CW 786 - David Pogue - POGUE'S BASICS, MONEY, The New York Times, PBS NOVA, Yahoo Technology, Webby Award Winner

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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 multimillionaire 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. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.

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 jasonhartman.com 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, no, we do have some great properties@jason hartman.com so go check them out. Well, supplies last because supplies are not, not really plentiful. That's the way it is in 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. You 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 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 binging it all the time. I try not to Google things because Google is Big Brother. And you know, if you don't know about Google and the stuff they do, Big Brother there just go. I believe it was aired maybe on my Creating wealth show on this show, but for sure it was aired on the holistic survival show many years ago where I 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 the 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, Federal 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 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 dang 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 celebritynetworth.com and the other ones out there that do this kind of 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 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 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 Megyn Kelly, well, she's hot. Well, I think she's pretty attractive. Anyway, little side note there. So we got Megyn 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 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, Megyn Kelly's 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, than 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 going to 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 amazed 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, as unfair as it is is, 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. Whoa, 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 too. Come on, Megan, you and Matt, you gotta come over and be our customer. Because I, 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 at 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, look, if I was making $28 million a year and I was doing that for 10, 15, 20 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. 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 heard 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. 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 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 got to be false because they got to be richer than that. That just, it 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 key please. And how that self management revolution and a la carte 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. And 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 tour 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 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's 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 Pogue's Basics Money, the third in the series. David, welcome. How are you?

Thank you so much. Very well, 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 Pogue's Basics in the three book series there.

Yeah, this all started out as a single book, just called Pogue's Basics, which has now been backwardly renamed Pogues Basics Tech. But basically 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 in the movies. Whereas actually, any button on the outside of the phone will silence the ringer in a pinch. 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 Pogue's Basics Life, which is Life Hacks, and the third one that just came out, this is Pogue's Basics Money. And that stems from the fact that I've just always, as part of my critic career for technology, I've always been a consumer advocate. That's always been part of the job and also part of my DNA. I mean, most teenagers probably read Mad magazine or Playboy. I read Consumer Reports. It's always been just a passion of mine. And so this. This is perfect.

Yeah, interesting. I love Consumer Reports too. It's a very credible company, at least in my opinion. So life hacks, that's interesting. But we gotta focus on money because our time is limited. And I'm gonna ask you about a couple things in the technology field as well. What are some of the areas where people are just screwing up with money?

You know, this book is very hard to categorize. The original, the publisher initially put a subtitle, something like, how to 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 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.

I'll admit to being one of those.

Yeah, me too. And having published this book, they come out of the woodwork and they're like, oh, you know what I like to do? And everybody's got these tips. And so this is what it is. 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 four biggest tire chains like Goodyear and Discount Tire and Town Fair 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 fixed when you can take it in and out of Goodwill. These guys will do that for free.

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.

Right, 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, sticking 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 3,000 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 7,500 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.

Yeah, yeah. 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 airfares versus, you know, $5,000. And it's just a weird. Like, I noticed that about myself. Why do I do that? It's like a. It's like an illness or something.

I have this. This is like the single dominant conversation that I have with my wife. It makes no sense.

I know. It's not just me.

CVS 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 in there and I just. I mean, and they sell all kinds of stu. Milk and cereal and, you know, and.

Hardware, trading 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. 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 that.

Exactly. 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. That's right.

But you bring up something super important though, that a big part of this money book is focus 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, in the book I point 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 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. People think they have a realistic frame of reference and everybody will buy the $18 because I'm not going to spend $80. That's obviously inflated, but I'm not a cheapskate either. I'm not going to pay. And just absolutely fascinating.

It really is. It really is. So tell us about some, I don't want to say deal, you know, non automotive, you know, maybe technology or cell phone plans or. 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 you know, what are some of the other great deals out there that we probably don't know about?

Sure. Well, technology related. Let's see. So the big one, and I live by this too, is when it comes time to buy a computer or a LAPT or a camera to buy refurbished. The term refurbished implies to 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 consumer's hands and then returned often, never even opened. I mean, they're spotless. They were bought and Then returned or shipped out and it was the wrong model and then returned. 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 as identical. The only difference is the price is 15% lower. So I just priced a MacBook Air. It's $1,200. But on the refurb page, the same exact model is $950. And that's, that's the only way to buy laptops.

Oh yeah, definitely. 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, a 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. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. Cell phones and Internet service as well. You can frequently just call and ask. So some of my readers said, well, I feel uncomfortable lying. I feel uncomfortable.

But the only problem is you're going to spend 45 minutes of your life on the phone with them. So that's true. We go back to that funny psychology we all have.

Exactly. But in this case, that's 45 minutes very well spent because you're saving $600 a year as a result. 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 or.

80 bucks to buy it forever.

Or 80 bucks you can buy it, own it forever. Exactly. There's no reason not to do this today. It's totally fine with the cable company. In fact, 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 it. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah, good. You also talk about some money making ideas, don't you? Not just, not just saving. I mean, you know, 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, he only got rich making money. Right?

That's 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 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. I'm not doing that. Yeah, so all of these things are things that don't involve spending, you know, doing a simple time for money swap. And a bunch of them are really cool Internet of, you know, sharing economy. Things like, I love dog vacay. This is a service.

Yeah, I use dog vacay and Rover.com all the time. Yeah, those are great. Love them.

Yeah, man, you're way ahead of me. How about you write the second edition?

Nah, I'll leave it to you.

But, yeah, 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, because for them, it's instead of putting it in a kennel, so.

Oh, well, I 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 a sharing economy. You know, you might have an extra room, you can rent out, 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.

It's so true. You know, the Ubers and the Airbnbs are just. Are changing so many lives.

Yeah, they definitely are. They definitely are.

And there's. There's some other, 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 she got $150 at Yale New Haven Hospital for participating in a study of adolescent girls, which involved 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 ClinicalTrials.gov and Centerwatch.com 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. 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.

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 you should also. People should also know that, you know, there are. You can sell your bodily substances and get decent money. People who. 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 each time. 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.

My ex girlfriend's brother, who is now a doctor, used to donate sperm through medical school. And that's how he paid a lot of his bills. Through medical school.

Exactly.

He has a lot of children. That's right.

He's a Vince Vaughn movie in the making.

There you go.

Remember that movie?

Yeah. Which one? Vince Vaughn's. Great.

Yeah. There's a movie where he set out to meet all the hundreds of children that have been born.

Yeah, 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 it's a huge raft of screenings and tests and injections. It's a big deal.

Yeah, yeah. Interesting, interesting stuff. So back to the. Those are. Talk about some creative ideas there, right? You need a down payment for another investment property. You know, two egg donations. You can buy a house.

There you go.

There you go. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. What about technology? I mean, that's your mainstay. 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 an Alexa for my birthday and. Or not an echo. I mean, I should say Alex 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 Bezos 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 ask it questions and it gives me answers to everything.

So amazing. And, you know, everybody in my business talks about the Internet of Things as the hot new thing. This is Iot. Yeah. This idiotic term for adding networkability to ordinary household goods.

My toothbrush is Internet connected.

Oh, my God, I'm going to be sick.

Isn't that amazing? I mean, I can track my brushing on my iPhone app.

It's completely absurd.

Yeah, well, I don't really do it very much, but it is there if I need it.

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 of front, front of me, I do have banging on my desk. This is an Internet of Things water bottle that I dearly love.

A water bottle.

Yeah, it tracks how much water I drink. And 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. And this one's really cool because if you haven't had a sip in a while, the bottle glows right there on your desk. Like, hey, don't forget about me. 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 app controllable coffee makers and robotic vacuum cleaners. It just doesn't. As you say, they're not really using the toothbrush data as they could be. But that's really the amazing story about the Amazon Echo that you got and that I also have is that it is kind of like the stealth Internet of Things hub. Like, no one ever conceived of 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 to turn on.

I know.

And any normal person would look at you like you're insane.

That's the thing. Philips Hue, Right? I have those, too.

Exactly.

I haven't. I haven't connected that with the Echo yet, but I've got them. And. 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. I miss the good old days.

But that, that is actually the point of Amazon is they figured out that Voice is the killer app for Internet of Things. So who on earth with those light bulbs? Well, I mean, I'm sure after we hang up today, you'll go do 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 2 degrees warmer. And, you know, Alexa, you know, record the TiVo. I mean, it's just a much better interface than any app.

Yeah. Very interesting. Very interesting. So what is your favorite thing? I mean, ces. I'm going to Cesar 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 the Internet of Things as a category, or are there some other incredible things out there we need to know about?

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 closed to the public. It is an opportunity for manufacturers, 3,000 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 it won't come out till next Christmas. But they unveil what's coming, what the bets they are making are going to be. And frequently it's laughable. I mean, for the last four years, it's been curved televisions. And just like, what? And for the four years before that, it was 3D televisions, which not a single person bought. So that's important to remember. 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 will be big advances in wearable medical tracking. Things 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 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 the Fitbit really motivational and, you know, Internet of things water bottle.

So not just the health tracker in your smartphone or the Apple Watch. You still prefer the Fitbit or has Apple Watch trumped that?

Yeah, I much prefer the Fitbit. I can't bring myself to embrace the Apple Watch just because 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 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 there will be a lot of those things. And 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.

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 recognition stuff is there yet. Whether it be Apple dictation, Siri, even Alexa. We were talking about Alexa. Same. You know, there's just a lot of mistakes in the voice recognition world.

Well, I mean, Siri is two different things. One is amazing and outstanding and everyone should be using it. And the other is flawed. And the outstanding one is the command and control of saying, set my alarm for 7:30. Boom. What time is the World Series broadcast tomorrow night? Boom. When did Abraham Lincoln die? Boom. That stuff, it's really, really, really good. And, and you know, today I reviewed the Apple AirPods for Yahoo Finance.

Oh yeah, I've been waiting for those.

Yeah, they just started shipping a couple years ago.

How are they?

They're rather amazing. 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, where Scarlett Johansson. It's just like that. You tap this thing with your finger and say, Siri, what is 17% tip on $64, whatever it is. And she just tells you directly into your brain, like right in your ear.

Yeah, right. Next thing, we'll have chips being planted. Of course.

That's right. And the other thing that Siri does is speech recognition for typing. And 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.

Sure, yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. Good stuff, David. Give out your website and tell people where they can find all your best work.

Sure. So my site is davidpogue.com and all the videos and articles I write for yahoo are@yahootech.com and on Twitter, I'm Ogue.

P O G U E Closing thoughts. And you know, maybe what's coming next from you? Another Pogue's basics.

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 and 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 futuristic novel, so that might be out at the end of next year or even later.

You've got to maybe share with our audience the secret of writing. You put out a bit little large volume of work. That's fantastic. And you know, publishing all that work is an amazing accomplishment. So congratulations on that. And what are you looking forward to in technology? Just as a quick. I mean, 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 I love to see is the way that new ideas 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.

Yeah, that's excellent. Yeah, a lot of great stuff coming from the crowdfunding sites. David Podcast Rogue thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you. This is so much fun.

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