Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - Our Studio Pitches Cursed Tech Inventions!

Episode Date: May 28, 2025

This month we're trying something new! We had members of The Studio come in and try to pitch our craziest and most wild inventions to a panel of "Sharks" aka Marques, Andrew, and Ellis. It's a chaotic episode with even more chaotic inventions that we hope you'll find as entertaining as we did! Enjoy! Special thanks to graphics extraordinaire David Federspiel for the renders: https://davidfederspiel.com/ Music provided by Epidemic Sound Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Socials: Waveform: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli David: https://www.threads.net/@davidimel Adam: https://www.threads.net/@parmesanpapi17 Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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the show about what happens when media and tech collide. And this week I'm talking to Katie Drummond, who runs WIRED. She's found a way to breathe new life into that publication by covering news. We started covering DOGE, like several stories a day, every single day. And after like a week, I sort of looked around and was like, where is everyone else?

That's this week on Channels, wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. How's the low- light performance on the camera? Because with 50 megapixels, the photo sites are going to be really small. I think it was 500 megapixels. 500 megapixel main sensor. It's bending down to 50, though. Yeah.

Yeah. No notes. No notes. Yeah. OK. You know, Alex, I love what you're putting down, but I think without a Philadelphia 76ers integration, I just don't think I could co-sign this. That's okay. I was really just here for it.

That headline, the headline, Marques Brownlee single-handedly resurrects LG mobile is, that's going to hit now. That's what I'm thinking. Yo, what is up up people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. This is not your regularly scheduled programming. We'll be back to that on Friday. Today is Wednesday?

Or Tuesday? Or Tuesday? Could be a couple things. Could be any day. Don't check your watch. It is a Waveform Podcast though. And yeah, this is a bonus episode. So we're your hosts for this episode.

I'm Marquez. I'm Andrew. And I'm Ellis at the big table. Yeah. So. That's how you know this is gonna be a good episode. Oh yeah. No slight against David.

I hope he doesn't take those. Okay, we're ready. So do you guys watch Shark Tank at all? I do watch Shark Tank. Okay. Ellis doesn't, Andrew does, I do. Are you familiar with the concept? Vaguely. shark day. Okay, Alice doesn't, Andrew does, I do. Are you familiar with the concept?

Vaguely, it's Mark Cuban and the other guy and really passionate people come up and they say, I have this idea and I need your help and then they scheme and they go, how much of that can be mine? Yeah, yeah, it's almost like a symbolism for the American dream but also fast forward it and cut up and it's an entrepreneur with a business

or a product or some idea that they're pitching to this investor and how they can collaborate to make it happen. I believe one of my favorite products was a Shark Tank product. Scrub Daddy. Scrub Daddy. Oh, that's one of your favorite products?

Well, it was, now Scrub Daddy has been ruined by Unilever. Oh. Yeah, now it's like a, it's just the same as any other sponge. But back in the heyday of Scrubbin, it's king. No, that's perfect. That is a quintessential Shark Tank success story. It's something that got brought to the masses,

it was shown on TV, it got the investment, it got the collaboration, and the partnership was beautiful. Today on Waveform, we're gonna be playing our own little version of Shark Tank. Now we're not investing per se, so we're kind of doing a little twist on the formula if you want to explain it, but it is still kind of like Shark Tank for us.

Yeah, so last summer, Eric came up with this idea called Studio Pitches, and they were gonna have, it's four people that we'll be on today. Four of them made up a, I believe tech products, hopefully tech, most likely tech product to then pitch to a panel that was gonna be on the studio channel. And we had, at that time, David Fetterspiel,

our intern, create some, I haven't seen them yet, but it sounds like some really, really good mockups. This is not just a like idea and they pitch it to us. There are visual representations of these ideas. And this was a year ago, the video never got made and we were like, wow, he spent a lot of time on that and they were really good. We should revive this.

We needed a bonus episode for this month. So we are turning into a podcast. So the rules of today are going to be each person is going to come in. They're going to pitch us their product. Us three are going to be each person is going to come in, they're going to pitch us their product, us three are going to be the shark investors, but since we don't have money and we're just going to then after pitch to them why we would be the correct partner for them. So we will have to think of ideas on maybe how to market it, maybe where it could prevail. We have to prove to them

that we can make their item a success. Yeah, so it's like upside down shark tank. The investor, or sorry, the entrepreneur, which is our guests, will come in with a product that they've made up, and then we have to figure out how to convince them that we're the right partner. Correct. Cool.

Okay. I think I get it. Yeah. You know, I don't know a lot about investing, but if there's one thing I've learned from reading VC tweets on Twitter, it's that the key to being a good tech venture capitalist is feeling like you are the most important person in the world, and what you do, investing,

is the most Herculean and impossible task. So I think we should all just self aggrandize a little bit and get ready to change some lives. Ellis is literally eating birthday cake at 11 a.m. this morning, which feels like the most like lord and peasant thing we could be doing. So he's in character. It's yellow cake. I kind of want some.

I want to have some later. It looks really good. Is it good? You know, it's been sitting on a counter for a full day. So. Oh, OK. I mean, it's that's not that bad. No, I mean, it's birthday cake.

All right. So we have four contestants coming in. Yeah, let's jump right in. No, I mean, it's a birthday cake. All right. All right, so we have four contestants coming in. Yeah, let's jump right in. Let's do it. Nope. Are you hearing all that creepy? ["Dragon's Den"] Welcome to the lion's den, Eric.

That's a new show. It's always funny because Eric can't hear the really intense music. You never heard of Shark Tank, but you knew the lion's den? A dragon's den. Oh, I was trying to make a joke. I was hoping somebody would be like, no, it's not the lion's den, it's the shark tank. Tank, but you knew the lion's den a drag. I was trying to make a joke I was hoping so to be like no, it's not the lion's den. It's a shark tank. Oh, well, they're all the lions There's a Canadian version called a shark tank called lions then

Welcome to the eel pit That's really good. Hello gentlemen. How are we? Oh, we're good. Are we feeling middle-class today by any chance never feeling? He's eating birthday cake feeling he's eating birthday cake He's eating birthday cake out of a cash app mug. You know isn't if this isn't wealth. I don't know what is I do Ellis I do know what wealth is you know what's cooler than one piece of birthday cake show me a billion pieces of birthday cake I'm listening all right. Let's go. It's tech bro time All right, so I'd like to give a little behind the scenes. I'm listening. All right, let's go. It's tech bro time. All right, so I'd like to give a little behind the scenes. I'm Eric, I'm the, you know,

I'm the one of the producers on the studio channel. This was originally a concept for the studio channel that we were gonna do this time last year. We were pre-proing it. And so before we dig in, we need to all take ourselves back to a simpler time. 2024. Just for our audio listeners, the first slide of

your presentation says, Eric saves Google. The next slide says, welcome to 2024. I need to just set the stage. We're all just going to remember what it was like to be alive in 2024. Brat was topping the charts. Brain X, our video on the Brain X, was universally loved with no critiques whatsoever. No hate. As was our coverage of the Tesla Cybertruck, Apple Vision Pro, Humane AI Pin, and Rabbit R1, and cultural phenomenas like the film challengers and the two guys doing the boom stuff, equally valuable.

They dominated culture. Okay, all true, all thanks. The zeitgeist of the world is on this one slide if you're an audio listener you're not witnessing the beauty of the zeitgeist there was something happening though well well the rest of the world was in party mode Google was in panic mode Google a Google's AI efforts were we're pretty bad last year I think wasn't great last year's Google Google IO was like boring Yeah, I was really Awkward it was cringe. It was really cringe. It was cringe gentlemen

It was it was pretty weird and while all of this was happening There was great progress happening open AI and Apple announced a partnership to integrate chat GPT into Apple experiences That was gonna come that's that's coming in early 2020 25 because it was gonna come, that's coming in early 2025 because it's currently 2024. That's coming in early 2025. By January, Apple will clearly have an excellent AI suite. So there's this existential risk to Google because Google pays billions of dollars to Apple

to make sure that they're the default search engine on Apple phones. If Siri's integrated with OpenAI and the future of search is going to look more and more like an LLM That is an existential risk. How is Google going to access some of the most valuable consumers in the world? Google needs this to work They need AI their efforts in AI to work because if they don't there's potential Existential risk here billions of dollars and if we lose Google who's to say that we don't

lose the White House next? It's a fair point. Oh my God. So we need to reach the wealthy. We need to reach rich people. And if there's one thing I know about rich people, it's that they love Google products and they love AI hardware.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. So gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you. Oh my God. What is this? To the Gemini Home 3D. Oh no.

I think the best place here right now is just for you guys to maybe, is describe this to our audio listeners. Yeah, so I'm seeing like an upside down jug and it has the two of the eye emojis and the lip emoji in between them all in one straight line. It's, it's like the, um, do you know the, the fans you get that have LEDs on them? So when they spin, they can spell things out.

There's a center column. I think that's actually what's powering the display. Am I correct? Yes. Yeah. Okay. What is this? Oh, it's a volumetric display!

It is in fact a volumetric, Jesus. So what Google can do here is they can integrate Gemini into the Google Home experience, completely revamp it, but add something that's visual, almost like taking elements of the Pixel tablet experience, but making it way less practical and not portable at all. So the way that this tech works is you have a fan in the center with different LEDs in it,

and because it's spinning so quickly, it can create the illusion of depth and actually create a 3D image. When you pair that with Google's excellent potential for AI video generation and image generation because they can train data off of videos like this without our consent, then you can actually have this really immersive,

excellent experience that Google could uniquely compete on. So this strengthens the ecosystem for, especially Americans who predominantly experience the AI hardware experience through the lens of Apple right now, it helps boost internal morale at Google because who wouldn't wanna make something like this? Like everyone would be like, we're so cool. You know, this is probably the most important thing

that Google's ever launched since Google Hangouts. And then it's just objectively amazing. So yeah, what are our questions on the future of AI hardware? This is good. This is really nice. I wonder, so it's gonna run Gemini, I assume, and move on from Google Assistant?

Yeah, I mean, until they name it something else. Well, yeah, there's BARD somewhere in there. Are there any plans to recover some of the functions of Google Assistant and move them into this Gemini box? There's definitely plans. Okay, great. I love hearing that. Yeah, there's so many, there's plans.

What is the pixel density of the... The Pixel 9 Pro is, the Pixel 9 Pro integrates perfectly. What? You could use the entire Pixel Suite. Why would someone choose this box with eyes over a box without eyes? Why would someone choose this box with eyes over a box without eyes? That's correct choose this box with eyes over a box without eyes?

That's correct. I think that's a great question. I think the key to understanding why people gravitate towards eyes is really to understand the humanity behind the technology. Which is? I mean, look at the thing. All right, follow-up question.

I see you have a distinct orange, two-tone orange and cream base with a sort of old school style speaker grill that sort of implies a design partnership with Teenage Engineering. Is this the case? Yeah, we had an intern design this, he's fired. David did not get fired.

Internship ended. All right, all right. I'm still not quite understanding the value proposition, Eric. I understand smart home, LLM integration, fine and dandy. Right. But volumetric display, this thing's gonna be expensive. I don't understand how you're an investor and I'm saying AI and you're not on board.

Throwing money at him. I can't help but feel like these gentlemen right here would be excellent partners who really wanna win this deal. And if you're skeptical, I completely understand, but maybe you should go chat with the folks at SoftBank or maybe Adam Newman with WeWork. I heard Elizabeth Holmes is raising a new. We here at Spruce Capital at B17Z,

we only invest in the worst, most useless products, okay? And this seems like a perfect candidate. I just need you to explain to me a little further why this thing is so bad. Yeah, I think that makes perfect sense. It's not bad. This has potential to fundamentally change the way that humans interact with technology.

I'm listening, say more. That I see. More buzzwords? Because they're interactive. Large language models, machine learning. What is, do we have a size of this? I need to be able to fit this into every single room inside of the average household. Yeah.

And are there other color options? Because. Yeah, so absolutely very flexible in terms of the color way. And the beauty of this is because it's a density of LEDs, the vast majority of the visuals are essentially entirely modular, right? You can fundamentally change this,

especially once you have generative AI, you can change this as much as you want. We can integrate cameras, scan your room, look at everything that's happening, and then perfectly make it blend almost like a chameleon in your home. So if you don't wanna see it, it spins around, it just looks like the wall, but then you know what?

You wanna photo your family and boom, it's right there. It can tell that your in-laws are coming in and you don't like them, it can have a little emergency button. It says beep, beep, beep, and you can run away. It can just see that. So a big pitch of Google's 2024 AI initiative was AI, LLMs and AI can take care of the one super annoying thing

no one wants to do. Taking care of your kids. Raise your children, exactly. So LLMs can do their homework, they can teach them valuable life lessons. So as someone who has literally no interest in raising my children, where does this thing step in? So children are inherently visual.

There's actually a lot of studies that find that. There's a lot of studies that. Right, because previously, if I wanted it to do, help my children with their homework, it would generate a podcast. Right, it would talk to them. 30 year olds like podcasts. Exactly.

Exactly, there are no children listening to this right now. Never once. Nope. I mean, maybe the child of a 30 to this right now. Never once. Nope. I mean, maybe the child of a 30 year old, but. In a car somewhere. In a car somewhere. Yeah. We're talking to you.

Turn on Cocoa Melon. Anyway, yeah. So visually, like this volumetric display will be able to come up with a sprite perhaps. Yeah, so children before the age of four can't distinguish the difference between fiction and reality. So you could actually use this to fundamentally alter

a child's perception of reality. I'm listening. All right, Eric. Can these be linked up to create stereo sound? Oh, that is a fantastic question. I'm going to say yes despite never thinking about this. It's, yeah, very Google answer there. No, I like that. I think I, so I think I'd be the perfect partner about this. It's, yeah, very Google answer there. No, I like that.

I think I'd be the perfect partner for this. And I'll tell you why. I've been primed up to throw away all of my morals and partner with a tech company on something in a category I've already reviewed. So fresh off the heels of murdering other standalone AI devices, it would be a great opportunity for me

to totally flip everything and shock everyone and partner up here and bring this to the masses. This is the way to get eyeballs in front of you. I like the thing you said about morals. That was good. Yeah, no, we don't want to be tossing those out. I like that, I like that, that's good. Gentlemen, what are your pitches?

Do you have birds? I got birds. I got birds. I do like the idea that playing anything over a screen this could be a house plant to blinding. Exactly. Who wants to take care of a plant? Exactly. Exactly. So it can fit in anything. I do. You know the fact that Elige thought of the teenage engineering almost makes me think he might be the better partner,

because teenage engineering immediately lets you put a 45% margin on top of this thing. What game are you trying to play here? You're trying to make me go with Alice, which makes me want you more. That's what I was going for. I don't know if I'm the correct partner for this, because I do plan on raising my children

and I think this could start. You know, I think it would be potentially harmful towards my other investments if I'm the investor that doesn't care about their children. So for that, I'm out. Wow. Okay, well, let me tell you why. I will be buying 10 of them.

Let me tell you why I'm the perfect partner. Because I'm the only one that sees that the true value in this product is that it has literally no value whatsoever. And that's why we need to do the most tech VC input thing ever, which is we need to pivot. We need to pivot hard, we need to pivot fast. Okay.

This thing is not a home assistant anymore. That jar, you put a drop of your blood in there and it'll tell you all the diseases you have. We're gonna run with that for like a year, pivot again, digital currency. Jar coin, jar with eyes coin. So if you wanna go on this wild ride, all you gotta do is sign up.

They've got two offers. We could stick with what we've got, right? We'd make waves in the press. For sure. The tweets would be crazy. They'd do crazy numbers. Yes, exactly. Picture the numbers.

Yeah. Crazy numbers. I mean, cause... Ah! All those numbers are only a one second view time on the video, but they are still numbers. They are still numbers. If we just make the first frame a really good frame,

it could be like. This thing is a content gold mine. Who knows more about content gold mines than me? It's true. I could turn this thing into an ad. Okay. It's true. He loves being in advertisements. As many households as possible, boom, flip the switch.

It sells ads. It's everything. Yes, exactly. This is a no brainer. Okay, all right, Marques. It brings money. I'm interested in going, it'd be really interesting if you did all of the ads. Like if there's a little AI Marques

and you pop up in people's homes and you're like, maybe you should, maybe you should buy underwear today. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would sell out. I would be the voice behind it. Everyone's got my voice and my eyes in their eyes. All of America just had giant Marquez eyes in between Marquez lips. We're gonna get this thing in front of millions of people.

Yeah, this is pretty good. I don't know. I definitely like the idea of going after healthcare and then pivoting to just becoming a currency and then insolvency. The blood testing thing, it worked so well for Elizabeth Holmes Not only did she never face any repercussions whatsoever, but she's doing it again. Yeah, you know

Yeah, I think the question is do I want to be a villain in America or do I want to be a villain and then flee? You're not thinking big enough. Do you want to be a villain in America or do you want to be a villain in prison? mmm Alright, I think I'm gonna be America's next big villain sharks I'm going with Marquez pleasure doing business with you pleasure I missed this one pleasure thank you very much oh wow that's a really good render I hate to say I probably would actually buy this if this was just like a Google home that I could like have stuff on top of it like the left one I

see like a rabbit yeah on top of like a dock or something it does just like a Google Home that I could like have stuff on top of it. Oh my God. The left one I see like a rabbit stacked on top of like a dock or something. It does look like a rabbit with a jug. But I'm sure it's bigger than the rabbit. We have another genius, innovative inventor coming soon. But first we need a quick word from our investors, AKA the people who sponsored this podcast. So we'll be right back after this quick break.

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So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break.

So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. So we'll be right back after this quick break. Support for the show comes from Shopify. Shopify wants to help you get that upstart business you've been thinking about, become the dream you've always envisioned. But we all know that journey isn't easy. When we started this podcast, we had our fair share of tough times. So funny story, when we actually started Waveform in 2019,

the first episode scheduling got messed up to the point where you were in California, you flew home from California, recorded the podcast on Thursday, flew back in California, you flew home from California, recorded the podcast on Thursday, flew back to California, I edited all night and we released it on Friday. Yeah, and that was our first launch. That was our first episode. And even with that shaky launch,

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and Shopify is your answer. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e-commerce in the US according to their data. Shopify is built in tools to help you with social media and email campaigns and boasts a 99.99% conversion rate from browsers to buyers, both online and in store. And the best part, you can tackle all the important tasks

in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics and more. Shopify even has global selling tools to support sales in more than 150 countries. So simply put, Shopify is a small choice that can make a monumental impact on your business. Turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side. Turn your big business idea into

with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash waveform. Go to Shopify.com slash waveform. That's Shopify.com slash waveform. All right, welcome back. Up next, Vin and his pitch. Hello, Vin and his pitch. Hello, Vin. He's got something under a cloak here.

Whoa, a physical prop. Or is it the cloak? Oh, I thought it was the. I think most people have a presentation, but I have for you today, a physical prop. Oh, okay. Not just the prototype, it's final production. Oh, final production. Okay. This is gold. Not just the prototype, it's final production. Oh. Final production. This is good. This is good.

It's gold. It's under a gold cloak, I would say, of sorts. Fabulous. Yes. Welcome to the... Wait, I can't hear you yet. Oh. Welcome to the eel pit. My voice only goes in there.

There you go. Welcome to the eel pit. Take it away. Tell us about your product or your company. Well, you know, we all have something important going on in our lives. Andrew, you have a kid. I do.

Marques, you're an athlete, you play ultimate frisbee. This is a fact. Adam, you collect a lot of cool watches. He's not an investor, forget about him. But I just wanted to include him, you gotta be nice. Okay. Thank you. Ellis, with the McVibes.

The Mc... With the weird camera brands. This is true. You're a weird camera brand guy. I'm a weird guy. And so, I think we need to capture the moments around us. Sometimes people do it with photos. Well how about video? Oh. Maybe you're shooting something crazy like weddings or F1 races or even

birds. So Marques I'm gonna have you do the grand reveal. Okay. Perfect. I will do that. I thought it was Astrobot at first. It could be. It still could be. Introducing the Ned Nonstro 8K. Nice, nice.

I don't think you've seen that logo before. Like it's a new company. No, this is brand new. You guys have heard of Nikon. This is Nikon. Nikon, yeah. Yeah, Australians like to say it that way. This is Ned.

It's a beautiful camera, I believe it is. This is a video camera, but the 8K is good enough that you can take stills from it. You mean NateK? Yes, perfect. NateK. You wanna be on the team? You trying to be an investor?

I think I was made for this project, bro. I think I got one. Oh my God, okay. So for audio listeners who can't see, we have a very carefully modified Red Monstro. No, no, no, no. Excuse me. We have a totally stock straight from factory,

Ned Nonstro, where you would normally find an R, it has been carefully replaced, excuse me, not replaced, created from scratch with an N in place. Is that white Sharpie? Is that crayon? Silver Sharpie. Silver Sharpie, mm.

Fine Russian, tasteful. It's a familiar body style, but I don't think anyone has made something Is that crayon? Silver Sharpie. Silver Sharpie, mm. Fine Russian. Tasteful. It's a familiar body style, but I don't think anyone has made something quite like this yet. Clearly not. Yeah. No, I like this a lot.

So I shoot a lot with, I forgot the name of this other camera that I use. Doesn't matter. But I- Like blue or something? Yeah, some color, whatever. But I'm very familiar with this world. And so I see a

lot of useful parallels here. What kind of mount is on this? It's actually a Z mount. It's based off of the research. It is the most used lens mount that we have found. I like research. It can come with a PBL mount if you're an amateur. Okay, right. Yeah, yeah. Now, I like that. Material choices. I mean, this thing is rock solid. It looks like there's carbon fiber everywhere. There's metal. Your favorite. Carbon is my favorite. I think that's a really important distinction here.

Yeah, ooh, media-wise, SSDs, is that what's happening over here? Yeah, they use magazines. Magazines. Magazines. Magazines. Nice. Yeah, I'm liking what I'm seeing.

So right off the bat, I gotta ask, with traditional box style cameras like this, like birds out of the question, never gonna happen. As soon as a bird sees that camera, it's running for the hills. No, it thinks it's a bird house. It thinks it's a bird, yeah, exactly. It's meant to blend in with the environment.

So, but I gotta ask, what's up with the autofocus on this bad boy? Because that is essential to shooting birds. It has Z-mount. The not-o-focus. Not-o-focus, not-o-focus, yeah. The not part.

That's what it has, it has the not. I think it has the not part pretty down, pretty good. Not-o-focus, yeah. I think that satisfies your question. Yeah, totally. I have a couple questions. In the competitor scene, a lot of things that plagues that scene are slow boot up times, bad, not faulty ports, but poor working ports, HDMI, you know, for external monitors, not

good. The range of accessories are very expensive. Is this doing anything to solve those issues? Actually, it's a feature because, you know, if you pick up a camera and it doesn't work, it's basically like an anti-theft system built into itself. That probably also could be an anti-theft system in the fact of it is the weapon to prevent the theft

of itself. Yes. Yeah, easily convertible. You'll get some really good looks at TSA. to prevent the theft of itself. Yes. Yeah, easily convertible. You'll get some really good looks at TSA. So pricing wise, what are we looking at? How does it fit in with its competitors? You know, pricing is based off of a subscription model,

actually, so we went with the Adobe approach. Genius. This is going to be such a profitable product. Yeah. I really think you've set yourself up for success, Vin. It's got the, there's branding everywhere. There really is branding everywhere. Every time I look at it, I find new branding opportunities

and I feel like they're fully capitalized on. You could check the bottom too. Let's check the bottom. Yeah. Oh yes. Ned Digital Cinema. Correct. So rings. Let's check the bottom. Yeah. Oh yes. Ned Digital Cinema. Correct. So rings just rolls right off the tongue. I like it.

I'd like to step in as my first pitch for why I should be your partner for this. I think every, I mean, everything's covered here. This is a tried and true model. All we really, I mean like the easiest way forward here, even though one of my partner, not partner, competitor investors is big in the YouTube scene and has made cameras like this popular,

we don't need him anymore. It's very obvious to get to the influencer market. We just need some good strategy for that. What we, the way I think we could really make some money here is there's one thing that is not on brand and that is the V-mount. We need to create N-mount. I think you're right.

I think a proprietary N-mount battery with half the size, twice the price. And it's pretty hard to not shoot for the moon at that point. I like that idea. So that is my pitch to you. I think it is a great idea. Maybe they'll have some good ideas. An end mount with like a 60 millimeter flange distance

that you can't use any lens, even if with an adapter. It's out of the question. Flange is a good word, yes, we like that. I meant for the battery, not for the lens. But we could also, we could flange anything you want. Yeah, the battery, the flange distance, the cards have a flange distance. Picture that, an SD card that's like 60 inches long.

Yes. All right, but let me tell you why I'm the man for the job here, okay? When people think Ellis Roven, they think nonsense. I'm known for my nonsense, but I'm not known for my other amazing qualities like lollygagging, faffing about, tomfoolery. Those are big words.

All of which I think are qualities in this camera. I think I embody everything this camera is about, which is being totally worthless and very silly. So it's a no brainer having me on this project because the innate qualities that make me me will be able to communicate to the consumer what this whole thing is about. In fact, I think I already am Nellis.

I think I ceased being Ellis years ago. I've been Nellis for quite some time. I would to take this on. See, that's where I stepped in. Because I think I would be the perfect partner here because the branding opportunity is so obvious When you turn around this camera and you see NED Everyone is gonna remember that especially the N and I think I've been associated with an acronym for so long

That it presents a beautiful rebranding opportunity NKBHD. Ah, you're Narquez. And from that moment on, I will be intertwined, associated permanently with this brand and this camera. And I can push it to the masses, I promise you that. And it's, you know, you haven't been permanently associated with a camera brand yet. Like this is the opportunity. Yeah.

I don't know if I can compete with that. Yeah, Canon could never. Yeah. I don't think so. Nanen doesn't roll off the tongue. Doesn't work. Doesn't work. But this is the rebrand that it deserves. Does it work in Final Cut? Proprietary software.

Crashy, hopefully? Only on Wednesdays. Nice. Yeah, man. I mean, I'm used to that. That's perfect. It's a timed crash. It's a time. Right. Taking, taking out the camera. Yeah, we all need rest. Everyone has a sleep schedule and I think cameras could also have a sleep schedule. I'm really into that.

People always say electric cars, they don't have enough range, but the human body can only go so far driving before it needs to pull over. And I think that's also true about editing. I should have a timed out crash every 12 to 45 seconds. And that's the type of thing that sort of eliminates fatigue, keeps you refreshed. You jump back in, final cut starts again.

Good work, life balance right there. It's good. It's good. Repetition is the fastest way to expertise. And if you have to redo the last 10 cuts before auto saved over and over and over again, you're going to be an expert at no time. You've really like hit the nail on the head, Vin. Like there is this problem in the camera landscape.

Burnt cinematography specifically, I think. Well, I think there's just a problem with the camera landscape in general, but they're all too good. Like, and consumers are asking, they're like, I want a bad camera that doesn't work. We need to dumb things down. Where is that bad camera that doesn't work? And here to dumb things down. Where is that bad camera that doesn't work?

And here you are, about to bring it to market. No notes. So you've got three offers on the table, Vin. Which direction would you like to go? Can I phone in a friend? Why not? Adam, chat, what do we do? Can I take like a little bit of all three?

Is that legal? Is that a legal move? That's happened on Shark Tank. We're all partnering together. You are allowed to pick more than one partner. What? Yeah. Like some polygamist type.

You can combine them all. If you think we'd work together well, that would be up to you. America the beautiful. You know what? I'm taking all three. Perfect. Three offers accepted.

Yeah. Boom. This is the first on Shark Tank. We all agree, Ned 2 is just a smaller box that uses AI to create all of the video. Yeah, absolutely, for sure. Okay, cool. AI integration is a very good, yeah.

I think we're- Great. Good marketing. We are positioned for the future, gentlemen. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, partner. integration is a very good yeah I think we're great good market yeah we are we are positioned for the future gentlemen it's been a pleasure thank you partner thank you for this I'll see you far away but it does deal doesn't count unless you shake hands oh yeah you know you obviously haven't watched you have to yeah this is a big part of securing the bag. The anime sword sound right here. And that makes it official. Three for three.

Incredible. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We will move on for our next contestant. Please never take that tape off. All right. Next up, Alex. Oh. This is intense music. I've never seen shark tank.

So this is what I just, I like listened to a few seconds of the music and was like, this is kind of it. It's not as intense. This feels more dragons than even though I've never seen dragons then, but just calling dragons then for sure. Alex, welcome to the tank. The old pit thank you we appreciate it's electric in here i'm in i'm all in 100 of business please all right walk us through it

what have you what are you presenting to us today all right so let me pull up a little presentation here perfect in a world where companies keep trying to make our phones minimal. Are you saying this because I literally have the minimal phone? No, this has been in the works for well before you decide to make a video about it. The timing on this is hilarious.

But we've seen the Lite phone. Lite, who wants that? The Buk's Palma. Hey, that's goaded. You're gonna hate this. Oh no. I don't need your money pal. Yeah The palm phone Yeah less good, right? And whatever that is the the punks i've never even heard of that. I hadn't either. I had to find a fourth phone though

Companies have been trying to make our lives more minimal. And that's when, well, you know what? Let me show you guys a little something first. I think we need to go the other direction. We need to start maximizing our content consumption. And many places have tried and failed. We had the red Hydrogen One. Could have been the best consumption device ever.

It had 3D or something. I have fond memories of that. Yeah, great, great device. We had the Surface Duo. Another question. Two whole screens. But didn't quite nail it. Not quite.

We've got the Huawei, what is this, the Mate XT? That is, the triple. Triple folding phone. We're getting the Huawei, what is this, the Mate XT? That is, the triple-fold. Triple-folding phone. We're getting closer, we're getting warmer. Okay, but we're not quite there. I see a trend here. And then of course, the most beautiful baby. Oh wow.

The LG Wing. Yeah. For maximizing consumption, but still not quite there. But that, it is funny that I should bring that up because a long lost hero is ready to emerge from the depths from their premature death and that is. There's a fire, there's a fire. Ouch.

You are back and better than ever. I am a top secret operative sent here by LG to pitch you on the latest in phone technology because LG is ready to make their return after far too long on the sidelines. Five years by my count. This is AI. Oh yeah. This is 2024 AI. This has been sitting around for a year.

This is good. All right. So funny. So without further ado, I would like to introduce after three Very long she's here. It's after the introducing the LG maximalist phone whoa It's time to it's time to stop minimizing start max It has a dynamic island on the back

Or it has cameras on the front of it. Yeah, sure. It might have both. Let's wait and see. Ready? Let's talk about it. Tell me about this maximalist phone. So what are phones? Well, we got to we got to get existential first.

What are phones in 2025? An iPod, a phone, an Internet communicator? No, they're not. Not anymore. Then what are they? Phones are literally everything. Oh. That's true. They're our way of communicating with the world. Yes.

They're how we do our jobs. Often true. They're our camera to take and preserve beautiful memories. Actual. They're the place where we go to leave mean comments on YouTube videos, often while pooping. Several times today. There are brains.

There are creativity. Oh my God. Check GPT app. They're our best friends. This is a joke, but like, we get emails that are like, not that far off. Not sure of phone companies. Maybe it was for me, you don't know.

I might be consulting. They're also our lovers sometimes. Anyway, but as a society, we're too far gone to remove ourselves from our phones. Without our phones, we would literally die. So what we need to do is get more involved in our phones. We don't need less, we need the LG maximalist phone. So I'm gonna tell you all about it.

Yeah, please tell me what makes this so maximal. So we're building here at LG on a history of adequacy and engineering. I just want our audio listeners to know the pauses in this is cause every piece of text blurs into the presentation. And Alex did this a year ago. Let me remind you of such great and adequate phones

is the LG Double Play from 2011. That's a real phone. That's incredible. Wait, this is a phone with a split keyboard, a slide up and an extra app screen in the middle of the split keyboard. Before Android, I think. No, that's Android.

Oh, that is Android. That one is Android, yeah. It's like Android 3 or 4. But what about also the LG G8X ThinQ from 2019? What a beautiful feat of engineering that was. And then of course, in Marques's hands right now, the LG Wing from 2020. We need to do a revisit LG video, sorry.

We did already do that. Check out the studio channel, Dead Smartphone Tier List video. Thank you. All right, next. Oh, which is where MKBHD gave that phone a C tier big, big time for the aftermarket sales of LG wings. So what is a maximalist phone? So it's everything you've ever dreamed of doing on your phone in one place. Gambling. Yes, of course. It's the only device you'll ever need. It's your

all in one entertainment solution. It is the only device you'll ever need. It's your all-in-one entertainment solution. It is the most productive device ever. Your all-knowing AI friend, and the Maximalist phone guarantees that you will never have more fun spending entire days glued to your phone screen, as we all should do. Thank you, production. So this is the LG Maximalist phone.

Ooh, rounded corners. It's got a 6.9 inch display, very nice. It's got the Snapdragon 10 Elite. We jumped two whole dragons for this phone, just for you guys. Two terabytes of RAM, 10 terabytes of onboard storage, a 500 megapixel main cam, 40 megapixel telephoto, 100 megapixel periscope telephoto, take that Samsung,

and a 25 megapixel selfie cam, all powered by a 3,250 milliamp hour, enormous battery. But that's just a rectangle. It's just a rectangular phone for those listening, not watching, just looks like a phone. It's pretty boring. There's gotta be more to this, right? That's where you fold this baby out and in partnership with tick-tock You can now have tick-tock running on your left hand screen and keep being productive on your right hand screen

Because if you've ever worried that you can't content max while you're over sharing your entire life to your 347 tick-tock followers, you don't have to worry about that anymore. You can live stream. I'm very attacked right now. That's what I'm saying. Okay, I have a quick question. Yes. Assuming I literally could not care about being productive whatsoever.

Sure. Could I just have two TikTok separate feeds on each screen and like sort of scroll them separately with my two thumbs? You could have two TikToks. You know, I'm not legally allowed to say this thanks to our contract, but you could even have YouTube shorts on one and tick tock on the other, right? Or perhaps Instagram, but maybe we'll get to that in a little bit. Interesting, interesting, interesting.

But what about your many successful businesses? If you do want to be productive, there needs to be more room for productivity because you might want to, you're stopping at two screens. You have no faith in this presentation. You don't, because that's where our next feature comes in. In partnership with Microsoft 365, we've added our third screen, which gives you everything you need,

word processing, calendars, emails, presentation software. You can have a very mid adequate version of all of them in one with the Microsoft 365 suite, our exclusive partner for productivity on the LG Max post phone. So you could be tick tocking, you can be texting and you can be emailing teams. And you can be, let me tell you, we're excited to announce Alice. Oh no, that

these transistors. Where's the transistors? Where's the transistors? What? Microsoft Teams is the official messaging partner of the LG Maximalist phone. You're really pushing the adequateness of this phone. This is gonna be the most adequate giant phone

you've ever had in your life. Yeah. Let me tell you. So Microsoft Teams, we want you to be part of our team. And that's why we've made Teams the official messaging partner of the LG Maximus phone. But it's not quite enough yet. Because we have an homage to our sweet baby, the LG Wing.

You fold out that fourth screen on the bottom, for those of you listening and not watching, we now have three screens, one, two, three, with a fourth one that folds out from the bottom in the center. Does it fall out or swing out? Something like that. We're figuring it out. That's a great question. I'm glad you asked it anyway. So he fold out the fourth screen and suddenly you're an LG wing mode. You, if you just like you've ever looked at your phone and you're like, man, I wish I could be watching

a full screen video up top here while I'm texting and being productive on the bottom, well, here you go. You don't have to worry about that anymore with LG wing mode on the LG maximalist phone. But typing on a screen, it's very passe. It's very 2010s of us to be typing on a screen. So that's why we have a best in class exclusive collaboration with Blackberry with a nice little slide out keyboard

from that bottom screen. Now you can tap out messages to your heart's content on those sweet little chicklets, get all those emails, important texts, everything out, mean YouTube comments. Whatever. The center of gravity on this thing is wild by the time. It's amazing. Yeah, for audio listeners, just to keep you up to date,

we have a row of three screens on top and then one center screen on a bottom row that sort of forms a Thor's hammer type shape. And then below that bottom screen is a Blackberry style keyboard. Exactly. So if at that point you're typing on the BlackBerry keyboard,

you have two thumbs and all of your weight on the bottom, maybe 5% of this phone. Does it come with like a neck strap that you can like attach to like the top? Have faith, it's actually weighted quite well once you see what else we have in store here. It's remarkably balanced. It's remarkably balanced.

Let's move on, because you're still not maximizing your consumption Just yet and that is where our Collaboration with Instagram comes in two more foldable screens on the bottom giving you a whopping six total screens of real estate So that you can view Instagram the way that it's meant to be viewed in Instagram mode It's the latest and greatest way to rot your brain with endless hours of doom scrolling. You get it just the way Zuck intended, nice square form factor, minimal oversight, maximum ability to get yourself addicted to

and or buy things, and it's on the biggest screen you possibly can for Instagram right now. Sounds like a money maker. It is, absolutely, that's very important, very important. This is Shark Tank after, or the eel farm, or whatever. Eel pit. Eel pit. Eel pit.

Just go with that. All right. But that's still not all, because what about more important things like gaming and movies? Well, the LG Maximalist phone has everything you could ever want in a phone. That's right.

What? We've got- We're at 10 screens now? We have 10 full-map screens. Is full that Bitcoin ticker on the top. That is the official crypto dot com stonk tracker up top. So whenever you're doing anything, you can always know that you can check your stonks. That is Stadia controller. Hold on just a moment.

I did forget to put a piece of text on the side here and the producer forgot to bring in my updated presentation. I sent him. But this totals out to now a 20 inch screen to watch critically claimed movies like The Wild Robot. Great for all audiences. Anyone who says otherwise, you deserve to get hated on the Internet. Next, not even here to defend themselves. The Fuji film X 100 L.I.V. He's not even here to defend himself. The Fujifilm X100LIV pop-up selfie camera.

I don't know what those, I don't know what those letters mean. They didn't tell me what number that is, so we're just gonna call it the LIV. Actually no, they're gonna randomly change how this is read now. It's now the X100LIV pop-up selfie camera. We made this specially with them to make sure that you have the best pop-up selfie camera. We made this specially with them

to make sure that you have the best pop-up selfie camera, just in case the stock 25 megapixel sensor is not quite enough. And then of course, if you want a content max, you need brain audio, ear murdering surround sound, which pops out from four parts of the screen on both sides, ear murdering surround sound to take care of all you there. Then we got the Stadia controller redesigned.

The last one is a little too modern looking. We've used the Xbox, the Duke controller as our inspiration for this, perhaps the most. Is it, that just looks like the Discord logo in 3D. It kinda does, maybe it's a Discord controller. Yeah, I think it's a Discord, I think that's just the Discord logo if they made it's a Discord controller. I think it's a Discord. I think it's just a Discord logo if they made it into an actual controller.

Sure, call it that. Actually, we're selling the rights to Discord as we speak. Thank you for bringing that up. Stadia, you're gone. Discord, you're in. And finally, you might be wondering what those things are at the bottom. Any guesses?

Any guesses? Well, it looks like a Opal webcam. Kind of looks like those scent, that scent box that we had here. A little bit of the smell of it. Alice, you're thinking correctly. This comes with 40X immersive viewing built into your phone. You never thought you'd be able to smell the wild robot,

but that oil smell is gonna be coming right in your nose as you're watching, it's gonna feel great. So this is it, we're good. And the best part is it's infinitely pocketable, weighing in at just four inches thick. Four inches? This phone. Like a block of cheese.

This phone is the most pocketable phone you could ever hope to experience in your entire life. Without further ado, this is the LG Maximalist phone. This is incredible. I just want to make sure you partnered with Brain, Fujifilm, Crypto.com, Google Stadia. Maybe Discord, we haven't decided yet. Maybe Discord.

Maybe both. Teams, Instagram, TikTok. What was the camera one? Fujifilm. I think that was it. But we have set eight brand partnerships going on. Yeah. Is there even room for us at this point?

Yeah. Yeah. So this was my concern, actually. I was hoping I would get a camera partnership and a speaker partnership, and we did get that. But each one of those deals actually takes a little bit off of your bottom line. So I'm curious how your margins are gonna work out,

giving a few percent to each of these partners. Whoops. That's a great question, and I'm glad you asked it. Yeah. Incredible. Moving on. All right. So does anyone else have any questions? Does it have NFC? Yes, of course. Of course. All right. Well, look, see, I feel like I'm an interesting candidate because as you know, some people might know, I'm sort of a minimalist phone guy. In fact, again, once again, I have really, I'm literally being tortured by the minimal phone right now as we speak. So as someone who is afraid of brain rot

and maybe needs a little bit of convincing that I should be rotting my brain more, what would you say to a consumer like that? How would you convince them to melt their brain with Zuck's poison? Think about all the happiest moments in your life. They're all probably on Instagram, obviously, right? Fair, good point.

Yeah, in fact, I don't think I've ever been happy when not on Instagram. I mean, when are you happy when you're not consuming content? It's true, it's so true. Why would you go hike in the woods when you could see it in brilliant HDR right in front of your face?

You know, it's funny, when I'm at the movie theater, sometimes I watch the whole movie through my phone's camera just so I can put it in a vertical aspect ratio. Yeah. And then you can like pause it at various times, get minute and a half consumable bits of the movie. I think that's really the better way to go. Well, look, I'm a huge fan of LG.

I use an LG TV at home that I love. I use a lot of LG products. And so this just feels like the next big thing. So I'm in. I don't know if I have much to offer as a venture capitalist. I mean, it seems like, frankly, the biggest tech companies in the world

are already funding this project. But if you want a goober like me on board, I mean, I'm right here. Look, really, we just love money. That's fair. I love that. So more of it is better. Yeah, of course. Here's where you should choose me. Okay. To my left, we have someone who notably has not

been the nicest to folding phones in the past. You know, some say the Surface Duo. Some people on Reddit might say the Surface Duo is dead because of this man to my left. And we can't take that risk. He doesn't wanna mess up his good name. There's lots of other reviewers out there who will be out to get us because this is LG, a brand that I love, but I know all of the tech reviewers except for one or two are out to get LG because they have a personal vendetta against them.

No other reason why they could have failed. And they failed because of those reviews with their vendetta against them. No other reason why they could have failed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they failed because of those reviewers with their vendetta. Correct. We often say that in the office. I'm glad that you brought it up. We talk about it often. Yeah, it's a known fact.

I like that we're bringing it back. I have a content strategy for how we bring it to these reviewers. Okay. 37 embargoes. Okay. Each one of these screens needs their own embargo. Because we need to produce the,

we need to show the incredible form factor before we show that there could be a couple, we'll call them hiccups in the software process of this. Lots of different, you know, we've got a lot of integrations here. Those don't always mesh right away. And we probably won't solve those till about four or five software updates

after the consumers already have this in their hand, but they don't need to know that and the reviewers don't need to know that. But we can promise them that we will. Exactly, so we need embargo one is pre-order day. Okay. Straight off the bat, no screens turned on, one screen unfolding, external shots only, perfect.

And then we'll slowly unfold each screen one by one through the embargoes. It'll probably be seven to eight months worth of embargoes before they can do their full review well after the 30 day refund policy. This guy's good. Go ahead, go ahead. And that's how we sell this bad boy.

And we bring back LG with a vengeance because it is a vengeance to all the tech reviewers out there who killed them in the first place. I agree. This whole thing is about revenge. And I'm glad you saw that and recognized. Yeah. Andrew, would you be willing to go in with me on that deal?

I think, you know, it would be a good, like comeback story of Marquez being on LG's good side. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking the big headline is that I've changed my tune and I'm a big LG fan. Now question, would you be open to signing a deal where that's put in writing and we can sue you

for many millions of dollars if you don't say that? And we don't disclose that. And we don't disclose that to anybody. Nobody can know. I would say yes if I also get to add partners as well. Okay, yeah, add as many as you want. We love partnerships. Yeah, I like that.

Give me a pitch right now. Who do you know? Well, you got all the connections. I was thinking you could have an AI partner with the OPI or something like that. I was thinking you could have a couple other partners in the software department, obviously the cameras. You can almost stack partnerships,

maybe one partnership for the ultra wide camera, one partnership for the telephoto camera. We had a 3,200 milliamp hour battery in there. I think you can get two or three partnerships just on the battery. Fast charging, bi-oppo. I think there's a lot of in there. I think you can get two or three partnerships just on the battery. Fast charging by Oppo. I think there's a lot of room there. So I'm liking this.

I like where you're thinking. I did have one partnership. So I noticed that the official crypto broker of this phone is Crypto.com, who also happens to be the Jersey sponsor of the best basketball team in the Mid-Atlantic Conference. That's a terrible question. I'm sorry you asked it.

So when are we getting the official Joel Embiid Philadelphia 76ers collab partnership declaring Unfortunately that's the B tier crypto.com partnership and the A tier one is the crypto.com arena in Los Angeles. We will actually be wrapping the entire crypto.com arena in LG Maximalist phones though as a promotion. I do have one other idea for you know further along in this partnership between us, maybe Marques. We need to look at the budget market and I think there's opportunity for the LG Maximalist A. Okay. Further down the line, maybe five screens, plastic everything. We'll take away wireless charging.

I actually didn't see it. They got like a 47 megapixel camera instead of a 50. I think there's the opportunity. The number one rule of the LG Maximalist phone is if you are wondering if it has the feature, it does. Does it have a DAC? Yeah. Headphone jack?

Sure. Stereo speakers? Well, you saw, I mean, yeah, absolutely. It is stereo speakers. It does. Does it have a DAC? Yeah. Headphone jack? Sure. Stereo speakers? Well, you saw, I mean, yeah, absolutely. It is stereo speakers. How's the low light performance on the camera? Because with 50 megapixels, the photo sites are gonna be really small.

I think it was 500 megapixels. 500 megapixel main sensor. It's bending down to 50, though. Yeah. Yeah. No notes. No notes. Yeah.

Okay. You know, Alex, I love what you're putting down, but I think without a Philadelphia 76ers integration, I just don't think I could co-sign this. That's okay. I was really just here for him. That's, yeah. That headline, the headline,

Marques Brownlee single-handedly resurrects LG Mobile, that's gonna hit now. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah. It's like, yeah, you know what, nevermind. I was trying to think of a movie where someone kills someone and then brings them back to life, but I couldn't. That's a book.

Yeah, I love that book. I'm reading it on my minimal phone. Nice. Yeah, no, I'm thinking we can collab on this. I bring the partnerships and the headlines. You're the media. And the media aspect. I can get this in front of reviewers.

You've got, I can hear the strategy coming from, from all angles on this phone. I think we can hit every single feature in every single market. We have a timeline. We can get an A series version out. I think this is, I think the three of us are gonna make something pretty magical here.

Hey, Ellis here. Unlike the Phil. In the future. Sorry for the interruption, but all of my co-hosts decided to use this time to talk smack about the Philadelphia 76ers, which I just can't, I can't let happen, you know? This is, I'm mixing this episode, I get to decide what makes it in. And so, yeah, anyway, back to the show.

Thank you, thank you. I'm slowly realizing that, you know, this is an idea that kind of got thrown together for the podcast. The thing that's the hardest is they're all tech products and everyone wants Marques to be their partner for the tech products. All right, we've got another set of partnerships

in the works that was really fun. We're gonna take a quick break and come back with one more from Adam. OpenAI spent the last few years turning chat GPT into one of the most important and popular products on the internet. Johnny Ive spent the last several decades building products at Apple that became truly iconic, like the iPhone. Now, those two are teaming up to work on something. We don't know much, but it's going to be some kind of AI gadget,

and they think it's going to be a really big deal. This week on the Vergecast, we talk about what Johnny Ive and OpenAI might be up to, plus everything that happened at Google I.O., the Developer Conference, and all of the other news in the AI and gadget world, because there is just so much of it. All that on the Vergecast, wherever you get podcasts. When comedian Chris Gethard was growing up, he went to a place called Action Park. It was one of the first water parks in the country, and it was built by a man who had no experience building theme parks.

Some people called him a berserk Willy Wonka. Anyone who went to Action Park understood you could get really messed up going there. Not only did we know that, it was a huge part of the appeal. I'm Phoebe Judge. Listen to our latest episode, Action Park on Criminal, wherever you get your podcasts. All right, welcome back.

Last but not least, we have a presentation, a product from Adam. have a presentation a product from Adam. Stone-faced. Oh now I hear the music okay it is weird walking over here to silence. Not hearing music. Yeah I'm not hearing anything. Adam welcome to the eel pit. I'm ready. We we are all ready for your presentation as well. Yeah, this has been a long time coming. Buttons are back, baby.

That's what it's called. I'm interested. I knew you would be, but all right, hear me out. The problem with today's tech, it's too abstract. Everything is hidden behind screens, taps, tones, you know, like there's no umph anymore. I don't feel anything when I'm using these phones. Pro phones are all the same color.

App UIs look all the same. We're not using all of our senses with modern technology. You know, we're only using a few of them, like sight and sound. When you tap your screen, it just vibrates to like simulate the motion. We play music out of crappy tiny speakers and think that's okay on subways. But what about all of our other senses?

There's so many other senses. I'm just a little confused because you mentioned sight, sound, and touch. So the other sentences are taste and smell. And the sixth sense. No, yeah, just taste and smell. It's actually just that movie. The solution bubbles.

Whoa. What? I have bubble wrap for you guys. Oh wait, no, not bubbles. Nevermind. Buttons. We want buttons and switches and knobs. And so I present to you the iTab.

Can you explain what you are looking at right now? I see you cannot. If a normal smartphone is a slab with a glass screen and two or three buttons on the sides, this is a screen surrounded by many buttons, knobs, and switches, and other things. A kickstand, a thermometer, a knob, an antenna, and it's looking pretty maximal,

I might say. Yeah, wait, let me, it's sort of like picture, kind of looks like an old school radio, like an old school portable radio, but there's an EVF on top. There's a compass in the top right. Then there's like the dial pad from like a kitchen landline phone.

There's a tape transport at the bottom. Is that a physical eject button next to the transport? So we're gonna get there because I wanna know what you're ejecting. On the right, there is a full mercury thermometer. Yeah. Okay. And A kickstand. And then an antenna sticking out of the top.

What if I told you this was just a case? That screen in the middle is an iPad. It's that big? Or iPad Mini. I think the best, does this not look like it would be if you were playing a video game like Firewatch or something and you had the central menu screen, they wanted to make it more immersive.

So he held this device up every time he needed to get, this is what it would look like. Yeah, that is how I would describe it. Or like something, have you ever played the game Astroneer? No. All right, great. Cool. Good story, guys.

No, I can already agree with you. Oh, look who knows how to use the sound buttons. Alex is on sound. Okay, so this is a case for an iPad. You put the iPad in, that is the screen right there. As Marques plays with the bubble wrap. All right. And it gives your iPad all of this extra functionality

with buttons and everything. Cool. It gives your iPad all of this extra functionality with buttons and everything. Cool. Uh-huh. It also lets you touch, taste, and smell your tech. You see that little grip on the side? Yeah.

That's not just the grip. It's also the smell-o-vision. It's like one-time use because you have to refill it after every time you use it. But it can do it. Okay. The iPad case. Hardware apps include compass, radio, screen recording,

calculator, temperature, walkie talkie, camera, AI assistant. Naturally. The specs, telephoto lens, physical viewfinder, 48 megapixel main sensor. The exposure control are all controlled by knobs. Love that. Built-in kickstand and an insane battery capacitive.

This is a collab from Teenage Engineering and Mischief. Thank you. I noticed there's some asterisks. Yeah, it was my follow-up question. There are some asterisks, yes. What? Okay. Okay.

Okay. So, so I see the the the asterisk after AI assistant. Correct. And insane battery capacity. What do those asterisks mean, Adam? I'm so glad you asked, Marques. So the AI assistant asterisk refers to the fact that you need to dial in to an FM radio station

in order to use this AI assistant. It's a one way technology. The AI will just constantly be spouting advice over broadcast. Oh, so you can't constantly be spouting advice over broadcast. Oh, so you can't query it. You cannot query it. It just gives you what it thinks you should do. Okay.

And then so the asterisk asks after insane battery capacity? Because yes. I love the idea for the FM radio AI system because if you were not spending tokens, is that what you use in AI? Tokens, yeah. We're not, you know, we're not destroying the world through too much over... Casting the bubble route. We're not destroying the world with the overuse of AI

and servers and graphics cards. We just kind of have one that's going on. It's the most environmentally friendly AI. It is the one AI for all of humanity. It will just be broadcasting facts. Kind of like Overlord vibes, I kind of like it. Kind of of humanity. Yeah, it will just be broadcasting Adam I'm sorry. I really don't want to just like tear this thing apart But I I got a doubt we got a dive by all means. Okay, so first of all this dial pad, right? Yes, there's two zeros on it. There are

What what feature does this unlock for the user when you press the second zero it's just the number 10 What happens to press the X when you press the X zero, it's just the number 10. What happens when you press the X? When you press the X, that's a custom function. It does all the numbers, zero through 10. All right, interesting. In between the compass and the side dial pad, there appears to be what is either an incandescent light or a second, but smooth dial pad.

It is a smooth dial pad. It is a smooth dial pad. It's a smooth dial pad. That's how you change functions on the iPad itself. Okay, all right, all right. Okay, I think I'm starting to understand. Is there an FM radio? There is an FM radio. That's how you tune in to the AI.

Right, right, right, right. And that's what the antenna's for. All right, this is starting to make sense. So it is just a case. It's a case. There is a power button on it. There is a power button. So does that the power for that? For the case because iPads don't like you can't just like run all the battery. It would just drain it. So it needs its own power source. So this is totally up my alley.

I love these sort of expanded use products like this, but I will say my favorite thing where I think you've really outdone yourself is that chrome kickstand. Yeah, buddy man does that look? Sweet and it folds all the way back on this thing a la Microsoft surface like it just goes Switch so you can yeah exactly and switch. I like it. I like it because you don't look in my favorite part is the Mercury thermometer with no readouts on the side to tell It's real mercury too. Awesome. Just to keep you wondering.

Is that a mercury? Now I feel like I gotta look that. I thought the, I said mercury thermometer and then I was like, I thought that was the one with the marbles. No, that's mercury. I'm pretty sure that's the mercury one. The glass ones with the liquid inside. Oh yeah, yeah, that's the mercury thermometer. Yum. So Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam, Adam. We're trying to put this on shelves, right?

This is a consumer product that has Teen Engineering and Mischief, two of the hottest design firms around right now. What is your pitch to the consumer? Hype, baby. Hype? You could be the person walking around holding this. Oh, that's that's what you that this is not an at home product. No, no, no. This is a like big red boot kind of product.

I I think whoever gave Marquez bubble wrap was a terrible idea. You know, I think the reason you shouldn't partner with Ellis is because he's asking questions like how do we market this? It's with teenage engineering and mischief. Marketing is done. Built in baby. The marketing is done already.

There's almost no point in doing this. In fact, the only way to sell this is through a lottery system on a temporary website that self-destructs in less than 24 hours. And through that website, you actually just get mailed a physical raffle ticket. And if you are one of the numbers on that raffle ticket, then you are able to buy a box of Boy Scout, Girl Scout cookies that includes the actual device side of it.

Not Girl Scout cookies, Boy Scout brand Girl Scout cookies. It's like a, it's like a, it's like a, Jozo's sort of situation. Got it. Okay. Yeah. I like that. That's like a, it's like sort of a, it's like a Jozo sort of situation. Got it. Okay. Yeah. I like that. That's interesting. I could see that. I think that's how we sell it.

And then it's done. That's all we need. Yeah. No, this is a fully formed product. There's only 50 of them. Yeah, naturally. Profit margins are- Is there only a telephoto lens?

There's only a telephoto lens. But there is a viewfinder, so you can see it. So it's for bird photography. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything close enough to it will be paying too much attention to how awesome the case is. Why would you want to take a picture? What is wrong with our coworkers

that 50% of the products brought in were designed by teenage engineering and 50% of the products brought in were specifically for bird photography? Yeah. Yeah. Nothing says hype like bird photography. It's true, and orange.

And orange. I have a couple questions. So obviously there's a lot of physical controls and things going on here. Do you have a price that you're aiming to hit when this ships? No, no, it's raffle only. So there's no revenue.

No, the revenue is all of the millions of people that will be buying a raffle ticket. Oh, so how much does a raffle ticket cost? However much you want. You tell me, investors, how much is a raffle ticket? Interesting. I think we let them name their own price. With a minimum, of course.

Minimum $2. At least, yeah. Yeah. Okay, that's one question. The other question was gonna be, you have all these things attached to it, but I'm trying to see if there's anything patentable, protectable here that couldn't be copied by your competitors because I could see, you know, an LG or a Otterbox coming out with something in this

same category. And I'm curious if you could defend this. We- No one's patenting that number pad because it's inherently wrong. That's, that, that you probably should patent it just to make sure they don't copy it. But I'm curious who-

We have spent the last several months buying up all of the mercury that is commercially available. So no one else can get mercury. Big monopoly energy. Okay. I like that. How much does it weigh? It weighs roughly three pounds. Okay.

So it is carryable. Depending on the size because With or without the iPad. You can put an iPad in it, iPad Pro, iPad Pro 13 inch, iPad Mini, depends on which one you want. It's universal. Yeah.

He's thought about it. For all of it, there you go. I do love that kickstand. I don't know why. The kickstand is sick and it folds all the way up and you can wear it like a clutch. That kickstand is actually very similar to the kickstand

on your OnePlus Keychron keyboard. It is. Yeah, it's like almost exactly the same. All right, Adam, hear me out. I'm on board and if you go with me, here's how we're gonna do this. We're gonna do the raffle idea. I think that's a really excellent way

to distribute the product. Thank you, I brought that up. The problem with the problem being if people pay for raffle tickets is that if they don't win They effectively get nothing and it was looking at nothing. Why? Didn't let me finish. Okay which is why I think the purchase of a raffle ticket should be through a

Crypto coin a meme coin because that way we are still able to deliver consumers absolutely nothing But they at least think they have something What what do I get out of it, uh Can I pull something at the end of this so I can get Well, that's the beauty of this whole thing is you won't even need to do a rug pull Because you're already providing nothing whatsoever. People driving are just like flinching every time. Sorry, I should not have given Marques Bubble Red. That's my bad.

I'm in. I would like to be your investor. I think as someone who works in audio, I'd be great at communicating teenage engineering products. As someone who likes bad stuff, I'd be really excellent at communicating this. That's true. I'm literally using a phone with as many buttons on it right now. And- Loving every second of it. And loving every second of it.

And yeah, I just think I would be the perfect person to guide you towards capturing all of the market share for a camping case, I think is what this sort of is. The hype camping case. The hype-iest. Are there any plans for supporting Android tablets? What's that? Somewhere down the line.

Oh. Yeah. For that I'm out. I'm thinking I like this. There's a couple things that I really liked that I think I could bring value to. One is I think I could sell a ton of raffle tickets for you. And I think you can get this in front of a lot of eyeballs. Two, I just like the aesthetic of the product, the presentation, the dynamic island in the middle.

Everything is just working for me. I meant the dynamic island in the presentation, not Dynamic Island in the middle, everything is just working for me. I meant the Dynamic Island in the presentation, not in the product. I just think that's great. And then I think, yeah, there's a little bit of room for extra little design touches, and I think I was actually picturing a hype video that I would be able to make for you that's just ASMR.

It's just sounds. It's me pressing the buttons with a microphone super up close in 8K and just hearing the way every button and everything sounds when you use it. And I think that would be incredible. So I think I could do that for you and we'd be able to blow this thing up.

So where's taste come in? What am I tasting as part of this? Whatever you want. Mercury right there on the side. Yeah, Mercury. You know? All right. Sorry, I forgot to tell you, if you want to screen record too, Merch. Shh. Shh. Shh. Shh. You know? All right.

I mean, as. Sorry, I forgot to tell you, if you want to screen record too, there's a big orange button. You just press that and it starts screen recording. Wait, what's the eject button? Yeah, what's the eject button? The eject button is because this is also a CD player.

Where? On the side. What? On what side? There's no. There's no. There's no. That's the ashtray. Does it come with an ashtray? How does it charge? USB-A or USB-C?

Micro USB. Micro B. Micro B. Micro B. I got, I mean Adam, it's the kind of thing where it's like, I have infinite notes and at the same time, I have no notes and I just really hope, you know, we have infinite notes.

I mean, I'm not saying that we have infinite kind of thing where it's like I have infinite notes and at the same time I have no notes and I just really hope, you know, we've produced this podcast together for many years now and I hope that you can, you know, parlay that trust into letting me guide this product to success, even though I don't see the tape player and I don't really wanna lick it.

I still think. That'll change. I could fit that in the ASMR video. So you've got two offers on the table. Andrew's out for the lack of Android support out of the gate, but you have an offer from Ellis and an offer from myself. No, no, no. Andrew is out because of the Android support.

I see, I see. Because of the promise he's adding. Because if something is compatible with Android, it is inherently not high. It's one of those things where you have such a good product and the minute you try and expand into all those things, it's just gonna be a money pit and we're gonna go out of business.

And I don't wanna watch my money go down the drain like that. Pop incoming. Bingo! Let's go! Oh my God, sorry Ellis, who has to edit this later. I'm just gonna replace every single bubble wrap pop with the sound of a cat meow. Meow, meow. I'm just gonna replace every single bubble wrap pop with a the sound of a cat meow

I just like that you gave me bubble wrap and I want to work with you more All right, you know you guys have made this decision quite tough. Yeah But I think I have To go with Ellis Wow Ellis You know I made this intentionally with the buttons and knobs with you in mind, and I know that we can take this to the next level. I think you and I can take anything to the next level out of it, but this... Except this episode.

If I see an ASMR video on this, I'll be sending a fake copyright strike, you know. Unfortunately, I also have all of these scores in front of me. So Ellis, now that you have two votes for you, Andrew also has two votes. It would appear that the shark who got the most people to partner with them is Marquez with three partnerships. Nice. It's almost like it's his show or something. I could have had it all.

I offered to lick the mercury, it didn't even work, but I would have gotten something there. Amazing. Wow. That's, that was fun. I'm glad we did that. I think there is a world where this concept gets expanded in a future bonus episode.

I don't know exactly know what that looks like. I could see this as a like maybe, Ted, this, okay, so none of us on the show knew any of these things. It obviously was very meme focused, which I think we had a really fun time doing. I could see a version of this show where like, do people think of like, real things.

We always hear like, wouldn't that be so cool if this had that? And maybe there is a version of this where we like pitch it a little more seriously. You should look at our emails. And it's literally like, we get this in email form. That would be a banger episode of just taking some of the worst emails,

don't name anyone and like going through something. I got an email. Don't name it. I'm not gonna name it. But if it feels too specific, you know, maybe cut this. I got an email for a power outlet that has a credit card swipe So that if you're like at a coffee shop, you can like charge people to charge their laptop or whatever. Oh, oh wait

That's a good idea. It's not a good Stupid I Own a coffee shop. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, this is enterprise. Why? Yeah, it's for commercial. It's an enterprise play. When you hand the bartender your phone,

you're like, can you charge this? And be like, hand me your credit card and we'll make this happen. And you make so much extra revenue. Exactly. You would make some external, you'd make some revenue on top. People would 100% do that.

Yeah. That's a good idea. I'm gonna email them and invest. That is not a good idea. That is not a good idea. This is why I said yes to everything for a month for that video I think we should probably have to do that again sometime. Yeah Anyway, well if you listen to the end of this episode It sends Marquesa me mail soon because he'll be saying yes apparently but uh, if you also made it this far

Thank you. That was purely experimental and super fun Yeah, I don't know how much fun it was to listen to, but let us know which product you liked the best. Please. And huge shout out to David Fetterspiel. Again, he made all these concepts a long time ago, but I'm glad we finally got them out into the real world. And we'll be back with a normal episode where I'm not at this table on Friday. We'll miss you.

Thanks for watching. See you guys later. Peace. Wave from his produce by Adam, Malina and Ella's urban. We're partnered with the Vox media podcast network and our charge for music is vain. So Bye!