The Vergecast - CES 2015, Day 2

Episode Date: January 8, 2015

It's Day 2 of CES 2015. We're confused, we're delirious, and we have a lot of feelings about Say Anything. Join Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Chris Plante, and Sam Sheffer on this live Vergecast odyssey from the show floor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Vergecast, the show where we exist at CES and have emotions about it. And then we allow those emotions to travel down our brains. Into the microphones, through the internet, out of your stereo. And then into your ears and then into your brains. So really, brain-to-brain communication here on the Vergecast at CES. I further think it was infection because it's CES. It's brain-to-brain infection. Yeah, it's a virus.

is a virus and now it's in your brain. Thank you for listening to us. Hi, I'm Neely Patel. I'm Chris Plant. I'm Deeter Bone. And I'm Sam Schaeffer. Swagistee. His swaggesty.

You can't call you. That's a joke. You can't say it about yourself. He refers to himself in the royal swag. No, Hypech himself is back in the mix today. Hey. Very exciting. I will say this.

Here's the truth. And I want this show to be about truth. Okay. I am super hungover. Why are you hungover on a Wednesday? Because you went up in the club on a Tuesday? Days don't exist. It's Las Vegas.

Did you just try to write a little rap? I did. Don't do that either. Just let it go. Let it go. Did you just sing Let it go at me? Yes. O for two. Actually, over three.

Hype check, let it go. Oh, come on. Overplayed. Oh, rough. Rough, man. We are not friends anymore. Well, within two minutes of opening the show, we've burned frozen. So that, I think, is good.

And any hopes of redeeming ourselves today? It's all downhill. No, it's Las Vegas. Time doesn't exist here. You went to a work party last night. I went to a work, and I worked. And you came back. He worked hard.

Can I tell you a story of what happened in my room last time? I went to bed. Please don't. The red shoes. So I won't say who it was, but I'll say it's somebody who works at our company. This is going badly. And he's tall and bald. And I'm like, home early, getting some work done.

I'm going to go to sleep in a decent time. I'm reading a book about the Japanese railroad built during World War II, getting thoroughly depressed like I like to do before bedtime, going to have bad dreams, and typing away. And then somebody walks into the room, and he is like, oh, boy, it's my new wife. And I'm like, nope, that's not who I am. And he's like, guess where I came from?

and I was like, The Work Party. He's like, the work party. And guess what I talked about? And I'm like, drones. And he's like, drones! And then kept saying drones. And then decided... I have a really clear idea.

He had to tell me a story about how he, like, he really seduced the people at this party with his story about Hasbro buying magic cards, but not developing hearstone. And halfway through, he's like, and then I said, you should have made Hurstown. And then, like, Christine just snore loudly. And that was the rest of my night. That person was me.

On a completely... That boy was me. Totally unrelated note. Some of our staff went and had awesome adventures with drones in the past couple of days. Really? You're going to try to, like, like, cleverly transition. That's a great segue. We came here for tech news.

No, we should talk about that video. What did you people think would happen here? The coolest video. They came here for the free coffee and the Wi-Fi and probably. probably that sick car to look at it. You in that car, man. Can we talk about the coolest video on the site right now?

You should start out of its friends, you and that car. Yeah, let's talk about the cool video. What is the coolest video on the side of him? So, Ben Popper went out into the desert and raced in a drone rodeo and then participated in a drone Thunderdome where he battled drones in a drone sumo match.

And he was like, he was like actually driving it, right? Yeah, well, he had to wear like the R-glass, first person racing through the desert sky. It was crazy. Well, I liked about the drone battle was not the battle themselves, which looks as childish and pathetic as you think it would. But what happens between the battles is they do break each other. Like the build is solid and unbreakable,

but the propellers are not. Yeah. So you're given 90 seconds to fix it. So you see these, like, grown men sprint into the ring, like dive onto their drone and they do like a full tear down of that drone and fix it in 90 seconds and get the hell out and they have that like control their back in their hands and they're right back at it and that's the real sport like that's where you have to train is like a real sport training to fix a drone in 90 seconds and also sprint like 50 feet to get in and out that I would watch that forever on loop

as a gift the drone already is actually just a gif of a grown man sprinting to his drone You're pairing his toys. And speaking of YouTube videos. Speaking of YouTube videos. And Theverge.com. We hit half a million subs today on YouTube. I'm not done talking about Jones. I'm proud of the achievement, and I know that Social Sam is...

I'm trying. I'm trying to do my job. But I just want to ask you, do you know how Segways work? Yes, that you lean forward to go and you lean back to stop. There's just... No, it's like... You know how they work? The whole room.

There's a crowd here that didn't go there with you. It's like the Acapella battle from pitch per se. Perfect. You just take whatever the word is and you go right into the next song. And I don't blame them. There they go. Stop by the car. Get your picture taken. Now they're circling back around. What was the biggest thing that caused me harm?

Biggest thing. No, so like I did suit stuff all day today. It's actually really funny. Like my E.S is about like being a suit. So I did suit stuff. What did you do today? I filmed a video that is going to go on the verge.com. Yeah.

That makes me look like a real asshole. So unlike everything I've focused. What was the video? I went, so it's my first CS, as we've talked about extensively, and I went around the show floor asking people for advice. First about CES, but second about where I would acquire illegal substance in Las Vegas. And then third, if I were to come into legal trouble, how I'd get out of it. And you'd be surprised how many PR people had answers for that, ready to go. That's like part of their job, right?

Of course, yeah. It's like, the CEO of the company is super drunk again. Which happens all the time, not saying which company. that is, but maybe it's right across the way. You know, there's one booth here. I'm pointing at Replay. Yeah. Replay XD. The newest of the replay family.

I have no idea what they... They do a lot of yelling over there. I will say it. Oh, it's a drone. There's drones everywhere. There are... I will say... So that's a big theme. We have not yet talked about at all on the show, which is drones are everywhere. Is 2015 the year of consumer drones?

I don't... Who cares? The thing about drones be everywhere? Don't say those words to me in that order. No, it probably... is the year of consumer drones. But that makes us sound like terrible jerks. No, right, but like GoPro's most likely getting into the business. GoPro and drones

are becoming ubiquitous everywhere. They're everywhere here. We have a bunch of them in the office. We use them to film our videos. And when they get cheaper, people are going to buy them for Christmas. Right. Until they're regulated. They all disappear. Right. Yeah. Inside of an airplane's propeller.

No, I mean, like, that's just like a, the reason I've responded so harshly to that phrasing is like... Because it's true. Oh, God. Yes, because of the essential truth of the statement. That's what I hate. I hate true things. Give me lies. No, what I mean is, like, it's nothing is the year of anything at CS.

It's a totally artificial environment. It's going to be the year. Everything here is fake. It made of fake things. Can you tell that I've had to, like, do suit things all day? No, I couldn't tell at all. You were hung up? No.

Yeah, I've had to be so polite all day. It's just like, I'm just like, I'm going to be. Bullies. I mean, like, look. No, I think. think the drone thing is it the reason it's exciting the reason people will buy them is actually a thing that ben has said several times which is this is awesome like you put on the thing and you're flying and it's like actually an immersive experience and i was talking to somebody about uber today

which is like a miserable bad company but the thing that uber like makes real and the thing that seamless makes real is like you push a button on the phone and then something like happens in real life and everything has been so virtual and so restricted to like cell phone screens for like three years. What you're seeing here is like drones happen in real life. Like they're loud and noisy and they can hurt you. And like our government is like trying to figure out how to deal with them. But they're toys. They're toys on the scale that literally the United States of America is like maybe we shouldn't have those toys. Maybe only professionals should have these toys. Maybe only we should have them from blowing up things. Yeah. There's definitely going to be like an NRA for drones.

Oh God. Like super mad like drones rights people are going to get like all open arms. Drone's rights. How dare the government. Those are bees. And drone noise. They don't like rev up in a red. It's kind of bad. How many drones have you seen here?

Oh my God. I don't know like seven or eight. It's like just a good number. You mean like total or like a variety of drones? Not drone wise. They all look the same. Except for that drone that follows you. Yeah, that's the air dog.

That's what I was going to talk about. And it's just terrifying. But it's terrifying and hilarious. It's a drone that just automatically follows you, right? Does it protect me from like a attacker? Because it's a little friend. It's your little friend. It's an air dog.

I get it. No, it's a good name. No robot is you friends. The drones are everywhere so they should be boring, but people are like finding random extra things to do to like make their mark on the drone world. And so it's creating some like weird, nerdy innovation. The Gizmos is what I'm saying. Yes.

Gizmos. I was already mean to Sam, so I don't want to be mean to do it. No, actually, the coolest drone thing was at Intel's keynote last night. Intel's keynote last night. They did a drone that did automatic avoid avoidance. Yeah. It could drive itself. And if you close a door, it would not run into the door and it wouldn't hurt you.

And so it's finally adding the proper amount of automation and self-driving and autonomousness to the drone to make it actually genuinely exciting. What's the tech called? I will say this. Most drones here are like lies, right? Like, in the sense that they're just kind of like RC quadcopters. Right. And if like two years ago, if I was like, I'm going to buy your remote controlled helicopter,

you'd be like, that would be awesome, but please don't tell anyone I played with this. Right? Like, you're, right? Like, it's the one guy at the park who's making life hard for everyone because he doesn't quite know how to keep it in the air. I was that guy. It's fine. Yeah.

I know that feeling. But now it's like, it's a drone. And everyone's like, the coolest thing that could happen. It's like 2015 year of consumer drones. It has the same name as things that kill. Yeah. It's how I can use it. The year of RC boats.

That's the one that's coming next. By the way, RC cars were dope. I used to build them. Cool. See? But if I was like, when I used to build rolling drones, you'd be like, yeah, that's awesome. Those are super disruptive.

Sure. The drone was sitting there in the middle of the same. stage, sad and lonely, just hovering, and a dude ran at it, and it was like, nope, don't hit me, and then another dude, they had four guys just, like, pell mel, rushing the drone.

You have a video with that? And it was, like, dodging around, trying not to get hit. I don't like it. Because, like, what I like about drones, what I like what drones is hitting him with a baseball bat. That is what they're for. You read my mind. Because it's like, if a drone gets out of order, I'm going to get my bat and I'm going to bring it down.

Right. So the NRA and the drones right people, they're coming for each other. The greatest match of scooting ever seen. No, but I would say this. The thing that makes drones drones is what you're talking about with Intel. They have to be smart. They have to basically fly themselves.

That's why RC helicopters didn't. They were hard to fly, so they're not popular. Now it's like you push the button and you're a little parrot drone like pops up the air and does it flip. And then your father-in-law is like cool Christmas present. You bought me another. You bought me another.

drone I don't want to play with. That didn't happen to me. Not at all. Wow. What? Just a little... All the sadness coming out. It wasn't sad. It was the truth. Sadness, truth. My father-in-law is a legit corn farmer, and the first time Becky introduced me to him, he showed me his sniper rifle.

So the drone thing, I think, is going to work out well for this. Was he like, look how cool this is, or was he like, look what I have? He was more like, so you're dating my daughter. I can't tell if we're going to be really good friends. I'm super happy. She brought a boy home that I like. but also I had this gun. In a two-kilometer range. He's like, it has a laser.

This is a true story. He has an impressive gun collection. Wow. He has one that was signed by Dale Earnhardt Jr. Or Dale Earnhardt, Sr., whom he reveres. RIP. I like him. He's a cool guy.

I buy him drones over here for Christmas. Anyway. And next year, I'm going to buy him one that flies himself. Right. It follows him around. Like a little dog. Here's your air dog. Instead of getting back a dog, I'm going to buy her a drone.

Wait. How can they use the name of an airplane? Air dog. Huh? Isn't Air dog name? Airhog. Oh, Airhog. It's called the Airhog.

Air Hog is what you're thinking of. I got you. Okay, because I was worried Air Dog reference of classic film franchise of dogs that slam dunk and score touchdowns. Oh, no, that's Air Bud. That's Air Bud. Oh, who is an Air Dog? AirBud.

None of these names are good. Air Bud is masterpiece. Air Bud, too, I think, is the masterpiece you're thinking of it. Electric Bugleau. The first Air Bud was like, it proved the concept. and Airbud too took it home. But you want to wait is you want to wait for the second Airbud.

You want to keep talking about Intel? They also, they did one other thing that's really cool. It's called the Curie module. So last year they had a computer that fit in an SD card. And the Curie module is like the so that was called Edison, so an inventor. And then Curie is assuming

Mary Curie. It does like wearable stuff, but it's like the size of a button. So we've been talking about this. The Internet of Things is everywhere. And Intel's like, they've made a thing that you just, like, can, like, stick it on anything, and it becomes an Internet of Thing. Right. Can you just explain what that means in, like, in real, real work?

You'll be to explain the Internet of Things? Yeah, like you say, oh, you have a button, you know, a sensor that's the size of a button, you put on a shirt, and it becomes the Internet of Things. Well, it becomes a wearable. It'll, you know, detracts your movement. I think he means what's it doing. Yeah, like, this whole Internet of things. You wrote the piece, but, like, I didn't write the piece.

No, you talk. Welcome to Smart. It does gesture recognition, six-axis movement. It's got a gyroscope. It's enough to build a basic wearable. It's a starting point. So it's just about... You explain.

Okay. So the Intel keynote every year is Intel being like, man, we should sell more chips, right? Because that's what they do. But they don't actually sell any products. So Intel is in this weird place where they have marketed their way to being a super well-known consumer brand. People like no Intel inside.

Intel inside. Smart company, right? Centrino and Pentium. Like, all those things were Intel moments. And at CS, they show up and they, like, try to invent reasons that you would buy their chips. So every year the Intel keynote is full of, like, fantastic ideas, none of which will ever come to market. But they, like, here's other places you could put processing. Wait.

That's their functional, what, what? Can we talk about this now? Because this is what I'm... Let me finish this. Okay, okay, go ahead. I promise. It's going to get... Oh, no, no.

I can't wait hear more about chips. It's going to stay boring for, like, one more second, but then... It's already boring. It's going to be boring. It's boring right now. No, but Intel's problem is that its ships are nowhere that matters right now. They're in our laptops, so they're not on the phones, not on the tablets. And their big opportunity is to beat Qualcomm to the processing that surrounds everything around us,

all those Internet of things, things. So they, that little thing is it is the guts of how you make anything smart. So it's a process, it's a little bit of memory, it's a processor. It's a bunch of sensors, and you can buy it, and you can like, I'm a coffee machine vendor, and I want to make smart coffee machines. And it's like, who do I go to for the processor, Intel or Qualcomm? Or I'm a Kickstarter dude and I want to make a smart whatever and Intel will just sell me like off the shelf like this package and then I will like kickstart something and then we'll go through that disappointment. So is the internet of things like sort of a race to become like a thing now? Are these companies like going to be like, oh, we need to be the company that makes this chip that you want to put inside your door handle or like your shirt collar?

That's like the big platform story here. Right. That's why NVIDIA was like, here's a boring, or not boring. Was it boring? It was boring. It was so boring that it loops all the way back around somewhat interesting. Because that's what that was. It was like, wow.

It was so boring. It was interesting. And Jen Son Wong is like a great Tia. He's done interesting things with NVIDIA and that's his company. And he's like, but he's just like, he's got this schick where he's just like, and what you want is for chips to be more powerful than they were. And your car dashboard. And he's like, do you guys know?

how doomed you are right now? Because I wrote an article about the Internet of Things two days ago. And my Twitter feed since then has been nonstop B2B mid-sized corporate consultants sharing the article. Oh, those are the best people on Twitter. They're the best. They do not participate in the Internet culture. They don't know how to use Twitter, but they know how to share articles that relate to corporate infrastructure. No, middle managers who are bad at Twitter is like an entire subculture of Twitter.

And a great tumbler. It's just like really bad hashtag. Like eggs with bad hashtags? Eggs. Yeah. That's my life right now. That's who they are. They literally are.

And as people, that's who they are. They've collapsed themselves to egg-shaped humanoids who are, who are like surrounded in B-to-B hashtags. These are the people of CS, not you. You're great. You guys are cool. You're not an egg. You're not an egg, and you're not an egg.

That guy hates me. Might be an egg. Don't know. Too many hashtags. Hashtag IOT. Wait, Dieter. Hashtag B2B Solutions vendor. I'm Deeter.

Hashtag. S&B. You wrote the piece. I did. Hashtag network attached storage. Cisco. He just yells Cisco. Dieter, talk about the internet of things.

I already did. No, but like, give me. All right. Dieter, I'm going to do this right now. I show not. Sam, I have a question. Dieter. Hype check internet of things.

No, you can't. Okay. I would like to stop and like structurally rethink the verge cast because I have what I would call an existential question about it. Yes. Sam... Should we continue to exist? No, Sam...

It's the definition of an existential question. Right. Right. Yes. Yes. And I think right now we have a fatal flaw, which is that Sam, our voice of the teen generation... Running the teen wave.

The most businessy things on the show. Right. It's like you've entered the CES. You entered this space... Do you know how many years I've spent in Vegas? Is this the year of consumer drones? This is my sixth CES. No, hype check some stuff.

Say some yellow those things. Yellow words. So, uh, Tell me more about this IOT. Does it have any good ROI? I'm worried about you. I check actuarial tables. A complete bus.

That's so depressing. No, I'm just saying, like, you walk in this room, and you were like, let's talk about the markets. Yeah, because that's what matters. Wow. Wow. See, this is what you're watching in real time. Why does this show grow up? Why does this show happen?

Because people want to spend money and people want to buy things, and people need to sell things. and people need to sell things. That's why the show happens. That's why we are here right now. Sam is becoming Michael J. Fox and now old sitcom. You are Michael Pete. My first C.S. The opposite of the Lloyd Dobler speech.

I want to put this thing in perspective. Do you know what say anything is? The band? Oh, my God. I was just going to say little babies all grown up, but he ain't. Okay. My first CES, I was 19 years old, and we worked at Engadgett together, Neelai.

Do you remember that? I am now 24, and this is my sixth year in a row. in Vegas. It pains me that we have employees who are like 18. Anyway. But like that's, I feel like that's what really the underlying message of the show is, is like these vendors come. What am I going to buy? I really...

You're like, that's the message, right? What do you buy? Yeah, I thought you were asking me what I'm going to buy. But if I'm going to answer that question, I'm going to buy a rideable in 2015. Like, I'm going to spend them whatever it is. I don't want to spend a thousand bucks. I want to spend somewhere to five or six hundred bucks. I'm going to buy a rideable and I'm going to ride that to work. And then I'm going to buy a consumer drone.

Probably GoPro. Okay. So what I want you to buy is a DVD. Is that a format that you know? Of the movie Say Anything. Yeah. Have you ever, and you can watch a great movie. So this movie Say Anything was made in

1989 and Hypecheck, I was born in 1990, so it's cool. You can't, Hype Check, I was, like, my birthday? Also, you can't say this movie say anything as if people don't know about it. This, I would say that this quote probably defines the three of us. I'm not going to say it because it's such a long.

Read the quote. Because I actually don't know the quote. It's super long. But it's like he's the dude. This is really a show about father-in-laws. You know, we can test it in shorthand. Sam, where is San Dimas High School? And how would you say it's football is?

They're in California. Okay. And their football is great. Ah, damn it. You're just the worst. Don't mess. Sorry. It rules.

That's the, that's from, okay. Okay, go on. No, I'm saying this is like a generational thing that's happening, right? And I mean that in a really, like, significant way because my entire theme of, like, technology in 2015 is 90s are back. And this is like a very Gen X quote from this movie where the dudes, the girlfriend's dad is like, what do you want to do with your life? And he's like, I don't want to buy anything or sell anything or process anything or buy anything that's processed. Like, it's like this whole, like basically nothing. I refuse to do anything.

I will not engage in the marketplace. That's the core message of saying. Now the millennial reaction is the exact opposite. And you're like, everything is about what we will spend our money on. And it's like, consumerism. Consumerism. Yeah, because Gen Xers try not to sell out and they sucked and put our functioning in a hole. And now they left millennials like Sam and I to actually have to dig it out.

So yeah, I'm talking to you, Jen Xers. You all suck. You're an egg. You ruined my life. And I graduated in 2008. I'm pretty sure it's not our fault. Wow. It is your fault.

It is getting super deep. This is getting too deep. Pull it out of the hole. Oh, no, no. The conclusion of this discussion is that I should go watch say anything. Yeah, that's what, okay. First you should do that. But the second, the other bigger, I can make this about CES.

Oh, great. I will do it. I was going to watch it on a curved TV screen. Oh, my God. In a comfort of your own home. In the sun. While your drone that you got instead of a dog. I'm watching.

No, the drone is watching the movie and I'm watching the movie through the drone, like it with my VR goggles. That's the future. Oh, so speaking of crazy goggles. Is this on the site yet? It's probably not on that site yet, but it will be soon. Surely by the time you listen to this. Is this a lightsaber thing? No, so, yes, it's great.

So, like, two years ago, we broke Oculus. Like, we were the first people at Oculus in the light because Palmer Lucky just knocked on the door of our trailer. I was like, I had this weird duct tape thing that I made. It was a longer conversation than that. I just, could we, like, revisit that for a second? The entire trailer lined up.

Our trailer's not a decent size, but there was a line of humans lined up in it for, a tiny room to try out the Oculus Rift. And it was literally like held together. It was ski goggles with duct tape and the screen, right? And everyone that tried it freaked the hell out. It was, that was like, I watched like some sort of

technological transcendence. Right, and now everyone's doing that in the gear VR which is crazy, right? Like, and we're still in the trailer and Palmer Lucky is a billionaire, so our paths have diverged. Yeah, I'll give you guys credit too, because you gave it like best of show, right? Yes, we did. And I remember seeing that early version and while I can

admittedly see the future, that early version's stick. Yeah, but it was super low-res. Here's what I'm saying. But you can see the potential. The cycle is so fastness. So two years ago, dude was just like here,

like knocking on the door, being like, do you want to look at this? Now it's like, it's a big part of Samsung's booth, right? It's like, and like that's a billion-dollar thing. You can hear the click of his sandals coming closer.

It's actually, the story I'm telling you's fundamentally about Samsung because last year, smart things was like, we're not CS, we don't want to spend the money on a big booth, we're a startup,

come to this house suite, like Airbnb that we put smart locks all over. and now it is literally the center of Samsung's booth. Just for people that don't know, Smart Things was a company that was just swallowed by Samsung very recently. Yeah, August. So Smart Things is like they make the hub that connects to everything. But they were just a startup,

and now their centerpiece of Samsung's whole show is Smart Things. I don't know if I should even give away the big thing that we've seen. Then don't. Oh, you know what? I'm going to hold it for tomorrow's show. We've seen one more thing that we'll save for tomorrow's show that is nuts. Like, VR nuts. Oh, that's exciting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we'll talk about that in tomorrow's show. Yeah, okay. Good, good tease. Hype check, teaser. A plan could do it. It's fine. Thank you.

Rough. No, so there's like that, the small stuff. And then, so today I'm walking around, and I saw, like, basically four guys who had just shown up to CS. They were holding, like, a folder full of their own flyers and wearing, like, get lucky mirror masks. And I was like, I got to know what that is. And they, like, had no idea. They were just here to, like,

show people the product they'd made. It was like a crazy product, right? They are about to start a Kickstarter, but, like, they built an app for a Windows phone, and the Windows phone sits here, and this mirror visor comes down in front of you, and it projects augmented reality over, like, the world. Yeah.

Like, out, like, out. It looks like it's far out. Did you try it? Yeah, I tried it. It, you know, works. They clearly need to continue to open. But no, the crazy thing about it is you look around, to point the reticle, to point the mouse pointer.

But, you know, the phone is in the visor. So how do you, like, get it to work? You click your jaw. And then through bone conduction, bone conduction, that's how it clicks. And it's like, these guys are just here. They're just, like, doing it. They don't show up. It's like, it's four dudes from China, just walking around.

Yeah. We cover them. I think Quarme did a story on that will go up soon. But, like, that's like the other part of CS. Like, there's all this crap. And then there's people who are just here. And what's, like, the thing about the show, three or four people have said this to me now.

It's like, the announcements here are like, in many ways. whatever. But to actually just get all of these people together at once is so valuable. Because you're just around the people who are making these decisions and you're having those conversations. Yeah. And then you drink way too much and you regret it for so long. What else on our topic list, Peter? Might if I circle back and talk about this one thing really quick though? Okay. So it's going to connect to these. I've got a thing after you're done that's going to take a while.

Oh, it connects to Palm. Don't worry. Oh, yeah, I spoiled it, Palm. Oh, no. Everyone else is, the gadgets right over there, and they're rushing to write about palm. Now they are. Now they are. Something is happening.

For me, I'm feeling like my big theme in the show that I'm starting to realize is we didn't finish it, but do it for us. Right. And it is. Interesting. Everywhere. I mean, any VR company, I saw OSVR yesterday, which is the very definition of, hey, this could make us a billion dollars. want to do that for us?

OSVR is... Oh, thank you. OSVR is like, kind of like an Android for VR is how they're promoting it. And it's by Razor. Who you might know is the company that makes keyboards.

Oh, I didn't even know that. Yeah. Razor shows up with something insane every year. Yeah. But this year was no hardware, right? It was just the... Open source VR. Which is also open source.

Wow. So you could like modify the hardware, throw your name on it, sell it. Like, it's pretty bold idea. Does it feel good on your head right now? Not really. Dried it? Yeah.

But it's an interesting thing. And a lot of the drone things, Palm is another one of these things. Well, but so to the VR thing, it's everywhere, and nobody knows exactly what to do with it other than, like, show you ads. And everybody that's saying, hey, Oculus, where is your consumer product? My attitude, I think, was this on the last first rush to Casas instance? My attitude to Oculus is, it's cool guys, just keep working on it. I'd rather, they don't need to rush to get that out of marketing. No rush because they're the only actual company that's doing this.

Well, more importantly, you can Torpedo. A bunch of other people are chasing it, but like, I don't think of any of else as close as they are to get it right. Because they're backed by Facebook now. Oh, of course they do. But you want a release number two. If you're at that company. Well, no, I mean a real release. You wait for the first major release and then you kill it violently with whatever you have.

Because if you let that come out, you release the better version and then you, I mean, you just utterly. destroy it during Christmas. They released the Kickstarter version, right? That was DK1. These are all dev kits. So these aren't real... So Oculus doesn't have a consumer product yet, right? No.

And they have no need to announce one until they know who they need to destroy. Right. And actually, the other thing that's happening in the show, which is we have not talked about at all, it's been on the site, is that there are any number of vendors here hawking...

Where there's 360-degree cameras? Yes. And there's 720-degree cameras, which just is like you don't understand how numbers work. So a 360 camera is like it goes all the way around like this and a 720 gets the whole sphere. And it's like that is not how degrees work. You, how are you an engineer?

You did not play 1080 degrees snowboarding. I don't know if your camera works as well as you think it did. Great game for the N64. Because you don't, you literally don't understand the math of circles. Wasn't this on Android like four years ago? remember doing a photosphere of the old of the old virtual office? No, no, no, it's like whatever.

That was garbage. These are like all the ones. You can film a movie here. Photosphere is only basically garbage. They're eggs. They're eggs. They're hashtag eggs. Hashags. B-to-B.

Hashtag. That's my new word for garbage. Instead of garbage in 2015, I would like everyone to say hashtag, hashtag. But it's actually a hashtag followed by the word. Hashtag. Hashtag. Yeah. That's garbage.

Thank you. This is, this is hashtag hashtag hashtag. Pretty much. Worst episode ever. Best. No. What was I saying? So these cameras are, they literally record everything around them in once. So you can like move them around a room and you create like the immersive. Like holding on a stick.

Right. Because VR has like the content problem. Yes. Right. Which is how are we going to make this stuff? And there are lots of. Brian or a thing about that by the way. Right. And so there are lots of ideas about how you're going to, how movie directors are like, make immersive movies and everything will be a video game. They're crazy. There's, well, I don't want to split because my billion-dollar business is going to get me rich.

One, I'm the only person in the table who believes in VR, and I also believe in 720 recording because, no, I'm convinced. But I think thinking about it like a traditional movie is the wrong thing. I think, right. It has to be flat. I think it's interesting that, like. I'll go into it. You're about degrees, too, I think. No, no, no.

My 720 recording has to be flat. It's not a sentence. That brings sense. Going to venues. things in a concert is ideal for 720 because you're not doing lots of cuts and you won't have to worry about disorientation and you're using the 720 to create an atmosphere. That's where 720 works. When you put it into a movie, which is the entire point of film is to control the viewer's eyes. It's like a big difference between film versus video games. Oh, but, okay, there's ways that you can

direct that thing where people can look around and like trick the human into like following lead. Gizmodo did a good post on this today. Again, this is all video game technique that has been learned over the past 20 years. It's like, you'll be rewarded 500 points if you hold why, which you'll force you to look over here. It's like, oh, okay, great. But I think the early things that are going to do crazy well on VR will be live concerts, live shows. Right. Taking you to other places, right?

Yes. Now I get that. I'm just saying like the other, that's all happening and like what kinds of content we make. And then how do we make it? And there's like a big, I hear a lot of people talking. talking about doing machinima stuff, where you can create video game environments and tell the stories in there because they can be rendered as the player moves around. But then there's this other thing, which is like, what is the camcorder of VR? So your kids play, and you have this like, you have a 720 camera and you're like...

It's like, how do you record moments that you can then experience in a virtual reality headset? Right, or you can like send it to grandma and then she's watching your kids play with you. And then she very bluntly... Imagine your grandma wearing a VR headset right now. Just do it. It's wild! Is there a future? That's a tumbler that exists.

And if it doesn't, one of the B2B strategists in my Twitter feed and started immediately. Is there a future where we like, so now you take a photo and you Instagram and it goes on Instagram and it's on a flat screen. Is there a future where everyone has these 720 degree cameras and everyone like puts on their VR goggles and like, no. So I think the most promising thing. Sam, you're driving.

No. AT&T's going to start running. Don't VR and drive commercials. Like really obvious. Back to B2B. How was that B2B? Because you said AT&D. That's not what B2B means.

Will you just... Just move on. AT&D is a B in every definition of that word. And then the two is to a C. Yeah. B to C. There's no other... Unless you think that you are a business.

I'm a business, man. No, I didn't want you to make that joke, and you did. I knew you were going to make it. You lobbed the ball to me, and I had to hit it. Yeah, and now I feel shame. And it was out at first. Has anyone ever thrown in like a soft-pitched softball and the feeling they feel ashamed?

I dumped it. That's the cartoon that's my life. Guys, can we hear about Palm because I weren't a dead of skin might fall off? I don't need to talk about it. My last VR piece is I think it's going to be phones. I think Samsung is so smart to partner with Oculus and make the gear VR and make the phone display, switch it over and be as good as Oculus display. Can I just...

Okay. You can just do that? Can I just give, like, the hashtag team perspective on this thing? You think it's going to be dedicated? Hold on, hold on. Let me give, let me give them. Let me drop some B-to-B knowledge on you. False.

So, like, so let's say it's like, I don't know, it's a Thursday night. Me and my roommate are like, oh, let's watch a movie. I chrome cast something. I'll buy the interview on YouTube and then I'll chrome cast it. Because you love freedom of speech. Yes. Is there a future where, like, we all have VR headsets and we're just, like, oh, let's just like

airplay this movie on our phones, drop it into our faces, and we sit on the couch and watch a movie in VR. It's college kids. I keep telling you. Is that going to be a thing? Yeah. It only makes sense of its phones. That's what I'm like... No, so I don't think this show has been about trying to get you to wear

dumb shit on your head for like five years. But dumb... That is the dream of CES. But there's dumb shit and that's like VR. And then there's putting your dirty-ass phone in a sleeve. that you strapped your head. That is, one, gross. Show me your phone, Chris.

Yeah, like, just use your hands up in your shirt. Because I'm, like, touching it all right. Also, do you know that you, like, when you make phone calls, you take that dirty-ass phone and put it directly? This is, like. This is gross. If I have something around my phone, this? Wait, how is that gross?

You already holding it in your hand? And you put it next to your face. You literally, like, rub that on your head. It's in a case. I can barely touch it. I just, I have trouble. I have trouble. The other thing.

The other thing is like people... Actually, that's a really compelling argument. It's just a super bad argument. I just, I have a lot of trouble envisioning a future where we sit there and like, we like be, you know, we be like intimate or whatever. And like, you're like, no, you're like, you're like watching a thing in like a strap-on face object. It's like, what future is that?

Hype check VR VR intimacy. It's weird. Like I read Addie's piece and she's like, she's like, or a gear VR is great. It works. The screen is high-res. The apps are cool. Like, the demos are cool. But it's like, who the hell is going to use this thing? Like, hold on. Let me strap on my headset. Durp and derp and then it's like, oh, I'm in. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If you just did a fine interplace of VR with 3D glasses, that is the story. And where are 3D TVs right now, Neelai? No where. Well, they're everywhere, but nobody's talking about. No one's talking about that. No one's talking about that. You just emphatically made the point I just made at me as though I was dumb.

You just like man-splained my own words at me. Yeah. So then, educate me, Eli. Educate me. You're saying the same thing. Stop it. Stop repeating what I'm saying like I'm dumber than you. Guys.

Let's talk about Palm. Let's talk about Palm. This isn't a C-CL, which bought the Palm brand is everywhere here. Yeah. It's FYI. They are everywhere here. They have a bigger booth. Like, the big story of CS is you watch companies from, like, lower on the chain.

like, turn in, like, Sony used to be, like, the big prestige brand here, and then Sony is failing, and now Samsung, like, occupies that space in the brand continuum, which is a hashtag that I will use soon. But, like, Samsung moved into that space. Like, they've become the dominant consumer electronics brand. And then you see all that there's a, like, we wrote a story about it last year. There's a wave of Chinese companies here at CS that are trying to occupy the space that Samsung used to occupy for Sony. And they're getting slightly better at it. And the way that I'm measuring it is by where they have located their booth babes. So, like, two years ago, the booths are, like, out in front, like, we're booth, we're naked,

hi. And then, like, last year, they put some clothes on them. And this year, now they just, the TVs are showing booth babes and there are no actual booth babes. And next year it'll be, like, virtual reality, machinima booth babes. And then there will be no booth babes. Have you got there's one more step. Thank God.

I hope there's one more step. But it's, like, funny to watch them get better at, like, talking to the Western audience that they're not as literate with. because their products are as good, if not better, in many cases, but they're learning how to market to this audience, and their booths are just getting bigger and more expensive, and they're literally just trying to, like, turn into the next Samsung. That's the opportunity for them.

Anyway, TCL, which is Alcatel. Right. So they bought what was left of Palm, which was literally nothing but the brand. Because LG had WebOS. The patents went to Qualcomm. Right. There's nothing left. And we've, you know, it got figured out that this was doing it because they screwed up the shell companies.

Anyway, they finally announced what the, they're planning on doing with Palm and it's a disaster. It's, it's, it, here's, here's, here's, here's, I'm going to read the press release. Palm has always carried a lot of effect and emotions. That's why TCL has set the direction to rebuild the brand involving Palm's very own community, making it the largest scale crowd source project ever seen in the industry. This is the ultimate and we got halfway there now you figure it out. No, they didn't even get halfway there. They just like, all they did is they went to a graveyard,

exhumed a corpse of grandma that we all love. And they're like, you guys, remember grandma? You guys make her dance. But this show has been about dancing corpses for two days now. I'm not even kidding. I'm not even kidding. I'm not even kidding. Yesterday the dead bodies were in driverless cars.

Dieter, do people know that you're a diehard palm fan? Because you have a lot of feels about this. Wait, why don't you tell them what to do? This is your opportunity. Can you tell me why you care about palm? Huh? Like, why? Why?

Yeah. I mean, other than like, oh, cool, Lisa Simpson, you know how to write on the screen. Palm definitely had all of the right ideas about what these operating systems should be in WebOS. They were really ahead of them. In 2008. They had all right ideas and could not execute on any of them. Yeah. That's the problem.

Palm was basically like John Rubenstein from Apple, like, insisting that he would refuse to use an iPhone because he didn't want to get tainted by the competition. And then watching the iPhone just blow him out of the water. No, that's not why they lost. Well, they lost because of Verizon. Yeah. But like his whole move, like, the dominant trend. in smartphones is now they're huge

and Ruby insisted to like, I'm going to make them smaller. That was his move. Were you? The Palm Pixie. That was, it was tiny. When the iPhone, the very first iPhone came out Engadget did like a series of reviews

with lots of different people and somebody on it said like, oh, it's good, but I think I'm going to go back to my palm. Yeah, Josh returned his iPhone. Yeah, he went to the store and returned his iPhone. Yeah, he was really mad about it. No, I mean, the rich history of the new media is Palm fanboys, aka Dieter Bone.

Like, it's all right there. If you like, you just peel away the surface. It's people who are pretty mad about Palm. They're probably launching a massive open source project. They have no idea how to do it. How would it do it? Well, that open source, open something. Open.

It's open. It's literally just like, an open source, open source brainstorm sesh is like not actually open source. What is the source that you're opening? Dieter, what happens to POM? Here are some tweets. What happens? What happens to the thing that is POM now?

AlcoTel gets to keep calling their tiny phone the Pixie without anybody suing them. And this project, a bunch of people get really excited. They make something that doesn't work, and we forget about it in a couple of years. And then TCL just has POM and they're just... And eventually sells it to somewhere. Yeah. sells it to Dieter. Here's the mashup.

Mozilla buys that does something. They rebrand Firefox OS as Palm. Whoa. They could. You just collapse all of the... It's a very good idea. And then they sell that to like the Migo Foundation, which emerges. Oh, no.

Because those are like threads of CES every year. It's like enormous companies have started a coalition to do something. We'll call it the Open Handset Alliance. You call it. That's the Android. That's actually really valuable one. There was the UHD Alliance for TVs. The Utter Alliance.

Now it's the Sud Alliance. Yeah, well, no, it's still the Utter Alliance. And then apparently there's... I would like to apologize. for talking trash about the open-handset alliance. Yeah. Yeah. Only as a protective measure.

It's still... Because of people who use Twitter. It's not a real alliance. It's like... It's Google and a bunch of people that Google has cowed into submission. Yeah. That's it. What do you think in alliances?

Fair. It's Google as the hegemon. Yeah, yeah. It's great. They should call it the open-handset hegemony. We're just getting deep... I don't know if we're talking about international. are like a really stupid...

Gizmos. We're talking about Gizmos. Really stupid, like, risk strategy. Gizmo Hanset Alliance. Google should put them all, all the purple ones. Hype check, hegemony. What? Oh, God.

What did you even say? Hegemony. What is egemony? There's like, you're surrounded by technology. Go watch say anything, and then we'll talk about it. And then we'll do foreign policy. The next Verge cast in New York, we will have a thorough discussion about say anything. Yeah, yeah.

I would like to have a thorough discussion about something. It's a really good movie. We only have four more minutes, and I think that the last thing, it's a non-CES story, but I have been told that this is the most important technology story of the next decade. Mozilla Biden's Palm. I hear that Nike might actually really for really real make the self-lacing shoes. Right. We have, so I want to start with a personal story.

I think we have that on the site, right? Yes. I am really bad at tying my shoes. I know it's yesterday. I tried to help you with this. I just, I don't understand. The basics are clear to me. That is not a problem.

Yeah, like, why is it 2015, and we still tie our shoes? I don't. I wear campers with little elastic. That is like the beginning of the worst keynote in history. Attention teens. The time is now. It's like a made for TV. What is that?

Sam, I want you to do a commercial for a product where do you have problems tying your shoes and it's just you like, yeah, I can't do it. Like R, where to the soda go? That's awesome subreddit. But the thing that Dieter just, the fake infomercial that Dieter just made fun of is my life. Because I do it. I'm having trouble cooking pancakes. What about pouring your drink?

We have the solution for you. Sam. Yeah. Good. Get some chill, bro. Okay. So in the movie Back to the Future, too. I didn't finish your story.

travels to the year 2015. That movie came up before you were even born. What are you doing? Yeah. Hype check your birthday. June 19th, 1990. It's fine. I'm 24 years old.

So. Stop saying how old you are. It's fine. So, so Marty McFly travels to 2015. I want to hear about the shoes. And the vision of 2015 is obviously flying cars, 3D Jaws,

the Cubs win the World Series. And also, there is a pair of shoes called the Nike Air Mags. And Marty McFly is sitting in the Delorean, and he puts on the shoes, and they, I don't know what is so funny, but I'm going to keep talking. What's funny is that you're doing? That's the part you remember.

Yes, I've seen the movie. I've seen the trilogy probably six times. Who directed the new Johns in that movie? I don't know. Max Spielberg, Steven Spielberg's son. Oh, true. Hold on, hold on. Go on.

Can we? So, Marty McFly puts on these shoes. They lace themselves, and everyone is like, oh, my God, that is the future, right? Who's everyone? The viewers of the movie or the people are the movie? No, no, no. Literally everyone that exists on planet Earth is like, 2015 is the year of the hoverboards,

which we basically kind of already got, but you need a gigantic copper platform. That's not basically almost getting anything. Wait, you just show the video about the importance of just lights. So anyway, so he puts on these shoes. Everyone on planet Earth has a priority. You've all seen back to the future, too. Hoverboards are almost here,

but the whole world has to be repaved in copper. Correct. So Martin McFly, Put on the shoes. Small implementation detail. They laced themselves. And for the last 20, 25 years, no, no, no.

Everyone is like, we're going to get these self-lacing shoes. And last February, so February of 2015, like about a year ago, Tinker Hadfield, who is one of the designers of the Nike shoes, he designed the Jordan ones, the twos, the threes, the fours, the five.

Basically all the Jordans that matter. He also designed the air mags that came out. And for those of you that don't know, Nike released air mags on eBay. There was like 1,600 pairs. We're all auctioned off, but they didn't self-laced, and everyone was like, okay, so we'll wait until 2015. Can I just hit pause? No, no, I'm almost done.

It's not that I, it's not, I want you to finish. I really do. It's important to me. I just want you to stop using the word everyone in exactly the way that you're using it. We also have to, we have to wrap. We have another shoot coming out. Okay. Case in point, self-lacing air mags are coming out this year, and I am very excited.

And I would argue, are you so excited. I think also case and point was misused there, but I'm with you. Also, thank God, we had all that context. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to follow the story. I would like to. Is there a video producer here? Trey, can we get a cut of Back to the Future 2, like narrated by Sam while it's happening?

Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, you should do a riff tracks. It's Back to Future 2. No, it's just like, Back to the Future 2, as explained by Sam. And like, it's just a movie about shoes and the desire of people around the shoes. When these shoes come out, it will be the,

like, every news organization will be talking about these Yeah, they're the ultimate local news product. No, and like CNN and Fox and Theverge.com and every other tech and every other news site is going to be like, oh my God, the future's here. Guys, Trey's half video smile says that one, that video is not right behind us. And two, it is time to wrap. So I don't know if you know this, but CES is happening and we are covering it all the time. And Sam's here to tell us where we can read about it. You can read about CES on theverge.com slash CES.

You can also watch all of our awesome videos on our YouTube channel, which is theverge.com slash YouTube. There are so many Sam Sheffers. We just hit 500,000 subscribers on YouTube, and we are celebrating that, and it is awesome. You can also follow the verge on Twitter. We are at Verge. I am at Sam Sheffer. He is at Reckless. He is at Backlon.

He is at Plant. You can also follow us on Snapchat. We are the real Verge on Snapchat. And that's the one thing that you should follow because it's the best. The one and only thing you should follow. No. Our traffic comes from Facebook. You should also go on Facebook.com slash verge and like us there to get all of the news from the verge.

com in your Facebook feed because who uses Facebook anymore besides for news? And that's our show. I'm very worried about you. I'm very worried about this new corporate Sam Sheppard. Thank you for listening. Goodbye. Rock and roll, whatever. Thank you so much.

Bye. Why? That's not a good touch of you.