Hands off with the Google Pixel four. Google smart speakers get a handy new feature. Samsung has a fingerprint issue on its hands. See what I did there and your tech questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. Plus I answer all the questions that you just send me. Here them right there, that's them questions. We print them out.
Yeah, we do.
Welcome producer Megan. What's going on?
Hey?
Hey, is that your new thing? Did you think about that?
Did you have that swear that just came out? And then I and then you literally like read my mind and I, yeah, I don't know where that came from. Okay, so maybe that's my thing.
Maybe, well okay, so this is, hey, hey, kind of funny. But so you know, I fill in for Leo Laporte. Yeah, on occasion. Actually I'm gonna be doing it in two weeks. But so I didn't realized that he had a way of like introducing the show every time. And so it's really like when you're doing a syndicated radio show, like it's really nerve wracking. I think like literally you're on
like the producers. You're in your ear and it's like you're hot, you know, and all of a sudden you're like lived all these people around the nation, and I didn't know what to say, like how do you say, you know, like good morning, but it wasn't morning in some places, you know. So anyway, so I noticed that Leo always he always does something like well, hey, hey, hey, how are you doing today or something like that, and so it kind of like reminded me of what you
just did. But I have not come up with a thing, yeah, like of what I say.
But there's another podcast I listened to and they go hello.
Hello, Hello, Right, so everyone has their thing of how they intro and if you watch or listen to this show, I should say listen because there is no watching. You realize that there is nothing. There's no givens, there's everything. Every week is like one hundred percent different. So but anyway, we did just have a meeting with our big boss here at our new company. You know, we were purchased KTLA as part of Tribune was purchased by another a
new company called Nextstar. And so that's our new company that we work for, which I used to work for back in the day we had our big meeting. How nervous were you scale of one to ten for this meeting.
I was. I mean ten is really extreme. I would say maybe a seven.
Did you sleep last night?
Yeah, I slept. I actually did sleep.
I supped really well.
Okay, you were not obviously nervous at all.
No, Well, I was also jet lagged.
I feel like, as a reporter, like you just can't really get nervous.
No, you don't.
I feel like you're used to just always being on. But for me, I'm like, I feel like I just trip over all my words. That's how I feel.
But I think we did well. The meeting was very short.
I had nothing, I you were great.
We just ended up. We ended up just talking about like how much we love doing social media. So who knows if it was good or not. But yeah, let's get to the big news of the week. The Pixel four smartphone is unveiled for real. I was in New York for the big Made by Google event and I have a Pixel four right here, which, according to my i NDA, they call it or embargo, whatever you want
to call it. There are certain rules and apparently I was reading it and it said you can only tweet pictures from the main camera, which I think by saying that, I'm breaking the rules of saying what the rules are. Oh wow, Which so I was gonna tweet like a selfie and then I was like, oh my gosh, I can't even like tweet a selfie because it says you can't. But anyway, so all the tech companies, when they give you stuff to review, there's a certain time that they want.
We've talked about this before, when you can reveal your thoughts. There's a thing called first impressions. So if you're ever watching YouTube videos, when you see first impressions, that means that it is not a review or hands on not a review. Only when you see that magic word review, that means that the embargo has been lifted and you are free to give all of your thoughts on this device. And so there's a lot of stuff I've noticed about
this device. I can't necessarily say it because they want to have a certain window where people can collect their thoughts and then publish them. It's kind of annoying, but that's just the way they play.
It makes sense.
So Pixel four is the new smartphone from Google, and if you've listened to me at all. You know, I love the pixel lineup. It is pure Google. Pixel four fixes a lot of the problems that we've seen on previous devices. The number one thing is there is no ultra wide camera lens, which every other smartphone maker in
the world is doing. Google decided not to. They did put a secondary lens, but it's more for zoom and they say that they think that zoom is more important to users, which I kind of agree with because I was debating this with my wife last night. I was like, how many people actually take ultra wide pictures? Like what are the use cases? Not many, but how many people are at their kids recital or out? And about how many times you see people pinching in on the screen
to zoom in all the time. Yeah, and when you do that you lose a lot of quality. Google, you don't really lose a lot of quality, So that's amazing. It also has this motion sense, which means there's a little radar inside which you can control it with your hand just by waving it. That is very hit or miss, but it's there and it works. The face on lock is super fast. It's amazing. It's actually too fast because every time I look at my phone. It's unlocked already.
Really yeah, so's kind of crazy, but it's great. You can snooze alarms by waving your hand over them. You can silence phone calls, you can skip to the next song. That's kind of cool. The camera has been improved, but the pixels pretty darn good, so it's kind of tough to improve that camera. But you can now take pictures of stars, which I've not tried. I will do that this weekend in my backyard. I can't wait. Just you can take a picture for as long as four minutes.
Oh wow, So I can't wait to see what that looks like. You have to put it on a tripod if you're going to do that, okay, because you can't just hold it for.
So I was going to say, you should go on the parking lot and take a picture of the sky with the grip at the observatory at like three am.
I was going to do that. I actually thought of that this morning. Yeah, but I don't I need to get a little stand for the phone.
Yeah.
It actually gave me a case that has a built in tripod, but it's too bulky for me to like carry around every day. So Let's see, so you can take pictures that way. Let's see. The screen is ninety hurts capable, which means when you're scrolling through Twitter and Facebook and all that stuff, it looks smoother than normal. But that's not really a big thing for most people. Battery life, they say, it's all day. It has wireless charging,
all that good stuff. The things that does not have no fingerprint reader, no wide angle lens, and no original picture storage at ar sorry, no unlimited picture storage at original quality, which is one of the big things that the three previous Pixels had, which means you can store all your photos and four K videos at the best resolution and never worry about paying for that. Now that's
not a thing anymore. Why it probably got too expensive for Google and they probably just don't need it anymore, like they I don't know, they just decided that's not important. So I never thought it was important because I pay for Google storage anyway, but and I don't think it's Look, these tech companies have a lot of research, and they understand how people are using their devices in ways that
we don't even understand. Because your phone is reporting back all the time what you're doing with it, and so they understand. They know if people are using the pinch to zoom, they know if people are using this app or that app, so we can kind of speculate on the top features. Google actually an Apple and all these companies they know what the top features are, so they
know what they can ditch. And yeah, they're going to get some stuff in the media about it, but they know it's not going to be a big deal at the end of the day. The other app that's kind of cool is the recorder app, and it transcribes everything in real time in addition to recording your voice, so it's kind of like a notes app that's much more useful because you can look at the transcript. Cool if you're in meetings all the time and you know that
kind of stuff. Again, I've been using the Pixel Xcel version. It's big. I think for most people to probably want the smaller one, but I like the big screen and so far, so good. I mean, I can only give you my impressions of it. I cannot give you my review of it. Yeah, but I will tell you that I will probably be buying the one twenty eight gigabyte Pixel for Xcel.
So how would you rate it? On a scale of one to ten as an impression.
I just love the Pixel. I think it's like the perfect smartphone for I think for creator it's a little bit tougher because it's not like as good as the iPhone when it comes to like creating content, and the apps aren't as good. But I think that as a smart phone, it is really smart, like it just anticipates everything that you want to do and kind of like is ready for that. And I think that's the difference
between iPhone and Pixel. iPhone has all the apps, it's perfect, it's polished, it just does everything you need it to do. But it's more of I call a hunt and peck mentality versus on this phone. The Pixel uses AI to kind of surface things that it thinks you want to do next. And I think that's the biggest difference between the two devices. Right, So hopefully that made sense.
Yeah, that makes and with that ten, I think that's a ten.
Let's go to Megan with the first question of the day.
All right, So this first question comes from Evelyn and she writes in on rich on tech Dot TV. All you have to do is you can send a question to Rich through rich on tech dot TV, go to the contact page and you can submit your question. Evelyn asks, what have you heard about this product? It's called Infinity Cloud.
This is not the first question I'm getting about this thing. And it's spelled in a weird way, like it's spelled Is it spelled infinity kloed? Is that how she spelled it? Yes? Okay, So I've gotten at least I would say, four or five emails about this, so clearly they are advertising somewhere that I am not a part of, Like whether it's Instagram or Facebook or Late Night TV, I don't know, but I've gotten a lot of emails. I'm trying to
figure out. There's not like a main website that I found, But I did find on Amazon they have something called the Infinity Cloud USB drive and it's spelled that same way, and it's one hundred and twenty eight gigabyte drive and it includes Infinity Cloud super Fast one click backup software for Mac and PC. I'm guessing this is what she's talking about. It's a ninety dollars device and it's kind of from what I can tell, it's a flash drive
that backs up things on your computer. Okay, and I don't like the name Infinity Cloud because it sounds like you're getting as much backup storage as you need and this is a hundred yeah, and this is one hundred and twenty eight gigs.
So yeah, that's weird.
Here's my advice on this. I think it has a fancy name. I think they're advertising and they're you know, they're getting people to buy this thing, but don't. I would say, if you're going to back up stuff. Number one, if you have a Windows computer or a Mac computer, buy a hard drive Western Digital. Seventy bucks will get you a two terabyte hard drive. You plug it into your computer, your Mac or your Windows computer will automatically
back up all your files there. That's number one. Number two when it comes to the cloud, use iCloud, use Google Photos for your photos, use Microsoft one Drive for your documents if you want, you know, depending on the platform you're on, and all again, you can get some free storage with those, but you can also pay to
get more storage. And finally, if you want to use something like back Blaze or Carbonite, if you want sort of the entire computer backed up to one So what would happen with that with back Blaze or Carbonite is it's off site, so it's very similar to time Machine or Windows backup, but it's off site, so god forbid you're you know hard drive ever you know crashes, plus the secondary backup you have gets lost or burned or ruined. You can go to back blaze and say, hey, can
you get all my data back? And it gets back to the way you were and they may charge you like a fee if you want like a drive sent to your house with all of your stuff on it, or you can just download it from the computer as well. So those are the things that I would recommend back Blaze or Carbonite. And the first backup, by the way, is going to take a long time because you're backing up your whole computer. Yeah, after that, it's incremental and
it's just done. Like I had. I had Carbonite for a while and it was great because like you just knew your whole computer was backed up without even thinking.
I kind of like that.
Yeah, And I'm just seeing how much it is. So back blaze is sixty bucks for a year or six dollars a month, okay, And I always go back to the beer mentality. If you purchase a beer or a drink for five bucks, ten dollars one time that month, you can have back blaze for six dollars. Yeah. I'm not saying you need to do that, but I'm just saying, you know, you spend money on things like you go to Chipotle, it's nine bucks. You could add your computer
backed up for the whole month. Yeah, and he could add a bowl cereal at home, or a beer or a beer. Samsung says they will soon patch a fingerprint recognition problem on the Galaxy S ten. Samsung said that there is a software patch ready to go for a fingerprint recognition failure on the S ten smartphone. Apparently there's a bug in the Galaxy S ten that allows people to unlock the phone using their fingerprint, even if their fingerprint is not the one registered to unlock the phone.
That sounds really bad.
Aka anyone can open the phone.
Pretty much so. A British user told The Sun newspaper, which is a tabloid I believe over in Europe, that she had a third party screen protector on her phone and her husband was able to unlock it using his fingerprint without register.
The only example, apparently.
But it's big enough where Reuter's did a story on it. Everyone else has picked it up, and Samsung did tell Reuters and Gizmoto that they do have a software fix that they're going to put out for this. And here's the thing they said, Apparently some of the issues with your fingerprint recognition happen with some third party screen protectors that are silicone, silic can silicon based and plastic based.
And so it's I guess, if you have a glass screen protector, which I would normally recommend, it's probably not that big of an issue, but with these cheaper ones it is. So again, I've you know, I haven't used a plastic screen protector in a long time. I always use one that's glass from tech Armor, and so I haven't seen this issue. I guess I can try to recreate it on the Samsung Galaxy S ten, but I don't. I don't think So that's that's a that's a weird one.
Yeah, you should try to recreate it, but.
It wouldn't workcuse I don't have a scream protector, so I'd need like a cheap I guess I can go to like one of those cheap malt kiosks, and you know, yeah, anyway, so again my advice you if you have a Samsung Galaxy S ten, is this gonna happen? I don't know. Try if you have a cheap plastic screen protector on there A, you probably want to upgrade that. B. Have a friend try their fingerprint and see if it works and let me know.
Yeah, and then maybe change to a pass cut.
Yeah. I would definitely change for the time being. Yeah, until you see that softwareupdate.
Okay, cool. Next question comes from Kathy and she she asks, I need to get a new streaming stick. I had Firestick, I now have an iPhone. So between firestick and Apple TV, which would you recommend? And then she said my TV is ten eighty but may soon get an HD, So I assume I should get an HD streaming stick.
They're all I mean, they're all the st at this point.
Yeah.
I don't think they sell a stick that's not Roku might in their bottom like their lowest one. They might. But yeah, and also, your TV is ten eighty. That's that's HD already, so you're already there. Yeah, you're already there. What Let's see? So she has Apple TV, No, No, she has an iPhone?
She she has she had firestick. She oh. She also says she has Roku in some rooms and she hates it.
Okay, so she had Firestick and then she hates the Roku.
I mean, I don't so between Firestick and Apple TV, which would you recommend?
So okay, So Firestick I think that's one I use. It's it's super cheap, it works really well, it pushes all Amazon stuff, And I find that the organization of the Firestick is atrocious because like if I just want to see what the top movies are for like rental or purchase, it's like takes like twenty five menus to find that, whereas an Apple TV just go to iTunes as like top movies boom. But again, and Apple TV is way more expensive, And I think that's the delineation here.
How much do you want to spend Apple TV you're looking at closer to two hundred dollars versus Firestick. You can get it for like twenty five bucks or maybe I think the fifty as the most expensive one as a stick, So it depends how many you're buying. And with Apple TV you get the integration to your iPhone. Do you want to airplay stuff from your iPhone through the.
Screen, something she probably wants and photos.
You can also, so if you have a firestick like I do, to get your photos from your iPhone onto the TV, you can do it. You can download the Amazon Photos app, you can upload them one by one and do that. Or if you have an iPhone, obviously it's just kind of like you can just do a photo stream or you can do your recent pictures or whatever. Yeah, So I mean, I think personally, I would probably lean towards the Apple TV. If you have an iPhone and you're saying you hated Roku, which I don't know why
you hate Roco. It's pretty good, and you.
Had fire stuff Roku.
Yeah, So Roku just sent me a Ultra to test ok and so I set it up and I know, went through the whole thing, and I haven't used a Roku in forever, and I got to say, I was actually quite impressed. It's just clean and straightforward, except there are a lot of ads on the screen. I don't like the ads, and the interface looks like it's out of the eighties because it kind of like when you start streaming, really does that bar that comes up is like, come on, could you just redo that a little bit?
Apple TV is probably the most it is the most polished out of all of them, and you're also and you're also spending the most. Where is this Roku is half the price and it does all the same things and if not more because the remote it came with is really nice. It can plug You can plug a headphone jack into it or headphones into the remote, which is really cool. It controls the volume on your TV and the power on off. And it has two buttons
that you can assign to anything. So if you love to come home and stream something over and over, like I mean, Netflix is a bad example because I feel like the remote has that button. Yeah it may not, So whatever you want to do, you know, you can assign that button. Or maybe you want to listen to a podcast or music. So I I personally think that, uh, the Apple TV might be the way to go for you, Kathleen, But you know, it depends. It all depends on how
much you want to spend. I think that's the main thing. Oh, speaking of Amazon, Amazon's Holiday Toy Guide seems like a great place to reference all of your holiday shopping because Amazon is a place where we all shop nowadays. Well, guess what a spot on that guide could cost? You two million dollars.
Oh my god.
According to Bloomberg, Amazon has companies pay to be included in this Holiday toy guide. Now, they don't pay for outright inclusion. They pay for the ability to be featured or considered in this list. So Amazon sells Holiday Toy List sponsorships for as much as two million dollars, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. The more sponsors pay, the more products they can nominate to be on the list, and the more prominently their own products will be featured
on the website. Amazon aimed to sell at least twenty million dollars in sponsorships for this year's show, according to documents from Bloomberg. And this is all through Fortune magazine, who's reporting on what Bloomberg reported, And then I'm reporting it. But it makes sense. But here's an I get it.
If you go to Walmart and Walmart Circular is telling you the top holiday gifts that is not a third party thing like Walmart says like, oh, we make a pretty good margin on this Elmo doll, so let's put that on the list. Or we have a pretty good relationship with Hasbro and they have this new doll. Let's put that on the list. I get it. It's not
third party, it's not independent. You're not expecting when you go into a store and you look at what's on the end of the aisle, they call those the end caps. Those are all highly coveted positions that companies jockey for and they try to get their stuff there, and sometimes it costs money to get there. When you look at the stuff on the aisles, when you look at the
peanut butter that's right at eye level. Yeah, Jeff has paid for that placement or somehow it may not be a direct payment, but they work with Walmart to figure out how to get their stuff there. Hey, we'll give you five cents off every can because we know you give us a very good spot on the shelf every year. You're not down at the bottom. They put the cheap stuff at the bottom. Yeah, because that's not paying.
Yeah, that's why I always go for the cheap stuff. Always.
Always. You got a shop by the unit price, and so this is not a surprise. But I think and I looked at the Amazon toy list on their website, I co only find t twenty eighteens right now, But it doesn't say anywhere that like it says. Okay, So here's what Amazon says for their part. Every product on our annual holiday Toy List, which features family gift ideas, is independently curated by a team of in house experts based on a high bar for quality, design, innovation, and
play experience. We source product ideas from many places, including our selling partners, who have an opportunity to nominate their best toys for the season and increase visibility of those toys. So Amazon saying like, yeah, this is what we do. Yeah, And it's kind of like, I mean, I hate to say this, but it's like awards, like you know when people get like Emmys and stuff, like you don't pay for that, but you pay to nominate yourself.
Oh yeah, I mean they also pay a lot in like promoting the show or the movie, Like the Oscars is all I don't want to say rigged, but like they put millions into just getting you know, like.
If there's a core Great, you only know about the Great documentary because it's advertised fifty different ways too.
Yeah, and Netflix probably spent fifteen million on whatever pr just to like make happen, so it's happening. Shocking. It's like but I think people also like to, you know, kind of make it a bigger deal than it is.
Well, I think it is a big deal because people need to know that this is happening. When you hear from someone like myself, it's independent. I'm not I don't get paid by a company to say I love their stuff. And so I think that's the big delineation is that with all these YouTubers and stuff, and I'm not hating on them, I love them. But the reality is when you see that sponsored or that ad, the company is using them as a conduit to get their product in
front of your face. Yes, and that's fine, but you just you know that because you see sponsored or add a. But on Amazon, like if it says paid placement, you understand that, like this is sponsored. There's just a delineation. When you know something sponsored, you just say in your mind like, Okay, that's fine, it doesn't ruin it as a product, but it's you understand that. And I think that relationship has to be clear.
Yeah, but in stores they don't No, they.
Don't say that, but you understand you're in store. So anyway, long story short, I think you know, listen to as many void as you can, especially independent voices. And you know there's a lot of websites that do reviews now, so you know you can just cross reference to reviews and you'll see like the trends among all of them. Oh no, it's my turn. You already did a question? Yeah? Or did I know?
You just did Amazon?
I just did Amazon. Okay, see, I trusted my judgment. It's your turn.
Go ahead, all right. We got a fun message from Steven who said, I really like your show, always tons of information. I heard you on Brian Tong's podcast. I listened weekly and now enjoy it a lot.
Oh, it's so good. I just saw Brian Tongue at the Pixel events and it's great. You know, he's a great friend. He's been you know, we've known each other since we worked at sne together that and so he left seen it and did his own thing. So now he's part of this YouTube crew, which, by the way, they rolled deep, like nineteen of them. They're all like, they all collab and this and that. It's pretty cool to say, Yeah, so I'm not part of that group, but I know them.
You could be.
I say hi to them and I know them, but I'm not part of them, but they're doing great anyway. So do you have a question as well?
Yes, I do. This question comes from Dan hey Rich any thoughts on a Mac Mini versus iMac looking for something to have at home Internet browsing, email, video conferencing for work.
I would definitely go iMac. I think the Mac Mini sounds great, But what's the point. I mean, unless you already have your monitor that you love and the keyboard that you love and all these accessories that you have to bring to the table. I go with an Imacy. My dream is to have an iMac. I have want I've never owned iMac, never owned an iMac. It has literally been my dream to have an iMac on my desktop for the past decade.
You need to have a little writer writer room, right, You'll have your iMac and like he's just right there.
I just want that. But then here's my problem. I can't justify purchasing an iMac when I have my computer that I use everywhere in my laptop that I just put on my desk. Yeah, and then also I imagine, like, okay, so I have to go between like both things, and like whatever I put on the desktop, there is not on that desktop and then sink it up. I don't think so, there probably is. But my advice what was this person's name again? Uh?
Dan Stan Dan Dan Dan Dan?
My advice is do not, I repeat, do not go with the base model iMac because it's one thousand ninety nine dollars. That's the sucker's bat. You do not get the best things on that computer, namely the best screen. You get an old non retina screen. Now do you remember when you had your MacBook Air versus the computer they gave you here? Yeah, you know one has the retina screen, one doesn't. Can you tell the difference? Yes, night and day.
It's insane, like it's crazy.
So imagine imagine spending one thousand ninety nine on an iMac to get a non retina display. When you can, you've already gone the thousand ninety nine right, go the two hundred dollars further, don't eat now, start and get the retina.
Yeah, do your eyes a favor.
Everything with me is eating out or drinking we w Well, I'm just saying because I always see money as like all these little decisions we make in our lives. Yes, where you go out like I went out the other night I bought a round of drinks from my family. It was like sixty bucks, I know, very nice. No, yes, those those milkshakes up. Yeah, And I'm telling you it was sixty dollars. And so that is six months of
Spotify in my head right there. Yeah, and everyone it's not just me that's doing this, see, And it's all these little things like if you buy coffee at Starbucks, you know, it's four forty five for like a latte now, yeah, and that is half a month of some cloud service that you've been hemming and hauling over. And so we make these little decisions so easily in real life. Then when it comes to buying a Mac you say, well, I'll just save the two hundred bucks and go with
the base model. Spend the extra two hundred and get the model that has the retina display and it's a four K display as well, and you also get some other improved graphics, you know, bigger, not a bigger hard drive, but just better. A couple other specs are better too, so good question. Yeah, and the Mac Mini, don't get
me wrong, I think that's awesome. Back in the day when when the home theater PC was a big deal, that Mac Mini was kind of cool because you can hook it up your TV, and I don't see the point of that anymore. It's getting Apple TV. Nest Mini is getting a makeover, available October twenty second. Is the new Yeah. This used to be called the Google Home Mini. Now it's the Nest Mini, probably Google's most popular smart speaker. I've got a bunch of them around my house. Do
you have any of these around your place? Nest many like these little things.
Yeah, my sister has one.
Okay, do you need one? I mean I have one. I can give you Okay, okay, I will give you one.
Oh okay, the new one.
Yeah, no, not the new one, the old one. For a while I was getting these things, is like in like gift bags, like randomly you go to like an event, you get like a Google Home Mini, and I was giving them out. I've reached a point of like saturation where everyone I know like does want him anymore?
Like I'm good.
Yeah. So the Google Home Mini was launched in twenty seventeen. The new version. There's not too much to know about it. It's fifty dollars, same price that used to be. These things usually go on sale as a loss Leader. During the holidays, you can pick them up for twenty nine thirty nine dollars. You know, at least ten dollars off during the holidays. I'd say, if not, probably twenty nine is a more viable price point. So don't buy this
thing at forty nine dollars. I hate to say this with all Google stuff, but they price it in a way that they know. Some of these things, like these Nest Minis, they're just going to go on sale. Yeah, Target's going to put them on sale, Walmart, best Buy. So the thing to know about it now is it kind of looks the same, but it's made from one hundred percent recycled plastic bottles. So all those bottles that you're thrown out from your water, your your Fiji water drink,
that's true. You have a flask.
And when he says flask, he means to say hydrophile.
Oh I forgot the first part of that word.
Yeah, that's not that's rich that has the flask.
So the Nest Mini is made from your cycled plastic bottles, which is really cool. One hundred percent, which I love. It also has forty percent more bass than the original model. Every time I see the word bass. Yeah, I see bass.
Yeah, I see. Why do I see bass?
Because it's spelled bass. He says bass. Yeah, it's spelled bass. I see bass. It's like when I go fishing, do I go bass fishing? No, I go bass fishing. But it's spelled the same. I used to do that, by the way. Not it's been a long time fishing. I used to all the time. Oh yeah, you growing up.
That's shocking.
Yeah, let's see. You can group the speakers together we talked about in the last podcast. So they don't sound as good the old ones don't. At least maybe the new ones sound better. The voice assists the Google Assistant now adjusts depending on the background noise, which is really neat because if you have the dishwasher going and you ask Google something, it might be tough to hear in the past and you have to go and turn the
volume up. Now it dynamically uses its microphones to hear what the ambient sound is, and it'll bump up the volume a little bit.
What about if you're watching a TV show and you say like, hey, Google, and then like the TV shows in the background, and it's like picking up the show, but you're.
Like you, that's a whole problem. Yeah, I don't know. I mean that's a show off. Well that's like a whole issue with this whole ah Google thing. It's like so many things turn you know, trigger it, and they get false triggers and it starts listening to other stuff. But it's pretty good about the ambient sound, Like from what I've seen when I'm in like a loud room
and I trigger it, it's it's pretty darn good. There's also a new intercom feature, and I got to test this out at the Google offices and it was really neat. This turns your nests into an intercom system. I love that. Have you ever used an intercom like in your house? Yeah, okay, so we used to have one, like back in the day. Okay, you have one. Yeah, so it's like we don't use it, No one does. It's kind of like one of those things from like the eighties or seventies, you know. It's
like an old school thing. Yeah, And it's like we had it in my house growing up, and I thought it was so cool as a nerd. So I'd always be like, on the thing, I'm making everyone please come down to dinner, you know, and like.
Everyone, you're going to do this with your kids if you get this.
Well, so there's a feature. There's two features on the Nest Mini now. One is called broadcast, which you can do from any So you could do that from your phone. So if you pick up your phone and say, h, Google broadcast, I'm headed home, it will take your voice and it will play on all your speakers at the same time. That's one feature and you can try that right now. The other feature that they're enabling, which is new,
is called intercom. I can say, h Google, call the living room, Google Mini, whatever you've named it, and it will make a call to it. It'll ring. The other person on the other end taps the top and they go hello, and you're like, hey, what's up. I'm right over here, I'm across the room, you know, I'm across the house.
Yeah.
Pretty cool. Yeah, I mean you have to figure out the use case. But if you have a big house, you know, like I always imagine like one of these days I'd have a house that like, you know, when you have that dinner table that's like a mile long. To Lindsay and I have done that before, We've eaten dinner, like at the opposite end of the Our dinner table is not that long, but its no no, but we have like a decently it's a pretty it's a more
long than normal tape. Yeah, and so I always think it's funny, like when we first got it to sit on the opposite ends and it's just so funny put candles in the middle, and like you just have like your Friday night dinner, like.
Can you please bring in the dijon mustard very down to nabbey.
That's lost on me, no idea, Okay, it's like fancy.
Fancy, Yeah, the fancy.
So that's the next Mini. And the other thing to know about the next Mini is that it is faster at processing your commands because they've built some machine learning onto the device, so it kind of understands like you always ask every day at two pm to turn the lights up or whatever. I always ask every day when I get in to like turn on the kitchen lights, and so it will learn that and it will figure that out and process faster now somehow.
And it's like it plays Lizzo because you always walk every day.
Walk in and play my normal and it's like whatever she sayings, I don't know that song close something like that.
Okay. The next question comes from Paula and and she says, facial recognition on phones, I prefer the fingerprint way with face wreck. Someone could grab your phone and point it at you and run away, then they'd have your phone unlocked. Am I right or wrong?
Uh? So true? Yeah, I think face face unlock is a double edged sword.
I always do that when you want to want me to record something, I'll like take your phone and I'll pin your.
Face works right, Yeah. And it's the same thing with a pixel. I mean it. You know, my brother when he was you know, when we were out that night in New York City, he just like held the phone up to my face and unlocked. You know, you just do that and it's like boom.
Yeah.
And so I do think there is something to that. And I think that I don't know, maybe they'll figure out a way around that. I don't know what.
Yeah, maybe like a palm reader.
Yeah, like well, or it shose your hand. Yeah, I notices how you hold the phone. Maybe, I don't know. I mean that could be. I don't know. We're just we're just spitballing here because we don't know.
Yeah, I mean like I do. Do you hear stories about this happen.
I don't hear stories about it happening. I've thought about, like, yeah, someone someone finds you and they're just like, you know, they hold you down, they put the phone in front of your face, and you're just like, oh, well, there goes my whole phone.
I feel like people don't care that much.
Well, I don't know. Yeah, I mean I don't want to find out. Do you want to find out?
No? But I also have an eight plus, So I'm like the.
Past, and so I to answer this person's question, I would say I'm on the same wavelength. I get it, like, there are things that face unlocked. It is pretty cool to have it. But I also see the other side of when you're this is the way I see it. When you're using a fingerprint scanner, you're in control because
it's your finger and someone can't. Yeah, they can hold you down and force you to put your fingerprint on there, but it's a little bit different, you know, it takes like more physical coercion, whereas for face, like you said, you can just hold it up and be like boom, and next thing you know, it's unlocked.
Yeah, So I want to try it?
Go ahead, Yeah, let's see. So I won't look okay, so I'm not going to look okay, and it's not unlocking. But if I'm just like right here and I look at it, is it unlocking? It's not. See it knows that you're Yeah, okay, that's the pixel. Now try it. You want to try it with the iPhone? Yeah, okay, So we just tried it with pixel, so now try it with the iPhone. So I'm gonna I'm gonna look away, Okay.
Now I'm looking at it, and uh no, it says swipe to unlock, swipe up to unlock, So swipe up and then turn it to me really quick and see if it works. See. Yeah, see, I think I think they're on to us, Megan, I mean that that's I mean.
Wait, look at it.
Okay. Oh yeah, so I don't know. I think, uh so, maybe maybe they have figured it out.
Don't worry about it, Paula.
Yeah, it's all good. We just tested it in our very uh non scientific testing. We found that you do not have to worry about this.
Yes, you will be fine.
But it seems to I mean, I don't know that seems to work Okay, let's move on. Pixel Book Go is another product that Google unveiled at their event. I got to play with this for a little bit, and I will be honest, I one fell in love with
this device. It is their Chromebook. It's a high performance Chromebook and and it's kind of like, well, I guess it's not as high performance as the standard pixel book, but it's still it's a lightweight kind of device for the average person that just needs to do basic things on their computer. But the best part is it's barely two pounds. It's super thin. It's prices six hundred and forty nine dollars, which is a kind of a sweet spot. I would have liked it to be four ninety nine.
I think that is a super sweet spot. When it comes to a laptop, four ninety nine is like, that is no brainer. You get a really nice computer for four ninety nine. Six forty nine is a little bit more expensive. But again it goes back to what I'm saying about. I think Google prices some of these things knowing they might be discounted at during the holidays, right, But I don't know what this one depends. We'll have to see because I don't know how much it would
be discounted. But it's got quiet backlit keys, and I'll be one hundred percent honest, like I was ready to purchase this thing. Really Yeah, I liked it that much. It's like everything I want in a computer, super easy. You don't have to worry about viruses, It turns on automatic, the battery lasts a long time, it runs Chrome. What more do you need? The only problem is I like to edit video on my computer and I also use Final.
Cut, and so what can't you use Adobe?
No, not on this one, because you can't install any programs on it except like the way I look at it is, I think you can ins sol Android apps on it at this point. Oh so maybe I could if it's an Android app. You know what. I gotta try that out because it's been I've never used a Chromebook. It's been a long time.
Does Google have their own video editing software?
I do not.
I share, but they don't.
I don't think they position their stuff as like content creation devices like the pixel book Go to me is for someone who is a mobile worker who does spreadsheets or email or word processing, is writing a book. They're not editing video they're not editing music, they're not creating content.
It's a different space exactly.
Even I would argue maybe if you're like a web blogger, you probably I mean, I guess nowadays you could do ninety nine percent of blogging with just your Chrome because I use what's the uh, this is fantastic. By the way, if you ever need it, I use, so you can. I'm not ever doing anything in Photoshop. And I think even Photoshop probably runs on this thing, because they probably have a version of it for this. If you could run Android apps on it, that kind of changes the game. Yeah,
I should probably, I should probably know this, Megan. I think that you talk while I figure out can the pixel book go run Android apps? And I mean because if it does, yeah, install Android apps on your pixel Book technically, so I should try this. If it can run Adobe.
Yeah, you're never getting that asap.
By the way, No, I'm never getting the iMac. I'm never getting a new Mac. You know how many things I've told you how many things are on my list of purchases.
Yeah, yeah, Well.
Everything just keeps coming out new, and I'm like, yeah, but I kind of want the pixel Book. And by the way, I would not get the six forty nine personally because I want higher specs. It goes all the way up to I think it like thirteen ninety nine, which is still pretty cheap. I think so because that has like sixteen gigs a RAM, and like I think two fifty six.
Wow, that would be really crazy if you just switched to just using a chromebook.
If I can install Adobe Rush, the only thing I would not be able to do is final cut, which and I message from your message that's true, that would be it's.
See that's a bummer.
That is a bummer. And yeah, but anyway, the app I was talking about that I used to resize images is called Promo dot Com Slash Tools slash Image dash Resizer. It you pop, you drag and drop an image into there and it resizes it to every single perfect size for every platform. Yeah, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, thumbnails, Pinterest, LinkedIn, snapchat, email and blog, Google Display Network whatever that is. I guess that's for ads. So cool.
Yeah, yeah, you need that.
So pixel book go. It also has this weird grippable design which is kind of cool. On the bottom, it's like it's like ribbed almost, which is kind of weird, but it helps you grip it so you don't drop it, and it's it makes sense, so it's not like smooth on the bottom. Kind of cool. Let's see what else twelve hours of battery life wo two hours. Twenty minutes of charging gives you two hours of battery. It's kind of cool. If you're getting on the plane, you just
want to top it off a little bit. Got that. Uh, the keyboard. They really made a big deal out of this because I don't know, if you typing on mine.
They say it's called hush hush.
They call it hush keys, and so it's really quiet. I honestly, like I said, I fell in love with this thing. Like I sat there and I I was I was, I was playing with it, and I was literally saying I could see myself using this, And I've always wanted to kind of break free of like my standard I've had the same kind of MacBook Pro for like a decade now, and it just be kind of fun to be like that guy with the pixel book.
People are looking at You're like, what is that? It's that weird grippy thing on the bottom of your laptop. What's that weird? You know, you don't have to sit there and do a Windows update for two hours every day because you know, they come out this giant update that takes forever. So, oh, you don't have to. You don't have these loud keys like I have my MacBook. I don't know. I think I'm gonna get one.
Yeah, I think you should.
We'll say see how I deal.
All right, So this question comes from Rainah. The subject is Spectrum's latest four dollars rate increase with no speed increase. So she says that on October eleventh, she got an email from Spectrum announcing that she can get speeds up to two hundred megabytes megabytes per second with no rate increase. And then she said, my September bill said that there will be a general four dollars a month rate increase on my October bill.
What's her name, Raina, Raina, And then she.
Said, I can't seem to hold those two thoughts in my head. My current.
Now you don't have to read all the rest part. She goes on and on. Okay, okay, but I think the first part is really the interesting part about it.
There was a there was an increase before this.
Yeah, okay, so here's the story and I and I've I've done this on Twitter enough so I don't really want to beat a dead horse here. But the reality is, can we still say that? I don't even know. I don't even know what you could say anymore. I feel like that's like such an old saying.
That, Like what a visual? I like really thought about that.
Have you heard that before?
Never beat a dead horse?
Have you heard that term?
I mean, I've heard it. I don't really understand.
Yeah, I'm gonna stop saying that. I don't why would I wouldn't beat anything? Like, why would it beat a dead horse?
I'm a horse lover.
No, I can't wait to get on a horse again. Now I'm just kidding.
Yeah, you're a big a questrian.
Yeah okay. So here's what happened. Spectrum came out about two months ago, and we talked about this in the podcast, and everyone responded saying, oh my gosh, they doubled the speeds in Los Angeles and across the nation to like two hundred what everyone was paying for one hundred, So now you got the same like price, but like, oh my gosh, it's way faster. This happened at my house.
Then all of a sudden. I get my bill last week and in tiny little writing, it's like, effective next bill, there will be a four dollars increase on your bill. They didn't say it was for speed. They just said four dollars monthly whatever. And so then a week later I get an email or two days later, I get an email from Spectrum saying We've increased your speed at no cost to you. I'm like, what, No, what is it like? Just don't send an email like that after
you just raise my bill by four dollars. So now I'm paying next bill would be sixty nine to ninety nine a month for internet, And I think it's kind of ridiculous that they did that.
They should have just said, like, we're going to charge you four dollars more because the speed is increasing.
Hey, we improve your speed by the way, we have costs that go up to and at the end of the day, they know that people rely on their internets and they can charge one hundred dollars a month and people will still not switch because a they have kind of a monopoly on it totally. There's only like two providers in every area. Usually one's not very good.
What's the other provider here?
It just depends where you live. Like it could be AT and T and some there's it just depends. It all depends where you live. So if you want to check, I always try to give you a little knowledge with my rants, but high speed Internet dot com can you can pop in your zip code and kind of see what the provider is in your area. Did she say where she lives? No, I'll just do West La as an example, And in West LA you can get Frontier
Spectrum via SAT and hues net and cybernet. So obviously the only two that are wired are really Spectrum and Frontier. But here's the thing. This is what I will leave with you. The good news is that we are on the verge of these five G networks being in big cities in a big way, and when those take off, you'll be able to have a third option in many
cases overnight. Yeah, because you can now get a signal from the sky or I should say from the air that is just as good that can rival these wired connections. So hopefully that should switch up prices a little bit. The problem is a lot of these five G connections are from the same companies that own the wired connections, and so competition will be there at the beginning, but like anything else, at the end of the day, they're gonna level out the prices. Anyway, Well, that's gonna do
it for the podcast. Thanks so much for listening, Megan. Did you enjoy the show?
Yeah, I learned a lot too.
I feel like this was a really good show. I feel like we both learned a lot here in this journey. My book is called one and one iPhone Tips and Tricks Is It is available right now for both the iPhone, sorry for in Kindle form like ebook form, and also paperback form. So it is available on Amazon check it out. You can read it for free through Kindle Unlimited, or you can purchase it and keep it either as paperback or as ebook. Megan, how can people get in touch with you?
I am on Twitter, I'm at producer Megan, and I've been getting some questions this past week from people.
Okay, did you bring any of them to the show? I know, okay for next show. So if you have a question, you can tweet producer Megan as well. Well, you tweet me and you know we'll get it on the show. And for me, you can find me on social media at rich On tech on Instagram, Facebook dot com, slash rich on tech. That's going to do it for our show. Please, if you're listening for the first time, subscribe to us in your favorite audio app and listen
every week. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you real soon. Bye bye.