A new search engine that you pay for. Microsoft Reveals Windows eleven. You can now test out the latest iPhone features if you dare plus your tech questions answered?
What is going on?
I'm Rich Dmiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It is also the place where I answer the questions you send me.
My name is.
Richdmiro once again, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Thanks so much for tuning in. Got a lot of folks listening today on Facebook. What do they call it? Live audio rooms? Live audio rooms? This is a new thing on Facebook. I've been testing out and
it's pretty phenomenal. It's basically their version of clubhouse. But the reason why it's so cool for me personally is because I've got my following on Facebook and so the fact that they folks can just listen in, and not just listen in, but I can actually bring people on the show. So I don't know if I'm gonna dare do that this time, even though we've got let's see nine people that want to come on, But maybe I'll
do it. If you have a tech question and you or you want to say hi, you know, just I guess invite yourself or raise your hand to speak, and I'll do that.
Maybe I'll bring a couple of people on.
So let's see, I'll I don't know, it's always nerve wracking, you know, to bring folks on, but I'll see what happens. Why not, Well, this is a big week in so many different ways. Number One went back to KTLA for the first time in like four hundred and seventy five days or something like that, so that was a big deal. So I've been reporting from the studio at KTLA in
Hollywood again. I went home before that for like a week, and it was really cool to see my family hang out, brought all the kids, all that good stuff, and honestly, this was one of the best times that I've ever had at home. And I'm I don't know what the difference was. Well I think I do. So we stayed
at a hotel for the first time ever. I've gone home now for you know, twenty years or something like that, to New Jersey and I've never stayed at a hotel except maybe once or twice when I was doing like workout there in New York City. But you know, for a personal trip, and we stayed in a hotel, my whole family. We had this great suite that was not fancy, believe me, not a fancy suite, just like one of those like you know, sweet hotels. And I'll give a shout out, why not Homewood Sweets.
It was called. I loved it, So it was great.
We had two rooms, like two bedrooms, so it was just it was just great. And I think that the difference was that there was like a lot of delineation between the family time and personal time and my family time, and it just you know, at the beginning of the day we had some time to go to the gym at the hotel. The end of the day, we had some time to decompress. So I think that made for like a much better trip. And it felt like a vacation versus like cramming in a family member's house, which
is historically what I've done. So I thought it was great. It was one of the most relaxing and refreshing trips that I've ever had.
And so.
I gotta say it was really really fun. And who would think New Jersey would be fun to go to on a vacation, But it totally was so New Jersey for the win. Let's see what else this week? KTLA celebrating thirty years. So thirty years of KTLA Morning News. I've been there for ten of those years. Can you believe it?
I can't. So ten years.
They did like this whole big thing where they profiled a bunch of the reporters, and you know, I barely made the cut, I'm sure, but they did a profile of me, So thank you, kati La. But I guess they felt obligated since I was They're like, well, he's been here kind of a long time, we should probably do something on him. So they did, and it was great, and I'm playing it down. It was. It's just fantastic, so many nice comments from people that watched, and it
was just really really fun. So thank you KTLA for letting me be a part of TV history over the past ten years. Not me, but like you know, KTLA is TV history. It's it's a big historical TV station in America, and I'm so happy that I'm part of it.
And I really do just going through like all the little file videos that they showed, it's just I've had so many opportunities in this job I've talked to so many amazing people, I've done so many amazing things, I've gone to so many amazing places, and it's just such a great spot that I landed upon, and I do not ever ever take it for granted. Ever, even when I feel like I'm like I could do other things in life, like I still think to myself that, like,
this is still amazing. And I'm not planning on going anywhere anytime soon. Let's put it that way. It's a lot of work, Don't get me wrong. There's no simple way to do my job, and it's I make it look like it's effortless. That's the goal on TV. But believe you me, it is something that I think about twenty four to seven, how to do the best stories, how to present the best stuff, whether I'm doing a fair job, whether I'm doing a good job, And so believe me, that's never ever lost on me. And so
that's that's that Facebook audio. Like I said, I'm on here, it's it's just such a cool feature that they have here.
I'm really enjoying it.
I would I My only thing is I wish that they had a way that they would let me like people could when they request to speak, people could like comment something. That would be the only thing that I would say that would be really cool for them to do, because otherwise I have no frame of reference, Like if all these people are, you know, wanting to speak, I don't know what they want to speak about. But we've got a lot of people in the front row on
the podcast on a Facebook audio. Adam tab It, Sarath, San Megan Betty, thanks for joining, Thanks for thanks for being a.
Part of this.
All right, let's get to the first story of the week. This is really really interesting because we are so used to Google, We're so used to Google being free. But what about paying for a search engine and what about paying for a search engine that's more private and has no ads. That is the deal with Niva n ee Va,
and I saw this, I immediately signed up. It's five dollars a month, but first three months are free, and then if you do some other things like take a tour of the website or whatever, you can get even more months for free. So I think I'm on like six months free right now. And they knew they were gonna do that. This is heavily funded by vcs, so they know that they're gonna they need a long runway for people to try something different, especially if they're gonna
be paying for it down the road. This reminds me of like the Spotify's of the world. Any web service, basically, it always starts out very much reduced price or free, and then eventually, like I've said in previous podcasts, they kind of crank up the volume, right they say, Okay, now we're gonna make it paid just a little bit. So Niva, I will say out of the gate that
I'm actually quite impressed with the search results. And usually with these third party random search engines that are not Google, I'm always like, eh, I just passed it off, like you know, I don't want to mention names. But there's a bunch of them out there that people are starting to use because they're more private, and I try them for like thirty seconds and I say, Nope, just not gonna work.
Niva.
I actually did switch on my Chrome to use Neiva as the default, and I've got to say, so far, I haven't had a problem with the results. In fact, I really like how they present results because they do it in such a good way. I mean, I'm very very impressed with them, so I think the results are gonna get better. It's not an end all because there's still a lot of features on Google that are missing that I really enjoy, but I will say I think they're onto something I really really do. So it's ad free,
it's private. They're tracking what you search, but only to make your search better. They're not sharing it with a million advertisers and a million third parties, which is really cool. If you want to turn off tracking completely, you can do that. They also let you customize various aspects, so if you want to see more of a particular news source and less of another one, you can do that, which Google lets you do to some extent, but they have a lot more. They've really thought of a lot
of stuff. So the other thing that's kind of cool that I have not done yet is that you can connect Neva to third party services that you use like Google Drive or Microsoft or drop Box, and so when you search in this one search box, it brings up results from your emails and your Dropbox files and all that kind of stuff.
I'm a little bit I'm a little bit hesitant.
To do that because that means they have to index all of my emails and all of my other stuff and third parties, and I'm not really in my Google drive.
I'm just not ready to give them that access just yet. Maybe be in a couple of weeks.
But I will say I think they're onto something, and I think I don't think they're gonna give Google a run for the money immediately, but I do think they're gonna be a viable option. And a lot of people I hear over and over they say I'm willing to pay. I will pay for something if it's ad free or if it's better, or if it's premium. And then of course when push comes to shove, they're listening to Pandora for free at like fifty six kilobits per second.
Sound I don't know.
I don't even know if that's like the actually whatever it is, the you know, the sound quality. You know, now we're seeing all these streaming services go up and up with the sound quality. But you know, like anyway, bad joke, but NIVA check it out, n ee v A. I talked to the founder, one of the founders this week. I'll have a story on KTLA next week about it. But I have to say, I think they are definitely.
There.
I said onto something so many times, so I'm trying to think of a different word. But there's just something about it that is like it's really refreshing to like to type in here and all every time you type, it has like little things like in the search box, like right now it's saying no ads here. Another time it said like the right results, no distractions. Another time it said, let's see you're the trackers be gone. So I'm very very much is this is Let's put it
this way. This is the longest I've ever spent with another search engine other than Google in about a decade, so that has got to be a good sign for NIVA.
All right, let's get to the first question of the day.
And yes, if you're listening on the Facebook, I am monitoring for some of the people requesting to speak. So I just know that if you, if I recognize you from my page, I'll probably be more more apt to bring you on because I trust you.
Because I know, I know, I've seen.
You around, so I know you that you're not just you know, just trying to get on for no reason. All right, first question of the week, Let's go here to Connie. Connie says Hey, Rich, I remember you mentioning at one point how to get oh do we have Robert on?
Robert? You're on?
Hi?
Rich, Hey, how's it going good?
I was just listening to your podcast on the way home from my doctor's appointment.
Oh well, very good? Everything okay with the doctor, I hope. Yeah, look at the check it.
Okay, very cool, very good. My last check up was virtual. I didn't even my doctor didn't even show up like he just they just did like a blood test.
And that was it.
And I'm like, oh, where's the doctor? Always working from home? Okay?
Much better and using the time wisely. Now I could I could text in for our our email for prescriptions, refills and stuff.
It's much smarter.
One thing about coronavirus it is is fast forwarded technology. So in so many ways with all these businesses and doctors and everything, it's it's quite impressive in that aspect. Otherwise it's been horrible, but with the tech, with the tech adoption, it's been really good. So what do you think of this whole thing? What do you want to say?
I think it's pretty cool. I heard you, yeah the other day on it and it was new and it was even new to you, so I knew that was something.
Yeah, I mean, my goal is to really, I mean, my goal with this show has always been to do live calls, and so this is about the closest I think I'm getting to it with the easiest kind of solution. It's like, here's all my Facebook people that want to ask questions. I think the main thing is finding a time that I'm on every week so that people know they can come on and join, not just randomly, you know what I mean, Yes, I did.
That's yeah.
I heard you on the podcast asking for written evaluations and whatnot, and I just wanted to make the point to you that listen to your podcast. And then later in the day, my wife asked me a question and it's something you hit upon on your podcast, and I'll pull up the podcast for her to answer the question right away. So I just want to let you know that stuff you do talk about comes into our life and we appreciate it.
Oh well, thank you, Robert, and I that is literally the goal. Like when I get these questions every day from people, and I don't answer all the questions that I get on the podcast, but when I get these questions, literally every question I choose is based on what am I hearing from friends. Who do I think will have the biggest you know which questions? Do I think we'll
have the biggest impact on people? And a lot of times the people listening to the podcast are a little bit more tech savvy, but my hope is that the information trickles down to other folks as well.
Yeah, I'm I'm not real tech savvy. I my last semester in high school was the first semester they offered a computer class. I never took any computer classes at all, but with your help, I've learned.
A lot over the years. Awesome.
Well, thank you, Robert. I've definitely seen your messages on my Facebook page. I do appreciate it, and thanks for listening today.
So very cool.
All right, let's get to that first question from Connie. Connie, hey, Rich, I remember you mentioning at one point how to get rid of the little dot light next to the phone battery percentage? Can you tell me how to take it off? Is it bad to keep it there? Sent from my iPhone? So, if you have an iPhone and you've updated to the recent software, what Connie is talking about is the little
indicator light that's in the upper right hand corner. Whenever an app is using your microphone or your camera, you'll see that light up. And Connie, as far as I know, I don't believe there's a way to get rid of that. And I think that's actually something you don't want to get rid of because as I record this right now, I'm looking at my Facebook app on my iPhone and I see that there is an indicator light because it is using my microphone. And so that is a safety
precaution that Apple has built into the phone. It lets you know, like if you happen to be using an app and you see or you're not using an app and you see that that's lit up, it would make you go, huh, that's odd. I'm not using my microphone right now, Why is something listening to me? So I think they did that also well, some of the fears about Facebook listening in when you didn't think it was listening, and so Apple is saying like, no, like here we're
showing you when it's listening. So if you're not seeing that, then it's it's probably not listening. So, by the way, on the new version of Android, they're actually taking this a step further, and I hope Apple does this as well. They're putting in not just the indicator light, but they're putting in two global toggles. And those global toggles one is for the mic, one is for the camera. You toggle those switches on your phone, and its not I say switch, it's a it's a you know, it's not
a physical thing. It's a it's a button, you know, like a virtual button on the screen. You tap that and your camera and your microphone one or the other are completely disabled. Like you cannot even use the camera on your smartphone if you disable that.
Like if you, let's say you're in a really.
Private place, or you you know, you're having a private conversation or whatever, or you just want some extra privacy, you toggle those two switches and boom, nothing can access those two things on your phone.
Now.
I know there's gonna be some conspiracy theorists that don't believe it, but I think that that is a very very cool feature that they're building into the UH to the Android twelve, and Apple of course is very I think has some of the best privacy features going on the UH on the phone.
But that's a that's a good one on Android as well. All right, good question.
So, by the way, I have an explainer video about the whole about the whole indicator light on my Instagram. If you go to my Instagram and click IGTV. By the way, I've never really done this on the website. If you go to instagram dot com slash rich on tech and then hit ig TV, you'll see like all of my Instagram TV videos, which is actually kind of cool because you.
Can see them all lined up.
It's uh and you can see all the titles, so you can, you know, just see if there's anything that interests you. And I mean I was looking at this and I'm like, oh, this is cool. I forgot that I did so many. So there is one that is labeled you can look at. The says here's what the new iPhone privacy dot means. And so that's the video that you want to look at. If I end up doing notes in the podcast, we can I'll put that in there.
All right.
Last week, I know I was off, but Windows eleven Microsoft showed off the new Windows eleven and I'll be honest, I get very excited about new software.
I just do. I'm a nerd.
It's just kind of built into my blood. I've always been the person that wants to update my software and wants to get new software, and it's just exciting.
It's fun.
It's something that's built into the fabric of kind of who I am, and if you're a tech nerd, I feel like that's kind of how you are as well. I have not played with Windows eleven yet, even though there is a public beta out there. I would not recommend installing it on your machine that you need to rely on, because betas are buggy. But let me just go over a couple of the top features. Simplified design Number one, new start button and taskbar. They move the
start button in the taskbar to the middle. So that makes sense because you know, it's just kind of the screens are getting so big, so it's now in the center. It's got new snap layouts, snap groups, and desktop features to help you optimize like what's on your screen. And I do this all the time with my Mac. I have a program called what is it called. It's called Rectangle. I used to use one called Spectacle, then I used
to use one called Cinch. I think so I love the idea of snapping windows to certain places, and Windows ten had like a way to snap windows into certain places, but now you're going to get many, many more options. And also it looks like the ability to save those layouts so that you can just kind of immediately snap
your windows to places, and that's really handy. Microsoft Teams is now going to be built into Windows, which makes a lot of sense now that we know that the you know, communication is so key and people working remotely. Teams was huge during the pandemic. Maybe not as big as Zoom, but definitely having it built into Window makes
a lot of sense. And it's so funny because if I was saying this, you know, thirty years ago or twenty five whatever years ago, when the whole like Internet Explorer thing happened, when Microsoft got sued by the government for anti trust, it's so interesting because it seems like that would be the same by building teams into Windows. But now it's like everything has their own proprietary stuff built in, Like Android has Duo, you know, iPhone and iOS stuff has FaceTime, and now Windows has Teams.
And I'm not a fan of that, honestly.
I think that you should be able to install a program and set it as your default video chat and that should be the way all these systems are, but that's just not the reality. I mean maybe on Android, but not. I don't even know if you can do it on Android. But it's just, you know, these silos that they're building us in. And I like teams because
it is good across all the different services. It does work Windows, Android iOS, but I'm not a big fan of companies building in their own technology because you know, then you're kind of limited hit people. The default is gonna be, oh, I can only use teams, but you know, anyway.
What else, what else? What else? Android apps?
You're gonna be able to run those on a Windows machine, which I can't imagine that's gonna be a good experience, but that'll be fine. It's there and new widgets, So who doesn't love widgets. I think that it's funny because Windows ten or I think it was ten had widgets but they were never used. Or maybe it was Windows seven, I don't know, but the Windows has had widgets in
the past, they never took off. Widgets never really took off on Android in a meaningful way, and now even on my iPhone, I don't think the widgets are that fantastic, But I like widgets. I like seeing stuff when I do go to my desktop. It is kind of fun
to see new information. So Windows eleven there is a public beta out now, but this all things point to an October launch for the actual Windows eleven update, which I'm sure during that time we'll hear all the people complain about how they don't want.
To update because it's gonna mess up.
What they're used to, all right, Sandra says, Hey, Rich, You've been so helpful with your wonderful reviews of the new tech stuff that's always appearing. Your advice is easy and pertains to the everyday user of technology.
Thank you.
I have a question regarding streaming iHeartRadio stations to my iPhone. I'm a big Dodger fan. I enjoy listening to the games of my twenty year old Walkman radio, but that's about to bite the dust. If I listen to the Dodgers on my iPhone while away from home, will use up the data that I have allotted for my iPhone Verizon plan I do not have unlimited.
Thanks again, Sandy.
Sandy, the answer is yes, it will definitely use your data unless you are on Wi Fi. So if you're on Wi Fi and you can find a Wi Fi network, you can log onto that and your iHeartRadio will come through there. But yes, iHeartRadio as an app. The way it works is that it does use the data from your phone, so your cellular data would be used in
that instance. Now, if you want to keep it from using your cellular data, you can actually go into the settings on your iPhone and you can turn off cellular data for the iHeartRadio app and that will force it to never use cellular data. It will only work if you have Wi Fi, So that's a kind of an easy way to if you don't want to think about it. And if you happen to be in a Starbucks or in a place, or you're even in your house listening and you want to just make sure that you're only
using your WiFi, you can do that. It's kind of an extreme measure, but it's definitely an option. Now there are radio station apps that you can get that do use an FM tuner on your phone, but in the US they are increasingly hard to come by. I know that TCL with their last phone, the TCL ten Pro, they did have it built in.
It's a rarity, but if.
You put the headphones in the phone, the headphone cord acts as an antenna which can actually pick up an FM radio station and it does not use your data. So that's another option on iPhone that's never possibility. It's just never existed, and it's even on Android phones. It's very hit or miss. Like Samsung, I know, has built the technology in there in the past, but a lot of the carriers have disabled it because guess what turns out this cell phone carriers want you to use their
data because it costs you money. So that's, you know, just one of those things. But the radio app, I think it's called like ant an ant radio or.
Something like that.
So if you look it up you can see there's a lot of stuff written about it online that people talk about. But yeah, here in the US, not that popular. But there are some phones that actually lets you do it.
It's just it's not always possible. So good question.
And again this this question falls under the you know, I'm not really sure if this is a stupid question, but you know what, it doesn't matter. There are no stupid questions here, so that's that's just that's kind of how I roll, you know. All right, let's see I brought on Fred. Let's see if Fred wants to come on and actually speak. But in the meantime, while he figures that out, let's talk about travel sites. This is a story I did on KTLA and you know traveling.
I was, it's just clearly.
People are traveling. I mean, believe me going to New Jersey. The when I went to New Jersey from LAX. I'm not kidding. I've had my routine down for years. You know, I travel a decent amount, and I'm not joking. We were running to basically make it to the gate because I well, Number one, I made a reservation at the wrong parking place, So that was that was fun. When I when I went in, it like didn't open, and I was like, that's weird. So turned out I made
a reservation at the wrong place. That was my first mistake. Then I totally misjudged timing and how everyone is understaffed right now because they have not been able to staff up because they were operating at such a lesser extent ur in COVID, and all of a sudden everyone just started traveling and now it's like, oh, we need to get these people back here. And so you know, checking in luggage, all that stuff just took a really long time.
But I will say the woman that checked me into the plane, the woman who scanned my boarding pass, did say she was a big fan, so that was that was nice.
On the plane, I was like, do.
Big fans get a big upgrade to first class? Turns out no, no upgrade to first class.
That's you know, it's kind of funny.
You always read these things to say, if you dress real nice at the airport and you walk up to the stand with confidence and you ask for a first class upgrade and you tell them you're on your honeymoon, you might just get it. That does not work. It has never worked. Maybe it worked like in the sixties, but are you kidding me? They have such sophisticated algorithms that determine who is going to get that upgrade to
first class. And by the way, they have such good algorithms that it used to be, you know, you can get a first class upgrade, you know, days and weeks in advance. Now the algorithms are so smart that they try to sniff the money out of your pocket right up until like the moment that you walk on that plane. So a lot of times you can still purchase an upgrade to first class, like up until the last moment, and you might even bump someone out.
That got a free upgrade.
I've I've seen that happen, and so people have told me that. They said, ah, yeah, I had the upgrade, and I guess someone paid for it, so they you know, what are you gonna do. It's like anyway, I was in first class once I got an upgrade a long time ago.
This one.
I traveled a lot lot, so i'd like, you know, the automatic upgrades, and it didn't happen very often, but one time it didn't.
They actually tapped me on the back and they said, ah, you gotta gotta head back to basic.
Not basic economy. It was just a con you know, whatever it's called. But it was like it was like doing the Walk of shame because I had to go back.
It was like romp rope.
I brought my little drink with me, though I already had an orange juice I was working on, so yes, it was just orange juice all right. Trip it number one in my informal Twitter poll. Everyone loves trip it. I use to use trip it a lot back in the day when I traveled a ton. Then I kind of started using Google Travel or Google Trips because it
would do a lot of the same things. But then as part of the story, I started testing trip it again and I found out that yeah, it does actually work really well, and to get the most out of it, you're gonna want to go pro for forty nine dollars a year. But check with your company because a lot of companies give it you for free, mine included, so definitely see if your company gives you trip it. The only thing I don't like about that, and this is
probably why I stopped using it. All my personal trips were showing up on my corporate expense reports and stuff, and it was kind of odd that I was like, wait, why do they keep knowing about all these trips? And so you just have to there's a way to separate it, I think, But yeah, it was just kind of weird. Google Flights if you're looking for the best place to shop for flights, I truly think Google flights is the best.
I love how you can put your dates into the calendar, or not even put dates in, just put your destination in and Google flight will show you the cheapest days to fly. They're highlighted in green, and then you can click those days. Typically what I do is I'll click the best cheapest days and I'll see if they're okay for my travel dates, and then I will look for the cheapest flights on those days, which Google also helps
you identify. The other feature I really like is how you can track your flight prices, so you can pick your exact flight price or sorry, your exact flights, and you can hit track and Google will tell you when the prices go up or down. Now I will tell you a majority of the time.
They go up.
And this is why I always say, if you find a good price and it works for you, just book it. The trip that I've been tracking to New Jersey for later in the year was about two hundred dollars when I first started tracking it. Then it went up to two thirty now, then it went up to two fifty, and today it went up to six twenty seven. So these things, you know, if you keep keep an eye on them, they definitely go up in price. And it is it does pay to book when you see a
price that you think is right. There's no right time to book. It just really has to do with the price. If you fly home to New Jersey all the time, like I do. I know the average price is about three hundred dollars. And so if I see a price at two twenty or two oh seven, like I have enduring coronavirus, you know I should have booked those prices.
Now they're going up to regular prices three fifty four hundred, and if you're looking at the week before, it's like game over, they could be really really high.
Uh.
Flight Aware this is a website that helps you track your flights, and one feature I just really like about
it is the get Notifications. So if you have a person that's picking you up at the airport, or you just want to get updates, or you want to send updates to a family member or a friend or whatever, you pop in your flight number and look for the get notifications banner in the upper right hand corner, and then you put in your friend's email address, and they will get updates when your flight takes off, when it lands,
if it's delayed, if it's diverted, whatever, it's canceled. And believe me, I've had every single one of those things happen to me. I've had flights canceled I've had flights delayed. I've been diverted several times. One year, I think I had two emergency landings in different places. Thankfully, it wasn't the plane that was the problem, it was people on the plane. I actually I shouldn't say thankfully.
Yeah.
In two cases it was very scary. You know where they say is there a doctor on board? And when you hear those words on a plane, it is it is very wow, like wait, what, uh? Okay, my next. This is probably my biggest travel tip. And maybe I'm spending too much time on this, but Google things to do. I know it sounds like I just love Google, but I do. Some of these things are really cool. But this is my biggest I didn't want to share this secret on TV because I just think it's so fantastic
that I wanted to keep it all to myself. But if you search the name of a city on Google Plus, the words top sits, So this works no matter where you are. It doesn't have to be a big city. It can be a small city, it can be a state, it can be anything. So you can type in California top sites, you can type Los Angeles top Site. You can type Malibu top sites. Let me see, can you Malibu top? Oh see, I'm using Neiva, so I have to switch to They have a feature on there, so
they do. But let me go to Google and just type in Malibu top sites, and sure enough, here it is. Top site in Malibu is Point Doom, then el Maattotor Beach, and then Zooma Beach, which is one of my favorites. So you can also narrow down by kid friendly outdoors, museums, beaches. It's fantastic. It is absolutely my best kept secret for travel. Type in any city and just top sites and you will find the best things to do in that place. And they're not always like a paid thing, and they're not.
Edited by a curator or whatever.
It's just Google using Google's knowledge to kind of, you know, figure out what people are clicking on, what has the most websites directed to it. All that good stuff, all right, Moving through uproad. This is an app that replaces toll transponders. When I first talked about this on KTLA, everyone poop pooed me. Oh, Rich, come on, come on, come on. It's such a cool idea. I just wished it worked
for rental cars. But if you Uproad continues to expand the amount of roads that it works on nationwide, So if you have this app installed in your phone, you basically can use easy Pass in a lot of different places. Of course, check to see if it works on the roads that you're going to be going on before you go. There are some convenience fees involved with it, but it is pretty cool. And finally, this is something I didn't get to check out personally, but I thought it sounded
pretty cool. It's called Hotels by Day and this lets you rent a hotel room by the day or just like a hotel pool, so if you want to just hang out by the pool, lounge around. You can rent these rooms in blocks of three to twelve hours. And right now they have two thousand properties. They say there should be sixty.
Five hundred on board by the end of the year. All right.
Next question comes from row heat. He says, Hey, Rich, I love your Facebook feeds. Can you please suggest a video editor, a free and a premium version. Well, rohe, my favorite video editor is Adobe Rush and it is it's not necessarily free. I think some parts of it are free, but if you really want to get the most use out of it, you have to pay ten dollars a month, but I'll be honest, I've been using
it without paying and it seems to still work. So I don't know if there's like premium features that I don't get. I know it says every time, hey upgrade for four K, but honestly, I don't need four K for my social media stuff, so I've been I mean, that app is just is just amazing. I absolutely love it.
It is so good, it's so easy, it's it's simple, and even if you even if you do have to pay ten dollars a month, which you don't have to, you can try a free trial of it, and you know, it might it might beg you to kind of or nag you to, you know, continue subscribing. But I think once I canceled, I'm still using it. It's on my phone, it still works, and maybe maybe there's certain features I can't use, but it seems like it works pretty well, and so that is my favorite. Otherwise, I mean, I
don't really have another option. I mean, I use Final Cut Pro as my desktop editor.
That's good.
You can also get iMovie on the iPhone. He sent sent his email from the iPhone, so you can get iMovie. There's something called clips Apple Clips which you can use. There's also Majesto m A g I t O. You can also use Google Photos to edit. They have some photo video editing features built into that. But my overall favorite is definitely Adobe Rush. It is phenomenal and that is that is what I'd recommend using. So good question, good question, good question.
All right, if you.
Use venmou, this is Oh my gosh, it's so again. This goes back into the thing of when these sites start out, all these tech startups. Venmo, good example, how in the world does venmo make money. They don't charge you anything to send money to your friends. Yeah, they charge little things like to you know, if you want your money out instantly and show up in your bank account.
And yes, they might make a percentage on all the money that people keep in there in their bank accounts or their accounts rather, and they might make interest on that money.
I guess they call that word float.
Maybe I'm not a financial expert, so maybe that's not what it's called, but you know what I mean, Like, if I keep one thousand dollars in my Venmo for a month, someone's making some interest on that money because someone else is putting that money to good use, not me. It's just sitting there. At the end of a month,
it's still a thousand dollars. But if you keep a thousand bucks in a savings account at your bank, at the end of a month, you might have one thousand dollars and three cents because there's not much interest they're paying anymore on these accounts.
So with that said, Venmo is going.
To start charging a fee for people that use it as a business transaction. Venmo was created for person to person payments and it has worked very.
Well for that. But guess what.
A lot of business people have, especially independent contract have become hip to the fact that if I pay you via Venmo, you get the full amount and it kind of goes under the table. And Venmo knows this. They're not dumb and so but of course Venmo wants to They want to make as much money as possible because they're part of PayPal. And guess what, when everyone was using PayPal back in the day to pay each other,
it was the same thing. Soon as you're identified as a business, next thing you know, you got charged fees on your account. And now Venmo all the people flock to Venmo to use it for free, and guess what, same company and same issue, and now Venmo saying we're gonna do the same thing. So according to recode on vox, one point nine percent of the transaction plus ten cents from the money that is sent to the seller. But
here's how they're making it legitimatized. Is that the word they're saying that once you do this, you'll be eligible for Venmo's purchase protection program, which does make a little bit of sense, because if there's a problem with a business transaction and you do it through Venmo, you have no recourse because guess what, you bought something from someone online, You sent them money via Venmo and they don't ever
send you the gadget or the product or whatever. And you go, oh, what's my recourse and they say, I don't know. You just sent me twenty bucks for sushi. That's what it's said on your Venmo And so how do you, you know, have any recourse when this was not a legitimate quote unquote business transaction. So that's what their argument is, and I do see a side of that. As people use Venmo, you can get scammed by Venmo. So it could actually protect you in certain ways because
people have to register as a seller. I'm just giving you both sides. I'm not saying you know one way or the other. But you know, look, I ran a business when I sold my book, and it is expensive to have a business. I have an LLC for that, and it's it's expensive every year in California. You got to pay eight hundred dollars just to have that. My taxes are more expensive because I got to pay for you know, a schedule. I think they used to call
it schedule. See now I think it's just whatever they built. I don't know. My point is, if you're running a business, there are fees associated with running that business, and not
all of them are exciting to pay. And believe me, when I was doing when I was selling my book and I sold it in person the way I personally felt would I would say, if you wanted, I'd accepted Square, right that little thing where you swipe the credit card when I do like speaking things, people would come up at the end and buy my book.
And so I was so happy.
To pay the three percent or whatever it was on top of the fee to sell my book through Square or when I sold it on Amazon, it was like, I think they took thirty or forty percent of a profit or whatever a rake because of all the stuff that they'd let me.
Do on there. And I was so happy to pay, even though I saw these huge.
Numbers going by my eyes, going, oh my gosh, look how much money I paid to Amazon this month, or look how much I paid to Square in a lesser extent, but I was so happy to do it because guess what, I was making money at the same time. And so my feeling as a business person and this is just my feeling, and I get it. Business people you can argue with me, but it's like there is a cost associated with doing business, and I get it.
You feel like, oh, this is such a waste, Like why does.
Someone have to you know, why do I have to pay to Venmo to get money from someone?
Well, there is it.
There are people that have to program that app, and there are people that have to you know, work the app and work the customer service and all this stuff.
So there are fees involved.
I was at a restaurant in New Jersey and there was a big sign at the cash register that said we will charge three point nine to nine percent on top of any credit card that you use here. And I said, what I mean, And I've seen this before, the signs that say we don't accept credit cards or we have to do a ten dollars minimum, and you know with that restaurant. I posted it to my Facebook
page and people were chiming in. But the reality is like, okay, I mean, I get that you have to pay four percent and it's you know, covering the fees on the credit card, and you want me to pay cash, but like it's much more convenient to pay with a credit card, and now I have to pay, you know, another way, because I'm not paying four percent on top of my dinner, which is already expensive. And so we ended up the group, we ended up paying cash. And this was the best part.
And I if my dad is listening to this podcast, this is all in good Jess. But it was so funny because we're at the table and you know, we're all splitting up the bill and my dad said, you know what, you just put in this much and you know, I was using my credit card or no, I was putting cash in and my dad sees the four percent thing and he's like, oh, he put his credit card down and he said after he saw it, he goes, oh, I'm not paying four percent, so I'll I'll just put
cash in. But he was short some of the cash, so by him saving money on that four percent transaction fee, I had to put in like an extra like thirty dollars onto the bills. I said, hold on, you saved the transaction fee. I got to put an extra thirty dollars on top of the cash already put in.
It gave us a laugh, but it was funny.
I mean, look, I do not mind putting in my fair share, but it was just so funny how it happened, like, oh, the restaurant site or you save your four percent, but I don't. Well, you know, you listen to this podcast because you're hearing rich on tech, and you know what, if you don't want to hear my stories, then uh,
don't listen. But you know what you're you're guaranteed to get a little, a little bit of my stories built into this podcast because I like telling stories and I like I like sharing a little a little insight on my life with you. So thanks. All right, I think it's time for another question. Enough about me, Enough about Venmo. Let's get to another question. Patricia Nelson woos. Patricia says, my ten year old granddaughter loves to draw. Her birthday
is coming up in late July. I would like to buy her a tablet so she can draw on, but does not h but I've been overwhelmed by the choices. Ideally it should be able to run independent of the computer, but those look very expensive.
Our home computer is a MacPro.
If using a computer is required for my need, which would be okay, as long as she can be drawing on her tablet as well as a screen, I appreciate it if you can help me make a choice. Thanks Patricia. Patricia, here's the deal. I think what you're referring to with the ones that have to be connected to a computer are there's a certain type of like super high end.
I forget what the brand name is, but it's what all the graphic artists use, and it connects to your computer and you can draw and you can do all kinds of amazing stuff. I don't think your ten year old daughter granddaughter needs that. What I think she'd be perfectly suited with is an iPad. And there's two choices here. So the iPad as it stands, the three hundred and
twenty nine dollars basic iPad you can get that. The latest model does have a touch sensitive screen for the Apple pencil, but you have to use the old Apple pencil with that one. And the old Apple pencil is fine, but it's not amazing. It was kind of the first generation and it lacks some of the features that I think are a little bit better with the new Apple pencil. And also the new iPad that is a little bit more expensive. But here's the thing, it gets kind of expensive,
and so that's the problem. The new iPad that you know you have to get would be the iPad Air, and the iPad Air starts at five hundred and fifty dollars if you do the education pricing, plus another one hundred dollars for the Apple pencil, so you're talking six hundred fifty bucks. I don't know how much you were planning on spending on your granddaughter, but that sounds like a very expensive present.
I don't know.
I bought an iPad for my niece, and I think I got her the iPad Air. I can't remember at this point. Maybe I got the regular iPad. No, I think I got the regular iPad plus the pencil I forget,
but anyway, it's been a while. It was last year, but anyway, But I would say the reason why I like the iPad air with the Apple pencil is that the Apple pencil is a better It just has a better feel to it, and it also magnetically attaches to the iPad on the side, and it also wirelessly charges through that magnetic connection, and so for all those reasons, it's a much better setup. But your granddaughter's ten, I
don't think she's really gonna care. It's just, honestly, I'd be more worried about the fact that the original Apple pencil, when you want to charge it on the iPad, you have to plug it into the bottom of the iPad, and it's this weird like looks like an ice cream pop like a popsicle stick with the iPad pencil as the stick and the iPad as the popsicle part, and it can break really easily. So for that reason, I think that the other one's better. But those are the
two things I'd recommend. Just go to the Apple store and definitely check out both of those choices and see which one you think will work. Better for you, all right, Hallmark is this is a neat I thought this was really cool. It didn't do as well as I thought it would online. Nobody cared as much as I did. But I think it's really cool. So, you know, you send a card. Some people still send old fashioned cards
that are handwritten. My mom and my mother in law, I think, are the last two people that send send me handwritten cards. And so you know, they go to the store, you go to Target or wherever you buy a card, and you buy a card, you fill it out, and you put a stamp on it, and you put it in the mailbox. That is all going to go away in the future. I feel like like it's just it's just dwindling at this point already. So Hallmark of course sees that writing on the wall no pun intended.
And what they're doing is they have a new feature called Sign and Send, And I think this is brilliant because it's a mix of the two things that we do. So now you can use your smartphone to send a card and it's a real Hallmark card that you send right from your phone.
But here's the twist.
You write your message on a blank sheet of paper, right and then with a real pen, and then you take a picture of that message with your phone, which then scans your message into the phone and then prints exactly what you wrote in your handwriting inside the card. I think that is super super cool. The service is free, which is also really cool. And I think that again Hallmark sees the writing on the wall, they need to
offer this in a very competitive way. Otherwise it's like, okay, either offer this for free, or we just don't have people buy as many cards. And so you can do this right from your smartphone. The cards start at three dollars plus. You know, there's like they go up to like you know, cards can get expensive. They could be like six bucks depending on how elaborate they are, but three dollars is the starting price. And it's kind of funny because when I went to try I always like
to try things out. I didn't try out the actual
scanning of my handwritten message. I will do that soon, but I just kind of put a card in my in my car online and I kind of went to check out and it said two dollars and fifty cents for this service, but then it was crossed out, and so in my blog post, I wrote, you know, like this is two dollars and fifty cents, but you know right now it's being offered for free, and Hallmark actually emailed me to say no, Rich, no, no, no, we are actually going to offer this for free, like indefinitely forever.
I said, well, why do you have two fifty written on the website and they said, well, we want people to know that it's a value of two dollars and fifty cents, which I said, well, that's confusing because that to me seems like this is going to be two dollars and fifty cents in the future, Whereas I think if they're trying to get people to adopt it, you should just tell people that this is going to be free, like this is something that you should come back for
every single time, because if I just did that one time card for two fifty, I might or you know, with that two fifty scratched out, I might think, well, I'm not going back to that because two fifty is going to be with the prices in six months and I'm not paying that. So I think they need to be more clear about that, and hopefully they will be.
But anyway, long.
Story short, you can get your first, your first card, completely free, so I'm talking even the price of the card. I've got the instructions on my website, Rich on tech dot tv, but definitely try it. I mean, this is such a cool thing. My niece's birthday is coming up, the one that I bought the iPad for actually last year on our birthday. That's coming up again this year, and so I should have done this, but now it's
too late because it's gonna be blated. I guess they do belated cards, right, So I guess I can send a belated birthday card. But it's called Sign and Send from Hallmark. I think it's the coolest thing ever and just such a smart way of getting us to send cards that kind of feel like they're personalized, even though we didn't actually write in them.
But you know, pretty cool, all right.
Eric writes in hey, Rich, there are so many shopping apps and it's so confusing. But I'm looking for a free app that will give me the price of an item in a store when there is no price tag on it, just a barcode or a QR code, and when no one can be found to help. I don't necessarily want to compare prices from other stores. I just want to know what the item costs in the store I'm shopping, like the in store price check kiosk in
some retailers. Does that exist? Thanks very much, Eric, Well Eric number one, I think that these things, these kind of things did exist for a while, but to be honest, the price comparison apps are few and far between at this point, and the reason for that is because Amazon has become the default shopping search engine. So when people that use Amazon are searching for something to buy, they don't really pop it into Google. They pop it into Amazon and then they just buy it. And you know,
that's just the way it is. And so a lot Okay, So the answer to your question is a couple things. Number One, you can use the Amazon app, and a lot of stores will actually price match Amazon. They don't really advertise it, but they will definitely do it, especially the big box retailers. So that's one way of doing it, and they handle they've got a barcode reader built in. You can do it that way. The other app is a red laser. This was big back in the day.
It's it's still around, but it's just you know, the results may not be that good.
But they still have it.
But I think the real answer is you kind of have to use the the retailer's own app if you want to get their pricing info. So if you're inside Target, like I have the Target app on my phone and it's fantastic.
I love the Target app. It's so great.
If you're not using it, I think I already talked about this, but you should definitely be using it.
And what's the other one.
If you're inside best Buy, they have an app that you can scan things with if you're inside what's the other one?
I mean it's just Target.
Well, Walmart they've probably I don't know, I don't have the Walmart app, but I'm.
Sure they have it.
But those are I'd recommend either you know, Amazon Red Laser or just if you shop at a place over and over, that's a good way of doing it. But Amazon's a pretty good one because they they have a lot of the they have a lot of the pricing in there, and plus it will give you an idea of if the price in the store is pre competitive with what you can get through Amazon.
So good question there.
All right, let's uh, let's talk a little bit about this Facebook Audio Rooms that I'm using. So this is a new feature on Facebook that we've got a couple uh folks listening over over one hundred people listening right now live. And what's really cool about this live audio rooms is yes, it is a complete clubhouse takeoff, right, but like I said in my last podcast, where every app is going to have a clubhouse, this is the reality. Is that something like you know Stories that that Snapchat
kind of invented. Every app now has its own version of Stories, and now we're seeing the same thing with audio. And so you see all these apps introducing basically clubhouse, and what I think is bad about that is that, yes, it's a copycat and sad for Clubhouse because it came out of the gate first and now everyone just copies them, and you know, they're they're definitely lessening, lessening in strength as I can see it, Like everyone was talking about them six months ago and now I don't see as
many people talking about them. But on the plus side, you know, you have to it's good to have the features that you want with the audience.
That you have. So look at YouTube.
They introduce something called Shorts, which is basically a ripoff of TikTok. But guess what if you have five million people as your audience that you are Let's say you don't even have five million. Let's say you have twenty five thousand people on YouTube that you've you know, you've struggled to build that audience, or I should say you
worked hard to build that audience. It's really nice that you can now address that audience using the latest kind of features that audiences expect, which are shorts on the platform that you have your audience on. Now, there's something to be said for building an audience on different platforms.
But as someone who has a very fragmented audience across a podcast, across Instagram, across Twitter, across a little bit on YouTube, and a lot on Facebook, it is a lot of work to keep up with the different individual apps and all the different ways that they do things. So the fact that you can have one audience in one place and really concentrate on that audience and do the things that they like, you know, like stories and audio and video and whatever, you know, it's it's there's
something to be said for that too. So audio rooms are now enabled for for certain people. I don't know if it's like for everyone just yet, but it's definitely enabled on my account, and you know, you just pop in. It's like listening to the radio, except you can participate. You can send stars. So people have been sending me stars all broadcast long, which is really cool because the stars actually somehow translate into.
I don't know, it says by stars.
So the stars actually translate into money, which is kind of cool for a creator that you know, is making a living on this, which is really cool. It also, if you send stars, it bumps you up to the front row, and so you can if you send those, I can like shout you out, like right now, Diga Diga is in the front row because they sent me stars, and that's that's pretty neat. And then I can see people giving me thumbs up, which is, you know, it's cool. It's not stars, but it's a thumbs up, which is
also nice. And you can purchase those in this room as well. So I think that they did a couple of cool things. I don't see anything specifically unique to Facebook to Facebook's version of Clubhouse except the stars, which you know, it is kind of nice that you can monetize your Facebook audios if you are making a living on there, there can be fifty speakers, no limit to the number of followers, and it's again, it's a really neat way of for me.
My audience, a.
Lot of them is on Facebook, and so the fact that I can pop on Facebook and just sit there and chat with people that are following me, like even if I wasn't doing my podcast, that's a really cool thing.
All right.
Lindsay now has been bumped up to the front row. Not my wife, but Lindsay has been bumped up to the front row because they have sent me some stars. Actually, so that's really cool.
We're cool.
Oh okay, so I can I can see a little bit, really cool Lindsay looks like they are standing in front of the big thing in Shanghai. It's like the tower. I forget what it's called, the Pearl Tower, mate, No, not the Pearl Tower. It's like the TV tower whatever. It is like this famous, you know, you know, it's iconic. So anyway, I'm I'm definitely gonna use this from now on the live audio rooms on Facebook. They're also introducing
podcasts on Facebook that will come next. But to me, it's like any way that you can reach people in an easier format is really really cool. And as much as I love Clubhouse, I tried it once and I just I have zero audience there, So who is going to tune into my clubhouse?
No one?
And I don't feel like building a brand new following on Clubhouse because I already have a following in other places, So it's neat that we're getting these things in different places. I think face Instagram would be a cool place to get this as well. And it's you know, you say, rich, why not just go live with video like you can do on all these things. Well, video brings a certain level of anxiety to it, not just for the speaker, not necessarily myself because I'm on TV, so for me
that's not that big of a deal. But for the average person, it's so much easier to just hop on audio then to think about video, because you have to think about your setup and your background and your camera and do I look good and do I look presentable? And then not to mention the people that are listening that might want to come on as speakers. Ninety nine
percent of people don't want to be on camera. They don't want to be on camera, and so you're you're cutting out a whole bunch of people if you're just going on video and asking people to log in on video and to be on your video podcast. So I think that this is the perfect solution, especially for a show like mine where I'm answering questions from regular people. All right, let's see should we do one final question here,
let's see bolts pro. Mike says, Hey, Rich, I saw a Facebook post that claims this new charger does amazing wonderful things.
Have you tested it? I have not, Mike.
And here's the answer that I give to every single person that that texts, that emails me about something they saw on Facebook. And after I just gave Facebook all this amazing you know whatever, I'll just say that I don't really like stuff that I see advertised on Facebook that people send me. A lot of it is either over dramatized or over sold, or it's high pressure sales, or it's you know, you can just get something that's similar on Amazon and it's it might be better quality.
So I hate to say I don't know anything about this product that you asked me about, but when I look at the website it looks fine, but it's just it's again one of those things. Here's what I want you to do. If you see all the little pop ups that say, you know, Vanessa purchase from Washington, DC one minute ago, it's like, okay, give me a break. Like Amazon doesn't do that to me When I sit there, They don't tell me every person that just purchased, they
don't tell tell me. You know, I've gone through this. Oh, Rachel just purchased from Columbia, South Carolina. But two things I want you to look at are three things. When you look at a website, I want you to look at the contact information and make sure that there's a real contact information there. Even call the phone number if you need to look at the website itself, make sure
that it's not scammy. I had a family member that said they went to costco dot com today and they got to pop up this said, oh my gosh, every Friday we give free air pods to thirty people that come to our website. That just all they have to do is take a survey and pay for shipping. And so this family member sent me this and I said, oh, come on, this is totally a scam, even without knowing anything about it. Costco does not serve up pop ups that say we're giving out free AirPods. They just don't
do that. Neither does Amazon. It just best Buy, No one does that. But this sounds like these scammy websites I see over and over, and so I said, send me a screenshot. They sent me a screenshot, and sure enough, it was just some trashy website that number one. If you look closely, it said mini pods. It didn't even say air pods. And so when I told my family member, like, come on, this is totally bogus, Like come on, you got to look out for this stuff, they said, well,
I just got excited. And you know that's what happens. They these things prey upon your enthusiasm for something that's free or cheap or too good to be true, and you just have to be on your oh what's the word, I don't know, You just have to be on it. Just just be be skeptical of anything you see, and that includes links that I post. You know, people you
know will say, rich, oh this looks scammy. And believe me, I'm a real person that's posting real stuff that's been vetted, and I you know, and sometimes even when I tell you do something like, oh, check your permissions on Google. Go to Google dot com, slash whatever, and people are like, I'm gonna log into Google. Off this link. Always be skeptical. Always be skeptical of stuff you see online. All right
before I go, Apple's baby software is out. So if you want to check out the latest software on your iPhone, you can. You go to beta Apple dot com. They've got it for iOS, iPad, mac os, tvOS, and watchOS. But my recommendation is do not install this on your device that you need on a daily basis. I did install it on a backup phone for the iPhone. I've
been playing with it. I don't see a whole lot of huge changes cosmetically or otherwise, but there are some changes and a lot of them have to do with privacy. And believe me, the Apple is really really given these marketers a tough time with the privacy stuff they are.
They are really giving it to them, Like oh my gosh, Like I can't believe.
Like if I was a marketing person, like advertising in ad tech right now, I'd be like, Apple, why do you got to keep doing this to me? You just keep making my life harder and harder. But they're doing it and it's good for the consumer, so that's always nice as well. So all right, that music means it is the end of the show. If you're on the Facebook, stick around at the end. I'll interact with you for
just a bit. If you'd like to submit a question for me to answer, just go to my Facebook page Facebook dot com slash rich on Tech hit the big blue send email button. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to help other people discover it. Just go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech. You can find me on all social media at rich on Tech. Please follow me, especially on Instagram no matter where you live in the US.
You can download the free ktla plus app on Apple TV, fireTV, and Roku. Then scroll to the tech section and you can watch all of my TV segments on demand completely free. So if you listen to me on this podcast, or you follow me on social media and you don't really know me from TV because maybe you don't live in La or one of my other cities that I'm on, download the ktla plus app. You can download any city that you live in in the US and actually see what I'm like on real TV it's kind of fun.
My name is rich Tdmiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending it with me. I'll talk to you real soon.