The Vergecast - Dutch Teens Who Solve Crimes

Episode Date: March 20, 2015

This week's episode is a whirlwind of news, thoughts, and feelings. Dieter Bohn regales us with his final assessment SXSW, Nilay Patel cannot get over the size of an Acer Chromebook, Ross Miller believes in a future of cord cutting, and for the first time ever, Helen Havlak is in the hype chair to keep things in hype check. Plus, our hosts map out the pilot of a new Dutch children's mystery show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of The Vergecast is brought to you by Squarespace and the moderate amount of echo on my voice. Squarespace is the easiest way to build a beautiful website, blog, or online store for you and your ideas. Squarespace features an elegant interface, beautiful templates, and incredible 24-7 customer support. You can just ask them anything about the web. Yeah. About the web. How do I tweet? You ask Squarespace.

And they'll tell you. Who knows? Try Squarespace at Squarespace. I mean, they could tell you. But try it. Try it at Squarespace.com. Okay. Use offer code verge at checkout to get 10% off.

And then ask them how to tweet. Squarespace, build it beautiful. Hello, welcome to the Vergecast. This note here says that we're recording this on March 19th, 2015. That is true. But it is the Vergecast for the week of March 16th. Yes. So three days have elapsed in this week, which is cool.

We've done it that way for 145 episodes. Not to say you sound surprised, but you sound incredibly surprised by this. I just, I don't know about the date thing. People say they really like it. They really want, they really want me to tell them some, they want, they want some marker in the ground of what time, like, what time it is. Okay. Right. But he always has to track three days every time you do this.

It's very confused. For years, we've been looking at calendars to understand what week it is. Us is human. Dieter is very desperate. Hello, this is the verge cast. I'm just going to, to my right is. Dieter Bone. To my left is Ross Miller.

And here's something that's very exciting and very special. The hype desk today is filled by Helen Havlack. Helen Havlack. Her swaggistee. Here's what you need to know about Helen. Helen is our engagement editor. Yeah. She is Sam's boss.

Yep. That is the real deal. So if you watch this show or listen to this show regular and like, man, that's Sam. Who's keeping him in line? It's how about that? How about hype check Sam Schaeffer? Oh, that's rough. You can't do that.

She's drinking. Sam Schaeffer beef. Yeah. I did not. I did not fire Sam Schaeffer. He was on vacation. Yeah. We miss you, Sam.

We do. Have you seen Sam Shepard's vacation photos? Helen just delivered that like a refugee. I am not being held against my will. I'm saying it's okay. Here's today's New York Times. You did, however, forever. forever destroy his nameplate though.

We just look at that. Yeah, Sam's nameplate, he just has his swagasy and that says, well, he took his supreme hat with him. Oh. So I couldn't wear it today. Oh, man. This is going to be amazing.

Hype check me demanding that you be on the show eight minutes before the show started. Bust. That's not right. No, Sam is at Southby. We are going to get to South by. He's at Southby hanging with like celebrities and wearing white headbands and doing all kinds of crazy stuff.

Yeah, actually, we've got all this PlayStation stuff to talk about. Let's actually start with South by. You were there. Yeah. Emily is still there. She's never coming home. Ever. No.

Sam literally just snapping pictures of himself and his, like, crew. He's there with, like, a crew. Same thing. Every year. They're all wearing headbands and floral shirts. This is true. Frodo Baggins is hanging out with him. What?

Yeah. I mean, the actor. What's his name? No, not the actual character, of course. Yes, but Wait. Are you sure? That'd be wild.

The same was like, yo, I met Frodo. It's like, oh, you made a Laja Wood? Nah, man, Frodo Bagg. So, but, Dieter, you were there. Yeah. Tell me about South Bylow.

I will tell you that it was super duper crowded. It was just a billion people there. So South By is split between three sections and maybe like a fourth little one now. So there's interactive, then there's film and there's music.

And then now they have like a sports, which is, as far as I can tell, is people hanging out the four seasons playing lawn darts, whatever. And there's, like, a bunch of panels, so you don't expect a ton of news. You go there to, like,

hear smart people say smart things and go to, like, panels that have the potentially really interesting, and then sometimes they are and sometimes they're not. This year, because they were just so freaking many of them, a bunch of them were super interesting.

I went to one that was terrible, which was a hologram, which is trying to bring back your dead grandmother as a hologram in your living room. What? Yeah, that was the, the promise, but the actual execution

was just people talking about holograms. Yeah. So there's like no logistics like we look at grandma's old tweets or photo. No, they never got that far. No, but like it was a good show. So this year, for the first time in many years, there was actually like an app of South by Southwest. Usually

you know, like Twitter got it start there and like Four Square did. And it used to be that your app couldn't make it at South by because it was the only time that you had a critical mass of people using iPhones in one place. But now that's called America. So you don't really need it to do that anymore.

Real pro-burn. But Mirkat became a thing this year. Yeah. If only because on the eve of South by Southwest starting, Twitter realized that they were letting them use their social graphic cut off. Tell the people what Mirkat is. So Mirkat is a live streaming app and you hit a button and you're streaming. But the thing that's clever about it is that they integrated with Twitter where if you

once you signed up, it imported all of your friend info from Twitter. And so, like, you would automatically have this social network of people using Mirkat that would get alerts when you're broadcasting built into it. And that's really smart. And I would say the funny thing that happened was I tweeted that Mirkat is over because I saw that at ATT had signed up. And then, like, four hours later, Twitter cut it off from being able to access that graph. And I actually do think those things are kind of related because the social graph,

as it's known, is super valuable. And if Twitter is going to let big corporations that usually pay Twitter money for access to that friend list to tweet at is able to just take it, get it for free and put it on a social network, that's really bad for Twitter. It's like Mirkat is like a functionality that Twitter wants to have. Yeah. They bought a company called Periscope. And so it's coming. So, and supposedly Periscope is like technically better from people who have tried it. Whatever.

Mirkat is like surprisingly compelling, though. They have a really interesting interface where you see the bubbles of people that are watching you. and then they tweet at you to, like, give you replies right in the video feed as you're recording it. But they are tweets. They're tweets. That's like the thing. Everything about Mirat makes me feel like a creeper. Right.

Right? It's like someone is, like you get the notification. Like the notifications are out of control. Uh-huh. So like if you have them turned on every time anyone that you follow on Twitter starts Mirkating, you get a notification. No. So I follow like 2,000 people on Twitter.

So like for a week, it was like my phone was dying. lying at like 2 o'clock every day. And I finally turned them off. I have a confession. I have not seen a Mirkat at all. So here's what Mirkat is. Drunken people saying, oh, how interesting I am.

I believe Mirat is a social experiment designed to condition people to making phone flashes okay in bars. Because every Mirkat stream looks like that one Fiona Apple video. Criminal. Yeah. You know, you know what I'm talking about. Like every Mirkat stream looks like that.

Like drunk, sweaty people with just like a light in their face, like looking. surprised and somewhat guilty. You know? I mean, and sexy. Of course. It's also like ephemeral. Like you, once you're done last week, there's no archives. You can save it to your phone locally.

Yeah. After you Mirkat. Is that the verb to Mirkat? Yeah. One Mirkat. Hypechak. Hype check. Actually, this is a great hype check for you.

Helen is a social media expert. I don't know if I'm a social media expert. We call them SMDBs. Oh, my God. And I don't want to be the what? You have an acronym. No. I have not used Mirket. I have not used Mirket. Although Sam Schaeffer has been Mirketing quite a bit from the South by.

So if you're looking for someone to follow a Mirkat, Sam Schaeffer's your guy. Yeah. I would say, I mean, if at least it's not like its own complete standalone thing, right? So it lives in Twitter. So I think about like trying to stay on top of like Snapchat and Instagram and every other platform. So something that plugs into Twitter as opposed to trying to launch as a completely freestanding app Seems like a smart idea I can't tell if it's gonna last more than like two weeks Yeah, yeah

Yeah, I'm like losing Twitter cards is a big thing Like so few companies like if you live on it They lost the cards I don't think they lost a card, they lost the social graph Oh, never mind I take that back But that was like when you sign up for for Miracat You immediately just were connected to everyone on Twitter That you were connected to other ones.

now you're not right now you're like alone you're adrift alone alone just lost it's like Ella but with video oh that does not a little video is like you could definitely get a like some VC yeah you could definitely get like five million dollars right now it's like a super stripped down so someone if you're listening to the sound of my voice five million dollars is waiting for you to start Ella with video so what else happened the brands are everywhere brands but at this point it I've accepted brands like we've hit peak brand and now it's just part of the fabric of South Bya, Southwest, and you can't be angry about them taking over because that's all there is anymore. Yeah. We sent, if you haven't watched it, we sent Emily to sleep overnight. She actually chose to sleep overnight in the pop-up Bates Motel.

We didn't demand that she sleep in a CD Motel. And it was a weird brand activation experience. That's what they're called. Yeah. Wait, wait. Define activations. Again, I'm pointing hype check brand activations. Hellen us all this lingo. I mean, summer beef and summer busts. I think that's the lesson of Emily's video, right? Yeah. She goes activation by activation and says, do I feel activated by this brand? But what is a brand activation? I think it started as a word, it's a word I'm very familiar with. I think it was like people felt like it wasn't cool anymore to say we have a booth. Like having a booth was not cool enough. And then it was like experience. Oh, so this is like CES booths explode out in the real world.

Yeah. So when a brand activates, it activates unto you? Like, you are, like, just, like, consumed. Yeah. You get activated. The brand gets activated on. So it's mutual activation. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Okay. It all has to stop. But brand experience and brand activation are both things, and they're somehow different. Like, a brand experience is something you come up to, and I think that's, like, the area. But the brand is activating at the events, right?

So you'll hear marketing people will be like, we're activating it Southby. Wow. So it's like we're trucking in all of our beautiful branding. Like the trucks are converging on Austin, Texas. And we're activating there. Wow. All that sounds terrible. But it's funny because when you say we've hit peak brand, like that's real.

Right? Like now we just joke about it. There is a time when like we were heartbroken about it. When I was like, yes, when I was like a young, but a young punk rocker, I'd be like, I'm going to write a guitar song about these brands. And now I don't think that happens. I think Samsung just sponsors the young punk rockers. Straight up.

Last thing, Emily's there. She's covering music. We covered a bunch of films. This is like the best parts of South by Southwest were the entertainment, was the films. There's a film called Ex Machina, which looks great. Yeah. I'm like a little bit obsessed with.

No, but the thing you actually should be obsessed with, and I would, if you had told me this and you're going to hear me saying these words to you and you're not going to believe me, but unfriended, everything that I hear from, everybody had seen it. movie. So the whole movie, the whole screen is a Skype call. The camera never leaves the screen. It's just the Skype call between these friends that are ostensibly being picked off one by one by the ghost of a girl that committed suicide after being bullied. Really? How often is the call truck? So it's not very realistic. Can they hear each other the whole time? Does the video get blocky? But it sounds like a horrible gimmick, but apparently it's just super duper.

compelling because like they that just it stays on the screen and you don't know where to look and like things are happening in the Skype call and it just works really well I never would have guessed it but both Emily and Brian saw it and they both like can't stop talking about it or thinking about it wow I mean it's the trailer itself actually looked kind of interesting yeah like it's surprising the MTV's kind of come up with it I get it's like it's teens a millennial age wait it's it's MTV movie MTV what yeah what is going on at MTV they they I follow MTV on Twitter and on Instagram for some reason and like most of what MTV makes now is like teen teen girl tweets i don't like i don't even know what to say they're like like honestly like and then they made a horror movie that's wild yeah yeah what does mtv do now whatever what are you on tv i don't it's active it's active it's okay one the other video if you haven't watched it that you absolutely must watch um man i want to talk about everything i want to talk about addie's insane horrible VR porn yeah like we did a lot of stuff It's a beautiful piece. And then Brian waited in line for nine hours to see Furious Seven.

I rolled in like two hours and saw it with him. Did you rank it? So don't. Dude, dick move. I know. I'm such a dick. How was Furious Seven? Not spoiling it.

How was it? Yeah, I want to know everything about this movie. Yeah. Do you like CG? Yeah. No, that's a piece of the fast and furious movies. I will say that it is very. It is very strange that our organization

Like it is interwoven The history of The Verge as a thing Do you like? As a brand unto itself is interwoven With the Furious series. Do you like seeing the car chases Or fight scenes where you're pretty sure The film is just being sped up?

Yes. Yes. Yeah? Yeah. It's a more concentrated dose of awesome. Yeah. But not like sped up to like like you see it spit up But spit up just because like they couldn't get the car to go that fast so they just sped it up. But did it?

Didn't we hear that they actually threw the cars out of the airplanes that are seen in the trailer? That I believe. Yes. Like, you took the feature. I mean, there is CG to it still. Yeah. But at some point in production, they threw cars out of a plane. Yeah, but there's like moments where they're just like on the street and you're like, yeah, no, that's not real.

I was like, why? No. Wait, do CG the normal moments? That's what I'm saying. It's like, we have fast cars. That's real. Getting coffee? I don't know.

Let's CG that. Well, okay. You got to spend your money where you spend your money. They did ask us to not reveal. what happens to Paul Walker's character. So I'm going, all right. We're doing, I mean, I'm saying the amount of Furious Seven coverage that will come out of the version.

It's like maybe a little. Yeah, but you should watch the video where we go on Brian's Epic Adventure. You should watch a video where Emily goes on an Epic Adventure. You should watch a video where Addie goes on an epic adventure in the gaming hall and got to see like millions of six-year-olds using Oculus rifts. Yeah. Oculei Rift. This is the first year I've

ever wanted to be at South by Southwise. It was a good year. I went twice. Helen is shaking her head. How many times have you been to Southby? Three times. Yeah, and each time progressively worse? You know, they say it's the best time to be in San Francisco is during Southland's Is that a saying? Is that just like a really bad Tony Bennett song?

No, I mean, South by it's time to be in San Francisco. South by, South by is fun. South by is also super crowded. It is long lines. It's the inability to catch a cab, which are two of my least favorite things. things about New York. So, but it has breakfast tacos. So, we don't have breakfast tacos.

Yeah, that's true. That is just awesome. But we have, like, you know, there are people at our company who, like, live and work in Austin. Yeah. And they are just, like, they are the worst. And they are all secretly plotting to move headquarters to Austin. They're all secret.

And they all just like, every time you're like, oh, yeah. And I have to go back home. Like, huh, ha, home. That must suck for you. I go home to my beautiful Texas villa. Which, I don't know. I don't know what kind of houses you have in Texas. They all ranches, right?

They have ranches. Trey, our chief product officer, lives there. He has like a bright orange, like, challenger. Yeah, I wrote in that thing. Yeah. I wrote in that thing at like 105 miles an hour. Yeah, Trey doesn't believe in a rule of law. And you know what it felt like?

20 miles an hour. Yeah. It was great. Really jealous. I really want a car. Anyway, that's off by Morris coming. Yeah. Yeah.

No, I'm saying every night I might go on eBay motors and look at old cars. I'm a spot like a 1986 for Rari. It was $10,000. I was like, that seems like a reasonable thing. I don't know what it is. I didn't do it. I feel like since we've been launching the transportation hub, the auto hub, the auto hub, Chris is like just gotten us all obsessed with driving.

Like, I miss driving now. I never thought I would say that. No, cars are cool now. I'm going to buy a Tesla. What? I don't know. No, I'm not. Look, last night I looked at old M3s.

I should have Chris on the show. I looked at old M3s. I looked at Mustang where I was like at. And then I fell down a conversion van hole. No. Like, I just typed... Did they have, like, wizards brush painted on the side? No, they're, like, they're really weird now.

Yeah, they always were. They're now, they're ridiculously expensive. They're, like, $70,000 to $80,000. Yeah. The one I looked at had, like, a 50-inch TV in it. But then there was a really crappy one. And one of the main selling points was, like, it literally was a picture of, like, an old crappy flat screen and said, there is a Chromecast connected to this TV.

And it's like, Chromecast costs $30. Like, why would you put that in your eBay had for a little? van. Why are you looking at eBay ads for vans? You were like, look, some people have hobbies and I need one. All right. Speaking of Chrome. Oh, nice, nicely done.

So you guys didn't talk about this last week, right? We did not talk about this. Why don't we go through it? You reviewed one thing and Dan reviewed another thing. This is the nice one. Wait, hype check conversion vans. That's not a good face at all. Buzz?

Zero out of 10 would not enter. Especially with Nelai driving. No, I wouldn't, you don't. I'd be in the back playing Nintendo on the TV and the camera. It's just getting creepier, dude. Come to my conversion bad and in the back with me. I've got Nintendo. I had one growing up.

It's like a, they're like fond memories. What? Nothing. Nothing. When I lived in Chicago, every year I'd go to the Chicago Auto Show. Okay. And you play Nintendo. We would look at all that.

We'd look at all the fun cars, right? Like, you know, here's, here's, like, a Corvette and here's, like, a Ferrari, and now we're going to sit in the Aston. And then in the back of the halls, like, the conversion van area. And it would just be, like, me and a bunch of dudes and then, like, a bunch of, like, angry dates. But the dudes and I would, like, be excited about the vans. We'd go in there, and we would, like, lay back and we would watch, like, Santana videos. Because that's what, that's how you, that's how you, that's 100% how you display a conversion van at a car show is you just, like, turn on a Santana.

Tana video and like dude just like yeah this is how to travel. Like the live concert with a T. Yeah. Oh man. There's like 7.1 channel sound. I got it. I'm going to buy a conversion. All right. Talk about the pixel. This is a pixel. It's a Chromebook.

It costs a thousand bucks. It is the exact same design as last time. By and large there's like tweaks. And it's stupid fast and the battery lasts forever. Yeah, I got a text from Dieter that was like the battery test is still going. Yeah. It just kept

going and going and going. You're like eight hours in and you were still like 50%. Yeah. Yeah. So it's 14 on our test. Google rates it at 12. And it's like, it's really fast. I really want one. Everybody who comes in contact with that thing wants one. And then you should not buy one. Right. Because it's a thousand right for Chrome browser. And Chrome OS is still not at a place where it can really replace what we need to do. So here's my take on that. The answer is Chrome OS is at a place to where you're can do 90% of the work that you need for 90% of your tasks, which means that for the most part, you're fine. And for most people, you're fine. And that other 10% you can either let it go, or you can do hacky workarounds, or you can use the old PC you've got in the closet. Right.

And that most people, like, it's like, I'm trying to think of the analogy, it's like going and buying like a car. Like, you don't need that extra horsepower, but you, want to believe that you're going to use it someday, right? Right. And so that's sort of how I feel about the, like, the difference in a proper PC and a Chromebook. That said, like, getting that extra horsepower and not having to make those compromises that other 10% of the time, uh, is only cost you zero dollars.

Right. Or negative thousand dollar computer. Yeah. Right. It's a thousand dollar computer. Yeah. Right. Like, would you rather have that or a, uh, a 12 inch or an 11 inch error?

11-Hare. Oh, no, no. This or 11-in-chair? Ooh, man. Probably this. Really? I mean, because you could just put Chrome on the 11-inch chair. Yeah, but Chrome on an 11-inch error is a dumpster fire compared to Chrome on this.

No, Chrome on this thing can open office files natively. Chrome on this thing is fast. It is really fast. It is bonkers fast. Yeah. And it's a beautiful screen. And it's a beautiful screen. And Dieter likes the USB ports.

And I do. Although, let's say that USB ports on this and the MacBooks are. are fundamentally insecure. So Russell wrote this, explain this piece. Russell wrote this piece. So USB has this problem. There's a bug called bad USB. It's built into the heart of how USB works.

Before your computer even knows what's happening, USB, when you plug it in, it needs to communicate. He's like, hey, I'm a thing. And then your computer says, oh, hey thing. And that all happens in the firmware, like, right on the USB. And so some hackers have broken that, and they can use that to spread viruses. Like, other than, like, like, fixing USB as a spec as a standard, there's no way to stop it. And so that's fine. You're just like, don't plug mysterious USB keys into your computer.

But now USB type C doesn't solve that problem. And the Chromebook and the Mac and eventually everything is going to be using that for power. And it's much harder to stop yourself from plugging into a random USB jack to power up than it is to not plug a random USB stick into your computer. And so, like, I don't want to have like be like hair on fire about it because, you know, whatever, and on vectors, blah, but like things out there, people know how to do it.

And it, you're going to be, you have to, you have to start thinking about what you plug into your computer now instead of, instead of just in USBs, but actually in power.

And that's weird. So let me, I mean, this has been a known issue for a while. Like, this is not like new information. Why didn't they figure? Is there a logistical reason

that hadn't been fixed? Standards bodies. Really? I mean, you know, like the USB, like Apple and Google and Microsoft and Acer and all these people got together

and made the spec, which is a miracle that they, In the time that they took to make this thing. But I get the real feeling that Apple drove the design of this thing way more than the, like... Yeah. Although, I mean, the funny thing about that is like, do you really believe USB Type C is going to replace lightning on the phone? No. No.

Me neither. It's a little bit thicker. It's also like a different... It's a different kind of connector. Like, a lightning jack is kind of like how best to describe this for people listening. The lightning connector is like the inside of the connector, right? It goes... Yeah.

It's like it's just a flat plug, right? The USB has, the connector is hollow. So it connects to a thing on the inside. Yeah. So like there's, there's just way more complexity in that thing. Yes and no. I mean it, it, um, no, I just mean mechanical complexity. Right, right.

Right. Right. But, like, you have to build an, like, how do I put it. But Apple's switching to type C for other stuff. Like they put it on the new MacBook. It's going to, it's going to be the port. It does display. It does everything.

I'm very excited about this port. Right. Do you think it replaced Lightning. I told you. I told you listeners, I don't think it's going to. Really? No, because I think that it's just a little bit thicker. Helen, hype check USB type C.

I'm going to say beef. Yeah. Okay. But I have an Android phone, so I'm into micro USB. No, but this is going to replace that. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, Helen said Android die hard. Yeah. I've never owned an iPhone. Yeah. And it's because of swipe. Yeah. I wish I had a better. reason.

I'm just obsessed with swipe and I can't type any other way. You can now. Get that ugly thing out of here. Yeah, but it's not good. And I hear it's buggy. Yeah, it's super not good. Yeah. Is anyone, do you have an iPhone?

I do, yes. Have you noticed the auto correct is like out of control all of a sudden? It's the worst. I think in 81 or 82 or whatever, whatever it is I have, I think I'm an 81. They like turned it up to make me dumber. Like, it is auto-cracking me to, like, say the dumbest stuff all the time. and I'm always just like, I start, I did this thing with my friend Kyle where I just, instead of asterisk and then like, typing the real world, I just, I just send him an asterisk. Yeah.

Oh, so, yeah. It's a nice. I figure out. I got, you know what's happening here. All I can say about that is like, it creaking ducks whenever I do. Oh, God. Oh, gosh. No, okay.

But what is that ugly thing? What is this? I spend a ton of time. This is the Acer Chromebook 15. I think it's technically the C910. So this thing. It's a big, huge 15 inch just wail of a thing. We forgot to hype check.

the, type check the pixel. Oh, yeah. Beef. Yeah. Do you want to, would you spend $1,000 on that thing? Oh. Right?

Yeah. Welcome to the... If it did the Adobe Suite. Yeah. You can stream it. I would consider it. Yeah. You can stream in the Adobe Suite,

sort of, kind of over the internet. Yeah. Yeah. That's not good. No. Everybody who sees the pixel wants to buy it and, like, it's $1,000. I'm like, huh. Yeah.

If that thing was $700. Mm-hmm. I think it would actually still kind of get the same reaction. Yeah. Yeah. But it would be like a different. So here's the thing. If I'm, if I've got a thousand or say $1,300, for example, of disposable income.

You would buy two Chromebooks? No, do I buy the pixel or do I buy the new MacBook? Oh, you buy the new MacBook. But what if the new MacBook is slow? The new MacBook is definitely going to be slow. If you're just going to burn $1,300, like burn it in style. But I'm saying, But I could, like, this thing would be primarily, like, a couch machine.

So maybe I don't care that the pixels kind of heavy and whatever. Right? It's a hard one. No, but the new MacBook has, like, that trackbook is, like, that track pad is so good. It's a good track pad. All right. What piece of garbage are you holding there? This is a beast.

This is a lunch tray. That thing. It looks like a lunch tray. The 15-inch acer. Yeah, it's a 15-inched Chromebook. Yeah, it's a 15-inched-chfer. It was ridiculously excited about it. He is still ridiculously excited about it.

He gave it an extraordinary. High score. Yes, because it's fast. And there's now, it's only $350. The keyboard's fine. The track pad's fine. Okay. The screen is like,

the keyboard, I will say, is a total shameless rip of an Apple keyboard. Oh, yeah. Yeah, but I mean, like, we get into a lot of trouble for saying some keyboards are, or shameless rips of Apple keyboards because Apple did. Yeah,

but no, look, they did the, they did the island. The corner are curved, whereas on the Apple thing, they're square. Yeah. I'm just saying, like,

there are arguments, right? Apple ripped their keyboard from Vios and like, whatever. there's innovation in the market. That is a shameless rip of the app. No, I mean, it's just, it's a big, ugly hunk and base, but it's, it's super cheap. Dan's point was that there has not yet been a 15-inch crumbook. And most people apparently buy 15-inch laptops, right?

Right. So, wait, how much is that? So I think you can, like, the base model might be 250. This is 350 as tested. And then now there's, they just announced, like, today, a $500 version that has a core I-5 processor to make it actually properly fast. Yeah. Okay, well, that's not bad then.

But you, like, price-wise. If you promise, if you promise me personally, Deeter at the verge.com, that you will never take this off of your desk or out of your living room and you'll never try and put it in a bag and carry it with you. Then I will let you buy it. I mean, it's so weird. Don't.

It's such a weird thing. Yeah. I mean, it's just so big and stupid. Yeah. Like, you know how some things are so big? They look dumb. Yes. Like they look like big.

Like the first time you saw an iPhone 6 plus, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, it's just like, you know, it's just like, doop-do. Everyone's got their own sound effect for this. That's, that's it. Everyone, I want you to go on iTunes, leave us a five-star review, and then tell us what your sound effect for big, dumb things are.

Any onomatopoeia you like. Yeah. It does make you look like a smaller human being. It does, yeah. I mean, it's massive. Hype check this thing. Well, that one's $350. but there is one that's $250

and if all you wanted to do was sit on your couch and watch Netflix it might be the computer to buy. That's actually a question because of the earlier Samsung Chromebooks could not run Netflix or even YouTube. Is the base model like actually decent enough for stream video? We didn't test the base model but like

HD video was totally fine in the pixel. I haven't tried to HDVA on the stand reviewed this. It's funny how many Chromebooks I have at my house that I don't use. I have the original, the super crazy, the CFO, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have that Samsung one, which was a mess, just a total mess. Yeah, I have the original pixel.

Yeah, I have a- Which is starting to feel slow in it. We should give those away. Google gave away so many pixels. The original thing was $1,500. Yep. It was $1,300. $1,300. And literally, they were like, whenever you would see Google anywhere, like, you'd be like on a train and Google.

Like, would you like to review this pixel? And I'd be like, we already have. They're like, and so we just have them. They're like, in our review, we should just give them all away. Yeah. We have given a bunch away. Have we? We gave,

yeah, we gave away like four. Maybe we're out. No, we've still got it. It's not a lot more than that. I mean, it's just like got to, because we give everything away. Everybody knows this. We give everything away.

We should give more stuff away. Yeah. William would be happy. You'd be very happy. What's the thing? There's a thing I wanted to talk about. I don't know. After the Chromebooks.

Was it Tesla? It's time for an ad? No, that's not it. No. That's not it at all. Big dumb things? No. Is it something about Windows?

Oh, it's about Windows. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's two things about Windows I want to talk about. Okay. Because one is about that, right? Like, we're about to be in a Windows 10 moment. Microsoft is like giving Windows 10 away for free to people have pirated old versions of Windows. Like, they're coming at it hard with Windows 10. And I want to see some good laptops. I have Windows

10 on my Surface Pro 3 at home. Yeah. Surprisingly hard to install. Like, you can do it. The easiest way to do it is to just download it, put it on a hard drive, fully on the hard drive, and install it. Right, sure. Okay.

Did that. But I did that after I did what Microsoft insisted that I would be able to do, which is like, download this tiny app that will reboot your computer and download it from the internet. And, like, did it just, like, bork everything? Just couldn't do it.

Oof. Like, just failure after, after. And finally, I was like, fine. Like, dug out a hard drive and, like, figure it on. But, yes, that was surprisingly weird to do. But once you got to install, like, how is it? It's great.

Yeah. It's, like, fine. I mean, I think the, Surface Pro 3 is like a difficult computer to use. Mm-hmm. Right? It's just everything about it, it's like a little too small. Mm-hmm.

Right. Like, because it's a tablet, it can't be any bigger. It's the right size for a tablet. Right. It's the right aspect rate scale and like, but then you plug in the keyboard and you're like, wow, this track pad's pretty small actually. Right. Like that's, that's really, it wants to be both, but like the size doesn't really make

sense for both. Right. But Windows 10 on it is like, it's all of that's great. Okay. So like you see it coming, uh, Microsoft, we should talk about this headline. It's the thing I actually want to talk about. Oh, God.

It's a screen to it. So Microsoft announced a while ago that they would be shipping a new browser with Windows hand called Project Spartan. Well, the code name. It's going to have a different name. So a totally new browser. And then they announced, what, two days ago? Well, it was like they're like CM something.

Yeah. Some guy. Some executive at Microsoft. Marketing chief Chris Kepassoa. Fired up his WordPress install. He said, and I quote, we'll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we'll also have a brand new browser

called Project Spartan, which is code name Project Spartan. We have to name the new thing. We're researching a new brand for our browser on Windows 10. So, so the browser on Windows 10 will not be Internet Explorer. Right.

That much is clear. So they've downgraded or got it. Right. So their window, i.e. is going into like a filing cabinet. Right. So the principle, the important thing, thing you said the browser,

like Internet Explorer will be on Windows 10 but it'll be plumbing. It'll be like back in the corner what it's needed. Yeah, it's the legacy compatible. Yeah, it's DLL.

Yeah. Microsoft. It's on the DLL. Oh, God. Is there a blog called that and it's just full of like Microsoft secrets? Yeah.

Think about it. So Tom Warren, who is very good at covering Microsoft. It's a headline. that we all support. Yes. Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand,

which is true. Yep. Right? The new Microsoft browser will be called something. Nobody knows what it is. It'll be called something. It will be called something.

It will not be Internet Explorer, right? It will be the new thing in Microsoft, presumably, if they're smart, we'll put all the resources in that. Yeah. And then slowly over time,

the law firms and accounting firms and like mom and pop construction shops, I don't know, he's, I'm assuming it's these people. They use IE on their like, you know, old Dell Towers running XP. They'll upgrade to Windows 10, use a new browser. Microsoft will have completed finally a seamless legacy transition because they're so good at that. And then we'll live in a world of Project Spartan.

Yes. Yeah. So they're killing Internet Explorer. Right. People went bonkers crazy. We got into a Twitter argument. I mean, Chris today looked like he was going to cry. He was like, I don't want to be part of this Twitter argument.

But people keep at replying me. And this is the worst canoe I've ever been in my life. I'm not on that canoe. So, like, the argument is they're not actually killing off the brand, right? Right. Is that what, like, what are people saying? Yeah, the argument is that they think that we're saying they're killing off Internet Explorer, but no, they're killing off the In Explorer brand.

And they're like, well, no, they're not like killing it. They're not like officially saying we're never calling it that again. But like, just we're not saying that Microsoft is taking Internet Explorer and stab it in the heart. They should. We're saying that they're putting it in a room and they're not feeding it. Right, right? Maybe they have a knife in their hands and they're slowly taking the oxygen out of that. It's a shrewdinger thing.

No, what kills me about this argument is like, nobody likes Internet Explorer. Why are everyone coming out? Has everyone come on the work now supporting a browser that they do not like? They should change the name the second, the first person made the first Internet Exploder joke. Yeah. They should not like, oh, we bum this. Totally got it wrong. I know.

It's just a normal, Helen, hype check, whatever the hell we're talking. came out. Is this a normal strategy? Like, is this how you would roll something out and get rid of the old thing? Ideally, no. Well, Microsoft can't let go of old things. They clutch them tightly. But they probably should and probably, you mean, Project Spartan can, like, build up. People are curious.

People are excited. But now there's all this nostalgia for an explorer and they kind of just need to pull the plug. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot going on. Good hype check. there's no who was nostalgic for an explorer an explorer had a moment iE4 was pretty good

when it came out even back then it was it was netscape like we all knew better no it had a moment where it was like a really good browser okay and I will also just let me finish a sentence please that's gonna happen they've been pretty good about trying to support web standards so here's Try and keep out from having an apolly on how we build web pages. I'm just saying. Here's what I know.

Here's a fact. Trailing 30 days of the verge.com. Oh, here we go. Visit our website. Yeah, yeah. The number one platform by far is Windows. It's like 35%. And then it's...

Wait, only 35? Hold on. Let me switch. Let me switch this window. I'm looking at the browsers right now. Yeah, it's like 35% is Windows. 36.5% is Windows. 25% is iOS.

20% is Android. 14% is Mac. I see. Right? So you look at that. So far and away, right? 10% lead over iOS is Windows. Yeah.

Okay. Number one browser, 48.9% of the people who visited the version past their days used Chrome. 20% used Safari. 10% used in-app Safari. Right? Then you got Firefox at 8.5%. Then you get to Internet Exploder at 7.5%. And it's like, just kill it.

Just let it go. Let it die. you can't beat Firefox in the in-app browser. Like the iOS in-app Safari is the worst experience in on the planet. There. It's pretty bad. Yeah. It doesn't have a working back button.

It should be illegal. Some of them have working back buttons, but they look just like the other back button. Yeah. Like, you can't beat that. Just let it go, man. Quire. I know. Now, you can keep talking about webstanders.

No, that's cool. I remember the good old days. Speaking of the web. Speaking of websites built with standards. John, do we have a noise for before the ad yet? Let's make some money. Building website can be tough. And even if you do know your way around coding,

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Tell me about your website. I was living in a vegetarian cooperative house. This is going to be an amazing store. This should have been the entire show. And I was taking a class on web design. And I ended up building our website using HTML and CSS. Wow.

Which was not the most efficient way to do it. What was the goal of the Vegetarian Cooperatives website? Mostly to convince alumni of our university to give us money. So you could have used a store. Yeah, I mean, it was like, here's some nostalgic photos, here's a donate button. Yeah, okay. That's what our websites for. But it would have been presumably easier if you'd had it.

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Oh, I don't know. Can I read your mind on this one or look up the script? The offer code. Jesus. It's a verge. The offer code is Verge. What else would it be? Swag.

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But they make it every week, and I'm proud of them for that. Just like I'm proud of you, the listener. Squarespace, Build it Beautiful. Vegetarian co-op is available for $13. $13. Wait, really? Cannot find it. It's being.

Speaking of services that cost between $13 and $20 a month. What? I don't know. Gras, let's talk about PlayStation View. Which costs $50. It's really? Yes. I'm shocked and appalled.

Walk us through. You did a whole cord-coding thing this week. Yeah, which is what. Talk us through the future of television. television. Okay, well, the future television, this actually goes back to your big crusade from when we started the verge, was to go over the top. Cut out cable companies, get all your internet service, all your TV service online, somewhat a la carte. We've been wanting to make this cord cutter app for a while now. We started getting into it. And then we found out that Sony was launching Vue TV, which is basically almost a fully fledged cable service for $50 a month. Yeah. You get 50 channels. You get a little bit DVR. Works on PS3, PS4. You don't get ABC, Disney.

ESPN, but you get pretty much everything else. Right, you made a whole, like, thing with product where you, like, pick the services and it shows you what channels. Basically, yes. And if you add them all up to get all the channels, it's like $120 bucks a month. Right. I mean, you never want to overlap Sling and PlayStation View. Like, those are the closest you're going to get to, like, DISH and Comcast at this

point. Right. Because there is so much overlap. But, yeah, like, you're now at a point where you could probably get 90% of what you want on cable television online without the subscription, without the subscription package, without the bundle of your internet as provider. It's like it's actually a great Like this week is a great transition phase

This year as a whole is like You're not at a point where you can recreate the cable experience online Yeah Yeah wonderful I mean this you think I've been watching Chris Welch from one of our reporters tweet Since it launched and he just just Deeply deeply deeply

Uncomfortably in love with the interface Really? Yeah He's apparently it's dependously good I'm an Xbox guy so I've reviewed this thing I mean we're looking to anything It's just like prize launch this week for what New York, Philly, Boston, and Chicago?

You're the problem with all these servers? Do they buffer? Yeah, I don't have a PlayStation. Yeah, I should go on. Yeah, we need to try it out. Which, that kind of goes into that Wall Street Journal story that just came out today. Right, so there's a lot going on in TV. But you could also get Sling on the Xbox

now. Yep. That launched this week. Yep, sorry, continue. Xbox, I have an Xbox one. I like it. Xbox apps are super slow. So I have an Xbox, I have an Apple TV, and I want to use Xbox for everything. but I can't because everything looks like crap on it. On the Apple TV, they're paying the dirty blood money to somebody.

If you start Netflix on the Xbox app and on the Apple TV, Apple TV starts twice as fast and gets rid of the little, you know, juggy weird things right away. Yeah. And on the Xbox, you're just like, well, this is going to look like garbage for the next 10 minutes. The Xbox is very much like a slow PC. Yeah, that's what it feels like to me. Whenever it tries to you have. As a console, I quite like it.

But every time it tries to, like, do computer stuff, I'm like, huh. Yeah. It's weird that, like, I have a $50. I just start drumming. I have a set of, Xbox Bongoes in my house. I don't have that. There was, there was a Bongo controller. Doesn't it check something.

No, Helen's. She's bored over there. Alan's board. Just give me a look. It's fine. What? Xbox or PS4? Ooh. Ooh.

Oh. Mobile games on Android. You're going to get, you're going to get yelled at, no matter what you say now. I know. You have to say something. I haven't really played any games since the PlayStation 2. Whoa.

I'm really sorry, internet. What was your P. I don't know. What was your PS2 game of choice? It was actually a PS1 game called KronoCross that I was playing on the PS2. That is like serious like time commitment. But I'm I'm very out of touch with games. I am sorry of verge fans and don't.

Why are you sorry? video games are terrible. All them are bad. My God. I don't know. I'm just basically trolling Chris Grant from before. Okay. Yep.

What? And Andrew Webster. And Andrew Webster. Dots is great. Two dots, man. I've been playing Alto's Adventure, Alto's Quest. Yeah, I just got the Lama. You just got...

Oh, the last one is a Lama. No, there's one after that. What is this? Huh. Yeah. Those quests. Okay. We put it.

Altos Adventure. It's great games. It's an iPad game. It's actually a phone game, too. It's way out of that. Are we talking about it. No. I'm talking about it's a really good iPad game oh yes yes yes this thing is gorgeous I find myself playing

it a lot while I watch television yeah okay yeah it's it's like a good you can just stop playing it anytime and like nothing is lost at one of those games um no so there's like a shake up shake down sorting out of the TV market happening right now right so apples in the mix the view PlayStation View is launched they've been promising that for over a year um Sling TV. Sling TV. The tide has broken. They know that people are going to

either they're going to pirate the streams from like some shady provider in Russia that steals your identity or they might pay you. Right? Like that. The TV industry has gotten to that point. They know that they're losing the battle. People are not going to subscribe to regular cable. They just want to watch on the internet.

So here they come. All of the packages to me and you put it together this this experience Well shout out to everyone the product team Yeah the product team and Welch I think helped you out Welch too, yes But if you

The packages are all priced the same It's literally they didn't figure out What people wanted Which is to pay less money Yeah I mean like right now it's like we're giving the option to pay We don't know how much this is supposed to cost anymore Because it's just a different market So we're just going to throw a price

Usually an expensive price Like for HBO now it's $15 a month Yeah Which will probably worry I mean, during Game of Thrones, it'll work. Once the Game of Thrones ends, a lot of people are going to probably unsubscribe. Which is like what they would do for cable, too.

I just feel like that we're all now reaping what we have sowed. Of course. Which is like, angry tweets being like, I would just pay you $15 a month to watch Game of Thrones right now. Yeah, prove it. There you go. And it's like, well, now we got to prove it. I mean, I added all my stuff up and I definitely hit like $65.

Yeah. And here's the other catch about it. It's like now that HBO now is a thing, now that they can actually charge you $15, like, what's going to happen to, basically the seven or eight HBO Go passwords that are out there for 300 million people.

Right, right. Yeah, those are going away. I've noticed Netflix, have you noticed they just don't care anymore? They're like, who are. Just tell us who you really are. Yeah. Are you,

are you your parents? Are you your 10-year-old niece and nephew in Chicago? We just need to make sure the algorithm is right for your preference. We just definitely want you to stream more stuff. Like, they just don't, like, they have to know.

Like, that screen pops up that's like, pick your profile. I hate that screen so much. But, no, but it's like, but that profile screen for me is like, Might as well say, like, are you using this password in New York, Wisconsin, Chicago, or like, it's just, it's, or like, are you VPNing to pretend you're in the UK? Yes. And to be fair, the Dutch get a lot of new movies.

Really? Oh, yeah. Really? If you were happy to be in Brazil or Dutch, you can watch all the new Captain American movies. Okay, so let's just point out just really quickly, you just said Brazil or Dutch, which one of them is. There you go. Dutch is not a country. Sorry, Thomas.

Dutch is a type of shoe. also does kind of jumprobing and a, I believe, a type of butter. And if you double it, it's a way of pain. Also a type of oven. Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's so many things that are Dutch, except for the name of the country.

Isn't it weird? But so close. Alan is never coming on the show. Ellen, hype check Dutch. I'm going to say beef. Yeah. Also, a type of Dutch thing. Yeah.

No, the shakeout. Do you have cable? No. I don't have a TV. No, that's fine. You look so shy. Whatever, man. You got your S-5.

You're just living a good life on Swipe. I have my old bosses, HBO Go-Login. I have my sister's Netflix. I have my mom's Amazon Prime. Like, I have everything I need. You know, like the ultimate moocher. No, I feel like that's a pretty common story. Oh, yeah, for sure.

Do you have cable? No. What about you? I haven't had cable since. You haven't had one cable. Not one single cable. I haven't any cable service since like high school. I'm a cable maximalist.

Really? I have every channel. So you pay like $300 a month? What is the big package? Well, no, this is actually a thing. When I look at this pricing, so we have every channel, we have 35, 35 Fios, which actually they keep trying to upsell me to 50, and I keep on not telling me that they're giving me 50 anyway.

Right. Yeah. So we have every channel. We have every movie channel. We have 35, 35 Fios. We have a phone line. Just because it's part of the bundle. I don't even know the number.

It's just part of the bundle. And we pay like 215. Damn. It's a lot. But if you add up all these channels, you get to 118. And then if you want fast internet. Fast internet. You're going to pay another 50, 60 bucks.

And you're at 200 bucks anyway. Here's one thing that is interesting about... And you don't get a phone line. Table flip. I'm so sorry. No, here's one thing is it just like, we were trying, we were building the chart. Like, we were trying to figure out,

Is there an average price for cable? Because it varies so much by region. Right. Like, the FCC does an annual report. I did not know this until I found it. Every year, they should really support saying, what is the average cable price? Which right now is, like, $66 for basic cable.

That can, like, vary extremely. It's 64, on average, if there's competition. Oh, my God. Yes. No, but, like, it's, you're going to end up paying for, I mean, these cable providers are not stupid, right? So that they will start doing caps again. They will start doing deals where if you just buy cable television service, your numbers will, like, the prices will be way better than buying unbundled internet.

They already do that all over the place. That's why I have a phone line. Right. Because it was cheaper to just get a phone line than to buy the two services individually, which is ridiculous. Yep. And when you buy cable, you get TV everywhere, which is like a bad experience, but at least you get to log in and stream things all over the place. Right. I mean, it's a miserable experience, but at least I have it, right?

Right. So, I mean, the hope is either, like, one, there's uniformity in these internet prices. Two, if it is more expensive or less expensive, it does, like, pressure cable companies, like, find a new way to, like, maybe lower their price a little bit. I'm actually really looking forward to the FCC's report next year to see if things have changed. Right. Well, I mean, maybe. Maybe if people start buying, I think these services are coming out and what's going to hold them back is the cable companies are still going to bundle the hell out of them in some way, which is, part of the Wall Street Journal report today, which is Sony and HBO and all these other companies

are now saying Comcast, like put us in the managed services tier of your internet service, which is where the phone line lives, which is where Comcast video and demand lives. Put us into that bundle. We'll pay you or we'll have some arrangement. Deliver our stuff outside of the regular congestion of the internet and we'll just be there. And we'll come up with some arrangement where you're selling internet plus place to view as the TV package instead of your own TV package. Right. And the sense is that the cable providers are not super into that.

And the video providers are not super into it either. There might be like regulatory hurdles. It's obviously has huge net neutrality implications. But you like the, the dam has burst. Like that over, like we're going to get our TV over the internet. So but the thing is. Right. And like how we actually engineer it and like what legal words we say around it are.

That's like what's up in the air now. It's not a fast lane. It's something else. The idea of like the TV dam has burst onto the internet. Like it's like, yes, that's what we wanted. Oh, wait. Turns out there was a bunch of like garbage and shit in that water. And so like the New York Post is claiming that Apple is offering to share, you know, user data with programming partners.

Who knows if it's true. But that's what they're saying. Right. So like they get to know like what you're watching and with more detail. you know all these like trying to get into the different like lanes that have neutrality implications like the the the crap that made cable kind of an ugly mess of just bureaucratic nightmare hellscape world to try to just like call those that world is coming into the internet well it's already it's already here i mean like that stuff about privacy and analytics it's like whatever like when print magazines moved on to the internet, we added analytics to how we serve the ads. It made the ads arguably

a little bit crappier, but it didn't ruin our lives. And if you look at how TV ratings are done now, like Nielsen, it's like, just like hack need system. Nielsen calls people. They're like, are you watching dancing with the stars? And then they have no way of verifying if you're telling the truth. Like, well, you call 1,000 people, three of them are watching

dancing with the stars, so times 50 or whatever. Times 50? Did you ever take a stats class? I'd never know. So geography in statistics, not your... I'm a little removed from college. You know, Dutch stats. You just multiply everything by 50, and then you get there. No, it's

double Dutch stats, man. You trade. Oh, my God. Helen. Yes. Yes. Can I double Dutch? Yes. You can. Can you hopscotch? Is that... Yeah, I can also have a lot of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I've never actually understood hopscotch.

That's, by the way, I'm sure there's an app called hopscotch. And those people furiously emailing me right now. It's the revolutionary e-commerce platform. Hopscotch. Debut, South by Southwest, 2013. I kill myself.

By the way, I'm now suicidal over imagined app pitches because that's our lives. Yeah. No, look, you're right. Don't even start with me about pitches. You're not on the South by Southwest list, okay? That's true. Just get out.

I should read you the pitch that Mountain Dew sent me, actually. You should. Do it. But this thing about the garbage waters of television, like flooding over the internet, like, yeah, that'll happen. But I think the thing that will really happen is once you make that stuff live in the same place as the rest of the internet, you will see the competition like take hold. Right. So that people will go to the better experiences. They will go to the cleaner world, right?

They will go to the better website. They will use the better service, which has yet to have ever occurred on television. as far as I can tell. Right. But I mean, there is, and this is part of the Wall Street Journal thing, like, you don't worry about buffering if you go to Comcast. Right. Like, but with you in SlingTV, you have that as a legitimate issue.

Like, you're now dealing the same words, which is why we have a same deal. It is actually incredibly easy hostile because you never know what's causing it. Like, the fact that my Xbox buffers and my Apple TV doesn't. So, like, the Xbox buffers are my, do I yell at my Xbox? Do I yell at my Internet connection? Do I yell at, like, net neutral? I have no idea. Always just yell in neutral.

Just shake your fist and scream that neutrality. When my cable doesn't work, I yell at Comcast and I'm done. When streaming doesn't work, there are like 10 more people I don't know who to blame in that chain. I don't know. I always confidently blame the service provider and I'm usually right. Yeah. I mean, it's usually Fios is like doing something stupid. Yeah.

I don't know. Right, you were going to read a Mondeuch. That's not that bad. Then we should wrap me. I'm going to let it go. All right. Any final thoughts? You want to talk about Tesla for two minutes?

Let's talk about Tesla. No. So they're installing a new app in the cars. That means that it'll like warn you if you are driving out of, you're going to like run out of electricity before you can get to a charging station. That's it. They're like driving on a range. So I guess two questions.

Yeah. One, uh, we're cool with like Tesla low jacking us and knowing where we are at all times and all places. The car would be now. The car knows. Yeah. The Tesla. How does the car know?

How does it know where the Tesla network is? What do you mean? How does your, phone no. It caches local a map. There's a GPS. So I just think that we need to ask if they're finding out that information or if it's all local. I'm assuming it's not. I'm 100%

okay with my car knowing where I am. Yeah, you're 100% okay with Elon Muskner where you are. He does hate, you know, AI and robots. Does he want to hang out or something? Like I'm great coffee. He's like, I'm here right now, Elon. All right. I'm waiting for you. I mean, it's a good feature. I would want my car to have that feature. Yeah. Right.

For sure. And then two is when is Apple is by Tesla? Never. Never. Never. Never. I loved watching Tim Cook or like reading about Tim Cook replying to all the investors saying just buy it. Just buy it.

Yeah. Don't spend up your own car. Just buy this already successful company. Yeah. I don't know. You know the one thing the voice recognition should be able to do in a car, which is not currently able to do. I've never seen a car able to do it. You should just be able to say out loud, I need gas and have it like figure out where gas station isn't take you there.

Yeah. Like you should. That's a really easy. No, but even better than that. that is the car should be like, yo, you're going to run out gas if you don't stop at this station up here. Because it knows where you're going. Yeah. Yeah.

A car should be smarter. We should reinvent them all. Yeah, I think so. So the other thing that's off by, the last story. Yeah. So Astro Teller, the theme of his thing was like the failures at Google X. Yeah. And so he talked about it like, Glass.

We gave it too much publicity. That was dumb. But he talked about self-driving cars. So they had those Lexuses that worked perfectly well on the freeways, right? Yeah. Right. And they seeded it out to a whole bunch of people to test them. And they're like, you have to promise that you'll, like, pay attention and be able to take over if need be.

And the reason they made the small, cute little car with no steering wheel or gas pedal is they discovered that humans are an unreliable backup to computers. No matter how hard you promise, no matter how good your intentions are, if the car is self-driving, you're just going to piece out. And you are not, you are not a reliable backup to a self-driving car. So, like, that's why they're going full throttle, like figuring out city driving instead of just letting you. the freeway driving go out there is because they knew that humans wouldn't pay enough attention to like save themselves if the car failed. Really?

Yep. So they feel like they have to make it perfect. Yeah. I mean, I can't wait to have a self-driving car. Yeah, I know. I mean, this ties into like Elon most said this week also, which is he's imagined 20 years when there's enough self-driving cars, they'll start outlawing human drivers. Probably for the same reason. Yeah. Like at some point the computer is going to be a lot better than

diesel. And then we'll That day will never come. Look, Fast and Furious 12, all self-driving cars. We have a very boring experience. Dude, can you imagine the remake of gone in 60 seconds or self-driving cars? It's all just Nicholas Cage, Angelianly acting. Yeah. It's just like, uh, we're trying to have a relationship.

They just hop in a stolen car, like a stolen Mercedes. Like the seats like turn to each other. It's just timidistic is really tall. It's like, so why? Why did you decide to go with the blonde redlocks? That's the entire second act of the movie. Every now and then the car directs, would you like me to go faster. That's how long it would take to explain the reasons.

Her hair cut in that movie makes no sense. I know. It doesn't. Have you seen God in 60 seconds? No. Here's the plot of God in 60 seconds. They steal cars. No, no.

Yes. Yes. That's it. I told you the whole thing. No. So there's like a bad guy who, it's like, it's basically an 80s. movie, right? They have to complete a task by a time where something bad will happen. But instead of saving the high school or like a record store or the town, they're saving like the brother's

lives by stealing cars off a menu. So the guy's like, I want these cars. You have to locate them and steal them and give them to me by a certain time. The movie is entirely predicated upon, I can't believe I'm explaining it about a car. There's one specific kind of Mustang that he's always tried to steal. Nicholas Cage has always tried to steal. And it's like literally there's a scene. you keep trying to get that car. It's like the Declaration of Independence. And it almost kills him. And that Mustang is named Eleanor.

But then, for unexplained reasons, that plot is happening. But Angelina Jolie is there. Also stealing car. She's one of the car thieves. But she has like really bad hair. Like blonde dreadlocks, like bleach blonde.

Is this the movie Hackers but with cars? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Wait, am I confusing Angelina Jolian hackers with Angelina Jolian? No, no. No, you're definitely not. Angelina's got, yep, okay, I'm right.

Gone in 60 seconds and Girl interrupted, Angelina Jolie. Both bad hair. Yeah, but there was the reasons. I'm going to get home and watch Gone in 60 seconds. Yeah. That movie is just really... Also, by the way, when you start typing... Don't Delegrety.

Auto completes... When you type Angelina Gone, it just auto-completes Angelina Gone in 60 seconds here. Are you an incognito? Because I guarantee you that's just your own search history right there. I didn't even get that far. All right. Well, that's how we're going to end this show. All right then.

Helen, do you want to read the engagement script since you're in the hype seat? It's all the stuff in the bottom at red. Yeah. It's you commanding people to be social. It says, Sam, let's change it there. To Helen. Yeah, if you can change it to Helen, I'll definitely pay attention to it.

Done. Yeah. So on social, follow at Verge on Twitter. Hashtag Vergecast. You can rate and review us on iTunes. And you can check out our other shows at iTunes.com slash The Verge. Individual Twitter handles, I don't know. Oh, really?

Okay. So Dieter's Backlon. I'm Backlon. I'm reckless. He's reckless. I'm a lot of Roscoe. Bad Twitter game. And you are?

Another Helen. Yeah. Follow Helen. Another Helen. We'll make her tweet more. Yeah. You understand Helen like professionally runs like our channels. Don't just follow her.

She's on Helen and ask her to tweet more. Thanks. You know, I've, you know, I've been tweeting for other people for a long time. Yeah. I just, I'm not very good at tweeting for myself. We got to step up your personal Twitter brand. Yeah. We got to activate.

We got to activate your Twitter brand. Oh, and so the other thing is we have a new podcast. Yep. Yes, we do. Commanding Helen. I just, I got told by our producer. So it was a, I think it was a soft launch this week, but it was our first main, episode branded as Verge

extras, but if you go there, there's actually some older episodes that you can also see. This week's is about South by Southwest, and I know all I know about us has Emily and Casey and I think Brian, Dieter are you on it? It's Emily, Casey, Kwame, and me.

And the other three are definitely the highlight. They're excellent podcasters. Yeah, we should give them all podcasts. Yeah. That's an idea that I have. Maybe maybe if we had a podcast feed or we could pilot ideas. Maybe. Maybe that feed is called Verge Extra.

Yeah. Interesting. We also have What's Tech. Yep. Which is going really well. What's Tech, I believe, is number two in the iTunes Tech feed right now. Yeah. Burgecast is number seven, which is bonkers.

Yep. It's high up in the main feed, too. What is it? It was in the 50s last I chat. Yeah. Yeah. So we're doing well on the podcast tip. Mm-hmm.

Is that a phrase? Yeah, sure. You can find all of them at iTunes.com slash The Verge. Yeah, we're doing really great here. Uh, someone's already tweeting it, Helen, to tweet more, which is great. I'm sorry, Helen. Uh, very sorry. And, like, uh, you can go to iTunes.com slash The Virgin.

Like I said, please rate us, give us the maximum possible stars. That's five. There's, I think there's a secret six. Just keep clicking just past the five. That's my detective novel for teens, the secret six. That's, they're like a gang. They're like a teen gang. They're self-crimes.

Are they Dutch? Dutch. Dutch. They're Dutch teens. do solve crimes. The Secret Six. Go to iTunes. Tell me about what kind of adventure they would have.

Also, what noise you make for big, dumb things. Five stars. Okay, that's it. That's for a chest. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. Goodbye. Rock and roll.