The Chaser Report - LIVE: Welcome To The Future @ SXSW | Ange Lavoipierre, Vic Zerbst, Jenna Owen

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

Last year, Charles, Ange, Vic, and Jenna all appeared live at a South By South West event to talk about the future. They discussed bluetooth dice, condoms, toilets, and tampons.Watch OPTICS on ABC iview here:https://iview.abc.net.au/show/opticsVic's Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/viczerbst/?hl=enJenna's Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/bigjwow/?hl=enAnge's Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/angelavoipierre/?hl=enCheck out more Chaser headlines here:https://www.instagram.com/chaserwar/?hl=enPills to last longer in the bedroom:https://chaser.com.au/support/ 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 with Dom and Charles. Now, today, we want to play you something that we've been holding back until we came back because it's such a special piece. It's another episode of Welcome to the Future, which is our tech podcast, where we cast a gaze into the future and look at all the worst possible tech products available at the moment. But it was recorded at South by Southwest late last year,

and it features some fantastic guests. So it's me, who's pretty fantastic, along with Angela Voipier, Jenna Owen and Vic Zerbst. And obviously, if you want to check out more of Jenna and Vicks and my work, You can always tune in to optics on Wednesday nights at 8.30 or all the time on Eyeview. But it was a really, really great episode, and so we hope you enjoy it. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? Fizz is 100% online so you can make the switch in minutes.

Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions of Hello and welcome to the future, future, future, future. I'm Charles Firth, and we're here on Gadigal Land in the Eurornaation. And with me today is not Domite, unfortunately he's sick, but he has sent through a few tech gadgets to review. So the whole point of this podcast is this is a sort of sub-brand of the Chase Report. And this is a very special episode that we roll out occasionally. And what it is is to look into the future and just go, how great could it be? And there's a lot of tech products out there that, you know, you just go, they don't get enough news, they go under the

radar, but actually this is, you know, a chance, just for an hour, to sort of imagine what the future will be like, thanks to all the great tech products, most of which have Bluetooth in them. So with me today, because Dom is too sick and lazy, is Angela LaVoisier, now she is now the tech reporter for ABC. Yes, the only one. And also a long-term friend of the Chase Report podcast, sort of more noted, notably. Yeah, no, that's probably what I put higher on my CV.

Yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah. And she does all these reports on the ABC about how terrible AI is and how horrible everything. Don't tell them that. We're at South by Southwest. Yeah. I like AI is fine. It's fine, yeah, it's fine.

And then next we have Vic Zerbst. She is... Thank you. You can do us together. You can do us together. It can be one unit today. It's the wonderful comedic duo of Vic Zerbts and Jenna Owen. Yes, that's right.

Thank you very much. We'd like to be one unit. Yeah. And how would you describe yourself? Well, unqualified for probably this chat. Future enthusiasts, possibly... Oh, no, but you've got a PhD in... In Teledildonics.

I wrote an essay about the ethics of consent with sex robots once in my undergraduate degree. Yes. And I think I'm going to become an angel investor. I've just learnt that anyone can be if you just say... Have $200 to your name. So I think I'd like to be introduced as an angel investor and a future enthusiast. Yes, of course, yes. And I'm friends with Vic who did that report on...

On the ethics of sex. sex robots. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah. And so I was like talking to gender about it. Yeah, so that's a qualification. And Angie will probably disapprove, but my suggestion is what you could

probably do is put that essay that you wrote on sex robots into Chachipit. Well, Chachibati wrote it. Chachypte was like, there are no concerns here, really. It's just really quite fantastic. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did it end up in a sort of love triangle? It was a complete loop, but they just kept saying this is good, this is good, this is good. And then they resolved and quite a bizarre sexual scenario where they were just saying this is how good it could be if we could all just all the robots could connect in one road and

have sex with each other so does that does that diminish the consent issues well if they're all consenting together as one unit then I think it's totally ethical then it's masturbation it's masturbation I feel like I wish that that was in I robot you know what I mean

it should have been we should have opened one door and just seen all of the eye robots going out of yeah just discovering each other exploring themselves That's beautiful. I do want to make a feminist remake of I-Robot. Oh, by robot, yeah, more sexual. That is the feminist take of that. Yeah, that's what I meant.

So, but what was the conclusion of your essay? Was it that consent is good or bad? It is that consent is going to. Hey, what a great question we're going to settle today. So it took, it took months of research and lots of thinking to establish that consent is good. That's just for the men in the audience. No, so basically, for me, what I'm really interested in is this idea of, like, what is the core wound, the human wound that these tech overlords are trying to replace? And the wound there with the consent is the inability to communicate, inability to connect with another person in an ethical framework.

And so it's like the replacement of that dynamic with a tech robot is to obliterate that kind of conversation and doesn't actually address the core wound in the first place. Yes, yes. So I approach everything as an angel investor, obviously. with this question of, like, what is the wound here, how deep is that wound, and how well can this machine address that wound without any therapy and without any work from the human? So that's what we'll be discussing today.

Does that make them more addictive then because they're not actually addressing the underlying cause? So you've just got to keep going back for more. And sometimes the best products that you'd want to invest in would be the products that actually make that wound worse as you continue. Yes. To further wound the human and to have reliance on the machine. Yeah, otherwise it's just planning.

obsolescence, right? We don't like that. No, no. And presumably it would be a subscription based system. Well, hopefully yes. But are there products that you have explored or found that interrogate this question of the... Yes, yes, actually, and

that's a good point. We should get on with the booker. Charles was like usually Dom does the structure. Vic, you like structure. I was like, I don't have a brain for that, so, Charles. And here I am being like, well, maybe you have a structure. You'd like to refer to. Okay, so the way this works is we're going to look at, we're going to review some tech products

and we'll talk about the advantages first and then we'll have a look at the real-life reviews. And these are all real-life products, right? So the first one I want to bring to the table is the go-dice, right? And go-dice are, well, I mean, you say address a need, which is, really, really, Just the other day, for example, I was playing Monopoly with my kids, right? And we got to the end, and the dice hadn't run out of batteries, right? Now, imagine a world where every five to seven minutes, you instead had to charge the batteries. Welcome to Go Dice, right?

So the idea behind Go Dice, very simple, is their Bluetooth-enabled Dice, of course, and you, and they're real dice, their physical dyes, right? And then, for some reason, you use them to roll, and, and they're, and they're, and, and, and, And then instead of having to look at the dice and add it up, like three and four, what does that equal, you, it connects to your computer, mostly, and it tells you the score on the screen, right? Do the numbers still display on the dice? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

They're just normal dice, except the battery operator. But better, yeah. And so, yeah. And so there's a couple of use cases for this. So you can just use it. There's an app. You've got to use the app to make it work. One is if you're playing a physical game,

it will just keep track of the previous dice rolls. You know, because that's useful information. Adding up your score. I'm pretty lazy. Your grand total score. So it's like all your dice rolls. Yeah, or just if you're playing monopoly, you don't really need to know you.

But it might be interesting to go back and go, you know what? What happened four tunes ago? What, what did I roll then? You go, oh, it was an eight. Oh, yes, I remember that. Yes. Oh, what a wonderful eight. Okay, all right. Okay. Dempacado. Remember, you know what? I think in that round, I rolled a three. No, no, no. I'm pretty sure you rolled a two. He's like, well, let's go back and check. But you don't you ever like, oh, it was a three after all? Don't you ever get a significant way through a game and go, wow, there's been. a lot of fives and I don't reckon there's been a single two, you know? And you're like, where are the twos? The probability of this is really wild. And then if you could, if that, is that a thing that it can do, can be like, we're right about that. You're not crazy. And also, like, the probability of not seeing a two this far into a game like this is one in a million.

Something tells me it's not going to do that. Well, no. That is actually one of the. But the Bluetooth, Jenna. You need a separate product, the probability dice I like this probability. I'm interested in that dice. So there's a few problems one of which is that according to a reviewer

from United Kingdom who pointed out that the dice themselves aren't fair so we've had two dice on the same combination for the last 30 times in arrival which really ruins the fun

I was thinking about that because inside you have to have all kinds of stuff to make them that smart and then they're not going to be evenly weighted so they're going to throw up a lot of So it's like the antithesis of the probability dies really Yes But then another problem that may also interrupt

the statistical sort of you know, say integrity of the whole of your thought is that apparently sometimes it records the wrong number, right? So you roll a five and they can be go, oh, you've just rolled a three. So it's not a hundred percent accurate at that thing. Another problem was the app keeps crashing. So you sort of don't want that. And then one user, I can't find the review here, but somewhere, it got stuck, like the dice got stuck, and so no matter what you rolled, it would just bring up a five. So it just got stuck on five. Which I suppose it's its own form of fairness.

Oh yeah, and then the other, but the main problem, so the main problem seems to be around charging and push. So, as you can imagine, they're DICE, right? So there's no charging port on a Dice. Luckily, the manufacturers at Go Dice have

very cleverly come up with quite an elegant solution, which is you've got to pull apart the dice every time you want to charge them. And then you have to get them on the number five, and apparently it's quite painful. You've got to press them down on two pins and they charge.

And they charge quite quickly. Painful for you? Yes. Painful. It's just painful. And the sentient dice is screaming. Out! Ow! Don't do this to me. Not again. No, no, no. It's painful to get the... Who's in pain? Like the person who wants to charge the dog. Psychic pain. For so many reasons. Physical pain.

Yeah. Yeah, because you've got to pull them off, it's hard. And then you charge them, they're quite fast to charge, but it's not like inductive charging or anything like that. You have to put them on metal pins and push them down. But they're rapid charging. So you push them down for 10 seconds, and the manufacturer claims they last two hours.

Most people seem to agree that they last about five to seven minutes. So you know, one of those classically quick games of Monopoly. Perfect for that. And then the other problem is, and this seems to be the main feedback from users, is that they just keep disconnecting from the app. So you're just getting going. And you don't you hate it when your Bluetooth doesn't sink with your dice? It doesn't sync with your computer, which then sinks with your dice.

Yes, exactly. But you know what, the part about this, this obviously sounds like a terrible product, But I could really see a one in which you, Charles Firth, could enjoy this product. The go-dice. Yes, for the simple fact that your wound, I'm assuming, is that you're scared that you're a terrible father. And you would go out and buy this novelty product to then use to connect with your sons. And then you have the most incredible story to talk about. I was going to say, like, it's a great device for terrible fathers.

I'm thinking of my own father when I say this. And I'm like, he would have loved if every time we want to talk. to play games. He's like, well, who charged the dice? Yes. Oh, yeah. Who charged them? Because I didn't. That's your responsibility. You want to play a game with me. You've got to charge the dice. And that would have been game over. No more father-daughter time. I've got to be real. I actually...

So your relationship with your father is a bit like Bluetooth. It's a bit... Disconnected. And very rarely in range. Okay, so I'm not a shit dad. But I do... Yet. But, ooh, we hope.

But I kind of, like, this is a bit of emotional roller coaster for me hearing about this product because I actually really would like them to work. I would, I want them. I just want to know. I love to, like, count things up. I'm kind of like a hoarder, but for information rather than items. And so I would love to have, like, I think I inherited this for my father because he's been measuring the rain gauge, even when it hasn't, like during the millennium drought

and we lived in country in New South Wales, he would write down how many there'd been every day anybody who's kept all the numbers. Now, I would probably do that with games and I would quite enjoy it. So, you know, any angel investors listening? Yeah. You know, fund a better version of this

before I actually really would like it to work. And there are hundreds of people like you on Amazon. Interesting. With all these suggestions, going, this is a frustrating product. if only it had USBC, you know. That's the problem.

One, as you said, if this was Bluetooth 5.3, rather than 5. It would be far more reliable. So, you know, who knows? Can I ask you question genuinely? So it's at the moment the dice, a physical dice that you roll,

they connect to the computer. And then, so isn't there like, many, many inbuilt kind of dice apps on the computer that then they wouldn't have they could roll the dice on the computer and then the dice

the Go dice is made redundant you know by that because then everyone can combining the physical dice with the computer dice so you still get the satisfaction of rolling the dice is that what it's about I'm just trying to understand it because I'm thinking of going offline being off your screens

and doing this doing that for yeah and then yes It's the physical. But yes, the reason I guess that it comes up on the screen and sinks to it is so people don't know your... I understand if you're playing an online game and you have to trust that the person is rolling what they say they're rolling.

I understand that. Oh no, no, but it doesn't link to online games. It only links... On the app, it only links to... Your own app. No, to the ones in the app, the game's in the app. And they're all terrible. Literally, they're called FARCLE.

One is called FARC. Well, talk about burying the lead. Yeah, no, so you've got to... You have to download FACAL games? You can use the app to know what the dice are saying. You can get it... Within the FACAL universe. Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so, yes. So I'm not playing, like, you know, what's the games now? Minecraft or whatever. No, no, no. You're playing the FACALO. In actual things, yeah, people were saying, you know, like, this would be very useful if... It could link to, like, online dungeons and dragons type games and things of that.

It's pure, it's a far-cool, yeah, far-co-compatible device. Yeah, yeah, yeah, great. Yeah. That really does feel like quite a big point that I do wish we found out. I'm starting to feel guilty at this point about the dice. I want to talk about the AI toilet cleaner. Well, I'll just wrap this up by saying, so would you pay $150 dollars? I'm guessing there's sort of an ongoing subscription to be part of the Farkle

Farkle land as well. That's one of my other subscriptions. Stan, Netflix, Farkle Games. Can you be in the Farkle universe without buying the dice? That's what I want to know. Can I, like, hive off the subscription? If they've learned anything from Apple, I'm guessing, like, probably not. I'm guessing you need subscription for a sex.

It's like $3 a week here in Farkle, but then you need that $150 dice. Yeah. Yeah, I would be part of FACAL Premier or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you get a dice delivered to your door. Yeah, a dice, yeah, exactly. You know, your dice to have updates and things like that. You don't want to just...

What is it update to a new number? It's just amended a new number. So excited. That's actually not bad, yeah. Okay, so there you go. So it sounds like everyone's in on that one. Yeah, I'm investing in that. Yeah.

Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore. FIS is 100% online, so you can make the switch in minutes. Mobile plans start at $15 a month. Certain conditions apply. Details at Fiz.C. So, Anne, what's your...

Yeah, so I was hosting an AI debate yesterday. quite a serious one, but AI toilets did come up and that sent me, I've got home last night after a few beers and went, I really got to know about AI toilets. And they've kind of been out there for a while. I mean, before the AI boom, they were just called smart toilets. And what they will do, right, is they will tell you about your gut health. They're analysing your shift. I don't know how else to say it.

But so then I was kind of like, well, that actually seems pretty useful. And the brief was bad gadgets. So then I went and found the AI toilet cleaner, or I stumbled across it accidentally. And so this is a robot, and it's kind of crane-shaped. So it's really kind of like it'll walk or roll right up to the toilet. And it does several things. So it's like it's spraying, it's scrubbing. And then there's quite a lot of water around.

the places you can imagine because it's being very thorough it's being very thorough and so then it kind of air dries the seat so it's like blow-drying the seat very good uh-oh the drops have gone on the floor oh no but don't worry it's got a wet wet vacuum cleaner which is not a thing I you because you obviously you know you can't use a regular vacuum cleaner on wet things because that's very dangerous and so it's a but it's designed to be able to vacuum up like water and so then that's the whole process but it's huge it's like four times the size of the toilet and you know to your point Vic about you know innovations inventions such as gadgets being

there to heal a psychological wound that exists within us I don't think there is a person in this room who can look themselves in the mirror and honestly say that they don't have a psychological wound around cleaning the toilet yeah yeah that's real so it's actually it's look it's huge It's huge and I think that's what I love most about it is because its size, its unwieldiness, its, you know, general sort of complexity and likely expense reveals something I think about the scale of the psychological wound within us. Absolutely. That we would be willing to... What I like about, by the way that you've described this is that inbuilt into the design, the machine is saying,

listen, I'm going to make some mess. When I'm cleaning your toilet, there's going to be things. flying everywhere and there's going to be things on the floor I'm going to have to suck it up with my wet vacuum I've got it I've got it I'm going to make a mess and clean it up trust the process again you can believe in me you can love me yeah I go this thing so big I go who has room in their house for this machine but but you've got to dream big big right right right like you got to go maybe the point is in the future we will start redesigning our houses like I'm already thinking in the back of my mind

Yeah, the onsuit that we have won't pick one of these. Too small. I'll have to just get rid of the bedroom to be able to fit the cleaner. No, so I'm an innovative. If I could improve this product, what I'd like to see, because you said it was kind of crane-shaped. I would like the cleaner to come from the sky, beam down. I would.

I would say it's in the ceiling. It's tucked into a light fitting above the ceiling. It beams down, and then it kind of cradles around the toilet. sucks it all up and then moves back down into the ceiling. Wait, so this is more as an alternative to a flush. Oh, I think you can still flush. Okay. Can it flush for me? That's cool.

It probably can flush for it. So the AI toilet can do that. It comes down, yeah. It descends, because for me that would solve every problem that I have. I think you can probably walk away. That seems, yeah. You'd want to move out of the space because then you have a machine that's coming down. I don't think you...

I think it's not your business what happens after your business. Exactly. Would be my... That's the slogan. And that's exactly right. I think that's exactly right. I wouldn't mind. Honestly, the only thing that was disturbing me about this pitch was that it was like a machine

that had to be somewhere. But I think it was above me and I didn't need to look at it until I needed it to be cleaned. I would truly invest in that. Yeah. The way you've described it there, Vic, you're sort of in, you know, your riff on the AI toilet cleaner, the Hytron Mark I. So they've acknowledged that there's room for improvement there. It's mark one.

They know there's going to be more. Watch this space. You know, it's dropping down from the ceiling and you'll contemplate. contemplating whether or not you would still want to be there at the time. I think you definitely don't want to be there if it's dropping down from the ceiling and doing like a suction action up into the... Can I collect data on your poo? I mean, you said you like to click data on dice.

I guess, look, like this is really like a once a day, maybe twice a day, depending on how high use the toilet is. If you're lucky. So it's not... So what you're going to get like, you're going to get some pretty murky, so to speak, dark data there where it's... Over the last 20. You know, who's gut health are you really getting a read on there?

That's so true because some days... It's just a general population. Yeah, some days the machine would be like, you are dying. You are dying. You have 24 hours to live. But then the next day I'd be like, okay. But this is what I imagine with the smart toilet is obviously sometimes you have guests over and do they have to consent to the toilet reading the health of their gut?

I don't know if I want to have my friend Jenna over and then to know that maybe she needs to have... Would you like to compare your statistics? I would like to know mine compared to your. Yes, I know you would. And you would do that after I leave. I would look straight up and be like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah. For me, it's like, I think the possibility for like affirmations after you go to the bathroom would be really nice.

Like, you know, sometimes you work hard in there. You know what I mean? Now, this is going to get disgusting. Sometimes you do something that you're really proud of. That's what I'm saying. And I would like an inbuilt photo system where at Apple... No, no, I'd like to know, I'd like to be able to... Into a library.

Into a library. I'd like to know who's done the best. Who's done the biggest... Right. Yes, no, that's actually perfect because you could actually do that kind of comparison, but you don't ever have to go and do the looking. Exactly right. You've outsourced it.

Yes. I would like my call to tell me, you've done the top 5% mass in your district. And then I would like my sort of me emoji to be that, you know what I mean? Your actual mood. I've got my me emoji. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, because, and this is actually true. Sometimes you actually do something and you want to be able to share it with someone,

but you can do it with fellow enthusiasts who also consented. Yeah, yeah. Consented to have their. Yeah. Oh my God. And you can see world. like that'd be so interesting and then you could be like geopolitically like exactly what's that mean how does the politics affect what's happening yeah yeah exactly exactly I mean I mean

all know yeah what if it's not properly properly de-identified and then you know if someone hacks this data set the metadata and then what you've got is someone knowing about like some very personal stuff about you you you know your gut health like I just don't but I don't this is a dark path to warm down I think there's something beautiful of it once it leaves it's no longer part of you. And so there's a detachment. I have to go through the process every time. Once it's done, I go, that's no longer part of me. So maybe there's a separation there. It is a grieving. And it is a grieving. That is the subtext there. It is grieving. You have to say goodbye to something that was part of you for 24 hours. Yeah, yeah. Imagine what

people feel about babies. I love, yeah. That's, yeah. This is excited me. I'd definitely be looking into these. Yeah, yeah. The possibilities. Oh, no, no, no, into the toilets. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Into the toilets. Yes. They'll be available fourth quarter, apparently. They are, you know, more pitching to, you know, airports and shopping centres and things like that.

But I think that we should probably, well, no, I really, I didn't want to put limits on my dreams, and I thought that it would be nice to consider what it would be like in the home. Yeah. No, that's beautiful. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Is there any indication on how much one of these is going to send me back?

They're not. Because I'm thinking Christmas, it's fourth quarter. Yeah. Yeah, like which is now And so, yeah, look, no, I don't know But look, the smart toilet And do you have to subscribe? Was $8,000 which I think is pretty

So the smart toilet cleaner You know, you'd hope that it came in under that But there's no guarantee But I think it's one of those things Where there's no price too high Yeah, for a psychological wound at that size To obliterate that psychological wood Yeah, for happiness there's no price too high

But I also think like we had a friend that spent and I'm not going to name him because it is embarrassing we had a friend that spent $20,000 on his bed and he told us that and we were first of all we were rocked, he had $20,000. I thought you weren't going to mention him. And then, defame him but he did say like, well, I'm spending

over half my life in that thing and I was like, wow, that's so true. Wait, wait, what? No, not over half, wait, what did I say? Yeah, he's got a terrible illness. No, no, no, sorry. He actually felt bad, I'm like, enough found well. Yeah, hospital bed, yeah.

Yeah, but like toilet has a similar logic to me. I agree, you're there so often. I go $20,000 on the bed, $8,000 on the toilet, you know, it makes sense mathematically. What? What? What is what I imagine someone that knows maths would say? My question is around the superiority of the mattress and where you, well, I imagine, I imagine, you probably also said what and that is what and then they would have been your friend would have

been inclined to defend the purchase beyond you know saying well I spend half a third maybe of my life and so what is is it the breakdown makes more sense so the breakdown was like the bed frame the mattress the mattress protector the best pillows you can get still know the bed sheet I mean it doesn't make sense but like I was rocked but I was like okay I mean it doesn't take you know much to convince me to spend but I'm sure there are like AI smart beds because I've seen beds where you have a partner, you've got a partner, someone has a partner and they have two different demands for a mattress where one needs slightly more firm and one needs soft and then you can split the bed in half and then have the mattress

to kind of shift and change. There's the beds that measure how you sleep and how you're tossing and turning. Yeah, I know people with that thing and I think it's just time to admit that you're incompatible. Oh, yeah. Two separate beds. Yeah, yeah. Two separate beds in two separate houses in two separate continents, actually. They're a very expensive purchase to address the core wound there, which is that that you are not meant to be. Yeah, if you really love each other, you will put up with a shit sleep.

Absolutely. But no, it's actually very funny because Jen and I, we have an interest in... A shed. We have interest in... It's actually great for us. No, but I was going to say our interest is obviously looking at teledodonics,

specifically like sex robotics, in the interest of, you know, the bedroom and measuring activity in the bedroom. We found an incredible part. We did find a device. morning. So did you know, and you were talking before about with the smart toilet, like that's your private, you know, time, that's your private business. These products open up the same kind of questions. So back in 2017, there was a product launched, and I'm not kidding,

this is the name called the icon, icon. And it's a Bluetooth condom, essentially. Smart condom that acts as the world's first smart condom and it fits, it's a ring that fits over a normal condom which is actually... I was going to say, is it reusable? Yeah, so this is very expensive. So if you can imagine, the pitch is this, right? A Fitbit measures your steps, the aura ring measures your sleep, this icon smart condom measures your activity in the bedroom. And there's, you know, many possibilities for this.

One of my favourite features is it measures how many calories you burn in the act of love making. And I go, that's my interest. I want to know exactly. For me, it's just purely fitness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I would like to know if it's gym or that.

I would like to know if it's equal. Yeah. It's only really... What I love about this is they say it's purely... It's purely around your, around your member, which I'm sure has only very specific measurements. I don't have one. Yeah, we don't have one. We don't have one.

So this is only measuring the activity of the penis owner. Yes. Exactly right. But I'm sure there's blood flow, there's a... Okay, well, according to the pre-order page, okay, it says, what is my thrust velocity? Something you can optimize. Something you can optimize. Which is different from cadence as well, because there's frequency, but then there's how quickly it's... Yes, and as something women always want is higher velocity of thrust. We are really begging for that in the bedroom to break the sound barrier.

I say, yes or no, I say, what is the thrust velocity? Please, before you enter. Is that on Tinder, is there a section? Yeah, well, exactly, a mile per hour. Miles per hour on thrust velocity, then cadence. Yeah, I want to feel it before I hear it, you know. Hang on, and then this is interesting. So on the second thing, it says, what's my thrust velocity? And then the second thing it claims to address is how fast are my thrusts?

Now, is that not the same thing? No, that would be the same thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless they don't know what velocity means and what they actually mean is cadence. So so far, what it does is measure the thrust velocity until you how fast your thrust. How many calories did I burn? Oh, this is good. How many times did I just have sex?

It's good to know that sometimes. It's good to know. You lose count? Really? Was it once just then? No, I remember if it was like once or we all quite get to one or... That's when you're on a group chat with men. How big does the break have to be before?

No, you're in a group chat with your boys and you go, oh, I had sex three times this week. Boys are like, all right. And the boys are like, doubt it. Check the icon. Check the icon. How many times? You have, like, they can... And I imagine there's, I haven't got to this bit yet,

but I imagine there's, like, a Strava for icon as well, where the boys are posting up there, like, icons. I literally cannot stop innovating, and I just think this has so many, this has so many incredible implications. I love that about you. I would like to know, I'd like to measure from the penis, the cadence, the thrust,

and then I'd like to have that data put up kind of like a graph, and then I'd want a DJ to make a song that kind of replicates. Based on your cadence. Exactly right. I reckon you could use that. And that's what I'd play at my way. right? Yeah, yeah.

One of the best times. No, this is exactly right. Imagine you just had one of the best I'm experiencing of your life. And you go, babe, we should turn that one into the song. Exactly. I think you're not thinking big enough here, Vic. Really. No, I like to go bigger.

No, no, because really what you want, like, sure, absolutely, the wedding, yes, like the grandchildren's baptism, absolutely. But really, I mean, why aren't we doing this during the act of love making so you could actually have, like, the music match, BPM to your thrusts real time. Although what I would say about that is there is one instance where I have called a halt to sex, where I

caught someone, I won't go into more detail than this, but licking me in time with the beat of the music that was playing. And it was too much for me and I said, I'm sorry, we have to stop. Yeah, you were overstimulated. I just think this has such great implications when you track the metadata of your partner and how they're moving over time. You could see if they're cheating

based on how long they last, how often you're doing it. You have the receipts. being like, hey, babe, just letting you know you used to do this, this and this, your thrust velocity used to be 80, now it's 50, like what happened to you, what's going on? That's stand up in a court of law. I reckon it would.

If cheating was illegal in this universe, we'd just imagine, but you were prosecuting cheating. You think, really, but there might be anything going on. It's a whole new level of betrayal, because for me, I'm like, okay, you cheated on me, but you cheated on me and you had the goal to put your icon on to track your philosophy. Because it's a whole thing, you know.

But you've got to get your stats out. I know. I was like, I just feel like, my God. I would do mistress mode. Mistress mode. Oh, it's an incognito mode. It's an incognito mode. Yes.

Oh, yes, you can still, you can still get all the stats. Yes. I just think this is brilliant. We've done like seven Black Mirror episodes this whole chat, but I just, I just want to tell you one more thing. And does the icon still exist? And how much does it cost? What's amazing is there was news about this 2017. there's this big, big launch

and then you cannot find any information after that. Which really begs the question, Hillary Clinton, what happened? Yeah, yeah, it does. Hillary Clinton, what happened? It says, I mean, this thing, this is from the business insider. It basically says it's the world's first smart condom,

but the biggest kind of feedback that everyone had was like, this is not a condom. I have to have a regular condom too. So it's kind of like, why is it being marketed as the world's first smart condom? It's smart, but it's not a condom. accuracy, right? Yes. And it says he's $74 a pop. I'm assuming that's kind of US, so let's bump that up a little bit. You can only use them once. But this one you want to put on lots of time. So it is a fitting on top of the condom.

And the psychological wound that it addresses. And it does say, so we were right, there is a Strava for icon users. It's the icon app and they have the option to share their metrics with their friends or the public. So they can see how their bedroom skills and even girth. That's right. It measures girth as well. Which I kind of go, there's other things for that. Do you know what? That would actually be incredibly helpful to like integrate with like a dating app just to know. So you could measure and just say girth over X amount. Oh my gosh, this is my favorite new bit. Yeah. Sorry, the company statement says the device can detect sexually transmitted diseases such as

chlamydia and syphilis, but offers no information on how it does so. And it was called, it was called I-Con. Icon. It's got icon. It's got icon. It's so. The core wound here is just masculinity and crisis. Yeah, yeah.

Yes. I mean it's sad, but I do think Charles, like all the fun you could have being a man. I do think sometimes being a man is wasted on you. I think you should give a little bit of that to Vic and I. Because we would have so much fun. Dick for a day. Dick for a day vibes. But the other thing about the icon, which I'll use to segue into our next thing, is like this whole thing that you're

you raise is that it has it does have the ability to be hacked and that's disturbing so someone can hack your icon for sure yeah what I think is kind of a funnier product that can get hacked is actually the smart tampon that was recently released and the smart tampon came out and everyone was like this is interesting I mean maybe it's it's telling me what my flow is it's telling me if I'm laid, it's hooked up to my app, which, like, we know apps exist for women to, like, track their, you know, things in the, in the, in the tampon app, but this is, you know, inside you're giving you crazy kind of data.

Real-time data. Real-time data. What this makes me think of is, okay, so when we say it can be hacked, what we're thinking of is that data being leaked out into the rest of the world. But there was a very interesting story recently about these Chinese-made vacuums, it's a very large company EcoVax and their Bluetooth and what what was probably what the problem was was that they were being hacked from the outside to control the vacuums and what what they were doing is and which is okay you go sure okay what are you going to do vacuum the wrong room

but but what they had the vacuums do was yell out racial slurs oh brilliant so so it was a talking vacuum and then and then a racist talking about a racist talking They should market it as a feature in the US. So when you then apply that logic, because the same problem exists, right? Like, there's a whole set of laws that are trying to address the vulnerability in what we generally call the Internet of Things, like connected devices. And Australia, you'll be devastated to know is actually lagging behind the world standards on this. That's so easy.

So the government is trying to uplift. I mean, you know, the problem exists everywhere. Like, these robot vacuums were hackable, hacked in the US. That's where the racial slurs were yelled out by the vacuum cleaners. And when you think about how that could go, you know, if you're in the middle of, you know, the beautiful act of lovemaking, it's just, you know, it's disaster. With your vacuum cleaner. And then they're chatting to each other, the icon and the eco-vac.

Oh, my God. They're not saying nice. Imagine. And just to clarify, was it the hackers who were instructing the vacuum to be racist? Yes. Or was it AI coming up with racist slurs? No. Because it was trained on data by American.

No, no, no. It was hackers. It was, yeah. I don't feel like that. So is there a way to make the tampon more racist? Yeah, Charles, you hack it and then you make it say racist. You think you're taking the wrong message. But I don't blame.

That's what I get out of that. Yeah. No, what freaks me out about this, this smart tampon is, I don't know what you need to know when it's inside of you as opposed to anything else. Like, what are the features of this smart tampon? Like, what is the marketing here? Like, why do we need this? Because I can understand health.

I can understand wanting to know. But, oh, no, this was the feature. It told you when you should change it. Yes. So it was kind of something that, like, you know, I would argue you can set an alarm on your phone. There's apps for that. this is the controversial Bluetooth tampon that lets you know

when it needs changing. I think that was the main sort of pitch. Change me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it can't talk. So, Charles, it can't talk. You all is racist slurs at you.

Yeah. What is just so disturbing. I mean, yeah. So it's contained, okay, so it's all connected to a MyFlow brand and tampon via its string, which is much longer than other brands. So it's at 12 inches long.

So you've got a tail at that point. Not only have you got a tail, it says this 12 inch long string contains a conductive thread, which I kind of go. That is, so I'm just thinking. This raises questions of reusability. This raises questions of, so one of the great things about a tambourn versus, you know,

another product is that you can, you know, generally swim with a tampon in. I'm imagining that with the smart tampon and it's conductive thread, that that's probably not possible. Well, you're just rolling the dice, aren't you? Rolling the go dice. But the big thing that kind of came out,

which is like, I think is, you know, one of the crazy things, I guess, about technology is that women now have to worry about, I guess, is their locations being tracked. This tambourne absolutely had the ability to have its location be hacked and tracked. So you can be followed anywhere. It's a stalk a tampon with a conductive tail. This podcast is being transcribed like subtitled.

That would be labeled nervous laughter. It's so funny because it was marketed to kind of ease period anxiety, but in the process has opened up about seven new anxiety. Yes. It's a wound. The wound there for not knowing when to change your tampon. That's no way to talk about. Oh, it's not a wound.

I thought it was a wound. Yeah, it's an open word. We've moved past that. What is that wound? Yeah, what's the wound that's trying to address? Well, I think it's being able to take care of yourself. And not knowing, being so disconnected from your body and what it needs, that you need something to remind you how to do such a thing. Yeah, it all comes back to a wider theme of, like, optimisation, right?

optimization, right? It's like you're always like told that as women. It's like you should know when you need to change your timbre. How do I know when he's the optimum time to change it? Like to save time to save anxiety. It's kind of like giving that anxiety to someone else. It's a scary one to become over-reliant on as well. You know, like a lot of map, you know, Google Maps, for example, I'm way to rely. My sense of direction was already terrible, has got worse since I started because you've just outsourced that like remembering where you are things. And it's a little scary to think about the tampon that tells you when it needs changing. You become reliant on that.

It fails. That tech fails on you. I don't know. The battery, whatever. I'm not sure. Maybe it's got some sort of dice. And then you don't ever, you don't. Anyway.

But I just know, what's the worst case scenario is that you wait too long and die of toxic shocks? I guess that is the worst. So you're right, that would be quite bad. There is like a billion, yeah. But I guess the worst case scenario of the smart tampon is that you sort of electrocure yourself in the sort of shower with a conductive threat. thread that it gets hacked and trying to swim away from your stalker who was tracking you through your tampon yeah i would watch a whole film sort of battling these um final destination lives and it's kind of like the whole time you're just going take out the tampon see no i can i can understand i can

understand wanting to protect your health and wanting to understand yourself there is one product that i just do not understand what what the wound is here and this is the i'm at yeah the smart mat yeah sorry the smart match charles can you please tell us about the smart map because i still can't figure this one out yeah charles did give us a quick little, tiny brief, but I'm really excited to hear the details. So it's very impressive, actually. Developed by Dr. Andrew Clark, it is a doormant that connects your Wi-Fi, right? And you go, well, haven't we all gone?

You know what I really need is my doormat talking to the internet. I'm already in, I'm already excited. No, I mean, okay, all right, I am excited genuinely, but please go on. Yes. So, and you go, why, why would you need? Why, why, why? And the reason is to connect to a cloud-based server, right? Yes.

Go on. Yes. But the thing, so you go, what possibly? Why? The answer is. It allows you to measure the weight of people as they, you guess, as they come in through the door. What?

Right? The approximate weight is it. And then, and also how long they stood there, right? Well, until you open the door. Were they prevaricating for a while before they rang the door? I'm like, do I really want to visit Charles today? Yes, yes. And look, I think in fairness to Dr. Andrew, whatever's name is.

Wait, no, that's the whole, is that all the functionality? Yes, that's the functionality. That's all of it. Okay. In fairness, I think his point is people tend to weigh the same amount. So you could, through their weight, know who's at your door. Who's arriving, right? Oh.

But. No, no, this is a disaster because I could be carrying a large pot. my god he didn't think about when you're carrying the last I could be carrying lots and lots of shopping bags far out that's immediately debunk you were saying before Vic

that you you would totally buy that Matt and then you no I'd say my mother would buy that mat to torment me as a child you've put on too much weight what does the use except to shame the people walking into your

home yes the other thing is like even if we're entertaining this idea it's like no, no, I just want to use people's weight to identify them. The thing is, your burglar or your murderer could, you know, happen to weigh the same as your grandfather, you know what I mean? And it's like, granddad's at the door. And no, I thought you mean, so you murder, so you kill your grandfather, because you go, oh, wait

a minute, that's my murderer arriving. Better kill him. Oops, it was grandad. Gosh, it's a good thing I noted down my murderers weight the last time. I just think there's no, there's too big a leap. There's too big a leap to say that the measure. the weight of the person dictates their identity. Exactly.

There's too many variables here. I go, what is the other, what is the wound there that you need to know the information of how, how, I can't, I can't think of a single one. Can I just tell you, because you haven't got to the best part, which is, Oh, oh. So the thing is, there's a problem with dormant, which is that, um, there's never a powerpoint right near your dormant, right? Like, don't you think? But Andrew Clark, very smart man, has come up with a solution to that, which is battery powered, right? You don't need...

So this is the guy that invented batteries. So, you know, it's just like a standard 9-volt battery. Okay, okay. And the great thing is it will last 100 days connected to the internet. It was pretty good. That's pretty good. As long as you put it in the extended battery life mode, right? Otherwise, it will last 15 minutes.

But... But... But... So you go, oh, okay, we'll just put it in the extended battery mode. That's right. But with extended battery mode, what you've got to do is you go up to the door mat, you're going to stand on it for five seconds before it turns itself on and boots up enough to be smart. Yeah, right.

Right, which is a problem if you're the kind of person who's waiting near the door for visitors. Yeah, and you're wanting to measure how long they've been waiting. been waiting. Well, I suppose you could just add five seconds to every measurement. You could hear the doorbell and then count to five. Yes. Here's the other thing is like, I know that when I'm like, you know, maybe knocking on the door of a house, I'm not necessarily standing on the mat. So it gets... Shut up. Like directly on the door.

Shut up. So it was that, Jenna. You could simply put a note on the front of the door so please. Stand on this mat. Wait five seconds. Yes, wait five seconds. It's definitely not weighing you. I love that like when the, when it's, let's just assume it's run out of batteries after 15 minutes. I love that after that time, I assume it's just a really ugly mat.

Like it's just a computer screen I'm imagining, like on the ground. Do we have the PowerPoint? Do we? I got a photo of it. Oh, I'd love to see. And you're right. It is really ugly. Oh, maybe we've done it.

Jenner, I have a question genuinely. Why? Am I not standing directly on the mat? Yeah. Because that's actually quite hard to do. Because you're extending or maybe you've got like two feet, a foot on either side of the mat. I just wondered what we motivate that. It's not being the line of the murderer.

Do you know why? It's because I don't knock. I simply do not knock. Yeah, I'm texting. I'm texting. I'm going here. I'm outside and usually I'm like... That's our generation.

Well, one of those annoying Gen Z people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just got, I'm outside. I'm here, come out, ha-ha. Yeah. But even if, even if I'm, like, visiting an older person, like I'm at Charles's or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I know, you know, I know that he likes, you know, the olden kind of traditions like knocking. And it's very frustrating that you never stand on my door man. No, yeah. The thing is... No reason. Yeah. And why I always like you to arrive within a 15-minute window.

I know. And then Charles is like, where is Jenna and Vic? And then he's got like seven missed calls. We're here. We're here. We've been here. I will walk on the doormat to brush my feet, to clean my feet. I would like a smart mat that can measure all the things.

Like, you know when you go through quarantine and they measure all the microbes on your feet and stuff? I'd like to know what my guests are bringing into my house. Well, they can be version too. That's more true, yeah. Can I say it's also a social etiquette thing, like actually to be quite serious. So, like, the door mat, like, it's, this is the thing. The door mat is never positioned in a normal place in front of the door. It's positioned right up against the door.

So if you want me to knock and then stand on your door mat, you're going to get quite the fright when you open the door. And I'm right there. So I'm like, if you're putting a mat down, Charles, and you should note this for your mat. Put it a polite distance away. Then I will stand on your mat. But I'm trying to be polite.

Because that is a horrifying. Whenever anyone stands too close when you open a door, you know what that's like. Okay. Mine you panic, my new worry about this product. Because I'm assuming it costs a pretty penny. This is something that you're keeping outside of the house. Is there a privacy or a lock or a key or something that you can glue down

so no one is stealing this very expensive machine? It's the one thing that it hasn't. How do you protect it? You just got a good expensive appliance just sitting there. I'd just be looking around finding these masks stealing them. There's an upside that we haven't thought of really with the weighing thing because we're like, oh, that's not all that useful. I, okay, you're a witch and you live in the forest and you live in a house made of candy.

Yes, yes, yes. All of a sudden, that's a pretty useful mat. Yes. Wait, why? I'm not like, you know, okay, so you've, maybe, I don't know, maybe some vegans vegetarians. I was following the witch stuff, but like, what happens to that child, that child goes in to the oven, ideally, okay? Just being handsome and better logic, yes, that makes sense. How long to cook the child for?

Unless you know the weight of the child. Unless you know the weight of the child. Exactly. Yes. Yes. So it's essentially... And is it like, what, half an hour per 500 grams? It's about that, yeah, from memory.

I mean, it's been a while. It's kind of like one of those for human beings, like one of those knives you put in the steak and like it tells you... Check it if you can get Bluetooth-enabled thermometers. Right, but you don't need it if you've got the door mat. Exactly right. It saves you a Bluetooth thermometer. Yes. exactly right that's some yeah that's some blue skies thinking I believe that's that's some

good yeah thank you I like to think of the use of that yeah so at this point we need to sort of come up with some elegant way to bring everything all the threads together usually Dom does that okay right yes okay what are we going to do instead yeah yeah does anyone have any well I feel like everything that we've discussed here today they are amazing products all worth our investment and time and interrogation. And I would just ask any user or any buyer to question what is this wound that this product is addressing, whether it's the fear of being a bad father, the fear of not knowing the data over dice, worrying about what thrust velocity is. What are these fears? What are these fears and anxieties? And are there better ways

to address them instead of buying a Bluetooth powered? No. No. No. They're not. there aren't. And that's the thing. And like the wonderful thing, like, I guess, and I know I'm not saying anything groundbreaking, but like what I've realized today is like what that is so interesting about capitalism, hey, where it's like these products are trying to solve one issue and create five more that you actually also need products for. And then those products solve that issue, but then create 10 more. And that's kind of what I've learned as well. It's almost like a systemic kind of problem. It's almost like it's like a system we all live under or something. But like I that makes you think about that. It does make you think.

And yes, anyway, I'm also writing a thesis on that as well. And I love that. And I love that. So just buy more, buy often. And when three problems pop up from one. Buy five more products. Buy five more products that address those products. Exactly.

And always be looking out for more products that can further help you. Charles, I'd like to ask you something. Like, I feel like a lot of the products when I was looking, I don't know if you felt this way, and like a lot of the products were marketed to men. And it was quite sad to see, you know, it's kind of like, it feels like in the past. I mean, sure, we're not in the past, but talking about the future, in the kind of, I don't know, in the present. I was not, I never lived there. What's that middle one?

What's that middle one? Yeah, yeah. I don't know, because I'm never in it. No, it almost like, you know, back in the day it was like, women, you need, you need these mascara to make your eyelashes on you, you need this filler, you need this whatever. And we're obviously still living under that system, but I predict like the future is going to be all about the male wound. And it's already kind of happening. Like, we need, like, to, like, address all of these problems with masculinity. Yes.

We see it with the kind of innovations in hair plug technology. Like, I'm like, that's the new... And the further and further are men disconnect from communities and from people. From their Bluetooth, yeah. I think the traditional way for men to solve their wounds is to set up a podcast. Yes. Yes. And occasionally that allows them to speak to.

to women on upset. And so thank you so much, Don, for not being here today. And I have to talk to Charles and make sure that his wounds are addressed. Don is sick. Well, on that note, thank you very much. Big round of applause to Nick, Jenna and Anne. We are part of the Iconiclass Network. Catch you next week.

Yay! They'll love that. I'll love that. I'll love that. Thank you for your patience. Your call is important. Can't take being on hold anymore? FIS is 100% online,

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