@WakeUpCall – ‘Wired Wednesday’ with Rich DeMuro

Joining us to explain what's worth your time and what is just high biscay Ifvice Tech guy Richard Muro from rich on Tech, good morning.

Hey, good morning to you, Heather. Thanks for that great intro.

Oh you're welcome. It's so nice to talk with you. This is one of my favorite segments.

I love you.

Yeah, let's talk about Windows. They just got a lot smarter with AI. So how exactly does this new feature work and could it change how we interact with our devices?

Yeah, I think it's actually quite interesting. Windows has been going through a major evolution. Obviously, Microsoft one of the biggest investors in open AI, so they've been building a lot of the AI features into Windows software through Copilot, which is, you know, their sort of version of CHATCHYBT.

And so you know, things have been changing.

But one of the things that they're adding I thought was really cool is this idea of AI to change the settings on your computer. How many times have you looked at your mouse and you're like, I wish that mouse cursor was bigger, or I wish that my screen would turn off after four minutes and not one minute, or I want my screen, you know, my keyboard, you know, I want a different a German keyboard, whatever. Now you can literally just go into the settings and ask for

Do it for you. That's a big shift in how we work with our computers.

Ooh, that sounds fun. I mean definitely the mouse size sometimes, especially here when we're kind of following our stories, it's like where where's my cursor?

Where to it go?

Plus I'm getting old, so it's hard for me to see things, so that would be allo.

I find.

I find sometimes you know, making the zoom a little bit better is a little bit bigger is better. But the other thing is that you know, you may find settings that you didn't even know you could do, Like maybe you just didn't even Hey, where's my emoji keyboard?

You know, and it brings that up.

So it's like it's just the idea of Like, to me, AI is really opening up this idea of natural language computing, Like we just ask what we want to do and it helps us do that.

And I think we're going to see that with all of our devices over time. I love that all.

Right, So Amazon is finally letting users make in app purchases on iPhones. And to be honest, I thought we could already do that, is what am I missing here? I thought, when I go on my Amazon, I can make app purchases.

Okay, well, this is a this is a big shift in the way that Apple does business because we had a court say, hey, you have to let consumers and developers, you know, lead consumers to third party payment methods on the iPhone. So right now, on the iPhone, basically, if you make any sort of purchase, you know, and I'm not talking the Amazon app where you're making like a purchase of something that you're shipping to your house. I'm talking the Kindle app specifically.

Oh okay, you couldn't.

You couldn't buy an ebook from the Kindle app for many years because Amazon would have to give a thirty percent cut to Apple for all those ebooks. And of course they're not going to do that because that's just a lot of money they're going to waste. And so now with this court ruling that says you have to offer alternative payment links and ioa apps, all these major developers have been updating their apps to be easier where you can subscribe. Now in the app, you can get

The App Store.

And we're seeing Spotify update their app, We're seeing Patreon update their app. Pretty much every major app maker is getting on board because it saves them about thirty percent off the top.

Okay, well that's going to be really handy. That's going to be really helpful. Okay, let's talk about Samsung. Their new tap to transfer payment features sounds a little too easy, but is this sort of the future of peer to peer payments.

I just thought this was super cool because you know the idea that you you know right now when you like the other day I had to pay someone.

I was like, do you have Venmo? And he's like sure, He's like, I'd rather use zell.

I'm like, okay, well I don't really want to use Zel, can we use Venmo? And then he has to transfer the money to his bank account. So it's like this whole thing. Whenever it comes to paying someone, you have to figure out like which payment app do they use?

Right?

Well, Samsung is now letting you literally tap someone's debit card right to your phone, so you can just tap their card to your phone and transfer the money. So if you're like, hey, you know you owe me thirty bucks for dinner, I don't, Yeah, just literally tap your debit card to my phone and the thirty dollars will transfer to me.

So I thought that was pretty cool.

It's like to pay the store when we check out, we do the tap to check.

Out exactly, except imagine your phone is now like the cash registered checkout thing. So I just thought it was.

Kind of thing, a neat thing. Now Apple has introduced a similar feature. I'm not sure that many people use it, but it requires it's not just your regular card, like you have to tap your two iPhones together and you can exchange cash. I have not used that feature, so I'm not exactly sure how it works, but I know they did advertise something at one of their events about that. I'm not sure how widely that's used, but this is

Tap your card.

That's so cool. Okay, really quickly before we let you go. You just reviewed the Pixel nine A for KTLA. What makes this phone a standout?

I mean really the price four hundred and ninety nine dollars. It's got everything you need, it's got a great design, it's got great AI, it's got an excellent camera, seven years of software support, so there's really nothing inside this phone. Like if you just want a value phone, this is going to be a fantastic device for the next five to seven years. And the only downside I found is that a lot of the premium phones now have satellite connectivity.

With that, this is a great device for five hundred bucks.

I just don't know if I'm ever ready to give up my iPhone I know that's terrible.

But I know that one. I know this is Android.

So but the iPhone has the iPhone sixteen E which is six hundred dollars and it's also a great value.

All right, good to know, all right, everybody. Listen to Rich on Tech every Saturday from eleven to two on KFI. You can see him every day on KTLA and follow him on Instagram at rich on Tech, and of course go to his website rich on Tech dot TV. Rich thank you so much.

Have a great morning, you two. Heather