, and you can go to Safari and it
Speaker 1: says extensions in the menu and you can delete those
Speaker 1: as well. So I would go through into your preferences
Speaker 1: and just go through every single preference on your Safari
Speaker 1: and see what's in there. If anything looks weird or strange,
Speaker 1: then you know, get rid of that. Now, they used
Speaker 1: to have a way in Safari that you could reset
Speaker 1: the entire Safari all at once. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's possible at this point. Like you used to have
Speaker 1: just literally a way to reset your entire web browser
Speaker 1: to default settings. I'm I guess now you can just
Speaker 1: do it with clear history. So if you can, you
Speaker 1: can try that and see what happens. But if none
Speaker 1: of those things work, I don't know. And yeah, you're right,
Speaker 1: you can't just call someone at Google and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm having a problem with my Google, like
Speaker 1: can you help me? Like nobody's gonna answer the phone
Speaker 1: at Google to do that. So yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's a very odd problem, but I would turn off
Speaker 1: your computer, restart it, see what happens. And then if
Speaker 1: none of that stuff works, if you're still getting the problem,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you might have to take it as
Speaker 1: someone that knows what they're doing. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: getting a message on my Instagram to thank my supporter.
Speaker 1: So if you've supported me in this live in this
Speaker 1: live stream, thank you, You're awesome. Thanks for buying a badge.
Speaker 1: I'm still not exactly sure what that means, but it
Speaker 1: seems like it's a good thing, and I think it's
Speaker 1: really cool. So thank you for supporting me in that way.
Speaker 1: That's very very nice of you to do that. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to the next How much more time do
Speaker 1: we have? Okay, we got some time here. Let's get
Speaker 1: to the next topic here. Halo Rise. This is another
Speaker 1: Amazon gadget that is was released or I guess unveiled
Speaker 1: this week. This is now. They say it's a first
Speaker 1: of its kind bedside sleep tracker. But I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: nuances there because Google does have the Nest Hub that
Speaker 1: performs a very similar functionality, so I can't say this
Speaker 1: is a first of its kind. It's first of it's
Speaker 1: kind with Alexa. It's first of it's kind with an echo,
Speaker 1: but it's not first of its kind. There's technology that
Speaker 1: already does this. And what this does is it's a
Speaker 1: bedside tracker that is meant to help you improve your sleep.
Speaker 1: There's nothing that you have to wear. Remember I was
Speaker 1: talking about this earlier. There's nothing that you have to wear.
Speaker 1: It use the sensors to measure your respiration and movement patterns,
Speaker 1: and then an algorithm to figure out if you are
Speaker 1: sleeping right now. John says, I'm not sure I want
Speaker 1: Amazon on my nightstand. And this is a problem that
Speaker 1: you talk about that actually is a problem that Amazon's
Speaker 1: trying to figure out. How do you get more Alexa
Speaker 1: in the bedroom. I know that sounds a little U
Speaker 1: la la, but hear me out. You know, people don't
Speaker 1: want to put an echo show in their bedroom, or
Speaker 1: even an echo speaker because it has a microphone and
Speaker 1: some of the echo shows or all of them, all
Speaker 1: of them, I have a camera. You don't really want
Speaker 1: put to put something with a camera and a microphone
Speaker 1: on your bedstand, right because you just don't. It's your bedroom.
Speaker 1: You don't. You don't want Amazon peeking into that world there.
Speaker 1: So how do you get more analytics in the bedroom?
Speaker 1: You put this Halo Rise hold on. So how do
Speaker 1: you get more analytics in the bedroom. You put this
Speaker 1: Halo Rise. It sells for one and forty dollars and
Speaker 1: it uses contactless low energy sensors to figure out how
Speaker 1: you're breathing, and that will figure out your sleep stages
Speaker 1: throughout the night. There are no microphones, there's no cameras,
Speaker 1: and this is something that will give you a little
Speaker 1: report when you wake up about how you slept. Now,
Speaker 1: I have not tested this one because it's not available
Speaker 1: just yet, but I did test the Google one and
Speaker 1: it worked as promised. It, you know, basically tells you
Speaker 1: how you sleep at night. You know your rem sleep,
Speaker 1: your light sleep, your whatever you're doing you're well. I
Speaker 1: don't know if this one didn't mention snoring, but the
Speaker 1: Google one does figure out you're snoring as well. It
Speaker 1: also measures your room temperature, your humidity, and light levels.
Speaker 1: This also has an alarm clock and a wake up
Speaker 1: light built into it, so you get that as well. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're on a normal or a typical sleep schedule,
Speaker 1: where you wake up with the sun. This could be
Speaker 1: a really nice thing to help you wake up gently.
Speaker 1: And by the way, pro tip, if you're using a
Speaker 1: standard alarm to wake up on your iPhone, please stop.
Speaker 1: Do not use a standard alarm to wake up on
Speaker 1: your iPhone. Let me explain. There is a feature on
Speaker 1: the iPhone called sleep or called bedtime whatever, however it's
Speaker 1: marked in the iPhone. And what that does is when
Speaker 1: you set your alarm through bedtime, your alarm will gradually
Speaker 1: increase and it doesn't come up blaring like the standard clock.
Speaker 1: If you're just setting a regular alarm on your iPhone,
Speaker 1: alarm is just it's immediate, it's loud. Those alarms are
Speaker 1: more like a timer. It's more like, oh, alarm at
Speaker 1: three pm, I need to go take out the dog.
Speaker 1: This is not something that you want to use to
Speaker 1: wake up. Set the bedtime feature on your iPhone. Okay, bedtime.
Speaker 1: I think it's called bedtime. Let me just make sure
Speaker 1: that's what it's called. Yeah, set the bedtime feature on
Speaker 1: your iPhone. It is inside the clock app. I know
Speaker 1: it's a little bit of work to get it started,
Speaker 1: but then you use that and you can adjust it
Speaker 1: every day. If you wake up at different times. You
Speaker 1: can set different schedules for the different days that you
Speaker 1: wake up. But believe me, when you start hearing that
Speaker 1: gradual alarm come up, and if you use it, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about. The alarm does not blare
Speaker 1: all at once. It starts out really soft and gentle,
Speaker 1: and it gently gets louder, so it wakes you up gently.
Speaker 1: That is the way you're supposed to approach a new
Speaker 1: day on this earth, not with a blaring alarm. So
Speaker 1: please go into your iPhone, take the three minutes to
Speaker 1: figure out the feature and set up time. Your your
Speaker 1: sleep and your your awakeness will really really thank me.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you that. Yeah, like Beady Castle says, do
Speaker 1: I do not feel good after waking up for my alarm?
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. It's to you're literally like this, like sleeping,
Speaker 1: it's so nice and all of a sudden like ah, alarm,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, what what's going on here? If you
Speaker 1: if you use the bedtime, you'll notice it's it's a
Speaker 1: very it's like someone just gently kind of pushing your shoulder,
Speaker 1: gently tapping you, saying hey, rich, hey, rich, rich, rich rich.
Speaker 1: Time to get up and it's and the snooze functionality
Speaker 1: is so much better, So please, I don't know why
Speaker 1: Apple doesn't really advertise the fact that, And I also,
Speaker 1: quite frankly, Apple should let you set a gradual alarm
Speaker 1: on the standard alarm, so they don't. But that's the
Speaker 1: way to find it is to go into the bedtime
Speaker 1: functionality in the clock and and set your wake up
Speaker 1: time and you're and I'm also kind of I love
Speaker 1: the idea of getting a certain amount of sleep every night.
Speaker 1: I think my target is like seven hours. So you
Speaker 1: can use a little spin wheel when you get this
Speaker 1: thing set up to make sure. Like when I'm on
Speaker 1: the road and I have to wake up for an event.
Speaker 1: Let's say the event is nine am, I backtrack from
Speaker 1: nine am. I want two hours a week before that,
Speaker 1: so that means I have to be up at seven.
Speaker 1: So I backtracked the little wheel, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: can go to bed at midnight. I'm like, wow, that's
Speaker 1: seven hours sick now, really I wouldn't do that. I'd
Speaker 1: probably go to bed at eleven. But the point is
Speaker 1: it's anyway, that's one feature I think you should know about.
Speaker 1: So back to the Halo Rise, Halo Rise. It does.
Speaker 1: It doesn't require the Halo membership, but it does come
Speaker 1: with six months of Halo membership. After that, it does
Speaker 1: cost you. I think it's like three to four dollars
Speaker 1: or four dollars a month for the Halo membership. You
Speaker 1: don't need it, but you probably need it to get
Speaker 1: the most the most features out of this thing. And
Speaker 1: we're definitely seeing the trend of all these wearables. Like
Speaker 1: I just talked about the Aura. You know, you got
Speaker 1: to pay for these these add on membership fees that
Speaker 1: they get you monthly. Now everything's a monthly fee because
Speaker 1: the days of just buying a piece of hardware and
Speaker 1: it working forever is kind of behind us. Even the apps,
Speaker 1: even a lot of the apps that I use, they're
Speaker 1: no longer just letting you buy that software. It's now
Speaker 1: like either a monthly or a yearly. So it's really
Speaker 1: we're getting into this world of everything is a subscription.
Speaker 1: And you know, I get it. These companies have more revenue.
Speaker 1: They they like the idea that they can improve the
Speaker 1: products and push out software features over time. But it's
Speaker 1: just something that we have to get used to as consumers.
Speaker 1: But Halo Rise one hundred and forty dollars if you
Speaker 1: you know, it kind of goes back to what I
Speaker 1: was saying, where the bedroom should be this kind of
Speaker 1: this oasis, this like closed off area where you know,
Speaker 1: you're not really having a lot of you know, it's
Speaker 1: just not many things should happen in there, right, And
Speaker 1: so by having all these trackers and gadgets and gizmos
Speaker 1: that are trying to track your sleep and help you
Speaker 1: wake up in this and that it gets very it's
Speaker 1: it takes away from what you're trying to do, which
Speaker 1: is sleep. And so I think the the idea of
Speaker 1: these gadgets that sit on your bedside that don't really
Speaker 1: do much. They seem like an alarm clock, but they're
Speaker 1: tracking you. I think they're on to the right They're
Speaker 1: on to the right path there. All right, Uh, let's
Speaker 1: see Marcia. What's the difference between Marcia and Marcia Marcia
Speaker 1: m A r Cia. Is that Marcia or Marsha I
Speaker 1: don't know, so either way, Hi, Rich, love your show
Speaker 1: and Instagram very informative. By the way, do you know,
Speaker 1: I just started doing TikTok and I had like two
Speaker 1: viral videos on TikTok within the first week. Now, I'm
Speaker 1: not bragging about that. It's actually a bigger I see
Speaker 1: why TikTok is so popular with creators. It's because you
Speaker 1: can go on someone like me. I had zero followers
Speaker 1: on TikTok and I posted you know, five, let's say,
Speaker 1: six videos, and out of those six videos, two went
Speaker 1: viral with over five hundred thousand views or something of
Speaker 1: that nature. And so, you know, not a huge hit,
Speaker 1: but still with zero followers, the fact that you can
Speaker 1: accrue a half a million views is quite remarkable. And
Speaker 1: the reason that's possible is because TikTok has a method
Speaker 1: where it kind of lifts you up and it puts
Speaker 1: you down the stream, right, And I'm using that as
Speaker 1: kind of a euphemism for how they do things on Instagram. Historically,
Speaker 1: you had to build your followers, and your followers would
Speaker 1: see your stuff. And now they've switched gears to this
Speaker 1: reels and suggested method because even if you don't have followers,
Speaker 1: they'll still show your stuff to people. And that's way
Speaker 1: TikTok has done it all all forever. And so now
Speaker 1: you're seeing all the other social media companies say, hmm, okay,
Speaker 1: I see what TikTok's doing. It's become so popular because
Speaker 1: people know that they can make a video and have
Speaker 1: it go viral without having a basis of followers first.
Speaker 1: And that's really powerful for creators because it means that
Speaker 1: you can pick up followers along the way by doing
Speaker 1: good stuff. And you know, I'm not gonna say everything
Speaker 1: on TikTok is good, but it's a really it's an
Speaker 1: inverse of the way all social media started. You build
Speaker 1: your followers, your stuff is seen by your followers. Your
Speaker 1: followers may or may not share. There was never even
Speaker 1: a shareability feature in the uh Instagram. And I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna see more changes to Instagram because of this,
Speaker 1: because those same videos and Instagram, yeah they did okay,
Speaker 1: but they're not doing as well because they are you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's limited. Instagram is still just kind of playing
Speaker 1: with the idea of suggested stuff, and you still need
Speaker 1: that follower base to really have your stuff shown. And
Speaker 1: so TikTok, you could post one video, it can go
Speaker 1: instantly viral and now you've picked up a bunch of followers.
Speaker 1: And anyway, uh uh okay, so uh yeah, and and
Speaker 1: hot hot bait, Hot Beebie says peeps want info for
Speaker 1: knowledge enhancement, not just and I agree. Instagram has always
Speaker 1: been this place where pictures kind of ruled, and TikTok
Speaker 1: you would flip through and get a lot of information
Speaker 1: about how to do things or whatever, just a lot.
Speaker 1: It was just to me, TikTok was a lot of
Speaker 1: people just sharing their their knowledge and their head on
Speaker 1: whatever they're smart about and putting that in a video.
Speaker 1: And it's still a huge amount of that stuff. There's
Speaker 1: also a lot of stuff you got to watch out
Speaker 1: for that's not super true. And so you gotta be
Speaker 1: careful because a lot of things, a lot of people
Speaker 1: like my kids, are getting a lot of information from
Speaker 1: TikTok that is just misinformation. It's just not true, and
Speaker 1: so you have to kind of you know, as an adult,
Speaker 1: you're looking and you're like, that's it doesn't like it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem very true, all right, So uh, Marcia or
Speaker 1: Marcia says question, I have an eight iPhone eight plus.
Speaker 1: I can hear the laughter. That still works great. I'm
Speaker 1: recommending I'm wondering what you'd recommend in the form of
Speaker 1: a power bank for travel. I have an anchor, but
Speaker 1: it went out in a couple of weeks, time a
Speaker 1: couple of years, so time for something to replace. Any
Speaker 1: suggestions would be welcome, Thank you so much. I would
Speaker 1: still recommend an Anchor iPhone eight plus. I do believe
Speaker 1: iPhone eight was the first with fast charging. So what
Speaker 1: you want to look for on the iPhone eight yeah,
Speaker 1: is you can basically get a charger that supports twenty
Speaker 1: watts versus five watts. So what you want to do is,
Speaker 1: I think you want to find a charger that lets
Speaker 1: you charge with USBC. So a lot of these chargers
Speaker 1: are kind of shady. On Amazon. They will have a
Speaker 1: USBC port, but it's only to charge up the charger.
Speaker 1: You have to then charge your device through the USB,
Speaker 1: the old school, the big USB. So you want to
Speaker 1: look for a charger that lets you in and out
Speaker 1: through USBC. And they're a little bit more expensive. So
Speaker 1: if you notice the chargers when you're looking on Amazon,
Speaker 1: the cheap ones you can get one for fifteen bucks
Speaker 1: a power bank, but the expensive ones, you want to
Speaker 1: get a power bank that has USBC in and out,
Speaker 1: so read the fine print. I still recommend Anchor as
Speaker 1: my go to power bank. They have done really well
Speaker 1: with these things. They work great, So let's just look
Speaker 1: at the top. Okay. So the top one, okay, let's
Speaker 1: look at the top three. Okay. So the first one
Speaker 1: is the power anchor three thirteen twenty two dollars. It's
Speaker 1: got USBC recharge only that means we don't want it.
Speaker 1: It's not going to charge your phone as fast as
Speaker 1: it can. Next one is the same one. Next one
Speaker 1: is the three thirty seven. It's sixty dollars, so it's
Speaker 1: a lot more money. So it's going to turn people off.
Speaker 1: But if you look at it, let's see does it
Speaker 1: have input and output USBC. Let's see, you gotta you
Speaker 1: really have to look at these at the fine print here.
Speaker 1: So it's got three USB USBU and it's got dual
Speaker 1: input ports. Okay, I don't think this one has USBC either. Output.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, output is maximum of yeah. Nope, So we
Speaker 1: don't want that one either, Okay, So let's keep looking
Speaker 1: three thirty seven. Uh, let's see here, okay, three twenty five.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, there's too many of these for me to
Speaker 1: look at them right now. But if we look at
Speaker 1: this one, okay, so if we look at this one
Speaker 1: that is fifty dollars, this is a magnetic one which
Speaker 1: is wireless, which you don't need, but it does have
Speaker 1: USBC and it seems to be in and out. So anyway,
Speaker 1: just look at the look at the writing because you
Speaker 1: need to make sure look at the fine print that
Speaker 1: USBC lets you charge it through USBC but also lets
Speaker 1: you charge your phone through USBC. So yeah, okay, this
Speaker 1: one says built in by directional USB c ports. That's
Speaker 1: what you want to look for, by directional USB. If
Speaker 1: you don't see that on the charger that you purchase,
Speaker 1: I would go somewhere else because USBC is going to
Speaker 1: give you the fastest possible charge for your phone. iPhones
Speaker 1: charge really slow to begin with. They're not the fastest
Speaker 1: in the world to charge. Samsung charges faster, Pixel charges faster.
Speaker 1: One plus charges really fast, so you definitely want to
Speaker 1: find a USBC BI directional to charge even this older
Speaker 1: even this older iPhone eight plus. All right, got a
Speaker 1: couple of things to get through. Let's just get through
Speaker 1: this T Mobile expanding their Wi Fi So if you
Speaker 1: have Tea Mobile now you can get free Wi Fi
Speaker 1: in flight Wi Fi on United as well, including if
Speaker 1: you're on the Max Plan, you get it on every flight.
Speaker 1: If you're on the Magenta, you get it four times
Speaker 1: a year, I believe. But definitely a great thing to
Speaker 1: take advantage of. So they also do this on American
Speaker 1: Alaska and Delta. So if you have Tea mobile in flight,
Speaker 1: in flight charging is great or Wi Fi oh, Gil
Speaker 1: says yes. So Gil says, my daughter watched reels video
Speaker 1: and all her Facebook videos now or his or her
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, is cooking reels. Is there a way
Speaker 1: to stop this? Absolutely, And the same thing you can
Speaker 1: do on TikTok. On TikTok, you press and hold the
Speaker 1: video and it says not interested. This happened to me
Speaker 1: when I was looking up how to make salmon bowls
Speaker 1: and every one of my videos was flipping through. It
Speaker 1: would be cooking videos for salmon. Press and hold and
Speaker 1: it should say not interested. On Facebook, I'm not completely sure,
Speaker 1: but there should be an option in the menu to
Speaker 1: go into the menu on that video and just say
Speaker 1: not interested. I know you can press and hold on
Speaker 1: the explore page and it will bring up a not
Speaker 1: interested menu. But you can definitely train these algorithms. If
Speaker 1: you looked at one video one time and now all
Speaker 1: you're seeing is that sort of video. Look for the
Speaker 1: option that says not interested. That's what you want to do.
Speaker 1: Let's see. I think that's it. I do want to
Speaker 1: just mention one more thing before we go. If you
Speaker 1: have an and alex A in the house, you know
Speaker 1: that A L e x A. You can do some
Speaker 1: fun stuff with this for the holidays, for the you know,
Speaker 1: the Halloween. So you can hear a couple of the commands.
Speaker 1: You can say a let's get spooky, and it will
Speaker 1: give you some ideas on how to make your home
Speaker 1: more festives, such as Halloween themed jokes, games, and creepy noises.
Speaker 1: A start Spooky Halloween Sounds that's pretty self explanatory, plays
Speaker 1: a loop of spooky Halloween noises. A launch ghost Detector.
Speaker 1: If you want to become a real life ghostbuster in
Speaker 1: your own home, you can try this game A trick
Speaker 1: or Treat. It'll play bad Halloween jokes and fun surprises.
Speaker 1: A give me a spooky rap, super corny but fun
Speaker 1: Halloween themed rap. A tell me a zombie joke or
Speaker 1: a Halloween joke, Dad jokes but spooky, and then ghost
Speaker 1: A start ghost stories. This says not for the faint
Speaker 1: of heart, for that's a little bit more, maybe not
Speaker 1: for the kids, so that sound does mean that is
Speaker 1: going to do it. For the end of the show,
Speaker 1: Francis said, this was great info. Thank you Rich. Thank
Speaker 1: you Francis for tuning in and watching. I do these
Speaker 1: from time to time. There is a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: on me to do a performance that is good for
Speaker 1: Instagram Live, but also keeping my podcast that most people
Speaker 1: listen to audio only, keeping it fun and not distracted
Speaker 1: for them. So this is it really flexes a lot
Speaker 1: of different muscles when it comes to somehow answering questions
Speaker 1: and doing things with people on live at the same time.
Speaker 1: So I don't always do it, but it is fun.
Speaker 1: Purple Girl sixty three says, thank you. This my first
Speaker 1: time listening to your podcast. How often you do it
Speaker 1: on Instagram any time I feel like it, So usually
Speaker 1: on Fridays, depending on the time, but I don't really
Speaker 1: announce it before because it depends on my schedule. Thank
Speaker 1: you Rich. What's the podcast name? The podcast is called
Speaker 1: rich on Tech, So if you search in Spotify or
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, just search rich on Tech. You can subscribe
Speaker 1: and you'll get the audio. Anna says, just update on
Speaker 1: my sleep alarm to wake up gradually. Yes, I love
Speaker 1: it all right. I got a whole bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: to stay here, so let me close out the show here.
Speaker 1: That's going to do it for this episode of the show.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
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 hit the email icon.
Speaker 1: I'd love it if you would rate and review this podcast.
Speaker 1: Go to the listening app of your choice, write a
Speaker 1: quick line about what you like about the show. If
Speaker 1: you can find me on social media, I am at
Speaker 1: rich on Tech, So if you're not following me on TikTok,
Speaker 1: find me there TikTok, rich on Tech, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: all those places same name, no matter where you live
Speaker 1: in the US. Download the free ktla plus app on fireTV,
Speaker 1: Apple tvn Roku. Scroll to the tech section. You can
Speaker 1: watch all my TV segments on demand. My name is
Speaker 1: rich Demiro. Thank you so much for listening. There are
Speaker 1: so many ways you can spend an hour of your time.
Speaker 1: I do appreciate you spending it right here with me.
Speaker 1: Have a great weekend. I'll talk to you real soon.