@WakeUpCall – ‘Wired Wednesday’ with Rich DeMuro

KFI & KTLA tech reporter Rich DeMuro joins the show for ‘Wired Wednesday.’ Today, Rich talks about Perplexity $35BIL offer to Chrome, ChatGPT connecting to Google, AOL ending, BBB passports, and Sling TV launching a day pass.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's say good morning now to the host of Rich
on Tech on KFI. It's KTLA's tech reporter Rich Jamiro
Morning Rich.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Good morning to you. Amy.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
We got a big deal possibly brewing between Perplexity and Chrome.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
What's up with that?

Speaker 4 (00:15):
Well, it's interesting. This is a one sided deal for sure.
So Perplexity is an AI company. They've been pretty hot
on the scene. You've searched something inside their app or
their website and they come up with sort of an
answer for you rather than a bunch of random links.
Google has something similar called AI Overviews and AI Mode. Anyway,

(00:35):
they are offering Google almost thirty five billion dollars for
Google Chrome unsolicited. Google didn't say this is up for sale,
but we know that Google has been having some issues
with the antitrust stuff and one of the remedies that
was floated was perhaps making them sell the Chrome web browser.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
That has not happened yet. They are not forced to sell.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
It, but Perplexity is jumping in saying, hey, we'll buy
it because we want this and.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
We know that it would expand our reach.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
So they're being proactive.

Speaker 4 (01:05):
They're being proactive. But here's the deal. This company's not
even worth thirty five billion dollars, they're value to eighteen billion.
They've only raised a billion dollars, so this would be
a major stretch for them to purchase this. But you know,
things are wild right now in the tech world because
of AI, so anything can happen.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Okay, and then we'll just have to kind of wait
and see on whether that means anything different or if
it's the same for the end user.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
I don't think it's going to happen. Let's put it
that way, Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Chat GPT is reaching ever deeper into our lives.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
What's up now with the Google services?

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh my gosh, this is so wild.

Speaker 4 (01:41):
So now chat GBT you can add a connection to
your Gmail, your calendar and let it basically look inside
those things to help you with your chats. So if
you want to say, hey, what's on my agenda today?
Or hey, can you compose an email and look at
my last five emails to my mom and write it
in the same way.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
So this is it's awesome but also scary.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Last night, as I was trying to decide if I
wanted to do this, you really have to think about it,
because think about giving AI access to your entire email everything,
your entire email account. So I didn't do that just
yet because I really need to sit and think about this.
But it can be very helpful because people are already
sharing all kinds of stuff with CHATCHBT. I just need

(02:26):
to learn the privacy policy a little bit more before
I give access to this.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
So then here's a question for you, rich. Once you
do it, can you undo it?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Well? Right?

Speaker 4 (02:36):
And that's the thing I'm trying to figure out, because yes,
you can undo the connection, but do they save a
copy of your data? That's the thing I'm unclear on.
That's the thing that should be very clear when you
accept this terms through chatgubt. But I could not find
it readily available, So I need to investigate that a
little bit more.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
Okay then, and then we'll wait for an update from
our tech guide or the winning to get.

Speaker 4 (03:00):
My advice is, if you're worried about this, do yeah,
if you're worried about this, maybe don't do it right away.

Speaker 3 (03:05):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
If you don't want to get another streaming service, but
you want to see something that's on that streaming service,
this might be useful.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
This is actually very smart.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
So you know, there's like those one or two times
a year where you're like, oh, I'd like to watch
that award show. Oh but I don't have cable or
a streaming service whatever that has it. So sling TV
now has day passes for live TV, so you can
pay five dollars a day and get access to stuff.
You can pay ten dollars for a weekend pass or

(03:38):
fifteen dollars for a week it's instant, there's no contract.
You get access to all the different channels that they have,
you know, depending on the pass that you purchase.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
But kind of smart.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
I mean, look, if there's like a big game you
want to watch and they happen to have it on
Sling TV, that's the main thing to know here. It's
like you have to see what channels you're getting for
that day pass and make sure whatever you want a
watch is on that channel.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Cool, sort of like renting a movie.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Yeah, basically except for live TV. Very well, said Amy,
thank you, I'll use that from now on.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Okay, good, and then you can credit me and Amy
King from okay, fine, then let's just move on. Hey,
So this is I'm not sure if I like this
idea or don't like this idea. Because I'm too used
to the digital stuff. But there's a new digital video
camera that's kind.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Of old school.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Yeah, this is more just nostalgic kind of fun. The
company is camp Snap.

Speaker 4 (04:32):
They already make a point and shoot and it looks
like a disposable camera, but it's digital. So the whole
idea behind this company is that you can disconnect. So
that digital camera I was just talking about, there's no
screen on it. You can't look at the pictures. There's
just a viewfinder. You have to get home and connect
it to your computer to see the pictures that you took.
So now they're taking that same idea and making a

(04:56):
sort of a Super eight style camera, but it's digital.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
It looks old school.

Speaker 4 (05:00):
You can film little clips or I say film, but
you can record little clips, vertical, widescreen, square, whatever you want.
It looks classic like that film style. But you get
back to your computer, you plug it in, you could
see what you did. This is just for people that
think it's cool or amy for people that want to disconnect.
So the idea is, I know, we got run out

(05:21):
of time here, but the idea is that you could
take let's say you're smart watch with you that has
cellular to your kids play. Just record your video on
this and you are completely screen free and you know,
less distracted.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
I would say, while you do this, I kind.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Of liked that idea.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
I know that the first time we went to Africa,
I had I think it was called a flip camera. Wow,
I know right, I think it was called a flip camera,
and I loved that thing. And because it was the
same thing, it didn't have like you couldn't watch anything
on it.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
Well it was Look, that was before people were super
addicted to their smartphones.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Now there's this.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Whole kind of a lot of people are trying to
figure out ways of still doing what they like to do,
which is go out on the weekends and take pictures,
but not be behold into a screen that every time
they get a notification they go down a rabbit hole
for ten minutes and ignore their friends. So I think
that just check out campsnap in general, what they're doing
is really cool. I did it once where, you know,

(06:18):
I was out at an event. I just took my
smart watch and the camera and I was I mean,
believe me, it's different because you're so like disconnected from
the world. But you're still able to take pictures of
your friends and family.

Speaker 3 (06:30):
Okay, I'd have to check that out.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Kfi's tech guy is rich Demiro and you can hear
him every Saturday from eleven to two right here on KFI.
It's called rich on Tech on KFI. You can watch
him on KTL. They follow him on Instagram at rich
on tech. And if you want to hear more about
or read more about anything that we talk about, you
can go to his website rich on tech dot TV.

Speaker 3 (06:51):
Thank you, Rich, have a great day, all right, you too.