Samsung is ready to show off its newest phones, A cool tool for Instagram stories, a review of Amazon's inexpensive new fire tablets, plus your tech questions answered.
What's going on?
I'm Rich d'miro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer the questions that you send me, and yes, you send me a lot of them. My name is Rich dmiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Say hello to producer Megan.
Hello, how's it going?
It is going well. How are you doing?
I'm good, I'm doing well.
You sound fantastic this morning, so I think, oh, good, all right. Whenever we record this, you know, it's podcasting, there's not necessarily a time, so I try not to really, you know, harp on the day or the date or the time, because a lot of the stuff we talk about in this show is actually pretty evergreen. I mean, it's the news of the week, but it's much more consumer focused than a lot of the shows. So how have you been making the most of your time lately?
Lately? You know, a lot of working out and just you know, I mean lots of iron. No, No, I mean, like I like to go on my walks. That's like my favorite thing. Like just put on a podcast and like walk around the neighborhood. That's what I like to do.
So that's interesting to you listen to podcasts while you walk. I the last time I did that was when I had my first son. I had a whole list of podcasts and I would take him on like an hour long walk every day and just listen to podcasts. But I haven't done that since that was nine years ago.
Really, so I that's how I listened to most of my podcasts. I just pop one in and I go for a walk.
It's interesting I have not listened to a podcast in basically almost the whole quarantine a little bit. Like So yesterday I had to drive to a story. It was like an over an hour away and I was My wife is like, oh my god, this so far, and I said, no, I can't wait to drive for an hour like it.
This is amazing.
Like I every story, it's it's like here in my house and with Skype and with zoom and to get to go somewhere to do something. But I will admit I kind of forget how to drive a little bit, Like I've noticed some like much more nervous on the road.
Have you been driving at all?
Only to go like produce a story? So but I do like look forward to like go and get out. It's definitely it's nice to like, you know, take a break from being inside all the time.
It almost feels like it's wrong too, right, like just being anywhere, like today I have to go to the grocery store, and its just anytime I'm out, anytime I'm not in my home, something feels weird.
I'm just like, this is not the way it's supposed to be right now.
So yeah, anyway, all right, Well, good to hear. Everything's going well on your end. Everything's good over here. Let's start with the story of the week, and that is that Samsung has told us when they will unveil their next smartphones and this is going to happen on Wednesday, August fifth, twenty twenty. Well, I think you knew that, and this is the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked twenty twenty. It is going to be a virtual event. Now you've gone to at least two Samsung events.
With me, right, yes, and right? And what one or two Apple events, I think one app one Apple event.
Okay, so you've been to these events, they're pretty grand events. There's usually food, there's a lot of journalists, there's a lot of to do, there's a hands on area. None of that stuff will be happening, you know, with this event, because it's happening virtually. It will be live streamed on Samsung dot com and I'm hoping YouTube live at ten am Eastern, which I also think is an interesting choice that they did ten am because US folks out here on the West Coast now have to watch this at
seven am, which I think is kind of weird. I mean, we're but I know, but if it's live on, if it's a live stream, why not just you know, just do it at one pm so that, you know, the East Coast and West Coast can equally be awake.
But yeah, I agree, I don't know that's.
How they decided to do it. So what are we going to see at this event? We are going to see the new Note twenty that's what they're calling it, or that's what the rumors are calling it. And then also a Galaxy Fold smartphone. Also, I would say probably a new smart watch when I think about what we're going to see at these events. I just go back in my head to last year's event and what did they launch their you know, a watch.
A phone, and the foldable.
So we'll get the second version of the foldable and it'll be interesting to see how Samsung does it. I think Apple set the bar pretty high, but for their WWDC, which was their Worldwide Developers Conference. It's the big difference between these two events. This is sort of I feel like it's the first virtual event where products are being unveiled that normally journalists would go hands on with, and they're not going to be able to do that, so that's kind of different.
And yeah, now.
Samsung is also a little bit different than Apple, So I could see a scenario where Samsung sends some devices to select YouTubers and journalists beforehand so that they can time their coverage with this. I probably am not one of those journalists. I would assume. I don't know, but I don't know. I'm usually in like that B list of journalists.
That's not true. Wait, couldn't they do like a hands on where you know, it's like an appointment kind of thing where you go in at like your time and then they clean everything and then you get what you need. Like I feel like they could have figured it out so that at least, yes, for someone like you, you could, but think.
About it, it's not just me.
So now you have everyone has to fly somewhere, you have to go into this room. You have to you know, the people from Samsung have to be there for eight hours for us to come in. So I get that idea, but it's still when you really kind of think it through, yeah, it's still tough. It's like not in the spirit. Like I feel like the spirit of today is don't be with anyone, don't do anything, don't be anywhere.
Don't hang out. You know.
It's it's like, yeah, you can't do all those things forever. But that's kind of the spirit of today.
You know. It's like, as much as possible, just stay home. So we will see. We'll see what Samsung has to do and how they do it. And I don't know.
I mean people people want the hands on time from journalists so that we know what these things are gonna be like before you purchase them.
That's kind of the main thing.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay, now I've forgotten where your music is so hang on, okay, Oh no, I gotta, I gotta. I switched everything around and now I don't know. So I'm just gonna have to see Let's I can go here.
Oh here it is. You are right there?
Perfect? Okay. This first question comes from Alfonso. Hey, Rich, I appreciate your recommendations. Just picked up the Let's Fit smart watch. My wife and I are looking for a good, easy to manage mobile spycam to post up when our kids are playing in the back or other rooms. Any suggestions, Oh, wow, spycam.
I know.
I was like, I thought he was going to ask a question about something with the Let's Fit, but yeah, looks like he needs a spy camp for his kids.
I think we talked about the Let's Fit either last week or the week before. That is the inexpensive smart watch and by the way, a lot of people got those. And it's always nerve racking to me as a reviewer when I give something pretty high praise. And in that case, I gave the smart watch a it's okay for the money. I gave the earbuds up. They're pretty good for the money, and the earbuds are like twenty eight. The watch was
about thirty six. But I will say, Megan, I got a lot of emails and tweets and Facebook messages and instagrams from people that said they bought it and they're actually very happy with it.
So to me, that's good.
Oh that's awesome. Yeah, okay, you know what you're talking about.
So to answer his question, wife and I are looking for, you said mobile spycam. It's funny that they say spycam and they're just looking for a little camera that they
can have to watch their kids. And I've thought about this, like our kids are sometimes my wife and I are inside having dinner and the kids are playing outside in the backyard, and you just want to keep an eye on them, or you know, if something happened to them, like where they fell, you want to kind of like recreate and see instead of asking them how.
They got hurt. So I would probably.
Recommend the wisecam outdoor, which has not come out yet. But the reason I would recommend that is because it has everything you need. It has a battery, it has Wi Fi, it's you know, you just put it. Oh wait, no, it doesn't have a battery. Hold on who, sorry, it does not have a battery. Oh, oh, no, it does not have a battery, so I might actually change my thoughts on this. Hold on, Yes it does have a bad Yes it does. Oh my god, I'm clearly it's clearly.
It hasn't come out yet, so you just thank you.
You know, I haven't played with it yet, so it's tough. Oh, by the way, look how many people order this thing?
So far?
Eighty three thousand have ordered my camera. This is a fifty dollars camera. It comes with the camera, which is wireless, and it is it does have a battery, and it is water resistant, so you could theoretically just pop this in your backyard somewhere if you had. If you wanted to mount it back there, you can do that as well for fifty dollars. When these things come out, I'm probably gonna buy four of them for the corners of my home, right.
I don't see why it wouldn't.
But the only different, the only problem with these kind of cameras is that you have to charge the battery every three to six months.
And I do have another.
My ring doorbell is like that, and I have to charge the battery every so often.
Feels like nowadays it's more often.
Than it was before before it had all these features, but still it's something that keep you know, keep in mind. I do have other cameras that are plugged in, and they's so much easier because they just always work. But I would recommend for outdoor cam for the kids, super simple, fifty bucks. You can't get it today, so you have to kind of right now it says sold out. They're
not even taking new orders, so that could be a problem. Otherwise, what I'd recommend is what's called the ring stick up cam, and the battery version of that is pretty simple.
Now that's going to be more expensive.
That is going to be stick up cam. Battery is going to be ninety nine ninety nine, and that's going to do everything you need and it's Ring. So the only difference with that one is that if you want it to record, you're going to have to pay the yearly fee for the recording, so you can only access it live for that one hundred dollars. And if you want, like let's say your kids came in crying because they fell off the swing set, you wanted to see how they fell off, you would not be able to do
that unless you were paying the monitoring fee. Right, So these are little delineations that you kind of have to you know, you have to kind of remember because all these cameras are different. Now there is one more that I would say, and Blink is now owned by Amazon, and I would say they make an outdoor cam as well. And let's see Blink outdoor.
Let's see where there's is.
Anyway I can't find it right now. Oh here it is Blink x two outdoor camera. So if you get one of those, which is ninety nine ninety nine, that includes cloud storage, so maybe split the difference and do that, and that one's the same thing. It's a two year battery life by the way, which remember this at CS.
Remember that, I think so yeah from this year.
I think it was last year.
It's the first year you went and it was super like we couldn't believe that you can get two years of battery life on some double A batteries.
Anyway, good question. Moving on.
iOS fourteen beta. We talked about this last week. It is available now as a public beta. So if you want to try out iOS fourteen like I've been doing for the past couple of weeks, you are free to do that. I recommend you do it, but not on your primary phone or iPad, because you don't want to do that. I got an email from someone that said, hey, Rich, I'm going on a I'm going on to make.
Sure I'm recording here. Oh yeah, that's always important.
They said, Rich, I'm going on a road trip and I want to install iOS beta on my iPhone. Like what do you think, blah blah blah, is it gonna work? I said, don't, don't do it. Do not if you're going on a road trip for the next month. I think it was a long road trip. You do not want to have a beta version of software. And he specifically mentioned that he wanted to use Maps. I was like, uh no, because yes, the beta version has been really solid, but it's not one hundred percent. And number one, I
told you this last week. My battery life is horrendous. And there's also little things that just don't work. Like the other day yesterday when I was driving, I was trying to get my Apple Maps and or my Google Maps to work, and it just would not work for a while, and it was just kind of like and then my cellular signal was out for a little bit. So all these little things, these little bugs need to be worked out, So do not put this on your primary device.
But if you have an iPhone.
Or an old iPad laying around that you don't really care about, all you have to do is go to Apple's public beta website. You click on iOS fourteen, You download this profile it's called and this little profile instructs your phone to then download the beta software. And once you do that your phone, it takes you an hour or so to download everything, install it, and then when your phone restarts, boom, You've got the beta.
You can do the widgets and I'll tell you this.
Yes, there's a lot of little things that you can do on the beta, but do you need it right now?
No?
Left, Folks who are you know, are doing this for a living like myself, or doing this with an extra phone, figure this stuff out and make it better. I want to be the guinea pig, you know, So I mean unless Look, I'm not going to say don't do it because I'm a nerd and of course I want to do this, But with your primary phone, there is always there's always a potential for there to be a problem. So that's what you need to keep in mind. But that's what you need to do if you want iOS
fourteen on your device. So are you ready for iOS fourteen?
Megan? Are you excited for?
You know, I'm actually probably more excited for the next iPhone to come out because I'm definitely going to get the newer phone.
So I mean, yeah, I mean, I, oh, you're still.
On that's right, you're on like an eight plus or something.
Yeah, I just figured I get a new phone. And then I was like, you know what, like, might as well, you know, get the newer iPhone when it comes out, although three months I would.
I mean, it's fine, you've waited this long, but like the reality is, I can't imagine what the next phone is going to have that's going to be much better than this one.
It's the iPhone is so good that what more could they?
I mean, just maybe slightly better performance because I've noticed that it's gotten a little laggy, like a little just I mean just a teensy bit, not enough where it's a big deal, but it's I've noticed it's not as snappy as it was when I first got it. That's just because apps continue to like, you know, try to do more with.
The with the thing.
But anyway, I think you'd be perfectly happy with the eleven. But at this point I think, yeah, since you, do you think.
That they'll keep the eleven or do you think that they'll get rid of it? I'm curious because.
Now I'm like, well, yeah, they've been playing games like that lately. You're right, Like, they'll keep like the like an older version, but not like the most recent. And then they'll do you know, because they force you to get the new one or like an older one.
But exactly.
No, that's a good question. I don't know that you stumped me on my own show.
I know.
Sorry, I'm just curious. Okay, So the next question comes from Christina. I'm a full time Southern California preschool teacher who's looking for other ways to make some extra money on the side. These days, there are so many online job listing sites as well as people posting articles of their own listings of places they think are good places to look for side jobs. With so many listings article sites, it's so hard to know which of these are indeed legitimate and trustworthy.
I thought she was dropping the name in the indeed job site. Would you happen to know or have any listings of any legitimate online sites that are offering online slash remote work for preschool teaching positions as well as other remote fun, part time, no experience needed remote side jobs.
I agree, it is.
It is really tough, and it's been it's been a while since I've looked for a job, to be honest, because I was supposed to be a KTLA for like, I don't know a year, and I've been there ten so I don't even know year well. To be honest, my initial this is probably too inside baseball, but my initial offer from them was like literally I think it was ninety days, like to test me out and so, and I was like, I can't. I had like a
good job like that I was leaving. I was like, I can't like leave my job for a ninety day trial. And so, you know, we went back and forth and it became, you know, a year. So I don't know what it was, but anyway, it's it's been. Yeah, now it's been ten years. But believe me, I've looked for jobs many many times in my life, like before that,
and it is tough, like especially with these aggregators. What they do is they just look around the web, scrape up all the jobs that they find and put them in their search engine, and it's really tough to tell if it's new, if it's fresh, if it's good, if it's bad, if it's a recopy.
Of an old job.
So I would say the best way to do it the probably the overall best ways to go directly to the companies that you want to get jobs at and see the listings directly. Well, the number one best way to get any job is to.
Talk to friends. That's yeah, number one.
I mean they have the inside scoop, they know what's going on, they know who to talk to, they know the hiring manager. That's not always possible in every job circumstance.
But with that said, I would.
Look at places like Indeed, So Indeed is probably. I think it's the biggest job posting board out there, but again I think some of it is direct posts and other stuff they find online. So Indeed is good, But is it the best I don't know. The other one I like is I think LinkedIn is really really good for job searches these days. And I think the reason why you can do that is because you can, you know,
search for things. A lot of companies are posting stuff you can see you're connected with, so you can get in there, you can research companies, so that's a really good look. That's a really good place as well. And then zip recruiter, I know is really popular because a lot of companies use zip recruiter to post their jobs, so they have kind of like direct jobs. The other little way to do it is if you search the kind of jobs you want, so work from home jobs.
Let's see what happens in Google up at the top. They are now aggregating jobs and you'll see a box in blue.
Do you see that?
I can.
Let's see, so.
You'll see jobs there that they've aggregated and you can really narrow down. You see, it's like a little special blue box. You can't bring it up. You can't go to like jobs dot Google dot com to bring it up. You literally have to search whatever you want plus the word jobs, and that will bring up that blue box. Then once you're in that blue box, now you can start to look for stuff. And what was one of the jobs she asked about?
What does she say?
So she's looking for like remote preschool teaching positions. So I feel like even for that she should just like look online at like whatever the popular preschool online sites are, you know, like I'm sure, yeah, they must be like either already a thing or soon to be a thing, or maybe she should just reach in with all the pair and she knows through you know, the students she's taught and just be like I'm going to do this on the side, like tutoring or whatever. And I look at be done through zoom.
I'm looking, Yeah, that's that's actually a really good idea. And I know a lot of a lot of families are actually banding together to hire teachers themselves because the education system here in Los Angeles is like very unknown for next year, and a lot of kids are, you know, including my It's just like.
What's going to happen next year? We don't know.
It's like it's so unknown that people are just trying to do their own thing, like tutors especially. But I did look up remote preschool teaching on the Google job site, and there are a bunch of jobs.
Glassdoor. I would my thing the one that.
I don't like and I hate to like call out names, but I feel like career builder, like I don't know, is that one really that good?
I don't know.
Yeah, anyway, I think they all serve like different purposes. Like glassdoor is kind of nice if you want to like look at reviews from employees, Yeah, to see like what employees say about the company.
But don't forget reviews.
Most people only go to review something to complain, so on glass store. No matter what, you just have to take this all with.
A grain of salt.
It's always going to trend towards negativity, just because if you're like I've worked at KTLA for ten years, I wouldn't sit there like it never occurred to me like put like a positive job review for KTLA anywhere, you know.
Right, it's only when you've been like, you know, negatively affected, they kind of want to like write a bad review.
Oh yeah, here's why.
Help producer Megan on what what my boss is a jerk?
Wait? What is that? This can't be right? Is there another producer? Megan?
Oh my god, where do you see that?
Thousands of these? Wow, you've been yelp? Oh my gosh, oh god, oh god, you looked on yell. I assume that's for someone else, not me.
Just don't go to Reddit.
All right, let's uh, let's talk about speaking of Zoom. Microsoft has a new feature in their Teams. I feel really bad for Teams because I call it the Zoom you know, I didn't say want to be, but like it's their answer to Zoom. And I think Zoom is just like it's everyone wants to do zoom. Everyone knows zoom.
It's easy, it's simple, it just works.
And Teams, I feel like, is great and it's Microsoft and very smart people work there.
But I feel like Teams is.
Kind of the thing that people are forced to use, and so they're just kind of like, eh, it's teams.
They're not excited about it.
But with that said, Microsoft has been adding a lot of new features to teams because they definitely see the future in video chat.
And one of their new features is called together Mode.
And this basically cuts you out of your background and places you in a room with other people, like seats in a classroom, theater, or seats in a meeting room.
You saw the video on it.
I think it's so funny. I mean, it looks interesting, it's creative.
It is creative.
And my kids when they take their classes online on Zoom, I think it would be cute to see them all like in their seats in the classroom virtually.
So it's kind of cool. So it's called together Mode it you know, that's it.
It's just they say it makes meetings more engaging by helping you focus on other people's faces and body language. It's good for brainstorms, roundtable discussions. And it's auditorium view is rolling out now. It will be generally available in August, which means most people won't have access to this until August, and they say they're going to bring more views to together Mode in the future. It's just a cool little
feature that I love to see. Like people were so hip on the virtual backgrounds with Zoom, this kind of takes that to a bigger.
Much bigger level.
Yeah, okay, This next question comes from Kim and looking for the best roque Who you suggest I need one for a four K and a non four K TV. My goal is to stream Disney plus Amazon and Netflix, easy install and remote working without Roku device having to be in site lines to work.
Oh that's a that's a yeah, that's a big, a big thing, the whole site lines. So that means that you need, you know, you need a certain type of remote control for that, which means it's a RF remote versus an IR. RF means radio frequency, which means you can have the remote just in your hand pointed anywhere. IR means infrared, which means you have to have a direct line of sight to your TV.
So the the.
Roku that I would recommend it that does all these things. And of course I'm trying to find the cheapest one that does all these things, and I believe.
Is the uh IS. It's got to be the Ultra because let's see here.
So I'm looking right now at this uh what were her wants?
She needs one for a four K and a non four K TV easy install.
Oh, she wants to remote finder or.
No remote working without Roku device having to be sidelined.
OK, it's interesting that they don't mention that on their It's kind of weird they don't mention it. I'm looking at the like little comparison of the Rokus on their website, and so there's there's one, two, three, four, five, six seven Rokus to choose from, and that is confusing.
They have the Roku.
Express, Roku Express plus, Roku Premiere, Roku Streaming Stick plus Roku Streaming Stick plus h E, Roku Ultra LT, and then the Roku Ultra, and so it is. This is
very intimidating for people to figure this out. But I would say, if she wants the best one, I would go with the Roku Ultra for the four K TV and then for the non four K. I wonder if she needs the remote, because I don't think you get the best remote when it comes to the you know, like the lesser one, the Express Yeah, like the one of the express ones or the Streaming Stick Plus.
But I can't really tell it on here.
But I do know for a fact that the Roku Ultra will do four K and it will do the remote. But I wonder if they should They should really say if the remote requires line of sight, that should be like a spec on here that I would expect. It's kind of weird that it doesn't. Let's see remote doesn't say anything about the remote.
It's so weird.
Like to me, that's like a okay, tech specs. Let's see audio features, remote control, enhanced voice remote with TV power, volume and mute buttons, plus headphone jack for private listening. Now, okay, so that's on the Roku Streaming Stick Plus. Now I'm gonna go to the other one, like the Ultra LT and see how they describe their remote, and then that'll give me an idea. If they describe it differently, then I know that it's a better remote.
Right, So let's see what they say here remote control.
Yeah, it does not say I find that odd.
That is odd, So.
That should be a big thing.
Maybe they all work RF Maybe they're all like that and that's just the way that they work. So I mean it could be, but I'd have to search a little bit more, but I think the Ultra is probably the one she wants. Uh wow, expected to ship July sixteenth. Everything Megan is back ordered.
Isn't this crazy?
No? I know, I know it's so like I try not to get frustrated by it, but I'm like, okay, I thought Amazon Prime, but like within I don't know. Two days, yeah, not a week, not a.
Week or not.
Like I'm looking for, I'm doing like the backyard projector thing.
So I'm actually doing two things.
So I want it for myself personally, but I'm also going to do a story. Since I'm shopping for one, I want to compare like the top three and so I can't explain.
So that's what my mom wants too. That is a good story. I feel like everyone's getting one.
They are, which is why they're all sold out. So I'm trying to find a projector screen outdoor, like an outdoor one, and it's impossible to get on Amazon, and so my friend is lending me one. I've got one of the devices coming today, so I'm gonna try to set that up over the weekend. And the other two I emailed them to see if I can get a review unit, but they haven't gotten back to me, so
I'll probably just order them on Amazon. But I looked at like, you know, three different levels, like ones the super cheap one, ones like the mid range, and then one's like a bit pricier, and I'm curious, like what do you get for those prices?
And so I think it'll be a great story on KTLA soon. So I love that anyway.
So I think we I kind of think we answered the question with the remote control, but I would go with the just those are the main things you have to look out for, is what kind of remote control, But go with the cheapest that you can find. Go to their website Roku dot com, slash Products, slash compare and just see, like which one is cheapest, that offers what you need, and I just wish they would write what the remote deal was, which would it makes sense
for them to do it, but they just don't. So Okay, is it my turn? I think I have a review.
I'm gonna talk about the Amazon Fire HD eight tablets.
These are tablets that I have not recommended in the past because I just thought they were so cheap and just so useless that I just didn't really see.
A place for them.
But now I do, and they updated their tablets. This is the Fire HD eight from Amazon. They started ninety dollars. Here's what they've upgraded. They gave a little bit of extra RAM which makes it a little bit faster. They have an eight inch touchscreen. They have expandable memory up to a terabyte, so you can pop a memory card in there. And a terabyte that's a lot basis thirty two,
which they've doubled. It used to be sixteen gigabytes. And then you can now get wireless, So I would recommend doing that because not only do you get wireless for twenty dollars extra the Plus model, but you also get a faster wired charger in the box, and if you have kids. You know that they're burning through the battery on these things playing games, and so you want to be able to charge it faster.
If you're using an old.
Charger that you have laying around the house, you're doing yourself a disservice because it's going to charge these things really slow. They do also have a new USB C connector, which is kind of the new modern connector that a lot of things have, and so that's really nice. For many years these had micro USB and it was just garbage. The hardware on these tablets. Okay, they're not the best,
but it's it's fine for playing games. It's fine for playing games, it's fine for watching movies, it's fine for reading books. I call this a consumption device. You're not going to be doing your work email on here. In fact, even web surfing is just okay. The screen is not the clearest. This is not an iPad. There's no Google play stores. You have to get all your stuff from the Kindle app Store or the Amazon App Store. So you can't get Google Maps, you can't get Gmail, you
can't get YouTube. When I say that, I mean you can't get the apps. You can always access these things via the website, which is just fine. And there are popular apps inside Amazon's app store, including Disney Plus, Facebook, Netflix, Roadblocks, Minecraft, Instagram somehow, and I did check Zoom. So I got a question from a couple of viewers yesterday saying, wait, can I use this as a Zoom device? And sure enough I tested it out with Zoom.
It works great.
So if you want a ninety dollars device that you have on your desk just to zoom with perfect I mean, that's a pretty cheap way to zoom that doesn't require a laptop or inexpensive.
Actually really smart.
Yeah, yeah, so that's kind of my thing. This is I think the bottom line with this device is just know what you're getting. You're paying ninety to one hundred and twenty dollars one hundred and ten dollars. Now, if you want the kids version, there is a kid's version which is one hundred and forty dollars. It comes with a kind of a tough foam rubbery case with also a built in stand, and if your kid breaks this thing in the first two years, Amazon will send you
a new one, no questions asked. I would probably recommend going that route if you have a kid. My kids have been using them around the house without the case at all, and they have dropped them once. But you don't you really don't want to do that because you're gonna You're gonna ruin this thing if you drop it.
And my kids, by the way, Megan, love these devices.
Do they Yeah, so they're a little bit faster than their old iPad minis, but they like them mainly because they did it. They just play Minecraft in Roadblocks and they say that they're a little bit faster than their iPads and wow.
But the there's a.
Very big lack of educational apps on there, I think, And so I personally, I am still going to be getting them new iPads. But I love the idea of just spending ninety bucks. And I think that's what attracts a lot of parents to these things, is that they're so cheap. It's almost like I can just go out and buy it today because it's you know, it's not a big investment, but you have to remember, you know,
it's still ninety dollars. And for the iPad, the iPads are right now about two seventy nine on sale iPad deal. They've been on sale because the new ones are probably coming out. Yeah, two seventy nine. So that's you know, you're paying what less than two hundred dollars more for a much better device.
Yeah, that's it. Cool, your turn.
Okay, This next question comes from Richard, who lives in Hemmett. I was talking to my brother who likes to rent vacation homes, and I asked him if he ever sweeps the houses for cameras and microphones. He said, there aren't any apps for that. My question is, are there any apps that can do that or any affordable devices that can see hidden cameras and or microphones?
So this rang a bell with me on a segment we did a while back. We did not testicle, but you remember.
This right, Yeah.
Yeah.
I had to look it up.
But it's called the SCOUT Hidden Camera Detector and it's a fifty dollars device that you look through and it I forget how this thing works, but I think there's like IR there's an IR light around the lens and when you look through it, that IR light will reflect on the lens of these hidden cameras.
Is that kind of ring a bell?
Yeah?
And that's it. You just kind of look around.
There's no it's not like a very high tech device, but it's just simple and it works and you just kind of look through it, kind of aim it around the room, and any little lenses will reflect light back to you, I think because they have like an ir.
Like a little like ir thing on.
The lens, like it it requires that to like see I don't know, but light. Oh, light bounces off camera lenses and most cameras also have an infrared filter which bounces even more light back. So that's how it works. And it takes two double A batteries. It's sold on a website called spy Guy, and I've actually followed the guy who created this thing. I think his name is Aaron on Twitter, and he's a fun guy because he talks about his business a lot, like how he you know,
sells these things and stuff. So that's a spy guy dot com or just search scout hidden camera Detector. I don't stay in a lot of airbnbs, but if I did.
I do.
Look like we've talked about this before, but I do like a cursory glance around the room if I'm in a hotel or something, especially the greats in the bathroom. I always kind of check out, like just to see because I'm always I don't think it's a very prevalent thing, but it does happen.
And no, I mean I don't really think about it that much, but then like after you know, thinking about it, you're like, wait, that totally can be a thing, especially in airbnbs.
Yeah, like right.
Where there where it's owned by a person and not a company. Like like let's say you're at a chain hotel. There's a lot of different people coming in and out of that hotel, like let's say cleaning people, So what like not every single cleaning person is gonna like hide the fact that there's a hidden camera in five of the rooms at this hotel. You know, these people are gonna while they're cleaning notice.
It and be like what's that.
Whereas an Airbnb, it's much easier to do because it's yours. You're the one that's kind of hiring the crews. You're the one, you know, let's say between visitors you hide this thing and then put it back out. I mean, it's it's a real possibility. I don't think it's a very big thing happening, but again, if you're trying to protect yourself, then why not be armed with the device that you need.
That's the way I see it. All right, weird question, but a good one.
Kind of weird.
Yeah, all right, so let's see a couple of things to get through. I got, Wow, I got a lot more stuff. Let's see.
I did a review of two meal planning apps. One is called e Meals, the others called meal Lime so emaals. These are these are apps that you know, you've got those subscription boxes like my wife and I get hell Afresh and each week it comes to the house filled with stuff that you just cook. Now, that's one way of doing it. The other way is kind of like through these apps. And these apps are kind of like mealboxes, but that you make yourself.
So let me explain.
Like with emals, you sign up and then they have a whole bunch of recipes, You pick your recipes. It makes a shopping list for you, and then you can print out that shopping list or just bring your phone to the store, buy those groceries and make the recipes.
Or what I think is kind of brilliant about these apps and how they've evolved over the years is that you can transfer your list of stuff to buy too an online grocer so like an Amazon Fresh, you can just in one click, your whole shopping list goes there and boom, now you have all the ingredients you need for these dishes. And so e Meals said that the average user saves about two thousand dollars in annual grocery spending. It's thirty dollars for three months, sixty dollars for twelve months.
I tried emails twice in the past. My wife doesn't like them as much. I think they're fine. It's they're just okay for me. So my only consideration if you try them with a free trial, which you get a two week free trial, sign up up through iTunes or Google Play and not their website. If you sign up through their website, you have to call in to cancel. And I did this myself and now I've I'm in my fourteen days and I got to call to cancel, Megan, because I know, yeah, which is kind of a pain.
I'm not a big fan.
Like that to me is like that's not a modern experience, you know what I'm saying.
Well, it's yeah, exactly, And like it's almost like they want to be able to persuade you to not cancel. Oh, of course, And that's just they're comfortable, just like, let me cancel.
Right, and so you should you know, I get I get why they want me to call in, so they get that one last pitch. But as a modern as a modern person who wants to do things in a modern way, I don't want to do that now. Meal lime is very simple, is very similar you, It's very customized, and I think you'd like this, Megan for your low carb, vegan, keto diet.
So you can choose, you.
Can choose from any of these various you know, eating styles, and then you can also put in your allergies and your dietary restrictions. So for me personally, I don't like goat cheese and anything. So I can literally put goat cheese and I'll never see a recipe with goat cheese in it.
Isn't that kind of brilliant?
Yeah? That is brilliant.
So for you, what would that food be that I don't want in? Yeah? Like, do you have a food that you hate?
What do I hate? Not? Really?
Wows?
Yeah?
Really?
Yeah? Like mine is like I like goat cheese.
I love goat cheese.
I know a lot of people do.
Yeah, I like Cilantro.
Cilantro is one of those polarizing things as well.
It is, yeah, yeah it is.
I actually like most things, but I'm a very again, I'm very simple eater. Like I even would just put pork on there, like I'm not gonna like make pork our fish.
I don't really eat fish.
You don't eat fish, you don't eat salmon.
No never, I know. I just like wasn't raised eating salmon, so I and like I'll have it with sushi, but I don't love it.
No, well, I.
Wouldn't like it sushi either, Yeah, I just I've had raw salmon, like sushi not my thing, Like I've eaten all I want cooked. Yeah, like I like the only sushi is like literally the californiae role.
I'm so boring fried like California year roll.
The fried, well not necessarily fried, Like what do you mean fry well, there's a yeah, there's like this stuff they put on top of it that's like they don't actually fry it, but they it's like this fried.
I don't know, it's just it's what I order sushi.
I like, I found this one.
This is gonna sound really funny, but I found this one sushi that's my ash absolute favorite.
But it comes from the Walgreens pharmacy. Okay, have you did you know that they sell sushi there?
No, wait, no.
On Hollywood Boulevard. Yeah, Hollywood and Sunset are sorry, Sunset and Vine. There's a sushi kitchen in the Walgreens right by our work, and there's this one sushi that's like it's like a California roll, but it has some sort of like sauce on it, like.
A creamy it's sweet sauce.
It's like almost like creamy. No, I know, the sweet sauce, like the eel sauce.
I really like that, but yeah no, this is like almost like a creamy white sauce that's like a little bit spicy. And I don't even know what it's called. But every time I see it there, I love it. But I can never find it at a restaurant, like and you know, I tell my wife and she's like, nobody really makes that except them.
I'm like, what, so now I want to try that.
It is.
It's really good, but it feels so funny that it comes from a drugstore.
Yeah no, that's like pretty random.
Yeah it is, but it's good only in La Walgreen Sushi.
You gotta try it.
Yeah, okay, Meal Lime, So you start your preferences and then now you do the same thing, you pick your meals and then it makes you your shopping list, which you can of course do yourself or again transfer to Walmart, Amazon Fresh, whatever you want.
Meal Lime. I like their business model. It's totally free.
Of course, when I used it for free, all the best meals like that I wanted of cook were like the pro. So you have to go pro for six dollars a month if you want to access all the recipes and see nutritional information. So if you're trying to watch like a certain thing, like you know, sugar intake or cholesterol or saturated fat, you want to pay that
six dollars a month. But the cool thing is that you can use it for free if you want or and by the way, they don't you can cancel and subscribe right through the app like you can on e Meals. But as far as I know, that's the only way. Like they're not trying to call you. You're not trying. They're not trying to make you.
Call them, So I got it all right. Okay, one quick question, do we have a quick one.
Yes, we have a quick one. This is from Talisha. We are searching in Vain to find reliable apps to record notes and zoom lectures for Android, cell and iPad air. Please advise. Thanks.
Oh this is a good question. Okay.
Two things otter O t T E R dot Ai. Otter ai is really good and I've used this before. It basically records the conversation or whatever it is, you know, the the whatever you know, like the you know what I'm.
Saying, yeah, the presentation.
Yeah.
So it records it and it transcribes it, and you get a certain amount for free every month. I it's amazing. It's it's really really good. Plus it's a platform, so it's not just a one off kind of thing. It actually keeps all your notes. You can search for them. It's really really fantastic. The other one is.
Oh gosh, what's it called?
Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, I can't remember.
Oh no, this is from the guy who created oh my gosh. Oh descript that's what it is.
D scripta okay, descript if you want to do transcripts of Zoom. I'm not sure if otter handles that, but I know that Descript can do it, because they sent me an email that said something about that. But Descript is really cool, but I do believe you have to pay for They have a free plan which just gives you a one time.
Trial of three hours.
So if you really want to do this, you got to pay ten dollars a month, which is kind of a lot for a student. But it may be worth it, you know. I don't know what they're doing, but it's it might be worth it.
But those are the two.
The one that's totally free that's also really good, but it only works on certain phones is Google's recorder app. And this only works with certain devices I think primarily just Pixel devices. But if you want to search Google Recorder in Google Play, see if it works if you have an Android. It's only Android, by the way, but I think it only works with the Android devices, or sorry, with the Pixel devices. I could be wrong about that,
but that Megan. That one's fantastic because it really does a great job.
It's Google. I mean, they're they're pretty smart.
They know what they're doing, all right.
Two little things to do before I go, Before we go, and one is that at and T is now giving a discount to teachers, nurses, and doctors, so twenty five percent savings on their unlimited plans so unlimited, Starter, Extra, and Elite. I did the math. It's actually a pretty good deal. So if you're a teacher, a nurse, or a doctor, definitely look into this. It's for new and existing customers twenty five percent off, which is definitely adds up,
and it's it's not bad. It starts on July tenth, and it's AT and T dot com slash appreciation, ATT dot com slash appreciation. And of course, people are debating the merits of this on my Facebook page, saying that you know, oh yeah.
But whatever, just check it out.
Whatever they think, it's you.
Know, they just everyone always has an opinion on things, which is fine.
Yeah, but you know, check it out, see if it works.
I mean, my wife and I are considering switching to AT and T because it would be a good deal for us. It would save us I think, like sixty a month.
So but it's you know, it's.
A pain to switch providers kind of. I mean, it's really not, but it's just it's more like psychological pain.
You know, you gotta switch things out.
Whatever.
Okay, now, this thing. I think you'll like, Megan, and this is kind of.
This is really cool.
Actually, this is a thing called two stories dot app t O S t O R I E S dot app, And if you do anything on Instagram, this is kind of your secret new secret weapon. So on Instagram, it's always really tricky to share things to the stories because you have to go into Instagram.
To do it.
Like if you have a picture, you gotta like go into Instagram and then do it, and like you know, it's just a pain. And if you have video, that's even more of a pain because if you have a video that's like let's say it's thirty five seconds and you only need fifteen seconds. But the way that Instagram does it, they split it up. You know, it's like fifteen you know, it's.
Like spin out you're talking about. Yeah, so annoying.
Yes.
So this app lets you just share photos and videos from any app on your phone. So if you are working on a video in some random editing app, you can just say share two. It just comes up as one of the share options in your share menu, and it lets you edit the video so you can like check like a pick fifteen seconds and it's a super easy slider to do that. You can also affect the video so you can change it to like fill the whole screen or if you can want it to fit
the screen, whatever you want. The point is this is a feature that should be built into the Instagram app. And I imagine that they might even buy this in the future so that they can just build this in because this should be a feature of the Instagram app.
It's not. And anyway, it's really cool.
Two stories dot app t O S t O r i ep dot app and it's just a cool, like little tool that you have on your iPhone that's like very very handy. The other one is called Opener. By
the way, I use this all the time. It's a if you've ever opened like a link in Twitter on your iPhone and it like opens in like its own little browser, like let's say a YouTube video, it's like YouTube, it's not opening in the YouTube app, It's opening like in its own little window in Twitter, which is really annoying to me.
So if you use this.
App called Opener, you just go to your share screen and then click Opener and it will say, oh, do you want us to open this in YouTube? And you go yes, please, thank you so opener. I think it's ninety nine cents for that little app. Okay, all right, that's gonna bring us to the end of the show. Can you believe it?
I can't every time. It surprises me every time.
If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, just go to rich on tech dot tv hit the email button at the.
Bottom of the page.
Also, we would love it if you would rate and re vi you this podcast to help other people discover it. And uh, all you have to do to do that is go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech. Megan, can you read one of our latest reviews?
Yes, I can. It's from tech ee one two four. Great content and very useful technical information. Looking forward to it every week. Keep up the good work.
Five stars baby.
Oh love that.
Producer, Megan.
Where can folks find you on social media?
I'm at producer Megan on Twitter and you can find.
Me at rich on tech.
My name is Richard marrea On behalf of everyone that gets this show to your ears. Thanks so much for listening. Stay safe, We'll talk to you real soon.