Google, Facebook take on Zoom

at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Usually producer Megan is joining me on the show, and I know she wasn't there last week. She's not here this week spoiler alert, but I do believe she will be back next week. I don't know about you, but the at home thing has been challenging. I think this is week number six, going on seven, and I feel like we've gone through a lot of ups and downs. Like at the beginning, it was kind of like, oh, this is cool, this

is different. Oh this is really sad, this is really depressing. Oh this is actually not bad. I can deal with it. But at this point we're all sort of at a plateau of where like, Okay, we've figured this out. We're not driving. I filled up my car with gas yesterday for the first time in six weeks. I mean, that is just unheard of. I've been working from home, as you see on KTLA five Morning News, working from the spare room, and you know, the kids are right next door.

So it's been very disruptive, but at the same time, there's been some benefits and that is kind of the uh, the fun nature of things like as a family. But I have learned one thing about myself, and I think I mentioned this in a previous podcast, But what I've learned about myself is that I really crave routine. And what I mean by that is that I actually find myself getting very stressed out throughout the day because normally, when I'm going into the office at KTLA, I have

a pretty standard routine. I get to work, I prep for my live shots, I do my live shots, I answer my emails in that time, and then I write a story and I go out and I shoot a story and then I go home. Well, with working from home, all of that is sort of changed and now I get up, I still do my live shots in the morning, but I also take a little break where I go have breakfast in my kitchen and I make like a

hot breakfast, which I've never done before. But then I do something with the kids, then I do some more work, then I come back. Then I do my podcast and I prep then I come back, and so it's much more a much more elongated day. So finally by five PM, I'm like, Okay, I am done. I'm done with my computer. I'm closing my laptop and I'm going to pick up again the next day. So I kind of realized that I enjoy routine, and I'm sure that you're realizing something

about yourself as well through this whole thing. So we will make it through, folks, Yes we will, all right. One of the big stories of this week is that everyone wants to capture some of the magic that Zoom has been able to capture on its own. I mean, Zoom went from something that I used maybe once or twice in the past to do like a briefing with a tech company, to something that you know, we're all using on a deal basis. And Zoom went from you know, a bunch of people using its service to a real

lot of people using its service. It's become a proprietary eponym. When you want to do a video call with someone, you say, we're zooming no matter what service you're using. And it's so crazy because we've seen FaceTime in the past. There's so many options for video chatting, but Zoom somehow won and so now other companies want to win as well. And so this week Google said that they're making meet, which is their premium video meeting offering free to everyone.

This is something that you had to have a school account or a paid business account, or maybe not even paid, but just some sort of business account to get access to. And now Google says, you know what, everyone can have access to this, which I think is pretty cool because there are some benefits to Google versus Zoom, and most of these companies are really getting zoom on security and

also those time limits. So if you're on a regular Zoom account, like if you don't have one through your work or school, there is a forty minute limit on group video chats. Now, if you're one to one there is no limit. So if you're just on with one friend, you might have noticed, okay, Rich, there's no limit. It's

when you're on a group call. So with Google you can have up to one hundred people on a group call unlimited time only through September thirtieth, though, so they're kind of hedging their bets here, so you'll get sixty minutes after that. But still this is pretty cool. And what Google is saying is that they're a bit more secure than Zoom. They don't allow anonymous users, so you

have to have a Google account. The codes, like the meeting codes are complex by default, which means people can't just zoom bomb and I think zoom is kind of patched that whole a lot in recent weeks, but still it was a sore spot. They say that their video meetings are encrypted in transit. I don't know if that means end to end. Transit means in transit, not necessarily end to end. And they don't require a browser plug in. So Zoom does this. It plays a little game with

you where we need try to join. It tries to make you download the software even though it can run in the browser, and Google says it's not going to

play that game. Also, Facebook, they're doing their part. They're introducing something called Messenger rooms, and I find that this could be popular because everyone has a Facebook account, everyone knows Facebook, and messenger rooms lets you set up a room where up to fifty people can hang out with no time limit, and so, for instance, on my rich on Tech Facebook page, I can have a room where rich on Tech folks can just hang out and sometimes

I'd pop in, sometimes I'd be there, sometimes I wouldn't be there, But overall, it's just a room that's kind of always there. It's a persistent room. So let's say you're a principal at a school, maybe you have a room where your students can just pop in, or you're the guidance counselor or at work even you know, I just have my Facebook messenger room open all day long. So that's going to happen. It hasn't happened just yet, but they are rolling it out over the next few weeks.

I'm interested to see the messenger rooms. Both of these video chat off, of course, are doing what I call the Brady Bunch style, the grid view, which I think is really the magic of Zoom is seeing everyone on that one page is kind of like the fun part of it, all those little thumbnails of people. So I think that that's a pretty cool, a pretty cool feature that a lot of people like about Zoom. And we'll be watching I can't wait to try both Google Meet

and also Facebook Messenger rooms. Oops, wrong one. There we go. All right. That is normally when producer Megan would come in with a question, but since I'm doing it, I'm doing the question. So here we go. Rich love your show. Watch you all the time. This has been an annoying issue. I can't figure out. I have an iPhone ten with an Apple Watch. When I receive messages on a group text that I have silenced on my phone, I still get notifications on my watch. I don't want to silence

all my notifications, just the group to my watch. Can this be done? Thank you for your time, Lee. I'm guessing this is not Leo Laporte asking me for a tech help. I think this is a different Leo. But my answer to this would be to check in your Apple Watch settings. There is a setting in the Apple Watch app on your phone that says mirror my iPhone, and at some point you might have switched your settings so that your notifications on your watch are not mirrored

to your iPhone. That is my best guess, and I've actually done this on my Apple Watch because historically I really liked my Apple Watch would go into airplane mode when I switched my phone into airplane mode. But then I realized, because I often am carrying an Android phone as well, that I'm testing that sometimes I wouldn't want my watch to go into airplane mode because I'd still want to get my I messages on my watch. So I actually turned off that feature that mirrors my settings

on my iPhone. On my Apple Watch. Most people want to keep it that way, and the default is to keep it that way. That's the way Apple, you know, out of the box, has it set up. But I think, Leo, at some point you change that, maybe when you're just playing with the settings on your Apple Watch or your

iPhone and you just change that. And now that you have noticed this issue of these text messages notifying your phone even when you silence them on your sorry, on your watch, even when you silence them on your phone, I think that that's the problem. So that's what I would look into see if it helps. I think it will, and that that would be my advice. Another gadget launched this week the Google Pixel Buds. This is Google's answer to the air pods, and this is not their first

try at these. They actually had a pair of Google Pixel Buds I don't know if it was, I think two years ago. And they were wired, so they had a wire that went from the one bud to the other bud around your neck. And they weren't very good. Almost all the reviews, including mine, were that they were just they were just okay. And the craziest part. I'm trying to remember these things because I feel like the craziest part was actually getting the wire back into the case,

like actually looping the wire. Like they had this crazy system where you had to like, I mean, imagine just trying to like, you know, you ever get something in a box and you have to place it back in that box the way that it was given to you. It's impossible. The box never closes the same way. That was what these headphones were like when you got them from Google. And that was problem Number one is that you could never wrap them up in a quick way

and get them back into their charging cradle. So that was number one, and then number two was they just weren't very good. I don't remember them staying in my ears very well. I don't remember. I think the cool feature was that they featured Google Assistant, But other than that, they were just not very good. So anyway, everyone kind of forgot about those. Of course, the AirPods took off in popularity and they are so popular. They're so good.

Apple nailed it on the very first version of those air pods, and now, of course they have AirPods Pro, which are also f fantastic, and so everyone's been trying to, like zoom, capture the magic of what the AirPods have, with varying success. And so I always recommend the air pods for the iPhone. But if you have an Android, you know, I do like the Galaxy Buds from Samsung, but the Pixel Buds take it a step further because they do build in the Google Assistant. And so the

Pixel Buds are one hundred and eighty dollars. Google did not send me a pair to test of these, so I'm actually thinking of purchasing them just for myself, just to have them. They're one hundred and eighty bucks. They've got the fast pair, which means you open up your case, you put them next to an Android phone, not just a pixel by the way, that works with a variety of Android phones, and so you open them up, they

pair up. They have a couple of microphones in them, so they sound better, they detect when you're speaking, they've got adaptive sound, and they also can do a real time translation. So theoretically, if you were in Japan and you were speaking to someone, you could hear what they're saying in Japanese in English in your ears. So I don't think that we've tried that feature in the past. It's something that Google Translate has done to varying success.

But it's cool. I don't think it's one hundred percent there. That's not the reason to get them, let's put it that way. But when I did try on these Google Pixel Buds at the Google event in October in New York City, I thought they were fantastic, Like I actually wanted them. And the only problem is that I primarily use an iPhone at this point, and so I don't really have a use for them day to day, but it would tempt me if I had an Android that

I was using on a daily basis. It would kind of be a tough choice between these and the Samsung Galaxy Buds. I'd probably lean more towards the Pixel Buds just because I like how they integrate the Google Assistant, which I believe you could map to the Samsung version, but I'm not one hundred percent sure. But anyway, they're one hundred and eighty dollars. They're kind of rolling out. They're kind of tough to get right now, but they are going to be at stores including Target, Best Buy,

and of course on Google's own website. So check them out. Let me know if you get a pair of what you think of them, maybe I'll convince I don't know. I got to run purchases like that by my wife before. I just buy bare headphones I don't necessarily need all right, Next question from Bennett. Bennett says, can you recommend a budget friendly tablet to use on a hot spot only web search? Thank you? I enjoy your time every day

five forty five am. Well, thank you, Bennett. Referring to my time that I hit on KTLA in Los Angeles, that is usually between five thirty five and five forty five, I've noticed that it's been closer to five forty five with the COVID nineteen crisis. I guess they have more news to get on, but that's when I've been hitting anyway, So he watches at that early early time, and it's funny because a lot of people. I get so many people that come up to me and say, Rich, I

love your segment, you know, at night. And it's funny because letting in Little Inside Baseball, that's actually a taped segment, and you wouldn't believe how many people think that's live. So it's funny if you watch at five forty five AM. Clearly I'm not there at ten pm as well. But anyway, anyway, so I would recommend a fire tablet from Amazon. And the reason, I mean, my real recommendation for a tablet anytime someone asks me about a tablet is always, always

always the iPad. And it's not because I'm an Apple fanboy and I only love Apple products. It's just because the iPad gives you entree to the best apps available on a tablet. Android tablets just don't have them. They just don't have the best apps. But what you did say, Bennett, is that you only want to do web searches and you want to budget friendly tablet. And so when you think about those two things, I'm gonna recommend a fire tablet.

And they have several fire tablets ranging from fifty dollars to one hundred and ninety nine dollars I are sorry, fifty dollars to one hundred and fifty. So they have the Fire seven, eight, and ten. If you can, I would go for the one hundred and fifty dollars tablet, the ten. That's going to give you the biggest screen, it's going to give you the best processor. It's going to give you USB C two point zero, it's gonna give you good sound. I just think that you're going

to be best served with that. Sorry, my phone is going off here. Let me put that there. I think you're gonna be best served with that tablet, and that's because it's a sweet spot. So I mean, you're still only spending one hundred and fifty bucks, which I think is pretty reasonable for a tablet. But again, that's what I would go with Fire HD ten. The only downside to a tablet from Amazon is that you have to install your apps from the Amazon App Store, and most

of the apps that you want are on there. You said you just want to browse the web. You're gonna be able to get Firefox. You're gonna be able to get their Silk browser. I don't believe you're gonna be able to get Chrome unless you what's called sideloaded, which means you have to download an APK from a website like apk mirror dot com. But that is not for the faint of heart, nor do you get one hundred percent compatibility doing it that way, But it is an option.

It's not like you can't get any app they just might not work with the tablet. So that's my recommendation, and I think that you'll be pretty well served at least for web surfing. Just on that all right. Pasadena company name Embodied came out with a robot for kids, and the robot's name is Moxie. And I'm usually very hesitant to talk about robots for kids because we've seen in just robots in general. We've seen so many of these things, and the robots that I've seen just fail

to live up to the standard. And the standard we all have in our head, of course, is Rosie, Right, Rosie from the Jetsons is the robot that we want every robot to live up to, and they never do. They're kind of like slow moving, they only do a couple things, they can't really recognize us. They never do what we want them to do. So I've been holding off on my robot purchase until we find the best robot.

We had that robot Gbo. Do you remember that thing that was super expensive and it was kind of the slickest robot we've seen. It was very popular. I think it was a kickstarter, and that thing went out of business and now whatever it was, fifteen hundred dollars robot was totally bricked. So you got to be prepared for that. If you're going to buy a robot right now in this day and age, you may wake up one day

and it just doesn't work, So be prepared. Robots are for rich people right now, not for the average person. Little robots are fine. There are some fun little robots out there. But Moxie is a robot that actually looks

pretty cool. I'll give it that. It's a robot that's for kids, and it uses machine learning technology, yes, buzzword watch out for those that allows it to perceive, process, and respond to natural conversation, eye contact, facial expressions, and other behavior, as well as recall people, places, and things. Sounds very promising. The video that they put on YouTube

is a little bit too slick for my taste. I'm a little bit worried whenever I see a product demo video that soon duper sl like this looks like it probably cost one hundred thousand dollars to make. It was shot on a studio lot. You can tell it was in a sound stage. The family is way too good looking. They're all actors, the kid, you know, they're all they're all actors. So I'm a little bit worried, right Like, I'd rather just see like a real person using this thing.

That's what I want to see. But still, the robot can understand and express motions with this facial expressions body language, and it taps into human psychology. The robot has this like almost Pixar looking lit up face that's almost looks like something you'd see at Disneyland, where the face is lit from behind with a projector, and it does a lot of different emotions and it looks really cool, and it talks. The voice. The speech synthesis sounds pretty good.

And for children, they can play with this robot and it's not just like something that is just there that they play with. It actually has lessons, so it teaches kindness, friendship, empathy or respect. And then children are tasked to help Moxie with missions that explore human experience ideas and life skills. And then there's things like drawing, mindfulness, They practice breathing exercises,

and Moxie wants you to be kind with others. And it also teaches skills like taking your turn, eye contact, active listening, emotion regulation, and empathy. Sounds like the perfect parent, Moxie. It sounds like all the things I try to do

with my kids to some levels of success. Now, it will be fifteen hundred dollars for this robot, so very expensive, plus a subscription plan, but for launch purposes, it will include a one year subscription with over the air software updates, kind of like a Tesla, right And I will say this robot sort of seems like the Tesla of robots for kids right now. Now, the reason I'm telling you about this is because I don't think necessarily you're going

to buy it. But there is this thing called Pioneer Mentor Program, and what they're doing is they're looking for families to give one of these robots too for a month or two over the summer, to try it out with their kids and to be beta testers. And so I will put the link in the show notes so you can check it out but I think that you should apply if you're at all interested in this robot, because I do think it looks pretty cool, and I do think if you have a kid that you want

to try this out with, you know why not? You got to be in it to win it, right, That's what I say. Okay, let's see I would like to know a question from Blanca. I would like to know what are the best editing apps on the market. My niece turned sixteen next week. I'd like to create a mini video slash movie with her childhood pictures as a surprise gift for her the sweet sixteen party her parents head plan has been canceled due to everything going on

with the pandemic and stay at home mandates. I'd like to make her feel special and I'd really appreciate your suggestions. Thank you in advance, Blanca. Blanca, I feel your pain and I totally get it everything has been upended. Yesterday we did a drive by birthday surprise for my friend who turned an undisclosed age. But we had to drive

by his house. We coordinate it with his wife, of course, but so a bunch of friends, you know, four car We all drove by the house with a bunch of signs our kids made with the kids hanging out the window. And that's how we did it. We honked and we drove by. He came outside. We did get out of our cars, I'll admit that for a little bit, but we were social distance. That was okay. But yeah, it's just I mean, who thought of a drive by birthday party?

I mean, that's the reality we're in. So you're doing the same thing. You got to come up with a little mini movie and video. A couple apps I'd recommend. Number one app I'd recommend is Magisto. M Agisto, And what I like about Magisto is it's simple. And you're talking about making a sort of a video montage with videos and pictures, So Magisto is going to do that really nicely. And I think it's free for you know,

simple videos. But you might have to pay you know, five bucks to do a premium upgrade, but you could do that for one month and still get this. And what I like about Magisto is it's super simple, super duper simple. You choose the pictures, you choose the videos, and you choose the theme and it will make the entire thing. Music from start to finish. It does it

all for you. You might have to tweak it at the end, but you might not even have to because it does use AI to kind of figure out where to zoom in on your picks and all that good stuff. So I think Magisto would probably be my top pick. Now, there's a lot of other ways you can do this.

If you want to be very hands on with this, you can do something like Adobe Premier Rush, which I also love, and your first three projects are totally free on that one, so you can make this whole thing for free, and that gives you one hundred percent approval of everything, like you do it all yourself. And the other program, of course is iMovie, but that's a little bit more complicated, but it will let you do everything yourself and you have total control and it is free

if you have an Apple product. The other thing you can look into is Google Photos. So Google Photos does have some built in ways of making a kind of video montage with pictures and videos, and so that is totally free as well. And the cool thing about Google Photos is it will make it for you. It kind of does the legwork and then you can tweak it so you still have full control over that even after it's done that. But those are the programs that I'd recommend.

I think, start with Magisto and just try it out, see if it makes the thing that you need, and if you love it, there you go and happy birthday to your niece. All right. This is interesting because I was looking for an app and I stumbled upon an app that did exactly what I wanted and it little did I know that it launched literally that day. So this week I had, you know, I get a couple packages sent to me every so oft and from tech companies with stuff that they want me to test out.

Plus I order stuff and ninety nine percent of the time I'm ordering stuff from Amazon, their app will tell me on my phone when it's getting delivered. But sometimes I order stuff from other companies like all Birds. I ordered a pair of their new sneakers this week, and I wanted to track them just to see, like, hey, can I track when these sneakers are going to be

delivered to my house? And so I searched on the web for a package tracking app that you can just pop a tracking number into and see when you're you know, get a notification or see where it is on a map, and I came up with an app called shop and so I downloaded it. It did exactly what I wanted. I popped in the two tracking codes I had, and on the screen on my phone, I can see where these packages are when they're going to be delivered, and

it was very simple. Now, little did I know that Shopify launched the app like literally on the day I downloaded it. And it's a kind of a rebranding of an app called Arrive, which is a package tracking app, but shop now has package tracking capabilities. But it also allows you to see a feed of recommended products and use shop pay for one click checkout and shop pay. If you've ever used Shopify, it's a very popular e commerce platform online. The secret to that is that you

shop once on one website. Next thing you know, your credit card is saved and you go to another website with it and it's like one click. They sent a code to your phone it says do you want to check out? And your boom, You're done. So it makes things very easy. It's kind of like Amazon, but for you know, various smaller websites and so that that's what I used to order my all birds and so anyway, I thought this app was pretty cool. I think it's kind of nice.

Well I continue using it, I don't know, maybe I'll just use it till I get my sneakers and I'll get bored of it. But the thing is that I think is the killer app is how they can scan your email Gmail to get all of your tracking numbers, so anything you order from any website is just automatically populated in this app. The only problem I have with that is that you do have to give them access

to your entire Gmail. And we've seen this before with other apps like Ernie, and I used to really be okay with that, but now the more I get kind of into privacy, I'm kind of like, I don't know if I'm just ready to do that. I wish that Google would come up with a way of an API that would just allow these apps access to like just my tracking, like just my email confirmations from orders, instead of all my Gmail. I just worry about giving it access to all of my Gmail because basically they can

download every email in your Gmail account. And I don't think they're doing that or looking at every email, you know. What they tell me is that they look at the headers of the email, and if it doesn't come from like a Bloomingdale's or an Amazon or you know, all birds, they just disregard that email, like if it comes from my mom, they're not going to look at that email. But at the same time, that's going on blind faith, and I don't really know what they're doing. So I

did not give a shop access to my Gmail. But I did manually pop in the two tracking numbers, which is fine. It's just not as efficient and so if I keep doing that, I probably won't use the app as often. But if I did do the automatic Gmail thing, I'd probably get much more use out of the app. So we'll see if I continue to use it. But I did want to make you aware of it because, especially now when we're all at home, we're probably ordering more stuff online and that kind of app is popular.

All right, let's see question question question question, All right, Bradley Phillips says, I need to get a new iPhone. I have the iPhone six and I'm debating on getting the iPhone eleven or the iPhone S. Which one do you recommend that we'll have a lasting phone? Thank you,

Bradley Phillips. Not to be confused with Bradley Cooper right iPhone eleven iPhone S. So, the iPhone eleven and the iPhone se are sort of Apple's two budget phones, and the iPhone se more so because the iPhone se is three hundred and ninety nine dollars, whereas the iPhone eleven is. I think it starts at oh gosh, oh, put me on the spot here. Oh how much is that one? Six forty nine? I think it is. I see, I know all this stuff when these things launch because they're

fresh in my head. And then it's if it's been a few months six ninety nine, okay, six ninety nine for the iPhone eleven, So iPhone eleven versus the iPhone S so he wants a lasting phone. They're both going to be lasting phones. But the difference is that with the iPhone eleven, you're going to get a wide angle lens and so you're gonna get and a better camera. So it's gonna have a better camera and a wide

angle lens and a bigger screen. So those are the three major things that you're gonna get and also face ID So just comparing them, the iPhone eleven is six point one inches on the screen versus four point seven You have a retina sorry, a four point seven inch screen with the fingerprint ID, so you got touch ID, which I personally think is better than face ID in many instances because it gives you more control over when

you unlock your phone. They both have the same processor, which I love, love, love A thirteen, which is Apple's latest. So when Bradley says he wants the most lasting, they're both gonna last equally long. They're both gonna get the same amount of iOS updates as far as I know, because they both have that same processor. You do get night mode pictures on the iPhone eleven, so again, your camera is going to be better. So really, Bradly, I think what it comes down to is do you want

a better camera? And I believe the camera on the front and the back is going to be better. I need to confirm that because I know the let's see, I'm looking for the camera on the front of the iPhone eleven and let's see, I can't be sure on the iPhone eleven camera. I do believe that the front facing camera does four K so video recording, yeah, I have to look for that, but I'm not sure. But anyway,

so I would say it's a toss up. Do you want a smaller phone with touch ID and a lesser camera or do you want a bigger phone with a better camera and face ID. Personally, I, out of these two phones, would go with the iPhone eleven. I just think that the bigger screen is more useful. I think face ID is fine, it's not a deal breaker. And I'd rather have that wide angle lens because, believe me, there comes a time when you're taking a picture that that white angle is so nice and it really does

add a lot to your picture. And I just think it's a better phone. So SC I think is perfectly fine and I have no qualms recommending it, But you have to be prepared for that smaller screen. And so personally, I've had a big screen phone for many many years now I cannot go back. And for that reason, I'm

gonna say the iPhone eleven. But you are talking three let's say four three hundred, and what I say it was I said it was a six ninety nine, so seven hundred versus four hundred, so it's three hundred extra dollars. So you have to decide, Bradley, are those things that I mentioned worth the extra three hundred dollars, That is up to you, all right, Moving on now, something I have been loving, and you've probably if you've listened to

this podcast before. Something that I've been loving as i've been home has been my Bowflex spin bike that I bought. And I bought this. I saw it at CS. It's called the Bowflex C six. I saw it at CS and I said to myself, Okay, I've been thinking about a spin bike, even though I don't really need one, because I had a gym membership that has been on paused lately. So anyway, I bought the Beloton. I called it.

I just mixed Bowflex and Peloton. I bought the the Bowflex after CS because I fell in love with it. It was one thousand bucks versus the twenty five hundred dollars that Peloton charges. And my reason being is that if I'm going to have a bike at home and a gym membership, I can't pay for both. Right, I'm not paying for my gym membership and a bike because

that just gets into crazy times. Right, twenty five hundred bucks for the bike plus another I think fifty or forty or fifty bucks for the peloton membership seemed insane to me, so I had to have one or the other. And I didn't want to give up my gym membership because I do like having the gym for the weights when I end up do doing weights, and I like the steam room, so you know, I do like those aspects of it and the gym. You know, it's different.

You're not in your house. Well, now that we're all in our house, it turned out to be the best thing I ever bought because I can get a great workout here in my home. And shout out out to my pal Raoul in San Diego. He's the anchor I work with there on Fox five San Diego. He invited me at like ten o'clock at night one night. I get a text before I'm going to bed, He's like, dude, nine point thirty am tomorrow a ninety minute ride on the peloton. I'm like what. And even though I have

so okay to finish my story. I got the bowflex, but I use it with the peloton app on an iPad. So the beauty of the of the bowflex is they saw a need here for people like myself that don't necessarily want a Peloton, but it has the perfect place to hold an iPad on the bike. Who's got a perfect iPad holder? So I pay twelve dollars a month in theoretically because it hasn't started yet, I get ninety days free right now, which you can get free too.

Peloton did that, and I just do the same exact thing you do on the bike on the Peloton, except on the Bowflex, and the difference is you do okay. So everyone wants to know what do you get? You get The Bowflex has bluetooth which connects to the Peloton app, and I can get my cadence, which is the important thing they always talk about in the spin classes, your cadence. And I can also see my resistance, which I believe matches up one to one, because usually it's from one

to one hundred. My resistance on the bowflex is what the instructor calls out in the peloton class. Okay, get up to a resistance of twenty five. I think they're the same. They seem to be. So the only thing I'm missing is the leaderboard, which a lot of people in Peloton fall in love or fall in love with the leaderboard. I personally am not that competitive. I don't really care. So I personally love saving the fifteen hundred

dollars that I saved on this bike versus the Peloton. Now, with that said, if you do not have a gym membership, I would recommend getting the Peloton over what I got because it's your only thing, right, so you can spend a little bit more. And also I think that the Peloton experience is pretty amazing. The reason I say all this is because, very long story for a short piece of news, Peloton had their largest class ever during the pandemic. Twenty three thousand people both tuned in Okay to a

live workout on Wednesday. Oh hold on, Oh no, there it is. Yeah, twenty three people tuned in to a live workout on Wednesday. So that's pretty amazing. Twenty three thousand people all at once in one Peloton class. I thought it was cool. I was doing one of the classes that had like eleven hundred people in it at the same time. I cannot imagine twenty three thousand. I think that's pretty amazing. So Peloton. I think I did my first story on Peloton back in twenty fifteen. I

think it was and I did not understand it. I got on the bike for five minutes. I wish I would have seen the magic of Peloton. I just didn't get it. Now I am a total believer, and I truly think they are onto something. I don't know if someone's gonna buy them or they're gonna be able to expand, but I do love what I have experienced with Peloton in the past couple of weeks. I don't even have a Peloton. I've got a cheapy version, but I do love what I have. All right, next question, moving right

through the show here, let's see question from Joel. Joel says, hi is sir, my name is Joel. I have a Samsung Note ten plus. I'm wondering how I can have calls forwarded to another number. I know how to set up on an iPhone, but I can't seem to figure it out on the Note ten. Is it even possible? I hope, so hope you can help me out with this.

Thank you for the assistance, Joel. Joel, great question, and this is something that perplexed me because when you're on an iPhone to forward your call, it's built right into the iPhone phone calling settings, and maybe not for every carrier, but at least for AT and T T Mobile, I believe maybe even Verizon. I should look on my phone right now, but I'm not gonna do that. But it is built in and you just go call forwarding, you toggle it on, you put in the number you want

to call forward to, and boom. It's done on the iPhone in about thirty seconds. On an Android, they don't necessarily have that built in. And the reason and it's not built in is because there are so many different

flavors of Androids, so many different carriers. So what you have to do is type in a special number, so you need to Google call Forwarding and then ATT or Verizon or Sprint, and it's actually a code that you put in, so for instance, for Verizon, it's Star or yes Star two to one Star and then the ten digit number, so Star two to one Star three one Oho five five five one two one two pound and that will forward your number or your calls to that

phone number. And then if you want to stop doing it, you press a another number, which you should also, by the way, figure out before you set this up. Make sure that you get them both, because you don't want to set up call forwarding and then not be able to figure out how to stop call forwarding. I have done this in the past, uh with success. So it does work. But again, it is a code that you

need to find from your carrier. And if you're worried that, you know there is wireless and there's landline, so do make sure that you are looking up the wireless code, not the landline code. And when you do it successfully, you should get a little kind of code, it's like it or something like that that it makes on your phone. When you do have that successful call forwarding, then you can have a friend call. You make sure it rings

the other phone and you're all set up. If it doesn't work, you know, just make sure you have it right before you do it, because you want to get it right. And it does work. I think it works with almost all the carriers. They all should have a forwarding number. So good question. It is possible. It's just a little different on Android versus iPhone. All right, oh my gosh, or almost at the end of the show here, wow, can you believe it? I am looking at Facebook and

I've got it streaming live on Facebook right now. So if you are watching, I've been doing a lot more live streaming on Facebook, mainly because we're all at home and we need stuff to do. So if you can listen to me on Facebook while I do my show, why not. Let's see next story I want to man. I love an app called Adobe spark and Adobe spark Post is the app that I like the most and the reason why I like it. I don't use it very often, but the few times I do use it,

it's fantastic. And what it is is, if you ever see, if you follow a bunch of influencers or businesses on Instagram and other places, they always have these fancy graphics, you know, like whatever, like a quote or a sale that they're having, or an infographic, whatever it is. Ninety nine percent of the time they're making those in one of two places, Canva dot com, which is really cool, or Adobe spark Post. And Adobe spark Post I really

like because it's on my phone, it's mobile. That's the one I first started using versus Canva, and I've just gotten used to it. They both do very similar things. But the cool thing about spark Post and Canva is that you let's say, like, my kid needed a thumbnail the other day for his new YouTube channel that he convinced me to let him set up. And so you go right into Adobe Spark Post and it gives you the template for a YouTube channel thumbnail and not just

a YouTube channel. So it's like anything you need you can get. So, let's say you want an Instagram post, it will give you an option of a square post that fits perfectly into Instagram. Or maybe you need a thumbnail for a YouTube video. You can start with a template that is a thumbnail of a YouTube video. Maybe you want a Twitter instream photo. It will give you the perfect setting for that Instagram story. It will give

you the perfect setting for that. So you can work with these templates that they have and remix them, and Adobe Spark does a really good job of having the template and then you are able to remix in a million different ways. Now, as far as I know, the app is totally free, but there are paid upgrades if you want to do things. And right now, the reason I tell you all this is because they're offering two free months of Adobe Spark Individual Plan, which gives you,

I guess, premium features. I don't really know what the premium features are. I've never paid for that. But if you want to do it, and you have a small business, and right now you're trying to tell people like, hey, we're doing takeout, we're doing delivery whatever, We're coming to your house and you know, leaving food outside the door. This is a great way to make little graphics. So that's the reason I tell you that. And not just for businesses. You will if you download these apps, you

will find a million and one uses for them. But if you're an instagrammer or a youtubeer or whatever you want really fancy stuff, this will help you do just that. All right, Do I have one more question? Oh? I do? DeAndre writes in what do you do when you feel eyes on you in the privacy of your home and

a voice describing every move you make in detail. Because of this, I googled x Ray game slash scanners and learn that there are available applications that can be pared to various electronics to enable you to see through walls. I don't think I've ever been silenced before on this podcast, but I am. I am silenced right now. Feel eyes on you in the privacy of your home. Okay, we've all felt eyes on us and the privacy of our home and a voice describing every move you make in detail.

That part I'm a little concerned about, because you shouldn't hear someone describing every move you make in detail. DeAndre, Uh, I don't know. I don't have advice on that one, but that is creepy. We need some Twilight Zone music. Do Do Do Do Do Do Do doo? That is uh wow. I don't know what to say here. I

would look around for cameras, hidden cameras in your home. Uh. The only thing I could suggest, if I'm being serious, is that if you have one of those sort of nest cams or any sort of security camera that someone has hacked into and they're now watching you through that camera and then using the speak functionality through the app to speak to you, That's the only thing I can think of. But I think you would know if you heard the voice coming from the camera. But wow, good question. Okay, Okay,

let's move on. I did mention at the beginning of the show that one of my favorite favorite favorite apps in the world is available on iOS. I have been using an app called Backdrops on my Android devices for as long as I can remember. I love their backgrounds for the Android because they're so slick and cool looking

and they're just really really cool. So they have announced that they are available on iOS, and I immediately again, this is an example of an app that I've been waiting to arrive on iOS for so many years, and I just happened to be on Twitter and I saw one of my friends mention it and I was like, wait what, And so, yes, Backdrops is now available on iOS. So the official handle on Twitter is Backdrops app, and

Backdrops is the app on iOS. If you search for it, you may find a lot of apps that have that Backdrops name. But maybe I should describe It's really tough for me to describe the icon, but it just it's like it looks like a wallpaper icon with a couple other I don't know. I'll put the link in the show notes because I want you to get the official one. But I love it. Their backgrounds are so cool. I always go with the abstract ones. They have such fun

little backgrounds. It's all free as far as I know, I've never paid. But it's fantastic. So Backdrops on iOS. Take a look and download it and get some awesome, awesome backdrops for your phone. Can you believe it? That is gonna do it. For this episode of the show, we made it through solo. Thanks so much for listening. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, just go to richon Tech dot tv and hit the email button at the bottom of the page. That will

get you your message to me. And yes, I do see them all. I get a lot of messages, folks, believe me, and I do reply to a large number of them, but sometimes I just can't, or sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes I get messages that are like, hey, this is happening on Saturday, and I reply to it like a week later, and I feel really bad. But I am one person. I do this by myself, so please keep that and take that into consideration. But you

will be pleasantly supplied surprised. I do reply to most people. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help other folks discover it. If you like this show, please go to the website rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech. You can find me at rich on tech on social media. My name is rich dmiro On. Behalf of everyone that gets this show to your ears. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you real soon. Stay safe,