Amazon has a new Echo and an even better new privacy feature. Airport USB ports are they safe? iPhone trackers? The Yolo app, How to focus without your phone? Plus your pressing tech questions.
What's going on? I'm Rich Dmiro.
This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about this stuff I think you should know about happening in the tech world. Plus I answer your tech questions with the help of producer Megan.
What's up? Producer Megan?
You know, just it's Friday.
It is Friday, Happy Friday.
Normally we record this on Thursdays, but this week I was on death's door.
Is that what you call it? Or deathbed?
What do you call it when you're basically knocking on my door?
Yeah? Death was knocking it still is. You can tell.
And I thought you said you aren't sick.
Well I'm you feel it's your mentally.
I feel great. Physically, I am like a bag of ashes. Basically I'm about one step away from being dead. But you could probably hear it my voice. I feel like my mind is just as good as it always is, even on all these day quill meds. So yes, I am a little under the weather, but I think it's the end of it, because we are going to China next week and I really do not want to be sick for China. So I'm getting over that. So bear
with me as we get through the podcast. It's going to be just as good of a show as if I'm not sick. The other thing is, uh, maybe you've noticed, but we do have kind of it's kind of a.
New show this week.
Yeah, because if you look at the artwork, we now are officially under the KTLA banner.
So so exciting. Oh wait, whoops, that's not it isn't there clapping? No? Okay? I yeah, as you can see, the show is just as good as ever. Don't we have clapping? I No? Okay.
Anyway, So if you notice, the show is now part of KTLA. So this is kind of a big deal for me here at KTLA because I've been doing this podcast on my own for a while and KTLA's had their eye on it for a while. It's been kind of a separate thing. Now it's part of KATLA. So there's no more swearing, Megan, no more potty mouth. Yeah you got it, no more swearing. A couple of things, A couple listeners we have to say goodbye to No.
I'm just kidding. It's all good.
So basically nothing changes for you at the home audience, but for us it just means that it's like just a little.
Bit more official.
Yeah, definitely.
We have a new host as well, new podcast host, not like me, but like I thought you.
Were actually firing me podcast.
No, no, no, I just wanted to tell you, Megan.
She starts on Monday.
Yeah, no, no, we have like a new like Art nineteen is our new host. So basically now there's like all these new analytics, like they're gonna be like like before, I didn't care how many people listen right now of course Katla is like how many listeners did you have? How many downloads? But again, none of this changes for me or you. It just changes for like the corporate big wigs right like they only care. We don't care.
We're doing the same thing here. Before we get into the questions, Megan, I we've talked about Economy Basic before in the show, and I do know you were surprised because you're on a flight San Francisco and you booked Economy Basic by accident or you thought you were saving some money.
How was it?
Uh, well, I basically booked this flight thinking like, oh, I'm saving money, like it's one hundred and fifty dollars like round trip, and then the night.
Before versus one sixty for regular economy.
Yeah, exactly.
And then and I was going to carry on a suitcase. And so then when I went to check in, they were like, well, you can't check in.
First of all, check in.
At the airport.
So I was like, okay, and then I get to the next page and it says and you can't bring a carry on suitcase.
And I was like, uh rich literally just had this happen.
And so I immediately like told you. I was like, I messed up.
So how was it? I mean, you get out the board, you get were you in the middle.
I end up being like so much more money because I had to check my luggage so.
You had to check like a standard bag could have carried.
Dollars, and then on top of another thirty dollars, So then the ticket ended up being too hundred and ten dollars.
So I should have just, you know, I should have just booked the.
Regular So our word to you on this podcast, if you get nothing else, is just beware of basic economy.
It is not good.
You don't get your seat in advance, you can't use the overhead, you can't. You know, it's basically were you in the middle though you got you didn't get a middle.
Digit did not get So that's good.
Yeah.
Was it a full flight? Uh?
Pretty full? Yeah? Pretty much?
All right?
Still yeah, still not good. Let's get into the first story of the podcast. This is Amazon launching a new Echo Show. And I've not bought one of these Echo shows, but they're very popular because a lot of people like Amazon, they like the Echo They're in the Alexa world. I hate that I just said that because I just activated a bunch of them. But the Echo Show five is now basically Amazon's answer to the Google Home Hub, the
small one, not the big one. And so this has a compact design five point five inch screen HD camera and a built in camera shutter. So the reason that shutter is important is because because now this can be something that is good for the bedside, right, don't necessarily want to have a camera next to your bed. A
lot of people think that's kind of weird. So this has a camera shutter where you can physically see that the camera is blocked and it's interesting because in the notes, Amazon says, this is kind of a big thing with all this privacy. The Echo Show five has a microphone camera off button that electronically disconnects both the camera and microphone.
Now that's electronically, which means it can still be hacked into staying on right, whereas a lot of the new devices we're seeing have a physical disabler, like the MacBook Pro. When you close the cover, it physically disconnects the microphone, which means if the cover is in that closed position, no hacker can go in with software and reconnect the microphone because it's like almost like this and you're breaking that connection, right.
And same thing on.
The new Google Home Hub, Nest Max whatever they call it, that has a physical disconnection. So if you turn off that slider switch, it's physically disconnecting the camera and microphone. I don't think it's going to be a huge problem with this, But the Echo Show five is ninety dollars.
It goes on sale.
It's on sale right now pre order, but it will come out in late June, I think it said June twenty sixth. But here's the other thing that's really interesting about this, and this will come to all Alexa devices. But you can now say a delete everything I said today, and she will delete all the stuff that you said. And coming soon you'll be able to say, ay, delete what I just said.
So if you're like, hey, you know, hey, what's this rash on my leg?
It looks like I'm about to die? And you're like, oh, I don't really want my friends or wife to see this in my account, you can just say, hey, delete what I just said. I always try to think of the scenarios when you need this, right, Like, what are you asking Alexa?
That's so bad that like you need to delete? Delete everything I said? Forget we ever spoke today.
That's what I'm like, what like we'll say.
They probably say a lot of weird stuff.
But here's the other thing, Like if you were law enforcement, wouldn't you be thinking like, hey, can you give me a red flag on anyone who said delete everything I've seen said today? Like give me give me all those accounts please, because.
We're just curious.
You don't want to.
See Maybe you don't want to say that. Yeah, all right, producer Megan, Yes, I do you have a question for me?
Yeah?
So I'm actually going to start off with two similar questions that you received this week. The first one is from Kelly Burns and then the second one is from Donna Monig, and they both have an iPhone six and they're looking to upgrade. Kelly asks, I was wondering if the iPhone eight or the iPhone XS was better. And then Donna she said she can't decide between the iPhone X or the XR.
And she says, I take a lot of pictures. I do Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. I'm a sixty seven year old Nana. You're number one fan.
Wow, thank you, Nana.
Well, okay, so the questions are very similar. They basically want to know which iPhone to get, right.
They both have an iPhone six and they want to know, like, you know.
I think I don't think they need to go with the ten S like I think there or the ten S max or whatever or the ten whatever. I think they go with the ten R. I think the ten R is a From what I've seen in the evolution of the iPhone, the cameras did not really get much better from the six, seven and eight.
Even though Apple kind of made it seem like they did.
I really didn't see the leap until the ten and then to be honest, from the ten to the ten R, and the ten S a big improvement, like super big improvement. So if you're looking at the iPhone you're thinking about getting last year's model, like the ten, just go with the ten R because you're getting a better camera with the ten R than you are with a ten Which is crazy because when I thought when the ten came out that had a really nice camera, and then I used the ten R and the ten S, I was like,
oh no, this camera is way better. So don't go with the eight, don't go with the seven, go definitely go with the ten R. And it's a good price point too, So I think that that's probably your best bet for most people. I think that the iPhone ten R is your best solution. That's one my wife uses. She's very happy with that. She's a very standard iPhone user.
Takes a couple of pictures a day, you know, not like a you know, but this grandma is saying that she likes you know, Instagram and all that stuff.
Snapchat.
Yeah, she on Snapchat. She says, she said she did really I know, wow, Okay, snapshot.
Is with it.
Yeah, she knows what's up.
So I think the ten R is your best bet for the average person and trade in your old phone and Apple will give you some money towards your new one if you don't need it. iPhones are great because you can always resell them on the secondary market eBay. Obviously you're going to get the most for your old phone. But if you just want something that's easy, just bringing it to the Apple store and they'll give you like a couple hundred bucks for it, probably like one hundred
dollars for that one, maybe one twenty five. Speaking of Apple, they did introduce a new iPod Touch. This is kind of a head scratcher because who needs an iPod Touch these days? Right, And it's one hundred ninety nine dollars for starting price. The real difference here, there's two things
that they've changed. Number One, they added a new chip, the A ten fusion chip, which means that this device is faster, and because it's faster, it can now handle group FaceTime and augmented reality, so if you want to do that on your iPod Touch, you can do that now. The other thing is it has a new capacity two hundred and fifty six gigabytes, which again, this is a tiny screen, Like, what are you doing on this thing
that you need two hundred and fifty six gigs. They don't even say the screen size on the press release because it's so embarrassingly small. But again, and by the way, that two hundred and fifty six gig model is three hundred and ninety nine dollars. You're talking, you're getting up into like iPad territory. So unless I can't imagine a reason for an iPod Touch, but they do have one, I guess even with a kid, I'd rather get them like an iPod iPad mini.
Right, yeah, like go with the iPad Mini. I don't know, all right, Producer Megan.
Okay, so let's segue into an Apple question, another Apple question, and this is about the Apple Watch. Mike Larsen asks, question, Rich, is there a smart watch that is every bit as functional the Apple Watch with an iPhone but has a round face?
Ooh, interesting, that's a good question. I don't think so. There.
The Apple Watch, when it comes to like smartphone watches, really is the best. I mean, it does such a great job. And believe me, I'm not you know, mister Apple fanboy over here, like you no I'm trying to be fair about things, but I when I come across something that's.
Really good, like the Apple Watch is really good.
Like I have a Fitbit Versa on right now, and this thing just depresses me, Like it's so it's so sad compared to the Apple Watch, Like I love this thing, but it's just not the Apple Watch.
Like the Apple Watch.
Has a lot of great functionality on it. Not to knock the Fitbit Versa if you know, I did a great review on it, because it's a great it's a great alternative to the Apple Watch. But he's asking for a device that does everything that the Apple Watch does, which is really tough because there's a lot of apps for it. You can control so many things on it. The only thing I'd say is similar in like a very roundabout way is the Samsung Galaxy Watch, which is
their latest watch. Actually sorry, that's not their latest one. The uh it's always get I always mess up the name on this thing. This is what happens when companies don't send me stuff to try out because I forget, Like if I just see it at like an event and I never get to play with it at home, I kind of forget about it. But it's the Galaxy Watch Active. And okay, sorry to Samsung. They actually did offer to send me one and I said don't because I'm not I don't have time to review it right now.
But it's called the Galaxy so I take that back. But this is the Galaxy Watch Active, and it is a beautiful device as a really nice round face. We saw this at the Samsung event and again, it will work with iOS. It just won't be pretty, you know, it'll it'll do your basic functionality. But if you really want, like the way that the iOS operating system is, if you want things to work properly, you have to use Apple products and that's kind of the reality here. It'll work,
but it's just not going to be that good. So it does do everything you need. It keeps track of all your stuff. Let me just make sure that it still works with iOS, because yeah, it does. iPhone five and above iOS nine. I mean, that's that's basically your best next bet is the Galaxy Watch Active. It's two
hundred dollars, really nice design. It looks like a real watch, but again it's not an Apple watch, and it doesn't have a lot of the functionality that the Apple Watch is gonna have, especially when you're syncing it with an iPhone.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, totally.
Okay, So there's this big article. My old producer, actually, Vanessa sent this to me. She actually tweeted me and said, hey, Rich, I saw this on Forbes.
Is this true?
And she was way ahead of the curve because a lot of other people sent this article to me as well, and I talked about on the radio this week and the article headline is why you should never use airport USB charging stations.
Now have you heard of Forbes?
You mean, like the news?
Yeah?
Yeah, okay, So they have historically been a very nice, like kind of historic like old school media site, right, like old school magazine fair right, this their website. Throw all that out the window, Like they just go for clickbait one hundred percent. Like they just let everyone contribute to their website. Anyone can write anything. And man, I think this medicine is really just bringing out the honesty and.
Tell it how it is.
But the reality is, like I look at every Forbes article and I'm like, this is bs because it's just clickbait like ninety nine percent of the time. And you can always tell when an article is clickbait by the way they write the headline, and so instead of giving you good detailed information in the headline, they just try to get you to click to find the information in the article.
Right.
So this article is why you should never use airport USB charging stations, and it's like, oh, that's interesting, I want to know, right, Like ry, so I click the article. I read it. It's an interview with a security person at IBM Security. So already they're trying to sell you know security, right. Their their job is to make you scared. Right,
So let's put it this way. I've been in airports around the world and never once have I been like, I shouldn't plug my phone in there because it's going to sap all of my data off my phone, right, Like, give me a break in the airport.
It's you're gonna be fine.
But the reality is she does bring up some good things and the bigger point, and I'm not just knocking Forbes or knocking this article or this writer, but I am just saying like, you should always be hyper aware of any sort of security breach or potential security breach
in anything that you do with technology. So if you're hopping on a Wi Fi network, or if you're plugging something in, or god forbid, you're using the computer in the lobby at the air at the hotel, which I would never do that in a million years, don't ever do that.
So those places, yes, you have to think.
About this stuff, But the reality is nine times out of ten, if you plug your phone into a USB port at the airport, you're probably gonna be just fine. But they're saying that this is a major security issue because when you plug your phone in, there's there could be malware on that port that someone popped in there, somehow loaded it on there, and it's putting it on your phone, and then it's basically sending all your data of your phone to like a malicious third part.
The chance of that happening very slim. Right.
There may be some countries where this kind of stuff happens, especially if you're in like the CIA or something, but for the average person plugging at lax like at the armrest, probably not gonna happen.
Now.
The other reason I say that this is not that big of a deal is because on the iPhone, when you plug your iPhone into a new device, you've probably seen this screen before. It says, do you want to trust this device? Have you ever seen that where it's like, do you want to trust this computer?
Yes?
That was added recently to iOS, and again it's like an extra security precaution because it's saying, hey, we might be exchanging some data here, like are you aware of that? Like you trust this computer? And that was put in for circumstances like this where you might plug your phone into something and on the back end they just go, oh, we're gonna get all her pictures right now. So Apple is smart and they did that, and you know, they basically made that little note that you have to say, yes,
I trust this now. The other thing they do recommend if you're really worried about this is a ten dollars device called a juice Jack Defender, And this is a little tiny dongle that goes beatred between your cord and the port and it basically makes it so that no data can pass through, only power passes through, and so to charge your phone. But if there's like malware on the other end, it's not going to affect your phone.
So long story short, always be hyper sensitive to the security issues around you, but use common sense.
Yeah, totally.
Let's get some level headedness in here, Megan, why don't you give me another pot?
Okay, So our next question is from Facebook. It's from Joe Sett McGlynn and she asks, my kids are going to Italy and they were told to use WhatsApp.
Is that a problem? No, WhatsApp is.
WhatsApp is a very standard app that is used for communication around the world. And WhatsApp is actually owned by Facebook. So Facebook runs Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram. Did I miss anything Facebook? So no, WhatsApp is very standard in other countries. If you're in Europe, WhatsApp is all the rage, if you're in the US, it's all I Message, and if
you're in Asia, it's all WhatsApp. So, like I said, we're going to China next week, we are going to be using we Chat the whole time basically, and there's different things I like about them. So Facebook Messenger, what I don't like is that it's linked to your Facebook. It doesn't have to be, but you know, it's weird, Like when I message you, it comes up as like my full formal Facebook name on Facebook Messenger, which is
kind of weird. Yeah, and then with we Chat, what I really like about it is that it's just a QR code. So if you want to link up with someone anywhere, you don't need to figure out their.
Phone number or their username.
You literally just hold your phone over their screen with your QR code and it links you up and you can now chat. And so that makes it really easy, especially when you're in Asia, different language barriers and stuff like that, where you can chat with someone you know simply and link up with them. And you might be thinking, well, rich, if we have a language barrier, how would we be
talking to each other. Well, sometimes you just might meet up your person and be like, Okay, when's the party tonight or whatever, and like they'll just text you like some information, you know what I mean?
Oh okay, got it?
Like you don't always need to have like a full fledged conversation, you know, yeah, or they might send you more information or a.
Picture they just translated themselves.
Depends, Yeah, I mean, and you could you know, you can always copy and paste. Or they might speak a little bit of English sometimes you know, and they can you know, or you might speak a little bit of probably not Chinese.
I didn't tell you I speak Chinese.
Yeah, I was wondering you've been you've been working on that.
Yeah, language, so WhatsApp is just fine. I wish this is my wish for all of the world. I just wish there was a standard. And I know people say like, oh, can't I message just be everywhere? No, my message should not be everywhere, like I would like a I would like a set of standards for messaging so that these apps can interact with each other, because my message is fantastic.
If the other person's using an iPhone, and you know, megan, as soon as I switched to an Android, all hell breaks loose, right, and it's just like we were chatting on three different screens the other day because it.
Was so insane.
So I wish there were some standards that people and text messaging is a standard, and so is RCS, which is the next standard for texting.
But nobody has adopted it yet.
And so until that's adopted in a big way, and Apple is kind of like the holdout there, it's just not gonna happen because people on iPhone don't even know there's a problem with messaging, right.
Yeah.
It's funny too because I have a friend who lives in London and she's the only reason why why I have a What's Up account, and so like I'll text her on I Message and she won't respond to me for weeks, and then I'll go on WhatsApp and I'll be like, did you get any of my I messages? And she's like, I don't check I message. So it's just hard to like even think that way.
Yeah, It's just it was funny because I was going through my wife's phone like I normally do, not just kidding me, but I see on my wife's phone that she had WhatsApp, and I'm like, wait, you have WhatsApp?
Like here. It is like all the.
Time I've like try to figure out how to like message my wife because she knows I'm always using like a different test her phone, and I, you know, I see WhatsApp on there. I'm like, oh my gosh, you have WhatsApps to go. Oh yeah, my friend in Rome asked me to sign up, so I did. I'm like, you sign up for Like I have not asked her to do that because I thought it was like so complicated to like say.
Hey, can you get this third party messaging app?
So when people communication will find a way making exactly. So there's an article in the Washington Post this week that kind of tells us stuff that we already knew, but when you see it written out, it's kind of scary. But the writer there, Jeff Fowler I believe, wrote about this.
He basically hooked up his iPhone to a little monitoring app to kind of see how much is being how much data is being sent on his phone without him knowing, you, like all these trackers and stuff, And he found that fifty four hundred app trackers were on his phone.
So he used.
He just basically plugged his phone in at night. And what happens is when your iPhone is plugged in all your apps, it's like a free for all.
They're like, oh my gosh, we've got power.
So the operating system on iOS lets them kind of do whatever they want when there's power, with limit limitations.
Right.
But because you have power, your phone saying okay, you guys, if you need to go talk to your servers or whatever, go ahead, like Facebook, go talk to your server, WhatsApp, talk to your server Google Photos.
You can kind of refresh your photos whatever you want to do.
Because it knows it has a power source, right, it doesn't want to use your whole battery up by letting these things what's called background refresh. When your phone is on just a cellular plan, So when it gets on Wi Fi and it gets plugged in, does that make sense.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Everything just goes to down.
It's really funny though, the way you describe it and makes it sound like it's like a little cartoon.
It's like a little party.
They go do what you need to do.
It's like they're all like, yeah, we got like six.
Hours, yes exactly, that's they all run and they're like, okay, let me report back everything I can in these six hours. So he found fifty four hundred trackers, mostly in apps Yelp, all these all these different trackers sending back data like his phone number, email, exact location, digital fingerprint of his phone, all these different things. And it sounds really scary, but the reality is this is what happens on your phone. These are how apps are free. A lot of this
stuff is just nonchalant. It's like, you know, Facebook wants to know where you are because they can serve ads in your area, or Yelp wants to know where you are so they can say, hey, we found a great you know Vegan restaurant near you, and.
We notice you like Vegan. So a lot of these things are like that.
A lot of it is just tallying the data from the day, like Google Maps track your location the whole day. Now it's sending it all back to Google so that it can put it in your timeline. But it's kind of scary when you see it all laid out there, right, And so there's no real solution offered up in his article. I mean, you could turn off background refresh on your iPhone, but you would really severely limit what your apps do, so I don't really recommend that.
But it's just a.
Great article to read. And again we've said this before in the podcast. When you're getting something for free, you are the product, right like your data, your stuff, and you know, there's little ways you can limit this stuff,
but not really like you can't limit the trackers. And if you go to like a major website, even like ktla dot com, there's a million trackers that are looking to do different things to serve up ads, to see who you are, to you know, track how long you spend on the way website, And a lot of this stuff is actually useful data because like for me, let's
say you go to rich on tech dot tv. I can see kind of the things that you looked at, so that I know, like one of the most popular stories on the website, how far down did you scroll on this story? I don't really look at that, but that's something you could do if you're really smart. I'm not that good, but again, these are things you can do. How many links did you click on in that story?
So you understand your user. So the better an app is at this, the better they can use that information to make the app better, but also make the experience better as well.
Cool, that's your Cueh's right, I know there's no audio this time. Let me try to keep you on your toes.
Okay, So this next question is from Shana and Bob Hi.
Rich.
You gave me a great recommendation for a laptop for my oldest daughter four years ago. I need one for my other daughter.
She is starting college but is also an artist, drawing and painting. She isn't sure what she wants to do yet, but I wanted to get her a laptop that would accommodate both educational and artistic qualities. Any recommendations mid price range if.
Possible, Thanks so much.
Well, as soon as she said art and computer, what do you think came to mind?
All right, Well, the surface I was gonna say.
Like a Microsoft.
I mean, like like Apple is good for creative stuff. But like if you're thinking of like art, which I think of like drawing on the screen, like you can do an iPad pro, I guess you could do that, but that's really expensive. So is the surface surface not cheap? But I would recommend probably a surface there's so many of them now, the surface I would recommend the Surface Studio too. It's like it's like three thousand dollars, but it's beautiful.
It's like a giant screen. It's really nice.
What about just a MacBook?
No, because the MacBook you're not gonna be able to do any art on, Like you can't draw on the screen, there's not really any touch functionality.
So I don't I don't think that would be very good.
I really think that a surface pro would probably be your best bet. The problem is the surface pro is not cheap. It's I think, let's see how much does it start at? Surface Pro six starts at eight hundred dollars, So I mean, but if you do it over time. If you think about if you're using this thing for four years, like you said, our last computer recommended was four years. You know, it's two hundred bucks a year. So if you think about how much you're gonna be
using this computer. And here's the other thing. If you sell yourself short and you get something that's a little bit cheaper, like a chromebook or something, you're not gonna be able to tap into that creativity that you're talking about.
Right.
If you want to be an artist, you want to be able to draw on that screen and to be able to sketch things, and to be able to, you know, flex your creativity. And I just don't think that another computer is going to enable you to do that without a touch screen. So my advice, I would say look into two things. I look at the surface pro six. You can look at the surface Go, which is a much cheaper version. It starts at four hundred dollars, but it's just not gonna be as fast, but you do
get a lot of the same functionality. So that's four hundred bucks. Maybe try that, you know, And I'd also look at the surf the UH. I'd go for either an IP had Pro or maybe just an iPad because now they have pencil support on those as well. Yeah, but with both of these things, you're going to be buying the device, which is basically a tablet, and then you have to buy all the accessories.
Which is the pen which is the keyboard case.
You know, So you're looking at a couple hundred dollars over the price tag. It adds up, It adds up, It adds up quickly. Story we did this week on KTLA is about the Yolo app and Megan, you were very instrumental in helping us set this up because you helped us find the teens to talk to. So I saw an article about this app, which is an app that sits on top of Snapchat, and Snapchat is kind of all but dead for a lot of people, but people still use it.
They still have I think like three hundred million or four hundred million users. You still use it on a daily basis.
Yeah, kind of, but not as much as Instagram.
Yeah, Instagram Stories really kind of took over, but there are some hardcorees that are still on Yolo or on a Snapchat that are still checking on a daily basis just to see what their friends are doing or whatever, or you don't want to miss that streak.
Do you have a streak with anyone right now?
I have streaks my friends.
Yeah, yeah, got to keep up the streak.
Yeah.
So Yolo is an app that sits on top of uh Snapchat, and what it does is it's basically an anonymous Q and A app. So we did the story about what parents kind of need to know about this. The reality is these Q and A apps are very quick to come to market, and they're very quick to crash and burn. So they come out and they're popular for six months and you never hear about them again.
There's been so many in the past.
So I remember doing a story here at Katla where they came to my house to interview me like five years ago about that one. It was called like I think it was yik yak or something or oh yeah it yak that sounds It was like, I mean, there's been so many of them.
What was yak like the same thing? You just go on It was just an app and you go on.
Wait, was that related to like colleges?
Yes, I had that.
Oh my gosh, yes, I remember that so well.
We used to use that all the time.
Totally.
We used to write the Weirdest Yes, so this was back in twenty thirteen, and you could call yes and you can comment, and of course it was all anonymous.
Anyway, what happens with anonymous messaging apps.
You think it's gonna be great, right, You find you know the person you have a crush on and.
They tell you, yes, it's me.
Or you figure out you know something that you wanted to know that you you know, people think you're beautiful and they tell you that in this app. But guess what people get really mean when it's anonymous and they feel like they can say anything. And of course that's what's gonna happen with teenagers who are already anxious, who already you.
Know, not hormonal.
Yeah, exactly, there's a lot going on there. There's a lot going on.
So yolo, what you need to know if your parent is basically that this will go away. But if your kids are using it, it's probably not healthy for them because sure they'll get some nice things like I like your hair, but the rest of it is nonsense and there might be some mean stuff bullying going on in there.
And again we talked to expert Josh Oakes over at smartsocial dot com and he told us that, you know, don't let your kids be on platforms or you can't be friends with them, which is kind of like that's like a very dream way to look at it. I think I think that that's tough for most parents because kids are just inherently more forward thinking and they're just a little bit more ahead of their parents. So and they're going to be on some things that their parents
just aren't on or aren't interested in being on. But you can still have an awareness of this stuff so that you can maybe have a conversation with your kids be like, hey, I know, I know a lot of you kids are using yolo these days. Is anyone saying anything mean to you?
You know?
Yeah, just like that, just like that, like you know, old Grandpa rich Yeah, Grandpa rich on.
Text, Hey, kids, what about this Yolo thing? Yolo on it? You only live once. The teens that we talked to, what was your thoughts on them?
They were awesome.
They well, they were very smart.
They were very smart and like wise and they you know, they both thought that the app or the ad on was you know, fun, But at the same time, like you do expose yourself to like potential bullies. And I think one girl actually had gotten bullied on like a previous app.
So was sensitive to it.
And so I think, you know it's you don't think you're gonna get mean messages, but you never know.
It's so easy and.
Like I'm gonna start that app? What why?
And Okay, you never know. You never know, might be good, might be bad. You never know when you open this.
If they could actually program one of these anonymous.
Apps to just like never be mean, like if if someone was trying to say no Instagram.
Instagram does that. So on Instagram, yes, they have filters, Yes they have secret I called the Taylor Swift's uh, the Taylor Swift filter because she complained to Instagram many years ago. And they basically built AI that kind of senses when you're saying something mean and it will kind of filter it out without even you knowing it. Like basically the person that did that post won't even see it.
Now. On Facebook, I they don't.
Use that because I get even on my my page, which my face rich on Facebook dot Com, slush rich on Tech. People are generally nice, but there are some negative comments.
And it's funny.
Because if write a swear word, generally Facebook will will grade out, so I can still see the comment, but other people can't.
But if they write.
Something mean, a lot of times when you're being mean, it's kind of how you interpret it, right, Like it may not be mean words, but when you're saying it for the context, and that's really tough for AI to figure out, right, So sometimes let's just say, like, it's really tough, like if you're like, let's say you ran like uglyproduce dot com.
Have you ever seen that.
It's like they they sell like the produce that's like a little bit uglier, so like you know, it's cheap or whatever.
So let's say you ran that Instagram page.
And you're like, these tomatoes are so ugly but tasty, you know, and like, how does AI figure out that? Like you're not saying anything mean about these tomatoes, but it's just you know, it's like these weird things that we have to think about in the tech world. So anyway, on Instagram, if you've noticed, most of the comments are generally pretty positive because there is some level of AI
going on filtering there. In fact, I believe, and don't quote me on this, but I believe that they're even filtering out things like if you write like suicide related or bullying related, they will help you get some help, like with even if your comment doesn't like get posted, they'd be like, hey, do you need help like or something like if you write something like a suicide thing, you know, I think that's happening, don't quote me on it. But if it's not, Instagram get there.
And even for celebrities, like the comments the you know, if you want to read the comments, it's always done like kind of people with the most liked their comments are the top, so it's hard to find the mean comments that are they get blended out.
Yeah, they don't get liked, so which is also that's smart.
Yeah yeah, all right, you're up.
I'm up.
Okay, So this next question is from Larry hi Rich. I love all your shows, watch them all the time. My Samsung smart TV has no Bluetooth and no audio such as a headphone jack, but I would like to use my Bluetooth headphones and speakers with it.
How can this be done? Thank you?
So he's got a smart Samsung TV, no Bluetooth and no audio out except like the standard stuff.
Yeah okay, So he wants to plug in headphones, is that what he's saying, or he wants to.
Use he wants to use his Bluetooth.
So a couple things.
Number One, if you connect something like Amazon fireTV or a Roku or an Apple TV, and I think we've talked about this on the podcast, a lot of those will give you the Bluetooth functionality, but obviously only for stuff that's running through that device. Right, So if you're watching like you know, Netflix or something like that, like, yes, you'll get the Bluetooth and you can just hook those
up to your Fire TV. If you're talking about everything else that's running through this TV, that gets a little bit more complicated. But I do think that you probably need something like a little Bluetooth transmitter that you would hook.
Up to the back of the TV.
Now he said that there are no external like there's no headphone jack, there's no RCA out whatever, which.
There probably is.
But I think that most TVs, including mine, which my TV is a twenty fifteen, it has an optical out and so a lot of times you don't even notice this on your but it's like this little weird fiber optic kind of out that will work and it serves as an out. And I looked up on Amazon they do have a Bluetooth transmitter with a optical input, so it's thirty five dollars and all you do is connect that optical input from your TV to this Bluetooth transmitter.
Then you connect your Bluetooth headphones to the transmitter. And this one that I just looked up on Amazon is called the Home Spot Bluetooth Transmitter thirty five ninety nine and it will basically take the output from your TV, pipe it into the Bluetooth pipe it into your headphones.
That's it.
Now, if you don't have the optical I would check and see if you have some RCA outs. Maybe you do, but I don't know what model this TV is, but I've found that a lot of the older TVs have the optical so it's not that big of a deal. So again that's why.
I use mine.
I've got mine hooked up to a so nose and so the optical cable is how it gets all the audio from the TV, no matter what's playing on there. So it's kind of like a catch all for the TV audio.
So there you go.
That's really cool.
This was a great segue to my next story, Megan, because Visio has some new features rolling out to their smart TVs. And again, I have a video. My main TV is a Visio back in twenty fifteen. I bought it, I think. So this does not apply to me, sadly, but it does apply to twenty sixteen.
And above TVs.
But they're upgrading what they call their smart cast, which is they're you know, all TVs. Do we talk about this in the last week's podcast. I hope we didn't, because I think I might have. I'm gonna look real quick, because if we did, I'm just gonna skip to the next story.
We did because we did the story on Friday.
You're right, okay, I'm looking. We did not stay up.
You're right, okay. So smart Cast three point zero is the newest version. All the TVs now have smart software on them, right, And so this is they call their smart cast, and smart cast is kind of like that home screen that you see if you press the Visio button on your TV, right. And so what they're doing is a couple of new things. Number One, they're revamping the screen so that there's more access to kind of the content that you want. So they're adding all the
apps and things like that. They're also adding watch free, which there is a big trend in the US right now, a free content for streaming because a lot of people are cutting the cord and they're like, now that I cut the cord, I just want to watch free stuff. Like I don't really care if it has ads or not,
but I just want free stuff. And so all these companies are coming out with like free stuff to watch that doesn't require a subscription, like to Be and yeah, all these weird like I call them weird, but like I personally it's not for me.
But they can add ads to it.
Yeah, they there's totally ads. Yeah.
Now I don't want to see ads, so I'm not gonna watch any of this stuff.
But people love it.
Like when I was at Roku, they were talking about how their most popular feature is like this Roku channel that they have that's like all free stuff to watch. I need to try the Roku channel, but it's all I mean, you might like it so for fun. Yeah, I personally love the premium feel of Netflix that doesn't have ads, Like really, I just love that. Like I'm like, there's no ads like Hulu. I remember for a time they would have all these ads and I just hated it.
I hated that I was paying like five ninety nine a month whatever it was, and I was still seeing ads. Now, I know they have that premium premium which you can pay for no ads.
This was before kind of like how you like to use your iPhone without.
A case, right, you know, I'm elitist like that.
I had to call you out.
I'm so elitist that I just anyway, So watch free has a whole bunch of channels, so you can watch literally CNN, Paramount Movie Channel, MTV channels, Comedy Central, Spike, all these channels like are just literally streaming on your TV for free.
So that's Visio. Now.
The other big feature that I think most people are going to be interested in is Airplay. So you are now getting Airplay two on your TV with this software update, and so that means you can stream anything from your phone that's Airplay enabled, which is a lot of apps. But the other thing you can do is show your pictures off from your iPhone to your TV screen, which is always really tough unless you had an Apple TV, and Apple TV is one hundred and eighty bucks.
This is free.
So bottom line, if you have a Visio TV that was made twenty sixteen or late, or go into the software updates and check for this update, and if you have it, you'll get airplay too, which is really cool with your iPhone, and you also get some new Alexa functionality, some new Google Assistant functionality.
Visio is trying.
To take on the world with just having everything work with their TVs, which is really smart. And it's kind of weird because we've seen this progression from everyone was getting a smart TV with this proprietary software to now all these smart TVs are sort of working with the software that everyone has, like Chrome Cast and Airplay and all these apps and things. So I think that's pretty smart. Yeah, that they're doing that. All right, I've got one minute for a question, so it's a quick.
One, not a question of The last remark is from Raymond and I don't know if you want to read this, but it go Donut. Finally, here Go Donut, world's most portable and universal stand for tabs and smartphones, and they're now available at Walmart nationwide, and he just says, please help us spread the great news to your community.
Okay, go Donut yes, this is a little tiny device. This guy sent me some a couple of years ago and he said it's available at like Facebook and all this stuff, and it was too tough to buy, so I never really featured it.
But it's a I have him at home. I've got a couple of them.
It's kind of like it looks like a little ashtray that has like little cutouts for your iPad or your phone.
I think I have one of these two that you gave me.
I give you one of these.
Yeah, So it's it's a great it's a great little stand and it's at Walmart. So if you see it, support a local business. Go Donut is the name of it. And I think it's like fifteen bucks or so. But it's a it's a cute little device that I was waiting to kind of tell people about.
Until you could get them easily. So now that they're.
At Walmart, my gosh, good job, by the way, you did a great job of getting this thing in Walmart, because now I mean, if you're in Walmart's cross the nation, that's pretty amazing.
So again, it's.
Called Godonut dot com if you want to check it out. But again, we have a couple of them laying around my house, which I used just to like set up the tablet or like store my phone on my desk so you can see it.
It just kind of props up your device.
So all right, we're running out of time, but I just want to mention a couple of things. Ktla dot com story on focusing. We did this today on KTLA. It's a great story. This was inspired by me at my kids basketball game. My wife kind of shamed me into saying, why you're on your phone and your kid is playing? Shamed and I said, okay, And so I realized, great little feature on your phone, just turn your phone off for twenty minutes at a time and like focus
on whatever you're doing. I was in the uber the other night and I kept checking my phone incessantly. I said, you know what, I'm just gonna look out the window, turned on the downtime and twenty minutes, didn't look at my phone and it was great, felt like really nice, and didn't talk to the driver, but I just kind of looked out the window.
I like how you had to say that.
And another cool little feature Google Maps. Now if you're on Android, this is kind of cool. Search for a restaurant and Google Maps and then tap menu and it shows you the popular dishes at that restaurant. I like that, So that's kind of fun. It's not on iPhone just yet, but it is on Android. So if you have an Android, Google Maps, search restaurant, and tap menu and it will show you the popular dishes at that restaurant. Do you like to order the popular thing or do you not?
Like when you go to a restaurant, do you research the restaurant menu before you go?
I do it while I'm there?
Is that bad? So you look up?
Like let's say, let's say we go to like an Italian restaurant. I'll like at the restaurant, I'll go on Yelp and I'll just like go through pictures and like see what looks good.
I want to like know what it looks like.
You know.
See, I'm just the opposite. I guess my wife does all the research. She wants to know exactly what it looks like inside this and that. I do want to know what it looks like inside, but I don't want to know the menu. I don't want to see what's on there. I don't want to see the pictures by the way, can we just say that food pictures always look disgusting, like when they're on Yelp, Like unless you're.
Like a true helper.
That's so true.
Average Joe takes a picture of like something at his table. It looks terrible, like I don't want to eat that. So I like to be a mystery. I will ask the waiter what's popular. But I also don't necessarily I'm not necessarily swayed by that because what's popular isn't always what's the best for you.
But see, sometimes I don't know what like a term is for like a type of like pasta, and so then I'm like, is this the this kind of pasta? And so like the pictures help you know, right, Okay, So that's just like I just need to.
Be more educated than the food department.
I hear you. That's going to do it for today's show.
Thanks so much for listening, and please subscribe if you haven't done so already. Just search Rich on Tech in your favorite podcasting app. That could be Apple podcasts, that could be pocket casts that can be overcast if you were listening on Google podcasts.
I did figure out that.
We were not getting our feed to Google podcasts for the past couple of weeks, like maybe a month. So that is fixed and everything we should be firing on all cylinders. My book is one hundred and one Handy Tech Tips for the iPhone. It is available right now on Amazon and paperback. Get it before iOS thirteen comes out and I have to revise the whole thing and write all the tips over again because who knows what Apple's going to change coming up this week at WWDC.
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You can find that at rich on tech Dot TV producer Megan Where can people find you?
I'm on Twitter at producer Megan within h and.
By the way, you have surpassed your oh followers.
This was a big deal.
Yeah yeah, I said when you changed your username you would have more followers than the people you're following. You now have four one hundred and seventy two followers. You're following four fifty nine.
I know I was right, So thanks.
Thanks for all the new follows.
All right, I'm Rich Dimiro. Have a great day. We will talk to you real soon.