The Chaser Report - Bluetooth Road Rage | Welcome To The Future

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Charles brings Dom two brand new gadgets that are sure to change society forever, and by forever we mean for the next 15 minutes of podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. I'm Charles Firth and with me as always is... Dom night, although it's not always because from tomorrow Andrew Hanson's going to do it for a bit. So, almost always. Anyway, nevertheless, lovely to be back on another installment of... Welcome to the future.

Now available as a standalone podcast as well, although this is the version in the Chaser Report feed, of course. Yes. So today, look, I've decided there is a Bluetooth product. Oh, goodness. But we're going to start off with a gadget that... It's a bit of a roller coaster of a ride, Dom, if I'm being quite honest, because it just...

I don't know. Well, I don't know where to start. It's called the Photostick Omni. Sounds amazing. Omni means it does everything. Basically, its website says that if you plug it in, like it sort of solves the problem of backing up all your files because the promise that it makes on its website is you just plug it in

and you don't have to do anything. Good. It just sucks or it just finds all your photos, finds all your files and puts them on the little thumbnail drive. So you just plug it in and it just does all that. I've heard of some viruses that do that, Charles. Exactly. It's basically a hacking device.

And that's actually what got me interested in it, because it's also ridiculously expensive. It's $157 Australian. Right. But what price snooping on your child by plugging a device into their laptop and crafting out all the stuff they've downloaded that I want you to know about?

But also, you know, snooping on your colleagues. Sure. It immediately made me go, well, next time we're in the same room, Dom, and just slip it into you. your hard drive blackmail material up the wazoo. It would be amazing. I mean, I think the most embarrassing thing would be the lack of blackmail material, to be honest.

But the thing is that this tech, so you sort of go, this has got to be a sort of an illegal hacking device. Yeah. But actually, or just a malware sort of device that is being marketed at suckers. And then, but actually the main use for it is with hackers. But the more I digged, the more I went, I don't know what's going on. Because the website itself is pitched squarely at pensioners and sort of old people. It keeps using the phrases such as, no matter how comfortable you are with technology,

you'll be able to use this device. And it's got this picture of this old pensioner woman whose qualification is pensioner. Maniqa pensioner. Right. This little device backed up over 5,000 pictures. just a minute and it's all about how you know i i love the omni stick uh the photostick omni i got it from my grandson who's seen me struggle for days trying to understand smartphones and computers he gifted me this device and it did all the work for me i found so many pictures i thought i'd lost forever so the

whole idea is you don't understand computers you've taken whole lot of photos this will find all the photos for you and you sort of go actually maybe this is not such a bad product and the idea is You can also, it's not just computers, you can plug it into your Android phone, and it sucks all your photos out of that as well. So you can literally, like, if you're in a crowded square, you could take this photostig Omni and then just, you know, go up to strangers. Oh, amazing. Or if you're, or if you're entering customs at, I don't know, Shanghai Airport or something, and the Chinese authorities want to just get all the documents off your computer in one second. Yes. Just plug this thing in.

in all the potentially incriminating stuff you have, it will just get crafted out. What an amazing thing to use when they interrogate, I don't know, democracy activists in Hong Kong. I know, it's perfect. It's the perfect divide. Or, you know, like North Korea. I mean, there's lots of countries.

I'm sure America would probably be interested. The only thing is, if you then go to the reviews, it is quite honestly, the worst reviewed product I think I've ever seen on this podcast. Right. So it actually gets a little bit over one star on Amazon. Gosh. And Google reviews is similar. It's sort of got lots of reviews.

They're all one star, except for one. I'll read you the one that doesn't have one star, and you can see whether it's an SEO bot. But, you know, for example, this woman, Elizabeth from two months ago, if I could give it a zero, I would give it a zero. If you think you can plug this into your Android and it will pull off all the photos and videos, it doesn't. I haven't got one photo downloaded. You have to download an app and follow the instructions And if you do It still doesn't download any photos to the photo stick

Wow I'm 74 with no kids to bother with this This was advertised as the Panasita All My Problems Easy as 1, 2, 3 They say ha And they say you can return it for any reason At all within 60 days of shipment You can't

I'm fighting their refusal now Don't buy it Right So and that's the general general tenet of, like, I won't go through all the reviews because they're all basically there. I mean, if you want, if people are curious, they can just buy a device that goes through the internet and finds all the bad reviews of this product and puts them all in one place.

That's right. Yeah. The review stick Omni. But no, no, but the thing is that it sort of is also a bit of a relief because, you know, this is a terrible device, the idea that you can just plug a device in and it sucks out all your thing. at least, you know, the CIA and the NSA and Azeo won't be buying up photos dig omnis and shoving them in all their computers.

Like, I can rest a bit easier having read all these reviews. The only thing is it then gets, because the website actually is customized for Australia. It's got like Channel 7 logo, Channel 9 logo. You know, it's one of those sort of very, you know, Demtel style, very slick web. has seen on TV. But the thing is, it actually, like, it sounds like it's a proper, proper scam, right? Which is that, so if you try and return it, what happens is the complaint engine, like, you can press a button saying, I actually, I want to return it, I want to refund. And then the little chat engine doesn't let you enter any more text.

Like you can't actually Really injure any more text And then after two minutes It says well You obviously don't want a refund anymore It locks you out So you also need a device To find the place where you get the refund

And search you to hold the internet To actually find the people So in other words They're much better at designing chatbots That don't let you get a refund And they're designing photo stick omnis But I think it's genius Like I think that is the true innovation

Of this company is to invent a chat bot that, you know, like with all the latest AI, they could have created an AI that convincingly convinces you to not buy it or just keeps you in a circle of growing frustration for hours and hours and hours. But instead, it's such a simple thing to just stop you from typing the moment in the back. There's so many people who've fallen for it as well. It sounds completely appalling and a violation of basic consumer rights. And also I think we need it for the chaser shop.com.

Refund, refund page. So if you want that, I'm sorry, I said it was $152.70, Australian. And you can get it at the very user-friendly, pensioner-friendly website, which is called Get the Photostick Omni.io is the official website. Yeah, as opposed to get the... the photosicominy refund. QE dot QE dot X-WP-Tilder, whatever. The Chaser Report, less news, more often.

Okay, now, so the next gadget on this list is called The Flick. The Flick. Now, can you guess what the flick is? I mean, I'm imagining, given the way this podcast normally goes, it's a flick knife with Bluetooth to just let you know, stabbing pressure You just sever a carriotid artery What did you manage to do?

Actually, I'm just going to make a note of that I want to review a Bluetooth knife We'll come to that next week Should we just do it now? There's a Bluetooth knife There's a Swiss Army knife With Bluetooth Oh my gosh, well hold that thought

And let's talk about the flip We will come back to that Possibly next week So, okay So this one is just a, there's just so many different angles to this. It's hard to know where to start. But the fleak is, of course, a middle finger light that you attach to the back of your car so that you can give people the middle finger in traffic.

Oh, wow. Yeah. So it's a remote giving the bird light. Now, what would you think about that? If you saw somebody in front of you, you know, cut you off and then, you know, have a middle finger light, you know, out the back of their truck, what would you think, don't? Would you go, oh, that's rather amusing. It diffuses all my rage. Or would you get out your Glock and start shooting?

I wouldn't get out my Glock, but I'd probably accelerate in the back of the car. That's probably what I'd do. I'd probably, it would give me a momentary burst of fury. Although, to be fair, given my general approach to life, I'd probably need a light that says, I'm terribly sorry, I didn't mean to give any offence. Yeah, that's right. Instead.

Yeah. Obviously aware that, you know, this is a potential lawsuit, you know, waiting to happen. The manufacturers of the flick, which is Flicked LLC, and the name of the company becomes important, later on, advertises their device as increasing communication in traffic, which increases awareness

and encourages better behaviour. It actually, somewhere on the website, it says that it reduces road rage. It diffuses road rage, that's right, diffuses road rage because everyone is laughing, is the sales pitch, right until they have to rock it through the back window and, um, Into the flick. And the reason why I just sort of noted that it was Flicked LLC that made this claim is that there are, in fact, two almost identical devices that are available. There's Flick original or original flit. 1.0, right?

Yeah. And there's The Flick. Oh, right. One is manufactured by Flicked LLC. Well, I'm sure they all come out of the same factory, but one is marketed by Flickllc. The other one's marketed by Flick Me, which is a Brooklyn-based sort of internet startup that's all trending. Who are the people who call raising your middle finger to somebody in an activation? Since when is that flick?

That's not a... Flick the bird. Flip the bird. Flip the bird. You don't flick the bird. Oh, is that flip the bird? Fliking the bird would be like an RSPCA violation. Well, I'm not sure.

So this is the thing. Like, not only is... the desire to give somebody the middle finger so great in the US that there's two companies competing to this sort of crowded space market marketplace. It's a tech arms race.

Yeah. Like it's clearly just a slightly dodgy thing to put on your car. So the flick, the flick me people, the Brooklyn people, note in their marketing that it is a 100% legal

gesture to put on your car like you're allowed you know you've got First Amendment rights to give the middle finger and it notes very usefully that it is compliant lighting for your car in almost all states so that's very useful well I mean it seems to be a complete sociopath's dream but it does make me think Charles I can really imagine the value of one these, absolutely giant 300 metre tall one, at the border between Ukraine and Russia. Can you imagine? Like, just whenever Putin does anything, gives a speech, launches weapons, just light up the massive fuck-off sign.

And the thing is that if we follow the marketing and afflict, what that actually would do is increase communication between Ukraine and Russia. It would increase awareness and encourage better behavior. It would lead to peace. It would actually, it would diffuse the rage. Putin feels like giving him the middle finger. Put one up in the DMZ in between North and South Korea and just, and India and Kashmir, every troubled border, just get one of these things.

Never would be so busy laughing at the hilarious flipping the bird that the word world peaceful breaker. The thing is, it's interesting that you mention that, you know, it'd be really good to have an oversized middle finger because how big do you think this light is? It goes for $76 in Australia. How big? Because one of the things that many reviewers have noted in marking it down is that it's in fact quite small. Yeah, I'm imagining about 15 centimetres, like barely visible.

Yes. Right. No, and the thing is, and the other thing that all the Australian reviewers note is that you can't actually see it at all when it's daylight. Oh, perfect. so the light is not quite light enough to light up in that you can't see it. So in other words, when you illuminate the light, the person behind you won't actually have a massive episode of Road Rage. Instead, they'll drive really close so they can see what the light says, thereby tail ending you. And maybe that's why they always break into laughter.

It diffuses Road Rage because they're laughing in such a pathetic device. You thought that was going to be hilarious. Did you think that was a good idea? Actually, no, I completely get it. It's a brilliant idea. You spent $76 on that. Oh, that's it, Charles. I would like a light that I can hold up in the podcast to tell you to fuck off as we're recording.

I think that would be very, very useful. And it would be very funny. Visual gags work very well. That would be the beginning of it. The listeners wouldn't be able to see. Oh, I see. But you would. Yes.

Whenever you plug your tour, I just die in the light telling you to just Shut up. My tour, wankonomics.com, available on national tour from yesterday. That's the sign we need, is just a hand masturbating for whatever you talk about your business. Okay, well, there you go. That's it for today. That's welcome to the future. Look, we will eventually, like the products that we review, we will eventually get a web,

website up and running. Yes, indeed. And post reviews of all these wonderful devices. We haven't done it yet, but we will. We will totally do it. In the meantime, I don't know, maybe go to wankanomics.com and buy tickets to my show. And when you're there, you know which sign to illuminate whenever a joke falls flat. Our gears from ride, we're part of the Iconiclast network.

See you later.