CS twenty twenty one, the show will go on Facebook Now lets you delete your old posts in Bulk, a new app that supports your favorite podcasts, plus your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich Damiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also where I answer the questions that you send me. My name is Rich Dumiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Joining me is producer Megan Welcome to the show.
Hello, how are you?
Oh that's a loaded question these days, I aw this this is one of the most I thought that the pandemic was one of the most interesting times of our lives, and now with everything going on, it's just twenty twenty is a year that will will be one of the most written about years in history. I think it's now just to kind of get through the show. This is a tech show. I talk about technology. It's a consumer focused show, so I'm talking about the gadgets I think
you should know about. I'm talking about the apps and things. So we don't really get into the news of the day in this show, but I don't want to ignore the fact that there is a lot happening in our world. So I guess I'll leave it at sort of saying, we know what's going on. We work in the news media, so we are very well aware of the things that are happening in this world. We are cognizant. We are learning. I'm learning, Megan. I don't know about you, but I'm
learning a lot. I think the story that we did today, you know, just hearing other voices and hearing just various points of view is really helpful during this time. That's really what's interesting to me. I don't pretend to know it all, you know, nor do I pretend to think that I understand where everyone's coming from. And so it's been a process in life to understand everyone's standpoint and why people do things and why people feel the way they do. And you know, even at my age, I'm
still learning. And so that's kind of where I want to leave that. It's been interesting. I hope you're safe. I hope you're feeling well, both with pandemic and everything that's going on elsewise. But we will get into our podcast to talk about the stuff that I think you
should know about in the tech world. If you are a regular listener of the podcast, you might have noticed there was not an episode last week, and this is the first time this has happened, and it was very sad to me that Megan and I actually did record a podcast and I could not put it out there because the audio quality was so bad that it just wasn't acceptable. And Megan sounded great. So your audio was perfect to Megan, like switched it.
If there's a way to make it. Your audio is good. Mind can be a little bit bad.
Somehow, it was recording the wrong microphone on my side, and so it was recording just a random mic from my computer versus the one I was actually speaking into, So it just would have been bad to have people try to listen to that. So I just decided that we would not post it at all. So anyway, let's get into the show. And one of the big stories this week is kind of a crazy one that CS twenty twenty one is actually going to happen as an in person event. Now, Megan, you and I have not
discussed this. Whether you would even go, I don't know, but let me let me give you kind of the background. I'll tell you about the blog post that that CS put out. So every event has been canceled, but CS is probably one of the biggest, is the biggest event I go to every year. It's in Las Vegas. The joke about CS is that you try not to get sick at CS because there's so many people from all around the world touching so many things in close proximity
in smoke filled casinos. I mean, it's just it's a nightmare and it's dry out there. But here's what CS says. CTA is the company that puts on cts CS. They say that, yes, we will produce an in person event in Las Vegas. We will continue to expand the show's digital reach so you can see more live stream content. Okay,
but here's what they're going to do. Clean and sanitize spaces around the show venue regularly and provide sanitation stations so hand sanitizer, enable social distancing with wider aisles in many exhibit areas and more space between seats and conference programs, best practices issue best practices for attendees like wearing masks
and avoid shaking hands. Now, they didn't say they're going to require people to wear masks, so I'm not sure on that one and then limit touch points throughout the facility, including cashless systems for purchases, and then perhaps have thermal scans at entry points. So I don't know. I mean, we're still it's June, so we've got July, August, September, October, November, December, so you've got you've got six months minimum for us to figure out how this pandemic plays out after things
have reopened. Vegas opened this weekend and so if I don't know if you saw any of the video from there, but people flooded in and it's like almost back to normal, except for the fact that there are some slot machines, Like I think every other slot machine is closed or whatever. But you when you have that many people in one place, you can't avoid it. You're you're with the people, right.
Yeah, Yeah, it's so crazy.
I mean, we really don't fully understand coronavirus still, so who knows what we'll know then, you know. But yeah, I just think of like, especially as media, when we see something that's really cool and everyone's crowding around it and you're trying to get the best angle, and you will you have like two hours.
At that event. It's like crunch time. I just can't. I don't know. I can't imagine these days, like how that would how that would work.
You know, I can't either. And the other thing is that there are people from all over the world, so it's like you're gonna have folks from everywhere, and every country, in every state, in every city has its own sort of precautions and the way they're handling corona. So yeah, if you're standing next to some guy from a country that doesn't really care and just has let everyone just do whatever they want and you're in, you know, it's
a big mix. So I find this very challenging. I was I think I said this on I forget if I said it on TV. But you know, I've been going to see Yes for like I think ten years now, and I was actually kind of secretly inside looking forward to the fact that like, oh, no pressure this year because I can't go, it's not going to happen. And now that it's happening, I actually do need to make
a decision of whether I am going. Right now I am I'm thinking thinking yes, just because you know, we have six months, but of course it will be something I think that everyone's going to be evaluating. I think it's not really important what I think. It's important what these companies are thinking, because if I'm a Microsoft or a Huawei or a Panasonic or a Samsung, I have to decide now if I'm going to ditch this event.
And I think that's actually going to decide for us whether this event happens, and not the people that go. I think it's really going to be the companies. So we will see, right. I think only you can hear this, Megan, So tell me is this your right sound?
Yes? That's the sound question time.
Okay, So this first question comes from Robert hi Rich. I saw your story on police scanner apps, specifically the fifty app. I understand that police agencies in Orange County scramble their signals so scanner cannot pick them up.
Is this true?
Is there an app whereby I can hear police calls from Orange County agencies?
Now, this is interesting. We did this story on TV this week that the police scanner apps were the top downloads on the app store, and for obvious reasons, people people were monitoring what was happening in their communities, and it's you know, probably a mix of curiosity, safety, and maybe avoidance, I don't know, but all three of those things. So an app called five zero Radio Police Scanner, which is five dollars is the number one was the number
one paid app. I'm not sure if it still is, but could you imagine the person who coded that app probably a while ago, and all of a sudden they just overnight see like, oh wow, I've got a lot of downloads, I'm making a lot of money. Number three right now in utilities, it's got two hundred and thirteen thousand ratings. And let's see when this guy came out with this app all the way back in twenty thirteen.
So I think this is probably going to be his biggest he or she's biggest payday in you know, let's say June's let's say it takes some a month to get the money July. Let's say in August, this person's going on a nice vacation because they are going to get hey right now, but not right now, Okay. So the other thing is okay, so that's five dollars. There is a free version.
Of the free version. With the free free version, but I'm assuming there's ads, so he's probably getting paid from that too.
Yeah, he's probably getting paid that way too. Now, you worked on the desk at KTLA, and remember one of your first stories, I believe, was Citizen, which is the app that if you're not familiar with Citizen, this is also beginning a lot of downloads. It's an app that listens to the police scanner. Using artificial intelligence, it transcribes what's being said on those scanners, and then it kind of uses humans to filter and push out those notifications
to people that just live in that area. And I don't know about you, but my Citizen's been going off the hook lately. I'm getting all kinds of alerts from things happening in the neighborhood just in general. Yeah. So, now so we when we did this story, we talked to our guy at KTLA that's been listening to scanners for years, and he said that one of the things that cities are doing is they are scrambling their signals the police departments so that people can't really listen to
these without very expensive equipment. Is that you're understanding, no, exactly.
Yeah, I mean KATLA obviously has the really good scanners, so we can like hear all, you know, what's going on, But I don't think.
I don't think Citizen will pick up everything.
I think, well, I think Citizen does pick up the scrambled ones. I think they do. That's why they're not launched in every city. But when I looked at this police scanner app and you've maybe you've used it more than I have, I didn't see Los Angeles as one of the cities. So I don't know if they are, you know, I don't know if they're sort of getting
the scrambled ones. And i'm you know, according to Vance from what I remember, he said, you can get them de scrambled, but it costs a lot of money, like the equipment, So most average people that buy like a CB scanner, you know, or a not a CEB scanner, a police scanner on Amazon would not hear the scrambled stuff because those are maybe you know, fifty one hundred dollars. So anyway to answer the question that we got, it's really can I listen to them in Orange County? I'm
not sure. It just depends. If they're scrambled, then you're not gonna be able to listen to them. I did recommend or I am recommending Citizen for a lot of folks. I'm not sure if Citizen is in Orange County, because again, they have to set up the equipment to listen to the scanners to be able to offer their services in these places. So that that's a part of it that, you know, I just don't have the answer to. You just have to download it and see if it works
in your area. So that's that's kind of like a kind of the answer to that, huh. But anyway, those apps are very popular right now, that's for sure. And I'm excited for that guy's pay day, that's for sure.
Right now. I wonder how many downloads he got. Is there a way to figure that out?
There's some there's some companies that try to say how many, but I mean, this says it was downloaded to over two hundred thousand times, but who really knows. I mean, you don't know. And the other thing is, it's like you said, I would I would gather that most people are probably downloading the free one, and then some are downloading the paid I downloaded.
The free okay, okay, but.
You know it's still the top charge. Is an interesting thing. It's not like the most paid app. It's it's it's by time so it's not really like it's at that moment kind of thing. So yeah, so if you looked at it right now, it may not be there anymore. Like it may have sprung to the top and then it's you know, it's back down a couple of notches. But needless to say, he's doing okay at this point.
All right, this was an interesting feature that Facebook launched this week that totally got lost in the news because of everything going on. But this is a feature called Manage Activity. Now. Facebook is an app that it's kind of like your It's kind of like your attic, right, you put a lot of stuff up there and you kind of forget about it.
Oh yeah, yeah.
It reminds me. Have you ever watched that movie Christmas Vacation where they he puts the gifts up in the attic for his wife for Christmas and he finds him like five years later.
That I need to watch at.
Oh one of my favorite movies. It's maybe watch it during Christmas time. This is not the right time, but it's I mean, it's always one of my favorites. Okay, So Facebook Manage Activity lets you The best way I can describe this is, think of all the posts that you've made on your Facebook page as emails, and imagine you can just delete those emails easily. You can filter those emails by which ones had a picture, which ones didn't have a picture, which ones have you know, just
a text post by date. You can say, oh, I just want to look at the things that happened in the last year. Or let's say you had a partner during college freshman year and you want to just delete all those posts. But you don't have to just delete them. You can archive them as well. So now you can literally go through and just click the ones that you want to get rid of and either delete them or
archive them. And archive is kind of a cool option because it means they still exist in a place on Facebook, but that nobody can see them. Deleting is like sometimes you don't your past is your past, and yeah, you know you don't necessarily want to just eradicate.
It, but could you imagine like if you had gone on in not Instagram, Facebook when you were like.
Eleven, Oh my god, I know I have all these pictures.
If you if I search like Megan mcmonagall photos, or like if I just go back and photos, if even if I'm tagged and I've deleted the tag, it still comes up because that person has like my name, you just can't click on me.
And so I have all these pictures. I'm like, oh my gosh, I.
Don't want this on Facebook, but you know whatever, that's what happens when you join when you're twelve.
And that's the thing. Like, these kids are growing up on these services, and I think that's why they're gravitating to things like Instagram, stories and Snapchat, because why do you want that permanent record? You know? Now, I will say in some cases I love it, Like last night, Lindsey or this morning. You know, you get these Facebook memories and she came over and said, look at this. This was like nine years ago you putting together the
crib for Parker in our old place. And that's amazing, Like I love that, but you know, it's like that had to be posted. And so when you don't post, and when you do the stories and stuff, a lot of that is lost because it's gone now stories. I've noticed that Facebook is kind of like they do our Instagram does keep the stories in your archive. Most people don't realize that, but you can see what's in your stories,
but that's only for your eyes. The other thing, if you use Google Photos, they've started to do what's called I think it's memories or something, where at the top of your Google Photos library they have one year ago today, two years ago today, three years ago, and it just flipping through those is really cool because you forget ten years went by this fast. Oh my gosh, yeah, ten years ago today, I was sitting at my desk doing a podcast, just like right now.
My life hasn't changed.
Nothing's changed. This feature again, is called Manage Activity. I could not find it on the Facebook app. It's going to launch on mobile first. I could not find it on the Facebook app on iOS or Android. I checked both, so I don't know if it's launched yet or if it's rolling out slowly. But if I can't find it, you're not gonna be able to find it. So they probably have not launched it and or they're doing a
really bad job of putting it out there. But from what I understood, it was supposed to be available like this week on Tuesday, I believe it was. So anyway, look for Manage Activity if you want to just go and clean up your Facebook posts from the past.
I'm definitely downloading that. Okay, This next question comes from Debbie thoughts and recommendations on UVC wands or other devices to use for cleaning hotel rooms and other virus type gunk looking forward to your response. I mean general germ of vogue now in hyperdrive with gunky people resisting public courtesy.
Gonky people gunky love that.
I don't think I've ever heard that term.
No, I just heard like a person.
Like I've heard grows, but not like gunky.
Yeah, well, this is a great This is a great preview of an upcoming story on KTLA because I've gotten so many emails about these sanitizers. One thing I've noticed, whoever is advertising on Facebook and Instagram represents a majority of the questions that I get email to me. Remember those copper keys. We did a story on the touch free tools.
Yeah, now it's an ad on Oh my gosh.
It's all over I know everywhere, It's everywhere, and so we were way ahead of that. But the reason why we were way ahead is because I've got this army of folks out there that email me and they're asking me the stuff. They're kind of like my folks on the ground. You know, I live a very insulated life, right. I don't watch TV. I don't watch anything. I don't look at anything. I don't go anywhere. I don't talk to anyone. I just live in my house by myself
and don't do anything. I'm in a bubble. And so I have this army of folks on the ground that actually go out to places, and they actually look at ads, and they actually watch things on Netflix, and they actually see things. And so they're the ones that are telling me what's happening in this world. And so you be, sanitizers are clearly being advertised very heavily. And so I did do research. I talked to an expert on uv
UVC does work to kill stuff. Now, with that said, what I gathered from my interview is that not all of these devices are made the same. Stay away from the cheap ones. That's number one. Number two, you want one that has a lot of lights inside around all edges of your gadget because that means it will get the maximum coverage area. These lights only work if they're one hundred percent like on the like if it can see the area, it doesn't work like if it it
doesn't work if there's a little shadow. It's not going to get that virus or that bacteria or whatever.
Oh wow.
So I tested three of these. Now when I say test, I can't tell you whether they work. I'm not sitting there going, oh, there's a staff a staff bug on this phone and then I've zapped it and it's gone. I don't know about that. But I tested them and seeing what they look like in the features they have, and so I'll have those on KTLA. But the bottom line is, if you're going to buy one of these things, which our UV guy that I interviewed actually said you
probably shouldn't, like, don't waste your money. He said that seventy percent alcohol wipe is your best spat. So just get those alcohol wipes if you can use them on your phone, and that will clean it probably the best way. The problem with that system is that it does wear down the coating on your phone that resists fingerprints. And so I noticed this with my phone.
Unless like, if you have a cover.
Either one, if you have yeah, if you use just you know, most people have a screen protector on their phone, and so on my iPhone, I did have a screen protector, but I kept cleaning it almost like every other day. And I noticed that the fingerprints got to a place where it was like it looked like an oil slick on my phone when I was using it, because it was it just had no they call olifolick coating. It was all. It was all burned off. So if I
would number one, have a screen protector. And if you have a screen protector, you're probably fine because you're just rubbing off the only phot whatever they however, they say it coding on that protector. You could just get a new one. So but if you're looking for one of these things, do not get the WAND. He says the WAND is total bs. You're not going to be able to wave it over at the perfect height end for
long enough to kill anything. And if you get a box, make sure that it is reflective inside and there's lights on all the sides inside. So that's kind of like the main thing to do. And you have to you know, some of these boxes, like the one from Phone Soap, which is the most popular, that takes a ten minute bath in your phone. The other one I tested takes thirty seconds, but only does one side at a time, so you have to flip it over and then another
one takes I think three minutes. But it also charges your phone, so that's kind of cool.
That's cool.
So, Megan, you will be shooting this story soon, so you'll be able to see all these things and how they work. And your phone is never going to be cleaner than right now. All right, So, if you use Gmail, you might have noticed that there is now this meat thing inside Gmail mee T, which is their answer to zoom. And apparently a lot of people hate the fact that this has shown up in their Gmail. Now have you noticed this in your Gmail? At the bottom, let's see
it says start a meeting, Join a meeting. It's kind of on the side bar where you have Oh yeah.
I see that. Yeah, okay.
So a lot of people are super annoyed that that's there. And this has happened before with a lot of features that they add to Gmail. People get really mad that anything changes. Well, now you can get rid of that. So Google is listening to you. They're rolling out a feature that you can disable the little meat thing, And if you want to do it, you can go to settings on your Gmail and then look for chat and meat and then you'll see the way to turn it off.
This is courtesy of TechSpot dot com. By the way, I personally love Meat and I wish that more people would use it because nobody wants to switch from Zoom now that everyone's on Zoom. So I think Meat is really cool. I think Facebook Rooms is really cool, but everyone's on Zoom and that's just the standard at this point.
I think they think they're clearer than Zoom too, Like, Okay, so what's your all time favorite?
Like, if you're gonna call someone, what are you what are you using?
Uh?
Well, I'm using Zoom because that's what everyone's using. And it's just everyone has it installed, everyone has it ready, they have an account. And I did connect Zoom to my calendar, which was kind of cool because I had to schedule a Zoom appointment, and I thought it was actually really great because it just put the Zoom link right on my calendar and theirs, so all we had to do is go into the calendar and click it
and it was and that was pretty seamless. Now Google Meet does the same thing, but again, it's one of these things people just don't want to try. They just got into Zoom, they don't want to try something new. They're like, no, yeah, I'm good, and it's it's one of those things when you say i'll zoom, you're with no learning curve. Yes, we all know what we're doing.
There, so mm hmm.
Everyone knows what it is now. Basically, this next this next question comes from Russell hi Rich. I hope this email finds you and yours well. After a brief review of the topics on your site, I am reaching out to see if you may have previously done a piece on VHS to digital converters. If you haven't done a piece, is there a story or product out there that you recommend. It may be a good project to convert old home movies while I'm at home and currently have some time on my hands.
Yes, do this. Do this quickly because your videotapes are quickly aging and they are getting really bad. The quality on these things is going away. It's been since the nineties or the eighties. What one did video? Was it eighties or nineties? I can't remember, but nineties.
I mean I had vhs is when I was growing up.
Okay, so nineties to now you're talking thirty years. So these tapes, which are analog, those are degrading in a big way, especially depending on It's not like digital where it stays it's ones and zero's. This is analog, which means the way that you the way that you stored it has an impact on how it is lasting. If it was in a hot attic, you're gonna have a problem with some of these tapes. You know, you want
to keep them in a cool place. I did a story where I this is what I love about my job is I love the fact that I can just talk to experts on everything and they'll talk back to me. You know, if you emailed like the top archive guy at Warner Brothers, do you think you would email you back. No? But yet I can go and I can email Warner Brothers and do a story and literally go into the archives and learn how they archive their stuff, which is filmed and you know, cool dry place. Believe me, it's
it's all climate controlled and there fire controlled. It's pretty impressive. In fact, I was in there this year when they were busy going through all the stuff for HBO Max. So they were they were restoring a lot of those things. You know, a lot of they said, a lot of the stuff they had already done because in various places they've you know. But anyway, I digress. So a couple of things you need to do this. You need your old tapes. You need your capture device, which i'll talk
about in a second. You need a computer and then a place to store your digital files. And you also need a VCR. And this might be the trickiest thing. If you still have your old VCR you're doing really well, or your old camcorder, but a lot of people with their VCR and cam quarter they might have gotten rid
of them. And so good luck finding these on eBay because people know that people are trying to use these for this purpose, and so a lot of them are expensive or kind of they're just they look like they don't really work very well. It was very hit or miss. So I ended up sourcing these things from friends because I could actually trust the source instead of buying these on eBay. And so I got a video camera and a VCR, and then you need the capture software. So
there's two that I recommend. El Gato Video Capture for Mac. That's the one I tested. I used. It's great, and the PC equivalent is called the Roxio Easy VHS two DVD for PC. Now with these, both of these, it's a very slow process because you have to capture in real time the videos and so you have to put the video, you have to rewind the tape. If it's not rewound, you got to pop into the VCR, you got to set up on your computer, you got to record,
and you got to wait for it to go. And then at the end you want to trim the intro in the outro because there might be some you know, I don't know, blank parts on those. So it's a process, and then you have to save it and then you have to upload it somewhere. So I've uploaded mine. A lot of these I did myself. I uploaded them to Google Photos, which is kind of cool because it looks for faces inside your videos.
That's so cool. I need to do this.
It's kind of neat. So if you're looking for pictures of like your grandparents and stuff like, they will show up in yes, which is it's really neat because back in the day, I was talking about this with my wife last night. Nowadays, when you record your kids, you're only doing a thirty second clip of them or maybe a minute. Back in the day, and I'm sure your family was like this, Megan, your dad would walk around
the house with the camcorder for twenty minutes. Yeah, it was a reality show, right and say hi to everyone at the party, and you know the scene was watch the cake being cut whatever. Nowadays it's just oh, they're blown out the candles. Hold on, let me record that, and that's it. It's a thirty second clip of blowing out the candles. So it's very different and I don't
know which one's better. It's kind of it's weird to watch the old videos because a lot of them are kind of boring because there's not many moments in them, but whereas the new videos are all like just where the action is right, like oh they're blown out the candles, or they're opening presents, or they're you know, mixing a drink, whatever it is, and like everyone.
Knows how to like film or take video or take pictures nowadays. Like back then, you know, it was a little one person the family would.
Do it right, and the one person who was like, you got to check out my new camera I got. This thing is so high tech. Oh it's so great. Yeah, And everyone was like, WHOA, what'd you pay for that? Larry? You'd be like, oh this was you know, and then it's like the tapes. Yeah, it's a whole big thing. So anyway, I've got the article on. I'll put the article in the show notes. So it's called DIY transfer
your old home videos to digital. If you are concerned that you don't feel like over are taking this project on, there are a lot of places that will do this for you. Costco is one of them. I would recommend finding a local place. So in your area, just look on Yelp and see you know VHS to DVD or well, you don't want DVD, you want VHS to digital, you
want a file. And here in Los Angeles there's a lot of places that do this because there's just i mean, we live in a company town where it's entertainment oriented, so you can go to a lot of places. If you live in a small town, maybe start a business where you are doing this for people. If you have spare time. I mean, you could make you know, charge people twenty bucks a tape or whatever, and you've got a nice little business. It's a lot of like hands
on time. But if you can get a good little setup, it's not a bad thing. It's not a business that's going to last very long.
But I mean, oh yeah, that's true. Basically you're saying like, now, like how much more time do we have for these tapes?
Some tapes that I've looked at are totally gone. I mean, the the video quality was so bad that it's just almost just scrambled, like that's what it looked like. So and other tapes were fine. It just really depends on the tape, depends on the tape quality that you started with. There's so many things that it depends on. And it's just you don't want to wait much longer. Let's put it that way. You want to start getting this done. Let's see, by the way I sign up for Venmo, do I tell you that?
No?
Yeah, it was a big Venmo holdout, and I finally, you know, I decided, I just I decided that I've gone too long. So many people want to either, well most people don't want to send me money. They want to take my money. So it's like, oh, you owe this, you know, you know, five bucks here, ten bucks there, ten twenty bucks there. And I was so against Venmo for so long, and I realized that why am I
doing this to myself? Because it's so easy, and as much as I don't like some of the things that Venmo does, it's just so easy.
And you know what's rid of the thing that bothered you?
So the thing that bothered there's a bunch. There's a couple of things. I set my stuff to private so I don't see so people can't see what I'm paying for. But I love seeing what other people are paying for. So it's kind of ironic that I liked scrolling through that, But I think just the ease of sending and receiving small amounts of money kind of outweighs the hatred I had for that company. So it wasn't hatred. It was just I didn't like the way they did things. And
so but I'm fine with it. I connected, you know, my account, and it's anyway. So the first person that I did a couple of things I needed to do on there. But then yesterday it was someone's birthday that I work with on the radio, Alex Rozzo. Happy birthday, Alex, and so I was like, hey, Alex, I'm like, let me buy you a drink, let me send you you know, give me your Venmo and I'll send you some money and she's like, oh, I don't use Venmo. I'm like, what the one person that I want to finally.
BUILDO and it's not worth it.
And she was like, oh, I'm not on there. I'm like how. And she's young, by the way, I'm like, how are you not on there? So I thought that was kind of funny, So maybe she'll I think it would have been better if she would have signed up right away, Like she's like, oh, you'll buy me a drink? Sure, let me sign up, send me money, I get, I'll get Vemo. But so many people are on there that it's it's one of those things you just can't avoid.
And so I'm on there now and feel free to send me money, all right.
I'll send you five.
Right now, thank you? All right. So, if you use Alexa, there's a new feature that lets you drop in on your other devices. That's been around for a while. The new feature is that you can drop in on all of your devices at the same time. This is kind of equivalent to the old school PA system in a house. If you does your house you you live in like one of those classic houses, does it have one of those like intercom systems?
We do We don't use it, but we haven't.
Nobody use it. Yeah, but they used to be like the coolest thing back in like the you know, the early sixties, seventies, whatever it was when these things came out. It's like, oh, we got an intercom system, We're so cool. I remember my house in New Jersey growing up had it, and when we moved there, and I thought it was the coolest thing you could ever imagine. It was so tough.
Nobody ever used it, but I used to. It was, you know, it was outside by the doorbell, and so every time someone would come to the door, I'd run to the intercom and be like, who is it? Oh? Yeah, and they'd like and my parents would like just open the door, like it's you know, noa.
Hey, it's good for security.
Yeah. And now, of course we have Ring, which is the same thing. It's it's a high tech equivalent, but it's not built into your wall. So the Amazon Alexa devices now let you do this, so you can drop in on all of your rooms. So let's say you had an Alexa in every room, or an Echo whatever they call it. You can drop in and be like, you know, from your phone, dinner's ready, come on downstairs. Now, my house is so small, it doesn't I don't need that.
But in your palatial mansion, you would probably use this because it would go to all including like the pool house, the guest house, the spare bedroom, the it would just go. You would be able to get.
Everyone together, theo.
Yes, the workout room, the wine cellar, yeah, the bar room, yes, the barroom, the secondary. Trying to think of what we looked at this house in uh West LA. That was it was just unbelievable. And the room, the amount of rooms that they had in this house, every room that we just mentioned plus more. And it was indoor pool, I mean it was. It was unbelievable. I mean, palace,
It's just crazy. And I love that you can just look at those and you know, like clearly I can't you know, elevator, you know, like I can't afford to buy that, but yet they'll just let me in to like look at this place. But you got to dream sometimes, all right. So that's the thing. So if you want to, it's called they call it a drop in. But now you can drop in on all devices. And by the way, if you have Google Home devices, they do the same thing.
It's called broadcast, and many people don't realize this, but you can do it right from Google Assistant on your phone. You can just say broadcast. I think you could say I forgot to like sit, how you exactly say it the command, but it's like broadcast. You know this and you know whatever you say it will be broadcast to all your devices. So you can say, hey, I'm coming home now, I'm leaving work. I'll be home in twenty minutes,
and you can broadcast that to all your devices. I did that exactly once to my family and they all were freaked out because all of a sudden they just hear my voice and all the speakers in the house, And yeah, I think that.
Would be kind. You're like, WHOA, where'd.
That come from? Okay, this next question comes from Lean. I would like to know if you have a preference to a webcam. I recently purchased a forty inch Samsung Smart TV. I would like to be able to watch Zoom with my friends on the television, and I know I have to have a webcam for that.
Which one would you recommend? Thank you so very much.
Did you say Lean? I think it's Leanne.
That's Leanne. I thought well with an E at the end.
Well, she doesn't have an E, but it's still like it's like Leanne, like.
Lean I have never seen that name.
I know Leanne's name, but I I yeah, okay, Leanne.
I'm all for unique names. I just think it's a unique spelling. Some people, you know, people get a notification? What's that?
Did you get a notification for anything?
Uh? Oh? You paid me a dollar?
Yeah?
How did you find me on there? That's so weird.
I thought you had to, like, you're under your name, you have an icon.
Oh that's so interesting. Yeah, I just got a dollar for Megan. Thank you. You have to.
Put in your like last four digits of your Social Security number.
Oh, perfect, to confirm that you knew who I was.
Yeah.
I love looking at the little list of what people pay for. Now I want to I want to build up the amount of people I'm friends with on there, just so I can see what they're all paying for, because it's really funny. I'll refund you the dollar at some point. Maybe I'll just keep it in there. So
let's see what the question was. Webcam for her forty inch Samsung TV and she wants to zoom, so I'm a little concerned with this question because it sounds like she wants to zoom on her TV, which, as far as I know, is not possible, and as far as I know, I think is the dumbest thing in the world, because why are we in the in the year twenty twenty and there is no webcam that attaches to your TV or.
Are built in?
Well, okay, now, built I'm all about built in. But here's the problem. There are a lot of people that are concerned about privacy, and so I think that TV manufacturers would love to have a camera in the TV, and it makes a lot of sense. But and I kind of get this, like.
Do you really want to be ohones?
And I know exactly, I know you're preaching to the choir here. And I think if they put a little shutter on it where you can slide it like a physical slide it open, slide it closed, I think that would be enough for most people. Now there's also the idea of the microphone on your TV, but a lot of smart TVs have a microphone in the remote or on the TV itself, And so I mean, we're almost there, And if it's really a privacy thing, I think that
the benefits outweigh the privacy concerns. But that's just me. But even okay, even if you don't want to built in, I get that. I'm totally fine with not having it built in, But give me an option to plug a webcam into the USB port or even the HDMI port on the back of my TV and boom, I'm on Zoom, I'm on Facebook, I'm on Google, Meet, whatever it is. I want to be able to do that, and I'm so disappointed that we don't have this feature, especially with
the current state of the pandemic affairs. I know a lot of people have been airplaying there their phone or their iPad or whatever to your TV. It's not the same, I think. I just I just want to be able to sit in front of my TV and video chat. The other problem with most people video chatting is they're holding their phone. And I don't know about you, but that makes me so like I can't my brain can't
process all the movement. I actually thought of giving up everything in life right now to just start a company that makes of these cameras and what you. But here is the trick that you would really need to get for this to work. This could not be a camera that simply plugs into HDMI on your TV. The problem with that is you know your parents. I know my parents. They're not gonna switch inputs every time they want to
web chat, right or video chat. You want to have it integrated into the Roku TV or into the whatever, you know what I mean. M m m hm, like that that makes sense, Like you need to have this camera work with fire TV, it has to work with Roku, it has to work with Apple TV, and I'm just not sure those platforms would allow this sort of thing to happen, and they should. So whoever wants to own that, go ahead, start it up. I'm giving you the idea for free.
You should do it.
I would love to do it, but the I have no idea how to do anything technical.
Oh but like.
You have the idea or also it's like you just get the app for that on your TV, Like I could just download it to my Roku and that's clip the camera onto my TV or something like.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, I think that's a really good idea.
It's brilliant, especially now like we're realizing all the things.
Like Okay, like I'd like to be able to do that. You know, I don't want to FaceTime on my phone. It's too small, like it's really it's wild.
I agree, I agree, all right, so we're gonna, uh, we're gonna work on that startup. But I then, now, okay, I know there's gonna be some people listening that are gonna be sitting there screaming at their podcast being like rich, don't you know that Facebook has the Facebook Portal TV? And yes, Facebook does have a device that sits on top of your TV. But guess what. It turns out that nobody trusts Facebook with their communications when it comes
to video chatting. So that's why they that device has not taken off. And I think that's a great device, and I'm kidding about the trusting Facebook, but the reality is this, that's a device that requires you to switch inputs on your TV. Nobody wants to switch inputs on
their TV. That's the bottom line. That's why everyone is ditching cable and going with the streaming apps because they want everything to work through their firestick or through their Roku and they don't want to deal with you know, oh, HDMI one is my fire is where I can watch Netflix, and HDMI two is my cable box and HGMI three nobody wants to deal with that. So that's why you need to make this thing successful by working with these platforms.
All right, good question, Megan. So I guess I didn't really give an answer to Leanne.
You're like, no web cam.
Okay, here is really now. I love solving problems, and I love when apps solve problems. And this is a new app called pod Hero. And this tell me if you think this is brilliant or not. So the big problem with podcasts is that people love them, but podcasters ninety nine percent of them are like not making any money off their podcasts. They have a good little audience, but if you want to try to sell ads, you need a certain amount of listeners. And by the way,
it takes a whole team to sell those ads. And how are you going to talk to HelloFresh or these big companies, Like, You're just not gonna, you know, be able to do that on your own if you're also trying to do a million other things as an entrepreneur. So that's tough. There's no real subscription for apps. They tried one app that luminary. I think it was called but that failed. So what do you do? Well? This app, I think is pretty brilliant. It's called pod Hero and
it's an app. It's a podcasting app. You pay six dollars a month for the app, and they take that subscription and they divide up the subscription by the shows that you subscribe to. So let's say you subscribe to two shows they give it's really five bucks a month because they take a dollar for their kind of cut, you know, I mean providing the service that's totally legit.
So let's say it's five dollars a month. So let's say they give me two fifty and they give what's the podcast you listen to, the Girl Squad or.
Something, oh the scrubbing in podcasts or whatever.
So they give them to fifty.
And they give me two fifty fifty though they probably have a lot of real ads.
But yes, I totally hear what you're saying.
Like, so me and beck A Tilly get to split the money. So I but isn't that an interesting way of attacking this problem? I mean it it's yeah. And here's the other thing. It doesn't the podcasters don't have to sign up. It just looks at the podcast you do. It reaches out to those podcasts and say, hey, we have ten thousand people that listen to you, and they're paying here's your you know, fifty bucks for the month
or whatever it is. I think it's really cool. I don't know if it's going to take off, but this is something that Apple should really look into. There's this whole idea of podcasts should be able to monetize, and they're having a lot of trouble because there are ways to do it. And yes, the big podcasts, I'm not crying for you. I'm talking about smaller podcasts and not even this one because this is a KTLA podcast, so it's not like I personally need to make money off
this podcast. But if I was my own person doing this, it would be really I would look into ways of monetizing it. And I'm not going to sell ads because it's a scene, but something like this seems really cool and you push your followers to use this as their podcast app, and I think that's another problem because people kind of get comfortable with their app. They use Apple podcasts. Let's be honest, that's probably the most popular way people listen. So Apple needs to figure something out here.
And podcasts are like free, so you're asking people to like pay and obviously I totally get why. But it's hard to get people to pay for something they could get for free.
I agree with that, and I think that that's a big problem. But I also think there's a very big subset of people. Now you've said something interesting. You said they don't need the money to like the Becca whatever that podcast is scrubbing in. That's an iHeart say that.
But yeah, yeah, like it's an iHeart podcast.
It's a big podcast, so they don't need the money. You're right, now, could they always use more money? Sure? But you're right, it's a big, well funded podcast. But there are many podcasts out there that I personally I would think about supporting this way. I mean, I think the other problem is that you don't want to get into this world. And I think this is what pod
hero kind of figured out. Let's say I ask for a dollar a month to support Let's say I did this podcast on my own and I was like, Hey, a dollar a month you go, or ten dollars for the year. No big deal, right, I mean ten You just sent me a dollar on venmo without even prompting. Right. The problem is do that times the fifty creators that you listen to, and now it becomes way more extensive. Right. And Netflix, by the way, is like nine dollars a
month and you're getting a ton of stuff. So this is the problem that I think a lot of people run into when it comes to monetizing, is that there's no easy way when it comes to when you support a lot of independent creators. And I think that's what these companies and technology will someday figure out. Let's hope sooner than later. Can you believe it? Megan that is going to do it for this show. That's it finished. If you want to submit a question for me to answer,
you can go to my website. It is rich on Tech dot tv. You can hit the email button at the bottom of the page that will send your email right to me. We'd also love it if you would rate and review the podcast to help other people discover it. We actually went over our free quota on this website last month, so that was good news. I guess a lot of you went there and rated it. Rate this podcast dot com slash rich on tech chas in Tech's was one of the last persons to rate this Meghan, what did he say?
He said, Rich.
Helps me keep up, keeps me up to date on the latest technology, and helps me when I have tech problems.
Very good. He only gave us four stars, though, I guess he likes he likes the show, but with reservations. He was like, oh fine, I'll I guess I'll do this. Producer Megan, where can folks find you on social media?
I am at producer Megan on Twitter, and you.
Can find me at Rich on Tech on all platforms, including including Venmo. You can. Yeah, so I love that the idea that someone could just randomly send me like one hundred bucks on Venmo, Like, isn't that weird? Can you send anyone money even if you don't know them?
Yeah?
All right, that's going to do it for us. I'm Rich dmiro on behalf of everyone that gets this show to your ears. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you real soon.