Best Buy tests a smaller format store

Best Buy tries a digital first store concept; Boost unveils $25 unlimited plan; Meta raises price of Quest by $100; Google enables a feature to restrict calendar spam invites; Spotify discontinues Car Thing and Google enables a cool new 3D view of nearly 100 landmarks.Viewers ask if Microsoft Defender is necessary on an Android phone, best uses for AirTags, how to turn off Safari's Privacy Report, if Discover's personal information removal service is worth it, why email disappeared from the iPhone, a website to see hotel remodel dates and whether to get another Kindle Fire Tablet.Follow Rich!richontech on InstagramBest Buy Digital First storeBoost $25 PlanMeta price increaseGoogle Calendar SpamSpotify Car ThingGoogle's landmarks 3D viewDiscover's privacy service
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Best Buy unveils a smaller store. Google Maps begins work
on its metaverse, an unlimited plan for just twenty five
bucks a month plus Your tech questions answered? What's going
on on Richdemiro And this is Rich on Tech, the
podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think
you should know about and I answer the questions you

(00:31):
send me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five
in Los Angeles. Welcome to the show, Welcome to my
friends on Instagram Live. Well, that's gonna do it for
this episode of the show. Oh, it's just kidding. I
was reading the at the end of the script. Oh
it's Friday where I am. You know, it could be Monday,

(00:54):
could be Tuesday, could be any day when you're listening,
but today is Friday when I record this. So welcome
to the weekend. If you are listening to this before
the weekend starts, if you listen to it after the weekend,
prep for your next weekend. So it looks like my
wife and kids are joining on the live stream as
well this week. Let me just explain one cool thing

(01:16):
about and I already I think I explained this last week.
I'm you know, I don't want to tell the same story.
I'm trying to think, when did.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
I go to that? Yeah? I did? All right, Uh,
do I have a story for this week? I don't
really have a story for this this week.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Usually I start the show with like a little, tiny story,
but I am so unprepared that, oh, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
I'll tell you I got fitted for a suit this week.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
So I was listening to a podcast, and I guess
this goes to show the power of social media marketing.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
But I was listening to a podcast that I love.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's called The All In Pod and it's hosted by
Jason Calacanis and others. And he mentioned Indo Indo Chino,
Indo Chino, Indo Chino suits and he's like, oh, should
get an Endochino suit. He just mentioned it in passing
on the podcast, and I looked it up. I'm like, oh,
that's kind of cool. So it's like a tech startup,

(02:06):
but they're doing suits. So you go in there and
you get measured for a suit and they make this
custom suit and then they ship it to you. And
so I go into the Americana at the Glendelle Americana
make my appointment.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
This little guy like measures me, you know, I call
him little guy.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
I mean he's like he was like a younger guy,
younger than me, I guess, And so he measures me
all up and you know, he's you know, taken every
single like it's unbelievable how many little measurements. Maybe this
is just typical if you get a fitted sue. I've
never done that before, so I usually buy like a
you know, off the shelf kind of thing or off
the rack. And so anyway, I got all measured up

(02:46):
and my suit is arriving in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
And I thought it was pretty cool. So we'll see now.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
The neat thing is that once you have all of
your sizes in their system, now you can just log
in on the website and buy another sue.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
And so I thought that was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
So if this suit fits, which I hope it does,
it better fit well with all the measurements they took.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
It would be really cool to just be able.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
To go on there when I save up again for
another suit and just buy another one in a different
color or something.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
But I've been to, you know, a couple weddings, and I'm.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Always like this guy that you know, there's always like
these guys at weddings that just look better than everyone else,
like they just dress nicer.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
And I've never been that guy.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
I'm always like the kind of you know, I'll wear
something nice, but it's never that nice. And so after
this last wedding, I went to like my brother looked
really good, my brother in law looked really good, and
I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get a
nice suit for my next wedding. And so I've got
a wedding coming up, and not mine. My wedding was
a long time ago, but I got a wedding coming up,
and I don't know if this is gonna make it

(03:46):
in time, but I figured, you know what, let's look
nice and you can really customize everything, Like I thought
when they start started going through, like oh do you
want brown buttons?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Do you want green buttons? Do you want black buttons?
Do you want the notch to be this way?

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Do you want the Everything was a custom and so
I was like, Oh, here comes the sales pitch, and
sure enough, everything's included in the price, and Jessica's ore
j Jay Singh is asking what the pricing is, like,
very reasonable, I think for a custom suit.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
It was like four hundred and.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Fifty dollars for the base suit, and then they go
up from there. I just got the base and so
everything's included in that price, and they do run deals
like I got like twenty five bucks off because I
was like a first time customer. So yeah, it's expensive,
but it's something that you hopefully wear for a long time.
And at the same time I asked the guy, I
was like, well, what if I start like working out,
Like what if I'm what if I get bigger than

(04:37):
this suit or whatever? And he's like, don't, Like, okay,
So I guess I have to stay just.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
The way I am. All right, let's get to the
first story of the week. Oh wow, pause to poor connection.
Let's get to the first story of the week.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Best Buy is testing out a new, smaller format digital
first store. What does this sound like? It sounds like
the Apple Store, So first ever digital first store. This
is a five thousand square foot store in I think
it's in North Carolina and so open.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
It opened this week. And here's the deal.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
So instead of having a bunch of stuff all stocked,
you know, stacked up to the ceiling, this store has
a bunch of stuff on you know kind of displays
and then you scan a QR code if you want
to buy it, and then they bring it up to you,
just like the Apple Store.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
So the Apple Store.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Doesn't have like thousands of Mac computers stacked up. Remember
like the old big box stores, I mean Best Buy,
I guess you know, they would have a computer monitor.
They'd have three hundred of them stacked up in the
center of the store. You just pick one up and go.
And so they realize that stores are getting smaller. They
don't need all this space, and so why not just
have a smaller format store. People are so used to

(05:52):
using their phones. They scan the QR code, the associate
brings it out from the back, You finish the transaction,
and you go. So they've got home audio, theater, home theater,
audio computing, headphones, wearables, fitness, cell phones, cameras, smart home,
small appliances. There are no big appliances, but they will
have TV. So they do have TVs, but these are

(06:15):
all curated. So the idea is that this curated selection
is like a couple of things, not a lot of things.
And Steve It's funny mentioned on the Instagram Live they
used to call that service merchandise. And absolutely when I
grew up in New Jersey, we had service merchandise and
there was these big there wasn't even anything on display.
It's just these big giant books that you would flip

(06:38):
through like a catalog and you would write down the
numbers on this little piece of paper.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
You would give it to the associate.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
They would ring everything up and then you'd watch these
giant box come skidding down some sort of like weird
conveyor belt system they had. It was so weird as
a kid to see that, but I thought it was
really cool because it was very efficient. And you know,
over the years we got to this like self service
model with these big box stores, and now we're sort
of going back to the idea of, well, we don't

(07:05):
necessarily need all this stock up front, like this new
Amazon style store. You know, all the stock is in
the back and you scan it and then they bring
it to you. Now, we were just in there at
the Americana as well, and I'll be honest, it was
a little bit of a process. You know, you scan
the stuff, the clothes you want to try on with
the barcode, and then they bring it to you.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
And it took a while.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
It was like a good ten minutes and with two
kids running around the store. My wife, you know, we
were like, I don't know if we want to do this.
I don't know if we want to wait, but we
decided that it's the best if you're if you're by
yourself and you have a lot of time, because she
was like, I'll just buy it on Amazon. I'll buy
the two sizes and return it. And I said, well,
we're right here. Why go through all that. You know,

(07:46):
it's a lot of waste by buying the medium and
the large size or the small and the extra whatever,
you know, because that's what a lot of people do
and they buy clothes online.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
It's it's kind of this.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
You know, you try it and you have to return
the one that doesn't fit. And so by having that
store there, you can try them on in the store,
and you know, if you have your time, if you've
got the patience, it's actually a better experience because you
leave with what you need and you know the size
that you want because you've tried it on. I bought
some jeans there. I bought Amazon jeans, Amazon Essentials. They're

(08:18):
not honestly, I've worn them a couple of times they're
not my favorite jeans. It's funny, after all these years,
I came back to Levi's that I was putting them
on this morning, and I was like, God, I really
like these genes, Like they're just standard Levi's jeans. And
for me, I'm the kind of person once I find
something that fits, I just keep buying that over and over.
Like I like this one T shirt from Coals of

(08:41):
all places, and I got one of them from my
mom as a gift.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
I put it on, I was like, oh, I like
the way this fits. It's a little stretchy.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
It just it when it washes, it doesn't like get
all bent out of shape. And so I went back
to Coles and I literally bought every single color of
that T shirt and every you know, that's it. It's
just like in these genes, I'm going to buy another
pair of these genes when I like them.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Also, Target genes fit very well. The Good Fellow brand.
I like those as well.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
Anyway, this store is already open, and they do have
stuff where you can grab and go, like kind of
like cases, you know, phone cases and stuff like that,
so they do have anyway, it's kind of a departure
for Best bikesse we think of them as a big
box store, but this digital first, small format store is
kind of like the new way of the world. I
don't think we're going to see them building a lot

(09:29):
of giant big box stores in the future. Maybe I'm wrong,
but I think that this idea of kind of bridging
that digital and kind of physical gap is kind of
like the new way of the world. We'll say, all right,
let's get to the first question of the podcast. Sharon
writes in do I need Windows Defender on my Samsung

(09:52):
Galaxy S twenty one? And to be quite honest, I
didn't even know that Microsoft had sort of an anti
virus program for Android. Microsoft Defender is what I recommend
you should have on your computer if you're running Windows.
It's built into Windows eleven, and so I would recommend
you having that up to date, having that active. And

(10:14):
I don't really know if you necessarily need a separate
antivirus program on your computer. The number one way that
viruses get on computers these days is really through malware
when you are clicking links that come in through email
and so most of the time when you're surfing the web,
you're probably not going to get a side I call

(10:36):
it like a side by.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Download of an app.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
You know, it's really if you're downloading an app that's
an executable like an ex app, and you double click it,
those are the biggest danger to your system. But Windows
has gotten really good about figuring out, you know, trusted
developers and trusted apps versus untrusted apps. So if you're
downloading some random app and it's untrusted, you'll get a
message on your computer saying, hey, do you really want

(11:00):
to run this? You know, PDFs can also be a concern,
and also word files, like real word files that have
macros in them can also be a problem. On your phone,
I think things are a little bit less scary because
you know, on Android, yes you can install an APK
like an application, you can sideload it, which means you

(11:21):
can get that from anywhere. But again, the phones have
gotten a little bit smarter about saying, hey, you sure
you want to run this application? It can harm your system,
so it gives you that little like pause.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
So let's see.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Microsoft Defender is a unified online security app provides individuals
online security for your personal life. It doesn't really say
what it does, but it looks like, yeah, it looks
like it just kind of protects. It scans your apps,
It scans your link malware, web protection, and history, so

(11:55):
it can't hurt. Look, if you feel like you are
clicking a bunch of stuff, get a bunch of random
apps on your phone, sure this can't hurt. I personally
think that most of the time, your biggest protection is
to really just know what you're clicking, the links that
you're clicking, the apps that you're downloading, and whatever you're doing.
Just always be cautious. I think the biggest one of

(12:17):
the biggest problems too is phishing. So when you get
these emails from Amazon that says, hey, did you just
make a six hundred and fifty dollars five dollars purchase?
If not, don't worry, just click this link or give
us a phone call. And that's really where you get nabbed,
because those are just scam artists that are waiting for
your phone call. And when you call them, they say, okay,
let's verify your Amazon account. Please give me your email address.

(12:39):
You give them that, okay, Now we're going to send
you a link or a text to your phone with
a code. Please give us that code so we can
verify it to you. And as soon as you give
them that code, they steal your account. So that's what
you need to really be concerned about, more so than
just you know, these blanket defender programs that give you
maybe a false sense of security. I think that you
really really need to just stay on your toes when

(13:03):
it comes to what you're doing on the internet. All right,
what should I talk about next? Let's see, I thought
this was interesting.

Speaker 2 (13:13):
Boost Mobile. Remember Boost Mobile?

Speaker 1 (13:15):
So Boost Mobile is now owned by Dish Network or
I guess they don't even know if they're Dish network.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
I think it's just.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Called Dish I is called Dish Network. So Boost is
coming back. You know, remember boost was it used to
be It was owned by Sprint at one point. Then
I think it was owned by T Mobile at one
point they sold it to Dish. So now they're relaunching
this entire, this entire wireless carrier and it runs I

(13:42):
asked them, I said, hey, what is this run on?
And they told me it runs on a combination of
T Mobile and AT and T. Now I'm guessing it
leans more towards the T Mobile than the AT and
T but I could be wrong.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
So if T Mobile works really well in your area,
then maybe this is a good thing. But it's it's
twenty five dollars a month for unlimited. It's not a
temporary promotion. There's no you know, like Mint Mobile is
really good, but they do require you to pay like
three months at a time to get their best rates.
And so also, you know, Visible is really good and

(14:18):
they have a twenty five dollars plan, but you have
to be in like a family like a pay plan thing,
which is easy to do. But you know, a lot
of the carriers, when you see the prices advertised, they
are because you're buying four lines. Like it's very misleading
when you're seeing these ads on TV or these ads online.
It's like Verizon forty dollars, fifty dollars. That's as if

(14:39):
you're buying four lines. So if you have one line,
it's way more expensive. It's like closer to ninety dollars.
So this is twenty five dollars unlimited. They say it's
about fifty percent less than what consumers pay for the
same five G networks on other carriers, And it's twenty five.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Dollars a month.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
You get unlimited talk, unlimited text, and five G when
you're on autopay, so you do have to be on
auto pay. This is sort of a prepaid plan, but
it's you know, you just put on autopay and you're good.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
So what I recommend this.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
I have requested boost Mobile to send me a SIM
card to test it out, so they will send me that.
I'll get that in the next couple of weeks. I
will test it out. I'll put it in a phone.
I will just kind of put it through its motion,
see how it is, See what the speeds you're like,
See if I become slowed down at any time during
the month. But you know, they I think the fine

(15:29):
print says that if you use over thirty gigabytes, they
can slow you down. And that's like every wireless carrier.
I think T Mobile does have a plan, and AT
and T have plans that are like premium plans that
say we will not slow you down no matter what.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
But you just have to make sure.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
I think for most people, if you're just using this regularly,
you're not going to run into that giant that throttling
unless you're doing a ton on your phone, but I
think for the average person you'll be fine. So twenty
five bucks definitely something they consider. Again, I think this
is gonna probably lean heavily on T Mobile, some on
AT and T. But again that's another thing that I'll

(16:07):
test when I'm in my testing is see kind of
like what kind of eighteen you know, if it's saying
it's on the AT and T network or if it's
saying it's.

Speaker 2 (16:14):
On the T Mobile network.

Speaker 1 (16:18):
Extra long nails Honey says, they do slow you down,
So okay, there you go. So I think that I
have Verizon personally, and honestly, I keep waiting for the
day when they slow me down, and they pretty much
never do. And I use a ton of data, Like
I'm talking tons and tons of data. So it's one

(16:40):
of these things where I think if you're just using
it regularly, it should be fine. If you're in a
congested area, it could be a little bit, a little
bit trickier. All right, let's get to the next question
of the podcast here. All right, Derek says, hey, Rich,
are you a big fan of air time? If so,

(17:00):
when you attach them to luggage, do you hide them
in a pouch or do you attach them to the
outside for others to see. What are your favorite air
tag accessories? Also, besides luggage, backpacking keys, what other areas
are air tags useful? Enjoy the Day, Love the Podcast, Derek, Derek,
I am a big fan of air tags. I think
they're fantastic. Although I've been using them for a year.
And I will tell you a story. My wife did

(17:23):
lose an air tag at the beach when I first
gave it to her for her keys. I guess she
detached her keys from the air tag for some reason,
I don't know why, left it at the beach and
we did find it a year later. So it was
still just kind of percolating down at the beach at
a restaurant and it was still there. Someone put it
at the I guess the Lost and Found and they

(17:44):
had it there. So we were at the beach and
I said, oh my gosh, this is still here. Let's
go inside and see if if it's you know, with
the Lost and Found folks, And sure enough they it
was beeping in the Lost and Found and it was
still there. So there's been plenty of stories of people
of finding these things. My one tip to you right now,
if you've been using an air tag since they came out.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
I would definitely check on.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
The battery situation because batteries are going dead on these things,
because it's been about a year.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
So I have air tags on my luggage.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
I've got them on my keys, what else I've I've
put them in my kid's pocket when we went to Disneyland,
and I just kind of like, had you know, an
air tag there, you know, you could put them anywhere.
Whatever you want, whatever you want to keep track of,
you can do it now. Like I said, that was
a rare case scenario with the keys with my wife.

(18:36):
I have yet to have to use these things, but
I have seen where things are. So I've looked on
the find my app and I've seen, Okay, my backpack
is here.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
I know my keys are here.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
But I haven't had a real like mission to find
something that I've needed that's been attached to an air tag,
like my keys, or like a lost wallet.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
I don't. I don't have one of my wallet. I
wish I did.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
There's something called Chipolt low Spot and that works with
defind my network, and so you can get that and
it did do make a It's called the card Spot
and that is a card that slips into your wallet
that does use to find my network. So it's kind
of like an air Tag, but it's a different brand,
but it still uses Apples Find my Network, which is
the best in the business. I think someone asked on

(19:19):
the on the comments Tile versus AirTag. Look, you know, Tile,
I have not tested in a long time, so I
should probably retest that. But Tile's finding network is just
not as great as Apples. Apple is using every iPhone
and every iPad and every MacBook computer in the world
to find your stuff. There are a lot of those.

(19:42):
Tile is using Amazon devices that people have opted to
let them use. I guess they haven't if they haven't
opted out, and so that has the potential to be bigger.
They're also using the Life three sixty app at this point,
and so Tile was purchased by Life three sixty, and
anyone who has that app installed in their phone theoretically

(20:02):
will begin to help find TILE devices. I don't know
if that has happened just yet. I'm sure it takes
a little bit of time for this stuff to actually
start working, but that will make the TILE very competitive
with the air Tag.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
One hundred percent, But I still think the air tag
is just designed better, Like it's just the overall like
the fact that it's built into all of the Apple
products really makes it very, very advantageous for finding stuff.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
So for your luggage.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
Yeah, when I was in Europe, I checked to see
if my luggage had made it, and I was like, Okay,
the luggage is at this airport, So I thought that
was kind of cool. Even before you know it comes
out in the luggage conveyor belt. So there's little there's
a little advantages to air tags. They're kind of those
things you just set and forget. You just kind of
put them on stuff and then you just forget about
it until you need it, and when you do need it,
it's kind of handy. I know, there are air tag

(20:51):
accessories for pets. You can put it around the pets
collar like you get like an air tag for their collar,
or you can get a caller that has like an
air tag hanger on it. Also for kids, I know,
they make a band like an air tag band, but
you have to keep in mind air tags do not
have built in GPS, so they will rely on a
phone or device being nearby for them to be located.

(21:14):
So if there's no phone or whatever, Like let's say
you're in the middle of a desert. Let's say you
dropped your kid in like the middle of a desert
and you walked away. You know you would not it
would show you the last known location of that air tag,
But if your kids started walking towards you, it may
not show that location because there's nothing that that little
air tag can ping off of to get a new location.

(21:36):
So you have to understand how air tags work to
understand why they're brilliant. But also there are limitations of
that system.

Speaker 2 (21:42):
So if you just.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Dropped an AirTag out of an airplane into like a forest,
you probably wouldn't be able to locate that unless a
hiker walked by the air tag and it pinged that
little iPhone in the hiker's pocket and then it said, okay,
now I've got a lock on this location. For respect
to the luggage, Derek, I know that you should probably
put them inside your luggage because you probably want them

(22:04):
hidden from people. I just think it looks cool on
my luggage, so I leave it.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
On the outside. It's like a kind of like hanging
off the luggage.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
So I think It just looks cooler that way, and
so I keep it on the outside. Yes, someone could
theoretically just snatch the air tag and throw it away
and then steal my luggage, but you know what, that's
the risk I'm willing to take just to look cool.
All right, good question. Let's get to another topic of
the show. Facebook is raising the price of the Oculus Quest.

(22:33):
This is theoretically called the Meta Quest two. This is
their virtual reality headset. It's gonna cost one hundred dollars
more starting August first. Kind of odd for a product
that's been out for two years for them to raise
the price. But let's be honest, every price has gone
up in the past year or so, past year, past
two years. I can't think of a product or service

(22:55):
that I subscribe to that has not gone up. If
you pay for gas, if you pay for groceries, if
you pay for you know, every single little service that
I subscribe to, they have all gone up.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
And so it's just the reality of our times. Right now.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Everything's getting more expensive, and that includes gadgets, I mean
these things. What I've noticed with gadgets is there's two
ways they can do it. Well, there's two ways I
guess prices can go up in general. Number one, they
can just raise the price, or number two, they can
cut back on something that is maybe included with that gadget.
So with this metaquest too, this is you know, Facebook's
virtual reality goggles that are very, very popular, by the way,

(23:33):
they are just raising the price by one hundred bucks.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Now.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
I was listening to the tech Meum Ride Home podcast
and they said that they were going to include a
game now that they didn't include before. And but you know,
the reality is, if you have your eye on one
of these headsets, maybe you want to purchase it before
the first but you know, don't rush out and get it.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
If you can't.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
These things typically go on sale, and so I have
a feeling that even though the price is going up
one hundred dollars, when it comes time during the holidays
for these sales to start, the prices you know, will
go down, maybe probably by fifty dollars, maybe not by
one hundred dollars. So that'll still make it fifty dollars
more than it is today. But you know, it's one
of these things. Just to know that it's happening. Now,

(24:15):
Facebook's coming out with another version of their VR headset,
but apparently that's going to be eight hundred dollars, so
if you're waiting for like the new and improved version,
probably gonna be even more expensive. But just something to
keep an eye on. And Gaby says on the Instagram chat,
my gym membership is still the.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Same, yay.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
I had a gym membership and every year, like clockwork,
it would just go up every single year by five
bucks ten bucks. And it was just so kind of
annoying because the service at the gym kept going down
and the price just kept going up. And it was
an expensive gym to begin with. So you know, I
keep seeing that nine to ninety nine advertised price for

(24:53):
the Planet Fitness, and I'm like, how are they doing
that for nine ninety nine a month.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
I don't understand how a gym could be ten bucks
a month. That's an amazing price, and I'm tempted to
join just for that price tag because I just want
to see like what a gym is like for nine
to nine. I mean, that's that's like quite the price tag.
All right, let's get to the next question of the podcast.
Melissa says, when I open up my Safari on iOS.

(25:20):
I see a section below that reads privacy report? Should
I or can I delete this information on my phone
but continue having the app on for.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
Does the privacy report matter? I opened it up on iOS.
I don't remember turning it on, but it looks good.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
It looks like it's obviously giving me a report on
my privacy. I'm sure glad that you are so good
at what you do. Thanks for getting back to me
with my questions, Melissa, Melissa, this is a feature that's
built into Safari on iOS and on also on the desktop.
So Safari has something built in called third party cookie blocking,

(25:59):
and it also.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
It does a lot like Safari does a lot of
stuff for privacy purposes.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
Let me open up Safari on my computer just to
see what it says. So it blocks trackers by default.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Oh see, I don't have this like okay, So there's
a okay. So it blocks trackers from profiling you.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
It just basically blocks and prevents trackers from viewing your
IP address and showing you across websites and following you
across websites. So it does cross site trackers. It blocks
those intelligent tracking prevention uses on device Machine learning to
identify trackers and accessing identifying information. iCloud Private Relay adds

(26:43):
a layer of protection by preventing websites from viewing your
IP address. So even if a website, even if the
trackers are blocked on a website, the websites still know
your IP address. And Phil is saying incognito mode, the
fallacy about incognito mode is that it protects your privacy. Now,
what incognito mode does is all it does is keep

(27:07):
a record of whatever websites you went to off of
your browsing history. It does not keep those websites from
being able to identify who you are by your IP
address and other methods. So if you're visiting a website
over and over, that website can recognize that it's you
coming back because they've identified.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Your IP address.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Now, some of the newer browsers like Safari, will cloud
or will cloak your IP address or change it, and
so that it makes it a little bit tougher, But
believe me, these companies are very smart. Incognito mode does
not protect your employer from seeing the website that you're
going to, or your Internet service providers.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
I've said this before.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
Whoever is providing your internet connection, that pipe that gets
you onto the Internet, whether it is you know, Spectrum
or AT and T or a hotel Wi Fi, they
can still see the websites that you're going to. They
may not be able to see what you're doing on
those websites, you know, the search terms that you're doing,
or your banking or your email, but they can see

(28:08):
that you visited, say Gmail or overstock dot com or
whatever website that you might be going to. So keep
in mind that this, you know, this idea of private
browsing is only so private. A VPN is a better
way of doing that. If you really want to protect
the website address that you're going to, you need to
look for a no log VPN. Last I interviewed a

(28:30):
VPN expert. He recommended MOLVAD, which was the VPN of
his choice.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
M u lll v A D And you have to
pay for it.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
I think it's like five bucks a month at least,
let's see how much it is. Pricing is one month
yet five dollars a month, so you know you're gonna
pay for this stuff. These this free ride with all
these services are just over so anyway to answer your question,
Melissa about this privacy report. It's totally fine. It's nice
to see it. If you don't like, you can turn

(29:01):
it off. So when you're on that page, when you
open up a new page on Safari, just scroll down.
There's an edit button. You can press edit, and then
you can just toggle that privacy.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Report on or off.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
JK says, VPNs are recommended for people who use the
dark web. Unfortunately, they have less government oversight but more
international military protection. So yeah, that's another thing the VPNs
could be good for. If you're in a foreign country
that does not allow access to the website that you
are trying to make it to, Like in China, if
you're trying to use Twitter or Facebook or Instagram. A

(29:36):
lot of these websites are blocked and so you know,
you just can't get to them unless you have a VPN.
I've been in that I've been in that place, and
believe me, it's just really frustrating that you can't access
just very standard websites. Mando says non tech question. Have
you ever been to San Diego Comic Con? Thoughts on
the experience?

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yes, I have.

Speaker 1 (29:55):
I did not go this year, but I've been many
years in the past, and it's really fun. People that
go to comic con are very kind. Some of them
look very scary because they're in like these get ups,
you know, like the I don't know if there are
a lots, I guess you can still dress up, but
they're in like you know, like these when what was
that show that was really popular, The Walking Dead, So
you'd see these people like you know, look like zombies

(30:16):
and this, or they're like all these like clowns and
evil clowns and stuff, and like they look really scary,
but they're like the nicest people ever.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
I always found that to be funny.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Whenever, like I've done a lot of behind the scenes
stuff with like you know, like a scary farm or
like whatever, like not scary farm, and the people are
all dressed up and with the chainsaw, but like they're
just really nice, like an actor or something. It's very odd. Okay,
let's get to another topic of the podcast.

Speaker 2 (30:44):
Let's see what I want to talk about.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Oh, Spotify is discontinuing their car Thing. So Spotify came
up with this thing called car Thing. Let me know
if you use it in the comments or if you've
got one of these things. So this The idea of
car thing is that you were able to use Spotify
in a car that only had an auxiliary input, and
that auxiliary input was you know you typically need like

(31:11):
an I don't know, like an R whatever. The point is,
this was like a little gadget that had a screen
and a rotating wheel and it just made it really
easy to use Spotify in an older car. And I
guess nobody used it, so I guess it was not
very popular.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
So Spotify is going to take a thirty.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
One million dollar charge, basically a write off, like they
have thirty one million dollars related to this product that
is not going to see the light of day. I
got an email saying, hey, do you want to buy
one for fifty percent off? I think the thing was
invite only when it started. I emailed Spotify said hey
can I get one to test? Never heard back, So

(31:52):
I guess who won in this situation, Spotify. Maybe if
you had more people reviewing it, maybe it would have
worked better, maybe it would have gotten the word out more.
But they ignored me on that. And this was ninety
dollars when it started. Now it is fifty percent off
of that, so forty five dollars, but they're discontinuing it.
So if you have one, it will work, it will

(32:14):
continue to work. But it's just one of these things
that mister fit Urn says. I stopped using Spotify and
just use serious XM and iTunes.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
I use Spotify.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
I actually had to subscribe to Spotify when I got
my Tesla because that is the service that is integrated
into the Tesla, and I love it. I mean, Spotify,
I think is really really good.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
But I also get.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
YouTube music included for free with my YouTube membership, and
so personally, if I had a choice, I would just
use YouTube. Now I was using Apple Music when my
Apple Watch would only work with Apple Music. And this
is the thing that really bugs me about all of
this stuff, every one of these companies. You know, I've
said this before. It's just it's I'm like a broken
record on this. But it used to be when tech started.

(33:00):
The people who started these tech companies, they had our
best intentions at mind, right, So when you started like
YouTube music or whatever it was, whatever the product was,
these were nerds that started it, and nerds kind of
like things to be open source, and they like things
to be you know, available to everyone. Because that's what
the Internet was all about at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (33:21):
Well, then as.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Corporate interests kind of applied their way more into all
of these services like a YouTube Music or an Apple
Music or a Spotify, they say, well, let's let's make
this only work with this product because we have a
deal with We have a deal with Samsung on the
on their watches now, so only Spotify is gonna work there.
We have a deal with Tesla, only Spotify is gonna

(33:43):
work there. Apple we make the HomePod, We're only gonna
let Apple Music work on that. And oh we'll throw
your bone, We'll let Pandora work on that. But it's
kind of complicated. I mean, it's just not fun for
the average consumer to have to deal with all of
these silos.

Speaker 2 (33:58):
Like I'm looking around my house and I'm like, oh, oh,
that device only works with that service and this device.
I actually wanted to come up with a spreadsheet of
the perfect music service.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
I was gonna list all my things like Tesla HomePod, Sonos.
Sonos is the only product around that works with everything.
They are truly the Switzerland of streaming services. But little
caveat here when they came out with their voice service
their voice service does not work with Spotify or YouTube Music,

(34:28):
two of the biggest music services out there. So it's
like I literally need a spreadsheet to figure out which
one to subscribe to because not everything works with everything
out there, and it's very, very frustrating for the average consumer. Anyway,
So Spotify car thing is dead. I'm probably not gonna
hear about that, but it makes sense. I mean, what
was the what was the point of Spotify car thing?

(34:49):
I mean, how many people still have old cars that
they that want to plug a high tech.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Little Spotify into.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
I think that those people have cell phones and they've
already figured out that they could just if they have
an oxport, they just plug in their cell phone into
that oxport. And if they don't have an oxport, we're
talking really old cars, they probably already.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Got an FM transmitter.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
And if they have a really old car, they probably
got a cassette tape that goes into their phone. So
this expensive car thing that requires a subscription to Spotify
only appeals to a very very small amount of people,
and so I think that that's why this was not
very popular. When you're talking Spotify, by the way, has
four hundred and thirty three million followers are a subscribers

(35:37):
or I guess active users. That's not subscribers, active users,
I should say, I think it's just a tiny percentage
of those fall into that category of Oh, I really
want this high tech thing, but I'm a connect it
in an old school way. And John says the fact
that Tesla's don't have car play baffles me one hundred percent.
Every day I look at that screen, I'm like, oh,
Tesla's done a nice thing like this is this is

(36:00):
it's pretty. But just give me CarPlay. Why do you
have to reinvent the wheel? Just give me CarPlay, Give
me Android Auto. With one software update, Tesla can make
the would make so many drivers infinitely happier by just
enabling car play on that giant, beautiful screen.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
Just let me have it. Why do I need to
use your weird screen that like, I just I don't
want to go off.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
But it's just like it's just every single day my
wife gets in my car and she has serious XM.
She loves it because guess what she gets serious XM.
When she gets into her car, it starts playing. It's
always playing, it's always working, it's no fiddling.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
I get into my car.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
Every single time I need to press five or ten
or fifteen buttons to get music going. It's never continuing
because Spotify does this weird thing where when you play
it in your house, it stops in your car. When
you play it in your car, it stops in your house,
and when you choose a different station at home, it
transfers that to your When you open the door of
the car, it stops in the house.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
It's like this.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
They engineered it to like be seamless, but it actually
does not work out. So for me, I would just
rather just have something that starts playing when I open
my car door.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
And yes, the radio does that, which is fine, and I.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Do have so many I do have actually like a
failsafe when my because sometimes, by the way, the serious
does not download. It has to stream every time, so
nothing's like on your car. So where I live, for
some reason, it just doesn't like the signal. So I
get into my car and it's like just spinning, spinning, spinning,
until I drive like all the way to the freeway,
and then finally it comes to like, h, I know,

(37:39):
first world problems, first world problems.

Speaker 2 (37:42):
I know. Let's get you another question. U. This is
not a question, it's a comment.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Kathy says, Hey, Rich, We're sitting in our beautiful Hilton
condo in way Kalowa, Hawaii by Kona, with the news
on in the background, and suddenly.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
We hear a very familiar voice.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Our Rich sure gets around heart and flower. Ah, that's
so nice of you, Kathy. Yeah, people don't realize that
I'm on in Los Angeles, but the segment is sent
out to like one hundred TV stations and they just
run it when they want to, And so Hawaii apparently
likes to run it a lot. And so I always
say every time I get an email from Hawaii, I'm like,

(38:20):
I need to go there. I need to see what
my segment looks like on TV in Hawaii. Don't you
think I think that makes a lot of sense. But yes,
I love my viewers in Hawaii. Thank you so much
for watching. It's funny every time someone from LA travels
somewhere else, they have the TV on and all of
a sudden, I pop up. Because our company owns so
many TV stations all around the world, No, not around

(38:43):
the world, just around the US, and you'd be surprised.
You'd be surprised. We're rich on tech pops up. All right,
since that wasn't a really question, I will ask another question.
Jerry says, how to remove your personal info from.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Google search results.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
I also saw this from Discover any thoughts and he
included a picture of Discover's privacy protection and I got
a bunch of emails about this. So privacy protection from
Discover is a new perk, and if you have it,
I guess they've been sending people emails about this perk.
And what they do is this is according to the

(39:19):
point Sky website. You can enable this new privacy protection
in the Discover mobile app. It's free for credit card
and banking customers. Once you enable it, it searches ten
common websites that collect and sell personal information online that
includes data like your name, your address, your age, your
phone number, and it covers the following annoying websites and
tell us binverified yellowpages dot com, addresses dot com, people

(39:41):
Looker dot com, any Who dot com, instant peoplefinder dot com,
people smart dot com, us search dot com, zabasearch dot Com.
It will search these sites every ninety days and if
it finds a match, it will submit an opt out
request on your behalf. So I say one hundred percent
do this. If this is offered as a privacy choice,
do it.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
So.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
I have done many segments with a woman named Haley Kaplan.
She has a website called what Isprivacy dot com and
she is fantastic about this stuff. So my advice is
to get your personal information off as many.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
Websites as possible.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Why it's just annoying Number one. Number two, it's just
it's anytime you buy a house or do any sort
of public transaction, your information is out there. Now is
it bad if you're just an average regular person. I
mean it's it's annoying at most, but it could be
scary at best if people are trying to figure out
who you are, where you live, all that good stuff.

(40:40):
Your phone number could be used for spam, your email address, whatever.
So if you can opt out automatically using this free service,
I would one hundred percent do that. The other thing
is you can manually opt out of these websites, and
I've done it myself. It is a very big process.
It is not easy. I've actually consulted with Haley about

(41:00):
getting some of my information off some of the tougher websites.
Google lets you do this, but it's not easy. It's
it's not for the faint of heart. It is almost
impossible to find a way to get your information off
these sites. But when you do it, they a lot
of times. It's a process, but it does work and
you can get your information off of there. It just
pops up again if you do another transaction, so you

(41:21):
just have to you know, know that it's not going
to be perfect. You know, you get off of one,
it could be on another. But I would do this
if discovers offering this for free, one hundred percent do it.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
I would definitely do that.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
The less information you have out there about yourself, the better.
Any app to block phone numbers not listed on my
phone book asks on Instagram. On iPhone, you can go
into phone settings and you can block onknown numbers, block

(41:52):
unknown callers. It is I personally would not do this
because I feel like, I don't know, you just don't
want to.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
I just I don't know. I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
I don't want to block all these people that I
don't know, because what if I get a call from
someone that I want.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
So here's how you do it. If you want to
do it.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Go to settings, go to phone, scroll down, and there's
a thing called tap silence unknown callers. You tap it
and you turn it on silenced Unknown numbers are silenced
or sent your voicemail and they will appear in your
recent call list. I personally don't want to do that
because it just I'd rather get the spam calls than
have calls blocked, because sometimes unknown numbers are important. Could

(42:31):
be your kid's school, could be could be anything. So
I'd just rather pick up the phone number if it's random.
And I will pick up random calls every once in
a while. Sometimes I'll just let them go to voicemail.
Other times I will I'll just pick them up and
just say, hey, what's going on?

Speaker 2 (42:49):
Who is this? Usually you can tell in a second
if it's spam. All right?

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Uh oh, speaking of spam, this is something that I
think you should do immediately. Google Calendar has this new
and I would do this. So do you remember back
in the day. I don't know if it happens as
much anymore, but back in the day, people were getting
a lot of calendar spam. So you would go on
your calendar and you would look and there'd be an
event listed there that is a spam event, and what

(43:16):
they were trying to make you do is click some
sort of link in the event calendar event bad stuff,
and so this was really really annoying for a while
when the spammer's recognize that they can do this or
realize they can do it, and there was really no
way to turn it off very easily. There were some methods,
but now Google has come up with a method. So

(43:37):
now to keep your Google Calendar free from spam, there's
an option to display events on your calendar only if
they come from a sender you know. If you select
this option, you'll still get email event invitations from unknown senders,
but they will only appear on your calendar after you accept.
So what you need to do is go into your

(43:57):
Google Calendar, go into your settings, go to your event settings,
and there is a section called add invitations to my
calendar only if the sender is known, and so you
select that and basically it will include people in your
company domain. It will keep people in your contact list,
keep people that you've interacted with before.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
But if you get.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
A random person sending you a calendar invite that's probably spam.
It will just not put it automatically on your calendar.
It will just send it to your email and say, hey,
do you want to put this? Do you want to
accept this and put this on your calendar. I think
that's a great little feature. I'm definitely turning that on.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
For sure.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
NESSA says, can you do that with iPhones? Yes, you
would have to do this setting though in Google Calendar
on the web. So go on the web, go to
Google Calendar, put those in your settings and then you
should be able to that would take that would still
take hold.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
On your iPhone.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
So good little tip there for Google brand new feature.
And I got a lot of people on the chat
talking about the spam callers. Yes, all of the major
carriers offer a spam filtering app, so AT and T
has Call Protect, Verizon has Call Filter, and T Mobile

(45:19):
has Scamguard. You can download those apps, you can activate them,
and they will help. Doesn't it doesn't get every call,
believe me, I still get spam callers, but it is
something that definitely helps. So if you want install it,
it's free. All the major carriers have something that does
help with spam, so for sure do that. All right,

(45:39):
let's get to the next email, all right, let's see.
Diana says, Hey, Rich, I love your podcast. Last night,
I was looking at my iPhone for some travel reservations
that I store in my Gmail folder. As I click
to open the folder, I watch all current to December
twenty twenty, stored mail disappear. I checked another folder, same

(45:59):
thing happened. It's happening to all current to twenty twenty disappeared.
Why I'm afraid to check another folder? What's happening? I
have all Apple products. I checked my iPad, same thing gone.
Help Diana, Diana, this could be a fluke, but it
also could be in your settings.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Sometimes.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
I think that these email services only keep a certain
amount of emails, like going back to a certain amount
of time.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
So if it's from.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Twenty twenty to current, that is odd that they would
be disappearing. If it's before twenty twenty, it could be
the fact that they just don't sink email before that.
So I'm not sure which one it is. I personally
don't use the mail app on my iPhone. I use Gmail.
I do have the mail app logged in for a reason,

(46:47):
that is so that serie can identify people in callers. Okay,
a little aside so you ever, if someone ever calls
your phone and you know how it says maybe and
it's got the person's name, they say, it's getting that
is it's using signals from your text messages and your emails.
So if someone sends you an email and they have
a signature underneath their email with their phone number, that

(47:11):
next time that person calls, even if they're not in
your address book, Siri says, oh, I remember that person
had their phone number in their signature and it was
this person's name. Now they're calling from that phone number.
I will say, maybe it's John from the bank's office
or whatever, you know, whoever it was. So that's where
they're getting that information for maybe. And for that reason,

(47:32):
that's why I always log into my Gmail on my
phone through the mail app, because that's where Siri is
gathering that information. Siri can't look into the Gmail app,
but they can look into the mail app, and so
that's where I use that feature to come in handy.
So it's a great little feature because especially with me

(47:54):
and my job and you know, other jobs. I'm sure
you know a lot of people are you know, are
calling you. If you're a realtor, you're getting calls from
various people that might have emailed you. You know, if
you're a journalist like I am, I'm always getting pr
people calling me, and so I can identify those people
because they sent me an email at some point and
in their email signature was their phone number, and so
I'm like, ah, okay, that's that person.

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Anyway.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
So Diana, what I would do is, if this is
continuing to happen, I would delete the Gmail out of
your settings and I would just reset it up and
hopefully that would trigger it to download the emails once again.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
But this seems like a fluke.

Speaker 1 (48:33):
Maybe had a bad connection, maybe setting got changed. But
I don't think that it's meant to work this way.
I mean, you should have a certain amount of back
email on your phone. I know it doesn't download all
of it at the same time, because that could be
a significant amount of email. But if it's something before
twenty twenty, that would make sense that maybe your phone
just doesn't have that email stored locally. And sometimes when

(48:55):
you search on your phone, it takes a little longer
because it's actually searching online. When the iPhone first came out,
this was kind of a major problem because connectivity on
the iPhone was so bad when it first came out,
So anything that had to go to the cloud, like
when you're searching your email, it was really bad because
it was looking on your you know, it was looking

(49:15):
on the server for any sort of emails that weren't
locally stored, and it was just like game over, like
you're not finding that email for an hour. Because the
AT and T network at that point was so bad
that it was just having an early iPhone. Oh it was.
It was horrible the connectivity. Even though this phone was
so magical and so amazing, the AT and T network

(49:36):
was so nascent, it was so new that it just
was painful and it was the only by the way,
the only network you can get the iPhone on for
many many years was was AT and T. And I
will never forget the day that Verizon had the iPhone.
I ran into the Verizon store and got it, and

(49:57):
I got the I switched to Verizon that because the
network was just so much better. Anyway, what's next, another story?
Do we have time for another story?

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yes we do?

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Oh as I predicted the Pixel six A. I talked
about it in last week's podcast. Pixel six A is
the new budget phone to beat fantastic budget phone if
you can deal with a slower than typical fingerprint reader
and a slower than typical screen. Otherwise, the camera is fantastic,
the price is fantastic, the software is fantastic, the size
is fantastic. Everything about the Pixel six A is really

(50:33):
good for a basic budget phone, except the price tag.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
I predicted that the price tag of four fifty would.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Go down to three ninety nine, which is much more
reasonable for this phone. In fact, I would even I
would even predict that during the holidays, this phone is
going to be three hundred and forty nine dollars, which
is one hundred dollars off the price tag right now.
Lo and behold nine to five Google reporting that Pixel
six A is basically three hundred and ninety nine dollars
right now because they're giving you a.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Fifty dollars Google Store credit if you buy it now.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
That's not fifty dollars off the price of the phone,
but it is fifty dollars that you can use towards
something else, which I know you have to find something
else to buy. But at the same time, you know
you can get a case for free. That's that's thirty dollars.
The leather case is fifty, so it.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Kind of is like fifty dollars off the price of
the phone.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
So anyway I called it, I knew it was going
to happen. I'm pegging the price point for this phone
to be about three hundred and ninety nine dollars, not
four fifty. I think I will either even predict that
it's going to go down to three forty nine during
the holidays, so be on the lookout for that. If
you have your eye on this phone. No need to
get it today. Pixel phones age, I think they age decently.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
With the software, but you have to, you know, just
keep your eye.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
I don't think you need to get it right now,
but definitely a budget phone that I will recommend throughout
the next year. Wendy's says, Hey, Rich, do you know
of any website that tracks when a hotel has undergone
a major remodel or basic refresh. I know I can
call the hotel and ask, but when you're trying to
choose among several hotel choices, it would be much easier

(52:10):
to look up on a website. Thanks for your recent
video about trip Advisor. I love the tricks you demonstrate
on everything. Thanks again, Wendy, Wendy, I thought I was
the only crazy person that actually cared about when a
hotel was last remodeled, but I guess I'm not. So
I'm glad to know that there are other people like
myself that like to stay in fresh and clean hotel

(52:30):
rooms or brand new hotels, hotels that were just built.
I do not know of a website that aggregates this
information for every hotel.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Now.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
I've seen this information on hotel listings, you know, every
once in a while you'll see it says hotel remodel
twenty eight, twenty twenty whatever.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
I think. On the Mariot app.

Speaker 1 (52:54):
Sometimes they list this, but it's not one of those
things that is always readily available.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
And I agree.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
I think that trip Advisor would be a perfect place
for this information to be listed, because I love it
if if a hotel was remodeled five years ago, it's like, okay,
that hotel is gonna be a little bit nicer than
a hotel that was remodeled, you know, fifteen years ago.
So I don't know of an app that does this.
If you know of an app that does this, please
let me know. Hello at richontech dot TV and if
you're not following me on Instagram, please follow me. I

(53:21):
am at rich on tech I've been trying to do
more reels. I've been trying to do more informational reels.
Like sometimes I just know certain little tips and tricks
and I'm like, uh, I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
Not everyone knows that.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
Like I'll be doing something in front of a friend
or family member, or I'll be fixing their phone and
I do something real quick and they're like, wait, what
was that? You can put your phone on on low
power mode?

Speaker 2 (53:42):
How'd you do that?

Speaker 1 (53:43):
I was like, oh, you didn't know that, Okay, let
me show you how to do it. So I've been
trying to put a little bit of those tips. But
the problem is, I'm always worried that people are gonna
make fun of me on Instagram for being like rich
everyone knows that tip, come on, give me a break.
That's like the most basic tip ever. But I have
to ride this line of there are a lot of
people out there that do not know technology, and so yes,

(54:05):
if you're following me on Instagram, maybe you know technology,
maybe you've known that tip forever, but there's also you
know one hundred other people that have never seen that tip. Like,
for instance, something I use all the time on my
web browser is a command shift T, which will bring
up the last tab that you close, like if you
close the tab.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
I use this every single day.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
If you close the tab by accident, you need to
open it back up, you just command shift to and
it's like boom, it opens up the last tab. And
so that's like one of those things that I know.
I'm like, oh, should I share that as a tip?
I don't know if it's worth the sixty second reels,
but maybe it is. AnyWho, All right, do I have
any other stories I want to talk about?

Speaker 2 (54:40):
Oh? Yeah, one other thing.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Oh, this is another thing I did on Instagram reels.
And by the way, Instagram reels take way longer to
make than you might think. So I am working a
full day at my TV job and then I'm trying to,
you know, do another like Instagram reel and I'm like, oh,
let me just bang this out real quick, and it's
like no, it's it takes an hour an hour, and
I have.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
To actually do some of these reels.

Speaker 1 (55:02):
So forgive me if I'm not doing a reel every
single day. What I see, Lasagna is saying any update
on the Endo Chino story. No, no updates just yet.
I haven't gotten any you know, anything yet. I haven't
got my suit yet. So I will update you and
maybe i'll do like a fitting, Like I'll.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Do like a little little swing with my suit, all right.

Speaker 1 (55:22):
So on Instagram, I did a video about this map
update on Google Maps. I thought it was pretty cool.
So Google Maps has now turned one hundred landmarks into
these photo realistic aerial views, popular landmarks in Barcelona, London,
New York, San Francisco.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
And Tokyo.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
And this is their first step towards this immersive view
and this is gonna be phenomenal when it actually happens.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
So let me tell you about these.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
What you want to do is go on your Google Maps,
look up something like and I looked up like one
hundred of these things to see which ones they have.
They have a bunch leaning Tower of Pisa, Empire, State Building, London,
I Statue, Liberty, Eiffel Tower, Mount Rushmore, Buckingham Palace, Palace
of Versailles in France. So look up one of those

(56:07):
things I just mentioned and you'll see underneath on Google
Maps like a little three sixty spinning version of it.
Tap that and you'll see Google has created these like
photo realistic views of these popular landmarks that you can
look at right now. They're very basic, they're kind of rudimentary,
but this is all working towards what Google calls immersive view.

(56:29):
So in the future, very near future, they're using AI
to pair all those street view images that you that
they've taken over the years with satellite and aerial imagery.
So basically the idea that they're what they're doing is
they will they will eventually let you walk around anywhere
in the world virtually. So right now, yeaes StreetView. You

(56:53):
can walk down the street, you can look left, you
can look right. It's not very good. But what they're
gonna do is they're gonna merge where you can fly
swoop down into something, look at the street, stand around,
look around, then walk into a restaurant that's on that street,
and see what that restaurant looks like. So this is
stuff that is going to be incredible. Obviously, it is
well suited for VR virtual reality. Google knows that in

(57:15):
the future we're gonna put on these VR headsets like
the one I was talking about earlier, and we're gonna
just like it. For say, for instance, if you're going
to Rome or if you're going to Paris, you're gonna
walk to your hotel. You're gonna walk down the street
where your hotel is, you're gonna look up at your hotel.
Then you're gonna walk into your hotel and check it out.
And they're building that right now. It is so so cool.

(57:37):
I am so excited about that, and we'll see how
cool it is. I I have very high hopes for this.
It's gonna be like street View, but very immersive and
just way more than what we have today. So this
little these little landmarks and aerial three D is just
kind of a small indication of what's to come.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
And I think it's gonna be really cool. So look
one of those up.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
See how they made them, See how they look kind
of like you're like, wait, is that computer generated?

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Is that a real video? Is that a picture?

Speaker 1 (58:07):
It's all of it mixed together, So very very cool Google.
All right, let's see if I can do one more
question before we have to go. Ruth says, I enjoy
your segment on Fox eight News in Cleveland, Ohio. I'm
hoping that you have a segment on tablets. I've always
had a Kindle. I'd like to stay with them. I
do jigsaw puzzles, I read, and I do word games

(58:29):
on my tablet. I don't need high power, but I
do like to download my books and puzzles. Extra storage
is necessary. Thanks ruth an Um. Yeah, I think you
stick with the fire HD ten or ten plus. I
think that's going to be your best tablet. The fire tablets,
I don't recommend all of the time, but I do
recommend in specific use case scenarios. If you're reading books,

(58:51):
if you're watching movies, that's all you care about. You
don't need to download a bunch of apps. You're not
really even surfing the web that much because I don't
think it's a very good experience on the kindle tablets.
Absolutely what you're talking about, jigsaw puzzles, word games, reading,
downloading books and puzzles, extra storage. This has got all
of those things covered. Fire HD ten or ten plus.

(59:13):
Get it on sale if you can. They've got a
bunch of sales with the Amazon stuff. We just had
them on sale for Prime Day, so they probably will
go on sale right around back to school again, but definitely,
I think that's a good thing to check out. Thanks
so much for the question, Ruthann, and thanks for watching
Fox A Cleveland. That's a powerhouse station out there that's.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Going to do it for this episode of the show.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash rich
on Tech, hit the Big Blues send email button, or
go to rich on Tech dot tv hit the email icon.
If you're on Instagram, hang out because I will talk
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I would love it if you would to rate and
review this podcast. Just go to the listening app of

(59:54):
your choice. Write a quick line about what you like
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And if you're on Instagram, definitely subscribe to the show.
Just search rich on Tech in any audio app, including Spotify,
hit subscribe and you can get the latest episodes. You
can find me on social media. I am at rich
on Tech. If you follow me on social media, please
share my stuff with other people. There's no way that

(01:00:16):
I'm going to be able to reach more people unless
you share something that has helped you tell your friends say, hey,
I follow this guy. He's given me some cool stuff.
You know, I like what he does. Follow him as well.
No matter where you live in the US, you can
download the free ktla plus app on Apple TV, Fire TV,
and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the tech section,
you can watch all of my TV segments on demand.

(01:00:38):
You know, TV is my primary job, so my TV
segments are really fun. They're interesting, they're useful, so watch
them on that fire on that KTLA plus app. My
name is rich Dmiro. Thanks so much for listening. There
are so many ways you can spend an hour of
your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here
with me. I'm gonna talk to you real soon.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
Take care, Tandon