Brand new Fitbits, a more private Facebook, Roku hooks up with Alexa, an app to prevent spying on your computer, and Tesla Supercharges.
They're superchargers. What's going on? I'm rich dmiro.
This is rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about technology and answer your questions and talk about the things that I think you should know about that happened in the world of tech. The number one story, well maybe, I mean there's a lot of number one stories. But what I think is interesting from the consumer perspective is this is the week that the Samsung Galaxy S ten
is finally in stores. And you've heard a lot of people talking about these devices because a lot of tech journalists have had them for a couple of weeks now, including myself. We've all had time to play with them, and I think the consensus is there this is one of the best Android devices, if not the best Android device. And my review on my website at richon Tech dot tv, I go into all the details on this thing, but
the bottom line is this. I've been using the S ten for about I think two or three weeks now, and it's one of those devices that when you're on the Android side of things. It is everything that Android.
Is all about. Right.
It's got all the features you can ever imagine, including the wireless charging, including a headphone jack, including the expandable storage, the fingerprint sensor. Not a big fan of that in the screen, but it works. It's not that it doesn't work fast. It's mainly that I can't find it fast enough. So my suggestion to Samsung is to and this is very very simple for them to do. All they need to do is add it to their always on.
Display software update.
But just let me always have the target area for the fingerprint sensor on the screen at all times.
Now.
I don't know if that is going to mess it up with burnin or whatever, but right now you kind of have to. You know, if you lift up your phone, it doesn't necessarily it shows you you're always on display. It sometimes goes to your main screen with the thing your print sensor icon on there, but I'd like to see it there all the time. Maybe they can't do that for burn in reasons, but that's really my only problem with this device. Otherwise, I am super impressed. The
screen is beautiful, the design is beautiful. You will need a case with this thing. The cameras are amazing now, I mean amazing in their flexibility. Are they the best best cameras on any smartphone?
No?
I still think the pixel takes better pictures, but I do love having the three lenses. I think the iPhone ten R takes really nice pictures, as does the ten S. But when it comes to an Android device, when you crave that customizability is that a word?
Customizability?
When you want to be able to customize every aspect of this device, you can because guess what, you want to change the browser, you can change the browser. You want to change your email program, you can change your email program. You want to change the default map app, you can do that. You want to change what bixby button opens, Yeah, you can almost do that, except for Google Assistant. So the beauty of the Android platform is that you're in control. And if you ever had an iPhone,
they're amazing. They're great, great, great devices. But it is Apple's way or the highway, and that's the bottom line with an Apple device. Yeah, sure, you can download Apple Maps or Google Maps and ways and all these other music players and stuff, but at the end of the day, ninety nine point nine percent of the time everything is leading to Apple's way, which is you know, Apple Music, Safari, for the browser, Apple Maps, Siri. Everything is going towards Apple.
And it's not a bad thing if you've embraced the Apple world. But there's a whole other world out there of people that want to kind of set their own direction in life, and that's what Android lets you do. And I think right now the Samsung Galaxy S ten.
Is the best device for that. Is it perfect?
No?
Is it pretty darn awesome? Yeah? So again in stores now.
You can read my full review on the website rich on tech dot TV. But I think people are gonna be very happy with this Samsung Galaxy device. I think the only source besides the fingerprint reader for me is really some of the time it takes to get a
good picture in lower light situation. So I was at a event with my wife and we were trying to take a selfie and it just wasn't doing as good of a job as say the iPhone or the pixel and the iPhone even though the selfies in low light and especially any low light pictures just don't look very good, they get very pixelated. They still happen fast, right, It
still focuses fast, it takes them fast. I find with the Samsung there's like a little bit of a delay in low light situations where it really affects how you get a good picture. And maybe that's a software update, who knows, But that's really my only problem. Otherwise, this phone has been so much fun to play with over the past couple of weeks. I really think that anyone
that gets it will be very very happy with it. Now, if you are getting a Samsung phone and you are not a Spotify customer, they've got a pretty good deal for you six months of free Spotify premium if you are new to Spotify. So this only works if you have not had Spotify before according to the Verge, but this is all part of Samsung's sponsorship or partnership, I should.
Say, with Spotify.
So you can get six months of free Spotify, which is pretty cool. I mean that's sixty bucks right there. And again, just look for the Spotify app on your s ten, open it up, and if you sign up through there, you will get your six months free. So I do like that Pippitt has announced a few new devices. I feel like Pippit is always coming out with new devices. And it's funny because Pippit is one of these companies
that a lot of people get their stuff. Yet Fitbit doesn't do any big events Like this is a company that would do really well with a nice launch event.
Right.
You can have reporters go there, journalists, YouTubers, whatever. You can have it all set up kind of cool with like, you know, different stations for exercise and all this stuff. But they never do that. They just literally send out a press release and boom, you have like five new fitbits.
So the Fitbits, I'll go through them real quick. The Fippit Versa Light is basically the smart watch that I'm wearing right now, but it a lesser version apparently has all the core fitness and smart features of Versa like activity, sleep and heart rate tracking, plus notifications, apps and four day battery life. But the difference is the Versa I have has three buttons on it. The new Versa Light
only has one button. And that makes a lot of sense because the funny thing about my Versa is that the most confusing thing to me is what are these buttons do? I'm always pressing them and it's the wrong button. So I think they realize that and they're testing that one button is just fine. That's all they need. That's going to sell for one hundred and sixty bucks, and it comes in a bunch of cool colors, so that's
kind of nice. The Fitbit Inspire HR is sort of like their classic, you know, fitness tracker that looks like a wristband. This is twenty four to seven heart rate tracking, fifteen goal based exercises, sleep stages, whatever that means, and up to five days of battery life. So you can wear this for five days, and that's really nice, don't you know? You can't really knock the five days off because it's so nice to not have to charge your
wearable every day. When I was wearing the Apple Watch, it's like every single night you gotta charge it and you don't get sleep tracking.
So with the with.
The versa, I love it that I literally just charge it when I take a shower and it's charged up enough for the day, and you know, over the weekend, maybe I'll charge it one of the one of the full days or something. But I like having all my stats, so I don't I don't want to not have it on.
Especially for sleep. I love having the sleep stats.
On the Fippits, and so the Fippit Inspire HR is also swim proof, and that will sell for one hundred bucks.
That's kind of like the most common one.
That's probably the one i'd recommend for ninety nine percent of people, unless you like the idea of a smart watch one. Now, this one I don't really recommend. This is the Fipbit Inspire. They call it their most affordable tracker. But the thing I don't like about this is there is no heart rate sensor on this, So to me, these are not worth it. If you're not getting the heart rate sensor. Spend the extra thirty dollars get the heart rate censor. You get a whole bunch more data,
much more useful data. And I just think that the Inspire is something to get people on board because it's seventy bucks, but clearly it's going to sell for a lot less when you get it on special and deal and sale, So I think that it's just a better deal to get the Inspire HR or the versa with the heart rate. So just make sure when you're buying one of these trackers it does do heart rate, because I think that's the most important aspect and.
Finally, there's a Fitbit ACE two.
This is for kids ages six and up, and this has a swim proof design, fun colors, kid friendly features, and encourages more family time through physical activity, which is kind of cool, but also has parental controls to safeguard kids privacy and parents can look at their sleep habits, which I really like. That's pretty awesome. It's going to
be seventy dollars. And I will tell you my kid has been testing a smart watch, the cool Pad Dino smart watch, and it's funny because the feature he likes the most about it is the step count, which I would have never thought he loves getting those steps up. So I kind of love the idea that he's into that, and I like the idea that the fipbit does that.
I don't know.
I have a tough time with all these things with the kids, because, like, kids need to be kids. Right when I was a kid, I never thought about my step count or how much activity I was getting.
I just did stuff.
I was out all afternoon, just kind of playing in the street with my friends, riding our bikes, doing whatever until my parents called.
Me in for dinner.
So the fact that my kid has to think about, am I hitting ten thousand steps today? I don't know if I like that idea. But at the same time, if you know, if you have a kid that you think could benefit from this, I'm all for it, you know. So that's gonna be seventy dollars. These don't have a launch date just yet. They are on pre sale though, so you can order them. The fitbit feature that everyone will benefit from is a major redesign of the mobile app, so that's coming soon.
Fitbit says this will let you.
Further personalize your dashboard, better understand your data, discover new content, and connect with each other in fitbit social community. And I have not connected with anyone on Fitbit, but I was when I was wearing the Apple Watch. Connected with my wife and my sister who's a big fitness guru. Follow her on Instagram. She is your fave veggie gal. So that's my sister on Instagram, so go find her there. But she's a big trainer and really into fitness and
health and all that stuff. So I was on linked up with her and linked up with my wife, and so every time we completed a workout, we would see that and with one little tap on your Apple Watch, you could say nice job. Or they had these little cheesy things that were so funny, but they were canned, but I loved them, so we'd all send those to each other. So I think that the community when it comes to fitness is really important, and I like that
fitbit is doubling down on that aspect as well. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had a big post over the last week talking about Facebook and Instagram and how over the past fifteen years it has helped connect a lot of people.
But he's talking about kind of.
The future of things and where he sees everything going, especially when it comes to communication, and he says, but the ways people are communicating right now that are growing the fastest are private messaging, which is like Facebook Messenger, ephemeral stories, which is like Instagram stories. You can do stories a messenger, you can do stories on Facebook. You've got small groups, which I know the groups on Facebook pages.
A lot of people do that for small groups, and of course anyone can create a group on Facebook.
But the thing that he's noticing.
Is that people are preferring the intimacy of communicating one on one or just with a few friends and they're more cautious of having a permanent record of what they shared. And these are all very true things. So when Facebook came out and all these different platforms, people love sharing with as many people as possible. And that's still true for like influencers and stuff. But I think for the average person, they're much more focused on kind of the
idea of privacy. And if I post this, who sees this? Does my employer see this? Will my kids see this in the future, Can other people in my class see this?
Can my family members see this?
So I think we're all much more hyper aware of this based on just kind of how things changed. But Facebook, this is my favorite line. He basically says that they want to put privacy first on their simpler platform, right, So this is my favorite line. I understand that many people don't think Facebook can or even would want to build this kind of privacy focused platform because frankly, we don't have We don't currently have a strong reputation for
building privacy protective services. We've historically focused on tools for open sharing. But then Zuckerberg goes on to say that we have repeatedly shown that we can evolve, and I agree they have evolved, and so now they're going to do private encrypted services. So he goes through a couple of these things here, like private interactions, So again these
are kind of like direct messages encryption. He's going to focus more on end to end encryption, which means that basically no one can see your messages, not the government, not Facebook, no one unless they have the key to your message, which they don't, reducing permanence, which these are kind of like stories that last twenty four hours. I think the irony of that is that most people don't realize that their Facebook and Instagram stories.
I don't know about Facebook, but Instagram.
Stories, there's like your Stories archive, which I think is on by default, which does keep all your stories forever, but in a private way that you can go back to but other people can't see.
So I think that's kind of ironic.
Safety interoperability, which this is his big push to kind of unify messaging across WhatsApp, Facebook, Messenger, and maybe Instagram.
Is that the other one, so yeah, let's see.
I think I forget which one it is, but anyway, but he wants to kind of build keep all those all that messaging together, which I kind of like and then secure data storage. So again, Facebook, you know, they're trying to change with the times, and I think that will they be successful probably. I mean Facebook has adapted over the years, and I think that at this point, people love what Facebook has done for them. You know,
it's kind of connected people in amazing ways. But we're also smarter now and we understand and like, I find myself using stories way more now than ever before, because I like the idea of what I share there is.
On for twenty four hours.
If I share something stupid or lame or like, who really cares, It's only there for twenty four hours, right, And I'm not saying I'm gonna sit there and say mean things or really get at people because it's only there for twenty four hours. But I'm just saying I like the idea of I don't have to be so serious. Like Twitter is like a solid, like you know, record
of everything you say and it stays there forever. But I love the idea that story is just kind of like, oh, this is fun, this is cool, this is witty, this is interesting, this is something I just noticed and I can share it on there and boom, it's gone in twenty four hours and I don't really have to think about it ever.
Again.
Oh, by the way, in case you haven't noticed, on this week's show, I will not have phone calls because I was not able to do it some weeks.
I'm just busy.
I was out sick from work on one day this week and that really put me behind on a couple of things I'm doing. So no phone calls. But I still will talk about the stuff that I think I find interesting for you guys. But let's talk about Roku. They are hooking up with Alexa. So now if you have an Alexa, you can turn on the new Roku skill and basically let your Roku be controlled by Alexa.
So again, this works with the Amazon show, the Echo Show, the Dot, the Spot, the Plus, we got a lot of them out there.
But you can pause a show.
You can launch a streaming channel and search for entertainment by saying things like LEXA find comedies on Roku, lexa pause Roku, LEXA open Hulu on Roku.
Now here's my problem with all this.
I love that you can do this, right, but who in the world says something like lexa open Hulu on Roku right, or LEXA pause Roku No if I wanted to, if I wanted to pause, I would literally look at the TV and be like, can you pause that?
Right?
I mean that's kind of like where we're trying to get with these voice commands, and I think that we're getting better, and I see, look, this is a longer road. We're not going to have this overnight because if you just screamed out pause this, that means that your your device would have to be listening for all things at all times, and not just the code word. But it's funny that we have to do these things in a
very I call the very precise syntax. Right, you have to say things in a certain way, and eventually that will go away. But right now we're kind of in this in between stage of voice commands, and so that's why you have to say, find comedies on Roku. You know with that robotic voice. You don't have to use the robotic voice. That's just optional. But if you have a Roku TV, you can take things a step further.
You can turn on the TV, change the volume, mute the TV, change inputs, change channels, so I love that, or even turn the volume up. So again, if you have Alexa you've got Roku, you can link them up and you can do this. I have this hooked up in my house with Google Chrome Cast and also the Google Assistant, and it's it's great. I mean, I don't use it very often, but the level of support is
pretty cool. Like I can come home and I can say, you know, hg hey, Oogle, show me kids science experiments videos on YouTube, and oh, that's just activated my phone. So I apologize if I just activated your stuff. I didn't think that would happen. But anyway, so you know, the reality is it's really cool. And on my TV the way you know the modern TVs, the Chrome Cast will literally turn on your TV, tune to YouTube, and start playing the video.
And I find that really fascinating. I love it. I think that's really cool. Do I use it very often?
No, because oftentimes I can narrow down and choose what I want to watch in a much simpler way by doing it for my phone and then casting it to the TV.
But again, we're in the.
Beginning stages of this stuff, and in the future it will get better.
Okay, speaking of.
Google Assistant and Google Home, Google is rolling out according to Android Central. Continued conversations on their smart displays. So what is continued conversations? Basically, you don't have to say the code word or the hot word or the keyword whatever you call it, in between every command. Right, So, so we're in this place right now where everything you want to do you have to keep saying the little hot word to get Google to interact with you.
Right.
Well, if you have continued conversations turned on, which, by the way, you can turn this on for your smart speakers. So that's already been a thing, but now it's coming to the smart display.
So I've got one of.
These in my kitchen, and if you want to say, narrow something down after your original question, you can now do that.
So let's see.
It's gonna roll out over the next few days to all smart displays powered by the Google Assistant that are set to English. This is an optional feature that users can opt in and out of.
Now is it opted in for me? I don't know.
I have not tried this out, but I did have it. I did try it out on my smart speaker. I did not like it because it was listening too much after I was done, and so I turned it off like usually with my smart speaker. I'm doing like one command, what's the weather gonna be like tomorrow?
Fine?
And sometimes you know, I'll do another command, you know, like and what about next week?
But I'll it's fine. I can do to two hot words with a smart display.
It's interesting because you might be narrowing things down, like if I was looking up, Hey, show me recipes of sturfried fajitas or you know, sturfried beef sturfry. I don't know, show me recipes with beef sturfry, right, and it shows you a couple of recipes. I'd like to say, Okay, show me that first one, right, Like that's something that you'd want to use continued conversation for.
So it's useful.
I think it's more useful on the displays than it is on the speakers. I mean, everything has a place, depends on your use. But on the smart displays, a small assistant icon will appear in the upper left hand corner to let you know it's listening, and if you want to turn it off, you can go into your settings. Now, speaking of Google Assistant, remember Duplex.
That was that service that.
Would use Google Assistant to call restaurants or you know, a hair salon to book you a table or an appointment. Well, apparently it's doing pretty well. I have yet to use it, but Google says the system is getting much much better and because of all the feedback, they're making this feature available to more people. You can now use it on pixel phones in forty three US states.
So wow, wow, wow.
This was something that was literally just coming to like a couple of cities when they first announced it. And now and by the way, just the pixel three, so now it's all pixels and in forty three states. This stuff must be really good. It must be really useful. I'm going to try it on my phone and see what happens. Not right now, but when I'm done.
But yeah, all you have to do is.
Tell assistant, hey, can you book me a table for four at a restaurant tomorrow night? And the assistant will call a restaurant to see if they can do it, and then once the reservation is successful, you get a notification on your phone, an email update, and a calendar invite, so you don't forget about your reservation.
Brilliant.
It's the kind of thing that, of course I can see some restaurants being annoyed at but it's like, why not. If this works and the technology is good, hey, let's use it. So the other interesting part about this is that they're going to use it on, roll it out to Android devices, other Android devices, and also iOS devices, So this is clearly this is working really well. Again Google Duplex, I've got to I think I have a YouTube video on this.
If you search, I'll put it in the show notes.
But I saw this demo at Io. I think it was last year in twenty eighteen.
It was just so cool.
It just blew everyone away, and clearly it's doing very well. Facebook Messenger has a secret dark mode.
You should know about, so I will tell you.
I was not a big fan of dark mode, but when I downloaded Mojave on my MacBook, they had the dark mode.
I turned it on. I have been using it ever since, and I understand if.
You work in like a dark room, you'd like it, like a studio, editing bay, whatever.
But I don't know. I've just grown to like the dark mode.
And on the new Samsung Galaxy S ten, I don't know if it's automatic or what, but my phone switches into dark mode after a certain time of day. Maybe I turned that feature on I don't know, but it's built into the operating system. And I got to say, it's really cool when I'm looking at my phone late
at night before I go to bed. Well not really late because I get up really early, but you know, for me seven pm, it's in dark mode and it's kind of cool, and it takes me a second to realize, like, what's different about my phone right now?
Oh yeah, it's in dark mode. So the reason I tell you this.
Is because dark mode seems to be like all the rage right like dark mode is just super hot right now. And dark mode now has or Facebook Messenger now has a dark mode, so you can activate it. It's a secret activation right now. You send a crescent moon emoji in any Messenger chat, so someone told me, including myself, So you can send it to yourself and activate it.
If you don't have a friend to try this with, Hopefully you have a friend to try it with, you know, like come on, one of your friends should have a good sense of humor. But you can send the crescent moon emoji in a Messenger chat and next thing you know, you'll get the setting to turn on dark mode. And so dark mode on Facebook Messenger provides lower brightness while maintaining contrast and vibrant vibrancy, so it cuts down on
the glare for use in low light situations. So Dark Mode is available for all Messenger users around the world on the latest version of iOS and Android. Just send the crescent moon emoji and it will be in the settings eventually. But this is how you activate it right now. And by the way, I got a lot of emails when I mentioned this on TV, people saying, hey, Rich, I can't find this, why is it?
You know, what's going on.
You have to update your Messenger app to get you know, to use it. So my producer she she tried it and she's like, Rich, I'm not getting it. And I said, well, is your thing updated? And she looks you had like eighty nine updates. I was like, uh, there you go. So a lot of times, you know, on iPhone especially, you just kind of forget or even on Android, you just forget to update your apps.
Sometimes I don't.
Personally, I'm obsessed with updating my app, so I never forget to do that. But if you haven't updated your apps in a while, that's probably why you can't find the dark mode another app I talked about on TV this week, which i'll mention here, which is really cool. It's called Aptive. I don't know if I mentioned it in podcast before, but I did my segment on TV this week about it and Aptive aap tiv is a
really cool fitness app. It is think like a workout app, but no video, so it's all audio driven, so you choose.
My favorite part is just filtering the workouts.
They have them for running, they have them for cycling, they have them for spinning, they've got them for treadmill, they've got them for the Staremaster, and it's great. You pick how long you have for your workout, you pick what kind of music you want, you pick your level of intensity, beginner, intermedia, advance, and next thing you know, you're off and you've got a personal trainer basically in your ear telling you what to do.
It's amazing. I love it.
Highly recommend you check it out. You can use it in the gym or anywhere else. Obviously you might need some equipment for some of the workouts, but it's pretty darn awesome. They've done a great job. It's super high quality. They've got deals with the record label so the music is actually legit and you're not listening to some manufactured music on like garage Band.
Again.
If you want to read the full review, go to my website richon tech dot tv and look for Aptive. It's available for iOS and Android. The only thing I'll say about them, which I don't personally like is they are a little aggressive in their tactics for getting you to sign up. So my advice sign up for the free trial, and yes, I think you have to put a credit card in, but even if you cancel in your free trial, you will get a lot of emails about signing up at cheaper and cheaper rates. So that's
my advice for you with Aptive. I think you're gonna love it. It's fifteen bucks a month for full price, by the way, one hundred dollars for the year. I think at one point I got an email for either seventy dollars for the whole year or even fifty dollars for the whole year, which is a fantastic deal for that app. Another app to know about if you have a Mac is called Oversight. This is an app that
I found on product Hunt. I thought it was pretty cool because it sends you a notification anytime a device tries to activate your camera or your microphone on your computer. And you might think, well, Max, don't have malware, But that's not true.
They list a.
Couple of them, fruitfly crisis mokes. They all attempt to spy on Mac users. And here's the thing you might be saying, Well, Rich, I can tell when my microphone or my webcam is on because my little light lights up next.
To the webcam.
Yes, I get that, but number one, these guys are smart. You think they don't know that there's a little light when it's activated. They can figure out some way to turn that light off.
Maybe they can't. Maybe I'm wrong.
I don't know, But if I was trying to hack computers, I try to activate the microphone and the webcam without turning on the little light. But they're saying in this little blog post about oversight is that these apps will actually piggyback onto existing sessions. Like if you're using FaceTime and your micro and your web I keep saying microphone and your webcam light is already on. Guess what, my
little malware will piggyback on top of that. So you think you're just on a Skype call, but realistically, this malware is still monitoring you because you have an active webcam connection, and then even when you stop that Skype call, you might not notice for a while that your light
is still on. So that's pretty interesting. But the app is called oversite and you can get it at a website called objective dash c see dot com Objective dashc dot com and it monitors your max mic and webcam and alerts you when it's activated or whenever a process activates the webcam. And you have the option to allow or block this every single time, or you can say, like yeah, FaceTime wants to do it all allowed every time, so it's up to you. But this is again available for the Mac.
It's free. I've got installed on my computer, definitely liking it.
I haven't seen anyone activate my stuff just yet without me knowing, so that's a good thing.
But there you have it.
Another fun little app I discovered again on product hunt this week, which is, by the way, a fantastic resource. You got to go through a lot of stuff, but they do everything that happens in the tech world is posted there.
Really.
But this one's called twimage and so it does something very simple. It's only for Android, by the way, but it turns tweets into shareable images. So I don't know if you've ever been surfing on Instagram, but you see how people post, like what they said on Twitter to their Instagram.
People that have a large following will do this.
They'll post something to Twitter, it goes viral or a lot of people like it, and the next thing you know, there's like a screenshot of it, format it and post it on Instagram.
Well, this lets you do that pretty easily. But with any tweet.
It could be your own tweet, it could be someone else's tweet, something you saw, a quote that you saw that you like.
So it's very simple.
You just basically download it on Android, You search for the username of the person that you want to quote their tweet, You tap the tweet you want, and next thing you know, it puts it into that square format and you can change the background. You can make it a custom color, custom background, and then you can share the square image to wherever you want Instagram or wherever.
If you want to do the.
Classic which is basically like just tweet on white background, it does that, or you can do anything you want. You can do various colors, you can do leopard skin, whatever you want. But again the app is called Twimage twimm Age. And finally in the podcast, Let's Talk Tesla. Now, I was not obsessed with Tesla until they came out with the actual thirty five thousand dollars version of the
Model three. And now I've built one no less than like three times online because I really can't believe that Elon Musk made good on his promise for a thirty five thousand dollars car. So it's there. When I first looked it up last week. I think I might have talked about it in the podcast. Even it literally was shipping in like two weeks.
Now that has.
Slid to about six to eight weeks, so it's not as immediate gratification. But again, Tesla doing a great job with the getting the Model threes out there. Now they're announcing the Model Why next week in Los Angeles. For some reason, Tesla does not like me and they will not respond to any of my emails when it comes to these events. I don't know what I said about them, what I did to them, but they.
Literally just it's so weird. I get to a certain point with the Tesla folks where they're.
Like, oh yeah, yeah, here, let me get you the right person, and as soon as I get to the right person, it's crickets. So clearly I'm on some kind of list there at Tesla where they're like Rich Demiro is not allowed to come to our events. Which is so weird because five years ago when Tesla was starting, six years ago, eight years ago, no more than that, because I was at I think I was at Kekel, Like I mean, I did an interview with Elon Musk at the last at the event at the UH when they launched.
I forget was that.
Tesla whatever it was, but like literally they're like, well, would you like to interview Elon?
I'm like, of course I would, and I got a ride in the car. But after that, I.
Don't know what I did wrong, but clearly I am not welcome at Tesla anymore. I don't know why, Tesla, if you're listening, which I don't know why you'd be, but please, what do you have again?
It's me anyway, but they are.
They just unveiled the version three of their supercharger, and this is in Fremont, California.
According to Teslarati.
I guess they were invited to this this event, but really cool. So all you need to know about this model of about this version three is that it charges cars really fast. So I'm not going to go into like the peak rate. I mean maybe you know what that means, two hundred and fifty kilowatts per vehicle, but basically the long range Model three can replenish seventy five miles of its range in just five minutes.
That's awesome.
The in comparison, according to Teslarati, the V two would have a peak rate of one hundred and twenty kilowats per vehicle. So again, the V three upgrade would reduce typical charging times to about fifteen minutes. That is phenomenal. I think when I charged, I did do a test drive with the Tesla. This was the last thing I did with them. They lent me a the ludicrous edition of the regular Tesla and it was amazing, and I
had to charge it a couple of times. I think it was about a half an hour for a charge. You're talking about half the time for a charge. So anyway, that's the supercharger. It's just you know, the reason I tell you this not you know, if you own a Tesla. I you already know this stuff. But what I'm saying is this stuff is advancing at a very rapid pace, and it's pretty amazing when you have a company like Tesla that just continues to push the envelope. I mean,
I was a naysayer. Maybe that's what happened. Maybe that's why they don't like me, because I was like when they when the Model three was coming out, I was like, give me a break. Nobody's my friends were putting down thousand dollars deposits. I was like, you're never going to see this car, And sure enough, they all have it now. And you know, I'm I'm a little jealous because the Tesla Model three. Every time I see it now on the road, I'm like, I kind of want that car.
But you guys know, I'm a Dave Ramsey guy, and for me to buy a brand new car is tough. For me to buy an unproved electric car is tougher, and for me to not buy a one to two year old used car is toughest. So maybe when the Model threes are like three years old, I'll put my used you know, I'll buy one for twenty grand used. I don't know, maybe that's what my plan should be. But I do love the look and the feel of
the Model three. It's a great looking car, and the fact that Elon has delivered props to him because against all odds, and this company is not.
Out of the woods just yet.
They have everything against them, basically except consumers who love what they're doing. You know, all the other car companies, you know, they all want them to fail, but consumers love what they're doing. It's very clear, especially on the roads of California, that this car is popular, and the Model three. They've gotten so many of them out there, more than I imagined, and they're they're continuing to just try to do what they can to change the way that
we think about driving, especially with gas cars. So anyway, love that they're doing that. And that's going to take us to the end of today's show. Thanks much for listening to the podcast. I do appreciate it. You can find me online rich on Tech on Instagram. I'm on Facebook, Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech. The website is rich on Tech dot tv. Now, if you're listening to this podcast and you're about to press that stop button
and you're like Okay, thanks for another good podcast. Rich Let me just tell you the best thing you can do for me.
Two things.
Right now, you can buy a copy of my book one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone on Amazon.
You may not need it.
But maybe someone you know does and they if you know someone with an iPhone that you think could use a book that tells them how to use it in a very simple way. Things got almost seventy ratings on Amazon and it's four and a half stars, which is amazing. You know, it's not easy. It's not easy to get four and a half stars on Amazon.
So people love this book.
The reviews all say the same thing, I am learning about my phone. I love the tips, and it's easy to understand. That's the most important part. This is not a book for tech nerds. This is a book for someone in your life that maybe a little bit tech challenged or someone that even knows about the phone, and you still think, like, hey, I bet you I can teach them something about it. So that's the other way,
or the one way. The other way is to tell folks about this podcast, tell folks about me, Share my Instagram, share my Facebook, share a screenshot of this podcast. Let your friends know, Hey, this guy Rich, you know, he's talking about some cool stuff and I pick up some good tips from him. So the podcast again, just tell him is Rich on tech or share on social media.
That's the best way because then they see that you're listening and say that you're learning a lot, and let people know that it's not just for the nerds, you know. I mean, obviously I love you guys. If you're a nerd like me, I love you, But I try to appeal to the everyday person that's busy, that's working, and just you know, I'm giving you kind of the rundown of some of the interesting things happening in this fast changing tech world. All right, the website again, Rich on
tech dot TV. I'm Richdmiro. Catch me on KTLA mornings at some crazy hours five am, seven am, nine am, or watch me in other places around the country on our tribune TV stations.
Thanks so much for listening. I'm Rich Demiro, rich on tech dot TV. I'll talk to you real soon.