Sell your old, even broken, gadgets for cash

A website that gives you top dollar for your used and broken electronics; Amazon Prime Day; What to know about Amazon's Sidewalk network; Microsoft's big Windows reveal event; United adds Supersonic jets.Listeners ask about saving text messages from an Android phone, cloud storage without paying, getting Microsoft Office for free and avoiding Spam calls.Follow Rich:https://www.instagram.com/richontech/https://twitter.com/richontech
Website to sell used electronicsGizmogoSee 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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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Amazon sets this year's Prime Day. Air tags get their
first major update.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
The website that will.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Buy your old gadgets for cash, even if they're broken.
Plus your tech questions answered. What's going on? I'm Rich
Demiro 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. I'm the tech reporter at KTLA

(00:40):
Channel five in Los Angeles. Hope you are having a
fantastic day. We are into the summer. I don't even
know is it summer just yet?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
I mean, you could be listening to this next year
for all I know, or you could be listening to
it last year. If you're a time traveler, that would
be interesting, butrobably wouldn't be listening to a podcast. You'd
be so rich that why would you be listening to
a podcast? I mean, seriously, you would be on an
island somewhere living off your bitcoin if you sold it

(01:11):
right before the giant bitcoin dip of twenty twenty one,
you'd be much smarter than me. Let's see, so I
was going through my I'm on this quest, you know,
to kind of clear out my Google drive, get things organized,
get it all backed up, and it is quite the process.
Everything's the process right when you as we acquire more

(01:34):
tech and digital stuff. But I was going through my
drive and I found all I went through and like
did a search for all my old audio files so
I can finally get them into one place. Of course,
I had like hundreds of duplicates, Like these files are
just duplicated one, two, three, four. Like I have this
thing where I can never like just delete stuff. I
always have to like make a copy of it just

(01:55):
in case before I delete there's like a backup, and
that makes all these extra files. Anyway, what I'm trying
to say is that I found a whole bunch of
old files that, like, if you've been listening to the
podcast for a long time, they've all had their place
in the podcast throughout the year.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
So like this one, uh, I don't know, these were like.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
This was like the music that I would use for
like the end of the show. Sounds like you're in
like a nightclub.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
What about this one? You know, I'm obsessed with radio.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I've always loved radio my entire life, growing up as
zero one hundred New York and it's just like all
radio sounded like this back in the day. You're listening
to whtz Z one hundred New York. And then like
this kind of stuff, like all these little likes, this
was the one I always wanted. Drum roll, drum roll please,

(02:50):
Yes we have the new winner of the Amazon Echo.
Say hello, how about this one? Like all this kind
of stuff, like you are tuned in to the war.
It's leading broadcaster from the top of the Empire State Building.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
And then this was my intro initiating rich on Tech.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
This was from DJ Ski. He made a couple of
intros for me back in the day. And then this,
if you remember, was the original intro to the podcast
a long time ago. Not the original, but it was
definitely one of the one of the there's been many,
is it permutation, permutations, permutations, permutations. I don't know how

(03:34):
you say that word. I always say that a lot.
Someone should do a clip of me saying I don't
know how you say that word. Why did I grow
up not knowing how to say words? You know, I
grew up in New Jersey, where I'm not kidding. I
called a drawer a draw until I got to college
and I'll never forget. I told my roommate who was
from Torrents, and I was like, Hey, can you open
that draw? And he's like, what what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Draw?

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Yeah, open that draw. Go take look at yourself in
the mirror, the mirror. What Let me have a glass
of water. I mean literally the things that I said.
And it's ironic that I become a broadcaster because this
the way I spoke for so long was just everything
was wrong, and it's a lot of it still is,
which is you know, that's just who I am. Like
I still say button and everyone's like, isn't it button

(04:20):
butt in? Uh, take a look, take a lift at
the fountain, and then press the button. You know, I
just this is who I am. I'm from New Jersey.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
It's like just the way I grew up.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
But the ironic thing is going to USC was pretty
good for me because I'll never forget literally sitting down
in a circle with a whole bunch of people in
my dorm room freshman year and they would just like
I was like this weird specimen, right, Like I'd just
be this weirdo from New Jersey that they were like, so,
how do you say this? Word and I'm like Oregon
and they're like no, no, no, it's Oregon, and I'm like okay,

(04:51):
and we'd go through like for like an hour.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Uh. Anyway, I digress, as I generally do. Let's talk
about out.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Uh. I guess I'm not going to go with the
top story of the week right now. I'm going to
go with what I think is a really important and
fun story. We did it on KTLA today and it's
a website that will pay you cash for the gadgets.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Laying around your house. Now. I know there's a.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Bunch of these websites, like Gazelle. Swap a Glide is
another one that I used to talk about a lot,
but I guess they're back. They were gone for like
a while, but and Gazelle even was gone for a
while like they weren't doing it. But anyway, So when
I heard about this website, Gizmo Go, I had never
heard of it before, and I was like, huh, that's
I mean, it's rare that I haven't heard of something

(05:37):
like that's you know, in a main space like gadget refunds.
And I think what's happened with a lot of these
gadgets is that people sell them back to the carriers
and people sell them back to Apple. But the reality
is there's three levels of getting rid of your old gadgets.
Number one is if you just have old gadgets that
kind of you don't want to throw out in the

(05:58):
trash because they are you know, they're bad for the
environment to throw out. That's like an old, super old
device that's worth like almost nothing, right, like ten dollars,
five dollars or zero.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
That's one level.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Then you've got the next level where you know it's
worth something and you can trade it in and get
some good cash for it, which is generally like if
you have last year's iPhone, you want to upgrade to
the new one. And then there's this middle ground of
just like a bunch of random stuff that you might have,
like an older phone that's like it's not really not
worth anything, but it might be worth something. So anyway,
that's where this website comes in. Now you know those

(06:31):
levels of selling stuff, so you're always going to get
the most with what I call a person to person
exchange or or sale. So the best way to do
it is to sell it to a friend. Right, So
if you put on Facebook, hey, I've got this old iPhone.
Here's how much i'll sell it for it. You're always
gonna get the most from a friend or a family

(06:51):
member because you're doing the transaction in cash. You're not
paying any fees. You don't have to pay transaction fees,
PayPal fees, whatever. Right, that's always the best way, and
you know, you feel good knowing that it's a family
member or friend that's getting it.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
The next way is eBay.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
You're always going to get a good amount on eBay,
and you've got a national audience, so you can sell
to anyone in the US. You may think your iPhone
five is you know, worthless, but there's someone out there
that may have an iPhone five hooked up to their
telephone system to pipe in music for their you know,
their their hold music for an office or something. You know,
you just never know what these situations are. And so

(07:28):
that's another good way. And then you have the middle way,
which is like Gazelle, Swapa and this new one Gizmo Go,
which you're going to give you more cash than say
trading it into the carriers. The carriers usually give you
the least amount of cash because you know it's a
it's a volume transaction for them, they're just kind of
doing it as a courtesy. And then they don't they
don't really care about the transaction. They just want to

(07:50):
get you into a new phone on a new twenty
four to thirty month contract or whatever you call it
payment plan. So they're just doing this to make it
easy for you to like not have any barrier to entry.
So they're not going to give you the most, but
it's gonna be fine. And then sometimes they run deals
like Samsung often when a new phone comes out, will
give you a little bit more, or Apple or any

(08:11):
of these companies they'll give you like a little bit
more T Mobile, Verizon, AT and T just because again
they're trying to get you to upgrade. Anyway, all that
is said that when I heard about Gizmo Go, I
was like, huh, I never heard of them. And then
it turns out they're in Chino, which is in nearby
city in Los Angeles, probably like an hour away maybe,
and so I was like, can I visit and see
the operation and see how these things work? And sure

(08:32):
enough they said yeah, And so I went down there
and oh, my gosh, the amount of gadgets that were
in this warehouse was just wild. Just stack to the
walls or stack to the ceiling, I should say. And
so they do two things. They do like mass recycling.
Like let's say your target and you're upgrading all your
point of sale systems, you'll just ship all your old
ones to this company. They may give you a little

(08:52):
price for them, or you know, I don't know how
they do it, but you know, they must either charge
you or they'll just take them for free. And then
they'll reclaim the metals out of these things and recycle
them properly, because there's a whole business in that. And
then the consumer side of things, they'll take your electronics.
And so the electronics they'll take is basically, you know, laptops, tablets.
Let's see what else, computers, gaming, consoles, cameras, lenses, drones,

(09:16):
smart watches, even iPods.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
And the website gives you an estimate.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
And you know, I did not tell I was at
a little sneaky on this story because I went to
Gizmo Go. It seemed great, you know, they led me around,
showed me everything. But then I said, you know what,
since I haven't heard of this company, I just want
to make sure that it works the way they're telling me.
And so after I got back, I actually took my
kid's old iPad. He had an iPad mini that the
screen was cracked. It was sitting in my garage. I

(09:41):
had done previous estimates. It said it was worth about
thirty bucks on one of these other websites, and so
I was like, ah, it's not really worth my time,
and so I put this on gizmo Go and they
said we'll give you eighty bucks. I was like, wow, okay,
they said they would pay top dollar, and sure enough
they did. So I sent it in and Gizmo Goo
kept asking, Hey, when's the story airing?

Speaker 2 (09:59):
When's the story airing?

Speaker 1 (10:00):
And I kept like putting them off because I was
waiting for this iPad to come through and get my money,
and so I wanted to see as a regular person.
I didn't want to tell them that I was doing
this because you know, then they would go find the
iPad and kind of fast track it. I wanted to
see what the average person would go through. So sure enough,
in about a week, and it was over a holiday weekend,
I got my eighty dollars. Eighty dollars and fifty five

(10:20):
cents in my PayPal account. I was very happy the
whole process worked out as they promised, and now I
can recommend Gizmo Go Gizmo like gizmo go dot com.
They take it all and it's a great process. It's
pretty quick. They'll pay via PayPal, and I guess it'll
be my new place to get rid of old stuff
if I need to. And you can even send in

(10:42):
stuff like if it's totally worth nothing, just send it
to them and they'll get it properly recycled, which is
also really nice. So you can see the story on
my website. Rich on tech dot tv look for the
cash for Old Gadgets story and there you go. Don't
throw stuff in the trash. Batteries and old electronics, do
not do it. Not good for the environment.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
All right.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Terry has a very long question, but I'll try to
paraphrase it. But she says, I just watched you recommend
two USB drives to download photos from Android to the
USB and then download the photos from the flash drive
to a computer. I have a similar situation. I want
to transfer all my text messages. I purchased a Samsung
Duo Type C flash drive. No problem, downloading the text

(11:27):
onto the USB. But Samsung only allowed a very small
sample of texts that could be viewed.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
I was told I.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Would need to purchase droid Transfer to download them to
my laptop. You identify two drives, will they handle these texts?
And it just goes on and on. But the reality
is so droid Transfer is a paid service. You do
not need it. You do not need that program. You

(11:56):
don't need to pay at all. The program that will
do this all for free is called SMS Backup and Restore.
SMS Backup and Restore. It's been around forever, It's gone
through a couple of owners. It is completely free. They
do have a paid version. I'm not sure what that does.
I think I paid for at some point. It might
be like four dollars and fifty cents, maybe no ads

(12:17):
or something. But you can easily use that to back
up your SMS messages on an Android. Now, on an iPhone,
yes it gets a little trickier, but you're not talking
about iPhone Apple. You know good old Apple. They like
to lock things down. So just accessing your text messages,
the things that you have created on your phone is

(12:37):
oh my gosh, it's so tough. It's I'm a tech
person and I can't figure it out. Yes, there are
some apps like Samsung Smart Switch and OnePlus that will
tap into your iPhone and bring those messages over to
your new phone sometimes, but it is really, really tricky,
and for the average person that just you just want
to see your texts in your Google Drive, it's nearly

(12:59):
impots with the iPhone. Yes, there's a bunch of software
that can do it. It's a weird file, it's a
weird format, and it's just the way Apple rolls. And
so with iPhone, yes, it's it's a lot tougher. And
people tell me all the time here Rich, you know,
I would like to restore or download my messages from iCloud.
I'm like, yeah, not gonna be able to do it.
To restore them from my cloud, you have to literally

(13:21):
format your phone and start fresh. And that's the way
you have to back them up from my cloud and
then on you know, if you just want to download them,
like just have a nice like backup of your text messages,
oh good luck with that. There's really no app even
on the iPhone that can easily do that. And I
say easily because someone's gonna email me and say, rich
you can do this. No, no, no, it's not easy. Like

(13:42):
I'll be honest. You know, I'm a tech person. I
look at this stuff all day long. I'm always looking
for simple solutions. SMS backup and restore is totally simple
and easy. Sorry, that's my producer or my editor texting me,
so hold on. Let me text him back and say cool.

(14:02):
Oh gosh, remember the days when you weren't interrupted every
two seconds with something? But it just happens, you know,
So anyway, where was I? That's the program. Since you
said you're on an Android, SMS backup and restore is
the program to use. It will work easily if you
have a solution for the iPhone that's simple, easy, And
you know for your messages, tell me, I don't think

(14:24):
there is one. It's just Apple likes to make things
really complicated because guess what, it keeps you in the
Apple ecosystem.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
You know, your messages are in.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
iCloud somewhere, you just don't really know how to access
them very easily, and neither do I, And so you
can't just go on iCloud dot com and say, hey,
download my texts or my I messages.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
You just can't do it.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
As far as I know, and Apple will continue to
make things tricky for us. I think they're getting better, Honestly,
I'm not trying to knock Apple. I think I think
that it was the way their system was built to
be safe and secure.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Like with respect to text.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Messages, they don't want a bunch as because every app
would love to tap into those, right, So it used
to be on Android, like every app could just access
your messages, no big deal. But it becomes this security
issue because there's a lot of information in those messages
and so by having every app read them can be
a potential security issue. So Apple says, well, let's lock

(15:19):
them down. But they need to make these things a
little bit easier because they have them locked down. But
give us a simple way to kind of get the
information when we need it, right, especially for something like
a simple backup that's not iCloud. All right, I'm done
with that. All right, Let's talk about Prime Day. This
is happening on June twenty first and June twenty second.
The headline says two days of epic savings on more

(15:42):
than two million deals globally. Oh my gosh, this is
so big, and this is when I need my little
bump bump bum sound effect that I don't have. Prime
Day will feature can't miss deals from top brands like Levi's,
I Robots, Samsung, and Redkin. Oh my gosh, I gotta
get that shampoo I've always wanted at ten percent off.

(16:03):
Uh So, And they're also pushing small businesses because you know,
Amazon gets a gets a lot of uh hassle for being,
you know, putting small businesses out of work, but you
know it does it do support a lot of small
businesses in the fact that any of them can sell
on Amazon. Whether that's a nice process, I don't really know,
I know whatever. So it's happening June twenty first, June

(16:24):
twenty second. I'll be honest, I always think that Prime
Day is kind of a letdown. And what I do
on I'll just give you my two things that I
do on Prime Day. Number one, I kind of stop
buying big things on Amazon until Prime Day. I just
put them in my cart. And if I need something,
I'm not talking ten dollars things. I'm talking like you know,
right now, I've got this whole push to buy like

(16:46):
these huge light bulbs right, And so I'll put those
in my car and I'll just let them sit. I've
got a Synology Network attached storage system just sitting in
my car. I've got a hard drive that i want
ten terabytes, just sitting in my car. So I will
sit those things in my car and then on Prime Day,
I will see if the prices come down, and if
they do, I'll buy. If not, then I'll just you know,

(17:06):
move out my life and purchase them at some point.
That's really I think the best way to approach Prime
Day if for sitting there just looking for stuff to buy,
it's just like, ugh, it's just it's like a whole effort, right,
So put the stuff that you want to buy in
your cart, and then on Prime Day the twenty first,
twenty second, see if it's on sale. That's my number
one advice.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Number two. There's a couple of things.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Oh, all Amazon products. So if you're in the market
for anything from Amazon or Ring, like an echo or
a ring, you know, lights or anything from Ring, just
put it, you know, put again, put it in your cart.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
The price should drop.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Amazon devices go on sale during Prime Day big time,
So that's the best time to buy those, right, Now
there's two deals you can take advantage of three really
starting on Monday, June seventh through Sunday June twentieth, you'll
get a ten dollars credit to use on Prime Day
if you spend ten dollars on select small business products
in Amazon's store, so they will have I believe it's

(18:04):
Amazon dot Com slash Support Small and so you can
look for that if you want to get a ten
dollars credit, or you can do a ten dollars promotional credit.
Now through June twentieth, if you purchase forty dollars in
Prime branded Amazon gift cards, you can get a ten
dollars gift promotional certificate to use on Amazon.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
So, oh wow. Interesting.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
So the one gift card is sold out, so there
was two gift cards. I actually think I brought the
wrong one. I did this, and I think I got
taken because you have to buy the Prime Day E
gift card and or this Prime card that came in
a ten which I didn't get. So I bought the
E gift card, but I just bought an Amazon gift
card like a standard one.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
It was not the Prime gift card.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
And I don't think that I actually purchased the one
that qualifies, so little fine print there, and with a
lot of these things, you know you always have to
follow directions perfectly to get at the free money. I
think I did it wrong. So if you do it,
just make sure that you buy the Prime day e
gift card for forty bucks. You can apply it to
your account and then you should get a ten dollars
gift card after that. All right, let's get to the

(19:18):
next question. Paul says, Hey, Rich, my iCloud storage is full.
I only have four hundred and eighty four photos and
ten ten second videos. I saw there's a way to
add storage with a cloud without a monthly fee. You
also mentioned an iPhone flash drive that goes into the
charging port on my iPhone eight plus. Is best buy
the best place to go now that the death of

(19:38):
Fries has happened. A couple of things to unpack here, Paul,
I can't believe your iCloud storage is full with only
five hundred pictures and ten videos, but you know it happens.
Is there a way around adding cloud storage without the
monthly fee? So I wouldn't typically recommend this, but because
you don't have that much stored in the cloud. You

(20:00):
can just look into getting a different account, like maybe
start Google Photos and just put your videos and photos
in there and that will clear up your storage and
eCloud and that would be free, because I bet you'd
be under the fifteen gigabytes because now that's that's all
they give you on You can go with Amazon if
you have Prime, you can go with Amazon Prime Photos.

(20:22):
You can put them there and that's free and you
get five gigs of videos, which I think your ten
ten second videos would be under. So you can do
it that way. Or you can open up a one
drive account and put them in there and you do
get five gigabytes there. That's Microsoft one Drive. Now typically
I would not I would say just you know, if
I was recommending for you, I would pay the I

(20:44):
think it's ninety nine cents for fifty gigs on iCloud.
I would recommend doing that. It's a dollar a month.
I know you don't want to pay the monthly fee,
but you know it is a buck, and I bet
you spend a buck somewhere throughout the month. That's not like,
oh my gosh, a big return on your money. So
I know it's twelve dollars a year. It's not the
answer you wanted, but it just makes life a little
bit easier. And since it doesn't sound like you are

(21:06):
spending a lot of or using a lot of storage,
I think you should be okay for a long time
with that fifty gigs. And you're asking about the flash drive.
I mean, by the time you spend forty dollars on
the flash drive, forty to fifty bucks, you know, that
could pay for like three years of the cloud storage
on your on your iCloud. So that's what I would

(21:26):
go with. I think that would be the simplest, easiest
way for you to do that. And that's what I'm
gonna say. All right, Well, Apple is already doing kind
of the first big update for the air tags. According
to Sinet, they are going to add a little bit
a little more security to these things, especially for Android users.

(21:50):
So number one, let's see, So if you the whole
thing about these air tags is that. And by the way,
these things have been around for a month now and
we haven't heard one major like oh my gosh, like
this stalking situation happened because of air tags. We haven't
heard any of that. And the only thing I've seen
is that. You know, everyone I've talked to is just
thinks these things are amazing because you clip them and

(22:13):
you forget about them, and when you need them, they're there,
And I think they're pretty amazing. I've got one of
my keychain and it's just like one of those things
that's just okay, you know, you just know it's there
when you need it. And I think a lot of
people feel that way. And yes, there are some privacy concerns,
so Apple is addressing those. Number One, it used to
be a couple of days before an air tag that

(22:35):
was kind of clinging on to you would play a sound.
Now they're gonna play a sound anywhere between eight and
twenty four hours of it being kind of around you.
And Apple's not giving you the exact time because they
don't want people to plot around that. Right, Like they
knew it was eight hours, they would do their nefarious
measures in seven hours before the thing dinged, right, So

(22:57):
they're not going to say when this thing's gonna be.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Then.

Speaker 1 (23:01):
Apple is developing an app, according to Cnepp, for Android
devices that will help people detect an air tag that's
traveling with them. And so the iPhone obviously has this
built in, but Android will be released later this year.
Now that's kind of weird though, because you know what,
so every Android person now has to download this app
to keep air tags from stalking them. Like, it's kind

(23:23):
of weird, right, So it's not a perfect situation. It's
not a perfect solution, but it is one solution in
one way that if you are kind of a little
bit paranoid about these things, or you're in a bad
situation and you just worry about this, then yeah, you
can get this app on your phone and hopefully, I mean, look,

(23:44):
is it going to stop all instances of stalking or whatever.
Probably not, but it could help. And it just I
think it's more for the user to feel better knowing, like, Okay,
well I'm an Android, so I'm kind of left out
of this whole find my situation. But I can put
this on my phone and feel a little bit better
knowing that I will be able to detect these things
if they happen to be near me.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
All right.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Kiki from California says, Hey, Rich, I love your show.
It's so informative and a source I can trust. Well,
thank you just want it to know if there are
any reputable trustworthy sites that offer free Microsoft Office software downloads,
not an introductory offer free lifetime. I lost my job
to COVID. I had to buy an inexpensive computer to

(24:33):
search for jobs. It doesn't have any software loaded, and
I need Microsoft Office.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Can you help? Thank you? Kiki in California.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Kiki, Well, I'm sorry to hear about you losing your
job due to COVID. I'm sorry. I know what happened
to a lot of people. But the good news is
there are a lot of jobs out there right now,
so hopefully you'll land on your feet. And it sounds
like you spent your money on this computer, which you
know is a good step. I'm glad you got that
because you need it in today's day and age to

(25:01):
look for a job. But this Microsoft Office situation, I
think that I get this question a lot, which is
kind of odd. You don't need it. You don't need
Microsoft Office now. If you have it, or if you
have access to it, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
It's great. Like I love it.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
I mean it's I don't use it personally, I mean
I use it for work. We have you know, our
company does have a deal with Microsoft to use teams
and all the Office three six five.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
And it's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
In fact, one of my favorite features on Word that
you may not even know about is the transcription feature.
You can upload basically as far as I can tell
an unlimited amount of audio to Microsoft Word and it
will transcribe it word for word, and it's pretty phenomenal,
and it'll even put time codes and stuff. I think
it's it's really good. I used it a couple of

(25:50):
days ago twice for two different little things I needed
and it worked perfectly.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Actually, I'll tell you what I used it for. This
was just a this is embarrassing, But I'll tell you
what I used it for. Are So I've been listening
to Bobby Flay and his daughter Sophie Flay's new podcast.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Oh what's it called?

Speaker 1 (26:09):
Something about food? I don't know what's cooking? I don't
what's it. I don't even know what it's called. Let
me see what it's called.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
What is it called? It is recently updated? Where is it? Oh?
How embarrassing is this? Oh?

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Always hungry, that's what it's called. So I've always loved
Bobby Flay. I've just I don't know why, Like I
just always have loved Bobby Flay, and so when he came,
you know, and his daughter is a reporter here in town,
and so I followed her for a while. She does
she's a really cool kind of this new age reporter
that they it's like they call him m MJ's where

(26:44):
they shoot their own stuff, but they take it even
a level further. She is just focused on a single
area of LA and I think it's like either Echo
Park or Silver Laker. It's like one of the cool
like neighborhoods, you know. And so she just literally like
you know, goes around and like finds cool restaurants, opening
things that are happening in the community. And she does
it all herself, like she produces, she edits whatever she

(27:06):
puts it on air, I think on social media anyway.
So I've been following her and then when I saw that,
you know, they have a podcast, I'm like, oh my gosh,
of course, easy listen, and I've just loved every episode.
They just talk about one type of food each episode
and Bobby gives kind of his tips on how to
do it and his thoughts. Anyway, long story short, Bobby
mentioned one of his favorite bakeries in Los Angeles and

(27:27):
he said it really quick, and I was in the car,
so I just told Siri to you know, remember this
name of this bakery. But the way I said it,
I totally butchered it, like I didn't get the right thing.
And so I was like, how in the world am
I going to find the name of this bakery. I'm
not gonna listen to the whole podcast again. And for
some reason, Apple, if you're listening, can you make a
bookmark on a podcast? Just? Can you please give us

(27:49):
the ability to bookmark a spot in a podcast? It
would be such an easy thing, Right you're listening in
the car, they say something interesting, you bookmark it, and
you come back to it. I mean, why is that
such a It's such a winning feature.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
Just please someone come up with that.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
So anyway, so I couldn't book mark, I was like, Okay,
how am I gonna find this without listening to the
entire podcast again? And it occurred to me that I
could transcribe the entire podcast using Microsoft Word and so
I downloaded the podcast, I uploaded it to Microsoft Word.
It gave me a transcription within like, you know, a
minute or two, and I searched for the word bakery
and sure enough I found the bakery and I will

(28:28):
tell you what the name is. It's Tartin t a
r t i n E. Tartin Bakery. So next time
I'm in Santa Monica, I will have to go to
Tartin Bakery because that's the one that Bobby said is
his favorite. And so they also, by the way, have
locations all over the world. They have them in the
Bay Area, Los Angeles, and then Korea. So yeah, interesting, right,

(28:53):
So that was a long story, but I gotta say,
I mean, it was just such a brilliant This is why.
This is why I'm so happy that you listened to
a like this, not to hear me drone on and
on about all this stuff, but it's all about building
that that base of knowledge in your head.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
You may have.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
You may say, Rich, you're going on and on about
this transcription feature. Well, yeah, until the day comes that
you need something like that, and then you go, oh
my gosh, I remember Rich talking about that, And that's
why we do stuff like this. That's why we enrich
our brains with knowledge. And yeah, you may say I'm
not a tech person, I'm not at this, but like

(29:28):
you may be at work and someone says, oh, I
got this whole big thing, this interview I did with someone,
and I gotta find this one thing that they talked about.
And your light comes on and you say to your boss, like,
I can do that.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
I can.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
I can find where he said the uh where he
referenced Tokyo. And you're like, really, and this hour long
thing that I talked to him, Oh yeah, I can
find Tokyo. Let me let me show it and you
and you take the audio and you upload it to
Microsoft three sixty five into a word and you search
for Tokyo and next thing you know, you here's what
he said. The best restaurant in Tokyo and the best
hotel to stay out are these two. And you're like,

(30:02):
oh my gosh, and your boss just gives you a race.
So that's why we do this kind of stuff. And
that's why you know, I, as a tech person listen
to other people and other stuff because I'm always looking
for cool new tips. I don't know it all and
again it's not something you might use today, but you
never know. And that's it's like one of these things.
It's just building that reference. Like this is as the

(30:23):
older I get, I wonder like what is my value
as a human or as a person, or as a
tech reporter, or as a parent or as a friend.
It's like it's really just you build up kind of
layers of things. And so as a parent, you know,
when I see a new parent, I'm like, ah, I
remember those days, like and you know, and you give

(30:44):
them a little bit of advice on something or whatever.
Or as a as an employee, you know you've been
there for a long time and you know a new
person comes on board and you're like, okay, let me,
let me show you the ropes here. So if everyone
was fresh and new and you know, clean to something,
it would be a bad because we need people that
bring perspective to things. And that's why, you know, I

(31:04):
get it when you're little and your grandpa starts going
off about something, You're like, oh, come on, grandpa, I
know how to do it better on my phone with
an app and just hear them out because you know
things have changed, but a lot of it. You know,
they say history repeats itself. I mean you just have
to just just be open to that perspective around you, right,
Just be open to it because you never know when

(31:26):
you're gonna get a little nugget that might really help
you in the future. All right, So to answer your question, Kiki,
that was a very long roundabout way. You don't need
Microsoft Office for free. After I just said how great
it is, I think you need Google Docs. You can
always subscribe to Microsoft Office later if you actually need it,
but micro Google Docs will do just what you need.

(31:47):
Go to Docs dot Google dot com. It's what I
use for ninety nine percent of what I do on
a daily basis. It works phenomenally, it's free, and it
just does what you need and you'll be able to
make your resume, You'll be able to make documents, spreadsheets,
slide presentations, whatever you need, you'll be able to do
it there. And if you need Microsoft Office as you

(32:09):
go along, if there's a feature that Docs doesn't have
that you need, then you can go ahead and when
you've got your feet on the ground, maybe subscribe for
seven bucks a month to Office three six five and
go that route. All right, good question, very long winded answer,
but I hope that I made some sense there. Speaking

(32:30):
of Microsoft, let's just make this the Microsoft podcast. Microsoft
is going to reveal the next generation of Windows on
should I do my drum roll.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Let's do let's do the drum roll? Please? Hold on?
How do I get my drum roll again? Hold on?

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Oh, this is a really really great podcast, Rich. Oh,
you're just so on top of things here. Let's let's
start this over. Let's see where is my drum roll? Okay,
it is ready, it is right about.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Drum roll please.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
June twenty fourth, Microsoft will reveal the next generation of Windows.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
You know my friend Bald Brian does the sound effects
for the Adam Kroller Show. He would be so embarrassed.
I know he doesn't listen to this podcast because he's
a good friend, and they don't do that. I always
had this idea that you just mention a bunch of
random people in your podcast every week and then they
clearly like you'll know if they're listening because they'd.

Speaker 2 (33:39):
Be like, oh, I heard you mentioned me. But that
never happens.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
But anyway, So he does the audio for the Adam
Kroller Show, and he's so The reason why he's had
his job for so long there is because he's so
quick witted and he's so fast. What you just saw
is the one opposite of that. It's just like, Rich,
it took you fifteen minutes to get a drop, as
they call them. I think he calls him a drop anyway.

(34:02):
So Microsoft detailing the next generation of Windows. The events
happening on June twenty fourth, probably going to be virtual,
I think, as everything has been, but they'll have a CEO,
Satya Na Nadella is going to be there, and then
Chief Product Officer Panos Piney.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Who I have met.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
He came to the KTLA studios when the first Surface
launched to do a personal one on one with me, which,
like I've said in the podcast before, he'd never do that. Now,
I mean, this guy went from you know, I mean
he was big back then he was like the main designer,
but now he's like chief product officer and he's he's
like big time because Microsoft has had a lot of
success with their Surface lineup and he has been kind

(34:46):
of the guiding force for that. So these are two
big names, and so what is what are those two
big names tell us that this is going to be
focused on software but also how it works with their hardware,
because the hardware, the hardware side of things with these
big tech companies has become just as important. I mean,
obviously we know with Apple, but Microsoft, yes, same thing.

(35:08):
I mean, they're you know, they've had a lot of
success with Windows, but a lot of their success has
been integrations with things. You know, how does office work
with their laptops or how does office work across a
lot of different devices? Right, how does it work with
Samsung devices? And of course how do they optimize their
software and services to work on their stuff? But everyone's

(35:29):
stuff too, So the fact that they're both going to
be there tells me a lot about the next generation
of Windows. They did not see a lot of success
with their little dual screen devices, but that doesn't mean
that those are going away. So maybe they'll have a
two point zero or something, or a new approach to
those devices. Because I think there's one thing that's pretty

(35:52):
clear in our world is that more screens are happening.
We're not getting less screens. We're getting more screens. Screens
are everywhere, and Microsoft doesn't want to miss the boat.
You know, when screens come to everything, right, don't forget
you know, right now we've got all these little smart
speakers and you know they're getting screens. TVs are getting
are sorry not TVs. TVs are getting screens. Oh my gosh,

(36:13):
I can't believe it. No, all these little smart devices,
the first step was to connect them to the internet.
The next step is to give them a screen. And
you know, we've seen this with you know a lot
of little things like refrigerators, appliances. They're all getting screens, grills,
everything's getting a screen. And Microsoft does not want to
miss the boat on running their software on these screens.

(36:34):
So anyway, eleven am Eastern, eight am Pacific, June twenty fourth, Oh,
why do you have to Why do you have to
do this to me? Microsoft? Eight am Pacific? You're in Seattle.
Why would you do eight am? Why couldn't you just
split the difference and do like, you know, what's a
nice time on the East coast and West coast?

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Right?

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Maybe eleven am ten am Pacific, which would be like
what one pm Eastern? You know, I'm from New Jersey
and I still can't get the time right. I don't
know what it is. Why is it so tough for
me to do this? The other thing that Microsoft said
is that they were they this Windows ten X, this
operating system that they were making that was like a

(37:12):
lot simpler and kind of like, you know, just like
super easy and for for dual screens that apparently is
not happening. I think what they're gonna do is just
make one operating system that works on various things. I
think that's you know, these operating systems get really really complicated,
because it's kind of like Apple. They've got one thing
going on with their desktop systems, like the you know,

(37:33):
the mac os, and then they've got iPad os.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
But you've got people that.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Are kind of like, okay, you're they're going between both,
and it's really complicated to have like a totally different
methodology of doing things on two devices that you use.
So and I know Microsoft tried, like remember back in
the day, like the Microsoft Windows Phones. They were literally
like a tiny version of Windows that ran on phones.
And so then they came out with Windows Mobile, which

(37:57):
was a totally completely you know, different an operating system
with the tiles. But it goes to show that we
have seen so many, you know, just variations of this
stuff over the years. Like these companies are just are
trying to figure it out in real time, and we're
here for the ride, and it's not always easy, it's
not always simple, but things are progressing all right, Steve

(38:23):
says my late model Samsung four k Q ninety Oh
good system, Wow, Steve. Nice Nice TV is not yet
making KTLA plus available. Deep in its instruction manual, Samsung
seems to suggest there's a manual way of downloading apps.
I haven't tried any luck with that. Do you know
a way of manually downloading the KTLA plus app? I
suspect suspect Samsung and other TV makers are waiting for

(38:45):
very for a little financial incentive to add more streaming apps.
I don't think Roku lists everything. Thank you, Steve and Colton. Steve,
you know, I don't know what operating system the Samsung
smart TVs work on. I don't know if it's their
own thing or what. But I know they have their

(39:05):
own app store, but I'm not sure if it's Android based.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
I know the Sony's.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
Are, I don't know what the what the Samsung's use.
I haven't I haven't tested these you ever, I don't
think but anyway, So to answer your question, so this
is why I always recommend just skip the smart TV
and just get a smart device. And if you've listened

(39:31):
to this podcast, you've heard my reasoning for this. Okay,
and I'll just go through it once again. So Ktla
Plus our app is available on Apple TV, Roku, and
Fire TV. And of course, as soon as we said that,
everyone comes out of the woodwork saying, Rich, how come
it's not on this platform? Rich, how come it's not
on the Sony TVs. How Come it's not on the
Samsung TVs. How Come it's not on Visio. How Come

(39:53):
it's not on Chrome Cast. How come it's not on
It's like, yes, there are a million platforms out there
to get your your content on your TV. The reason
I'm assuming our corporate folks decided on Roku, Apple and
Amazon is because those are the three largest platforms. And
after that, yes, there's a whole long tail of other platforms,

(40:15):
but it drops off a cliff pretty quickly. Like, yes,
there's a lot of people using Chrome Cast and Android TV,
but not as many as Roku and not as many
as Amazon.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
I mean, Amazon and.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
Roku are just the two biggest out there. Apple TV,
you know you have to sort of have an app there.
Everyone does. It's it's like, you know, it's might not
be as big as the other platforms, especially when you
look at the iPhone, but it is it is kind
of a standard platform, and it's easy to develop for
and and of course it does beautiful things. So I
think that's another reason we're there. I don't know, I'm

(40:47):
not part of that situation. I don't you know, I'm
not like the developer of this app. But I would
say that's kind of the reasoning. And that's why when
people are like, oh, I like my Samsung Smart TV
and it's just easy, the apps are integrated, Well, that's great.
You run into an app that you want that they
don't have, and a lot of this long tail of apps,
and I would consider ktla plus to be one of those.

(41:08):
They're not on all these random, you know, platforms because
just be too cost prohibitive to be on those. Yeah, ideally,
you know. And if you're like an HBO Max, like, yes,
you have like your entire business is streaming, so you
have a lot of people that are trying to plan
for this. But even HBO Max took a long time
to get to every platform, and they may not still
be there. May still not be there. So my recommendation, uh,

(41:33):
get a firestick, get a get a Roku and plug
it into the back of the TV. You can get
one for under fifty bucks. I would say that's the
best way to go if you want the biggest selection
of your apps, and not just the biggest selection, but
also apps that are updated the most, you know, if
the Again, when you go through the big app developers,
even if you're a Hulu or an HBO Max or

(41:55):
a Disney Plus or a YouTube TV, you're going to
update the apps that are on the biggest platforms first.
You're gonna update them with your newest features, your latest features,
and your best features because that's where a majority of
your customers are. If you see that, you know, ten
thousand people are streaming through an Android Shield TV, you're

(42:15):
gonna say, Okay, that's great, and we love those customers.
But you know we're gonna get to that Apple when
we can, because we've got to put our our priorities
and our and our our energies in places that will
affect the most people. So, Steve, I'm not just saying
like go out and buy something, but again, it's an
easy solution, and I think it's a better solution than
what Samsung offers you on screen. And I know there's

(42:38):
some ads on screen with Samsung. If you want to
avoid those. You know, you can get an Apple TV
that's really fancy. But I'm guessing you're not an Apple
guy because it says sent from mail for Windows ten
and you've got a Samsung TV. So I'm guessing that
maybe you're an Android slash, you know, non Apple person,
which is fine, and so maybe you know. I personally

(42:58):
think the the Roku or the fireTV are fantastic solutions
for streaming if you want something that's inexpensive. I was
using the fire TV last night. The old I mean,
I've gotten old firestick. I'm talking. It's like from twenty nineteen.
The thing was fine. I mean, the only thing you'll
notice with the older devices is that it takes a

(43:18):
little bit longer to load the apps. Like on Apple TV,
it's pretty fast. On the Roku Ultra, it's pretty fast.
But like when you start getting into these lower end
devices that are twenty five thirty forty bucks, it's just
gonna take a little bit longer to load your favorite apps.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
That's the main downside.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
As long as they're four k HDR all this stuff like,
they're gonna be fine for the picture once it's playing,
doesn't take much to play the video. It's just a
matter of like how long do these things take to
load your favorite apps?

Speaker 2 (43:45):
Right?

Speaker 1 (43:46):
The response time, that's really where you notice the difference.
All right, let's talk about Amazon. Speaking of Amazon, everything
just rolls into each other. Amazon's sidewalk is bubbling up
once again. I did a story on this back in
I think it was like December, and gosh.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
When was that.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Let me see, I did the story on December fourth.
I can't believe it's December fourth.

Speaker 2 (44:15):
Oh. This is cool.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Because I'm my computer connected, I can actually pipe in
here's the story.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Look at this. Here's what I used.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
Here's what I Said's network called sidewalk. It's powered by
a portion of home Internet connections along with millions of
ring and echo devices installed in homes across America. If
you have one of these devices, you'll help power the
network by default. Okay, So anyway, so that's I feel
like now I feel like I'm really on the radio
here because that's like kind of you know, they they

(44:44):
play like little clips of like news. In a recent email,
Amazon says, side, I don't know, I just love it. Okay,
So what do you need to know about sidewalk? So
Sidewalk is Amazon's.

Speaker 2 (44:57):
New you know.

Speaker 1 (44:58):
It's basically a low low power, low frequency network that
will long range, by the way, that is powered by
Amazon devices like echos, a lot of echos, and then
ring devices, but not the thing they left out was
the doorbell, the video doorbell. So that's like the number
one ring device that is not part of this network.

(45:18):
So if you have one of those and that's your
only ring device, you don't have to worry about being
part of the sidewalk network. Now, if you have an
echo or you have some of the higher end ring
devices like the floodlights, those are part of the echo
network and are the ring the sidewalk network. And I
think they did that, and they did all these things
that are that are wired right, so they have a

(45:39):
constant connection to power and a constant connection to the Internet.
And so what these devices do is they take a
little tiny bit of your bandwidth and they rebroadcast it
out as part of this mesh network, which is a
new network called the Sidewalk Network. And I think this
is brilliant. I think it's really smart. I think it's
actually going to be very helpful in the future. But

(46:00):
I know it's scary because it's using our internet. I
don't think it's that scary. I think that Amazon did
their homework. They figured out a way to use a
tiny bit of your bandwidth.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
I think they said.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
It's like under, let's see what they say, five hundred
megabytes a month. Five hundred let's see, yeah, five hundred
megabytes a month. So you're not like they're not using
all your Internet.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
They're not.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
Okay, the number one headline I'm seeing everywhere is Amazon Evil.
Amazon is sharing your WiFi with your neighbors.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Bump, bump, bump. That is not true.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
You cannot just latch onto this Wi Fi connection you
do not have.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
You can't go on your phone and say, oh, let
me connect to the sidewalk network.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Because it's free, and I'll just cancel my internet at
home and I'll just use my contents. He used my
neighbor's Wi Fi. No, that's not how it works. What
this is doing, Okay, there's a couple of things this
is doing that's gonna make your life actually a lot better.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
So let's say you have.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
A ring video doorbell, right and you're setting it up
for the first time, and this thing is for some
reason you're just having trouble setting it up and it's
not working. Well, maybe this device is sniffing around and
it actually senses the sidewalk network and it says oh.
And then you call Ring tech support and they say, well,
hold on, let me give me the serial number on
that Ring device and you say, well, here it is,

(47:25):
and they go, okay, we see what the problem is
because they can connect to it through the sidewalk network.
Now I'm not saying that's possible today, I'm not even sure.
But these are just ideas of how Amazon's going to
use this, okay. And then they say, okay, we can.
We can flip this switch. Do you mind if we
flip this switch for you and we'll get this work
in And then you say yeah, and you say okay,
and they help guide you along and boom, now you're

(47:45):
up and running. That's one scenario. Another scenario, you've got
a TILE device, and Tile is kind of an early
early ally of the sidewalk network, and the Tile, which
generally has been limited in past years to just working
off of random people's Bluetooth on their phones, now it

(48:05):
can use this sidewalk network to have connectivity no matter
where it is as long as this sidewalk network is nearby.
And so apparently the sidewalk network does not need a
lot of nodes for it to cover a wide swath
of area. So if you know a couple people in
your neighborhood leave this thing turned on, it could be
a very powerful network. And yes it's evil, it's Amazon,

(48:26):
oh my gosh, but when you lose your dog and
you've got a tile connected to it, you'll really appreciate
the power of the sidewalk network.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
Or when you lose.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
Let's say you lose power at your house and you're
on vacation and your devices can still connect to the
sidewalk network to sort of keep them in a state
that is sort of still protecting your house. You know,
you may not have all the functionality, but you might
not be able to stream video and stuff, but maybe
they'll still have enough to just kind of keep alerts
going or whatever. You'll be like, oh, that's kind of cool.

(49:01):
So again, you know, I think that we need to
keep a critical eye when it comes to anything that
big tech does.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
But I think that these stories are a little.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Bit overblown sometimes and it makes the average person just
say no, I will not do that. I'm not letting
Amazon share my Wi Fi with my neighbors. Well, that's
not what's happening here. And when you think about what's
happening and you think about how we can create a
network that you know, it may bring prices down from
you know, this network has the potential to compete with
something like Verizon or AT and T or T Mobile,

(49:37):
because now you can empower a whole bunch of these
new devices that may connect to the sidewalk network and
have connectivity all the time to do little tiny things like,
you know, check in on GPS or whatever. You know,
maybe in the future it could even check email.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Who knows.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
I'm just saying this. This network has a lot of
potential to do a lot of cool things in the future.
Why should we just immediately cut it off and say no,
I'm not going to be a part of that without
any reasoning, I personally am leaving mine on. I'm leaving
it on on my gadgets. I have a couple of
them here that will will latch on. I'm happy to
help this thing take off, because you know, when you

(50:14):
look at something like and I don't want to knock
Apple again, but when you look at something like Apples
find my network. Oh, it's pretty much turned on by
default with every iPhone user in the world, which is
you know, they say, nearly a billion devices. No one
cried about that. No one said, oh, Apples so evil
for doing this. They said, oh, my gosh, Apple is
so cool that I can use these find my you know, tags,
to these air tags to find my stuff all over

(50:36):
the world. Now that's great, but why don't we have
some competition? And Amazon is building something that could potentially
compete with find my and give Apple a run for
their money and importantly give us consumers a choice. And
so now that Apple air tags, yeah, thirty bucks doesn't
seem like a big deal, but now we may see
these things come down to five dollars because other people

(50:57):
can tap into sidewalk and make devices that are just
as powerful, just as great. And you know, now we
have choices, consumers. So I think that's what you need
to know about sidewalk. It is your opportunity to turn
it off if you like. You can opt out in
the settings on the Ring app or on the Alexa app.
Just go into your settings and look for Amazon Sidewalk.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
I guess I can.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
Give you the the full you know, whatever you want
what I just do here, But if you look at
let's see where is it? So the settings, it's Alexa
on your iPhone or Android, Tap more, tap settings, type
account settings, tap Amazon sidewalk, and then toggle off on
the Ring app. It's Ring And then it's not exactly

(51:42):
where you would think it would be. I have to
look in my I did it on a Facebook post,
so you can.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Let's see here where is it?

Speaker 1 (51:49):
Hold on, I gotta gotta scroll down. Let's see where
it's How do you opt out with.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
A Ring device?

Speaker 1 (51:56):
It is Ring app menu, which is the three bars
at the top, left, control center, and then Amazon sidewalk.
So there you have it. I mean, make your own decisions.
I mean, I'm just one opinion, and I'm an optimist
when it comes to tech. So my opinion maybe not
what you think, and that's fine. So I'm just giving
you mind so you can understand why I'm staying on
board with this thing unless Amazon proves me wrong, and

(52:18):
if they do, then I will turn it off. But
right now I feel like I'm contributing to something that
has potential to be pretty cool, pretty powerful, and pretty helpful.
For other people, and that's why I'm doing it.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
All right.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
So Richard, I did a story on how to avoid
robo calls, and Richard put in his suggestion. The main
point of the story, and I think I went through
this last week, was that you download the app from
your carrier, you install on your phone, and you can
stop the robo calls that way. But then some people
you know, got a lot of response. By the way,
but Richard emailed in and said, I have a suggestion

(52:56):
to help avoid robo calls. So here's what he did.
He edited all of his contacts to a favorite same
ring tone. When that ringtone is ringing, no problem answering
these calls. It's a friendly call for all other incoming calls.
Have a default ring tone that you know is for
unknown callers that you can ignore. Let it go to voicemail.

(53:17):
If someone needs to contact you, they can leave a
message and you can have your unanswered message saying I
do not answer any unknown numbers while I'm driving. Uh oh, sorry,
I do not answer any unknown phone numbers or while
I'm driving. Please leave a brief message if you wish
me to call you back.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
He said.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
It takes time to edit each contact, but it's worth it.
And yeah, I mean this is something that is an
alternative to sort of all these apps, and it's kind
of like it's almost like a do not disturb. Like
on my iPhone, you know, I have a feature called
do not Disturb, and you know, you put your friends
in there and your your family and while you're sleeping

(53:53):
at night, if they need to call you or they
need to get through, it will still ring. But for
ninety nine percent of other people, if they're not on
that starred list or you know an Android, it's starred
on iPhone, it's favorites. If they're not on that list,
it's not going to ring your phone. And so that's
pretty useful. That's that's another way of doing it. You
can just leave your phone on do not Disturb all
the time. But then you know, just add your friends
to your favorites list and anyone on that list will

(54:17):
be able to call you.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
Now, the only time that doesn't.

Speaker 1 (54:20):
Work is in a real emergency where it could be
you know, someone calling you that may not be calling
from a number that's on your preferred list. And so
in that case, there are provisions apples thought of all
this so is Android, if someone calls you a couple
times in like fifteen minutes time period, it will still open,
it will still ring your phone. So the first time
they call, it won't ring. But you know, if you're

(54:41):
an emergency, you know, call someone a couple times, right,
You're trying to get a hold of them, and so
you're trying to get their attention. And usually spammers don't
call a whole bunch of times in a row. But
so I think, Richard, your suggestion is a good one.
It's it's one option, right. There's a lot of ways
to do things with tech, and that's just one option,
and I think that's a it's a good one. It's

(55:02):
a little bit of work, but you know, you know,
you gotta you gotta spend the time to get the
return right. All right, let's talk about this as our
maybe our final story United. I'm so excited about this
bringing back supersonic speeds. They're buying fifteen aircraft from a

(55:24):
company called Boom Supersonic. And the cool thing about these
supersonic planes is that not only do they look cool
even though they're an artist rendering, they will go twice
the speed of your typical airliner and So as for
someone who flies from LA to New York a lot,
I think this would be just so cool to go.
It's like twenty five hundred miles by plane, so it's

(55:45):
like usually anywhere between four and six hours, So just
cut that in half. So to get to from LA
to New York, New York to LA in two hours
or maybe three hours is would be groundbreaking.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
It'd be really really cool.

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Now, apparently after I posted that, people said, well, they
don't really use SuperSonics over the trans continental because I
guess the sonic boom is too much. But I don't
really know, so I mean, maybe they'll do this in
the future. But these airliners are expected to run by
twenty twenty nine. It's gonna be the first large commercial

(56:18):
aircraft to be net zero carbon from day one. They're
gonna roll out in twenty twenty five, fly out fly
in twenty twenty six, and carry passengers by twenty twenty nine.
And so the sonic boom situation, all the all of
the examples they gave of routes were all from you know,

(56:39):
places that were like international, right, and so let's see
what were the examples they gave Newark to London in
three and a half hours, Newark to Frankfurt four and
a half hours, San Francisco.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
To Tokyo in six hours.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
And of course they showed how beautiful the interior space
is on these things, and they look awesome. But again,
this is not gonna be cheap. This is not something
that you and I will just be taking on a
regular basis. Maybe you will, I don't know, probably not me,
because it's my dream to fly first class from coast
to coast once in a while, which you know has
happened in the past, but it's not my regular and

(57:14):
that's my ultimate dream, is to just be able to
do that.

Speaker 2 (57:19):
All the time.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
I had a friend who worked for a big company
and they got to fly first class to London. That
was like the standard, like they flew well business class,
I guess, and that's like my dream because can you
imagine just the creature comforts of lying flat. I got
to do this once to Europe. I was working a
job and they flew me business class and it was
just like I got off that flight and I said

(57:41):
I could I could fly to Europe every day if
I wanted to with this with the way I flew there,
Because you had a nice dinner, you watched a nice movie,
and then oh you laid your flat, your seat flat,
and you went to bed and you slept in like
a real bed, basically over to Europe, and it was
just unbelievable. But most of the time on a plane,

(58:02):
I'm in a cramp sea. You know, if I can,
if I'm lucky, I'll get economy plus, which is amazing,
you know, it's that's enough. But it would be nice
to have that live flat or that nice big seat anyway,
but this one would be a lot more expensive. You know,
you're talking you know, five ten thousand dollars for a seat.
Perhaps we don't know because all this is brand new,
and also we don't know if they'll be doing you know,

(58:24):
you know, LA to New York or if it'll be
just international stuff. But anyway, I thought it was pretty
cool because supersonic flights, you know, they were they were
they had them at some point with the concord, and
then all of a sudden they took them away. And
now it's like we're getting back to where we were,
but in like a new high tech maybe the technology
has gotten better, who knows, But thank you Unitas for

(58:46):
doing that pretty cool?

Speaker 2 (58:47):
Right?

Speaker 1 (58:48):
All right, let's see do we have anything else? Or
is it the end of the show? I think it is.
Actually yeah, that music means it is the end of
the show. That's gonna do it for this episode. If
you'd like to submit a question for me to answer,
go to my Facebook page, Facebook, dot com, slash rich
on Tech, hit the big blue send email button. If
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(59:10):
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(59:30):
live in the US, you can download the free ktla
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Speaker 2 (59:37):
Then scroll all the.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
Way down to the tech section and watch all of
my TV segments on demand. If you're just listening to
me on the podcast or just following me on social media,
do yourself a favor and watch some of my TV
segments because you know you'll get a better sense of
who I am, what I'm all about, and my my
interesting sense of humor. There's always a little humor mixed
into most of my segments. My name is rich Demiro.

(59:59):
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, I will
talk to you real soon