Biggest announcements from Google I/O

with how many questions you can send. And they're all great questions, they really are. My name is Rich Demiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Thanks for tuning in to the podcast, thanks for watching on TV, and just thanks for being there. Ah so much tech news this week. I think this might take the ward for twenty twenty one of being the biggest week in tech news of the year so far. I mean, I'm

just looking at the rundown here. We've got Google Io, We've got the new Apple TV, We've got Spotify news, we've got Twitter news, we've got Ford news, We've got Microsoft news. It's a lot. There's been a lot going on this week, so we're gonna get through it, and we're going to talk about the questions that you have sent me. But man, I you know, I'm always playing with stuff. I'm always kind of experimenting with different tech

and stuff. And something that kind of bubbled up to the surface or these electric bikes, you know, And so a friend sent a thing that said, you gotta do a story on these electric bikes. I said, no way, They're way too expensive. I'm not doing that. And then all of a sudden, I just start seeing more and more about electric bikes. I mean, everyone's talking. I went up to Ventura, which is here in California, and I was on a bike path and just like half the

bikes whizzing past me were electric. And I said, okay, I got to do something on this. And so one of the big brands is called van Move, and they're like, can we send you a bike? And I said no, I don't want to deal with that, and they said please, and I said, okay, fine, send me the test bike. So I got it yesterday. I'm not kidding. I put this thing together, which was a little little tricky, but I finally got it working last night. And I am

like one hundred percent sold. I cannot believe this thing is the Apple. It's the iPhone of electric bikes. And I'm not ready to do my full review just yet because I literally just went on it for like two minutes last night. But it is so amazing. I mean, it just takes bike. Now I want to commute to my job with a bike. I'm like, how can I commute on a bike like you know that last mile like that? Or just take it and put it in the bike locker. It's really really fantastic, So expect to

hear more about electric bikes soon. Another thing I've been playing with is Amazon Music. I've been testing out all the different music services because I'm just as curious, and i gotta say, I'm actually quite impressed with what Amazon Music is all about, because it's simple. It's just easy.

It's like the main thing I went down this rabbit hole of trying to for some reason, all the maybe I already mentioned this on the podcast last week, but all the services on sons when you go to browse your music services like they're all organized in like this weird way, except for Amazon Music, where you can you know, just search by like mood and genre whereas for some reason, all the other ones want to like surface here's what we think you should be listening to, because it's five

pm and it's dinner time, and it's you know, or it's morning on a weekend, and it's just like no, no, no, just let me pick what I want to pick. So anyway, I've been truly impressed with Apple, Amazon Music. Oh yeah, another story they went HD this week. Gosh, more and more just news coming out. But anyway, let's start with Google IO. This is the big developers conference from Google that happens every year up in Mountain View. Last year they did not do it. This year. It's virtual and

it it was okay. I mean, it was not the most exciting event. I don't think the announcements were that groundbreaking, but it was it was nice to see Google doing kind of a hybrid event. They had, you know, there are people standing in the middle of campus. It was live, which I liked, and they had a couple people socially distanced just kind of watching in the audience, maybe like ten or fifteen people, and everyone else was just virtual

watching online. But so, you know, the main theme that I noticed with with Google is Google and Apple could not be any different. Their approaches to the world are so different. And you know, these are both very inclusive companies, like I think they're. You know, Apple is one of the most diverse and inclusive companies I've ever worked with, which is amazing. Same goes with Google, but the way that they approach things in their tech is a little

bit different. Like Apple, when you think about their stuff, it's very expensive, right, It's it's priced at a certain price. You got to be in the Apple ecosystem. Everything works together beautifully, but you got to be on board. You gotta do what Apple wants you to do and it will work just fine. Whereas Google, their idea is like, let's just sort everything out and let's just give you a lot of options, and a lot of those options are gonna be inexpensive. We don't really care how you

use them. But we're just gonna give you a lot of stuff. And you know, whether it's Google Photos, which works on you know, everything from like a fifty dollars Android phone, to Google Maps that just you know, can help you find your way around the world. That that, to me, is the biggest difference between these two companies. They're both amazing I'm not knocking either one of them, but the way, as a reporter who's covered them for many years, I just see two divergent streams. You know,

they're both going in different directions. Like Apple, the longer you're with them, the more you're in Apple, right, Whereas Google is kind of like, hey, we're gonna give you this stuff, and like I said, you can access it and use it however you want. Like if you want to use Google Chrome Cast, fine, but we're also gonna let you watch your movies on any service, or you want to use Google Maps on our phone or Pixel fine. But you know, options are always nice. So that was

my main takeaway. But Google just continues on their quest to kind of organize the world's information, make it easier to access and just simpler. So they announced a whole bunch of nerdy stuff, like these new like AI powered things, Like they showed off talking to data sets, which is just wild. So they showed off like talking to Pluto, not the animal, but the former planet, and so you're literally they feed a data set about Pluto into this thing called Lambda, and now you can converse with it

and be like, hey, what's it like on Pluto? And Pluto will describe to you what's it like on its surface. So that's kind of a wild What other things do

they do? So search? You know they did. They didn't really announce a whole bunch of search, except like, there's this new feature where you can delete the last fifteen minutes of your search, so you know, they gave the example of if you're searching for an engagement ring for your loved one, you know your significant other and you don't want them to see it, so you can delete the last fifteen minutes. So okay, you've got that. Google Photos.

You know, we've got a big thing coming up with Google Photos on June first, where they're gonna, you know, start charging for the storage. Where you know, it's a little misleading, but basically, your fifteen gigs or your fifteen gigs, whether you do high quality or full quality, it doesn't matter. It's fifteen gigs. And so now a lot of people are gonna be above that and they're gonna have to pay for that. But I love Google Photos. I'm still

gonna pay. I upgraded mine to the fifty dollars a month plan, which is just it's a lot, but you know what It's just taken a weight off my shoulders to know that I can just take these four K videos and just keep uploading them and not really think, and one day I will organize my Google Photos, get rid of all the duplicates in the big files, and you know, hopefully by then data is so cheap that it will be like twenty bucks a month. Again, Google

Photos now stores four trillion photos and videos. They're gonna do a little locker on your phone so you can keep selected photos private. But a lot of people are saying this is not very exciting because it doesn't upload them to the cloud. So it's like, what's the point. You can't really safeguard these pictures. Or you can safeguard them, but you can't really save them. So I get it. It doesn't make sense, but it's kind of what how

they're doing it. Yeah, privacy was a big was a big thing with Google, and I think they're reacting to kind of Apple's entire push with privacy because Google's like, hey, we're private too. I mean, it just takes a little bit more for you to you know, be private with Google, but you can be. And they showed off Android twelve, which i've been playing with on the pixel it's like the only the best way I can describe it is candy colored and sugarcoated. That's just the way. It's like bubblegum.

Everything's like poppy and beautiful and like big and bold and like a little bit simpler, like and I don't want to disrespect anyone, but it feels like it's an operating system that they're like, Okay, we get it. There's a lot of non techies that use our devices, so let's make it a little bit easier for them, right, Let's make everything a little bit bigger. The button's a

little bit brighter. Let's you know, when you when you swipe down for your notifications shade, Let's label those things like not everyone knows what a Wi Fi symbol is or I guess that one you do it, but the rest of them maybe not. So let's label those make them easier to select and de select. So there's a lot of stuff like that. What else, they did this really cool thing project Starline, which is basically three D

video chat. Imagine you step into a video booth and you see the person on the other side that you're video chatting with, but they look like they're there, and this is not a new idea. I did a story with Senet, you know, going on fifteen years ago. With Cisco, they had something I think it was called like telepresence. I forget what their term was, that the brand name, but I did something. I went into a studio and saw this and it just looked like people were across

the table from you on a flat screen. But this is kind of bringing them to life in a three D way. So I am all about that. I as family with family that lives on the other side of the country. I would love to just sit down and hang out with my family in a way that they look like they're actually there. That'd be so cool. What else, I mean, they're improving their password manager. I think that's basically it for the main stuff. I mean, that's that's

kind of like my takeaway from Google Io. It's cool. Google just continues to like do cool stuff and organize the world's information. And if I ever worked for Google, I would do things a little bit differently, Like I'd have some ideas for like Google Photos and Android, and you know, like believe me, I'd come to the I'd come to the table with a lot of ideas about the smart home about you know, I'd do the same thing if I worked for Apple. I mean I would.

I'd have actually any company, I'd have a lot of ideas. I'm like that person that comes to the first day of work with like a folder, like all the papers flying out of it, and I'm like, hey, hey over here, what about this? And I'm like, yeah, dude, slow your role, We've figured out, We've talked about a lot of this stuff. You're you're new to this, so just just hang on anyway. So Google Io, I'm looking forward to being there in person next year. It will be in person next year,

Google Io twenty twenty two. It is an exciting event. It's kind of like Coachella but for programmers. And it is fun to be up in Mountain View two experience at firsthand. All right, let's get to the first question. Hey, Rich First off, I'm not sure you take emails about specific items. I felt like I saw in one of your earlier posts you did mention something about dropping you an email, So I hope you don't mind this. No, I do not. I recently started an Instagram page for

my diy stuff. Now I've been using my Samsung Note phone to record all the videos then edit the videos on the phone. It works great, but I've completely maximized my storage both internally and on an SD card. I figured with all the posts and videos you make, you probably would be a great resource to ask what kind of camera you use and how you edit your photos your videos. Thank you for taking the time and all the information. I'm a big fan and love seeing you

on KTLA. Best Jeff. All right, Well, Jeff clearly not a listener to the podcast, which is fine. Not everyone that emails me or gets in touch as a listener of the podcast, but you so, yes, you can totally email me your questions and I'm happy to answer this. So and by the way, the questions I picked for the podcast, I generally picked them based on the broad appeal to other people, like Jeff is probably not the only person that's doing stuff on his phone and posting

it in maxim ount maximizing his storage. I'll give you a funny story which is so embarrassing. I was on a shoot yesterday or the day before the day before, and I'm not no joke, I'm recording something and I actually handed my phone to someone else to like record me, and he hands it back and he goes, uh, I don't think that was recording the whole time. I said what, because yeah, it was just zero's at the end. I said,

wait oh, and I knew what happened. My phone has been at the at the end of its storage, like it's it's it's maxed out. It's at like, you know, one hundred percent, and so it ran out of storage while I was recording this video. And I'm sitting there like the person that I always say don't be, like, don't be the person at your kids uh, you know, play at school that is deleting. That's literally I've seen

this happen. You're at your kids holiday performance and the person in front of you is taking a picture or video and up pops that message on their iPhone that says out of storage merm. And you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so embarrassed for you, Like, dude, clean out your phone before you go to your kids recital. And here I am on a shoot and it's the same thing. And this guy probably like dude, this is the tech guy, Like are you kidding me? This guy is like a

total rookie. And I was so I'm sitting there like going through the iPhone storage, like deleting big videos. Now, I will tell you I do record everything in four K to try to future proof my videos, and also they're easier to zoom in on that if you want to crop something. So I do record in large files and it gobbles up my memory. So anyway, I'm not giving you excuses, but so Jeff, to answer your question, you got to offload these things. You know, I use

my phone to record and edit the stuff. I use Adobe Rush to edit, which will work on the note. Just fine. Get a bigger SD card if you can max that out. I think on your note, depending on what model you have, you could either go five twelve or a terabyte. Get the biggest one you can, and you could either swap those out and save them, or you can offload some of your videos to like something like if you don't want to use a cloud, which I would recommend Google Photos, but if you don't want

to use that. I did a story this week on USB drives that you can stick into your phone, so you can get what's called the sand disc I expand flash drive lucks and that will that has USB C on the bottom, you plug it into your phone, you download an app called sand Disc Memory Zone, and you can then back up all the videos from your phone onto this drive, so you kind of offload them there and then that will then you can delete them off

your phone. So that's what I would do. I would use a cloud and then delete them off your phone. That way they're safe in the cloud. But if you don't want to pay for that cloud storage, like I just talked about, get one of these flash drive or just you can continually swap out the uh you know, the drives or the mini SD card micro SD card on your phone. Now, I don't think that's as easy.

I think that's kind of a more complicated solution, or you know, if you want, because memory cards are so cheap, you could just kind of keep a little system where every month you swap it out for a new one and you keep them in like a little rack. I mean, there's just lots of ways to do this, but I think the cloud is the easiest. It's also the most expensive. Swapping out the SD cards a little bit more complicated, but it's definitely an easy system. Okay, here's all my

stuff from March. Here's all my stuff from April. Here's all my stuff from May. And then the other way, like I said, is the plugging in the USB drive. If you're on iPhone, you can do the same thing. By the way, that flash drive I just mentioned, the sand disc I expand will work with iPhone as well. Or I tested one called the p n Y Duo Link, which is thirty five dollars and same thing. You plug

it into the bottom of your phone. It uses special software to you know, to download the photos from your phone onto the flash drive. And recommendation, by the way, always have your pictures in two places no matter what. And your videos. But Jeff cool, I mean, I'm glad you're doing a little Instagram page. Yeah, these videos add up quick, but it's fun. It's rewarding when people start taking notice and you just have to make sure everything's backed up and you've got that system down because you

don't want what happened to me. We're you're in the middle of a shoot and next thing you know, you're trying to scramble to get stuff off your phone. You don't want to be in that position because you're gonna mess something up and kind of mistake something. So there you have it all right, let's talk about the Apple

TV after almost four years. Basically, the Apple TV has finally gotten a refresh, goes on sale, or it is on sale as of this podcast, so it's the Apple TV four K. I'll have my review of it next week on TV. But the main takeaway for me, having used this thing for a little bit now, is that it does not feel any different than my old Apple TV four K. Maybe it's faster, but I can't really notice that. Now you're saying, Okay, Rich, why would I pay one hundred and eighty dollars for this thing if

it's not any faster. Well, you're paying for another four years of service through this thing, right, So it may not be faster today. But we know that apps are just going to continue to get more processor dependent, especially games if you do any gaming on it, with Apple Arcade and just in general, you know, these things are just they the apps that we're using just continue to

get more space hungry and more process or hungry. And so that's what you're doing, is you're just you know, Apple's just upgrading this thing with an A twelve Bionic, which is you know, an older processor that was found in a I forget which iPhone. It was a while ago, but it's still just great. I mean, streaming video clearly does not take a lot of horsepower, because you know, I've tested streaming six or twenty five dollars and they run Netflix just fine. Now, the thing that I think

is the delineation here is how fast apps open. And I notice on the Cheapo fire Sticks and the cheap o Rokus the apps take a lot longer to open than on the Roku Ultra or the you know, the nice four K version of the Apple of the fire TV or the you know, they just everything is a little bit faster when you have a better processor. And the same thing with the Apple TV. So I don't think you need to upgrade for that reason. But I do think the new series remote is much better, and

they've totally redesigned it. I've got the video on my Instagram. It's got a ClickPad, so it's got okay, how do I explain this. It's both touch sensitive and it has clickable four way you know, like clickers whatever you want to call them, buttons, So it's got like a circular area but you can click four ways, or you can swipe, or you can jog, so it's it's a much much better remote. There's also dedicated power and mute buttons, which is really nice. I did notice last night, though, there

is one flaw with the remote. The play pause button should be the last button, like the lowest most button on the remote, but that's actually the mute button. And last night my muscle memory just went to play pause and I just pressed the mute button by accident. I said, oh, this should be the play pause position, but you know, maybe you know whatever. That's just my opinion. But anyway, so the remote is actually being sold by itself for

fifty nine dollars, which I think it it. It does definitely make me think that that would be a pretty good upgrade to the current Apple TV. Like, if you have one of these Apple TVs, it's not a bad idea. If you think you're perfectly happy with it, you don't want to spend the one to eighty for a whole new system. The fifty nine might be a pretty good upgrade because the remote in my in my experience for the last one was just lacking and this one is

way better. So that's the Apple TV four K. The other new feature, by the way, is high frame rate four K HDR, which is sixty frames per second, which right now, as I know, there's only one app that takes advantage, which is the red Bull app. I tested it. I didn't see any big difference into my eyes for the quality. But you know, maybe in the future, as more of these apps take advantage of four K high fram rate sixty you know whatever, you know, maybe it'll

look better. I don't know. Like I said, I'm just a tech person. I'm not a you know, an audio or video file. I'm just kind of like the average Joe when it comes to tech, all right, except I just you know, I play with it a little bit more than the typical person that's just you know, day to day, like this is my life. Adam says, Hey, Rich,

hope this email finds you well. I'm currently in Florida visiting my parents and I'm trying to help them screen mirror their iPad to their Samsung Series seven Smart TV. The TV is not Airplay compatible, so I'm looking for a free screen mirroring app to put on their eighth generation iPad. Can you suggest one? Thanks to your thanks in advance, best regards, Adam. All right, Adam, so you

say that this TV is not air play compatible. So the main thing to know is that you can't really just add airplay compatibility to a TV that's not airplay like, as far as I know, like it has to be built into the TV. Maybe there's something that that, Maybe there's an app that lets you receive airplay on the TV. I'm not aware of that, and I also think that that's probably not the best way to do it anyway.

So what I think is TV probably does have built in is Chrome cast, which is the ability to cast your screen from the iPad. Now, when you say mirror the screen, most people aren't mirroring the screen anyway these days, Like you don't. There's not really a need for that unless you have a specific use case. But what most people are doing is using the iPad to play Netflix and then tossing that Netflix up on the TV screen

by casting it. So I think maybe that's and if your parents, you know, I think that's probably what they would be doing as well. So my advice is to use the casting option, And most of the major apps have that built in. Whether it's Netflix, whether it's HBO Max, whether it's whatever. All the apps pretty much support airplay

and casting. So I would look, you know, make sure that your iPad is on the same Wi Fi network as the TV, make sure that casting is turned on on the TV, and it's on, it might be a different input for the casting, and then you just you open up the Netflix app. You look for the little cast icon which should pop up if it's on the same network, and it identifies a cast receiver, and you just tap it and it should throw whatever you're watching

on the iPad screen onto the TV. Now, again, most people don't need to mirror their iPad screen, so it's most of the time you're watching something on the iPad that you want to see on the TV. Now. The one exception to that is when it comes to something like your photos. If you want to show off the photos from your iPad to the Samsung you wouldn't be able to do that without airplay unless you used a different app, which you know, there is an app called like all cast I used to use and all cast

may let you do it. Yeah, all casts, So I would look at I don't know how old this app, if it's still even like being updated. Let me look and see. Let's see all cast iOS. Let's just see. Let's see when this was last Oh, yeah it was. It was last updated in in Uh let's see what I say, January Virgin History. Yeah, January sixteenth. Okay, well but that's not the one though. Oh that's weird. That's

a different one. Okay, we Anyway, my computer does this thing sometimes when I try to, you know, look at an app on the App Store, it wants to open up iTunes, which is kind of annoying because I don't really want that. Okay, well, all casts may not be supported anymore, but there's there might be another, a different app. But you can also use Google Photos on your parents' TV.

But that's the way I would do it, Adam, I think that's gonna be a little bit cleaner, a little bit easier, and a little bit simpler for your parents. Good question. Let me know what they end up doing. All right. This is a big announcement from Spotify. I cannot believe this actually happened. I am so impressed that we finally got this feature. It's only taken six generations of the Apple Watch, but now here we go. I wish I had a drum roll, please, but you can

now download Spotify to your Apple Watch. Huge, huge win for Spotify premium users. And again I said Spotify Premium, this is not something that anyone can do. You have to be paying for Spotify, and that makes sense because it's a paid feature. Downloads are a paid feature. I'm not even sure you can download to Spotify on the mobile app without paying to download. Now. I subscribe to most of the major music services, Spotify is not one

of them. But honestly, at this point, I'm thinking I may and I hate I love Apple Music, but you know, the main reason I started with Apple Music is because it's compatible with the Apple Watch, and that's the only one that really lets you download to the Apple Watch except for I think Pandora does. But the fact that

I can use Spotify now, I don't know. I'm gonna have to test Spotify now because I want to see how it works on my Sono system and now on the Apple Watch, because I do go running with my Apple Watch by itself without the phone, and so the whole ability to basically download playlist to your Apple Watch for offline use, so you don't have to have your phone nearby to listen to these playlists, and that's a

huge deal again for premium users. If you're not a premium user, this doesn't really matter, and you can still use Spotify with your watch nearby. That's still you know, that's always been a thing. But it's pulling from your watch, I mean from your phone, not from the watch. This the downloads are actually stored on your watch itself, which is a huge win for people that just want to go out with their watch and nothing else. All right.

The thing to know about this feature, though, it is rolling out, and those are my biggest dreaded words in the tech world. Rolling out to me means yeah, we'll get to it sometime on your app, we'll roll it out one day. I mean that means that, like I can't just open up Spotify and it's there. It means it may be there tomorrow, it may be their next week, it may be they're like who knows when. But I can't stand when companies say we're rolling out, because I

get why they do it. They want to make sure everything's working before they get you know, thousands and millions of people on board. But it's just like, to me, rolling out is like just when when do I get it? Just tell me when I get it, and I don't know. Maybe it's here today, maybe it's in a week, maybe it's in a month, who knows. But now you can download your favorite playlist two to your Apple Watch. I'm

just reading about this. Let Siri with Siri support and Apple Watch, all users, oh can say yeah, hey, h Siri, followed by your favorite playlist. But you have to say on Spotify, so h Siri, play my Discover weekly playlist on Spotify. And of course that's you know, if if Apple was really nice, they would give us the ability to set a default. Of course they don't. We know it's possible, but they you know, slowly but surely, we're seeing these kind of defaults come to the uh the

iOS operating system. You know, we do have default browser, we do have default mail app, but we do not have default maps. We don't have default music, we don't have default podcasts. So it's it's your iPhone. It's just not it's just not your It's not exactly how you want it, you know what I mean, Like you still gotta you still gotta jump through a couple of hoops to get things the way you want it when you're

using an Apple product. And look, I know this because I use an iPhone and I'm sitting there and my kids. Half the time, you're like, Dad, why using Apple Maps. I'm like, you know what, because sometimes it's just easier to say navigate too and the place, and I'll have to sit there and open up Google Maps, and I don't.

I just it's easier to use your voice when you're in the car and when you're using your phone, and you just can't do that with the iPhone if you want to use the services that you want to use without using a qualifier, like who says play Tailor Swift on Spotify? Like who wants to remember that? No, you just want to play Tailor Swift, play Taylor Swift, play play you know, imagine dragons, play the latest song. I said the other day, play the latest song from the

Counting Crows. And you know what I mean. It's like one of these things where you know it default. I was listening to Amazon Music and next thing, you know, it just defaults to Apple Music. And it's just the way it is, you know so, And believe me, there's a lot of benefits of using the iPhone. It's a great platform, but it's just those little things do do bug me? All right, Tamra writes in I recently, recently recently purchased a motorhome. I feel like I'm in like

a fifties movie. Okay, so recently purchased a motorhome. Okay, well you say that. Okay, what do you say about it? Yes? Say what do you say? What do you suggest for internet on the motor home while I'm traveling? Oh? Dimension MANK. By the way, what a great movie. I think I mentioned that in the podcast One of the Oh is such a perfect movie. Two movies that really really impressed me on Netflix, MANC and The Irishman two of my just favorite experiences in a movie. Just oh so good. Anyway,

I digress. What do you suggest for internet on the motor home while I'm traveling? And what do you suggest is the best way to watch TV while traveling? Well, let's see what do I want to Let's see I would say the motor home. I think you go. You could do this coupleways, depending on how much you're traveling. You just use your smartphone as a hotspot, So just check with your carrier see how much hot spot data

you get. And you know, like, if it's me, I think on mine, I get thirty gigs a month, so you know, you can see I would start with that and see how far that takes you. That may take you one week of the motor home traveling. That may take you a whole month. I don't know. It depends on what you're watching and how much it's consuming. When it comes to data. The other thing you can do is you can purchase a hot spot like and this is probably the best solution. You purchase a dedicated hot

spot from your wireless carrier. So go to you know, Verizon or AT and T or T Mobile and say, hey, I've got a motor home. You know I need a five G hotspot. You probably want five G because that's the latest, greatest. Get a five G hotspot. You add the plan. Now, the downside of this is that you're going to be charged for a monthly plan and I'm not sure how much data you get on that plan. You have to kind of shop around and see what their what their hot spot plans are. And that's the

second way. And the ney thing about the hotspot is you can leave it plugged in, you can leave it turned on at all times and it will always be spitting out a Wi Fi signal that's easy to connect to, and you can also kind of like velcrow it or whatever you want to mount it. I would mount it to like a window on the on the van or the motor home so that it gets the best signal. Now, if you really want to get fancy a lot of

these mobile hotspots, you can run a wired antenna. You could do that like up to the roof, and that way you could pull in a better signal, especially if you're in the middle of nowhere, which is where I'd want to be if I had a motor home, just like outside in the middle of nowhere looking at the stars. Ah, that's like my dream. And what do you suggest? Oh. The third thing you can do is there is a there is a hot spot from ZTE that is unlocked. And this is a uh gosh, I've got I've got

a segment on it. Let's see ZTE hot spot ktla DeMuro. That's how I search for anything that I've ever mentioned by the way ZTE z max connect. So that is unlocked, which means you can just buy a SIM card prepaid and if you find a SIM card that has like a whole bunch of data on it, you can just use that and pop it into this thing. Now, some of them may work, some of them may not because

you know, depending on how they treat mobile data. It just depends, Like you want to look for a mobile data card right versus a cellular plan with data because mobile hotspot is a little bit different than a cell phone signal. But you can do that and you know that way, you can just pay as you go. But again, lots of options for doing this. It just depends how

much data you're using while you're traveling. Now, the best way to watch TV, I think is, you know, just get one of these streaming sticks, plug it into the back of a TV, and off you go. But that's only going to give you Netflix and you know, HBO Max and Hulu and all those things. But if you want to watch live TV, I would suggest you have to get an antenna. And I'm sure they make antenna that are specific for motor homes and I would look at Antenna's Direct for that, A N T E, n

NAS direct, Antenna's Direct. We'll we'll definitely have a motor home antenna. I would look for one of those, and I'm looking yep, RV Antenna's they've got them right here, and let's see how much that's going to cost you. Our website's kind of freaking out here. Rv Antenna's oh does not want to let me click this? There we go. Let's see a hundred bucks sixty miles range. Oh, it's just one. So there you have it, hundred bucks. So

I would start with the streaming first. If you really need live TV, then get the antenna that's of course going to be free and does not need data. But those are the things that I would recommend for your situation. All right, thanks so much for the question. Tammy and our Tamra and oh Tammy, Yeah you did say Tammy at the end. Let me know when I can take a ride in your motor home, because it's my dream just to I was on a on an event one

time for Ford. We took them Mustang out to the desert and they brought us to the middle of nowhere. It was I bookmarked it, but it was like, I don't know, twenty nine palms or something I think it was called, and it was just Okay, there's been two times I think I've already said this story. I feel like I've told every story on the podcast, but whatever. I feel like, not everyone listens to every podcast, so

I'll just tell them again. I'm like, I'm like my grandfather back in the day, Like you know, they tell you like a story like twice or three times, like Grandpa, we've already heard this. Now it's getting to be my parents. But uh, it's like we There's two times in my life and I remember looking up at the sky and just being one hundred percent completely just blown away by

the stars that I saw in the sky. And one time was up in Lake George, New York, where we have a summer home, and growing up, we always used to go there, and I just remember my dad got a telescope and you know, we aimed it at the sky and I just I could still see it looking

up right now. I could still remember exactly where I was outside of our house and looking up at the sky, not even through the telescope, just looking up and just being like, wow, this is amazing, like just the amount of stuff you can see in the sky right now.

The second time that's happened to me was in twenty nine Palms and we were in the middle of nowhere at this little hotel and or motel whatever it was and just in the middle of the desert and it was just I looked up and it was like, this is amazing, like just so and I want to recreate that experience. I just this, I don't know, the COVID thing, like it's just been tough to travel with all that, you know. Anyway, I have not really seen that any

other place. I'm sure there's other places they call them like dark skies or something, but I need to do that with my kids because it's just it was such an awe inspiring experience. And just seeing the sky like that is like you just don't get that in Los Angeles, Like there's just when you look up, it's like, oh, I is that Is that a star or satellite? Oh No, that's just a cell phone tower with a light on it. I mean it's just that's you know, you live in a big city and that's just the way it is.

You gotta get a little bit further out to see the stars. Anyway, I digress, as I typically do. Where were we another story? Let's do another story. Twitter is letting anyone get verified, So I know people love this blue check mark next to them, and I get it. It brings a little gravitas. Is that the word gravitas? Is that how you say it? Let's hear is that how you say gravitas? Gravitas? Gravitas. It brings a little gravitas to the you know, to your Twitter profile. And

I've had it for many years. Okay, big deal. I'm not bragging. It's not that big of a deal. But okay, I've had it. But it's always this mysterious thing about how to get verified, right, and so it was a lot of journalists, a lot of like, hey, send me your email and I'll get you verified kind of thing. But now they're doing it for everyone, so they're making it, you know, more accessible to everyone. Now here's what you need to do. You can do it right through the app.

You can do it through the Twitter app. You look under account settings, and it's rolling out, rolling out, so you might see it over the next few weeks. If you don't see it, don't worry. We're gradually rolling it out to everyone. Worst words in tech. You know, you want immediate gratification in this world, we don't. You know, you order from Amazon, you get it the same day or the next day. Oh, by the way, so this is why I order from Amazon. No joke to ordering experiences. Okay.

The first I ordered a speaker from Sonos had to replace a play five in my house because it was getting kind of old and it didn't work. So I go on on their website, and it was the best to order it from the website because they give you a little deal if you upgrade through them, give you

like thirty percent off. And so I order it there and it's an expensive speaker, and so, you know, like hemden Haud kept it in my in my shopping cart for a long time, but you know, every time I went on there, it would say it was more delayed, like it was back ordered, and so I just kept putting it off. I'm like, eh, well, if it's back order till May eighteenth, whatever, I'll order it next month. And then it was back ordered the next time till like June twentieth, and I'm like, oh my gosh, okay,

let me just order this. So at least I'm in the queue to like get it. I order it and two days later it's like, oh, you're order shipped out. It'll be there in a day. I'm like, what, Okay, Well, clearly your little back order system is not very good. So anyway, I'm excited to get my speaker so I

don't have to wait another month, which is nice. And now the next one I want to order is the Rome, which is their little new Bluetooth one, which will be great for the summer for taking around even though I have the move But anyway, I love the Sona stuff. It just works, It's great whatever. But the second thing I ordered, I ordered soap from this doctor Squatch. Have you heard of it? I made fun of it. It

was a big advertisement during the Super Bowl. So I ordered one of their bars of soap after I was home and my little nephew said that he loves it, and I was like, oh, okay, I'll try it. He's my sister's like he's obsessed. I'm like, all right, Well, you know, I kind of switched to bar soap over the This is Tea, but I switched to bar soap over the COVID because it's just like, I don't know, like the whole liquid soap thing, like, eh, just use

bar last longer. So anyway, I don't know what my point of telling you the story is, except for the fact is I ordered my first bar of Doctor Squatch on Amazon, but it was limited selection. You can only get like one flavor. I got bay Rum, you know, which is like an old school flavor, and it was there the next day. I used it. I loved it, but I ran out and I was like, Okay, next time, I'm going to order from doctor Squatch because I will

order a bunch of it. It will be free shipping, and I can get like the newest, latest, greatest flavors or whatever you call them scents. And they've got like moon Rock and just like all these really funny scents for soaps that you have no idea what they really small like, but they just it's like I got like Mars Area fifty one and moon Rock and space dust whatever. Maybe that was a beer. I don't know, but I ordered it and no joke. They're like it'll be ten

to twelve days shipping. I'm like, no, nothing's ten to twelve days shipping anymore. Like, give me a break. Remember the old days when it was six to eight weeks for shipping plus postage in handling. It's like, wait, what you'd mail off for something and it would arrive like when you totally forgot about it three months later. Well, that's what doctor Squatch has turned into. I cannot believe how long it has taken me to get my stuff. And no joke, doctor Squatch, I will tell you. Here's

my order. I ordered it on May tenth. Okay, as I record this, it is May twenty first, and I did get a I did get a shipping notification after I kept checking the mail every day thinking that, you know, okay, I'm gonna get this thing, and here's my package. I'm tracking it right now as I speak this, it says it's arriving in three to five more days, so estimated

delivery May twenty fourth through twenty six. So by the time I get this May fifteenth to May twenty fourth through twenty six, you're talking eleven ten, nine to you know whatever days, nine to twelve days. That is wild. So I love you, doctor Squatch, but my gosh, I mean, you gotta figure out this shipping situation. I just could not.

I didn't believe it when I you know, when I order online, and I always tell my wife this, whenever you see a company that's like trying to push you to upgrade your shipping to like a faster shipping, don't do it, because ninety nine percent of the time the stuff arrives like the next day, and they're just trying to like get more shipping fees out of you. So

don't do it. And this is the first time that my advice actually totally backfired because doctor Squatch was like, do you want three to five shipping or three to five days or one to two days. I'm like, no, I never pay for that, Give me a break, and clearly they they stick to like their ten to twelve days of shipping. So again, doctor Squatch, I love you, but gime on, you gotta you gotta catch up with Amazon with your shipping. So anyway, where was I let's

talk about getting verified? Who's Who's eligible for verification? Don't you love this podcast where I just jump around who's eligible for verification? On Twitter? To be eligible, you must fit one of the six categories government, companies, brands and organizations, news organizations and journalists, entertainment, sports and gaming activists, organizers, and other influential individuals, which basically means anyone can get verified. All you have to do is look in the account

settings tab and you'll see an application. You apply online and they get your request and next thing you know, you will get a decision. This could take a few days, they say, so if you want that blue check mark, And I suggest if you if you're a regular person,

you don't really need it per se. But I think it's good for jobs and good for you know, if you're posting anything on Twitter that you want sort of like to be linked to you in an official way, I think that it's probably a good idea to get verified so people know that you are who you say

you are. All right, Paul says, Hey, Rich, I hope this isn't something you've done in the past and I missed it, But do you have any suggestions for quote unquote nanny cams that could unobtrusively put in areas that where workers are working at my home. I'm not looking for live monitoring, but rather something that might record on

an SD card for possible later review. Thanks Paul, Paul, Yes, I have covered this, and I always get, you know a little bit like, Okay, Paul, I don't know what you're doing here, what your angle is, but yes, okay, we can talk about this because it is out there and there are legitimate uses of this stuff if it's in your house. Yeah, I mean, do I recommend putt hidden cameras in your bedroom? No? Do I recommend putting

cameras hidden if you got an airbnb. Do I recommend putting hidden cameras in your house even if you do have a nanny. I don't know. I mean, I'm not an expert, but I think that it's nice to tell people that you have cameras in my house. The cameras are very visible. You can see them. I don't hide them, and I don't put them in places that people would consider private. So with that said, yes, you can absolutely do this. It's your house. You can do whatever you want.

And the cameras that I recommend are wysecams. Wyze wisecams are very inexpensive. They're on their third version. They are fantastic. They do the trick. They work every time. It's the Wysecam V three. Right now, they're not available, so as I say this, they're not available. Which wisecams, for some reason, are so mysterious. I don't know what the problem is why they're always out of stock. But a wisecam will

do this just fine. Because a wysecam it is available on Amazon for thirty dollars and sixty five cents free Prime one day, so get it on Amazon thirty dollars sixty five cents. You can bundle a thirty two gigabyte SD card for forty three dollars and sixty cents, although check the price on the SD card for a thirty two gig now. The one limitation of these cameras is that the SD card, I believe is limited to thirty

two gigabytes. And the way this works is there's a setting in the settings once you put the SD card in this camera poll it says record twenty four to seven to the SD card and you can do that and it will just record as long as it can until it flips around and it's done, and it will just start recording over the earliest part of the recording. So it just records in a big loop. And that's why I have some of mind set up to do. And it's fine. It works. You set it, you forget

it. It does the trick. If you ever need to look back, you just go and look on the timeline in the app and you can download the video clip it whatever you want to do with it. But that's what you want to do. And if you want a live monitor. You can do that too, but that's the way I would do it. I think WHYSE is kind of the

best camera for that. Yes, there's a million solutions, and if you had another tech person talking here, they might recommend something else, but this is rich on tech and that's my recommendation because I love what Wise is doing. I love what Wise is doing, I love what Ring is doing. The difference with Ring is that they don't have internal memory, so they're not going to be recording

to the camera itself. And there's a bunch of cheapy cameras on Amazon that will do this, probably for even cheaper. But I know Wise, and I like Wise, and I trust Wise, and so that's the one that I would use. Okay, good question, Paul. That was a good one, and hopefully you figure out what you need there. Have you noticed the fees on Airbnb? Now, I am not a big Airbnb guy, and I know it's kind of weird. I like my hotels. I like staying in hotels. I like

that hotels are standardized. I like that they are cleaned in a certain way. I like that they're you know, I like that there's services at them, and I get it. I think at this point, I'm in a minority of opinion with the airbnb versus hotel. It seems like most people I know love Airbnbs, and I don't know why. I just I've never really taken to them. And I want to be the kind of person that loves finding the cool Airbnb on the beach and just hanging out

and it's great. And I have stayed in Airbnb once in Passo Robles and it was great, except for when they tried to hit me with a two hundred and fifty dollars fee when I checked out because they said I broke the garbage disposal, which I don't think we did. But again, what do you do? I mean, it's like, so I, you know, had to like dispute this thing, and like, you know, you're back and forth with the person.

And some people like that. I mean, some people like the fact that you know as soon as you book this, like you don't know where it is until you book it, which is like the first weird thing. You don't know the address of where you're staying until you actually book it. And I'm like, I want to Google map. I want

to look at like satellite view. I want to see like exactly where this is in comparison to other things, and maybe you know, you can email the host and ask them, but like, you know, then you could just you know, then you could just do the transaction outside of Airbnb, which is probably why they don't do that. So I look, I'm not knocking it. I know people love it, and I think it's an amazing thing that we have. But options, you know, hotels are great and

Airbnbs are great. I just personally stay in more hotels and hotels are not innocent when it comes to what I'm gonna talk about, which is the fees. The fees have gotten out of control. It started in Las Vegas with resort fees and now it has gotten to every hotel I've ever stayed in the past, you know, five years. The fees are out of control. And the reason why hotels love fees is because fees are tougher to show

up on comparison websites. So when you search for a three or four star hotel in Las Vegas, you get a list of hotels and oh, that one's ninety nine, Oh that one's one ninety nine. That's easy to tell which one's more expensive. The one ninety nine, but the ninety nine might charge you fifty dollars a night for a resort fee, and that's not necessarily necessarily reflected in these comparison websites. And so that's why hotels love fees.

They love nickel and diming you to death for parking, for daily resort fee, for an occupancy fee, for a fee to flush the toilet. I mean, the fees have gotten so out of control it's become a joke. So my wife and I when we check into a hotel, we sit there and we go, oh, did you use your free USA Today newspaper today included your resort fee? Did you get your two faxes in that you're faxing to people for your daily resort fee? Did you use

the uh uh whatever it is. I mean, these fees that they if you go on the websites of these hotels and you see what the resort fee goes to, it's like such a joke. It's all stuff that people

don't use anyway. So Airbnb apparently has gotten just as bad with the cleaning fees and the occupancy fee, and the taxes and fees and the service fees, and it got so bad that Airbnb actually had to make a blog post on the web about their fees and they said, look, we've heard from guests about fees on Airbnbs, and we get it. There's you know, they didn't say there's a lot of them. But here's what we're going to do.

They said that hosts set their own cleaning fees, and they made a good point that look, if it's you know, you don't know what the situation is with the cleaning, like the host may you know if they clean in between each person they hire someone they're hiring a cleaning crew for a hundred bucks, Like they've got to charge you one hundred dollars for that. Now, I think it should be blended into the fee to rent the place.

That's just my personal opinion, but again, it makes it look cheaper to not see the cleaning fee until you go to check out and all the service fees for Airbnb, I think that you should be able to see a nightly fee that reflects what the actual nightly fee is, right, But that's not the way it works. So Airbnb said that their fees are typically so cleaning fees typically cost less than ten percent of the total reservation, and then their fee typically comes out to about fourteen percent for

the service fee. So they said that they are going to look into the fee structure and how fees are charged. But the reality is, as consumers we are this is just beginning. Everything that you do at a hotel used to be included in the price of the nightly rate, and now everything is parsed out. I was at a hotel and it on the TV screen when you turned it on, is said, oh, if you want late checkout,

seventy five bucks extra. And it used to be one of those things where you can just call up and say, hey, can I get late checkout? I'm a great guest, I please, and they would look at their computers and they would say, okay, we can see that we're we're not really that full tomorrow, so we'll give it to you. Now it's just like, no, it's seventy five bucks for late checkout. Oh you want early checkout, that's going to be or sorry, early check in,

that's going to be fifty bucks. Oh you want to use the lounge chair at the pool, that's fifteen teen dollars. In Vegas, this is pretty common. You know, you pay for all the lounge chairs I mean it's it's becoming a nickel and dime affair. And I get it. You know,

they're they're they're figuring this stuff out. You know it all it's all because of these search engines that compare room rates, and so you may not realize that when you book a hotel in Las Vegas, it's great, but by the way, to use the pool, it's an extra. You know, you're going to have to pay to find a chair or to use a chair. I mean, it's just the way things are. So I think that these these aggregators are getting smarter about building fees in We've

seen it with the airlines. Same thing, all the airlines. Everything's uh, nickel and dime. You know, you want to bring a carry on, you gotta pay you want to. Now airlines are even getting so smart because there was a little scam with the airlines where you know, if you you have to check your bag, it's you know, thirty five dollars but or whatever it is, and then you can bring it on the plane and you can

just shove it in the overhead for free. Right, So a lot of people are just bringing their bags and and knowing that they would have to check these because they're in group six, right, they board last, the overheads are going to be filled. And guess what the flight attendant says, Oh, we'll check that for you for free. We'll gate They call it gate checking. Well, now, you know, my wife and I would always joke, why don't you just bring on your bag every time and if it

doesn't fit, you just gate check it. It's for free, instead of checking it at the front where it's going to cost you forty bucks. Well, clearly the airlines caught onto that. Not that I ever did that, by the way, I actually didn't, but a lot of people did. I notice that there's a lot of people bringing bags on board that you know, they knew they would not fit, And so the airlines now will charge you for a gate check fee if it doesn't fit in the overhead.

So they've gotten very hip. Not all airlines, but I think it was I think it was American that got hipped to it first. But you know, don't quote me on that, but one of them did. And I'm sure they're all follow suit anyway. But my point is we're all figuring this out. I get it, all these companies need to make money, but it's gotten to the point where as a traveler, and I travel a lot, I

feel like it's become a joke. Like literally, you're taking my wallet, you're taking it in front of you, and you're literally ringing out the money, like you're just ringing out the cash to just for everything. And I get it when you go to little little store downstairs, it's convenient. I'm gonna pay a little bit more for a bag of chips than I would a seven to eleven. But when you start doing all these things, it's just making me feel like, oh, come on, do you really value me?

Do you really want me to stay here in the future, or do you want me to go to Airbnb? And that's why the airbnb people are complaining, because they started feeling like, well, I might as well stay to a hotel. If it's gonna be all these little nickel and dime fees, I'll just stay at a hotel again, and you know, get some of the benefits of a hotel, like I don't have to communicate with the host or you know, every you know, two minutes over email about how to

get into my room or whatever. So I spent a lot of time on this topic because it is near and dear to me, and I just it just it just irks me that we get taken advantage of as consumers. When the technology has made things cheaper, it continues to get more expensive for us to do some of these things. Okay, let's let's see here. Nancy says, I have a flip phone Kyo Sarah that has fifteen hundred pictures on it. I cannot get it on an SD card. It's on

my it's my grandchild and my labs. Do you have any way I can get them on a flash drive, then put them on an Android phone and put them on an SD card. Tom, Oh weird. The email comes from Nancy, but the Tom maybe they share Tom. A couple of things I would do. Number one, there is a program that is I think it's like open source. But back in the day, a lot of these old phones like Kyo Sarah used to have a software that you could use to access what's on the phone, and

so I would. It's called BitPim b I t pim and it may work for your phone. And I don't know if it tells you which phones it supports, but you know, you can kind of see if your phone is supported now. I would also go on to Kyosara's website and see if they have any software. Also, I was just on the freeway the other day and Kyosara is based in Los Angeles, so it looks like they have some sort of US based support, So maybe give

them a call and ask them. But the BitPim, I think BitPim dot org is might be your best ability. Or you can just google like Kyosera software and the and the name of your phone, like uh, you know the model number, and see you might be able to plug it into your computer to be able to download these, uh these pictures. So that's the number one thing I do.

Number two thing I would do is bring it to a store, like you break I fix or even your carrier whoever, you know, if it's a Verizon phone, bring it to Verizon A lot of times in the back they have these tools that they can plug into the phones to extract the data from them, and so that's another way of going about it. And then you break I fix. They're kind of like an Uber you know, uh fix of phones they have not like the Uber service,

I mean like big big picture. They can work on a lot of different phones, so you might just bring it in there and just tell them what's happening and see if they can extract those photos. But there's definitely a way to get them off this phone, for sure. At the very least, if it's bluetooth, you might even be able to bluetooth these photos to another device. But again, you might be able to like link this device up to your Windows computer or a Mac computer and then

browse the file system. But I don't know. I haven't done this in a long time, but I do remember doing this for an old, old phone and it did work. So those are my solutions. That's what I look into and see if it works all right. Gosh, a couple of quick things before we go here. F one fifty lightning all electric F one to fifty pickup truck from Ford. They unveiled it this week. The cool feature is that

it can power your house. So this car, you basically plug your house into it if your power goes out, and it can power your car or your house for like a couple of days, which is kind of cool. Now they're saying this car is under forty thousand, but that's for a commercial version that's probably stripped down the XLT, which is the mid series. That one is fifty three thousand. That's probably gonna be the one that most people are.

You know, let's be honest. When you go into a car place, you know, whatever you see advertised is not the price that you pay because it's like, oh, you want windows that roll that are powered, not rolled down. Okay, that's gonna be an extra two thousand dollars. So this is gonna be a great truck. I think it's a cool I mean, it's got a fronk. It's just such a cool looking. The idea that the biggest kind of like truck in America d F one fifty is so

like America iconic. Like the fact that that's going electric is really cool. So, like I said, I'm not a pickup truck guy, but I told my wife, I was like, I don't know. I could see myself getting this thing just because it's so cool, but I probably won't. All right, let's see here any other questions that I want to address.

I think that's gonna do it for this show. I try to keep these under an hour because when I see an hour on my podcast app, I'm like, I don't want to sit there and listen to a show for an hour. One more thing. Internet Explore End of an era. It is being retired on June fifteenth, twenty twenty two. I don't think anyone listening to this show is still using Internet Explore. Maybe you are, but I

don't think so. It's mostly specialized corporations that still run apps that require Internet Explore, but they're urging you to switch to Microsoft Edge or something similar. Oh you know what that sound means. That's gonna do it for this episode of the show. If you would like to submit a question for me to answer, two ways to do just that. Go to richon Tech dot tv slash podcast. Hit the microphone button to leave a voicemail, or better yet, go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash rich

on Tech hit the big blue send email button. I like that because it goes to a certain place in my email where I can find the questions later. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help other people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech. You can find me on 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. Then scroll all the way down to the tech section and watch all of my TV segments on demand on the best screen in the house, which is your TV. My name is rich Tdimiro. 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. Stay safe, I'll talk to you real soon.