NFT's explained

Instagram might bring back the chronological feed, Life360 selling user location data, Android 911 calling bug, CES 2022 "momentum," NFT's explained, Google's top Chrome extensions of 2021, Apple's top Apps of 2021.Followers ask if switching to iPhone is easy from a Samsung, which is the best Android phone, how to block emails from a domain, if a "superbox" is worth buying and how to add CarPlay to a car that doesn't have it.LinksFollow Rich on InstagramFollow Rich on TwitterInstagram chronological feedLife360 dataAndroid 911 bugCES momentumNFT salesTop Apple AppsTop Chrome ExtensionsMove to iOS AppAdding CarPlaySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Instagram might be bringing back chronological order Life three sixty
apparently selling user location data. Big time people are spending
how much on NFTs plus your tech questions answered? What's
going on? I'm Rich Tomiro and this is Rich on Tech,
the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I
think you should know about. It's also the place where

(00:33):
I answer the questions you sent me. I'm the tech
reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. There's a
little bit of hesitation there, as if I didn't know,
as if I hadn't been doing that for eleven years.
Now eleven years. Isn't that wild to be at one
place for eleven years? I mean I never really considered that.

(00:57):
I mean, it's just time fly, it really does. I
mean I've had two kids since I've been working there,
you know, bought a house, different cars. I mean, a
lot has changed, but not me. I mean, well, I
guess I have. But I feel like I'm the same person.
But I'm not. I mean, I know I'm not, that's
for sure. I Mean a lot changes in ten years,

(01:19):
but I've got to say, overall, it's been really fun
and gosh, now I sound like I'm stopping this I'm
just introing this show. I don't know why did I
get on that tangent. Anyway, So the holidays are in
full swing. I'm sure you've decorated at this point. Perhaps
I know I did, and I'm kind of one of

(01:41):
these people that I love once the decorations are up,
and I don't mind decorating. It's just the idea of
decorating that really really kind of scares me. It's like, okay,
it just gives me a little bit of anxiety, Like, Okay,
I've got to go out into the garage. I've got
to find all this stuff. I've got to organize it.
I've got to clip it up. You know. The lights
I never really understand, Like every year I think I

(02:03):
throw out my lights, saying oh, I'm gonna get new
lights next year or new deck. I'm gonna throw out
this decoration and get a new one next year. And
then the next year I'm like, now where's that decoration?
And my wife is like, well, you threw it out.
Remember of course, you know when the next year comes by,
and it always comes by so fast, says remember, you're
gonna buy all the new lights in July. Well that
didn't happen. But once everything is decorated, I really do

(02:26):
enjoy it. And this year especially, I really like having
alex A controlling my lights. I've got all the outdoor
lights coming on at a certain time. I've got the
inside lights coming on. The only thing I really wish
I could do because when I come home, I say
alex A, Merry Christmas, and that flips on the lights.
I just wish I could have all my music come
on at the same time. And I know there's a

(02:47):
way to do it, but I can't seem to figure
out how to do it with my sonos. I can
do it with like the Amazon speakers, but not my sons,
and I think I could do it with like one sons.
But anyway, you know, little things. But my dad is
also in town, which has been really fun. And it's
funny because I asked my dad when he was you know,
when he's here, and I'm like, Dad, did you like
decorating for the holidays when we were kids? And I

(03:10):
fully expected him to be like, oh no, I just
did that for you guys, but he was like, oh no,
I loved it. It was the greatest. I always look
forward to that and I was like, oh, man, so
I guess, I guess. I just I don't have the
spirit as much. I don't know, but I do. I mean,
last night we watched one of those Hallmark movies, you know,
those cheesy movies, and it was it was fine. The

(03:30):
movie wasn't the best one, but you know, it's fun
to sit there with your tea and you know, we
have these little I don't know why, we like these
special little cookies. The are the uh oh, what are they?
The what's that brand? Pepperidge Farms. They're called Chessman cookies
and they're just simple, like little I don't even they're
not even sugar sugar cookies. They're just like cookies that
are so simple, but they're so fun with like tea

(03:52):
and watching your movie and you know, so we did
that and it was nice and it's just like that
cozy feeling you have right like once a year, like
let all the the issues and troubles in the world
drift away for like two hours while you watch this
show and it's just anyway, it was nice when all
the lights are on you're just sitting there and anyway, So,

(04:12):
by the way, Dad's in town, Like I mentioned, and
it's so funny the impact that I guess television and
movies have on a tourist when they come to Los
Angeles because and YouTube, by the way, So I mean,
my dad knew about everything in Los Angeles and wanted
to do it all. And I'm like, really, so they
want like Universal Studios, Paramount Studios, a tour of Dodger Stadium.

(04:36):
They knew places in the valley, they knew places at
the beach, and I'm like, how do you know all
these places? They knew Sunset Boulevard, some little like real
estate place that we passed on Sunset Bulevard, Like that's
selling Sunset I'm like what, and they just it's so
I see why the tourist industry in Los Angeles is flourishing.
It's because Los Angeles is plastered across every movie and

(04:57):
TV show and YouTube video around the world, and so
when people come here, they just want to see it all.
All right, let's get to the first story of the show.
Instagram might be bringing back a chronological feed. This might
be happening in twenty twenty two. So I'm not sure
if you saw, but Instagram head Adam Mosei was he

(05:18):
was speaking before Congress. I guess speaking is a nice
way to put it, or this was the Senate rather
and I guess being grilled is a nicer way of
putting it, and or the real way of putting it. So,
you know, Instagram has come under fire, like Facebook and
like other social media for really having an effect on teens' lives,
not only the behavior, but also their habits and just

(05:42):
you know, they're also doing dumb things because of it.
Not so much Instagram, but I feel like TikTok is
really an up and coming kind of source of interestingness.
Let's put it that way with these TikTok challenges. But anyway,
it's funny because the way I see the laws and
kind of things happening, like right now, we're so fixated
on Instagram and Facebook, but the reality is TikTok is

(06:05):
having a very big impact in these young people's lives,
maybe even more so than Instagram, especially more than Facebook.
I mean, Facebook is now I hate to say this,
but it's for the olds, you know, It's for the
older generation who have stuck with it or found it
later than the younger generation. The younger generation moved on

(06:25):
to Instagram, and then the older generation found that and
now the younger generation has moved on to TikTok, and
that's just the way it is. I mean, there's always
going to be that element of the youngest people finding
the newest ways of doing things. That's kind of been
like that forever. But anyway, so Instagram, you know, the

(06:46):
whole thing about the hearing is just basically, do we
need regulation for these apps? And Instagram, of course and
Facebook want to have self regulation, kind of like the
Motion Picture Association. You know, they rate movies themselves. Nobody
there's no governing body from the government that rates movies.
It's the industry association. And that's sort of the model
that Instagram and Facebook want, whereas the government says, I

(07:09):
think we need something that's more from the government. And
of course that's debatable, I mean, depending on how you
feel about this stuff. But the reality is that is happening.
It's actively happening. But during this Senate hearing, the head
of Instagram, Adam Moseerri, who's not one of the guys
who founded Instagram. The founders of Instagram left a long
time ago. They were pretty unhappy with how Instagram was

(07:31):
being changed. It started as just a place to share
beautiful pictures, and as you know, it's become kind of
a mini clone of Facebook and so anyway, but one
of the big changes over the years is this chronological feed.
When you used to have Instagram, when you logged in,
you would see pictures in the order of your friends
posted them from the oldest to or I guess the

(07:54):
newest to the oldest, and you know that went away
for an algorithm. An algorithm decides based on how likely
you are to interact with something, and because of course
these apps want you to stay on there as long
as humanly possible, they put stuff in front of you
that they think you will interact with. And you know,
a lot of people cry about that. They don't want
they want the chronological feedback. And now it looks like

(08:15):
Instagram is going to give people that option. It looks
like it's gonna be an option to see posts from
people you follow in a chronological order, and a favorites
feed from a posts that you designate from friends. Those
will be higher in the feed. And all of this
will be optional, of course, you know, and they won't
make it. They'll probably make it easy to switch, but

(08:36):
they won't make it apparent to switch. You know, they'll
they because they want the algorithm. That's really of course,
they want the algorithm because that makes them the most
money and it keeps you on there the longest, which
I guess makes them the most money. The other thing,
and I don't know, maybe I was on the test
of this, but they are doing suggested posts from accounts
you don't follow. I've been seeing this for a while

(08:56):
and I feel like I actually haven't seen it in
a little bit, but it was definitely there for a
couple of weeks and I was like, what are all
these posts from people that don't follow? Some were cool,
some were not. I might have found one or two
people that I've do I do follow, but again, it's
trying to be more of a place of discovery. If
you look at TikTok, you don't have to follow anyone
to use that service, and you can just swipe through

(09:19):
and swipe through. And that's how reels works on Instagram,
and that's how they want the main feed to work
as well. So lots of changes come into Instagram in
twenty twenty two, We'll see what happens with the time
limits and all that stuff. They said they're going to
give parents away to do time limits for their kids,
which I think is very very smart. All right, first
question comes from Lauren. I have a Samsung S eight

(09:40):
phone with the three G going away. I need a
new phone. I'm looking to switch to an iPhone since
most of my other devices are Apple. Will my data
transfer to the iPhone? Thirteen? Thank you, Lauren. Yes, all
of your information will transfer to the iPhone. It's actually
pretty amazing. There is an app called Move to iOS,

(10:04):
which is from Apple. But have they updated this in
a while. I feel like they haven't let me see,
and I'm not even sure you need it. Oh yeah,
they did November nine, twenty twenty one, so you know
you can do that. But I think yeah, Move to
iOS is Let's see. Everything about iOS is designed to
be easy. This includes switching. With just a few steps.

(10:26):
You can migrate your content automatically and securely from your
Android with the Move to iOS. No need to save yourself,
your stelf, your stuff anywhere before switching to Android. It
will transfer your contacts, your message history, camera photos and videos,
your bookmarks, your mail accounts, and your calendars. So yeah, Basically,
it says that your iPhone creates a private Wi Fi network,

(10:48):
it finds your Android device running Move to iOS and
it transfers all of your stuff, so pretty simple, and honestly,
all of the phone manufacturers have made it very easy
to swap between devices, whether it's Samsung to iPhone, iPhone
to Samsung Android. You know at large like one Plus,
also Google Pixel, they've all made it pretty easy to

(11:12):
kind of sucking suction up all your data from another phone,
and sometimes with the iPhone to iPhone it's very very easy.
And you know, with these other cross carriers it's actually
pretty easy as well, or cross manufacturers, So yes, Lauren,
will be very easy. Download the move to iOS app
on your Samsung and then have your iPhone nearby. The

(11:32):
main thing you don't want to do is get rid
of your Samsung before you have your new phone, and
that's in general with any phone that you get. The
best way to do it is to have your old
phone physically there. That way you don't have to back
up everything to the cloud. It will pretty much directly
transfer things from your phone to phone, which is much
faster than going up to the cloud and then back

(11:55):
down to the new phone. Speaking of apps, this is
a popular app app called Life three sixty. A lot
of people rely on this app as a family safety app.
It can show you where your family members are on
a map. I've recommended it many times. It also can
help in a car crash situation. There's just a lot
of family safety features built in, so a lot of

(12:16):
people rely on this. They've got like over thirty million users,
a lot of them kids and parents. But this website,
the Markup has a big kind of an expose on them,
saying that they are one of the biggest data brokers,
or they're not a data broker, but they're one of
the biggest data sources in the world. And this is

(12:37):
from two former employees who say they you know, they
worked at Location data brokers and the Life three sixty
people were one of the biggest sources of data for them.
Now let me explain how this works. So number one,
they are not doing anything that's personally identifiable. So yes,
they're sharing location of all their users and where they are.

(12:58):
And this can be very valuable because think about it,
if they've got thirty three million users, they can tell
which restaurants are hot, they can tell where people are going,
they can see trends there's a lot of information that
can be gleamed just from location data. And again it's
these Life three sixty is not necessarily selling that trend data.

(13:18):
They're just selling the raw data to a data broker
who then sells it to marketers. So it's kind of
a one to two process to get this into someone
else's hands. And so you know, Life three sixty has
said that they actually emailed a response from the CEO
to the markup saying that we see data as an
important part of our business model that allows us to

(13:38):
keep the core Life three sixty services for free for
a majority of users. And that's probably true. I mean,
there's this old adage in the tech world that you know,
if you're not paying for something, you are the product,
you know, especially if it involves data. And we've seen
that with Google, We've seen that with Twitter, We've seen
that with Instagram, We've seen that with Facebook. I mean,

(14:00):
these are giant platforms YouTube that we rely on for information,
data services, and they're all pretty much free. Yeah, there
might be some paid level to them, but the basics
are free. And so they're free because they are either
selling us ads or they are gathering our information and

(14:20):
using that to sell us ads, or they're selling that location,
or they're doing a combination of both. So Life through
sixty I don't think you necessarily need to stop using it,
but it probably would have been nicer if it was
a little bit clearer that they were using data in
this way. Now, if you dive into their terms and
conditions the privacy policy, it does say that they use

(14:42):
the user data that it sells. It does say it
sells the user data, and it also may share your
information with third parties in a form that does not
reasonably identify you directly. And so they're saying it in
the privacy policy. But who reads that, no one? But
I think the big takeaway here is you just have
to realize that your information is being taken in many,

(15:03):
many different ways, take advantage of the ways to fight back,
and that the main thing is that when you are
downloading an app on your phone, there are a couple
questions that asks you when it comes to user location.
Number one, it will ask you if you want to
give precise location or a general location. So always always

(15:24):
always go with general location, unless it's an app that
requires specific location, and that would be an app like
Life three sixty, which is why their business is so brilliant.
People don't want to see that their kids are in town.
They want to see that their kids are in their
specific school. And so if you did precise location, you
would see their school. If you said, oh, I'm only
going to give you the general location, yeah, that would

(15:45):
not be very helpful with an app like this. Now
with an app like uh Uber, yeah you got to
give specific location. But there's another way you can do
it too, is say only while using app. So ninety
nine percent of the time these apps want to trick
you into giving your data up twenty four to seven
so they can always just siphon this off and sell it.
But again, you got to fight back with some of

(16:06):
these things. Don't give more permissions than they need, and
don't give them those permissions for a longer time than
they require, and really think about it with apps, do
they need your precise location? No? If they don't, then
just give them your general location. If you can give
them one time access to your location, that's even better,
so that when that app closes out, that's it. They

(16:27):
don't have access to your location anymore, and they're going
to nag you the next time. That you open up
that app. But that's fine. Next time you need to
use an app, you can just say okay, like a
you know, even something as simple as a weather app,
you can say, yeah, just one time use like I
just want to check the weather right now, close it out.
It doesn't do anything in the background. Next time you
open up that app, you can give it the information
again or location access again. So just you know, these

(16:49):
little things, these little menus that you kind of go
past really quickly on your phone, just take a second
to read them, because there is some important stuff, important
choices inside these menus or inside these I guess they're
what would you call them, like a pop up box,
Like you know, when you're first setting up the app,
that's when you see it. Okay, Lama Locks says, what's

(17:13):
the best Android cell phone? Uh? I would say the
best Android cell phone is the Pixel six. Pixel six
is going to be your best phone of the year.
There are many Android phones out there. I absolutely love
the Pixel six. Now I've been using the Pixel six Pro,

(17:35):
so I actually don't really have hands on time with
a Pixel six, But I'm just saying Pixel six because
it's three let's see six eight hundred. I think it's
two to three hundred dollars cheaper. How much is it?
Let me say so. The let's see, the Pixel six
is six hundred. The Pixel six Pro is I thought

(17:56):
it was eight ninety nine. Hold on, hold on, I
gotta see something here. I'm right. I actually just did
my review of the Pixel six Pro, and yep, I've
got to I've got to change that. I don't know
why I said eight hundred dollars. It's it's actually nine
hundred dollars. I gotta I gotta redo that. But yeah,
nine hundred dollars uh for the Pixel six Pro, six

(18:18):
hundred for the Pixel six. So great, great value there
for either one of them. But I think that the
Pixel six is probably gonna be best for most people. It's
got a great camera, it's got great software, it's got
good processor, it's got that tensor, it's got a great
voice to text. The main thing you don't get with

(18:38):
the Pixel six versus the Pro is the telephoto lens
and a little bit less ram, which means your phone's
gonna be a little bit slower than the other one,
than the higher end. But I think for that three
hundred dollars you're you're doing just fine, and plus you
get the nice Google software and it's just a great
all around phone. I can't I can't speak highly enough

(19:00):
of it, and it's really challenged me with the iPhone
because I love the iPhone, but this, this Android Pixel
six Pro, it's one of those phones like I can't
really put down. I really really like it. I'll have
my full review soon on TV. But I've just, yeah,
really fall in love with this thing. The funny thing is,
you know, Pixel is supposed to have a monthly update

(19:20):
on the first Monday of every month, and so I've
been waiting for that for the Pixel six Pro because
there are some little things that I wish were fixed,
like the fingerprint reader is really slow. But it's funny
because the one time that I've been waiting for an update,
of course they don't do the update on the schedule,
and they said, oh, we're going to do that update

(19:41):
in the middle of the month, and so I've been
waiting for that update and it's still not here. But
I did my review anyway, and it's still a fantastic phone.
The only the only main thing, the only main issues
I have is that the phones are big and the
fingerprint reader is really slow, but otherwise I think it
is excellent. Uh okay, Oh, speaking of Android, if you

(20:03):
have one, you need to know about this. Google is
confirming an Android bug that prevents people from dialing nine
to one one. So here's what you need to know. So,
there was a Reddit user that tried to dial nine
one one for his grandmother and his Android Pixel three
got stuck it like wouldn't dial it. Now, that is

(20:25):
a horrible, horrible scenario. Can you imagine not being able
to dial nine one? And I've thought about this because
I test a lot of phones, and you know, sometimes
I've been out and about with like a test phone.
I'm like, oh my gosh, do I have a you know,
working simcard in this? Like will this let me dial
nine one? Like, I've thought about this, and it's a
bad scenario to be in if you need help. So

(20:46):
this redditor said that it was a Pixel three running
Android eleven on Verizon tried to dial nine one one.
And it turns out the problem here is Microsoft Teams.
So if Microsoft Teams is installed on the phone but
specifically not logged in, so there could be a various
scenarios where you install the app. Maybe it was a
restore whatever, you just never got around to logging in.

(21:09):
That is somehow interacting with Android eleven and not letting
you dial nine one one. So Google did look into
this situation because it's got a lot of play on Reddit,
and they said, oh, yeah, we did. This is true,
and so here's what you need to do. They are
going to fix it, right, there's gonna be a permanent fix,
but they in the meantime, they said, if you want,

(21:32):
if you're using Android ten or newer devices and you
have Microsoft Teams installed, sign out or sorry, uninstall it
and then reinstall the app. Or you can just uninstall
the app. So what I would do personally, if I
don't use Microsoft Teams on my phone, like maybe I
needed it during the pandemic, I don't need it any
more on my mobile, I would just uninstall it and
then restart my phone. The other thing you can do

(21:53):
is uninstall it, reinstall it, and then make sure you're
logged in. And the problem with nine one one is
you can't really do a test call. You know, It's
not like you're gonna sit there and dial nine one
one and say, oh, oh okay, just making sure everything's
working here. Man, I to dial nine one one? Was it?
It was a it was a couple of years ago,
and it's it's scary when you have to dial nine one.

(22:15):
I mean it's but I gotta say that the help
arrived fast. I was impressed with that and it wow,
but my gosh, that was a yeah. Not not something
you want to do all the time. So anyway, those
people that answer those calls are are well trained. We
went to a facility where they answer those calls, and

(22:35):
those people are trained well and they're they're very very calm,
and they're doing they're doing good work. Anyway. So if
you have Microsoft Teams and you're not signed in on Android,
uninstall the app, reinstall it, or just leave it uninstalled
and uh and wait for this permanent fix. All right.

(22:56):
Next question is from Lance. Hey, Rich, my inbox is full.
I have one hundred plus emails from br dot com.
Can I block all emails coming from Brazil on iOS
and Mac? Thanks? Lance? Yeah, you should be able to
do that. So what you want to do is set
up a filter. And I tested this with Gmail. Gmail

(23:19):
filters are pretty easy. Just type into the search box now,
I didn't see what kind of email you have, but
pretty much you should be able to do this with
any email provider. So you're saying on iOS and Mac,
what I would do is go to your web your
webmail interface for whatever provider you have, and make a
filter for br dot com and just filter all those

(23:42):
into the trash and or block them whatever you want
to do. Or you can just maybe block one or
two or three of these and it might train your
inbox to block them all, but that's the way to
do it. Just go to your webmail interface and set
up a filter or block the domain br dot com.
The other thing is that these things typically come in waves,

(24:04):
So if you avoid this for a bit and just
deal with it. I mean, it says you have one
hundred of these. I don't know why they all came in,
but you can just ignore it or block them or whatever,
delete them and hopefully they should go away. Like right now,
clearly someone got my cell phone number and I'm getting
all kinds of text messages, all kinds of spam text

(24:26):
right now, and it's a lot. But I know that
they will go away eventually, because they come and go
in waves, just like the robo calls do. It's like
these marketers or these spammers get a hold of like
a new list. They're like, yes, new list of victims. Okay,
let's text them all. Let's text them all for a week,
Let's text them all about CBD and all this other stuff.

(24:47):
And oh no one's responding, Oh okay, well okay, let's
find a new list. And so that's the way I
see it happening. And I just kind of, you know,
I don't take dressed. I don't even block this stuff
on my phone because it's like it's just going to
go away. And right now I'm getting a lot of
phone calls from my own phone number, like the you
know where it spoofs the numbers around you, and those

(25:08):
are happening, and so now I've just stopped answering them.
And the more you answer them, the more they're gonna
do it. So just just ignore this stuff. That's probably
the best way to do it. But if you need
to set up that filter, lance, definitely go into your
webmail interface, set it up, filter it to the trash,
and hopefully that should take care of some of it.
CES twenty twenty two, happening in Las Vegas in just

(25:29):
a few short weeks. Wow, I mean, I just can't believe.
It feels like yesterday, yesterday that I was flying up
to Seattle to host the virtual show that they did
last year, or I guess this year at the beginning
of the year in twenty twenty one. So I'm not
doing the virtual show this year. I'm just attending as
a regular attendee, and yeah, I'm going. I mean, I

(25:50):
got my booster shot a couple days ago, so you know,
I'm all boosted up and ready to go. So you know,
January fifth through eighth is what when this thing is
happening They've got Now here's the thing. The reason I
tell you all this is because CS put out a
press release with the headline strong Momentum continues for CS
twenty twenty two in Las Vegas. So the fact that

(26:12):
they have to put out this press release tells me
a lot. Yes, there's been a lot of debate over people,
journalists and exhibitors whether they're going. And from what I've seen,
you know, a lot of people are excited to go,
a lot of people are not excited or not going,
And so I think at this point it is a
toss up what this show is going to be like

(26:34):
and I'm curious. I mean, I'm right here and it's
easy for me to get there, and like I said,
I'm boosted up, I'm ready to go. I'm going to
cover it, and I'm more curious just to see what
the deal is. Now, I haven't missed a CS and
like it's probably going on twelve or thirteen or fourteen
years at this point, maybe thir I don't know, it's
been a long time, and so I'm not going to

(26:56):
miss this one. And this let's see what do they say.
They've I've got new categories including food, tech, space tech,
and NFTs. The automotive sector is tracking for record growth
with over two hundred exhibitors, which is thirty percent more
over twenty twenty. Wow. And they also said they have
let's see, twenty four hundred members of the media are

(27:18):
registered to attend, as well as ten thousand additional ten
thousand attendees. So they haven't said how many attendees now.
Usually CS says they have over one one hundred and
fifty thousand. I doubt they're going to have that this year,
just with everything going on. I mean, there's no look
if you're not comfortable going, or you can't go, or

(27:38):
you're still just uncertain. That's totally fine. I mean there's
no it's not like you have to go because the
things are not back to normal in a big way,
especially where I live in Los Angeles. I mean, we
still have mask mandates here. CS happening January fifth, twenty
twenty two. I will be there. I am so curious
to see what it's going to be like. It's you know,

(27:59):
it's I don't know, it's so weird because it's like
we went from nothing to you know, a little bit,
to now this is just like a big old show
and so we'll see. Anyway. I not much more to
say about that, but I just want to get that
in there. But they have to put that that. They
have to put that press release out because there is
so much uncertainty around this year's show. All right, Michelle says, Hey, Rich,

(28:25):
quick question, do you know anything about the Superbox S
three Pro? I was wondering if they're worth purchasing? Thank you, Michelle. Well,
I have never heard of the Superbox S three Pro,
but when I get emails like this, I know exactly
what people are talking about. And Michelle is talking about

(28:47):
one of these so called black boxes that helps you
get it all. You can watch pay per view, you
can watch thousands of streaming videos, you can watch every
movie from every studio, and it's all for free, free, free, free.
And guess what, No, I cannot recommend this. It's not

(29:09):
worth purchasing. No, these things are totally operating in a
gray to illegal area. And if not scam, total scam.
Why why deal with all that? No? Uh, if you
finally get to sit down in front of this thing
and watch something, it's gonna be from a torrent. The
video quality is probably gonna be horrible. It's gonna be

(29:31):
stuff that's ripped off of a movie screen so or
a Blu ray or downloaded somehow. So just no, just
go the legit route. Get a fire TV stick, the
fire TV four K Max, and sign up for legit
streaming services. And that's the way I recommend going. Why
I never understood this when the whole kind of bit
torrent thing was happening, And I know there's a lot

(29:52):
of people that do this stuff, even with the MP
three's I you know, maybe it's because I work in
sort of the creator world as a journalist, where where
you know, like I do a lot of hard work,
and you know, now most of the stuff that I
do is free, which is nice, so people can just
watch it. But you know, these people work hard in
these movies, and I get it. Ticket prices are so expensive,

(30:13):
but like, don't you want to see it in like
the best possible quality? Like do you really want to
watch some like ripped version of a movie? Like I don't.
And so you know, for me, like, yeah, I pay
for these streaming services. They're of course they're expensive, and
they're getting more expensive. But at the same time, you know,
it's kind of like I don't mind it because I'm
getting quality stuff and you know, and of course I'm

(30:35):
doing the right thing. But these boxes, they're just you know,
one little change and the whole box could be could
put you know, it might not work anymore because someone
might you know, make some sort of change that makes
it so it doesn't work. I mean, there's not gonna
be any tech support for these things. If it doesn't work,
you just spend one hundred and fifty bucks where ever
these things go for, and it it's like, what are
you going to do? Get a refund from some random

(30:56):
third party? Website that sold you this thing, Like, no,
you're gonna be totally out of luck. So I don't
like these things. I don't want you to buy one,
nor do I think you should, and just go through
the legitimate means of acquiring these videos and movies and
shows and streaming services. And I think that that's the
best way to do it. So I know I'm a

(31:18):
goodie two shoes. What can I say? You've probably heard
of NFTs. These are non fungible tokens. And there's some
new data out of a website called chain Analysis, and
they said that folks have spent in twenty twenty one
almost twenty seven billion dollars worth of cryptocurrency, So twenty

(31:45):
seven billion dollars in twenty twenty one on NFTs. What
is an NFT? An NFT is basically a digital collectible.
This can be an image, it can be a video,
it can be audio. In some cases, it can be
a physical object that's tied to a virtual object or
a digital object. These are built on the blockchain Ethereum

(32:08):
blockchain to be specific, and usually they're purchased with cryptocurrency. Now,
what is the blockchain? What does this all mean? Rich?
What the heck is going on with this stuff? How
are people spending thirty billion dollars in something I don't
even understand? Well, people spend a lot of money and
things I don't understand, Like, you know, I guess I
would understand a giant yacht. But let me just get
through the rest of these things and I'll explain what

(32:29):
I think this all is about. The most popular place
to buy them is open c that's Open Sea. Oh look,
I just talked about yachts sixteen billion dollars worth in
twenty twenty one. Some of the most popular collections are
crypto punks. This was established in twenty seventeen, most popular

(32:49):
NFT collection during the time period, with more than three
billion dollars in transactions. All right, so what are NFTs?
NFTs are, Like I said, it's almost the equivalent of
and this is dumbing it down very simply. It's kind
of like a digital beanie baby. Right. So people love
to collect stuff, They love originals, and the reality is
we live in a world where everything is turning digital,

(33:11):
and so how do you create the next thing that
is an item people want to collect that's digital. Well,
that's NFT, it's artwork. It's audio, it's video. Someone sent
me their NFT. I guess they got of their ticket
to a RAMS game. So if you buy a ticket,

(33:32):
you go in, they give you an NFT of your ticket,
which is kind of cool. Now do I want to
pay that person for that NFT. No, But in thirty
years might that be valuable if that game, if something
amazing happened during it, and I want a piece of that. Yeah. Sure.
So the reality is these are items that are you know,

(33:53):
they're valuable in the eye of the beholder and someone
else who might want to purchase this from the beholder,
just like or the holder anyone else or any other
thing we've seen in the world that is valuable. It's scarcity,
it's uniqueness. And yes, if you have a digital NFT
that is an image, someone else could could make a

(34:15):
copy or you could give a copy of that to someone,
but you are the rights holder. You are the original
person that has that. And I know with digital stuff,
it's a little weird because you're like, well, it's digital,
it's the same thing, right, Well not really, because if
someone were to profit off of that, you can say, hey,
I'm the rights holder here, Like you can't just go
ahead and sell copies of this. I can, or maybe
you can, depending on how the NFT is set up.

(34:37):
But if you want to give an example for that,
So there's only one Mona Lisa in the world, right,
and I'm sure this example has been given before, But
there's only one Mona Lisa, but there's plenty of copies
of it hanging around places in the world. Same thing,
with a lot of different stuff. Now here's an example.
If someone gives me the excuse, rich, I'm not paying

(34:59):
all that money for something that's digital only you're out
of your mind thinking that I would ever do that.
Let me give you my example there. So my best
example is let's say you've got a child, a family member,
you know, grandparent, whatever. There is just a scenario where
there's only one digital picture of them remaining in the

(35:21):
entire world of your Let's say your kid is a baby, right,
there's only one use something happened. Every digital picture you
ever had of them is lost except for this one
that your friend happens to have on their phone, and
it's the original picture. Maybe you sent them the file
back in the day. Is it valuable to you if

(35:42):
your friend said, hey, for a hundred bucks, I'll give
you this file and it's yours to keep forever. Would
you give them that hundred bucks? You probably would. There
you go, there's an NFT for you. It's digital. To
anyone else, it might not have much value, but to you,
it does have a lot of value, and it might
have more value to the person you pass it down to.

(36:02):
So that is a very very simple example of how
I see value in something that is purely digital. Now
you've probably actually spent a lot of money on purely
digital things that you don't have. I remember this was
a big thing back in the day when there was
kind of this transition from DVDs to digital copies of movies.

(36:24):
I was, I know, this is kind of funny, but
I was a holdout. I was like, I'm not buying
a digital copy of a movie on iTunes for twenty dollars.
I'm buying the DVD because I own something physical and
that DVD is mine and I can do whatever I
want with it, or the Blu Ray. And I said,
I'm not buying something that Apple overnight can just be

(36:44):
like poof, goodbye, this is out of your collection, and
that's not happened. But I mean, it might be cases
where it's happened, but I just thought it was so
weird that you would just own a digital copy of
a movie without actually owning the physical copy. So I
would buy the Blu ray that contained a digital copy.
And of course now I don't even think they do
that anymore. But to me, I thought I was getting

(37:05):
over on the system because or I was smarter than
the system, because I was like, I own something physical.
Well flash forward ten years and I do not own
a Blu Ray player. I don't have a way of
playing that movie. And I do still have my movies
from my iTunes because I can play them on my
Apple TV, and thanks to a wonderful service called Movies Anywhere,
those movies have been unlocked to work on various services

(37:28):
and not just iTunes or wherever I purchase them from.
So now, yes, we are at the mercy of these
digital copies. If Amazon said tomorrow, guess what, We're taking
back all those digital copies, like your copy of you know,
die Hard poof Goodbye, It's gone. There's nothing you could
do about it. I'm sure it's in the terms and conditions,

(37:48):
and that's just the way it is. So yeah, we
have gone through this phase of we are permanently what
do you want to call it? Perma rent? Now most
of us are streaming anyway, so it's a move point
to begin with. But the reality is things have changed,
we have adapted, and I think with NFTs it is
definitely definitely something to watch because there is something there.
There's too many smart people talking about them for them

(38:11):
to be a non thing, so there is something to them.
Apple car Play is the subject of our next message.
Victoria says, my son has a twenty fifteen Chevy Vault.
He has asked on his Christmas list for an Apple
car Play. I know they come stock in certain models

(38:32):
of the Vault. Is this something I could buy for
him in Christmas for Christmas and have installed. I value
your expertise and thank you for your help. Victoria. Well, Victoria,
twenty fifteen Chevy Vault. I'm surprised. That must have been
right before they put CarPlay in first Chevy Vault model

(38:55):
to have car play, so, uh, twenty sixteen, darn it,
you're so close. Twenty sixteen was the first one to
get car play, So I would not recommend upgrading. And
here's why. I mean, there are yes, So there are
ways to do it. There there are pioneer I don't

(39:17):
know what do you call them, bulkheads. I don't know
what you call them. I forget there's the head is
in the name receivers. I guess receiver heads. I don't know.
But there are pioneer receivers that do have car play.
There are third party receivers, and you could look into it.
I mean, I'm not gonna say no, but I don't

(39:37):
know if it's compatible. And so you would have to
look up the pioneer car play. It's usually a double
din unit. That's probably what's in the let's see you
might you know what you might be able to. I
don't know, it's been so long since I looked for this,
but let's see. Let's let's just look at one of

(39:59):
these things. So this the Avik W eight four hundred ex.
And I'm guessing, oh, you know what the good way
of doing it. Let's go, let's go crutch Field. That's
the way to do it, Crutchfield dot com. So let's
go Crutchfield dot com. I'm just gonna do this with you.
Come on, come on to my journey, and let's go

(40:20):
car audio and find what fits your vehicle. So let's
say we're gonna do a twenty fifteen. Chevy is a
great website. By the way, when I was back into
my cars, like back in the day, I used to
have like a Ford Explorer for many years, and I've
of course got all this stuff after market installed in
it because you could. It was a simple way to
do it. You got the double Din. It was either

(40:41):
double Din or a single di in. And so when
I had the single di in, I of course got
my little stereo that had XM installed, and I got that,
and then when I had my doubled in, I got
the doubled in. Uh, Chevy volt hatchback twenty fifteen. Do
you see a Bose logo on the front speaker grills?
Let's just say no. And let's see what they say

(41:03):
checking fit and let's see what do we have. Let's
see what can we replace? Oh, it doesn't say yeah,
it looks like you can replace car stereos. We don't
recommend replacing the radio in your vehicle. Now, let me
see with the Bose audio system, maybe you can. Let's see.

(41:25):
Let's see, let's see and it is saying car stereos. No,
we don't recommend it. So there you go. That's your answer.
You can't really do it. So Apple CarPlay, I would say,
I wish that car Play did this, but I don't
think they do. It'd be nice if Apple had a
way of seeing car play on your phone without car Play,

(41:49):
but they don't do it. I don't think they. Yeah,
I don't think they do it with just your phone.
So like on Android, you can do Android Auto with
just your phone. It will like kind of mimic the screen,
but it doesn't look like CarPlay lets you do that.
So yeah, there's not much you can do about it, Victoria.

(42:12):
So with other cars, if you want to do it, yeah,
go to Crutchfield dot com and see just look for
a receiver that uses CarPlay and you can just get
someone to replace it here in Los Angeles's place called
Alan Ed's. Of course, nationwide you can go to best
Buy or something like that. But good question, and you're
just right on that cusp, right on that cusp. All right, Uh,
we have some more time here. Let's go to our

(42:33):
favorite chrome extensions of twenty twenty one, not mine, but Google.
Google came out with a big list of its favorite
chrome This is the you know, the end of the year,
so we have all these year end lists and this
is their year end Chrome extensions. So a couple highlights
here at number one is Loom. So Loom is an
extension that makes it easy to capture and share your videos,

(42:53):
so you can install that. My kids have installed it
on theirs. They like to do these, like kind of tutorials.
You can record your voice or your video as well
as your screen, so if you're helping or trying to
explain something on the web or on an app, you
can record yourself doing it. Kind of like a tutorial
word tune I have not heard of, but it helps

(43:13):
you clearly communicate by rephrasing sentences and catching typos in
emails and documents, and so that's kind of cool. And
that's maybe one that I'll add. I've been using one
called it's kind of like Grammarly, but it's Microsoft Editor,
and it's the same thing as Grammarly, except the difference
is that because my company subscribes to Office three sixty five,

(43:36):
I get the premium version of this Microsoft Editor for free.
It's included in their three sixty five subscription, so it
gives me access to all of the premium feature. So
with Grammarly it's great, but you know you've got to
pay up if you want these premium features. And I'm
sure word Tune might be the same way, but let's

(43:58):
see it is word tune. Yeah, so they have different plants.
They have a free plan, they have a premium plan,
and so there you go. But it's kind of cool.
It says rephrasing sentences, so if you want to kind
of stand out from the rest, that's kind of a
neat extension forrest. This is funny. We actually featured this
in a tech report a long time ago. It helps

(44:21):
you be more productive by planting virtual trees and giving
your rewards for focusing and helping those trees grow. There's
dark Reader that protects your eyes during long work days.
Tab Manager Plus helps you manage your tabs, and then
there's Nimbus Screenshot and Screen Video Recorder which I have
installed that helps you record your screen and also do screenshots.

(44:45):
And then there's one called Remember Barry which helps you
organize vocabulary words into flashcard decks for quick studying throughout
the day. Oh and then one more rattukan raccoon. Oh gosh,
how do you say this raccoont rack? Oh gosh, now
I r A k U T e N. How do

(45:09):
you pronounce it? I know, it's like a weird way
to pronounce it. Rakotin, racketin, racketin. There you go, racketin, racketin, racketin.
Can I bring up my computer audio? Let's see? Can
it come in here? No? I don't think so. No
it doesn't. I bet you I can. Let me just
try one more thing here, let me change my sound

(45:30):
to output to be USB, and now let me try
this ready. Still doesn't work. Okay, but anyway, racketin. So
there you have it. Yeah, I can't hear it. But
those are some extensions you can get for Chrome. I
love Chrome extensions. Just be careful installing some of the

(45:53):
more spammy ones, because now my Racketin and my Honey
extension are at war. Racketin wants me to get cash back,
Honey wants me to put promo codes, and you can't
use them both at the same time. They get really
really angry at each other when you try to do that.
So let's get to another question, shall we. This looks

(46:14):
more like an observation, Richard says, Movie Night versus Tesla Autonomy.
Good morning, rich Listen to your latest podcast where you
won't pay for a movie ticket unless it's a matin a,
but you'll pay for Tesla Autonomy rationalizations. We may hash
tag anyway. Just an observation, not a criticism. Love your
shows on and off tv KFI and your podcast. Merry

(46:36):
Christmas and a happy New Year to you and your
family in his service, Richard Richard, thank you. Ohps, I
will do as you suggested in this podcast and engage
with your social media accounts. Thank you. I'm Att rich
on tech if you want to find me there, which
I'm sure you have. But you're right. I agree. Sometimes
my decisions are not fully rational, and I think that

(46:59):
as a human we can all fall susceptible or fall
prey to that. You know. To me, it's like the
two hundred and eighteen dollars I spent on the Tesla
self driving for the month was rationalized based on the
fact that it was a work not expense. I don't.
I don't think. Well, maybe I probably could expense it
if I do a story about it, but it's more

(47:20):
of a a write off in my head because I
can justify it by saying well, I need to know
what this is all about, so I can talk informed.
I can talk, I can't say it. I'm looking for
the word. I can talk as an informed human being
about the self driving features on the Tesla, or as

(47:42):
an educated individual or informed. I don't know what the
word is, but I basically know what I'm talking about
because I've experienced it firsthand. And so I know what
the Tesla is all about because I've actually tried it.
I've gone hands on. And this is why I think
hands going hands on with tech stuff is so important.
As much as it pains me to go hands on

(48:04):
with so many different gadgets, to crack them open and
play with them and set them up, it's because I
want to know what the experience is like. Yes, I
can read what other people have to say, and I
can see it, and I can watch the YouTube, but
I want to know what it's like because that way
I can talk in a smart way about it, and
also and also compare and contrast to other devices out

(48:26):
there that are similar. And so now I know because
I've I've driven the Rivan with the self driving, I've
driven the super Cruise with the self driving, or I
guess the driver assist. I've driven Volkswagens driver assist. I've
driven the Tesla with the autopilot, so I know I can.
I can compare notes, I can contrast the differences and

(48:46):
the nuances, and with the Tesla, I'm actually I keep
finding new little things, like the other day I found
the auto park, which is just so great. But the
problem with the auto park. You know it'll it'll automatically
pull into a parking spot for you. The problem is,
most of the time we need that is on kind
of like a busy street, and if cars are trying
to get past you, it's it's a little dicey to

(49:09):
have your your your car doing the backing up because
it just goes for it. I mean, it's when the
Tesla does something, it is so confident in its moves,
like when it was pulling into parallel spaces or yeah,
parallel parking. When I was testing it, it's just like boom,
it turns that wheel fast, it backs right in, it stops,

(49:30):
moves forward, it backs, it goes right up to the
car behind it, right up to the car in front
of it, and it's much more, much more not aggressive,
but much more affirmative. Then I am. When I'm driving,
I'm kind of like inching, you know, very slowly. This
is like, now we know we got six inches to go,
so we're just gonna stop. We stop there. Okay, we

(49:51):
go forward. We know we can go forward pretty fast.
We stopped there. We angle in. I mean they know
the angles for the spot. I mean it's it's pretty phenomenal.
So that feature is really cool, and I will miss that.
There's a couple of features I'll miss with the autopilot
that I purchased, and that is the chime when the
light turns green. I really like that. And I really
like the self changing lanes. The you know, auto lane

(50:14):
change is again very confident. And then I will miss
the parking, the self parking. I don't think those three
features are worth two hundred and eighteen dollars a month.
No way, I mean that is that's a lot of
money for three little features that I can do myself. Yes,
it's nice to have, but I will I will do myself.
So anyway, Richard, thanks for the notes for sure. Yeah,

(50:36):
there's no rhyme or reasons. Sometimes Apple awards the best
apps in Games of twenty twenty one, so there's a
whole laundry list of them. I'm not gonna go over
all of them. I'll just go over some of the
notables that I think are interesting. iPhone app of the
Year Toca Life World from Tokeboca. Tokoboca back in the
day when I had a little tiny tike, was like

(50:59):
the best game. And I love them because Tokeboca's big
thing is that they were ad free. There were no
sales whatsoever. They didn't sell you on anything. And slowly
but surely the inn app purchases came into play, and
then the big purchase by another company. So I actually

(51:22):
interviewed the guy who founded this, Bjorn Jeffrey. I forget
how you say his name exactly, but he came into
the studio and I was like, you're the guy that
started Tokboca. How cool is that? And sure enough, yeah,
he started the whole thing. I love when companies send
like the actual person to me, Like, yeah, of course
I interviewed Tim Cook and Elon Musk in the past,

(51:44):
but like, I love when I get to interview the
actual founders because they just have insights that are are
just greater than you know, a chief marketing officer or
you know some person that they send a PR spokesperson.
They're just you know, I love these people too, but
they're just you know, they're figureheads for the company. They

(52:05):
they've got the party line down. When you get the founder.
They are someone who saw a need for something and
made it and they figured it out. And I love
interviewing those kinds of people because they are the real
movers and shakers in this world. And so someone like this,
I remember him coming to the studio and I was
just so impressed. I was like, ah, that's so cool
that I get to talk to the guy who started
the games that my kid loves to play. Back then,

(52:27):
I only had one kid, and you know, he was little.
He's probably three years old, and it was just so great. Yeah,
and the guy was from Sweden. I think, let me
see tokoboca ktla. Let's see when I interviewed him July fourteenth,
twenty seventeen. Ohough, it wasn't that long ago. Yeah, here

(52:51):
he is. CEO. Bjorn Jeffrey came up with the came
up with the idea when he noticed the tablet trend
taking off. He imagined lots of kids would soon be
playing on their iPads at all times. Each game was
meant to be different from the standard games they might
play or the videos they might watch. Each game is
three dollars and there are no ads inside except promotions

(53:13):
for other Tokboca games. Now, right after I interviewed Bjorn,
they were purchased by Spinmaster, the same company who owns
Paul Patrol and they own a whole bunch of toys
and he left. Now no comment on that, but clearly
when people leave companies like that, just like I talked
with the Instagram founders, you know, they're just kind of like, Ah,

(53:35):
this is not my thing anymore. You guys take it.
And sure enough, Tokeboca has very much exploded in popularity
since he left because they've probably done things that he
wouldn't have done, like they had like a line of
clothes and target, a lot of in app purchases, a
lot of cross promotion. I haven't seen the Tokeboca TV
show yet, but anyway, Tokoboca Life World is the number

(54:00):
one iPhone app of the year, and it's cute. I
still think it's very cute. It's just these little characters,
you do little things. It's a it's a great, great game,
and I have no problem recommending that Apple Watch app
of the Year. Also one that we have mentioned in
the past Carrot Weather. Let me see when I mentioned
this Carrot Weather. And I don't say this to brag,

(54:22):
but I just say that, like, you know, I definitely
have a knack for seeing things that you know, that
I think are cool before a lot of people think
are cool. What was it? Come on, Carrot Ah? There
is uh, there was a I don't know, I can't

(54:46):
I can't seem to find the story. But we definitely
interviewed the guy who started Carrott and I can't remember
what the deal was with it. It was like it
was mean to you or something. It was kind of
like it was a weight loss app. Ah, that was it. Yeah,
it was a Carrott weight loss. I don't know, something
like that. Let's see carrot app and let's see what

(55:07):
the other app was, Carrott. Oh is it to do?
I think that's what it was. Yeah, Oh is carrot fit.
That's that's who it was. So and I remember interviewing
the founder again and I'm trying to find the guy
who he interviewed. But anyway, Oh, Brian, was this it Yep,

(55:29):
here he is Brian Muller. Let's see Brian Muller KTLA
here it is January two, twenty nineteen. The Apps that
will help You Get Fit in twenty nineteen. So I
love it. I love I love discovering these little things.
You know, there's just something about them. You see him
and you just there's something special about it. You put
it on TV and boom, A couple of years later,

(55:50):
they are they're making lists. So anyway, Apple Watch of
the Year, Apple Watch App of the Year, Carrot Weather.
Let's see what else I think was notable on here?
The trend of the Year Connection. The goals to identify
a movement that had lasting impact and recognize apps that
met this moment. The chop trend of twenty twenty one

(56:11):
chop top is connection. This year's trend winners brought people
together in a meaningful way. So among Us was a
big one. My kids played that. Bumble, Canva and Peanut
were some of the top top apps. There just a
lot going on with this stuff. Oh man, that's it,

(56:34):
no more time. Guess that sound does mean it is
the end of the show. If you'd like to submit
a question for me to answer, Just go to my
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(56:56):
love it if you would rate and review this podcast.
Just go to the listening app of your cho v
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You can find me on social media. I am at
rich on Tech. If you're listening to this, you probably
already know that if you go to my Instagram, I've
got a new reels. It is about changing your ring

(57:18):
video doorbell chime to play fun holiday tones. And I
you know, I'm not like one of these people that
does a tip every day, but when I think of
a tip, and you know, it takes a while to
do these things actually, and so I want to do them.
I would love to do one every day. It's just tough,
you know. It's a lot of work in addition to
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(57:39):
Fire TV, and Roku. Once you open it up, scroll
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So watch my tech segments from TV. They're fun. I
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rich Dimiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so
many ways you can spend an hour of your time,

(57:59):
especially during the holidays. I do appreciate you spending it
with me. Stay safe, have a great holiday. If I
don't talk to you before that, which I probably will,
I'll talk to you real soon