NFT's explained

reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. There's a little bit of hesitation there, as if I didn't know, as if I hadn't been doing that for eleven years. Now eleven years. Isn't that wild to be at one place for eleven years? I mean I never really considered that. I mean, it's just time fly, it really does. I mean I've had two kids since I've been working there, you know, bought a house, different cars. I mean, a lot has changed, but not me. I mean, well, I

guess I have. But I feel like I'm the same person. But I'm not. I mean, I know I'm not, that's for sure. I Mean a lot changes in ten years, but I've got to say, overall, it's been really fun and gosh, now I sound like I'm stopping this I'm just introing this show. I don't know why did I get on that tangent. Anyway, So the holidays are in full swing. I'm sure you've decorated at this point. Perhaps I know I did, and I'm kind of one of these people that I love once the decorations are up,

and I don't mind decorating. It's just the idea of decorating that really really kind of scares me. It's like, okay, it just gives me a little bit of anxiety, Like, Okay, I've got to go out into the garage. I've got to find all this stuff. I've got to organize it. I've got to clip it up. You know. The lights I never really understand, Like every year I think I throw out my lights, saying oh, I'm gonna get new lights next year or new deck. I'm gonna throw out

this decoration and get a new one next year. And then the next year I'm like, now where's that decoration? And my wife is like, well, you threw it out. Remember of course, you know when the next year comes by, and it always comes by so fast, says remember, you're gonna buy all the new lights in July. Well that didn't happen. But once everything is decorated, I really do enjoy it. And this year especially, I really like having alex A controlling my lights. I've got all the outdoor

lights coming on at a certain time. I've got the inside lights coming on. The only thing I really wish I could do because when I come home, I say alex A, Merry Christmas, and that flips on the lights. I just wish I could have all my music come on at the same time. And I know there's a way to do it, but I can't seem to figure out how to do it with my sonos. I can do it with like the Amazon speakers, but not my sons, and I think I could do it with like one sons.

But anyway, you know, little things. But my dad is also in town, which has been really fun. And it's funny because I asked my dad when he was you know, when he's here, and I'm like, Dad, did you like decorating for the holidays when we were kids? And I fully expected him to be like, oh no, I just did that for you guys, but he was like, oh no, I loved it. It was the greatest. I always look forward to that and I was like, oh, man, so I guess, I guess. I just I don't have the

spirit as much. I don't know, but I do. I mean, last night we watched one of those Hallmark movies, you know, those cheesy movies, and it was it was fine. The movie wasn't the best one, but you know, it's fun to sit there with your tea and you know, we have these little I don't know why, we like these special little cookies. The are the uh oh, what are they? The what's that brand? Pepperidge Farms. They're called Chessman cookies and they're just simple, like little I don't even they're

not even sugar sugar cookies. They're just like cookies that are so simple, but they're so fun with like tea and watching your movie and you know, so we did that and it was nice and it's just like that cozy feeling you have right like once a year, like let all the the issues and troubles in the world drift away for like two hours while you watch this show and it's just anyway, it was nice when all the lights are on you're just sitting there and anyway, So,

by the way, Dad's in town, Like I mentioned, and it's so funny the impact that I guess television and movies have on a tourist when they come to Los Angeles because and YouTube, by the way, So I mean, my dad knew about everything in Los Angeles and wanted to do it all. And I'm like, really, so they want like Universal Studios, Paramount Studios, a tour of Dodger Stadium. They knew places in the valley, they knew places at the beach, and I'm like, how do you know all

these places? They knew Sunset Boulevard, some little like real estate place that we passed on Sunset Bulevard, Like that's selling Sunset I'm like what, and they just it's so I see why the tourist industry in Los Angeles is flourishing. It's because Los Angeles is plastered across every movie and TV show and YouTube video around the world, and so when people come here, they just want to see it all. All right, let's get to the first story of the show.

Instagram might be bringing back a chronological feed. This might be happening in twenty twenty two. So I'm not sure if you saw, but Instagram head Adam Mosei was he was speaking before Congress. I guess speaking is a nice way to put it, or this was the Senate rather and I guess being grilled is a nicer way of

putting it, and or the real way of putting it. So, you know, Instagram has come under fire, like Facebook and like other social media for really having an effect on teens' lives, not only the behavior, but also their habits and just you know, they're also doing dumb things because of it. Not so much Instagram, but I feel like TikTok is really an up and coming kind of source of interestingness.

Let's put it that way with these TikTok challenges. But anyway, it's funny because the way I see the laws and kind of things happening, like right now, we're so fixated on Instagram and Facebook, but the reality is TikTok is having a very big impact in these young people's lives, maybe even more so than Instagram, especially more than Facebook. I mean, Facebook is now I hate to say this, but it's for the olds, you know, It's for the older generation who have stuck with it or found it

later than the younger generation. The younger generation moved on to Instagram, and then the older generation found that and now the younger generation has moved on to TikTok, and that's just the way it is. I mean, there's always going to be that element of the youngest people finding the newest ways of doing things. That's kind of been like that forever. But anyway, so Instagram, you know, the whole thing about the hearing is just basically, do we

need regulation for these apps? And Instagram, of course and Facebook want to have self regulation, kind of like the Motion Picture Association. You know, they rate movies themselves. Nobody there's no governing body from the government that rates movies. It's the industry association. And that's sort of the model that Instagram and Facebook want, whereas the government says, I think we need something that's more from the government. And of course that's debatable, I mean, depending on how you

feel about this stuff. But the reality is that is happening. It's actively happening. But during this Senate hearing, the head of Instagram, Adam Moseerri, who's not one of the guys who founded Instagram. The founders of Instagram left a long time ago. They were pretty unhappy with how Instagram was

being changed. It started as just a place to share beautiful pictures, and as you know, it's become kind of a mini clone of Facebook and so anyway, but one of the big changes over the years is this chronological feed. When you used to have Instagram, when you logged in, you would see pictures in the order of your friends posted them from the oldest to or I guess the newest to the oldest, and you know that went away

for an algorithm. An algorithm decides based on how likely you are to interact with something, and because of course these apps want you to stay on there as long as humanly possible, they put stuff in front of you that they think you will interact with. And you know, a lot of people cry about that. They don't want they want the chronological feedback. And now it looks like

Instagram is going to give people that option. It looks like it's gonna be an option to see posts from people you follow in a chronological order, and a favorites feed from a posts that you designate from friends. Those will be higher in the feed. And all of this will be optional, of course, you know, and they won't make it. They'll probably make it easy to switch, but they won't make it apparent to switch. You know, they'll

they because they want the algorithm. That's really of course, they want the algorithm because that makes them the most money and it keeps you on there the longest, which I guess makes them the most money. The other thing, and I don't know, maybe I was on the test of this, but they are doing suggested posts from accounts

you don't follow. I've been seeing this for a while and I feel like I actually haven't seen it in a little bit, but it was definitely there for a couple of weeks and I was like, what are all these posts from people that don't follow? Some were cool, some were not. I might have found one or two people that I've do I do follow, but again, it's trying to be more of a place of discovery. If you look at TikTok, you don't have to follow anyone to use that service, and you can just swipe through

and swipe through. And that's how reels works on Instagram, and that's how they want the main feed to work as well. So lots of changes come into Instagram in twenty twenty two, We'll see what happens with the time limits and all that stuff. They said they're going to give parents away to do time limits for their kids, which I think is very very smart. All right, first question comes from Lauren. I have a Samsung S eight phone with the three G going away. I need a

new phone. I'm looking to switch to an iPhone since most of my other devices are Apple. Will my data transfer to the iPhone? Thirteen? Thank you, Lauren. Yes, all of your information will transfer to the iPhone. It's actually pretty amazing. There is an app called Move to iOS, which is from Apple. But have they updated this in a while. I feel like they haven't let me see, and I'm not even sure you need it. Oh yeah, they did November nine, twenty twenty one, so you know

you can do that. But I think yeah, Move to iOS is Let's see. Everything about iOS is designed to be easy. This includes switching. With just a few steps. You can migrate your content automatically and securely from your Android with the Move to iOS. No need to save yourself, your stelf, your stuff anywhere before switching to Android. It will transfer your contacts, your message history, camera photos and videos,

your bookmarks, your mail accounts, and your calendars. So yeah, Basically, it says that your iPhone creates a private Wi Fi network, it finds your Android device running Move to iOS and it transfers all of your stuff, so pretty simple, and honestly, all of the phone manufacturers have made it very easy to swap between devices, whether it's Samsung to iPhone, iPhone

to Samsung Android. You know at large like one Plus, also Google Pixel, they've all made it pretty easy to kind of sucking suction up all your data from another phone, and sometimes with the iPhone to iPhone it's very very easy. And you know, with these other cross carriers it's actually pretty easy as well, or cross manufacturers, So yes, Lauren, will be very easy. Download the move to iOS app

on your Samsung and then have your iPhone nearby. The main thing you don't want to do is get rid of your Samsung before you have your new phone, and that's in general with any phone that you get. The best way to do it is to have your old phone physically there. That way you don't have to back up everything to the cloud. It will pretty much directly transfer things from your phone to phone, which is much faster than going up to the cloud and then back

down to the new phone. Speaking of apps, this is a popular app app called Life three sixty. A lot of people rely on this app as a family safety app. It can show you where your family members are on a map. I've recommended it many times. It also can help in a car crash situation. There's just a lot of family safety features built in, so a lot of people rely on this. They've got like over thirty million users,

a lot of them kids and parents. But this website, the Markup has a big kind of an expose on them, saying that they are one of the biggest data brokers, or they're not a data broker, but they're one of the biggest data sources in the world. And this is from two former employees who say they you know, they worked at Location data brokers and the Life three sixty people were one of the biggest sources of data for them. Now let me explain how this works. So number one,

they are not doing anything that's personally identifiable. So yes, they're sharing location of all their users and where they are. And this can be very valuable because think about it, if they've got thirty three million users, they can tell which restaurants are hot, they can tell where people are going, they can see trends there's a lot of information that can be gleamed just from location data. And again it's these Life three sixty is not necessarily selling that trend data.

They're just selling the raw data to a data broker who then sells it to marketers. So it's kind of a one to two process to get this into someone else's hands. And so you know, Life three sixty has said that they actually emailed a response from the CEO to the markup saying that we see data as an important part of our business model that allows us to keep the core Life three sixty services for free for

a majority of users. And that's probably true. I mean, there's this old adage in the tech world that you know, if you're not paying for something, you are the product, you know, especially if it involves data. And we've seen that with Google, We've seen that with Twitter, We've seen that with Instagram, We've seen that with Facebook. I mean, these are giant platforms YouTube that we rely on for information,

data services, and they're all pretty much free. Yeah, there might be some paid level to them, but the basics are free. And so they're free because they are either selling us ads or they are gathering our information and using that to sell us ads, or they're selling that location, or they're doing a combination of both. So Life through sixty I don't think you necessarily need to stop using it, but it probably would have been nicer if it was a little bit clearer that they were using data in

this way. Now, if you dive into their terms and conditions the privacy policy, it does say that they use the user data that it sells. It does say it sells the user data, and it also may share your information with third parties in a form that does not reasonably identify you directly. And so they're saying it in

the privacy policy. But who reads that, no one? But I think the big takeaway here is you just have to realize that your information is being taken in many, many different ways, take advantage of the ways to fight back, and that the main thing is that when you are downloading an app on your phone, there are a couple questions that asks you when it comes to user location. Number one, it will ask you if you want to

give precise location or a general location. So always always always go with general location, unless it's an app that requires specific location, and that would be an app like Life three sixty, which is why their business is so brilliant. People don't want to see that their kids are in town. They want to see that their kids are in their specific school. And so if you did precise location, you

would see their school. If you said, oh, I'm only going to give you the general location, yeah, that would not be very helpful with an app like this. Now with an app like uh Uber, yeah you got to give specific location. But there's another way you can do it too, is say only while using app. So ninety nine percent of the time these apps want to trick you into giving your data up twenty four to seven so they can always just siphon this off and sell it. But again, you got to fight back with some of

these things. Don't give more permissions than they need, and don't give them those permissions for a longer time than they require, and really think about it with apps, do they need your precise location? No? If they don't, then just give them your general location. If you can give them one time access to your location, that's even better, so that when that app closes out, that's it. They don't have access to your location anymore, and they're going to nag you the next time. That you open up

that app. But that's fine. Next time you need to use an app, you can just say okay, like a you know, even something as simple as a weather app, you can say, yeah, just one time use like I just want to check the weather right now, close it out. It doesn't do anything in the background. Next time you open up that app, you can give it the information

again or location access again. So just you know, these little things, these little menus that you kind of go past really quickly on your phone, just take a second to read them, because there is some important stuff, important choices inside these menus or inside these I guess they're what would you call them, like a pop up box, Like you know, when you're first setting up the app, that's when you see it. Okay, Lama Locks says, what's the best Android cell phone? Uh? I would say the

best Android cell phone is the Pixel six. Pixel six is going to be your best phone of the year. There are many Android phones out there. I absolutely love the Pixel six. Now I've been using the Pixel six Pro, so I actually don't really have hands on time with a Pixel six, But I'm just saying Pixel six because it's three let's see six eight hundred. I think it's two to three hundred dollars cheaper. How much is it? Let me say so. The let's see, the Pixel six

is six hundred. The Pixel six Pro is I thought it was eight ninety nine. Hold on, hold on, I gotta see something here. I'm right. I actually just did my review of the Pixel six Pro, and yep, I've got to I've got to change that. I don't know why I said eight hundred dollars. It's it's actually nine hundred dollars. I gotta I gotta redo that. But yeah, nine hundred dollars uh for the Pixel six Pro, six hundred for the Pixel six. So great, great value there

for either one of them. But I think that the Pixel six is probably gonna be best for most people. It's got a great camera, it's got great software, it's got good processor, it's got that tensor, it's got a great voice to text. The main thing you don't get with the Pixel six versus the Pro is the telephoto lens and a little bit less ram, which means your phone's gonna be a little bit slower than the other one,

than the higher end. But I think for that three hundred dollars you're you're doing just fine, and plus you get the nice Google software and it's just a great all around phone. I can't I can't speak highly enough of it, and it's really challenged me with the iPhone because I love the iPhone, but this, this Android Pixel six Pro, it's one of those phones like I can't really put down. I really really like it. I'll have my full review soon on TV. But I've just, yeah,

really fall in love with this thing. The funny thing is, you know, Pixel is supposed to have a monthly update on the first Monday of every month, and so I've been waiting for that for the Pixel six Pro because there are some little things that I wish were fixed,

like the fingerprint reader is really slow. But it's funny because the one time that I've been waiting for an update, of course they don't do the update on the schedule, and they said, oh, we're going to do that update in the middle of the month, and so I've been waiting for that update and it's still not here. But I did my review anyway, and it's still a fantastic phone.

The only the only main thing, the only main issues I have is that the phones are big and the fingerprint reader is really slow, but otherwise I think it is excellent. Uh okay, Oh, speaking of Android, if you have one, you need to know about this. Google is confirming an Android bug that prevents people from dialing nine to one one. So here's what you need to know. So, there was a Reddit user that tried to dial nine one one for his grandmother and his Android Pixel three

got stuck it like wouldn't dial it. Now, that is a horrible, horrible scenario. Can you imagine not being able to dial nine one? And I've thought about this because I test a lot of phones, and you know, sometimes I've been out and about with like a test phone. I'm like, oh my gosh, do I have a you know, working simcard in this? Like will this let me dial nine one? Like, I've thought about this, and it's a

bad scenario to be in if you need help. So this redditor said that it was a Pixel three running Android eleven on Verizon tried to dial nine one one. And it turns out the problem here is Microsoft Teams. So if Microsoft Teams is installed on the phone but specifically not logged in, so there could be a various scenarios where you install the app. Maybe it was a restore whatever, you just never got around to logging in. That is somehow interacting with Android eleven and not letting

you dial nine one one. So Google did look into this situation because it's got a lot of play on Reddit, and they said, oh, yeah, we did. This is true, and so here's what you need to do. They are going to fix it, right, there's gonna be a permanent fix, but they in the meantime, they said, if you want, if you're using Android ten or newer devices and you have Microsoft Teams installed, sign out or sorry, uninstall it and then reinstall the app. Or you can just uninstall

the app. So what I would do personally, if I don't use Microsoft Teams on my phone, like maybe I needed it during the pandemic, I don't need it any more on my mobile, I would just uninstall it and then restart my phone. The other thing you can do is uninstall it, reinstall it, and then make sure you're logged in. And the problem with nine one one is

you can't really do a test call. You know, It's not like you're gonna sit there and dial nine one one and say, oh, oh okay, just making sure everything's working here. Man, I to dial nine one one? Was it? It was a it was a couple of years ago, and it's it's scary when you have to dial nine one. I mean it's but I gotta say that the help arrived fast. I was impressed with that and it wow, but my gosh, that was a yeah. Not not something you want to do all the time. So anyway, those

people that answer those calls are are well trained. We went to a facility where they answer those calls, and those people are trained well and they're they're very very calm, and they're doing they're doing good work. Anyway. So if you have Microsoft Teams and you're not signed in on Android, uninstall the app, reinstall it, or just leave it uninstalled and uh and wait for this permanent fix. All right. Next question is from Lance. Hey, Rich, my inbox is full.

I have one hundred plus emails from br dot com. Can I block all emails coming from Brazil on iOS and Mac? Thanks? Lance? Yeah, you should be able to do that. So what you want to do is set up a filter. And I tested this with Gmail. Gmail filters are pretty easy. Just type into the search box now, I didn't see what kind of email you have, but pretty much you should be able to do this with

any email provider. So you're saying on iOS and Mac, what I would do is go to your web your webmail interface for whatever provider you have, and make a filter for br dot com and just filter all those into the trash and or block them whatever you want to do. Or you can just maybe block one or two or three of these and it might train your inbox to block them all, but that's the way to do it. Just go to your webmail interface and set up a filter or block the domain br dot com.

The other thing is that these things typically come in waves, So if you avoid this for a bit and just deal with it. I mean, it says you have one hundred of these. I don't know why they all came in, but you can just ignore it or block them or whatever, delete them and hopefully they should go away. Like right now, clearly someone got my cell phone number and I'm getting all kinds of text messages, all kinds of spam text

right now, and it's a lot. But I know that they will go away eventually, because they come and go in waves, just like the robo calls do. It's like these marketers or these spammers get a hold of like a new list. They're like, yes, new list of victims. Okay, let's text them all. Let's text them all for a week, Let's text them all about CBD and all this other stuff. And oh no one's responding, Oh okay, well okay, let's find a new list. And so that's the way I

see it happening. And I just kind of, you know, I don't take dressed. I don't even block this stuff on my phone because it's like it's just going to go away. And right now I'm getting a lot of phone calls from my own phone number, like the you know where it spoofs the numbers around you, and those are happening, and so now I've just stopped answering them. And the more you answer them, the more they're gonna do it. So just just ignore this stuff. That's probably

the best way to do it. But if you need to set up that filter, lance, definitely go into your webmail interface, set it up, filter it to the trash, and hopefully that should take care of some of it. CES twenty twenty two, happening in Las Vegas in just a few short weeks. Wow, I mean, I just can't believe. It feels like yesterday, yesterday that I was flying up to Seattle to host the virtual show that they did last year, or I guess this year at the beginning

of the year in twenty twenty one. So I'm not doing the virtual show this year. I'm just attending as a regular attendee, and yeah, I'm going. I mean, I got my booster shot a couple days ago, so you know, I'm all boosted up and ready to go. So you know, January fifth through eighth is what when this thing is happening They've got Now here's the thing. The reason I tell you all this is because CS put out a press release with the headline strong Momentum continues for CS

twenty twenty two in Las Vegas. So the fact that they have to put out this press release tells me a lot. Yes, there's been a lot of debate over people, journalists and exhibitors whether they're going. And from what I've seen, you know, a lot of people are excited to go, a lot of people are not excited or not going, And so I think at this point it is a toss up what this show is going to be like and I'm curious. I mean, I'm right here and it's easy for me to get there, and like I said,

I'm boosted up, I'm ready to go. I'm going to cover it, and I'm more curious just to see what the deal is. Now, I haven't missed a CS and like it's probably going on twelve or thirteen or fourteen years at this point, maybe thir I don't know, it's been a long time, and so I'm not going to miss this one. And this let's see what do they say. They've I've got new categories including food, tech, space tech,

and NFTs. The automotive sector is tracking for record growth with over two hundred exhibitors, which is thirty percent more over twenty twenty. Wow. And they also said they have let's see, twenty four hundred members of the media are registered to attend, as well as ten thousand additional ten thousand attendees. So they haven't said how many attendees now. Usually CS says they have over one one hundred and fifty thousand. I doubt they're going to have that this year,

just with everything going on. I mean, there's no look if you're not comfortable going, or you can't go, or you're still just uncertain. That's totally fine. I mean there's no it's not like you have to go because the things are not back to normal in a big way, especially where I live in Los Angeles. I mean, we still have mask mandates here. CS happening January fifth, twenty twenty two. I will be there. I am so curious

to see what it's going to be like. It's you know, it's I don't know, it's so weird because it's like we went from nothing to you know, a little bit, to now this is just like a big old show and so we'll see. Anyway. I not much more to say about that, but I just want to get that in there. But they have to put that that. They have to put that press release out because there is

so much uncertainty around this year's show. All right, Michelle says, Hey, Rich, quick question, do you know anything about the Superbox S three Pro? I was wondering if they're worth purchasing? Thank you, Michelle. Well, I have never heard of the Superbox S three Pro, but when I get emails like this, I know exactly what people are talking about. And Michelle is talking about one of these so called black boxes that helps you

get it all. You can watch pay per view, you can watch thousands of streaming videos, you can watch every movie from every studio, and it's all for free, free, free, free. And guess what, No, I cannot recommend this. It's not worth purchasing. No, these things are totally operating in a gray to illegal area. And if not scam, total scam. Why why deal with all that? No? Uh, if you finally get to sit down in front of this thing and watch something, it's gonna be from a torrent. The

video quality is probably gonna be horrible. It's gonna be stuff that's ripped off of a movie screen so or a Blu ray or downloaded somehow. So just no, just go the legit route. Get a fire TV stick, the fire TV four K Max, and sign up for legit

streaming services. And that's the way I recommend going. Why I never understood this when the whole kind of bit torrent thing was happening, And I know there's a lot of people that do this stuff, even with the MP three's I you know, maybe it's because I work in sort of the creator world as a journalist, where where you know, like I do a lot of hard work, and you know, now most of the stuff that I do is free, which is nice, so people can just watch it. But you know, these people work hard in

these movies, and I get it. Ticket prices are so expensive, but like, don't you want to see it in like the best possible quality? Like do you really want to watch some like ripped version of a movie? Like I don't. And so you know, for me, like, yeah, I pay for these streaming services. They're of course they're expensive, and they're getting more expensive. But at the same time, you know, it's kind of like I don't mind it because I'm getting quality stuff and you know, and of course I'm

doing the right thing. But these boxes, they're just you know, one little change and the whole box could be could put you know, it might not work anymore because someone might you know, make some sort of change that makes it so it doesn't work. I mean, there's not gonna be any tech support for these things. If it doesn't work, you just spend one hundred and fifty bucks where ever these things go for, and it it's like, what are you going to do? Get a refund from some random

third party? Website that sold you this thing, Like, no, you're gonna be totally out of luck. So I don't like these things. I don't want you to buy one, nor do I think you should, and just go through the legitimate means of acquiring these videos and movies and shows and streaming services. And I think that that's the best way to do it. So I know I'm a goodie two shoes. What can I say? You've probably heard

of NFTs. These are non fungible tokens. And there's some new data out of a website called chain Analysis, and they said that folks have spent in twenty twenty one almost twenty seven billion dollars worth of cryptocurrency, So twenty seven billion dollars in twenty twenty one on NFTs. What is an NFT? An NFT is basically a digital collectible. This can be an image, it can be a video, it can be audio. In some cases, it can be a physical object that's tied to a virtual object or

a digital object. These are built on the blockchain Ethereum blockchain to be specific, and usually they're purchased with cryptocurrency. Now, what is the blockchain? What does this all mean? Rich? What the heck is going on with this stuff? How are people spending thirty billion dollars in something I don't even understand? Well, people spend a lot of money and things I don't understand, Like, you know, I guess I

would understand a giant yacht. But let me just get through the rest of these things and I'll explain what I think this all is about. The most popular place to buy them is open c that's Open Sea. Oh look, I just talked about yachts sixteen billion dollars worth in twenty twenty one. Some of the most popular collections are crypto punks. This was established in twenty seventeen, most popular NFT collection during the time period, with more than three

billion dollars in transactions. All right, so what are NFTs? NFTs are, Like I said, it's almost the equivalent of and this is dumbing it down very simply. It's kind of like a digital beanie baby. Right. So people love to collect stuff, They love originals, and the reality is we live in a world where everything is turning digital, and so how do you create the next thing that is an item people want to collect that's digital. Well, that's NFT, it's artwork. It's audio, it's video. Someone sent

me their NFT. I guess they got of their ticket to a RAMS game. So if you buy a ticket, you go in, they give you an NFT of your ticket, which is kind of cool. Now do I want to pay that person for that NFT. No, But in thirty years might that be valuable if that game, if something amazing happened during it, and I want a piece of that. Yeah. Sure.

So the reality is these are items that are you know, they're valuable in the eye of the beholder and someone else who might want to purchase this from the beholder, just like or the holder anyone else or any other thing we've seen in the world that is valuable. It's scarcity, it's uniqueness. And yes, if you have a digital NFT that is an image, someone else could could make a copy or you could give a copy of that to someone, but you are the rights holder. You are the original

person that has that. And I know with digital stuff, it's a little weird because you're like, well, it's digital, it's the same thing, right, Well not really, because if someone were to profit off of that, you can say, hey, I'm the rights holder here, Like you can't just go ahead and sell copies of this. I can, or maybe you can, depending on how the NFT is set up.

But if you want to give an example for that, So there's only one Mona Lisa in the world, right, and I'm sure this example has been given before, But there's only one Mona Lisa, but there's plenty of copies of it hanging around places in the world. Same thing, with a lot of different stuff. Now here's an example. If someone gives me the excuse, rich, I'm not paying all that money for something that's digital only you're out of your mind thinking that I would ever do that.

Let me give you my example there. So my best example is let's say you've got a child, a family member, you know, grandparent, whatever. There is just a scenario where there's only one digital picture of them remaining in the entire world of your Let's say your kid is a baby, right, there's only one use something happened. Every digital picture you ever had of them is lost except for this one that your friend happens to have on their phone, and

it's the original picture. Maybe you sent them the file back in the day. Is it valuable to you if your friend said, hey, for a hundred bucks, I'll give you this file and it's yours to keep forever. Would you give them that hundred bucks? You probably would. There you go, there's an NFT for you. It's digital. To anyone else, it might not have much value, but to you, it does have a lot of value, and it might have more value to the person you pass it down to.

So that is a very very simple example of how I see value in something that is purely digital. Now you've probably actually spent a lot of money on purely digital things that you don't have. I remember this was a big thing back in the day when there was kind of this transition from DVDs to digital copies of movies. I was, I know, this is kind of funny, but I was a holdout. I was like, I'm not buying a digital copy of a movie on iTunes for twenty dollars.

I'm buying the DVD because I own something physical and that DVD is mine and I can do whatever I want with it, or the Blu Ray. And I said, I'm not buying something that Apple overnight can just be like poof, goodbye, this is out of your collection, and that's not happened. But I mean, it might be cases where it's happened, but I just thought it was so weird that you would just own a digital copy of

a movie without actually owning the physical copy. So I would buy the Blu ray that contained a digital copy. And of course now I don't even think they do that anymore. But to me, I thought I was getting over on the system because or I was smarter than the system, because I was like, I own something physical. Well flash forward ten years and I do not own a Blu Ray player. I don't have a way of

playing that movie. And I do still have my movies from my iTunes because I can play them on my Apple TV, and thanks to a wonderful service called Movies Anywhere, those movies have been unlocked to work on various services and not just iTunes or wherever I purchase them from. So now, yes, we are at the mercy of these digital copies. If Amazon said tomorrow, guess what, We're taking back all those digital copies, like your copy of you know,

die Hard poof Goodbye, It's gone. There's nothing you could do about it. I'm sure it's in the terms and conditions, and that's just the way it is. So yeah, we have gone through this phase of we are permanently what do you want to call it? Perma rent? Now most of us are streaming anyway, so it's a move point to begin with. But the reality is things have changed, we have adapted, and I think with NFTs it is definitely definitely something to watch because there is something there.

There's too many smart people talking about them for them to be a non thing, so there is something to them. Apple car Play is the subject of our next message. Victoria says, my son has a twenty fifteen Chevy Vault. He has asked on his Christmas list for an Apple car Play. I know they come stock in certain models of the Vault. Is this something I could buy for him in Christmas for Christmas and have installed. I value your expertise and thank you for your help. Victoria. Well, Victoria,

twenty fifteen Chevy Vault. I'm surprised. That must have been right before they put CarPlay in first Chevy Vault model to have car play, so, uh, twenty sixteen, darn it, you're so close. Twenty sixteen was the first one to get car play, So I would not recommend upgrading. And here's why. I mean, there are yes, So there are ways to do it. There there are pioneer I don't know what do you call them, bulkheads. I don't know what you call them. I forget there's the head is

in the name receivers. I guess receiver heads. I don't know. But there are pioneer receivers that do have car play. There are third party receivers, and you could look into it. I mean, I'm not gonna say no, but I don't know if it's compatible. And so you would have to look up the pioneer car play. It's usually a double din unit. That's probably what's in the let's see you might you know what you might be able to. I don't know, it's been so long since I looked for this,

but let's see. Let's let's just look at one of these things. So this the Avik W eight four hundred ex. And I'm guessing, oh, you know what the good way of doing it. Let's go, let's go crutch Field. That's the way to do it, Crutchfield dot com. So let's go Crutchfield dot com. I'm just gonna do this with you. Come on, come on to my journey, and let's go car audio and find what fits your vehicle. So let's say we're gonna do a twenty fifteen. Chevy is a

great website. By the way, when I was back into my cars, like back in the day, I used to have like a Ford Explorer for many years, and I've of course got all this stuff after market installed in it because you could. It was a simple way to do it. You got the double Din. It was either double Din or a single di in. And so when I had the single di in, I of course got my little stereo that had XM installed, and I got that, and then when I had my doubled in, I got

the doubled in. Uh, Chevy volt hatchback twenty fifteen. Do you see a Bose logo on the front speaker grills? Let's just say no. And let's see what they say checking fit and let's see what do we have. Let's see what can we replace? Oh, it doesn't say yeah, it looks like you can replace car stereos. We don't recommend replacing the radio in your vehicle. Now, let me see with the Bose audio system, maybe you can. Let's see. Let's see, let's see and it is saying car stereos. No,

we don't recommend it. So there you go. That's your answer. You can't really do it. So Apple CarPlay, I would say, I wish that car Play did this, but I don't think they do. It'd be nice if Apple had a way of seeing car play on your phone without car Play, but they don't do it. I don't think they. Yeah, I don't think they do it with just your phone. So like on Android, you can do Android Auto with

just your phone. It will like kind of mimic the screen, but it doesn't look like CarPlay lets you do that. So yeah, there's not much you can do about it, Victoria. So with other cars, if you want to do it, yeah, go to Crutchfield dot com and see just look for a receiver that uses CarPlay and you can just get someone to replace it here in Los Angeles's place called Alan Ed's. Of course, nationwide you can go to best Buy or something like that. But good question, and you're

just right on that cusp, right on that cusp. All right, Uh, we have some more time here. Let's go to our favorite chrome extensions of twenty twenty one, not mine, but Google. Google came out with a big list of its favorite chrome This is the you know, the end of the year, so we have all these year end lists and this is their year end Chrome extensions. So a couple highlights here at number one is Loom. So Loom is an extension that makes it easy to capture and share your videos,

so you can install that. My kids have installed it on theirs. They like to do these, like kind of tutorials. You can record your voice or your video as well as your screen, so if you're helping or trying to explain something on the web or on an app, you can record yourself doing it. Kind of like a tutorial word tune I have not heard of, but it helps you clearly communicate by rephrasing sentences and catching typos in emails and documents, and so that's kind of cool. And

that's maybe one that I'll add. I've been using one called it's kind of like Grammarly, but it's Microsoft Editor, and it's the same thing as Grammarly, except the difference is that because my company subscribes to Office three sixty five, I get the premium version of this Microsoft Editor for free. It's included in their three sixty five subscription, so it gives me access to all of the premium feature. So with Grammarly it's great, but you know you've got to

pay up if you want these premium features. And I'm sure word Tune might be the same way, but let's see it is word tune. Yeah, so they have different plants. They have a free plan, they have a premium plan, and so there you go. But it's kind of cool. It says rephrasing sentences, so if you want to kind of stand out from the rest, that's kind of a neat extension forrest. This is funny. We actually featured this

in a tech report a long time ago. It helps you be more productive by planting virtual trees and giving your rewards for focusing and helping those trees grow. There's dark Reader that protects your eyes during long work days. Tab Manager Plus helps you manage your tabs, and then there's Nimbus Screenshot and Screen Video Recorder which I have installed that helps you record your screen and also do screenshots.

And then there's one called Remember Barry which helps you organize vocabulary words into flashcard decks for quick studying throughout the day. Oh and then one more rattukan raccoon. Oh gosh, how do you say this raccoont rack? Oh gosh, now I r A k U T e N. How do you pronounce it? I know, it's like a weird way to pronounce it. Rakotin, racketin, racketin. There you go, racketin, racketin, racketin. Can I bring up my computer audio? Let's see? Can it come in here? No? I don't think so. No

it doesn't. I bet you I can. Let me just try one more thing here, let me change my sound to output to be USB, and now let me try this ready. Still doesn't work. Okay, but anyway, racketin. So there you have it. Yeah, I can't hear it. But those are some extensions you can get for Chrome. I love Chrome extensions. Just be careful installing some of the more spammy ones, because now my Racketin and my Honey

extension are at war. Racketin wants me to get cash back, Honey wants me to put promo codes, and you can't use them both at the same time. They get really really angry at each other when you try to do that. So let's get to another question, shall we. This looks more like an observation, Richard says, Movie Night versus Tesla Autonomy. Good morning, rich Listen to your latest podcast where you won't pay for a movie ticket unless it's a matin a,

but you'll pay for Tesla Autonomy rationalizations. We may hash tag anyway. Just an observation, not a criticism. Love your shows on and off tv KFI and your podcast. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you and your family in his service, Richard Richard, thank you. Ohps, I will do as you suggested in this podcast and engage with your social media accounts. Thank you. I'm Att rich on tech if you want to find me there, which

I'm sure you have. But you're right. I agree. Sometimes my decisions are not fully rational, and I think that as a human we can all fall susceptible or fall prey to that. You know. To me, it's like the two hundred and eighteen dollars I spent on the Tesla self driving for the month was rationalized based on the fact that it was a work not expense. I don't.

I don't think. Well, maybe I probably could expense it if I do a story about it, but it's more of a a write off in my head because I can justify it by saying well, I need to know what this is all about, so I can talk informed. I can talk, I can't say it. I'm looking for the word. I can talk as an informed human being about the self driving features on the Tesla, or as an educated individual or informed. I don't know what the word is, but I basically know what I'm talking about

because I've experienced it firsthand. And so I know what the Tesla is all about because I've actually tried it. I've gone hands on. And this is why I think hands going hands on with tech stuff is so important. As much as it pains me to go hands on with so many different gadgets, to crack them open and play with them and set them up, it's because I

want to know what the experience is like. Yes, I can read what other people have to say, and I can see it, and I can watch the YouTube, but I want to know what it's like because that way I can talk in a smart way about it, and also and also compare and contrast to other devices out there that are similar. And so now I know because I've I've driven the Rivan with the self driving, I've driven the super Cruise with the self driving, or I

guess the driver assist. I've driven Volkswagens driver assist. I've driven the Tesla with the autopilot, so I know I can. I can compare notes, I can contrast the differences and the nuances, and with the Tesla, I'm actually I keep finding new little things, like the other day I found the auto park, which is just so great. But the problem with the auto park. You know it'll it'll automatically

pull into a parking spot for you. The problem is, most of the time we need that is on kind of like a busy street, and if cars are trying to get past you, it's it's a little dicey to have your your your car doing the backing up because it just goes for it. I mean, it's when the Tesla does something, it is so confident in its moves, like when it was pulling into parallel spaces or yeah,

parallel parking. When I was testing it, it's just like boom, it turns that wheel fast, it backs right in, it stops, moves forward, it backs, it goes right up to the car behind it, right up to the car in front of it, and it's much more, much more not aggressive, but much more affirmative. Then I am. When I'm driving, I'm kind of like inching, you know, very slowly. This is like, now we know we got six inches to go, so we're just gonna stop. We stop there. Okay, we

go forward. We know we can go forward pretty fast. We stopped there. We angle in. I mean they know the angles for the spot. I mean it's it's pretty phenomenal. So that feature is really cool, and I will miss that. There's a couple of features I'll miss with the autopilot that I purchased, and that is the chime when the light turns green. I really like that. And I really like the self changing lanes. The you know, auto lane change is again very confident. And then I will miss

the parking, the self parking. I don't think those three features are worth two hundred and eighteen dollars a month. No way, I mean that is that's a lot of money for three little features that I can do myself. Yes, it's nice to have, but I will I will do myself. So anyway, Richard, thanks for the notes for sure. Yeah, there's no rhyme or reasons. Sometimes Apple awards the best apps in Games of twenty twenty one, so there's a whole laundry list of them. I'm not gonna go over

all of them. I'll just go over some of the notables that I think are interesting. iPhone app of the Year Toca Life World from Tokeboca. Tokoboca back in the day when I had a little tiny tike, was like the best game. And I love them because Tokeboca's big thing is that they were ad free. There were no sales whatsoever. They didn't sell you on anything. And slowly but surely the inn app purchases came into play, and then the big purchase by another company. So I actually

interviewed the guy who founded this, Bjorn Jeffrey. I forget how you say his name exactly, but he came into the studio and I was like, you're the guy that started Tokboca. How cool is that? And sure enough, yeah,

he started the whole thing. I love when companies send like the actual person to me, Like, yeah, of course I interviewed Tim Cook and Elon Musk in the past, but like, I love when I get to interview the actual founders because they just have insights that are are just greater than you know, a chief marketing officer or you know some person that they send a PR spokesperson. They're just you know, I love these people too, but they're just you know, they're figureheads for the company. They

they've got the party line down. When you get the founder. They are someone who saw a need for something and made it and they figured it out. And I love interviewing those kinds of people because they are the real movers and shakers in this world. And so someone like this, I remember him coming to the studio and I was just so impressed. I was like, ah, that's so cool that I get to talk to the guy who started

the games that my kid loves to play. Back then, I only had one kid, and you know, he was little. He's probably three years old, and it was just so great. Yeah, and the guy was from Sweden. I think, let me see tokoboca ktla. Let's see when I interviewed him July fourteenth, twenty seventeen. Ohough, it wasn't that long ago. Yeah, here he is. CEO. Bjorn Jeffrey came up with the came up with the idea when he noticed the tablet trend taking off. He imagined lots of kids would soon be

playing on their iPads at all times. Each game was meant to be different from the standard games they might play or the videos they might watch. Each game is three dollars and there are no ads inside except promotions for other Tokboca games. Now, right after I interviewed Bjorn, they were purchased by Spinmaster, the same company who owns Paul Patrol and they own a whole bunch of toys

and he left. Now no comment on that, but clearly when people leave companies like that, just like I talked with the Instagram founders, you know, they're just kind of like, Ah, this is not my thing anymore. You guys take it. And sure enough, Tokeboca has very much exploded in popularity since he left because they've probably done things that he wouldn't have done, like they had like a line of clothes and target, a lot of in app purchases, a

lot of cross promotion. I haven't seen the Tokeboca TV show yet, but anyway, Tokoboca Life World is the number one iPhone app of the year, and it's cute. I still think it's very cute. It's just these little characters, you do little things. It's a it's a great, great game, and I have no problem recommending that Apple Watch app of the Year. Also one that we have mentioned in the past Carrot Weather. Let me see when I mentioned

this Carrot Weather. And I don't say this to brag, but I just say that, like, you know, I definitely have a knack for seeing things that you know, that I think are cool before a lot of people think are cool. What was it? Come on, Carrot Ah? There is uh, there was a I don't know, I can't I can't seem to find the story. But we definitely interviewed the guy who started Carrott and I can't remember what the deal was with it. It was like it was mean to you or something. It was kind of

like it was a weight loss app. Ah, that was it. Yeah, it was a Carrott weight loss. I don't know, something like that. Let's see carrot app and let's see what the other app was, Carrott. Oh is it to do? I think that's what it was. Yeah, Oh is carrot fit. That's that's who it was. So and I remember interviewing the founder again and I'm trying to find the guy who he interviewed. But anyway, Oh, Brian, was this it Yep, here he is Brian Muller. Let's see Brian Muller KTLA

here it is January two, twenty nineteen. The Apps that will help You Get Fit in twenty nineteen. So I love it. I love I love discovering these little things. You know, there's just something about them. You see him and you just there's something special about it. You put it on TV and boom, A couple of years later, they are they're making lists. So anyway, Apple Watch of the Year, Apple Watch App of the Year, Carrot Weather. Let's see what else I think was notable on here?

The trend of the Year Connection. The goals to identify a movement that had lasting impact and recognize apps that met this moment. The chop trend of twenty twenty one chop top is connection. This year's trend winners brought people together in a meaningful way. So among Us was a big one. My kids played that. Bumble, Canva and Peanut were some of the top top apps. There just a lot going on with this stuff. Oh man, that's it, no more time. Guess that sound does mean it is

the end of the show. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, Just go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech hit the big blue send email button, or go to Richontech dot tv hit the email icon there. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast. Just go to the listening app of your cho v write a quick line about what you like about this show to help other people understand why they should listen. You can find me on social media. I am at

rich on Tech. If you're listening to this, you probably already know that if you go to my Instagram, I've got a new reels. It is about changing your ring video doorbell chime to play fun holiday tones. And I you know, I'm not like one of these people that does a tip every day, but when I think of a tip, and you know, it takes a while to do these things actually, and so I want to do them. I would love to do one every day. It's just tough, you know. It's a lot of work in addition to

my regular work. No matter where you live in the US, you can download the free Ktla plus app on Apple, TV, Fire TV, and Roku. Once you open it up, scroll to the tech section and you can watch all of my TV segments on demand. I always say I do my best work there. It's still my bread and butter. So watch my tech segments from TV. They're fun. I put a lot of effort into them. My name is rich Dimiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend an hour of your time,

especially during the holidays. I do appreciate you spending it with me. Stay safe, have a great holiday. If I don't talk to you before that, which I probably will, I'll talk to you real soon