CES 2021 virtual show announcement

and also for Nextstar TV stations nationwide. It's been interesting because, you know, Katla was purchased by a new company that I used to work for actually, which is kind of interesting back in my early days of my career, and you know, we own a whole bunch of TV stations, and so they're starting to notice that I do this little report and they're starting to use them, and so it's really been fun to kind of see my stuff

just popping up in different places across the US. We used to be on a bunch of stations with Tribune, our old company, and we're still on a lot of those stations, but now it's like you know, every station has access, which is kind of fun. So it's been really good expanding, you know, the reach and just kind of doing what I do and what you know, my thesis on all of this stuff, my mission statement has always been sort of helping people understand technology, you know,

in an easy way, and helping the everyday person. So you know, there's every one of us has to use technology, whether we like it or not. That's just the reality of the world in twenty twenty. So you have your phone, and it really all stems from the phone. You have your phone and you kind of say, oh, smart light looks kind of cool. One of those Amazon echoes looks kind of cool. And next thing, you know, you've got all this stuff and you're just trying to figure it out.

And you know, then you have the apps and you know, privacy and so I just try to every one of my reports, I just try to be helpful and I hope that comes through because that's that's really what my mission is. I can't believe that we are done, almost done with twenty twenty. I mean, I just can't believe it.

I can remember sitting in a van at CS doing the podcast at the beginning of the Year in twenty twenty in Las Vegas, and literally I can remember it like it's yesterday, and here we are a year later, almost a year later, and honestly, this is the year that sort of didn't happen because we've been quarantined and just you know, not leaving our home and this and that. So wow, I just can't believe it. But holidays are here. I'm excited. This is the last show of twenty twenty,

which is pretty wild. Be back next year. But let me and I hope you're you know, I hope you're staying safe during the holidays. I know all my plans are canceled. I was supposed to go to New Jersey. That is not happening. Then we were supposed to go to Arizona. That's not happening. We are just staying put because it just seems like the thing to do this year. And honestly, I'll enjoy the time, the downtime and just sit.

I'm gonna finally install Big sur on my computer and hopefully get organized once again, you know, kind of reset for the new year. And the new year is gonna kick off pretty strong, because I have an announcement to make I will be working pretty closely with CS twenty one this year or next year because I am going to be one of their hosts for the digital show. So we've talked a lot about CS in this podcast because it's kind of the biggest event of the year.

I get so many of my story ideas, I get so many of my videos, my social media videos I get. I mean, I get so much from CS every year, b roll like I have in my Google Photos. You know, I'm sitting here editing stuff for this for the segments, and you know, I just go into my CES video I'm like, oh, I have a shot of a ring video doorbell, or I have a shot of a microphone,

or I have a shot of that smart toilet. And it's become sort of a little a place where I just get stuff that I need and you know, anyway, So CS twenty twenty one is going to be their first all digital show, happening in happening in January. It is virtual, so no need to go to Las Vegas. This year. They're gonna have over one hundred conference sessions. They're gonna have more than a thousand exhibitors from around

the world. AI five G Digital health, smart cities, vehicle tech, and then they're gonna have this thing called the CS Digital Venue, and this is in partnership with Microsoft, and this is what I'll be doing. And it's basically kind of a live anchor desk where you'll see myself and a couple other folks and I'm very excited about who those other folks are. But we will be kind of navigating the show, doing you know, tech updates, interviews, all

kinds of stuff. I haven't even heard like everything I'm doing, but it sounds awesome. And here's why I get to play. I say play with, but work with. Okay, it's it's not play, it's work. I justine, which I love. I mean, we've we actually did CS together many years ago, and we've been you know, we stayed in touch ever since. My friend Brian Tong, who you know, we worked at c net together. He is doing a great job on his own with his own YouTube channel. I mean just

really really doing a nice job. But it's a lot of work. I watch him work, and it's well, I don't like to sit there and watch him at it, but I talk to him very often on text, and you know, believe me, he's working hard. And then Naomi Kyle, who I don't know personally but I'm aware of, and she is an actress, producer, does a lot of stuff in the video game world, so it'll be nice to have her perspective as well, because that's a huge part of this. So you've got four of us and it's

just kind of cool. So we will be hosting CS twenty twenty one virtually and I'm excited for it. Last day for media registration complimentary media registration is January eighth, and CS twenty twenty one takes place January eleventh through fourteenth. I know, I believe that I'm a start on like the I think it's the eighth maybe or the ninth,

just to get prepped, but it's gonna be fun. And then CS returns to Las Vegas January fifth through eighth, twenty twenty two, So mark your calendars January eleventh through fourteenth. You'll see me online and if you you know, see me wave high. So exciting because everyone was asking me like, what are you doing for CS? And I couldn't really tell them for a while because I was, you know, contracts hadn't been signed in all that stuff. But now

that it's a done deal. And thank you to KTLA by the way for letting me do this, because of course, you know, they had to approve, so that was exciting, all right. Tony McDowell says, is there an address program that you can input once and it updates the address book, email, et cetera. Also when you delete a name, you only have to do it once, Tony. You know, Tony, I have been looking for something like this for a long time and there's not really there's not really a one

size fits fits all with this sort of thing. There used to be something I loved back in the day called Plaxo, which, if you've been in tech for a little bit that might ring a bell. It was this program that was sort of spammy, but it was great. You would upload your whole address book to this program and it would send an email to all your contacts and say, hey, can you update you know, just take a look and make sure everything looks right. And it

was brilliant. And then if someone I think there was like a opt in that if you just said, hey, you know, keep my stuff updated at all times, you could go into your own app and update your info and everyone else who's using Plaso on the network would also see your latest info. I thought it was brilliant, but people just thought it was spammy, and it never really took off, and I think Comcast bought it at some point, and you know, of course it doesn't really

exist anymore. But I have been testing something new called Sunshine Contacts, and this is very similar. It's very similar to what but Plaxo was trying to do, maybe in a less invasive way. They don't send out automatic updates, but you can send like a link to a friend or a contact and say, hey, would you mind just taking a look at this and updating your stuff? Now, this app is actually from the former CEO of Yahoo,

Mersa Meyer. She came up. I don't know if she came up with it, but she's kind of behind this and it's been interesting on my iPhone now. The last I checked, when I went into there, it somehow goes through all your emails and like finds the contacts. So now I have twenty three thousand, eight hundred and seventy six contacts imported fifteen thousand, nine hundred and thirty six total without duplicates fourteen thousand, nine hundred and twelve enhanced

by sunshine. So I have enough contacts now to last me seventeen lifetimes. And it's interesting what they do when they you know, you go into a contact and it kind of uses I don't know, some sort of I don't know. I don't know how it does it, but it gives you the info, you know, when you tap into the contact, and then not only does it give you the info, but it gives you like some other info you have, and then it marks it as obsolete somehow,

and some of it's pretty good. So anyway, it's not perfect. It's interesting. It's it's opt or. It's beta right now. So you have to have an invitation. I don't know if can I invite people. I don't even I don't even see a way to invite people, but you can, you know. It took me a little bit to to get on there, but it shouldn't take too long. But anyway, that's the one I've been testing. There's other ones, like

there's ever Contact. I mean, there's a couple of things like that, but I found that, you know, full contact, I just found that not many of them work that well. And honestly, the thing that I think works. The best

is really just Siri. If you connect your email to you know, your iPhone, like if you log into their email app, it will search sort of like the signatures in your email and kind of put a serie kind of uses all the informations that when you look someone up, it will tell you you, you know, hey, here's the information we think we have for them, based on you know, your previous It even is smart enough to know that, like the last time they texted you, it came from

this number, so that's the number that it kind of puts at the top of the list when you go to call them. I mean, it's pretty smart, and it's something that's not very nuanced in the iPhone, like people don't really or not very apparent. It's very nuanced, so people don't realize that that's happening. But I think that's a really cool little feature. And now this Sunshine Contacts, I don't know because it's updated all my contacts my address book, and I don't know if there's any going

back at this point. I have so many contacts in here, I don't even know what to do with myself. Oh my gosh. Okay, speaking of Apple, Apple Fitness Plus launched this week and I was an early tester, which is kind of cool. So they sent me they actually had to send me. Well I don't mean if I can, can I really talk about that, but anyway, they had to send me the software early to try it out, so it was cool. It was great, I really have. I've grown to love it and it's now part of

my life. Apple Fitness Plus Now. The thing to know about it is it requires an Apple Watch. These are fitness classes that are on your iPhone, your iPad, or Apple TV, but you have to have an Apple Watch to sort of unlock it, and a subscription which is ten dollars a month, which I think is very reasonable. You can also bundle that with one of their Apple you know subscription bundle plans. What is it called Apple one And so to get it, you have to update

all of your apps. So I sat there and I like updated my Apple TV and the iPad and the Apple Watch and the iPhone and it showed up on all of them. It's fourteen point three if you're keeping track. And with the Apple TV. It's kind of cool because it works on any Apple TV, even if it's not yours, which is really interesting. So let's say you were at

an Airbnb and they had an Apple TV. When you have your when you open up the fitness app on that Apple TV, it kind of scans the room for any Apple Watches, It sees yours, and then it says, okay, do you want to log in? And you just tap you know, yes on your watch and it kind of

up it handshakes with the TV somehow. And I thought that was really cool because if I had an Airbnb, like if I was an owner of one, I would that would push me over to put like, you know, an Apple TV in there, because you know, anyone who comes there with an Apple Watch could get a quick workout in, which is kind of cool. So the workouts across all kinds of things. It's not, you know, it's not a one trick pony. It's not just like one type of workout. They do it all hit, dance, strength, core.

I mean, it's all there, and it's great. They always have three instructors, which I really like. So one is doing the typical, one's doing a beginner, one's doing in advance.

The instructors are really cool. They're all kind of you know, very apply, you know, excited, and enthusiastic and just a nice mix of folks from different backgrounds and different abilities as well, which is really cool because you know, some of these trainers in these programs that you know, they are all these like young fit people, and you know, not everyone's like that, so it's kind of nice that they have a very wide range of folks, which is

really really nice. The best part is really kind of the on screen data that it gets from your Apple Watch. I've grown to love that, and you know, if you have an Apple Watch, you know it's all about closing those those circles or those rings rather and so for me, pretty much every day I'm trying to do that unless I'm knowingly taking a day off from any sort of exercise.

And so like yesterday, I went on a little run and then I came back home and I was like, oh, let me do ten minutes of strength and then a five minute cool down, and so it was great. There's no live classes, so that's a big difference between this and Peloton, but I don't really think that's missing, Like I don't really I'm still gonna stick with the peloton for the spin classes at least for now, but I

do like the Apple Fitness Plus for everything else. So I love the strength, I love the hit, I love the core, and the mindful cool downs have been really nice too, and new classes come out on Mondays. So I don't think that people are gonna flock over from Peloton to this, but it makes me very happy that

I did not buy a Peloton bike. I'm glad I bought a you know, a generic by that works with all services, because if I feel like it, I can use the Apple Fitness Spin class, or I can use the Peloton Spin Class, or if something better comes along tomorrow, I can use that as well. So for all those reasons, I think that Apple Fitness Plus is really cool. If you have an Apple Watch, you definitely have to try it out. You get a month free if you you know, for all users, three months free if you bought an

Apple Watch after September fifteenth through March thirty first. And I don't know what to say except for the fact that I just love this. I love having another option. I love the fact that they have ten minute classes, because ten minutes to me, I mean, like the other night, I was literally dumb with my day and I just waiting for my wife to get out of a meeting, and I was just like, you know what, let me

just do a ten minute class with the kids. And so we just sat there, we all picked up some weights and we just did like a ten minute strength class and it felt so good. And then I was like, oh, let me do one more. And so then I did like a ten minute core class, and so I just got twenty minutes of working out, you know, basically in a day that I knew I wasn't going to. So so I really think that it's a really cool addition

to the portfolio. Of course, it keeps people in the Apple ecosystem, and you know, but as long as you're putting out good stuff, why not. Eric says, Hey, Rich, I enjoy your podcast. I appreciate your knowledge. Any suggestions for a music manager app for Android. As you know, Google play Music went away put people into YouTube music and I'm not so far enjoying the user experience with that app. Any suggestions on other apps or services that

would work. I do have a small catalog of purchase music I would need to store in the cloud with the service as well. Thank you, Eric in Visalia, California. Is that like the onions Vesalia. So I've gotten this question from a lot of people. In fact, when I get this many questions from people, I'm like, do I need to do a segment on KTLA. I feel like it's a small use case scenario of these folks that are still out there that are sort of using their

own music collection of MP three's on their phone. I don't think that's a very popular thing to do right now.

Obviously people have moved to streaming, but I think for you know, some of the more techier folks or the people who have built up a collection that they like, they still want to stick with it and not pay the ten dollars a month, which I'm totally fine with, but when it comes so for most of the folks, I've just been recommending, you know, use the YouTube music because it plays your own files and it's got I

believe it still has the cloud element. I know Spotify also plays local files, but I don't think you can upload them to the cloud. So I think there's two ways, or a couple of ways you can do this. I think one is you can do plex. I think plex is probably the best way to do this. And what plex does is it kind of you just make your own server and it's specifically created for music, movies, TV shows, photos,

it's just everything. And so I think that that's probably the way to do it is just just get plex and you know there is a there is like a pricing. Let's see where is the pricing on this thing? If you have to go premium, so I don't know how much it is, let's see it doesn't really I hate websites that don't just have like a pricing, like I have to create an account to see what the price is. Come on Plex, let me just see how much it is. Let's see plex pricing.

off a lifetime. I would proably wouldn't go lifetime because you might change your mind, but a yearly is definitely a better deal than monthly, or maybe just start with monthly and see if you like it and then go to the yearly. But I would just do plex. I think that's gonna I think that's gonna be the best case for what you need. I think you could probably build your own tracks and SoundCloud, but I'm not sure that that's really I'm not sure that's the spirit of

what they do. Maybe it is, I mean, maybe that would work, but it doesn't seem like it would. Samsung is getting ready for twenty twenty one. They have already put out a blog post about their new phones that they're gonna concentrate on, and we've already heard rumors that they're going to launch their new phones early in January

versus February, which is pretty interesting. And I think that that's a good idea because you know, people are really buying the iPhone twelve a lot, I think, or considering it,

and with the Samsungs, you know, not so much. Like I feel like, yes, they did fine with the S twenty lineup, but it was not the breakout, crazy hit that they wanted, and the reason for that is that the S twenty Ultra was really kind of a bomb and It's really sad because that's an amazing device, but it just the camera never lived up to the expectations. And I would argue that the S twenty Fe was fantastic, the Note Ultro was amazing, but just that's not the

phone for everyone. That's not a mainstream mass phone. But it did pretty well, but it's just not the phone for everyone. So when I'm sitting here as a tech person recommending you a phone, the S twenty Ultra was just not something that I recommend it to people. Now, the S twenty Fe, the Fan Edition, I did, but it doesn't it's not the high end phone that people, you know, everyone wants. So looking forward to twenty twenty one with Samsung, what do we have? So a couple

things from this blog post that they put out. I thought this was really interesting. They are Samsung Galaxies will be more than ready to meet the demands of the video obsessed in twenty twenty one. When it comes to advancement in this space, it's going to be an epic new year. I love the sound of that because I am all about video on my smartphone, and that's a primary reason why I use the iPhone, because it just

you can't match it. It's just the video is so good on there, it's just unbelievable, and editing on there is so amazing. Our engineers and developers have been expanding our on device AI, enabling our devices to continually learn from daily activities to take better pictures, maximize battery life, optimize displays, and more. They talk about privacy. Number one goal is and always will be to create experiences users can trust knowing we'll treat their data with the utmost

care every step of the way. So that's interesting, it's kind of sounding aptly. And then they talk about expanding their portfolio of foldables and we're gonna never stop trying to outdo ourselves, so be on the lookout for super intelligent, pro grade camera and video capabilities in twenty twenty one.

And here's a line that had everyone going nuts. We've also been paying attention to people's favorite aspects of the Galaxy Note experience and are excited to add some of its most well loved features to other devices in our lineup, which led a lot of people to think that they're going to get rid of the Note and just put the stylust in the S twenty one Ultra. Who knows. I mean, they may do that. We'll see, but I'm excited reading that blog post. If they can get me

to switch to Android, I'm all for it. I mean I was ready to switch with the S twenty Ultra and the note. The note was just too big for me, and I just it was just I don't need the stylist per se. But if they build that into the S twenty and that's smaller form factor, slightly smaller, I'm all for it. And it would be tough to move from iPhone in the Apple Watch, but I would probably come up with somewhere in the middle where I maybe

still wear the Apple Watch but use the Android. But we'll say, you hear me drinking my tea?

love it. So thanks Jeff for leaving the voicemail. Try it again. I'm not sure. I tried doing this on like Chrome on my iPhone. It definitely is a little quirky. It seems to work best on a desktop web browser

to hit the microphone. But I mean, you would think that, you know, since everyone's using phones, and especially with the iPhone, and this is I don't want to get into the differencestween an iPhone Android, but it always everything's a little more complicated because when you're in a browser on the iPhone, it's always like a browser inside of a browser, inside of an app. If you're getting to somewhere from an app,

it's very complicated. But anyway, that's the way the architecture set up most of the time on the iPhone, so I feel like that has something to do with it. But like when I tried to do this from Instagram, it was like it was a web browser inside Instagram from a link. It just was weird. So anyway, thank you Jeff for the voicemail. I'll do a question as well, since you know that was sort of a just a comment. Steve Brown says, first off, I really enjoy your podcast.

I really appreciate what you do for us in the tech world. I watch you on KTLA. Enjoy your podcast. I've been an Apple across the board for decades, but never had a MacBook Pro. I'm looking at getting a new m one MacBook Pro, but had a few questions. I'm a photographer with thirty years and do a lot of photo editing with Pixel Made or Pro. I started dabbling in video using emovies. I might upgrade to final cut.

My question is do I need sixteen gigs a RAM or should I be good with the eight I've read conflicting articles online stating that with the powerful M one chip, sixteen isn't needed for what I would do. I don't mind spending the extra two hundred, but if it wouldn't make a difference, I'd rather throw the money into some extra memory or use external drives. I'd appreciate and respect your feedback, Steve from Long Beach. All right, Steve, definitely

go with the sixteen gigs. I have not personally tested the M one, but everything I've seen from other tech folks, they love it. It's fast, it's amazing. Apple of course applied their magic and did a great job. But I come from the world that you can never have enough memory. And yes, a lot of the new apps will be written and optimized for this computer, but some of them

may not be. And I would just especially if you're telling me you're getting into videos, I think that, yeah, you'll be able to edit a little simple things on your you know, with just eight gigs. You know, I

could edit little videos on my iPhone. But I think if you you know, this is a this is a MacBook that you're going to keep for at least three to four years, I'm guessing, so you know, if not more, and so why you know you're going the the eleven hundred bucks, go the extra two hundred, right, So that's what i'd recommend. Always, always, always get the extra when you buy laptop. You got to max out to your budget the memory and the storage because you will always

need more of both of those things. That is what I recommend. We got a little bit of news this week, good news if you're in the streaming world, and I just I gotta say, I'm seeing what's happening here and I'm I'm very much liking it. And I'm not sure if it's due to like the whole anti trust, you know, crackdowns that have been going on, or these tech companies are just realizing that they can't be emote. But I like what's going on and I'm seeing it more and more.

And two announcements this week. Number one, HBO Max coming to Roku and they made this announcement and you know, they said just in time for Wonder Woman eighty four, nineteen eighty four, which is gonna be on HBO Max streaming on Christmas Day. I asked my wife I'm like, do you think we'll be able to watch that on Christmas Day? She's like, I don't know, but definitely the day after if I can't get to it on Christmas Day.

But there you have it, HBO Max on Roku. This was a you know, really a big missing piece on Roku. So many people emailed me saying, rich, where is HBO Max. And it's confusing because like the old HBO app was on there and it's just you know, not a good thing. So it took them what six months to make a deal.

And this is because these platforms like Roku, and you know, I would say Roku and fire tv probably have a lot of what's the word the power when you negotiation power because they are the two biggest And so it's no longer Oh, I'm HBO Max and I just published my app to rokuh. It doesn't seem to work that way anymore. Maybe back in the day it did, but

it doesn't seem to work that way now. You have to be approved and you have to be negotiated in and that means that Roku wants a little cut of the money because HBO Max, you know, if they're just on the platform and you know, if any if everyone just used Roku to access these apps and Roku didn't get a little cut of the you know, action, Roku would not survive because their business is not selling those streaming sticks. Their business is advertising, and so they get

a little bit of a commission. I don't know what what they get. I mean, that's all, that's all private, but they do get something, whether it's a cut of someone who signs up to HBO Max through Roku, or when they stream they get like a little portion of you know, some ad time on there, or they get you know, some free movies for their HBO or their Roku channel. There's something, you know, there's some kind of

deal that's made. So anyway, the deal has been made, and we all know that HBO Max can be showing all the Warner Brothers films next year on for thirty days on HBO Max. That's gonna be amazing. I mean, what a good year to be an HBO Max subscriber. To get at least I mean, in this article in the Roku blog, one Matrix, four Dune, Suicide Squad and Space Jam and New Legacy. So at least four movies right there. The other piece of news is that Apple TV app is coming to chrome Cast with Google TV.

And this is a big win because when I initially set up my Chrome Cast with Google TV, I was scratching my head and I was like, no, what am I missing here over Apple t Oh yeah, oh yeah, missing the Apple TV the Apple TV app, And sure enough it's coming to Google chrome cast with Google TV. Does it say when it says let's see the all new early next year, which I'm I mean, come on, that's like a long I mean early next year. It could be like any that could be like January, February, March.

Why does it take so long? I mean, how long does it take to make an Apple TV app for Android? So with the Apple TV app, it's very confusing because so a couple things you'll be able to do. You'll be able to watch Apple TV plus stuff, you know, the stuff that needs a subscription, but you'll also be able to watch, you know, all the movies that you purchased in the past on Apple TV or through Apple

or iTunes whatever. You know. It gets so complicated because it's you know, it's so it's there's too many Apple things with Apple. Everything is Apple, Apple, Apple something. Let's see it says this makes Chrome cast with Google TV one of the only streaming devices with all the major video subscriptions. But I think at this point that's uh kind of that's no longer the case because now HBO Max has made its way to Roku and fire TV,

and I think that was the last holdout. I mean, you know, these major apps are mostly on these platforms at this point. Oh wow, I guess that will be my new audio for the voicemails. Let's go to another voicemail at rich on tech dot tv slash podcast. This is from Jerry Rick.

And he said, you know they're on Amazon and you can get you know, replacement, And why didn't I think of that? I mean, that's such a bowse replacement earpads, I mean so brilliant. There they are left and right now these are twelve ninety nine. Now I will say the ones, okay, the ones that came with it are extremely comfortable. And yes they have the official ones which are thirty five dollars, so you can get anything as cheap as twelve ninety nine sixteen ninety nine, or you

can go official and get the thirty five dollars. But I love that. It's great, great voicemail. Thank you, Jerry. And I don't know, I'm I'm a little bit tempted to splurge on those headphones, but I don't know, it's like it's it's a big that's a big investment. And I'm looking at some of the reviews and they're not like glowing, so I don't know. Maybe maybe just stick with what I got and go with that. All right, let's do another question here from Kathy. Hey, Rich, love

your tips. I'm a long time iPhone user, want to upgrade to get a better camera. I'm currently using the iPhone seven. Can you suggest a next step up on getting a better camera? I don't want the Pro model, just want a better pictures and don't want to spend a bundle. Also, if I get something unlocked, does that mean AT and T my preferred provider can insert their

SIM card. Help Kathy in Kansas City. So, Kathy, to answer your first question, I would recommend I'd recommend the iPhone twelve and I would trade in the iPhone seven. You're not going to get a whole bunch for that, but I would trade that in and go with that. And you know, see what the deal is there, I you know, and I think that you know. The reason I recommend the twelve is because realistically you could go. I would also say the eleven is just fine as well.

And the reason why I would say the eleven is because you want you know, the eleven had a good camera on it, So I think that the well, actually I think you have to go eleven pro. Yeah, I think you have to go. Let me see here. It's been a while since I looked at this. But the you know, because Apple's only selling certain phones. So let's see what they're selling in the eleven lineup. They are selling Oh interesting, so they're selling just the eleven, not

the eleven pro. Okay, but I think the eleven will be fine. So I mean, if you want to go with the eleven, you can do that. But I would just say, duke a price comparison between the twelve, just the standard twelve and the eleven, and see how much that is. Now, when it comes to your second question, if I get something unlocked, that means AT and T, my preferred provider can insert their SIM. Yes, so unlocked means that the phone will work with any carrier. But

here's the thing. You don't necessarily need unlocked if you're sticking with your carrier and if they give you a better deal, I would go with that because unlocked is good for people like me that you know, are finicky and we switch providers and we're moving from Google five to Verizon, to Sprint to T Mobile, and we're trying to you know, we're always moving around, not that I'm doing that often, but you know, it's just and it. You know, it's just nice when you sell your phone,

it's easy to sell because it's unlocked. But if you're sticking with AT and T, like you said, you have an iPhone seven, which tells me you've probably had this phone for a good you know, four years, so uh, you know, just stick with AT and T and get their deal and see if it's better than what Apple

offers you, which I think it would be. So it's if you're not moving providers, it's not a big deal to stick with the lock device to AT and T and after a certain amount of time anyway, they will unlock it, which is generally you know, when your contract, not that you have a contract, but like when your

phone is paid off usually that's what it is. And most people are doing their phones on a on a monthly installment anyway, So buying unlocked doesn't really mean anything because even if you wanted to move, you couldn't because you have to pay off your phone. So I feel like, if your carrier's given you a good deal, no need to go the unlocked route. But yes, if you're buying from the Apple website. I would probably go the unlocked

route for sure, So I hope that makes sense. All right, Let's talk about third party extensions, and this is this disconfirms my fears about all these Chrome extensions that I install the time. And I think that Google and I think I heard that they're going to start kind of clamping down a little bit on these things because I

think it's a big privacy hole. So when you install a lot of these extensions, it says this can read and change site data like what like you can see every website that I'm going to because I install this extension that shouldn't be but it is. And so a vast you know, they make security products. They identified malware in twenty eight third party Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge extensions. And what they do is they redirect your traffic to ads or phishing sites to try to steal your information

or just make money off of you. And this is what happens when you do a search and it brings you to some like googly looking site, but it's not it's like my search, my way, and like it's like what has all ads on the screen? You're like, how did that happen? When I just did a Google search. Well,

it's a it's malware redirecting you. So these extensions, they are all about downloading videos from various platforms, which is very popular because people are always trying to like, you know, download videos and put them on their Instagram or their Facebook page. And so a lot of these extensions piggyback on popular names like video downloader for Facebook, Vimeo video downloader, Instagram story downloader, VK on block and you know, they

they basically, you know, hijack your computer. And so you know, some of these extensions are still available. Others have probably been taken down. But they said three million people have installed these and I've got the full list on my website or I'll put it in the show notes. But the reality is this just makes me very, you know, wary about these these third party extensions I have. I have a couple of them. I'll tell you which ones

I use. I use Pocket, I use ever Note, I use print Friendly, I use Buffer And how do I see the rest of my extensions? They like hide them, honey, keep a let's see grammarly. And then I have a couple that a popcart screen recorder, auto scroll. See I'm gonna turn some of these off because I don't need them.

But yeah, I mean it's like one of these things that you know you have to I mean you kind of have to like be just be aware when you put these extensions, and you know, if they get installed on your computer, you know accidentally, that could be you know, a problem too. And the extensions in Chrome have really

greatly increased the functionality of the web browser. But at the same time, again, they are sort of a glaring security hole, I think, and I think that in twenty twenty one, we're going to see Google do a lot more to make sure that stuff like this does not happen. All right, let's see, Chris says, I have a question. We're looking to cancel our cable. It's two hundred and sixteen dollars a month. We're looking at YouTube TV it's sixty five bucks a month. What's your thoughts on it.

We move from California to Boise three years ago, but we still watch your show. We enjoy it. Thank you, Chris. Well. The thing about switching from cable to YouTube TV or any of these streaming services is that you're not gonna get You have to still pay for internet and when you get rid of the bundle, they boost your monthly for your internet. So if you're paying to sixteen a month, that is high. But you probably have everything in that bundle.

I'm guessing you probably have high speed internet, you probably have a phone line, and you also have you know, a top of the line cable TV package that you probably don't need because you're probably not using all of it. So if you switch to YouTube TV, which I thought YouTube TV just raised prices, let me see how much it is. Okay, yeah, it's sixty five bucks. Okay, so sixty five dollars that includes the DVR. So yeah, I

mean I love YouTube TV. I think it's one of the best out there as long as it has the channels that you want in Boise. Yeah, Now, the thing is your internet is gonna go up. So right now, you know, whatever you're paying for internet in that bundle, you know, whatever it's it's going to be more expensive. Now you might get a deal to switch to a

new provider or whatever. But you're looking at let's say another let's just say it was sixty to eighty a month, you're still looking at only one hundred and you know, one hundred and fifty bucks, so you're still saving fifty dollars a month with this changeover. The only thing you just need to be aware of is if your local channels are available on YouTube tv. You can go to YouTube tv and type in your zip code and it

will tell you that in a second. But otherwise sure, now I would argue, do you even need YouTube tv? You know? With all these other services, don't forget you have to pile those on top of this price as well. So unless you're not subscribing to Netflix or Disney Plus or Hulu or HBO Max, you know, yeah, that's one fifty. But now when you add all those in, now you're

back up to two sixteen. So to me, the idea of cutting the cord, which I did a couple of years ago, has never been about saving money, because I'm still not convinced I'm saving money at this point with all the subscriptions. But what I love is that I'm in control, and so if I wanted to cancel anything, I can, And it's a matter of these services have to provide a value for me for me to continue

with them, and so far, you know, so good. I mean, I pay for you know, pretty much all of them at this point, Netflix, Hulu with no ads, Disney plus what else do I have? HBO Max Right now, we're doing a Hallmark channel for all their sappy Christmas movies. But you know again, I'm gonna cancel that when Christmas is over. So for seven bucks a month, it's been great and I feel like we've gotten our value because we've watched you know, four movies. Of course, I'm sharing

that log in with several folks. Can I say that? No, I'm not. No one does that, and so you know, it's one of these things where you just have to decide if it's worth it. I think it's worth it because of the control you get, and you get a slicker interface for me. I get my interface on either you know, a Roku device or a Chrome cast or Apple TV, which is infinitely better than what most of

the cable companies offer you. So for all those reasons, Chris, go ahead, drop the cable and pick up YouTube TV. And if you don't like it, guess what, you can get rid of it and you don't have to call someone to come over to your house to do it. Story out of Apple all the well, I guess not all the developers, but maybe some of them are going nuts, but definitely Facebook. You know, these privacy labels are now

on the iPhone in the app store. So if you go into the app store, if you select one of the apps that you like, you can scroll down and see what their privacy policy is. So let's go to Snapchat and if we scroll down, it's kind of like a nutrition facts label but for app privacy and so data use to track you contact info identifiers, data link to you, purchases, contact info, user content identifiers, diagnostics, location,

contact search history, usage data. Wow. Snapchat, you know, tracks everything, and that's kind of what they're doing is bringing to light the fact that these apps, as much as we love them, you know, their business is making money. And how do they make money by tracking the heck out of us? And that means, you know, watching everything we do on Snapchat to sort of make us use Snapchat more and also target ads to us. And that just

happens with every one of these apps. And so these little nutrition facts labels for data is what it's all about. And if you know, so, the main thing is that Facebook is going kind of you know, they're saying, look, you know now that we have to, you know, put all this out there. It looks scary. Number one. And then number two, they're saying that the they're not able to target our businesses, can't buy ads and target small business or people as well as they used to be

able to. And that's probably true because now on you know, on iPhone, you can choose to not be you know, not hand over your location, your bluetooth, your precise location. I mean, there's a lot of privacy of privacy protections in place on the iPhone this year than there ever have been, and so it is, it is tough for these companies that have built their entire business on targeting ads.

It makes it a lot tougher for them. And I would argue that, yeah, it's you know, especially if you have a small business that you're used you're used to targeting people in a very specialized way. It does take that away and that is tough. But I'm not crying

for Facebook. I mean, you know, they've had some privacy issues in the past, and you know, I think that it's nice that Apple is is kind of giving a wake up call to everyone with this privacy and we've taken it for granted for so many years on the phones that yeah, we're all just being tracked and everything's being seen, and they've really given us a lot of the the power back to the consumer. Whether a consumer chooses to use all of it is remains to be seen.

And it's also very confusing even myself when I get, you know, an app, it's like Google Maps has been using your location in the background. Do you want to switch to just you know, just when you're using the app? And I'm like, oh yeah, sure, oh wait, no, no, Like there's some of these things that they write, these little warning labels are tricky. You have to really read them before you accept anything that they say. But it's nice to know that we can do that, all right.

Final question from Babs happy holidays. Is there a way to do a holiday or any other backgrounds on Zoom with an iPhone? And I had to do some searching on this, but yes, there is a way to do it. And you have to start a meeting in Zoom on your iPhone. So make sure that your iPhone has Zoom downloaded, you know, sign in all that good stuff, do new meeting, start a meeting, and then you know, you get this

weird thing that says to hear others. Please join audio call using Internet audio, which makes no sense to me. I don't even know what that means. But that means that you're using the audio on your phone, like you're not calling, you're just whatever weird, weird message from them. Then you go to more and it says virtual background and you've got three to choose from that are defaults or you can add your own and let's see, I can put a nice background there. Done, and there you

go right on your iPhone. So it may not be every version of the iPhone software, Like if you have an older phone, it may not work because I do know that the virtual backgrounds take a little heavy lifting. So if you have like I don't know, but I do know on this iPhone, which is the newest one, it does work. So there you go again, just open up the app and go into more and virtual background and there you have it all. Right, final story, real quick.

Just Google Pay is Google's new app that's sort of like their venmo slash, you know, banking app whatever, payment to payment, person to person. But right now they're trying to get people to sign up and you can net twenty one dollars if you refer someone to the app, So if you bring a new user to the app, you get twenty one dollars and the person that signed up also gets twenty one dollars as long as they

spend ten dollars using the app. It used to be you could refer like a whole bunch of people, ten people. Now you can only do three because I guess so many people did this. So if you want an easy twenty one bucks, refer a friend to this and boom. Also, they have an offer at Target in the US if you spend fifty using Google Pay at Target, you'll get twenty one dollars cash back, which is really cool and that's awesome. It's funny. I was at the gas station the other day and I saw a sticker with a

QR code for Google Pay. So clearly Google is really going all out on this mobile payment app this time, because you know, at my local gas station it had the sticker, which is you know, goes to show that they're really promoting this app. The thing is I can't sign up for I don't know what the problem is, but my phone number is clearly in some sort of Google limbo because when I go to sign up It just gives me an error message every single time. And I tried both my phone numbers, my cell phone and

my Google Voice and it just didn't work. So I don't know what the deal is. But I'd like to sign up, but I can't, so I don't know. You know what that music means. It means that is 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 richon tech dot TV slash podcast and you can hit a little voicemail microphone or of course you can send an email as well. It says contact on there. Just hit that and boom, it'll get right

to me. Probably won't get it till next year's show, but yeah, because this is it. This is the last show of twenty twenty. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help other people discover it. You can also just go to rich on tech dot, TV, slash podcast and you'll see a rate button. See everything's in one place now. How cool is that? You can also find me at rich on tech and I think those social media links are there

as well. My name is rich Demiro. I want to say a sincere thanks to you for listening in twenty twenty. I really do appreciate it. I have a blast doing this show. I know there's been some changes with the show over twenty twenty, but I feel feel like it's gotten to a really good place, and I'm happy where it's at. I love the community that we've built with

the show. The questions keep coming, the comments. It is so interesting to me that, just as many people say when they email me that hey, Rich, I listen to your podcast, as people say they hear me on the radio or on KTLA or some other stations that I'm on, and I just love it. So Thank you so much. Have a fantastic holiday season. Hang in there. We are almost through this pandemic. I do believe that. Stay safe. I'm going to talk to you in twenty twenty one.

My name is Rich Demiro. Have a fantastic day. I'll talk to you real soon.