Dutch Teens Who Solve Crimes

This week's episode is a whirlwind of news, thoughts, and feelings. Dieter Bohn regales us with his final assessment SXSW, Nilay Patel cannot get over the size of an Acer Chromebook, Ross Miller believes in a future of cord cutting, and for the first time ever, Helen Havlak is in the hype chair to keep things in hype check. Plus, our hosts map out the pilot of a new Dutch children's mystery show. 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.

• 0:00Nilay Patel?

  This episode of The Vergecast is brought to you by Squarespace and the moderate amount of echo on my voice. Squarespace is the easiest way to build a beautiful website, blog, or online store for you and your ideas. Squarespace features an elegant interface, beautiful templates, and incredible 24/7 customer support. You can just ask them anything about the web.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, about the web.

• 0:20Nilay Patel?

  How do I tweet? You ask Squarespace.

• 0:22Speaker 01

  And they'll tell you.

• 0:23Nilay Patel?

  Who knows? Try Squarespace at Squarespace. I mean, they could tell you, but try it. Try it at Squarespace.com.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 0:29Nilay Patel?

  Use offer code VERGE at checkout to get 10% off and then ask them how to tweet. Squarespace, build it beautiful.

• 0:44Nilay Patel?

  Hello, welcome to The Vergecast. This note here says that we're recording this on March 19th, 2015.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  That is true.

• 0:50Nilay Patel?

  But it is The Vergecast for the week of March 16th.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:54Nilay Patel?

  So three days have elapsed in this week, which is cool.

• 0:58Speaker 01

  We've done it that way for 145 episodes. Not to say you sound surprised, but you sound incredibly surprised by this.

• 1:05Nilay Patel?

  I just, I don't know about the date thing. People say they really like it. They really want me to tell them some, they want some marker in the ground of what time it is.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:18Nilay Patel?

  Right?

• 1:19Speaker 01

  But he always has to track three days every time you do this.

• 1:21Nilay Patel?

  It's very confusing. For years, we've been looking at calendars to understand what week it is. Us as humans. Dieter is very surprised. Hello, this is The Vergecast. I'm just gonna, to my right is...

• 1:35Speaker 01

  Dieter Bone.

• 1:36Nilay Patel?

  To my left is...

• 1:37Speaker 01

  Ross Miller.

• 1:38Nilay Patel?

  And here's something that's very exciting and very special. The hype desk today is filled by...

• 1:43Speaker 02

  Helen Havlak.

• 1:44Nilay Patel?

  Helen Havlak.

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Her swag is deep.

• 1:47Nilay Patel?

  Her swag is deep. Here's what you need to know about Helen. Helen is our engagement editor.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:53Nilay Patel?

  She is Sam's boss.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:55Nilay Patel?

  That is the real deal. So if you watch this show or listen to this show regularly and you're like, man, that's Sam. Who's keeping him in line? It's...

• 2:05Speaker 01

  How about hype check Sam Sheffer?

• 2:07Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's rough. He can't do that. She's drinking.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Sam Sheffer beef.

• 2:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  I did not, I did not fire Sam Sheffer. He's on vacation. We miss you, Sam.

• 2:19Nilay Patel?

  We do. Have you seen Sam Sheffer's vacation photos? Helen just delivered that like a refugee.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  I am not being held against my will.

• 2:28Nilay Patel?

  I am saying.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Black is okay.

• 2:29Nilay Patel?

  Here's, here's today's New York Times.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  You did however, forever destroy his nameplate though.

• 2:37Nilay Patel?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  We just look at that.

• 2:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Sam's nameplate usually says his swagacity and that's.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  Well, he, he took his supreme hat with him.

• 2:44Nilay Patel?

  Oh.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  So I couldn't wear it today.

• 2:47Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man. This is gonna be amazing. Hype check me demanding that you be on the show eight minutes before the show started.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Bust.

• 2:58Speaker 01

  That's not right.

• 2:59Nilay Patel?

  No, Sam is at South by, we, we are gonna get to.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  He's at South by hanging with like celebrities and wearing white headbands and doing all kinds of crazy stuff.

• 3:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, actually, why not? We've got all this PlayStation stuff to talk about, but let's, let's actually start with South by. You were there.

• 3:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:12Nilay Patel?

  Um, Emily is still there. She's never coming home.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Ever. No.

• 3:16Nilay Patel?

  Uh, Sam literally just snapping pictures of himself and, uh, his like crew. He's there with like a crew.

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Same crew every year.

• 3:24Nilay Patel?

  They're all wearing headbands and floral shirts. This is true.

• 3:27Speaker 03

  Frodo Baggins is hanging out with him.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  What?

• 3:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, the actor.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, no, not the actual character, of course. Yes, but.

• 3:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Wait. Are you sure? That'd be wild if Sam was like, yo, I met Frodo. The real Frodo is here.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  Oh, you made Elijah Wood? Nah, man. Frodo Baggins.

• 3:44Nilay Patel?

  So, but Dieter, you were there.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:46Nilay Patel?

  Tell me about South by a little.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Uh, I will tell you that it was super duper crowded. It was just a billion people there. So South by is split between three sections and maybe like a fourth little one now. So there's interactive, then there's film and there's music. And then now they have like a sports, which is as far as I can tell is people hanging out the Four Seasons, playing lawn darts. Whatever. And there's like a bunch of panels, so you don't expect a ton of news. You go there to like hear smart people say smart things and go to like panels that have a potential to be really interesting. And then sometimes they are and sometimes they're not. This year, um, because they were just so freaking many of them, a bunch of them were super interesting. Uh, I went to one that was terrible, which was, uh, Hologramma, which is, uh, trying to bring back your dead grandmother as a hologram in your living room.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  What?

• 4:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was the, the promise, but the actual execution. And was just people talking about holograms.

• 4:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so there's like no logistics like we look at grandma's old tweets or photo.

• 4:41Speaker 03

  No, they never got that far. No, but like it was, it was a good show. So the this year, for the first time in many years, there wasn't actually like an app of South by Southwest. Usually, you know, like Twitter got its start there and like foursquare did. And it used to be that you your app couldn't make it at South by because it was the only time that you had a critical mass of people using iPhones in one place. But now that's called America. So you don't really need it to do that anymore.

• 5:09Nilay Patel?

  Real pro burn.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  No, but but Meerkat became a thing this year.

• 5:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  If only because like on the eve of South by Southwest starting, Twitter realized that they were letting them use their social graph.

• 5:21Nilay Patel?

  Tell the people what Meerkat is.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  So Meerkat is a live streaming app and you hit a button and you're streaming. But the thing that's clever about it is that they integrated with Twitter where if you, once you signed up, it imported all of your friend info from Twitter. And so like you would automatically have the social network of people using Meerkat that would get alerts when you're broadcasting built into it. And that's really smart. And I would say the funny thing that happened was I tweeted that Meerkat is over because I saw that at ATT had signed up. And then like four hours later, Twitter cut it off from being able to access that graph. And I actually do think those things are kind of related because the social graph as it's known is super valuable. And if Twitter is going to let

• 6:04Speaker 03

  big corporations that usually pay Twitter money for access to that friend list to tweet at is able to just take it, get it for free and put it on a social network. That's really bad.

• 6:14Nilay Patel?

  It's also like, it's like Meerkat is like a functionality that Twitter wants to have.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, they bought a company called Periscope. And so it's coming. So and supposedly Periscope is like technically better from people who have tried it. Whatever. Meerkat is like surprisingly compelling, though. They have a really interesting interface where you see the bubbles of people that are watching you and then they tweet at you to like, give you replies right in the video feed as you're recording it.

• 6:37Nilay Patel?

  But they are tweets.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  They're tweets.

• 6:38Nilay Patel?

  That's like the thing. Everything about Meerkat makes me feel like a creeper.

• 6:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:43Nilay Patel?

  Right. It's like someone is like you get the notification, like the notifications are out of control. Um, so like if you have them turned on every time anyone that you follow on Twitter starts meerkatting, you get a notification.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 6:58Nilay Patel?

  So I follow like 2,000 people on Twitter. So like for a week, it was like my phone was dying at like two o'clock every day and I finally turned them off.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  I have a confession. I have not seen a meerkat at all.

• 7:08Nilay Patel?

  So here's what meerkat is.

• 7:09Speaker 03

  Drunken people saying how interesting I am.

• 7:11Nilay Patel?

  I believe meerkat is a social experiment designed to condition people to making phone flashes okay in bars.

• 7:21Nilay Patel?

  Because every meerkat stream looks like that one Fiona Apple video.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Criminal.

• 7:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:25Speaker 03

  No.

• 7:26Nilay Patel?

  You know, you know what I'm talking about.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 7:27Nilay Patel?

  Like every meerkat stream looks like that, like drunk sweaty people with just like a light in their face, like looking surprised and somewhat guilty. You know, I mean, and sexy.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Of course. It's also like ephemeral, like you, once you're done.

• 7:41Nilay Patel?

  And they're gone.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  There's no archives.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  You can save it to your phone locally.

• 7:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:44Speaker 03

  After you meerkat. Is that the verb to meerkat?

• 7:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  One meerkats.

• 7:48Nilay Patel?

  Hype check. Hype check, meerkat. Actually, this is a great hype check for you. Helen is a social media expert.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  I don't know if I'm a social media expert. We, we call them SMDBs.

• 7:57Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  And I don't want to be.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  What? You have an acronym?

• 8:03Speaker 02

  No, I have not used meerkat. I have not used meerkat.

• 8:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Uh, although Sam Sheffer has been meerkatting quite a bit from the South by. If you're looking for someone to follow a meerkat, Sam Sheffer is your guy.

• 8:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  I would say, I mean, if, if, at least it's not like its own complete standalone thing, right? So it lives in Twitter. So I, I think about like trying to stay on top of like Snapchat and Instagram and every other platform. So something that plugs into Twitter as opposed to trying to launch as a completely freestanding app seems like a smart idea. Uh, I can't tell if it's going to last more than like two weeks.

• 8:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm like, losing Twitter cards is a big thing. Like so few companies, like if they live on it.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  When they lost, they lost the cards.

• 8:47Nilay Patel?

  They lost the graph.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  They lost the card. They lost the social graph.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Oh, never mind. I take that back.

• 8:50Nilay Patel?

  But the, that was like, when you sign up for, for meerkat, you immediately just were connected to everyone on Twitter that you were connected to.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 9:00Nilay Patel?

  Now you're not. Right now you're like, oh, you're adrift.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Alone.

• 9:04Speaker 01

  Just lost.

• 9:04Speaker 03

  It's like L, but with video.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Ooh. That is not

• 9:09Nilay Patel?

  LLO with video is like, you could definitely get a, like some VC

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, you could definitely get like $5 million right now.

• 9:14Nilay Patel?

  Super stripped down social work with no ads.

• 9:16Speaker 03

  The sound of my voice, $5 million is waiting for you to start LLO with video. So what else happened? The brands were everywhere, brands. But at this point, I've accepted brands, like we've hit peak brand and now it's just part of the the fabric of South by Southwest and you can't be angry about them taking over because that's all there is anymore.

• 9:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  We sent, if you haven't watched it, we, we sent Emily to sleep overnight. She actually chose to sleep overnight in the pop up Bates motel.

• 9:43Nilay Patel?

  Demand that she sleep in a CD motel.

• 9:45Speaker 03

  And it was a weird brand activation experience. That's what they're called.

• 9:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, wait, wait.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Define activation.

• 9:53Nilay Patel?

  Again, I'm pointing, hype check, brand activations. Helen knows all this, this lingo.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  I mean, summer beef and summer bust. I think that's the, that's the lesson of Emily's video, right?

• 10:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  As she goes activation by activation and says, do I feel activated by this brand?

• 10:08Nilay Patel?

  But what is a brand activation?

• 10:11Speaker 02

  I think it started as a word. It's a word I'm very familiar with. I think it was like, people felt like it wasn't cool anymore to say, we have a booth. Like having a booth was not cool enough. And then it was like experience.

• 10:25Nilay Patel?

  Oh, so this is like CES booths explode out in the real world.

• 10:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  So, so when a brand activates, it activates unto you? Like you are like, just like consumed?

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 03

  You, you get activated, the brand gets activated.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  So it's mutual activation?

• 10:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:40Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 10:40Speaker 03

  It's all has to stop.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  But brand experience and brand activation are both things and they're somehow different. Like a brand experience is something you come up to and I think that's like the area. But the brand is activating at the events, right? So you'll hear marketing people be like, we're activating at South by. So it's like we're

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Do they think they're Transformers?

• 11:01Speaker 02

  All of our beautiful branding, like the trucks are converging on Austin, Texas. And we're activating there.

• 11:08Nilay Patel?

  Wow, all that sounds terrible. But you know, it's funny because we've, when you say we've hit peak brand, like that's real, right? Like now, now we just joke about it. There was a time when like

• 11:18Speaker 03

  We were heartbroken about it.

• 11:20Nilay Patel?

  When I was like, yes, when I was like a young, but a young punk rocker. I'd be like, I'm gonna write a guitar song about these brands. And now I don't think that happens.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  No.

• 11:28Nilay Patel?

  I think Samsung just sponsors the young punk rockers.

• 11:31Speaker 03

  Straight up. Last thing, Emily's there, she's covering music. We've covered a bunch of film. This is like the best parts of South by Southwest were the, was the entertainment, was the films. There's a film called Ex Machina, which looks great.

• 11:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm like a little bit obsessed with this movie.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  No, but the thing you actually should be obsessed with, and I would, if you had told me this, and you're gonna hear me saying these words to you, and you're not going to believe me. But unfriended, everything that I hear from everybody that's seen it. So the, the whole movie, the whole screen is a Skype call. It, the, the camera never leaves the screen. It's just the Skype call between these friends that are ostensibly being picked off one by one by the ghost of a, a girl that committed suicide after being bullied.

• 12:15Nilay Patel?

  Really? Does the call, how often does the call drop?

• 12:19Speaker 03

  So it's not very realistic.

• 12:20Nilay Patel?

  Can they hear each other the whole time? Does the video get blocky?

• 12:24Speaker 03

  But it sounds like a, like a horrible gimmick, but apparently it's just super duper compelling because like they, they just, it stays on the screen and you don't know where to look. And like, things are happening in the Skype call and it just works really well. I never would have guessed it, but both Emily and Brian saw it and they both like, can't stop talking about it or thinking about it.

• 12:42Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, the trailer itself actually looked kind of interesting. Like, it's like surprising that MTV's gonna come up with it. I get it's like it's teens, a millennial age.

• 12:49Nilay Patel?

  Wait, it's MTV movie?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  MTV movie.

• 12:51Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:53Nilay Patel?

  What is going on at MTV?

• 12:54Speaker 03

  They, they

• 12:55Nilay Patel?

  I follow MTV on Twitter and on Instagram for some reason. And like most of what MTV makes now is like teen, teen girl tweets. I don't, like, I don't even know what to say. They're like, like honestly, like, and then they made a horror movie? That's wild.

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. What does MTV do now?

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Whatever it wants, apparently.

• 13:12Nilay Patel?

  What are you on TV? I don't know.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  It's active.

• 13:15Nilay Patel?

  It's active.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  One, the other video, if you haven't watched it, that you absolutely must watch. Man, I want to talk about everything. I want to talk about Addy's insane horrible VR porn.

• 13:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, like we did a lot of stuff.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  It's a beautiful piece.

• 13:27Speaker 03

  And then Brian waited in line for nine hours to see Furious Seven. I rolled in like two hours and saw it with him.

• 13:36Nilay Patel?

  Dude, dick move.

• 13:38Speaker 03

  I know, I'm such a dick.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  How was Furious Seven? That was spoiling it. How was it?

• 13:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I want to know everything about this movie.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  Do you like CG? Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's a piece of the Fast and Furious movies. I will say that it is, it is very strange that our organization, like, it is interwoven, the history of The Verge as a, as a thing. Do you like? As a brand unto itself, is interwoven with the Furious series. Do you like seeing car chases or fight scenes where you're pretty sure the film is just being sped up? Yes.

• 14:14Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  It's a more concentrated dose of awesome.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. But not like sped up to like, like you see it sped up, it's sped up just because like they couldn't get the car to go that fast, so they just sped it up.

• 14:25Speaker 02

  But didn't we hear that they actually threw the cars out of the airplanes that are seen in the trailer?

• 14:30Speaker 03

  That I believe.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Yes, like they tried to feature, I mean, there is CG to it still.

• 14:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  But at some point during production, they threw cars out of a plane.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, but there's, there's like moments where they're just like on the street and you're like, yeah, no, that's not real. I was like, why, why? No.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Wait, did CG the normal moments?

• 14:45Speaker 03

  That's what I'm saying.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  It's like, we have fast cars, that's real. Getting coffee? I don't know, let's CG that.

• 14:51Speaker 03

  Well, okay, the other thing is.

• 14:51Nilay Patel?

  You gotta spend your money where you spend your money.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  They did ask us to not reveal what happens to Paul Walker's character, so.

• 14:57Nilay Patel?

  Okay, all right. We're doing, I mean, I'm saying the amount of Furious Seven coverage that will come out of The Verge is like maybe a little.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, but you should watch the video where, where we, we go on Brian's epic adventure. You should watch the video where, where Emily goes on an epic adventure. You should watch the video where Addy goes on an epic adventure in the gaming hall and got to see like millions of six-year-olds using Oculus Rifts.

• 15:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Oculus Rift.

• 15:18Nilay Patel?

  This is the first year I've ever wanted to be at South by Southwest.

• 15:21Speaker 03

  It was, it was a good year.

• 15:22Nilay Patel?

  I went twice. Helen is shaking her head. How many times have you been to South by?

• 15:25Speaker 02

  Three times.

• 15:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and each time progressively worse?

• 15:30Speaker 02

  You know, they, they say it's the best time to be in San Francisco is during.

• 15:36Nilay Patel?

  Is that a saying? It's just like a, like a really bad Tony Bennett song.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  No, I mean.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  The best time to be in San Francisco.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  It's like, South by, South by is fun. South by is also super crowded. It is long lines. It's the inability to catch a cab, which are two of my least favorite things about New York. So, but it has breakfast tacos. So.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  It does have breakfast tacos.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true.

• 16:03Nilay Patel?

  That is just awesome. But we have like, you know, there are people at our company who like live and work in Austin. And they are just like, they are the worst.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  And they are all secretly plotting to move headquarters to Austin.

• 16:13Nilay Patel?

  They're all secret and then, and they all just like, every time you go, yeah, now I have to go back home like,

• 16:19Nilay Patel?

  I must suck for you. I go home to my beautiful Texas villa. I don't know. I don't know what kind of houses you have in Texas.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  They all have ranches, right? They have, they have ranches.

• 16:28Nilay Patel?

  They have ranches. Trey, our chief product officer, lives there. He has like a bright orange, like Challenger.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I rode in that thing.

• 16:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 16:34Speaker 03

  I rode in that thing at like 105 miles an hour.

• 16:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Trey doesn't believe in a rule of law.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  It felt like 20 miles an hour.

• 16:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  He's, it was great.

• 16:42Nilay Patel?

  Really jealous. I really want a car.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  Anyway, that South by Moore's coming.

• 16:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:46Nilay Patel?

  No, I'm saying every night I might go on eBay Motors and look at old cars. I almost bought like a 1986 Ferrari. It was $10,000. I was like, that seems like a reasonable thing.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  I don't know what it is. I feel like since we've been launching the transportation hub, the auto hub,

• 17:04Speaker 01

  Chris is like, just gotten us all obsessed with driving. Like I miss driving now. I never thought I would say that.

• 17:09Nilay Patel?

  No, cars are cool now. I'm gonna buy a Tesla.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  What?

• 17:13Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. No, I'm not. And look, I, last night I looked at old M3s. I should have Chris on the show. I looked at old M3s. I looked at Mustangs, which I always look at, and then I fell down a conversion van hole.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  No.

• 17:23Nilay Patel?

  Like I just typed.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  Well, did you have, did they have like wizards brush painted on the side?

• 17:27Nilay Patel?

  No, they're like, they're really weird now.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, they always were.

• 17:30Nilay Patel?

  They're now, they're ridiculously expensive. They're like 70 to $80,000.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:36Nilay Patel?

  One, the one I looked at had like a 15 inch TV in it, but then there was a really crappy one. Uh, and one of the main selling points was like, it literally was a picture of like an old crappy flat screen and said, there is a Chromecast connected to this TV. And it's like, Chromecast costs $30. Like, why would you put that in your eBay ad for a van? Why are you looking at eBay ads for vans? I don't know, man. Look, some people have hobbies and I need one. All right. Speaking of Chrome.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Oh, nice, nicely done.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Good transition, good transition.

• 18:09Speaker 03

  So you guys didn't talk about this last week, right?

• 18:10Nilay Patel?

  We did not talk about this last, why don't we go through it? You reviewed, you reviewed one thing and Dan reviewed another thing.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  Chromebook Pixel.

• 18:16Nilay Patel?

  Wait, hype check conversion vans.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 18:19Nilay Patel?

  That's not a good face at all.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Buzz, zero out of 10 would not enter. Especially with Neelai driving.

• 18:28Nilay Patel?

  No, I would, you don't. I wouldn't, I'd be in the back playing Nintendo on the TV in the car.

• 18:35Speaker 03

  It's just getting creepier, dude. Come to, come to my conversion van and in the back with me, I'm play, I've got Nintendo.

• 18:42Nilay Patel?

  I had one growing up, it's like a, they're like fond memories.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 18:45Nilay Patel?

  What? Every year, I used to, when I lived in Chicago, every year I'd go to the Chicago Auto Show.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Okay, and you've played Nintendo.

• 18:51Nilay Patel?

  And we would look at all the, we'd look at all the fun cars. Right, like, you know, here's, here's like a Corvette and here's like a Ferrari and now we're gonna sit in the Aston. And then in the back of the halls, like the conversion van area. And it would just be like me and a bunch of dudes and then like a bunch of like angry dates. But the dudes and I would like be excited about the vans and we'd go in there and we would like lay back and we would watch like Santana videos. Cause that's what, that's how you, that's 100% how you display a conversion van at a car show is you just like turn on a Santana video and like dude just like, oh yeah. This is how to travel.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Did like the live concert.

• 19:26Nilay Patel?

  In a van with a T, yeah.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Oh man.

• 19:28Nilay Patel?

  There's like 7.1 channel sound, I got it, I'm gonna buy a conversion. All right, talk about the Pixel.

• 19:34Speaker 03

  Uh, this is Pixel, it's Chromebook, it costs a thousand bucks. Uh, it is the exact same design as last time, by and large, there's like tweaks. Um, and it's stupid fast and the battery lasts forever.

• 19:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I got a text from Dieter that was like, the battery test is still going.

• 19:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, it just kept going and going and going.

• 19:53Nilay Patel?

  You're like eight hours in and you were still like 50%.

• 19:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, so it's 14 on our test, uh, Google rates it a 12. Um, and it's like, it's really fast, uh, I like, I really want one.

• 20:05Nilay Patel?

  Everybody who comes in contact with that thing wants one.

• 20:08Speaker 03

  And then you should not buy one.

• 20:10Nilay Patel?

  Right, because it's a thousand dollars.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Right, for your own browser. And Chrome OS is still not at a place where it can really replace what we need to do.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  So here's my, here's my take on that, like, the answer is Chrome OS is at a place to where it can do. 90% of the work that you need for 90% of your tasks, which means that for the most part, you're fine. And for most people, you're fine. And that other 10%, you can either let it go, or you can do hacky workarounds, or you can use the old PC you've got in the closet. Right? And that most people like, it's like, I'm trying to think of the analogy. It's like going and buying like a car. Like you don't need that extra horsepower, but you want to believe that you're going to use it someday.

• 20:53Nilay Patel?

  Right? Right.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  And so that's sort of how I feel about the act, like the difference between a proper PC and a Chromebook. That said, like getting that extra horsepower and not having to make those compromises that other 10% of the time is only costs you $0.

• 21:10Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  Or negative $300.

• 21:14Nilay Patel?

  It's a $1,000 computer.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:15Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, would you rather have that or a 12 inch or an 11 inch Air?

• 21:21Speaker 03

  11 inch Air. Oh, no, no. This or 11 inch Air? Oh, man. Probably this.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Really? I mean, because you could just put Chrome on the 11 inch.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, but Chrome on an 11 inch Air is a dumpster fire compared to Chrome on this. No, Chrome on this thing can open Office files natively. Chrome on this thing is fast.

• 21:39Nilay Patel?

  It is really fast.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  It is bonkers fast.

• 21:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And it's a beautiful screen.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  And it's a beautiful screen.

• 21:45Nilay Patel?

  And Dieter likes the USB ports.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  And I do. Although let's say that USB ports in this and the MacBook are fundamentally insecure.

• 21:53Nilay Patel?

  So Russell wrote this. Explain this piece. Russell wrote this.

• 21:55Speaker 03

  So USB has this problem. There's a bug called bad USB. It's built into the heart of how USB works. Before your computer even knows what's happening, USB, when you plug it in, it needs to communicate. He's like, hey, I'm a thing. And then your computer says, oh, hey, thing. And that all happens in the firmware, like right on the USB. And so some hackers have broken that and they can use that to spread viruses. Like, and there's like, other than like fixing USB as a spec, as a standard, there's no way to stop it. And so that's fine. You just like, don't plug mysterious USB keys into your computer. But now USB type C doesn't solve that problem. And the Chromebook and the Mac and eventually everything is going to be using that for power.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  And it's much harder to stop yourself from plugging into a random USB jack to power up than it is to not plug a random USB stick into your computer. And so like, I don't want to have like, be like hair on fire about it because you know, whatever, none on vectors, blah, blah, blah, but like, things out there, people know how to do it. And it, you're going to be, you have to, you have to start thinking about what you plug into your computer now. Instead of, instead of just in USBs, but actually in power. And that's weird.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  So let me, I think this has been a known issue for a while. Like this is not like new information. Why didn't they fix, is there a logistical reason that hadn't been fixed?

• 23:09Speaker 03

  Standards bodies. I mean, you know, like the USB, the, the Apple and Google and Microsoft and Acer and all these people got together and made the spec, which is a miracle that they, in the time that they, they took to make this thing.

• 23:20Nilay Patel?

  But I get the real feeling that Apple drove the design of this thing way more than the like.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. Although, I mean, the funny thing about that is like, do you really believe USB type C is going to replace lightning on the phone?

• 23:31Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  No, me neither. It's a little bit thicker.

• 23:33Nilay Patel?

  It's not just thicker. It's also like a different, it's a different kind of connector. Like a lightning jack is kind of like, how to, how best to describe this for people listening? The lightning connector is like the inside of the connector, right? It goes, it's like, it's just a flat plug, right? The USB has, it's, the connector is hollow. So it connects to a thing on the inside.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:57Nilay Patel?

  So like, there's, there's just way more complexity in that thing.

• 24:02Speaker 03

  Uh, yes and no. I mean, it, um.

• 24:05Nilay Patel?

  No, I just mean mechanical complexity.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 24:07Nilay Patel?

  Right. Like you have to build an, like, how to put.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  But, but Apple's switching to type C for other stuff. Like they put it on the new MacBook. It's gonna, it's gonna be the port. It does display, it does everything. I'm very excited about this port.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Right. Do you think it will replace lightning?

• 24:22Speaker 03

  I told, I told you listeners. I don't think it's going to.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Really?

• 24:25Speaker 03

  No, because I think that it's just a little bit thicker.

• 24:27Nilay Patel?

  Helen, hype check USB type C.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  I'm gonna say beef.

• 24:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  But I have an Android phone, so I'm into micro USB.

• 24:35Nilay Patel?

  No, but this is gonna replace that.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Really?

• 24:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, Helen said Android.

• 24:40Nilay Patel?

  Helen's an Android diehard.

• 24:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:42Speaker 02

  I've never owned an iPhone.

• 24:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And it's because of swipe.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. I wish I had a better reason. I'm just obsessed with swipe and I can't type any other way. You can now.

• 24:53Speaker 01

  Get that ugly thing out of here.

• 24:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but it's not good.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  And I hear it's buggy.

• 24:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's super not good.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:58Nilay Patel?

  Is anyone, do you have an iPhone?

• 25:01Speaker 01

  I do, yes.

• 25:01Nilay Patel?

  Have you noticed the autocorrect is like

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Oh, it's the worst.

• 25:04Nilay Patel?

  out of control all of a sudden?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  It's the worst!

• 25:05Nilay Patel?

  I think in eight one or eight two or whatever, whatever it is I have, I think I'm in eight one. They like turned it up to make me dumber. Like it is autocorrecting me to like say the dumbest stuff all the time and I'm always just like, I start, I did, I do this thing with my friend Kyle, where I just, instead of asterisk and then like typing the real word, I just, I just send him an asterisk.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 25:26Speaker 03

  Oh, so it's like, oh yeah.

• 25:27Nilay Patel?

  I got, you know what's happening here.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  All I can say about that is like it creaking ducks whenever I do.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Oh, God.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  No, okay, but what is that ugly thing?

• 25:36Speaker 03

  So I'm gonna spend a ton of time. This is Acer Chromebook 15. I think technically the C910.

• 25:40Nilay Patel?

  So this thing

• 25:41Speaker 03

  It's a big, huge 15 inch just whale of a thing.

• 25:45Nilay Patel?

  We forgot to type check the, type check the Pixel.

• 25:47Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:48Speaker 02

  Beef.

• 25:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:49Speaker 03

  All right.

• 25:49Nilay Patel?

  Do you wanna, would you spend a thousand dollars on that thing?

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 25:54Speaker 03

  Right?

• 25:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Welcome to the

• 25:56Speaker 02

  If it did the Adobe suite.

• 25:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  You can stream it.

• 25:59Speaker 02

  I would consider it.

• 26:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Speaker 03

  You can stream in the Adobe suite, sorta, kinda, over the internet.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Yay.

• 26:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that's not good.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  No.

• 26:08Nilay Patel?

  Everybody who sees the Pixel wants to buy it and like it's a thousand dollars. I'm like, huh.

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:12Nilay Patel?

  Huh. If that thing was $700.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 26:16Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, I think it would actually still kinda get the same reaction.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:19Nilay Patel?

  But it would be like a different.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  So here's the thing, if I'm, if I'm, if I've got a thousand or say $1,300, for example.

• 26:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  Of disposable income.

• 26:27Nilay Patel?

  You would buy two Chromebooks?

• 26:28Speaker 03

  No, do I buy, do I buy the Pixel or do I buy the new MacBook?

• 26:35Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you buy the new MacBook?

• 26:36Speaker 03

  But what if the new MacBook is slow?

• 26:38Nilay Patel?

  The new MacBook is definitely gonna be slow. If you, if you're just gonna burn $1,300, like, burn it in style.

• 26:44Speaker 03

  But I'm saying, like, this thing would be primarily like a couch machine. So maybe I don't care that the pixel's kinda heavy and whatever.

• 26:53Nilay Patel?

  Hmm.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  Right? It's a hard one.

• 26:55Nilay Patel?

  No, but the new MacBook has like that.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  MacBook has that trackpad is so good.

• 26:59Nilay Patel?

  It's a good trackpad. Alright, well, what do you, what piece of garbage are you holding there? This is a beast, uh, this is, this is a lunch tray.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  That thing.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  It looks like a lunch tray.

• 27:08Nilay Patel?

  The 15-inch Acer Chromebook.

• 27:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a 15-inch Chromebook.

• 27:10Nilay Patel?

  Dan Seifert was ridiculously excited about it.

• 27:12Speaker 03

  He is still ridiculously excited about it.

• 27:14Nilay Patel?

  He gave it an extraordinarily high score.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  Yes, because it's fast.

• 27:16Nilay Patel?

  Seven point.

• 27:17Speaker 03

  And there's now, it's, it's only 350 bucks. The keyboard's fine, the trackpad's fine.

• 27:20Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  Uh, the screen is like...

• 27:22Nilay Patel?

  The keyboard, I will say, is a total shameless rip of an Apple keyboard.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I mean, like, it's still good.

• 27:28Nilay Patel?

  We get into a lot of trouble for saying some keyboards are shameless rips of Apple keyboards because Apple did...

• 27:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, but no, look, the four keys on the corner are curved. Whereas on the Apple thing, they're square.

• 27:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm just saying, like, there, there are arguments, right? Apple ripped their keyboard from ViOS and like, whatever. There's innovation in the market. That is a shameless rip of the Apple.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  No, I mean, the, it's just, it's a big, ugly hunk and base, but it's, it's super cheap.

• 27:51Nilay Patel?

  Dan's point was that there has not yet been a 15-inch Chromebook. And most people apparently buy 15-inch laptops, right?

• 27:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  So wait, how much is that?

• 27:58Speaker 03

  Uh, so I think you can, like, the base model might be 250. This, this is 350 as tested. And then now there's, they just announced like today, a $500 version that has a Core i5 processor to make it actually properly fast.

• 28:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Okay, well, that's not bad then.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  But you, like, if you, if you promise, if you promise me personally, uh, [email protected], that you will never take this off of your desk or out of your living room, and you'll never try and put it in a bag and carry it with you. And you, then I will let you buy it.

• 28:26Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's so weird.

• 28:28Speaker 03

  Otherwise, don't.

• 28:28Nilay Patel?

  It is such a weird thing.

• 28:30Speaker 03

  Berter, deder.

• 28:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, it's just so big and stupid.

• 28:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:35Nilay Patel?

  Like, you know how some things are so big they look dumb?

• 28:37Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:38Nilay Patel?

  Yes. Like, they look like they...

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Like, the first time you saw an iPhone 6 Plus, right?

• 28:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 28:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:42Nilay Patel?

  Nah, it's just like, you know, it's just like, doop-doo.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  Everyone's got their own sound effect for this.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  That's, that's it. Everyone, I want you to go on iTunes, leave us a five star review and then tell us what your sound effect for big dumb things are.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Any onomatopoeia you like, just.

• 29:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  It does make you look like a smaller human being.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  It does, yeah. I mean, it is massive. Hype check this thing.

• 29:07Speaker 02

  Well, that, that one's, that one's $350, but there is one that's $250. And if all you wanted to do was sit on your couch and watch Netflix.

• 29:17Speaker 01

  Wait.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  It might be the computer to buy.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  That's actually a question because the earlier Samsung Chromebooks could not run Netflix or even YouTube.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  Is the base model like actually decent enough for streaming?

• 29:25Speaker 03

  We didn't test the base model, but I like HD video is totally fine on the Pixel.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 29:30Speaker 03

  I haven't, I haven't tried it. HD video on this. Dan reviewed this.

• 29:33Nilay Patel?

  It's funny how many Chromebooks I have in my house that I don't use.

• 29:36Speaker 03

  Really?

• 29:36Nilay Patel?

  I have the original, the super crazy, the CL48.

• 29:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:40Nilay Patel?

  I have that Samsung one, which was a mess. Just a total mess.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have the original Pixel.

• 29:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:47Speaker 03

  Which is starting to feel slow and.

• 29:49Nilay Patel?

  We should give those away. Google gave away so many pixels for the original thing. It was $1,500.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Yep. It was $1,300.

• 29:55Nilay Patel?

  $1,300. And literally they were like, whenever you would see Google anywhere, like you'd be like on a train and Google Play, like, would you like to review this Pixel? And I'm like, we already have, like, please take, and so we just have them. They're like, in our review, we should just give them all away.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, we have given a bunch away.

• 30:11Nilay Patel?

  Have we?

• 30:11Speaker 03

  We've gave, yeah, we gave away like four.

• 30:14Nilay Patel?

  Oh, maybe we're out.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  No, we've still got.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  A lot more than that.

• 30:16Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's just like, God, because we give everything away. You, everybody knows this. We give everything away. We should give more stuff away.

• 30:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:23Nilay Patel?

  And William would be happy.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  He'd be very happy.

• 30:25Nilay Patel?

  What's that thing? There's a thing I wanted to talk about.

• 30:27Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 30:28Nilay Patel?

  After the Chromebooks.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Was it Tesla?

• 30:29Speaker 03

  Is it, it's time for an ad?

• 30:31Nilay Patel?

  No, that's not it.

• 30:31Speaker 03

  No?

• 30:33Nilay Patel?

  That's not it at all.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  Big dumb things?

• 30:35Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Is it?

• 30:37Nilay Patel?

  There's something about Windows. Oh, it's about Windows.

• 30:38Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, okay.

• 30:39Nilay Patel?

  There's two things about Windows I want to talk about.

• 30:41Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 30:42Nilay Patel?

  Because one is about, uh, that, right? Like, we're about to be in a Windows 10 moment. Microsoft is like giving Windows 10 away for free to people who have pirated old versions of Windows. Like, they're coming at it hard with Windows 10.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  And I want to see some good laptops.

• 30:58Nilay Patel?

  I have Windows 10 on my Surface Pro 3 at home.

• 31:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:02Nilay Patel?

  Surprisingly hard to install. Like it, the, you can do it. The easiest way to do it is to just download it, put it on a hard drive, plug it on a hard drive and install it. Right, sure. Okay, did that. But I did that after I did what Microsoft insisted that I would be able to do, which is like, download this tiny app that will reboot your computer and then download it from the internet and like. Did it just like bork everything? Couldn't do it. Oof. Like, just, just failure after failure after. And finally, I was like, fine, like dug out a hard drive and like. But yeah, so that was, that was surprisingly weird to do. But once you got it installed, like, how was it? It's great. Yeah. It's like, fine. I mean, I, I think the Surface Pro 3 is like a difficult computer to use. Right? Like, it, it's just, everything about it's like a little too small.

• 31:46Nilay Patel?

  Right? Like, it, because it's a tablet, it can't be any bigger. It's the right size for a tablet. Right. It's the right aspect ratio and like, but then you plug in the keyboard and you're like, wow, this trackpad's pretty small, actually. Right. Like, that's, that's really, it wants to be both, but like, the size doesn't really make sense for both. Right. But Windows 10 on it is like, it's, all of that's great. Okay. Um, so if you see it coming, uh, Microsoft, we should talk about this headline. It's something I actually want to talk about.

• 32:13Nilay Patel?

  So Microsoft announced a while ago

• 32:17Nilay Patel?

  that they would be, it should be a new browser with Windows 10 called Project Spartan. Well, the. Codename Project Spartan. It's gonna have a different name. So a totally new browser. And then they announced, what, two days ago? Well, it was like, uh, they're like, C, um, uh, something. Yeah. Some guy. Some executive at Microsoft. Marketing chief, Chris Capso. Fired up. Yep. Fired up his WordPress install. He said, he said, and I quote, "We'll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we'll also have a brand new browser called Project Spartan, which is codename Project Spartan. We have to name the new thing." Right. We're researching a new brand for our browser on Windows 10. So, so, the browser on Windows 10 will not be Internet Explorer. Right. That much is clear. So they've downgraded or.

• 33:02Nilay Patel?

  Right. So they're, they're, Windows, IE is going into like a filing cabinet. Right, right. So the principle, the, the important thing is that the browser, like, Internet Explorer will be on Windows 10, but it'll be plumbing. It'll be like back in the corner. It's like. Needed. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's the legacy compatible. Yeah, it's DLL, yeah. Yeah. Microsoft. The DLL. Oh, God. Is there a blog called that and just full of like, Microsoft secrets? Yeah. Think about it.

• 33:32Nilay Patel?

  Uh, so Tom Warren, he was very good at covering Microsoft. Wrote a headline that we all support.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 33:41Nilay Patel?

  Microsoft is killing off the Internet Explorer brand, which is true.

• 33:45Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 33:45Nilay Patel?

  Right? The new Microsoft browser will be called something. Nobody knows.

• 33:50Speaker 03

  It'll be called something.

• 33:51Nilay Patel?

  It'll be called something. It will not be Internet Explorer.

• 33:55Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 33:56Nilay Patel?

  Right? It will be the new thing and Microsoft presumably, if they're smart, will put all the resources in that.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:01Nilay Patel?

  And then slowly over time, the law firms and accounting firms and like mom and pop construction shops, I don't know who uses IE. I'm assuming it's these people.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 34:08Nilay Patel?

  That use IE on their like, you know, old Dell towers running XP. They'll upgrade to Windows 10, use a new browser. Microsoft will have completed finally a seamless legacy transition because they're so good at that. And then we'll live in a world of Project Spartan.

• 34:24Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 34:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So they're killing Internet Explorer. People went bonkers crazy. We got into a Twitter argument. I mean, Chris today looked like he was going to cry. He was like, I don't want to be part of this Twitter argument, but people keep at replying me and this is the worst canoe I've ever been in in my life.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  I'm not on that canoe. So like, the, the argument is they're not actually killing off the brand, right? Is that what, like, what are people saying?

• 34:48Nilay Patel?

  The argument is that.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  They think that we're saying they're killing off Internet Explorer, but no, they're killing off the Internet Explorer brand. And they're like, well, no, they're not like killing it. They're not like officially saying we're never calling it that again. But like, just, we're not saying that Microsoft is taking Internet Explorer and stabbing it in the heart.

• 35:02Nilay Patel?

  They should.

• 35:03Speaker 03

  We're saying that they're putting it in a room and they're not feeding it.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:07Speaker 03

  Right?

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Maybe, maybe they have a knife in their hands and like, maybe it's pinned down.

• 35:11Nilay Patel?

  Slowly taking the oxygen out of that room.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  It's a Schrodinger thing. No, um, what kills me about this argument is like, nobody likes Internet Explorer. Why are everyone coming, is everyone coming out of the war work now supporting a browser they do not like?

• 35:25Speaker 03

  They should have changed the name the second the first person made the, the first Internet Exploder joke. They shouldn't like, ah, we, ah, we boned this.

• 35:32Nilay Patel?

  Totally got it wrong. I don't know. Is this a normal Helen hype check, whatever the hell we're talking about? Is this a normal strategy? Like, is this how you would roll something out and get rid of the old thing?

• 35:43Speaker 02

  Ideally, no.

• 35:45Speaker 03

  Well, Microsoft can't let go of old things. They clutch them tightly.

• 35:49Speaker 02

  But they probably should and probably, I mean, Project Spartan can like build up. People are curious, people are excited, but now there's all this nostalgia for Internet Explorer and they kind of just need to pull the plug.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Lot going on.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  Good hype check. There's, there's, no, who was nostalgic for Internet Explorer?

• 36:11Nilay Patel?

  Internet Explorer had a moment. IE4 was pretty good.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Even back then, it was Netscape. Like, we all knew better.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Nah, nah, it had a moment where it was a really good browser.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 36:26Speaker 03

  And I will also just, just let me finish this sentence, please.

• 36:30Nilay Patel?

  That's gonna happen.

• 36:31Speaker 03

  They've been pretty good about trying to support web standards.

• 36:36Nilay Patel?

  So here's what-

• 36:37Speaker 03

  And try and keep out them from having a monopoly on how we build web pages.

• 36:40Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying. They've been pretty good about- Here's what I know. Here's, here's a fact. Trailing 30 days to the verge.com. People who visit our website.

• 36:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 36:49Nilay Patel?

  The number one platform by far is Windows. It's like 35% and then it's-

• 36:52Speaker 03

  Wait, only 35?

• 36:54Nilay Patel?

  Hold on, let me switch. Let me switch this window. I'm looking at the browsers right now. Yeah, it's like 35% is Windows. 36.5% is Windows. 25% is iOS, 20% is Android, 14% is Mac.

• 37:06Speaker 03

  I see.

• 37:07Nilay Patel?

  Right? So you look at that, so far and away, right? 10% lead over iOS is Windows.

• 37:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:12Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Number one browser, 48.9% of the people who visited the verge in past 30 days used Chrome. 20% used Safari. 10% used in-app Safari.

• 37:24Nilay Patel?

  Right? Then you got Firefox at 8.5%. Then, then you get to Internet Exploder at 7.5%. And it's like, just kill it. Just let it go. Let it die. You can't beat Firefox in the in-app browser.

• 37:41Nilay Patel?

  Like, the, the iOS in-app Safari is the worst experience in, on the planet.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  There.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  It's pretty bad.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:48Nilay Patel?

  It doesn't have a working back button. It should be illegal.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  Some of them have working back buttons, but they look just like the other back button.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:56Nilay Patel?

  Like, you can't beat that. Just let it go, man.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  Choir.

• 38:01Nilay Patel?

  I know. Now, you can keep talking about web standards.

• 38:06Speaker 01

  I remember the good old days. Four point.

• 38:09Speaker 03

  Speaking of the web.

• 38:10Nilay Patel?

  Yes. Speaking of websites built with standards.

• 38:14Nilay Patel?

  It's, John, do we have a noise for, for, before the ad yet?

• 38:20Nilay Patel?

  Let's make some money. Building a website can be tough. And even if you do know your way around coding, creating something that looks good and works well is a time consuming affair. Whether it's for a business site, a portfolio, a restaurant, or whatever else. In this day and age, you probably need one anyway. Well, lucky for us, Squarespace makes it easy to build beautiful websites without breaking a sweat. Ross, stop whispering the ad to me.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  I just magic. I just don't know.

• 38:46Nilay Patel?

  Squarespace provides simple, beautiful, powerful templates for you to work with. Not only that, these templates are part of Squarespace's responsive design, which means your website scales to look great on any device, big, small, medium. Medium devices look the best. Further minimizing the hassles of making a great website on your own because you're not making several sizes. Squarespace has done it for you. Especially the medium one. Every website you build also comes with a free online store if you need it. I suggest that you have one. Screw you Etsy.

• 39:22Nilay Patel?

  Screw, start your own, start your own Etsy. Rossy.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Rossy, just Rossy.

• 39:28Nilay Patel?

  Literally, I've had like 75% of a beer. I'm going crazy. Just need something minimal, but powerful, Ross. The Squarespace cover page feature also allows you to set up a beautiful one page online presence in minutes.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 39:43Nilay Patel?

  Helen. This is the time. Have you ever made a website?

• 39:47Speaker 02

  I have.

• 39:48Nilay Patel?

  Tell me about your website.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  I was living in a vegetarian cooperative house.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  This is gonna be an amazing story.

• 39:55Nilay Patel?

  This should have been the entire show.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  And I was taking a class on web design.

• 40:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  And I ended up building our website using HTML and CSS.

• 40:05Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 40:06Speaker 02

  Which was not the most efficient way to do it.

• 40:09Nilay Patel?

  What was the goal of the Vegetarian Cooperative's website?

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Uh, mostly to convince alumni of our university to give us money.

• 40:17Nilay Patel?

  No, so you could have used a store.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it was like, it was like, here's some, here's some nostalgic photos. Here's a donate button.

• 40:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, okay, that's what our website's for.

• 40:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:28Nilay Patel?

  But it would have been presumably easier if you'd had it.

• 40:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 40:31Nilay Patel?

  My god.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  So, Vegetarian Co-op.

• 40:34Nilay Patel?

  Seriously, you can't beat the ease and simplicity of Squarespace. Squarespace gives you 24/7 online support and a beautiful website for only $8 a month. You can even get a free domain, I'm assuming vegetariancoop.com, available, if you buy Squarespace for the year. So, he asked, "What are you waiting for? Start a trial with no credit card required and start building your website." "When?" "Today."

• 41:00Nilay Patel?

  "When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, Ross Miller, tell me the offer code. I bet you know it."

• 41:05Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't know, can I read your mind on this one? Or look up the script?

• 41:08Nilay Patel?

  The offer code is, Jesus. It's a verge, the offer code is verge. What else would it be?

• 41:13Speaker 01

  I don't know. Swag?

• 41:15Nilay Patel?

  It's verge.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Bust?

• 41:16Nilay Patel?

  Offer code is verge.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 41:18Nilay Patel?

  Use that offer code to get 10% off your first purchase. And show your support for this, the Vergecast. I'd like to thank Squarespace for their support of the Vergecast.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  We all would like to thank.

• 41:29Nilay Patel?

  Which I think at this point is clear, clearly a mistake. But they make it every week, and I'm proud of them for that.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:35Nilay Patel?

  Just like I'm proud of you, the listener. Squarespace, build it beautiful.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Vegetarian Co-op is available for $13.

• 41:44Nilay Patel?

  13?

• 41:45Speaker 01

  Wait, really?

• 41:46Speaker 03

  It's, I could not find it. It's being camped.

• 41:48Nilay Patel?

  Speaking of services that cost between 13 and 20 dollars a month.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  What?

• 41:52Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. Ross, let's talk about PlayStation View.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Uh, which costs $50.

• 41:56Nilay Patel?

  It's really?

• 41:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:58Nilay Patel?

  I'm shocked and appalled. Walk us through, you did a whole cord cutting thing this week.

• 42:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:02Nilay Patel?

  Talk us through the future of television.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Uh, okay. Well, the future television, this is actually goes back to your big crusade from when we started The Verge was to go over the top. Cut out cable companies, get all your internet service, all your TV service online, somewhat à la carte. Uh, we've been wanting to make this cord cutter app for a while now. We started getting into it. Uh, and then we found out that Sony was launching View TV, which is basically almost a fully fledged cable service for $50 a month.

• 42:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  You get 50 channels, you get a little bit of DVR, works on PS3, PS4. You don't get ABC, Disney or ESPN. But you get pretty much everything else.

• 42:36Nilay Patel?

  Right. You made a whole like thing with product where you like pick the services and it shows you what channels.

• 42:41Speaker 01

  Basically, yes.

• 42:41Nilay Patel?

  And if you add them all up to get all the channels, it's like 120 bucks a month.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Right. I mean, you'd never want to overlap Sling and PlayStation View. Like those are the closest you're going to get to like Dish and Comcast at this point.

• 42:50Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  Because there is so much overlap. But yeah, like you're now at a point where you could probably get 90% of what you want on cable television online without the subscription, but without the subscription package, without the bundle of your internet provider. It's like, it's actually a great, like this week is a great transition phase. This year as a whole is like, you're now at a point where you can recreate the cable experience online.

• 43:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 01

  Which is wonderful.

• 43:13Nilay Patel?

  I mean, this, you think, I've, I've been watching Chris Welch, one of our reporters tweet, uh, since it launched and he just, just deeply, deeply uncomfortably in love with the interface.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Really? Yeah.

• 43:25Nilay Patel?

  He's, apparently, apparently it's stupendously good. I'm an Xbox guy, so I don't have it.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  This thing? We, I mean, we're looking to, I mean, think it's just like surprise launch this week for what? New York, Philly, Boston and Chicago?

• 43:36Nilay Patel?

  Here's the problem with all these services. Do they buffer?

• 43:41Nilay Patel?

  I don't have PlayStation. Yeah, I should go on.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, we need to try it out. Um, which that kind of goes into that Wall Street Journal story that just came out today.

• 43:48Nilay Patel?

  Right. So there's, there's a lot going on in TV right now.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:51Nilay Patel?

  But you could also get Sling on the Xbox now.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 43:53Nilay Patel?

  That launched.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  That launched this week.

• 43:54Nilay Patel?

  Yep. Sorry. Continue. Xbox, I have an Xbox One, I like it, I use it. Xbox apps are super slow.

• 44:00Speaker 03

  So I have an Xbox, I have an Apple TV, and I want to use Xbox for everything, but I can't because everything looks like crap on it. On the Apple TV, they're, they're paying the dirty blood money to somebody. If you like, if you start, I can, if you start Netflix on the Xbox app and on the Apple TV, Apple TV starts twice as fast and gets rid of the little, you know, juggy weird things, right away. And on the Xbox, you're just like, well, this is gonna look like garbage for the next 10 minutes.

• 44:27Nilay Patel?

  The Xbox is very much like a slow PC. That's what it feels like to me. Whenever it tries to, as a console, I quite like it. But every time it tries to like do computer stuff, I'm like, huh.

• 44:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's weird, like, I have a $50 Roku that does the same thing.

• 44:42Nilay Patel?

  I have a set of Xbox bongos in the house.

• 44:46Nilay Patel?

  I don't have that.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  There was, there was a bongo controller, that was Nintendo.

• 44:50Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, Helen's bored over there.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  Helen's bored. Just give me a look.

• 44:54Nilay Patel?

  What, Xbox or PS4?

• 44:59Speaker 03

  Ooh. Ooh. Ooh.

• 45:00Nilay Patel?

  Oh.

• 45:01Speaker 03

  Mobile games on Android.

• 45:02Nilay Patel?

  You're gonna get yelled at no matter what you say now.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  I know.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Just double bust.

• 45:05Nilay Patel?

  You have to say something.

• 45:06Speaker 02

  I, I haven't really played any games since the PlayStation 2.

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Whoa.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  I'm really sorry, internet.

• 45:13Nilay Patel?

  What was your, I don't know. What was your PS2 game of choice?

• 45:18Speaker 02

  It was actually a PS1 game called Chrono Cross that I was playing on the PS2.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  That is like, that is like, serious like, time commitment.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  But I'm, I'm very out of touch with games. I'm, I am sorry, Verge fans, and...

• 45:31Nilay Patel?

  Why are you sorry? Video games are terrible. All of them are bad. I don't know, I'm just basically trolling Chris Grant from afar.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 45:40Nilay Patel?

  Yep.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  What? And Andrew Webster.

• 45:42Nilay Patel?

  Andrew Webster.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  Dots is great, two dots, man, the new two dots.

• 45:46Nilay Patel?

  I've been playing Alto's Adventure, Alto's Quest.

• 45:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just got the llama.

• 45:50Nilay Patel?

  You just got, oh, the last one is the llama.

• 45:51Speaker 03

  No, there's one after that.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  What is this?

• 45:54Nilay Patel?

  Huh.

• 45:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Those quests, okay.

• 45:55Nilay Patel?

  We put it, Alto's Adventure.

• 45:57Speaker 03

  It's a great game, it's an iPad game.

• 45:58Nilay Patel?

  It's actually a phone game too, it's way better.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  Are we talking about TV?

• 46:01Nilay Patel?

  No, we're talking about, it's a really good iPad game.

• 46:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, yes, yes, this thing is gorgeous.

• 46:06Nilay Patel?

  I find myself playing it a lot while I watch television.

• 46:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah.

• 46:09Nilay Patel?

  It's, it's like a good, you can just stop playing it anytime and like, nothing is lost. One of those games. No, so there's like a shake up, shake down sorting out of the TV market happening right now. Right? So Apple's in the mix. The view PlayStation view is launched. They've been promising that for over a year.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Sling TV.

• 46:30Nilay Patel?

  Sling TV. HBO NOW. Like, the, the, the tide has broken, right? They know that people are gonna, either they're gonna pirate the streams from like, some shady provider in Russia that steals your identity, or they, they might pay you. Right? Like that, the, the TV industry has gotten to that point. They know that they're losing the battle. People are not gonna subscribe to regular cable. They just wanna watch on the internet. So here they come. What all of the packages to me, and you put it together, this, this, this experience.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  Well, shout out to everyone in the product team.

• 47:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the product team and Welch, I think helped you out.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  Welch too, yes.

• 47:07Nilay Patel?

  But if you, the packages are all priced the same. It's literally, they didn't figure out what people wanted, which was to pay less money.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, like, right now, it's like, okay, we're giving the option to pay. We don't know how much this is supposed to cost anymore because it's just a different market. So we're just gonna throw a price, usually an expensive price, like for HBO NOW, it's $15 a month.

• 47:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  Uh, which will probably work. I mean, during Game of Thrones, it'll work. Once the Game of Thrones ends, a lot of people are gonna probably unsubscribe, which is like what they would do for cable too.

• 47:34Nilay Patel?

  I just feel like the, the, we're all now reaping what we have sowed.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 47:39Nilay Patel?

  Which is like angry tweets being like, I would just pay you 15 bucks a month to watch Game of Thrones right now.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, prove it.

• 47:44Nilay Patel?

  There you go.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Now we gotta prove it.

• 47:45Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I added all my stuff up and I definitely hit like 65 bucks.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. And here's the other catch about it. Like now that HBO NOW is a thing, now that they can actually charge you $15, like what's gonna happen to basically the seven or eight HBO Go passwords that are out there for 300 million people?

• 48:03Nilay Patel?

  Right, right. Yeah, those are going away. I've noticed Netflix, have you noticed they just don't care anymore? They're like, who are, just tell us who you really are. Yeah. Are you, are you your parents? Are you your 10-year-old niece and nephew in Chicago?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  We just need to make sure the algorithm is right for your preference.

• 48:16Nilay Patel?

  We just definitely want you to stream more stuff. Like, they just don't, like, they have to know. Like, that screen pops up that's like, pick your profile.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  I hate that screen so much.

• 48:23Nilay Patel?

  No, but it's like, but that profile screen for me is like, you might as well say like, are you using this password in New York, Wisconsin, Chicago, or like, it's just, it's, or like, are you VPNing to pretend you're in the UK?

• 48:38Speaker 01

  And to be fair, the Dutch get a lot of new movies.

• 48:40Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 48:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:41Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 48:42Speaker 01

  If you were happy to be in Brazil or Dutch, you can watch all the new Captain America movies.

• 48:46Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so let's just point out, just really quickly, you just said Brazil or Dutch, which one of them is not. There you go.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 48:54Nilay Patel?

  Dutch is not a country.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Sorry, Thomas.

• 48:56Nilay Patel?

  Dutch is a type of shoe.

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Also, it's a kind of jump roping.

• 49:00Nilay Patel?

  And a, like a, I believe, a type of butter.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  And if you double it, it's a way of.

• 49:04Nilay Patel?

  Also, a type of oven. Yeah.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:06Nilay Patel?

  There's so many things that are Dutch, except for the name of the country.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  Isn't it weird? But so close.

• 49:13Nilay Patel?

  Alan is never coming on the show.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Alan, hype check Dutch.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  I'm gonna say beef.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:22Nilay Patel?

  Also a type of Dutch thing.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:24Nilay Patel?

  No, the shakeout's, do you have cable?

• 49:26Speaker 02

  No.

• 49:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:28Speaker 02

  I also, I don't have a TV.

• 49:30Nilay Patel?

  No, it's fine. You look so shocked. Whatever, man, you got, you got your S5, you're just living a good life on Skype.

• 49:35Speaker 02

  I have, I have my old boss's HBO Go login.

• 49:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  I have my sister's Netflix, I have my mom's Amazon Prime, like, I have everything I need.

• 49:47Nilay Patel?

  The ultimate moocher.

• 49:50Nilay Patel?

  Now, I feel like that's a pretty common story.

• 49:52Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, for sure.

• 49:53Nilay Patel?

  Do you have cable?

• 49:54Speaker 03

  No.

• 49:55Nilay Patel?

  What about you?

• 49:55Speaker 01

  I haven't had cable since high school.

• 49:57Nilay Patel?

  You haven't had one cable?

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Not one single cable, I haven't had any cable service since, like, high school.

• 50:02Nilay Patel?

  I'm a cable maximalist.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Really?

• 50:04Nilay Patel?

  I have every channel.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  So you pay, like, $300 a month? What is that? What is the big package?

• 50:07Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, this is actually a thing, it, this, when I, when I look at this pricing, um, so we have every channel, we have 3535 FiOS.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 50:15Nilay Patel?

  Which actually, they keep trying to upsell me to 50, and I keep on not telling me that, telling them that they're giving me 50 anyway.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So we have every channel, we have every movie channel, we have 3535 FiOS, uh, we have a phone line.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Just because it's part of the bundle?

• 50:29Nilay Patel?

  I don't even know the number, right, it's just part of the bundle, and we pay, like, $215.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  Damn.

• 50:35Nilay Patel?

  It's a lot, but if you add up all of these channels, you get to 118, and then if you want.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  Fast internet.

• 50:41Nilay Patel?

  Fast internet, you're gonna pay another 50, 60 bucks, and you're at 200 bucks anyway.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  And here's the one thing that is interesting about.

• 50:46Nilay Patel?

  And you don't get a phone line.

• 50:49Nilay Patel?

  Table flip.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  I'm so sorry. No, here's one thing is just like, we were trying, we were building the chart like we're trying to figure out, is there an average price for cable? Because it's varies so much by region.

• 50:59Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Like, the FCC does an annual report, I did not know this until I found it. Every year they should release a report saying, what is the average cable price? Which right now is like $66 for basic cable.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  That can like vary extremely. It's 64 on average if there's competition.

• 51:16Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 51:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 51:18Nilay Patel?

  No, but like, it's, you're gonna end up paying for, I mean, these cable providers are not stupid, right? So that they will start doing caps again. They will start doing deals where if you just buy cable television service, your numbers will like, the prices will be way better than buying unbundled internet. They already do that all over the place. That's why I have a phone line.

• 51:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 51:40Nilay Patel?

  Because it's cheaper to just get a phone line than to buy the two services individually. Which is ridiculous.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 51:48Nilay Patel?

  And when you buy cable, you get TV everywhere, which is like a bad experience, but at least you get to log in and stream things all over the place.

• 51:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:55Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's a miserable experience, but at least I have it. Right?

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Right. So I mean, the hope is either like, one, there's uniformity in these internet prices. Two, if it is more expensive or less expensive, it does like pressure cable companies like finding a new way to like maybe lower their price a little bit. I'm actually really looking forward to the FCC's report next year to see if things have changed.

• 52:14Nilay Patel?

  Right. Well, I mean, maybe. Maybe if people start buying, I think these services are coming out and what's gonna hold them back is the cable companies are still gonna bundle the hell out of them in some way, which is part of the Wall Street Journal report today, which is Sony and HBO and all these other companies are now saying Comcast, like, put us in the managed services tier of your internet service. Which is where the phone line lives, which is where Comcast video on demand lives.

• 52:39Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:40Nilay Patel?

  Put us into that bundle, we'll pay you or we'll have some arrangement. Deliver our stuff, you know, outside of the regular congestion of the internet. And, you know, we'll just be there and we'll come up with some arrangement where you're selling internet plus PlayStation view as the TV package instead of your own TV package.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:58Nilay Patel?

  And the sense is that the cable providers are not super into that. And the video providers are not super into it either. There might be like regulatory hurdles that obviously has huge net neutrality implications. But you like the the dam has burst like that over like we're gonna get our TV over the

• 53:16Speaker 03

  So but the thing is

• 53:17Nilay Patel?

  Right and like how we how we actually engineer it and like what legal words we say around it are That's like what's up in the air now.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  It's not a fast lane, it's something else.

• 53:27Speaker 03

  The idea like the TV dam has burst onto the internet like it's like yes, that's what we wanted. Oh, wait, turns out there was a bunch of like garbage and shit in that water. And so like the New York Post is claiming that Apple is offering to share, you know, user data with programming partners. Who knows if it's true, but

• 53:48Nilay Patel?

  No, but you have to.

• 53:49Speaker 03

  Right? So like they get they get to know like what you're watching and with more detail. You know, all these like trying to get into the different like lanes that have neutrality implications. Like the the crap that made cable kind of an ugly mess of just bureaucratic nightmare hellscape world to try to like call those that world is coming into the internet.

• 54:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's already it's already here. I mean, like that stuff about privacy and analytics. It's like whatever, like when print magazines moved onto the internet, we added analytics to how we serve the ads. Right? It made the ads arguably a little bit crappier, but it didn't like ruin our lives.

• 54:31Speaker 01

  And if you look at like how TV ratings are done now, like Nielsen, it's like this like hack need system.

• 54:36Nilay Patel?

  Nielsen calls people. They're like, are you watching Dancing with the Stars? And then they have no way of verifying if you're telling the truth.

• 54:42Speaker 01

  Well, we called a thousand people, three of them were watching Dancing with the Stars, so times 50 or whatever.

• 54:48Nilay Patel?

  Times 50? Did you ever take a stats class?

• 54:51Speaker 01

  I never.

• 54:52Nilay Patel?

  So geography and statistics, not your

• 54:55Speaker 01

  I'm a little removed from college.

• 54:58Nilay Patel?

  You know, Dutch stats, you just multiply everything by 50 and then you get there.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  No, it's double Dutch stats, man. You trade.

• 55:04Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God. Helen.

• 55:07Speaker 02

  Yes. Can I double Dutch? Yes.

• 55:11Nilay Patel?

  You can. Can you hopscotch? Is that?

• 55:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can. I can also hopscotch.

• 55:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:16Nilay Patel?

  I've never actually understood hopscotch. That's by the way, I'm sure there's an app called Hopscotch and those people are furiously emailing me right now. Like, Red, it's the revolutionary ecommerce platform, Hopscotch.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Debut South by Southwest 2013.

• 55:31Nilay Patel?

  I want to kill myself. By the way, I'm now suicidal over imagined app pitches because that's our lives.

• 55:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:38Nilay Patel?

  Mm-hmm. No, I, look, you're right.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  Don't even start with me about pitches. You're not on the South by Southwest list, okay?

• 55:44Nilay Patel?

  That's true.

• 55:45Speaker 03

  Just get out.

• 55:47Nilay Patel?

  So, if you had a good week.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  I should read you the pitch that Mountain Dew sent me, actually.

• 55:50Nilay Patel?

  Um, you should.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Do it.

• 55:52Nilay Patel?

  But you know, this thing about the garbage waters of television, like flooding over the internet, like, yeah, that'll happen, but I think the, the thing that will really happen is, once you make that stuff live in the same place as the rest of the internet, you will see the competition, like, take hold.

• 56:10Nilay Patel?

  Right? So that people will go to the better experiences, they will go to the, the cleaner world, right? They will go to the better website, they will use the better service, which has yet to have ever occurred on television, as far as I can tell.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Right. But I mean, there is, and this is part of the Wall Street Journal thing, like, you don't worry about buffering if you go to Comcast.

• 56:31Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Like, but with you and Sling TV, you have that as a legitimate issue. Like, you're now doing the same work, which is why we have a different tier.

• 56:36Speaker 03

  Well, a legitimate issue that, like, is actually incredibly easy or hostile because you never know what's causing it. Like, the fact that my Xbox buffers and my Apple TV doesn't. So, like, the Xbox buffers, am I, do I yell at my Xbox? Do I yell at my internet connection? Do I yell at, like, net neutrality? I have no idea.

• 56:53Nilay Patel?

  Always just yell net neutrality. Just shake your fist and scream net neutrality.

• 56:57Speaker 03

  When, when, when my cable doesn't work, I yell at Comcast, I'm done. When streaming doesn't work, there are, like, 10 more people I don't know who to blame in that chain.

• 57:05Nilay Patel?

  I, I don't know. I, I can, I always confidently blame the service provider and I'm usually right.

• 57:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:11Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's usually Fios is, like, doing something stupid.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:15Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. Right, you were gonna read a Mountain Dew pitch.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  No, it's not that bad. I'm gonna let it go.

• 57:19Nilay Patel?

  Alright. Any, any final thoughts? Do you want to talk about Tesla for two minutes?

• 57:23Speaker 01

  Let's talk about Tesla.

• 57:24Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 57:25Speaker 03

  So they're they're installing a new app in the Tesla. They're installing a new app in the cars. That means that it'll like warn you if you are driving out of, you're going to like run out of electricity before you can get to a charging station. That's it. They like drive it on a range. So I guess two questions.

• 57:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:38Speaker 03

  One, uh, we're cool with like Tesla low jacking us and knowing where we are at all times and all places?

• 57:44Nilay Patel?

  The car would know.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  The car knows.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:47Nilay Patel?

  The Tesla network.

• 57:48Speaker 03

  How does the car know? How does it know where the Tesla network is?

• 57:50Nilay Patel?

  What do you mean? How does your phone know?

• 57:52Speaker 01

  It caches local map. There's a GPS.

• 57:54Speaker 03

  So they're just, I just think that we need to ask if they're finding out that information or if it's all local. I'm assuming it's not. I don't know.

• 58:00Nilay Patel?

  I'm a hundred percent okay with my car knowing where I am.

• 58:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. Are you a hundred percent okay with Elon Musk knowing where you are? He does hate, uh, you know, AI and robots. So.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  Does he want to hang out or something? Like, grab coffee?

• 58:10Nilay Patel?

  He's like, I'm here right now, Elon.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  All right.

• 58:13Nilay Patel?

  I'm waiting for you.

• 58:14Speaker 03

  I mean, it's a, it's a good feature. I would want my car to have that feature.

• 58:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:17Speaker 03

  Right? For sure. And then two is, uh, when, when is Apple going to buy Tesla? Never.

• 58:22Nilay Patel?

  Never. Never. Never.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  But I love, I love watching Tim Cook or like reading about Tim Cook replying to all the investors saying, just like, buy, just buy Tesla.

• 58:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Don't, don't spin up your own car. Just buy this already successful company.

• 58:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:34Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. I, you know, the one thing the voice recognition should be able to do in a car, which it is not currently able to do. I've never seen a car able to do it. You should just be able to say out loud, I need gas and have it like, figure out where a gas station is and take you there.

• 58:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 58:47Nilay Patel?

  Like, you should. Like, that's a really easy.

• 58:50Speaker 03

  No, but even better than that is the car should be like, yo, you're going to run out of gas if you don't stop at the station up here.

• 58:57Nilay Patel?

  Well, because it knows where you're going.

• 58:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Yeah, cars should be smarter. We should reinvent them all.

• 59:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. So did, uh, so the other thing that's up, I, last story.

• 59:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  So Astro Teller, his, the theme of his thing was like the failures at Google X.

• 59:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:10Speaker 03

  And so he talked about like Glass, we gave it too much publicity. That was dumb. But he talked about, uh, self-driving cars. So they had those Lexuses that worked perfectly well on the freeways, right?

• 59:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, right.

• 59:20Speaker 03

  And they seeded out to a whole bunch of people to test them. And they're like, just, you have to promise that you'll like pay attention and be able to take over if need be. And the reason they made the small, cute little car with no steering wheel or gas pedal is they discovered that humans are an unreliable backup to computers.

• 59:35Nilay Patel?

  No matter how hard you promise, no matter how good your intentions are, if the car is self-driving, you're just gonna peace out. And you are not, you are not a reliable backup to a self-driving car. So like, that's why they're going full throttle, like figuring out city driving instead of just letting the freeway driving go out there, is because they knew that like humans wouldn't like pay enough attention to like, save themselves if the car failed. Really? Yep, so they have, they feel like they have to make it perfect. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can't wait to have a self-driving car. Yeah, I know.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  I mean, this ties into like Elon Musk said this week also, which is, he's imagining 20 years when there's enough self-driving cars, they'll start outlawing human drivers, probably for the same reason.

• 1:00:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  Like, at some point, the, the computer's gonna be a lot better than, than diesel.

• 1:00:19Nilay Patel?

  And then we will all, that, that day will never come.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Look, Fast and Furious 12, all self-driving cars, it's gonna be a very boring experience.

• 1:00:27Nilay Patel?

  Can you imagine the remake of Gone in 60 Seconds with self-driving cars?

• 1:00:33Nilay Patel?

  It's all just Nicolas Cage, Angela Jounali acting. Yeah. Cause there's nothing else to be done. It's just like, ah, we're trying to have a relationship.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  They just hop in a stolen car, like a stolen Mercedes, that like, the seats like turn to each other, it's just 10 minutes and it's just talking.

• 1:00:48Nilay Patel?

  It's like, so why did you decide to go with the blonde dreadlocks? That's the entire second act of the movie.

• 1:00:55Speaker 01

  Every now and then the car reacts, would you let me go faster?

• 1:00:57Nilay Patel?

  That's how long it would take to explain the reasons. Her haircut in that movie makes no sense. I know.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  It doesn't.

• 1:01:02Nilay Patel?

  Have you seen Gone in 60 Seconds?

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:01:05Nilay Patel?

  Here's a plot of Gone in 60 Seconds. They steal cars. They, no, no, in, yes.

• 1:01:13Nilay Patel?

  That's it, I told you the whole thing. No, so there's like a, a bad guy who, it's like, it's basically an 80's movie, right? They have to complete a task by a time where something bad will happen. But instead of saving the high school, or like, a record store, or the town, they're saving like the brothers' lives by stealing cars off a menu. So the guy's like, I want these cars, you have to locate them and steal them and give them to me by a certain time. The movie is entirely predicated upon, I can't believe I explained it.

• 1:01:42Nilay Patel?

  There's one specific kind of Mustang, that he's always tried to steal, Nicolas Cage has always tried to steal, and it's like, it's like, literally, there's a scene, it's like, he keeps trying to get that car.

• 1:01:51Speaker 01

  It's like the Declaration of Independence.

• 1:01:53Nilay Patel?

  And it almost kills him. And that, that must say his name's Eleanor. But then, for unexplained reasons, that plot is happening, but Angelina Jolie is there.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

  Also stealing car.

• 1:02:03Nilay Patel?

  Also, she's one of the, one of the car thieves, but she has like really bad hair, like blonde dreadlocks, like bleached blonde.

• 1:02:10Speaker 02

  Is this the movie Hackers, but with cars?

• 1:02:12Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:13Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:02:13Nilay Patel?

  Wait, am I confusing Angelina Jolie in Hackers with Angelina Jolie in?

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  No, you're definitely not. Angelina's got.

• 1:02:18Nilay Patel?

  Yep, okay, I'm right.

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  There's Gone in 60 Seconds and Girl Interrupted, Angelina Jolie, both bad hair.

• 1:02:23Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that.

• 1:02:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, but there was the reasons and.

• 1:02:25Nilay Patel?

  I'm gonna go home and watch Gone in 60 Seconds.

• 1:02:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:28Nilay Patel?

  That movie is just really.

• 1:02:29Speaker 03

  Also.

• 1:02:30Nilay Patel?

  By the way, when you start typing.

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  Don't.

• 1:02:31Nilay Patel?

  Google.

• 1:02:32Speaker 03

  Don't denigrate hackers.

• 1:02:33Nilay Patel?

  Auto completes. When you type Angelina gone, it just auto completes Angelina gone in 60 seconds hair.

• 1:02:40Speaker 03

  Are you an incognito? Cause I guarantee you that's just your own, your own search history right there.

• 1:02:44Nilay Patel?

  I didn't even get that far.

• 1:02:50Nilay Patel?

  All right, well, that, that's how we're gonna end this show.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  All right then.

• 1:02:54Nilay Patel?

  Helen, do you want to read the engagement script, since you're in the hype seat? It's all the stuff in the bottom it read.

• 1:03:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Nilay Patel?

  It's all, it's, it's you commanding people to be social.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  It says Sam, let's change it there. Oh, to Helen.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you can change it to Helen, I'll definitely pay attention to it.

• 1:03:10Nilay Patel?

  Done.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, so on social, follow at Verge on Twitter, hashtag Vergecast. You can rate and review us on iTunes. And you can check out our other shows at iTunes.com slash The Verge. Individual Twitter handles, I don't know.

• 1:03:27Nilay Patel?

  Oh, really? Okay, so Dieter's Backlon.

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  I'm Backlon.

• 1:03:30Nilay Patel?

  I'm reckless.

• 1:03:31Speaker 03

  He's reckless.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  I'm Oner Roscoe, no E.

• 1:03:33Nilay Patel?

  Bad Twitter game.

• 1:03:34Speaker 02

  And you are? Another Helen.

• 1:03:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, follow Helen.

• 1:03:37Speaker 03

  Another Helen.

• 1:03:37Nilay Patel?

  We'll make her tweet more.

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:39Nilay Patel?

  You understand Helen like professionally runs like our channels.

• 1:03:42Speaker 03

  Don't just follow her.

• 1:03:43Nilay Patel?

  Her personal Twitter.

• 1:03:44Speaker 03

  Tweet at Helen and ask her to tweet more.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks.

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  You know, I, I, you know, I've been tweeting for other people for a long time.

• 1:03:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Speaker 02

  I just, I'm not very good at tweeting for myself.

• 1:03:57Nilay Patel?

  We gotta step up your personal Twitter brand.

• 1:03:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Nilay Patel?

  We gotta activate.

• 1:04:03Nilay Patel?

  You gotta activate your Twitter brand.

• 1:04:05Speaker 03

  Oh, and so the other thing is, we have a new podcast.

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  Yes, we do.

• 1:04:10Nilay Patel?

  You're commanding Helen.

• 1:04:11Speaker 03

  I just, I got told by our producer.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  So it was a, I think it was a soft launch this week, but it was, it was our first main episode branded as Verge Extras, but if you go there, there's actually some older episodes that you can also see.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

  This week's is about South by Southwest, and I know, all I know about us has Emily and Casey and I think Brian. Dieter, are you on it?

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  It's Emily, Casey, Kwame, and me, and the, the other three are definitely the highlight. They, they're excellent podcasters.

• 1:04:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we should give them a podcast.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:44Nilay Patel?

  It's an idea that I have.

• 1:04:44Speaker 03

  Maybe, maybe if we had a podcast feed where we could pilot ideas.

• 1:04:47Nilay Patel?

  Maybe, maybe that feed is called Verge Extras.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:51Nilay Patel?

  Interesting. We also have What's Tech.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:04:54Nilay Patel?

  Which is going really well. What's Tech, I believe, is number two in the iTunes Tech feed right now.

• 1:04:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Nilay Patel?

  Vergecast is number seven, which is bonkers.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

  Yep. It's high up in the main feed, too. What is it at?

• 1:05:03Speaker 03

  It's in, it was in the 50s last I checked.

• 1:05:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so we're doing, we're doing well on the podcast tip.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:05:09Nilay Patel?

  Is that a phrase?

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:05:10Speaker 03

  You can find all of them at iTunes.com/theverge.

• 1:05:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we're doing, we're doing really great here. Someone's already tweeting at Helen to tweet more.

• 1:05:18Speaker 03

  Just great.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, Helen.

• 1:05:20Nilay Patel?

  Very sorry. And, like, you can go to iTunes.com/theverge. Like I said, please rate us, give us the maximum possible stars.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  That's five?

• 1:05:29Nilay Patel?

  There's, I think there's a secret six.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Just keep clicking just past the five?

• 1:05:33Nilay Patel?

  It's my detective novel for teens, The Secret Six. That's, they're like a gang, they're like a teen gang. They solve crimes.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Are they Dutch?

• 1:05:41Nilay Patel?

  Dutch.

• 1:05:44Nilay Patel?

  Dutch teens who solve crimes, The Secret Six. Go to iTunes, tell me about what kind of adventure they would have. Also, what noise you make for big dumb things. Five stars. Okay, that's it. That's Vergecast.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  Bye.

• 1:05:56Nilay Patel?

  Thank you so much for listening.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Goodbye.

• 1:05:58Nilay Patel?

  Rock and roll.