The Vergecast - Google event, Oculus event, and Playstation VR

Episode Date: October 7, 2016

This week on Vergecast, Nilay, Paul, Dan, and Dieter cover two big events and announcements from the past few days. As you may have read on the site, Google announced a plethora of hardware devices on Tuesday. Then yesterday, Oculus announced a few new features for their VR platform. Will Nilay buy a Pixel on the show? Listen and find out. 01:42 - Google event, new products, and new competition 38:16 - Oculus event and VR 49:08 - Paul’s weekly segment “Having a Coke with you” 51:14 - Lightning round Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, and welcome to the Vergecast, the flagship podcast, verge.com. Which is a multi-channel media brand that serves up delicious slices of lifestyle content. Available now on Google Am. I like to say that we engage audiences. We do, and we serve them advertising. We engage them, and then later we divorce them. Yeah. Deeder.

Wow. So here's what I want everyone to get married. listening. Everyone listening to know. Deeter is on fire today. Yeah. A lot of sick burns. Like, he's just ripped me like 10 times already before we even start recording.

But anyway, this is the Vergecast. I'm Nilai Patel. Dieter Bone is here. Hello, I'm very angry. Paul Miller is here. Hey. Paul's got to get an Oculus piece up. Yeah, I'm trying.

He's going to be missing from it. And Dan Seifred's here. You guys should talk about Google or something and I'll just work on Oculus. Just finish that Oculus. So it's been a super newsy week. like just an enormous amount of things going on. There was a big Google event earlier this week. There was that.

And Dan and I argued about the pixel phone, which we are going to continue doing on this show. And then today, like literally moments ago, Oculus Kinect. An eight-hour, extremely strange keynote. Oculus Connect. Mark Zuckerberg just wrapped it up.

The first part of it was a lot of demos of how you would like live in VR. And the second part was like, what I want to say was droning technical babble. for an hour. But just they announced a bunch of new stuff. PlayStation VR reviews hit this week. Just an enormous amount of things, but we got to start by talking about Cizor vodka, a vodka brand that I made up. Cut through the night, Cesar vodka. Anyway, no, we got to start with Google. Huge news. We'll go through all of the stuff. And Deeter, I want you to go through all this stuff in a second. But the thing that caught me about Google was at the end of the event. So if you read

the verge during an event, you know, there's a team on the ground that's like live vlogging, taking photos, posting photos and then the rest of our huge team sort of at home is like writing analysis doing news all this stuff so whoever's on the ground always calls home at the end of that and traditionally says something like how to go was it awful because you never you have no idea you know on the ground it always feels awful it always feels awful it always feels terrible on the ground it always feels awful so Dieter calls me at the end of the event the end of the big Google pixel event and he goes how to go and I went it went great it felt huge like tons of people reading you know the phones are great da-da he had Dita

Dieter had a big feature, and Deeter goes, oh, here it felt really small. And I think that is the most interesting thing about this event. So, Deider, do you want to kind of get into that? Yeah, so, I mean, it was a relatively small venue. It wasn't like a giant, like, theater the way that Apple does. Google never really does that, though, except for I.O. And they just, like, started just putting people out on stage to start announcing products, just like one after another.

There was a little bit of that we're telling the story of Google and AI and what it means for us to make hardware. But really it just felt like, all right, and here's another person to talk another product we're making. So in the room, maybe it was because it had just been leaked all day, all night for the past three months. But when they got up to announce the phone, it was just like, yeah, we made a phone. Here it is. Let's start talking about this phone. It's cool, guys. And like Google Home, we'd already heard about.

And so everything had leaked and there was like almost no bombast whatsoever. And that's like gratifying in a certain way. But like this is such a big moment for Google and such a like big, huge like promise that they're making that they're going to become a different company that makes hardware and as a direct relationship with you and with Google's version of you. Like that's an insane thing we should talk about that it just felt really like they're really playing at low key. And I'm sure part of that is they're trying to not have massive expectations because, you know, it's their first phone, although we could argue about the definition of first. And we will. And we shall. And so they don't, they don't want people to think they're going to like, you know, take on the iPhone and pick up 20% market share in a year.

Like, that's fair. But, man, get a little swagger, Google. So let's talk about what they announced. Go through the list. All right. So the list is Pixel, phone by Google. Pixel. Phone by Google.

And the pixel XL phone by Google. And the pixel Xl, phone by Google. Yeah. Those are the official names, by Google. Yes. It's like on like a book. cover where the full title of the book is like stand the true story of one

lawyer's journey. Look, everybody's going to call it the Google phone. Yeah. I think that's part, I mean, they put a Google Lou on it back. Anyway, so there's the pixel. Pixel. Pixel XL. Found by Google. They run the assistant. Which is another like product that you could kind of say was announced in a weird

way because we finally saw so like more details about how it works. Google Home. We got a price and release date for that and saw a non-demo demo of it during the keynote. Yeah. There's a new Chromecast called Chromecast Ultra, which supports HDR and 4K. There's a new Wi-Fi router system, so you can buy a three-pack. It's basically like an ERO. And there is, oh, the Daydream headset, which is like a tennis shoe on your face.

It's cool. We could talk about it. A tennis shoe that lets you stride confidently into a virtual reality. Oh, my God. So if you want to look at it, you know, in a really, what's the word, mean, snarky way? Paul's article that, what was your headline, Paul? It was really good. Google announced an iPhone, a Gear VR, an Echo, and an Eero.

Yeah. Yeah. They did all those things. But, like, in every case, it's like the, like the response is kind of, yeah. So? I don't know. Like, the pixel looks like an iPhone a little bit. The Google Wi-Fi follows the same model as an Eero.

I hope it works way better. I've had problems with the ERO. Google Home has an advantage because it's Google, and so it will be smarter than the echo. At least that's the claim. It's also a little bit cheaper than a full echo, although it's more expensive than a dot, as Dan pointed out. Almost all of these things are cheaper.

So it's just like Google's saying, yo, we have a hardware ecosystem now. It's all tied to the promise that we're making you that you can trust Google, and Google knows way more about you than anybody else. And so now we're going to start giving that information back to you via these different surfaces that we offer. Yeah. So, Paul, you were going to respond to your critics.

To the haters. I just wanted to say the haters out there that when I came up with this headline, I wrote two paragraphs about how I am not casting aspersions. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. This is not a – and like all of these products do seem like interesting – have like interesting differentiators. mostly on price with a lot of them. It's great. I just wanted to say the obvious thing that this is what Google did. Yeah. It's like, so I think that goes back to Deeter's point about their confidence, like they don't know how to do this yet. Google traditionally talks to the consumers at Google I.O. where they give everybody a free Nexus phone or like a tablet that most

people won't buy. I got to say I'm having a love affair with my Nexus 7 right now because it's, It's a cheap tablet that lies around the living room. It's great. I would argue that at I.O., they're not talking to consumers. They're talking to developers. And that's why they had such trouble here because they're not used to talking to consumers. Right. Trickle-down communication.

Yeah. They basically rely on, like, the tech media to take I.O. and translate it in consumer stuff. Right. But then their strategy of rolling out products has traditionally been, like, 15% of you will get a slightly different link color on Google.com. And if you like it, maybe 30%. percent of you get it too. And if you like it, everybody, it's like, that has been their strategy for so long that coming out and making a case for these products sort of alluded them. But I will say,

regardless of the showmanship aspect, I think the case for the products is incredibly strong, right? Like, Samsung is just, it's literally destroying itself. Like, yeah, I mean, we got to talk about that now that we're a couple days out, right? Right. So we, Jordan Golson, one of our reporters, who's great, and he's definitely going to text me because I've mentioned him on the show like three shows in a row. He's like, I'm on a roll. That's free Jordan. But Jordan, so there was this new story that another Note 7 caught fire

on a plane. Jordan actually tracked down the owner of the phone and discovered it was a replacement Note 7 which sends Samsung into not like another tailspin, but the worst possible situation. Yeah, they were in a

tailspin. Well, no, you know, we should we should actually not make plane crash metaphors because the phone did combust on a plane and thank God they hadn't finished boarding yet. Can't kites go into tailspins? I don't know. Anyway, it doesn't matter. They were in a bad situation.

Can we talk about the Disney cartoon? Yeah. Teeter is on fire. Launchpad with quack. No, I mean, so Samsung is in this like miserable position right now. I think the consumer perception of Samsung is that Samsung phones explode. If you're Google, you've already had this

testy relationship with Samsung for so long. Samsung is the brand that puts another set of email clients and web browsers on Google's platform, adds water drop sounds to it, signed to deal with Facebook to do Oculus VR instead of waiting for Google to do daydream. Like, Samsung and Google, it's a marriage of convenience, right? Samsung is the only Android vendor that makes any money that operates at scale, and Google has had to deal with them. How happy is Google right now that Samsung has spent the last couple of years refusing to

mention the fact that the note and the S6S7, the Galaxy line, runs Android. They never use the phrase Android anymore. And I bet Google is just pleased as punch about that. Right. Is that credit to Samsung or is there nobody else that makes a good enough phone? It's credit to Samsung. I mean, there's, I'm sure Dan has a lot of thoughts on this, but my basic read is that Samsung is, will do, bend over backward for the carriers the most. They have the biggest advertising budgets. They have the thinnest margins because they make their own chips so that, you know, they get to move money around their supply chain in different ways. And quite frankly, they will ship a different version of the phone to every carrier in slightly different ways.

And hustle. It's just a hustle. Yeah. And the phones have gotten good. Yeah, well, that's, I mean, like, that's the dichotomy, right? It's like, for years, their phones weren't that great, and it was frustrating that they were so popular and so good. Now they actually have good products, you know, until this recent, you know, situation. But, it is very much, like you said. Would you call it a conflagration? I don't want to use any inflammatory terms. Oh, man, we're burning up.

So they bend over backwards for the carriers. They let the carriers run amok in terms of installing software and modifying software and stuff like that. Like you said, they go out of their way. And for the past couple of years, they've been trying to get out of from under Google's thumb. Just yesterday, they announced that they purchased Vive, which was the team that created Siri. So now they have a competitor to assist in under their own roof because they're trying to get out from under's Google's thumb. So it is this like love, hate, tenuous relationship between the two companies. Samsung's needed Google for Android and its app platform really.

And Google has needed Samsung to like actually get people to use Android phones and sell them. So I feel like in the past week it's coming to this crashing head because Google announced its own phone and Samsung has made more efforts to distance itself from Google and to make itself less reliable, reliant on Google. So it's fascinating. I'm going to say this. I think this is great. And I think, I do.

I think the idea of Google taking control of, I think Hiroshi did an interview where he said, we're going to treat the pixel team, you know, at arm's length, which they had done before with Motorola, which was run by Rick Austerlo, who now runs hardware. They're the platform, and then the hardware team is going to take the platform and integrate Google services. Sure, we'll see how that works.

But I think it's... Actually, let me talk a little bit about that. So, you know, I did this big feature and talked to Dave Burke. And they've done stuff on the pixel that is really hard to do if you don't have the OS super early and you get to like have that vertically integrated stack. So he claims that the touch response on the pixel is under a high speed camera just as good as the iPhone. When I used it, it felt like standard Android to me, maybe a little bit better actually. But like the inertia is still different between the two different phones.

But you can't get like an Android phone to like pay attention to those little details is a thing that most Android manufacturers just are never going to bother doing. And Google is. And the reason that's exciting is like we get to compare apples to apples now. Like when you compare the pixel to an iPhone, it's no longer, yeah, but you know, they didn't make the and so it's not their fault and they had to put their own skin on it and blah, blah, blah, blah, now it's just like head to head straight up, are you as good, done. That's like really interesting. What's funny to me is that the companies that did care about those details, like HTC,

which if you talk to HCC, they will say that the 10 has a faster touch response than any other Android phone are now the contract manufacturer for Google. Yeah. Is it possible to talk to HDC anymore? Because I feel like everything you would say would be drowned out by the sound of sad trombones. Ken! Fuego!

From Dieter Bone! Yeah. I mean, HGC started out as a contract manufacturer. Yeah. And they're the best ones, so they tried to like come out with Android and be their own brand, and they got crushed by

Samsung. And now they're going back to be a contract. They're going home. It's fine. They're fine. I mean, they've got five. They've got the five. So, Deidre, you wrote a huge feature on why

they're making hardware. You got to use the phones. Yep. Give us sort of the short. version. Like, what's Google saying about this move? And like, how are the phones? So, I guess I have a few points. One, what I say is that they need to get the assistant really, really good because someday, I think, the search box is going to get supplanted by some other interface. It's going to get supplanted probably by an assistant. We had, you know, command line for a

while, and then we got the GUI and then we got touchscreens and then we had the search box and now we're going to get something else. And so they need to get that right or they're potentially, like, in serious trouble. We shouldn't assume that Google is unbeatable in the same way that we shouldn't have assumed that Microsoft was unbeatable in the late 90s. Like something else could come along, and so they need to get something ready. So if they're going to make that thing, they need it to be really, really good. And in order for them to do it, they have to do it themselves.

They don't necessarily think they can trust their partners to not screw it up in the way that they always do until relatively recently. and the Nexus phone, well, good, was still like, you know, they basically, like said, everybody else did 90%, and we did the last 10%. They wanted to do the whole 100%. The thing that's interesting is with every single one of these products, literally every single one, that they are making, they are promising that the features and stuff they've created will make their way to their manufacturing partners. So like other partners can make Google Home speakers. Other partners are going to get the assistant. Other partners can you make Daydream headsets and use

is a daydream VR. Other partners can make Chromecast speakers and, you know, hell, Chromecast TVs, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just that like now the difference is Google makes the first version and then everybody else after Google like says, all right, we made it, we like it, this is it, then they can start using the tech. And so it's, I was actually talking about this on Lawrence Too Embarrassed to Asked podcast. Like if we had had this conversation five years ago, we would be freaking out because oh my god what happens when a software maker starts competing in hardware with its own partners uh i think in 2016 it kind of doesn't matter like microsoft is doing with the surface and windows is fine yeah yeah Microsoft paved this road for google to write in so yeah well i mean when

when microsoft is with servicers all kinds of hand-ringing like no one has ever managed to compete with their vendors and you know like but microsoft but i will say Microsoft ambition with the surface was not to beat everyone, right? I mean, they're not, that's, that's a tiny drop in the bucket of Microsoft's business. They do, they do own the high end, though. So it may be that Google wants to stay at the high end and the way that the surface devices stay at the high end. What Dan was saying was it was to show the vendors what to do, right? Like here's, right, but Microsoft has never made an actual laptop, right? They make the Surface book, they're like innovating with form factors, but they've never gone head to head with

Dell where it counts. They've never gone head-to-head with... Neilie Patel says Surface Book is not an actual laptop. It's not, it's like some funky, weird other thing. It's cool. Twitter handle is at Reckless. I like it. I'm not saying it's a bad product, but it's not a competitor to MacBook error, right? Like, it's not a mainstream dead-ahead laptop product. It's a very interesting, like, vision of what laptops could be. Great. But it's not, you know,

the Dell Insperon or whatever. it's not the bread and butter product, where Google is going dead at the S7. If you are buying a phone, your choices now, your mainstream choices now are the iPhone, the S7, and the pixel. And I think Samsung is doing a great job of taking the S7 out of that equation because everyone thinks their phones explode. Yeah. I would say that, yes, you are correct in terms of the mainstream phones, but the way that

Google has been unable to get the, just, okay, Google to my phone. Sorry. The way that Google has been unable to get the pixel into where people actually buy phones makes that kind of like a null comparison because 90% of people buy phones from a carrier store. They're getting into the Verizon stores. They're getting into a bunch of retail partners.

This is where we get into it. We don't know how broad it's going to be yet. This is where we're going to get into it. We don't impute the like we are not actually trying strategy that they apply to the next. I don't think it's that lack of trying. I don't think it's for lack of trying. I don't think it's because... They didn't try it all with the nexus.

They didn't try it. No, no. They didn't try at all with the necklace, but the nexus, but they did get it in Verizon. There was that whole debacle with the galaxy nexus years ago. But I think that this is just further evidence of how difficult it is for anyone to break into the U.S. carrier system. Huawei's been trying to do it for years. Other companies have been trying to do it for years. Google.

Google is just going to run ads. But Google can't get it into an... AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint store. So say they're in Verizon. Maybe they could and they chose not to because Verizon gave them a big giant pile of money. Like, yeah. But that does nothing. We've started advertising this phone.

But that does nothing to get the phone out into more people. Let me weave a conspiracy theory for you. Are you ready? I'm listening. Rick Osterlo is head of hardware at Google. Previously was at Motorola. Motorola's last big hit was a Verizon exclusive Android phone called the droid. I just have to believe his instincts were to say,

we're going to do carry exclusive, we're going to get a shit ton of marketing from Verizon, and we're going to go head to head against the iPhone, and Verizon knows how to run this playbook with me. And the last phone, the last carrier exclusive phone that was a success, you could argue it was when the iPhone was locked to AT&T or the Motorola droid.

That's how long it's been. But I mean, that's how you get a phone off the ground, right? You get Verizon to be proud of it and to market it, to sell it at retail, to pay for ads, to put the Verizon bug after the Google ads. Right? Like, you can create,

I'm not saying it's going to work. There's an enormous chance that will all fail, but it is a place that has worked. Google is committing to doing this for years. So if this thing doesn't sell like gangbusters, like they're going to do it again and they're going to keep pushing in all these different retail channels. One of the reasons this thing leaked so hard

is Google didn't know how to yell at like, you know, Bell Canada. or whoever the hell leaked it. And, you know, Verizon leaked it. Like, everybody leaked it. And, like, there's a way to, like, do a carrier partnership without having it leak. And the only way to do that is to, like, have years of partnerships with the carrier to actually figure it out.

And every other phone leaks because the carriers, like, leak stuff. And, like, Google just hasn't had enough time to figure it out. I'm not saying they're going to win, but I am saying, like, I'm excited to watch them finally try. And, like, I'm not going to prejudge that they're going to fail. So, Dieter, here's my question for you. You just said they're in it. And then we've been talking about Nexus. And then we have 900 other things from Google to talk about.

Yeah. But I have literally bought every Nexus phone on this show. And I will soon buy a pixel on this show. What are you in there? You go on blue? I hear blue is sold out. I'm definitely getting the black one. I'll do it in a second.

But you said they're in it. I always perceived of Nexus as their kind of reference design game. It was always for enthusiasts. They barely ever sold any. It was always just like, when are you going to get serious about this? And then they told you they're not going to make another Nexus phone. So is this. No plans.

Is this the big, so that's over. Is this different in tone and seriousness? Are they, with Nexus, it always felt like they could just stop doing it because they don't really give a shit. Have you ever, have you ever gone into like a, so we're journalists, we go into like these like briefing rooms where there's like a bunch of like people that worked on the product or associated with the product. And there's always the one guy in the room that is like definitely the suit who like definitely is like stone cold.

I'm going to market this thing. And I am thinking about the margins. And I'm thinking about like the regions and the carrier channels and making sure that inventory is managed. And like that guy, that guy was in the room when I got the phone briefing. And he has never been in the room when I got a briefing from Google before in my entire life. So they're in it, you think? Yeah. All right, I'm buying this phone. Anyway, well, fine, fine, you've convinced me. The channel partnership guy was in the room. It's on now. The funny thing is, like, I think that in six months, if Google is successful at any of the

stuff they announced today, the one that I'm most interested to see is Google Home. Like, more people are going to buy Google Home than buy this phone, I think. And that is like, if they can normalize more what Amazon has already started to normalize with the Echo, that's going to be very interesting. So here's my question. I have a million questions on home, but here's the big one. Amazon, I think, was successful with the Echo because they were on Amazon.com. Yeah. Right?

So they could put it in front of a lot of people. They could get, you know, nerds like us to be excited about it by doing events and showing it off. And we'd be like, this is great. And then it was surprisingly easy to buy because every time you open up Amazon, It's like, here's an echo. You can buy six Amazon dots right now just by accident by breathing on Amazon.com. Anecdotally, my wife knew about the new Echo Dot the day it was announced because she's on Amazon every single day. And normally she ignores all of this stuff that I consume myself with.

And she messages me and she's like, there's a new dot out, don't buy it. And like she knew about it the day it was announced, literally. And that is like as close as it gets. My point is Google runs Google.com. And a lot of people go to that. They can market on there. But they're not, it's not a buying relationship right there. So how are they going to retail the thing?

Because Amazon sure as hell isn't going to stock it. So they've got to go out to Best Buy. I mean, they've got a lot of work to do to put it out. Yeah, I'm trying to fight if we have a picture of the retail partners for home. And I don't think I've got it. Yeah, we missed it. But it was like, it's like going to be like Target and Best Buy and whatever. Like they'll, in Walmart, like they're getting it into stores.

The only store they couldn't get it into is, you know, Amazon. By the way, the 128 gig black pixel XL is sold out, and I don't know what to do. Is it sold out, sold out or just delayed? You have to get on the wait list. I was a, I was a best buy it from Verizon. Eli, buy it from Verizon. Oh, no. Why don't you put the blue one?

Come on, man. The blue one's gone, man. Blue ones out of stock. Blue ones out of stock entirely. And they didn't have the blue one, one, $1.20. 28, which is really annoying. I don't want a silver one. I was, I was that best buy.

The 128 silver ones out of stock, too. Because I like to buy things in person, and I was buying it, like, a $200 visio. And somebody in line there came up to the counter and said, I want a fire, like an Amazon fire. What does it do? So someone knew they wanted an Amazon product, but they weren't buying it at Amazon, and they didn't know what it did. I mean, that's the kind of product brand recognition that Apple has that companies have lusted after for years, where people buy it because they know the name of it and they don't even know how it's going to sound bad, but I hear just a lot of older people talk about Amazon Firesticks. Yeah. It's like a constant, actually.

They know it's there. Maybe there's something in like the AARP newsletter or something. It's very cheap, easy way to get Netflix on your TV. Yeah. It's just a phenomenon. I don't even know how to quantify it or describe it. It's just, you know, when you, when you hear somebody else talking about technology, your ears perk up, it's always, it happens to me in, like, restaurants and diners, like, it's just too slightly older people being like, I heard about the same as on fire. And it's like, where?

Our name is not.com. Right next to the echo. Google has promoted some of its hardware products like on its front page before, right? Yeah. Yeah. What's the last one they did? I think it was the next. They did TV commercials for the last round of nexus, Nexie, and they've also put them on the home page.

So here's what I'll say about the now speaker. I think the assistant being smarter than Alexa is very interesting, and Google has wild ideas about that. I think they're going to have some trust issues by Google putting a microphone in your home in a way that Amazon maybe didn't because they're not Google. So that'll be interesting. I don't think Facebook could make a connected speaker. No one wants a Facebook microphone in their home. No, there's already one in your pocket with Instagram. It's listening to you all the time.

It is. Deeter wants to go on vacation to the mountains. The mountains. Anyway, but what I will say about home, the thing that caught me about that demo was when they were like, it's also a demo. It was a, it was a, sorry. That well-rehearsed video presentation that Rishi Chandar. There you go. Was it the now speaker is a Googlecast device.

It can control other Google cast devices, including the Chromecast. and the Google Chromecast audio. And there's an ecosystem of cast speakers in this world. And they are multi-room audio. So Google has this whole wireless audio video ecosystem ready to go. And I'm like, that's great. What the fuck happened to Airplay? Like, how did Apple just blow it with Airplay?

Like everyone else, Spotify Connect is better. Sonos is better. Google Cast is better and has this connected speaker. I'm sure Amazon will find a way to do this with the Echo products. They're already doing it with Spotify Connectworks with Echo. Yeah. Yeah, but you can't do multi-speakers yet. Right, you can't.

Oh, you will be able to. With Sonos anyway. Yeah, when they parent it with Sonos, that's right. So, like, well, yeah, the Google stuff does multi-room multi-speaker, like, right away, right out of the box. What it doesn't do is all the skills. We got to wait till later in the year for actions. Right. Which is what Google calls them.

But I think that's actually the most compelling part. of the connected speaker product, being able to walk into a room and say, turn on the game and have your TV let up and work without having to turn the TV on or use the dream, yeah. And they're just like, they're so close. They just have to ship the things and they have to not be garbage and the dream will be here.

And it's funny because Apple has all of the component pieces and technologies. They should add that. And they're the wireless future company and they're just nowhere on this stuff. So how much of that is, do we think is because of Apple's very

what they would say, user-centric or consumer-centric privacy stance. I don't think the casting airplay audio stuff is because of that. Sure, but like the always listening stuff, the fact that when you plug your phone... All of its processing in the cloud, so whenever you'd say something to it, it's going to process your command

in the cloud and send it back down. By Google Wi-Fi. So I don't know if that's the answer, but they have it with Siri, right? I mean, they just have to make a trigger word and they could put it in a speaker and they could call it a day. to me, I think the home is the most interesting product here. I think Amazon paved the way, and if Google actually delivers something that is connected to your life

in a way that Amazon products can't be because you don't have an Amazon email address, you don't have an Amazon calendar, you don't have da-da-da-da. Like, Google can start to do things with their voice assistant than Amazon can never do, and I think that's super cool. When Google announced the home back at I.O., this was a big question, and they kind of sort of said, be there working on it now. But like the big question for me is, uh, this is a product that sits in the

middle of my home. Uh, I'm not the only one that's going to be using it. My wife would ideally be using it as well. She has a whole Google life of her own with her own Google account versus my Google account. Uh, the Google accounts are much more personal than an Amazon account or more likely to share an Amazon account than we are a Gmail account. Uh, so I'm very curious to see how well this is going to work in a home with multiple Google accounts. When I say, what's my calendar like today. What's it going to tell me? Is it going to tell me the 47-Furge?

It gets tied to one person's Gmail. They're like internally, they've got things that can recognize your voice and be tied to multiple accounts. That's where it's at. Yeah. So, I don't know. I think they should have launched with it, but I don't know. Like it's, it's, but like the thing about it is like Chrome is bad at multiple

Google accounts. Well, that's, that's kind of my point is in order to really make this something that works in a home that's not just a single person's home, but like a home with, you know, either roommates or a family, it has to work with multiple users and multiple accounts. And that's why Google will be shipping a voice modulation chip alongside every Google home to make, to send high-frequency radio waves when you speak. This episode of Virchast is brought to you by Squarespace. Whether you're landing page, beautiful gallery, a professional blog, or an online store,

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Like, every company is going to build this Wi-Fi solution because it's clearly the smartest one. And it's definitely something that I want a company that's really good at software to do, because you need help from an app to set these up and place them. The Eero app is great. Yeah, the Eeroop is set up is very good. There is a barrier to entry that I wouldn't expect TPLink is not my software go-to. Yeah, Lingsis is like... That's not the software challenge, I don't think, here.

I think that, yeah, you're right. But once you sit it up, like, to the end user, it's done. The software challenge is, when I'm moving around my house, how does my phone find the right access point to connect to and not get stuck at the one that's upstairs when I'm downstairs and vice versa? And Eero tries to manage that. It doesn't always work. Google says it's got some special sauce to help manage that.

I have two questions about Wi-Fi. One, why aren't home and Wi-Fi the same product? And two, if IRA, if Wi-Fi works at all, like, at all, executes at all, and it works, and it's fine at all, then ERO either needs to cut its prices way down or they're done. Yeah. Well, why aren't home and, like, you just, like, you answered your first question with your second question. Like, they're not the same product because they made both of them cheap. Like, that's it. Like, it would have cost twice as much to put them together.

Twice as much? I kind of, I know why they're not, right? If you buy a Google Home, you're not necessarily interested in, like, getting a new Wi-Fi router. No, but you do want it in every room. And the point is in order to have this wireless universe in your house, this awesome wireless connectivity where you're throwing things from your phone to a Chromecast to your home, you're doing it with your voice and stuff. You need a strong wireless network. That's the whole reason Google built Wi-Fi. I think that's like a second generation of this thing.

First, they just got to get people to buy one Google Home. This would be, but I agree with Dan. This would be, I see why, yes, it would be more expensive and probably fewer people will buy it. But the ideal perfect device has ERO and Echo combined. So we'll do it next year. This first time, they just got to sell the first one. Right? And then they put out the second one.

You love it. You know, like, also, if you buy Google Wi-Fi, it'll extend your Google Wi-Fi. And then you're like, bought in. But they got to be at 129 and get them out the door. And you probably have... I can't buy the Google Wi-Fi because it's too ugly. It is not attractive. Not like the echo is good looking, but, you know...

I mean, compared to, like, a netgear router with spider legs. Those things are awesome. I won't have you speak ill of them, Dan. And if the aliens overcome, they will go back to their homeland and keep us safe. Okay, let's talk about... Since Google, Walt said this in his column, and we talked about it for a long time on his podcast yesterday. He thinks this is the biggest shift in Google ever, and he thinks it's kind of ripple effects throughout the industry. I am like very happy for Apple to have a head-up hardware-software

integrated competitor, and for them to push each other on things like privacy, for them to push each other. Like, Siri has a real competitor now in Google Assistant. There's a phone out there in the world that can do Siri stuff better than Siri. So I actually disagree with Walt. Yeah. A little bit. I think he's probably right. and I want him to be right, but I think that Google has too long of a track record of saying, eh, forget about it with products.

And there's like, there's no guarantee that just because they're launching hardware, that they won't spring clean the hell out of this stuff next year. And what makes me unsettled, and maybe this doesn't bother most potential consumers, but like, which one is a hobby? Like,

there's five hardware products. Yes. which one will be continued to be a core component of Google's business. Maybe I'm just putting too much into this, but like, Rick also used to run Motorola. I don't think he's there to just like run a hobby. Well, no, I don't think anybody at Google ever like sets out to like, I hope this only ends up as a hobby and then gets killed five years from now. Oh, I disagree. Like, I think the Google TV team at that time definitely knew they had a hobby.

Are you kidding? Eric Schmidt said that like Google TV was going to be in like, No, but the people who made it were like, Eric, shut up. Okay. Dude, Schmitty, walk it back, bro. Like, Schmittie. Not ready. Like, no, no, what was the exact line?

What number did he say? Just every TV? Yeah, he's like every TV. And, like, literally, you could see that, like, cringing. They're like, we made this in our 20% time. It's not, it's definitely not ready for this. It has iron masters and H2i pastur. It's a hack.

Oh, like, what's so ironic to me, and I wasn't the one that came up with a stink. I read it on a Medium post is that Worst admission. Yeah, worst admission. Also, you can get away with any bad idea by saying you read it first on a medium post. I love medium. But it's just really funny that Google's most successful entry into the home was not Google TV. It's not Android TV.

It's not the $3 billion purchase of NEST. It's the $35 Chromecast. That is the reason that all of this exists. Chromecast is great. We're here today because of the $35 Chromecast that somehow Google got into like every, like every retail store and people bought because it was so cheap and right in front of their face and worked. My Vizio is a Chromecast.

Yeah. It's a screen. Oh, you have the same one as Deter. It's a Chromecast with a screen. Do you have an M or a P? An E. Ooh.

The Deter has a P series, right? You think it's not so great. I'm not super fond of it right now. The apps keep just not working. But you don't need apps. There's no apps. I turn it on and it's Chromecast. Yeah.

No, the app that controls the TV to like turn the brightness. down and whatever keeps crapping out. It's been fine for me. Let's end quickly. We've got to talk about Oculus. Paul, you've been quiet this whole time.

Did you finish your everything you need to know post? Tell me about Oculus. I feel like you didn't do a great child. This is your time to shine. I feel like it was not really SEO optimized. No one's searching for this stuff anyway. Okay.

So at Oculus, Mark Zuckerberg came out and like he did like, I don't know. We just watched this Google event, right? You get the CEO guy comes out or woman to set the stage, and then you throw off to other people to do demos. But Mark was like, I'm going to do demos.

And he puts a headset on himself and then starts doing a very well-rehearsed, scripted demo of this new social thing that Facebook is making. That was exciting. Wait, can I just set that scene? Because there's like what you watched on the stream, which was like you're in the Oculus world. Mark's talking to like basically Mies. They look like Nintendo Mies.

But thousands of people in real life were sitting in a theater in the dark watching a man in a headset just sort of wave his hands around. Right. It's fucking amazing. Anyway, carry on. Yeah, he's just wearing a headset.

But on the stream, it looked like mixed reality at times too. So yeah, they went through a bunch of interesting demos. The thing that was most exciting to me, I don't know if this stuck out to you guys, but Mark teleports to his home where a 360 camera is inside of his home. He can look around,

but he's still with his two demo buddies. They look around his home to check on his dog. And then he video calls his wife to be part of this group. So now there's a, and he has her on like this, like, palette that he can, like, hold. And it's like, it was a really cool mixed experience because it was like a blend of,

a 360 camera, a VR headset, two other people remotely in VR, and then someone from a regular video call. And what really excited me about it is imagine if you do something really fun in VR, if you could FaceTime or not Facebook, whatever Facebook Messenger's video calls are called. Facebook Messenger video calls. Nice. Phone by Google. You could like show people hey look at this cool thing I'm doing in VR I feel like that could be like a huge hook for VR because I would you know you're the other person would just see it on their phone as a video call but they'd be looking into this virtual world that you're rendering for them so when they were making a video call what does the person on the video call see do they like well is there a camera on that virtual

pain this was likely fake but the way he demonstrated it he's like hey say hi to my other buddies so It's like he was showing Priscilla these other two people. Yeah. I think their names were Michael and Laura, but I'm not sure. I think it was Lucy. Lucy? Yeah. So I don't know.

That was cool. And that would make sense. And their big line was social would be the biggest use of VR, which is a very Facebook line. And it's funny because everybody is like when Facebook bought Oculus. Do you believe that even a little bit? No, I believe that Palmer Lucky made an ass of himself by like funding a shit posting 4chan group and didn't show up so they couldn't talk about hardcore games.

I missed some portions of the stream, but Palmer Lucky was not there. He was not there because he wasn't wearing shoes. He explicitly stayed away because he didn't want to be a distraction. Right. But, so the weird thing is, so Zuckerberg does that whole thing. Then he announces that they're working on a standalone VR headset, which is probably the biggest

news, which is really cool. So it'll be something that's more powerful than like Gear VR, but less expensive than a PC and an Oculus. Rift. So that's really cool. But then Oculus people announced Oculus avatars, which is completely different than whatever Zuckerberg demonstrated. So, which they're cool like vapor wave weird.

Zuckerberg was like hanging out with Mies and it was all cutesy. And these were kind of like cool looking gradients and metal. It was very strange. But I do think that social is like really the best stuff in VR right now anyway. Like AltSpace, if you guys hung out with AltSpace, it's really wonderful. And you can jump from experience to experience. So this is stuff that the community is already building. And it makes sense for Oculus to make their own version.

And it really makes sense for Facebook to make their own version. Because if they can pull in something like that video call, I think that would be like a really, really big thing for VR. The actual news was Oculus Touch. Oh, and the is going to come out in December, which is. It really took them a long time to make this thing. Yeah. And it's a circle with some buttons as far as I can tell. Yeah, it looks really cool.

Yeah. And it looks like it has very intuitive control stuff. And you can give people thumbs ups. That's what you want. Thumbs. I mean, I've been using Oculus Touch and demos for over a year, I feel like. Yeah, they think they first announced it in like E3, 2015. Right.

Like, they've been around. I don't know what's taking them so long to show. They're like, they're weird, like, perfectionists. They're kind of like, I think they have some sort of, like, I think Oculus has like the same, like kind of the valve mentality, like ship it when it's done kind of from the games industry. Yeah. Which, I don't know. Maybe it'll work out for them.

They're clearly under no pressure to like generate massive profits. They've got. Oh, yeah. A ton of their announcements were like, we spent $250 million on this content. We'll pay all your licensing fees for Unreal Engine up to this amount. We're going to spend $50 million on this thing. You know, they're throwing a lot of money around still. So meanwhile, in the other end of the spectrum, Addy posted her PSVR review this week.

She kind of likes it. Like, it's the thing I'm going to buy. I'm not going to buy a gaming PC and a Rift or revive. I'm going to buy a PlayStation Pro and buy a PSVR. I'm going to swing around in the dark in my living room and I put it away and never use again. I have a verge reader and listener who recognizes me chick flay. He's a chick-fley employee. He's a guy called you Bob?

No. Okay. This guy knows me. We're buddies. You're Paul. So I asked them about if he was interested in the Oculus stuff today. He's like, no, I'm getting the PSVR. Really?

Yeah, so. There you go. Jason. Data set of one. Jason is my new research group. No, so Addie pointed out in her review. I'm getting great P values out of Jason. No regression from the Mitch one.

Yeah. A binary focus group. 100% of people pulled are getting PSVRs. 100% of chickade. Philly employees I pulled. I love the guy. Yeah. Jason, you're great, man.

Come by. Paul will make you a sandwich. Yeah, that's true. Any time. I've peanut butter and honey. No, Addy was pointing out that the PSVR is like a part's been special, right? It's like the move controllers from 2010, the eye camera that's been floating around forever. Jason doesn't like the move controllers.

The move controllers have always been crazy. I will say this, though. We have Jason on the show. No, because then we have to open the door to everybody. Okay. That's like a chain reaction you don't want to set off. Only Chick-fil-A employees. We just sent Paul to Chick-fil-A and we did a five-minute bit with Jason.

Facebook Live. All right. Paul goes to Chick-Clure. I'll get Jason involved in the website some way. Also, buy me a sandwich. I'll get Jason. The move controllers are super weird, except they photograph great. All of our pictures of Adi, like playing PSVR.

All beautiful colors. They're amazing. They don't have analog sticks, and they've never had analog sticks, and they still don't have Are analog sticks? No, this is the whole problem. This is the whole problem. If you make two things that move around your analog sticks, what have you gotten yourself? You've gotten more work for the same analog sticks.

You have to have analog sticks in addition to the motion. So the Vive controller has like touch pads that kind of work like analog sticks. And then the Oculus touch have actual analog sticks. What if you're the analog stick? And you're just tilted? Well, plus, yeah. Think about it. Yeah.

But I'm kind of into the fact that Sony just repurposed all this stuff and was like, it's for VR. I just think that Addy is the smartest person about VR in the world and I trust her implicitly, so don't listen to what I'm saying. But I felt like the PlayStation VR is kind of low resolution. And it just doesn't feel nearly as next gen as the vibe and Oculus too. No, she kind of made that point. But I think in terms of just getting a system I can do it. Yeah. It's like half the investment.

It's, I couldn't even, like, think, I wouldn't, if I was shopping between the two, it's like, I wouldn't even think that the PSVR would be at the same level in terms of, like, resolution and quality, because a PlayStation and the PSVR costs, like, the same as a V. Well, Oculus. Yeah, Oculus did announce a new minimum spec. They're doing this new thing. What do they call it? Space-time manipulation.

The whole end of this conference was just, like, crazy words. Because typically your PC basically needs to render these games at 90 frames per second to be Oculus spec. And they're saying now you can do it at 45 frames per second and we'll do the in between frames, which used to only really work for just tilting. Yeah. But now it works for actual movement. So they feel like they can do it. Do you feel like John Carmack was in the basement? He's like, I got it.

Yeah. I'm sure Carmec was definitely involved in this. All right. I'm going to read an ad. But no, it's a $500 minimum spec now for Oculus. That's better. This episode of Vergecast brought to you by Graphic Stock. A subscription-based stock media company

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You get unrestricted usage rights for personal and commercial projects. You get to keep what you download and maintain those usage rights forever. So exclusive to Vergecast listeners, sign up for your seven-day free trial today. Graphicsdoc.com slash vergecast. That's Graphicsdot.com slash vergecast. Paul, hit it. All right, every week I do this segment that's called Having a Coke with you. And this week's Coke-themed gadget is this PC that is liquid-cooled by Coca-Cola, but not actually.

But it's a Coca-Cola-themed gaming PC that was made by Main Gear. and it's got like hashtag Coke Esports on it. Taste the feeling, which I didn't even know. Was that a Coke brand for a long time? Taste the feeling. Anyways, hashtag Coke Esports is also now a Coke thing. But the coolest thing is at the top of this PC

where the liquid for the liquid cooling resides, it's in a Coke bottle. Wow. And it looks like it's actually Coke. Which would be, and if it was actually Coke, I'm sure that would be terrible. What, Coke is cold. Isn't it seal?

It's raining Coca-Cola. What? How does it become? I feel like I've had this conversation on the podcast where it's about how when things evaporate, then they become sticky. No, I've just had that in the office. What is the difference? Well, like, why Diet Coke doesn't, it's not sticky? Right.

It's just sugar. Right. I agree with you that Coca-Cola is probably not an ideal cooling. fluid. I'm saying you're probably still use it though. Yeah. Why not? What happens if you are eating Mentos while using this

PC? Oh man. Is it a Diet Coke or regular Coke? That's when you know you're extreme. I don't know what a Diet Coke gaming PC. This is definitely the original Coke in a glass bottle and I don't want to like jump to conclusions but I'm guessing it's sugar

Coke. Not that. Are we calling it Coke heavy? Yeah. Coke heavy. Just like butt light and butt heavy. Yeah, Coke heavy. Coke heavy. Coke heavy.

I've never heard this before. Well, you know, they don't have Diet Coke in foreign countries. They have Coke light. Here in America, it's Coke heavy. Full flavor. The real thing. Okay, I have two lightning around things. One is just me trolling Dieter.

The Lenovo Fab 2 Pro, the first Google Tango phone, is shipping Deeter. You're going to get one? You're going to buy one on the podcast? Buy a Fab 2 Pro. No. Come on. Is tango, is all that stuff just over at Google? What's the situation?

No, I think they're still working on it. I think it's going to be a while. Like the, you know, there are all those rumors about a standalone VR headset that just sort of like went poof away. But, you know, like, if they, like, Facebook is trying to take the top end stuff down and maybe someday Vibe will do the same. And then Google's trying to like start at the bottom, get up. And then PSVR is starting right in the middle.

And if Google is going to get Daydream and move it up, it needs some sort of positional tracking because it doesn't have it right now. Actually, we never talked about using Daydream, which I did. Disclosure, my wife works for Oculus. Anyway, no, I'm not buying a fab. Screw you. Wow. Wait, can you say one or two words about your time with Daydream? The wand, Adi and I had radically different feelings about the wand.

She, like, didn't like it because it wasn't full positional the way that Oculus touch or Vive or even PSVR are. are, I was impressed at how well it manages to trick you into thinking it's a real thing in space for certain purposes. So like the Harry Potter thing, it's like a wand. It's kind of like a wemo, but it's basically like if it's going to represent a physical thing in VR, imagine like you're always imagine that you're sitting down and your arm is like locked down to the elbow and you're like moving from the elbow or you're moving from your wrist. So anything that doesn't need to like fly around in front of you, it can do as long as it's like, you know, a thing that you would like move around.

So like it can handle a gun. It can handle a fishing rod. It can't handle a wand. But it can't be like, you know, your fist punching a person in the face, which nobody would want to do that anyway because that's aggressive and mean. Yeah. Who would want that? Yeah. That sounds great.

I'm into it. And the graphics wise is just like Gear VR? It's been, I don't know. That's a tougher one. I would need more than like five minutes. to really make a column that. A lot of it depends on content. It seemed better to me,

but I haven't done a ton of super intense stuff in gear VR. The headset's way more comfortable. Like way more comfortable. I think it's got a wider field of view, too, if I remember right. Maybe I'm just making things up. I'm super buying a pixel and getting a daydream and then putting it next to my PSVR

and then never using them again. I'm super excited. Because you'll just be talking to your Google, Google Home. Talking to my Google Home all day. I'm like, I'm ready. Ready to go all in on the Google Lifestyle. By the way, for the listeners at home, You get a drop I message?

You get a drop I message? Neely, hey, Eli. You did? Yeah, I did. And I missed. By the way, Paul has his iPhone 7 here. Yeah. Still just has the dongle hanging out the back.

Yep. Come on. It's just sitting there. It's convenient. It's ridiculous. How many podcasts are we're going to talk? Dan, we need you to weigh in on permanently attached dongle lifestyle. Oh, that's not a life I want to live.

A really good friend of mine, he went into the store to buy an iPhone 6S because he was like, that seems annoying. He saw the black iPhone 7. Jet black? No, Matt Black. Okay. Said, well, that one's blacker and more expensive, so I want it. Bought an iPhone 7, and he was sitting on my couch, and he pulled out his MacBook to make a conference call

because he had to, like, do something for work. Yes. I know where this is going. And he took the headphones out of his phone. I just dinked him into the side of his back. And he goes, oh, shit. And I was like, I told you so, man. That's why I used the adapter. Yeah.

Oh, Jane Rosie, who works for, she, like, spent an entire subway ride watching a woman just, like, turn an iPhone 7 around in her hand over and over for, like, 20 minutes trying to figure out where her headphones plugged in. She's like, just like, just kept on, like, looking around the phone. Like, it's got to be here. Maybe I missed it the first time around. Let me look at the top again. No? It's always the last place you look, so I'm just going to keep looking. I'm just going to keep looking.

But he literally, it was just such a confident little think. Just didn't work. But Paul still living that dog alive. Anyway, that's our show. I want to give out one end of Vergecast plug to our friend Casey Newton, who published an incredible feature on the site today called Speak Memory. It's about our... A young man who died and his friends took all of his texts, his parents sent all the text to,

and they built an AI out of him. You just, you have to read it. I'm not going to do it justice by talking about it. It's incredible. We are, our editorial engineer, Frank B, built an incredible presentation with photos of him. Just beautiful work all around for our features team and from Casey and Frank. Go read it on the site. It is absolutely worth your time.

It is very much like the best of what the verge does in terms of talking about how these technologies impact the way we, live and think about each other and like process death, which is all insane. So go read that. There's also obviously a bunch of other stuff. Much of it not about death in the way that you would think, but all of it ultimately about death. On our Instagram. That sounds like to be wild.

I would love to see a deep reading of our Instagram account is like a treatise on death. It's mostly pictures of gadgets. Don't do it now. No, I got it. I got it. We take pictures of things that don't decay to fend off. the reality that we know we will decay. That's Instagram.com slash verge.

Also hit us on Snapchat at Verge or Verge on Twitter. Paul is Future Paul, Deeter's backlon. Dan is D.C. Seafurt, which I won't spell for you. Just think about it. In your mind, you'll get it. I'm reckless. Hit us up on Twitter. We love that.

Go to iTunes. You can listen to What's Tech with Chris Plan on Tuesdays. Control out delete. It's me and Walt. That's every Thursday. And on the recode side, Lauren Good, does too embarrassed to ask. Peter,

you were on that show this week, right? I was, along with Inafried from Recode. A really good show. If you haven't heard Ena on a podcast for a while, I highly recommend it. It was really smart, and obviously Lauren was smart too. Yeah, but way better than this garbage.

Turn this off, listen to that. Peter Kafka does Recode Media and Karraswisher does Recode Decode. So tons of stuff to listen to for the tech-loving audience in the world. All of it made by Vox Media. Don't listen to any other media brand stuff, just our stuff. Also, Squarespace is great.

I'm just babbling that. Anyway, that's the show. Thank you for listening. Rock and roll. Paul. Paul.