November 26, 2024 • 24 mins
KFI's own Tech Reporter Rich DeMuro joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Tech Tuesday'! Rich talks about trackers digital trackers, AI, and holidfays In an online world, the brick-and-mortar stores are thriving.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
KFI AM six forty Bill Handle Here. It is a
Tuesday morning, November twenty six, two day before Thanksgiving. Neil
Savedra every Thanksgiving does the show and it's not filling in.
He does his show and gives tips about cooking for
Thanksgiving and it's a call in show. Well, it is Tuesday,
(00:26):
which means it is time for our tech segment with
Rich Demurrow, kfi's tech reporter, also a host of Well.
He is host of rich on Tech Saturdays eleven to
two pm every day on KTLA right Instagram at rich
on Tech website, rich on Tech dot TV. And we're
gonna talk a little bit later on about his holiday
(00:48):
gift guide and Rich I will definitely deal with that
some of the fun stuff that's out there. Anyways.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Good morning, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Okay, you know this was going to happen all right
because you sent this to me. There's a new AI
feature bringing old photos to life as a video. Okay,
what do you do with those crazy guys that send
those How do I put it?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Richard Picks? Oh my gosh, no.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
What do you do? What happens with those.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
That's not what we're talking about here.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
This is this is for old family photosh got it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, you should see my old family photos with those,
but let's talk about that for a moment.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, So this is a feature from my Heritage.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
That's one of those you know DNA apps that helps
you build your family history.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
They've been coming out.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
With these AI tools over the years to kind of
bring back old old photos to life, so you can
do simple things in the photos, like convert a black
and white photo to color, you can restore a photo.
But now they're starting to used A and I A
A and I AI more and more, and their new
feature is called live Memory.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So you take an old photo. Let's take an old photo.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Of grandma and grandpa, right, you put it into this app.
It takes a bit, it will animate the photo. It
will literally create a five second video even with your
grandparents moving and like having, you know, smiling, whatever the
gestures they're making, and it's all AI. So it kind
of makes everything up. But it looks at the scene
to figure out what.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It might be doing.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
So keet on a bicycle might be riding the bicycle,
you know, even though that picture was taken in nineteen twenty,
nineteen thirty, and so you get to do this for free.
You get three of them for free, and you can
do more for paid. But I tested this out with
an old picture of me and my wife, and you know,
it's interesting. It's it's going to get better. It's very
very interesting. I think if you have an old picture
(02:38):
of a family member you want to try it on,
I would say give it a try.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So how's this going to affect the businesses that digitize
old photos and old videos and super eight film if
you remember when those were around. Is it going to
take over that business?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I don't think so, because this is more taking a
photo that you have that's not a video and saying,
you know what, this is an old picture of my grandpa, grandma, military, whatever,
and it's a it's it's creating something out of nothing.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Basically.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
All right, let's move over to Instagram. Let's you temporarily
share your location with friends. What's the difference between that
and turning off and on?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Where what's that called my find my find my friends.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Find my or whatever the hell it is? Because I
have that because I always get lost. I think it's fine.
My isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah, find my well used to be called find my
Friends back in the day. Now it's just find my.
But yeah, you know, look this is nothing new. There's
many ways you can share a location with friends. Find
My is obviously very popular because it's built into the iPhone.
Snapchat is probably the most popular with the with the
young EN's bill. You know, these are the kids that
share everything. They don't really care about their privacy. And
(03:56):
so there's actually a map on Snapchat that will show
you your friends are. And people love it because they
can see they're friends at school, they're friends at home,
or their friends out with their other friends, friends on friends, whatever.
And so I think Instagram wants to be in on that.
And so you can share live location with your friends
or a group for up to one hour, and so
(04:17):
their ideas that you can meet up with friends if
you're at a park or something, finding them at a
baseball game, whatever. And again it's only for one hour,
so it doesn't feel as privacy invasive as some other
ways of doing this.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, I'm a huge fan of find my for a
couple of reasons. First of all, I'd like to know
where everybody is because I'm nosy as hell, But more importantly,
the safety aspect of this, particularly with your kids. It's
to me it's invaluable to have this.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Oh you have them all on a little map.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I have the little map, Michael.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Let's do that with me and my wife. They'll check
to see if we're like coming to get them at school.
They'll be like, how come you're at the gym for
so long? And I'm like, okay, stop looking at my location.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Kid.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, I mean, you can turn that off, but it's
pretty important. I think. All right, you know what, let's
take an early break because I want to come back
and talk about a couple of things, and also I
want to talk about your holiday gift guide on your website.
What's going on out there? All right? Now? This is
kind of a neat one. The Ritz Carlton Santa Barbara
(05:22):
is adding a robotic messuse. So I have a question.
What if there's a glitch and it punches through your sternum?
What the hell do you do?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Well, you call a good lawyer, I guess, But hopefully
that does not happen, because you know they've.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Done their research.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
There is an emergency stop button though, so it tells
me that they're not one hundred percent certain that that
can't happen. So this is a robotic messeuse called Escape.
It's spelled A escape like the letter A and then escape,
but it's pronounced escape. And this is going in at
the Rich Carlton Santa Barbara. The bookar there and and
(06:00):
it is high end. It's going to be self service
twenty four to seven. Well I don't know if it's
twenty four to seven. They didn't say that, but it's
going to be self service. And it's a massage system,
so it uses AI to scan your body, figures out
all like to say, over a million three D data points,
and then it comes up with a custom massage. So
from this touch screen you can choose the focus areas,
(06:20):
how much pressure you want, the music, and it remembers
all of it for next time. So I think this
sounds really interesting. Of course, people are going to say, oh,
this is taken away jobs. It's taken away jobs probably
you know.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
It's it's changing the nature of work. I guess I
can say.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
So number one, this is probably going to run without
a lot of people, which means hotels that when it
normally have a Masseuse could have a massage system number two.
The company says there is a twenty nine thousand, twenty
nine thousand gap in the therapist need in the massage industry,
which means there's less people than to fill jobs.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
So you have that.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Since it's replacing so many Philippine messuses. Does it also
sing karaoke?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'm not sure on that one.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
All I know is that a thirty minute massage is
about seventy five dollars at a location in New York City,
and I'm exciting bad.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
That's not bad because if you're going to a Rich Carlton,
a sixty minute massage is it could be one hundred
and thirty hundred and fifty dollars, and that's with karaoke.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Oh wow, Well, I don't know if I assume it's
not going to be seventy five bucks. I don't think
you can walk into a Rich Carlton and sniff without
spending seventy five dollars. So there's no way this massage
is going to be that cheap.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people will do it
just for sort of the joys of doing it, just
to experiment, just to try something new. And so I'll
bet you it does really well, and I'll bet you
that it costs a fortune to buy. Oh yeah, for
(07:59):
the facility. Okay, let's do it. We're gonna spend a
few minutes talking about your holiday gift guide, which you
do every year. It's on your website, rich on tech
dot TV. And I know we're getting plenty of time
to this, so if we run out of time, we'll
go if we have too much information, we'll go to
a couple of other topics. So what I want to
(08:21):
do is ask what's hot, what's not, and how much
money are we going to spend for insert name a
product here.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Well, I think, look, this holiday number one, this holiday
shopping season is shorter than years past because if you
do the math, there's like a couple less days between
Thanksgiving and Christmas. So I think there's twenty six days
between those two holidays, which in many years it's like
closer to thirty thirty one something like that. So there's
less time. And already, I mean you're talking, we're getting
(08:52):
to Thanksgiving, we're getting to Black Friday, and that's kind
of like when the deals start and when you have
to start buying stuff because you're getting this stuff shipped
to our house in many instances, and you want to
make sure you're getting that earlier then later. Right, And
by the way, one pro tip Bill I learned this
the hard way. Open up your boxes as they arrive
to your house. Do not wait until the night before
(09:14):
you give them as gifts, because guess what. One time
I ordered something and I didn't open the box until,
you know, the holidays I was going to give it.
I opened it up the night before, and next thing
you know, it was the wrong thing in the box.
So do not wait to open these boxes that you
get from any retailer. All right, With that said. On
my list, I put a lot of stuff. I like
to find useful stuff. I like to find interesting stuff,
(09:35):
and this is all stuff that I've personally tested, things
like earbuds, things like power banks. My number one pick
is always the same every year. It's the Aura Digital
picture frame. Every single person that has gotten one of these,
not all of them have emailed me, but the ones
who have just say, this is the most incredible gift
because everyone likes seeing pictures, and so that unlocks those
(09:59):
pictures from your onto a digital picture frame. And the
best part with the aura is that as a kid
that gives it to your parents or loved one. You
can actually update the photos on that frame from your phone,
like you can submit photos right from your phone and
it will show up on their frame no matter where
it is, which is really cool.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So you're canna be in. You can be an eighty
five year old grandma and instead of having thirty five
pictures across every counter, there's just one and it's rotating
the pictures through. Do I have that right?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And you're not just rotating. You know, back in the
day you had the old photo frames, you would upload
the pictures once, you know, Christmas Day or the day
after whatever, and you would never update them. This you
can constantly update them because it's going from your phone,
which is really nice as well. So I love that.
Let's see what else do we have here? A lot
of travel stuff. I talked about the self cleaning kitty
(10:52):
litter box. I still think that's life changing. A lot
of people have been emailing me about that smart rings there.
I would say they're popular, but they're too expensive right
now for most people. But that's a that's a gift.
If someone has everything they need. Headphones I've always said.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Those are a great gift to a couple that I like.
The noise cancelation.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Obviously those are very popular, but if you've got a
runner in your life, I've been testing these shocks open
run headphones, which in LA especially, you know, you want
to be aware of your surroundings while you're running outside.
These are great because they don't seal up your ear drums,
so they actually use bone conduction technology, so you actually
kind of hear what's happening. Yeah, it's really great. And
(11:33):
you can also swim with them too, which a lot
of people like you. How much are those those are
on sale? Those are a great deal right now ninety
bucks and they're typically a lot more. So those are
great and wooll.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Because I just ordered some very expensive headsets, which hopefully
I'm going to cancel immediately because you'd say they're yeah, well,
it's just crazy. I can't believe how much I spent.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
What do they call you spend? What did you get bows? No,
I got beats Beat Beat.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, you know, those are highly ranked and they're highly rated, and.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah they're highly expensive, they are.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
But they actually have a pair right now. That's a
great deal for two hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, I think I paid. I think I paid for
that much, and mainly because I do phone calls and
I listened to books on tape. I'm not a big
music guy, so id they're overpriced for me, but they're
just so damn comfortable on my ears. That's what works for.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
This is this is literally what we're saying on our
segment tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
That's so weird because we had we had this guy
in from another reviews website and he said, you know,
look all these noise canceling the bows, the Sony. I
like the ones from Sonos as well. They're all great,
but the beats are literally the most comfortable.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Out of the entire bunch. So it's funny you said that.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, And so I mean that's exactly you know what
I'm spending.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
I had a pair.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Are you ready for this? They were stolen?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Oh wow?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
So this is my second go round? Yeah, okay, I
don't know if they were stolen them where. I have
no idea where they were stolen. I have. I used
to have friends, which by mistake, I actually invited someone
over and cleaned out completely.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Oh wow, your friends are stealing from you?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
That Oh yeah, of course they are, of course friends.
What I did, well, let me put it this way.
I had acquaintances because I don't have friends.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
This is getting weird. Who are you inviting over? That's well,
I'll tell you one thing.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
They're not coming back. Uh and if I see them
with a pair of Beats headphones on while they're driving along,
that's going to be problematic. Okay, Rich the website. You
can find all these holiday gifts on Rich's website at
rich on tech dot TV. Do I have that right?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
That is Rich on tech dot tv, Front, front and center.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Okay, Rich, thank you. We will talk next Tuesday. All right,
got it? All right? Uh? Now I want to tell
you a little bit about how I used to do business.
I've been a business person since my twenties, most of
my business being spectacular failures, I might add, but occasionally
one or two of them working. When I had to
(14:10):
fire somebody, I would line up my employees and I
would say, for both, for those of you that think
they still have a job, here, take a step forward,
and then I'd point to someone and.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Go, what you not so fast?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Now? For those of you that think that brick and
mortar stores are dead, or dying because of internet sales.
Online sales not so fast. And why is that? Well?
Because are there plenty of stores that have gone under?
Plenty of them. However, well managed stores do just fine.
(14:54):
Target absolutely on top of it, certainly costco. I mean,
they've us done. They always do well. So let me
tell you about TJX. TJX is a holding company of
discount chains like TJ Max. They also own what else
do they own? They own Rosses Marshals, So how do
(15:21):
they get away with it? How are they doing well?
Just to give you an idea, the market capitalization of TJX,
which owns these discount chains is up one hundred and
ninety four percent over the past decade. Basically has tripled
in value over the last ten years, and that includes
the pandemic. So why is that? And online shopping is
(15:45):
at a record high and you know, not only for
a change, but for well managed stores. Shopping center owners
aren't threatened at all. And we thought, wait a minute,
shopping center are gone. A lot of them closed down.
Americans bought three hundred billion dollars in retail goods online
(16:07):
last quarter. Now e commerce okay, out of the three
hundred billion dollars in online last year, the e commerce
part of it. No, let me do this, three hundred
billion dollars in retail goods last year. So Amy, real quickly.
I want to ask you a question, okay, and that is,
(16:30):
of the three hundred billion dollars in retail that was
sold last year, how much of it you think was
e commerce? If you had to guess, oh.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I would say at least half, but probably more sixteen percent. Oh,
probably a lot less than half. That's exactly correct.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And therein lies my story because retailers, mortar and brick
stores shouldn't have to worry, and well managed ones don't
have to worry. A couple of reasons. One, the retail
construction is way down, so those that have space for
(17:10):
the most part vacant. See our to near record lows. Now,
while Americans stayed at home during the height of the pandemic,
we had no choice, of course, we had to stay
at home during the pandemic. Once the pandemic is over,
we flocked to stores and restaurants. Now, Unfortunately, a lot
of restaurants closed down because they couldn't take what happened
(17:32):
during the pandemic, and a lot of stores closed because
they were effectively closed. But those that survived, and again
we go back to well managed stores. The other thing,
you know what, I'm going to take a break and
come back and tell you the other reason that brick
and mortar stores are doing so well, and they're doing
(17:55):
something that online shopping that online retailers can't do. Now,
I just asked Amy, of the three hundred billion dollars
that was sold on in retail last year, how much
do you think was e commerce? And she said over
fifty percent. In reality, it's sixteen percent. The vast majority
(18:17):
of goods are still at brick and mortar stores and
there is a primary reason, and the success of stores
that are doing just dynamite. Actually, there are a couple
of reasons. One very well managed stores like Target, although yeah,
I'll just say they're well managed. But let me give
(18:38):
you an example why Marshalls does as well as it does.
And the company TJX which owns tj Max and other companies,
what they do is attract customer shoppers across the income
spectrum because what they've done is created and this is brilliant,
(19:00):
what's called a treasure hunt experience. Right it sources merchandise
and limited quantities from over twenty one thousand vendors in
more than one hundred countries. That's a lot of buyers.
And what ends up happening hardcore shoppers, my daughter is one.
They go there just to see what's on sale, what
(19:23):
do they have, because you never know, and when there
is something there that you want, it's ridiculously cheap. So
the potential for these deals attracts even millionaires, people that
have all the money in the world. They can go
to major stores, they can go to Nordstroms, they go
(19:46):
to Marshals because they just don't know what they want.
That is something and what that does is translate into
what the Internet will never be able to do. And
those are customer experiances. You go to a Dick's Sporting Goods,
for example, there's a climbing wall in there. Now try
(20:09):
doing that on the internet. Well, theoretically you could. You
take your laptop and you go to a climbing wall
facility and you go up doing some kind of purchase
on your laptop. That gets a little more difficult. Most retailers,
by the way of accepted that customers want to buy
items online. Okay, that's simply part of life. So here's
(20:30):
what they do. They delivered them very quickly, and people
return what they don't want, and sometimes it's easier just
driving to the store, especially when you have a fairly
big item. Pet Smart, for example, seventeen hundred locations across
the US and Canada, ships more than ninety percent of
(20:53):
the online orders from its stores to save money, and
they're able to compete, and they have partnerships with door
Dash and Uber Eats. Both of those platforms are in
fact partnering up. DoorDash has one hundred and fifteen thousand
(21:14):
non restaurant retailers on the platform, including best Buy and
lows So Sephora for example. I think they do waxing
of some kind. I mean, I just don't understand that.
I've never waxed. But it is not the demise of
(21:35):
the brick and mortar. And you've got a lot of
e retailers that have to have brick and mortar stores
because that opens up new a whole line of new customers.
For example, Warbis glasses, it started off as just online.
The only way you could buy Warbies was online. Well,
(21:58):
their customer based sort of okay, it flattened out, so
they start opening brick and mortar stores and their customer
base now explodes. So those are the reasons that brick
and mortar stores are still here. Just wanted to give
you a heads up love business topics, all right, before
we go a couple things. Next Tuesday is Pastapon and
(22:24):
this is going to happen at the Anaheim White House.
KFI is broadcasting all day at the Anaheim White House,
starting with Amy wake up Call. During Amy's five o'clock hour,
stop by coffee fruit no not fruit, fruit, juice, pastries,
six o'clock, all of that plus real jew bagels and
(22:46):
cream cheese, and at nine o'clock that ends. As I said,
if you walk in at nine oh one and there
is a bagel left, you're not getting it. I'm yanking
it from your cold dead hands. So we invite you
to come by from five to nine and just to
get the food part. We're there all day, and it's
(23:07):
about donating to Katerina's Club, where we help Bruno feed
five thousand kids every day with pasta meals. So drop
off your pasta and sauce there at the Anaheim White House.
You can donate any of three ways, any smart and
Final Store. Any amount of check out any Wendy's restaurant
(23:29):
in southern California five dollars or more, you get a
coupon book for Wendy's goodies worth far more than five dollars,
and one hundred percent of your donation goes to Katerina's Club,
no administrative charge. None of that. One hundred percent goes
to Katerina's Club. And if you want to stop by
and yell at us, which I'd love to do because
I love people screaming at me. By the way, there
(23:49):
is armed security there. I just want to let you know.
So if you come up to say hello or take
a picture, do it very slowly. Don't make any quick
furtive moves, because you will get shot in the heart.
Said Dana is very very good at what he does.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Okay, that's it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Phone calls for Handle on the Laws starting in just
a few moments, Marginal Legal Advice off the air, and
the number is eight seven seven five two zero eleven fifty.
I'm starting just as I say goodbye eight seven seven
five two zero eleven fifty. Goodbye KFI AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to
(24:28):
the Bill Handle Show, Catch My Show Monday through Friday
six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on
the iHeartRadio app
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
KFI AM six forty Bill Handle Here. It is a
Tuesday morning, November twenty six, two day before Thanksgiving. Neil
Savedra every Thanksgiving does the show and it's not filling in.
He does his show and gives tips about cooking for
Thanksgiving and it's a call in show. Well, it is Tuesday,
(00:26):
which means it is time for our tech segment with
Rich Demurrow, kfi's tech reporter, also a host of Well.
He is host of rich on Tech Saturdays eleven to
two pm every day on KTLA right Instagram at rich
on Tech website, rich on Tech dot TV. And we're
gonna talk a little bit later on about his holiday
(00:48):
gift guide and Rich I will definitely deal with that
some of the fun stuff that's out there. Anyways.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Good morning, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Okay, you know this was going to happen all right
because you sent this to me. There's a new AI
feature bringing old photos to life as a video. Okay,
what do you do with those crazy guys that send
those How do I put it?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Richard Picks? Oh my gosh, no.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
What do you do? What happens with those.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
That's not what we're talking about here.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
This is this is for old family photosh got it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, you should see my old family photos with those,
but let's talk about that for a moment.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, So this is a feature from my Heritage.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
That's one of those you know DNA apps that helps
you build your family history.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
They've been coming out.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
With these AI tools over the years to kind of
bring back old old photos to life, so you can
do simple things in the photos, like convert a black
and white photo to color, you can restore a photo.
But now they're starting to used A and I A
A and I AI more and more, and their new
feature is called live Memory.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So you take an old photo. Let's take an old photo.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Of grandma and grandpa, right, you put it into this app.
It takes a bit, it will animate the photo. It
will literally create a five second video even with your
grandparents moving and like having, you know, smiling, whatever the
gestures they're making, and it's all AI. So it kind
of makes everything up. But it looks at the scene
to figure out what.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It might be doing.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
So keet on a bicycle might be riding the bicycle,
you know, even though that picture was taken in nineteen twenty,
nineteen thirty, and so you get to do this for free.
You get three of them for free, and you can
do more for paid. But I tested this out with
an old picture of me and my wife, and you know,
it's interesting. It's it's going to get better. It's very
very interesting. I think if you have an old picture
(02:38):
of a family member you want to try it on,
I would say give it a try.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So how's this going to affect the businesses that digitize
old photos and old videos and super eight film if
you remember when those were around. Is it going to
take over that business?
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I don't think so, because this is more taking a
photo that you have that's not a video and saying,
you know what, this is an old picture of my grandpa, grandma, military, whatever,
and it's a it's it's creating something out of nothing.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Basically.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
All right, let's move over to Instagram. Let's you temporarily
share your location with friends. What's the difference between that
and turning off and on?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Where what's that called my find my find my friends.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Find my or whatever the hell it is? Because I
have that because I always get lost. I think it's fine.
My isn't it.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yeah, find my well used to be called find my
Friends back in the day. Now it's just find my.
But yeah, you know, look this is nothing new. There's
many ways you can share a location with friends. Find
My is obviously very popular because it's built into the iPhone.
Snapchat is probably the most popular with the with the
young EN's bill. You know, these are the kids that
share everything. They don't really care about their privacy. And
(03:56):
so there's actually a map on Snapchat that will show
you your friends are. And people love it because they
can see they're friends at school, they're friends at home,
or their friends out with their other friends, friends on friends, whatever.
And so I think Instagram wants to be in on that.
And so you can share live location with your friends
or a group for up to one hour, and so
(04:17):
their ideas that you can meet up with friends if
you're at a park or something, finding them at a
baseball game, whatever. And again it's only for one hour,
so it doesn't feel as privacy invasive as some other
ways of doing this.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Yeah, I'm a huge fan of find my for a
couple of reasons. First of all, I'd like to know
where everybody is because I'm nosy as hell, But more importantly,
the safety aspect of this, particularly with your kids. It's
to me it's invaluable to have this.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Oh you have them all on a little map.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, I have the little map, Michael.
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Let's do that with me and my wife. They'll check
to see if we're like coming to get them at school.
They'll be like, how come you're at the gym for
so long? And I'm like, okay, stop looking at my location.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Kid.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, I mean, you can turn that off, but it's
pretty important. I think. All right, you know what, let's
take an early break because I want to come back
and talk about a couple of things, and also I
want to talk about your holiday gift guide on your website.
What's going on out there? All right? Now? This is
kind of a neat one. The Ritz Carlton Santa Barbara
(05:22):
is adding a robotic messuse. So I have a question.
What if there's a glitch and it punches through your sternum?
What the hell do you do?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Well, you call a good lawyer, I guess, But hopefully
that does not happen, because you know they've.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Done their research.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
There is an emergency stop button though, so it tells
me that they're not one hundred percent certain that that
can't happen. So this is a robotic messeuse called Escape.
It's spelled A escape like the letter A and then escape,
but it's pronounced escape. And this is going in at
the Rich Carlton Santa Barbara. The bookar there and and
(06:00):
it is high end. It's going to be self service
twenty four to seven. Well I don't know if it's
twenty four to seven. They didn't say that, but it's
going to be self service. And it's a massage system,
so it uses AI to scan your body, figures out
all like to say, over a million three D data points,
and then it comes up with a custom massage. So
from this touch screen you can choose the focus areas,
(06:20):
how much pressure you want, the music, and it remembers
all of it for next time. So I think this
sounds really interesting. Of course, people are going to say, oh,
this is taken away jobs. It's taken away jobs probably
you know.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
It's it's changing the nature of work. I guess I
can say.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
So number one, this is probably going to run without
a lot of people, which means hotels that when it
normally have a Masseuse could have a massage system number two.
The company says there is a twenty nine thousand, twenty
nine thousand gap in the therapist need in the massage industry,
which means there's less people than to fill jobs.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
So you have that.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Since it's replacing so many Philippine messuses. Does it also
sing karaoke?
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'm not sure on that one.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
All I know is that a thirty minute massage is
about seventy five dollars at a location in New York City,
and I'm exciting bad.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
That's not bad because if you're going to a Rich Carlton,
a sixty minute massage is it could be one hundred
and thirty hundred and fifty dollars, and that's with karaoke.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Oh wow, Well, I don't know if I assume it's
not going to be seventy five bucks. I don't think
you can walk into a Rich Carlton and sniff without
spending seventy five dollars. So there's no way this massage
is going to be that cheap.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, I'm sure a lot of people will do it
just for sort of the joys of doing it, just
to experiment, just to try something new. And so I'll
bet you it does really well, and I'll bet you
that it costs a fortune to buy. Oh yeah, for
(07:59):
the facility. Okay, let's do it. We're gonna spend a
few minutes talking about your holiday gift guide, which you
do every year. It's on your website, rich on tech
dot TV. And I know we're getting plenty of time
to this, so if we run out of time, we'll
go if we have too much information, we'll go to
a couple of other topics. So what I want to
(08:21):
do is ask what's hot, what's not, and how much
money are we going to spend for insert name a
product here.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Well, I think, look, this holiday number one, this holiday
shopping season is shorter than years past because if you
do the math, there's like a couple less days between
Thanksgiving and Christmas. So I think there's twenty six days
between those two holidays, which in many years it's like
closer to thirty thirty one something like that. So there's
less time. And already, I mean you're talking, we're getting
(08:52):
to Thanksgiving, we're getting to Black Friday, and that's kind
of like when the deals start and when you have
to start buying stuff because you're getting this stuff shipped
to our house in many instances, and you want to
make sure you're getting that earlier then later. Right, And
by the way, one pro tip Bill I learned this
the hard way. Open up your boxes as they arrive
to your house. Do not wait until the night before
(09:14):
you give them as gifts, because guess what. One time
I ordered something and I didn't open the box until,
you know, the holidays I was going to give it.
I opened it up the night before, and next thing
you know, it was the wrong thing in the box.
So do not wait to open these boxes that you
get from any retailer. All right, With that said. On
my list, I put a lot of stuff. I like
to find useful stuff. I like to find interesting stuff,
(09:35):
and this is all stuff that I've personally tested, things
like earbuds, things like power banks. My number one pick
is always the same every year. It's the Aura Digital
picture frame. Every single person that has gotten one of these,
not all of them have emailed me, but the ones
who have just say, this is the most incredible gift
because everyone likes seeing pictures, and so that unlocks those
(09:59):
pictures from your onto a digital picture frame. And the
best part with the aura is that as a kid
that gives it to your parents or loved one. You
can actually update the photos on that frame from your phone,
like you can submit photos right from your phone and
it will show up on their frame no matter where
it is, which is really cool.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
So you're canna be in. You can be an eighty
five year old grandma and instead of having thirty five
pictures across every counter, there's just one and it's rotating
the pictures through. Do I have that right?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (10:30):
And you're not just rotating. You know, back in the
day you had the old photo frames, you would upload
the pictures once, you know, Christmas Day or the day
after whatever, and you would never update them. This you
can constantly update them because it's going from your phone,
which is really nice as well. So I love that.
Let's see what else do we have here? A lot
of travel stuff. I talked about the self cleaning kitty
(10:52):
litter box. I still think that's life changing. A lot
of people have been emailing me about that smart rings there.
I would say they're popular, but they're too expensive right
now for most people. But that's a that's a gift.
If someone has everything they need. Headphones I've always said.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Those are a great gift to a couple that I like.
The noise cancelation.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Obviously those are very popular, but if you've got a
runner in your life, I've been testing these shocks open
run headphones, which in LA especially, you know, you want
to be aware of your surroundings while you're running outside.
These are great because they don't seal up your ear drums,
so they actually use bone conduction technology, so you actually
kind of hear what's happening. Yeah, it's really great. And
(11:33):
you can also swim with them too, which a lot
of people like you. How much are those those are
on sale? Those are a great deal right now ninety
bucks and they're typically a lot more. So those are
great and wooll.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Because I just ordered some very expensive headsets, which hopefully
I'm going to cancel immediately because you'd say they're yeah, well,
it's just crazy. I can't believe how much I spent.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
What do they call you spend? What did you get bows? No,
I got beats Beat Beat.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, you know, those are highly ranked and they're highly rated, and.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah they're highly expensive, they are.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
But they actually have a pair right now. That's a
great deal for two hundred and fifty bucks.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Yeah, I think I paid. I think I paid for
that much, and mainly because I do phone calls and
I listened to books on tape. I'm not a big
music guy, so id they're overpriced for me, but they're
just so damn comfortable on my ears. That's what works for.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
This is this is literally what we're saying on our
segment tomorrow.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
That's so weird because we had we had this guy
in from another reviews website and he said, you know,
look all these noise canceling the bows, the Sony. I
like the ones from Sonos as well. They're all great,
but the beats are literally the most comfortable.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Out of the entire bunch. So it's funny you said that.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah, And so I mean that's exactly you know what
I'm spending.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
I had a pair.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Are you ready for this? They were stolen?
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Oh wow?
Speaker 2 (12:55):
So this is my second go round? Yeah, okay, I
don't know if they were stolen them where. I have
no idea where they were stolen. I have. I used
to have friends, which by mistake, I actually invited someone
over and cleaned out completely.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Oh wow, your friends are stealing from you?
Speaker 2 (13:13):
That Oh yeah, of course they are, of course friends.
What I did, well, let me put it this way.
I had acquaintances because I don't have friends.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
This is getting weird. Who are you inviting over? That's well,
I'll tell you one thing.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
They're not coming back. Uh and if I see them
with a pair of Beats headphones on while they're driving along,
that's going to be problematic. Okay, Rich the website. You
can find all these holiday gifts on Rich's website at
rich on tech dot TV. Do I have that right?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
That is Rich on tech dot tv, Front, front and center.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Okay, Rich, thank you. We will talk next Tuesday. All right,
got it? All right? Uh? Now I want to tell
you a little bit about how I used to do business.
I've been a business person since my twenties, most of
my business being spectacular failures, I might add, but occasionally
one or two of them working. When I had to
(14:10):
fire somebody, I would line up my employees and I
would say, for both, for those of you that think
they still have a job, here, take a step forward,
and then I'd point to someone and.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Go, what you not so fast?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Now? For those of you that think that brick and
mortar stores are dead, or dying because of internet sales.
Online sales not so fast. And why is that? Well?
Because are there plenty of stores that have gone under?
Plenty of them. However, well managed stores do just fine.
(14:54):
Target absolutely on top of it, certainly costco. I mean,
they've us done. They always do well. So let me
tell you about TJX. TJX is a holding company of
discount chains like TJ Max. They also own what else
do they own? They own Rosses Marshals, So how do
(15:21):
they get away with it? How are they doing well?
Just to give you an idea, the market capitalization of TJX,
which owns these discount chains is up one hundred and
ninety four percent over the past decade. Basically has tripled
in value over the last ten years, and that includes
the pandemic. So why is that? And online shopping is
(15:45):
at a record high and you know, not only for
a change, but for well managed stores. Shopping center owners
aren't threatened at all. And we thought, wait a minute,
shopping center are gone. A lot of them closed down.
Americans bought three hundred billion dollars in retail goods online
(16:07):
last quarter. Now e commerce okay, out of the three
hundred billion dollars in online last year, the e commerce
part of it. No, let me do this, three hundred
billion dollars in retail goods last year. So Amy, real quickly.
I want to ask you a question, okay, and that is,
(16:30):
of the three hundred billion dollars in retail that was
sold last year, how much of it you think was
e commerce? If you had to guess, oh.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
I would say at least half, but probably more sixteen percent. Oh,
probably a lot less than half. That's exactly correct.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
And therein lies my story because retailers, mortar and brick
stores shouldn't have to worry, and well managed ones don't
have to worry. A couple of reasons. One, the retail
construction is way down, so those that have space for
(17:10):
the most part vacant. See our to near record lows. Now,
while Americans stayed at home during the height of the pandemic,
we had no choice, of course, we had to stay
at home during the pandemic. Once the pandemic is over,
we flocked to stores and restaurants. Now, Unfortunately, a lot
of restaurants closed down because they couldn't take what happened
(17:32):
during the pandemic, and a lot of stores closed because
they were effectively closed. But those that survived, and again
we go back to well managed stores. The other thing,
you know what, I'm going to take a break and
come back and tell you the other reason that brick
and mortar stores are doing so well, and they're doing
(17:55):
something that online shopping that online retailers can't do. Now,
I just asked Amy, of the three hundred billion dollars
that was sold on in retail last year, how much
do you think was e commerce? And she said over
fifty percent. In reality, it's sixteen percent. The vast majority
(18:17):
of goods are still at brick and mortar stores and
there is a primary reason, and the success of stores
that are doing just dynamite. Actually, there are a couple
of reasons. One very well managed stores like Target, although yeah,
I'll just say they're well managed. But let me give
(18:38):
you an example why Marshalls does as well as it does.
And the company TJX which owns tj Max and other companies,
what they do is attract customer shoppers across the income
spectrum because what they've done is created and this is brilliant,
(19:00):
what's called a treasure hunt experience. Right it sources merchandise
and limited quantities from over twenty one thousand vendors in
more than one hundred countries. That's a lot of buyers.
And what ends up happening hardcore shoppers, my daughter is one.
They go there just to see what's on sale, what
(19:23):
do they have, because you never know, and when there
is something there that you want, it's ridiculously cheap. So
the potential for these deals attracts even millionaires, people that
have all the money in the world. They can go
to major stores, they can go to Nordstroms, they go
(19:46):
to Marshals because they just don't know what they want.
That is something and what that does is translate into
what the Internet will never be able to do. And
those are customer experiances. You go to a Dick's Sporting Goods,
for example, there's a climbing wall in there. Now try
(20:09):
doing that on the internet. Well, theoretically you could. You
take your laptop and you go to a climbing wall
facility and you go up doing some kind of purchase
on your laptop. That gets a little more difficult. Most retailers,
by the way of accepted that customers want to buy
items online. Okay, that's simply part of life. So here's
(20:30):
what they do. They delivered them very quickly, and people
return what they don't want, and sometimes it's easier just
driving to the store, especially when you have a fairly
big item. Pet Smart, for example, seventeen hundred locations across
the US and Canada, ships more than ninety percent of
(20:53):
the online orders from its stores to save money, and
they're able to compete, and they have partnerships with door
Dash and Uber Eats. Both of those platforms are in
fact partnering up. DoorDash has one hundred and fifteen thousand
(21:14):
non restaurant retailers on the platform, including best Buy and
lows So Sephora for example. I think they do waxing
of some kind. I mean, I just don't understand that.
I've never waxed. But it is not the demise of
(21:35):
the brick and mortar. And you've got a lot of
e retailers that have to have brick and mortar stores
because that opens up new a whole line of new customers.
For example, Warbis glasses, it started off as just online.
The only way you could buy Warbies was online. Well,
(21:58):
their customer based sort of okay, it flattened out, so
they start opening brick and mortar stores and their customer
base now explodes. So those are the reasons that brick
and mortar stores are still here. Just wanted to give
you a heads up love business topics, all right, before
we go a couple things. Next Tuesday is Pastapon and
(22:24):
this is going to happen at the Anaheim White House.
KFI is broadcasting all day at the Anaheim White House,
starting with Amy wake up Call. During Amy's five o'clock hour,
stop by coffee fruit no not fruit, fruit, juice, pastries,
six o'clock, all of that plus real jew bagels and
(22:46):
cream cheese, and at nine o'clock that ends. As I said,
if you walk in at nine oh one and there
is a bagel left, you're not getting it. I'm yanking
it from your cold dead hands. So we invite you
to come by from five to nine and just to
get the food part. We're there all day, and it's
(23:07):
about donating to Katerina's Club, where we help Bruno feed
five thousand kids every day with pasta meals. So drop
off your pasta and sauce there at the Anaheim White House.
You can donate any of three ways, any smart and
Final Store. Any amount of check out any Wendy's restaurant
(23:29):
in southern California five dollars or more, you get a
coupon book for Wendy's goodies worth far more than five dollars,
and one hundred percent of your donation goes to Katerina's Club,
no administrative charge. None of that. One hundred percent goes
to Katerina's Club. And if you want to stop by
and yell at us, which I'd love to do because
I love people screaming at me. By the way, there
(23:49):
is armed security there. I just want to let you know.
So if you come up to say hello or take
a picture, do it very slowly. Don't make any quick
furtive moves, because you will get shot in the heart.
Said Dana is very very good at what he does.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Okay, that's it.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Phone calls for Handle on the Laws starting in just
a few moments, Marginal Legal Advice off the air, and
the number is eight seven seven five two zero eleven fifty.
I'm starting just as I say goodbye eight seven seven
five two zero eleven fifty. Goodbye KFI AM six forty
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to
(24:28):
the Bill Handle Show, Catch My Show Monday through Friday
six am to nine am, and anytime on demand on
the iHeartRadio app
The Bill Handel Show News
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
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.