Best sites to find holiday shopping deals

Welcome to the show. Well, this is typically where I talk about something that is happening in the week that's interesting or notable, and quite honestly, I don't really have much. What a great show, What a great way to start it out. This is what happens when I don't things. You know. It's funny because I always talk about being organized, and I've really I'll just be totally honest, I've really really struggled with one system of organization and I don't

know what it is. I think it's because my TV world and my personal world are so mixed. Like if someone, let's just say, someone I'm out with a friend, right and they tell me about a really cool app, or they tell me about something that I should look into, or they just give me I don't know anything. They just start talking crypto and I, you know, whatever, Where do I put that note? Do I put it in my notes app? Do I put it in my to do app? Do I put it in my email? I've

got this thing where I can email myself. I mean I just I've literally I have so many places, like so many nooks and crannies where I put little notes and things that when I need to actually look at them or organize them, I just don't know where they are. So I've got a pretty good system for TV, Like I've got a system for the radio where I talk about stuff and TV. But when it comes to like anything after that, it just totally drops off an edge

or a cliff. I should say, like I have this system for Okay, simple thing I want to do is read articles later, right, Like simplest thing in the world. Just put them in pocket. Well, it turns out I never open the pocket app on my phone ever ever. Ever, I just never think to open it. It's there, it's on. Well, no, I demoted it for my homepage, so I guess that's

probably part of the problem. And then you mix in the fact that I'm always kind of swapping between phones because right now I'm testing the pixel and so a lot of times I will take that out and about and so someone Okay, So the other day I was at my kids baseball game and another dad is like, hey, let me give you my number so we can chat. And I'm like, I don't have my phone on me

right now. He's like, well, your phone's right there, and I'm like, well, it's a tester phone and it's like so I ended up putting the phone his phone number in like my notes app, the keep app on Android, and I don't really use that app anywhere else. So it is such a it's a lot. It's a lot to keep track of. But I will say, oh, one thing I did this week. I did purchase the Amazon

Fire TV Stick four K Max. I don't know if that's the full name of it, but I'm very excited because I've got the old stick in the bedroom TV and it's kind of slow, and so I'm very excited for this new one. But I also did the thing where I waited for it to go on sale. I knew it was gonna go on sale, so it was thirty five dollars instead of fifty five, so I purchased it at thirty five. But then you can trade in

your old stick for twenty percent off. So I got the old stick and I actually used that thing called repair Mates return Mates that I did a story on I probably talked about it on the podcast. And they just come and pick up the stuff from your front door. And so I just you know, you send the whatever the system is, the label, you upload that, they put it in a box, they send it on its way. So I haven't gotten my credit just yet for that, but they picked it up yesterday, and so it's all.

I love that service Returnmates. Right now, I'm on a free trial of the fifteen dollars a month, so after that runs out, I don't know if I'll keep it, but it certainly makes sending gadgets back easier, both for my work and for personal when I'm just kind of like sending back returns or anything. So I have a little sip of my tea here, thank you for putting up with that. But anyway, so that's basically I haven't set it up yet. I've also been doing Oh I

talked about the reels last week. Remember I was talking about the reels on Instagram and how everyone's starting to do them because Instagram is really favoring them and paying out bonuses. Well I got sucked into that, so I started doing reels because they're playing them. I've got like a bonus play of like I think they'll play them like a million extra times or something like that. So it's like all these people are seeing these and like, oh, Rich, this is so cool, thank you, I'm so glad I

follow you. I'm like, well, you're not seeing any of my other stuff. But of course Facebook is showing this to you because this is the thing they want to promote. So it's just it's I find this stuff just so fascinating. It's just a like, even though I'm on TV and talking about tech all the time, like a lot of it is and I understand a lot of it, but a lot of it is still like it's just a process of kind of figuring it out what works, what doesn't work, and that's kind of what I love about it.

But quite honestly, if I was like just a regular person that was not talking about this stuff on TV, I probably would stick to like just one thing and I wouldn't really you know, might just use the iPhone and just use like literally whatever the apps that are built into it, because that's the easiest. And I'm sure that you know, Apple banks on that, and I'm sure Android banks on that. But I do try to find the best for different solutions, like the best to do app,

the best calendar app, the best map app. And that's why I do constantly test this stuff. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Let's get to the first story of the week. Apple announces this program that nobody thought would ever happen. Now, back in the day, it was pretty easy to repair your own iPhone. Yeah, I guess so maybe, yeah, I guess not so much the iPhone, but like the iPod touches of the world, you know, the iPods of the world, computers. And then

it became tougher and tougher. Apples started making parts smaller, they started gluing things together more, just parts that were not you know, they're so tiny and so integrated that it just became tougher and tougher to do anything yourself. And yeah, there was always a great repair market where people could figure stuff out and do things, but it was very complicated. Well, now Apple says, you know what,

We've got a new program called self Service Repair. We are gonna give you manuals, we're gonna give you genuine parts and tools. Well, we're not gonna give it to you, you're gonna buy them. And then once you repair your phone, you can send back the parts that were used and we'll give you credit. Now, no, they haven't said how

much any of this is going to cost. I'm guessing it's not going to be cheap, but it's kind of cool if you're if you're in a position where you think you can crack open your iPhone and replace the battery, the fact that you can do that yourself is pretty cool. And I think that this gives people options. There's a you know, an entire generation of kids out there that grew up or are growing up thinking that when gadgets are are done or broken, you just get a new one.

And so the fact that if someone feels like they can do this, that they can, I love it. So this is going to start with the iPhone twelve and the iPhone thirteen, initially the display, the battery, and the camera, and then eventually they are going to expand this to the Mac computers. That have the M one chip. So basically only Apple's recent laptops and things like that, and I guess desktops they didn't. They didn't really specify, they just Mac computers. But the store is gonna have two

hundred individual parts and tools. And this is like I said, for the iPhone twelve and thirteen, So if you have anything older than that's probably not gonna happen, but kind of neat. I mean, I might try this just to just to see. Maybe I'll do a segment on it when this happens. This is happening early twenty twenty two, and then it will expand from there. All right, let's get to the first question of the show. The first question comes from Sharon. She says, Hey, Rich, which Android

phone do you recommend? I'm looking to buy a new one soon, Sharon. Sharon definitely going to be the Pixel six. So there's a lot of Android phones out there, but I just think that the Pixel six is the best overall device at the combination of price and features. If you need to get something, so the I don't know if it's a caveat, but it's definitely there are other Android phones I would recommend, and it really depends on your situation, but I would say overall, easiest phone to recommend.

Pixel six Done. Now, I'm still doing my review of that phone. I have not not formalized my opinions just yet because I do think that this is a phone that needs some software updates. In fact, it got one little software update yesterday. It did not hit my phone, but it fixes or I guess it improves the fingerprint scanner, and I guess that's just not I don't know. It didn't go to all phones. Mine did not get that yet.

So I'm hoping that by the time I do my review, which is happening very soon, there will be at least one software update, but those usually come on like December first, so I don't know if I can hold out that long. But I want to give it the benefit of the doubt because I think it's an amazing phone. I just think that, you know, and I'm pretty confident that ninety nine percent of my problems with it will be fixed with software updates. Maybe not everything. It won't be perfect.

I mean, look, the iPhone is still overall like a better device and a better ecosystem. But if you like Android, then the iPhone is, or the Pixel six is where it's at. If you want to get a little bit better zoom and a little bit more memory inside, then I would go with the six Pro. But I think the six is going to be just perfect. Now there's other phones i'd recommend. If you want the best zoom camera on a phone, you're probably gonna have to go

with the Samsung Galaxy S twenty one Ultra. And I think that's if you want like a Flip phone, you can go with the Galaxy Flip. I probably wouldn't recommend the Fold at this point, just because it's it's you know, that's like a real expensive phone, and it's for someone that really is an early adopter. But I think the Pixel six will be just perfect for what you need. Sharon so cool. This was a big story in Los Angeles this week, and not just LA but really the world.

I mean number one, everyone knows Los Angeles. Everyone's heard of Staple Center, and Staple Center is being renamed the Crypto well not even the it's just Crypto dot Com Arena. And this is going to have a new name starting on Christmas Day. People are going to see it, but it's going to take them a while to actually change the exterior signage on the building, it's going to take till about June twenty twenty two, so it's got about six months before it's fully going to be switched over now.

Staple Center. I was here when that was built, and it was kind of an odd name. And I always I never understood why they had never had a Staple store in the in the Staple Center. And you might be thinking, like, Rich, that makes zero sense when you're going to a Lakers game, you don't need to buy office supplies. Well, I don't know, just like an honorary

store inside the Staple Center. I just found it so odd that it was like the name has become very iconic, but the the name was very disconnected from anything inside the Staple Center, Like Staple Center just became almost like a proprietary eponym for that building without even thinking that, oh, yeah, this is this is something to do with a brand, Like it never occurred to me going to the Staple Center over many many events that it was the company Staples,

like the office supply store, There's nothing inside that had anything to do with that. Now that's going to change with Crypto dot Com. Crypto dot com is a is a place where you can buy and sell crypto. It does, you know, just does all kinds of crypto stuff, which I think is ironic as well, because I had never

heard of crypto dot com. Now, if it was coinbase, or if it was like square cash, or if it was wee Bowl or all these other apps Robinhood that let you buy crypto, sure, crypto dot Com never heard of it. So how does this come out of nowhere to spend seven hundred million dollars to buy the naming rights for twenty years on the stadium. I have no idea. Now, there's many many jokes made about you know, hopefully they

paid in regular and not crypto. But the bottom line on all this stuff is that, look, crypto is a thing. It is a big thing. We don't know how big just yet. I think time will tell on that. And everyone I know is talking about it. And I'm talking just regular people. I'm not talking tech folks. I'm just saying like everyday people when you're out at a party are talking crypto and they're just saying, like, do you

know about it? Which coins? I can't believe how many people are invested in these random coins that are, you know, half a penny or you know, fifty cents or ten cents and they're sitting there putting all this money in there. I was out and I could not believe that someone I talked to took out alone to invest in crypto. And I just, I don't know, like that to me, and maybe they're smarter than I am, but to me, it's like whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm just not sure that's

the right thing to do. But I you know, I don't know everything. This is not a financial crypto show. So it's fascinating. I think that if I would have purchased many many years ago when I did my first story on crypto, i'd have a lot of money right now, and I didn't do that. So and I had friends that told me about crypto a long time ago. So look, I think that this is a good thing for the

crypto industry. But I also think that if anything happens to this crypto dot com website, it's going to be a very big it's gonna be a very sore spot for this entire industry. So this crypto dot com, I hope it's as legitimate and as big as they seem to think they are. I don't know how the naming rights money works, like do they ask for it all up front or do they give it to them over time.

But if anything goes wrong in these twenty years, there's gonna be a lot of people that say, oh, I told you so, I knew this was all kind of a bubble. I knew this was all not right. So I think there's a lot of pressure there for Crypto. The other thing, like I said, there are they are gonna have thirty three hundred square feet of area that is dedicated to Crypto dot Com, So there will be things throughout the uh, you know, throughout the building and

that basically tie back in. So whether that's Crypto dot Com, touch kiosks, whether those are are areas where they have a cell phone station where you can download the app and talk to someone or sign up, it just it doesn't elaborate on what they're going to do, but it says there will be premium branded areas of the arena, including a thirty three hundred square foot activation space at the building's entrance, as well as dedicated activation areas on

the main concourse of the arena and throughout the La Live Campus. So I mean this is this is big time. This is gonna expose a lot of regular people to crypto and probably get a lot of regular people to, uh to perhaps invest. All right, let's see, Dean says, Hello, Rich, I hope that you and your family are well. I have a question for you regarding Bitcoin champion. Oh look at this. I can't even write this stuff. I mean, I didn't put this in any specific order, but it's

kind of funny that it follows that story. What do you know of it? Is it a scam? Is it legitimate for cryptocurrency trading? I am hearing conflicting reviews regarding its legitimacy. I greatly appreciate any info you can provide whether or not it's a viable trading source to invest in. Would you use it, Dean Ryan? Dean Ryan, would I

use it? No? Because I've not heard of it. And so what I think is odd is when I google it, anytime that you see when you search something on Google, and anytime the first couple of results are is it a scam or legit? Is it a legit? Is it reliable? Is it legit? Is it a scam? Is it? I mean literally those are like number one, the entire first page of Google. So for me, this is a giant absolutely not. And the other thing is that, I you know, there's so many places out there that let you invest.

Why would you invest in a place that people are generally debating the merits of. So if I type in robin Hood, Let's say, if I type in robin Hood the entire first page, there is nothing to do about scams. Okay, if I type in Coinbase, If I type in Coinbase, there is nothing about Coinbase being a scam. If I type type in wee Bowl, there is absolutely nothing about whether it's a scam. Now there is a Business Insider article that says pros and cons and who should set

up an account and nerd wallet pros and cons. So I would say if if you're stuff like that, that's great because if Nerdwala is reviewing it, that's a good thing. That means that people are actually using it. So no, I would definitely not use this. And what Bitcoin Champion looks like it does? It looks like it's robot investing, isn't. A Bitcoin is a legit trading app powered by tested and proven auto traded technologies. The robot makes money by

speculating on bitcoins through CfDS. So yeah, I don't know. I'm not doing that, that's for sure. There's a lot of stuff out there. I think you got to remain very careful about what you use and what you do, and especially the money that you're putting in there. Just be sure that it's money that you can depart with if it ever goes away. All right, let's talk Black Friday. Black Friday used to be one of my favorite days

of the year. Now it's Cyber Monday because I'm not really going out to shop anymore, and I have not shopped on Black Friday in many many years, many many years. But I did used to wait outside the Best Buys and the Sears, Yes Sears back in the day about this is how old. This was a thirteen inch tube TV, Like what did I need a thirteen inch TV for? And it was, like I believe it was like fifty nine dollars on sale at Sears and I waited in line for that. I wait in line for a PlayStation

at Target. Let's see what else have I waited in line for. I waited in line at Best Buy for random like I don't even remember, but I that used to actually be fun for me. It's just waiting in line. And I'll tell you when it stopped becoming fun is when I started covering it for c NET. So when I worked at c NEET, we had to go out

on Black Friday. That was a big day. Obviously, they did this thing called like Holiday Help Desk, and I had to be the guy that went out to Best Buy and all these other stores in the middle of the night to get reactions from people. And I did a little bit of it for like my reporting before, but c NEET was really like solidified it, and after that, it's just I lost it's fun for me. Like I was like, I don't need to wait outside anymore. And

it's also cold, and yeah, it's fun. The camaraderie is fun. I will say that, like you sit there and you chat with people. But after that, and I've been to many many Apple store lines, believe me, with people waiting in line for the iPhone, so I've seen it is fun. It is there is a spirit of lightness in the line, and I guess some of the lines do get out of control. We've all seen those videos on TV. But for me, all the ones that I've been a part of,

it's been very fun. I interviewed Nathan Burrow, the deal's editor over at Wirecutter, one of my favorite review sites, and he says that this year, yeah, don't expect wild, wild deals because there's a lot going on. You've got the supply constraints, you've got inflation, and it's just overall still a weird time. But in store, we'll be back

this year. Last year there was some but not really so this year, yes, people will be in store, and he says the benefit of that is that you can get the item you need immediately, so if you see it, you can get it, and that's an advantage over online where you may not be able to get it. Now. Some of the things that will be still not discounted.

That includes consoles, game consoles, these are still tough to get Discounts on hottest on the hot toys and closed probably won't be there, but you should be able to get deals on audio gear, smart home devices those are always discounted, small kitchen appliances, and robot vacuum. So this is kind of like I call this my blackout period. I do not buy stuff right now up until Cyber Monday, and the reason for that is because most of it

will go on sale. Now you're probably saying, rich, didn't you just say you bought the Amazon Fire TV Stick Max? And yes I did, And so I felt like that twenty dollars combined with the twenty percent rebate on my trade in was a big enough discount for me. Will those things be any cheaper over the Black Fry and Cyber Monday? Maybe, but I'm fine with thirty five dollars. Twenty dollars off was a pretty good discount for me because that thing was fifty five dollars. So to me,

that's a great deal. And if it gets cheaper, then so be it. But I already have it in my hand, so I don't have to wait for it, all right, So places to check for some of these deals nine to five Toys, So Wirecutter has their own deals page. That's a good one. And the thing there is that they they vet all the products, so they're not going to recommend a thing that's a deal just because it's a deal. They're going to make sure that it's actually a quality product. Nine to five Toys, they will have

discounts prominently displayed there. I love the nine to five websites deal news dot com this is an excellent one. They've got a team of editors that kind of research the deals from year to year, and they'll say things like, this is the cheapest we've ever seen this Amazon fire stick in two years. It's less. It's a dollar less than it's ever been. So they do cool stuff like that at dealnews dot com. Slick Deals. Obviously, if you ever follow me for more than a minute, you've heard

me talk about this. I check this site every single day of my life. Slick Deals crowdsources deals, so people just submit a deal, others voted up, and the best ones rise to the top, which is really cool. And Amazon is doing theirs. At Amazon dot com slash Black Friday, their deals will start on Thanksgiving and run for forty eight hours. So you know, you've got Black Friday, you've

got that weekend, you've got Cyber Monday. In my experience, so I usually wait until Cyber Monday to make my purchases and I come up with a list of all the things that I want. So whether that is a you know anything, I'm talking like, I like the Doctor Squatch stuff, right the soap and the shampoo and all that stuff. Like, I know that on Black Friday or probably mostly Cyber Monday, it will be at a slightly

better deal than I've ever seen before. So let's say doctor Squatch typically gives you a fifteen you know, the best you can find online is like a fifteen percent discount. Usually on Cyber mind, the discount's just a little bit better. It might be twenty percent. So again, a website like pair of Thieves, Right, I buy my undershirts. I really like, they're like the best undershirts I've ever gotten, and they're

not that expensive. It's like, I mean, they're a little bit more expensive than typical undershirts, but it's like twenty bucks twenty two dollars or twenty three dollars for a two pack. Right, And so I just bought a whole bunch of those. I think I got a ten percent discount through signing up for their newsletter. I would expect that to be a twenty percent discount on Cyber Monday. So again, I make a list of the stuff that I want, and then on Cyber Monday, I will hit

up those websites and get the best discount. And you know, I'll be able to tell pretty quickly if it's like a better discount than it typically is. But again, they will do that for almost every website. So something like ever, note like if I want to renew my Evernote subscription, I will go on Black Friday or sorry, Cyber Monday, and you know, see if they have a deal on their on their resubscription or their subscriptions, which they typically do.

Almost anything, almost anything has a deal. So that's what I would do at this point. Just start start writing the things down that you want, and that way you're ready to go when it's time to buy. All right, let's see kk's Angels says Wi Fi extenders. Hello, Rich, what are your thoughts on those devices that claim to boost your Internet? Our router is in our office, but we watch TV in the family room. We stritched switched to streaming, and the TV seems to lag. Thank you.

Sent from the Samsung Galaxy Note nine and AT and T five G Evolution capable smartphone. Kk's angels. I don't like Wi Fi extenders anymore. I think that they don't really work, and so I don't recommend those anymore. All those boosters I get so many emails from people you know, they're they're advertising on social media, the boosters. So what I would recommend is I did a story on it. Well, I'd recommend two things. Number one, I would recommend Euro E E R O that that's what I have, which

is an Amazon company at this point. But this is the guy who basically invented the Mesh networking system, and I'll never forget he emails me about this thing called Ero and his name is escaping me right now. But let me see. The first time he emailed me about this. This was many, many, many years ago. Okay, here we go. First time twenty sixteen, so this is twenty sixteen. Wow, okay, that's even that's this is wild, just so long ago. This was actually the first time was twenty fifteen, and

this wasn't an Amazon Launchpad device anyway. So we ended up having euro come into KTLA and do a segment about it, and it was great. But it was like one of these things that you just never really heard of before. And so oh yeah, here is okay to the first time they emailed me was twenty sixteen, and so I think the guy's name was Nick, Yeah, Nick Weaver.

That was that was the co founder. So anyway, he came to KTLA, I mean young kid at the time, seemed very young, and I'm like, wow, you invented this and he's like, yeah, you know, we talked about it and just like you know, I tried it and it was great. I mean, it just worked. And so I've been using it ever since. I've I've since upgraded to several different of their you know, they've come out with several different models over the years. Now I have the

pro and it works good. I mean, it gets me a good signal in every corner of the house, which I really like. But it's expensive. If you don't want to spend as much as I did on this thing, then I would do what's called Villo v I l O And this is sixty bucks for a three unit system. And it's sixty bucks so it's about it's twenty dollars a unit plus shipping, so it really comes out to about seventy dollars. And so I would go with that one.

And it's a Vlo living dot com and it doesn't give you Wi Fi six so if you need that, you got to go with something else. But you got to go with the euro but I think that for most people, you probably don't need that, So that's what I would do. So Kk's Angels. Yeah, glad you hopped on board with the streaming service. I hope you've got KTLA Plus on that TV and you can watch all my tech segments there. All right, let's see Amazon Fresh. I checked out a new store in Critos, California that

uses their just Walk out technology. And I've tried this before and I probably talked about on the podcast, but I tried it at the airport in Newark, New Jersey. They you know, Amazon is licensing this technology to pretty much anyone who wants it, but they're also using it themselves in their own stores. So in New Jersey, it was at a Hudson you know, one of those little like places you go to before you board the plane

where you buy some waters. I pop my credit card in the reader and I grabbed I think it was just two waters, and I walked out and it charged my card for the two waters. So now in Siritos, California, this is the first Amazon Fresh store in California to feature this. It's also the biggest store to feature this. It's like forty thousand square feet and I checked it out. Amazon invited me there to check it out, and I said, of course, I want to come in here and try

this because I think this is amazing. You go inside and there's just like hundreds of cameras hanging from the ceiling. I mean, it is wild. I don't know who keeps track of all of them, who has to repair all those, who has to maintain them, what the feed looks like. They wouldn't show me that, obviously, but it is quite

the operation. So you go in there. You can scan your palm, you can put a credit card in, or you can scan your Amazon app and that registers you and you walk into the store and you start picking stuff out and when you pick stuff out, it just

links it to you. You can put it back on the shelf you don't want it, and when you're done, you just literally walk out and it figures out using algorithms, using machine learning, using artificial intelligence, yeah all the buzzwords, using those cameras, and also using sensors embedded in the shelves, so it uses a combination of all of those things to figure out what you purchased. And you literally just

walk out of the store with your purchases. Now, I did this, and I bought a whole bunch of stuff, fifty seven dollars worth of stuff. To be well, that's not the exact amount. Let's see Amazon Fresh. I'm looking from my receipt, so I spent fifty seven dollars and fourteen cents, and I would say that's pretty accurate. The

prices are pretty good in this store. And I said to the pr person, I said, look, you know, this is kind of on your honor, like what if something is wrong, like how do you prove that you did or did not take this item? And Amazon sort of said, like, look, you know, we're not going to go back to the tape so to say, we're not going to like look at the security cameras and say, like, you know, and see if you purchase something and you didn't or whatever.

But you know they're going to send you an itemized receipt, so you're gonna be able to see, you know, did I get this thing? Did I not? And I asked Amazon, they said, this thing does not make mistakes. It basically I said, what about when it makes you know, you put something down and said, it doesn't. It really does not make mistakes, so which was not just one person, but like several people in the store told me that, and I was like, wow, that's very very confident that

that this thing will not make mistakes. But in my case, it did not seem to make a mistake, and we were really putting stuff up, taking it down, I mean, really really messing with this thing. So if this is the ninth, I believe, let's see it is the it is the twenty second. Okay, so this is the twenty second Amazon Fresh store in the US. It's the fourth just walk out Amazon Fresh store, and they're gonna have

two more in California, Lehabra and more Park. And I think they said it was the ninth total Amazon Just walk Out store, but they have. I don't quote me on that one, but it was pretty amazing. I think this is is it's super duper cool. It's so weird that it works, and it's very odd that we can

even have this technology in our world. I do think there will be people that try to abuse it, but then again, people try to abuse everything, so there's not really there's not a reason for not doing it, because there's going to be some people that try to trick the system because ninety nine percent of people are good and they won't trick the system where they won't try to and I don't know, quite frankly, I'm not sure you can trick it. I don't know. I mean, it's

a pretty the system they've got. You have to go through sort of a security door to get in and then a security door to go out, so it's very much I don't know, it's pretty amazing. I really, It's one of these things that kind of is mind boggling, and the fact that Amazon has been able to figure this out is pretty cool. Now, I don't know, they clearly have to be saving a lot of money or potentially have the potential to save a lot of money with this, because if you think about it, it does displace

a lot of people. Now at this store, there are there are still traditional cashiers if you choose to check out that way, so you can do that. But at the end of the day, if you can imagine a world where you have these Amazon Fresh stores or even whatever, any kind of store, I mean it's seven to eleven operating twenty four to seven, where you can just walk in and walk out with your stuff. I mean, that's

that's a pretty big money savings. Or maybe it's just walk out at the middle of the night, but there's also some security precautions that you probably want to take.

You probably don't want an unmanned store at all. There's also a liquor aisle in this store, and that is interesting because they have to scan your ID at the entrance of the liquor store aisle and then it's kind of gated off, so there's like another security door at the opening end at the end, because you can't just have people walking out with liquor without you know, having

their IDs checked. In California, it's really weird. They sell basically liquor, yeah, everything, liquor, beer, and wine in side grocery stores, which having visited many many other states, that is not the norm. Many states do not allow that, or they allowed just one type of thing or that. If most states you go to it's a standalone liquor store. In California, it's just it's everywhere. It's like in the CVS,

the routs. I mean, I couldn't believe the first time I'm in college, not that I could purchase this store in college, but I saw it when I went to the store, and you know at the raups they had like beer and you know, beer and well whatever, I guess alcohol. I don't know what you call it, because back then it's like you didn't even know what it was.

It's just like the cheapest beer and the cheapest booze was basically the only thing that that mattered, you know, if if you were into that not I'm not saying I was personally, but I'm just saying, like you would just buy like the it was like vodka on the front of the vodka, you know, it had you had no like there was no such thing as like a preference for one of the what are the vodka brands, Like I would like a Tito's, Like no, no, no, it was like vodka and beer was like literally just beer.

It's like cores light, you know whatever. And so now, you know, it's funny with the with the craft beer situation, I don't think I've had the same beer twice like ever at this point in the past like five years, because there's so many different beers that it's like everywhere you go has a craft beer on tap or craft beer that they're serving that it's like there's just so many of them nowadays. Anyway, did I digress on that. I think it's really cool that they have this Amazon

just walk out technology. I'm glad I was among the first to try it out here in California, and I think people are gonna be pleasantly surprised just how interesting it is. All right, let's see. Tiffany says, good morning, mister Demiro. I have watched you on KTLA and listen to you on KFI for years, so your input would be gospel. I want to start a podcast from home. I'm not a huge risk taker, but I think this might work and with hard work. My daughter helped my

daughter with their student loans. Can you please advise me on what equipment would be best for me to start with. Thank you kindly, Tiffany. Well, Tiffany, it's very exciting that you want to start a podcast. That's very cool and if you have something good to talk about, you'll find an audience. And the equipment that you need is not much, especially when you're starting out and you say you're not a huge risk taker, so I would not go out and buy a one thousand dollars worth of equipment. You

just don't need it to start your show. When I started my podcast, I literally started by speaking into my iPhone and I used an app called anchor Or. Actually I didn't even use an app back that, sorry, it was just like the Voice Memos app. I would just use the Voice Memos app. And then I got a little Lavalier microphone that plugged into the iPhone, and then I graduated from that to the computer and I got a USB microphone that plugged into the computer and that

was from Blue Microphones. And then I finally got a soundboard from road and now I use the Roadcaster Pro, which is just phenomenal, and that is sort of the progression of my podcast. So I think for you, what I would start with is just download the Anchor app, Anchor FM, anchor dot fm and start with that and

start speaking into your phone. You can use your phone as a microphone, and if you want to upgrade that a little bit, you can go on Amazon and just get a microphone that plugs into the bottom of your phone. Then once you get a little bit more comfortable and you get into the routine, you actually do shows on a regular basis. And that's the number one advice I would give to you is do your show regularly every week. When I sit down to do this show, it is

the last thing in my life I feel like doing. No, I'm just kidd but it takes a lot of work. Over the past couple of years, it has taken a lot of work for me to do this show on a regular regular basis, and I've brought my equipment to different cities. I have done my show at different times. I always look at the end of the week and I say, Okay, what's happening on you know, typically I do it on Friday, So what's happening on that Friday. Oh I'm not there during that time. Okay, So let

me see what's happening on Thursday. Let me see what's happening on Saturday morning. Let me see what's happening. Because I want to make sure that I get a show out every single week unless I'm on vacation and like, for instance, next week there will not be a show just because it is a holiday week and it's it's an abnormality. But if I'm working and i'm you know, somewhere, I will do the show. And we've done them in different countries. I've done it in China, I've done it

in different cities. I did it a couple weeks ago in Chattanooga. I've done it in Back East. I've done it in different locations. I mean, if I'm at a hotel room, I'll do it there. If I'm at my in law's house, I'll do it there. I mean, I've

done it in all kinds of different places. And you know, I don't really mention when I Sometimes I will, but I like to not really make a huge deal out of it every time, because you know, I don't want every I don't want you the listener, to be fixating on whether the show sounds differently or what you know, whatever. But anyway, when when it's fun, I will tell you when i'm you know, when something's a little bit different.

But anyway, that's what I would do is get that equipment, and then eventually I would get a USB microphone from Blue and Blue Microphones. They have a thing called the Snowball or the Yetty. You can use one of those, and then you know, later on you can upgrade to a mixer or whatever you need to really get this podcast going in a big way. But that's what I

would recommend. Just just start small and work your way up, And like I said, the number one thing is that you really want to keep the podcast going on a regular basis. It is the holiday shopping season and Google has some new tools in Google Maps, and the one that I think is the most interesting is the fact that Google can tell you what's in the directory, the mall directory. So this is a feature that you would

just think would be on Google Maps. And for so many years I've tried looking for like every time I go to a mall in a new city, which is quite often actually, I'm always like, Okay, do they have this store? Do they have a Casper store there? Do they have a Amazon four Star store? Do they have an Express for men or whatever? Now I think it's

just Express. But finding that information generally required you going to the mall website, which let's be honest, they're usually not very well designed, and searching that site or scrolling through a whole bunch of stores to see if they have it, And you would just think that you'd be able to find it easily. Well, now you've finally can

on Google Maps. If you search the mall and underneath the mall there will be a listing that says directory and so you just tap that and you can search not only for a specific place, but you can also narrow down by food and drink or you know whatever else. Like I'm trying to see what else it says. Here, hold on, so it had food and drink. Let's see what types of stores airport. Let's see. That's kind of weird. But okay, let me here we go directory. It's coming

up again. I'm watching an animation on the web. There we go, food and drink, shopping, recreation service. So there's all different things. But anyway, search for a mall iOS and android. It's supported, and it's just so much easier because for me personally, I just always want to know if there's a cinnabon there. Not that I get it every time, but I just want to know I have my option open, you know, for that that Wetzel's pretzel.

And if you can't, you know, if you don't instantly walk into the mall and it's not you know, wafting towards you, that smell, that the delicious cinnamon smell. Oh, it's like the siren smell of Wetzels is just like it's so inescapable. Or cinnabon and I'll tell you. When I was growing up, my dad had a strong affinity for cinnabon. Probably doesn't eat it as much now, but we always every time we visited the mall, getting a

Cinnabon was like the gold standard. We treated the Cinnabon like royalty, and we'd always get the Cinnabon with extra frosting. That was kind of the thing. And now they charge for extra frosting, which is funny because back then they didn't sell. They were hip to the people that would ask for extra frosting. Anyway, I did relive the memory a little bit with my son. We went to the mall a couple of weeks ago and I said, do you want a Sinnabon? Do you want a Sinnabon? And

sure enough he said yes. We got the minis, which are the small ones, and it was fantastic, What a glorious experience to He said, Dad, this is so good. And I said, I know, oh, I know, believe me. All right, now, this is a really long email, but I'm gonna read it and see if we can get through some of this. Nas Sean says, just want you to reach out and let you know about a new

Instagram scam that I fell for. People are hacking into people's Instagram accounts and posting a video of how turning one thousand dollars into ten thousand dollars is legit and works. They call it cryptomning. Someone I know posted an Instagram story for himself saying how real it is and he just did it and got the money. He then posted a screenshot of his cash app balance with his username. Everything seemed legit, so I messaged him and was interested.

He was very brief and not descriptive about the process, but assured me it was legit. So I followed through and messaged the person that's in charge of the whole operation. She wanted me to buy a thousand dollars worth of bitcoin. Once it was purchased, transfer it to a wallet ID she provided. After sending it, she deposited the amount into a website that lets you create a pile. Once that's all set up, you see the one thousand dollars she

sent to her account. She has for another two thousand for the mining cost that's not disclosed in the beginning. I told her all communications were done through Instagram messenger, so I purchased another two thousand dollars with a bitcoin and sent it to her wallet, and she said she never got it. I would message her and my friend, and at that point I realized their responses were almost identical, and at that point it was a scam. I reached out to my friend and he said someone had hacked

his account. I would have never fallen for it if it wasn't for the video of himself saying how legit the whole process was. I filed a dispute with coinbase in my bank. However, because I authorized the transactions, they can't retrieve my funds. I lost three thousand, fifteen dollars. After that experience, three other friends profiles have been hacked on the same promise and videos of themselves talking about

how real this is. Just want to let you know, maybe you could do a story on this to help prevent others from falling for the scam. Thanks Nashan. Okay, Wow, this is quite the scam and I see exactly how it works, except for one thing is not very clear to me. How well are they making the video of the person talking about how real it is. That's the part that does not make any sense. Because I understand

here's how I see this working. So basically, these scam artists take hold of someone's account, right, so they get someone's Instagram and then they post a story on there that says, oh my gosh, I just made all this money on Instagram. They doctor the photos of their cash account, and then they post it on there, and then you, as their friend, message them. But since this scam artist is still in control of the account, they message back saying,

oh my gosh, yes, this is so amazing. But this obviously is a distant friend, because if it was a close friend, you would have called them and I would have discussed it with them in person. So then once you're in, they know you're in, and now they start asking you for money. You send it to a Bitcoin address, which clearly is where the scam gets the money, and after that point they're just taking your money and all

the rest is gravy. So I'm just trying to figure out how the Let's see someone I know post an Instagram story of for himself saying how real it was, and he just did it. So I think the Instagram story does not include the actual person. It just includes like a text story that says, oh my gosh, I just bought this bitcoin or I just did this investment and it worked, and here's my cash app and wow,

wow wow wow wow. So I think that's how it works, and it Yeah, you could definitely easily fall for this. I don't think you're stupid for falling for this, because here's the thing. These hackers get so smart. They're I mean, these people are just they're so smart in figuring out the ways of getting it. I would call this a social engineering attack because they're praying upon the fact that you think this is your friend posting this and he

didn't realize that their Instagram was actually hacked. I think it's a pretty good scam. But the fact that you continued to do this, and the fact that you went through instant Facebook Messenger, that you know, there's a lot of signs and signals here that something's not right. But

I get it. You saw your friend saying how great it was, and so I think that it's a We live in a world right now where it's tough to know if people are promoting things, if people are you know, hacked or not, because there's so many the social media world has led us post stuff like this is my favorite and I have people you know, text me back saying Rich is this, like do you really like that product? I'm like, well, yeah, I posted about it, like of course I like it, Like why would I not? You know?

But they're wondering, like did Rich really post that? So I think that I feel bad that you fell for this and you lost the three thousand dollars. That's unfortunate. I would still dispute and just keep fighting this for a little bit longer to see if maybe you can get something back, but you probably won't. I would go to coinbase as well and say, hey, you know whatever, and just see what they say. I mean, you're probably

not gonna get your money back. But I do think I thank you for sending this to me because by me letting people know about this, I do think that it's important because just knowing that these scams are out there helps us all. Because it's it's really tricky these days, because everything happens online, right, all of your emails, everything's a confirmation, everything's a click to confirm. Pop this number

in because it's a confirmation number. Track this package because here you go, claim this refund, because here you go, here's how you do it. File this and it's it's really tricky. So the more that we do online, the more we're going to run into these issues. And phishing was just a beginning. Now these social engineering attacks are really really where these scam artists are getting people. They're a little bit more work, but they find out ways to automate them and they figure it out and they

get it going. So that's not really a question. But thanks for sending that, and I guess I'll do another question just because Ben says, Hey, Rich, big fan of your TV work and also your excellent podcast question. I'm purchasing a chromebook for my daughter for Christmas, and four gigabytes of RAM. Are four gigabytes of RAM enough to watch YouTube videos in four K Her primary usage will be to consume content. Well, I mean, look, when you look at chromebooks, ninety nine percent of them have two

to four gigabytes of RAM on them. I mean, I don't know if i'd recommend that, but it's the reality of how these things are. I think four is fine for watching YouTube. I think that eight would be better. But the problem is if you're looking at eight, the prices are going to go up because almost none of these chromebooks are are going to have eight that are at a decent price. So I'm just on the I'm

just on the best buy website. So let's see four gigs of memory Lenovo for one hundred and nineteen dollars, four gigs for three fifty nine. So if I go to eight gigs, yeah, minimum price is four fifty nine. So yeah, I would just go with the four. I think it'll be fine. I mean, if you think about it, all these little streaming sticks and stuff, they don't have more than like four gigs of RAM on them, so you're you're fine. I think that that will be just fine.

But thanks for the kind words, and Chromebooks just just keep in mind. I think for this situation, just watching YouTube videos that will be totally fine. I mean, I mean, look, these are this is Google software. If it can't handle YouTube videos and pretty much you can play a YouTube video on anything, I think you'd have a problem there. So I think that'll that'll be a great little gift

and hopefully she likes it. Okay, let's see. Samsung is delivering a new update to their S twenty one lineup S twenty one, S twenty one plus S twenty one Ultra and this is one UI four, which is pretty wild because I feel like I just just I feel like one UI, like two or three just came out. Now we're on four already. So one UI four is based on Android twelve as far as I can tell, can I is it Android twelve. It's funny they don't really mention Android twelve in here, but I'm guessing it's

it's built on that. But the couple of things they do. Number one, you get the Android twelve feature that matches the colors on the phone to your your wallpaper. So that's I mean, I don't know why people are going nuts over that feature. I don't. I don't really understand why it's so exciting. I mean, I've tried it on the pixel It's like, okay, So I don't know. I mean, I guess your phone if you want to all to have one standard look, I guess that's fine. It's kind

of cool. One UI four Samsung has the latest privacy and security feature. So again, this is the privacy dashboard that was introduced in Android twelve with all the settings in one place. And also it will tell you when app is accessing your camera or microphone, and so that will be on there. So one UI four will be on the S twenty one series starting on November fifteenth, and it's coming soon to the previous S series and the Note series, as well as the Galaxy Z series,

the A series and tablets. So I mean that's a lot of this is this is one of the problems. I think Samsung has gotten a lot, lot, lot, lot lot better with their software updates. But this is one of the reasons why I do like the Pixel. You know, so I guess Samsung's been doing the same thing the Pixel. You pretty much know on the first of every month

you're gonna get a software update. And I think Samsung's been doing the same thing for a couple of you know, i'd say in recent memory, for the last couple of phones. But just think about how many phones they have to update. I mean, just getting the S twenty one, the S twenty one plus the S twenty one Ultra. Then you've got you know, the Z series, You've got the Flip, the Fold, You've got several versions of those. I mean, getting all those phones to a software update is pretty

that's no easy task. And so when you think about someone like Apple. Yes, they have to update a whole bunch of old phones, but the software pretty much runs the same on most of the devices. There are some differences with a few key features, but most of the time it's the same. So if you haven't SD twenty one phone, definitely go into these settings and check to see if you have a software update. To me, this is something I do almost every day on my devices.

I mean, it's kind of a nerd thing. It's kind of a I don't know why I do it, it's just habit. I check my app updates and my system updates pretty much every day. And it's funny because my wife, you know, she something came up on the phone the other day and she's like, I don't have it on my phone yet, And I'm like, well, do you update Instagram or whatever it was? And she goes into her apps and there's like ninety eight apps that needed updating. I'm like, oh man, what are you doing, Like gotta

update these. My phone is on automatic updates, but it's there's not long enough to go between the updates for them to actually take effect. All right. Final question, Derek says, log in with Google Rich, do you suggest the log in with Google prompt when registering at new websites, or do you suggest the traditional way of creating your own password each time? Is there any risk or drawback from the login with Google registration on new sites? Thanks for

all you do. Typically I steer clear of the log in with Google, log in with Twitter, log in with Apple, log in with Facebook, log in with whatever. Just don't use it when possible. Now, there are times when I need to get into a website very fast. I want to log in really quickly, and I will tap that button and I will log in with either Apple using an anonymous you know email, or I'll log in with Google, or I will log in with That's basically it. Those

are the two that I'll use. Now. The reason I don't like this is because why do you want to connect your your accounts to another account? So now all these accounts are reliant on Google, and all these websites have gotten really good at kind of like pushing the envelope with like signing you up, Like when you go to Zillow, it'll just like be in the corner like oh, sign in as rich to Miro and I'm like, oh cool, I must have signed in before. But like it's kind

of like tricking you. It's like a almost like a dark pattern where it's you know, it's making you feel like that's the way you just log in because it's a box that's there and you click it without really thinking. I don't like that, But a lot of websites are doing that now. And the reason why the website's like this is because it's easy. It's simple ease of access. You already have a Google account's already logged in on your computer. The reason I don't like it is because

it doesn't separate things. I want to keep things separate. I want to keep a separate log in for every website, with a separate password for every website. And I think that you should do that as well. So that's what i'd recommend doing, especially when it comes to like Facebook. It just presents too many issues when you want to

step away. Let's say you want to deactivate your Facebook account or maybe I don't know, Google probably so less or so, but maybe you don't want to use Google for something for a while, and now you're stuck logging into all these webs sites the other side of it, And I think that this is more of the security side of things is that they can trick you with how much information they get. So when it comes to Google, you probably have your Google Photos, you probably have Google Drive.

There's a lot of information at stake there, so you have to be real careful when you log in with Google that it's only getting things like maybe your email address, but there's a lot of data that you have on your Google profile that they can request, and so you just have to be very very careful about what you are handing over when you sign up with these websites. So that's that's my recommendation, but I would just say in general, get a password manager and sign up best

you can with individual individual passwords. Every time, Oh look at that that sound. No, not the lawnmower you might have heard outside. That sound means that's going to do it for this episode of the show. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, just go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech hit the big blue end email button, or you can go to Richontech dot tv and hit the email icon. Also, i'd love it if you would rate and review this podcast.

Just go to the listening app of your choice, write a quick line about what you like about this show to help others understand why they should listen. You can find me on all social media at rich on Tech and no matter where you live in the US, you can download the free KTLA plus app on Apple TV, fireTV, and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the tech section and watch all of my segments on demand. My name

is rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending it with me. I'll talk to you real soon.