@WakeUpCall – ‘Wired Wednesday’ with Rich DeMuro

Heather Brooker fills in for Amy King on this Wednesday Wake Up Call.  KTLA & KFI tech reporter Rich DeMuro joins the show for ‘Wired Wednesday.’ Today, Rich discusses Samsung unveiling foldable phones, Prime Day tips, Gmail update, & FDA news.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Samsung's big summer event is happening in Brooklyn this week,
where the tech giant is set to unveil its newest
generation of foldable phones. Rich On Tech host Rich Jamiro
is on the ground for the big reveal, and he's
joining us live with the latest from the launch.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning Rich, Hey, Good morning too, Heather. This event
starts in just a couple of hours. Here. They're doing
it in Brooklyn this year at a place called the
Brooklyn Fish Transfer And yes, they are actual fish that
are being transferred because I smell that.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
No, I don't know if that's a good thing or not,
especially this early in the morning. So I was going
to ask you, I was going to ask you what
is the vibe there? But apparently the vibe is very fishy.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
It's actually a really cool location that they did this at.
They you know, these tech companies usually change up the
locations where they do these big events. Samsung has been
doing unpacked events for many years. That's when they show
off their newest phones. They typically do two of these
big events a year, one for their standard phones like Ultra,
and then the second is for their unfoldable So today

(01:03):
we're expecting to see a couple of new foldable devices,
if you can believe it. Samsung's been making foldable phones
now since twenty nineteen, and of course they get better
every year, but they're still not super popular. But of
course we know that Apple is expected to come out
with a foldable phone either next year or perhaps the
next year.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Okay, so what sets this new lineup of foldable phones
apart from previous generations.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, we don't know just yet what is in store
with these new phones until they unveil them on stage.
But if you look at the tea leaves, you know,
most of the time they are upgrading the cameras. They're
making these thinner, they're making them lighter. Those are kind
of the main areas of improvement for these foldable phones.
So all the previous foldable phones I've tested in the past,

(01:50):
you know, the cameras were just okay, and they were
a little bit too big to use as a phone
every day. And then when you open it up, you know,
the phone, some of the screens on the outside, we're
not as big that you wanted to use, you know,
for the outside screen. So there's a lot of room
for improvement here. Let's see if Samsung can do it.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
You know, my concern with any kind of foldable or
flip phones I'm old, so I call we used to
call them the flip type phones. Any My concern with
those is that they will break in half because we
use them so much. I'm have it in my bag,
i have it in my pocket or my back pocket,
or I'm giving it to my kid. You know, my
fear is that it's gonna like just snap in half.

(02:28):
Maybe that's not realistic.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Well, I think the durability aspect has gotten a lot
better in recent years. You know, these things used to
not be waterproof when the first one came out. If
you got a speck of dust in the hinge, the
whole thing would go bad. So they've definitely gotten past
all of that. I think now they're in this period
of like just refining what they've done and continuing to

(02:52):
make it better where people say, Okay, this can actually
replace the phone that I use on a daily basis,
and I'm not scared to carry this thing around because,
by the way, these phones are typically more expensive than
your standard smartphones as well.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Okay, well, we will be looking forward to hearing more
about their new foldable phones. But I want to shift
gears for a second. Let's talk about Prime Day. How
can shoppers tell the difference between a true deal and
just clever pricing. Are there any tools or apps that
you recommend for us?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, now we know Prime Day runs through the eleven,
so you still have a lot of time. I've actually
noticed the deals are really good this year, so I
always say put a bunch of stuff in your car
or save for later. List that way you can see
when the prices drop. And I'm seeing really good price drops,
So definitely check out the deals. You know, get the
stuff that you need, not the stuff that you want
per se. But here's the thing. There is a little

(03:42):
trick this year that it's the first time I've seen
this on Amazon, but there is a price history tool
that you can unlock and it's all through Amazon's AI assistance.
So when you are looking at a price on either
the website or the mobile phone, there's a little area
that looks like you know that AI logo. Tap that
AI logo and on the phone it's in the lower

(04:04):
right hand corner. On the desktop, it says ask rufus
and then you tap ask something else, and then it
brings up this thing that says show price history. So
if you tap that immediately, Amazon's AI will give you
a little bar graph of the prices for the past
thirty to ninety days, so you can actually tell if
a price drop is legitimate. So, for instance, I'm looking

(04:26):
at this kindle. It's typically one hundred and ten dollars.
It's on Prime Day for eighty five dollars. Is that
a good deal? Yeah, this is the lowest price that's
been in ninety days. That is actually a good deal.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
Okay, really quickly, in our last few seconds here, Gmail
rolled out a new feature to help users unsubscribe. But
please tell me more about this.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah, this is something that's rolling out widely, so you
may not have it on your account just yet. But
if you go to Gmail on the left hand side,
there's now a new option that says manage subscriptions. And
so look in your list of things where it says
inbox and all that stuff go down and you'll see
managed subscriptions. You tap that, it will show you a
list of every single newsletter that sends you emails and

(05:07):
how many they send you, And in one click, you
can get rid of that email newsletter list. They will
take you off of that list. So it's a nice
way of seeing all these things you get on a
daily basis and going, Okay, let me unsubscribe from that
list because I really don't read that newsletter. So they're
making it really easy to unsubscribe and just one click. Oh.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
I think, out of everything, I'm going to use that
the most, so I have a lot of newsletters to
unsubscribe run. So thank you so much, rich, We appreciate it.
Richie Miro the tech reporter at KTLA and host of
rich on Tech Saturdays at eleven am here on KFI.
You can follow rich on Instagram at rich on Tech
and sign up for Riches free newsletter at rich on

(05:47):
Tech dot tv. Have so much fun in Brooklyn.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Thank you, and don't unsubscribe to my news Yes you
don't like it, in that case you can.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
No, everybody subscribed. No, it's a good one. It's a
good one. Thank you so much much, rich Thanks Heather,