The Vergecast - Google Cloud Next Conference, Iron Fist, and Hot Tinder

Episode Date: March 10, 2017

On this special episode of The Vergecast, the ladies of The Verge take over the show. Did you know that nearly half of the team is female? Seriously, we’re probably two women away from a 50 / 50 split, but you’d never know that if you only listened to The Vergecast! That’s why, in honor of International Women’s Day this week (and Women’s History Month all month!), we have Megan Farokhmanesh, Adi Robertson, Natt Garun, and Ashley Carman in the studio talking about Google’s big and enterprise-y week, Iron Fist, and the exclusive, invite-only version of Tinder for mega-hotties. Whatever that last thing is. Culture reporter Kaitlyn Tiffany also joins in to tell us her account of the Women’s Day strike. 00:49 - International Women’s Day 10:49 - Google's giant 4K digital whiteboard, Jamboard, will cost $4,999 13:55 - Google’s Gboard will now translate text into another language as you type 15:32 - Google confirms small number of Pixel phones have broken microphones 17:35 - Google Hangouts is getting a major overhaul to take on Slack 21:39 - Google can now recognize objects in videos using machine learning 23:55 - Iron Fist isn't just racially uncomfortable, it's also a boring show 28:45 - There’s a secret version of Tinder for hot people and you can’t use it 36:31 - Ashley’s weekly segment “Yo, when will I be able to afford this phone case?” 39:32 - The CIA is hacking Samsung Smart TVs, according to WikiLeaks docs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of Theverge.com. I'm not Nilai Patel, which you might have already guessed. We're actually going to do a special episode this week because maybe you've listened to the Verge cast before, maybe you haven't. But it's usually run by Nilai and Dieter, which would probably make you think there are that many women who work at The Verge. Turns out we have a lot of women on staff, and they are here to talk with us today. So this week was not only International Women's Day, but also was a really important day because of the Day with Otto Woman. strike. So to talk about it, we've got me, your host, Megan Froopinash, but I'm also here hosting with Nat Garon. Hey, we've got Addy Robertson. Hi. Ashley Carman, who is currently not here,

but we'll be here in about 10 minutes. And we are going to kick this off. Cool. So International Women's May was on Wednesday. A majority of the rich staff decided to partake in the strike, which I found really profound because they got here in the office and it was extremely quiet. And the only people here were me and Addie. And it was really strange walking into an empty room. I mean, you walked here and then like there's just nobody, like the social team was not here. And I feel like everybody was sort of freaking out. Like, who's going to put all our stuff online? If we don't put the stuff online, no one reads or is able to see our content. We can't optimize anything we do. We're writing all this stuff that I think is important, but we didn't

get a chance to kind of consult with the people who truly impact the way people consume our which I think it's like insane. It's really eye-opening for me, even as a woman, how impactful our female staff members are. And to talk about that is someone from the social team, Caitlin Tiffany, who also reported a story about International Women's Day. And I'd love to hear more about your insights on what you thought about what happened this week. Cool. So, yeah, the piece that I wrote was basically, well, I didn't really have to write anything. I was just like a 3,000 words of quotes from people. I talked to a bunch of women who work in the media about, like, how they felt about skipping work on Wednesday, because I had kind of been, had mixed feelings about it. Not to be, like, dramatic, like, oh, God, if we all skip work, the internet will crash to a halt and 4chan will win and whatever.

But, like, you know, it is like a little weird to be like, let's let boys do all the writing about the world for a day. So I talked to people about how they felt about that, and people had lots of mixed thoughts. And I still had big thoughts after reporting it. So it was useless. No, just kidding. I think basically, like, the big takeaway was that a strike is a lot more complicated and a lot more radical of a political action than I think most people are used to taking or even considering. So it was useful just to discuss it with people, I think.

And it also made me think more carefully about, like, place that we work, which is a great place to work. And I don't think any of them, like, I don't feel like, oh, no. my male coworkers hate me and don't value my voice. But like when we took away the women from our website, what was left for the most part was still like tech coverage. And that is something that lots of men every day, I'm sure you guys can attest to this,

are constantly asking for the verge to be only tech and for the verge to only be written by men and for the women at the verge to go learn what they're talking about, et cetera. So, yeah, but I mean, I think we did a good job planning ahead. I think the men on our website did a great job looking for ways to amplify the stories we prepared. So it was a good day. Yeah, what I loved about our webpage on Wednesday is that in our homepage hero, basically the hero is dominated by female bylines, which is extremely rare to see.

Like, we all write great stories every day, but I think if you went to Theverge.com right now, you'd still see a lot of male bylines that are represented on the homepage, and that's clearly not true. So many female writers write great stories every day for The Verge. And yesterday was one of the first times I've ever seen all of that put front and center. And I think that it really highlights the impact and just really shows how many women work here and all the stories that we care about. For example, yesterday I think the science team, which is comprised of entirely women, took a strike. And they were really great stories about why they take a strike. Lauren Goodn also technically took a strike, but to partake in the strike, and she showed up kind of, you know,

like came here and there to kind of offer her opinions about some stories and sort of hopped out and came in here and there, check in. But she did write a good story for us about the whole Uber debacle last week and the blog that Susan Fowler wrote about the toxic culture at Uber and how women aren't surprised when they hear news about when Silicon Valley treat women like crap, because it is extremely normalized, and we have a president who normalizes that it's okay to take advantage of women. And I think that was really interesting insight for her to go through and talk to other women. And also at the end of her article offers a lot of different ways for how companies can surprise women by not mistreating them, by giving them a real pay raise and not subject them to all the discriminations that we're just so used to at work and just all the misogyny that I think people come to expect,

and women are just expected to, quote, quote, deal with in order to make it in our industries, which I think is so, so important. What's also important in yesterday's coverage is I wrote an essay about a cancer support group on Facebook that I was a part of because throughout my life in my childhood, I grew up knowing that I had a strain of cancer that was extremely rare,

and my doctors could really figure out. what happened or why. And one day after a long Google searches, I finally landed on this Facebook group of a woman who is trying to figure out the same thing of what happened to us and trying to, in a way, crowdsource information on what we know or don't know about having this cancer. And I think that part of being on the verge.com and writing about technology stories is that inherently these stories aren't about technology at all. It's about human and people. And technology plays a supplemental role in driving these stories forward. The story wasn't about a Facebook group. The Forest Fest. The story wasn't about the internet. So it's about people and having connections

and coming together. And it happened that it was a supportive group of women. And I think that that's really powerful. And that's something I want to see The Verge write more. I mean, I joined the Virgin November. It's one of the first big stories I've ever wrote for the Verge. I'm hoping that my presence here encourages the team and all of us to figure out more stories about the people who build technology, use technology, and are affected by technology. And I hope that our absence yesterday remind the boys of that, too. Before we move on, I think I thought of. Caitlin, can you give kind of a brief example of what the history or the background is of the Day Without a Woman's strike?

According to our intrepid photographer, Amelia, who took photos of all of the protests yesterday. There was a 1909 garment workers strike in New York, and that's the first international Women's Day. So, like, the original story of Women's Day is one of, like, pretty radical activism. So it's, like, I guess it's like it was exciting yesterday to see Women's Day kind of, ooh, going back to its roots, even though, you know, like, people struggled with it. And I know a lot of people thought it was dumb, including people that I usually think are smart. Did anybody get a chance to go to the rallies or basically I'm curious like did anybody who actually took the day off to strike who went to rallies who worked like what did you guys end up doing I kind of worked I watched

the internet to see if there was anything I wanted to write about turns out there really wasn't so at like three I left for the Washington Square Park rally which was great the Washington Square Park protests always have a lot of weirdos which makes them more fun there's like lots of organized labor people there like lots of signs about different laborers unions, which was cool. Lots of socialists, as there always are at New York City protests. Lots of adorable dogs. Honestly, it was great. It was beautiful outside. Chloe Seleine was there, the actress. Oh my gosh. From big love starring Bill Jackson. Were you around for the arrests? No, I didn't go to that. That was at the Uptown March. I guess some of the organizers, including

Linda Sorcerer, got arrested. But I think they were released pretty quickly. And they were like tweeting from the police fan. So it seemed like pretty. Yeah, I saw the photos. Low-key, comparatively. Not to be like, you guys got arrested, but it wasn't a big deal. But, like, it seemed like it got resolved. Addy, you decided not to partake in the strike yesterday. Why is that? I guess essentially because I'm an egotist and because I figure that I'm a writer and I'm in this sort of unusual position to be able to actually make the things that other people are doing visible. And so, yeah, I was online.

I wrote a bit about a really interesting Tor.com, Flashfiction project. So covered some other random stuff. And it was great. And I'm very happy that other people struck. Yeah. But I did not. I agree.

I fully support the people who decided to not come to work yesterday because, like I mentioned, I think that their absence was absolutely noticed. I decided not to strike yesterday because I wanted to be in solidarity with the people who can't financially afford to strike, like my mom. She runs her own business and then think that if she shut down the business for a day,

sure, some people won't be able to get some delicious typhoon. But I think for her, it would financially impact the fact that she's lost income for a whole day, and that is not something she can just easily afford to do. And I think that that's important, too, that some women who want to partake in a strike can't afford to, but that doesn't mean they don't care. So I wanted to be here to do that, and I think that being here, and being able to run the stories that we did yesterday, helped us do that in a way that showed people that you,

even even you can't strike, there's something you can still do. Today's episode is brought to you by Crizzal at No Glear Lenses. If you wear glasses, they know that fingerprint, smudges, scratches, and glares can be a constant obstruction to your vision and a huge distraction. Sometimes you end up focusing more on what's on your glasses than what's going on around you. They give you the clearest vision possible by offering resistance to glares, scratches, and smudges. So confession, I don't actually wear glasses. We have somebody in the room who does, though, and that is Ashikorman who is joining us.

It's me. It's you. Ashley, so there was some big Google news that happened this week, huh? Yeah, this week there was the Cloud Next conference from Google. So exciting. Yeah, it's like, oh, okay, guys, settling Cloud Next time. A lot of enterprise news, but Google did kind of announce some fun hardware things as well, which obviously I'm pretty excited about.

Google clarify that its jam board is coming out soon and it's going to cost $5,000. What is the jam board? I'm sorry. Don't you immediately think of a guitar? Like a keytar that you wear around your neck is what I immediately think of. Yes. No, it is not. It is a 4K digital whiteboard.

They gave that such a cool name that does not fit that description. I know. It's like, all right, guys, we're going to go write our meeting notes on the jam board now. We're going to jam out this meeting. Yeah, I think they're just making it. exciting for people who actually work in meeting rooms and have to have meetings all the time. You're like, let's jam. At least they're not going to announce another product called the jam board and have to rename

the jam board in like five years the way that Microsoft did with the surface. So what's special about this jam board that costs $5,000? Well, so it competes with the Surface Hub, which is Microsoft's version of the jam board. Jamboard is way more exciting of a name. Really, it's just a collaborative, massive digital whiteboard, which is just cool. Yeah, it's 4K. Does it do anything? Does it animate emojis?

If it is vaguely the way I've ever seen people use the surface, it's like a whiteboard. Yeah, like you can draw on it. You can draw on it, but it's like it's a telepresence whiteboard. So if you have a bunch of people in different, I don't know, offices, as one presumably does, then it appears on all these whiteboards simultaneously. It probably also does some kind of like animation stuff, I don't know. I feel like the most exciting thing I've ever seen happen on a giant interactive board is when weathermen like move shit around and like during the news like nightly show

when they're like, ah, look at this, statistics. They're like, we're CNN and we're going to show you now. And like, let me drag this piece of news over and like check this out. And like, I don't understand how that can cost $5,000. Well, yeah, it says that there are different touch points. So there's 16 touch points. You can obviously have multiple hands on this board as built in microphones, speakers. It's just supposed to be the thing you put in your meeting rooms.

and you guys can all use it and collaborate and whatever you're doing. It sounds extremely chaotic to have more than one person touching a giant board at the same time. Hey girl, I don't know how these people do their meetings. That's the funny thing is the game, like Microsoft, it was all about games.

That was the only thing people demoed on it was that you turned it over like a table and you had people like pushing around a puck or something and playing air hockey with their fingers because it was cool that it could detect different hands. Yeah, but the tilt is pretty cool on that. You got to mean when they turn it down, you're like, okay, that's kind of cool.

No, it's awesome. the idea of a table, like the idea of a smart table that you can draw on is so much cooler than a whiteboard. Totally, totally. And I believe that the jam board does tilt. I really feel like it should be a skateboard. I feel like I should be able to surf on it or something. One day, Addy. One day Google will do this for you, I hope. Speaking of other boards, Google also had some other board related news. They release an update to their Gboard keyboard app. And it's awesome. It now auto-detects when you type and you want to translate your language into different board. language and that's really cool. I feel like all of us know somebody who like we live in New York.

We communicate with a lot of people from different backgrounds and like sometimes I use Google translate to translate things to tie so I can talk to my mom and I feel like this is awesome. So that's like jam board, Gboard, awesome boards, thank you Google. So I actually had a question about that because so Gboard already it had the sort of assistant center thing where you could auto translate a page. What is new about this auto translate? I think that like as you type now there's little thing that pops up at the very top that you can, it's basically like Google Translate got built into the keyboard. Like, you know, like on some texting app, you can type and then like, it detects that maybe you want an emoji and it like suggests emoji. So like in this, I think that

they are able to have it automatically translated and like as you're typing so that you can just tap and then change the word into whatever that foreign language is, which I guess saves time. Eventually it'll be like a Sapier Wharf kind of thing where it'll be like, I detect the contents of your speech, and I believe you could translate what you're saying better if it were in German. And then you translate it into German, and you get one of those giant, like, portmanteau words, and then translate it into other languages. That's an awesome future. I also wonder what happens if you just, like, tap it back and forth, and just, like, get a super mangled paragraph to it at the end. It's just like, this is poetry.

You get the classic translate songs back and forth and see if you can guess them game. Not all Google News. We're super exciting this week. We got some news about Google Pixel. and how it's having some major microphone issues. Google claims that it only affects, like, less than 1% of phones. We have a lot of pixel lovers on staff. Yeah, and there's a lot of big pixel lovers online, too, and they've all flocked to, like, the support page to complain to Google about how their pixels microphones won't work,

and they all get replacements, and they still don't work. So there's, like, a big hardware issue going on here, and Google is really attempting to downplay how big, bad it is, but doesn't seem that way. I mean, they said that it's only affecting less than one percent of devices. So it's tough if you are getting replacement devices that are also not working, though. That seems really unlikely, unless you have some kind of batch-based problem. Well, they said that in their quote, it was a quote-unquote, hairline crack. But they said it's only affecting less than one percent of devices. And to be fair, people have had such a hard time getting a pixel that

it probably amounts to like a couple thousand devices because people can't buy Google Pixel. Are they still sold out? I pre-ordered mine like five hours before pre-orders closed. I think it magically came back online one weekend for like two hours. And I think Chris Welch on staff managed to get his hands on it. And after that, it went offline again. And people were just kind of like, you know, not their computers until their shipment status is update. The pixel is like the only Google phone people have been excited about for a really long time.

Because the camera is so damn good. So much of it is good. Like, I should stop talking about the pixel. I really like the pixel. So do I. And I think a lot of people would like to like it. But microphone problems. What are we going to do?

And not shipping at all. It's funny. Does I think a problem like the Nexus 4 had or something? I think it was audio problems. You just couldn't hear it. It also had lots of other problems. It was terrible. It's also not blowing up.

I feel like people have such a low baseline now for what makes the good phone. It didn't burn my hand. Another big Google thing that happened. Google is still trying to make messaging a thing. They relaunched Hangouts into this Hangouts chat thing that they want to go against Slack. And it's very confusing. It's called Google Hangouts chat, which is not the same as G-Chat. It's all one.

Or Hangouts? Is it not the same as Hangouts? And it's not the same as Hangouts. We don't know what the hell it is. It's supposed to facilitate group chats. It looks basically like Slack, but completely flat design and white. It looks really pretty. but Google has a million messaging apps.

Like, why can't it figure out what it's doing here? Or at the very least, why does it not have a custom launcher that will just hold all of your messaging apps in one place? I guess you could just do a folder, but that would be so much easier. See, the thing is there's a bunch of third-party apps that claims to, like, oh, we'll centralize all your messaging apps and we'll centralize all your emails and all this stuff. It's like, I don't, like, I shouldn't have to ask a third-party person to help me do that.

Like, Google should just not do that. I mean, my standards are low. even need it to integrate them all into one app. I just need a thing to remind me what all the Google apps that are out there right now are. Yeah, I need a guide to Google apps for real. Yeah, and like, even though we're really annoyed that Google has released yet another messaging product, they also didn't really want to talk about it at the Google Next conference. Deidre Bowen was there. He was waiting for them to announce it because he thought that this was a big thing that Google is now doing yet again, and they're taking on a big company like Slack and everybody, like,

love Slack and there's like a cult following for Slack and they didn't even mention it on stage. It's like is Google, does Google even care anymore? That's kind of like the position Microsoft is in for Enterprise though, right? That it's super boring and nobody cares, but everybody's on it so it doesn't matter and they don't have to advertise it. Yeah, that's what I'm wondering is if people are just like forced into the Google apps. Like they'll care when they have to use it, I guess, if your company decides to switch over to Gmail and then everything else that comes with it.

But until that day comes, like, I don't know. Like, we're on Slack here, but we do use Gmail. I feel like we're in a really interesting spot because we're tech reporters, but I really don't have to share documents all that often. I'm like, okay, one Google Doc a week, share that with you. Like, I just work in our CMS. Like, I feel very sheltered from App World, Enterprise App World. So I feel for all the office workers out there who have, like, 10,000 apps to navigate.

But, like, let's pretend Slack actually doesn't exist, and we have to use Google. Actually, Slack didn't exist. We would be using IRC. Like we did for many years. That's true. But now that Hangouts and Hangout Google Hangouts chat, not just Hangouts is a thing. If Slack didn't exist, would you use Hangout chats? Would you then go to just regular hangouts to talk to your coworkers?

Or would you just go to the little bubble of G-chat, I mean, hangouts that is in your Gmail client that you can use to just DM somebody? Like, which is it? Or do you use Allo to coordinate a thing? you and your coworkers have to, like, hit up a meeting or, like, go to a presentation or which would it be? There's too many options, and I just don't understand why Google keeps making so many different apps. Like, I understand the need to be consumer-facing versus enter-facing, but fundamentally, all it does is let people talk to each other. Like, that shouldn't be, there's no need for a variety. Like, I think people just want to be able to,

talk to each other and like get the message straight. What we need is Google Assistant to be able to tell us what we'll need to use at any given moment. I mean, actually, that would be cool if something could more or less deduce what you were going to do and pick which app would be good for it. Like, are you trying to collaborate on a document with lots of people? I'll open up Slack clone. Is this, you know, your boyfriend? I will open up hangouts or whatever and I'll encrypt it. Hey, Google, tell me how I should talk to my friends. Careful with this. Hey, Google, I need to sex.

What should I do? Well, okay, what else happened with Google? There's now a Google Cloud Video API, which is an AI that looks at videos and tries to figure out what's going on, and is like machine learning and image recognition, but for video, which I think is kind of significant, we see there's a lot of image recognition. people, everyone from Facebook to Flickr now is image recognition and machine learning and are now trying to group and sort and tag photos.

But this is one of the first few things that we're seeing big companies start making a push for in video. I think that's kind of cool. It has weirdly political sort of internet cultural ramifications because for a really long time, if you want to say something really terrible, you go to YouTube and say it. That's sort of why this whole Milo-Unapolis thing didn't blow up for so long because you can control. left through a bunch of text and so you can like eviscerate somebody if they did a tweet or if they write blog posts but if it's video like audio recognition still wasn't great like you can't really tell who's on you can't tell who's saying what you can't really mine it and the idea that now video will eventually be as completely searchable and quantifiable as text is really weird yeah I mean

how do you feel about that though I feel like I'm getting even because I like text and so if You're going to suffer with this. You will all suffer with me. It makes our jobs easier, I think. I think I also did a video a couple days ago that it enabled this gender. It's called the GDIQ and it measures gender on screen. It's like a robotic Bechdel test detector. So it can detect gender of characters presumably imperfectly on a screen

and then tell how long they're talking and how long they're on screen and calculate the percentage of like women's screen time in Oscar winning movies or whatever. Oh, interesting. But what is it basing that off of? Is it just like, that lady is wearing a dress? Lady. Like, it's facial features as far as I can tell. It seems weird because, yeah, as somebody who, like, yeah, there's a lot of weird gender-fluid people in my life.

I don't know how it would detect those people. But that's, it's Hollywood. Hollywood doesn't. It's clearly never met a utilical kilt. Okay, so I want to jam on over to a new topic, you guys. This is really important. Jam on. You're over the enterprise software.

I'm going to make jamming a new thing we do. I want to talk about Iron Fist because I am deeply upset about Iron Fist. Okay, so I don't know what Iron Fist is, but apparently the people of my culture are upset. Okay, so a quick background. So basically, Netflix has been creating these shows with Marvel that are based on the Defenders, which is kind of like low rent the Avengers. It's like this team based in New York, and it's Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist. So everybody has gotten their own show, Daredevil's Up to Season 2.

Iron Fist is the last of the Defenders to get his own show. This will lead up to the actual team-up mini series that is also called The Defenders. So basically, Iron Fist, it's coming out March 17th, but reviews have finally hit. It's about Danny Rand, who is, the story is supposed to be this, like, fish out of water story about this, like, white guy who learns mystical martial arts and then comes back to New York and fights ninjas. So it's already struggling. This is a really bad idea.

Yeah. It's like, it's really bad. It's really bad, and it's hard because if you look at what Netflix and Marvel have already done, Luke Cage was an excellent show because Luke Cage is a black superhero in Harlem who is fighting in a hoodie and is bulletproof. Like, that means something, right? Like the whole thing is about the black experience and what it's like to be a hero. Jessica Jones, the entire plot is essentially haunting down your rapist. It is like serious shit.

Like that is a show that I can recommend and have recommended to people who don't like comics and still are just here to see these characters do their thing. I didn't like Daredevil that much, but I don't know. I think the review that we have up of Iron Fist is really good at the idea that, yeah, you have this leading man who projects Catholic guilt and he has a central motivation that makes sense and the fight scenes are sometimes good. And I don't think it's not good either. But I see why you could like it.

Iron Fist, among other things, is just there are certain tropes that feel so dated and discredited that it's like, oh, you're going to remake Birth of a Nation? No, no. not going to do that anymore. So some plots just don't seem like they should be resurrected. Yeah, it's tricky because the representation is not great. And that's what a lot of people were upset about, because this was a good chance for them to remake this character. It was a white guy originally. But they could have put an Asian actor into a show and made this mean something. Instead, you have Danny Rand, a white guy played by Finn Jones from Game of Thrones, who will

occasionally just like mansplain martial arts to like one of the other female slash Asian characters in the show. Like at one point he's talking about martial arts in her fucking dojo to her. Like she's like a master of this. It's insane. But even if you take all that away, like the show itself is just kind of boring. Like it's very clearly not the best written out of all of them. It's slow. Like I will say I've only seen the first six episodes. I don't know. By the time the six one wrapped up, I was like I'd keep watching because I want to know what happens. But I feel like it's like visual Stockholm syndrome. Like I'm in. I'm here. I'm here to see rest of it. Once you've committed a certain amount of time, you're like,

all right, we're going to just do this. Yeah, I don't do that. Really? I have so many shows I'm like halfway through that I've dropped because I'm lazy. If I make it past the first two episodes, I feel like I'm committed. Like, I've seen people on Twitter talking about ways that this show could have been interesting. I think, so I think it was Grant Morrison's Animal Man comics, which were all about deconstructing stuff. And there was a superhero called Buanna Beast, whose thing was kind of like this but for vaguely African culture,

and that the entire thing was just him dealing with the fact that this weird mystical thing made a white guy the protector of this realm and him trying, as I remember, to hand this over. But this basically just seems like a boring superhero, generic superhero thing. It just feels like a missed opportunity. Someone said, you know, the character Colleen Wing, who is the dojo master I mentioned earlier, they're like, wow, wouldn't have been great if she was actually Iron Fiss

if they had taken that actress and made it a woman if not an actual Asian actress or actor. It's a missed opportunity. They could have done something cool with this. They could have made this character revolutionary in some way or relevant to any conversation today. But it just feels very tone-deaf, especially because Asian actors have so few chances

to have big leading rules like this or to be heroes in this way. Right. And that sounds all social justicey, but it's also that just makes it specific, that superhero movies have been done so many times that the idea of anything that makes this decision, It's just something I'm going to be grabbing for. And it does not sound like it has that.

It sounds really bad. Yeah, it's just, even if you can get past the representation issues, it's just boring. That is my review of Iron Fist so far. It's boring, and the writing is bad, and God bless those actors who are doing the best they can with what they have. Speaking of doing the best you can with what you have, let's talk about dating apps. Oh. Sad. This had a segue of all time.

So Tinder, we found out this week, Tinder has a very exclusive dating app available called Tinder Select that seems to be just for hot or rich people. Yeah, it sounds like they pick you out of the crowd and are like, hey, you're hot. You get to be on this new exclusive part of Tinder where you only get to see other hot people and maybe some famous people too. So when I was reading this, it was saying, it didn't just say hot people. It said like supermodels. implied that it was basing this on someone else's external judgment and it wasn't just going through and picking people who are attractive. And I'm unclear on which one of those things it is. You mean like attractive off of just like, like, a scientific level?

Are they like a talent scout or are they a bouncer? Are they looking at this and saying, you're a model, you put this in your profile, I'm going to put you on hot Tinder. Or are they looking through people and actually like seeing how they're rated? Because OKCupid had a thing that was if you were rated above average, you got into this special club where you got to see hotter people. And it was weird. I got the impression that they are operating under the assumption that if you're just a general hot person, like a model or something like that, you're going to get swiped right on all the time. Regardless of who the person is that's viewing you, maybe you're not really their type. But if you're just a general hot person, they're going to swipe right on you because you're a general hot person.

So those people are now being inducted into the new level of Tinder. That's the impression I got. It's not just hot people, though, because they also say it's CEOs and upwardly affluent types. So it's rich people. So there must be some sort of system because, like, how do you figure out who's a rich person based off of their photos? I was going to say, like, Tinder doesn't ask you to, I mean, I guess most apps can probably figure out your demographics in some way. But that seems... Because it does connect with Facebook.

Right, exactly. I think in some ways they can use the Facebook integration to figure out your demographic in some way. But I also feel like once, like, I don't know anybody who's part of exclusive hot tinder, but I feel like once you're there, I wonder if you get like a placebo, like, syndrome over it, like when you're there and you're like, oh, man, everybody here's hot and everyone's here is awesome and everyone hears exclusive. Like if someone handed you like a glass of red wine and said it was like some $9 bottle, you're like, yeah, whatever. but if someone told you like, oh, this is some exclusive $50 bottle from like 2005 reserve, whatever, are you like instantly like, oh man, this wine is great? So I wonder if like you're in this hot Tinder and you're like, oh, everyone here is so great. And like, I'm so like, it's so prestigious to be here and what an honor.

I'm just going to swipe right on like fucking everybody because everyone here is hot. Like because we're in this exclusive club. Like when really it's probably just like some dude who like had money or like. some dude who knew the guy who made Tinder or like some dude who went out once and partied with an engineer who was like, yeah, I'll get you into hot Tinder. But like it doesn't, you will also like never want to leave, right? So you'll never want to settle down with anybody because you'll get kicked out of the hot Tinder club. Maybe. The problematic thing is that the way this is described just makes it sound like it's preserving sort of gender roles in which you pick rich guys and hot women. Yeah. But I mean, Tinder, I mean, I mean,

generally Tinder is viewed as a hookup app anyway. Like, I don't really know that people are there. I've never used Tinder. I don't know. I've met a couple people who have met their, like, long-term boyfriend or girlfriends or partners, like, on Tinder, which is crazy to me. I don't know. I mean, I've also heard of many people who've used Tinder for hookups.

So it's like maybe it's easy to just hook up with, like, rich people who are, you know, vain enough to just care about the fact that they're super hot. And it's fine. And then they have fun. And then they come back to Hot Tinder and find the next rich hot person hook up. up with. I don't know why, but I just, I haven't quite figured out my issue with these types of apps where they segment you. Like there's Raya, I think it's called, where it's exclusive. You have to get an invite. And then there's also like, I guess, OKCupid, like you said, Addy. Okay, Cupid is an older generation.

And I'm really glad I got that generation of dating apps where it was obsessively self-curating what you were going to say. And it was like obsessively faux intellectual. And it was all about connecting via words and things like that. I just wonder, though, like, are they making, Are they doing these more segmented apps to get hot people to use their app? Like, what's the perk here for Tinder? Like, why is Tinder segmenting like this? Like, do they just want hot people that, oh, if I can find other hot people, I'll use this app? Or is it like, I'm not finding enough hot people, so I need to be in my own group?

Like, I don't understand why they're creating the separate tier. Honestly, probably because it's really cheap to make the separate tier and it'll get people to talk about Tinder. Like we're doing right now. But I feel like it makes regular people who clearly haven't gotten in. invite to Hot Tinder being like, well, fuck, Tinder doesn't think I'm attractive. Like, why am I going to keep using this shit? Well, you'll keep put more work into it, become attractive. Well, and you'll pay. I, okay, I think that this is, not that I'm saying it's okay, but I'm just like, I don't know if I'd want to be in that tier anyway, because I feel like everybody in there is probably insufferable.

Like, I don't think these are people that I'd want to date anyway. Says Megan, I don't want to be in Hot Tender. But, too, like, I am really curious, like, how they vet it. Like, if I, like, make a profile with, like, photos of Kate Upton. If anybody works on Tinder, HotTendor, or Tinder Select, Hot Tinder, like, please don't listen to the section. If I make a fucking profile photo that's just like Kate and, like, slip in, like, are they going to realize

I'm a fake? Are they going to catch the catfishers? Can I be a catfisher on Tinder Select and get in? Is this Tinder Select fake news? I'm going undercover. Yeah, I don't know. All I know is I'm very curious about these types of segmented dating apps,

and an artist I follow who I'm very, like in love with. It's a woman. She's just amazing. I'm not going to say her name. But she's always making Instagram stories about Raya, which is the exclusive dating app. And it sounds like it's really not that great out there. So that's what I've taken away from her. Is that actually these super hot people dating apps are just as bad as regular dating apps. I feel like if you're somebody like, I don't know if you're Rihanna on Tinder, like you probably do need that separation because then you just get sworn by like fans. So it's like if you are a supermodel or somebody who's like an influencer.

Maybe you do need it to be happy and find love. I don't know. Is the fantasy of being Brianna that you never have to like look for people to swipe right on? Yeah, like if I'm Rihanna on a dating app, I'm really depressed. We don't know if this is true. Rihanna, if you're listening, please let us know. Although there was a story about Zach Ephron on Tinder once. Oh, yeah.

He actually had a Tinder profile and people like didn't swipe right on him because they thought it was a joke. And he was like, no, like, I'm really on Tinder. I'm really just trying to find someone to love. Oh, my God, Zach, I'd swipe on you. Maybe this is for him. So if you've enjoyed listening to us to talk about Tinder and Google and all kinds of stuff, support for today's show comes from Squarespace. Whatever your next big idea might be,

count on Squarespace to help you create an eye-catching online platform that brings it to life. Whether you're planning to start a new business, launch a creative project, or change careers, Squarespace's beautifully designed templates and customizable features give you everything you need to look like an expert, right from the start. You even get a unique domain to set you apart in the field. So, Squarespace, there's a verge code if you enter Verge in all caps. You get 10% off your first purchase. What did podcasts do before Squarespace? Didn't make money. Literally, how did podcasts exist before Scorespace? So Ashley, you are here in place of Paul, which means that you have a special weekly segment to talk about in place of Paul. And I bet it has a better name that Paul's.

Yes. My weekly segment called, yo, when will I be able to afford this phone case? That's a great name. That's so good. Yeah, it seems like it has very wide applicability. Louis Vuitton made a new phone case that it introduced this week that costs over $5,000 and it is made out of crocodile skin. I love phone cases. Personally, it's kind of, I won't go on a whole rant, but basically I just enjoy phone cases because I feel like it's pretty much the only way I can express individuality with a smartphone at this point. So I I think the $5,500 Louis Vuitton phone case

definitely makes a statement. It's one way to express individuality. And, you know, I'm going to lust for this one, but I'm never going to be able to afford it. Does it protect your phone, though? Crocodiles, they're very tough. They're tough. That's actually a very good point.

But when I get a phone case, I drop my phone a lot, and the case is there to be bubble boy, the phone case. But I feel like if people own Louis Vuitton, like most Louis Vuitton's I see are like purses or wallets, right? And then like if I ever drop those things on the floor, I'd probably scream. So like if I have a Louis Vuitton phone case and I drop it on the ground, I would full out cry. If you have going to afford a Louis Vuitton case, you never touch the ground.

You're in cars at all times and carpets. You can still drop things even if you're in cars all the time. Yeah, but cars are padded. They probably have dropped out of the car. Like that's usually when I drop my phone. It's like I always drop it when I'm getting out of a car. I don't know what it is. is like that momentum of like stepping over a little thing, like always forces me to drop my

phone. Yeah, I think it's also just alludes to this idea that we've seen actually a ton of designers release their own phone cases. And like obviously, this goes kind of without saying, but hey, I'll say it anyways. Your phone is obviously your number one accessory. So like if you're a fashion person, what are you doing when you're going out to the fashion shows? You're taking photos with your phone.

When you're out just being photographed at the club, you're, you're, you're, probably holding your phone. So it's really advantageous for these designers to get their phone case in front of the cameras. And I just love that this extreme luxury market has sprung up. That's so ridiculous, but also like, all right, cool. I guess there's someone out there who genuinely wants this $5,500 crocodile leather phone case. So I'm going to make people mad about luxury for the second time this week and say this is actually way more practical than what existed before, which was the Virtue phone. Like, this seems so. practical compared to a $100,000 feature phone that's like encrusted with diamonds shaped like a dragon

that's going to be like obsolete in a year. A dragon phone sounds pretty good. Oh no, it's great. I'm obsessed with virtue phones. It's amazing. But no, it's like you get the phone that's crocodile skin and made by Cadillac or something, but it's the world's worst phone. It's true. Yeah, at least you still have the iPhone in here for this one. You guys, what's going on with WikiLeaks? I've been out of the loop on this one. Adiwana. So I can say the setup for this, which is that in February, WikiLeaks started tweeting things that made it sound like it was going to run some kind of ARG. It was a bunch of photos that were like, what is Vault 7? Who is Vault 7? Where is Vault 7? And people alternately thought maybe this

referred to releasing Hillary Clinton's emails, which was pretty boring, or maybe releasing a theory about 9-11, which was more exciting. It turned out it was about the CIA. And so it's a bunch of CIA documents. As far as I know, this is not all of them. But the most interesting thing that people seem to have found so far is that Samsung smart TVs have a vulnerability. I am not a security expert and I don't know exactly how much of a vulnerability is. Ashley, do you have a great sense of this? Well, okay, so I think the first thing is just noting that, like, as you mentioned, Adi, WikiLeaks is hyping this so, so much.

Like, oh, my God, what's going to come? And really, their leak just reinforced everything we assumed about the government, and that is that they hoard vulnerabilities to get into Apple devices, Android devices, Samsung TVs, apparently. The Samsung TVs, everyone was worried about this. I think it kind of confirms the idea of, like, hey, if you put a connected device in your living room with a microphone, it's entirely possible that someone out there is maybe considering a way to get into that device.

I think it was just, we don't know if it's been used in the wild or not, but like if hackers have exploited this before. But I think that the bigger picture is more just like hitting, this hits consumers of, oh my gosh, should I be afraid? I think it just hammers home the idea of like, is it a good idea to buy connected devices? And are you willing to take those risks? The thing that's scary, scary to me about TV specifically is that it seems like TV manufacturers will not let you not pick new features, that they just throw every. into their newest model. So it's like I cannot get Alexa very easily. If I'm buying a new TV, what are the odds that in a couple of years every single TV will be a smart TV with this kind of listening tech? Exactly. Yeah. I think it's, that's kind of what's tough about the market right now

is everything is connected. And it's getting harder and harder to get those non-connected advice, even toys, which we've seen a ton of. Being kind of security conscious, you are probably aware of, okay, I don't think I should buy this random stuffed animal that connects the internet for my kid. But a lot of people do it because it seems like a fun idea in the moment. And obviously, they sell it to you. It's fun. But I don't know, it just sucks because I feel bad for people who don't realize that actually there are security implications behind these devices. And what's interesting, too, is like, these are the big name companies who are putting resources behind their security. And it also demonstrates that, like, the government can find a way in, I think. Yeah. I think the

question is partly how easy or hard it is to compromise. Because if it's like someone has to physically enter your house and get access to this and plug a USB stick in, that is not of interest for anyone except people who should be very paranoid already and probably care about this. If it's like if you open a particular TV show, then it hacks your TV, which as far as I know is not a thing that exists, then that's actually really scary. Right. Totally. But it's called Weeping Angel. Oh, no, that's the other thing. It has the most amazing name. Who names this stuff?

Literally every exploit ever has, like, the most epic name. And it's like, whoa, this just made security kind of somewhat fascinating. You have to make it sound cool so people will pay attention. It's like, yo, you heard about that Weeping Angel sing? Oh, that's bad. The opposite. I think it's the thing never get to tell people about this stuff unless it leaks. And so they have free reign to do whatever they want.

And this is their only outlet for creativity. And so they're like, you know what, we're just going to give things the weirdest names we possibly can, which is a similar principle to, like, military operations, where you get, like, Operation Brunch. Maybe Operation Brunch. Maybe Operation Snack. I can't remember. They just make it sound so epic. Like, it's some kind of, like, they want someone to, like, make a movie out of it. It's like, heartbleeds. Like, oh, man. And they did with Prism. Prism kind of technically maybe got a movie if you count Snowden. And Prism was a great name.

Yeah, it just made it sound so, like, cool. and it's not cool at all. I don't know. It's like hard to get it. It's like you get excited about it and you're like, oh, fuck. My TV is like hackable. Oh, man.

Is that good though? Maybe that gets people to take security more seriously? Because if you're like, oh, yeah, it's virus 21B. And you're like, oh man, but then my, like, that means I have to throw away my phone now. No, that's good. It scares them. It scares them straight. You're like, oh, mine, my phone might get infected with weeping angel.

I'm throwing that in the trash. Where if it's no name, you're like, whatever. Or like if it's got a lame name, it's like, oh man, we can dog. But just to fully clarify, yes, it is an out, it relies the exploit that the CIA was using relies on an outdated firmware that you've probably updated by now. And also I'm pretty sure the firmware has been discontinued at this point. And yeah, it was a USB. So really general consumers do not have to worry about this exploit. But like, again, I still think it kind of hits at the idea that people are attempting these.

The government at least is attempting these kind of efforts. And now the government is basically run by trolls, so 4chan is probably also doing something. I don't know. Everything is wonderful. Okay, so I think that is our show. Thanks again to our sponsor, Krizzal. So if you like The Verge, and I hope you do because you listen to the show, you should follow us on Twitter. We're at The Verge.

We're on Snapchat as the Verge, or on Instagram as The Verge. You can rate reviews on iTunes. You also can check out other podcasts. We have Control Walt Delete, which is my favorite name of all time, every Thursday. We've got Too Embarrass to Ask with Lauren Good, RICO decode with Kara Swisher, RECode Media with Peter Kafka, something really important that I should have mentioned at the top of the hour. We're going to be at South by Southwest doing a live show with an audience, and you could be in that audience, I guess, if you want to. So you can check out Recode Media, March 10th. Too Embarrass to ask March 11th.

The Vergecast is going to be March 12th. Then we take a break. We got RICO decode March 13th. And then Vergecast is back March 14th. It's going to be great. It'll be Nelai, Dieter. Casey's going to be on, I'm going to be on, so you should come check it out. So yeah, you can leave us a review on iTunes and check us out on Twitter.

I'm Megan Nicolette. Everybody else, we've got... I'm at Matt Garon, that's two T's. Ashley R. Carmen. I'm the dexterity, like patriarchy, but with right-handed things. That's what that is. Yeah, it's a joke from college. Okay.

Because I'm left-handed. Oh, are you? I got it. There's so left-hander's on the team. I'm so excited. Oppressed by the dexterity. Okay. Thanks for listening.