Yes, your car is spying on you - podcast episode cover

Yes, your car is spying on you

May 07, 20211 hr 6 min
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Episode description

Hands-on with Apple AirTag; how your car is spying on you; Twitter introduces a Tip Jar; two fast and easy ways to scan in your old slides; new Google Assistant features; a PIP feature on Amazon's new smart TV's let you see who's at the door; best smartphones for photography 2021.Listeners ask about making it easier to hear the dialog on movies and TV shows, using multiple Bluetooth headphones with an outdoor projector, transferring data from one Samsung phone to another, best streaming device to get, whether to delete data off old gadgets being traded in and blocking YouTube from a kids iPad.Follow Richhttps://twitter.com/richontechhttps://www.instagram.com/richontech/AirTag Reviewhttps://ktla.com/morning-news/technology/apple-airtag-tracker-review-richontech/Spying Carhttps://theintercept.com/2021/05/03/car-surveillance-berla-msab-cbp/?curator=TechREDEFTwitter Tip Jarhttps://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/product/2021/introducing-tip-jar.htmlScan Old Slideshttps://ktla.com/morning-news/technology/two-easy-ways-to-scan-in-old-slides-diy-slidescan-app-digitnow-digital-slide-scanner/Google Assistant featureshttps://blog.google/products/assistant/plan-perfect-weekend-new-google-assistant-features/Amazon TVhttps://amazonfiretv.blog/introducing-a-new-lineup-of-toshiba-smart-fire-tvs-38d2ce6f3397Best photography smartphoneshttps://petapixel.com/2021/05/05/the-best-smartphones-for-photography/Sonos Beamhttps://amzn.to/3eUxr3mBluetooth transmitterhttps://amzn.to/3f2nL79Samsung Smart Switchhttps://www.samsung.com/us/apps/smart-switch/Delete Apple datahttps://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201252Blocking YouTubehttps://ktla.com/morning-news/technology/set-screentime-limits-filters-kids-circle-nextdns-opendns-familyshield/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Transcript

Speaker 1

A review of Apple's new air tags. Your car is spying on you, but you probably already knew that. How to scan in your old slides? Plus your tech questions answered? What's going on? I'm Rich Dumiro and this is Rich on Tech, the podcast where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about. It's also the place where I answer the questions you send me. And believe me, I say it all the time. You send

me a lot of them. I feel very loved. Although maybe it's just because you like the free tech help. I don't know, whatever it is, thanks for sending them in. I will do my best to answer your questions here. My name is Rich Dmiro, tech reporter at KTLA Channel five in Los Angeles. Thank you so much for tuning me in. Oh, I forgot to start a time or whatever. I'll just do this on the fly. So I'm broadcasting right now to Twitter spaces, which I have not used before,

but I figured, I don't know. I mean, it's kind of a fun thing, right If you just want to tune in hear the podcast being recorded, why not. It's kind of fun. Lots going on in the tech world this week. Got a little little Apple trial going on. You know, you've got Apple battling or I guess you got it's really Epic battling Apple. Epic makes Fortnite one of the most popular games in the world. Apple makes the iPhone one of the most popular phones in the world,

and of course the App Store. And what I find fascinating about this entire little skirmish what do you want to call it, you know between these two big companies, is that Apple all the stuff coming out of the trial is is kind of like making me like Apple less. Now.

I already knew that Apple was very you know, pacific in the way that they deal with their stuff, you know, the way they market things, the way that they you know, kind of want to make you get in their ecosystem with the iPhone, and I message not being you know, everything Apple does is one sided, right they I mean, they want to make sure that everything you use keeps

you in the Apple ecosystem. And just seeing the emails come out of this trial and seeing the thought behind all of this is like it's kind of icky, Like it makes me like I'm reading it and I'm kind

of like cringing because it's so gross to me. Like when I think about something like Google, and I think about how open they are and how they are they literally, when they do something, they do it for the entire world at once, right, no matter what language you speak, no matter what operating system you use, no matter what style of phone you have, whether it's a really high powered phone or whether it's a really an expensive phone that might cost twenty five dollars in developing country. So

that's what I've always appreciated about Google. Now I appreciate a lot about Apple. I think that they make some amazing products. I mean, the Apple Watch is something that I've I've talked about I just can't live without, and you know, other things like the iPhone, the camera and the video and just the quality of what they've built

is amazing. But it comes at a cost. And the cost is they have engineered every step of the way to make sure that they have figured out how to keep people in their system in the best way possible. And a lot of times that involves things like, hey, you know, we don't want you to use a third party payment system because that's too easy for you to like move to a different system. If you've got a whole bunch of apps that you know, work on iPhone

and Android or something like that. So anyway, I just think that the the ramifications of this trial for me personally, are just kind of like I'm trying not to read so much of it because every time I read it, I'm just like, I don't I don't know what I think about this, but we'll keep we'll keep tabs on that, and I don't know. I just I just feel like I love Apple and I love what they do, but I also see kind of like the dark side of Apple.

And I know it's not something that's new, but it's just it's like when it's on display in these emails in this trial, I just like, oh, like, there's a reason why you can't subscribe to Netflix inside the Netflix app. There's a reason why you can't buy a Kindle book inside the Amazon app, you know, and it goes on

and on and on. There's a reason why maybe you could subscribe to Spotify at this point, I don't know, but there's a reason why all these little subscription costs, you know, ten percent more, twenty percent more if you subscribe through the iPhone versus you know, going on the web. But you would never see those two prices on the iPhone app because you know, Apple doesn't allow that. So it's just little things like that. And you know, I

deal with the average consumer. You know, my my segment, my spot in life with my tech stuff is for the average person, and the average person is not keeping up with all the little nuances of the differences of life on iOS versus is Android, or the differences in life between what Google is doing and what Apple's doing or what other companies are doing. So that's why I keep up with it. And I do notice the differences.

You know, I do switch between iPhone and Android quite often, and so I'm noticing, you know, the limitations of both platforms. So anyway, something to keep out an eye on. And it's just been very very interesting for me to kind of to keep track of that whole situation. All right, let's get to the first question of the day. It comes from Kristin. Kristin says, hey, Rich, I've been trying to research any sound systems that would allow you to

separate music from dialogue. As a senior, I really need to find a way to turn down the music and TV and movies so I can hear the dialogue. I have to believe someone has created a feature or device. I wish you had the expertise to create one because us baby boomers are in dire need of help. Is this technology out there? Thanks Kristin. Yes, Kristin, it is because it is a feature on my Son's soundbar. And

I was trying. You know, it's funny because you know every movie is the same, right, or every TV show when it's like a big especially if you're watching in a house with like the kids, it's like you're sitting there and you know you're watching this movie and the loud scene, like the chase scene or the explosion scene is like whoa, it's so loud. And then when people are talking, you're like, wait, what are they saying? I can't hear them. So this is not just a senior moment.

This is a moment for everyone. We've all experienced this. And in in my soundbar. I've got the son soundbar. It's it's an aging device at this point, it's been around for a while. A lot of my son No stuff is. In fact, I need to buy a new speaker from them. Two new speakers were on my list, the new son No's Rome, which is their Bluetooth speaker I want to get, and then also I need a new Play five, which is kind of their biggest standard speaker.

But they call it speech enhancement. So what it does is it boosts the audio frequencies associated with the human voice. Turning this feature on will make dialogue easier to hear. So what I would do if you're going to get a soundbar or even with your TV, just search your TV name or your soundbar name along with speech enhancement or like voice clarity or you know, hear speech better, you know those kind of things, and you'll see if

that feature is available on your system. If it's not, you could invest in a soundbar that would I think any soundbar would help in general, just because the TV speakers are generally terrible. But I think that look for one that specifically has this feature. I can't recommend the Sons one. I mean, as much as I love it, it's just way too expensive. Now they do have a cheaper so no soundbar that I've seen at Costco that's sort of like a smaller one and I'm trying to

see here it is. I think it's called the Beam. Is that the one? Yeah? The so No's Beam is four hundred dollars, so it's still expensive, but you know, I think it's it's less expensive, and I'm guessing that they would have yeah, speech enhancement is oh wow. Beam was specially tuned by Oscar winning sound engineers to emphasize the sound of human voice. So you know what what I would say, Kristen, if you are looking for a soundbar, Sons Beam is the way you want to go three

ninety nine. You can finally hear your dialogue in your movies, and I think that is going to be the best way to go. If you're looking for a less expensive one, just look for a sound clarity feature on that soundbar. It's definitely there. Believe me. If you hear meowing in my home today, yes I'm working from home. If you hear me owing near the studio, my wife yesterday thought it was a good idea. She's been having an eye

on fostering cats or kittens specifically. My kids really want a pet, but I've been saying no because you know, we travel a lot. We were always out and it's just it's tough to to have a pet in believing we've had a dog in the past, and it's it's a lot of work, especially when you go away on the weekends. You know, you're sitting there bringing the dog to a kennel or not a kettle. That's it's probably not a nice word anymore. What's a border? I don't know.

We used to bring them to like this little place that was like, you know, at some point it was someone's house, and then you know, now we've got we had a place that was you know, a little bit bigger than that. But anyway, it's a lot. So anyway, my wife thought that fostering kittens would be a good idea for the kids, and so she did, and she picked up not one, not two, but three kittens yesterday, and the kids, I will say, my two sons were

absolutely loving them. They were just I mean, I've never seen them on better behavior yesterday than in my entire life, and they were just so good. They played with them the entire afternoon. I cuddled with them while I watched TV last night. I mean, yes, they're fun, but they are all over the place. I mean, three little tiny cats that are like, I don't know, a couple weeks old, and I have to feed them something called gruel, which is like mixed up wet cat food. I don't know.

I haven't done it yet, but I have to do it today. So anyway, if you hear the me owing, that's the story. And I do. Look, I love little animals like this, They're so cute, but it's just it's so much work already. Like my kids were exhausted, they were they were begging me to go to sleep last night. And to me, that's a win in my book. All Right, Ah,

I digress. Let's talk about Apple's AirTag tracker now. And my last couple of podcasts I talked about how I think this is just the most amazing product to ever be invented when it comes to trackers, and I know, I got so much stuff on my Facebook page, like people challenging me like well, how is this any different than the tile? And I'm like, look, I mean I get it. Yes, Tyle came up with this idea many many years ago. This is not a new thing. GPS

trackers have been around for a long time. This is not a GPS tracker. But the beauty of this device, this twenty nine dollars AirTag, is that it is working with the find my network and to find. My network is comprised of nearly a billion Apple gadgets helping to locate your stuff. Now. Apple sent me a few devices to test out. I've been testing them for the past bit and I will say they're amazing. I mean I put them on my keys, I put them in my backpack. I gave my wife one to test on her keys,

and they're simply amazing. I mean they are something that will make you never lose your stuff ever again. Now, in my review on ktla dot com slash tech, I said that they're great for stuff, not so good for people. The reason I said they're not so great for people is because there are some privacy concerns and I'm not gonna, you know, rehash all the privacy concerns, but yeah, it's like you slip this into someone's bag and you will know where they are and it may be a while

before they realize that this thing is with them. So you know, it's good and it's bad, and it's like all technology. And I've said that before. So the device, in case you're not familiar, has a small user replaceable battery. It lasts for a year. You can up to sixteen of them to an Apple ID and then once you have that linked up, you can see the location of your item on a map. There's no monthly fees. You

can ping the device when it's nearby. So the number one used case scenario is that your keys are in your house and you're looking for them. You go on your phone, you press ping my air tag, and you hear the little sound that the air tag makes and you find it. Now, if you have a newer iPhone eleven or twelve, you can use the precision finding feature, which uses this special ultra wideband chip on both these

devices to literally lead you to the device. It's like your phone will say turn to the left, Okay, go one hundred feet or whatever, and it's not that far, but you know that works when it's close by. Then finally, if you want to call in the network, you can do that and you can see the air tag on the bigger network. And like I said, when I tested it with my wife on her key chain, with her you know, of course approval, I was able to see where she was pretty much at all times. This is

not real time. There's no GPS here, but Apple's network is so vast and so thorough that chances are you will pretty much see where this thing is all the time. Now again, I said that there's some some safeguards built in to keep people from abusing these, but the reality

is people are going to abuse these. And you know, I was trying to think, like, Okay, let's say worst case scenario, have got an X right, an X situation, and you know that person already knows where you live and where you work, and so it's not like this would be new information. But the reality is, yeah, there's definitely some like icky ways that these things could be used.

So I think Apple is going to continue to kind of hone these things in, you know, not to use a pun, but you know, hone in on the software, make it better, make you know, learn from the situations that happen out there. But I think they're amazing. And if you're in the Apple ecosystem, which by the way, this will lock you in. This will this will lock

you in and throw out the key. Once you've got an air tag, you are not switching to anything else because the fact that you can just see all your stuff on a map, it's gonna be hard to replicate that with anything else, even the competing trackers. So once you're in, I think you'll really like these, all right, Mark says Rich. Question, sir, I have a movie projector that I used outside with an inflatable movie screen, but

I'd like to use it. Will my kids wearing wireless use it with my kids wearing wireless headphones and not having loudspeakers disturbing our neighbors. Is there device to use for multiple Bluetooth speakers from one source, respectfully? Mark? Uh? Yeah, Mark, you can just go on Amazon and search Bluetooth transmitter and I would type in multiple Bluetooth transmitter for multiple devices. Uh. The one that I see is two devices, So I'm sure there's one that has more, but in general, I

think two would probably be the best. If you're gonna get more. I mean, look, I they know they do more than two, because I've done a story with this thing called a uh, oh my gosh, what's it called. It's a silent like disco. Yeah, that's what it was, a silent disco. And everyone at the silent disco, I'm talking like, you know, one hundred people had headphones on

with Bluetooth that were listening to the DJ. And so clearly there is some sort of system that can broadcast Bluetooth to a lot of different devices, So I don't think you need that. That's a little little extreme, but you can definitely get a system that has multiple devices. From what I'm just seeing with a quick search here, it looks like two devices is kind of the standard. So I didn't know. You didn't say how many kids you have, But if you got two kids they both

want to listen, there you go. Now, some of the headphones out there, you can kind of chain them together. So I think I'm wondering if the pure ones do this, but you know, you basically the kids can have one of them is Bluetooth, and then you can kind of take up cable and connect that to the other headphone and that would give you maybe four headphones. So there's

lots of ways to do it. I just search Bluetooth transmitter multiple devices on Amazon, and as long as your projector has a Bluetooth connection or actually, you know what, you don't even need Bluetooth connection. You probably just plug it in with the headphone jack and then it would bluetooth out. So there might be a little latency there. I don't think it'll be too much of a big deal, but yeah, those the movie nights are starting up again. We did this last summer and it's just so much fun.

The kids love it. There's something great about having that giant screen in the backyard with the movie playing. It's just such a fun experience, Like even if you've watched the movie before, Because if you've listened to my podcast, you know, I'd ever like to pay for anything like streaming, Like I like to whatever is on my streaming services I subscribe to. That's what we're watching. And so maybe I'll break this out tonight. I don't know how cold it's going to be, but maybe it'd be fun to

watch that. What's that new movie everyone's talking about Mitchell's Versus the Machines on Netflix. I've gotten like no less and two text messages from friends saying have you watched this yet? And I'm like, no, I didn't even know about it. And comedy sci fi, and it sounds sounds great. A quirky, dysfunctional families road trip is upended when they find themselves in the middle of the robot apocalypse. That

sounds fantastic. Can't wait to watch that. Any movie that is a kid's movie that I can watch with my kids is a win in my book, because there's not many of them, and so I just I love it when I can find a movie hopefully what was the rating on that? I didn't even check it. Let's see PG perfect, Okay, love it all right, so we'll be watching that. But yeah, Mark, that's what i'd recommend, and good luck. Let me know what you find. Okay, all right,

let's move on to your car. Now. This is something that I've sort of known for a while, but it's always it's always interesting to see it in print. And this is an article out of the Intercept. Actually a guy named Sam Biddle who I used to I worked with him once at We did a CEES show for Spike TV back in the day. This was ces like oh my gosh, two thousand and twelve, I think or something like that. So we worked together a long long time ago. But Sam has done really well for himself.

He writes a lot of this stuff, investigation type pieces. This is one of them. Law enforcement agencies are purchasing this technology called iv ive. It's a vehicle forensics kit and once you hook it up to a car, it

can extract all kinds of information. And he says it can sync the data from your phone, like if you connected your phone to your I always wonder about this, Like, you know, when I get a rental car, you know, first thing you do, you plug in your phone, right, Well, how much of the data from my phone stays on that rental car? Is it? Like the contents of my text messages? Is it? You know, all of my contacts? Like how much is actually synced to that car? Versus

just displayed on that car? And I'm very unclear on that, honestly. And I always say no when a car says, oh, we have access to your messages, I said no, can we have access to your contacts? No? I say no to all of those things. I'm not gonna let some random car just you know, suck all the data out of my phone. Then, of course, when you return the car, the rental car, you forget to clear the phone off of it. You should always do that in general. But of course I just returned a rental car, and I

didn't do that. Twice to rental cars in last month. Uh, Hawaii won, by the way, very expensive. I cannot believe how much I actually I have another rental car coming up soon, and it's also very Actually all three have been very, very expensive. I could have bought a car. I could have bought a car for a year for the amount I've paid now in rental car prices. And it's just one of these things where what are you gonna do? Like my wife and I, like, you know, when we go on a trip, like, what are you

gonna do not get a rental car? Like we went to Hawaii? What are you gonna do not drive around? Like the one day you're sitting there, like, oh, be so nice to go to that giant state park. That's amazing that we flew five thousand, three thousand miles here for Yeah, we'll just stay here. I mean, you know, if you use it a couple of days out of your trip, like it doesn't pay for itself, but it

certainly feels like it's worth it. Anyway. I digress. I digress a lot on this show, in case you didn't know that anyway, So can download this is the other part your car if you have like an even like the older cars, they are all basically recording everything about what's happening in that car, the speed, when you turn on the lights, when you open the doors, and the system works with all the popular car brands, and the main thing is that civil liberty groups are concerned that

law enforcement might not use a search warrant to access the data. Now that's just one side of this. Imagine your insurance company, and I've thought about this a lot. So let's say you have a you know, some sort of accident, right, it doesn't even have to be a bad one. Let's just say that there's a you know, there's a payout that's involved there, and the insurance company says, yeah, well, to get your money, we've got to connect this little thing to your car and kind of you know, collect

the data from your car. And you're like, what, hey, it was in the terms and conditions that you agree to and you say, oh, I didn't read those. Of course nobody does. And they say, yeah, if you want your you know, we're gonna give you a five thousand dollars payout, but got it, We've got to check this data first. And then they check the data like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

We saw that you had your phone connected to the system, and the phone says that you're actually using it to text while you're driving, So therefore that nullifies your claim and you're like, oh, okay. And so this is how this kind of stuff that you're like, well, I don't do anything bad, I'm I'm you know, I'm okay. I don't need to worry about this stuff. No, you do need to worry because this is where it comes into

play in everyday situations. And so this is you know, I've always talked about even when I was a kid, I talked about the concept of what keeps you know, what keeps law enforcement or even a city or whatever a state from just autumn printing out tickets. Right, the technology is there. Your car speeds, it's got some sort of sensor transponder, they calculate the license plate whatever, They have a camera on the freeway and it just goes, okay, there you go. We're mailing a ticket to your house

because you went over seventy miles an hour. So how are the laws created? Like, are the laws created? Do they say you're not allowed to speed only when a police officer's watching and they catch you, or is it no, you're not allowed to speed at all and we can use any means possible to ticket you for that. I don't know. But again, these are the kind of things that we're going to address in the future as technology just continues to get better and better when it comes

to doing things automatically. Already, a lot of cities in America and in the world, probably you know, they've outfitted their their cars that, you know, whatever city cars they have driving around with cameras that can do a lot of different things. They use AI to identify stuff they identify, you know, it could be they scan every license plate

and just look for stolen cars. And hey, these people are driving around the city anyway, like our our ticket people, So why don't we just scan cars while we're driving around? So I just find this stuff super duper fascinating. That's why I mention it. I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what the answer is. But when I was a kid, I always imagined that cars in the future. I always said, like, what's to keep your car from just spitting out a ticket on your dashboard in the future?

Like what we have the tech, I don't know, lots lots to think about in our high tech world. Robert says, Hello, Rich, can you walk me through setting up a new T mobile? Galaxy S twenty one five G phone and transferring data from my Galaxy No. Eight h Robert, I don't need to walk you through because there's a there's an app called smart Switch that is just phenomenal. This is from Samsung, and if you're going to Samsung to Samsung, you are

really really doing well. I mean everything when you when you turn on that S twenty one to five G and you follow the prompts and you make sure that you you smart switch with your old phone which have it nearby. It can be wireless. I prefer wired because

it's just faster and simpler and it'll be easier. You literally plug the two phones into each other and it's going to transfer over everything, and it's going to not just transfer everything, like your background's going to be there, the placement of your apps is going to be there. Everything's going to be literally like you just took this phone and just took the new one and kind of merged, you know whatever. It's just you just swapped out the

hardware and it works really well with smart Switch. So now I've had mixed results with this. This also works really well iPhone to iPhone and it you know, it also somewhat works on other Androids, like if you went Android, you know, like a Samsung to one plus or one plus to pixel or you know whatever these random Android devices are. So it works, O OK. It sometimes will bring the whole screen in. Sometimes it won't, like your your icons may or may not be placed where they were.

It's always kind of random. But if you're going Samsung to Samsung, You're gonna be just fine. Super simple process. Robert, let me know how it goes. And congrats on the new phone. That's a good upgrade cycle. You went No. Eight, you kept that for a while, and you went S twenty one standard. I've got my eye. I keep looking up. I'm I'm every day I go on Amazon and I look up the S twenty one Ultra and I just I want it, but I you know, and it's like

they could deliver it same day. Right now. It's out of stock, but it's two hundred dollars cheaper. It's nine ninety nine right now. That's for the one twenty eight. I want the five to twelve, which is totally out of stock. They don't even have it. The two fifty six you can get, no, totally out of stock. So I think this little price cut of the of the nine ninety nine it used to be twelve hundred. I think a lot of people have purchased it. Yeah, this

one's even out of stock. But I've had my eye in the s twenty one Ultra five because I just I want that, like zoom, I want I don't know, I'm just I'm getting antsy with my iPhone, like I but it's tough, like I've said in the beginning of the podcast, like I can't give up my Apple Watch, so I'd have to come up with some weird scheme

to still use my Apple Watch with the Samsung. But then I'm thinking the new pixels coming out, Pixel six, which I'm very high hopes for, that will likely be my next phone, as long as if it's an Apple or sorry, if it's a Google designed processor. Oh my gosh, I can't wait. I am I you know, phones, I

get it. They're not that exciting to people anymore. They're still very exciting to me, especially especially the Pixel, because it is just I feel like the Pixel is a device that throw a phone in the dryer, and that's the Pixel. It's just bouncing around. It's there's just no there's no definitive trajectory for the Pixel. Every year the Pixel come comes out, Google does some wild and weird and wacky thing with that. You're just like, ah, I thought this was gonna be the one. No, no, it's not.

I mean, I can't. I'm trying to think the last time the Pixel was like the best phone I ever like loved in my life, and it might have been like the three. I don't know. It's like it was a while ago. But I still love the idea of the Pixel. I love how smart the Pixel is. And so the Pixel five was a major disappointment for me,

even though it's a great little phone. And I'll be honest, for a regular phone, like if you're just you know, not a power user, but if you just want like the best inexpensive camera on a phone, the Pixel four A and the four A five G are just phenomenal phones, you know. Like I've said, I've said this before. My mom has a Pixel. She loves it. She loves her Pixel, and she just doesn't understand everyone says her pictures are

so great. You know. She also has mint Mobile, which she loves, you know, and it's just one of these things she doesn't understand why people are like so obsessed with like iPhone, and they're expensive data plans, and I'm like, mom, I know, it's just you know, people don't realize they're caught up in a lot of this hype. But like your phone is fantastic, you know, like your phone is great, your service is great. As long as your mint Mobile, which runs on T Mobile, works where you go and

live and do things, You're fine. Yeah, fifteen bucks a month, you're okay, Like why do you have to pay more? She doesn't understand it, as she's like, why my friends pay more for phone? I'm like, I don't know, I know why I do. I have Verizon. I need Verizon. The coverage is fantastic, and I have an Apple Watch. So I can't go with one of these third party mv and o's, these smaller carriers because they don't offer all of the futures that I need. I need, you know,

full upload a video. I want HD video when I watch videos on my phone, and some of these things you just can't get when you're with a smaller carrier. But they're the things that the average person who just needs a connection, who's just checking Facebook, who's just looking at Instagram, who's uploading a picture, who wants to make calls? It all works, it's all all good. All right, let's talk about Twitter. I don't talk too much about Twitter

because I feel like it's not very mainstream. Although if I had to pick one social media network to stick with forever, I think it would be Twitter. Even as much as I love Instagram, everything is so you know, they they make it so tough, right, there's no links you get, it's just you've got stories you have. I mean, just the amount of thought I have to put into anything that I post to Instagram is so my brain literally.

Maybe that's why I gets headaches so much, because I just feel like I have to sit here and think about formats of video. So, like, you know, the new thing on Instagram is you know, igtv is like how they want you to post your videos, which, yes, you can post your videos as Okay, I'll just I'll just go off for a second here. So on Instagram, the easiest video is is the sixty second square video, right, And that is the easiest way to get a video

on Instagram because the most people will see it. It's simple, it shows up in the feed, it plays the entire video, but your limitations are it can't be more than sixty seconds. It has to be square, which is fine, and you know it shows the entire video when you're scrolling through the feed, and it will show it to the most people because it's in the feed. Then you have IGTV, which of course they love, but it's so complicated because if you post, you can post a full, you know,

rectangular sixteen by nine video. But guess what that looks tiny on a phone screen. It looks like a thumb. Uh what is it? A posted stamp? So who wants to watch a video like that? Not me? So that's why you rarely see me post videos like that unless I'm being really lazy and I'm just like, I don't feel like figuring this out, so I'm just gonna post sixteen by nine. When I see other people post sixteen by nine, guess what I do, I scroll right past it.

If you want to post a video on Instagram that sort of really captures the eye, it's an IGTV video in sixteen by nine, but vertical format, which we've been taught as journalists and video creators our entire lives never shoot vertical video. But yet that's the video format that Instagram wants. Now, when I'm out there shooting my videos, like today, i posted a video from inside Firestone Walker Brewery. I'm sitting there in the brewery literally, I'm like, Okay,

do I shoot this sixteen by nine? Do I shoot square so I can later edit it? Or do I shoot up and down vertical so I can make a longer video. Oh and by the way, if it's longer on Instagram, if you want you know, the unlimited time you go IGTV because then you get you're not within that sixty seconds of timeframe. So this is the kind of stuff that when you just see my stuff on Instagram and it's oh, Rich posted something new, how cute,

Oh cool, let me like it. You have no idea the psychological torture that is going on for me as someone who is trying to deal with all these different formats and noo. And then by the way, I want to post the same thing to Facebook, and I'm like, ah,

do I want to post square? Because if people are watching it on Facebook on their TV, it's gonna look all messed up, or you know, it's gonna have the wings we call them on the sides, you know where it's like the blurry background, or if they're watching on their computer, don't they want to watch it full screen? So it is very, very complicated anyway. So I say this all because Twitter just is so easy, Like you just tweet and you can put links and you can

it's just everything just works so nicely. They don't try to play games with you, right and they just you know, it just works. You can have a conversation, people can comment, you know, you can at people, you can tag places, you can put videos in there, you can put pictures in there, you can put links in there, you can put audio in there. It just all works. But the problem is it doesn't have the audience that Instagram and Facebook have, especially for me. Now some people have built

their audiences on there. The problem is my audience is more of a typical consumer, and the typical consumer is on Instagram, not on Twitter. You're still there, okay. So with all that said, Twitter has a really cool feature now called tip jar, and this is how it sounds. You basically connect a payment system, whether it's cash app, Patreon, PayPal, Venmo, and people can leave you a tip. So if they like what you're doing on Twitter, they can leave you

a tip. Now. This is enabled for me on Facebook. I haven't really publicly mentioned this very much, but there's something called stars that Facebook invited me to test, and people can leave me stars, which somehow equates into money. I haven't really seen the money from this, but it does. Like if you leave me one hundred stars, I think it's like a dollar. So I see them from time to time, and I guess it works. I don't really call them out, I don't really say anything about them,

so I'm not like actively pursuing stars. But I think it's amazing if you made, if you make your living as a creator, you want all these different avenues. You know, if you have a video that goes totally viral, and you know, look, if I love the idea of supporting creators that I like, like I want people to be independent if they can, right, if you can be independent and do your job and love it, like, more power to you, Like I want to support that. And if it takes a buck for me to send you on

venmo or cash app or Patreon or whatever, cool. So the thing that I think is interesting here is that Twitter is not taking any cut of this tip jar, which I think is kind of odd, like, I think that's a missed opportunity for them. I get it, maybe they don't need the money, but I feel like they could have taken like even ten percent or one percent and people still would have been happy to have this. But hey, you know what, it's cool if they're doing it, if you want to see if it's enabled for you.

Right now, they're doing it for journalists and experts. I'm somehow not included in that. I didn't see it online, but you can go to your profile, pick edit profile and see if it's enabled for you. All right, shout out to the folks in the spaces on Twitter. I know I just talked about Twitter, so hey, it seems like there's a couple of people in there. My mic

is actually working now. I understand what I'm doing on spaces right now, which I'm broadcasting live to Twitter, is totally anti to everything Spaces is about, right Spaces is about conversations, and right now you're just listening to a one way feed of what I have to say, and you can't talk back. Now, maybe this could be something I could do in the future, Like if someone raises their hand, I guess I could bring them on the podcast, which would be kind of cool. But I don't know.

I mean, I've never that would be an interesting thought. Maybe I'll do it next time. But yeah, says tap on an avatar to invite someone to speak. Oh yeah, so people are like doing little waves and little like symbols and stuff. It's really cool. Again one of the

reasons I love Twitter. It's just it's they've they've built in all the things you need as like the best communication system, right without fooling around, without trying to trick people like Instagram and Facebook everything like Facebook, you know, you put a YouTube video in there and somehow it doesn't embed. You're telling me Facebook's engineering team can't figure out how to make a Facebook video playable in Facebook on the news feed. No, it's because Facebook doesn't want

you to play a YouTube video. In fact, they don't want you to post a YouTube video. They'd rather you upload a video natively to their platform so that they get the recognition, they get the money, they get the ads, they get the everything. And it's those little kind of decisions that like, I just ugh, it makes my skin crawl because now, by the way, videos used to play embedded in Facebook, but they made a decision to take

it out. Same thing as Instagram. When you used to tweet a picture on Instagram, yeah, it used to go to Twitter, and of course they took that out. So again, all these companies I talked about Apple in the beginning, None of these companies are innocent. They all do things that are that fly in the face of what's best for the consumer. And as consumers, you may not realize that,

but I do. And this is why you know, I keep on top of this stuff, and this is why I talk about so that you understand that there's no technical reason why a YouTube link that you paste into your newsfeed should not play inside Facebook. They don't want it to play inside Facebook. They want to make it as horrible as an experience as possible, so that you don't post a link to a YouTube video, or a creator doesn't use Facebook to just put their YouTube links.

They don't want to do that. They want the creator to use Facebook's platform. Okay, Christine says, hey, Rich, don't even get me started on links on Instagram. Oh hey, Rich, I'm looking at finally getting a streaming device since my smart TV won't hold too many apps. I'm not sure which one I should get. So I wanted to get your advice. I saw your review of the new Apple

TV device. I'm not really sure that's worth the extra money in your opinion, What is the best device to get, Christine Christine Christine, Well, I think the Apple TV is you're asking me, which is the best device? You know, I probably that's a tough one. I think the Apple TV is really really nice. I'm not it is expensive, so I don't think it's worth it for the average person to get. I love mine. I think that it's

really nice. I also really love the Chrome Cast with Google TV, but I can't recommend that one because it's such a newer. Like Okay, when you look at when you look at the state of streaming devices, right, you've got Roku, You've got Apple, and you've got Amazon. And I will tell you out of those three, which are

the most popular. I mean, Chrome Cast is popular, but that's definitely you know, people kind of like to have these things with a remote control, and so I think Google was smart to do the Google TV, but I also don't think it's as prominent as these other ones. So when I look at platforms, here's what I look at Amazon and Roku are pretty much the top two. Now, the reason why people love Roku and Amazon is because they are cheap. They've got streaming sticks that are so

cheap you buy I am like a ten pack. It's like a pack of gum and you just you know, put them on the backs of all your TVs. Now, I think that those those really cheap streaming sticks are horrible. They're slow, they're jittery. Yeah, you don't need much power to stream stuff. Like believe me, you can use a streaming stick that's a couple of years old and it's fine,

but it's not going to be the smoothest experience. So when it comes to the streaming sticks, I would go a little higher and if you can spend fifty dollars instead of twenty five, and you'll get a much better experience on these sticks. Now, with that said, Roku versus Amazon, that's a tough one. If you're an Amazon subscriber, like a prime subscriber, I would probably go Amazon. The problem is Amazon's their interface is all over the place. It's

just so like cluttered with like stuff. I'm like, it's just like you're like bombarded with like do I watch this? Do I watch that oh this is on Prime Video. Oh, it's like so much. But I also like how they highlight stuff from the services that you subscribe to, so that's kind of cool. Roku, on the other hand, is very simple. They're just ad filled. There's ads everywhere. It's just ads galore. So it's like you just on that screen. I just it's like, I hate seeing the ads on

the Roku. But with that said, I like the Roku devices because they're universal, like pretty much. I think at this point every app is on. There might be a couple on missing, but all the major apps are on Roku and Fire. I know that there's a little fight right now between Roku and YouTube TV, so I'm sure that will be figured out. That it's always a money thing. It's always a money thing, so it will be figured out. It's like back in the day when cable channels used

to fight with the cable systems. Right just notework is taking away my Fox Sports. Well now that battle has just moved to the streaming services. Because if you don't think that Amazon and Roku are making a little cut off of all these streaming services that they allow on their device, oh yeah, they are. Believe me. That's why it took so long for HBO Max to arrive on Fire. That's why it took re cool while to get I forget what it was, but it was something they had

a problem with. But it's all about the money. It's all about the money. So with that said, I would I mean, if I had my way, I would go with the Chrome Cast. I think that one's the best because I feel like it when I use my Chrome Cast with Google TV. I mean, the beauty of it is that it suggests all content from services that you

pay for. And I just love that because I go on the home screen of Google TV and I see twenty five things I want to watch, and guess what It clearly shows right underneath that that movie or TV show if it's included in one of your streaming packages. I love that. That is a major, major plus in my book, because if you know me, you know I'm not paying five ninety nine to stream a movie. Ever,

it just doesn't happen. I don't pay. I'm paying for HBO Max, I'm paying for uh Hulu, I'm paying for Disney Plus, I'm paying for NETFLI the most expensive one with four K, which I don't even understand the difference. It doesn't even look any different. But I've got like twenty people on my account watching, so I mean, I can't you know, I need as many simultaneous devices as

possible before they cut me off. I only had it happen once where I sat down to watch Netflix and it was like, sorry, your account was in use, and I was like, what someone that I you know, I get maybe maybe you share your password with a few family members. And I was like, so I had to call them in or a text them all, and I'm like a group text who's watching Netflix? Someone needs to log off? I'm watching I need to watch something, Okay,

but Christine, Uh, Okay. My bigger point about all these streaming devices is you want to go with one that is updated. Often. I don't like the smart TVs because the software on them. Like, okay, this is the example I always give your HBO max. Right, You've got eighty percent of people watching on a Roku, twenty nineteen percent watching on a fire, two percent watching on Apple TV, and two percent watching on chrome Cast TV. Okay, which app are you going to update with the newest features? First?

Probably the Roku app right, followed by the Amazon app, and maybe you'll get to the other two later. Now, I'm just that's just a you know, I think the Apple TV apps are updated and are really good, but the reality is like, as a developer, you know, you're probably not gonna update the random video platform app from you know, two thousand and nine. It's just it. Yeah, it's on your TV, but it's probably not gonna be

updated very often. So that's why I like to get one of these streaming devices, plug it into the TV, and that way you get the best apps and features that are readily available. So finally, I guess my my summation of all this is go with which one you like the best, whether it is Roku or Amazon. If you're all Apple products, maybe you go with the Apple TV, But like you said, you don't want to spend the

extra money and it is tough to justify. So and I love the Chrome Cast one, especially with the remote. That's the one i'd probably go with personally, but I just feel like it's not going to be as updated as frequently as the other two. But I don't know. I mean, that's the one I feel like does the best job of what I want. When I sit down in front of the TV. All right, let's get to another story. This is Google Assistant new features. A couple of new features to tell you about. One of them

is broadcast. And this is not a new feature for Google Assistant, but they're extending it. And so now it used to be you could say, hey G, broadcast, how about we go to lunch at noon or I'm coming home soon, and it would it would say your little voice on all your speakers. So let me give you scenario. You are leaving work, you fire up Google Assistant on your smartphone, whether you have an iPhone or Android. Yes,

there's a Google Assistant for iPhone. You can download the app and use it, and you say to that Google Assistant, hey G, broadcast, I'm coming home and I'll be home in ten minutes. And at home your speakers all you know, if you have a Google Home speaker or a Google Nest Hub display, it will announce in your voice what you just said. And that's a cool feature. It's been around for a while. I don't think anyone uses it.

Maybe they do. I always forget about it. But now they're extending this to phones, So on Android or iPhone, you'll see the little notification with that pop up and it'll say the same thing. So I thought that was

really cool. That's brand new. And I gotta remember I scared the heck out of my family one time when I tested this feature, because I tried it, you know, and I was like, hey, everyone, what's up or whatever I said, and everyone, like my wife said, she just about you know, jumped out of the house when she heard that because it was so out of there. Okay, the other things, I mean, there's a bunch of features

that they're talking about, these new Google Assistant features. I'm just going over the ones I think are cool for kids. They've got new stories and this is kind of cool. You can say, hey, gee, talk to who was hero? And you can listen to stories about over one hundred different people that are kind of like big in history. And so that's really cool because I know the kids love to play with these Google Assistant devices, but anytime you can get them to learn something and enrich their

little brains, I think that's pretty cool. And then this one's really fun. You can play the popular game show Are You Smarter Than a fifth Grader on the Nest Hub, so you just say, hey, gee, talk to are you smarter than a fifth grader? And you can play that game. And while I have on that topic, we played in the car. If you have Android Auto, you can ask

to play games in the car. And I know it sounds really scary and kind of dangerous, but I got to say, once you're on like an open stretch of the freeway, if you're on a road trip and you know there's not a lot of traffic around, and you can kind of, you know, play this game. We played. It was like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And it was so much fun. We had a great time. And it's it's really slick like how they do it. You know, they basically ask questions, you say your answers,

and it's it's back and forth. It's very interactive. It's a little odd that you're playing games in the car, like while you're driving with your family, but you know, it seemed relatively safe. I think it's mainly if you're not really putting a lot of brain power into driving, Like if you're just on like an open stretch right where you're just kind of there's not a lot going on, and you you know, you can I don't know, maybe it's not meant for the driver. Maybe it's just passengers only.

So I'll leave it at that, all right, Genny says, I have several Apple products to recycle or even get a credit for. I've gone through Apple and receive the shipping statement. It appears that I do not need to remove my data and they will do it for me. Do you think this is safe? If not, I do. I just do a reset on all the products. Some have the old charging connection and I don't know if

they will even power up. Thanks, Ginny, Ginny. Okay, So my advice in general is if I'm ever sending something in I want to you know, format it, like I want that hard drive or that device wiped clean. Now, the reality is, if if you have a password on your device, chances are they're not gonna crack. They're not gonna, you know, get to the recycling facility and someone's gonna

spend an hour trying to crack your password. I mean, yes, that's a possibility, but most of these recycling facilities or these uh, you know, refurbishing facilities have safeguards in place to keep their employees from doing that, and it's just not something that probably happens very often. It could, and I think that you should take safeguards against it just

to be sure. And there will be some places like I you know, like I've said, I've been to places where I've left my computer and they said, hey, can you write down your password? And I'm like, no, I'm not writing down my password to my computer. So if they ever ask you to do that, say no, and they will figure out a way around it. Now, they may have to format your drive, and you know, so you want to make sure you have a backup of this stuff if you're sent in Now in your situation,

you're sending stuff into recycle. So my advice is if you can power it up, plug in the old charging cable. If it's a really old gadget, you can't just plug it in and expect it to power up. It may take an hour for that thing to come alive because it's the battery is so dead that it's going to take a bit for it to even get to a

place where it can do anything on that screen. So you may plug it in and it may look like it's not charging, but just leave it there for a solid hour and it may come to life with a little charger symbol after an hour's I've noticed that with my gadgets that I have very old that I'm kind of trading in, not trading in, but like getting rid of, and I or I haven't used them in a really long time, and that's the case. And then yes, do

a reset. You want to go into your settings and it's settings reset, and it's factory reset, so you can. You can do that on most of the Apple gadgets have that built in, or in fact, all of the gadgets pretty much these days have some sort of factory reset built in which will erase the data on them. And that should be fine. Now, if you can't power up a product it doesn't work, I think you'll be okay sending it in again. If you had a pass code on that product or a password at some point,

it should be fine. It's gonna get to the factory. They're just gonna do the wipe, either manually somehow, or they're even just gonna recycle it, you know, crunch it up if it's so old that they don't need anymore. So good question. I'm glad that you are, you know, interested in protecting your privacy. I think that is very very smart. Let's talk about this. This is just a

small story. Well I'll just do this one. We did a story on KTLA about scanning in old slides, and it depends, you know, if you're of a certain age, like for me personally, I don't have any slides. I never shot slides. I don't I never used them. I mean, the only thing I remember is as a kid, we did have I'll never forget my dad setting up a slide show just once, like it wasn't even our projector. I think it was his parents projector. And I remember

like looking at some slides, but that's really it. I mean, my childhood was mostly film and then of course digital cameras and now smartphones. But if you're of a certain age and you have a bunch of slides laying around, or you know your family might have left you slides or they have slides, you know you can scan these in and make them digital. And so we tested two different methods. One was a one hundred and forty dollars digital scanner. It was from a company called digit Now

Scan Slides. Let's see, I think I want to make sure that was the name. So I okay, this is this is what happens sometimes with stories. So I was sent this scanner to test and I thought it was forty dollars. For some reason, I don't know why I missed the one and so I was like, oh, this is such a great deal. It's so easy. Then I saw that it was one hundred and forty dollars, which you know, that's expensive for a standalone device, but it's still not that expensive for converting your slides. So we

tested that. I thought it was great. You put the slide in. It's a it's a time consuming process. You have to slide each scan in manually, take a picture of it, you know, it kind of lights it from behind. It puts it on a memory card and then you can put that on your computer. The quality is excellent, it comes out great. It's simple, it's easy, and it's done right. And then you can either put this on eBay or give it to a friend or split the price with a family member. It also does film, It

does all kinds of stuff, so that was great. Then we tried, because I know I like giving people options, we tried an app called slide scan and I could not believe that an app could scan a slide. I was like, how, well, here's how it does it. It uses just your iPhone or Android. You hold your your slide up to your computer screen and the slide scan app gives you like a QR cod scan to just basically take you to a blank white page on your browser.

So that's this nice bright white background. You hold your scanner or your slide in front of that, and then you hold your phone in front of the slide and you you know, it's lit from behind, and you take a picture of it with the app. It's not just your regular camera. And then the app you know, performs a little magic and AI to bring that slide back to life as a digital file. And I gotta say it works really well, like extremely well. Not as clear

as the scanner. But the main issue is that since you're holding it in your hand, you're holding the slide and you're holding your phone, it's like it's an you know, it's a lesson in like steadiness, because I noticed with my father in law, whose hands you know a little bit shakier than mine. You know, he's a little bit older. Nothing against him, it's just you know, when you get older, you're not as like steady as you are when you're younger.

Maybe that's not everyone, but I feel like that's maybe what happens. And so he had a little bit of trouble kind of steadying the slide to get it perfect for the phone, whereas I really didn't. But still then you have glare and you have all these other things. So bottom line, the slide scan app is pretty miraculous. I mean, if you want to scan in like a couple of slides, like, definitely it out. It's available for iPhone and Android. You can try it for free, although

you do have to pay. It's like seven bucks a month if you want to do unlimited slides. I would recommend putting a towel over your like kind of using Remember when people would take pictures back in the old days, like the really old days, like the old West, where they would like put their head underneath like a some

sort of I don't know, covering on the camera. Like they would go underneath like a what do you call like a tarp or something I don't know, like a blanket, I don't know what you call that thing whatever it's like attached to the camera and they would go they would lift it up and they would go underneath like a sheet. Well, that's kind of what you need to do here with your with your phone scanning your slides, because you don't want any external light on top of

the slide because it will reflect. And so I took a towel, I put it over my head, I put it over my computer, and I did the picture like that and it came out great. It's just not as clear as the slide scanner. But I got to say, there were two really cool methods of getting those slides scanned. And believe me, anytime you can get old things scanned in digital, definitely do it. It is such a cool thing people, you know, you send it to your friends

and family. I personally love to just dump all this stuff into Google Photos and then it automatically slices and dices it all. You can, you know, now, click on the head of you know, the picture of the face of someone that's in one of the pictures. It shows you all the pictures that're in. You make a little album, you send it off to them, and it's just such a cool, cool thing to do, all right. Barbara asks, is there a way to totally block YouTube from iPad

and our iPhone? My seven year old grandson watched things that are not appropriate for him. Oh I'm laughing, but I'm not. We've tried blocking, but where he goes on the iPad or iPhone, he knows how to unblock it. I'd rather just totally take it off so we can see nothing regarding YouTube. We do have kids YouTube. Please help. Barbara in Mount Prospect, Illinois. All right, Barbara, So I think the easiest way to block YouTube is just too well, there's two ways. If you have an app, you're gonna

have to set up screen time. This is like the simplest, cheapest way. You don't have to buy any extra equipment. But there's two things you gotta do. Number one, you got to go on screen time. Set that up. You can set that up from your phone. If he's on your family plan, you can do it all from your phone and then it'll carry over to his device. You know, you just set them up as a family member and

you can do all the settings from your phone. If he's not a family member, you could just go onto his iPad set up screen time, and basically you have to come up with a code. My kids have been able to figure out the codes I've set up which make them tricky and don't let them watch you type them in. And then once you're done with that, you can approve only certain websites that he can go to, so you can block YouTube completely, or you can just pick a list of like ten websites so he's allowed

to go to PBS kids or whatever. And then you got to get rid of the app, so delete the app, and then you have to change a setting on the iPad that says they cannot install or delete apps, and that will keep him from reinstalling the app. But my kids also found another way around this. This is they're really tricky. They what they do is they go into

my purchased apps. They can go into the family purchased apps on my account through their iPad and search for an app that they want to download, and then it doesn't ask for permission from the parent. So I don't know if that's like a They love finding hacks and it seems to be a pretty good one. But you can still block out any app with screen time by saying you can limit the time on it, and that's

the easiest way that I'd recommend. If you're looking for a little more control, you can block YouTube from the entire network using Circle. This is a device that you connect to your network, and this is what I have here, and it is it's complicated, but it is very thorough and you will have all the controls you need to keep your kids in line, or most of them, I

should say. There's a website called next dns, dot Io and Barber that's going to be a little bit more complicated, but I'm just giving you options that will let you control all the network settings and block certain websites from your entire network. You also have Eero if you have an ear or you know, one of your your routers with the newer routers give you a lot of these controls inside your router. So I subscribe to something called Eurosecure.

It's thirty bucks a year and it gives you a lot of controls to filter things on your Internet at home. So those are the things I'd recommend. Good luck. It is an ongoing battle in my home with YouTube. It took me so long to figure out how to block YouTube on my smart displays because once you get into like the way the Google Nest Hub works, it's fascinating.

They have like two different connections. It's like one is like a chrome cast connection, and one is like another, and anyway, it took me forever to figure out how to block YouTube on those things. And then it's it's very I don't want to get into it all, but it's it's super complicated because when I want to sit down and watch YouTube on the main TV, I can't because it's blocked for my kids, and there's no easy

way for me to unblock it. So I had to come up with a way of basically coming up with a family the home profile that blocks out YouTube unless I reward myself with fifteen minutes of time for YouTube. I know, it's wild. This is the stuff I deal with, and I understand it's so so complicated, and this is why parents just let their kids have free roam because they don't want to deal with it. And I understand that.

But you got to keep these kids in line with this YouTube stuff because there is a lot of stuff on there, and some of it they should not be watching. All right, let's see, let's just it fire. Amazon has a bunch of new Toshiba smart Fire TVs, and I didn't want to spend a whole bunch of time on these, but if you need it like a fire TV all on one kind of thing. It's kind of cool, but

I thought this was neat. They have a new feature called Live Picture and Picture and it will let you see your video doorbell on your TV when someone rings it, and I just thought that was so cool. They don't say that it's a ring doorbell, but I'm guessing it has to be ring. Maybe not, I don't know, but I just thought that was so cool because I love that feature that if someone rings your doorbell, you can see the ring pop up on your TV screen. I mean,

that's such like a useful feature. But again, all these tech companies love to put us in silos, right, so if you want the most out of all of them, you have to kind of stick with all their brands. And that's kind of what I'm seeing here, I'm assuming. But anyway, I've got a lot more questions, but we're running out of time here, so I'm just gonna do one more real quick. I'm gonna just gonna do an

article from a PetaPixel dot com. They name their best smartphones first Photography in twenty twenty one, and I totally agree with them, so I'm just gonna go over them real quick best overall smartphone for photography Samsung Galaxy S twenty one Ultra. One percent agree with this. It is such a versatile phone. The pictures are phenomenal, but it's not just the pictures, because I think the iPhone twelve

Pro has amazing pictures and video. But I think what's different about the Ultra is it gives you more options, you know, like there's just the zoom capabilities of that phone are so phenomenal. You're just not gonna get that on the iPhone. Now, not everyone needs that, but it's again best overall smartphone for photography as twenty one Ultra and what you know edges it out is really the the zoom lens on that thing that is just so phenomenal.

Best for computational photography is the is the pixel Google the Google Pixel five, And again I agree, computational photography means this camera is not equipped with like the best lens, the best sensor, the best anything. But somehow the pictures from the Google Pixel five still look phenomenal, and it's just it's just great. HDR on the Pixel five is just amazing. It's better than any phone I've seen. It just does if you want to point and shoot. That

just nails it every time. It's going to be the Pixel five. But with that said, I would recommend the what they say the best bang for the Bucks smartphone for photography is the Google Pixel four A. Now i'd probably go four A five G just because you know, I think you should probably get on five G if you're buying a new phone today. But the the fora is just phenomenal, and if you're on a budget, it's literally the best phone cameras money can buy less money

can buy. That's what they said, and I agree with that because it's just it's just a simple phone. It takes great pictures and it's not that expensive. There's not a lot of fuss. Yeah, it's not as sexy as the iPhone or the Samsung, but it does the job. If you just want to take nice pictures and be on your merry way, it's gonna take a great picture every time. Then they say the best smartphone for video

is the iPhone twelve Pro Max, which is interesting. I use the iPhone twelve Pro and they say the Max is better because it's got a larger sensor forty seven percent larger sensor in the ultra wide, which, yeah, that's gonna bring in more light, and that means it's going to be great to shoot footage with. But I gotta say the phone that I've been using for the past year, the uh, you know, the iPhone twelve pro or since it came out. I mean, the video I shoot on

that is just so phenomenal. It's just so buttery. I don't know how to explain it, but it's just it's buttery. Like it just everyone always asks me on my Facebook and Instagram, like what camera are you using, And I'm like, it's just an iPhone. It just looks so good. Like when I edit, it's like, ugh, I love it. And it's That's one of the things that's kept me from Android for a while is just the buttery video that just looks so good on the iPhone. Oh listen to

that sound. That music means that's gonna do it. For this episode of the show, if you would like to submit a question for me to answer, two ways to do just that. You can go to richon Tech dot tv, Slash podcast, hit the microphone button to leave a voicemail, or you can go to my Facebook page, Facebook dot com, slash rich on Tech hit the big blue send email button to send me your question. Also, I would love it if you would rate and review this podcast to

help other people discover it. You can go to rate this podcast dot com slash rich on Tech. Jimbo forty two says informal and informative. I love rich informative podcast. Always learn something new and useful. He's also got an awesome, fun and informal approach which really enhances the information too. I can't wait to hear what's coming next. Jimbo forty two, thank you so much for your review. I think I know who that is. I think it's a Jim Lawson

who is a fan of KTLA. We've become friends over you know, we've seen each other in real life several times, like at events and stuff. Anyway, I think that's you, Jim. If it is, thank you for your review and of course all of your support over the years. You can find me on social media at rich on Tech, so

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all there. It's really fun and it's just a neat way to keep up with what I'm doing on TV. My name is rich Dedimiro. Thanks so much for listening. There are so many ways you can spend an hour of your time. I do appreciate you spending it with me. Stay safe and I will talk to you real soon.

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