The Vergecast - Hypecheck

Episode Date: November 7, 2014

To some, it's a black-and-white answer. To others, it's a subtle gray. Some say hype can't be felt, only psychically perceived. It's a beacon of hope, a pillar of truth. We cannot see it, but we know it exists. It's everywhere and nowhere, all at once. We follow its call, but fear its power. We may never agree about what hype truly is, but that doesn't matter. We all know deep down inside that what really counts is that hype is in us all: teeming, stirring, ready to be checked. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yeah. You're so bad that starting the Vergecast. I have no idea how to start this show. Yeah? Is that how we started? Is this it? Yeah. Yeah.

Hi, everybody. My name's Nilai. That's how you started. Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Vergecast. I can't even do it. It's too forced. It's too artificial.

It's not, it's not, look, I have a personal brand. Oh, sure. Is it your bracelet? It's my bracelet. Okay. And here's what I know. This bracelet never. we have a live studio audience

I didn't realize Sam is Mike's right now So when you say something silly like A half joke, Sam laughs Yeah, that's great Yeah, we need to talk about your bracelet We need to talk what's going on over there And it's a surprise Okay, okay

Well, it's already, okay It's not, no it's not, nobody knows Oh boy There's a whole information gap This is the clickbait of the podcast world Great You won't believe what's over there What's laughing at new lights jokes

Uh Hi, welcome to the Vergecast It is the podcast podcast of The Verge. That's why we made the name of Portmento, which is a word used on every Wikipedia page. No, hello and welcome to the Vergecast in which we talk about life. Yeah. Chris Plant does whatever he does. Deter Bone is smart. And, you know, you do your thing. Deeter's... And then Deter's intelligent. I try to just hold it together on a basic level. And this week, by the way, I'm Eli Patel.

Dieterbone. And I'm Chris Plann. Actually, I'm the smart one, apparently. And I'm the one who eats fish heads. Great. We are just one day we're going to figure out how to start this show. It's going to happen. I promise you. It's not a we thing. It's a you thing.

All listeners, I'm sorry, I'm adjusting my microphone again. I prefer to think of The Verge as a team. Okay. Who takes all faults? Yes. We fail together. Even when the failings are specifically an only mine. Except for when somebody makes a...

good headline in which case you did it. Then I did it. Okay, got it. Then all success rolls up to me individually. All failures distributed to us all. That is the model of the verge. A lot of behind the scenes. A lot of inside manipulative baseball going on here. This is the first verge cast after a three-year anniversary. It is. So again, we've learned nothing in the past few years. So I want to introduce readers to our surprise, which is not a surprise, really. Not a sentence. Also listeners, not readers. Oh, yeah.

Listen. Jesus, man. I'm having a bad day. Over in the corner. We have a new segment on the Vergecast. It's not a segment. It's an interwoven melody. Sure.

A counter melody to our insanity. Sam Schaeffer. Hi. Hello. Greetings. In what he has termed, what's the sweat lodge? The sweat zone. The sweat zone.

But we will have periodic hype checks. with Sam Shephyr. For people who only hear this, they don't know that the camera just cut to what looks like a black room, like the Charlie Rose show. Like Sam killed Charlie Rose. I am in a closet.

Survived up his flesh for weeks. In the beef closet. Sweating. These are all words, by the way, in case you're curious, Sam refuses to simply describe something as good. He uses another word. that is disturbing to describe something.

It's good things are beef. Good things are sweat. Bust. And bad things are bust. I thought sweat was a, wasn't a thing. Sweets. Sweat is fading out.

Tweet is fading out. I think we moved past sweat. Yeah, it's evaporated. What was before sweat? Swag. Swag. Yeah. So swag, sweat.

Sam is our... What comes after beef? You'll know soon enough. Okay. It's confidential organization. Hyde-Shack with Sam Schaeffer. This is happening. a new feature on the Vergecats.

Great. No, no, I got a swag is swagger's clothing and then sweats on your skin. We've never had any. The next one, it's marrow. It's marrow. The Verge cast. Actually, it's just bone right here.

Okay, Dieter is like on an extended riff on the inside of a cow. He's like, a cow gets sweaty. And then you touch the beef and then it's the bones. Yeah. That's that thing. Bone. dot zone. It's a real website. It's a real website.

Visit it. In terms of starting a podcast, just not. our finest performance. By the way, bone. Dot zone, you should buy it right now. I did already. All right.

Lots of... Go to it. Visit it. Lots of... So demanding. All right. An incredible amount of news this week. Yep.

I mean, just... Actually, this list is very long. We're not doing all. We're not talking about all these things. All right. So let's start with Android. I will note, I will offer to our listeners here that I have recently become aware of an incredible amount of I-virge really.

criticism. Oh, God. Apparently, Iverage was trending on Google Plus, which I will tell you, believe says more about the relative size of the audience on Google Plus that a handful of angry verge commenters can trend literally any keyword they want. So that's cool. But we actually reviewed a bunch of Android stuff this week. So let's start with that.

So we reviewed the Nexus 9, and then we have previously done hands-ons with Lollipop and the Nexus 6. and reviews for those other things are coming when we have more time to spend with it. But Dan Seafut reviewed this right here. This is the Nexus 9. And not very fond of it. No.

The Nexus 9 is a tablet. It looks exactly like an iPad. It has the same aspect ratio as an iPad. It looks exactly like a gigantic Nexus 5. Yeah. And it is super weird. And from what I can tell, HTC was not like pumped.

Like they cut the price of it. Yeah. The day after it launched, They offered a half-price sale. And, of course, I was unable to buy one because their storefront failed. But that's not a ringing endorsement. Yeah. They're like, we're super happy to participate in this process.

How does that make people who pre-ordered it feel? Really awesome. They feel great. They were able to contribute to the cause by paying $200 extra dollars to Google to make sure Google can stick around. Or nobody pre-ordered it. I mean, that's the other, like, right? Or so few people pre-ordered it that they just went half-price on it.

Yeah. Anyway, so you've got it. I've got it. My take is pretty close to Dan's. It's impossible not to compare this to the iPad. And for people that are claiming Iverge who say that it's not fair for us to talk about it relative to the iPad, you have to. You have to because it's this 4x3. It's meant to be the flagship.

They're no longer selling the Nexus 7, I believe. But it's also a classic Nexus device in that it has a new processor. And that the part of the point of the Nexus program is to, show that Android can run on new stuff. So it's the first true 64-bit Android device. It's got this K-1 processor. Maybe the Nvidia Shield tab was 64-bit.

Anyway, this is whatever. And so it's like, it's super duper crazy fast, except when it's not. I started looking at your email when I decided I would definitely not do that. Oh, yeah, you're cool. Cool, plant.

Way to be a spy. Yeah. Way to participate in our surveillance. No, like, I'm like, there's, there's no lag here at all. Everything is fast and awesome. And then all of a sudden, oh, wait, they're like, I'm not really sure why. So why? And the other problem is the hardware is like, like, not ultra super primo.

It's nice. It's fine. It's a giant Nexus 5, but it's. I mean, it really looks like they didn't try. Like, in a sense that if you can, like, you can't, it's the tablet, right? You compare it against the market leader. If you compare it to the iPad Air or the Air 2, it's not as nice. If you compare it to any of the surfaces, it's not as nice.

What it is is a giant inexpensive cell phone. Well, it's not that inexpensive. Well, no, I'm saying like the Nexus 5 is an inexpensively designed cell phone. Yeah. Right? Like the next, except for the orange slash red one. Which is beautiful. Which is not, but only because of the vibrancy of the color.

It's a pretty basic phone. And this is a pretty basic tablet. What are you, Chris? What are you? I didn't even write anything down for it. I want to try it out. I mean, I made all of my decisions with smartphones and tablets and everything off of games before this. So the answer was always obvious.

You went with Apple, which is so hysterical because Apple being known for games is the ultimate joke. Android's getting better at its games. It's still not caught up. But I don't know. You got RimCrip Cell. What else do you need? Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's difficult for Android.

I know the people who made Bounden, which was probably my favorite game on iOS this year. because a game that teaches you how to dance, and they have a famous photo where it's like bound and trying to run on 30 different Android devices, and all they're trying to do is find like North essentially because it uses the gyroscope and not one of them got it. And they're all giving different answers. Yeah.

Like this is, on top of like having to worry about theft, there's also this. Yeah. So it's, I don't know. But like I said, that's just me. I'm a very weird person who is still a child at heart who just wants to play video games on them. iPhone all day. Yeah. That really explains

your productivity. So the most compelling thing about the talent is lollipop. Yeah. Lollipop is great. Wait, before you go into Lollipop. Hype check. Hype check. Why is that $400? That's it. Ipe check over. That's it. The Hive check can be a question.

The hype check can be, it's free for, it's like the jazz of beef. I don't know if that means. It's something. I don't know. The hype check is a new, we're iterating. We're learning. That was our first. That was our first I check. Why is this $400?

Because reasons. Straight up. I don't know. The screen is very good. It's very, I don't know, the dimensions up to top of my head, the pixel density.

It's not as good as an iPad air. It's not super laminated, but it's very, you know, pixel dense. It's fine. It's good. It's, this is a commodity product.

Like, that's the thing with it, right? It's the thing they, like, Google put it out in the world. You can make this now. Samsung, please make a better riff on this. or rando Chinese manufacturer,

like take this reference design and run away. By the way, here's our song. More than any other Nexus device ever, this feels like a reference design more than a product. Yeah. Okay. Tell me about Lollipop. It is really pretty.

Yeah. I mean, we'll do the full review, but basically I love the new multitasker. It's called Overview. You can put multiple tabs in it from your Chrome browser and like email drafts show up in that in the same way all your other apps doing the multitasker. the only

the only beef I have with it in a bad way is non-s sweaty beef the animations are pretty like look at me I'm an animation I'm going to show you

how this operating system works by animating slowly like the pull-down thing in the browser that weird goop that comes out yeah well this is the same problem with iOS 7 right like the animations were great like oh I understand how things work now

and like okay I get it I get it just work I don't need to watch the animation there's a little bit of that But it's like two two to slow animations are like they're insulting right like you're stupid You don't know where this window is going yeah you need it you need it the first time yeah and then after that They there should be a curve where they they did they detect how quickly you're actually like able to get around the operating system and if you're doing just fine it'll speed up the animations for you

You know what I want is for my phone to monitor me more closely It's already doing it, bro. That ship is sailed. Yeah. Come on, man. Surveillance state. Yep. It exists.

I'm just saying. What, man? That's, again, it's, uh, it's my brand. My brand. Tomorrow's off end. Come on, man. Surveillance state. Yeah.

It's not knowing how to start a podcast. Got it. And, uh, it's just saying the word surveillance state in a summer. judgmental tone. You can assume what I meant. Surveillance steak. Oh, wow. Yeah, man. It's something. Sam. Hey.

Hype check. Live pop. Oh, that's a bad face. Sam. Oh, you know what that faces? Sam wants to say beef and he's not willing to do it. Yeah, because he's Iverge. God. I haven't, I haven't used a Nexus device like fully since a while ago. So I, uh, hype check is, it's, I want to be honest in this hype check seat. and I can't.

Wow. I can't say, I can't hype check on lollipop because I haven't used it. Fair. Fair. Yeah. I appreciate that.

All right. And then lastly, we have the six as well as with us. And Deeter, you're in the process of like using it and reviewing it. Yeah. Here's what I will say about the six right away. And it will surprise no one as an OLED screen.

And I think it's not a very good screen. I think it is less good than other screens. My first impression was out of all here. Eli goes again with the OLED and my second impression is oh shit yeah I'm kind of right we'll see I mean you it it's vibrant and colorful and all the yeah it's like unless you're looking for it you're gonna love it but if you're like if you hear certain kinds of criticisms you'll see them yeah I just don't know how we can still be in this in this place I you're gonna review the phone and then we'll talk about it but like the main thing to say here is my

in my initial hands-on I said that the camera was really good, or at least by Nexus standards, which isn't so much. And I haven't changed my mind yet. Okay. That's something. That's saying something. Yeah. And also, it is just big.

Yeah. It's aggravating that it's no longer a clever thing to say anymore that this phone is huge. This phone's huge. It's bigger than the No 4. It's bigger than the 6 plus. Yeah. It's a big phone. Yeah.

I mean, I'm so used to the 6 plus now that, I mean, we're just getting the place where we're just going to carry on tablets. Yeah. A year from now, this will feel very normal. So when are we going to get to the place where? No. I'll drop it instantly. I try to hand the phone to Chris and he just rejected me. I honestly want you guys to set me up with an Android phone, though.

Yeah. Because I have a feeling. You have some. I don't like, no. I don't want to break that one. You have to still use it. I don't use Safari. I use Chrome.

Everybody in the office is like, oh, Chrome so slow. No, they're crazy. I love Chrome. Yeah. And I love everything else, Google. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You love on the phone. You love Chrome.

No, I love using Chrome on my laptop. Everybody uses Chrome on their laptop. Who uses Safari in our office on their laptop? I said, I love Chrome. Everybody is like, oh, Safari is so great. But this is a cycle. A new version of OS10 comes out. And everyone searches a Safari for a month, and then Safari starts doing

because it's faster, right? Yeah. No, it is. Every time I try to load anything, breaks. What are you trying to load? Anything. Like literally anything. But then that happens.

It's the month. It's like the hit of speed. Ugh. And then you're like, no, thank you. Yeah. And then you're like, oh, this is destroying my life.

It's drugs. Yeah. Basically, the metaphor I'm using exactly is Safari is cocaine. The metaphor that works for all of tech. It's awesome. It's awesome until it's really not. Yeah. It's awesome until it destroys your life and you're not productive anymore.

Yeah. eventually find yourself making a career of it and looking back in the crystal ball and wondering why. How do this happen to me? It's huge. Like, why? I don't want to, this is how I have to hold my phone. It's like, you know what it is?

You know what it is? It's like if you play Dungeons and Dragons and you want to be the guy that has to use a two-handed sword. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's a thing. That's a treat. Yeah. I'm never that guy. I'm a rogue thief. Really? Of course. But of course. Don't. Look at Chris.

What could you be but a rogue thief? I know, and I'm always very small, and I'm specializing in backflips. And they're like, that's not an option. I'm like, put the points in backlifts. So, uh, so. Plus six, backlifts. So you're saying you're not good at this game. No, I'm great in, I'm great in Dungeons and Dragons.

Every answer's like, what are you going to do? There's dragon coming out. You know, I'm like, backlip on it. Cut a snack. Like, you can't do that. I'm like, actually, I have plus six and backlifts. You know that there's going to be an averged D&D campaign that's being run by. TC.

Really? Yeah, so I was going to run it and then it decided to be inappropriate for me to be the dungeon master. And so I handed it off to TC. He's never played D&D in his life. Really? And he's going to DM it? Yeah.

No. This is why it's exciting because he's like super into it, super excited and has been doing literally nothing but watching people play D&D on Twitch for 12 hours a day. If he's not working, he's watching people play D&D right now. But do you think, let me ask you a question. And it's just a really honest question. Do you think we're ruining T&D.? He sees life.

Yes. Okay. Just to be clear, as long as we're doing it with intent. Oh, no, yeah. I mean, because I'll happily ruin lives. Sure. Just as long as we've affirmatively decided, like we're doing the Chris. Sure.

So wait, hang on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, we knew that was happening. Let's, let's, let's, have you ever played D&D? Nerd check. Have you ever played an RPG? I have played. Do you know what RPG stands for? No.

Wait, yes, I know what that stands for. Okay. I'm not going to tell you, though. I didn't know what is that. A girl told me what RPG stands for at Niagara Falls one time. What? What is that story? Hype check.

I've never seen the breakfast club. You've never seen the breakfast club. No, I did. Actually, I watched it for the first time a few months ago. Okay. I'm just going to go on record here saying now before you, the Vergecast audience, the various hype beast that you tweet at, to however the hell your life works it is worse to have not seen the breakfast club

than to have never played Dungeons and Dragons No but I've seen the Breakfast Club I just didn't catch that reference Because I've only said it once no no I've only seen it once I think Well if you care about games at all I think Dungeons and Dragons is the first thing you should have ever played I think and I say this is somebody who hadn't played it through most of my life And now I seriously regret that I hadn't played it What if you care about being like a cool dude from the 80s

Oh then you 100% you should have played D&D Damn you I really walked into that one. Yeah, I think you know exactly where that was going. I'm just saying my personal brand is modeled after the breakfast club. Your John Nelson. Great. Yeah, what am I, Anthony Michael Hall?

Suddenly, Susan, we all saw that show. We all know where he goes. I have to stop talking about my personal brand. Please. I mean, come on, man. How would Bender start a podcast? You know what I'm saying? He wouldn't do it well.

It's basically. Got it. No, I, yeah. Sam, go home and watch a breakfast club. I've seen it. What is the breakfast club about? They're all in detention and there's like, all these... Did you just Google the breakfast club?

No, I'm on Twitter. There's a real chance you just Google the breakfast club. Here, I will close my computer and not read the Wikipedia. You can't, like, closing your computer doesn't take the knowledge away. Look, the one thing I remember most from the movie is they all smoke weed in the library. And then it, the ending, I sort of wish there was more, actually. What? And like didn't, it didn't really feel like it closed properly.

Like you just, you just, you just, no. If I made you watch say anything, you would just be like, why doesn't you just have an iPod? It's the most iconic ending of any. No, because you just spent like an hour and a half on like unraveling all these characters. And it's like, okay, guys, the tension's over. Let's go home. Yeah, that's life. There's.

And then you just have to manufacture. Your own catharsis out of nothing. They tell you what happens to them. Yeah. They do give you that moment. When you, when you be like, well, and after that, they had a few more kids and then they died, they're buried in this grave. And now the grandchildren. Yeah.

That's how Harry Potter ended and it sucked. Yeah. I'm sorry. Sam, it's amazing how emotional we've all gotten about the breakfast club in the past five minutes. That's all I'm saying. Sorry with Niagara Falls. Let's talk about ruining some other 80s. legends.

Yes. And transition directly into Star Wars. There it is. Chris, I believe you probably have some thoughts in Star Wars. You skipped all the things

I had notes on. For this I... Wait, read some other notes. You got some Android notes? No, no. For Star Wars, I had... It's a subtitle. It's not a sub-title.

It's a sub-tidal. It's a sub-trial. Episode 7, a dream awoken. The Force Awakened. A dream awoke. Whatever. This is a Disney film.

It means like, this is like the Marvel structure of like just barely giving you anything. Yeah. And then making a huge deal of it. It's like, thank goodness everybody works at Disney now, where everybody can use the same shitty PR mechanism for us to be talking about this stuff nonstop. You're right. What does it mean? It got tweeted off of the Disney account. A Force Awakening. The Force Awakens. No, I get it at its words. What is it mean? All my jokes about this are gone, are like not cool now because he went meta and complained about the PR strategy. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I have a bunch of good jokes.

Don't let the rogue thief. Wow. I mean, I would prefer I will say I did play the Paladins. Oh my God. This is very nerdy. Hype check, this is nerdy. Yes, Dieter called it nerd check

before we even began. You can't muscle in with a hype check that's like, here's obvious name. I have my own seat. I got hype check power. Let's be very clear. This is a test. We're going to see if it works.

That seat may not be forever. Hype check no more. All right. No, that's the worst Tears for Fears record. So Star Wars. Star Wars. Here's the thing.

I'm sure the movie is going to be interesting. I'm sure we're all going to go see it. So, like, why do we have to be punished with the advertising? Like, it's already going to happen. Everybody's going to go see the movie. Like, that I have to deal with the insufferable, like, what is it? I'm slapping my arm right now. I V-Drip.

Yeah. of like marketing BS for the next what I guess nine years at least because of course they're going to have another six movies after these six like I don't know it just seems really exhausting and I'm already so burnt out on the Marvel cycle so like know that this is going to be on top of that it's it's taking the fun out of it so isn't that just because you're jacked in more like you're like who follows you know I think it's because I'm actually just outside of it like I really love Star Wars as a kid, and then the prequels really turned me away from it. And the kind of culture around it of just obsessing.

Like, I don't know. I bought a lot of things when I was, like, a young. And then I realized that they didn't make me happy. So then, like, seeing things that... Well, you just did it wrong. You bought the wrong things. I made the mistake. But, like, I don't know.

It's the same thing when I go to Comic-Con, and I see all these vendors, like, profiting off this shit that, like, people don't really want. and then I get really depressed. And I get, there are things that, like, are great. And, like, fandom is awesome. But this just feels, like, very careful and meditated and not part of the creative process. I don't know. I get bummed out easily by anything Disney is essentially connected to at this point. Because it's so orchestrated.

And if you, like, pull back the curtain and see the wizard for more than two seconds, like, it's gone. But I do like J.J. Abrams, like, what he's. doing. I like his more like pseudo-viral thing, which I also is part, it's part of this too. But at least it feels, at least it's making an effort to feel like playful, while so much of the other stuff is just like, well, here's, I think that it's funny. I think the Marvel thing works because Marvel, like, Marvel movies tend to make people happy. Like, they see them and they're like, that was a good, crappy movie, right? Like, yeah. Right.

Like, there's like a, no, it's just like, those movies are like entertainment. Exploiting people for so long that we're just used to it too. It's like we sell things for like four bucks that are six pages long to kids. Right. But the Star Wars stuff, like that whole franchise has been burned so thoroughly to the ground that it's like, you're just manipulating the people who were too dumb to see how bad those movies were. Right. And they're excited about like bringing back this franchise that.

currently sucks as far as I can tell right like yeah those last three movies were terrible and then all the remakes of the existing movies were terrible and that's what is left to mind marketing is like do know you guys we got it this time we're cool they should have called it a new hope for real

well the best thing they have going for themselves is an actual new it was prequels right so because our minds are trying to think of things like progress yeah somehow in the in the best of ways for them the shit is at the bottom, and we can think, like, oh, it just gets better. Like, we got the prequels out of the way, and those are crappy, but then, like, the stuff in the middle is really great.

And that must be the thing that comes after it. It's going to be awesome. I mean, that's a silly way of thinking, but I 100% think that's the way because we can bring back all the people we're familiar with. The stuff that they couldn't do in the prequels, you can't have Luke. Yeah. But now we got Luke back. We got Layback back. But you have, like, old.

And he's got a beard. We got Joker Luke. Yeah. I hope that he just does the Joker. voice all the time. Like, I just, like, I,

I will, I don't have a lot of faith. I think the movies probably will be good. Yeah. It's just everything around it is. Although, I gotta say,

Star Trek into darkness, not so good. Yeah? Yeah. I didn't even see it. No. I just, he needs to make sure

that he, like, is forming a coherent, believable universe, and he didn't do a great job of that into darkness. In con. Yeah.

Is there something to say about, Wait, wait, wait, hype check, Star Wars. Is there something to say about how... No, dude, that's your fucking wake word. It's hype check. That's how I'm going to move into the next topic, by it. I just wanted a hype check about Star Wars real quick. Plant, growing up in the 80s, there was no internet, so you were not flooded by tweets.

Okay, Mr. Technical. There was not... Mr. Technical, the dear bone story. We were not flooded with tweets and Facebook posts and verdure.com articles, and you were a kid, and you just saw commercials. Are you asking Chris what life was like in the 80s? No, I'm just saying that I think... Is that what's happened?

Like, how did you get around? I think your jadedness perhaps comes from you growing up one way. And now these movies are coming out. You're older. And there's just so much crap that's surrounding them on the internet that it sort of takes away the specialness of it. Just like, you see... So let me sum up what Sam was saying to you. Let me sum of this question.

Is life less specials? now that you're closer to death? I would have to say, you know, no, because I make my own money so I can buy as much candy as I want. But, like, that's just me. It's just me. You guys, I know what he's saying. Assuming that, okay, this, I can't.

Actually, no, I can't talk about this. No, mind. There might be something amazing on the verge.com. I'm just saying. Oh, yeah. Editorial apps. Yep. Yeah, product team.

I will say, by the way, fact, the font in the Star Wars poster is the same font as the Virgilio. It's a variation of it, but yes. I mean, because our logo is a logo. I was reading about curting today, so I feel pretty much like I'm in the know. I mean, I think that's pretty much every typography conversation. I want to go back to what Sam said, because I do think there's a point about this. Yeah.

That marketing because of the internet, basically, however, whatever tool we use to communicate is eventually quickly taken over by the marketing machine monster. Yeah. Right. So back in the day, we had magazines. It's like once a month. And like slowly, you know, like half the magazine is the marketing. It's like, oh, whatever. And then you have like those early websites like IGN, which I did read when I was a kid, which was like 1996 maybe.

and like that would like they would update the ads on that like every you know day maybe and now because of Twitter it's like every second and PR people have figured out how to like make use of all of that what you said PR people right PR people I thought you said NPR people NPR people NPR people NPR is like taking over Twitter don't tell me you're going to see Star Wars you too burning my tote bag Yeah, I don't know. Is the idea of NPR just like doing nonstop viral marketing on Twitter? I mean, I'd be happy if they got an ad buy from Disney, from Star Wars. Go for them.

Good. Great. Sam, hype check Star Wars. You have to actually hype check. You can't just ask us questions about what it's like to be old. Hype check Star Wars. I'll see it when it comes out. Yeah?

I'll give it a chance. Yeah. You're going to the theater. Yeah. J.J. Abrams. Yeah, huge loss fans, so yeah. That's, I don't, those things are not connected. Also, loss sucked at the end.

I'm not even, I'm not even to begin to even think about talking about loss. All right. Okay. Why? Because we're so unfocused with other topics. Yeah. Guys, Disney movies is another one of our topics. Go ahead.

Wait, really? Oh, the Disney movies anywhere. That seems like they actually did something that isn't horrible when it comes to getting your movies. I think I like this app. There was a question mark. It's the one that came with Frozen, right? and if you register some movies, you can watch them on the app. All these are question marks.

I don't know why. It's like Disney Netflix, except you pay for every movie, which I guess kind of makes it sound crappy. Which is like kind of true. Like I like this when I use it because I can watch all my Disney movies in one place. But then when I stop and think about it, it's just ultraviolet. Yeah, yeah. It's ultraviolet. But with movies I actually care about.

It's ultraviolet through that is partnered up with iTunes and Google Play. basically and for Disney. Right. Basically, this looks complicated and annoying, but also at least they're trying. Yeah. Well, no, it wasn't even that complicated when I used it, and they gave me Incredibles for free. And then, like, if you buy two movies, you get a stuffed animal. And I was like, you know me.

You know me. That's amazing. Buy me some movies. Let's quickly explain what... Wait, what is happening? What kind of stuffed animal? Oh, my God. I think it was a frozen.

It was that snowman. And it was like, do you want to build the snowman? And I was like, yeah. If it's not... It was not Stitch, I'm not interested. Stitch is where it's at. Yeah. Do you know Mahalo means family?

I don't know if it's Mahalo. No. It's not. Ohana. Yeah, it is. Wow. Do you think that Micron is picking up my loud size? You don't like Lilo and Stitch?

He would like you to actually explain how Disney movies anywhere actually works. Well, no, I'm saying this is, they're trying to do the dream, which is you buy that, right now, everything you buy everything you buy, makes you opt into some sort of silence. Sure. Right. So if you buy an iOS device or, like, locked into the iTunes store, if you buy a Google device, or, you'll, locked into the play store. And so you buy a movie for Apple, you can't switch to Ant. Right.

This is the world in which we live. So it's interesting that Disney is able to do this because Disney's like, we are the guarantor of this purchase and we like if Apple you, you can trust us. They on this movie. Let them watch it. And Google, you can trust us. They own this movie. Right.

So they've built an app. I mean, this is a hack. This is a hacky hack. Right. They've built an app that sits on top of iTunes and on top of Google Play and it connects to both accounts and it tells us both services, hey, you bought one here. other service you bought it here too, right? Which is crazy.

Like that's the, that means like the world is falling apart. That's a nice thing. It's weird that it's per studio. It's weird that like, sure. Oh, well, everybody's going to make a play for the money. I mean,

whenever there's a big thing going around that's going to be like, we're the universal service. There's that period where everybody else tries to just fuck it up and make it individual. I mean, it's what's happening with Apple Pay. We talked about this last week, I think, where it's like,

oh, that's a big thing now. all of us should have our own. That'll be a real pleasure. And then eventually it doesn't work and you go to whatever the universal standard is. You know, the only reason I use Apple pay is because it feels really flipping. Yeah. So I'm paying. Sure.

That's the sound of megs. I like to think about how much money I spend when I spend it. But that's just me. Because you can do it in all sorts of places that you're not supposed to. Oh, yeah. Like you can do it in cabs that works. And you're just like wave your phone at the cab like flippantly. Sure.

Actually, I want to segue. Oh, okay. Ready? Go for it. Think about what's the relation between Disney movies anywhere and Taylor Swift pulling out of Spotify? Oh, money. Yes, done. Always money.

Thanks for watching the Vergecast, everybody. Yeah, I mean, the Taylor Swift thing is actually like, if you're Taylor Swift, brilliant move. You get to do whatever you want. Well, I mean, it's just window. Taylor Swift pulling her albums off of Spotify is no different than the way every movie studio and Apple tricks me into buying stupid movies instead of renting them. Right? It's like, oh, that movie is

finally here. Oh, crap, it's not available for rent. Like, it's available for rent, but almost exactly a week after I actually want to watch this movie. Right. I'm not going to wait a week and a half. And they always, they, there's it's like, oh, 18, I'm not doing that. But sometimes they'll sneak it in at like 11 or 12.

Yeah. crap. Well, no, it's, so it's the number. And it's never on a Saturday. So it's never like, oh, I'll watch that movie next Saturday. It's like, I'll watch that movie next month. Tuesdays. New movies. No, come out on Tuesdays. I know this because I worked at Mr. movies. VHS rental store. Same. Hype check. VHS. Awesome. I grew up on VHS. Cool.

Eli is super confused by hype check. It's not going the way you thought at all. No, not at all. Not at all. I like it because his reaction is different every time. You don't know what you're going to get. What is a hype check? He can't be defined. He can't be pigeonholed. You can't be boxed in. Here's what I, and I realize now that I forgot to do something at top of the show, of course. Sure.

I would like everyone watching this show or listening to this podcast. However you're consuming this. Go to the iTunes store. Leave us an excellent review. And then in the description, instead of writing a review of the show, tell us what a hype check is. I think that's important. That's an important place for us to know. Yeah.

Sure. That's and I think in terms of just confusing the iTunes consumer an important troll for us to Help us shape this role Is troll a verb or a noun? Both. Yeah, definitely both. It is a troll. Trolling when it is.

How does one perpetuate a troll? By trolling. Do you troll a troll? You could definitely troll a troll if you know how to troll. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds very confusing. You don't normally troll a troll troll.

I troll a lot of trolls. Yeah, well, do you guys notice Paul McCartney is showing up in our article? in our articles can I just say I got a ban that we don't allow multiple accounts I just want to point out Oh no no it's not an account The three celebrities that we have like a weird

A weird relationship with As like artists and creators and journalists Are Paul McCartney Don Cheatel And Jemiriquai And I don't know why Like that's who we think Like we've irritated those fan bases

The most Just as people Like Chris Ziegler When did we How do we irritate John Don Cheadle's fan base? Don Cheadle years ago at Engadgett. Yeah. There was just a picture.

I ran a picture of Don Cheadle looking utterly confused at the original Microsoft surface. Right. The giant one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I remember that. And, like, Microsoft, like, didn't know how to market. It's a big table. They didn't, like, no one could market this.

It was the ultimate challenge. So they settled on was, we'll put it in casinos and have, like, actresses look at it. Right. Right. So, like, that was one of, they had an event at, like, a casino. And one of the pictures was just Don Chitel just like, looking confused. And I just wrote this line, like, no number of B-list celebrities will help some of the makers. And to this, no, no, no, no, no.

Cheetle Nation pissed at me. Very easy. Yeah, justification. This was well before, this was long ago. Was this prayer post, Ocean's 11, Don't Cheatel? Oh, it's definitely post. Ocean's 11 was a long time ago. Definitely.

You were objectively wrong. Why do I want to believe that Ocean's 11 came out in 2011? Nope. I can't remember it. Long time ago. Is that the one where he wore the... That was a good movie. There it is.

The other ones... No. No one cares about... He has to save B4Bus for Snapchat. So that's why you're not getting that. Yeah, no, I hear it. By the way, follow us on Snapchat, the real verge. I hear it.

Okay. This is the worst podcast ever. No, it's not. Actually, as long as we're being surreal and insane, let's talk about the Amazon Echo. Wait, we didn't... I didn't finish the Jamiriqui story. Okay.

And you have to finish your Paul McCartney story. And then we can talk about the Amazon Echo. Okay. So Chris wrote... He called Jamirquia a one hit wonder last week. Yep. Not true. He has two songs.

It's clear that this is... Yes. Anyway. It continues. Week later, Rando Jumeiriqui fans are like finding him and yelling at him. And then you, you mean, you're just trolling. Yeah. What's your troll? If I told you the troll, I'd ruin the troll.

Fair. I'm giving you a clue. Fair. I've given you a clue. Take what you get. Man, I would really like to be on the internet right now. Guys, before we get to Amazing Echo, can we finish one more thing of entertainment news? Because I just want to give a shout out.

I do want to do. Bass 7. The trailer is. Me. It's me. I almost said a very bad word. at somebody who is in the position to fire me. It was like right there.

And then I like grabbed it at the microphone. It's like, no, no, no. You've got to come back. You're a bad one. No, here's the thing. Fast and the fear. I'm not saying this ironically. I'm dead serious because people think this is a joke when I say it

because they haven't seen the movies. Fast and the Furious is the best series of movies ever made. Okay. And it might say series. I mean six plus. How many movies does it take? to become a series. Over six. Over six. Oh, for sure. Well, six plus.

Six plus. That would include Star Wars. That would include Star Wars. That would include the Bond movies. Definitely. What else? I don't know if you could say that with the Bond movies. Huh? Yeah, definitely got into the Bond. Well, that's like, if you're extreme rough patches. There is one okay towards bad fast and the furious movie.

Fast and the Furious too. Everything else is a four-star film. Too Fast, Too Furious. Sure. Legitimately one of the worst movies. But Three Fast, Three Furious Tokyo Drift is great. Tokyo Drift, you know, in my personal rankings, it's the original Fast and Furist and then Tokyo Drift. Have you seen the new ones?

High in the canon. You are. I reviewed Fast 5. I'm a dedicated. Six and five are. You know, I can't watch six because the rock is like literally disgusting with how muscle bound. He's just, he's a beautiful man. He's terrified.

and like just I like He looks great He looks like safe For the audio listener Like Dieter just like half flexed But then disgusted himself With how much he was flexing

And then couldn't get any words out of his mouth I don't know man I like it when when like The Rock's muscles Like start at the bottom of his earlobes And then it's like it's a diagonal line Towards the end of his shoulders Yeah

Like there's no neck It's just muscle Yeah If that were CG I'd be like oh this is awesome This is the most amazing I've ever seen. But no, it's real.

That is what that human being looks like. Sure. And I can't handle it. Back to back to Wayne Johnson pictures, right? Earlier. The rock. As the rock and then now is like the rock. Yeah.

And he's just a huge. Wait, maybe there's Mark Wahlberg who wakes up at like four and a morning to eat. Fast 5 was an amazing movie. Yes. Oh, you're going to give your grand theory of Fast and Furious again? I mean,

my grand theory of Fast and Furious is that Toheed Rift is a completely underrated movie in that series. Sure. I thought it was the odd ones were good and the even ones are bad. Yeah, yeah, that's basically it. Yeah. It's not a bad theory. The odd ones are really good.

I like six. Six is a disaster movie. It's a good movie. It's better than two. Clearly better than two. It is more ambitious in terms of spectacle than four. But it makes no sense. No, it makes all the sense.

The problem is six is... It makes all the sense. It's an end. It's the end of an era movie. and I think it puts the bow on a lot of the storylines, and it's all about family, and very sad, unfortunate, horrible thing that happens, obviously, in the making of,

during the making of seven, but it felt like six was like the final movie for me, which is weird because three actually takes place after six. Yeah, no, and that's why. So that's a whole other thing, but that to me was like, I was in, the theater I was in may have just made it, but people did not stop shouting at the screen.

or like crying with the movie or like it was it was a like religious experience to be in a theater where like everybody was on that how can you want to go from that to the myth that we saw in the Furious 7 trailer? I think it looks great because well the one that bums me out about it is I don't

I think if you're listening live right now tweet at Z-P-O-W-R and tell him that I just said the trailer was M-E-H Oof wow Do the spelling I want on the My beef is that it's so great at using guns, or not guns, cars for all the action, and there's a lot of gun play in this trailer. And that's disappointing because it's so easy. Like, there are a billion movies I can see with gunplay.

What I liked about these movies was they found an excuse to, like, essentially do giant action sequences while just using cars. Right. The answer was always like, what if we did that thing they do in these types of action movies, but with cars instead? Like, the last one, well, five is, what if we did Ocean's 11? Guys, I have breaking news. Yeah, I was trying to segue. I'm breaking the turret. Yeah, the Toy Story thing.

Dude. Wow. Hype check. Dude. You have one job, Sam. Hype check. That's it. Just hype check on repeat.

You're a sampler that says the word hype check. Pixar is making Toy Story 4. That's happening. Great. Yeah. Just milking it. Remember what I said about Disney? Can't wait for Cars 8.

Is it Pixar or is it Disney? It's Pixar, right? It's Pixar. Okay. Well, that's Sam's... But like... No, they're different. Yes, yes, I'm aware.

Different. Yes. But it's John Laster at the top of it all. Yeah. Like, it's all his minions. And lately Disney animated studio has actually been making the better movies. Yeah. Though I think this new one about emotions could probably be better.

The robot, robots at Big Six or whatever? No. Well, that's, that's Disney animation and Frozen and... wreck at Ralph. Right. No, I don't have, I don't have high hopes for Big Six.

Why? I don't know. I just have a feeling. Looks cute. Yeah. It doesn't look like it's frozen or record Ralph to me. Sure.

I mean. What I'm saying? Hi, Marks. David just called it Toy Story Revolutions. What else in our list? Do you want to talk Echo? We should talk about the echo.

I would say the echo is probably the most interesting news of the movie. Although, we're not going to, we're not going to make it to Microsoft, but let's just say Microsoft, good freaking job this week. Yeah. Really cool stuff.

That's it. We can come back to it. We'll do a notes segue and then we'll talk Echo. Oh, okay. I said, um, nothing really. No,

and for Microsoft, I said I chose Google Docs because it was free. And now I'm all too little, too late, microsnour. Wow. Wow. What do you have for? But I actually liked some of that stuff.

I don't know why I wrote that. For Echo, I wrote. No, what are you read for Taylor Swift? For Taylor Swift. I've talked about this last week. You can take a nap here.

All right, fine. All right. Echo. Amazing Echo. Oh, I spelled her wrong. Should have called it Echo with two Cs because Echo's goal was to bring peace to planet Earth. Tech could learn from Dolphin. I'll buy one because I need a speaker.

Tell them your, oh, tell them your serial conspiracy. So I have a great idea for Amazon. They can send the checks to me. So, cereal. everybody's eating it. Right? Hype check cereal. Sam.

Sam. Cereal is good. I ate it for breakfast every single day in my life. Every single day of your life. You eat cereal for breakfast. Seriously, five days a week when I'm in the every day I come to the office. Not every day.

You're missing two days a week. What do you eat the other two days? Usually, Tompkins Square bagels. Okay. Okay. So just definitionally. And then Sunday is brunch usually, yeah.

Do you eat cereal at brunch? No, I'm saying like Monday through Friday's cereal, Saturday's bagels, and Sunday's brunch. That is my eating schedule. Okay, every single day of your life. Real quick, my serial conspiracy. So everybody is listening to cereal, the podcast, they should be listening to it. It's absolutely incredible. It is incredible journalism.

Yeah. In an exciting new form that is, I guess, kind of inspired by a very old form. But it's so popular what they need if they're going to try to get you to put speakers in. in every room in your house is to be subsidizing cereal so that I have to be listening to it all the time because I'm addicted to it. Kind of like Netflix, right? Like, I want to have Netflix on everything all the time and just leave it on repeat. So if they either partnered with podcast companies or just made their own audio like they

already do with Amazon video, then I would want to have a speaker in my house. Oh, so Amazon Studios should start like sponsoring podcasts or producing them. Or, yeah, an audio wing that is free for Prime members. It's probably a stupid idea because video has not worked very well for Prime because their series haven't really caught on, even though there are some good ones. They're going to get there. I hope they are.

That's my sense of it. And I like that they've already done what they ordered a second season of Transparent. It looks like they're actually showing confidence. I haven't watched a single Amazon Prime series. That's when you should start with. Transfair. Yeah. But, yeah, that was like kind of a dumb thing that I wrote.

But then I think about it, I think that it would be good to have somebody out there now that cereal is like growing, growing, growing, who actually put some real money behind these shows. I don't think that the guys behind this America Life of Serial, the team, the group is hurting. Oh, I think they're doing fine. I don't think, I don't think, yeah, I don't think there are a lot of people out there who would get paid to do this. That's sure. I think there are a few venues that would pay people, people will pay people to podcasts, but usually it's cheaper podcasting than a year of reporting. So, yeah, I don't know.

I think that'd be nice. I think it would be great to have a company like that that could literally throw money or whatever they wanted to throw money at. It's cereal. Yeah, things like cereal. I mean, it's just funny that you've, we're like, here's this weird speaker that you can talk to and you're like, they should use it to fund podcasts.

Sure. Yeah, because then you'd buy it. Yeah. They should find other reasons to make me buy it other than it's Siri. I mean, that's what I said in the article that I wrote today. Like, it's a speaker. Whatever the blunt thing is that you're selling, that's what people are going to buy it for. Normal people, my mom owns her hair salon out in like the middle of the Midwest.

And when I used to work there during the summers, and I still like, we'll check in on some summers and hang out around the place. And I'll talk to people who come in about their smartphones. And they all have iPhones. And no one has apps on it. Everyone has an iPhone. Nobody has downloaded an app. Really? They just use the iPhone.

And they're like, I can check my mail on. it. And it's like, have you downloaded apps? I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, I actually just spent, like, yeah, a friend of mine has no zero apps on her phone. What? Yep. Wow. That's who you, that's who you want to sell to you. I asked her. I was like, do you put it out seamless? Like, everybody, it's like, come on seamless. She's like, why? Why? Why? What? No. It was pretty. She's like, why would you just call a restaurant? And then, and then Becky went on an extended rant about how calling restaurants in New York City is extraordinarily frustrating. Sure. And then, and then she's still like, yeah, but you could just call it.

I hear you, but what if you did what if I said? Just like, what if you'd shut up? It'd be cool, too. Now, I hear you. So talk about Echo. Talk about what the product itself. Oh, so it is a... Surprise, by the way.

It's a total surprise. Yeah. Just came out of nowhere. It's a speaker. It's not a Bluetooth speaker. It's a 360-degree speaker. It's got somewhere for Twitter or whatever. It is a Bluetooth speaker.

It's also Bluetooth, but it's not... When you say you hear Bluetooth speaker, you assume it has a battery and you can take it with you like a jambox. Right. This thing plugs into the wall and that's it. Okay. And it has microphones that use beam forming, which is really cool because it can hear you wherever you are. You don't have to yell at it.

It can just detect your voice. And it basically has like Siri built into it. So you can ask it, how's the weather? How do you spell blah? Look this thing up on Wikipedia for me. But it's Amazon. It's Amazon. Right.

Right. It's Amazon stuff. And then in addition to that, it'll play your Amazon music. It'll play a podcast. I mean, I will say this. speaker. The video, they made one of the worst videos. It's creepy as how. It's a horror commercial. Somebody should recut it to be a horror like trailer. Yeah. Because it's watching everything you do while you're sleeping. Alert verge video team. Do this idea. I think they got it.

Literally, literally, that activity is happening behind us. We already know exactly where it's going. By the way, just in case you're wondering how what it's what it's like to, work at the verge. Yeah. We often issue editorial decisions by screaming alert verge video team. Great. That's my, Kwame,

Opam, our news editor, he on the weekends in Slack will just type Deeter I summon you. And like my phone pops up with alert and it's Kwame saying, Deter, I summon you. And you know what? It works.

It works. Works every time. Yep. Yep. I'm going to start doing that. Anyway, the video. Yeah.

It is, so the echo is really interesting. It's basically, here's what I think happened. It's 200 bucks. It's 100 bucks if you're a prime member. Jeff Bezos was watching Iron Man. And like Tony starts walking in his house talking to Jarvis. And Jeff Aziz was like, what the fuck I want that?

No, it's been around since Star Trek. Computer, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, no, I mean, I yell. I mean, I used to have, like, my Macs running, like, OS9. I would like set them up so you could yell computer at them and they would do something. Yeah. They never did anything. No.

That shit did not work. But I get, yeah, computer would do something. you have a wake word like hype beast hey yep every time you only get there's only there's only two wake words either amazon or Alexa I thought you can set your own no apparently not it's strange they've picked alex what happens if you have a daughter named Alexa I know why they picked Alexa why's that I don't know if David David might want to save it for a story okay I don't know if I can tell you it's it's a very interesting though but what happens if you're so I just say it if your name is Alexa it's an homage to the library of Alexandria no yeah well you go

that's something did everybody get so bored that they all check their phone jeez i have to go i got to catch a train and here you are we're just kind of wait for the show if the speaker is good having a good hundred dollar speaker sitting in my kitchen oh hell yeah you plug in the battery that you can just talk to you whenever and be like like like that play cereal that thing where um like i don't know like i cook a lot so like i'm always like setting timers on syri i'm always like doing conversion i do conversions on syria which is like the trite thing you can do with Siri, but it's actually super useful. The idea that you have a speaker

that's like playing music and you can just have it happen is very Jarvisy and cool. Yeah, well, I don't use Siri or Google now that much. I don't talk to them that much because it's annoying because you're like, oh, let me pull up my phone. I do I do it to set timers and that's basically it. But to just like talk out loud and have that stuff happen, yeah.

It's cool. Cool. Cool. I do it. I'm happy. I like doing it with Connect before the Connect just became... The Connect is not good. I finally am plugged it from my Xbox. Yeah, I finally did it because we were watching the World Series and it kept seeing our hands. And I was like, if this changes in the middle of the world series, I will never forget. You're the only person who still has their TV plugged in through the Xbox. What are you doing? Not according to them. You were in. There was a time where I was told

by someone at Microsoft that no, no, no, I am wrong. Like 99% of people have Connected plugged into their TV. And I was like, that person is gone now. Yeah. That was a fun meeting. Yeah, that was a... Wow. Yep. That didn't last for them.

That's cool. Eli, could I hype check, Echo? Yeah. First of all, I want to say... I want to say that Amazon knows how to price things. Like, 200 bucks... Except for the fire phone. Except for the fire phone, which was a failure.

For prime members, which a lot of people are, it's $100, right? I'm probably going to... going to buy that because I want a speaker in my bathroom while I'm taking a shower. And the idea of being able to just shout things, like, I like, I go in the shower and I'm like, what do I do next? I backed a Bluetooth, a Bluetooth water resistant speaker on Kickstarter and who the hell knows when that's going to come. You know, you can just buy that.

Like, you don't have to wait for some Kickstarter dude to like figure that out, right? The Bluetooth. Oh, I mean, it was. Like a waterproof Bluetooth speaker. Yeah, yeah, I felt like I was doing it. You can literally buy those and like shop like bodegas in men. Yeah, but this one it was like, is like good apparently. Like to sound and all.

He promised. The guy said in the video. This is the best audio you've ever heard in your shower. The hype check situation is, is that Amazon knows how to. This is what I thought hype check would be. Amazon knows how to price things. I'm going to buy one. And they are sort of experimenting.

We're all going to buy them. I'm going to buy two. I mean like the, right, because. Chris just saying like, The bathroom idea is great. To your Amazon knows how to. Thanks a lot. Yeah, I have a sonos in my bathroom.

It's the most complicated. Right. And you can't shout Alexa. Do you play whatever. Does it hook up to Spotify? No, it'll be through your phone. It'll be Amazon's music service. So it looks like I have to go.

And also I heart radio and something. And they're going to let more do stuff. Okay. I mean, I will say this. Like, um, the, that situation,

where you, like, have speakers and you have to, like, monkey with a phone to just play music. Yeah. It's funny how much more convenient, like, an FM radio was for, like, the last 30 years of this. True. Just turn it on, and you're good. And, like, things happen. Yep. And now it's like, let me monkey with this app that's bad.

Yeah. And find a playlist and then my Wi-Fi. I want to listen to the morning news summary when I'm in the bathroom. Yeah. And I'm like, get my phone out. Oh, podcast. Hit, hit, hit, hit, it used to be just turn on the radio. Yep.

But the video, so the video that Amazon. The video is so bad. I'm checking the 50s. I was negative. This video, everyone should go watch it in terror. It is so bad. The first thing they do with it is like the little boy in like the world's most annoying family walks through and says, Alexa, play rock music.

And then it's like just some like butt rock. From the speaker. Bud rock. It's like, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like, dude, you're gonna grow up, you're gonna drive a white Camaro. Like, your whole life is sucks. Like straight, like, and the whole family's just like,

yeah, rock music. And it's like, why would you, why? The problem with that video. All of the technology, all of the, like, the research and development that's gone into speech recognition, all of the, like, internet infrastructure that is required to support. this thing, play rock music. And it's just, it's everything. It's the whole commercial is really

cheesy. Here's the core of the problem with that commercial. It is narrated by a child who is, what, older than five? The idea that a child older than five wouldn't be jaded. It just doesn't, he doesn't. No, it's like, and like the dad comes home. He's like, I bought this speaker and it and plugs in. And like, how do you use it? And he's like, you're the worst dad. No, he like says something. You're the most embarrassing dad. You read that off the box. And he goes, yeah, I did.

Like, it's just, here's what, here's what I know. I have, I have many fears about having a child. It's an anxiety-ridden situation for me as a person, you know, when little nilis are running around. Yes, when my army of bastards finally takes to the streets. Wow. Dieter is now resting his head on the microphone. and dear shame. I'm worried that, you know, I'll be like an embarrassing father.

And this video is like a window into like the worst possible... You can't worry about that. You have to embrace it. There's no other way. No, because you don't have to go that far to your Camaro talkie speaker that plays rock music. I'm really mad after Austin. There's a fine... There's a huge difference being an awkward dad and buying a Camaro.

Like, just because you're not cool doesn't mean that you're... buying a Camaro. There's a big difference between me and awkward dad. Listen, to wrap this up, I can assure everyone in this room, we will not be cool. There is no chance. We weren't cool as kids. We're not cool now.

I want to have kids just so that when I make dad jokes on Twitter, that I'm, like, being honest about it. That's fair. That's all. That's the only reason. All right. That was our show. We're sorry.

We didn't talk about much. Do you have another note here? What we got? I don't care about Will I am I don't know what that was that I played with the pulse band Dan Seifert Bless his heart is often very negative

about things but he was like this is the worst product I've ever touched and I went and played with it during his meeting absolutely right about that it is hot garbage it's just why did it

Is it a dumpster fire? No it's just hot It's hot garbage Yeah Hype check hot garbage Yeah hype check I mean, it's just, it's not good.

It has a little keyboard. Like the screen has a little keyboard on it. And to type on it, you tap on the letter, and the letter zooms up, and you confirm the tap. What are you pointing out? I have to go. I have to get on a train. And you want to talk to me about Will I Am's bullshit? This is every day in my life.

You should just go right now because it's going to take me like 20 minutes here. People don't know about it. Look, that was our show for whatever it's worth. I'm glad that you survived this time with us. Sure. I'm trying to end on like a spiritual. hopeful. Okay. Do you help? Yeah.

Don't miss the bus. You want to get school on time. That's not help. That's just other words. That was the least helpful assistance anyone's ever given. That was more guidance than you have given in this entire fucking podcast.

All right. Do some iTunes stuff. Please tweet it, Sam. You can talk to us on our comments. You can follow the real verge on Snapchat. Yes. You can go on Twitter and do Twitter stuff. Also on Instagram.

You can hit us on Instagram. At verge. At verge. You can go on our Facebook page. We hit a million. We hit a million likes on Facebook. Sam's very happy about that. Big things are afoot for the verge.

Lots of new people incoming. Lots of awesome team members starting. And it's great to be here and have these conversations. Hopeful. You know, make a review on iTunes. It can be the B for Bust. It can be anything. And take a screen cap of it.

and send it to me, and I'll give you a personal gif. Oh, wow. Personal gif. If there were like 20 reviews of the Vergecast on iTunes. That were just explaining. That just said beef. Just explain. That'd be good.

Here's what I want to see. I want to see one set that's just explanations of what a hype check should be, because we clearly need that. We need ideas. That's much we. All right. That was Vergecast, everybody. Ipe check, verge cast.

Confirm type.