Everyone's going wild over NFTs. Netflix cracks down on sharing, using Siri to find the best gas prices. Plus your tech questions answered, What's going on? I'm Rich Tomorrow and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer the questions you send me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles.
You may also find me on.
Other stations around the US. So the company that owns KTLA also has like one hundred something stations across the nation.
So I get a lot of emails.
These days or texts and tweets or whatever from people saying, oh, I saw you in Hawaii, I saw you in New Mexico, saw you in.
I don't know wherever. So it's kind of fun.
So if you found me in one of those places, thank you for tuning in and listening. And what a week it's been in Los Angeles, because well, it's snowed in my backyard. In my backyard, there was well maybe it wasn't snow, but it was definitely something that resembled snow, and I guess it was technically hal or. Someone told
me it was something called gropple. I don't know. But the point is when your kid is in the other room distance learning, and you're in your office and you hear wild screaming and you run over there to see what happened, and you'll look outside the back door and it's just totally a winter wonderland. I couldn't believe it.
It was pretty awesome. So I don't think I've ever seen that happen in Los Angeles ever, now, given we have the mountains here, and so of course if you're in the mountains, they're very familiar with snow and hail and sleet and all that stuff. But when you just of in like La proper like I do, and it's coming down in your backyard, that's pretty wild. So I got a cool video on my Instagram of me kind of picking up whatever this is.
Whatever this was, you.
Know, snow, hail, sleet, gropple, whatever it was. I picked it up and it felt pretty amazing for a minute. And then, by the way, it all melted in about a half an hour to an hour afterwards, So that generally happens. But it's also been raining in La so it's been kind of wild weather. Here in Los Angeles and probably across the nation. I know, you know, there's been a snowstorms and this and that, so hopefully you're good where you are. But let's get to the first
item of business here. Tea Mobile is stepping up targeting advertising.
This is the Wall Street Journal.
They first noticed this, but they sent an email or I guess they just updated their privacy policy. I don't know how they found this, but they said, starting April twenty sixth, Tea Mobile subscribers will basically have whatever they do on their phone tracked by Team Mobile. And I mean, I guess that's always been going on, but now they're going to use that information to target advertising. So they're not just you know, these companies don't just overtly share
your information. But what they do is they build a database. So let's say I'm an advertiser and I want to sell you socks, and so I go on to the T mobile, you know, advertising back end, and I say, I want to target everyone who has looked up socks or any sort of you know, undergarments in the last six months, and boom, now you see my ad inserted on any of those pages or wherever you go.
Whatever.
However, T Mobile does ads. I don't know, but you know, so you would see my ad in all those places. So historically I guess they didn't really do this, but you know, the reality is TEA Mobile said, you know, we've heard they told the Wall Street Journal, We've heard many say they prefer more relevant ads. So we're defaulting to this setting. So this is a default for sixty million people. And what does that do?
That just turns off on a lot of money.
It's like a money spigot that T Mobile is turning on because guess what, no matter what you use, unless you're on a VPN, you know, if you're incognito mode or you know, whatever browser you're using, pretty much a lot of these times, you're still your ISP still gets to see what you're doing. And so a T Mobile
in this case is the ISP Internet service provider. They're the ones that actually serve up the website on the back end using their data and your data plan if you're not on your WiFi, and so they see kind of where you're going and they say, okay, this person likes scooters, they like tropical vacations, they like socks. And so now when those companies come to target them boom.
They can do that.
So if you don't like this idea, you can actually opt out, and the way you do it is that you go into the T mobile app, or you can go there's a sprint way to opt out and a metro way to opt out. I put the instructions for T Mobile. I'll put them in the in the notes because I shared this street Journal article. But they're apparently paywalled, so you can't really just see these instructions that they
put on there. But I'll put the instructions. T Mobile actually put out a YouTube video with instructions on how to do it. So if you want to opt out, I'm kind of like one of those people that I would rather see an ad that's targeted than not, I guess, but I also see why you know this is I call these those follow me ads, the ads that just
follow you from place to place to place. So a lot of this stuff, well this may not be that, but anyway, the point is, you know, if you don't like your information sliced and diced and shared then or targeted, then you probably want to opt out of this.
Now.
T Mobile does say that your your personal identity is not linked to the data that you have. Right, so all your they don't know you as like Rich DeMuro that likes socks. It's just this person likes socks, and so you should target your ads towards this person. But the reality is, we know, over and over, I've heard this and seen this from so many people that they don't just use one database per se. A lot of times these very advanced advertising systems will merge various databases.
So just because T Mobile doesn't hand over your ID, believe me, there's other ways for them to get it. So at the end of the day, they pretty much know everything they need to know about you. All right, let's get to the first Uh is this a question? This looks like some feedback? All right, hey, Rich, just some simple feedback regarding your product recommendations. The Apple home Pod Mini, recommended so highly, has turned out to be a bust. The sound quality pales in comparison to the
JBL Flip five. The Mini has become unreliable by not responding to touch or voice command for Siri.
That's weird.
We're trying to return the unit, but Apple insists it's inspected by their Genius bar. First, I previously purchased the JBL Flip five speaker for our sun It has rechargeable batteries, it's completely portable, the volume is better. Let's see on circles around the Apple home Pod Mini, all for the same price.
Okay.
Also, the Wise products are starting out to be a bust too. If you want further details, let me know. The cameras and sensors keep going offline. The batteries don't last. When I replace the batteries, the sensors and motion sensors still state the batteries need replacement. I can't trust Wise as a security product because of these issues. Jim in Orange County, Well, Jim, uh yeah, Well look, I mean here's the deal.
And I say this over and over.
Just because I say to get something does not mean that it is the end all.
You just go out and run out and buy it.
Like I am just one opinion in a sea of many opinions, and with the Internet, there are so many opinions out there. So my opinion is that the old Apple HomePod Mini is amazing, and I still think it's amazing, And yeah, are there things that can be improved, of course, like any first generation product or any product in general, but for the ninety nine dollars that I you see this thing as I think it's amazing as an iPhone companion. And yes, the JBL Flip five is a totally different product.
That's a wireless, portable Bluetooth speaker. So that's that's something that's totally different than what the HomePod Mini is. The HomePod Mini is, you know, a smart home device. It connects you to the Apple ecosystem. It sounds good for the size. Yes, you have to keep it plugged into the wall, but that's what it is. It's a it's part of a you can group them, which I don't believe you could do with the Flip five. So you know, the reality is if it didn't work out for you,
I'm totally fine with that. Like clearly I'm O for two with my recommendations for you, but it doesn't mean that they are bad recommendations. I've gotten many emails from people saying how impressed they are with the HomePod Mini. I personally still think it's amazing. I've bought them for my sister. She thinks it's amazing. The wisecam I mean, I haven't gotten a lot of negative feedback about the Wyscam. In fact, I would say ninety nine percent of tech
reviewers love the wise products, myself included. And so you know, specifically with the outdoor cam, yes, the battery does run down. It could run down very fast depending on how often it's being activated. Now, I will tell you that I have been testing a device from Wasserman It's called or sorry Wasserstein Wasserstein Home and this has been amazing for the wise Cam outdoor. It is fantastic. I'm trying to get it into a segment on KTLA, but it's just one of these things where I can't do a full
segment on this thing. But it's really cool and I love it, so I just have to, you know, work it into like a roundup or something. But I will be featuring it because I just think it really extends the use of this outdoor camera. And it's the Wasserstein solar panel and you plug it into the Wisecam outdoor and you put it in a sunny spot and boom, you never have to charge your wys cam ever. Again, I've been using this now for probably a month and I have not had to charge my camera at all.
And I will tell you right now, my backyard camera is at one hundred percent and it's been there for month, for a month now, and so I really really like this thing. I think for thirty six ninety nine, normally forty five. It's on sale right now. Apparently it is just one of those things that is like a no brainer. And if you look around your neighborhood, this is not a new idea. You see a lot of these things. Like it's basically a flat panel that you aim on
your roof towards the sky. It has it must have some sort of battery inside, because when I first got it,
it didn't work. I told the company, I said, this thing doesn't even work, and they said, well, you have to keep it out in the sun for ten hours charge your Okay, So you keep it out in the sun for ten hours without plugging it into the camera, then you charge your camera fully to one hundred percent, and then you plug it in, You keep it in the sun, and boom, your camera will stay one hundred percent.
At least that's been my experience. I'll link this up in the.
Notes, but I got to say that really changed the game for me with this wisecamout door and So, Jim, as much as I know you don't trust wise, I think they are a fantastic products. The thing that I've gotten the feedback on the most has been the shipping and kind of like people ordering things and it's taken a while to get But other than that, I mean, the actual cameras are are pretty phenomenal for the price that these things charge. So Jim, thanks for the feedback.
I always welcome feedback, good or bad, and believe me, I get a lot of it. And you know, it's it's it's all good, all right. So everyone is going wild over these things called NFTs, and it's just it's such like it's one of these things where it's so weird how you see something once and all of a sudden, it's just like a flood. It's like it arrives. Like everything is now referencing an NFT on the internet.
So what is an NFT. I broke it down.
I talked to someone that's an expert and I, you know, try to explain this on KTLA in my segment and it's really tough because I don't even really understand it. But the reality is NFT stands for non fungible Token and if you want to think of these in this simplest terms, it's basically a collectible like a beanie baby
or a baseball card, but it only exists online. And so a lot of these things that people have been selling have been, you know, a piece of digital art or you can do anything as an NFT anything like and it doesn't have to be digital. But for the terms of me explaining this, I will keep it digital. But theoretically you could extend it to something that's physical as well. But let's say you have the Mona Lisa. There are many Mona Lisa paintings or recreations around the world,
you know, copies, but there's only one. So that one Mona Lisa is is a collectible. It's a valuable item that is non fungible. Right, you can't make another one of them, but a copy if you put on a T shirt that's fungible, it's like, you know, you can make a million of them. So that's kind of the base thing, is that there can only be one and
then one. Once you have this one thing, you sell it and it's it's a token and it's part of the blockchain, and so you say this is a sign to you, and so it really comes down to scarcity. So a couple examples. I gave a rare original arcade game, you know, like an arcade console is non fungible, you can't make another one. So when I buy that, it's valuable because it's like a pac Man original in my house right. A gaming chip from a casino non fungible.
That's let's say the casino is gone, like it's imploded or whatever. You know, that's non fungible because it's a collector's item. A twenty dollars bill, Now this is interesting. A twenty dollars bill is fungible and non fungible. So it's fungible because if I lent you twenty dollars and you paid me back, I wouldn't I wouldn't expect to get the same exact twenty dollars bill back that I gave you, So that means it's fungible. But let's say I did expect it back, because every twenty dollars bill
has a serial number on it that's non fungible. Like if I was like, no, you got to give me the exact same twenty back in a week, which nobody would ever say that would be non fungible. So if you understand the difference between fungible and non fungible, you sort of understand NFTs.
Now.
People have been spending a lot of money on these NFTs. That's because you buy them with cryptocurrency, and a lot of people have these big cryptocurrency balances because that's gone up. Open c is one of the big online marketplaces for NFTs, and you know, some people are using them as an investment. Some people are using them as like, oh, this is really cool, like the Kings of Leon, you know, put an album out as an NFT.
You buy it, it's yours, and you know you love.
It because it's a collectible and it's like the first time they've done it, and it's really cool to you.
But other people are just speculating. Let's see the other thing to know about NFTs, And this is what I thought was the most interesting part of n fts compared to say a let's say you bought a one of a kind painting in real life from someone, right, Well, when you go to sell that, you have to have some sort of leather letter of authenticity or you know, an auction house would verify that that's a unique item.
But with NFTs, what's really interesting is that they are ownership and authenticity is public and provable thanks to the blockchain. And that's the same blockchain that powers cryptocurrency. It's the same idea that cryptocurrency is all. You know, it's all verifiable, right, Like what you own is verified by Math.
It doesn't.
You don't have to go to Chase Bank and say, hey, do I have a one hundred dollars in cryptocurrency? No, like anyone can verify through Math that you own that money and it's yours and you can transfer it to someone else. Same thing with NFTs. So I don't know if I'm doing a good job of explaining this. Hopefully it makes a little sense and you get a little
idea of what people are going wild over. But the easiest way to think about it is it's just something that exists in digital form and you buy it with bitcoin, and it's a collector's item and it's one of a kind, and even though it could be replicated, you the original is verifiable thanks to that blockchain technology.
So there you have it.
Richard, good morning. Have you ever reviewed the photostick mobile or Infinite Cloud, which is a better bite, do you recommend something else? Just want to copy photos to free up space, to take up more or to take more? Thanks in Advanced Richard sent for my iPhone.
Okay, so, if.
You've listened to this podcast for a while, I've gotten this question over and over and over, and I got to hand it to Photostick Mobile and Infinity Cloud. You really have done a good job of marketing your products. But when I go to your websites, that's when the party is over, because these websites are something that I would not really purchase from because they are you know. Actually, I'm looking at the Infinity Cloud one and you know this, it doesn't look as scammy as I thought. So, but
here's the thing, Ah, this is kind of weird. It only has four hundred and twenty seven ratings on their app.
That's kind of weird. That's not very much. Hmm.
Well, at any rate, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to order one of these things and I'm gonna have to see exactly how they work because I keep poopooing them and I shouldn't poopoo them as much. I should really see how they work and really try it for myself. So with that said, generally, I don't recommend these because you know this, this Infinity cloud actually doesn't look that bad,
but I have I need to test it out. But the thing that I have tested and I do recommend is the sand Disc I expand sand Disc I x P A N D and you plug this little flask drive into your iPhone, you download this software.
It's got an app.
It'll even prompt you to download the software and boom, all your photos are backed up and videos to this little flask drive and then you can erase them off your phone and have more more storage.
Now, I would not.
Recommend doing that unless you have these also in a different place, because if you ever lost this flash drive, boom, all your pictures are gone, so you need to also back them up. I would recommend something like Google Photos or Amazon Photos, whatever you want, get them somewhere else and get them backed up. It's getting tougher and tougher to find free cloud storage these days, so you know that's the main trick here is that everyone's starting to kind of turn that little clamp.
A little bit tighter. Right, It's like a little vice gript It's like we're gonna squeeze just a little bit of money out of you to store your photos.
Before it was all free and amazing Google Google Photos, you still get fifteen gigs of storage. On iCloud you get five gigs, which most people power through in about one backup. And then on Amazon Photos if you're a Prime member, you get unlimited storage for your photos, but they only give you five. I think it's five gigs of storage for your videos, which doesn't really get you
very far. And I like the idea of one of these little drives to you know, offload some pictures, but honestly, like I think it's just better in the cloud, Like why go through this whole process of of putting it on this thing that can like break or get lost or stolen or anything, when you know, put it in the cloud and you have a much better chance of it of it lasting because you know, the cloud is the cloud.
So that's my advice.
I will try to get one of these things, either one or both in the Photostick Mobile or the Infinity Cloud to really test them out and see maybe they're not so bad. But again, I think the cloud is a better place to do this. I know it costs a little bit more, but I just think it's a more secure way of doing it.
Anyway.
But if you want to go with one of these things, I would say in the meantime, check out the sand disc I expand all right, I was just in Santa Barbara yesterday.
My my, my.
What a beautiful place. What a beautiful place, and it was raining a little bit. I got this delicious pizza that I always get when I'm there from this place called Lucky Penny. If you want to see it, check out my Instagram at rich On Tech. Don't do it if you're hungry, because you will want to get this pizza.
It's so so delicious.
But anyway I say this, I was up there for an unrelated shoot yesterday. But Sonos is headquartered in Santa Barbara, and they came out with a brand new product called the Sons Rome and this is their Bluetooth speaker that's totally portable. And what I love about this speaker, even though I've not tested it yet, is that it is a Bluetooth speaker, which is portable, but it also links
into your Sons system at home. So this is a really cool speaker that you can keep on your desk in your office or in your kids room, and then when you head out to the beach or on a vacation, you can take this Sonos Rome. So I'll definitely be getting this speaker. It's one hundred and sixty nine dollars.
It's April twentieth when it's available, and I got to say, even though I haven't tested it, I have very high hopes because I bought the sons Move during the pandemic and this is kind of their big, big portable speaker and it does the same thing pretty much as the Rome, except it's bigger, so it has Bluetooth, also connects to your speakers. It comes with the wireless charging DOC or actually, yeah, I guess it is wireless. I mean you plug it in, but it's a DOC and I love it. I love, love,
love the Move. Every time we're outside in the patio, you know, with friends, family, whatever. I mean, you know, far and few between these days, but you know, during the pandemic, just hanging out outside in the backyard, which we did a lot, we would just take out the Move and it was so amazing because I used to have a Sonos plugged in in the backyard and of course when it rained, I'd remember to like bring it inside. The speaker got all beat up because it's just being outside.
But the move it's like, oh brilliant. You just bring it outside when you need it, and you move it back inside when you don't.
Oh.
Yes, that's why it's called the move anyway. So that's four hundred dollars. But this Sono's Rome is kind of the same thing for one hundred and sixty nine.
And yes, this is expensive.
As far as Bluetooth speakers go, but if you have a Sonos system at home, it is well worth it. And clearly you're spending a little bit more than the average bear on your speakers at home anyway, if you have a Sonos and so this is going to be a price point that.
Is pretty good.
Let's see what features does this have. It's got a feature called Soundswap, where you can press and play uh hold the play pause button on the speaker to switch the music to the nearest speaker on your Sonos system, making it easy to move music from room to room. That's kind of kind of cool. It also has unlock.
It unlocks Bluetooth streaming for your whole system, so if you're streaming Bluetooth to this Move or the Rome rather, then you can expand that exact same Bluetooth stream to all of your speakers, something I don't think has been available yet on Maybe I could do that with the Move. I don't know, I've never tried it. To me, I would just use airplay anyway. But you know if you're using Bluetooth that you know it's good for Android as well. Uh you know you know that Sonos works with over
one hundred streaming services. I call them the Switzerland of streaming because it just works with everything on mine. I've got like Apple Music linked up, I've got iHeartRadio linked up. I've got Serious XM linked up, I've got YouTube music link up. I think that's it and I just love it. I can't say enough for for Sonos. It's IP sixty seven resistant, so dust and waterproof, which is really cool for bringing it to the beach if you live near one of those, or camping or whatever. Now here's how
it charges. It has a custom magnetic wireless charger from Sonos that is sold separately. So that to me means well, this could have been two hundred dollars if they kept it in the box. But they make you purchase that later. But it works with any Chi wireless charger, and then also it has a USBC cable in the box. Would have been nice if they had this on a you know, if the magnetic wireless charger came with it.
But I get it.
They wanted that price point, and not everyone wants the wireless charging anyway, so you know, they figured make the price a little bit more appealing and you know, leave some things out of the box again. April twentieth, one hundred and sixty nine dollars the sons Roam. If you have a Sonos system and you know you're eyeing that move.
But it was just a little bit too pricey.
I think the rom is gonna be a really, really exciting addition to the sound system.
Are right?
Next question? Paul says, Hey, Rich, please help. With all the technology out there, I still can't figure out how to send a video that's more than five seconds long in a text. I have the one plus seventy Android. Are there any ways to send a video that's longer than a few seconds in a text? I'm familiar with dropbox, but I'd rather insert it in a text. Are there any androids out there that will do that. Thank you, Rich. I love your segments. Every morning, Paul sent outlook for Android.
Paul.
Here's the thing, SMS and video does not mix. So when standard texting was invented, it just didn't have the idea of sending a video through that little tiny pipeline. And so, yes, you can send a video through text, but it's gonna look like horrible garbage on the other side. And I remember my mom sent me a text with some video of snow that happened in her backyard, and it was just so sad watching it.
Because she's on an Android.
I get her a Google Pixel every maybe every other year, and she loves it. She doesn't want to switch to iPhone, so I keep her on the Pixel and she really enjoys it and she loves her pictures. And it's simple and it works. I can lock down the home screen. She you know, she doesn't use a lot of apps. But you know, she went to send me this video a couple years ago and it was just so terrible, and I felt I was just so sad because I was like, oh, here's my mom. She did this whole
thing and it just looks like garbled. You know, it's so garbled, So Paul, that's what you're experiencing. And you know on I message, you know anyone iphoned iPhone videos look amazing because guess what Apple is sort of bypassing the standard text messaging even though it seems like it's a text message, it's going through their proprietary I message system. On Android, we have that in a way, but not
necessarily supported everywhere. So a couple things you do. Number one, if you do have if you're on A one plus, I think their standard messaging app is Google Messages, so I would check to see if you're using that, and then it depends on your carrier. I think all of them at this point have instituted what's called chat, which is RCS. I know it gets a little complicated, but basically all the.
Maw do I explain this.
There is a standard for text messaging, next generation text messaging that does support large videos, large files. It's called RCS, and you can go into your messenger. I think they renamed it chat, and so you can go into your Messenger settings and make sure that chat is turned on. But that's only for sending it to another person that is also using the Google Messages app. And also has chat turned on, which means ninety nine percent of the time it's probably not gonna work in a beautiful way.
So where does that leave me? If you can do all that, great, The other way to do it is just, honestly, you got to get them to download an app to send videos, which I would recommend either Facebook, Messenger, or you can use something like Telegram, but or WhatsApp.
I mean, I would.
Probably just get you know, whoever you're texting this back and forth with. I would get them to you know, or use you know, something like Instagram. I mean, it's just you gotta use something to just, you know, make life a little bit easier. The whole chat thing, you know, the the rcs and the and the sms, it's just it's just too like on it's too unpredictable.
Right.
The person on the other end may have an iPhone, they may have an Android that they're not using the same app for, so it's just much easier to just say, hey, look like I did with my family, we're all on Telegram. Look, let's all just get on Telegram and this is how we chat from now on. And it is worked out beautifully. It has been amazing and we have this nice long chat that goes on forever and all in there my
whole family. It's amazing and it just works, and we send pictures, we send videos, we send texts, we send jokes, We chat in the morning and the night, all day, and it's just it's brilliant. So, Paul, that's what I'd recommend until the world figures out a cross platform way of getting iPhones, androids, androids and androids all to talk beautifully with SMS and send those large files.
Until then, I think an app is your best bet.
Now, real quick, if you just want to send one file, like if this is just a one time thing and you just need to send a large file, I would just use something like a dropbox or a Google Drive. Put it in there, generate a one time link, and then send it off that way. One other way you can do it is if you're on an Android and you're using Google Photos, there's a way to just generate a link for a video file. Just generate that link, send that link off, and boom, they'll get the nice,
high quality video file. All right, next story here, I'm sure you've noticed that gas prices are right near you, So I did a segment where I talked about you know, apps to find the best gas prices, and I hope.
I didn't do this last week? Did I? No?
I didn't, so uh, you know, I looked at gas Buddy, which is the most popular one, which it's okay, probably the most used, but the one that I actually kind of like is called gas Guru. And the reason I like this is because if you have an iPhone, you can set up a series shortcut to use gas Guru to find the cheapest gas near you in seconds. So you download this gas Guru app, you scroll all the way down and it says add to Siri. You hit that button and then you come up with a passphrase
like a serie shortcut phrase, I use cheap gas. And then anytime you say h Siri, cheap gas, boom, this app opens up, It shows you the cheapest gas, you navigate, and you get on with life. And so I think it's really cool. In fact, after you have this app installed, every couple of days or every day, I don't know, you'll see just like a suggested series shortcut on your you know notifications that says, you know, find cheap gas. So you tap it and it brings you in there,
so I really enjoy it. I've just been enjoying watching the gas prices go up and up and up, because I posted this picture to my Facebook page a couple of weeks ago about gas that was four dollars and ninety nine cents, and people went nuts, saying.
Rich, how dare you? This is a lie? Gas is not that expensive? And sure enough gas has slowly but surely crept up in price.
And I just keep laughing every time I see gas prices getting more and more expensive, because yeah, I'm paying them too. But the reality is I knew this was happening. I mean, that's why I posted that picture. So gas prices in California. You know, It's like, let's see so gas buddy. The thing I like about that, Oh I deleted already, but the gas guru anyway. So the point is, download one of these apps if you want to find cheap gas and.
Go for it. All right, let's get to the next question. Rich.
My wife and I love your reports. They're always destination viewing for both of us.
Wow, thank you.
We do not presently have a password manager app, and I wonder if you had a few that you could recommend, thank you, and.
Stay safe, Joe.
I think I talked about this on a previous show,
but I will be honest. I was up in Santa Barbara to get a preview of the password management app called Bitwarden, and now a couple of weeks ago when I talked on the podcast about how last Pass is going to start basically charging if you want the full feature set for their password manager on March sixteenth, I believe, and so I was talking about alternatives and I mentioned things like, you know, you can still continue with last Pass, just pay a little bit to get all your features.
I talked about.
Dash Lane one password, and a lot of people tweeted me and said, hey, don't forget about bitwarden Bitwarden Bitwarden, which I'd never heard of, and so sure enough I looked into it and it has some really great features for free. And so if you don't have a password manager app and you're looking for something that is going to continue to be free. And I just talked to the CEO and I said, are you going to charge when you know people sign up? He said, no, this
is We're going to be free. And so there are some things you don't get with free but honestly, for a majority of people, it's not going to be that big of a deal. The one thing that you probably that you might want with the free version that you don't get is passwords sharing. So if you want to be able to share passwords with a you know, a family member, you would have to upgrade. And now, by the way, upgrading is like ten dollars a year or like I think it's forty for the family plan. Whatever
it is. It's very it's not that expensive. But you can totally get by with their free version. I was looking at it yesterday. It's it looks great. I mean, it really does so Bitwarden, I would recommend Joe. You mentioned a password manager app, which I always tell people if you're only in the Google ecosystm them, or if you're only an Apple, just use the built in Apple. It has an iCloud keychain, you can just use that. Or if you're on Android and Google it's I think
they call it smart Password. Let's see what do they call They just call it Google Password Manager. So if you're on you know, if you use Chrome and use an Android, just use Google Password Manager and that can store all your stuff for free, and it's it's super easy, and it's you know, as long as you have a good password on your Google account, then you have a
good you know, password manager there. But I would use one of these third party services like a bit warden, a dash lane or last pass or a one password. If you use various devices like a Mac computer and an Android phone, or an Android phone and a PC. You know, that way you can store these things across all your devices. And that's the functionality that last Pass
used to have. But they are going to start charging for you have to choose do you want your passwords available on just mobile devices or on just you know, you have to choose one type of device, which is gonna be tough for a lot of people, because the average person is creating a password on their phone or their desktop and then using it on their phone or desktop like swapping vice versa. Right, And so that's the functionality they identified that would make it, you know, push
people to upgrade. Good question, Joe, thanks a lot, all right, Speaking of passwords, Netflix is beginning to crack down on passwords sharing outside your household. The streamable dot com with a big, big story here. They really, they really blew
the lid off of this one. Netflix subscribers are starting to see a screen that says, if you don't live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching, and then in order to continue, you have to verify the account with an email or text code or create a new account with a thirty
day free trial. Now, if you're friends with the person that you are sharing your password with, I mean theoretically, you know you would, you would call them up and say, hey, I just got a one time password, can you share
that with me? But Netflix knows that that's going to be just annoying enough to push a percentage of people into getting their own accounts, because let's be honest, if your friends and family are on your account, they're streaming at all different times and places, and it may not be convenient to call you up and get that code
from you every single time. Plus it's gonna get annoying. So, you know, depending on how many times Netflix pushes this out there, you know, is it every time they log in and here's how they're doing this, you know, or we don't know actually how they're doing it. I'm sure
they're using some algorithm to figure this out. But the easiest would be that I'm in California and let's say I share my password theoretically with a family member that lives in New Jersey, and so Netflix goes, Okay, we see that you're logging in from California, and then we just saw this log in from New Jersey from a different device.
Hmm, We're gonna give that person New.
Jersey a little prompt that says, hey, you gotta aren't paying, or you know, get your own password, or get this one time thing. That's pretty easy. Now, you might say, well, rich, I travel all the time. How are they gonna know if I'm traveling again? This is why they use an algorithm to kind of figure things out. They notice that your iPad primarily checks Netflix in California, but then all of a sudden it travels to Colorado and their algorithm
allows for that. Or they give you that one time code and you get it to your phone and your phone's right nearby and you pop it in and says.
Okay, just making sure. So they're gonna do this.
You know, this is a test, and they're gonna try this in various ways. But the reality is it's coming. It's been a long time coming. Netflix has been very generous with password sharing, and clearly they've gotten to that point again that little vice gript where they're just just turning.
It a little bit, a little bit, just squeeze a little.
Bit, and look, we're gonna see this as a theme over and over with these companies. They have been very generous in sharing and letting people do this as they grow. But as these companies get bigger and they say, look, you know what, you know, it used to be novel that you had a Netflix account, but now it's not so novel, Like this is pretty much the way of the future.
And so it was nice that you share it with.
Your mom and your grandma and your sister and your you know, your cousin and also your roommate from college.
But at this point they got.
To pay, Like it's maybe they were watching it for Queen's Gambit at one point, or like one show that was popular, and you know, now it's like there, this is an entirety of their streaming consumption, and so yeah, they can pay the eight ninety nine to get their own their own account, or the thirteen ninety nine or in my case, seventeen ninety nine premium plan that I pay for which gets you four K, so which I probably don't need. But anyway, be aware if you see
it right now. According to the streamable, it's only seeing the people are only seeing the test on TV devices, so that could be part of it. But anyway, just something to know and something to be aware of it. Jerry writes in Hey, Rich, you discussed fall detection on the last podcast. I purchased the Apple Watch with this feature immediately when it became available in twenty seventeen. My wife suffers from extreme tonightis and one of the effects of this is dizziness. The bouts of this can come
on quickly without any warning. At times, the dizziness is so bad she just to hold on to a poll or table to keep from falling O. The feature has interceded two times after my wife fell while walking the neighborhood. One time she was unconscious, the other time she was severely dazed. Thankfully, a neighbor came out and saw my wife both times after not receiving a response from her. The neighbor is an Apple Watch is an Apple user and realized what was occurring and let the watch complete
its task. It contacted our local nine one one and they dispatched rescue squad to her location. It also contacted me with a text message. This occurred within seven minutes of her fall, and the EMTs were on scene within fifteen Amazing. The app you discussed it was the best by app seems to add a couple of layers to this process, which I feel would delay the responses. Plus, why pay for something that came with the investment you've
already made for Apple devices. You are correct, besides crash detection with Google Pixel, I am a longtime pixel slash Nexus user. We need fall detection of the caliber that Apple offers. Have a great day, Stay safe, Jerry. Yeah, Jerry, Well, I hate to hear that your wife suffers from this, but I'm glad she's okay, And it is scary that that happens.
If you didn't listen to the podcast.
What Jerry's referring to is I was on a run and I tripped, and it was basically one of those trips that if I landed on the ground, it would have been bad, and yeah, the Apple Watch hopefully would have sprung into action. I was with my son and he was referring to the fact that I was talking about this best spy app they have now called Lively that taps into the API, the API that Apple Watch has written for other companies to allow them to take
advantage of the fault detection as well. I was not aware that Apple had done that, which is great, and so Jerry, I agree. I think that it does add a different layer to things, and I would agree with that.
But at the same time, I.
Still think it's good to have options, and I'm sure that that Best Buy solution, you know, even though they're doing a thing where I guess they use an agent to contact you first to make sure you're okay. Maybe there's an option inside the app to go directly to nine will one.
I'm not sure.
I haven't tested that app, so I don't really know. It's brand new, but I agree. I mean, time is of the essence in these situations. So yeah, having that Apple Watch native support is probably the best. But I would assume that these companies are pretty smart and they think about that and they say, you know, maybe they're calling someone I don't know. I mean, I think I
see both sides of this. I think it's good to have options, and you know who knows, maybe someone will come up with a smarter way than what Apple does, and you know, maybe we'll come up with the way where you you know, as soon as you start a workout, it's kind of like on guard and it's like, okay, if we if we notice a fall, we're going to contact immediately.
We're not even gonna wait that sixty seconds.
So I don't know, but I think that it's good to have options. I think it's good that we have systems like this, and I think they're only going to get better. I mean, like you said, it first became available in twenty seventeen, which sounds like a long time. At this point, it's four years. I can't believe it's been that long. But people are still learning about it. And with the crash detection on the Google Pixel, you know,
it's something that not everyone knows. And I called for Samsung to do something similar on their phone, and I call for Fitbit to do something similar on their watches. So we need more and more of this stuff, and I think it's going to happen more, more and more. But again, in some aspects, we're very much just at the beginning of all of this, and so I love that we have these options. I think Best Buy is
just one more option to have. And I'm glad that this has come into handy with your wife twice.
I hope it.
Doesn't have to work again, but sounds like it's an ongoing thing, and it's good that she has this Apple Watch and in your case, it's a great thing, and you know anyway, so I'm glad that you like the idea. I'm glad you like the Apple Watch if it's working for you to stick with it. But again, I like the idea that we have more options for people, and I hope that the options are even more generous in
the future. And just we get we see more and more of these and no matter what you're using, whether you're just carrying a phone or a watch, or even in cars, we're seeing.
More crash detection.
So it's a really good thing that tet technology is enabling this stuff. All right, let's talk about Twitter. This is kind of a small story, but it's interesting and Twitter. The number one complaint I see on Twitter is you know, the tech folks talk about Twitter compression and even on Instagram, same thing. It's like, ah, compressed my video, It compressed
my picture and it looks like garbage. And so often tech reviewers are sharing pictures from new phones and stuff, new cameras on there, and you just can't get an idea of how good it is. Because Twitter takes your image and it compresses it down so that it's cheap for them to store it and it's less expensive to send out, and you know, they can send it out quicker.
Maybe they keep the original somewhere I don't know, probably, but when they're serving it up to you on Twitter on your timeline, they're not serving up a high quality, high resolution picture because you know, that's cost too much money over and over to send it out to so many people. So Twitter for iOS is testing a new design and four K support. This is according to nine to five MAC.
So two things.
Number one, when you look at pictures in the timeline, they're no longer going to crop them.
Now.
There was some controversy about how Twitter was applying cropping to pictures and apparently their computers were not doing the best job at that, and now they're going to show the entire image and so now that's going to be
the number one change. The other change is that they're testing four K image uploads, which means when you look at these pictures, they're going to have a better resolution than ever before, which means you know, if you're looking at details on things, you can zoom in and see them.
So when you're sharing pictures on Twitter, you should be aware of this because you know, often when we share pictures, there could be some personal information lurking in those pictures if you zoomed in, and so just be aware that, yeah, people might be able to see more in your pictures
than ever before. And on the flip side, it's a cool thing because if you're sharing a beautiful picture of a beach or you know, for me, I would share a picture of like a you know, some kind of image from a new smartphone, it's cool that you can zoom in and see just how clear that image is. So if you want, if you're in this test, this is on Iowa only, you can go into Twitter settings,
then in data usage, choose the high quality option. Now there is a high quality option already in those Twitter settings, but unless you specifically see the word four K, you're not part of that test. You can you can always choose between high quality and kind of basic, but now it will specifically say four K. If you see that in your settings, then you are part of the test and you'll see four K images, which I think is really cool. The other thing is that this is only
images right now, nothing about video. So maybe four K video will come along in the future, but right now, this is just for images. And another note, how wild is it that we've come so long with Twitter? I remember the days when Twitter did not even support images. Used to use a service, a third party service to upload your picture. It was like called twit pick or all these other ones where you'd actually upload your picture there and then you would send out a link to
that picture on Twitter. And so we've come a long way.
All right?
Next question from Let's see car Let's see who is this from? This is from Carol uh Dear Rich. Is this just a come on to get us to give Google information? Or has someone really compromised my passwords? I change them constantly for this reason, and I do not trust the people at Google to give them any access to any of my passwords. Have you seen this before and what would you do about it? I'm a seventy eight year old grandma. I'm a target for scam. Sorry
to bother you. But I thought maybe others might have gotten this email as well. I would appreciate any help. Sincerely, Carol in Chesterfield, Missouri, and she sent along an email that says subject take action to secure your compromise passwords.
It says Google has.
Found some of your passwords online. Anyone who finds them can access your accounts. Your Google account is still secure. This leak came from somewhere else on the web. You can secure your saved passwords now using password manager take action and smartly. They also give a direct link that says you can also go directly to my account Google dot com slash security check up. And this kind of goes into what I was speaking about earlier about Google
storing your passwords. And I'll give you an example of this that actually came in handy.
So my mom a couple weeks ago.
Was like, I can't find my password to my work email. And I said, oh, I bet you. I stored it in Google Chrome for you because I don't, like I said, I don't use a separate password manager for her. Maybe I didn't say that, but I use I do store some of her passwords in Google Chrome, and so I said, go into Chrome press the three little dots, then press settings, then go to autofill and click passwords, and you'll see a list of.
A whole bunch of accounts.
And she said, oh, yeah, I do see my account there, but all I see your little dots. And I said, oh, pressed the little icon that looks like an eye, and you will have to type in your password to reveal that. And once you reveal that, boom, there is your password. And I said, press the copy password button and you can copy and paste that into the website. She said, Oh, my gosh, you're a genius. She said, I didn't even
know that Google saves my passwords. And you may not know this either, but you'll you will notice if you log into a website and Google sometimes says, hey, would you like us to save this password? And sometimes it happens so fast you might not even notice it. And Carol, that's exactly what happens here. You logged into a website and that little prompt came up. They said would you like us to save your password? And you said yes, And now these passwords are stored in Google. On Chrome
or Google, you can go to passwords. I think you can go to passwords dot Google dot com to also see them. And what they're doing is they're checking those passwords against open databases that they find on the web with exposed passwords, and if they find one of your passwords on there, they're going to send you this alert. So this is not a scam. It's actually real. And in fact, because they found this, I would I would go in and look at those passwords and see which
ones are compromised and I would change those. So I would go to passwords dot Google dot com and check and see what passwords are. If you go to Google password check up, it will tell you which ones are compromised and.
Yeah, something that you should do. Oops. So anyway, that is not a scam. It's real. It's legit.
And I know you don't trust Google with your passwords, but honestly, Carol, I would trust them more than a lot of people with my passwords, better than having them out in the open web, which it sounds like one of your passwords made it there. How does a password
make it to the open Web. Well, a site gets compromised, and so what happens is when a site gets hacked, all those passwords from that website in many cases are exposed on the open Web, and what happens is you get those passwords out there and next thing you know, these hackers try them on other websites and with your credentials. So you definitely don't want those floating around and you definitely don't want to use a compromised password continually.
So change those passwords. And good question.
I'm glad you're on the lookout for this kind of stuff. And yeah, so there you have it. All right, one more question before we go. Good morning, Rich. I am looking for facial recognition technology to support my genealogical research identifying old photographs, at least allowing me to group photographs of the same person. I heard your interview at Jennifer Jones Lee on KFI about animating old photographs, and I
was wondering if you have any ideas. I've performed several searches and have not found anything at a consumer level that is affordable. Most are for police and security, which does not meet my simple requirements. I am wondering if you have any ideas. Thank you for your time, Carl. Well, Carl, I do have an idea, and it's so simple it's
going to be mind boggling and here's the thing. So often we always look for these you know, you probably typed in facial recognition for photographs or something, and it probably came up with all these high end solutions, like you said, for law enforcement or whatever.
But here's the easiest way to do it.
Just toss these photos into Google Photos and boom, let it do its thing and it will find all the people in those photos with the same faces. So easy, right, And so I love this feature in Google Photos. They are the best. Apple also has this feature built into their Photos program.
You can do that.
I think Google is pretty good, and I think it's just a little bit easier, and it's free and it's simple, and you can use it on the web. That's what I would do. In fact, I'll let you take it one step further. When I digitized a bunch of old videos from when I was a kid, it will even search for faces inside those videos, which is just seriously,
seriously cool. So back in the day, you know, you record a home video that was like two hours long, not like today where we take these short clips and Google just goes through and all the faces in that photo in that video are now also logged. So if you have you know Uncle Adam a picture of Uncle Adam boom. It will also identify Uncle Adam in the videos that you upload. So I think Google Photos is the simplest way to do it. I think it's an
amazing way to do it. It's free, it's cheap, well it's free and or cheap depending on how many pictures you have. It's simple, it's easy, it's available, and not much that you have to do to figure that out.
So great, great question there, Carl. Good question to answer to end the show, because guess what that sound means? That is gonna do it for this episode of the show.
If you have a question for me to answer, you can submit it two ways. Just go to Richontech dot tv slash podcast hit the microphone button to leave me a voicemail, or go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash rich on tech and hit the big blue send email button. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help other people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech. Leave a nice little note and who knows, maybe I'll read it on a future show.
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It is such a cool thing to do. Try it.
Let me know what you think. I think it's just really really cool. My name is rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend an hour of your time. I really appreciate you spending it with me. Stay safe, I will talk to you real soon.