Amazon sets this year's Prime Day. Air tags get their first major update.
The website that will.
Buy your old gadgets for cash, even if they're broken. Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Demiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer the questions you send me. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Hope you are having a fantastic day. We are into the summer. I don't even know is it summer just yet?
I don't know.
I mean, you could be listening to this next year for all I know, or you could be listening to it last year. If you're a time traveler, that would be interesting, butrobably wouldn't be listening to a podcast. You'd be so rich that why would you be listening to a podcast? I mean, seriously, you would be on an island somewhere living off your bitcoin if you sold it right before the giant bitcoin dip of twenty twenty one,
you'd be much smarter than me. Let's see, so I was going through my I'm on this quest, you know, to kind of clear out my Google drive, get things organized, get it all backed up, and it is quite the process. Everything's the process right when you as we acquire more tech and digital stuff. But I was going through my drive and I found all I went through and like did a search for all my old audio files so
I can finally get them into one place. Of course, I had like hundreds of duplicates, Like these files are just duplicated one, two, three, four. Like I have this thing where I can never like just delete stuff. I always have to like make a copy of it just in case before I delete there's like a backup, and
that makes all these extra files. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I found a whole bunch of old files that, like, if you've been listening to the podcast for a long time, they've all had their place in the podcast throughout the year.
So like this one, uh, I don't know, these were like.
This was like the music that I would use for like the end of the show. Sounds like you're in like a nightclub.
What about this one? You know, I'm obsessed with radio.
I've always loved radio my entire life, growing up as zero one hundred New York and it's just like all radio sounded like this back in the day. You're listening to whtz Z one hundred New York. And then like this kind of stuff, like all these little likes, this was the one I always wanted. Drum roll, drum roll please, Yes we have the new winner of the Amazon Echo. Say hello, how about this one? Like all this kind of stuff, like you are tuned in to the war.
It's leading broadcaster from the top of the Empire State Building.
And then this was my intro initiating rich on Tech.
This was from DJ Ski. He made a couple of intros for me back in the day. And then this, if you remember, was the original intro to the podcast a long time ago. Not the original, but it was definitely one of the one of the there's been many, is it permutation, permutations, permutations, permutations. I don't know how you say that word. I always say that a lot. Someone should do a clip of me saying I don't know how you say that word. Why did I grow up not knowing how to say words? You know, I
grew up in New Jersey, where I'm not kidding. I called a drawer a draw until I got to college and I'll never forget. I told my roommate who was from Torrents, and I was like, Hey, can you open that draw? And he's like, what what are you talking about?
Draw?
Yeah, open that draw. Go take look at yourself in the mirror, the mirror. What Let me have a glass of water. I mean literally the things that I said. And it's ironic that I become a broadcaster because this the way I spoke for so long was just everything was wrong, and it's a lot of it still is, which is you know, that's just who I am. Like I still say button and everyone's like, isn't it button butt in? Uh, take a look, take a lift at the fountain, and then press the button. You know, I
just this is who I am. I'm from New Jersey.
It's like just the way I grew up.
But the ironic thing is going to USC was pretty good for me because I'll never forget literally sitting down in a circle with a whole bunch of people in my dorm room freshman year and they would just like I was like this weird specimen, right, Like I'd just be this weirdo from New Jersey that they were like, so, how do you say this? Word and I'm like Oregon and they're like no, no, no, it's Oregon, and I'm like okay, and we'd go through like for like an hour.
Uh. Anyway, I digress, as I generally do. Let's talk about out.
Uh. I guess I'm not going to go with the top story of the week right now. I'm going to go with what I think is a really important and fun story. We did it on KTLA today and it's a website that will pay you cash for the gadgets.
Laying around your house. Now. I know there's a.
Bunch of these websites, like Gazelle. Swap a Glide is another one that I used to talk about a lot, but I guess they're back. They were gone for like a while, but and Gazelle even was gone for a while like they weren't doing it. But anyway, So when I heard about this website, Gizmo Go, I had never heard of it before, and I was like, huh, that's I mean, it's rare that I haven't heard of something like that's you know, in a main space like gadget refunds.
And I think what's happened with a lot of these gadgets is that people sell them back to the carriers and people sell them back to Apple. But the reality is there's three levels of getting rid of your old gadgets. Number one is if you just have old gadgets that kind of you don't want to throw out in the trash because they are you know, they're bad for the
environment to throw out. That's like an old, super old device that's worth like almost nothing, right, like ten dollars, five dollars or zero.
That's one level.
Then you've got the next level where you know it's worth something and you can trade it in and get some good cash for it, which is generally like if you have last year's iPhone, you want to upgrade to the new one. And then there's this middle ground of just like a bunch of random stuff that you might have, like an older phone that's like it's not really not worth anything, but it might be worth something. So anyway,
that's where this website comes in. Now you know those levels of selling stuff, so you're always going to get the most with what I call a person to person exchange or or sale. So the best way to do it is to sell it to a friend. Right, So if you put on Facebook, hey, I've got this old iPhone. Here's how much i'll sell it for it. You're always gonna get the most from a friend or a family member because you're doing the transaction in cash. You're not
paying any fees. You don't have to pay transaction fees, PayPal fees, whatever. Right, that's always the best way, and you know, you feel good knowing that it's a family member or friend that's getting it.
The next way is eBay.
You're always going to get a good amount on eBay, and you've got a national audience, so you can sell to anyone in the US. You may think your iPhone five is you know, worthless, but there's someone out there that may have an iPhone five hooked up to their telephone system to pipe in music for their you know, their their hold music for an office or something. You know, you just never know what these situations are. And so
that's another good way. And then you have the middle way, which is like Gazelle, Swapa and this new one Gizmo Go, which you're going to give you more cash than say trading it into the carriers. The carriers usually give you the least amount of cash because you know it's a it's a volume transaction for them, they're just kind of doing it as a courtesy. And then they don't they
don't really care about the transaction. They just want to get you into a new phone on a new twenty four to thirty month contract or whatever you call it payment plan. So they're just doing this to make it easy for you to like not have any barrier to entry. So they're not going to give you the most, but
it's gonna be fine. And then sometimes they run deals like Samsung often when a new phone comes out, will give you a little bit more, or Apple or any of these companies they'll give you like a little bit more T Mobile, Verizon, AT and T just because again they're trying to get you to upgrade. Anyway, all that is said that when I heard about Gizmo Go, I
was like, huh, I never heard of them. And then it turns out they're in Chino, which is in nearby city in Los Angeles, probably like an hour away maybe, and so I was like, can I visit and see the operation and see how these things work? And sure enough they said yeah, And so I went down there and oh, my gosh, the amount of gadgets that were in this warehouse was just wild. Just stack to the walls or stack to the ceiling, I should say. And so they do two things. They do like mass recycling.
Like let's say your target and you're upgrading all your point of sale systems, you'll just ship all your old ones to this company. They may give you a little price for them, or you know, I don't know how they do it, but you know, they must either charge you or they'll just take them for free. And then they'll reclaim the metals out of these things and recycle them properly, because there's a whole business in that. And then the consumer side of things, they'll take your electronics.
And so the electronics they'll take is basically, you know, laptops, tablets. Let's see what else, computers, gaming, consoles, cameras, lenses, drones, smart watches, even iPods.
And the website gives you an estimate.
And you know, I did not tell I was at a little sneaky on this story because I went to Gizmo Go. It seemed great, you know, they led me around, showed me everything. But then I said, you know what, since I haven't heard of this company, I just want to make sure that it works the way they're telling me. And so after I got back, I actually took my kid's old iPad. He had an iPad mini that the screen was cracked. It was sitting in my garage. I
had done previous estimates. It said it was worth about thirty bucks on one of these other websites, and so I was like, ah, it's not really worth my time, and so I put this on gizmo Go and they said we'll give you eighty bucks. I was like, wow, okay, they said they would pay top dollar, and sure enough they did. So I sent it in and Gizmo Goo kept asking, Hey, when's the story airing?
When's the story airing?
And I kept like putting them off because I was waiting for this iPad to come through and get my money, and so I wanted to see as a regular person. I didn't want to tell them that I was doing this because you know, then they would go find the iPad and kind of fast track it. I wanted to see what the average person would go through. So sure enough, in about a week, and it was over a holiday weekend, I got my eighty dollars. Eighty dollars and fifty five
cents in my PayPal account. I was very happy the whole process worked out as they promised, and now I can recommend Gizmo Go Gizmo like gizmo go dot com. They take it all and it's a great process. It's pretty quick. They'll pay via PayPal, and I guess it'll be my new place to get rid of old stuff if I need to. And you can even send in stuff like if it's totally worth nothing, just send it to them and they'll get it properly recycled, which is also really nice. So you can see the story on
my website. Rich on tech dot tv look for the cash for Old Gadgets story and there you go. Don't throw stuff in the trash. Batteries and old electronics, do not do it. Not good for the environment.
All right.
Terry has a very long question, but I'll try to paraphrase it. But she says, I just watched you recommend two USB drives to download photos from Android to the USB and then download the photos from the flash drive to a computer. I have a similar situation. I want to transfer all my text messages. I purchased a Samsung Duo Type C flash drive. No problem, downloading the text onto the USB. But Samsung only allowed a very small sample of texts that could be viewed.
I was told I.
Would need to purchase droid Transfer to download them to my laptop. You identify two drives, will they handle these texts? And it just goes on and on. But the reality is so droid Transfer is a paid service. You do not need it. You do not need that program. You don't need to pay at all. The program that will do this all for free is called SMS Backup and Restore. SMS Backup and Restore. It's been around forever, It's gone through a couple of owners. It is completely free. They
do have a paid version. I'm not sure what that does. I think I paid for at some point. It might be like four dollars and fifty cents, maybe no ads or something. But you can easily use that to back up your SMS messages on an Android. Now, on an iPhone, yes it gets a little trickier, but you're not talking about iPhone Apple. You know good old Apple. They like to lock things down. So just accessing your text messages, the things that you have created on your phone is
oh my gosh, it's so tough. It's I'm a tech person and I can't figure it out. Yes, there are some apps like Samsung Smart Switch and OnePlus that will tap into your iPhone and bring those messages over to your new phone sometimes, but it is really, really tricky, and for the average person that just you just want to see your texts in your Google Drive, it's nearly impots with the iPhone. Yes, there's a bunch of software that can do it. It's a weird file, it's a
weird format, and it's just the way Apple rolls. And so with iPhone, yes, it's it's a lot tougher. And people tell me all the time here Rich, you know, I would like to restore or download my messages from iCloud. I'm like, yeah, not gonna be able to do it. To restore them from my cloud, you have to literally
format your phone and start fresh. And that's the way you have to back them up from my cloud and then on you know, if you just want to download them, like just have a nice like backup of your text messages, oh good luck with that. There's really no app even on the iPhone that can easily do that. And I say easily because someone's gonna email me and say, rich you can do this. No, no, no, it's not easy. Like I'll be honest. You know, I'm a tech person. I
look at this stuff all day long. I'm always looking for simple solutions. SMS backup and restore is totally simple and easy. Sorry, that's my producer or my editor texting me, so hold on. Let me text him back and say cool. Oh gosh, remember the days when you weren't interrupted every two seconds with something? But it just happens, you know, So anyway, where was I? That's the program. Since you said you're on an Android, SMS backup and restore is
the program to use. It will work easily if you have a solution for the iPhone that's simple, easy, And you know for your messages, tell me, I don't think there is one. It's just Apple likes to make things really complicated because guess what, it keeps you in the Apple ecosystem.
You know, your messages are in.
iCloud somewhere, you just don't really know how to access them very easily, and neither do I, And so you can't just go on iCloud dot com and say, hey, download my texts or my I messages.
You just can't do it.
As far as I know, and Apple will continue to make things tricky for us. I think they're getting better, Honestly, I'm not trying to knock Apple. I think I think that it was the way their system was built to be safe and secure.
Like with respect to text.
Messages, they don't want a bunch as because every app would love to tap into those, right, So it used to be on Android, like every app could just access your messages, no big deal. But it becomes this security issue because there's a lot of information in those messages and so by having every app read them can be a potential security issue. So Apple says, well, let's lock them down. But they need to make these things a
little bit easier because they have them locked down. But give us a simple way to kind of get the information when we need it, right, especially for something like a simple backup that's not iCloud. All right, I'm done with that. All right, Let's talk about Prime Day. This is happening on June twenty first and June twenty second. The headline says two days of epic savings on more than two million deals globally. Oh my gosh, this is so big, and this is when I need my little
bump bump bum sound effect that I don't have. Prime Day will feature can't miss deals from top brands like Levi's, I Robots, Samsung, and Redkin. Oh my gosh, I gotta get that shampoo I've always wanted at ten percent off. Uh So, And they're also pushing small businesses because you know, Amazon gets a gets a lot of uh hassle for being, you know, putting small businesses out of work, but you know it does it do support a lot of small businesses in the fact that any of them can sell
on Amazon. Whether that's a nice process, I don't really know, I know whatever. So it's happening June twenty first, June twenty second. I'll be honest, I always think that Prime Day is kind of a letdown. And what I do on I'll just give you my two things that I do on Prime Day. Number one, I kind of stop buying big things on Amazon until Prime Day. I just put them in my cart. And if I need something,
I'm not talking ten dollars things. I'm talking like you know, right now, I've got this whole push to buy like these huge light bulbs right, And so I'll put those in my car and I'll just let them sit. I've got a Synology Network attached storage system just sitting in my car. I've got a hard drive that i want ten terabytes, just sitting in my car. So I will sit those things in my car and then on Prime Day, I will see if the prices come down, and if
they do, I'll buy. If not, then I'll just you know, move out my life and purchase them at some point. That's really I think the best way to approach Prime Day if for sitting there just looking for stuff to buy, it's just like, ugh, it's just it's like a whole effort, right, So put the stuff that you want to buy in your cart, and then on Prime Day the twenty first, twenty second, see if it's on sale. That's my number one advice.
Number two. There's a couple of things.
Oh, all Amazon products. So if you're in the market for anything from Amazon or Ring, like an echo or a ring, you know, lights or anything from Ring, just put it, you know, put again, put it in your cart.
The price should drop.
Amazon devices go on sale during Prime Day big time, So that's the best time to buy those, right, Now there's two deals you can take advantage of three really starting on Monday, June seventh through Sunday June twentieth, you'll get a ten dollars credit to use on Prime Day if you spend ten dollars on select small business products in Amazon's store, so they will have I believe it's Amazon dot Com slash Support Small and so you can look for that if you want to get a ten
dollars credit, or you can do a ten dollars promotional credit. Now through June twentieth, if you purchase forty dollars in Prime branded Amazon gift cards, you can get a ten dollars gift promotional certificate to use on Amazon.
So, oh wow. Interesting.
So the one gift card is sold out, so there was two gift cards. I actually think I brought the wrong one. I did this, and I think I got taken because you have to buy the Prime Day E gift card and or this Prime card that came in a ten which I didn't get. So I bought the E gift card, but I just bought an Amazon gift card like a standard one.
It was not the Prime gift card.
And I don't think that I actually purchased the one that qualifies, so little fine print there, and with a lot of these things, you know you always have to follow directions perfectly to get at the free money. I think I did it wrong. So if you do it, just make sure that you buy the Prime day e gift card for forty bucks. You can apply it to your account and then you should get a ten dollars gift card after that. All right, let's get to the
next question. Paul says, Hey, Rich, my iCloud storage is full. I only have four hundred and eighty four photos and ten ten second videos. I saw there's a way to add storage with a cloud without a monthly fee. You also mentioned an iPhone flash drive that goes into the charging port on my iPhone eight plus. Is best buy the best place to go now that the death of
Fries has happened. A couple of things to unpack here, Paul, I can't believe your iCloud storage is full with only five hundred pictures and ten videos, but you know it happens. Is there a way around adding cloud storage without the monthly fee? So I wouldn't typically recommend this, but because
you don't have that much stored in the cloud. You can just look into getting a different account, like maybe start Google Photos and just put your videos and photos in there and that will clear up your storage and eCloud and that would be free, because I bet you'd be under the fifteen gigabytes because now that's that's all they give you on You can go with Amazon if you have Prime, you can go with Amazon Prime Photos.
You can put them there and that's free and you get five gigs of videos, which I think your ten ten second videos would be under. So you can do it that way. Or you can open up a one drive account and put them in there and you do get five gigabytes there. That's Microsoft one Drive. Now typically I would not I would say just you know, if I was recommending for you, I would pay the I think it's ninety nine cents for fifty gigs on iCloud. I would recommend doing that. It's a dollar a month.
I know you don't want to pay the monthly fee, but you know it is a buck, and I bet you spend a buck somewhere throughout the month. That's not like, oh my gosh, a big return on your money. So I know it's twelve dollars a year. It's not the answer you wanted, but it just makes life a little bit easier. And since it doesn't sound like you are spending a lot of or using a lot of storage, I think you should be okay for a long time with that fifty gigs. And you're asking about the flash drive.
I mean, by the time you spend forty dollars on the flash drive, forty to fifty bucks, you know, that could pay for like three years of the cloud storage on your on your iCloud. So that's what I would go with. I think that would be the simplest, easiest way for you to do that. And that's what I'm gonna say. All right, Well, Apple is already doing kind
of the first big update for the air tags. According to Sinet, they are going to add a little bit a little more security to these things, especially for Android users. So number one, let's see, So if you the whole thing about these air tags is that. And by the way, these things have been around for a month now and we haven't heard one major like oh my gosh, like this stalking situation happened because of air tags. We haven't heard any of that. And the only thing I've seen
is that. You know, everyone I've talked to is just thinks these things are amazing because you clip them and you forget about them, and when you need them, they're there, And I think they're pretty amazing. I've got one of my keychain and it's just like one of those things that's just okay, you know, you just know it's there when you need it. And I think a lot of people feel that way. And yes, there are some privacy concerns,
so Apple is addressing those. Number One, it used to be a couple of days before an air tag that was kind of clinging on to you would play a sound. Now they're gonna play a sound anywhere between eight and twenty four hours of it being kind of around you. And Apple's not giving you the exact time because they
don't want people to plot around that. Right, Like they knew it was eight hours, they would do their nefarious measures in seven hours before the thing dinged, right, So they're not going to say when this thing's gonna be.
Then.
Apple is developing an app, according to Cnepp, for Android devices that will help people detect an air tag that's traveling with them. And so the iPhone obviously has this built in, but Android will be released later this year. Now that's kind of weird though, because you know what, so every Android person now has to download this app to keep air tags from stalking them. Like, it's kind
of weird, right, So it's not a perfect situation. It's not a perfect solution, but it is one solution in one way that if you are kind of a little bit paranoid about these things, or you're in a bad situation and you just worry about this, then yeah, you can get this app on your phone and hopefully, I mean, look, is it going to stop all instances of stalking or whatever.
Probably not, but it could help. And it just I think it's more for the user to feel better knowing, like, Okay, well I'm an Android, so I'm kind of left out of this whole find my situation. But I can put this on my phone and feel a little bit better knowing that I will be able to detect these things if they happen to be near me.
All right.
Kiki from California says, Hey, Rich, I love your show. It's so informative and a source I can trust. Well, thank you just want it to know if there are any reputable trustworthy sites that offer free Microsoft Office software downloads, not an introductory offer free lifetime. I lost my job to COVID. I had to buy an inexpensive computer to search for jobs. It doesn't have any software loaded, and I need Microsoft Office.
Can you help? Thank you? Kiki in California.
Kiki, Well, I'm sorry to hear about you losing your job due to COVID. I'm sorry. I know what happened to a lot of people. But the good news is there are a lot of jobs out there right now, so hopefully you'll land on your feet. And it sounds like you spent your money on this computer, which you know is a good step. I'm glad you got that because you need it in today's day and age to look for a job. But this Microsoft Office situation, I think that I get this question a lot, which is
kind of odd. You don't need it. You don't need Microsoft Office now. If you have it, or if you have access to it, it's amazing.
It's great. Like I love it.
I mean it's I don't use it personally, I mean I use it for work. We have you know, our company does have a deal with Microsoft to use teams and all the Office three six five.
And it's fantastic.
In fact, one of my favorite features on Word that you may not even know about is the transcription feature. You can upload basically as far as I can tell an unlimited amount of audio to Microsoft Word and it will transcribe it word for word, and it's pretty phenomenal, and it'll even put time codes and stuff. I think it's it's really good. I used it a couple of days ago twice for two different little things I needed and it worked perfectly.
Oh.
Actually, I'll tell you what I used it for. This was just a this is embarrassing, But I'll tell you what I used it for. Are So I've been listening to Bobby Flay and his daughter Sophie Flay's new podcast.
Oh what's it called?
Something about food? I don't know what's cooking? I don't what's it. I don't even know what it's called. Let me see what it's called.
What is it called? It is recently updated? Where is it? Oh? How embarrassing is this? Oh?
Always hungry, that's what it's called. So I've always loved Bobby Flay. I've just I don't know why, Like I just always have loved Bobby Flay, and so when he came, you know, and his daughter is a reporter here in town, and so I followed her for a while. She does she's a really cool kind of this new age reporter that they it's like they call him m MJ's where they shoot their own stuff, but they take it even
a level further. She is just focused on a single area of LA and I think it's like either Echo Park or Silver Laker. It's like one of the cool like neighborhoods, you know. And so she just literally like you know, goes around and like finds cool restaurants, opening things that are happening in the community. And she does it all herself, like she produces, she edits whatever she puts it on air, I think on social media anyway.
So I've been following her and then when I saw that, you know, they have a podcast, I'm like, oh my gosh, of course, easy listen, and I've just loved every episode. They just talk about one type of food each episode and Bobby gives kind of his tips on how to do it and his thoughts. Anyway, long story short, Bobby mentioned one of his favorite bakeries in Los Angeles and he said it really quick, and I was in the car, so I just told Siri to you know, remember this
name of this bakery. But the way I said it, I totally butchered it, like I didn't get the right thing. And so I was like, how in the world am I going to find the name of this bakery. I'm not gonna listen to the whole podcast again. And for some reason, Apple, if you're listening, can you make a bookmark on a podcast? Just? Can you please give us
the ability to bookmark a spot in a podcast? It would be such an easy thing, Right you're listening in the car, they say something interesting, you bookmark it, and you come back to it. I mean, why is that such a It's such a winning feature.
Just please someone come up with that.
So anyway, so I couldn't book mark, I was like, Okay, how am I gonna find this without listening to the entire podcast again? And it occurred to me that I could transcribe the entire podcast using Microsoft Word and so I downloaded the podcast, I uploaded it to Microsoft Word. It gave me a transcription within like, you know, a minute or two, and I searched for the word bakery and sure enough I found the bakery and I will tell you what the name is. It's Tartin t a
r t i n E. Tartin Bakery. So next time I'm in Santa Monica, I will have to go to Tartin Bakery because that's the one that Bobby said is his favorite. And so they also, by the way, have locations all over the world. They have them in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and then Korea. So yeah, interesting, right, So that was a long story, but I gotta say, I mean, it was just such a brilliant This is why.
This is why I'm so happy that you listened to a like this, not to hear me drone on and on about all this stuff, but it's all about building that that base of knowledge in your head.
You may have.
You may say, Rich, you're going on and on about this transcription feature. Well, yeah, until the day comes that you need something like that, and then you go, oh my gosh, I remember Rich talking about that, And that's why we do stuff like this. That's why we enrich
our brains with knowledge. And yeah, you may say I'm not a tech person, I'm not at this, but like you may be at work and someone says, oh, I got this whole big thing, this interview I did with someone, and I gotta find this one thing that they talked about. And your light comes on and you say to your boss, like, I can do that.
I can.
I can find where he said the uh where he referenced Tokyo. And you're like, really, and this hour long thing that I talked to him, Oh yeah, I can find Tokyo. Let me let me show it and you and you take the audio and you upload it to Microsoft three sixty five into a word and you search for Tokyo and next thing you know, you here's what he said. The best restaurant in Tokyo and the best hotel to stay out are these two. And you're like, oh my gosh, and your boss just gives you a race.
So that's why we do this kind of stuff. And that's why you know, I, as a tech person listen to other people and other stuff because I'm always looking for cool new tips. I don't know it all and again it's not something you might use today, but you never know. And that's it's like one of these things. It's just building that reference. Like this is as the older I get, I wonder like what is my value as a human or as a person, or as a tech reporter, or as a parent or as a friend.
It's like it's really just you build up kind of layers of things. And so as a parent, you know, when I see a new parent, I'm like, ah, I remember those days, like and you know, and you give them a little bit of advice on something or whatever. Or as a as an employee, you know you've been there for a long time and you know a new person comes on board and you're like, okay, let me,
let me show you the ropes here. So if everyone was fresh and new and you know, clean to something, it would be a bad because we need people that bring perspective to things. And that's why, you know, I get it when you're little and your grandpa starts going off about something, You're like, oh, come on, grandpa, I know how to do it better on my phone with an app and just hear them out because you know things have changed, but a lot of it. You know,
they say history repeats itself. I mean you just have to just just be open to that perspective around you, right, Just be open to it because you never know when you're gonna get a little nugget that might really help you in the future. All right, So to answer your question, Kiki, that was a very long roundabout way. You don't need Microsoft Office for free. After I just said how great
it is, I think you need Google Docs. You can always subscribe to Microsoft Office later if you actually need it, but micro Google Docs will do just what you need. Go to Docs dot Google dot com. It's what I use for ninety nine percent of what I do on a daily basis. It works phenomenally, it's free, and it just does what you need and you'll be able to make your resume, You'll be able to make documents, spreadsheets, slide presentations, whatever you need, you'll be able to do
it there. And if you need Microsoft Office as you go along, if there's a feature that Docs doesn't have that you need, then you can go ahead and when you've got your feet on the ground, maybe subscribe for seven bucks a month to Office three six five and go that route. All right, good question, very long winded answer, but I hope that I made some sense there. Speaking
of Microsoft, let's just make this the Microsoft podcast. Microsoft is going to reveal the next generation of Windows on should I do my drum roll.
Let's do let's do the drum roll? Please? Hold on? How do I get my drum roll again? Hold on?
Oh, this is a really really great podcast, Rich. Oh, you're just so on top of things here. Let's let's start this over. Let's see where is my drum roll? Okay, it is ready, it is right about.
Drum roll please.
June twenty fourth, Microsoft will reveal the next generation of Windows.
Wow.
You know my friend Bald Brian does the sound effects for the Adam Kroller Show. He would be so embarrassed. I know he doesn't listen to this podcast because he's a good friend, and they don't do that. I always had this idea that you just mention a bunch of random people in your podcast every week and then they clearly like you'll know if they're listening because they'd.
Be like, oh, I heard you mentioned me. But that never happens.
But anyway, So he does the audio for the Adam Kroller Show, and he's so The reason why he's had his job for so long there is because he's so quick witted and he's so fast. What you just saw is the one opposite of that. It's just like, Rich, it took you fifteen minutes to get a drop, as they call them. I think he calls him a drop anyway.
So Microsoft detailing the next generation of Windows. The events happening on June twenty fourth, probably going to be virtual, I think, as everything has been, but they'll have a CEO, Satya Na Nadella is going to be there, and then Chief Product Officer Panos Piney.
Who I have met.
He came to the KTLA studios when the first Surface launched to do a personal one on one with me, which, like I've said in the podcast before, he'd never do that. Now, I mean, this guy went from you know, I mean he was big back then he was like the main designer, but now he's like chief product officer and he's he's like big time because Microsoft has had a lot of success with their Surface lineup and he has been kind
of the guiding force for that. So these are two big names, and so what is what are those two big names tell us that this is going to be focused on software but also how it works with their hardware, because the hardware, the hardware side of things with these big tech companies has become just as important. I mean, obviously we know with Apple, but Microsoft, yes, same thing. I mean, they're you know, they've had a lot of success with Windows, but a lot of their success has
been integrations with things. You know, how does office work with their laptops or how does office work across a lot of different devices? Right, how does it work with Samsung devices? And of course how do they optimize their software and services to work on their stuff? But everyone's stuff too, So the fact that they're both going to be there tells me a lot about the next generation of Windows. They did not see a lot of success with their little dual screen devices, but that doesn't mean
that those are going away. So maybe they'll have a two point zero or something, or a new approach to those devices. Because I think there's one thing that's pretty clear in our world is that more screens are happening. We're not getting less screens. We're getting more screens. Screens are everywhere, and Microsoft doesn't want to miss the boat. You know, when screens come to everything, right, don't forget you know, right now we've got all these little smart
speakers and you know they're getting screens. TVs are getting are sorry not TVs. TVs are getting screens. Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. No, all these little smart devices, the first step was to connect them to the internet. The next step is to give them a screen. And you know, we've seen this with you know a lot of little things like refrigerators, appliances. They're all getting screens, grills,
everything's getting a screen. And Microsoft does not want to miss the boat on running their software on these screens. So anyway, eleven am Eastern, eight am Pacific, June twenty fourth, Oh, why do you have to Why do you have to do this to me? Microsoft? Eight am Pacific? You're in Seattle. Why would you do eight am? Why couldn't you just split the difference and do like, you know, what's a nice time on the East coast and West coast?
Right?
Maybe eleven am ten am Pacific, which would be like what one pm Eastern? You know, I'm from New Jersey and I still can't get the time right. I don't know what it is. Why is it so tough for me to do this? The other thing that Microsoft said is that they were they this Windows ten X, this operating system that they were making that was like a lot simpler and kind of like, you know, just like super easy and for for dual screens that apparently is not happening. I think what they're gonna do is just
make one operating system that works on various things. I think that's you know, these operating systems get really really complicated, because it's kind of like Apple. They've got one thing going on with their desktop systems, like the you know, the mac os, and then they've got iPad os.
But you've got people that.
Are kind of like, okay, you're they're going between both, and it's really complicated to have like a totally different methodology of doing things on two devices that you use. So and I know Microsoft tried, like remember back in the day, like the Microsoft Windows Phones. They were literally like a tiny version of Windows that ran on phones. And so then they came out with Windows Mobile, which was a totally completely you know, different an operating system
with the tiles. But it goes to show that we have seen so many, you know, just variations of this stuff over the years. Like these companies are just are trying to figure it out in real time, and we're here for the ride, and it's not always easy, it's not always simple, but things are progressing all right, Steve says my late model Samsung four k Q ninety Oh good system, Wow, Steve. Nice Nice TV is not yet
making KTLA plus available. Deep in its instruction manual, Samsung seems to suggest there's a manual way of downloading apps. I haven't tried any luck with that. Do you know a way of manually downloading the KTLA plus app? I suspect suspect Samsung and other TV makers are waiting for very for a little financial incentive to add more streaming apps. I don't think Roku lists everything. Thank you, Steve and Colton. Steve, you know, I don't know what operating system the Samsung
smart TVs work on. I don't know if it's their own thing or what. But I know they have their own app store, but I'm not sure if it's Android based.
I know the Sony's.
Are, I don't know what the what the Samsung's use. I haven't I haven't tested these you ever, I don't think but anyway, So to answer your question, so this is why I always recommend just skip the smart TV and just get a smart device. And if you've listened to this podcast, you've heard my reasoning for this. Okay, and I'll just go through it once again. So Ktla Plus our app is available on Apple TV, Roku, and
Fire TV. And of course, as soon as we said that, everyone comes out of the woodwork saying, Rich, how come it's not on this platform? Rich, how come it's not on the Sony TVs. How Come it's not on the Samsung TVs. How Come it's not on Visio. How Come it's not on Chrome Cast. How come it's not on It's like, yes, there are a million platforms out there to get your your content on your TV. The reason I'm assuming our corporate folks decided on Roku, Apple and
Amazon is because those are the three largest platforms. And after that, yes, there's a whole long tail of other platforms, but it drops off a cliff pretty quickly. Like, yes, there's a lot of people using Chrome Cast and Android TV, but not as many as Roku and not as many as Amazon.
I mean, Amazon and.
Roku are just the two biggest out there. Apple TV, you know you have to sort of have an app there. Everyone does. It's it's like, you know, it's might not be as big as the other platforms, especially when you look at the iPhone, but it is it is kind of a standard platform, and it's easy to develop for and and of course it does beautiful things. So I think that's another reason we're there. I don't know, I'm not part of that situation. I don't you know, I'm
not like the developer of this app. But I would say that's kind of the reasoning. And that's why when people are like, oh, I like my Samsung Smart TV and it's just easy, the apps are integrated, Well, that's great. You run into an app that you want that they don't have, and a lot of this long tail of apps, and I would consider ktla plus to be one of those. They're not on all these random, you know, platforms because just be too cost prohibitive to be on those. Yeah, ideally,
you know. And if you're like an HBO Max, like, yes, you have like your entire business is streaming, so you have a lot of people that are trying to plan for this. But even HBO Max took a long time to get to every platform, and they may not still be there. May still not be there. So my recommendation, uh, get a firestick, get a get a Roku and plug it into the back of the TV. You can get
one for under fifty bucks. I would say that's the best way to go if you want the biggest selection of your apps, and not just the biggest selection, but also apps that are updated the most, you know, if the Again, when you go through the big app developers, even if you're a Hulu or an HBO Max or a Disney Plus or a YouTube TV, you're going to update the apps that are on the biggest platforms first.
You're gonna update them with your newest features, your latest features, and your best features because that's where a majority of your customers are. If you see that, you know, ten thousand people are streaming through an Android Shield TV, you're gonna say, Okay, that's great, and we love those customers. But you know we're gonna get to that Apple when we can, because we've got to put our our priorities and our and our our energies in places that will
affect the most people. So, Steve, I'm not just saying like go out and buy something, but again, it's an easy solution, and I think it's a better solution than what Samsung offers you on screen. And I know there's some ads on screen with Samsung. If you want to avoid those. You know, you can get an Apple TV that's really fancy. But I'm guessing you're not an Apple guy because it says sent from mail for Windows ten
and you've got a Samsung TV. So I'm guessing that maybe you're an Android slash, you know, non Apple person, which is fine, and so maybe you know. I personally think the the Roku or the fireTV are fantastic solutions for streaming if you want something that's inexpensive. I was using the fire TV last night. The old I mean, I've gotten old firestick. I'm talking. It's like from twenty nineteen. The thing was fine. I mean, the only thing you'll notice with the older devices is that it takes a
little bit longer to load the apps. Like on Apple TV, it's pretty fast. On the Roku Ultra, it's pretty fast. But like when you start getting into these lower end devices that are twenty five thirty forty bucks, it's just gonna take a little bit longer to load your favorite apps.
That's the main downside.
As long as they're four k HDR all this stuff like, they're gonna be fine for the picture once it's playing, doesn't take much to play the video. It's just a matter of like how long do these things take to load your favorite apps?
Right?
The response time, that's really where you notice the difference. All right, let's talk about Amazon. Speaking of Amazon, everything just rolls into each other. Amazon's sidewalk is bubbling up once again. I did a story on this back in I think it was like December, and gosh.
When was that.
Let me see, I did the story on December fourth. I can't believe it's December fourth.
Oh. This is cool.
Because I'm my computer connected, I can actually pipe in here's the story.
Look at this. Here's what I used.
Here's what I Said's network called sidewalk. It's powered by a portion of home Internet connections along with millions of ring and echo devices installed in homes across America. If you have one of these devices, you'll help power the network by default. Okay, So anyway, so that's I feel like now I feel like I'm really on the radio here because that's like kind of you know, they they play like little clips of like news. In a recent email, Amazon says, side, I don't know, I just love it. Okay,
So what do you need to know about sidewalk? So Sidewalk is Amazon's.
New you know.
It's basically a low low power, low frequency network that will long range, by the way, that is powered by Amazon devices like echos, a lot of echos, and then ring devices, but not the thing they left out was the doorbell, the video doorbell. So that's like the number one ring device that is not part of this network. So if you have one of those and that's your only ring device, you don't have to worry about being
part of the sidewalk network. Now, if you have an echo or you have some of the higher end ring devices like the floodlights, those are part of the echo network and are the ring the sidewalk network. And I think they did that, and they did all these things that are that are wired right, so they have a constant connection to power and a constant connection to the Internet.
And so what these devices do is they take a little tiny bit of your bandwidth and they rebroadcast it out as part of this mesh network, which is a new network called the Sidewalk Network. And I think this is brilliant. I think it's really smart. I think it's actually going to be very helpful in the future. But I know it's scary because it's using our internet. I don't think it's that scary. I think that Amazon did their homework. They figured out a way to use a tiny bit of your bandwidth.
I think they said.
It's like under, let's see what they say, five hundred megabytes a month. Five hundred let's see, yeah, five hundred megabytes a month. So you're not like they're not using all your Internet.
They're not.
Okay, the number one headline I'm seeing everywhere is Amazon Evil. Amazon is sharing your WiFi with your neighbors.
Bump, bump, bump. That is not true.
You cannot just latch onto this Wi Fi connection you do not have.
You can't go on your phone and say, oh, let me connect to the sidewalk network.
Because it's free, and I'll just cancel my internet at home and I'll just use my contents. He used my neighbor's Wi Fi. No, that's not how it works. What this is doing, Okay, there's a couple of things this is doing that's gonna make your life actually a lot better.
So let's say you have.
A ring video doorbell, right and you're setting it up for the first time, and this thing is for some reason you're just having trouble setting it up and it's not working. Well, maybe this device is sniffing around and it actually senses the sidewalk network and it says oh.
And then you call Ring tech support and they say, well, hold on, let me give me the serial number on that Ring device and you say, well, here it is, and they go, okay, we see what the problem is because they can connect to it through the sidewalk network. Now I'm not saying that's possible today, I'm not even sure. But these are just ideas of how Amazon's going to use this, okay. And then they say, okay, we can.
We can flip this switch. Do you mind if we flip this switch for you and we'll get this work in And then you say yeah, and you say okay, and they help guide you along and boom, now you're
up and running. That's one scenario. Another scenario, you've got a TILE device, and Tile is kind of an early early ally of the sidewalk network, and the Tile, which generally has been limited in past years to just working off of random people's Bluetooth on their phones, now it can use this sidewalk network to have connectivity no matter where it is as long as this sidewalk network is nearby. And so apparently the sidewalk network does not need a lot of nodes for it to cover a wide swath
of area. So if you know a couple people in your neighborhood leave this thing turned on, it could be a very powerful network. And yes it's evil, it's Amazon, oh my gosh, but when you lose your dog and you've got a tile connected to it, you'll really appreciate the power of the sidewalk network.
Or when you lose.
Let's say you lose power at your house and you're on vacation and your devices can still connect to the sidewalk network to sort of keep them in a state that is sort of still protecting your house. You know, you may not have all the functionality, but you might not be able to stream video and stuff, but maybe they'll still have enough to just kind of keep alerts going or whatever. You'll be like, oh, that's kind of cool.
So again, you know, I think that we need to keep a critical eye when it comes to anything that big tech does.
But I think that these stories are a little.
Bit overblown sometimes and it makes the average person just say no, I will not do that. I'm not letting Amazon share my Wi Fi with my neighbors. Well, that's
not what's happening here. And when you think about what's happening and you think about how we can create a network that you know, it may bring prices down from you know, this network has the potential to compete with something like Verizon or AT and T or T Mobile, because now you can empower a whole bunch of these new devices that may connect to the sidewalk network and have connectivity all the time to do little tiny things like,
you know, check in on GPS or whatever. You know, maybe in the future it could even check email.
Who knows.
I'm just saying this. This network has a lot of potential to do a lot of cool things in the future. Why should we just immediately cut it off and say no, I'm not going to be a part of that without any reasoning, I personally am leaving mine on. I'm leaving it on on my gadgets. I have a couple of
them here that will will latch on. I'm happy to help this thing take off, because you know, when you look at something like and I don't want to knock Apple again, but when you look at something like Apples find my network. Oh, it's pretty much turned on by default with every iPhone user in the world, which is you know, they say, nearly a billion devices. No one cried about that. No one said, oh, Apples so evil
for doing this. They said, oh, my gosh, Apple is so cool that I can use these find my you know, tags, to these air tags to find my stuff all over the world. Now that's great, but why don't we have some competition? And Amazon is building something that could potentially compete with find my and give Apple a run for
their money and importantly give us consumers a choice. And so now that Apple air tags, yeah, thirty bucks doesn't seem like a big deal, but now we may see these things come down to five dollars because other people can tap into sidewalk and make devices that are just as powerful, just as great. And you know, now we have choices, consumers. So I think that's what you need to know about sidewalk. It is your opportunity to turn
it off if you like. You can opt out in the settings on the Ring app or on the Alexa app. Just go into your settings and look for Amazon Sidewalk.
I guess I can.
Give you the the full you know, whatever you want what I just do here, But if you look at let's see where is it? So the settings, it's Alexa on your iPhone or Android, Tap more, tap settings, type account settings, tap Amazon sidewalk, and then toggle off on the Ring app. It's Ring And then it's not exactly where you would think it would be. I have to look in my I did it on a Facebook post, so you can.
Let's see here where is it?
Hold on, I gotta gotta scroll down. Let's see where it's How do you opt out with.
A Ring device?
It is Ring app menu, which is the three bars at the top, left, control center, and then Amazon sidewalk. So there you have it. I mean, make your own decisions. I mean, I'm just one opinion, and I'm an optimist when it comes to tech. So my opinion maybe not what you think, and that's fine. So I'm just giving you mind so you can understand why I'm staying on board with this thing unless Amazon proves me wrong, and
if they do, then I will turn it off. But right now I feel like I'm contributing to something that has potential to be pretty cool, pretty powerful, and pretty helpful. For other people, and that's why I'm doing it.
All right.
So Richard, I did a story on how to avoid robo calls, and Richard put in his suggestion. The main point of the story, and I think I went through this last week, was that you download the app from your carrier, you install on your phone, and you can stop the robo calls that way. But then some people you know, got a lot of response. By the way, but Richard emailed in and said, I have a suggestion to help avoid robo calls. So here's what he did. He edited all of his contacts to a favorite same
ring tone. When that ringtone is ringing, no problem answering these calls. It's a friendly call for all other incoming calls. Have a default ring tone that you know is for unknown callers that you can ignore. Let it go to voicemail. If someone needs to contact you, they can leave a message and you can have your unanswered message saying I do not answer any unknown numbers while I'm driving. Uh oh, sorry, I do not answer any unknown phone numbers or while
I'm driving. Please leave a brief message if you wish me to call you back.
He said.
It takes time to edit each contact, but it's worth it. And yeah, I mean this is something that is an alternative to sort of all these apps, and it's kind of like it's almost like a do not disturb. Like on my iPhone, you know, I have a feature called do not Disturb, and you know, you put your friends in there and your your family and while you're sleeping at night, if they need to call you or they
need to get through, it will still ring. But for ninety nine percent of other people, if they're not on that starred list or you know an Android, it's starred on iPhone, it's favorites. If they're not on that list, it's not going to ring your phone. And so that's pretty useful. That's that's another way of doing it. You can just leave your phone on do not Disturb all the time. But then you know, just add your friends to your favorites list and anyone on that list will be able to call you.
Now, the only time that doesn't.
Work is in a real emergency where it could be you know, someone calling you that may not be calling from a number that's on your preferred list. And so in that case, there are provisions apples thought of all this so is Android, if someone calls you a couple times in like fifteen minutes time period, it will still open, it will still ring your phone. So the first time
they call, it won't ring. But you know, if you're an emergency, you know, call someone a couple times, right, You're trying to get a hold of them, and so you're trying to get their attention. And usually spammers don't call a whole bunch of times in a row. But so I think, Richard, your suggestion is a good one. It's it's one option, right. There's a lot of ways to do things with tech, and that's just one option,
and I think that's a it's a good one. It's a little bit of work, but you know, you know, you gotta you gotta spend the time to get the return right. All right, let's talk about this as our maybe our final story United. I'm so excited about this bringing back supersonic speeds. They're buying fifteen aircraft from a
company called Boom Supersonic. And the cool thing about these supersonic planes is that not only do they look cool even though they're an artist rendering, they will go twice the speed of your typical airliner and So as for someone who flies from LA to New York a lot, I think this would be just so cool to go. It's like twenty five hundred miles by plane, so it's like usually anywhere between four and six hours, So just
cut that in half. So to get to from LA to New York, New York to LA in two hours or maybe three hours is would be groundbreaking.
It'd be really really cool.
Now, apparently after I posted that, people said, well, they don't really use SuperSonics over the trans continental because I guess the sonic boom is too much. But I don't really know, so I mean, maybe they'll do this in the future. But these airliners are expected to run by twenty twenty nine. It's gonna be the first large commercial
aircraft to be net zero carbon from day one. They're gonna roll out in twenty twenty five, fly out fly in twenty twenty six, and carry passengers by twenty twenty nine. And so the sonic boom situation, all the all of the examples they gave of routes were all from you know, places that were like international, right, and so let's see what were the examples they gave Newark to London in three and a half hours, Newark to Frankfurt four and a half hours, San Francisco.
To Tokyo in six hours.
And of course they showed how beautiful the interior space is on these things, and they look awesome. But again, this is not gonna be cheap. This is not something that you and I will just be taking on a regular basis. Maybe you will, I don't know, probably not me, because it's my dream to fly first class from coast to coast once in a while, which you know has happened in the past, but it's not my regular and that's my ultimate dream, is to just be able to do that.
All the time.
I had a friend who worked for a big company and they got to fly first class to London. That was like the standard, like they flew well business class, I guess, and that's like my dream because can you imagine just the creature comforts of lying flat. I got
to do this once to Europe. I was working a job and they flew me business class and it was just like I got off that flight and I said I could I could fly to Europe every day if I wanted to with this with the way I flew there, Because you had a nice dinner, you watched a nice movie, and then oh you laid your flat, your seat flat, and you went to bed and you slept in like a real bed, basically over to Europe, and it was just unbelievable. But most of the time on a plane,
I'm in a cramp sea. You know, if I can, if I'm lucky, I'll get economy plus, which is amazing, you know, it's that's enough. But it would be nice to have that live flat or that nice big seat anyway, but this one would be a lot more expensive. You know, you're talking you know, five ten thousand dollars for a seat. Perhaps we don't know because all this is brand new, and also we don't know if they'll be doing you know, you know, LA to New York or if it'll be
just international stuff. But anyway, I thought it was pretty cool because supersonic flights, you know, they were they were they had them at some point with the concord, and then all of a sudden they took them away. And now it's like we're getting back to where we were, but in like a new high tech maybe the technology has gotten better, who knows, But thank you Unitas for doing that pretty cool?
Right?
All right, let's see do we have anything else? Or is it the end of the show? I think it is. Actually yeah, that music means it is the end of the show. That's gonna do it for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, go to my Facebook page, Facebook, dot com, slash rich on Tech, hit the big blue send email button. If you don't want to do it that day, that way, send hello at Richontech dot tv. Also, i'd love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help
other people discover it. Go to rate this podcast dot com, slash rich on tech, or just rate it inside your preferred app. You can find me on all social media. I is that the pour of social media? I don't know at rich on Tech and no matter where you live in the US, you can download the free ktla plus app on Apple, TV, Fire TV, and Roku.
Then scroll all the.
Way down to the tech section and watch all of my TV segments on demand. If you're just listening to me on the podcast or just following me on social media, do yourself a favor and watch some of my TV segments because you know you'll get a better sense of who I am, what I'm all about, and my my interesting sense of humor. There's always a little humor mixed into most of my segments. My name is rich Demiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways
you can spend an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending it with me. Stay safe, I will talk to you real soon