Androids are now a mini earthquake detection machine

We've got some folks viewing this morning. I don't like to say what time of day it is, because you could be listening anytime, but to me, it's morning, and we got some folks watching on Facebook, So welcome to you. Welcome, no matter where you are. We had a viewer on Facebook from India. It is interesting. I've had my Facebook page now for about ten years, which I can't believe. I think I think it was July twenty ten that

I opened it. No, it couldn't be. No, no, no, sorry, it can't be that that old hold on it says on my little info page when I opened my page, and I can't seem to find that right now. Anyway, I've had it for a while and you'd be surprised.

I actually do have a lot of international folks on the Facebook page, people that don't necessarily find me from KTLA here in Los Angeles, but they find me from a various some sort of post I did that goes viral, and I've had a couple of big viral hits, including looks at the iPhone and just random stuff I've done where people see it and they like it and they end up following me. So I do have a lot of people from different countries and always surprises me just

how many. But welcome to you as well. I was off last week. I know it's been a little all over the place during the summer because you know, I've been taking off Fridays, which is normally when I record the show, and so last week I got a lot of questions, where's there's the show? Rich, where's the show? And Everything's okay. I was in Santa Barbara for my anniversary fifteen years, thank you, and my wife and I

just went up there. We didn't have the kids, so that was kind of nice and it was just a great weekend. And Santa Barbara is beautiful. If you're not familiar with it. It's in California on the coast, and it reminds me of Santa Monica, like twenty years ago. Just beautiful, well kept and oh is that a knock on Santa Monica. Whoops, But it's kind of true. It's a very beautiful place. I always say, if I could find a job in Santa Barbara, I would live there.

But I just don't know what people do there because I don't know what the industry is except tourism. The only tech company I know that's up there is called Sonos, and by the way, everyone had a Sonos. All the businesses up there have a son Nos speaker, which is really cool. But anyway, it was beautiful, lots of people, but everything was socially distanced. Everything was very safe. We had dinner outside. It was just beautiful. So I'm back.

I'm ready to work, and I can't speak highly enough of Santa Barbara, although I'm sure they are kind of sick of all the folks from Los Angeles coming up there. Maybe not for the money that we're spending, but maybe just for the It was a lot of people. I was very surprised. So anyway, if you're ever in California, definitely make Santa Barbara a stop. We did a great hike called the Inspiration Point and it was just amazing, one of my favorite hikes I've ever done, actually, and

the view at the top was just awesome. Let's get into the first story and something that I was testing out all weekend in Santa Barbara the Samsung Galaxy Note twenty Ultra. Samsung had their Unpacked event which was virtual, and they unveiled a whole bunch of stuff the Galaxy Note twenty, also the Galaxy tab S seven, the Galaxy Watch three, which I have on my wrist right now, and the Galaxy Buds Live and the Galaxy z Fold two. So many new items go through a couple of them.

The Galaxy Note twenty. The big improvements here are in the camera. Also, it has this new haze finish that resists fingerprints. You can see it right here. I've got that as well, and it's just beautiful. This phone Note twenty Ultra is probably my favorite Android phone I've ever used. It is the culmination of so many things that Samsung has worked on over the years, and it kind of

finally all pays off. I can't share my full review just yet, but I will say that as far as Samsung devices go, they got a lot right on this thing. The auto focus is the big thing they fixed on the camera. If you have a Samsung S twenty Ultra, you know that the focus has been a point of contention. And I love that phone, but the focus just got to me and it's just something that was to me unusable, and they kept doing software updates to make it better.

And believe me, the Note twenty and also the S twenty for ninety nine point nine, some of the pictures you're taking, it's going to be fine. It's just especially with the S twenty Ultra, it was really the close up stuff. And I do a lot of video of little things that I'm kind of taking a look at little video and it, you know, it's close up and I need that to be focused and I need it to look good. And with the S twenty Ultra it

just became a problem. And the Note twenty Ultra I find the video, I think, and the audio and the pictures to be really good. There's gonna be some challenges here and there, but overall it's not a deal breaker. It's a really really great phone. What else have I been impressed with the screen. It's one of these phones that I can't stop looking at. The screen is just so beautiful that I just can't take my eyes off of it, Like it's just it draws you in and

it's just everything is fast, it's speedy. So that's the note. They also made the spen improved, so the spen now feels snappier. I guess I don't know the difference. But they also made it so you can write on PDFs that you can. Oh one one cool feature when you take notes, it syncs up the audio to what you're writing, so if you tap what you're writing later, you can

hear the audio at the time. So if you're in class and you take a note and you want to hear what the teacher said exactly at that moment, just tap the thing that you wrote down and it brings you right to that part in the audio. That's really cool. And the camera the video is just it's all fantastic. Again, can't give you my full review, but that's kind of my first impressions of it after using it for a week or so. Let's see tabs seven I played with

just a little bit. This is their tablet that kind of rivals the iPad Pro, and again it's beautiful. It just seems like a giant note device with it with a keyboard. It's got the s pen functionality, and that's going on sale in later in the fall. I think that these high end Android tablets are a tough sell when the iPad has so much surrounding it, especially with apps and accessories. But the tabs seven is really beautiful and a nice device as well. The Watch three is

on my wrist. I love my Apple Watch and it's really tough for me to use any other watch, but I will kind of try this out a little bit. It doesn't have LTE on the model I'm testing, but it does have oxygen monitoring, it does have the workouts and all that good stuff. So I think if if you had to go with an Android smart watch, I think that this is probably the best one out there. But again I'm just not I'm not. I haven't used

it enough to kind of see yet. And question in Facebook Live is it worth the price on the Ultra. The Ultra is I think thirteen hundred dollars, So the idea is that you're probably upgrading from a different phone. So Samsung is giving a lot of upgrade deals right now, up to six hundred and fifty dollars in credits, so

even for crack screens. So the best way to do it is to order it from Samsung directly, and if you pre order it before August twentieth, which you still have a couple of days, you're going to get an extrae hundred and fifty dollars credit. So they are really pushing these credits. And Jonathan on the Facebook says, I love my Apple Watch, but I wonder if I can

use it the Note twenty you cannot. So it's it's one of those things where I've been wearing my Apple Watch which has LTE, and then also using the note to get kind of like because I haven't switched over, I haven't put my SIM card in the note because it's really tough with I message. It's just a whole big thing. It's really Android versus iOS these days is really hot and heavy. And yes, folks are saying that

AT and T has good deals. All the carriers are going to have great deals right now on especially pre orders. Once pre order time and the thing goes on sale, the deals get a little worse. So it's they these these companies put you in a really tricky situation. They want you to order this thing without actually having used it. So you've got to trust people like myself to say, oh my gosh, this is so great, you should go out and spend over one thousand dollars without ever touching

this device. Let's pre order it. That's really tricky. That's a tricky situation to be in. Personally, I would rather give up some of those some of the incentives to actually go to a store myself and try out a device and see how it is, see how it feels in my hand before I purchased it. But if you're really you know, if you're upgrading in your Note fan, and that's really who they're appealing to. If you have one of these devices and you want to upgrade to

the latest and greatest. You have a Note four or Note five? Was there five? Six? There was no seven? There was seven, but we know what happened with that one. Okay. Galaxy Buds Live, these are some of my favorites. These are the ones that look like beans and they are amazing. So I can't say enough about these Galaxy Buds Live. If you are looking for earbuds. If you're willing to spend one hundred and seventy dollars on earbuds, these are

some of the best earbuds I've tried. I love the AirPods Pro and I still think that they are the overall best earbuds, but the Galaxy Buds Live are among the best that I've t and I try a lot of earbuds and they sound good, they feel amazing. You can keep them in your ears for extremely long periods of time without any sort of fatigue, and the noise cancelation, which it has active noise cancelation is great, but it's not as pronounced as the Airpod's Pro. But I also

like that because they don't seal out your ears. So I just really fell in love with the Galaxy Buds Live. The Galaxy z Fol two I don't know anything about because I didn't try it and I haven't really seen much about it, and that appeals to a very very niche audience, so I can't really say much about that. But anyway, I will say, oop, hold on, there we go. I will say Samsung did a great job in their stuff this year. They really really brought it all right.

First question, comes from Janice. Jannis says, I have iPhone ten. I've been trying to get my data under a gigabyte. I'm guessing a month. I went into the setting and turned off some on just about everything. The only thing I have left is my Apple Watch, find my iPhone activity clock, Compass, and I do zoom one day a week on data for about thirty five minutes. As of today, I've looked and I've used point oh four or five gigabytes, and my daughter has used point eight gigabytes. And the

billing ends on the seventh of August. So my question is am I doing it right? I'm on a family plan, but I want to play pay less than fourteen dollars a month and not forty two dollars a month. Help needed? Oh interesting, I have a feeling Janice must be on the Spectrum plan. That's a dollar you pay fourteen dollars a month for your first gig, and then versus the versus the family Unlimited plan, which is like forty a month. I think, uh, but here's the deal. That zoom call

is going to kill you. You're you're not gonna be able to go under a gig for a whole month. If you're using Zoom one day a week, there's just no way. So I would say, I know you're trying to get your bill to under fourteen dollars a month. If you want to do that, you basically have done it right. You turned off data for everything except your absolute essentials, which I don't think are going to put you over a gig, but the Zoom will. So you got to turn off data for Zoom, and you gotta

go WiFi on Zoom. And that's just the reality. So if you're trying to do Zoom over data, maybe she doesn't have Wi Fi, so maybe she doesn't have Wi Fi and she's just using her phone. That could be another possibility here, And you're really trying to go inexpensive for fourteen a month for everything, In that case, it's gonna be almost impossible. If you're doing Zoom, it's gonna gobble up some data. You're not gonna be able to keep that under a gig a month on that plan.

So my suggestion is if you have Wi Fi, definitely lean on the Wi Fi and do the Zoom from a Wi Fi place. Now, if you want to stay under the fourteen and you want to do your zoom. You got to go find somewhere where you can latch onto some Wi Fi and do your zoom from there. So maybe outside of a Starbucks, maybe I don't know, a friend's house if you can, if you can social distance,

they're backyard. I don't know, but that's really the solution that you have because there aren't too many options when you're trying to stand or a gig. That is really tight when it comes to data these days. All right, let's talk about Fortnite. This does not this affects you, but not you know, I try to keep the news and information in this show to a level that affects consumers. That's what I'm all about. I'm not going to talk

business here. I'm not going to talk you know, the the nitty gritty tech stuff that you know I love to talk about with other tech nerds. But this show is for the average consumer. And so that's why I talk about stuff that affects a wide swath of folks. And this one is a business to business thing. It's a big it's a big fight between Apple, Google and Fortnite. But it does affect you because it affects you in various ways. So let's talk about it. Epic Games, which

makes Fortnite. They updated their app on iOS to give folks an option to buy Fortnite I guess dollars whatever they call them v bucks directly versus through Apple's iOS in app purchase system. And guess what. Apple does not like that. So what they do. They took Fortnite off the app store, and Fortnite then fought back and said, oh, you're so evil, you are a monopoly and we're suing you in federal court, and you know that's where it stands.

Then they did the same thing on Google, and they gave folks an option to purchase the little in app purchases through uh through Fortnite directly instead of through Google. And what a Google say? You can't do that, you gotta we gotta take you out of Google Play. Now, when it comes to taking them out of Google Play versus taking them out of the app store, Android users can do something called sideloading, So in two seconds you can download the what's called an APK for Fortnite, which

is basically this software for Fortnite. If you've ever used a Windows computer that's kind of like the EXSE program, or if you've ever used a Mac computer. It's a DMG. It's a software program that you download and you install on your device. On iPhone, it's not possible to do that without doing something called jail breaking, which is highly highly unrecommended. On Android, it's super easy. It warns you once and you say, yeah, let me install this, and

you can install it. So on Android. I don't see this as being that big of a deal, although it's always easier and safer and faster and better to go through the play Store, but you have the option, and I have some apps on my phone that I've bypassed the App Store, and you just download them and you go on your merry way. But what they're doing is

something bigger. They are saying that Google and Apple have this giant monopoly and they force all these apps that have payments to make you pay through Apple or through Google. And should that be the case. Now I'm kind of torn on this. I do think that there is a big monopoly. And in fact, when I was selling my book one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the Eye Phone, a lot of folks would say, rich, I went to the Kindle app or the Amazon app on

my iPhone and it says this is not compatible. You can't purchase this from your iPhone, which is very confusing because technically you could, but Apple does you know, they want Amazon to use their payment system, so Amazon says, no, We're just not doing it. So you can't purchase from your iPhone. You can either go to a web browser and purchase it, or you know, find some other way and then download it to your phone. So it's very confusing.

And this is what I think is at the basis of these lawsuits is that Apple and Google make it kind of confusing for consumers. They think the only way to purchase something is through the app, and in fact, Netflix, if you try to subscribe to it through an app purchase, they just don't let you do it. You got to go to a website. But they also can't tell you that you can do that, So I get it. This

is this is very confusing for consumers. But I also see the other side of things is that Apple built this entire amazing ecosystem of iPhones that are out there, and they want to make it good for the end user, and they want to make it safe for the end user. So if the end user every time you downloaded an app and you want it to subscribe to that app, you have to put your credit card number in there.

Think about the security implications of that. We do it online, but you know there is definitely a security issue there. Now you can argue and say, rich, come on, people are adults. They can figure out where to put their credit card where not. But I get Apple's argument. I also get Fortnite's argument, So it would be nice to have options. But I don't know. We're going to see what court says about this, because apparently they are. They're

going to battle it out. So since twenty eighteen, according to this article in the New York Times, Fortnite's app has been downloaded more up than one hundred and thirty three million times on iPhones and iPads, raking in one point two billion dollars according to one analytics firm, and Apple has gotten three hundred and sixty million of that as it's commission. So you have a good app and

Apple benefits as well. Let's see on Android devices, Fortnite's been downloaded eleven million times through Google Play, which is probably kind of low because a lot of people probably sideloaded it. That's generated ten million dollars in sales according to Censor Tower, and Google has taken three million of that. This is not the last we're going to hear of this,

but it is a battle. And what's going to happen on the iPhone specifically is that if you have Fortnite, you can still play it, but you can't update the app. So that means that if Apple does anything to make that app unplayable, you're out of luck. That's gonna be a problem. All right, Let's get to a question, and Tom says, what computer antivirus, malware and hacking protection would you recommend from my home? It needs to protect my computer,

my WiFi, Roku, Alexa, and a smart TV. Is Trend micro Home Network Security a good one at three hundred ninety nine dollars for two years and one hundred dollars a year after. You must also purchase the maximum defender for the computer for forty bucks. Or do you recommend something else? Or Netflix just got hacked and it cost me six hundred dollars from dan V's Solutions to fix the problem and get Netflix back up and running. I

watch you every morning on KTLA. Well, I am really really scared that you paid six hundred dollars because your Netflix got hacked. I'm not even sure what that means. How does your Netflix get hacked? What do they do? If my Netflix got hacked? I called Netflix or my credit card and say, uh yeah, cancel that account. I'm closing it, and I'd open up a new one. Why did you have to pay six hundred dollars? That scares me. Also, these numbers, you're throwing out four hundred dollars for two years,

one hundred dollars after forty bucks, or the computer. I don't think you need any of this stuff. I don't know how your Netflix got hacked, but I don't know that it was hacked through your network. It was probably hacked through someone just figuring out your password. So Tom, I would say you probably need stronger passwords on your

A counts. That's number one. Number two when it comes to protecting your network, Usually your network is pretty much protected unless you're doing crazy things and opening up ports on your router. It's usually pretty connect pretty protected through your ISP, and your computers are usually protected through Windows Defender.

So I don't think you need that much. If I had to recommend anything, I would take a look at a website called next dns next dns dot io, and this will at the network level protect all of your devices. And it's like twenty bucks a year. So that is much better. It's much simpler, and it's much easier. And I think that I mean it's it's free. Oh gosh, it's free for up to three hundred inquiries a month. So I think this is actually the best way to go.

Just go to next dns dot io and you're gonna have to do just a couple little things on your router and also on your devices. But you can set this up in a couple of minutes and you get a lot of you get a lot of protections on here. You can do a lot of stuff, and you can do you can do parental controls, you can do Google safe browsing, cryptojacking protection, oh my gosh, just everything. This is what you need. You don't need to pay all

that money to whatever that person you were saying. The trend micro home network security the thing I've seen and now I get it. I do tech every day for my life, and I try to set up security as much as I can. But one thing I notice is that these security companies prey upon you consumers, and I tell you that because they scare you into thinking that you need a ton of stuff that you don't necessarily need. What you need to do is number one, watch the

links that you are clicking. That's the best solution I can think of to not getting hacked. Number two, you need to have good passwords and what's called two factor authentication. So when you set up an account, don't just use the password that you've used for every other account for the last twenty years of your life. That is what's gonna get you hacked. Got to use a good password, and you've got to make sure that you enable what's

called two factor authentication. This means that when you try to log in, the system is gonna say, hmm, we haven't seen this log in from some random place before. Is this you? We're gonna send you a text message just to make sure, and that text comes to your phone and you can't log in until you put in

that message. That's number two. Now, if you want a firewall and all this stuff, and you think people are trying to hack into your network all day long, which are probably not, but if you feel like you want to do that, definitely put up some protections on your network and on your computers. Make sure Windows Defender is on a Mac. I mean, you know, make sure the basic stuff is enabled that comes with a computer, which is firewalls, and you know all the ports are not opened.

But that's generally that's generally just done by default. So what you really need to do is make sure that you're not being phished. And that's the way most people are getting hacked. It's when you get an email and you click on it and it says, oh, here's your Chase bank count. Let's make sure you log in real quick and did you do this charge? You say no, and you log in and next thing you know, you say, oh no, that wasn't that wasn't Chase. So you got

to protect yourself from yourself. That's really what you need to do. And those are the things that I would recommend you do. I don't think you need to pay all this money. If you have something like an Eero, for sure, I would pay the I think it's twenty bucks a year I paid or thirty dollars a year for euro Secure. So if your Wi fi company offers something like that, I would enable it. I've got that enabled online. I think it's it was forty bucks for

the year. I think, so that'll that'll work for you. But that's that's what i'd recommend, all right. Microsoft has an new device that I am unclear if this thing is going to be a major hit or a flop. Surface Duo is what it's called. It's a mobile device that sort of looks like two screens put together, kind of a foldable device, and the Surface Duo is fourteen hundred dollars. It opens up into an eight point one inch screen, so imagine like a book or just a

foldable device that opens and closes. It is a phone. You can do Microsoft stuff on it. It runs Android. You can have the Kindle app to read it like a book. You can put it like a tent and watch a video hands free. That's awesome. If we're flying again. You compare it with a Bluetooth controller to play Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. You can take notes with a little

slim pen that sold separately. It sounds really cool. I saw this in New York City in October at the Microsoft event, but only a non working model was I able to see. I don't even think they let me hold it, but I saw the working Model demo do on stage. It looks cool, but it's one of the these things that could prove to be very very small audience of enthusiasts or people that you know want to get something that's different and cool, and I just don't

know what the mass appeal of this is going to be. Now. In the future, yeah, I think we'll have stuff like this, but right now, I think it's a really tough sell because we're just not there yet, and it's very expensive

for something that doesn't do very much. Maybe it does a lot, but it's just not like if you had fourteen hundred dollars to spend, I'd rather see you spend it on a laptop or a tablet that has a much larger screen, because most of us have our phone, and I'm just not sure we want to carry this around as our phone. Now. I could be wrong, And here's why I'm not just saying this to say it.

When I and the blog that Panos Piney wrote for Microsoft refers to this, and I remember we had him at KTLA seven years ago when the first surface came out and he showed it to me, and instantly I saw that and I saw the potential. I saw this device that worked as a PC but also a tablet that she had a touch screen, and I saw the potential. I did not poop poo it. So I'm I'm poop poohing the duo a little bit more because I'm just not really sure that it's gonna be as you know,

as great, but we'll see. So anyway, I'm getting blasted right now for my photographer. You probably can't hear. I always think it's funny. I listened to a lot of podcasts and they always reference things that are happening to them in their room. But because these microphones were using are so good, you rarely hear what's going on around us, but we reference it. So I was listening to a podcast the other day and the host kept saying how her cat was rubbing up against the mic, or was

meowing whatever. I couldn't hear it at all, but you know, to her it was in her room and happening, and you know she could hear it, so she referenced it. So I do that often, and I'm probably you probably can't hear it. Maybe you heard one notification. My phones are buzzing over here, but that's the Surface duo. It's available for pre order right now. It's going to be available September tenth, and it's going to work on AT

and T, T Mobile and Verizon. And again, it's not something that I personally need in my life, but I think that if it appeals to you to have a device that does a lot of stuff and business stuff, maybe, but I still feel like people are not even sold on the tablet as being a productive device for work more so than a laptop. I feel like it's tough to even sell something that's a phone, and this tiny mobile phone with two screens. But again, I'm not a

predictor of all things great tech. I think I have a pretty good eye, but I think that this will be one of those things that time will tell, and of course iterations. I would not recommend getting the first version of this thing unless you just have money to burn. But I think that over iterations, we will see if this ends up to be a great device that people end up relying on. I think the Microsoft Surface has proved to be a fantastic device for a lot of people,

and we'll see if the duo follow suit. Let's get to the next question from Luciana Luciana, Luciana, maybe just Lucy. We'll call her Lucy. Hey, Rich, I wanted to know how he can help have my son have his own internet. We have Spectrum at home as our cable with internet, but we use links this as our router. It just doesn't matter. My son is in his room and his Internet does not work. I've tried to find something that can make sense and work for him. Now he's on

virtual school. Besides going crazy setting them up, you up three kids through different schools, I have to hear him complaining about the internet. Help me? Is there anything I can install in this house to have him have his own Internet without messing up the one we already have. I've gotten this internet question so many times over the past couple of weeks. I cannot believe it. Internet in people's homes is so bad. Nobody has realized until the

pandemic because everyone's working and schooling from home. I will say it. I've said it on this podcast. I've said it again. All you have to do is get a mesh network. Your Internet from Spectrum is just fine. It works fantastically. It works as it works for three devices with three different schools and three different kids and mom working and potentially dad working at the same time. In fact, it'll work for a whole bunch of stuff. It's just

the problem is that lynxis router you have. The signal is terrible. It's not reaching where you need it to go, and it's just not getting to all the different rooms. And it's no fault of lynxis. When these routers came out, these original routers, we just didn't think about needing all of these devices connecting to them at the same time. So that's what's happening. You need to get an ERO, You need to get a Google Wi Fi or Google Nest Wi Fi, or an Orby or just look up

Mesh network, take your pick. They will all work perfectly to get your network into all rooms of your house. Now, I will tell you personally, I recently upgraded to a gigabit Internet, which is one thousand down one thousand up, and I will tell you that I have had some trouble with my Mesh network because it turns out that

the euro doesn't necessarily like such high speeds. So your ERO and your typical Mesh networks are gonna be good up to about four hundred megabits per second, which spectrum is two hundred down that's their standard and about ten up maybe twenty up that's gonna be your standard. It's gonna be just fine for that. Now with me with the thousand. When I first did my speed test, I'm like, wait, what turns out there's two different types of mesh networks.

There's tryband and there is dual band. And if you have super fast internet like gigabit, you want to go with a tryband, and that adds an extra antenna onto your devices which helps get you faster, even faster speeds throughout your house. You do not need that. If you just have standard Internet one hundred, two hundred, three hundred four hundred, you just need a regular euro You gotta go pro. If you want the tryband, look for the

word tryband on your mesh network. If you have super fast internet, I am having trouble securing the third node I need here. I was able to buy an extra one, and so I'm not there just yet. So my Internet's good and I'm getting the speeds at the hub, but I'm not getting them throughout everywhere in my house like I used to. So that's my recommendation. If you have bad Wi Fi. Look for something called a Mesh network. Just pick one, look at the reviews, go with it.

They're all pretty good. But again, what we're realizing is that all of our Wi Fi networks were just never equipped to handle so many people doing so many things from home, all at the same time. So you got to go with the Mesh network to make that possible. This next story, I think is just so cool. This is Google doing what Google does best, and this is

Google being amazing. And yes, you can talk about Google being a big evil company that just wants to collect our data, but they do some incredible stuff and this is one of those things. First, they are taking on earthquakes and how they're doing this is twofold number one. In California, they're gonna start sending earthquake alerts to Android devices. And you may have an earthquake app on your phone.

This is separate from that. You do not need an earthquake gap anymore in California if you have an Android device, Google is going to send these out sort of like Amber alerts. They're handling them like an alert you would get from the government. And they did this. They teamed up with the USGS and they're tapping into their seismometers installed across the state and their shake alert system. So over the next couple of weeks it's gonna be I think they said several weeks, this will be enabled on

all Android devices, Android five point zero up. What does that mean? If you have an Android device from twenty I think fifteen and older and newer, I should say, you're gonna get these these alerts on your phone, so you'll be surprised. The next time we have an earthquake, you will get an alert. Hopefully you'll get the early alert, and that's number one. And if you want to turn these off, you can turn them off like you would

an amber alert. And the way they're doing this and they're getting it too all the Android phones and why you don't need an app is they're updating on something on your phone called Google Play Services. So it's not even an operating system update. It's literally an update to the core of Android. And this is the same thing that they did for the alerts for COVID, the what they call exposure notification. Google I think is getting really

smart about how they're approaching Android updates. They have realized that the carriers and the manufacturers cannot get system updates to devices in a meaningful timely manner, unlike iOS, where Apple every couple of months every year at least, they come up with a new iOS, you know, iOS eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and every couple of weeks or whenever they feel necessary, they do an update to the iOS and it goes to every iPhone. Android can't do that with the way

Android is built. Android gives Apple or sorry, Google gives a software to all these manufacturers and they do whatever they want and they put the software on their phone and then they're responsible for updating it. Google really can't update these things in their own way except when it comes to Google Play services. And so that's what they've ended up doing. And it's so smart. Okay, So that's the first thing. Second thing they're doing, and this is

where I get really excited as a nerd. They are using all of Android phones across the world to detect earthquakes. So they're using the little sensors in them. They specifically accelerometers that can sense when your phone is moving and shaking, and specifically when your phone is plugged in and motionless

and all of a sudden it's jarred. It's going to take that information and send it to Google for analysis, and Google's going to use their super smart engineers and they're super smart algorithms to figure out what was this an earthquake. And the way they describe it in their system here is they say that they are racing against

the speed of light. And so eventually, when all these phones are online and they are sensing an earthquake, they're going to send all the data to Google, and Google's going to analyze it real quick and then hopefully be able to send out even more alerts under this system. I think that is just incredible. It is such a good use of good use of technology. We have Android phones around the world, So imagine that that first California had to in you know, all these different seismologists had

to build these little seismographs. Is that what they're called? No seisometer size? Oh my gosh, seismometers across the state. How expensive are those things? They're super expensive. We only have seven hundred of them. Imagine millions, if not billions, of Android phones around the world that can do the same thing. Next question comes from Angela. Hey, Rich, do you review indoor cycling bikes that are paired with interactive apps. I'm an avid Spin enthusiast and will not be first

in line at my local place when it opens. I've been looking at Spin bikes from my home gym. I don't want to pay the cost of Peloton bikes, so I've been looking at alternatives referenced in the subject line. Oh what was the subject line? Reportedly they are compatible with the Peloton app, but I trust your judgment. I am requesting your help as I believe there are some drawbacks that I'm missing. Okay, So she let me see here Peloton. Okay, so she's looking at the uh oh,

the bike. I have the Boflex C six and also, let's see here the Shwin I see four. Okay, so funny. I actually have the Bowflex C six bike, which I love. It's been a absolute lifesaver through the pandemic because I

ordered it when I saw it at CS. I was at CES in January, back when you can, you know, go to something and see other people and be in a room with other people, and I fell in love with this bike because I thought it just came to me, like I thought the Peloton was cool, but not for twenty five hundred and you know, fifty sixty bucks a month whatever they charge. But when I saw this bike, it was about I think nine hundred dollars and it just worked with an iPad. And I said, why would

I not do that? What am I not getting from this bike? And they said, well, you don't get the leaderboard from Peloton. You don't get the so you get to use the Peloton app, but you also get to have your own bike. And I like the idea that this bike was compatible with a whole bunch of apps, because what if in a year, Peloton, you know, falls out of favor and there's something better that comes along. And so that's why I bought it, and I love

it. It's great, it's fantastic. What you don't get through Peloton is the leaderboard and some of the social aspects of Peloton, which I'm sure people love. I personally don't care if I finish first in the class or two hundred in the class. I really don't care. I'm not that competitive. I just want my workout and I'm done. So to answer your question, what don't you get that? That's what you don't get. The other thing is that the cadence. It does match up with the app, so it does

bluetooth from your bike to show how. I guess how. I don't know what cadence means. I think it's how fast your legs are moving. But the instructors will call out the cadence and say your cadence should be an eighty five right now, and you will see that on screen, so you do get that. The other thing you get is the resistance levels. The instructors will call out, Okay, you should be at a thirty right now, or okay, let's pump it up to forty to fifty. And the

numbers on the Bowflex do match up. So I can't speak for the Shwin because I don't have that, but I think it's basically the same bike because they're made by the same company. But I highly recommend them. I think they're amazing and I love Peloton, and perhaps if I was willing to spend that much money on a bike, and more importantly, that much money monthly on their membership,

I would get that next time. But right now I'm perfectly happy and I love the flexibility of the bike that I have, so that yeah, go ahead and get it. You're gonna love it all. Right. Next story here, You've probably seen this on Instagram and I don't know, I'm just kind of annoyed by it. Uh, And it's funny. I guess the older I get, the grumpier I get with things. But Instagram reels is the new TikTok competitor

in Instagram. And you've probably seen these already. They are these I don't want to say dumb, but there there's little videos that you see that just look kind of silly. There's the video sped up, it's fast. People are doing dumb things in them, jumping off of things and singing and dancing. So this is this is a blatant ripoff of TikTok. And perhaps Instagram and Facebook are capitalizing on the fact that, you know, the fate of TikTok lays in a you know, a long distance I don't know whatever.

You know what's going on with TikTok. It's uh, you know, the it's the future. Look, TikTok is going to be around in the US. There's no doubt about that. In my mind. It's just very political right now and it's very much you know, there could be I don't know what to say about TikTok. It's going to be around. Microsoft probably gonna buy it, and that's what's gonna happen there. But it's not going anywhere. It's going to be around in the US. But Instagram is famous for copying things.

They did that with Stories, and I love Instagram and I love Stories. I think they did a great job. But of course Snapchat started stories and Instagram just perfected them. And so now they're doing the same thing with reels and reels lets you add audio. It lets you add augmented reality effects, timers and countdowns so you can record your clips hand free. You can align, so it means

that you can, you know, change your outfit. You know, you see those people they go like this, like and they change your outfit three times, and that's an a TikTok. Now it could be an Instagram reels speed You can slow up, slow down or speed up video and it's just look, it's fun, it's cool, and yes, well I probably ever do it. Yeah, I probably will, but I

have not yet. And I'm really really holding off because I see why Instagram wants this to take off, and they're putting a lot of energy into it and They're putting a lot of promotion into it, and I see my friends doing it and they're great and it's fun. But it just feels like TikTok came up with something very unique, and now Instagram's just copying it and trying to capitalize on this whole this whole situation with TikTok and China and you know, being banned potentially. But I think, look,

there's probably a place for both of them. But I personally will say I may, I may start it, and who knows, maybe I will not ever do it. I'd like to try to never do it, but I don't know if I'll be able to keep myself from never doing a reels. But now you know about it, Now you know what that is. You can tell it's a reels when it's got that little it looks like a little film clip in the lower left hand corner. So okay, let's get to another question before this show is over.

I usually go longer on these shows when when I'm doing them by myself, but we'll see it's so hot in here. I don't know if I can Marty says Rich. What is the search engine that is the safest, most secure I'm a senior who likes to learn and look things up. With all the issues I hear regarding privacy, I get concerned that I could be hacked or my

information stolen when I'm on Google or Yahoo. Well, Marty, I don't know what you're looking up, but I'm assuming it's you know, various things that you know you just don't want in your history. I don't know what that could be, but I will tell you what is safest and most secure. So I think when it comes to this situation, there's there's three things that you have to look at. Number One, your ISP, your Internet service brider is going to know what you're looking at no matter what,

no matter what you use, they're gonna know. So even if you use Chrome in a incognito browsing mode or some sort of private browsing mode, they are still able to see the website that you're visiting. So that's number one. If you want to get around that, you have to use what's called a VPN, and a VPN will will shroud what you're viewing from your Internet service provider if

you want to go that far. Now, if you just don't really want an AD following you around forever because you looked up, you know, something that you wanted to buy, and next thing you know, you're getting ads for it. Like for me, I was researching those photo sticks and next thing you know, all the ads on my Instagram

are for these photo sticks. And so if you don't want that happening, you can use a private browsing window to look and that will be just fine, and it won't record your history in Google or you know, whatever search engine you're using. And to do a private browser you just do new incognito window. So you want to look up an incognito tab on your mobile phone, you

can use something like Firefox. By the way, Okay, so while we're still on search engines, if you want to get if you want to do something more private with your search engine, you can do you start page dot com and startpage dot com is a provider that will not keep anything on record, so you can just type in anything you want on there and it will not keep it on record, it doesn't link it to you,

and that's pretty private. They also have this really cool thing called anonymous view, so you can visit a website without anyone, including your ISP, knowing that you visited that website. So that's another way you can do it, and that's to kind of explain that in quick terms. They're kind of using what's called a proxy or almost like a VPN, just for that visit. So that startpage dot com is really good for that. If you want to remain anonymous,

there's also duc dot Go. People know about that one. And if you really want to up the ante, you can use an entire web browser built around privacy, something like Brave dot com, and you have to download that to your computer and they really protect your privacy as well. On your mobile, you can download that as well, or you can use a website or a browser called Firefox Focus on mobile. So I have this on my iPhone.

Anytime I look up anything medical related, I use Firefox Focus because I don't really want, you know, just because you look up something what happened in my time or here, just because you look up something, you know, you think that you're you know that whatever's on your toe is. You know, it's like these medical things I just don't want in my Google record, you know, so you just look them up in Firefox Focus and you don't have to worry about being tracked that way. So that's the

best way to do it on your mobile device. I hope that answers your question. Speaking of being tracked, this is actually a perfect segue into my next story, how the NSA keeps phones safe from tracking. Wired has an article that says the National Security Agency shared a three page primer on how to limit your location data exposure. And here's the things you need to do on your phone if you don't want to be tracked, according to the NSA. Number one, turn off Bluetooth and Wi Fi

when you're not using them. Then turn on airplane mode whenever you're not using your phone. Okay, well, how you're gonna get calls? Turn off or decline location sharing permissions for apps, including your browser. And this is a smart one. So if you're start. If you download an app and asks for a location, just say no if it doesn't need your location. Most apps don't need your location unless there's a good reason for it. Make sure you at least limit their ability to check your location to only

when you have the app open. That's something new on iOS thirteen. It says, you know, hey, only allow while you're using the app. That's a really good thing to do. I would definitely recommend that reset your phone's advertising ID at least weekly. Okay, you can do this on both I believe on Android. I know you can do it on iPhone. And what that is is when these advertising networks tap into your phone, they get this advertising ID that identifies you across all the different networks and across

all the different websites. And if you reset that regularly, it's tougher to track you. Don't use iOS or androids Find my Device features, Yeah, because that's tracking you and keeping a you know, a record of all the places you've gone. And consider using a trusted VPN provider. I always get questions about trusted VPNs. I don't necessarily have one that I use, so I can't really say which

VPN that I like. But there's a lot of them out there, and I think you want to look at ones that have There's a lot of articles dedicated to finding a good VPN. So I'll let you just Google for trusted VPNs and you know, scroll past the ads and look for good articles on that, maybe from like the Wirecutter, from PC magazine, from you know, trusted blogs that don't don't find blogs that are just advertising shrouded

as a you know blog. You want to find trusted websites like the vergs recommending them, Wirecutter or you know, you know, look for trusted sources when you look up these blog these VPNs that are really good. Do we have time for one more question? Let's see, let's see. Okay, you know, I'm just gonna do two more things I thought were interesting real quick. So I thought this was really smart. This is in Google, in Google Search, they are doing something that I think is brilliant and I

can't believe it hasn't been there before. But now when you search on Google where to watch live sports, it will tell you. And they're starting this with MLB and NBA games. And it's funny because I don't have standard cable. I just use streaming for everything, and I have an antenna and so whenever I need to watch a sporting event, which is pretty rare, but when I do, I do watch some sports, sometimes I will search, you know, USC

game streaming. And it always surprised me that Google didn't just give me like where it's streaming and how to into that. And I'm not talking about these illegal streams, so I'm talking about like actual ways of streaming it, like it's on you know, channel four, or it's on channel five, or it's on channel seven whatever, or it's on Fuboo with the Fox Sports app. That's what I'm

talking about, and that's what Google is now doing. So now you can search for MLB and NBA games, where to watch the Clippers game, or how to watch the A's game, and it will tell you how to tune in across a variety of services where it's available. And you can also do live TV options, so it'll tell you which live TV is showing the game on the day, so it'll say live on you know, channel five, live

on channel seven, live on channel two. I love this, and if you it's sad for the blogs because every sports blog does a blog post that says how to watch, because it's gotten so complicated to tune into a sports game because so many people have different ways of doing it, and so now they say how to watch, and there's literally blog posts for every game that's says, Okay, here's how you watch it on linear TV Channel four, Here's how you watch it on the app NBC Sports App.

Here's how you watch it on streaming NBC Sports app. On you know, fire TV. Here's how you watch it on. I mean, it's all these different things, and so now it will tell you, you know, Sling TV has it on this channel. But that's really cool. It's rolling. Everything with Google rolls out. So if you try this right when you hear it from me talking about it, you

may not get it that first minute. Everything with Google kind of takes a little time because I tried this on my phone and I didn't have it just yet. But it will eventually get there. All right, I'm gonna do one more question, a bonus question, because I feel so good today. Clark says, my name is Clark. I've been a big fan of yours on KTLA channel five and also your flash briefing on my Echo show. I like that I need some help. My granddaughter is thirteen.

She's a great is a great kid. We're giving her some more freedom. We want to set up a free app that allows us to track her from home in school and notified if she goes out out of a pre arranged area. We don't need homework helpers, website or text message monitoring. What can we use? Is there a free option? Or am I expecting too much? My granddaughter has an iPhone six plus Clark. Yes, there is a

free option. I would recommend there's a couple ways you can do this, and yes, you can use the built in find my feature on iPhone, but I don't know what kind of phone you have, and I don't know how many people are trying to track this granddaughter. But I would recommend what's called Life three sixty and Life three sixty dot com is kind of the gold standard when it comes for tracking families. It is the probably

the best family tracker out there. And the reason you can say, Rich, why aren't you recommending what's already free on iPhone? Because not everyone has an iPhone, Not everyone has the same exact platform. And I like things that are cross platform. I like products that work across everything.

So whether you want to log in via the website, whether you want to log in on your Android, whether your grandma has an Android, grandpa has an iPhone, the granddaughter has Linux, whatever it is, well, maybe not Linux, but it's gonna work across all these things. And that's why I always like products that work across platforms. It's the reason why I message is the bane of my existence. I hate it because it's so great, but guess what, it only works if everyone using it has an iPhone.

Airdrop is so amazing, but guess what, it only works if you're using all Apple products. I like cross platform stuff because I see a world where technology should work for every person, not just people that subscribe to one specific thing. And so this is why i'd set up and get started with something like Life through sixty. Now, look, if your family's all Apple and you only care about Apple, and you love Apple products and you're never gonna buy

anything else, then sure go with the fine feature. But I think you should be going with Life three sixty because it works across everything. And that is my soapbox for the day. Thanks so much for listening to the show that is going to do it for today's show. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, just go to Rich on tech dot tv and hit the email button. They used to say button from New Jersey button at the bottom bottom of the page. Do

people really pronounce teas like that? Come on button Fountain, No, I say button live with it. We'd also love it if you rate and review this podcast to help other people discover it. I would look up a recent rating, but I can't right now. Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech and I know that you listen to this, and there's a lot of you that listen to this. Thank you so much. We've

had Surprisingly, the listenership is up over the pandemic. So you guys must be really bored if you are sitting there listening to my podcast for an hour. No, I'm just kidding, and you're not driving a work but thank you. I do appreciate it. I feel like I give good information. The numbers are up, so I know you're listening. Just leave that review, please. I'm just gonna beg you, beg you.

Because when people see lots of good reviews on the Apple iTunes or whatever program using, they're like, oh, people must like this show, let's listen. They can't see how many people listen to it. They can only see that people review it. So that's why it helps. You can find me at rich on Tech on all platforms. As you know, I've been pumping it up, pumping out the

output on all these different platforms. I'm running on fumes. Wait, no, I don't know what the term is, but I'm doing a lot I'm posting much more so Rich on Tech. Whether you're on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, I'm Rich demiro On behalf of everyone that gets this show to your ears. Thank you so much for listening. Stay safe, We'll talk to you real