T mobiles, compelling new plan, bring cameras, get a brand new view, and KTLA comes to your TV screen in a whole new way. Oh plus your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Damiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer the questions you send me. My name is Rich Damiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five
in Los Angeles. Thanks for tuning me in today. Welcome to our friends watching on Facebook for a rare behind the scenes look at the recording of the podcast. I used to do that all the time, and then I kind of stopped because I get I get distracted by the comments on the screen. But you did get to see me do my little dan, which is real. I do that every time. That's my little dance in the intro.
I kind of pump myself up for this podcast because it is one of the most exciting things that I do throughout the week.
I mean, it just is.
I love talking on the podcast. If you watch me on KTLA, yeah you might catch me for like a second or two. You know, it's like blink and you might miss me, but.
This is wheight.
This is where I get to talk for as long as I want, and that makes it a lot of fun for me.
Now, this was a big week.
We got a lot of things going on the stories I mentioned in the beginning. We landed on Mars, which is really cool and this is not so cool. We launched a new app for KTLA. We did have one thing happen not so nice, and that is FRI's Electronics is closing. I know, so sad for Los Angeles and other places that had this electronics retailer. Now I'm a tech nerd, I you know, I'm one of those people
that grew up going to Radio Shack. I grew up just browsing in all the local electronics stores that we had where I grew up in New Jersey, which was Radio Shack, and trying to remember some of the other ones. There is one called like the Whiz Circuit City was
one of them. There was a lot, and you know, it's one of these things that when you're a nerd, you just want to go into these stores and be immersed in this world of technology and gadgets and TVs, and you just want to talk to other nerds too, and you know, we got to do that on the internet, but going into one of these stores was like the reality of it where you just got to, you know, talk with someone that knew what you're talking about. And
especially Radio Shack, that's really where I remember. I know it's a little old school, but that's really where I remember.
Going in.
You'd be like, I need a part to do this, I need this thing that does that, and you would just get this person that sat there and talked your ear off about you know, the pros and cons of gold plated You know, remember when when Radio Shack had like the the like regular stuff and then they had like the gold plated stuff that was like supposedly so much better. It was just more expensive and the people in there would always be like, Ah, you don't need that.
You know, you don't really need that. So, uh, radio Shack all right, But we are talking about Fries Electronics. Now, I didn't grow up in southern California, so to me, Fries was this place where you can go in Southern California that was really cool, and mostly because it was like the last of its kind. I mean, best Buy is fantastic for a purpose, but it's no Fries.
You know, best Buy has mainstream stuff.
And yeah, if you look in the little corners of the store you might find some little do dads and things. But FRI's was really the kind of place where if you needed a certain type of like soldering iron or a certain cable or a certain whatever, you could find it,
especially if you wanted to build your own computer. And I know Microcenter is the new place that kind of has all this stuff that my brother actually worked there for a period of time, and yeah, that's like, that's like next level nerd because he was doing the section where like you build your own computer, where they had like this this whole area where it would show you all the prices, the current prices of the components for building your own computer. Now that gets real real nerdy
right there. Love that kind of stuff. Now, surprisingly this may come as a surprise to uh some of you. I never built my own computer. I always wanted to, but I never did. Now I configured my own computer. So there was a company called Gateway two thousand back in the day. I feel like retro stuff. This is
really bringing it back. There's a company called Gateway two thousand back in the day, and I made my own computer through them, you know you would you'd pick all your components, and I picked like the best stuff, like the most memory, the best graphics card, the best everything, and had it shipped. And it was this big box that looked like a cow well it was like cow cow what it was you called cows skin, you know, like I had the blotches on it, you know, like the black and white.
Oh it's just so good times.
I mean, I it's just so interesting because I feel like so much of this stuff is just lost at this point. And I don't want to sound like one of those people with the tiny violins that's you know, begrudgingly moving into the future, because I embraced the future. But at the same time, there was some simpler times in this world where you walked into a store. Oh, crazy Eddy. That was another one, Crazy Eddie.
Oh my god.
And this just brought back another memory where you would go into the store. You'd get this Sunday paper where they had all the prices of these electronics listed in the back, and you would take that to a place like Crazy Eddy, and they would price match whatever price you found from some obscure retailer.
In New York City.
Maybe this was an East Coast thing, but man, oh man, these were such good times. I would go in with my dad and we'd find a VCR and be like six to have electronics in New York City? Has it for one hundred and ninety Probably at that time, it was probably like six hundred and ninety seven dollars, And you're selling it for six hundred and ninety nine dollars, and they're like, all right, fine, we'll price match it.
And they would bring it from the back of the store.
They'd bring it up and you load it into your car and you'd bring it home and you'd unwrap this thing. Now, with my job, I mean testing electronics for a living. I mean, I can't tell you how many things I just have stacked up that I haven't even opened yet because I still need to test them. And that beauty of like opening gadgets and ripping off the little pieces and you know, the plastic wrap is like it's still fun, but it's just it's different. You know, it's a different,
different experience. But anyway, Fries, sorry to see you go closing all thirty Let's see how many stores thirty one stores after thirty six years in business. This they say it's because of you know, COVID nineteen changes in the in the retail industry.
It was just a lot. So they said, you know what, peace out.
We're done, and uh, February twenty fourth, they started their wind down process.
And that's it. I mean, from what I'm hearing, it's.
Like people, the door are closed, so really sad to see something else go. And I don't know is Best Buy going to be next eventually?
I don't know.
I mean, I know that I get most of my stuff from from Amazon, and you know, I do buy from best Buy when I can, But it's just it's a different world nowadays.
So anyway, all.
Right, let's move on to the I'm going to talk about the top story of the week. According to my concentration of viewers, which I am on KTLA in Los Angeles. A majority of people that found me listen to me have ever heard of me? Found me through KTLA. I mean that's where I've worked for the past ten years, as I spoke about on my last podcast. But this is a huge week for KTLA because we finally have
a streaming app. Haley Loujah, do I have a phone clapping No, no, no, okay, I don't have any clapping sounds. I always want the applause sounds like guess that don't have them. But KTLA Plus is our new streaming app. It's for smart TVs, which are Amazon fireTV, Apple TV, and Roku. And what this does is this KTLA plus app allows you to watch KTLA live programming anywhere you live.
I'm just gonna say in the US. I don't know if you can watch it anywhere else in the world, but as long as you are in the US, you can download this app to your Broku, your Apple TV, or your Amazon fireTV and you can watch us.
You can watch us live.
But more importantly for me, you can watch my segments anytime of the day. And the coolest part is that they are all in a row on this app. So once you're watching the app, you can scroll down and see technology section and there I am. And I love it because my family can now watch and that's probably all who cares, so anyway, it's good for them. But no, I'm sure there's some people out there in the US
that would like to be able to follow me. I get that you follow me on Facebook and social media and Instagram.
And all these things.
But to just be able to see the segment that airs on TV is different. It's it's a it's a different experience. And yeah, you can watch it live and you can watch it on the web. But let's be honest, who's going to the web every day the internet to like watch my segment? You're probably not doing that. Ktla
dot com, slash tech, You're probably not doing that. So now when you're sitting down on your couch after you know, long day at work or whatever, and you just or a Saturday afternoon, you say, oh yeah, KTLA plus Rich damiro let me watch. Let me watch a couple of his stories. You get catch up on my last like five ten stories in a matter of minutes. So I find that really cool.
I love it.
This is just a beginning. I've gotten so many questions about the app. Why isn't it available on here?
What's what? When are you gonna be on YouTube TV? Guys? This is just the start. We are just getting.
Like I've been at KTLA for ten years and streaming on your TV has been such a popular question. We are finally there and now we will move on from here. So I don't know. I'm not in charge of this app, and so it's it's the KTLA bosses.
That do this, not me.
I just am the you know, I'm just someone that works there, and I am also blessed by this app as well. But I do know that they are putting a lot of resources and effort into this app to make it better and to also expand what you're going to see on it. So I can't really speak more to what you're going to see, but there's going to be a lot more, a lot more on there in the future, so it's going to be very cool, very exciting. And download it ktla plus. Just search ktla on either Amazon,
Fire TV, on Roku, or Apple TV. It works really well. It's a great app, and it's slick, it does what you need, and uh, it's just there, so go download it. All right, let's get to the first question of the podcast.
Let's see here. David says, yes, let's see.
Hey, Rich, My wife and I are huge fans of your segments on KTLA. We are only keeping direct TV currently to be able to watch KTLA. But now I saw, oh wow, this is a perfect segue into this. But now I saw KTLA Plus is out and we are looking to cut the cord. My question is can I find this app on a newer Samsung Smart TV. We have the Apple TV app integrated into the TV, but for some reason, I can't find the app.
Thanks David.
This is a great question, David, and this is one of the nuances of the Apple TV app is so confusing because it doesn't make any sense your Apple TV and I've talked about this on the podcast. Apple TV app is an app that's available on various platforms to deliver Apple TV plus programming, Apple TV channels, I believe, and also Apple TV the iTunes stuff that you've purchased
in Apple TV, So I know it's very confusing. Then you have an Apple TV device, which is like it's a whole nother thing, like that's like a physical box that sits under your TV. So a lot of people are confused because when you say Apple TV, they go, oh, I have that. You have the app and Apple TV app is a little different from the Apple TV box that allows you to download lots of apps. So David, you can't get it through the Apple TV app at
least right now. That could change in the future. Who knows, but if you want it with the Samsung Smart TV, what I would recommend is just buying a fire TV stick. So buy the fire TV stick from Amazon. They're a great deal, and get the four K one and just plug it into your TV. And I think that would be the best way to go. And you can just replace your Samsung Smart TV fully. So just take your TV from Samsung, plug it into the back whatever Hdmi one too, you use, that's where you keep your TV.
Now and now that you have KTLA streaming on there, you've got ktla, you can download all the apps that you need. You said you're going to cancel Direct TV, get rid of it, and now you can and you know, download HBO Max, download Let's see what are the other ones, HBO.
Max, Hulu YouTube.
I mean by the time, you know, just pick and choose what you want to watch, so you know Netflix of course, but just download the apps that you want go streaming. And I think between ktla for your news and your other apps for your entertainment and programming, you can download if you want to go totally free, you can download things like to be TV. You can download the Amazon if you're getting a firestick has built in programming that's free. So there's Pluto TV, which is free.
I mean, there's a lot of stuff that you can watch. Roku channel is free, although I don't think they offer that one on the fire TV. But the point is, even if you didn't want to pay a nickel for any sort of programming on your fire stick, you could still find a ton of stuff to watch. Yes, it will be ad supported, but to me, you know, I don't have cable. I cut the cord about I think it was two years ago, and I was a little scary because I'm so used to just that grid and
all this stuff. But I'll be honest, I have not missed it at all. If I need to watch something I have not had, there's been no lack of like, oh I need to find something to watch and I can't. I've had KTLA over antenna for a long time, so I can get it that way. Now it's even easier because I've got the Plus app. I haven't taken I'm not gonna take down my antenna just yet because you know, I with my antenna, I have DVR service and so I can you know, pause the channel, which I think
you can do on the Ktla Plus app. I just don't think you could rewind like I can online. So anyway, good question, and I know there's gonna be a lot of them. The number one question I'm getting about the Ktla plus app, by the way.
Is when it opens up, it opens.
As a box on your screen where the video is playing inside a box that's surrounded in blue. And everyone's like, wouldn't it be better if it was full screen? And yes, just press the okay button on your remote or press select on your remote, or if you have an Apple TV, just hit that kind of touch pad area and it will bring the video full screen. So that's what you want to do, And great question, David. Just yeah, that's that's what I think you should do.
All right.
Let's get to the next big story of the week. And I'm not telling you this story because I think you should switch to T Mobile tomorrow, although I'm certainly tempted to do just that. I know a lot of people love T Mobile. They set the bar when it comes to pricing. They always have fantastic pricing. And now
they've got this new plan called Magenta Max. And what's cool about this plan compared to every other cell phone plan out there is that it does not slow you down no matter how much data you use, which is a huge deal. So you can get this plan and as much four G and five G data that you want you can use on your smartphone, and they give the example of you know, even two hundred gigabytes no problem. So there's gonna be a lot of people that put
this to the test. Now I'm pretty impressed because every single cell phone plan that I know of has some sort of limit, even if you're on an unlimited plan. So if you are on say AT and T or Verizon on one of their unlimited plans, when you start to use a lot of data, like fifty gigabytes or more, guess what happens. They will slow you down if the network is congested. Now, they don't explain this, they don't really say this, but they they do it in the
background without necessarily you knowing. Sometimes they'll tell you with the text, sometimes they won't. I've never seen it really happen in a big way. I guess, you know, most of the time, I'm using like thirty gigs a month, so maybe I'm not hitting that. But there are some you know, real power users out there. Even more so than I am that just use a ton of data. And the fact that these plans are called unlimited is a little bit like, Okay, it's unlimited to.
A point if you use a lot.
If you actually try to go unlimited, you can't, so it's it's kind of an interesting thing. But the other thing that's great about this plan, Magenta Max from T Mobile, is that they also let you stream video in four K, which is amazing. Now they say up to four K. So here's what I think they will do with this plan.
I bet I just have a feeling I don't. I have a hunch that when you sign up for this plan, the default streaming is probably HD and you have to go in to your settings on T Mobile on the app and actually switch it to say four K. But I'm just guessing that because this is another little trick the other carriers do. So if you have Verizon or AT and T or even T Mobile and you have streaming is generally defaulting at four to eighty, which is
DVD quality. It's very low resolution, and even though you have a five G connection or a fast four G connection, they still do that because it saves them money.
They don't have to.
They don't have to transfer as much data to your phone to send through that like high clear resolution video. Now, if you're on one of these unlimited plans from AT and T or Verizon, you can go in and change your resolution to a little bit higher, like I did that on my Verizon plan.
I switched it A to HD.
Yeah, HD, I think, And so even though you know by default it's four eighty. So my point is you can go in there and do that, and you should if you you know, if you want to get the most out of your paying for it, you might as well. So, but this one you'll get up to four K. Now on mine, I can only get up to TENNY I think it's seven to twenty anyway, on a cell phone most of the time it doesn't really matter. But hey,
if I have a five G connection. All these carriers are so excited about five G. They make such a big deal out of it. Well, let me use five G. Let me use like the speed of your network. And that's what T Mobile's saying. The other thing you get is forty gigs of mobile hotspot and that's really good too.
I was in my hotel in Seattle and I wasn't sure if they charged for Wi Fi or not, so I kept off their Wi Fi for like the first two days I was there before I just got frustrated and ended up doing it anyway, but I was using my hot Spot on my phone, and sure enough, after I used up all the hot Spot data, it was worthless. It was it was absolutely worthless to use, and I had to.
That's when I signed up for the other thing. Anyway.
Let's see, so now Core plans on the Magenta. If you're on one of these T Mobile plans, they're upping your premium data from fifty gigs to one hundred gigs, which is pretty good, and your hot Spot data from three gigs to five gigs, all at no additional costs.
So, no matter what, the reason why I tell you.
This is because what I love about T Mobile, even though I'm not ready to switch them just yet, I love that they continue to push the envelope and they keep these carriers on their toes. And I was a little bit worried about this because they purchased Sprint, and now what's the point, what's the what's their point in trying to you know, compete anymore? Because it's either you go with AT and T, you go with Verizon, or
you go with T Mobile. It's like you got to pick which one you want, and they can all pretty much. They all pretty much do the same thing. I think that there are nuances with their plans and with their networks, and but this is this plan really pushes the other guys to maybe try a little bit harder, and we'll see if they do. I don't know if they will. They may not because they all have so many customers that they just may not care. But it's still good
that T Mobile's doing this now. The price of this plan is also pretty good. They haven't said one line I believe is ninety dollars, but you can get this is wild. You can get three lines, three lines for forty seven dollars per month per line, So forty seven times three is one hundred and forty one dollars for three lines of unlimited five G wireless plus forty gigs of hotspot.
That is a major win.
So if T Mobile works the way you like it in the area that you live, definitely something that you might want to look into. All right, let's get it into the next question. Debbie writes in my husband has a nineteen seventy five corvette. He is looking to retro fit a backup camera for the vehicle. Do you have any suggestions for a system that would include a screen along with the camera. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thank you, Debbie.
Now I suggested to Debbie there was this company that was at CS for a while called Pearl. And this was a company that would you know, because if you're outfitting this nineteen seventy five corvette, you probably don't want to like put like a little screen in the in the you know, dashboard, because you don't probably have that, but you probably do have a smartphone, and so you could use your smartphone as a screen. And that was
kind of my idea behind this recommendation. And this company is called PEERL PEA r L and I remember the and I'm looking at it right now in the web. It's like a frame that goes around your license plate that has a camera. But then that camera, I believe if is wireless to your phone. So you put your phone on your dashboard and then you can watch a
wireless stream from this camera on the back. Now, yeah, this is clunky, it's not ideal, it's not as not as smooth as say, you know, a built in rear view camera on your car, but this is a nineteen to seventy five car. You didn't you know, you didn't have it back then. So this is a device called Pearl rear Vision. It looks like they were purchased by another company, but and it is out of stock right now, which I don't know what that means, if they're no
longer doing this or what. But it's a three hundred dollars device. So that's what I'd recommend, Pearl backup cam versus.
That's a good A good tip.
By the way, pro tip for you, if you ever need to find something similar to what you're looking at on the web, just type in on Google the name of the product or even the name of the website, and just say versus VS and watch what happens. It will pre populate something that someone else always types in over time to compare. So if I puts let's give
me a product, let's see here. If I put in Sony, Sony versus Sony versus Samsung TV, Sony versus Lgo, Led, Sony versus Cannon, Sony versus Microsoft, Let's see if I.
Put in something like let's see this one works.
Okay, So I put in Daily Harvest, which is this company that I like that makes like healthy shakes and stuff, and I I don't know any other company that does that, But I typed in Daily Harvest versus, and look what comes up, Splendid Spoon. Never heard of Splendid Spoon, but clearly that's what people are comparing and sure enough ready to eat plant based smoothies, soups and more. So again, that's a very very simple tactic for Google Search that I use every day. I mean I use almost every
single the versus search. But it's so simple, it's so easy. And now you know, so I did not find anything versus for the backup camera, but that's what I'd recommend. You could also find like a million backup cameras that integrate into license plates on Amazon. I just can't vouch for the quality of those license plate cameras. Let's move on to some news from Netflix. Netflix introduce a new
feature called smart Downloads a couple of years ago. Now they're introducing a new feature called Downloads for You and Downloads for You automatically downloads movies or TV shows to your mobile device, and it does this based on what it thinks you might want to watch, so you know, Netflix knows a lot about you based on what you've
watched before. This, I think is a brilliant feature for anyone who travels like myself back in the day when I did travel a lot, because the thing you do before you get on the plane every night or the night before is you scramble to like find something on Netflix that you might want to watch on the plane.
So this downloads for you. You just say how much how many gigabytes you want to use on your device one gig, three gigs, five gigs, whatever, and you say turn on and boom, it will automatically download shows and movies and documentaries or whatever you watch on Netflix to your iPad or your mobile device. I should say it doesn't work on iPad just yet because it's only Android right now. But I think it's a brilliant feature and I think it's super smart, and I think it's great
for kids as well. So if you have a kid with a tablet, it's got to be an Android tablet right now, but you would just you know, you'd always have something for them to watch. Especially, this can come into play in the car because if you're if they're watching their tablet in the car, you don't have to think about downloading new stuff for them all the time. This just has like a you know, an at the ready kind of selection of things for them.
YouTube Music does something similar to this.
They have a playlist that's uh, forget what it's called, but it's like the for you playlist or something. But you just say how many gigs you want to use on your phone or I think it's by them. It's how many songs you want, and you could always have like fifty songs that are available to you that are just downloaded your phone and fresh. Now I will tell you here's the problem, and here's why I don't think
they launched on iOS. On iOS, when you put a when you put an app to sleep, like when you put it in the background, that app can't do anything anymore unless it's an Apple app, and that's a whole other can of worms. I'm not going to get into here.
They have special privileges.
But if it's a regular app like Netflix, Netflix can't really do anything in the background. Once in a while, it can if background refreshes on, but for the most part, it kind of just stays static. And I noticed this with my with my iPhone and YouTube music, that playlist would not update in the background because it just couldn't. It couldn't fetch the data it needed. So I guess,
you know, an Android it can. And so that's why I think Netflix is introducing this on Android, and if it works pretty well and people like it, which I think they will, hopefully they'll find some way to expand it to iOS. All right, Next question, Darla, Hey, rich, I have a question. I have a fire stick. Got lots of questions today about streaming services. I have a fire stick. Should I add another such as Roku? I'm trying to get rid of all my cable bills? Thanks
so much, your loyal follower. Uh, Darla, if you have a fire stick, you don't need Roku. I mean you only need one of these things because they're the same. I mean, a firestick in a Roku is pretty much the same thing. It's just a competing brand. It's like coke versus PEPSI. So what benefits do you get by having both? I don't really see any now. I would say what you need to do is you need to decide, well, Okay, you already have the fire Stick, so no, I don't
think you need another one. I mean unless you're just like totally trying to be fancy here. I mean, yes, for me here, I do have a Firestick, a Roku, and an Apple TV for testing purposes because I want to see how things work on the various platforms. But just as an average person, you only need to pick one. And yes, they all do offer slightly different things. So as John is pointing out in the live chat on Facebook right now, he says, some apps are on one and not the other.
So that is very true.
So what you need to do now, I think that's less true today than it ever was, because I don't think at this point there's many holdouts on one platform versus the other.
But some do have advantages.
So if you are a major free viewer of stuff on Prime, you might want to go with the Firestick because it's going to be Amazon. If you really like the Roku channel, which has a lot of free content from Roku, I believe that's only available on Roku at this point. And mobile apps so iOS and Android, but I don't believe you can get that on either Apple TV or Firestick. But there is a great place to find this information, and what it's called is untangled dot tv.
And that's the website that I always recommend people look at because you can pop in the programming that you want and it will tell you what platforms have that programming. H c neet used to keep a good list streaming.
Apps. Ce neet used to keep a really good list.
It was like a it was like a let's see.
If I can find it, uh spreadsheet.
It was like a spreadsheet of every single streaming app and which, uh, which places these things were on. So uh this was okay, so this was mostly for not necessarily streaming apps, but okay, this is a this is mostly yeah, it's still they still have it. I'll link this up in the uh this now you know what that's for, like YouTube and all that stuff. But anyway you can go, especially on Roku, you can search and see what channels are supporting or what I would do
is just go to like this specific channel. So if you wanted to watch Peacock, like if that was your main thing that you wanted to watch, I would go Peacock and then I would see what devices and platforms it is available on. So Peacock is on web browsers, it's on tablets, Android and iOS. It's on Android TV, it's on Apple TV, it's on Roku, it's on Chrome Cast, it's on LG, it's on PlayStation, it's on video, it's
on Xbox. Okay, hold on, I did not see anything about fire I did not, So there you have it, if and this is why we do things the way we do them.
We investigate.
So if you only want to watch Peacock, that does not seem to be available on Fire TV. So if you want that, you probably want to go with Broku. So that's how you figure things out, all right, speaking of things on different platforms, this is just really quick. But Amazon Music is now on Android TV, and Amazon Music is an app if you subscribe through Amazon, you know, like they're Spotify. There is YouTube, there is Apple Music.
Amazon also has their own music app. And the reason why a lot of people like Amazon is because the little I'm talking too fast, slow down rich, is because it is cheaper than the rest. So if you want just one person subscribing, and I think they probably have a family plan too, that's also a little bit cheaper. But if you are just paying for Music, and most of the services ninety nine percent of them are ninety
nine a month. Amazon Music, if you are a Prime member, is only seven ninety nine a month, which saves you two dollars a month or twenty four dollars a year, which could translate into something else for you. So and for that reason, if you like Amazon and you don't, really you're not very like, you know, you're not very selective, like you just want access to music, and you're not like, oh my gosh, like it works just fine. I mean,
you're gonna get the same stuff. In fact, in some ways it's better because it's simpler and it's integrated into.
Your echo and all that stuff. So you know.
Anyway, Amazon Music made its way to Google TV and Android TV. So if you have been wanting a proper Amazon Music app on these platforms, now you have it.
So here's what you get.
If you're on Amazon Music Unlimited, that is the one that you pay for, right, you have access to seventy million songs. If you don't pay a dime and you are just on Prime, you just have a Prime membership, you can also use Amazon Music and it's ad free and it will give you one thousand playlists and stations as well as two million songs, so you can listen to those two million songs AD free. It's not gonna be every song, so you can't request every single song
that you want to listen to. But if you don't want to hear ads and you're a Prime member, you can still access that for or free included in Prime. And if you just want to listen to music like the radio and just stream stuff, you can do that. And Amazon Music can also give you stuff, but it's AD supported. So there's really three tiers here. If you're hearing me, if you're paying for Amazon Music Unlimited, specifically
eight bucks a month, all the music you can think of. Right, if you're just a Prime member, you can access free music two million songs, not every song, but again AD free, and then anyone can listen AD supported just on the Amazon Music App. Now, when they sent me this information about the Amazon Music App, they mentioned some stations, and I downloaded this to my phone and I checked it out in the car and I've been listening NonStop to
their Chill electronic station. I'm a big fan of a station on SiriusXM called XM Chill I just think it's the best kind of like working, relaxing, studying, reading music and it's.
Just chill music. It's just like chill out.
It's just like, you know, not like not like house like you know, like I don't know how to explain it, but if you listen to it, you know, it's just an easy going station. And the first time I ever discovered it, I was actually in the backseat of an Uber going to JFK in New York City and the Uber driver had this station on on Serious XM, and I'm like, this.
Is such a good station.
It's just so relaxing and smooth and like electronic. And I think the name for it is like down tempo instrumentals or down tempo music. They have if you're a serious XM subscriber and you have the app, they actually have an XM Chill that is instrumental only, So if I really want to kick it up a notch, I'll listen to that.
And there's no words. So I love that too.
Anyway, Amazon Music has it and it's called Chill Electronic and I listened to it for the past couple of days and it is It's very close.
Now.
I also did a little research, and I, you know, because I'm an Apple Music subscriber and I wanted to know what was similar to XM Chill on Apple Music, and I found out it is either Today's Chill or the Chill Radio station. So anyway, I really like this Chill music. I think it's really relaxing and nice, and I think that Amazon does a really good job.
But you can find it on other services as well. That was a lot about Chill.
All right, thanks for watching, by the way, on the Facebook for those of you that are still watching. Hanging on here. I don't usually stream this, but it's kind of fun. And the reason I don't really stream this on my Facebook pages because if I'm watching on Facebook, I want to have my answers, my questions answered that
I'm asking on the screen. Now, some people might just listen like you know, the background, like radio, but I might, you know, if I was listening for the absolute best experience, it would be rich would be answering questions that we're asking. And I'm really not doing that because I kind of have an agenda with this show that oh, typical news person, they've got an agenda. No, I'm just kidding, not that
kind of agenda. I just have like a rundown of all the stuff that people ask me all the time, and I take those questions and I put the ones that I see over and over kind of on my podcast, because I feel like that appeals to the broadest amount of folks out there listening.
So that's the thing.
If I was going to do this show specifically for Facebook, I would be sitting there answering the questions. And that's the ultimate goal is to do this show twice a week, where one is like live questions and one is kind of the other questions I get because not everyone wants to ask a question live. All right, next question here, Henry says, I have a quick question. I have a desktop, a laptop, and an iPad. However, I play with my Kindle Fire HD the most.
HD ten.
I read ebooks and sometimes watch movies. I also downloaded a word processor. My question is do you have any information if the Kindle Fire HD will be selling an updated model? Henry, I do not have the information on that, and I looked at the HD ten on their website, and if this was an iPad, I'd be able to tell.
You pretty quickly.
I use a website called mac Rumors Buyer's Guide, and what they do is they track exactly when the last iPad or anything Apple came out, and they tell you, Okay, generally Apple updates their iPad every three hundred and seventy five days, and it's been two hundred and twelve days since the last updates, so you might want to wait
one hundred days for the next one. I don't know if a website that does that for the Kindle, but I do know that the Kindle came out last in twenty nineteen according to their website, and so could they update it again perhaps, But this came out in twenty nineteen, it's twenty twenty one. They could And what Amazon does. They literally just just spring this stuff on you. They just toss out a new tablet. It's like, oh here
it is, boom, new tablet is available. And so I if I was you, Henry, maybe you just wait a little bit and see. But if you just want to get it, I think that Let's see, what are the specs on the ten? The HD ten is like their top of the line. Let's see, it's got ten inch screen, it's got HD thirty two or sixty four gigs a RAM expandable.
It's got the same.
Processor as the Fire HD eight which I d the plus, which I have tested, and it's fine, nothing special. It's got USBC which is modern. It's got four hours of charging time, it's got the dual speakers. It doesn't have wireless charging, which the HD eight does, although I don't think with tablets you need that very much.
It's got a year will limited warranty.
It's got their same dumpy camera that they have on all of them, two megapixel front facing. So I mean, you could wait a little bit, but if you just need it, just go ahead and get it. I mean, it's it's inexpensive enough where it's one hundred and fifty dollars, what I would recommend. I would recommend waiting for a price cut because I'm looking at the price on this.
Let's go to Camel Camel ca. This is how I research stuff.
I go to Camel Camel Camel, I type in the URL from the page on Amazon, and it tells me that this thing. Many times it's gone down to as cheap as eighty bucks, but that was a while ago, but it usually it drops to about i'd say one hundred and ten dollars, yeah, all the way down to yeah, one hundred bucks. So I would wait for a discount on this, So set a price alert on Camel Camel Camel for this device and buy it when the price goes down when you get a little drop. And Amazon
again does that just very randomly. So there you go. All right, Let's get to the next story, which is a ring has a new video doorbell, and this is the Video Doorbell Pro too, So this is a wired doorbell. I don't think it's for everyone, but if you know, because most people are installing rings kind of like they just stick them on their front door. They don't really they don't really wire them. But I telling you this because there's some new features built into this doorbell that
are pretty cool. One of them is called well, it uses three D motion detection. So what this means is it has a little radar sensor basically that can tell you. So Number one, you get less false positives for like things like birds and stuff that might set off your motion detection, so that's going to be number one. Number two, it actually will tell you the path someone took to get to your front door, which I'm just saying front door, like that's where you have this installed, but anywhere you
have it installed. So it's using this motion sen sensing, this three D motion sensing to see where someone walked up, so if they came from the side of your house, that came from like the front. So I mean, it's just like next level. And I looked at the little picture that they showed of like how this works, and it's pretty cool. Shows like a little heat map of
like how they walked up to your house. Then they have a feature called bird's eye view, which kind of gives you a top down level of like I said, where they walked. But I mean, it's just it's really really cool, and it's just my point is that this is this is getting real, like the home security stuff. And this is why I always mention on this show why I really like Ring and A yes, I want
to switch everything over to Ring in my home. I haven't done it just yet, but I just think that they have so much going on and more so than anyone else out there, and that's why I like this company, and so I think that this is really cool. The other new feature on this camera compared to previous cameras is they now have head to toe video. So you know, Ring video doorbells are kind of you know, you know,
like a wide angle view. This now has head to toe so you can see the full picture of the person that walks up to your door, even when they're close up to the doorbell. So this will help for packages seeing like what's on the ground in front of your door. So those are the two major new features. Ring Video Doorbell Pro two is available for pre order now. It's two hundred and fifty dollars. It ships on March
thirty first. And you've got the original Ring Video Doorbell Pro that's one seventy and then the Ring Video Doorbell three is one eighty and again, these video doorbells do go on sale from time to time, so I would look out for some deals on those if you want to want to pay a little bit less. All right, let's get to the next question from Francisco. Francisco says, what is the best and easiest robo killer app in the Android play Store. I appreciate your insight on KTLA.
Thank you, Frank.
I would recommend you know, honestly, I don't really like a lot of the third party ones. I don't think they're very good. At this point, the robo callers have gotten so good that they can evade half these systems. They're just so good at this stuff. I mean, I don't know what the deal is they they just keep outwitting these these carriers. But what I would recommend is, let's see, it doesn't say what your carrier is, but I would just recommend downloading the robo or the the
call filter app from your carrier. So if you have Verizon, they've got Verizon Call Filter at and T I think it's called call Protect, and then T Mobile has one I think it's called Scam Protection. But I would do that because all three carriers have it.
It's free.
Now some of them charge. They try to charge you a premium for some features. Ignore it. Just don't pay whatever it is like that. You know, when you download the app, it'll like try to get you to pay like three dollars a month. Don't do it. Just do the free one. I've got it installed on mine. I've got the Verizon call Filter and you know it'll catch a it'll catch a spam call from time to time. I did have to block one manually yesterday, but I would do that now. The other one that I have
done a story with was robo Killer. That was an app and you can do that. That one, you know, was pretty good. Again, a lot of these try to push you to a paid you know, a paid subscription, So even Robokiller, I always look up on the app I when I go, when I when I'm looking at any app, I always scroll down. If you do this, you always scroll down and look under the section that says in app purchases, and that will give you a good idea of even if a free app is actually free,
most of them are not. So when I look at this robo killer app, which is free, oh.
My gosh, that's so cool.
Scroll down, go to the in app purchases and look at the different in app purchases membership three dollars, three ninety nine, twenty nine, ninety nine, four ninety nine, a dollar ninety nine, forty dollars, ninety nine cents three ninety nine, twenty nine, ninety nine, and three ninety nine. The only active ones are are let's see three ninety nine a month, thirty dollars or.
Five dollars a month.
So the what that information also tells me, and this is I'm kind of giving you the secrets to how to analyze things here. It also tells me, like let's say I was downloading like a food tracking app. This was a couple months ago, and I wanted to know, like you know, they say when you first download it, oh, it's sixty dollars a year to sign up. But if you go into the in app purchases, you'll notice a twenty nine ninety nine. And that's what happens is with Apple and app has to list all of their in
app purchases through the app like what they offer. And so if one of them is fifty nine ninety nine, the other one is twenty nine ninety nine, what does that tell me? That tells me that if I don't sign up during that first time I download the app, and they try to push you towards it, after a couple of days or weeks of using the app, they're gonna say, oh, we have a special for you. It's only twenty nine ninety nine for the year, and nine
times out of ten that works. But this little in app purchases area of the App Store can tell you. It can give you a little indication of does an app have a cheaper yearly priced than what they say. So if you go to an app like a Peloton, right, let's see if they even list it, because I'm not sure you can subscribe through the app. I'm not sure. Let me say so if I go to the Peloton app, or let's let's look at Aptive, because I bet you you can Aaptiv okay.
So if I go to.
Aptive iOS and I see, let's see here, okay, Aptive number one audio fitness app, and I scroll down offers in app purchases, So here are the options nine ninety nine a month, fourteen ninety nine a month, ninety nine, ninety nine, ninety nine, ninety nine, eleven, ninety nine, forty nine ninety nine, twenty four, ninety nine, ninety nine, ninety nine, nine ninety nine, and sixty nine ninety nine. So what
does that tell me? That tells me that sometimes they offer a deal of fifty dollars for the year or sixty nine ninety nine for a year, and you don't necessarily have to pay the ninety nine ninety nine a year. So again, this is just ways of kind of figuring out things. So when I sign up for Aptive, they first wanted ninety nine bucks a year. Then all of a sudden, after a couple of weeks, it was like, after my free trial, hey we'll give you fifty bucks, and boom, that's what I sign up for. I have
since canceled. Sadly, I've and I still have it till I think March. But I since canceled because now I have Peloton and Apple Fitness Plus and so I just don't need appt to of anymore. But I still think it's a fantastic app. It really is for audio guided workouts. They've been doing more video as well. All right, let's talk about Let's see what did I mentioned at the beginning of the show.
I don't want to, okay, I want to make sure. Okay, I got those two.
Okay, Let's talk about some new features coming to Android. A couple of features coming to many Android phones. Number one a password checkup tool. If you're using Google's password filler, they will now check your passwords to see if they've been exposed. I thought this was really cool if you're
using messages. This happens to me all the time because I've got a lot of family on the East Coast and they'll actually it doesn't matter anyone they text me at you know, when I go to sleep, which is early, and then I will want to text them back early when I get up in the morning, but it's too early to text them, and so I'm always Wouldn't it be so nice if I could just schedule a text,
like type it and then just say later. You could do this in Gmail with an outlook, you know, you send an email and it sends it at like one
PM or something. Well now and the messages app on Android, all you have to do is press and hold the send button and it will say okay when you want to schedule this, and you can just send the message a little bit later, which is so cool because what happens to me is someone will text me at night, I see it in the morning when I get up, but it's too early to text them back, and then
I end up forgetting about their text altogether. Let's see, Google Assistant is going to have some new things which it's gonna look a little different when your phone is locked. It's gonna have more information on the lock screen so you can see what you're doing there. Dark mode in Google Maps Android Auto is now getting custom wallpapers, and I thought this was kind of weird, but they're now going to let you play games voice activated games like
trivia and Jeopardy in your car. And I haven't tested this, but I need to. This reminds me I want to test this, but it sounds a little dangerous. But I mean, look, I'm sure Google did their homework on this.
But little dicey there.
But all I have to say is, hey, G started play a game to get started, and G replaced that with the forward Google.
They also have new.
Shortcuts on the launch screen and that's about it. So anyway, what I love about Android and you know iOS as well, is that they're always adding new features. And this is what makes me love both Android and iOS in different ways. So when I read those features on Android, I'm like, oh, I want to use Android again. And then when I see the features on iOS, I'm like, ah, I want to use iOS. So it's like it's always you know, competition is good because these two companies are always trying
to introduce new features for the end user. Leo says, Hey, Rich, since we have become email pen pals, I realize that I've not thanked you for the KTLA feature you did on us last January. The Laptop ELF Project. Seeing that report encouraged me to contact David, who runs the Laptop Elf to see if I could help in any way. Although I'm a retired dentist, I'd become a pretty good technician over the years. We got together and I offered him my services and we've been working together ever since.
This way he can concentrate a bit more on searching for donations while I refurbish and repair them. I'll go deep and swap motherboards, move a screen from one lap to another. We are always in need of more computers, phones, and tablets, so any help from you would be appreciated.
Thank you, Leo.
Okay, so what Leo is talking about here? I did a story on this thing called this project. I don't know, I don't know if you can call it an organization. It was just one guy at the time, a guy named David, and he started to think called the Laptop Elf Project. And what he did was, this was in Redondo Beach, California. He would just collect old computers and laptops that people thought were like they didn't need any more, they just thought were no good and he would take
them and he would completely refurbish them. So he would you know, format the hard drive, clean them up. He would do full on diagnostic tests, and he would install like software on him.
I think he was.
Using like like he would do like a Chrome book, like convert these things into chromebooks, which you know, even if there are Windows laptop he was anyway, he just did a really good job of converting these laptops and tablets into something that someone else could use, someone a little bit less fortunate, So like a child that might not have access to this, or an after school organization that needed a bunch of computers and they didn't care if they were big and bulky and old, as long
as they can run the web on them. Most of the time. That's finer word processing. Everything's done in the cloud now that the students need. So it was a fantastic story. I featured David in his laptop elf project and he got a lot of response. And clearly Leo saw this story and said I could help out, and he did. So this is amazing, this is what I need. My clapping, but Leo happy to help. I'm glad you did it. And that's a fantastic story.
So check it out.
Just google laptop elf probably pecked DeMuro Ktla and there it is. Laptop Elf refurbishes old laptops, gives them to the needy. And this was on January twenty fourth, twenty twenty, so just about a year ago.
I did that. Wow, that was right before? Was that? Yeah?
Right before COVID, because now it's twenty twenty one. Wild, unbelievable. Did I mention we landed on Mars? I think I did, right, wild? So that is just so wild to me. I was reading that the Mars rover landed at like twelve thousand miles an hour or something insane, like, how do these people do that? How do they know how to send a Mars rover from Earth all the way over to Mars and land it on that planet and then do stuff and control it and send back video and now audio.
I mean, oh my gosh, is this amazing?
Now?
I know we've done it before, but still it boggles my mind that this little rover was traveling through outer space somehow. Lots of math is involved. My kids are always asking me why do I have to do math? Someone needed a lot of math to figure out how do you make this trajectory from Earth to Mars? I mean, isn't this stuff just mind boggling when you really think about it. This little device was traveling autonomously through space for days and months, and just how do you do it?
I don't understand it, but it's amazing. I love that we have people that know how to do this stuff. And I watched the video of the landing. I'm doing a story next week on KTLA about one of the microphones, since this is the first time that we got audio from Mars. I talked to a guy who helped put the microphone on this thing. And he's not even a NASA guy. He's like a he's a musician and he
was just like obsessed without her space. And he wrote to NASA a proposal saying, hey, can I help you pick the microphone?
And he accepted and he did it. Oh my gosh, so cool.
Perseverance touchdown February eighteenth, twenty twenty one. By the way, if you think this is all just funning games for the NASA folks, it's not. They're doing this stuff for a reason. Astrobiology research, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. Could you imagine, oh, this
would be the best case scenario. Can you imagine if that Perseverance is just sitting there doing its own thing, and all of a sudden, like another little spaceship lands there, and it's like some alien walks out.
I mean, could you imagine the video.
I'm sure people have already faked that, but I don't think that's gonna happen, but it would be really cool. They're also looking for the planets geology and past climate. It's gonna be the first mission to collect and I guess cash Martian Rock paving the way for human exploration of the Red planet. So next up, people on Mars. I don't know. I don't I could not imagine going to Mars. That's just like mind boggling. I think a flight from here to like, you know, China is long,
Like I've been on those flights shang Hei. It's like seventeen hour. Oh no, what was it? That was really long? Yeah, China was pretty long, but I think the longest I've been on was New Zealand.
That was pretty long. And Mars. I don't know. I doubt those.
Guys are watching Guys and Gals. I doubt they are watching Netflix on that flight. I don't think they I don't know what they're doing. I mean, it's just like lots of lots of time up there. Well that sound means it is going to be the end of this show. If you would like to submit a question for me to answer, there are two ways to do it. You can go to rich on Tech dot tv slash podcast, hit the microphone button and leave a voicemail, or go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash rich on
tech hit the big blue send email button. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help other people discover it. Let's face it, I'm not advertising this thing, right, It's just me and a microphone.
As you can see, look at this, this is the budget right here.
But we do love the thousands of you that listen every week, so I do appreciate it. And the email and honestly, the amount of emails I get off this show it rivals the emails I get off TV now at this point, which is pretty wild to me. Go to ratethpodcast dot com slash rich on Tech, leave your rating there. You can find me on all social media at rich on Tech. In case you don't know my name, rich Demiro. Thanks so much, for listening, Stay safe, I'll talk to you real soon.