Samsung hopes you'll flip over latest foldables

Details on Samsung's latest Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4 foldable phones; how to create a Fire TV photo slideshow in seconds; Android goes to war over iPhone messaging; Disney is raising the price of their streaming services; the sneaky way Instagram and Facebook track you; a visit to the Last Blockbuster store in the world.Viewers ask if you can install WhatsApp on a tablet; best VR headset for $100; best mobile WiFi for traveling house flippers; best Anti-Virus program for a Windows computer; easy way to video chat between family members in different countries and advice on best card to use for international travel.Follow Rich!richontech.tvGalaxy Z Fold 4Galaxy Z Flip 4Alexa SlideshowAndroid / iMessage CampaignDisney+ prices upInstagram trackingVisiting the Last BlockbusterMobile internetAnti-Virus rating websiteGoogle Meet video chat appSee 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 (00:09):
Samsung unveils its new foldable phones, Android Declaire's war on
I message and why you should always open Instagram links
in a certain way, plus your tech questions answered. What's
going on on rich Demiro And this is rich on Tech,
the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I
think you should know about. It's also the place where

(00:32):
I answer the questions you send me. I'm a tech
reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Hope you
are having a fantastic day. Welcome to anyone and everyone
that is watching and listening on Instagram live right now.
On occasion, I will live stream the show on Instagram

(00:53):
at rich on Tech. So if you're watching there, thank you.
We've got folks tuning in from all over the world.
And when I say that, I mean it got folks
from Portugal, Culver City, Cacmo, Kansas City, Missouri, and just
about everywhere in between. So thanks for doing that. Speaking

(01:14):
of different places, So I just got back from a
trip up to Bend, Oregon. This was a family reunion
that was planned for many, many years and it was fantastic.
I've got to say. We did the drive up there.
It was thirteen hours up thirteen hours back, we stopped
each way and kind of, you know, like I really

(01:34):
I love and I think I've talked about this before,
but I've been doing this podcast for so long, and
I also talk on social media that I feel like
I've said everything before, but I've probably mentioned the fact
that I like to enjoy the journey. So when I
was growing up, and nothing against my dad, but you know,
we drove all the time to a place up in

(01:56):
like the Adirondacks in New York City, in upstate New York,
and it was like power through. It was like you
got out of school three pm, hop in the car,
and next thing you know, be like we're going We're
going up to the lake. It's like what And there
was no stopping. There was just like I don't remember
ever stopping once. And so now as an adult, like

(02:18):
that was the way I kind of did my life.
For the first ten years of driving places, I would
just be like, all right, let's go, We're going right through.
And as they get older, I just like to stop more.
And it kind of occurred to me I was like, wait,
the only thing I'm losing here is time, you know,
and so what's the what's the reason why I have
to get somewhere so fast, Like let me, you know,

(02:39):
those like vista points they have on the side of
the freeway. I would never stop for those. And now
I'm like, you kids want to stop, anyone want to stop?
And sure enough we stop. It's always beautiful, it's always fun,
and you stretch your legs, you go to the bathroom.
And now it's gotten to the point where we stop
too much, like we've just stopped way too many times. Anyway,
I say this all because we stopped overnight on the

(03:01):
way up to Bend. We stopped overnight on the way back.
We stopped in I think it was like Redding and
then San Francisco all right, sorry San Sacramento, not San Francisco, Sacramento.
And it was great. We had such a great time.
The kids enjoyed it. It was it was really nice.
Bend is just a magical place. It's like one of
those cities, like you know how they say, like keep

(03:21):
Austin weird, or you know, Portland. I know is kind
of an eclectic place, but Bend is a very eclectic
place as well. And so it's a small city that
plays very eclectic. It's very outdoorsy, It's a beautiful place.
The food is good. I only went to one or
two restaurants up there. We mostly cooked, but you know,

(03:42):
it was just We went to this place called sun
River as well, which is like this huge kind of
planned I don't know, it's like a vacation spot, but
very like outdoorsy. So anyway, I tell you all this
because I love to travel. I love seeing different places.
And while I was up there, I picked up a
couple stories. So whenever I'm kind of a place, I
always find myself thinking like this would make a cool story.

(04:03):
That would make a cool story. So I visited the
last Blockbuster store of loves up there. I'll talk about
that more later in the show. I also did a
story with this golf board that you might have seen
on my segment, which is kind of like a motorized
scooter that replaces a golf cart on a golf course.
It was really also cool. I don't know what to say.
I mean, I just love to kind of experience these things,

(04:25):
and I feel like if I'm experiencing something for the
first time, there's a lot of other people out there
who may not have seen that thing. Place, gadget sign
whatever it is as well, so I like to share
that stuff. So if you follow me on social media,
which many of you probably do, you probably see just
this like ongoing flow of consciousness from my world to yours.

(04:49):
And it's just because I love sharing stuff that's kind
of interesting to me, and I feel like there's other
people out there that are also interested in that stuff.
So if you ever get the chance to check out
bend Or, it is truly beautiful. There were some fires
while we're up there around our area, so that wasn't
very fun, but it is a very very nice place.

(05:10):
So go up there if you have the chance, and
take your time getting there. I know it's long, but
take your time and get there. All right, let's get
to the first story of the week. Samsung unveiled a
bunch of new devices, so two new foldable phones, a
pair of earbuds, and a watch. And this is I

(05:32):
can't believe this, but we're going on the fourth generation
of foldable phones from Samsung and still no real competition
for foldable devices. And when I say that, yeah, there's
some companies out there that are making them, but here
in the US, there is really no competition, and that
competition would come in the form of a company named Apple.
Apple has yet to even have any sort of real

(05:56):
rumors about a foldable phone. And so with that in mind,
let me just go over quickly what we saw. So
we've got the flagship foldable, which is the Z Fold four.
This is the phone you might have remember that had
screen issues when it first came out. They sent them
to us, and the next thing you know, they said,
you got to give them back because the screens are breaking.

(06:18):
And so they went back to the drawing board they
figured out what happened. There's little specks of dust and
dirt that were getting behind the screen and causing it
to fail. They have long figured that out. It's been
four generations of this phone. Three of them have had
no problems since that first time. So on this screen,
on this phone, you get a screen outside, six point

(06:38):
two inch screen outside, and then a giant seven point
six inch screen on the inside. And they've upgraded this
new model with better cameras, better durability. It weighs just
a tiny bit less, and the price tex stays the
same at eighteen hundred dollars. And when I tell you
eighteen hundred dollars, you tune out. And you say, ah,
that's not something I'm gonna get right now, And I
would agree with that. This is not a phone for

(07:00):
the masses just yet, but it goes to show the
possibility of what these fold walls are going to do
for us in the future. The fact that you can
have a phone that has a standard a standard footprint
that opens up into a tablet sized phone is really
really cool for so many reasons, like just saying I
was going on vacation. You know, when I was on vacation,

(07:22):
I actually took an iPad with me. I didn't use
it at all, but I just wanted to have that
reassurance of if I ever found myself in a place
where I was bored, or on one of the nights
we weren't doing much and I wanted to watch a
movie on a bigger screen, the iPad would fit that purpose.
And we never took it out. But again, if your
phone can do that, if you're on a plane, if
you're traveling, if you just want to jot something down,

(07:45):
it's it's seriously cool. And the z fold four, I
feel like they have continually evolved and it's just going
to keep getting better. Once that can fold into a
smaller kind of form factor. Be a bit less bulky,
be a bit thinner. It's really going to be a
force to be reckon with. So you've got that one. Now,
the Flip four, I've gotten my hands right now. This

(08:05):
is the model that I think most people will buy.
It basically looks like a standard Samsung S twenty two
or S twenty two plus smartphone, but it folds in half,
so there's a small screen outside and then a six
point seven inch screen inside. So you've got this nice, small,
compact form factor when it's folded, but then when you

(08:26):
open it up, it just acts like a regular smartphone.
So on this phone, they have improved the selfie camera,
brighter pictures overall, more stable videos. These are all things
that Samsung has said. I am still in the process
of testing this phone, so I can't say that these
are all true. It also has a bigger battery. One
of the big complaints was the battery went pretty fast.

(08:47):
I'm at eighty three percent this morning. I've had it
on for a couple hours, have not been using it
all of those hours, but we'll see if the battery
is any better. It also has faster charging. It comes
in a ton of cool colors. Samsung sent the reviewers
this bora purple color, which is not my personal favorite,
but it's pretty nice. It also has a much more

(09:10):
reasonable price tag of one thousand dollars. And the funny
thing is, I've had a lot of people tell me
Rich I've got the z Flip three, I don't need
an upgrade. This phone is awesome. I love it. People
who get this phone seem to absolutely adore it, and
I can see why. I've just had this thing for
a day, and there's so many little things about it
that are super unique and super fun that I can

(09:32):
see why people fall in love with this phone. Now.
The funny thing about the people that told me they
have the three, and I said, well, do you know
they're letting you upgrade for one hundred dollars to the four.
So if you have the Flip three, you can send
that back to Samsung and they will send you the
new one for a hundred bucks. That to me is
a win in my book, and I definitely think you

(09:53):
should take advantage of that, because what Samsung knows is
that they can sell these things on the secondary market.
They can give them to people that need refurbished models,
so they can get all those threes in at a
slight loss. But then the four people will be really
happy because they're kind of rewarding you for being on
the cutting edge and saying, look, you know what you
are our mascots out there. You're the people that are

(10:13):
that are telling people about these phones and showing them
in real life. So we're gonna give you one hundred
dollars upgrade, and we're gonna use that phone that you
send back to us to you know, percolate through the
system for refurbished phones and replacements and all that kind
of stuff. A couple other things, Samsung announced the Galaxy
Watch five. This has more accurate sensors. It now tracks

(10:34):
body temperature, which is good for sleep. It also detect snoring.
It's got a bigger battery. Plus it has apps from Spotify,
Google Assistant, and Google Maps. I wish I had Google
Maps and Google Assistant on the Apple Watch, but you
know it's Apple. They don't play nice with Google most
of the time, and it's it's gonna be an improved
watch experience. Then they've got this pro version of the

(10:57):
watch that is aimed at people who might go with
something like a garment. This has a more rugged design
and even bigger battery, which if you ever go hiking
with a smart watch, you realize that you need a
big battery because GPS eats up a lot or sorry, yeah,
GPS eats up a lot of your battery when you're
out and about with just your watch. So if you're

(11:17):
tracking a big hike that may last you know, five hours,
six hours, that is something that you need to take
into consideration, which is a bigger battery. The watches start
at two hundred and eighty dollars. They've got LTE versions,
they've got the standard version, but they also came out
with buds as well, a new pair of Galaxy Buds,
but I have not tested those just yet. So anyway,

(11:40):
just going through all the Samsung stuff, I think Samsung
does not get enough credit for the innovation that they
bring to the to the marketplace. Apple commands a lion's
share of the both market in America but also the
attention by the media in America, and for good reason.
Apple has a very polished product. It does really amazing things.

(12:03):
I've used an iPhone now since day one with Android
as well, but I've used an iPhone, and I'm continually
impressed with some of the things that it does really
well and very easily. And I think on the flip side,
Android people don't give enough credit for just how customizable
it is and just the way that it becomes your

(12:24):
very own as opposed to iPhone. Even using an iPhone
for a year in it still does a lot of
things that I don't like, Like when I click on
I almost call it a minefield sometimes because you click
on certain links and things and you just know it's
not going to act the way you want it to act.
Like if I tap an address, it's going to open
up in Google Maps or sorry, in Apple Maps, and

(12:47):
I just don't want that to happen. So what developers
have to do they have to go around these weird
little limitations and they have to program in. If you watch,
if you click like a link that goes to an address,
the developer literally codes into the app app do you
want this to open in Apple Maps? Do you want
it to open in Google Maps? Do you want it
to open in ways? I mean, come on, that's that's

(13:08):
kind of a weird thing. When you can just set
literally a default app on most other on all Android.
What is going on here? On the Instagram, Kyle is
saying you have a strong sock game, can you show
them without the shoes? I don't know. That's kind of
a weird request, but anyway, all right, let's get to

(13:29):
the first question of the day. That was not the
first question of the day. Let's just be clear, all right,
Joel says, can I install and use WhatsApp on my
Galaxy tab for using just Wi Fi? Thank you, Joel.
So originally I thought this was going to be a
very simple question, and when I started researching the answer,
I found that it's not as straightforward as I thought.

(13:51):
So if you have something like Telegram, you can install
it on a bunch of devices and use it across
a whole bunch of devices very easily. WhatsApp is a
little trickier because the WhatsApp platform is encrypted by default,
which means it typically only runs on one device at
a time. Now, I think they've gotten around that in

(14:12):
certain ways where you can install it on like the
desktop and a phone at the same time. But the
reason why I went with Telegram for my personal messaging
with my friends and family. If I can get my
friends on there, I've got all my family on there
is that it allows you to install it on a
bunch of different devices and use them simultaneously. That's because

(14:33):
it's not end to end encrypted by default. They have
options for end to end encryption with chats by enabling
that on certain chats, but it's not done by default. WhatsApp.
It is done by default, which means it is the
most secure way to message folks. But the limitation is
that because it's so secure, you can't have it running
on a whole bunch of things all at once. So Joel,

(14:55):
my answer is, I don't think it's easy to do this,
but I think there are that may work. I just
couldn't easily find one quickly. So I think if you
want to use WhatsApp, it looks like you might want
to tie it to a phone number on a phone.
You might be able to install on a tablet, but
it doesn't seem like that's a simple thing to do.

(15:15):
If you think that's if you have experience doing this,
let me know in the comments or email me hello
at richontech dot tv and let me know. But it
doesn't seem like that's a very straightforward thing to do.
If you want something that does work on various platforms.
I would recommend something like Facebook Messenger or Telegram. Those

(15:38):
are apps that do work on multiple platforms, and just
using Wi Fi on a tablet all by themselves very easily.
All right, let's get to Let's see what do we
want to talk about. First, we want to talk about
There's so many things to talk about this week. All right,
let's talk about Let's talk about Android and iPhone messaging. So,

(15:58):
in case you haven't noticed, this week, Google has launched
an all out messaging war against Apple. They are no
longer playing nice. So here's the thing. Apple and Google
are frenemies. The reason for this is that even though
Google has its own platform called Android, they rely on

(16:20):
millions and millions of iPhone and iOS users to use
their products on the iPhone and on iOS. And so
Google will kind of lie what's the word lieover? You know,
they kind of lay and just they they kind of
play nice with Apple, but they know they're not really

(16:41):
friends with Apple because Apple would cut them off at
the knees in about ten seconds given the opportunity. But
what Apple needs is a really good search engine on
the iPhone, and they need a search engine that works
really well, and so Google is the default search engine
on the iPhone. Apparently Google pays lots of money to
Apple to make that happen. But who else is Apple

(17:02):
gonna use? You're if you think that Apple is gonna
switch to Bing. If you think that Apple's gonna switch
to Bang on the iPhone, the iPhone would go like
down in about ten seconds. It would be people would
switch in mass to some other to some other platform
if the iPhone switched to Bing for their search engine.

(17:24):
So with all that in mind, typically Google kind of
stays silent about all these little limitations of the iOS
platform when it comes to their products. But now they
are not. They launched this new campaign raised It aimed
at raising awareness of how Apple is pretty mean to
Android and in turn iPhone users when it comes to messaging.

(17:49):
So we know that when you message from an iPhone
to an Android, what happens. It's that dreaded green bubble
when that Android person messages you back and it's like,
h this person's using an Android. Apple did that, I
don't know, maybe on purpose to delineate I message versus Android.

(18:09):
I message is so nice. You get typing indicators, you
get big videos, you get full res pictures, you get
group chats that work really well. Well, when you go
to Android, none of this stuff works. And Google is
now saying that, you know what, Okay, We're not gonna
stay silent about this anymore. Okay. Apple is actually holding

(18:31):
Android users back and their own users in this regard
because they're using SMS, which is old old school messaging
when you talk to an Android phone, when they should
be using RCS, which is Rich Communication Messaging or Rich
Communications Standard something like that that all of the Android

(18:52):
phones use to talk to each other. So, unless you've
been living under a rock, if you have an Android
phone and you activate RCS, which most of the phones
let you do, these stays or it's done automatically. When
you message a video from an Android to an Android,
it looks just as good as it does if you
went from iPhone to iPhone using I message. But the
problem is here in the US, most users are going

(19:15):
iPhone to iPhone or iPhone to Android, So it's not
a lot of Android to Android users. Maybe in the
rest of the world it is, but here in the
US it's iPhone to Android. And what happens is if
you're an iPhone user and you send a video to
an Android phone, it looks horrible on their end. If
you're an Android user and you send a video to
an iPhone, the iPhone person goes, oh, what is this?

(19:38):
Why does this look like a tiny thumbnail. It's actually
a joke the way it looks. So here's the thing
Google is saying, Apple, dude, like, just enable RCS on
your phones. That way messaging can be encrypted. It can
be better, it can look better. People can have those
typing indicators. It's not going to ruin I message because

(19:58):
iPhone to iPhone will always be on message. But when
that iPhone person messages an Android person, it's finally gonna
look and feel just as good. Now that sounds pretty easy.
Every other phone maker, every other carrier is on it.
But here's the thing. Apple does not want you to
know that they can make messaging better for Android users.

(20:21):
They want you to think that Android is substandard. They
want you to think that Android is not as good
of an operating system. They want you to think that
Android is just not good. And so that's why Google
is arguing Apple is holding back all of its users
and in turn, all of the Android users in the
world by making messaging so bad on these between these

(20:44):
two platforms when it just doesn't have to be that way.
So we'll see if this works. But this is the
first time I'm seeing Google kind of put this issue
to the forefront. They've enlisted a whole bunch of influencers,
They've enlisted a whole bunch of celebrities to educate the
public on this message. That's saying, Look, every other phone

(21:04):
maker and every carrier pretty much in the world is
adopting this new standard that is very modern and acts
just like I Message. The only person that's not adopting
this standard is Apple and Apple why are you doing that?
Is it to keep Apple users on the Apple iPhone system?
Probably because think about it, If you knew that you

(21:25):
can switch to an Android and it would message to
an iPhone user just the same, you might be tempted
to switch. This is also the reason why a lot
of people say that Apple has never come out with
an I message app. They can come out with an
I message app tomorrow. It would work on every Android
phone just as well as it works on the iPhone.
But the reason is, once again, would you maybe switch

(21:49):
to an Android phone if you had the same type
of messaging on iPhone anyway. That's the campaign. It's called
Get the Message. You might see a lot of your
favorite influencers and celebrities kind of tweeting about this and
instagramming about this because they're trying to get the word out.
They're trying to make They're trying to force Apple into

(22:12):
basically adopting the standard that everyone else has adopted, but
they're kind of holding back from adopting themselves. I think
they should do it. I think it would really shake
up the smartphone It would really shake up the smartphone world,
at least here in the United States, because the rest
of the world does not care. They don't care about

(22:32):
I message. You go to any other country in the world,
you travel anywhere, no one else cares about I message.
It is not a big deal whatsoever. Here in the US.
People they literally run their entire lives around I message.
It's so it's nonsense to me, because I wish everyone
used a platform that was equal across all, Like this

(22:57):
is a great example. When I text someone, let's say
I'm using an Android, Why should they even know what
kind of phone I use. It also bugs me that
that Twitter tells you the kind of phone, whether it's
I've sent for MyPhone sent from Android. I think that
your phone should be it's nobody's business what kind of
phone that you want to use. Like, if you want
to use Android and you want to, you know, you

(23:18):
like it for a certain reason. Why when I text
an iPhone user, should it like, you know, put put
me on blast that I'm using an Android phone and
vice versa. It actually doesn't do vice versa because you know,
on Android, it doesn't delineate between if you're texting to
an iPhone or an Android. So anyway, this is a
topic that I just don't really like. I think that
it may get some publicity now that Google is sort

(23:40):
of pushing the topic, but I just feel like it's
we you know, if you're using an Android, you should
not have to feel like you are somehow, you know,
your friend should be saying something to you about that.
I think that's that's pretty rude. So anyway, all right,
let's get to the next question of the podcast. I
think I went way too long in that topic. Melody says,

(24:02):
I have a friend who's in a nursing home. She
has a physical disability that keeps her in bed prior
to the onset, her favorite mode of transportation was a motorcycle.
She broke her ankle playing football. Oh wow. She rigged
up a handle to her shift lever and made a
bungee cord bracket on the handlebar to hold up the crutches.
I would love to help her with a VR experience

(24:23):
so she gets to ride again. My question, budget is
an issue. Do you know of a good VR set,
possibly under ideally under one hundred dollars that would be good.
I have a Pixel four A that will probably not
be upgraded until next year. Thanks so much, love your
show and love following you on Facebook. Be well and
be kind, Melody in Monrovia, Melody, you are a kind friend.
I feel for your friend in the nursing home. You

(24:49):
are one percent right VR. This is what I love
so much about VR. Virtual reality is going to change
the world for so many people, not just p people
who you know can walk and have all of their
you know, physical or no physical limitations, I should say,
but for people like your friend who do have a

(25:11):
physical disability. VR is going to open up so many
worlds to them, not just the ability to explore different places,
but to experience entertainment to be in places that they
may not be able to travel to. So I think
virtual reality it's getting such a bad rap because you know, Facebook,
big evil Facebook is trying to build the metaverse, and

(25:31):
and people it's just it's easy for them to say
how terrible Facebook is. But the reality is we are
you know, we are going to see so many new
experiences and opportunities opened up for people of all different
abilities because of virtual reality. And I am so excited
about that. So when it comes to your friend, here's

(25:53):
the deal, we are not there just yet. So when
it comes to a one hundred dollars VR headset, I
don't think there is one that I can recommend. The
reason is that Facebook does have the best virtual reality headset.
It used to be called the Oculus Quest. Now it's
called the Metaquest, but that is the best one. It
also used to be two hundred and fifty dollars when

(26:16):
it was at its best price during the holidays. Then
they raise the price by one hundred dollars, so now
it is the technical MSRP is three hundred and ninety
nine dollars the best price if you take the one
hundred dollars off that we've seen the discounts over the
holidays would be one hundred dollars less than that. So
long story short, I can't recommend a VR headset for

(26:38):
under one hundred dollars because I don't think it's going
to be any good. So what I would do is
get some friends together and try to cough up the
You know, so if you look up refurbished Medaquest, which
it's kind of annoying because if I was having this
conversation two weeks ago, all these prices would be one
hundred dollars less. So the refurbished Medaquest is three hundred

(27:01):
and fifty dollars. That means two weeks ago it would
have been two hundred and fifty dollars. So what I
would do is you gotta go mediquest. You gotta look
on eBay, look on the refurbished website. But the reality
is you don't want to go with a headset that
is not that is not mediquest at this point because
it is the best. It's going to have the best

(27:21):
ecosystem of things to do, and I really truly believe
that right now. So maybe another year or so, when
prices come down, when technology evolves, it might be a
little bit better, But right now, as we stand, you've
got to you've got to go with that metaquest too,
and that I think is going to be the best
way to do it. So I hope your friend gets well,

(27:43):
and I do think I do think a VR experience
for her to ride again would be really, really fun,
and I hope she gets to experience that. All right,
let's see, Oh, should we talk about another price Hikeugh?
These price hikes are just they're so fast and they're
just coming in from every angle. It's it's getting to
be mind boggling how much more we are paying for

(28:07):
the same exact products as before. So Disney Plus is
the latest to hike prices. Basically, if you are paying
seven ninety nine a month right now for Disney Plus,
that is going up to ten dollars and ninety nine
cents a month as of December eighth. That's a three
dollars price increase. I know. Oh, rich crime me a

(28:27):
new one. Three dollars a month, big deal? Thirty six
dollars a year? Oh, come on, aren't there more important
things to talk about? Well? Yeah, but you add this
up to all the other things that have gone up
in price, whether it's Netflix, whether it's Hulu, whether it's
your alarm system, whether it's your bug pest control, whether
it is every single bill that I pay on an
automatic basis has gone up over the past six months

(28:50):
to a year. And yeah, they're all a couple of
dollars here, a couple of dollars there, But it all
adds up. And guess what, have you gotten a raise?
I don't know. Have you gotten an inflation raise? I
don't think so. So again, this all just comes out
of our pockets. By the way, have you looked at
grocery store prices lately? Those are also really high, So
you know, we're being kind of hit at all angles here.

(29:11):
Every single company is raising prices, and I get it.
It's costing more to do everything. So with that in mind,
here's what Disney is doing to take a little bit
of the sting away. They're introducing a new version called
Disney Oh, what's it called Disney Plus Basic. Disney Plus
Basic comes in at seven dollars and ninety nine cents,

(29:35):
So you can have Disney Basic for the same price
as you can right now that you're paying. You don't
have to jump up to that new high price if
you don't want to. But guess what, Disney Basic has ads,
So now you're paying the same amount that you were before,
but with ads in your programming. So personally, I'm not
doing that. I'm gonna pay the extra three dollars a

(29:56):
month because I'm trying to get away from the ads.
But I get it. A lot of people are gonna
do the ads. When it comes to Hulu, A majority
of their advertisers or sorry, majority of their subscribers actually
subscribe without or with the ads, so they're paying to
watch ads, and you know, it's just one of these things.
It's a personal preference. Right now, I think the fastest

(30:18):
growing streaming services are all of the free ones. Whether
it's TikTok, whether it's YouTube, whether it is tub whether
it is what's the other one, Pluto TV, whether it
is you know, the Roku channel. All of these things
are free with ads, and it's a very fast growing
segment of the streaming service because people are saying, you

(30:41):
know what, I used to watch ads. I'm fine, I
got this. You know, I got used to Netflix without ads,
But you know what, I'll deal with ads to save
a couple bucks a month, and so that's what they're doing.
By the way, Netflix is coming out with an ad
supported version as well. They're still working on how that's
gonna work, but you know, it's probably gonna be around
the same price. We'll see, we don't know. Oh, okay,

(31:01):
So let's talk about the price of Disney Plus now.
So Hulu with ads is going up from six to
ninety nine a month to seven ninety nine a month
on October tenth. If you don't if you pay for
AD free, that's going from twelve ninety nine a month
to fourteen ninety nine a month. Okay. The Disney Bundle

(31:22):
with is going up from thirteen ninety nine a month
to fourteen ninety nine a month. And then the premium
version of the Disney Bundle, which is Hulu No Ads,
Disney Plus No Ads, and ESPN Plus, that's going to
remain at nineteen ninety nine a month. So what I'm
seeing in all of this price increase is that it
seems like the cheapest thing and the best way to

(31:42):
go right now is with the nineteen ninety nine a
month for everything without ads. And I'm not just saying
that that's probably what Disney has engineered in this whole thing.
They're saying, if you're looking at the prices, you're like, okay,
So I can pay ten ninety nine a month for
no ads on Disney Plus, Hulu Plus with no ads
is going to fifteen dollars a month, fifteen plus eleven

(32:05):
is twenty six. Or I can just pay twenty dollars
a month for all of those things plus some ESPN
plus programming, and it's twenty dollars a month. So this
is how these companies get you. I'm telling you they
have very smart people work in their marketing departments. We
are not smart when it comes to marketing. We are
not smart when it comes to the psychology of pricing.

(32:29):
They employ people that figure this stuff out, and they say,
we can offer these two services for twenty six dollars
a month separately, or and by the way, we just
raise the price on all those things, or we can
just make this twenty dollars a month, and by the way,
we're going to push a whole bunch of people to
paying more money for something that they didn't necessarily want.
I'm just saying, look, I'm going to continue subscribing. I

(32:52):
subscribe to Hulu Plus and I subscribe to Disney Plus.
So I'm one of these people that's paying for both
of these things. So technically I'll be paying twenty six
dollars a month. What do you think I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna go to that Disney bundle for nineteen ninety nine.
So this is how it works. It's just they push
you over into paying for things you don't necessarily need

(33:12):
or want, but they make the pricing work that way.
And so that's just how it is. This is a
very negative show today, is it not. I feel like
I'm being very negative. I try to be a positive person,
but what I'm trying to do is also enlighten you
and let you understand that you know, we are being
manipulated in various ways that we may not understand. And

(33:33):
I get it. It's Disney Plus, it's fun, the kids
love it. There's all stuff. But the reality is we
are going right back to a world where when you
had cable TV, you paid a whole bunch of money
for a whole bunch of stuff you didn't need. And
that's exactly the world we are going back to with
all of these paid streaming services. Tammy says, my husband

(33:53):
and I travel a lot flipping houses around the United States.
We need some kind of Wi Fi to do our
business on our iPad. What do you recommend to get
Please let us know. Thank you all right, Tammy, couple things.
Number One, if you want to awesome for you, By
the way, traveling the US flipping houses, I want your life.
That's that's amazing. I watch these house flipping shows with

(34:14):
my kid and I'm just like, I just want to
do this. But yet here I am sitting in my
house with a toilet that's not working because I'm too
cheap to pay for someone to come and fix it.
So I'm living two separate worlds, this fantasy land where
I'm like, oh, I should buy a house in Gavelston,
Texas on the beach and rent it out on Airbnb.
Then I hear my toilet running in the second room.

(34:36):
I'm like, never mind, I don't even want to call
this guy to fix my toilet. So I don't know.
I just I guess I live in a fantasy land. Okay,
So props to you for flipping houses and traveling. That
sounds amazing. If you're running your business on your iPad,
why do you need Wi Fi. I think that you'd
be better served. Well, there's two things you can do.
If you're talking about an RV situation, I would probably

(34:59):
recommend get one of these home Internet services from these
wireless home Internet services from T Mobile or Verizon. Verizon's
called a five G Home Internet. T Mobile is called
I think just T Mobile Home Internet. So go on
their websites. You have to search your address see if
it works at your address. I think T Mobile just

(35:19):
opened it up to everyone. Verizon still has to check
to see if it works where you live, and then
they will give it to you. But once you get it,
you can take it anywhere you want. As long as
it has a signal, it'll work. So previous versions of
their home Internet did not allow you to do that,
but now it does, so I would say the home
Internet is going to be the best because it's a
brick that you plug in and then it puts it

(35:41):
spits out a Wi Fi signal. It takes the cellular signal,
takes it into this little box, and then it spits
it out as a Wi Fi signal. And I think
that's going to be the best way to do it. Now.
If you're just using the iPad and you don't really
need like a Wi Fi signal. I would recommend an
iPad with cellular and you can just get an iPad
that has a subllular connection on it and activate that

(36:03):
and so that way the iPad always has a great
cellular connection no matter where you go. And that would
probably be a bit less expensive and a bit more
straightforward than the Wi Fi because if you don't need
you know, if you're connecting a whole bunch of devices,
like if you have like three iPads that you're using
and a desktop computer or something in your RV when

(36:24):
you're traveling, then yeah, you need like a Wi Fi
router that can power all those devices. But if you're
just using one iPad, I think that it would be
easier to get an iPad that has a cellular connection
built in. Now, if you already have the iPad, then sure,
just get the Wi Fi the home Internet from one
of these companies. You can also get a mobile hotspot
that will work as well. I would recommend just getting

(36:47):
a five G mobile hotspot from whoever your provider is,
whether that's T Mobile, at and T or Verizon. It
also depends on how much you travel and where, so
if you're finding that, let's say you have T Mobile
for your phone serve and it's not really working that
well for your phone or data, you might want to
go with something like a Verizon or a Team or
or an AT and T for the other service that

(37:09):
you're going to be using to run your business on
this iPad. But bottom line, there's basically three networks in
the US. Pick one of them. Pick either home internet
through those guys, or a mobile hotspot, or if you
want to be super easy about it, you can literally
just connect the or you know, activate the Wi Fi

(37:29):
hotspot on your smartphone and you can connect drpad to that.
That's what we do. I mean, I you know, I'm
a tech person. I've got two kids in the back
seat when I'm driving, and my wife and I've got
the personal hotspots on our on our iPhones, and the
kids just activate through them and it works really well.
The last trip we did, we used eighty percent of
my wife's hot spot mine. I use mine a little

(37:50):
bit more for work, but you know, but they just
it's actually pretty pretty funny how how Apple has it
all set up with these permissions where you can automatically
have your kids to connect to the Wi Fi hot
spot on your phone, or you can tap allow to
allow them. So I like to be the little power
player as dad and be like, all right, kids, what
are you gonna give me for this Wi Fi hotspot access?

(38:11):
And they're like, oh please, We'll be so good, and
I'm like all right, fine, allow, And the next thing
you know, they're quiet for the next two hours until
their time runs out or whatever on their iPad. Anyway,
I digress. So the easiest way is just to use
your smartphone as a hot spot. Next easiest way is
probably to get one of the home Internet hot spots
that you can plug in, but you do need a
plug to do that. And the next easiest way is

(38:33):
to get a mobile hotspot from your provider that works
on a battery and you can just use that. So
either way, you've got lots of options. Tammy, thanks for
the question. All right, let's talk you want to talk
sneaky sneaky one more time. I told you this show
is very negative today. I don't know why, but now
let's talk about how Instagram and Facebook are being a
little bit sneaky when it comes to tracking things that

(38:56):
you do on your phone. So if You've been fu
following this whole controversy with Apple and how they basically
cut off all of the ad the ad companies and
Instagram and I should say Facebook and Meta. It's basically
an ad company, that's what it is. It's serving up
ads to you, and so is Google. You know, the

(39:18):
two the biggest tech companies in the world are are
our data companies. They're they're taking your data and they're
making a play on that now. They're also very useful.
Instagram is fantastic. Facebook is great if you like Facebook.
I know people hate on Facebook, but it still has
connected billions of people around the world. Let's not forget that.
And Google obviously is pretty amazing. But the thing is

(39:41):
about these companies is that we get a product and
we give them our data, and that's how they make money.
So Apple went along and said, you know what, all
this cross tracking of data on our apps happening on
the iPhone, We're going to stop letting people do that.
And they did, and Facebook took a big loss because
of that. They took a big hit on their ad

(40:01):
revenue because they just can't track people as well, which
means they can't serve up personalized ads as well. Anyway
to get around this. Felix Krause, this founder of Fastlane
dot Tools, has said, you know what, I kind of
noticed something. Do you ever notice how on Instagram, when
you click a link on Instagram, it opens up in
its own little browser on the Instagram app. Well, I

(40:23):
thought that was because of a limitation of the way
iOS works, because iOS most things happen kind of inside apps.
But he argues that actually it's so that Instagram and
Facebook can track what you do when you browse the web.
So what happens is, let's say you're on Instagram, You're
on my Instagram stories, I post a link, you click
that link, it opens up the link and you start

(40:44):
surfing around. Right. That link might be for a product
that you like. Think about this when you're on Instagram.
A lot of it has to do with products. It
might be a restaurant that you like. It might be
a tech gadget that you like. It might be a
fitness something that you like, and so you click that
and typically if you click that and it brought you
to Safari, well that's it. Instagram has no way of

(41:05):
tracking that whatever you do after that action, because now
you're in Safari. All that stuff is happening inside Safari.
Safari has its own privacy measures and a lot of
that stuff stays siloed. But if you're surfing the web
inside Instagram or Facebook's little browser app, guess what, Now,
they can track what you're doing. And he says that

(41:26):
it can. It can track basically every interaction with external websites,
everything from form inputs to all the taps that you do.
And so what his recommendation is and I one hundred
percent recommend that you do this. So from now on,
when you open up a website in Instagram, there's a

(41:46):
little there's a little like menu that you can press.
Instead of surfing that inside Instagram, press that menu and
say open in browser and that will flip you over
to Safari or whatever your default browser is. Get just
open Safari on your iPhone and that way you're getting
tracked less on what you do. So by him telling

(42:08):
people this, it's kind of one more little kind of
like jab in the stomach for Facebook. But at the
same time, if they're being sneaky about this, which they
may be, I don't know, maybe they're not. Maybe they're
just making this easy, but they can track what you're doing,
and so I think if they can, you know, I
think Facebook should probably come out and say that they're
doing this. Hey, you know, we track what you're doing

(42:30):
to make a better experience or to help serve up
more personalized ads to you. And I think that this
is really really fascinating, the fact that he kind of
connected the dots on this thing. I always wondered about
this because why on Instagram is it such a pain
to do anything with links? Remember they didn't even have
external links for a while, only for like influencers, like

(42:52):
you could post a link if you had like a
certain amount of followers or whatever. But anyway, again, this
is just one more way that you can be tracked.
And I think that tracking is essential for a lot
of these tech companies to make money, and that's the
way that we've gotten a lot of these services for
free over the years. I just think that people and
as a public, we need to be understanding of what

(43:15):
is happening to us. And as long as you understand
the game, you're allowed to play it. But if you
don't understand, then I think that that's not very nice
for the end user, which is us. And by the way,
on those on those browsers on if you're using Safari,
I do think you should be using a content blocker
in Safari and that will help minimize some of the

(43:37):
ads that you see and also some of the tracking
that you see. Oh, Instagram's telling me it's time to
close my app. I guess I gotta go, all right,
So anyway, again, just telling you what's up and Tony
Tony's Show says. Tony Show eighteen on Instagram says, what's
up with all the scammers on Instagram? Yes? I have
to deal with so many scammers. As soon as I
post something on Instagram, the first five comments are, oh

(43:59):
I I never knew that Ms Murphy was so good
at giving me free money. I'm giving five thousand dollars
to the first five people that comment. I'm like, oh,
I have to go through and block or I don't
even block them anymore. I just delete them because it's
just easier, because I know that those scam artists will
just be around for like one minute. It's like a bot,
and then they go away. But so annoying. Oh my gosh. Okay,

(44:25):
next question on the show comes from Chris. Chris says,
I'm looking for information on the best virus protection programs
to protect my laptop as it currently does not have one.
McAfee keeps popping up, but I'm not so sure I
want to use this program. Thanks for your feedback, Best Chris,
Chris with a C. Cris sent from mail for Windows.

(44:47):
It's very rare that you see Chris spelled that way.
So I'll tell you a couple things. Number One, I
feel like you don't need as much antivirus software as
the anti virus, as as big anti viral would lead
you to believe. I think that Number one, in today's world,
you need to be more smart about what you do

(45:07):
online and the links that you click and the things
that you respond to. And really social engineering is the
probably the top way that people get scammed these days,
and so I think that if you rest under the
guise of antivirus software is protecting me, you could be hacked.
And I think that that's more important than right now

(45:29):
one of these programs being loaded onto your computer because
you click a link. So I think that you should
have antivirus and malware software up to date on your computer,
but I think that paying for it is probably something
you don't necessarily need. To do. Windows has something called
Windows Defender built in, which I think for a majority

(45:49):
of the cases will work to protect you. But you
do need to keep that up to date and keep
your Windows up to date. The reason why I say
that you should keep your software up to date. I
know we don't like change, but I want you to
keep your software up to date because it protects you
from exploits that hackers have figured out when you use
old software. And that's the reason why we should not

(46:11):
be running old software. I know we like things to
stay the same. We like our software not to change,
but the hackers love when you don't change your software
because when they have an exploit, they can use it
against you because the software has not been updated to
patch that. With all of that said, the website that
I think you should go to for the best antivirus
software is called avavdash test dot org. And so what

(46:36):
they do is they test all of these various antivirus
software and they will rank them. So on Windows right
now for home users, the top is called on lab
ahn Lab. Then next is a vast Free, Next is
a vast One. Next is AVG Internet Security, which by

(46:56):
the way, is the same company as a Vast, then Avira,
bit Defender, then f Secure, then g Data then g
K seven then Kasperski then Malware Bites, then McAfee, then
Microsoft Defender, then e Scan, then Norton, then PC Maatic,
then Total AV, then trend Micro then Viper. So you're

(47:19):
talking the most popular programs that you see advertised all
the time, which is Norton, McAfee, PC Matic, and Total AV.
They're sitting at the bottom of that list, and they
charge a lot of money. And I think a lot
of these programs just bog down your computer. When I'm
on a Windows computer with like you know, the full
suite of one of these, like a big name programs running,

(47:42):
it's like, oh my gosh, what is happening here? My
hard drive is going It's giving me notifications every two
seconds about something to do, and it wants to do this,
it wants to do that. Just I think less is
more with some of this stuff, So just be aware
of that and be really on your toes. And I
think it's better to educate yourself about phishing, about how
the latest ways that hackers are getting in, Like I said,

(48:05):
a lot of it has to do with social engineering,
So just be aware of what social engineering is and
be very critical of any message that you receive that
has anything to do with logging in or confirming or denying,
or you know, a bogus charge or a bogus order.
Those are a lot of the ways that these these

(48:25):
scam artists are getting people. Nowadays, you're just handing over
your information most of the time. Yes, you can still
get a virus on your computer. You can still get
malware on your computer. A lot of the malware these
days has to do with browser helpers, and I've seen
a lot of that on people's computers. So there's just
a lot. Look, there's just a lot of ways that
you know that people are being taken these days. Irene

(48:51):
on Instagram says, my dad lives in the Philippines. We
video call every day. What video calling app do you recommend? Oh,
that's a good question. Actually that's from Instagram. I would
recommend Meat. So Google had something really cool cross platform
called Google Duo that came out in twenty sixteen. I
was so excited about it. I remember the minute it
came out. I was in an airport and it was
really the first cross really good first cross platform solution.

(49:16):
Alternative to FaceTime, and I sat there in the airport
and I just started doing like a live video and
I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this
is so cool. A download it now and it's gone.
So Duo is going away. They are merging Duo with
Google Meat, So if you want, you can download Google
Meet to your iPhone, to your Android. I like cross

(49:37):
platform stuff. FaceTime is amazing, but FaceTime is not truly
cross platform. Yes, you can share a link now with
someone on Android, and you know, they can join in
on your FaceTime call, but it's not truly a cross
platform messaging service. I like things that are open to everyone.
So I like things that are cross platform that work

(49:57):
the same both on iOS and and they don't you know,
they don't. They don't delineate between the two platforms. They
just work. That is. That's WhatsApp. They have video calling
in there, Telegram has video calling, Zoom. You can use
cross platform very easily and including on desktops and mobile.

(50:20):
Let's see what are the other ones. Google Meet I
think is great, FaceTime, Messenger is great. So all of
these programs to me, are better than FaceTime. FaceTime is great,
It's amazing. Because it's built in and it's simple for
the iPhone. But again, I like things that work around
the world, and like you said, Irene, you've got family

(50:42):
members in the Philippines that may not have the iPhone,
and so let's get something that works across all of
these platforms. I would recommend Google Meet. You can download
it now for iOS and Android. And that's the new
video messaging app that Google has launched for everyone, kind
of getting rid of duo, which that's a whole other

(51:04):
story for Google and their whole like you know, limited
attention span on stuff. But anyway, I digress. All right,
where are we Are we on a story again? Okay?
Oh no, I think we're on a question, even though
it was a kind of a bonus question there. Jennifer says,
I'm traveling to Ireland next year with friends. I'm curious
about the Wise card. I guess there was some news

(51:26):
article on a station earlier this week. I didn't see it,
but a friend did. Anyway, we're wondering what the affordability
is of this card. It claims to exchange American currency
into euros. I don't quite understand the fees. Do we
get charge of conversion? Rate every time we use the
debit card, or do they take a processing fee off
the top. Their website shows fees but doesn't specify if
those fees are purchased or one time per purchase or
one time per deposit. Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

(51:49):
thanks in advance, all right. So the Wise card I
have never heard of. Had to look it up, and
it's kind of a debit card that is for international travel,
and it says it's four times cheaper to spend internationally.
If you have local currency in your account, the Wise
card will use it. If not, we auto convert the

(52:10):
money at the real rate for a tiny fee. Either way,
it's cheaper than bank cards online or in person. And
then they give this little foreign transaction fee of whys
is zero, Bank of America's three percent, Chases three percent,
Paypalace two and a half percent, Wells Fargo is three percent.
Take out up to one hundred dollars in cash a
month for free on ATMs abroad, you have to pay

(52:31):
after the first one hundred dollars. You can use Google
or Apple Pay the card is a nine dollars fee.
All of this is sounding to me like a big
old why so I just went to Rome. I've been
around the world with my job. I have never had
a special card that I need to use in a
different country. Now I will tell you what I do

(52:53):
when I go to different countries. What I do is
I have one hundred dollars in cash American dollars on
my person when I go, or you know, some nominal
amount hunter bucks whatever, basically enough to get me a
taxi from the airport to the city center or wherever
I'm staying in case, you know, something doesn't work out.
And I'll explain what that something is. So I carry

(53:15):
my debit card, and I do have one credit card.
I know I've talked before if all the Dave Ramsey planned,
but I do have one one credit card that I
do use within reason, And so with travel, I do
use a credit card sometimes, and I'll tell you why.
The reason why is because for some reason, you know,

(53:36):
this happened the other day when we were in when
we were in Oregon. As soon as my wife used
her you know, swiped her card, it was hacked immediately.
And that card, you know, I've told you, I've talked
about getting hacked so many times with these cards. I
don't know how these hackers are getting so sophisticated, but
they are hacking. If you swipe a card or use
that number online, there is a big chance that that

(53:57):
number will be compromised. And it's just happens. It happened.
It's happened to me like at least three times now
in the past six months. And I am very very
secure about my cards and card numbers and how I
use my cards. That's why I always recommend using tap
to pay because it is the most secure way to pay,
or inserting your chip card into a reader. But anyway,
my wife swiped and next thing you know, her card

(54:19):
was sacked, And so it happens. Anyway, Where was my
point here? So what I do is I take you
a little bit of cash on the plane with me.
I do not do the exchange inside the airport, the
foreign currency exchange booths. Stay away from those things at
all expense. Once I get to the country that I
land in, I then go to a local ATM I
take my debit card and I take out a bunch

(54:40):
of cash that I can then use as backup in
that country, and then that's the way it'll work. I've
only had one time where the ATM in the country
I arrived to, and this was Japan, did not work.
And I found out later that Japan's ATMs are very
different than the rest the world apparently, and their local

(55:02):
ATMs do not like US based debit cards. And so
what I had to do in Japan, it was it
was a pain. I may have had to go underneath
a I may I may have been stuck inside a
train station at one point, and I may have had
to figure out a way to get past to get

(55:22):
out of that train station in a way that yeah,
may have involved a turnstile that was I don't know. Anyway,
My point is this was this was the only time
I ever ran into a problem was in Japan when
my ATM card would not work in any of the ATMs,
in any of the train stations and in the airport,
and I ended up having to go to find a

(55:43):
city bank ATM. Someone said, oh, tryin American ATM. So
I went and found or an internationally, you know, international
bank ATM. So I found a city bank ATM. After
so much Oh my god, this is bringing back such
bad memories. And I found a city bank ATM, and
I finally got cash out and it felt like I, oh,
my gosh, it was so bad. Anyway, I've only had

(56:03):
that happen once, and actually I did have it happen
one time before, but this was many years ago. I
was in high school and I went to Spain, and
I didn't realize that you can't withdraw from their ATMs
out of a savings account, had to be in a
checking account. That was all another story. But anyway, my
system has worked for almost every country I've gone to.
And my system is this. When you get to the country,
you take a little bit of cash US dollars, just

(56:25):
as you know, back up in case something doesn't work.
You take that money when you land, and then when
you land, you go to a local ATM and you
use your debit card to take out some local cash.
When you take out that local cash, you do not
accept any sort of conversion fee. You do not take
the local money out. And you know it says, yo,

(56:45):
do you want to take this out and we'll do
the conversion for you. You say no to that. That's
bs you take out the money without the conversion. You'll
still get euros or whatever kind of cash you need,
but the bank doesn't do the conversion. Your bank that
ATM doesn't do the conversion. Your bank do the conversion. Now,
I don't know what this wise card is talking about
when it comes to these bank fees. They might be

(57:06):
talking about credit cards that offer an international You know,
if you're using your credit card internationally, some of the
banks charge a three percent foreign transaction fee. I would
never use a credit card with a foreign transaction fee ever, ever, ever,
in my life, because why are you paying three percent
on top of something. No, So the card that I have,
the credit card does not charge for a foreign transaction fee,

(57:28):
and my debit card does not charge a foreign transaction fee.
So you can use your debit card. Ninety nine percent
of the places around the world are taking tap to
pay at this point. You can use debit or credit equally.
Just the main thing you need to know is you
do not want to accept any sort of conversion or
do anything in the local currency or whatever they say
or charge you know, do you want to charge you

(57:49):
in American dollars because you're an American. No, you just
say no to that. There's a lot of ways. Look,
anytime it comes to anything, people figure out ways of
scamming you. And what they use is called dark pattern.
So when I was on that ATM, I had to
sit there and look at the choices and I was like,
wait a second, do I want to accept? Yes? I
do want the conversion because I want euros. But do
I want to accept a conversion fee? No? So you

(58:11):
press no. Declined conversion sounds like something you don't want
to do, right, So that's why they put that. There
so many roadblocks in life, so many little obstacles that
you have to figure out, And that's why I do
the show, so I learn and I will pass along.
But anyway, to answer your question, Jenny, I do not
think you need the wise card. I think you need
a good debit card and potentially a good credit card

(58:32):
with no foreign transaction fee as a backup. Do the
system I mentioned. I think you'll be just fine. I've
traveled to many countries and again have not had pretty
much any problems anywhere. All right, let's talk about something
fun before we have to go here. Amazon, if you
have one of these fire TVs, you can now do
a photo slide show when friends come over. So if

(58:55):
you go, if you go to Alexa, sorry I probably
just activated your stuff. If you go to Alexa. You
can say Alexa start photo frame, and this will start
a three hour slideshow using your Amazon Photos, your Facebook photos,
or stock images. It will hide all ads, calendars, whether notifications,
and will become a photos only slideshow. So when I

(59:16):
have people come over to my house, I typically have
a slideshow running on my TV. I typically use Google
Photos for that, but Amazon Photos, if you use Amazon Photos,
is a cool way of doing this. Also Facebook Photos
if you have that linked up. But this is for
echo shows. It's also for fire TVs. I think that
the slideshow on Amazon is a little bit too fast.
I think it needs to be a little bit slower.

(59:37):
You can change the settings to be a slower slideshow.
I don't think slide I don't think it should be
like an active slideshow where like literally people come in
and they're like they're walking past your TV. They're like ah,
and they can't stop looking because it's just like a
picture every ten seconds. I think that it's better to
have a slideshow that's just sort of natural in the
background and just kind of dissolving between the pictures. So

(59:59):
you might have to tweak just a little bit to
get that type of slideshow. But I think this is
a fantastic feature. It's brand new again. Just say, Alexa,
start photo frame to your fire TV and you can
see the pictures on your TV screen and without all
the clutter. And when you have friends over, it's kind
of nice to have that with a little bit of
music in the background. You know, just fire it all up,

(01:00:19):
no pun intended. The other thing to know is that
if you're not using Amazon Photos, you should be, even
if you're using another photos app. I use Amazon Photos
as a backup because if you have Amazon Prime, it
is free unlimited storage for your photos at full resolution.
Not for your videos, but just for your photos. So
just have it as a backup Amazon Photos, download it,

(01:00:41):
log in with your Amazon account, and just have your
phone upload your pictures every once in a while. In
the background, all right, I said, Oh gosh, is it?
Do I have time for another question? I don't know.
Let me see. Do I have an easy question? Oh gosh,
let's see. Now I don't have an easy question, So
I'll just do one more story before you go. All right,
I visited the last Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, And let

(01:01:04):
me just tell you, really really weird to visit a
Blockbuster Video in the year twenty twenty two, because Blockbuster
is such a historic part of my life. You know,
Friday nights, we'd go in there with my dad and
my you know, mostly my dad. My mom didn't really come,
but we would go in there and we would look
for movies to rent, and you'd rent a whole bunch

(01:01:25):
of them. Remember, you just get bring home like a
stack of movies for the weekend. Sometimes you wouldn't watch
them in time before they were due. I think back
then it was like a two day rental or something
like that, and it was really expensive if you had
late fees. The last Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon, captures all
of this. They have a deal with Dish Network, who
owns the Blockbuster brand. Once a year they renew this

(01:01:45):
deal to keep this store open. They rent DVDs, no
VHS tapes, and it smells like a Blockbuster. They've got
all the new releases, they've got the yellow walls, they've
got the candy, and guess what, they sell a lot
of merchandise, So the trucker hat and the T shirt,
both of which I didn't purchase the hat, but I

(01:02:06):
bought a T shirt and a oh wait, did I
get the hat? Wait a second, did I buy the hat?
I think I did. Now I can't remember where my
hat is. Uh oh, I don't think I brought it home. Yeah,
because I was gonna be a Blockbuster person for Halloween.
But now I don't know where. Maybe my wife knows
where the hat is. But anyway, so the store is open.

(01:02:29):
It's you know, most people are buying souvenirs that were
coming through there that I saw. You can get a
souvenir card. They're handwritten instead of dot matrix printer printed
because the dot matrix printers are all gone. But it's
just kind of cool. If you ever find yourself in Bend, Oregon,
you got to stop by the store. I think it's
going to stay open for a while. I think that
the trick to it is that if this was a
Blockbuster museum. And yeah, Jay rock A. Graham says, they

(01:02:54):
still have the original cash register's old IBM point of
sale devices. Yes they do, and I mentioned that in
my piece and I showed have video of them. These
these remember that blue screen that they would scan and
it was all like text. It looked like dos on
the screen. So they would scan stuff and it would
show up and it was just such an old system.
They're still using that system, which is pretty phenomenal. And
this the computers just hacked together. I mean, these things

(01:03:15):
are just like literally on their last year of life
and there's no replacements they have, like they had, like Blockbusters,
like send in their old computers to this. You know,
woman Sandy Harding who runs this place, just to try
to like, you know, cobble a useful system together. But
it was really really cool. But take a look at

(01:03:35):
my video. You can look on my instagram at rich
on Tech a little bit of trivia for you. I
interviewed an author named Alan Paine who wrote a book
called Built to Fail. It was about the rise and
fall Blockbuster. He ran a bunch of Blockbuster stores himself.
He said, look, Netflix didn't actually kill Blockbuster. Netflix definitely
put the nail on the coffin. But Blockbuster is just

(01:03:56):
sort of a broken company. They were It's one of
these companies that saw a huge rise and just had
no future plans, Like they didn't realize that the world
was going to change. And when this world started changing,
Blockbuster was like, oh what do we do now? Streaming
DVD by mail oh, we just had this one good idea,

(01:04:16):
which was, let's have one hundred movies in our store
and people would bring them back and rent them and
bring them back in late fees were how we made
our money. And when all that fell apart, it was
just like they had no way of doing anything. And
so Netflix came in with DVDs by mail. Then they
came in with streaming, and Blockbuster filed bankruptcy in twenty
ten just as streaming was taking off. And now it's

(01:04:39):
a distant memory. But if you want to bring it
all back, go to the Blockbuster in Bend, Oregon. It
was such a fun experience. My kids had never been
to a Blockbuster store. They will never know that world.
And they were just sitting in there. They were so
cute and just you know, taking a look at it
all and just like, what is this world? You go
to a store to get a movie, what late, by

(01:05:00):
the way or capped at ten dollars or rental is
four dollars and you can rent a movie. It's a
week long rental now. And yes, you can get a
souvenir membership card. I got one of those as well.
Anyway that sound means that is going to do it
for this show. Thank you so much for listening. These

(01:05:22):
shows go fast. Yeah, I'm stalling Hererick, so I'm trying
to see what I say here at the end. That's
gonna do it for this episode of the show. If
you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
just go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash
rich on Tech hit the big blue send email button,
or go to rich on Tech dot tv hit the
email icon. I would love it if you had to
rate and review this podcast. Go to the listening app

(01:05:43):
of your choice. Write a quick line about what you
like about this show. Help other people understand why they
should listen. You can find me on social media at
rich on Tech no matter where you live in the US.
You can download the free ktla plus app on Apple, TV, fireTV,
and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the tech section
watch all of my TVs segments on demand. By the way,
if you're wondering, I did not take the Tesla to Bend, Oregon.

(01:06:05):
We took the gas guzzler, and it was my first
experience at a gas station in a while. Now that's
not true. I've been filled out my wife's car. But
it was real gas prices are real. It was expensive,
and you know, seventy five bucks for a fill up,
eighty bucks for a fillip, and you know you stop,
but it was convenient. I will also tell you I
discovered a place called Loves. If you have not stopped

(01:06:27):
at the Loves stopped there. I loved it. I was
so obsessed. We stopped there three or four times on
the way back and I just could not get enough.
I even overspent on little knickknacks that my kids wanted
because I just like love spending my money there. So,
if you haven't checked out Loves, I thought it was
like just a truck stop. No, it is like a

(01:06:47):
really nice place. Most of the locations are nice. The
people are friendly. It's just a big place. They've got
all kinds of stuff. It's a great selection. The restrooms
are mostly clean. But anyway, I'm not getting paid by
Loves to say that. I just like telling you about
stuff that I discover because I just like stuff that's cool.

(01:07:10):
All right, Yes, and Troy says, just wait till BUCkies
comes to California. Yes, I've been to BUCkies. That place
is equally awesome. I should just start another whole video
series on awesome rest side stops. I think that's a
great idea. My name is Richard Merel. Thanks so much
for listening. There are so many ways you can spend
an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending

(01:07:30):
it right here with me. I will talk to you
real soon