SpaceX, colonizing Mars, and Snapchat spectacles

This week on Vergecast, science editor Liz Lopatto is in town and stops by the Vergecast to talk about the news out of the International Astronautical Congress; Elon Musk's plan to colonize Mars. Paul also interviews Loren Grush live in Mexico at the event and breaks down Mr. Musk's presentation. The cast also talks about the death of BlackBerry-made phones, the ever-changing use of smartwatches, and Snapchat's Spectacles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Nilay Patel?

  Hello, welcome to Vergecast, the flagship podcast of Verge.com. A website about your life.

• 0:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  It's more than a website.

• 0:13Nilay Patel?

  It's a multi-

• 0:14Speaker 02

  It's a brand.

• 0:15Nilay Patel?

  It's a multi-channel media experience-

• 0:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:17Nilay Patel?

  -that touches every point of view.

• 0:20Speaker 02

  Ew.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  It's an emotion.

• 0:22Nilay Patel?

  I know. It's, yes, it's a-

• 0:24Speaker 01

  It's a wetsuit.

• 0:25Nilay Patel?

  It touches every part of you. What if the Verge was a wetsuit? Anyway, this is the Vergecast. I'm Neil Patel. Paul Miller's here. Hey, Paul.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Hey.

• 0:35Nilay Patel?

  Dieter Bohn is here.

• 0:36Speaker 03

  In New York.

• 0:38Nilay Patel?

  Live, in person, in New York. But Liz Lopatto is here in New York as well.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm also live and in person in New York.

• 0:44Nilay Patel?

  It's incredible. I've never been so happy. Except when I describe the Verge as an emotion and a wetsuit in one sentence at the same time. Anyway, so Liz is here, Dieter's here. I'm very excited. The biggest news in the world, not the biggest news in the world, but the biggest news in our world is that Elon Musk went to Mexico, got on stage, and told everybody he's going to Mars.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, you could really say it's the biggest news in the solar system.

• 1:12Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God. It's the biggest news in a wetsuit. I just, you know, it's like, before I said it, I was ashamed. I was, like, pre-shamed. But then I said it, and I was, like, really happy about it. Anyway, I want to get into it in depth with Liz. Liz, of course, is our science editor. But we sent Lauren Grush, Miriam Nielsen, and Phil Esposito down to the event. They made a great video. If you haven't seen that yet, you should go watch that video. We have a ton of coverage on the site. But they're down there. And Paul, you actually talked to Lauren a little bit-

• 1:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47Nilay Patel?

  -about everything that went on.

• 1:47Speaker 01

  I learned a lot.

• 1:49Nilay Patel?

  So why don't we run that? Here's Paul and Lauren talking about what's happening at SpaceX.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  This segment, by the way, sponsored by Scissor Vodka.

• 1:56Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah, Cut Through the Night. There it is.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks, Dieter. All right, we have a very, very special guest. Lauren Grush is talking to me live from Mexico.

• 2:08Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  What's Mexico like?

• 2:11Speaker 04

  It's amazing. We really lucked out, and we're staying at this beautiful Airbnb that is essentially like a Mexican palace. It's really quite amazing.

• 2:21Speaker 01

  Why, why are you in a Mexican palace right now?

• 2:25Speaker 04

  Um, because it turned out to be a better option because we sent three people down here and so we all got to stay in it together and it just seemed like a better option than getting three separate hotel rooms.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Why in general are you in Mexico? I'm very happy for you, very, very pleased that you're having a great time, but why are you in Mexico?

• 2:46Speaker 04

  Right, so I am in Mexico because on Tuesday Elon Musk laid out his Mars colonization plans that he has been working on for, for many years.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  And why did he do that in Mexico? What was the, what's the hook there?

• 3:03Speaker 04

  The International Astronautical Congress is going on this week in Mexico. It's a, it's an annual conference and it's, it's a big kind of space industry nerd get together and so he thought this would make a good venue for revealing his colonization plans.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  I was not aware of this larger conference. What, what, have you been into like any other talks there?

• 3:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of other stuff going on, like, um, they had a planetary talk of all the heads of the different space agencies that we attended. Um, they've got like real technical stuff like how we can use space to learn more about climate, um, you know, orbital debris. Uh, Bill Nye gave a talk about the Planetary Society and light sail. A bunch of the, um, uh, private space companies are here with booths. So it's kind of like a mini CES is what we, we called it because it's very tiny. It's like one floor of the convention center, um, where there's booths and stuff, but it does kind of have that CES conference vibe.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  CES for space?

• 4:06Speaker 04

  Yes, basically.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  And so what's, what's like, what's a standout talk that you just really enjoyed that, that maybe didn't get quite as much news coverage as the Elon Musk announcement?

• 4:16Speaker 04

  Well, I really liked the heads of state talk because it was interesting to see or the heads of the state space agencies. So you had Charles Bolden from NASA. You had the head of Roscosmos, the head of the ESA, the European Space Agency. So it was nice to see all of these different people running these really big agencies together onstage. And afterwards, we had like a press conference and some things about, you know, some tensions between the country were addressed. Like, they talked about actually the Crimea crisis. And so it's interesting to see them kind of like put away their differences for a little bit as they talked about space, which is kind of, you know, brings people together.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  That's that's kind of been like a space narrative for forever, since the Cold War, right?

• 5:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:07Speaker 01

  I love that. Okay, so Elon Musk. Very, very popular, famous billionaire, cool guy, loves space, has a very highly visible space company, probably not the biggest. Is space, where would you put SpaceX in the continuum of companies that do space stuff?

• 5:32Speaker 04

  In the continuum? I mean, I would say that they're probably, they're perhaps the most visible private company, private spaceflight company right now. And they are a big contender among launch providers. You've got the United Launch Alliance, you've got SpaceX, you've got Orbital ATK. I mean, we don't have a lot that are actually going into orbit right now, but SpaceX is definitely one of the top contenders, for sure.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  And I think what, at least for me, what always captures me about SpaceX is it seems like they've got a bigger plan. They're not just content to just do some satellite stuff. They want to go further. They want to go

• 6:16Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  To infinity and beyond, you might say. And so Elon Musk said, we're going to Mars, kind of?

• 6:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean Elon hasn't been subtle about his plans to go to Mars. In fact, he basically has hinted that he started SpaceX with the ultimate goal of creating a Mars colony. So, everything that they do at SpaceX is kind of in that, in pursuit of that ultimate goal. So them pursuing reusability, you know, reusability was a big part of this Mars concept. Lowering the cost of going to space, another big part, like he's all about making it affordable, right? So, a lot of the themes of SpaceX were echoed in his Mars colonization talk.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  So, I had a traumatic tooth injury the day of this event and was literally at the dentist while this, so I was following your live blog. So I want to see how well I got it, alright?

• 7:22Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  They're gonna make a big rocket, way bigger than, than, or a lot bigger than we've ever had. It's gonna have a ton of boosters and a new kind of booster that they've already been testing. And that rocket will go up to space with a bunch of people in it. They will come back down, land on the same pad it launched from, be refueled, and go back up with, I guess, fuel to actually go to Mars. And then they'll fly to Mars and they will land there and then it will be a barren planet and everybody will die when they get there.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  How, oh, but, but because they're using a special kind of fuel, if they manage to survive somehow, they could get that kind of fuel on Mars, refill their spaceship and fly back here.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  Good, I give that like an eighty percent right recap.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Nice, nice, please correct my misconceptions.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  Um, well, I think the main thing you said, you said it would be using a new kind of booster. The rocket itself is considered a booster. It's, it's, the terminology is kind of, um, tough to follow sometimes, but the rocket would carry a spaceship, right? And it uses a new type of rocket engine called the Raptor, which they just did their first test of it, I think, like, over the weekend and they, and he tweeted about it before he came to the conference. Um, but the booster, the rocket itself, the huge rocket, it would use forty-two of these engines. And that, I mean, if you know anything about rockets, that's a lot, that's a lot of engines.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw, I saw this diagram where like there, a ton of them are all laid out in a circle and then there's seven of them in the middle and only the seven have a gimbal, those are the only ones that move.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, basically, and.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  So, is this crazy?

• 9:19Speaker 04

  I mean, it's, it's kind of crazy. I, I, I was expecting, most of the architecture I was expecting, something like that. Cause he had hinted about it before, um, but I think there, I think there are a lot of different types of, there's a couple of different camps of how people want to get to Mars. And for Elon, his, his follow is a bit of a, of a, let's send up most of what we need and then go. But a lot of people have this idea of, let's send up parts of things that we want to assemble in space. And then like create the, the spaceship we need that way and then go.

• 10:03Speaker 04

  So that, that would save you from launching like a huge, huge rocket. We could do that kind of with smaller rockets that we have now. But his is very much a like, put it all up there approach.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  So even the two steps he wants is actually aggressive as far as size?

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, it's, it's, it's very much scaled up. Um, so, but I mean, it's, it's definitely impressive and I, I don't think that it's impossible or anything. Um, it's just, it's, I don't know if his timeline is in any way feasible.

• 10:41Speaker 01

  Right, he said he wanted to start doing, what, what's, what's the term when Earth and Mars are closest?

• 10:47Speaker 04

  Uh, I mean, it's like the window, uh, there's like an Earth-Mars rendezvous, basically. So it opens up to every 26 months.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  And he kinda wants to start launching these every 26 months.

• 10:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, so what the plan is now is that SpaceX wants to send its first space vehicle to Mars in 2018. That's when the next, um, Earth-Mars window opens up. And, but that one's gonna be small, smaller. It's gonna be their red dragon, which is gonna test out supersonic retropropulsion. It's this way of using the engines on the vehicle to lower itself down to the surface. So when you're falling, you basically turn on your engines and it slows down your fall because it's pushing up while you're falling. Does that make sense?

• 11:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, the last, um, that's how we land on the, on the moon, right?

• 11:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, kind of, yes.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  With, with, with the booster on the bottom, or, sorry, not a booster, uh, engine on the bottom.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  Engine, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, you could use booster, uh, booster engines. I mean, these, these terms are very, uh, flexible.

• 11:57Speaker 01

  I wanna get, I wanna get them right. I wanna get them right.

• 11:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Okay, so, um, so that seemed aggressive. So, so, but you were, you were in the room as this is happening, and it sounded from reading this live log like it was, was pure mayhem, which is probably, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm projecting, but probably most of the other panels you went to weren't quite as, uh, insane.

• 12:22Speaker 04

  Yes. I, um, I don't think that the organizers of this conference really understood what they had taken on when they agreed to let Elon promote this. You know, this, this conference is not... You know, I mean, it's very industry, it's like space industry experts go every year. But it it's this felt more like a rock concert and it was in one of the biggest rooms ever. Um, but the problem was they they didn't let us in until, oh my gosh. I think like five minutes before it was scheduled to happen. Um, and they were and they let in the press first, but the press was all gathered around this one tiny area.

• 13:08Speaker 04

  And then they were like, oh, but we only can let in press with cameras first. And so I snaked one of Miriam's cameras, one of my, the, you know, who was with me. And I pretended to to go in and I and I got a nice seat when I did that. And then they let in the general audience and that it felt like a stampede of people, like the the room shook. And people screamed as they ran and rushed in and tried to get a good seat. It was insane.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  And then after was like, was there gasps and and of astonishment, were people cheering when he when he was announcing this plan?

• 13:45Speaker 04

  Definitely cheering, lots of cheering whenever he would make like a good point. And and definitely like I I could feel there there are at least gasps around me like when he would make some crazy statements like. He, I think he said he wanted a thousand ships. In orbit at a time and then they would all go to Mars and then he also made the claim that he could. That the ship could go to Mars in eighty days, which is just insane. Cause right now, right now, most like the lowest trip to or the the speediest trip to Mars is about six months, I think. And then, you know, a lot of the times when when NASA sends over a robotic mission, it's like nine months. Um, so eighty days would be a significant cut in that time.

• 14:31Speaker 04

  I'm not sure how you would do that. Um, but yeah, definitely some surprises from the talk for sure.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  So are are you coming away from this uh more optimistic about us going to Mars in the next decade? Or or just as worried and confused?

• 14:50Speaker 04

  Um, I'm not worried and confused. I, I really think he did put a lot of thought into it because he's definitely like a tech nerd. He was talking about like chamber pressure and the specs for the different vehicles. So he's definitely thought a lot about what the vehicles will be like and the different like components. He talked, he even talked about, you know, the materials that they would be made of, like the carbon fiber, most of it would be made out of carbon fiber. He talked about, you know, the components of methane and how you can, you know, make methane conceivably on Mars. So he's definitely put a lot of thought into it. The only thing, and, and you can read my follow-up on the verge is that,

• 15:33Speaker 04

  you know, he talked very little bit about human safety. And, and I think that's such a crucial part of a human colony because, you know, that's the whole point of sending them over there in the first place is to, you know, re, to have a backup plan for Earth. That's what he calls it, you know? So it, it seemed strange for him to not focus on that, but he was all about like, oh, you know, SpaceX is a, is the railroad. You know, other people will be responsible for creating the habitats and, you know, creating, you know, the safety that they'll need on Mars. Um, which I understand. I understand that point.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Um, but he talked very little bit about it, like when he talked about the spaceship, right? When you're in microgravity, you know, you, you have to work out like a lot every single day so that your, your muscles don't atrophy and that you don't lose a lot of bone loss because we've evolved to have gravity, you know, here on Earth. So our bodies aren't used to living in zero G. And he didn't really touch on that at all, which I understand. I mean, I get where he's coming from, but I think people just underestimate uh, just how much

• 16:51Speaker 04

  How much goes into setting up a Mars settlement? There's so many different disciplines involved. There's biology, there's engineering. Um, you have to come up with a life support systems. You have to, to, you know, shield people from radiation. Uh, you have to think about where, where their fluids are gonna go, how they're gonna eat. You know, how they're gonna drink water. How do you recycle that water? There's a lot of stuff that goes into this. And obviously it was a one hour presentation, so you can't get into everything. Um, but there were, were some things I think he should have focused on in that hour. Instead of other things that he could have left out, in my opinion. But it's his talk, he can do what he wants.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, I, I feel somehow closer to Mars. I feel like, uh, uh, and I see people on Twitter kinda like, whoa. Man, we're gonna go to Mars. This is, it's exciting and I, I hope that excitement turns into people solving these other problems.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  Of course, I totally agree. And I, and I'm, there's nothing wrong with excitement. Um, but that's kinda like what Mars One did. And that's the other, this nonprofit that promises to send people to Mars where they're gonna die. You know, like they're gonna live out the remainder of their days on Mars. Um, but I feel like it's kind of a slap in the face. At least Mars One, to the people that are actually really trying to work hard on this. And the people that could make it happen. When, when you're creating excitement for something that's just not realistic. And I'm not saying that SpaceX, what he said was not realistic. Um, but I think in, in order to really woo people. There, there's still a lot of questions that need to be answered before we're like, oh, okay.

• 18:33Speaker 04

  I think, I think we're going to Mars now.

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Did the, the larger conference kinda help you with that sort of context? And, and, and getting to see the, I, I got to visit NASA once. And just putting a face on people who are trying to get us into space like was really helpful to me to not be frustrated at them. Cause like, man, it does seem like they really wanna go to space. They're really into this.

• 18:54Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, for sure. And I mean, I, I, I talk with engineers all the time. You know, I'm, I'm constantly interacting with people who are trying to get us to go to space. And so I very much want them to succeed. Um, but you know, it's worth taking a critical eye at the approaches.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  Well, thank you so much. Enjoy your Mexico palace.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  When you head back to the States?

• 19:22Speaker 04

  We leave tomorrow. I know, I wish I could live here. This place is so beautiful, but no, it was a fun adventure and it was it was interesting to um to watch this talk in another country for sure because it was it's you see how Elon's influence crosses borders, you know, it was a very international affair.

• 19:48Speaker 01

  Wide widely loved.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Supervillain or superhero? Still don't know.

• 19:55Speaker 04

  Still on the fence.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Cool. Thank you, Lauren.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  Thank you, Paul.

• 20:01Nilay Patel?

  So was Lauren and Paul. Paul, it seems like this event was like mind blowing for Lauren. It's kind of the sense I got.

• 20:08Speaker 01

  It was it was crazy and to be honest, I'm just really happy that she's still alive.

• 20:14Nilay Patel?

  They they cranked. I mean, if you haven't seen all the coverage on the site, you should go check all of it out. I think I said this.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  We're at 21 stories now.

• 20:24Nilay Patel?

  21 stories about SpaceX. I mean, it's it's huge news. A little inside baseball. We actually, for the first time ever, we shut down The Verge newsroom and ran event coverage for SpaceX the way that we run event coverage for an Apple event or a Samsung event or something. And so we took that skill set from Big Tech event and applied it to this, which is like pretty nerdy and cool for me because it's like we had this race car and it only ever ran on one track and I could try to put it on a different track. Turns out our race car is still really fast. Yeah, still a great race car. So super fun for us to it's like cover, super fun, I think, to watch kind of our machine go, but

• 21:03Nilay Patel?

  you know, I think Lauren was pointing out, and Liz, you wrote a great piece, there are still so many questions with what Elon is doing and how he hopes to actually succeed.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Oh, man. So I I got home after after that event and I realized I felt disappointed, which is insane, right? Because there was like, we're going to Mars, but it reminded me a lot of the like.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  Pre-Apolo like space propaganda that a lot of rocket scientists were doing to popularize. The biggest one, of course, was Werner von Braun, who I, he was an incredible force in rocketry. And I also feel compelled to mention every single time I mention his name that he was a noted Nazi.

• 21:50Nilay Patel?

  I was gonna say, yeah.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Like, like that, those things are inextricably linked. But what he did in the 1950s before all of America realized he was a Nazi was he ran all of these incredible visions of the future and visions of the future on the moon and visions of the future on Mars and like colonies and all of these things. And he got people really excited about space, like really, really excited, so excited that like, you know, we put people on the moon. And, and this felt like that to me.

• 22:26Nilay Patel?

  And he ran them in magazines.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, and like in collars and like he did, he did films with Walt Disney, educational films, like it was like this whole push, really, it was like a propaganda push. The future's in space and I think the title of the series was, "Man Will Conquer Space Soon."

• 22:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Exclamation mark.

• 22:48Nilay Patel?

  I think we watched this in my, like, it's like second grade class.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  In the 1950s?

• 22:52Nilay Patel?

  No, in like the, in the 80s, but it was like Wisconsin, it was like, we only had so many film strips.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Was it like on a reel to reel or like?

• 23:00Nilay Patel?

  I watched reel to reel film strips.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Were you watching this in the context of here is historical propaganda or, or was it like?

• 23:08Nilay Patel?

  No, it was in the context of like, well, we've watched all of the film strips that we have. Mrs. Eulenberg found another one in the basement. You can watch this one.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  You know what makes me sad about kids today?

• 23:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  And their experience in school? My favorite day in school was when they trundle in on a giant metal cart, the television?

• 23:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:29Speaker 03

  The huge CRT television that weighed like 300 pounds and like the giant industrial VCR that was supposed to last forever, but was actually garbage and never really worked. And it was gonna be like a movie day in class.

• 23:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 23:42Speaker 03

  And you could like, you'd see the thing in the hallway before class, like, oh my God, oh my God.

• 23:46Nilay Patel?

  Now these kids have their iPads.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, now they're just like, turn on your iPads and open your app or like, there's a screen in the room, but like, the experience of having the giant thing or the film strip, you know, when you sell a projector in the room, you're like, oh my God, this is gonna be great.

• 23:59Speaker 02

  But yeah, I mean, it was, it was, it was very much that to me.

• 24:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  And it was not like, cause I was like ready.

• 24:05Nilay Patel?

  You're talking about Elon right now.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Elon, yeah. I was like, ready for Elon to be like, alright, here's the habitat module. And here's how we've thought about like life support on the space, uh, you know, the spaceship. And, and you know, here's how we've thought about like the possibility of terraforming. And like, here's how I'm gonna fund it. And I was like, ready for that. I was like, alright, we're gonna go to Mars. And what I got instead was, it would be really cool to have a future in space.

• 24:32Speaker 03

  Well, so, but like, so why do you think he chose that instead of like, you know, the world of tomorrow, like Wonderland of like, here's all the different things we could do. Like, my sense was that he was basically like, it was half a, half a show for you, for like, let's get excited about space, here's some possibilities. And half a show for people that are like, stop wasting your, stop wasting my investment dollars Elon on this Mars thing. And it was like him proving that like, it was, it would be economically viable. I'm gonna do some of these small things, but I'm not gonna do the whole thing.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I, I still don't think it's gonna be economically viable. Realist of real talk right here.

• 25:08Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna cost forty-three dollars. Whatever insane number he drops.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  That seems the biggest blank space because, yeah, how is it funded?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that's.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  He made it.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  He was like, he made the South Park joke.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  Cheaper than.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  It was like, I'm, we're gonna steal underpants, question mark, question mark, question mark, profit. That was like literally the slide.

• 25:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:31Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 25:33Nilay Patel?

  Kickstarter was also on that slide.

• 25:35Speaker 01

  This is like, this is somewhere between, here's a brand new car that will be available next year, and here's this crazy hyperloop idea. Like, this is like, somewhere on that continuum, but not all the way to the car.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  I mean, like, the rocket specs, like, I think that stuff, the stuff that he was talking about with fuel was really, really interesting. Basically, he presented a fuel plan that might allow you to refuel on Mars, so you don't have to have enough with you to make the trip back. That's cool. And that's something that potentially could apply to other places with similar natural resources. And like, as I wrote in my piece, like, it may very well be that we don't get Mars colonies, but what we get instead is some modified version of the rockets. Like, he has, he's fired the engines that he's planning on using. So, like, this is not totally, like, you know, a big spread in Life magazine with, like, you know, artists' renderings.

• 26:28Nilay Patel?

  Right, right. Well, that thing you're talking about with the, the sort of propaganda piece, that kicked off an incredible wave of futurist thinking.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 26:38Nilay Patel?

  Right? When, when we now joke that, like, we were promised flying cars and all we got was photo-sharing apps, the people making the promises were the ones, like, drawing the diagrams in Life magazine about how we would, like, you know, Rosie the Butler would, like, serve us space broccoli. Well, that we're getting. Yeah. But do you think that he's gonna kick off another wave of futurist thinking now?

• 27:03Speaker 02

  I...

• 27:04Nilay Patel?

  Or is it more grounded?

• 27:05Speaker 02

  I don't know. Um, I mean, it's hard to know what a reaction is gonna be ahead of time, right? Like, this is the sort of thing that you're gonna see coming in waves over the next couple of years, and either they're gonna be a bunch of people who are like, "Yes, let's do some, like, crazy interstellar mining, let's go for it, we're gonna do a moon base, awesome", like, great. But you might, you might also get a bunch of people who are like, "Finally Elon has gone too far."

• 27:29Nilay Patel?

  I mean, he's got, he's got a lot going on. People are rooting for that fall? No, I, I, he's got fanways, like, no other...

• 27:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're not, there are a lot of people who are very upset with me about the mildly critical things I wrote.

• 27:47Nilay Patel?

  And it was critical, but I would say on the scale of The Verge being critical of you... Mildly critical, like, "Hey, you're pretty busy. Also, you have to get this paid for."

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Also, you're not very good at deadlines, so why are you telling me this is gonna happen in ten years?

• 28:03Nilay Patel?

  I mean, so that's like a real thing.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  What was the thing you said during the show? We were in the room, we were watching it. I was making bad jokes on Twitter, because that's my whole job when it comes to science coverage. And he gave his first deadline, and you said, "Dude hasn't shipped his Corolla competitor."

• 28:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, like the Model 3 is like a big deal. It's the fate of Tesla.

• 28:27Speaker 01

  And he's supposed to have like 4,000 internet satellites up by 2020.

• 28:32Nilay Patel?

  Right, so SpaceX has to not have rockets explode.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, that's helpful. It's helpful to not have your rockets explode. I like it when your rockets...

• 28:41Nilay Patel?

  They haven't quite figured out, right? It's like something to do with the helium system and the last rocket is what made it explode.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  So, it's not clear that that's SpaceX's fault. Like, that investigation is not done.

• 28:52Nilay Patel?

  Right, so what I'm saying is they don't know

• 28:53Speaker 02

  They don't know.

• 28:54Nilay Patel?

  Why their rocket, their last rocket exploded. They're grounded until they figure it out. You should probably figure that out.

• 28:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:59Nilay Patel?

  And then, he's got Tesla. Tesla has been late on every car. He's got tons of pre-orders for the Model 3. And like, he's gotta hit that deadline.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 29:11Nilay Patel?

  And if he doesn't, there will be dire consequences for Tesla, even though his fans love it. Like, they'll wait a little bit, but they're not gonna wait forever.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:20Nilay Patel?

  And then he's got SolarCity, which didn't do so well, and he's selling to himself at Tesla. And like, I think that plan is actually fine, like, conceptually, like...

• 29:30Speaker 03

  Whatever, yeah.

• 29:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, like, Tesla should sell batteries for your home that charge your car that charge from solar panels.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  Fine.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:36Nilay Patel?

  That's a great idea, but like, the business mechanics of that deal, as far as I understand them, are... They're worth criticizing. So like, that's just a... That's a lot of things.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  It's a lot of things, and you're leaving out all of the deadline dysfunction at SpaceX, okay? So, I'm gonna, I'm gonna quickly run you through some of this. I actually got a reader email after my piece published. I had missed one of his blown deadlines. So, in 2007, he said he was going to put people in space by 2011. In 2011, he said he'd put people in space in three years. Um, not a single person has flown aboard a SpaceX rocket and is the year of our Lord 2016.

• 30:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 30:15Speaker 02

  So, like, I-

• 30:18Speaker 03

  So how do you square the fact, I mean, the reason that everybody gets mad when we criticize Elon-

• 30:22Nilay Patel?

  But commercial crew is happening soon, right? I mean, like-

• 30:24Speaker 02

  It is, I mean, like, that's-

• 30:25Nilay Patel?

  It's now happening.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  It's happening, it's probably happening in late 2018, which is a pushback from the original-

• 30:31Nilay Patel?

  So after 10 years after his, like-

• 30:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  So the thing that he does that is so incredible is, like, takes these things that you think of as, like, crazy dreams and then, like, actually, like, lays out what seems like a logical, feasible plan. Sometimes he skips over some of the important details, but like, lays out a plan and at the end of the plan you're like, "Oh, wow, like, this amazing thing would be great if we just, like, got together and did it," and that's really inspiring. Um, but then you have to square that with, you know, the fact that he, like, misses deadlines.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  Well, it's like doing it. Like, you have to square it with doing it.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  And so, like, part of me is like, "Man, I just, I just wish that, like, like, the reason that we went to the moon, one of the reasons we went to the moon is like, we, like, got together as a nation and, like, gave the government a shit ton of money, right?"

• 31:13Speaker 02

  And they had to do it by 1970 and they just barely made their deadline.

• 31:17Speaker 03

  Right. Uh, but Elon is just doing it on his own as a private citizen, so I can't tell if, like, he's trying to inspire us to, like-

• 31:22Nilay Patel?

  With a bunch of government money.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, but like-

• 31:25Nilay Patel?

  Like, a lot of government money. Right, I mean, like, SpaceX is funded by NASA.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Kind of. I mean, they contract for NASA, they contract for, um, I want to say the Department of Defense, and then they have a couple of-

• 31:36Nilay Patel?

  Also the government.

• 31:37Speaker 03

  Facebook satellite?

• 31:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then they have a couple of-

• 31:38Nilay Patel?

  Facebook is technically a government.

• 31:39Speaker 02

  Priv- private, private satellite companies as well. So, but they're, I would say probably they're, like, I don't know, because it's not a public company, I can't actually look at their books, although I would love to, Elon, if you're listening.

• 31:51Nilay Patel?

  Elon's like, mail is a book.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  But, like, it, you know, the, the, I would, I would guess that their biggest client is NASA and their, their biggest source of funding is the government.

• 32:05Speaker 03

  So, so other than the-

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Because I feel like the biggest question is, can someone just fund this? And that wasn't answered. So, we don't know when this can actually happen because the money isn't actually there.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Right.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  But are there any other technical concerns that like haven't been solved that would have to be solved for us? I'm mostly thinking of being fried by radiation.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a big one. That's a big one.

• 32:30Nilay Patel?

  So Lauren, by the way, at the event, we made a video of this too. Elon got asked, he had a public Q and A after the event, asked the most insane questions. Like, some dude's like, "I got a Burning Man and it sucks to poop there." And Elon's like, "Yeah."

• 32:44Speaker 02

  We actually have a story on our website, theverge.com, about how to poop like an astronaut that we ran like early this year. And like, it's, it turns out that pooping in space is complicated. So this is not totally a stupid question.

• 32:56Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so you got asked all these insane questions and then Lauren, only one who stands up and like tries to do journalism there, asked a really hard question, like, "What are you gonna do to keep people alive?" And Elon's answer was basically, you know, "People talk about radiation, but it's not a big deal." And he just like moved right along. And Liz, you wrote, like, "The messy biology part of this is definitely not solved."

• 33:18Speaker 02

  No, that, I mean, listen, I think that's probably, that's probably the trickiest part of all of this, right? Like, we haven't put very many people in space. It's like 530 people. Like, the whole world has put 530 people in space, which is more than most other species, but, but like, you know.

• 33:40Nilay Patel?

  We're doing okay. Snow crabs, though, they're catching up. Yeah. There's like five dolphins in space.

• 33:47Speaker 02

  But like, that's still not very many people. And so, we don't have a really good read on what, you know, the long-term effects of space are, because most people haven't been there for long consecutive periods like you would have to be from Mars. And like, we know certain things about radiation and what it does to the human body. And like, radiation shielding is one of the biggest. Things to think about in terms of like making sure your passengers don't arrive with cancer.

• 34:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  Or dead.

• 34:13Nilay Patel?

  And that's before you even get to the idea of building a self-sustaining biome on another planet.

• 34:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I mean, like, that's literally just like, that's like, to take him at his word at talking about like wanting to be the Space Railroad. That is just like your train problem. That is just a problem for your train.

• 34:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I'm gonna build a train. I don't know how people are gonna stay alive on the train, but if they get to where they're going.

• 34:33Speaker 02

  They'll definitely get there.

• 34:34Nilay Patel?

  They'll.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  And then we can send the train back.

• 34:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:38Nilay Patel?

  They'll die on the surface of Mars.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  Well, so the thing to me is that like, I don't, I like.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Once you get to Mars, you can make like hobbit holes.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And fill them with oxygen and food.

• 34:49Speaker 02

  No, I mean, like, the thing to me that that is potentially exciting about this is the actual, like, rocket, like, less the spaceship, because I I'm worried about what he's doing in radiation design on the spaceship. But the rocket itself potentially, like, there have been these space mining initiatives that have started and like we've legally, if you mine something from an asteroid in space and bring it back in the US, you get to keep it, it's yours. So, like, if it turns out.

• 35:16Nilay Patel?

  Solving the big problem.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  That's right. So if it turns out that, like, you know, this rocket winds up being used for, like, some asteroid mining thing for rare earth elements, like, fine, that is a fine outcome. That is not a thing that upsets me because to go back to Von Brown.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  One of the things about this guy is that he actually launched the first US satellite. And satellites are the reason we all have cell phones and Intranet on our phones and like, that was a big part of the future that he like, just didn't think about because he thought satellites were gonna have to have people in them because he didn't know about computers or how important they were going to be.

• 35:50Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 35:51Speaker 02

  He like, thought, he like envisioned it as like a person inside the satellite, like, watching over the earth to like, detect enemy movements and then like, radioing into the DOD.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Like a cool telescope.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, man.

• 36:02Nilay Patel?

  I'm just like a guy in a ball.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, literally, like, there are illustrations. It's incredible.

• 36:06Nilay Patel?

  That's awesome.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  So, you know, like, his legacy may actually be something else other than Mars colonies. We may not even get to Mars, but the inspiration and like, all of this work might not be for nothing.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Okay, so satellites aren't exactly why we have internet and cell phones. Like, we get those from towers and tunnels underground.

• 36:23Speaker 02

  True.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  But satellites couldn't make internet and cell phones. Amazing. And I, I, I haven't heard any updates on Elon Musk's space internet plan.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's up?

• 36:32Speaker 03

  But wow, I don't know.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  But, but that, one of the most amazing things about that is that you take messages that would typically take like 40 or 60 milliseconds going all like through slow earth pipes because speed of light goes slower in glass and fiber optics. It goes up to space, maybe hops to one other satellite, then back down. And so you could like have low latency communication and video games with like Australia finally.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  There's a big parts of the world that deal with absurd latency all the time. And, and that could, a, a, a beautiful network of, of space satellites could, would actually be economically probably better in the long run if, if we really are going to get everybody online than digging millions of more tunnels and.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, yeah. I, I don't know what's up with that. I couldn't tell you.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  I'm really, I'm really excited about space internet.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  He's got a lot going on.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  I just, I have hard time keeping track of all his projects. I don't know how he does it.

• 37:36Nilay Patel?

  So I think this is the reason that he has as many fans, like ardent fans as he does, whether or not he does all the stuff. I think he is one of the few people who operates at his scale, who has ideas bigger than a new photo app or like a better way to share things. Um, who delivers on a subset of those ideas at some reasonable volume and then tries to like one up himself. Like Zuckerberg doesn't do that. Zuckerberg's like, I gotta put balloons everywhere because you need more access to Facebook free basics or whatever.

• 38:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 38:15Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like Sergey Brin is like, my best idea is toe shoes and uh, uh, also I'm going to put this camera on your face. That didn't work, right? Like there are these thinkers in the world, but most of them, I think Bill Gates is one of them now, but he, his, his ambitions are, are still like constrained in a way.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Boring stuff like education.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Vacuaries. Yeah.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Really lame.

• 38:42Nilay Patel?

  Right. But it's, they're not like.

• 38:44Speaker 03

  Such a nerd.

• 38:46Nilay Patel?

  What I'm saying there constraints. Bill Gates is such a nerd, it's like not even an insult. It's like, you'd be like, yes. And then he would just like walk out of the room.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  He might jump over a chair on his lap.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  Elon Musk is investing in, in the covers of popular science and popular mechanics of our childhood.

• 39:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:02Nilay Patel?

  Right. And I, you know, I think Bill Gates doing like.

• 39:05Speaker 03

  There's no mosquito.

• 39:06Nilay Patel?

  Laser, lasers to kill mosquitoes is like very interesting. And I think that captures a lot of imagination. But he never actually ships the mosquito laser, whereas Elon stands on stage. Uh, and you know, when he was talking about using methane to fuel the rockets, it was basically an apple event, right? Like, he put up the same kind of charts that tech companies put up to make their decisions seem sensible. And.

• 39:31Speaker 02

  Here's a, here's some fun inside baseball on the verge is I, I was running the site and I saw Neelai tweeting. This is basically an apple event and I called him in. I called him in, was like, you're putting it on the site. Go.

• 39:43Nilay Patel?

  Yelled at. I just received an order. It was like, it's like a little bit afraid, actually. I could get yelled at again.

• 39:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. I love that puzzle, like the spec sheets.

• 39:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, there's spec sheets for planets. Uh, and I, that's to me is, I don't think there are very many characters in the industry who consistently make those kinds of promises. And then on whatever timeline, deliver against those promises in some way. Like Elon said, I'm going to land the rocket. He blew up a lot of rockets.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, he did.

• 40:12Nilay Patel?

  And he started landing the rocket.

• 40:13Speaker 02

  I mean, like, this is the thing is like, it's one of the reasons why, like, I found that event slightly disappointing is that he landed the rocket, right? Like, okay, that sounded nuts. And then he did it. So ideally I was thinking, oh, well, this is, this sounds nuts. But he did land a rocket. So maybe I should be paying attention because he might have a good idea. And then he was like, space.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, he had some ideas.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  He did have some ideas.

• 40:43Nilay Patel?

  He did say the restaurant would be fun on the spaceship.

• 40:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. And like the, the zero G, the gravity stuff. I was like, oh, man.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  Like the, the, the thing that I liked is like, whenever anybody talks about going to Mars, it's like, you know, it's a South Park joke. I'm like, we should go to Mars. We'll have a bunch of innovation and then we'll be on Mars and it'll be great. And like, he at least.

• 41:03Nilay Patel?

  Takes a stab at filling in that middle human innovation step.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:07Nilay Patel?

  He didn't fill in the money step. He didn't fill in like, keep humans alive step. Like, there's a bunch of other stuff he didn't fill in. But it's very rare to see somebody say, this is an insane thing. Here are some actual like achievable steps to get there. Uh, usually it's like, you know, it's like when George Bush, uh, said we were going to space or going to Mars. They were like, yeah, we should go to Mars. And then like moved on in the State of the Union.

• 41:32Speaker 02

  Well.

• 41:32Nilay Patel?

  How do we, how, how?

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Well, so that, that was, um, that was interesting. Like that, the reason that that got killed is because somebody did a budget estimate. And it was like $500 billion. And they were like, nope, next. And, uh, but like, you know, um, to me, I think, again, guy had some thoughts about fuel and rockets, which again, so did Von Brown. I mean, like, he literally made the Saturn V that got us to the moon. Like, that was his invention. So like, you know, no slouch to this guy. But, um,

• 42:06Speaker 02

  you know.

• 42:07Nilay Patel?

  There's a lot of middle stuff.

• 42:08Speaker 02

  There's a lot of middle stuff. And like, it's scary difficult to solve. And, um, particularly watching him wave off Lauren's right, like radiation question just kind of made me feel bad.

• 42:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, it's not that big a deal. It's just radiation.

• 42:24Speaker 02

  It's just, it's just, it's just biology. That's easy to solve.

• 42:27Nilay Patel?

  Right. And then we should, we gotta move on. But like, my favorite of all of the hand waves was like, not even a hand wave. It was like a video hand wave. It's like, he made the teaser video. And there's all the steps. It's like first booster ignites, booster returns, fuel ship, ship goes, ship lands on Mars, and then like the picture of Mars just starts spinning.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:49Nilay Patel?

  And as it spins, it like gains greenery on the surface of the planet and an atmosphere develops. And it's like, You know, you can't just spin it faster.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  Well, no, he's assuming that when we get to Mars, we'll find the technology of an ancient alien civilization. And then Arnold Schwarzenegger will hit the button and then the atmosphere will form.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  It's very easy. And I'm gonna give you all some.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  By the way, spoiler alert.

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Some spoilers. I'm gonna give you spoilers from, uh, from Red Mars.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  Totally underrated.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Kim Stanley Robinson. I mean, that's why I always think about the radiation. When they're flying to Mars, there's like a solar event and they're like, okay, everybody get in the lead lined box. And then like, I think somebody does it. And then something bad happens to the people and then they have to live underground for a while until they get more technology. But, um, I think in that series, they like take a, a, a thing in space. What are they called?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  There's a comet, asteroids, meteor.

• 43:54Speaker 03

  Just name anything.

• 43:55Speaker 01

  A thing with a lot of ice that is not Mars, but around near Mars.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  A moon?

• 44:00Speaker 01

  And they slam it into Mars.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  And that's one of the ways they jumpstart the terraforming because they get a lot of atmosphere in there.

• 44:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I've heard, is this true that the rumors are his, his plan is to detonate fusion bombs at the poles of Mars to unlock the ice?

• 44:15Speaker 02

  I mean, I think that's what he told Stephen Colbert.

• 44:18Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's just like, that was my favorite part of this whole event was like watching that video and at the very end, like, like.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  Forgot to mention the nukes.

• 44:25Nilay Patel?

  The CGI effect of like Mars getting atmosphere happened and I was like, you're really glossing over some work there.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  You know, that's also like, um, we have planetary protection laws and like, again, I am, I am an optimistic dork and I don't think it's impossible that there are like, that there are bacteria on Mars somewhere, maybe frozen in the ice, maybe, maybe it's part of Mars's history. I don't know. I don't think it's impossible that there was once and maybe still is life on Mars. Like not necessarily like big multicellular life, but like bacteria still count.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  And if we terraform Mars, we run the risk of just completely destroying all of that before we can study it. And also, you know, beyond that, like Kim Stanley Robinson, again, like his most recent book, oh, I'm blanking on the name.

• 45:15Nilay Patel?

  Aurora?

• 45:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so good.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  It's possible that those, those things, like if we tear a form and we're walking around out there just breathing the air, like, we die because those things, it turns out, maybe are harmful to us.

• 45:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  And on that note, I'm gonna read an advertising. Can I say, can I say one more thing?

• 45:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  I didn't know it was called the South Park joke.

• 45:38Nilay Patel?

  The profit joke?

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, it comes from South Park.

• 45:41Nilay Patel?

  It's the underpants gnome joke.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  Question mark.

• 45:43Nilay Patel?

  Profit.

• 45:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  It's South Park.

• 45:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I think South Park might have like took it from the...

• 45:50Speaker 03

  I'm gonna look up the history of the underpants gnome.

• 45:51Nilay Patel?

  And on that note, I'm gonna read this ad. Casper is a sleep brand that created one perfect mattress sold directly to consumers, eliminating commission-driven inflated prices. Its award-winning sleep surface was developed in-house, has sleep design, and is delivered in small, how do they do that, sized box? In addition to the mattress, Casper also offers an adaptive pillow and soft breathable sheets. An in-house team of engineers spent thousands of hours developing the Casper. It combines spring latex and supportive memory foam for a sleep surface that's got just the right sink and just the right bounce. Plus, its breathable design sleeps cool to help you regulate your temperature through the night. Mattresses can often cost well over $1,500, but Casper mattresses cost just $500 for a twin-size mattress, $600 for a twin XL, $750 for a full, $850 for a queen, and $950

• 46:36Nilay Patel?

  for a king. And buying a Casper mattress is completely risk-free. Casper offers free delivery and free returns with a 100-night home trial. If you don't love it, they'll just pick it up and refund you everything. Casper understands the importance of truly sleeping on a mattress days before you commit, especially considering you're gonna spend a third of your life on it. Time Magazine named Casper one of the best inventions in 2015. There's free shipping and returns to the US and Canada, and it's made in America. So, you can get $50 towards any mattress purchase by visiting www.casper.com/verge and using the offer code VERGE. Terms and conditions apply.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  So I, um, while Neel I was reading that ad, I just quickly looked up the Wikipedia page for the Mars trilogy. I think they slammed phobos.

• 47:17Nilay Patel?

  I was on the Wikipedia page for, uh, gnomes parentheses, South Park.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  Phobos? Is it because there's like two moons on Mars?

• 47:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's like a, there's a moon and a military complex. Um, and so like, uh, like they cut the space elevator, there's bombardment and that like, I think that's what, what, yeah. That's, that's the beginning of terraforming.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  They, they had like a bunch of, like they, early in the book, they put a bunch of like automated, like robots who make these like machines all over the planet, just pumping out greenhouse gases.

• 47:53Nilay Patel?

  I was surprised Elon's plan wasn't first to fly hundreds, if not thousands of robots to Mars to accomplish something.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  I get the people there.

• 48:01Speaker 02

  I need to get robot like minions. Like I need to have robot minions that I can fly to the moon and assemble a moon base. That's what I need.

• 48:09Nilay Patel?

  Isn't that, that's what I was expecting.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Please, please give me like trillions of dollars to accomplish this.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Wait, are you a moon first proponent?

• 48:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's a better way to test the technology we would need for survival. So like, it's also a really cool place to, uh, refuel because there's a lot less gravity there. So, I mean, Lauren is actually the person who convinced me of this. She wrote this great big op ed that was like, it's time to go back to the moon. And I was like, not sure I believed it. And then I read the op ed and I was like, the lady makes a good case.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  I love the moon.

• 48:40Nilay Patel?

  I would go to the moon. I would not go to Mars. Would you go to Mars? Would you be one of these first people to go to Mars?

• 48:45Speaker 02

  I wouldn't be one of the first people to go to Mars. But yeah, I mean, given the effort, like dude, what do I do with my vacations?

• 48:51Speaker 01

  What do you do?

• 48:52Nilay Patel?

  Not die? I guess like that's a choice.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  No, but I mean, like I'm the person who's like, all right, guys, I'm going to go hike up the side of a volcano for a long three day weekend. I'll see you later.

• 49:01Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to the rainforest for a bit. I'll be back eventually.

• 49:06Nilay Patel?

  It's true. Liz does say, I'll be back eventually. It's very, it's very disturbing. Would you go to Mars?

• 49:13Speaker 03

  What would I do? I have no Mars relevant skills.

• 49:19Nilay Patel?

  Just to go.

• 49:20Speaker 03

  Do y'all need a website on Mars? I'm your man.

• 49:23Nilay Patel?

  I would not, I, I don't think I have been prepared to accept the risk of just like straight up dying from cancer and avoid away from my family.

• 49:30Speaker 03

  I'd be, I'd be down for a straight up dying of cancer and avoid away from my family. That's fine. I just don't have nothing to offer.

• 49:36Nilay Patel?

  You just want to be useful?

• 49:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:38Nilay Patel?

  We're kidding. Wait, this is such a window into Dieter's like essential Protestantism.

• 49:46Nilay Patel?

  Minnesotan man hates self for not being useful on Mars.

• 49:53Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Would you go to Mars?

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Yes. I, I have planned my life around trying to get really good at programming and then I'll be making robots. And, and then I'll have like a really cool robotics company around the time we're ready to go to Mars. And you'll need robotics experts.

• 50:09Nilay Patel?

  See, there you go. Paul's thinking ahead.

• 50:12Speaker 01

  I'm ready for this. But I do want to be useful, but I'd go even if I was.

• 50:16Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 50:17Nilay Patel?

  I'm saying, I'm saying if we lived in a world where it was like now Mars tourism is a thing. I would still like definitely hesitate.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  I feel like that would be like a stunt journalism piece that I would definitely pitch to The Verge.

• 50:29Nilay Patel?

  Going to Mars?

• 50:30Speaker 02

  It's only gonna cost you guys $200,000.

• 50:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Speaker 02

  And some other more money, but that's the cost of the ticket.

• 50:37Nilay Patel?

  Some other more money. All right, we gotta talk, there's some like other tech news happening in this world. We can run through it. Uh, Paul, you, you actually made a Facebook video today about this. BlackBerry announced that it's done making phones. It's just gonna rebrand other people's boring phones.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's gonna do sad things. Although apparently CEO said that they will do another keyboard.

• 51:02Nilay Patel?

  They will.

• 51:03Speaker 02

  Good.

• 51:03Nilay Patel?

  They're gonna get somebody to make that.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  In the next, in the coming years.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  Who said, who said this?

• 51:08Speaker 01

  The CEO of BlackBerry.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  They're gonna, well, yeah, but like.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  There will be another BlackBerry with a keyboard.

• 51:14Speaker 03

  Right.

• 51:15Nilay Patel?

  So now they just make Android phones, right? But then with like spruced up security.

• 51:19Speaker 03

  The proof has a keyboard.

• 51:21Nilay Patel?

  But that's their design.

• 51:22Speaker 03

  It's their design, but like Foxconn made the thing like.

• 51:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but like the, what is it? The DTEC 50 is just like, it's straight up rebrand of another phone.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 03

  But like all these companies make phones that like they, they try some prototypes out that don't get released. So like, I mean.

• 51:40Speaker 03

  How deeply nerdy can I get?

• 51:41Nilay Patel?

  Hundred percent.

• 51:42Speaker 03

  You know what company I'm gonna mention right now?

• 51:44Nilay Patel?

  Is it Palm?

• 51:45Speaker 03

  It is.

• 51:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, okay.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Go ahead.

• 51:47Nilay Patel?

  I knew it before you started.

• 51:48Speaker 03

  Android, the original, if you remember the prototypes for Android way back in the day, they looked like BlackBerries.

• 51:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:54Speaker 03

  They did not have big, full touchscreens. They had little keyboards on them. And HTC made one of those prototypes. It was going to be the first Android phone until the iPhone came out and then everybody went, oh shit, that's not gonna work. And so HTC's like, yeah, good point. And they threw it in the bin. And then later, Palm didn't know how to make anything themselves at the moment because they were trying to build the pre, the next generation thing. Although at the time, they were probably still spinning their wheels on Cobalt. Anyway.

• 52:26Nilay Patel?

  He knows that all.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  They went over to HTC and like, hey, you know, we gotta release another Windows phone. This trio 700W is not cutting the mustard. It's like 15 feet thick. And HTC said, well, here's the stuff we've got in the garbage bin. And one of the things they had in the garbage bin was that prototype they had made to be the first Android phone. And Palm said, actually, yeah, give us that. And then they did some Palm-y things to it. They adjusted the keyboard to that gel keyboard that works so well on the Centro and changed a few other things and stuck a Wi-Fi button on the side because what you really want is a physical button to toggle your Wi-Fi.

• 53:07Speaker 03

  And it became the Trio Pro, which was honestly a lovely, lovely little phone. I loved the Trio Pro. It was really good.

• 53:16Nilay Patel?

  I remember the Trio Pro. It was such a confusing phone, but I loved it.

• 53:19Speaker 03

  What was confusing? I mean, other than the Wi-Fi button, it was great.

• 53:21Nilay Patel?

  It's just its whole design was confusing.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  It was like, you know, a thing.

• 53:25Nilay Patel?

  Anyway.

• 53:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. So anyway, so.

• 53:28Nilay Patel?

  So you're saying BlackBerry is gonna raid the garbage bin?

• 53:30Speaker 03

  Keyboard phone, like, they probably will and they may push the design for it. But like, the spectrum of like, company makes phone runs all the way from like, they own the whole stack, they own the factories themselves to, they design it, they telefactory exactly what to do to. They have an idea, they go to a fact, a company that can make stuff and they work together to figure it out to they, you know, grab something from the garbage bin and tweak it to they just rebrand a thing.

• 54:00Nilay Patel?

  Well, what they're doing right now is just rebranding a thing.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  Right, so what I'm saying is on that spectrum of phone creation and like we made a phone like I if if rebranding an Alcatel phone is a 10 and owning the factories is a 1, BlackBerry used to be at 1, now they're at 10. I'd be shocked if they went below like a 7.

• 54:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:22Speaker 02

  Okay, but like, what if they just did the BlackBerry bold and updated everything inside?

• 54:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, they tried that. It's called the BlackBerry Classic and nobody bought it.

• 54:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It turns out people want big screens and no keyboards. There's like a small group of people who want a keyboard and the BlackBerry Pro, it ran Android, right? Right?

• 54:42Speaker 03

  The Pro.

• 54:43Speaker 01

  Priv was the first.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  The Priv ran Android. They haven't, they haven't made an Android phone with a keyboard that's just a solid, I mean, there's the, there's the, you're thinking of the Passport.

• 54:55Nilay Patel?

  I'm thinking of the Passport.

• 54:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:57Nilay Patel?

  Right. I just think that the operating system of the Pro, like, it just doesn't hold up.

• 55:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:04Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, it's a BB10 phone.

• 55:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It's the, I'm thinking of the Passport. Man, they just blew it with these operating systems.

• 55:14Nilay Patel?

  I mean, this is a company that decided that apps were so unimportant that they would, they just needed tonnage. Right? Do you remember this quote?

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Tonnage?

• 55:21Nilay Patel?

  Tonnage. They, they built an Android compatibility layer into BB10 so that you could run Android apps on it because we need app tonnage. That was the word they used.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  That's great. It's a great word.

• 55:36Nilay Patel?

  I'm just trying to keep all their devices straight right now. It's hard.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  I'm looking at this, the Trio Pro, and I had no idea that it was a reworked version of this HTC because it does not look like an HTC.

• 55:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, I know. They did a really good job. Yeah.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 55:49Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so there's that. Some more sad gadget news in this world. Android Wear.

• 55:55Nilay Patel?

  Had some stumbles today.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  They have been having stumbles for a while now.

• 56:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so the stumbles today, and I know Dieter has some deep thoughts about this. Android, Google announced Android Wear 2.0 is delayed until next year.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:08Nilay Patel?

  And Android Wear phones, not doing so great with the iPhone 7.

• 56:12Speaker 03

  Android Wear watches.

• 56:12Nilay Patel?

  Android, right. What's wrong with me today?

• 56:14Speaker 02

  Can I ask a very stupid question?

• 56:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:17Speaker 02

  What, what is Android Wear?

• 56:18Speaker 03

  It's Android smartwatch.

• 56:19Speaker 02

  Oh, okay, thank you.

• 56:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, there it is. Um, yeah.

• 56:23Speaker 03

  It's supposed to work with iPhones.

• 56:24Nilay Patel?

  It's supposed, and it did, and it still works with the iPhone 6. Everyone thought there was like an iOS 10 bug.

• 56:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:29Nilay Patel?

  But apparently still works fine on successes.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:31Nilay Patel?

  Specifically, the iPhone 7 does not work great with Android watches.

• 56:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:35Nilay Patel?

  Um, and they're delaying their platform for next year. So, and you, you are full of deep emotions here.

• 56:40Speaker 03

  So I feel like, um, for a hot minute, especially when the first version of the Apple Watch came out, that, uh, Android watches had a lead. They had a moment where they like, they had a smarter system. It was more focused. Um, it couldn't, it would still slow on apps, just like the Apple Watch, but it wasn't as dependent on those apps. It was like watch faces, notifications, just a little side of health. And let's make it work on lots and lots of different watches that look different. And they like, they could have built on that lead. And instead what happened was everybody bailed. Samsung bailed and made, you know, the Gear S2 and whatever. Um, nobody else is good at making the watches.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  And, uh, they got like Fossil involved and a few other companies and, um.

• 57:26Nilay Patel?

  The Nixon one looks really cool.

• 57:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, but like, but then things start, have started to like really, really, really stall. And they kept on getting bigger instead of smaller. And then, you know, they announced Wear 2.0 and like, there's a lot of interesting things in Wear 2.0. Uh, but it's still not as fitness focused as the Apple Watch, but that's fine because they added a bunch of complications. And it would be able to work with apps with the iPhone because it could directly connect to the internet over wifi. And like a bunch of like promising ideas. And then we knew that there is this new chip coming, which is now here, which would make it run faster and last longer. Also promising. And instead, the platform is delayed.

• 58:05Speaker 03

  A whole bunch of their core Android manufacturers said, yeah, now we're taking a pass for the rest of the year. So there won't be new watches for holiday, except for like the Nixon and the fossil.

• 58:15Speaker 03

  And like the whole, the whole platform is like a big shrugy. And in the meanwhile, Apple completely revamped their software platform and made it really good.

• 58:25Nilay Patel?

  So I'm wearing a series two. This thing is delightful.

• 58:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:29Nilay Patel?

  They like, it's fun in like a gadgety fun way, like the draw letters on the thing to send a text message. Super useless, but incredibly fun.

• 58:38Speaker 03

  Google did that with emoji first and then like they, they were at, they added like a keyboard and whatever to the 2.0 platform. Like they had some good ideas. They just didn't have the fitness stuff and they're just like not doing it. And they are getting lapped by Apple.

• 58:53Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I mean, like this thing, I think I figured it out. The, the first version of this watch, it like, it was so confusing that it made me frustrated and angry to wear it. And like, I think that kept people from wearing it. And this one is such a gadget, like in such a deeply nerdy gadget way. That I just enjoy fucking with it, which is all it needs to do. Like now I'm like, what else can I do with it? Because I just like, I just like poking at it. And that's like such a victory for this platform compared to before, when you would like push the button and be like, do you want to send your heartbeat to someone? And I'm like, no, I definitely don't want to do that again. Uh, but now I'm like, yeah, I definitely want my fantasy football garbage on here. Like it's dumb.

• 59:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:37Nilay Patel?

  It's definitely dumb, but it's dumb in such a like encouraging way.

• 59:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 59:42Nilay Patel?

  That like the best gadgets are like, I want to find more reasons to use it as opposed to thinking there's no reason to use them.

• 59:48Speaker 03

  You know what, you know, you're going to hate me for saying this.

• 59:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  It reminds me of the chumby in that fun dumb way, like the chubby was slow and bad, but like. If you don't remember the chubby, it was a nightstand that ran flash. But it had a screen on it.

• 1:00:04Nilay Patel?

  It was, it was.

• 1:00:05Speaker 03

  Alarm clock.

• 1:00:06Nilay Patel?

  That's what it was.

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  That sat on your nightstand and you could like put widgets on it to like do cute, fun little internet things in like an alarm clock. And like a little, like you could put the radio on it and like do all kinds of like fun, stupid things.

• 1:00:17Nilay Patel?

  Sony made a chubby. It was a whole platform.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  It was cute and like, yeah, it was like a fun thing to play with.

• 1:00:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  And like you, like you enjoyed figuring out how to do weird things on it.

• 1:00:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Um, but so then on top of that, on top of the fact that the platform is now fun, Apple's like, things are happening with the watch that are really interesting. So Eater ran a story today, um, Shake Shack, not Shake Shack.

• 1:00:40Speaker 03

  Shake Shack.

• 1:00:41Nilay Patel?

  Cut this.

• 1:00:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:42Nilay Patel?

  Eater ran a story today that's, um, Union Square Hospitality Group, which is a big fancy restaurant group, um, and Shake Shack. So Danny Meyer.

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  Was it Shake Shack or In-N-Out?

• 1:00:51Nilay Patel?

  It's Shake Shack.

• 1:00:51Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:00:52Nilay Patel?

  So Danny Meyer's two big restaurants groups, Shake Shack, Union Square Hospitality, um, a bunch of their managers and sommeliers and people are going to start wearing Apple watches. So if you show up at like a fancy Danny Meyer restaurant in New York and you're like, wait too long to get a drink, the hostess will get a beep on her wrist. Or the sommelier will know that like, he hasn't been by to talk about the wine and like the wrist will beep. At Shake Shack, if you show up at a big party, like they all get alerted, the big parties, it's like, they're doing like, the way that Google Glass found its home in enterprise for like, assembly line workers wearing Google Glass and like seeing a thing. The Apple watch is starting to find that home in like service industries, which is, when I talked to people about where they were wearing Apple watches before, it was always

• 1:01:35Nilay Patel?

  people who were on their feed all day who were like, I can't use my phone. Like I need to run around, it's super useful to have this information on my wrist. And now corporations are trying to roll it out. I know Liz has a lot of thoughts on this. Let me say the other story. Um, cause we talked about it earlier. Uh, and then Aetna, the insurance company is now going to give people, uh, like discounts, basically, they're going to pay people to wear the Apple watch and like be healthier, which is terrifying in one way and also like exactly the future that was predicted in another way. And then I'm just going to say Snapchat spectacles in that list.

• 1:02:05Speaker 02

  I just, I don't wanna wear a computer on my body and it's like all of this stuff. Oh man, I'm probably gonna get in trouble for saying this. It makes me feel really sympathetic to Ted Kaczynski, which is not a position I wanna be in.

• 1:02:20Nilay Patel?

  Wow. Nazis and Ted Kaczynski.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. Hey guys, how's it going? How you doing? You haven't fun on the Vergecast yet?

• 1:02:29Speaker 02

  No, but I mean like, you know, he talked about how like technology can be really alienating and aside from like bombing people, like if you read the manifesto, like some of the stuff he has to say is a pretty perceptive critique of, of technology. Like the ways in which it can be used as a, as a force of social control and a way to manipulate people. And like Aetna is a perfect example, right? Like you can see that going down a, like a route where it's like, either you agree to be constantly monitored by your health insurance company in an increasingly complex way that like, you know,

• 1:03:02Speaker 02

  like blood pressure, any of a variety of other things that like maybe as these sensors get better, you can do. Or you pay extremely high premiums and those are your options. Like you're either constantly surveilled by your insurance company, which doesn't seem that cool to me. Or you have to pay to have some privacy and those are your options. And like the Snapchat spectacles, my God, I hate them. I hate them.

• 1:03:27Speaker 03

  Hey, either you gotta, either you gotta pay money to buy the gadget to get the discount. Or you gotta pay more. They'll give you the gadget for free, maybe?

• 1:03:38Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah, no, but like.

• 1:03:39Speaker 03

  All I'm saying is like one, one more reason that if you use Android instead of the iPhone, you're a second class citizen. That's, that's all I'm saying.

• 1:03:46Nilay Patel?

  So Google can watch you at all times?

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Along those lines, I wrote a seminal piece about Google Glass in like 2012.

• 1:03:55Nilay Patel?

  Oh my.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  And everybody should read it because it keeps on coming true. Well, basically, I don't remember what it's called.

• 1:04:02Nilay Patel?

  It was called Paul Seminole Piece on Google Glass.

• 1:04:04Speaker 03

  I had a feeling about Google Glass.

• 1:04:05Nilay Patel?

  Definitely super not Googling that.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Google Glass Seminole.

• 1:04:11Nilay Patel?

  It's not gonna go well for you, buddy.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  Project Glass and the Epic History of Wearable Computers. So.

• 1:04:19Nilay Patel?

  Wait, did you get a result?

• 1:04:21Speaker 01

  I did a site search. But I did include Seminole in it.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  The when they were developing wearables, there was like already like this pushback against this like corporate design for them. And like, if you think about what this restaurant idea is, is that, oh, we have all these loosey goosey humans who like to do stupid things with their time. I wish our humans were more like robots or software so I could tweak variables and and.

• 1:04:56Speaker 03

  It's Taylorism.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Push, what's Taylorism?

• 1:04:58Nilay Patel?

  Oh, God, having Dieter and Liz on this podcast is just like.

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  Taylorism in the 1930s was like the original time when like they met, people thought that they could measure literally everything you did during the day. And so they would optimize the workplace and like move this thing three inches that way and like make sure that every single movement of every single worker was precisely and perfectly optimized.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  It's the dad in Cheaper by the Dozen.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Oh, man, I love that book.

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  I was like, I love this idea. Okay, so here's the thing. I hate that coming from the, especially in this sense that like our, we can turn our human workers into robots. But I love having a computer on me if it could make me smarter. If I was an employee and a computer was augmenting my intelligence and awareness so that I could do a better, better at my job. I'm really intrigued by that. But yeah, this idea that it's coming down from on high and, you know, my other complaint with Google Glass is all about taking your real life and being better at uploading it

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  to the internet and better at referencing the internet to, to, to do your real life. It was such a Google concept of the future. And that's my, I think the snap, snap, someone says snappedicles, they should have been called snappedicles. The snap, snap incorporated spectacles.

• 1:06:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Are, are fine and really fun because it's just, it's just another way to take pictures.

• 1:06:25Speaker 02

  It's a real gift to the upskirt community, I think.

• 1:06:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're gross.

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  They're on your face, though.

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're on your face and the lights are gonna be on. You have to have to work pretty hard.

• 1:06:37Speaker 03

  To be unnoticed while you take creep shots?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  I mean, right now, I saw somebody taking creep shots on the subway the other day and like you just you pulled up your phone like you're looking at something really closely.

• 1:06:48Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Taking a picture. You can be taking a picture while you do that.

• 1:06:51Speaker 03

  But you you I've seen it. You can see when when people are like on their phone and they're like, I'm on my phone, totally just texting right now. It's right up and then I'm back down, right?

• 1:07:02Nilay Patel?

  So the thing with the watch, which I think so there's two threads here and we should talk about.

• 1:07:06Speaker 01

  We're gonna get it all.

• 1:07:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we should talk about spectacles and then we gotta do another quick segment and then we gotta end this thing. Um, the thing with the watch is that Google stalled.

• 1:07:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:17Nilay Patel?

  And it feels like Apple's on an upswing.

• 1:07:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:19Nilay Patel?

  Because the thing is fun to use again. For the first, again, for the first time, fun to use. Uh, and other people are starting to find uses for it and as an app platform, it is now viable. Right? You can put an app on here and it will work.

• 1:07:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:07:34Nilay Patel?

  Right? And so like the whole Union Square hospitality, um, Shake Shack thing is there's a company called Resy, which is, it started as like pay to reserve restaurant and now they have the Resy OS.

• 1:07:46Speaker 03

  Oh, my God.

• 1:07:46Nilay Patel?

  The operating system for restaurant.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 1:07:48Nilay Patel?

  This is where we live. This is our time, 2016.

• 1:07:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:07:50Nilay Patel?

  Um, and so like they run the Resy app on the watch and so the Resy app does all the stuff for it. But you couldn't do that on the first one and you still couldn't do it in Android where.

• 1:07:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:07:58Nilay Patel?

  So now it's a platform for smartwatches. Apple's in the lead and they're like accelerating away.

• 1:08:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:03Nilay Patel?

  And whether or not the stuff is good or bad or constantly surveilling you. Like insurance companies will plug a computer into your car and like watch how you drive to lower your rates. Like that's already a world that we live in.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  It is.

• 1:08:12Nilay Patel?

  Now it's just like your heart rate. Like I would wear this if I would let my doctor look at stuff and be like, yo, buddy, heart attack coming. Like there there there's a world in which I would actually allow that to happen. I I suspect that more people would make that choice than not. But we.

• 1:08:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:30Nilay Patel?

  If you force the incentives of that choice to be bad, then you're in a bad place.

• 1:08:34Speaker 03

  But like, you shouldn't assume that.

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  You shouldn't assume that the incentives are gonna be good, right?

• 1:08:42Nilay Patel?

  No, absolutely not.

• 1:08:42Speaker 03

  You shouldn't assume that like, people are gonna maintain control of the computers on their bodies.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:08:46Speaker 03

  You shouldn't assume a lot of things.

• 1:08:49Nilay Patel?

  I, I don't assume that my parents will maintain control of the computers in their living room. Let's be clear, like, yes, I, I am very aware that computers can, can get away.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  I'm, I love self-driving cars as a technological problem. I think they're fascinating, but I am increasingly becoming concerned that these are like a new vector to, just basically, you know, like, we decided, when we decided to do martial law today, we decided to turn off all your cars.

• 1:09:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:18Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:09:19Speaker 01

  You know, and like, it's just, it's just like, people who are excited about not just self-driving cars, but also eradicating human drivers, seems scary to me.

• 1:09:29Speaker 03

  I don't know if they want to literally eradicate the human drivers.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  They do, they do.

• 1:09:33Speaker 03

  They don't, they don't literally want to eradicate the humans.

• 1:09:36Nilay Patel?

  If you make a steering wheel shaped with your hands in a self-driving car, it eliminates you.

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  Don't you get the idea?

• 1:09:44Nilay Patel?

  System threat detected.

• 1:09:49Nilay Patel?

  So we should, I just, spectacles.

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:51Nilay Patel?

  And I just wanna touch on it. So Snapchat last week, last Friday,

• 1:09:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:55Nilay Patel?

  announced spectacles. They changed the name of the company, Snap Inc. They're a camera company now. They're these glasses, they're round, they look crazy. They look like fun, but they're crazy. They're round, they take circular video, uh, they upload it to a phone.

• 1:10:08Speaker 03

  So you can watch it on your circular screens. What's a Motorola phone with a circular screen?

• 1:10:11Nilay Patel?

  Oh, the Aura.

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  Ah, yeah, there it is.

• 1:10:14Nilay Patel?

  Uh, that thing was rad.

• 1:10:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  Urban outfitters looking.

• 1:10:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they come in like rave colors. All the pictures, all the models and all the photos.

• 1:10:23Speaker 02

  Everybody's naked.

• 1:10:23Nilay Patel?

  Oh, they're naked.

• 1:10:24Speaker 02

  That's the rule. You can't wear them with your clothes on.

• 1:10:26Nilay Patel?

  It's like Snapchat, just lean into it, guys. Get in there. Sex with glasses on. That's what we're doing here at Snap Inc. Um, anyway.

• 1:10:35Speaker 01

  Well, I saw a video, they all did skateboarding. It was just like girl skateboarders. What, what are you guys looking at?

• 1:10:41Speaker 02

  The stills.

• 1:10:41Nilay Patel?

  The stills are all nude people.

• 1:10:43Speaker 02

  It's all like, it's shots like from, I was gonna say from here up, but I realized this is, this is audio only. So from the shoulders up and the shoulders are bare.

• 1:10:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:51Speaker 02

  So they, it, it gives you the appearance of everybody.

• 1:10:53Nilay Patel?

  It's a bunch of well-toned men wearing tube tops. You just can't see the tubes. Anyway, uh.

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  I did pick up on the horrible video quality of the skate video.

• 1:11:04Nilay Patel?

  Uh, but so Liz and I were like, Liz, you're, you hate this idea.

• 1:11:07Speaker 02

  I hate all of it.

• 1:11:08Nilay Patel?

  Explain why.

• 1:11:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, there are a couple of things. I, I hate the idea and it's becoming increasingly a thing that we have decided as a society that we want to do, that I have to be prepared to be viewed every single time I leave the house, right? Like, I, I, I'm a slob. Like, that's just, that's a well-known fact, right? Like, I'm not well-dressed. I don't really wear makeup. And I sometimes just leave the house in, like, you know, the clothes I slept in. And like, I don't think about my appearance that hard. And all of these things have to, have to do with like, your, your appearance and how you look, and potentially

• 1:11:53Speaker 02

  you are being like the background to somebody's story, or like, there are all of these moments where like, somebody uploads a photo of someone, is like, can you believe this person?

• 1:12:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:02Speaker 02

  And it's like, I don't, I'm like, I don't want to be on view all the time, or like, be ready to be on call for being on view all the time. And like, I just don't want to be surrounded, you know, by, by, by cameras constantly. And, you know, I, I know there are going to be people who are like, too bad, that's the world you live in now. Or how is this different from surveillance cameras? And like, surveillance cameras like have an obvious use, and like, they're also not very good.

• 1:12:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Speaker 02

  And like, that makes sense to me.

• 1:12:28Nilay Patel?

  They're not for social sharing.

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

  Right. Like, this is not one of those things where like, I have to think about, like, okay, like, I know I'm going to be going into the office and Dieter's going to be wearing his stupid Snapchat glasses. He's going to be like, snapping me to god knows who, like, especially if I make a weird face. So like, I need to just have my, like, it's, it's like a world, it's a very self-conscious world.

• 1:12:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So it was, Liz, I'm just recapping this conversation earlier. What got to me about that comment was... If you, if you come at this problem from a totally other perspective, which is, we're going to enhance your brain so that you have a better memory, you have a photographic memory, which is basically what Snapchat's trying to do, only the Snapchat stuff disappears. Like, the combination of elements here make this, to me, a very confusing, like, cultural artifact. Like, it's a camera for making things that go away, right? It's not a camera for, like, Google's purpose, which is constantly record the world around you and store them in the cloud for easy reference later.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Put it on Google+.

• 1:13:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the best, the best social network of them all. And I, that, to me, kind of changes the calculus, when it's, I want to share with some people, some limited set of people, what I'm seeing for just a fleeting moment.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  But, but you do keep it on your phone forever now.

• 1:13:45Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you do?

• 1:13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Nilay Patel?

  Oh, screw that, this thing is garbage.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  It's, it's fleeting for your audience on Snapchat.

• 1:13:51Nilay Patel?

  But it's, if it's stored, then it's not fleeting.

• 1:13:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Nilay Patel?

  If, if everything you see, if you could turn on spectacles, and it would share Snapchat style, you can watch for just 60 seconds and it's gone, that, that changes, to me, the calculus of, I have a camera on my face.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Liz, what about this? A computer you wear on your body at all times, broadcasts a beacon that says, "I'm opting out of Facebook and Google+ posts, you're allowed to put this on Snapchat." And if somebody takes a picture of you with a camera, and they attempt to put it up to Facebook or Google+, you're, like, just a silhouette, and then on Snapchat, you show up.

• 1:14:30Speaker 03

  What about, instead of a computer that broadcasts a beacon, you, you can have, like, a brown lanyard, a black lanyard, black, a black, you know, patch?

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:42Speaker 03

  And, all cameras by law have to have optical recognition, and when they see that black patch, they do not take your photo.

• 1:14:50Speaker 02

  That would be great. What would be even better is if some technologically-inclined person listening to this podcast who felt like a little sympathetic to me were to build something that would just, like, fritz out all cameras around me.

• 1:15:02Speaker 03

  You just want an EMP.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that is what I want.

• 1:15:05Speaker 03

  Someone sent Liz an EMP.

• 1:15:06Nilay Patel?

  Like a blister pack of EMPs, like Tic Tacs.

• 1:15:08Speaker 02

  Extremely limited, like, you know.

• 1:15:10Speaker 03

  Range EMPs. It's just a tiny nuclear bomb. Just a little guy.

• 1:15:14Speaker 01

  They're like gum, like Triton, you just, like, pop one out of the pack.

• 1:15:18Nilay Patel?

  Okay. I think, I think what happens with spectacles is, I don't know, I mean, they're cheap. They're 120 bucks. People love Snapchat. They, they will, they will do better than Google Glass. And I actually understand why Snapchat just couldn't build a camera because you have a great camera that their app runs on in your phone all the time. So they had to come up with another form factor and make that splash. But are people going to accept cameras on faces? I think still an open question. Right? Like, I think it'll be a novelty. People will like, give them away for Christmas. Will they actually wear them? Will they charge them at night?

• 1:15:54Speaker 02

  I think it's inherently hostile to wear a camera on your face.

• 1:15:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I, I think a lot of people are going to ask that question. Um, anyway, let me read this ad and then Paul, there's a thing you usually do. Anyway.

• 1:16:04Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:16:07Nilay Patel?

  Graphic Stock is a subscription-based stock media company. It gives you unlimited access to over 300,000 premium photos, illustrations, vectors, and design elements that everyone can afford. You get great value with an unlimited download model. There's actually the largest unlimited download library of graphics, photos, vectors, and images available to the creative community. Most websites charge you per download, costing you as much as $30 an image, which adds up quickly. But with Graphic Stock, you get unlimited downloads with your membership for an annual rate. There's no credits, there's no download limits, there's no hidden charges. You get the same content that you'd find in more expensive stock sites at a cheaper price, and they're always adding new content to the library so it stays fresh. So sign up for a seven-day free trial. You can download 140 pieces of content. It's only $99 for an annual subscription after that, which is less than $10 a month. Everything's 100% royalty-free, even if the subscription is canceled.

• 1:16:50Nilay Patel?

  You get unrestricted usage rights for personal or commercial projects, and you keep what you download and maintain those rights forever. So, exclusive for Vergecast people, you get a seven-day free trial today at graphicstock.com/vergecast. That's graphicstock.com/vergecast for a free seven-day trial.

• 1:17:09Nilay Patel?

  All right, it's time for our recurring segment. Paul?

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  Did it do it this week?

• 1:17:14Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  What?

• 1:17:15Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you son of a gun.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  This is a, this is a, this is a thing I do every week where I do the thing I was supposed to do.

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  I got all excited about like talking to Lauren and like setting that up and then we talked and then.

• 1:17:29Nilay Patel?

  Well, I got one.

• 1:17:30Speaker 03

  What's it called? What's the segment called that Paul does every week? Every week it's Paul who does it and every week it's called.

• 1:17:38Nilay Patel?

  Gadgetopia.

• 1:17:38Speaker 03

  Gadgetopia.

• 1:17:40Nilay Patel?

  Got you, buddy. Got your back. But I have a gadget, too.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, that's part of it. There's a name of the segment that it is every week and then there's also a gadget I talk about.

• 1:17:50Nilay Patel?

  Where is the guy? Hold on, I gotta get the name. I was ready, I was ready. No, we didn't put the name in the headline. So, hold on. It's the fuse case for the iPhone 7.

• 1:17:59Speaker 02

  Oh, is that the one that gives you?

• 1:18:02Nilay Patel?

  Gives you a headphone jack. It's a battery case with a headphone jack.

• 1:18:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:05Nilay Patel?

  I will say this.

• 1:18:06Speaker 03

  It's also an Indiegogo project.

• 1:18:07Nilay Patel?

  It's an Indiegogo project. I mean, it was the worst video of all time. Rock out with your ox out is their tagline. The man takes off most of his shirt during the video. He, because it's like a rock star. It's, all of it's bad, but.

• 1:18:26Speaker 02

  What is that with tech devices and shirtlessness?

• 1:18:28Speaker 03

  What would happen if everybody I've ever talked to in my entire life.

• 1:18:33Nilay Patel?

  I bought a Blu-ray player, I wasn't wearing a shirt within 20 minutes.

• 1:18:35Speaker 03

  What would happen if everybody in my entire life happened to be in a frat and then I decided to make an Indiegogo project? That video is what would happen. It's not a good video.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  There's a lot of Indiegogo. I feel like that's a big Indiegogo fuel.

• 1:18:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but anyway, there's, it's, it's the thing that you need.

• 1:18:54Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:18:54Nilay Patel?

  It's a thing that you need. It's, it's a battery case. It's got a, it's got a 2,400 milliamp hour battery for a 7 and 360 milliamp hour battery for the 7 plus. It charges via lightning, which seems like Apple will shut it down.

• 1:19:09Nilay Patel?

  It's basically a Mophie with a headphone jack and I'm sure Mophie will release one of these soon and this company will go out.

• 1:19:13Speaker 03

  But their first. So you have 7 or 7 plus?

• 1:19:15Nilay Patel?

  I don't have one yet. I have a 6S, bro.

• 1:19:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Wow.

• 1:19:19Nilay Patel?

  Sticking with, dude, I'm. Yeah, I'm a man of principle.

• 1:19:22Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  I am.

• 1:19:23Speaker 03

  I'm success.

• 1:19:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:25Speaker 03

  That's five.

• 1:19:26Speaker 02

  That is definitely a five.

• 1:19:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:27Speaker 03

  That's five.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  I am loving.

• 1:19:29Speaker 03

  How's your battery life? That's what I want to know.

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  The dongle life.

• 1:19:32Nilay Patel?

  Do you still just have the thing hanging on there?

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Oh, always.

• 1:19:35Speaker 03

  We're not gonna talk about dongles. I just want to know how your battery life is.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  It's great.

• 1:19:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  It's all I need. And I've never been in a scenario yet where I was like, man, I wish I could use headphones.

• 1:19:46Nilay Patel?

  Because the dongle is permanently plugged into your phone.

• 1:19:49Speaker 01

  No, no, no. What I mean, I haven't, because the other thing about these cases and these adapters.

• 1:19:53Nilay Patel?

  Do you make phone calls with that thing hanging off the end?

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  I don't make phone calls.

• 1:20:00Nilay Patel?

  All right, fine.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  No, I love that. So the dongle.

• 1:20:02Speaker 03

  Stop talking about the dongle.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  Sticks up out of my pocket.

• 1:20:06Speaker 03

  See, it's like a little lanyard so you can grab it?

• 1:20:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:09Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  So you can like plug in your headphones without taking your phone out.

• 1:20:12Nilay Patel?

  This is 100% Stockholm syndrome. What you were describing is Stockholm. He's like, yes, I'm confined to a cage, but they feed me macaroni and cheese. That's what you're saying right now.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  Remember how phones used to have that little hook on them and then you could like, put like a little keychain or a lanyard or whatever?

• 1:20:30Speaker 02

  I don't remember this.

• 1:20:31Nilay Patel?

  It was a whole thing. Foot phones had a little loop.

• 1:20:32Speaker 01

  Fuzzy dice.

• 1:20:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:34Speaker 01

  There's all sorts of things.

• 1:20:35Nilay Patel?

  And you could buy higher chains of things.

• 1:20:37Speaker 02

  I just don't remember it.

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  Some, sometimes it was more of a.

• 1:20:40Nilay Patel?

  It wasn't big in this country.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  It's more of a Japanese thing.

• 1:20:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:20:43Speaker 03

  Palm, palm had them.

• 1:20:45Nilay Patel?

  Everybody had them.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  But that's, that's what this is to me. It's like, it's just like a little, hey, this is where we're going. Someday there'll be wireless headphones. That'll be great. For now, you can plug in your headphones that you love into this. It's, everything's fine. I haven't.

• 1:20:59Nilay Patel?

  Everything's fine. I haven't. You haven't lost it because you leave it plugged into your phone. That's ridiculous.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Yes. And then at night, I unplug it from my phone, but I plug it into my headphones and then I charge my phone. And I, I have plenty. Right now, this is a two day phone.

• 1:21:16Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 1:21:17Speaker 03

  We just figured.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  I haven't had for a while and I'm really appreciating that.

• 1:21:20Nilay Patel?

  Um. Okay.

• 1:21:23Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:21:23Nilay Patel?

  It's just.

• 1:21:24Speaker 03

  Everyone take an emotional beat.

• 1:21:27Nilay Patel?

  I know that was rough for everyone. Dieter, I want you to do a one minute next week, October 4th. Huge Google event.

• 1:21:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:35Nilay Patel?

  Lots of stuff going on. Give me your preview.

• 1:21:38Speaker 03

  Uh, so there's been just a gazillion rumors. Um, we are expecting, uh, new phones. Uh, we're expecting to be called the Pixel, not the Nexus.

• 1:21:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:48Speaker 03

  Um, we are expecting we'll finally get release dates for a bunch of the stuff that Google talked about in May at Google I/O, including the Google Home Speaker Assistant thingamajig.

• 1:21:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:57Speaker 03

  And, uh, Daydream VR.

• 1:21:59Nilay Patel?

  Ooh, that's a big one.

• 1:22:01Speaker 03

  Yep. And, uh, there's a bunch of other rumors for a bunch of other little things.

• 1:22:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I saw one today. I saw mockups of Chromecast. I'm really hot on the Chromecast.

• 1:22:08Speaker 03

  It looks like it's like one of my favorite things.

• 1:22:10Nilay Patel?

  But no, no Chrome logo. It's a Google logo.

• 1:22:12Speaker 03

  Well, okay.

• 1:22:13Nilay Patel?

  It seems like they're, they're gonna try to be a hardware.

• 1:22:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, the teaser is made by, made by Google. Uh, so like it's gonna be Google hardware.

• 1:22:21Nilay Patel?

  And this is like the big Rick Ostrow.

• 1:22:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:23Nilay Patel?

  He's the head of hardware Google.

• 1:22:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. Also the man who murdered Ara.

• 1:22:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And also the man who, who stares at the good ship Nest with nothing but fire in his eyes.

• 1:22:35Nilay Patel?

  Right? They're gonna do a made by Google event and they have a whole hardware company over there and they're like, you know what? You stay outside.

• 1:22:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:22:41Nilay Patel?

  Um.

• 1:22:42Speaker 03

  But I, we did a whole riff on the, my thought about their little teaser video where the search box turns into a phone.

• 1:22:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:47Speaker 03

  We did that already. Okay. My, there you go.

• 1:22:49Nilay Patel?

  The search box turns into a phone.

• 1:22:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. If you want to know what I think of it and you didn't hear that riff, just watch that video and ponder. Think on, think on the search box transforming into a phone.

• 1:22:59Nilay Patel?

  But I will say, um, it was Hiroshi Lockhammer.

• 1:23:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:23:02Nilay Patel?

  He tweeted, like 10 years ago, Android came out and this will be eight years ago. He tweeted, eight years ago, Android came out. This will be a day that is marked the same. And it's like, man.

• 1:23:11Speaker 03

  People talk about this in eight years.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  I feel, I, I was at the, the Android launch event. And I remember now that Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

• 1:23:23Nilay Patel?

  Came out in roller blades. Yeah.

• 1:23:26Nilay Patel?

  That was like, that was like peak Sergey. Yeah. Right. He's like, you know what? Regular shoes are dumb.

• 1:23:30Speaker 02

  The planet.

• 1:23:31Nilay Patel?

  Every other time you see me, I'll be wearing a different kind of crazy shoe. This one has wheels in a lot. Like, it's like his whole thing. He's like, shoes are dumb. Yeah. But no, Google's raising expectations crazy. There's a lot of camera suite. There's like statues in Brooklyn. There's projections on the wall. There's commercials during Monday night football. Uh, so yeah, they're, they're, they're going big.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  I've also been researching the history of the, the Google phone.

• 1:23:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  Which was like Nexus one was kind of called the Google phone because it was Google's first phone.

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  They did such a bad job.

• 1:24:08Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  On the Nexus one? I love the Nexus one. It's a beautiful device.

• 1:24:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:13Speaker 01

  But they stopped selling it after about six months online.

• 1:24:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:17Speaker 01

  They shut down their support forum, made it like read only, and then like folded it into something else. Like they had no support for it. There's like class action lawsuits about like the reception. It's just.

• 1:24:29Nilay Patel?

  Had trackball though.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  Great track.

• 1:24:31Nilay Patel?

  It did have a track. Like glow different colors. Yeah, it did.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  Bring back the track ball.

• 1:24:37Nilay Patel?

  Have you held Nexus one recently?

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:24:39Nilay Patel?

  Dude, it is tiny.

• 1:24:40Speaker 01

  It's a little chubby though.

• 1:24:41Nilay Patel?

  No, it's so, it, it just, it feels so wee. It feels so little. It's amazing. All the friends from that era, feet feel super tiny. Yeah. Like the original droid, you're like, I remember thinking that thing was a tank and I held one again recently and I was like, ah. Yeah. Ah, yeah. All of our expectations have changed.

• 1:24:57Speaker 01

  Original droid had bunches of magnets on the back. That's, see, that's what we need.

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  Magnets?

• 1:25:01Nilay Patel?

  Crazy hardware innovation.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  Magnets, roller balls and roller blades.

• 1:25:05Nilay Patel?

  Term permanently attached dongles, keyboards.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  You want something memorable? Make me remember it.

• 1:25:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. When with that, we end the show. Uh, um, but I want to call out a, a big feature on the site this week that we didn't have a chance to talk about. Uh, Ben Popper, uh, Tom Connors and was it Tyler?

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  Tyler.

• 1:25:24Nilay Patel?

  Tyler Pena went to China, uh, went to, uh, DJI's big robot competition, uh, called Robo Wars. It is an amazing feature. It's. Chinese college students competing in basically BattleBots tournament and the prize is a job at DJI, which is like incredible. So read that, watch that video, it's really great. Ben also got Scoop and then DJI, Mavic Pro, they're super tiny drone. Foldable drone. Foldable drone, which is really cool, so check that out. I want to call that out. It was a big trip. There's a bunch of actually other reporting they did in China, so you'll see a bunch of stories in that trip come out over the site, come out on the site over the next couple of weeks, but RoboWars was a big feature, so go check that out. Dieter, you can look at, you can look at his tweets.

• 1:26:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:05Nilay Patel?

  At Backlon. Liz is at Ms. Lopato.

• 1:26:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, Ms. Lopato.

• 1:26:09Nilay Patel?

  Ms. Lopato, if you will. Paul is at FuturePaul, or FuturayPaul.

• 1:26:14Speaker 01

  FuturayPaul. By the way, it's Rise of the Robomasters.

• 1:26:18Nilay Patel?

  Rise of the Robomasters.

• 1:26:19Speaker 01

  Is the name of the feature.

• 1:26:20Nilay Patel?

  You gotta read it.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Also, I searched for Paul Miller Google Glass Seminole and it said, "Did you mean Paul Miller Google Glass Seminar?"

• 1:26:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And it's actually, Paul did record a two-hour college seminar about Google Glass in his 201 level course.

• 1:26:36Speaker 03

  I was real afraid of where that was gonna go, but it turned out okay.

• 1:26:39Nilay Patel?

  I was also terrified. I'm at Reckless on Twitter, you can follow at Verge on Twitter, you can hit us on Snapchat, Verge, Instagram, Verge, Verge Science on Twitter, at Verge Science, tons of stuff there. I'm supposed to thank Andrew Moreno, our producer who is not here producing the show this week. Yeah, we have Mark. So, don't know why you put that note in, Paul, but Mark's doing a great job in dealing with a bunch of edits. Also, all the, tons of other stuff to listen to. What's Tech Hits every Tuesday with Chris Plant. Control Alt Delete, it was actually one year anniversary of Control Alt Delete this week.

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:27:05Nilay Patel?

  Me and Walt. That is out, you can go check it out. On the Recode side, Lauren Good has Too Embarrassed to Ask, Kara Swisher has Recode Decode, and Peter Kafka has Recode Media, which is one of my very favorites. All that stuff is iTunes.com/The Verge. That's it for our show. Rock and roll.