September 24, 2025 • 6 mins
KFI Tech Reporter Rich DeMuro joins Wake Up Call for ‘Wired Wednesday’! Rich talks about Disney+ price hike, iPhone Air bend test, Uber pre-paid passes, and Amazon Fresh closures.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's say good morning now too, Rich DeMuro, the host
of Rich on Tech right here on KFI, also KTLA's
tech reporter.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Morning Rich, Good morning to you Amy.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Okay, so we've been talking about this. We've got a
price hike coming for Disney Plus. It seems like these
price hikes on these streaming services are happening every other day.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, it's really wild. It just seems like this is
the trend. Every streaming service is raising prices. It seems
this time Disney Plus up about two to three dollars
across most of their plans starting October twenty first. So
if you're on the standard ad supported Disney Plus, that's
going from ten dollars to twelve dollars. The premium no
(00:40):
ads version goes from nineteen sorry, goes to nineteen dollars
or one hundred and ninety for the year. So yeah,
I think I paid one forty one fifty last year
for that. So yeah, this is really a big change.
And then of course all the bundles are getting price
increases too. So the last time they raised prices was
(01:01):
in October twenty twenty four, So now it's like, okay,
are we talking annual price hikes at this point, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
All I know is streaming was supposed to be a
less expensive alternative. And I checked my credit card bill
for all my streaming monthly charges.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
It's more expensive than my cable was.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, cable was all in one. And now I will
tell you you did not get as much flexibility with
your cable package as you do with these packages, because
you get I'm on your phone, you can I'm on
your tablet, you can start, you can stop. So we
definitely have more flexibility. But the reality is these prices
just keep going up and it's just like a little
it's enough where you're like, okay, I'm not going to
(01:41):
cancel it for this necessarily, but it's just kind of
a little bit more every year.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So the iPhone Air, which we've been talking about, You've
been talking about it quite a bit, is out and
we're like, okay, it's very cool, but how strong is it?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
So it's being put to the test.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, it's very strong. Now. I saw Apple in their
facilities how they test these things, and they did bring
up the iPhone Air and they showed us how they
test it with these machines where they put it in
the middle and have this thing just kind of pushed
down on it and it measures the pressure, and I
of course bent it myself to see how much I
could put on it. I was only up to about
seventy five pounds, I think. But All State, you know,
(02:21):
they put out these tests, these bendability tests every year
because they make insurance for phones, and they said the
iPhone Air can take one hundred and ninety pounds of
pressure before bending, which almost matches the iPhone seventeen Pro,
which can go two hundred pounds, So that, in my book,
is pretty good. The iPhone six if you remember bend
(02:43):
Gate from many years ago, that only handled one hundred
and ten pounds, so these new phones are way tougher.
The problem is gravity is still the biggest issue you
are up against. If you drop these things face down
from six feet. Both of these, the iPhone Air and
the seventeen Pro, completely shattered their front screens on the
first drop.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
That's why you get a cover.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I mean, I look, I've been using the iPhone
seventeen promacs and without a case for like two weeks,
and it's it's been pretty good. I even dropped on
a concrete floor to show someone how good it was,
and it didn't even get a scratch.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
That's gutsy.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
That was gutsy. I will admit that was a little gutsy.
I probably shouldn't have done that.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Okay, there's all kinds of prepaid services now, and we
can add Uber to that list.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah. So Uber is trying to basically make people take
their service regularly, right like instead of a bus, instead
of a whatever they might do. And so now you
can buy bulk ride bundles of five, ten, fifteen, or
twenty trips and get a discount ranging from five percent
to twenty percent. So the idea is if you take
(03:50):
the same route every day, you can plan for that
route and say, okay, this this costs me seven dollars
a day, versus some days it's really expensive, other days
it's really cheap. I take Uber a lot, and you
just cannot predict what that trip is going to cost,
especially when I'm in New York City and I'm taking
rides to the airport or just around town. Sometimes trips
(04:12):
are so cheap I don't even understand how they stay
in business. Other Times I'm like, this is so expensive,
what's going on here? So this is available in Los Angeles,
and yeah, check it out inside the app.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Okay, and then I this is an interesting one because
getting kids motivated to go to school do their homework,
maybe they need a little they need a little reward program.
They need somebody to dangle a carrot. And there's a
there's a learn to Earn app that does that.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, and you know, look, teachers have been rewarding students
and classrooms for a long time. This is a platform
that sort of takes that and standardizes it across the nation.
It's called Knowledge Know l e J created by a
guys here in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I'm glad you picked up on that because I was
doing this story. I'm like, wait a second, like kind
of I mean, I know that all these startups are
spelled kind of weird, but like, I don't know anyway.
So I visited a school in South LA Woodcrest Elementary.
They were having a major issue with absenteeism. They were
at like sixty eight percent, and they started this platform
(05:21):
a couple of years ago. Basically, if kids come to
school for a certain amount of times, days, whatever, they
can earn points which they can then redeem for gift cards, sneakers,
maybe even stocks, and the school says, yes it works.
So there you have it.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
All right, Rich Ramiro, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Of course, he is our tech guy and you can
listen to him on his show rich on Tech every
Saturday from eleven to two.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
You can watch him on KTLA.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
You can follow him at rich on Tech and if
you want to check out everything that he talks about,
you can go to his website and it's is it
rich on tech dot tv?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
That is it?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Amazing? I can remember some Rich Demiro, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Thanks Amy,
Let's say good morning now too, Rich DeMuro, the host
of Rich on Tech right here on KFI, also KTLA's
tech reporter.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Morning Rich, Good morning to you Amy.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Okay, so we've been talking about this. We've got a
price hike coming for Disney Plus. It seems like these
price hikes on these streaming services are happening every other day.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Yeah, it's really wild. It just seems like this is
the trend. Every streaming service is raising prices. It seems
this time Disney Plus up about two to three dollars
across most of their plans starting October twenty first. So
if you're on the standard ad supported Disney Plus, that's
going from ten dollars to twelve dollars. The premium no
(00:40):
ads version goes from nineteen sorry, goes to nineteen dollars
or one hundred and ninety for the year. So yeah,
I think I paid one forty one fifty last year
for that. So yeah, this is really a big change.
And then of course all the bundles are getting price
increases too. So the last time they raised prices was
(01:01):
in October twenty twenty four, So now it's like, okay,
are we talking annual price hikes at this point, I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
All I know is streaming was supposed to be a
less expensive alternative. And I checked my credit card bill
for all my streaming monthly charges.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
It's more expensive than my cable was.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Yeah, cable was all in one. And now I will
tell you you did not get as much flexibility with
your cable package as you do with these packages, because
you get I'm on your phone, you can I'm on
your tablet, you can start, you can stop. So we
definitely have more flexibility. But the reality is these prices
just keep going up and it's just like a little
it's enough where you're like, okay, I'm not going to
(01:41):
cancel it for this necessarily, but it's just kind of
a little bit more every year.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
So the iPhone Air, which we've been talking about, You've
been talking about it quite a bit, is out and
we're like, okay, it's very cool, but how strong is it?
Speaker 3 (01:56):
So it's being put to the test.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, it's very strong. Now. I saw Apple in their
facilities how they test these things, and they did bring
up the iPhone Air and they showed us how they
test it with these machines where they put it in
the middle and have this thing just kind of pushed
down on it and it measures the pressure, and I
of course bent it myself to see how much I
could put on it. I was only up to about
seventy five pounds, I think. But All State, you know,
(02:21):
they put out these tests, these bendability tests every year
because they make insurance for phones, and they said the
iPhone Air can take one hundred and ninety pounds of
pressure before bending, which almost matches the iPhone seventeen Pro,
which can go two hundred pounds, So that, in my book,
is pretty good. The iPhone six if you remember bend
(02:43):
Gate from many years ago, that only handled one hundred
and ten pounds, so these new phones are way tougher.
The problem is gravity is still the biggest issue you
are up against. If you drop these things face down
from six feet. Both of these, the iPhone Air and
the seventeen Pro, completely shattered their front screens on the
first drop.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
That's why you get a cover.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yeah, I mean, I look, I've been using the iPhone
seventeen promacs and without a case for like two weeks,
and it's it's been pretty good. I even dropped on
a concrete floor to show someone how good it was,
and it didn't even get a scratch.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
That's gutsy.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
That was gutsy. I will admit that was a little gutsy.
I probably shouldn't have done that.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Okay, there's all kinds of prepaid services now, and we
can add Uber to that list.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah. So Uber is trying to basically make people take
their service regularly, right like instead of a bus, instead
of a whatever they might do. And so now you
can buy bulk ride bundles of five, ten, fifteen, or
twenty trips and get a discount ranging from five percent
to twenty percent. So the idea is if you take
(03:50):
the same route every day, you can plan for that
route and say, okay, this this costs me seven dollars
a day, versus some days it's really expensive, other days
it's really cheap. I take Uber a lot, and you
just cannot predict what that trip is going to cost,
especially when I'm in New York City and I'm taking
rides to the airport or just around town. Sometimes trips
(04:12):
are so cheap I don't even understand how they stay
in business. Other Times I'm like, this is so expensive,
what's going on here? So this is available in Los Angeles,
and yeah, check it out inside the app.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Okay, and then I this is an interesting one because
getting kids motivated to go to school do their homework,
maybe they need a little they need a little reward program.
They need somebody to dangle a carrot. And there's a
there's a learn to Earn app that does that.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, and you know, look, teachers have been rewarding students
and classrooms for a long time. This is a platform
that sort of takes that and standardizes it across the nation.
It's called Knowledge Know l e J created by a
guys here in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
I know.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I'm glad you picked up on that because I was
doing this story. I'm like, wait a second, like kind
of I mean, I know that all these startups are
spelled kind of weird, but like, I don't know anyway.
So I visited a school in South LA Woodcrest Elementary.
They were having a major issue with absenteeism. They were
at like sixty eight percent, and they started this platform
(05:21):
a couple of years ago. Basically, if kids come to
school for a certain amount of times, days, whatever, they
can earn points which they can then redeem for gift cards, sneakers,
maybe even stocks, and the school says, yes it works.
So there you have it.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
All right, Rich Ramiro, thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Of course, he is our tech guy and you can
listen to him on his show rich on Tech every
Saturday from eleven to two.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
You can watch him on KTLA.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
You can follow him at rich on Tech and if
you want to check out everything that he talks about,
you can go to his website and it's is it
rich on tech dot tv?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
That is it?
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Amazing? I can remember some Rich Demiro, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Thanks Amy,
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