A major spying issue involving the Chrome web browser. Sony reveals details about its upcoming PlayStation five. Facebook launches an election initiative, Apple gears up for a virtual WWDC. Plus Your tech Questions Answered. What's going on on Riche Dmiro? This is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer the questions that
you send me. And I guess since you've been safe at home, you guys have been just firing up those emails like crazy. My name is Rich Dmiro, tech reporter at KATLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Joining me is producer Megan, who's been safe at home more than she ever imagined.
What's up, Producer Megan?
I know it's been what three full months.
When I set up this little home studio, I was like, oh, week or two, and it's just keep going on and on, and so I've gotten quite comfortable working from home.
I don't know about you.
Yeah, I mean I feel like we just adjusted, like as humans, We're just like, Okay, this is just what we're doing now. But I know, you know, it would be nice to separate work and home too.
Yeah, I think that is the biggest problem that I've noticed is for instance, when I'm doing you know, because all my interviews, a lot of them are by Skype, and I'm like, oh, you know what, what's a good time. They're like two thirty. I'm like perfect, Like what does it matter?
Right? Yeah? Exactly. Yeah. I feel like, if anything, it's like we're working more because what else do we have going on besides going to the market like once a week.
Like, I don't know about you, but I've got a lot going No, I don't, I don't.
We don't have anymore.
I mean, you're getting your haircut now, I.
Am getting my haircut. We actually went on vacation, so that was nice. Went to Zion. Have you ever been there in Utah?
No? No, but I want to go there.
It's beautiful, Go go go. It is awesome.
And we went from literally being safe at home for you know, three whatever two three months to you know, staying at a hotel and going to restaurants and all this stuff, going you know, on hikes, and it was most of it was I mean, it was very safe what we did, but very different, you know. And yeah, the way they're I mean, it's funny. When we left LA, everything was still closed. Then when we got back to LA,
everything is open now. So I feel like we haven't really been out here in LA to like a restaurant or anything. But I guess tomorrow night I will, so we'll see how that is.
That's exciting.
Yeah, And believe me, these restaurants are really very much like cleaning the tables, like it's a process, you know, it's very much. People are taking this very seriously with the masks and everything. So I didn't feel unsafe at all. I guess I'll know, and I have one more week to know if I actually get COVID though, So out of the woods, I mean there's not like fourteen days for like figuring it out.
Yeah, it's yeah, I think it's fourteen days you mean from like your trip, like if you got it while you're.
Yeah, I can't say.
Like my wife and I keep joking, we're like, we're not out of the woods yet, but we'll say so, but stay safe, we are not. You know, I know things are reopening, but it doesn't mean that it's just like okay to go back to normal life. You still have to be very much aware of what's happening, and wear your mask when you're around other people, especially in
small enclosed areas. Most of the restaurants we went to were outside and very far apart, like the kind of what they're doing in Los Angeles where the tables they've taken over, like the outdoor areas, And so that felt pretty good. So we'll see continue to stay safe out there, folks.
All right, let's talk about one of the big stories of the week, which really surprised me because we think of Google Chrome as such a secure web browser, and when you hear something like this, you realize that almost anything can somehow have a problem with it. And researchers, according to Reuter's, discovered that there was malicious Google Chrome extensions. These extensions were installed about thirty two million times, and
this is all according to Awake Security. And I guess Google, once they found out about this last month, removed seventy of these malicious add ons. And I've always wondered about these Google Chrome extensions because I feel like there is a lot of potential for abuse because some of them, when you click them, it says, hey, we're going to look at all of your web browsing all the URLs you type in. You know, all this different, all these different things, and some of them need that information to
work properly. But you wonder what is keeping them from just being malicious, and clearly not much, I guess.
So these extensions that.
Were problematic were supposed to warn users about questionable websites or help them convert file formats, but instead they actually took all their broads history siphon that off, and also they could see I guess, some of their passwords and things like that, so that's kind of scary. In fact,
these things were really going a step further. If you're using them on a home computer, they would transmit information, but if you're on a corporate network, it would not transmit information because they knew that the corporate network security might detect what they were doing. So this is pretty nefarious if you ask me, and it makes me. You know, I have a bunch of Chrome extensions installed, but I really try to limit those to make sure that I
don't install ones that I think are pretty random. And I do have a couple on there that I you know, they're all from pretty big names, but some are not. Well, I guess they're all from pretty big names that I have, but you have any of these things installed, I.
Only use Let's see, I have Honey and Wikibi, and I know they literally do the same thing, but I have those two. Those are the only ones.
We talked about Honey because I was I didn't like Honey for a long time, and now I have it. And I my wife was ordering pictures the other day from Walgreens and the little Honey thing, I said, oh, let me run it through Honey.
Let me just see, because it was.
Like thirteen bucks for these pictures she was ordering, and sure enough, Honey went through and it got her six dollars like fifty percent off, and I was like, oh see.
Yeah, no, that's nice too, especially with like pictures. I don't know, like that's that's amazing.
Yeah, well it was like fifty percent, but why not. I found for a lot of things like in fact, I did order have you heard of Daily.
Harvest like the smoothies?
Yes?
Okay, so yeah, I was ordering those that my first shipment is coming today, and I used the Honey thing and it was like, okay, you got this amount off. But then I was like, oh, I know someone that actually ordered these, and so I texted them, and they texted me back their referral code and it actually turned out to be better than what Honey found. So I thought that, you know, you know, you got to you gotta look at all angles. That's why you've got people
and Honey installed. You never know which one's gonna work.
Actually, did they get like something free for that's the other thing.
They got like twenty five bucks, and then I got twenty five dollars off, So that's nice.
Now I'll put my.
Referral link in the podcast notes, so if you want to order Dailly Harvest, I'll.
Get twenty bucks.
Oh my gosh, that's really smart. You really should do that, just tweet it all the time.
Yeah, I'm very excited to try those, by the way. Smart.
Yeah, no, they look really good. I always hear about them on podcasts and I'm like, okay, that would be really nice to just have. But it's pretty like pricey, yes it is.
So it's like it's like anything else with these subscriptions. The first one is really cheap, Like I think my first order is like thirty eight dollars, and then after that it jumps to like seventy bucks, and my wife is like, that's a little pricey, and I'm doing the math. It's still cheaper than going to like a Jamba juice, but it's by having it on that automatic kind of cycle. You're still spending that money no matter what, but you can always pause and all that stuff like anything else.
But anyway, I'll let's know how it is in the next podcast.
Yeah, okay, So this first question comes from Stacy and Wally hi Rich. We are thinking about getting a newer, up to date TV. We have a sixty inch Sony and we're wondering what you recommend as a comparable TV. You've always liked Sony, but would like to hear your thoughts.
Well, I'm curious why they're getting a new TV already, because sixty inch Sony sounds like it'd be pretty good. Maybe they got up many years ago, but most people didn't get a sixty inch TV years ago. But anyway, whatever your reason for getting a new TV, congratulations, that's exciting. Here is how I rank my television sets.
Okay. I would say that.
If you want the absolute best, I think that Sony is still going to give you the overall best picture kind of experience combination of you know, the way it looks, the way it performs all that. I mean, Sony is Sony, right right, That's why they're the most expensive. Like, if you go in the store, Sony is going to be more expensive than all the other sets. And there's a reason for that. It's because Sony is overall the best.
So that's number one. Number two. If you want the best picture quality but at a maybe slightly lower price, go with the LG O LAED TV. I think that those are known to be the best. And I mentioned this in a podcast a long time ago. My friend at CET that reviews all the TVs. When I saw him at CES, I was like, hey, Dave, which TV do I get if I'm just buying one TV? And he said, oh, led LG OLED. I'm like, okay, there
you go. So if you want that, then you have Samsung, which I think is a good combination of both price and picture, and so go with Samsung if you want kind of that. Then after that we get into more of the budget models, so then you have the kind.
Of the Visios of the world and the tcls of the world.
Now, I in the last year bought a TCL and a Visio, and I will tell you. I think they're both great, but I was slightly more impressed with the feel of the TCL, and that's just kind of like the whole setup process, Like the software seemed a little bit slicker, the quality of the device seemed a little bit better. But I think that you'll be perfectly served
with either. I personally have a Visio that I bought many years ago, and I'm kind of looking to upgrade my TV as well, but I don't know what I go with right now, Probably that the LG.
Now.
The other thing is do you get a TV for the smarts inside? And I always say no, do not buy a TV based on the smarts unless you're going with a TCL, which has the Roku system built in. And I think that the Roku system is really good, so that would be my recommendation. Don't you know, if Sony's gonna have Android TV built in, I don't think it's very good. Visio has their stuff built in. I
think you're gonna be better served with a platform. And those platforms right now are Apple TV, they are Roku TV, and they are fireTV. Those are the three platforms that developers are concentrating on. And if you have a Visio like we saw when Disney Plus came out, it wasn't available on Visio right away, and we see that over and over with HBO Max. It's kind of like the same thing, except that time HBO is playing hardball with
Roku and what was the other one? Roku and Fire and they didn't make their app available And I still think it's not available on both of those platforms, which is crazy to think.
So that is crazy. Yeah, So if you have a platform, does it automatically update itself?
Well, I just think that the I think that the platform gets upgraded or updated regularly, and so do the apps. So if you're an app developer and you look at fireTV and see that it has fifty percent of the market and Roku has forty percent and I'm just throwing out numbers, and Apple TV has ten percent and then Android TV has five percent, which apps you're gonna update first? You're gonna put your priority in those three main platforms, right, and then you'll get.
To the rest.
That's kind of my feeling, and that's why I always say go with a TV, don't worry about the smarts unless you're getting Roku. Again, Roku is kind of a unique position because it's a TV type and it's also a platform as well. All right, let's get into some Twitter news this week. Twitter just a small piece of news. Twitter now has a new feature that lets you tweet
your voice. You can tweet up to one hundred and forty seconds of audio at a time, and even if you go longer, it will just cut up your audio into several tweets, so you can go longer. I don't know what you're gonna say for that long. I mean, I have yet to listen to one of these things on Twitter. I actually listen to exactly one. But I can't imagine that I'm gonna be listening to a lot
of tweets. Maybe I will, I don't know. But the one cool thing I like about this, Megan, is that when you listen to an audio tweet, you can keep scrolling Twitter you're listening, So that's potentially pretty cool. I can see many updates, or many, I don't know, just mini updates that people listen to while they're still You know, we're all about multitasking, right.
So you should just do one day, for one day, you should just do audio tweets, just to like try it. Out. Well.
I think there's potential if you wanted to say, hey, here's what's going on or here's what I'm doing. But why would you do that versus video? I don't really know, and I'm not doing video tweets, so why would I do audio tweets?
I don't really know.
I think that Twitter is a platform that it's kind of like Instagram. You can do the video on there and people watch video, but it takes a lot for me to stop and actually turn up the audio on Instagram, and so I find that that might be the same way on Twitter. We'll see right now, folks that have this are iOS only, and it's only a small subset of people that are on Twitter.
I do not have this new feature, do you? Oh?
I haven't even How could I find out? Just go to Twitter and try to find an audio tweet? No?
You every okay, so every one can listen to them right now, whether you're on Android or iOS. The only people that can tweet using audio are people on iOS, and only a small portion of people who have been granted.
Okay, So I don't, I don't.
I don't have it.
If you want to, if you have it, just try to make a new tweet on iOS. Make surer app is updated and it will say, you know, compose an audio tweet or try an audio tweet. So I'll try it once I get it for sure.
Okay, So this next question comes from Cindy. Hello, I follow you on Facebook. You always give out good advice on iPhone information. I was wondering if you have ever checked out the total av app for phone security. Is it legit?
Oh my gosh. Here here's what I think of the total av app.
Do not know?
Run Run Run?
Okay, I've gotten so many questions about this app in the past week that I don't know what they're doing, but they must be blasting people all over the place. Right let me tell you why this is such a scam and such bs that I just don't even go near it.
Okay, I don't even know, it's just okay.
So a couple of people have emailed me, A bunch of people have emailed me about this, and a couple of people have included the link that they've gotten about it, and.
It leads you to this website called.
Security savers online dot com. And when you click it, it looks like it's a blog post about this amazing new app called Total av Number one. I'm looking at this website today and guess what. Scam Number one. The website date of the blog post that it purports to be is updated magically to today, So they just wrote this today. Oh my gosh, it's up to date.
Well, guess what.
When I checked it two days ago, the blog post was dated two days ago.
So that's number one. Scam Number two.
If you go down to the bottom of the article, all the way down to the bottom, Security savers dot com acts as an independent advertising publisher. This website is formatted as an advertorial. Please aware this is an advertisement, not actual news, news article, blog, or consumer protection. So again number two, the whole blog is total advertisement.
Number three.
I downloaded this app and to try it out, and you can't do a thing without signing up for it.
That is giveaway number three.
That give me a break, at least give me something to see about this app before I actually.
Have to sign up.
And if you go to sign up, the whole thing is high pressure tactics. In fact, my computer, because I have some security enabled, won't even let me click the link to sign up because it's totally bogus. So stay away from this total av even if it's a good app, the way that they're doing this and blasting people is totally not nice and it's to sure, it's it's just
not good. And by the way, can we also talk about the fact that if you're running an iPhone, there's really not a v program that you need to have an antivirus program on your iPhone. The way that the iPhone is set up is that there is no virus for the iPhone. You really can't get one. And I say that, and I know people are going to challenge me on that, but the reality is, there is no simple way for someone to sideload an app on your
iPhone without you knowing. Yes, you can click a malicious link on the iPhone and theoretically they could have an exploit that they can figure out and somehow mess up your entire phone. But ninety nine point nine percent of the time when I get an email about someone thinking that their iPhone is infected, it is a link that they clicked that led them to a website that's totally bogus. And that's that you don't need protection against that. You just need to click out of the website.
So someone did a review of it. Like I know, you're like you basically a full no is what you're saying. But someone did a review on tech radar dot com and I got a star and a half.
Okay, so that's really well.
There you go.
Yeah, there you go.
There you go.
And also when you Google something and there's really nothing that shows up, it's kind of like, okay, I mean it does have a PC mag total av essential antivirus.
So anyway, just just stay away.
And I don't think you need an antivirus program for your iPhone, you know, you just don't you just more so, I'd rather you be very aware of the things that you're clicking and the things that you're installing. But if you're installing an app from the app store, chances are most of the time the worst it can do is get access to things like your contacts and your photos that I would be more aware of, and your location.
So this is why Apple is introduced with iOS thirteen, the ability to say only give access one time to my location or you know, use that, use that as much as you can. All right, Speaking of Apple, WWDC kicking off Monday, June twenty second, and this year it's going to be an all virtual show, which means Megan and I do not have to travel up to Kooper Tino for this, nor does my photographer Luis. We get to sit at home and cover this from YouTube. So
the event kicks off ten am. What can we expect looking at a very thorough article from nine to five MAC talking about all the things that they will be doing. And number one, this will be something you can watch on your TV like you could in past years, but there will be no audience, or as far as I know, there will be no audience. iOS fourteen. That is the thing that many people will be excited to hear about because it will tell us what the iPhone will be
able to do next. So some of the rumors a more customizable home screen, which means you might actually be able to scroll up and see a list of all your apps the way you can on Android.
That would be really interesting.
I've actually given up on organizing my apps on my home screen ever since I had to reformat my phone because I decided I'm only doing the first two screens of organization and then the rest can all just live wherever they want to, because I'll search for those apps because I don't use them as much.
Is that fair, Megan?
I think that's that's fair. Yeah.
I used to organize all my screens, but everything into like a bunch of categories. Now I'm like, why I spend all that time. Yeah, we might get is home screen widgets, let's see, and you know there'll be a bunch of stuff for iOS fourteen, bunch of little things.
But I you know, I'm not going to go over all of them here, iPad os.
They'll talk about that iPhone or sorry, I watched watch os. Now the big thing about watch os. Megan, you just got an Apple watch.
What is your reaction?
What do you think?
Oh? I love it. I love it. I think it's so great. I mean I just I love it for health reasons, which is like why. I mean, I've been listening to you for like almost two years say it's like so great to have for your health and yeah, yeah, I'm like always trying to meet my circles and like it's it's it's great. I think it's amazing.
What's your circle goal?
It's five hundred calories?
Oh but I mean what about the minutes? Like how many exercises? So you're doing like the move goal.
Sure, yeah, so it's thirty minutes.
Okay, thirty minutes I moved the goal.
It's like moderate, Yeah, I actually am. I mean, I just like go for a walk and I do plates and I tend to hit it.
It's interesting I've noticed and I'm a little bit confused as to how exactly those minutes count, because I've noticed if you're if you start a workout, it will count minutes more so than just like taking a walk around the block. Like if let's say you take a walk around the block for twenty minutes, you may get five minutes out of that walk, but if you have it on workout, you might get the full twenty, which I think I'm not really sure have you noticed any discrepancies there?
So what I do is I just go ahead when I'm going to go on a walk or a run, I do like do the workout like I go to the workout app. So I haven't just like gone for a walk without doing that. But I should try to see what the difference is because because that yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, does that does that count towards your just like your steps.
Well, it's still it will still capture if your heart rate. I think the way it works is that I think your minutes are based on your heart rate being elevated for a certain amount of time, and I think by triggering the workout app, it will measure your heart rate more often or constantly, And I think that's why it's getting you more minutes, because it's noticing your heart rate more versus just having it on where it's checking it every so often. Right, I think that's the difference, but
I'm not really sure anyway. The big features they might be adding to the Watch OS is sleep, which would be really nice to have a sleep monitor, uh, and then Kids Mode, which you know, it's really I've talked about this before, but I think the Apple Watch would be perfect for kids, especially if they set it off on its own, where you can just buy an Apple Watch for your kid, and that would be so great. Let's see tvOS. This is for Apple TV talking about
screen time being on there. If you're a parent at home with kids right now, you know that screen time is one of the most important things to figure out and kind of manage with your kids because they will be on the TV or the iPad or app whatever, they will be on it all day. Long if you left them to their own devices. So I've really been
monitoring my kid's screen time. I've been testing out a device called Circle, which is kind of confusing to have both circles set up and screen time, but Circle works with every device on your network, not just Apple devices, and it's been really handy because, like, for instance, my kid has a half an hour allowance of YouTube every day, and of course he burns through that, and I could hear as soon as I get a notification on my watch as soon as he burns through it through Circle,
and then when he and then all of a sudden, I'll know, Okay, here comes Tanner.
He's going to come running into my room.
Dad, I'm up, and I'm like, And then you can reward your kid through your phone and give them an extra whatever ten fifteen minutes. So circles advice that actually plugs into your network physically and helps you manage. So I'll have a review of that soon on KTLA, but right now I'm just in the testing phase.
But anyway, WWDC coming up Monday. I can't wait. It's always fun to see the goodies that Apple has in store.
Okay, this next question comes from Steve love your Ktaly segments and podcast. Not sure if you've already addressed this, but with many of us now using FaceTime much more regularly to keep in touch with family members, I was wondering if there's an easy way to record FaceTime calls with audio. I've googled it, tried street screen recording, and downloaded other apps, but haven't found a way to do it. I can only get the video of these calls, but no audio. I've re signed to setting up a separate
camera and shooting a video of my phone. This works, but it's very clunky. I normally saw my grandkids every week and regularly chuck photos and videos of them, but since I haven't been able to be with them in person in months, simpler FaceTime recordings would be a great way to capture memories during these tough times. Thanks for all you do.
Good question.
And Uh, it's funny because there used to be I use a program which I love and I recommend it all the time.
Megan, do you know what I'm gonna say?
Oh? I don't know. Screen?
What's that? Well?
Can record on QuickTime?
No ekam is I used to make to record my Skype calls. Which by the way, is fantastic. Now they used to have a program to record FaceTime.
But remember that.
Whole thing with Apple and where you can listen in to people on FaceTime.
Yeah, yeah, So after.
That, Apple really I think closed a lot of gaps on FaceTime, and I think that's the reason why our listener is having trouble recording these calls.
Because I did a quick test.
With Megan to see if QuickTime would record it, because you can plug your iPhone into your computer, into your Mac and record the screen of your iPhone, and I found that you can also record QuickTime, but as soon as I chose the microphone from my iPhone, it would not record. So that was number one, Like the screen just went black. And then I tried doing a screen recording and recording and it did get the screen, but
it did not record the microphone. And then finally I tried a program called Reflector, which I really like, which can let you mirror. It lets you mirror your iPhone and all your Apple stuff and Android stuff to your computer very easily. It's great if you're trying to record like screen captures. And I tried doing that and guess what it recorded Megan's and what she was saying did not record what I was saying. So it's complicated and
I don't have a solution. If you're listening and you have a solution, please let me know Hello at richontech dot TV and we'll get it in the next podcast. But as far as I know, I can't find an easy way to record FaceTime calls with audio. And I looked at some of the tutorials online and it seems like they're either outdated or they don't work anymore. So that's kind of what I'm so, maybe he should just do this Skype thing.
That's probably the best way, right if he wants to be able to record.
Like, yes, so that would be my I guess, switch over to Skype and try doing it that way. But no, it's like most people aren't on type and it's just not really what he wants to do. I mean, FaceTime is very simple for you know, I was thinking that.
Face zoom, Well yeah, exactly, you zoom and recording is built in.
I mean, it's so that's what I would recommend, just you know what, switch over to zoom. Everyone has zoom, everyone has an account right now. Recording is built right into Zoom. I know it's not as simple as FaceTime, but that's that's what I would recommend, So good, good alternative there.
I have one question with the Zoom thing. Can you can you record calls on the Zoom app on your phone or do you have to be on you even try that?
I don't know, and I don't think so.
I think you have to be on the desktop because it leverages the hardware on the desktop to actually like process the call. But that's only for my account. I have a free account. So if you have, if you have a paid account which has cloud recording, it may be able to it may enable that on the phone, but I am not sure, so I'd have to check that out.
But good question, Megan.
Yeah, right, Sony revealed the PlayStation five what it's going to look like.
Did you see the pictures?
You edited the video so you saw it's got this really crazy like bold design.
It's pretty cool.
It's a departure like in years past the chassis has been a black color and now it's kind of this bold white and blue maybe or black.
Was it like a little blue light on the sides.
Yeah, Well they've had like cool lighting for a while. But this is like it just looks like a spaceship or something.
Right, Yeah, it's very futuristic, very futuristic, Like good job on the design.
So it looks really cool.
Now, some people might not like that it's white because it might not fit into like sort of their other stuff on TV. You know, I could see.
That, Yeah, I could see that.
But at the time, cool everything with silver, Like back in the day, like in the eighties and nineties, all the stuff used to be like silver, and then it went black and then it's kind of remained black for a while and now this is, you know, a departure. So if that really you know, some people are really like, you know, they want things to look a certain way under their TV. Like me, like I have one Apple TV box and that's it.
And even my this is really funny.
When Luis was over here shooting a segment with our cable, like with my modem, he noticed when I took it off the shelf, there was a tiny piece of like
sticky tack stuff underneath it. And he's like, what's that And I was like, oh, because if you lay my modem on its side, it's not it tilts over because it's like got this, it's like not even, and so it really bugged me that modem was not straight at the bottom, and so I put a little piece of fun tack at the bottom to like hold it up, to make it looked like it was hovering anyway.
I mean, I guess you could always paint the PlayStation five.
Okay, So again, what I've done in the past, I've actually taken because I hated having blinking lights on the front of my devices, I've taken black electrical tape and put it over all the lights and.
Motem because they.
Just they're like flashing, Like the people who design these things, who wants a bunch of flashing lights while you're trying to watch TV? Right like underneath your TV. It's like, oh, space going in.
You know how My TV is on like a roller, I like right by my bed at night when I watch TV, like to go to bed, but then the light bothers me when I'm actually trying to sleep. So that's what I'll do. I'll cover it with the Only.
Thing you have to be careful about is the IR sensor, so you have to make sure you don't cover that up, so you know, just usually the IR sensor is near the little led, so just you know, you can shine a flashlight into your kind of where the lights are and see where the sensor is, and that should help you not cover that up.
Okay, anyway, now you know what to do. Very cool, all right?
So what else about the Sony two different options. You get a standard model or a model with an Ultra HD Blu Ray dis drive, so you can go digital or you can hold onto the past a little bit there, which I don't have any use for an ultra There's like one or two times a year when I want to try to play a disc, and usually it's around screener time when they send me the movies for like Academy Awards or whatever. But other than that, I do
not need a disk drive anymore. It'd be nice, but I don't really see the point unless you like, really like to watch your movies in the ultimate Ultra HD way. Then they have a bunch of games announced. Marvel Spider Man Miles Morales is kind of one of the big ones, Grand Turi's most seven resident evil Village. And then there's gonna be a Grand Theft Auto five. This is gonna launch Holiday twenty twenty. They have not given up price. But I did interview Todd Martin's of the La Times.
He is their video game journalist, and he was telling me that he thinks around four to five hundred dollars, depending on the model, you get this Spider Man game super anticipated. And also he said the graphics look really,
really good. And he said the difference between PlayStation five and Xbox Series X, which is also launching this holiday season is Sony is sort of positioning themselves as you still need this this piece of hardware that's going to play the best games, whereas Microsoft is more moving to a fully digital kind of internet based, you know, digital play. So they're kind of like two different ways, you know, like Microsoft might say, hey, you can play them on the Xbox, or you can play them on your PC
if you have a good PC. But Sony's like, no, you need this box to get this thing. I think that's what he kind of that was the point he made. So I hope I'm not butchering that all right, Megan, you're up.
Okay, this next question is from Rudy. I've got a sorry, should I turn my that phone off?
I don't hear anything?
Okay, Oh okay, sorry, Okay, So this next question is from Rudy. I've got a stupid question. I purchased a Wi Fi Extra Boost. It was made in China. Is there any chance when I install it, someone will be able to what equipment wait to see what equipment is using it and can rip me off? Is this a pick from the side of the box? Thank you very much?
Wait, all right, so he bought one of these Wi Fi Extra Boosts, which we actually talked about in a previous show. This goes right up there with the total av thing or whatever, like don't buy the by extra Boost.
They were advertising heavily.
And now I don't take issue with the fact that it's made in China. I mean a lot of things are made in China, and I don't think that this is trying to steal your personal information, although that is a very real concern. So because it's a device that we're not really sure where it comes from or who makes it, or you know, if there's different versions of these things, it could be made pretty cheaply. There was a heavy, heavy, heavy advertising campaign surrounding this thing, So
I think that his concern is legitimate. I don't think they're doing but I am glad that he's thinking that way, because if you buy something random and you introduce it to your network, you have to wonder what that piece of equipment could be doing on your network. I think he's okay. The other thing I would say the bigger problem is that I think this Wi Fi Extra boost is not going to do very much to boost his network.
And I used to recommend these WiFi boosters, but again, they take a bad signal, they make it even worse. And I would definitely recommend something like an EO, something like a Google Wi Fi or Google Nest Wi Fi, or something like a neckgear orbi. My friend recently updated his system.
At his house.
He was getting really bad internet and he upgraded to the Eero and he sent me a screenshot of getting awesome Internet throughout everywhere in his home. So that's awesome. And he also got his internet upgraded as well. So I'm sure this thing is gonna be fine. I don't think it's sending back everything you do to China, but I don't think it's going to be very good for actually improving your network.
I think that it's the bigger problem.
By the way, speaking of improving your network, Megan This was on my to do list for many, many weeks, and I finally did it. So in my neighborhood, there's two competing internet services and one is offering a really good deal right now. Of like, I forget what it was. It was like fifty bucks a month for really fast internet. And also it was AT and T. So they're also including HBO Max, which I paid for, and it was
cheaper than what Spectrum offers where I live. So I wanted to call before I was going to switch, no matter what. But I just wanted to call a Spectrum just to see if they would give me a better deal, because it's always easier to stick with what you have. You don't have to have a person come to your house, you have to switch things over, you have to change your router, all this stuff.
So I just figured i'd called them now.
Last time I called them about probably two or three years ago, the guy was so rude to me. He was like, dude, we don't do deals. We don't do that. We just don't do that anymore. I was like, okay, now, two years ago when I called, I did not have a competing deal, so he actually got me. All I did was say hey, can you do better than what I'm paying? And he's like no, but I didn't have anything to go. I was like, oh, I'll cancel. He's like, go ahead, what are you gonna do?
And I, well, he didn't. He in so many words, he said that right, right, right, Okay, he was right.
He knew that I didn't have another option that was better in my neighborhood. The price at AT and T at the time was about the same as Spectrum, so there really wasn't anything I could do except switch, which is kind.
Of a pain.
This time, I came armed with knowing I actually would switch because the deal is actually better at AT and T. But like I said, I would, I would stay if they gave me a better.
Deal because I don't have to deal with switching.
So, long story short, took me forty minutes on the phone to finally get through to someone.
But guess what they gave you the deal, that's right.
Twenty dollars off the next year every month. So my advice to you, the listener, go to a website like high Speed Internet dot com or allconnect dot com and actually see if there is a better deal. And if there is, and you're actually willing to switch to that better deal. Give your provider a call and tell them about that deal, and don't be mean. I was not mean in any way. I was very honest. I said, look, here's the numbers. They've got a better deal. It's a
faster speed than what you're giving me. Can you do any better? And surprisingly the woman was very nice and she said, yeah, we can do better. Right off the bat, she said, I can give you twenty bucks off a month. And I said, okay, well it's not going to be as fast. Is there anything you can do better than that? And she said, well, you can jump up to a higher speed, but it's going to be the same price
you're paying right now. So I could have done that, or I could have jumped up to the equivalent of what AT and T is offering, which is a gig and especially offering that for like one hundred and twenty five dollars a month.
Now.
The reason why AT and T is able to offer such cheap service is because they don't have the coverage like Spectrum does. They're only in certain pockets, so they really hammer those pockets hard and getting people to switch, and then they try to get you to bundle, which is the same thing Spectrum does. So my advice to you is just if you haven't looked in a while or compared in a while, give it a shot. And I was very pleasantly surprised that I didn't save a
ton of money. One hundred and twenty dollars. No, twenty times twelve is two hundred and forty bucks.
So that's not bad, right, that's really good.
Same speed, Like, I'm not getting any faster speed, but I figured, you know what, I'd rather save the money right now than get faster speed because my speed's just fine. I get two hundred down, which is just fine. So anyway, that's that's my public service announcement.
I'm going to tell my mom about that.
Go ahead, okay.
This next question comes from Yasmin. Hello, Rich, I'm a huge five from KTLA. Oh huge KTLA five fan, and I was wondering if you can recommend any dual dash cameras that won't cost an arm and a leg please. Oh.
You know, I've played with a bunch of dash cameras over the years, and I continually go back to brands that I know that work and that I like, and so the one that I searched up for this is the Vava.
This is a dash cam.
Do you remember we did a story with them, probably when you first started.
I met right, let me look at it.
That's a no, okay, so okay.
Anyway, so I tried out their first dash cam, which is a great value or worked really nicely. Then I tried out their second dash cam, which also worked really nicely. And I was not aware that they actually came out with a front and back recording dash cam, which I you know, looked up and here it is on Amazon one hundred and ninety nine dollars, and they actually have a twenty dollars coupon, so it's one hundred and eighty
dollars if you apply this coupon. Now, here's my only issue with these front and rear unless you're driving an uber, I don't really understand what seeing the inside of your car cabin matters, because it's like, what I really want to say is the back. The last time I got into an accident, it was someone hitting me from behind because the woman was on her phone and so she slammed right into the back of my car. I wish I had a camera on the back of my car that would.
Have recorded that, right right, right, Well, maybe she wants to be able to shows me kind of crowd, you know and fear right, yeah, but maybe she wants to see if someone's breaking in to her car.
I mean, yeah, And that's another that's a that's a very valid response. And most of these cameras have what's called like a G shock sensor which will activate when your car is parked and it will record, So that's
a that's a valid that's definitely valid. But personally, I think that if you really want full coverage, you got to have a camera facing out the front, you got to have a camera facing on your front license plate, you got to have a camera inside, you've got to have a camera in the back seat, and you've got to have a camera on your back you know, license plate. So I'm thinking you need like five cameras in your car, which I'm joking right now now, but that is the reality.
In the future. Tesla's already doing it. A lot of the cars already have these cameras, they're just not necessarily being recorded all the time. But in the future, Megan, I do think that our cars are going to be rolling around like many DVRs. With all these cameras, recording and accidents are going to matter. Just sending this info to your sending this b roll to or video to your car insurance company and they say, okay, we'll figure it all out with the other person.
That is wild. No, you're totally right. I mean, that's kind of bound to happen, right, Yes.
The other trend that we're seeing is connected dash cams because okay, so let's say I break into your car by the way, before I leave your car, I steal your dash cam, and now you have no dash cam.
Right, so your video.
So the other thing we're seeing is car cams like the owl cam. And also I tested one called the pure cam that will automatically upload the clips to the cloud as they happen. So that's that's the other thing we're going to see next is more of connected data because that in this case, it makes a lot of sense for this video to go right up to the cloud.
All right, good question.
I've got a ton of stuff to go through and not much more time. So let me, oh gosh, what should I go through? What should I talk about? All right, let me talk about two fun little things Nintendo has a free game right now. It's called the Jump Rope Challenge. I downloaded this and played it with my kid last night. I didn't do it, he did it, but you Basically it's free for the Nintendo Switch and you can download it, and it basically is a very simple game of jump rope.
And all you do is you hold your joy Con controllers, which are the Nintendo controllers, in each hand, and you swing around and jump like you would be jump roping virtually, and it counts on your screen how many times you've jump roped. My kid got up to like five or six hundred before we stopped him. He was really sweaty too, which was cracking me up. So it actually worked out. But it's kind of It's just a fun little game to get you moving during stay at home stuff.
And if you have a Switch, it's totally free.
Just download it and you can do it every day and challenge yourself to do more every day or do a certain amount every day, which is kind of cool. You you cut the video on this for Katlage, what'd you think?
I thought it was fun? I mean I like that, you know, the kids can have something different to do. And I actually am a big fan of jump rope. It's a good it's a good workout. Yeah, I'm actually really good at it.
You're good at what means you're good at it?
You can like I mean, I don't like mess up, like you know when you jump rope and you like hit your foot.
I don't know.
I can like do it for like five minutes straight, but you have to like go, you know, like you know, boxers they jump rope like. It's like a good cardio of vascular workout.
It is.
It is funny with all of the advancements in working out. If you really watch a lot of like the workout stuff on TV, it's it's always the simple stuff we learned in like middle school. Yeah, roping and the jumping jacks and the squats and you don't need much. So you got to work out at home during this time. One more thing I want to mention too is an app called Helio. This is an app that tells you
when the sunrise or sunset are gonna be awesome. Have you ever been outside randomly or looked outside your window, Megan, and all of a sudden you see like a really good sunset and you're like, WHOA, that's really good and you walk outside and look at it. Yeah, yeah, well this app will tell you a prediction on a scale of one to one hundred of how the sunrise.
Or sunset's going to be.
Now, photographers using apps like this for a long time to kind of get really good you know what they call the magic hour twilight good pictures.
But this kind of does it for you.
The only feature it doesn't have yet, well, it probably doesn't have a lot of features, but the one is a notification, so you have to open the app to see. But wouldn't it be cool if every day at like you know whatever, you know, an hour before sunset, it would give you notification if it was going to be a really good one to like remind you, because there's something nice about just going outside and kind of just
soaking in the sunset for a little bit. Even if you don't have like a perfect few Where I live, I don't really have a great view, but it's still like at the beach, of course, you get like a great view.
No. I love that. I love like looking at the sunset when it's you know, pretty and pink and purple, yes.
All the different color sky and you kind of just think about Wow, what an amazing world we live in. All right, Megan, can you believe it? That is going to do it for the end of the show.
Oh my gosh. This show goes so fast, doesn't it.
It really does.
If you would like to submit a question for me to answer, you can just go to rich on Tech dot tv hit the email button at the bottom of the page. We'd also love it if you would rate and review this podcast. You can help other people discover it that way. Just go to rate this podcast dot com, slash rich on Tech.
Megan. Where can folks find you on social media?
I'm on Twitter at producer Megan.
All right, you can find me at rich on tech. Thanks so much for sending in all your questions. I know I can't get to all of them, but I do try to respond to you guys via email. You can find me at rich on tech on all social media platforms. My name is richmiel On, behalf of everyone that gets this show to your ears. Thanks so much for listening. We will talk to you real soon.