May 22, 2020 • 49 mins
Facebook introduces Shops; Apple reopens stores with major changes; a look at the $250 TCL smartphone; Google/Apple's coronavirus system explained; Hulu revamp makes it easier to use; Google Podcasts gets CarPlay support; easy way to play poker online with friends; Orby TV tries a new twist on satellite TV.Listeners ask about cell phone plans for seniors, if the Jive Mini Pods are any good, recording video auditions, a watch that handles blood pressure readings and finding more stuff to watch on Netflix.Links:Follow Richhttps://twitter.com/richdemuroFollow Producer Meghanhttps://twitter.com/producermeghanFacebook Shopshttps://about.fb.com/news/2020/05/introducing-facebook-shops/Apple reopeninghttps://www.apple.com/store-opening-letter/$250 TCL smartphonehttps://ktla.com/morning-news/technology/tcl-10-series-10l-250-smartphone-review/Google/Apple coronavirus systemhttps://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200520/10571644539/case-contact-tracing-apps-built-apple-googles-exposure-notification-system.shtmlHulu revamphttps://press.hulu.com/news/2020/05/20/hulu-unveils-updated-user-interface/Google Podcasts CarPlayhttps://9to5google.com/2020/05/20/google-podcasts-carplay/Poker sitehttps://lipoker.io/https://pokerinplace.app/Orby TVhttps://orbytv.com/Cell plans for seniorshttps://www.whistleout.com/CellPhonesJive Mini Podshttps://amzn.to/2WSxy7OBlood pressure watchhttps://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-announces-blood-pressure-monitoring-application-for-galaxy-watch-devicesFinding stuff to watchhttps://reelgood.com/https://vuniverse.com/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Facebook makes it easy for small businesses to sell stuff online.
Apple is reopening some stores. A startup offers satellite TV
plus Your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich
Damiro and this is rich on Tech, the podcast where
I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
know about, and I also answer the questions that you
(00:27):
send me. And this is a special edition. It is
just the questions you posted to my Facebook page at
Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech. My name is
Rich Damiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Joining me is producer Megan. What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hello? How are you happy? Friday? How can I say that?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah? Sure, I mean if you're listening on a different day,
then it may not be Friday, But you know what,
we are recording this on a Friday, so it is Friday.
We both have off Monday, which is nice, so little
ended weekend. Although with working from home, it's kind of
funny like requesting days off because I'm like, well, it's
kind of like you're not in any way, but.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Right right, I mean you're still working.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You're still working. That's the thing.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Like I it's a mental break, it's.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
A mental break exactly, and my mental has been breaking
many times since I've been at home, so I am
so ready. In Los Angeles, they are targeting July fourth
as our Freedom Independence Day. Do you think that's funny
that they you know, July fourth, come on?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, I mean normally a day people take off, but.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I guess, yeah, that's the day we get back to work.
July fourth, what day is no holiday? Let's see July
fourth is a Saturday this year. Oh wow, that's like
the best case scenario. Yeah, that's so interesting when holidays
fall and like, like, I think Halloween on a Saturday
night is probably the best case scenario.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Right, Yeah, Halloween should not be during the week. I
feel like that just it's just not They should be
school the next day or work or work.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
They should always do Halloween on a Saturday night. I
don't know why who invented these holidays that are on
different days like we want? I mean, okay, like Easter
is always on a Sunday, that's fine, Christmas should always
be on like a Saturday night or whatever. The best
day is where you get the most time off of work.
That I think is the best.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, they should just do it, Like how they do
Mother's Day and Father's Day, they should be like, it's
the third Saturday in December. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
All right, well let's get uh, let's get started with
some of the news happening in the tech world. If
you're new to the show, thanks for tuning us in.
We talk about stuff that is the you know, the
average consumer needs to know about. This is not the
Inside Baseball Tech podcast, because we want to help the
average person. And I think this actually really helps the
average person. Facebook is introducing something called shops and it's
(02:53):
kind of a way for small businesses to set up
a store on Facebook instantly. And I think this is
a really big deal because Megan, I know you're on Instagram,
maybe not so much on Facebook. Are you even on
Facebook at all?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'm on I have Facebook. Do you use it?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Like?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Are your friends like you're my friends? Like I you know,
I'm an older older I'm like my like guy friends
are not on Facebook, you know, Like if I go
on Facebook, it's mainly like my mom and her friends. Yeah,
I just don't.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Find my family that's on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Okay, so that's not the same then that makes sense anyway.
So but the point is there are many many people
on Facebook, and when you're a small business, I would
almost argue at this point in time, you don't even
need a website. You don't even need a small who
wants to shop on a random website if I could
buy I always give the example of like candles. Right,
Let's say you start a candle company and you have
(03:48):
an Instagram page, and I see your candle on your
Instagram page. Why would I want to go to a
separate website to complete that transaction? Why would I not
just want to press purchase right inside Instagram and buy
your candle? Doesn't that make sense?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It seems safer, right, And I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Know if Instagram has payment information on people, Like there's
not really been a reason to put your credit card
information into Instagram, but I think most people would be
fine with that. Now Facebook, I do believe they have
my credit card for things like donations or whatever I've
done in the past on Facebook. So again they're setting
up these small business shops. You can kind of take
(04:25):
pictures of your products, you can put them in the catalog.
You can customize what your shop looks like with a
cover image and accent colors, and that means that anyone
can sell on Instagram and Facebook instantly. And the other
thing is you can kind of help people discover what
you're selling through Instagram stories, Facebook stories or the million
dollar ads, right, So that's what they're really trying to do.
(04:49):
They're offering this for free because Megan, once you set
up your shop on there, now you want to buy
ads to get your candles in front of more people.
So it makes a lot of sense. I could see
you do.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I think that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
What would be your candle scent?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Oh? Like what would I always go for? Like the
Hawaiian smell?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Interesting?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
You know, a Little Island Vibes.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Coconut, that's a coconut candle. I usually go for like
a just vanilla, like the most boring, Like that is
like the most generic candle scent in the world.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
But I got your favorite ice cream?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Actually I think that's my favorite too.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I mean, you know, my kids are all chocolate on chocolate.
They love like chocolate ice cream with chocolate. Everything we
get now in our house, this is like week number
like seventy nine of quarantine. Everything in our home is
somehow chocolate or chocolate chip based.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
At this point, that's so funny. I'm not a chocolate
person at all. Like I like a chocolate chip cookie,
but I don't.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, no, I'm not a chocolate person. Oh that's not
totally true. Okay. Other features of this. This all adds
up to being really brilliant because now you've got your
business on Instagram and Facebook. People can instant message you
right through Messenger. So let's say they have a question
about your candle. They can ask a question and you've
got it on your phone and you can just write
them right back. Now, this is all free, except for
(06:07):
obviously the purchase process. So somehow people are gonna have
to check out and someone is going to get a
percentage of that transaction. So if you sell a candle
for forty bucks, when the person checks out, you're only
going to get thirty seven dollars out of that or
whatever they you know, the small percentage, But to me,
that's a small price to pay. Now, if you think
about this, this really takes on something like an Etsy.
(06:30):
But you know, yeah, it's kind of sad for Etsy.
I don't think Etsy is going to go out of business,
but that's kind of what they're taking, you know, taking
aim at here.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Does an Instagram already have this too?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
They do, but it's very limited. It you know, you
had to be a partner, you had to you know,
it's and nobody had access to it. You know, it's
very limited. And so the fact that they can now
let anyone do this is to me a big win.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
All right. Our first question comes from Kimberly Smith Brown.
My sprint contract is up, switching to switching to Verizon
or AT and T any good deals. I'm an iPhone
user and my husband is fifty five. I don't know
if that's a senior and if there are any senior
plans that's not a senior though, right, fifty.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Five is like quite young. I mean yeah, like the
closer you get to these numbers, the younger they seem.
So I don't I don't, you know, I think T
Mobile they're well okay. So what I'd recommend is I
would check out a website called whistle Out. Remember we
did the story with them. They Oh yeah, they help
(07:41):
you compare the various cell phone plans, and there are
a lot of plans out there. If you're going for
something like just Verizon or AT and T. I would
just go on there. And it's whistleout dot com and
cell phone plans and you say how many lines do
you want? Two lines? You can say if you already
have a phone, or did they already have a phone.
(08:04):
It'll say I'm own an iPhone user, okay, So I
would say she probably already has her phone, right, and
I would say that she has a unlocked GSM phone
And that's it. And now you can say the networks
you want, so you can first look at Verizon and
see what they've got, which you know they're gonna be
a little bit more expensive. But it just depends. I mean,
(08:25):
but that's what I'd recommend, because for me to just
tell you what's perfect for you, I don't know. I mean,
there's so many plans out there, and you know, if
you want to be on the Verizon network, I mean,
it depends how much how much are you talking on
your phone? Do you want all unlimited data? Like for me,
I want unlimited everything, so don't have to think about anything.
But you may say, rich, I'm in my house, like
ninety percent of the time, I just use Wi Fi
(08:47):
and I just want a lot of texting and you know,
unlimited calls. So I mean something like this, Like here's
straight Talk, okay, straight Talk wireless, which I don't know
if you've ever been in to a Walmart, but they
sell it there. This is ninety dollars.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I've never been in a Walmart, never in.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Your life, never in my life. So wild, you know.
I think we talked about this, but I don't think
I ever was until I moved to Yakima, Washington. But
I didn't grow up where they had Walmarts, and certainly
in California there's not that many in like the main
big cities. Okay, so ninety bucks a month for two
lines on straight Talk, which uses apparently uses the Verizon network.
(09:25):
So again, I think that you kind of need to
just go through this website and see what's best for you.
If you just go to the Verizon website, you can
see what's there if you really want, like the cheapest
for fifty five up. I think that T Mobile has
like a fifty five and up plan, which is there
let's see, Yeah, unlimited fifty five plus discount plan for seniors.
(09:49):
I guess they are a senior theoretically, but I don't
really think that's the definition of senior. But this is
fifty five or over you can get twenty seven dollars
and fifty seve fifty five dollars for two lines.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Oh wow, wow, that's really good.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And that's unlimited talk, text and smartphone data. So the
only thing that I would say for Kimberly is that
you want to make sure that T Mobile works in
your area. But she's on Sprint, so which which leads
me to believe since she's saying Verizon or AT and T,
she wants better coverage. But if T Mobile has fine
coverage in your area, I would do that. I mean,
(10:27):
fifty five dollars a month for two lines with auto pay,
That's that's an amazing deal. I pay. I pay like
one eighty five a month to Verizon for two lines.
That includes my Apple Watch though.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So oh okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well, speaking of Apple, Apple is opening some of their
stores around the United States. I think about twenty five
of them. They've said they've opened about one hundred worldwide.
And it's not going to be the same Apple store
that you remember. Nothing is going to be the same
as we remember before this whole coronavirus madness. So number one,
face coverings required in the store, and customers that don't
(11:02):
bring them, will actually Apple will provide them, which I
think is kind of nice, right.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Because oh yeah, if you don't, that is nice.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
A lot of places aren't doing that, like you, A
lot of places, like I imagine, like the casinos in Vegas.
You're gonna have to buy a face mask for like
nine ninety nine or even more. Let's be honest. Temperature
checks will be conducted at the door, and you're also
gonna have like a sign that says, you know, you
need to make sure you're your cough and fever free.
(11:29):
They're going to also do deep cleanings on things that
people touch. Now, would you go into an Apple store
and touch an iPhone at this point right now to
like pick it up and look at it.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Like if it wasn't cleaned? No?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, I mean how would you you mean.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
What I think twice? Like, if I was going in
an Apple store like three months ago, now knowing what
we know, just.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Know what today? If you had an Apple store today,
would you pick up an iPad to like see what
it feels like?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I think I would still do it, but I would
be hesitant. I mean, if they're cleaning them ever read
ten minutes or they you know, like I feel fine,
I would just wash my hand.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, I would wash my hand.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
What would you do?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I don't know, I'd feel icky, Like it'd definitely be
like a weird feeling like you you know, we were
talking about this last night, my wife and I, like,
you know, with Vegas, would you go on a slot machine?
Like someone gets up from that slot machine? Would you
sit down at that slot machine? And then we were like, well,
are they gonna have wipes nearby that you like wipe
down everything? And then like it just where does it end?
It gets kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Right, yeah, so crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Anyway, So these stores in Los Angeles, there's no stores
in LA that are opening right now, but there are
some stores in the LA area, And I did a
post on Twitter which I'm attempting to find right now,
but I believe the closest one was Baker's Field, and
I was all set to actually go out there and
see what the deal was because I want to see
what it looked like. And it turns out that in
(12:51):
California they're not actually opening the stores just yet. It's
going to be a drive up situation where you have
to you know, drive up you can drop off your
phone for repair and pick it up, you know, say
the next day or something. Okay, Monterey, Roseville, Sacramento, San Luis, Obispo.
Is that how you say it, San Luis, San Louis, Obispo.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
I'm pretty sure, Lewis. I feel like people say Louis, San.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Louis, Obispo, Obispo. Okay, Modesto, Fresno, and Bakerfield. So those
are the stores in California. So if you're near one
of those stores, you can finally bring your iPhone in
for a repair, or you can purchase something and pick
it up at the store. But no going in just yet.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Okay. This next question comes from Deborah rosoul hi Rich.
I would like you. I would like your opinion on
headphones Jive Mini pods. I guess that's what she wants
your opinion on. I trust your opinion. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I'm glad you trust my opinion. So I get a
look up of these Jive Mini pods and I will
tell you that I don't trust them in any way,
shape or form. We've talked about this before on the website.
When you go to a website and there's certain red
flags that pop out right. Number one is when I
went to this website. It's a giant wheel of fortune
(14:11):
that you spin it and you might get a discount
or free shipping or this or that. Number two, it
has your location and it says my location seventy percent
off expires today. High pressure sales tactics. Right then it's
got all these logos of different companies. Now, if you
ever see a logo of a company on a website
but you can't click through, that's a red flag because
(14:35):
I see that it's featured in tech Crunch, giz Moto,
Huffington Post USA today, yet I can't click any of
those links to see what tech Crunch wrote about them,
what Gizmoto wrote about them, what Huffington Post wrote about them.
And if you go by the way, these look like
the Jive minipods look like identical to a knockoff AirPods AirPod.
(14:56):
And do you remember when we were in China when
the AirPods were everywhere, the knockoff one and they were
like twenty bucks to purchase and they started out at
one fifty and I was like negotiating with them and
they kept following them.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Oh yeah, yay, I remember that.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
That's what these are. These are just the same thing
you would get in China on a street corner, but
sold on a website. Now, the other thing that really
gets me with this website is when you go back
to Google Search, the number two results is a MarketWatch
press release, and people do that. They do these press
(15:32):
releases so it looks like they're coverage, but they're really not.
So I'm not finding.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Any actual coverage.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's very sketchy.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So when I visit the website, I feel like it's
a pop up, Like the.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Whole thing is just kind of bogus, like it's fly
by Night.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
It looks totally fake to me at least.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well, okay, so I feel bad for these mini pods,
but look, there are a lot of different AirPod kind
of alternatives out there. So the ones that I looked
up and found some good reviews on that are decent
and they're very popular. So my advice, can you click
the link that I put in there, Megan. You see
these they're called Anchor Soundcore, Liberty Neo. These are thirty
(16:13):
three dollars. They have eleven thousand, four hundred and seventy
one ratings on Amazon four and a half stars. So
if you want a cheap pair of earbuds. I would
go at these for thirty three dollars that eleven thousand
people have rated versus these random whatever you're finding on there.
(16:33):
And now the thing is, and I know this is
what people like, people like the AirPods look, and these
don't have the AirPods look, So I know that's kind
of a problem. But we did do a story and
I can't remember what the name of the company was,
but we did this in tech Updates a couple days ago.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, a couple weeks ago. We did a story on
Urban Ears, which look a little bit like AirPods, but
they cost around seventy dollars. Is a great alternative, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So the Urban Ears, and and I know that that
company actually has decent reviews for a lot of their stuff.
So Urban Ears they've got the Luma and the alb
alb y allb and they're gonna be ninety nine and
sixty nine, so that's pretty good. That's like half the
price of AirPods. And the difference between the two sets,
I remember is with the ninety nine dollars one, you
(17:24):
get the sensor and you get a longer battery life,
and the sensor means when you pull them out of
your ears, they will pause the music, so right, I
would maybe hold off for those if you can. I
believe they're coming sometime this summer, so you can go
on their website on Urban Ears and sign up for updates. Now,
we did do a review on a TCL smartphone this week.
(17:45):
TCL is the company known for the Roku TVs. Megan,
I believe you have one of those, right, yes, I do,
and you love it?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I love it?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And now TCL they've made smartphones for a while. I
believe it was under the Alcatel brand name and maybe
even TCL phones, but these are like kind of their
first entree into like, hey, we're making smartphones that are
like pretty legit. And this is the TCL ten series.
They make three different phones. Two are available now, the
ten L and the ten Pro. I focused on the
(18:14):
ten L just because it has the two hundred and
fifty dollars price tag. The ten Pro for four to
fifty I'll be honest, I'd probably recommend a pixel at
that point or something similar. No, probably just a pixel.
So at two hundred and fifty dollars, I was very
skeptical of this phone, but I got to say, I
really enjoyed this device because it doesn't play games with you.
(18:37):
A lot of these cheap Android phones they're garbage, honestly,
and this is not garbage. It's got a nice display
six point five to three inches, it's got four cameras,
has an actual headphone jack on the top, which I
thought was really cool. And again they're playing to that
budget connoisseur that may not want to spring for Bluetooth headphones.
(19:00):
Have headphone jack, so you can plug in a headphone
jack without an adapter, and again playing to that budget connoisseur.
You can now tune in FM radio through this device
because they put in an FM radio app. I'm not talking. iHeartRadio,
I'm not talking, you know, one of these streaming apps.
This is radio that is taken through the airwaves and
sent through your headphones. And the reason why that's cool
(19:21):
is because that means you can listen to music or
talk radio without using your data plan. Then they have
a smart key on the side of this thing, which
is really cool. You can program that to do any
kind of functionality you want, whether it's your assistant or
three clicks to clear your memory. This has sixty four
gigs of storage, six gigabytes of RAM USB C. Which
(19:42):
is another thing that these budget devices do is they
give you the older micro USB, which is terrible and
it's not very good. See there's hardly any bloatwear on
this phone. The software is really good. They've got an
air drop kind of fileshare feature that lets you transfer
things back and forth between your computer. The camera is
I would say it's very good for the price. This
(20:03):
is not going to beat out the iPhone se it's
not going to beat out any sort of flagship pic
android phone. But for two hundred and fifty dollars, it
was just fine. In fact, I was sitting there taking
pictures going wow, oh oh, okay, that's actually pretty good.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
And so you're pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I was pleasantly overall on this entire phone for two
hundred and fifty dollars. If you need just a phone,
this is not Megan. This is not for your sister,
who is you know, uh atok TikTok star. This is
not for her. It's not for your brother who's a
YouTube star. Why is the whole mcmonagall family, uh, some
sort of social media star. It's so funny, but you
(20:42):
rub it in me. You have the top tech podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Though that's true, Raise the room.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
They've probably never listened though.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Sadly, I mean, we all support each other in different ways.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
The TCL tenel is also sold unlocked, which I really like,
and I did confirm with TCL. It works on Verizon
AT and T and T Mobile, so all three carriers
is verified and it's on Amazon. So if you need
a phone, TCL ten L. If you just want a
basic Android phone, look no further than that device.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Okay. Our next question comes from Heidi Levine. Help my
daughter will be auditioning for musical theater called Programs in
the coming months. I've gone a sure microphone and mixer
connected via USBC to my MacBook. It took me a week,
but I figured out GarageBand. Now I need help connecting
my Cannon Revel T six to my Mac so that
(21:40):
the microphone and music come through the video taken on
my camera. I've googled my heart out and I can't
find the answers. Help me, Rich tamiro You're my only hope.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Oh wow, only hope. Well, here's what I'd say to Heidi.
Why is she making things so complicated? Yeah? She really is,
so I think that she's this is this sounds way
too complicated to me. Number one, unless these are live auditions,
which I don't think they are. It says they have
to be video submissions. So I'm thinking that she's recording
(22:13):
these things because she also talked about garage band, which,
by the way, I've been working, you know, for twenty
years in news and TV and audio, and I've never
used garage band because it's so complicated and I don't
like it. I edit this podcast in final cut because
it's so much easier, and I'm sure I'm not alone, Like,
you don't need to use garage band unless you are
(22:35):
of like trying to literally start a garage band, Like,
you don't need that. I think everything's way too complicated.
So you've got the microphone, you've got the mixer. So
what I would do if I was in your shoes, Heidi,
and I was helping my kid get into musical theater,
which awesome, I would just use the camera, the Rebel
(22:56):
T six on a tripod and yeah, and I would
just connect the microphone and mixer to the camera and
I would record everything. So you're basically recording the submission
on the camera, but the mic is coming through the
nice microphone. That would be what I would do. And
then you can take that video, import it into your
(23:19):
computer and just clip the you know, wherever you need
to clip the beginning and the end. You can do
that in quick time.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
And I'm getting there is a place on the rebel
where she can plug in her microphone, I would assume.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So you probably you may need an adapter if it
doesn't have like a standard three point five millimeter input,
but most most cameras can do that, so I would.
But that's to me way easier and it just makes
life a lot simpler than trying to Why are you
trying to feed everything into your computer and sync it
up all at the same time when there's really no
need to. Now, if she's doing these things on Zoom,
(23:52):
that's a different case scenario, right, And yeah, it doesn't
seem like she's doing on Zoom because she said they
have to be video SUBMISSI and so, and I don't
think that these schools are auditioning everyone on Zoom like
a live It seems like you would make a tape
and send it. So that's what I would do, and
I'd even I'd even take it up a notch. I
(24:12):
would just use my iPhone And why even bother with
doing I.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Was going to say my cousin he's in college now,
but a year ago when he was sending in his
auditions and he's like an amazing singer. He was auditioning
for musical theater college programs and his dad just filmed
him on his phone. And then I think he sent
me the files because he needed to convert them from
like an MP four.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Oh yeah, I remember you using you doing that at work?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, it was all day.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I remember that. It was just like I was like, Megan,
can you please do this? And You're like, no, I'm
converting files. I'm like, well for what, Like, don't worry
about it. But I remember it was like long, eight
hours every day.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It's really important. But yeah, but yeah, his dad just
did it on an iPhone.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yeah, And I think so, I think you're overthinking this.
I understand that you want your daughter to get into college,
but you have to understand that. Believe me, your daughter
is gonna shine through no matter what.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
You do.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Not need the best, highest case, highest quality setup. Look
at American Idol. I mean they did the entire show
by shipping the contestants a microphone. Now, they did do
a similar thing. They shipped them a microphone that plugged
into the iPhone and they recorded. They actually, I think
they shipped them two or three iPhones so they had
different angles, and then they just sinked it.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
The editor synked it together. But you don't need to
do that. You don't have to. You just need your
daughter to this. Yeah, this is not American idol. This
is your daughter, which I have no doubt she's amazing,
but I think that her brilliance will shine through. And
that's what you need to do, is just concentrate on
making her comfortable and not making this too complicated, And
that would be my advice to you. This week, Google
(25:56):
and Apple came out with their exposure notification system. This
used to be called contact tracing, but the word tracing
and contact seems way too privacy woo for most people,
so they rename this because this system only works if
people actually use it and the so far only a
couple of states have used this. But let me just explinks,
(26:17):
I'm getting a lot of questions about this on my
Facebook page. People are so scared of this system and
there's really no reason to be scared of it. It's
not tracking your location. It's not going to tell everyone
in the world that you have coronavirus. It's not broadcasting
where you are to anyone. It's really the way they
design this program is actually very simple, and the way
(26:37):
they designed it is your phone is broadcasting a simple
code that changes every couple of minutes, no matter where
you are. When another phone gets close, it picks up
your code and it remembers it, and it doesn't remember
who you are, doesn't remember where you were. And when
someone in that system, let's say all those codes that
are paired up, and imagine all the codes paired up
(26:59):
means here's all the people that came into contact with
each other within six feet for a couple of minutes,
whatever it was. When someone in that registry says, bing,
I got coronavirus, it sends out a message to all
those phones saying, hey, it looks like you came into
contact with someone that has coronavirus. Doesn't tell you their name,
doesn't tell you where I don't know if it even
tells you when probably does, because within the last fourteen days.
(27:22):
That's it. Now you go get tested. If you figure out,
you know, do I need to self quarantine. It's not recording,
this data is not being kept, it's not being put
on public databases. So it's fine. And I know that
people are gonna be like, Rich, you're just drinking the
kool aid of these tech companies and you're just you know,
our privacy is at risk. It's not. The way I've
(27:44):
been on the phone calls with Apple and Google, and
the way they built this system is they made it
so that your privacy can't be at risk. And I
was reading an article from tech dirt dot com. They
say the case for contact tracing apps built on Apple
and Google's exposure notification system. This website is a very
smart website and they basically said, yeah, this is fine,
(28:06):
and they do a really good explanation with a system
involving raffle tickets instead of like the more complicated Bluetooth
beacons that they're using. And it's a great explanation. So
if you want to read it, read it. But I
imagine that people listening to this show are probably you know,
they're probably thinking it's fine anyway. But when the Apple
software came out, did you update your iPhone? Megan no.
(28:29):
So when the Apple software came out, it had this
contact thing in it, and people were like, what, it's
turned off by default. It is only turned on when
you download an app that takes advantage of it. Right now,
there's only three states in America that have them, which
is North Dakota and two others I can't remember and
South Dakota. Was it South Dakota, I feel like it was.
(28:51):
I feel like it was too but I felt like
that was too convenient, like the two Dakota's, And then
I think it was Alabama. California has not had you know,
they've not mentioned any plans for them, which you of
course know, Google and Apple want California because that's a
big get, right, that's their home stakes. And the other
place is the US. The US does not have a
(29:12):
nationwide use of this yet, they don't have an app.
So the other thing that came out, of course, to
go against everything I'm saying, is that North Dakota's app
has been sending data to four Square and Google. Now
this is from a privacy company called Jumbo Privacy. Their
whole business is getting you to be worried about privacy,
(29:34):
right because they can sell you stuff against privacy. I'm
not knocking them because I love the fact that we
have whistleblowers like this that look into the code and
see what's going on. And I would imagine that what
happened is North Dakota, whoever developed their app, was probably
using off the shelf stuff just popped in a bunch
of modules, and it included tracking for for Square and Google.
(29:54):
They probably didn't realize that they needed to take that
stuff out. That was my best guess, but I could
be wrong. Maybe the whole state of North Dakota is
trying to track everyone on four square and send that
to Google. I don't know, but I don't think so.
So anyway, I think that stuff is all safe. If
you want to look in your phone to see it,
you go into Settings General, you know, Settings Privacy, Health,
(30:16):
and then you'll see the COVID nineteen tracker. It should
be turned off by default because pretty much unless you
live in one of those states, there's no way to
turn it on without downloading one of these apps.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Well, will it work with Apple Watches?
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Oh, that's a good question. I don't know, and you'll
get the notification through your Apple Watch. But I think
if you're only wearing your Apple Watch unless they made it.
You know, maybe it will. You mean if you go
out for a run or something with only your Apple
Watch on. Yeah, it's a good question. I would assume
it would because that makes sense because a lot of
people do run with just their watch, so that would
(30:51):
be an important part of this, So I would hope
they do that.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, all right. Our next question comes from Chris Peak.
Good evening, Rich, Well, you know it's morning, but whatever,
do you have a recommendation for a blood pressure watch?
There are just a few companies out there with this capability.
Maybe you know of one in the making.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
I don't know if a lot of watches are doing this,
but I do know that I remember we talked about
this with during the Samsung event a while back, and
I believe that the back of their phones can do
blood pressure because I remember actually putting my finger on
the back of the phone and it was like a
stress test, but it was like they were using blood
(31:36):
pressure for that. So I know Samsung's working on it.
I dug up a press release from April twenty first,
twenty twenty which now they have a blood pressure application
for their Galaxy Watch devices. So I do remember at
the Samsung event last year, they announced that they were
going to do some stuff with blood pressure. It took
a while for this to happen. But the Samsung Galaxy
(31:58):
Watch Too, I believe, has this feature, But according to
this press release, it looks like you have to calibrate
it with a traditional cuff, so it's kind of confusing.
The Samsung Health Monitor app will be available on the
Galaxy Watch Active Too within the third quarter and will
(32:19):
progressively expand upcoming watches, so it looks like you can
actually from It's a little complicated because it looks like
you need to use a cuff. No, you know what,
it doesn't. This is very confusing. I think it's fine.
I think it says once you're okay, so you calibrate
(32:39):
it with a traditional cuff. So I think what you
have to do is have you ever been into like
Walgreens or CBS where they have like the blood pressure
cuff in there?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
You know you always wonder as a kid, like what
is that? Who needs that?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I would always do it when I was a kid.
I'd go and like check my blood pressure. I had
no idea what I was doing, but I wasn't allowed.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
To touch it, but I always wanted.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Well now with COVID, I mean clearly, so I think
you calibrate at one time, like you go in with
your watch to one of these places, calibrate it, and
then you can now do it from your wrist and
it's fine, or from your fingertip or from your whatever
however they do it. But anyway, so I would look
into Samsung. I would also look into a company called Whitvings.
(33:22):
They are the company that makes a lot of these
connected monitors, so if you want to use it with
something like your phone or your iPhone. I think Whvings
is the company that does all these things. And they
do have a watch steal HR, but I don't know
if it does blood pressure. Let's see learn more heart rate, activity, sleep,
(33:45):
battery life. Yeah, it doesn't say anything about blood pressure.
Uh yeah, it doesn't say anything about blood pressure. But anyway,
that's those are the companies I would look at. All right,
I got a couple of things going here. Oh and
I should probably say the Apple Watch I do not
believe has that feature. I don't. I actually know it doesn't,
but maybe the new one does, Maybe the one that
they're coming out with I know has ECG and you
(34:08):
know those features, but it doesn't with the Apple Watch.
Is lacking is sleep monitoring, and like you said, blood pressure. Okay,
so a couple of little things just to get you
on the same page, I'm gonna give three little things.
So number one, Hulu is updating its interface. I do
you have Hulu. Yes, It's the worst worst interface in
(34:29):
the world. It is so complicated.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So it's really plain and like confusing.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Very confusing and bulky like there's just like I and
I don't know if you use a Roku, so it's
probably a little bit easier to like navigate, but I
use an Apple TV with the swipe it kind of
like is a touchpad on the remote. And it's so
bad with Hulu because you're just swiping and you're moving
all over the screen. So Hulu knows it, they knew
it for a long time. They are finally improving it.
They're gonna do it more like what I call the
(34:56):
cross system, which is up and down, left and right,
and that's what Netflix uses. That's what pretty much every
streaming service uses at this point except for them, and
so Roku and tvOS. It is rolling out beginning today
and I don't have it just yet on my apples
or my Apple TV Hulu app, but it is coming
(35:17):
out any day now. So if you don't have it
just you're just on the list to be rolled out.
It's going to come soon to other devices. Google podcasts
a big app for their Google's app for iPhone. I
don't see a big use case scenario for this. We've
talked about this in the podcast. Why I think it
has potential because of the way Google searches the words
inside the podcast and can give you recommendations. But the
(35:40):
reality is it didn't have car play support until now.
Now it does, and if you open up car Play,
you have the Google Podcast app on iOS, you can
now play your podcast in the car. This I'm very
excited about. You can't believe how many people have emailed
me about how they can play poker with their friends
online during this whole quarantine, because a lot of people
(36:02):
get together and they play poker games on a Friday
night whatever Saturday night, and so I recommended one called
Poker in Place, and that was done by a developer.
This one looks really cool because it's actually even easier.
It's called Lee Poker l I poker easiest way to
play poker online. You can play games without having to
download or sign up for anything. You just share a
(36:24):
link to your friends. It works on desktop and mobile,
has in game video chat and messaging. Super easy, Megan,
no download, no sign up, one click link. This is
what I love about these new tech companies are finally
understanding the beauty of a one click link. When we
got on Google Meet for this meeting, I just sent
(36:44):
you a link and you clicked it and you're in.
It took one second. Now you were probably logged into Google,
so that helped. But I think also Zoom kind of
realized this. You make it easy for folks, they will
join on and the easier you make it with those
one links. Now Facebook does this with Facebook Messenger rooms.
(37:05):
Just one link, get people in there.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I feel like, did Dropbox start that?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Okay, because I think that that's like the brilliance of dropboxes.
You can create a share link and then easily share
videos of people that they can downloade.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Exactly. You are so right, that is the They were
like the first to kind of popularize the here's the link.
You don't need to sign up, you don't need to
sign in. You don't need to do anything, just click
this link. It will bring you to where you need
to do it. And this is what people are realizing.
I looked at this quickly, this Lee poker. It looks
(37:41):
really cool. It's so funny because my friends played poker
last Friday night and I didn't join in because I
didn't feel like it. But it was The directions on
the email chain were absolutely insane because they were using
the PokerStars dot net, which is like a big company
and PokerStars dot net. What do they want you to do?
They want you to really play poker with real money
(38:02):
on their website, and yes they offer the ability for
you to do this with your friends, but they don't
really care about that. They're just trying to get you
to sign up, log in. So the question the sign
up process was so insane and just kept going and going,
and it was like, and I was sitting there, I
was like I didn't have the heart to tell them,
like you literally know you can do this with one
link and it's so much easier, but I don't want
to tell Max.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
You should have just hit reply all than like are
you kidding? With all these instructions?
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I don't want to be the know at all, so
I just sat down. Yeah, but yeah, of course, but
if I did this, if I set up a poker
night with my friends, I would do this and blow
everyone away because they'd be like, oh my god, that's
so easy. In fact, I made we have a lot
of plans this weekend, so I don't know, because we're
it's like Memorials popular. But so I think, like, like
(38:51):
Saturday night would be a good night to do this,
so I don't Yeah, maybe I'll try it out anyway.
Oh the website, by the way, I should probably give
you that because that's the thing you need to know.
Let me uh, let me see. It's l I Poker,
l I poker dot ioh l I poker dot I. Oh,
it is so easy. You and I can start playing
(39:11):
right now. That's how easy it is.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Except I don't know how to play.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
But yeah, you got to learn. You got to learn.
It's really it's fun. I mean, I don't want a stereotype,
but I mean, like Lindsay plays poker, and you know
most she hasn't played a long time, so actually no,
she doesn't really play nevermind, but she know I think
she knows.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
How to play, But do you recommend a way to learn,
Like is there besides just it's other people, Like they
just have.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
To go with other people. Just have your have a
friend that knows how to play. And I always joke
about this because I'm I'm good. I'm not good at poker,
but I know how to play. But and I'm also
not the guy that whenever you play poker with a
group of guys or gals or whoever, if it's mixed group, whatever,
whenever you play poker, there's always one person at the
table that I call the poker sort of king. They
(39:59):
know so not just how to play, but they know
how to do everything. So when you have a question
about the rules, they're the person you turn to. They're
the ones that are doing all the little bets and
like making sure you've got the blind and the big
blind and the small blind and taking them you know cars. No,
they don't do that, but they just know what's up.
They are the person, They're like the gatekeeper. Right, I'm
just sitting there like I have no idea. I'm just
(40:21):
turning over my cards, I'm folding. I'm like I have
no idea. They keep you going, you know, and they
count everyone out. It's just there's always mark my words.
If you play poker with friends, you know there's that person.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Okay. This next question comes from Eva Candelario. SOS, I repeat, SOS, help,
please help. We have run out of things to watch
on Netflix. I repeat, we have ran out of things
to watch on Netflix, and regular TV doesn't really offer
anything good these days. Please tell us how we can
(40:56):
unlock more options on Netflix.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Good question, Well, you can't just unlock new stuff. Yeah,
I think it's time for a new service. There's a
lot of stuff out there. I'm I'm over subscribed at
this point, but I don't know what to say. I mean,
it's but okay, So a couple things I would recommend.
It sounds like you need to like look at websites
that tell you what's what's on these services versus just
(41:21):
looking at what Netflix shows you on the home screen.
So a couple websites i'd recommend. First, one is my
current favorite, which is called Real Good R E E
L g oo D. I'm pretty much browsing this all
the time in my free time, trying to find like
the best stuff to watch for the kids, for myself,
for Lindsay Right now, I'm on an eighties movies kick.
So last night I was looking at all the eighties
(41:42):
movies that are available across my services. But what's cool
about Real Good is that they will help you find stuff,
even free stuff. There may be stuff on like two
B or what are all these other random like there's
so many random ones now Pluto, so they may They
will help you find stuff across fifty different services, and
(42:02):
you can add your services and you can look for
movies like so we just watched Big and then I
was trying to find similar movies too Big, and so
I went to Real Real Good and it will give
you the other movies. People also liked more female director movies,
more New York movies. I mean, how cool is that.
So you can just look through there and it's a
very well designed website. They also have an app, It's
(42:24):
the best. Now there's a new one that I don't
think is as good, but you should know about it,
and it's called Universe V You. It's a V and
then Universe Vuniverse. And what worries me about this website
is that their logo is kind of inspired by the
TV guide logo and anytime you're starting a startup and
(42:46):
your logo is kind of lifted from a different company,
I'm worried, like you're impersonating like another company's logo. But
they do have some smart people behind this. But yesterday
when I signed in, I did the same thing. I
put big into the engine and the movie didn't even
come up. So that was kind of a little red
flag there. So that with Arnie no Tom Hanks, Oh,
(43:12):
who's Arnie? Like Arnold Schwartz, you call him Arnie.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, you don't know, but I did.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I actually have run into Arnold I think twice actually
at the beach, which is really funny. Yeah, I've seen
him a lot smaller in person than I thought. But
nice guy, very nice guy. He was very like friendly
and like just you know, very very I mean, look,
he's living the American dream. You know. He made it
big here in America and in many different ways. And yeah,
(43:45):
so anyway, okay, so those are the two websites that
I digress. Those are the two websites that I recommend
looking through. You can also look through the TV app
on your iPhone that'll give you some ideas of stuff
that's available. But Netflix is not included in there, so
I'd stick to these two anyway. Okay, finally, before we
go or be TV, this is a head scratcher. They
(44:07):
are starting a or maybe they already have it. I
don't know, it's already available, but it's a new satellite
TV company. How weird is that I could get satellite
TV installed at this point, I don't know, but they
are doing it, and their whole proposition is a value proposition.
Forty bucks a month and you get a bunch of
cable channels, but they also put an antenna on the
(44:30):
satellite dish that gives you your over the air channels,
which I like. I like that aspect of it. But
it's just weird to think that you would have to
have someone come to your house install a satellite dish
and now you need to use their proprietary box to
get your stuff. And I just feel like it's fine,
Like I get it, Like there's people out there, like
(44:51):
you know, less tech inclient that would want something that's
similar to cable but not as expensive or similar to satellite.
But I feel like you can get all the stuff
you need at point through a streaming service and you
don't have to have someone come to your house and
put this thing on your roof. Now I get it.
The whole local channels thing is kind of a problem sometimes,
but I think you'd be better served by just putting
(45:13):
your own antenna on the roof or in your house,
or get you're evenna pay someone, pay someone ninety nine
bucks to install it on your roof, and get something
like a Tableau or even a TVO that has the
recording built in or the locals built in.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Do you have Tableau? I have tablee.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, well I have two things. I have Tableau and
I also have the Amazon fireTV recast, but I dismantled
the recast in favor of Tableau because I switched to
Apple TV and that in Tableau. The reason why I
like Tableau is because it works with everything. It's kind
of platform agnostic, and so whether you have a firestick
or an Apple TV, it works just fine. And fire
(45:49):
is fine. The fire TV recast is fine if you
just have fire devices and that works really well. To DVR,
it's great. They'll both do the same thing. But to me,
like I would rather hack together my own little system
because then you have the freedom. Let's say you're not
happy with the channels that ORBTV offers for forty bucks
a month. Well, you can't just download an app and
(46:11):
now get YouTube TV because it's like their own weird platform.
So if you had a Fire TV stick, you could
just download YouTube TV. Oh I don't like YouTube TV. Okay,
well let's go to Hulu Live TV. I don't like that.
Let's go to Fubo. Oh I don't like that. Let's
go to Sling. Oh I don't like that. Let's I mean,
there's so many options. When you have your own the box.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
You should what's that Maybe you should just read a book.
Yeah like that.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
If you don't like any of this stuff, yeah, just
do that anyway. Well, so that's what I would recommend.
And also, by the way, when you go with these
third party apps, like our third party services, like what
I'm talking about here, this ORBTV, don't forget that you
these apps are not updated as much as say, like
(46:56):
if I'm creating and we've talked about this on the
podcast before, if I'm creating an app, I'm gonna update
my Roku app, I'm gonna update my Amazon fireTV app,
and I'm gonna update my Apple TV app. Then I'm
gonna worry about the rest of the stuff. Well, can
you believe it? That's going to do it for this
episode of the show. If you'd like to submit a
question for me to answer, just go to rich on
Tech dot tv and hit the email button at the
(47:16):
bottom of the page. Also, we would love it if
you would rate and review this podcast to help other
people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot
com slash rich on Tech and Will Michael just left
a review five stars. Megan timely tech and tips explained
researched well wow, great tech info. He writes tips questions
(47:37):
answered in an understandable way. Rich clearly has high tech credentials,
but he doesn't show off his knowledge, but makes it
his goal to be the conduit of his insights to
the rest of us. Wow. He also doesn't assume the
listener has unlimited funds and seeks to identify good deals
that the average person can afford, kind of like that
TCL phone we were talking about. Show is also entertaining
(47:58):
in great chemistry and good humor between Rich and producer Meghan. Oh,
thank you, Will, We appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
That's so nice.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Producer Megan, where can folks find you on social media.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I am at producer Megan on Twitter and you got.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
To check out producer Megan's story. Go to KTLA dot
com slash chech and look up the wine story. You
guys tasted three different wine boxes. So did anyone get
slashed that day?
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Or what? You know? My parents they I mean, they drink,
but they don't they don't really get slashed. No one
got slashed. It was just kind of it was, you know,
it was a nice little drinking experience with it looked like.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
You did it during the day though it was like
five okay, was right on the you're like five PM time.
It's funny because after watching the story, I'm going to
order my mom the the wine box one, the ones
that come in the files. I think that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
It's they were so cool, great for someone that Yeah,
and I does your mom know a lot about wine? No?
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Nothing, And like she also doesn't really drink, so it's
kind of fun to like she can just like have
like a glass like for the Zoom happy hours or whatever,
you know what I mean. Like, yeah, it's just kind
of fun. It's like the wine box one is served
in like these vials that have a glass and a
half each and it's just cool. The whole presentation of
that one is really really cool.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
So yeah, wine box is a great gift that you
could give someone.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Watch Megan's story. Go to KTLA dot com slash tech
and check out the wine story and that you can
see her and her fam tasting the wines. You can
find me at rich on Tech on social media. My
name is rich dedmiro On. Behalf of everyone that gets
this show to your ears. Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you real soon. Bye bye,
Facebook makes it easy for small businesses to sell stuff online.
Apple is reopening some stores. A startup offers satellite TV
plus Your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich
Damiro and this is rich on Tech, the podcast where
I talk about the tech stuff I think you should
know about, and I also answer the questions that you
(00:27):
send me. And this is a special edition. It is
just the questions you posted to my Facebook page at
Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech. My name is
Rich Damiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
Joining me is producer Megan. What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hello? How are you happy? Friday? How can I say that?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah? Sure, I mean if you're listening on a different day,
then it may not be Friday, But you know what,
we are recording this on a Friday, so it is Friday.
We both have off Monday, which is nice, so little
ended weekend. Although with working from home, it's kind of
funny like requesting days off because I'm like, well, it's
kind of like you're not in any way, but.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Right right, I mean you're still working.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You're still working. That's the thing.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Like I it's a mental break, it's.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
A mental break exactly, and my mental has been breaking
many times since I've been at home, so I am
so ready. In Los Angeles, they are targeting July fourth
as our Freedom Independence Day. Do you think that's funny
that they you know, July fourth, come on?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yeah, I mean normally a day people take off, but.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
I guess, yeah, that's the day we get back to work.
July fourth, what day is no holiday? Let's see July
fourth is a Saturday this year. Oh wow, that's like
the best case scenario. Yeah, that's so interesting when holidays
fall and like, like, I think Halloween on a Saturday
night is probably the best case scenario.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Right, Yeah, Halloween should not be during the week. I
feel like that just it's just not They should be
school the next day or work or work.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
They should always do Halloween on a Saturday night. I
don't know why who invented these holidays that are on
different days like we want? I mean, okay, like Easter
is always on a Sunday, that's fine, Christmas should always
be on like a Saturday night or whatever. The best
day is where you get the most time off of work.
That I think is the best.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Well, they should just do it, Like how they do
Mother's Day and Father's Day, they should be like, it's
the third Saturday in December. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
All right, well let's get uh, let's get started with
some of the news happening in the tech world. If
you're new to the show, thanks for tuning us in.
We talk about stuff that is the you know, the
average consumer needs to know about. This is not the
Inside Baseball Tech podcast, because we want to help the
average person. And I think this actually really helps the
average person. Facebook is introducing something called shops and it's
(02:53):
kind of a way for small businesses to set up
a store on Facebook instantly. And I think this is
a really big deal because Megan, I know you're on Instagram,
maybe not so much on Facebook. Are you even on
Facebook at all?
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'm on I have Facebook. Do you use it?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Like?
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Are your friends like you're my friends? Like I you know,
I'm an older older I'm like my like guy friends
are not on Facebook, you know, Like if I go
on Facebook, it's mainly like my mom and her friends. Yeah,
I just don't.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Find my family that's on Facebook.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Okay, so that's not the same then that makes sense anyway.
So but the point is there are many many people
on Facebook, and when you're a small business, I would
almost argue at this point in time, you don't even
need a website. You don't even need a small who
wants to shop on a random website if I could
buy I always give the example of like candles. Right,
Let's say you start a candle company and you have
(03:48):
an Instagram page, and I see your candle on your
Instagram page. Why would I want to go to a
separate website to complete that transaction? Why would I not
just want to press purchase right inside Instagram and buy
your candle? Doesn't that make sense?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
It seems safer, right, And I don't.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Know if Instagram has payment information on people, Like there's
not really been a reason to put your credit card
information into Instagram, but I think most people would be
fine with that. Now Facebook, I do believe they have
my credit card for things like donations or whatever I've
done in the past on Facebook. So again they're setting
up these small business shops. You can kind of take
(04:25):
pictures of your products, you can put them in the catalog.
You can customize what your shop looks like with a
cover image and accent colors, and that means that anyone
can sell on Instagram and Facebook instantly. And the other
thing is you can kind of help people discover what
you're selling through Instagram stories, Facebook stories or the million
dollar ads, right, So that's what they're really trying to do.
(04:49):
They're offering this for free because Megan, once you set
up your shop on there, now you want to buy
ads to get your candles in front of more people.
So it makes a lot of sense. I could see
you do.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I think that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
What would be your candle scent?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Oh? Like what would I always go for? Like the
Hawaiian smell?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Interesting?
Speaker 2 (05:08):
You know, a Little Island Vibes.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Coconut, that's a coconut candle. I usually go for like
a just vanilla, like the most boring, Like that is
like the most generic candle scent in the world.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
But I got your favorite ice cream?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeah it is.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Actually I think that's my favorite too.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
I mean, you know, my kids are all chocolate on chocolate.
They love like chocolate ice cream with chocolate. Everything we
get now in our house, this is like week number
like seventy nine of quarantine. Everything in our home is
somehow chocolate or chocolate chip based.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
At this point, that's so funny. I'm not a chocolate
person at all. Like I like a chocolate chip cookie,
but I don't.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, no, I'm not a chocolate person. Oh that's not
totally true. Okay. Other features of this. This all adds
up to being really brilliant because now you've got your
business on Instagram and Facebook. People can instant message you
right through Messenger. So let's say they have a question
about your candle. They can ask a question and you've
got it on your phone and you can just write
them right back. Now, this is all free, except for
(06:07):
obviously the purchase process. So somehow people are gonna have
to check out and someone is going to get a
percentage of that transaction. So if you sell a candle
for forty bucks, when the person checks out, you're only
going to get thirty seven dollars out of that or
whatever they you know, the small percentage, But to me,
that's a small price to pay. Now, if you think
about this, this really takes on something like an Etsy.
(06:30):
But you know, yeah, it's kind of sad for Etsy.
I don't think Etsy is going to go out of business,
but that's kind of what they're taking, you know, taking
aim at here.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Does an Instagram already have this too?
Speaker 1 (06:43):
They do, but it's very limited. It you know, you
had to be a partner, you had to you know,
it's and nobody had access to it. You know, it's
very limited. And so the fact that they can now
let anyone do this is to me a big win.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
All right. Our first question comes from Kimberly Smith Brown.
My sprint contract is up, switching to switching to Verizon
or AT and T any good deals. I'm an iPhone
user and my husband is fifty five. I don't know
if that's a senior and if there are any senior
plans that's not a senior though, right, fifty.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Five is like quite young. I mean yeah, like the
closer you get to these numbers, the younger they seem.
So I don't I don't, you know, I think T
Mobile they're well okay. So what I'd recommend is I
would check out a website called whistle Out. Remember we
did the story with them. They Oh yeah, they help
(07:41):
you compare the various cell phone plans, and there are
a lot of plans out there. If you're going for
something like just Verizon or AT and T. I would
just go on there. And it's whistleout dot com and
cell phone plans and you say how many lines do
you want? Two lines? You can say if you already
have a phone, or did they already have a phone.
(08:04):
It'll say I'm own an iPhone user, okay, So I
would say she probably already has her phone, right, and
I would say that she has a unlocked GSM phone
And that's it. And now you can say the networks
you want, so you can first look at Verizon and
see what they've got, which you know they're gonna be
a little bit more expensive. But it just depends. I mean,
(08:25):
but that's what I'd recommend, because for me to just
tell you what's perfect for you, I don't know. I mean,
there's so many plans out there, and you know, if
you want to be on the Verizon network, I mean,
it depends how much how much are you talking on
your phone? Do you want all unlimited data? Like for me,
I want unlimited everything, so don't have to think about anything.
But you may say, rich, I'm in my house, like
ninety percent of the time, I just use Wi Fi
(08:47):
and I just want a lot of texting and you know,
unlimited calls. So I mean something like this, Like here's
straight Talk, okay, straight Talk wireless, which I don't know
if you've ever been in to a Walmart, but they
sell it there. This is ninety dollars.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
I've never been in a Walmart, never in.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Your life, never in my life. So wild, you know.
I think we talked about this, but I don't think
I ever was until I moved to Yakima, Washington. But
I didn't grow up where they had Walmarts, and certainly
in California there's not that many in like the main
big cities. Okay, so ninety bucks a month for two
lines on straight Talk, which uses apparently uses the Verizon network.
(09:25):
So again, I think that you kind of need to
just go through this website and see what's best for you.
If you just go to the Verizon website, you can
see what's there if you really want, like the cheapest
for fifty five up. I think that T Mobile has
like a fifty five and up plan, which is there
let's see, Yeah, unlimited fifty five plus discount plan for seniors.
(09:49):
I guess they are a senior theoretically, but I don't
really think that's the definition of senior. But this is
fifty five or over you can get twenty seven dollars
and fifty seve fifty five dollars for two lines.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Oh wow, wow, that's really good.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
And that's unlimited talk, text and smartphone data. So the
only thing that I would say for Kimberly is that
you want to make sure that T Mobile works in
your area. But she's on Sprint, so which which leads
me to believe since she's saying Verizon or AT and T,
she wants better coverage. But if T Mobile has fine
coverage in your area, I would do that. I mean,
(10:27):
fifty five dollars a month for two lines with auto pay,
That's that's an amazing deal. I pay. I pay like
one eighty five a month to Verizon for two lines.
That includes my Apple Watch though.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So oh okay, okay.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Well, speaking of Apple, Apple is opening some of their
stores around the United States. I think about twenty five
of them. They've said they've opened about one hundred worldwide.
And it's not going to be the same Apple store
that you remember. Nothing is going to be the same
as we remember before this whole coronavirus madness. So number one,
face coverings required in the store, and customers that don't
(11:02):
bring them, will actually Apple will provide them, which I
think is kind of nice, right.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Because oh yeah, if you don't, that is nice.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
A lot of places aren't doing that, like you, A
lot of places, like I imagine, like the casinos in Vegas.
You're gonna have to buy a face mask for like
nine ninety nine or even more. Let's be honest. Temperature
checks will be conducted at the door, and you're also
gonna have like a sign that says, you know, you
need to make sure you're your cough and fever free.
(11:29):
They're going to also do deep cleanings on things that
people touch. Now, would you go into an Apple store
and touch an iPhone at this point right now to
like pick it up and look at it.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Like if it wasn't cleaned? No?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, I mean how would you you mean.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
What I think twice? Like, if I was going in
an Apple store like three months ago, now knowing what
we know, just.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Know what today? If you had an Apple store today,
would you pick up an iPad to like see what
it feels like?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I think I would still do it, but I would
be hesitant. I mean, if they're cleaning them ever read
ten minutes or they you know, like I feel fine,
I would just wash my hand.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, I would wash my hand.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
What would you do?
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I don't know, I'd feel icky, Like it'd definitely be
like a weird feeling like you you know, we were
talking about this last night, my wife and I, like,
you know, with Vegas, would you go on a slot machine?
Like someone gets up from that slot machine? Would you
sit down at that slot machine? And then we were like, well,
are they gonna have wipes nearby that you like wipe
down everything? And then like it just where does it end?
It gets kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Right, yeah, so crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Anyway, So these stores in Los Angeles, there's no stores
in LA that are opening right now, but there are
some stores in the LA area, And I did a
post on Twitter which I'm attempting to find right now,
but I believe the closest one was Baker's Field, and
I was all set to actually go out there and
see what the deal was because I want to see
what it looked like. And it turns out that in
(12:51):
California they're not actually opening the stores just yet. It's
going to be a drive up situation where you have
to you know, drive up you can drop off your
phone for repair and pick it up, you know, say
the next day or something. Okay, Monterey, Roseville, Sacramento, San Luis, Obispo.
Is that how you say it, San Luis, San Louis, Obispo.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
I'm pretty sure, Lewis. I feel like people say Louis, San.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Louis, Obispo, Obispo. Okay, Modesto, Fresno, and Bakerfield. So those
are the stores in California. So if you're near one
of those stores, you can finally bring your iPhone in
for a repair, or you can purchase something and pick
it up at the store. But no going in just yet.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Okay. This next question comes from Deborah rosoul hi Rich.
I would like you. I would like your opinion on
headphones Jive Mini pods. I guess that's what she wants
your opinion on. I trust your opinion. Thanks.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I'm glad you trust my opinion. So I get a
look up of these Jive Mini pods and I will
tell you that I don't trust them in any way,
shape or form. We've talked about this before on the website.
When you go to a website and there's certain red
flags that pop out right. Number one is when I
went to this website. It's a giant wheel of fortune
(14:11):
that you spin it and you might get a discount
or free shipping or this or that. Number two, it
has your location and it says my location seventy percent
off expires today. High pressure sales tactics. Right then it's
got all these logos of different companies. Now, if you
ever see a logo of a company on a website
but you can't click through, that's a red flag because
(14:35):
I see that it's featured in tech Crunch, giz Moto,
Huffington Post USA today, yet I can't click any of
those links to see what tech Crunch wrote about them,
what Gizmoto wrote about them, what Huffington Post wrote about them.
And if you go by the way, these look like
the Jive minipods look like identical to a knockoff AirPods AirPod.
(14:56):
And do you remember when we were in China when
the AirPods were everywhere, the knockoff one and they were
like twenty bucks to purchase and they started out at
one fifty and I was like negotiating with them and
they kept following them.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Oh yeah, yay, I remember that.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
That's what these are. These are just the same thing
you would get in China on a street corner, but
sold on a website. Now, the other thing that really
gets me with this website is when you go back
to Google Search, the number two results is a MarketWatch
press release, and people do that. They do these press
(15:32):
releases so it looks like they're coverage, but they're really not.
So I'm not finding.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Any actual coverage.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
It's very sketchy.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
So when I visit the website, I feel like it's
a pop up, Like the.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Whole thing is just kind of bogus, like it's fly
by Night.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
It looks totally fake to me at least.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Well, okay, so I feel bad for these mini pods,
but look, there are a lot of different AirPod kind
of alternatives out there. So the ones that I looked
up and found some good reviews on that are decent
and they're very popular. So my advice, can you click
the link that I put in there, Megan. You see
these they're called Anchor Soundcore, Liberty Neo. These are thirty
(16:13):
three dollars. They have eleven thousand, four hundred and seventy
one ratings on Amazon four and a half stars. So
if you want a cheap pair of earbuds. I would
go at these for thirty three dollars that eleven thousand
people have rated versus these random whatever you're finding on there.
(16:33):
And now the thing is, and I know this is
what people like, people like the AirPods look, and these
don't have the AirPods look, So I know that's kind
of a problem. But we did do a story and
I can't remember what the name of the company was,
but we did this in tech Updates a couple days ago.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Yeah, a couple weeks ago. We did a story on
Urban Ears, which look a little bit like AirPods, but
they cost around seventy dollars. Is a great alternative, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
So the Urban Ears, and and I know that that
company actually has decent reviews for a lot of their stuff.
So Urban Ears they've got the Luma and the alb
alb y allb and they're gonna be ninety nine and
sixty nine, so that's pretty good. That's like half the
price of AirPods. And the difference between the two sets,
I remember is with the ninety nine dollars one, you
(17:24):
get the sensor and you get a longer battery life,
and the sensor means when you pull them out of
your ears, they will pause the music, so right, I
would maybe hold off for those if you can. I
believe they're coming sometime this summer, so you can go
on their website on Urban Ears and sign up for updates. Now,
we did do a review on a TCL smartphone this week.
(17:45):
TCL is the company known for the Roku TVs. Megan,
I believe you have one of those, right, yes, I do,
and you love it?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
I love it?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And now TCL they've made smartphones for a while. I
believe it was under the Alcatel brand name and maybe
even TCL phones, but these are like kind of their
first entree into like, hey, we're making smartphones that are
like pretty legit. And this is the TCL ten series.
They make three different phones. Two are available now, the
ten L and the ten Pro. I focused on the
(18:14):
ten L just because it has the two hundred and
fifty dollars price tag. The ten Pro for four to
fifty I'll be honest, I'd probably recommend a pixel at
that point or something similar. No, probably just a pixel.
So at two hundred and fifty dollars, I was very
skeptical of this phone, but I got to say, I
really enjoyed this device because it doesn't play games with you.
(18:37):
A lot of these cheap Android phones they're garbage, honestly,
and this is not garbage. It's got a nice display
six point five to three inches, it's got four cameras,
has an actual headphone jack on the top, which I
thought was really cool. And again they're playing to that
budget connoisseur that may not want to spring for Bluetooth headphones.
(19:00):
Have headphone jack, so you can plug in a headphone
jack without an adapter, and again playing to that budget connoisseur.
You can now tune in FM radio through this device
because they put in an FM radio app. I'm not talking. iHeartRadio,
I'm not talking, you know, one of these streaming apps.
This is radio that is taken through the airwaves and
sent through your headphones. And the reason why that's cool
(19:21):
is because that means you can listen to music or
talk radio without using your data plan. Then they have
a smart key on the side of this thing, which
is really cool. You can program that to do any
kind of functionality you want, whether it's your assistant or
three clicks to clear your memory. This has sixty four
gigs of storage, six gigabytes of RAM USB C. Which
(19:42):
is another thing that these budget devices do is they
give you the older micro USB, which is terrible and
it's not very good. See there's hardly any bloatwear on
this phone. The software is really good. They've got an
air drop kind of fileshare feature that lets you transfer
things back and forth between your computer. The camera is
I would say it's very good for the price. This
(20:03):
is not going to beat out the iPhone se it's
not going to beat out any sort of flagship pic
android phone. But for two hundred and fifty dollars, it
was just fine. In fact, I was sitting there taking
pictures going wow, oh oh, okay, that's actually pretty good.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
And so you're pleasantly surprised.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
I was pleasantly overall on this entire phone for two
hundred and fifty dollars. If you need just a phone,
this is not Megan. This is not for your sister,
who is you know, uh atok TikTok star. This is
not for her. It's not for your brother who's a
YouTube star. Why is the whole mcmonagall family, uh, some
sort of social media star. It's so funny, but you
(20:42):
rub it in me. You have the top tech podcast.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
Though that's true, Raise the room.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
They've probably never listened though.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Sadly, I mean, we all support each other in different ways.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
The TCL tenel is also sold unlocked, which I really like,
and I did confirm with TCL. It works on Verizon
AT and T and T Mobile, so all three carriers
is verified and it's on Amazon. So if you need
a phone, TCL ten L. If you just want a
basic Android phone, look no further than that device.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Okay. Our next question comes from Heidi Levine. Help my
daughter will be auditioning for musical theater called Programs in
the coming months. I've gone a sure microphone and mixer
connected via USBC to my MacBook. It took me a week,
but I figured out GarageBand. Now I need help connecting
my Cannon Revel T six to my Mac so that
(21:40):
the microphone and music come through the video taken on
my camera. I've googled my heart out and I can't
find the answers. Help me, Rich tamiro You're my only hope.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Oh wow, only hope. Well, here's what I'd say to Heidi.
Why is she making things so complicated? Yeah? She really is,
so I think that she's this is this sounds way
too complicated to me. Number one, unless these are live auditions,
which I don't think they are. It says they have
to be video submissions. So I'm thinking that she's recording
(22:13):
these things because she also talked about garage band, which,
by the way, I've been working, you know, for twenty
years in news and TV and audio, and I've never
used garage band because it's so complicated and I don't
like it. I edit this podcast in final cut because
it's so much easier, and I'm sure I'm not alone, Like,
you don't need to use garage band unless you are
(22:35):
of like trying to literally start a garage band, Like,
you don't need that. I think everything's way too complicated.
So you've got the microphone, you've got the mixer. So
what I would do if I was in your shoes, Heidi,
and I was helping my kid get into musical theater,
which awesome, I would just use the camera, the Rebel
(22:56):
T six on a tripod and yeah, and I would
just connect the microphone and mixer to the camera and
I would record everything. So you're basically recording the submission
on the camera, but the mic is coming through the
nice microphone. That would be what I would do. And
then you can take that video, import it into your
(23:19):
computer and just clip the you know, wherever you need
to clip the beginning and the end. You can do
that in quick time.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
And I'm getting there is a place on the rebel
where she can plug in her microphone, I would assume.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
So you probably you may need an adapter if it
doesn't have like a standard three point five millimeter input,
but most most cameras can do that, so I would.
But that's to me way easier and it just makes
life a lot simpler than trying to Why are you
trying to feed everything into your computer and sync it
up all at the same time when there's really no
need to. Now, if she's doing these things on Zoom,
(23:52):
that's a different case scenario, right, And yeah, it doesn't
seem like she's doing on Zoom because she said they
have to be video SUBMISSI and so, and I don't
think that these schools are auditioning everyone on Zoom like
a live It seems like you would make a tape
and send it. So that's what I would do, and
I'd even I'd even take it up a notch. I
(24:12):
would just use my iPhone And why even bother with
doing I.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Was going to say my cousin he's in college now,
but a year ago when he was sending in his
auditions and he's like an amazing singer. He was auditioning
for musical theater college programs and his dad just filmed
him on his phone. And then I think he sent
me the files because he needed to convert them from
like an MP four.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Oh yeah, I remember you using you doing that at work?
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, it was all day.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
I remember that. It was just like I was like, Megan,
can you please do this? And You're like, no, I'm
converting files. I'm like, well for what, Like, don't worry
about it. But I remember it was like long, eight
hours every day.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It's really important. But yeah, but yeah, his dad just
did it on an iPhone.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Yeah, And I think so, I think you're overthinking this.
I understand that you want your daughter to get into college,
but you have to understand that. Believe me, your daughter
is gonna shine through no matter what.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
You do.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Not need the best, highest case, highest quality setup. Look
at American Idol. I mean they did the entire show
by shipping the contestants a microphone. Now, they did do
a similar thing. They shipped them a microphone that plugged
into the iPhone and they recorded. They actually, I think
they shipped them two or three iPhones so they had
different angles, and then they just sinked it.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
You know.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
The editor synked it together. But you don't need to
do that. You don't have to. You just need your
daughter to this. Yeah, this is not American idol. This
is your daughter, which I have no doubt she's amazing,
but I think that her brilliance will shine through. And
that's what you need to do, is just concentrate on
making her comfortable and not making this too complicated, And
that would be my advice to you. This week, Google
(25:56):
and Apple came out with their exposure notification system. This
used to be called contact tracing, but the word tracing
and contact seems way too privacy woo for most people,
so they rename this because this system only works if
people actually use it and the so far only a
couple of states have used this. But let me just explinks,
(26:17):
I'm getting a lot of questions about this on my
Facebook page. People are so scared of this system and
there's really no reason to be scared of it. It's
not tracking your location. It's not going to tell everyone
in the world that you have coronavirus. It's not broadcasting
where you are to anyone. It's really the way they
design this program is actually very simple, and the way
(26:37):
they designed it is your phone is broadcasting a simple
code that changes every couple of minutes, no matter where
you are. When another phone gets close, it picks up
your code and it remembers it, and it doesn't remember
who you are, doesn't remember where you were. And when
someone in that system, let's say all those codes that
are paired up, and imagine all the codes paired up
(26:59):
means here's all the people that came into contact with
each other within six feet for a couple of minutes,
whatever it was. When someone in that registry says, bing,
I got coronavirus, it sends out a message to all
those phones saying, hey, it looks like you came into
contact with someone that has coronavirus. Doesn't tell you their name,
doesn't tell you where I don't know if it even
tells you when probably does, because within the last fourteen days.
(27:22):
That's it. Now you go get tested. If you figure out,
you know, do I need to self quarantine. It's not recording,
this data is not being kept, it's not being put
on public databases. So it's fine. And I know that
people are gonna be like, Rich, you're just drinking the
kool aid of these tech companies and you're just you know,
our privacy is at risk. It's not. The way I've
(27:44):
been on the phone calls with Apple and Google, and
the way they built this system is they made it
so that your privacy can't be at risk. And I
was reading an article from tech dirt dot com. They
say the case for contact tracing apps built on Apple
and Google's exposure notification system. This website is a very
smart website and they basically said, yeah, this is fine,
(28:06):
and they do a really good explanation with a system
involving raffle tickets instead of like the more complicated Bluetooth
beacons that they're using. And it's a great explanation. So
if you want to read it, read it. But I
imagine that people listening to this show are probably you know,
they're probably thinking it's fine anyway. But when the Apple
software came out, did you update your iPhone? Megan no.
(28:29):
So when the Apple software came out, it had this
contact thing in it, and people were like, what, it's
turned off by default. It is only turned on when
you download an app that takes advantage of it. Right now,
there's only three states in America that have them, which
is North Dakota and two others I can't remember and
South Dakota. Was it South Dakota, I feel like it was.
(28:51):
I feel like it was too but I felt like
that was too convenient, like the two Dakota's, And then
I think it was Alabama. California has not had you know,
they've not mentioned any plans for them, which you of
course know, Google and Apple want California because that's a
big get, right, that's their home stakes. And the other
place is the US. The US does not have a
(29:12):
nationwide use of this yet, they don't have an app.
So the other thing that came out, of course, to
go against everything I'm saying, is that North Dakota's app
has been sending data to four Square and Google. Now
this is from a privacy company called Jumbo Privacy. Their
whole business is getting you to be worried about privacy,
(29:34):
right because they can sell you stuff against privacy. I'm
not knocking them because I love the fact that we
have whistleblowers like this that look into the code and
see what's going on. And I would imagine that what
happened is North Dakota, whoever developed their app, was probably
using off the shelf stuff just popped in a bunch
of modules, and it included tracking for for Square and Google.
(29:54):
They probably didn't realize that they needed to take that
stuff out. That was my best guess, but I could
be wrong. Maybe the whole state of North Dakota is
trying to track everyone on four square and send that
to Google. I don't know, but I don't think so.
So anyway, I think that stuff is all safe. If
you want to look in your phone to see it,
you go into Settings General, you know, Settings Privacy, Health,
(30:16):
and then you'll see the COVID nineteen tracker. It should
be turned off by default because pretty much unless you
live in one of those states, there's no way to
turn it on without downloading one of these apps.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Well, will it work with Apple Watches?
Speaker 1 (30:29):
Oh, that's a good question. I don't know, and you'll
get the notification through your Apple Watch. But I think
if you're only wearing your Apple Watch unless they made it.
You know, maybe it will. You mean if you go
out for a run or something with only your Apple
Watch on. Yeah, it's a good question. I would assume
it would because that makes sense because a lot of
people do run with just their watch, so that would
(30:51):
be an important part of this, So I would hope
they do that.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, all right. Our next question comes from Chris Peak.
Good evening, Rich, Well, you know it's morning, but whatever,
do you have a recommendation for a blood pressure watch?
There are just a few companies out there with this capability.
Maybe you know of one in the making.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
I don't know if a lot of watches are doing this,
but I do know that I remember we talked about
this with during the Samsung event a while back, and
I believe that the back of their phones can do
blood pressure because I remember actually putting my finger on
the back of the phone and it was like a
stress test, but it was like they were using blood
(31:36):
pressure for that. So I know Samsung's working on it.
I dug up a press release from April twenty first,
twenty twenty which now they have a blood pressure application
for their Galaxy Watch devices. So I do remember at
the Samsung event last year, they announced that they were
going to do some stuff with blood pressure. It took
a while for this to happen. But the Samsung Galaxy
(31:58):
Watch Too, I believe, has this feature, But according to
this press release, it looks like you have to calibrate
it with a traditional cuff, so it's kind of confusing.
The Samsung Health Monitor app will be available on the
Galaxy Watch Active Too within the third quarter and will
(32:19):
progressively expand upcoming watches, so it looks like you can
actually from It's a little complicated because it looks like
you need to use a cuff. No, you know what,
it doesn't. This is very confusing. I think it's fine.
I think it says once you're okay, so you calibrate
(32:39):
it with a traditional cuff. So I think what you
have to do is have you ever been into like
Walgreens or CBS where they have like the blood pressure
cuff in there?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:47):
You know you always wonder as a kid, like what
is that? Who needs that?
Speaker 2 (32:50):
I would always do it when I was a kid.
I'd go and like check my blood pressure. I had
no idea what I was doing, but I wasn't allowed.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
To touch it, but I always wanted.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Well now with COVID, I mean clearly, so I think
you calibrate at one time, like you go in with
your watch to one of these places, calibrate it, and
then you can now do it from your wrist and
it's fine, or from your fingertip or from your whatever
however they do it. But anyway, so I would look
into Samsung. I would also look into a company called Whitvings.
(33:22):
They are the company that makes a lot of these
connected monitors, so if you want to use it with
something like your phone or your iPhone. I think Whvings
is the company that does all these things. And they
do have a watch steal HR, but I don't know
if it does blood pressure. Let's see learn more heart rate, activity, sleep,
(33:45):
battery life. Yeah, it doesn't say anything about blood pressure.
Uh yeah, it doesn't say anything about blood pressure. But anyway,
that's those are the companies I would look at. All right,
I got a couple of things going here. Oh and
I should probably say the Apple Watch I do not
believe has that feature. I don't. I actually know it doesn't,
but maybe the new one does, Maybe the one that
they're coming out with I know has ECG and you
(34:08):
know those features, but it doesn't with the Apple Watch.
Is lacking is sleep monitoring, and like you said, blood pressure. Okay,
so a couple of little things just to get you
on the same page, I'm gonna give three little things.
So number one, Hulu is updating its interface. I do
you have Hulu. Yes, It's the worst worst interface in
(34:29):
the world. It is so complicated.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So it's really plain and like confusing.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Very confusing and bulky like there's just like I and
I don't know if you use a Roku, so it's
probably a little bit easier to like navigate, but I
use an Apple TV with the swipe it kind of
like is a touchpad on the remote. And it's so
bad with Hulu because you're just swiping and you're moving
all over the screen. So Hulu knows it, they knew
it for a long time. They are finally improving it.
They're gonna do it more like what I call the
(34:56):
cross system, which is up and down, left and right,
and that's what Netflix uses. That's what pretty much every
streaming service uses at this point except for them, and
so Roku and tvOS. It is rolling out beginning today
and I don't have it just yet on my apples
or my Apple TV Hulu app, but it is coming
(35:17):
out any day now. So if you don't have it
just you're just on the list to be rolled out.
It's going to come soon to other devices. Google podcasts
a big app for their Google's app for iPhone. I
don't see a big use case scenario for this. We've
talked about this in the podcast. Why I think it
has potential because of the way Google searches the words
inside the podcast and can give you recommendations. But the
(35:40):
reality is it didn't have car play support until now.
Now it does, and if you open up car Play,
you have the Google Podcast app on iOS, you can
now play your podcast in the car. This I'm very
excited about. You can't believe how many people have emailed
me about how they can play poker with their friends
online during this whole quarantine, because a lot of people
(36:02):
get together and they play poker games on a Friday
night whatever Saturday night, and so I recommended one called
Poker in Place, and that was done by a developer.
This one looks really cool because it's actually even easier.
It's called Lee Poker l I poker easiest way to
play poker online. You can play games without having to
download or sign up for anything. You just share a
(36:24):
link to your friends. It works on desktop and mobile,
has in game video chat and messaging. Super easy, Megan,
no download, no sign up, one click link. This is
what I love about these new tech companies are finally
understanding the beauty of a one click link. When we
got on Google Meet for this meeting, I just sent
(36:44):
you a link and you clicked it and you're in.
It took one second. Now you were probably logged into Google,
so that helped. But I think also Zoom kind of
realized this. You make it easy for folks, they will
join on and the easier you make it with those
one links. Now Facebook does this with Facebook Messenger rooms.
(37:05):
Just one link, get people in there.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
I feel like, did Dropbox start that?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (37:11):
Okay, because I think that that's like the brilliance of dropboxes.
You can create a share link and then easily share
videos of people that they can downloade.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Exactly. You are so right, that is the They were
like the first to kind of popularize the here's the link.
You don't need to sign up, you don't need to
sign in. You don't need to do anything, just click
this link. It will bring you to where you need
to do it. And this is what people are realizing.
I looked at this quickly, this Lee poker. It looks
(37:41):
really cool. It's so funny because my friends played poker
last Friday night and I didn't join in because I
didn't feel like it. But it was The directions on
the email chain were absolutely insane because they were using
the PokerStars dot net, which is like a big company
and PokerStars dot net. What do they want you to do?
They want you to really play poker with real money
(38:02):
on their website, and yes they offer the ability for
you to do this with your friends, but they don't
really care about that. They're just trying to get you
to sign up, log in. So the question the sign
up process was so insane and just kept going and going,
and it was like, and I was sitting there, I
was like I didn't have the heart to tell them,
like you literally know you can do this with one
link and it's so much easier, but I don't want
to tell Max.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
You should have just hit reply all than like are
you kidding? With all these instructions?
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I don't want to be the know at all, so
I just sat down. Yeah, but yeah, of course, but
if I did this, if I set up a poker
night with my friends, I would do this and blow
everyone away because they'd be like, oh my god, that's
so easy. In fact, I made we have a lot
of plans this weekend, so I don't know, because we're
it's like Memorials popular. But so I think, like, like
(38:51):
Saturday night would be a good night to do this,
so I don't Yeah, maybe I'll try it out anyway.
Oh the website, by the way, I should probably give
you that because that's the thing you need to know.
Let me uh, let me see. It's l I Poker,
l I poker dot ioh l I poker dot I. Oh,
it is so easy. You and I can start playing
(39:11):
right now. That's how easy it is.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Except I don't know how to play.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
But yeah, you got to learn. You got to learn.
It's really it's fun. I mean, I don't want a stereotype,
but I mean, like Lindsay plays poker, and you know
most she hasn't played a long time, so actually no,
she doesn't really play nevermind, but she know I think
she knows.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
How to play, But do you recommend a way to learn,
Like is there besides just it's other people, Like they
just have.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
To go with other people. Just have your have a
friend that knows how to play. And I always joke
about this because I'm I'm good. I'm not good at poker,
but I know how to play. But and I'm also
not the guy that whenever you play poker with a
group of guys or gals or whoever, if it's mixed group, whatever,
whenever you play poker, there's always one person at the
table that I call the poker sort of king. They
(39:59):
know so not just how to play, but they know
how to do everything. So when you have a question
about the rules, they're the person you turn to. They're
the ones that are doing all the little bets and
like making sure you've got the blind and the big
blind and the small blind and taking them you know cars. No,
they don't do that, but they just know what's up.
They are the person, They're like the gatekeeper. Right, I'm
just sitting there like I have no idea. I'm just
(40:21):
turning over my cards, I'm folding. I'm like I have
no idea. They keep you going, you know, and they
count everyone out. It's just there's always mark my words.
If you play poker with friends, you know there's that person.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Okay. This next question comes from Eva Candelario. SOS, I repeat, SOS, help,
please help. We have run out of things to watch
on Netflix. I repeat, we have ran out of things
to watch on Netflix, and regular TV doesn't really offer
anything good these days. Please tell us how we can
(40:56):
unlock more options on Netflix.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Good question, Well, you can't just unlock new stuff. Yeah,
I think it's time for a new service. There's a
lot of stuff out there. I'm I'm over subscribed at
this point, but I don't know what to say. I mean,
it's but okay, So a couple things I would recommend.
It sounds like you need to like look at websites
that tell you what's what's on these services versus just
(41:21):
looking at what Netflix shows you on the home screen.
So a couple websites i'd recommend. First, one is my
current favorite, which is called Real Good R E E
L g oo D. I'm pretty much browsing this all
the time in my free time, trying to find like
the best stuff to watch for the kids, for myself,
for Lindsay Right now, I'm on an eighties movies kick.
So last night I was looking at all the eighties
(41:42):
movies that are available across my services. But what's cool
about Real Good is that they will help you find stuff,
even free stuff. There may be stuff on like two
B or what are all these other random like there's
so many random ones now Pluto, so they may They
will help you find stuff across fifty different services, and
(42:02):
you can add your services and you can look for
movies like so we just watched Big and then I
was trying to find similar movies too Big, and so
I went to Real Real Good and it will give
you the other movies. People also liked more female director movies,
more New York movies. I mean, how cool is that.
So you can just look through there and it's a
very well designed website. They also have an app, It's
(42:24):
the best. Now there's a new one that I don't
think is as good, but you should know about it,
and it's called Universe V You. It's a V and
then Universe Vuniverse. And what worries me about this website
is that their logo is kind of inspired by the
TV guide logo and anytime you're starting a startup and
(42:46):
your logo is kind of lifted from a different company,
I'm worried, like you're impersonating like another company's logo. But
they do have some smart people behind this. But yesterday
when I signed in, I did the same thing. I
put big into the engine and the movie didn't even
come up. So that was kind of a little red
flag there. So that with Arnie no Tom Hanks, Oh,
(43:12):
who's Arnie? Like Arnold Schwartz, you call him Arnie.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, you don't know, but I did.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
I actually have run into Arnold I think twice actually
at the beach, which is really funny. Yeah, I've seen
him a lot smaller in person than I thought. But
nice guy, very nice guy. He was very like friendly
and like just you know, very very I mean, look,
he's living the American dream. You know. He made it
big here in America and in many different ways. And yeah,
(43:45):
so anyway, okay, so those are the two websites that
I digress. Those are the two websites that I recommend
looking through. You can also look through the TV app
on your iPhone that'll give you some ideas of stuff
that's available. But Netflix is not included in there, so
I'd stick to these two anyway. Okay, finally, before we
go or be TV, this is a head scratcher. They
(44:07):
are starting a or maybe they already have it. I
don't know, it's already available, but it's a new satellite
TV company. How weird is that I could get satellite
TV installed at this point, I don't know, but they
are doing it, and their whole proposition is a value proposition.
Forty bucks a month and you get a bunch of
cable channels, but they also put an antenna on the
(44:30):
satellite dish that gives you your over the air channels,
which I like. I like that aspect of it. But
it's just weird to think that you would have to
have someone come to your house install a satellite dish
and now you need to use their proprietary box to
get your stuff. And I just feel like it's fine,
Like I get it, Like there's people out there, like
(44:51):
you know, less tech inclient that would want something that's
similar to cable but not as expensive or similar to satellite.
But I feel like you can get all the stuff
you need at point through a streaming service and you
don't have to have someone come to your house and
put this thing on your roof. Now I get it.
The whole local channels thing is kind of a problem sometimes,
but I think you'd be better served by just putting
(45:13):
your own antenna on the roof or in your house,
or get you're evenna pay someone, pay someone ninety nine
bucks to install it on your roof, and get something
like a Tableau or even a TVO that has the
recording built in or the locals built in.
Speaker 2 (45:26):
Do you have Tableau? I have tablee.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
Yeah, well I have two things. I have Tableau and
I also have the Amazon fireTV recast, but I dismantled
the recast in favor of Tableau because I switched to
Apple TV and that in Tableau. The reason why I
like Tableau is because it works with everything. It's kind
of platform agnostic, and so whether you have a firestick
or an Apple TV, it works just fine. And fire
(45:49):
is fine. The fire TV recast is fine if you
just have fire devices and that works really well. To DVR,
it's great. They'll both do the same thing. But to me,
like I would rather hack together my own little system
because then you have the freedom. Let's say you're not
happy with the channels that ORBTV offers for forty bucks
a month. Well, you can't just download an app and
(46:11):
now get YouTube TV because it's like their own weird platform.
So if you had a Fire TV stick, you could
just download YouTube TV. Oh I don't like YouTube TV. Okay,
well let's go to Hulu Live TV. I don't like that.
Let's go to Fubo. Oh I don't like that. Let's
go to Sling. Oh I don't like that. Let's I mean,
there's so many options. When you have your own the box.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
You should what's that Maybe you should just read a book.
Yeah like that.
Speaker 1 (46:36):
If you don't like any of this stuff, yeah, just
do that anyway. Well, so that's what I would recommend.
And also, by the way, when you go with these
third party apps, like our third party services, like what
I'm talking about here, this ORBTV, don't forget that you
these apps are not updated as much as say, like
(46:56):
if I'm creating and we've talked about this on the
podcast before, if I'm creating an app, I'm gonna update
my Roku app, I'm gonna update my Amazon fireTV app,
and I'm gonna update my Apple TV app. Then I'm
gonna worry about the rest of the stuff. Well, can
you believe it? That's going to do it for this
episode of the show. If you'd like to submit a
question for me to answer, just go to rich on
Tech dot tv and hit the email button at the
(47:16):
bottom of the page. Also, we would love it if
you would rate and review this podcast to help other
people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot
com slash rich on Tech and Will Michael just left
a review five stars. Megan timely tech and tips explained
researched well wow, great tech info. He writes tips questions
(47:37):
answered in an understandable way. Rich clearly has high tech credentials,
but he doesn't show off his knowledge, but makes it
his goal to be the conduit of his insights to
the rest of us. Wow. He also doesn't assume the
listener has unlimited funds and seeks to identify good deals
that the average person can afford, kind of like that
TCL phone we were talking about. Show is also entertaining
(47:58):
in great chemistry and good humor between Rich and producer Meghan. Oh,
thank you, Will, We appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
That's so nice.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Producer Megan, where can folks find you on social media.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
I am at producer Megan on Twitter and you got.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
To check out producer Megan's story. Go to KTLA dot
com slash chech and look up the wine story. You
guys tasted three different wine boxes. So did anyone get
slashed that day?
Speaker 2 (48:24):
Or what? You know? My parents they I mean, they drink,
but they don't they don't really get slashed. No one
got slashed. It was just kind of it was, you know,
it was a nice little drinking experience with it looked like.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
You did it during the day though it was like
five okay, was right on the you're like five PM time.
It's funny because after watching the story, I'm going to
order my mom the the wine box one, the ones
that come in the files. I think that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
It's they were so cool, great for someone that Yeah,
and I does your mom know a lot about wine? No?
Speaker 1 (49:04):
Nothing, And like she also doesn't really drink, so it's
kind of fun to like she can just like have
like a glass like for the Zoom happy hours or whatever,
you know what I mean. Like, yeah, it's just kind
of fun. It's like the wine box one is served
in like these vials that have a glass and a
half each and it's just cool. The whole presentation of
that one is really really cool.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
So yeah, wine box is a great gift that you
could give someone.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Watch Megan's story. Go to KTLA dot com slash tech
and check out the wine story and that you can
see her and her fam tasting the wines. You can
find me at rich on Tech on social media. My
name is rich dedmiro On. Behalf of everyone that gets
this show to your ears. Thanks so much for listening.
We'll talk to you real soon. Bye bye,
Host
Rich DeMuro
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