February 12, 2021 • 58 mins
Alexa can now answer your front door; Roku expands its free live TV offering with new channels; Visible now supports eSim; Amazon Echo Frames review; hands-free driving on the Cadillac Escalade; Disney+ has a lot of subscribers; Instagram demotes TikTok content; Google Photos gets a new video editor and the Apple watch is really popular among iPhone users.Listeners ask about a reliable faxing service, privacy issues around Alexa glasses, paying for hacking protection and free over the air radio apps for the iPhone.Follow RichIPO investment websiteAlexa answers the front doorRoku new channelsVisibleAmazon Echo FramesCadillac EscaladeDisney+Instagram TikTokGoogle Photos video editorApple Watch statsFaxing serviceSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I'm obsessed with the Amazon Echo frames. Alexa can now
answer your door? How much would you have if you
invested one thousand dollars in a hot tech ipo? Plus
your tech questions answered? What's going on on?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Rich Tomiro? And this is rich on.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff
I think you should know about. And it's also the
place where I answer the questions you send me and
believe you me yes. Send a lot of them, and
you might be surprised that I actually respond to a
majority of them, whether it's by Instagram at richon Tech,
Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech, Hello at Richontech,
(00:52):
dot TV, carrier pigeon, I don't know, see me in
the streets. Ask me a question that rarely happened right
now because I'm not out and about as much as
I used to be. Again, my name is Richard Meiro,
tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Welcome
to the show. I say show because I hope that
(01:12):
this entertains you, informs you, makes you want to listen again.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
That's the whole goal of this.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Right is to really just share some knowledge. And I
don't have the answers to everything. Believe me, I don't,
but I try to answer questions that represent what you're
sending in what you're asking me, and hopefully things that
can help other people at large, because you know, we
think as Techi's that well, I don't, but some people
(01:38):
think that everyone has the answer when it comes to tech,
and we don't. We're all just learning, we're all just
figuring this stuff out, and sometimes you just got to
go hands on and try it and see and you know,
just see what's going on with some of this stuff.
And one of the things that I played around with
last week which was really really cool is the Cadillac
(02:00):
Escalade twenty twenty one edition. This has GM supercrus and
not just Super Crews because that's been around for a while,
but this one had super Cruise along with hands free
well hands free I guess driving, and then auto lane change,
and let me.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Tell you, it was seriously, seriously cool.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I mean, I just loved the ability to set this
car into hands free mode basically drives itself, and then
if you want to change lanes, it changes lanes. And
here's the best part about how it changes lanes. It's
not like me when I change lanes I kind of
creep over because I'm a little scared there might be
a car in my blind spot. No, no, No, This thing,
even though it's a giant car, has so much big
(02:42):
data surrounding it with all the sensors and you know,
cameras and whatever it's using to figure this stuff out,
that it just changes lanes when it knows it can.
There's no hesitation, there's no wishy washiness.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
It just sort of works. And it was.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Impres I said one hundred and six thousand dollars car,
So I'm not buying it anytime soon, but it was
a really beautiful car. I love where this is going,
and I think it's just really nice to realize that
Tesla is not the only company in town when it
comes to the smart driving stuff and the hands free driving.
I think that they're way ahead of everyone. But these
(03:21):
historic car companies are not going to just kind of
not figure this stuff out right. They are going to
It took them a little bit longer, but they're getting
there and the next car that I'll be testing doing
so I used to do this thing called tech Report
test drive long time ago at KTLA, and then I
kind of stopped. I was only doing hybrids, you know,
(03:42):
like I wanted to do any car that's sort of
a you know, not just a gas car. Now, the Escalate, yes,
it was full gas and only you know, fourteen miles
to the gallon. But you know that's it's because it
had a feature that's unique. The hands free was unique.
But also the auto lane was brand new. So for
that reason, I make an exception. But I generally like
(04:05):
to test cars that are alternative. You know, they have
a either hybrid or they are all electric or something else.
I haven't really done a hydrogen one, but anyway, the
next one up I'm gonna test out is called the
Volkswagen ID four.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
This is their big electric car.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I hope I can mention that, but I'm looking forward
to testing that because there's just so many electric cars
coming along. I'm in the market for a car in
the next couple of years, and so when I do that,
I'm still trying to decide am I going to go
full electric, which I'm leaning towards, or maybe I don't know.
We'll say so that's my story, sticking to it.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Let's get some Let's get to some of the news
of the week.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Let's see what do we want to start with here,
Let's start with uh, well, gosh, is there not one
big story this week?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Maybe there isn't a missing it.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
But Alexa can now answer your doorbell and ring. I've
talked about this in the podcast before, but I'm very
I think it's bullish. Is bullish when you're hot on something? Yeah,
So I am bullish on Ring because what they're doing
I think is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else.
(05:17):
As far as a full kind of system. I mean,
there's a million cool security systems out there. I use Weight,
I use the Wisecam, I've got some nestcams. But when
you really look at like if you wanted a full
solution for everything around your house, when you look at Ring,
I mean, they've got so many products. It's like they're
coming out with new stuff all the time. And so
now they have this cool new feature. Three new features, Okay,
(05:40):
they're called smart Responses, and there's kind of three of them.
So the first is Alexa Greeting. So if you have
a Ring Video Doorbell Pro and you're a Ring protect subscriber,
which you probably should be if you have a Ring
because it's like three bucks a month, then it gives
you access to recordings. If not, then you can only
live stream your camera, which would not be very good.
(06:02):
But Alexa can greet visitors when they ring the doorbell,
and then she can kind of go back and forth
with them, so the person can say, you know, it'd
be like hey this Alexa, can I help you? And
it'll be like, hey, I have a package for rich
and then she can say like does it need a signature?
And you can even tell the delivery person where to
put the package, so that's really cool. Then you've got
(06:22):
quick replies and this is for all of the doorbells
from Ring and when you don't feel like answering or
you're not there, it can leave six preset responses like
we can't answer the door right now, leave a message,
leave the package outside, or you can. You know, there's
like six of these things, which I thought was really cool.
Now the catch here is that if they leave a
(06:44):
recorded message, you'll only see it if again, you're a
Ring Protect subscriber, so otherwise, you know, if you look
at a ring video doorbell, it's good if you want
to just watch out your front door when someone rings
and get that live view, but the reality is you
probably want a record of everyone that rings your doorbell
or comes near it with the motion, So in that
case you need to be a Ring Protect subscriber and
(07:05):
you can see your event history and these messages people
are leaving, so that's cool. And finally, motion warnings, and
this is just kind of a no brainer.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
One.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Motion warnings say an audible alert when someone triggers a recording,
So if they come near one of your cameras, whether
it's a spotlight cam, a floodlight cam, an indoorcam, or
a wired doorbell. This only works with wired doorbells.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It will say.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Warning, you're now being monitored and recorded by Ring and
that's a cool detern as well. And again, these are
all really cool features. The problem is that they don't
necessarily work with everything, and so I think that's kind
of the you know, the only problem with these things
is that you have to know exactly which doorbell you
(07:51):
have and figure out which one of these things works
with them, because not everything works.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And I understand why.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I think Ring has this thing where like a lot
of it's robells are battery powered, and it can't just
introduce all these features on battery powered doorbells. A battery
go dead in like a day. Cody says, Hey, Rich,
I'm looking for a reliable mobile faxing app that provides
the best value. Can you please suggest one. I love
(08:18):
watching your segments on KTLA. Thank you well, Cody. I
have what I use, and what I have been using
for a long time is it's kind of a one
to two punch. I don't really fax, but I do
use a I will sign things and then email them.
So what I use for that is called Hello Facts
(08:38):
if you need to fax something, and Hello Fax is fantastic.
It's now owned by Dropbox and it's great. And so
if I've never really had a problem with sending faxes,
like I think it's always been free, but it's it's
free for up to five fax pages and then after
that it's ten dollars a month for up to three
(08:59):
hundred fax pages. Now I don't really understand. I feel
like I've never had to actually pay for it, but
maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Let me look at what I use. So what I use.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The other thing that I use is called Hello Sign again,
same company, now owned by Dropbox. But that's you know,
so the difference is Hello Sign you sign it in
your browser and then you download it or you email it,
whereas with Hello Facts, you would actually fax it out.
So when I look at pricing for Hello Sign, yeah, okay,
(09:32):
so you get this is why I've never had to
pay for Hello Sign because it's three signature requests per month,
and I've never had to use more than that. I mean,
if I was, you know, I usually use this for
like freelance gigs that I pick up here and there.
So if I get a freelance gig and I have
to sign a contract for some sort of you know deal,
like when I hosted CES, I will use Hello Sign.
(09:53):
And that's why I've never I've never done more than
three in a month. That would be an amazing thing.
I don't think why schedule could handle more than three.
But if I could, hate I mean, if you got
a project, call me.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
But wow. So those are the two I recommend. Hello
Sign and Hello Facts. That's it.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I mean, there's also e Facts. I mean that's been
around forever and ever and ever.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
You can use that.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
And there are some assorted apps on Android. There was
one I was actually at a doctor's office. This was
so long ago, but I was at a doctor's office.
And I had something on my phone that they needed,
like I don't know if it was a prescription or
you know, sometimes when you get a referral, you have
to like show them, and they couldn't look at it
on my phone for some reason. They couldn't take an email,
(10:36):
but they could take a fax, and so I said,
all right, let me see if I can fax for
my phone. And sure enough I was able to fax
for my phone and it worked great, and the person
behind the desk was very impressed, even though they weren't
as impressed as I wanted them to be, because I'm
always like, oh, can you you know, like I really wanted.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So I'm looking for this on my library and I
and my Android, and I can't really find it right
off the top here because my kid is downloaded so
many games that they're all taking up. I gotta go
through and clean that up. Anyway I would, I would
just use those two Hello sign Hello facts, and I
think those will be great for you. All right, let's
go to let's see some other news. Hm, let's see here,
(11:17):
let's talk about oh, you know what, let me talk
about the echo frames because I am obsessed. It has
been so long that I've gotten a gadget where I
just am like so infatuated with the gadget and the
Amazon Echo frames are that gadget. Now, I'm not saying
you need to rush out and buy these. I'm not
saying that you need to purchase these or you know, anything,
(11:38):
but I'm just saying this is where we're headed. And
it's so clear when I try a gadget like this
that there is still a lot of room for things
to just sort of amaze us in the future.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
When it comes to technology.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
The last thing, you know, it's like the iPhone, the iPad,
a couple things like that, little you know, little gadgets
here and there. But these are just magical. So there
are pair glasses two hundred and fifty dollars. They've got
speakers built in, They've got microphones built in. You charge
them up and you put them on and next thing
you know, you've got hands free access to Alexa. But
you've also got these little speakers on your ears at
(12:13):
all times. So that means you can listen to music,
you can listen to podcasts, you can make phone calls.
It sinks perfectly with your iPhone, sinks perfectly with Android
I tested it. You can activate Siri through it, not
hands free, but you can tap on the side of
the device. Yeah, Siri activated on my iPad here, no
(12:34):
please stop, go away, But you can activate you know
who and also Google Assistant by tapping and holding on
the side of the device and that works perfectly. So
I've just been loving these things. I mean, I've been
walking around the block with them on, listening to podcasts,
I've been working at my desk. And the beauty of
them is that there's nothing in your ears, so it
(12:56):
does not feel like you're wearing headphones, and you wouldn't
wear headphones at work all day.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Maybe some people can wear them on their computer all day.
I'm not one of those people, but with these, I can't.
And I can have nice ambient music if I'm you know,
I can't really have too much going on if I'm
trying to concentrate on jamming out a script or something.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But if I'm just kind of casually.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Browsing the web, looking at stories, reading stuff gently, then
I could, you know, listen to some soft music, you know,
like some instrumental stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Man, everything's just blown up on me right here. That
was one of my stories. So I'm really impressed.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Two fifty you can get your your own prescription lenses
put in them, and I just think they're really great.
I think they are there. They're the second generation, so
there's more to come. But if I wore glasses, I
think that I would definitely get these. I don't wear glasses,
so I don't necessarily need them. And the thing is
(13:51):
they send them with like window panes, but I think
that they're missing an opportunity here to do like blue blocker.
And I know I did a story and they said
blue blockers don't really do anything, but I think that
you would feel better knowing that you were wearing blue
blocker glasses all day long versus just wearing window panes
all day long, right, So why not just put a
little blue blocker in there so that you get that?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So I just really really impressed.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Battery life, audio quality could be a little bit improved,
but so far, so good. Amazon, very very impressed, very lightweight,
just really really cool.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So just so impressed with those. I can't get over
it all. Right.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Another thing that I tested out this week is the
Tula mic. I think I talked about this, but this
is a microphone that's a USB mic, but it also
records into itself, so you can use it for your
zoom calls, or you can use it to just record stuff.
And it's a great little microphone.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
I think it sounds good and I recorded a podcast
episode in it a couple of weeks ago. I probably
told you this story already, but I just think it's
a really cool little mic. Again, it's two hundred dollars,
so it's expensive, but you'd do get a lot for
that price. I mean you get the internal memory recording.
So let's say you want to record your podcast in
the field, you just have to have this mic and
(15:08):
that's it. Nothing else. I mean, how much easier does
it get. You don't have to have a computer, you
don't have to have a fancy setup. You just do
that and it's done. So I thought that was really cool.
Those are two gadgets I tested this week. I've got
the reviews on my website, rich on tech dot tv
if you want to read more about them.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Let's get to another question.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Gil says, Oh my god, Rich, I love those Alexa glasses,
but concerned about privacy issues, isn't this another way of
collecting more data about our personal.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Activities and choices.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Should we just accept the fact that nothing is sacred
any longer? Egad? What does egad mean? I don't know, egad,
I don't know. Gil, have a magical day, egad? I
don't oh expressing surprise, anger, or affirmation. Okay, I didn't egad. Okay,
(15:58):
I learned something new today. Never saw that word? Okay, Gil,
great segue from the I just talked about these you know,
is it collecting more information? I'd have to look at
the privacy policy of the Echo frames to see. But
to be completely honest with this stuff, you know what,
I am one of those people that, yes, I am
(16:19):
concerned about privacy. I think that we should have a
we should have privacy, and we should have a respectable
sort of understanding of that privacy when it comes to
these smart devices, like a reasonable expectation, I should say,
if you get one of these smart speakers in your
home and you put it in your room, it should
(16:40):
not The expectation is that it's not listening and sending
all that data back twenty four to seven to Google
or Amazon or Apple. But sometimes they do misfire and
they do activate, and they do catch things off guard. Now,
are these Echo frames collecting any more data?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I mean, they don't have GPS on them, although I
did notice that the Alexa app asked for my GPS
location when I installed it on my Android. I don't
know about iOS, but so it could you know if
you're wearing them. It may know where you're wearing them,
and how often and for how long of course, the
commands that you use. So yes, there is definitely a
(17:22):
privacy issue, and I think that when it comes to
any of these smart home gadgets, you have to weigh
the pros and the cons. Are the benefits you get
out of these glasses worth the extra data that Amazon
gets on you? And by that extra data, you know,
it's like I said, some of the location data, some
of the things you're asking it may pick up things
(17:44):
in the background that you didn't intend it to. But
we have to decide what level we're comfortable with. Personally,
I'm comfortable with a lot of that stuff. I think
what I'm not comfortable with is things that collect personal information, like.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
You know, financing, banking. That kind of stuff is.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Where I draw the line. I'm very critical about that.
But when it comes to like where.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I am, where I'm using things, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Totally totally concerned because you know, I kind of I'm
getting something in return for some of the uh you know,
some of the different services that I use. So that's
I know, it's not the best answer in the world,
but the reality is we just kind of have to.
Every one of us just has to do what we
feel is best. And I get people that say I'll
never put a Google device in my house because of
(18:33):
this stuff, and I get other people that have a
ton of them, like myself, and again, it just depends
on what your level of comfort is. So it's a
good question and it's something we do need to keep
in mind. And when I do stories with any any uh,
you know, app developer or anything that I do a
story on, at this point, I do ask if I
do an interview about the privacy implications of those devices,
(18:56):
And that's just the reality of it. All right, Let's
let's see here, let's talk about let's.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Just do a quick one. Disney plus ninety almost ninety
five million customers.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
In fact, they probably do have ninety five million, because
this was according to Variety as of January second twenty
twenty one, they had ninety four point nine million, which
is more than eight million extra in one month. So
that tops Disney's original projections of having ninety million subscribers
within the first four years.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I think it's been just over a year.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Right, a year and a half, So it's Disney Plus
is killing it, and it's it's amazing to see a
company like Disney that people love and they've they've done
a great job in the historic world of entertainment. And
I say historic when I mean like broadcast movies, that
kind of stuff, and it's good to see a company
(19:53):
that can just as nimbly adapt to the new reality
of streaming of you know, twenty five seven access movies
that are not going to theaters. They're just going straight
to video. And they're doing pretty well. So if you
do ninety ninety five million times, let's see, it's seven
(20:13):
bucks a month something like that. So that's uh so
six hundred and sixty five million dollars a month they
are generating off of Disney Plus. I'd call that a win.
That is pretty good. Now they pale in comparison to Netflix.
I think Netflix has I don't know, I don't well
how many Netflix subscribers do they have. Let's see, this
(20:35):
is uh, let's see they have okay, two hundred almost
two hundred million to double. Okay, so they're doing pretty well.
I mean, that's that's pretty good for something that came out.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
The trick of all these streaming services is that they
just need to have one thing that you want to
watch every single time you're ready to cancel. So if
you're watching WandaVision right now, it's like you watch that
and then okay, oh, now there's a movie for my kids, Okay,
we'll keep. And I don't think a lot of people
are rushing to cancel Disney Plus just because it's Disney
Plus and if you have kids is kind of a given.
(21:10):
Netflix overall is kind of a given. I think, you know, Hulu,
all the rest of them are sort of on a
case by case basis. HBO Max is really picking up
some steam now. I think that, you know, for me personally,
with the diversity of how many folks we have in
the house, we have four different people, different ages, my wife, me,
(21:31):
my two kids, and of course all the assorted klingons
that are that are perhaps sharing my accounts in different places.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
You know, everyone has something that they're watching all the time.
And so whenever I approach.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
The you know, let's cancel Netflix. Eh, not canceling Netflix. Oh,
let's cancel Disney Plus because there's nothing right now. No,
we're not canceling that. Let's cancel Hulu. No, we're watching
I mean, my wife and I are watching this new
show on Hulu that's you know, it's just a silly show.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It's called Call.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Your your Mom, Call your mother. Yeah, call your mother,
and it's just silly. But we're watching it, and so
it's like, we're not going to cancel right now after
episode three, We're just going to continue watching it. So
I think that's kind of what all these things do
and the more stuff that they have, and this is
why they're they have such an you know, an emphasis
on new programming is there's a lot of different people watching,
(22:22):
and so you need to have stuff that appeals to
different people because.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Not everything's gonna appeal to everyone.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
This is no longer broadcast networks with a show that
you know, appeals to the mass audience. There are so
many little shows on Netflix to discover and Hulu and
all these other services that you know, one size does
not fit all anymore. And sometimes if you have a
hit that bubbles up and does reach that mass market appeal,
(22:48):
that's when you know you have a winner. And that's
when you really really seal the deal with folks, because
that's when you know you're considered very successful. And that's
really it's not the goal, I would say, but when
it happens, it's it's a pretty good feeling, all right,
(23:09):
all right, Bill writes in. Bill says, Hey, Rich, I've
been listening to your podcast for a relatively short time,
but I've learned to pay attention to your advice. I
have all Apple, seven year old MacBook Pro, two iPhones,
and an ancient Macmini. I am looking for a password
manager and malware destroyer. My son also has recommended web roote.
(23:33):
I use clean my Mac. I feel like I did
this question ALRIGHTY did I do this question? I think
I did this question already. I'm gonna so maybe we'll
I should keep track of the questions that I do
because I'm looking at the date. Okay, this is weird.
I'm looking at the date of this question, and the
original question was written to me on September thirteenth, which
(23:53):
I can't.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
That can't be right.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
But then the update was written on Sunday, September seventh.
He said, Oh, I forgot to tell you I have
a seven iPhone seven and eight plus. I don't know
you know anyway, Let's see what the question is.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Uh, I use Clean my Mac.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
My point is, if I'm gonna pay a fee monthly
or annually, you know, I want something easy to use
and effective.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Thank you for all the help.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So okay, malware destroyer, I would say, uh, Clean my
Mac is a great is a great product, and they
do have some malware scanning stuff in there. I also
think malware bytes is really good. So if I were you,
I would use Clean my Mac on your Mac. You have,
let's see a seven year old MacBook Pro and an
ancient Macmini. Now, when it comes to the iPhones, sorry
(24:35):
to burst your bubble, but you don't need anything on there.
There's no there's nothing that's gonna find malware on an iPhone.
There's no antivirus that's gonna work on there. It's just
iPhone doesn't work that way. So don't worry about the iPhones.
They're gonna be just fine as long as you're not
jail breaking them, which I don't think you are, but
the rest of them, yeah, I would definitely recommend Clean
my Mac or malware Bytes. Maybe start with malware Bytes
(24:57):
I think they have a free version and then move
up to Clean my Mac because you there is a
subscription aspect to Clean my Mac and you can either
do set app, which is you said that in your email,
which is kind of a recurring subscription. I think it's
ten dollars a month or you can just pay one time,
or you can pay for the year.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
So you have to decide, you.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Know how much you want this and how many devices
you want to install it on, and how much you're
willing to pay.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
But that is what I would recommend, all right.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Just a quick quick note, this is a little bit
of news out of Visible. Visible is a service that
I fully, fully recommend. There are two alternative carriers that
I really like. One of them is mint Mobile, the
other one is Visible, And I also like Cricket as well.
And these carriers what's unique about them? Cricket and Visible
(25:49):
are both sort of I don't know Cricket. I think
Cricket is a subsidiary of AT and T. I know
they run on AT and T. Is Cricket owned by
AT and T. By AT and T, I think it is, uh,
you know what Cricket. Yeah, Cricket is owned by AT
and T. So you've got Cricket that's owned by AT
(26:10):
and T. Then you've got Visible that's owned by Verizon.
And the thing about these carriers is that they have
a whole separate brand identity so that they can operate
sort of independently. But they're using the AT and T network,
and they're using the Verizon network in the case of Visible,
so in mint use is not owned by T Mobile,
but they use T Mobiles network, So it kind of
(26:31):
depends which network you want, which one's the strongest.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
In your area.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
But Visible is really really cool because it's unlimited for
forty dollars a month, and now they're offering five G.
So it's capped up to two hundred megabits per second,
but I mean, hey, it's five G and you get
that fast speed.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It used to be Visible was.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Capped at five megabits per second, so two hundred is
pretty good. And now you get calling to Canada, Mexico, US,
Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, And I think, what the
most important thing they have in their new announcement is
e SIM compatibility. So it used to be the biggest
problem with setting up Visible is that you had to
get one of their SIM cards. And for the average
(27:12):
person that's doing this, that's a little tricky, Like you know,
it's it's not something that everyone's familiar with. It's not
something that makes a lot of sense to people. Plus
you have to wait, so there's no impulse buy for Visible.
You can't just say I'm gonna switch today. You have
to do all this research and all of a sudden
it's like, oh, I'm not gonna wait a couple of
days to get this SIM card, and it kind of
(27:32):
takes the fun out of it. So now with eSIM,
you can activate a device from home fifteen minutes or
less using an eSIM compatible device. Those devices right now
include pretty much all the recent iPhones from the iPhone
ten S to the twelve Promacs, also the second gen
iPhone S. And then they say that androids are coming soon.
(27:54):
So I think this is a huge win for Visible
that they're embracing the because now you can kind of
hear about Visible for me right now on this podcast
and then look on your iPhone, do the research, see
if it works for you, and boom, you can switch
instantly right from your iPhone. If you have an iPhone
tennis TENNS max ten R eleven twelve se, I mean,
(28:18):
any of those phones, you can just switch right away
in your settings. That's really really cool. And you basically,
I think, you just scan a QR code in your setting.
So the other neat thing about Visible is that you
can have up to four people in your They call
it a party. This is kind of like you just
group up with friends or family and you don't pay
each other's bills, but you're sort of just like in
a group, and you take down your bill by five
(28:41):
dollars a month. So if you have let's say you
join Visible and you love it, and then you tell
your brother that, oh my gosh, you need to join this.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
And here's my.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Little referral thing. Not referral, it's just you party up.
I don't know how you do it. You link up
in the in the setting, some guessing, and now you
each pay thirty five dollars a month. And then when
you say to your sister, hey, we're both on this.
This is really cool. Why don't you join in and
now she pays thirty dollars a month, and you pay
thirty dollars a month, and you all pay thirty. So
(29:10):
it's kind of like you're linking up together and keeping
each other all on this system. And I guess that's
kind of the difference between a referral and you're all
sticking to this. If one person drops out of the party,
everyone's price goes up, so there's a little peer pressure
to sort.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Of all stay on board. And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I got my brother to join Visible and he loves it.
The only thing is, this is the big downside, and
this is why I haven't signed up my wife, because
I would one hundred percent sign her up for this tomorrow.
The problem is, and save like eighty about fifty bucks
a month on Verizon, is that they don't support Apple watches.
Now they should, but they don't, And so that's the
(29:49):
only thing keeping me from signing up my wife for Visible.
I would actually probably sign up now as well, now
that they support five G. I don't need more than
two hundred megabits. I mean, yeah, it's nice sometimes when
you're out in a boat out and you get these super
fast five G speeds, but two hundred megabits per second
is plenty fast for me. So anyway, check out Visible
if you are looking to switch carriers, want to save
(30:10):
some money. Prepaid for everything for forty bucks a month.
I mean, that's that's pretty darn good. So all right,
Bonnie says, I'm getting the COVID shot, and I want
to know if there's any apps out there that are
accepted for travel outside of the United States. I would
like to start traveling and want to know what app
I should have in my phone Android to show that
(30:31):
I receive the shot. Thank you for any help you
can provide. I can't find any app online yet, as
most vendors seem to be working on process. Yeah, Bonnie,
there is nothing that I know of right now that
is a universally accepted COVID vaccine passcard that you can
have on your phone. So if you are getting the
(30:52):
vaccine or got it, you'll get a little card from
the CDC. You see a lot of people tweeting them
that right now is your only proof of getting the
shot now. As a tech person, I of course one
hundred percent agree with what you're talking about. There should
be a card on both Google Wallet or Google Play
or sorry, Google Pay and also Apple Wallet that you
(31:16):
would show and it would be have a digital barcode
that they can scan and verify.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Now, I don't know why this wasn't done from day one.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
I mean, if I was in the government and I
was giving out these shots, I would say, hey, we're
a high tech world, we're a high tech society, Like,
let's get this card that all the countries agree on
is acceptable, and let's get a barcode that links it
back to the CDC.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And I don't know, maybe that's too big government. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I mean, all I'm saying is that it would you know,
it would be nice to have that card. I've seen
a couple, you know, friends and family get them. I
haven't gotten the vaccine yet, but I've seen friends and
family get them that you know, it's a CDC card
and that's it. It's like if you if you have
kids and they get the vaccine at their doctor, they
have this little card. It's like a yellow carr that folds.
And my kids have had it since, you know, since
(32:02):
they were born. I mean, how antiquated is that that
someone literally signs a little card that says your kid
got a vaccine, and I think they might put a
little sticker from the vaccine vile on it maybe, but
it's like you gotta keep that. Well, it's just so like,
that's so old school. Let's get Let's at least have
an option where you can have the card, the old
(32:23):
school cardboard card, but also a card on your iPhone.
That would be fantastic, That's what I would like. And
if you had that, Yeah, then you go to the
airport boom, you're traveling to Hawaii, you show him your card.
I'm vaccinated. And yes, there's gonna be a lot of
fraud with this stuff. I think people are probably faking
this stuff already or in the future if it's required
for various things, people will be faking it. But you know,
(32:47):
we gotta, we gotta think high tech. We gotta and
I get it. Not everyone wants this stuff, but you
can also have both ways. And if you have the card,
the physical card, and an option to put it into
your Apple wall, I think that would be really really cool.
All right, Apple Watch now on one hundred million risks.
(33:08):
This is from above avalon dot Com. Five and a
half years, one hundred million people are wearing it.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
That's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
At the end of twenty twenty, approximately ten percent of
iPhone users, we're wearing an Apple Watch. That is amazing. Now,
this is what I don't understand. How does this make sense.
At the end of twenty twenty, approximately ten percent of
iPhone users were wearing an Apple Watch. Then it says
at the end of twenty twenty, approximately thirty five percent
(33:39):
of iPhone users.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Oh in the US.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Okay, got it, So thirty five percent of the iPhone
users in the US are wearing.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
An Apple Watch. That's pretty impressive. Let's see.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
So what is driving adoption wearables? Fundamentals Leveraging new form
factors and design, They're making technology more personal. I would
totally agree with that. Like, you know, ring is a
perfect sample. I mean, here it is. When someone is
near my front door, I literally get a picture of
them sent to my Apple Watch.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I mean, how cool is that.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
It's just and it's instantaneous, it's fast, and it's one
of those things where, yeah, it could be sent to
your phone, but I'm in my house. I don't always
have my phone nearby or on me, and so of
course I would miss that all the time. But by
getting that little picture sent to my watch. It's like, okay,
it takes two seconds. You look at your wrist, you say, oh, okay, cool,
someone's outside just got my mail delivered. Risk appeal everything
(34:29):
for a great line of site for snippets of text
and data. The cool factor Apple ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
When I go running and I've got the Apple Watch
along with the AirPods, that is a I can't say,
and I've talked about it before on this podcast, is
just an amazing combination.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
It just works so well.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Although I have been having problems with my AirPods lately.
They a little more unreliable than they ever have been.
But anyway, Apple Watch continues to get more popular. I
know that the last couple Apple events they've mentioned, how
you know, it is like not just the most popular
smart watch in the world, but like one of the
most popular watches in the world at this point, which
(35:08):
is great for Apple because it's a it's a huge
growth area. I mean, I think every person I know
that gets an Apple Watch just absolutely falls in love
with it, except for one person I know, he doesn't
really wear it that much. But for the most most
people I know, I mean, they really really love the
Apple Watch, and it's it's pretty easy to understand why.
It's just a great device that compliments your phone in
(35:32):
so many different ways. I mean just little things like
when I'm out and about and you know, let's say
my phone is in the other room and someone calls
me and I can just answer the call my Apple
Watch real quick.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
That is great.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
If I'm out in a run and i can run
without my phone because I've got a cellular connection. So
it's just it's just pretty wild the things that they
have done on this watch that I think.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
It's just really really amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
All right, a couple other stories here. There's so many
little stories. Let's see. This is a cool website.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
One thousand dot in, one thousand dot in. This is
a website that tells.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
You how much would you have if you invested one
thousand dollars in an ipo. Now I've probably told you
this story before. I feel like I'm telling a lot
of stories over. I've been doing this podcast for a
long time, so sometimes I tell stories over and over.
But I will never forget. I was okay, so anyway this,
I'll tell you the story in a second. But this
website one thousand in tells you you put in a
stock ticker symbol, and it tells you how much you
(36:32):
would have if you put one thousand dollars in their ipo. So,
for instance, Netflix, if you put one thousand dollars in
Oh my gosh, if you put one thousand dollars in
Netflix on May twenty third, two thousand and two. Now,
mind you, thousand dollars is a lot of money, but
it doesn't sound like that much money when you're talking
(36:52):
about investing.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Okay, one thousand bucks, are you ready?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
You would have as a February twelfth, twenty twenty one,
the damn recording this four hundred and seventy seven thousand,
eight hundred and fifty dollars. Oh, hold on, that's that
is just I'm I'm shocked right now, A one thousand
dollars would become five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
You could retire.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Or just be very comfortable with your retirement if you were,
you know, oh my gosh, that's almost twenty years later,
five hundred thousand bucks, a return of forty seven thousand,
six hundred and eighty five percent. Okay, So with that
in mind, this is just a fun website where you
can just type in a bunch of different ticker symbols
and see what the deal is. But I'll tell you
my story so I'll never forget. I was in Shreveport, Louisiana,
(37:45):
working as a lowly, lowly paid reporter at the station there.
I was very happy, but you know, you don't make
a lot of money when you're when you're in you know,
reporting in general, but small markets especially.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
But I you know, but I.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Had a couple a little bit of money to my name, right,
I'd saved a little bit of money, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
There's a company called Google that was ipoing.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
And I asked my wife, I said, hey, my girlfriend
at the time, I said, Lynn, this company called Google,
which you know, we know we've heard of, is ipoing
and I think it was about forty two dollars for
the IPO. I said, should I put a couple thousand
bucks into this? And that's all I had to my
whole name might have been like two or three thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And she said, oh, Rich, come on, like what if
you lose it all? Like, you know, come on, We're
not in a place to do that. And I said, oh,
you're right. You're right, You're right. Now, mind you, as
a reporter, I don't generally invest in fact, I have
no individual stocks, especially covering technology. Back then I wasn't
covering technology, but now I don't. As a rule don't
have any individual stocks. I'm not sure if I'm even
(38:50):
allowed to.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
I'd have to check with my company, But in general
i'd just do like mutual funds, right, like just put
the money in there for one k whatever. But this
was a time in my life life when I was like,
let me, let me try this, and so anyway, we
didn't do it. And now thanks to this website, let's
see so Google, Okay, this makes perfect sense because it
says if you would have invested one thousand dollars in
(39:13):
alphabet stocks back in August nineteenth, two thousand and four,
So that exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Lines up with my story.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
That is when I was in Louisiana two thousand and four,
and we left right at the end of that For
that we left the next summer in two thousand and five,
and so yes, my story was true.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
I would have.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Forty one thousand, six hundred and sixty five dollars. Now
when you look at that compared to Netflix. I should
have invested in Netflix, not Google, but I didn't invest
in either, so it doesn't matter. But still, again, I'll
be honest, forty one thousand, six sixty five sounds great,
but when you compare it to Netflix, you get ten
times at So I don't feel like I lost out
(39:52):
that much.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
I mean, it would have been nice.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
But okay, yeah, sure I wish I had this, but
still anyway, and I'll put it in the show notes,
just a cool little you know site that can lets
you reminisce about all those times you lost out.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
You know. Look, and if you want to do the
individual individual stock thing, that's fine. I don't.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I don't believe me. I don't fault you for it
to me personally. I just I don't have the time
and effort to invest in those individual stocks.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I just can't. I'm not smart enough to do that.
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
It's like, I just there are so many smart people
out there that do this for a living. How can
I expect to like outdo them. So I'd rather just
you know, put the money in the mutual fund, let
it sit there, and hopefully one day have some money
for retirement all right, let's get to another question from Diana.
Diana says, hey, Rich, we're senior citizens in Sacramento and
(40:45):
watch your segment often. I have a question for you.
We have a paid for McAfee on our computers for
almost two years. Every three to six months we have
a hacking issue, and they convince us to purchase more
coverage after telling us this is all we need. This
is what we've purchased. Prescription, prescription, what's that firewall? Hacker protection,
(41:07):
IP blocker, and now a hacker blocker?
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Is this common? Would Norton be better? Sorry? I'm laughing.
We are not that tech savvy and it just seems
to be too much.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
It costs us anywhere from two hundred to one thousand
dollars every time we call them.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Do you have any advice for us? Uh?
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, My advice is get rid of this.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
This is insane. How much are you spending on this stuff? Oh?
My gosh, two hundred to one thousand dollars? That is wild.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I don't even understand what you're purchasing. Do they even
give you the pricing on this stuff on their website?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Wow? You know, I don't know. Wow, I'm like in shock.
Right now.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Why do you have so many problems with hacking? I mean,
I don't think you should. I think that either of
these are scams that you're falling for. Every three to
six months, we have a hacking issue. Wow, Okay, what
I would do? I would scan your computers to make
sure that there's nothing going on there your network. Oh gosh,
(42:17):
this is just so I since you're not tech savvy,
I think it's tough to Did you say you're not
tech savvy. I mean, you just said you're senior. You
didn't say you're not tech savy. But ah, I think
that you're getting a little bit taken here because this
is a lot of money to spend, and I think
you just need to cut it off. Stop with the subscriptions,
stop with the purchases.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
No more, no more, no more.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
This is just a bit much. A hacker blocker and
IP blocker, a firewall hacker protection. Let me see what
is firewall hacker protection? McAfee. Let me even see if
they have that McAfee firewall. Okay, yeah, there's just too many,
too many things. Oh wow, there's just too many things
(43:02):
that are offered here. I mean I would say, get
the one product you know, like a total protection. This
says it's twenty nine to ninety nine total protection McAfee
for the year that includes total security, premium antivirus, safe browsing,
ID theft, and secure VPN.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
That's what I would do.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I don't think you need to spend two hundred to
one thousand dollars every time.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
That just seems wild. That is just way too much.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I think that you're paying this money to someone that's
scamming you. I don't think that this is McAfee that's
actually charging you for this stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I think that it's someone else.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
So yeah, I think that you you just you gotta figure,
you gotta, you gotta dial this back. Just stop paying
for it, don't do it. Don't answer the phone when
someone says you have a hacking situation, or if there's
software or something pops up on your computer, unless it's
like a ransomware thing that should not be happening. I
would make sure your computer software is up to date.
(44:04):
I would make sure whatever software you're running on your computer,
just pick one and stick with it. If you have
Windows ten, I think you're fine with just the Windows
Defender that's built into your computer, and maybe just uninstall
this McAfee stuff completely. But I don't think you're getting
hacked every three to six months. I just don't really
see that happening. So sorry to hear that, and uh,
(44:25):
hopefully you are doing okay there in Sacramento. Thanks for
watching this segment. By the way, this is the Roku
channel moving on now. Roku Channel is Roku's, you know,
free programming play that you can get on Roku. They
also have a Roku Channel app that's available for iOS
and Android. But I was not I was familiar with
(44:49):
Roku Channel. I mean, I get the concept, it's got
free movies and TV shows, but they just came out
with thirteen new channels, live channels that this part of
it I was not aware of. They basically have a
cable TV service built into the Roku channel with I
mean it literally looks like cable TV when you dial
it up on your Roku and I dialed this up,
(45:11):
and they've got thirteen new channels, including Baby Shark, Bloomberg,
Western Movies, Hallmark Movies, which a lot of people will
be interested in. Then they have eighties music, nineties music,
country music, hip hop music, Hottest Music, and.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Some other channels.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
As well, and so I look this up on my
Roku and I'm very impressed. I mean it's a lot
of it's literally cable TV for free on your Roku.
So you flip through and I've got it on right now.
It's just literally like everything. You've got NBC News, Weather Channel, Newsy,
USA Today, Yahoo, Reuters, Cheddar, and that's just like the
(45:52):
new stuff. Then you get into sports, then you get
into like entertainment, MTV, CMT. I wonder if Pluto is
powering this, because some of the channels are from Pluto.
Then you've got classic shows, then you've got you know,
retro shows, then you've got science, you've got movie channels.
(46:13):
I mean, this is very, very impressive, and it's all
impressive if you don't mind commercials in your programming. This
is all ads supported, so that's the way they pay
for all this stuff. But if you don't mind that
and you're just looking for free stuff to watch, this
is this is quite impressive. It's literally cable TV and
you don't have to pay a dime. It's just as
(46:34):
long as you've got an Internet connection, you've got it.
They've got kids channels, stuff for kids to watch. They've
got Spanish language programming. They've got like DIY stuff like
Home and Family kind of or What's not Home and
Family Home HGTV. They've got Fashion GQ Channel, Crime channels, Celebrity,
(46:54):
Science Wired. They've got a channel just dedicated to Deal
or No Deal. America's got Talent Family Feud. Those are channels,
so you can just watch Family Feud.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
All day long.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
This is really interesting. So America's Funniest Home Videos. You
could just have that streaming all day long. America's Funniest
Home Videos. They've got a Fireman Sam channel. If you
have kids, you know Fireman Sam. So I was very
impressed with this, And if you have a Roku, check
it out because they've got thirteen channels that are new,
but they've got like one hundred and I think it's
like one hundred and fifty channels total, so it's like
(47:27):
kind of Pluto.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
TV all these things.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
The funny thing is is that they're running these things
as a as a cable TV grid, So there is
no reason in the world that they need to be
streaming this stuff as a program guide or presenting it
in that way. But we're so used to that it
feels fun to flip through channels. People like to flip
through channels. So now I'm just pressing up and I'm
(47:52):
flipping through a channel and these are live streaming, but
they're just basically videos that are linked together, all in
a row, that are just playing one after another, and
a lot of them are old TV shows. I mean,
it's very impressive. I've said that like seven times, but
I'm it's literally like having cable TV for free. I mean,
they've got MTV, they've got so much stuff. I just
(48:14):
got back to the first channel. But even the channel numbers,
like channel one forty five is USA Today, Channel one
sixty is Reuters, Channel one seventy one, now this news.
I mean, it's just wild that you can get all
this for free. And again it's just all ad supported,
So it's kind of like having cable TV if you're
into that. Now, personally, I'm not into just sitting back
(48:37):
and watching stuff that's streaming. I want to kind of
select unless it's news. I want to select what I'm
watching at any given time. But I also see the
beauty of this, like especially the kids channels. So they've
got you know, a bunch of kids channels here that
you know play kids programming all day long. And so
if you want your kids to sit and watch something
that's appropriate for their age, you can. They've got a
(48:59):
Lego channel, I've got Ryan's World. You know that Ryan
Kid on YouTube. He has his own channel, and so
and I also see the benefit of I come from
the old days of TV where things just played, and honestly,
it is a little disturbing to me that when I
put on my Apple TV in the living room, nothing starts,
like nothing, nothing happens. You know, you have to sit
there and choose something. And so sometimes I will just
(49:21):
put on the news in the background because I want
something playing, or I'll put on YouTube in the background
because I just want something playing at all times.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
And I think there's a lot of us out there.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
It's just comforting to have that live stream of something
playing on your TV.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
It's like, it's kind of an older way.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Of thinking about things, but it's kind of what I
grew up with. You just had TV on all the
time in the background. And I think that nowadays everything's
on demand and it's streaming, but it's still there's something
to be said for just that that comfort of knowing
that things are just on and that's exactly what this is.
You've got a kids pop channel, I mean, just wild,
(49:56):
pretty neat some of the channels. The quality is not
that great on some of the lesser channels, but some
of the the program that you can tell that they've
put more into, it's a little bit higher quality. So anyway, Wow,
this question perfectly segues into what I just talked about,
or segues from I should say. Olivia via Instagram at
(50:19):
Richon Tech says, do you know about an app for
Wi Fi slash Internet Free Radio for the iPhone? And
the answer that question, Olivia is no, as far as
I know, there is no support for an internal antenna
or an external intent. Well maybe there's an external No,
probably not, maybe external for Wi Fi and Internet free radio, So.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
I know that the Android phones have that very often,
which you can listen to various radio stations through in
basically just an app on the Android devices. You don't
need to have any sort of Internet connection. The last
phone I tested that had this was the TCL ten series,
(51:07):
and it's such a little thing, but it's such a
cool thing because not everyone has an unlimited data connection,
not everyone has access to full on data and not
everyone wants to just use their data at all times.
So if you can just call up this app, you
have to plug in headphones because that's how it gets
the antenna, but it uses the wire in your headphones
(51:30):
as it's antenna signal, and it literally just pulls the
signal out of the air, just like radio. And you
can listen to this on your phone and there's only
It's always been a big debate because some cell phone
carriers like okay, let's say a Samsung I think supported
it back in the day, or just various carriers supported
or various phones supported it, but you would get the
(51:52):
phone and let's say on I don't know, just picking
a carrier like Sprint would have support for this, you know,
radio stations on your phone through the over the air,
but Verizon would not. And it was kind of a
big differentiating factor. Back when phones were very much locked
down and very much especially on Android, they were very
much customized for the carriers. Now we're seeing a lot
(52:14):
less of that. We're seeing much more of like unlocked
devices and devices that you know, carriers put a little
touch on them, but they don't necessarily change the whole
like we're not seeing like the droid bionics anymore. Remember
when droids came out, they were a Verizon exclusive Android,
and we're now seeing like you know, Samsung especially, it's
like the the Samsung S twenty one comes out on
(52:35):
every carrier, it's pretty much the same. There might be
a couple of little tweaks here and there, but the
software primarily is different. But for the most part it's
the same. Maybe a different processor in different regions, but yet,
I don't know of a way that you can get
that on Apple ever, but I know that on Android,
depending on your device, you could get that. But let's see,
did you specify what you have? Uh no, yeah, you
(52:57):
said iPhone, So yeah, we don't have that fry.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
But good question.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
And it's one of those little things that's just kind
of cool to have. You know, if you're ever in
a place where you didn't have data or no data signal,
you can still listen to radio, so kind of cool.
All right, we got just a little bit more time here.
A couple little quick hits Instagram. You know how you
see those TikTok videos all over Instagram in reels, Well
that's going to start changing because Instagram is going to
(53:23):
start demoting videos that have a watermark, that are covered
with texts, that are blurry, that have a logo or
have a border around them, so they're not going to
be shown as frequently as some of the original content
that is made inside reels. And this is you know,
they didn't specifically say TikTok, but they said, you know, blurry,
(53:44):
have a watermark or logo. And if you look at
all the TikTok videos, when you download a TikTok video,
it comes out with the TikTok watermark on it. And
this was for growth, so that TikTok can grow and
people know where this video came from. But what happens
is that a lot of people that are big on
TikTok or like the creation features because TikTok is really
like one of the most amazing editing apps out there
(54:07):
on mobile. I mean, it's really really amazing for short
form content. They have so many cool features in there.
So people use that to make the content and then
they download it or they put on TikTok and then
they download it and they'll also ship it off to Instagram.
But you can understand why Instagram doesn't like that because
it's like, oh, we're not good enough to make original stuff.
We want to be known for our original content. And
(54:28):
so that's going to be happening. And just be on
the lookout for less TikTok videos. If you start seeing
less TikTok videos and Instagram, you know why on Google Photos.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
This is really cool.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Google Photos is now applying a lot of their magic
to videos. So if you have a video you need
to edit in Google Photos, you can do it. You
can trim your video, you can stabilize it. This is
things you've been able to do before. You can always
trim it, you can always stabilize and always rotate it.
But now you can crop your video, change the perspective,
(55:00):
ad filters, and apply edits like brightness, contrast, saturation, and warmth.
There's thirty controls that you can do on the on
the Google Photos app.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Now.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
The new video editing features are already available in Google
Photos on iOS. I checked, yes they are, and they're
rolling out to Android users in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
And let's see.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
I checked on my Android and let's see if it's
there yet. What's really cool is that these are pretty
powerful filter features like editing features now I still think, Okay, yeah,
it's not here on my Android just yet. But the
cool thing is that you can export a frame. And
this is a feature that I've actually needed because a
lot of times when you need a thumbnail for your video,
(55:42):
it's kind of a pain to like you get to
grab a screenshot and then crop it. But with this feature,
you can just press export frame and boom, You've got
a nice, great, perfectly perfect exported frame of your video
that you can use for social media if you want
to like tweet about your video or something. The other
thing they're doing is some of the features are just
exclusive for Google one members, but I'm not gonna get
(56:05):
into that because that's kind of a little thing. But
I think that the video editor is really cool. I
think on Android this is something that's been poorly missing
on iOS. I don't think it's as necessary because iOS
has such a good video editor built in. I'm not
even sure why you'd ever use the Google photosapp one,
but the photo editors on Android historically have not been
as good. So I'm really glad that Google is looking
(56:28):
into making that a lot better.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
Uh oh oh, no, yep, there it is. That's the
music that signifies that's gonna do it for this episode
of the show.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
If you would like to submit a question for me
to answer, you can do it in a few different ways.
Just go to rich on Tech dot tv scroll all
the way down and you can see a little email
button you can press that send me an email. You
can go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash
rich on tech. There's a big email button there. Or
you can go to a rich on tech dot tv
slash podcast and hit the microphone button to leave a voicemail.
(57:09):
Also would love it if you would rate and review
this podcast to help other people discover it.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
Just go do iTunes or what do they call it now?
Just podcasts, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
Just go there and and rate and review it. That'll
be a you know people, I think people look up
reviews of podcasts.
Speaker 2 (57:25):
I don't know. I mean, do I look at them?
Let me think.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
No.
Speaker 2 (57:28):
If I hear a podcast, I just kind of listen
to it.
Speaker 1 (57:30):
If I want to fhis a good guest or something
that's how I kind of or if someone is doing
the podcast I like, I'll just listen to it.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
But anyway, I think it helps for people to discover us.
So for me just do it.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
That was not a very good Uh? Was that very
convincing to actually go and take the time to rate it?
I know it just I just personally like it. Okay,
that's that's the real truth. You can find me at
rich on Tech on all social media platforms.
Speaker 2 (57:55):
My name is rich dmiro.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Thanks so much for listening. I do appreciate it. Stay safe,
I will talk to you real soon.
Speaker 2 (58:02):
Take care.
I'm obsessed with the Amazon Echo frames. Alexa can now
answer your door? How much would you have if you
invested one thousand dollars in a hot tech ipo? Plus
your tech questions answered? What's going on on?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Rich Tomiro? And this is rich on.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff
I think you should know about. And it's also the
place where I answer the questions you send me and
believe you me yes. Send a lot of them, and
you might be surprised that I actually respond to a
majority of them, whether it's by Instagram at richon Tech,
Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech, Hello at Richontech,
(00:52):
dot TV, carrier pigeon, I don't know, see me in
the streets. Ask me a question that rarely happened right
now because I'm not out and about as much as
I used to be. Again, my name is Richard Meiro,
tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Welcome
to the show. I say show because I hope that
(01:12):
this entertains you, informs you, makes you want to listen again.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
That's the whole goal of this.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Right is to really just share some knowledge. And I
don't have the answers to everything. Believe me, I don't,
but I try to answer questions that represent what you're
sending in what you're asking me, and hopefully things that
can help other people at large, because you know, we
think as Techi's that well, I don't, but some people
(01:38):
think that everyone has the answer when it comes to tech,
and we don't. We're all just learning, we're all just
figuring this stuff out, and sometimes you just got to
go hands on and try it and see and you know,
just see what's going on with some of this stuff.
And one of the things that I played around with
last week which was really really cool is the Cadillac
(02:00):
Escalade twenty twenty one edition. This has GM supercrus and
not just Super Crews because that's been around for a while,
but this one had super Cruise along with hands free
well hands free I guess driving, and then auto lane change,
and let me.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Tell you, it was seriously, seriously cool.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
I mean, I just loved the ability to set this
car into hands free mode basically drives itself, and then
if you want to change lanes, it changes lanes. And
here's the best part about how it changes lanes. It's
not like me when I change lanes I kind of
creep over because I'm a little scared there might be
a car in my blind spot. No, no, No, This thing,
even though it's a giant car, has so much big
(02:42):
data surrounding it with all the sensors and you know,
cameras and whatever it's using to figure this stuff out,
that it just changes lanes when it knows it can.
There's no hesitation, there's no wishy washiness.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
It just sort of works. And it was.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Impres I said one hundred and six thousand dollars car,
So I'm not buying it anytime soon, but it was
a really beautiful car. I love where this is going,
and I think it's just really nice to realize that
Tesla is not the only company in town when it
comes to the smart driving stuff and the hands free driving.
I think that they're way ahead of everyone. But these
(03:21):
historic car companies are not going to just kind of
not figure this stuff out right. They are going to
It took them a little bit longer, but they're getting
there and the next car that I'll be testing doing
so I used to do this thing called tech Report
test drive long time ago at KTLA, and then I
kind of stopped. I was only doing hybrids, you know,
(03:42):
like I wanted to do any car that's sort of
a you know, not just a gas car. Now, the Escalate, yes,
it was full gas and only you know, fourteen miles
to the gallon. But you know that's it's because it
had a feature that's unique. The hands free was unique.
But also the auto lane was brand new. So for
that reason, I make an exception. But I generally like
(04:05):
to test cars that are alternative. You know, they have
a either hybrid or they are all electric or something else.
I haven't really done a hydrogen one, but anyway, the
next one up I'm gonna test out is called the
Volkswagen ID four.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
This is their big electric car.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
I hope I can mention that, but I'm looking forward
to testing that because there's just so many electric cars
coming along. I'm in the market for a car in
the next couple of years, and so when I do that,
I'm still trying to decide am I going to go
full electric, which I'm leaning towards, or maybe I don't know.
We'll say so that's my story, sticking to it.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Let's get some Let's get to some of the news
of the week.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Let's see what do we want to start with here,
Let's start with uh, well, gosh, is there not one
big story this week?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Maybe there isn't a missing it.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
But Alexa can now answer your doorbell and ring. I've
talked about this in the podcast before, but I'm very
I think it's bullish. Is bullish when you're hot on something? Yeah,
So I am bullish on Ring because what they're doing
I think is leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else.
(05:17):
As far as a full kind of system. I mean,
there's a million cool security systems out there. I use Weight,
I use the Wisecam, I've got some nestcams. But when
you really look at like if you wanted a full
solution for everything around your house, when you look at Ring,
I mean, they've got so many products. It's like they're
coming out with new stuff all the time. And so
now they have this cool new feature. Three new features, Okay,
(05:40):
they're called smart Responses, and there's kind of three of them.
So the first is Alexa Greeting. So if you have
a Ring Video Doorbell Pro and you're a Ring protect subscriber,
which you probably should be if you have a Ring
because it's like three bucks a month, then it gives
you access to recordings. If not, then you can only
live stream your camera, which would not be very good.
(06:02):
But Alexa can greet visitors when they ring the doorbell,
and then she can kind of go back and forth
with them, so the person can say, you know, it'd
be like hey this Alexa, can I help you? And
it'll be like, hey, I have a package for rich
and then she can say like does it need a signature?
And you can even tell the delivery person where to
put the package, so that's really cool. Then you've got
(06:22):
quick replies and this is for all of the doorbells
from Ring and when you don't feel like answering or
you're not there, it can leave six preset responses like
we can't answer the door right now, leave a message,
leave the package outside, or you can. You know, there's
like six of these things, which I thought was really cool.
Now the catch here is that if they leave a
(06:44):
recorded message, you'll only see it if again, you're a
Ring Protect subscriber, so otherwise, you know, if you look
at a ring video doorbell, it's good if you want
to just watch out your front door when someone rings
and get that live view, but the reality is you
probably want a record of everyone that rings your doorbell
or comes near it with the motion, So in that
case you need to be a Ring Protect subscriber and
(07:05):
you can see your event history and these messages people
are leaving, so that's cool. And finally, motion warnings, and
this is just kind of a no brainer.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
One.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Motion warnings say an audible alert when someone triggers a recording,
So if they come near one of your cameras, whether
it's a spotlight cam, a floodlight cam, an indoorcam, or
a wired doorbell. This only works with wired doorbells.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
It will say.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Warning, you're now being monitored and recorded by Ring and
that's a cool detern as well. And again, these are
all really cool features. The problem is that they don't
necessarily work with everything, and so I think that's kind
of the you know, the only problem with these things
is that you have to know exactly which doorbell you
(07:51):
have and figure out which one of these things works
with them, because not everything works.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And I understand why.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I think Ring has this thing where like a lot
of it's robells are battery powered, and it can't just
introduce all these features on battery powered doorbells. A battery
go dead in like a day. Cody says, Hey, Rich,
I'm looking for a reliable mobile faxing app that provides
the best value. Can you please suggest one. I love
(08:18):
watching your segments on KTLA. Thank you well, Cody. I
have what I use, and what I have been using
for a long time is it's kind of a one
to two punch. I don't really fax, but I do
use a I will sign things and then email them.
So what I use for that is called Hello Facts
(08:38):
if you need to fax something, and Hello Fax is fantastic.
It's now owned by Dropbox and it's great. And so
if I've never really had a problem with sending faxes,
like I think it's always been free, but it's it's
free for up to five fax pages and then after
that it's ten dollars a month for up to three
(08:59):
hundred fax pages. Now I don't really understand. I feel
like I've never had to actually pay for it, but
maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Let me look at what I use. So what I use.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
The other thing that I use is called Hello Sign again,
same company, now owned by Dropbox. But that's you know,
so the difference is Hello Sign you sign it in
your browser and then you download it or you email it,
whereas with Hello Facts, you would actually fax it out.
So when I look at pricing for Hello Sign, yeah, okay,
(09:32):
so you get this is why I've never had to
pay for Hello Sign because it's three signature requests per month,
and I've never had to use more than that. I mean,
if I was, you know, I usually use this for
like freelance gigs that I pick up here and there.
So if I get a freelance gig and I have
to sign a contract for some sort of you know deal,
like when I hosted CES, I will use Hello Sign.
(09:53):
And that's why I've never I've never done more than
three in a month. That would be an amazing thing.
I don't think why schedule could handle more than three.
But if I could, hate I mean, if you got
a project, call me.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
But wow. So those are the two I recommend. Hello
Sign and Hello Facts. That's it.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I mean, there's also e Facts. I mean that's been
around forever and ever and ever.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
You can use that.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
And there are some assorted apps on Android. There was
one I was actually at a doctor's office. This was
so long ago, but I was at a doctor's office.
And I had something on my phone that they needed,
like I don't know if it was a prescription or
you know, sometimes when you get a referral, you have
to like show them, and they couldn't look at it
on my phone for some reason. They couldn't take an email,
(10:36):
but they could take a fax, and so I said,
all right, let me see if I can fax for
my phone. And sure enough I was able to fax
for my phone and it worked great, and the person
behind the desk was very impressed, even though they weren't
as impressed as I wanted them to be, because I'm
always like, oh, can you you know, like I really wanted.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So I'm looking for this on my library and I
and my Android, and I can't really find it right
off the top here because my kid is downloaded so
many games that they're all taking up. I gotta go
through and clean that up. Anyway I would, I would
just use those two Hello sign Hello facts, and I
think those will be great for you. All right, let's
go to let's see some other news. Hm, let's see here,
(11:17):
let's talk about oh, you know what, let me talk
about the echo frames because I am obsessed. It has
been so long that I've gotten a gadget where I
just am like so infatuated with the gadget and the
Amazon Echo frames are that gadget. Now, I'm not saying
you need to rush out and buy these. I'm not
saying that you need to purchase these or you know, anything,
(11:38):
but I'm just saying this is where we're headed. And
it's so clear when I try a gadget like this
that there is still a lot of room for things
to just sort of amaze us in the future.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
When it comes to technology.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
The last thing, you know, it's like the iPhone, the iPad,
a couple things like that, little you know, little gadgets
here and there. But these are just magical. So there
are pair glasses two hundred and fifty dollars. They've got
speakers built in, They've got microphones built in. You charge
them up and you put them on and next thing
you know, you've got hands free access to Alexa. But
you've also got these little speakers on your ears at
(12:13):
all times. So that means you can listen to music,
you can listen to podcasts, you can make phone calls.
It sinks perfectly with your iPhone, sinks perfectly with Android
I tested it. You can activate Siri through it, not
hands free, but you can tap on the side of
the device. Yeah, Siri activated on my iPad here, no
(12:34):
please stop, go away, But you can activate you know
who and also Google Assistant by tapping and holding on
the side of the device and that works perfectly. So
I've just been loving these things. I mean, I've been
walking around the block with them on, listening to podcasts,
I've been working at my desk. And the beauty of
them is that there's nothing in your ears, so it
(12:56):
does not feel like you're wearing headphones, and you wouldn't
wear headphones at work all day.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Maybe some people can wear them on their computer all day.
I'm not one of those people, but with these, I can't.
And I can have nice ambient music if I'm you know,
I can't really have too much going on if I'm
trying to concentrate on jamming out a script or something.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But if I'm just kind of casually.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Browsing the web, looking at stories, reading stuff gently, then
I could, you know, listen to some soft music, you know,
like some instrumental stuff.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Man, everything's just blown up on me right here. That
was one of my stories. So I'm really impressed.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
Two fifty you can get your your own prescription lenses
put in them, and I just think they're really great.
I think they are there. They're the second generation, so
there's more to come. But if I wore glasses, I
think that I would definitely get these. I don't wear glasses,
so I don't necessarily need them. And the thing is
(13:51):
they send them with like window panes, but I think
that they're missing an opportunity here to do like blue blocker.
And I know I did a story and they said
blue blockers don't really do anything, but I think that
you would feel better knowing that you were wearing blue
blocker glasses all day long versus just wearing window panes
all day long, right, So why not just put a
little blue blocker in there so that you get that?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So I just really really impressed.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Battery life, audio quality could be a little bit improved,
but so far, so good. Amazon, very very impressed, very lightweight,
just really really cool.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
So just so impressed with those. I can't get over
it all. Right.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
Another thing that I tested out this week is the
Tula mic. I think I talked about this, but this
is a microphone that's a USB mic, but it also
records into itself, so you can use it for your
zoom calls, or you can use it to just record stuff.
And it's a great little microphone.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
I think it sounds good and I recorded a podcast
episode in it a couple of weeks ago. I probably
told you this story already, but I just think it's
a really cool little mic. Again, it's two hundred dollars,
so it's expensive, but you'd do get a lot for
that price. I mean you get the internal memory recording.
So let's say you want to record your podcast in
the field, you just have to have this mic and
(15:08):
that's it. Nothing else. I mean, how much easier does
it get. You don't have to have a computer, you
don't have to have a fancy setup. You just do
that and it's done. So I thought that was really cool.
Those are two gadgets I tested this week. I've got
the reviews on my website, rich on tech dot tv
if you want to read more about them.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Let's get to another question.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Gil says, Oh my god, Rich, I love those Alexa glasses,
but concerned about privacy issues, isn't this another way of
collecting more data about our personal.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Activities and choices.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Should we just accept the fact that nothing is sacred
any longer? Egad? What does egad mean? I don't know, egad,
I don't know. Gil, have a magical day, egad? I
don't oh expressing surprise, anger, or affirmation. Okay, I didn't egad. Okay,
(15:58):
I learned something new today. Never saw that word? Okay, Gil,
great segue from the I just talked about these you know,
is it collecting more information? I'd have to look at
the privacy policy of the Echo frames to see. But
to be completely honest with this stuff, you know what,
I am one of those people that, yes, I am
(16:19):
concerned about privacy. I think that we should have a
we should have privacy, and we should have a respectable
sort of understanding of that privacy when it comes to
these smart devices, like a reasonable expectation, I should say,
if you get one of these smart speakers in your
home and you put it in your room, it should
(16:40):
not The expectation is that it's not listening and sending
all that data back twenty four to seven to Google
or Amazon or Apple. But sometimes they do misfire and
they do activate, and they do catch things off guard. Now,
are these Echo frames collecting any more data?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
I mean, they don't have GPS on them, although I
did notice that the Alexa app asked for my GPS
location when I installed it on my Android. I don't
know about iOS, but so it could you know if
you're wearing them. It may know where you're wearing them,
and how often and for how long of course, the
commands that you use. So yes, there is definitely a
(17:22):
privacy issue, and I think that when it comes to
any of these smart home gadgets, you have to weigh
the pros and the cons. Are the benefits you get
out of these glasses worth the extra data that Amazon
gets on you? And by that extra data, you know,
it's like I said, some of the location data, some
of the things you're asking it may pick up things
(17:44):
in the background that you didn't intend it to. But
we have to decide what level we're comfortable with. Personally,
I'm comfortable with a lot of that stuff. I think
what I'm not comfortable with is things that collect personal information, like.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
You know, financing, banking. That kind of stuff is.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Where I draw the line. I'm very critical about that.
But when it comes to like where.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I am, where I'm using things, I'm not.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Totally totally concerned because you know, I kind of I'm
getting something in return for some of the uh you know,
some of the different services that I use. So that's
I know, it's not the best answer in the world,
but the reality is we just kind of have to.
Every one of us just has to do what we
feel is best. And I get people that say I'll
never put a Google device in my house because of
(18:33):
this stuff, and I get other people that have a
ton of them, like myself, and again, it just depends
on what your level of comfort is. So it's a
good question and it's something we do need to keep
in mind. And when I do stories with any any uh,
you know, app developer or anything that I do a
story on, at this point, I do ask if I
do an interview about the privacy implications of those devices,
(18:56):
And that's just the reality of it. All right, Let's
let's see here, let's talk about let's.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Just do a quick one. Disney plus ninety almost ninety
five million customers.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
In fact, they probably do have ninety five million, because
this was according to Variety as of January second twenty
twenty one, they had ninety four point nine million, which
is more than eight million extra in one month. So
that tops Disney's original projections of having ninety million subscribers
within the first four years.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
I think it's been just over a year.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Right, a year and a half, So it's Disney Plus
is killing it, and it's it's amazing to see a
company like Disney that people love and they've they've done
a great job in the historic world of entertainment. And
I say historic when I mean like broadcast movies, that
kind of stuff, and it's good to see a company
(19:53):
that can just as nimbly adapt to the new reality
of streaming of you know, twenty five seven access movies
that are not going to theaters. They're just going straight
to video. And they're doing pretty well. So if you
do ninety ninety five million times, let's see, it's seven
(20:13):
bucks a month something like that. So that's uh so
six hundred and sixty five million dollars a month they
are generating off of Disney Plus. I'd call that a win.
That is pretty good. Now they pale in comparison to Netflix.
I think Netflix has I don't know, I don't well
how many Netflix subscribers do they have. Let's see, this
(20:35):
is uh, let's see they have okay, two hundred almost
two hundred million to double. Okay, so they're doing pretty well.
I mean, that's that's pretty good for something that came out.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
The trick of all these streaming services is that they
just need to have one thing that you want to
watch every single time you're ready to cancel. So if
you're watching WandaVision right now, it's like you watch that
and then okay, oh, now there's a movie for my kids, Okay,
we'll keep. And I don't think a lot of people
are rushing to cancel Disney Plus just because it's Disney
Plus and if you have kids is kind of a given.
(21:10):
Netflix overall is kind of a given. I think, you know, Hulu,
all the rest of them are sort of on a
case by case basis. HBO Max is really picking up
some steam now. I think that, you know, for me personally,
with the diversity of how many folks we have in
the house, we have four different people, different ages, my wife, me,
(21:31):
my two kids, and of course all the assorted klingons
that are that are perhaps sharing my accounts in different places.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
You know, everyone has something that they're watching all the time.
And so whenever I approach.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
The you know, let's cancel Netflix. Eh, not canceling Netflix. Oh,
let's cancel Disney Plus because there's nothing right now. No,
we're not canceling that. Let's cancel Hulu. No, we're watching
I mean, my wife and I are watching this new
show on Hulu that's you know, it's just a silly show.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
It's called Call.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Your your Mom, Call your mother. Yeah, call your mother,
and it's just silly. But we're watching it, and so
it's like, we're not going to cancel right now after
episode three, We're just going to continue watching it. So
I think that's kind of what all these things do
and the more stuff that they have, and this is
why they're they have such an you know, an emphasis
on new programming is there's a lot of different people watching,
(22:22):
and so you need to have stuff that appeals to
different people because.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Not everything's gonna appeal to everyone.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
This is no longer broadcast networks with a show that
you know, appeals to the mass audience. There are so
many little shows on Netflix to discover and Hulu and
all these other services that you know, one size does
not fit all anymore. And sometimes if you have a
hit that bubbles up and does reach that mass market appeal,
(22:48):
that's when you know you have a winner. And that's
when you really really seal the deal with folks, because
that's when you know you're considered very successful. And that's
really it's not the goal, I would say, but when
it happens, it's it's a pretty good feeling, all right,
(23:09):
all right, Bill writes in. Bill says, Hey, Rich, I've
been listening to your podcast for a relatively short time,
but I've learned to pay attention to your advice. I
have all Apple, seven year old MacBook Pro, two iPhones,
and an ancient Macmini. I am looking for a password
manager and malware destroyer. My son also has recommended web roote.
(23:33):
I use clean my Mac. I feel like I did
this question ALRIGHTY did I do this question? I think
I did this question already. I'm gonna so maybe we'll
I should keep track of the questions that I do
because I'm looking at the date. Okay, this is weird.
I'm looking at the date of this question, and the
original question was written to me on September thirteenth, which
(23:53):
I can't.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
That can't be right.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
But then the update was written on Sunday, September seventh.
He said, Oh, I forgot to tell you I have
a seven iPhone seven and eight plus. I don't know
you know anyway, Let's see what the question is.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Uh, I use Clean my Mac.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
My point is, if I'm gonna pay a fee monthly
or annually, you know, I want something easy to use
and effective.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Thank you for all the help.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
So okay, malware destroyer, I would say, uh, Clean my
Mac is a great is a great product, and they
do have some malware scanning stuff in there. I also
think malware bytes is really good. So if I were you,
I would use Clean my Mac on your Mac. You have,
let's see a seven year old MacBook Pro and an
ancient Macmini. Now, when it comes to the iPhones, sorry
(24:35):
to burst your bubble, but you don't need anything on there.
There's no there's nothing that's gonna find malware on an iPhone.
There's no antivirus that's gonna work on there. It's just
iPhone doesn't work that way. So don't worry about the iPhones.
They're gonna be just fine as long as you're not
jail breaking them, which I don't think you are, but
the rest of them, yeah, I would definitely recommend Clean
my Mac or malware Bytes. Maybe start with malware Bytes
(24:57):
I think they have a free version and then move
up to Clean my Mac because you there is a
subscription aspect to Clean my Mac and you can either
do set app, which is you said that in your email,
which is kind of a recurring subscription. I think it's
ten dollars a month or you can just pay one time,
or you can pay for the year.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
So you have to decide, you.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Know how much you want this and how many devices
you want to install it on, and how much you're
willing to pay.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
But that is what I would recommend, all right.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Just a quick quick note, this is a little bit
of news out of Visible. Visible is a service that
I fully, fully recommend. There are two alternative carriers that
I really like. One of them is mint Mobile, the
other one is Visible, And I also like Cricket as well.
And these carriers what's unique about them? Cricket and Visible
(25:49):
are both sort of I don't know Cricket. I think
Cricket is a subsidiary of AT and T. I know
they run on AT and T. Is Cricket owned by
AT and T. By AT and T, I think it is, uh,
you know what Cricket. Yeah, Cricket is owned by AT
and T. So you've got Cricket that's owned by AT
(26:10):
and T. Then you've got Visible that's owned by Verizon.
And the thing about these carriers is that they have
a whole separate brand identity so that they can operate
sort of independently. But they're using the AT and T network,
and they're using the Verizon network in the case of Visible,
so in mint use is not owned by T Mobile,
but they use T Mobiles network, So it kind of
(26:31):
depends which network you want, which one's the strongest.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
In your area.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
But Visible is really really cool because it's unlimited for
forty dollars a month, and now they're offering five G.
So it's capped up to two hundred megabits per second,
but I mean, hey, it's five G and you get
that fast speed.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
It used to be Visible was.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Capped at five megabits per second, so two hundred is
pretty good. And now you get calling to Canada, Mexico, US,
Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico, And I think, what the
most important thing they have in their new announcement is
e SIM compatibility. So it used to be the biggest
problem with setting up Visible is that you had to
get one of their SIM cards. And for the average
(27:12):
person that's doing this, that's a little tricky, Like you know,
it's it's not something that everyone's familiar with. It's not
something that makes a lot of sense to people. Plus
you have to wait, so there's no impulse buy for Visible.
You can't just say I'm gonna switch today. You have
to do all this research and all of a sudden
it's like, oh, I'm not gonna wait a couple of
days to get this SIM card, and it kind of
(27:32):
takes the fun out of it. So now with eSIM,
you can activate a device from home fifteen minutes or
less using an eSIM compatible device. Those devices right now
include pretty much all the recent iPhones from the iPhone
ten S to the twelve Promacs, also the second gen
iPhone S. And then they say that androids are coming soon.
(27:54):
So I think this is a huge win for Visible
that they're embracing the because now you can kind of
hear about Visible for me right now on this podcast
and then look on your iPhone, do the research, see
if it works for you, and boom, you can switch
instantly right from your iPhone. If you have an iPhone
tennis TENNS max ten R eleven twelve se, I mean,
(28:18):
any of those phones, you can just switch right away
in your settings. That's really really cool. And you basically,
I think, you just scan a QR code in your setting.
So the other neat thing about Visible is that you
can have up to four people in your They call
it a party. This is kind of like you just
group up with friends or family and you don't pay
each other's bills, but you're sort of just like in
a group, and you take down your bill by five
(28:41):
dollars a month. So if you have let's say you
join Visible and you love it, and then you tell
your brother that, oh my gosh, you need to join this.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
And here's my.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Little referral thing. Not referral, it's just you party up.
I don't know how you do it. You link up
in the in the setting, some guessing, and now you
each pay thirty five dollars a month. And then when
you say to your sister, hey, we're both on this.
This is really cool. Why don't you join in and
now she pays thirty dollars a month, and you pay
thirty dollars a month, and you all pay thirty. So
(29:10):
it's kind of like you're linking up together and keeping
each other all on this system. And I guess that's
kind of the difference between a referral and you're all
sticking to this. If one person drops out of the party,
everyone's price goes up, so there's a little peer pressure
to sort.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Of all stay on board. And I don't know.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I got my brother to join Visible and he loves it.
The only thing is, this is the big downside, and
this is why I haven't signed up my wife, because
I would one hundred percent sign her up for this tomorrow.
The problem is, and save like eighty about fifty bucks
a month on Verizon, is that they don't support Apple watches.
Now they should, but they don't, And so that's the
(29:49):
only thing keeping me from signing up my wife for Visible.
I would actually probably sign up now as well, now
that they support five G. I don't need more than
two hundred megabits. I mean, yeah, it's nice sometimes when
you're out in a boat out and you get these super
fast five G speeds, but two hundred megabits per second
is plenty fast for me. So anyway, check out Visible
if you are looking to switch carriers, want to save
(30:10):
some money. Prepaid for everything for forty bucks a month.
I mean, that's that's pretty darn good. So all right,
Bonnie says, I'm getting the COVID shot, and I want
to know if there's any apps out there that are
accepted for travel outside of the United States. I would
like to start traveling and want to know what app
I should have in my phone Android to show that
(30:31):
I receive the shot. Thank you for any help you
can provide. I can't find any app online yet, as
most vendors seem to be working on process. Yeah, Bonnie,
there is nothing that I know of right now that
is a universally accepted COVID vaccine passcard that you can
have on your phone. So if you are getting the
(30:52):
vaccine or got it, you'll get a little card from
the CDC. You see a lot of people tweeting them
that right now is your only proof of getting the
shot now. As a tech person, I of course one
hundred percent agree with what you're talking about. There should
be a card on both Google Wallet or Google Play
or sorry, Google Pay and also Apple Wallet that you
(31:16):
would show and it would be have a digital barcode
that they can scan and verify.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Now, I don't know why this wasn't done from day one.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
I mean, if I was in the government and I
was giving out these shots, I would say, hey, we're
a high tech world, we're a high tech society, Like,
let's get this card that all the countries agree on
is acceptable, and let's get a barcode that links it
back to the CDC.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
And I don't know, maybe that's too big government. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
I mean, all I'm saying is that it would you know,
it would be nice to have that card. I've seen
a couple, you know, friends and family get them. I
haven't gotten the vaccine yet, but I've seen friends and
family get them that you know, it's a CDC card
and that's it. It's like if you if you have
kids and they get the vaccine at their doctor, they
have this little card. It's like a yellow carr that folds.
And my kids have had it since, you know, since
(32:02):
they were born. I mean, how antiquated is that that
someone literally signs a little card that says your kid
got a vaccine, and I think they might put a
little sticker from the vaccine vile on it maybe, but
it's like you gotta keep that. Well, it's just so like,
that's so old school. Let's get Let's at least have
an option where you can have the card, the old
(32:23):
school cardboard card, but also a card on your iPhone.
That would be fantastic, That's what I would like. And
if you had that, Yeah, then you go to the
airport boom, you're traveling to Hawaii, you show him your card.
I'm vaccinated. And yes, there's gonna be a lot of
fraud with this stuff. I think people are probably faking
this stuff already or in the future if it's required
for various things, people will be faking it. But you know,
(32:47):
we gotta, we gotta think high tech. We gotta and
I get it. Not everyone wants this stuff, but you
can also have both ways. And if you have the card,
the physical card, and an option to put it into
your Apple wall, I think that would be really really cool.
All right, Apple Watch now on one hundred million risks.
(33:08):
This is from above avalon dot Com. Five and a
half years, one hundred million people are wearing it.
Speaker 2 (33:16):
That's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
At the end of twenty twenty, approximately ten percent of
iPhone users, we're wearing an Apple Watch. That is amazing. Now,
this is what I don't understand. How does this make sense.
At the end of twenty twenty, approximately ten percent of
iPhone users were wearing an Apple Watch. Then it says
at the end of twenty twenty, approximately thirty five percent
(33:39):
of iPhone users.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Oh in the US.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Okay, got it, So thirty five percent of the iPhone
users in the US are wearing.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
An Apple Watch. That's pretty impressive. Let's see.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
So what is driving adoption wearables? Fundamentals Leveraging new form
factors and design, They're making technology more personal. I would
totally agree with that. Like, you know, ring is a
perfect sample. I mean, here it is. When someone is
near my front door, I literally get a picture of
them sent to my Apple Watch.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I mean, how cool is that.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
It's just and it's instantaneous, it's fast, and it's one
of those things where, yeah, it could be sent to
your phone, but I'm in my house. I don't always
have my phone nearby or on me, and so of
course I would miss that all the time. But by
getting that little picture sent to my watch. It's like, okay,
it takes two seconds. You look at your wrist, you say, oh, okay, cool,
someone's outside just got my mail delivered. Risk appeal everything
(34:29):
for a great line of site for snippets of text
and data. The cool factor Apple ecosystem.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
When I go running and I've got the Apple Watch
along with the AirPods, that is a I can't say,
and I've talked about it before on this podcast, is
just an amazing combination.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
It just works so well.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
Although I have been having problems with my AirPods lately.
They a little more unreliable than they ever have been.
But anyway, Apple Watch continues to get more popular. I
know that the last couple Apple events they've mentioned, how
you know, it is like not just the most popular
smart watch in the world, but like one of the
most popular watches in the world at this point, which
(35:08):
is great for Apple because it's a it's a huge
growth area. I mean, I think every person I know
that gets an Apple Watch just absolutely falls in love
with it, except for one person I know, he doesn't
really wear it that much. But for the most most
people I know, I mean, they really really love the
Apple Watch, and it's it's pretty easy to understand why.
It's just a great device that compliments your phone in
(35:32):
so many different ways. I mean just little things like
when I'm out and about and you know, let's say
my phone is in the other room and someone calls
me and I can just answer the call my Apple
Watch real quick.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
That is great.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
If I'm out in a run and i can run
without my phone because I've got a cellular connection. So
it's just it's just pretty wild the things that they
have done on this watch that I think.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
It's just really really amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
All right, a couple other stories here. There's so many
little stories. Let's see. This is a cool website.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
One thousand dot in, one thousand dot in. This is
a website that tells.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
You how much would you have if you invested one
thousand dollars in an ipo. Now I've probably told you
this story before. I feel like I'm telling a lot
of stories over. I've been doing this podcast for a
long time, so sometimes I tell stories over and over.
But I will never forget. I was okay, so anyway this,
I'll tell you the story in a second. But this
website one thousand in tells you you put in a
stock ticker symbol, and it tells you how much you
(36:32):
would have if you put one thousand dollars in their ipo. So,
for instance, Netflix, if you put one thousand dollars in
Oh my gosh, if you put one thousand dollars in
Netflix on May twenty third, two thousand and two. Now,
mind you, thousand dollars is a lot of money, but
it doesn't sound like that much money when you're talking
(36:52):
about investing.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Okay, one thousand bucks, are you ready?
Speaker 1 (36:58):
You would have as a February twelfth, twenty twenty one,
the damn recording this four hundred and seventy seven thousand,
eight hundred and fifty dollars. Oh, hold on, that's that
is just I'm I'm shocked right now, A one thousand
dollars would become five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
You could retire.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Or just be very comfortable with your retirement if you were,
you know, oh my gosh, that's almost twenty years later,
five hundred thousand bucks, a return of forty seven thousand,
six hundred and eighty five percent. Okay, So with that
in mind, this is just a fun website where you
can just type in a bunch of different ticker symbols
and see what the deal is. But I'll tell you
my story so I'll never forget. I was in Shreveport, Louisiana,
(37:45):
working as a lowly, lowly paid reporter at the station there.
I was very happy, but you know, you don't make
a lot of money when you're when you're in you know,
reporting in general, but small markets especially.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
But I you know, but I.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Had a couple a little bit of money to my name, right,
I'd saved a little bit of money, and I'll never forget.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
There's a company called Google that was ipoing.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
And I asked my wife, I said, hey, my girlfriend
at the time, I said, Lynn, this company called Google,
which you know, we know we've heard of, is ipoing
and I think it was about forty two dollars for
the IPO. I said, should I put a couple thousand
bucks into this? And that's all I had to my
whole name might have been like two or three thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
And she said, oh, Rich, come on, like what if
you lose it all? Like, you know, come on, We're
not in a place to do that. And I said, oh,
you're right. You're right, You're right. Now, mind you, as
a reporter, I don't generally invest in fact, I have
no individual stocks, especially covering technology. Back then I wasn't
covering technology, but now I don't. As a rule don't
have any individual stocks. I'm not sure if I'm even
(38:50):
allowed to.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
I'd have to check with my company, But in general
i'd just do like mutual funds, right, like just put
the money in there for one k whatever. But this
was a time in my life life when I was like,
let me, let me try this, and so anyway, we
didn't do it. And now thanks to this website, let's
see so Google, Okay, this makes perfect sense because it
says if you would have invested one thousand dollars in
(39:13):
alphabet stocks back in August nineteenth, two thousand and four,
So that exactly.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Lines up with my story.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
That is when I was in Louisiana two thousand and four,
and we left right at the end of that For
that we left the next summer in two thousand and five,
and so yes, my story was true.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
I would have.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Forty one thousand, six hundred and sixty five dollars. Now
when you look at that compared to Netflix. I should
have invested in Netflix, not Google, but I didn't invest
in either, so it doesn't matter. But still, again, I'll
be honest, forty one thousand, six sixty five sounds great,
but when you compare it to Netflix, you get ten
times at So I don't feel like I lost out
(39:52):
that much.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
I mean, it would have been nice.
Speaker 1 (39:54):
But okay, yeah, sure I wish I had this, but
still anyway, and I'll put it in the show notes,
just a cool little you know site that can lets
you reminisce about all those times you lost out.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
You know. Look, and if you want to do the
individual individual stock thing, that's fine. I don't.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
I don't believe me. I don't fault you for it
to me personally. I just I don't have the time
and effort to invest in those individual stocks.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I just can't. I'm not smart enough to do that.
You know.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
It's like, I just there are so many smart people
out there that do this for a living. How can
I expect to like outdo them. So I'd rather just
you know, put the money in the mutual fund, let
it sit there, and hopefully one day have some money
for retirement all right, let's get to another question from Diana.
Diana says, hey, Rich, we're senior citizens in Sacramento and
(40:45):
watch your segment often. I have a question for you.
We have a paid for McAfee on our computers for
almost two years. Every three to six months we have
a hacking issue, and they convince us to purchase more
coverage after telling us this is all we need. This
is what we've purchased. Prescription, prescription, what's that firewall? Hacker protection,
(41:07):
IP blocker, and now a hacker blocker?
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Is this common? Would Norton be better? Sorry? I'm laughing.
We are not that tech savvy and it just seems
to be too much.
Speaker 1 (41:16):
It costs us anywhere from two hundred to one thousand
dollars every time we call them.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Do you have any advice for us? Uh?
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yeah, My advice is get rid of this.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
This is insane. How much are you spending on this stuff? Oh?
My gosh, two hundred to one thousand dollars? That is wild.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
I don't even understand what you're purchasing. Do they even
give you the pricing on this stuff on their website?
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Wow? You know, I don't know. Wow, I'm like in shock.
Right now.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Why do you have so many problems with hacking? I mean,
I don't think you should. I think that either of
these are scams that you're falling for. Every three to
six months, we have a hacking issue. Wow, Okay, what
I would do? I would scan your computers to make
sure that there's nothing going on there your network. Oh gosh,
(42:17):
this is just so I since you're not tech savvy,
I think it's tough to Did you say you're not
tech savvy. I mean, you just said you're senior. You
didn't say you're not tech savy. But ah, I think
that you're getting a little bit taken here because this
is a lot of money to spend, and I think
you just need to cut it off. Stop with the subscriptions,
stop with the purchases.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
No more, no more, no more.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
This is just a bit much. A hacker blocker and
IP blocker, a firewall hacker protection. Let me see what
is firewall hacker protection? McAfee. Let me even see if
they have that McAfee firewall. Okay, yeah, there's just too many,
too many things. Oh wow, there's just too many things
(43:02):
that are offered here. I mean I would say, get
the one product you know, like a total protection. This
says it's twenty nine to ninety nine total protection McAfee
for the year that includes total security, premium antivirus, safe browsing,
ID theft, and secure VPN.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
That's what I would do.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
I don't think you need to spend two hundred to
one thousand dollars every time.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
That just seems wild. That is just way too much.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
I think that you're paying this money to someone that's
scamming you. I don't think that this is McAfee that's
actually charging you for this stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
I think that it's someone else.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
So yeah, I think that you you just you gotta figure,
you gotta, you gotta dial this back. Just stop paying
for it, don't do it. Don't answer the phone when
someone says you have a hacking situation, or if there's
software or something pops up on your computer, unless it's
like a ransomware thing that should not be happening. I
would make sure your computer software is up to date.
(44:04):
I would make sure whatever software you're running on your computer,
just pick one and stick with it. If you have
Windows ten, I think you're fine with just the Windows
Defender that's built into your computer, and maybe just uninstall
this McAfee stuff completely. But I don't think you're getting
hacked every three to six months. I just don't really
see that happening. So sorry to hear that, and uh,
(44:25):
hopefully you are doing okay there in Sacramento. Thanks for
watching this segment. By the way, this is the Roku
channel moving on now. Roku Channel is Roku's, you know,
free programming play that you can get on Roku. They
also have a Roku Channel app that's available for iOS
and Android. But I was not I was familiar with
(44:49):
Roku Channel. I mean, I get the concept, it's got
free movies and TV shows, but they just came out
with thirteen new channels, live channels that this part of
it I was not aware of. They basically have a
cable TV service built into the Roku channel with I
mean it literally looks like cable TV when you dial
it up on your Roku and I dialed this up,
(45:11):
and they've got thirteen new channels, including Baby Shark, Bloomberg,
Western Movies, Hallmark Movies, which a lot of people will
be interested in. Then they have eighties music, nineties music,
country music, hip hop music, Hottest Music, and.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Some other channels.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
As well, and so I look this up on my
Roku and I'm very impressed. I mean it's a lot
of it's literally cable TV for free on your Roku.
So you flip through and I've got it on right now.
It's just literally like everything. You've got NBC News, Weather Channel, Newsy,
USA Today, Yahoo, Reuters, Cheddar, and that's just like the
(45:52):
new stuff. Then you get into sports, then you get
into like entertainment, MTV, CMT. I wonder if Pluto is
powering this, because some of the channels are from Pluto.
Then you've got classic shows, then you've got you know,
retro shows, then you've got science, you've got movie channels.
(46:13):
I mean, this is very, very impressive, and it's all
impressive if you don't mind commercials in your programming. This
is all ads supported, so that's the way they pay
for all this stuff. But if you don't mind that
and you're just looking for free stuff to watch, this
is this is quite impressive. It's literally cable TV and
you don't have to pay a dime. It's just as
(46:34):
long as you've got an Internet connection, you've got it.
They've got kids channels, stuff for kids to watch. They've
got Spanish language programming. They've got like DIY stuff like
Home and Family kind of or What's not Home and
Family Home HGTV. They've got Fashion GQ Channel, Crime channels, Celebrity,
(46:54):
Science Wired. They've got a channel just dedicated to Deal
or No Deal. America's got Talent Family Feud. Those are channels,
so you can just watch Family Feud.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
All day long.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
This is really interesting. So America's Funniest Home Videos. You
could just have that streaming all day long. America's Funniest
Home Videos. They've got a Fireman Sam channel. If you
have kids, you know Fireman Sam. So I was very
impressed with this, And if you have a Roku, check
it out because they've got thirteen channels that are new,
but they've got like one hundred and I think it's
like one hundred and fifty channels total, so it's like
(47:27):
kind of Pluto.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
TV all these things.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
The funny thing is is that they're running these things
as a as a cable TV grid, So there is
no reason in the world that they need to be
streaming this stuff as a program guide or presenting it
in that way. But we're so used to that it
feels fun to flip through channels. People like to flip
through channels. So now I'm just pressing up and I'm
(47:52):
flipping through a channel and these are live streaming, but
they're just basically videos that are linked together, all in
a row, that are just playing one after another, and
a lot of them are old TV shows. I mean,
it's very impressive. I've said that like seven times, but
I'm it's literally like having cable TV for free. I mean,
they've got MTV, they've got so much stuff. I just
(48:14):
got back to the first channel. But even the channel numbers,
like channel one forty five is USA Today, Channel one
sixty is Reuters, Channel one seventy one, now this news.
I mean, it's just wild that you can get all
this for free. And again it's just all ad supported,
So it's kind of like having cable TV if you're
into that. Now, personally, I'm not into just sitting back
(48:37):
and watching stuff that's streaming. I want to kind of
select unless it's news. I want to select what I'm
watching at any given time. But I also see the
beauty of this, like especially the kids channels. So they've
got you know, a bunch of kids channels here that
you know play kids programming all day long. And so
if you want your kids to sit and watch something
that's appropriate for their age, you can. They've got a
(48:59):
Lego channel, I've got Ryan's World. You know that Ryan
Kid on YouTube. He has his own channel, and so
and I also see the benefit of I come from
the old days of TV where things just played, and honestly,
it is a little disturbing to me that when I
put on my Apple TV in the living room, nothing starts,
like nothing, nothing happens. You know, you have to sit
there and choose something. And so sometimes I will just
(49:21):
put on the news in the background because I want
something playing, or I'll put on YouTube in the background
because I just want something playing at all times.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
And I think there's a lot of us out there.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
It's just comforting to have that live stream of something
playing on your TV.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
It's like, it's kind of an older way.
Speaker 1 (49:36):
Of thinking about things, but it's kind of what I
grew up with. You just had TV on all the
time in the background. And I think that nowadays everything's
on demand and it's streaming, but it's still there's something
to be said for just that that comfort of knowing
that things are just on and that's exactly what this is.
You've got a kids pop channel, I mean, just wild,
(49:56):
pretty neat some of the channels. The quality is not
that great on some of the lesser channels, but some
of the the program that you can tell that they've
put more into, it's a little bit higher quality. So anyway, Wow,
this question perfectly segues into what I just talked about,
or segues from I should say. Olivia via Instagram at
(50:19):
Richon Tech says, do you know about an app for
Wi Fi slash Internet Free Radio for the iPhone? And
the answer that question, Olivia is no, as far as
I know, there is no support for an internal antenna
or an external intent. Well maybe there's an external No,
probably not, maybe external for Wi Fi and Internet free radio, So.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
I don't.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
I know that the Android phones have that very often,
which you can listen to various radio stations through in
basically just an app on the Android devices. You don't
need to have any sort of Internet connection. The last
phone I tested that had this was the TCL ten series,
(51:07):
and it's such a little thing, but it's such a
cool thing because not everyone has an unlimited data connection,
not everyone has access to full on data and not
everyone wants to just use their data at all times.
So if you can just call up this app, you
have to plug in headphones because that's how it gets
the antenna, but it uses the wire in your headphones
(51:30):
as it's antenna signal, and it literally just pulls the
signal out of the air, just like radio. And you
can listen to this on your phone and there's only
It's always been a big debate because some cell phone
carriers like okay, let's say a Samsung I think supported
it back in the day, or just various carriers supported
or various phones supported it, but you would get the
(51:52):
phone and let's say on I don't know, just picking
a carrier like Sprint would have support for this, you know,
radio stations on your phone through the over the air,
but Verizon would not. And it was kind of a
big differentiating factor. Back when phones were very much locked
down and very much especially on Android, they were very
much customized for the carriers. Now we're seeing a lot
(52:14):
less of that. We're seeing much more of like unlocked
devices and devices that you know, carriers put a little
touch on them, but they don't necessarily change the whole
like we're not seeing like the droid bionics anymore. Remember
when droids came out, they were a Verizon exclusive Android,
and we're now seeing like you know, Samsung especially, it's
like the the Samsung S twenty one comes out on
(52:35):
every carrier, it's pretty much the same. There might be
a couple of little tweaks here and there, but the
software primarily is different. But for the most part it's
the same. Maybe a different processor in different regions, but yet,
I don't know of a way that you can get
that on Apple ever, but I know that on Android,
depending on your device, you could get that. But let's see,
did you specify what you have? Uh no, yeah, you
(52:57):
said iPhone, So yeah, we don't have that fry.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
But good question.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
And it's one of those little things that's just kind
of cool to have. You know, if you're ever in
a place where you didn't have data or no data signal,
you can still listen to radio, so kind of cool.
All right, we got just a little bit more time here.
A couple little quick hits Instagram. You know how you
see those TikTok videos all over Instagram in reels, Well
that's going to start changing because Instagram is going to
(53:23):
start demoting videos that have a watermark, that are covered
with texts, that are blurry, that have a logo or
have a border around them, so they're not going to
be shown as frequently as some of the original content
that is made inside reels. And this is you know,
they didn't specifically say TikTok, but they said, you know, blurry,
(53:44):
have a watermark or logo. And if you look at
all the TikTok videos, when you download a TikTok video,
it comes out with the TikTok watermark on it. And
this was for growth, so that TikTok can grow and
people know where this video came from. But what happens
is that a lot of people that are big on
TikTok or like the creation features because TikTok is really
like one of the most amazing editing apps out there
(54:07):
on mobile. I mean, it's really really amazing for short
form content. They have so many cool features in there.
So people use that to make the content and then
they download it or they put on TikTok and then
they download it and they'll also ship it off to Instagram.
But you can understand why Instagram doesn't like that because
it's like, oh, we're not good enough to make original stuff.
We want to be known for our original content. And
(54:28):
so that's going to be happening. And just be on
the lookout for less TikTok videos. If you start seeing
less TikTok videos and Instagram, you know why on Google Photos.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
This is really cool.
Speaker 1 (54:40):
Google Photos is now applying a lot of their magic
to videos. So if you have a video you need
to edit in Google Photos, you can do it. You
can trim your video, you can stabilize it. This is
things you've been able to do before. You can always
trim it, you can always stabilize and always rotate it.
But now you can crop your video, change the perspective,
(55:00):
ad filters, and apply edits like brightness, contrast, saturation, and warmth.
There's thirty controls that you can do on the on
the Google Photos app.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Now.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
The new video editing features are already available in Google
Photos on iOS. I checked, yes they are, and they're
rolling out to Android users in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
And let's see.
Speaker 1 (55:22):
I checked on my Android and let's see if it's
there yet. What's really cool is that these are pretty
powerful filter features like editing features now I still think, Okay, yeah,
it's not here on my Android just yet. But the
cool thing is that you can export a frame. And
this is a feature that I've actually needed because a
lot of times when you need a thumbnail for your video,
(55:42):
it's kind of a pain to like you get to
grab a screenshot and then crop it. But with this feature,
you can just press export frame and boom, You've got
a nice, great, perfectly perfect exported frame of your video
that you can use for social media if you want
to like tweet about your video or something. The other
thing they're doing is some of the features are just
exclusive for Google one members, but I'm not gonna get
(56:05):
into that because that's kind of a little thing. But
I think that the video editor is really cool. I
think on Android this is something that's been poorly missing
on iOS. I don't think it's as necessary because iOS
has such a good video editor built in. I'm not
even sure why you'd ever use the Google photosapp one,
but the photo editors on Android historically have not been
as good. So I'm really glad that Google is looking
(56:28):
into making that a lot better.
Speaker 2 (56:32):
Uh oh oh, no, yep, there it is. That's the
music that signifies that's gonna do it for this episode
of the show.
Speaker 1 (56:45):
If you would like to submit a question for me
to answer, you can do it in a few different ways.
Just go to rich on Tech dot tv scroll all
the way down and you can see a little email
button you can press that send me an email. You
can go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash
rich on tech. There's a big email button there. Or
you can go to a rich on tech dot tv
slash podcast and hit the microphone button to leave a voicemail.
(57:09):
Also would love it if you would rate and review
this podcast to help other people discover it.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
Just go do iTunes or what do they call it now?
Just podcasts, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (57:19):
Just go there and and rate and review it. That'll
be a you know people, I think people look up
reviews of podcasts.
Speaker 2 (57:25):
I don't know. I mean, do I look at them?
Let me think.
Speaker 1 (57:28):
No.
Speaker 2 (57:28):
If I hear a podcast, I just kind of listen
to it.
Speaker 1 (57:30):
If I want to fhis a good guest or something
that's how I kind of or if someone is doing
the podcast I like, I'll just listen to it.
Speaker 2 (57:36):
But anyway, I think it helps for people to discover us.
So for me just do it.
Speaker 1 (57:42):
That was not a very good Uh? Was that very
convincing to actually go and take the time to rate it?
I know it just I just personally like it. Okay,
that's that's the real truth. You can find me at
rich on Tech on all social media platforms.
Speaker 2 (57:55):
My name is rich dmiro.
Speaker 1 (57:57):
Thanks so much for listening. I do appreciate it. Stay safe,
I will talk to you real soon.
Speaker 2 (58:02):
Take care.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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