At the start of this Creating Wealth episode, Jason Hartman looks at the income and net worth of the rich and famous. Afterward, he interviews David Pogue, founder of Yahoo Tech, a technology columnist and correspondent for Scientific American and CBS Sunday News morning. They talk about David’s Pogue book series, the psychology of money, the sharing economy, and his latest book, Pogue’s Basics: Money.
Announcer 0:00
This show is produced by the Hartman media company. For more information and links to all our great podcasts, visit Hartman media.com.
Announcer 0:12
Welcome to the creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You’re about to learn a new slant on investing some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world’s most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine self made multi millionaire who’s actually been there and done it. He’s a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who’s owned properties in 11 states had hundreds of tenants and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason’s footsteps on the road to your financial independence day. You really can do it on now. here’s your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution. Real estate investors.
Jason Hartman 1:03
Welcome to the creating wealth Show Episode Number 786 786. Thank you so much for joining me. This is Jason Hartman and welcome listeners from 164 countries worldwide. We’re glad to have you here. Be sure to visit Jason Hartman comm check out all of our great properties there. Well, the few of them that we have, because inventory is scarce, but that’s another subject. But anyway, you know, we do have some great properties at Jason Hartman calm so go check them out. Well, supplies last because supplies are not not really plentiful. That’s the way it is and the market we’re in. So I want to talk to you about my little morbid fascinations lately. Yes. I get really personal on the show ready for this one. I know this may be kind of cheesy what I’m about to tell you. And you may think well, this is really shallow. Yes. It is a little shallow I’ll admit it. I’m human. I’m flawed just like everybody else. Here you go, you’re ready for this one. I have had this little fascination for the last few months. When I’m watching a movie or a television show or a thought comes across my mind about some famous person, I’m reading an article. And I think you know what, I wonder what their net worth is. Yeah, that’s my little. My little morbid curiosity lately. And so I’ve just been bringing it all the time. No, I try not to Google things because Google was big brother. And you know, if you don’t know about Google and stuff they do big brother there. Just go I believe it was aired maybe on my creating wealth show on this show, but it for sure it was aired on the holistic survival show many years ago, were interviewed the author of a great book called Search and Destroy About the little antics of Google of our big brother there, Google. Yeah, I Bing things using the Bing search engine. And when I’m watching TV or a movie or whatever, I look up someone’s net worth, because I just get curious about this, you know, I’m in the investing business. I try to teach people how to increase their net worth, how to have a better life, how how to have financial abundance. That’s what we do here. Right? We do that through the most historically proven asset class in the world income property, income, real estate. And that’s what we do. So I’ve been really curious about this stuff, and it blows my mind. I mean, this really blows my mind. Are you prepared to have your mind blown? I hope you are. Because I’m going to give you a couple examples here. First, let’s talk about our Federal Reserve chairs. By the way, I do have to mention something. I recorded this entire intro. Well, actually, I didn’t record it. But I sat here in my office. And I was saying all of this stuff a few minutes ago and realized that I didn’t turn on that tape. Can you believe it? I did not turn on the record button. I didn’t hit record and I was saying all this, and I thought I did a great job. Only the dog heard that last intro. So this is my second second attempt here, which I don’t know if it’ll be better or worse. We shall see we shall see. Okay, so yes, amazing examples, fed chairs, federally reserve chairs. Now, these people, the most powerful people in the world of money, the most powerful people on planet earth in the world of money. The Federal Reserve Chair, the chairman or chairperson, I should I’d say because now we have a chairwoman of the largest central bank, the planet the human race has ever known. Alan Greenspan, the longest serving Fed chair. You know what his net worth is? Now granted, these sites could be way off. I don’t know, if my net worth were listed on one of them. I have no idea how they would know because I don’t even know my net worth. So I’ve always been amazed that like the Forbes 400 richest people in america, how can they calculate this stuff? How would they know anybody’s net worth? It’s so complicated, but whatever net worth, what is net worth, we all know it is all of one’s assets, minus their liabilities. The number we get after subtracting liabilities from assets is a person’s net worth. Alan Greenspan, according to websites like celebrity net worth com and the other ones out there, they do this kind Stuff shockingly low. I’m surprised I’m surprised. Are you ready for this? Just a measly a tiny 10 million bucks. Alan Greenspan. I mean, he’s a pretty big time dude in the world of money. Only $10 million. You ready to be shocked even more? Ben Bernanke, his successor, Federal Reserve Chair for several years under Obama mostly, but, you know, I think he straddled it a little bit under bush. Yeah, he did. $3 million, only $3 million. Janet Yellen, supposedly the richest incoming Fed chair, only only $13 million. Now, this leads me to believe that these websites really are not accurate at all. Because how could the person controlling The entire banking system of the country and almost really the planet, frankly, in one way or another, be worth so little. I mean, aren’t they in with the Rothschild family? And you know the zillionaires? Right? Yeah, I don’t know. It’s kind of blows my mind, actually. But here’s here are two that really amazed me. Let me take two anchors, you know, news anchors, one from the right one from the left, and one that just got hired away from fox news to go work for NBC. That’s Megyn Kelly, we had her husband on the show her husband, Doug, was on the show. He wrote a great book called the ghosts of Manhattan. And he was a really good interview. And megan kelly, well, she’s hot. Well, I think she’s pretty attractive. Anyway, a little side note there. So we got megan kelly, and you’re going to be blown away by this example. Because when she was at Fox, according to these websites, her salary was 7 million. dollars a year. Now granted, she hasn’t been doing it that long. Her rise to fame was fairly recent. But now I’m going to give you an example from the left side of the political aisle. And this one really amazes me. Matt Lauer, Matt Lauer, we got the conservative Megyn Kelly, the liberal Matt Lauer. And these two both amaze me because I can’t believe how frankly how low their net worth is in comparison to their income in comparison to their salary. Okay, megan kelly, 7 million a year net worth, you know, granted, these sites could be way off, but from what I could deduce her net worth $15 million, slightly more than double her annual salary. Now, that I think is terrible, because one’s net worth should be dramatically more I would hope, then double their annual salary But I’m gonna give Megyn Kelly a bit of a pass because she hasn’t been making that kind of money for very long. Now, NBC that just hired her away is, I guess they’re changing their programming, because the liberal programming hasn’t worked out so well for them. So they’re going to become more conservative. So they wanted they hired Megyn Kelly right. And, you know, they’re gonna staff up with more conservative people. And we’ll see how they do you know, I don’t know. Then you look at Matt Lauer, and this one really amazed me and here’s the reason it amaze me. This, this is a lesson in investing and how important it is how much more important it is to invest your money properly than to make a lot of money at your day job, because of course your day job is taxed at the highest rate. Right. That’s the first problem. That money is unfair as it is. His has got the worst tax treatment of all the income you make. From your day job, Matt Lauer. I was shocked. I was startled. I was amazed. I thought, hey, Matt, you’re doing pretty well. When I got these numbers, Matt Lauer makes 28 million bucks a year. Oh, Matt, you’re making some some money. That’s, that’s pretty awesome. 28 million bucks a year Matt Lauer makes, and here’s the most appalling thing. He’s been making that kind of money for a long, long, long time. By the way, our guest today is David Pogue. We’ll have him here in a few minutes, and Matt Lauer’s net worth shockingly low. I couldn’t believe it. Now, granted, these could be inaccurate, but it’s what these websites like celebrity net worth, say. Matt Lauer’s net worth you ready for this only only $60 million Just slightly more than double his annual salary. And Matt Lauer has been in the limelight making the big bucks for decades. I don’t know, did he invest all his money with Bernie Madoff and lose a bunch of it? Or what? That is shocking. I mean, listen, Matt, we may have some political disagreements, you and I, but I want to offer you my services. Because you need help investing. I mean, we can help you with this. We got the most historically proven asset class in the world income property. And I mean, Megan, you to come on, Megan, you and Matt. You got to come over and be our customer. Because I’m just amazed. Now granted, these people are in the big leagues, and I’m sure they have money tucked away in all kinds of places, right? Maybe offshore, who knows, you know, but look, it just according to these websites, that’s what they say. I’m not saying they’re accurate, but for whatever it’s worth. It was shocking to me. I mean, If I was making $28 million a year, and I was doing that for 10 1520 years, I mean, Matt Lauer has been around a long time. Okay, he’s, he’s a, he’s a big deal. And if I was making that money for that kind of time, I mean, I would be really bummed out. If I had not figured out a way to have a net worth of at least 100 200, maybe $300 million. I mean, you can’t spend $28 million a year very easily. That’s blows my mind. That just blew my mind. You know, what else is amazing? Lindsay Lohan. Her father was actually scheduled to be on the show because he wrote a book about, you know, getting your life together and so forth. And Lindsay needs some help with that. Right, as we’ve heard in the news, but you know, Lindsay Lohan her net worth, only you ready for this? Only $500,000 that that really is sad. You know, we’ve The stories of like these NFL, you know, these football players, making fortunes and declaring bankruptcy years later, just a few years after retiring from the NFL, these celebrities, these sports celebrities and TV and movies, so it’s just mind boggling. It really is. It really is mind boggling. Well, on the next episode, I do want to talk to you about some RV ratios around the world because I think you’ll find this very interesting when we talk about the world’s least affordable cities. And why how land use ties into that how appreciation ties into that, how rent to value ratios tie into that, and that’s going to be interesting, but I just wanted to tell you about my little fascination here with looking up net worth of famous people lately, so you might get curious about it yourself. And you know, just when you’re watching a movie, you know, just grab your little smartphone and type in john doe actor net worth and then try and find what they’re making from their salary. Okay? I mean movie actors don’t make salaries, they get paid per movie, obviously, but but news anchors and professional athletes, those are easier to quantify. And it is it just blew my mind that they’re not worth more money than that our Federal Reserve chairs now that one’s gotta be false because they gotta be richer than that. That’s just, it’s just really amazed me. So David Pogue is here today. And you might be thinking David Pogue, Isn’t he the tech guy? Isn’t he the one you know, that writes all those great tech articles for the New York Times and all this kind of stuff? What’s he got to do with money? Well, he’s out with a new book on money. Yeah, Pogue is talking about money nowadays and some interesting little money saving tips. So let’s get with him. I hope you enjoyed that last episode, where we talked about self management of your properties with with key please and how that self management revenue And Allah cart property management revolution is upon us. And then the prior episode where we talk about packaged commodities investing on a flashback Friday, really important that you listen to that one in the free lunch metric that really was one of my favorite episodes that I recorded years ago with one of our clients, so make sure you get that one that case study. That was Episode 784. Don’t miss that one. So look back. That was a couple episodes ago. So anyway, let’s get to David Pogue, be sure to check out Jason hartman.com. Take a look at the properties there. And we will be announcing a property to her in the near future here. So stay tuned for that. And let’s go to our guest, David Pogue. It’s my pleasure to welcome David Pogue. He is founder of Yahoo tech. He’s the technology columnist and correspondent for Scientific American and see CBS News Sunday morning and former tech columnist for The New York Times that may be the most familiar work of his that you know, he’s host of PBS is Nova four time Emmy Award winner two time Webby Award winner, and Loeb award recipient. He’s author of several books, including the new book. And by the way, I did not know until recently he was into this topic. And his new book is pugs basics. Money, the third in the series. David, welcome. How are you?
David Pogue 16:27
Thank you so much very well.
Jason Hartman 16:28
Yeah, it’s good to have you. So I have just Of course been delighted and tickled with your work and your funny videos over the years, as you’re demonstrating various technology and so forth. What got you into money? Tell us about pugs basics and the three book series there.
David Pogue 16:45
Yeah, this this all started out as a as a single book just called pugs basics, which has now been backwardly renamed pugs, basics tech, but basically it was it’s all these little things that I observe that people don’t know about their technologies. I mean, there’s no there’s no driver’s license, right? There’s no crash course when you get a phone, you’re just supposed to pick this stuff up by osmosis. So I noticed that, you know, people didn’t realize that they could just squeeze the edges of their phone to silence it when it starts ringing at a bad time, like people would try to tap decline, you know, pull it out of their pocket and tap decline on the screen and embarrass themselves in church or movies. Whereas actually, any button on the outside of the phone will silence the ringer in a pinch just just little things like that, that you think everybody knows, but turns out they don’t. So, put those together in that book, and then follow that up the next year with a sequel called pugs basics life, which is life hacks. And the third one that just came out of this is bugs, basics money. And that that stems from the fact that I’ve just always as part of my critic career for technology, I’ve always He’s been a consumer advocate, I’ve that’s always been part of the job. And also part of my DNA. I mean, I, most most teenagers probably, you know, read Mad Magazine or playboy. I read Consumer Reports. It’s always been just a passion of mine. And so this this, this is perfect.
Jason Hartman 18:20
Yeah, interesting. I love Consumer Reports to this very credible company, at least in my opinion. So life hacks, that’s interesting, but we got to focus on money because our time is limited. And I’m going to ask you about a couple things in the technology field as well. What are some of the areas where people are just just screwing up with with money?
David Pogue 18:40
You know, this, this book is very hard to categorize the original the publisher, or initially put a subtitle, something like, you know, gotta get a hold of your personal finances and it’s really not that it’s not about getting out of credit card debt or how to invest or How to do your taxes. It’s it’s really not like quite anything I’ve seen before and this is why it’s difficult for people to categorize. There’s this tribe Jason there’s this tribe of people who just get a high from beating the system from getting a deal. You
Jason Hartman 19:18
all admit to being one of those.
David Pogue 19:21
Me too. And having published this book I they come out of the woodwork and they’re like, Oh, you know what I like to do. Everybody’s got these tips. And so this is what it is it’s it’s travel and restaurants and clothing and entertainment and technology just all the ways. I guess the best way is just to fire off some examples like you know, the the four biggest tire chains like Goodyear and Discount Tire in town for tire, they all will change and repair a flat for you for free. They just don’t publish it. They publicize that but you should know there’s no reason to pay 30 bucks to get a flat fix when You can take it in and out of goodwill, these guys will do that for free.
Jason Hartman 20:03
Well, you know, they want to upsell you, though they’ll patch a tire for you, but they hope that you’re going to end up buying some tires,
David Pogue 20:10
right? Who did right? Or Yeah, when the time comes that you need tires, they hope they will that you will remember the kindness they did for you. Right? Or, you know, sitting on the automotive theme here. The sticker that they put on your windshield to remind you when to get your oil change next, says to do so after 3000 miles. And that’s been true since you know, your father’s time. But in fact, that hasn’t been true for many years. That actually if you look at the owner’s manual for your car, which really should be the authority, they will tell you you need to change the oil, maybe 7500 or even 10,000 miles. So basically America is changing its oil three times too often. Based on this marketing scam, which is the sticker
Jason Hartman 20:59
Yeah, you know Interesting. Okay, so tell us about non automotive stuff and you know what, I just got a comment on your your original thing about how humans just love getting a deal. And you know, it’s such a funny part of human behavior. It’s like this weird quirk in our psychology. And I’ll just share my own example. You know, I have several businesses of my own, some of them are quite successful and I could save $70 spending an hour researching airfare versus, you know, $5,000 in my business and it’s just a weird like, I noticed that about myself. Why do I do that? It’s like a it’s like the illness or something.
David Pogue 21:38
I have this this is like the single dominant conversation that I have with my wife makes no
Jason Hartman 21:43
sense me.
David Pogue 21:46
by CBS has this thing where if you sign up for their email newsletters, they’ll send you every other month, a coupon good for two days for 30% off everything at CVS. And I just go They’re and I just, I mean, and they sell all kinds of stuff, milk and cereal and, you know, and hardware writing cards, everything. Yeah, yeah. And I’ll come home with this receipt and I’ll be like, Look, I bought $148 worth of stuff. And I paid $97. And she just, she just stares at me like, I’m out of my gourd. I mean, writing one article, or one chapter for one book will greatly out earn exactly
Jason Hartman 22:26
and, and in the meantime, she says, and a new publisher called and they want you to publish a new book and you’re not going to return their call because you’re at CVS.
David Pogue 22:40
But you bring up something super important, though, that a big part of this money book is focused on the psychology of money, which is just as you know, an unbelievably fascinating area. We are wildly irrational people when it comes to money. You know who Dan Ariely is? Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. So his his Behavioral Economic Studies are just incredible. He does these studies that show that our brain just goes off the rails when the word free is involved. Suddenly all sense of value is just gone. And, you know, the in the in the book I pointed out that we as consumers are helpless without a frame of reference. So, you know, if I’m a wine store, and I want to push an $18 bottle of wine, that that really is only a $10 bottle of wine, but I want to push it. What I’ll do is I’ll put it on the shelf between an $8 bottle of wine and an $80 bottle of wine, right? People think they have a realistic frame of reference and everybody will buy the $18 because not gonna spend 80 that’s obviously inflated, but I’m not a cheapskate either. I’m not gonna pay it and just absolutely fascinating.
Jason Hartman 23:49
It really is. It really is. So tell us about some. I don’t want to say deals but I guess they are deals really, you know, not non automotive, you know, maybe technology or cell phones. Plans are I mean, I can believe it. I just switched from at&t a terrible company in my opinion, maybe they’re one of your sponsors, you might like them to T Mobile, and I’m pretty excited. I now have two phones for less than the price of one, you know, unlimited everything. But what you know, what are some of the other great deals out there that we probably don’t know about?
David Pogue 24:20
Sure. Well, technology related let’s see. So So the big one and I live by this too is when it comes time to buy a computer or a laptop, or a camera to buy refurbished the term refurbished implies the most people you know, broken and then repaired. But that isn’t what it means legally when Apple lists computers on its refurbished page. These are brand new machines that were at one point in a consumers hands and then returned often never even opened. I mean, there’s they’re spotless they were bought and then returned or shipped out. And it was the wrong model and then return so they had they can’t sell them as new. So they’ve been inspected again, they’ve been inspected more than a new one. And the warranty is as identical. The only difference is the price is 15%. Lower. So I just priced a MacBook Air, it’s 1200 dollars. But on the refurb page, the same exact model is 950. And that’s, that’s the only way to buy laptops.
Jason Hartman 25:19
Oh, yeah, definitely,
David Pogue 25:20
definitely. Okay. So I don’t, it’s probably no surprise to your listeners that you can call your cable company and say you want to cut the cord. Say, I’m going to go all internet and they immediately hand you off to a specialist or retention specialist whose job it is to talk you out of it. By giving you a huge discount on the spot. They’ll shave 40 or $50 off your monthly bill just for the asking. That one’s not a great secret. But there are a couple other things you can do. Some people same applies to cell phones. Yes, exactly. Cell phones and internet service as well. You can frequently just call and ask Ask. So some of my readers said, Well, I feel uncomfortable lying.
Jason Hartman 26:04
I feel like the only problem is you’re going to spend 45 minutes of your life on the phone with him. So that’s true. We go back to that funny psychology we don’t know.
David Pogue 26:14
Exactly. But in this case, that’s 45 minutes very well spent because you’re saving $600 a year as a result. So the so you can also if you feel uncomfortable lying about I intend to cut the cord, you can frequently just say, Look, everyone else you’re giving these deals to I’ve been a customer for a long time, how about cutting my bill, and frequently they will just for the asking. Another huge tech tip is you are probably renting your cable box and your cable modem. seven bucks per box per TV,
Jason Hartman 26:50
or 80 bucks to buy it forever.
David Pogue 26:53
or eight bucks. You can buy it own it forever. Exactly. There’s no reason not to do this today. It’s totally Find with the cable company. In fact, they will. They will walk you through it tech support will help you set it up. You should not be renting your box return the rental box and buy it and own. Exactly.
Jason Hartman 27:10
Yeah, yeah. Good. You also talk about some money making ideas, don’t you not just not just saving? I mean, you don’t one of the things I like to say even though it goes contrary to the quirky psychology I have and so many others do. But nobody ever got rich saving money. You know? You only got rich making money, right? That’s
David Pogue 27:27
right. That’s right. Well, one of the challenges with this book is I really didn’t want to get into swaps of time for money. In other words, I, I pitched to my Twitter followers, this book and said, Hey, if you have any great money tips, I’ll send you a free autographed copy. If I use your tip, and a lot of people send in things like did you know you can make your own soap at home? I’m like, Oh my God. That’s ridiculous at doing that, yeah. So all of these things are things that don’t involve spending. You know, doing a simple time for money swapping a bunch of them are really cool. Internet of, you know, sharing economy things like I love dog vaycay This is a service I use
Jason Hartman 28:13
dog vaycay and rover dog Really? Yeah, that’s great. I love them. Yeah,
David Pogue 28:17
man, you’re way ahead of me. How about you? Right? The second edition?
Jason Hartman 28:22
I’ll leave it to you.
David Pogue 28:24
But yeah, it’s it’s a it’s a service where you can offer to host people’s dogs while they’re out of town. And they’re paying you 40 or 50 bucks a day for having a dog to play with. I mean, biggest for them. It’s instead of putting it in a kennel so Oh, well, I
Jason Hartman 28:38
was talking about it from the other angle for my dog, not sitting other people’s dogs. But you know, it’s really great. I mean, there’s no reason to be unemployed anymore. With the sharing economy. You know, you might have an extra room you can run out you can. You can host some dogs. You can drive for Lyft or Uber. There’s so many things we can do nowadays. I just don’t know why. Anyone would be unemployed anymore.
David Pogue 29:02
It’s so true. You know, the Ubers and Airbnb ease are just are changing so many lives, you know,
Jason Hartman 29:08
they definitely aren’t, they definitely are.
David Pogue 29:11
And there’s their salary, maybe lesser known ways you can make a quick buck, my teenage daughter signed up for a medical study. And there’s not quite the same thing as a medical trial where they put you on a drug and see what happens to you, although you do make a ton of money from those, but but she got $150 at Yale New Haven Hospital for participating in a study of adolescent girls, which involves filling out a questionnaire and getting a blood draw. And for that she made 150 bucks as a teenager that’s, that’s decent. So there are in fact, websites like clinical trials.gov and center watch calm that compile all the local studies being run in your neighborhood, on a typical day They’re listing 90,000 studies across the country. Wow,
Jason Hartman 30:04
wow. And some of those can be pretty interesting. I mean, you know, you can learn some stuff, you might be interested in the topic area, assuming that you don’t have to take a drug and die or get some terrible side effects.
David Pogue 30:14
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And, you know, in your own small way, you’re helping people, you’re helping the world. So it’s a fantastic way to do to do things and, and you should also people should also know that, you know, there are you can sell your bodily substances and get, get decent money, people who, you people donate blood for free. But if you’re willing to donate plasma, which is in desperate demand in emergency rooms and hospitals, they ask you to come in every week, it’s about an hour, an hour, each time they you get to watch a movie while they’re drawing it. And it’s like 320 bucks a month. I mean, it’s like a decent, decent paying hobby. And you can also donate sperm Of course they pay you between 50 and $200 per visit.
Jason Hartman 31:00
My ex girlfriend’s brother who is now a doctor used to donate sperm through medical school and that’s how we paid a lot of his bills through medical school. He has a lot of children
David Pogue 31:13
he’s a Vince Vaughn movie in the wake in the making. There you go. Remember that movie?
Jason Hartman 31:19
Yeah, which one events runs great.
David Pogue 31:21
Yeah, he there’s a movie where he set out to meet all the hundreds of children that it was. Yeah. But you can donate your hair. If you have long beautiful hair you can sell that you can sell if you’re a woman, you can donate your you can sell your breast milk or if you’re really willing to go through something intrusive, but make a lot of money. You can sell your eggs $12,000 is typical. But you know, it’s it’s a huge raft of screenings and tests and injections. It’s a big, it’s a big deal.
Jason Hartman 31:55
Yeah, interesting, interesting stuff. So back to the site, though. Talk about some creative ideas there, right? You need to you need a downpayment for another investment property, you know, to egg donations you can buy.
David Pogue 32:10
There you go.
Jason Hartman 32:11
There you go. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What about technology? I mean, that’s your main stay. What’s the hottest thing in tech technology can improve our lives in so many ways, it can make us so efficient. There’s just so much to it. And, you know, one of the things I always say, David, it’s an amazing time to be alive. I’m just constantly amazed. I resisted it for so long, but my mom bought me and Alexa, for my birthday, and that we’re not an echo. I mean, I should say, Alexa is the chick’s name on there. Right. And, you know, I resisted it because I didn’t want a microphone in my house where the NSA was listening and Jeff beezus was listening. But anyway, I’ve got it now. And so Jeff and the NSA are enjoying every sound in my house, probably. But you know, it’s amazing what that thing can do. You know, I just asked questions. It gives me answers to everything
David Pogue 33:02
so amazing. And you know, everybody in my business talks about the Internet of Things is the hot new thing. This is IoT. Yeah, this idiotic term for adding network ability to ordinary household goods.
Jason Hartman 33:15
My toothbrushes internet connected oh my god I’m gonna be saying that amazing. I mean I can track my brushing on my iPhone app. It’s completely absurd. Well, I don’t really do it very very much but it is there if I need it.
David Pogue 33:27
I actually have that toothbrush and I actually don’t use it either the Internet of Things part of it. But I do have in front of me I do have banging on my desk. This is an Internet of Things water bottle that I dearly love it. Water bottle. Yeah, it tracks how much water I drink and I’m I’m really trying to make an effort to be a hydrated person. As a kidney stone guy, I have to do that. But it tracks how much water you drink. It communicates that with your Fitbit app fills in the water slot automatically. This one’s really cool because if you haven’t had a sip in a while the bottle glows right on your desk like Hey, don’t forget about me it’s it really works. But what I was gonna say is most of this stuff is more or less bombing right? consumers are generally not buying, you know, app controllable coffee makers and robotic vacuum cleaners. They’re just it just doesn’t you know, as you say, they’re not really using the toothbrush data as they could be. But that but that’s really the amazing story about the Amazon echo that you got. And then I also have is that it is kind of like the stealth Internet of Things have like no one ever seem to have it that way. The stupid thing about Internet of Things is that every time I want to turn on my lights, I have to unlock my phone, find an app, open it and hit on. I know in any normal person would look at you like you’re insane.
Jason Hartman 34:55
That’s the Philips Hue right. I have those two. I haven’t got Haven’t got connected that with the echo yet, but I’ve got them in. But I use the apple homekit app. So you know, on the app, I mean, it’s it’s we are so oppressed nowadays that we have to open an app to turn our lights on. It used to be just flicking a switch. It was so much easier in the old days.
David Pogue 35:15
The good old days, but but that that is actually the point of Amazon is they figured out that voice is the killer app for Internet of Things. So is Google on earth with those light bulbs? Well, I mean, I’m sure after we hang up today, you’ll get this but you can say, Alexa, turn on the living room lights, and she will I mean, that’s much that’s even better than going to flick the light switch because you don’t have to move your butt. You can say Alexa, make it two degrees warmer. And you know, Alexa, you know, record the TiVo. I mean, it’s just a much better interface than any app.
Jason Hartman 35:50
Yeah. Very interesting. Very interesting. So what is your favorite thing? I mean, CES is I’m going to CES for the first time here. A client of mine got me tickets. And I’m excited about that. But I’m sure it’s going to be just this dizzying array of products. That’s the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. every January, what’s sort of the hottest thing? Is it? Is it the Internet of Things is a category or, you know, are there some other incredible things out there we need to know about,
David Pogue 36:18
I mean, the important thing to know about CES and you will, your brain will be so fried. The important thing is that this is close to the public. It is an opportunity for manufacturers, 3000 manufacturers, to show industry buyers and press what they’re working on and some of it will never see the light of day. Some of them won’t come out till next Christmas, but they unveil what’s coming with the bets they’re making are going to be and frequently it’s laughable. I mean, for the last four years, it’s been you know, curves, televisions and just like what and for the four years before that it was 3d television. Which not a single person bought. So, so that’s important to remember. But But yes, what they will be pushing this year are more of the following. There will be many more home automation and internet of things things. There’ll be big advances in wearable medical tracking things like like the Fitbit is only the beginning of it. There’s posture trackers and sunlight exposure trackers and noise level monitors and all of these things which I actually think is fairly significant. what’s what’s going on inside your body has been basically a secret since the beginning of man it’s invisible to us until these devices came along. And I find that really motivational and you know, Internet of Things water bottle, like so. So not not just the health tracker in your smartphone or the Apple Watch. You still prefer the Fitbit or has Apple Watch Trump that. Yeah, I’d much prefer the fit, but I can’t I can’t bring myself Embrace the Apple Watch just because the taking it off to charge every night. First of all, it’s a total pain. Second of all, it means it can’t track your sleep, because it’s on the bedside table. Third of all, you know, you get up to pee in the middle of the night. You can’t look at your watch. It’s just it doesn’t work for me. But the Fitbit does all that rather beautifully. So the Fitbit is my smartwatch basically. So so there will be a lot of those things. And you know, audio is huge car technology will be huge. It’s more Oh, and then of course voice control will be mega huge, because now Google has their own version of Amazon Echo. And Microsoft is working on one and Apple is said to be working on one. So this idea of Siri for the home is going to be really big in the new year.
Jason Hartman 38:50
What do you think of? I mean, I turn Siri off I find it so frustrating. And you know, some people love it. I guess I just don’t think it’s there yet. I don’t think any of this voice or ignition stuff is there yet whether it be Apple dictation Siri or even Alexa we were talking about Alexa same you know, there’s just a lot of mistakes in the voice recognition world
David Pogue 39:10
well, I mean Siri is is two different things and you know one is amazing and outstanding and everyone should be using it and the other is flawed. And the outstanding one is the is the command and control is saying set my alarm for 730 boom. You know, you know what time is a World Series broadcast tomorrow night boom. You know, when did Abraham Lincoln die boom, that that stuff? It’s really really really good. And, you know, today I reviewed the apple EarPods for for Yahoo Finance. Oh, yeah, I’ve been waiting for Yeah, they just just started shipping a couple years ago, are they they’re rather amazing. They’re they’re truly like one of Apple’s better efforts in a long, long time. And one of the most amazing things about it is that it is Siri in your ear. Just like in that movie. Her you know work Scarlett Johansson. It’s just Like that you tap this thing with your finger. And, you know, say, Siri, you know, you know what, what is 17% tip on $64 you know, whatever it is. And she just she just tells you directly into your brain like right in your ear. They’re right.
Jason Hartman 40:16
Next next thing we’ll have chips been planted, of course.
David Pogue 40:20
That’s right. And the other thing that Siri does is speech recognition for typing. And that’s, that’s really a very different thing that that must be what you’re talking about. I mean, even Even so, I always use that for sending texts. I just find it so much faster, even if I have to make a couple of corrections. But, you know, I understand that it’s not for everybody, but it’s I find that with practice, it’s just infinitely faster than trying to tap on glass.
Jason Hartman 40:46
Sure. Yeah. Yeah, very interesting. Good stuff. David. give out your website and tell people where they can find all your best work.
David Pogue 40:53
Sure. So my site is David Pogue, calm and all this all the videos and articles I write for you. Who are at Yahoo tech comm
David Pogue 41:03
and on Twitter, I’m at Pogue, p o g up
Jason Hartman 41:07
closing thoughts and you know, maybe what’s coming next from you another pugs basics.
David Pogue 41:12
Actually my next big Well, I’m just putting the finishing touches on my annual update to iPhone, the missing manual, which is my book about the latest iOS and Mac OS, Sierra, my other book just came out. So I’m going to be working on the new windows 10 book in the spring when that comes out. And I’m also working on a on a futuristic novel. So that that might be out at the end, end of next year or even later.
Jason Hartman 41:41
You’ve got to maybe share with our audience the secret of writing you you put out a large volume of work, that’s fantastic and,
David Pogue 41:49
you know, give you publishing all that work is an amazing accomplishment. So congratulations on that and what are you looking forward to in technology just in is a quick. I mean, I mean, you know, we talked about some of the stuff that’s out, but is there anything around the corner that we should be on the lookout for? I mean, generally the one consistent thing that that I love to see is the way that new ideas are have a shorter path to reaching the marketplace thanks to things like 3d printing and Kickstarter. Now, great technology ideas are coming faster than ever. And some of them are becoming real hits because the middlemen have been removed. And I think that’s only going to increase in the new year.
Jason Hartman 42:34
Yes, that’s excellent. Yeah, a lot of great stuff coming from the crowdfunding sites. DAVID POGUE, thank you so much for joining us.
David Pogue 42:40
Thank you. This is so much fun.
Jason Hartman 42:43
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