March 5, 2020 • 48 mins
The impact of Coronavirus on the tech industry; Twitter tests its own version of Stories; AT&T TV explained; Apple $25 battery settlement; Alexa does severe weather alerts; Google Assistant can read web articles to you; Robocop style facial recognition for police departments.Listeners ask about MacBook vs Chromebook; setting up a new computer from scratch versus a backup; backing up photos from a computer and smartphone; a mirror fitness device and avoiding spammy job solicitations.Special guest Producer Bobby fills in for Producer MeghanFollow Richhttps://www.instagram.com/richontech/Follow Producer Bobbyhttps://www.instagram.com/soundslikebobby/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Twitter gets in on stories. At and T puts a
high tech spin on old school cable TV, our police
departments testing terminator style facial recognition, plus your tech questions answered?
What is going on? I'm Rich Dmiro and this is
Rich on Tech, the podcast where we talk about the
tech stuff I think you should know about and I
(00:31):
answer the questions that you send me. My name is
Rich Demiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Producer Megan cannot be here today, so joining me is
producer Bobby Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Who has his own podcast. Yeah, I do here at KTLA.
I'm producing all the podcasts here. Jason's my own.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yours is called Spoken Dreams Dreams. Yeah, it's a very
exciting podcast. We're going to tell folks more about it
a little bit later on in the show. But Bobby,
thank you so much for doing this. You are gonna
read the questions that people have submitted to me.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I am, I'm really excited to be here. I know
Megan is like some big shoes to fill on this show.
So I'm I'm I'm I'm thrilled.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
What do you think is so? Why do you think
people love podcasts so much? Because you're the podcast producer here.
Why do you think they've taken America by storm or
the world really when they've been around for so long.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, I think it's. Uh. I think a lot of
things in media are cyclical. Is podcasting me is almost
a return to like radio and that kind of intimacy
that you have with radio, Especially when people are listening
to podcasts through headphones and on their drive to work
and on their drive home from work. I think it's
it's kind of an intimate moment. It almost feels like
(01:44):
you're spending time with friends when you're putting on your
favorite podcast week to week.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So I think that's kind of in my case, those
are my only friends. I just imagine I'm like, oh,
the guy who does who's the guy that's married to
Kirsten Bell that does like the Big Deck che Yeah,
Like I feel like him and I are friends. I'm like,
I know DEKs Shepherd, I know Conan O'Brien, all these
people that I listened to on a daily basis, Like
I just feel like I know, and then I'll tweet
them and they'll never tweet me back exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It's like my real life friends as well too. It's
this podcast is like the only opportunity I have to
talk to people, and people talk back.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It's a one way street though, unfortunately. But here is
the thing. And people that have emailed me know this.
When you email me on the rich on Tech podcast,
I will actually email you back. So people email me
all the time and I respond within thirty seconds because
I'm not doing anything else, and they're always surprised. I'm like,
why are you surprised? What else do you think I'm
doing in my life?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Your go go go. It's almost like like a second
job for you. Is you you come into KTLA, you
do your work here, and then you go home and
you're still working and you're talking to people, and that's it.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
No one else will talk to me. My friends don't care.
My wife like she doesn't want anything to do with me.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's like the more time away.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, she's she gets home, she's got you know, got
stuff to do. The kids they're playing minecraft. Ah. But
we digress. Let's talk about coronavirus because it is the
number one topic in the world right now. And I'm
not gonna go crazy over coronavirus except to say that
I did go to a couple stores yesterday because I
was like, let's see if this is really a thing,
(03:12):
and sure enough it is really. Everything was sold out.
I'm two different stores.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's crazy. I've been seeing stuff like online and Facebook too,
people going to Costco and Target and like no water,
no wipes, no toilet paper, paper towels.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Crazy. I don't really understand the toilet paper and paper towels,
but I mean, I guess you need that stuff. Like
generally you're like, well, if I'm getting all the hand
sanitizer in the world, I might as well get this.
But yeah, I went to a grocery store. People were
pulling the Lysol wipes they just got a shipment in.
As they were putting them on the shelf, people were
just pulling them off. Then I went to Target entire shelves,
like entire aisles, empty, Wild, which was wild. And then
(03:49):
on Amazon. I mean, when have you ever lived in
a time when you cannot order something you want in Amazon?
It's like literally out of stock.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I did not know it extended to Amazon.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yes, you cannot buy hand sanitizer on Amazon right now.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I knew it started with the masks. Everybody was trying
to get the masks, and now it's it's like end
of days, like everyone's crawling into their bomb shelter trying
to stock up on things.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
It's very odd. I mean, I get that it's a concern,
but it is I've never seen anything like this. So
it's affecting the tech world as well. Major tech conferences
have been canceled, including Google, Io, Facebook's F eight event,
Mobile World Congress. This is the one that started it
all back in February. This was in Barcelona, and according
(04:32):
to estimates from the website Recode, they linked up with
a company called predict hq. It's so far costs the
tech industry five hundred million dollars. And you know, you
think about the travel, the restaurants, all these things, the hotels, airlines,
so this was the losses to airlines, hotels, restaurants, and
transportation providers. So that's not just like what the other
(04:54):
what the companies make on these things. Let's see what
else did they mention that was interesting? The games develop
the Game Developers Conference. This was scheduled for March, so
that's been postponed, not one hundred percent canceled. And things
that might be on the chopping block are things like
south By Southwest, which is happening in Austin. A lot
of the big companies have pulled out of that conference,
(05:14):
but they still say they're having it. By the time
you listen to this, that could be canceled. And then
there's one a little bit down the line. But here
in Los Angeles they do what's called E three, which
is the big video games conference that is now kind
of up in the air. And Sony, which is a
big company, they've pulled out of that a long time
ago just because they don't agree with the way the
show is going, so they're not going to be there.
(05:36):
So maybe it might be a good chance for them
to just be like, you know what, let's just regroup
next year. And of course, all these major companies like
Twitter and Square and Amazon have told either their folks
to work at home or to not work at all. No, yeah, right,
you know what, just don't work.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Just don't work, don't come in.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
All right, producer Bobby, that is your cue. Oh, those
are people typing in, typing in emails to us. Ah,
And so that's your cue that it's your turn. The question.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
We have some emails that have come through. This first
one is from David. David is a huge fan of
the podcast and you and producer Megan, So sorry, David,
you're stuck with me today, but I will pass a
message along to Megan. He's got a question about pixel
book and MacBook Air. So he's got a daughter. She's
starting high school in the fall. She really wants the
(06:27):
MacBook Air, but the school is Google based. So now
he's been looking at the Google pixel Book Go and
he wants to get her a good computer that maybe
will last a couple of years, maybe her entire high
school career. But he comes from an iPhone family and
Apple family, but with everything at the school being Google based,
(06:48):
he thinks that might work out better. So he's trying
to figure out what he should do here. And he
also mentions that price is no option.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Oh wow wow from a good family.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yes, so about a difference of one hundred and fifty
two hundred bucks. So he says it's not a huge kud.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That's interesting because it's not. I feel like pixel books
are way cheaper. Maybe he's looking at a high end
pixel book. Does he mention if this is for college
or high school, because he says, my daughter's just starting school. Yes,
he says high school. High school. Okay, so she'll be
there for four years. So my feeling here, here's what
I think we should do. I think that maybe since
the school is Google based. Now, it depends what he says.
(07:26):
He's saying Google based, Like does that mean they use
Gmail and you know, the Google Suite of Apps?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Because yeah, that wasn't that wasn't particularly specified. But that's
what I was wondering too, And I I don't know.
I mean, I when I was in school, there was nothing.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
There was like slates. They had a slab that you
rode on with chalk.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, it was like a chalkboard.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So you're way younger. The term Google.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Based school, I'm not too sure. But my guess my
interpretation was that maybe they're using like Google Suite of yeah,
like all the docs.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, which it's fine. You can do that on a
MacBook and you know, and a lot of these schools
use chromebooks because they're inexpensive, and so that's why many
schools have taken to the whole chromebook thing and what
you're running on. You know, if they are running a
Google Suite of Apps, you can do that on a MacBook,
no problem. So I would Here's what I would do.
I would I would see what your daughter wants. Number one,
(08:21):
because some people are more creative, Like, if she's at
all inclined to be creative, you probably want to go MacBook.
Because if she's going to be editing video or working
with her pictures in a bigger way than just Google photos,
I think that that lends itself to having a MacBook.
And also maybe she wants to listen to podcasts, or
maybe she wants to manage her music. There's many more
things you can do on a MacBook than you can
(08:43):
do on a pixel book. Pixel book is great if
she is only writing papers, if she's only surfing the web,
only going on YouTube to watch videos, and that's pretty
much it.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
If you're creating videos for YouTube, go with the MacBook.
But that's my recommendation. My bigger plan would be this,
if she's not at all inclined to create stuff, then
I say go with the pixel book for the four
years she's in high school. Then maybe graduate to a
MacBook for the four years of college, and that way
you kind of get the best of both worlds, and
(09:12):
then she can decide what she sort of likes going forward.
Pixel Books are generally a little bit underpowered and very basic,
so it's not as flexible as a full fledged computer. Personally,
I go with a MacBook. I love the pixel books,
but being a creative type or thinking I'm creative type,
I like to have the ability to work with files
(09:34):
and work with audio and work with video, and that's
kind of what you get when it comes to the
pixel Book versus the Chrome, or sorry, the Chromebook versus
the versus the MacBooks. Good first question, Yeah, what about
longevity that they both pretty solid? I think, I mean
a MacBook you could easily get four years out of
a pixel Book actually has an expiration date. So if
(09:56):
you google a Chromebook end of life, there's actually for
every Chromebook that comes out, Google gives you a date
as to when they're gonna serve the last software update,
so pretty much a death date for that device. And
so you can look for any device like let's say
you get an a Sus Chromebit C S ten, the
auto update expiration date is November twenty twenty. If you
(10:20):
get a Chromebook tablet CEE T one hundred from Asus
August twenty twenty three, you have Intel. Now does it
mean it's gonna stop working after that. No, but it's
just gonna it may actually I don't even know, but
it definitely stops getting any software updates anyway. Good first question,
Let's talk about Twitter now, Bobby, You're on Twitter. Everyone's
(10:40):
kind of like bailed on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, for the podcast, that's it.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It doesn't. It just doesn't resonate as much as a
lot of other things. It depends on what you're doing.
You know, some people their only platform is Twitter, some
people their only platform is Instagram. But it seems to
me the bell of the ball right now is Instagram.
Everyone sort of loves Instagram. Facebook used to have that territory,
and Facebook still has the most users. But I see,
(11:06):
just you know, in my own data and just from
what me and my wife do, we're on Facebook to
a much lesser extent, whereas if I'm at the line
at Starbucks, every single person is on Instagram and especially
Instagram Stories, which is why Twitter is now testing a
new feature called Fleets. These are their brand of Instagram Stories,
and so it's kind of a story that deletes after
(11:28):
twenty four hours. And the best way to describe this
is it is an Instagram story, except It lives on
the Twitter platform, which is great if you're not a
big adopter of Instagram and you want to use more Twitter,
if you're all on, Like we have a guy here,
Chris Shawl, one of our anchors. He only uses Twitter
and so this would be perfect for him, because you
don't want to post necessarily everything to Twitter because it
(11:50):
lasts forever. But this is a twenty four hour thing.
It's ephemeral, it goes away. You can be funnier, you
can be short lived, you can be quirkier, you can
post what you're eating, and it doesn't really matter. Now,
this does not mean that it's never you know, people
can't screenshot it. It can still be screenshot and all
that stuff. And the other thing is that people cannot
(12:11):
kind of retweet these just like a story. They can't
like it. All they can do is reply via direct
message if you have that feature turned on. And Twitter
is testing fleets in Brazil. First, I don't know why
they test so many things in Brazil. Happens all the time.
They must have a large user base of people that
(12:32):
are open to new things. In Brazil. They're like, oh, sure,
we'll try this new feature. I think this sounds like
a winner though, because it gives more flexibility to the
Twitter platform. And I've actually thought about this myself. I
actually think Twitter is the perfect social media platform because
if you think about what you can do on Twitter,
minus the limitations of how long your tweet can be,
(12:53):
you can send links, you can put videos up there,
you can put pictures, you can do things that are
kind of fun and stupid, you can do things long form.
It's a great conduit. And by adding the stories it
makes it even more robust. The downside to Twitter is
the user base. There just aren't that many users.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, I was thinking too, like why this late in
the game. This seems like something that you know, Snapchat
was doing for a long time, and then Instagram was
doing for a long time, and then Facebook adopted it.
Why why not?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I think it's money, It's it's can we get more
people to use this platform? And I think that the
biggest problem with Twitter is it's stalled. It kind of
you have your Twitter users, and a lot of it
is journalists, political media. But the average person if you
go to a high school and you say, hey, are
you guys using Twitter? Not really, They're using Instagram or Snapchat. Yeah,
(13:42):
and so that's a problem for Twitter. They need to
grow the next generation of tweeters.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, tweeties, tweetyes, tweetees, tweety birds. Okay, I guess that
means we get a new question coming in here. This
is another one regarding a MacBook Pro. This is from Joni.
Joni is another fan of your podcast. She says, I'm
getting a new MacBook Pro laptop this week after drenching
(14:07):
my MacBook Air with water.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Ouch. Isn't it an opportunity?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah? Yeah, she's got two of the four elements there
water air.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
She just needs fireing her.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Is it an opportunity to start from scratch and install
all my apps and settings manually rather than load the
backup from time Machine. I haven't had any real issues
with the computer, but after seven years, I'm sure there
is some garbage on the backup that I don't need
or want. What do you.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Think I think she hit upon exactly what my advice
is going to be here. She has the time Machine backup,
which is fantastic. Always have a backup of your computer.
But the reality is she's been using this computer for
seven years. Time Machine on Mac does an amazing job
of connecting that device to your new computer, carrying everything
over all your files, all your stuff. But like she said,
(14:56):
it also brings over all the garbage. So those are
little fragments of apps that you've deleted and files that
you no longer need, and just settings that you might
have changed at one point that maybe you want a
fresh start. I personally, when I get a new computer,
always do a fresh start because it just feels good.
It's like spring cleaning. It is frustrating in certain aspects
(15:16):
because you do have to go through and think about, oh, man,
my wife, I always connected to that network. Now you
get to type it in again, or I always had
that setting, my computer always changed to dark mode at
six pm. Oh I got to go back in and
all these things that you've kind of tweaked over seven
years that have built up, they will all be gone.
So that's the downside. The positive side is that you
(15:38):
get a fast computer. There's nothing extra there, there's nothing
running in the background that you haven't specifically kind of
thought about. Because you're going to now install all your
programs again. You're going to drag over just the files
that you need, and you're going to start with settings
that are fresh, so you have a chance to kind
of see what Apple is presenting you, and you have
(15:58):
a chance to kind of lead your computer in the
way that you want to and kind of give up
that seven years of whatever you picked. You know, in
the moment, you now have kind of a fresh, fresh
look at everything. I will say, the one thing that
I change every single time when I first get a
brand new Mac or restart it or whatever, you know,
refresh it is the way that Apple tries to force
(16:19):
you to when you pull two fingers down on your trackpad,
it actually is reverse. So when you're scrolling, they call
it natural scroll. Yeah, and I just for some reason,
I've always scrolled with pulling two fingers down like they
want to do opposite. Like, okay, I get it. If
you're pushing two fingers up, it's pushing the page up,
and if you're pulling them down, it's pulling. It's just reverse.
(16:39):
To me, it's it's anyway. So I always change that setting,
literally the first thing I ever do when I get
a Mac. And then when I go to someone else's
computer that has not changed that setting. For instance, producer
Megan I was on her computer the other day secretly
looking at stuff when she left. Yeah, yeah, we all.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Do that, right of course.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And I went to use her track pad and I
was like, I can't do this. It's like it's totally different,
and I wanted to change it for her, but then
I was like, nah, I don't think I'm it's not
my right.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Maybe she does it as like an added security measure. Yeah,
like they got in my computer, but now I'm not
gonna be able to Now they're not gonna be able
to navigate.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Rich will not be able to figure out how to scroll.
So I think it's great that she's getting a new computer.
And I love the fact that she was backing up
her old one because that's very important. But I like
the idea of just taking the taking the Saturday morning,
grab a cup of coffee, and just you know, start
fresh with this thing. It's a brand new computer. It's
it's always it's always good to have a fresh start.
Bobby at and T is putting a new spin on
(17:36):
the classic cable TV service you know and hate. They
have a new service called AT and T TV, and
it's actually not a bad service because it lands squarely
between cord cutting and the holdouts of standard cable. When
people cut the cord, they all of a sudden go
into this frenzy of like some people are fine, like obviously,
(17:58):
like some people like I know what I'm doing, it's great. Whatever.
Then you have a lot of other people who kind
of like my parents, who are like, well, I do
watch the Food Network. How do I get that? Now?
It's like, ooh, you wanted that, Well, you don't have
that anymore. I wanted my local channels. How do you
get that? Oh I can't. You can't really get those
with you know, some of the streaming services do have them,
or all these random cable channels. I like to watch Bravo,
(18:20):
I like to watch, you know, my news, you know,
cable news. Okay, So what AT and T is doing
is they are now giving you cable TV service that
actually streams through the Internet. But it's not your typical
streaming app like YouTube TV or all these things. It's
called AT and T TV, And when you sign up,
they will send you an Android powered box, a cable box,
(18:43):
a cable box of the future, let's say, which actually
uses kind of Google Android on the back end, and
so you get your live channels which are now streaming
over the Internet, So you plug it into your high
speed Internet and you get your live channels just like
you would. It looks like a program grid everything, except
instead of the channels being delivered through Cox Cable the
way they used to do, they're just coming over your Internet.
(19:04):
So it looks the same, but it performs the same,
but it's delivered different It's delivered over IP Internet protocol.
But here's the other part that I think some people
will like. You also have your apps on the same
exact platform, so where you have your local channels and
your cable channels. Then all of a sudden, with one
hit of the remote, now you can be watching Netflix.
(19:24):
And when it comes to a lot of these other systems,
you know, if you have a cable box plus an
Apple TV, let's say you have to switch inputs to
flip flop between those two. Now, there's been a lot
of effort made to kind of bridge that gap, and
I think that AT and T is doing something here
to kind of rescue a portion of their business that
they know is going away. And it does appeal to
a lot of different people like my parents who may
(19:45):
not be ready. My mom cut the cord, my dad
cannot do it, but someone like him this might be
good for because the price is going to be better
than what you get with classic cable, but not by much.
So here is the catch to this whole thing, because
you're going to be seeing advertising like crazy for this
at TV is the price is really cheap when you
start out, and just like regular cable, and especially if
(20:07):
you had like Direct TV, it was super cheap to start.
In that second year, the prices went crazy up, and
that's what happens with this. So your first year, you
can get your TV for thirty nine to ninety nine
a month for twelve months, and then you can get
high speed internet bundle it for thirty nine ninety nine
a month, which sounds amazing eighty bucks a month for
(20:28):
TV and internet. I pay seventy for just internet and
it's way slower than this. But in the second year
the prices jump up like crazy, So the first bundle
goes up to ninety three dollars a month instead of
fifty dollars a month. Pikes, so it you know, and
I actually did the math on this to see because
it's really tricky. Like I went on their website and
(20:51):
I kind of put all my information in there, which
you know, it kind of took a little bit, and
I did, like the whole thing soup to nuts, and
I figured out, like, how much is this going to
cost me over to you, because then you can divide
it by twenty four months and see how much it
actually costs. And if I haven't made this clear, you
do have to sign a to year contract. Oh so
that's why you can't just jump out after the first year. Yeah.
So I did the math and here's what I came
(21:12):
up with. So the TV was forty dollars times twelve
months for the first year, then the Internet was fifty
times twelve. Have to pay ten dollars service fee for
your box rental. That's six hundred dollars plus four to
eighty in the first year. Then the second year the
TV jumps to ninety three dollars minimum times twelve, and
then Internet jumps to seventy times twelve, so eight forty.
So the total you spend over the two years is
(21:34):
two thousand and thirty six dollars man not including any taxes,
fees or regional sports fees, which is another nine dollars
a month. So it came out to about eighty five
dollars a month before all those taxes and feet, which
I'm guessing is really about one hundred bucks a month.
So again I'm paying seventy so I'm actually, if you
look at it that way, you're paying thirty more dollars
for TV, which I don't pay for TV right now.
(21:55):
I have I cut the cord, so I have antenna
and that's free. So again, this is really geared towards
those I would call them hesitant cord cutters. They want
to see what's on the other side, but they're not
ready to give up their cable. This is a good
middle ground.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I see. That's good.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
All right.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
We have another viewer question here. This is from Gabby.
She posted this to your Facebook. She says, Rich, I'm
computer illiterate. I am a computer illiterate lady looking for
a type of photostick to upload all my photos. I'm
looking at various types. I see one photostick for mobile phones,
another for PC. Is there one for both? Or do
(22:35):
I need to get two different sticks. I don't want
to have to upload to my PC because it's on
its last leg, and they PC and phone have entirely
different photos. I just want to load all my photos
from both hmm, okay, so photosticks, photo sticks.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
This is a tricky one. I get this question a lot,
and it's kind of confusing to me because I really
like to back up all my stuff, like either to
iCloud or to Google Photos. But I guess there's a
certain element of folks out there who do not like
their stuff living in the cloud. They don't trust the cloud,
they just don't like it, and I think this falls
(23:11):
under that. And so a lot of times I recommend
a device, and I think there's a lot of these
little photosticks advertised on Facebook and on Instagram. I don't
recommend the one that's advertised whatever it is. I forget
what the big name is, but it's it looks very scammy.
You go to their website, it starts a timer of
like you only have ten minutes to get this perfect
price or whatever. Two dollars. Yeah, and then you know,
(23:33):
I tried emailing the company. They never email me back,
which is a bad sign. As a journalist. You know
they should at least say, hey, we're not interested in
talking to you or sending you a sample so you
can try it out. So I want to try it, sure,
because if it's fine, I don't mind recommending it. It
doesn't have to be from a big name company for
me to recommend it. But with all that said, the
product that I do like is from a company named
sand Disk and it's called the i Expand IXPA n
(23:57):
D and I have tested this out. It works. It's
not perfect, but the reality is it looks like a
flash drive. One end plugs into the port on your phone,
and in this case she would get the Android version
that would plug into the bottom of her phone. The
other side plugs into her computer, which is a standard
USB or if you have an iPhone and be a
(24:18):
lightning and then USB. So the ideas you plug it
into your phone, it takes all the pictures off, puts
it on the sole drive, and then you can plug
it in your computer, back them up whatever, put them
on your computer, or you can take photos from your computer,
put them on the drive, consolidate them all. It's a
very I feel like it's a very messy process. It's
not the best thing to do, but if that's what
you want to do, it works. So again i'd recommend
(24:39):
the i expand flash drive. And I'm looking for like
a secondary product that I could also recommend that might
work similarly. And this actually looks really cool from leaf
L E e F. They have a access C micro
SD reader for USB C, which means it's kind of
(25:00):
like a little flash a little card reader that plugs
into the bottom of your phone, and then you can
plug a card into it like a micro SD card,
which is kind of cool, and then you give us
copy all your pictures that way. The only problem with
this is she's saying she's computer alliterate. It is not
that easy on an Android phone to just copy all
your pictures onto this directory without knowing what you're doing.
(25:23):
I'd be able to do it, but someone that's not
as computer savvy is not gonna be able to do that,
which is why I go back to the sand disc.
Their software will actually help you do that. You download
an app and it says, hey, do you want to
back up your pictures, and it will help you do that. Now,
with all that said, I think your best case scenario
is just download Google Photos on your phone, download it
on your computer, have it back up all the photos
(25:45):
that it finds on both places, and put them into
one big library. And I think that's a lot easier
and it's free.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Sure, so definitely all.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Right, Speaking of the iPhone, Apple is going to pay
up to five hundred million dollars to settle a US
lawsuit over slow phones. This is coming from Reuters. Uh,
this is all over that whole thing where they slowed
down phones. Remember this whole thing where it was like
they throttled the battery. And Apple made me really mad
about this because people would always say to me, Rich,
(26:14):
I feel like my phone is slowing down over the years,
and I always be like, no, it's not your phone
that's slowing down. It's actually the software that's getting more complicated.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And it's making older phones can't keep up.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Exactly. Now, that is still true, but it was also
true that Apple was slowing down the phones because not
to get you. The lawsuit says it's to get you
to buy a replacement phone or a replacement battery, but
in reality, it was really to make sure that your
phone would still perform smoothly. Because Apple's known for this
kind of buttery experience, and so they realized early on,
(26:46):
like hold on Facebook, app is like nearing like four
hundred megabytes or whatever, like if you've got if you're rocking,
like an iPhone six. It's gonna be really tough for
your phone to run that app without crashing crashing, So
let's let's let's smooth out the experience on this phone
so that that app runs better. It might close out
some of your other apps in the background, it might
slow down things like the touch response, but you'll still
(27:09):
feel like as an end user that your phone is
working nicely even though things are a little slower. Well,
Apple got in a little bit of trouble for that
took a little heat, so they lowered the price of
a battery replacement to like for a while, they were
doing them for free.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I think I remember that. It was kind of like
when they got when they kind of caught caught quote
unquote cot Yeah, they're like, we'll just bring it in,
we'll swap it out for free from yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Oh yeah. I don't say anything to anyone, but the
batteries used to be eighty bucks to replace. Now they're thirty.
But I do believe when I was writing my first
book that I did write in there that they were
it was totally free, and then the price was going
up to thirty you know, after that free grace period
or whatever. But your phone had to qualify. Long story short, Apple,
is it looks like you may have twenty five dollars
(27:51):
coming your way if you bought an iPhone six six plus,
you know, any iPhone six basically, any iPhone seven or
an iPhone s did you.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
That I think I do? I think I had a
six or a success. I know I had a seven
in I had one somewhere. But how do they verify this?
Do they just kind of like know who their uses are?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
And you know it may be where Apple supplies them
with a list or maybe one of those things where
you have to like you'll get like an email and
then you have to like sign up, and then three
years later, you know you're you're literally ready to like
pack up and move out of LA and then it's
like you get this twenty five dollars check.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
You're like, yeah, I can eat for another week.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So anyway, don't hold your breath for that one. But
that is what's happening with the the iPhone. Bobby Producer, Bobby.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
We've got another question here from Sherry. This is on
your Facebook. She wants to know about the mirror. She says,
have you seen the mirror? I have and I hate
what I see in it every day.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Oh, you're talking about just your personal year.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No, but yeah, she's actually talking about the mirror you
put up on the wall and it's like a live
personal trainer and an exercise Yeah, you use for exercise. She
wants to know your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Well, there's a couple of these things. This is so
you know Peloton, right, Yes, So they kind of unleash
the beast of like all like, oh my gosh, people
are into fitness at home. Let's figure out what we
can do with technology and make everything in the world.
So the mirror was one that kind of went viral
online and it basically showed a mirror on your wall,
but like a magical mirror that shows you how to
(29:21):
work out, and it will give you feedback and like
if you're stretching wrong or whatever. It's cool. I have
not personally tested this, so I can't tell you whether
it's cool or not. What I can tell you is
that I think that a lot of these things are
going to shake out over the years. Do I think
we're gonna have magic mirrors in the future that will
help us work out? Absolutely, it makes sense have a
(29:42):
giant screen in your house. You got a trainer on there.
They just help you lead you through a workout, they
give you some response. We did a story with a
website called open fit, which is an app uses your
iPhone and the trainer can actually look through your camera.
I heard about this and watch you and give you feedback. Now,
well that's probably gonna be what's built into this mirror
(30:02):
thing as well. So if not, if it's not already,
I mean it may be, but I'm looking at the
mirror online. It's at minimum fifteen hundred bucks. That's a lot. Now,
if you have an expensive gym membership, maybe that sounds cheaper.
But and the peloton is twenty five hundred bucks, so
it's cheaper than that. But let's be honest right now,
this is a first gen product. I can't imagine it's
(30:24):
probably slick, and I'm sure the viral video was great,
but I can imagine that it's going to be that
great first out of the gate, even in the first
couple of years out of the gate. This is an
expensive product. You're gonna put it on your wall. I
mean you have to mount it, you got to keep
it up to date. It probably comes with a monthly fee.
That you have to pay, and so by the time
you add all these things up. I think that this
(30:45):
is right now, probably best for the early adopters, the
really super techie types, and maybe someone who's sharing this with,
you know, if they have a little fitness duty or
something they just want to try it out and whatever.
But I think for the average person it's probably not
best to invest in this technology just yet.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Just buy a mirror from the store for like fifteen
bucks and watch YouTube videos and then you can exercise
in front of the mirror for.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Fat But that's the thing. And I think that there's
one called Tonal, which I did not actually go and
test that, but Megan producer Megan did and she came
away impressed. And I have seen this in different places.
And so again you have a lot of these new
technologies that are kind of vuying for attention. It's gonna
shake out. You know, they may be acquired. You know,
(31:28):
if you're a large company that's a big fitness company,
you're not gonna let all this stuff go by it.
You know, you're not gonna let it go like you're
if you're life cycle or whatever, you're probably doing stuff
like this and you're you know you're you're probably buying
some of this. I actually purchased. I saw this at
c Yes, and I went and bought it, the Bowflex
version of the Peloton, okay, And the reason I bought
(31:49):
it is because the Peloton's twenty five hundred bucks. The
Bowflex one. Gosh, I forget how much it is total,
but it was like, you know, you have to I pay, like,
you know, the extra service fee for like installation and whatever.
But it was like half the price of the Peloton.
And the reason why I got it is because there's
no service fee. Every month, you actually put your own
iPad where the Peloton screen would be. I see, so
(32:12):
you don't have to pay for that giant screen. You
don't have to pay for the Peloton. And I thought
this was just a great thing at half the price
or less than half to have it home because now
I can do like a twenty minute thirty minute workout. Now.
I bought that like two months ago, and I still
haven't gotten it, so I don't know what's going on.
But they did tell me they said it was so
popular that it's actually sold out. They said it was
sold out for at least forty five days. So I've
(32:32):
just been waiting to get this thing, and it shows
that people do have an interest in alternatives. But again,
to answer the question, I think that you kind of
wait on a lot of this stuff. The bike that
I bought is a standard spin bike, except you have
a place for an iPad, so it's not very high tech,
it's not very crazy. But if you look at Flywheel,
that was an alternative to Peloton, and they went out
(32:54):
of business, or at least or biked it whatever happened,
they're now Peloton I think sued them and they're giving
those people a Peltm bike. So if you invested in
one of these flywheels, it's okay because you're getting the
other bike. But still it just goes to show that
all these new technologies, when they're especially big and expensive.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Everyone kind of jumps in and then you get cheaper
versions and versions that don't last, and so it's best
to bide your time, exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And I'm an early adopter of a lot of stuff,
but when it comes to a fifteen hundred dollars one
trick pony mirror that you put on your wall, you
probably want to wait a little bit. And like you said,
go to YouTube. Go to Apple TV, buy an Apple TV
for two hundred bucks, set it up on your TV,
and watch videos from YouTube, and you'll probably be okay
for now. Or just hire a personal trainer. Yeah, I mean,
(33:40):
aren't they cheap?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I don't know, never used one.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I actually did when I was in college and doing
the whole like stupid credit card debt thing. I you know,
when I had give you car credit cards and like,
of course you're stupid, like seventeen whatever, You're like, oh,
I have all this money. Yeah, like whatever limit you
got in that card that was, now how much money
you had, right, you know?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
And so I went to twenty four Hour Fitness and
I literally bought a package of like personal training things
for like it probably was like two hundred and eighty
dollars at the time, but now that I think about it,
it's it felt like it was probably like one thousand dollars,
you know, but I have no idea how much it was. Yeah,
but it was more than I could afford on personal training.
And I go there and I had this personal trainer
(34:21):
that was like an actor, you know, and so he
would literally be like he didn't care about what he
was doing. What I was doing. He'd be like, all right,
go on the bike for five minutes to warm up.
I'm like, all right, And I literally did only one
of the classes or maybe two, and that was it,
and I was so I wasted all this money. Anyway,
that's my only experience of the Personal Trainer. So anyway,
all right, let's talk a little personal assistance, Google Assistant
(34:46):
and Alexa. A couple of new features I want to
tell you about. So two on Alexa that are are
pretty cool. The first I think is really convenient is
now you can ask a I'll say, a tell me
when there's a severe weather alert, and when there's a
weather alert in your area, she will chime in and
tell you. I think that is an amazing feature because
(35:08):
if you think about it, I mean, we do have
our phones with us all the time, but I don't know.
I mean, I think that's kind of cool that just
you're in your house and I get it. In Los
Angeles we don't really have this. But I used to
live in Shreveport, Louisiana, where severe weather were alerts were
actually a thing where you might have a flash flood,
or you might have or a tornado. Yeah, or like heavy,
(35:29):
heavy rain that just comes out of nowhere. Yeah, And
so to have that in your living room and all
of a sudden you're watching TV or maybe you know,
your wife is commuting home and you're like, you know,
just waiting there, and all of a sudden you hear
this thing like, oh, let me, let me tell them.
I mean there, it is really cool. Or in a
case of tornado, like take cover.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, And we just had that big tornado in Nashville
that yes, created a bunch of it was a station.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, I mean, it was like at least nine deaths
when I saw which.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Is it's grown up, it's I think it's in the twenties.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Oh my, I mean, it's it's crazy to think that happens.
But like I remember, And here's the thing, Like some
people were discussing like, well, how do they not know
that this thing was approaching? You don't know with tornadoes,
you know, there may be there could be one in
your area. You have no idea where it's gonna touch down.
You have no idea the path, and you have no
idea the destruction. They can predict as much as they want,
but the reality is it's really tricky. Yeah, And I
(36:19):
saw this firsthand because like I remember going through, you know,
as a reporter and shre report. We'd go through these
neighborhoods that were, you know, where there's a tornado that
came through, and you couldn't know with certainty. Now, with
all the cell phones, you probably would know more than
be forks or so many cameras everywhere, but back in
the day, it's like, oh, this area and you could
just tell by the way the trees were twisted. Oh wow,
if it was actually a twister, yeah, you know, call
(36:41):
them anyway. So that's the Alexa one, which I thought
was really cool. So set that up and see how
it is. I don't know how well it works, but
it's kind of cool. And Google Assistant meanwhile on Android
has a really cool new feature that can read any
web page. And I tried this this morning and it
is just one of those features that is just it's brilliant.
And I personally don't really have a need for this
(37:03):
per se, but I think for as an assistive technology,
if you have low vision, or if you're losing your
vision or any sort of disability. When it comes to that,
I think that this is amazing. All you have to
say when you're on a web page, is h Google
read this page, and Google Assistant springs into action and
it starts reading the whole page. It'll be like from
(37:24):
the New York Times. It'll say the title and it'll
just start reading the page, and it reads it in
a voice that is pretty impressive, like you would think
it's a robot. Overlord, how good this thing can? It
can read better than I can. Let's put it out way.
I mean, seriously, it really sounds really good.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I mean, we've come such a long way from remember
on the old PCs the text to speech and you
could type in something and then yes, it would read
it back in a weird voice. But now it's like
you can't almost not even tell it's actual.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Let me hear here we go.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
This is the one plus. We'll now repair your device
on your doorstep, but only in India by Damian Wilde.
One plus is really.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Pumping resources and investment into the Indian market with exclusive
features for fans and device owners in the region. So
that's it. Reading cool. Okay, Now here's another feature that's
really cool. And I show this off on my Twitter
at Rich DeMuro. If you are looking at a web page,
say in Spanish. Oh, by the way, it will just
read it in English two to zero colo colo of
(38:29):
Chile on data. So this is some sort of step
football match and it's written in a different language. I
think it's Spanish translating, and she's just reading it in
English in real time, and you can choose what language
you want to be read in. I mean, talk about
the idea of you stumble upon and Google Chrome has
done this for a long time, but you stumble upon
a web page that's written in a different language, and
you know how it says, would we like to translate?
(38:51):
Just that feature is amazing on your desktop. But now
the fact that anyone can just be on a web
page and had the and have it read to them
in their language is just This is the kind of
stuff that just is truly amazing. And Google continues to
push the envelope with this artificial intelligence and the way
that it parses the article. I mean, it read the title,
(39:11):
it read who it was from, and then it read
the article. Now I did notice it kind of stumbled
when there was an embedded tweet in the article. It
kind of read the tweet, which you would do anyway,
as a human, but it just kind of it didn't
really get there's a difference between there. I guess see exactly. Okay,
Producer Bobby, I think this is your last question. Oh
last question. Let's make it make it a good one.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Let's see how about this one from Kim Kim is
asking about job apps. She says there's an increasing issue
with finding legit jobs on sites and apps. She keeps
getting contacted by people in other countries. She sends her resume,
they never contact her. She's an independent contractor. She works
(39:52):
in IT fieldwork like migrations, imaging, and installation, and she
doesn't think it should be this hard. So she's wondering
about any legitimate job apps where she'll have luck and
not get weird spammy calls from this is she really
stumbled upon a very good point here. And I don't
know if this happens to you with the because you
(40:14):
manage the podcasts, and every podcast has like an email
address on like iTunes that's associated. Do you get like
a bunch of random emails from time to time? I do?
From time to time, I do. I get a lot
of weird It's it's tough to tell because because my
podcasts are linked to my work email, and even through
our work emails sometimes we get just like weird, weird emails,
(40:35):
but yeah, I do. I did kind of notice an
increase of just strange.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
It's just strange, and it's tough because we have to
kind of go through them and figure out is this legit?
Is this not legit? I got I got a couple.
I got one yesterday and one today. One yesterday was
saying that there was an image on my website that hey,
we love that you're using our image on your website,
but that's actually ours and she have to pay us
for that. And I was like, oh, that's interesting because
I got that image from Google, so like Google sent
(41:01):
it to me like the press people, and so I
was like, that's weird, said to a little research, and
I googled where this email address came from. And it's
totally a shell blog. It's totally bogus. And I realized,
think about it. They send that automated email to a
million people a day, and one person goes, oh my gosh,
I'm sorry, let me pay or let me take it down,
or let me, you know, fix that, or send you
(41:22):
money exactly, and it's just it's such a brilliant scam
and this is happening. So to get back to her
question about the jobs, it's really tough. My dad runs
a small business and so I get his emails for
a small business, and it is unbelievable how much spam
he gets from people purporting to be yelp. Hey, let
me help you get a better YELP rating people being
(41:43):
on Google. Hey, do you want to be on the
first search? We work with Google? Yeah, you know, they
don't necessarily say they are Google. We work with Google.
Well what does that mean? And for him, he's running
his business, he's busy. Of course he'd like more calls
or of course he'd like more clicks to his website.
So sometimes he'll respond to these people and I'm like, now,
this is totally bogus. These people are literally just trying
to get you on pay them, give them a credit
(42:05):
card fee, whatever it is. And just so it's the
same thing with its job stuff. It's really tough because
you've got to put yourself out there and put your
resume and your information to get these leads, especially as
an independent contractor. But then you're going to get all
the garbage as well, people just slamming you with all
kinds of crap that you don't need to. You know
that you shouldn't be taxed with going through, but you
(42:25):
have to. And that's kind of the name of the
game with the Internet is that you really need to
be on your toes. And I actually emailed this person
back and ask them if they read what they were
using like LinkedIn or you know whatever, and they said,
it happens across all these sites. So and I'm on
LinkedIn and I get spammed on there. You know, people
just hey, we saw your article. Can you do a
(42:45):
story on this? Now? It looks like it's a pitch,
but it's really not. It's just like spam most of
the time. So I don't really have good advice, except
my main advice is, whenever you're writing your email address
on these different things, I always write out Rick at
KTLA dot com, like the word at at and then
KTLA and then dot com. And the reason I always
(43:08):
send that whenever I'm typing out my email address to
someone or putting it on a website or sending it
through a message, is that if there's a spider out
there that's that's crawling for email addresses, it's gonna be
a little bit trickier for them to figure out that
that's my email address. Good tip, And I don't mind.
Like I said, I just gave it out on here.
I don't care if you email me because a human
has to listen to that now and say, oh, I'm
(43:28):
gonna email Rich. That's fine. But if it's now, if
a transcript of this makes it out somewhere, it's gonna say,
you know Rich at KTLA dot com. And that doesn't
mean as much to a spider. Right now, these spiders
might have gotten more sophisticated, and maybe it does mean more.
And so I just kind of gave oh now, I'm
(43:50):
just kidding, but I think that's kind of my best
advice is really just protect your personal information. You have
to put it out there to be on these sites,
but just protect it as best you can. So that's
a that's a good question. Okay, real quick, because I
did I did tease this and I want to mention
this story before we go, but this just blew my mind.
This company, Wolfcom one zero, did an exclusive with the
(44:15):
kind of showing what they're what technology they are selling
to police departments and the bottom line is it is
that terminator technology where when they're looking at someone through
their police cam, it circles the person's face, scans against
the database of known offenders, and identifies says like outstanding warrant,
wanted for felony, missing person, And so you can see
(44:36):
how this could be good for the missing person thing.
But if you're the person with the outstanding warrant, you
wanted felony, I mean, look at that. It's crazy. But
this is the future. I mean, I have no doubt
with facial recognition, it is going to be the wild West.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
It's like RoboCop.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
It's like, that's the word. I was RoboCop, not terminator.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
They do too. It's all those kind of.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
But if you look at this, uh, the little video
is just phenomenal and it's just it's wild, but it's
the reality of what's happening. It's already happening with license plates.
As police are driving through cities, their cars are scanning
license plates and it's like, oh, flag that one, flag,
that one, that one's a stolen car.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
That there was just a story that we had the
other day. I don't remember what the crime was, but
that's how they caught. The guy was just an officer
driving along in his car. There's a license plate that
we've been looking for.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
But just extrapolate that onto everything. Yeah, I mean faces
and just it's just it's so wild. I mean, I
love it in certain extents because it does make our
world safer, but it's also really scary because the implications
of used to be you could evade things a little bit.
And I'm not saying people should evade the cops if
they're wanted or whatever, but it used to be like
(45:46):
there was some work involved. But it always goes back
to this example that I had as a kid. I
always thought, in the future, when you sped on a freeway,
what's going to keep technology from knowing that your car
is speeding, reporting that to the law enforcement, and outspits
a ticket from your dashboard? What is keeping us from
having that? Nothing? Right now, your car knows how fast
(46:07):
you're going, so does Google Map, so does.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Your GPS everything.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
So what's the only thing keeping that from happening is
that nobody's implemented that. Now do we need laws against that?
I don't know, Because what's the rule about speeding? Is
it only when you're caught that you get the ticket
or is it that I don't know. Yeah, I mean
it's really it's these kind of things that technology will
enable us to do, but should we do them?
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Science fiction is science reality?
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Now exactly? You said it. You said it very well,
Producer Bobby. Oh my gosh, can you believe it? That's
gonna do it for this episode of the show. If
you want links to what we talked about, you can
take a look at the show notes, and if you
have a question for me, you can go to rich
on Tech dot tv hit that contact button and we
would appreciate it if you rate and review this podcast.
(46:51):
It helps other people discover it. Just go to rate
this podcast dot com, slash rich on tech and just
put in your little review. Producer Bobby. Tell folks how
they can find you and your podcast. They can find
me on Instagram. I'm at sounds like Bobby and all
our podcasts are at KTLA dot com, slash podcast I
(47:11):
do Spoken Dreams. You can find that on the website
or on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Stitcher, everywhere that you
find this podcast, you can find all our kt l
A podcasts. And thanks for that. I'm looking at some
of the reviews and Tony the Great One said, Wow,
one of the greatest tech guys out there and absolutely
must listen to, even if you're not tech savvy. He
(47:32):
explains it in English. Kudos to you, Rich, thanks for
all that you do. That'll probably be better if you
read that, Bobby right.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
A little self congratulated, but hey, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Thanks so much for doing this, Bobby, I do appreciate it.
I'm Richidmiro. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to
you real soon.
Twitter gets in on stories. At and T puts a
high tech spin on old school cable TV, our police
departments testing terminator style facial recognition, plus your tech questions answered?
What is going on? I'm Rich Dmiro and this is
Rich on Tech, the podcast where we talk about the
tech stuff I think you should know about and I
(00:31):
answer the questions that you send me. My name is
Rich Demiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Producer Megan cannot be here today, so joining me is
producer Bobby Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Who has his own podcast. Yeah, I do here at KTLA.
I'm producing all the podcasts here. Jason's my own.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yours is called Spoken Dreams Dreams. Yeah, it's a very
exciting podcast. We're going to tell folks more about it
a little bit later on in the show. But Bobby,
thank you so much for doing this. You are gonna
read the questions that people have submitted to me.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I am, I'm really excited to be here. I know
Megan is like some big shoes to fill on this show.
So I'm I'm I'm I'm thrilled.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
What do you think is so? Why do you think
people love podcasts so much? Because you're the podcast producer here.
Why do you think they've taken America by storm or
the world really when they've been around for so long.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, I think it's. Uh. I think a lot of
things in media are cyclical. Is podcasting me is almost
a return to like radio and that kind of intimacy
that you have with radio, Especially when people are listening
to podcasts through headphones and on their drive to work
and on their drive home from work. I think it's
it's kind of an intimate moment. It almost feels like
(01:44):
you're spending time with friends when you're putting on your
favorite podcast week to week.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So I think that's kind of in my case, those
are my only friends. I just imagine I'm like, oh,
the guy who does who's the guy that's married to
Kirsten Bell that does like the Big Deck che Yeah,
Like I feel like him and I are friends. I'm like,
I know DEKs Shepherd, I know Conan O'Brien, all these
people that I listened to on a daily basis, Like
I just feel like I know, and then I'll tweet
them and they'll never tweet me back exactly.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
It's like my real life friends as well too. It's
this podcast is like the only opportunity I have to
talk to people, and people talk back.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It's a one way street though, unfortunately. But here is
the thing. And people that have emailed me know this.
When you email me on the rich on Tech podcast,
I will actually email you back. So people email me
all the time and I respond within thirty seconds because
I'm not doing anything else, and they're always surprised. I'm like,
why are you surprised? What else do you think I'm
doing in my life?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Your go go go. It's almost like like a second
job for you. Is you you come into KTLA, you
do your work here, and then you go home and
you're still working and you're talking to people, and that's it.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
No one else will talk to me. My friends don't care.
My wife like she doesn't want anything to do with me.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
It's like the more time away.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, she's she gets home, she's got you know, got
stuff to do. The kids they're playing minecraft. Ah. But
we digress. Let's talk about coronavirus because it is the
number one topic in the world right now. And I'm
not gonna go crazy over coronavirus except to say that
I did go to a couple stores yesterday because I
was like, let's see if this is really a thing,
(03:12):
and sure enough it is really. Everything was sold out.
I'm two different stores.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
It's crazy. I've been seeing stuff like online and Facebook too,
people going to Costco and Target and like no water,
no wipes, no toilet paper, paper towels.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Crazy. I don't really understand the toilet paper and paper towels,
but I mean, I guess you need that stuff. Like
generally you're like, well, if I'm getting all the hand
sanitizer in the world, I might as well get this.
But yeah, I went to a grocery store. People were
pulling the Lysol wipes they just got a shipment in.
As they were putting them on the shelf, people were
just pulling them off. Then I went to Target entire shelves,
like entire aisles, empty, Wild, which was wild. And then
(03:49):
on Amazon. I mean, when have you ever lived in
a time when you cannot order something you want in Amazon?
It's like literally out of stock.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I did not know it extended to Amazon.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yes, you cannot buy hand sanitizer on Amazon right now.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
I knew it started with the masks. Everybody was trying
to get the masks, and now it's it's like end
of days, like everyone's crawling into their bomb shelter trying
to stock up on things.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
It's very odd. I mean, I get that it's a concern,
but it is I've never seen anything like this. So
it's affecting the tech world as well. Major tech conferences
have been canceled, including Google, Io, Facebook's F eight event,
Mobile World Congress. This is the one that started it
all back in February. This was in Barcelona, and according
(04:32):
to estimates from the website Recode, they linked up with
a company called predict hq. It's so far costs the
tech industry five hundred million dollars. And you know, you
think about the travel, the restaurants, all these things, the hotels, airlines,
so this was the losses to airlines, hotels, restaurants, and
transportation providers. So that's not just like what the other
(04:54):
what the companies make on these things. Let's see what
else did they mention that was interesting? The games develop
the Game Developers Conference. This was scheduled for March, so
that's been postponed, not one hundred percent canceled. And things
that might be on the chopping block are things like
south By Southwest, which is happening in Austin. A lot
of the big companies have pulled out of that conference,
(05:14):
but they still say they're having it. By the time
you listen to this, that could be canceled. And then
there's one a little bit down the line. But here
in Los Angeles they do what's called E three, which
is the big video games conference that is now kind
of up in the air. And Sony, which is a
big company, they've pulled out of that a long time
ago just because they don't agree with the way the
show is going, so they're not going to be there.
(05:36):
So maybe it might be a good chance for them
to just be like, you know what, let's just regroup
next year. And of course, all these major companies like
Twitter and Square and Amazon have told either their folks
to work at home or to not work at all. No, yeah, right,
you know what, just don't work.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Just don't work, don't come in.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
All right, producer Bobby, that is your cue. Oh, those
are people typing in, typing in emails to us. Ah,
And so that's your cue that it's your turn. The question.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
We have some emails that have come through. This first
one is from David. David is a huge fan of
the podcast and you and producer Megan, So sorry, David,
you're stuck with me today, but I will pass a
message along to Megan. He's got a question about pixel
book and MacBook Air. So he's got a daughter. She's
starting high school in the fall. She really wants the
(06:27):
MacBook Air, but the school is Google based. So now
he's been looking at the Google pixel Book Go and
he wants to get her a good computer that maybe
will last a couple of years, maybe her entire high
school career. But he comes from an iPhone family and
Apple family, but with everything at the school being Google based,
(06:48):
he thinks that might work out better. So he's trying
to figure out what he should do here. And he
also mentions that price is no option.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Oh wow wow from a good family.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yes, so about a difference of one hundred and fifty
two hundred bucks. So he says it's not a huge kud.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
That's interesting because it's not. I feel like pixel books
are way cheaper. Maybe he's looking at a high end
pixel book. Does he mention if this is for college
or high school, because he says, my daughter's just starting school. Yes,
he says high school. High school. Okay, so she'll be
there for four years. So my feeling here, here's what
I think we should do. I think that maybe since
the school is Google based. Now, it depends what he says.
(07:26):
He's saying Google based, Like does that mean they use
Gmail and you know, the Google Suite of Apps?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Because yeah, that wasn't that wasn't particularly specified. But that's
what I was wondering too, And I I don't know.
I mean, I when I was in school, there was nothing.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
There was like slates. They had a slab that you
rode on with chalk.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yeah, it was like a chalkboard.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
So you're way younger. The term Google.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Based school, I'm not too sure. But my guess my
interpretation was that maybe they're using like Google Suite of yeah,
like all the docs.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, which it's fine. You can do that on a
MacBook and you know, and a lot of these schools
use chromebooks because they're inexpensive, and so that's why many
schools have taken to the whole chromebook thing and what
you're running on. You know, if they are running a
Google Suite of Apps, you can do that on a MacBook,
no problem. So I would Here's what I would do.
I would I would see what your daughter wants. Number one,
(08:21):
because some people are more creative, Like, if she's at
all inclined to be creative, you probably want to go MacBook.
Because if she's going to be editing video or working
with her pictures in a bigger way than just Google photos,
I think that that lends itself to having a MacBook.
And also maybe she wants to listen to podcasts, or
maybe she wants to manage her music. There's many more
things you can do on a MacBook than you can
(08:43):
do on a pixel book. Pixel book is great if
she is only writing papers, if she's only surfing the web,
only going on YouTube to watch videos, and that's pretty
much it.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Now.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
If you're creating videos for YouTube, go with the MacBook.
But that's my recommendation. My bigger plan would be this,
if she's not at all inclined to create stuff, then
I say go with the pixel book for the four
years she's in high school. Then maybe graduate to a
MacBook for the four years of college, and that way
you kind of get the best of both worlds, and
(09:12):
then she can decide what she sort of likes going forward.
Pixel Books are generally a little bit underpowered and very basic,
so it's not as flexible as a full fledged computer. Personally,
I go with a MacBook. I love the pixel books,
but being a creative type or thinking I'm creative type,
I like to have the ability to work with files
(09:34):
and work with audio and work with video, and that's
kind of what you get when it comes to the
pixel Book versus the Chrome, or sorry, the Chromebook versus
the versus the MacBooks. Good first question, Yeah, what about
longevity that they both pretty solid? I think, I mean
a MacBook you could easily get four years out of
a pixel Book actually has an expiration date. So if
(09:56):
you google a Chromebook end of life, there's actually for
every Chromebook that comes out, Google gives you a date
as to when they're gonna serve the last software update,
so pretty much a death date for that device. And
so you can look for any device like let's say
you get an a Sus Chromebit C S ten, the
auto update expiration date is November twenty twenty. If you
(10:20):
get a Chromebook tablet CEE T one hundred from Asus
August twenty twenty three, you have Intel. Now does it
mean it's gonna stop working after that. No, but it's
just gonna it may actually I don't even know, but
it definitely stops getting any software updates anyway. Good first question,
Let's talk about Twitter now, Bobby, You're on Twitter. Everyone's
(10:40):
kind of like bailed on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, for the podcast, that's it.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
It doesn't. It just doesn't resonate as much as a
lot of other things. It depends on what you're doing.
You know, some people their only platform is Twitter, some
people their only platform is Instagram. But it seems to
me the bell of the ball right now is Instagram.
Everyone sort of loves Instagram. Facebook used to have that territory,
and Facebook still has the most users. But I see,
(11:06):
just you know, in my own data and just from
what me and my wife do, we're on Facebook to
a much lesser extent, whereas if I'm at the line
at Starbucks, every single person is on Instagram and especially
Instagram Stories, which is why Twitter is now testing a
new feature called Fleets. These are their brand of Instagram Stories,
and so it's kind of a story that deletes after
(11:28):
twenty four hours. And the best way to describe this
is it is an Instagram story, except It lives on
the Twitter platform, which is great if you're not a
big adopter of Instagram and you want to use more Twitter,
if you're all on, Like we have a guy here,
Chris Shawl, one of our anchors. He only uses Twitter
and so this would be perfect for him, because you
don't want to post necessarily everything to Twitter because it
(11:50):
lasts forever. But this is a twenty four hour thing.
It's ephemeral, it goes away. You can be funnier, you
can be short lived, you can be quirkier, you can
post what you're eating, and it doesn't really matter. Now,
this does not mean that it's never you know, people
can't screenshot it. It can still be screenshot and all
that stuff. And the other thing is that people cannot
(12:11):
kind of retweet these just like a story. They can't
like it. All they can do is reply via direct
message if you have that feature turned on. And Twitter
is testing fleets in Brazil. First, I don't know why
they test so many things in Brazil. Happens all the time.
They must have a large user base of people that
(12:32):
are open to new things. In Brazil. They're like, oh, sure,
we'll try this new feature. I think this sounds like
a winner though, because it gives more flexibility to the
Twitter platform. And I've actually thought about this myself. I
actually think Twitter is the perfect social media platform because
if you think about what you can do on Twitter,
minus the limitations of how long your tweet can be,
(12:53):
you can send links, you can put videos up there,
you can put pictures, you can do things that are
kind of fun and stupid, you can do things long form.
It's a great conduit. And by adding the stories it
makes it even more robust. The downside to Twitter is
the user base. There just aren't that many users.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, I was thinking too, like why this late in
the game. This seems like something that you know, Snapchat
was doing for a long time, and then Instagram was
doing for a long time, and then Facebook adopted it.
Why why not?
Speaker 1 (13:20):
I think it's money, It's it's can we get more
people to use this platform? And I think that the
biggest problem with Twitter is it's stalled. It kind of
you have your Twitter users, and a lot of it
is journalists, political media. But the average person if you
go to a high school and you say, hey, are
you guys using Twitter? Not really, They're using Instagram or Snapchat. Yeah,
(13:42):
and so that's a problem for Twitter. They need to
grow the next generation of tweeters.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah, tweeties, tweetyes, tweetees, tweety birds. Okay, I guess that
means we get a new question coming in here. This
is another one regarding a MacBook Pro. This is from Joni.
Joni is another fan of your podcast. She says, I'm
getting a new MacBook Pro laptop this week after drenching
(14:07):
my MacBook Air with water.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Ouch. Isn't it an opportunity?
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Yeah? Yeah, she's got two of the four elements there
water air.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
She just needs fireing her.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Is it an opportunity to start from scratch and install
all my apps and settings manually rather than load the
backup from time Machine. I haven't had any real issues
with the computer, but after seven years, I'm sure there
is some garbage on the backup that I don't need
or want. What do you.
Speaker 1 (14:33):
Think I think she hit upon exactly what my advice
is going to be here. She has the time Machine backup,
which is fantastic. Always have a backup of your computer.
But the reality is she's been using this computer for
seven years. Time Machine on Mac does an amazing job
of connecting that device to your new computer, carrying everything
over all your files, all your stuff. But like she said,
(14:56):
it also brings over all the garbage. So those are
little fragments of apps that you've deleted and files that
you no longer need, and just settings that you might
have changed at one point that maybe you want a
fresh start. I personally, when I get a new computer,
always do a fresh start because it just feels good.
It's like spring cleaning. It is frustrating in certain aspects
(15:16):
because you do have to go through and think about, oh, man,
my wife, I always connected to that network. Now you
get to type it in again, or I always had
that setting, my computer always changed to dark mode at
six pm. Oh I got to go back in and
all these things that you've kind of tweaked over seven
years that have built up, they will all be gone.
So that's the downside. The positive side is that you
(15:38):
get a fast computer. There's nothing extra there, there's nothing
running in the background that you haven't specifically kind of
thought about. Because you're going to now install all your
programs again. You're going to drag over just the files
that you need, and you're going to start with settings
that are fresh, so you have a chance to kind
of see what Apple is presenting you, and you have
(15:58):
a chance to kind of lead your computer in the
way that you want to and kind of give up
that seven years of whatever you picked. You know, in
the moment, you now have kind of a fresh, fresh
look at everything. I will say, the one thing that
I change every single time when I first get a
brand new Mac or restart it or whatever, you know,
refresh it is the way that Apple tries to force
(16:19):
you to when you pull two fingers down on your trackpad,
it actually is reverse. So when you're scrolling, they call
it natural scroll. Yeah, and I just for some reason,
I've always scrolled with pulling two fingers down like they
want to do opposite. Like, okay, I get it. If
you're pushing two fingers up, it's pushing the page up,
and if you're pulling them down, it's pulling. It's just reverse.
(16:39):
To me, it's it's anyway. So I always change that setting,
literally the first thing I ever do when I get
a Mac. And then when I go to someone else's
computer that has not changed that setting. For instance, producer
Megan I was on her computer the other day secretly
looking at stuff when she left. Yeah, yeah, we all.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Do that, right of course.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And I went to use her track pad and I
was like, I can't do this. It's like it's totally different,
and I wanted to change it for her, but then
I was like, nah, I don't think I'm it's not
my right.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Maybe she does it as like an added security measure. Yeah,
like they got in my computer, but now I'm not
gonna be able to Now they're not gonna be able
to navigate.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Rich will not be able to figure out how to scroll.
So I think it's great that she's getting a new computer.
And I love the fact that she was backing up
her old one because that's very important. But I like
the idea of just taking the taking the Saturday morning,
grab a cup of coffee, and just you know, start
fresh with this thing. It's a brand new computer. It's
it's always it's always good to have a fresh start.
Bobby at and T is putting a new spin on
(17:36):
the classic cable TV service you know and hate. They
have a new service called AT and T TV, and
it's actually not a bad service because it lands squarely
between cord cutting and the holdouts of standard cable. When
people cut the cord, they all of a sudden go
into this frenzy of like some people are fine, like obviously,
(17:58):
like some people like I know what I'm doing, it's great. Whatever.
Then you have a lot of other people who kind
of like my parents, who are like, well, I do
watch the Food Network. How do I get that? Now?
It's like, ooh, you wanted that, Well, you don't have
that anymore. I wanted my local channels. How do you
get that? Oh I can't. You can't really get those
with you know, some of the streaming services do have them,
or all these random cable channels. I like to watch Bravo,
(18:20):
I like to watch, you know, my news, you know,
cable news. Okay, So what AT and T is doing
is they are now giving you cable TV service that
actually streams through the Internet. But it's not your typical
streaming app like YouTube TV or all these things. It's
called AT and T TV, And when you sign up,
they will send you an Android powered box, a cable box,
(18:43):
a cable box of the future, let's say, which actually
uses kind of Google Android on the back end, and
so you get your live channels which are now streaming
over the Internet, So you plug it into your high
speed Internet and you get your live channels just like
you would. It looks like a program grid everything, except
instead of the channels being delivered through Cox Cable the
way they used to do, they're just coming over your Internet.
(19:04):
So it looks the same, but it performs the same,
but it's delivered different It's delivered over IP Internet protocol.
But here's the other part that I think some people
will like. You also have your apps on the same
exact platform, so where you have your local channels and
your cable channels. Then all of a sudden, with one
hit of the remote, now you can be watching Netflix.
(19:24):
And when it comes to a lot of these other systems,
you know, if you have a cable box plus an
Apple TV, let's say you have to switch inputs to
flip flop between those two. Now, there's been a lot
of effort made to kind of bridge that gap, and
I think that AT and T is doing something here
to kind of rescue a portion of their business that
they know is going away. And it does appeal to
a lot of different people like my parents who may
(19:45):
not be ready. My mom cut the cord, my dad
cannot do it, but someone like him this might be
good for because the price is going to be better
than what you get with classic cable, but not by much.
So here is the catch to this whole thing, because
you're going to be seeing advertising like crazy for this
at TV is the price is really cheap when you
start out, and just like regular cable, and especially if
(20:07):
you had like Direct TV, it was super cheap to start.
In that second year, the prices went crazy up, and
that's what happens with this. So your first year, you
can get your TV for thirty nine to ninety nine
a month for twelve months, and then you can get
high speed internet bundle it for thirty nine ninety nine
a month, which sounds amazing eighty bucks a month for
(20:28):
TV and internet. I pay seventy for just internet and
it's way slower than this. But in the second year
the prices jump up like crazy, So the first bundle
goes up to ninety three dollars a month instead of
fifty dollars a month. Pikes, so it you know, and
I actually did the math on this to see because
it's really tricky. Like I went on their website and
(20:51):
I kind of put all my information in there, which
you know, it kind of took a little bit, and
I did, like the whole thing soup to nuts, and
I figured out, like, how much is this going to
cost me over to you, because then you can divide
it by twenty four months and see how much it
actually costs. And if I haven't made this clear, you
do have to sign a to year contract. Oh so
that's why you can't just jump out after the first year. Yeah.
So I did the math and here's what I came
(21:12):
up with. So the TV was forty dollars times twelve
months for the first year, then the Internet was fifty
times twelve. Have to pay ten dollars service fee for
your box rental. That's six hundred dollars plus four to
eighty in the first year. Then the second year the
TV jumps to ninety three dollars minimum times twelve, and
then Internet jumps to seventy times twelve, so eight forty.
So the total you spend over the two years is
(21:34):
two thousand and thirty six dollars man not including any taxes,
fees or regional sports fees, which is another nine dollars
a month. So it came out to about eighty five
dollars a month before all those taxes and feet, which
I'm guessing is really about one hundred bucks a month.
So again I'm paying seventy so I'm actually, if you
look at it that way, you're paying thirty more dollars
for TV, which I don't pay for TV right now.
(21:55):
I have I cut the cord, so I have antenna
and that's free. So again, this is really geared towards
those I would call them hesitant cord cutters. They want
to see what's on the other side, but they're not
ready to give up their cable. This is a good
middle ground.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
I see. That's good.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
All right.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
We have another viewer question here. This is from Gabby.
She posted this to your Facebook. She says, Rich, I'm
computer illiterate. I am a computer illiterate lady looking for
a type of photostick to upload all my photos. I'm
looking at various types. I see one photostick for mobile phones,
another for PC. Is there one for both? Or do
(22:35):
I need to get two different sticks. I don't want
to have to upload to my PC because it's on
its last leg, and they PC and phone have entirely
different photos. I just want to load all my photos
from both hmm, okay, so photosticks, photo sticks.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
This is a tricky one. I get this question a lot,
and it's kind of confusing to me because I really
like to back up all my stuff, like either to
iCloud or to Google Photos. But I guess there's a
certain element of folks out there who do not like
their stuff living in the cloud. They don't trust the cloud,
they just don't like it, and I think this falls
(23:11):
under that. And so a lot of times I recommend
a device, and I think there's a lot of these
little photosticks advertised on Facebook and on Instagram. I don't
recommend the one that's advertised whatever it is. I forget
what the big name is, but it's it looks very scammy.
You go to their website, it starts a timer of
like you only have ten minutes to get this perfect
price or whatever. Two dollars. Yeah, and then you know,
(23:33):
I tried emailing the company. They never email me back,
which is a bad sign. As a journalist. You know
they should at least say, hey, we're not interested in
talking to you or sending you a sample so you
can try it out. So I want to try it, sure,
because if it's fine, I don't mind recommending it. It
doesn't have to be from a big name company for
me to recommend it. But with all that said, the
product that I do like is from a company named
sand Disk and it's called the i Expand IXPA n
(23:57):
D and I have tested this out. It works. It's
not perfect, but the reality is it looks like a
flash drive. One end plugs into the port on your phone,
and in this case she would get the Android version
that would plug into the bottom of her phone. The
other side plugs into her computer, which is a standard
USB or if you have an iPhone and be a
(24:18):
lightning and then USB. So the ideas you plug it
into your phone, it takes all the pictures off, puts
it on the sole drive, and then you can plug
it in your computer, back them up whatever, put them
on your computer, or you can take photos from your computer,
put them on the drive, consolidate them all. It's a
very I feel like it's a very messy process. It's
not the best thing to do, but if that's what
you want to do, it works. So again i'd recommend
(24:39):
the i expand flash drive. And I'm looking for like
a secondary product that I could also recommend that might
work similarly. And this actually looks really cool from leaf
L E e F. They have a access C micro
SD reader for USB C, which means it's kind of
(25:00):
like a little flash a little card reader that plugs
into the bottom of your phone, and then you can
plug a card into it like a micro SD card,
which is kind of cool, and then you give us
copy all your pictures that way. The only problem with
this is she's saying she's computer alliterate. It is not
that easy on an Android phone to just copy all
your pictures onto this directory without knowing what you're doing.
(25:23):
I'd be able to do it, but someone that's not
as computer savvy is not gonna be able to do that,
which is why I go back to the sand disc.
Their software will actually help you do that. You download
an app and it says, hey, do you want to
back up your pictures, and it will help you do that. Now,
with all that said, I think your best case scenario
is just download Google Photos on your phone, download it
on your computer, have it back up all the photos
(25:45):
that it finds on both places, and put them into
one big library. And I think that's a lot easier
and it's free.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Sure, so definitely all.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Right, Speaking of the iPhone, Apple is going to pay
up to five hundred million dollars to settle a US
lawsuit over slow phones. This is coming from Reuters. Uh,
this is all over that whole thing where they slowed
down phones. Remember this whole thing where it was like
they throttled the battery. And Apple made me really mad
about this because people would always say to me, Rich,
(26:14):
I feel like my phone is slowing down over the years,
and I always be like, no, it's not your phone
that's slowing down. It's actually the software that's getting more complicated.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And it's making older phones can't keep up.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Exactly. Now, that is still true, but it was also
true that Apple was slowing down the phones because not
to get you. The lawsuit says it's to get you
to buy a replacement phone or a replacement battery, but
in reality, it was really to make sure that your
phone would still perform smoothly. Because Apple's known for this
kind of buttery experience, and so they realized early on,
(26:46):
like hold on Facebook, app is like nearing like four
hundred megabytes or whatever, like if you've got if you're rocking,
like an iPhone six. It's gonna be really tough for
your phone to run that app without crashing crashing, So
let's let's let's smooth out the experience on this phone
so that that app runs better. It might close out
some of your other apps in the background, it might
slow down things like the touch response, but you'll still
(27:09):
feel like as an end user that your phone is
working nicely even though things are a little slower. Well,
Apple got in a little bit of trouble for that
took a little heat, so they lowered the price of
a battery replacement to like for a while, they were
doing them for free.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I think I remember that. It was kind of like
when they got when they kind of caught caught quote
unquote cot Yeah, they're like, we'll just bring it in,
we'll swap it out for free from yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Oh yeah. I don't say anything to anyone, but the
batteries used to be eighty bucks to replace. Now they're thirty.
But I do believe when I was writing my first
book that I did write in there that they were
it was totally free, and then the price was going
up to thirty you know, after that free grace period
or whatever. But your phone had to qualify. Long story short, Apple,
is it looks like you may have twenty five dollars
(27:51):
coming your way if you bought an iPhone six six plus,
you know, any iPhone six basically, any iPhone seven or
an iPhone s did you.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
That I think I do? I think I had a
six or a success. I know I had a seven
in I had one somewhere. But how do they verify this?
Do they just kind of like know who their uses are?
Speaker 1 (28:11):
And you know it may be where Apple supplies them
with a list or maybe one of those things where
you have to like you'll get like an email and
then you have to like sign up, and then three
years later, you know you're you're literally ready to like
pack up and move out of LA and then it's
like you get this twenty five dollars check.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
You're like, yeah, I can eat for another week.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
So anyway, don't hold your breath for that one. But
that is what's happening with the the iPhone. Bobby Producer, Bobby.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
We've got another question here from Sherry. This is on
your Facebook. She wants to know about the mirror. She says,
have you seen the mirror? I have and I hate
what I see in it every day.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
Oh, you're talking about just your personal year.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
No, but yeah, she's actually talking about the mirror you
put up on the wall and it's like a live
personal trainer and an exercise Yeah, you use for exercise. She
wants to know your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Well, there's a couple of these things. This is so
you know Peloton, right, Yes, So they kind of unleash
the beast of like all like, oh my gosh, people
are into fitness at home. Let's figure out what we
can do with technology and make everything in the world.
So the mirror was one that kind of went viral
online and it basically showed a mirror on your wall,
but like a magical mirror that shows you how to
(29:21):
work out, and it will give you feedback and like
if you're stretching wrong or whatever. It's cool. I have
not personally tested this, so I can't tell you whether
it's cool or not. What I can tell you is
that I think that a lot of these things are
going to shake out over the years. Do I think
we're gonna have magic mirrors in the future that will
help us work out? Absolutely, it makes sense have a
(29:42):
giant screen in your house. You got a trainer on there.
They just help you lead you through a workout, they
give you some response. We did a story with a
website called open fit, which is an app uses your
iPhone and the trainer can actually look through your camera.
I heard about this and watch you and give you feedback. Now,
well that's probably gonna be what's built into this mirror
(30:02):
thing as well. So if not, if it's not already,
I mean it may be, but I'm looking at the
mirror online. It's at minimum fifteen hundred bucks. That's a lot. Now,
if you have an expensive gym membership, maybe that sounds cheaper.
But and the peloton is twenty five hundred bucks, so
it's cheaper than that. But let's be honest right now,
this is a first gen product. I can't imagine it's
(30:24):
probably slick, and I'm sure the viral video was great,
but I can imagine that it's going to be that
great first out of the gate, even in the first
couple of years out of the gate. This is an
expensive product. You're gonna put it on your wall. I
mean you have to mount it, you got to keep
it up to date. It probably comes with a monthly fee.
That you have to pay, and so by the time
you add all these things up. I think that this
(30:45):
is right now, probably best for the early adopters, the
really super techie types, and maybe someone who's sharing this with,
you know, if they have a little fitness duty or
something they just want to try it out and whatever.
But I think for the average person it's probably not
best to invest in this technology just yet.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Just buy a mirror from the store for like fifteen
bucks and watch YouTube videos and then you can exercise
in front of the mirror for.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Fat But that's the thing. And I think that there's
one called Tonal, which I did not actually go and
test that, but Megan producer Megan did and she came
away impressed. And I have seen this in different places.
And so again you have a lot of these new
technologies that are kind of vuying for attention. It's gonna
shake out. You know, they may be acquired. You know,
(31:28):
if you're a large company that's a big fitness company,
you're not gonna let all this stuff go by it.
You know, you're not gonna let it go like you're
if you're life cycle or whatever, you're probably doing stuff
like this and you're you know you're you're probably buying
some of this. I actually purchased. I saw this at
c Yes, and I went and bought it, the Bowflex
version of the Peloton, okay, And the reason I bought
(31:49):
it is because the Peloton's twenty five hundred bucks. The
Bowflex one. Gosh, I forget how much it is total,
but it was like, you know, you have to I pay, like,
you know, the extra service fee for like installation and whatever.
But it was like half the price of the Peloton.
And the reason why I got it is because there's
no service fee. Every month, you actually put your own
iPad where the Peloton screen would be. I see, so
(32:12):
you don't have to pay for that giant screen. You
don't have to pay for the Peloton. And I thought
this was just a great thing at half the price
or less than half to have it home because now
I can do like a twenty minute thirty minute workout. Now.
I bought that like two months ago, and I still
haven't gotten it, so I don't know what's going on.
But they did tell me they said it was so
popular that it's actually sold out. They said it was
sold out for at least forty five days. So I've
(32:32):
just been waiting to get this thing, and it shows
that people do have an interest in alternatives. But again,
to answer the question, I think that you kind of
wait on a lot of this stuff. The bike that
I bought is a standard spin bike, except you have
a place for an iPad, so it's not very high tech,
it's not very crazy. But if you look at Flywheel,
that was an alternative to Peloton, and they went out
(32:54):
of business, or at least or biked it whatever happened,
they're now Peloton I think sued them and they're giving
those people a Peltm bike. So if you invested in
one of these flywheels, it's okay because you're getting the
other bike. But still it just goes to show that
all these new technologies, when they're especially big and expensive.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Everyone kind of jumps in and then you get cheaper
versions and versions that don't last, and so it's best
to bide your time, exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And I'm an early adopter of a lot of stuff,
but when it comes to a fifteen hundred dollars one
trick pony mirror that you put on your wall, you
probably want to wait a little bit. And like you said,
go to YouTube. Go to Apple TV, buy an Apple TV
for two hundred bucks, set it up on your TV,
and watch videos from YouTube, and you'll probably be okay
for now. Or just hire a personal trainer. Yeah, I mean,
(33:40):
aren't they cheap?
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I don't know, never used one.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I actually did when I was in college and doing
the whole like stupid credit card debt thing. I you know,
when I had give you car credit cards and like,
of course you're stupid, like seventeen whatever, You're like, oh,
I have all this money. Yeah, like whatever limit you
got in that card that was, now how much money
you had, right, you know?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:00):
And so I went to twenty four Hour Fitness and
I literally bought a package of like personal training things
for like it probably was like two hundred and eighty
dollars at the time, but now that I think about it,
it's it felt like it was probably like one thousand dollars,
you know, but I have no idea how much it was. Yeah,
but it was more than I could afford on personal training.
And I go there and I had this personal trainer
(34:21):
that was like an actor, you know, and so he
would literally be like he didn't care about what he
was doing. What I was doing. He'd be like, all right,
go on the bike for five minutes to warm up.
I'm like, all right, And I literally did only one
of the classes or maybe two, and that was it,
and I was so I wasted all this money. Anyway,
that's my only experience of the Personal Trainer. So anyway,
all right, let's talk a little personal assistance, Google Assistant
(34:46):
and Alexa. A couple of new features I want to
tell you about. So two on Alexa that are are
pretty cool. The first I think is really convenient is
now you can ask a I'll say, a tell me
when there's a severe weather alert, and when there's a
weather alert in your area, she will chime in and
tell you. I think that is an amazing feature because
(35:08):
if you think about it, I mean, we do have
our phones with us all the time, but I don't know.
I mean, I think that's kind of cool that just
you're in your house and I get it. In Los
Angeles we don't really have this. But I used to
live in Shreveport, Louisiana, where severe weather were alerts were
actually a thing where you might have a flash flood,
or you might have or a tornado. Yeah, or like heavy,
(35:29):
heavy rain that just comes out of nowhere. Yeah, And
so to have that in your living room and all
of a sudden you're watching TV or maybe you know,
your wife is commuting home and you're like, you know,
just waiting there, and all of a sudden you hear
this thing like, oh, let me, let me tell them.
I mean there, it is really cool. Or in a
case of tornado, like take cover.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Yeah, And we just had that big tornado in Nashville
that yes, created a bunch of it was a station.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Yeah, I mean, it was like at least nine deaths
when I saw which.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Is it's grown up, it's I think it's in the twenties.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
Oh my, I mean, it's it's crazy to think that happens.
But like I remember, And here's the thing, Like some
people were discussing like, well, how do they not know
that this thing was approaching? You don't know with tornadoes,
you know, there may be there could be one in
your area. You have no idea where it's gonna touch down.
You have no idea the path, and you have no
idea the destruction. They can predict as much as they want,
but the reality is it's really tricky. Yeah, And I
(36:19):
saw this firsthand because like I remember going through, you know,
as a reporter and shre report. We'd go through these
neighborhoods that were, you know, where there's a tornado that
came through, and you couldn't know with certainty. Now, with
all the cell phones, you probably would know more than
be forks or so many cameras everywhere, but back in
the day, it's like, oh, this area and you could
just tell by the way the trees were twisted. Oh wow,
if it was actually a twister, yeah, you know, call
(36:41):
them anyway. So that's the Alexa one, which I thought
was really cool. So set that up and see how
it is. I don't know how well it works, but
it's kind of cool. And Google Assistant meanwhile on Android
has a really cool new feature that can read any
web page. And I tried this this morning and it
is just one of those features that is just it's brilliant.
And I personally don't really have a need for this
(37:03):
per se, but I think for as an assistive technology,
if you have low vision, or if you're losing your
vision or any sort of disability. When it comes to that,
I think that this is amazing. All you have to
say when you're on a web page, is h Google
read this page, and Google Assistant springs into action and
it starts reading the whole page. It'll be like from
(37:24):
the New York Times. It'll say the title and it'll
just start reading the page, and it reads it in
a voice that is pretty impressive, like you would think
it's a robot. Overlord, how good this thing can? It
can read better than I can. Let's put it out way.
I mean, seriously, it really sounds really good.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
I mean, we've come such a long way from remember
on the old PCs the text to speech and you
could type in something and then yes, it would read
it back in a weird voice. But now it's like
you can't almost not even tell it's actual.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Let me hear here we go.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
This is the one plus. We'll now repair your device
on your doorstep, but only in India by Damian Wilde.
One plus is really.
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Pumping resources and investment into the Indian market with exclusive
features for fans and device owners in the region. So
that's it. Reading cool. Okay, Now here's another feature that's
really cool. And I show this off on my Twitter
at Rich DeMuro. If you are looking at a web page,
say in Spanish. Oh, by the way, it will just
read it in English two to zero colo colo of
(38:29):
Chile on data. So this is some sort of step
football match and it's written in a different language. I
think it's Spanish translating, and she's just reading it in
English in real time, and you can choose what language
you want to be read in. I mean, talk about
the idea of you stumble upon and Google Chrome has
done this for a long time, but you stumble upon
a web page that's written in a different language, and
you know how it says, would we like to translate?
(38:51):
Just that feature is amazing on your desktop. But now
the fact that anyone can just be on a web
page and had the and have it read to them
in their language is just This is the kind of
stuff that just is truly amazing. And Google continues to
push the envelope with this artificial intelligence and the way
that it parses the article. I mean, it read the title,
(39:11):
it read who it was from, and then it read
the article. Now I did notice it kind of stumbled
when there was an embedded tweet in the article. It
kind of read the tweet, which you would do anyway,
as a human, but it just kind of it didn't
really get there's a difference between there. I guess see exactly. Okay,
Producer Bobby, I think this is your last question. Oh
last question. Let's make it make it a good one.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Let's see how about this one from Kim Kim is
asking about job apps. She says there's an increasing issue
with finding legit jobs on sites and apps. She keeps
getting contacted by people in other countries. She sends her resume,
they never contact her. She's an independent contractor. She works
(39:52):
in IT fieldwork like migrations, imaging, and installation, and she
doesn't think it should be this hard. So she's wondering
about any legitimate job apps where she'll have luck and
not get weird spammy calls from this is she really
stumbled upon a very good point here. And I don't
know if this happens to you with the because you
(40:14):
manage the podcasts, and every podcast has like an email
address on like iTunes that's associated. Do you get like
a bunch of random emails from time to time? I do?
From time to time, I do. I get a lot
of weird It's it's tough to tell because because my
podcasts are linked to my work email, and even through
our work emails sometimes we get just like weird, weird emails,
(40:35):
but yeah, I do. I did kind of notice an
increase of just strange.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
It's just strange, and it's tough because we have to
kind of go through them and figure out is this legit?
Is this not legit? I got I got a couple.
I got one yesterday and one today. One yesterday was
saying that there was an image on my website that hey,
we love that you're using our image on your website,
but that's actually ours and she have to pay us
for that. And I was like, oh, that's interesting because
I got that image from Google, so like Google sent
(41:01):
it to me like the press people, and so I
was like, that's weird, said to a little research, and
I googled where this email address came from. And it's
totally a shell blog. It's totally bogus. And I realized,
think about it. They send that automated email to a
million people a day, and one person goes, oh my gosh,
I'm sorry, let me pay or let me take it down,
or let me, you know, fix that, or send you
(41:22):
money exactly, and it's just it's such a brilliant scam
and this is happening. So to get back to her
question about the jobs, it's really tough. My dad runs
a small business and so I get his emails for
a small business, and it is unbelievable how much spam
he gets from people purporting to be yelp. Hey, let
me help you get a better YELP rating people being
(41:43):
on Google. Hey, do you want to be on the
first search? We work with Google? Yeah, you know, they
don't necessarily say they are Google. We work with Google.
Well what does that mean? And for him, he's running
his business, he's busy. Of course he'd like more calls
or of course he'd like more clicks to his website.
So sometimes he'll respond to these people and I'm like, now,
this is totally bogus. These people are literally just trying
to get you on pay them, give them a credit
(42:05):
card fee, whatever it is. And just so it's the
same thing with its job stuff. It's really tough because
you've got to put yourself out there and put your
resume and your information to get these leads, especially as
an independent contractor. But then you're going to get all
the garbage as well, people just slamming you with all
kinds of crap that you don't need to. You know
that you shouldn't be taxed with going through, but you
(42:25):
have to. And that's kind of the name of the
game with the Internet is that you really need to
be on your toes. And I actually emailed this person
back and ask them if they read what they were
using like LinkedIn or you know whatever, and they said,
it happens across all these sites. So and I'm on
LinkedIn and I get spammed on there. You know, people
just hey, we saw your article. Can you do a
(42:45):
story on this? Now? It looks like it's a pitch,
but it's really not. It's just like spam most of
the time. So I don't really have good advice, except
my main advice is, whenever you're writing your email address
on these different things, I always write out Rick at
KTLA dot com, like the word at at and then
KTLA and then dot com. And the reason I always
(43:08):
send that whenever I'm typing out my email address to
someone or putting it on a website or sending it
through a message, is that if there's a spider out
there that's that's crawling for email addresses, it's gonna be
a little bit trickier for them to figure out that
that's my email address. Good tip, And I don't mind.
Like I said, I just gave it out on here.
I don't care if you email me because a human
has to listen to that now and say, oh, I'm
(43:28):
gonna email Rich. That's fine. But if it's now, if
a transcript of this makes it out somewhere, it's gonna say,
you know Rich at KTLA dot com. And that doesn't
mean as much to a spider. Right now, these spiders
might have gotten more sophisticated, and maybe it does mean more.
And so I just kind of gave oh now, I'm
(43:50):
just kidding, but I think that's kind of my best
advice is really just protect your personal information. You have
to put it out there to be on these sites,
but just protect it as best you can. So that's
a that's a good question. Okay, real quick, because I
did I did tease this and I want to mention
this story before we go, but this just blew my mind.
This company, Wolfcom one zero, did an exclusive with the
(44:15):
kind of showing what they're what technology they are selling
to police departments and the bottom line is it is
that terminator technology where when they're looking at someone through
their police cam, it circles the person's face, scans against
the database of known offenders, and identifies says like outstanding warrant,
wanted for felony, missing person, And so you can see
(44:36):
how this could be good for the missing person thing.
But if you're the person with the outstanding warrant, you
wanted felony, I mean, look at that. It's crazy. But
this is the future. I mean, I have no doubt
with facial recognition, it is going to be the wild West.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
It's like RoboCop.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
It's like, that's the word. I was RoboCop, not terminator.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
They do too. It's all those kind of.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
But if you look at this, uh, the little video
is just phenomenal and it's just it's wild, but it's
the reality of what's happening. It's already happening with license plates.
As police are driving through cities, their cars are scanning
license plates and it's like, oh, flag that one, flag,
that one, that one's a stolen car.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
That there was just a story that we had the
other day. I don't remember what the crime was, but
that's how they caught. The guy was just an officer
driving along in his car. There's a license plate that
we've been looking for.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
But just extrapolate that onto everything. Yeah, I mean faces
and just it's just it's so wild. I mean, I
love it in certain extents because it does make our
world safer, but it's also really scary because the implications
of used to be you could evade things a little bit.
And I'm not saying people should evade the cops if
they're wanted or whatever, but it used to be like
(45:46):
there was some work involved. But it always goes back
to this example that I had as a kid. I
always thought, in the future, when you sped on a freeway,
what's going to keep technology from knowing that your car
is speeding, reporting that to the law enforcement, and outspits
a ticket from your dashboard? What is keeping us from
having that? Nothing? Right now, your car knows how fast
(46:07):
you're going, so does Google Map, so does.
Speaker 2 (46:09):
Your GPS everything.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
So what's the only thing keeping that from happening is
that nobody's implemented that. Now do we need laws against that?
I don't know, Because what's the rule about speeding? Is
it only when you're caught that you get the ticket
or is it that I don't know. Yeah, I mean
it's really it's these kind of things that technology will
enable us to do, but should we do them?
Speaker 2 (46:28):
Science fiction is science reality?
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Now exactly? You said it. You said it very well,
Producer Bobby. Oh my gosh, can you believe it? That's
gonna do it for this episode of the show. If
you want links to what we talked about, you can
take a look at the show notes, and if you
have a question for me, you can go to rich
on Tech dot tv hit that contact button and we
would appreciate it if you rate and review this podcast.
(46:51):
It helps other people discover it. Just go to rate
this podcast dot com, slash rich on tech and just
put in your little review. Producer Bobby. Tell folks how
they can find you and your podcast. They can find
me on Instagram. I'm at sounds like Bobby and all
our podcasts are at KTLA dot com, slash podcast I
(47:11):
do Spoken Dreams. You can find that on the website
or on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Stitcher, everywhere that you
find this podcast, you can find all our kt l
A podcasts. And thanks for that. I'm looking at some
of the reviews and Tony the Great One said, Wow,
one of the greatest tech guys out there and absolutely
must listen to, even if you're not tech savvy. He
(47:32):
explains it in English. Kudos to you, Rich, thanks for
all that you do. That'll probably be better if you
read that, Bobby right.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
A little self congratulated, but hey, that's okay.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Thanks so much for doing this, Bobby, I do appreciate it.
I'm Richidmiro. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to
you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.