October 15, 2018 • 46 mins
In this new version of the podcast, Rich discusses various tech stories and answers your email questions. Among the topics: Pixel 3 Reviews, Palm's comeback device, Adobe Rush Editing app, Microsoft Tech Support scams, Kodak's new digitizing service for old tapes and Halloween fun with Google Assistant.Links:Pixel 3 ReviewsPalm Returnshttps://techcrunch.com/2018/10/15/palm-returns-as-an-ultra-mobile-smartphone/Adobe Premiere Rushhttps://www.adobe.com/products/premiere-rush.htmlMicrosoft Tech Support Scamshttps://news.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/10/15/online-scammers-cost-time-and-money-heres-how-to-fight-back/Kodak Digitizing Servicehttps://www.kodak.com/US/en/Consumer/Products/digitizing-box/default.htmRonald Reagan Hologramhttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/10/10/president-ronald-reagan-3-d-new-hologram-reagan-library/1574147002/Google Assistant Halloween Funhttps://www.androidpolice.com/2018/10/15/spooky-google-assistant-easter-eggs-going-live-time-halloween/Follow Rich on Social Media:Facebook: http://facebook.com/RichOnTechTwitter: http://twitter.com/richdemuroInstagram: http://instagram.com/richontech Easy ways to listen on your phone or smart speaker:"Hey Google, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Hey Siri, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Alexa, Enable the Rich on Tech Flash Briefing"
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
What's going on. I'm rich Damiro. This is rich on
Tech trying something just a little different this time around.
So let me know what you think of it, whether
you like it, you hate it, or you want more.
This is going to be kind of a roundup of
some of the things that are happening in the tech world,
just some stories that I come across, some my daily
research that I think are interesting and you should know about.
So let's just get right into it and start with
(00:25):
the Google Pixel three. All of the reviews are out,
the embargo has been lifted, and we're getting a lot
of different opinions on this phone, but they all seem
to center around the same thing. The camera, of course,
is amazing. There are little tweaks, little things that have
been improved, and of course there are some things that
people don't like, most notably the notch. Everyone's going crazy
(00:46):
over that. Now. Personally, I've been testing the smaller of
the two, the Google Pixel three. I will say that
Google has improved pretty much everything that I had a
problem with personally on the last devices. So for me,
it was mainly the fact that I could not use
this as a content creation tool because it did not
have the ability to have an external mic input on
(01:07):
the native camera app, and I am very excited to
announce that, yes, you can finally use an external mic
input on the video camera. Now for most people that's
not a big deal, but for me it is. And
I also think it's a bigger deal in the scheme
of things because think about it. When you think about
all these YouTubers, what phone are they using. They're all
using the iPhone because they're plugging accessories in, they're recording themselves,
(01:30):
they're vlogging. And if you try out a PIXEL and
you realize that you can't do these things with it, well,
guess what, You're not really going to use it much.
So in my day to day I will say that
I found that the phone is a bit laggy, which
is kind of odd, and I feel like it wasn't
laggy before. So maybe in the next couple of days,
when Google puts out their big software update for day
(01:53):
one of the Pixel, some of those things will be fixed.
But I actually had to reformat my device, so I
said it up when I was in New York when
I got it, and then when I got home, I
just could not deal with what kind of like the
jumpiness that was happening on it, and so I ended
up wiping it clean, and instead of doing a restore
for my old device, my old Android, I just ended
(02:14):
up installing everything again, which is kind of a pain
because you have to log into every app and download
every app, and set up your home screens and go
through every single alarm and every single setting and redo
it all. And I don't particularly like doing that every
single time. But I felt like I wanted to give
this thing the full benefit of the doubt and see
if it was something that got transferred over that was
kind of weird, or if it was the actual device.
(02:36):
I would say I'm getting less of the problem now,
but it's still a little bit jumpy compared to the
way I think it should be, and I think that
hopefully that will be improved. But otherwise, so what can
I say about the Pixel? I mean, personally, I think
I'm gonna start recommending this device more so than ever
because I find that it really does everything you need,
(02:57):
and I think the camera is really amazing. Software is
nice and polished, the apps they leave a little bit
to be desired. I know that's not Google's fault, but
when you look at what you can accomplish on the
apps on the iPhone, they're just better. I mean almost
every single app that is made by a big company
outside of Google. So when you look at Google apps,
(03:17):
those are all better on Android. When it comes to Gmail,
when it comes to things like Google Voice, when it
comes to Google Photos, Calendar maps, all of those things
are better on the Android. But when it comes to
these other apps like Instagram and Twitter, even something like
Audible which I use for my audiobooks, Spotify kind of
(03:38):
on the fence. I think that works very similar on
both of them. Yelp pretty similar, Netflix, pretty similar. YouTube.
Obviously Google apps, so that's going to work better. The
one app that I have a major problem with is Facebook.
I use Creator on the iPhone and it's just amazing.
If you want to keep in touch with people, keep
in touch with your fans, Facebook Pages is terrible on
(04:01):
the Android, and so is the Creator port so to me,
and again, I'm coming from sort of the content creator
journalism kind of world where I am looking to do
content creation on my devices. So for the average person,
probably the camera is going to be the most important
aspect in some of these other apps. But I understand
when it comes from switching to the Android platform from
(04:23):
the iOS platform. It's tough, and especially giving up things
like FaceTime and I Message. I Message. You can basically
I message almost anyone in the world, right because they
seem to be on there. And when it comes to Android,
it's like, you know, when I go to text someone,
I'm not really sure which number is the right one.
On iOS, it just sort of highlights in blue the
(04:45):
number that's the right one for them get to get
to their I message, and that's really helpful. I just
find that I kind of missed that when I'm using
my Android device. So not a deal breaker, but it's
definitely one of those things that does make life a
little more complicated. And then FaceTime. Of course, you know,
my entire f family is on iPhone back in New Jersey,
and you know, I'm not gonna it's really tough to
get them to download Duo. I was talking to someone
(05:07):
at work today and he was joking that, you know
who's on duo, you know, like, who says duo me?
No one that never comes up. Taking a look at
some of the headlines on tech meme, so, I mean
the Verge saying the best camera gets a better phone
with a far better screen, loud speakers, but the notch
is doofy. I don't know. I don't have the one
(05:28):
with the notch, so I really can't talk much about that.
I don't find the notches on any other device has
ever bothered me, so it's really not that big of
a deal. The screen is definitely better the phone. You know.
Here's the thing. I call this a sort of boring device,
and it kind of is. It's not the most exciting
device out there, but it's it's like a quiet confidence.
(05:48):
Like I've said before in my previous podcast, it's just
one of these things that it works. The pictures are
pretty amazing, the software works overall, and it's just one
of these devices that just kind of you don't have
to think much about it. Can you do as many
of the crazy cool things you can do on the iPhone?
Probably not, but in other aspects it does really cool
things like the call screening feature. So generally I'm always
(06:11):
kind of avoiding those calls, which I kind of still
believe you should because if you think about it, when
you get scam calls and spam calls and robo calls,
I've always recommended to people to never pick them up,
because if you pick them up, it signifies to them
that your phone number is live, right. And I'm sure
if these people have these computer systems, maybe they're not
(06:32):
that sophisticated to know that, okay, this number picked up,
let's hammer them now with a lot more calls. Maybe
they're not that smart, but to me, it seems like
they probably are. And I've noticed, you know, I get
a couple of these robo calls, you know, every couple
of days, and I've been using the screen, the call
screen feature on the PIXEL, and it's actually kind of fun,
and I don't mind having the computer pick it up
(06:53):
because at least I know if the call is is
a robo call or not, and I can kind of
decide whether to answer it. So today I had a
call that I was unsure of came from a number
that was near mind, and I was like, I don't know,
it could be someone that I called, could be a
person called me back. But the other thing on the
PIXEL is that if you have you know, basically Pixel
has like free caller ID, and if a phone number
(07:15):
comes in without any call or ID on it, it's
kind of a giveaway that that's going to be a problem.
Let's see what else c neet Pixel three XL big
phone with a fantastic camera and a big notch Gizmoto
the other way to make a killer phone. And by
that they're probably alluding to the software versus the hardware,
because the hardware on the Pixel is not anything special.
(07:36):
I mean, I'm happy that they upgraded the processor, but
it's not like it's not like where the iPhone kind
of evolves and just gets better and better with all
these cool new features. No, it looks almost identical to
last year's model. And Gadget says Google's hardware takes a
backseat to software. Android Police says, come for the camera,
stay for everything else. Ours Technica says Google software deserves
(07:58):
better than this hardware. I agree. If it was up
to me, I would go with the Samsung hardware and
the Google software. That to me is kind of the
killer Android combination. And I remember back in the day,
I had one of those I bought back when Samsung
was doing this. They would do a gosh I forget
what it was called. It was like a not pure Android.
(08:20):
It was vanilla Android. It maybe it was pure. Basically,
they were installing Stock Android on a Galaxy device and
I can't remember which one I bought. That was it.
It was like, you know, eight hundred bucks or something
like that, and I scratched the screen and I was
so mad because I really that was like one of
my favorite devices because I had the Google Stock software,
but I had the beauty of being the Samsung hardware.
(08:42):
And I think that Google and and Samsung should really
think about this a little bit harder because Samsung is
just killing it with the hardware and Google is just
killing it with the software. So why don't we bring
something back like this? I mean, we're trying to compete
against iOS and iPhone dominance, and I get it dominance,
(09:02):
I mean here in the US. But the reality is
why not put everything you got towards that and do
something like a stock Android version of a Samsung device?
And the other thing. The other idea is why not
make the pixel camera you know, ported officially to these
other devices and make it an option, because it seems
(09:23):
like a lot of this stuff is software oriented. People
are already porting the camera app to other devices like
the Essential and the one plus phone, So why not
just give these phonemakers access to this camera and kind
of I think it would just expand the Android kind
of ecosystem in a much better way. And I think
(09:43):
more people would would kind of take it more seriously
if they knew they were getting an amazing device that
has the hardware, amazing software that has the hardware that
they want. One thing that's been kind of hit or
missed for me personally on the Pixel three is the
charging stand. So I actually had to move it away
from my bed and into my office because it was
just unreliable. So the Pixel charging stand is basically a
(10:08):
new wireless charging stand for the Pixel that kind of
reacts specifically to it. So when you place your phone
on there, up pops a special screen that you can
kind of set up so you can have it become
a photo frame while you're not using it. You can
have it basically it displays a couple of little assistant
one touch features down below, so you can, you know,
play your favorite playlist, whatever it predicts or thinks that
(10:30):
you want to do. Those buttons will be right on screen.
And I love this, and I love the fact that
they added wireless charging to the Pixel three, but I
still think in general wireless charging is very unreliable because
if your phone is off the charger, even by a
mirror like a millimeter, it's like your phone may not charge.
And to me, I thought my phone was charging. There
(10:51):
was two nights out of like maybe five nights where
it just didn't charge, and that's very unacceptable. I woke
up with a sixty percent battery, which was basically where
I went to sleep on the thing, and that's a surprise,
and I found that I was like trying to recover
the whole day. When you don't start with a full battery,
you're trying to recover the whole day basically from that
(11:12):
battery situation. So I moved the pixel the charging stand
to my office, so I like my phone on there
as kind of a place to see it and just
kind of have it charging and I can monitor it
more like I just popped it on there and it's
it says charging rapidly. And the thing that popped up
with the assistant is tell me a joke, So I
(11:33):
guess it thinks that in the afternoon on a Monday,
I want to hear a joke from my phone. So
that's eighty dollars. I definitely recommend it. I mean, if
you don't care about the stuff on screen, the special
kind of assistant mode that it pops into, you can
use any wireless charger with the PIXEL you'll be just fine.
But again, personally, I think at night bedside, I'm just
(11:53):
going with the regular plug in charge because that, to me,
is more reliable. I know my phone is plugged in,
I know it's going to work, and I don't really
have to think about it. But bottom line, and I can't,
you know, say one hundred percent. I've only been using
the phone for a couple of days, but I will
say that for me personally, the Pixel, other than all
little issues that I mentioned when it comes to software
(12:14):
and some of the bigger features on it, for me,
they have fixed a lot of the stuff that would
keep me on the iPhone side. So personally, I like
the way that the Android operating system is more cohesive
than iOS iOS. I always feel like apps are trying
to fit into that whole sandbox that Apple puts them in,
which is great for security, but not so good for
(12:35):
things like, you know, just various little tasks that you're
trying to do on the iPhone sometimes can be more complicated.
I think on the flip side, a lot of things
are simpler because of the way they set things up,
where you know that everything is just kind of sandboxed,
and that's the way it is, right. So but personally
I will be recommending the Pixel for sure. I think
(12:55):
that a lot of people will be happy with it.
I'm glad they added headphones. That was an another big thing,
because what a pain just to get a pair of
headphones for this thing, right, I mean, USBC, I get it.
Not everyone's plugging in headphones anymore, but the reality is
it's nice to have a pair of headphones in the
box when you purchase a smartphone. I've been wearing the
headphones a lot, even though I have a pair of
(13:16):
AirPods that I can pair with my androids, But I
really like the idea of just plugging in the headphones
and they work and you go right, and plus they
have assistant built in, which is really nice. So I
think that overall, for the price and the features and
what you're getting, especially when it comes to the camera,
the Pixel is really nice. I think that the iPhone
(13:37):
is still the gold standard when it comes to mobile devices,
but I think like the Pixel is definitely is definitely
giving people a second option, you know, especially with Samsung
out there. Samsung is great, but there's some little things
I don't like about Samsung, and I think that the
Pixel kind of addresses those. And again, like I said,
for all the little things they corrected for me personally,
(13:59):
I think that they did a really nice job. And
if you can live without the I Message of the
World and the FaceTime of the world, and all the
amazing app features that come with iOS and all of
the slick integration with things like the Apple Watch and
you know, your computer and your messages I Message on computer,
all those little things, if you can live without those,
(14:19):
the Pixel is kind of a nice alter. Now let's
move on to a phone that's making a comeback. The Palm.
They are returning as a sort of a small what
they're calling ultramobile smartphone. So this is a tiny, little
palm sized device literally fits in the palm of your hand.
It has just a tiny display three point three inches
(14:42):
and this is being now produced by TCL. So that's
the big Chinese conglomerate. They have some really popular TVs.
They're a big electronics maker. They also own BlackBerry. They
also own Alcatel, so all these brands in the mobile space,
that's the company behind them. But this new little phone
is three hundred and fifty dollars and it's being seen
(15:03):
as an accessory. So the common complaint nowadays is that
we're all on our phones way too much, and on
the weekends. And I've had this kind of this little
theory too, is that you know, maybe on the weekends,
i'd have a secondary phone. You know, have you have
you heard of that light phone. It's kind of like
that phone that just has a dial tone, you know,
(15:24):
or so to say, it's just a phone that can
dial numbers. Right, So no camera, no no MP three player,
no nothing. Now, the Palm does have a camera, it
does have Android on it, so it is a real phone,
but it's not meant to be your primary phone. So
you actually it's exclusive to Verizon and you link it
up using I don't know what Verizon calls it, the
(15:45):
number share kind of thing, where it's basically you're activating
a second line, but it's the same phone number as
your primary line. So that's an additional ten dollars a month.
It's kind of like what the Apple Watch does with
the iPhone and the Apple Watch cellular is kind of
the closest thing I can think of to this scenario
where we're so addicted to our devices we actually have
(16:07):
to rescue ourselves from ourselves, right, So if we're out
of sight, out of mind, you don't really think about
it as much. So if you're wearing the Apple Watch
with the cellular, you can still go out, enjoy your day,
enjoy your life with your kids, but also be connected
in case of an emergency or if you need a
cell phone for anything. The downside to that is that
there's no camera on the Apple Watch, and that's one
(16:29):
of the main reasons people have a cell phone now
on them is we want to be able to take
pictures wherever we go. So this palm kind of addresses that.
But the reality is I find this to be way
too complicated. I mean, two different cell phone devices are
kind of crazy to have. You're gonna keep swapping them out,
You're gonna keep what Okay, oh wait, I'm going hold on,
let me think where I'm going tonight. Okay, do I
(16:50):
want to take good pictures? Because you know, the camera
on this thing is not going to be very good, right,
So it doesn't even matter what the megapixels are, But
the reality is it's a small device. It's not meant
as your primary device. It's just not going to be
as capable as your normal phone. But it's one of
those ideas that I can understand why people like the
(17:12):
idea of it, right, they like the fantasy of having
less distractions in their life. But the reality is we
can't go without our phones. You know, it's kind of tough,
especially your primary device. And then all of a sudden,
now you're setting up two different devices. So every time
you switch between them, you're thinking. You know, your muscle
memory is changing, the way you're using it is changing.
You have to think about, oh, do I need Uber
(17:33):
on this device? Yes, okay, it's it linked to my
Uber account. It's just too much to think about. So
I don't think this thing is going to do very well.
I think it might have a lot of interest in
circles where people talk about it, talk about wanting something
like this, but no one's going to actually get this thing.
And three hundred and fifty dollars is a lot of
money for a secondary device, and it's got a very
(17:54):
underpowered processor. It's got a a last year's processor, so
it just doesn't seem like something that a lot of
people would get, but it seems like something that is
solving a problem that we have, but the solution is
not very good. So I think the solution in the
future will probably probably be more kind of connected smart
(18:15):
watches and not something like this. Now, an app that
was launched today was really interesting. This is from Adobe,
and this is really cool for the content creators out there,
including myself. And this is another problem that we have
is you want to be able to create content on
the go. And for me, I always talk about how
(18:37):
I'm kind of locked into using a MacBook Pro right
because a MacBook Pro gives me Final Cut, and that's
the program that I use to edit my videos. Right now,
I'm not sitting there editing crazy amounts of videos, but
I do want to make some things for social media,
do a quick quick cut here and there, maybe add
some graphics. Recently, I did a story on going to
(18:58):
the the Amazon four Star store in New York City.
If you haven't watched that, you can find it in
the show notes. But that did take a lot of
horsepower because I edited a whole bunch of stuff on
Final Cut, but most of the time. I don't need
all that horsepower. And so this Adobe premiere rush CC
is basically a little tiny app that works across all
(19:21):
your platforms. So right now they're launching it on sort
of the iPhone and the iPad, and it's going to
be a desktop app and also on Android. And in
the video they show, they show the social influencer that's
using this kind of starting a video on her iPhone
and then finishing it on her computer. And I find
that really fascinating because that's not a bad idea at all,
(19:43):
something that I've never done. And the idea is that
this takes advantage of the cloud. So all of your video,
I guess, must go up to the cloud, which takes
a while. Because that video that I did when I
was in New York, I shot all my own stuff
for the Pixel three and I overnighted it in dropbox
to my photographer slash editor in Los Angeles at KTLA
(20:06):
and it was like thirty five gigs and Mann did
that take a long time. So I don't really know
how this is gonna work. Maybe if you have short clips,
it's not that big of a deal. But I love
this idea. I can't wait to try out this program
Right now, it's only available for iOS, so I have
to download it to my iPad, but I'm looking forward
to this being across all platforms. It sounds really cool
(20:26):
and a couple of things on the website when it
comes to this program, it looked like there is a
free version of it, but then there's also a paid version.
So let's see share right from the app to your
favorite social media platforms. It looks like they have a
whole bunch of cool graphics and easy kind of formatting
built in for Instagram, so if you want to do
(20:48):
something that's square, you can do that. I've got a
bunch of styles which is really cool. Let's see everything
is synced to the clouds. Your latest edit is always
at your fingertips. Available on iOS, Mac, and DOS, so
it looks like it's available now on those. Sign up
to be notified when it's available on Android and Premiere.
Rush is included with Premiere Pro and as part of
(21:09):
the Creative Cloud All Apps plan, So if you want
to start for free, you can get three exports, two
gigs of cloud storage, and Adobe fonts. If you get
the Let's See Rush single app, I guess you can
buy it all by itself with unlimited exports. See how
much that is? I wonder if he even tells me, Oh,
ten dollars a month, Okay, so you just have to
(21:30):
go monthly plan is ten? Oh? I see, so the
monthly plan is ten dollars for that if you want
the all access. I think the Creative Cloud is like
twenty dollars. So I don't know. If you're an influencer
and you're doing this kind of stuff, ten bucks a
month is easily worth it if it makes your life
just a little simpler. Moving on now to Microsoft. So
(21:52):
this is the thing. I get these these tech support
scam kind of emails all the time from people saying
that they fell for it, And you think that nobody
falls for this stuff, but you do. And I thought
this was just crazy. Microsoft came out with this little
article about how they're going to partner with AARP to
kind of stop these scams, but I thought this number
(22:12):
was crazy. Each month, Microsoft receives about eleven thousand complaints
from people across the globe who have been the victim
of a tech support scam, with fraudsters pretending to be
from reputable tech companies, including Microsoft, Dell and Apple eleven
thousand complaints. That's from people who say they've been victims.
So how many people are actually getting these things? And
(22:34):
I'm not really sure what the point of this whole
article is. I guess they're just talking about how they're
fighting back with AARP. But they did release a new
survey focused on these tech support scams, and okay, October's
National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so I guess that's why they're
talking about it. But let's see. So, if faced with
unsolicited contacts from a reputable tech company, thirty eight percent
(22:56):
of consumers would try to block that company from making
contact in the future. I don't know that that means.
I mean, what are you going to do? Block the
phone number? They're just going to call back from a
different one. Thirty three percent would look up the issue online.
Forty six percent rely on search engines to research tech
support scams. None of that means anything to me, but
it says that three out of five consumers has been
exposed to a tech support scam of the previous twelve months.
(23:19):
And what I've noticed is that I actually followed one
of these things, like that got the phone call at work,
and I wanted to see what they tried to do,
and it was pretty wild. The lady had me immediately
go to a website that I downloaded some software that
would like take over my computer. I didn't get to
do all this stuff because obviously I don't want to
take over my computer, but I was just kind of
(23:39):
listening to what she said, and it was very convincing
and just kind of crazy that I see how people
can fall for this stuff, especially if you're of a
certain generation or of a certain age, let's say. I mean,
I think the younger kids probably wouldn't fall for it
as much as the older people, which is why they're
teaming up with AARP to do this. But scammers, according
(24:00):
to this Microsoft article, use changing technology and more sophisticated
tactics with phishing emails. That's probably the main way phony
websites and pop up windows to gain access. And that's
the thing. So when you get one of these pop
up windows, it kind of takes over your computer screen. Now,
people like you know, my mom and dad wouldn't really
understand how to do like a control alt delete or
(24:22):
you know, just a way to figure out how to
get around that menu or that window. That's taking up
their whole screen, right, so they think there's something wrong
and they have to call that number, whereas you know,
someone that's a little bit more tech savvy would just
kind of get rid of that screen and move on
with life. So anyway, I just thought that number was
really crazy, eleven thousand people every single month. But hopefully
(24:43):
they'll figure out something with this, because it just feels
like this is a major problem, and they give some
tips on how to do this. You know, don't if
you get an unsolicited pop up message on your device,
don't click it, don't call the number. But the reality is,
you know, the tough part is that come companies are
always using new technology to sort of help you get
in touch with them, like, you know, like let's say
(25:06):
you're out and about and now the new thing is
that banks are texting you when you use your credit
card somewhere. Right, Let's say you're using your credit card
overseas and the first time you use it at a terminal,
it like texts you and it says, hey, did you
just authorize that charge? And you text back it says
text back yes or no. This happened with me with
American Express the other day, and I said, yes, I
(25:26):
just used my card there. And you know you might think, like, okay, well,
that's interesting that they're doing that. I never really asked
to have that happen. I guess I gave them my
phone number at some point. Well, now you think about
these scam artists. They take whatever is happening legitimately and
they spin it to their benefit. Right, so they know
that pop up ads and all these pop up windows
(25:46):
in your computer tell you when something's going wrong. They
make theirs look just like it, and that's how they
get past people because they're kind of doing stuff that
looks similar to what's already happening, and that's how they
hook people. Kodak, I think, okay, speaking, I guess we're
on the older generation here, but this is really cool Kodak.
And I'm not sure if this is the way to
go about it, but I just love the idea that
(26:07):
people are getting hip to digitizing their old stuff. If
you watch me on KTLA, you know that I was
doing my own digitizing of some of my old videos
and I used my own system I just bought in Elgado.
It was a digital converter kind of thing that you
hook up to your computer to the USB drive. Then
you have to hook up like a a VCR or
(26:28):
a camcorder, pop in your tape. It records it to
your computer and then you can go on with your
Mary life and throw out the tape and you've got
a digitized version of this thing that you can upload somewhere. Well. Now,
Kodak has introduced the Kodak Digitizing Box, and this is
a service where you just dump a whole bunch of
media in this box, ship it to them, and they
(26:49):
will send it back to you digitally convert it so
you can get it on DVDs, you can get it
as a digital download, you can get it on a
flash drive, and you also at all that stuff. Let's see,
do they send back the tapes. I'm guessing they send
back the tape. But this is neat because they have
four options of service with nineteen different types of media
(27:10):
that they can convert, including VHS tapes, real to real
audio tape, super eight thirty five millimeters, slides, and picture negatives. So,
if you think about it, this is a trusted company,
which you know obviously is Kodak. But Kodak is doing
this weird thing nowadays where they just basically use their branding,
so they're actually using a Oh interesting, Okay, that's interesting.
(27:35):
So I'm looking at this. I just googled the amb media, right,
which is what they're using to Okay, hold on, this
is kind of interesting. So amb Media is what they're
using to actually do the digitization. But when I google that,
(27:55):
it comes up as Legacy Box, so, which is Legacy
Boxes pretty much the company that does all of this stuff. Yeah,
and interesting. Okay, so this is basically just a Kodak
branded version of Legacy Box. So that's interesting. So I
wonder if the I wonder if the pricing is different.
So Legacy Box, let's see the pricing there versus the Kodak.
(28:19):
So Legacy Box, let's see pricing. Let's see so three
piece starter is eighty seven dollars to convert up to
three tapes. And if you look at the Kodak digitizing box,
let's see how much that one is get started. Let's
see how much it is. So there's see pricing. So
(28:41):
their pricing is three tapes is sixty nine ninety nine. Interesting,
So maybe you go with the Kodak one. It's the
same thing and you're gonna get it for cheaper. Now,
I know Legacy Box has a lot of codes out
there for discounts, so maybe theodac one does not. But anyway,
(29:02):
that's it. So my only concern with all these things
I love, and I recommend one hundred percent, by the way,
that you get your stuff digitized. Very very important to
do that because these tapes are turning into mush not
so much to film. Maybe I don't know. I don't
have film, but I do have tapes, and I can
tell you the VHS tapes are just about gone, So
get those things digitized. Some of the other newer ones
(29:24):
from the nineties, like the High eight and all those
kind of tapes, those are still doing pretty well. But
just get this stuff digitized. It's so much easier, by
the way, to not have a box of this stuff
laying around your house. Right. That's getting hot, it's getting
cold in the different seasons you probably have in your garage.
It's not being kept at the proper temperatures and storage
conditions it should be, so it's basically being abused. And
(29:44):
these are your memories. So get this stuff done. You
can do it yourself if you want to put the
time into it. But again, that's the best way to
do it. I feel like because you can monitor the process.
You can watch the process, you can see what happens.
But you can also you don't have to let your
tapes leave your your house, right, so you control them
at all times. The problem with sending in the legacy
(30:07):
box and the Kodak stuff is that, yes, I'm sure
nine thousand times out of ten thousand times it's fine,
or nine hundred ninety nine times out of ten thousand
times it's fine. But the one time that it gets
lost in the mail, that's the problem. And if it's
your problem, that's a big problem. So if you can
find a place locally now in Los Angeles where I am,
(30:27):
there's a ton of places that will do this. In
smaller cities, it's going to be really tough. It's just
not one of those things that's a huge business. So
I don't know, I feel like just you got to
maybe just send them out a couple at a time,
and you know, obviously it's cheaper to do more because
you know, you just they just send you a big box.
So if you do forty tapes is eleven hundred dollars,
(30:47):
which is, by the way, a ton of money, so
you can do it yourself for basically unlimited, for a
lot cheaper. The problem is, and I've talked about this
in a previous podcast, is you have to have the
device to actually play the tape or the media, and
especially with some of these old things, you just don't
have that around your house. So it may be worth
one thousand dollars, because when I was looking online for
(31:09):
a replacement camquarter, they were expensive. People know that that
people want to buy these things to do this. So
it's not necessarily cheap to digitize this stuff if you're
doing it yourself, if you don't have the right equipment.
So something to keep in mind. All right, moving on now,
Ronald Reagan is back to life as a hologram at
(31:29):
the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Siami Valley, California. This
is a library, his presidential Library, which I've been to.
It's just north of LA it's kind of out in
the valley and it's kind of a hike, but it's
you know, it's in the LA area, and now they
have a hologram of Ronald Reagan. This costs one point
five million dollars and basically you're put in this room,
(31:53):
where a three D version of Reagan appears on the
stage in one of three scenes. According to USA Today,
he's either riding speaking from the back of a train
during a nineteen eighty four tour, or he's in his
horse riding attire at his California ranch. Or he's at
the Oval office after stepping off Marine one, which is
the presidential helicopter. So I love this idea. I think
(32:17):
that these holograms are becoming more and more realistic looking.
And I just did a story for KTLA on Roy Orbison,
who was transformed into a hologram for a new tour
that they're doing. So this company that did this one
was called Base Hologram. The one that's doing this Ronald
Reagan one is called Hologram USA. So there's a lot
(32:38):
of these competing hologram companies out there because they see
this as big business in the future because they can
basically bring anyone back. Now, it's not easy. In the
case of Reagan. You know, they did a body double
that kind of moves and that's you know, and then
they put a fake head that they had to make
a model out of. But then they have to get
you know, the original audio. So basically they have to
(32:58):
use they have to match up original audio with new
kind of three D video because just because you have
a video of someone that's passed away doesn't mean that
it clearly one hundred percent matches up to what you
need to do to make this thing look realistic. So
with the case of Roy Orbison, same thing. It basically
used an original recording that he had made, but then
(33:19):
they had to recreate kind of everything else his likeness
around that. So anyway, but this is this is really interesting.
And the other thing I noticed is that these companies
are doing I did a story with another company that
was kind of beaming people in. Like Tony Robbins is
a big believer in this apparently, where he can do
a seminar or I guess a conference whatever he calls him,
(33:41):
that he does where he is in you know, let's
say he can be in his house in Beverly Hills
and he can be doing a live interactive concert or
a conference with people in Tokyo, right, so you don't
have to travel as much, but to the people in
that room in Tokyo, it feels like he's with them
for all intense purposes because he can interact with them.
He can look at that, he could talk back and
(34:01):
forth with them. That's you know, obviously, with a living person,
it makes things a little bit more flexible. But the
neat thing about this hologram stuff is that it just
keeps getting better and better. And when I saw it
in real life, it was pretty amazing. I saw myself
up on a screen and I was beamed there live,
and that looked really cool. And then I saw the
other people and it's quite convincing because it does look
(34:21):
like they're there, and you know it's fake, but you
know it's a hologram, but it's still is pretty cool
to see in person. So I'll probably have to check
this out at the Reagan Library just to see how
it looks. But I'm sure the visitors there love it.
They get four hundred thousand a year. According to this
article I read Amazon, Alexa is going to tell you
(34:43):
when you're sick. So there's a new patent filing. And
I don't really cover patent filings most of the time.
I know there's always patent stuff for Apple and what
all these companies are working on, so this one makes
a lot of sense. Alexa can notice a user's illness
by detecting a change in their voice. So apparently if
it does, it can suggest medicine or a recipe for
(35:03):
chicken noodle soup. This is all according to the next
Web who looked at the patent, and they can also
detect or the patent wants to be able to detect
things like emotional states, sub spotting things like happiness, joy sadness, anger, boredom,
and fear, the user's voice, what it sounds like if
they're sleepy or crying, and what the user is doing
(35:25):
by analyzing background noise. So this makes a lot of
sense because these personal assistants are The goal of them
is to make them more personal, and the more that
they can do that, the better it is for the
end user. Now, some of this stuff may sound creepy, like,
oh my gosh, alex is going to know that I'm sick. Well,
I mean, it just makes sense for what Amazon wants
(35:46):
to do, which is either sell you stuff or suggest stuff,
or react in a certain way. I mean, if you're
crying and you ask alexis something, you don't want her
to have a joyful voice in telling you a joke.
You want her to have some empathy, and it's just
like a real person, would you want them to react
to the way that you're sort of feeling. And so
that's why they're doing this. And I think that of
(36:07):
course Google and Siri will do just about the same
in the future, but it's just neat to kind of
keep track of what they're looking at doing with these systems,
because I love these systems. I don't think they're perfect
just yet, but I do think that they are getting
to a place where they're getting pretty useful to me.
And when they can, you know, make them kind of
(36:29):
basically feel like a person that knows you really well,
I think that that's going to be really cool when
it comes to the all right email came in through
my website, Rich on tech dot TV. This is from Mark.
He says, Hey, Rich, I'm traveling to Italy on October
twenty seventh. Verizon wants me to wants to charge me
seventy dollars to receive calls and data usage. With the
(36:50):
time difference, I don't really know if I'll be receiving
the calls unless I keep my phone on all night,
which I don't want to do. Any recommendations, Mark, most
of the wireless companies nowadays do something called the passport
or international passport, and I know Verizon and AT and
T do this, but it's basically ten dollars a day.
(37:11):
So if you're going to Italy on October twenty seventh,
you said seventy dollars, I'm guessing you're going for seven days,
and that's where they got that number from. But the
reality the way this works is you just tell Verizon
that you're traveling and make sure that international passport feature
is activated on your account, and any of the days
that you use your phone when you're overseas, that's when
(37:32):
you get charged at ten dollars. So they don't care
if you use one megabyte of data or a bunch
of megabytes or a bunch of phone calls, as long
as you do something on that day, you're going to
trigger that ten dollars charge. So personally, as someone who's
done things both ways, where I've had the hot spot
that I've rented, which is cool because you get unlimited data,
but I rarely find I find that those aren't really
(37:54):
in use much anymore because so many people are using
their regular carrier from home. This is something that's pretty
relatively new. It used to be have these crazy roaming charges.
Now the companies are just basically saying, hey, for ten
dollars a day, you can use your phone pretty much
the way you use it in the US. Now there
are some limits on there. You're not gonna get a
ton of you know, they will slow down your data
(38:15):
if you use over a certain amount each day. I
didn't run into any problems, though I did use my phone.
I think it was in Mexico. Well, in Mexico was
included though, so I think it was in Where Do
I Go? Last year Portugal where I use my phone,
and it was just ten bucks a day. It was great.
Everything worked just fine, and I was very impressed and
I loved it because it was so convenient. Nobody had
(38:36):
to text me to a different number. I didn't have
to worry about finding Wi Fi hotspots. And I just
say go for it. Just do the ten dollars a
day and be done with it. And again, if you
don't use it one day, if you go a whole
twenty four hours without using it, then you're fine. And
so if you can, if you want to save the money,
just make sure your phone is connected to Wi Fi
when possible, and you don't really have to think about
(38:59):
this too much. And if you do go into data,
or you do get a couple of calls, you'll get
charged at ten dollars. So I say go for it,
and I think you'll be fine with that. So good question.
Let's see, Joanne emails in on richontech dot TV. Let's see,
I have a home bound sister seventy five that lives
out of state. Is the grand Pad by Consumer Cellular
(39:22):
something that is a reasonably priced item. She is unable
to use the computer because of back issues and shaking hands.
So the grand Pad by Consumer Cellular, right, is kind
of a tablet for seniors, So it's you know, grant uh.
Consumer Cellular is one of those companies that kind of
they do all that stuff for like the you know,
(39:44):
the cell phones that have the big keys and all
that good stuff. So if we look at this grand Pad,
I guess this started out interesting. This looks like they're
just in a partnership with Consumer Cellular. So it's it's
an it's a device that was actually created for grandparents,
so it's a it's a tablet and they kind of
built like special things into it. So it's got, like,
(40:05):
you know, a big kind of it looks like an
Android tablet that has a custom skin on it. So
it has simple video chatting. Let's see what else. Say,
You can share photos, send send emails, popular games, customized music. Now,
I don't know. I think that this is gonna be
too much, you know, like it's and how much is it?
(40:27):
Let's see how much it is? So the device is
two hundred dollars plus forty dollars a month, so I
guess it has LTE built in. So I'm gonna say no,
I'm sure this is great, but the reality is if
they're sending photos, if they're making calls, if they're doing
you know, video calls, I feel like you're gonna have
(40:47):
to have the Companion app. On the other end, I
would recommend maybe just getting a fire tablet from Amazon.
And I think that if you said your sister is
at home, she's home bound, so she's not using this
out of the house. And so I think that if
she has Wi Fi in her house, she can save
forty dollars a month minimum by going with a fire
(41:08):
HD ten tablet, which is just one hundred and fifty bucks.
You can get all the apps on there, and they're
all universal apps, which means you know, it's Skype, it's Netflix,
like all these apps that are actually like kind of
the main apps. And maybe with the Grandpad you can
install some of those, but I'm not sure if you can.
I don't see. Let's see, I don't know. The only
(41:31):
thing is that the phone number, the dialing, and then
the wireless, so I don't know. I still think it's
a better deal just to go with a regular tablet.
I think that's going to be a lot easier, and
it's cheaper upfront, and it's cheaper over the monthly time.
So hope that answers your question again, Joanne, thanks for
writing in. If you have a question for me, you
(41:51):
can email me it's hello at richon tech dot tv,
or just go to my website rich on tech dot
tv and you can submit your question there. I get
a lot of these things every day, so I'm not
just I'm just picking out a couple that I got recently.
But believe me, I do try to answer all my emails,
but it sometimes takes me a couple days to get
to them. I'll tell you that because it's a lot
(42:12):
of stuff and you guys are always emailing me about
every decision you make. You're you're asking me before you
make it, so I'm happy to help. Just know that
sometimes it does take me a bit to get to those,
but not always. Sometimes I write back like within a minute,
and people are like, wha what was that. I just
happened to be looking at my phone and you emailed me.
And it's a simple question. I can just you know,
pop off an answer really quick. So all right, finally
(42:35):
today Android police out with the Google Assistant Easter eggs
when it comes to Halloween. So last year I was
doing this and I tested these things out, and my
house is filled with all the the Google stuff and
the Google Assistant, and last year I thought one of
the commands was pretty cool. It was like I feel
(42:56):
I think it was like can we get spooky or
something like that. And next thing you know, my entire
house all the lights changed, the chrome casts fired up
on the TVs, it started playing spooky music on the
Google homes. So my wife went crazy because I didn't
realize this was happening across all my smart devices in
every room of the house. So she comes running into
my office, She's like, what are you doing, so maybe
(43:19):
that one still works and I'll try it. But here
are some of the commands that you can use for
twenty eighteen which are new. So you can ask are
you celebrating Halloween? You can just say boo, let's try
that one. Oh wait, I can't. I don't want to
say the word on here because it'll activate all yours.
Do you know any scary stories? Happy Halloween? It's almost Halloween?
(43:40):
Scare me, trick or treat? What are you going to
be for Halloween? What should I wear for Halloween? Do
you have any monster fighting tips? I want to hear
something spooky. Give me a Halloween sound, tell me a
Halloween joke, tell me a Halloween fact. So all those
are fantastic. If you have kids like me that are
obsessed with the Google assistant and get answers from her,
(44:01):
then these will be great. And I always find this
stuff kind of fun. This is kind of like the
fun side of the assistance. But again it also shows
the problem with these assistants is that you have to
know all these specific things to ask to make these
little easter eggs work. And I get it. Someone might,
in passing say to their Google assistant, you know, hey,
do you know any scary stories? And they might get
(44:22):
one of these responses. In the future, we won't necessarily
have to think about commands and responses that are pre programmed.
It'll just be like, you know, the point of the
assistant is just to be there as an assistant and
do stuff. No matter how you phrase the question or
no matter what you're kind of looking for, you will
get it. So again, this is from Android Police, Spooky
(44:43):
Google Assistant East Eggs just in time. Oh what happened?
My phone did activate? I didn't think I said it,
but there you have it. So all right, thanks so
much for listening to this version of the podcast. Tell
me what you think about it. I know it's a
lot longer than the typical version, but maybe that's a
better thing. I probably won't do something like this every
day because it's kind of a deeper dive. But what
(45:05):
happens is I check a lot of blogs every single
day for stories that I like to talk about. I
don't always get to talk about them. Sometimes they talk
about them on the radio on KFI. Sometimes I talk
about them on KTLA. Other times the talk about them
just on my Facebook page, or I'll post them but
this is kind of like a longer deep dive into
those stories, the stuff that I find interesting, the stuff
that I think you should know about, and whether it's
(45:27):
a link to a new app or a website, or
you know, some kind of news that's happening or a review,
it's just kind of a bigger mix of stories and
I can take a little bit more time to dive
into them and explain stuff a little bit more. So,
if you like it, let me know. If not, I
don't know. We'll see. We'll see how I feel the
reaction is to this. So thanks so much for listening,
(45:47):
and hopefully if you're not already doing so, follow me
on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Facebook is at rich on Tech,
Twitter is at rich Demiro, and Instagram is at rich
on Tech. Thanks so much for listening. I mrich Demiro,
rich on Tech dot TV. I'll talk to you real soon.
(46:08):
M
What's going on. I'm rich Damiro. This is rich on
Tech trying something just a little different this time around.
So let me know what you think of it, whether
you like it, you hate it, or you want more.
This is going to be kind of a roundup of
some of the things that are happening in the tech world,
just some stories that I come across, some my daily
research that I think are interesting and you should know about.
So let's just get right into it and start with
(00:25):
the Google Pixel three. All of the reviews are out,
the embargo has been lifted, and we're getting a lot
of different opinions on this phone, but they all seem
to center around the same thing. The camera, of course,
is amazing. There are little tweaks, little things that have
been improved, and of course there are some things that
people don't like, most notably the notch. Everyone's going crazy
(00:46):
over that. Now. Personally, I've been testing the smaller of
the two, the Google Pixel three. I will say that
Google has improved pretty much everything that I had a
problem with personally on the last devices. So for me,
it was mainly the fact that I could not use
this as a content creation tool because it did not
have the ability to have an external mic input on
(01:07):
the native camera app, and I am very excited to
announce that, yes, you can finally use an external mic
input on the video camera. Now for most people that's
not a big deal, but for me it is. And
I also think it's a bigger deal in the scheme
of things because think about it. When you think about
all these YouTubers, what phone are they using. They're all
using the iPhone because they're plugging accessories in, they're recording themselves,
(01:30):
they're vlogging. And if you try out a PIXEL and
you realize that you can't do these things with it, well,
guess what, You're not really going to use it much.
So in my day to day I will say that
I found that the phone is a bit laggy, which
is kind of odd, and I feel like it wasn't
laggy before. So maybe in the next couple of days,
when Google puts out their big software update for day
(01:53):
one of the Pixel, some of those things will be fixed.
But I actually had to reformat my device, so I
said it up when I was in New York when
I got it, and then when I got home, I
just could not deal with what kind of like the
jumpiness that was happening on it, and so I ended
up wiping it clean, and instead of doing a restore
for my old device, my old Android, I just ended
(02:14):
up installing everything again, which is kind of a pain
because you have to log into every app and download
every app, and set up your home screens and go
through every single alarm and every single setting and redo
it all. And I don't particularly like doing that every
single time. But I felt like I wanted to give
this thing the full benefit of the doubt and see
if it was something that got transferred over that was
kind of weird, or if it was the actual device.
(02:36):
I would say I'm getting less of the problem now,
but it's still a little bit jumpy compared to the
way I think it should be, and I think that
hopefully that will be improved. But otherwise, so what can
I say about the Pixel? I mean, personally, I think
I'm gonna start recommending this device more so than ever
because I find that it really does everything you need,
(02:57):
and I think the camera is really amazing. Software is
nice and polished, the apps they leave a little bit
to be desired. I know that's not Google's fault, but
when you look at what you can accomplish on the
apps on the iPhone, they're just better. I mean almost
every single app that is made by a big company
outside of Google. So when you look at Google apps,
(03:17):
those are all better on Android. When it comes to Gmail,
when it comes to things like Google Voice, when it
comes to Google Photos, Calendar maps, all of those things
are better on the Android. But when it comes to
these other apps like Instagram and Twitter, even something like
Audible which I use for my audiobooks, Spotify kind of
(03:38):
on the fence. I think that works very similar on
both of them. Yelp pretty similar, Netflix, pretty similar. YouTube.
Obviously Google apps, so that's going to work better. The
one app that I have a major problem with is Facebook.
I use Creator on the iPhone and it's just amazing.
If you want to keep in touch with people, keep
in touch with your fans, Facebook Pages is terrible on
(04:01):
the Android, and so is the Creator port so to me,
and again, I'm coming from sort of the content creator
journalism kind of world where I am looking to do
content creation on my devices. So for the average person,
probably the camera is going to be the most important
aspect in some of these other apps. But I understand
when it comes from switching to the Android platform from
(04:23):
the iOS platform. It's tough, and especially giving up things
like FaceTime and I Message. I Message. You can basically
I message almost anyone in the world, right because they
seem to be on there. And when it comes to Android,
it's like, you know, when I go to text someone,
I'm not really sure which number is the right one.
On iOS, it just sort of highlights in blue the
(04:45):
number that's the right one for them get to get
to their I message, and that's really helpful. I just
find that I kind of missed that when I'm using
my Android device. So not a deal breaker, but it's
definitely one of those things that does make life a
little more complicated. And then FaceTime. Of course, you know,
my entire f family is on iPhone back in New Jersey,
and you know, I'm not gonna it's really tough to
get them to download Duo. I was talking to someone
(05:07):
at work today and he was joking that, you know
who's on duo, you know, like, who says duo me?
No one that never comes up. Taking a look at
some of the headlines on tech meme, so, I mean
the Verge saying the best camera gets a better phone
with a far better screen, loud speakers, but the notch
is doofy. I don't know. I don't have the one
(05:28):
with the notch, so I really can't talk much about that.
I don't find the notches on any other device has
ever bothered me, so it's really not that big of
a deal. The screen is definitely better the phone. You know.
Here's the thing. I call this a sort of boring device,
and it kind of is. It's not the most exciting
device out there, but it's it's like a quiet confidence.
(05:48):
Like I've said before in my previous podcast, it's just
one of these things that it works. The pictures are
pretty amazing, the software works overall, and it's just one
of these devices that just kind of you don't have
to think much about it. Can you do as many
of the crazy cool things you can do on the iPhone?
Probably not, but in other aspects it does really cool
things like the call screening feature. So generally I'm always
(06:11):
kind of avoiding those calls, which I kind of still
believe you should because if you think about it, when
you get scam calls and spam calls and robo calls,
I've always recommended to people to never pick them up,
because if you pick them up, it signifies to them
that your phone number is live, right. And I'm sure
if these people have these computer systems, maybe they're not
(06:32):
that sophisticated to know that, okay, this number picked up,
let's hammer them now with a lot more calls. Maybe
they're not that smart, but to me, it seems like
they probably are. And I've noticed, you know, I get
a couple of these robo calls, you know, every couple
of days, and I've been using the screen, the call
screen feature on the PIXEL, and it's actually kind of fun,
and I don't mind having the computer pick it up
(06:53):
because at least I know if the call is is
a robo call or not, and I can kind of
decide whether to answer it. So today I had a
call that I was unsure of came from a number
that was near mind, and I was like, I don't know,
it could be someone that I called, could be a
person called me back. But the other thing on the
PIXEL is that if you have you know, basically Pixel
has like free caller ID, and if a phone number
(07:15):
comes in without any call or ID on it, it's
kind of a giveaway that that's going to be a problem.
Let's see what else c neet Pixel three XL big
phone with a fantastic camera and a big notch Gizmoto
the other way to make a killer phone. And by
that they're probably alluding to the software versus the hardware,
because the hardware on the Pixel is not anything special.
(07:36):
I mean, I'm happy that they upgraded the processor, but
it's not like it's not like where the iPhone kind
of evolves and just gets better and better with all
these cool new features. No, it looks almost identical to
last year's model. And Gadget says Google's hardware takes a
backseat to software. Android Police says, come for the camera,
stay for everything else. Ours Technica says Google software deserves
(07:58):
better than this hardware. I agree. If it was up
to me, I would go with the Samsung hardware and
the Google software. That to me is kind of the
killer Android combination. And I remember back in the day,
I had one of those I bought back when Samsung
was doing this. They would do a gosh I forget
what it was called. It was like a not pure Android.
(08:20):
It was vanilla Android. It maybe it was pure. Basically,
they were installing Stock Android on a Galaxy device and
I can't remember which one I bought. That was it.
It was like, you know, eight hundred bucks or something
like that, and I scratched the screen and I was
so mad because I really that was like one of
my favorite devices because I had the Google Stock software,
but I had the beauty of being the Samsung hardware.
(08:42):
And I think that Google and and Samsung should really
think about this a little bit harder because Samsung is
just killing it with the hardware and Google is just
killing it with the software. So why don't we bring
something back like this? I mean, we're trying to compete
against iOS and iPhone dominance, and I get it dominance,
(09:02):
I mean here in the US. But the reality is
why not put everything you got towards that and do
something like a stock Android version of a Samsung device?
And the other thing. The other idea is why not
make the pixel camera you know, ported officially to these
other devices and make it an option, because it seems
(09:23):
like a lot of this stuff is software oriented. People
are already porting the camera app to other devices like
the Essential and the one plus phone, So why not
just give these phonemakers access to this camera and kind
of I think it would just expand the Android kind
of ecosystem in a much better way. And I think
(09:43):
more people would would kind of take it more seriously
if they knew they were getting an amazing device that
has the hardware, amazing software that has the hardware that
they want. One thing that's been kind of hit or
missed for me personally on the Pixel three is the
charging stand. So I actually had to move it away
from my bed and into my office because it was
just unreliable. So the Pixel charging stand is basically a
(10:08):
new wireless charging stand for the Pixel that kind of
reacts specifically to it. So when you place your phone
on there, up pops a special screen that you can
kind of set up so you can have it become
a photo frame while you're not using it. You can
have it basically it displays a couple of little assistant
one touch features down below, so you can, you know,
play your favorite playlist, whatever it predicts or thinks that
(10:30):
you want to do. Those buttons will be right on screen.
And I love this, and I love the fact that
they added wireless charging to the Pixel three, but I
still think in general wireless charging is very unreliable because
if your phone is off the charger, even by a
mirror like a millimeter, it's like your phone may not charge.
And to me, I thought my phone was charging. There
(10:51):
was two nights out of like maybe five nights where
it just didn't charge, and that's very unacceptable. I woke
up with a sixty percent battery, which was basically where
I went to sleep on the thing, and that's a surprise,
and I found that I was like trying to recover
the whole day. When you don't start with a full battery,
you're trying to recover the whole day basically from that
(11:12):
battery situation. So I moved the pixel the charging stand
to my office, so I like my phone on there
as kind of a place to see it and just
kind of have it charging and I can monitor it
more like I just popped it on there and it's
it says charging rapidly. And the thing that popped up
with the assistant is tell me a joke, So I
(11:33):
guess it thinks that in the afternoon on a Monday,
I want to hear a joke from my phone. So
that's eighty dollars. I definitely recommend it. I mean, if
you don't care about the stuff on screen, the special
kind of assistant mode that it pops into, you can
use any wireless charger with the PIXEL you'll be just fine.
But again, personally, I think at night bedside, I'm just
(11:53):
going with the regular plug in charge because that, to me,
is more reliable. I know my phone is plugged in,
I know it's going to work, and I don't really
have to think about it. But bottom line, and I can't,
you know, say one hundred percent. I've only been using
the phone for a couple of days, but I will
say that for me personally, the Pixel, other than all
little issues that I mentioned when it comes to software
(12:14):
and some of the bigger features on it, for me,
they have fixed a lot of the stuff that would
keep me on the iPhone side. So personally, I like
the way that the Android operating system is more cohesive
than iOS iOS. I always feel like apps are trying
to fit into that whole sandbox that Apple puts them in,
which is great for security, but not so good for
(12:35):
things like, you know, just various little tasks that you're
trying to do on the iPhone sometimes can be more complicated.
I think on the flip side, a lot of things
are simpler because of the way they set things up,
where you know that everything is just kind of sandboxed,
and that's the way it is, right. So but personally
I will be recommending the Pixel for sure. I think
(12:55):
that a lot of people will be happy with it.
I'm glad they added headphones. That was an another big thing,
because what a pain just to get a pair of
headphones for this thing, right, I mean, USBC, I get it.
Not everyone's plugging in headphones anymore, but the reality is
it's nice to have a pair of headphones in the
box when you purchase a smartphone. I've been wearing the
headphones a lot, even though I have a pair of
(13:16):
AirPods that I can pair with my androids, But I
really like the idea of just plugging in the headphones
and they work and you go right, and plus they
have assistant built in, which is really nice. So I
think that overall, for the price and the features and
what you're getting, especially when it comes to the camera,
the Pixel is really nice. I think that the iPhone
(13:37):
is still the gold standard when it comes to mobile devices,
but I think like the Pixel is definitely is definitely
giving people a second option, you know, especially with Samsung
out there. Samsung is great, but there's some little things
I don't like about Samsung, and I think that the
Pixel kind of addresses those. And again, like I said,
for all the little things they corrected for me personally,
(13:59):
I think that they did a really nice job. And
if you can live without the I Message of the
World and the FaceTime of the world, and all the
amazing app features that come with iOS and all of
the slick integration with things like the Apple Watch and
you know, your computer and your messages I Message on computer,
all those little things, if you can live without those,
(14:19):
the Pixel is kind of a nice alter. Now let's
move on to a phone that's making a comeback. The Palm.
They are returning as a sort of a small what
they're calling ultramobile smartphone. So this is a tiny, little
palm sized device literally fits in the palm of your hand.
It has just a tiny display three point three inches
(14:42):
and this is being now produced by TCL. So that's
the big Chinese conglomerate. They have some really popular TVs.
They're a big electronics maker. They also own BlackBerry. They
also own Alcatel, so all these brands in the mobile space,
that's the company behind them. But this new little phone
is three hundred and fifty dollars and it's being seen
(15:03):
as an accessory. So the common complaint nowadays is that
we're all on our phones way too much, and on
the weekends. And I've had this kind of this little
theory too, is that you know, maybe on the weekends,
i'd have a secondary phone. You know, have you have
you heard of that light phone. It's kind of like
that phone that just has a dial tone, you know,
(15:24):
or so to say, it's just a phone that can
dial numbers. Right, So no camera, no no MP three player,
no nothing. Now, the Palm does have a camera, it
does have Android on it, so it is a real phone,
but it's not meant to be your primary phone. So
you actually it's exclusive to Verizon and you link it
up using I don't know what Verizon calls it, the
(15:45):
number share kind of thing, where it's basically you're activating
a second line, but it's the same phone number as
your primary line. So that's an additional ten dollars a month.
It's kind of like what the Apple Watch does with
the iPhone and the Apple Watch cellular is kind of
the closest thing I can think of to this scenario
where we're so addicted to our devices we actually have
(16:07):
to rescue ourselves from ourselves, right, So if we're out
of sight, out of mind, you don't really think about
it as much. So if you're wearing the Apple Watch
with the cellular, you can still go out, enjoy your day,
enjoy your life with your kids, but also be connected
in case of an emergency or if you need a
cell phone for anything. The downside to that is that
there's no camera on the Apple Watch, and that's one
(16:29):
of the main reasons people have a cell phone now
on them is we want to be able to take
pictures wherever we go. So this palm kind of addresses that.
But the reality is I find this to be way
too complicated. I mean, two different cell phone devices are
kind of crazy to have. You're gonna keep swapping them out,
You're gonna keep what Okay, oh wait, I'm going hold on,
let me think where I'm going tonight. Okay, do I
(16:50):
want to take good pictures? Because you know, the camera
on this thing is not going to be very good, right,
So it doesn't even matter what the megapixels are, But
the reality is it's a small device. It's not meant
as your primary device. It's just not going to be
as capable as your normal phone. But it's one of
those ideas that I can understand why people like the
(17:12):
idea of it, right, they like the fantasy of having
less distractions in their life. But the reality is we
can't go without our phones. You know, it's kind of tough,
especially your primary device. And then all of a sudden,
now you're setting up two different devices. So every time
you switch between them, you're thinking. You know, your muscle
memory is changing, the way you're using it is changing.
You have to think about, oh, do I need Uber
(17:33):
on this device? Yes, okay, it's it linked to my
Uber account. It's just too much to think about. So
I don't think this thing is going to do very well.
I think it might have a lot of interest in
circles where people talk about it, talk about wanting something
like this, but no one's going to actually get this thing.
And three hundred and fifty dollars is a lot of
money for a secondary device, and it's got a very
(17:54):
underpowered processor. It's got a a last year's processor, so
it just doesn't seem like something that a lot of
people would get, but it seems like something that is
solving a problem that we have, but the solution is
not very good. So I think the solution in the
future will probably probably be more kind of connected smart
(18:15):
watches and not something like this. Now, an app that
was launched today was really interesting. This is from Adobe,
and this is really cool for the content creators out there,
including myself. And this is another problem that we have
is you want to be able to create content on
the go. And for me, I always talk about how
(18:37):
I'm kind of locked into using a MacBook Pro right
because a MacBook Pro gives me Final Cut, and that's
the program that I use to edit my videos. Right now,
I'm not sitting there editing crazy amounts of videos, but
I do want to make some things for social media,
do a quick quick cut here and there, maybe add
some graphics. Recently, I did a story on going to
(18:58):
the the Amazon four Star store in New York City.
If you haven't watched that, you can find it in
the show notes. But that did take a lot of
horsepower because I edited a whole bunch of stuff on
Final Cut, but most of the time. I don't need
all that horsepower. And so this Adobe premiere rush CC
is basically a little tiny app that works across all
(19:21):
your platforms. So right now they're launching it on sort
of the iPhone and the iPad, and it's going to
be a desktop app and also on Android. And in
the video they show, they show the social influencer that's
using this kind of starting a video on her iPhone
and then finishing it on her computer. And I find
that really fascinating because that's not a bad idea at all,
(19:43):
something that I've never done. And the idea is that
this takes advantage of the cloud. So all of your video,
I guess, must go up to the cloud, which takes
a while. Because that video that I did when I
was in New York, I shot all my own stuff
for the Pixel three and I overnighted it in dropbox
to my photographer slash editor in Los Angeles at KTLA
(20:06):
and it was like thirty five gigs and Mann did
that take a long time. So I don't really know
how this is gonna work. Maybe if you have short clips,
it's not that big of a deal. But I love
this idea. I can't wait to try out this program
Right now, it's only available for iOS, so I have
to download it to my iPad, but I'm looking forward
to this being across all platforms. It sounds really cool
(20:26):
and a couple of things on the website when it
comes to this program, it looked like there is a
free version of it, but then there's also a paid version.
So let's see share right from the app to your
favorite social media platforms. It looks like they have a
whole bunch of cool graphics and easy kind of formatting
built in for Instagram, so if you want to do
(20:48):
something that's square, you can do that. I've got a
bunch of styles which is really cool. Let's see everything
is synced to the clouds. Your latest edit is always
at your fingertips. Available on iOS, Mac, and DOS, so
it looks like it's available now on those. Sign up
to be notified when it's available on Android and Premiere.
Rush is included with Premiere Pro and as part of
(21:09):
the Creative Cloud All Apps plan, So if you want
to start for free, you can get three exports, two
gigs of cloud storage, and Adobe fonts. If you get
the Let's See Rush single app, I guess you can
buy it all by itself with unlimited exports. See how
much that is? I wonder if he even tells me, Oh,
ten dollars a month, Okay, so you just have to
(21:30):
go monthly plan is ten? Oh? I see, so the
monthly plan is ten dollars for that if you want
the all access. I think the Creative Cloud is like
twenty dollars. So I don't know. If you're an influencer
and you're doing this kind of stuff, ten bucks a
month is easily worth it if it makes your life
just a little simpler. Moving on now to Microsoft. So
(21:52):
this is the thing. I get these these tech support
scam kind of emails all the time from people saying
that they fell for it, And you think that nobody
falls for this stuff, but you do. And I thought
this was just crazy. Microsoft came out with this little
article about how they're going to partner with AARP to
kind of stop these scams, but I thought this number
(22:12):
was crazy. Each month, Microsoft receives about eleven thousand complaints
from people across the globe who have been the victim
of a tech support scam, with fraudsters pretending to be
from reputable tech companies, including Microsoft, Dell and Apple eleven
thousand complaints. That's from people who say they've been victims.
So how many people are actually getting these things? And
(22:34):
I'm not really sure what the point of this whole
article is. I guess they're just talking about how they're
fighting back with AARP. But they did release a new
survey focused on these tech support scams, and okay, October's
National Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so I guess that's why they're
talking about it. But let's see. So, if faced with
unsolicited contacts from a reputable tech company, thirty eight percent
(22:56):
of consumers would try to block that company from making
contact in the future. I don't know that that means.
I mean, what are you going to do? Block the
phone number? They're just going to call back from a
different one. Thirty three percent would look up the issue online.
Forty six percent rely on search engines to research tech
support scams. None of that means anything to me, but
it says that three out of five consumers has been
exposed to a tech support scam of the previous twelve months.
(23:19):
And what I've noticed is that I actually followed one
of these things, like that got the phone call at work,
and I wanted to see what they tried to do,
and it was pretty wild. The lady had me immediately
go to a website that I downloaded some software that
would like take over my computer. I didn't get to
do all this stuff because obviously I don't want to
take over my computer, but I was just kind of
(23:39):
listening to what she said, and it was very convincing
and just kind of crazy that I see how people
can fall for this stuff, especially if you're of a
certain generation or of a certain age, let's say. I mean,
I think the younger kids probably wouldn't fall for it
as much as the older people, which is why they're
teaming up with AARP to do this. But scammers, according
(24:00):
to this Microsoft article, use changing technology and more sophisticated
tactics with phishing emails. That's probably the main way phony
websites and pop up windows to gain access. And that's
the thing. So when you get one of these pop
up windows, it kind of takes over your computer screen. Now,
people like you know, my mom and dad wouldn't really
understand how to do like a control alt delete or
(24:22):
you know, just a way to figure out how to
get around that menu or that window. That's taking up
their whole screen, right, so they think there's something wrong
and they have to call that number, whereas you know,
someone that's a little bit more tech savvy would just
kind of get rid of that screen and move on
with life. So anyway, I just thought that number was
really crazy, eleven thousand people every single month. But hopefully
(24:43):
they'll figure out something with this, because it just feels
like this is a major problem, and they give some
tips on how to do this. You know, don't if
you get an unsolicited pop up message on your device,
don't click it, don't call the number. But the reality is,
you know, the tough part is that come companies are
always using new technology to sort of help you get
in touch with them, like, you know, like let's say
(25:06):
you're out and about and now the new thing is
that banks are texting you when you use your credit
card somewhere. Right, Let's say you're using your credit card
overseas and the first time you use it at a terminal,
it like texts you and it says, hey, did you
just authorize that charge? And you text back it says
text back yes or no. This happened with me with
American Express the other day, and I said, yes, I
(25:26):
just used my card there. And you know you might think, like, okay, well,
that's interesting that they're doing that. I never really asked
to have that happen. I guess I gave them my
phone number at some point. Well, now you think about
these scam artists. They take whatever is happening legitimately and
they spin it to their benefit. Right, so they know
that pop up ads and all these pop up windows
(25:46):
in your computer tell you when something's going wrong. They
make theirs look just like it, and that's how they
get past people because they're kind of doing stuff that
looks similar to what's already happening, and that's how they
hook people. Kodak, I think, okay, speaking, I guess we're
on the older generation here, but this is really cool Kodak.
And I'm not sure if this is the way to
go about it, but I just love the idea that
(26:07):
people are getting hip to digitizing their old stuff. If
you watch me on KTLA, you know that I was
doing my own digitizing of some of my old videos
and I used my own system I just bought in Elgado.
It was a digital converter kind of thing that you
hook up to your computer to the USB drive. Then
you have to hook up like a a VCR or
(26:28):
a camcorder, pop in your tape. It records it to
your computer and then you can go on with your
Mary life and throw out the tape and you've got
a digitized version of this thing that you can upload somewhere. Well. Now,
Kodak has introduced the Kodak Digitizing Box, and this is
a service where you just dump a whole bunch of
media in this box, ship it to them, and they
(26:49):
will send it back to you digitally convert it so
you can get it on DVDs, you can get it
as a digital download, you can get it on a
flash drive, and you also at all that stuff. Let's see,
do they send back the tapes. I'm guessing they send
back the tape. But this is neat because they have
four options of service with nineteen different types of media
(27:10):
that they can convert, including VHS tapes, real to real
audio tape, super eight thirty five millimeters, slides, and picture negatives. So,
if you think about it, this is a trusted company,
which you know obviously is Kodak. But Kodak is doing
this weird thing nowadays where they just basically use their branding,
so they're actually using a Oh interesting, Okay, that's interesting.
(27:35):
So I'm looking at this. I just googled the amb media, right,
which is what they're using to Okay, hold on, this
is kind of interesting. So amb Media is what they're
using to actually do the digitization. But when I google that,
(27:55):
it comes up as Legacy Box, so, which is Legacy
Boxes pretty much the company that does all of this stuff. Yeah,
and interesting. Okay, so this is basically just a Kodak
branded version of Legacy Box. So that's interesting. So I
wonder if the I wonder if the pricing is different.
So Legacy Box, let's see the pricing there versus the Kodak.
(28:19):
So Legacy Box, let's see pricing. Let's see so three
piece starter is eighty seven dollars to convert up to
three tapes. And if you look at the Kodak digitizing box,
let's see how much that one is get started. Let's
see how much it is. So there's see pricing. So
(28:41):
their pricing is three tapes is sixty nine ninety nine. Interesting,
So maybe you go with the Kodak one. It's the
same thing and you're gonna get it for cheaper. Now,
I know Legacy Box has a lot of codes out
there for discounts, so maybe theodac one does not. But anyway,
(29:02):
that's it. So my only concern with all these things
I love, and I recommend one hundred percent, by the way,
that you get your stuff digitized. Very very important to
do that because these tapes are turning into mush not
so much to film. Maybe I don't know. I don't
have film, but I do have tapes, and I can
tell you the VHS tapes are just about gone, So
get those things digitized. Some of the other newer ones
(29:24):
from the nineties, like the High eight and all those
kind of tapes, those are still doing pretty well. But
just get this stuff digitized. It's so much easier, by
the way, to not have a box of this stuff
laying around your house. Right. That's getting hot, it's getting
cold in the different seasons you probably have in your garage.
It's not being kept at the proper temperatures and storage
conditions it should be, so it's basically being abused. And
(29:44):
these are your memories. So get this stuff done. You
can do it yourself if you want to put the
time into it. But again, that's the best way to
do it. I feel like because you can monitor the process.
You can watch the process, you can see what happens.
But you can also you don't have to let your
tapes leave your your house, right, so you control them
at all times. The problem with sending in the legacy
(30:07):
box and the Kodak stuff is that, yes, I'm sure
nine thousand times out of ten thousand times it's fine,
or nine hundred ninety nine times out of ten thousand
times it's fine. But the one time that it gets
lost in the mail, that's the problem. And if it's
your problem, that's a big problem. So if you can
find a place locally now in Los Angeles where I am,
(30:27):
there's a ton of places that will do this. In
smaller cities, it's going to be really tough. It's just
not one of those things that's a huge business. So
I don't know, I feel like just you got to
maybe just send them out a couple at a time,
and you know, obviously it's cheaper to do more because
you know, you just they just send you a big box.
So if you do forty tapes is eleven hundred dollars,
(30:47):
which is, by the way, a ton of money, so
you can do it yourself for basically unlimited, for a
lot cheaper. The problem is, and I've talked about this
in a previous podcast, is you have to have the
device to actually play the tape or the media, and
especially with some of these old things, you just don't
have that around your house. So it may be worth
one thousand dollars, because when I was looking online for
(31:09):
a replacement camquarter, they were expensive. People know that that
people want to buy these things to do this. So
it's not necessarily cheap to digitize this stuff if you're
doing it yourself, if you don't have the right equipment.
So something to keep in mind. All right, moving on now,
Ronald Reagan is back to life as a hologram at
(31:29):
the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Siami Valley, California. This
is a library, his presidential Library, which I've been to.
It's just north of LA it's kind of out in
the valley and it's kind of a hike, but it's
you know, it's in the LA area, and now they
have a hologram of Ronald Reagan. This costs one point
five million dollars and basically you're put in this room,
(31:53):
where a three D version of Reagan appears on the
stage in one of three scenes. According to USA Today,
he's either riding speaking from the back of a train
during a nineteen eighty four tour, or he's in his
horse riding attire at his California ranch. Or he's at
the Oval office after stepping off Marine one, which is
the presidential helicopter. So I love this idea. I think
(32:17):
that these holograms are becoming more and more realistic looking.
And I just did a story for KTLA on Roy Orbison,
who was transformed into a hologram for a new tour
that they're doing. So this company that did this one
was called Base Hologram. The one that's doing this Ronald
Reagan one is called Hologram USA. So there's a lot
(32:38):
of these competing hologram companies out there because they see
this as big business in the future because they can
basically bring anyone back. Now, it's not easy. In the
case of Reagan. You know, they did a body double
that kind of moves and that's you know, and then
they put a fake head that they had to make
a model out of. But then they have to get
you know, the original audio. So basically they have to
(32:58):
use they have to match up original audio with new
kind of three D video because just because you have
a video of someone that's passed away doesn't mean that
it clearly one hundred percent matches up to what you
need to do to make this thing look realistic. So
with the case of Roy Orbison, same thing. It basically
used an original recording that he had made, but then
(33:19):
they had to recreate kind of everything else his likeness
around that. So anyway, but this is this is really interesting.
And the other thing I noticed is that these companies
are doing I did a story with another company that
was kind of beaming people in. Like Tony Robbins is
a big believer in this apparently, where he can do
a seminar or I guess a conference whatever he calls him,
(33:41):
that he does where he is in you know, let's
say he can be in his house in Beverly Hills
and he can be doing a live interactive concert or
a conference with people in Tokyo, right, so you don't
have to travel as much, but to the people in
that room in Tokyo, it feels like he's with them
for all intense purposes because he can interact with them.
He can look at that, he could talk back and
(34:01):
forth with them. That's you know, obviously, with a living person,
it makes things a little bit more flexible. But the
neat thing about this hologram stuff is that it just
keeps getting better and better. And when I saw it
in real life, it was pretty amazing. I saw myself
up on a screen and I was beamed there live,
and that looked really cool. And then I saw the
other people and it's quite convincing because it does look
(34:21):
like they're there, and you know it's fake, but you
know it's a hologram, but it's still is pretty cool
to see in person. So I'll probably have to check
this out at the Reagan Library just to see how
it looks. But I'm sure the visitors there love it.
They get four hundred thousand a year. According to this
article I read Amazon, Alexa is going to tell you
(34:43):
when you're sick. So there's a new patent filing. And
I don't really cover patent filings most of the time.
I know there's always patent stuff for Apple and what
all these companies are working on, so this one makes
a lot of sense. Alexa can notice a user's illness
by detecting a change in their voice. So apparently if
it does, it can suggest medicine or a recipe for
(35:03):
chicken noodle soup. This is all according to the next
Web who looked at the patent, and they can also
detect or the patent wants to be able to detect
things like emotional states, sub spotting things like happiness, joy sadness, anger, boredom,
and fear, the user's voice, what it sounds like if
they're sleepy or crying, and what the user is doing
(35:25):
by analyzing background noise. So this makes a lot of
sense because these personal assistants are The goal of them
is to make them more personal, and the more that
they can do that, the better it is for the
end user. Now, some of this stuff may sound creepy, like,
oh my gosh, alex is going to know that I'm sick. Well,
I mean, it just makes sense for what Amazon wants
(35:46):
to do, which is either sell you stuff or suggest stuff,
or react in a certain way. I mean, if you're
crying and you ask alexis something, you don't want her
to have a joyful voice in telling you a joke.
You want her to have some empathy, and it's just
like a real person, would you want them to react
to the way that you're sort of feeling. And so
that's why they're doing this. And I think that of
(36:07):
course Google and Siri will do just about the same
in the future, but it's just neat to kind of
keep track of what they're looking at doing with these systems,
because I love these systems. I don't think they're perfect
just yet, but I do think that they are getting
to a place where they're getting pretty useful to me.
And when they can, you know, make them kind of
(36:29):
basically feel like a person that knows you really well,
I think that that's going to be really cool when
it comes to the all right email came in through
my website, Rich on tech dot TV. This is from Mark.
He says, Hey, Rich, I'm traveling to Italy on October
twenty seventh. Verizon wants me to wants to charge me
seventy dollars to receive calls and data usage. With the
(36:50):
time difference, I don't really know if I'll be receiving
the calls unless I keep my phone on all night,
which I don't want to do. Any recommendations, Mark, most
of the wireless companies nowadays do something called the passport
or international passport, and I know Verizon and AT and
T do this, but it's basically ten dollars a day.
(37:11):
So if you're going to Italy on October twenty seventh,
you said seventy dollars, I'm guessing you're going for seven days,
and that's where they got that number from. But the
reality the way this works is you just tell Verizon
that you're traveling and make sure that international passport feature
is activated on your account, and any of the days
that you use your phone when you're overseas, that's when
(37:32):
you get charged at ten dollars. So they don't care
if you use one megabyte of data or a bunch
of megabytes or a bunch of phone calls, as long
as you do something on that day, you're going to
trigger that ten dollars charge. So personally, as someone who's
done things both ways, where I've had the hot spot
that I've rented, which is cool because you get unlimited data,
but I rarely find I find that those aren't really
(37:54):
in use much anymore because so many people are using
their regular carrier from home. This is something that's pretty
relatively new. It used to be have these crazy roaming charges.
Now the companies are just basically saying, hey, for ten
dollars a day, you can use your phone pretty much
the way you use it in the US. Now there
are some limits on there. You're not gonna get a
ton of you know, they will slow down your data
(38:15):
if you use over a certain amount each day. I
didn't run into any problems, though I did use my phone.
I think it was in Mexico. Well, in Mexico was
included though, so I think it was in Where Do
I Go? Last year Portugal where I use my phone,
and it was just ten bucks a day. It was great.
Everything worked just fine, and I was very impressed and
I loved it because it was so convenient. Nobody had
(38:36):
to text me to a different number. I didn't have
to worry about finding Wi Fi hotspots. And I just
say go for it. Just do the ten dollars a
day and be done with it. And again, if you
don't use it one day, if you go a whole
twenty four hours without using it, then you're fine. And
so if you can, if you want to save the money,
just make sure your phone is connected to Wi Fi
when possible, and you don't really have to think about
(38:59):
this too much. And if you do go into data,
or you do get a couple of calls, you'll get
charged at ten dollars. So I say go for it,
and I think you'll be fine with that. So good question.
Let's see, Joanne emails in on richontech dot TV. Let's see,
I have a home bound sister seventy five that lives
out of state. Is the grand Pad by Consumer Cellular
(39:22):
something that is a reasonably priced item. She is unable
to use the computer because of back issues and shaking hands.
So the grand Pad by Consumer Cellular, right, is kind
of a tablet for seniors, So it's you know, grant uh.
Consumer Cellular is one of those companies that kind of
they do all that stuff for like the you know,
(39:44):
the cell phones that have the big keys and all
that good stuff. So if we look at this grand Pad,
I guess this started out interesting. This looks like they're
just in a partnership with Consumer Cellular. So it's it's
an it's a device that was actually created for grandparents,
so it's a it's a tablet and they kind of
built like special things into it. So it's got, like,
(40:05):
you know, a big kind of it looks like an
Android tablet that has a custom skin on it. So
it has simple video chatting. Let's see what else. Say,
You can share photos, send send emails, popular games, customized music. Now,
I don't know. I think that this is gonna be
too much, you know, like it's and how much is it?
(40:27):
Let's see how much it is? So the device is
two hundred dollars plus forty dollars a month, so I
guess it has LTE built in. So I'm gonna say no,
I'm sure this is great, but the reality is if
they're sending photos, if they're making calls, if they're doing
you know, video calls, I feel like you're gonna have
(40:47):
to have the Companion app. On the other end, I
would recommend maybe just getting a fire tablet from Amazon.
And I think that if you said your sister is
at home, she's home bound, so she's not using this
out of the house. And so I think that if
she has Wi Fi in her house, she can save
forty dollars a month minimum by going with a fire
(41:08):
HD ten tablet, which is just one hundred and fifty bucks.
You can get all the apps on there, and they're
all universal apps, which means you know, it's Skype, it's Netflix,
like all these apps that are actually like kind of
the main apps. And maybe with the Grandpad you can
install some of those, but I'm not sure if you can.
I don't see. Let's see, I don't know. The only
(41:31):
thing is that the phone number, the dialing, and then
the wireless, so I don't know. I still think it's
a better deal just to go with a regular tablet.
I think that's going to be a lot easier, and
it's cheaper upfront, and it's cheaper over the monthly time.
So hope that answers your question again, Joanne, thanks for
writing in. If you have a question for me, you
(41:51):
can email me it's hello at richon tech dot tv,
or just go to my website rich on tech dot
tv and you can submit your question there. I get
a lot of these things every day, so I'm not
just I'm just picking out a couple that I got recently.
But believe me, I do try to answer all my emails,
but it sometimes takes me a couple days to get
to them. I'll tell you that because it's a lot
(42:12):
of stuff and you guys are always emailing me about
every decision you make. You're you're asking me before you
make it, so I'm happy to help. Just know that
sometimes it does take me a bit to get to those,
but not always. Sometimes I write back like within a minute,
and people are like, wha what was that. I just
happened to be looking at my phone and you emailed me.
And it's a simple question. I can just you know,
pop off an answer really quick. So all right, finally
(42:35):
today Android police out with the Google Assistant Easter eggs
when it comes to Halloween. So last year I was
doing this and I tested these things out, and my
house is filled with all the the Google stuff and
the Google Assistant, and last year I thought one of
the commands was pretty cool. It was like I feel
(42:56):
I think it was like can we get spooky or
something like that. And next thing you know, my entire
house all the lights changed, the chrome casts fired up
on the TVs, it started playing spooky music on the
Google homes. So my wife went crazy because I didn't
realize this was happening across all my smart devices in
every room of the house. So she comes running into
my office, She's like, what are you doing, so maybe
(43:19):
that one still works and I'll try it. But here
are some of the commands that you can use for
twenty eighteen which are new. So you can ask are
you celebrating Halloween? You can just say boo, let's try
that one. Oh wait, I can't. I don't want to
say the word on here because it'll activate all yours.
Do you know any scary stories? Happy Halloween? It's almost Halloween?
(43:40):
Scare me, trick or treat? What are you going to
be for Halloween? What should I wear for Halloween? Do
you have any monster fighting tips? I want to hear
something spooky. Give me a Halloween sound, tell me a
Halloween joke, tell me a Halloween fact. So all those
are fantastic. If you have kids like me that are
obsessed with the Google assistant and get answers from her,
(44:01):
then these will be great. And I always find this
stuff kind of fun. This is kind of like the
fun side of the assistance. But again it also shows
the problem with these assistants is that you have to
know all these specific things to ask to make these
little easter eggs work. And I get it. Someone might,
in passing say to their Google assistant, you know, hey,
do you know any scary stories? And they might get
(44:22):
one of these responses. In the future, we won't necessarily
have to think about commands and responses that are pre programmed.
It'll just be like, you know, the point of the
assistant is just to be there as an assistant and
do stuff. No matter how you phrase the question or
no matter what you're kind of looking for, you will
get it. So again, this is from Android Police, Spooky
(44:43):
Google Assistant East Eggs just in time. Oh what happened?
My phone did activate? I didn't think I said it,
but there you have it. So all right, thanks so
much for listening to this version of the podcast. Tell
me what you think about it. I know it's a
lot longer than the typical version, but maybe that's a
better thing. I probably won't do something like this every
day because it's kind of a deeper dive. But what
(45:05):
happens is I check a lot of blogs every single
day for stories that I like to talk about. I
don't always get to talk about them. Sometimes they talk
about them on the radio on KFI. Sometimes I talk
about them on KTLA. Other times the talk about them
just on my Facebook page, or I'll post them but
this is kind of like a longer deep dive into
those stories, the stuff that I find interesting, the stuff
that I think you should know about, and whether it's
(45:27):
a link to a new app or a website, or
you know, some kind of news that's happening or a review,
it's just kind of a bigger mix of stories and
I can take a little bit more time to dive
into them and explain stuff a little bit more. So,
if you like it, let me know. If not, I
don't know. We'll see. We'll see how I feel the
reaction is to this. So thanks so much for listening,
(45:47):
and hopefully if you're not already doing so, follow me
on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Facebook is at rich on Tech,
Twitter is at rich Demiro, and Instagram is at rich
on Tech. Thanks so much for listening. I mrich Demiro,
rich on Tech dot TV. I'll talk to you real soon.
(46:08):
M
Host
Rich DeMuro
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