These smart glasses changed my POV

Plus: How to email yourself, a Pixel deal and private AI

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This week I went to the opening of Meta’s first physical store in Los Angeles. It’s been set up to sell its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. It’s a pop-up, but looks much more permanent.

They also sent me home with a pair of their latest glasses to test out and I can say I’m impressed. I had the first version for testing and these are a really significant upgrade.

Just about every aspect is better—the size, weight, charging case, and photo and video quality. The glasses also have a speaker and microphone built-in, so you can use them to take calls, listen to music, and even chat with AI.

And that might be the best part. Putting on these glasses almost makes you feel superhuman. You can just say “Hey Meta, tell me what I’m looking at” and it will snap a photo of what’s in front of you, analyze it and give you details about what it sees. It works really well.

You could also use it to just ask questions about stuff, get answers and even do math problems. Very futuristic.

My only gripe about the glasses is that they are tricky to remove from the case without completely smudging the lenses. The transition lenses, which are supposed to darken a bit in the sun (so you can use them inside and outside), really don’t compare to a pair of actual sunglasses, which are essential in Southern California.

The Ray Ban Meta glasses start at $300 and will make an incredible holiday gift for the techie in your life. Think of capturing photos and videos while boating, golfing, hiking, or getting a new point of view on just about any aspect of life. Just be sure to get the latest version, which is called the Ray-Ban Meta, vs. the first gen, which is Ray-Ban Stories.

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First Up

I know you’re well aware of the election news, but suffice it to say that a new administration means a new way of doing business.

President-elect Trump is expected to be friendlier to mergers and acquisitions in the tech world, be crypto-friendly, and favor less regulation for AI.

We don’t know exactly how this will play out, but I bet big businesses are feeling a bit less of the squeeze they were used to under President Biden’s administration.

In the past few years, we have seen some major acquisitions fall apart, including Adobe and Figma, Amazon and iRobot, and Visa and Plaid.

For consumers, it means businesses will probably get bigger and we will see more consolidation in various industries. As always, we must stay vigilant to protect our privacy, personal information, and pocketbooks.

TV Segment Recap

I visited TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco, and there were a lot of startups on display. Here are a few that caught my eye!

Here’s a look at Apple’s new M4 Mac computers - new laptops, new iMacs and a new Mac Mini!

Did you know I have a weekly TV show? New episodes air Sundays at 11 AM PT on the KTLA+ streaming app, which you can get on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung and Fire TV.

Check out the latest episode below!

Tech Tidbits

Verizon is extending the life of its Messages+ app by a month. The deadline to switch to Google Messages or something else for texting is now December 9, 2024.

Amazon is delaying shipments of the Kindle Colorsoft due to screen issues.

Download This

Not sure if I’ve mentioned it in my newsletter lately, but I’ve started liking Perplexity again. I was inspired to check it out after ChatGPT added web search functionality to their AI.

Perplexity is sort of a question-and-answer service. You can ask things like “top cookbooks of 2024” and it presents what I call a book report. A thorough answer you might present in a typed report.

It’s great for history, details on a travel location and more. It also links to the source where it got its information, so you can fact-check to ensure it’s correct.

Perplexity app for iOS and Android.

Bookmark this

My brother Justin loves to send me links to the neat stuff he finds.

This week, it’s an AI image generator on the open-source platform huggingface.

It’s where data scientists, researchers and machine learning types converge to share ideas and test stuff out.

This image generator requires no login and it’s fast, free and easy.

I asked it to generate a picture of a cute cat wearing a suit holding a sign that says "read my newsletter" and here’s what it came up with.

Anyway, bookmark it for future reference!

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion-3.5-large-turbo

Dealspotter

If you’ve had your eye on a Pixel, now’s the time. The phone has gotten rave reviews and is apparently selling really well. I think it’s one of the best Androids of the year thanks to a combination of a great form factor, excellent camera and smart, clean software.

Google is offering 30% off to some users. To see if you’re one of them, open Google Play, then tap the points up at the top and look for a banner that contains the deal.

The deal is valid through December 2, 2024.

This Week’s Podcast Episode

In this week’s podcast, I go over what’s new with Apple’s Mac computers and interview “Cybersecurity Girl” Caitlin Sarian who shares tips on how to stay safe online. It’s worth a listen, but she shared a lot of the same principles I do: use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication. She also advocated for using a VPN to protect your privacy and making your social media profiles private if you’re not a public figure.

App of the Week

Leo wrote in to tell me about an app he uses to email himself. I mentioned on my radio show that I love these apps, especially “Email Me,” which is only avaialble on the iPhone.

Leo said that’s not true, he uses an app of the same name on Android.

Sure enough, I checked it out and while it shares the same name (and similar functionality), it’s not from the same developer.

But… Leo’s Email Me is good enough that I swapped it for my previous Android pick, which is called Email Yourself.

All of these apps do the same thing - instead of taking a note on your phone, you can email yourself so it shows up in your inbox to deal with later. You can also use these apps to send photos, links, and more to yourself.

BTW, Leo works with the excellent Laptop Elf Project, which refurbishes old computers and donates them to those in need.

Tech How-To Guide

Joanne writes in...

"My husband and I very much enjoy listening to you regularly and we always learn something new. You are the best! After a Russian hacker took over my social media accounts, I want to download all my 1,000 Instagram photos as backup. I need a trustworthy program to do this from my Windows 11 PC. There are many options online, but I need your expert advice to avoid any scams."

Joanne, I’m sure there are a million apps that promise to help you do this, but most of the major tech companies now have a feature called data portability or takeout.

This means they let you download all of the information they keep on you, including things you upload to the platform, in a few clicks.

It might take some time for them to compile the data if it’s a lot.

For Instagram, this is pretty straightforward and you can do it from the app on your phone.

The instructions are slightly different for desktop, iPhone and Android but here’s the general way:

Open Instagram. Tap your Profile tab. Then tap the three lines for the menu.

Next, tap Acounts Center and then Your information and permissions.

From here, hit Download your information and then “Download or transfer information.”

Choose the account you want to download your photos for and follow the steps. You can get a download link or have the data deposited directly into a cloud service like Google Drive or Dropbox.

If it’s just pictures you want, it’s under Content.

Here’s the Instagram help page with more details.
Here’s Google Takeout.
Here’s Microsoft’s page.

For other services, just search [service name + download data]

Tech Event Calendar

On Thursday, November 14, 2024, I’ll speak at the 10th Annual 10x10 Event presented by the Conejo/Las Virgenes Future Foundation. Come see me! RSVP here.

AI Update

I was listening to a podcast and they had an ad for a “Private and Uncensored AI” called Venice.AI. I hadn’t heard of it before, but I was intrigued.

Venice says that unlike other generative AI chatbots, they don’t see or save what you type in. Everything is stored locally on your device.

If you like privacy, check it out.

Venice.AI

Tech Humor

John writes in...

"I recently did a search for a 2.4GHz mouse/keyboard on Amazon. On my next login I was presented with 'inspired' results based on my recent searches. There's only one left! HA HA HA!"

I can’t believe you can still get one of these on Amazon. I remember upgrading my laptop back in the day with wireless internet thanks to this device. Better get it before it sells out!

Feedbag

Terie writes in...

"Hi Rich, Love watching you on TV & also on social media. Your sessions are very helpful.”

Thanks, Terie, much appreciated!

Support this Newsletter

I hope you find this weekly newsletter valuable. It’s completely free every week.

If you want to upgrade to a paid membership, you’ll support my time and effort in compiling this and get access to the archive on the website and my podcast ad-free.

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Subscribe & Follow!

Remember to tune into my radio show this weekend. In Los Angeles, it’s on KFI AM 640 on Saturday from 11 AM to 2 PM PT. You can listen anywhere by streaming on the iHeartRadio App or asking Alexa to “stream KFI AM 640” to listen instantly.

You can also listen later to the podcast.

Guests this week:

📱 Tech journalist Rob Pegoraro, who maintains Wirecutter's cell phone plan guide and contributes to PCMag and Fast Company, explains how to choose the right carrier and plan for your needs.

🤖 Dan Ackerman demonstrates how to create affordable AI video clones, exploring the technology's potential and implications.

That’s all for now. Have a great weekend.

Rich