Datasets:

kpriyanshu256

/

the_verge-linustechtips-two_min

like 0

Greetings, mobile accomplishers. Welcome to the Verge Mobile Show. This is episode 41, which means that we're over the hill. It's the week of April 1st, but there are no stupid jokes here. Hi, I'm Dita Bohm. I'm Vlasav. And I'm Dan Seifert. And we are, sadly, without Chris Ziegler, he is on assignment. It's a very important assignment. It might be the most important reporting he's ever done in his entire life. But luckily for us, we have somebody else filling in for him, we have Walter White. Seriously, Vlad, you look awesome. You can just call me Heisenberg, that's fine. Heisenberg. You need the hat? Oh my god, you need to get the hat. That would be amazing. Somebody needs to buy it for me. I don't think they sell them in the UK. In the UK, we have bowler hats. Anyway, this was actually very intentional. I did have Walter White in mind. I did have Gianluca Viali, he's a famous former Italian footballer, in mind. And I was like, if my hair is this short and I haven't shaved in this long, I need to do this at least once. Yeah. Totally worth it. I'm incredibly jealous. I, meanwhile, haven't had hair cut in six years, and it's pretty bad. Oh, shush. So OK, we missed last week, and for that, we are deeply sorry, and the level of angst in the comments on our Sorry We Can't podcast post was pretty high. But it doesn't mean we don't like you guys. It just means we were busy. I'm short staffed out here. Vlad was away. And we could have done just a mobile show of just Dan standing there. Just standing there and smiling, not actually saying anything. Guys, I'll tell you, I'll give you a breakdown of what I did last week so you know how committed I was. I had to play Tomb Raider. I had to play Bioshock Infinite. I had to play XCOM, Enemy Unknown, which has been out for a while. But honestly, I still haven't cracked that game. It's amazingly hard, actually. What else was there? I mean, there was loads. There was loads of stuff happening last week. Absolutely no chance to podcast. But we'll make that up for it today, right? First of all, yesterday basically killed the news cycle. Nobody bothered to announce or do anything important yesterday, because everybody was way too busy making the worst jokes in the world. Google had something like two months worth of work invested in spoofing things yesterday. Yeah, there was more jokes from Google than you could count on one hand, which is just. I mean, that's the way, right? Yes. But it wasn't always their way, because they launched Gmail on April 1, 2004, and it was no joke. Yeah. So there was one piece of news yesterday that started out looking like maybe it was an April Fool's, but it turned out not to be. And that's Charlie Kindle, who used to be product manager at Microsoft for Windows Phone? I think he was a Windows Phone evangelist or something. No, he had a bigger title than that. He's a great guy. We've met him. Anyway, he is going to work for Amazon on a secret project. It probably starts with PH and ends with NE. So he's working on phonemes for them. Oh, no, it's ME. Shoot. So close. So that happened. But other than that, I mean, actually, the funny thing is April 1 is my mother's birthday. So I didn't learn about April Fools until later. And I didn't understand why all these people were being mean to my mom. It was very strange to me. I wish I had a punch line for that joke. But that's the truth. It's just what it is. Dieter, at the same time, you do have German heritage. So there would have been a lot of strange things in your youth and childhood. Particularly as a German-bred kid growing up in Minnesota. My father's birthday is on Halloween. So I just thought that everybody had birthdays on holidays. That's how it worked. I wondered why I didn't. It was very strange. But to bring it back to Charlie Kindle, first of all, I love this. And I'm sure everybody else does. His name is Kindle, K-I-N-D-E-L. And he's about to work for the company that produces the Kindle, which I don't need to spell. But it's very close. So it's Mr. Kindle working for the Kindle maker, which is not at all confusing. That's the first thing. But the second thing is his phrasing and his wording is very nice, because it says that he's working on something totally new for Amazon. So I mean, yes, everybody, every evangelist, like we're saying, is going to tell you what we're working on is totally new. It's revolutionary. It's going to be kick-ass, et cetera. But totally new for Amazon is a very subtle phrasing. I mean, think about all the things that Amazon already does. There aren't that many things which are totally new for that company. Video game production might be a random thing that is new and might be done by Amazon. OK, he's not going to do that. But yeah, it really does look like the Amazon phone is shaping up. And Charlie Kindle is going to be part of pushing that. Well, I mean, that's the obvious speculation. We could be way off base here. But we've been expecting Amazon to properly fork Android for a phone. They've already done it for the Kindle, obviously. And actually, I looked up our archives and what we've written about Charlie Kindle. And he already had comments saying Google has lost control of Android. So he's already of the mindset, let's say, that Android can be split up, can be forked successfully. And Google isn't the one who's going to control its future. And other companies can have that position, which again kind of meshes with what Amazon would be intending to do. Well, OK, let's just jump ahead of the issues you want to talk about Facebook. Because they also are a company everybody's been assuming is going to have a phone. And this Thursday, two days from the day we're recording this, we'll finally find out what exactly they have planned. And it looks like what's going to happen is they're going to do something called Facebook Home, which is going to be basically a home screen replacement, like a launcher, in addition to presumably deep ties into other bits and bobs. And then alongside that, we're expecting that HTC will probably have a mid-range phone that it'll launch on, but that it'll still be available to other phones. When the thing got announced, a whole bunch of New York Times and Wall Street Journal came out and wrote over rumors they had. And then Android police got a hold of the actual APK, the file that runs this app, and did a tear down of it. And I think we learned a few things. It has hooks in there for both talking to HTC Sense and TouchWiz, in addition to standard Android, so it should work on a whole bunch of different phones. It's called Facebook Home, or at least there's a Facebook Home logo in there. They've got a little button to launch the app chooser. What else did we see? Just a bunch of stuff. So basically, we've been hearing for years Mark Zuckerberg say Facebook isn't going to build a phone. And it looks like he hasn't been lying. What do you think is going to happen? Are people going to see this HTC phone that's kind of mid-range, it's not that exciting? You're like, oh, the Facebook phone sucks, just like the cha-cha-cha sucked, and whatever the cha-cha-cha's sister phone was. Not the cha-cha, not the status, the touchscreen one. It was terrible. Yeah, whatever that was called. But I think there's been a lot that's been said since. Salsa. Salsa. Thank you. Actually, I'm sorry to break away, but my cousin. You're not sorry. You're not sorry at all. My cousin had one of those two phones, and he had an incredibly low amount of RAM. The cha-cha. Yeah, you could fill up the apps on the HTC. I had reviewed the status way back when it was on AT&T, and it was like six apps, and you'd filled up every other thing, and you're done. But you know what's funny? Even though those were essentially themed as Facebook phones, like we're saying, they were still perceived as Android phones. Like my cousin thought Android sucked. Right. And I think that might be the reason. Well, on the status, it did suck. Yeah. Well, I'm sure they all suck. The good thing about me is that I managed to avoid using both of them for longer than seconds. But that might very well be the reason why Mark Zuckerberg is so reluctant to have anything called a Facebook phone. Well, I don't know. Because he anticipates Facebook's chance to get into the market, also, it's going to be in these mid-range and low-end devices, not as a leading platform. Because Facebook doesn't have anything to contribute on that front, I don't think. Well, I just know that there's been a lot that's been said this past week since Facebook's announcement of who really wants a Facebook phone or who really needs a Facebook phone. And I think the audience of people who are into technology and are into having the latest and greatest phones are not the market that's going to be like, oh my god, a Facebook phone. But when the average customer comes into the phone store and they're like, well, what do you want to do with your phone? It's like, well, everybody's on Facebook with their phone, so I want to be on Facebook with my phone. And then there's this phone that is all Facebook through and through. You can access your Facebook Messenger. You can access your Facebook camera and photos really quickly and easily. And everything looks like it's Facebook. I can see that totally being an appealing thing for someone who doesn't care too much about the specs. They're not going to spend $300 plus sign a two-year contract for their new phone. They're going to get like a $50 or $75 phone or whatever. I think it totally makes sense for that type of market. And the fact that it's a mid-range phone, it looks like it's running an older version of Sense. HTC probably hasn't put a whole lot of resources into making this a cutting edge device. I don't know if that matters so much for the type of market that might be interested in this thing. YOSSI ELKRIEFENGELD-ROSS. I totally agree. I think what we've come to conclude with the South Southern cha-cha-cha experience, triple cha in Spain to avoid cursing, was that HTC and Facebook, because Facebook was part of it, they cut too many corners with the specs. Yes, we don't care about the specs, but we do care to the point where people like our cousins want to be able to install some apps. She literally had to disable things, Skype or whatever, in order to keep using her phone. It's that crazy. This was also two years ago, too. So an entry to mid-level Android phone today has got a dual-core processor. It's got a gig of RAM or more. It's got 16 gigabytes of internal storage. I mean, today's mid-range and entry-level phones are way more capable than they were two years ago. And I don't think that's as much of an issue as it was with this status and the cha-cha-cha. Right. So at least you could take something like the One SV, for example, because that has a WGA screen. It's kind of a mid-ranger. And essentially, just adapt it and just slap the Facebook stuff on top of it. So I led this discussion by asking you guys, are people going to focus on the phone instead of on Facebook's software and offering it across all of Android and what it means for Facebook? And will people actually want it on whatever phone they've already got? And you pretty much answered my question by completely ignoring it and just talking about phones. I don't want to get too far into my thoughts and feelings on this, because I want to actually write it and publish it on the site. But I will say that imagine you've got an Android phone and you're kind of like, this kind of sucks. Touchwood's kind of lame. I kind of don't like it. But you're a regular consumer who never would have in a million years considered rooting or even installing Nova Launcher or Apex or whatever. But you hear that, hey, I've got this Facebook app. And I know it does a bunch of random stuff. And it's a little bit too nerdy for me. And I can't figure out how to use it for free voice calling and free messaging. But I know that if I click the button that's going to be shown to me all the time on the Facebook app itself, hey, you like the Facebook app. Make your whole phone a Facebook phone. I'm going to eventually do it. And they're going to convince me that I get free calling. And I get all those other benefits. And they could become a big part of the market on top of Android. Now, what's interesting is part of this leak was that all the Google stuff appears to still be there. So they're not pulling an Amazon and just completely forking away from Android. It's still going to have Google stuff built into there. Because that's the way stuff is built in on phones already. But I mean, I look at this from Facebook's position. They could try and make a phone based off a fork version of Android and have every story for the next three years be, why can't Facebook get more than 2% or 5% or 10% at the max market share? Why are they getting pantsed by Windows Phone and Blackberry? You could either have stories about getting beat by Blackberry and Windows Phone. Or you could have stories about how you're secretly taking over the entire Android ecosystem and nobody sees it. I mean, that's an easy answer. They're already trying to do it with the app ecosystem. I wrote this report a few months ago. And they're just like, Facebook would rather be the connective tissue that underlies the internet than it would try to take on Apple for hardware profits. YOSSI ELKRIEFENI. Yeah, that's a given. But let me point out to you. If it's a given, then why are we talking about the mid-range specs on some random HTC phone? This is a much bigger game. YOSSI ELKRIEFENI. Well, because you can't view this just because it has branding now, Facebook Home. You can't view this as this brand new thing that's breaking with your tradition. Facebook has been trying this for a long time, right? It had those HTC phones. It had a couple of Inc phones, like Inc Cloud Mini, things like that, which were actually really nice, really handy phones that if you want a thoroughly integrated Facebook experience, they had those. But once again, exactly like the HTC phones, they had insufficient specs to really compel people. It was just below the threshold where people felt comfortable using the phone and didn't feel any deficiencies. It had deficiencies. And that has been Facebook's mistake so far. It's getting itself invested, getting its brand invested, its phones which just weren't good enough. So but as Dan says, now the hardware is so good that you pretty much have to screw something up on top of it to make it deficient. So Facebook is not. Let's not rule that out. I'm not ruling it out at all. I've seen sense. OK? I know. But with that being the case, Facebook is a much better opportunity today than it was previously to have the basic hardware stuff and then to layer out some compelling stuff on top. What I was going to point out was, however, first of all, when you get excited, Dieter, your whole webcam shakes, and you being in San Francisco, it's a little bit disturbing. Because it's like, is this what happens over there every two minutes? Yeah, exactly. Jellyvision Dieter. And finally, to actually try and address your question, which clearly is your big passion about software, I personally really like this idea of a branded Facebook home. Because Facebook already has a home on its web interface. It's a paradigm that people are familiar with. So the idea of a Facebook home screen, which is very likely, I guess, to include a bunch of widgets for news streams and junk like that, I don't expect this to be really revolutionary in terms of UI innovations. I hope it's not. I mean, I hope they keep it relatively simple. As long as it looks better than the Facebook widgets that they've offered before. Right. Right. So I mean, functionality is always the most important thing, right? I mean, I'm imagining something like Link Feed, I guess. Like you've got your news stream, you've got your apps, and then you've got your messaging. I don't know. I have no idea. I mean, I can't really envision it being useful to me. But then I don't find Facebook itself useful to myself. So I'm not exactly its target audience. But like you say, I can find the idea of Facebook home. OK, Facebook home, that makes sense to me. It's a starting position. It's a home thing. It's where I go back to. And it's key to my mobile experience. Since I'm a big Facebook user, yeah, I can get with that. That whole idea is very accessible to people, it might be. So I mean, one of the ways that I think about this is people like, oh, Facebook trying to take over phones. I mean, one, they get to go on top shelf hardware if they want to, because they're just going to offer the app presumably. Two, people are thinking of it as, oh, it's Facebook versus Samsung, Facebook versus Apple, Facebook versus whatever phone manufacturer you want. I actually think that that's a good thing. I actually think that this is just as much about Facebook versus Twitter as it is about Facebook versus these phone companies, because right now on your phone, Facebook and Twitter are basically equal citizens. I can't hear what you guys are saying back to me, so I'm just going to keep talking. You've got an icon for Facebook, you've got an icon for Twitter, you might have some widgets for it, but you basically get to choose. But if Facebook can take over the home screen, then it becomes the first class citizen on your phone, and you're much less likely, if you've got 30 seconds, to jump into Twitter, because you've got Facebook right there. And so this is, I think, just as much about making sure that they take on Twitter in the mobile space as it is about them trying to beat Apple. I mean, it's not about that. YOSSI ELKRIEFENGER. And Google+. Let's not forget Google+. Yes, it hasn't taken off, but it has this amazing deep integration into the latest versions of Android. And it's got one of the best looking apps on iOS, ironically. YOSSI ELKRIEFENGER. Google is forcing plus on you at every opportunity that it gets. Everywhere it goes, it's like Google+. You're not talking, you're Google+, talking. You're having a Google+, hangout, et cetera. Every chance that it can hook into Google+, and get Android users to be aware of Google+, and then to become users of it, it's doing it. So absolutely, as Ida says, Facebook versus Twitter. Facebook Home is a step ahead of Twitter, but it's actually a step behind Google+. So Facebook is simultaneously catching up and trying to get ahead. Only one of its competitors matters, and the other one doesn't yet. Any thoughts there? Yeah, sorry, I'm looking at something else, but Dan can jump in. I agree. I'm sorry. I'm like totally under the weather today, so I apologize. But no, I'm with you, Vlad. I don't have anything creative to say. He's not a Facebook user, that's it. No, I do use Facebook, actually. And I find that for my own personal needs, I connect with my family a lot on Facebook, they happen to be all over the country, and they all happen to be on Facebook, so that's where we go to catch up with cousins and whatnot. I don't use it all that often on my phone, though, so it would be interesting to see if this new software or new device encourages me to use it more on my phone. Facebook, like the day before yesterday, just put out a study that they had commissioned from IDC about how people use Facebook on their phone. And I think that that is not a quinky-dink. They put it on the 27th, and it was like, such and such percent of people use Facebook every day, and such and such percent post photos, and yada, yada, yada. So I really think that we underestimate how much people would be interested in replacing their crappy TouchWiz skin on their Galaxy S2 that they're still using with a Facebook skin. Be like, oh, well, I can just act like this is a new phone. I think that it could potentially be really huge. Anecdotally, my wife almost exclusively uses Facebook on her phone. She never uses it on the desktop. She's always using her phone to check on Facebook and things like that. So there's definitely a lot of people that it's already a purely mobile experience for them. And then the IDC claims that Facebook is the number third most used app on a smartphone at 70% behind email and web browsing, according to this study. Yeah, that's actually been consistent for a while. The Facebook app has been one of the top uses of phones in general, with phone calls progressively going further and further down the list until they just disappear. Which is awesome. Which is the way it ought to be. Although I kind of say I like phone calls lately. Man, I know it's not cool to like getting on the phone. But you know what's faster than having a five minute chat conversation? Having a one minute voice conversation. Such as you can do with a Hangout or Skype. Well, yeah. You know, it's funny. The thing with Skype, and to a great extent, is that people are now using them almost as terms, almost at the same level as Google. Yeah. The BBC, I mean, I've mentioned this before. The BBC, which tends to not promote any, I mean, it does no advertising on its channels, its TV channels. It tends not to promote any brands. It automatically identifies news readers, Twitter accounts, and people say you can get in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook, email, et cetera. The thing with Skype was I watched a news broadcast on Channel 4 here in the UK. And it was saying, we spoke earlier over the internet or over Skype. Like Skype is a different thing from the internet. And it struck me that over Skype, not over the internet. I get it now. Yeah, I see. And it's just kind of become this kind of common language terminology now, the way people say Google it instead of search for it on the internet. Which is neither here nor there, but I thought I'd mention it. I mean, Facebook wants to get in that game, right? Because you can make calls with Facebook now. You can make VoIP calls with Facebook. Have either of you actually used that? Like for a minute. I can't say I have. Yeah? OK, goodbye. That's what I've done. I don't even know if that's available for the server IP, I guess. Yeah, it's not worldwide. It's US, Canada, and some place. I know they did launch it. Yeah. I don't think Facebook has, at least to this point, made that a very visible feature. Like I think the vast majority of the people that even know about the Facebook Messenger app that's apart from the main Facebook app know that the Messenger app can make and receive phone calls through it. But I mean, tell me they're not going to push that super hard. Yeah, I mean, that's their angle, I guess. Well, anyway, we'll find out on Thursday. Yeah, I was going to say we should move on, because we're going to be discussing this Facebook Home scenario. For the rest of our lives. Every day, all we do is talk about Facebook Home. We finally got release dates and prices for the HTC One on Sprint and AT&T. And close enough for T-Mobile. And $199 on contract, or on T-Mobile on contract. For a 32 gigabyte version of that. So I mean, that's pretty aggressive pricing to come in at that $200 level on contract for a 32 gigabyte model. And then AT&T's got the lock on the 64 gigabyte one for $100 more. So it looks like, from what we've been able to tell, that they're undercutting the Galaxy S4, which we learned also this past week that that's coming out on AT&T for $249 to start. But we don't know what capacity that model is yet. But either way, when you walk in the store, you'll see the one listed at a lower price. Hang on. Do you care about capacity? I mean, 16, yeah, that's a little bit short. But like, maybe it's because. A power user definitely does. I think someone who's going to be interested. Oh, a power user cares even less, because they're streaming all their music. Are they storing video? I don't know, man. Capped data plans. I'm constantly filling up the storage on my Nexus 4. And I have the 16 gigabyte one. And as soon as you get on a plane and you want to load up some TV shows, and then boom, you hit your limit. Or you load up a couple hours of music, and boom, you're at your limit. Because you don't have data access, or you don't want to use up your four gigabyte data cap. Dan, I'm sorry. This is worse than a first world problem. I have 16 gigabytes, and I can't fit enough music to use, it's a zero world problem. The power users that are really gaga about the HTC One like to have more storage. How do you append ordinals or whatever to imaginary numbers? Like I say first, second, third, fourth. I guess you'd say zeroeth. But what about i? Do you add a th at the end of it? An rd, an st? Iced? I mean, we can say the nth degree. So I guess i'th. i'th sounds pretty good. Yeah, just imagine you're saying i's and you have a lisp. Boom, it's done. So the other half of the story is that the One is indeed actually looking to be hitting shelves before the Galaxy S4 arrives. Yeah, by like what, two weeks, three weeks? A week or two, maybe. It's kind of a bummer for HTC that they couldn't get together and get it out a month early. So when is that going to be in the US? It's going to be in stores on Sprint and AT&T shows on April 19. And coming soon to T-Mobile. T-Mobile has not announced a date yet. Yeah, and we're still in this weird nether zone where we think it's the rumors from Unifried at allthingsd. She's like, no, it's coming to Verizon. And HTC denied it on Twitter and then deleted their denial, and so we don't know. There's also been rumors about the DNA plus more recently. So I mean, who knows? It's going to be called the drone. I already called it that. HTC drone coming to Verizon. Yeah, I like it. Let me also make a quick mention that AT&T announced that it's going to be rolling out HD Voice. Yeah, they actually had mentioned that at CES, and then they just confirmed it at Mobilebee. So fine. Dan told me this morning that it's old news, but I'm still excited insofar as AT&T's. I thought you hated phone calls. Didn't we just have this conversation? No, you said you hated phone calls. But AT&T is a big carrier and one that can push things like this. And I like HD Voice. Every time I've seen and used it, every time I've seen it on the phone and used it, I've enjoyed it. And I like the idea of getting the benefit of having a good solid connection when actually making calls. Yeah, I mean, so this has been around in the UK for quite some time. And Sprint has had it in a very limited fashion here in the US. But I highly doubt there's any real large number of Americans who've ever actually used it. But it's just as limited in the UK, I have to mention. Oh, is that really? Yeah. I do know that since we're on the front of HD Voice, maybe we can transition here. T-Mobile had quite a few announcements. One of them was that it would be carrying the iPhone. And the iPhone that it carries will indeed actually support HD Voice, just as it does in other parts of the world outside of the US. So that's how you want to lean into AT&T's new mobile. But that means T-Mobile will be supporting HD Voice. That's the implication, right, Dan? Yeah, well, T-Mobile's supporting HD Voice on the iPhone. It's like the worst transition. I know. It doesn't matter. Leading into talking about Pearl Harbor by talking about specs on a Zeros engine. It's like, did you know that the Zeros got it? The important point is that they're going to have HD Voice when the iPhone launches. And they get some other things, too. I don't really care. It's not important at all. They get some other little things. Whatever, man. Look, the point is this. It doesn't matter how we transition to the T-Mobile discussion. I just got a bit more comfortable in my seat. I wish I had popcorn, which I wouldn't eat, but at least just to set the scene. Because I really want to hear about this. This has been such a crazy, crazy thing. I need somebody to tell me about it. So full disclosure, we are going to swear. It's going to happen. So if your children's ears are delicate, can't handle it, T-Mobile's John Legere's for. So we are, too. He is a dynamic CEO. He's crazy. Bounces around. He got on stage and cursed like three times before he got to the main thing he wanted to say, which is also swearing. I think his blood pressure is dynamic, definitely. So yeah, he's like, stop the bullshit. He wants to be the uncarrier. And he ripped into the other big four. He ripped into Sprint and T-Mobile and Verizon, AT&T and Verizon most of all. And unveiled these crazy new plans that we had seen before. And so they were basically what we expected. And I was immediately like, yes, I'm with you. Let's storm the castle. Yay. And then I'm down off of that high. And I'm not as sure that I'm, I mean, I'm not switching to T-Mobile because I can't, because the signal isn't good enough where I live yet. But I might. So basically, the idea is no more contracts. But you do sign a contract for the phone that you buy. And so you can still get a subsidized price. But once you're done paying that subsidy, you don't have paid anymore. And then it's not built into the cost of your plan, in theory, which is great. And then if you want to upgrade more often, they're toying with the idea of being able to turn your phone in. And they'll pay you a fair market price for it for the rest of the money that you owe for it. Which is guaranteed to be less than what you expect it to be. Well, I mean, it will be, yeah. And then you would be able to upgrade to a different phone right away. So if you already have a phone, it's cheaper. If you're not paying a phone hardware subsidy for the vast majority of people, even people that need to do a lot of heavy tethering, which sounds really dirty. Even people that need to do heavy tethering, it's cheaper. And that's awesome. But if you want to be buying a phone every year, that means you're going to be paying the phone non-subsidy, subsidy thinger. And it kind of ends up being complicated about whether it's true. The other carriers have essentially gotten rid of that every year upgrade from your phones. I know Verizon got rid of it, AT&T got rid of it, and Sprint got rid of it. So now with the other carriers, you're in a minimum of 20 months before you get a discounted price on your new phone. So if you wanted to upgrade every 12 months with, say, AT&T, you're going to be spending full price for that phone in 12 months if you decide to upgrade early. So I don't know how much different the T-Mobile thing is from there. The only thing that I can think of that's different is that when you cancel your plan with, say, AT&T and you have your $300 ETF or whatever, if you bought a $100 iPhone and you put it with a $300 ETF, you're out like $400, and the phone is yours. Whereas with T-Mobile, you're going to be spending $500 or $600, regardless, whatever it turns out to be, because there is no ETF. You're just paying the full price of the phone. So if you are looking at it from that route, it might be a little more expensive for you. I think that's kind of an edge case scenario that not a lot of people are going to encounter. But maybe an early upgrader or someone who upgrades frequently or jumps carriers frequently might be in that situation. Well, for me, the best thing is just the issue of fairness that if I have paid a phone off, I shouldn't be paying for a subsidy on that phone built into my data plan. They should be separate things. And that's awesome. That's how it ought to be. And so I really hope that they get enough popularity where every carrier feels compelled to switch to that kind of model. But wait, let me just check Dan's numbers, because that doesn't seem to make sense to me. Is the ETF with a, let's assume, I'm looking at an AT&T contract now, and we're just looking at that iPhone that you mentioned with an upfront cost of $100. I mean, would the ETF really be $300? I mean, here in the UK. If it's prorated, it usually starts at $300. It starts at like $325, I think. It goes down by $10 or $15 every month that you stay in your contract. So like five months or six months down the line, it's going to be under $300, but when you're paying it out. Well, because here in the UK, a lot of the time, I think carriers just make you pay off your contract. Like you say, I want to leave my contract early. And they say, that's fine with us. Just pay us everything you owe us in terms of monthly fees. And then when you actually stack up the monthly fees, you get a pretty large number. Yeah, it's not broken down like that in the US. It's like they have a flat fee system. And then as you stay within your contract for a period of time, it goes down every month that you stay in your contract. I mean, then yeah, I guess it's actually advisable to you. I mean, the mathematics of this doesn't make sense to me, because then people would just buy up the phone for like $400, including paying off the ETF early, and then going off and using the phone elsewhere. Right. I mean, that's a thing that people. That's because you can go elsewhere in the UK. In the US, 99% of the time, your networks aren't compatible. So where are you going to go? That's actually one of the things that's awesome that's changing is starting next month, the iPhones that are sold in AT&T will be banned compatible with T-Mobile. Right now, they're kind of not. They are a little, but it's complicated, just like this price and crap. But they'll actually be, for the first time since Edge was the hottest, fastest network around, actual genuine ability to bounce between two carriers in the US without having to switch phones. We haven't had that since, when was it? Like 2005, 2006? Yeah. It's ridiculous. That's with the iPhone 5, though. And that's really only with the iPhone 5. That is the only LTE phone that I could think of that actually. Yeah, no, but long term, both T-Mobile is working hard, I think, to build out a network that it feels is largely compatible with AT&T. And I think that we're going to see in a couple of years the ability to switch between these two networks pretty seamlessly if you're not on a contract. And it's been like, I don't know how long, a decade, eight years, a long time. And that's another reason why this is potentially exciting is we're finally moving to a place where maybe we'll have a little bit less insane lock-in based on your bands and maybe look a little bit more like Europe. I'm not interested in, do I save $50 or $100 over the course of two years if I pick this subsidy model or that subsidy model or if I buy my phone early, how much is my ETF and what's the prorated law? I don't care about any of that. It's a few hundred dollars over the course of a couple years. Most people are too stupid or don't pay enough attention. And I count myself in this group to think through my savings over two years. I just get the phone I want right now and I get the plan I need right now and I'm done. But what I am excited about is making those decisions with T-Mobile, it just seems like there's fewer trying to screw you over clauses. It's moving us forward to something closer to what our wireless industry should look like. But the problem is it's easy to be open when you're losing. It's easy to be open source when you're in last place. It's easy to be awesome when you are about to die. And I'm not saying T-Mobile is about to die. I'm not sure I buy this argument. I'm saying it's easy to be the white knight when you're not the big guy on top. How is it harder to be the white knight? Something Batman lived to be the villain. How is it harder to be the hero and to have these things if you have big reserves of cash and a massive network? Ask Verizon. They'll tell you the answer because you make a lot more money by being a jerk and not being open. Yeah, I don't consider that a difficulty. I consider that an economic imperative, I guess. No, but what I'm saying is it's, we can't give T-Mobile too much credit for storing the steel here. Because it's easy to store the steel when you're poor. Not easy, but you know what I mean? What other options do they have here? I think T-Mobile deserves a credit for this. And I think we should understate it, particularly because, to go back to your point, Dieter, about the less interested consumer. Thinking about myself, I've been away from the site the last week or so. And then coming back, I felt like things like The Guardian here in the UK, they do roundups of news stories, tech news stories. And to me, when I'm at work and when I'm following the news on a daily basis, I find those really redundant. Because I've seen every single one of these stories seven times yesterday. But as somebody who just coming into it has been away for a week, those are the most useful things. Because I don't actually want to go and read seven different articles. I want to read the roundup of the most important ones. So a lot of the time, people operate with very limited information. Like imagine yourself, you go off to buy a new sofa, you go off to buy a new desk. You don't want to be a specialist in those parts in order to learn about them. You kind of have to be, because there's so many pitfalls. But the same point applies to mobile contracts. Most people operate with the superficial material information that is given to them. And most carrier contracts, like you're saying, build in subsidies for phones which carry on even after you've actually paid on the phone, which isn't fair to the consumer, isn't good. And T-Mobile is pushing you in the right direction. And there's just one other example I want to cite, which really frustrated me, which I came across recently. And that's decaffeinated tea. Well, I guess, I don't know about coffee, but decaffeinated tea. Why are we talking? OK, I'm with you. Well, you're with me. Oh, you will be with me. You're hoping you and I will circle back together and be together. No, it's because decaffeinated doesn't actually mean caffeine-free. Right. Whereas I assume decaf meant it's tea without the caffeine. There's less caffeine. Exactly. It's reduced caffeine. This is what the mobile industry does to you. It uses terminology like that that lets you make that assumption, that lets you make that extra step where you think you're buying something that you're not. 4G? Yeah, exactly. So now everybody has to say LTE 4G. So we know it's actually the relevant kind of 4G as opposed to the old kind of 4G. But that's it. All of these guys are kind of setting you up so you fool yourself, whereas T-Mobile is pushing in that direction. So I don't really care if the big guy is the small guy or if it's their only option. I just care that it's happening. I care that the CEO swore and he didn't have the same fashion. I will say I was sitting in the audience for that. And I'm doing my thing, and I'm taking notes and prepping for the announcements that we expected to happen. And then all of a sudden, this torrent of foul language comes flying at me. And I'm just like, this has suddenly rapidly changed into the most interesting press event that I had ever attended. So it was quite a trip to hear somebody be so candid on stage and just not care. This is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard in my entire life. Do you have any idea how much you're paying? Like, come on. Great. I mean, that's nothing sacred. That's hold no bars. Yeah. And I mean, the only reason I'm excited at all for CTIA in May is I hope to see this guy on the stage with AT&T and Verizon. Like, if that happens and they get to talk to each other directly, oh my god. I'm sure it won't. The past couple of years at CTIA have been roundtables like that. No, last year they did this ridiculous thing where we were expecting a roundtable. We were all geared up for the battle of the CEOs. And then they just trotted them out one by one in sequence, and that was it. And it was heavily scripted. It was terrible. CTIA's in May, guys. Gear up. Is C-Mobile part of the CTIA? I mean, I know all the other big guys are, but they're talking a lot of trash. Are they still part of the wireless alliance? Does anybody care about what I'm talking about? No, nobody cares. Dan cares because he's looking it up. CTIA is the lobbying group that they throw a convention about phones. They used to throw two a year. Now this year they're only throwing one. But they're the lobbying group that carries water for the carriers and says don't give us more taxes. G-Mobile USA is listed as a member of the CTIA still. Well, we'll see how much longer that lasts. What does it stand for? Cellular Telecommunications Industry of America. And then the logo looks like it has an old school flip phone between the T and the I. If you look at the negative space there. Nice. Yeah. That's not anachronistic at all. Nope. That's some FedEx logo action right there. Negative space. I have nothing else to say about T and T. I want to switch, but I can't because I need to stick my contract in the T and T. I don't have any compatible hardware, and I don't have good signal. So the fundamentals of their business is screwed. I actually do have compatible hardware, though, because my Nexus 4 is compatible with T-Mobile's ATISPA Plus network. Well, I'm talking LTE here. Yeah. Well, my iPhone 5 technically will work on T-Mobile's LTE network in the seven or eight cities that it's available in. But T-Mobile's regular, everyday 3G signal where I live is nearly useless. Unfortunately, I'm stuck with Big Blue. Man, who put these shuttles together? We're blasting through stuff. We've got two weeks worth of news. I don't know. Some jerk. You suck. You guys want to talk about RIM? Or the company formerly known as RIM. Sorry, right. The company formerly known as RIM. So they had their earnings. They surprisingly turned a profit, I believe, which hooray for them. And they sold three million Z10s, which may or may not include that shift. Big difference. Right. And that also doesn't include the US launch, which was just the other week. Right. So hey, they're not dead. They're hanging on. And they got lots of cash in the bank. Yeah. And Mike Lazaridis has left, and hopefully the door didn't hit him on the way. That's not fair. He was a giant among men when it came to smartphones in the 80s. I think you just mean physically. He's also a big guy. Big hair. Beautiful locks, just imposing hair. I don't know. You're the one that put these notes together. What can I say? Should we just talk about John Lazaridis some more? Because more quotes from him. Sure. We've already got a super cut of the best quotes. Oh, yes. You haven't. You definitely need to go take a look at the super cut. What phone are you guys using these days? My SIM jumped back into my Nexus 4 earlier this week. Really? I was using the HTC One, but just kind of got bored of it and went back to the iPhone. I also wanted to check out Mailbox. I wanted to check out Mailbox, which I was a How long did that last? Dude, it lasted about six minutes. Yeah, it's the worst. It is. It is. I was being very obnoxious on a previous podcast. Might have been the last one two weeks ago, where I was holding up my phone and I was just pointing out to people that I'm number 379,000 on the Mailbox waiting list. I'm going to say the most useful or exciting part of the whole experience was actually getting from half a million to the front of the line and getting to use the app, but the app itself is like, I mean, you have to buy into this entire new paradigm about later and archiving in a different fashion. And then later, in two hours, later tomorrow. It's like this stuff doesn't need to be changed. The whole paradigm of email doesn't need to be changed. Labels and archiving and all that stuff that goes with Gmail, I'm happy with. I want you to just give me a rock solid UI and one that actually maximizes the information for me. Google's own iOS app for Gmail is pretty much trash insofar as showing you the most, using the real estate on your screen properly and maximizing it. You can see about six emails at a time, and then you can see a line and a half of each email. It's very limited. You have to get into each email. Well, I mean, what do you want? I mean, you need to have touch targets, man. No, I mean, you can use that space a lot better. You can use it a lot better. It won't be as pretty. It won't be as sparse, but it would be more useful to somebody who wants to scan multiple emails at a time. Mailbox actually gives you less information than Google's iOS app. And it's, I mean, I'm just joking. I will give mailboxes the act of reading messages and sending messages and things like that. It's very fast. And I wish that Google would just release a proper native app for iOS instead of this web app wrapper garbage that the Gmail app is so that we can have that kind of performance. Because that I do like about mailboxes. I don't like the whole paradigm of kicking the can down the road. And I don't like the whole idea of putting my mail through another server not named Google that's required with mailbox. But as far as the UI of the app itself, I think it performs very well. So I just wish that was in the regular Gmail app. Do you keep, I mean, does mailbox keep any messages offline on your phone? No. Well, like, kind of, but not reliably. Well, that's my biggest complaint with the iOS app, but with the Google iOS app. Oh, does mailbox keep it up? I think mailbox does. I thought you were talking about Gmail. Yeah, I'm pretty sure mailbox does. Yeah, mailbox does. OK, so I might give it another chance just for that. I guess as long as we're talking about iPhone, we should mention the rumors from the Wall Street Journal today. What? More iPhone rumors? Yeah, look, man, there's going to be a new iPhone in the world this summer. There's going to be a new iPhone this year. Did you hear? It's going to look largely the same. It wasn't until today, it wasn't until this very moment that I didn't know. Yeah, it turns out this year, new iPhone. I'm sorry, I'm not blinking at you. I just have something in my eye. And then the low-cost thing is also not going away. The rumor is it'll be the four-inch version with a different casing. I mean, I'm expecting they'll make it look like a iPod Touch. Which I'm all about. That would be delicious. Yeah, that would be great, especially with the multiple colors that was mentioned as well. That would be pretty fantastic. I would be very happy with a cyan iPhone. Yeah. I would be really happy with an iPhone that actually does something with its notification center. Yeah, actually I went on a huge, gigantic rant on the iMore podcast last week about the notification center and how terrible it is and how insane that is. But it's not even the worst on the market. It's terrible compared to Android, but it exists, which is more than other platforms can say. And if you compare it to BlackBerry Hub, it's way better than BlackBerry Hub, in my opinion. Yeah, well, BlackBerry Hub is a 1.0 product. My longstanding theory is that Apple was aware of how ugly that stupid pattern on the notification center is. And has decided to make it completely useless so you never have to look at it. Because I never do that. I never drag it down. The only times I ever drag down the notification center on my iPhone is by accident. Then I'm like, oh, look at this thing. It still has those Gmail emails which I addressed like two hours ago, and it hasn't cleared them away automatically. Which Android has been able to do since Fast and the Furious 3, since Tokyo Drift. I'm keeping the Zegus spirit alive, guys. On that wonderful Fast and the Furious note, I think that I'm going to wrap up the show because we have other things to do. We miss Chris, and it's just making us sad and lonely. So if you want to follow us on Twitter, you can and you should. Chris, who's not here, is zpower. I'm going to start calling him zpower. Actually, is there a Twitter user called zpower? There will be in like 30 seconds if you don't hurry up. Loading? Oh, yeah, no, there is zpower, Francois. Vlad is Vlad Sabah. Dan is DC Cipher with an EI. I am Backlon. We are all at Verge. If you want to email us, you can, mobileshow at theverge.com. And we'll be back, maybe next week, probably. Who knows? We're not making promises anymore because it just makes you guys mad. Thanks for watching. Bye, guys. See you.

It's Monday, April 1st, 2013. I'm Ellis Hamburger, and the following is based upon real-life events. This is 90 Seconds on The Verge. Streaming TV service Aereo has scored another legal victory against broadcasters. The U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Aereo does not infringe upon the copyrights of TV broadcasters and subsequently rejected their bid to have the service shut down. While today's decision will allow the company to continue operation, the case still has yet to go to court, where anything can happen. In other legal news, a New York District Court judge has ruled that it's illegal to resell your MP3s. Capital Records won the victory against ReDigi, a service that lets users resell their legitimately purchased music files online. Under current U.S. law, people can sell physical goods they've purchased without fear of copyright infringement. However, using ReDigi's service requires making a copy of the file in question, something that isn't covered. Capital Records won. Arguments for buying digital music instead of subscription services? Zero. Finally, Apple CEO Tim Cook has apologized to Chinese customers. The company has been receiving criticism that it handles warranties in China differently than it does in other countries. In a letter on Apple's Chinese site, Cook said he was sorry for, quote, "...any concerns or misunderstandings and admitted that poor communication may have been an issue." This is actually Cook's second apology since taking over as Apple's CEO. The first was for Apple Maps, a snafu that eventually led to iOS lead Scott Forstall leaving the company. And that's it for today's top stories, but tune in tomorrow for our in-depth feature report on black market pig sales.

Until early 2011, the only way to get an iPhone in the United States was to sign up with AT&T. In 2009, the only way to get the Motorola Droid was to sign up with Verizon. Back then, you weren't shopping for a carrier, you were shopping for a phone. But now, things have evened out. All four major U.S. carriers have the iPhone, and they all have the Galaxy S3. And soon they'll all have the Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. So the question is, what are you really getting out of your carrier? And why do we all seem to be in such incredibly long relationships with them? What carrier do you have? Sprint. T-Mobile. T-Mobile. AT&T. Virgin. Virgin Mobile. I have Sprint. Verizon. AT&T. I've tried them all, they all suck, but Sprint sucks the least to my experience. The services are alright, but I'm personally thinking about switching over. I'm not sure where yet though. Why have you stuck with T-Mobile for a decade? I don't know, I'm kind of lazy. How long have you had Verizon? For about four years now. Have you ever been in a relationship with a person for four years? Yes. How's that going? It turned out a tragedy. How long have you had AT&T? Since freshman year of high school. Oh wait, you don't know that. So like yesterday? Yeah, yesterday now. Like eight years. Four or five years. It's been maybe five years now. T-Mobile wants you to switch. The newly renegade carrier is banking on an aggressive marketing campaign, and what it says are far simpler plans. For a flat fee and no contract, you get unlimited minutes, messaging, and however much data you want to pay for. As T-Mobile says, there's no two-year commitment required, and you can leave whenever you want. But even cheaper prices don't seem to encourage people to switch, especially because when you do the math, T-Mobile's prices aren't that much cheaper. But it's not the devices, and it's not the prices that keep you committed to your carrier, and no one seems to be happy with that relationship. Would you switch if the price of another carrier is 20% lower? No, not really. I don't want to go through the hassle of changing over. 50% lower? Maybe. How much cheaper, 20%? To be honest, I pay about $10 a month for unlimited data, unlimited text, and I've got three hours of calls. I hate you. You know, I want you to know. I'm moving. Goodbye. 20% cheaper, would you leave? No. They're 50% cheaper. I'd consider it. The wireless carrier has become the longest relationship in your life, and all of us seem to be settling. When those two-year contracts end, the easiest thing to do is just sign back up. T-Mobile seems to be banking on people being fed up with AT&T and the other more traditional carrier plans. And yes, its plans are indeed more transparent. But for today, T-Mobile's biggest competitor isn't AT&T. It's just the apathy.

It's Friday, March 29th, 2013. I'm Brian Bishop. I'm TC Sadek, and we're here at the 2013 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. And this is 90 Seconds on the Verge. Facebook is ready to reveal its latest mobile plans. The company will hold an event next week to show off its quote, new home on Android. It will reportedly be a Facebook enhanced version of the operating system that will debut on a new HTC smartphone. The New York Times reports that the new version will replace the Android home screen with the user's Facebook page instead. The standard camera and messaging apps will reportedly be replaced with Facebook apps as well. We'll be there at the event on Thursday, April 4th. Developers are finally getting their hands on the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The company announced it started shipping out developer kits this week. They're going both to Kickstarter backers as well as those who ordered the dev kit directly from Oculus. Founder Palmer Luckey told us that the company has logged 13,000 orders so far. Now it's time to see what developers will do with it. I was able to play an early version of Hawken in a demo racing game on the Rift earlier this week. And then I felt sick, but it was a really cool kind of sick. And finally, sports fans may have a new live streaming option, HBO Go. Yesterday, HBO Sports president Ken Hirschman said the company would be offering live sports on the streaming app by the end of the year. However, an executive later clarified that it didn't have any immediate plans to offer boxing and HBO MainStay. Of course, if you want some competitive blood sport in the meantime, there's always Game of Thrones. And those are today's top stories. Join us next week when we debut our two-man show, Snapchat. The Musical.

Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of March 25th, 2013. I'm Josh Dupolsky. I'm Neelay Patel. I'm Ross Miller. And we're back for you and only for you, Joe. If your name is Joe, you just got really happy. This is your cast, the Joe cast. Anyhow, we're back on the Vergecast where we discuss the week in technology culture, internet culture and culture culture, which is currently developing. There you go. It's always developing. It's always developing. And we had a big week, interesting week, crazy week, sexy week. A week I would say drenched in sex and love and also in other things unrelated to either of those. What are we talking about this week? What did happen? We had a very sexy week. Your week was way different than the previous. Because I was celebrating the Lord smiting the Egyptian people with plagues. I had a Passover, sorry, I was going to talk about this a little bit, then we'll get into it. I had a Passover. I was back home for Passover for a Passover Seder, which is the traditional Passover dinner, which goes on for 15 hours straight. And I have to say, I really enjoy, there's a part of the Seder where you list off the plagues that were visited upon the houses of Egypt. It's like locusts, famine, death of the first born, of course, is the most important one. Yeah, that's obvious. Blink feed. Blink feed, boom sound. You got a phone, you got a Windows phone that only can be upgraded to 7.8. It's one of those. And at that point the pharaoh says, no more. Yeah, sexism on the internet. You're a woman on the internet. It's one of the plagues that was visited. It's just an interesting thing to do. It's a very morbid, I mean, a lot of the Jewish holidays are very, and by the way, I'm an atheist and not really, I'm not a practicing Jew. I was raised, so I got, you know, my parents give me a big guilt trip if I don't participate. But it's just a morbid holiday full of horrible stories and you can't eat bread. It's not the best. I did get pretty drunk though. Yeah, I think that's really the point. Drunk on, we drink a type of alcohol called slivovitz, which is like a family tradition. It's a, I think it's a plum brandy. It is disgusting. It will burn your insides. It definitely sounds like you've been drinking enough of it to stop, forget that you've been drinking it. Yeah, we also, my father, my brother, ow, I just had a terrible pain in my leg for no apparent reason. Slivovitz. It's finally catching up with me. That was incredible. This is pain as it's going on too. No, my father, my brother made a horseradish. Yeah. Okay. Horain as it's known. Yeah. And I doctored it a little bit because it tasted really bad when they finished with it. I had to like spice it up a little bit, but it was extremely. You just spiced up the horseradish. Well, yeah, you put a little vinegar and salt in it to give it a little bit of flavor because otherwise it just like burns. It's just burning. It's just a burning sensation. Ow, I don't know what's going on in my head right now. I'm going to stretch it out. I'm going to, you know what? I was driving yesterday, so maybe I did something. Like I don't know what, what? How long was like the trip? Like six hours. Yeah. Six and a half. I don't know. Yeah, that's weird. Can we get a shot of Slivovitz? Can you get me? I would love a shot of Sliv, right? Sliv as we call it. A Sliv. Anyhow, this is totally unrelated to anything that we're supposed to talk about. Actually being drunk is related to our first story. It is. Let's do it. Or potentially related. I would say so. So I would say the news of the week without question was T-Mobile's relaunch of itself. Bullshit. Bullshit. But nothing about the news of its relaunch was actually news. They announced that the pricing plans were available. You know, the iPhone 5 is like great, another carrier with the iPhone 5. They said a bunch of this stuff at CES. What was news about it was they're incredibly aggressive, like marketing around it. And then the CEO, the new CEO of T-Mobile, John Legere. Oh, it's Legere? Legere. Very sexy. He came onto stage and just began ranting about the wireless industry and actually said at one point, we have to stop the bullshit. Yeah. He swore within the first minute of being on stage. He swore a lot. He said that the way, you know, how carriers are nice to you is a crock of shit. And it was very, very, I was very, I was very raw. I was very, you know, kind of unprecedented in this industry. We have a little bit of a super cut. Yeah, we have a super cut of this. Take a look at, take a look at what he was up to on stage. Any second. There we go. We're unleashing everything. We're going to talk about this today, but please stop the bullshit. Sorry. I promised myself I wasn't going to swear today. Elizabeth, wherever you are, your father didn't mean that. I've been at this business for about 33 years, but I don't have wireless industry experience. And after a while I went home and I said to myself, holy shit, I don't have wireless industry experience. What am I going to do? And it suddenly dawned on me. There's not a goddamn person in the world besides a wireless industry person that would understand why the hell this mess works this way. And the worst fear of the wireless industry is that somebody from outside Oz comes in and starts looking at their industry. I've already told you about the spaceship and the aliens coming in. It doesn't make sense. Unbelievable high prices. How the hell can that cost that much unless you're going to drive it? I mean, come on, that nasty guy on the end, that's sprint and you, you got to see that. The day you go in that store, they love you. It's like, you know, oh, you got to have this phone. We're going to be so good to you. Here's a free t-shirt, some balloons. By the way, you need a back rub. Maybe that's just me. You pay so much for your phones. It's incredible. Everybody's blogging. Holy crap. I can't believe he just said that. Oh, he said shit. That's how I lost the family pool. I bet he'd only swear five times. It was very spirited, very good stuff. Unfortunately, here's the thing. And we did some math and I did some personal math because I was like, this is, I'm fired up. They got LTE, they're expanding their network. They have these new pricing plans. They're selling the iPhone for a hundred bucks. They're selling the one which I'm using for a hundred bucks. This is great. I'm switching. And then I went and I did some math and it's actually would be more expensive for me to switch to. Because you have a family plan. No, I have a regular, a single guy plan. A regular cool bachelor plan. For me, there's four people on my family plan, multiple devices, iPads and all kinds of stuff. If you get an iPhone, it's like the unlimited plan is 70 bucks plus 20 for having an iPhone plus 20 for having their 4g service. Here's the thing that plus 20 driving the iPhone. That's the big thing that they're doing is they're saying we're no longer just pricing in the subsidy for the phone and to price of the plan. Because AT&T you pay however much per month for the service and there's a subsidy built into that always. T-Mobile is saying you can either pay the 20 bucks a month for us to subsidize your phone or you cannot pay it. And if you don't pay it, the phone is $600. But if you already have a phone, or if you get to the end of two years and you're all the way paid off or you find a hundred bucks on the street and you pay ahead. Okay, fine. If you take out the 20, you're about the same as Verizon and AT&T. They're charting this middle ground. Most people come and don't have a phone. They're not bringing a phone. They're like, I want to get new service and I need a new phone. I think what T-Mobile is here is they're not trying to be cheaper. They're calling themselves cheaper because everyone does that. Well, they already are. They've always been cheaper. Well, yes and no. It's pretty close though. It's just more transparent. I know what I'm paying for. We're looking at this yesterday. And what's the deal? So hold on. So I get an iPhone. I pay $100 for the phone upfront. I'm paying the $20 subsidy fee. I'm paying the $70 unlimited everything. I'm paying the other $20. There's another $20 for their 4G service. For the hotspot. Yeah. No. Oh, that's right. For the hotspot. For the hotspot. For four gigs of hotspot, which is lower than, cheaper than what you pay. But somehow it still worked out to more money for me because I don't need unlimited minutes and unlimited messages. That's the trick. Okay. What I really want is like 900 minutes and a thousand messages because I'm not ever going to use them. Right. But they don't do that. So it ends up being more expensive because you think you're getting more. But long and short is, I'm on two months. I'm on T-Mobile. I hate it. Yeah. I'm like, I don't want this anymore. What happens? You don't have a contract. So that ends. Yeah. And then you have to give your phone back to them. Okay. And they give you a fair market credit for it, which they refuse to explain. Now that's going to work. Right. And you're on the hook for whatever the difference is. But that credit has to go to T-Mobile. Wait, you do give the phone back to them? Yep. And then you have to pay for the phone? You have to pay for whatever the difference between the remaining. In the end, you pay $579 for the phone, right? So you're saying after two months, I get my iPhone. After two months, I'm like, I hate this. I'm out of here. Right. I say, you can have the phone back. Yep. They're like, give me $500? Well, no. No, no. You'll get. They'll give you some credit, which they're calling a fair market value credit. So that's a mystery amount. To what? For what credit? Of what? For your phone. Yeah, but the phone is, you only paid $80 for it. You're giving them the property back, right? Yeah. So then you only owe them what they're saying the difference between the market value of the phone is from the $500 that you owe them. But they're giving you money is what you're saying. No, you're just paying them less money. You're giving them some money. Yes. Right. So you're just paying them $400 instead of $600. You're leasing the phone, essentially. But if you give them the phone back. Yeah. You still have to pay it off. You have to pay about some amount, but they're not clear what that amount is going to be. That doesn't sound like a great deal to me. That doesn't sound like you're getting out scot-free. You have to pay for the amount that you've used the phone, right? I mean, like the phone's value has decreased. I guess so. It's true. I don't know. I thought T-Mobile was different. So they're going to let me have a phone and do whatever I want with it and then give it back and not have to pay anything. Well, so the ultimate goal here, and I think this is interesting because the ultimate goal here is that you buy a phone the way you buy a laptop. Yeah, you decouple. You decouple it. You decouple the phone purchase from the service purchase. They can't do that straight away, right? Because they can't say our phones cost $579. They would suicide. So they have to provide some sort of path. They want people like me who have a One. I'm like, you know what? I'm not getting off AT&T. I hate the service. And the iPhones are going to work across AT&T and T-Mobile, assuming you can get it unlocked. If you have an iPhone in AT&T and you get it unlocked and you go use it on T-Mobile, they're scrambling to make part of a network compatible with AT&T's 4G and LTE. So there's some stuff there. When do we see a viable new network from T-Mobile? How far off? I feel like we're dealing with end of 2014, maybe, you have a T-Mobile network that can compete. Right. So what they're saying is it's 100 million customers that will have LTE access, or at least 100 million citizens that can have it by first half of the year, 200 million by the end of the year. I mean, here's the thing. I have AT&T, LTE. Their service is, their coverage is pretty bad. It's bad. You go a few seconds outside of any major metropolitan area. I was outside. It was 10 minutes, in midtown Manhattan. That's where we are. I walked 10 minutes away from the office to run errands today and I had 4G the whole way. And it's like, I didn't- You mean 4G, fake 4G? Yeah. No, I mean, I have, in my neighborhood, I get 4G when I'm going over the bridge and stuff. It's just like, it's gone. Yeah. And even a little bit further out into the neighborhood, it's gone. So Verizon is amazing. I mean, Verizon's network is, their penetration is amazing. Right. So T-Mobile, I feel like, is so far off. They're a ways to go. They can say 100 million, but they mean like 100 million people who might drive through a certain area. Well, it's pretty much- Like if cars come near here. Well, the big market. So, I mean, look, they've got a long ways to go. I think what's really interesting about this whole story from the beginning is not, there's no way for them to win now. Right. But I think, Wajir has like put himself on the map. Like he's famous now. Yeah. He stood on stage and called all of his competitors, literally called bullshit on all of his competitors. Yeah. And the problem is that he didn't back it up with really any kind of astounding savings. I think what would have been amazing is he said, like, look, you're going to save a thousand dollars over two years, but you're not. In some cases you might, but overall it's the savings are like a couple hundred bucks. Well, I think if you're the sort of person who buys, who wants a new phone every year, and I think a lot of people listening to this podcast probably want to buy a new phone every year. I think that there is some savings built in there for you because you get to give the phone back and you don't have to pay the $700 for the, you know, the off contract. That's true. Yeah. And I think you have to have T-Mobile service. You have to deal with T-Mobile. I mean, I don't know anybody who's like, I love, I mean, I see people all the time tweeting me T-Mobile is so great. I love it. It's awesome in my area. But all of the people that I know, people who live in New York, people who are in our industry, I've never heard anybody really say anything effusive about T-Mobile. It's only people who work for Google because they put out the Nexus 4. Yeah, but I feel like on the Google campus, I feel like on all the, so you're not paying $20 per month anymore. Right. And I feel like on the Google campus they've got just like towers everywhere and they're just going for it. And it's like literally a bubble. Yeah, no, I talked to, no, I talked to people at Google when they released the Nexus 4 and it was like, they're like, oh, it's really fast. They're like, what are you talking about? It's great. I get 21 down. It's like, yeah, on the Google campus, which is like almost literally a bubble. Yeah. You know, in the real world it's like one. Yeah. No, it's terrible. I mean, they brag about this 42 down, but it's not there. Yeah. Yeah, I've never seen anything remotely. But I think it's a baby step. You know, I'm like, this is what Google has been trying to do with the Nexus program. They've utterly failed to do it because they're not a carrier. It makes sense why Google couldn't do it and T-Mobile can do it, but the idea that you will buy a phone and the age of the custom high-end phone is like kind of over, right? It's no longer the AT&T Captivate and Verizon Fascinate. It's just the GS4. I can tell that AT&T and Verizon, which whose phones are littered with AT&T and Verizon crap are made only for AT&T and Verizon, like the Droid DNA. Well, yeah, but that has to come to an end. Does it? Not if Verizon AT&T stay on top. I mean, but the phones are the same. The GS4 is the same. The iPhone is obviously the same. Well, it's the same, but you can't buy a- The one is the same everywhere except for Verizon. Of course. Well, let's define the same. It's just sad. The GS4 is going to have different radios for the Verizon model. You won't be able to take it to AT&T. Right, but this age of you can only get certain phones on certain carriers, at least from the perspective of the average consumer, it's already been decoupled a little bit. Well, I mean, what we need to do is just come up with real prices for phones and just say this is what it's going to be. So I think that- Consumers won't buy it. This is the first step, right? If you get an iPhone for free or $99, you're not going to buy an iPhone for $500. You're always going to take the... Look, at least in this country, I can't speak to everywhere else, but I think this is a country that loves credit. We love being on credit. We love getting buy now, pay later. I just signed up for this PayPal service. It's called pay later. It's called pay it later. The whole idea is you don't have to pay for it now. We got you covered. I don't know even know why. I didn't have to sign up for it. I just wanted to not pay now. I wanted to not give anybody money at this moment. It's like a kind of a procrastination thing. I like long walks on the beach. I love ice cream and I love paying at a different time. Paying later. Paying later. That's my thing. All right. But I just think until people break themselves of that habit. But it's also tough. It's a lot of money. $500 for a phone is a ton of money. But you think if you actually get people to pay, you create a market. Once you create a market, prices go down. If you can do the Nexus 4 at 250, is that what it is? Yeah, 279, something like that. No, the 8 gig is 250, I think. 249. Wait, somebody just say something? Yeah. No, 300? The 8 is 300? I think it's 249. My high, maybe it is 300. I think it's 249. Our producers whispering in our ear. It's 299. It's 299. Okay. But still, yeah, $300 for a phone. Still, it's way cheaper than a $600 or $700 phone. Right, but it's a front. If you look at Verizon, the Droid DNA is like $700 if you buy it off contract. So here's the thing with that is you have to get consumers to act in their own self-interest. You have to basically trick them into doing it. And AT&T and Verizon are really good at tricking you into acting against your interest by saying the phone is free. Just sign this two-year contract and we've baked in these huge subsidies. I'm always worried why people don't act in their own self-interest. When people vote for Republicans, I'm like, I think, why are you doing this to yourself? Why do you want to have a worse time? Do you want to just say Windows is poison right now? No, I love Windows. I love Windows. No, I'm just saying that there are a lot of, let's just say across the political landscape, there are many politicians, Democrat and Republican, who will, people are like, I'm voting for this guy because this weird thing that they really want to push. And it's like that issue is actually really bad for you. And they're like, I don't care. I just, he said it's good. So I'm going to vote. No, so I mean, this is basically T-Mobile trying to, I'm coming back. Yes, please do. You don't want to talk about my deep hatred for all Republicans. So if you look at the fantasy land. I'm kidding. Listen, I love all people in America. All Americans. Outside of America, get out of my face. Not interested. Sorry, I played Bioshock Infinite like for hours last night. Don't spoil it. Let's just say it's about America. Yeah. And only America. We're doing, I won't spoil it. It's definitely on my mind from that game though. Yeah. Okay. The state of America. You know, I have the first Bioshock that I bought for like $10 on Amazon. I still haven't played it. You've not played the original Bioshock? It's only one of the greatest video games of all time. I have a stack of video games that I'm meant to play and I haven't played any of them. Anyway. It is so good you should play it. Yes. So we have Top Shelf coming up after the show, right? I was desperately trying to pull out of this Republican house. Yesterday I went around wandering around New York talking to people about their cell plans for Top Shelf. And I ran into one guy who's from London. I was like, how much do you pay for your service? And he's, I was like, would you switch for cheaper service? He's like, yeah, I pay $10 a month for my cell service. What? It's unlimited everything. London is like the size of Rhode Island. Wait, what can you do? London is the size of Rhode Island but it's because they buy the service separately from the phone. The whole of England is like the size of Rhode Island. He had a Lumia 920. I told you how I felt about it. It was awesome. Really? He's like, I love this phone. It's totally sold out all through the UK. Which is crazy. Well, I guess Microsoft was right. They're selling phones. But see, that's actually interesting, right? I mean, that's part of this is Microsoft would have an easier time competing in the market. I mean, you found somebody with a Lumia. That's really interesting. I mean, it was really easy to find him. It was like bright blue. I was like, that guy. He ran towards him. He had a blue one? Yeah. From England? Yeah. Huh. It was bright blue. It was awesome. Literally, we saw him. All of us, Jordan and Billy and I were walking around. We're like, that one. We charged it. He's wondering, how much did he pay for that Lumia? Full price. What is that? 450? 500? I mean, in pounds, I don't know. Right. So there's a competition for those devices as well. Car phone warehouse in the UK sells it cheaper than Tesco. That's wonderful. I love that. They have pricing competition on the phone. You mean like- Because the carriers are in pricing competition against each other because people can just swap the devices. You mean TVs and computers. You mean like every other product you buy. Yeah, everything that we buy. Like cars, for instance. Right. And so this is like- You can get a car from a different price from a different dealer. Right. For a different price from a different dealer. Like everything else. But it's funny because the cell carrier, I mean, we've been ranting about this forever. They've completely insulated themselves in this real market. It's so boring. Yeah. I mean, all the FCC needs to do is just smash this whole thing. Just say like, you can't do this anymore. Julius is out, man. Yeah, I know. Who's going to step in to fix it? Some lobbyist, some Verizon lobbyist. No, because that's who it's going to be. I would like to be- It's going to be the former, former Verizon lobbyist. Have you heard of Chris Ziegler? Yeah, Chris Ziegler for- One of the only humans followed by the FCC Twitter account. Chris Ziegler for FCC chair. I would support that. And I believe though his background is riddled with drug abuse, I think that overall he would be a great candidate. Just don't ask him about that incident in like 1996. Don't ask about 1996 at all the whole year. Yeah. Anyhow. He won't remember anyway. I do think the T-Mobile thing is a good sign. It's a baby step. And we should wrap this up, but I think the T-Mobile thing is a good sign to recap. It's good. It could be better, but I think it's a step in the right direction. I don't have a problem with Republicans, although I do have a problem with some of their policies, this policies of the Republican party. And I love all Americans and I hate everybody who's not an American. Okay. All right. Okay. So you have a choice of your next topic. Yes, next topic. You can either talk about the Wachowskis doing Netflix's next new series, or you can talk about some crazy dystopian drone stuff. Let's do Wachowskis. Okay. This is all Ross. Right. So the story as it is, actually about six months ago, Wachowskis and the Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Stravinsky- Can we set the stage in case you don't know who the Wachowskis are? They directed the Matrix. They made the Matrix. And then they made the other Matrix movies. Yeah. And then they did some other- Just act like- And then the Speed Racer thing. Just act like they just made the Matrix. Yeah. Right. The Matrix 1 creators are doing their second movie ever. This is it. They're finally following up the first Matrix. It's a TV show. They're finally following up the only Matrix movie with a project with Netflix. With a 10 episode series called Sense8. We have no idea what it's about. All 10 episodes are going to come out. It's probably about a new HTC interface. That's amazing. It's about the HTC interface, like way in the future. In like four years. The clock is back. Yeah. So we heard about- But it's digital and analog. You can turn it around. You can see the insides of the clock. Don't blink feed. Yeah. Ooh. That's good. That's good. Sense8 brought to you by HTC. So six months ago, they were shopping us around for TV networks. That's how the story goes. Yeah. They settled not on TV. They settled on Netflix. So it's coming out next year at some point. All 10 episodes, of course, at once. And this is, I think it's going to be ninth or 10th Netflix original series by the time it comes out. So they've got- They did- The House of Cards. House of Cards. Well, don't forget, they started with Lilyhammer. Lilyhammer, which is not good. I watched a little bit of it. Not at all. I mean, it was okay. I didn't want to keep watching it. House of Cards. House of Cards. Arrested Development. Before that, Eli Roth's Hemlock Grove. That comes out next month. Oh, yeah. Hemlock Grove, which is based on a book, which is written and it takes place in- Oh, is this a trailer for it? Mm-hmm. This is Hemlock Grove? This is. So this is actually based on a book written by, I think, a guy from Pittsburgh or who went to school in Pittsburgh, and it takes place outside of Pittsburgh. So this is what Pittsburgh's like. I've never been there. Yeah, this is exactly what Pittsburgh is like. Right here. Okay. This is it. By the way, that is definitely what Pittsburgh is like. Right here. It's all. A formerly beautiful woman, peeling off her wig. This looks amazing. My only hesitation is from director Eli Roth. Right. Yeah. Right? Am I right, y'all? It also seems like just like an ultraviolet, like, werewolf Twilight. Nothing wrong with that. It's not to Twilight, man. Trust me. All right. I mean, I'll take your word for it. I'll see it. It's on Netflix. It makes me want to read the book now. I started reading. I'm like, I'm going to read it instead of me. But you know, like, this is like, this is the thing that like Reed Hastings has been talking about, the Netflix CEO. It's definitely nudity here in this trailer. No, it's just a butt. Yeah. A butt is nudity. I think, I think butt is. By my puritanical standards. Hold on, hold on. I think even the word butt is nudity. You remember like NYPD Blue started doing butts back in 2002. Remember that? You remember when NYPD Blue started doing butts. Yeah, it was a big deal. It was a big deal. It was a big deal, man. If you were discretion advised, you didn't see David Caruso's butt. Was it Caruso's butt or Jimmy Smith's butt? No, both their butts. Also, also who was his partner? Like the bigger guy? His butt was also, Sipowicz was the character's name. His butt was all over. Sipowicz's butt. Okay. All right. They're like, this Thursday, Sipowicz's ass will be all over your TV. So what we're really admitting to here is that we barely watched NYPD Blue. I've seen a lot of NYPD Blue. Really? I was not a, maybe it was the butts. I only remember the butt story. That's okay. Anyhow, anyhow, but. Let's try. So Hemlock Grove. Let's do our best. Hemlock Grove, rest of the development's in May. Yeah. There's a bunch of like animated series, science fiction, comedies are coming out. This is a huge deal. It's like there are seven shows happening in 2013. So the Wachowski's said, we're not gonna take this to a network, we're not gonna take it to HBO or Showtime. They haven't talked about that directly. It's just like six months ago. But they're doing it with Netflix. They're doing it with Netflix. That's the long and short of it. Exclusive. Yeah. So we don't know anything about it. Other than it's science fiction. Is this the entire story? That's pretty much the entire story. This is a horrible topic. We don't know anything about it. It does show Netflix still attracting huge talent. Well, they made The Matrix and then the other two Matrixes and then Speed Racer and then something else. No, no, they just made The Matrix. Oh, oh, oh. Didn't they do, they were co-directors of? Cloud Atlas. Cloud Atlas. Yes. A great hit. Another successful product. No, but I'm just saying like they kind of like, you know. No, they didn't. Did you watch all of House of Cards? Not yet. Okay. Is it good? I just finished it. I think it's really good. No spoilers. No spoilers. No spoilers. I will say that it was very strange to watch that much of a show that tried so hard in the beginning to not be a TV show and then so thoroughly turned into a TV show. It's a TV show. Right. But like they want, the first three episodes are like, this is not a TV show. So I think that's why I had trouble watching it. I hear the first couple of episodes are very slow and then it kind of picks up. Well, a little bit. Yeah. I mean, it's like nine episodes of exposition. Okay. Please do not spoil this. Please do not spoil this for me. Not spoiling. Yeah. But see, that's the thing. Like I marathoned that thing in three days, afraid someone's going to spoil it. Yeah. And then I don't know who's seen it, who's not. I'll tell you who was spoiling it for me. I had to stop following her. It was Retta. Really? Yeah, from Parks and Rec. She was like spoilers all over the place. I'm like, Retta, please. Yeah. I started to follow you because I thought we'd have something special going on on Twitter and now you're ruining House of Cards for me. Well, you know, this was like, so this is the thing, you know, I think Netflix has a problem. The only thing you can say about House of Cards is like, have you seen House of Cards yet? Yeah. Because you don't know. No, Netflix is like, this is everybody has to watch. Everybody alive has to watch House of Cards so there can be no spoilers. I mean, that's, you know, Twitter just needs like a spoiler alert button. Yeah. Right. Or like the blackout text. Yeah. But it needs to be like, I'm going to do a spoiler so now your text won't be, you'll say I got to click on this to see it. I also found myself wondering why House of Cards has intro credits because it's like, I'm watching all of these. Why do I need to watch this? Maybe you're going to revisit an episode. Maybe they'll syndicate it. Maybe they'll put it on television. That would be amazing. It's totally, totally possible that somebody would want to pick it up to, to for syndication. I mean, that's not the craziest idea, is it? It's kind of the craziest. I mean, that completely goes against Netflix. I mean, in five years, somebody might, you know, say two years. They can't staple the credits on then? Why do I got to watch them now? The whole point is you binge watch the show. I don't know. I don't know. You're right. I don't have a good answer for this. For the first time ever. The music is really good. Should we talk about drones? Let's talk about drones. Yeah. Okay. So did you, did you hear Bloomberg's quote from over the weekend? Yes. Okay. Get used to it. It says Mayor Bloomberg. I got to say I like Bloomberg basically, but I'm not sold on his get used to it angle. Here's some of these quotes. We re-ran the piece. What's the difference? And I, it's funny because you can tell Bloomberg doesn't quite know what he's talking about. I can't wait. A politician doesn't understand technology. That's insane. What's the difference whether the drone is up in the air or on the building by which he presumably means a camera is on the building, not a drone that is like, it's the Spider-Man of drones. One can chase you down an alley. One can follow you to your house. We're going into a different world. Uncharted. You can't keep the tide from coming in the tide, by the way, being pervasive surveillance by the state. It's not just like an army of drones. It's like going through traffic. It's not a question of whether it's good or bad. I just don't see how you can stop them. No, really? That's a great, by the way, you want your leaders to say it may be terrible, but there's really nothing I could do about it. So just let it happen to you. That's one of the great like action movie taglines. It's not a question of whether it's good or bad. We just don't know. He actually followed up the what's the difference whether the drone is up in the air on the building with, I mean, intellectually I have trouble making that distinction. Which is, he's like, I don't even want to think about this. His point is he's saying, look, there's CCTVs, which by the way, are not, they're not owned by the state. They're not owned by the city. They're not monitored in a vast network of collected network of. Okay, but hold on. So I think what he's saying is like, look, CCTV cameras are watching you. These things will be watching you. Private eyes. Private eyes are watching you. I'm not going to hear you. I'm not doing it. I can't remember the line either. That's the next one. Thank you. It's, it's what is it? They're watching your every move. I don't think it's watching your every move. I think it's like making your every move or take taking your every move. It's not there. Well, the next one is definitely private eyes. Yes, that's for sure. That's what I was thinking. But I think he's basically like stupidly, they see your every move. Thank you, Brendan. Very helpful. I was like, should I do it? That wasn't Brendan. I think it was John. Was that Will? Will, okay. Someone in our production staff only knows Hall and Oates. But he's saying, he's saying, look, cameras on you. Get used to it. Okay, fine. I can get used to it. But, but, but, you know, I'm going to get less used to the camera that flies through the air and can follow me everywhere than I am to the one that's stationary on a building. Yeah. Like, or in a business. Yeah. Like, I can, I can, I'm not, I'm not loving it. But I also think that they're very helpful. I mean, there's no question that CCTVs harm, they harm slightly in terms of our privacy, but they do tend to be very effective when a bank gets robbed and they're trying to identify somebody. So in New York, and this might have explained. Of course, Josh Koffstein would definitely argue that it's okay to rob banks. So in New York, the police department runs a system called the domain awareness system. That's definitely innocuous, which is 3000 cameras on the street in Manhattan. Yeah. So they already have. Are they already networked? Yeah. They're all they're watching. There's a room somewhere that's like one of the lost bunkers with the, all the cameras and this, that switches. There's just a guy with a joystick. And they have that, they have that thing. And there's one guy just like, do I say enhance now? Yeah. Enhance. Enhance. He's like just ready at all times. But he has an enhance button. And they can read license plates. I mean, there's all kinds of, I mean, we've been running stories. After stories on this about like, um, there's the, the Argus global awareness system that can like track you up to six inches on the ground from the sky. Yeah. So like, well, we just hit this and we just hit this LIDAR system, the city scan, which is taking laser mappings of a city and then knowing if you're anything's out of two centimeters out of place, which is definitely the end, the end times. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's crazy. So I think the idea that the mayor of New York is like, screw it, it's over. There's nothing you can do about it is a little bit terrifying. It's bad. It's bad. I mean, you want, I think into Josh's point about the thing that you should read it. Uh, Josh Copstein wrote a piece today that is, or published a piece today that is, um, mayor Bloomberg's, uh, what is the title? Mayor Bloomberg's vision of a drone filled city doesn't fly or why it doesn't fly. And it's really good. And it kind of makes this argument, you know, he, he wrote this piece a while ago that, um, it's not okay for Congress to not know how the internet works. And this is like, to me, very much in the same, it's like, we need smarter politicians. Like, I'm sorry, but you're supposed to be the smartest guys in the room. You're supposed to be the most informed guys in the room. Like it shouldn't be up to other people to have to explain this stuff to you. You're supposed to go like, I need to know this issue because it affects the people in my city or in my state or in my country. And I'm going to learn about it. I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to be able to speak about it intelligently. And if you can't do that, if you're like that, CCTV and drone, basically the same thing. That's your attitude. It's time for a new mayor. And that mayor should be young, maybe have a beard. I'm thinking glasses, tall, maybe a Y on the end of his name, last name. I'm running for mayor vote for me. Whatever year, whatever year the next phase of the verge is you as mayor, whatever year Chris is elected in New York. That's the year I'm running next. I will say house of cards has made me want to run for Congress in a really weird way. He'd be great in Congress. Yeah. Cause I would definitely kill that dude for nothing. Hey, Hey, did you just spoil something? He didn't spoil anything. No. Also, I don't think you should make threats about people in Congress. My campaign for mayor begins now. Okay. So here's what I'll do for you, the city of New York. One I will tell you, I will learn about how drones work. I will tell you, I will be able to tell you, I will be able to tell you, by the way, am I in this camera, the one that I, that I was in originally? I just want to make sure I will tell you if a, if there's a, if it's a drone or a CCTV camera, I'd be able to distinguish between those two things. That's my first promise to you. My second promise is that the city, that the skies of the city will be blacked out with swarms of drones that we watch it, everything that you do at all times and no sunlight shall break through my drone swarm, which will, which will be on you like white on rice. Mr. Balsky, I have a question. Yes. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, do you have a question? Yeah. These guys like reporter voice. Excuse me, do you need a hat with like a press thing in it? Can we get one of those really quick? Can we get, can we get from the wardrobe? Go ahead. So real quick, can a, can a large drone give me a really big large soda? Uh, well, I of course will allow all sizes of sodas and I will actually have a law that there has to be more sugar in them. So people are, uh, you know, more awake and ready for action. You have an answer for everything. Because of the drone, because of the drone swarms, you gotta be on your toes when those things come. Oh, did I mention that my drones will be armed and they will also have claws? Yeah. Okay. They'll be armed with, with, with guns as well as sharp claws. And the drones will be making sure that you're drinking sugary drinks. Some of the drugs will actually deliver the sugary drinks to you as a citizenry of New York will be hand delivered, drone delivered claw delivered. Actually the claws will have like little syringes and they'll inject the sugar as they come, as they swooped down. Did I mention that the drones will be painted to look like weird Hawks? They'll be like, we have like lots of extra metal on them. Yeah. It'll be pretty cool. And yeah, that's the thing that I can promise to you as that I will do as mayor of New York to be weird Hawks drones. Hawks drones that, that can kill and serve you a drink that black out the, that blot out the sun. Yeah. And that I could also tell you which one is a drone and which one is not a drone. Hold on one second. So I just, I just noticed something that I didn't see before. Someone in the booth apparently did a Josh Dupolsky for mayor ban. Oh my God. What? That was fast. Yeah, there we go. Okay. Yeah. 2014 is going to be our year. Yeah. Also free wifi everywhere in New York. Oh, good. I'm going to be surrounded by drones. Maybe. Well, there'll be a mesh network of drone, drone based, drone based wifi. That's right. Drone net. Drone net. I like that. Maybe you could be on the cabinet. All right. I'll be your speech writer. Okay. Sounds good. Great. All right. I think the merch has done. We have one more. The iCloud. Is Ellis here? Ellis will be here. Did you just say the iCloud? The iCloud. Yeah. I read about it on the Google. The drone system should be called the iCloud. Just to really step on that. Yeah. It's got a ring to it. What are they going to do? They can't come here and fight me on that. Right. Because the drones will murder them. That's right. Drones are impervious to copyright and patent law as well. That's amazing. I do know about drones. So wait. Is Ellis Hamburger going to come in? Ellis is going to come in. We're going to play a clip. Oh, okay. This is... This is a big setup. Yeah. The big setup. Yeah. So Ellis did this great report this week on iCloud, how it just, you know, it doesn't just work. So we're going to bring him in here. That's a... You're saying iCloud should just work. It should just work. It should work with quotes, but it doesn't. And then Ellis wrote a piece. He talked to a bunch of developers that like basically it doesn't. Like here's what's wrong with it. So we have a clip. We have a clip from Steve Jobs introducing iCloud. Yeah. And then when we come back, I won't be here. I'll be gone. You'll never see me again. Or you'll just be wearing an Ellis Hamburger suit. Yes. I'll be wearing a Hamburger suit. Creepy. HamburgerSuit.com. All right. Can we roll the clip? I'm going to run away. HamburgerSuit.com. And we call it iCloud. iCloud stores your content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices. So it automatically uploads it, stores it, and automatically pushes it to all your other devices. But also it's completely integrated with your apps. And so everything happens automatically and there's nothing new to learn. It just all works. It just works. Now, you might ask, why should I believe them? They're the ones that brought me MobileMe. It wasn't our finest hour. Let me just say that. Yeah. So funny at the time. Oh, Ellis, by the way, here's Ellis Hamburger. I just teleported right in. Just teleported in in place of Ross Miller. So obviously Steve Jobs was very bullish about iCloud. Why would you believe us? We're the ones who made MobileMe. We're the ones who made MobileMe. We figured it out this time. And it's not that it's... There's a different set of problems. It's not the same kind of consumer facing problems that... I mean, it ultimately rolls down to ends up being a consumer facing issue. But explain the issue with iCloud right now. So the problem is Steve Jobs says it just works for everybody. And so people expect all their apps to tie in perfectly with iCloud. And two years later, customers are angry because their favorite apps haven't rolled out iCloud integration. Everybody's leaving bad reviews in the app store and these developers are upset. I've been hearing so much over the last year saying, hey, if we wanna do anything more complex than just syncing a list of files or to-dos, Apple's way to do it is horribly borked and just completely... Do they actually use the phrase horribly borked? That was me. Okay. But they apparently totally blew it. And the problem... So developers are angry about the implementation. Yeah. And the problem is that Apple doesn't provide any support. I've heard that they only have four guys working on core data, which is how Apple wants you to store your data in iCloud for complicated apps. So we should be clear here. iCloud is a marketing term for consumers. It encompasses like 50 things. Everything from you can redownload your songs on iTunes to when you put an app on your phone, it shows up on the iPad. And that stuff is very simple. And a lot of people assume, hey, plug into iCloud, it's as easy as adding some of these other iCloud features. Right. It's that I make a change in my document on my phone and it automatically shows up over here in my iPad or my Mac. That stuff doesn't work across any apps except really Apple's, right? Right. Which we can assume are augmented in some way. They're not just... This is not just... Or built for whatever their exchange is. And that's what I've heard is that a lot of the Apple apps, like let's say Keynote, are using the document-based syncing, just like a list of files with changes. And that apparently works really well, especially as of the last couple months. But they don't use core data, which is for databases. And that's what a lot of developers were most looking forward to about iCloud. And they don't even use it except for their trailers app, which doesn't work too well. I think it's interesting to see the juxtaposition between Google strategy here and even Microsoft in some way, where they really are providing this gateway, this... It's not all in the background, essentially. The data syncing is in the background and ultimately you're syncing content back and forth between devices. But in many cases, you're looking at web views where the data is in one place to begin with. Right. But Google's an obvious example, but on Drive or Google Docs. That data, when you open it up on your app on your Android phone, that data is, as far as I know, is some web view of the data that you're dealing with. I don't know all the details of it, but it doesn't feel like there's this push-pull situation which happens with iCloud, which makes it, I think, more complex, seems to make it more complex for developers to plug into. They're not saying cook up a web view and that will be displayed in both places. They're saying exchange data back and forth between three different places. Take it from one platform up to the cloud down to another platform. So what's interesting is I've been reading some of the follow-ups from Ellis's piece and it's developers saying, well, A, this doesn't work, and B, what are the benefits of doing all this engineering work to lock myself into Apple's sync ecosystem? Because what if I do want to build that web view, I can't do it with Apple's system. What if my app gets really popular and I want to go get the Android audience? Definitely can't do that with Apple's ecosystem. So there's this like- And it also means you can't use it from a buddy's computer who has an internet connection. Well, it just seems like what Apple really wants to do is, or what they should be doing is standardizing around some, sorry, not standardizing, but using some standards, the preexisting standards here and opening that saying like, hey, look, there's all this stuff to build. In a way, like what they did with Safari and WebKit where they're like, hey, here's WebKit. And so the parts of iCloud where they do do that work, right? So like the calendar syncing is CalDAT, so it works well. The contact syncing is CardDaf, right? People also know how that stuff works. Those are open standards and these are things that they couldn't be less transparent about. I mean, it took them a year to even offer sample code. Do you think there's any, is there any, did you get any sense here that this is a competitive issue alongside being just a kind of a technical issue or manpower issue? Like is there something here where Apple's kind of like, hey, we don't want the open, not open office. What is the popular office app? Quick Office? Quick Office. Google, Google, Google. These guys to have the same kind of access that are, that Pages has or Numbers has. Do you sense that there's anything there or is it really just a question of like they're not throwing enough manpower and they don't have their like technical side of stuff in their ducks in a row there? I think that's exactly it. I mean, they don't have their ducks in a row. They announced this as a feature. Steve Jobs said, it's going to be easy to tie your apps in. It's so weird. Two years later, it just sucks. It's kind of like FaceTime. It's a little bit reminiscent of FaceTime when they made a big deal. I mean, I thought they made a pretty big deal at the FaceTime announcement. They're like, we're going to open this up. It's going to be a standard. If you want to make, I mean, somebody, I think specifically asked somebody at Apple, if I want to make an Android app, I think they may be, maybe Jobs even said it on stage. It might have been Q and A. Or Q and A or something. Yeah. And it was like, it was like, no, it was like, yeah, if you want. You know, and then he probably sure said something about how horrible Android is and you know, why would anybody do that? But, but the point is that it's like one of these things where Apple's saying like, hey, we're creating the standard and we're going to open it up to people and it can be easy to use because we're Apple and we know how to do this stuff. And they're not, you know, I don't want to like beat them up any more than necessary. But I think for developers, this is becoming, you know, the cloud, you know, it's funny. And I go, but we've talked about this before where Jobs said, you know, it's not just a hard drive in the sky. It's not just a, you know, your files don't just go up and then come back down. But like weirdly iCloud seems most like that out of all of the services that exist, you know, it just seems like the least easy to plug into as a real cloud, as a real cloud service suite. I mean, I've to this day people are like, what is iCloud? I'm like, I don't know. It's also vague. It's like iTunes match is part of iCloud, right? It's like my app stuff. What is iCloud? Yeah, what is iCloud? It's a marketing term. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much it. Yeah, but to market what? To market. That's the question. Like, cause, cause I. Automatic solution for music, movies, you know, documents in the cloud. Yeah. But I find like, I find like the photos thing totally daunting, you know, it's so weird. I will say photo stream works well. Photo stream works okay, but it requires that you does this thing where like you think that there would be a process somewhere that pops open every once in a while in the background and downloads your, your photo stream photos to iPhone. But it doesn't, you can't see your photo stream photos until you open iPhone and watch them download. Yeah. And it's like, I'm so used now to, I take pictures on my phone. They get automatically uploaded to Google plus, which is Picasa into a private folder and they're just there when I'm, when I'm done, you know, the process doesn't seem like there's a more of, there's much less of a seamless process and managing you're like, what are these? Did I, you know, did I hit a limit? Did I, I don't know. It's just weird to me. Like it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel as cohesive as they sold it. And I, and I think that like they're, they're butting up against their kind of Apple's has had a lot of problems with the internet. Yeah. Apple doesn't like the internet. They like their apps. And that's what one developer named Greg from agile tortoise told me. Agile tortoise. Agile tortoise. They make that app drafts. That's really great. And what he said was with Apple, there is no truth in the cloud. Like you find with Google, there's not like one server that holds all this stuff. It's just trying to sync between the clients. Yeah, he said that. Right. And that hasn't been that way. It's like, if you want to send that stuff to Google, that's fine. But photo stream, for example, it's like they need to hold it for you and then push it down to this app effectively, which is a whole other challenge that they just haven't been able to do. I think this is part of the untangling of like, I'm very interested to see what happens to WWDC because I think this will be part of it. I also think that just the untangling of interaction in the OS, in iOS is one of the things that is like their biggest challenge right now. You know, it's like, how do you untangle the interaction for an app developer when you want them to be able to, you know, effectively move a file here or there or move data here or there or share something to another app or open with another app or do this kind of like the stuff that has become so weirdly fluid and easy on Android when it's like, hey, you can do this with three different things. Which one do you want to do it with? Like, do you always want to use that app or do you want to use something else? And it just like, you just get into a flow of using that. Some of these developers are telling me they're like, that's one of the things about iOS is that all the apps are sandboxed. There's not one file system you can really look at unless you're going to plug it into your computer or jailbreak. And that's something you get on Android that is in a lot of ways really nice. I mean, I think that, I think that they, you know, Apple had a lot of runway because they were so very deeply revolutionized mobile computing. And now they've like, you know, they kind of started way high up and have, and have stayed there in that. But now stuff has risen and gone beyond it in terms of like ease of use and, and data portability. And I think that, and, and, and cross system functionality. I just made that term up by the way. I'm pretty excited about it. And I think that, and I think that now it's like time for them to meet those challenges. It's definitely like a light in an eighties movie when you like turn on a robot and like cross system functionality. Oh yeah, absolutely. Lights up. Yeah. And then the movie starts flickering. Yeah. Like the one mic falls off. Something's wrong with the robot. It can't sync. Oh my God. Our cross system functionality is down. No, but I do think it's one of the challenges I'd like to see them meet at WWDC or whenever they announce the next version of iOS. I mean, they really, there does seem to be this like big ball of confusion from developers, from users, you know, even from. I think they need to take some accountability. Yeah. I mean, there's been these developers that, I mean, the way that they put it is we have to throw our bugs into the radar black hole is what they say. And you know, these guys aren't brats. It's like, yeah, this is a free service, but they were all so geeked about it when Apple talked about it. Right. Cause syncing databases is really tough. Sure. I mean, you ever try and sync your iPhone with Dropbox, your computer is purring until you shut iPhone. No, you want, you want, I mean, it's good. Extensively would be a good thing for developers to be able to easily plug into this. I have no doubt that that's the case. And I'm sure that this frustration, I mean, and what you wrote, I think you see that frustration is about, Hey, you built something kind of half-assed. It's not really working. And our customers expect it. Yeah. And you promised it. And like, what's going on? I mean, that's totally reasonable to me. That seems like not unreasonable at all. Yeah. And these guys really, their only opportunity is at WWDC. And Apple won't talk about it. I mean, Apple won't address it. I mean, Apple doesn't address stuff until it's absolutely the worst possible situation. Right. Until you can type in a URL and steal someone's password. Right. No, I mean it is, but it is like, you know, with stuff like Antenna Gate, you know, it was like, had to get really to a fever pitch before Apple addressed it. And boy, did they address it. Well. Ish. I mean, they were like, we hear you say, I have a free bumper. We were going to make a ton of money on these and now a little bit less money. We're still going to make more money than ever before. And like the maps thing, I mean like the maps, you know, I mean, maps, the maps one was a little rare where they, but it did take an enormous amount of noise for Tim Cook to say, Hey, we messed up. We could do better on maps. I don't know if that's happened yet. I used maps the other day and it was not good. It's not good. It was not good. But anyhow, but they, the internet data and the internet is like something that Apple needs definitely can be better at. Well, no, so here's my theory. I don't get their internet relationship. I'm just going to keep saying this until it's not true anymore. But I think Apple, they made a little computer and it's like the little computer they wanted to make and they never wanted to have apps on it and they, you know, Steve Jobs original idea was you'll run some web apps and like, don't worry about it. Shut up. Uh, and it, it's like the app store actually surprised them. Did you really think their plan was not to have apps? See, I've talked to people. I mean, that's the line in the book, right? In a, in a, the Walter Isaacson book where he's like the, the, the board member from Genentech who I want to call Arthur Clark, that's not his name. Uh, whoever the board member from Genentech was like begging Steve Jobs to put apps on the iPhone. I feel like there was always kind of a, maybe it was a skunk works thing or maybe it was just brewing kind of down in the background. But I, I, I can't imagine that the plan was to not do native apps for the, maybe not as fast as they did, but I think that's the thing. Maybe not third party. Yeah. Maybe in there, cause you know, there's, there's still catching up to the reality of what they made, which is it's not just a little computer, right? Like it's not a Mac where no, you know, I think it's actually really interesting that they've never made a Mac with an integrated data card in it. Like they've never, they've never been like, we're going to put the internet right in the damn thing, right? Whenever we're going to, you can't buy a Mac with like a 4g mode a minute or an LTE mode a minute. Oh, you mean the Mac book? Like a Mac book. Yeah. I was very confused about why you would want to have LTE and you're like home computer. Why not? I can think of why not. Cause it's in your house. Yeah. Fine. Whatever. Yes. Except that. Well, no, no, no. I see what you're saying though. No, you're right. They've never, they've never like integrated the internet into their products in that way. I always took that as more of a, um, not wanting to deal with carriers in any material way. They deal with their other product. I think it's interesting. Like they, they were like, we built a computer and it's here's our iPhone as a little computer and Google's like, we're building a platform that is like designed to put you on the internet. I think that there was this idea. It's designed to give you views. I think there was this idea that like, Hey, it's great for getting on the internet. It's great for getting on the internet in your web browser. It's a really, really amazing mobile web browser still to this day. The best, I think. Yeah. Isn't that enough? Yeah. You can get on, yeah, you can go look at web pages. All right. I'm interested to see cause Apple and Google have such different approaches. If you look at something like a Chromebook, it's like the opposite of an iPhone. I mean you need, you need the internet for everything. You're looking to the internet for everything. Whereas Apple is thus far been very comfortable with these local apps. Yeah, look outward. I mean, I think local, I think local app functionality is absolutely needed and necessary for a lot of this stuff. I mean, but there has to be some material fluid back like data backend into the internet and off to what you like. If something doesn't sync for me, if it's data related, if it's not like a clear sinking situation, I mean I'm bouncing back and forth through my phone and a tablet and my laptop all day long depending on where I am and what I'm doing. And like to see the seamless sinking between something like Gmail on Gmail, particularly when you see the seamless sinking where it's maybe a few seconds here or there, but it's like, you know what you do on the phone is absolutely related to in part of what is happening when you're on your, in your browser. That to me is the sense of confidence that it builds is huge. You know, same thing for same, same thing for Google docs. And even Microsoft has gotten the message with this stuff, you know, with a lot of what they're doing. I mean, they're running on like pimping their Azure web services for iOS. Yeah. I mean, they're telling developers our data solution in the cloud is better than Apple's use it. I just saw an ad that's like all about that kind of like cross platform sinking and it is, they do kind of get it better. Right. You know, and it's like Apple needs to take a hard look at itself here. I mean, there's also some security too. I mean, you, you know that Gmail is going to have your stuff even if your app goes to Apple, even if you light your Chromebook on fire. The idea that on a Mac there's still this management of contacts the way they do it seems so hopelessly outdated to me now. Like I never think about my contacts anymore. Google has gotten so good at just kind of like figuring out who I contact, like adding the things. I mean, I add, I do hand add people, you know, when necessary, you know, getting rid of duplicates, dealing with email address, multiple email addresses and phone numbers. I never think about anybody. The only time I ever think about it is if I ever have to open a dress book on my computer, which I sync to Google and it creates all of these like annoying sync problems. And it's like, it really needs to just work more than it, than it, than it, than it just works. Well, I think Apple needs to become an internet company. This is what this WWDC should be about. They've been a very good computer company. They've been a really profitable computer company. I think the next stage of evolution and the computing industry is about the internet. They've got untangle the web. Yeah. It's kind of crazy. If you look at iCloud.com. They've got untangle the web, Ellis. If you look at iCloud.com and you see the icons for those apps, you're like, am I looking at the internet right now? No, no. They tried to make iCloud feel and act and look like a desktop app. And that's like the craziest mistake of all is that, is that thinking that what's happening in your, at this moment at least, what's happening inside of your browser should just be 100% the same as what happens on your native apps. I think that, I think, yeah, look and feel is fine, but it shouldn't be all about trying to trick people into thinking that they're using a native app. It should be like, what's best for that environment? What makes the most sense? And I think that that's a minor issue. That's a design issue. I have much less of an issue with their, it's funny we were talking about this earlier, but people say Apple's design, there was an article in the journal, I think about them doing more flat design or Johnny Ive. It's like, I'm not, the stitch leather is annoying and stupid and the stuff where it's like the skeuomorphism. It's not as killer as much as the, the functionality. It's the functionality. There's nothing more frustrating. And this is Google's app and iOS, but it's, there's nothing more frustrating to me than when I get the Gmail notification on my phone and then I open Gmail and it just sits there loading. Yeah. And I'm like, I know I can read half of this email and notification center and I'm waiting for this app to like, to load it. Yeah. To figure it out. No, I mean, I mean, why didn't, what? It's not that the notifications look bad. It's that they're, they interfere with the top of your display. This is like a number one pet. Well, that's why it's one that I find incredibly bizarre. I just think it's crazy. I don't know about their own notification. No, no. It's that. And it's also, that's right. And also, um, you know, things like their sharing panel that they had created. Yes, it is ugly, but what's more frustrating is that it doesn't share the way I want to, right? It's like adding a photo to an email is still a ridiculously silly process. Right. You know, it's like, it's like, it's not so much that your stuff looks bad. I think it looks fine. Honestly, keep it the way it looks, make it work better. Like make the function. And this is the, to the iCloud thing. It's like the apps look fine. The service is at its fundamental, at a fundamental level. It's basically good ideas and it looks fine. It just doesn't work the way you want it to work that it's way it should work. Developers and customers. I think that's a problem. So what's the fix Ellis? What do they gotta do? And then we gotta wrap up cause we're doing. We're running out of time. What I'm hearing from the developers is that one, they want some communication from Apple. Hey, are you guys actually fixing this or is this something that you're kind of leaving over here if people want to use it and you're going to let it be? Or and they're saying, well, if you're not doing anything, get rid of it. You know, get rid of it. Like you got rid of RSS or I web. Just leave it out of the picture because if it's in the picture, our users will demand it. Right. Right. And, or they could step it up and double their team. I mean, they have billions of dollars to hire another guy. Yeah. They could hire two. I think they get hired. We've hired one guy. We're paying him a billion dollars to fix iCloud. They get hired already. He's really, really good at the internet. And you know what? These developers, they love Apple and they want this all to work so badly. And I mean, when you look at the support forums, it's a lot of people complaining and it's a lot of developers helping fellow developers and like they want to make it work. Devs helping devs. Devs on devs. Look at how, look at how you use so much passion and, and, uh, emotion talking about these developers. He's been hearing their pain. I know. And now you can tell he really loves these guys. He really feels for their, for their plight. I do. And I do through you. I also feel for them. I feel for nothing. Please help. Please help these guys. Apple just help them out. They're drowning. Yeah. And you're shoveling water onto them. And you know what's weird to me? It's not that bad, but they, they don't treat the developers like they treat us, but it's something similar. It's something like we can't really talk about that or do you know, stay tuned or something like that. Right. And they get, they're not going to share information with developers. See, you'd think they might in a little way in terms of the underlying frameworks. Having worked with Apple for many years, I would not think that they would share information with anybody. Or just be like, I mean, they're very, they keep it, you know, they like to keep it under lock and key till they're ready to talk about it. Yeah. Which is understandable, but, but for developers, you would want a little more transparency probably. Right. Do we have any other topics? We're done. That's it? That's it. Really? Short show. I feel like we should have at least one other thing to talk about. Didn't something else happen this week? Ellis, what else happened this week? It's a really slow week in news actually. I wasn't paying attention. I'm just. He's just talking to developers. In the iCloud, you know. Patiently waiting to sink. Just waiting to see what Apple brings. Alright, that's what I, last week the, the, the drawing challenge was a sad Android at a crossroads. Yeah. This week I want sad Ellis in the iCloud patiently waiting to sink. Sad Ellis in the iCloud. Patiently waiting to sink. Patiently waiting to sink. I can make a face. Yeah, go ahead. That's pretty good. Well done everyone. And that's the Verge cast. Really great. That's our Verge cast for this week. If you'd like to get in touch with us, you can email us at vergecast at the verge.com. You can leave a comment on the post when it goes up or you can find us on Twitter. The Verge is at Verge. I'm Joshua Topolsky. Neelai is Reckless. Sorry, at Joshua Topolsky. He's at Reckless. Ellis is at Hamburger, which is really the best Twitter name. I don't know how he got it. It's the only reason I was hired. Ross, who was on his Oh No Roscoe, no E on the end. Oh No Roscoe, no E. And yeah, that's the Verge cast. Wow, that did not even pull that off remotely. You got to stick the landing. Top Shelf will be starting at six today? Yeah. Top Shelf was supposed to follow us up at 530. Sorry, is that right? Yeah, at 530, but it's actually going to be at six, but it will be live streamed. Yes. And that will be available on the front page of The Verge. And you should stick around for it because Top Shelf is awesome. Also a lot of people have been asking, I'm just going to give you, a lot of people have been asking about On The Verge and whether it's dead or if it's coming back. It is coming back. I think that we're going to, I don't think, I know that we're going to do, I think you're going to see more On The Verge soon. Somebody told me there's a new segment with Ryan Seacrest on the Today Show called On The Verge. I thought you'd just been doing it in your room? I'm very upset about that. You'll be hearing from my lawyer, Seacrest. But anyhow, it is not gone and it's coming back in all sorts of new and exciting forms. I really like that we're at the point in our careers where we feel comfortable just openly threatening Ryan Seacrest. Yeah, Seacrest is done for. Hope you enjoyed your reign of terror because it's about to end. Anyhow, that's the show. We'll be back next week. Handsome Terror, the Ryan Seacrest story. Just wanted to get that out there. And as always, I wish you and your family the very, very best this week. And may all your files sync the way that you would expect them to. Just the only end of the show here. Look at this guy. You hamburgered in the face. And you didn't even have a good closer. Oh, yeah. Boy, it makes me long for the days of Paul. Paul here. Paul. Paul. Paul. Paul. Goodbye. Goodbye, hamburger. Here's another juicy finish for this one.

Welcome to Top Shelf brought to you by Virgin Mobile. I'm David Pierce and on this show we bring you the best in consumer electronics past, present, and future. This week, we're taking a look at the new wireless landscape. You hate your phone, you hate your plan, but what would it really take for you to change? For years, owning a cell phone has meant signing up for a two-year contract, huge hassles every time you try to switch, and constant compromising. The cheapest carriers had the worst service and the best phones only come with expensive strings attached. But T-Mobile just made a pretty aggressive play with a new range of contract-free smartphone plans and a bunch of new phones to go with them. $70 a month gets you unlimited data, talk, and text. And $99 plus $20 a month gets you an iPhone 5, a Galaxy S4, or an HTC One. The new plans would seem to complete T-Mobile's move away from two-year contracts. It's a bold strategy and the other national carriers, Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon, have definitely taken notice. But can T-Mobile's newfound swagger really change the playing field? We sent Nilay Patel out into the city to talk to people about their carrier relationships. And like all relationships, it gets complicated. Until early 2011, the only way to get an iPhone in the United States was to sign up with AT&T. In 2009, the only way to get the Motorola Droid was to sign up with Verizon. Back then, you weren't shopping for a carrier, you were shopping for a phone. But now, things have evened out. All four major U.S. carriers have the iPhone and they all have the Galaxy S3. And soon they'll all have the Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. So the question is, what are you really getting out of your carrier? And why do we all seem to be in such incredibly long relationships with them? What carrier do you have? Sprint. T-Mobile. T-Mobile. AT&T. Virgin. Virgin Mobile. I have Sprint. Verizon. AT&T. I've tried them all. They all suck, but Sprint sucks the least, in my experience. The services are all right, but I mean, I'm personally thinking about switching over. I'm not sure where yet, though. Why have you stuck with T-Mobile for a decade? I don't know, I'm kind of lazy. How long have you had Verizon? For about four years now. Have you ever been in like a relationship with a person for four years? Yes. How's that going? It turned out in tragedy. How long have you had AT&T? Since like freshman year in high school. So, oh wait, yeah, you don't know that. So probably like yesterday? Yeah, yesterday now. Like eight years. Four or five years. It's been maybe five years now. T-Mobile wants you to switch. The newly renegade carrier is banking on an aggressive marketing campaign and what it says are far simpler plans. For a flat fee and no contract, you get unlimited minutes, messaging, and however much data you want to pay for. As T-Mobile says, there's no two-year commitment required and you can leave whenever you want. But even cheaper prices don't seem to encourage people to switch, especially because when you do the math, T-Mobile's prices aren't that much cheaper. But it's not the devices and it's not the prices that keep you committed to your carrier and no one seems to be happy with that relationship. Would you switch if the price of another carrier is 20% lower? No, not really. I don't want to go through the hassle of changing over. 50% lower? Maybe. How much cheaper? 20%? To be honest, I pay about $10 a month for unlimited data, unlimited tax, and I've got three hours of calls. I hate you. You know, I want you to know. I'm moving. Goodbye. 20% cheaper. Would you leave? No. They are 50% cheaper. I consider it. Your wireless carrier has become the longest relationship in your life and all of us seem to be settling. When those two-year contracts end, the easiest thing to do is just sign back up. T-Mobile seems to be banking on people being fed up with AT&T and the other more traditional carrier plans. And yes, its plans are indeed more transparent. But at the end of the day, T-Mobile's biggest competitor isn't AT&T. It's just the apathy. Joining me now to talk about all of this insanity is Nilay Patel. Welcome back from Bryant Park. I hope you survived. I'm glad you made it. It was cool. And Sasha Segan, lead analyst at PCMag. Sasha, thank you for being here. Great to see you. So, and I want to start with you. So, T-Mobile kind of went out on a limb this week. They did all kinds of crazy things. Is it going to work? Is this like what T-Mobile needed to be the biggest and greatest carrier in the world? Is this the right move for T-Mobile? I think T-Mobile is making a lot of the right moves. But we shouldn't spend too much time or spend all of our time thinking about the pricing and the service plans because T-Mobile has always been cheaper than the three other major carriers. And T-Mobile has been pushing towards this prepaid angle for a while now. But I think one of the biggest deals was that crazy guy in the magenta t-shirt and the Alexander McQueen sneakers. Crazy is like the biggest understatement ever, by the way. He's trying to reposition, he's trying to rebrand T-Mobile as the carrier that actually gets your pain, that understands how frustrated you are with the wireless companies and can relate to you. And if he can charge up T-Mobile staff and he can make every experience a consumer has of interacting with T-Mobile an experience where they really get how you feel as a consumer, that's when T-Mobile wins. Well, so I guess that's the big question, right? Is customer service then, are people going to love their carrier? Are people going to love not having a contract? Like, is this something people were clamoring for? I feel like we, the three of us, have been sitting here saying, wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to be on contract? But like, do people care? It seems like you found a little bit that they don't, but maybe is there a world in which people care about this? I think the switching costs are just too high. Even for T-Mobile to say we're going to separate out the cost of the device and the cost of the service, which they've sort of done. They've at least made them different line items, which is interesting. Right. And now you're on a contract for the phone. But the dream, I think, is to be able to buy any phone and then open a window and have it say, AT&T has the best service in this area and it'll cost $10. And Verizon has slightly crappier service, it'll cost $8. And you can just push the button. And then when you go somewhere else and you're like, man, Verizon service here is better. And you push the button and you're holding the phone and you're switching costs goes to zero, then that's the dream. I'm actually buying whatever service is best for me wherever and whenever. Well, to some extent, we've had that, right, with these prepaid carriers. There are all these other options out there. People don't really talk about this. Except the prepaid carriers also don't make it very easy to switch. And we're not going to see this ease of switching between carriers for at least several more years because of the technical blocks the carriers have put in place to switching. So who are these carriers, I guess, is the big question. We have the big four and then there's all these other companies that give you cell service and they've been offering cheaper phones and cheaper service that you pay ahead of time. So why haven't they caught on yet? What makes it important that T-Mobile is doing this is that if you look at a lot of the little guys, Virgin, Boost, H2O Wireless, Simple Mobile, Black Wireless, whatever. Those are just the least crazy names. Yeah, those are the least crazy names. Except for MetroPCS, Cricket, and US Cellular, most of the other ones don't actually run their own networks. They are using one of the big carriers networks. And that means- It's almost always Sprint, right? No. Simple Mobile is T-Mobile, Straight Talk is T-Mobile and AT&T, Net 10 is AT&T, etc., etc. But in any case, they've all signed contracts with the bigger carriers, which basically prevent them from endangering the larger carriers' businesses. These little guys are structured to not be a threat. So what does that mean? Like they get to too many customers and then Sprint's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. They just can't alter their pricing. So it's basically a shell game so that if you have bad credit, you don't become an AT&T customer. You go to one of these prepaid carriers and they can deal with the risk of having customers with bad credit. T-Mobile is saying they don't care. And I actually think the device story for them is getting more interesting because they have the S3, they're going to have the S4, they have the One, they have the iPhone. And the iPhone in particular, you can unplug it from AT&T and go put it on T-Mobile's network. They said they had two million people who have done that, just bought it and switched and before they even offered it. But it's like going to work now. Like it's going to work. The newer versions of the 5 will work on their faster 42 megabit 4G network. It'll work on the LTE network. How much is that the devices? Part of the other thing T-Mobile announced was like this big range of new devices. The devices are just empty. Okay. The devices are just what you need to be able to play at the table with the big boys. If you don't have an iPhone and a Galaxy S4 and an HTC One, you're not one of the big boys. You're not going to be one of the big boys and you're relegated to the second division. Right. Okay. So the devices are important, but they don't give T-Mobile any advantage. They just let T-Mobile play at the table. So then is T-Mobile's advantage then, like is this a, I still don't know if this is a compelling case to customers. Like you don't have a contract. I don't know that people are like leaping out of their seats to go not have a contract. I guess cheaper is great. And, but like you said, T-Mobile's always been cheaper. I think what people always buy their seats for, and I think this is where the pricing of the phones really comes into play. What people want is they want a new phone faster, right? The service is like whatever. It's just, it's in the air. It's like literally invisible waves, right? It's like I pick up the phone, it gets some data. That's great. What they want is a new phone every year and they can't get it. And John, but John Legere at the, after the event made a hint to one of the reporters. I forget who it was. I forget who wrote about this. But he hinted that they were thinking of maybe some sort of subscription club that could accelerate your upgrades. And now that's a thought. That's a thought that gets a lot of these power users on board. I mean, I think that's like, that's like overthinking it in a way. I mean, that's great. It's a cool idea. But if you look at the market for everything else in the world, it's like if you really do separate the cost of the phone from the cost of the service and enable a market for devices to emerge, then you'll get cheaper things. And they have legitimately done that at this point, right? It's fair to say they, you know, they're still charging you $20 a month to continue to use your phone. But you can pay off the phone at any moment and then the phone is paid off. It's just an installment plan. You're just paying for your furniture on layaway. Right. Right. But that's right. But like if you look at the laptops, for example, right, laptops have just gotten cheaper over time. It's not because Dell has been like, check out our subscription plan for laptops. It's just they're competing in the market directly against each other and cheaper things sell really well. Unlocked phones seem to be the real dream for people, right? Where, and it's kind of what you were describing before, like I buy any phone, put it on any network, but we're not there at all. Yeah. As Neelay says, that's the dream. The dream is this, this fantasy we all have of the European market, which is not actually the case in many European markets of you buy a phone and then you can connect it to a different carrier every month if you want to. Okay. But we can't do that because of the various LTE bands and CDMA versus GSM and all of this, I can use the word bullshit, right? So has John Legere used it? Yeah. It's a lot now. All of this bullshit that the carriers bake into the phones beyond the plans. Right. And I think that's actually going away. So I think what's interesting is that as AT&T and Verizon are getting pressure to increase their like revenue per user, they're realizing that building custom phones like they did in the past is a bad idea. And that's why you're ending up with a one on every carrier. That's why you end up with a note and the S4 and the iPhone on every carrier, because demanding that Samsung build you this range of new devices. No, no, no. I don't agree 100%. I don't entirely agree there because what Verizon wants to do is they want a one and an S4, okay? And they want a one and an S4 with AT&T's LTE frequency band locked out. Oh no, that's- AT&T wants a one and an S4 with Verizon's frequency band locked out. And these are very cheap, easy modifications for the manufacturer to make, and it maintains this lack of an open market. So I agree with you there. I'm saying the days of the Galaxy fascinate and- They captivate. They captivate. You're building these like, you're spending money to build custom variants of phones. It's the market's gone away from that because it's, the carriers know that the phone manufacturers are doing a fine enough job competing and building high-end devices, so they don't have to demand high-end devices. They just say, we'll take whatever you have. And as that happens, the next logical step is for these device manufacturers to say, look, we want a real market now, and we're going to start selling on our phones in a real way. So, well, so- I think that's- This is HTC's next step, right? They're never going to compete in this game against Apple and Samsung. Their next step has to be to say to consumers, screw them, buy our phone. It'll be cheaper up front, no contract, go to AT&T and- And there's some proof that that works, right? Google kind of proved it with the Nexus 4 in, not on a huge scale, but in enough of a sense that they sell out immediately. Except that Google is subsidizing the Nexus 4. That's the thing. Google can use its other businesses, the profit on its other businesses, to subsidize this phone, which loses money on hardware. It's what Amazon is doing with the Kindle Fire. Unfortunately, HTC does not have that model open to them. These phones right now still, I mean, they still actually cost $550. They cost $500, $550. And if you see a good high-end smartphone for less, it's being subsidized by something that may just not be the character. So that's what I think is- We have a couple of- We have like this is T-Wobbles lineup plus this little company called Blue here. And Blue is, you know, just one in a number of companies that are basically selling unlocked, you know, straight off the assembly line in China phones for a lot less than they would. Are these just- Are they cheaper? Like this phone is $299 and has like a reasonable spec sheet. Is it just cheaper because it's worse? Like how do we get to the point where the one is $299? It's terrible. You know, the thing that you pay- But it doesn't cost any more to make bad software than it does good software, right? It costs more to make good software. It does cost more to make good software. It costs more to- Just because the people are- To hire good programmers, to hire more testers, to get it better tested and better studied. Yeah, that costs more. So, I mean, so then how do we get to the point where- Why don't they just run stock? I mean, that's a fair question. Like why- How do we get to the point where the HTC One is $299 unlocked? Will we ever get there? Because just like- Why don't they run stock? Because just like the carriers are afraid of becoming dumb pipes, the manufacturers are afraid of becoming commoditized. Yeah, but how does the- I mean, I would just go back to the Windows- I kind of like this phone. I gotta say. That phone is just an underlying piece of- Has some weird nonsense on it. It's great. Sorry. I don't- I like the clock. You have a bad judgment. I want you to know that. That's fair. I understand. I'm kidding. I'm not kidding. Well, how does the Windows PC market have all those OEMs that just ship Windows? The way the phone market works is more advantageous to the manufacturers than the way the PC market works. You can see, and you can see, for instance, Apple is trying to drag its PCs into working more like phones because that's more advantageous to them. iOS is more advantageous to them than MacOS. And Apple is thinking, oh, we want things to work more like iOS because that's better for us. So this phone market is one where the manufacturers and the carriers both have more strength than the consumers. Right. They don't want it to be more like the PC market. Well, because it's not a real market. I mean, that's- And that's- Well, that's all the way back to the start. This is T-Mobile's move is the first baby step towards some kind of real market where the price of the phone doesn't affect the price of the service, or it's not baked into the price of the service. Now, I don't know if the price of the service is compellingly cheaper enough compared to AT&T and Verizon. It doesn't appear to be. We actually did a big study. We did a huge survey called Reader's Choice, which we do every year. And we found out that the issue with T-Mobile and why people are not switching to T-Mobile is not price. They get great ratings for price. They've always had lower prices. They had lower prices then. They have lower prices now. The reason people are not switching to T-Mobile is number one, customer service, and number two, network quality. And so all of this focus around price, T-Mobile already had the price. If you want to change T-Mobile's fortunes, can you change their customer service and the perception of their network quality? So, I mean, I guess where does all this go in a year? Like, T-Mobile is rolling out LTE, and they claim they're modernizing and changing a lot of this stuff, and that the service is going to be there. So, in a year, is T-Mobile the number one carrier? Are they still where they are? Have Verizon and AT&T moved towards what T-Mobile is doing? Like, what changes now? Execs from all the other carriers have said that they are watching this very closely because they don't want to be paying subsidies, actually, okay? Because that's money that goes automatically to the manufacturers. Right. So, if this really succeeds and T-Mobile starts gaining customers from Sprint and AT&T, probably not from Verizon, because Verizon customers are very network-centric, then you could see the other carriers trying to move more towards a, you pay for your phone, we're not going to subsidize this for you model. But they are still going to try as hard as they can to prevent you from switching carriers with your phone. And my phone is still going to be $600. It's going to be $600. It's going to be locked. And it's going to lock out everyone else's bands. But they're going to try and get rid of the subsidies. So, things are still super depressing, just slightly less depressing. Slightly less depressing, especially, apparently, if you switch to T-Mobile, if their coverage is good enough. Yeah, fair enough. I'll take that. Thank you guys both so much for being here. Really appreciate it. And we'll talk again in a year when everything is still at worst. It's always somewhat of a pleasure. I'll take it. So, in completely unrelated news this week, I got to spend the week playing with the Razer Edge, Razer's new gaming tablet that they've introduced like four different times, but it's finally coming out. It's a real product. And it's a tablet for gamers who really want to spend a whole lot of money to play games on the subway. There are three parts to the Razer Edge, really. The first is the tablet itself. It's a fairly normal looking Windows 8 tablet. The biggest difference, the thing that sets the edge apart, is that it's huge. It's eight tenths of an inch thick, making it not only thicker than most tablets, but most recent laptops as well. There's a 10.1 inch, 1366 by 768 screen surrounded by a pretty gigantic black bezel. The screen itself is okay. It's a little low res for a device this expensive, but it's bright and has good viewing angles. The only part that's rough is the touch screen. It's just kind of unresponsive, often scrolling awkwardly or taking three taps to do something, which really makes no sense on a device this powerful. This is, Razer says, the only tablet with a discrete GPU inside, a separate graphics chip that is basically required for any kind of serious gaming. Along with the tablet itself, there are two accessories that are more or less required to get the most out of the edge. One is the $100 docking station, which adds three USB ports and an HDMI port to the edge. The other necessary accessory is the $250 gamepad controller. It adds a lot of weight to the edge, but it also adds all the controls you'd need to play almost any game. You get two analog sticks and a D-pad, plus all the buttons and triggers you'd get on an Xbox or PlayStation controller as well. It also adds another battery into the edge, which it turns out you kind of need. As a PC, the edge is more or less what you'd expect. It's powerful enough to do anything you throw at it. It specs like a high-end laptop and it performs like one. But let's be honest, this isn't a tablet that also happens to play games. It's a gaming tablet. And I'm sort of surprised to say this, but it's a really good one. I played all sorts of games on the edge and everything I tried was playable. Not perfect. When I cranked up detail in Crysis 3, the frame rate definitely dipped enough that I could tell it was stuttering, but that's an incredibly intense game and it was still playable. Slightly less intense games like Borderlands 2 worked really well, and relatively simple ones like NBA 2K13 were perfect. Here's the thing. I don't quite know how to feel about the Razer Edge. It's much more powerful than any tablet on the market, and if you're in the market for a gaming tablet, it's really the only option. But if you're just a person who wants a computer, the edge costs $1,000 for the lowest spec model, and by the time you've purchased the accessories and maybe upgraded to the more powerful Edge Pro, you're looking at $1,500 for a gaming machine. The edge's performance is great without being remarkable, and if you're spending this much money on a gaming laptop, you can probably do better for your money. But if you want a two-pound gaming PC with a pretty cool controller and you can afford it, you really won't be sorry you bought the edge. That's it for our show. Thank you so much for watching. Thanks to my guest, Sasha Segan, for being here. Thanks to Nilay Patel for being all right, as always. Head to theverge.com for more on T-Mobile and for our full Razer Edge review. Spoiler alert, it plays games. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next week.

Hi, I'm Addie with The Verge, and we're here at GDC 2013 in San Francisco. We're here at Yves Bajar's design studio, Fuse Project. One of the things he's been working on lately is the OUYA console. We're going to talk to OUYA's CEO, Julie Erman. So this is our first real look at the initial version of the OUYA console interface that's going to be going out to Kickstarter backers, and it's really minimalist. Yeah, we wanted OUYA to be simple, minimalistic. We really thought about gamers. We wanted to be intuitive for anybody that picked up a controller and to get you into what's most important. To us at OUYA, it's about playing games and making games. And you'll see on our home screen, there's really only four categories. Play is everything that you've downloaded. Discover is where you find great content and games to download. Make is where you get to learn about making games. You get to have a direct relationship with developers. If you're a developer, it's where you can upload builds that you can test and try things out before you launch them into the OUYA store, which is our Discover, and manage is just our settings. And what about things like streaming video? OUYA supports streaming video, streaming audio. We've already announced relationships with Vivo and iHeartRadio. Flixter is coming to OUYA. We support XBMC and Plex. So if you want to make OUYA your entertainment media center, you can. Tell me how the store works. We call our store Discover. It's where you'll go to discover great games. The way that you will experience and find games is really based on two things. One is we will have content and games that we feature. So games that we love. Kelly Santiago, who runs Developer Relations for us, is curating the store. So today we've got three feature channels that can grow on a daily, bi-weekly, monthly basis. We're also going to look for external people to help us curate the store. So developer friends and universities. We really want people to discover great content. We also have our genre tags, so you can find games based on genre. We dig deeper into games than sort of the top level genre. So we want to qualify these games as much as possible. So in addition to allowing a developer to tag games, we'll go in and tag games with genres that are more representative of what is really happening. So you can see the words like fight and short on time. We really want to make it as descriptive as possible. And then the last way that you find games is really based on our algorithm, which is based on fun and what makes a fun game. And to us that is engagement. So how long have you played a game or how many times have you played a game in a certain period of time? And we want those games to service. And that's what the sandbox is for, right? Exactly. Every new game, the latest games goes into the sandbox. You can play all these games and download them. You can search by them by name. But for them to get out of the sandbox and actually be discoverable within a genre or a feature category, they have to be really light. They have to be fun games. And so once they hit a certain metric, they'll be ejected out and you'll be able to discover them just through basic navigation of the Discover Store. We also think this is great for developers because it really encourages them to really promote their games and let their audience know that this exists and go to Ouya and find it and play it. And if you like it, thumb it up and get it out of the sandbox. And all these games have some kind of free tier, but how do you tell what's going to, how you're supposed to pay after this? Every game is free to try. That's really the only rule on Ouya is that it has to be free to try. But our games can be microtransactionally based or you could have a demo and then you have to unlock the full version. I mean, we already have a game today that's donation based. So you'll learn about the monetization elements when you're playing the game. So how much is actually in here right now in the catalog and how much is that going to change by launch? Yeah, the catalog changes every single day. We have north of 60 titles already. We are seeing games from every different type of developer, from AAA to independent to newcomers we've never even seen before. We've already had developers that have iterated on their game multiple times. But as far as our launch in June, it's hard to tell. I mean, we think there could be hundreds of games. So who have you been talking to when you're trying to get developers to make games? You mentioned a lot of them, I thought you said one in five have not actually made a game before. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the developers we're seeing are experienced game developers who have never built an Android game before. And we're seeing game developers that have never built a game before but have aspired to and now because they can bring games to the television via Ouya, now they're really starting to build games. Thanks for talking to us, Julie. And once again, we're here with Ouya. It's shipping out to Kickstarter backers today. And then it's got its official launch on June 4th.

It's Thursday, March 28th, 2013. I'm Adrienne Jeffries. Yo Adrienne! Please don't do that! This is 90 seconds on the Verge. We finally have our first price for Samsung's Galaxy S4. The flagship phone will cost about $250 from AT&T. That's with a two-year contract, of course. The Galaxy S4 has a 5-inch 1080p screen and Android 4.2. It also now has air gestures for hands-free use. AT&T says it'll be the first US carrier to have a Galaxy S4, but make no mistake, it'll be coming to pretty much every network in existence. Android game console OUYA will be available online and in stores starting June 4th. The price? Just under $100. If you happen to be one of the 60,000 people who backed it on Kickstarter, however, you might not have to wait that long. The company said today on Twitter that shipments are rolling out over the coming weeks. OUYA is one of the biggest Kickstarter success stories ever, with over $8.5 million in funding. In the meantime, feel free to make your own custom OUYA case. The company has partnered with MakerBot and posted the 3D design files online. Finally, Amazon is buying the social network made for book lovers. Goodreads boasts more than 16 million members and 30,000 book clubs. Users can find book recommendations and write their own reviews. Amazon plans to incorporate the service into its Kindle e-readers. The site's preferred retailer is currently Barnes & Noble, but something tells us that's not going to last. That's it for today's top stories. Coming up tomorrow... The return of the floppy disk.

This is David with The Verge, and this is the Razer Edge. The Edge, or some form of it anyway, has actually been around for a while. It came out last year at CES as Project Fiona, a hybrid tablet-slash-controller-slash-video-game console. Over the next year, Razer refined the look, made the whole thing modular, and then re-released it at CES 2013 as the Edge. So there are three parts to the Razer Edge, really. The first is the tablet itself. It's a fairly normal-looking Windows 8 tablet, an all-black rectangle with tapered plastic edges and a matte back. The biggest difference, the thing that sets the Edge apart, is that it's huge. It's 8 tenths of an inch thick, making it not only thicker than most tablets, but most recent laptops as well. It also weighs 2.1 pounds. It's pretty well-made, really solid, and almost sleek if that's possible for a tablet this thick. On the front of it all, there's a 10.1-inch 1366x768 screen surrounded by a pretty gigantic black bezel. The screen itself is okay. It's a little low-res for a device this expensive, but it's bright and has good viewing angles. The only part that's rough is the touchscreen. It's just kind of unresponsive, often scrolling awkwardly or taking three taps to do something, which really makes no sense on a device this powerful. There are a couple of reasons the Edge is so big, but mostly it's to make room for specs unlike anything we've seen in a tablet before. This is, Razer says, the only tablet with a discrete GPU inside, a separate graphics chip that is basically required for any kind of serious gaming. All that gets hot, which is why there are two gigantic fans on top of the Edge, and as I've found, they're pretty necessary. Along with the tablet itself, there are two accessories that are more or less required to get the most out of the Edge. One is the $100 docking station, which adds three USB ports and an HDMI port to the Edge, so you can just drop the tablet in here, fire up Steam's big picture mode and game right on your TV. It works really well, and since there's only one USB port on the Edge itself, you're going to want more inputs. The Edge is definitely powerful enough to be your only machine, but you'll need the peripherals to make it work. The other necessary accessory is the $250 gamepad controller, which adds the two-handled controller to the tablet and turns it into the Project Fiona we saw a year ago. It adds a lot of weight to the Edge, but it also adds all the controls you'd need to play almost any game. You get two analog sticks and a D-pad, plus all the buttons and triggers you'd get on an Xbox or PlayStation controller as well. It also adds another battery into the Edge, which it turns out you kind of need. As a PC, the Edge is more or less what you'd expect. It's powerful enough to do anything you throw at it. It's specced like a high-end laptop, and it performs like one. Whether you're streaming hi-def movies or using Photoshop or just browsing the web, it's plenty powerful. It works great with an external monitor through the HDMI port, or just by hooking up a keyboard and mouse via USB or Bluetooth. But let's be honest, this isn't a tablet that also happens to play games. It's a gaming tablet. And I'm sort of surprised to say this, but it's a really good one. I played high-end games on really high settings, and the Edge handles it all really well. There are basically three ways to play. One is with the controller on your lap, which is kind of like having the most awesome iPad gaming experience ever. You can also hook it up to a TV and play games with a mouse and keyboard or a controller, or just play on the tablet itself. The first two are really the best way to play. It works on a TV just like a dedicated console or gaming PC would, and playing with the controller is a lot of fun. Just using the Edge itself isn't quite as good. The screen isn't great, not a lot of games are optimized for touch, and 10.1 inches is pretty small for a big game anyway. I played all sorts of games on the Edge, and everything I tried was playable. Not perfect. When I cranked up detail in Crysis 3, the framerate definitely dipped enough that I could tell it was stuttering, but that's an incredibly intense game, and it was still playable. Slightly less intense games like Borderlands 2 worked really well, and relatively simple ones like NBA 2K13 were perfect. Things did get worse when I was playing in 1080p on a TV rather than on the lower res screen on the Edge, but most games were still totally playable. I never found a game I just couldn't play on the Edge, which is kind of a remarkable feat for any tablet, no matter how big. The performance here is definitely a full level below a true dedicated gaming desktop, or even a device like Razer's Blade laptop, but it's way beyond what any other device this size is capable of. It does get pretty hot and really loud when you're playing games, but neither is surprising for a gaming laptop or really a problem. The tablet itself only gets about an hour of battery life when you're really gaming intensively, and with the controller's extra battery it only gets about 2. But honestly, this thing is so big and so heavy that you're not going to use it in public much anyway. Here's the thing. I don't quite know how to feel about the Razer Edge. It's much more powerful than any tablet on the market, and if you're in the market for a gaming tablet it's really the only option. But if you're just a person who wants a computer, the Edge costs $1000 for the lowest spec model and by the time you've purchased the accessories and maybe upgraded to the more powerful Edge Pro, you're looking at $1500 for a gaming machine. The Edge's performance is great without being remarkable, and if you're spending this much money on a gaming laptop you can probably do better for your money. But if you want a 2 pound gaming PC with a pretty cool controller and you can afford it, you really won't be sorry you bought the Edge.

Hey guys, this is Brian with The Verge. I'm here at an event at GDC 2013 for the GameStick. It's a $79 Android portable gaming console that plugs into the back of your TV as an integrated controller. We're taking a look here at the UI. It's very minimalist and clean laid out. Right here featured is the GameStick Store. PlayNow here, this is the games that are actually downloaded onto your GameStick yourself so you can play. It has 8 gigs of flash storage built in. And also if you go over here, it also features media settings. It has Netflix, it has XBMC. So you can look at some video stuff as well. It's pretty cool. There's two different controllers they had here tonight. They had the dev unit which is going to be going out to developers this week. And also an aesthetic prototype with the final design that's going to be shipping out to Kickstarter backers next month. That one's the white version. So let's jump into a game here. This is a game that was actually ported over to the GameStick. The company's basically trying to go and bring a lot of developers on board. They hope to have about 20 to 30 games ready for the device when it ships to the Kickstarter backers next month. Right now we unfortunately weren't able to go and use the dev controller. It's not actually working with the GameStick I set up today. So we're using a Nyka wired controller today. The real deal we use Bluetooth to interact with the GameStick itself. And of course the controller has a slot that features, allows the GameStick a slot inside of it when you're good to go. So we're going to get some tutorials here so I don't go and do too terribly here. I'm jumping across the building here. It's actually a pretty nice experience here. I don't know if you're familiar with the game or not but it's fun. There's something that's very, very definitely fun about some of these portal Android consoles similar to the Yuya. There's a retro feel to them that makes them really, really fun as their kind of own sub-genre of console. And there I'm dying. That was ugly. We can go again. This device actually undercuts the Yuya about a $79 price point. It's not clear when it's going to be shipping out to consumers for the full version yet. But it's something we'll be keeping an eye on. This is the Play Jam GameStick.

It's Wednesday, March 27, 2013. I'm Regina DeLay, the official archivist of All Verge Video. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge. Google Glass headsets will be manufactured in the U.S. That's according to a report from the Financial Times. Only a few thousand glass devices are expected to be manufactured in the coming weeks, though that might change once Google announces its full launch plans. This is the second product we know Google has made in the States, the first of which, the ill-fated Nexus Q. It makes for a nice ornament? This week in San Francisco, Sony is giving game developers a much clearer view of the new PlayStation 4 controller. There's a nice matte finish to the hardware, and the light bar on the back gives it a real Tron vibe. Developers can change the color of that light at will. The touchpad on the front can recognize two fingers at once, so expect lots of pinching and twisting in future games. For now, the controller is still a mock-up that no one can touch. The PlayStation 4 isn't due out until late this year. Finally, Netflix is teaming up with the Matrix creators for a new TV series. It's called Sense8, and it's being made in partnership with the Wachowskis and Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. The science-fiction thriller is just one of many Netflix exclusives as of late. The Kevin Spacey drama House of Cards, for example, is now Netflix's most-watched show ever. And of course, Arrested Development is due out soon. Sense8 will be out in late 2014. All 10 episodes will, of course, be available for streaming on day one. That's all for today's top stories. Coming up tomorrow, it's a bird, it's a plane, but is it ethical? We'll talk gene splicing and modern transportation.

Hey, this is Andrew with The Verge. We're here at the Game Developers Conference taking a look at Disney Infinity. It's a new platform from Disney. It's part game, it's part toy. It sounds an awful lot like Skyliners. Disney Infinity features a line of physical toys that you can bring into the digital world via these collectible interactive game pieces. These figures actually store, because they have memory on them, all of your experiences inside of the game. So one of the things is that we wanted to make sure that we were always writing to the memory of the toy, and that actually adds value to the consumer. That consumer can go and then take that toy to different platforms. In the world where consumers have so many different choices of consoles and mobile devices, what we wanted to do is make it so that players could take any character that they purchase from Infinity and bring it to another platform. It's the first time ever that we're bringing all of the Disney characters together under one roof. And so probably one of the most interesting challenges that we had was coming up with an art style that all the characters could live in. When you look at a character like Sully in his fiction of Monsters University, he's an 11 foot tall monster. And when you put him next to Lightning McQueen, he's a car. So we had to come up with this really unique art style where it felt like all the characters could live inside of the same universe together. So the game is divided into two parts. There's a sort of standard action game where you play through worlds starting with Monsters Inc. and The Incredibles. But more interestingly, there's a creation element that has sort of a Minecraft vibe. The Toy Box is really where we allow players to just be as creative as they want to be. We equip them with a number of different items and things that they can use to build anything from a castle in the sky to a villain's cave and everything in between. We start teaching kids right off the bat about how does driving work and how do melee mechanics work, and how does sword combat work, and how does ranged attacks work. So we teach those through a series of what we call mastery missions. And then as time progresses, we actually layer on more and more advanced techniques. The hope is that with some of the game design techniques and tools that we've actually put inside of Infinity, it's some of the same tools we use to create the game that we're actually going to get consumers thinking more about game design and thinking more about building their own skill set and what they could do. There's tutorials to teach you how to build within the Toy Box because it essentially is kind of like a level editor or some basic programming. So the trick there is to do it in the right degree in each step. The other thing is that what we're planning on doing is running a series of contests. Those contests will come at launch and then also post-launch. They're going to ask players and encourage players to submit content to Disney to be ranked and curated by us and then pushed back down to the community. So we're talking about having contests like build the coolest version of Disneyland that you can or build the most ultimate roller coaster that you can or build your favorite 80s arcade game. There are also these neat little chips that add new game elements into the world like objects based on other Disney properties or new abilities for your characters or you can rescan the entire world. Plus, more importantly, there's Tron. The other day I actually went through and created the stadium. I put down the sky and the ground to theme the entire Toy Box to be the grid. Then I took stadium pieces and actually recreated that scene, the battle scene inside of the stadium on the grid. You know, greetings programs, right when Clue is up addressing and when we see Sam for the first time. I think I've got kind of a reputation for making elaborate roller coasters around the office. I sometimes get a little carried away. I've got three kids of my own and I'm really excited to be working on a game that I just want to end up playing with them just as much as they want to play.

Hey guys, it's David with The Verge and we're taking a look at Flipboard 2.0. So there are a bunch of changes here, some are sort of small in aesthetic, like it just takes up the whole screen now on your iPad or iPhone. It just looks a little better, it's much more visual, there's a lot more pictures through the whole thing, this used to be just a list of text and now it's a lot prettier to look through. But most of these changes are small. The search is pretty cool, it's now on the front page and you can search across all of your different content and all your different sources so you get not only stories on Flipboard but you can see tweets and things on Facebook and YouTube and Google Plus and everything. So search is pretty powerful on here now. But the biggest new change is curation, they're calling it, and basically what it lets you do is create your own magazine. So instead of subscribing to the New York Times and Flipboard Tech and SB Nation and The Verge, you can actually make your own and you can pull together all kinds of different content. So we at The Verge have done a bunch of really cool interviews and we've actually made a magazine of all of the best interviews we've had and you can add to your own magazine just by hitting that and you can create a magazine and you can share that with anyone you want. People can subscribe to your magazines and as you add more things to it, it will actually subscribe and show them the new content as well. In general, Flipboard is still very much the same. It's pulling from a lot of different content sources and as you build your own magazines, it preserves all of the information about where it came from and you can actually, if you comment on a piece, it'll actually comment on the original website which is pretty cool. But it all looks just like you'd expect it to even across different magazines and really the big thing here is that instead of doing a site-specific Tumblr or Twitter account, Flipboard wants you to build a Flipboard. So that's really the big difference. Flipboard says they have 50 million users now and they're really pitching this as a way for publishers to get their stuff in front of a lot more people. It's still free, it works great, it's faster than ever. Video works well, you can listen to music as you flip, you can actually set up a soundtrack for a magazine and you can play it while you flip through and read. And in general, it's a pretty great solution. It's still not available offline and it's still not available on the web which are two things that would make Flipboard really, really cool. But even as it is, this is definitely a step forward for them as they go through and makes Flipboard potentially, if people really get involved, a lot more useful of a way to find cool stuff to read. So that's Flipboard 2.0. It's out now for the iPad and iPhone and will be out on Android soon.

It's Tuesday, March 26, 2013. I'm Dan Seifert, a shapeshifter alien humanoid controlled by the powers that be, and this is 90 seconds on the verge. Stop the bullshit. That's the battle cry of freshly minted T-Mobile CEO John Legere. Sorry, I promised myself I wasn't gonna swear today. The carrier held an event today in New York to formally unveil its new contract-free plans. That includes unlimited voice, text, and data for $70 per month. T-Mobile also announced an impressive lineup of high-end smartphones. Samsung's Galaxy S4 will launch on May 1st, while Apple's iPhone 5 is finally due out on April 12th. And T-Mobile's new LTE service is now live in seven cities. It expects to cover 200 million people by the end of the year. It's Google vs. the Swedish language. U-Googlebar literally translates to un-Googleable, and describes something that can't be found on the web. The Language Council of Sweden dropped the term altogether from its list of new words following pressure from Google's lawyers. The search giant hoped to narrow the definition to apply only to Google's own services. Of course, un-Googleable is already a popular word in Swedish colloquial, and like Kleenex and Aspirin before it, all the glass headsets in the world won't be able to stop anyone from using it. It's a binging shame. Finally, Vine has been used for everything from home movies to art pieces featuring lemons. And now even movie trailers. Here's Wolverine. Feel free to watch it on loop for a while. Wolverine isn't due to hit theaters until July 26th. And that's it for today's top stories. Coming up tomorrow, a look at the physics behind Nascar's first ever Mobius Drag Race.

We're unleashing everything. We're going to talk about this today, but please stop the bullshit. Sorry, I promised myself I wasn't going to swear today. Elizabeth, wherever you are, your father didn't mean that. I've been at this business for about 33 years, but I don't have wireless industry experience. And after a while I went home and I said to myself, holy shit, I don't have wireless industry experience. What am I going to do? And it suddenly dawned on me, there's not a goddamn person in the world besides a wireless industry person that would understand why the hell this mess works this way. And the worst fear of the wireless industry is that somebody from outside Oz comes in and starts looking at their industry. I've already told you about the spaceship and the aliens coming in. It doesn't make sense. Unbelievable high prices. How the hell can that cost that much unless you're going to drive it? I mean, come on, that nasty guy on the end, that's sprint and you got to see that. The day you go in that store, they love you. It's like, you know, oh, you got to have this phone. We're going to be so good to you. Here's a free t-shirt, some balloons. By the way, you need a back rub. Maybe that's just me. You pay so much for your phones, it's incredible. Everybody's blogging. Holy crap, I can't believe he just said that. Oh, he said shit. That's how I lost the family pool. I bet he'd only swear five times.

I'm TC Sotic with The Verge and we're here at GDC 2013. I'm about to try the Oculus Rift development kit for my first time. We're also about to check out Hawken, which hasn't been shown off before today. Let's jump in. This is insane. Oh man, this is incredible. This is like, this is the most bizarre thing I've ever done. I've never played anything like this before. Why are you guys here? What are you guys doing at GDC this year? What we're doing right now is shipping developer kits and we're trying to get these to people who want to develop games in virtual reality. So GDC is filled with developers, lots of indie developers, and we think that showing these people what VR is like is a really critical part of being successful. What types of developers do you really want on board for this? What kind of experiences are you trying to create out of the game? You know, to be honest, we don't know at this point. We're making these developer kits because we don't know what kind of experiences are the best experiences out there. What's happening is we're getting interest from developers who are saying, hey, I think that what I have could be a good VR experience. I really want to give this a shot. And so we want to make sure that those people are getting the developer kits they need. So maybe next year, the same time of year, maybe I'll have a better answer as to what kind of experiences do we want to be seeing more of on the Rift. Oh my God. I feel like I'm actually in the air right now. See, this is the kind of game I want to play. I just want to fly. This would be great for a flight simulator. I think this would be unbelievable for exploration games. You know, something like, I don't even know, Journey or, you know, games that haven't really even been conceived of yet. Imagine playing Myst on this thing. It would be insane, you know, actually having to look around at your environment. Definitely some exciting prospects for, you know, nonviolent games, exploration games, puzzle games. What about non-games? I mean, there's, you know, virtual realities used in a lot of different applications. PTSD therapy, for instance. I used to work in a military lab, and that was one of the projects that we worked on. Yeah, there's post-traumatic stress disorder treatment for soldiers. That's something that's been an ongoing VR research field for years. There's people who want to use it for education, people who want to use it for police and fire training so that you can train for certain situations and how to react to them without actually putting people in harm's way. There's people who want to use this for telepresence, telerobotics, so that they can operate machines at a distance but feel like they're present at the scene. There's all kinds of applications for virtual reality beyond gaming, but gaming is certainly the single biggest one. All right, so this is a Bare Bones racing game demo. It's really weird that I can feel the steering wheel but not see my hands on the steering wheel in the game. It also feels like I'm in a whittled balsa wood car, but that's okay. I should go fast. Oh, God, this is sickening. Oh, I'm definitely... Yeah, this is way different from Hawken. You're going a lot faster. I could see this being insane in an actual game like Forza or Need for Speed or something. But I can definitely feel my stomach just turning. Oh, God. I feel like my body wants to move, but it can't. Whoa! Oh, my God. I just spun the car out. Have you been talking to developers? I mean, it seems like there's a challenge in, for instance, Team Fortress 2 when you have a character like the Scout that runs 40 miles an hour that's going to make people sick, potentially. How do you grapple with getting VR players and non-VR players in the same game together? Is that something you have concern about? Is that something developers have been trying to figure out? TF2 is a title that Valve used so that they could collect these kinds of metrics. They want to see how people perform against each other in VR as opposed to out of VR. They want to see what kind of classes people choose in VR, what maps do they like, how long do they play, what tends to make them stop playing. It's too early to try to solve problems about how to have basically competitive parity between normal players and VR players. Because one of the problems is that traditional interfaces like a keyboard and mouse, they're superhuman. You can do things. You can instantly accelerate full forward. You can spin 360 degrees in a tenth of a second. Those are things you can't possibly do in real life using your natural body to move. So I think there's always going to be a disconnect. I don't think you're ever going to have the same performance between a VR player and a keyboard, mouse, monitor player. You might have different advantages and different disadvantages, but balancing those is going to take a really long time, so I don't think we're close to that. It could just be for me, but it seems like racing games are going to be sickening for sure. And I could see this, you know, any game where you're really going fast will be nuts. Alright, I can't. Oh, come back man. You don't have to stay in there.

It's Monday, March 25th, 2013. I'm Ross Miller, human after all. This is 1011010 seconds on the verge. After fixing a security exploit, Apple's password recovery page is back online. This past Friday, it was discovered that any password could be reset with nothing more than an email address and a date of birth. At the time, the only way for users to protect themselves from the exploit was to activate Apple's new two-step verification. And even though the exploit is fixed, we still implore you to give two-step verification a shot. T-Mobile's new contract-free pricing plans are now live. Here's what you'll pay. $50 per month will get you 500 megabytes of data with unlimited voice and text. $20 more will get you unlimited data. Mobile hotspots, however, will cost extra. T-Mobile's pricing undercuts its rivals considerably, but the trade-off right now is coverage and a lack of LTE service. That could all change soon, however, as T-Mobile's first LTE markets are expected to go live this month. Finally, Daft Punk has a message for you. That message has a beat you can dance to and launches May 21st. It's entitled Random Access Memories. A new 15-second ad ran during Saturday Night Live this weekend, announcing the album name and teasing a new song. The French electronic duo scored the soundtrack for Tron Legacy in 2010, but otherwise it's been eight years since their last studio album. 4-4 drum beat? Check. Sleek helmets? Large visors? Yep, that one too. Blatant references to funk obscured by heavy voice modulation? Of course. That's it for today's top stories. Join us tomorrow for... Really?

Hey guys, this is Tom Warren with The Verge and we're looking at Windows Blue which is basically the upgrade to Windows 8. So it's a new version of Windows and from the lock screen and sign in pages you won't notice a whole host of changes. Now if we start to look at the start screen you'll start to see some additions. Swiping through the tiles is pretty much identical to Windows 8 but if we go back and pick out one of the live tiles you'll see we're presented with some options to resize this to a smaller one that's pretty much identical to the small live tiles found in Windows Phone 8. You can edit the tile sizes for all apps and there are large, medium and small options available. However, the desktop tile also has an extra large mode too, it's the only tile that can be increased to this size. Microsoft has also tweaked the way that you arrange live tiles on the start screen, moving away from the drag down on the tile movement towards the customise button that then lets you move tiles around and also name the groups of tiles as you please. We suspect this is probably to prevent accidental movements of the new smaller live tiles. There's not a whole host of new gestures here but one addition is the ability to swipe up on the start screen to present the all apps view. The view is identical to Windows 8 but is simply more easily accessible. You'll notice we're using the default colour options here but Microsoft has added the personalisation options into the settings charm for the start screen. There's background wallpaper, background colour and even accent options and you'll notice that it's fairly easy to pick between all of them. The colour options are a lot different to Windows 8, allowing you to pick a number of different shades and the accent colour will alter the colours that you see on the start button and elsewhere in the operating system. There's also a lot of changes in the PC settings options within the start screen. Microsoft now includes frequently changed settings in the landing page, providing quick access to regular settings. Lock screen settings also include a reference to a new picture frame option for photos and an option to enable camera access on the lock screen. Microsoft has also extended the settings to include access to display options and you can set the resolution, orientation and number of displays here without jumping into desktop mode. There's also the ability to change some of the touch preferences. Moving on to account settings, there's not much to see here beyond the regular options and a sync section that's not currently in use. A new addition to the settings section is SkyDrive. It appears that Microsoft is integrating SkyDrive even more into Windows with Blue. There are options to backup devices to SkyDrive and control how they're stored and there's even automatic uploads of pictures and videos taken with the camera and that's an option that's very similar to a Windows phone. Moving on to the privacy section, you'll notice that you can change location preferences and have really granular options on privacy here. The devices section has been improved to include access to add and remove devices and autoplay options. And a network section has also been added which lets you toggle connections very easily and you can also add in VPN settings. There's also access to network options including proxy settings and home group management. Finally there's also a new app section that lets you control a new setting for quiet hours to ensure notifications don't trigger at certain times. You can also control individual app notifications and there's even the ability to view app sizes to see which applications are taking up the most storage space. There's also a new settings panel to change the app defaults to control how files are opened. Overall the settings are greatly improved from Windows 8 and it should prevent people from having to go into desktop mode more often. In terms of new apps there's clearly an alarms app that Microsoft is working on. This application lets you add multiple alarms and it includes a neat looking radial menu to select the hours and minutes. There are options to control when the alarm repeats and the sounds but overall it's fairly basic right now. Next up there's also a calculator app and this includes the standard calculator that works as you'd expect. There's also a scientific version but Microsoft's also including a converter option to quickly convert a variety of options including volume, length and weight. There's also a basic sound recording app that lets you record audio from a microphone and then share it to other applications. So you can see here you can share it to SkyDrive and Mail but we'd expect other apps will be able to support that in future. The final built in app addition is Movie Moments. This appears to be a Windows Movie Maker replacement. It's fairly basic right now but you can add captions into videos very easily and the results are processed and then saved into the pictures library. You'll see that the end result of the video is extremely basic but we'd expect that Microsoft's actually improving this quite rapidly. Although there aren't any other additional applications at the moment in Windows Blue, Microsoft is also making changes to its existing ones elsewhere. Internet Explorer has some minor changes that hint at further improvements for Blue as a whole. You can see that the layout is pretty much identical to the Windows 8 version with a settings menu and pin options but on the tab section which can be found at the very top, there's also a new Sync Tabs option. We expect that Microsoft is building in tab sync functionality for Windows Blue itself but it could also expand this to Windows Phone Blue in the future to make Internet Explorer more like Google's Chrome browser. The internet options here are fairly unchanged so it's only tab sync that's a new addition. Now this version of Internet Explorer in Windows Blue is actually Internet Explorer 11 and you can see that if we switch to the desktop version that that's available in the about screen. As for other changes in Windows Blue, it looks like Microsoft is working on a shutdown screen that's similar to Windows Phone and the company has also developed new snap views. By default, apps will snap into a 50-50 view which will basically allow you to open up two apps directly alongside each other. You can then drag apps to the snap view on the side and on higher resolutions, you'll actually be able to drag as many as three or four apps alongside each other. There's also improvements to the charm options in Windows Blue. If we bring up Internet Explorer and try to share a page, you'll notice that there are options to share a screenshot of Internet Explorer or simply link to the page. Now the same applies for other charms. While the search charm hasn't been updated to include improved search just yet, the device's charm shows new options when you're attempting to play music or video. The charm has been updated to include a play option which we suspect is the normal play to option that lets you play content to Xbox and other devices and there's also the usual print and then quick access to projector options. Finally we also noticed that Microsoft has tweaked its keyboard layout making it easier to access the number keys by holding down and swiping up. And that was a quick look at Windows Blue which we're expecting to be made available as an upgrade to Windows 8 later this year.

Welcome to Top Shelf, brought to you by Virgin Mobile. I'm David Pearce, and on this show we bring you the best in consumer electronics past, present, and future. Coming up, we'll talk the life and death of Google Reader and the aftermath of Samsung's Galaxy S4 announcement, but first, the week that was. As expected, Samsung last Thursday unveiled the Galaxy S4. It's more evolution than revolution, with a similar look to the GS3, but a larger 5-inch 1080p screen. New features include air gestures for hands-free control and an impressive 13-megapixel camera. Samsung this week also announced a price for its massive 4K television. The so-called Easel set will be $39,999 with pre-orders starting in March. Oculus Rift, our favorite virtual reality headset company, is about to ship some 10,000 completed developer kits. The test units feature a 5.6-inch, 1280x800 display and will support Valve's uber-popular Team Fortress 2 after an update this week. The father of Android has stepped down. Andy Rubin brought the mobile platform to Google in 2005 and has spearheaded its development ever since. He's now rumored to be working at Google's Secret X Lab. Android will now be overseen by Sundar Pichai, who also oversees Google Chrome and apps. And finally, sadly, Google is shutting down its popular Reader service as of July 1st. Google cited a decline in usage and a desire to focus on fewer products within the company. But the announcement left many users feeling lost. Users like The Verge's own Thomas Huston, for whom this has all been a very emotional experience. For eight years, Google Reader was nearly the perfect tool for someone who never wanted to miss the important things on the internet. Newshounds could stay on top of the Times, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, favorite photographers on Flickr, and even Twitter. It was the world's largest newsstand, mixed with the world's best in this period of newspapers and magazines. It also made me a better reader by offering a treasure trove of great reporting and writing that I knew I should be reading. For eight years, I saw the whole internet. All the parts I wanted to see, anyway. I subscribed to hundreds of feeds, skimming thousands of items every day, J and K-ing my way through everything that I'd missed, hitting S to start the best of it, occasionally mashing Shift and A to mark everything red when I couldn't handle the flood anymore. Over time, instead of rousing aimlessly through the web or hoping something interesting was happening on Twitter, I'd unlock my phone and jump into Google Reader's endless stream of news, long reads, and gifs that had only one reader in mind. I tried dozens of apps, trying to find the perfect way to read on the go. Most I tried were slow or ugly or missing some key feature. But thanks to Google Reader, the perfectly reliable and totally invisible back end, I could just install another app and pick up right where I left off. Now comes July 1st, Google Reader goes the way of the Dodo, Hendrix, and the Palm Cree, lost before its time. I'll miss the app itself, but the hole the reader really leaves behind is in the heart of all the third-party apps I use across different devices and platforms. There are still good apps for reading your feeds, like Press or Reader or Net Newswire. There are even a few that sync across a couple of devices, like Feedly, but only if you use Feedly apps everywhere. Gone is the back button, the underlying foundation to let you build a system on top of it like Legos. A few companies have offered to pick up where Google left off. Digg says it's building an API to replace the one that powered so many Google Reader apps. Feedly's doing the same thing. But those products are a long way off, and those companies need to figure out how to turn those readers into a business. Google never did. Google built Reader to help us never miss a thing on the Internet, to organize and collate everything we wanted to read. For eight years, my corner of the Internet existed on Google Reader. Now I'm not sure where it goes. Goodbye, Google Reader, and thanks for all the memories, which I started in Google Reader and won't be able to ever access again. But thanks anyway. Joining me now to talk about all of Google Reader and RSS and where we go from here is Cyril Moutran from Feedly. He's the head of product and strategy. Cyril, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us today. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. So tell me a little bit about Feedly, first of all. Give me a little bit of the background and kind of why you decided to build both an RSS reader and one that's connected to Google Reader. Yeah. So, well, we started Feedly a while back, you know, in 2008. And so we've been at it for a while. We saw an opportunity, you know, where there's this rich content on the web today. And in our lives, we have more and more devices. We have mobile phones, tablets, you know, all these devices play an important role. And we thought it was a really good opportunity to try to reinvent the way people access this great content on these devices, across these devices. So when Google Reader announced last week that they're, or when Google announced that they're shutting down Google Reader last week, what was the reaction within Feedly and kind of where did you, you know, did you see this coming? Was this, why do you think they shut down? Yeah, it's hard to say we saw this coming. We actually were preparing for that possibility. We saw over the last few years, since we've been working very closely with the Reader team, we saw the Reader team being pulled first to Buzz, OpenSocial, Google Plus. So we saw really Google kind of stepping back and putting almost the product in maintenance. And we saw that as an opportunity for us to really help the users move beyond the web product that Google Reader was and trying to basically adopt a better reader across experiences. So we've been working for what we call Normandy for about six months now, which really was our backup plan, more than a backup plan. It's kind of the backup plan for if Google decided to retire Reader, but it's also kind of where we see the future for feeds to be. It seems like to me that the two pieces people lost with Google were the Reader web client, which a lot of people liked, it was very simple and very fast, but also Google as this kind of universal ubiquitous backend that powered all these apps and all these different platforms. Is that kind of what you imagine Normandy? Or tell me kind of where you're going forward with that. Yeah, that's very close to what we see. We see really three legs to Normandy. And one is definitely an API that Feedly could use, but all the readers could use as well. It's a very important building block for helping people build valuable content at centric applications. And so we announced the API last week as part of the Normandy program. And we now have more than 100 developers who have asked us about it, who have expressed interest. And so we're in the process of formalizing that part. We saw also a very important place for Normandy to be a better environment for publishers, where Google really didn't really do much in terms of helping publishers monetize their feed or giving more alternatives around how our kind of feed really produced results. We are starting to engage a lot of publishers with Normandy over the last six months. And we definitely see a very, very strong interest now since the Google announcement. And we intend to provide a building block for things like paid content, paid premium feeds, or affiliate programs within Normandy. The thing that worries me is that Google Reader is shut down because Google couldn't figure out a way that it was a viable business for them going forward. Do you see Normandy as something that's both good for your business and as something that people will still adopt? Because it was a free API for everybody. Is that something you can really offer, or are you going to have to charge for it, or how do you see that working? Yeah, so I don't want to speculate too much about why Google decided to shut down Reader. But I highly doubt it's because it was not making money. The truth is that it was not making money, and it was an issue in terms of creating tension between Google and publishers. But I think more than anything else, I think it's the iteration of the product that probably, when they removed the sharing functionalities last year, we saw a huge influx already of users to Fiddly because sharing is a key component that early adopters and people who are very a bit of content need. So this time, in terms of monetization, we are seeing really different ways for monetization. We have a lot of users today that have been asking us for a core version of Fiddly, and we're still in the process of exactly defining what this is. When talking with a lot of these users, we have been asking, I think today at least 5 to 7% of our base said they would be willing to pay for Fiddly. And they don't really tell us which feature. They want to pay for the existing product. So they see it as an important part of their life today, of the things that we do, and they don't want it to go away. So that's one avenue for us is to figure out what is that core version? Is it guaranteed of service? Is that specific feature that we would put in it? But then I think overall, we really want to go beyond that, and we want to offer a couple of other models. One would be a utility-based model for developers, where other developers could come in and create this content-centric app much more easily based on normality. And we would basically work out a pay-per-use model for the API. And the third part is really the opportunity to monetize feeds. So both for developers, giving them an opportunity to create, to basically get revenue from feeds, and giving an environment where publishers could bring content, other premium content, or create, if you get programs where they really, really, really, really, really, really publish on normality. So, you know, you've announced that you're doing this thing with Normandy. Dig has talked about doing something similar. Do you think, will you be working together to make something that makes it accessible for everybody, or are we going to see kind of a fragmented market and we'll have to pick our best option and hope everybody else does too? No, so I don't think the market is going to fragment necessarily. You know, I think there's different layers to it. So as far as Normandy is concerned, we are basically starting to gather two sides. You know, since we announced we have already over 100 developers who have expressed interest in the API, and we want to create a developer-wide advisory board. We didn't have a talk conversation with Dig or some of the other players yet. But trying to basically better understand what are going to be the key needs for developers to be able to create this rich application that we see. That's a key function of the board. And whatever we can do to push things back into the standard, that's where we want to go. And then there's also a publisher advisory board, which kind of act in the same way, but on the publisher side. So when you think about taking RSS today, it's great. You know, we can still do a lot of things with RSS as it is today as a standard or at home as it is as a standard. But if we think about other things that we may do to be able to support different models, then as much as we want, we want to engage the conversation with as many people as possible, and then feed that anything that makes sense to feedback in the standard, do it in the standard. Because in our vision is that the more we have people believing that content should be open, accessible on the web, and we really believe so, the better the world is going to be. I totally agree. Cyril, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. I really appreciate it, and we're definitely looking forward to seeing what happens with Feedly on July 1st. Thank you. So we've seen a lot of Android phones launched recently, from the Galaxy S4 to the HTC One to a handful of others. And they all have their differences, but across the board, there's one certainty. Their version of Android kind of sucks. We just like stock Android a lot better. So we sent our own Evan Rogers on a quest to find ways to make Android lighter, faster, prettier, and just better. The HTC One is a gorgeous device, but the thing is, we're not entirely sold on the Sense interface. And the same is true for Samsung's TouchWiz or any other skin that a phone manufacturer might lay on top of Android. There's something so clean and consistent about Google's stock Android experience, something you can really only get out of the box from a Nexus phone. But thankfully, Android is highly customizable. You can make it look like Google originally intended with only a few minutes and a handful of apps from Google's Play Store. No hacking or rooting required. To get the HTC One a little more in line with my tastes, I focus on three areas. The launcher, the lock screen, and the keyboard. Within the launcher, the home screen and app drawer is where you'll spend most of your time. I chose Nova because it looks almost exactly like Google's default launcher. Nova also includes a number of interesting improvements like support for custom icons and lots of screen transitions. Simply download it and set it as your default launcher, it prompts you to do so the first time you press the home button, and you're set to go. As for the lock screen, we've seen a lot of variety of form and function here. Personally, I prefer the simplicity of HoloLocker. The HTC One's lock screen is kind of busy for my tastes. What HoloLocker does, yet again, is make your lock screen look very similar to stock Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Now the keyboard. There are a lot of insane third party options out there, but my favorite is SwiftKey. Word prediction is great and you can easily change the keyboard's appearance with a few taps. This app is the only paid app on our list, but a quality keyboard can be one of the best app purchases you ever make, and honestly, it's what you'll be using the most. These tweaks only take a minute or two to install, and they bring back some of the best and most beautiful features of Android that many manufacturers cut out. It's a better, cleaner experience on almost any phone. Joining me now is Avi Greengart, the research director for consumer devices at Current Analysis, to talk more about Samsung and all things Android. Avi, thanks so much for being here. My pleasure. I really appreciate it. So I want to talk about Android and I want to talk about the GS4, but first I want to talk about 2010. Let's go back a couple years. So it seems to me that sort of at the beginning of this run of Android phones, Motorola was like the brand. They kind of owned the Android world, and people bought Droids instead of Android. They had the brand. And then Samsung… In the United States, it's important to make that distinction. Right, absolutely. And then it seems like Samsung sort of showed up and all of a sudden just dominated and like brute-forced their way in. Is that fair? What happened? Not entirely, and I actually think you need to go back probably another 10 years before that to the transition… Ten years? Yeah, to the transition between analog and digital TV. That was when Samsung as a corporate brand made a big play as a pioneer, as a technologist. So that was when the digital ad campaign really cemented Samsung in Western consumers' minds as a brand that they could relate to. So then fast forward back to 2010. Samsung's strategy around smartphones has always been to bet on every horse, and whenever possible enter their own horse into the race. Bada, TouchWiz. So they always supported every known operating system. Symbian, Palm, Android, Windows Phone, Windows Mobile. But when they saw a lot of success around Android, they doubled down on Android, and they put a lot of resources there. The first thing that they did that was somewhat unique in the industry was that because they had a massive internal supply chain where they could give themselves good processors, good displays, that was the first thing that they really did, was that they gave themselves the best displays. And then if you went at retail and you saw an array of smartphones sitting in front of you and one was brighter than the others, the retail store clerk was able to point to that one, that one's the best, just simply because it had the brightest display and in some cases the nicest display. And is that kind of, was that unique to Samsung? Like is Samsung the only company in its space that has that particular, like the end to end, we make everything and we give ourselves the best stuff. To an extent, yes. I mean Nokia certainly had a massive supply chain because of the volumes they did, and Apple uses its financial weight to literally buy up supply chain, often several years in advance. But LG is in a similar situation to Samsung and to a limited degree so is Sony, where they had, they would make some of their own components. But Samsung did this to a greater and better extent than anyone else. So that was step one. Step two, they started differentiating around software. And that's something that we've seen pretty much everyone do, and to be candid, the first versions of TouchWiz weren't very good. That's like the kindest way you could have said that. Yeah, stock Android was a lot better. But it's gotten good and they've added things in, particularly at the larger screen sizes, that are genuinely useful. So things like tabbed calendar on a very large display means that you can quickly jump around your calendar and that's nice. And you think that for Samsung was, I mean because we've talked a lot about their stuff as kind of meaningless differentiation, but you think this is actually something that people were like, oh, tabs in the calendars, I want that, I'm going to buy a Samsung phone. No, I think primarily it was, at the time, primarily it was the screen display. The displays and the Exynos, the really fast processors. And the fact that they had great distribution, and I mean global great distribution. And so with the Galaxy S2, that's when they started pouring on the marketing. And there are two aspects to this marketing. One is the sheer dollars. I mean we're talking billions of dollars, but simply throwing money at something and even having decent ads doesn't necessarily equate to sales. I mean you can just take a look at Microsoft's surface for that. But they did two things with that. One was, you know, they spent a lot of money. But the other was their ads were really good. First from a branding perspective, the fact that they made fun of hipsters and said that if you're not a hipster, then you should buy a Samsung Galaxy phone. And the Samsung Galaxy phones have all this advanced technology, that's the brand promise for Samsung. But by doing so in a very clever way, they gave consumers permission to consider an alternative to Apple. I really think that before that, it was really, if you thought of yourself as someone who wanted high technology in your phone, you pretty much were limited to Apple. You were at the GS4 launch event last week. I was. So tell me about that event kind of in this realm of what Samsung is doing. What do you see from Samsung now? Well I mean first of all, that event was insane. It was way over the top. It was overproduced. We can all argue about whether there were not enough women or the women were portrayed poorly. The one thing that they did do a really nice job of, and this plays off of what also they've done in their ads, is not just Samsung as a brand. They've done better than anyone else other than Apple, explaining the benefits of a feature, not just selling you a spec. And that's something that if you go to any business 101, marketing 101 technology course, they will say sell features, sell benefits, sell benefits, not features. But nobody does it. Sure. You can look at Palms launch web OS with a vampire lady talking about the flow of her day. You can look at that. But Samsung says we have this phone. It does this thing for you. And at Radio City Music Hall, that was a lot of what they were showing off. They did a really bad job in terms of being cheesy, but they did a really good job of showing you why these features matter, how you would use them, why someone might want them. Yeah, and so one of the things people talked about a lot after that event were that Samsung is kind of mimicking Apple's TikTok strategy, where they have this big, the GS3 was like this big innovative thing with a lot of new hardware and software, and this was more of an iterative upgrade. Well, so is the GS3 from the GS2. You think so? I do. And the GS2 from the original Samsung Galaxy. Okay. I mean, the design, this is not a Galaxy S4. This is a Galaxy S3. But if I just show this to you, you might think that it is because the screen's a little bigger. I mean, it's the same plastic design. But the GS3 hit a level of popularity that the GS2 didn't ever reach. I could be wrong about that, but it seems to me that it kind of vaunted Samsung into a whole different level of fame. If it's just kind of an iterative upgrade, how did it get there? Well, it got there from the factors I was talking about earlier, that it had the brightest displays earlier, that it had that advertising campaign that gave consumers permission to ask for one, and they literally did. If you spend time at retail, you will see consumers walking into the store, and they don't say, can you show me what your best Android phone is, or can you help me decide which Android phone to get? They walk in, they're saying, I want a Galaxy S. Can HTC and Sony and Nokia and LG and whoever else catch up? I mean, we think sort of objectively they're making a lot of better hardware and some smarter decisions with software, but it still seems like it's Samsung's market to lose. So how does HTC, for instance, catch Samsung? And then on the flip side, has Samsung caught Apple? Everybody seems to say, Samsung is killing Apple, and Apple's going away, and we're sounding these death tolls. Is that happening? And is that even a thing? Will one kill the other? So let's do the iPhone versus Galaxy fight first. There's room in the market for both. They have different areas where one is significantly better than the other. If you want a really large display, if you want certain Google services baked in, if you want to do those things you see in the ads, you'll notice that Samsung specifically calls out things that it does that are fairly unique than the Galaxy S3, or if you want to take a photo of your kids with yourself in it, which I think is the flagship feature of the Galaxy S4. I talked about that a lot. It is a great feature. I want that feature. I think that's a great feature. I want to do that. Then yes, the Galaxy S3, or in this case the Galaxy S4, may be a better phone for you if you want better access to content, if you want a greatly simplified user experience, plus all of the great apps, and in many cases great-er apps or higher quality apps that you find on iOS, then you're going to be very happy with an iPhone 5 or whatever is next. Samsung is still doing Tizen. They're getting into watches. They're doing wearables. Samsung still wants to blanket the market with every possible option. Is that good for Samsung? Is that good for the GS4? How does it fit in here? Samsung has the resources that many of its competitors don't to follow blind alleys and see if they actually go somewhere. Tizen seems like a blind alley. It does to me. At least right now. The other aspect of that though is there is, we've talked about Apple versus Samsung, and that's probably the reason that Samsung didn't mention the word Android more than once in its presentation because they're really positioning the Galaxy S4 against Apple, not against other... Samsung feels like it won Android. It feels like it does. It does. But with great power comes great responsibility or with great power comes great conflict within Google. Some of the things that Samsung has invested in are aimed at maintaining a balanced relationship with Google. Some of it may be simple negotiating techniques. Give me a higher cut on search revenue or don't give Motorola early access to Android because that would hurt me. If they do that, then I could fork. I Samsung could go off and build my own version. And Google has to listen because Samsung is Samsung. So there's a lot of those interplay elements. When you look outside of that, so that's one of the reasons why Samsung is investing in so many of these other areas. But when you look outside of that in terms of watches and wearables and things like that, that's simply expanding the ecosystem. I think we're going to see a lot of that innovation. Sometimes it makes more sense to put NFC on your wrist than it does to have it in the phone for personal identification for retail, for collecting data from your wrist, for presenting data from the phone to your wrist or to your eyes. So we're going to see more innovation in wearables regardless. So Samsung's going to make Google Glass competitors, is what you're saying. We'll see. And then probably take over the market with it and we'll be right back where we were in like four years. I don't know. But that's definitely something to watch for in terms of, pun not really intended. But we will see glasses and watches and pacemakers and embedded tattoos. This is looking out a bit. But yeah, I do think that we're going to see a lot of innovation outside of the phone itself. And Samsung is definitely going to want to participate there. And Google likes to drive some of that innovation. And there's no question that Apple is going to be a big part of that too. All right. Awesome. Avi, thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate it. We'll have you back to talk more about S Glass whenever it comes out. And that's our show. Thank you so much for watching. Thanks to Avi Greengart for being here. Thanks to Cyril from Feedly and of course, Thomas Huston and Evan Rogers. Be sure to check out all this and more on TheVerge.com. Thank you again for watching and we'll see you next week.

Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of March 18th, 2013. I'm Josh Dapolsky. I'm Neil Epitale. And we have a very special guest with us, Adrienne Jeffries. Am I saying that right? No, it's Adrienne Jeffries. I'm sorry. Wait, it's not J-Fries? That's what I've been pronouncing it this whole time. Adrienne Jeffries, who is one of our writers, a human, and also... Also my own person. Also her own person, and a female human, I should say. A female human. Yes. Anyhow, Adrienne is here. She wrote a big piece on Andy Rubin this week that we wanted to talk about, which we're going to get to. And I don't know what the topic list is. I rushed over here because I was waiting at home for a package, and it never came. It's my happy hacking keyboard. Oh, is that what it is? Which is a $300 keyboard. You're a maniac. Which I probably won't use very much because I use a laptop. And so it's been very upsetting. It's been a very upsetting day. Let's see if it's been delivered. I'm going to keep checking. I'm checking FedEx. Are we going to get live updates on this show? Yeah, we're going to get live updates. Well, I'll be very disappointed if I can't make it back in time to get it. Still on vehicle, so that's... Well, actually, I just tweeted that we had a surprising amount of chaos as we began. It's a lot of... You mean for this? Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is... We should talk about this. It's our first show. This is so weird. I don't know. There's so much distance between you guys. It's our first show in the new studio. Which is still in... We're still unpacking. There's stuff to be done here. There's literally a man sleeping in blankets. There's a guy over there who worked all night. But it's very exciting. It's extremely exciting. It looks very professional from the camera angle. It does. Based on these cameras, I feel like... There's people working in the background. Yeah, we can see... We have a monitor here. I don't even know what camera I'm looking at right now. Is it the left or right camera? Where am I? Where do you want? This one. This one. Yeah. That's mine. Okay. So, it's new to us. Obviously, our crew, our team who does this has seen it, but it's news to me. So, when I address the viewer, I guess I'm addressing you in this camera. Is that right? Does that look right? Great. Fantastic. Okay. So, we should get started. We have a lot of stuff to talk about. Neelay. We had... It was a big, crazy week in news. We came storming out of the gate. No. It was a week of not of major news events. Right. But of a lot of meaningful, interesting news. There's a lot going on. Yeah. And it's pretty obvious that the stage is being set for the next wave of big news events. Yeah. And we'll start right off with, I think, Samsung, which I love talking about. My favorite company. Haven't we talked about Samsung? Yeah. So, they launched GS4 last week. Yeah. We talked about that. We talked about that. We had the big live stream. Yeah. The phone looks like the KS3. People were very confused, by the way. Is the Vergecast dead now? Yeah, it's over. It's like, listen. We're only doing the Vergecast immediately after Samsung. It's just one show. Yeah. Well, we were building this, too. Anyway, so they had a big event. There was a lot of controversy immediately after the event. And then I ran a big report on Monday, because I called Broadway people, which is not something you normally do. Oh, that's right. I mean, this week's been so long, I completely forgot that you had this report. So, I talked to the director and the writer. The writer is now in LA working on an Adam Sandler. Well, you wrote, hold on. Let me, let's be clear. You wrote a kind of a behind the scenes of their extremely sexist, of the Galaxy S4 sexist event, which was written and produced by Broadway professionals. Right, a major Broadway talent. Broadway talent. Well, you know, people who have Tonys. People who have Tonys. Well, yeah. The director directed Newsies, which I thought was, he was very into talking about Newsies, because it's his one year anniversary. Adrian, you're a big Newsies fan. He's great. Who doesn't love Newsies? Love Newsies. Do you like Newsies? I haven't seen it. You've never seen Newsies? What about the movie? I haven't seen the movie. Seriously? You know, Christian Bale's in it as a child. That's crazy. Yeah, it's really, it's really. Now I'll see Newsies. Anyway, but so, so look, even aside from the controversy over the specific content of the thing, I think it's crazy that Samsung is like putting on these lavish productions to launch a phone. You think that's bizarre? There's only one company in technology that does that. Who is it? Samsung. Only Samsung is like, we'll have dancers. Everybody does their events. Everybody does events, but like the idea that Samsung will have an orchestra that literally is under the stage and then they'll raise the orchestra and be like, look what we bought. Well, they were in Radio City Music Hall. But that's crazy too. And the word on the street is that they're spending $400 million to promote, to launch the Galaxy S4. Yeah. 400 million. That's the number. Do you have any idea how many starving children they could feed with $400 million? Well, I'm sure they'll feed them after they sell the phones and collect like billions of dollars. Like 10. You got to spend money to make money, kid. I guess so. Sure. Okay. That's what Samsung is telling the starving children. So regardless of the controversy, I thought it was really interesting. I want to talk to these people. And then this massive controversy erupted over the portrayal of women in the show. And so I called Ivan Menschel, who wrote it. He's the guy who's writing the Adam Sandler movie. And Jeff Calhoun, who's the director, is a guy who's currently directing Newsies. And they're both like, basically what they said to me was a regular Broadway show that we're used to working on, we open like out of town. Like we open in like Curia. Yeah, you give it a little test run. And we do reviews and we like get feedback and then we change the show. Sure. But because this was a product launch and it was basically being written in Korea, we didn't have any opportunity to do any of this stuff. And nobody ever mentioned this like crazy, like all the women in the show are super annoying. How did that controversy get started? Did it start with the CNET story? That started during, I mean, I was looking at tweets. While I was live logging, I mean, I always look at Twitter while I'm live logging to see what people want to like know about. And it was like all of it, like the whole time it was like- Those were the tweets. Well, I feel like, I also feel like people's sensitivity to how sexist this any event might be now was turned up a little bit because of the Sony event. And this was like, if the Sony event seemed like subtly sexist in that there were no women on stage out of the 19 companies that they brought up on stage, this one was like, but what if we weren't subtly sexist? What if we were overtly crazily sexist? Right. I mean, this is the nails- Which I like better. Yeah. Well- I mean, look, at least they're honest, right? For sure. They're like, look, ladies, you can wave at it while your nails dry. Ladies, here's what we think of you. We're just going to be straight. And you know, it was really interesting is, so the guy, you know, the writer and the director, they told me like this whole skit, this big controversy with the bridesmaids party and the waving your nails and the drunk lady, ogling a naked guy, which is fine. Did that happen? I didn't see the entire thing. That happened. They were like, we wanted to make fun of Sex and City. We want to make fun of bridesmaids, but literally we had to send Korea a new script every day. And his big line was there was not a pair of socks on stage that hadn't been photographed, sent to Korea and approved. Yeah. So it's like they engage- I'd like to see those photos, by the way. Here's like 15 socks selections. I'd like to get a book of the socks just laid out for the Koreans. So that all happened. And I think people who are watching this podcast probably read that story and know about that. And loved it. Loved it. But what's interesting is that the next day, Samsung South Africa apologized to sites in South Africa, like for an event that Samsung had held in that country. For refrigerators. For refrigerators and washing machines. And the washing machine was called the wobble. And they had a troop of bikini girls come out and like shake to like demonstrate that they're there. So Samsung has this like problem where- Well, I think the world has a problem. Samsung is simply a symptom of the world's problem. Yeah. It's a symptom. But I think the specific problem is- Well, it's not like you saw a woman on stage at an Apple event. Well there's that. But Samsung's problem is that they're putting on these like incredibly lavish productions. And they're trying to engage art in this way without ever realizing that by doing like the most crass, like lowest common denominator thing, that they're going to get this criticism. Well here's what I feel like I've learned from watching like the Qualcomm CES keynote and the Samsung thing. What I've seen in the Samsung thing. I really think that these companies should stay away from theatrics. I think that it is a toxic, terrible mixture when they think that they're going to put on like a show for people. It's always off key. Right. It's always bad. And it's because you can't, maybe you can, but it's really, really hard to mix the direct commercial message of everybody should love our product with like this game you're trying to play. Right. Well- We're also engaging culture. Yeah. These are still like supposed to be like trade events, right? Right. Yeah. Like their primary audience is journalists. So like I guess the way it used to be is it would just be specs and technical stuff. Right. And then do you feel like now they're actually hoping that some customers are going to buy phones and tune into- I do think, I do. You know, there were a couple, to that point, I agree that they are thinking that. There were a couple of things, I think Matt Honan wrote something and Matt Buchanan wrote something about like, this is, I'm so bored with this. Like there was this big launch event. It's just another smartphone. And I was thinking that's true for us in the industry. We've seen a million smartphone launches, but I think part of putting on this spectacle was not to say, Hey, look at all of our amazing specs. It was almost to say like, Samsung is here and we've got awesome products and we're an amazing company. They can put on a big show. And Radio City holds 6,000 people. They invited fans. Right. So like they streamed it and like 500,000 people watched it live, which is nuts. 500,000. Yeah. That can't be right. That's right. 500,000 like at one time or total? Different people. That was the number that Thomas Rooker told me. They were watching the live stream and that was them. Worldwide that's not actually a huge number. Seems insane to me. And then I don't know how many people watched it since. So you watched it today actually. You were, you were like cramming for the verge cast. So what'd you think? I thought it was, I mean it was super campy. Like Molly Wood makes the point that, you know, it's not just women who are portrayed as stereotypes. It's every single type of person. And yeah, I thought it was annoying. It reminded me. Okay. So we're talking about the women in tech stuff now. It reminded me of like, do you remember when Dell had that like. Della. Yeah. The mini site that was for women. Yeah. And it was just like, you know, it's not, it doesn't like, it's not like a huge deal. It doesn't really impact my life, but it's annoying. It's lame. It's annoying. It's like, if you have, if you're a smart, modern, I mean anybody, not a woman, a man, anything, like it just seems so out of touch with reality and what like life is actually like, you know, that's so, it's just off key. It's like, you know, you're right. Going back to this, these portrayals, these stereotypes, it's like the thing with Qualcomm where they were supposed to, you know, these young hip kids and it was, you don't know what, you don't know what those people are like. And so your portrayal of them is, is insulting to the people that you think you're portraying. It is stupefying to the people who don't know what you're portraying. And it just comes off as totally off color and totally bad. And that's the Samsung stuff just feels that way. But I think there is also, you know, we've got to admit that there is, like you said, it's a trade show. It's a trade event. And I think we're probably going to talk about this yesterday's sexism kerfluffle. But I do think that in our industry, I mean, let's just be honest. Like we all know there are things that we're battling in the industry of technology and internet culture and technology culture. And a lot of that stuff is sexism and like really latent sexism and racism and even not so latent sexism and racism and just like general, general conditioning that is, has been. Can I just say that this set right now is like super set up like a crossfire and I feel like I need to be arguing with Adrian. Everything's fine. Why don't you ladies just shut up? Adrian, you're in support of women's rights. You feel women should have no rights you said before the break and I quote lock them away and take them out only when we need them. Why don't you shut your face double? I tried to make me make him get him some chicken. I don't know what that means. I don't know. It's a reference to yesterday and I did it. Oh really? That's not true. That's a SBC. It was a soft power situation. But uh, but uh, but there is like this kind of this thing. It's like, and you know, what's most frustrating about it is that people in the industry don't, they're like, what do you mean? There's a, there's no problem. Our commenters drive me crazy. Commenters, but also, you know, the people who are like, we're colorblind. There's no sexism. You know, Arrington saying like, if women would show up to our stuff that women would be included. It's like, well, women don't show up to your stuff because you don't include them. Cause you're horrible. That's why Samsung is like a little bit forgivable here because like you said before, it was weird and the really insidious sexism in tech is the, you know, the more subtle, the kind where it's just like, it's, it's not obvious and people are like, oh, what's the problem? I don't see the problem. And the problem is actually just that there's, you know, there's not women visible on stage. There's not, uh, you know, the, the jokes are aren't as funny to women as they are to a room that's full of guys. Like it's that, that kind of stuff that's worse. So we should do, if we're talking about jokes that aren't funny, except really anyone, this controversy yesterday. Yes. Can you, when you walk through it? Yeah. So we ran the Samsung piece and I actually think this is, this story begins not at the controversy that yesterday or even what happened at this event. The controversy for me begins at the immediate reaction to what happened to this event. Right? So we ran the Samsung story and we're like, there's their sexism attack, right? That's like a thing that we've been talking about. Right. And also, but I just was like, yes, there's sexism in tech and I think we can all say we could all do better. Everybody can do better at being better with like modern life. We're not, we're not perfect when it comes to, uh, there's no sexism in NASCAR. And I think we all know that's true. I mean, we're not perfect anywhere. Danica Patrick has driven through the glass, the glass retaining wall. We can all do better and be more cognizant of, of how we behave. Right. Was this a right? This is, this is exactly right. So we ran the story and I got a lot of emails and then there was a forum thread and a lot of forum threads about why aren't you guys equally covering this Adria Richards story. So Adria Richards was a developer evangelist for a company called SendGrid. Right, it's an email marketing company, SendGrid. They're actually over a hundred employees. They're not tiny. Right. So it's like she was, she's a developer evangelist for this company and she was at, was unfortunately, um, was a developer evangelist for this company. She was at a Python conference called PyCon and she overheard two guys at another company at Play Haven. Yes. And they were from a company called Play Haven sitting behind her telling jokes about dongles and forking repos. It was like, it was sexual innuendo using the term dongle and forking. And I'm not going to say I've never made a dongle joke in my life. Because I happily make dongle jokes all the time. You know, check out this huge dongle. I mean, that's basically the kind of joke they were making. That's all you can do. By the way, I apologize, Adrian. Go ahead. Go on. Wait, I have to look up this exact headline. Okay. While you're doing that. This is important. So she was thinking about it. She like saw a picture of like a girl. Okay. Are you ready for my dongle joke from January 18th, 2011? Jack Dorsey's dongle growing in popularity. You're fired. That's a beta beat headline. That didn't happen. Yes, totally. That did not happen. There's no way we ran that headline. So good to know we didn't run that headline. Ev tweeted it. Of course. There you go. We blew it. You're the big winner. We should have run that headline. Anyway, so she took a picture of them. She tweeted it repeatedly and was like, please, PyCon organizers, come talk to these guys. I'm really uncomfortable with this. She made a big fuss about it. She publicly shamed them. She took a picture of them and tweeted it and was kind of like, hey, this is not right. Sure. Anyway, so they got kicked out. One of the guys who's still nameless, I believe, got fired. The other guy didn't get fired. Nameless offender got fired. Nameless offender got fired. This story got picked up. Really it arrived on Hacker News and Pastebin and it just started just building in controversy and hatred and rage until anonymous got involved. I don't know if it was anonymous. It was just anonymous people. But they called themselves anonymous. That's the whole point of the organization. You know the thing about anonymous that's so tricky is that anybody could say it. Anybody could use it. Right. I mean, that's why ultimately anonymous is going to have severe problems in the future. They don't currently have severe problems. No, they do have severe problems, but they're not so big that it's a thing. When there's actual terrorist activity under the guise of anonymous, it's going to be problematic. Anyway, so Sendgrid was DDoSed. Adria Richards herself- And deservedly so, by the way. Because they fired her too. Right. And then they fired her. And then she was fired. But literally, they threatened her company until it appears that she was fired. There's a lot of hazy in there too. And just to be clear, what we're saying is that she was attacked, started to be attacked online for- Viciously. For getting this guy fired, which she did not ask anybody to do. And attacked in a way that wasn't like, hey, it was wrong for you to shame those guys. You should have told the organizers. You're a jerk for doing that. Yeah, metastasized. It's more like, you bitch, how dare you, you deserve to die, like that kind of stuff. By the way, you guys are both going to get flame emails after this. I got one and all I did was tweet about it. All I did was tweet that Russell Brandom was writing a story. That's all I tweeted. You don't understand what my inbox looks like. I get angry emails. Welcome to hell, H. I get angry emails. Okay, fair enough. Fair. And I also have to get, I also get emails for you guys about your behavior because- You're welcome. Because I'm supposed to be in charge of you. I get a lot of emails about your behavior. Really? Do you really? Circle five. Wait, I don't get emails about you guys. I will start forwarding emails after this. I get emails that are like, how can you allow Joe Flatley to keep writing his liberal screed, you know, stop letting Joe Flatley push his agenda, stuff like that. What's the Joe Flatley agenda? Well, you need only- To be as crazy as possible. No, you need only read his post to note that he has a major political agenda. Anyhow, so they were violent, mean, nasty attacks that were way out of sync with the situation. And a lot, so my tweet summary, which I got hate mail for too, was woman tweets about men creating hostile environment, men respond by turning internet into the most hostile environment possible. Because that's what happened. They were mad at her degree of complaint that you know, you should have just talked to them. And in response, we were going to literally tell you that you should kill yourself and take and remove your, like destroy your company. I mean, there is, there is this thing of, well, it's the internet. I mean, when we were talking about headlines for that piece, we were, one of the first headlines was the internet is terrible or something along those lines. Cause it is like- You can only use that headline once though. It's true. Or can you use it constantly? Part two. That's like, I don't know. Part two. That's like, yeah, it's like a series. This is the worst story stream of all time. But there is this- We should actually just make that story stream. Really, the internet is terrible and just all of like the really rotten stuff that happens. I like that idea. But there is this thing that, that's just like, it's so easy for these guys to just say whatever they want. Just say the first thing that comes to mind. Just, you know, and I know this is internet mentality, but internet mentality needs to like chill out. I mean, basically the problem is that we are all going, oh, it's the internet. It's like, yeah, the internet is life now. Like we're all there. We're all living there. I mean, we work on the internet. We live on the internet. We communicate with everybody that we know on the internet. So it's like, you can no longer get away with, hey, it's the internet. You know, that's how people are going to be. In a room full of people, they wouldn't be that way. And the internet's a room full of people. So it's like, there needs to be some better way to do this conversation. And what's interesting to me, just before the show, we were talking and we're like, no one in the actual situation seems particularly likable. Right. And we should make clear we're not endorsing either side. I think she was, I think that her decision to shame those guys instead of saying, I do think she should have turned around and said, hey guys. I think that would have been effective. It would have been more effective. I think it would have made them think twice. The next time they're in that situation. I do feel like she overreacted by making it into a public thing when it should have been a conversation between three people. Right. I mean, that's in regular real life and maybe the internet has dulled us in some way to these types of interactions. But if you're sitting at a restaurant and somebody next to you is saying something really offensive or upsetting, I mean, I have done this. Every time we go out. Every time we go out. It's really bad actually. Or somebody's being really loud or whatever you say, listen, I hate to bother you, but if you could be a little quieter or, hey, what you just said is really offensive, could you keep it down? I mean, there's only been a few times. I mean, I remember I was standing in the deli. I was standing in the deli ordering a sandwich and this guy next to me was talking to his friend and he's like, yeah, you know, I chewed him down a little bit. And I was like, listen, I don't want to be a jerk, but that's really pretty offensive and I'm Jewish and it's not cool to say. And he's like, what are you talking about? He got really mad at me. He's like, what are you talking about? I have a lot of Jewish friends. He actually said that. I was like, okay, well they probably think you're a dick. Of course you do. You're in New York. They probably think you're a dick. You didn't have to try that hard. Yeah. He's like that guy. And it was like a Hasidic Jew was standing there buying some potato chips. Anyhow, but that happens. It's New York. Uh, but anyhow, but the point is that that's a normal approach would be, Hey guys, I think this is really offensive and I can hear you. So can you keep it down? Russell and I were like working on this piece. Um, I was like, you know, in high school, like you make these jokes, like I was a boy in high school. I've made, I continue to emotionally to be a boy in high school. You were a boy in high school. No, I mean like the nature of social interaction is that you learn what the boundaries of acceptable behavior are. And this is just like that that's boundary setting, but I will. So on the flip side, let me argue the please do Contra positive. Yeah. I don't know what that means. I don't either. Um, but if we're saying, but we're saying, just to, just to prep, just, I want you to do this, but just to cap off what, what Adrian said and what you just said is that we're not, we don't think anybody in this situation who was actually involved is like necessarily cool or great. And when I actually, it seems like any of their people who got fired was, this is like a last straw situation. But yeah, so we're not, I don't think this is not a question of, of defending one side or the other. It's a question of like how the internet treats people and in particular, and in particular, how men on the internet respond to and react to and treat women, whether they like them or not. Right. And I think that by extension women and I mean how men treat women in general, whether they like them or not, I think the internet is just an amplified version of reality. Yeah. Well, so here I think those reactions are, I think here's the difference. It's amplified public sentiment. If the massive outrage that is taking place on Twitter and our comments and other sites and hacker news is about how she should have felt fine just turning around and telling them to shut up. Right. Maybe there is exists in the world like environments where women don't feel comfortable doing that. Right. Yes. And we are, we have now turned the internet. Yeah. Like this place of expression. In a room full at a hacker conference and a room full of, of. That's, that's besides the point. Well, I know, but I'm saying, but like I think it goes, it works in both places. You know, we say like you should have turned around and said, Hey guys, can you chill out? That might not be an environment that's comfortable for a woman to turn around to two guys and say, Hey guys, can you chill out? Right. You know, I'm saying, but we, the, what, what we've arrived at is like the, the vast amount of retribution here will chill the speech of other people regardless of what they're complaining about. Period. And it's not that the sad thing about it is it's not new. It's not infrequent. It is basically the norm. Right. You know, it is the norm to shout somebody down when you don't like them or agree with them on the internet. And it seems to be doubly severe and I'd say violent when it comes to women. I mean, it does, there, there is this thing that's like a certain kind of subtle violence in it that is shocking and weird to me. That's kind of scary looking at it. I was looking at 4chan's discussion. Why? I mean, 4chan can't be counted on to not be. I was trying to get an idea of how many people really felt this strongly about it because, and it's, and it was really hard to tell because these are people who are very good at making themselves look like more people on the internet. So like there's like this change.org petition that was signed by 1500 people and you're like, but are some of those not really people? What's the petition? Fire, fire, uh, Adria Richards. And then it was like, and then it was like, you know, she was saying, you know, I'm not saying that people on Twitter who were arguing with her, like somebody had made a fake Twitter account for a woman who was like arguing with Adria and it was like pretty obviously fake. And then there's like, there's all these, and then there's emails and it's like, but how many of these people are the same people? Is this just like a group of 500 like trolly, terrible guys or is it more than that? Yeah. And it's, and the interesting thing is it, I mean, it is kind of impossible to know. And it does give to a cat, I mean, you're actually looking very specifically at things and you're thinking about whether this is, but to a casual observer, it's indistinguishable from reality. Right. The, the, the fake, the fake Twitter accounts and the fake petition is, is not, there's no way to verify that it's to say that it's not real, you know, basically. So you know, it's, it's, it's a, I mean, So to me, so the, the, I read a lot of our comments and I got into Twitter arguments last night, which was stupid and I apologize if I argued with you on Twitter last night. I don't really apologize, but I, you know, given this context, I feel as though I should. Don't apologize. I'm not apologizing. Never apologize. Never apologize. Never apologize. No matter how wrong you are. And so here's the, the, the, the thread, the strain that I picked up on that was, I thought was very interesting. Which is basically like, I'm a really shy guy and I feel very uncomfortable speaking to women and now I feel like if I say the wrong thing, they, they're, they wield so much power in this environment of feminism that they will get me fired. That's the idea, the idea. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's so like deeply weird and wrong and it's, it's like, it's, it's shyness and fear now mixed with like a different kind of fear. Uh, Russell was saying to me like this, when he was writing the piece, he was like, there's something very old here where it's like they keep saying he's a father of three without assigning him any other qualities. Yeah. So he's like this like breadwinner, noble father figure. Yeah. Taken down by this woman. And then Delilah came and cut off his hair. Exactly. And it's like, that's crazy. Like this is the oldest kind of like sexist like story that's ever been told. There is something, I was just thinking as you were saying that like, it's weird that we're almost having to like relearn lessons or deal with things that you think are like in reality have been most, not most, not totally dealt with, but are more dealt with, you know, I mean, you, you know that in an office environment, in certain environments, like there are, there are going to be guys who say the wrong things or do the wrong things or asses to women, you know, that's going to exist. Right. Um, and they're going to be women who are meaner than they need to be or whatever. Like, yeah, those are people that exist in the world. But like overall, like I don't walk into rooms full of men and women and think that there's going to be like, we don't all know how to speak to one another. No. It's like, this is some Neanderthal shit. Yeah, it really is. I think that's it. I think it's, um, it's, I think what's, what's happening here and this is just pop psychology, so forgive me, pop armchair, non-psychologist psychology. There's it's a group of women or a group of men who are saying why, why do we have to recognize this like pervasive sexism in the world when we already feel women have so much power over us because we're so afraid of them. Like we don't know how to talk to them. You think it's a type. It's a type. I think it's a type of person. I mean, I don't know. It's like guys who couldn't talk to girls in high school. Yeah. And now they can exert some power. But I also have a little hesitation at ascribing this type, like saying, trying to pinpoint a type. That's what I was reading over and over again. But I think it's, and I get that there is those maybe the loudest voices. I think that, but I think there's a bigger, I think that's what drove this particular incident into the spotlight because like Adria Richards is not a perfect spokesperson for the other side. Right. I think it was like this hardcore group of people who had this like very visceral reaction. Who is the perfect spokesperson? Who is the perfect spokesperson? I mean, you look at, you know, what was the girl's name? Sandra Fluke. She the one that rushed them about called a slut. Oh yeah. The Planned Parenthood. The Planned Parenthood. Right. And this is, this is like part of the problem. And I'm saying like, you could say it's a type and maybe those are the loudest voices, but we have, you know, widespread issues in this department. Like you don't call a guy, you don't find whatever the equivalent of slut is for a guy. There is no equivalent as far as I know, which is part of the problem. It's whatever I am. But you know, Rush Limbaugh, you know, Rush Limbaugh calling someone a slut for something that is, I mean, there's no, there's no reason for him to do it. It's just like he wanted to be mean and he wanted to like hurt a woman. And so he found like a really great hurtful word. And I think that that type of mentality is, is like kind of bubbling under the surface. It's not just with guys who, you know, couldn't talk to girls in high school. It's with guys who are in positions of power. It's with regular guys. You know, I mean, you have to have like a somewhat evolved, you have to be somewhat evolved and your brain has to be somewhat evolved to not think that way and feel that way. To not feel threatened. And you like to think that we get to that point. I mean, all the people that I know, I feel pretty confident that the people in our company, at our company don't feel that way and don't walk through life having these kinds of insane, weird dated, like Neanderthal thoughts. But I mean, I'm sorry, I mean, except for you, but, but, but you know, other people don't, a lot of other people don't. The problem is that the, that the internet gives them amplification. It gives them illusion of size, I think in many instances and it, and it is that, and that's the thing that the headline ended up being thug mentality, which is like, you know, a mob can be good and bad. There are good mobs and bad, you know, crowdfunding is a mob doing great things. Yeah. You know, rioting is a mob doing bad things. This to me is like a mob of thugs. Yeah. And, and that, that mentality, that mindset needs to be squashed. It really does. Because I think it's, it's, it's super hurtful to the people who are, who are, who are victims of it, who are the direct targets of it. But it's also, I mean, it's look, I mean, you say what you will about anonymous and, you know, this kind of citizen, you know, this, these, the rising voices of this citizenry, there is a lot of negative that goes along with it. And it's not just like cut and dry that we say like, Oh, it's great that we can organize and push our ideas and our agenda forward. It needs to be more than just, we have a group, so let's use them. It needs to be like, what is the group for? What does the group do? What do we stand for? What, what will we and won't we tolerate? It's cool that like, I think that's the thing about the anonymity of the internet, which I support, which I think needs to be there. But you get to a point where you start to say, okay, anonymous is a group, but what is it? What does it stand for? You want to be formless like water. Well, if you're formless like water, then you're also terrorists. And not everybody who thinks that anonymous can do good things wants to be a terrorist. They want to do good things, you know, they want to petition for and fight for the things that are really valuable. So you get into situations like this and it's like, you're either going to take shape or you're not. And I think part of the problem with the internet is anonymity gives you, it's easy to, to take a vague form, but not a specific form. And it totally reminded me of, I mean, this was the terrorist attack kind of, and like Russell made this point that, you know, SendGrid like gave in, like you're not supposed to negotiate with terrorists, but SendGrid didn't even try to do that. They just gave in. I mean, that was the first, I had this theory, I was like, maybe it's a fake firing and they're just trying to get the hackers off their back. And then they're going to be like, ha ha, now we're all shored up, like bring it on. We're hiring her back or we never fired her in the first place. Like we're standing by her. But no, that's the point. I mean, I actually think that, so, I mean, she's, I feel like this is not a fireable, I mean, it feels like she has a pattern, right? She might have a pattern, but I feel like it's really pretty raw for them to say like, Hey, we, you're fired because we think you somehow now are threatening our business. Public firing is a big deal. A public firing is a big deal. For both of these people. I would be surprised if there's, she doesn't file something. Well, yeah. Some kind of wrongful termination. For both of these firings, I'm sure there were reasons beyond this incident, but the timing is awful and stupid on the behalf of the companies. Like if I were the, you know, if, if let's say something like this happened and I had to let somebody go because of some terrible situation that occurred on the internet, they'd said something racist and horrible or whatever. I wouldn't, I mean, I don't know if I would take that moment when it was, when, when tempers were hottest to let them go. You know, I would definitely let that simmer down. Unless you're negotiating, right? Unless you're like, here's my peace offering. Like, which is, which is like, I think if it was something that's so obvious, like, man, this, like, if it wasn't, he was just like, can I do a firing transition here? Obviously racist or something like you might go, look, this person's obviously bad, a bad person to have here. We don't want them around, but this is not publicly. Right. But nothing about these, these two people is, is publicly obvious that they're terrible people. And that's the thing that, that, that the firing on the behalf of the guy makes him seem more terrible than he was probably. And her firing makes her seem more terrible, which just fuels the fire of this, this art, this debate in a bad way, I think. Right. Anyhow. So I'm going to, we have a hard out. I know we have a hard, we have a hard stop today because somebody else has to do a show because we have a fancy new studio. We have a fancy new studio that's scheduled out. So speaking of fire. And I was late. It's all my fault. Is that weird? That's a weird transition. It's FedEx. Well, there's two things. Oh, actually, I'll just check in. Go ahead. So you left Android last week. You did a big profile over the weekend. Tell us about it. What'd you learn? Why did homeboy leave? Why did homeboy leave? Basically Android got, Android outgrew him, outgrew his abilities and he, it stopped being the kind of work that he wanted to do. So it's, I still don't know whether the initiative first came from Andy Rubin's side or whether it first came from Larry Page or somewhere else at Google, but somebody, I didn't put this in the story, but somebody close to the situa, somebody who would know said Andy could have stayed at Android. So it might've just come purely from him. He might've gone to Larry Page and said, you know, I'm ready to do another thing. We still don't know that. But it does seem clear that the whole Android experiment had gotten to a new phase, a more complicated phase. Like one of the lines in the story was that the way forward was less clear. And he was, Andy Rubin's like kind of more of a, an entrepreneur startup guy. He gets, he's like the first leg of the relay race. And he did a great job also, and it's totally brilliant. But yeah, it just got to the point where he, he was no longer interested in the, the types of problems that were confronting Android, which had to do a lot with working with other people. Well, it turns out that it's, it's funny cause you've got Sanofsky and Forstall and now Rubin and Rubin wasn't fired or let go. He didn't quit. He's moving to another, he's moving to another project, Google and I think this is in your, this is in your story. This is in your story. And I've heard as well that, that what he's doing is from sources familiar with the matter that that what he's doing is important. It's not like, it's not like he's going to do a, you know, they're going to shuffle him off into the background and then eventually he's going to leave to go start a new, new startup. The history of Android suggests that what he's best at is like, we have this crazy idea, go make it a success. Like how much money do you need? We trust you. Well, that was kind of the gist of Adrian's articles that like he's really good at the starting part and then maybe it gets a little bogged down when you get into the, how do we grow this and shape it. And I think Android has real, has real problems. Like it is at a real crossroads. In a way that is like striking. Dan Fromer wrote something on a Splat F on his blog, spliff, spliff, spliff, but about sort of, you know, what the issues are with Android and you're right, it does. And I was reading it today. I was just, I was perusing, but, but he made some great points and I think there is a point to be made that Android does have real problems that it's getting, you know, it's disappeared behind the brands of Samsung and Amazon and whoever else grabs it and uses it. It's not a profit center for them. It's not making them money. They don't, they can't exert control over it. I don't know how much is playing into search. I assume a ton. I mean, everybody who has an Android phone is using Google to search unless you've some, for some strange reason bought the fascinate on Verizon, which comes preloaded with Bing. Which a lot of people bought. Weirdest phone ever. No, that was the one that that's the phone that went up against the iPhone when Verizon had the iPhone. No. Yes. That is the, that is the phone. I know more people. No, it was the droid. The original droid was the. No, no, that was, that was, that's for the iPhone. That was the original droid. That was, we're going to, that's, you know, at any rate, that's the second one down in these details. The point that I was making is that my mic is like sliding. I don't know what's happening here. What was I, what was I saying? Oh, it is at a crossroads and, and I don't, I just got a mental image of the little robot like at an actual cross. Just saying they're like, what am I going to do? One of those kind of, yeah. Can that robot look sad? Yes. I've only ever seen that. I mean, it shows his mouth. He doesn't have a mouth. It's kind of like where his head connects, but it basically goes all the way around it. I don't know how it could frown. His eyes could probably do something. I mean, I've definitely seen like cartoons of that, like the little robot, like it's like staking an apple, like in the face. If you have a, if you have an image of the Android looking sad. At a crossroads. At a cross, either at a crossroads or looking sad, please send, I'm looking into my camera here if you want to use it because I'm addressing, I'm addressing the viewer. If you have an image of the Android looking sad or standing at a crossroads looking sad, send it to a vergecast at the verge.com. Would love to see it. You could also tweet at us. Yeah. At verge. Thanks in advance. Yes. Thanks. Please and thank you. But yeah, so, so Android does have problems, but they've, but they've put in a Sundar. What is his last name? Pichai? Pichai. Pichai. Okay. I just want to make sure I had it right. Yeah. I always see there's an N in there. When I see it, I immediately think of Pikachu. So it's a real problem, which is a Pokemon. If somebody could make the Android robot that looks like a Pikachu, I think we'd. That definitely exists. I need to see that as well. Please send it to vergecast at the verge.com. And what is, what is your take on him as a, as a leader? On Sundar Pichai? Yeah. Yeah. He seems a lot smoother, a lot. So Andy Rubin's a technical guy and he's sort of unusual in that he was able to do both like about halfway through his career. He was an engineer at first. He was at Apple, a couple other places. And then about halfway through his career, he transitioned into management and then eventually became CEO of Danger and then later Android and was the head of Android and was able to manage a lot of people. Yeah. This is Rubin. And so like that's pretty unusual to be able to take a company to the point where he took Danger and also like be basically a technical guy at heart. But Sundar seems like more of an advanced leader. Like he's like a product manager more type. He is really smooth and we've, I've talked to him a handful of times and he does a lot of the, he does, he did a bunch of Google IO presentation. I think he did a really long one last year. I can't remember, but he's been running Chrome and apps. And I mean, you got to say it too, of Google's most important, most valuable business. I mean, apps has been, their whole thing has been, we got to take on Microsoft, right? We got to take on office. And they've been, and I think that they've been making some inroads. I mean, that's my, my strong feeling. Immediately. Really? Wow. That is, that is really detailed. Is that a 3d rendering? Does they just have that on hand? We can get this on the screen. I feel like somebody just had that on hand. I don't, that wasn't made for us, but anyhow, but he is, he's a real leader. He's very even keeled. Like my impression of him is that, I mean, Andy Rubin seems like he could have, you know, he could be a bit mercurial in the sense that he seems like not a hothead, but he's, he's very passionate. Yeah. And, and Sundar seems like smooth. He's a cucumber. So had Android emails. This one's crying. Smooth as a cucumber. I said, he is a cucumber. Sundar is a cucumber. If I could get a Photoshop of that. So obviously the, wow. So many of these. What's happening? Are they pouring in? Yeah, they're good. Anyhow. So the, the, we, there's some breaking news we need to address. Uh oh. Well, we have Chris Ziegler on the phone. Oh my God. Uh, but before we do that, like this moment now earlier today, we've got Chris, but just to wrap this up, the big, now that Sundar is in charge of both, the obvious speculation is that they're going to merge Android with Chrome OS, which I think they're going to do very soon. And you think it's far off. You think it's far off. Why do you think it's far off? First of all, I think it would be hard to do. And the, the thing about the Android team is that they're kind of, they're like running at breakneck pace there and they're trying to keep their head above water, trying to, you know, they're having trouble coordinating, getting updates out to all the carriers and they're, they're just going really fast and they don't really have time to stop and integrate with the Chrome OS team. Yeah. I think. I agree that it would be a long, it would be a long time before that happens. I think, I think. And Eric Schmidt just denied that that was going to happen. I think it's possible that Chrome OS could begin to get some Android functionality. There's nothing stopping. I mean, there's, there's, you could see a situation where they have an emulator and you're taking this. Look, they just made the Chromebook pixel. It's got basically the same resolution touch screen as a Samsung. There's the Nexus 10, which is a touch screen Android tablet. You could see a situation where they say like, Hey, you have a touch screen. It's running a Google OS. You can run your tablet apps on the screen, do full screen, you know, apps or do them windowed as standalones as you know, in whatever emulator they cook up or however they do that. That to me seems like a, I almost kind of can't figure out the explanation for the pixel otherwise. Yeah. And I think that's, that's what I'm expecting to see at IO, which would, that would come from the Chrome OS team, right? Like, I mean, it would have to be a collaboration, but it would be a discreet collaboration, wouldn't it? I mean, it's not like you don't need the whole Android team to implement Android on a platform. You need some help. Yeah. You need like a buddy. I mean, Android, and that already, and that already, you know, it's obvious that Android is easy to get up and running on just about anything you want it to run on. Yeah. So, but it's, but that's an X86, right? Are there any difficulties there? I guess they've got Android for X86. Yeah, no. And Motorola is shipping. Right. And you know who owns Motorola? Yeah. Google. It's all coming together. It's all happening. They're going to make. Finally this plan has stumbled into fruition. The plot. Motorola is going, oh, I know what they're going to do. They're going to make a new, yeah, they're going to do make a new Atrix, right? That runs, that is a Chromebook and Android. I think Motorola. Boom. You heard it here first. Breaking. There's your breaking news. Can I just end this by saying I believe the Motorola acquisition is complete failure. I don't think yet. I don't think it's yet. That's it. So that's the other thing I think is interesting. I know we have to move on, but I think, I think what would be really exciting and interesting is if Andy Rubin decided to take a major leadership role in turning Google's hardware business into a real hardware business instead of, instead of like a fake hardware business, which it is now, which it seems like he'd be into, you know, he was hoping that Google would be able to sell phones directly to people over the internet, which did not work. So it seems like, and they have, and there are some things happening now. I think there is, and by the way, well, we're probably going to, I know we have at the FCC. Is that what we're talking about? Yeah. That's okay. Well, I was going to say there are changes happening at the FCC. You know, we are kind of at a new, going towards a new age. The government wants you to be able to unlock your phones. You know, there's definitely a new age of awareness of the need for interoperability and people are no longer, I think, just thinking of phones as something they buy at their carrier. I do feel like there's an opportunity. They botched the Nexus Q. They've had some success with the Nexus 7, maybe some success with the Nexus 4. The 10 I can imagine has not sold anything because they just started promoting it. There's at least one out there because I got mine stolen. That's true. I'm still mad about it. But to see them do what, closer to what Apple or Microsoft is doing or RIM at this point, which is like, hey, we're actually really involved in this. Not just LG has a spec that we're going to, a chassis that we're going to pull for our next phone. Cause let's be honest, that's what they did. They talk about working really closely together, but I don't believe that. I mean, if you look at the Galaxy Nexus and you look at the Nexus 4, you see the chassis of a phone that already exists, that's already going to market in some other form that's just been given like a slightly different form basically. So I would like to see that happen. I think they can do it. I think they should do it. I think the Chromebook Pixel is an incredible piece of hardware. I wish it was more functional because I like it more like physically. You want it to have more Android stuff. I like it more physically than my MacBook Air, my MacBook Pro. Look, if Android was as good at the web as Chrome and Chrome OS was as good at apps as Android, there's something there. Okay. Let's get Chris on. We're out of time. Let's get Chris for this breaking news story. Is he power? Hey. Oh my God. Hey, buddy. Hi, Chris. Chris, how are you? How is everyone? Do we not have a still frame of Chris's face that we can put up on the screen? We do not have one. I've just been informed. I can pull up Chris's picture on my computer and turn it around. Chris, tell us what's happening with our government. What's going down? That's a pretty broad question, what is happening with our government. What's going on with the CPI? What did Obama do today? Something's going on in Cyprus. Yeah, Obama is in Jordan today, I believe. No, so Julius Genachowski, our esteemed FCC chairman for the past four years, has announced that he is stepping down. And this should come as a surprise to no one, because his term was up in July anyway. It's just that he is stepping down a little early. And there's some speculation. Washington Post, which of course is a Washington DC based publication, has been covering this pretty closely. Really? You needed to stipulate that? Well, it could be Washington State. I'm just clarifying. Yeah, it could be Washington State if you have never lived on the planet Earth. They've been covering this situation very closely for the past couple of weeks. A Republican commissioner, FCC commissioner, just stepped down a few days ago. And there's speculation that Julius was waiting for him to step down to tip the balance of the voting in the Democrats' favor. But that's just speculation at this point. So we'll see what happens. Genachowski's replacement hasn't been named yet. So it's going to be an interesting few weeks for people who follow this kind of thing. So Neelai, you know Julius. Sorry, I'm just checking on my package. This is very important. You know Julius. You guys are good buddies. We are. We've talked. You have spent a lot of time together. You summer together in the Hamptons. What do you make of this? How will this impact the world? I think Julius has had a mixed tenure, I would call it. I think he's been very successful at the broad strokes of he's turned the FCC from being this super corporate regulatory agency that mediates disputes between satellite companies and cable companies and talks about technical standards of RF transmission, which they still do. But he has made it a consumer facing agency. They're out there. They're talking about cell phone unlocking. They're talking about broadband across America. They're talking about what our standards should be. But it also comes at a time, and I'm not to take it away from him, but it also comes at a time when the awareness of those things as an important. Right. Now I'm not saying, I mean like, you know, the timing was right. And I think he was, I think as much as he could have, he did, he was the right guy. But they're an incredibly, they're an incredibly lobbied part of our government. I mean, Chris and I sit around dreaming of things the FCC could do in our private moments and they don't ever do anything. They're heavily lobbied by private interests. By the way, Neelai, I cherish our private moments. Can I just say? Do you also summer in the Hamptons with Neelai and Jenny Kowsky? Major Power and Julius. But you know, I feel like they've done almost nothing. So I disagree with you, right? Yeah, I also disagree. Whoa. Well, no, I mean, if you think about the things that they do. You guys had time to talk about this at the beach house. Yeah. Well, Julius got to me. No, I mean like, look, they presided over the 700 megahertz auction. Yeah. Which went pretty badly. I mean, except for the fact that there's LTE. No, no, no. They sold it. The United States. No, no, they sold it. The United States leads the world in LTE. But you knew they would sell it. But all of the things, but the things that they should have done to kind of protect consumers' choice for that, in that auction were definitely left on the cutting room floor. And this is what I'm saying is that happened. Chris, that happened during Kevin Martin's tenure, right? Like, Julius took it over. Yes, it did. So that happened during the previous commissioner's tenure. So he took over the implementation of this thing that happened, right? So like, they sold the spectrum to Verizon. Now we've got to build it out. And that's when he began turning the FCC into this consumer organization, right? Where they're saying, we need net neutrality. Where they're saying, we need massive broadband deployment. You've got to stop playing with your trust. No, no, no. Go ahead. Sad Android face. No, no, no. No, and that's just what he started talking about what the FCC needs to do in order to protect consumer interests. And I think he lost a lot of battles. Like he lost that net neutrality battle. He lost a ton of battles. And I mean, maybe he could never have won them in the first place. But it's, you know, I'd love to see an FCC that's a lot more brutal to carriers. Right. Well, I have to say, I think that Julius Genachowski's legacy is going to be the failed AT&T T-Mobile merger, which is obviously seen by most as a huge win for consumers. And T-Mobile is a resurgent carrier now, or at least they appear to be. I mean, are they? Do we have any data to back that up? Well, they're going to launch LTE. They're doing all that uncarrier stuff. Yeah, their spectrum position is much, much stronger than it was 12 or 18 months ago. At what point can I confidently switch to T-Mobile for great LTE service? 18 months. Oh, really? I'll be dead in 18 months. 18 months. But no, but Chris, like I agree with you. I mean, you think that will be his legacy? His legacy is ending something, which I think is interesting. Well, yeah. I mean, I think that's the most sort of blockbuster Hollywood thing that happened during his tenure, for lack of a better word. Yeah. It was a big deal. Yeah. I mean, I think it was good, but I think there were a lot of places where he, you know, look, maybe the impossible forces, you're talking about the government, you're talking about lobbyists and the government. No, what I think is interesting is that, you know, he transitioned. I don't think we ever talked about the FCC. When we were at Engadget, we probably, like Chris and I would run like- We definitely did the 700 megahertz. Well, that's a huge story, but like we never talked about it. I painstakingly photoshopped an eBay auction that was for the 700 megahertz spectrum with like, you know, highest rated seller. And I had like- That's very funny. It said look, and it had like- Now I get it. A plus plus. Yeah, A plus plus. No, look, I think he led this transition where the FCC stopped being a technical standards organization, which is what they were. And they started being this like, we're in the mix. Like the internet was this vast unregulated space. And like now like we need to like decide how people in the United States are going to get connected, how fast they're going to connect, what the companies that control those connections can and can't do, and how we want our economy to work. And so, you know the phrase app economy, which I know you and I both hate, that phrase came from Julius Genachowski, but it's like real. It might've been quietly slid across the desk to him. Tim Cook showed up at the FCC. I'm just saying, I don't know if he invented that term. Anyhow, unfortunately we have to end it here. I will say that to your point on a final note about Genachowski, I don't want to give him no credit. I do think there were some things that he did that really worked. And I think that you're right about the perception of the FCC as a, they've moved into, they are now seem a lot more like a defender and a defender of consumer interest. And I will say this, still the only regular person that the FCC Twitter account follows, Chris Ziegler at CPAC. Yes. I double checked for you today, buddy. That's weird. Yeah, that was a little horse trade I did with Genachowski. Not you, not you, they don't follow you. No, I asked the last time I saw Julius, I asked him if he would do it and he said yes. All right. I stayed away. I want to preserve my integrity, Ziegler. Unfortunately, we got, we have to wrap up. We're out of time and people are going to start coming here with forklifts and remove us. That would be kind of cool actually. Let's wait it out. They just scooped us up. Verge Studio Occupation. Yeah. We're going to handcuff ourselves. Occupy Studio. To the desk. Hashtag. Anyhow, and I do apologize for being late. I will not be late next time. Anyhow, that's the Vergecast for this week. If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at vergecast at the verge.com. Send your sad Android photos. You can find us on Twitter at Verge. You can leave a comment on the post when it goes up. We're also all on Twitter. Neelai is reckless. I'm Joshua Topolsky. What is your- ADR Jeffries. ADR Jeffries. What is that? What is the ADR? I'm a doctor. Is it just your- No, it's just a- I thought you were going to remind me of that. A Dr. Jeffries. That's amazing. It's just a condensed version of your name. Interesting. I said Verge. You can find the Verge on Twitter. What else? Any other messages I need to share with the people? No. No. Paul Miller is still alive. Paul Miller is fine. He just did an interview with Douglas Rushkoff, which you should watch. You should watch. Actually, it's really good about present shock, which is not getting presents and being shocked about them. I have to say, whoever sent me this gif of the sad Android- Got to wrap it up. You're my favorite. Anyhow, that's our show for the week. We'll be back next week. As always, I wish you and your family the very best this weekend. Rock and roll.

It's Friday, March 22nd, 2013. I'm Adrienne Jeffries. We met last year at this thing and... Never mind, you wouldn't remember. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Mercedes-Benz. A major security hole has been discovered that allows Apple passwords to be reset with only an email address and date of birth. It affects all Apple customers who haven't yet enabled the new two-step verification. Unfortunately, if you try to sign up now, you might be told to wait three days, which means you're pretty much vulnerable. That is, of course, unless you change your birthday. As of right now, Apple's password reset tool is currently unavailable, quote, due to maintenance. Apple has acknowledged the vulnerability and says it is, quote, working on a fix. In the meantime, please turn on two-step. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is stepping down. The FCC has announced that he will be leaving the position in the coming weeks. As chairman, he presided over massive expansion of mobile networks, wider deployment of broadband, and a series of high-profile mergers. No reason has been given for his early departure, and no successor has been named yet. Had Genachowski not stepped down, his term still would have been over this July. Finally, Pepsi is giving its bottles a new shape. It's the first redesign of the bottle since 1997. The new design features a unique swirled grip and a smaller label. And lest you think this is all very, very silly, Pepsi's biggest competitor, Coca-Cola, has long been known for the iconic contour of its bottles. It's a soda war thing. Pepsi's new bottle will be rolling out this April. That's it for today's top stories. Coming up tomorrow, an experiment gone horribly awry as gummy bear replicants take over a small village in Japan.

The HTC One is a gorgeous device, but the thing is, we're not entirely sold on the Sense interface. And the same is true for Samsung's TouchWiz or any other skin that a phone manufacturer might lay on top of Android. There's something so clean and consistent about Google's stock Android experience, something you can really only get out of the box from a Nexus phone. But thankfully, Android is highly customizable. You can make it look like Google originally intended with only a few minutes and a handful of apps from Google's Play Store. No hacking or rooting required. To get the HTC One a little more in line with my tastes, I focus on three areas. The launcher, the lock screen, and the keyboard. Within the launcher, the home screen and app drawer is where you'll spend most of your time. I chose Nova because it looks almost exactly like Google's default launcher. Nova also includes a number of interesting improvements like support for custom icons and lots of screen transitions. Simply download it and set it as your default launcher, it prompts you to do so the first time you press the home button, and you're set to go. As for the lock screen, we've seen a lot of variety of form and function here. Personally, I prefer the simplicity of HoloLocker. The HTC One's lock screen is kind of busy for my tastes. What HoloLocker does, yet again, is make your lock screen look very similar to stock Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Now the keyboard. There are a lot of insane third party options out there, but my favorite is SwiftKey. Keyboard prediction is great, and you can easily change the keyboard's appearance with a few taps. This app is the only paid app on our list, but a quality keyboard can be one of the best app purchases you ever make, and honestly, it's what you'll be using the most. These tweaks only take a minute or two to install, and they bring back some of the best and most beautiful features of Android that many manufacturers cut out. It's a better, cleaner experience on almost any phone.

We live in a digital age where texting has become largely preferential to voice. The Verge of staff is scattered around the globe and as such we spend a majority of our days, social and otherwise, in chat rooms and mail clients. But text only says so much, it never really conveys the right emotion, or any at all. You can always use a smiley face but, well, that isn't always clear either. So for a majority of our communication, we use GIFs. Lots of GIFs. I think I want to do that one. Yeah I want to add that. But then I was riffing and didn't know where to go after that. Alright I think I know how to do it. Think of it as an artisanal emoticon. Lighter than a video, heavier than a still, perhaps deeper than both. An unchanged container capturing human history. Or cat history. Making a GIF doesn't have to be that difficult at all. In fact, for the most basic things we just use a still image and a web applet. Some of our favorite ones include blingy, which has a lot of extra gaudiness and flair. The other one we like is deal with it, which, well. So we're going to make a blingy. Alright so let's go ahead and find the right picture. Alright now we've got Thomas Huston. Let's go ahead and start adding. Let's add a couple of dancing Santas over here. There's Christmas, let's add some snow. Yeah now that is the winter I like. Oh he needs a hat. Oh cats. Cats always work. Alright and now we're set. Sales are nice, but video is really clutch. For us it all starts with the video. Thankfully there's a lot of quality apps that are the most everything you want to do. For OS X we've been having fun with GIF Brewery. It's simple, it's intuitive, and about $5 in the app store it's relatively cheap. For this example we're going to use The Verge's own David Pierce. The next step is arguably the most important. Find your moment. We look for moments that are useful in everyday chat. We typically like to find anything that can convey happiness, frustration, disappointment, or you know when morale is low just a good laugh. Frame rate is the other key factor here and if your app lets you change it we'd recommend starting at 12 frames per second and going from there. The trick to the perfect loop is isolation. As little bit of the moment in time as possible to really ensure continuity or at least fake continuity. Excuse me. Now we have much fewer frames and we've got a full fluid David dance. Because of the limitations of the medium captains really do play a huge part in maximizing the message. Obviously there's no audio with the GIF so let's focus on a subtitle. Now for some apps you can definitely do a frame by frame text but unfortunately for GIF Brewery it's really all or nothing. So let's go ahead and just make a party down David. Alright and with that okay. Hopefully your work of art is ready to be birthed. It's time to export and compress and file size is very important here. As a hard and fast rule we generally shoot for GIFs that are under 1 meg. Typically half that but Tumblr's file size limit is 1 meg. We think it's a good metric. Let's go ahead and really quickly let's throw that on some kind of sharing site. So that's the basics and it really should cover most of what you're going to want to do. Both the Verge video team and dev team swear by using professional software like Adobe's Photoshop, Premiere, After Effects, Apple's Motion. And it really makes sense when you think about it because these are professional software tools that are used to make high quality video and high quality stills. And the GIF just falls somewhere in between those two. Hey buddy what are you working on? Hey I'm just making this advanced animated GIF here. So I'm going to start this project in After Effects although I guess you could do this in Premiere or Final Cut Pro or any other video software. But I'm going to go with After Effects today because we're going to use a couple of the unique features of that program. So I've already imported my video clip. It's David here looking confused, angry, sad. There's a range of emotions in this clip I think. I'm going to drag this onto a new comp in After Effects. I'm going to trim it down a little bit. So I think it would be great to punctuate that moment by zooming in on him. And the reason I'm doing this in After Effects is because I'd like to apply some dramatic motion blur. So that's looking pretty good but I want to punctuate this a little bit more. So of course the font to use is Impact. David Grosz. David Displays Hamburger. And then it cuts off there. So now I'm going to export this but the trick here is to pick a frame rate that's pretty low. This thing started at 24 frames a second but I'm going to lower it down to 12 or 15 frames a second because as you'll see in the next step keeping a GIF small in file size is key to making a successful GIF. And now that we're in Photoshop I'm using CS6 so it'll handle video pretty well. We can scrub through it and check that everything looks okay. But the real trick here is using Save for Web. This is huge so I'll have to resize this down to maybe 500 pixels wide. Another very important part of GIF making is making sure that it loops forever not once. Now just to double check my work I'm going to throw that file into Chrome. Well it's looking pretty good to me. Now for the final step. See what David thinks. So it looks to me like that was a successful GIF. Alright I know it sounds ridiculous but in this modern age we really do think of GIFs as a necessary tool for communication. For really conveying the right emotion and getting your message across. You know at the right time a GIF can be more of a personal statement and less of a random joke. You know just be a random joke.

It's Thursday, March 21st, 2013. I'm William Savona, and I have a pretty good idea what your reaction is to this outfit. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Mercedes-Benz. Chrome OS and Android are to remain separate. That's according to the ever-rebose Google Chairman Eric Schmidt. Rumors of convergence have been around for a while, but peaked recently after Chrome VP Sundar Pichai replaced Andy Rubin as the head of Android. Schmidt also hinted that Google Now for iOS was stuck in the App Store approval process, but Apple Today disputed those claims. Speaking of Apple, the company is now offering a second step of security. The new safeguard requires Apple ID and iCloud users to verify their identity on a trusted device before making changes to their personal information. In offering the new measure, Apple is addressing critiques the company hasn't gone far enough to protect its users. Senior Wired writer Matt Honan's Apple account was compromised in a high-profile hacking incident from last year. Question is, now that the users have the option, will they ever use it? Finally, Twitter is now seven years old. The company celebrated with a video highlighting pivotal moments where Twitter played a role, such as protests in Egypt and President Obama's re-election photo. It also announced 200 million active users, an increase of 60 million over the past year. It also says more than 400 million tweets are sent every day. The very first tweet came from co-founder Jack Dorsey, who said, quote, just setting up my Twitter. That's Twitter with no vowels. That's it for today's top stories. Join us tomorrow when we'll look at the recent trend in analog eyeglasses.

Douglas Rushkoff is a man after my own heart. In his new book, Present Shock, he explains what the Internet and modern society at large is doing to our brains and our humanity. And it's not all good. Part of the reason I left the Internet is that I found it to be overwhelming. Everything happens all at once and I couldn't keep up. In the book, Rushkoff explains some of my syndromes, like how I tended to synchronize myself to the digital instead of paying attention to my own biorhythms. He captures the stress I felt with endless information at my fingertips and what seemed like futile efforts to monitor my Twitter stream or wade through my email. I got a chance to sit down with Rushkoff and confess some of my fears to him. Luckily it's not all doom and gloom, just mostly doom and gloom. I guess Present Shock is really, is the human response to living in an always on, immediate, real-time, digital reality. And it kind of looks at two things that have happened and they've happened simultaneously in a way that supports one another. One thing is our transition from kind of an industrial age world to this digital world. And what does that mean as we move from analog clocks and cycles and things to the digital clock which is always in the now, which is a, you know, a minute is no longer some portion of the day. It's a segment of itself. You know, what does that do? And then at the same time we've gone from a very future-based kind of movement-oriented world into this 21st century, this post-millennial end of time. It's funny, you know, the Mayan calendar, it didn't mean the end of times, but it kind of meant the end of time. How do we deal with problems that are steady state, present tense problems rather than sending a man up to the moon and sticking a flag in there? You know, it's like how do you deal with like global warming? It's like you don't win. There's no victory. There's no thing. It's not Martin Luther King having a dream of a world without global warming. It's just like we got to kind of perpetually deal with this. What is that like? I feel this terror of what you describe as present shock. For me, I actually wrote on the margins a lot, stress. Like I was stressed out while reading this and I'd kind of get overwhelmed as you're listening things because this is stuff that really scares me just trying to keep up, keep my head above water. Is present shock something I do to myself? I've decided to immerse myself in this level of technology and therefore I'm experiencing present shock, or is present shock just our status as a species and we're all dealing with it? It's either our status as a species or maybe more likely our status as a civilization. The way the book moves is through the sort of five main syndromes that I identified. The first one is narrative collapse. What happens when time seems to stop? When we get from the 20th century to the 21st, from all the forward leaning numbers of the 19s to the standstill numbers of the 20s. What happens is your movements die, your stories die, this sense of forward momentum dies and you don't have goals and long-term thinking to motivate you forward. What do you do? You end up then in a much more of a kind of a video game like world where you're making decisions and doing things in that sort of almost digital mindset of I'm programming my world rather than responding to the stories that have been left for me, which leads you to digiphernia. When you're in a programmed environment, what happens? Well, you end up with more than one instance of yourself and I'm going to now instead of being programmed by my technology, I'm going to program my technology to conform with me. That's then what leads to this sense of responsibility, which is what I'm calling overwinding. You're calculating this whole giant thing. I renamed the long now the short forever. It's sort of the paralysis of that long-term thinking. Basically all these ways that we try to almost make up for lost time or maximize this efficiency into this single moment and mistake one time scale for another because they're not interchangeable. This is less of a necessarily a symptom of present shock, but something that we try to do because of present shock? Yeah. Well, overwinding would be almost like OCD. It's this obsessive compulsive urge to compress time and to be more efficient and to conform on a certain level. From there, I went to fractal noya, which is the idea that if you're living in an eternal present, how do you make meaning? We used to make meaning through stories, through narrative, but now if we're in the moment, then we try to make sense by taking a picture of where things are and drawing connections between them. You can end up drawing way too many connections and then going crazy. You get noya, basically. That's where the paranoia comes in because everything's not connected to everything else. If you have no time in which to make sense of things, then the only way you can make sense of something is to connect this to that to this to that. This leads us to apocalyptic. Apocalyptic. The circle, people want there to be a beginning and an end. I think what it is is these guys, particularly older guys who are enthralled with digital technology and made great careers off digital technology, they are very intolerant of steady state. It's very hard to be this you mean it's just going to be. I've best begun to understand narrative collapse since I've left the internet. I've started to realize the value of a novel length idea. For me, digiphernia is the most dangerous of Rushkoff's syndromes. I've always had a problem with priorities. For instance, email would take me ages to get through and I responded to half the ones I should. Overwinding is why I quit text messaging in addition to the internet. I just hate how text messages arrive and need to be dealt with out of step with my own reality. What Rushkoff calls fractal noya, I call ignorance. It always bothered me how I knew so little compared to what the internet knew. By leaving the internet, I could read books and insulate myself and wrestle with one idea at a time. Finally, Rushkoff's term apocalyptic was reflected in my decision to give up the internet in the first place. I was just one step away from buying an underground bunker. I find the names of each of these chapters almost they sound like names of like sci-fi, contagion style diseases that wipe out mankind. Well, in a way, I meant them more like almost psychological syndromes, digiphernia and fractal noya. It's sort of like presentist era or present shock era versions of the mental ailments we've come to know and love. I guess I'm thinking Phil K. Dick where a mental ailment could wipe out you. Well, they can. I mean, on a certain level, yeah, they can wipe out humanity. At least from a subjective. Yeah, but humanity, when I talk about wiping out humanity, I don't mean that the human bodies go away necessarily. I mean that humanity goes away. Our humanness. Right, our humanness. In the industrial age, we very much aped the machines. We tried to be like the machines that were guiding human experience through that millennium. The more we try temporally to keep up with an asynchronous temporal landscape, which is the digital temporal landscape. You talk about computers are multitasking and we fundamentally aren't. Right, and computers go in sequence and we don't. We go in a continuous flow. We do live continuously. I don't really buy that human beings are sampled. So I'm still scared of present shock, but if you can't tell by now, Rushkov isn't entirely pessimistic. In fact, I plan on using some of his terms and solutions when I return to the internet. Actually what Rushkov prescribes is sort of what I've been doing this year, like taking time to meet people in person and dealing with data one item at a time. You said you had to pause things, or you said just as we can pause, we can unpause. If you decide to pause long enough to read my book, for example, you can unpause when you're done and the world will still be there. You don't have to take a whole year off. I mean I learned to dip into the digital atemporal reality and then go, now I'm back in this one. But when you maintain your own clocks, even in the face of all this, it's really interesting. Then you start looking at things, how do I make digital time conform to my time? Again, this all sounds terrifying and horrible to me. It's only stressful to the extent that you refuse to take charge of your own time. How do you do that? You're doing it in an extreme way, by saying, okay, no net, I'm gone. I'm doing it in an apocalyptic way where I'm so afraid of it, I'm just going to avoid it. I haven't solved anything yet. One simple thing to do is to distinguish between what I'm kind of calling flow media and stacked media. Something like Twitter is a flow media that's just going. Twitter is something you dip into to get the sort of cultural weather and then dip out of. You don't try to keep up with Twitter. You don't try to read all the tweets that happened between the last time you looked and now. It's a thing that's moving. On the other hand, if you're going to get a book or an email or something, don't just dip into those as whether those are stacked media. So that's something you actually sit and you give a period, I'm going to read this email that came from this person. If you rush through that email, you feel stressed after it. Most of us try to deal with our inbox and it's like this awfully stressful experience because we're treating it like flow. It's like, no, it's not flow. I have my phone. My phone, sure, it could buzz me every time an email comes and then I can quickly check it. Or it's like, no, email is in there. If someone else relegated a piece of information to the atemporal universe, why should I convert it back to the temporal universe and have it zap me as soon as it arrives? No, this is atemporal. This is something that waits. It's not even a text. It's not a phone call. You refer to this idea. This is something I talk to people a lot. I call it like a cognitive load you can put on somebody. I could text somebody, can you make dinner plans tonight? That took me five seconds to write. That took the person an hour to... You opened a loop. It's like the way the brain works is it's just like it's co-processors and stuff. You open a loop in the brain. If you don't deal with that open loop right away, it creates stress for you because it's sitting there open. They basically set up, even if you don't agree to do them, oh, will you send me this book? Will you write this quick piece? Will you send a bio? Will you make sure this? You've just inserted 10 or 20 open loops into your brain that you're not going to be able to get to later. Part of it is realizing that the distance and anonymity that sort of Asperger's like non-emotionality afforded by digital technology frees people to lay shit at your doorstep that you don't really have to accept. The thing that technology gives us is choice, is more choice. The more you're going to use technologies, the more you're going to be making choices. You get the freedom to choose what you want, but you lose, in many cases, the freedom not to choose. You know, the freedom to just be. If you're on a computer, the choices are going to come more and more and more rapidly, particularly if you're living in a programmed environment where they're trying to get you to choose more because they make more money the more you choose. I guess that kind of gets back to this idea of, you know, humans and the uniqueness of humans. And it does feel like there's an inhumanity to what we've created and we're humans, but at the same time, we're the humans who created this machine thing, so where does this leave us? We are the humans and we did create our technologies, but the difference between the industrial age and the digital age is industrial age technologies pretty much sat there. And although there were unintended consequences like carbon emissions and slavery and things like that, digital technologies are different, or digital era technologies like computers, nano, robotics and genomics, because they carry on after. It's not like a shovel that you make and sits there. It's a seed that you make and then it tries to stay alive. It replicates. It adjusts itself and self-modifies and finds others. So we're launching things that have something very much like lives of their own. What we're looking at in some sense is a competition between human agency and intelligent agents. It's sort of the old divide was between, you know, Marvin Minsky and artificial intelligence versus like Timothy Leary and intelligence augmentation. These were seen as sort of the two sides of how computer technology was going to be used. And I myself am on the side of intelligence augmentation, rather than if we're not fucking with ourselves too dramatically. I'm more interested in humans getting smarter than just making information more complex by itself, because if we don't go along for the ride, I don't think anyone will be there to see what happened. It's a good apocalyptic note to end on. Thank you so much. Thank you. I have a bit more than one month left before I return to the internet. To be honest, I'm pretty scared. I don't know if I'll be able to deal with it any better than before. It could be present shock all over again, except now I'll just be out of practice. What gives me hope is that smart people like Rushkoff are beginning to diagnose some of these problems. And I think they're even starting to grasp some solutions.

It's Wednesday, March 20th, 2013. I'm David Pierce, worker of wonders, master of Prestidigitation. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Mercedes-Benz. Google Keep is now official. After briefly showing up on Drive earlier this week, Google's note-taking and list-making app has launched for both the web and Android devices. Basically, it's designed to be like sticky notes. It's supposed to be a really easy way to capture stuff that you want. It's a bare-bones service for now, but we're hoping that Keep will someday integrate with Google's other services like Gmail, Calendar, and of course, Docs. The alternative, sadly, would be Google dropping Keep during one of its spring cleanings years from now. Too soon? Sorry. Samsung's 4K easel television now has a price. As you might expect, it ain't pretty. The 85-inch set, now dubbed the S9, will cost $39,999. Samsung says the S9's high contrast ratio and quote, ultimate dimming control are among its most important features. But let's be honest, it's really the easel. Pre-orders begin at the end of the month. Start saving. And finally, Twitter now has a patent. For Twitter. Originally filed in 2007, the patent broadly describes a service in which users follow each other and messages are broadcasted without specific recipients. In other words, Twitter. It's doubtful the company will pursue any litigation against competitors, however. Twitter has very publicly promised to only use patents defensively. Fun fact, founders Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone are listed as the inventors, which is way cooler than being verified. And that's it for today's top stories. Tune in tomorrow for the world's first live slam poetry reading by a dolphin. Tune in tomorrow for the world's first live slam poetry reading by a dolphin.

Hey guys, it's David with The Verge and we're looking at Google Keep, the new sort of note taking app that Google just launched a little while ago. Basically it's designed to be like sticky notes. It's not competing with Evernote or any of the services like that. It's supposed to be a really easy way to capture stuff that you want. And basically it gives you three different ways to do it. You can open up here and just type a note and save it and just like that it's a note. And it's stored in Drive and it's accessible via the Android app. We'll get to that in a second. You can also upload a picture, which is really just as simple as picking a picture and hitting enter and it uploads and it's all stored here and just streamed in this one line. You can also quickly create a list if you want, you know, a shopping list or something like that. There's really not that much you can do with it at that point. You can search, so like if I have a grocery list, it'll search through my grocery list and find all the things that are on here. It's there and you can archive a note, you can delete it. So there are really two different ways to see your notes right now. There's the stream like this where everything is just kind of in a running chronological order, or you can see it in a grid, which is a little easier to get a big sense of all of the notes that you have. So the Keep Android app just launched as well and it's basically the same thing. You have a couple of different ways to add notes. Here you can add voice notes. You can say, remember to pick up milk after work and it'll just put it right in there and you can save it. And like with the web app, you can color code things to make them a little easier to find. There's also a Keep widget, which basically lets you just jump to the same things, take a picture and upload it. And it's dead simple. It's really fast. That's one of the best things about this. Actually, it's a lot faster than something like Evernote or even Simple Note just for uploading things. But for right now, it's super basic. There's really not much you can do except have this one big running stream of stuff and you can obviously search. But what's really cool is what could come next. They're gonna integrate this with Drive so all your files will be available there. But it would also be great when you could take a note and then immediately jump it to Gmail or Google Calendar or any of a number of different services. So that's Google Keep. It's available for Android and the web right now and it is pretty basic right now. It's gonna be great for some people but not nearly enough for others. And hopefully, they keep growing it and don't kill it in some spring cleaning three years from now.

It's Tuesday March 19th 2013 I'm Ross Miller only partial recovered from my trip to Pleasantville. This is 90 seconds on the verge brought to you by Mercedes-Benz. Microsoft once again is under investigation from the US government this time for foreign bribery. According to the Wall Street Journal both the Justice Department and the SEC are investigating allegations centered around kickbacks to Chinese officials and return for contracts. Microsoft says it'll take the allegations very seriously and will cooperate fully with inquiries. It also notes the Wall Street Journal is itself under investigation over allegations of bribery in China. Cheeky. Hey who wants a Samsung smartwatch? Ness watch? Swatch? While details are slim Reuters reports that the Samsung device will perform many of the same functions as a smartphone. Right now the smartwatch to beat is from Pebble which works across both Android and iOS. Samsung is just one of many companies at least rumored to be making wearable devices in the near future. Chief among those Apple. We're sure Apple's marketing department is just salivating over the ad campaign possibilities. Speaking of Apple as of today Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch is now Apple's new vice president of technologies. Lynch has worked for Adobe since 2005 and is credited for inspiring the company's push into multiple screens. He will now report to Bob Mansfield whose division is said to be focusing on wireless hardware. Or maybe Apple really wants its own flash. And that's it for today's top stories. Join us tomorrow for an in-depth exposé bouncy castles.

Ten years ago, drones were military industrial technology, extremely expensive, some of it classified. And then what happened over the last ten years is that basically the revolution in your pocket has made that technology so cheap and easy and ubiquitous that regular people can do it. You know, with the right cable, you can basically fly a plane with a smartphone. The truth of the matter is that for a long time now, surveillance technology has outpaced privacy law. But part of the issue is that it's really hard for Americans to picture what a privacy violation looks like. Maybe pieces of data are being correlated someplace in some server. It's hard to visualize. But drones, we have this really visceral reaction to drones. We can really picture what it's like to be watched by these flying robots. And as a consequence, I think it's really sparked a conversation about surveillance that we haven't had in some time. Some of the uses are going to be scary. There's a technology called Argus, which can view an entire city at once, and it automatically tracks when it sees a vehicle or a pedestrian moving. It traces where it started and where it ends up and where it goes in between and saves that data. And so it has the potential to build up a real database of people's comings and goings and location and movements, which is a very revealing thing about you. A lot of the technologies to pilot a drone used to be covered under what's called export control, which is to say they were regulated as military technologies. But there is a provision in the laws, the export control laws, that exempts public domain. And no one had thought public domain drone technology, and yet here it is. Because this stuff became so easy and so cheap that suddenly regular people could do the stuff that only defense contractors could do before. Skycatch is a security company that uses drones to secure private property. It's basically rather than having multiple cameras going around in your backyard or in your big private property, you spread out sensors around. And as soon as they're triggered, the drones deploy and they fly out to the location and start streaming video and sending pictures to your iPhone app or your Android or any endpoint. People have been putting cameras on remote control helicopters for going on 20 years now. I don't think that there are hundreds of thousands of would-be criminals that have just been waiting for the perfect technology to go spy on their neighbors. I mean, there's so many positive uses for these that I think we will see far outweigh the negative uses. Once you start seeing them be used for some function, agriculture I think is going to be the most likely, and you drive down the road with farms on either side and you see the drones serving the crops or spraying, you're like, oh, that's a drone. And then you start to associate it with farming rather than military use, and that's how we change the narrative. What we've learned is that a lot of people who are in government, it's just a matter of education. A lot of them don't know what these drones are capable of, and they don't know much about our community and what we're planning on doing. So part of it is working with them and letting them know what these guys are capable of. What we don't want is really strict regulations that prevent us from automating and creating an opportunity for the drone market. The fact that drones are capable of doing a lot of aerial surveillance at low cost wouldn't be that big a deal, but for the fact that privacy law isn't largely up to the task of responding. For instance, there's a famous case involving a helicopter that was flying over someone's property, and in fact looked into not even their yard, but looked into some missing panels in a greenhouse and spotted the fact that they were growing marijuana. Well, the Supreme Court said that that wasn't even a search, because you have no reasonable expectation of privacy of something viewable from a public vantage. People don't often know that, but that kind of doctrine is going to be applied likely to drones as well. With drones, because of the very serious safety issues they raise, the FAA has really been holding back the deployment of drones. Commercial use is banned, it's very difficult even for police agencies to get permission to fly drones, and they can only use them in very limited ways. I think that people in the industry have no problem with regulations. We actually want regulations so that we don't just have anyone going out grabbing remote control helicopters and flying around. We're using full-scale helicopters to get a tight shot on the Santa Monica Pier for a movie and backing away when we could easily have an unmanned system doing that same shot. And as it backs away, if the unmanned system fails and crashes and falls in the water, who cares, right? But if I have three guys in a helicopter doing that same shot and they're hovering outside the velocity chart, and their engine fails while they're hovering outside the chart, chances are all three of those guys are dying. So I think what's happening right now is just that the technology is far outpacing the regulatory process.

mobile accomplishers welcome to the original show is the fortieth episode of the week of march eighteen we have eight one of news and we're jumping to it most active after no chit chat no uh... no fast and furious jokes i am dear bone and that's a lot and then see first and i'm pretty similar uh... you know i don't want to chat all talk to you guys and care much of lives are your personal feelings on anything ever i just want to talk about the galaxy s four because it's finally been announced in and insane and majestic show last week and we've seen it and it's big and uh... man i don't even know where to start then you're there yet yeah so i was there for that spectacle uh... the the broadway show if you will uh... instead of a product launch and uh... yeah i mean we uh... we covered a quite a bit on the site and uh... united a really interesting report where he talked to the behind the scenes people who actually produced it and uh... as far as precedence go i guess you could say it is uh... up there is one of the most memorable ones but uh... probably not for the best reasons you know it's a i i i said this before but like you know as as press uh... we kind of just want to go there we want to see the news you want to show the news and we wanted to be like wrapped up and we want to get our job done uh... and this was much more of a show then uh... an informative thing uh... so uh... is the creating for us but i guess if if samsung was trying to entertain people uh... it did do that to some extent it but it also managed to uh... uh... rob a lot of people the wrong way with the way that uh... some of the characters were portrayed in samsung's little vignettes so yeah i mean i guess boat let's just talk to the event before we get into you know the device itself i mean samsung with the the galaxy s series uh... always has this problem where it's primary set of differentiators is that massive slew of features that packs in on top of android and so we have a bunch of here but actually communicating that without having a you know a single sort of thesis statement or whatever uh... is difficult and so their angle that around narrative thank you their angle was to like trying put a broadway narrative on top of it by having all these little vignettes all these little stories uh... about the different ways of the features that they're adding in might be useful to your life and they had a lot of other problems are the idea for the broadway shows because they were having their men at radio city musical in new york city which is you know of world famous theater and it seems like six thousand people so that that was a role in the with the broadway you know now that's that's that's about uh... this uh... size of the the problem was in the army like i did this with his sort of behind the scenes look at how it came together is you know that people from broadway they put together a pretty edgy show and then it went through the standard corporate meat grinder of what's not offend any of our pickup potential customers audiences and what that ended up meeting was that uh... a lot of the stuff especially the portrayals of women came off his uh... let's be gentle say it came off as ham-handed well i mean this is the things that one is as you say these are the sort of pretty much as you show and that there are some remnants of it insofar as uh... the whatever the mc or the guy who's leading the whole show was saying our fake family and uh... such-and-such or that would be the case if he wasn't an actor and then they had a chinese actor who spoke in perfect uh... in a perfect american accent because he's a chinese american etc etc so there were all these little hints of self-awareness which hinted at that edgier show that the producers were coming up with but as you say putting it through the corporate uh... approval process probably softened and neutralized a lot of that self-satire i think uh... but that's one aspect of it the other is that companies like samsung i feel feel compelled to do these shows and i'm not sure that they really benefit from them all that much like okay people are giving publicity about it but frankly people are giving publicity to galaxy S4 whatever happens they were building it up before the event and they talked about it after the event and they mostly talked about the device itself well i mean they did get a crowd at times square to show up uh... and they also i think this is important they got apple to uh... trip over itself trying to do some you know call it defensive sort of you know pre-events making fun of samsung in a way that didn't really work out especially well for apple so i think that it's a big moment in terms of the apple versus samsung story and it's a big moment for uh... samsung itself because and and this gets to your story about it blad that it is that the S4 shows that samsung is confident enough to not try and you know reinvent the wheel every year they feel like they can put out something that matches their design language and sort of feels like an S3S and and do it which is something i don't think any any other android manufacturer has the confidence to do right now yeah i mean that's been kind of the theme samsung chasing apple and emulating apple uh... but we just finished up the other point about the the whole event structure and styling i don't think that pushing your product uh... doing things like a time square thing uh... investing heavily in marketing is a bad idea at all but i think these companies can actually stick to the old tried and trusted we're a tech company we're just going to do this techy way instead of trying to also delve into popular culture and try and be savvy and smart and all of those things because those things are really hard to achieve i think uh... the steve jobs keynotes uh... have set a really high standard insofar as demonstrating features by showing how it will be used i don't think that many people could do what he was able to do and i think apple ski you know it's a now is likely or as compelling as when he was doing them and forming them but everyone is still kind of trying to relate that style everyone is still trying to call for something really special for an event whereas people could or companies could actually rely on the strength of the product and to some extent like you just say it's something to do in that against his for because saying we've got the features of the components and we think our design is already good enough uh... now that's the debate will pop because and somebody already uh... said in the comments of the uh... what was your post in the site is uh... i can't wait for the part with a big place but plastic yes is just as best as it is a three and quite frankly he put it to side by side yes yes for is the biggest bias but it takes you want to recognize which is action than your advice that's it that's not that that was the striking thing that when i actually got it to touch the device and hold on to it is like a i mean if you if i was walking by a table and it was a galaxy s three and galaxy is for sitting next to each other just walking by and look at them i wouldn't really be able to tell the difference between the two that he was a look like they're exceptionally similar uh... and even as well i mentioned that the four has a larger screen but uh... samsung managed to make the rest of the phone smaller around the screen so there's there's even a minimize difference between the size of the devices so it's and i'm sure we're going to this more with the the the hardware itself but it they're strikingly similar as far as design and build quality goes so i i got a chance to play with one for just like five minutes at the uh... engadget expand conference and actually samsung have one of the design guys up on stage talking about him he specifically mention this plastic thing and it's the story you'd expect which is samsung cares about putting a removal battery and i think that's important and so uh... for them that means they know how to do that using a plastic back and so that's what they went with uh... and yeah it does feel plastic he and doesn't feel like super duper crazy premium but i will say that i think it does feel better than the s three i think that it i don't know if the mayor of the rail around the edges metal now or if it's still plastic but it feels way better than the rail did on the s three so i mean it's it i think it's it feel slightly better it doesn't look all that great in photos uh... but at the end of the day you know samsung believes in this you know plastic and they haven't really dot on the make it feel like awesome polycarbonate it you know if that bothers you you don't get the one i guess but it's uh... it's a trade-off and that's a trade-off that they went with well it's interesting that the plastic actually has a slight patterns texture look to it uh... that makes you think that it's almost going to have a texture feel but that's actually covered by uh... really thick sheen of gloss so when you see the back of the phone in photos you've got this like uh... uh... hatch thatchmark pattern or whatever that you see in photos but when you actually touch it it's just as smooth and slick as the galaxy s three so uh... i don't know why they didn't make it textured at all which i think would aid to error uh... and his equality feeling obviously you will be more to correct that's waiters well i think they're glossy grippers this grippy like their glossy thing like it doesn't slip out of your hand it just doesn't feel premium and any the idea of that goes to bed doesn't feel me with much confidence that would love it if i picked it up uh... but as i was just thinking about that they said to you some really nice patent backs and that's always like the liquid line uh... which you know actually budget and mid-range and low-end devices for the most part is what acer produces uh... so it's it's going to be like it's not that samsung can't afford it samsung definitely can afford to use high-grade plastics is just a choice really on the company's part they could make them matte they could make them textured uh... they could put a you know a pattern on the back uh... something that's grippier and that's a basic in the hand they're just not doing it but those are the same choices one thing i would say though is actually quite a bit of state when i read the galaxy is free years ago and i gave it uh... pre-hospital side and it was like and yet do you need to have your eyes examined you know where your lenses is a centrist uh... have you looked at the thing and doesn't want to keep making with respect to experience that as well which i gave a little school for design of most people expected because of the few that i think i think ergonomics is so much more important than looks because looks matter to you in the first week for several weeks but then just got started northern and just on the kids play itself so using the phone and that's when things like side mounted power button uh... samsung uh... was on the early adopters of rematches to give you a lot sizes uh... that's where the coverage of the back which kinda makes it look like it doesn't have a different shape where's the case for you to get this for you just don't have the you know the sharpness of the design that you have with the experience that but i still think that's in design of the so many want because it's just so much more comfortable to hope even as close as it's it's inspired by nature yes true the nature of your hands which is ironic we didn't we didn't hear any of that in by this year's presentation even though the software largely looks the same at the uh... hardware itself large you must have had some blitz so you know the water blue it definitely makes the water bloops uh... i don't think we heard in nobody nobody during the presentation commented that they had to go to the bathroom because of it so well i guess will talk about progress you know what i would also miss and and the gas is free launch last year they had uh... to be with the full course was it was that what they showed and yes and and and they showed the big winter by is that how one chorus blowing your head back into cause of pushy it's i'd be hundred and four courses for the gas free and this is a little bit and and i think you want to see more of these crazy made up in energies uh... two forms we like it but i guess we should talk about specs so uh... processors uh... justice with every phone uh... for the past couple years it's gonna have a different processor without the out you know outside the u.s. at samsung access five uh... than the u.s. from have the call comes after a six hundred yet to get around the country six million battery uh... of course we've got a uh... five inch display uh... today p is uh... super amoled uh... but i mean at that pixel resolution i like to think that people will not have a lot to complain about with the uh... pixel layout well it is that the the pentile layout is is he is what we would complain about i guess but yeah you're right you know that that resolution we're not gonna have uh... anything really visible unless you're using a magnifying glass to look for my only issue that i've always had with super amoled displays that always have a very blue cast compared to uh... lcd display so when we put it side by side with say they she's the one that always or at least last year with the one x vs the gals is three the one exit much truer colors then the sense and but if you are just looking at the sense of alone and not comparing it side by side that's something that you're less likely to notice yeah this is a bad group compared any phone against the c one because displays uh... so i will say that the nexus four display or the item flies display or whatever is not using a super amoled well also i think there are a new set of adjustments uh... on the new cases for so he gives you more granular control in terms of color temperature and things like that read this anyhow uh... and see myself so previously something had uh... a couple of settings display settings which let you uh... patone down the saturation which is usually over the top with sense of them in this place uh... but not nothing to give you more more granted control over what the display does uh... but besides that okay we we just run for the spec sheet and frankly it's an upgrade on pretty much everywhere but i don't see where those things is going to be merging the user experience like when you pick up the phone is that you think it's so much awesome gets its free i think that's what happened and then you had hands-on time with it how step is it it's fast i mean like i didn't i didn't really see like like there's certain phones that you pick up and you start using them in the instantly feels choppy need frame rate isn't as high or just as an answer spots and there was none of that with the the the s four but uh... you know in the last time he's got to three i don't remember really complaining about the former to be honest so uh... you know it it has no trouble pushing out the the pixels on the ten eighty p display that doesn't seem to be holding it back or anything the performance is very fluid and and andrea uh... snappy and fast uh... i didn't run any benchmarks on it in the time that i had it so i can speak to that but as far as from a perception user perception it it feels very quick fast yeah that's what's going on right now it's off the charts it just seems crazy fast yeah and and and and and and most high-end phones are like i don't have performance issues with them anymore like uh... when he's an excess for you know i i i've never once complained about the performance of speed or fluidness or or uh... uh... performance on the night to be a good thing about it yet no i think it's a good thing about other things but like you know i'm not saying with the iphone five there's no real issues there same with like a high end uh... windows phone for the most part uh... you know that lagginess and things like that are are kind of things that we talked about a couple of years ago or on lower end devices uh... so you know i don't expect it to be slow and didn't see it being slow you know it's going to be fast how much faster and you may notice that you may not i was also going to have a thirteen megapixel camera and i we talked about this with the htc one you know it's easy one to four and now samsung's going to thirteen and i'm really hoping that it's way better than the s three because the s three was just sort of a camera but uh... will see what they can do with thirteen megapixels i'm actually shocked that they went to thirteen megapixels you really need to write yeah i thought they would stay with eight megapixels and just improve the quality of a kind of like what apple did from the forest to the five uh... but you know we'll see when when we actually uh... see the the results of the images themselves i know that samsung is that's itself has said that people are complaining about the image quality on smartphones uh... cameras these days i guess uh... but i don't know who they're talking to because i complain about it all the time uh... but uh... so i i know that they and we'll talk about this with the the software features but they you know were more concerned with adding crazy software features that going in a crazy uh... hardware direction of the camera they had like you can take a picture of the front facing camera in the rear facing camera at the same time and put smash them together they added uh... an action motor someone's running you can get the whole series of them running with the first vote they got a thing where it can automatically get rid of like motion bombers by doing another first mode shot like there's just a ton of camera features that i don't know maybe people get out there's even one there's a there's a camera thing where it takes a still image and records like eight seconds of audio a little bit before you get the shutter a little bit after like in case you want to like have a picture and like a still image and then narrate it okay okay well i i think uh... again from an uninformed perspective uh... and an experienced perspective i think the most interesting thing is the ability to use the front and rear facing cameras at the same time i think that's available for the video uh... so the narration part i mean we don't do it enough i think taking notes we keep typing away instead of uh... you know like old-school twin peaks pick up the recorder and be like now what is this about and talk to yourself and then listen to yourself and then have these wonderful conversations with yourself before they come in you know take it away uh... but yeah i think these narrations and these uh... do camera things can be compelling and and this was to ourselves uh... because we don't have that many physical friends nearby to videotape all the time but the sense is demos of families you know we we the father actually showing up in the photos and videos instead of always being behind the camera i mean that's a i can i can relate to that i have a younger and and i i take pictures most of the time it's mostly my daughter my wife is supposed to you know uh... me it's it's never my wife and i because my daughter's fourteen months old so uh... that's a little much to ask of her at this point uh... but i mean i don't know if but i think that it's very weird uh... to take a picture of a scene or a couple of people and then like have the front camera capture your picture and then just jam that in there like that yeah i think i can go to the most of the time the picture of you is that the inside is like uh... i guess yes yet or like splitting is so that i think i would have but and senses is something else the i think that i was the sense when it provided photos as well yeah you can get a hardcover books made with your photos so they've part of the company that will you can place your right from your phone and then you pay for it and it gets shipped i think anywhere in the world uh... uh... you know these these hardcover bound books uh... which is just just for a minute and a thing which was that they brought in from the galaxy notes that the whole idea that you can take notes uh... on the back of photos right yeah i think so i think i think that it anyhow i mean act i just feel like yes and see is completely copper bombing us with these features but some of them in some circumstances of the some people can actually be compared to use like oftentimes that you found that uh... taking notes like essentially it's a digital version taking notes on the back of the photo we put the photo and they can taken over the back and i think those things can be useful you know a salad right you can you can write the ingredients of the back parents mostly correct see something that's how you sell that's right so yeah i mean it's copper bombing us with features but at the same time some of them can emerges useful i think the most difficult part of this is we because of this you know sure sheer feature overload is surfacing them to the end user like how do you how do you get the end user to realize that had all these features of their and it does all these things when all they want to do is without the phone to take a picture and share otherwise otherwise the features are completely invisible just like chris eagler on this podcast you're not going to have a good thing and i have a couple all i'm i'm very concerned about my my hardware today uh... i've i've had so many failures in the past twenty four hours in my microphone internet connection that i i i never know if i can be heard or not uh... but uh... yet that the galaxy s four uh... is not a particularly interesting device to me it's it's a is becoming uh... you know i i think that this annual cadence for samsung has become a a uh... uh... what sort of looking for its it's it's like a it's an expectation and it's a uh... it is a revenue driver but is not exciting device is not a device that anyone uh... looks forward to it hot hot anticipation it's a device that wins over consumers with raw uh... marketing muscle uh... and uh... i i i frankly have very little at that to this device i have nothing to say about it did something that i'm sure it's a very very solid phone is going to sell of course extraordinarily well uh... but i think that the the real innovation the meaningful innovation in this space right now is not coming from samsung and certainly not coming from this device the these uh... these features that they've had in this for parlor tricks nobody needs to be able to waive in front of their phone to change photos uh... i'd at my my thumb is not weak this is not so weak that i can't scroll page with it uh... so that the uh... i mean there is one of the one of these crazy features that i like and that's the that they took from the uh... the the note to the hover mode that you still do you do the stylist that you can instead of just tapping the screen you can hover over the screen have a pop-up stuff instead of actually directly acting on it that's kinda neat i could get into that if it were well supported i i thought it i tested out some of the the the motion features that that chris just mentioned the one where you're you tilt the phone to scroll up and down a web page uh... and actually actually kind of work uh... so i guess you know if you're if you're on a subway and you're reading a page and and you tilt it goes further without having to move it you you're less likely to maybe drop the device out of your hand i suppose that's a good thing it just struck me as really funny because that's uh... one of the things that uh... i remember sergi brin talking about when android was launched back in two thousand eight or much the public uh... as as something that he wanted his phone to do and then uh... in the book uh... in the plex by steve lee which goes really deep on google and and how uh... android among other things was developed inside of google they the engineers determine that it wasn't practical to do and here we are two thousand thirteen and since i just went ahead through the phone anyways uh... so i i found that amusing and then i also are tested the future where you are watching a video and it it looks to see that your eyes are on the video and then you if you get distracted or something like say there's a a gardener outside of your your your house taking shirt off and you look at the smart polls to to look at you look away from your video the video itself actually pauses uh... so that you don't miss your video while you're being distracted uh... and and i mean as chris mentioned that the total parlor trick it's it's it's not something that's really needed it's not difficult to just hit pause or rewind a video on on mobile devices these days uh... and it had about a uh... a second delay or so before it would cause men restart when i i looked back at it but i guess it worked as the as the it was sold to us well more to the point is actually going to be inconvenienced a lot of people because uh... so that's something like myself for example uh... you could have you for just playing a video and you could just listen to it as a background thing or is that uh... you know like a radio stream whatever you know you did there are police areas where you don't need to be looking at screen directly well i mean it's a feature you can turn on and off you have to dive into settings and you can enable it or disable it but now it's does the other thing that the the most of the couple gets his free into this on our just disabled usually i'm customizing things and cursing sense for me cc for not giving the option to make something's suit me with the galaxy is flying it's like stop it no don't do that stop talking to me thank accidently is that this is true accidentally made with this to back mode way read everything on the screen to me and in this now unpleasant you know uh... the tutorial voice and i just freak me out is not a very future yeah there is talk back in in stock standard entry well that's what i'm saying it fell into it and it was a map experience but he is a bit of cultural awareness for as a christ i have watched the video activity as that scenario exists and happens very often in korea we have attractive young women in the twenties doing some baking cooking and having the hands on and just covered with flour and only happens in parents and ourselves so it only happened at a commercial and and and somebody really important cause you know because the young independent women in their own their own businesses and they have to be called twenty four hours a day so many people in close and then pages wave their hand in the air for the phone and it works seamlessly i've watched the video well i'm just gonna pull this out of the that there might be a woman out there who needs to do this because uh... i find i'm in a situation all the time when i'm obsessing over uh... brewing some coffee and i'm making messes and i've got grinds everywhere and i need to either start the timer on my smartphone or answer a message or call and i have to touch the thing and it gets dirty filthy stuff like that so this happens to be a quite often i don't think sas and since waving gestures the answer to my problems uh... with for what i need to do man in the dishes are very different that that's always the thing i apple within apple does is it looks at things like gestures and says we're going to make this until it's mature enough to give them the full opportunity to set the timer is far and to have more of a comprehensive says where it's not so it looks at things like this is this is part what portion of this can we just jack into a phone and expand a feature this way and and that's where the complaints politics and they come from because these on fully fleshed out you can wave around a bit to go back and forth it could be around it scroll and then you can review much more else but i think it's it's going to be a very cohesive use experience altogether so there's also i are blaster which i put the same category of just throw features at it because you can there is one thing that uh... actually i do think is interesting and i don't know why it nobody's dot before and this as health stuff where they actually activate the downer in the summer under and you know couple other sensors after exactly what on the phone to track your health you know you're walking in your exercise like a fitbit or whatever and that's a summit should have been on phones from the beginning as soon as they created these things and and you know why you need to you know get a separate accessory to do some of this stuff kind of blows my mind if you can do it on the phone and so that's potentially interesting to me and then since it's actually selling a whole host yeah i'd extend that to with uh... uh... the wristband type of of things and other fitbit like uh... devices well since the insane is going to sell them let's remember the s couple yet they don't know that that one of them you might be there and you can tap into your galaxy s three to transfer uh... the one thing i guess so they they also said that they're gonna bring some s four software features to the s three uh... i mean if you are gals yes three you should not buy this like right up there's nothing here that uh... would make you desperately want the screens bigger uh... to be faster it's got a higher made pixel camera but the only thing that i could say is and then we'll have to wait and see until we actually do review on it is the battery significantly larger uh... so maybe the battery life is uh... something that's uh... you know really impressive with this uh... but we'll have to that will have to wait and see on that but it should be a nice guy that's gonna be balanced by the end what's up with the other secrets and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and i i i suspect that the hot the higher battery capacity is going to be counteracted by the uh... the higher resolution screen in india the faster processor but we'll see yet i could be i mean as as these new processors come out they get faster but they're supposed to get more efficient to write so it's a lot bigger was the one on the uh... as three there's like seventeen hundred or eighteen dollars more than that stuart one of the thousands and thousands we're already and so that is what is twenty six hundred so that you know this tax what this is a sense of galaxy nexus never held it on my face i had a sense of the better head-to-head uh... what the either way this is at least five hundred million power more so it's at least twenty percent or so uh... it that so just record i think this is like this and they delay on the rest of us and i think we should just do you call large to just interrupt the crap out of us it will just automatically stop because his input is so precious that's a little bit ever uh... not felt that way this is the talking this whole time and so what what's gonna happen is we're gonna stop podcast when we normally do but it's gonna go on for some bonus content for extra twenty minutes will be here in christensen saying that's pretty much like the eight twenty one hundred London and new york twenty one hundred twenty it's twenty one hundred okay so that the new one is five hundred million power more so slightly less than twenty percent for twenty five percent more the big jump it is a big jump yeah uh... so i'm i'm curious to see how that how that works out and they managed to make it thinner uh... samsung says the thin this is unprecedented though it is thicker than the iphone five uh... but uh... they did manage to make the the phone thinner wall packing in much larger battery into it so i guess that's pretty impressive yeah i was hearing about that because that's boring uh... interest in some activity this is what works with lots so as well as uh... nice new fangled hypersensitive touch screens like uh... the market in the nine twenty and other you know case so actually like that uh... particularly with the amount of glove wearing i've been doing with this seasonably cold weather i appreciate it for making work with us agreed yes i had to shovel four inches of snow off my driveway this morning so this morning about nice nice last day of winter but maybe if you like i send or norway or any part of canada you know that's that's what has been a step comes in as that's like number one feature i forget that you make a fix was in the number of course it was a good man so ok this phone is like it's iterative it's what we expected uh... it looks very proficient got a million features does the smartphone landscape uh... for android change with this phone or is it just gonna be the same as it seems like our sense is that that's the s four it's a lot like the s three and they're gonna mark the hell out of it and you know he she's trying to come back and we'll get into that in a little bit a minute here uh... but i don't see you know any huge opening uh... for another manufacturer right now because of this because it's perfectly proficient device uh... you know i don't see them falling down the where and i also don't see them like utterly crushing anybody you know at least not more than they already have well i guess the status quo i i i think i think samsung is a very good to the position to further extend its lead with the gusseis were maybe not uh... dramatically so it's not to be as dramatic of a shift as it was from two thousand one two thousand twelve uh... but you know every uh... carrier in the u s was very eager as soon as the s four was announced to to black stuff that will be carrying it and so you're gonna be able to get it on before major carriers and even on a couple regional carriers in the u s i'm sure it would not i think since it would be on a hunch at a hundred and fifty five countries uh... at law or it will be launched eventually a hundred fifty five countries are going to and he does think carriers of me those cases you but so either way that's a lot of uh... places that you can go by this phone is literally just could be carpet bombing the market with uh... with the galaxy s four uh... and it's going they say it's going to be available in april so you know you're not to be able to escape this device uh... samsung's marketing as we mentioned earlier is extensive and massive and it's going to be thrown on you in every which way as far as commercials and advertisements and things like that so i really think that uh... in the uh... since i took a seat that with this as far as the the s four but uh... it's probably going to pay off for them with the tens of millions of sales and you know furthering their lead uh... in the android landscape and and likely furthering it ahead of apple in as far as the general smartphone and just for an extra thought here uh... is is no longer just something so marketing does your thing since then has invested really heavily in that but it's built up in a channel and it's built up a man's momentum uh... to where like you say these are damn right about uh... the name is getting mixed up but like you're saying carriers or blasting blessing of the announcements uh... here you can use among carries was a coffin warehouse phones for you at those guys is the same we're gonna have it you can have a pre-order you can pre-register interest everybody's announced that but also accessory manufacturers are coming up with announcements as well uh... like and i'm not noticed any other phone launch before the gala c s four other than i phone which is where it was immediately followed by every accessory and that might have a trial most of them coming up and saying we've got uh... new cases we've got new trinkets extra batteries center for this particular device again i've seen any other and red device gone and that kind of attention and that kind of extra p r from sister makers and that that's that's actually been criticism that's been levied at and refer for a number of years that apples you know third-party ecosystem for accessories is always been much stronger you can always find the latest in best cases for your iPhone you could find all these like crazy cool trinkets and things like that you could play in your iPhone uh... and you know maybe that's sense that's not quite fully there yet with the galaxy s four but it's definitely getting closer to the to wear if you want an accessory for your phone and you have a galaxy s four there's a very good chance that you'll be able to find looking for that we can stop boring chris and getting involved in the conversation well chris might be excited about today's but if we're gonna say one more thing about samsung there was news today the sense that is working on a smart watch about and of course this is going to be chris chris's interests right break chris i still have very serious concerns about my leg here is and i am i calling conversation here you're here man okay uh... yeah i i i'm excited here that samsung's doing this of course they this is not there for as as our our our good friend sasha seaghan has been pointing out all day on twitter this is not samsung's first entry into the uh... into the market i mean a frankly they've been doing phone related smartwatches longer than just about anyone they they showed a gsm prototype uh... watch in what two thousand three or something uh... but uh... but yeah i mean we'll see what they can do i i i think that that this is going to be a really really exciting market for the next uh... twelve eighteen months of serving we see apple get involved in c google get involved samsung will get involved in you know uh... will i think the biggest question is ken the small players like pebble metal what survive and then and then the the other big question is will uh... apple and google be able to stay this market get abroad consumer base interested wearing a wristwatch again or or will will one of the bigger players just by one of the smaller players and i don't know if they need to i mean that the thing that makes a smartwatch right now is the phone supporting it with its software which neither and red or i was doing very well and uh... that'll be good to see a need to buy there's no expertise even a couple that apple or samsung desperately need i don't think uh... or metal watch remember and so there's another huge giant site smith change in uh... the smartphone space that we need to talking to him in my reference it yet and that is that indy rubin as left and right he is going to work on you know some moonshot somewhere and there handing and read over to send our pitch i who uh... has led a pro-westerner laps chrome and the big deal is a really huge thing i don't know what do you think i mean there's there's a lot of angles we can talk about it we just had a profile of river to go out today uh... we talked about some dark however as superman and i don't know if you're just jump in there and i can't i can't be on point all the time with perfectly place questions and thoughts and openings for you to speak i can tell you what i think that that means nothing for you you know i think it will be the same as far as uh... to its presence goes and the review since we've had two times a year send out the side streets may be one time he is a no change that uh... and was in the end of the issue of the business so much of a science is because i don't know i don't get the feeling that and the room was running android the way that let's say steven synopsis into running windows where he wanted control of everything and everything was going along to andy rubin's uh... did you know i can't think the opposite account i kind of disagree with you i can't think that uh... there was a bunch of stuff uh... where uh... you know and read was sort of not fully as fully integrated with the rest of the world as it could be i think that i think just think of the fact that we see chrome get on androids away late in the game measure issue and you know you can carry on with your facts and uh... reality as much as you like but it doesn't stop me from talking at my imagination now that that i mean you have a new student who whose presence and influence at least using the faces before very strongly since he's been there i also feel like androids so critical so central to go to the world strategy that uh... larry page who will see you con have just given andy rubin such totalitarian control so i don't necessarily feel that androids is going to uh... deviating from his current trajectory like if you really needed that big of a change i think uh... larry page or somebody else would have is treated already andy rubin being there or not uh... i mean the interesting thing with ribbon is what sort of project is he going to have you know you know what is this thing that he's going off to you he has been fired so that like he's left to go in fish or whatever with family and i mean yeah let's be clear like this is a assignment and it is failing i think it might just be about room in a net rubens strength everybody seems to be saying that rubin is really good at starting things up and no breaking making you know building uses when making something happen and then that you know now that it's happened uh... he wants to do that again and uh... and scenarios coming into the picture now now he's really interesting because like he has just been rocking and rolling i mean say what you will look from a lesson its adoption not done that she that she you know laptop to promote a selling super well and amazon still uh... they just released the pixel which yeah nobody should by it because it's way too expensive but it's amazing feed of hard-wired nearing google apps have been doing just fine uh... both on the web and on our last and you know android uh... so like he's been executing an executing well across lots of different parts of google so uh... he's kind of like a key cast rates me as a a golden boy although income appoint golden man golden child not much of a share of it is made a goal is not set made maybe that's what it is that is a very simple case of and the room being suited to being the guy who initiates projects and he said he's suited to managing projects and just running that would be images so no one guys better management the other guys better it uh... getting things off the ground and who just reposition them and that's it and that's what it is that's kind of boring and exciting so chris and asking question and i'm i'm letting you know that i'm asking question well advanced you can prepare yourself and start speaking before i just finished speaking about five seconds do you think this is a big change or are you very kind of like it i think that uh... it's a combination of things for part of it is that i i think that uh... that is a natural progression of putting android into cruise control which is what you would do by saying that and he is good at starting things up and senders is good at at you know uh... keeping things running maybe uh... and and that that could very well be be a part of it uh... but also think that uh... also think that that andy uh... can be an abrasive personality uh... to put it in a politically correct way and uh... it's in you know we will probably never know the the full story of what's happening here but i think that it's entirely possible that he wrote someone the wrong way uh... or the the wrong series of people the wrong way uh... and it it it finally came to a head and they needed to put him into a different role where he was and as prominent in the company and uh... and needless to say nobody really knows if you if you read uh... it in jeffrey's excellent profile and reuben that's up on the site they'll know that we still don't really know exactly what reuben is going to be doing in the company and it's it's possible that the wolf simply hasn't figured that out yet they just want to have out of that leadership role and he's often something else now well i i deeply regret asking you to to speak christ because your microphone supports the effort that's good news and you can ask you so that's good since it's it's it's a google it's uh... yeah he sounds like an android almost you might say uh... sorry that was terrible terrible thing uh... so you know i think that's an yet i mean you know i was talking about the wide-awaited throughout the snow we are continuing i've i've lost things okay whatever then i'm going to reflect his actions from books for mailbox which to me is a really significant thing uh... because i did and and once they did it i decided to get in line so here i am i'm in line and like three hundred ninety four thousand something something three depressing that's it joe and reports by mailbox is really interesting to me because i really love dropbox every level of those guys have done and how reliable and how cut yet just reliable as the key thing we want to focus is doing uh... injuries is just kind of clean and untreated so then coming together with the mailbox guys because they're really was custom a book somebody has issues of forces or paragon uh... but dropbox can straighten those things out and just become like this extra ecosystem that you could jump to so you don't always have to be looking to words apple google microsoft center that we really exciting fun well it's it's interesting that you know dropbox is very good at at cloud storage in cloud computing and things like that and uh... where my mailboxes struggle in a lot of people's eyes is in that exact area uh... and that's why they've they have that's four hundred thousand long waiting list and things like that because uh... they need to scale their cloud servers up to uh... support all the users and there's actually uh... couple weeks ago uh... there was a number of downtime or number times where the the service was down and you just literally couldn't could get your email from it so uh... having dropbox behind them certainly very likely improve those uh... things well it's also interesting from dropbox's perspective is a company that's you know moving probably get uh... an i p o become a public company let's be really clear like what dropbox does is something that if they don't maintain a leadership position and maybe branch out something that can become commoditized really quickly they provide cloud storage and and sinking well guess what google's offering that basically for free uh... microsoft is there's box dot net their sugar sink there's a million of these services and dropbox needs to one make sure that they're ahead in terms of app integration they already are they've got great a p eyes and lots and lots of developers use dropbox uh... into they need to make sure that like they have a reason for existing beyond that just in case you know these other services might take off because you know it's kind of a commodity service at this point so they need to push for us so i think them purchasing mailbox is really interesting in terms of what kind of services is dropbox thinking about offering directly that will serve justify its existence when google microsoft are offering apple course like a little let's not talk about i thought too much because that's embarrassing travel uh... offering similar identical virtually identical services that uh... some some cases or cost that's that's why that uh... person to me and also the date of the river and but that people a small for sharing company or for the other within the event when they've been acquiring all kinds of different services that can use their cloud services and but provide of music service or photo sharing service are now even email service so it's uh... like you mentioned uh... whether it is almost like they're building an ecosystem now which would be nice to talk to us and i have and i have dropped off from the things that dropbox and it's a little bit of a lot of actors one last thing i want to talk about with the other google rubin and the chisels corruption nononon it's so this i runs from us and we also have android ls and uh... you know it seems kind of like the the they should combine these things somehow maybe we can expect and read apps running and pro-loss is a first step uh... maybe we could see more of the way the chrome was handles apps uh... maybe you know it's infrastructure you know running directly off linux could apply to and right i mean not to type of yeah not to put too fine a point on it i mean and it isn't exactly the most efficient an awesome operating system out there it's got all that gets got you know couple layers stuff uh... it's never really felt all that web native so there's there's definitely ways that enter can improve especially if it's gonna you know move out of being useful on more than just phones and if it's you know can start you know working when you scrolls to stuttering a lot problems mostly so i mean do you guys think that the mercy these two operating systems merge right here theater i'm gonna well first of all is the uh... is my audio any better my ass please i hope it's not good uh... the direct i mean after fault you for uh... for trying to slip in uh... the fact that and read it with native and and just passed off like like you know that that's a big fault and that's something that we shall be upset about but i think it's a major fall for google because google you know makes more money off of stuff on the web than they do off of native apps on android if they and you know that's the whole point of course that's what they believe the future should look like and were nowhere near yet but they're trying to actually treat that future right now with the pixel and so if if google thinks that they can actually pull off something that you know integrates the rest of the stuff that google actually makes money on into android and make that more native of course i want to do it i'm not saying it's great i mean but even as androids right now a lot of the it google is other services on all benefit from the fact that androids is even if androids and directly make google money you know maps are improved by all of the androids is that are out there running around with maps on their phone uh... it the company's uh... can harvest all kinds of voice data information from google voice it can harvest all kinds of data information from gmail things like that so integration and let's let's not forget at my and my as a major generator of revenue for google and and i think that the wrong but i think it's most widely deployed at network in androids so yeah i think that the the level of monetization they get off of that pales in comparison to what they got off of search standard earlier i'm sure yeah yeah no notice for you there and i mean let's face it like google uh... google knows that people are looking at windows eight and going right like if they could go in and like the new microsoft if they if they really put their mind to it they've got all the pieces they just runs since that windows eight google still has this massive for most of its in the fact that doesn't have a pretty great i think that the rest so it right and really double down and it is back when it was that went down now it's a uh... what was it you made me that's was happening is andre just kind of thought too many times on the server uh... the other thing is when is a is of as far as Microsoft goes windows eight is the most dramatic transition uh... yes they can't do a desktop mode uh... but that they're just moving into i mean for Microsoft being as conservative as conservative as it is as business-centric uh... and as business dependent for its profits is windows eight represents a massive change and the fact is they haven't gotten it right completely but by next iteration by uh... you know things that windows blue which are going to iterate quicker and faster and upgrade and introduce new features faster you can kind of see a roadmap developing an ideal case scenario where Microsoft really nails it and gets things right and polishes off its OS so it might as well as a foundation for really compelling tablet OS Google really doesn't yeah like Jeff Gordon from HCC he tweeted this and it was a brilliant point in the mobile smartphone version of chrome you can just swipe away tabs you don't want it's really natural and intuitive and easy to use chrome on an android tablet you have to press the particular X which essentially is so small it's like a click for a mouse it isn't anywhere near as intuitive or as fluid as a smartphone experience that's just like a microcosm of how frustrating android can be on a tablet because it has no tablet specialization uh... so yes i do think there's going to be a lot of cross pollination between chrome OS and android uh... we've seen evidence of Google now coming to chrome OS uh... a notification center or notifications at least so it might well be the case that Google is preparing chrome OS to be its tablet OS and to grow up to be its tablet OS because it sees more potential there than with android itself yeah i completely 100% agree and i hope that that happens the question is how quickly can it happen and how well can they pull it off because they really haven't had other than the Nexus 7 which i think was a limited success their iPads eating their lunch and the Nexus 7 is running the smartphone version of android anyway it doesn't have a landscape mode that's disturbing to me no it does now yeah there is a... yeah that was at 4.1.2 or something like that one of those point point updates edit a landscape mode but what's also interesting is not only is apple eating google's launch with the iPad Amazon's eating it with the Kindle Fire too using a heavily modified version of android that doesn't do google any good so and let's talk about this class of 7 inch devices like you know they're sort of entertainment stuff you don't do quote real work on it uh... they're doing that on a PC or a laptop or a full-size tablet uh... and google has no i mean the Nexus 10 is great it's beautiful i think it's a lovely device and if i have a choice between that and an iPad i'll use an iPad every time uh... they need they need to close that gap and they need to do it quickly because you know the future of computers is you know not what we were buying two years ago it is you know a tablet and you have a keyboard attached it's something like the surface you know it's something like the iPad it's something like the Nexus 10 whatever uh... and google doesn't have enough skin in that game and they need to well if google has the investment it just uh... you know things will be flopping fortunately for google uh... they've tried and they've tried and they keep trying uh... i guess ChromeVosage is the longer longer term strategy something that they can look forward to at least but to the point about 7 inch tablets that's my kitchen entertainment unit you know that's my radio that's my streaming device that's uh... and that's why it was so freaking annoying that they didn't have a landscape mode so every time I wanna I mean I'm basically an addict to the BBC iCloud right uh... and every time I want to stream something from there download something I have to turn the tablet because I don't have the latest update which has a landscape mode I have to turn the Nexus 7 to portrait and then get into it and dig in get to the thing I want to play and then put it back into landscape and put it down and also this thing needs a freaking stand because right now I'm kind of perching it right next to you yeah it's finally available again yeah you can buy the dock uh... well let's talk about HTC because uh... you know we obviously reviewed the one but they can't seem to get the damn thing in stores as quickly as they need to Wall Street Journal had a report that uh... the suppliers no longer consider HTC to be a tier one customer which i totally believe uh... we've seen you know shipment delays they were originally targeting late March some markets are gonna see it in uh... April now uh... and whatever bump they were hoping to get by getting on store shelves ahead of the Galaxy S4 is rapidly dwindling yeah like this is not a really great super solid start for them I would just like to correct the Wall Street Journal report to have my own exclusive sources uh... and I can actually disclose that uh... the boom sound feature on the HTC One was certified as being dangerous to human health and they've had to completely modify the design and put in hardware modifications to soften the freakish loudness of that thing I mean honestly like half of the volume that you can reach on the HTC One is well it distorts, it's not that great and it's kind of superfluous well I mean maybe it's superfluous but if it gets louder than say like my Nexus 4 which I constantly am annoyed at the fact that the speakers on the back of the phone and firing away from me when I'm holding the device and I have to cut my hand around it and it never gets loud enough when I'm watching a video or something like that uh... I think it's awesome that the speakers are on the front of the One and that they're they're blasting right at me and I think that that's a like we talked about the the the lack of innovation on Samsung's Galaxy S4 that is like one of the things that comes to my mind is like HTC saw a problem and they resolved it or at least made an attempt to resolve it by putting the speakers on the front of the device which is a very like kind of like a no brainer thing maybe it's there's some really hard engineering that's required to make that happen but HTC did it and yet you know Samsung went a generation without really doing anything different so I actually dread people Google talking me now because the One like shatters all my windows and I'm bleeding from my ears like it is freakishly loud it is scary loud like if you if you've always if you're the kind of person that has always complained that the loudspeakers on the phones are too quiet there is only one phone for you in twenty thirteen and that is i was on that is the one the that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that that's completely unintentional but it is the fact that they called it the one i think that they they took a digit from from mathematics and then use it for the name of their devices nothing i can do about that now if i'm if i'm if i'm the count i'm suing you know but seriously and that's my trademark one to every time i can see is that someone but i had for the record i was also be facetious about the news and i i do think it's a it's it's an added uh... bonus and feature rated the rest competition is just very freakish loud and it's it's well i mean it just so that we're going to go back on topic here with the the actual story we're talking about how did the one is the latest interesting to note a couple of things in this report uh... one uh... it's the lady mentioned as being uh... related to the camera parts which is really quite interesting because the camera is something that he cc is like touting and it's it's uh... one of the major features of the phone and it's one of the custom feature for this fall so it's interesting that that's actually what's hold might be holding back from shells and then the other thing was uh... this other uh... mention that uh... if the one that doesn't succeed uh... it peter chow he sees currency oas of the whole step down from his position which is kind of insane to think that's as long as i've known uh... and followed a cc peter chow has been uh... c e also uh... that would be a quite a quite a shift for the company should that uh... you know i mean and and and we've been saying that the one was make or break for each cc in a bunch of people in like now here it's not the stakes are that high what's wrong with you cut it out now look peter chow himself like this doesn't take off i'd it's right for me to step down like states are super high for them on this phone but but let me let me say that i think that i mean yes i i totally agree with that but uh... i still think that from a management perspective it's mistake to by pre announce that you will step down you know if if a particular product is successful i'd like it it it it puts everybody in a weird headspace it's not a i i don't think that's the right thing well great crisis uh... it's not the classic and uh... in most of us like if you hit the backboard when you school you have to call class before the ball hits the backboard goes in so people know it was intentional so repeat the child was a is in the same thing just in corporate terms so he's saying i'm putting it all in the line and what you guys know that we all in line for me actually succeed and he collects his due credits uh... after the one succeeds we're getting it so there is there is one potentially pieces potentially good news uh... so if we don't all things the had this uh... report that you're from sources that the one was in fact going to come to verizon contrary to everything you know we had heard that was the other big fear taking it and then they she see like you know didn't really say anything and then he sees twitter account we did that the one is not going to rise but if you see the drug vietnam and that we did that we can give us another story saying uh... yeah look it's coming i've heard it'll be late but it's definitely coming to horizon so that's good news i mean there's no a verizon's can actually push marketing on it but you know being available on all four me there's in the u.s. is of super duper important thing for us to see whenever whenever it actually gets there today if the horizon is not that is going to call it the drone uh... yes that yes it's culturally relevant it's a pun is that everything uh... did just two points to know what uh... which is the twenty fourteen model by the way i promise you something uh... it's a camera and it is the to that risk on itself because the camera in the issue one is custom made for each to see by the wire which almost likely so many uh... and and this is the like this this religious one fabrication facility and they're just making those chips uh... those sensors for a cc you have one flow with it you have no call back because it's custom it's it's a risk of the company to call this one spec for but uh... also and they think it about this for awhile now about a cc's uh... financial situation and the ways can be going downhill for the past i don't know you have a whatever revered to use them and the thing that struck me is that uh... when this fall seven was introduced each sense of the two biggest endorses and decay we need to see this place it came with the biggest hardware investment they they had the most devices the nine devices free for them or from htc was crazy while the speakers that speakers that i bought that wow yes i did well the year-round surround yet okay and that htc had one uh... the landscape slider with a hardware keyboard and and they didn't want to aluminum for u k business and that everything for windows or so and he was heavily in that uh... and what what actually and and this is a coincidence i'm not suggesting causation i'm just pointing out correlation ever since when the sponsor was introduced which is kind of the peak of the htc's powers and growth things are going downhill for the company and one thing that i've noticed with windows phone is that licensing costs are significantly higher than with android uh... you know people for example uh... well one of the smaller chinese companies well actually it's a giant chinese company but smaller in smartphone market terms uh... was saying how they couldn't do what they can do with uh... prepaid android phones with windows phone just because the minimum licensing fee with windows phone is so high so they had to pitch their windows phones to contract customers rather than prepaid customers uh... so there may be a theory that you know htc kind of over stretched itself with windows phone overspent and didn't see the same returns they might expect that anybody might also be a case that we can maybe argument that he sees precious own resources uh... which obviously did we'd like the design team spending time with the spawning test when the spotty tax given the unique designs most recently uh... whereas those reasonable reasons for the ball being pulled into its and red efforts and that nobody can say if station spent hundreds and it's time and read it would be also says what's the name of the so it is a good example of but it's successful what the folks at andre uh... but it's just like interesting alternative well we've been going for over an hour uh... we have to talk about the mobile uh... they uh... i've got an event coming up uh... where they're gonna probably announced their own carrier plans uh... don't think that were likely to see the iphone stuff details are maybe and uh... they've got l t launching this month with the galaxy not to is going to take advantage right away presumably yes for well when it comes out uh... and then the biggest news is the f c c has approved their move proposed merger with metro pcs uh... so it's not undone deal yet but it's for all intents and purposes i think it might as well be and i chris's or wrote a explain article that sort of tells us exactly what this merger means you want to get into that a little bit yeah uh... i i mean that that the bottom line is that that i i can spell this out the peace but i think that this is the closest thing to a win-win win uh... that were ever going to see in our lifetimes in the u.s. wireless industry notice ever lifetimes period and regardless of context but yes i think that ever happen to any of us ever for for for by the end of the day it's it's it's kind of freaky and uncanny how good this seems to be from all sides that the one pieces of bad and unfortunate news is that um... there will be a layoffs uh... at at both companies it's not a bowl at as with virtually any merger uh... but in terms of uh... t mobile's ability to compete with the big guys and in terms of its spectrum portfolio in terms of its building a raw l t e in a more effect manner uh... this is just brown we good news and of course t mobile still small enough so that it doesn't raise any uh... you know it doesn't raise any sort of competitive concern versus eighteen team bryson uh... and i think it's very telling that uh... public interest group public knowledge which follows this stuff very closely is endorsing the deal and and they they kind of did it back and way they're like you know it's it's it's unfortunate that we live in a world where uh... we've got a merger is a good thing in this business but that we do and this is a good merger and uh... and you should be happy about that uh... and i i i think that's that's kind of the case uh... i think that for people who are on t mobile and for people who are on that ricketts yes they're gonna find that this is very good news in terms of their ability to get out the faster uh... and and for people who are anti mobile i considering the value proposition that t mobile offers versus uh... larger carriers it's it really gives you a pause as to whether user guys uh... that you should seriously considering know that i have on my primary phones currently t t uh... and ever since they've they've rolled out uh... contract free unlimited data uh... it's it's been it's been a daily fight uh... an internal struggle for me not to move t mobile because it's units it's a good deal but you know they still they still struggle with spectrum certain key areas uh... new york uh... in particular i've heard many complaints from new yorkers about you know uh... failed calls and and what not i think that metro pcs is really gonna help boost their their own their uh... portfolio in in those places so this is good news can we just have like a team wide policy for the entire virgin box team for everybody to just switch t mobile and support the good guys i'm seriously considering you know just switching on on moral grounds but it turns out that you know i need to use my phone uh... hand i mean i don't know but i i need to i've got a i think about the more you need to see what the situation is like out here again because what it's good it's great especially there is just the a stuff uh... and so they can if they can actually pull up the doing us of this before then yeah totally willing to switch away from the t t because the worst man uh... as bad as uh... as eighteen t is uh... at t mobile is is almost non-existent so yeah i'm not going to stick with the t t for now so chris when are we when can we expect like actual real world customer like effects of this merger like is it like am i gonna we're gonna see all hey they bought a few pcs and the very next day boom they've got a bunch of l t and signals great in the race that's not happen right well they are so uh... in terms of the the road map for integrating metro pcs customers that still kind of up in the air they've committed to decommissioning metro pcs is cdm a network by twenty fifty i think uh... and you know obviously they're going to do what they need to do to get people who go over uh... today just be an l t networks but uh... uh... they are in fact we we wrote a story on this uh... they they have committed uh... to rolling out uh... the initial t markets this month and there are only what eleven days or something left in the month twelve days so uh... we're gonna start to see this l t return on really really quickly uh... and they're gonna start with the markets uh... where they've reformed their nineteen hundred uh... from edge to u m t s and they have been initially did that to to bring on the you know to make the iphone the unlike that on a more appealing proposition and i think they have a total of maybe forty five or fifty markets where they've done that so far are including any large ones uh... so those are going to be the first markets where uh... l t is is possible because a w s is opened up uh... for those l t year waves uh... so it'll be very interesting to see which of the first markets to go live in we were initially expecting uh... this was back in january when you're at c yes we heard rumors spark by none other than team alone ct o that uh... that uh... las vegas would go live they usually wanted to be live in time for for c yes that didn't happen but then it's not like we have a good at the end of january that never happened uh... but now this is finally gonna happen and they've already started rolling out this from work day to the note to us that those people to feel a take advantage right away cms trucking is uh... of those conversation is not of the highest relevance to the european audience essentially probably even less relevant to ru people in the u s and having heard what they had to say because we we took a market for a token big cities right so the first who's been a fit for this role out i'm going to people who already have a t options from horizon eighty-eight uh... progress print uh... and see mobile is just going to be catching up on those fronts is kind of disappointing that you guys don't have more of a controlling states in government it is from the carriers and just so that okay these guys have l t leaving with a t t to suffer and to be yet so this is the whole whatever going to be of the guys because not everybody's in cities and i think you're at home we can address i mean the other thing is the guys who are out of the countryside probably need empty a lot more well i thought i could say to for a sense credit that uh... between its initial role out of the seven hundred megahertz l t and then is follow-up with its a w s spectrum uh... using l t e that it plans have ninety percent of the population covered with l t e by the and of twenty fourteen so uh... all of the carriers and i know he t t as well is is moving full force into getting their customers are their coverage maps off of the three g services and onto l t e so i mean for eyes and is is way ahead of the enterprise and sister far ahead uh... but i mean they they are all all trying to get there i guess you could say when it comes to you uh... so we've got a whole bunch of stuff we want to talk about c tens going on sale horizon march twenty eighth their new excitement also videos who was the thing ever uh... whatever uh... blackberries talking on d is that time and arms are a little bit and did not i will see i mean i don't know that's and say that it's that's pretend to be excited about this book well well i don't know that the day before that bruh uh... verizon and uh... or the day of that rising announced pre-orders uh... blackberry and i'm said it sold one million z tends to aids uh... spitter a uh... mystery customer i guess you could say cuz they would not say who it was x's uh... by the way a exclusive scoop i know that the that mystery customer uh... was it was a michael as a redis uh... no i i heard it first folks so uh... so actually we should talk about uh... via the provocative comments yet made by torsten heinz yesterday uh... regarding uh... apples uh... five you quote unquote five-year-old user interface and while he does have uh... appoints infected or wrote about it at the launch of the iphone five uh... i don't think i mean he is literally the attempt to comedy arm wrote about this yesterday and i were talking about this and and what what i told him is that uh... you know kinds of literally just now walking he's in like the foyer of the glass house and he's like standing on the front lawn yes yes he's trying to leave the glass house and he's getting some resistance the weather isn't very nice outside uh... and everybody's got all these rocks and he can't wait to throw them and literally he's just inches outside this this class house of his and and he's in serious danger of hitting the house so yeah yeah it's and you know if i i i get that that he he feels i'm sure that he feels cornered he feels the need to be both defensive and offensive uh... and uh... you know it's it's just it i'm i can't imagine that he didn't know that this is going to generate some some backlash and some some humorous internet humor on the fact that that remit room should be the one to talk about an aging u uh... i get you know he he listed his big mistake from the start was to refrain from making such comments because now and this is rain well the company formerly known as friend factory uh... when it announces that ten at the day of the event it's you can't uh... what what it's units it's you can't start your pain marketing chief disempowered use uh... and also those in himself was it was doing some interviews and they'll be lost the question what hasn't worked out why is blackberry for the most of the times what about the i thought and they just refused to answer those questions and uh... it was just kind of here is train wreck watching that your european marketing chief over those interviews they would ask him what went wrong in the past you just refused to answer and the trouble is when the company's being so conservative and just refusing to do any trash talk the first time something that even kind of he's in the evening of trash talk it was a hint of trash talk or competitive language whatever everybody's up in a is like oh here it is he shows a fight shows the is that you said was in the end if you was uh... something like the media c l goes on stage with biking jackets and uh... you know as orange skin from cool or the fake tanning that he does and just says was free just a instant and i can't find a dozen is that confirmed as he takes care not sure it's a real with him he he he he goes to the freaking equates as a guest and i don't know the man is eccentric that's the point if you have this personality somebody's going to say crazy things and say something uh... controversial people might know you might just let us live but we told him he's been straight for so long that the ones and he freaking comments of the i thought i think it's going to be really reasonable uh... like it is point about history repeats itself is uh... we suffered because we didn't change for a long time apple might do the same if it doesn't change right i think a reasonable comments if they rational they justifiable comments but now everybody's picking up on them and just kind of a lot of people blowing them out of proportion as far as i'm concerned well a lot of people seem to be focusing on under the other half that statement where he says that the iphone's interfaces is five years old which is it's technically six well i mean i just mean it is which is it just a factual statement but but it is that the heat generated this is what you need to understand stating about the people state facts uh... speed affects regard for like our twenty years or anything else is just really want to hit the we want to talk about anything else here from our i'm going to check the features and i'm i'm very happy and said at the same time the genealogy and update just why you said by so that if you didn't hear that you can now what you hear your it and archive functions on in gmail all the time and you can only have one or the other in the notification so that's that's a bummer right there the other bummer is you cannot market email is read from the notification you can't are guided directly from the rotation but it's still marked on red uh... in your gmail account and that's totally fine that's totally fine like i use the search operators for unread emails all the time uh... and and that would be just screw me up all over the place why doesn't it if i'm or got the white is the market is right issues thank you it's a mission but uh... also your complaint is invalid at the the andrew and gmail is so far ahead of anything else for handling and triage and i mean this this notification thing my god nobody has ever thought of the leading the other notification before it's never couple weight that's right well as one point it but i are going to be a pro-hat to say that the yes i was happy at that no i have a i have my uh... my very first period where account dedicated to me said the years have and one of the oil is where it happened but that that that that that that that but i can't be seen on that leaders have is really important capitalized each not yes just but i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i uh... that uh... and you're going to have ladies and gentlemen thank you so much for watching the verbal show it's been a speaking to you and speaking with my my fellow co-hosts if you are a follow us on twitter you can i am at back on and or at the years have currently but as well as some of dennis d c c for chris is the power of all at first you leave a comment on the post that this show appears on uh... you can email us at some of the show at the workshop com and will be back when we're back and it'll be excited expats cd

It's Monday, March 18th, 2013. I'm Josh Tapolsky, also known as the Other JT, and this is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Mercedes-Benz. Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitello is stepping down. Riccitello's departure comes as EA faces a massive backlash for the disastrous launch of SimCity. The game became virtually unplayable when EA's servers weren't able to keep up with demand. Former EA CEO Larry Probst will be taking the reins while the company looks for a replacement. Google, Evernote, could they be competitors? Maybe. According to Android police, who technically don't have jurisdiction in this area, a service called Google Keep briefly went live on Google Drive. It let users add notes, pictures, and build checklists. The name also popped up in a Google Plus post last year, which indicated that Keep might include the ability to save articles for reading later, putting it up against the likes of Instapaper and Pocket, and that drawer in your house where you put all newspapers because you think you're gonna read them later. And finally, Reddit has launched its first original video series. Explain Like I'm Five is an educational comedy series based on one of the sites a user created subreddits. It features different hosts explaining complex political and philosophical issues to children, like, you know, like they're five. The first episodes tackle issues like volatility in the stock market, the crisis in Syria, and existentialism through the lens of Friedrich Nietzsche. Funding for the show is being provided by YouTube, and Reddit is looking at other subreddits that might be good for show material. Here's my suggestion, Creepshot. Tune in tomorrow when I'll grow luxurious long hair, get an eye patch, and break into a post-apocalyptic New York to rescue Donald Pleasance. Should be kind of amazing.

It's March 15th, 2013. I'm Andy Notko with the Chicago Sun-Times and this is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. If cool Gmail clients getting snapped up wasn't a trend before, it is now. Dropbox has purchased the company behind Mailbox, the iPhone app launched just over a month ago to critical acclaim and an extremely long waiting list. The app won't be going away, however. Instead, the Mailbox team is joining Dropbox to develop it even further. And the company has hinted there's some clever Dropbox file attachment integration on the way. This probably means you won't have to wait that much longer to get on that waiting list. Maybe. Unveiling the Galaxy S4 wasn't enough for Samsung. They also announced two new CEOs. Company presidents JK Shin and Boo Kun-Yoon will be joining the current CEO. Yes, that's three CEOs in total. The move will let Samsung's three major divisions, mobile, TVs, and components, each have their own representative at the top of the company. Hey, worked great for research in motion. And finally, Ridley Scott, Harrison Ford, and you weren't the only people who hated the voiceover in Blade Runner. A page of scathing screening notes for the sci-fi classic recently surfaced on Reddit. In them, producer Jerry Perenchio writes, quote, why is this voiceover track so terrible? Hopefully this is not being dubbed in. He sounds drugged. Were they all on drugs when they did this? Typical. He probably hates unicorns, too. That's it for today's top stories. Join us tomorrow with a sneak peek at CBS's latest hit sitcom, Two Broke Drones.

Welcome to The Verge Live, I'm your host Ross Miller, Senior Editor for The Verge. Just minutes ago, Samsung wrapped up its Galaxy S4 launch event, and as always, we are here to provide a minute-by-minute detailed analysis breakdown of that event and all the news. But first, here's the Galaxy S4. Hey guys, it's David at The Verge, and this is the Samsung Galaxy S4, it's a brand new flagship phone from Samsung. So the first thing you notice is that it's not actually that different from the Galaxy S3. It has kind of the same design ID, the same even feel in your hand, it's a little slimmer, a little lighter, but basically the same kind of feel. There are a bunch of things that are different though, the screen is bigger, it's a 5-inch, 1080p Super AMOLED display, and it has a pentile pixel layout which we don't love, but the screen looks great, and it's super high res and really shouldn't cause any problems. It's also more powerful than ever, it has the Exynos 5 processor, and either comes with that or a Qualcomm chip depending on the region you're in. It comes with 16, 32, or 64 gigs of internal storage, plus a microSD slot, and it's coming with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, which is the latest version of Android, and not a lot of phones launch with that, which is pretty exciting. Samsung's trying to do a lot of crazy software things, and they really need power to pull it off. So one of the big things Samsung talked about is the camera. There's a 13 megapixel camera on the back of the phone, and a 2 megapixel camera on the front, and that allows them to do a lot of different things. One is this dual shot mode, where you can actually see the front and rear cameras at the same time. And they brought some of the Galaxy camera modes to this device as well, so it's definitely their most powerful camera ever, we'll have to test it out more to see how it actually does. There's all kinds of wild software stuff on this phone, and you can see just from all the things you have to enable or disable that there's a lot going on here. One of the big things is called Air Gesture, and basically what it lets you do is swipe through photos or scroll in your web browser without ever actually touching the phone. So you can just scroll right through all your photos without having to touch, and you can do the same in a web browser, or you can scroll through your tabs, and it's kind of a gimmicky thing but it does seem to work relatively well, and it's cool if your hands are dirty or wet or what have you. There's also Air View, which I think is even cooler. So in the browser, without actually touching the screen, you just sort of hover over it, and then you can pick what you want to see. And even Flipboard has done some things with it so that you can hover over it and see stories within a particular section without ever actually having to touch it. One of the biggest things, and sort of the most surprising from Samsung, is S Health. They love putting S in front of things, and they're basically trying to replace Fitbit and the FuelBand and all these different things. So there's a pedometer and a temperature and humidity gauge inside this phone, and it'll actually track your steps as you walk, or it'll track your heart rate via a device that works with Bluetooth, or it'll track the temperature and humidity, and it'll tell you all these things about kind of how you're doing over time. You can see, you know, we're in kind of an ugly hotel room, so the surroundings are poor, and you can track the food that you're eating, and all this different stuff. So it's all built into here, and they're selling some add-on accessories as well, and it's just a pretty clever thing. It seems like something that should have been built into your phone forever ago, and it's going to be interesting to see how this works. There's also Group Play. Samsung loves doing things that involve lots of their different phones, and in Group Play, you can set music or photos or documents or what have you to all of the different phones at the same time, and it'll sync music so you can listen as a group. And again, we've seen a lot of these features on Samsung devices before, and they're kind of gimmicky, and we don't necessarily use them a lot, but they're relatively clever features. So there's also an IR blaster inside the device, which lets you use this to control your TV in your whole home theater, and they use some of the same technology they've used before. They're using Peel's TV Guide, so you can see kind of what's on TV and flip through and use it to actually control your set-top box, and there's on-demand content and all this stuff that you can watch on your phone and then push straight to your TV. It's kind of approximating AirPlay plus a bunch of extra TV Guide functionality, and it's pretty cool on other devices and is a smart thing to have here. So that's really it. This phone's going to be out on all four major U.S. carriers in the second quarter of this year. It's going to be on some regional carriers and be all over the world. There's no word on pricing yet except to say that it's going to be a very premium phone. And this is definitely Samsung's flagship device going forward, and that is the Samsung Galaxy S4. Joining me now is Chris Ziegler. Basically he ran point for the entire Verge news staff today. Chris, how are you doing? Besides the fact that I need a beer and a cigarette and a nap, I'm doing quite all right. How about you, Russ? You've got 10 minutes, you can do all that. Doing just fine. I just want to get your reaction to the event. You basically watched it streaming like I did. I did? I thought you did. Did you just watch the live blog? No, no, I did. I did. That was a statement, not a question. Oh, fine, fine. Well, so what's your reaction to the event? Well I think that this phone is basically what we expected given the leaks and the teases leading up to the event. It was a very iterative device. In fact, you know the site right now, we have a great editorial slash report up from our own Vlad Savov on the fact that this is very much emulating Apple's well-known TikTok strategy of releases where they do a major redesign followed by a minor update. I think that's what the 4 is compared to the 3. The 3 was a major shift from the 2, but the 4 is basically the 3S and that's exactly what Vlad calls it. The Galaxy S3S. Well, it doesn't roll off the tongue. I want to go over some of the specs though. So it's a 5-inch 1080p Super AMOLED, is that correct? That's right. Okay. It's also got a Samsung Exynos 5 or a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro. Why the difference? Well, I don't know if you remember, but last year we saw, and really two years ago as well, we saw similar things where in North America they'd release usually a Qualcomm chip and then internationally they'd release a different chip either from Nvidia or Samsung, both with HTC and with Samsung. And the reason for that is that Qualcomm, well, we don't know with this phone specifically, but typically the reason has been that when a chip maker releases a new chip and that chip maker is not named Qualcomm, they need to do some work to integrate Qualcomm's LTE modems or other companies' LTE modems that frankly isn't done yet. But Qualcomm has already done that work with S4 Pro. So they release those devices since they need LTE, LTE is basically a requirement on all carriers in the US now. So they have to use a Qualcomm chip in the US and then internationally they use whatever chip they want. But Samsung is one of the biggest chip makers in the industry. Why haven't they figured this out yet? I think it's that they're taking a worldview. I mean, they kind of have to, we've long heard that carriers favor Qualcomm modems in the US anyway. And it was only recently that Nvidia released an LTE integrated Tegra chip. And I think that Samsung is kind of in the same boat where they figure that they can attack everywhere except North America with their chip. They can sort of hobble along. And I shouldn't even say hobble along. The S4 Pro is a really good chip. It's just not a Samsung chip. But they can release that in North America and then maybe down the road they can switch over. Notably, HTC did that last year with the One X Plus. The original One X used a Qualcomm chip in North America and a Tegra 3 elsewhere. By the time the X Plus came around, which was in fall of last year, they had figured out the LTE thing with Tegra 3. So they re-released it in North America with a Tegra 3 instead of the Qualcomm chip. So what you're basically saying is we're going to have the Galaxy S4s or the Galaxy S3s Plus. We just might. We just might. A couple of things I want to talk about. We have the, it launches with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. It's actually kind of a rarity these days. Yeah, the HTC One, which was announced, what, three weeks ago, I think? And actually I have one in my hands now, right here. This was announced with 4.1, which is kind of sad for HTC considering how long 4.2 has been out. But it's, I mean, this is an age-old complaint, right? I think since version 1.6 of Android we've been complaining about how long it takes to get upgrades. So yeah, the fact that Samsung was able to release this on 4.2 is good. And I think that it's probably telling that they are a little tighter with Google than HTC is. Not to say they're super tight. I think it's widely understood at this point that Samsung is kind of trying to create its own ecosystem outside of the Google-blessed Android proper. But still, I think that they have a better relationship with Google. And they have access to those updates pretty early on. If you remember, I think it was at I.O. last year, Google talked about how they were offering these Android updates to major OEMs early, these close partners early. I think that Samsung is one of those partners. Is it just Samsung then? I mean, clearly they have a leg up on this than everyone else. No LG phone, no Sony phone, no HTC phone. They've all pretty much announced major devices recently. Samsung's the only one that's gotten 4.2.2 at launch, though. I think that speaks to Samsung's size and the fact that Google is completely unable to ignore what Samsung is doing, just like Apple is. We've seen Apple go on a trash-talking spree the past 24 hours. They've been shopping Phil Schiller around to different news outlets. And so I think that's just the reality. Samsung is large enough. They have enough scale so that they have those advantages. And it wouldn't surprise me if they had access to 4.2 before anyone else outside Google. I really wouldn't be surprised at all. That makes sense. I do want to talk about the Apple thing, though. You did mention that they've been shopping Phil Schiller around. He's made a lot of great statements lately, great being biting. It's always fun to watch corporations fight each other. But I do want to ask, we haven't heard any of the famous Apple rumors come up. Usually when there's a big announcement, we see hints of a new iPhone, a new iPad, even a watch, for example. We haven't heard anything like that. Right. And I think we have a report on that up on our front page right now. You can check it out. But basically, I think what it comes down to is that Apple is in this weird part of their product cycle where they literally don't have anything that they could have leaked to take the spotlight off of the Galaxy S4. They may have been able to say something about the iPad or leak something to the journal, for instance. But that's still kind of not germane to what today's announcement was, obviously. And I think the next iPhone is still far enough out so that it isn't solidified enough so that they can leak something that would garner enough interest, generate enough buzz to really pull eyeballs away from the Galaxy S4. So the alternative was to shop Phil Schiller around and have him say really mean things about Android and about Samsung. And that's exactly what happened. Right. It just seems weird. They're almost like on the defensive. They're not actually hinting at new products. They're just going out against the competition. This is not the style we're used to, I guess. Right. Yeah. It's a very, very blatant recognition that Samsung has become too large and too powerful for Apple to just go about their business and ignore them. And you're right. It does kind of look like a sign of weakness. I always go back to Google's Maps event. I think it was last May, maybe, where they called every journalist in the world out to Mountain View around the same time that Apple was doing their own version of Maps. Google called everyone out to Mountain View for a Maps event where they announced literally nothing. They just basically wanted to call everybody out to say, hey, check out Google Maps. And everybody perceived it as this huge sign of weakness and sign of fear from Google over what Apple could do with Maps. And of course, that fear ended up being completely unfounded. But that's what it smelled like to me when I first saw Schiller make those comments to the journal last night. Right. Now, I do want to ask you one thing. You've been doing big reports on wearables. You seem to be the expert on this, basically, on the verge about that. Are you wearing a watch right now? You're wearing a watch right now. I've got my Nike Fuel band, which is pretty much kind of a dumb phone equivalent of that. I do want to ask, though, Samsung is not seeming to go after the phone market. They have this kind of Health S-band thing, spand, whatever you want to call it. That's basically all we're seeing. Do you think Samsung's going to hit that field, or why are they avoiding it? I think that given Samsung's philosophy, the way Samsung does business, it's inevitable that they will eventually – if the smartwatch field picks up enough steam, I think it's inevitable that they will come to market with one. Actually, interestingly, I don't have the name of it, but it's probably seven or eight years ago, they did a GSM watch that you could actually buy. It was a real thing. It wasn't compatible with U.S. bands. But the point being, Samsung is not a complete stranger to the idea of a smart wearable. I think we could definitely see them return to that. Certainly if Apple comes out with an iWatch, as they're widely expected to at this point, Samsung will definitely come out with one like six to 12 months later. Basically an S-watch. A swatch. A swatch. They can't call it a swatch. That's the one time they can't use S. They can't. Chris, I'm going to let you go in a second. Just one last question. We're now seeing basically all the big companies come out with their flagships, the Xperia Z, the HTC One, the Galaxy S4. Which is the one to get right now? Or when they all come out at least? We saw our Xperia Z and our One reviews go up this week. I think that the Z has some pretty serious shortcomings that prevent us from giving it our seal of approval, particularly in software. Sony is not known for its software chops in Android. I think that the Z is no exception, unfortunately. The One, having played with it for the past 24 hours here, I have to agree with David's assessment that the hardware is incredible. It might be the best looking and feeling phone ever. That's saying something considering that I have an iPhone 5 sitting right next to me and I've played with basically every phone made in the past decade. So I think that you could feel very good about buying a One in the next few weeks. The only reason that I can see to choose a Galaxy S4 over the One is that, A, the Galaxy S4 is probably going to ultimately be available on more carriers than the One just because of Samsung's reach and pull with carriers. And two, if you're just completely obsessed with bells and whistles, the Galaxy S4 is going to win on that count, just like the Galaxy S3 did. Tonight we saw so many weird and wacky features get introduced into the platform, like the air gestures and all this ridiculousness. So if that really draws you in, that's something that HTC just can't win on. But if you're looking for the best feeling and looking phone on the market, I think it's going to be the One. All right, Chris, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. So we're going to go to the show now. Actually right here, special magic right here. David Pierce. I just appeared out of the floor. Out of complete nothingness. It's a remarkable talent I have. It's pretty awesome, I got to say. Samsung taught me how with the Galaxy S4. Oh, is this the S-apparition? S-apparition. S-apparition. David, thanks for joining us. Thanks for running right back after what a weird, I wish I could be censored kind of show right now. It was a scene. It really was. I don't even know how to describe it. It was, so we had this Qualcomm event at CES, which just veered into this almost like surreal territory. This didn't quite get there, but it was. It was pretty close. It was, it was close. It really was. I mean, we were watching from the stream, and it's just, it was insane the amount of like Broadway bravado. I think it's not even like Broadway. It was like these kind of off-Broadway hackneyed, I mean, I don't want to say they're hackneyed actors, but they're definitely really getting into it. It seemed like, so we were, as we were walking back, Jordan, our video producer said, he was like, they must have just come up in casting and been like, you know what we need is a Neil Patrick Harris character. So they found like the best Neil Patrick Harris impersonator they could find for, you know, $75 and then got him. And he got up there, and it was just, it was the strangest, I don't know, they like, they showed up the phone, and it was a pretty normal presentation. Right. And then they were like, all right, that took 20 minutes. Let's put on a play. I actually. Because we're in Radio City Music Hall. I actually kind of panicked. I thought they were ending after 30 minutes. Like, okay, they announced the phone. They got some of the key details out of the way. And they're saying thank you and goodbye. And the guy's walking off. But no. Which honestly would have been awesome. It would have been great. Like, as somebody who has sat through way too many two and a half hour long events, if they had just gone in, then like, here's a phone, see you later. I would have, like, I would have stood up and cheered. It would have been amazing. But this is like, this is borderline hubris on Samsung's part. They've gotten, they've had so much success, like, with these outlandish commercials and ad campaigns and some of the events too. I mean, hubris is Samsung's thing. It's how they separate themselves. I mean, they don't care. Shubris. They don't care if you make a better phone than they do. They're going to sell so many more of them because their commercials are better. And even if they're not better, there's so many more of them that eventually you're just going to be beaten into submission and you're going to buy a Samsung phone. All right, now let's actually, let's talk about that. So they're going to sell these phones no matter what. And it's arguably, they didn't really try to do much different this time around. No, so I mean, it's, on the one hand, I kind of forgive them for that because why would they change things? Like, this phone, the Galaxy S3 sold like crazy. And people love it and it's become, it's the only phone I would say I see as many of, like, out in the world in New York City as I do the iPhone. Right. And it used to be the iPhone and then you'd be like, oh, that's a Kindle Fire. Or like, you'd debate what phone it was. And now it's, the Galaxy S3 is on that level. So I have a confession to make. I used to commute from the L train and I would see a dude, even recently, I would see him carry the Blackberry tablet. Bold. He's using it. He's not bold. Not ready to be bold yet. No, but so I think, on the one hand, Samsung feels like they got it right in a lot of ways. And I think they did get it right in a lot of ways. But they also, Samsung's whole thing is like, let's have things that Apple can't do or doesn't do. And if you look at their commercials, all of their marketing is, it's not about their hardware necessarily. It's not about LTE. And like, all these things are, they have kind of league average to above average stuff. And then they just pile on these features that they're like, look at this nifty thing that the iPhone can't do. And like this phone, the Galaxy S4, it gives great demo. Like it's, it gives great demo. That's the quote you're going to use. Yeah, it does. And like they go through and they're like, look, I just did this with my hand and it went through my pictures. And eventually you're like, yeah, that's actually kind of cool. I could see how I'd use that. And like, I don't know if you would or not, but this phone, like on a store shelf as the guy in the Verizon store walks you around is going to seem super compelling. Right. So like, I'm going to, I want to talk about all this stuff you saw at the hands on demo, but first we've got the Galaxy S3 here. We've got the Galaxy Note 2. So basically the S4 is just somewhere in the middle. It's not even really. It's basically the same size as the Galaxy S3. They shrunk the bezels a little bit. So the phone is, the screen is bigger, but the space around it is a little smaller. So basically just same size. It's yeah. And it's a little, it's a tiny bit taller, but it's actually lighter and thinner. So it like to hold it, like if I held both in my hands and close my eyes, it would legitimately be difficult to tell which is which. Because it's not actually, that's not a bad size. No, it's really not. It's good to hear. And it was, I was, I was really impressed. Like we saw some of the leaks. The phone looks enormous and they must've had like a four year old holding this phone because it looked gigantic. Right. But as it is, it's, it's really no harder to use. Like all these phones are difficult to use in one hand, but it's really, it doesn't feel as big as a phone like the Xperia Z feels. It's pretty well suited for a size like this. I've also got the HTC One with me here too, which is about, you know, it's about the same size. How would you compare this? You actually reviewed this phone as well. So I like this phone a lot. And on the hardware front, there's just no comparison. The One is, is aluminum and put together and has this kind of fit and finish that the Galaxy S4 just doesn't. And Samsung doesn't care. Like they've, they've, honestly they've made it abundantly clear that they don't care. They're like, our hardware is good enough and everybody has dinged them for having plasticky backs and they keep making, like they don't care. Right. But their bet is that most people don't care and sales kind of seem to bear that out. Like most people want a phone with a big screen and a nice screen that like has these cool features and runs the apps that I want. And this real choosing between like really nice hardware and pretty good hardware doesn't seem to factor in for that many people. But you're mostly just talking about the industrial side. The internals seem pretty good and the camera seems great. So one thing Samsung is great at is, is building these like bleeding edge phones. And the S4 is very much that. It has, it either has a Samsung processor or a Qualcomm processor depending on where you are. And either one is really powerful. It comes with two gigs of RAM and like Samsung doesn't skimp on the power in its phones. And like we've seen a little bit of even sort of pre-production software but was just blistering fast and they have this camera thing that shows the front and back camera at the same time and you can take pictures and video. And it's super responsive. It works perfectly. And I want to ask you that. It always puts a little stamp of your face on it? So there are a bunch of different templates. One is like the postage stamp. Others make it look like you're like on a Safari. There's all these different ways you can do it to kind of embed. It's just basically different frames around that. What is the other use case or scenario for this? I have no idea. And this is the thing. Like honestly the impression I get from this event is that Samsung has this great list of features. Right? And you look and you run down the list and you're like these are all cool things. I want all of these. And some of them you may end up using but most of them are things that you're like, huh, this is nifty and then basically forget exists. And I remember a long time ago I was meeting with somebody from Sony and they were telling me about the difference between buying behavior and using behavior. And their point was that people buy phones for a certain set of reasons and like them for a totally different set of reasons. And so for them, I forget what it was in their particular case, but they were talking about like people walk in and they're like, oh, this has more megapixels on the camera. I'll buy that because it has more megapixels. And like that ultimately makes no practical difference in their life. And Samsung has just nailed that game. Right? So they have all these things where like the gestures, you do it and you're like, that seems cool. And then another phone doesn't do it and you're like, oh, that's a shame it doesn't do it. And like you get to a dozen of those over the course of using these two different phones and you're like, well, what can the iPhone do? And whether or not those actually add up to something you'll use in real life, I don't know. I think some of them are cool. Like I actually, I kind of get the gesture thing a little bit. Let's actually get into that a little bit because I watched the hands on. Obviously I just saw this weird event. I'm still not 100% sure how that works or how actually effective it is. So well, so there are four different kind of weird interaction things that Samsung's done. There's smart pause and smart scroll, I think they're called, which basically are designed to they follow your eyes. And if you're watching the phone and if I'm watching a movie and then I look away, it's designed to pause the movie. And then when I come back, it'll play the movie again. And that seems to work, but I actually think is sort of useless because a lot of like it would be annoying if I'm like sitting on a train and I look up and then my movie pauses and then I have to come back and wait a second for it to pick up. I just, I don't want that. The scrolling is designed to basically follow your eyes and move the page with your eyes so you can read comfortably. Okay, that sounds really cool. So like, does it actually work like when you're looking at the top of the screen, does it scroll up when you're like in the middle, does it stay focused? So I have to kind of give Samsung the benefit of the doubt. So I saw a model this morning that just straight up didn't work. Okay. So I did this really funny thing where I would look, I would read down the bottom and then I would wait and I would wait and I'd still be looking down at the bottom and then it would just snap to the bottom of the page and be like, that's not what I wanted. And then I would have to scroll back up. So better question. Can you turn that off? But then Dan Seifert, who was also at the event with us, went and did it and looked at it and said it worked great. So I'll give Samsung the benefit of the doubt here and say they pulled it off. So then there's gestures, which let you do things like you can scroll a web page just by going like this or you can scroll through photos by swiping left to right. And stuff like that I get for, you know, they said something about it during one of their scenes at the event and they were like, oh, my nails are wet or my hands are dirty. And like honestly, I kind of get that. I have a lot of times where like, you know, people talk about how we use our phones and tablets for cooking in the kitchen. It's like my hands are dirty and I can just go like that. Like that's pretty cool. Like for some of it depends on how far away it is though. Like that's what I'm kind of curious about because for the hover stuff, it was like, yeah, you have to finger right on it. Like that's no, but the hovering or the gestures rather you you can be like a foot away. It's a pretty comfortable distance like between you and where you're holding the phone and you just swipe over it. Is it just using the cameras like the camera always looking at you? It seems to be. Okay. There there. Yeah, the front facing camera is like Samsung's favorite thing to harness to do cool stuff. And I guess you need to make apps that actually use this stuff or is like is this something that's actually built on the system level to know? So it's Samsung's not clear on a lot of that stuff, which is difficult because a lot of the cool features that they have, even going back to some of their older devices where they have like the split screen stuff where you can see two apps at once, which is that's even still here. They didn't mention it at all. And I don't think so because they want to keep the note as kind of this productivity device and between the note two and the note eight and now the note 10.1 those are kind of the get stuff done devices. And these are more sort of normal in line with other flagship devices. I don't know. A five inch phone just clearly you can't do anything done on it. It's tiny. Basically not even a screen. Like you can't. I can't see anything. Okay. So all in all though, you've played with it. What was your feel? Is it the best phone out there to get for an Android device? I mean obviously we haven't reviewed it. But it is coming out Q2. It's the phone to say don't buy anything yet. Wait for us. Do you feel like that's the safe thing to do? Well so on the one hand I think we actually have a really interesting competition for the first time in a pretty long time because it looks like the HTC One is going to come out on all these different carriers. So Samsung's biggest advantage was that they got to this point where people just walked into a store and were like I want a Galaxy phone. And that was just what there was to buy because every carrier had it. You knew what was going on. And it became like the de facto Android phone. And HTC can kind of get into that because they're on all these carriers. And HTC if they can market the device right and get some real momentum they can do it. But I think we're also at this kind of exciting place where all of these phones are good. Like the Xperia Z for all its weaknesses is a good powerful fast phone that you can also like throw in the toilet and it's fine. That's a true story. The One has great hardware but has some issues with the camera. Samsung has typically done a much better job with the camera and they're really focused on it again this time. Which if they pull it off could be a huge differentiator. It's like the Lumia 920 and really the iPhone 5 are the only two cameras in my mind that are great as smartphone cameras. And if the Galaxy S4 can get in there that's a big win for them because they become kind of the one Android phone with a great camera. If they can pull that off. And just for the shameless plug we did just do like the best smartphone cameras out right now. And Michael Shane agreed with me. And Michael Shane agreed with you. One of our best photographers on staff. It was the Lumia 920 or the iPhone. We did it on top shelf which you can see every Thursday. No but I think the Galaxy S4 is probably going to remain the de facto Android phone. And it's because Samsung has done a lot of really good things. They've done a lot of things right. And they've done some really smart UI things that make the phone easier to use and more understandable in a way that HTC hasn't and Sony hasn't. And I think you're going to see this on shelves everywhere. They're going to market it like crazy. And I think people are going to start buying this and I'm going to end up seeing it basically on the subway just like the Galaxy S3. And then I'm going to look and be like is that the Galaxy S3 or is that the S4? And no one will know. And that's where we'll be. All right then. Great, great. Well, I think I can do this flip side. I literally keep looking at that thinking it's the Galaxy S4 and I'm like how did we get one? And then it's not. It's the S3. I do like this form factor though. That's the thing. But we have this great advantage of like we get to see all these phones side by side and be like this is pretty. But then people are going to pick that up because that's going to be the first phone that the guy at the Verizon store recommends to you because everybody else bought it. And you're going to be like oh this feels nice and works well and I'm going to buy it. Right. Actually I'm going to say random tangent because I was going through I was looking for all these phones and all the different variations of Samsung Galaxy S2 which back then you forgot. You forget I forgot at least. They were just different by the carrier. Yeah there were like 140 million different Galaxy S2 phones. And then there was like the Blaze which was also a Galaxy S2 and then there was like a Galaxy S2 3 and then like the 4G. It was it was well played on the Samsung part. That reminds me I actually wanted to talk about Vlad's editorial that just went up. The Galaxy S3s. Do you think it's fair? I mean it's yeah I really do. I think it's the it's the tick tock strategy that Apple has really pioneered and pulled off and they made it work where people are on two year upgrade cycles. And it's just it's just kind of in a way dumb at this point to continue to reinvent the wheel every year. Like we're going to run out of things to do and we're going to you're going to lose your customers every time. You're going to make people feel like they have this incredibly outdated phone but they can't buy it because their contract's not up. And they've so Samsung has adopted the same strategy and I think that is what this phone is. It's it's faster. It has a bigger screen. It has you know some new tricks and software but fundamentally it's it's the same idea. It's the same idea the same features like it's it's going to feel like the same phone. So if I have a Galaxy S3 I don't have particular you know upgrade envy right now but if I have a Galaxy S2 suddenly it's a no brainer. No I do want I do want to talk about it. So it seems like Apple and Samsung are the only ones right now who can do this kind of what they call a tick tock formula. Tick being the 4, tock being the 4S. Why not? Is HTC also trying to find its first tick? If this is a hit will we see the 1S like in a year from now or something like that? Well not the 1S. Hold that. No I mean I think what Samsung did which is what Apple did is really corner this market. I mean we've heard Google say they're worried about how much Samsung has cornered the Android market and like it's impossible to underestimate or to overestimate rather how significant Samsung's brand is in that world. And it used to be years ago that people would walk into a store and they'd either buy an iPhone or a droid right. So Motorola had the droid and they dominated that for a long time and it's now it's a Galaxy instead of a droid. People buy those phones now and it gives Samsung this leeway to say like there's a good chance you already own a Samsung phone. Whether it was a Galaxy S2 which they flooded the market with a million things two years ago or a 3 from a few months ago. The 4 is coming out now. It's like Samsung has this giant market share and they can they can make a case for all the different features. It feels like they're coming out with stuff over every every other manufacturer especially the iPhone. So they're going to try and woo you away like one device at a time. Right. All right. Well David thank you so much. My pleasure. When are we getting one? I stole 400 of them. So the reviews are tomorrow. I'm actually wanted now in the state of New York. No no. So hopefully we'll get the reviews soon. It's in Q2. Right. So the premium price. It's going to start being out. It's going to be out in April 1st around the world. But they haven't made any specific US announcements. It'll be on all four carriers plus some of the regional carriers. And it'll be yeah they called it a premium Samsung price. So it'll be you know one hundred ninety nine dollars unlocked. They're not doing a three hundred dollar phone anymore. They might. I'd be I'd be shocked. But yeah and it's it's going to be this spring and basically don't buy a Galaxy S3 until then. All right David thank you so much. My pleasure. We're going to cut to really quickly. We've got some highlights from the event. Oh dear. So sorry. Stay tuned. Enjoy that and we'll be back with Nila Patel. Ladies and gentlemen the Samsung Galaxy S4. I'm sorry honey. I'll get the Galaxy S4 after the presentation. Yeah. On the other hand Patrick does have an S4 so he can take amazing shots of his son Jeremy as he gets ready for his first tap dance recital. You're up next honey. Boy am I nervous. Oh you're going to do just fine. I want to get some backstage footage. Now if you're like me you have 800 pictures of your mom and like two of your dad because dad always took the pictures. Our family videos look like a movie about a single mother. Well all that's about to change. What if I'm watching a movie then switch to playing a game? No problem. And what if I'm reading an email and then play a game and then watch a video? Adapt, display, adjust. What if the video is about a five-legged cat? Doesn't matter what it's about. I have another album of Anna in the market. I have another album of Anna at the Falls. I'm sensing a theme. Yeah dude they're all pictures of Brazil. Okay. Oh being able to see all of his photos as soon as he takes them makes it easier having Jeff away. Being able to use my car makes it easier for him to be away. I love these pictures of Brazil. Where do you see Brazil? Behind Anna. What about the life of a New York actor? May I have my car please? Now I don't know where I'm going. I'm totally lost. That's okay. With the new Galaxy S4 you don't need a navigation system. It's all installed right there on the device. You're killing me. I found it. Here let's listen. Do you remember how we danced to this at my sweet 16? Oh I hope I remember. Are you ready for the next Galaxy? Well here it is. Whatever you're doing now, whatever you think you just experienced. I can't watch. I was there. Can't watch anymore. I saw the strangest happens in person and it changed me I have to say. You seem less bitter. Let me tell you something important about this event. It was actually really good. What? It was really good. You mean the first 30 minutes was really good and then you fell asleep. The whole thing was great and this is why. This phone is like a laundry list of features. This endless parade of stuff and all of it is really esoteric and weird. Ultimately every single feature in this phone is esoteric and weird. It's a camera that can take 100 photos in 4 seconds. That doesn't mean anything to people. But saying we're going to do a skit with actors to show it off is successful. It's not what we want to see because it's super cheesy and lame but for the thousands of people in that theater it was entertaining and demonstrated the features of the product. Let me run down a list of the weirdest stuff that you and I have done together since we started working years ago. We've seen Zool. Samsung's crazy little guy with ears. We've seen three Howard Stringer keynotes at least which is Cirque du Soleil, which is Elvis Presley's first years. But here's the difference with that stuff. So all that stuff that's just showmanship. So Dan Sing Zool has no connection to the product. All of the... He's in the product. He is the product. I mean that's Samsung invites you to their CS keynote and like the kid from Billy Elliot dances and he's the future. I forget it really was a kid from Billy Elliot. That was not what they did today. They grew up a little bit today. They talked about the phone the whole time. And there was no abstract BS about digital humanism. There was no inspired by nature. There were no blooping sounds. It was here are the features of our phone and here's the way that we have chosen to demonstrate those features. So this is total like though this be madness there's method in it. There's no beeple. There's no born mobile. This is just use our fucking phone. Right. Exactly. So that's the way they chose. Okay. So that's fine. So at the outset I would like to note that it was a gigantic improvement for Samsung. All right. Fine. It was entertaining. Like entertaining in maybe all the wrong ways but very very entertaining. But the thing is okay fine we've crossed the barrier. Now we're talking about the product. We're using the products features. The skits and the things they did to showcase the product was so silly and so like out of touch with reality. Like at the beginning they're like they showed a family and the kid was like I have a play. Oh dad your phone isn't good enough to take a photo of my play. Now what kind of like rank consumerism are you like you're like oh you should get a new phone because otherwise your kids life will suck. I kind of wonder if that is what kids are like now. I don't know. Maybe. I don't talk to kids on a regular basis or really ever. But they may be like that. They may be like look you've got the iPhone 5. That's pass. I mean probably. That's probably what kids today are like and all of you should be ashamed of yourselves. I'm just going to leave it like that. Just like still frame. You should be ashamed of yourself. No no. I mean it was just silly. It was over the top. Why was there an orchestra? At the beginning the orchestra came up out of the bottom and then it went away and then at the end they're like Ellen thank you to our orchestra. The orchestra came back. At least. Like why are you paying for an orchestra? At least there was no celebrity like cameos. There was no new creative director. There are two plot holes. Okay. There are two plot holes. Major. We have continuity issues. Major plot holes. Okay. Okay. So there's Will Chase who's an emcee. Don't know who he is. He's an actor. Very sarcastic. Then there's Ryan Biden. We know. We know for years. I love Ryan. Ryan's great. He's a buddy of mine. He's great. Used to be Blackberry. Well RIM. Then Black whatever it's called now. Yeah. RIMberry. Now it's at Samsung. He's great. So they were doing their little schtick and then all these other actors come out and at some point a woman named Vivian appeared and everyone talked about Vivian like they knew her. This is like the black glove woman. Black gloves and she was like just there to like say mean things to Will Chase. Whoever he was. She was your Broadway vamp stereotype. Yeah. She sounded like a friend rusher. Then she like played with the phone and then she just left and I was like who is Vivian? Why was she so important for two minutes and where is she now? You didn't like Lost did you? Then she came back and her name was Sheila. Very meta. Very strange. They're like hey Vivian and she's like no no I'm Sheila now. Very odd. Then and I think this is the most important and the most to me personally troubling. Okay. At one point they demonstrated S voice driving or whatever it's called. S voice drive. And to hammer home the fact that this was meant to be used in a car they brought out a sideways Mini Cooper. Which was a. Oh I remember that. I think we have a shot. We have a shot of the sideways Mini Cooper. But they bring it out. Bring it out. What? They brought it out on stage for the rest of the presentation and no one attempted to get in it or drive it sideways. It didn't do a loopty loop. It just was sideways. Like that was Samsung's contribution. No. Mini Cooper's contribution. What does that tell me except like do not use Samsung's driving because you'll end up sideways in a car. I don't know. It was very troubling. That's very weird. Very very weird. You're just using hand gestures and you just hit the wheel. But it was but this all this like over the top like it worked like a. I don't know how else to explain this. For the first time it was shocking and weird. They had a hunky guy come on stage and take his shirt off and a gaggle of women tittered and as they looked away from their phones to look at the hunky guy the video paused. Like all this like crazy stuff. At one point they're like why would you ever want to use this feature where you can like just wave at your phone instead of touching it. Why and they had one of the women go because my nails are wet which is like don't do that. And then another one was like because I don't want to put down the drink and like drunkenly staggered around stage. Just crazy but effective. But relatable use case scenarios. Relatable crazy. All right. Samsung. Also here's the real tagline of the phone. Are you ready for this. I'm ready. Samsung. This is true. I'm not kidding. All right. I mentioned live like several times Samsung Galaxy S4 life companion life and they had it on on slides like huge letters life companion. No irony no like it's like they. Oh that's right because they had the little kid with the box going I like companion or something like that. No that'd be weird. That would be very weird. But I swear. But Samsung's newest product. Child following around. It's child. No I just don't know. I honestly I don't. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm talking too fast. I know my notes. I'm higher pitched. And it's just because the emotions that I felt during this event. For you. I've always wanted this. The emotions that I felt during this event were so varied. I felt sad. I felt a great deal of embarrassment. I felt joy. At one point a man named Jeff just talked about taking pictures of a girl he met in Brazil named Ana. And he talked about that for I would say five to six minutes. Right. He took a lot of photos. There's actually two things from the from the thing I kind of want to talk to you about. First off is S translate. Speaking of weird gags. Yeah. Well so here's the thing about S translate. It's already in Android. Right. Google translate has these features. But so Google translate is like you have to be connected. I wasn't sure. I wasn't clear. So S translate just has canned it has canned stuff in it. Okay. So it does all that stuff in the back end. But if you're like in France and you're like taking to a bathroom like you can push a button the phone will say it in French. Okay. So it's just it's all built in. So it's some offline caching. That's actually really smart. I will give them the credit for that. Well it's just like it just sounds built in. I don't know how much it's doing. Okay maybe if it is going to the internet well then it's the exact same thing. Right. So it doesn't suggest it was going to be an offline of some sort. No. So the offline is like it has this database of phrases. Right. Just the stocks. Yeah. Yeah. And you can like push the button and like it'll help you. Where is the nearest Apple Store? Yeah. Yes it won't do that. Probably not do that. That stuff is interesting. I mean I will say that the number of and this is actually feedback I got a lot on Twitter which was a lot of this stuff is in Android already. Right. It's all over the place Android. Like these aren't features that Samsung needs to promote in this way. It will rebuild in some other way. This is very head on competitive with what Google is doing. But if you do any small tweaks they can put an S in front of it and that's theirs. Sweeks. Sweeks. But I mean look at like this like and actually the one thing that this has in common unfortunately with Samsung is crazy new video formats because there now must exist something between a still and a video. Oh yeah. Something with audio. It's a Zoe. It's a was it a camera photo? Yeah. Or a cinema photo. So Samsung's camera stuff you know there is very little like overt sharing at the event. Right. So the camera's got all the sharing. So when they took out the guy photobombing because they take a hundred photos in four minutes or four seconds when they did the drama shot. It's called drama shot. Just forgive me for saying that. Is it was it just burst mode or something? Yeah. So they do this crazy burst mode and then they can composite. So if you're running across the room and I like burst mode photo you it'll like composite four of you like running. So that's cool stuff. But it's weird because it's like what you're saying. The idea of like just taking a photo is gone. It is dead to the smartphone industry. Now we're going to do other weirder shit with photos and I'm just going to drop the S bomb on the air. S bomb. S bomb. What he really said was S hit. This is an S hit. Yeah exactly. You know here's the thing. So here's the one right. And actually can you give me the GS3. Sure. Because in all reality the GS4 looks just like this. It's a little. It's like 0.02 wider or something. So very very small slight visual differences. The sides are squared off more. It feels only slightly different to hold in your hand. But I will tell you that this phone this piece of hardware is so much nicer to have in your hand because it's made of metal. It has it's just the H21 is a really nice phone. This phone still feels like a piece of plastic. And the GS4 still feels like a piece of plastic. And what's interesting to me and Vlad put up a piece today like noting this is that Samsung has this enormous marketing budget. They spent all of this money to put on this event. It's something like 400 million dollars to launch this phone. Right. I heard that number from lots of people. They have so much money anyway. They have so much money. They're spending money like crazy. Orchestra literally they bought an orchestra and then hid it under the stage. And they would raise and lower it every now and then to remind you that they had spent money on orchestra and then the orchestra would go away. Like that's ridiculous. And I think what they're doing is they have so many features are adding so many features and this event was all about features. Right. Here's how this phone will slice up some piece of your life that may or may not be recognizable to anybody who has a normal life and will show you how a phone feature will like solve this problem that may or may not exist. ACC is like we made a little bit better camera and it has a flip board. But it is a much better design. I'll give them that. But the hardware is better. I think ultimately it might be a better phone. Like I haven't played with GS4 for more than 10 seconds. Fair enough. We're actually we're gearing up toward the end but there is something I want to ask about before just a quick tangent. The IR blaster. Watch on. They mentioned it. I don't feel like they talked a lot about it on stage but they did make a point of it early on. Well so this is like a weird trend in phones. Right. And it's that your cell phone will be the remote control for your television. The one has one too. The IR blaster is built into the power button. I think the Note 2 does too. The Note 2 has one? I didn't know that. The GS4 has an IR blaster built into the top as well. Right. It might be in the power button as well. And they have these apps right. They type in your zip code. It tells you what's on your cable provider and it changes the channel for you. And that's great. But it's so like super useless. I mean an IR blaster is like literally a six cent part. You can get one for zero money. They can put it in a phone for zero money. And cool. You can call Peel and they'll give you a version of their app to run on your phone. It's neat but it's not useful. I don't think people are actually going to use these phones as remotes. And that's what's weird to me because there seems to be a lot of, at least a lot of time and money going into making the software to try to simplify this very complicated system of cable operators with different channels and trying to use these multiple set top boxes. That's all done. That's not hard. You can call TV Guide and they'll sell you the data. You can call Peel. They'll give you the data. They already have the app. What's hard is, and this is the problem Samsung should be solving, is they make TVs too. Their phones don't actually talk to their TVs. Sony's phones don't actually talk to their TVs. Sony's Xperia Z tablet has an IR blaster in it. It runs the Peel app. These things aren't actually talking to televisions. They are doing the same dumb thing that every universal remote has ever tried to do. And that's why people don't love universal remotes. They're doing the same dumb thing that every iPhone accessory with an IR blaster has ever tried to do. And that's why those never took off. And it's a little bit more interesting because the phones are really small and thin and they've integrated the piece right into here. But ultimately it's having an IR blaster isn't going to fix your experience. And it never has. So what is going to? There is that kind of dream of not having a remote, walking to a room and going, okay, this is my TV remote now. Or something. Is that a dream? I would like to not have a remote. You know what I use now? The Wii U gamepad. But you're a huge nerd. Yeah, but I can find that. Or I can go to... Because it's enormous. You're a huge nerd who loses things. Well, it's kind of a cop out. It's kind of a cop out. Look, that's great. And I think that you can argue about the future of television. That's all you want. I don't think design or interface or technology is a problem. I think literally talking to a television or cable box is a problem. And the only way to do it right now is an IR blaster. And as long as that's true, this dumb, dumb technology from the 60s is still in our living rooms, none of these things are going to solve the problem. Fair enough. But I can rant about IR blasters all day and night. Anyway, that's just one of many features. Obviously, Samsung S4 has the air scrolling, the eye tracking. In case your nails are wet. Yeah, of course. Or you look at a hunky guy. But it's still, like I said, the hardware is the same. It's still the same looking TouchWiz. And Samsung has knocked Apple before for looking like the exact same OS. So at one point, and again, I'm very fond of Ryan Budd. Okay. At one point he was like, it's so much more alive than ever before. And then he demonstrated that they changed the menu bars. No longer black. It's translucent. Right. I mean, it's just TouchWiz is like a silly thing. It is a silly, dumb, gimmicky, ridden thing. Right? And you can definitely knock Apple because the iOS home screen is boring and the weather, it's always 73 degrees and sunny. But there must exist some happy state between iOS being boring and this being a circus. And they are just going full circus with this phone. I guarantee you it will. Very full circus. And it's louder than ever and they probably swear at you if you try to turn them off. Maybe that happy thing is called stock Android. Just an idea that I have. Speaking of that, so we've now seen the S4, which is not out yet. They've seen one, the Xperia Z, which are out. LG's got a number of flagships every now and then. They'll just pop something else out. They did one. Optimus G Pro. Optimus G Pro. But the 4, advertised in Times Square right now. So everyone's gotten their flagship Android devices. Obviously Apple's probably going to do something in the next few months. So yeah, the 5S Plus. Are we gearing up for like, is S4 the phone to get for Android or should we start looking to the next Google whatever? It's weird because they sell so many more iPhones than S4s. Just tons more. But if you are in New York and you ride the subway, you see S3s everywhere. I think if you have an S3, there's no reason to get an S4. I think if you have a previous flagship Android device, you probably won't want one. I think if you're among the millions of people of a Galaxy S2, that's probably the place to go. If you have an iPhone, I don't know the answer. I don't. I mean, they're wildly different experiences. What are you using right now? What is your so-called daily driver? I have a Nexus 4 and I have an iPhone. Okay, what are you using more? I use the iPhone more because it has LTE. I mean, that's the reality of it. With the Nexus 4 and LTE, things would change very dramatically. But the S4 has 4.2.2 with TouchWiz, though, but it has LTE, or will have LTE. Yeah, but TouchWiz is not an attractive thing. And I believe they're saying in S4.2.2, Google IOs are right around the corner. We don't know what's going to happen. So they're going to fall behind again. And TouchWiz is becoming a different operating system. It's funny that you say they're going to fall behind because the only phone that's going to have whatever next Google Android operating system is, is going to be the Google device that no one buys. There's a real divide between Google's Android and Samsung's Android. Because Google doesn't have Air View or Smart Pause or any of this stuff. And I think it's unfair to Samsung's efforts, actually. It's unfair to their efforts to say that these features are tacked on to Android now. These features are integrated with the phone. So if you buy the S4, you're going to get these features as part of your core experience. And they're not in Android, but there's just a huge gulf between the two companies now. And I think Andy Rubin, he just left Google. But a few weeks ago, he was pushing. He left Android. He left Android. He's still somewhere. He's in a basement. He's rattling around. Moonshots. Moonshots. That's what he said. Larry Page was like, we want more moonshots. You're out, Andy. And go to Google X and do whatever you do. Anyway, look, he was at NWC or wherever. And he said to The Wall Street Journal, Samsung is a real threat to Android. And I think that was a rare admission of the truth, which is Google's platform is no longer being driven by Google. And I think if you buy an HTC One, what you're getting is some other, yet another version of Android that isn't as competitive, that doesn't have the resources invested, that doesn't have the user base of Samsung's version of Android, and doesn't have Google driving forward its version of Android. And I think that is probably not a realization for the ordinary consumer. I think that's a realization if you're deeply into tech. One more wild horse question that we have to wrap up. The Dark Horse and all this. What's going on with Motorola? That's, I don't know. They certainly can't. Look, even if you got Google money, you don't have Google money to get Samsung weird. S weird. S weird. S weird. Because this event and this launch and this marketing, they are spending money. That event was, it was over the top, like crazy. And super weird. S weird. And very few companies can just get S weird. And nothing's gonna top that. Not anytime soon. Look, maybe Motorola, maybe Google and Motorola will combine to produce some crazy Chrome OS Android hybrid phone with a flexible display that can drive your car for you, that has stock Android and LTE. That's... And you can wear it on your head. There's a lot of stuff you can do to compete with the S4. I don't think the S4 is a pinnacle phone. I think it has, it's a pentile display, but it appears to look very nice. I think it has... You're so bitter about pentile. I don't like them. They look too green to me. But whatever. It's going to be the Android phone that other people have. That is something to be reckoned with. And for Motorola or Google to get there, they have to market the hell out of the phone. They're gonna have to spend money trying to sell the phone, and Google historically has not been good at that. Fair enough. All right. Let's close out the show. Neil, I thank you so much. I'm Chris Power. I have Chris Power. Chris Power. Hey, Chris Powers. I want to thank everyone. Chris Ziegler, who is zpower on Twitter. Neil, of course, is reckless. David is pierced David. Just swap them around. I'm Onur Roscoe, no E. Of course, you can catch all the Samsung news and more, lots more, on theverge.com. Next week, we'll be back with an actual Verge cast with a full studio. We'll have Top Shelf on Thursday, 90 Seconds of Verge every single day. And right now, I'm gonna go pass out. Fall down. Fall down. S weird. S sleep. S weird. I don't know what you're gonna do. Let's go get a spirit.

It's Thursday, March 14th, 2013. I'm your S-host. Shost? Evan Rogers. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. As expected, Samsung today announced the Galaxy S4. The phone's design stays pretty close to its S3 predecessor, but there are some new features. The 5-inch 1080p Android flagship can detect so-called air gestures for controlling the phone without touching. It also has eye tracking for scrolling through pages, although in our testing, that didn't work very well. New camera features include Dual Shot for using the front and rear lenses simultaneously, and the app for making GIFs. The Galaxy S4 will be released worldwide in Q2, with a quote, premium price. Google Reader will be going the way of the dinosaur. As part of its annual spring cleaning initiative, Google announced that the popular RSS service will be shut down on July 1st. Google Reader originally launched in 2005, and its success led many third-party RSS services to fold up their tents. Don't panic just yet. Several companies are working on direct replacements, including Dig. Yes, Dig. Finally, Netflix plans to bring 4K television to your living room within the next two years. Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt told us that Netflix thinks the ultra-high resolution format will come to streaming services first, and that quote, we expect to be delivering 4K within a year or two. The nature of promises, Linda, is that they remain immune to changing circumstances. Netflix should have 4K encodes of its series House of Cards later this year. Hunt also thinks that the next big thing will be high frame rates. Sorry, Hobbit haters. That's it for today's top stories. Join us tomorrow where we'll be talking to some of the most influential voices in the Ukrainian opera.

Hey guys, it's David at The Verge, and this is the Samsung Galaxy S4. It's a brand new flagship phone from Samsung. So the first thing you notice is that it's not actually that different from the Galaxy S3. It has kind of the same design ID, the same even feel in your hand. It's a little slimmer, a little lighter, but basically the same kind of feel. There are a bunch of things that are different though. The screen is bigger. It's a 5-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display, and it has a pentile pixel layout, which we don't love, but the screen looks great, and it's super high res and really shouldn't cause any problems. It's also more powerful than ever. It has the Exynos 5 processor, and either comes with that or a Qualcomm chip, depending on the region you're in. It comes with 16, 32, or 64 gigs of internal storage, plus a microSD slot, and it's coming with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, which is the latest version of Android, and not a lot of phones launch with that, which is pretty exciting. Samsung's trying to do a lot of crazy software things, and they really need power to pull it off. So one of the big things Samsung talked about is the camera. There's a 13 megapixel camera on the back of the phone, and a 2 megapixel camera on the front, and that allows them to do a lot of different things. One is this dual shot mode, where you can actually see the front and rear cameras at the same time, and they brought some of the Galaxy camera modes to this device as well, so it's definitely their most powerful camera ever. We'll have to test it out more to see how it actually does. There's all kinds of wild software stuff on this phone, and you can see just from all the things you have to enable or disable that there's a lot going on here. One of the big things is called Air Gesture, and basically what it lets you do is swipe through photos or scroll in your web browser without ever actually touching the phone. So you can just scroll right through all your photos without having to touch, and you can do the same in a web browser, or you can scroll through your tabs, and it's kind of a gimmicky thing, but it does seem to work relatively well, and it's cool if your hands are dirty or wet or what have you. There's also Air View, which I think is even cooler. So in the browser, without actually touching the screen, you just sort of hover over it, and then you can pick what you want to see, and even Flipboard has done some things with it so that you can hover over it and see stories within a particular section without ever actually having to touch it. One of the biggest things, and sort of the most surprising from Samsung, is S Health. They love putting S in front of things, and they're basically trying to replace Fitbit and the fuel ban and all these different things, so there's a pedometer and a temperature and humidity gauge inside this phone, and it'll actually track your steps as you walk, or it'll track your heart rate via a device that works with Bluetooth, or it'll track the temperature and humidity, and it'll tell you all these things about kind of how you're doing over time. You can see, you know, we're in kind of an ugly hotel room, so the surroundings are poor, and you can track the food that you're eating, and all this different stuff, so it's all built into here, and they're selling some add-on accessories as well, and it's just a pretty clever thing, it seems like something that should have been built into your phone forever ago, and it's going to be interesting to see how this works. There's also Group Play. Samsung loves doing things that involve lots of their different phones, and in Group Play, you can set music or photos or documents or what have you to all of the different phones at the same time, and it'll sync music so you can listen as a group, and again, we've seen a lot of these features on Samsung devices before, and they're kind of gimmicky, and we don't necessarily use them a lot, but they're relatively clever features. So there's also an IR blaster inside the device, which lets you use this to control your TV and your whole home theater, and they use some of the same technology they've used before. They're using Peel's TV Guide, so you can see kind of what's on TV and flip through and use it to actually control your set-top box, and there's on-demand content and all this stuff that you can watch on your phone and then push straight to your TV. It's kind of approximating AirPlay plus a bunch of extra TV Guide functionality, and it's pretty cool on other devices and is a smart thing to have here. So that's really it. It's going to be out on all four major U.S. carriers in the second quarter of this year. It's also going to be on some regional carriers and be all over the world. There's no word on pricing yet except to say that it's going to be a very premium phone, and this is definitely Samsung's flagship device going forward, and that is the Samsung Galaxy S4.

Every phone is fast. Every phone has an amazing screen and almost all of them have LTE. But one of the last features where a manufacturer can truly distinguish itself is the camera. We decided to test four of the best phones. The Nokia Lumia 920, the HTC One, the iPhone 5, and the Nexus 4. Let's see how they stack up. So all four of these phones do a pretty good job in pretty good conditions. Slightly overcast outside, plenty of light, not a huge amount of contrast in the scene. We've got detail in the tires, we've got detail on the paint, on the bus, and on the gravel itself. And the photos are well balanced. There's a wide range of tones and everything's pretty sharp. So out of the four phones we tested, it's safe to say the Lumia 920 wasn't the worst. But it was a little weird. In almost every single scene the saturation was through the roof. There's definitely a lot of processing happening right on the phone before you even get to see the image. Bright colors, for example, in the pictures of my shoes looking down at the grade on the sidewalk, the bright colors of my shoes and pants were blown out. Shooting up into the sky, through the trees, if you compare the blue sky and the Lumia's photos to the other phones, I think you'll see that the HTC One and the iPhone 5 and even to some extent the Nexus 4, they look a lot more natural. To me, the Lumia 920 just looks not real at all. Another thing I've noticed about the Lumia 920 is that when I look at these images zoomed in, even when the ones that were taken outside with a huge amount of light, they're noisy. Almost every single image that we pulled off of the Lumia 920 is noisy. Image quality on the HTC One was decent. The biggest problem with the HTC One is that in any sufficiently bright environment, the photos are washed out. Regardless of where the light source is coming from, there's just not enough contrast in the images. As a person who spends most of his time shooting with an SLR, in my opinion, the iPhone 5 is the best all-around cell phone camera that we tested today. Noise levels across all the photos taken with the iPhone 5 were generally good. In low-light photos, sure there was noise, but the noise looked real, for lack of a better term. It didn't look mushy, it didn't look like software was doing everything it could to mitigate the noise. The iPhone does a great job of striking a balance between accuracy in a photo and giving you a useful file at the end of the day. Dark scenes are dark, but they also look real. Bright scenes of the sky, buildings, trees, things like that, sure they're bright, but they're not blown out. And there's plenty of contrast, and there's still some detail in the shadows. The Nexus 4, while not terrible, was sort of right down the middle, decidedly average. Images from the Nexus 4, they lack contrast sometimes, they almost always look compressed. There's a high amount of noise in lots of images. It just looks like the photo was taken with a cell phone camera. So one of the most common use cases for a cell phone camera today is going to be a place where the light's terrible. You're in a bar, you're in a restaurant, you're out with friends. The HTC One produced really bright pictures that didn't look like a low-light situation, but they were really noisy and really mushy. But it was a usable photo, and in small sizes it might work. The Nexus 4 was useless in low-light, worse than useless, completely useless. Just leave it in your pocket and use your memory. The Lumia 920 did a pretty good job with a low-light photo, but our subject wasn't moving. And I can tell, based on my multiple tries, that the 920 absolutely favors a slower shutter speed in low-light situations. Which means if you're photographing anything that's alive, you're going to have some trouble. Low-light photos from the 920 are noisy, just like any other cell phone camera, but it was also clear, as usual, that there's a tremendous amount of processing happening on the phone before we even get the images onto a computer. The iPhone 5's low-light photos are the most true to life. The light and the colors are as I remember them. They're generally pretty sharp, but they are also very noisy. Cell phones are better than ever, and everyone these days has a great computer in their pocket. And it's only a matter of time before cameras catch up. But until that happens, and probably after that happens, photography is going to continue to be a game of compromises.

It's Wednesday, March 13th, 2013. My name is Niv Shah, and I'm supposed to pretend that you're a camera. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. The father of Google's mobile platform is stepping down. After alerting the masses via lime-green smoke, Google announced today that Andy Rubin will no longer serve as head of the Android team. Taking his place will be Sundar Pichai, who also led Google's Chrome and Apps initiatives. Rubin has overseen the operating system from Android's days as a startup company. So by my count, that's Apple's Scott Forstall, Microsoft's Steven Sanofsky, and now Andy Rubin. I guess the rules of three are complete. Twitter may be getting into music discovery in a big way. CNET is reporting that the company is preparing an app called Twitter Music that will let users discover new tunes based on who they follow. According to the report, songs will be streamed from SoundCloud if available, or they can be previewed in iTunes. The app will reportedly use technology from the music discovery service We Are Hunted, which Twitter reportedly acquired in the last six months. And finally, Veronica Mars is back. Thank you, Kickstarter. Series creator Rob Thomas and star Kristen Bell have launched a campaign for a film version of the cult TV show. The goal is $2 million, and while Warner Bros. wouldn't agree to finance the film outright, it has agreed to distribute the finished product. Rewards include digital downloads, on-set visits, and a trip to the premiere. The movie is expected to shoot this summer for a 2014 release. So how's it doing? Well, at this point it's made $1.7 million, and so it should hit its goals any minute. That's it for today's top stories. Tune in tomorrow when we take a look at the high-pressure world of competitive table flipping.

It's Tuesday, March 12, 2013. I'm Trent Wolby. And I'm Nina Sekolar. Live from Austin, Texas, it's the Magic Hour party time. This is 90 seconds on the verge brought to you by Motorola. According to evidence uncovered by the Curiosity rover, Mars could have supported life in ancient times. Today, NASA announced that a drilling sample contains several key ingredients for life like nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen and carbon. The sample came from what was likely a Martian lake bed that's been dried up for millions of years. A NASA scientist said the area was so hospitable to life that a human would have been able to drink the water from the ancient lake. The FCC has given the go-ahead for the long-planned T-Mobile and Metro PCS merger. T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom, announced its intentions to buy the carrier last year. In a statement, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said the merger will, quote, benefit millions of American consumers. Stockholders will still need to sign off, however. Metro PCS has a vote scheduled for this April. And finally, MTV is back, only it's online, and MTV has nothing to do with it. VIVO TV is a streaming music channel that will run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It'll feature hour-long blocks of videos broken up by genre. The service is launching in the U.S. and Canada to start and will be available on the web as well as on VIVO's smartphone and set-top box apps. Roll VIVO Cribs in 3, 2... And that's it for today's top stories. Stay tuned for the South by Southwest elevator pitch of the day. Tired of your GPS telling you where to go? Download Lane Picker, the only app that tells you exactly what you need to know. Which lane to be in? Pick it up.

Hello. Welcome to The Verge Mobile Show. I am Dieter Bohn. We have a whole group of people, a whole huge group of people here. So let's just run through everybody that's here. It's going to be amazing. I'm Vlad Savov. I'm Dan Seifert. I'm Chris Ziegler. And we have a special guest, David Pierce. Welcome, David. Hello. I'm David Pierce. Yay. Welcome to my horrendous intro because I was being a little bit waiting to start for the past two minutes and then it kind of came and I wasn't ready at all. I just want to point out that at this point, David Pierce's fame and infamy has exceeded our own due to the premiere of his own program, his own weekly program, which I think we're all pretty excited about. Fame is a little strong, I think. Don't be modest. It's fame. It's just straight up fame. Well, thanks. The program is a little bit different. It's so professional it makes us look like the morons that we are. True. The beauty of that is I have literally nothing to do with that. That's like all these people behind me who I come down here and like swear into a camera for an hour and then suddenly it looks good. It's wonderful. I actually disagree with you. I think we're exactly as professional as David. It's just that we spread it out among all four of us. Combined. That makes sense. Yes. And the fact that we're all so professional is a little bit of a shock. Combined. And the problem is that we also magnify our unprofessionalism by four times. It's true. Right. So last week you guys did Sony, yeah? And can you tell us what's coming next week or is it a big secret? Well, coming this week we have some of the same stuff we're going to talk about today, actually. The HTC One and the Xperia Z. And we're also going to talk with Tom Warren about some of the coolest stuff you saw at Microsoft this week. Or last week, I guess. So that's going to be fun. I'm looking forward to it. But I'm way more excited about this, if I'm being honest. Top shelf is whatever. But this is way better. Actually, as long as we're talking about ourselves and we're just going to continue doing it, David has the New York office behind him, which is really exciting. Yes. It's awesome. You should all move to New York immediately and just come hang out with me. It's basically a 24-hour love fest over there. I was talking to Jordan, one of our esteemed video guys, who was saying that if only the new office had a shower, he would literally never leave. And he wasn't joking. He wasn't kidding around. Okay. I'm done talking about us. We should talk about mobile stuff, I think. And I think the most important news is from a couple of weeks ago. I got my orange iPhone. I would agree. So our last broadcast, we unfortunately couldn't do video. So Dieter could not show off his orange iPhone. So it's been bugging him for two weeks now. Like three weeks now. How's the power button, Dieter? Yeah, it's a little bit janky. It didn't get fully cleaned out. But other than that, it's great. But no, okay. The really big news is that we have reviews. And I think there's two big reviews. There's the HTC One and the Sony Xperia Z. Let's start with the One, I think. Because I think O2 is selling pre-orders. So it's available to some people now in Europe. But HTC kind of just said that everybody else is going to have to wait a little bit longer than they had planned. But they didn't have a firm release date anyway. So it's delayed from a thing that we didn't know about in the first place. Yeah, they haven't said anything at all about the US yet, right? No. Nope. Not that I'm aware of. Oh, Vlad's got one too. Hey. I've got one. But let's let David talk about it because he's had a whole love affair with the phone. I don't know if it's a love affair. I mean, so the thing to me was it's a really good phone. Like I'm personally kind of a sucker for hardware design. And I kind of had this like visceral reaction to this phone where I just keep like touching it and I just want to use it for things. And like it's not a very good TV remote. Yet I forced myself to use it as my TV remote because I just like holding it. But the thing that was really interesting to me was HTC really pitched two things as like the future of HTC and the reason this phone is the best. And one is the camera and one is sense and blink feed and stuff like that. And I actually think those are in some ways the weaker parts of the phone. Like they're fine. The camera I think is good and does a lot of interesting things. And I'm actually curious what you guys think because there's been some interesting debate about what makes a good cell phone camera. But I think that blink feed is sort of cool like this flip board thing on your home screen is nifty but I wound up moving it to a second home screen and going back to a normal home screen. And I think the camera is fine but it's not nearly as good as I wanted it to be. Yeah, I want to get way into the camera because there was a ton of hope that HTC was finally going to blow up the megapixel myth and we're going to stop this race to more and more megapixels. We don't need 13 megapixel cameras or 16 megapixel cameras or whatever. So they went down to four and they're ultra pixels. Everybody knows the story. But like the proof is in the pictures and the pictures look pretty soft to me. Yeah, I mean that's the thing I keep coming back to. Like it's incredible in low light. Their big pitch was we have these bigger pixels that take in more light at a time. And that's true. It takes in a ton of light and I took a bunch of pictures with the iPhone 5 and then with the One. And universally in every case the One photo was brighter and a lot of times the iPhone 5 just wasn't usable because it was dark and the One would look totally passable. And that's great and I'm psyched about that and in a lot of ways that's better than what any other camera out there offers. But photos are just soft and like you zoom in and you get this kind of mushy noise reduction thing that just doesn't look sharp. And it to me kind of kills the vibe of the whole photo when nothing looks particularly clear and crisp. In terms of low light performance would you take the One over a 920? It's hit or miss I think. They're both really, really good is the point. And I think the One to me is I think a little bit better because it's, I don't know, it just seemed to render colors a little better than the Lumia 920. But they're both really good and they're both leaps and bounds beyond any of their competitors. So what's your take on the Zoe? The Zoe is, I don't know. It was another thing that I wanted to be cool and it is. And like for action shots and stuff it's nifty and it's fun to actually scrub back through a video and then be like, that's the shot I wanted to get. And I've always kind of wondered why you couldn't do that in just regular video footage and now you can and it works great. But they have this whole sharing setup that I just don't think people are ever going to really use. And you have to remember to turn it off which is sort of annoying because I would take like landscape shots that you don't need the Zoe's for. And I would take like 67 shots before I knew what I was doing and then going back through all those was kind of a pain. Well the button to toggle Zoe's like all the way on the other side of the phone from the rest of the controls, right? So like you've got your camera, you've got your video and then you've got to toggle for Zoe like completely separate which seems insane to me. Yeah, totally. But again it's really cool. I was playing soccer on Saturday and shooting with it then and being able to get like you get these action shots of like the moment somebody's foot hits the ball that you wouldn't get with a phone otherwise because there's always shutter lag and weirdness like that. So it's a great thing to have but again I don't know if it's like this game changing feature that HTC is kind of setting it up to be. So I just took a Zoe of David talking about the Zoe which was fun. David, take a Zoe of Vlad showing the Zoe when you're talking about the Zoe. My mind is blowing right now. I do. Wow. David's way too excited about the Zoe. Okay, hang on. So here's our gallery and there's David. And that's the other thing, the gallery is now kind of customized so you've got Zoes coming to life and just kind of doing little animations for you. And there's David still talking about the Zoe. He can't stop talking about it. And all right, well the display actually looks over-exposed in the webcam but I agree with David. These Zoe things are fun. They're kind of like vines insofar as because they're limited. I mean they're like three seconds. We had this discussion with Dieter. Is it three seconds or four seconds, man? I don't know. But the point is you get these really brief video clips and just like vines you kind of have to start coming up with creative ways to use them. And the thing I noticed, the first few Zoe's that I took was I would press the capture button and then the Zoe would capture me turning the phone around to review the photo, which was fun. No, but seriously, like having this invitation of three or four seconds and having to do something fun with it and then coming up with something that is coherent and makes sense and that you can post to Twitter or wherever is actually quite satisfying. So I agree. It's a gimmick but it's one of those gimmicks that you can definitely see yourself fooling around with for quite a bit of time. Definitely. So I want to go back and talk about the low light performance a little bit because Zoe's are cool and all but that's a novelty that's going to wear off. So it seems to me what happened here with the One's camera is that HCC wanted to be the best in low light so it's doing these ultra pixels which are bigger pixels and supposed to let in more light but I don't think that just the pixels alone were enough for HCC to get where it wanted to be as far as the low light capture. So then it layered on all of this noise reduction and that's what's ruining the sharpness on all of these photos and really kind of the worst thing in the world. Whereas if they had scaled back on the noise reduction and maybe not quite made it as impressive on the extreme low light end we probably would have had better pictures overall from the bright to the dark and whatever. Couldn't they have dynamically adjusted depending on lighting conditions? Oh I'm sure they do. I'm sure as it raises up sensitivity the noise reduction gets greater but it seems to be too strong on all levels. Dita, they all do dynamic adjustments it's just that they all kind of suck. That's pretty much standard for all of their software. But I mean that raises a really good point and the other thing is it's really disappointing at 4 megapixels to see the noise reducing blur smudging things up and getting the way of sharpness and detail because you can forgive it with a 12 megapixel camera or 12 megapixels in air quotes because once you step it down to 4 or 5 megapixels the pictures look sharp. Whereas with these guys it's essentially either you get a really high quality picture at 4 megapixels or you screw. And broadly speaking I do find that camera technology seems to have kind of stagnated and either not advanced or even taken a step back. Because I remember maybe when we had the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S, the Galaxy S2, the Galaxy S3, those were some really excellent cameras. I'm not actually convinced the iPhone 5 has a better camera. I don't know how you guys feel. The Galaxy S2 had a fantastic camera. Exactly. So when we had those phones it was very natural. The Progression was always better image quality. But now I feel like guys might be compromising on quality to make the phones better. Well as far as the iPhone 5 goes I can say that comparative to the 4 and the 4S in extreme low light conditions it's much better. I've taken side by side photos with them and the 5, I don't know if it's a software tweak or just a boosting of the sensor, the 5 lets in a lot more light in extreme low light situations. In normal situations it's negligible difference. As far as breakthroughs in the technology, I think the HTC is on the right track as far as minimizing the pixels and increasing the pixel size. I just think that they went a step too far to try and be the absolute best in low light and beat the line 20 and maybe even get to where the 808 is as far as low light capabilities are and they went way too far with the noise reduction. Which is a little disappointing because I would have rather had good low light photos that aren't the best I've ever seen on the extremely low light spectrum of just taking a picture with one candle but had better pictures all across the board. Are we basically saying the camera is fine but it doesn't live up to what we were hoping? It's not a swing and a miss but it's like a ground rule double. Yeah, I would even go so far as to call it an above average camera for where we are now. HTC made what's kind of a calculated bet that most people are not going to look at the 100% view of their photos. Most people want to take pictures and put them on Instagram or Facebook. In that case, these photos mostly look fine. You're putting up a 1024x1024 picture on Instagram. So you're not zooming in and seeing the softness and the mushiness and you are getting a brighter picture than you would get otherwise. So that's a totally worthy trade off but for people who really care about the quality of their photos, whether you're posting them to Flickr or just saving them and wanting to use them, it's definitely a step down from some of the best cameras out there. Even the One X or the Droid DNA both take good sharp pictures and they got away from that, in this case, to do something else. I think it works in a lot of situations and doesn't work in others. Just to say, that was a really complicated baseball analogy you had. I had to think way through with these ground doubles and whatnot. That's because you're not American, Vlad. Oh, so it just comes naturally to everybody else. It's like a nature when you're eating apple pie and watching baseball. I'm kidding. I'm cheese. We had a hot dog on top. What's it like actually using BlinkFeed? I'm curious about this. I don't think any of us did. I think everybody, with that exception, just turned on this phone, looked at BlinkFeed, and then was like, okay, how do I set my home screen to be not BlinkFeed? Which is exactly what I did. I did exactly the same thing as David. I actually want to talk about the display on this phone because, again, you're just kind of getting washed up by my terrible, terrible webcam. But it is great, too stunning. I think there's universal agreement among all of us that this might be, once again, the best display in mobile devices. That crown was held by the HT1X, which Chris reviewed and basically wrote an ode to how beautiful it is. This is still 4.7 inches, but changes resolution from 720 to 1080p. It's beautiful. One thing that concerned me in your review, David, was when you said that you found that you had to cup your hand over the display to see it in direct light. Is that a serious problem? No, I think most phones are that way. But it's funny, every time I meet with a company that makes anything with a screen, which is constantly, they talk about how it's better laminated and so the glare is down 28% and you'll see it. And it's just not true. These things are still super reflective. You can't laminate this any more than it is. No, you can't. I think it's just, this is the world we live in. If you're outside and it's super sunny, you're going to have trouble seeing your phone unless it's so bright that you can watch the battery die. This is not that. It's no worse than any other phone. We have, for sure. Yeah, go grab a visor prism and take it outside and come back and talk to it. No, I don't want to do that. I'm not doing that. Okay, you can actually really see the view at angles now where I'm showing it. And it's just stupid. You can't laminate it any more. It's on the glass. The image is on the glass. Vlad, what's going to happen is that at next year's HTC event, they're going to be like, you're thinking about lamination all wrong. Like, we fundamentally rethought lamination. This is ultra-lamination. Where the glass is the display. They're one and the same. I mean, basically, in order to step up lamination from here, you have to do magnetic levitation above the display. You have to do a hologram. It's like that. But, I mean, David's point is true. Reflectivity is reflectivity. Lamination can only go so far to rectify. These are glossy displays. If we want really saturated, color rich, punchy, exciting devices that when you walk into a store, grab your attention, we have to deal with the reflectivity. Otherwise, I keep talking about the old IBM ThinkPad displays, which were color accurate, but they were muted and matte. And nobody was particularly excited or gasp about them. So nobody's making that choice. Nobody's offering us matte displays. Other than actually screen protectors, there's some really nice screen protectors that turn the display matte. Yeah, but screen protectors are the worst things ever, and we all know that. Wait, why aren't there matte screen displays? Now that I'm thinking about this, every time I review a laptop that has a matte display, I'm like, yes, matte displays. Why aren't they on phones? Well, I mean, glossy displays make your blacks look deeper, makes your contrast higher and everything. So when it's in a store, it's on a display shelf, everything looks better with a glossy display. All matte displays are plastic anyway, right? Yeah. I mean, I guess if you had a ground glass of some sort. The glass is reflective. Yeah, and they're heavier and thicker too, I guess, so it's fair enough. But let's cut off talking about hardware, because there's a bunch of people who code us about being too hardware-centric and how the hardware and the specs don't match, it's part of the user experience and yada, yada, yada. And this is where actually I think David and I might disagree, because I feel like every new Android phone is kind of like the old Android phones. I just can't build up any excitement, whereas David has fallen in love. So instead of listening to me bitch about about it, let's hear why David is so psyched. Well, so, I mean, you just defeated my whole argument for why I'm excited. I mean, if hardware genuinely doesn't matter, then this phone is not super exciting. But I really believe hardware does matter. But on the software front, I think what HTC has done, and they've talked about bringing a lot of their Sense 5 stuff to some of their other phones in coming months, and actually in the most part, that's a really good thing. They've scaled Sense back, and there's still some messy stuff. I remember when I first got this phone, Dieter was like, open the People app, it's terrible on every Sense device ever since the history of the world. And that's true, it's still bad and confusing and kind of clunky, but it's better. And there are a lot of easier ways to get around, and the hardware is so good that even if Sense is overbearing and big and heavy, it doesn't totally destroy the performance of the phone. And I feel like software's job in a case like this is just to kind of get out of the way and let Android do its thing and let apps work and let the hardware work. And it does, there's some stuff about Sense I don't like, but it's not nearly as much of a pain as it used to be. Like I would turn on the One X and just hate the world and my life and everyone in it, and I don't get that at all with this phone. Well, this is the story of Sense for the past two years now. It's where we keep saying it's okay, but it's not as bad as it used to be, but it's still Sense, right? Essentially that's the same thing we said about Sense 4, comparing it to Sense 3.5 and 3.6. It's still Sense, but it's not as bad as it used to be, but it's not as good as it could be. So here's my take on Sense. It was solving problems that we had when we were using three, three and a half inch screens and Android 2.3. It fixed those problems. It added context to the 1.5. Right, it fixed all those problems. But now those problems have been taken care of in the core stock UI of Android. Google fixed those problems. Right, so it was up to Sense to decide what problems it actually wants to fix now. And I suppose it's still fixing some contact stuff when social integration in there. They fixed the home screen with BlinkFeed. But just updating the UI so it's actually appropriate to a screen this size made a world of difference. And also throwing in a wicked fast processor so that it didn't feel bogged down. Yeah, I have to say this phone just feels very nice and quick. I don't think it's necessarily down to the processor. I think we can give HC credit for their own software, but it is very quick and responsive. So I like that. And HC did do a couple of things I actually really like. So this is the, I don't know if you can see it very well, but this is the multitasking menu. It's tiled instead of having the one list going up. And so you get nine apps at a time and it just looks better. Like the home button is kind of ugly. That's a marked improvement over the one on Sense 4. Yeah, which was like the weird 3D thing you had to scroll and it was awful. And then there's like really good lock screen notifications and you can swipe right into them. And so like, HTC's done some things, but then like why did you change the icons? Like they look worse now and you didn't need to do that. And that's kind of HTC's end game. It's like let's change a bunch of things you don't need to. And I can't use Dash Clock widget on the lock screen because it's not Android 4.2. Yeah, well that's the other problem is that this is probably never going to get updates. And I said, like I said in the review, I was like I want this phone. And then somebody's like should you get this or the Nexus 4? And I was like well I'd buy this, but then ask me again when the Nexus 4 gets keyline pie and this doesn't and I'm sobbing uncontrollably on top of this phone warning up here. No, I mean the other thing to consider and it's something that we tend to forget is that the Nexus 4 is dramatically cheaper. I do believe. Yeah. I'm not actually sure what the HTC One pricing is at the moment, but I imagine it's priced the normal way whereas the Nexus 4 is priced to be awesome. Price to move, man. Yeah. Move it does. Unless you're Chris Ziegler and you triple overpay for it. No, I... Dude, whatever. I had a Nexus 4 before you did, so whatever. Yeah, you paid like 600 bucks for it, man. No, I only paid like, I don't know, I paid like 400 or something. I don't know. I had to sign up for a month of T-Mobile prepaid to buy it. I couldn't buy it without an account, which kind of bugged me. Wow. I'm pretty sure the T-Mobile sales rep just like took you on that one. It's possible. If somebody gets a Nexus 4 right now, they will have a Nexus 4 before I do as well. I've never gotten a hold of one. What I do have, and here's my kickass segue, is an Xperia ZZ... I'm going to start talking about this just by showing you its viewing angles exactly as I did with the HT1. Is the screen on? No, that's my point. It has terrible viewing angles. And you know what? I think half the comments on my review have been, what do the viewing angles matter, man? You're just looking at it directly. I don't know why I'm denigrating our commenters by giving them a terrible answer. I'm just making myself... I'm very friendly in the presence. But seriously, viewing angles do matter in phones. One thing, we don't appreciate how often we turn our phones on. I think when HT were doing the HT1 briefings, they were saying that people activate their phones an average of something like 200 times a day. 400 times. It was some crazy, crazy number in the hundreds. I was like, wait guys, are you serious? What sort of addicted freaks are you getting this data from? And it's just what we do. You check the weather, you turn the phone on, then you forget that you also wanted to know the time, so you turn the phone on again. You might do like seven times in quick succession. So we do that a bunch without realizing it. And another thing we do without realizing is we look at the phone from side angles a ton. So many times I have the phone on my desk, stretch a hand out, just turn it on and check for notifications or whatever. I'm not tilting it so I'm looking directly at it, I'm looking at it from the side. And that's where these viewing angles, that's where these issues come in. And Sony has just a chronic problem with this. And it just drives me crazy because the experience that everybody looks at it just in pictures is like, this is one of the most attractive, most beautiful phones. It has a great design, it stands out from anything else. It doesn't copy or hate the iPhone, it does its own thing. It's beautiful and in turn it's play on and it lets it down. But Vlad, I thought that the Xperia Z had a Bravia Engine 2. How could Sony let us down like this? Yeah, it's Bravia Engine X2 because it's like two times as awesome. I think you're missing a branding name in there. There's another one in there too. Oh there is. There's a Reality Engine. Yes, the Reality Engine. Listen, Reality has bad viewing angles. That may well be true. There's also Clear Audio Plus, whatever that is, I don't know. Who is worse on the branding of their features? Is it HTC or is it Sony? Oh man, that is tough. Boom Sound is pretty bad. Boom Sound is, and this is camo-cased. It's one word but camo-cased. But then you also have Beats Audio and it's like, what the heck is going on here? Boom Sound with Beats, man. That's the only way to go. It's very aggressive if you think about it. Boom and Beats. I don't want my phone to hurt me. Do you remember that HTC ReSound commercial from a while ago where the guy is walking down the street and the world is literally exploding around? That's what they want to happen here. Yeah, I mean, wow. We really need to actually get our heads together and come up with a ranking here because Samsung is pretty atrocious as well. No, LG is the worst. LG just takes what Samsung has whatever named it and then they like... They replace Q, I think it's with Q. No, they run it through a translator and then they run it back into its original language so things like Smart Stay become Wise Screen. And it just happens over and over again with all these features that are just the same feature but with a corny name. I don't know, it's pretty hard to be putting S in front of every noun on the planet and calling it a Samsung product. Except for the Swollet. The Samsung Wallet is still the Samsung Wallet. I'm still waiting for the music app S-Hits. I think there's not a third there. I tell you what, in terms of branding actually, and I raise this point in the review, Sony is really abusing the PlayStation brand in a terrible way with its PlayStation Mobile thing. Sony is just killing the PlayStation brand, like slowly with every new PlayStation mobile device. Yes, and that kills me. It's heartbreaking to me, seriously. Somebody actually commented on Reddit saying the Verge have been anti-Sony for so long and they're so wrong. Because myself and Neelai are like the biggest Sony fanboys, I pretty much have to wrestle with Ross Miller to get into a Sony keynote. There's Mudge Wrestling, Greco-Roman style, etc. And Ross Miller is a surprisingly powerful guy. He's five feet. Most of us have grown up with Sony in the 90s and just having that as our top tier brand forever. I just want to say, with regards to the Xperia Z, so many of us on staff are like, we want to play with it and we want to actually like this and check it out. And we're really curious about it and we've been waiting for this review and we've been anticipating it and we had high hopes for it, of course. And we love its industrial design, but I'll let Vlad continue because we totally derailed this discussion of the review. But it lets us down on so many levels and it's because we want it to succeed, not because we hate Sony or have a bad vibe against Sony or whatever. Yeah, and my biggest problem is that these are fixable issues. If Sony just fixed a couple of things, this phone could make the HTC One irrelevant, as far as I'm concerned. The first thing I would fix is give it a better screen, give it a smaller screen, because this thing is five inches as well. That merits saying it's just about as tall as the HTC One, but it's wider and it's less ergonomic because the sides are just so angular and straight-edged. Which is kind of a sacrifice to the really attractive design, we can kind of live with it. But if you stick a really nice display in the One, and the thing that a few people have mentioned to me is that Sony is making some of the displays in the HTC One, which is just inexcusable. Wow. You're making the best display on phones with somebody else and not sticking it in your own phone. But it's not branded Mobile Bravia 2. Yeah, I guess maybe... So basically, hang on, so Vlad, you're saying fix the display, I'm assuming you're going to get to fix the camera and then fix the software. So basically, fix all the things that make a phone what a phone is and then it would be better? Just build a different phone that's better and then it'll be better. Ah, but you see, it has the extra features, it has the extra goodies. Well, listen, as far as I'm concerned, I'm guessing the reason PlayStation Mobile and PlayStation Certification haven't taken off is because Sony underestimated how much its licensing cost would be for those classic PlayStation games. And nobody actually wanted to play ball with Sony and just give those games away for free. I don't know what the situation there is. But if you can't make it, if you can't do it justice, just throw it away because PlayStation Mobile at the moment is like this crappy-ass secondary app store for just completely disposable random games. There is no PlayStation action going on there. It was such a huge opportunity that was just completely squandered by Sony. Leading up to the announcement of the original Xperia Play, there was so much hype around the possibility of what a PlayStation phone could be and they've just completely blown it on every level, including the certification. Yeah, but what I would say is that's fixable. Either you do a less ambitious version or you just get rid of it so you don't embarrass yourself in this fashion. The rest of the software is actually really nice. I'm a fan of Sony's Android skin because it's so light. It might be the one that's closest to stock. It just does a few tweaks on top. So I like the skin. It's got some funky animations, but otherwise I agree. I find it to be one of the more tolerable customizations of Android. I don't think the responsiveness on this device is good enough. It has another quad-core processor exactly like the HTC One. But whereas the One feels futuristically fast and smooth and all those good things, this is not as responsive. It's not as fast, so Sony needs to sort that out. Like Dieter says, okay, you have to fix the software. And the camera can be so easily fixed. Don't give me a 13 megapixel monstrosity with supposedly HDR built into the sensor. It's an Xmore R. No, it's an Xmore RS, Dan. It's an Xmore RS, I'm sorry. The front-facing camera is Xmore R. That's the old stuff. It's with more S. Now it's with an S. Which like the iPhone 4S is almost indistinguishable from the non-S version. But yeah. I'm just waiting for them to call the camera an alpha mount. Just go all the way. Yeah, I mean, this is the other thing. Sony makes awesome displays. It doesn't have one here. Sony makes awesome cameras and sensors because every awesome Nikon sensor you can think of is made by Sony basically. Yes, Chris. I'm not disputing that. There's nothing wrong with that. If this show turns into me and Dan debating Canon versus Nikon, I'm quitting. I'm not going to let that happen. Please continue, Vlad. And just finally, this phone is waterproof. Well, they call it water resistant. But you can take it down to a depth of one meter for as long as 30 minutes. And you can take it in the shower. That's what I want to know. That's what I want to know about this phone. Does that actually make a meaningful difference in how you use the phone or what you do with it or where you take it? Or is it just that if I get drunk and drop it in the toilet, it maybe won't be a huge problem? It's still a huge problem. Let's be real, David. No, I mean, we laugh about it, but it wouldn't be any problem. You literally could drop it. I dropped my iPhone in the urinal once, and I thought long and hard about whether to retrieve it. Believe me. It was a serious debate whether to leave that thing in the urinal. And yes, the philosophical aspect of that is difficult. The thing with the waterproofing is that it can withstand the water exposure, but it's not a rugged phone. I think the average user is still going to probably want to put a case on this thing anyways because it's glass. But they're going to drop it and it'll shatter. I dropped it twice, maybe three times. But like, people put cases on things because they're afraid it's going to shatter. Because they're babies. This is really soft glass. I'm not joking, this is really soft glass. And the way it's been put together is that the side parts wrap around the glass, so both on the front and the back. It just feels really robust. When I hold this and use it and drop it because it's awkward to hold, it feels like any plastic phone in terms of durability. Like, good plastic phones, not like a really terrible one. So I've got no complaints about that. I feel like this is one of the most rugged flagship Android phones around. And this is what drives me nuts. This waterproofing stuff, again, it's a novelty that we're off, but it's just so much fun. If you actually want a high quality phone that you can literally take with you to the beach without worrying, this is it. I've done that. I've taken a Galaxy Nexus to the beach and it's like sticking it in a bag, sticking it in a bag inside another bag so sand doesn't get in it. It's a pain, man. I know it's a first world problem, but it's a pain. I will say, Vlad, that your header, beat rocking black, was one of the best things that's ever appeared on the site. That's David's inspiration. He's been asking me to be more creative. It's pretty amazing. So, the experience of Z is like, it just, overall it feels like it's like, meh, okay. Which is what I expect from LG. Why are you buying into the communism of Z, Dieter? I don't understand why you're expecting this. Look, it's easier to say than Z. Easier to understand exactly what I mean. I mean, what if I were saying a sentence and I was talking about the sea. Maybe you thought, the experience sea, right? Z. Yeah, but you realize that this is a gateway drug. Before long you're going to be talking in kilometers and all this nonsense. Yeah, you're going to be using the metric system. Yeah, measuring your weight in stone. Driving on the wrong side of the road. Now you're just getting your nationalities mixed up by it. It doesn't work at all. Listen, we're in America. We can do what we want. You can't eat Oreo mega-stuffs anymore though, right? Yes. My world came to an end this weekend and I was very upset. Does anybody have anything else they want to say about the Z? I still want to use one, regardless of Vlad's review. So, AT&T has announced the Z, right? Am I crazy or did that happen? I want to say that it was rumored or likely to come, but I don't think there's been an official announcement. I could be crazy though. AT&T and Sony have been friends for years now, so it makes total sense that that would be the case. Right. I'm just wondering, in the US, how these phones are going to be positioned. I worry about Sony because I feel like they really put their heart and soul into the Xperia Z and put what they perceive to be the best possible product they could on the market. It's going to do nothing compared to the One and the Galaxy S4. I mean, nothing. It's going to be a drop in the bucket. Just to raise a couple of extra points. At the moment, it's already on sale here in the UK and I expect across Europe. I haven't checked. Somebody needs to send me out on a flight to Milan and Geneva and places like that just to make sure this thing is on store shelves. Check the Sony store. People who pre-ordered it, and I think there's some others, they get these MDR-1 Bluetooth headphones as well, which are like £399 or something. These are really good headphones. So that's a nice bonus. The box is really barren, which I want to congratulate Sony for. Just keep it in a really minimal box. There's a USB cable. Then there's these headphones, which are also really nice. It's a headset. It's XP-something 300. It's got a really horrible name. So they've got a really nice headset and just a charger in the box and everything else is recyclable paper. So I feel like Sony gets a ton of things right with this phone. And then gets, like Dieter says, some of the core crux issues badly wrong. Did I say a ton of things right? Yes. It gets a ton of things on the side right and then gets the main things wrong. And that's the really frustrating part. So Chris brought this up. It's the Spectre that's hanging over this entire conversation, which is we're almost exactly 48 hours away from the announcement of the Galaxy S4. Yes. Yeah, I believe we're 50 hours away. 50 hours away, okay, whatever. 49, 48 minutes. I hate you all. So we saw a leak. We saw a video leak. So we do need to be a little bit careful because we saw leaks of the S3 that turned out to just be like dummy boxes and not the actual phone. But if these pan out, it looks exactly like the Galaxy S3. Okay, here's my thing though. Why would they change it? This phone has been a giant smashing success. They have taken over Android. They've ceded Android to Samsung. I'll tell you why. It's a phone that has all these issues with it, but why would they change it? I'll tell you why they'd change it because when people buy a new phone, they want it to look new. And if it looks exactly like their old phone, Apple didn't have too much of an issue going from the 4, 4S design to the 5, but at the same time, why upgrade my phone if it looks exactly the same? I don't think Samsung is after people who bought GS3s. I think Samsung is after people who bought Galaxy S2s or don't own a smartphone. I think Samsung is, like Apple plays to this crowd who buys a new phone every year, and Samsung is like, you have that Apple, we'll take the billion people who don't have that. I think it's a mix. I do think that Samsung, you know, I mean, of course, Samsung has a long and storied reputation of borrowing from Apple's playbook. I think that to a certain extent, this is a continuation of that. They're saying, hey, we can play the 4S, 5S game. We can make a phone that's basically a revised GS3 and get away with it because we are Samsung. And so it wouldn't surprise me at all if the phone that we see on Thursday does look like the GS3. Yeah, a couple months ago. I'm sorry, but just briefly to clarify, because there's been kind of a cold war happening between one tipster slash a leakster in a forum in China who evidently does have a new Samsung device in his hand, and then Samsung itself trying to drop little teases and hints. So Samsung's teaser today, which is just a picture, kind of shadowy with a little light cast on it, is basically the Galaxy S3. You overlay a picture on top of the Galaxy S3 and that's what it is. The only thing that's missing is the earpiece and the front-facing camera and all those sensors which Samsung's... It's going to have bone conduction, man. No earpiece needed. Right, so that... That would be wild. That's the Galaxy S4. It's the Galaxy S3 with bone conduction. Done. That gives us the possibility of the Galaxy S4 being essentially unchanged from the Galaxy S3 design and just saying straight up, this design is great, we're going to wow you guys with something else. And another piece of evidence that that is going to happen is the fact that the Note 8 was literally just announced two weeks ago with the same ID. And to go just two weeks before changing ID would be very strange. Right. Well, I mean, there's nothing suggesting that Samsung is going to change designs because the leaks of the person who has the phone, his phone is evidently or at least looks to be a 5-inch device. It's bigger, it has a smaller bezel around the display, but its actual look and design is exactly the same. It's completely consistent with the latest Galaxy devices and with the Galaxy S3. So either one, whether you go with Samsung's teaser or with the leaks, there's images and video, we're still looking at the same design. It's just a matter of size. I just find that, I mean, I know that we were not super enthused about the S3 and it turned out to take the world by storm. Well, I wouldn't say that. I think at the time when Vlad reviewed the S3 originally, it got the highest score of any Android phone that we'd ever reviewed. Yeah, I meant at the announce. But the phone itself just doesn't inspire a ton of passion. It's just a really good phone. And I think that the S4 is going to, again, just be a really good phone. I think that my hesitance to talk about it is like, or get excited about it, is I just don't think that their industrial design is all that great. It just doesn't look awesome. It looks, oh hey, it's a Samsung and that works. It doesn't feel awesome in your hand either. Well, there's that. It works maybe ergonomically, but the materials are not, it doesn't feel like it has a craftsmanship that other devices have, especially when we just talk about the One. And at the end of the day, the S3 was the phone that I used at CES, right, because it had a replaceable battery and it filled the slots that I needed for a phone that does the job. And I think that the S4 is going to be another Android phone that does the job and Samsung's going to market the hell out of it. It's going to sell fine. But it's not going to, for me, I don't think it inspires a ton of passion. I think I've got a really good metaphor for this, because I share Aditya's feelings on this. And it's, if you think about space travel, there's no friction in space. But every time we have sci-fi movies and, you know, graphic novels and art about space travel, what do we get? We get these really sharp looking spaceships which are just like needle-like, like Concorde, and it looks so beautiful and they're firing flames out of the back even though they're more efficient forms of getting traction and locomotion and all these things. So the Samsung phone is like this chunky, shapeless mess that just gets from point A to B. It just does space travel well. Vlad, there is actually friction in space. I'm going to challenge your thesis here. There is? There's not much. But in interstellar space there is a certain, I mean, you can go look at the data coming back from the Voyager spaceships right now and see that there is in fact, you know, there are molecules in space. Fair enough. I don't claim to know much more beyond sci-fi movies, but that was my point. Like, Sony, HTC, those guys are the ones that make the really pretty spaceships which actually break down. And Samsung is the one that just gets you from point A to B and does really good marketing. So the S4 is what? It's a Firefly, Kaisa, spaceship? Yeah, that would be a really good one because the, what was the movie Firefly? Serenity? That's what it was called? The only bad thing about that movie is that they use Papyrus as the font as the typeface on the title. Like, don't do that. Man, they had their reasons. I mean, did you watch the show? Did you watch? I haven't watched the show. I've only watched the movie. Oh, man. Don't even. Can I kick you off this podcast? Yeah, you should. Then I could go and actually catch up with it. I just watched the whole series right now. So, okay, is there anything else to say? I mean, we're expecting maybe eye tracking, I guess? I feel like, yeah, it's going to be, you know, the design of it is probably not going to thrill us based on what we've seen so far. We're not going to be in love with the additional design, but as far as software goes, it's going to have everything in the kitchen sink. Yeah, I just hope that when they do the software that it's not like, like with the S3, it was just like exhausting. Here's another crazy feature. Here's another crazy feature. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And there was no coherency to any of it. There's eight ways to share your photos. Right. I just want Smart Stay 2. As long as they bring a new Smart Stay to the table, I'm a happy camper. Which actually they're going to, right? That's one of the rumored features is that you'll be able to scroll with your eyeballs. Which is like the last thing that I want. Like I think of all these features and like the first thing I do to extend my battery life is turn off all of these features. So it's like maybe they can blow me away with some revolutionary battery technology that allows me to keep all of these whizbang features on and still get good battery life. I just want to point out, scrolling with your eyeballs is a great way to like break whatever muscles control your eyeballs. Like it's so wrong. Think about it. Every time you scroll, whether by touch or by mouse or scroll wheel, whatever, you pull the page up and your eyes look immediately down at the thing you just pulled up to see what it is. Right? Whereas in order to scroll with your eyeballs, you have to look at a given point and then pull it up with your eyes and then look back down. You don't know exactly how it's going to work. They could build in a lag there. No, I think the idea was that it'll scroll automatically when it figures out you're down at the bottom of the page. So you just like keep reading those last three lines and it'll keep jogging with you. Which would be cool. But I feel like all of these features, like watching Samsung's ads over the last however many months since the GS3 came out, has been really interesting because I feel like all Samsung does is say how many things can we have that nobody else has so that we can make ads about them. So people are like, huh, that's cool. And then they go into a Verizon store and they're like, I want that Galaxy phone. And it's like that seems like it's the ball game and that's how Samsung won so much. I remember it used to be you would either buy an iPhone or a Droid. Right? So it was either that was the game. And that has completely changed. You now either buy an iPhone or you buy a Galaxy. Like that's what people think. And Samsung did that by saying like all they advertised was NFC because everybody who had an iPhone was like, I want that. That's cool. And then they took off. And so they've advertised all these features that they just they have. And they don't spend a ton of time talking about the look and feel of the phone because that doesn't play on a commercial. They are like, here's a thing that our phone does that nobody else's does and then people buy it. And like that works. And it's kind of smart and it sucks for us as people who like care and pay attention and get to try a lot of these. But it's kind of a smart move it seems like. Well, and the features don't even need to work. Right? Like nobody actually uses NFC. We know that because they don't. I just think of those crazy photo sharing features where everybody in the room is supposed to own a Galaxy S3 and then you hit share and it beams the photo to all your friends in the room. It's on Wi-Fi directs. Just the most ridiculous. But like that's one of those things that is like, oh, it looks really cool in commercial and you never actually use it in real life. Right. Well, we'll find out on Thursday. Oh, do you want to talk about the Ativ Odyssey? I reviewed the Ativ Odyssey. Do you want to say anything about it or should we just move? I reviewed it. Okay. You know, it's like yet another Windows phone for Verizon. That was kind of the whole issue that we had when kind of constructing this review was that Verizon's already got the HTC 8X which is a higher end Windows phone. I think they're pricing it like $100 now. And they've got the Lumia 822 which is taking care of their low to mid range which you can get for free now. And now there's this Samsung which is not as good as either of those and it's priced at $50. So this is definitely an example of Samsung just, you know, pumping out another phone out of its like massive factory of continuous phones to fill a carrier's request that didn't feel like there was any innovation or input here on Samsung's end. Wah, wah, wah. Yeah. Unfortunately. Okay, we got other Windows phone rumors. The Lumia 928 on Verizon. That's not a rumor, man. Well. That's a little more exclusive. That's scoop. That's scoopage, man. Scooper Rooney. I just said that. Just call Tom Ice Cream, man. Tom two scoops more. Wow. That's pretty good. Aluminum body, Xeon flash. A little bit thinner and lighter than the 928. This sounds like it would make an awesome Android phone. Yeah. A Xeon flash would be excited because you never see that anymore except on old Nokias. Can somebody explain Verizon's strategy here to me? I don't get it at all. Verizon continues to say we want your phone, your best phone, but kind of a little worse and we want you to change these four things so that nobody will buy it. And we want to wait six months to put it out. Right. No, like really, why? Verizon seems like they have the clout to do whatever the hell they want. Like if they ask for the 920, I'm sure they'd get the 920. So what are they doing? Well, they wanted it to be exclusive only on Verizon. That matters. But is this worse? What's worse about it? This sounds like a better phone. Well, I think it's worse is that it's coming out later. Right. It's thicker. It's incremental against the 920 and presumably it's not going to ship with a new version of Windows Phone. It will ship with some service release of Windows Phone 8, which is fine I guess if you're into that sort of thing. No, I think it's going to be a very, very good Windows Phone. It will be the best Windows Phone on the market. It will be on Verizon. And Verizon won't do what's necessary to sell it. To market it, yeah. Classic Verizon. Verizon is a very – Verizon is, of all the carriers in the world, Verizon is definitely the most possessive about brands and about building its own image as the purveyor of the hardware. You know what I mean? Even more so than AT&T, which itself is a very meddling carrier obviously. But Verizon is really concerned about brands. Right. They created and they own the Droid brand. This goes back for years. The original story is Verizon rejected the iPhone because Apple wouldn't let Verizon Verizon it up. So this is definitely Verizon's reason to be. Yep. Okay. I'm excited to see an aluminum Nokia phone though because I love Nokia's hardware and their build quality and what they've done with the polycarbonate. So very excited to see what the company does with aluminum. I'm less stoked about that because I think – I mean, Nokia never gave me the one thing I wanted, which was an N9 running – In cyan. Yes, running Windows Phone 8. And if you go back to the N8, which I think, correct me if I'm wrong, was the last aluminum phone they made. No, it was the E7 came out after it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, good point. Yeah. But yeah, sure. But if you look – those two phones were of the same ID though, right? Sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, birds of a feather. They did not inspire me in the same way that the N9 and the Lumia 800 did from an ID perspective. But when the N9 and the 800 came out, like nobody was doing that with polycarbonate, right? Like that was like – when we first saw that and people were saying it's like plastic, we're like, well, it's not really plastic because if you go look at another plastic phone, it doesn't look anything like another – or feel anything like another plastic phone. So they've been doing that for a couple of years. So maybe they can apply that type of manufacturing technique to aluminum, which would be pretty cool. Well, I think what really set apart their plastic phones, which let's just be very blunt about it, that's what they are. They're plastic. I think what set them apart was the fact that they're built using a unibody approach. Like the 920, the 900, the 800, the N9, they're kind of like milled from a single block of plastic as far as I can tell. And that's what really made them what they were and made them how they felt. And I'm sure that they'll be able to apply some of those techniques to aluminum. I mean, other companies certainly have. I don't know. I just – I feel like – I think Tom Warren mentioned on our last show from MWC that he felt like the – was it the 720? It was kind of like the ultimate execution of that. I'm not sure that I agree. I think that they could have continued along that path for a while yet. It gave them a lot of flexibility in terms of coloration, and maybe they'll continue doing that with aluminum. They can anodize it certainly the way Dieter has his iPhone. But we'll see. Well, clearly they're just afraid of a surface phone. Yeah, the surface phone, yep, as it should be. An aluminum-cyan Nokia would be pretty amazing in my opinion. Yes. So is there anything else we want to talk about with Nokia? I mean, I guess we could – this ridiculous pressure they're trying to put on Instagram, to Insta with love. No, we don't want to talk about that. It just drives me crazy. I think that's Nokia trying to own the whole movement and brand it itself and put its own branding on it. Yeah, but I mean, this is just – it's kind of sad to be honest. It's really sad. It's like looking at somebody with a physical disability struggling along and – Oh my God. It's not something you want to watch. So let's put a number to this. The company, both Nokia and Microsoft, both of them are really struggling to get apps. And until they do, what's the point in discussing this? It's just grown increasingly desperate. So you know what's really sad about this is that Microsoft is a major investor in Facebook. They don't appear to be able to get Instagram on Windows Phone. Blackberry is getting it though. Well, kind of. Kind of. The most backdoor way of getting it that you can come up with. Right. So with Windows Phone, how much do you guys think Microsoft and or Nokia would have to pay Facebook to get them to port Instagram? I don't think they should spend it. I don't think that's their strategy. I thought Microsoft, one of those companies was already building an Instagram app. Yeah, I think they're just going to build it and then be like, listen, we've already built this. Give us an idea. Yeah, so just plug into it, guys. No, but if I'm Facebook, then I say, well, is it built to our standards? Do we want to license you our name? Let me just say this. Facebook's mobile app standards are pretty low. If you ever use Facebook for Android and Facebook for iOS, the apps are built in-house. Fair enough. I don't really think Facebook cares as far as standards go. Fair enough. Hang on. So we've gone an hour, which is good for us. We usually have been short lately. But we're running over, so David Pearce has to run. I don't want to keep him here if he's got other more important things to do than yammer on with us. I have to go build Instagram for Windows Phone. I'll be back. I'll tell you all about it. Well, thanks for being on, David. We appreciate it. Thank you, David, for putting up with our super professional broadcast. Anytime. Bye, guys. All right, so now it's a quote-unquote broadcast. There we go. Time to talk smack about David. We've gotten rid of the fifth core, the what did Nvidia call their? The companion core. The companion core. That's perfect. Which actually runs most of the show. Because it's the one that's used most of the time. Okay, we can't roll out without talking about T-Mobile and Metro PCS. Their merger has been approved by the FCC. They still have got a few more steps to go, but this is basically like this is going to happen. Yeah. I mean, there's no major roadblocks. Like I think the biggest comparison that we have always to compare this type of merger to is with AT&T's attempt to purchase T-Mobile a couple years ago and how that was famously stopped in its tracks by pressure from both the DOJ and the FCC. And so far for the Metro PCS and T-Mobile deal, the Department of Justice backed down a couple of weeks ago, said it's not going to pursue any more investigation. And just today the FCC said that it's gotten the green light. So I mean, there's a little bit of things left. I think the FTC technically has to green light it and the handshakes and papers have to be signed. But for all intents and purposes, it feels like this is a done deal. In terms of size difference, I feel like this is a closer arrangement to Verizon's acquisition of Altel than AT&T's attempt at acquisition of T-Mobile. And I think that the fact that the FCC green lit this with so little opposition speaks to that and this recognition that even as a combined company, there's no threat of them creating an anti-trust situation. It's not going to be an issue. And I think this is going to be – it's a big win for T-Mobile. And I think that – it's really funny to me. If you look back 18 or even 12 months, T-Mobile really looked desperate and like they were in very, very bad shape for a variety of reasons. They didn't have the spectrum they needed. Deutsche Telekom seemed desperate to shed them. And it wasn't clear how they were going to really carry on. And now I think that they are looking in many ways like the most competitive major carrier in the U.S. This is a huge spectrum acquisition for them. They're going to pretty rapidly deploy LTE in 2013. They've already got HSPA 42 in a lot of if not most major markets in the U.S. at this point. And they're doing some really creative things with subsidies and prepaid versus postpaid that I think are going to end up being bellwethers for the entire industry. I think that in the long term you're going to see AT&T and Verizon go the same way. Oh, wow. You think Verizon? That would be awesome. Someday. I'm not saying this is a 2013 thing, but I think that – I've been saying for five years that the subsidy model is not sustainable. I mean I don't want to say that I informed T-Mobile on this decision, but I informed T-Mobile on this decision. Chris used his clairvoyance and his Jedi mind powers to predict five years ago. You're following a Jedi mind meld. But it's been eating – the subsidy model has been eating itself alive for years now and it's going to continue to do so. And I think that T-Mobile has really done some pretty ballsy things to try to break out of that. And I mean, you know, hats off. I think that they've put themselves in a position where they aren't being particularly offensive to customers who are trying to buy phones affordably, and yet they've still gotten out of that model. So that's good and that's healthy. And I think that it's looking a lot better than signing up for a two-year contract and getting a heavily subsidized phone every two years. Chris, I have to just challenge you quickly on the point about the subsidy model being unsustainable. I mean, it is what AT&T and Verizon practice and those guys just keep rolling in massive profits every quarter. Yeah, but it's like – have you seen the movie Fast and Furious? No. If you go too fast, somebody's going to get furious and then you crash. Well, I'll just come up with that thought, Chris. That's how that works. I'll rebut that, Vlad, because actually if you look at the major carriers, AT&T's, Verizon's last fourth quarter results, both of them attributed a big loss to – You guys, Chris is making his Google face right now. Like, I'm sorry to interrupt, but he's concentrating so hard. Yeah, I'm Googling things out of this. He's actually Googling. But I mean, they actually are on the books saying that subsidies are causing – AT&T lost a lot of money last quarter for a couple of reasons, but they specifically mentioned the subsidies that they had to pay out because of all the smartphones that they sold. And as the iteration and the pace of development has greatly accelerated in smartphones over the past couple of years, people want the new smartphones faster and they want them more often, and that's where the subsidy model really starts to fall apart. So while Chris is finishing up his Google job – Margin Call. Margin Call. Margin Call is the movie. I've never heard of that movie. But let's quickly mention that the BlackBerry Z10 got announced by AT&T for $199.99, which presumably doesn't have too much of a subsidy on it. Everyone was like, that's a terrible price. It's probably got some kind of subsidy. It also doesn't have a chance in hell. Solovay is selling it subsidy-free in the US for, what is it, $629 now? Yeah, $689 I think they dropped the price today. It was $999. So anyway, the point I was trying to make about Margin Call is that this hedge fund business looks like it's going really well, but one of their risk assessment guys notices that there's some trend happening that nobody else sees, that the business is about to collapse entirely. I'll stop there because I don't want to spoil it for everybody. It was called what happened to the US economy. It was the dramatization. There's no spoiler. It's like, spoiler alert, Bill Clinton won in 1992. I mean, come on. I'm talking about a movie. I'm not talking about IRL. I like that movie. Boiler Room is one of my favorite movies. Boiler Room is a top five movie for it. It really is. Are there race cars in Boiler Room? Yes, actually. There are race cars in Boiler Room because all the guys working at the firm have Ferraris and stuff. But anyway, so the point I was trying to make is that you can tell, there's just some delays in the industry because customers and carriers have become so heavily dependent on the concept of not paying full price for the hardware that they're owning. It's unhealthy, especially if the rate people are dropping their phones. Then what? I don't know. It's bad. The fact that T-Mobile is trying to break out of that I think is extremely healthy for the industry and for their consumers. We've heard AT&T say, I don't know if it was Randall Stevenson or Ralph Hale Bay, I think it was Stevenson, said just very recently that they were looking at the subsidy model and reevaluating how that's going to play out in the coming years. So it's definitely on their minds. They're looking at what T-Mobile is doing. Right, I think they're going to look and see how well it's working for T-Mobile and formulate their plans. Well, listen, as an outsider, I'm still getting over the fact that T-Mobile was nearly lost into the AT&T giant globe of white and blue evil. So I'm happy that that carrier still exists. I'm delighted to hear that now they're stepping up and actually acquiring new spectrum and new opportunities. And since Chris said it, it's basically a fact that Verizon and AT&T are following in his footsteps. And you guys are going to get a better deal, I think, out of it. I mean, if everybody follows in T-Mobile's footsteps, US, UK, Europe, etc., that would be brilliant. Look, I'm basically the Nostradamus of the phone industry. I'm just going to come out with that. Yeah, I mean, you say it as a joke, but when eventually the freaking Amazon slash Kindle phone comes out, you know. Doesn't that mean you'll be right about 20% of the time or something, Chris? No, it means I'll be right 100% of the time, as usual. Just like I'm right about Nikon over Canon. Wait, which are you, Chris? I don't even know. Enjoy dropping your $1,100 on a Coolpix A, man. You're going to Canon? It's going to be the best point shoot I've ever owned. Whatever, man. Nikon plus Sony right here. Forget about plus. It's all about Sony. You guys are having last century's conversation, Nikon versus Canon. It's about Sony. I'm sorry, but when you say it's about Sony, you mean it's about Nikon since they're using Sony sensors. No, I mean it's about Sony's mirrorless cameras, and I mean it's about the RX1. Right, Dan? No, the RX1 is an amazing, phenomenal camera. That's what I'm talking about. And you know what else? I'm just going to say it openly to Sony so it hears me. I would actually pay a higher price than any other smartphone if they fixed all the things I mentioned that need to be fixed with the Xperia Z. I would pay it just because it's Sony and just because I trust them. But they don't trust themselves to charge the premiums that they used to, and I don't know. I'm going to start ranting. Sony needs to love itself. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Sony, it's not your fault. It is Sony's fault. That's our mobile show for the week. Thank you so much everybody for listening. Sony's Matt David. Yes, thanks especially to David Pearce for coming on. If you want to follow him, and you should, he's Pearce David on Twitter. He's at CompanionCore. At Pearce David at CompanionCore. Reversing his name makes it pretty suggestive. Anyway, I'm a back lawn on Twitter, Vlad is Vlad Saabov. Dan is DC Seifert. Chris is ZPower. We are all at Verge. And if you want to talk to us, you can. You can leave a comment on this post. You can go talk to us in the forums. You can message us on Twitter. And we'll see you guys maybe next week probably. Thanks. Bye bye.

Columbia, Columbia, this is Houston, ALS, over. Houston, Columbia, tie gate, over. Roger, the EVA is progressing beautifully. They're setting up the flag now. I guess you're about the only person around that doesn't have TV coverage of the scene. That's all right, I don't mind a bit. Part of the NASA charter dictates that the agencies share its activities and results, so the missions and the data, with the widest audience possible. And it doesn't specify how you need to do it, just that it needs to be done. And so with the changing media landscape, a lot of people don't get news from nightly news or newspapers anymore. They get it online. The world of South by Southwest is typically reserved for fresh-faced startups and Silicon Valley stalwarts. But this year, one of the biggest presences was NASA. In addition to talks, panels, and astronaut meet-and-greets, the agency even brought along a 12,000-pound model telescope. Coming to South by is part of NASA's larger effort to have a, quote, hipper, more accessible image. And that effort has had varying degrees of success. My management said, you're going to have to start tweeting, just like you do news release or talk to media. This is part of your job. And I rolled my eyes and I said, OK, whatever you say, boss. And I did it. And actually, it all changed for me personally. During the Hubble Space Telescope mission, there was a spacewalk occurring, and there was a lull in the spacewalk. And I decided to see what the conversation happening was. And when I went and saw that feed, and people were asking questions, and they were on the edge of their seat, it made me realize people love space. They're following this stuff. And before, there was always someone between me and the public. It was the news media. It was the internet. But all of a sudden, I was able to connect directly with the public, have a conversation with them. The agency has more than 480 highly active social media accounts across Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, and more, all blasting out daily information about NASA's many projects. It gives us a voice, these little things. These little things before that were happening at NASA that were great, that are potentially changing our lives here in aeronautics, in space, in technology. They were happening before, but they were happening in a vacuum. Nobody knew about them. A lot of the stuff you see on social media coming out from NASA comes from the experts. I flew in space twice. I would fly to the window of the space station, see this incredible sight, get a camera, take a picture of it, and then I could send it out through the different social media platforms instantly. So this is what it looked like. This is what the sunset looked like at Corsica yesterday, or today, and be able to do that, have a real-time interaction. It really was a way to bring people along on the space missions, not just as spectators, but as fellow crewmates. If we treat it like traditional media, like press releases or just making press statements that are one-directional, we're missing the point. And the viral success of the cheeky Mars Curiosity rover Twitter account has encouraged the agency to mix humor in alongside facts and science. Currently, Mars Curiosity has about 1.3 million followers on Twitter. We've done several AMAs with different team members. One of them is the number four AMA of all time. Most people really love it and respond to it very, very well. If we drop a song lyric or a movie quote, they'll be like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. That formula earned Curiosity more than 1.3 million followers and invigorated the agency's social media strategy. But it's unclear exactly what NASA is trying to accomplish and whether it will benefit the agency long term. Given the agency's perennial budget troubles and its documented lack of focus, is it time for NASA to get serious about social? Our job is to tell NASA's story to the widest audience possible. And if someone's going to get that message through a parody video and they're going to learn something, we don't do things that are just silly for the sake of being silly. We do it to get that information out. And if there's real content being communicated, whether it's social media, whether it's a cute YouTube video, whether it's a funny photo, if we're sharing information of what the agency is doing to help better us here on Earth, I think that has value and I think people get that.

It's Monday, March 11, 2013. I'm Adrienne Jeffries coming to you from South by Southwest. And if you can understand me, your Babelfish is working just fine. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. We're in the last days of South by Southwest Interactive, and yet again, it seems like this is the year of the hardware startup. Companies like Leap, Oculus VR, and Ouya are sealing the show. Meanwhile, the big startup trend seems to be taxi and ride sharing services like Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar. As for Google's zany antics, this year it's a talking shoe. It is not, alas, a sneaker phone. Like Tesla, but can't afford the Model S? You'll have to wait a little bit longer. In its annual report to the SEC, Tesla revealed that it is pushing back production of its Model X electric crossover until late 2014. The Model X is Tesla's take on the SUV, and is expected to start at $49,000 after tax credits. The extra time will let the company focus on the Model S sedan instead. And finally, a Star Wars fan favorite is going away. Lucasfilm announced today that the animated series The Clone Wars is winding down. Lucasfilm also teased a new animated show set in a, quote, time period previously untouched in Star Wars films or television programming. My three Ewoks? The best little cantina on Tatooine? Lucasfilm will have more details in the months ahead. And that's it for today's top stories. Stay tuned for our South by Southwest elevator pitch of the day. We're launching an app called Smack That. It's a social media game for the year 2000. The app will send you a push notification when there's a smacker within 15 meters. Get smacked.

I'm Ellis Hamburger with The Verge here at South by Southwest on a roof with Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley. How's it going, Dennis? Doing well. How are you doing? Doing very well, thanks. All right. So it's been a few years since you guys made a big splash at South by Southwest. What's changed for you guys since then? Well for us, I mean we launched four years ago and we're a big company now. We've got 160 people across three offices. We've got 30 million people using our products. And it's just like Foursquare is big now. And so we came down here four years ago just to introduce what we were doing and really just to see if anyone even thought it was interesting. Like hey, if we take game mechanics and overlay it with the real world with check-ins, like is that something you guys like? And to come back four years later and to still see all these places trending with hundreds of check-ins, like it's awesome for us. Seems like you guys have started to really focus on recommendations. And I mean I found an amazing coffee shop yesterday. Yeah, that's great. Like when did you kind of start to think that maybe that's where you needed to head? So we started thinking about that when we were still doing Dodgeball while we were at Google. And we had all this check-in, when I say all this check-in data with Dodgeball, it wasn't a lot. It was probably tens of thousands of check-ins as opposed to the three billion that we have with Foursquare. But we always knew that there was really good data in the signal that these people go to these types of places and this is where their friends go and these are the places that they go back to. And we knew we wanted to do that with Foursquare. We just knew it was very difficult to get a lot of that check-in data in order to do that. So one of the big original ideas with Foursquare is like, you know, let's try to turn it into a game initially to see if we can get people to give us a lot of that data and then we'll be able to kind of flip the switch on it. And it took us a couple of years to do it before it's like, you know all those check-ins that you thought you were just giving us as part of this game? Well it turns out that they go into this recommendation engine and you've basically been telling us what you like for the last two years and now we can tell you guys like the places that we think you would like and the places that your friends like. And I know you guys this week launched an update so it makes it even easier to check in, you know, maybe from 10 seconds to more like three. What was kind of the impetus behind making a move like that? I mean are people having check-in fatigue or are you just trying to make it as easy as possible to provide that data to you guys? Even if it means, you know, taking the check-in experience from 15 seconds down to 10 seconds, it's great. And then a lot of the work that we're doing now, you know, trying to like understand the passive signals that come from your phone, like, you know, can we do things where we buzz your phone and we remind you to check in or we just automatically check you in if you've been in the convention center for 10 minutes or so, if your phone's been there. Like can we take those signals and turn those signals into an easier way for people to share? I think that's one of the big questions of our age is how to not be annoying with push notifications. Yeah, yeah. Is that in part a hardware limitation because let's say on iOS you can't be constantly pinging to see what somebody's up to or is it something that you guys kind of need to work on with science and algorithms? And so, you know, like the background location stuff is a little bit tricky just because it drains the battery very quickly. This is true on iPhone, it's true on Android. And so, you know, we launched a feature in 2000, I think 2011 called Radar. The idea is like you turn radar on and as you just walk through the city Foursquare just tells you about the things that are interesting. And it works but like it might not be worth the, you know, the 40% battery trade-off that you get from it. But we, like, I think we all recognize internally as a company like this is the direction that all this stuff is going. You know, there's a great example that I reference all the time. Like I've left the office back in New York at like nine o'clock once and then as soon as I, you know, as soon as I leave the office and as soon as my phone moves two blocks north, like Foursquare can sniff that out. It's like, oh, you're on the move and you're heading in this direction. Did you know that five of your friends are checked in at the karaoke place three blocks away? And it buzzes and I look at my phone and I'm like, of course I want to know that and of course I want to stop by just for a second. So here at South by people discovery apps have been popular and you keep seeing iterations but nothing that really makes a whole lot of sense. Like well, won't buzz your phone because this person knows your cousin and you also like mad men. Like does that work or is, are we going to reach a point where this is really valuable for people that you don't know or is it just on Foursquare where you want to find people that you do know? Yeah, it's going to, it's tricky, right? Because you have to sniff out someone's context and so you can't just be buzzing people all the time about every little thing that we think might be interesting. So one of the things that we're getting good at is like recognizing, hey, in this city, in this neighborhood, are you a local or are you a tourist? Does your phone spend a lot of time in Austin? Well no, but it spends a lot, you know, it spends four days a year. And so like Foursquare has like, it can, it understands which neighborhoods I know about. And so if I can go outside of those neighborhoods, maybe that's when it turns the dial up and it's like, now we're going to start telling you more aggressively about the things that, you know, are interesting in this neighborhood. But once you get back to someplace familiar, it just turns the dial down a little bit. We're here at South By this year. Where's Foursquare next year at South By? What does it look like? Because you guys update the app every two weeks. It could be a completely different animal. From a UX perspective, it's hard to tell because we're always doing so much work there. But you know, like a big part of the Foursquare journey has been telling the story to people as it evolves. And that's why we come down here every year because it's like a different chapter of what we're doing. In 2009, it was, you know, points and badges, and in 2011, we showed what we were doing with the Explore recommendation engine and the MX deals for the first time. And you know, now I think people are starting to really understand like the personalized local search and the social maps aspect of it. And I think a year from now, that'll be a lot more commonplace. At the same time, I'm still psyched that I can pull up my phone at any moment and see that, hey, there are 600 people checked in at the Driskell and there are 200 people checking at the convention center and use that as a guide for where to go next. That's always a lot of fun. Thanks so much for coming out with us, Dennis. Yeah, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

I'm Ellis Hamburger with The Verge here at South by Southwest with Path CEO Dave Morin. Thanks for coming on with us. Thanks for having us. So you guys actually have some news this week. Why don't you tell me about it? Indeed. We rolled out Path 3 this week, which we're very excited about. It includes all new messaging, private messaging feature, stickers feature, and then some nice little Easter eggs all around the app. So do you think that down the line people are going to have one social networking app that they turn to for their most meaningful communication? Or are people going to have Path and Facebook and Tumblr and Twitter and Snapchat? I think it'll probably grow. I don't think that there will be an infinite number, but I think there will be quite a few. I think that each context that we all interact in every day has different meaning, different requirements. I really like the analogy that Facebook built the cities, we're trying to build the home. Our friends over at Nextdoor are trying to build the neighborhood. Our friends at Coupl are building the bedroom, or the bed as it were. There's Yammer doing the office. I think that as Facebook's done a really good job of providing an identity layer for the entire internet, and now there's an opportunity to build these contextual experiences around these individual pieces of our lives where you want to walk into a different room to have a different experience. What's your take on some of these ephemeral apps like Snapchat or Poke that kind of remove the permanence of some of the standards for communication that we're used to today on Facebook where something lives forever? What's interesting is if you think about all of the conversations that you have in your real life, you don't remember a lot of them. The conversations that you had yesterday, even with your closest friends, a lot of it just kind of disappears into the ether. I think that these applications represent more of a human take on how things actually work. Just because you can store all of the data doesn't mean you should. I actually think on a more philosophical note, one of the interesting things to think about is we've spent the last 10 years or so on the internet figuring out how to store as much data as possible. Now you're seeing the popularization of these applications which actually create the absence of data. It's an interesting question to ask. Is this trend going to be a big one over the next 10 years? Are we going to see a proliferation of applications which create the absence of data rather than storing it? What do you kind of see as being something that is going to be awesome down the line, but maybe we're not quite there yet? What stuff do you really like these days that you're really inspired by? That's kind of out there. I'm pretty inspired by 3D printing. I think it represents something much further off than what we're seeing with it today. You look at it today and it prints some little pieces of plastic. My sense that the killer app for 3D printing is probably food. I'm still waiting for someone to build a 3D printer for chocolates. Over Christmas I saw somebody did a 3D printing of Christmas cookies or clothing. Why can't we replace the closet with a 3D printer? These kinds of things or even a house. I can't wait for the day that a 3D printer is the size of a semi-truck and can build a house. I think there's some really interesting and disruptive ideas in that realm. I think more than anything it represents the idea that manufacturing no longer needs to be centralized. It doesn't need to be in a factory. You can sort of push it out and have it in everybody's homes. When you look at how people are using Path today versus let's say at South By a year or two ago, how has that changed? I would say a couple of years ago amongst a small set of people it was probably a great way to figure out where the good parties are, where everyone's at right now. I would say this year, last night, I was actually noticing that I was getting more information from Path about where the good stuff going on was than I ever have been. I think there's been a big shift there. We've got a lot more people on the service today. We're well over six million users now, growing really fast. I think for us this year is going to be a lot about refining and purifying and simplifying everything that we're doing. We've got a few other cool things up our sleeve for the rest of the year. Thanks so much for joining us, Dave. Yeah, thank you.

This is David with The Verge and this is the HTC One. Basically this phone is HTC's Hail Mary. The company's been in rough shape for a long time and it's hard to say how many more chances it's going to get to make a real dent in the smartphone market. The One is HTC pulling out all the stops trying to prove it can really be relevant again. It has some remarkable specs, some impressive features, but how can it compete? So let's start with the hardware. The One is gorgeous, full stop. The One X last year was one of the best designed and best made phones we'd seen and the One bests it in every way. It's light and thin but it's matte aluminum body still feels really sturdy and strong. The back curves ever so slightly and the chamfered edges slope down toward the front of the phone so the whole handset kind of just nestles into your hand. The phone's back and edges are pretty minimalist. They're silver with white accents plus Beats and HTC logos. And there's only one port, a micro USB that doubles as micro HDMI on the bottom. The power button is on top which is a little awkward to reach on a phone this big but at least there's a good reason. There's an IR blaster built into the power button which lets you use your phone to control your TV. The software for doing that isn't great but it does work and it's a handy feature to have. There's a little more going on on the front of the phone. There are speaker grills on the top and bottom which both look cool and sound awesome. They create a really nice stereo effect as you hold the phone sideways and they're a lot louder than most phone speakers. You think the rules don't apply to you as you disagree with them? Three, two, one. There's some Beats software at work here and it does make a noticeable difference though it's basically just adding a low end to whatever you're listening to. But the star of the show here is the 4.7 inch 1080p display in between those speaker grills with tiny black bezels on either side. 1080p displays aren't exactly novel anymore. We've seen similar displays on the Droid DNA, the Sony Xperia Z and the like. But this one is every bit as good and even a little sharper since it's 4.7 inches instead of 5 like the other devices. Colors are great, text looks fantastic, viewing angles are really good. The screen's not super bright and it can be tough to use outdoors but this is otherwise one of the best smartphone displays out there. There are two buttons below the screen flanking an HTC logo. You get home and back and for some reason there's no multitasking button. That's fine, you just double tap the home button to get to the multitasking menu and long press to get to Google Now. But the buttons are really awkward to press unless you hold the phone in two hands just because they're located off to the sides. The one is running Android 4.1.2 which is already outdated software and is missing some of the nice Android 4.2 features. And as always it's skinned by HTC's Sense software. HTC's Tone Sense down a lot over the years but it's still pretty unmistakable and HTC has even done some new things in this version. The most obvious new thing here is Blink Feed which is basically Flipboard for your home screen. HTC's theory is that you want quick, at a glance news on your phone so it puts a scrolling, customizable news ticker right on your home screen. You pick a bunch of news sources or connect Facebook and Twitter and just watch the news roll in. It works and it's a fairly handy thing to have I guess but it really just feels cluttered and makes using the one kind of exhausting. Plus without that much work you could just use Twitter and Flipboard widgets to create an even better system. In settings you can change it so you have a more normal home screen and then the Blink Feed set up one screen to the left and I actually found that was a pretty perfect setup. There are a couple of other quick changes worth making on the phone too. By default the app drawer only shows 9 apps at a time which is just a huge waste of space on such a high res screen. You can make it slightly denser and you should. You should also sort apps alphabetically which just makes things easier to find. With some effort those things work well but a few things about Sense continue to be kind of a mess. Take the People app for instance. You can get around by swiping through tabs in the Holo interface or you can tap on the header to switch or you can tap on the other header to pick your sources. There are just too many ways to do everything, too many steps and processes you have to remember and it just gets confusing. There are also a few ugly icons and font choices which make the one feel like a toy when it's really much more than that otherwise. In a lot of cases HTC seems to be changing things for the sake of changing things but one place that's definitely not the case is the camera. Instead of going for more megapixels the one has what HTC calls an ultra pixel camera which is a custom sensor that's essentially a 4 megapixel camera but with much larger pixels. That means in theory that the camera can take in a lot more light at once and even though you're getting slightly smaller photos HTC doesn't think you'll care that much. This approach is good and bad. On the plus side low light performance is excellent. I got shots in low light that the iPhone 5 just couldn't and this is definitely as versatile in that sense as a camera like the Lumia 920. There's also optical image stabilization which helps in bad light so the shutter can stay open longer but the downside is that you get noisier softer photos. There's a lot of processing happening with each photo which leads to a lot of softness and sort of mushy photos and even in great light photos don't feel particularly sharp. The photos look great at Facebook or Instagram sizes and in fairness HTC's betting that's all you want to do and that's probably accurate. There are a lot of internal filters and settings for the camera but the coolest one by far is called Zoe. Basically it takes one second of video before you press the camera shutter and three seconds after and then lets you scrub frame by frame through the video to pull out exactly the shot you wanted. It works great and really helps undo the shutter lag problem every smartphone has. The camera's a trade-off. Its photos aren't as sharp as some of its competitors particularly at larger sizes but there are a bunch of cool features and you really can just get shots you couldn't otherwise. The One runs Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor with 2 gigs of RAM and it's just off the charts. Even intensive games almost never lagged or dropped frames and except for a few pervasive Android issues like scrolling which is for some reason still jumpy on every Android device it's as good as I've seen. It's kind of overkill honestly since a quad core processor is really beyond what you need and what any software is tuned for and the performance isn't noticeably better than any other high-end phone but that's obviously not a bad thing and it does work really well. Call quality and reception are about what you'd expect. Noise cancellation was actually really good on the One picking up less background noise than the iPhone or other Android phones I tested but it's not a huge difference. I didn't get to test the LTE version but this unlocked European model was fast and reliable on AT&T. When you look at the One's spec sheet from the super fast processor to the big and high res screen it seems impossible that the One would get good battery life and it is impossible. The One will last a full day but only with really light use and some serious optimization. In more practical use you're going to want to keep a second charger with you at all times. After I spent about 10 minutes demoting BlinkFeed, fixing the app drawer and installing a third party keyboard I kind of fell in love with the HTC One. Actually I fell in love with it the moment I took it out of the box but with a little work it became not only a beautiful phone but one I could actually use to get work done. There are a handful of things I still hate about Sense and the battery life is really unfortunate but I can pretty easily say this is my favorite Android phone yet. Of course Samsung may have something to say about that with the upcoming Galaxy S4 but as of this moment the HTC One is the gold standard for Android devices.

This year at the Frog Party, our theme is the other singularity. Because when we talk about the singularity itself, it gets really heady fast, right? You're talking about respirocytes that let you stay in the water for 20 minutes or solving social ills or even eternal life. Then there's the other singularity. Hey everybody, it's Ben Popper from The Verge. We're here for the opening night party at South by Southwest Interactive. This party is put on every year by the folks at Frog Design, and it's two things. It's a chance for nerds to get really drunk together, and it's kind of a chance to talk and think about some of the bigger ideas in technology. So this is an interactive books project put together by Frog, and the idea is that in the near future, light is going to be cheaper than ink. So the way the books work is that they're projections, and as you turn the page, it changes to a new image. So I think perhaps in the future, instead of creating something with expensive, costly ink that you can't reuse, we just have these books made of light that can always change. So what you guys see behind me is an installation called Zen and the Art of the Robot. Now this is a Zen garden. You rake it, you think, you meditate, you find the meaning of life. But why would you do all that work if a robot can find inner peace for you? The folks at Frog Design had their partners in China make this. It's kind of like a giant light bright. People have these electronic paint brushes, and they can go up there and change the lights to whatever color they want. What's really interesting about it, for them, the price right now is about a used car, but next year the price of building this could be as much as a used smartphone.

Hey, this is Ross from Over the Verge and we're at South by Southwest 2013 Google's playground. Okay, so I'm here with Kate Packer. She's part of the Talking Shoe Team. Is that right? Is it Talking Shoe? It's a Talking Shoe. You're actually calling it Talking Shoe. Yeah, exactly. Nice work. So what kind of sensors do we have in here? So in here we have a pressure sensor, an accelerometer, and a gyroscope. Got it. And this is just like, it's just for telling steps when you sit down, when you stand up. Yeah, so it can tell when you're sitting down and when you're walking or running, how fast you're going. So it can jump up and down, it can tell that, and then it can give you feedback in its own sarcastic little way. Sitting down on the job, are we? Is this running Android? So the way it works is it actually connects to Bluetooth, which can connect to Android or can connect to a computer. So right now it's connected to a server that's actually tracking all my terrible steps. So inside it's connected to a computer that is taking that data and then translating it into that fun stuff you see up on screen. So theoretically I could have a phone that's kind of a dick to me and it'll just transfer from there. So basically we have a pair of shoes that connects to the phone and then it shows what it was saying on the app and then you could share it to the web if you wanted. Great. Good point.

Hey, this is Ross Menard with The Verge and we are hanging out with Cliff Plasinski at South by Southwest. He just got off the Oculus Rift panel. So actually what I want to ask you is what was your first experience with Oculus? How did you get introduced to the headset? Okay, so I know Brandon Nerebe who's the biz guy over there because he worked at Gaikai and of course he worked at Scaleform which is the UI system that Epic and everybody in the industry used. He's a very smart businessman and he has a tendency to find something good, latch onto it and ride it up and just make it a big thing which is what he did with those previous businesses. So he came to Epic and he actually brought what was their first piecemeal version of it which was so just like trashy rig. It was so sad. I walked into the room with Mark Green and I'm like, what is this thing? It's like literally like, you know those old school theater glasses the little old ladies would have, right? Oh, this is a wonderful production of Phantom of the Opera, right? That's what it looked like. But you put it on and immediately you're like, oh, okay. I can see. You know, you ignore the fact that it's not attached to your head, the fact that the tracking is not that good. I'm like, I felt like I was just gazing into a different world right there and I felt like I was there like teleported in immediately, right? And that was when I was like, okay, this might have a lot of potential. And then when I saw the later versions of it is when it really started to click for me and I was incredibly impressed with the setup. What was your first reaction like to meeting Palmer Luckey? He reminded me, he was kind of halfway between myself and Tim Sweeney a little bit, you know, and I saw this like young budding designer who's doing it because he loves it and I was like, wow, okay, we're gonna be seeing some great things from this kid in the next 20 years and starting with this and you know, it's the classic American dream everybody talks about. Oh, the economy's not doing that well, you know, you can't really get a job and here's a kid out of his own garage who put this thing together himself and he should be an example for the youth of America. I don't know where that went. So you just got off the panel and talked about like different genres that would work well. Obviously simulation, you actually mentioned simulation in some kind of fashionable way. What genres do you think specifically would work the best here? Would actually be better than ever before? I think exploration genre, right? And I alluded to like the mist type game and I believe Paul was mentioning that that actually be kind of a lonely experience, which is a very good point. I think horror could be good, but I think the horror could actually be too intense for most people. Like I was saying, Slender Man is already scary on a monitor. Imagine if you turn around, Slender Man's right in your face. Like people would like throw the headset off and stomp on it in the ground. I think those are the kind of games you have to be patient with. I wonder if maybe some sort of fighting game experience could be very interesting, you know? It's kind of first person. Yeah. I think movement would be an issue, but in fighting games you're basically just going like that, right? So depending on how close you are in bobbing, but again you'd have to be careful with physical fatigue. And so I think when it comes down to flow games, games such as flying games, driving games or scuba diving-ish games, I think those could be very, very compelling. I think those are the genres I think have the most potential. Right. Obviously you've had a lot of life changes this year. You're a huge investor in Oculus. Are you going to be developing for it and what can we see from that? Right now my plans of what I'm working on are still way up in the air. I mean my agent's talking to different people and there's certainly parties that are interested, but right now I'm enjoying just getting up and pissing off the entire internet every day by blogging. So we'll see. All right, Cliff. Thank you so much. Oh, Cliff, good

Hey, this is Ross Minnow with The Verge and we are at South by Southwest checking out the Oculus Rift panel that just ended. We are here with Paul Bettner, he is the CEO of Verge and the co-creator of Words with Friends with his brother. Paul, how are you doing? Good, how are you doing? So we just got done with the panel, you're on it, you're super enthusiastic about it. Can I ask, how did you get involved? Well, I backed the project. I think, you know, like I said, the panel, I was actually I think one of their first like elite level backers and, you know, as I mentioned, I really believed in the dream of it before I even knew that the dream was real. Obviously, you've been in contact since. You guys meet, you guys did the panel together. What was your first time meeting Palmer like? It was pretty awesome. I mean, you walk into their offices and it's like, it's Palmer and he's got no shoes on and it's a bunch of soldering irons and like you realize, wow, this is the real thing, what these guys are doing here. You know, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know if I was going to just walk into something that's like, oh, it's all venture capitalists and it's all whatever. No, these guys are the real deal. So what was it like when you tried for the first time? When you take it off, Palmer likes to say welcome back and that's the best way to describe it. I mean, you just, you really do, but you lose track of where you are in just a few minutes after having it, having it on, you forget that you're sitting in an office and that you're like, there's people standing around you, whatever. You're just completely immersed. Right. So we talk about short burst games, we talk about longer form exploration games on there. What do you think is like the best kind of genres for this and like even the best links of using this? I think the best genres right now, just because I haven't figured out anything better, are games where you sit in a chair. Because that's what you're actually doing when you wear this thing. So racing games, flying games, Chris Roberts space game, you know, but also that's, so that's one category. Also, I think there's this other, this whole other category, which is games that put you in a situation that you just, where it's just all about the visual experience. So like a falling game or a game where you're flying or like, you just, you fall nonstop. So I have this crazy idea for a multiplayer game where you take, you take two players in the rift and you shrink one of them down to the size of an inch and you have the other one huge and you have to be able to track hands to make this work. But you have one player pick up the other player. Like how crazy, you just see this huge hand come down and like pick you up and fling you like, yeah, exactly. So Jack and the Jot, you just made a great movie tie in game. Yes, yes. All right, so how about this one? Let's say, what about hand based gestures? Maybe a tile based word game of source. Would that work in a virtual space? No, not really. I mean, it would, but the thing is you got to realize like to make a game like that work, you first have to build the whole world, then build a table and this great living room and then you get to make the game and put it on the table with little pieces. So it's like you have to do a lot of work just to do a board game because you can't, it's not like words of friends or something where you can just put it right in somebody's face. It's, it doesn't make any sense in VR. It has to be some kind of action, basically an action forward moving game for that to work. It has to be, it has to be where you're immersed in a world and you don't really get, you're not immersed in chess. Maybe if something like battle chess where you're actually one of the characters, you know, but if it's just, you know, a board game of chess, like that could work, but it's not, it's not the right fit for this kind of platform. All right, last question. What is the first project you guys are going to work on as VRS for the Oculus Rift? We're not ready to announce that yet. I have to ask. That's okay. Right? You know, I mentioned on the panel, like right now we're just trying to figure out the basic components of a VR game. And like, you know, like Cliff was saying, it's a new type of language. The things that make for a compelling VR game are completely different than what we've experienced on TV. So, you know, we're just really trying to figure out what those core nuggets are so that we can then put a game together around them. But I mean, you know, it's like I said, figuring out that falling is a really compelling thing. So maybe we make a game around that, you know, like those are those things. We're just figuring out those first little steps. Great. Well, Paul, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Hey, this is Ross Miller with The Verge. We're here at South by Southwest, and I am here with Chris Roberts. He's the mastermind behind the Wing Commander series. He just got done with the Oculus Rift panel, basically talking about how virtual reality will make space exploration in the future, in the fantasy setting, even better. So how did you get involved with the Oculus, basically the project? Well, essentially, I mean, I got involved like I think a lot of the other people have backed it. I mean, I was sort of tracking it because John Cormac was talking about VR, and he thought that this one particular prototype headset where he was working with this young kid down in California that had developed this thing, and it was really cool. And he was raving about it, and he's generally not someone that raves about something unless it's good. And so the project came out, and I'm like, this looks great. From what I was building in Star Citizen, I'm like, yeah, I absolutely want to sit in the cockpit and turn my head around and feel it and have it all be there in full stereoscopic 3D. How was it? What was it like to meet Palmer for the first time? Great. I mean, he's just so enthusiastic. I mean, he loves this stuff. I mean, I've got a lot of passion for making great games or great space games, especially. And he definitely has the same passion for VR and making this experience that is going to just be taking you to other worlds and places, which is a big thing for me. I mean, my whole career has always been about building worlds and environments and going and when I took a break and was doing movies for a while, that was all about going to different worlds. So my old company origin was we create worlds. And that's, I think, with Oculus Rift, it makes it easier to- A much more immersive world, so to speak. Yes, exactly. So it's going to be compatible with Star Citizen on day one. First question I have to ask is when is Star Citizen coming out? Well, so Star Citizen is going to come out. The final version will probably go live at the end of 2014 or the very beginning of 2015. The end of this year, there's going to be the dog fighting module where you can fly the ships that you've backed and it'll just be more deathmatch in space. It won't have the persistent universe, it won't have the story, but we'll use that to sort of balance the different ships, get the feedback from the community, what's fun, do things like maybe we'll have Oculus Rift running by then and you'll be in the cockpit. And so we're constantly going to be sort of sharing builds of components of the game during the next two years and then when we finally release it, it's sort of like we've been taking these components that we've hopefully battle tested and maybe gotten some of the kinks out and some of the bugs and hopefully the final sort of full live release will be maybe more polished and stable than it would normally be. I don't know, we'll see, it's a theory, it's the first time I'm doing it. Speaking of theories, one of the hypothetical game designs you kind of talked about on the panel was the conversation, actually we never really thought about. Like you have to focus eye gaze at a person, they know you're watching, pay attention. Is that something that's actually going to be in Star Citizen? That was actually a conversation method that I've been thinking about for quite a while because I've sort of, for me, I did a lot of things in the old Wing Commander because that's what I could do with the technology and the technology has changed so much now that I sort of feel in a 3D environment I can render like really great looking, not lifelike but pretty cinematic characters and so I want to keep you in that moment. I don't want to be cutting away, like in Wing 3 we had full motion video because that was the best way to be able to tell the story and that kind of thing. And now I want to sort of put you in the moment and I want it to be very much like it is right now. My experience talking to you is I'm looking you in the eyes talking to you and if I just sort of looked away you'd be like, hey, are you ignoring me? You're just losing points right now. Exactly. So the way I'm thinking about the conversations in Star Citizen and Squadron 42, which we'll have more of it because Squadron 42 is a single player, more Wing Commander style component of Star Citizen, is you're sort of managing a relationship with someone. So it's not so much about quizzing them about A, B, C, or D, it's sort of you're managing like a, do I like you? Or can you pay attention to? Yeah, and also, yeah, like I want to hang out with you, I think you're funny or I don't like you at all and you sort of manage that relationship and how you manage them will depend on how they fly with you and depend on how they will interact and act with you. So if you start to blow someone off or you're rude to someone several times later on, they're not going to help you if you're getting a pickle in space and they'll be like, get lost or they won't, they'll just walk past you on the corridor. Whereas if you're friendly with them, maybe there's a wingman that has a great sense of humor and has all these jokes and if you engage with that wingman and you sit down with them, you get new jokes as the game goes on. Chris, thank you so much.

Hey, this is Ross Merrill with The Verge and we're here at South by Southwest. We are checking out the Leap Motion Controller. We're looking at the final retail consumer product, this little thing right here. It's going to come May 13th, $80. So tell me, last time we saw this, we're actually a much bigger prototype. This is the final deal. Yeah, no, it's all, it's in production. It's looking good. It's final thing, final cables, final pretty much everything. Software is wrapping together now and developers are starting to push their apps out. We're actually going to check out some of those demos. What are we going to check out first? We're going to do a clay molding one and then we're going to do a fish flocking one and then we're going to do a drop cord. Fish flocking. Might want to change the name for that. I'm kidding. Yeah, yeah, that's cool. That's what they named it so. We're doing clay molding. We're doing fish flocking. Be very careful how I say that. And then we're going to check out Double Fine's Drop Cord, their music game for this. Awesome, let's check it out. We're doing some little clay molding right here, kind of pushing some clay in here, kind of doing a little bit of a happy face there, changing the brush size, pulling a little nose out, maybe moving up, pulling some hair over here, over here, over here. So you're just using fingers, you're just kind of pointing to get everything kind of molded. Yeah, kind of moving my hand around and then kind of move the camera. That's about as much as I could do with actual clay in about five seconds, but it's cool that now that first five seconds is totally distinguishable whether you're in the virtual world or the real world. It looks like it's very Rustic Bart Simpson right there. Rustic Bart Simpson, yeah. Can you pinch too to pull out clay or is it just like... No, I can pull from different directions, so this is sort of like kind of pulling it out, kind of like gravitational pull. You just killed him. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Can I try? Sure. Let me reset it for you. I can even spin it around so you can kind of get a bit of a pottery wheel going here. And push it in, and here you go, and kind of... All right, this is going to be very embarrassing. You can just go ahead and push it in with one finger. There you go, you can kind of hold it in. Okay, then I can just kind of go right here and kind of make a base. Just push it a little bit. There you go, there you go. There you go. Okay, and then just a little squiggly lines and just say... I don't know what I'm doing here. Two at a time. Two at a time. There you go. This is exactly what it looks like when I did pottery class. This is... All right, let's pull out. I'm afraid to see what this is. Pull out, don't pull out. There we go. Well, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. That is exactly what it looked like in art school. Here we sort of have this 3D AI driven flock of fish. And you know, you kind of move around with your hands as if they're sort of being dynamically attracted to them. You kind of lead them around through the camera, maybe come back out. And then if you move too fast, they scare them away. And you know, there's some interesting sort of enabling exploration and interaction with the world at scales or places or depths that people don't have access to normally. And there's some interesting sort of educational and gameplay mechanics to stuff like that. So how do you play this? There are like these little circle things that you have to hit. But then there's other ones that you're not supposed to hit. And it kind of picks up and accelerates through the game. It kind of gets more and more intense and more and more difficult. And there's little bad guys that just want to hit or you'll see loose points. And it sort of gets more aerobatic. You start like flinging this thing around. And this is the first level. It's like about as tame as it gets. But imagine the music and all the gameplay picking up and getting like really intense as you go through and then kind of spinning things around. And sort of doing stuff like that. And it's pretty dynamic and fun. It's sort of arcade style sort of dance music game. So you don't want to hear the bass drop right there? You don't want to hear that? Yeah, I'm hitting those little bad guys there. It sounds so cool. I'm spinning it around. And everything kind of changes and is dynamic and is different every time you play it. You go through. Yeah, there's, yeah. I'm losing here. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, okay. I lost. Oh, okay. I lost, but that's pretty cool.

It's March 8th, 2013. I'm Thomas Huston and I'm not just your host, I'm your friend. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, presented by Motorola. 3D printing company MakerBot has announced IRL copy and paste. It's a prototype desktop 3D scanner called the Digitizer, and it uses a combination of cameras and lasers to scan objects and turn them into digital files. They can then be printed out on the company's line of 3D printers, no experience in 3D modeling necessary. There's no word yet on price, release date, or whether you can clone your own Digitizer with Digitizer. Speaking of 3D printing, this time-honored tradition is now being used in one unexpected place. Up here. Earlier this week, a patient in the U.S. had 75% of his skull replaced with a 3D printed prosthetic. The implant was approved by the FDA last month. The company behind the implant says it can create similar pieces in just two weeks. Finally, if you were a fan of the Battlestar Galactica reboot, get ready. Series creator Ronald DeMore has a new show on the way. The Sci-Fi Network has ordered 13 episodes of a new project called Helix, with DeMore serving as executive producer. It's about a group of scientists who travel to the Arctic to look into a possible disease outbreak. They find themselves drawn into a, quote, terrifying life-and-death struggle that holds the key to mankind's salvation or total annihilation. Series premiere is 2014. We're still waiting to hear if Wilfred Brimley and Kurt Russell have agreed to join the cast. And that's it for today's top stories. Stay tuned for our South by Southwest elevator pitch of the day. All right, it's called ThinkBrain. Poll your friends telepathically. It's going to be big.

It's Thursday, March 7th, 2013. I'm Ellis Hamburger in Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Music Festival. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. Today Facebook revealed a redesigned news feed that Mark Zuckerberg described as a quote personalized newspaper. The size of photos and albums have been increased and Facebook is also splitting up your content across several smaller feeds like photos and music so you can look at recent photos or songs your friends have played all in one place. Anxious to try it out for yourself? Awesome. Can you? Nope. Facebook does have a waitlist set up though. Apple's much rumored streaming music service won't be arriving as soon as originally rumored. The New York Times reports that Apple has run into trouble closing all the licensing deals it needs for a full-fledged streaming service. According to the New York Post, part of the problem is what Apple is offering in terms of compensation, around one sixth of what Spotify currently pays. Apple's service isn't expected to launch until this summer at earliest. And finally, if canoeing isn't your thing, don't worry. The Boy Scouts of America has a new badge in store for some of you. The organization will start offering a merit badge in game design. It covers everything from card games to mobile apps, with Scouts creating their design in a notebook and eventually working towards a real prototype. To earn the badge, Scouts need one more thing, to understand the quote significance of intellectual property as it relates to the games industry. Learning how to canoe doesn't sound so bad, does it? And that's it for today's top stories, but tune in tomorrow for a look behind the man, behind the man, behind the man, behind the mask. Name's Bill.

Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of March 4, 2013. I'm Josh Topolsky. I'm Paul Miller. I'm Nilay Patel. Floating the disembodied voice of. So we are, let me just explain what's going on. So we are in my office at my unfurnished, unadorned, my prison office at our new office in Midtown Manhattan. And we're still setting up our studio, which we don't have all of our live streaming stuff set up there yet. So we're doing a hangout from my office in the corner. And Nilay is sitting across from me, as if I was interviewing him for a job. And Paul is sitting off to the side over here. Paul's taking notes like an assistant. Just roll through. Give the interview to people that you exactly know. Let the internet see you, and then you can roll away again. Hey. Hey. There he is. Nilay. Beautiful John Carter. You do have the Taylor Lautner thing going on in there. Taylor Lautner is not the actor. Is he not the guy? No, no. He's the wolf. No, you're right. So the Taylor Kitsch. Taylor Kitsch. Oh, yeah, you're right. Taylor Lautner's the wolf. Way too much. Yeah, the product of, by the way, a product of the 90s. Yeah. Taylor. A name that needs to be struck out of existence. Tim, the Tool Man Taylor. Every day they'd enter Tim, the Tool Man Taylor. JTT. No, Taylor's a fine name. It's a fine, regular name. Jonathan Taylor Thomas is what you're referencing. Is one of the handsome brothers a Taylor? Because that would make a lot of sense. I'm just going to assume. So anyway, so we're back here on the Vergecast. And we have a lot of stuff to talk about. And we're excited to be bringing it to you. But not next week. Not the next Vergecast, but the one following that will be all set up in our new studio. Yeah. Ross is, oh yeah, Ross is also in the room. In the corner. Where he belongs. You've been a bad Miller. You've been a horrible person. You're going to pay. No, next week we'll have our new studio. I mean, I was just down there. It looks beautiful. You watched Top Shelf today. Yeah. You saw a little bit of what it's doing. There's some comments in the forum about Top Shelf they think are too dark. Go ahead and shut it. Like too emotionally dark? Yeah, it's too heavy. I did kill David at the end. I actually just watched some of the episode. And it's been a terrible sun. Wow. Sun. Really? Getting too much echo from where? Because we have two mics. What if I hold it like this? Is this better? Is this any better? Do you want me to go to the, this is cool? I feel like Jerry Lee Lewis. Goodness gracious. Great balls of fire. Now marry a 15-year-old. What? I would love to. Jerry Lee Lewis. You can marry him. He's a 15-year-old cousin. No way. Jerry Lee Lewis. He's a nasty. Great balls of fire, man. This is better or not better? Not better. Everything. He's the original nutty professor, right? Stop doing this. He's going to switch us, right? Yeah. So we're good. OK, so we're just going to make a quick mic change here because I'm having some sort of mic problem. Should I just mute this mic for now? Yes. Hold on, guys. I'll be right back with you. So can Neil and I just talk? Yeah. How's it going? It's pretty good. How's life without the internet? It's all right. Here's a question for the anywhere. I just got the Witcher 2. Oh, god. You know, it was pretty complicated, but I figured out. I can craft potions. I can. It's like building a boat from the actual old PC version. That's what I've always wanted to do. Nobody can hear you talk, Josh. Josh is making fun of the save. Yo, what up, internet? You live and direct. How about these new MTA fairs? Can you believe this is happening? I woke up one morning, and it turned out I'm poor now. Dude, I've been listening. I'll do your comedy act. I've been listening to Ty Love's New York on 92.3 now. I thought that was a Ty store. No, it's Ty. The guy's name is Ty, and he does a morning show on my pop radio station. He comes on at 5 AM. And he is so excited to be alive. And he talks about his fiancee or his wife or somebody. Beyonce. We should start over. We should start over. Let's start over. You want to start over? Hey, and welcome to The Vergecast for the week of March 4, 2013. I'm Josh Dabolsky. I'm Paul Miller. And we're Vergecasting. I already explained this the first time we did this, but I'm going to explain it to you again, because that's how much I like you and care about what you know. We're Vergecasting from my office, my unadorned, empty office in the corner of our new building, which we just moved to in midtown Manhattan. And our studio's not ready yet. Still being prepped. Next week. Still being massaged and prepped. Not next week. Week after next. Anyhow, so we're Vergecasting from my office, and we're doing it via Google Hangout. And we're also doing an open mic Vergecast. It's very cool. I wrote a song about children. This is how much. This is how much. About children? Yeah. For the future. You wrote a song about children? We're also beautiful. Paul, get over here. Yeah, Paul's on camera. Let's do this. Paul's avoiding the internet. Here he is. Taylor Kitch. Taylor Kitch or John Carter or Robert Rodgers. Now, Paul is the only person who liked the John Carter movie, right? You liked it. No, it was pretty bad. I read the book. It was terrible. I was so rooting for it, though. Did you just assume Paul liked it because he has the same American name as John Carter or Robert Rodgers? Here's Paul's. I don't think he's called that top of a critic when it comes to fanciness. Here's the problem. Mars has 2 3rds the gravity of Earth. If you jump on Mars, you don't go like 50 feet. It's harder to jump. No, it's easier to jump. Oh, easier to jump. It's easier to jump. But let's say it only has a third less gravity. Wait, are you saying your biggest problem with John Carter is Mars? It's just number one problem. It's a technical problem. It's just one of the problems. Everything about John Carter and Mars, utter perfection. But the one piece I will not allow was that you're supposed to, it's only a third less gravity. It really made it seem like it was half as much gravity. The fact that he was just walking around, there's alien races battling for nothing. You know what? I didn't see it. Can you please stop ruining the plot of John Carter and Mars? Oh, you didn't see it? I'll say this. Oh, you have to watch it. There's a great, it's friggin' read the story about how that movie failed and how it started with their first trailer, which has a need to be a real cover of. I want to correct this. I want to correct this myth. So John Carter was horribly promoted, right? Unmitigated disaster. But here's the thing. I read that article, and it's all about how nobody knows no one's ever read this book. Nobody knows about this. Don't hear the movie. The trailers are bad, and they don't know the intellectual property. It's like a triple whammy. It's never going to succeed. But meanwhile, we know I've read the book. I love the director. I've seen all of the trailers multiple times. Went to see the movie, and it was horrible, and it deserved to fail. Sure. I mean, it was terrible. Let's just say it was a bad movie, no matter whether you watched, whether you watched. I hate this set up, by the way. I'm really uncomfortable right now. I want everybody to know. Why don't you look at us? Yeah, I don't know where to look. That's part of the problem. Look at us. OK. Look at us. Look at me. Josh, I know exactly who you should look at. I just think that it was a bad movie. And I don't know why we're talking about this, because your hair looks like Taylor Kitchin. That's it. Let's talk about one of the things we need to talk about. So Facebook had a big event today. Facebook, blowing it out. By the way, I have the new news. They gave it to you already. Yeah, I have it. I'm on the list. You want to know about it? What do you want to know? Tell me about it. As a person who doesn't read Facebook very often, this doesn't seem like a big change to me. How many photos of Neelay's relatives could you find? Go. And with graph search, you just do that right away. Could you graph search? Photos of Neelay Patel. Photos by Neelay Patel. Photos of me and Neelay Patel. Yeah, that's what you want. Nude photos of Neelay Patel taken in Brooklyn. Riding a horse. Photos of Neelay Patel. Here they are. I'll look at that. Excuse me. They had a big event. They said, we're going to make it more like our mobile apps. I wish I could screen share this. And they said something really weird, which I thought was interesting for Facebook, which was, we don't make content, we're a container of other people's content, and we want to show that as beautifully as possible. Like Tupperware. And then Zuckerberg's line was, we want to be the best newspaper in your life, or something crazy like that. Everybody wants to be the best newspaper in your life. Yeah, because what a great business to aspire to be. We want to be the new crumbling local newspaper. It used to be a business. It used to be a business. It's my New York Times subscription. It was called a portal. Yeah. AOL was well known for this. You'd go there. That was your home page. Yahoo. Get all your news. Get your weather. Yeah, the IHU. Get maybe, see how many. Look up movie time. See how many emails you had from your friends. Maybe open up an IM. Support scores. I just think, if Facebook wants to be in the portal business, the social portal. That's what they are. And that's what they are. I'm seeing, by the way, I can see beyond you a new chair for my office that is being built. Yes. And no other chairs. I just think everybody wants to be, they want to make their spot inescapable. This is just Facebook's next move to try to get you to keep looking at Facebook as much as possible. Yeah. Sticky. But what's really interesting to me, and we were talking about it as the event was going on, was this is the second big product launch Facebook's had. It hasn't been about phones or tablets. It's about Facebook on the desktop. It's about Facebook's core business. Where their numbers are going down. They know that people are using Facebook on phones and tablets more. But they're like, all this relentless focus on the desktop. I think it's really tough. I think it's really tough. And Ellis just wrote this huge thing about how teenagers aren't using Facebook. And I have to say, I think it's really tough to be a social network on a platform that isn't beholden to, it's all about being in apps. You don't want to go into an app, a Facebook app, to use other apps. You want to Instagram, you're going to go Instagram. You want to tweet something, you're tweeting. I don't know how many people are really posting to Facebook that often. There are now ways to do it from within iOS, from within Android that doesn't require that you go to Facebook to do it, so you're not coming to see their ads. You're not seeing their content they want you to see. And I think it's kind of a big problem for that. What this is all about is that they're making Facebook nicer to look at. So when you go to it, you see more of the photos. You see all this content people are doing. Can you tell me the basic, what did they change? They changed the news feed. They made their news feed, they made it more visual. They changed the way it's displayed. They moved where your chat window is. They moved your chat and a bunch of other stuff to a left panel. It's actually a little bit more like the Android app and the iOS app, where it has a sliding panel. They showed all the screens and they said they're all the same. I think they want to move to a parity of these things. Well, that's logical because if they can teach you how to use it on the desktop, then you'll know how to use their mobile app. Right, and then it's a level of comfort. And it is a better design. It looks better. I have to say, I am. They're using a Sarah font for headlines, which I think is really weird. Most of my, or a good number of my friends don't use Facebook, or they use it very, very sparingly. My sister's probably like 2-3, much like the Gravity of Mars. She's like 2-3 never on, like quit Facebook. She's like, oh, I got Facebook back for now. And then she quits it again. Right. But I see my friends scroll through Instagram all the time. That's what they do. They don't pull up Instagram and check it and then put it away. They just sit there and scroll and scroll and scroll. And I have to say, like that, it solves a lot of things. When you want to know about what your friends are doing. You don't have to slide a bar over or go through a graph. You get like blasts of text all over the place. You're getting text messages. You're getting email. You're on Twitter. It's nice to just have a place where it's like, thing is happening, there's a photo of it, I have my discrete group of friends. And it's really basic. And I do think, as Facebook tries to become, and all of these things, like Twitter is a little bit pushing into this all-encompassing social network, I think we are starting to people are going like, well, I don't really want the all-encompassing. It's overwhelming. It's overwhelming. And it's just like, it's not. So I don't think Twitter has a problem at all. They've moved further into. They've moved further and they're doing crazy stuff. They've got the snippet thing now. What are snippets? They'll show part of an article. But I think people are very comfortable with Twitter. Because unless you're in a small class of Twitter users that has tens of thousands of followers, you pretty much know everybody who's following. You can look at the list. There they are. All these people are going to see you. But if you follow too many, this has happened to me, if you just are naive and follow too many people, and I've done this. You just get too many friend requests. No, no, no. On Twitter, if you follow too many people, it gets really overwhelming. And it stops making. If that's content coming in. I think Facebook's problem is not an overwhelming amount. It's coming in. I think people just don't want to share. I think people are afraid of Facebook. I think when the data goes on to Facebook, they go. There's a little bit of that. I think there's certain types of sharing that Facebook seems to be perfect for. Some of the things that I've seen are events. Like family events, weddings, babies. There's these things where it's like, you want to have a bunch of photos. You want people to be able to go, oh my god, that's so cute. Or I can't believe you wore that hat or whatever. And events, it's really good for it. I think for individual outings, we've started to acclimate to more of a micro blogging sort of thing, where it's like, you want little spurts of, you want to know a little bit. Like, here's a picture from last night. Or I'm wearing this jacket, or whatever. Where it's not like, here's a gallery of things. Or here's a bunch of text about it. Or let's have a conversation about it. I just want to share this one thing with you, then get on with my life. And I feel like in a way, that's like Vine and Snapchat are both kind of reinforcing this idea that people want to get in, get out, and get on with their lives. No, but they do. But there is this thing where you want, and what you don't want to do. It's the exact antithesis of Facebook, where you don't want to live there. And it's the opposite also of that frictionless sharing thing that Facebook does so well. Which by the way, the other day I was listening to, literally for work, I was listening to a selection of really, really bad pop music. And people were like, Kali Shwitzer and other people started tweeting, because they could see my scrabble. My scrabble was exposed. And it was like four or five tweets like, oh yeah, listening to Britney Spears or whatever. I'm like, yeah, I am. But I don't see how that's actually a very useful interaction. Like, what I realized is like, this isn't, it's not doing anything for me, except like people are like, whoa, Britney Spears. You mean the information that's shared passively by. Passive sharing. And all encompassing are two things that I think we are discovering are somewhat less desirable than Facebook assumed they would be. Some of the passive stuff is stuff that I want to look back on, like I know people are talking about how the Instagram stuff is geotagged. So it can be helpful. For instance, my sister went to England a year or so ago and took a bunch of photos. And I think that's all geotagged. So if I wanted to find places she'd been to, I'd probably do that. And I'm really interested in stuff like Foursquare, getting to know, like if my friends like restaurants and things like that, finding recommendations. But I don't need to know that. But you think of like Yelp and Foursquare as discrete things for those, right? Yeah, a little bit. Don't you think of like Yelp as like a discrete way to go find good restaurants? That's another thing where you're choosing very specifically, I want to share the specific type and amount of data. In this place. I also think there's part of Instagram where it hasn't blown up. I mean, it's huge. It's huge, but it's not a billion people. No, it is. It's a billion people. OK. It's huge, but it's not. Is that right? Is that a new stat? Is Instagram a billion people? No. I'm kidding. I was going to say, I've never heard that. A billion dollars. It's not like nearly. It's some enormous number. No, it's a high number. But you can share. You don't remember when everybody's pissed their parents came on to Facebook? Yeah. Not everybody's parents are on Instagram yet. Not yet. So you can share with kind of a small crowd. Yeah, like Snapchat's trending. Or Vine or whatever your parents isn't on. Whatever they use it on. It depends on if you think of your parents as a singular or a plural. It's actually a really good point. How many parents are there? If you have more than one. I have one parent. I can't tell anything to my parents without my parents knowing. Oh, they're like a unit where you can't share secrets. If I call them on the phone, they get together in a room and talk to me. I'll speak to them. Yeah, my parents love to get on the phone. Close to 90 million. Well, this was several months ago, so I got it probably close to your home. 90 million monthly active. So probably more registered. But Instagram is growing. I think the point about like. Almost a billion. I think the point about recommendations, like food recommendations, is like, I think in the same way that I don't know. I don't want to have like an Apple car and an Apple phone and like an Apple house and like an Apple camera. Like I like to have. I think they're. Well, I mean, I don't necessarily want to have all of the same thing. I don't think that everybody's all. Like that Apple would be good at making every product. I don't believe that. Like I don't think most companies would be good at making every product. You know what product Apple really sucked at? What? Making a social network? Yeah. Well, OK. And a great example. Bad at making a social network. Bad at making web stuff. I think bad at email and calendaring stuff. Maps. Really not bad at maps. And by the way, and we've talked about this a lot, but it is that ecosystem. Address book applications? Yeah. It is that lock-in. Really good at making faux leather apps. Facebook wants to do. Good desktop photos. Facebook would like to be there for everything. But I think what human beings really want is like the things that are best for those things. And that's what they're going to use. And like people, I think, gravitate and like the simplicity of a single use application. Because you know what it's doing. You know what it's doing, and you know that like the data is all meant for that purpose. You know, like Instagram, there's not more to the story. You shared a picture. You maybe said something about it. Maybe it says where you are. That's the entire interaction. It's a single use. Makes total sense. Super easy to process. Like when you're presented with these myriad options and ways you can share and ways you can connect things, I think it becomes overwhelming. I think the moment that's a little problem for Facebook. I think the moment. They're becoming a portable. A portable? A portable. They're becoming a portal. And I think a portal is a dangerous place to them. And also, they're very portable. But that's basically what they said. We want to be in the newspaper for you. Yeah. But people have newspapers. They don't. And they don't want to read. People don't want to read the version on Facebook. They want to see a link from the version. Yeah. They're not pulling out content. Please join us. I think what they're saying is, I think all these single use apps are great. But I think their point is, we can pull in all that data. We can pull in Instagram. It's what they have to do. It's so big and so predominant that all these other networks will have to connect to us. You don't want to open up your Facebook browser into your Facebook feed and then get off the internet. That's not what people do. And that's not what they're going to do. And if apps are any indication and phones are any indication, they're also not going to do it on their mobile devices. It just isn't how we want to interact with things. You don't want to sit down at your world terminal, experience world stuff, and then turn it off. Wait, wait. That sounds amazing. I love the world terminal. What? You can purchase a world terminal? You wake up in the morning. You turn on your Facebook terminal, Facebook PC or whatever, your Facebook screen. It watches you for the rest of the day. You turn it on. Facebook, it's pulling in all of the stuff. It's like you would be mistaken if you felt that that's what Google was doing because it isn't. Google searches the memes to an end. It's not the place to go. Google's building pluses is way under. It's like Google's not working. Well, that's true. Well, that's the goal. We're talking from our perspective, and a lot of people we know perspective, of wanting variety and always choosing, like I'm not going to do my photos on Facebook, but I'm doing it on Instagram. But it totally still makes sense for Facebook to cast as wide of a net as possible. It makes sense for them to do this. I'm assuming this report will go up very soon. You're angry because you're angry. It's because we're not wearing headphones. We can't hear ourselves. I can hear you guys perfectly. You sound great. No, Adrian's writing a report, and the metaphor that was in it that I was reading just before set down was Facebook wants to be bigger than a container. They want to be the container ship. Facebook wants to be the social network of record. Yeah, it just went up. So in there, she says, Facebook wants to be not just the biggest container, but the container ship. I'm more interested in all these single use apps, and Facebook is where you go, and you can see all the things people are sharing. You can see all the photos from Instagram that they're using, but they will be so big that companies like Twitter will have to integrate things. If I'm wearing Instagram photos, go on Facebook. Yeah, they do. They're their own Facebook. I know they own it. But they put it. Yeah, you can connect to that. I think you can disconnect it, yeah. Well, I mean, because I actually have some behavior like I'll see people there like they like this Instagram photo. And the Instagram photo appears in their feed if you like something. But I think you have to specifically tell it to do that. I'm not really sure. By the way, this is why Facebook is a problem. I don't know if Instagram stuff will appear automatically, or if I can turn it on and off, or if it's just on certain actions like lights. That's the worst. Facebook has turned into some weird combination. It's Windows. It's an operating system. It's XP, where it's like, how do I make this thing stop appearing? How do I change this? I always turn off Mac. Where do I adjust the time? Like, I don't understand. It's very easy. It's a weird combination of a country and an operating system. I know. I know it's easy. You just double click the clock. No, but you put an old person in front of XP for the first time to ask them to do anything that involves changing anything. And you put an old person in front of Facebook for the first time, immediate dong picks. Dude, you just can't help it. Here's what I want to know. And then I want to change topics. But here's what I want to know. Since Facebook has changed its search, I have done more Bing searches. Because you've just been let in. Because I'm trying to do a search that it can't do. And I'm just like, OK, fine. Bing's traffic has got to be skyrocketing right now. Yeah, it has to be. It's got to be. I want to find numbers. So if you do a search on Facebook, it automatically also searches Bing? If you do a search on Facebook, let's say like, hold on, I can't type here and talk. Let's just say Paul Miller. Press the Siri button on that line. Offline, OK? Is there a Siri button? Well, hold on. In OS X? It's just a rotation button. Paul Miller offline news. If I search for this, it doesn't find anything. And so it brings up a web search. And so I'm like, OK. Oh, so it's another click. It's a second click. And it kicks you over to Bing, a Bing search. And you agreed to do that on a regular basis? Well, sometimes I just do it out of habit. I want to see what results it pulls up. Because I'm looking for it. And it's happened a number of times. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I just Binged that. But their traffic, it has to be the best thing in the world for Bing. I'm sure. I mean, I feel like Microsoft got an incredible slam dunk on this thing. Or Bing is just really confused. Because Bing is always having to search for random people that it doesn't know anything about. I don't know if the people are using GraphQL or something. Uncle Steve. I don't know if people are even using GraphQL. They're probably not using it. But I have to imagine there's some kick up there. I just hate Bing. Bing it. OK, so what else do we have topic-wise? Well, you went to TED last week. Oh, yeah, I went to TED. I wrote a feature on it. Trent wrote a thing last week. You went to TED. Would you say you're an influencer, Josh? I would say that no. I would say that, well, my cloud score, I think, does say I'm an influencer. Are you TED active? I've been active at TED. So I went to TED all last week. And I'd never been. I'd only seen the TED talks online, which everybody has seen and everybody loves. If you like to hear smart people talking, you like TED talk. It's like bite-sized intelligence. It's like I'm not going to college. I'm not going to learn this thing all the way through. But this person's going to make me feel that I have, that I can now speak with authority on the mating rituals of African frogs. Based on a 20-minute talk, I have so much authority. I know everything I know about dinosaurs. I know everything I know about malaria. So here's what they don't give you, you don't see talks on, is the TED experience. What it's like to be at TED, and what I realize is that at TED, it's like you're in this, and I use this metaphor, the snow globe metaphor. But it's like you're in this world with all these people. Really smart, really talented, really rich, really famous. The most famous, most rich, most talented, weirdest group of people that may ever assemble, which to their credit is, I've got to say, it's kind of amazing that you can get Ben Affleck and Bono and Bill Gates and me. I'm just a random journalist guy there. And all these weird, I met a ton of journalists there and a ton of artists. Amanda Palmer, or she's known more rawly, Amanda fucking Palmer, and that's her name. I have no idea. See, you're so in the world. By the way, not listed as Amanda fucking Palmer on any of the TED stuff. That's just raw. All these weird people together, and performers and musicians. Jugglers. Jugglers. No, they have a dance crew. I met movie directors, directors of movies that you know, that you have seen, that are like you love. No, you specifically. Really? Me specifically? And so it's just weird. Understand of John Carter. No, not John Carter. Like what? Harry Potter? I can't tell you, man. Like Harry Potter? I'll just say, I'm going to say it's a music movie. Leave it at that. Recent music movie. Anyhow. But the thing is, it's perfect. No. Also, really? Really? But my point is that you're in this bubble. That you love? That's magic, Mike. The thing that's weird about Ted that you don't know, I'm just going to say this really quickly, and then we can go on with our lives. It's like you're in this bubble with all these people, and you don't really leave. You're in this convention center. You're in this arena for a party. You go to the aquarium for a party at night. They have parties and weird things at all of the hotels. It's like four hotels, and it's in a mile radius. And you're not supposed to go, really. You're supposed to be there the whole time. And it just becomes this weird get up at 830 in the morning, and off to some sessions. Then you're mingling and eating all day, and then party at night, and then cage match. And it's like 2 in the morning. You're like, I'm still with all these same people at Ted. What's going on? We're still all hanging out. And everybody's talking about the ideas. And it's just this weird utopian, this little micro world that's created for a week, and then it's gone. Lame is? No. You damn dropped all those other assholes. Those are people who are known. So you're not supposed to talk about who's there. That's one of the rules. Oh, I didn't know that. Sorry. OK, I'll keep on guessing. Director of Never Say Never. He's an awesome dude. Really nice guy. I shouldn't have said that. I'm going to be banned from Ted for life now. That's the other thing. They're like, scary. They'll ban you again. I bet they will. They'll ban you and mess you up bad. It just sounds like some weird combination of a floating island nation state plus a really hippy dippy rebel on a call. I describe it as a temporary autonomous zone, which is the anarchist and writer Hakeem Bey coined in 1991, which is basically this nation state that rises up, that's like secret, it's an idea, a place, a mindset, some kind of traveling band. It's like Burning Man. Burning Man for the realities. But really organized Burning Man. Burning Man meets like Amram. It's fascist Burning Man. Kind of, yeah. It's like super elite Burning Man, but with a point. There's a point. Burning Man is like, I got to masculine, let's go out to the desert. This is like, I got some ideas, let's go to Long Beach. It's moving to Vancouver next year, which by the way, I think is even more isolated. Vancouver, Canada. Which I think is even more isolated. There is no LA you can drive to. The closest city is like Victoria or something. Is Vancouver. It's like, Victoria, Vancouver, and then Victoria is not too far away. But it's like, whatever. I just went to Whistler, which is out in Vancouver. That was a pain in the ass. Whistler is where they're going to have Ted active. No, that's so hard to get. It's hard enough to fly into Vancouver, and then you have to drive to Whistler, and you just want to kill yourself. It's beautiful. Until you see Whistler, and you're like, thank God, I didn't suicide. I just ski. Lucky thing. It's like a ski town, right? So anyhow, but it was really interesting. And I have to say, if you have an opportunity to go to Ted, I recommend it. But the way I ended up on it is that it is, like a lot of people that week, especially people who were new, were like, this is kind of like a cult. Because everybody who works there is preaching the gospel of Ted. I interviewed June Cohen, who's Chris Anderson's right hand man. And she speaks very emphatically and very excitedly about the ideas that are going to be spread at Ted. And you feel very caught up in the excitement of the kind of a religious feeling. You're going to change the world. We're going to change the world. And it is like an atheist cult, is how I just started thinking of it. And like a cult of questions. And I say this in the piece. If religion is like, we got it. We got the answers. You want to know what's going on in the universe, like here's the deal. Then this is like, you want to know what's going on in the universe, like we don't know. But here's some possible ideas. Here's some thoughts on it. And maybe one guy says one thing that's polar opposite of the other guy. It to me sounds like a weird island nation state crossed with the hippiest liberal arts college in the Northeast. You could possibly drink that. It's exactly what it's like. And you never leave. And everyone's there to get to town. It's like a three hour drive. I said it's like a college quad, but with much older people. Yeah. Like when you have. You play any Frisbee? Yeah, but there was shit like that going on. There were people like, no, I saw some hacky sack. Oh, jeez. I saw hacky sacking. I bet Bono and Prince William were playing Ultimate. No, I'm not kidding. I think there was definitely somebody hacky sacking. And it was like people eating and eating and just losing. There's coffee everywhere, coffee everywhere. There's so many coffees. They pour over coffee. They're like whatever you want. Like 15 different types of freshly brewed teas, like crazy teas from the mountains of China. And they're like the people there are all really not. Also, I'm like really thirsty. Yeah, right? I want some tea. Excuse me. Oh, look at you. You guys really move on? I'd like to move on. The Re-Night piece is called Insight Tech, the smartest bubble in the world. I don't know if that's actually a set. It's not an empirical. That's not a factoid. That is a factoid. It's not a fact. There's like dumb bubbles. Dumb bubble. That would be, uh, give me salt. I could have salt so many. You know what? No offense, but the Teletubbies home is kind of a dumb bubble. No offense? For like four-year-olds, man. You weren't like burning a Teletubby? I think he's going to show up. What else do we have? Topic wise. We ran a bunch of pieces about women's technology this week. We did. We had an Elizabeth Spires piece, which I'm now told is how her name is pronounced. I've heard many, many variations. But she ran a piece on this kind of weird backlash. So actually, I want to talk about the piece. I won't even tell you about what it is. That's fine. There's something here that I think is very interesting. Something in the room? He's got something interesting to say, Josh. Say what the backlash is. But I want to know. So she ran a piece on this backlash about Remersa Maya, the CEO of Yahoo, saying everybody has to come to the office. And it's actually very interesting that we ran it, us, this site ran it. Because we have now moved into this office. And I'm watching our team change. And you're very egotistical point you're making. Complete remote team. And you just had a baby. I just had a baby. And I think what Neelai is saying in a roundabout way is that it was interesting that last week we moved into our new office, where we were like, hey, everybody come to the office. Because we have a new big office that we want people to be at. And Yahoo copied us by saying everybody come to the office. No, I know. I haven't been on the internet. But I'm just guessing the backlash is that she decided to do this because she's a woman? There's all sorts of different levels of backlash. But a lot of it is the tone is a lot about her being a woman and not a very specific kind of woman. And then there was this interview where somebody asked her if she was a feminist. And she said that she wasn't. And that's caused all this hubbub. There's just the tone of a lot of the conversation about her and Sheryl Sandberg. It's like there's never been a woman CEO before. But in the tone of the conversation is all very like. It's very confusing. So Sheryl Sandberg is the CEO of Facebook, put out a book called Lean In, which is all about how women should be. How women lead. How women lead, right? And her recommendations, as Elizabeth points out in her piece, are super non-controversial. Women should be more aggressive. Should ask for what they want. They should know that there's pay inequality in America. They should demand to get paid more. Do all of these things. It's stuff that if a man had written the book and said the same things, people would just be, either they would ignore it, or they would say, great points. But when it's a woman writing it, all of a sudden, people are like, how could she? How dare you? So Elizabeth's piece addressed how both of these women are being judged on different criteria than men. But the Marissa Meyer thing to me is like, yeah, who's a broken company? It doesn't work. It's full of people who aren't doing anything good. It's not making money. They're not innovative. For her to say, you all have to come into the office, and we're going to sit in this room and work together to figure out how to make our company better, is the least controversial thing. And I'll say this. And I'll say this. The second that I heard the announcement, it seemed obvious to me. Having worked at a company before, which is very large. Where you still wander around dreaming of hiring people. Yeah, where there were a lot of people who worked there, and a lot of them seemed really incompetent, and they weren't doing their job. And people would literally phone it in, and also figuratively phone it in. When you get to a certain size, I think it can be very hard to see who's great and who isn't. Despite your evaluations, which can obviously be like, you know, these written evaluations that these big companies do. I do feel that there is a motivating factor here. And I feel like we wrote, Ben might have written something about it. I can't remember when she first made this announcement. Oh, so get rid of the people. It's really about weeding the people who aren't great performers. She's trying to figure out how to get you to. And everybody's like, how could you do this? And the truth is, the bedside manners suck. That's the problem. Like the truth is, it could have probably been done in a more tactful way. So here's what's interesting about that. A, wait. Three things. So first, she had two. Don't just shut up. Shut up for three things. Three things. Well, the first one really fast. So she had two metrics that she used. One was that she has all these remote workers, and she noticed that many of them were not even logging into the VPN. So these people are off doing whatever at home. They're not on Yahoo's time. Second is, there were a lot of people getting paid by Yahoo while they founded startups, which is a huge problem. And they are a great problem. A lot of people doing Bing searches. And a lot of people doing Bing searches. Banging, banging. And then the third one, which is what Ben was saying, was this is a really great way to essentially do layoffs without having to lay anyone off. Right. Because you'll find people who are like, I'm not doing this. I'm out of here. Or the people won't actually live up to the requirements. Right. So I want to talk about your second point. Because I think when you have a big company, you have a lot of dead weight. But also, most of your good ideas are in the brains of those people who want to do startups. And I worked at a company called AOL. And it turns out we left. If I had an idea for a startup, what I could not have done is had that idea implemented at my company. If I had an idea for a startup, I would have to quit my job and go make that company. And what you want is you want smart people to do a startup inside of your business. I mean, that's what happens at Google. And there have been a lot of ideas that I've really liked at Yahoo that haven't ever. Yahoo essentially should be Instagram right now if they'd done Flickr well. But this is like a corporate culture thing. I could have. But it's hard to break off a single-use thing. Flickr's all-encompassing. I mean, just not getting the weeds on that. But I think it's a little bit hard to say like. They have a lot of great products. And they've had a lot of great ideas. And they always die because they don't quite go all the way through with them. I haven't seen any good ideas for a while. But I remember three or four or five years ago, a lot of cool stuff would come out of Yahoo. And then they'd just die. I think there is something on the internet that, I'm sorry. I just want to take a break on that point for just one quick second. I do think that people who are native to the internet and use the internet have a tendency and a desire to move away from old products that have been improved upon. And I don't think they have any allegiance to those products beyond their utility in their lives. An anti-allegiance because you can't understand that the old thing could do it. Right. I mean, at the end of the day, people who are in love with technology and the internet and who use it, or maybe not even in love with it, but use it and need it, their goals are, they're beholden to, I think for the most part, finding the best tools to do the things they want them to do. And there's so much competition and so many new things on the internet all the time that if there's one thing that you don't like about the old thing, you're just going to go like, I'm going to use the new thing. Like, who cares? Especially if it's free. Yahoo's free to use. Like, if something free comes along and it's better, you're like, I'm just going to do that. That's how Google's won in search. That's why I'm using Chrome right now. I'm not saying it's just Google products, all sorts of things. That's the iPhone. Nobody was like, I'm never giving up this Palm Pilot. They're like, oh, that's better? Thanks. I'm going to go use that. There is an aspect of, I mean, if you look at how Silicon Valley works, there are people with ideas. And those people, if they have a good enough idea and it looks like they can implement it, they get millions of dollars from somebody. Wait, finish that point. They get millions of dollars from somebody and they create that product. And I think there should theoretically be a way to be inside of a big company, have a great idea, looks like you can execute it. You get millions of dollars from your big company called Yahoo. You launch it, unbranded or branded, and it's a good idea. And then people will use it. You would incentivize people. That sounds like a theory. I think it's a really cool idea. I don't know if from a business perspective that can actually work. We're using Google Hangout right now, which was developed in a similar way. Incentivizing your employees and giving them ownership of the things they make and thinking you can add value to the company that you work for and also line your pocket books and become an entrepreneur in some ways, a really awesome idea. I just don't know if logically that makes any sense for a business like that. That's why people leave Google and Apple. That's why people are like, I'm out of here to start my own company. Also, people create great things inside of Google. Google's an awesome example. And they do. And I think Google is a much newer company. And they're much better at incubating startup ideas from within while letting those bubble up to the surface. What happens to these companies? We should get back to the point. No. There's actually a, we ran a second piece about Silicon Valley, which was very interesting. But what actually happens to these companies is that these founders leave, they build their businesses, and then they acquire back, because that's how the cycle actually works. You leave Apple, you build a company, and then you sell to Google. Maybe there's a lot. Maybe if Yahoo wants to have any chance of becoming a good It's all about mitigating risk for the company. So you say, go. Go start a company. Send a Google buy it. Yeah, but maybe there's a smarter way to do it. Yes, that's how it works. But Yahoo's sucking. And maybe there's a smarter way to do it. So maybe. For me, I'm kind of like a loyalist type of person. To be honest, if I had felt like AOL, if I'd had an idea and someone would allow me to build it into a product, I would have been interested in that. I like the idea of working for a company and being a part of a company and building a company. I think that's cool. Nice little hat you got there. I was popping a little bit. Yeah. Was I spiking? So let's talk about. It'd be cool if they figured. I want to talk about your first point. Is this better? This fantasy world of big companies investing in people that way is not real. Because what the market has chosen is to mitigate risk by letting you go start a startup and then buying a company if it's good. And that's how big companies are. And that's why you spend a billion dollars on Instagram. And that's why you buy Instagram. If Instagram hadn't worked, Facebook would have spent a billion dollars. But the point is, if Instagram hadn't worked, it would have cost Facebook $5 million in experimentation. Yeah, but they couldn't. Oh, right. So there are really two paths, right? There's the path to. So I want to just stop. I want to get back to our actual point. How big companies like Dwyer? Are we the whole end of talking? Do you want a diet coke or something? Because I'm really thirsty. Do you want anything? Are you going to leave? I'm too thirsty. Why don't you just send Ross a tooth brush. Can you grab a diet coke for Paul? I know it's not your job. I tried to drop a hint earlier, but I'm so thirsty. He did try to drop a hint. And you were completely telling him off here. Thanks, Ross. OK. Let me get back to the point. Please do. Please. Because I think there's something reflected in both of these pieces. I'm thirsty for debate. It's good. I'm hungry for Cheetos. Is that weird? That's just the thing. OK, go ahead. Both these pieces, the reactions to them from our readers and from the world reflected something that I think you just brought up, which is, if you have a good idea, the tech community will just give you millions of dollars. No, that's not true. I said, if you have an idea and you have the ability to execute it. Fine. But those are all objective criteria. But we ran another piece this week, which is all about how female founders of companies have to fight harder to get venture capital than male founders of employees. Gee, I wonder why. There's a structural problem there. Because it's a bunch of old white men running the money. And they have the money. They have control of the money. They invest in the people that they feel comfortable with. I mean, this is not some, you know, not that. And then I think that's even further amplified by the internet, which allows a bunch. We know the demographic of our site. The demographic of our site is like wealthier 18 to 35 year old men. That's like the core. Handsome. Very handsome. And we actually have a decent female audience. And it's growing. And it is growing. But that's the big chunk in the middle. And those demographics are real. And that means one type of site, whatever, Reddit, attracts one kind of person. For them to say, if you come onto Reddit and your ideas are good, we'll support you, is like completely ignorant of the structural reality of Reddit. Of the thousands of years of subjugation of minorities and women by essentially white men. Or men in power. I don't see color or gender in this space. But that space is a reflection of reality. No, no, no. Reddit sees color and gender. But if you do. No, no, no. They insist that they don't. No, no, no, no. It's not about Reddit. It's just about the nature of humanity, which is. They see. I think it's about actually the nature of discussion on the internet, which is dominated by. There is this we're color blind. Yeah. You know, and I know. I'm not racist. How can I be racist? I can't even see what color you're. Right, exactly. And it's like, yeah, but you're still operating on the playbook of a structure that was built thousands of years before you came into existence. But typically with at least nicknames on Reddit, you can typically tell if it's a girl or a guy. That's racist. A lot of times. That's completely insane. No, I'm just saying. I can't tell that. I didn't know that Violent Acres was a guy. Just kidding. All I'm saying is I actually do think an idea from anybody on Reddit can do pretty well. That's fine, but like. Reddit's a bad example. Reddit is like a forum. It's a forum. Right. A startup is a very different thing. You're talking about starting an actual business and having to go in front of investors. You make it face to face. I think it's all. Yeah, but in a book. You don't solve the big problem without the people. But Reddit's the least of the problem. It's a spectrum. It's a gradient of behaviors. You can say the reaction to our piece about the big problems from people on the internet was why do these problems exist, I don't even see them. Your action to why were there no women at the Sony event was 1,000 comments on our site that were well, maybe there are no women qualified enough to do the job. I'm in computer science class and there are no women in here, maybe men just like it better. And that's crazy. Let's comment on the women at the Sony event piece. What happened with the Sony event? Well, Sony did PS4, the PS4 event. And they probably had 18 people on stage. From a variety of companies. From a dozen companies, not just Sony people. Sony just happened to not have any females in those positions they wanted to put on stage. I get it. But one company had one woman that could speak about their product on stage at the event. It just seems really weird. And by the way, people are like, you don't have any women on the Vergecast. The Vergecast is like a show. It's like, there's no women in Poison. Poison's a band. They started the band. It's like four guys and they're Poison. The Vergecast is us for the most part. And we do have agreement on the Vergecast. We try to keep it this group of three. We try to keep women down. We try to keep women down. But the point is, we're like a band. We are. But I don't think we're perfect. Am I happy with the amount of women we have in roles here, in senior roles or whatever? No. Am I happy with the amount of minorities that we have? I mean, we have Neelai and that's pretty much it. That's it. I try to carry the torch for everyone. We're not perfect. And we're also working against this thousands of years of the structure of society. But I think no one's perfect. But I think the first step is saying, yeah, we can be better. But the people on the internet are saying, what's the problem? It's a meritocracy everywhere. Look around. You have an idea on the internet. It's great. The only thing worse than what you're describing of the Sony event, which I didn't see. It's forcing women on stage. Because I have seen this happen at a lot of gaming announcements that Microsoft and Sony have done. Where like, here's our token woman who enjoys fitness apps. And pandering is just as bad as the other thing. I think it's definitely worse. And I would rather have a reflection. My favorite thing at the gaming announcement things, whatever you call them, keynotes, gaming keynotes, and I've been to a lot, is when the guy who is the number one guy at that company or building that game, that guy or woman, but it's typically a guy who is heading that project, walks out on stage and plays his game, that means a lot to me. And so I wouldn't want a woman thrust into that role. And so if the only games that matter is motion. The question's not about how you put out on stage. The bigger question and the fundamental question is, are we building industries, new industries, that are as open and welcoming to women and minorities as they should be? And if people on the internet keep going, of course, you're on the internet. Doesn't matter. It's all equal. Everybody's the same. And the actual thing that's happening in the board rooms and the offices of the world that are actually where these companies are happening is the old school stuff that's been going on for 500 years or longer or whatever. Then we have a bad disconnect. Because you go on one hand, you're like, nothing's wrong. It's like there's a war going on. And you're like, I can't see the war. So there's no war. I will say this idea of the enforced meritocracy of the internet is flawed from conception. Because if you say you come on the internet, you have a good idea, you'll win. Who is the judge? Who's saying this idea is good? This idea is bad? And it requires more than just a good idea. It requires a lot of really hard work. The internet is a slightly different version of life. Which is, yeah, I think you do have more opportunities if you have an idea to get that idea heard and to make something out of it. But it doesn't mean that if you have a good idea that you are going to make something out of it and that people are going to care. It just means that you have an opportunity. I will agree. Sorry, I'm stuck. And I'm sorry because I haven't been part of this larger discussion that happened on the internet. And wait, in the page of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It's like a big deal. But anyhow, to your point. I literally do not. I will totally agree that there are way less women in the video game industry than there should be, maybe, and that I would like to see and even could be. But I really do not see any systemic effort or reason why they can't be. Well, I think that on its face, yeah, it's probably true, but we're getting into territory, which is the structure of business. And let's just say, let's take America for a moment. But this is all over the world. The structure of businesses in the world and in America and the ways that we have learned to interact. I mean, there are deep reasons why women are paid less than men in the same position and why it's harder for women to get into those. And also, in terms of our education, the types of ways that we push people into, what types of industries we push them into, is dramatically effected. And what is an open and accepting industry for women to feel that they can go into versus one that men feel comfortable going into? Just the way most men don't want to go into the industry of fashion, I'm sure most men you know don't think that that's an open, welcoming industry that they can be part of and be a man. I know a bunch of guys in fashion, but yes. I see what you're saying. You live in New York, and you're a weird guy, so you know people in fashion. But typically, out in the Midwest, people aren't like, I really want to go into fashion. For men, that's not a job that seems like a job for them. Just like many jobs are, historically, we were pushing people towards these things because of the structure of society, which is fundamentally unfair to groups of people. I do think there's something. So I can't speak to all the edges. Oh man, we're in dangerous territory. I don't think we're in dangerous territory. I think we're saying really obvious things. I can't speak to the education side of what people push towards, and I can't speak to the larger corporate structures because I don't understand them very well. But I will say, especially knowing a gamer community, and the gaming industry is relatively young. So you may have people kind of creating companies that are kind of, well just let me say it. You have people creating just relatively new companies that they can kind of form in their own way. Companies like Valve, this is a very new generation. How many women there at an executive level? How many women are there? There are women there, but I'd like to know the breakdown. But I'm just saying that if you're a woman and you show up for that, I don't think you have an uphill climb. You're right. I know you are absolutely 100% wrong, and it's because you don't know what's been going on. Right? And that's it. And now I'm frustrated with it because there's an entire set of tweets and articles as hashtag one reason why, which is just women in the games industry complaining and noting the problems, the deep structural problems they face to advance, to make games, to be put in positions of leadership. I think what he's saying, the only thing that, well, Paul saying the opportunity to have a new company that thinks differently is there because we're creating these new industries. But the reality is that there are layers of societal issues that are causing companies to be formed using the same bad, broken tactics that we've been using forever in business, which does subjugate women and minorities basically, whether we like it or not. Right. And what I'm saying is it's great. I don't think that people go into interviews at EA or wherever and there's like a, oh, you're a woman, get out of here. I think that there's a real tendency to say, I think this is why, for example. You know, NVIDIA at CES. Perfect example. Their keynote with the girl, with the, you don't remember? I was PTSD. Jen Sun had this girl come out and he's like, take a picture of me and I'm going to take my jacket off. And she was like, you're a gamer, right? And it was like this totally awful, and it's like, just that that is even existing. There's that overt gross sexism that's still like, here. But that speaks to a. So I guess I should walk this back a little bit. I see that. But that overt sexism speaks to a much more subtle underlying sexism that just kind of infects. Why are you shaking your head at me? I'm not shaking your head at you. Right. OK. They're just kind of. I'm irritated by this entire topic. They're just kind of. Why? Because it's not that we're discussing it. I'm thoroughly enjoying our discussion. Yeah, you seem very upset about it. I'm very upset because it's. You're upset at Paul. Yeah, it's OK. I'm a little upset. I love you too. You're mad at Paul because he's e, you feel he's missing. I guess a part of this debate. I've missed the discussion. I'm very naive on this. Most of the gamer culture that I see and I participate in seems very welcoming and very overtly. I think that the mindset of the gamers and many of the. Well, let me put it to you this way. Sometimes in gaming, to be honest, I see a more inclusive community that is more rapidly welcoming of somebody who might not always be. I think you're looking at the best of the best. And I think those people are out there. Online gaming is a Vergecraft world that built a shrine to you. No, no, no, no, no. I've participated in all sorts of games. I think if you asked my wife, what is it like playing Xbox? She would say an eight-year-old races Screams at you. No, no, no. That's the market. That's the mainstream market. I think Paul, and I'm not trying to defend him, not that we're attacking him, but to his point, I think Paul is, and I think that it gives you a bad perspective on this, you are not an aggressive hardcore gamer. There's types of games that you like that are a little bit more indie, a little bit more weird. And I think you're exposed to a part of the industry that is more progressive, at least in terms of its demo. You know what I mean? There are a lot of female players of World of Warcraft. We know that. And I think that that is a more inclusive demographic. But it does not reflect in the industry that is making World of Warcraft. I think that's the problem. There are female players and female developers, and there are women who do these things. It's just not truly reflective of the industry. Not even close. And that's the problem. And games are big business with a lot of money. And technology is a big business with a lot of money. And that amount of money just attracts assholes. So you might see there's weird. You're still building off of a model that's an old model. It's just we're building businesses off of a model. For example, we're sending a lot of people to South by Southwest this week. And I went last year, and I couldn't stand it. Because it was such a, at its core, South by is supposed to be a, it's supposed to be Ted. It's full of ideas. Everybody's here. They're happy. Let's go to a bunch of stuff. Slow down, my man. No, but it is supposed to be a celebration of the tech community, of the startup community. And I walked around basically meeting a bunch of people who I thought had hokey ideas. It's drunk dudes on the startup bus. And they all thought they were going to get rich. And look, I have to say, read when Kara Swisher writes about the pig pile of Silicon Valley. She's talking about an old boys club. She's talking about almost literally is the room with the guys smoking cigars and no women allowed. That's a real thing. And it sucks. How do I get to this room? Yeah, how do I get out of here? What are they drinking? Can I have some? Brandy. But anyhow, look, even that kind of joke is sexist. We're horrible sexists. And I feel terrible. But the truth is we are not as advanced as we'd like to be. Let's put it that way. The tech industry thinks it's a lot more advanced than it is. And that's the problem. I think the problem is everybody in this industry. We're busy congratulating ourselves. We're right. Going, I'm colorblind. I'm blind to gender. I don't care about this stuff. But actually, your actions and the statistics don't even come close to reflecting that. And so that's a problem. I think being aware of it is how you start to fix it. You say, is there a problem? Are we not being as inclusive as we can be? Can we find ways to involve more people, different kinds of people in this? Because they can bring something new and exciting to it, and we're ignoring that because we're working off of an old playbook. I think that's the start. And then I don't think there's affirmative action in the tech industry that you need to force people into jobs. I just think you need to recognize that we're not as socially sophisticated as the tech industry wants to be. You want to be this colorblind. Everybody wants to say, we're colorblind. We're genderblind. Let's just do this thing all together. Let's hold hands and jump into this exciting new abyss of technology. But the truth is, we're working off playbooks that are like the oil tycoons. We're working off the same playbook. I'll just say I'm optimistic because the gamer community I see, the people creating the indie games right now, and the people who are going to be leading the industry in the future, seem to be a lot of pretty great, interesting people. And I think we do have an opportunity. This industry does have an opportunity to fix a lot of what has been broken for a long time in this equality conversation. But although I will say, our biggest, beyond the who's on stage criticism of the PS4 event, but our biggest context or constant criticism was, all these games look like shooters. They are. They're driving games. And honestly, it's like, you know what? If you only wear the same guys to make your games, or the same types of guys to make your games, you're only going to end up shooting. I like a game where you're shooting someone who's the same squad. But they are. They're like, the government's surveilling you, but what if you had superpowers? Wait. That's where the money is, but at the same time, Sony promotes, has in-house, some of the best, most artistic, interesting developers as well. If only they were allowed to do things other than make Killzone 30. No, no, no, no. I mean, Journey and Flower. Yeah, but there's a big batch. There's a huge gulf between, I just want to say, getting more specifically to games. Little Big Planet? Those are all from Extrate from Sony. There's a huge gulf between these whimsical cartoon games and games about real things. Sure, there's War Room. But look at movies. There are movies that are serious adult movies. They're about human drama. Sometimes they're violent. Sometimes they're romantic. Sometimes they're about a mystery. There's all these wild places that movies go. Sometimes they're very meta. They're commentary, social commentary. So all of these things in games really. And then there's also cartoon movies. There's Wreck-It Ralph. And there's all these different types of cartoon movies. Sony also has exclusively that Ellen Page game. The Ellen Page game at the end of the day, it's like, you're a girl. You're superpowers. You've got to kill these cops. Sure, but it's like you've got to go. I'm just saying, if you're going to compare Sony and Microsoft, Sony's way further advanced in terms of this. Not way further. A little bit further. Just take the games industry as a whole. What does Microsoft have? This is why. Let me just say. Viva Pinata? Can I stop this for one second? I'm just saying that there's a whole gulf of places that games don't go. Sony, Microsoft, whoever. I agree. And we're safe, and what we really need, I think what we really want is more people, more diversity, more ideas. I don't care where they even come from. Just let's be accepting of them. This is a totally different topic. God, we're so off topic. And I have to go, because I actually have a meeting in two minutes. Is it the meeting? No. Never mind. Whoa. That'll blow everything. Josh is getting his facial implant. I'm finally getting the ability. I'm going to get the ability to laugh. Josh has Google Glass 2.0, which is going to go inside his brain. So we didn't. This was the last topic. Do we need to talk about it? We didn't talk about it last week on the first cast, because you did a big feature, and then you went around. Google Glass. I want you to talk about it. Oh, yeah. And I want to talk about it. Josh, I literally know nothing. I want to talk about it. Please tell me. A never-ending series of watch rumors from every company that I'm so familiar with. Yeah, and I have like two minutes, and then I have to go for real. What's it like? It's like not that jarring. I think people have made this assumption that when you're wearing it, it somehow creates some overlay on your vision, your field of vision. It's just like you're using it, and there's a little thing up here. And if you look up, you see it. And if you don't look up, it goes away. So there's a little glass cube. Do you perceive that cube? Not really. It's a glass cube, exactly. No, not really. Once it's on, you're not thinking about it. So you never see the edge of it with your other eye? In my memory of the experience of using it, I wasn't like, ugh, this thing's hanging over my eye. It didn't feel like that. You know it's there, but it doesn't feel. It's like wearing glasses. I see the rim of my glasses right now. And maybe I'm less sensitive too, because I wear glasses all the time. But I see my glasses all the time. Like when I look over here, there's my glasses. There they are. They're right there. So it's a lot like that, except it also shows stuff in your field of vision. And it's just this thing, this little information cube. And here's the thing. I probably wouldn't wear Google Glass in its current form unless I was in very specific situations. Dire straits. If I was jamming with dire straits. And you needed a tab. The tabular for it. And I needed to make sure I could see the notes of money for nothing. No, in certain situations, like I'm doing something crazy, or taking a roller coaster, or I don't know, if I had kids and you were hanging out with your video for the roller coaster. Because you could do video and pictures and stuff. There are times, like I'm looking at my dog and I'm like, man, I wish I could take a picture of this right now. That would be awesome. Is that the primary application? The camera? I think it's no. I think that the camera's a big piece. But I think also this kind of non-intrusive message notifications. Non-intrusive, like you get a text message and you're like that, instead of going like that. I think that's a big deal for them. Would you rather go like that or like that? For people who listen to audio. Would you rather look at a watch? Or? It's all a strata of distraction. I think taking your phone out, unlocking it, and looking at the thing is a huge distraction. Also, physically disruptive to what you're doing. I think this is less distracting, but also somewhat physically disruptive. Looking at a watch. I mean, looking at a watch is not that hard. I do it all the time. But is it as easy as doing this? It's not. So here's the thing. At the end of the day, the big questions are, they look goofy. People are like, they look goofy. But if they don't look goofy, then let's just say they're going to be. Do you have to refocus on the thing? Yeah, it kind of is like it's off in the distance. This feels like it's getting off. It feels like you're focusing on it. How do you wear glasses? How does it work for you? My prescription's not super strong. OK. Did you wear it in lieu of glasses? Well, they're working on a version that can take. So they have a thing that I put on these sunglasses that kind of like twist and they snap into the frame. And so what they're doing is that they're working on making versions of that for prescription lenses. So you can get a prescription lens for it and stick it in. The holy grail is to integrate it right into the lens. The holy grail is like I go to buy these glasses. Like, do you want that with Google Glass or without? And that'll be an extra $1,000 or whatever the price, $500. If these had Google Glass, I'd be like, that's awesome. Let's do that. Because you don't worry about it. Because I don't have to worry about it. If I want to use it, I can use it. Would you not want some extra help? Like if you're walking around. I don't think I've ever looked at your eyes and glasses as much in a conversation. One of the coolest things. It's very romantic. One of the coolest things. Josh, I never knew you. I could never tell the color of people's eyes. Like bluish-gray? Brown? Really? I have no idea. Bluish-green. I don't even know the color. What do you think? Bluish-gray and then brown. What color would you say my eyes are? What colors would your blue eyes? No, they're like a. I grew up and I had blue eyes. They look blue to me. Did they change color? They're a little smokier. They're like a smoky blue. Very jealous of all of you. Anyhow. Josh, what color eyes do you have? They're like greenish. One of them looks different colors. Is this Ross's good television? You look like a snake. Paul just said, and I quote, you look like a snake. I'm terrified of you. By the way, Chinese astrological sign, snake, year of, the snake. You look like the Witcher. It's time to close this thing. Anyhow, that's the Vergecaster this week. Oh, I'm sorry. Can you get turn-by-turn directions and cool stuff? Yeah, so that's what I was going to say. The coolest thing is you get out of the train. You're walking around. You're like, how do I get to there? Turn-by-turn, right here. The only thing I'm worried about is whether you have to refocus your eyes. It's not like a crazy refocusing. It's like I'm looking at you, and then I'm looking at the wall and back. It's not even that much, probably. You know what? Just a little feature request. I would kind of like if you had Google Glass and it was in your actual glasses, if it would, I think Google Glass needs some outward-focused aspects to let people know Google Glass is doing things. I think it needs a record light. You can see the light on, but it's very subtle. A red light would be probably. Yeah, a red light, because I think it's really rude. Right, well, I was going to say the other big thing is are they cool? But then the other question is privacy. That's really terrible. The other thing is if you have. And I went in and I went into Starbucks and filmed, and nobody said anything to me. If you have, what should we call it? It looks like the Terminator. I was like, if you say something to me, I will blow your head off. But also, if you have glasses, it would be cool. If you have turn-by-turn, I'd almost want the arrows to show up your vision. No, no, just because I want to see if you're looking at something else other than me. The ultimate. OK, that's, yeah. You know. OK. Maybe you can have a little LED thing that says, using turn-by-turn. Like a little scrawl aid thing. OK, that's our Vergecast for the week. If you'd like to get in touch with us, you can email us at vergecast at theverge.com. You can leave a comment on the post when it goes up. We'd love that. You could post something in forums, if you want, on the site. You can also find us on Twitter. The Verge is at Verge. I'm Joshua Topolsky. Neal I is reckless. And Paul is future Paul. Soon to return to the internet when? May 1. May 1. I mean, we're just creeping right up on it. Yeah. Just creeping up behind it. That's right. And we're wearing Google Glass. And we're wearing Google Glass. And we're recording. And we'll be back next week with more Vergecasty goodness. And until then, I think don't worry about what's in the back seat of your car. It's probably nothing.

Hi, I'm Addie with The Verge and we're here with Facebook's redesigned news feed. So a lot of what Facebook has done here is try to put a lot more white space and make everything bigger in its new design. What it's done in part is take the news ticker from here and remove it and then move your messaging over here and then use that space that's freed up to make the photos and posts a lot bigger. You'll see that you've got a sidebar that's very sort of mobile inspired that includes your messages and events and then you've got larger photos and some full descriptions of things like shared articles. If you scroll down and you find photos you'll see that they're not actually breaking out the text of the photos anymore. Instead they're actually overlaying it onto the photograph itself. They've made the whole thing a little bit easier to see and a little bit more consistent with what you'll find on a lot of other sites. What they've also done is separate out your news feeds. Here you've got a standard news feed of your friends and you've also got some of the same lists you had before like close friends. But you've also got dedicated feeds for photos, games and any lists that you create. For instance you can see anything that your friends have liked or played that's related to music by going to your music feed. And if you've liked a page it'll also start suggesting news related to say music, news, pages that you've liked. You've also got a dedicated feed of everyone that you're following. So you'll be able to just have what's essentially a news ticker of the articles that are being shared and the posts that are being made on the public pages that you follow. This whole thing is going to roll out across mobile and web. It's actually starting right now on the web and then it's going to come to mobile in the next few weeks. Facebook says this is going to be a pretty slow roll out. You can sign up for a waiting list but it may not actually start showing up for a while.

Ultimately, what was interesting to me about interviewing Phil that day and seeing Sony on that day was that they did not talk about the PS4, which is, I think, arguably the most important product that they have. It's the key to this big ecosystem network effect where if you get the PS4 and all of the promises that they've made about it are true, then you will want to buy more Sony products because it is the center of that experience. We should get into the PS4, but to do so, we've brought Justin McElroy, Polygons' managing editor to talk to us. He has probably more violent disagreements with both me and Neil Ife. That's possible. So, Justin, what do you think? Is Sony going to win this console race this time? It's a little early to make those kinds of calls. We don't even know what Microsoft is working with. If indeed they release any console at all. There's been no news. That would be great if Microsoft is like, no, we're out. This was fun. We quit. It's over. Man, PS4, mystery box. We can't compete with that. Listen, we got Zune, we got Bing, got a lot of profit centers. We are cool. We're golden. It's over. No more games for us. But so what did you think about this Sony event? And they really did kind of build the PS4 as not only a gaming platform, but like the center of this whole universe and ecosystem that Sony is really trying to build. I don't know. It doesn't seem like a broad reaching strategy for me to try to make it the same. I mean, have we not gotten past that point? I mean, are we not past that white whale of like the interconnected set top box that does everything and yeah, I don't think, I think people want more, for lack of a better term, fiddliness than that provides. I think people are always going to have their own devices and they're not going to want a walled garden where there's features they're missing out on because they're not using a certain Sony device. So I think it's going to be hard for it to be too valuable to have that sort of integration without excluding people who are missing out. But is the market for just a pure game device there? I mean, aren't they going to get crushed by the iPad and like kids, like parents buying their kids a $329 iPad mini instead of a $400 PS4? I'm not sure that the metaphor is necessarily there for an iPad versus a gaming console. Like I think that it's the same metaphorical leap as like, why would you want an iPad when you already have an iPhone? I mean, that's the gulf we're talking about. I don't think so. I think the leap, I think the metaphor is money. What are you going to spend your $300 on? And I think for a lot of parents are going to say, well, that thing has games, the games for that thing cost $3. But the iPhone has games and they're still selling iPads. I think that's crushing the console market too. I think that's a tidal wave of problems for Sony, right? I think that people still want to play a game with a controller and a box that you put discs into. And I think that metaphor is not going away. I can absolutely see, I mean, like I think the future, the end game, I think for video games is a phone in your pocket that connects to a controller that rests on your living room. The phone pushes video to your TV or your receiver or what have you. The controller communicates with the phone in your pocket. Like I think that's the future as far as I'm concerned. I don't think we get there this generation. I think we've got at least one more console generation in the way that we've come to think of it. For me as someone who puts video games above other forms of tech just because of my career, what we saw for the PS4 event was super encouraging from that front. I mean to your point about software, they didn't hit the box very hard. It wasn't a presentation about technical specifications. The person you had doing the thrust of the presentation was Mark Cerny who's like a video game guy. He's made Marble Madness, Crash Bandicoot. He's worked on basically every major Sony gaming franchise for like 20 years. To me the message that I got is that they know that they're putting that first. They're putting software first. At least that was the message I got from Cerny being the lead architect and the sort of spokesperson they were pushing there. That sounds like the PS4 will be this like siloed game experience. This is the other part of my argument is that Sony isn't integrating its stuff together. Sony has a music service that may or may not show up on the PS4. They have a bunch of tablets and computers that may or may not work with the PS4. Why would they want to build a siloed experience for games when they keep saying they're going to integrate across the entire company? I guess I don't see what the value of that, what is the experience that is not there I guess is what I don't understand. The PS4 and really the Xbox 360 also for Microsoft are kind of the gateway drug into these ecosystems. In the same way that the iPod Touch is what gets you into Apple. I feel like Sony, kind of like you said, they have the music service. They'll sell me videos. They should be able to move all my stuff around and let me use all of my things on my various devices. Microsoft is being smart with smart glass and stuff like that. They're trying. Well, right. They seem to get it. I don't know if they're taking all of the steps they need to, but they seem to get it. It seems to me that, Justin, I kind of think you're right in the sense that Sony, the games are going to be what sell the PS4, but I think Sony could make the PS4 what sells its other devices. The PS4 could be what sells Sony, right? Right. Sure. Actually, what I'm more curious to ask you about, Justin, is do you think the games are there to sell the PS4? I mean, I went to that event. I didn't see a bunch of awesome games. I saw a lot of explosions. I saw a lot of ideas about games that I've seen before, and I found myself wondering like, am I going to buy this because the explosions are better, or am I going to buy this because it has new kinds of interesting games that I want to play? I guess if I had a problem, it was the fact that I didn't see a lot of experiences that I'm not currently getting on my current console. So yeah, I mean, absolutely, if they had a failing, it was like I didn't see that moment that was like, I have to own this. I mean, obviously, I will have to. But you know what? It's also going to be harder this generation. I think maybe even harder than any other generation before because when you go from PS2 to PS3 or Xbox to Xbox 360, you're really making this leap into high definition. And like, it is not going to be that sort of jump. Like they're not going to be able to do that graphically. So it's not going to have the impact there. I'm really hopeful for E3. I'm hopeful that we're going to see some really interesting like gaming experiences that you can't get anywhere else because I mean, I agree with you. The number of sequels was like really upsetting. I mean, there are these big studios that like, I would love to see what else they could do. Sucker Punch, for example, rather than like, oh, another infamous game. Okay. I mean, I'm sure that'll be really good. But you know, you kind of think of a new console as like the place where these developers get to stretch their legs, you know, and not make another Killzone game. What was funny about that event was they kept on saying things like, and we're proud to announce that Killzone 25 will come to the PlayStation 4. I was like, where else is it going to go? Like we're bringing it to the Genesis. What are you, why are you so proud of yourself? I forget who said it, but someone said that Killzone fans are Sony's analogy for the Canadian girlfriend. No, no, no, you guys. If she was here, she would tell you she's really gorgeous and real. I think you saw Sony's show exactly enough. Enough to get people talking, enough of these features that are almost going to be accepted in the next generation. Like obviously they, that we have to have these features and they're going to look like innovators when Microsoft also has these features. I mean, they're going to look like, Oh yeah, we've also got, you know, like a save state or streaming or whatever. And it'll look like Sony gets the opportunity to look like they came up with it. So Justin, do you think, have we seen enough to be excited? Are you excited about what Sony is up to? Do you think they're moving in the right direction or are we still in kind of wait and see mode until E3? Absolutely. Listen, if I had seen the same sort of arrogance I saw on display when the PS3 launched, I would, you know, I would be sizing up for a coffin. But I think that what you saw at this event was someone who is, knows they have market share to reclaim. That has someone out front like Mark Cerny that communicates like, Hey, we care about games. We want your business. You know, we want to draw people in. Sony right now looks like, from the video game perspective, looks like a company that is ready for a fight. And like, I don't know where that leaves Microsoft. In a fight. In a fight. In a terrible fight. Yeah, they will have a fight. I mean, Sony looks like a company that's saying the right things, that understands the message that they needed to send to reconnect with people, that hopefully has learned from the sort of like almost, you know, bullheaded nature of the PS3 that just sort of pushes forward and expects users to deal with the multiple weaknesses that that system had five, six, seven years ago and continues to have to this very day. All right. Justin McElroy, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. An exquisite pleasure having me. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here. The pleasure. There was pleasure all around. So. It's enough.

Welcome to Top Shelf. I'm your host, David Pierce, and this is our weekly show where we bring you the best, brightest, craziest, and pixel-dense-iest of the consumer electronics industry. Starting up, we'll take a deep look at Sony. The company's trying to reclaim its position as a premium consumer electronics brand across a number of different categories. But is it working? We'll have Verge managing editor, Nilay Patel, and Polygon managing editor, Justin McElroy, on hand to argue. This week's episode is brought to you by Verge and Mobile. But before we go any further, let's talk about Mobile World Congress. Last week, phone makers and carriers descended upon Barcelona for the world's largest mobile conference. MWC was in its largest venue ever this year, but it was surprisingly more subdued. There's actually been a lot of mobile news recently, but most of it came from outside of Spain. HTC and Samsung did their own thing for their big announcements, and Microsoft and Google pretty much avoided the conference entirely. Here's what we did learn, though. While Nokia didn't announce a tablet like we'd hoped, CEO Stephen Elop told us quite confidently that it can compete with Microsoft's Surface. Nokia did expand its Lumia lineup with two nice mid-range devices, the 520 and 720. And now, after more than 10 Lumia launches, it's really up to Microsoft to make Windows Phone more appealing. We also got a chance to see a few of the first Firefox OS devices, which will come to market in the next few months. They're...well, they're not very good. But these phones are going to be really inexpensive. Mozilla's targeting the low-end smartphone market, as well as developing countries, and that's something carriers seem to enthusiastically support. All over the MWC show floor, phones are getting bigger, and they're converging in this odd middle ground between phone and tablet. Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE are leading the charge, and they're using these phablets to stake their claim on the global market. So yeah, it was a pretty slow conference, but we did see the walking cane of the future. Which was a thing, and that's awesome. But slow show or not, we love Mobile World Congress, because part of the allure is just Barcelona itself. Our own Dan Seifert took along the wild new Sony Cybershot RX1 on a trip around the city to capture Barcelona in all its glorious detail. Check it out, and we'll be back with Nilay Patel. With cameras, there are always trade-offs. The best images require bulky DSLRs, while the most compact point-and-shoots are lacking in both image quality and control. That is until now. Enter Sony's RX1. The RX1 is an unassuming camera that's roughly the same size as Sony's NEX line of interchangeable lens cameras. It has a full-frame image sensor, something that's usually reserved for those super high-end DSLRs. Full-frame sensors offer much better image quality. Shooting with the RX1 almost feels like cheating. Low light, bad light, no light, all of those things that are difficult to manage with most cameras just disappear when you're shooting with the RX1. It's also littered with control dials, including three control rings on the lens. It's a system that requires some setup, but once you're set with it, it works really well. The RX1 isn't without its limits, though. The sheer compact size of it means that it doesn't have the ability to change lenses, and it doesn't even have a zoom function. But the Carl Zeiss lens nearly makes up for those limitations. The lens is incredibly sharp edge-to-edge, even when open to its maximum aperture, and it doesn't have any vignetting in the corners or problems with chromatic aberrations. Lenses are contrasty and vibrant, and the lens's manual aperture ring clicks along with a satisfying feel. The manual focus ring is well-damped and precise, which is good because the autofocus kinda sucks, and the battery life is pretty disappointing as well. And then there's the price. The RX1 is nearly $3,000, and you'd be a fool not to buy it with the electronic viewfinder for another $450. It's definitely more of a luxury camera. The RX1 isn't perfect, it's not for the faint-hearted or the beginner, but if you do have deep pockets and a love for photography, the RX1 is the one to beat. So Sony's actually been doing really interesting things in cameras for a couple of years now, and they're doing innovative and cool things that really no one else in that space is. And I actually think that's the case across a lot of product lines for Sony. But here to disagree violently with me is our managing editor, Nilay Patel. Hello. So... You're wrong. I think... That's okay, all right. Good talk. I've gotta go. I think Sony's in this interesting place where they kind of get it now, it seems like, with hardware especially. So the Xperia Tablet Z, to me, is the best example of this, where I had a meeting with them a few weeks ago where they showed off the tablet and were talking to me about it, and I asked what the price was. Because nobody ever leaves with the price, which I think is sort of hilarious. Unless it's like $8, and then they're like, here it is, it's bad, it's $8, see you later. Shut up. But so I asked, and they were like, it's $499. And I laughed. I was like, that's... And then you were like, shut up. Basically. And he was like, why are you laughing? And I said, no one other than Apple has ever sold a tablet for $499 and pulled it off. And he showed it to me, and he was like, it's thin, our screen is gorgeous, we have all this cool technology behind it, we have an IR blaster. And they're like, we can build... Game over, everyone. IR blaster. Yeah, there's that. We have a 5-cent park in 1973. No, but he said... Right in the tablet. He made the point over and over where he was like, Sony used to be a company that made premium products for a premium price, and they're unabashedly back towards that. That's fine, but I think Sony's problem is, it's not that they're doing a new thing for Sony, it's that they have the same problem they always have, which is they make tremendous hardware, great, beautiful, some of the best engineered, best designed, best looking hardware in the market, and their software is still crap. And they haven't solved it. Look, here's a Clie from 2003. This thing is beautiful. I'm pretty sure I wanted one of those. It has a jog dial. It has a high resolution screen and a 66 megahertz processor. It has a memory, a 64 megabyte memory card that looks like a stick of gum. Only Sony pulls off this, right? But it ran Palm OS and was a failure. And when the world moved on from Palm OS, Sony had nowhere to go. And it's kind of that case right now with the Tablet Z, right? They have Android, they've skinned it, it's an okay skin, they've got a bunch of weird apps that aren't very good, but I don't know where they're gonna go with it. I don't know that people are clamoring for Sony software, and our world is completely dominated by software. Right, but my thing is I think, I don't know that I totally agree with that anymore. I mean, it is, but in a sense that we've, I think people are willing for the first time in a long time to pay real money for really good products. And we've seen it with, you know, the Windows laptops are getting more and more expensive and people are still buying them. And like there just aren't that many crappy laptops anymore. I think people, I think Sony makes really beautiful hardware, and I think that the mark of a good product is hardware plus software plus like integration with services. I think that's why Apple's products are successful, for example. I think Windows products are successful because the vast majority of them are cheap. And they're getting more expensive, and I don't think that like the Ultrabook revolution has like taken the world by storm, and I think all the weird Windows 8 stuff is just weird. And I don't think that any of it's gonna, look, here's Sony's weird Windows 8. What's this one called? This is the Viya Duo 11. This is the Viya Duo 11, which is great. It's a weird tablet. It's 16 by 9, which is a bad form factor for a tablet. And it does this to turn into a laptop. And this is great. This is like a classic Sony thing that it does. Only Sony builds something that does this as beautifully as this does this. And then it does it, and you're like, oh, this is useless. Right. I don't want this. Instead of a trackpad, it's got this weird optical thing. The space bar and these buttons aren't in the right place. So it's like, great, Sony, you did a great job executing this idea. In the world of hardware products, only Sony does this in any way that is beautiful like this one is. Right. But this isn't, I don't think that this is what people are clamoring for. And I think they're putting the overwhelming power of their hardware might behind these kinds of designs, but they're not, they still haven't learned how to build software. Right. So I agree. I think Sony's not Apple yet. Right. But I think they're, I mean, yeah, I don't think anybody's arguing that. But I think that the big first step is we have to have things that people want to buy. Sure. And I really do believe that people want, I mean, you're seeing it with everything from tablets to smartphones to laptops to TVs. People want pretty things and will pay for pretty things. Samsung has those TVs with no bezels, no other features. They just don't have bezels. And they're selling like crazy, and they're insanely expensive. So people will pay for fit and finish and design and good hardware. I think that, look, Sony makes, I completely agree with you. I think Sony makes some of the best hardware in the market. And there has to be room in the market for more than just Apple, right? For the feeling stuff. And I think that now that, like, Android is a commodity, right? Everybody else runs Android. Right. And Windows Phone is still relegated and Blackberry is still relegated to third place. Sure. Great. So you want an Android phone, you want the best one. Are you looking to Sony or are you looking to Samsung? And I think most people are still looking to Samsung because they're everywhere. They're out there. They're producing these phones. They're marketing these phones. And they're still, they're not. And the Galaxy S3 is not expensive anymore. It's been subsidized to nothing. The S4 will probably start out expensive and go down. So for Sony to stay way at the top end of this market, they have to offer something else. And they could, right, they could say, we've got the best image sensor because we make really great cameras. They could say, we have PlayStation, which they don't say. Like they have this idea that they're going to be one Sony. They've been saying it over and over and over again. And they're not. So what I think is really interesting is the Tablet Z is like kind of unrelated from the Xperia Z phone. And why? Like they're, one's just kind of a bigger riff on the other. They're named the same thing. Right. But one comes out of Sony Electronics and one comes out of Sony Mobile. And I have no idea why. And it's the same for the computers. It's the same for the TVs. I think the IR blaster and the tablet is a really good example, right? Why is that there? So it can talk to televisions. Why can't Sony TVs and the tablet talk to each other better than that? But like in that case, wouldn't you rather, I feel like I would rather have something as opposed to what Apple has, which is super tight integration, but only if you buy its stuff. Like I like this idea that Sony says, hey, you might own an LG TV. I don't think Sony likes that idea at all. Well, no, I think they hate that idea. But I'm not, it's, they have to be realistic about it. Where Apple is just like, oh, if you don't own all of our devices, sucks for you. Good luck. But that's their goal. I mean, like fundamentally the reason, Sony can make all the great hardware in the world. But until they learn for all of their like warring divisions to talk to each other and for every Sony phone to be a PlayStation phone, they're never going to get anywhere because that's the thing. That's the network effect of buying all of their stuff that makes a company successful. So you actually interviewed Phil Molyneux, Sony's, I think he's COO. Yeah, Sony Electronics. Sony, okay. But so you interviewed him about some of their new products and they brought out in this event all of their products and all their competitors' products. And we're like, here's why we're better. And was any part of that story like, we have a better system because we're Sony and we make all this stuff and that's great? So here's what was really interesting about that event. They had the tablet there, the tablet seat, which is beautiful. And they're like, it's thinner than the iPad mini. It is really gorgeous hardware. It is. And everybody should, you know, if you're going to buy an Android tablet, maybe you should buy that one. But the only, that was the only product they didn't have the comparison. So like they had their TV and LG's TV with a tape over the LG logo in case you liked it better. They're like, we don't want you to know what it is. But then they had their tablet and they did not have the iPad. Right. And I thought that was very, very telling. Why didn't they have the iPad? I mean, like their whole shake is there. Because the comparison doesn't hold up, right? Why not though? I mean, if they're doing just a pure hardware comparison in that case, like their thing from the beginning was like, it's thin and it is thinner and it's lighter and then you can hold it in one hand. And like, I would think they'd want to show that, especially if you only get, you know, 10 seconds to play with it. Yeah, but I think as soon as you click on that App Store icon, I think bad things happen for Android tablets. And this is their problem, right? They don't have ownership over the core part of what they do, which is they make a, the tablet is a computer, right? And they don't have ownership over how good that computer inherently will be because the tablet apps on Android aren't there. And that's like, it's just Sony's problem. They've run into a wall because they can't solve their software problem. But like ultimately what was interesting to me about interviewing Phil that day and seeing Sony on that day was that they did not talk about the PS4, which is I think arguably the most important product that they have. It's the key to this like big ecosystem network effect where if you get the PS4 and all of the promises that they've made about it are true, then you will want to buy more Sony products because it is the center of that experience. We should get into the PS4, but to do so, we've brought Justin McElroy, Polygon's managing editor to talk to us. He has probably more violent disagreements with both me and Neilife. That's possible. So Justin, what do you think? Is Sony, is Sony going to win this console race this time? Just a little early to make those kinds of calls. We don't even know what Microsoft is working with. If indeed they release any console at all. There's been no news. That would be great if Microsoft is like, no, we're out. This was fun. We quit. Yeah. PS4 mystery box. We can't compete with that. Listen, we got Zune, we got Bing, got a lot of profit centers. We are cool. We're golden. It's over. No more games for us. Yeah. So we're really excited about this Sony event, and they really did kind of build the PS4 as not only a gaming platform, but like the center of this whole universe and ecosystem that Sony is really trying to build. I don't know. It doesn't seem like a broad reaching strategy for me to try to make it the same. I mean, have we not gotten past that point? I mean, are we not past that white whale of like the interconnected set top box that does everything? Yeah, I don't think, I think people want more, for lack of a better term, fiddliness than that provides. Yeah. I think people are always going to have their own devices and they're not going to want a walled garden where there's features they're missing out on because they're not using a certain Sony device. So I think it's going to be hard for it to be too valuable to have that sort of integration without excluding people who are missing out. But is the market for just a pure game device there? I mean, aren't they going to get crushed by the iPad and like kid, like parents buying their kids a $329 iPad mini instead of a $400 PS4? I'm not sure that the metaphor is necessarily there for an iPad versus a gaming console. Like I think that it's the same metaphorical leap as like, why would you want an iPad when you already have an iPhone? I mean, that's the gulf we're talking about. I don't think so. I think the leap, I think the metaphor is money. What are you going to spend your $300 on? And I think for a lot of parents are going to say, well, that thing has games. The games for that thing cost $3. But the iPhone has games and they're still selling iPads. I think that's crushing the console market too. I think that, I think that's a tidal wave of problems for Sony, right? I think that people still want to play a game with a controller and a box that is, that you put discs into and I think that metaphor is not going away. I can absolutely see, I mean, like, I think the future, the end game, I think for video games is a phone in your pocket that connects to a controller that rests on your living room. The phone pushes video to your TV or your receiver or what have you. The controller communicates with the phone in your pocket. Like I think that's the future as far as I'm concerned. I don't think we get there this generation. I think we've got at least one more console generation in the way that we've come to think of it. And for me as someone who puts video games above other forms of tech just because of my career and what we saw for the PS4 event was super encouraging from that front. I mean, to your point about software, they didn't hit the box very hard. It wasn't a presentation about technical specifications. The person you had doing the thrust of the presentation was Mark Cerny who's like a video game guy. I mean, dude made Marble Madness, you know, Crash Bandicoot. He's worked on basically every major Sony gaming franchise for like, you know, 20 years. So to me the message that I got is that they know that they're putting that first. They're putting software first. At least that was the message I got from Cerny being the lead architect and the sort of spokesperson they were pushing there. But that sounds like the PS4 will be this like siloed game experience. I mean, this is the other part of my argument is that Sony isn't integrating its stuff together. So you know, Sony has a music service that like may or may not like show up on the PS4, right? They are going to, they have a bunch of tablets and computers that like may or may not work with the PS4. Why wouldn't they want, why would they want to build a siloed experience for games when they keep saying they're going to integrate across the entire company? What's the, I mean, I guess I don't see what the value of that, of like what is the experience that is not there, I guess is what I don't understand. Like the PS4 and really the Xbox 360 also for Microsoft are kind of the gateway drug into these ecosystems. So in the same way that like the iPod Touch is what gets you into Apple. I feel like Sony, kind of like you said, they have the music service. They have, they'll sell me videos. They'll like, they should be able to move all my stuff around and let me use all of my things on my various devices. And Microsoft is being smart with smart glass and stuff like that. They're trying. And well, right, they seem to get it. I don't know if they're taking all of the steps they need to, but they seem to get it. But it seems to me that Justin, I kind of think you're right in the sense that Sony, the games are going to be what sell the PS4, but I think Sony could make the PS4 what sells its other devices. The PS4 could be what sells Sony. Right. Right. And so actually what I'm very curious, more curious to ask you about Justin is do you think the games are there to sell the PS4? I mean, I went to that event, I didn't see a bunch of like awesome games. I saw a lot of explosions. I saw a lot of ideas about games that I've seen before and I found myself wondering like is am I going to buy this because the explosions are better or am I going to buy this because it has new kinds of interesting games that I want to try? So I guess if I had a problem, it was the fact that like I didn't see a lot of, you know, experiences that I wasn't, that I'm not currently getting on my current console. So yeah, I mean, absolutely if they had a failing, it was like I didn't see that moment that was like I have to own this. I mean, obviously I will have, but you know what? It's also going to be harder this generation. I think maybe even harder than any other generation before because in the, when you go from PS2 to PS3 or Xbox to Xbox 360, you're really making this leap in the high definition and like you, it is not going to be that sort of jump. Like they're not going to be able to do that graphically. So it's not going to have the impact there. I'm really hopeful for E3. I'm hopeful that we're going to see some really interesting like gaming experiences that you can't get anywhere else because I mean, I agree with you. The number of, of sequels was like really upsetting. I mean, there are these big studios that like, I would love to see what else they could do. Sucker Punch, for example, rather than like, oh, another infamous game. Okay. I mean, I'm sure that'll be, that'll be really good, but I'm, you know, I, you kind of think of a new console is like the place where these developers get to stretch their legs, you know, and not make another Killzone game. What was funny about that event was they kept on saying things like, and we're proud to announce that Killzone 25 will come to the PlayStation 4. I was like, where else is it going to go? Like we're bringing it to the Genesis. Like what are you, why are you so proud of yourself? I forget who said it, but someone said that Killzone fans are Sony's analogy for the Canadian girlfriend. No, no, no. You guys, if she was here, she would tell you she's really gorgeous. I think you saw Sony show exactly enough, they enough to get people talking enough of these features that are almost going to be accepted in the next generation. Like obviously they, that we have to have these features and they're going to look like innovators when Microsoft also has these features. I mean, they're going to look like, Oh yeah, we've also got, you know, like a safe state or streaming or whatever. And it'll look like Sony gets the opportunity to look like they came up with it. So Justin, do you think, have we seen enough to be excited? Are you excited about what Sony is up to? Do you think they're moving in the right direction or are we still in kind of wait and see mode until E3? Absolutely. Listen, if I had, if I had seen the same sort of arrogance I saw on display when the PS3 launched, I would, you know, I would be sizing up for a coffin. But I think that what you saw at this event was someone who is, knows they have market share to reclaim that, that has someone out front like Mark Cerny that communicates like, Hey, we care about games. We want your business. You know, we want to draw people in. Sony right now looks like, from the video game perspective, looks like a company that, that has, is, is ready for a fight. And like, I don't know, I don't know where that, where that leaves Microsoft. In a fight. In a fight. In a terrible fight. Yeah, they will have a fight. I mean, Sony looks like a company that's saying the right things, that understands the message that they needed to send to reconnect with people, that hopefully has learned from the sort of like almost, you know, bullheaded nature of the PS3 that just sort of pushes forward and expects users to deal with the multiple weaknesses that that system had five, six, seven years ago and continues to have to this very day. All right. Justin McElroy, thank you very much. We really appreciate it. An exquisite pleasure having me. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here. The pleasure. There was pleasure all around. So it's enough. So I tend to do take notes. We're notes. Yeah. I do agree kind of with what Justin just said, which is that Sony gets the right things. And this is kind of what I got from the Tablet Z and the whole conversation I had with them, which is that like they get it. They get what they need to do. They get where they need to go. But I'm curious what you think. I agree that Android is kind of their biggest problem. Like Android and Windows are standing in their way because at some point both of those things are kind of commodity software. And most people are just going to be like, well, they both run Windows. Let me just get the cheap thing that runs Windows. So how does Sony solve this problem? It's funny because they've been trying to solve it in televisions for years and failing. And televisions are even more of a commodity than phones or tablets or laptops. You just buy one, you plug your cable box into it. And Samsung's eating their lunch. And I think that the problem for Sony right now is that Samsung is dominating the phone landscape aside from Apple. And they need to find a way to get back in that game. And I think the Z is a really good product in that line of things. And I think the tablet Z is a really good tablet. But I think they need to find a way to tell people that beyond hardware, beyond just having this in your hand and being prettier than other things, it will be more useful and more integrated in your life. And that's always going to be a problem. You know how Sony saves everything, saves the world, wins the electronics industry and our hearts forever? How's that? IR blasters. I think you're fired. I don't think that's fair. You're fired. Anyway, that's our show. Thank you so much for watching. We'll be here next week and every week talking about more cool stuff. Thanks so much to Neil Ipsil for being here. Thanks to Dan Seifert and Justin McElroy. I'm David Pierce. We catch us next week and every week.

With cameras there are always trade-offs. The best images require bulky DSLRs, while the most compact point-and-shoots are lacking in both image quality and control. That is until now. Enter Sony's RX1. The RX1 is an unassuming camera that's roughly the same size as Sony's NEX line of interchangeable lens cameras. It has a full-frame image sensor, something that's usually reserved for those super high-end DSLRs. Full-frame sensors offer much better image quality. Shooting with the RX1 almost feels like cheating. Low light, bad light, no light, all of those things that are difficult to manage with most cameras just disappear when you're shooting with the RX1. It's also littered with control dials, including three control rings on the lens. It's a system that requires some setup, but once you're set with it, it works really well. The RX1 isn't without its limits though. The sheer compact size of it means that it doesn't have the ability to change lenses, and it doesn't even have a zoom function. But the Carl Zeiss lens nearly makes up for those limitations. The lens is incredibly sharp edge-to-edge, even when open to its maximum aperture, and it doesn't have any vignetting in the corners or problems with chromatic aberrations. Images are contrasty and vibrant, and the lens's manual aperture ring clicks along with a satisfying feel. The manual focus ring is well-damped and precise, which is good because the autofocus kinda sucks, and the battery life is pretty disappointing as well. And then there's the price. The RX1 is nearly $3,000, and you'd be a fool not to buy it with the electronic viewfinder for another $450. It's definitely more of a luxury camera. The RX1 isn't perfect, it's not for the faint-hearted or the beginner, but if you do have deep pockets and a love for photography, the RX1 is the one to beat.

It's Wednesday, March 6th, 2013. Imagine if you will. I'm Ross Miller, traveling through a dimension not only of sight and sound, but of mind. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. Nearly 20 years later, the decision to bundle a web browser with Windows is still giving Microsoft grief. Today, the European Union has decided to fine the company around $732 million for breaking a 2009 antitrust agreement. Microsoft was supposed to add a so-called browser ballot, but a quote, technical error removed the choice in Windows 7. Microsoft has said it will quote, take full responsibility. Just for a little perspective, that full responsibility is just about 3% of its profit last year. In no time to discuss this as a committee, Carrie Fisher is returning to the Star Wars universe. The actress confirmed to Palm Beach Illustrated that she would reprise her role as Leia for J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Wars Episode VII. Rumors have suggested that Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill could also be on board. With all the pieces lining up, the three most famous characters in Star Wars history outside of R2-D2 could reunite on screen in 2015. But clearly it only takes one to sound the alarm, so be sure to hire them all real quiet like. And finally, the streaming music service by Beats is getting some serious backing. Codenamed Daisy, the project received a $60 million investment from a group led by billionaire Lee Blabotnick. Reuters is also reporting that Apple's Tim Cook and Eddie Q have recently met with Beats to discuss the service. So what will the latest streaming music service look like and how will it do? We'll find out this summer as Daisy launches. And that's it for today's top stories. Tune in tomorrow at 11am eastern for the return of Top Shelf with David Pearce.

So what we're showing here is going to be coming out with the next release of Kinect for Windows SDK and it augments the Kinect skeleton with a grip and release signal. So what you're seeing on the screen here are these cursors, they're representations of my hand. As I grip with my hands, it engages and now I can do things like pinch to zoom or pan around here. And I'm going to zoom in here on Cambridge, if I can find Cambridge, it's down here a bit. There it is, this is where we're based, MSR, Microsoft Research in Cambridge. And what we're doing here is we're using machine learning to learn how to recognize whether your hand is open or closed. So we've used a bunch of, we've recorded a bunch of training data from lots of different people using different, using the different open and closed gestures and trained up this system using machine learning so that it can recognize robustly whether your hand is open. And all we're doing here is injecting this open close signal into Windows so we can move things around and grip and release with our hands. So any app could be used, let's switch to a game now, this is going to be Jetpack Joyride and I'm just going to show, it's not quite switched. So I'm going to show here that I can just control a game, this is quite a simple control game but I can now play this game just by squeezing my fist. I can move the jetpack up and down and select the points.

It's Tuesday, March 5th, 2013. I'm Dan Seifert, and I control the horizontal and the vertical. This is 90 seconds on the verge, brought to you by Motorola. Government officials are investigating claims that a drone was spotted today over Brooklyn, New York. A pilot for Alitalia was preparing to land at JFK airport when he spotted an unmanned aircraft. The drone reportedly had four propellers and came within 200 feet of his jet. The incident occurred at an altitude of over 1500 feet, far beyond the limit for hobbyist planes. Other pilots didn't spot the aircraft, so it's not clear exactly what the pilot saw. But the FBI and FAA are investigating nonetheless. Sports reporters can now shake off the Twitter tyranny of the NCAA. The organization responsible for rules, regulations, and constantly questioned sanctions in US college sports has backtracked on its social media policy. The NCAA has limited the number of times reporters could post to social networks during championship games. The goal was to prevent them from producing a, quote, real-time description of the event. Why the change? The NCAA realized that frequent tweeting would encourage people to, you know, actually turn on games and watch them. Shocking. And finally, the iPhone almost wasn't the iPhone. At a recent event, former Apple advertising collaborator Ken Segal revealed the number of scrapped names for the device. Riffing on the company's iconic music player, both Telepod and Tripod were considered, as well as Mobi and the iPad name itself. That's right, Telepod. Yeah, I'm just gonna let that speak for itself. And that's it for today's top stories. Coming up tomorrow, the top 12 techniques for tilt-shifting your molecular photography.

You know, we launched TED Talks for the World around seven years ago. It seemed like the stupidest idea that anyone had ever had. Essentially that I was putting on tape lectures online. They would sort of look at me with this sort of pity. We felt that the ideas deserved a wider audience than they were getting. And so when we launched TED Talks, our true mission was to figure out how to better spread ideas through the world. What is TED? TED is a conference, sure. But it's more than that. It's an idea. Actually, a collection of ideas. And people. People and ideas. People with ideas. People who are here for a number of days to talk to other people about ideas. Those people also have ideas. And there's people here who help the people with ideas tell their ideas to other people. And we're going to find out what happens when all of those people and all of those ideas get together in one place and start doing things with one another. One of the things we really pride ourselves on is how much effort we put into preparing speakers. So we don't just choose a speaker and put them on stage. We have a very deep editorial process. Very similar to the way an editor and a writer would work together. When you give a talk at TED, there's a very specific format. They want you to tell a story. They want you to engage the audience, which in science is something we don't normally have to do. And so they help us to realize the story and to come up with new imaginative ways that we can tell it. As an engineer and a computer scientist, we don't typically get a lot of training in how do you present yourself and present your work and tell a compelling story. And that's been one of the most awesome things that I've been able to take away from this experience. It's actually extremely difficult. To try and condense a decade's worth of work is actually extremely hard. So we were really trying to make the speakers rock stars. To shoot them with tight shots, with moving cameras, multiple cameras so that we could get a great edit. That's the kind of thing any filmmaker would do. But at the same time, we didn't want it to feel very false. We wanted it to feel authentic and real and intimate. And so there's a balance we're always striking in the filming process. We don't cut out a lot because they sort of bring their own genius, but we do sort of try to make them who they wanted to be when they stepped on stage. You know? So we don't really change them. We try to make them the best them. Things need to have a filmic layer, but less sweeping. To me it's more personal, a little more rough around the edges. It's okay if you get a close up of someone who's not beautiful because keeping it sort of as real and intimate is great because you just want to get out of the way of the idea and let people access that idea with as little barrier, a little film between them and the idea as possible. So what's the biggest challenge at a conference of this size? A lot of it is like the numbers game. We have so many machines down there, so many moving parts that it's kind of a mathematical probability that something's going to fail. So a lot of it is just making sure that we have backup machines, we have backups of backups of backups because this time at the TED conference is so crucial for us. It's when we're getting all of our material that we're going to use to put TED talks out on the internet the rest of the year. So you guys are running Windows? This is all at XP Shop? The Media Cave is the official name for this? It is called the Media Cave. Is there any thought to actually doing a cave-like structure at any point? We thought about it but we found that it was probably going to be too expensive. Too expensive, too time consuming. Yeah. So, okay, and how many people do you have down here? How many works agents, how many people? You can give me rough estimates. I mean we have I think somewhere between 16 to 20 people. After each speaker gives a talk we actually try to turn around their talk by putting them on a thumb drive so that they can actually have a copy of it to review and to make sure they like what they're saying. Okay, so if I'm a speaker and I suck completely I can be like don't put that on line because I hated that. Yes, although in the history of TED I don't think we've ever had a speaker say like please don't put that on line. Oh that's cool. I didn't know that they actually got an option. Big production. A lot of pieces, a lot of moving pieces. It's a bit like a puzzle. A puzzle you've got to put together very carefully or the puzzle could explode and get glass in your eye because the puzzle is made of glass. Did I mention that? The fact that there are limitations here in terms of you're in a space, it's an auditorium, you've got nine cameras, but are you battling the limitations or do you like working within them? I think the limitations are exactly where the creativity starts happening. A lot of the speakers talk about what constrained them actually liberated them. I'm more excited about this TED than I've been in a while and I think it has to do with the worldwide talent search that we did in 14 cities around the world, a kind of open call for speakers, which was very risky. We have 33 speakers here who were chosen from those auditions and they're bringing, they're just people we wouldn't have found any other way. At the heart of every TED talk is a really passionate speaker and I think what the great TED talks tap into is this very primal way of connecting. You know, a single person standing on stage locking eyes with you, telling you what they believe in, can impact you in a way that almost nothing else can.

It's Monday, March 4th, 2013. I'm William Savona, architect of space and time. This is 90 seconds on the verge, brought to you by Motorola. An Apple smartwatch is coming. Our own sources indicate that Apple is reworking the iOS platform for the small screen watch, but that's led to some battery problems. Apple is planning to put its watch on sale by the end of the year, the same time frame Google is hoping to release its wearable device, Google Glass. Get ready. Doctors have announced they've, quote, functionally cured a child of HIV for the first time. According to the National Institutes of Health, the infant was placed on an aggressive regimen of antiretroviral drugs 30 hours after being born. After 18 months, the child was taken off the medication and now shows no signs of the virus in its body whatsoever. How big is this news? The lead doctor on the report said, quote, it's proof of the principle that we can cure HIV infection if we can replicate this case. And finally, the White House agrees that U.S. citizens should be allowed to unlock their phones. Responding to a petition signed by over 114,000 people, senior advisor R. David Edelman wrote that consumers should be able to unlock both their cell phones and tablets without penalty. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski also said that the ban, quote, doesn't pass the common sense test. While government agencies will be investigating the issue, the White House suggested mobile carriers examine their own policies in the meantime. And that's it for today's top stories. Join us tomorrow when we'll take a look at the tragic history of hyper-color T-shirts.

It's Friday, March 1st, 2013. I'm Adrienne Jeffries, and the punctuation mark of the day is the right bracket. This is 90 seconds on the verge, brought to you by Motorola. The Apple vs. Samsung case has taken another twist, and almost half the damages awarded to Apple have been put on hold. Today, Judge Lucy Koh said that the jury had made errors when determining how much Samsung should pay Apple for infringing on its patents and designs. She took the number from over 1 billion and reduced it to just 598 million. Judge Koh has ordered a new trial to determine what damages Samsung should pay for the balance. Of course, the two companies could just settle out of court and put this whole thing to rest right now, right? Anyone? Euler? This morning, SpaceX launched its Dragon capsule on a trip to the International Space Station, but ran into a little bit of a problem. After reaching orbit, three of the capsule's four thrusters failed to respond. A critical engine burn kept the Dragon from re-entering the Earth's atmosphere, but thankfully all four thrusters were eventually brought back online. The Dragon's docking date with the space station is now set for Sunday at the earliest. And finally, one of the world's favorite creepy actors is coming to your game console. Quantic Dream has announced that Willem Dafoe will be featured in its upcoming game Beyond Two Souls. He joins the star of Juno, Ellen Page, who plays a young woman struggling with supernatural powers. Both performances were recorded with an elaborate motion capture process. Dafoe plays a government scientist that comes to help Page. We assume he'll turn out to be totally insane and run around and scream a lot. That's it for today's top stories. Stay tuned for the latest from your local affiliate.

It's Thursday, February 28th, 2013. I'm Nilan Patel and I'm in a glass cage. Please send help. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks. The US Army private was the source behind the release of various intelligent memos, detainee files, and video, and now faces up to 20 years in prison for his actions. However, Manning also pleaded not guilty to 12 additional charges, including aiding the enemy. Reading from a statement, Manning said, quote, I felt that I accomplished something that would allow me to have a clear conscience. Google owns Motorola Mobility, but that doesn't mean it's in love with the company's products. Google CFO Patrick Prichette said today that the company inherited an 18-month pipeline of products when it acquired Motorola, and described the devices as, quote, fine, but not really to the standards that what Google would say is wow. So when will we see some wow-worthy devices from Motorola? Google acquired the company in May of 2012. That's about nine months ago, so soon. It should be soon. I think it's soon. And lastly, Pope Benedict XVI has left Twitter. Today, the pontiff thanked his supporters with one final tweet from the at pontifex account before formally stepping down from his post. The Vatican has since deleted all the pope's tweets and archived them off site, leaving a clean slate on the pontifex account should the presumably young, hip, new pope also want to tweet instead of using, say, Snapchat. That's it for today's top stories. Stay tuned for an important announcement from your local affiliate.

I'm here with Phil Molyneux, president and CEO of Sony Electronics. You're here in New York just to show off all your newest stuff you've got on the electronic side of Sony. Yeah, that's right. We asked you good guys to come in and come and see our latest and greatest. But we also took it a little step further, coming out of CES, Consumer Electronics Show. We announced our 4K TVs and a few other products, great products, and we're going to be showing a few other products, great products. But today we wanted to show you a side-by-side comparison against our competitors' product so that you could judge which was the best experience or best audio or best picture. So pretty brave move and I think it shows the confidence we have in the product line. Yeah, so what I got out of this was that you're here, you're showing off your products against your competitors' products. And in some cases, it's very traditional. You have a TV, they have a TV, you think your TV is better. I think everybody understands that story from Sony. But with your headphones, you're entering kind of a market that you haven't been in before. So they have fashionable stylish headphones and now you have fashionable stylish headphones. Are you trying to say that your products stack up next to theirs directly? We've always been in the headphone market. We've always had a major share in the headphone market. The key difference is, and really what I wanted to explain today, we are the go-to headphone manufacturer for the professional end of the industry. We've been in there many years. And if you go to recording studios today, you'll see them wearing Sony headphones because it's a trusted representation of what happens in terms of the recording studio and the monitoring of the audio output and the mixing. So those professional producers and mixers use Sony headphones, but a long way. And it's not only in recording studios, it's also if you go to TV stations or radio stations, they've got Sony headphones on in the majority of cases. So you're trying to bring that experience to the consumer? I think it's important that it's understood from a professional end of the market that we are the go-to headphone because of the quality of the audio, the true representation of the audio output. And then using our knowledge and our experience and technology, put that into our consumer orientated headphones so that you or other people can hear the music as it was meant to be heard and how the artists want you to hear it. So the other thing that struck me about today was apart from the tablet, the Xperia Z tablet, which is very interesting and very beautiful, what you've shut off is very traditional consumer electronics from the electronics side of Sony. But the company has talked a lot about the One Sony initiative, the need to bridge across the company, and the two hottest segments that Sony has are the mobile and the PlayStation 4. It's not that they're not here. It makes sense they're not here. They're different divisions of the company. But your integration up through the company into those products was not really evident. Is there a reason that you're so tightly focused on just the consumer electronics portion here? No. So then it's great insight. So thank you for that. The reality is we are extremely well connected. And I'll give you a concrete example. We showed today our 84-inch TV. It's stunning. And it's 4K ultra high definition. So it's a completely different experience. But we launched that product into market last November. And as part of that launch, we worked with Sony Pictures, our movie company. And we remastered several of their blockbuster, in fact, 10 of their blockbuster titles, Amazing Spider-Man and Salt and Lawrence of Arabia, into native level 4K content. And we packaged that together on the server, together with the 84-inch TV with a tablet, so that there was a world's first experience for consumers to have native 4K movies in their home. So from a Sony Pictures point of view, that's their assets. From electronics, it's a TV electronics. We put it together and we deliver to the consumer. If we're more concretely talking about the Sony mobile side, then the Xperia Z will be part of our go-to-market approach. We're talking about near-field communication and one touch. We have some great audio product out there in terms of our speakers and our audio board that always gets a giggle. So the Xperia Z will be one of those products that we show, demonstrating that one touch philosophy. So if I had to push you on the tablet, on the Z, that is the...here you showed cameras, televisions, headphones, which Sony has sold for forever. And then there's a tablet, which is a very new product category, which is potentially an explosive product category, which is very different than the traditional other products. And I would say your focus was on the traditional products and less so on this kind of weird hybrid that blends the elements of a television that has obviously the technology from the mobile side of the business. How do you see Sony transitioning and having focus on both the mobile stuff, the weird new products, and the traditional products? So today we showed the Xperia Z tablet, right? And we're demonstrating that in conjunction with the TV and how it's your second screen and the unique application we have there, TV side view. Let me ask you, do you think the tablet is more... You can play with the content that you can see visually on your tablet. Do you think the tablet is more of a mobile device, a television device, or a computing device? So our opinion is we have the Xperia Z handset, and that is truly mobile, right? So it's kind of for the consumer now, the center of the world and your social story, et cetera. And when you're out and about, that's your go-to device. I believe that when you have your tablet, that is partly mobile, but predominantly in home device and used as a second screen. Because our Xperia Z mobile phone device is a five-inch screen, but the Xperia Z tablet is a 10-inch screen. So obviously, if you're at home and you can lean back and interact with your TV and also have a social agenda, social media agenda, it's a better experience on a 10-inch. So you have to look at what is outside world, in home world, and then what is the best product offering to facilitate your need. Will you have an LTE version of the tablet? Will you do a maybe 3G, 4G HSPA tablet outside of the US? I think that's a natural progression, isn't it? But if the tablet's mostly an in-home device, do you need it? Are you seeing consumers ask for it? I said mostly, but of course then people on the road in business will have a need for an LTE device and to use it for productivity purposes. So really depending on the consumer. But we're focused on satisfying the consumer and of course understanding their habits and bringing the solutions they need. So let me talk to you about the tablet as a second screen I think is very interesting. That is actually an explosive use of the tablet, right? It's growing very fast. And now you've got these new televisions. Is there any direct integration between the tablet and the TV? So at this stage not. We have some ideas that I'll talk to you later on. Sounds great. But we're using our tablet. It has an infrared. It's probably the only one on the market now where you can control not only your TV but your home audio equipment and whatever you have at home. But we also put unique Sony developed applications like TV side view which is giving a much better user interface to control and understand the content that's on your TV box and also share with your friends and social media and I'm watching this and what do you think or dive in and understand who the actors are and what other movies or programs they've been in. So it's richer experience we're bringing there. So let's talk about the TV. It's obviously a 4K. You're talking a lot about upscaling, a lot of X reality, all the stuff you're doing to make 2K content look better. But at CES, my favorite product at CES was a Sony product that doesn't exist. It was a circle with a light in it and it said prototype 4K player. Is that any more real? Have you put chips inside the box yet? So we were teasing you at CES. I know it was just a circle with a light. We have to put context on this. With our 84 inch 4K ultra high definition TV, we ship it today with a server and preloaded content. And that's just like a PC tower. It's a PC tower. It's got some tricks in there to make sure the consumer experience is great, wonderful. But in addition to that, now we're working on a home server that will allow in the summer a download service for 4K content. As well as we have Sony Entertainment Video Unlimited, so you'll be able to get access to HD content as well. And that server is maybe a little bit fictitious at this moment. But the player, it was my favorite thing at CES. I'm not even kidding. I took four people by it just to see it. And I said this box with the light is the best thing at CES. So I mean Sony is brilliant at design, cosmetic design and industrial design. We do it beautifully. We've got wonderful engineers. So you look at the TV, 55 and 65 and the magnetic fluid speakers that point at you rather than at the wall and give you that dynamic sound output. And you see that server. You don't want to hide it in the cupboard, right? You want to put it on the wall. It's beautiful. But it's functional as well. Well, you know, that's funny. And I know you can't talk too much about the PS4. But that's the natural. There are two things that I want to ask you about. One is they didn't show us the PS4, the PS4 launch event, because they said we don't want you to think about the box. We want to think about the controller. And second, you're building a download service for 4K. Is it going to work on the PS4? Have you thought about it working on the PS4? It's a little bit like we showed the server mockup, as you said, at CES. And you thought it was beautiful. But you couldn't get any details. And then we're showing it again. We're giving you a little bit more as we go along. So similarly for the PS4, we'll give you more details in due course. But I promise you, you will not be disappointed. And in terms of other 4K distribution, downloads might take a long time, right? The files will be big. Are you anticipating that they'll take overnight? Are you thinking they'll take a few hours? Will they start instantly? The size of a typical movie, depending on the length of movie, you're talking 100 gigabytes and plus, right? So then you come into variables about how fast is your broadband at home? Or do you have optical broadband like they do in Houston? Then you can get the movie down there pretty quickly. So that is one of the challenges that we have to work through. And for our summer launch of our service, we've got some very good ideas that will make that a comfortable consumer experience. And then looking to the future, we need to develop as an industry new compression ratios and technologies. That dialogue is in active progress at the moment. You talked a little bit about Blu-ray and the progress you're making. Are you anticipating a physical distribution for 4K as well? I'm not discounting it. But you think it will be download primarily? So I think the whole world is moving more and more to download. Consumers are used to download, right? And streaming. I don't want to discount the good work that's going into potential physical media distribution. But that's an industry association and they're working hard. But for the summer, we will bring this download service first to market, world's first, and compelling content and a wider catalog of content for consumers to enjoy with Sony 4K ultra high definition TVs. All right. Well, thank you so much, Phil. It's always a pleasure talking to you. Thanks. Thanks for having me.

It's Wednesday, February 27th, 2013. I'm Dieter Bohn coming to you from the heart of Catalon. This is 90 seconds on the verge presented by Motorola. Leap motion is less than three months away. The so-called Connect on steroids motion controller will begin shipping May 13th and be available at Best Buy just six days later. It'll cost $79.99. Autodesk and Correll will be supported at launch, but if you're looking for something a little more fanciful, Cut the Rope will be available too. Samsung announced its new wallet app today. It feels a little familiar. Much like Apple's own passbook, Samsung Wallet is designed to let users store barcodes for such things like event tickets, boarding passes, membership cards and coupons. All in one central location. It'll also offer time and location-based push notifications. Samsung's wallet is only available for developers right now, but it should be available in Samsung's own app store in the near future. Finally, state-sponsored hackers are stealing more than a terabyte of user data per day. That's according to a new report by internet security firm, Comry. Among the victims are a number of military and academic facilities, as well as a large search engine. While China has been grabbing all the headlines as of late, security experts say that any one of a dozen countries could be behind these attacks. And though the problem is well-defined and a major concern, the solution isn't all that clear. That's it for today's soft stories. Stay tuned for the latest from your local affiliate.

Hey guys, this is David with The Verge and we're here looking at Fujitsu's next generation cane. That's a thing apparently. This is a cane, it's a cane you walk around with like normal, but it has all kinds of crazy sensors built into it. So you can program from your computer directions into this. It has Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and GPS and you can just walk around and it'll literally tell me right now I'm being guided this way and I just walk and as soon as I'm going the wrong direction it tells me I'm supposed to turn. So it has directions on here and it actually buzzes you if you get it wrong. There's also all kinds of other sensors. There's a fingerprint holder on here and it'll measure your heart rate and it'll measure the environment so you can see if it's like too hot and your heart's moving too fast. It's basically like the best and like maybe slightly creepiest way to track your older relatives but it's a pretty handy tool and it looks really awesome. This is the future of the cane which is not something I ever thought would need to be a future but here it is. It's Fujitsu's next generation cane.

This is Dan Seifer with The Verge and we're taking a look at the latest version of Pocketcast for Android. Pocketcast is a podcatching app so it lets you listen to podcasts on your smartphone or tablet and version 4.0 has been completely redesigned with a new style and interface to complement the latest versions of Android. The first thing you have here are your podcasts that have been subscribed to and downloaded. Pretty standard fare there. There also features a discover mode where you can find new podcasts to listen to and subscribe to them pretty quickly and simply. Pocketcast supports both video and audio podcasts so you can watch video. Or you can also listen to audio podcasts. You have the option to stream or download a podcast while you're listening to it. You've got controls to easily rewind or fast forward. You can change the playback speed when you've fully downloaded it to speed it up if you want and you have the ability to share podcasts or episodes via links through other apps. And then you've got some notification controls here but unfortunately there's no widget for this particular version of the app. You also have playlists here that you can access unplayed podcasts by audio or video type and which ones you've downloaded and you can mark things as read and delete them from here if you want. The only problem that we have with these is that they do not automatically delete once you reach a certain limit so you can't set a specific limit, a number of podcasts that you want to save and you'll have to manually delete them if you need to free up space on your phone's internal storage. The last thing that's really cool about the new version of Pocketcast is it lets you sync between devices so you can sync your podcast playlists and your listening status between your phone and tablet if you want. You can pick up Pocketcast from the Google Play Store now for $399.

Hey guys, this is Tom Warren with The Verge and we're looking at Intel's web-based TV camera here. And basically it's a cam that sits at the very top of the TV. You can imagine a scenario if you're walking past a store and you glanced up at this advert here. What it basically does is it'll track your face and the system behind it will then turn your face blue or pink, whether you're male or female. And what they basically do on the back end is advertisers can then track and see exactly who you are and then target you with a specific advert. So I'm obviously male. So at the top we've got a sort of male-oriented ad, so it's one for the Formula 1. But if a female walked by, they might switch the ad to something female-oriented. It's sort of bringing us more closer towards a Minority Report style universe where you're walking past shops and you're getting ads based on who you are. It's a little creepy. But yeah, that's Intel's web-based TV tracking.

It's Tuesday, February 26, 2013. I'm Lorian Olson, office manager for The Verge and Vox Media. These are our new offices, and this is 90 Seconds on The Verge, brought to you by Motorola. Google Plus is getting a new universal login and sharing system. It's called Google Plus Sign In, and it lets users log in to websites and apps with their Google Plus account and share information back and forth. If that sounds a lot like Facebook Connect, that's because it is. The service is launching today with partners like Fitbit, OpenTable, and Flixter. Say hi, everybody. Hey, hi. Details on the PlayStation 4 continue to roll in. Sony executive Shuhei Yoshida said that every title will come as a digital download, and only some will actually be on a disc. He also hinted that a subscription service might be coming. Of course, Sony seemed to have a lot of dreams when they introduced the PS4 last week. We'll see how long it takes for them to actually have it. And finally, it turns out there's a lot of Star Trek fans on the internet. The SETI Institute recently held a poll to name two of Pluto's moons. The winner? Vulcan, with over 174,000 votes. The International Astronomical Union will make the final decision, but to deny the will of the people would be illogical. That's it for today's top stories. Stay tuned for the latest from your local affiliate.

Hey guys, this is Tom Ronan with The Verge, and we're looking at the new Twitter client for Windows Phone 8. So Twitter has updated the UI to basically put it on parity with iOS and Android. You can see you can still swipe across between all the columns. It seems to refresh the columns a lot quicker than it used to, and you can swipe across all the columns like so. You've obviously got the profile column where you can access your direct messages, your tweets, photos, and lists, and you've got the Discover tab where Twitter highlights all the trending and who to follow, etc. In terms of what's new, if you go into the New Tweet section, if you go into the app and start trying to fill out a Twitter profile, it'll actually suggest something you can just simply swipe across. That's a change from the old version where you'd hit the at sign and start typing the person's name and have to remember what their username was. So it's kind of irritating previously. So another change is if we back out of this message here, this tweet, you'll actually get full draft support. So it'll actually notify you if you want to save it or discard it. You can obviously save and then go into the My Profile and then access your drafts in there. So another change in the Twitter application is you obviously get the toast on Windows Phone, but you actually get a lock screen notification now that you can set. So you can quickly, if your phone's off and you don't have the notification, you can quickly see how many tweets you've got waiting for you. And the settings section's been cleaned up. So you've obviously got the same multiple account functionality. You can add an account in there. And you've also got the ability to change the notifications. It's fairly granular control there. And Twitter's also added an option to switch accounts there. So it's a little bit easier to switch accounts if you're managing multiple accounts. So one thing that's actually missing that's available on the Android and iOS clients is photo filters. So if we add a photo and then add that into the tweet, it doesn't give you the option to apply a filter, which is obviously available on Apple's and Google's platform. So Twitter's still got a little way to go in terms of features to bring it on parity with the rest. So Twitter's really important for any sort of modern mobile ecosystem. So it's good to see that the Twitter guys have aligned the UI with Android and iOS. And hopefully this signals some further updates in the future at the same time that they come to Android and iOS too.

This is Dan Seifer with The Verge and we're here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona checking out the new Opera browser for Android smartphones. What we're checking out here is a very early build of the browser that uses the new WebKit rendering engine, which is a marked change from Opera which used to rely on its own Presto engine. WebKit is a much more popular engine. It's the same processing engine that the Android stock Android browser uses as well as iOS. A couple of different changes here. They've cleaned up the speed dial here so they made it a little cleaner. You can create folders from your bookmarks very similar to icons in your home screen. They've also added this discover tab here which is designed to provide you content for a variety of categories. And then you can swipe over and see more of your history there. The whole design of this app itself has been freshened up to better fit in with Android style guidelines. It looks and feels very similar to Chrome for Android. You've got an Omnibox here for searching and looking up your various web pages. You've got a new tab interface here that you can browse through your open tabs. And then you have a drop down menu to access various settings. One of the things that they've added to the new version of Opera is this off-road mode which uses the data compression technology that they pioneered on the Opera mini browser which allows you to save data when you're on the go and it doesn't use as much data plan. And it claims that you can save about 90% of your data usage by using its off-road compression. Browsing within the Opera browser is pretty good. Web pages scroll pretty quickly. The WebKit rendering engine seems to be a lot better than the older Presto engine as far as rendering and navigating. Scrolling is fairly smooth once a site has actually loaded. It features things like double tap to zoom and standard pinch to zoom. All those work pretty well. This is a very early version of the Opera browser that we're looking at here but the company says it will be available in the Google Play store later this year.

Hey guys, this is Tom Warren with The Verge and we're looking at Nokia Music which is running on Windows 8. If you go into the application you'll notice this is actually a native application and it's not a HTML5 variant that's similar to what Nokia's offering on the web. Swiping up from the top of the bottom you get the sort of typical app bar support. If we pan across you can get into the various mixes that Nokia offers. You can also create your own mix. Nokia Music is kind of like Pandora so you can search for an artist in here and basically you're creating a playlist based on your favorite artist. I'll just put a few in here. And then what will happen is when you actually play the playlist it will go out and look for songs that are similar to say Bob Marley or Faithless or Rihanna and then it will play those songs. At the moment it's obviously playing a Bob Marley track here. You can't download tracks individually and there is support and if you hit the download button it will throw you into the web and you actually have to go and buy that song on its own. One feature that you can do with Nokia Music is you can literally select one of the playlists and you can take it offline and that will literally sync it so that it's available without any data connection. So it's a little bit similar to sort of rival services like Spotify and the rest but when you actually search for an artist here you'll get a view of similar music and radio stations and then you can actually go in and they'll give you all the sort of information and the tweets and stuff but you won't be able to go in and select specific songs. So unlike Spotify where if you knew the music you wanted you'd be able to go and get it, this is more of a sort of radio service where it will suggest music for you based on your likes. Nokia Music is also available for other devices like Windows Phone and it's actually a free service on that particular device. On Windows 8 Nokia is offering $3.99 a month for the subscription service. You get seven days trial free but then after then you'll be locked out and you'll have to pay for the subscription. So that was a quick look at the beta copy of Nokia Music and it's expected to come out in Q1.

It's Monday, February 25th, 2013. I'm Chris Ziegler, Academy Award winner for Best Mustache. It's 90 seconds Honda Verge, presented by Motorola. Mobile World Congress has taken over the heart of Catalonia. All week, companies will be showing off new 5-inch 1080p smartphones and 7-inch Android tablets. More or less. Here's the rundown so far. Nokia introduced a pair of mid-range Lumia devices, Samsung announced an 8-inch Note tablet, HP made an Android tablet, and Asus revealed both a new pad phone and a phone pad. The biggest news, though, is actually coming from outside Barcelona, where Samsung has announced that the next Galaxy S event will be held in New York on March 14th. WebOS is back from the dead again, and this time it's coming to your television. LG is taking key parts of the operating system off HP's hands to help run a new generation of smart TVs. In case you forgot, WebOS started as Palm's great rebirth. Then it failed to gain traction, HP bought Palm, and the OS disappeared in the smoky aftermath of tablet fire sales. LG said they're open to the idea of making WebOS phones, but for now they're only committing to TVs. And finally, 9-inch Nails is back. According to Trent Reznor, the band is, quote, reimagining itself from scratch for a new tour set to kick off this summer. 9-inch Nails went on hiatus four years ago, giving Reznor time to tackle projects like the Oscar-winning score to the social network. Broken, bruised, forgotten, sore, too f***ed up to care anymore. I think Shakespeare wrote that. That's it for today's top stories. Stay tuned for the local news.

Hi guys, I'm Vladimir De Verge and I'm joined by Steven Elop, Nokia CEO, right here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Do you want to give us a quick recap? We just finished your press conference, what you just announced here? Yes, indeed. We announced today four new Nokia products. And I think the most important theme from these products is they were products intended to reach more people at lower price points. And what you saw today was a number of our great points of innovation from the high-end devices landing in lower price devices, including two new Lumia devices and two new feature phones that we introduced today. Right, so most of the presentation, as you say, is about the trickling down of your high-end features into more affordable price points. But I also feel like our audience is more interested in maybe the things we didn't announce, the things that didn't show up and the things we kind of anticipated and hoped you might show us. One of them is the Nokia tablet. And I know you usually like to deflect those questions, but you yourself, I recall Nokia World 2011 said that there's great potential in the tablet space. Marco Artesari last year said that he's spending a large proportion of his time designing a Nokia tablet, so we know you're working on it. But when are we actually going to see that materialize in a product? So we certainly haven't announced any tablet products. What we're doing right now is watching very closely some of the dynamics that are taking place in the tablet market, particularly with the introduction of Windows 8, the new Surface products from Microsoft and so forth. We're really trying to understand the dynamics of that market and to make sure that if we were to enter that market that we would do so in a very differentiated and compelling way. So it's an area to continue to study, but it's still an opportunity for us. Right, so specifically about the Surface product, do you not feel at least a little bit betrayed by Microsoft because they kind of stole in on your area of strength, which was design, you know, very high-end design? We actually think that our areas of strength, like design, imaging, location-based services, that we are unmatched in the industry in those areas. And so of course everybody tries to work in those areas because they're important to the person using the device, but we are very confident in our strengths in those areas and look forward to competing with whoever the person is or the company is that may be introducing products. So even with Surface being out there, you still think you can compete with it? I think there's a broad opportunity for all sorts of products in the tablet space, just as there is in the smartphone space. So yes, absolutely. Okay, so you and I spoke here last year at MWC and you said you'd never be more confident about your choice with Windows Phone for your smartphone platform. Is that still the case? Are you still confident of this? Absolutely. We made the decision about two years ago to place a big bet on the Windows Phone ecosystem. And what you've seen in those two years is successive waves of products. The Lumia 920 is a flagship device, the world's most innovative smartphone, is clearly capturing the attention of consumers. We're very excited now today to be able to talk about a full range of Lumia products from the lowest price, $520, all the way up to the $920. And so now we have the building blocks in place. It's time to continue to make sure we get these products into the hands of consumers because when they use them, they love them. So we just have that work to do. That's fair enough. You just said the 920 captured attention and it did, but you still haven't had that kind of runaway success with your flagship devices. And there is this feeling that Nokia's biggest device, at least in terms of smartphones, is always the next one. There's always the buildup and anticipation of the next one. When are we going to see this hero high-end device, let's say your Galaxy S3, your iPhone 4, iPhone 5? So the Lumia 920, as it was introduced, saw lineups of people in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in China, in India. We see that product as a beautiful high-end flagship product, which is casting the halo effect across all of our other products. I get emails every day, for example, from people all over the world who say, we'd love the 920, but can you do something at a lower price point so I can afford it, for example? And there in that case, we have today both the 520 and the 720 being introduced. And so the impact of the 920 is very good. As we've said before, the demand for that product exceeds our supply even today. And so we're in a situation where our expectations for that device are clearly being surpassed. We're pleased with that. And of course, as I said at the end of this press conference a few minutes ago, there's so much more still ahead here in 2013. So there's lots of excitement still to see. No, it's understandable. And surely it's good for consumers for you to bring those features down in terms of affordability. But at the same time, again, Apple and Samsung are selling their flagship products at those price points. So evidently, there is also a market for the high price points. And the question is, how long can Nokia sustain this focus on the lower and the mid-range in terms of at least volume sales without really competing with those big brands at the very top? But we are really competing with those big brands. I was very proud, for example, late in 2012, just after we had announced the 920. Our competitors had announced their flagship products. And when people put out there and said, these are the products that are leading the pack, there were three or four products listed. The Lumia 920 was one of them. We've clearly established ourselves as a company that can compete on that basis. We have work to do to get that information into the hands of consumers to make sure that in a retail sales environment, they're being well presented and all of those things. But we've demonstrated the ability to do that. So we have the capacity to do that and we'll continue to do that while at the same time making sure that we're increasing the volume of our sales by driving to lower price points with some of that same great innovation. So let me just bring you back to last year's MWC again. When you and I spoke, you said, particularly with respect to the PureView 808, that 41 megapixel sensor and all of that oversampling technology, you said the reason you're bringing that to market was because that was going to be one of the devices that people are going to remember. We are not seeing that same level of technology, that same level of innovation this year. And a lot of people again hoped that over the past year you might have been able to combine that exact 41 megapixel sensor with Windows Phone. Firstly, will that ever happen? Maybe will we ever see it? And secondly, when are we going to see the next big innovation step from Nokia? So I'm not going to make future product announcements on the day that we are announcing a whole bunch of new products. But one thing I'll challenge in your question is the Lumia 920 also was a major groundbreaking device with the first use of mechanical optical image stabilization to create great low light photography. What you're seeing from the PureView collection of technologies, whether it's low light capabilities, lossless zooming like in the PureView 808, and a variety of other things that are still ahead are all sorts of amazing technologies. And of course you should reasonably expect to see us keep pushing on that because we've said time and time again that's a leading part of our differentiation. We are clearly leading the industry in imaging and photography and we're very interested in continuing that. So watch this space. 2013 is going to be a very exciting year. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Hey, this is Ross Merr with The Verge, and we are checking out the ASUS PhonePad. Now I know there's the Pad phone, that's the hyper device. This is ASUS's all-in-one, and what they mean basically, it's a seven-inch slate. We've seen a bunch of these before. There's the HP Slate 7, of course, there's Google's Nexus 7, and there's pretty much what to expect. It's an Android 4.2 device. It's got ASUS's skin on here, ASUS's skin rather. The big difference, of course, is Intel's actually got an Atom processor. No one told them what the actual battery life is like, but ASUS is saying up to nine hours of functionality here. It's going to come pretty soon for $249. It's actually kind of competitive, but it is on the higher end of spectrums for these seven-inch devices.

Hey, this is Ross Moe with The Verge and we are checking out the Asus Padfone Infinity like most Asus little 2-in-1s. This is actually a hybrid transformer device. The first thing of course with the phone is a 5-inch full HD LTE device. It's pretty thin, pretty light. We've been seeing a bunch of 1080p phones at Mobile World Congress this year. The big thing though is of course the 10-inch full HD pad. Go ahead and just slide this in. And now we have a full tablet. So 1080p full HD gives three times the battery life when you put this in. Pretty thin. Asus has gotten a lot better at these transforming hybrid devices. Of course it's got a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.7 gigahertz quad-core processor. The camera on the phone is 13 megapixels, 8 frames per second burst mode. It's actually not a bad combination. Actually feels pretty good. Of course the only problem is going to be the price. Right now it's at 999 euro is what they're estimating when it comes out. Pretty steep for what you're getting, but I will say hardware alone is actually getting a lot better. Asus is doing a really good job with these.

This is David with The Verge and we're taking a look at the Chromebook Pixel, which is actually one of the more confusing devices I've seen in a while. So Google's been building Chrome OS for a while and until now there's been kind of a race to see how cheap a Chromebook companies could build. They were $249 or $199. But now from Google itself comes the Pixel, an incredibly high-end laptop that costs $1,299. It's something completely different. This is Google trying to position Chrome OS next to Windows and OS X as a legitimate third-desktop operating system. The OS is one thing and might be a harder sell, but the Pixel's hardware is definitely on par with the best laptops out there. It really starts with the screen, the 12.85-inch 2560x1700 touchscreen display. That's insanely high resolution, even more so than the MacBook Pro with Retina display. And the screen looks incredible. This really is probably the best screen I've ever seen on a laptop. It has a 3-2 aspect ratio, which means it's a little taller than a lot of laptops. It's really good for web browsing, but it does mean movies get letterboxes above and below. The touchscreen works well enough. The real limiting factor is Chrome OS. There just aren't a lot of apps that are particularly touch-optimized, though Google has shown they're changing that a little. The rest of the hardware is just as good, too. The all-metal body is a little thicker and heavier than a MacBook Air, and it doesn't taper so it feels much bigger. But it's sleek, sturdy, and looks almost kind of futuristic, especially the light bar on the back, which really serves no purpose other than to glow and look awesome, but it looks really awesome. It's a really basic, simple body. The keyboard and trackpad are both pretty excellent. The trackpad is smooth and glassy, and it works great for two-finger scrolling or pinch-to-zoom. It's kind of limited, though. It doesn't have a lot of gestures available, and it really doesn't do much other than just scroll and work as a cursor. But it's smooth and responsive and does everything it does perfectly. The keyboard is really good, too. It clacks nicely, and the keys are really well spaced out. It actually feels a lot like a MacBook keyboard with the chiclet keys. There are a bunch of Chrome-specific tweaks, like the search key instead of caps lock and a whole row of function keys above the number row. Those top keys are a little stiff and kind of hard to find with your finger, which is a little awkward, but overall, I really like the keyboard. So the Pixel's hardware stands up to any laptop on the market. It's beautiful, well-made, and basically flawless in its design. But making the case for a $1,300 computer that's really only a web browser gets kind of difficult. Chrome OS does some really smart things to disguise the fact that it's basically just a web browser. You can open websites in separate windows that kind of feel like apps, and there's even a new app launcher that I actually like better than the OS X dock. But the thing is, you're still mostly just using a web browser. Not only do you not get access to all the native apps you'd get on OS X or Windows, you don't get a lot of the functionality, either. RDO is totally useless offline, for instance, and even little things like switching between apps gets a lot harder. There's a file browser, but it's incredibly basic, and Google pushes you constantly to use Google Drive. And actually, you should. The Pixel comes with just 32 or 64 gigs of internal storage, but you do get a terabyte of drive storage, and the Chrome OS file manager is the best way I've seen to manage your drive files. The Pixel oddly doesn't do a great job of playing back local files for some reason, despite the fact that it's powered by an Intel Core i5 processor. A 1080p video looks great and sounds great, the Pixel's speakers push sound through the keyboard and it's pretty loud and clear, but it stuttered a lot throughout the whole movie. Weirdly, streaming YouTube videos at 1080p worked much better. For the most part, though, the Pixel just worked like any other Chromebook. It's smooth and fast without a lot of problems. But of course, most Chromebooks work about the same. We didn't really have issues with $200 Chromebooks, so I'm not surprised that you'd get good performance for $1,000 more than that. One thing Chromebooks should have over Windows or OS X is battery life, but that's not really the case here. We only got four and a half hours on our battery test, which isn't necessarily surprising given the high-res screen, but still seems like less than such a simple browser-based OS should get. I'm pretty convinced that a certain kind of person could do just fine with a Chromebook as a primary machine, especially if you don't travel a lot and you don't have a lot of need for offline use, it works really well. It's the most stable browser I've ever used by far, and almost never lags or crashes. I wish Chrome was this good on Windows or OS X. It's also just a simpler and sometimes smarter OS. But unless you're comfortable using web services for absolutely everything, and don't need something as powerful as Photoshop or Word, and don't want to play games, it's still pretty hard to say that your $1,300 is better spent on any Chromebook over a MacBook or a Windows Ultrabook. You can also get an LTE-capable Pixel for $1,449, and you even get some free data from Verizon, but that's, again, an extra price. From a pure hardware standpoint, I like the Pixel better than any laptop I've ever used, but it just has some limitations its competitors don't. Even for $100 less, you can get a MacBook Air.

Hey, this is Dan Seifer with The Verge, and right now we're checking out the Samsung Video Discovery app, which is a new app that's coming preloaded on the Galaxy Note 8.0. Video Discovery lets you look up various video content, whether it's on TV or recorded movies and TV shows, and you can watch them on your tablet, or you can even watch them on your TV that's paired with the app over Wi-Fi. So you can tap into a TV show that's currently airing, and you can push it to your TV if you want. And also, Video Discovery lets you order movies and TV shows right from the app itself. You can watch them now, you can purchase them through Samsung's Media Hub, or you can sign up for Netflix and access it through there as well. The other thing that you can do with this app is you can act as a remote control for your TV using the Note 8's IR blaster, so you can control volume and channel quickly, and you can also control your set-top box or your DVR using the remote once it's paired. You can also access a guide of what's on TV, so you can scroll through your various channels and view the current programming, and then you can select it and push it to your TV directly from there. Samsung says this will be available in both the US and Europe later this year once the Note 8.0 launches.

Hey guys, this is Tom Warren with The Verge and we're looking at LG's 4K streaming technology. Basically what this allows us to do is, this is a 1080p phone here, we're running on a game that's running on the Unreal Engine. You can loop around this particular game and if we look at the actual TV, it's basically streaming this content from the device straight up to the TV and it's upscaling it to 4K. So details like the vegetables here, you'll be able to obviously see a lot better on the screen. And the idea is that basically you'll be able to get games in future where developers were able to either upscale the content themselves or LG's technology will do it for you and you'll be able to play games from your couch and play them in 4K from your TV. Looking around this particular level, it's not perfectly smooth on the TV when we pan across, but the technology is obviously in its early days and this is a prototype LG tells us. So it's got a little while to go but it certainly looks promising. And that was the LG 4K streaming to TV.

Hey, it's Chris and we're looking at the Samsung HomeSync, which is basically Samsung's answer to the Apple TV. The funny thing is that it's running Android 4.2, but no one is calling this a Google TV. There's no Google logo on the box, but it does have access to the Play Store, as you can see on the home screen here. Click on that and it just takes us into a very standard-looking Google Play screen. As you can tell, I'm controlling this thing with the touchpad on a Galaxy S3. You actually pair it to the box by touching it. It's all NFC-enabled, so you just touch it and everything is good to go. You can also mirror the screen from the phone to the TV. You have access to YouTube, a video player, Google Play, like I said, so you have all these movies. You have the browser, the web browser, and your app drawer. This is all stuff that comes down from Google Play, of course. This is really cool. You can use this as a remote mouse instead of a touchpad. It's like I'm pointing the GS3 at the screen, but I'm not. I think it's all controlled with accelerometers. You can see the pointer up there. By tapping, I can select. Now I'm in YouTube, watch the PlayStation 4 trailer, ironically, on a Samsung TV. You get the idea. There we go. I have enough precise control to hit that tiny pause button. That was a very quick look at the Samsung home sink.

Hey guys, this is Tom with The Verge and we're looking at the Nokia Lumia 720. This was just announced today. It's a 4.3 inch device and it's actually WVGA. But looking at the screen it doesn't look too bad. It looks like it's got some fairly good viewing angles. On the device you've got the normal Nokia music and apps etc. This is the first unibody device that Nokia's actually made with a microSD slot which is on the side here. It looks kind of similar to the SIM slot which is up the top here. So you're obviously going to need a SIM removal tool to access that. There's no removable covers on this particular device. So the addition is basically a wireless charging unit that makes the device into a little sort of like hump shape at the back to add wireless charging there. It also has a Carl Zeiss lens and it's a 6.7 megapixel camera. At the bottom you've obviously got the normal USB port down there and Nokia's trademark three button design on the side there with the camera, power and the volume rocker. Overall it's a fairly light device actually and fairly thin if you're going to compare that to the Lumia 920. It feels like the sort of device that the Lumia 920 preps should have come in. And yeah, this is the Lumia 720 from Nokia. Next up is the Nokia Lumia 520. So this is Nokia's budget Windows Phone 8 device. So it's the cheapest one that they've got coming out in this quarter. As you can see it's a fairly small device. It's four inches and it's kind of a little bit chubby. Not too bad but it's got the same sort of design and coloring as the high level Lumias. You don't have a forward facing camera on this one so unlike the 620 you're not going to be able to use Skype on this particular model. It's got a 5-micro pixel rear camera at the back here and if we take the cover off there's actually a SIM slot and a micro SD storage. So I think this comes with 8GB of storage as default. You can obviously expand it with micro SD. And that was the Nokia Lumia 520.

Hey, this is Dan Seifer with The Verge. We're here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, checking out the ZTE Grand Memo. The Grand Memo is the company's largest device. It features a 5.7 inch 1280 by 720p display. It's powered by Qualcomm quad-core 1.7 gigahertz processor and 1 gigabyte of RAM. The device itself runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, but it's got ZTE's custom user interface on top. As you can see here, it's a lot of different things going on compared to stock Android. One of the most unique features is this lock screen, which allows you to access a couple of different shortcuts when you pinch out so you can access things like your mail, your phone app, or your camera. Speaking of the camera, it's got a 13 megapixel camera on the back here. All plastic construction, pretty lightweight, but very, very large. ZTE has added some things to make it easier to use one-handed. It's got a single-handed keypad here to make it easier to dial with one hand. But otherwise, it's your pretty typical in-betweener of a smartphone and a tablet. ZTE says this will be coming to European markets as well as China later this year.

Hey, I'm Flavio De Verge here at MWC 2013 and what we've got here is a set of reference tablet devices with Tegra 4 from NVIDIA and this is the first time that the company is letting us take a look at some benchmarks. So what we're going to do is run a few of the standard Android benchmarks. This is running Android 4.2 and we're going to give you the first performance numbers from Tegra 4. Okay so we have run three of the most popular Android benchmarks here. Over here on the left we've got Antutu which produced a result of 36,400. We got consistently over 36,000 with this benchmark. Moving along on the second one we've got Quadrant in which we achieved north of 16,000. As you can see from the charts Tegra 4 is blowing out most of the other competitors but those are older devices obviously. Finishing off the graphical tests we ran GeoBenchmark 2.5, the Egypt HD test, we ran off screen, we got 1080p resolution, we got an average of 57 frames a second. So all in all as NVIDIA has promised a very high graphical performance. This is our first look at a performance of NVIDIA's next generation chip.

Hey, this is Lebo Daverge from here at MWC 2013 and this device in front of me you'll be familiar with is a Droid DNA for Verizon. It's a 5 inch 1080p phone, came out at the end of last year and is one of the highest spec phones we've had. And this thing right alongside it today is the NVIDIA Phoenix. Now the Phoenix is essentially NVIDIA's answer to the Droid DNA because it's a 5 inch 1080p phone, also quad-core, but powered by the Tegra 4i, the brand new chip. The Tegra 4i is kind of a lower power version of the Tegra 4. It is in Cortex-A15 but it does come with an integrated LTE modem. So essentially what NVIDIA is trying to show us here, this is a reference device. It's one that OEMs can essentially pick up and build themselves. It's a blueprint that you can take. And NVIDIA is trying to take these specs that we saw with the Droid DNA, which was really high end when it first came out, and turn them mainstream. What the CEO has told us, Jensen Huang, is that he expects this kind of thing to be a mainstream device within a year's time. What we're going to do, we'll spend a bit of time playing a couple of games on this just to see what sort of performance it can deliver. Alright, so really and truly I have no idea which one of these guys I'm supposed to be but that's not really the point of this demonstration. We're trying to get an idea for the graphical quality. And it doesn't look like an attractive game. There were a lot of blaster platters and we've got sweat dripping off both boxes and things like that. I believe I'm the guy on the right because I tapped to try and survive and I've been knocked out. So this game is Riptide GP2, which has been optimized for Tegra 4. It comes with higher textures in the buildings, more in the way of visual effects. The frame rate isn't perfectly smooth. And again, this is for a silicon as Nvidia tells us, so we can't expect this to be perfect all around. But it should give us an idea for the sort of thing we can expect to see in the future. Okay, so that's a quick first look at Nvidia's Phoenix development device. This is still just a blueprint essentially. It's a prototype to give manufacturers an idea for what they can do with the new Tegra 4i chip and whether they can take things in the future.

This is Chris and I'm here with the Elcatel One Touch Fire and the ZTE Open, which are the two commercial Firefox OS devices that were just shown off today. There are also a couple of developer devices that were announced last month made by GeeksPhone and those are floating around as well, but these are the ones that are actually going to be in consumers' hands. I don't know if you can really tell from the video, but they're pretty low-end devices and you can tell that there's a lot of air gap here on the display, not like your typical modern Android or iOS device. And they're also pretty low resolution. Elcatel has a glossy back, it's kind of a sparkly orange finish here, and the ZTE has a matte blue, but they're both available in a variety of colors and I'm assuming that different carriers will launch different ones. Just going into the UI here, let's see if we can load up the Verge. You can just tell as you're holding it that it's a really low-end device. There's not really any other way to put it. The components, everything about it is obviously designed to be entry level and these are going to emerging markets. You're not going to see either one of these launch in the US or in most European countries, Western European countries. So, as it's a Firefox-based OS, you would hope that the scrolling performance is decent in the browser and it appears to be. The rendering is going pretty well. But the OS on a whole, I'm a little bit more unsure about. The apps seem to perform differently. There's some tap issue there and you can see that everything is just kind of rendering pretty slowly. These are screenshots. You can see we have some multitasking going on here. Everything is just loading really slowly. So, that's the fire. Let's get the ZTE fired up. Here we have some of the apps that are installed. I've been told that these devices are offline, but we'll see if we can get anything loaded here. This is Timeout Barcelona, which is one of the offline apps that was demonstrated on stage this evening. This can be cached so that even if you don't have an active network connection, I'm not sure if this edge is actually working right now. You can still use it. This is just pretty painful in places. Although again, we don't know how much we can attribute to the bad network connection and how much is it just the performance of the phone and the OS. Everything operates with just enough lag so that if you had been used to any other smartphone, it would be a major bummer going to this thing. But I can see how you're going from a feature phone, it might be an okay experience. Hopefully by the time these things launch in the US in 2014, they're saying right now, we'll see if that stands. It'll be running on slightly higher end hardware that performs a little bit better. So those are the Elcatel One Touch Fire and the ZTE Open launching later this year, probably around summer on a number of Eastern European and Latin American carriers.

Hey, this is Ross Miller with The Verge, and we are checking out Alcatel's One Touch Idol X. This is Alcatel's version of the 1080p 5-inch display. We're seeing a bunch of these lately. Not to discount it all, it's actually a pretty nice looking screen. It's actually got a really nice back, really soft with the touch. I love the color on this. Surprisingly thin, too. It's running Android 4.1, as you can see here, very colorful. The Idol X has an HD 8 megapixel camera. You can see here this guy taking pictures right here. It's got a flash on, let's take that off. Much better. Also an HD video. It's a perfect gentleman who sits ever so subtly. So that's it for the Idol X. This is coming out March or April time for Europe and quarter to three for the US.

Hey, this is Ross with The Verge, and we are checking out the HP Slate 7. As you can guess by the name, it is a 7-inch stock Android device, 4.1. A little bit thick, but it's a $169 device. HP is clearly targeting the entry-level market. Same one, basically, if you would guess, the Nexus 7 is going after. It's available in gray or red. I will say red actually looks pretty good. It's got Beats Audio, of course. You can tell by the insignia. Not much more to say about the product. It's actually a pretty generic 7-inch Slate, very reminiscent of the Nexus 7. But it is significant that this is not a webOS product. This is pretty much clear that HP is moving on, giving Android a shot. The HP Slate is due out in April for about $169.

Hey, this is Dieter Bohn for The Verge and we are looking at the Lenovo A3000, which is a 7-inch tablet. It's running Android 4.2, as you can see. It has a quad-core MediaTek browser, I think it's only 1.2 gigahertz, but it seems like it is relatively snappy for all that. Since it's running stock Android, it doesn't need to do all that much. It's got a gigabyte of RAM and it has four 16-gigabyte storage options. And Lenovo says this is going to be available globally later this year, but they're not giving us a price, it will just be quote priced aggressively. It has a 1024 by 600 IPS display and it does, you know, it looks relatively sharp for all being that size, although it's not, you know, the best you're going to find in this category. It is relatively weighty, it feels a little bit weightier than say the Nexus 7. It has sort of a neat little finish on the back here and a 5 megapixel camera on the back as well. And one other interesting thing is you can pop the back off here to get expanded storage with a microSD or stick in one or two SIM slots, it will come in both variations. And that gives you HSPA+, unfortunately, it won't give you LTE. So there it is, it is the Lenovo A3000, available later this year for a quote aggressive price. Lenovo also has a 10.1 inch tablet, it's called the S6000. It has the exact same processor as the 7 inch version, it also comes in Wi-Fi or 3G models. The only difference here is this screen is of course larger, it is 720 by 1280 and it seems to be running this relatively lightweight skin where the only difference really is that you've got these folder widgets that you can add.

Hey, this is Dan Seifert with The Verge, and we're here in Barcelona, Spain checking out a new technology for smartphones called iVerify. iVerify uses the smartphone's own cameras, whether that be the front or the rear camera, to verify users based on the whites of their eyes and the patterns that each person has. So the camera's actually looking at the whites of my eyes right now to get the imprint that it'll use to identify me. Each person's eye is unique to them, much like a DNA print, and it uses this data to be able to unlock a phone or securely keep a phone out of the wrong person's hands.

This is Dan Seifert with The Verge and we're here in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress and we're checking out the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 right now. The Note 8 is the latest member of Samsung's Galaxy Note family and obviously by its name it's got an 8-inch display which kind of sits in between the Note 2 and the Note 10.1 which have been previously released. For specs wise it's got a 1280 by 800 pixel display. It's pretty thin, it's only about 7.95 millimeters so it's under 8 millimeters thin and it's really light in your hand. Of course it is all plastic as many Samsung devices are, it's kind of got that glossy typical Samsung finish. On the back here we've got a 5 megapixel camera while up front there's a 1.2 megapixel camera. The device is powered by a quad core Samsung Exynos processor clocked at 1.6 gigahertz and it's got 2 gigabytes of RAM and Samsung's going to be offering this in 16 or 32 gigabyte versions. Of course since it is a Galaxy Note it comes with S Pen functionality which you can access with the S Pen digitizer here. What is new about this is that you can use the S Pen on the hardware keys which you couldn't do on the older Note devices. So that's new for the Galaxy Note 8. A couple of other things are new software wise. Samsung is bundling the awesome Note software which is a note taking software that has been pretty popular on iOS. This is the first time it's on Android and Samsung is including it with the Note 8 for free. So the other new feature here is the ability to hover over content when you're using a third party app. The first app that's optimized for that is this flip board app that's been optimized to be able to show you headlines while you just hover the pen over the device without having to click into it. Samsung says it's going to bring this to other apps in the future. The other unique part of the hardware here is an infrared blaster on the side. Samsung has included a version of the peel software so that you can control your home entertainment center and television using the IR remote on the side of the device. It's the same software that HTC is actually using for its Sense TV product on the new HTC One device. The Note 8.0 also features Samsung dual view feature which we saw on the Note 10.1 and also on the Note 2. It's much less lag with the Note 8.0 in this mode than we saw with the Note 10.1 so it seems that Samsung has improved the software greatly here. Samsung isn't quoting a battery life for the Note 8 but it is saying that there's a 4,600 milliamp hour battery included. Usually most companies say that will last about a day but we'll have to see how this runs when we actually get a tester unit in for review. The Galaxy Note 8 International version can actually make phone calls. You can see it's got an earpiece here and there's a microphone at the bottom so if you really wanted to you could use this as a calling device with the 3G equipped model. Samsung is also going to be releasing a Wi-Fi version and an LTE version. The company says that the Note 8.0 will be available by the end of the second quarter this year but it's not yet talking price and we don't exactly know the final specs for the US version.

It's Friday, February 22nd, 2013. I'm Addie Robertson and I'm here in the old Verge offices, alone, in the dark. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. Google Glass is coming to consumers sooner than you might think. The company told us that the futuristic headset should go on sale to the general public by the end of 2013. It will be priced at under $1,500 and comes in five different colors. And if you already wear glasses, don't worry. Google is reportedly in talks with eyewear startup Warby Parker as well. Microsoft is getting ready to announce the successor to the Xbox 360. The company will likely be showing off its next-gen gaming console at an event in April. Rumors have pointed to a significant performance bump, Blu-ray support, and an updated Kinect system. Microsoft is no doubt trying to upstage Sony, which announced its PlayStation 4 earlier this week. Get your popcorn ready. And finally, another day, another set of hacking attacks. NBC.com was one of the latest victims. Hackers inserted code into the site's homepage, which would direct users to another site loaded with malware. Customer support company Zendesk also revealed that it had been hit. Attackers were able to download subject lines and addresses from emails sent to three of Zendesk's clients, Tumblr, Twitter, and Pinterest. Both NBC and Zendesk say the problem has been resolved, but in the meantime, you might want to be careful about any strange Tumblr emails you receive. And those are today's top stories. Join us next week when we'll have furniture. We think you're really going to like it.

We're here at Google's headquarters in New York City to see the company's Project Glass, the wearable computing device it's been working on for a couple of years, and nobody's really gotten a chance to play with. I'm personally excited because I'll finally get to put it on and see what it's like for the first time ever. People want to be connected and technology has enabled that. But a problem is that it also, that technology creates distractions and takes you out of the moment. What we think about on the team is how to solve that problem, how to get technology out of the way when you're doing activity but have it there when you need it. So this is a fight against the glance down at the smartphone. Our key part of us solving that problem is bringing technology closer to your senses. That was sort of a hunch we had, that if we did that, it would allow you to connect in a faster way. But then a challenge we had, and Isabelle's going to speak to this, is the design challenge. How do we get technology out of the way? If you're going to wear something on your face, how can you get technology out of the way when you don't need it? I think when people see glass, the big thing is like, what is this weird object on everybody's face? I mean, they're not, you call them glass, but they're not glasses. And there's obviously something else. So what were the design challenges with making this thing real? Well, I asked myself the same question 20 months ago when I first joined the team. I saw all these people around. I came into the office and they were wearing this. So what do you think? I think it's great. I actually prefer this, to be honest with you, to the new design. But this is the original prototype. This is the stuff that everybody was messing around with when you got there. Yeah. And it freaked me out a little bit, I have to say. But at the same time, the team is really, really passionate about this idea. And I could sense that. And I could see the experiments that was going on. And I finally could wrap my head around this idea that we need to remove technology, but still wear it. A little bit. It's... Oh, I see. What you really want is... I can see it fine. It says, OK, Glass 325. Oh, record a video. OK. Oh, yeah. And now I can see. So this is seeing what I'm seeing, though? Because it is... I have a desire to do that, but I don't have to. You don't have to. You just live your life. OK, Glass, take a picture. That's very... I mean, that's very cool. So you've got this kind of one-size-fits-all right now, which is, this is what Glass looks like. And you have the same people, the same people who kind of like... They see 3D glasses and are like, oh, I don't want to wear those. And people who have to wear glasses, like I do. How do you meet that challenge? I mean, you've got a design here, but we're talking about lots of people are very different. They've got prescriptions. How do you battle that? I mean, this is OK. If I were sailing, you know if I were going to go sailing, I might use the blue, the sea breeze. Is that what they're called? We're going to have to talk about that. I thought it was sky. Sky is what they're called. I said sea breeze. Yeah. It's much better. We designed it in a way so that the components are off to one side, and this frame, you can remove it. It's detachable from the frame. And its current form in this prototype, there is a little screw here that you unscrew and you remove this frame. And you can attach different kinds of frames. And are you working with partners, like Ray-Ban, for instance? I mean, I've actually talked to a lot of people and they're like, are they going to do something with Ray-Ban? Because obviously they're very popular. Yeah. Are you talking to people like that? Building an ecosystem around this is very important to our strategy. Right now we're working on a reference model for the prescription lenses, but we definitely want to partner with others. Okay, Glass. Google, when was the first Terminator made? 1984. When does this become a retail product? When can I go into Best Buy and buy it? We are aiming on the team to actually have it out as a consumer product by the end of this year. In 2013? 2013. Like to purchase regular people can purchase it? Regular people, fully polished product. We don't want this to be a niche thing. We think this can help every human being. And so we look forward to this being used by millions and millions of people. Doesn't it seem weird to you that to get people having more human interactions, we've reached a point where in order to, you're saying I want to see people having more human experiences and more human interactions that we have to augment ourselves with Glass. Okay, here we go. Surgery for GPS. Hold on. I just stopped it like an idiot. Okay, Glass. Google nearby restaurants. Loading directions. Okay. It's now telling me to cross the street. Have we done something wrong? Like have we screwed up somewhere fundamental that you're like, I just want to have a more human experience. Let me put on these robot sunglasses. It is a paradox and I think we continue to need to make it even better, make it faster, make it lighter. You know, this is just baby steps.

eighteen two thousand thirteen and josh to post a and you have to tell rossi are you in your own process on with us we just have a frozen ross miller ross miller would have been with us today but he died tragically five minutes ago united and that's a good thing to do is bandwidth died as a human he's fine and this is the first cast we're doing a hangout because uh... this week has been saying wrong probably busy and uh... of your stress is joining us now ross is back he claims to be back you know didn't ross get a new apartment recently i'm actually no i'd present not and i would take i'm in south georgia right now though that would explain why you've been with us a terrible the south yes um... i apologize to all of our southern listeners or viewers for where you live it's pretty near so i can get can you know we're not on yet now i don't like where the southern listeners are now i don't like where the south we obviously they can't stream it right again i have no idea what's great so anyway this is the first after is that the week technology culture and what a week by the way it's been a technology culture there's a uh... uh... really pretty monumental and and by the way not over yet uh... in fact i'm working on a story right now for tomorrow uh... which i'm not gonna talk about in detail but i will say that it is a very special story that you won't find anywhere else uh... and uh... i'm very excited about it saban giving birth the year twenty c section i think it's going to go to treat live of your mind as he said about that's all eighteen hours of of of uh... six but i think it's always eighteen hours and six a that would be that would be something like why don't we where is the feature length film done in six seconds on right now yeah really store five abide and i know i'm goldberg is in these little bits but i'm saying like what's actually film the scenes as you would in an entire film just to let them out distribute them in six second chunks anyhow this is not we're here to talk about our ross what is that what are the one of the topics of the day you give the list holder here what we have to discuss uh... well we will have a special guest later talk about the big events of today you're boring everybody fairly but the place they should for a full of last night's the s four okay you guys did and you do a live thing afterwards which i really enjoyed uh... and by the way you both looks so you interest grab it so sharp yes we had a few people that green dress shirts are very worried about that green out was the thing that's that you can read a lot of people at uh... outside of his force uh... i'm glad you're there i was there uh... uh... that was cool i wanted pierce uh... in all your misery his party uh... i have to say really like mismanaged chaotic event right so it's weird i think they i think they don't like they realize that i never happens i was a very strange for sony in new york to like personally uh... that that felt that just chaotic uh... so i don't really journalistic lining up for hours outside the cold like they had bouncers so i didn't think realize that was a concert the concert venue but that's about is like shopping people like jake amin yet right where professionals where where was it uh... it was at uh... first the hammer the hammerstone really love where we do on the production is that the hammer steam ball all room with the very well uh... and we're you know people outside it was chaos and like how is it this venue can have concerts at their like well-run all the time hundreds of people going in and like so he can figure it out as they they started uh... it was very obvious immediately that they were trying to get a job on microsoft ahead of the three microsoft obviously can show new xbox this year sony is yes behind in the race a little bit of a certain that might be a bit easier reason even aways are i feel like they're compelled by something that they know it's not a risk of rumors are the microsoft is going out something right that that's like the kind of like i feel it is this floating idea right now that everybody seems to be sort of winking and nodding about that nobody really is confirmed yet or can get a good confirmation of that microsoft is inevitably going to do something before he three with a hundred and i think the sense is that microsoft is also more ready right that their console will be finished in some way ahead of sent but there are good also but they know so there are two and we want to have the audience was for this like the title of architecture it feels like a developer focus kind of it yeah right so that's what is the game developers conference when they were at the height people's like building based on making games so that was a weird thing so they you know if you saw the coverage of century did uh... they went on for two hours two hours and fifteen minutes times long it felt like it was never going to end it but it was so it was so long that i dislike at one point just sorry that i would email and stuff and then went back and they were still talking about uh... so they have a open with like ross saying that the architecture in atl soup dot pc uh... you know they're going to use an x86 processes tomorrow this is a big change you this action to the money they were making basically custom before it's and now they've done completely in the opposite direction they're basically saying we're taking off the shelf stuff we're gonna you know have a car i think this is a good custom gp right is that right and it's going to be custom ish right answer they're gonna get a job and he and he is going to make them today i was a departs makes me cost i will say this about it there's been a lot of talk about that was just like positive for a second yet there's a lot of talk about that i actually feel like this is kind of a positive for the industry where you know if i'm a developer and even maybe this is an upgrade of all i don't know if the system maybe the could be taken you can swap out a graphics card in the future you know swap out a gpu you know it because they could do that in this situation and and i think it's kind of amazing that i don't have to if i'm a developer i don't have to think like i'm gonna code for xbox pc and sony now it's like i was like x86 is where i'm headed essentially you know they're obviously major uh... issues you know you got up still port stuff but it sounded to me like one of their goals here is making the port a much easier process uh... said to me it's kind of like opens the floodgates for what developers can do in terms of designing these titles and trying to get you know great looking and great playing stuff on every platform right so that mean i think that's just a record for nintendo the p s three was a pretty much for a c difficult platforms developed for run the west of us is a unit they brought out uh... mark certainly is our head of like system architecture uh... in the u n is famous only game the polygon guys are really excited about it uh... he was there nine east a lot of time talking about how they don't need to do the cell processor with like blast rendering or whatever how it does on how they can use east commodity parts did to make a better experience but like at that moment sony hit immediately lost plot right because i hadn't they were already into the dots of developer stuff with this presentation they were very far away from how will the p s four the awesome for you to do right and then they try to get back there but they they didn't ever do it you know they showed off a bunch of like in game stop some of which we've seen so should watch dogs police on that e three yeah i'm they showed i think there's another he they showed another trailer in somebody from our staff like i envy be like just so you know this trailer is a year old for the use of annexes the square annex one that is very much like that and i would actually looked in that was that game look the worst so started off at this high point of like without amazing we can do with all these new tools as developers stop and then when they started bringing up the games the graphics actually my opinion got progressively worse yeah i saw federal that i i agree i think there was this kind of uh... uh... cheerleading about you know developers in that you know this is going to be you know uneasy platform for you to work on it to be really powerful we have the power of the cloud so i actually think just at a at a if we just back up for a second you know what they announced was anywhere i think you're going to get into this but let's look at the high level stuff right they now set by new consoles coming to be called a playstation for the p s four uh... it's going to have a for but completely redesigned u i it's gonna be very powerful based on x eighty six profit x eighty six uh... architecture there are a number of cloud-based uh... advances that they're making and i think they're kind of fascinating one of them is games that you can play while you're downloading them so my understanding is basically they're taking the guy kai technology which they bought a streaming technology game streaming technology and they're saying like we're basically in a stream this thing you download in the background that's my impression they also they also said that you could yes try before you buy which is guy kai again uh... which is in a kind of crazy to think about like we know when you want to try something before you still downloading like a multi geek yet uh... the other thing is that i think that's going to lead to a lot of impulse purchase and i know for me like it's good well i don't think a couple of ways right but then they also said that the vita you'll be able to play p s four games on your feet which is right you know just kind of in a way is like why even bother introducing a console when i just update the software on the p s three if that i think that the they can play the games rather i think it's a bit of bringing the game we have to obviously i'm saying it's pretty good but you could you conceivably do the same thing on p s three with a new controller right right so anyhow but i think that is very interesting to the the the cloud of the part they mentioned social networks they basically said you're gonna use face book or twitter or whatever to be your the way you connect with me they they they intimated that they were would be moving away from the siloed we're managing a social network more into where you have face book to can miss looking you three minutes to big social network yeah and they're and they're doing stuff with like being able to stream your games to friends and idea yet and so that's a really cool minute they showed this weird games the use the move controller that was kind of a good you playing with puppets said that's uh... not a game all too that's a letter to get it whatever it is i mean it probably will develop into something that is is some type of game probably it's a guy's a little bit plants are that it's pretty close like what they always do and i think that i think that what's interesting about that as they were kind of putting on this performance i think you can see some really cool uh... stuff that could happen in the future when you've got all this power all this processing power in live processing power and you're able to do something like put on a performance like that using avatars and stream it live and i think there's a whole new world of weird crazy shit that they're gonna get into with that which i really love so so any and then they've been out of a bunch of titles for the ps four they showed gameplay uh... what these titles you know they should some early game play they should live gameplay there now they're issued by gameplay twice they should kills for killzone yeah and watch dogs watch dogs i think more than twice that in your does okay what any rate kills and watch us to the most rapidly intense games that that i've ever seen you know you were there and i was watching on the live stream was there any lag during those games uh... when they switch so that these days demos are highly produced so what we saw as gameplay was like bracketed by big full motion video sequences today but they were but those were those were not pre-rendered those were in game we have pardoned so that i think that's what they were saying that was like a colorado there's one moment of a very distinct lag uh... i think it was during kills and when uh... it switched from video to the guy actually controlling controller okay and there is like a starter but i think everybody in the theater noticed that might not have been apparent on the lives was it but was it it wasn't like a continuous thing was just a couple of glitch kind of like yeah i mean it's in what you know i don't look great i think i mean i i what i wanted to go in from from these games was they all look uh... amazing right particularly i think kills and uh... when they there was a sequence of after-exposure as a dust in the air and that is an incredible depth of field and also fraction and that that's clearly no console can do that now then there are other parts where it was like this looks like a slightly more clear p s three uh... or slightly more clear xbox and there are other parts where i was like this just looks like an xbox or p three well it got to me was all the games are the same so that the physics in the motion and stuff that you're doing still looks at the beginning right right some of it was beautiful intense so it was real somewhat all of the personal the same yeah all of it looked like the others well i think i was in jones in the forest the shooter is the reason i think and i'll get to that but i think that you there is we're gonna have there's going to be a couple of years here where where where well then let me answer this question for me they have a new controller they show the console didn't show us the people as i said is a surest open today they uh... they showed us the controller right one of the big features control has the slight bar in the front that that uh... connects like that camera sees to move that around uh... it has a share button and has a touch uh... pat none of those games used any of those features like why i want to be interested so i use the features of this new control i think i think on the share but well i think it great but that i i i'm not sure about that actually i think that i think which came use any of the future they definitely should the touch screen being used for the show that once they should it once right at the very beginning when there is when they are insuring the controller i remember who was he actually took he's holding it like this he took his hand off and looked around using the touchpad and with the witness act this i think it was the witness no it wasn't with the i was there with us at the puzzle game uh... and he was chosen and he was that was well he was with period he took his hand off he looked around using the touchpad anybody but went back to standard control either way even if they had been using the time it was so subtle and so not important to what was happening the focus was look at these beautiful graphics in these games that we know are going to be popular we built new controller here's how we're going to write i think they weren't showing you know where it's like microsoft's last you know big announcements have been around look at this incredible innovative gameplay that we use all based around the incredible innovative gameplay this is like look at these amazing graphics and yeah we got this innovative gameplay stuff to that will show you later on but it was like a cut how awesome our graphics are and i think that is it that is a testament to you know somewhat that the history of gaming now that you they're kinda working against and i think this to your point you have a everything kinda look like a video game you're working against uh... years and years of the second grain like yours of the motion looks like yours but yet here's our characters interact and so you know i did think like a big kills a demo when it got into the actual gameplay i thought there were moments when is just like while like wow moment yeah it just felt like that the amount of texture the amount of uh... like atmosphere that was happening was just kind of overwhelming and i was really impressed by it i think you know if you look at jen and i think this is actually really good to talk about for me i played dead space the price just finished the first ed space a few weeks ago which was made into the release in two thousand and eight i'd believe which is still like but like later generation xbox game and i now playing dead space three ended the difference between those games in terms of graphics is like kind of blows my mind it's kind of like i i can't even understand how they've been able to pull out like what they've done in the newest one first like what they what we thought they're doing it that like the forefront of technology in two thousand eight you know i feel it is going to be a learning curve people have to understand what this hardware can do that always happens but but i think what's most striking about the announcement last night is and what i was struck by a d three this year when i i'm constantly kind of like blown away by is incredible lack of imagination the game developers seem to have when it comes to when it comes to what their games are going to be about right no matter what it is did david cage in beyond two souls uh... kills own obviously uh... the was that was that i hope watch dogs the drive club is a driving game you know that i have a driving games uh... it was infamous and there's what they knew it was a infamous right it's all like yours it's gonna happen okay you're going to be somewhere you can't you can shoot something out of your hand or you can shoot something out of a gun it's gonna be in somebody's is keep that bullet or that beam of energy is going into somebody's hat that's just going to happen that's the way the game is and what's so weird to me is even like uh... beyond two souls it's it's the premise of the game seems like this happens like but it feels like that you know the setup could allow for all kinds of really amazing different things happen and maybe it will but at the end of the day that it's like okay here's the hook you get a shoot people and kill people in like below stuff up by this time it's a girl or like this time it's a little girl it's like this without it it is capcom game remember me where it's like during futuristic new york airs you've got to take down the government this time you're a female and i just feel like there are so many things you could do in the game there i mean you haven't even has anybody ever tried to do anything different in the game okay it's either like shooting or it's like that the parade stuff where it is like this whimsical magical weird like the island is and i don't know if the witness was right away this week it looks great looks really cool but it was out it's like this is the best update to miss that is ever right straight it's like why not show me a game with the with the visual complexity in the world of watch dogs where you know i'm a you know i i'm a you know the empty or something and i'm like literally doing surgery on people at crime scenes or something like we're on the drive around the city any i'm just like whatever give me a game where you do other things besides shoot people and then why it was my voice has been the disconnect between the plots of the these games and the system that they're running on so sony is like their deep in the social the deep into obviously online distribution is really big for the case for so they're going on and on about how there's a camera sitting there it's watching you it's watching a controller so that's weird uh... it monitors activities what you like what you're buying what your friends are like what you're playing with your friends so in the world russet pre-downloads games that might think you think you might want to buy so that we impulse buy the games are either waiting for you so it's a learning about it it's like consumer paradise manifesting this consumerism how you like now it's like all the games are like in a world where everything is a camera yeah i don't think that the the the the way where where this is happening i love the i love you i love the new theme of games now they're like always been noticing this privacy stuff happened in the days of the surveillance of like the best one was the game was the game it was infamous three or whatever yeah it's like the guy comes out he watched all the time but and it's like all the setup like wow this is real drones and this is serious heavy political somewhat okay this is political intrigue this is you're talking about humanity like what where we had it what if humans began to mutate with superhuman power and did what it what if we actually like i don't know i'm not saying that you're gonna play a game where you're the president there whatever though i have to say if you create a game with the visual complexity and the complexity in terms of the world of something like watch dogs and i had to play as the president actually doing presidential stuff but that would have a cool get my guy would be into that way i think everything every morning that they could really make a decision about the policy but actually walk like to the you know the west wing and stop at like you know i feel like i are a lot of us and actually walk into the west wing it was five minute why the people that are talking about talking around well you know real quick let's let's let's let the earth getting in for a talking to the other very patient waiting for us to for a year can hear you on the idea that i don't use of did i'm such a new yet uh... i i i i i i i i here diary shut up either where is it get it up get up right now you have one you've got to chrome pixel did i'm not a census scum around here it is like a deer deer open it up of touch over there touch the big awesome show us the money show us that three two screen it was a really book i love it on i love it but he's touching something but it is not going to represent anger birds that's touching it's good look at this this is the future and i don't have to talk to your on the main one right okay so i i i playing birds it's um... now people can select the light you know you can do that at the end of the play-in-the-song later here's the thing like it the hardware it looks really good i mean it's like it's incredibly like square it's the same thickness all the way through from front to back square squares it's worth making a comeback it's is gunmetal finishes you know it should look keyboard uh... and then back on the track back with keyboard back with keyboard aria uh... the touch screen i mean the it's was a twenty five sixty by seventeen hundred i think is the uh... the other side of the theater does it does it do do this does it have any notice that i have a read all the stuff you read on does it have this new notification thing that we saw this notification pop up in chrome o-s it is not an it but i think it's a good word is waiting for like a update on it on the ground uh... but this is a natural asin's the crime as i have a micro book right now but i think it's the updates coming very soon so can you tell me that all these some of the answer but i thought it's uh... yet so that that the touch screen like they've got to have a bad years and doing something weird with the inertia on it but it's terrible uh... or you know chucky it was the same way when they were demoing the photos live on stage but check this out when i go to the touchpad and do it it's the only awesome and fast and fun doesn't make any sense what is that what is the cpu in that so it's an intel core i five i don't know the clock speed and it's got i think thirty two but i think that they do uh... data storage and on the ground what's discussed the most important spectator how much is that been cost so this is the verizon l t e version and so it costs fourteen hundred and forty nine by itself i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i only version is uh... thirteen hundred dollar talk about our talk about this guy i want to real talk here for a second ok real talk why why who is the per person who is the person i look by the way i want one don't get me wrong you know but i have like a stack of things that i wanted city and neck to my right you know that regret buying who is the person like this back tracks who is the person who's going to spend thirteen hundred dollars on eric schmidt people who work eric and marvin schreier that google people re-enterable to be a push you push our production line because eric schmidt wants a wanted thirty-one newt that that that that's that my my personal conspiracy theory about uh... the nexus line on android is they needed to make a high-end phone for their own political employees to use develop and read on and they'd so they need to make like ten thousand of them as a leader of the developers night but the hell it's just make a hundred thousand and i think it's a little bit this a crumble pixel to me some sounds like a developers nightmare net no developer uses a chrome book i mean how how could that all of the web developers i mean you're a pro book developers he i think i don't know if the developers are using probos i just feel like in the behind the crazy i don't understand it i would touch screens are anything special about the touch screen like new functionality is there any incident it's touch screen they are a third you know developers to support you can't get to them on the other hand i don't understand what is it is not going to sing i'm sure there is somewhere that there's multi-touch like some photos after something that i haven't found yet noticing is like it's a big middle finger from erich mitten google to microsoft they could just turn around and crank out a laptop it's highly spec it looks good i've is a trackpad any good you know here's an idea what i tried to get on this way so i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i really good trackpad i think that they've grown as a nice screen uh... and they're like this three microsoft this is the future like that i think that they can see something cdm is super nice design new hardware design right yes i language for them kind of with this boxy look super high resolution display uh... very fast with very respect at responses l t i think they i think they messed up on where to put this this back so i think this is the big x this is the new nexus designed a couple of people forgot there like does the l t go in the nexus or the thirteen hundred or chromebook i can't remember of the chromebook is our forty-one how do you convince rising but l t in this piece of junk in our right how how how can i can buy this how come i can buy this off contract and use it on the rise in l t but i can't buy a nexus off contract to use it on the rise in l t did it said he did it i want to ask them that question did they give any indication of who this is for who's gonna buy a thirteen hundred dollar laptop that only runs from i mean everybody asked him that question over and over again and the answer is you know people who look want to live in the cloud that is a lot of people that live in the cloud want that terribly storage yet by the way this is the uh... the chromebook never that very early on the like you can drop it you can break it what if you lose it it's like what if you lose your fourteen hundred or rainbow your out so we should have a book though this is really funny a few people treated as a so comes in three years of one terabyte of google storage and yet we will drive which is great i think that would cost you eighteen hundred dollars you should pay for but that is so arbitrary because you know that storage actually cost google zero dollar it doesn't mean anything about that that's almost like price states so i i i don't know if you can you i think i had a time of might might chance to ask questions came around i had two questions uh... to everything else or even ask the first one was uh... i'm making a profit on it they say yes they are and the second one is a he's but yet but they're wearing making it they're making it in taiwan that's not a u.s. made device of like the the next few and look you know chrome can do for you it can integrate you into do services and can browse the web which has tons of google ads on it why do they need to make a profit on this product well forget about that the better question is not about whether they're making a profit on the better question is who is this for like how i mean yes they say it's for whatever but let's talk about what's going on the competitive landscape okay for a thousand dollars i can buy the macbook air which is a very kids what i'm using as that for the thirteen inches nine ninety nine now it's the last eleven eleven and jacqueline thirteen inch but okay for the same price well twelve ninety nine for the at the thirty nine is eleven ninety nine for the president what is it because i mean tell me how we had a staff of people who knew about technology i don't know if you're on the other side here you can actually is right behind us nine eight four pictures now others are last eleven ninety five they are yes it's eleven ninety nine eleven ninety nine i prefer twelve hundred bucks i can have completely cable fully realize laptop or whatever it is that the screen is it is a touch screen is a high resolution but he does about i'd say roughly a million times more things then what a chrome book does it and look i've tried to use a chrome book as my main computer and it's just like kind of doesn't cut the monster i mean yet there's a bunch of stuff that's missing so people on our staff who use from a cherry drain and chris siglitz and both of my i love it like why do you love it i was like because it can't do anything else but i have to around i have to do work because i work in google docs like all it can do is type the migrant that's not a good reason so it is what fourteen ninety nine right now or if there is this it's twelve ninety nine for the wife i only model or you can pick her up more can get the retina macbook pro at the same specs which is also bonkers like so what here's an idea just run full screen chrome on on that i think i think i think exactly the same experience the uh... at this thing i mean i'd like i like the chromebook idea things to do a few things to make it more like an actual computer here's the things i don't have a problem don't have a problem using gmail in a you know instance right don't have a problem with browsing instance don't have a problem if you have a good i r c client there now seems to be one that you can use in a browser don't have a problem with that but there's a bunch of stuff missing like ground notifications or notifications of any type you'll get anything like that there's nothing that plugs into the court or services of uh... of chrome as a as an o-s you know yet so that you're missing all this extra stuff all these things that i do that i use fantastic al which is like you know a menu bar item that i can quickly access my calendar uh... you know it's it automatically back up my stuff to drop off to my google drive and rob on setup that's not something you can really do it's like yeah you can go get your stuff but you really can't uh... you can access it like you would have been normal file system so it's a basically you are it's still very much that browser experience for thirteen hundred or fourteen hundred dollars and it's really you really pushing your luck on how much i'll accept a non-complete i'm not going to run powerful three games like i can actually game on my computer i wanted to they won't look that great but there's the option you know it is whatever i can play that any tablet in the world i think that google's maybe hoping that this is that they've got to connect problem across they need real stuff developed for it and they might have the hooks and a p i is necessary to make that happen but they don't have you know widespread adoption especially with people using it as their main machine and so i think they're just there like who is this for i think it's for developers to use chromo class so that they can move that state-of-the-art forward on a so that it actually does become a viable competitor to other operating systems i think that i you know what they're hoping i'd like to know is that our business located and they located within google having selling this thing and our stand if that's the case why are they seating this thing for free to everyone here's what i said why did you just take why did you just take nexus ten with the resolution of the screen access ten twenty five sixty by like six super high super high near just take that screen blow it up a little bit and give me some option to be able to run like android and chrome on the same thing i think is that you're an android in mike even uh... in environment so it was from a last but there's android next to it yeah i would change the my entire conception already does something just give me something here you know give me the android notification system in chrome a last you know let me plug in like okay here's my phone number in my you know here's my google voice account or something like where google voice would be enough let me plug in you know mike whatever my all my accounts are them are resigning in with in some way this is the king of the multiple account stuff in chrome a last yet right now you can you can log out of your account log into somebody else's account and that's not what i was talking about a lot of my on my android device if i have six gmail accounts i can log in with all the negative notifications for all of them and they're all in my singing about you know i mean like that unified inbox but all this stuff is connected somebody uh... messages me on g chat on one of my other accounts you know it shows up on my phone it's all this like which i had a great about android phones that collects all of your stuff into one place whereas you can even do anything that basic on a on a chrome on a chromebook so it's like just give me some of the andrej functionality justin's really a d is behind andrew to make this thing better right now it's just you just out of the touch screen in a ton of money right yeah i mean you're the it'd be great if the chrome or steam in the end routine like hung out and have lunch more often than i had tried to you know i think the if they actually got into the what is the decision they have any answers beyond for people who want to live in the cloud people in the cloud man that's the same answer for people who have the other chromebook yes that's what we got a lot of the cloud on this and like uh... thousand less dollars is that what what a complete i mean this is a fail and i just say it like this will go down in the like i guarantee you you know it's not everybody at microsoft laughed to do all today yeah everybody at each p in battle battle on the floor people have also got a apple they have a day off a gap of ways of the rest of the day off to the last to steal a laughter yeah i think i like that today now i'll see if this i've talked to michael about this yesterday and uh... and we're talking about the prep you hear me i think it might just go out is working red looking around well it's not sexy so we're talking is that what do you think if this is the you know if there's gonna be a chromebook this from a pixel is on the video forty think it'll cut be really expensive as a man there's no way to the whole thing about chromebook has been like it's super affordable you know even at the top end of chromebook it was like five hundred four hundred five hundred bucks you know and i was like now they're gonna i think if this is any more than like six hundred box seven hundred box at the highest and like that's how they're gonna kill it they're gonna be like super high resolution touchscreen and it's six hundred dollars i could not believe this price myself today i was like how is this in any way like an advantage now like all this stuff being the same if you said yet and it's who less than a thousand less than eight hundred you would start to be interesting so i'm gonna use this thing but rockets well i'm excited to use it it'll be fun to play with but there's no like single feature that makes you go all yes that makes it worth it if they if it had come out the main thing for me that what would make sense to me is that this thing have like legitimate ten twelve hours of battery life rising legitimately lasted that long ago well this kind of makes sense but it's just you know it's like it's just like a laptop on the any one anyone single thing that was better than anything else so we just got this tweet uh... uh... uh... although it's a new i just want to fail other targeting the creative class video editors photographers and developers yeah i don't know where your you're talking about this period there is no there are no video editors or professional photographers i would talk to you we touch a chrome book with a ten-foot pole shot it's nice to be a background you see it taking photos and like processing with other chromebook speaking of the time i had your luck yes you're about this creepy feature you you plug in an sd card and it will automatically import all your photos that's cool and then we'll automatically upload them to google plus uh... their private okay i guess that's cool but then you go to a plus to like that you know the up event you just uploaded they go through and they analyze your photos and the the check off the ones they think are good and they give you an option on back to share all of those but we got a really amazing hold i want to put this to eat can i put this in our chat others we get to see image up on screen here but we just got an amazing yes i was going to tweens rub from the from somebody who's listening to you got it to do it was addressed to you know uh... can we get this image on screen uh... i don't know how like this should be a way and hangouts to do this is a street share option but i'm not that it's chairman tears now and i want a second let's try something here i could i could pick up my webcam and point out but i thought i'm trying to hang out to a box you know the third just put it as a lawyer custom overlay here we go on this is an area that this is the end and redid ridiculously awesome on our job monocle ways and i have a figure drags my desktop so she can do i went for the last so we've already gone beyond that she doesn't this much effort that work there it is that's pretty grainy other days we're seeing this uh... you members of our hangout yet it's a little bit schmidt stream and this is a this is a final utilization of the the israeli these pressures are so perfect for a topic conversation i look stoned well are you stoned i mean maybe it's a first-time they have a so so what else is there to say about the group of the crumbly fail here's my question we have to have the lights for the other end of class let me let me ask a question of laptops come on let's see a question so we've now seen both google and microsoft uh... proceed with their like hardware vanity projects right right now what was your other half occur with pixel or service rt service rt or search for a service rt while unit price wise that that that come cause i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i get to pick one service rt or a little pixel that's a hard one uh... i'm gonna say we are t on a city arty as well i think it's not either is the arty has some okay i can get i can run do they have chrome for our t if you know uh... you have to use our intended for all and being it's tough right it's a non-easy started a recent call book for more so you reconsider you guys break the chrome book down into parts i mean here's the thing honestly i mean honestly actually what i'd want to do with with the service i mean it's like i can't really use it because again ergonomically it stinks you not from a pixel provisional they are out if it was a lot of i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't need a laptop to uh... to play angry birds right to run outlook i need a laptop to do like work ran and if i can put on my lap and type comfortably or put on a desk inside comfortably that's like it out of my face and i know i can with the surface and that's my biggest crap about the arty you know besides lack of any kind of viable ecosystem at the moment uh... and its owners and it's not that you know but whatever i mean if it if it if it was just the felt like a good nice comfortable laptop to use a billy yeah let's do this on so so i have to say i think i give the pixel also at the break the brag factor the pixel it's like it's like buying in you know it's like buying some hideously ugly old car important like a sensor we report engine in it yet i think it looks like a tree we put from like ninety eight dealers from japan and he's a back to you know that throughout the past uh... i would i i would uh... struggle over the station i'm struggling right now uh... it's faster from the pixel super fast uh... but create this is not gonna replace a laptop for me a real laptop and that was probably national key that same thing it's not a real laptop but there you go it's not a laptop it's a chrome yeah so i need to have a secondary device i wanted to have a ridiculously long battery life and the when our tea it's a little bit slower but it has a longer battery battery life is more better life is better i gotta say we want to but i have on the pixel so i say i would say it's over five hours and so realistically that's only three hours so i'm sorry i can i just say i'd rather have an ipad at this point i think it is not a that's not a choice but it's a lot of hundreds five hundred bucks it does more than both of those combined yes it was it's actually here's a good question i can run chrome on my retina display ipad uh... which has pretty much the same pixel that's thanks it seems to stop yourself or you know it does not have what is their answer for why you shouldn't just get a retina well chroma slur on the ipad because it doesn't get the fancy javascript engine and the other chrome apps yet it doesn't matter because the far east in ridiculously fast and there's a handful i can run tractor dj and i think that i mean you know i got a mass effect in my complaint my ipad they were back in there is a huge uh... silent majority of people who desperately want to give all of their data all of their information do that based everyone on the internet hello might be a good day does not be issued to whatever you want you have might take my data please just give me something to like that is really good to do with it like in the place that i can really utilize my data you need even a good look last and she thought it was honestly i would i think the chromebook would be more useful for from a business perspective to me than an ipad okay like if i had to take one of the like you're going on a trip you gotta write you need to x y and z you can have a chromebook or an ipad i would take the chromebook yes i've had won't be as useful to me uh... but but i think that but i think that that's not the debate anybody's mother debate people are having it whatever electric it is a real laptop just this isn't i mean it doesn't do all the things my laptop can do it does a lot of them not as well which is like thanks for nothing and they didn't make maybe you'll just do i compete with the chromebook partners they're like we've got a not do with samsung is one of them a quorum we've got a lot of your whatever it is a key by not making a product people want to buy you know that's how you don't that's how you you failed to compete right i i don't know if you know maybe they're like samsung has everything from because since i'm it's worth three hundred are crumble right right as it was like it's getting it's and it's good that the three hundred our crumble is actually really good so maybe you'll just like we can make a five hundred i mean samsung's chromebook is actually been it's probably the third most excellent laptop in my house right now behind the is this a crazy behind a macbook air and del xps thirteen with the ten eighty display running event here uh... so here's the bottom line on the chromebook reveal deal joke that we used to make when we were doing windows laptops is four hundred dollars more you get a macbook air with the chromebook for a hundred dollars less you can get back okay which is which is bonkers like just and i get it high resolution but but was generally at the event that are had just explode and there was you know i think that there are this is a very now there she she was i thought she was traveling last night so i don't know where she is today okay but i mean this is just wrong i mean somewhere she's she's looking at it is a mere deeply into a mirror has exploded so i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i i yeah uh... alright so so we never quite i i feel like we should get that we never finish our p s four conversation railway also it on it tim is the i thought a couple of things to we have you know but everything is a fail can i try to track us what was it you know i just failed each is he wanted to act on a story began the beginnings of a long failed process of the p s four uh... in this program but is like it's like a comedy fail it's like a it's a little like playing jokes on i think here's the things that that so i don't think the p s four the fail at all by the way i i can say that i i i i i i didn't show hardware but i think that in no way suggest that this is a failure for them i think that you know what it comes down to is how great is it when it's actually available you know is is Microsoft releases i mean they're gonna show i mean maybe they'll show some of the allure room which is just a mind-bending thing and if they do that then so he's gonna have to answer why are you creating a and and this immersive environment at that as different and weird as what sony's doing and and okay that's going to be a problem for sony that doesn't mean it's only can capture the market that it's after and it clearly is after a hardcore gaming market here uh... the question is when it comes time to make a decision here what's their price what's their content offering look like uh... whether part of the graphics that got next to the other guy and are they actually introducing any really truly innovative and useful and fun gaming experiences are is it same old same old i don't think they have anything is precluding them from from offering great stuff i think that so i think that this is a i think they're the way they did their announcement was bizarre i think that they left left a lot of people disappointed by not showing hardware virus sony i would have showed it of version of it of render i it's not it's not even ready so they'd know i mean but they must have some idea but the hardware if look if they're if it was easy and if they were beginning of march right now okay uh... we're in the week range here when i say it's gonna be holiday twenty twenty that means november at the latest there's no possibility they're doing this earlier than november or later then for christmas shopping so we're talking like black friday right so so november twenty whatever the date is going to be so if you're you know you only have handful of months you don't know what your industrial design is going to look like you're designed the controller you don't have a pretty far along version of your of what your hardware will actually look like they could show an empty box it doesn't matter going to matter i think is to say like here it is it's real it's going to go into your living room underneath your t v or whatever i think that's not a big deal i think it's a minor thing but it's a little bizarre me week we have a quote that that they gave to all things the jack trotting it all things did it said we don't have final spectrum design that to me is more worrying than the idea that right off the top of the and you know my favorite thing in c s was so we had a four k player there was fake it was a it was a aluminum circle with a light and then behind it like hidden behind the screen was a dell p c it was actually has a gas about it uh... in your cell i was saying last night we uh... we got snuck backstage to find a controller to looking for it and like so we have like mass act there there's like an army of people like running all this stuff yeah it was like okay like i get it's not ready in a demos but the reason i i just don't think that they didn't say anything beyond this will play video games right into anything of beyond this will play video games on your zeta which is by the way the beat is a fail where's the peace we get to play all the games on your sony these little more interesting the beat is a little more interesting now that i know i can play a position for good you know it's even more interesting the be able to play those things on some of these android tablets which are far more useful than the market happen though yeah you can do that we can do that without the controller memento lose the control your honor but but let's just say this i think so we can put a cap on some of these conversations to give us a other fails the top but this only the sony and now that was not one hundred percent of fail but i have bullet major concerns about their readiness to release a new console you know and and whether or not that consoles can provide a trip truly dramatic uh... dramatically different experience so crumble pixel not a fail if it was seven hundred box six hundred bucks not a failed undercut the competition that it was the people it was competing against which is pc laptops the surface and macbook air uh... and it doesn't undercut any of those guys in any way it doesn't offer anything they're not offering for last or and it doesn't say like you've got to have it even though it's a little more because it it's got this crazy new features coming there i don't understand that that was just confusing me the uh... we just have of the other side but if you say did you think this is a fail i'd at why why do you think that because i don't need for port of home here my phone you can't you know i think it's the lights yeah you have a good idea of some of the htc one is the new flagship phone let me or please have you hear for what that is ten eighty p super fast android device with their new the big deal about those they have a brand new uh... skin called sense five yes completely has a lot of the other big deal is the camera this on the camera and it's okay ultra pixel camera the idea is that the name stuff now yeah it is a going to a standard eight megapixel sensor it's technically a four megapixel sensor but the the pixels are bigger so they can take in more light uh... it's less if they can do more interesting stuff because it doesn't they don't have to spend as much time processing out noise uh... i'm actually pretty excited for the camera i think that if as long as people don't get freaked out that it's only four megapixels i think it's going to be an idea of the summer where you i think that i think what they're doing it with that is great you actually it's funny cuz my calm last night release the new version the camera has i did he said as i was to be seven hundred it's funny because instead of giving it more low light performance the increased the megapixel count and i was disappointed i get it i think that's really important phone camera that you can take pictures in the dark with that that will become like the most important camera spec yeah of all over to be able to take pictures in any situation i think it's right so i'm gonna i'm gonna get totally flamed for this but i i use the camera for about five minutes and pretty in the low light situation and uh... you know i was taking like i would take pictures in the light like a regular human not like i know what i'm doing with cameras and i'm gonna say that it uh... in that in that short time it seemed to do a slightly better job than the movie nine twenty that's that's it i have been asked right now you can you can we sit elsewhere the funeral of the people that i really i really i'm sorry that it had ended this way but uh... you know i love you longer and i love you man and real it's tough to see you go but you have to leave the area looking at you are only looking on the street right yeah that's the other thing so you think is like ridiculous right but once last time you look at a high megapixel but no i think that's what i think whenever like you're going to do it i think that we still have to pick up it's going to be a fact that right exactly but when i see a of of of phone that has like a thirty megapixel camera i'd just no it's gonna be terrible it's always bad uh... but we have a problem with the this of the new skin basis for a general screen you can check a box to have it be off to the left instead of it being your main home screen uh... but i don't know it's kind of so here can i say this thing about blank feed and then point out to josh's point one of the she sees big lines from this entire event with the one was we're not marketing ourselves correctly like nobody knows we are we need to be more out there at the brand what we provide consumers and the way they're doing that is by giving everything it's stupid me like it's a good thing i don't know how to do it but not what's alike htc blank feed is the new home screen that the airport the speakers are referred to as htc boom sound uh... inner cap that's not yet but i think it's terrible also they have a partnership with beats so it's like htc boom sound with the beats which is terrible they have like of buying kind of app called each easy so we is basically personal though is the word knows only that's a good no it's basically a the worst note for the camera right now it's twenty a mile first mode with uh... video that you record at the same time it could both at the same time and so you can take any video and pull out a still from it and it doesn't look like a still for the video it's actually a full but it's a bit but at the end of the day at the end of the day uh... you know i understand but i understand it through this separate features aside understand the need for naming a product and you want people to know you want to know the your cameras different sound with beats audio okay boos that is really bad but i want to know i actually was asian sounded and yes yes i we just told you what htc series what is htc so that what is it it's uh... but first of all that i have a result of a lot of doing uh... servers are like the better not doing this correctly that better question is what let's i mean this is the thing that i think we need to start the question needs to be answered what consumers want me why is samsung succeeding with android and other companies are failing uh... what are they doing that maybe giving them a look like the i found that they were not price and that's not airing commercials i don't think that's it yeah i think it really like the right but i think that first part right that that that first click when it was samsung written out of their copy apple was much anymore but i think for a minute they really did they were on verizon the item was on the horizon they were that alternative to the i found rights yeah i think that was a really big deal but so is motorola i mean you know i think in some way moral of the first but i didn't want to join with the drug was marketed against but i think in and also in some way like this whole apple versus and something has kind of so it's really i think it's all the people who are your predisposed to not like apple i think they don't like apple for some reason that like oh i finally have a company that can champion right you know my side of things you know i find a microsoft in phones even the microsoft has found running the new york was accurate like we know that more over samsung moral was the guys phone like it was the balls the wall guns out but we're talking to a commercial still in the back of the scene of the new jorda racer max commercial ferrets but what would you do with thirty two hours about life images using on people looking tough and they don't ever say what they're going to do that that's a very good idea about what you can imagine it i think it's a good idea but i think i think nobody can think of something i'm gonna wait here until i die like it is no i don't know what but i think but i think that uh... i think that okay fine but i think that you have to start asking the questions these companies you start asking questions uh... what consumers actually want and why aren't why isn't working for us you know there are real there are real questions the answer but so you know she's always on here for playing that you know i can't hear your blinking uh... like that's a a strategy question addressing josh and he sees answering it with a tactical answer so the way to think of blink feed is the way that you think of the uh... gigantic flip clock that they used to put on sense and it's all about the in-store experience someone watching the store they see this thing on the home screen like who that looks pretty i want that that's what link feed is it's so that when you walk in the storm play with the phone there's something cool right there on the phone that that reps can't really screw up because it's built-in but it's about selling the phone in store and you know if it's actually useful to users later great but i personally don't think htc cares are thinking about the in-store buying experience but i think that's that i think that's a problem i think they have to figure out how to make a phone that's better than the galaxy s three then i you know are we assuming out his force coming out next month yeah as i have a pretty much fourteen we had sources right march fourteen uh... samsung is like slowly but surely getting better at the software right like you there they know that that's a very weakness to well resources against it htc places like rebooting right there like you know let's start over with this football thing and that's not what you are now sitting you can do the homescreen you know laura has an htc found that that she really loves and i don't i can't stand but they didn't interface incense was a lot of stuff that is bothers me she really likes it i see places where you i get it i know why somebody would like this better and it just works more like you expect a phone to work but she has the uh... the one s right uh... the yes they're a no e but you know why people like that phone because it's it's of a size that is smart animals normal size of four inch phones and i'm glad to question for peter chowdhury this year htc was why don't you make a small firm if you're so i don't know what's uh... it is it is it is a lot of it is that there's a disappointing out response i just want people to make it reasonable size time i think the blackberry the four point two inches like a pretty good you're in the range of like this is a pretty good size i remember thinking four point three inches about as big as i ever want to go to the general the figure out you know i don't know i don't know i don't have a i don't know a route to the flight that's my home uh... i i just uh... i just want people to actually think about what what consumers really want to need in their lives instead of stuff that you think they want me to think that's the problem is that there's a lot of assumptions the glintsy me i don't have market research they've done that is going to be the thing that's been missing from everybody's life you know i think it's like this live tiles argument it's like let's present information better like okay i'm all for that was present information better but you actually show me a better way to present information before you raise your your office is flipboard you know people really love it returns is flipped and select you're like here's a scrap the other flipboard and you're out of your way and i don't know and also just like what is what are you actually trying to get out there that is news the thing that you know here's what i found that's most interesting uh... and you know i have two funds now one is an anti-nice full-time iphone and right uh... and and i have found increasingly just increasingly annoyed with uh... with the hunting and the weird like you know interface discrepancies on the iphone right and and in on android what i've noticed is that i moved less and less interacting with icons and lists and i'm interacting with my notifications i'm interacting with when i when i unlock the phone for self i see what do i have right my notification light actually tells me what i have before i unlock it right i've different color notification lights of that i get information right away without having to think about it then i unlock it and i see emails from here tweets whatever other you know calendar stuff that is kind of the way i'm moving through my phone and then that's leading to other actions right that's a branch of action so it's like so i don't have this in some are in our forums uh... i don't remember who was uh... i don't remember when i read it but some of the air forms is like it's weird because i feel like android is becoming more and more about in integrated ls and the iphone is going more and more about apps pulling in different directions yet and which is valid like they're different knowing not only that but the apps themselves are are have functionality that is did completely wildly different you know you look at it now like mailbox which feels it doesn't feel like impact the way other i was at act it has a totally different like a swipe to delete is actually a swipe one a little bit to do something it's right further to do something else and becomes this like okay but i'm used to swiping and i get the little thing and now i'm just swiping away and i don't do it long enough it does something else it's like but but in there's no cohesion there but i know not to bash i a l s dallas has a lot of great but i'll say this if i want to take a picture or browse there is no better device than the iphone there is no better mobile device in my opinion for straight up route web browsing and straight up photo taken at this point i think that's the issue that you should download tractor dj for that uh... are anything that's the guy who times of massive tractor dj you're hilarious you should be should place the weekend you're cracking me up all you know we can run traveling to l a two-dash what do you have a plan to use of going to write i have something to write on the plane so thank you risk racy john i'm a dj we can laugh i have to say i don't have a cap that can't exist on android but it does on the ipad the talk you know they're all about having there's something you know i ask you to do but i think that i think that uh... right so but anyhow but the point is i'm increasingly you know my experiences in my interactions i think this goes for a lot of people are increasingly cute off of stuff coming into that it's not like i gotta go into this happened to x y and z like you know that's a very specialized surfing you're doing i need to make a list i need to play a game i want to listen to music but these are not these are not what you do all day long it's like talking to people it's tweeting it's i am it's uh... email it's browsing right in those are like these weird branching experiences we start with one place in the usually lead to something else and and andre has found a way to connect us up i think better than anybody right now and and it doesn't feel disconnected we're moving through i was totally feel disconnected but the thing i look at the one i think like you know what if this does all that stuff great that's great if this may have to want to sit they took away the multi-tasking button who will now is that it's fine but they have a double tap the multi-task and that doesn't bother me you know i was going to hear that's gone i know it's not a double tap the home but i will have it up it's been it's a much better multi-tasking what the actual was to you're right so that's why and i use it all the time and it's totally fine to read of nine frozen appstates so dear they hold it down to do google now it's totally fine but anybody can get used to that the question is connect all of my experiences when i bring the branch will it help me branch better and faster and easier when i need to share what help me share better and faster and easier and that you can effectively and i think samsung is done a lot of that stuff it's one of the reasons people like what they're doing is that despite how much i hate interface they actually have started to connect a lot of those branch experiences that it's like that thing where they did he'll find your face but friends and photos that you take it back on the stuff right where that's actually a real world use of the kids if people needing that in wanting that that's a dinner we'll i wish wrap this up here's a lot of question you played the phone this is a major break for a cc right at this time is in a success i don't know that a cc has a lot of shots left yet as they want they won't like they won't go out of business right away at this point is a success but like yeah i think i think this is their best shot at coming back uh... and i think that it's not going to be easy and i think it's probably not going to work and i think it's a large part because rising said thanks but no thanks to it so they're only in the end of the carriers in the u.s. well verizon will be the make them a can do it and right book and dvd right because that's what they have not as a and they like to largely similar they're going to do their own as a leader though they'll do some something with the dvd and they got the dvd and now i'm sure they'll do some other joint branded thing but that doesn't help htc is a company doesn't help them build mindshare and branch here and they need that right now because people think i you either get and i phone or a galaxy and he she she needs to just get back in that conversation and rises are helping him do that by the way this service and this is is apples apples reacted to the all i got a day for all that's a good idea for all of the images that is saying that that i didn't get it and i believe it that's not right there like it here and and what the price twelve ninety nine that well it's later passed out on the floor for hysterical laughter and i don't know we know we should start wrapping up so yeah we should i know what you're doing a short one today because i'm in the middle of writing something very excited about if you are a reader of the verge tomorrow i'm gonna have something very special uh... that no really no one else i think will have uh... and and i don't know if you get there and they'll be awesome video with it i'm excited about that to get ready and and operate we can hints tonight or tomorrow and and anyhow but so i have to get to write and we have to be a stop to get a shoot it's very exciting we're going to our new office you guys we're going to uh... when we're finally moved in everything set up we're gonna do an office tour of our brand new offices we have a a floor and a half uh... uh... in the middle of the heart of manhattan and we're very excited i've spent many many many months working with uh... laurian who is our office manager and for so far beyond office manager but she's been helping uh... put together this new office and i've been sort of you know choosing paint colors and forcing people to make bizarre design uh... were stuff in the kitchen happen and anyhow i'm very excited about it and uh... so we have a big week ahead of us and i want to be a tad you know that we're in the mobile congress mobile congress is coming up yet that is happening which i'll be attending probably not filing a bunch of uh... little stories from the some overall ted stuff uh... yeah you know you know who knows what's gonna happen bottom and and i may decide to uh... film a podcast together which are proud of you know i think that's a talk about to ask the final call google glass yet we have a very very they put some stuff out without talking about we finally sell google glass looks like uh... you know i think this is a story that's that's still developing and they were gonna hear a lot more about it in the near future fifteen hundred dollars but i think about well for people who are allowed into that program which is like a creative will be creatives what's not just such and suffer creators it's for people who go mountain climbing alright the adventurous ventures and normal people people who are just doing regular stuff like picking up the kids in one capture special moments the creepsters people creep creep creep shots people who do you have shots for a little bit uh... and and that's the first cast kept it to the first cast of everything is fail and we're gonna look at you when you don't know that's incredibly tight our long verge cat nearly an hour long verge cast i'll be back next week are we doing mobile congress i i think lots of people from a little congress reporting on what's happening actually lost all progress uh... uh... course they are most of our team it but they have uh... so we'll be back next week obviously with more verge cast uh... goodness if you want to get touch that you can email us at verge cast the verge dot com you can uh... leave a comment in the post because that you get this park a forum conversation about the verge cast if you'd like and uh... of course you can find on twitter the verge is at verge i'm joshua spolsky me lies reckless uh... you too we're not second-hand finish on the get-together right i thought i was going to ross ghani on the end uh... deer is back lawn tell you all about it and uh... and of course you can subscribe to any should subscribe to our youtube channel which is uh... youtube slash what is the verge the very virgin yeah how about that house inventive worry about what you to slash the verge subscribe because ninety seconds on the verge comes to you every day uh... we are increasing the amount of alive reporting that we're doing from breaking news events and at breaking news events uh... you don't miss incredible stuff like the comparison the big comparison video we did of the htc one against all the competition which uh... happened just moments after the event ended uh... also if you want to be subscribing to the channel for and you know just because it's once or i did delightful video of me uh... playing because it's aren't singing your song the request paul paul will do that actually where's paul by the way truly worried about him uh... he's he's fine uh... we we were trying to make this this work with the hangout and let him be offline it didn't quite work out the end of that's much news this week for paul i guess it will wrap it up i'll be back next week and as always thank you so much for for listening and watching we really appreciate your dollars and your eyes and your and the sted dollars i don't even know that means that we're doing a fun drive here so the charity drive look just call in now operators standing by and we wish you and your family the very best for this what will be inevitably an awful weekend for all of you

It's Thursday, February 21st, 2013. I'm David Pierce, and for my next trick, I'm gonna make this boombox disappear. This is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. Google's high-end Chromebook Pixel is real, and it's real expensive. Today the company introduced a new Chrome OS laptop with a touch-sensitive retina-caliber display. It pushes those pixels using an Intel Core i5 processor, but comes with only 32 gigs of storage. The Wi-Fi Chromebook Pixel is priced at $1,299, with an LTE version costing $150 more. Remember that whole make them cheap and get people on board approach? Those were the days. Sony introduced the PlayStation 4 last night without actually showing the PlayStation 4, and it turns out the design isn't even finished yet. In an interview with All Things D, Sony executive Jack Tretton said that the console is still, quote, in development in terms of final specs and design. Yikes. However, we have learned some new details. The PS4 will be able to output photos and video at 4K, though games will be left out, and used games will also work on the console. Despite all the hype about the PS4's integration with the PS Vita, Sony won't be cutting the handheld's price in the US, at least for now. And lastly, television ratings tracker Nielsen has finally acknowledged the internet. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the company will be incorporating streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video into its Nielsen ratings formula. The eventual goal is to capture viewing data of any kind from any device. 90 seconds on the verge in the Nielsen Top 300. Make it happen, people. And that's it for today's top stories. Tune in tomorrow when we'll be talking to some of the biggest names in choreo animation.

Hello and welcome to the Polygon and Verge PlayStation 4 After Party. I'm Christopher Grandadder, in chief of Polygon. And I'm Ross Miller, senior editor of The Verge. Coming up on tonight's show, we'll take a deeper dive into the Sony's PlayStation 4 announcement. A little bit of relevance, mostly irreverence, and we'll have a special guest or two or three or maybe even five to actually give out hard information. Right now we're just going to be a couple of complete idiots and give a quick rundown of the highlights of the event. So it was a big event. There were some big surprises tonight. I think a lot of people were really surprised to see the PlayStation 4. So much speculation, whispers, rabble rousing, other nonsense, and they actually finally did it. I thought it was going to be a Vita. Yeah, I thought it was going to be some new maps for Little Blake Planet Carding. Little Blake Planet Blarding. Love television folks. So no, they did announce the PlayStation 4 with a quote, supercharged CPU, x86, eight cores. They didn't play it up like they did the PlayStation 3. It's not Cell, there's no special name behind it. It's just a very powerful system. I think our own Russ Pitt said something like it sounds like they're addressing step by step all the complaints of the PlayStation 3. It's hard to develop for. They're like, well, we've got Mark Cerny. He's a developer. He helped us design it. He's going to make this easy. And they did tone down, I should say, tone down I think is appropriate, tone down some of the tech mumbo jumbo. It was still somewhat tech heavy. I was surprised. It was a two hour show, and the first thing they come out of the gate is not a graphically impressive show, at least not on the live stream. Not a graphically impressive game, and then a lot of technical talk. It wasn't as bad as PlayStation 3, but that was 2006. It was like an integrated development pipeline, and they're focused on the first game they showed off. So the first game that they showed was called Knack. That was Cerny's game. Mark Cerny, if you don't know, has a long history in games. He's something of a kind of demigod to game developers. He started Atari. You might recognize him from games like Marble Madness way back in the day. But he's also really well known for really knowing hands on how these things work architecturally. So he worked with Sony to design the PlayStation 4. You'll recall when this was somebody talking about the PlayStation 3 and their architecture behind it was Ken Kutaragi, who was one of Sony's lead engineers back in the day. The PlayStation 3 ended up being an albatross around his neck, and a lot of the technical focus of it. So this seemed like a very clear course correction for the unveiling of the PlayStation 4. So we had that. It was actually interesting because it was a very North American event. It was obviously held in New York. Mark Cerny demonstrated architecture. And then the other big announcement, probably the biggest surprise or the biggest feature for the PlayStation 4 is the cloud gaming, the streaming. That came from Dave Perry. At Gaikai. Gaikai, the West Coast former studio. We also had Andrew House from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. He was the one who was hosting the event. It wasn't... I kind of thought it would be Jack... Not Jack Trenton. Kaz Harai. Right. Kaz Harai was formerly the head of PlayStation in America and now is the CEO of all of Sony. And I kind of thought it would be nice to see the CEO of Sony hosting a PlayStation event. Because it's kind of a big deal for the company. It's their entertainment box. It's how they're going to get their message across, how to get their content. It's going to make the Bravias look great, hopefully. Maybe we'll see. Maybe we'll see. But also, Kaz Harai, he was at the PlayStation 3 launch event and there were so many memes. Before memes were even a huge thing, there was Ridge Racer. Him screaming it. I don't know, he was traumatized. He just does not want to do one of those things again. There's giant enemy crowds. And maybe he doesn't eat shellfish to this day because of that event. The more we talk about the PlayStation 3 event, the happier I am at this one. It was two hours long. We were warned it was going to be a long event. But it wasn't as embarrassing. There wasn't like, none of those meme things we're going to see later. Nothing ridiculous. Let's talk about another area where they, I think, hit it. And it's not that exciting, but it is competent relative to the PlayStation 3 event. That is the controller. So with PlayStation 3, they had the Boomerang controller. Right. They never launched with it. They never launched it. They showed it off. They showed it. And it was goofy and strange. Because when they launched with the controller, it didn't have rumble. And so they had all these hiccups on their way to getting a decent controller at the door. When PlayStation 3 even launched, it didn't have rumble in it. So it was like, we're going back a step from the DualShock 2. If you remember, there were legal issues. They were in a lawsuit about rumble technology and patents, which is a big thing in tech always. But then they try to convince people, just don't need rumble. It's not a big deal. And then months later, they made a new controller with rumble. And then everyone was like, that's a good controller. I like that controller. So they talked about how with this controller, they worked with developers and designers to get the buttons to feel better. And if you saw the leaked images that showed up and the images that they showed tonight during the live log, certain things look familiar if you're used to an Xbox 360 controller. It doesn't have asymmetrical thumbsticks. But it does have concavity to the thumbsticks. So the way that the PS3 DualShock 3 works is that they are convex. And your thumbs sort of sit on top of these. You just want to visualize it. It's this. It's this. It's this. So if you're, that's, you remember cave because a cave is like you go into a cave. Well, thank you. Thank you for explaining that. Yeah. So this is left. When you hold up your finger, the L is left. I think I have a couple other memory devices. So the controller, they did talk about how they tried to make it feel more comfortable with the triggers and with the things. You also have, they said they worked on rumble, making rumble better. They worked on lowering latency for the controller. They have a light on top. A lot of people thought that was going to be for move and he said it was for identifying controllers. Oh, and also it works with this here 3D camera that we made. Yeah, of course. The 3D camera does depth, not entirely dissimilar to the Kinect, which honestly I'm happy for. It also looks a lot like a Kinect. Yes. Like if you've seen a Kinect, you pretty much know what this looks like. It looks identical to the PrimeSense sensor, which is, you know, Kinect's technology and probably the same, you know, probably the same company. I would not be surprised. So it uses a 3D sensor, a depth camera. It uses a controller that has a light on the front of it so you can kind of get the 3D sensing plus the accuracy of the move. And then they have, you know, rumble and lower latency and all sorts of other great new controller benefits. But the thing is it looks like a controller that any gamer could pick up on day one and be comfortable and happy with. Because it's the same, it's the same control with a few extra things. It's a nice evolution. It's the same thing as the one with the Vita. They're throwing every interface, a classic interface you have possible into this thing. There's a front touch pad. There's buttons everywhere, buttons you always know about. It's got a share button. It's a share button and a headphone jack. Well, the headphone jack, again, recalls the Xbox 360 controller. Headphone jack on the bottom. So I think they're taking a lot of notes. I think they're addressing a lot of the criticism of... Here's a big question. I wonder if it has an infrared port. Just saying, if we're addressing criticism of the PlayStation 3, you can, like, check a couple things off the list. Like your controller strategy was a little clumsy to start. Do we have something like an infrared port? I don't know. We'll find out. But that's the thing. We always see every generation, there's two or three consoles. They always try a few different things, the Kinect sensor, a headphone jack, or a certain network structure. And then the generation after, everyone just uses them. We start, reset, and we've got the same features. And then there's a couple new tricks. And Sony's new trick this year is the Gaikai streaming, which I think is actually... I think it's really cool with one huge conditioning caveat. What's cool about it, let's not worry about that stuff. In a perfect world, you can stream the games that you play immediately, the full games, while you're downloading it. You can remote play. A friend can actually take your controller and help you beat a level. You can stream it with Facebook and Ustream integration. And that all sounds great. But if you ever used OnLive or used Gaikai, there is a bandwidth requirement that scares me for this. It's significant. Right. You need to have really low latency. You need to have a fast connection. We know a lot of people in America don't have broadband or don't have broadband with that type of latency. I think it's neat, but I also wonder, is this going to find a mainstream audience even with PlayStation 3? OnLive has been out. You could get it. And I don't think people were really wowed by the fact that they could watch somebody else playing a game. Well, I don't think it's watching someone else. I think it's being able to play a game without having to wait for the download. But I also don't think OnLive was really advertised that well or marketed at all. Sony is obviously going to put a lot behind it. That was a big thing for this event. It was like, you can do all this. But what they never talked about was internet connection. Even in big cities like New York, you always have high latency. You're going to get screwed by this. It almost makes more sense in places like Japan and Tokyo and South Korea, places that have... Well, South Korea is not a big console gaming country, but they have super fast internet. In America, we don't have, at least we can't expect to have, super reliable, super fast internet everywhere. Right. But it's interesting. And there's the catch. The catch that they kind of talked about. PlayStation Europe actually tweeted about it. I'm not sure it was very clear on stage. It does not support PlayStation 3, 2, or 1 natively. What that means is your discs won't go in. You won't be able to play it. There's no cell architecture. However, you can use the cloud and you can stream it. You are never going to play Ninja Gaiden again. It's like this cloud stuff to me. I know. Yeah, but like, so, yeah, for some games, it's like, that's okay. Other games, like, that doesn't work. No. And here's what's interesting to me about it. They bought Gaikai in July. Right. That's not that long ago. Well, I mean, the thing is, it's just cloud. I mean, if they're just using their servers, like, they figure out how to stream games, just look up a PlayStation on the other end, I guess. I don't know if it's like... But even then, how do you do it? Like, are you, if you're looking at PlayStation on the other end, they have an abstracted PlayStation architecture. So are you literally ripping open a bunch of Playstations, putting motherboards on a wall and then loading discs in or streaming some kind of disc image to them? There's a center with like a wall of cells. Seriously? Highlighted. I mean, I'm thinking the architecture that they built for the Playstations that they built for Starhawk. No, for Warhawk. They had like this whole network center full of PlayStation 3s that were rack mounted. They probably are going to reuse that. They're like, hey, we have these Warhawk rack mounted PS3s. But that doesn't play PlayStation 2 games. So there's another server sitting there if you want to do a PS2. Well, they have original 60 gig PlayStation 3s that play PS2 games. Oh, with the PS2 architecture built in. So it's all the chips. Chips everywhere. The PlayStation 1 is software abstracted. So I don't see why the PlayStation 4 couldn't play PlayStation 1 games just fine through software emulation because it works on Vita and it works on, you know. I just don't think they care. Who has PS1 games handy anymore? Can somebody bring me my Vita? I've got a bunch of PS1 games on it. Your Vita, which is now way more relevant because of today. But it's over there. So they also talked about the cloud, piping, digi blasting game levels. Digi blasting? Yeah, that was one of their, I didn't make that, that's their term. It's okay. You can make that up if you want to. Look, they're e-delivering game data through the cloud to your Vita. Done. Yeah. All right. So we saw that. We saw the controller, saw a bunch of special features. We did not see the PlayStation 4 itself, which again, it's just a box. I know people like bummed about it. I know we saw some comments and tweets like, who cares? Guys, I have a source. It's going to have a disk drive. It's going to have a disk drive. It's going to have a power button. It's going to have ports in the back. The ports will be, in a big change, the ports are going to be in the back of the device, not the front of the device. I think they've got some really, really good ideas here. I'm looking forward to that black or white glossier matte box that I'll put to the side or in front of my TV in a drawer hidden from view with some glass in front so the wireless actually kind of sort of works. Yeah. I'm excited to find out what it looks like. Hopefully the C3. It'll be exciting. Maybe. What if they bring it out and it's actually like massive? What if they brought it out and it's like the size of like a power rack? We realize people do not care the size of these boxes. They hide them anyway. So we made a cube. We spent a lot of time and engineering effort scaling this device down. We said, you know what? It's $99, but it's the size of a Toyota. They did want to try, like they want to say, treat it like a server when you're streaming to Vita. They just built a server. It's rack mountable. It's a special feature. As in it's a rack. It's a rack. It's racks on racks on racks. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Video games. Here's the thing. The box plays video games. Yes. They showed off some. One of the things that was interesting to me and one of the things I was hoping to hear more about was the sort of ecosystem play. And they, like you said, kind of confusingly alluded to the way PlayStation 1, 2, and 3 games would work. They did not talk about PlayStation Mobile at all being something that would work on PlayStation 4. At one point they said it was an open system. And then they compared it to the PlayStation 3 being an open system. And their example was that we have Indies like Witness and Jonathan Blow, which isn't really being an open system. Not really. No. Actually, speaking of Witness, I want to get back to video games later. We have a bunch of special guests who can talk about it. But speaking of Witness, we actually have the trailer. We want to show that. And when we come back, David Pierce from The Verge, who was actually at the event, he just ran over. He's literally in the studio. He's half a block from the event. We were smart when we leased this a year ago. We knew this was going to happen. Look, we had a good source. So when we come back, David Pierce will be here. But first, let's take a look at the Witness.<|fr|><|translate|> BAhen, BAha. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And we're back here. We're joined by Mr. David Pearson, your reviews editor for The Verge. And he is going to tell us about some of the hardware in the PlayStation 4. Well so, the most obvious thing was that there wasn't any. We kept, like they would show us games and they brought out the controller at one point and like, but most of what we saw was just sort of this cool blue light coming off of the controller as somebody stood in the dark on stage and played games. But the one thing I thought was interesting was as they kind of led with, you know, 18 seconds of hardware discussion before moving on to just showing us pretty games. And they were talking about, they kind of talked down the hardware in some sense. You know, they talked a lot about the memory and they talked about some of the new stuff, but a lot of what they talked about was almost how they didn't need to build a supercomputer this time. I remember the last time it came out it was huge and this time they're kind of dumbing down expectations. Well, I think it's twofold. I think first time, yes, the event they did originally was just bad. The PS3 event, like they made a mistake. Second like, hardware plateau, we're looking at this, I think you or Neal in the live blog said like, the graphics look good, but not like substantially better. Yeah. I think we're just seeing feature creep at this point. A lot of that, like the payoff is not as good. Yeah. I mean, and this is part of kind of what I'd left the event wondering is like, a lot of the games they were talking about are going to come out for the PS4 and the PS3. And so for, especially at the beginning, like what's the, what's going to be the huge reason to jump and what we saw, you know, may not have been indicative and that disembodied head thing that was on the screen was like the most insane thing I've ever seen in my entire life. It was a human. I don't care what anybody says. That was a person. Like we saw a stream, like, but it's just a screen. Like how big was it compared to you? The screen was probably, I don't know, I'm guessing 15 feet diagonal. It was huge. And just like ridiculously detailed, like little reflections in eyes and like tiny emotions on the face and wrinkles. It was crazy. So they clearly, whatever hardware they have can power some really incredible things. But at least from what they've said and what we've seen, I don't, I don't get the sense that this is some like next level thing that changes everything. I mean, I think the jump we have here, right, it's HD to HD. We don't have this SD to HD evolution. We don't, I mean, we have, we have consoles now that have, you know, custom interfaces and all this stuff. It's like, you know, in a large way, like the major jump was last time. But even during that last generation, we'll leave a lot of people, you know, for the launch games and, you know, why is this so much different than what I had before? Sure. I think you hear that a lot. And, you know, looking at these games, you know, that return that we get on actual graphical fidelity is going to get lower and lower and you're going to get more and more detail, but it's going to be harder and harder to identify. You know, some of the stuff we're seeing on these PlayStation 4 videos were crazy particle effects, great smoke effects, real time lighting. And it looks great and it makes it feel more realistic, but, you know, it doesn't look, you know, immediately noticeable. It's not immediately noticeable as a major improvement. You know, Watch Dogs is a great example. It's a game that it's going to come to, you know, PS3, but, you know, it's going to look different. The version that they're showing you is the PS4 version. And when you see the PS3 version, I think you're going to be able to tell like, oh, I get it now. Yeah. I'm actually really curious about that. I mean, I think they had done that to be like, here's our game coming out. Here's what it looks like on what we have now. Yeah, but that's pretty good. But that would be something saying our system that you can still buy that we want to sell you some more of. Look, it's kind of junk for like 10 more months or whatever. But if you go back, I mean, look at another Ubisoft game between Xbox and Xbox 360, Splinter Cell. I think it was Double Agent. You look at the, it was two different games. It was not even the same game. The like the stuff looked different. They had different assets. They had different levels or different different architecture. So but I mean, the thing is, I still feel like the Xbox Xbox 360 jump, which is so much more noticeable when they're showing off the Xbox 360. You were like, wow, that is a big, big difference. But we're not we're not seeing it as much this time. I think you're right. It's a subtle. It's these particle effects. And it could be just the bad stream. You seem like you had a little bit better of an impression than we did. Yeah, I mean, I think the everything we saw looked fantastic. I mean, I was the the watchdogs demo was amazing. And every every time they had it up there, you know, actually a guy on stage playing the game. I was considerably more impressed than I actually thought I was going to be just notable that was going to explain the game. Yeah, well, yeah. And he's it's there. It's, you know, displaying up on eight screens at a time. They had I couldn't really capture it sitting in the third row. But there was like screens 180 degrees in front of us. And for some of the games, mostly just with videos, but a couple where he was actually, you know, playing the game on stage. They're projecting it up on all these different screens. And it looked amazing, and there was no lag and it was, you know, there's clearly something pretty serious. So you got in trouble talking about it being a kind of course correction from the PlayStation three launch is was target renders. They showed off Killzone two and it never ended up looking like that show of Motorstorm never ended up looking like that. And so now for Killzone shadow monsters, shadow fortress, I don't know what it was called. They like shadow monsters. If that's not the game. Can we change it? Can we make another game that shadow monster guys? It's murder area death zone monsters. And also in a helicopter going over city state with a machine gun turned somewhere around and then everybody dies. But it's not what they had somebody playing it. So it was like, this is real. Like we're not, we're not pulling your leg this time. We hope. Okay. I mean, there could have been pantomime. I didn't play it. I mean, that would be, that would be a pretty, I mean, they like pointed to the guy and were like, they named him and they were like, he's playing this game. He's controlling it. He's got a controller in his hand. It'd be a bold move to be like, just get it. Guys, we did just have a situation with aliens calling marines where they showed us a demo and then they released a different game. So like, there was precedence for showing something completely fabricated. But you know, I think it's, they very much seem to be taking a different tack. Speaking of tack, Knack. Knack was the first game they showed off and it was a stylized, a character driven action game. It felt to me like one of those kind of mid nineties games where we were making tack in the power of juju or making like blinks the time cat. Or like any one of these kind of generic, you know, character driven platformers or action games. And Knack felt like that to me, it was kind of like almost a throwback. And it's like, you're going to show off the PlayStation four, you know, instead of showing, you know, the biggest, best graphics, you're showing off Knack. Well there were, that was, it felt like a running theme almost. And everybody would come out and enjoy their games. And it wasn't about like, you know, it wasn't this Michael Bay race where it's like, look how big my explosions are. Where like we've created this incredibly like immersive world that you're going to feel like you're part of. And I feel like that's kind of what you're saying with the difference between like PS3 and PS4 where it's now going to, it just feels bigger and more real and more like you're actually looking around in this universe as opposed to like, there should be smoke there and there's not. I think you're being fooled by the fact that you saw three screens all around you. I'm like, that's my next TV. Like Sony needs to make that as a television and put it in my home right now. It's a 4k television. And to that point. For $1 million. Look, I had a bet. I've lost my jacket over the bit, obviously. But I swear I thought they're going to say it's a 4k like delivery system. Well, so that's speaking of hardware. They just didn't talk about that at all. I assumed it had to be that. Partly because it just seems like the next thing. And partly because they've made such a big deal out of 4k otherwise. They talked about it constantly at CES. And like it's possible it's there and they're just not talking about it. But it was an odd thing to say. They're also not showing the box. They're also not, you know, like there's a lot of things that they are leaving vague on purpose. And from a corporate strategy, Blu-ray was their, you know, brute force, was their muscle. I mean, they really pioneered it with the PS3. PS3 got Blu-ray in the house and won them that console war. You know, I think compared to the DVD console or a platform where it wasn't the best win in the world. But, you know, it got them in. So I think with 4k, like that vertical integration strategy that Sony uses to get its products, to get its products organized, I think it's very, you can very easily see them slamming 4k into the PS4. That's how you get 4k. You slam it. It's a slamming process. You smash it. And then you bang it. It's a smang. It's a smang. You're smanging 4k onto the home television set. Once they smang the 4k into the PS3 and then they get you to buy a 4k television now that they've effectively kind of pushed that standard and also you need a new TV. Is it the smanging? Your TV probably only smashes or bangs. It does not do both. Thank you Sony. Guys, this is, look, technical terms, I'm sorry for getting into the sort of word soup of tech coverage. But I mean, so the thing is like, they said PlayStation 3 was a 10 year console cycle, right? PlayStation 4 is probably the same way. 4k is coming out this year. I would be very surprised if it was not 4k. If it was, like if it somehow is not, that's the biggest mistake they're going to make. Guys, do you know, like in 10 years, we'll have pet robots. Think about that for a second. They'll play my PS4 for me. They'll get all the trophies. I'll just watch. Like, they'll actually hand place pixels on my 4k screen. You know, it's like Sneakernet. It's sometimes faster to just put data on an airplane. We'll have robot dogs that deliver these videos to us. They'll board planes, they'll go through TSA, they'll do pre-check. So the share button does. Just kidding. Because your Sony Aibo comes and takes your video and runs it down the street. Can we talk about the share button? Like I understand wanting to promote things, but I really don't want an extra button on my controller. That's just tweet. Put this on the internet. To go to the tech world, ACC did a Facebook phone. The special deal, there was a Facebook button. Yeah, and that went super well for ACC. I really just don't want a button that goes, share. You're doing something fun? Just share. What if I dropped the controller? I'm so angry. I did the dumbest move. Like I'm not creative dumb, like just dumb. I accidentally hit the share button. There. My Twitter, my Facebook, my YouTube. It's everywhere. You streamed all my failures. Okay, no, that's not actually going to happen. I kind of like that actually. I'm going to follow you on that. I kind of hope that happens. Maybe that's why it's there. What's going to be interesting though is like we need a curation process here. And it can be your friends. One of the things I really like that they said is that your friends list now can be almost indexed with your social networks. So that it'll put real names up there. Hey guys, why has nobody thought about this for this whole console generation? If I want to play with Ross, I have to go down to W, find Wild Rider 69 and play with Ross. Wait, wait, wait. I changed it. It's now tilde tilde equal sign star star Wild Rider 69 and a half. Half is the actual half symbol. 420 x x x. 420 x x star star equal equal tilde tilde because it's got to be symmetrical. Yeah. I just friended you. So we're good now. Okay. With your magical. Yeah, I have one right here. Dude, that's a transparent phone. This is a PS4. This is actually what it looks like. I think the big thing, I'm speaking of the Facebook phone. I think the hardware thing, what Sony seemed to be emphasizing was clouds. We're clouding our, we're cloudifying our console and they want you to think of everything as being virtualized. You can play your games before they're done being downloaded. You can stream them to your Vita. Your friends can watch you play a game and then they can actually jump in and take over. It seems to be abstracting some of that experience, kind of putting it out there. Yeah, I think so. And I think the Vita thing was actually what was maybe the most interesting thing and sort of the most out there and surprising thing Sony talked about tonight. Because that feels like a big knife to the back of the Wii U. Yes. Where it's like, oh, we have these two things that work independently and they're awesome together. Cool job, Nintendo. But I mean, I think, yeah, the cloud is really interesting. And I think that partly goes back to the 4K stuff because I think Sony in that, if they're going to lean way towards streaming games and stuff, they have to lean away from these giant resolutions that they're going to try to make you play. And I wonder if they're going to do, I mean, they're obviously going to do discs of some kind. Plus streaming. Right. So it's like, if you want to have, like, or do you buy these discs that look amazing and then you stream and it doesn't look nearly as good. Like that, it just seems like, I don't know how Sony gets around that either way. Like they're either missing 4K or they're going to have this weird sort of disjointed experience. But Black Magic. Yeah. And science. Lots of science. But I think the cloud streaming, like, it almost doesn't make sense to me how you can stream a game. But if it works, like, that's pretty wild. I know so many people who actually, my roommate, like, three weeks ago was like, I want to download the original portal and started downloading it on the 360 and it was done like a day and a half later because my internet's super slow. Wait, wait. How big is that game? It's like four gigs. It's not that big a game. It's like four gigs. It's really slow. Like I cannot emphasize that enough. I want everyone to make a note of this that if people in New York have a lot of night, they got nice restaurants, they can see Broadway shows. I mean, just any day you can just go and see one, just whatever. Spider-Man, off the dark. Just go. We got tickets after this. But the thing you can't get in New York, no matter how fancy, you can't get good internet. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I have friends. There are rumors. There are rumors that Fios is good somewhere. I've never used it. I've never had it. I've never used it. Is it? It's great in Connecticut. If you can get Fios where you live, but if you have Time Warner in New York, you're like, all this cool PS4 stuff is like, you can't use that. I mean, that's also like, let's go outside of cities. There's a lot of places in the Midwest. You mean the Badlands? The Badlands. The Badlands, the Wastelands. If you go to the Badlands, the Wastelands, you just can't get good internet right there. That's actually more of a southern accent. I don't know where that came from. I'm really sorry, guys. I'm sorry to the world at large. Sorry to anybody who has an accent that sounds like that. No one has an accent that sounds like that. I think one guy was like, what are you talking about? Of course I do. I'm going to call it, come on, I can play. What? Come on, I can play. Do you think the cloud stuff is going to be big and revolutionary and everybody's going to jump on and only play games that way? I think you're going to have to show me some really cool applications. Like what? What would blow your mind? If I could play a game and have my friend take over my... whoa. I think like, I don't know. I have it all live at home. It's neat. It's fine. I think some of the stuff that they could do as people started talking about the Gaikai integration rumor and then now announcement. One of the things people talk about is like, why don't we get PS4 demos on PS3s? You have a PS3, why don't you just play Watch Dogs? Download a Gaikai app on your PS3, stream Watch Dogs to it and play Watch Dogs and say like, you can only play the first level, but that's a PS4 game. Don't you want it? You're like, that is, I want a PS4 now. I do. Actually, you know what? One of the funny, what was it? I think one of our writers, Josh Copstein, just tweeted like, and the big surprise reveal, it's actually the PS3 box. They're just streaming all the cool new stuff. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it stands to reason, right? It can do it. Well, here's the problem. Here's the catch. My PS3 is PS1 backwards compatible. This isn't. Clearly different hardware. Yeah. That's the catch. But- That's true. Let's talk actual streaming. We have Sean Hollister on the line. Sean Hollister covered OnLive and Gaikai extensively for us. He's been to their offices. He saw the good, the bad, and obviously now bought Gaikai, who's making this a really cool event tonight. Sean, are you with us? Yes, I am. Can we stream Sean to us? Sean. You look so excited. Go USA. Team USA. So Sean, why don't you tell us a little bit about your reading on all this cloud, the clouds today, the Sony Cloud? Well, I'd have a little bit more to read if they told us a little bit more about what it's going to do. Well, what we did hear about is that we'll have Gaikai giving us this lovely functionality to let us start streaming a game while we're downloading it. So you can start playing games while you're downloading them and not have to wait for that to begin. It also sounds like Gaikai is going to give you this trial ability. If you find something on the PlayStation Store that you like, you can give it a try right away immediately. This is something they've been doing on PC for a while, something they were trying to do with a variety of game developers with PC titles, letting you just try things without having to download any content at all. That sounds like it would be very useful to find out if you're willing to spend an amount of money on a game, giving it a try first. But we don't know which games they're talking about here. They said, you know, PS3, PS2, PS1 titles eventually. But are we going to be playing PS4 games over Gaikai? They didn't actually say that. Go ahead. And this is a strategy, this demo strategy that Gaikai did on the PC that was sort of what made them unique versus online. They were partnering with publishers as like a white label service so you could have an ad for Mass Effect 3 and then boom, play Mass Effect 3 right away. Yeah, yeah. And when I sat down with David Perry at the Gaikai headquarters, he told me he wanted that. That was his entire vision behind the service was that it was supposed to reduce the friction in all kinds of places. You could send an email link with a link to a Gaikai game in it. You just press the button and you'd be playing a game. In your Facebook page, you could have an embedded Gaikai demo. And they actually did a few of those. You can even try them now, I think. There still are, for instance, demos I think of Mass Effect 2 and so on where you can just start playing it immediately in your Facebook window. But now that Sony has the company, now that Sony bought them for $380 million, I'm guessing they're going to lock it down in some way. They can make you pay for it or make sure it's only PlayStation games or something like that. They didn't go into a lot of the details to that. So what do you think? Are you... Do you think this is officially exciting? It almost seems like old tech now, even though it's still sort of like magic. But I don't know. We've all seen on live and on live sort of crashed and burned. And now we have Gaikai going. Do you think that has a chance of real mainstream success being tied into a box like PlayStation? I think that when people try things that are streaming, when they have that immediacy of being able to flip on their Netflix and immediately have movies in front of them, even if they aren't necessarily the exact movies they were thinking of watching in any moment, it's just so easy that people love it. They want to do it. They start looking for that experience. So if Microsoft doesn't have anything like that and Sony does, and that this is the box where it's just easier to pick up something and immediately get into the game without having to wait for the download, having to wait for patches, which has been a problem with a lot of the PlayStation systems. You always have to get a new patch for your PlayStation Portable before you load up a new game through Vita, through PS3. And then you have to patch the game. If you cut all of that out of the equation, I think that's... That is exciting. Well, that's not in a mundane way, but it's exciting. Well, Sean, you're talking about this dream scenario, though. You're talking about if we have the bandwidth, we can make this work. You've used it at Gaika headquarters. You've used the streaming technology at OnLive headquarters. I've used it at home, too. You use it at home, too. Are you able to play these twitchy first person shooters? Are you able to actually play these action games with low enough latency to make it effective? Yes, you can. It is not... Now, mind you, it depends on your connection. Everything depends on your connection. So if you have a connection that will drop all the time, or if you have a connection that's very spiky, where you'll get by speed and all of a sudden they'll be gone, then you do have these instances where all of a sudden, crap, what happened? Where am I? Your game starts glitching out with these streaming services. That can be a problem. But if this is still limited to the demo experience that Gaika is talking about, where you just try something out, see if you like it, it was definitely good enough to give me an idea whether I wanted to buy the game or not. Whether it was a twitch shooter, whether it was a fighting game. And I pulled off an ultra combo in Street Fighter IV with Gaika's service once. And this is something that... From where? From where? This was with a device that was connected to a physical ethernet cable. Okay. Which wasn't, you know, over wireless or anything like that. But it's something you can do. Something you can do. He's dropping a mic. I do not think it's good enough that everybody can play streaming games right now. Well, I mean, not everybody can do an ultra combo. I mean, I'm just saying. Yeah, that was like a little sly Street Fighter humble brag right there. I happened to beat a world champion. You know? Using ga... I mean, hey, no big deal. I'm pairing with the best of them, man. I was playing Primal Rage with a dude, and I got all the combos. Sean, we'll let you go in just a second. But real quick, so you've seen this. We have not seen what Microsoft is going to offer. We have a pretty good idea they're going to do something this year. What do you think? Is this something like you're definitely going to get? Are you sold on the PlayStation 4? I can't say I'm sold on the PlayStation 4 yet. It's just so vague. I haven't seen what the console looks like yet. I haven't seen what many of the games look like yet. It's just there's so much up in the air right now. I could not even consider buying one until they give me some solid details. Or how about an image of it or a release date? Also a price? Yeah, I'd like to know what it looks like. Maybe its price. If it's, you know, $800, and probably I can pick one up. Yeah, it's very early. Great. Alright, Sean, thank you so much. You bet. Thanks for having me. Can you explain the Team USA jersey that was behind him? I've never known him as a sports ball fanatic. Do you remember the Miracle on Ice in 1980? I remember the Miracle on 34th Street. Yeah, that's the one I know. It's almost exactly the same thing. Did they do the Flying V and had the hat trick and like there's a yellow card and the star goes out of the game, but Air Bud comes in and saves it? You said you didn't know the story. I don't understand. Okay, I thought I'd seen it. I was like, this is TNT, really tired. That's fair. Watching on a plane. No, because let's talk a little about games. Obviously, we're tech writers, but you saw them more immersive. You saw Watch Dogs. You saw the new Infamous. What was exciting to you there? What did you see that actually you will want to play? So I have to say I somehow missed seeing much of any Watch Dogs. Somehow I don't know. Where were you? They've been talking about it for forever and somehow I kept like not seeing. I would see them talk about it for hours and then would miss the trailer. You saw it today though. Yeah, I saw it today. I just hadn't seen it up until now. I thought you fell asleep during the event. So kind of all I knew about it was that everybody was excited, but I hadn't seen that much footage of it. The game looks amazing. It's incredibly detailed. Just watching these moments where there was one where he's scaling the fence and then kind of leaps on top of it and perches for a second and the whole thing went into slow motion. It was just this wild, like you could see the steam coming out of pipes coming slowly and you could see the smaller pieces of it and he's pulling the data on the people as they're walking by and it was wild. It felt like I was sitting there watching a movie that some dude over there was controlling. Those are details I really wish that I'd seen on the stream. Maybe we just had a bad connection. It's the most unfortunate way of seeing the new generation. I hope that between Sony they could maybe use Gaikai to stream it to us. Between Sony and Ubisoft, I spent a lot of money on it, they want to get the best quality out there. They want a piece of high res HD stream or capture, direct capture of it soon enough. The nice thing about Watch Dogs to me, out of all of the AAA or maybe quadruple A, that's my term I'm using that starting it now, games that were at the event, Watch Dogs was a new IP. They're showing us a new Killzone game. They're showing us a new infamous game. It was nice to see, even though we'd already seen Watch Dogs at E3 last year, starting a new generation with new IPs is exciting. It's where we got Assassin's Creed from. It's where we got the first Infamous from. I feel like one of the things for me that was missing in the games here was that they didn't show off a lot, but they had a big focus on action games from the last generation. If you're going to show me another infamous game, it's like I've played infamous games. Killzone was like, there's been three and they're still not letting the world on fire and you're making another Killzone game. So it was nice to see Watch Dogs. And then there was the most epic tease of all time where the guy comes out, he's like, we're making Final Fantasy and then just pieces out on the stage. There's Watch Dog right here. I want to watch this again. God, this looks so good. I remember seeing this at E3, but even then when I saw it at E3, it was like, I'm like, God, this is so beautiful. It's Chicago. I can see Neilai back there pointing out, I can see my house from here. So Neilai is actually also in the back. This is actually 3D in real life. This is the power of the PlayStation. Got Neilai right behind us. That's augmented reality. God, this looks so good. That's Chris Ziegler. You're playing as him. Man, Chris is looking good. So there's one thing. So they said this one was PS3 and PS4? Yes. Okay. When we saw it at E3, it was way too gorgeous for a PS3 title. They're showing you the PS4 version. And they've been showing that since June. Oh yeah. I mean, it's the same like Destiny, right? They're showing off their optimized dev kit build, which is going to be PS4 720. But it's also coming to 360 and PS3. But they're not going to show you that version. That version, when it comes out, they're barely showing us anything from Destiny. Dude, I love this game system. But they're going to show us the best looking version available. It's like for Unreal Engine games, they're always going to show you the Xbox version of the PS3 version. Unreal Engine looks better on Xbox. So here's a question while we're talking about hardware. And I actually don't know the answer to this. So like when the PS4 comes out, do we and Sony expect PS3s to just completely stop selling? Like nobody will ever buy another one again? Like what's happened before? Did the Xbox keep selling when the 360 came out? Well, Xbox was different. Microsoft was losing money on the Xbox. So they wanted to pull Xboxes off store shelves. And they forget it ever happened. For the PS2, where Sony owned all the Silicon, they dropped the price. The PS2 continues to sell like hotcakes. They got it down to $99. Sold like crazy. I think I bought one after the PS3 came out, yeah. For PS3, I imagine they're not going to be able to get it down to $99 right away. But they will drop the price and continue to push it as a budget system. And then PS4 will be $999. That's my guess. I'm just making that up. That's why they didn't mention it. But I mean, also, you've got the 10-year life cycle for the PS3. So it's got to go down again a couple times. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's like that 10-year life cycle, people are like, how are you announcing a PS4? You know, it's only seven years old or it will be seven years old. It's like, well, there's three more years left in it as a $199 box, then a $149 box, then a $99 box. And then what? The PS2 only just got completely discontinued. Yeah, like recently. So I mean, we've got a lot more time. We've got a greater than 10-year life cycle left for the PS3. David, thank you so much. You look very antsy. You look very tired. I know we don't like late night events. Let's look at you out here. When we come back, we'll have Chris Plant from Polygon to talk games and all fun stuff. Before that, though, let's watch a trailer from Sucker Punch's New Infamous. It's a sequel. It looks awesome. It looks so good. I know. I cannot wait. The guy introing it was terrifying. Yeah, it just really freaked me out. The world is ending on positive. I have no idea what we're going to do. All right, let's watch this, and then we'll come back with Chris Plant. Awesome. Your safety is our top priority. The DUV is in control. The DUV is in control. G6 status. G6 clear. G7 status. G7 clear. G7 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. G8 status. What the hell? What was that? I don't know. B2 status. What should we do? B2 repeat status. On me. Keep your eyes peeled. The DUV is in control of the situation. I'm down. We're gonna hit him. We're gonna hit him. We lost B2. Check in B5. B5. Over there. Go, go. Go. Over me. All никz. I want him alive. Stop right there. On the ground. Now. B2 is in control of the situation. Over me. Check in B5. B5. Over here. We got a tiger. Suppress your anger. Serve you right. Over here. Give you the first order. You will lose. I do not know what to do. Stop. B2. B2. B2. B2. B2. B2. B2. B2. B2. You are not in control. All right, we are back with Chris Plitt and you brought gifts. I did. This is a real life press badge for the Sony PlayStation event. And you know what? You can take that home with you. Great. This will totally make up for the jacket I just lost in the first half. Guys, can somebody get us a quick check on what that's going for on eBay right now? I think it's a Waffington's. Hold on. You can pull it out. I'm unboxing it. So what have I missed, guys? I missed the live show. Has it been more exciting than what I just came from? We were watching it on a laptop screen and taking notes. I'm imagining that it was softer. It wasn't blasting your ears and shaking your bones. No, but it was in like SD with a few hiccups. Nice. Which I guess you can name this. In a way, that's kind of like the screen that I watched it on because they decided to use an OK monitor and project it onto a really bad screen that had crease marks in the middle of it. So it's like you can go to an art house in a small town and they're like, I guess this is kind of what Any Hall was supposed to look like. So this may be redundant now, but I was going to ask, how was the event for you? The event? Not as great from a production standpoint. No, you know what? It was a really interesting event. It was long. And I felt like I heard a lot. And then when I stopped afterwards and kind of reviewed the notes, I also felt like I didn't actually learn that much. I felt like there weren't a lot of specifics. Did you know that Square is making a new game? They're making a Final Fantasy. Did you expect that? Really? Again? Whoa. I'm wondering, have you guys talked about E3, how it feels like maybe they're going to lean into E3 with the major announcements? No, we haven't talked about that. Yeah, I think that's what this event read to me like. We want to get out there and front. Well, Square explicitly said, come to E3. But not showing the system, not setting the price point, it felt like Sony was getting in front of whatever else might be announced this year. Well, keep in mind, this is Microsoft's strategy 2005. They started off with the MTV event and then they went to E3 afterwards with more detail. It felt like they were borrowing from a lot of playbooks tonight. If you just look at how they did the hardware, we talked about this earlier today, the magic effect. And it felt like they were kind of leaning, not leaning, learning from Apple's playbook of, yeah, there's a GPU and a CPU and those are funny words, but they work in a magical way. And it produces these great things. And just trust us, it's super powered. Like I almost wanted super powered to be up on the screen like they would do an Apple thing. They said turbocharged. Turbocharged. Turbocharged. PC architecture. Is this the only time turbocharged and architecture have you been in the same sentence? You know, I will say I miss the turbocharged button. Like all the old Super Nintendo controllers. They were just like tap super fast. That's what the share button is. That's how I do super combos. The share button doubles as a turbo button. I wonder how this entire conference would have gone over without the share button. Because that to me was like the thing of the night that got me excited. Really? Yeah. I mean the games are a game, it's sequels to things we already have played that look slightly better. And then one of my favorite studios with one of my favorite series, Evolution with MotorStorm, is just making a racing game. I thought it was strange that they went through the same racing game porn that every studio had. Doesn't Sony have enough of those? It's their bona fides, right? Where they have to be like, we modeled the prisming of the light through the buffed plastic. Guys, I wanted to reach through the screen and like beat the... Yeah. But the games I get, the more I think about the... I'm the less... I'm enthused. But oddly enough, the hardware, which is not what I expected from Sony, is what has me at least the most interested. I don't know if I buy all of it yet. I wrote an article today about my skepticism about promises that Sony makes regarding its hardware in the past. I thought it was notable though for a couple of things, right? So they had two of the games that you put out in your article, Killzone and MotorStorm. They had Killzone 3 on stage with a guy with a controller. Very much saying like, this is real. They had Evolution, not with MotorStorm, but with DriveClub? Yeah, technically that's Killzone 4. Let's not forget there was a Killzone 3 that you didn't play. Sony, stop with the Killzone. Just don't do Killzone again. To get back to the hardware though, Mark's irony is brilliant. It's something I said in the live log and cannot emphasize. He is just one of those minds that when you hear him talk, you get the sense that he really does know where. In some ways, he was their big gun. Video games are going and he was definitely their big gun tonight. And when he came out, he took the very complex stuff and he put it in a relatively simple way. He got a little lost in acronyms. He kind of got in the weeds. Did you know there's eight gigabytes of integrated DRAM? Yeah. But like I said, he's the big guns and he's there to set the tone. We all know he's a brilliant guy. Well, we all do. You do, I do. But for whom was he there for? I think what he had to say, I think that share button thing, I think is big. I think being able to test a game with one button, my inner 10-year-old just blew up because I can remember the original PlayStation and that demo disc that came with it with like extreme sports and Crash Bandicoot and just ruining that disc from playing it so much. And the idea that I could do that now, that I, as someone who doesn't spend a lot on games, can go and just kind of taste test everything with my free time, that sounds really, really appealing to me. I think that's, I don't know, that's table stakes in today's video game market, right? Like you've got an iPad, like you can go get, I'm trying to let you guys know I have an iPad. It's pretty cool. You don't mean generic tablet on table that we covered up in Sydney F4 just to make sure we didn't look like we're being biased toward any company. Point is, if you have a smartphone or a tablet now, like your table stakes is getting games for free, being able to try them for free, get a quick download and jump right in and play it. And so I think in some ways, you know, maybe that's the quadruple A analog of that, right? Being able to like... Yeah. I mean, I don't want to blush at that. It's been, what, seven years, probably eight years since they started work on the last system, maybe even more. So all that's changed between then and now is significant for this market, especially things like the iPad and its store. At least they're recognizing it is what I would say. There was a possibility, I would think maybe a couple of years ago, where I think they would have been bullish enough not to put the table stakes in, to just completely ignore it. So that they are doing that with $60 games, with these big expensive games, I still think is significant. I should mention, we presume $60 games, we don't know. Yeah. Well, we don't know a lot. We don't know what the price is. I mean... Or what it looks like. Yeah. There's also, I want to jump in and say we do have someone on the line who will not have these answers, but can also disagree and agree with us equally. Griffin, Griffin McElroy. I know so much more than we will ever understand. That face. You look so happy. Hey, guys. What up? What's up, handsome? Long time, listen, first time caller. Let's talk about those first party games. Yeah. Oh, man. So many sequels, so many numbers. Tell us about Attack and the Power of Juju. That was the first game they showed off. Oh, man, that looks super good. Yeah. Do you guys know how many first party games they showed off? Six, right? Oh, first party? Four. Four. There were four. Not including the Medium Molecule tech demo, which actually looked like something they would ostensibly release someday. And possibly the coolest first party thing. Did it also look kind of like the Kinect demos back where they're like, no, this will totally work. Just, you just move like this and then the puppets will do everything. In their defense though, Medium Molecule, I think is the only company, especially in the context of Sony, that has ever shown off a tech demo at E3 or something like that and then released a product that was actually cooler than that. That is true. The original tech demo for LittleBigPlanet looked like, okay, you can build your own levels. I guess it makes sense. And then the actual game had a lot more content to it than that. But I guess we could start with the Medium Molecule thing. It's kind of working backwards. It wasn't a game so much as really the only mention of PlayStation Move in the entire event. Although, you guys were there and I was super busy during the feed. Did they actually reference the fact that the new controller is kind of like a movie? Here's how they threw that away. They were like, there's a touch pad on the front and also it glows so you can know who's playing. So you can know who's playing. See, it's like, ah yes. But while one of the guys was playing Killzone, it went from orange to green and I was like, I've lost it. Who's playing? I extract orange joint green. And they also just breezed right by the fact that they have this 3D depth camera, which I'm guessing fills the same role that the eye fills in seeing where the ball is in 3D space and then detecting it. But also being a Kinect. Right. Like, that's the thing. It's also a 3D depth sensing camera. It's a Kinect. So yeah, they did gloss over that bit with the controller. But then with the Medium Molecule thing, they were using actual move controllers. They were. They were using real move controllers to sculpt things in 3D space and then turn those things into puppets. And they sort of hinted at the fact that those objects could be used by players who don't have an artistic touch to populate the background of an environment for a game or in this instance, sort of a live puppetry demonstration where the move controller lets you control the characters that you were doing. And I really do think I am, those are my dudes. Like, I'm a huge Medium Molecule fan. But I really do think if it had been any other developer doing that tech demo, I would have been like, get out of town. Like, this doesn't look. I just want to set up Griffin's credibility here. Griffin spent maybe 500 hours making one of the world's great Little Big Planet 2 levels where you played as a little chicken man who gets abducted into a spaceship that is making chicken meat. You have to get out of it. I got Pixar option that one. I made a cool 3.5 mil on that one. So thanks, Medium Molecule. But yeah, that looked super neat. So yeah, the first game they showed off was Knack, which I mean, it looks, the aesthetic is neat. And like, I would trust Mark Cerny with my unborn child. But it really did look like Blink's The Time Sweeper a little bit. That's fine that if they didn't show off Knack, then I feel like anybody watching that whole press conference who wasn't into dudes shooting other dudes or throwing fire at them or fighting dragons, they would have been a little ostracized. And I get that. It just seemed like a weird way to start out the show is, here's our cartoony character-driven platformer. Welcome to 1995. Yeah, a little bit. Introducing Crash Bandicoot. Wait, no. Wrong game. Yeah. I feel like it's hard for me to talk about any of the games that they didn't show. Something at least emulating real-time footage or gameplay. But I mean, I guess you can get in trouble. Like the Killzone, what is it? Killzone Shadow Fall. Like it looked really, really good. It looked like a shooter. A shooter. Yeah. With an on-rails movie where at the end of it you pressed square. Yeah. But like, it looked dope. Like that was one of the few parts of the show where I was watching him hang from the back of the thing while shooting the pilot. I was like, okay, that's kind of neat. But at the same time, the Killzone 2 trailer that they showed in E3 2005 is probably the worst instance of a trailer being completely fake. That game did not come out looking anything like that. So like, I don't know. Until I see something final in that game, I'm just not going to be able to take it on credit. My biggest disappointment with these first party games is I didn't see anything that looked like it would play like a next generation game. Maybe Watch Dogs had some moments where I was like, how did they do that? How did the people in this world know to react that way? Or the machines? A lot of guests were like, well yeah, this is a hallway in which I shoot things. It's a really pretty hallway, but it's still a hallway. I mean, it gets into part of the problem. One of the things I would have liked to have seen, and part of this has to do with seeing games like Infamous and Killzone, we've already seen these games in these franchises before, some of them for a long time. There's the helicopter shot. Look, you're in a helicopter. Always a helicopter shot. But I would have liked to have seen, if their big thing is a share button, if their big thing is sharing video or letting other players jump into your game, I would have liked to see a game that used any of that at all. It seems like it missed the mark a little bit. I think the only game that really did do that was Evolution's new racer, the Drive Club. But at the same time, a lot of that functionality that they were showing off, that was some of the only time that we got to see the mechanical functions of the social network instead of just, hey, check out this video and hey, check out these pictures. It was showing how people played together. But at the same time, I don't know, maybe it just left a sour taste in my mouth because in the context of a racing game, those social features have been nailed before. There are games that have gotten that so right, most notably and most recently was Need for Speed Most Wanted. I don't know. I guess I just didn't see the difference between the challenges that they were putting forward between the clubs in that game and the auto log challenges that you can post to players with Need for Speed. I don't know. It just didn't seem that crazy. Can I ask you? I have a question for you. With driving games, how happy are you that driving games have finally taken on the same naming construct as shooters in which we have Drive Club and Bullet Storm and Warfighter? I cannot wait for Wheel Road. Yes, Tire. Yeah, no, it's hard to figure out, is it two words? Is it one word? Is it inter-capped? Because I think we've seen it three different ways already in official PR from them. I just want to make sure everyone knows these are the vagaries of video game journalism. This is really getting into the weirds. Where's the in-cap? It's, hey, how do we inter-cap this one? Is it two? I think it's one word. I'm really going to say that. I will say... Oh, go on, Griffin. What's surprising to me is, yeah, it seems like one of the two ways that they could have really hit first party games really well is show off a handful of games that really hit what the console can do, apart from just the dopest graphics. Because it's like, Crysis 3 came out this week and on a PC, it turned all the way up. That already looks next gen. I don't think that that is going to be super impressive to people, especially over a choppy Ustream feed. But I think the other way that they could have gone with it is just have a dozen games saying, you know all those first party Sony franchises, those PlayStation franchises that you at least have heard of, here they are. Because really all that you got was Killzone and you got Infamous. I'm as psyched as anybody else for Infamous. I love that franchise. But it's just like a CGI trailer of Infamous and that's the only first party franchise that you're bringing back. There's no... Drop the Crash Bandicoot is what I'm saying. Where's the Dax Shepard? All right, Griffin McElroy and Chris Plant, thanks for joining us. We're going to cut to a video and when we come back, we will have Mr. Nilay Patel, who just got here from Watch Dogs in Chicago. The one and only, very angry, Nilay Patel. Our industry, the past 10 years, has seen so many trends come and go. At times people are like, you have to do social, you have to do casual, you have to do hardcore, you have to do this, you have to do that. But as much as it's been changing, all of those different trends have been supporting each other. What I love about this console is that I think it's the first time that these trends are going to really be brought together. This is where the promise of what we can do is bigger than just one genre. This time Sony came around to us and they came to our office and they said, here's what we're thinking, what are you guys thinking? What have you been held back by and what would you do if you didn't have any technical limitations? That they gave us the possibility to provide feedback and to adapt based on the feedback they received from developers was for me a very important message. All these developers had a hand in actually helping form what the PlayStation 4 would eventually turn out to be. We took all that into consideration to create the system that just works. When we think about the word simple, we've chosen to interpret that with a comparable word, elegance. And to us that means this balance between how complex the simulation or the options or the interfaces are with how deep the experience you can get from it. The more elegant a design is, then the more simple and easy it is to get incredible depth. Where you can have a deeper experience that's still not really complicated, but it's much richer and much more immersive. Everyone has to some degree some instinctive craft. They want to make something their own. They want to make it a representation of themselves to other people who know them. Through personalization, there can be a relationship between the kind of content that I'm interested in and how the options are presented to me. So this system actually is very much aware of the player and what's going on in the room at any given point. So for example, when I go to the PlayStation Store, right now I see advertisements and commercials for a lot of games that I'm frankly not interested in. Having a good way to present you the games that you're interested in is very important for us. If we want everyone to be engaged in gaming and love it and understand it, we just got to make it easy for everyone to get into that and not waste everyone's time. That doesn't involve three minutes of boot up and disk shuffling and sort of all of these things that are just like a nuisance between the impulse to play a game. So immediacy becomes an important goal. I want to make the decision to experience something or to access something and I want it right now. There isn't any more waiting time, there isn't any more startup. I literally walk in, pick up the controller, hit the start button, it just goes. It's a huge win for gamers. You're able to download the first bit of the game and start playing it before the next 20 gigs download. One button press away and you get what you want. We're back. Cheers. Sorry about that, we really all need drinks. Dude, I need a drink. Well, you've been talking about the PlayStation for a long time. And you want to. You really want to. You were just storming. I'm bursting with information. Not really information. You couldn't be at home, but Neil was just stomping the whole time. Just anger. Pacing, I think that's the word. Yeah. Hello, I'm Eli. Managing editor of The Verge. Nice to see you, boss. Yeah, how are things? How's the stream? I'm fine. How's the internet? Hello, internet. I'm full of disappointed and rage. Okay. So, tell us, what was the event like for you? So I would say we were live logging it. It was interminable. About halfway through, I realized that in order to maintain my own sanity, I needed to disconnect from reality and just write whatever I felt was happening in my mind. But you do that at every event after the 45-minute mark. That's a long enough to be. And this was two hours. It was really long, right? Like we brought backup batteries. It was all like, it was very stressful on the ground because you didn't know if Sony would ever stop. They would keep going. You didn't know if it was going to keep going, right? And now another developer to discuss their game engine, but not their game. Like over and over and over. Breaking scene in the news. Everyone in Sony's first event still being held hostage. Sony is still going. There are more chips to talk about. We are pooing in bags. It's not a crew platter. It was at that level. We'll see you then. No, here's the thing that I thought was very strange. It was they open with all this developer stuff. This is great for developers. We basically built a PC. We don't have to talk about the cell processor or blast processing. Who do they have? There's Blizzard. They're going to port Diablo, which runs on Windows XP and the MacBook Air. But we built the best gaming system ever and it runs Diablo 3 because they're a PC company and we made it easy for PC gamers to do this. So it's basically the best game console. Great. Got developers. And then they're like, but check out all these developers that we've already convinced. And all this high end IP that's already going to be here because we already did the work. And it was like, so who are you talking to? Who is your audience for this event? Is it other developers? Are they going to feel left out because you already talked to these developers? Is it consumers? Because you haven't shown them one thing that is valuable about the PlayStation 4 yet. You haven't shown them anything other than the most impressive thing, which I actually like said, oh shit, in our live log because it was so awesome. And now, oh shit, on the air. Yeah. It was a creepy, it was an old man's human, it was a rendered human head of a decrepit old man. How tall was that in real life? That wasn't rendered. That was a human head. It wasn't actually. I mean, that was like, okay, that is legitimately, like, I was blown away. It looked real. It was terrifying. I don't know why they went with old man. He looked like a wizard. Like a dying wizard. You could have picked beautiful woman. You could have picked handsome younger man. Beautiful women have smooth skin. Old crinkly men, that's more to render. I understand. It's one of those wrinkles in real time. Think about it. Yeah. The PlayStation 3 can wrinkle smooth skin. Literally the emotion engine. Terrifying. Wait, how tall was it in real life? Like a rugged younger man. How tall was that head? You know, like a craggy, kind of like, I lived in, I will take you on an adventure kind of guy. You were saying it was like Iggy Pop's stomach. Yeah. It looked like it was a man made of Iggy Pop's stomach. Yeah. Covered in peanut butter. Guys, give me five minutes. I'm just going to go take care of this. Why was that the most impressive thing that they showed? And then what's funny is that that was the high point. They talked about how they rendered it and they spent all this time. They can do translucency in skin. And then everybody else came out and showed progressively worse graphics after that. Here's the question. Right? What, going in, what were your expectations and preconceptions? What did you want Sony to show? What did you think Sony was going to show? What I thought Sony needed to do was explain to the world why the PS4 should be the central point for a Sony ecosystem in your life. Right? So you buy this box, it gets Sony, you know, one Sony, right? So you have, you buy this box and you make.believe with the box. You make.believe. And it, you know, it has Sony content. Sony owns a movie studio and a music company, right? It connects to other Sony devices like phones. You know, they kept on talking about how you're going to play games on the Vita. No you're not. You know why? Because nobody has a Vita. Like they don't. You know, one of the things that was interesting to me is like they, they will now, obviously. They've, what about Sony's phones? They just announced a phone. They passed over. Well, I asked before, like where was PlayStation mobile? They passed over the apps, right? There are, we'll have Netflix and Hulu, but you know, everyone's got that and they've kind of passed over it. And then they talked about big triple A retail games that look like big triple A retail games today, but with better graphics. There was nothing to me that felt new. And you know, one of the things that's exciting to me about PlayStation mobile is that games don't look the best, but they're a dollar or they're five dollars and they work on your Vita and also your Android phone and then maybe also your PS4 and it's the same game and you just buy it and you get it. What I didn't understand, I mean like over and over again, they kept on saying you're going to play this on the Vita. I'm like, nobody has, like literally they put it in the live log over, nobody has one of those. I've got one. Well, we're us. Yeah, I know. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, do you have one? Of course, it's the Android and the polygon. But I don't have one. You're right, sales do not do well on that. Actually, I want to go back to the point you talked about because it did feel standalone. Kaz Marai, the new CEO of Sony, the former PlayStation exec, has been pushing this one Sony initiative the whole time. This should be like for the war for TV, this should be their big player. And we haven't heard about 4K, which is a big initiative. I remember like, they didn't even say Blu-ray. Did they ever mention Blu-ray? Also, no, they didn't. But also, where was Kaz Marai? Yeah, nowhere to be found. I thought it was strange that Andrew House was presenting it. I was excited to see Kaz Marai, who sort of, I feel like in a way, this certain kinship, he started in gaming from PlayStation 1 to 2 to 3, and now he's the head of the company. It seemed like it would have been a great show of support for the CEO of the company to come and introduce. And that was never appropriate for Howard Stringer to do. And now you can have your CEO kick off a PS4 event because you're like, what's up? Kaz Marai, like. Right. And you can say, like, this is where Sony begins and ends in your home. There's a lot for them to do with the PS4. And all they talked about. So I'm getting a lot of tweets now because I've been complaining about this thing. I wrote this very snarky live vlog. And everyone's like, just wait for E3. This was set up to beat Microsoft to the punch, so they showed whatever they could show. They just wanted to get the name out there. They didn't show the console. They didn't show the. The name being PlayStation 4. Surprise. They didn't show, well, you know, they didn't show the PS4 at the PS4 event. Like, you've got to save something for E3. I will say this. I think what you save for E3 is the games. I think what you show off today is your console and all these ideas you have about it. Just compare it to the 2005 event, though, all sources indicate, all signs indicate that we'll see a 2013 release for PS4. There was literally a huge sign. Oh. At the event. The last, the huge last slide was holiday 2013. Oh, did it? We missed that in the vlog. We got cut off on that thing. So if we have 2013, like the PS3 was announced over a year before it was released. There was an announcement at E3 2005 and then it came out November 2006. And what they showed off there, they showed off a console that wasn't the console that they released. It had two HDMI ports, et cetera. So I think they're in some ways being more conservative. We're going to slow it. We're going to have a shorter delta between announce and release and we're going to kind of pace ourselves throughout that. I think, you know, I'm sure they have a box to show it. They just didn't want to. What I'm disappointed by is I didn't, I'm not leaving this. You know, I think the cloud stuff was their biggest idea by far based on a purchase from July. You know, it's like, well maybe they made the purchase because they weren't done in time. Maybe they were like, we're not, we have this idea. We've been working on it for four years. We're not getting there. We're not getting there. Yeah. Maybe, maybe. You never know. I mean, the guy stuff they could have spent forever talking about it and they didn't. It was the exciting thing though. There's a thing I don't know about. Like if you're going to show me literally a giant long demo of Killzone, like I. You know what Killzone looked like? A video game. I mean like, they looked more beautiful than a video game that I play now, but the motion, the physics, all that stuff, video game. Hanging off of a helicopter and shooting a dude with red eyes. Yeah. That was the entire line. It was shooting game, punching game with super powers. It was granted bottle luck. It was a driver. It was a racer. It's everything we've seen. So every game, all the, what were the two games? It was Killzone, Watch Dogs, and there was another one. Infamous. Infamous. And they all had the same plot, which is like the government is taking over. We put it out. They're watching you. We put out like lesson taken from today's Sony event. Developers are really paranoid. They got like, they look like a really. Yeah, but like, yeah, they're super paranoid. Like the government is definitely out to get you and is watching you and limit surveillance state and what will happen when they're like the walls come with that. How about this? We're really paranoid. They're like, oh, I can watch the game you're playing on your, I was like, you know, this, the thing is watching you like we are like the PS4 is such a manifestation of the consumer culture that it literally tracks your purchases and pre downloads what it thinks you might want to buy. So you're not remotely inconvenienced. We call it Sony now. I mean, come on. Like how do you not see the general hypocrisy of what you're building here? I mean, that's like whatever, like they can make the games and I understand it, but it was, it was just like, it was that level of tone deaf. Let's talk about, right after you talked about social and network and like all the stuff you can do and like you immediately press the, you put a share button on the remote so that you can monitor yourself on the internet. One of the things, um, the way I use chat roulette to monitor myself, that's the service that I use. Oh my God. It's my pain. Dude, I don't want to snapchat roulette. I don't want us to think about this later. Let's get rich. Let's not prescribe any behavior. They talked a little bit about, you know, these, your experience extends, you know, through the cloud, all these different devices. And then I guess right after the event they announced a PlayStation app or a PlayStation. Oh yeah. Buried in a Japanese press release. Yeah. That, uh, like it was not an ever announced. Well that's the, look guys, uh, this is video game journalism tip, pro tip from me to you. That's the way you get the good news. Don't put it in English, put it in the bottom of the press release in Japan. Don't tell anybody about it. So the news, I just saw this. The news is there, there are an app for iOS and Android for the iPhone, the iPad and Android devices that is essentially a smart glass. It's a second screen. So it's a second screen. So you're playing the game and you see the map or whatever on your iPad and you can like interact with the console in some way, which is great, but not quite the cloud integration they're talking about. And even the, uh, what was the drive club? Is that the, I mean that's fine. Dead space is actually what it is. Dead space. No, drive club looks like an interesting game. Uh, and then they're like, and then we can extend it to tablets. And I was like, that would be awesome. Like you're in this, like you're in a club, you're driving with your friends. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Driving with your friends, being in a club. Being in a club. Being in a club. Obviously. Brilliant. But then they're like, but, but what, you get the tablet and you put it in your hands and what you do is you pick a car and you pick a track and then you decide how fast other people should go and challenge them to go that fast. And that does not sound fun. No. Like in no way am I like, man, can you go, can you make that faster than three minutes? I bet when you go get home, you're going to find out. And then my tablet will let me know if that happened. Like how does that seem fun at all? Honey, happy anniversary. Hold on a second. I got a alert. I'm buzzing. Let me, uh, what is this? Oh man. Billy just beat my time. I gotta go to the club. I gotta drive. I mean, shouldn't you be able to play the game on this device? Wouldn't that be cool? You can stream it. You know, driving games on phones are like interesting. Stream it. We need to, we need to wrap this up and go, but I do want to ask you a question. Is there anything Sony could do in the next however many months, pre-holiday to convince you this is something you want to get? How about before E3? Do you think that? I don't think they'll do anything before E3. This is it for E3. I think, well, I think everything now will happen at E3. That seems to be the obvious thing. I think what they need to do is explain to me how this will actually be more interesting than having a PS3, right? And I don't know that that's happened. I don't like, I'm not a social gamer, right? Like I play, I come home, I play video games for four hours and I pass out and like it's a very solitary experience because it's the end of my day, right? It's I don't, we got to get your copy of dead space three. You and I will play bro up. I don't want to do any of that stuff. He'll take your controller and play remotely. You can watch me play. You know, when they were doing the drive club stuff, they're like, this is all about driving with your friends. I'm thinking they're like sitting there going, I don't want to do that. What I want to do is I want to play video games, right? This is like all the, it's all very interesting. And I understand that they were far behind in online play and they were far behind in all the social stuff that made Xbox live, destroy them this generation. And they they're catching up and they're doing some interesting new things and the cloud gaming take control of the controller is all very interesting, but they didn't make the required network effects that that needs to be valuable is like not built in. It's like I have to get a PS4 and then everybody else I know has to get a PS4 and then we have to decide that this is how we actually want to interact with each other. And I'm a lot of steps away from that. I just think, you know, with this increased competition from what I've been calling the other next gen, right? Which is your phone and your tablet and video shield. What disappointed me was I just wanted something that I hadn't thought of before and I thought of a better kill zone. Yeah. Did it have more guns and helicopters? It was real time. That's the big thing. Also, what are you supposed to use that touch screen on the remote for or the touch pad? I imagine there'll be some kind of Vita compatible. I don't know. How do you reach it? You use your... You're here and then... How much should Microsoft pay you to say this? I'm just saying. All these, like they're sitting there, they're standing in front of me with these controllers and they're not showing me the things I want to know. They didn't show anything with the touch pad, did they? No. At one point one guy looked around, but he literally took his other hand off and like brought it over the top of the controller. It was very much a different input. Yeah. I can imagine for certain games for a puzzle. All right. We're reaching. Hopefully we'll find out by E3. I haven't answered your question. I don't know what they could do between now and E3 because I think they need to show me a console. I think they need to show me how they're going to put games on the console, which is mysterious. Dude, clouds. They use cartridges, they said. Oh yeah. Single serving. CDs. Five CDs. I just feel like... Floppy. I feel like... Magnetic Media guys, it's awesome. I feel like they have... I don't know. I think this was meant to whet your appetite and kind of show, hey, 2005 was the year when we kind of messed up core gaming a little bit. We didn't quite nail it. Yeah. We got it this time. And we'll talk to you about the interesting stuff later. I kind of get that impression. I think maybe they should have given us a little bit more of a tease. My sense of this whole event, I don't know if David mentioned this to you. When we got there, it was very hurriedly put together. It was obvious. I mean, they put out the invites for only a couple of weeks ago. I don't think they've ever done an event at this venue before. I don't know if anybody's ever done an event at this venue before. Very convenient though, guys. You should really think about it. Just write down the street from the studio. Please share more. Please. But people are just standing outside in the cold for like an hour and a half. They hired New York bouncers to be there. They're like, excuse me. You can't come in yet. I mean, they're doing some stuff. We're the press. You guys understand that this is... We don't... You guys go to tech events and they're all very well run and they do it all the time. This is like really nicely done and nicely held for games. This is like pretty good. I mean, it was like seriously Lord of the Flies. I will bring you... That is a step up. Guys, you're talking about high end. At one point, Dave was holding up a coffee and a CNBC cameraman walked by, smacked the coffee out of his hand with his tripod and said, oh, is that mine? And Mike walked inside. And then he said, who has the conch shell now? Obviously you, piggy. He had a pig slice his throat, spill his blood. It was extremely confusing. No, that wasn't yours. It was never in your possession. I don't know. We've got a trailer and then I think Chris Plant wants to come back. Angry that you took his seed. I'm sorry, Chris. He was still... Do we have a beef? Yeah. Is there a beef going on? There is a beef. All right, so let's take a look at Deep Down and then we'll be right back. I'm going to get my useless magic and heavy porky loins in the old market for one tenth of the hassle of your empty venture. Why were you following him anyway? Let's find this bloody third gate. I'm going to get my useless magic and heavy porky loins in the old market for one tenth of the hassle of your empty venture. I'm going to get my useless magic and heavy porky loins in the old market for one tenth of the hassle of your empty venture. I'm going to get my useless magic and heavy porky loins in the old market for one tenth of the hassle of your empty venture. I'm going to get my useless magic and heavy porky loins in the old market for one tenth of the hassle of your empty venture. I'm going to get my useless magic and heavy porky loins in the old market for one tenth of the hassle of your empty venture. Is it a big number? It's a big number with lots of GGDERs. But the other thing that I want to talk about with this is the recurring turn of phrase inside of the press release, which is it's SCEI's long-term vision to make the most of the PS4, which is plugged at the end of sentences about some pretty big things, like the Vita playing PS4 games over cross play. It's their long-term vision to get that to work for every Vita game. Getting the... Jerry, you didn't get a PS4 game. To get the PS4 games to run on cross play on Vita. It's the long-term vision to get demos to run instantaneously. It's the long-term vision to make it so you don't have to wait when you download. There's a lot of very careful wording about how much of this will actually work when the system launches, but then the best part is there's that, and then there are footnotes. So it's like, it's our long-term vision to get the PS4 games to run on your Vita. Also, they probably won't work outside. Depending on network environment or titles, users may not be able to play games outside comfortably. Between the temperature of 40 and 60 degrees Celsius, you may not get a good experience. They also cushion it with, for games that can cross play from PS4 to Vita, we hope to get all those games to work. Footnote, except games that require peripherals such as PlayStation 4i. So if you've got peripherals involved, even though there is a video camera on the front... There's a camera. And if you're still playing in the living room, the eye's still watching you. It's always watching. It's just really interesting what... It seems like they're already kind of bracing for, don't hold us too strictly. The entire press conference was, caveat, we don't promise nothing. A lot of the streaming stuff was, again, I mean, I, you know, Neil's point, we don't know when they started it. Maybe they started development on their own and then bought Gikai to expedite it, but they bought that company in July. So it's like a lot of these things are like, oh, this is a cool idea we could do and our long-term vision is going to be to do this. I also liked, I know that I'm going to eat so much crap for this in the comments because it's going to stir a fan war, but how much they borrowed from Microsoft. The UI on the app is like, oh yeah, cool. I remember Metro too. I guess Microsoft wasn't using it, so you can take it. And then the connect looking bar, and this was in the press release too. There's this app that they're releasing. That's just the smart glass. They say what it actually does. They're like, yeah, it'll be able to help you download games, check on your social status, and maybe you can use a map during an adventure game. You'll have like a map that can guide you places. That's their long-term vision for the app. That's a long ways from that. But they also, and remember the last thing too, the biggest thing they stole from Microsoft, headphone jack and the controller. Headphone jack and the controller. Oh my gosh. What an interesting, interesting event this really was. We're being all jerks. Tracy Lynn is on the line. Maybe not be as much of a jerk as we are. Say some of our names. Tracy, are you there? Hello. Hi, how's it going? Hey. Good. How's America? It's all right. I'm actually sitting outside at the moment, so if I get shot- Well, you can't use your Vita. That's your fault. Okay. So for people who don't know, Tracy Lynn is our senior reporter, formerly in Australia, but as of last week in San Francisco, she moved here. Welcome to America. Thank you. Hasn't been shot yet, so I think we're on a good path. So Tracy, tell us about the event. What did you think? There was a lot that wasn't revealed. Like for example, I was expecting to hear something about the PlayStation Network, but they didn't say anything about it. Like prior to the event, there were rumors swirling that there would be a new kind of PlayStation Network for the PS4. There were rumors that there would be like a three-tiered system, like you could get different types of membership. And that all sounded really exciting, but none of it was mentioned at all. So that was a bit disappointing. Do you think that like, you know, obviously the networks that they did talk about, and Dave Perry sort of talked about Gaikai as being the backbone behind part of this new PlayStation Network. You know, to go back to those rumors that they might actually charge for some of these services, it would be interesting if they treated some of these streaming services as some kind of premium membership, you know, something that was not available to every PS4 owner. Like I'm not sure, like if you're buying into the console, you would expect that it would come with those services, I feel. Like when PS3 launched in Australia, it was almost a pain, but you sort of expect to have the whole package with it. And so with the PS4, I'm assuming it's going to be quite expensive. So you know, to expect people to have to buy into another level, like to have to pay extra for the streaming, I'm not sure if people would really be up for that. I think the logic is usually that it works for Microsoft. And Microsoft is able to not only sell a box that's competitively priced with the PS3, but also charge you $50 or $60 a year for Xbox Live. And people pay it willingly because it's a good service. You know, what's going to be curious to me is if this new PSN service is actually competitive with Xbox Live and provides a lot of the same functionality. And if they were to provide it for free, would Microsoft be able to charge for Xbox Live anymore? Or inversely, if they provide a service that's as good as Xbox Live, why don't they just charge for it since they know consumers will pay for it? Yeah, and the other thing with Xbox Live is it's had a long time to kind of build an audience. And it's got a really strong reputation. Whereas with, you know, if there is a new PlayStation network and they're charging money for it, it ultimately depends on how it's priced. Because if it's quite expensive, people might just say, well, you know, I already have an Xbox and Xbox Live works just fine. So why am I paying all this extra money for this PSN when I already have to fork out all this money for the console itself? Yeah, so this is interesting, Tracy. You're coming from Australia. And Australia has a certain relationship with internet because internet is relatively limited there. The way you get it and the access to it and the cost of it and the bandwidth that's available to you and the kind of speed and latency of it. So something like all this streaming video stuff, unless it was really local to Australia, wouldn't work, correct? Yeah, like we didn't have Netflix, for example. I experienced Netflix for the first time this week. And I was told that, you know, this is all streaming as we're watching it. And for me, that was like black magic. I was like, how is that possible? How is it not buffering or lagging? You know, like internet in Australia is pretty slow. And we have monthly caps. And if you go to your cap, then your speed, download speed pretty much goes down to like dial up internet. So this whole guy, Kai, you're online, Netflix, all that stuff. It definitely sounds like black magic to me. And it doesn't seem real. I can imagine also the data caps. Like if you're doing this like in Australia or any place that has data caps, like you're screwed like five days after playing five hours after playing it, you hit your cap for the month. Or one second after playing a 4k game. A 4k game that's never going to happen. So yeah, it just gets back to the point where even in America, you know, there are places, there's people who don't have broadband, there are people who do have broadband but don't have decent broadband. But then you look at other countries and Australia has only got whatever, 25 million people or so, but it's a whole country that doesn't have 22 million people. Sorry. Don't want to presume. That's the sign that she was double checking her statistics, so she would just get really mad at you. Which is about the size of the state of New York, I think. But you know, you don't have the internet down there to do it. So if this is a major part of the PS4 platform and PS4 strategy, you're already talking about carving off Australia and saying, well, not for you guys. It's a big part of the strategy for everyone else. Yeah, and the other thing is pricing because in Australia, consoles are so much more expensive than they are in the US. So I wouldn't be surprised if the PlayStation fought with something to the effect of $900 because that's how much the PlayStation three was when it released. It was nine hundred and ninety nine dollars at launch. And so if you're charging that much and then you want to charge for a service that may or may not work in Australia, that's a bit weird. Like I'm not really sure what to think of that. I have to ask you a question, Tracy. Were there any games that you liked? Was there any moment where you were like, games? I love it. Did that happen during the show for you? A lot of people did it at the show. There was a guy in front of me when the guy kid came on, he went, yeah. And then when Blizzard came on, he went, Lost Vikings! And then everybody was like, whoa. I mean, with the Lost Vikings, I was right there with him. That guy was me. Yeah, Tracy, go ahead. Sorry. We're having fun. No, not really. We should talk about third party games with Lex, it'll be coming up soon. Tracy, thank you so much. People at home, we are starving for degradation in call quality. It's our long term vision to fix that and we will do so soon. Not outside though, not outside. All right, we have a trailer to make everyone happy. It's the Watchdog trailer, which we've been super excited about. But we can't do that just yet, unfortunately. I've been told by the man upstairs. Do you want to talk about the good games? I'd like to talk about some of the good games. Talk about the games. You know, I try to be a little optimistic about this because when I was there, I was in the moment and I was feeling it with the share button, which I obviously liked. And you know, some of it does look certainly... Oh my God! It's not working! He tried. He tried. Okay, so I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Hold on, I'm going to do it. I thought it was interesting that The Witness was coming out as a PS4 timed exclusive. Some of the language that they used to introduce it was strange where they said, you know, we have the most open platform, which is why we get games like The Witness, which was strange because they of course did not get Jonathan Blow's previous game, Braid, which was for Xbox Live Arcade. But you know, the fact that they are getting The Witness as a timed exclusive, it seems interesting to me because that game hasn't... He's been very coy about what it would be released on and for a long time it seemed like it was almost being built directly for tablets. This is going to be a tablet game. You're doing almost everything you can. You move by pointing at an area just like tablet first person games do. Oh, I found a touchpad. You used your touchpad, baby. I found a useful... I'm a genius. You know, it's interesting to see somebody like him on stage even when he came on and said... Kind of made a dig at all the explosions and was like, sorry, I don't have explosions for you. All right. Now the man upstairs. We have these earpieces. These earpieces just say wonderful things all the time. They're also telling us to protect the president. Protect the president. We're ready. Hold on. We're not ready. Wait. Now we're ready again. Can I say one thing about it really quick? Yes, do it. I was in the Ubisoft studio in Montreal for this story about Alice, which you should look up on Polygon. It's a great story about the studio that's kind of trying to change how they do storytelling. But we got to be in the room where they record sound. And on screen, what we couldn't show was that subway stopping on the High Line. And they had... I guess they didn't end up using it, but they had like 15 employees doing yells that happened from inside of the car when this passing. Ah! But it was great because a lot of them were just like a group of white people hanging out in Montreal, but they're trying to do Chicago accent. So they're like, oh darn it, my cell phone's broke. I've got to tweet it. And I was like... But like 15 of these all at once. And when I was watching that, I was like, I know why they cut that sound. It works so much better without the Montreal person trying to do Chicago accent about how cool Twitter is. Oh, wee wee, you're so wrong. Okay, with that, let's watch the Watch Dogs trailer together. People haven't changed, but now everybody's broadcasting. And once you've seen it, all of it, how do you look away? Yeah, no kidding. Okay. I want to talk to you. I'll call the police. I swear I will. I'm not going to let you get away with it. Don't touch me. I'm warning you. You don't get to ignore me. Let me go! You think you're so special, huh? Fuck off! Leave me alone! 911, please state your emergency. Please, you have to get the cops out here. Just man to pull that gun and start shooting. Police! Police! T2S can't authorize initial advances for arrest right now. Get away from me! Squash, suspect back in view. We are on him. Over. Police! Hands on your head! Oh no, he did not. No. Alright, we are back. We have Alexa Ray Korea with us. Reporter at Polygon. And you were at the event. I was. I was there. You also have a well-known affection for the Final Fantasy series. I do. I do have a well-documented... You were probably really excited about the Final Fantasy game that they showed off. I wish I knew what it was. I'd probably be more excited if we knew. It was definitely a... It was definitely a... It was definitely... It used an engine that they're making. There was an engine. Maybe Androgyn's protagonist leveling up. Yeah, I don't know. Using potions. So tell us about what Square Enix was there to show. Well, what they showed was the Agnes Philosophy demo, which they showed last year at E3, just running on a PlayStation 4. And honestly, it looked the same to me. On a PlayStation 3 last year. Yeah, it was on PlayStation 3 last year, and now it's on PlayStation 4. There wasn't anything new. There weren't any new scenes. And it was just sort of something that we've been looking at already for about half a year. So I'm not really sure... And this is the luminous engine, they call it. So they did come out on stage afterwards and say, Hey, come check us out at E3. I think you'll like it. They're the only ones that actually said E3. I mean, we all knew they were coming back to E3. But they're the only ones that acknowledged it. I think it's interesting also, that there's a Japanese company here. And Sony, notwithstanding. And then Capcom. But still, other than that, where was Tecmo Koe? Where was Namco Bandai? There wasn't really a big presence outside of the Western developers. And usually we see a lot of RPGs and stuff like that. And I'm really sort of surprised. And to get to that point, Keckron's also a very Western-focused company. They can be. They can equivocate. I feel like at that kind of Western focus, we had Mark Cerny out on stage talking about hardware. Not Ken Kudoragi. We had Andrew House on stage hosting the event. Not Kaz Harai. It did seem very Western-focused. Some of the big games they showed off were infamous. From Sucker Punch in Seattle. It was Killzone from Guerrilla in the Netherlands. And so, it definitely seemed to have that focus. But they did have some Japanese games. The non-Final Fantasy announcement, as you pointed out. But also, Capcom had Deep Down. Which wasn't just a game from Capcom, who are Japanese. They had a lot of other games. But it wasn't just a game from Capcom, who are Japanese developers slash publisher. But it also seemed very much like Dark Souls. Which is another Japanese game. It's really interesting. I was going to say it looks a lot like Dark Souls. And sort of like Skyrim-y. I feel like a lot of people are sort of jumping on that train. Like people said it's the year of the bow. It might as well be the decade of the dragon fighting. And what not. So, it'll be really interesting to see where they take that. Like what direction they go in. As opposed to where everyone else has already gone. I don't know. You know, it's a... I look at Capcom. And they also did Dragon's Dogma last year. Which also seemed, in a way, to be very much like Dark Souls. So, they have a sequel to that coming out. It's an expansion. But it seems like they've got this other sort of project. Which is sort of, you know, similar. And then there's Dragon's Dogma. And Deep Down. They both have this double D alliteration. I don't... I want to stop real quick. Because I know someone else wants to talk about this. Phil Koehler is online. Hey, hey guys. There he is. I'm here. So, Phil. Did you hear about the PlayStation 4? No, what's this? Sorry, you should have been caught up before you got on with this. I thought we were just calling to talk. I apologize. So, how was your day? It was great. Great. How are you guys? Couldn't complain. I want to talk about this Capcom game. Because I like the line that you were going down there, Chris Grant. I think that this probably is something related to Dragon's Dogma. You think it is. You think it's... Dark Awakening is the expansion. Dark Arisen. Sorry. I'm not professional. So, Deep Down might be the actual real next gen sequel. Yeah, I think the 2D thing is too much of a coincidence. I know Capcom specifically called it out as a new IP. But that coincidence seems too big. And also, it looks exactly like Dragon's Dogma. Like what Dragon's Dogma was. Right, right. In a lot of ways, Dragon's Dogma was very much like Dark Souls. It had that same kind of aesthetic, if you will. This obviously looks a lot nicer. So, what did you think in general about the software that we saw at the event? I thought there was some okay, cool looking stuff. I think I would have loved to have seen more new games. More stuff that we weren't expecting. Obviously, Watch Dogs looks awesome. But if Ubisoft had something new and original to announce there, that would have been more exciting. I thought it was interesting that so many of these games that we remembered from before. Maybe that's part of the reason that Capcom didn't want to tie Deep Down to Dragon's Dogma. Because it sounds a lot nicer as a new IP coming out on a new console generation. But I was expecting more games and more new games. Maybe that's just not the right event to do it at. I also worry that because games are getting so much more expensive to make, that a lot of these companies used the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 generations as a chance to launch new IPs. Maybe this generation won't get that same benefit because it's too expensive to launch a new IP. So, they're just going to keep reusing them. Sure, yeah. That could definitely be an issue. Obviously, we saw even something like Diablo 3 coming to consoles is really exciting. But the way it was presented here was maybe not the ideal way to present it. Because it's just kind of like, okay, a game that we already played, or a lot of people already played a year ago, and it's also coming to PS3. Right. Destiny, I think, and Watch Dogs were very similar where they said, oh, it's coming to PS4. And it's like, yeah, no duh. I think they expected a certain level of surprise. You know, like, ta-da, PS4 for Watch Dogs. And it's like, yeah, obviously. I'm still disappointed that Last of Us is not going to be on PS4. One of the things I was expecting was Star Wars 1313. Everyone knows that that is a next-gen game. They could have brought that out and shown it. Maybe it's the Microsoft exclusive. They did do Connect Star Wars. There is a dance section on every new Star Wars game. It's in the contract. Yeah, we're going to have Han Solo dancing in Star Wars 1313. I think not seeing that here is probably a good sign that we'll see it at a Microsoft event. Whether that Microsoft event is in E3 or E4. And obviously it's worth keeping in mind, like, for third-party stuff, they announced a lot of publishers and developers who are working on third-party stuff on PS4 that has not been shown yet. They had that huge, huge list with all sorts of people from like, Atlus to EA to Platinum Games. Like, everybody was on there. So, you know, there's obviously lots more coming that is going to be shown. I'm sure to some degree Sony wants to spread out some of the reveals and the announcements to keep the buzz building to whenever the actual launch is. And some big publishers are notably absent. EA, not here at all. There was a rumor that Battlefield 4 would show up, but EA wasn't even present. I guess Activision was there with Destiny. But Phil, Alexa, I think that's going to do it for us. We have a surprise. What's the surprise? I can't tell you yet, but it's coming. The surprise is happening. But first I have to thank Phil, and Phil has to go. Phil, I love you, but you gotta go away. Good. He's gone. He's gone. They just hung up on us. What do you expect? Like a sound effect? Like a drop the beast? No, no, that doesn't happen. But we have someone to take his place. Justin McElroy. Whoa. What up? Finally. Justin, have they kept you locked in there this whole time? I like your outfit. Yeah. That's awesome. Guys, this is not a frozen stream. He's just really good at staying still. Do not be alarmed. Perfect. I wish there was somebody downstairs like, what was the mode on Clyde to get it timed on the perfect thing? Surprise, guys. That was... The powers that be are going to try to bring him back from the stasis. Surprise is kind of over now. Justin's the person I would want to talk to about deep down. Hey, Justin. Yeah, you mean Dragon's Dogma 2. The Deuce. Back to the depths. Back in the well. I have been... Can I curse? What's that? What's the story there? Yes. I've been so fucking irritated. Doesn't anybody like video games? Doesn't anybody like video games ever? Sorry it doesn't print shit, Verge bros. Jesus Christ. Are you mad? I like video games. There's a new video game console. Why is no one excited about it? Oh, it's killing me. It's a new console. You can shoot things and you can drive in a club. Bye. What? Who cares what it looks like? Spoiler alert. It fits on a shelf and it's probably black. It plays video games. We haven't had a new video game console... Sorry, were you? In like eight years. Why is no one excited about it? It's killing me. Guys, I want you to know I'm going to translate Justin's enthusiasm. What's going on? What's happening? I don't know. I know Justin really well. Justin's favorite game last year, he was the one person in the world, his favorite game was Dragon's Dogma. Nobody else... Most people didn't even play it. Dragon's Dogma was a good game. It's a good game. I agree with you. So I'm saying I think Justin felt like they made a video game press conference for him. They made Dragon's Dogma 2 and put it on stage. I'm not disappointed they didn't call it out. If you want to talk about real failings, they didn't call it Dragon's Dogma. Yes, that was a failing of the press conference. I agree with you there. But like, kidding aside, half kidding aside, we will find out... I've heard people on the show say, I'm not convinced I'm going to buy one yet. Who gives a shit? You can't do that for nine months anyway. Who cares what it looks like or what it costs? None of that is germane to your buying decision because you can't make one yet. They're talking about, in broad strokes, these are the things we're talking about. We're talking about creativity and we're talking about sharing and social and stuff. Yeah, they're talking in broad strokes about it and they're not going to get down to the nitty gritty yet. First off, they want at least something for E3. They want to get some of those headlines too. They don't want Uncle Bill Gates to have all the fun up in Redmond. But I thought, as far as broad strokes, it's really exciting. They're sticking with some of their franchises. Let's just be excited in this economy they're making a PlayStation for. Giving jobs to those people not in the nerds. Somebody thought closed. Justin, I think we should all take a little bit of your enthusiasm away from the event today. I'm 32. Why do I have to be enthusiastic about anything? This is supposed to be the young people that are rising up. You can be mad. I'm surrounded by people who... You guys are in your 20s, right? Yeah. Yeah, so they've hit 20. Wow. But I'm with you. I don't know. You've been down on this event too the whole time, Chris. I want to be surprised. Yeah, but you have also been. I don't understand why... I'm just not taking all the blame here. Although it was a pretty bad event. Justin, I just want to be surprised. That's all. I just don't understand why seeing a picture of a box is what's going to make your buying decision. What does it matter? The box doesn't matter, but why make an event if you have just this little to show? Why wait until you have something else to show? You've got to get out there first. I don't think they had little to show. I saw at least 10 games that were announced for it nine months before the thing is going to be available. So I think that's pretty good. I think that you want to... People are dying. I don't know if you can think of an industry that needs a shot in the arm like this more than video gaming. I would love to know it because this industry has been in stagnation for two years. I welcome a breath of fresh air. I welcome some new information. Is it as detailed as I'm going to want to have before I make a buying decision? Well, no, but I don't have to do that for nine months. I'm just happy that someone is putting some investment into this industry and not closing studios. And I frankly am so frustrated that people who love video games, supposedly love video games, aren't thrilled by that. We finally have good news and we're all like, I'm not for me. What's the box look like, dude? Come on. PlayStation 4, $200. Catch it. November 20th, Hyper 60, maybe. My sources are unclear. I like how he thinks that if we saw a box or a price figure, we actually would be any happier. That would have changed any perception of this. If they showed me Oculus Rift on it, that would get me. Yeah, but it's pretty hard to hear Neelight come on and say, well, they're games. Yeah, it's a box that plays games. I don't know what... What do you want? It's got to be... I mean, I think there's a lot of boxes that my PlayStation 3 plays games. I think that you... You want it to stream a massive movie library? Do you have the art to make it stream massive libraries? So Chris Coler at Wired wrote a great article called The Minecraft Test, and his whole point was that if Minecraft couldn't have been developed on your platform, you can't win. And the whole point was that... Yeah, it's an interesting point. Minecraft couldn't have been made on Xbox or PS3. It could only have been made on an open platform or even a semi-open platform like iOS. And so that's what I'm... What I'm disappointed by is that we're leaving this event, and I don't feel like they have acknowledged the fact that game development and that consumer expectations of the way games work, I don't feel like that's changed. For me, the most exciting launch game on Xbox 360 was Geometry Wars. It's true. No, no, I'm with you 100% on this one. It was a $5 downloadable game, and it was the best game on that platform launch. You don't think the promise of being able to push the button and sample games instantly is in some way, like, nodding in that general direction? I mentioned before that I think it's table stakes. I think they're like... They've got some of that in there, but I want to hear... I want to see how it passes the Minecraft test. Can I release a half-finished game and let users decide whether they want to purchase it or not and let the kind of marketplace determine whether that game's a success? That game right now is the most popular game for a whole entire demographic, and it is made by one guy. It's also the most popular on 360 where it's on a closed platform. But after it was already built, after it was already given the investment on an open platform and allowed to get to a certain point. Could not have been... Could not have been started there. But, like, PC is always going to be the vanguard of that. Or iOS. Why is iOS the vanguard of that now? Why is iOS working on it? Well, I mean, like, those games all look like Farmville. I want to play real video games. Maybe that's just me. I don't know. This is upsetting me because he came on so happy and enthusiastic and all you have done is bring this man down to a cynical level. You made him sad. Ain't nothing gonna break my stride. This is a man who taught me 50 Cent was one of the best games of all time. It's true. Blood on the Sand is such a great game. He does love Blood on the Sand. Justin, thanks for... Thanks for joining us. On that lovely, lovely, wonderful... No, just keep going. Fo sho on that lovely note. Let's wrap this up. Just like this. Justin McElroy, manager at Polygon, thank you. Alexa Ray Korea, reporter for Polygon, thank you. It's this! He's still there. We haven't cut him off yet. It's this! We're just gonna leave. Let's thank everyone else who has come on. David Pierce. We got Neil A. Patel, both from The Verge, Verge.com. It's a website we love ourselves. We love you guys more. Polygon.com. We got Chris Plant. We've got Phil Kohler. We've got Tracy Lean. What else were we forgetting here? Probably quite a few people. Probably a lot of people. I'm sorry. What did you think? Brian Crescenti, who couldn't make it. Rush Frushtick, who was working the sound booth. Griffin McElroy. Oh, Griffin McElroy. He was there. He wasn't as happy, good, lucky, angry at us as Justin, his brother. He was doing good. We're talking about punching people. Chris Plant, dancing over there. I'd give yours a four and him an A. I'm sorry. That is it. I'm going to thank Ross Miller, my co-host. Everyone, I want to thank you for watching. Let us know what you think in the comments. We'll keep covering PlayStation 4. Comments, grumbles, gripes, moans, complaints. Just jump on. Just do it. That's it, everyone. Go to bed. I love games! I love games!

Hey guys, it's Neil I'm with The Verge. I'm here with Jim Mazur who is head of product design for Traktor. Traktor is DJ software. If you've ever been to a club or a bar with a DJ, they're probably running Traktor on a laptop somewhere. And now they're bringing the software to the iPad. It's called Traktor DJ. And this seems like it's going to be like 20 bucks. It does a lot of stuff. Like how do you see that market expanding? Are pros going to use this? Are kids going to just play around with it? Are they going to graduate up? Yeah, we want to make actually the first right entrance point for somebody that's interested in DJing but maybe hasn't gone out and bought hardware yet. So we wanted to spend the time and take that kind of thinking that we have at Native, which is very much for the pros, and apply it to this interface to the screen and think about how would our take be on DJ software running on an iPad. I see this actually as a great after party thing. Like gear somewhere else, pull out the iPad, start having fun. The first thing you'll notice on the interface is the two waveforms. And we wanted to actually try to think about new ways that you can interact with music through the waveforms and achieve traditional DJ techniques such as cue points and loops on a touch screen. So I'll show you some examples of this. For example, scratching is done just by a swipe. And it keeps time using the same flux mode concept in Traktor. But I have this freeze button, which I can turn on at any point and basically turn the waveform into individual touch points for cue points. So that looks like this. Any point I can just decide that I want to start drumming on the waveform. And to set a loop, you simply just tap the waveform with two fingers where you want the loop to be placed. And to release, you tap again. And you can set the loop ahead of the playhead, so we'll roll in. Or you can even set behind. And by placing your two fingers on the screen, you can actually grab the loop in your hand and move it about. That's cool. You can even change the size. And when it comes to mixing, you can bring in the browser to find your next song from the bottom. And this will take your iTunes collection and it will run a bunch of Traktor algorithms on it for the actual tempo of the song, the key, the melodic key, and will do some kind of sound similarity. And because this has downbeat detection, as soon as I hit play, this will start playing and sync it to the downbeat. So now these tracks are playing perfectly synced. I can crossfade back and forth. Additionally I can bring in more mixing tools. So we actually have an EQ and filter panel, which you can slide in from the right. So I can kill the bass on the top track, bring it back in. I can also switch this just to be an XY filter control, where it's adaptive. If I go to the right of the center, I'll get a high pass. If I go to the left, I'll get a low pass. And I can lock this in place if I want to hold the filter. For example, we'll hold it there and then bring in some effects. So I can have both these panels open or just one. And you have three effects that you can access at once, so you can choose which effect you want. So for example, I have a reverb, a delay, and Beat Master as my first effect. So if I just press here. Or I can switch to reverb. Or delay. We also have an audio panel, so you can record your mix as you do a mix. And you can have a split output. So if you have a headphone splitter, you can send the master to your speakers and monitor to your headphones. You're kind of doing a lot of work for people. You know, if you ask an old school DJ, they say you're taking all the art of this out. You don't have to learn the fundamentals. How do you respond to that? For me, it's really like getting two tracks up and running and really playing with the music is so much more exciting than trying to get to that point. Because once you're there, I mean, I turn the app on and 30 minutes blow by.

Hey guys, it's Neil with The Verge. I'm here at Sony's PlayStation 4 reveal. It's not quite a launch event or announcement because there's a lot we didn't see, including the PlayStation 4. What we did see were a lot of games and the PlayStation 4 controller, the DualShock 4, which is pretty interesting. It has an integrated touchpad, it has a headphone jack, it has a light bar in the front that a camera accessory can look at and track motion, and it has a share button that lets you immediately record your game footage and share it straight to social networks. So that's pretty interesting. We also saw a lot of game demos, mostly engine demos and some upcoming ports. We saw Watch Dogs from Ubisoft, which was an E3, which looks very impressive. We saw a very realistic model of a human head to show off some of the graphical prowess of the PS4. It looks really great. It's terrifying, but it's very impressive. And we saw basically just a lot of quick clips of games showing off some of the graphical horsepower of the PS4, but not a lot of actual gameplay. I think only twice did anybody actually use the controller on stage, and we really didn't see a lot of the PS4's UI. We didn't see what's gonna make it special beyond just gameplay. And the other thing we didn't see, which is kind of important, we didn't see any of the media stuff. There was no mention of Blu-ray, there was no mention of 4k, nothing about how video might be transferred to the service, nothing about other content partnerships, nothing about TV. So Sony is very gaming focused, very developer focused today. A lot of talk about how the PS4 is really a supercharged PC the developers will find easy to develop for and make games for, but very little about what the experience of actually purchasing this thing, putting it in your living room, and using it will be like.

It's Wednesday, February 20th, 2013. I'm Ross Miller. And I'm Chris Grant, editor-in-chief of Polygon, and this is 90 Seconds on the Verge, brought to you by Motorola. Ending weeks of rampant rumors, whispers, and other rabble-rousing, Sony has announced the PlayStation 4. The hardware is based on, quote, Supercharged PC architecture with eight CPU cores. Yes, the graphics are better. The new DualShock 4 controller has a touchpad, headphone jack, and share button. Sony says its goals make video sharing as popular in PS4 as screenshots are today. There's also a new 3D camera that's not entirely dissimilar to the Microsoft Kinect. Sony's really big new feature is game streaming using clouds. PlayStation 4 games can be played in full while they are being downloaded, streamed in a similar manner to how Netflix streams movies. You can also use the PS4 as a server and play the games using the PS Vita, kind of like the Wii U. The technology is being provided by Gaikai, which Sony purchased last July. Here's the catch, though. PlayStation 1, 2, and 3 games cannot be played natively. Sorry, cloud only. Finally, something not at all related to Sony, Google Glass. The company today posted a video preview of its forthcoming wearable headset. Based on the demo, Google Glass will allow users to receive and execute on-screen directions, send voice-controlled messages, and search the web through speech. The key phrase is, OK Glass. Google is also expanding its pre-orders to, quote, Creative individuals, so beg them to take your money a little more creatively. OK Glass. And that's it for today's top stories. Coming up tomorrow, mathematicians have discovered the last digit of pi. Spoiler, it's 3.

Hey guys this is Tom with The Verge and we're looking at Ubuntu running on a Nexus 10 tablet. Now you'll see we're on the lock screen here and you can flick through all the available users and the notifications on the right hand side will change depending on that. The backgrounds also change and everything is password protected but there is actually a guest mode that you can enable for friends to get in. A quick swipe to the left will bring you to the actual home screen for Ubuntu here. You'll see apps listed at the top and you can swipe to the right to get more. There's a video section and there's also sections for people and for music as well. Most of the navigation on the OS is horizontal but there's also some scrolling required too. As you'd expect Ubuntu is bundled in apps. There's a people app that provides all your contacts. There's a video app where you can get access to TV and movies and there's other apps that make this really a consumption device that's almost similar to Amazon's Kindle. The gallery app provides access to pictures and photos but it breaks from the norm by displaying them in a range of sizes as the default view. It has all the navigation features you'd expect but there's also an album option complete with fake binders so it's clear that the makers of Ubuntu are fans of skeuomorphism. The album section will also generate a flipboard style view of your photos. It's not as smooth as it could be but it's still early days. This Ubuntu operating system really comes to life when you start to look at the gestures available. So a quick swipe down from the top of the screen will reveal a quick settings menu that provides access to the date and time, network status, battery levels and even the ability to change the screen brightness. It also acts as a hub for your notifications allowing you to reply in line to Facebook messages or simply to swipe and dismiss them. Ubuntu's implementation feels very similar to Android but it does it in its own style that allows you to touch and hold to navigate through the various sections. Some of the gestures are also available to swipe back to the home screen. The star of the show here is really Ubuntu's side view. Visually it's almost identical to Windows 8's snap view and it allows you to run apps side by side. The aim is to have phone apps running in the side view but Ubuntu also plans to allow developers to create apps that will switch between full and side view in future to take advantage of the different screen sizes available. It's a helpful feature and you can imagine scenarios where you're in a web page and you want to copy a chunk of text and perhaps paste it into a note. Side view allows you to do this and a lot more. You can also obviously launch other applications such as a Twitter app. You could be in your photos app or even the browser and you'd be able to monitor your tweets on the right hand side. Speaking of browsers, Ubuntu includes a WebKit one that acts as you'd expect. I got to test it alongside an on screen keyboard which is a fairly standard affair for a tablet operating system. I got to test it with the Verge homepage and it was the first time that I noticed the operating system experience any lag. Text and images seemed to render well but navigation, particularly zooming, wasn't that great. On the flip side I got to check out another gesture that lets you swipe up from the bottom to access a task manager to switch between apps or close them. The widget also provides access to the application settings, in this case letting you bookmark pages etc. It also provides access to search options and the ability to use speech to find launchable commands. In the photos app you could search for colour balance and it would display the relevant commands in the sidebar instead of app settings. You can then edit an image quickly changing the various options available. Once its feature is activated it also picks up other commands like crop so you can activate that particular mode too. This is all contextual so you'll get different options in various apps. Overall Ubuntu for tablets feels like a mix of Android, Windows 8 and Kindle as it's using similar features from all three. A developer build will be released this week but the final OS and hardware won't be available until Q1 2014.