Facebook goes on the defense

Facebook suffers a major outage and defends its business practices; Windows 11 launches; testing Amazon's palm scanning payment system; Google announces when it will announce the Pixel 6; GM unveils Ultra Cruise; "Men in Black" VR experience.Listeners ask about buying an unlocked iPhone, an effective way to update an address book, changing the DNS on Spectrum internet, buying refurbished phones, signing up for a business email provider, whether it's worth upgrading to the Samsung Galaxy Flip from the Note 10.LinksFollow RichFacebook outageWindow 11 launchAmazon One palm scannerPixel 6 announcementUltra CruiseMen in Black VRGoogle ContactsContact Pics Adder for iOSGoogle DNSAdGuard DNSCloudflare DNSSee 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

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Facebook has a major outage and an image problem. I
try Amazon's new Palm reading technology an iOS update, we'll
fix a major issue with the new iPhone. Plus your
tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Richdemiro and this
is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about
the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's

(00:30):
also the place where I answer the questions you sent me.
I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Welcome to the show. Welcome if you're listening on Facebook Live,
no matter where you're tuned in from. I do appreciate
you taking the time to hang with me. Hmm, what
happened this week? I don't know. We're getting into fall.

(00:52):
It's exciting. I went through the house and set up
all the Halloween decorations with the smart plugs. And I'll
be honest, I am actually more into the Amazon alex
A side of things than I am Google Assistant at
this point. Now, I think there are some advantages to
the Google Home app over the alex A app, let's

(01:16):
call it. Most notably changing colors of groups of lights.
And so I've got a bunch of lights in different
rooms assigned and on the Home app, I can change
them to different colors. So if the kids want their color,
you know, their lights in the room to be blue,
I can change them to blue. And I'm talking through
the app, now I get it. If you're speaking to

(01:39):
you know who, you can just say change the lights blue.
But sometimes I don't really want to say anything. I
just want to do it, and I want to select
from a palette of colors. And on the Google Home
app that's really easy, and on the alex A app
it's not. And I don't know why. Now you can
set up routines. On the flip side, routines are so

(01:59):
much easier on the alex A app versus the Google
I've given up on routines with Google because they just
don't they don't work, and I don't even understand what
Google's thought process is with those. But on the Amazon
side of things, they are fantastic. And so I went through.
I put some smart plugs with the little you know,
jack lanterns and lights around the house for Halloween and

(02:21):
they come on at sunset. They go off at like
ten PM, and it's great. And I really was building
an ecosystem of hue lights in my house because I
felt like those work the best. But now I'm like
with the Amazon thing, they have so many different like
products that work with it, and a lot of them
are cheap, and so it's it's much easier to build
an ecosystem there. I guess Google's kind of the same,

(02:45):
But anyway, these are the kind of things that I
tinker with during the week. I just play with this
stuff and try to see like what's good, what's bad,
and that way I can talk about it with you
and give you my opinions on things in this show
on TV and all the radio. But you know, I
think that each one of these platforms has their pros

(03:05):
and cons, but I think when you select a certain
it all starts with like a certain product. So right
now I'm really into the Ring products. And of course
that's what got me into the Amazon side of things,
because before that, I started out my entire smart house
with the Nest thermostat and that was of course all Google,
and so I went with Google stuff. But then as

(03:26):
like you know, and then I like the Google Nest displays.
But I just find that there's so much progress with
the Amazon stuff, with the ecosystem. They just keep coming
out with new products all the time. I think you
could build a pretty good ecosystem on that on that
backbone the home Kit stuff. I know, for you, if
you're an iPhone person out there, you're like, where it's rich?
What about home Kit? I mean, come on, home Kit

(03:48):
is like the most expensive way to build an ecosystem
at home, and it's also it works really nicely. I
think Apple has a great you know, automation and a
nice slick gap which is super complicated that I still
don't understand. But I think that there's just such a
limit of products that you can use with that platform
that it's definitely not for me. So let's get into

(04:11):
the big story of the week, Zuckerberg and Facebook. So
Facebook suffered a major outage. And typically outages are not
something that I really go into depth about. You know,
on TV, they always come to me they're rich. You know,
Instagram's out. Okay, great, it's out. Maybe it'll be up
by the time I get my script written and on TV.
So I usually don't put a lot of stock in

(04:33):
the outages of websites. They go down, they come back up,
they're down, they're up. But this was a big one.
This was like six hours, and it took down all
of Facebook properties. You're talking Facebook, you're talking Instagram, you're
talking Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and then you know, assorted things
that run on top of these services like Facebook Login,

(04:54):
you know if you're still using that, which shouldn't be,
but you know, so you have all these things going on,
and so then you had, you know, coupled with the
fact that you had that whistleblower go on sixty minutes
the night before, on Sunday night, and so people were saying, oh,
this is all because Mark wanted to make a statement
like you don't like Facebook, will try living without it.

(05:15):
But that wasn't the case here. So what did end
up happening is that Facebook changed some DNS settings on
a server and it kind of those are the that's
the address book that computers used to look up directions
to things. So if I'm looking, you know, everything on
the web has an address, right, so every server, every

(05:35):
just everything, every website, and so when when my computer
can't figure out the address to get to the other computer,
it's like you'd be driving around in circles in a
real street. And that's what happened. The products just you
couldn't access them, and so Facebook Zuckerberg came out with
the whole big blog post about our Facebook post I
should say about not only the outage, but then he

(05:55):
went into kind of the claims by this whistleblower. And
I'll be honest. I mean, you know me, I am
the type of person that is very tech optimistic. I
think this hatred of technology that we're seeing in media
and the uh, you know, it's mostly media because if
you talk to regular people, I don't run into anyone
that hates Facebook, that hates Instagram, that hates Twitter, that

(06:18):
hates YouTube, that hates this, that hates that. No, most
of the time they see the pros and cons of them,
but they also see the benefits. They don't they don't like.
No one I run into is like Facebook is so evil,
Google is so evil, Apple is so evil. No, they
just say, oh, Apple, like I'm spending all my money
because they're so good at what they do. Or Facebook,

(06:40):
Oh they're listening to me. They're they're serving up ads
based on everything I talk about. And you know, Instagram,
I can't stay off of it. I just you know,
every minute I look at my phone, I'm on Instagram.
So I think, you know, the average person sees it
in a much more nuanced way, whereas you know, the
media just makes it like these are evil, they're big corporations,
they should be taken apart, they should be distributed. But

(07:02):
the thing to me is that we're still learning and Facebook,
and this is what I'm not defending Zuckerberg, like, but
I don't think he set out to build Facebook to
be evil. And I think that, you know, the things
that it does and the things that it enables are
a side effect of the fact that we've never been
more connected as a society. And I talk about this

(07:24):
with my wife sometimes at dinner. I'm like, what I mean.
We live in a new world where if you see
something unique in any facet of the tiniest corner of
the world, you can put it on social media and
it could be an instant viral sensation within minutes. Usually
it takes a little bit longer than that. But the

(07:44):
reality is anyone has that possibility, and so that's a
really cool thing because it brings light to a lot
of stuff in our world that previously didn't have a
lot of light shed upon it. But then you also
have the downside that one person that's itit's in a
burrito at a fast food restaurant, is now suddenly that
entire chain is under fire because they're horrible and eating

(08:08):
there is terrible, and the people that work there are gross,
you know, And these are the things that bubble up
out of this when in reality, as we're seeing that
percolate online, the drive through is still full at that restaurant,
people are still going there, people are still eating at it.
And so it's this really weird kind of division that
we're seeing thanks to social media that I don't have

(08:28):
the answer to. I don't know what the answer is.
I think that I don't think that there's any sort
of AI that can filter out everything and anything that
could be bad for anyone in the world. That's just
not going to happen because there's so many different opinions
out there and what's good and what's bad, and what's
right and what's wrong. But I do think that there
are certain things that worldwide, we're just like, nah, that's

(08:51):
not good. So of course, you know, self harm, things
like that, people doing bad things to other people that
are on you know, But then again we see that
I don't know, word does it end I don't know.
But anyway, so Zuckerberg said, a lot of the claims
from this whistleblower don't make a lot of sense, Like
I mean they said. She said that basically Facebook puts

(09:12):
profit over anything that comes to do with safety with
its users, and that's just not really true. I mean,
Facebook is a corporation, and yes, I'm sure they make
some decisions that are well, I don't know, do they
make decisions that are not in the best interest of users.
I'm not sure. Now I can tell you from my
personal experience of me as a person that has built

(09:33):
a career in journalism, my mo has always been do
what's best for the customer. And I call the person
that is listening to me, watching me, seeing me, seeing
my tweets, the customer, and that means that don't try
to mislead them, don't try to trick them, don't try
to fake them out. Yes, I can have some fun
that can be playful, but the bottom line is that

(09:56):
I'm trying to be an honest, good person that's getting
you the information I think you need in a way
that's not misleading you to click or to you know,
get you to do something that you shouldn't typically do.
And I feel like Facebook, you know, it's such a
behemoth at this point that it's tough for them to
do the right thing in every situation. But again, like

(10:17):
Zuckerberg said, well, we want to understand these issues. So
that's why we're doing this research. You know, this woman
called upon this research that said that you know, teen
girls are you know, they think they think they look
worse when they when they're on Instagram, And yeah, a
lot of that is true, but it's a lot of
that's true for everyone. You know, sometimes I'm sitting there
on top of the world and I look at my
Instagram feed. I'm like, ah, look at this person. They're
flying a private jet. Look what is my world? What

(10:39):
my life sucks? And do I really think that? No,
But in that moment, it gives you a little pause
and you're like, oh, there's always someone out there that's
doing better than you or doing worse than you. And
I think a healthy person can can see that. But
not everyone's healthy all the time, and so we also
have to take that into consideration. So there's just too

(11:00):
many variables for a standard decision to be made about
everything that's going on with Facebook. So I do think
that they are learning. I think that they try, and
I think this idea that they're just blanketly evil is
not necessarily correct, because I think that Facebook is pretty
amazing and I look at it in my little career

(11:22):
of a TV journalist. You know, I've got you know,
eight hundred and twenty five thousand people on Facebook. Now,
to me, that's amazing because that means that my thoughts,
little old rich Demiro's thoughts can reach almost a million people.
That's unbelievable. Now should I have that taken away from me?
Should I? Is there another way of doing that that's
better than Facebook? I don't know, But again, it's there,

(11:47):
and it's a tool that I'm using that I think
is awesome and I think has been very good for
me in my life, and I think good in the
lives of the people that I'm reaching on Facebook. Are
there things I see on Facebook that I don't like,
that I don't want to see that I think are divisive?
Is divisive? You know that that divide people, that make
people angry, Yes, of course, But I see that in

(12:08):
real life too, And so I think that we're just
in this time that's a it's a. It's a very
interesting time in our world where technology is is very
much at its infancy and it's still developing. And I
think that we're just part of the ride right now
of what's good, what's bad, what works, what doesn't, and
where we're going to go in the future with all
this stuff. And I think that even a company like

(12:29):
Facebook is learning. They're gonna try a lot of stuff.
They're gonna break a lot of things. They're going to
do stuff that they're not gonna you know, maybe later
on not gonna like. But to liken them to a
cigarette company or a you know, smoking is is I
just don't know. I mean, maybe I'll be proven wrong
in the future, but I think that at the same time,

(12:50):
there's a lot for all of us to learn when
it comes to this stuff. All right, let's get into
the first question of the show. Michael says, Hey, I'm
trying to ask for your help in finding an unlocked
iPhone thirteen promax. I have tried Apple and Amazon, but
they're all selling it with carrier contract. Uh. Amazon, I'm
not sure if you can buy an iPhone there, but

(13:12):
you might be able to. But I would not go
to Amazon for an iPhone, Well, can you I don't know.
I've not even looked at Amazon for an iPhone. I
would never think to buy an iPhone on Amazon. Let's see,
can you buy an iPhone? Uh, it looks like you can,
but I don't. That's yeah, they're not there. I don't
think I would go there for that. So what I

(13:32):
would do is just go to Apple dot com and
I check this out. But all you have to do
is they indeed sell an unlocked version. So when you're
going through the options to kind of customize your phone,
there's an option that says connect to a carrier later.
You just tap that and boom, they will send you
the phone that is unlocked. Now, yes, Apple tries to

(13:56):
push you gently in the direction of a carrier because
Apple and these carriers make a lot of money off
of people signing up for these iPhones. And that is
you know, it comes with the deal, and it comes
to the rebate, it comes to the promotion, and the
reason why it comes with all of that stuff is
because they don't do to your contracts anymore. But all
these promotions basically lock you into a contract. Now there

(14:19):
is no there is no real contract anymore with these carriers.
But the way they do it is that if they
give you any sort of discount on the iPhone, it's
over a certain amount of months, twenty four to thirty months,
and if you leave in any in any of those months,
you either owe the balance or worse yet, you owe
the entire amount because you're forfeiting sort of the deal,

(14:40):
the promotion that you that you signed up for. Now,
I don't quote me on that part. I think that
you would just owe the balance immediately, but I'm not sure.
In some cases, you may lose the promotion. They may say, hey,
you know you said you'd sign up for this promotion.
You're saving this money every month, and now you're ditching us,
so you're you're liable for all this money no matter what.
It's decent amount of money that most people don't want

(15:02):
to pay. And that's why you see on the flip side,
the carriers will often give you five hundred to one
thousand dollars to switch because they know that people come
saddled with this, you know, this attachment to the phone
that costs them a lot of money, and they're kind
of riding on a balance here, and so the carriers
know that. But Michael, you can definitely get a phone

(15:22):
contract free at Amazon at Apple and it does not
come carrier locked, and the iPhones right now are on
a waiting list, so I would get in there now
if you want to get that good question though, all
right this week Windows eleven. Oh, let me just real
quick back to that old question. So I remember, I

(15:43):
usually buy my phones unlocked. I don't like to have
the carrier situation, so I just buy them unlocked. But
one time I was buying a phone at best Buy,
and you know, sometimes you just want it fast, and
if you're looking for an unlocked phone, generally you can't
find it in town. You have to do it online
with either a direct from the carrier or sorry wrecked
from the company that makes the phone. So in my case,
I can't remember if I was buying an iPhone or

(16:05):
Samsung or whatever it was at the time, but I
went into best Buy it and I'm like, I just want
to buy the phone out outright, and they're like, okay,
well you still have to sign up for a contract,
has to be like a locked phone. I'm like, what, no, no, no,
I'm not doing that, but they literally would not let
me buy the phone. Like just without without some sort
of contract or a carrier deal or activation. I was like, no,

(16:27):
I just want to take the box and go. Now,
this was many years ago, so that's probably changed at
this point. But I would say ninety nine point nine
percent of people don't buy phones unlocked because they're just
on this carousel of carrier promotions and deals and trade
ins and upgrade programs, and so it's also complicated. The
easiest way for these carriers to deal with it and

(16:48):
for the consumer is just like, how much am I
paying a month forty five for my phone? Okay, that's fine?
How much my plan ninety? Okay good? I pay about
one hundred and fifty dollars a month, whether that is
for the iPhone twelve, whether I get the new phone,
whether I got to trade in my old phone. So
that's the way most people's brains work, and I understand
that's what these carriers want you to do. So quite honestly,

(17:09):
if you're sticking with the carrier, I'm not even sure
there's a benefit to buying it unlocked at this point.
But if you're switching around, or if you want to
go with one of the really inexpensive carriers, which by
the way, does save you a lot of money. So,
for instance, if you went with Visible for twenty five
dollars a month and their Party Play Party Party Pay plan,

(17:30):
that would save you about fifty dollars a month off
of the unlimited plan that you would need on a
main carrier to you to be on their one of
their promotions for the thousand dollars trade in value for
your old phone. But if you do the math, fifty
dollars times twelve months, that's six hundred dollars, so that
in just one year you would save almost the price

(17:52):
of a new iPhone if you went with something like Visible.
So don't discount doing the math, like add things up
and see what it works out to, because often it
may take a little bit. It may take, you know,
twelve months or eighteen months, but you can come out ahead,
especially when it comes time to sell that phone again
the second time around. You kind of have to get
on this this little trade in kind of wagon where

(18:16):
you're trading in your phone, let's say every other year,
and you'll get a maximum amount for that phone if
you owned it out right. But anyway, it's all about math,
and I get it. Most people don't want to deal
with that, all right, Windows eleven was or is available now,
So Windows eleven I have not downloaded this yet. I'm

(18:37):
always excited for new operating systems. I've got the Windows
computers sitting here, but I've got a backlog of so
many things to do right now that I just it's like,
there's so many tech gadgets that are coming out right
now that I just the time it takes to set
them all up and get them going and try them
and then do my reports. It's a lot. So I
haven't had a chance to do the Windows stuff just
yet because quite honestly, I'm just gonna becomempletely honest. Ninety

(19:01):
nine percent of my audience is not looking forward to
upgrading to Windows eleven. Now. Yes, there are the nerds
out there like myself who love new software. I mean,
I mean, throughout my entire life, when any sort of
new version of anything came out, I was first in
line Windows, you know whatever it was, Windows XP, Windows seven,

(19:23):
Windows ten, Windows whatever, or new Mac operating systems. I
was always the first to upgrade or new iOS operating systems,
or even a new update on a you know, any
sort of device, a new app whatever. But now maybe
as I get older, I understand why people don't want

(19:44):
to do this the first day, because why you understand
your phone it's working for you. Are these new features
going to be so groundbreaking that you need them that day?
Probably not. And with Windows eleven, and with any sort
of upgrade, there's always things that it breaks, or it
changes or it gets rid of. And one of those
things is bound to be something that you liked. And

(20:07):
so with Windows eleven, what do you get? I mean,
here's how Microsoft explains the new things in Windows eleven.
And you tell me if you think you need any
of these things. A new chat experience from Microsoft Teams.
I mean, really, you could download Microsoft Teams for years
and you could have it on your computer. I'm pretty
sure if you were on board with Microsoft Teams, you'd

(20:27):
know it by now. Yes, a lot of new people
will get it. But fine, okay, a clean and modern
layout with a new start button and taskbar. I mean,
who out there is excited about a new start button
and a new taskbar. No one, new sounds, new fonts,
new icons, provide a sense of calm and openness. I mean, okay, now,

(20:50):
I love a refresh just as much as anyone else.
But this is not selling the average consumer on new Windows.
To me, it sounds like new sounds. Ugh, got get
used to new sounds coming through my computer. New fonts.
I don't know. I mean, what's okay? New icons? Now
I got to look for my icons. I sound like
a curmudgeon here. A new Microsoft store brings your favorite

(21:15):
apps and entertainment all in one place. That just means
they want to sell me on more stuff. Now, this one,
I do think is actually really cool, and it's a
feature that I use on my Mac that I like.
Snap layouts in groups offers a more powerful way to
multitask and optimize your screen real estate. And that is
actually a really cool feature, especially because people have multiple monitors,

(21:36):
and I've heard when you unplug the monitors, all your
windows kind of snap into different places and they get
all rearranged. And so the fact that this can now
kind of save the layouts and layout windows faster is
something that I think will benefit a lot of people.
So if you're gonna download it for any reason, probably
go for the snap layouts and the groups. So I

(21:56):
use a program on Mac that is called Rectangle and
Rectangle is a really great little program that kind of
just gets oh wow, this is so powerful. There's so
many things it does, but it just it really just
moves your Windows on Mac into different snap kind of grids,

(22:17):
which ever, since I got the sixteen inch MacBook Pro
a couple of years ago, I can do two windows
side by side pretty comfortably, and it's a feature that
I really really enjoy. In fact, I enjoy it so
much I've even gotten used to the short cut keys
that will snap my windows to the left and to
the right, and so that's no easy feat for me

(22:38):
to memorize any sort of shortcut keys. But anyway, Windows
leven is available if you want to see it. It's
a slow rollout. Not every computers compatible. Just because you're
running Windows ten doesn't mean you'll get it. But most
you know, if it's a newer computer, or it's a
computer that has the specs that can handle it, you'll
get it. Yes, there are ways of forcing it onto
your computer. Yes, it's a free upgrade, but you can

(22:58):
check your Windows update to see if you got it.
And if you're nerdier than that and you want to
force your computer to get it, you're gonna have to
Google for a way to do that. There are plenty
of instructions online on how to get Windows eleven if
you want it right now? All right, tm writes in
looking for an address program that I can enter an address?
Is it address or address and updates everything? Also when

(23:22):
I delete, it deletes addresses everywhere. Is there such a program?
Thank you, Tony, Tony says sent from my Samsung Galaxy
Note ten and AT and T five G evolution capable smartphone.
Thank you, Thank you AT and T for that very
specific signature line. So, Tony, there is absolutely many many
programs that will do this, and I'm sure that the

(23:45):
Contacts program built into Windows can do this. I know
that the Contacts program built into Mac can do this.
But I think since you are on a Samsung Galaxy
Note ten, which is an Android device, I'm gonna I
have a hunch that you are using Google as your
back end, which is probably where all of your contacts originate.

(24:07):
So I am going to recommend the easiest way in
the world to update your contacts. And all you have
to do is go to Contacts dot Google dot com
from your computer Contacts dot Google dot com, and you
will see a list of all of your contacts. I
have eight hundred and ninety nine contacts. I probably call

(24:27):
about twenty of them. And oh, I guess I'm right,
I have nineteen that are starred. So do I need
all these contacts? Probably not. In fact, when I saw
your message, I ended up starting to go through these
like I got sidetracked and I started going through and
like organizing, and I would say that you want to, uh,
do it right here, and it will update on your

(24:48):
phone and anywhere else that you are connected with the
with the Google service. So if you're connected with Google,
which means you're signed in with Google, all your contacts
from Google propagate into whatever you know local contact apps
or on your phone or on your computer or anywhere else.
This will update all those Now I noticed something really

(25:11):
cool that that Google has done, and I wondered if
they did this. But for me, the toughest part of
any contact is always the address, right, because you put
someone's address in your phone really fast, and it's always like,
you know, not you don't want to sit there and
put it in all like the exact like destinations like
you know, city, state, zip, whatever, like it's just too

(25:32):
much work. So you just kind of write it on
one line. Well, if you tap into the street address
on the Google contact's web page, you start typing the address,
and lo and behold. Yes, they have been so smart
where it will auto complete with that Google kind of
pop up that comes up when you type in an
address on a lot of websites, and it will automatically

(25:54):
figure out what you know the rest of the address. Now,
the only thing it doesn't work on is like a
apartment numbers. You will have to type that into the
second line, but it will do the address properly formatted,
the city, the state, and the zip code, and it
will even give you the last four of the zip code,
which probably used to be useful back in the day
with mail service, but now probably just you know, don't

(26:16):
doesn't really get things there any faster. Maybe it does,
I don't know. But I went through and I did
a couple of my contacts and that was really fun.
I also want to mention there is a contacts app
that I really like, and it's called Contact Picks, And
I think I might have mentioned this already, but it's
a really cool little app that is just so easy.

(26:38):
This is on iOS, but it's such an easy little
app to use. And oh gosh, oh no, I don't
know what the I don't know what the like. I'm
trying to figure out how to find what this contact app? Like,
what's the like? How would you know? Like if you
look up contact picks, you're not gonna like, you're not

(27:01):
gonna know like what it's all about. So let me
go share app and I'm gonna share it to myself
and I'll see if I can figure out where this
app comes from. But it's like a dollar ninety nine
and it's really easy because you just you go in
there and all you have to do is it gives
you a list of all your contacts and it just

(27:23):
fine helps you find pictures for them. And I'll put
the link in the show notes you can see it.
But oh wow, price one up, it's now four ninety nine.
Well I don't know, I mean for four ninety nine,
I don't know if it's totally worth it, but it's
kind of fun. Honestly, I really like it. But what
it does is so it shows you a list of
all your contacts that don't have pictures or that have pictures,
and then it helps you find pictures for them. So

(27:45):
you can search Google Images and it automatically does all this.
You can search Facebook, you can search like just everything
like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. It's so easy. It's really really
cool and it works, and it's it's very simple, and
it's just a fun way to like replace some of
the old school pictures that people you know, like I
don't know where the pictures get pulled from on the

(28:08):
contacts on my iPhone, Like for every time I have
someone on there, I'm like, like I show them, like
where did this picture come from? Like why why is
your picture a picture of your dog? And they're like, oh,
I uploaded that to AOL ten years ago and I'm like, well,
why is it? How did it make it to my phone?
I never know. So this is a way that you know,
it's a manual process, but it's like an automated manual process,

(28:30):
and I find that the easiest way, especially I mean,
I don't know a lot of people that I have
in my contact book or like either public figures or
they have you know, a LinkedIn I mean, I guess
a lot of people have that. But it'll just help
you find a picture, especially their professional pictures, very easily
and or just like a fun picture that they posted
one time to like Facebook before they lock down their account,
and it's just floating out there on the web and

(28:51):
it's like them in a bar and you can like
just choose that. It like comes up on Google Images
and you could just choose that and put that in there.
Oh okay, all right, so we got through that question. Uh,
let's talk about Amazon, one of my favorite topics. You know,
you know I love Amazon. So Amazon invited me to
try out their new palm scanning payment system called Amazon One.

(29:15):
And this is this is That's what I love about
these big tech companies. It's like they're so like mysterious,
Like they call me. They're like, rich, we would love
you to try this new system out. I'm like, oh, great, okay,
but we can't help you do anything. What do you mean, Well,
we can't give you an interview, We can't really do anything,
but we can just know that you're coming to the
store and will make sure that they allow you to

(29:37):
use your phone. And by the way, you can only
use your phone to record. Now, I'm probably telling you
too much about the inside baseball of how things work,
but you know, a lot of things are like little negotiations,
you know, like when I went to the the Volkswagen
event in Chattanooga, Tennessee. They were like, well, you can't
record anything in the factory. I'm like, well, that's a
non starter. I'm a TV journalist, like I need to

(29:58):
record stuff in the factory. Like, well, we have someone
there that will be recording. I'm like, no, I want
to record my own stuff because I can't rely on
your camera person. And you know. So they finally went
back and forth and they said, Okay, you can use
your iPhone and I said, okay, cool. Same thing with Amazon. Okay,
you can use your iPhone to shoot this, but that's it.
So we go in there and we tried it out.
You basically link you go in there and this is

(30:20):
in like sixty different locations, mostly Amazon stores, but then
they also have it as a ticket Kia or a
ticket entry method at Red Rocks Amphitheater, which I've never
been to, but I hear is beautiful. One of my
favorite CDs. I know this is aging me or dating me,
but my my Dave Matthews band Live at Red Rocks
is like one of my all time favorites, and that's

(30:42):
the only that's the only like frame of reference I
have for Red Rocks Amphitheater. But I'm sure it's beautiful.
It just sounds amazing. But anyway, so they're using it.
You know, you can scan your hand to get in
as a ticket instead of your ticket. I digress. Okay,
So here's how it works. You go into the Amazon store.
You go up to the counter and you say, I'd

(31:03):
like to register my credit card or my card with
my hand, and so you pop your card, your either
debit or credit card into this little reader that's linked
to your Amazon account, so you know, it knows which
cards are on your Amazon account, one that you've used before.
And then it says, okay, now hold your left hand
over the scanner. Bink takes two seconds. It scans your
hand and I'm talking to your palm of your hand,

(31:25):
so it's actually like kind of looking through your hand.
I'm guessing at like the blood vessels and stuff at
the veins. I don't know what it's looking at, but
it is. And then it does your right hand. It says, okay,
that's it, You're all done. You pop your credit card
out and you never need it again. So now the
next time you go into Amazon store, you buy your stuff,
and you just go up to the register and you say, oh,
I'm using Amazon one. You scan your hand and that's it. Now, Yes,

(31:47):
I get that. It's scary. It's biometrics. It's they're building
a reference of who you are, and they can someone
can steal. Someone on my Facebook page said oh great,
now people are going to be chopping each other's hands
off and using them to pay in store. I'm like,
and someone else's comment and they're like, oh, that's not
very obvious. You bring a bloody hand into the Amazon Store. Like,

(32:08):
I don't think that's going to be happening. I remember
people saying that, you know, when face id came out,
people were gonna be getting their their phones unlocked by
holding their their iPhone in front of their spouse while
they're sleeping to unlock it and look at all their secrets.
But like, I mean, it's just then the fingerprint. You know,
when touch id came out, people were like, oh, now

(32:28):
people are gonna, you know, just put their finger on
someone's phone and like get it unlocked real quick, or
chop off their thumb when they need it. It's like, no,
I don't think we've really heard a lot of reports
of that stuff happening, and if it does, these people
have way bigger problems than Amazon's little palm scanning system.
I mean, if you're chopping off people's hands to shop

(32:48):
in the Amazon Store, I think that's a bigger issue
than Amazon coming up with the new technology that uses
palm scanning biometrics. Okay, yeah, and I don't want you
in my Amion store, honestly. If that's if you're if
you're considering chopping off someone's hand to use it to
buy your uh, you know, your latest romance novel at

(33:10):
the Amazon Store, that's that's a little concerning. So I
would think twice before you even consider doing this. Okay,
So I tried it out. I bought a bunch of
stuff at the Amazon Store, and it works great. It's
really convenient, it's fast, it's simple. It's truly contact lists,
which I think in today's world with uh, you know
the COVID situation that never ends, and you know the

(33:34):
even the fact that even if you use tap to
pay ninety nine percent of the time, if you're using
a debit card, it's like pin number please. Half the
time they're like signature. Please. I'm like, why do I
have to touch the screen? I just did tap and pay.
The reason I'm doing tap and pay is I don't
have to touch your dirty, grimy screen in the middle
of a COVID world or any world. I didn't want
to touch the screens before that, or the pen that's

(33:54):
hanging there. Nasty. The only the the whole pin screen.
The only thing worse is that giant key for the
bathroom they give you at the at the gas station
that's on like a giant like you know, it's attached
to like a kid's like wagon. They're like, oh, here's
the key for the bathroom, and it's attached like a
radio fly er wagon. You have to like wheel it

(34:16):
to the bathroom because they don't want you to steal it.
I mean, who comes up with the things that they
attach those keys to. It's like always like the randomest
thing that's like so dirty and disgusting. My little trick
is I always hold it from the ring where the
key connects to the nasty whatever the thing that it's holding,
because I feel like most people don't do that, So

(34:38):
I'm a little bit cleaner that way. But it's like
you go to the restroom. You gotta you know, drag
this giant key there. Then you have to put it
somewhere in the nasty bathroom, and then you wash your
hands and you come out of the bathroom, and now
you have to touch this thing and bring it back.
And then it's like you might as well have just
you know, licked a street corner or something. I don't
know where was I. So the Amazon One, it's it's

(35:00):
a great system. It's really fast, it's simple. It's truly
contact list because there's nothing to do. After you do
that initial sign up. You literally just wave your hand
over the reader. It says, okay, we know who's who,
we charge the card. And I even got a notification
from my bank, like a personalized thing that like they
knew what Amazon one was. So clearly they've gotten some
of these banks on board. It said, like you know

(35:23):
from my bank, like, hey, we noticed you added added
your card to Amazon one. You have all the protections
of your card that you know are that you would
that you would get typically even if you use this method.
And I was like, okay, so Amazon's really pushing this,
and I think I think it's tough to sell people
on a new type of payment method, especially when we

(35:44):
just are getting used to the whole tap to pay thing.
And so I think that they have an uphill battle
here because it's it's limited. It's only you know, in
use at Amazon stores right now, plus that random, uh,
the other random place I mentioned, the Red Rocks, And
so I think that Amazon would like to license this

(36:05):
to other places, and then, of course they will get
a little tiny percentage or whatever however it works with
the interchange fees or whatever, they'll get a little tiny
cut of the action whenever someone uses this at somewhere else,
like another store. But I can guarantee you Walmart's not
going to accept this. I can guarantee you that Target's
not going to use this. I can guarantee you that
Kroger's not going to use it. So and for mom

(36:28):
and pop places, it's probably a little expensive to get
this reader when you just invested in tap to pay.
So I don't know what the future of this is
going to be now. Amazon, Yeah, they're building a bunch
of stores, and I do think that if Amazon has
it in their own stores and you shop at Whole
Foods all the time, where you've got Amazon Books, or
you know, it's very convenient. But I think the place

(36:48):
that this would work the best at is sort of
a little tiny convenience store, like a seven to eleven,
places where you're going in and you just want a
very fast transaction and so or even like a gas station.
Not that I use gas anymore, as you know, but
if I did, this would be really nice. But you
still have to touch the handle of the gas thing

(37:10):
the pump, so it's like, you know, people aren't. It's
places where I think you have very quick, small, fast transactions,
and that would be like in New York City. I
think of like the little corner convenience stores like that.
This would be really easy where you just you go downstairs.
You know, you're in your pajamas, you're in your slippers.
You run downstairs, you grab a you know, whatever you need,

(37:31):
and you wave your hand and you're done. And so
I think that's where this would really thrive. And if
Amazon can get these little places to adopt it, that
would be really great. But we'll have to wait and
see on this one. But I did try it out.
It did work. It was very nice, it was very quick,
and I like it because, like I said, you don't
have to touch anything. So with fingerprint, you know, if

(37:52):
they did fingerprint, you have to put your Like there's
a place in LA that does a fingerprint as your
either payment or your club card. And it's like, I
don't want to put my finger print in your little
machine like number one that's my fingerprint, which I don't
know why. To me, my fingerprint seems a little bit
more identifiable than my palm print, Like, you know, fingerprints

(38:15):
since the beginning of like mankind, that's what they've used
to like identify people, whereas palm and you know, iris scan, yes,
but palm, it's like, no, no one's really using the
palm to identify you. So I think that's a pretty
pretty des one. I going really slow here. I've only
gotten through two questions. All right, let's see, Hey, Rich,
can you help us understand DNS servers. My family has spectrum.

(38:35):
Despite appearing that we have full bars, we're constantly being
told cannot find server. It's virtually impossible to use the
Wi Fi on our phones in our house. On laptops,
it's especially hard to connect right away, but after several
minutes it's typically okay. We have a mesh system all
the MESH hubs indicate they're working. Someone suggested we might
want to consider using a different DNS like Google or Amazon.

(38:56):
Any thoughts, aren't we are not. I'm thinking we're not
your only fan with this problem. Thank you, Rich. We
always appreciate your tech wisdom. Michelle and Cyprus. So, Michelle,
the fact that you have a MESH system is a
good thing. I'm not sure it's properly set up if
this is happening, but I will tell you that, yes,
I use a third party DNS. I do not use

(39:17):
what Spectrum or AT and T provide because you're right,
in my experience, it's not the best experience to use
experience twice in one sentence. But I find that it
is slow, it is laggy, it's not that great and so,
and also it's not that private, and so I always
switch to a new DNS server. So there's a couple

(39:40):
like you mentioned. I don't know about Amazon. I don't
think they have one, nor would I want to use theirs.
But Google, yes, they have one that is eight dot
eight dot eight dot eight and then it's I think
eight dot eight dot four dot four. So you have
to look up the way to update this on your system.
But if you just google the name of your Mesh system,
like you know EUO Mesh network DNS servers, and if

(40:05):
you even you know, even the app for your for
your Mesh network should have a place where it just
says DNS and you go in there, and it's really
quite simple. You just go in, you type in those
four digits whether it's uh A A eight or one
one one one which one one one one is run
by cloud Flare, And that's another one that's a little
bit more private, a little bit better, and a little

(40:27):
bit faster, And so I would definitely switch to one
of these, and I think that you will have a
better experience. But I think the bigger problem might be
how your Mesh network is set up. But I'm not sure,
but I there used to be another one that I
liked too. Maybe it was this one one one one, Yeah,

(40:47):
I think that's it. Those two now the other one.
If you really want to do something that's interesting, you
could switch to what's called ad Guard DNS. And if
you switch to ad Guard, you will actually you've you've
got a couple of flavors inside there, and so ad
guard has a has a a DNS that is for

(41:12):
what Yeah, family, So there's a family protection mode in here,
and so you can go, uh oh, yeah, there's yeah,
there's two, so you can okay. So ad guard will
actually block at the network level, all the ads on
your system. It's not perfect, but it blocks ads, it
blocks any counters malicious software, and it can also block

(41:33):
adult websites. So if you want to switch to this,
it's a little bit different because you're you know, you're
going through a third party and you're kind of you
gotta put a little trust and ad Guard. But if
you want to block ads kind of on your network
at a at a network level, you can set this
up and their servers are it's like, well I can

(41:53):
read it. It's ninety four fourteen dot fourteen, and that's
the default that will block ads. But if you want
to do something a little extra and you've got kids
in the house, you can do the family Protection servers
and this will attempt to filter out any adult content
on the web as well, mostly adult websites. I don't
know about Google searches, but and that's like ninety four

(42:13):
dot one dot fourteen dot fifteen. So those are yeah,
I mean, those are two other options. So you've got
the the Cloudflare one, which is one dot one dot
one dot one. You've got Google which is eight dot
eight dot eight dot eight, and you've got this ad
Guard DNS. Those are the three that I know off

(42:34):
the top of my head, and I've used most of them,
and I do think that they are better. In fact,
it's one of the first things I change anytime setting
up a Wi Fi network. All Right, Google is going
to announce the Pixel six on October nineteenth, So I'm
not gonna spend too much time on this because until
the phone is announced, there's not really much to talk about.

(42:55):
But I told you that I am waiting to see
what the Pixel six Pro is all about before I
make my final purchase on the iPhone thirteen Pro or
the Pixel six Pro. Now, I'll be completely honest, it's
gonna be tough to get me away from the iPhone
thirteen Pro because it is quite possibly the world's most
perfect phone. And I don't just say that because Rich

(43:17):
you love Apple, Oh my gosh, you're such an Apple fanboy. No,
I say that because if there's a phone that I
had to be stranded somewhere in the world with, it
would probably be the iPhone thirteen Pro. It takes amazing pictures.
The battery actually now lasts a really long time. I
like the charging, I like the screen, I like the accessories.

(43:39):
I like the Apple Watch. I like the software on
all the apps. I mean it's a total package. Now,
there are a lot of things I don't like, and
I don't like how I message hijacks your phone number
and gets you into this world of I Message that
I don't want to be a part of, but I
have to be because you know, we live in an
Apple world, and all your friends if you start texting
them with green bubbles, are like, Ranch, why aren't you

(44:01):
using your iPhone? And it just gets, you know, really annoying,
and so I just go, you know, I just don't
ditch it. But on the flip side, I love how
my I messages go to the Apple Watch and they go,
you know, my Apple Watch. I can just leave the
house and you know it's got cellular on it. So
it's gonna be tough to move to the Pixel six
Pro because I feel like it's a one trick pony.

(44:21):
It's going to have great camera quality, but what else
does it give me besides that? Now, I do like
the idea. Whenever I use a Google phone or an Android,
I of course immediately start harnessing more of the power
of Google, because on the iPhone, Google it's there, but
it's not very easy. You're always typing, you can't really
use voice search, you can't really use it's just a

(44:43):
lot of like busy work to actually use Google or
any Google products on there. Whereas I'm Android, it's much easier.
So if I want to search for something, I just
tap the microphone button right on the home screen and boom,
I'm into a search and the results you are up
within like a fraction of a second. If I want
to click on an address in anything across the phone,
it will bring me to my preferred Maps app, not

(45:05):
Apple Maps half the time as it does on the iPhone.
If I want to set up any kind of random
little things on the phone, I can do that. Now
iPhone has gotten a lot better in this aspect, but
again I feel like I'm always cruising two different systems,
the system that Apple wants to force me to use
and the system that I want to use. For instance,
half the time when you click on a website, it

(45:26):
comes up in Safari because even though you can set
a default now, it doesn't always work. And it's just
those little kind of things that bug me about the iPhone.
But overall it is a very very It is the
best device. Let's put it that way. It really is.
As a full package, it is the best. But I
will be looking forward to seeing what Google has to announce,
and I hope that I can switch. I really do,

(45:47):
because it will take some creative figuring out for me
to keep the Apple Watch, but to switch to the
Pixel six Pro and we'll see what happens. October nineteenth,
Yolanda says, Hey, Rich, not long ago when I was
getting for work, you did a short segment on refurbished
phone iPhones. Today, I broke my screen. I'm not sure

(46:09):
how much longer it will last. If you'd be so
kind to send that information, I will greatly appreciate it.
Thank you well, Yolanda. If your phone is not that old,
I would just get it repaired, and I would just
take it to like a you break eye fix and
see how much it costs to get fixed. Usually, screen
repairs are not unless the digitizer's broken, like the part
underneath the screen. It's just the glass that's broken. They

(46:29):
can replace that and it's not that expensive, and it
probably will be cheaper than new phone. But if you
want a new phone, here are the places that I
would look for a refurbished iPhone Number one. I spoke
about getting phones on Amazon earlier, but I would not
recommend new phones, but refurbished iPhones. Yes, and you can
look up. I think it's either Amazon Certified refurbished or

(46:49):
Amazon Warehouse deals. But they've got a bunch of iPhones
in there because a bunch of people trade them in
and then Amazon has them, and then they refurbish them
and they send them back out to or they sell
them to folks like you. Gazelle is another place that
a lot of people go to purchase or to sell
their phones, and then Gazelle will refurbish the ones that

(47:10):
are still good and they will flip them and sell
them to someone else. And you can get a pretty
good deal there if you want, like the most official
method you know coming from Apple, and you get a
little bit better warranty. I think it comes with a
two year warranty, but and plus a good return process.
Plus you can bring it to the store for you
know anything, any help you need, you can go to

(47:31):
Apple dot com or just search Apple refurbished, Apple dot com,
slash shop slash refurbished and okay sorry. They come with
a one year warranty and so you save up to
fifteen percent and they come with a one year warranty
and it comes with a new battery and a new

(47:54):
outer shell, which is really cool. So they basically just
keep the insides, like the guts these phones, and then
they replace the whole outside of it new battery and
a new outer shell, and so you're getting like, basically,
you're not getting someone's old battery that they like, you know,
it's like a rental car, you know, they were like
reving it up every day, and so you're getting a

(48:14):
battery that's actually brand new. And so that would be
one advantage to shopping direct from Apple. Yes, you're gonna
pay a little bit more, but in the end it
might benefit you because you're not gonna get a lemon.
You know, you never know what you're gonna get some
times when you buy it off eBay or Amazon, you know,
you just don't know. But if you buy it off Apple,
you've got a big company that's backing what they sell

(48:34):
you and the other one. If you're a little bit
more tech savvy, a little bit nerdier, I'd recommend Swapa.
And this has been like kind of the the geek's
favorite place to sell and buy a lot of gadgets
over the years. And I say that because it's a
little bit more like involved than some of the other places.

(48:58):
But the stuff that you get on there is pretty
high quality, and so people, you know, if nerds like it,
that's a good thing because that means that they're doing
something right. Because these are the discerning tech folks, right
and so you want to make sure that if they're happy,
you'll probably be happy as well. But good question, Thanks
for asking it. And yeah, let's see what do I

(49:19):
want to talk about now? Let's we talk about you know,
every week on the show, I'm going to talk about
my journey with Tesla and electric cars in general. But
I'll get through this news and I'll just switch to
talking about what I want to talk about, which is
my car. But GM has unveiled Ultra Cruse. So GM
has something called super CRUs which I've tested. It's kind

(49:42):
of like their hands free driving, but this Ultra Cruse
takes it a step further, and Ultra Cruse is so
if super Cruse is more like cruise control, that doesn't
require hands on the wheel, but you kind of have
to still be active in this, and that Ultra Cruz
is more like self driving, but it's not full self driving.

(50:02):
So no, everyone's dancing around this idea of self driving
right now because I think that all these car companies
over promised, and when customers get into these cars, they're like, oh,
I thought my like I thought my Tesla would just
drive itself all the time, and that's not really true,
even if you pay for the full autopilot, which I've
not done just yet, but your car. I think that
these cars are doing more for us. But you know,

(50:25):
even in my Tesla and even in the GM Supercruse,
I mean Supercrus does change lanes by itself, so that
is that is definitely something it does at the base level,
but you know, it's it's kind of like cruise control,
but a little bit more evolved, so it does a
little bit more. And then Ultra Cruz is going to
use sensors like cameras, radars, and lidar to control steering, acceleration,

(50:48):
and braking. And they say they could use it on
two million of miles of paved roads and ninety five
percent of driving scenarios. But this is gonna this is
gonna premiere on really ultra premium cars and then trickle
its way down to h You know what's the most
basic GM car? These days? I don't even like they
don't even make cars. These car companies don't even make
cars anymore now. I was talking a forward about the

(51:09):
Maverick and they're like, yeah, we don't even make cars anymore, Like,
what do you mean you don't make cars now? We
just do SUVs and crossovers. So I mean, I think
that these this car market has been taken over. I
don't even think GM's making cars anymore. Like they they
don't do the they do the bolt I guess which
is a car. But I don't think they do like
any of the small little cars they used to do.
They just have so many these little cars. But I

(51:31):
guess the the people have spoken and they like their crossovers.
But anyway, s you'll have supercrew. So now when you
hear the term super cruise, that's like a much higher
end version of the self drive or the driver assist
and then regular Sorry super Cruise is the is the regular.
So there's two levels. There's there's three levels. There's driving yourself,

(51:52):
then there's Super Crews, which has assisted driving, and then
there's Ultra Cruise, which is gonna be much more assistance
and it's gonna do stop signs, traphic signals and other
things that Super Crews cannot. So Ultra Cruise is kind
of like their high end, kind of like the equivalent
of the autopilot on Tesla. But autopilot's a little misleading

(52:13):
because there's full autopilot and then there's autopilot, and so
there are different levels on the Tesla as well. And
I'll be honest, like my experience with the Tesla number
one with the autopilot situation is I think that it's
a little dicey because it's so easy to switch. Like
even if you have cruise control in your car, it's
not as easy to get into as it is on

(52:35):
the Tesla. On the Tesla, it's really quick and really
fast to snap into the ether either the self whatever
the gosh what am I trying to say here? The
part where it just keeps the speed so cruise control
and then the lane keep so it doesn't Tesla doesn't
use those nomenclatures. But that's really the two levels that

(52:55):
I have in my car. I've got the adaptive cruise control,
which when you you just basically you can tap one.
It's like a stick on your steering wheel. You pull
it down and boom, or you push it up. I
can't remember. But then you're you're all of a sudden
like just you know, whatever the speed limit is, you're
automatically there. And that's another thing. Like on my old car,
you know, you'd have to press a button to enter

(53:15):
a cruise control and then you'd have to set your
little cruise control speed. So this is kind of like
all in one in one swipe, so it's really fast.
And then the second thing that's faster is the auto
like staying in your lane. And so I think you
do twice on the stalk and it then stays in
your lane. But I'll be honest, like for me as
a driver, sometimes I forget. I'm like, wait, am I

(53:37):
in just the part where it's keeps the the adaptive
cruise control? Or am I in the part where it
also keeps you my lane? And yes, there's little indicators
that tell you, but I think our human brain, and
I've said this before, is not fully wired to it's
going to take a while to like adapt to this
idea that you always have to be in control. But

(53:57):
sometimes you're not really in control and the car's doing itself.
And it's kind of a tough thing to explain. But
I think that's when we see all these accidents with
these self driving cars and the automated systems. It's because
I think people are just their their brains are not like, oh, shoot,
like it used to be all you had to keep
track of, well, your brain would keep track of everything,

(54:18):
and now as you start to peel away those layers
of Oh I can keep my foot off the gas
pedal and off the brake. Oh okay, well that's a
little weird. Oh I can take my hands off the
stirring wheel for a couple of minutes and then I
have to put them back on. Or oh, it's just
gonna stay in this lane while I do something real quick.
I mean, it's odd that we have that, and it's
tough for your brain to kind of to make sense
of all of that and every single time when the

(54:38):
scenarios are constantly changing. So I think that's why we're
seeing a lot of issues with the uptake and the
you know, the situation with the self driving and the
assisted driving. But and quite honestly, like the bigger portion
of this is when things go fully autonomous. I think
that's gonna be even scarier because there are just so
many driving situations out there and so many nuances on

(54:58):
the road that, yeah, I just don't know if I
would trust a car to you know, to drive me
right now all by itself and also drive my kids.
So or maybe when they start driving, it'll be it'll
be better because it'll be not them driving, So that's
maybe it'll be better. All right, Let's get into another

(55:19):
question because I think we're getting towards the end of
the show here. Uh Almah says, hey, Rich, I've used
Yahoo mail for work since the beginning of Time two
thousand and one. I've noticed that it takes forever to
load on my iPhone and I can read and I
now read Yahoo mal will cease to exist? What provider
should I switch to for business? Gmail? iCloud. I receive
a lot of files and emails I would pay for

(55:39):
a reliable service. Can you point me in the right direction?
I always follow your recommendations faithfully, thank you alba alma alma.
I would recommend the easiest is probably just Google not
I mean, yes, you can use Gmail and it's completely free,
but if you want to have something that says your
business name, like you know, like I have Hello at
richontech dot tv, I would recommend you got to pay

(56:02):
a little bit, and I think it's worth paying. Now.
You can do this a couple different ways, like that
Hello at richontech dot tv is just a forwarding email.
So when someone writes an email to that address, my
my domain is literally just forwarding that to my Gmail,
and so when I reply back to someone, it typically
comes from my Gmail, which you probably don't want for

(56:22):
your business. So I would recommend that you would actually
sign up for Google's, you know, a business account at Google,
which is I think Google Workspace, and then you would
sign up for an email so it looks like it's
six dollars per user per month, and that includes thirty
gigs of storage file sharing, and you know, you can

(56:44):
upgrade if you need to. Plus, it includes your company,
your email at your company, you know dot com. So
I would probably recommend that. The other option is I
would go Microsoft out or Outlook, which is Microsoft three
sixty five, And I don't have the pricing on that,
but I think that that, you know, anytime you do

(57:05):
a business, you kind of want to use Like I
think that Outlook is really good for business, Like you're
gonna be using their app to check your email. And
so either Gmail or Outlook I think are the two
best out there, and so I would just use those now.
If you don't want to pay anything, Yeah, you can
use something like an iCloud, but you're saying you're getting
a lot of files and sending a lot of files.
You don't want to have to be in a scenario
where your storage is either used up or it's too full,

(57:28):
or the files are too big and you can't send
the email. So I would probably go with the Google
Workspace or a professional version of Outlook. And I think
those two will probably be your best bets. All right,
let's talk about something fun before I wrap up the show. Here.
I went to Dreamscape. This is I don't know if

(57:48):
I've talked about on the podcast before. I'm sure I have,
but they Dreamscape, I think is doing the best virtual
reality out there. I love VR, I really really do.
I think it is. It's gonna have such a big future.
I don't think we're there just yet, but I do
think that VR has just such a bright potential if
they can figure it out, they being the people that

(58:10):
are working on it, And what that means is they've
got to get the headsets to be better, less tethered, longer, battery, smaller, lighter,
more comfortable, easier, less sick, all that good stuff. No backpacks.
So anyway, Dreamscape is one of these companies that's sort
of pushing the limits when it comes to VR for

(58:30):
the average person because they're in the malls. They've only
got a couple locations. But you go into this place
and you have a strap on the headset, you put
on a backpack, and next thing you know, you're battling
aliens or you're checking out whatever a world that is
just not available in the real life. And so the
new one they have is called Men in Black First Assignment,

(58:51):
and I went to Dreamscape to check it out, and
it is just so cool now. I will say, personally,
my headset was a little bit choppy, and I'm not
sure if that's because they need to like restart the
computer that was attached to it, or if you know
this this place has been around for a couple of years,
maybe their system is getting a little bit older and
they need to like update, you know, because these VR files,

(59:11):
I'm sure it's like anything, they just get bigger and
bigger and require more processing. So maybe it was a
little bit old and they need to upgrade, but I'm
not sure. But anyway, it didn't really take away from
the action and the excitement. But I'm telling you, the
first experience is you get in there in this little
room and they put you on a subway car and
you look like you're going through like this cool subway station.

(59:33):
It's like all high tech and like alieny or whatever,
and it's just so realistic. You feel like you're on
a moving subway car, and it's just I love that
kind of thing that you can just your brain just
instantly is like, oh, I'm being tricked, but I don't
care because it's so cool. And then the second part
that really got me is that you're on this like
little like little i don't know what you call, like

(59:54):
a little motorbike kind of thing that you're like riding
through the world in which really you're just stationary, but
it feels like you're you know, you're on this thing
and they shoot you up in the air, like a
thousand feet above this bridge. And I'm not kidding. It
was like my spidy sense of like, you know, my
little awareness of heights. I don't know what you want
to call it is like it's like triggered and I'm like, whoa,

(01:00:18):
I'm really up high right now, but I'm not because
you're just in this room in the mall. And so
that was awesome. Now, the one thing I would say,
I took my son who's ten, and it was great
because I was a little nervous. I'm like, oh, is
he gonna like it? Is he gonna run out of
the room? Is he gonna get hurt? Because he's you know,
you're in this room that has like it's like a square,
a big square that has like four railings rounds that

(01:00:38):
you don't like fall off the stage or it's not
really a stage, but you know the state this place
is equipped with all kinds of little tricks, like water
out of the ceiling. You know, it sprits you, you know, fans,
there was heat in this one. There's like a place
where you can reach out and touch something and it's slimy.
You know. The floor vibrates and rattles and moves so
that it not moves, but it kind of rattles and

(01:01:00):
us so that you feel like when you're on that
train that it's actually moving, and you do walk around
a little bit. But anyway, at one point, when we
were on these little bikes, all of a sudden, my son,
who is you can see the avatar of whoever else
is in there with you. He disappeared because they in
this example or this adventure, the person I guess, they

(01:01:21):
kind of peel off onto their own bike, not next
to you anymore. And so I did not like that
aspect of it because I felt like it was a
little as a parent, I wanted to be able to
look over and see that my son was still there
and okay, even though it was just it would be
an avatar of him, but still at least I know
he's there. But this whole thing, like the last ten
minutes of the ride, it's only like fifteen minutes, he
was not there. And so I kept yelling out. I

(01:01:42):
was like, Parker, are you okay? Parker, you okay? He's like, yeah, yeah,
I'm okay. And it's really you know, you don't want
to lift up your head sex, you don't want to
you know, to take yourself out of the action. But
it was just such a great experience. Tickets you're like
twenty five bucks. You know, it's it's well worth it,
I think for the experience that you get. And yes
it's it's expensive, but you will get to talk about
this and I just think it's such a transformative technology

(01:02:05):
in your life that it just kind of changes your paradigm.
And I've talked about this in the podcast where I
feel like we need to do that as people that
want to grow and learn and adapt that you just
have to challenge yourself in different ways and this is
one of them. In a weird way, You're just experiencing
something that you've never experienced before and it does forever
change the fabric of who you are. So check it

(01:02:26):
out Dreamscape at the you know, if you have it
by you see if it's by you, But otherwise you
don't do any of these things. But I think Dreamscape
is the best. All right, Walter says, Hey, Rich, quick question.
I have a Galaxy Note ten. I'm thinking of upgrading
to the Galaxy flip phone. Is there a big difference
between them? Besides the flip, is it worth the money

(01:02:47):
or keep my note thanks in advance? You know what,
I would not go to the Flip from the Galaxy
Note ten. You know, I guess the Flip is fine.
I mean, it's the cheaper of the two. The Fold
is the more expensive one. I just don't really see
the benefit unless you're trying to save space in your pocket.
But you're taking kind of a downgrade here because you're
not gonna have the best specs, and the Note ten

(01:03:09):
at one point had the best specs. It had. You know,
you can write on the screen with the stylust. So
I think that you should go with the Samsung Galaxy
S twenty one Ultra. If you want something that's similar
to the Note ten. That's an upgrade and you're gonna
get the best and you can trade in your Note
ten for that. The Flip I would go for. If
you don't care too much about the quality of your pictures,

(01:03:29):
they're gonna be fine. They're not gonna be anything spectacular.
If you don't care too much about battery life, if
you don't care about a crease in the middle of
your screen if you don't care about the fact that
your phone is not going to be as durable as
a standalone phone that doesn't fold or flip. And I
just think that the flip is for someone who is
just fully accepting of all these downsides, just to be

(01:03:51):
on the cutting edge and have people say, oh, that's cool,
you can fold your phone in half. Otherwise, I would
definitely go with the S twenty one Ultra. If you
don't want to spend all that money and you don't
really care about the style. It's like if you're not
really using it a lot on your note ten, then
I would just go ahead and get the S twenty
one like the standard one. Maybe you don't need the
Ultra and just go that way. Oh my gosh, I

(01:04:13):
had so many more questions to get to. I must
have been talking too long on all these different things.
I gotta remember, Okay, I need to talk less, answer
more questions. That's my goal of next week's show. That's
gonna do it for this episode of the show. If
you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com Let's Rich
on Tech. Hit the big blue send email button. You

(01:04:34):
can also email me just that's the best way. Oh yeah,
rich on Tech dot tv. You can look for the
email button there also. I would love it if you
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but we'll get a lot more listeners lately. And I
think that, you know, being on those iTunes charts does help.

(01:04:55):
And when people see it, they're like, who's this rich
on Tech? Let me let me read a couple of
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You can go to rate this podcast dot com, slash
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on social media at rich on Tech, and no matter

(01:05:16):
where you live in the US, you can download the
free ktla plus app on Apple, TV, Fire TV, and Roku.
Scroll to the tech section and watch all of my
TV segments on demand. Yes, I always say that's where
I do my best work on TV. That's what pays
the bills. That's what I like. I mean, I love this,
but you know, it's just one part of what I do.
But TV is like my day to day. My name

(01:05:37):
is rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are
so many ways you can spend an hour of your time.
I do appreciate you spending it with me. I'll talk
to you real soon. Take care,