Tech comes down hard on Russia

Hopefully you're having a great day. Let's talk about the big topic of the week. I mean, gosh, so we finally I mean I live in Los Angeles, one of the most tightly locked down cities in the world for the pandemic, and we are finally, finally, just getting out of it. I think tomorrow, as every request, this is the first day that a majority of the restrictions are finally being lifted when it comes to masks and rules and all this stuff. I think for kids in schools,

it's happening in the next two weeks. So we are very much behind the rest of the world, the rest of the US, But nonetheless none of that matters because this is where I live, and so for me personally, it's a very exciting time because I went to the gym the other day and today and you know, no mask required, walked into a couple stores, didn't require mask.

So and also people's attitudes just around this are changing, like we're finally getting to a point where people are a little bit more comfortable, people are gathering more, and so it feels like a sigh of relief. And then we have Russia invade Ukraine. So it's like we go from finally some sense of taking a breath to this. And I'm not going to get into the entire war because number one, I'm not even sure it is a war, because it's just basically Russia invading Ukraine. And I'm not

an expert in anything's anything politics over there. I have no idea. I mean, I've tried to read up and try to understand what's happening. But the reality is this affects a lot of people. It affects a lot of innocent people. It affects the fabric of those two nations and our world at large, because this this world we live in is no longer an isolated place. It is it is fully connected in every way, shape and form.

I've been to Russia and I've I've been to Moscow and it was, uh, you know, it was it was intimidating to be there in regular times. And I'm just not sure what the future holds for for visitors to that country, if anything ever gets back to a place

where we might be able to do that again. I mean, it's just it's a very like it's always been such a mysterious place to Americans and now it's just very much so even more so, and just trying to understand and unpack everything is really tough, I think for the average American myself included. So my thoughts are with the people over there in Ukraine and also you know, the people in Russia that don't don't want what's happening to happen.

I'm sure there are many dissenters and people that just want to have a regular life that are totally one hundred percent affected by this. And what I'm going to talk about is really the way that the average person over there has been or is just greatly affected by

what's going on. And so I'm going to take this from the tech angle because that's what I cover, and it's just it's been phenomenal Obviously, America and other countries have sanctions against Russia, but when it comes to private corporations, these sanctions have been really swift and really far reaching.

And technology is this connector for all of us in the world, and the tech world has really come down fast and hard on Russia and restricting so many of the things that people there can do, and so it's really really quite wild. So let's start with Apple. Apple paused all of their product sales in Russia, so you can't buy an iPhone over there if you wanted to. You can't buy a Mac computer if you wanted to.

They also remove the RT News and Sputnik News from the app store outside of Russia, so people in Russia can still access those, if you're outside Russia they can't, the idea being that those are spreading propaganda and so they don't want that happening. They also disabled apple maps

live traffic feature in Ukraine. The idea there is that, you know, the Russian forces could use the live traffic information to see where people are going, where people are headed, where the concentration of people are and so that has been disabled. When it comes to Google, they also removed the RT and Sputnek apps from the play Store. They also removed Oh Wow, Russia state outlets from its news, so if you're looking at Google News, you're not going

to see those. Google Maps is also not displaying the live traffic information or what they call the busy areas. So in Google Maps they've really ramped this up, but there's something called busy areas. So let's say you fly into Indianapolis for the night and you want to see where the hot areas of town are. You can just go onto the Indianapolis map on Google Maps and we'll say busy area and you can say, Okay, that's kind

of a cool pedestrian walking area. There's a bunch of restaurants, shops, whatever. They've disabled that in Ukraine because again, if you're seeing where a large concentration of people are, that could potentially be risky for those people. Traffic navigation is still available. Meta, which of course owns Facebook, is demoting any content that's linked to Russian state media outlets on Facebook and Instagram. They also are doing encrypted Instagram dms in Ukraine and Russia,

which we should have that every day everywhere. Encrypted is good and the idea there is that you know, Russian intelligence could not see what people are writing on their dms. YouTube also part of Google blocking the Russia back to RT and Sputnik in the EU and also in the UK, TikTok is shutting down access to RT and Sputnik in Europe. Netflix is not adding any Russian channels in the country.

So apparently there's this new law in Russia that says you have to carry twenty or so local channels, which of course people call propaganda channels. You know, they're channels that are state sponsored. And so Netflix was supposed to add about twenty of these channels on March first. They have not done that. So Netflix's future in Russia at this point is definitely up up in the air for going against that law. Snapchat is not doing any ads

in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. They also pledge fifteen million dollars to relief organizations. They also have three hundred UK Tranian staff members in its ar in their ar arm.

They are helping to relocate them as well. Twitter is labeling tweets that link to Russian state backed media outlets, So if you tweet something that's from one of these Russian media outlets, it's going to say, hey, this is from a state backed organization, and they actually do that kind of across the board with a lot of government officials and things to let people know, you know, they're trying to avoid this fake news and this you know, this propaganda stuff and just just in general trying to

give people more clarity about what they're seeing and what these news sources are. It's really really tough for all of these social media networks, but they're trying. Airbnb says it's going to provide short term housing for free from up to one hundred Ukrainian refugees. Last year they housed

over twenty one thousand Afghan refugees. But we know from the latest numbers that there's nearly a million Ukrainian refugees and this could be one of the biggest refugee crisises crises in history because people are getting out of that country as fast as possible and they are going to other countries. Some countries many countries are welcoming them. But no matter what, when you have a million people on

the move or more, it causes so many issues. And so it's just I mean, I was talking to my wife just like, can you imagine that you just have to get up and go and you don't know where your next meal is coming from, you don't know where your next this is coming I mean, and then families are separated. I mean, it really really is a terrible humanitarian disaster over there. Now. One one, I guess, one sector that is sort of bucking the trend is cryptocurrency.

So if you've been following cryptocurrency with this war and this invasion, it's actually been kind of a savior. It's there's both sides to it. So it's been a savior for the Ukrainians because people were tweeting out QR codes that were super easy to scan and send money to

where it's needed instantly, fast efficient. But on the flip side, Russian you know, anyone in Russia also has access to the same thing, so they can use cryptocurrency to get around some of the sanctions that have come down from some of the major banks and some of the major clearinghouses like they Russia is basically banned from like Swift, which is like the bank the international bank clearinghouse. So if I want to send money from one bank to another,

it all goes through this Swift thing. So yeah, I know, even if you're using PayPal and all this stuff, it still has to go through some sort of clearinghouse when you're doing ach transfers, and so swift is a big way of doing that. You kind of learn all that stuff when you buy a house, like all these wire

transfers and things like that. But cryptocurrency is really peer to peer and so it's kind of it can be sent to anyone anywhere, anytime without a middleman, and so that has been key on both sides, you know, good and bad. But so with that in mind, you know, the government, I think the government asks to I guess Ukrainian the government they're asked to freeze Russian and Belarusian accounts.

But coinbase, Binance and some other cryptocurrency exchanges said, now, we can't really do that because you know, the whole point and what we promote about cryptocurrency is that it is sort of a leveling currency, you know, available to everyone. And if we start doing this then it causes problems down the line with like the entire fabric of this system.

But on the flip side, if there's sanctions against a particular person or you know, a group, they will comply with those and so if those sanctions come down from like a government, then that's different, and I guess they will comply, like if they want to freeze someone's assets or something like that. So it gets a little tricky. I'm not exactly sure how they're doing all that stuff, but I know there is some ways. I like, if you have you know, there's there's something called a custodial account.

So if you have an account in coinbase, basicly Coinbase is managing that money for you, But there are ways of having a cryptocurrency account that is non custodial, which means it's like literally you're on the blockchain directly, and so in that case it's a lot harder to control, whereas if your money is being managed by Coinbase in a custodial account, they control it, so it's much easier. So that's kind of a quick rundown of what the media or sorry, what the tech companies are doing in

their efforts to kind of help out here. But it's just just observing what's happening over in Russia. I mean, are they are essentially isolated from the rest of the world, both by sanctions and by what individual companies are doing so. Another example is like I don't know how you say

the name, but it's like Saber or Sabre. It's the company that does all of the flight coordinations, like they basically you've seen the name before, it's Sabre and they do kind of all of the coordinations of you know, flight bookings, and they kind of do the back end stuff.

So if you're booking a ticket on an airline, they sort of handle the interaction between the website and the actual you know, taking the payment and all that stuff and actually you know, making sure that seat is available or you know, with working with all these expedias and stuff on the back end to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Well, they basically went ahead and said, you know what, we're no longer servicing Aeroflot, which is the

UH I guess it's the state airline of Russia. That's actually the airline that I flew to Russia at one point. And so they said, we're no longer funding or not funding it, but we're no longer powering their back end. So that makes them unable to sell seats on their planes. So again it's just all these tentacles that we have in the world where everything is so far intertwined that it's really it's really tough to be an isolated nation.

And I mean, you know, the only other nation I can think of in the world that is very ice like this is North Korea, and Russia is getting right up there with them with all these sanctions. I mean, you can't travel in there out, you can't you know, you can't buy stuff you couldn't use. They actually disabled Apple Pay for a lot of people. So I saw a tweet on Twitter. I guess that's where you'd see

a tweet. I saw a tweet on Twitter where there was like long lines of people trying to get into the subway in Russia because they couldn't use their tap to pay, and so it was just you know, in Google Pay, I'm sure is affected too. It's just it's

just pretty wild and far reaching. Just how much, you know, we rely on these systems that are sort of global and international, and when something goes wrong here and the wrong is being this invasion, that's when all these companies can can jump in and say, hey, you know, we're gonna stop, We're gonna stop servicing you, and that in some ways is really really going to affect your day

to day life there in Russia. So anyway, thoughts are with everyone that is affected by this, whether you're here, whether you're there, innocent people that are just you know, kind of bystanders in this whole thing. But let's hope for a resolution on that very soon, and a peaceful one at that, if that's even possible at this point. All right, let's get to the first question of the podcast. Brenda says, thanks for always showing a variety of things.

My sister just got an S twenty two Ultra and can't seem to figure out how to turn off text messaging previews. We looked and looked and can't seem to find that feature on this phone. Hope you can help. Thanks in advance, sent for my iPhone. Oh interesting, okay, so Brenda, Oh that's funny. Brenda has an iPhone and

her sister got the S twenty two Ultra. And the way that the iPhone works is you're by default, your messages are private until you do face ID, and once you do face ID, it unlocks your phone, but it also reveals your notification. So typically it would say something like I message if your phone is locked on a notification, but then if your phone is you know, if the lock is undone with your face, it would then reveal the contents of the message. So that's sort of like,

I think that's a fault on Apple. You can turn that off, you can make it so that your messages are private no matter what. I'm always a little suspect when I see that on someone's phone. I'm like, what's you hiding over there? Huh, why do you need those to be so private all the time? But it's I understand. I mean, it's a privacy thing. So if you want to stay private, absolutely you should. They do have a similar feature on the S twenty two Ultra because when

I get a phone. When I was testing the S twenty two Ultra, I go through every single setting on that phone because I want to see exactly what's going on, what's new, what's different, what my options are. And on the Samsung there are just so many options. And this is one of the things that really strikes me about Android versus iPhone is that iPhone has a lot of options, but they're kind of like they're all kind of you know,

it's what Apple wants you to do. You know, you get your choice of a couple of little things, but you can't truly, truly like change the fabric of the whole phone, whereas on Android you could really just make it all your own. And so one of the things you can do is turn off those previews. And the way you do it is you go to settings and

then you go to lock screen and notifications. So I noticed this on the Samsung a couple of generations ago, where they switched it from showing the actual notification to just showing an icon of the notification, which bugs me. I don't want to just see that I have an icon. I want to see the actual notification. That's part of it. It's like triaging my messages or my notifications is seeing like what is what's what am I getting pinged about?

And so if you go in there, you should be able to turn it on so you can actually see or just see it that you have a notification and not exactly what the contents of that notification is. All right, moving on, Let's talk Apple, everyone's favorite tech company in one way or another. Right, So Apple has their first event of twenty twenty two, and it is called Peak Performance p E e K. What does that mean? And

it's an ar invite, so they've done that before. But the event is happening on Tuesday, March eighth, at ten am Pacific Steve Jobs Theater, probably pre recorded, they already sent out. So I got an invitation from Apple, but it's not in person. So there's no way of going to this thing in person at all. So the reality is it's probably I would have to guess their final

virtual event. I believe WWDC will hopefully be in person, but I'm not sure because WWDC happens in June, and you know, people come from all over the world, about five thousand people, five thousand developers, and so to get that many people March April May June, I got a couple months March April May. It's really about three four months max, depending on when they do it in June. So I mean, you could technically probably hold that in person, and I think it really does help to have those

things in person. I think by then we should be, you know, clear and clear out of this whole pandemic. And you know, right now we're sort of we're in the kind of the the end phase of it, but hopefully by June we should be in a phase where people are much more comfortable in a big way. Although if you go to some concerts and things, people have been comfortable for a long time. But it just depends what group you're in, you know, it depends who you're

run with. Let's see so Steve Jobs Theater, first event of twenty twenty two, again I said there will be no one in person. In fact, all these you know, these things are all recorded. But so peak performance, what does that mean? Pee K? Of course, we've been waiting for two major things from Apple at this point, in twenty twenty two and in twenty twenty one. In twenty twenty we've been waiting for the VR headset and we've

also been waiting for the Apple Car. And so those are the two things that we need to figure out. What's going on with them? Are they gonna come out with these things? And so I don't know. Is a peak a peak at the car? Is it a peak at the Virtual Reality headset? Does it mean peak eyes? I don't know. But what we can't expect to see here is a next generation of the iPhone se, the iPhone SE three, which may have five G probably will of revamped iPad Air and some sort of Mac with

the Apple Silicon Chip updated M two. So yeah, if you're yawning right now, I understand this event has never been Apple's most exciting event. It just never has. And so it's just, you know, we'll see I mean, look, it's Apple. There's always something in there. There's always some sort of nugget that's really interesting. But if it's these three gadgets and nothing else, no car peak, no VR, it's not gonna be the most exciting thing. But then again,

you know that's that's the reality of this stuff. So, I mean, Apple is very much. It's so interesting with the whole idea of where everyone's waiting for this car and waiting for this VR headset. But Apple takes their time with things, and so it could just be a while before we see those things or before they're ready to divulge even a snake peak of those All right, let's get to the next question of the podcast. Adrian says, Hey, Rich, I enjoy your report, your tech reports and podcasts. What's

the best app block for a Samsung phone? Wow, lots of Samsung questions. I know why. It's because I did my Samsung S twenty two Ultra review the other day. A security app to keep people from accessing things like Facebook contacts, financial apps, or other apps that have personal information. I have the Galaxy S twenty one to five G. Thanks for your recommendations in advance. Well, I had a feeling that the Samsung has this built in because Samsung

has this security system called Knox. And I remember, you know the fact that there's like some sort of secure folder that is, you know, that is available on there, and so I dove into the settings on the Samsung and sure enough, there it is. It's under Settings Biometrics

and Security and then Secure Folder. Now I did not play enough with the secure folder to completely figure out how it works, but it looks like you can just drop apps in there and then when you want to use them, it will require your fingerprint or some sort of biometrics to unlock that. You can also put little pictures in there, you can put notes in there, whatever you want basically, so it's kind of just a simple lock.

It's a secondary lock for your apps. So you know you've got the standard lock that unlocks your phone, that gives people access to everything. This is sort of a secondary lock that will secure anything that you want on your phone and on the iPhone, they have this with a lot of not that there's a secure folder you can put things in, but many of the apps that might have personal data will ask you if you want

to do a secondary face ID or fingerprint. Not so much these days anymore because a lot of those phones are faced out, but a face ID to truly unlock the app one more time. So kind of think of your banking app, like, even though your phone's unlocked, you open up your banking app, it doesn't just go into your accounts. You got to do a secondary authentication. So again settings, biometrics, and security, secure folder. Check it out, set it up, and get on with life. All right,

Let's talk Amazon. This came as a huge surprise to me. But Amazon, you know, this is the thing I was I was really thinking about this with Amazon and also with Google. Compared to Apple and even Facebook, I mean

basically anyone compared to Apple. Apple does things, and I mentioned this earlier, they do things very slow, very methodic, very well thought out, and they don't kind of shut down a lot of stuff fast now when it comes to even if it's not working, like even like things like paying remember their little social network, their music social network, like it takes them a while and they don't make a big deal. They just kind of like sunset it, you know, and you just kind of never hear about

it again. But they do. I mean a lot of their stuff has a long I mean, look at the iPod Touch. That thing is like still still being sold in stores after all these years, and it's like really not being developed. But it's just they have it if you want it. So again, when you look at Amazon and you look at Google, and you look at Facebook and these companies, they just throw anything at the wall and see what sticks, and if it doesn't, they move

on and they just kind of cancel it. Now with that in mind, Amazon, according to Reuter's, is shutting down sixty eight retail stores, including sixty six of them here in the US. Now, these are not Amazon Fresh stores. These are not there just walk out stores. They're Amazon Books stores. They're four Star stores and also any pop up shops they might have at the mall or in other places. Most of the time they're at the mall. In fact, most a lot of these stores are at malls.

So clearly, if they're shutting these things down, many of them have not been around that long. I mean, you're talking just a handful of years. That is not a good sign. So you're telling me that Amazon, the world's smartest online retailer, cannot figure out a way to have a harmonious relationship between an online store and an in

person store. That's unbelievable to me. Now, every time I've been into one of these stores, ninety nine percent of the people are returning stuff, and I think that that's probably where it's at. So to staff these stores, even though Amazon has a lot of data about their customers, like, for instance, the four Star stores and even the bookstores, what they did was they sold a lot of products that were top sellers in those areas. But here's the thing.

Most people that are Amazon shoppers are so used to shopping online for Amazon stuff that they don't want to go into a store. And so, yes, they were brought into the store when they needed to return something or when they were in a mall and they happen to see it and they said, all right, let me stop in here. But were these destinations probably not. Were they even a big hit on people's radar when they went to the mall, probably not. Now, personally, I could not

go to any mall without stopping one of these. I love the Amazon stores. I thought they were so cool. I love the fact that I knew the prices in them were really good and just the same that I was going to pay on the website you as a prime member. And so I think it's kind of confusing that they're getting rid of these now. There may be some more things at work here. There may be some union labor issues there, maybe some pay issues, like who knows.

I mean, it seems like Amazon is always pursuing efficiency, and I think that these stores, just by nature of having a brick and mortar store, they're just not very efficient. There's just a lot of waste, in know, in human workers. And I'm not knocking human workers. Obviously they're fantastic, but I'm saying I'm saying waste the in the When you look at an online website, it's just like running twenty

four to seven on a server. It's so efficient. When you look at a store, you've got to have someone to clean it. You've got to have someone to do loss prevention. You've got to have someone to organize it. Stock the shelves, you know, put things out, put things back. I mean, it's a whole thing. I mean there's just a lot of manpower or people power that you need

to run a store. And Amazon is like, wait a second, it's costing us all this money to run this thing when we can run our website and make even more sales, and okay, let's close them. So what are they going to concentrate on now. They're going to concentrate on their physical stores, including Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, and a lot of the whole food stores are now being converted into

the just walk out technology. I know, they just opened the first one in Washington, d C. They converted it or they I don't know if it was new or converted, but that's happening and I've heard that they're going to do that to more stores as well. So the writing is on the wall. Amazon wants to be fully automated. That's the reality. They want you to go into their stores walk out. It's got to be a very efficient thing,

just as efficient as the website. So they're concentrating on Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods, Amazon Go, which is their convenience stores again that have that just walk out, and also the Amazon style. So a bunch of stores in the LA area are going to be closed, and of course nationwide, but we've got a bunch here in LA. And so Amazon's Style was a new clothing store that was going

up at the Americana at Brand. It looks like that's still going to happen, but again, that is a store that employs some efficiencies with when it comes to workers and the way that they do things. And so I guess they'll test that and if it doesn't work, they'll cancel that as well. Christina writes, Hey, Rich, I'm a longtime Android user. Wow, this is all andro today. I'm looking to upgrade. Which phone do you recommend? I'm open to switching to iPhone. I'm curious what you have to

say about each product and your overall pick. Kind regards and blessings, Christina. Christina, you are asking me the million dollar question. I mean, here's a thing, like you know, I love the iPhone. I love, love, love the iPhone. I mean, it's it's like the perfect phone. In fact, I can't get away from it. I wanted to switch to the S twenty two Ultra because it was so great, but there's just so many little things that the iPhone does and Honestly, it's really about the ecosystem that they've

got you in. And I'm not talking I message like, that's a big part of it, for sure, but it's also the Apple Watch, It's the air tags, it's how it works with the Apple TV, it's how it works with Apple Fitness, and you know how it works with you know, I can see where my kid is on a map. I mean, there's just so many little things that Apple has over the years built into the phone that it's not just the iPhone anymore. It's this entire world that you're entering. Yes, we've heard the ecosystem all

the time, but it's true. I mean, it really is. It's kind of like a world that you get into that is not just one thing. It's not just the iPhone. It is a whole bunch of stuff that all adds up to a really really unique experience. Now with that said, I am open to you switching and if your friends have the iPhone, it's kind of nice because you can finally get on those group conversations with them and not

be the green bubble. You also get access to a ton of accessories, the best apps, easy repairs, you can go to any store. If you need help with your iPhone, you can ask any random person on the street, a do you know how to do this? How do I flip my phone into airplane mode? And any random person can tell you because they've chances are have an iPhone here in the US. Now, when it comes to Android, you have more choices, and so there are many many

different types of phones out there. With Apple there are two at this point, You've got everything from the Mini to the Standard, to the Pro to the Promax and also the iPhone SE and then you've got all the old models as well. But with the Android, of course, there's a bunch of different models. The only Android phones I'd recommend at this point are the Pixel six, the Pixel six Pro, and the Samsung S twenty two plus

or the S twenty two and then the Ultra. You didn't say which phone you have, so oh, longtime Android user, but you didn't say exactly which one you have, and you know, so those are the phones with the Android that I'd recommend. But the you know, it just kind of depends. It depends what you want. Do you want to customize your phone? Do you want more options? It's just a different world, and so personally, I love the operating system and the way it works on Android and

the way I can customize things. But it's the iPhone has really gotten me so locked into like this world of apps and things and the way stuff works that it's really tough for me to switch at this point, and it's kind of frustrating. Actually, oh, the Apple watched. I even mentioned that that's a whole nother thing. So you know, if your friends and family have iPhone, you're curious, you just want to see what it's all about, what the hype is, go for it. It's a good time

to switch. The new phones just came out on both sides, whether it's a pixel you know, they all came out kind of October November or I guess September October and now with the SAMSUNGS, so you're you're getting pretty new, new model phones that are going to last a bunch of years. So either way, you know, like I said,

it comes down to a personal choice. Do you want to get jump into that Apple world where you're gonna start buying a bunch of stuff to accessorize your phone and accessorize you know, your experience, or do you want to go Android where you have a bunch more options and a little bit more flexibility when it comes to how you personalize your phone and device. It's just it's just like I said, personal preference. But I'm fine with

you switching if you want. If your family members are on there and they're really pressuring you, then maybe it's time to take a look at that. Instagram is shutting down. It's this doesn't this This is like a story for the one percent, one percent of people who care. Rahm is shutting down at standalone IGTV app. I mean, have you used the IGTV app anytime in the past year. Absolutely not. I don't think so. So IGTV was this

big push by Instagram. You know, Instagram started as a pure photo sharing app, and then they added IGTV so they can get into video or I think I think they had maybe short videos where you can do like a sixty second video. Then they did IGTV so you can have longer form, bigger videos. That were they all had to be sixteen by nine, which was a whole pain. And now they're just saying, you know what, never mind, We're just going to do video on Instagram. That's what

it's called. You can do sixteen by nine. You can do square, you can do four by three, you can do horizontal, vertical, whatever you want. It's all gonna work inside Instagram video. Now. The one major downside to this is that a lot of people made money on IGTV videos. There was like, if you're you can have ads in your videos, and you would make money on those ads. So that's going away. But on the flip side, right now, what Instagram's doing this is the reason why you're seeing

so many reels. And I've talked about this because they're paying creators' money bonuses to make those reels, and so when you make those reels, you make a little money on them, and so that's how they're getting so many people to do those reels, and so that's why you're seeing so many of them. So you know, look, we're seeing an evolution. Instagram used to be the absolute top

of the mountain, and now it is TikTok. And now not for everything just yet, but TikTok is where a lot a lot of the energy is and a lot of the momentum, I should say, the momentum is behind TikTok. It may be younger people right now, but it will eventually switch and so you know, you might be saying, oh, why is Instagram have to change so much? Why is I have to change? But the reality is Instagram needs to survive. I mean, it's not a given. It is

not a given that this app is going to be. Okay, it's owned by Facebook or Meta, i should say, and Facebook itself, yes, is still a behemoth. But again, this is what's so wild about the tech world. Any app can come along and suddenly take the reins. And yes, it's tougher and tougher because of the money that these other bigger apps have and a lot of times they swallow the smaller apps, but there is still a chance. I mean, TikTok's a great example. TikTok came out of

nowhere and it is absolutely dominating. It dominated that short form video and YouTube had to race to catch up. Instagram had to race to catch up. Facebook is just starting with short form. They just introduced reels on Facebook. So it is one of these things where you see these these apps come along and they just kind of sweep everyone off their feet and next thing you know, everyone's using them, they've all downloaded them. And TikTok is

definitely that app. I find myself using it more and more, and it's, Uh, it's full of a lot of garbage, but there's also a lot of really interesting, useful, fun silly stuff on there, and it's it's definitely something that is is it keeps making its way into my mix because it's really easy to like kind of watch when

you have a couple of minutes of downtime. But it's also like I have a love hate because I'm like, oh, all these things are so frustrating, Like there's zero production quality on ninety nine percent of the videos people will watch anything. There's so much stuff that's like either you know, fake or like not real or just like I'm like what. So you gotta be careful when you're when you're watching any of these you gotta just keep a keep a

critical eye no matter what you're watching. April says, Hey, Rich, what do you think of the T mobile five G home Internet? Good or not good? Sent from my iPad? April, Uh, It's funny you ask, because I'm actually well doing a story I've already done it. Did some research on this for my story for KTLA, where I looked at T Mobile five G Home Internet and Verizon's five G home Internet.

So those are the two that I would compare Team AT and T. At this point, I do not believe has A has a five G home Internet offering, at least not widely available that I know of. So you've got T Mobile and you've got eighteen Verison. So I tested the Verizon five G. You think it's called five G home or something like that, And I'll be honest, it's pretty phenomenal. It's so easy, it's it's actually one

of those things. And this happens to me. I've been covering this stuff for a long time, but every so often a product comes along and it's just brilliant. So for so many years, and I've moved to so many places around the US and my job as a reporter, and what do you do when you move into a new place. The first thing you do is you call the cable people. They install your cable, they install your internet, and you get your water and power hooked up. You

might get your direct TV installed, whatever you do. But this was the way you did things for so long. When you moved, you would have to call someone to come to your place and connect it, and there would be a date they'd say, Okay, we're coming out next Saturday. The cable person will be there from ten am until seven pm. You're like, oh, thanks for the thanks for the long extended window that they'll arrive at. You know, whenever you leave your house or want to, that's when

they'll arrive. But you know, the reality is that's the way it was done for many, many years. And so when I tried this team a Verizon box that you just plug in, and so you plug this box in it you have to do it in your window so it can get the best signal. You plug it in, it latches onto the five G signal, which is brand new by the way, this five GUW signal, which is

like the ultra wideband that Verizon has. T Mobile is like I think it's called UC but it's these these five G spectrum that the carriers have gotten a hold of is so vast that they are now able to do this. So when you think of cellular connections, all we have thought about in the past is our smartphone. It's like this a little tiny connection that's powering this tiny screen. Sometimes you might hotspot your phone to your tablet or your laptop, but it was always like a

not like a very long term thing. So the idea of having five G wireless internet power everything in your home is just one of those things that you have to kind of shift your paradigm. You know, it's like, Okay, well can this really work? And I can say yes. And so at my house, I personally don't get the best Verizon signal. So I didn't test the Tea mobile one, by the way, but you know, they work very similarly.

But I was able to test the Verizon signal at a hotel in San Francisco and also at KTLA in the studio, they have a really good five G Verizon signal. And so here's the bottom line with this. The plans are cheaper. T Mobile is fifty bucks, no data caps. Verizon's even cheap, or if you're a customer, it's like twenty five dollars for one plan or like fifty or seven. You know, it just depends on if you're a customer

or not, and also the plan that you want. And I'm telling you for twenty five bucks a month, if you're a Verizon customer, this is like a no brainer. If if you get a good five G UW signal at your house. If you do not get that signal, I would not recommend this because the speeds you're not going to be that great. Now, you might not need the best speeds. I mean, even if you get one hundred or fifty, you'll be fine with things, like you know, if you're just watching Netflix or just surfing the web.

But if you're doing things like heavy duty uploads, heavy duty downloads, that's where it could it could slow down a little bit. But otherwise this is a great, great alternative for so many people if you have access to it. So there's a couple of things. You have to have access. You have to be in one of the cities that Verizon allows it or T Mobile. You also have to

be an address that's approved for it. And once you qualify on those two things, you I think with T Mobile you don't need to be a customer to get that fifty dollars rate, but with Verizon you really have to be a customer to get the best deal. Otherwise it's just the deal goes downhill pretty fast because the prices go up. Also, at least with Verizon, they're guaranteeing the pricing is going to stay the same for two to three years. Which is kind of cool. I think

it's amazing. In fact, I would probably switch mine at home if I was able to get that signal that I wanted here at my house, which I just don't have. And so it's amazing. You set this thing up and you can tell your cable company goodbye. You could tell whatever company you have see you later. And the best part is if it doesn't work out, Like, there's no contract, so if it doesn't work out, you unplug it, you ship it back, and you say, okay, that didn't work out,

and you reconnect your internet from your cable provider. Oh whoops, we already did a Let's move on to a story. Oh, speaking of TikTok, TikTok now taking aim at YouTube even more with longer ten minute video uploads. So not much more to know about this except you know, TikTok started out either like fifteen seconds, then they went to like thirty and sixty, then they went to three minutes. Now they're going up to well, I guess, okay, so TikTok,

I guess was always sixty seconds. I thought that they were like fifteen seconds when they first started out, but maybe they were sixty I don't know, because I wasn't on TikTok at the very very beginning. But anyway, so let's just say they were sixty then they tried three minutes, and now they're doing ten minutes, and that's that's a significant change because you know, sixty seconds is a challenge

if you're trying to do certain things. You know, if you're trying to you know, most of the things you see on TikTok are very very short form, and so because their short form, people are are forced to sort of get their point across very quickly, and so they try all kinds of different things and all different ways of doing that. And that's why TikTok is very creative, because creators have to figure out ways of getting there

are points across very fast. But at the same time, why not have a flexibility to go with longer videos if you if you have a big following on there and you want to start doing more, like you know, more in depth travel videos or more in depth tech reviews or whatever, it's nice to have this option. So we'll see. I mean, but this takes aim at YouTube because you know, YouTube used to be the place where you would watch longer videos and if you don't have

to go there anymore. You know, it takes away some of their viewing time. But we'll see, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I was gonna say so TikTok. One of the things that TikTok is kind of like very famous for is their algorithm and what their algorithm does. And I've noticed this after using it for a couple months.

It really latches on to It knows exactly how long you're watching videos for, and so if you're watching a video to the end or even loop that video, it really registers a real deep kind of like check mark in its algorithm. And so next thing you know, you are going to start seeing those types of videos over and over and over. And so for me, there's a couple of videos that i'd see, especially the iPhone tip videos.

Like you you start watching one of those, next thing, you know, your entire feed is a lot of those. You know, it just depends what you're into because it's very customized for you. But I've noticed that that TikTok really latches on and so if you if you watched a video and now you're kind of like like I was doing, like a healthy trader Joe's Trader Joe's meals, and so you know those will be in my in

my feed. But let's say that I get bored of those healthy Trader Joe's meals because they just don't appealch to me anymore. I figure this out today. You can press and hold on a video and it will give you the option to say not interested, and so you can press that and now you can get rid of that sort of type of video on your feed. Next question, Paul says, Hey, Rich, I have a one plus seventy Android phone. Wow, another Android. Do you know if anyway

I can permanently save the voicemails on that phone? My dad just passed away, sorry to hear that, and I have seven of his voicemails and don't want to lose them to the automatic deletion. After a certain period of time, I have to go in and play each one and resave it. I'm not really at the point where I could even listen to my dad's voice right now, so it's kind of tough. My fears if I forget to retrieve them for a couple of days, they will get deleted.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thank you, Rich. Well, Paul, First off, I am so sorry if you're a loss, I can't imagine and it's even tough for me to like think about your situation right now. So that's that. But with this said, I have actually gotten this question before, and it's a very common thing, and it actually makes me really sad to even think of this situation because I do have voicemails for my parents on my voicemail,

and my voicemail isn't even set up it anymore. These these are voicemails that have been lingering for a long time. But here are my suggestions. Number one, I believe the one plus seventy. I'm not sure if it has a headphone jack, but you can no matter what, if it

has a headphone jack. You can get a cable, a three point five millimeter cable on both ends, plug one end into your phone, plug the other end into a computer, and then open up something like you know, Windows Record or any sort of recording program you know, or on a Mac you can open up quick Time and record and record play the voicemails from your phone while your phone is plugged in and record them to the computer, and you know, you can ask a friend to help

you with that, and just you know, try to figure out how you can do that and just save those voicemails as MP three's. And again we're talking the Android here on iPhone. I believe you can download these as a voice memo. Android. I don't think gives you that option.

But now the other way and okay, now, if you don't have a headphone jack on that phone, which I'm not sure it is, if it's on there or not, you'll you're gonna need a USB C to three point five millimeter connector that should be in the box with the OnePlus they included them for a very long time. I don't know if they include those anymore. But if you can find your box and you can find that little connector, it's just a little tiny dongle I guess, for lack of a better term, that has a three

point five millimeter on one side. That's kind of an input and then yeah, an input, is it an input? Yeah? And then it has a a three point or a USB C on the other side. I guess it's a female connector is what they call it, on the on the one side, and then USB C on the other side. So that's what I would do. That's gonna give you the cleanest audio. The other thing you can do is if you just want to make sure that you've got

these things saved. I know you said it's tough to hear your dad's voice, so maybe have a friend do this. But you can have your phone, just place it next to another phone, open up the recorder on that phone, press record, and then play these these voicemails and they're going to be better than nothing. I mean, the audio quality is going to be pretty darn good when you do it that way, as long as you're in a

quiet room, so at least you have something. Obviously, the cord the corded way of connecting these would be a lot cleaner of a connection. But anyway, thanks for the question. That is a good one and something that you know is just uh, something that sadly we don't want to have to do it, but it is. It is good to be able to do that, all right. Waimo. The self driving unit of of you know, Google's alphabet I guess start out as Google self driving car is now

able to charge for rides up in San Francisco. So this is a an autonomous car that's driving by itself that now has the ability to charge people for rides. So it's really pretty wild to see the progression of this. It's also allowed to operate twenty four to seven in various parts of San Francisco, except if it's raining or if there's heavy fog, which is like every morning in San Francisco. Maybe not in the city streets so much, but definitely in the in the mountain areas or I guess,

I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of fog in San Francisco. I mean, people that live up there would no better than me of where it actually makes its way in. But I've you know, I was blown away by the fog up there. It's so beautiful. But that's it. So now we have what accounts to an Uber style service that is autonomous, but you're also you know, they can charge for us. So that means no tire drivers, no human drivers, no one you know, drowsy, and it's

just like twenty four to seven. These cars can go. Maybe they need to be refueled at some point throughout the day, but that's pretty amazing. Now there is one little caveat the California State says that they have to have a safety driver in this vehicle at this point, still present because they are charging for rides, and that person can of course take over the steering wheel or the controls if necessary. But I am sure these cars

have done many, many, many of thousands of miles. I know they are doing fully autonomous, no driver or no supervisor in their Phoenix area, where Waimo is also operating. So it's probably just a matter of time before this comes to California. But I just figured i'd tell you that because it's something to keep in mind. I mean, really, you know, these car services like Uber and Lyft, they've

built they've been built on human drivers. But there will come a time when there will be a transition, at least for some of the fleet, not for all of it, where they will have just cars that just drive you around, that don't have people and in them no driver. And it's just one of those things to be aware of. All right, Lee and Cathy, we enjoy all your tech info. We are Android owners right now with Pixel threes. We're having our first grandchild. Oh congratulations. Wondering which phone do

you think is best? We're on Google Fi. They have the new Samsung S twenty two on sale for eight ninety nine the Pixel six pro same price. Thanks in advance, Lee and Kathy yeeha um. And they sent a nice picture of them with their I don't know if it's them with their their fish they cow. I don't know, but Lee and Kathy here's the thing. So I would totally recommend the Samsung S twenty two except for one reason.

You mentioned your grandchild. Now, I will tell you nearly every phone that I test has problem with kids and their movement except for two phones, and that is the iPhone and that is the Pixel phones. I don't know what it is, but the iPhone nails it. They seem to flee, freeze things in mid movement and they just get it and you get a clear picture. And the Pixel six does the same thing. The pixels have always done this, but the Pixel six actually steps it up

a notch. They have something called like I think it's called face on blur where it's actively looking for like. They use the example of kids like moving around, and it will use I believe it uses the wide angle camera to find a secondary shot of the child's face not moving. Then it will superimpose that. I know it sounds weird, but somehow it works and you don't even notice.

I've seen it show up. You can't activate it manually, but if you're flipping through your pictures in Google Photos, you'll see that some of them have this little face on blur icon and you're like, huh, I guess Google applied some smarts to make sure that this face is not blurry. So for that reason, and just in general, I was doing some testing last night with the iPhone versus the Pixel versus the Samsung, and the Pixel definitely in the iPhone definitely have a slight advantage over Samsung.

Maybe not even slight, maybe like a really clear advantage over Samsung when it comes to moving people and getting a clear shot of those moving people. I mean, I've got kids, and you know, quite honestly, kids often kind of direct which phone you need to carry, because you do not want your pictures of your grandchild to be all over the place and blurry and smeared looking, because that's just not good, not good. And so for that reason I would recommend the Pixel six pro. Go for it,

and I think you are going to enjoy it. Oh there is that sound, you know what that means? That's gonna do it for this show. If you would like to submit a question for me to answer, go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech, hit the Big Blues send email button, or go to rich on Tech dot tv hit the email icon. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast. Just go to the listening app of your choice.

Write a quick line about what you like about this show to help other people understand why they should listen. You can find me on social media at rich on Tech and no matter where you live in the US, you can download the free ktla plus app on Apple, TV, fireTV, and Roku. Once you do, scroll to the tech section and you can watch all of my TV segments on demand. My name is rich Merril. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend an hour

of your time. I do appreciate you spending it right here with me. I'll talk to you real soon.