The Vergecast - Walk of life

Episode Date: March 11, 2016

This week on Vergecast, Nilay and Dieter are joined by news editor Jake Kastrenakes; discussing Google's Android N, Samsung's Galaxy S7, as well as science reporter/space cadet Loren Grush to talk Blue Origin and other space news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings, Mobile Accomplishers. Welcome to the Vergecast. Today is March 10th, 2016. My name is Neely Patel. My name is Deeter Bone. Let's just see how that goes for a while. Anyway, it is indeed March 10th. You're probably listening to this on March 11th.

But this is the Vergecast. I am Neelai Patel, resolving any doubt you might have had in your mind. Deeter Bone is here. Hello, hello. Surprise. Lauren Grush is here. Intrepid Verge space reporter, Lauren Grush. A space cadet.

Space Cadet. That show is going to happen. They've shot an episode of a show called Space Cadets. Yes, it's coming. Reveal. It's coming. I'm very excited about it. And then in the hype.

This is such a big deal. It's a real thing. Hello, everyone. I don't know what you're seeing. You're seeing you. I feel very uncomfortable. Literally three people just turn in my direction and laugh. It's a good start for me.

Oh, this is going to be spectacular. I'm so excited about it. I'm excited. I have this plant which makes me feel very comfortable. Well, so just so you know, Nicola just couldn't make it today because she doesn't work for us. Austin also. Right. She's in South by South West. Half our staff. Like half the staff. I'm going on Saturday for like a minute to be on a panel about product reviews. The panel is called I give this panel 7.5 out of 10. If you're at, it's me. Why isn't it a 7? I don't know. Okay. But it's me, Jackie Chang from the Wirecutter and Michael Clore from Wired. And we're going to talk about product reviews. So if you're in Southby, unfortunately, it's not. name in the morning on Monday. So just come by. We're going to talk about product reviews.

Man, I review way more stuff than you do. I know. You want to switch? Do you want to go to my panel? No. Yes. All right. The mutiny has begun, everyone. Anyway, big show, big week of news. But first, I've got to say this episode of Virchcast is brought to you by Cizzer vodka, which is the vodka brand that I made up. And will definitely will into existence. Cizzer vodka, cut through the night. You got to do the thing. You do the fingers. Cut through the night. People keep sending me stuff.

I got an animation. I got a fake TV ad. Somebody please actually launch this vodka and then buy a sponsorship. That would be amazing. I mean, how much can it cost us to get like a white label thing going? It's super easy. Super easy. Vodka is just like moonshine.

Like people make it out of fucking potatoes, man. This is when we relaunched the Verge store, all vodka. It's for vodka. Yeah. Cut through the night. Anyway, the huge week in news. We got to start where we got to start. Dieter's got the Galaxy S7 on the table here.

You don't want to start with Big Apple announcement. You want to start with Apple encryption. I don't want to talk about it. Android. It's the phone. There's a bunch of Android news. Let's do some Android news. All right.

I do not have the edge in my hands because Dan Seaford has it. I ran upstairs to get the Galaxy S7 edge and it was clear that he had the review with him. He's not here. But there was a Best Buy box sitting on his chair. So I opened that. You open his box? And it had the gear VR in it instead of the phone. Oh, that sucks.

Very sad. So I have the regular S7 here. And then the edge is the cool one. Yeah, the edge is the one that you want. Dan reviewed them. And Walt reviewed them. Walt reviewed them. And the story is they're amazing.

Everything about them is stupendous, except for the apps that get put on them by partnerships. Except for everything that... It's like Samsung made really good hardware. The touchwoods is actually even okay on this. It's okay. How is it okay? Like, that's, it's not totally overbearing. I just, this is radio.

Like, there's a camera and people are listening to us, and I thought that just pointing the phone at Neli would convey information to everybody. I can describe. It's a screen, it's a rectangle. There's a white part of the rectangle. There's another white part of the rectangle. And then the blue part of the rectangle.

No, the stuff at the top is like easier. The stuff at the top of the notification area is easier to configure. It's like I could see it in front of me. The overall theme is they got rid of that, like, baby blue crap that they had before. It's like just plain good. Yeah, I want to see what one thing so we give it to one. But this isn't actually it. No, that's it.

Oh, it is. It's a small one. There's two. There's small ones. There's the Galaxy S7, and then there's the Galaxy S7 Edge. The S7 Edge has a bigger screen, but unlike other giant phablet phones like this Nexus 6p, it doesn't feel as big as this giant phone because the screen curves around to the edge. so it's really narrow,

and it's also way, way shorter than, say, the iPhone's success. It's still the worst phrase over success, anyway. It's an iPhone success. Success plus, rather it feels way small

than the success plus. But when you curve the screen around the size, doesn't it just distort the information that's around the side of the screen? How much information is on the side of the screen? I don't know, the edges of movies. If you're looking at it straight on,

it's actually not, like, distortion is not that bad. And, like, it's pretty good at not, like having rogue touch events happen when you're holding it. Yeah. But it's not perfect. That's my, that's a Dieter's new road podcast. You should have a podcast called Rogue Touch Events.

Yeah. And it's just you talking. Pretty sure I'd go to jail. Wait. Oh no. Anyway. Oh no. Well, that moment of innocent joy.

It's just going to be ruined. This feels as a long time iPhone user. Yeah, you've got a six here. Yes. Or no, do I have the six? I have the six or six. Sorry. She has an iPhone.

We don't know what kind. She knows a lot about space. She knows a lot about space report. Yeah, I don't need to know about phones. Yeah. This seems very easy to use. Lauren's stamp of approval. There you go.

Do you like the hardware? I mean, that's the real key, right? Do you think it looks like an iPhone or do you think it looks better than iPhone? I think it looks better than iPhone. Really? It's like, yeah, I don't know. The aesthetic is more. sleek.

Yeah. Yeah. Double tap the home button. Okay. Oh. And the camera is bonkers good. It is crazy fast. It's giving me an option for different kinds of selfies.

What? All that. Yeah, the camera is amazing. I was just screwing. Oh, it's, I swivel it. Oh, I messed up. Is it like a pan-o cell? She's already broken.

Did you do a panorama selfie? Yeah, yeah. Okay. What a time to be alive that you could do a panoramic selfie? In my face and the whole thing. Riveting radio. Riveting radio. Moment of silence.

This pan her and I'm solving. Okay. No right. I mean, Lauren. People are saying it's better than the iPhone's camera. I've heard a lot of people say it's better than iPhone's camera. We did, we're going to do, I think, some close-up examination of this thing.

But I will tell you, I was just screwing with it yesterday. It focuses so much faster than the iPhone. It is ridiculous. Yeah. I forget the term, the fake technical term. Dual pixels. Yeah. Okay.

Every pixel focuses. Yeah. All of them at once. All of them are special flowers. When these pixels were in kindergarten, every one of them got a gold star. They all won at soccer. Camera manufactured in Lake Wobagon. Really?

Yeah. All the pixels are above average. Oh, my God. Now we're biting, like, other radio shows in an effort to make our radio show pretty good. Jake, what do you think? Yeah. The hardware is amazing. It's like absolutely the nicest fun I've ever seen.

And like, I'm going to be super hype right now. Apple needs to do something. Wow. Whoa. Get in there. Apple's had an extremely boring design for two years. Yeah. And now Samsung, better camera, better hardware.

Like, those are the reasons I buy a phone. Yeah. In the back of this thing looks really nice. But you're going to put a case on it. No, you're not. Maybe. I mean, I will say that there's... Samsung's gotten really good at this.

Like, the amount of restraint in this phone for a Samsung phone is, like, amazing. But then the amount of not restraint, shown by Verizon and just like gluing shitty software. Oh, wait, let me ask this. Yeah. Because I've played with some phones that came with Verizon blotware on them. I just ignored it. This is,

is it really that big of an issue? It's out of control relative to what it used to be. You can not ignore them. No, no. You can't ignore them. You have to disable them. If you ignore them, they start throwing up notifications at you, like advertisements. Let me put it this way.

I just clicked on the go 90 app icon that I cannot delete from this phone. And the first thing it asked was it for access to my contacts. It's a video app. It's an app that shows you videos. And the gimmick is that when you like the video, you will turn the screen to really engage with it, which Verizon wants you to call Going 90. I don't know if you're aware of,

I think just dryly explaining what Go 90 is really highlights the absurdity of the concept. I mean, I get excited by the concept of Going 90. I mean, yeah. That's actually the sequel to Rogue Touch events. Go 90. Oh, no. It's a real story of a terrible.

terrible night at a club. Yeah, yeah. No, but so, like, the, when you first boot up for the first time and go through, like, the getting set up stuff on a Verizon Galaxy S7, it literally flashes a warning at you that makes you think, if you're not paying attention, that if you don't sign up for Verizon's backup service, you're going to lose all your data. Yeah. Like, it doesn't let you know that if you don't sign up for Verizon saying, it turns out

Google backs up your data. And there's, like, a million other ways to back up all your data. It puts ads in the notification center. It's like, it's everywhere. It's, I think there's like 13 total Verizon apps. If you include the Amazon apps that got added on there. Amazon's crazy like rogue Android stores on there too. It's bonkers.

And there's also Samsung stores. So that's three app stores. Yeah, and the Samsung app store has a default banner on the home screen that's called, like, download these Galaxy Essentials. Well, I want to ask, because Dieter just wrote that big piece. Let me just read you some Galaxy Essentials. You ready? CNN for Samsung.

That's essential. Pair for Samsung. Wait, which pair? No, pair. P-E-A-R. Personal coaching in real-time with Olympians. Oh. That's something you want.

It's super essential for a phone. I need that in my life. Photo bucket for Samsung. That's cool. Expedia. Super essential app to have on your phone, especially when it's branded with Samsung. Is it for Samsung or just plain Expedia?

All these app icons are branded Samsung. They're out of the Samsung store. S note. S note. Really for an app without a pen? Yeah, there's that. This is all just like nonsense. What's the alternative though, the phone being more expensive?

So that's a really good question because this phone is like $7,800. So how much more expensive would it have been without all this crap where I personally don't think it's about the price of the phone? I think that it is about getting like what Samsung gets out of this is. is Verizon's advertising money and placement in Verizon stores. Yeah. They sell more phones. They get marketing support. Yeah.

So I don't think it's cost of the phone. Because the phone's pretty expensive. Yeah. It's actually more expensive than iPhone. Yep. But it's like hidden in fees. I'm like, you'll never know. Right.

Because you can't even buy it unlocked. Yeah, you can't buy it. I'm just getting angry. I'm just like thinking about all this right now. Getting angry. Also, unlike the iPhone there and like the Nexus 6p, the different carrier versions aren't cross compatible. They didn't stick all the radios in and all the antennas in the phones.

So like the Verizon usually leaves its phones unlocked. If you were to take the Verizon one and go to AT&T, you are not guaranteed to have all like the LTE bands work. I mean, it's just like how are you going to have your own streaming service, then make the decision to refer to it as milk music and then insist that it be on my fucking phone? I got to put this down. That's a Samsung app though, not a Verizon app. But it's just like you can get mad at the Samsung app. That's fine. But I get way angrier at the Verizon stuff.

But why not make the partnerships of the things people want? I'd be like, we preloaded Spotify for you. Here's YouTube music. Yeah. I don't know. Google Play Music. I'm sure all the Vergecast fans would love it if Google Play Music was pre-installed this thing.

It probably is. I'm sure it is. Because it's a Google. Is Google Play music in the default set? It's in the default set of Google apps. Yeah. Anyway. Oh, wait.

What's up? I don't think it is. Once again, Google Play Music, beaten down, ignored. the injustice continues. Start a forum post. Oh, no, here it is. It's play music. All right, well.

The injustice does not continue. Sorry to get you all riled up, Google Play fans. What should we have the Vervege review account be interested in listening to? Do you want to actually talk about your thing? What thing? The Arpoo thing? Oh, the Angriot. The Anger God of Arpoo?

Yeah, there's a whole thing. There's a whole industry trend that's going on. And Dieter wrote a whole thing about it. It's like amazing. Lauren's just going to say the word trend. Trend. Trend watch. All right. There's a whole thing.

Yeah, Arpoo stands for average revenue per user. And for the past 10 years or so, it's been like the thing that carriers want to maximize. How much money they make off to every single one of their customers? In the past like six to 12 months, it's like turning into like other weird acronyms that don't necessarily mean the same thing because they're trying to hide their numbers. But it looks as though for the past year or so Arpoo had been going down. And that combined with some other stuff is one of the same. the reasons why I think this crapware problem on phones is getting worse. So let's look at Samsung specifically. They had a bad year last year. Yep. They definitely need to sell more phones,

especially at the high end. And the only way they know how to do it, the only way anybody, except for Apple knows how to do it, is to sell it through the carrier retail channels in America. That's how that works. Because nobody goes and buys their phone unlocked on Amazon and any real number. Right, because it's really hard to get it on the carrier. Yeah. It's not really hard. It's too hard. Yeah. Yeah. So here's Samsung's problem.

They, in order to get the push they need from Verizon and AT&T, they have to capitulate. They have to do all this stuff that increases the, you know, tiny margin on the phone that the carriers make. Like tricking you into buying a subscription for an antivirus software on your Android phone or tricking you into using Verizon Navigator instead of Google Maps, which is a thing that's installed on this phone. They still call it VZW Navigator? Yeah, I think so. Do you still have to pay for it? I'm sure you do. Pay for it?

Yeah, Verizon has a subscription GPS app called VISAW Navigator. Yeah, go ahead, sign up for it. Give it your credit card. Oh, my God. Let it access your contacts. Yeah, how much is it? It's, I'm going to pay for it right now. I mean, it's just like, why?

Like, why? Yeah, why? It's like such a good phone, and I will never buy it. I refuse. So I should have refused. One man with a dream of justice in America. Voting with my dollars. Oh, man.

You may be charged for this application. Anyway. It's just so dumb. It's Google's phone. Google literally improves its maps by pinging the phones. So it's called the Angry God of Arpoo, which is a thing that a guy who I think worked for troll tech said 10 years ago at CES. Troll tech, by the way, became QT, which later got bought by Nokia. It's a real long story.

Anyway. Yes. It all ended up in Maymont. When you do this thing on this phone, you see this garbage. Who do you get mad at? Do you get mad at Samsung or do you get mad at Verizon? I get mad at the culture of this country. That allowed us to have morally imperfect phones.

Yeah. That's fair. I'm just trying a new thing out. I don't get really mad. You don't get really? Yes, because you use an iPhone. and you don't have this problem. Exactly.

So Apple stood up to the thing. You don't even see it. You don't even see it. Out of sight of mine. Although if you are on Verizon, they are doing really dirty things to track what you do online and advertise to you. You know what I'm going to do?

When you're not looking, I'm going to go to your phone. I'm going to download VZ Navigator. Just like delete Google. I'm like trying to get home one night. Pay $5 to like navigate to your home. I'm just saying. Then you'll be mad.

The main thing with Verizon is if Verizon says no, I'm going to stand up to you, Verizon. You can't put your garbage on my phone. You know what Verizon's going to say? Okay. LG will. Buy Samsung. And then LG will just do it. Yeah.

And then Samsung is screwed. Yeah. Yeah. But then why don't we all just buy LG phones without crapware? Do they sell the G-D? Don't know yet. Five? Yes.

That's correct. G-5. With friends. They have, it comes with little accessories. You can plug them to the phone. They're called friends. I would lose those. Yeah.

No, that's the first thing I thought of, too. I would love to pay for this extra, like, cool audio thing, but I'll just leave it at home. I don't know, man. Jake, where are you at? Would you buy this phone? Not for however much it costs. It's like super expensive. $33 a month?

It is the phone that I want right now. Really? Not the 6P? Well, I have a 5X right now. So I already chose that over those 6B. Because 6P is really, really big. But this phone is smaller than the 5X. And it has a bigger screen and a faster processor or a better camera.

The camera's amazing. This is the phone. What are we asking for this whole time? An Android phone is a great camera. And I know everyone's going to tell me about the other Android phones is a great camera. But it's like this is the best camera. Yeah. No.

I mean, I thought the S6's camera looked like it was probably better than the iPhones. And like this one seems like it's at least as good, if not better. So I'm sold. What do you think is the main reason someone buys a phone? Is that a camera? Ooh, that's a good one. People tweet at us. Tweet it at Lauren Grush.

And tweet it at Recklace. Because I'm going to have lots of opinions on that. No, I'm curious because, I mean, obviously, my reason is ease. Is it really easy to be used? Because these phones are just as easy to use. No, it's ease of, I know how to use the iPhone. I've been using it for years now. So it's like I don't want to spend time learning and kind of changing my life to support a new type of operating system.

Right. There's like, no, there's too much overhead. Yeah. I still think the iPhone has a much shallower learning curve than Android. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I mean, Android, the thing is a computer. Like in all of the best ways of that phrase and in all of the worst ways. Like it acts more like a computer than the iPhone.

I think people are locked into ecosystems. Yeah. Right. And I think it's pretty insidious in like a wide variety of ways. Like I keep thinking about the Apple car that will come out. And it's just like, do you have to have an iPhone to buy Apple's car? Like, will it work well if you don't have an iPhone? Like that's a weird question.

And it's like Apple Music, like, it's the first thing they ever made an Android app for. And you can tell, like, just in using it for five minutes, you can tell that it's not as good as the iOS app. It's just that. I think, like, people just get locked. Like, I message. I can never not have an iPhone because of I message. Really? Yeah.

I mean, Dieter tries to not have an iPhone all the time. Yeah. And then he, no one talks to me. Literally. That green message. Yeah. There are probably a half dozen people that I do not talk to and I'm using an Android phone. And then as soon as I'm back on an iPhone and then I'm like, not going to turn on a message, not going to turn on an I message.

And then I turn on I message. And then all of a sudden I can talk to these six people again. And it's great. And then I'm like, okay, I'm switching back to Android. And I immediately regret turning off, turning on I message because not only can I not talk to those people, they think they're still talking to me and their messages just go somewhere. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, it's like, it's like, well, that's why you're insidious. It's like if you quit having I message, Apple will just lie to your family on your behalf. They're like, that message was delivered. Straight up. And then people, like, have you switched from my message? Yeah, it wasn't hard. I think we do it entirely. There's literally a website.

Yeah, it doesn't work. It worked for me. I think the problem. You use like 12 phones a day. I think that's the problem. There was a time when I was flashing Android N on phones and tablets that I had no. fewer than I think 10 screens on my desk, most of which

we're on. Yeah, if you switch once a year. That gives me anxiety. Let's just transition right in Android N. Yeah. So I think the phrase is, holy shit. Yeah, they just dropped it out of the blue. Oh, by the way, we're releasing oh my God, someone just tweeted a picture

of rogue touch events at me. It's a good thing it's a radio show. Yeah. They released a developer preview of Android N. Usually they, last year they did it at I.O. Now they're doing it like two months before I.O. And they say it's so that people can test it out. And so hopefully maybe Samsung will put it on the galaxy, you know, a little bit on time instead of not at all on time.

This should make a phone called the Galaxy on time. Oh, my God. That's their next watch, the Galaxy on time. Hang on. Jay. I don't know when I'm supposed to respond. How does the hype desk work? Okay, let's just go over this again.

We've done it so many times. The hype desk is just a construct in your mind. You are, for the listener, you are at this table. There is no such thing as a galaxy on time. I'm shocked. Yeah, no, there should be one. There should have been one by now. And it's actually a large phone that you can wear as a watch.

Yeah. Right? I'm pretty sure Samsung has that already. I have a first-gen galaxy gear on my desk that I keep just desperately wanting to use. and I keep charging it and turning it on and you're like, this is garbage. It's just, it's such a first generation product. What compels you to keep that in your life?

I don't know, man. I also got like I have a fucking pink vio in my desk right now. Like, it's, they just come to me. I love these things. Like, I love gadgets. I love the idea that, like, someone made them. Yeah, but the pink vio is beautiful. It's a beautiful thing.

The original gear is... Not. The original gear is like an audacious product. Right? When someone at Samsung, just think about us. us, right? Like, today Lauren published a piece and we, like, argued about the headline on Slack for, like, five minutes. And then we, like, made it. But, like, that was a conversation that we had. And then, like, Lauren was like, I'm going to run this piece. And then TC in the room was like, I don't know about the headline. Then we had, like, another conversation. And then she published it. And I was like, we should have another. Like, right? Like, we made this, like, series of decisions. And there were, like, three stakeholders. And it's still at the end, we'd, like, made the wrong decision. And we changed it. Um, I don't know if we made the wrong. You know what I mean. But like, we changed. Samsung, somewhere in a room at Samsung, it's Samsung, someone was like, I think the watch band should have a camera in it. And then that decision had to like get executed.

Like they were like, okay, you, Steve, go source the camera module. You know, Tanya, you've been doing great lately. Design the band to stick the camera module in. I don't know. Susan, these are just extremely white names. Susan. You figure out the software. They made all of those decisions.

and then those people presumably all had teams that had to execute those decisions and now I have this piece of garbage in my hand and it represents all of that work then my heart fills with joy. Yeah, I sort of just feel like... No, no one else feels that? The fact that like multiple people were like, yeah.

Yeah, a second camera in there. Why the hell not? You don't think there's just like a couple of really insane people atop of Samsung and like no one ever questioned. begrudgingly putting the camera in the entire time. She's like Steve's on LSD again. Right. No, Susan's like, oh God, we're pulling another Samsung. Like, internally.

Yeah. Let's not blame Susan here. Yeah. She clearly tried. It's Tanya who fucked it up. Duh. Steve is just the camera guy. He doesn't know.

And in all fairness, their engineering went just fine. It was the overall execution that was flawed. No, I just think, like, that's, I think it's really, like, The Sony is the same thing. It's like it has a fake mouse on the side of the screen. Well, it's also a netbook. I think that was the issue. I know.

No. I think it was, I think the Sony Viopi was explicitly not a netbook. It was meant to be higher end than a netbook. It was meant to be a totally different camera. My apologies to the Sony engineers. Oh God, don't make me make up fake names to the Sony people. Eric.

Uh, she should keep going. I'm going to stop. Stephanie. Glenn. Harold. Glenn. Glenn and Stephanie? Yeah.

Again, we just got a just extremely boring names for these people. Anyway, I mean, Stephanie just clearly visionary with a mouse thing, but I think Glenn blew the execution. What? Nothing. What do you want for me? I can't wait for the fan fiction of our like made-up engineers. Tommy and Stephanie at a bar and she's like, I got to get out of Samsung. She's really been trying to hot ship for a while.

It's so terrible. I just don't. Am I the only person who like looks at everything and tries to imagine the chain of decisions that led to that moment? This is why when I watch a bad movie, I sit through the credits. When you watch a terrible movie and then you sit through the credits and there's like a thousand names of people, all of whom like contributed to making this movie. And most of whom like said yes, this is good enough. You're just like, you're individually going, bless you, bless you, bless you. What if Samsung smartwatches had credits?

You're like, oh, you came with a book. And it was like, watch band camera. Glenn, the original back, everybody signed the case on the inside of it. Yeah, yeah, there you go. Why are we not forced to watch like five minutes of credits every time a phone shuts down? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. You send the notification in 18-T.

You're like, I'm buying a new phone. It's like, but first. It starts playing the music. Did you see the post on the site that Jameson did today about every movie being better with a dire straight song in it? It's true. I did not. I mean, what song is it?

Walk of Life. Walk of Life. You do the walk? Hold on. I'm going to play Walk of Life. Excuse me. Excuse me, everyone. Excuse me.

Okay, well, Neil, I like Deter. Figures out how to use Spotify. I'm going to tell you about Android N. Yes, please. It's a super, super, super, super, super early beta. No, keep going on. This is going to be great. And it's surprisingly good.

It, uh, the animations are super fast. It has split screen multitasking, which actually works. This isn't, this is too much great. Keep going. Please keep going. I can't focus. I can't more about phones now. Oh, my God.

It has a better notification chain. I can't. I can't. I can't. Thank you all for tuning in this week. Just imagine if every time, hold on, Andrew's going to kill me. Just imagine if every time you, like, went on the carrier website and, like, pre-ordered new phone, your old phones started playing walk-of-life.

And just, like, running credits. Like, iPhone brought to you by directed. by Tim Cook. And just like, kept going. Bye. Bye. Like, winked out of life. I would absolutely be into that.

I feel like we're missing out. And it's unfair to Susan or Stephanie or Tanya. I don't remember. This is the problem. I would know their names. If you listen to Rogue Touch Events, the new podcast about mythical engineers that create products at Samsung and Sony, you would know all about their names and how they've been shipped.

That's what it is. Rogue Touch Events is like, it's like Silicon Valley. for inside. Oh, I shouldn't give this idea away. Stop listening to this. Turn to a different podcast. We have like 10 of them now. Yeah.

Please, God, listen to Whatsteck with Chris Plant while I finish this idea. Virg ESP. Yeah, VirgisP is great. I'm plugging science here today. Okay. Have you switched podcasts? Remaining listeners. Okay.

You're in this cabal with me. Yeah. If you're listening to this, you have already accepted the Yula that you are not allowed to use this idea. I've updated your iTunes agreement. and you cannot steal this idea. By continuing to listen to this podcast, you agree to the terms and conditions of this podcast.

Okay, but like, you ever reads those. Well, that, you've agreed. Are you listening right now? You've already agreed. You didn't, you didn't read your employment contract. Did you want? If you haven't taken a pickaxe to your phone and smashed it, you have, by default, agreed to the terms.

Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. I was a lawyer. Right. Okay. Rogue touch events. Yeah.

It's like Silicon Valley, but instead, every episode is like inside a massive phone corporation, and it picks a, apart the decision chain behind insane decisions. Right? That's like the little, that's the key to the format of every episode. But then they spin out.

We have like crazy adventures with people. You have to change the name. Like, that is not what people would expect that show to be about. It's a very serious issue. You're not going to be able to get any advertising on that either. Look, man, I don't do it for the money. I do it for the art. Tanya does it for the money.

I demonized her so much She really gets a bad rap Yeah She just Look she sold out a long time ago And we've never just been a little conversation But Tony's got like two kids to feed So

You know Let's not judge her So the darkest episode of this show ever Is like finally I'm really concerned about the female employees At these companies Stephanie and Susan are fine I can't wait for this

Stephanie wants to leave She remembers Oh, we got to stop. I guess Android End. Wait, but that's like this show. It's like the one episode. It's like halfway through the season, Tani has been the villain the whole time. But then like Orange Disney Black style, you like follow her home.

And she's got this like huge family, they're all the penny. She's like stressed out. Have you been watching people versus OJ? No. No. They're like going to humanize Marshall Clark. It's the same thing. Only it's a mid-level engineer at Samsung.

Who's forced to put a camera in a one. watch band. Yes. Don't you want to know who that person is? I do. Actually, that would make me care. Finish the Android End story. I'm super done.

It's way better than it has a right to be. You should install it, but you can install it over the air. Like, you don't have to do crazy developer things to install it. So I bet that in a couple of months, it'll be really good. And if you have a Nexus phone, you'll just be able to install the beta and it'll be good enough.

And we won't be waiting for them to release it. But the key features are the multitasking. Multitasking. Notification shade is better But I think that what we've seen so far Is like a third of what's probably coming And we'll find out much more at Google Iode May Do you want to make?

You can drag and drop text between Windows But it only kind of works It's like it's becoming more like a computer Yeah they're clearly And you've got it on a tablet over there What do you think? Yeah actually this is Pixel C

Kind of fantastic It actually makes the Pixel C not garbage Oh I mean this is like clearly how you're supposed to use The pixel C Yeah it's split screen like an iPad there yeah It seems supernatural. It's weird that this was not a thing already. Which, like, not to criticize, iOS just got this.

Let's be clear. Everyone's real mad at me. Samsung had it first. But Samsung's like they were a hack. Yeah. It's some real Tanya shit. I really don't like how, you know, critical you've been of Tanya this entire time. I'm on Team Tanya. Yeah, she's really just working on for her family. She's trying. No, given the requirements set before her by Stephanie, she did an amazing job.

Oh, Stephanie's the PM. Yeah. Okay. All right, fine. I forgot the chain. I was in charge. This is a winding, twisting. It's really like who owns the project, right?

Ultimately, it comes down to do you have resources and ownership, and that's how you are successful. And the problem at Samsung is there are so many CEOs you can't have a single autore over the product. Right. Yeah. When you turn off a Samsung phone, it plays walk-of-like like five different times. It plays a really crappy cover from that one guy on YouTube with a ukulele. Yeah, they're all fighting. It's like the same credits.

They'll never be in the director's guild because everything is co-directed. Sorry, that's a really nerdy film joke. Continue talking about the tablet that you're holding. Yeah, I have two windows open. Yeah, it's cool. You can resize it, right? Yeah, no, so you can resize it. Can you do any size?

It snaps into, I think, third and the app. What you're not seeing, if you're listening to this, what you're not seeing, and I think this is true, that is so much better than the resizing on the iPhone. It's like faster or the iPad. Yeah. It's like way faster and more, like. Yeah. It's also really easy to bring up new apps. You just hit the button and you can like see all of the cars.

And if you hold your finger down on the multitasking, it goes away. I mean, that. And you hold the finger down again. It comes back. I was like, it's, it's iteration, right? It is fundamentally the same concept as what's happening in iOS. And then Google out to play with an iPad for six months. And they put out a version that it's not some radical rethink.

Yeah. Except it works on the Nexus 6P. You can do it on the phone. Is anybody can do this on a phone though? Has anybody ever made real use of the iPhone 6S plus screen size split screen thing? Is there a single app that makes use of that? Not a single app. Is there a single app for 3D touch that's good?

No, cursor placement on the keyboard. That's not a app. That's just a thing. I really like the... When I tweet it, everybody tells me on the cursor too. Fake 3D touch on Instagram's Android app. All right. Look, do you love books, but you have never a time to read them?

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You just push the button. You can exchange any book you're not happy with for another title anytime and no questions asked. Is there anything better than Audubal? To me, to me, Audible is like the one, right? And so just for Vergecast listeners, Audible.com is offering a free 30-day trial membership. You go toaudwill.com slash verge today and only today. but this podcast is unstuck in time. So literally whatever day that you're listening to it,

only that day can you get this deal where you go to Albaqom slash Virge and get a free trial. You should have. Use it to listen to the Gallum and the Ginny by Helen Wecker. Actually, but only today. Whatever day it is that you're listening to it. Audibleacom slash. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Only today. I think this is an amazing way for Audubon to really teach us about how time works. Yeah, yeah, right? Like, what is time? Ooh, actually, Einstein's dreams. Good book about time. You could probably listen to it on an honorable. Yeah, yeah.

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Whatever day it is, you're listening to this. Ottawa.com slash verge. Expires tomorrow. All right, let's get into some stuff. Before we get into space, what you've got to do, I want to plug Sam Biford's reporting from Korea. He's at the Deep Mind versus Go, the Go Championship. It's won two out of five as of this recording

and the next matches tonight for you. That was last night. Anyway, we've got a guy on the ground, Sam Biford recording, doing interviews, taking photos. It's amazing stuff. Go find it on our website. I'm done.

Goodbye. It is really good. And Sam is having time. of his life. Yeah. He's out there. He's doing it. All right.

Space. So Lauren, tell me about, well, there's a bunch of stuff that happened. Yeah. Space is good. Scott Kelly came home. Yeah. You wrote an extremely snarky headline about him. Space made Scott Telly taller and younger as if he already wasn't Mr. Popular.

I'm just jealous. I'm going to space. Yeah. For a year. Yeah. For a year. That's really how you can. Become one nanosecond younger.

Yeah. And then Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder. De LaTont, general man about town, owner of the Washington Post. Tyrant. Piece of Business Insider. Humorous man. Yeah, he loves to laugh, but also loves to make you work until you die. And laugh while you do it.

He loves to put up giant TVs showing people stealing things out of warehouses and then getting taken down by, you know, security. And then they were fired. What you want in your workplace is endless video loops of swat raids with the word thief. This is true, by the way. This is some like sci-fi crazy shit. in Amazon's warehouses, they play video loops of people getting busted for stealing shit, and they flash the word prisoner. It's crazy.

That can't be real. It's real. And then Jeff Bezos takes all those prisoners. It puts them on a rocket. It fires them into space. You know who edited that video? Who's that? Tanya.

That's not a Tanya. Only because Stephanie made her. You got to stop. I get it. Space. I get what you're saying. What a B is it? Jeff Bezos do? So Jeff Bezos, is it Bezos or Bezos?

Who cares? I would say Bezos. Yeah, I don't, not worried about it. He invited a select group of reporters to his facility. His lair? No, it's Blue Origins facility in Kent, Washington. And it's a big deal because up until now, the company is known for its high levels of secrecy. I remember the Texas Tribune, they also have like a testing facility in Texas, and the Texas Tribune did this massive, beautiful, like, interactive story, and they, like, had to go camp outside and, like, they knocked on the, well, they ring the doorbell, I guess, on the gate, and they still wouldn't get access. Like, that's how deeply they tried to, like, get in contact with them. Wait, by ringing the doorbell? Well, no, no, I mean.

Sorry. After, like, normal ways of contact. You, like, really built it up. But they went and then they ring the doorbell. And then they went home. They ding-dog ditch best chapaces. Screw you, Rocket Boy. Left a bag of poo.

He's standing out there shaking his fist. I'm not talking to you when I'm in space. I'm leaving this town. For the moon. All right. Sorry. Anyway. Go ahead.

So up until now, whatever they've been, I mean, and they've had a lot of success, right? So they were the first ones to launch and then land a rocket after sending it into space. Yeah. And they did it twice. So they actually reused a reusable rocket. You know, that's what everybody's been talking about. That's a big thing. And they were the first two.

Yeah. Yeah, they were the first. And, I mean, there have been like reusable space planes before, but this is the first one that, like, launches vertically and then lands vertically, which is like a much different. type of engineering. Lauren, can I ask, what is Blue Origin's main goal with these rockets? Is it to launch payloads? No. So right now, they only have one rocket called a New Shepherd, and it's a suborbital space plane,

or sorry, rocket. So it just goes to the edge of space. It wouldn't actually make a revolution around Earth. It's not going fast enough, and it's not going high enough. And then any passengers in the capsule that it takes up there would experience, like, four minutes of weightlessness. and then they come back down in parachutes and then the capsule will come down in a parachute

and then the rocket lands so that the entire thing is saved so this is like an awesome space vacation for four minutes the new national amphibun movie the coolest thing that you could brag about doing for the rest of your life like I went to space for four minutes that sounds awesome

it does sound awesome but the thing is they've just been very secretive about their testing the only thing we know about when these things happen is like whenever they release a press release about it and then like a really highly stylized video that's like set to you know hard rock tunes and you know has everybody be like you know what they should set it to but they're straights we got to make a recut of a blue origin video oh my god uh anyway so yeah it's been i mean for for a

space reporter getting to talk to them has been a pretty big deal so they enter they brought a bunch of space reporters to their facilities and I just happened to notice that the majority of those space reporters were men and this was happening on international women's day which I thought was very uh when you say the majority what you mean is the vast majority yes so it was from what I can count it's 11 two women were there um and then the rest were men and it just I don't know I mean I I mean, I understand the field that I am in is a very male-dominated field to begin with. So these types of events are going to probably skew male just because of the employment numbers. But at the same time, I know very many qualified women who report on space, whom I list in the article that I wrote today.

And it just was very odd to me that all of us had been shut out from this. And I know people can make this argument that's like, well, you know, maybe they don't know you or they don't think you're qualified because, you know, you're new or whatever. But I know that they know me and I know, like, I am qualified, you know, like, they've definitely gone out of their way to contact me before. Right. So those are, and even if it wasn't about me, there are a bunch of other people, like National Geographic, Space.com, Wired. like all those people probably would have sent women and none of them got contact either and not to belittle the people who did go

but they sent publications that were like not that big nationally either you know like Huntsville Times I understand like Huntsville like Alabama is a big space state but at you know in terms of getting the word out it seems like an odd play yeah well yeah

it's just like it's It's the cycle, right? They want the old school space journalist to give them credibility. So they go to the old school space journalist. Right. And it's just the cycle. It just kind of perpetuates his boys club. And it makes it harder for it to not be a boys club anymore.

Right. I mean, all of the reporters who you named who did not get to go, those are the names that I recognize for space coverage. Now, admittedly, I read all my sex coverage online. Right. But, like, I recognized all of their names because they are the people who are. who are constantly popping up in my Twitter feed. So it seems crazy that none of them had access.

It didn't seem like it was about getting the most amount of coverage or maximizing their coverage. Right. It seemed very much about, like, who do we, like, think of as important, you know? Who do we deem worthy of our, you know, our attention? Right. But that said, they did, like, they showed the people the stuff. Right. And like what was interesting to me is that, I don't know, but this is probably like way inside

baseball. Companies hold these events because they want a story to get told. Right. Right. And like, and they pick the reporters who will, I mean, this is a way inside baseball. Like if you play ball and you tell the right story, like you'll get invited again. And like, these older reporters tend to really play ball. And one of the things when, when we first hired Liz to be a science editor, she said very clearly

to me, I don't. Like she's like, I don't want to play ball. Like, particularly in space, everybody gets away with it. Like, everyone's super credulous and they believe all the companies. And now you have private space-fite companies, which aren't even the government, trying to do stuff. And there's no reason to be credible of them, right? They are trying to do something very hard. Many of them are succeeding in various ways.

But, like, there's still businesses try to make a buck and, like, market their stuff. She's like, we're not going to be credible. And then when we were, like, interviewing Lauren, Liz was like, I don't want to be credible. And Lauren's like, got it. Right? And like, that to me is, that's really the danger here, right? It's like if you go back to the old school people because you know you're going to get a story, the story you want is going to get out there because they know how to play the access game,

then the real journalism won't happen. It's like, so it's two different problems that are the same problem fundamentally, right? It's like you're not opening the pool, you're not exposing yourself to skepticism or new voices, you're just going back to the well of like the old boys club. And like, if the world was different and everyone is totally diverse, it would still just be like the old journalist club and you would have the same set of problems. And it's just now what's happening is it's colliding with the fact that we would like the tech and science industries to be more diverse. And so it is that rift is now broken along gender lines as well as like experience and credibility lines. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. And yeah, to that point, I do respect, like I said, I do respect all the people that went. but yeah their style of writing is very much like you know I'm just going to send you all the info and and there's really no critical take sometimes I don't want to I don't want to criticize too much I do very respect much respect all these people but but yeah it's a different style of I think sometimes now younger people can will understand that they can take like a harsher take on things and not just you know put the facts out there without I think I'm not articulating myself correctly I think what you know what I mean yeah well I know exactly what Lauren means because you know if you're writing for a very traditional publication you have to be exceptionally objective right down the center whereas I think the verge typically has a

point of view and like Lauren absolutely does and that informs her space coverage and that also informs like me who is reading the space coverage because like if it's just straight I have no idea what to make of it because there's so much going on Right. And so, I mean, I find having that point of view to be extremely helpful. Well, and the important point there is that there's also a point of view on the so-called straight down the middle objective. Yeah, now we're like getting the weeds. Like, this is my insane baseball.

Like, that's what Deeter is referring to, the view from nowhere. Yeah. Which is like an old, Jeff Jarvis, someone, one of those guys. But even regardless of that, like, that's the internet culture moment. Right. By the way, everyone should watch people versus OJ. Like, just watch it. I will tell you that this

weird FX fictionalized show about the OJ Simpson trial has like totally made me rethink it. Can I blow everybody's mind? I'm gonna get cable. I'm tired of dealing with being unplugged and not being able to. Did some cable, man.

It's great. And you can watch people versus OJ. I'm plugged right in that firehouse. I mean, you could steal the hell of people versus it's everywhere. It's like hard not to torrent people versus OJ. That makes no sense. I don't know why you're getting cable.

This doesn't make any sense. Okay. Let me just finish this one thought about people who are sojay. Just go back and watch it. Don't watch it because you care about OJ. It's a captivating show, great acting. He's amazing guys. Watch how the media interplays with the culture there

because there's no internet, there's no phones, there's no Twitter. Like everything is funneled through these like broad-based, super sensational media outlets. And there's no check against them from like social media. So like I think that we are all often very annoyed by Twitter outrage. right right it's a thing I'm often annoyed by like outrage culture in general like person said this and like four people are like

that's racist you know like whatever it is like there's like this cycle and like if you exist in the cycle like enough times it's like oh there's just so much noise but then you go and watch people for Sojay and you're like oh that cycle is tremendously valuable because it means that you can't just

the media has a constant check from real people saying you're crazy, you're out of line, you're not being human to other people. And that, like, this whole thing that we're talking about with Blue Origin and, like, space reporters, like, there was a time when that, that little club of reporters, there was no check against them. There was no other outlets. There's no citizen media.

There's no social media. There's, it was just them. They controlled all of the outlets, and they got to do or say whatever they want. And I don't know, man, you should definitely watch this show. Like, it's fun. It's just as a media history. That show is amazing. This is a total tangent from space.

O.J. Simpson, as far as I was like, never. He was in lethal weapon three. Or not lethal weapon. He was in naked gun three. Yeah, what the hell? He was in naked gun 33. Do you think the show appeals to people that didn't watch it, like, when it happened? Like, I remember, like, we canceled school.

Like, we would just go and, like, watch TV in the middle of the hallway. I remember where I was when the trial got, nobody went to class. Nobody was just like. Absolutely. That's absolutely insane. It was in high school. You were probably in high school, too, right? We canceled school for all kinds of crap.

Like, when the twins won the World Series. What year was this? We would just like, we'd like cancel schools and we'd watch the 4. Yeah, I don't want to be. Yeah. I don't remember.

Yeah, no. Well, Dieter was 25 years old. Yeah, I was. He was still in school for some reason. Yeah. It was a real slow student. Dieter's like the oldest senior at Minnesota High.

Minnesota High? The whole state is in one-based school. It's really big. Anyhow, do you want to, do you want to get into the Scott Kelly thing and the Blue Origin News? Get into that for. five seconds. So the Blue Origin News was that they basically set a timeline for when we can expect

to actually ride their rocket. So they're going to start test flights, human test flights next year with the goal of actually sending passengers into space in 2018. And I mean, it was cool info. They said that there's no, there's not going to be any pilots. So you're just going up with a bunch of other friends and it's automated. I mean, you don't need one. But it's, it still is interesting to think about that no one's going to be holding your hand the entire time. What's a rocket?

What can a pilot really do? Well, I mean, the Virgin Galactic space plane uses a pilot, but that's because it's a plane. So it's a bit different in design. But, yeah, rockets are pretty automated. I would definitely trust a robot over a pilot. Really? To take you to space.

Take me to space. 100% we'd rather have a robot that can't black out, get scared, throw up. Get hacked? Get hacked? Yeah. Oh, my God. But what is throwing up but being physically hacked?

Think about it. Jake's on my tip. No, I think Nilai might be right here. So here's the problem. Yeah, with that plan. Yeah. Tanya programed robot. No.

It's like you get halfway up. It's like, have you tried Verizon? Your entire time and space is full of Verizon ads when you come home. You have to be so much more expensive to get up there without them. It's like you're looking at the window and then it like comes up and is like, enjoy space for 30 more seconds after you watch this happen. Yeah, there's no like blue marble moment. There's no serenity. It's just like screaming at you about VZW Navigator.

For only $3.99 a month, we can get you home. I mean. And then it gets you home. And then you're blackmailed the rest of life. Rising Gives showing up. Yeah. Do you get like a prime membership if you go on one of these rocket chips? No, Prime for life.

Yeah, Prime for life. Prime for Life It's funny because Amazon Prime Also sounds like the name of a rocket ship Yeah Wait they're gonna use the They're gonna use Alexa on the rocket ship Amazon's AI

Oh my gosh She'd be like please take your seats We're about to plunge back to Earth This is the part where That is a part Just take one last look around Because I'm driving you home That is something that I am curious about

When it comes to these flights Is so you're presumably in seats That's when you go up And then you unbuckle to like float around but then like at what point I mean you got to get back in the chair with a quickness right yeah I mean wait why would you ever oh because you want to be waitless yeah I mean that's the whole point is it worth how wait how long would you be four minutes four minutes is that worth it I mean I would do it if I if I if I that we actually have this talk all the time

if I felt safe I mean my safety is more important to me than like spending four minutes in space, obviously. I don't know if you're sufficiently committed to this job. You didn't read that contract, did you? Like, if you have the option of space, would you do it? You must. That's so threatening. I'm going to start saying you're done more.

Anyway, keep going. Okay, cool. Yeah, so at some point, you've got to strap back down. And I'm just wondering, like, you know, what's that timeline like where you're like, oh, no, I can't get back to my seat, I'm floating around. Like, I'm just curious how that works. Or what kind of training they put you through. Do you know that you're on like a tether and it just like reels you in?

It's like, you're back. Sorry. See you. But that's another thing to think of it. Maybe they'll have like guides with you. You know, they might not have a pilot. How many people can fit in each capsule? I'm not sure.

Right. It's not a lot. Like what's your guide or eight or something? But you need like a guide to tourist ratio. Yeah. Like one guy, 20 people. He's like, all right, go. How many guides do you need?

I think you just need one guy. You just look. It's cool. Six. Six, two or a time. Six years, yeah. Well, and they're, I think, that's Earth. Right.

We're now passing. Like, you know what you're passing. Oh, God. What if they have, like, the Disney ride, like, the entire time? Oh, my God. You don't get to chill out in space. That's what it'll be like eventually. Like, people want that voice.

Right. And, like, every so often, it'll just, like, quietly be like, have you thought about backing up your first? photos with Verizon backup. It's just going to happen. We're all doomed. Can I ask one more space question? Yeah, of course. SpaceX rocket didn't land properly. It didn't.

What's up with that? They knew it wasn't going to land properly. So why did they launch it though? Well, they had to get the satellite to space. Oh, I see. Well, what the fuck? I mean, what's the point if you can't land? Can I ask a science

question not related to space before we do the lightning round? Wait, I want her to finish the SpaceX thing. Oh, okay, sorry. Yeah, so they launched this satellite called the SES-9 satellite. It was the largest satellite that they've ever launched. And when that happens, it takes a lot more velocity to get the satellite into space. And also it was a very high orbit, too. So that also involves a lot of velocity. That uses a lot of fuel, and that depletes the amount of fuel that you can use to land the rocket back down. So they were very positive that it wasn't going to work because of all those different factors.

But still, it would have been really cool if it did, which is why everybody was like... Why don't they just hold the right amount of fuel in reserve? Because it's just not possible. Like the amount of space. Yeah. Like some... I mean, you have... The primary reason is getting the thing into space.

So, you know, it just depends on, like, the type of mission. But they said that the next one is probably more likely. And they're going to try for a internship again, so... Are they going to... When are they going to relaunch one? Have they said? I would assume... They're going to land another one first.

Yeah. Because they're not going to use the first one. But I would assume they would try... I mean, like, I don't understand why they would not do it with the next one. So the next one that they landed, I would assume that they would try to launch it. Because they need to, like... They want to show that this is a cost-effective method. You need to, like, show it in action.

And they talked a big game about, you know, launching a lot this year and, you know, that this is going to save them, like, 30% on their launch cost. So we need to, like... see that happen in order for their comments to be validated. Oh, you said there was Mars News. Oh, yeah, Mars News. Well, we are, well, we're not launching, but the European Space. We have a rocket.

I didn't want to tell you this, but now you know. It's called Amazon Prime. That's like so obviously the name for a rocket. You go to Amazon and it's like, do you want to ship your home address or an alternate address? You just type in Mars. It's like, away it goes. So the European Space Agency and Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space Agency, have teamed up to launch spacecraft to Mars to look for alien life. And the first of those, that's two launches for the XOMAR's mission.

And the first one is going up on Monday. And it's sending an orbiter to Mars that is going to sniff out traces of methane, which is usually an indicator of biological life. Because when things degrade, we fart out a bunch of methane. and so I mean we were just going to roll with it yeah I was with you you're the one who broke sorry and so and there's been a lot of debate about whether or not there's methane there like some instruments have like detected methane but not a lot of it and people are all really curious about that so hopefully these these instruments will be sensitive enough to like put that debate to rest how much methane do you need for the orbiter to detect it like

orbiter is way up there and methane is down here um they said it's very sensitive to small amounts but I don't know like the size of a bucket the size of a football field that is a good question A bucket of methane A bucket of methane

That's like that's Oh god Never mind When does this thing get to Mars It's my favorite In October Wait so It's a bucket of methane

That's what I was thinking of that Within the year I don't know why the bare naked ladies Ladies Does that sound like a bare naked ladies album bucket of methane? Yeah I don't know Go ahead Jake

Within the year Or like You know some near amount of time, we may have a good idea of if there are, like, living organisms. I would qualify that because it's very hard to say for sure without, like, studying the samples here on Earth. So, and so, okay, these two things get to Mars in October, but then the orbiter doesn't start science operations until, like, December of 2017.

Slacker. It's got to do some stuff to get in the right orbit. and they're sending a lander, which is just kind of like a demonstration of how to land on Mars, and then they're going to use that technology to land a rover in 2018. So there's a lot of steps to go through. And like even if the orbiter found methane, it's not an indicator that there is life.

It's just like, oh, that's enticing, let's study further. And then if the rover found signs of life, even then I doubt people. People would be like, there's life on Mars because they'd be like, well, this could have messed up the instruments or something. Like people, it's going to be very hard for someone to definitively say we've found life. There's life on Mars. Yeah, because whenever we sense. No, no, I'm saying right now.

There is. Definitively. Roll flat, life on Mars. Duh. Come on, people. Just like, why are we still arguing? You know it's true. Yes.

Also, Matt Damon. He is life on Mars. Oh, sorry. What did you think of that movie? I liked it. I liked the book. I mean, it was basically the book. Right.

Movie studios might let people rent films that are on day and date with theater for $50. You got to buy their $150 box. Are you in? Absolutely not. No? No. You wouldn't rent a movie the day it came out in the theater for $50 at your house. Actually, $50 is like about the price you pay for two people in Manhattan.

So maybe. Theater. $150 a box? And it's $150? Whatever. It's a secure anti- piracy box. Oh, come on. It's what they say. You've always wanted to secure anti-piracy box in your living room. I would do it for $40, but I don't want it to secure anti-piracy box.

You're haggling? It's $10. I'm haggling. All right. I would do it. Lauren. No, I want to eat. Well, I have bills to pay. Oh, my gosh. Groceries to buy. We pay whatever. Lauren. Lauren works for free. Let's be free. She's doing it for the exposure. Sonus, future products will be more like Amazon Alexa than Echo. Eh. Deeter? I mean, they got to do that or die, and who knows if they can.

Yeah, it feels really obvious to me. Lauren, have you gotten an Echo yet? Have you, like, seen the obsession that we have with the Echo Arm? No, but I want one. I do want one. I want to be able to come in and just say, lights off. Yeah, that's a thing. But that's the only reason I want it, and I don't know if that's enough.

For the people in the car, what you didn't see was when Lauren said lights off, she spread her arms majestically. She was like, lights off. That's how I'm going to do it. Lights off. Also, why are you walking in and saying lights off? Because then the disco ball drops. And then the dance party commences.

Wired published at least two articles calling Donald Trump, someone with tiny hands, because an editor on the Wired staff had a rogue chrome extension that took them hours to find. Hours? That's insane. Well, they put, I mean, what's more insane is they published the articles. Like, you know. They published the articles. Did they say who it was?

They did not say it was. We got friends wired. Tanya. Tanya's leaker. You know how sometimes somebody makes a mistake, but it's not really a mistake? Yeah. So we've made this mistake. We published, our mistake actually, you would have never noticed.

We published an interview with Chuck Polaniak about Fight Club. And his first quote was like, the millennials have never had a rock opera. and that's like the literally first line, first quote, and we had the snake people extension installed. And so the first quote is like, the snake people have never had a rock opera. And it's like, you would never know. You would never know that we screwed that up.

Like we could have just left it and it would have been fine. I'm just going to reveal this because it happened. Another website at Box Media had an editor had the cloud to butt extension. So every mention of the word cloud became the word butt. It's a great extension, by the way. And they published an entire story where it was like the cigarettes making butts in the air.

So like all like I just think it's hilarious. Like whatever. Like we're not going to criticize why or too much. Like we've all made this mistake, but super hilarious. Amazon making a VR platform. Who isn't? Apple. Although I've heard.

I've heard. I've heard that they're. They're poking around. But Dropbox. Can you share. Can you shop in this? I think all we know is they're hiring, right? You just like paw at the air.

Yeah. You want it. Turn the lights off. Have we talked about Jake's Wi-Fi water bottle? Oh, this is very, oh, my God. This is the only the biggest story of the week. We should have done nothing but talk about water. I'm sorry, Jake.

You promised me a video about this thing. I know, I've been trying to schedule it. It's in the works. Get it in. All right. It's going to happen. Let me just lay the backstory here. And I will say I wasn't in the office when this happened.

I watched it all unfold on Twitter. Oh, man. Which is amazing. Jake bought a thing that when it runs out of filters, when the filter gets old, it orders a new one automatically from Amazon over Wi-Fi. Yeah. Literally, you can go look at the tweets. It is the complete emotional arc of a broken man. He's like, this news came out.

I'm buying this thing. It's going to make my life better. I'm super into it. He got it. He showed up. It was in the office. A hundred people in our office tweeted about it. Jake was like, it's too big for my fridge.

Yep. I'm like so upset about how this is like, everyone thought this is going to be the dumbest thing. And I'm like, no, this is brilliant. I ordered it immediately the day it was announced. I was like, sweet. It'll be here in two days. I like, I cleaned it all nice. I prime the filter, got it going.

You primes the filter? Nobody primes the filter. Yeah, you have to primes the filter. Otherwise you end up drinking carbon or whatever. It says you have to prime the filter. I prime the filter and then I go to put it in my fridge and it doesn't fit. Oh. But the best part, the best part of this story is not that the thing doesn't fit.

It's that after 12 hours of having the filter in his possession, it ordered him another filter. Yeah. Why? It thought I was out of filters. All of the verge and all of racked, you know, sits next to us. We did nothing but yelling each other about the water pitcher for a half an hour. Like, we all, like, closed our laptops, stood up and, like, we're like, why did you buy a water pitcher?

It's okay that you bought a water pitcher. The water pitcher sucks. It won't fit in my fridge. Did you sell it? You were going to sell it. How many buyers do you have? I would have. Zero.

It's been sitting on my window. for a week now. I'm going to shoot a video with it and then I'll walk on the street and whoever's got like 10 bucks for me. I mean, it holds water. Like, ultimately,

wow. It is functional as a pitcher. Well, can you not rearrange the shelves in your fridge? Can you factory reset the dash? Is there like, is it always going to order you new filters? If you give this thing away,

you are going to end up having filters show up at your apartment for like, you. years. That is a good question. I hope that they've thought that. When it orders them, does it actually complete the purchase? Or does it just put it in your part? It straight up completes the purchase. Oh my God. The creepy thing is it sends you an email and it says

like Britta pitcher has ordered like a filter and it will be delivered. It's like this object made the purchase. Very strange. Man, okay. I can't wait for this video. Can you not rearrange the shelves in your fridge? Okay, so I can, but it would just be the most unreasonable way.

Like, I would have to basically remove an entire shelving unit in order to make this picture. Jake just took it as a sign from God. Literally nobody. That his purchase was not a good one. Yeah. You're like, you know what, I'm not doing this. I just feel like it's an unreasonable size. The important thing is the level of heartbreak that you can't have it.

Yeah. I was very excited about this. I never remember. You should buy something else that order shit for you, like a color printer. You need one of those. I've never needed a printer. When was the last time you printed something? Last question of lighting around.

When was last time you printed something? I mean, I probably printed like concert tickets, but I did it with our office printer. Good use of resources. Why do we have it? Because of the salespeople. They're always printing all kinds of crap. I don't know. I don't know if they're doing it.

do. Somehow they, this thing makes money. I'm sure my concert tickets through about is important to the company. The best place to have books read to you in your mind. Nice. Yeah, they did it again. Made out of ten bucks. There you go. I think. I printed something on Monday. Becky prints every morning. What? Why?

One, because she's a lawyer and two because she's always returning shit to like birch box and like... Oh, okay. But like literally every morning, I hear the printer going. It's crazy. I need to buy a laser printer. Wait, too. If I buy a printer first, then I can return this water picture. You need a return label.

Yeah. When was last time you printed something? I think I printed my tickets for my vacation on the work computer. In the work printer. That's what it's for. I mean, it is. I'm just saying. Anyway, look, thank you all for coming with us on this journey.

Well, we have you printed something? Like I said, well, does Becky count as me? No. We're married. We're like the same. No? I don't know unless I've printed something. was what was that sent a print something oh i have one of those like birchbox things too so the thing comes

and i send it back all the time what's it called bomb fell i have bomb fell i send back the bomb fell it's like it's like code now but he just like mutters the word bomb fell at me and i know that i'm supposed to go print or retain a label and like something anyway look this was the verge cast i'm sorry um just to everyone just a blank apology for the show these are all the same company they're all they're all rebrands of the same base there's like one guy in a warehouse in chicago and he's like, I don't know, everybody gets this shirt. Yeah. We should do an expose.

He's like, you know, the subscription clothes companies. We're way over time. It's time to end. Yeah, we're way over. Okay, look. Do you want to do all the engagements, Jake? You're in the hype desk. Name three social platforms I should follow us on.

Oh, yeah. Google Plus. You already messed up. All right, let's see. Microsoft's groove music. We have started putting it. Playlists on it. All right.

Follow us on Twitter. Twitter.com slash verge. Yeah. Not The Verge is a Canadian radio station. They play very boring music. Well, we have to drive them out of business so we can take their Twitter handle. Second of all, this is very important. Facebook.com slash verge.

We post. We have instant articles now. Let me tell you exceptionally fast. Yes. I like actually I'm really into it. I have a whole riff about this. But anyway, just go on. Finally, YouTube.com slash The Verge.

Yeah. That one's got a the in front of it. It is not Canadian or a radio station if you go to YouTube. It could be more Canadian. Ariel's going to get a show soon. Yes. It will be part Canadian soon. What about following the people here?

Following the people here? All right. Wait, hold on. Do I actually know everybody's Twitter handle? I think I do. Go ahead. Read them off. Oh, God.

Good luck. All right. Focus. Focus. I'm not. All right. We got Dieter Bone, who is at Backlond, Neelie Patel, who is at Reckless,

Lauren Grush, who is at Lauren Grush, and myself, who is at Jake underscore K. That was the Verchcast, everybody. I'm really happy YouTube here today. Jake, your negativity did not overcome the show. I'm so sorry. No, you did great. I didn't hype enough.

No, I think you were appropriately hyped. All right. Anyway, look, that was the Verchcast. I want everybody to have a good summer. Come back. Move life to the fullest. And don't hate on Tanya so much. Lightning is silent.