CES 2018: Robots, TVs, and virtual assistants

The Verge crew is on our way back home after a week at the Consumer Electronics Show 2018. This week, we did a ton of reporting, a ton of videos, and four live Circuit Breaker shows, so we did not have a lot of time to sit down and tape a full-length Vergecast. But what we did do was collect a bunch of audio recorded throughout the show — including clips from Circuit Breaker Live — to give you an idea of what it’s like to be at CES, and what kinds of things we saw this year. Enjoy, and we’ll see you next week. 00:44 - Day -1 03:14 - Day 0 24:54 - Day 1 45:30 - Day 2 1:05:02 - Day 3 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello, welcome to The Vergecast. It's Neelai. I'm by myself right now. Well, actually, I'm in the corner of the trailer with Andrew. We're at CES this week, and we did a ton of reporting. We shot a ton of videos, and we did four live Circuit Breaker shows. So we didn't have a lot of time to sit down and do a full-length Vergecast. So here's what we just said. We collected a bunch of audio recorded throughout the week with the whole Verge crew. Andrew ran around taping everybody. We put together a bunch of clips from the Circuit Breaker show so that we could give you an idea of what it's like to be here at CES 2018 and all the things we saw this week. So enjoy this. It's gonna be a little wild and crazy. It's gonna fit right in with The Vergecast, and we'll see you again next week.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  It is day zero, or maybe day negative one, of the Consumer Electronics Show, which is the biggest electronics show of the year. It's at the Las Vegas Convention Center, where there's just miles, literally miles, to walk around and look at booths and look at gadgets. But that's a lot of work. And so what they do is they have this early event that they call CES Unveiled.

• 1:05Speaker 01

  This is the kickoff to a week of incredible excitement, incredible innovation.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  And so a bunch of nerds line up with their gear, and we sit on the floor, and then we all run into this room where there's free food, which lazy people will eat, and then there's gadgets on little crappy tables with bad lighting and even worse-looking carpet. And we get an early chance to play with what we hope are going to be the most exciting gadgets of CES.

• 1:30Speaker 02

  Hey, it's time with The Verge. I'm with the Bellis 3D Face Scanner. It's a $500 attachment that you clip to the top of your Android phone or tablet, and it takes these super-fast, super-realistic, super-high-def 3D scans of your face.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  This gadget is essentially a belt that goes around your waist, and there are motion sensors in there. It senses that you're moving, and then, once you fall, it inflates immediately into these airbags.

• 1:53Speaker 00

  This is the Relink Electric Scooter. It's small, it's relatively light, only about 20 to 30 pounds, and you can fold it up and store it in really tight spaces.

• 2:02Speaker 04

  Hey, this is Nick Xiao with The Verge, and I'm using the Xenima Smart Shirt Motion Controller. It's a smart shirt with sensors that lets you control a

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Character in a video game by moving your real body.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  The stuff that's at CES Unveiled, it is mostly stuff that will also be out on the convention center floor. But convention center floor booths are super duper expensive. And so not everybody pays for one of those. And so sometimes the stuff that's at CES Unveiled, it's literally just like a card table with a curtain on it and some gadgets sitting on it because they could afford that, but they couldn't afford the main booth. And that works for them because what their goal is, is to have journalists like us come and look at their stuff and decide whether or not we care to write about it.

• 2:43Speaker 05

  This is Gemini. It's a revised view of what was the traditional PDA of the 1990s. So this is a full Android device and enables people to use a full, physical, quirky keyboard.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  Everybody else at CES is, they're here for us, but what they're really here for are to make deals, to like get Best Buy to notice them, get somebody else to notice them. But if you're just, you've got a Kickstarter and you're not worried about Best Buy, it might be more worth your money to show off your gadget at a little side event like CES Unveiled than it would to be on the main show floor.

• 3:14Speaker 06

  Hello. It's day 4,000 of CES. Technically, I think it's called Day Zero. It's Monday, so the show floor's not open yet. The show floor opens tomorrow. My job here at CES this year is robots. And it kind of sucks because robots suck. There's, there's a few kinds of robots, right? There's suitcases that follow you.

• 3:37Speaker 07

  90 Fun Puppy One luggage. Like a real puppy, it sort of just followed me around and then ran away or sometimes just fell over.

• 3:44Speaker 06

  There's faces that are just emotive versions of Alexa.

• 3:47Speaker 02

  I'm here with Buddy, a singing, dancing, family assistant robot.

• 3:52Speaker 06

  But I'm hoping to find some real robots. LG has a real robot for hotel stuff. There's this company called Savio that does a hotel robot. Segway is doing this robot that they've showed for a couple of years, but now it's about ready to ship, where you can ride it and then get off it and then like put your groceries on it. I just was checking out this robot called Misty. This is Misty One Beta. It's by Misty Robotics, a company that spun out of Spiro. That I was really excited about is like finally they're going to make. Their dream robot, but it doesn't really do anything. So you can turn it, you can move it, you can set the speed. Like they haven't finished it. Like that's the thing with robots. Robots are really, really, really hard to make. And you can't just try to make a robot and you get a pat on the back for it. You've got to make something that's actually useful.

• 4:37Speaker 06

  So that's the big question I'm asking. I'm trying to figure out this, this week is can anybody make a useful robot?

• 4:52Nilay Patel?

  We're here.

• 4:53Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 4:54Nilay Patel?

  You did it. It's happening. Hey everybody, welcome to Circuit Breaker Live. It's CES. I'm Eli Patel, the editor chief of Verge, Dieter Bohn, the executive editor of Verge.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Hello, everybody.

• 5:02Nilay Patel?

  We have brought a special guest on the Circuit Breaker with us. We brought back a little something we at the Verge called the hype, the hype area. Sam, Sam Sheffer is here.

• 5:11Speaker 09

  Hey, everyone.

• 5:12Nilay Patel?

  Verge alumni.

• 5:13Speaker 09

  It's been, uh, it's been a minute.

• 5:15Nilay Patel?

  So when you registered for CES, you could register a number of different things. There's some media, there's like industry analyst. One of the categories was key online influencer. Is that, is that the one you picked?

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:26Nilay Patel?

  That's our boy, key online influencer.

• 5:27Speaker 09

  That's what I evolved in after I left.

• 5:30Nilay Patel?

  You ever seen a Vergecast with Sam? It's gonna be a lot like that. But we should talk about some news.

• 5:34Speaker 00

  There's been a ton of news. Uh, I think the biggest news happened while we were here. And so it's not strictly CES, but it was a big, big deal. GoPro in a, it was like in a financial statement. They're like, hey, things aren't going so well. By the way, we're shutting down all of our drone division.

• 5:48Nilay Patel?

  So I asked Sean O'Kane, who's been covering GoPro and these drones. Give me something smart to say about this. And he just looked at us and said, this was inevitable. The, the second they recalled the Karma drone on election night.

• 6:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:00Nilay Patel?

  So it's been, you know.

• 6:01Speaker 09

  Is that what it was?

• 6:02Nilay Patel?

  It was election night.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:05Speaker 09

  Wow, if that's a sign, I will say no more.

• 6:08Nilay Patel?

  If you remember, GoPro put out the Karma drone. It was their big new initiative. The drones fell out of the sky because the batteries were disconnecting inside the drone as they flew. GoPro recalled the drones. Fix them, they shipped them again.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:24Nilay Patel?

  They were sort of okay.

• 6:25Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:25Nilay Patel?

  DJI is way out ahead.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 6:27Nilay Patel?

  And so they're shuttering that business.

• 6:29Speaker 00

  They're shuttering that business. Not only are they shuttering that drone business, there are reports that the GoPro, the company, has hired JP Morgan Chase to help see if anybody wants to buy them.

• 6:39Nilay Patel?

  And so I think this is the, this is the question of the day here. We got a tweet from Brendan. Who got to snatch GoPro? There's like obvious answers, right? You got your DJIs, Samsung. I think it's gonna end up being just one of these Chinese companies that buys brands.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  It's gonna be TCL.

• 6:57Nilay Patel?

  TCL, a BlackBerry.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  They bought Palm. Now Palm phones will fly. It's the future of fall.

• 7:04Nilay Patel?

  So you, you're more of a GoPro user than probably anybody I know. What's your?

• 7:08Speaker 09

  I, I have a Hero 4 Silver.

• 7:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:11Speaker 09

  I feel like someone told me, someone really smart told me this. I don't remember who it was, but it was smart. They said, if you, maybe it was Sean O'Kane, they said, if you have, if you want a GoPro, you probably already have one, right? Like this, this notion about like, there's a new GoPro every year, but most people already have a GoPro if they want a GoPro.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:28Speaker 09

  I think that the Karma was a huge failure, but I just, now that they're up for sale, how do you go from, our drone program is a failure to, we're selling the whole company?

• 7:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 7:39Speaker 09

  Right? Like, what is that? Why? Why is GoPro, is GoPro a failing company? Cause they're not making the billions of dollars they made in 2013, 2014?

• 7:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So we'll see. I mean, I think that, that's like outside of CES news, but it's by far the biggest news of the day.

• 7:52Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 7:53Nilay Patel?

  Right? Company that was kind of on the cutting edge. They thought they were gonna be a software company for a minute. We're just gonna see what happens to GoPro. But there's also news at CES. So my conception of CES is that it is a show about new TVs.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, cause that is the thing you see everywhere. You can't ignore them.

• 8:07Nilay Patel?

  They're literally everywhere. There's already been a bunch of TV news here at the show. Samsung had its event, LG had its event. All their companies are having their events. Samsung's news is kinda nuts. They've unveiled what I kind of don't believe is a modular TV called the Wall.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 8:23Nilay Patel?

  It can be up to 146 inches. You know, they've got image quality claims that they get blacker than LG's OLEDs.

• 8:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, so the way, they, they use LCD, LED instead of OLED, but it still can turn them off. And then you can have all these little squares and you can build the TV size that you want. But they're saying it's a concept right now, but they are promising more information in the spring.

• 8:45Nilay Patel?

  So I have like two questions.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:47Nilay Patel?

  One. Who is gonna wanna buy like a little stack of bricks and then like assemble a TV? Yeah, it's probably a TV. So two people nailed it. And then, how are they gonna manage like aspect ratios and image sizes and like?

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Will they actually be able to get these things to talk to each other? If the thing is off, you can see the lines between the little modules, but if it's on, supposedly you can't.

• 9:12Nilay Patel?

  Our reporter Chris Welch was at the Denno last night.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  There are many, many things that could go wrong with this.

• 9:16Nilay Patel?

  So, and then obviously they have their regular TVs.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:19Nilay Patel?

  I would say Samsung's TVs last year, their expensive new TVs are pretty disappointing. The TVs this year don't really fix it. They're still edge lit LCDs. So we'll see. And then LG, obviously Samsung's big competitor, has their own concept, which is a rollable.

• 9:34Speaker 00

  Rolls up vvv.

• 9:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so it's like a big soundbar looking thing and then a TV rolls out of it. It's a 65-inch OLED and it rolls away.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  It's amazing.

• 9:41Nilay Patel?

  That's everyone's dream. Every year LG is like, a little, another thing rolls.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  But to me, the more interesting thing with LG is they, they sort of, they had their big splashy OLED stuff last year. They had the wallpaper TV, blah, blah, blah. So this year, their main TVs that they actually sell to the consumer seem a little bit more boring, but to me, it's like the second year of a brand new car.

• 10:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  You let them work out the kinks in the first generation, you get the second year, you get like slightly higher quality stuff, slightly more reliable stuff.

• 10:07Nilay Patel?

  But here, so the specs on the new TVs you can buy, the 2018 OLEDs.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:12Nilay Patel?

  They still run WebOS, which is hilarious. And they have, now have Google Assistant and Alexa on top of WebOS.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:20Nilay Patel?

  Which is fascinating, because why not just make them run Android like everybody else? LG is all in on WebOS.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:26Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I would say. I own a 2016 LG OLED.

• 10:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 10:29Nilay Patel?

  I think it runs WebOS, it's a great TV, looks great. I would not trust LG to update that software, ever.

• 10:36Speaker 00

  Ever.

• 10:36Nilay Patel?

  Once they ship it, it's shipped and that's the end of it. I think that's the biggest problem with having a smart TV.

• 10:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it's a problem that no one at CES has ever solved. Remember Samsung used to sell little modules that you were supposed to swap out?

• 10:45Nilay Patel?

  They got sued because they didn't do that. So there are big new TVs, TCL updated its TV today, all kinds of stuff.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 10:52Nilay Patel?

  There's also a bunch of car stuff. So CES has become a car show. All of North Hall, every major carmaker is here. Mercedes is running cars around town, let's say the ultimate mobile device.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, and they've got the like camouflage on them so you can't tell they are.

• 11:05Nilay Patel?

  The cars.

• 11:05Speaker 09

  Is a car a gadget?

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:08Nilay Patel?

  No. You just said yes, Dieter, right?

• 11:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:11Nilay Patel?

  And you sighed. Absolutely not. It's a, it's, I think gadgets are things like you are able to upgrade over time, right? Like, it's a gadget in the sense it's like this like utility thing, but it's not, it doesn't, you, you just have one forever.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  What's undeniable to me is look at the, the concept that got announced today by a Chinese company, the Biton, the concept electric vehicle. It's just got a giant screen. There's no way this thing actually should, so like as a gadget, it's like you get in and they're promising like content and it'll like track your heartbeat while you're sitting there just in case and like all this stuff.

• 11:46Nilay Patel?

  And the, the Biton thing is so, I mean, that company's not working on much. They had a big event last night, like the CEO brought his kids out. His daughter was like, I love this car. It's really cool. Great. But the seats rotate.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:00Nilay Patel?

  And then it's like they've got media partnerships and it's like huge screens. They're claiming they're going to be able to get Alexa to do better things in the car than regular Alexa. It sounds to me like a car is a gadget. I look at those and think, what happens when this is old? What happens when the, the storage slows down? What happens when a touchscreen gets wonky? Like, you don't want all the problems with, that gadgets have in your car. And the only company that's like managed to deal with it well is Tesla. And even Tesla has like these like notorious reliability problems. So like, I, the idea of the car as a gadget, everyone wants, everyone wants a little bit of that shine.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Well, everyone wants in there. So Nvidia announced a partnership with like Uber and VW and they're in there and they're fighting now with Intel. And so this, this like autonomous car battle is moving into the next phase of all of these different companies, Waymo and Lyft and whoever, they're all like forming these little like partnerships and to like have fights.

• 12:56Nilay Patel?

  Battle lines are.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:57Nilay Patel?

  I think that's actually the The gadget to me is something that you own, but the future of these cars is you push the button and a robot shows up and you sit in it. And like screw with your own phone instead of dealing with like Uber's deal with Fandango to show you movie trailers. Like that's just hell. Like that's just my conception of hell.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  Can we talk about just a couple of like super gadgety gadgets? My favorite probably so far is the Planet Computers Gemini.

• 13:20Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 00

  Jump ahead to that. It's a tiny little Android device, you know, it's like.

• 13:24Nilay Patel?

  Flip up screen.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  It's got a flip up screen. It's got, you know, a MediaTek processor, whatever. Uh, but it has like a keyboard keyboard, like the old Scions. Like you're supposed to like type on it. It's not a thumb board. It's like, they're like actual keys. Uh, this just makes my heart happy, even though I know it'll be a garbage device.

• 13:42Nilay Patel?

  I'm definitely like, if I, instead of a laptop, I'm like. Put it away. That sounds amazing. Uh, there's a bunch of other insane gadgets here. There's a product called Lifi. Uh, which beams internet to your laptop using infrared light.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:57Nilay Patel?

  The goal is so that all the lights in your house or wherever will have Lifi devices in them.

• 14:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:02Nilay Patel?

  Um, and you can just like set your laptop down and get it. You can, it's more secure than wifi or something.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, because it can't, it's just where, it only hits where the light hits, so it's line of sight.

• 14:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:11Nilay Patel?

  The problem is that the demo, the first product, this is true, it costs $840. It is a lamp to make the Lifi wifi lamp.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Go.

• 14:21Nilay Patel?

  Work. You need to plug a dongle into your computer and the lamp gets internet connectivity through ethernet. And it has to be line of sight. So you like pretend this is the lamp and this is the laptop. You plug ethernet into the lamp and then you shine the lamp at the laptop and you plug a dongle into the laptop and that's.

• 14:38Nilay Patel?

  Instead of just doing one of these, I don't, I don't know about that.

• 14:41Speaker 09

  And what, what does that cost?

• 14:43Nilay Patel?

  Uh, $840.

• 14:44Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 14:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. For one user.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:46Nilay Patel?

  It does not support two dongles at once.

• 14:48Speaker 09

  Is it fast internet?

• 14:49Nilay Patel?

  It's, it maxes out at 23 megas.

• 14:52Speaker 00

  Okay, yeah, moving on.

• 14:53Nilay Patel?

  That's fun. Also, on the same tip, hilariously, for years now, over a decade now, our most popular stories at CES have been about routers.

• 15:03Speaker 00

  Routers that look like evil monster spiders.

• 15:05Nilay Patel?

  So mesh routers are a big thing, Linus has a new VLOP, but they've also made a new router, Linus, that's specifically designed to make your Xbox One go faster.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  All it is, is router prioritization. And it's like the killer prioritization tech, but it just is like, oh, that's an Xbox. I'm going to make sure it has a faster connection.

• 15:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, neutrality is dead, everyone.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 15:24Nilay Patel?

  Inside your home and in the world. And then lastly, I think, Dieter, this is the story of the show. You already wrote about this a little bit.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  A little bit, yeah. We haven't seen a ton of announcements yet about this, but Google has a massive, giant booth out in the parking lot outside the convention center. It says, "Hey, Google, we are expecting to see a lot of, like, Google Assistant devices." We've seen some, we've seen a few speakers, a bunch of companies announcing support. And so I think the story of the show is going to be Google versus Alexa, who can get more people on board. Google really doesn't want Alexa to run away with us, and like, we're going to be talking about that all week.

• 15:59Nilay Patel?

  So we got a question here from Josh. Any must-have smart products that are in your Google Assistant that you've seen yet?

• 16:02Speaker 00

  I mean, get the speaker, so you've got it. That's the main thing. To me, honestly, I thought smart light bulbs were kind of dumb. I was like, whatever, I got a light switch. But I finally got some, and, you know, it supports a whole bunch of them, so just get whatever you want to get. I'm using Hue. They're great. Like, just get a handful. And like, the switch thing is a little bit awkward, but to be able, like, I was out of town over Christmas, and I just like programmed in the lights to turn on and off, and I was gone, didn't have to worry about it. And then, you know, the lights turned on and off in my apartment, so it looked like I was home. It was great.

• 16:31Nilay Patel?

  I think that there are these, like, little beachheads of smart home.

• 16:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:34Nilay Patel?

  You get it, and you set up, okay, now I'm doing my music this way. The next one usually for most people is lights. The next one after that, like, maybe you'll get the harmony thing and do your TV.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  For Google Assistant specifically, though, the number one thing is get a Chromecast, because then you can ask it to play stuff on your TV.

• 16:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I will say there's a bunch of new products here that have assistants built into them. So first, oh, this is ridiculous. First Alert has a smoke detector that has microphones and a light in it. You can get Alexa version or a Google version.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  Also AirPlay too, for some reason?

• 17:06Nilay Patel?

  You don't, please do not AirPlay to your smoke detector. Just don't. Like, let it detect smoke. You can listen to fucking bop somewhere else, I assure you. But, the idea of where the microphone should go is really interesting.

• 17:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:21Nilay Patel?

  iDevices has a new smart light switch.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:23Nilay Patel?

  That is not just like controlled by Alexa, it is an Alexa device. So it has the blue light ring, and say, Alexa, the light switch lights up. So I think a big question right now, you've got, obviously, the Amazon and Google first-party hardware. Everyone's aware of it. But, they're going far and wide. They're letting people put this stuff everywhere. I think the question of where the microphones are gonna go, it started being asked last year.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:46Nilay Patel?

  And now we're seeing all kinds of products with microphones in them to access these devices. I think Google and Amazon are still gonna keep selling Google Home Minis and Alexa Echo devices.

• 17:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:58Nilay Patel?

  Google said they already sold like 6 million.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  I forget the number, 46, yeah.

• 18:03Nilay Patel?

  Some huge number. I think people want, I don't think people want microphones built into their walls. I think they want to unplug that shit sometimes.

• 18:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:11Nilay Patel?

  So, uh, we'll see. And then...

• 18:13Speaker 00

  There's smart fridges, thin Q. It's not LG's thin Q.

• 18:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  It's got stuff, it's running WebOS. Great.

• 18:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Samsung has a Bixby fridge!

• 18:22Speaker 00

  What is Bixby? It's like, they wanted it to not be the same thing as Siri and Alexa and Google Assistant, but it's turning into that.

• 18:28Nilay Patel?

  And it has a smart thing sub in it. So you're, Samsung has more of the ecosystem built out.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:33Nilay Patel?

  Belkin is here.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:34Nilay Patel?

  Apple, it's funny, the biggest Apple HomeKit news is from Belkin.

• 18:38Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:39Nilay Patel?

  Uh, they actually have a proper hub.

• 18:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, so you can use your WeMo stuff with HomeKit now.

• 18:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Uh, and then, Dieter, this is your favorite.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  Oh my god. There's this thing called the NanoLeaf. It looks like a 12-sided die, like if you played Dungeons and Dragons. Uh, and you just, you rotate it and set it down on the scene that you want, but... I just love the idea that you're like, you get home and you're like, what do I want my house to be like right now? What color should the lights be? Roll the dice!

• 19:00Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it is 20s, it's ridiculous. It's outside of us. We got a question here from Max. What do you make of Alexa on Windows 10 PCs? We're starting to see this happen.

• 19:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think it's really early. I think it's, the initial version is just an app and it's not fully integrated into the computer, but we know that Cortana and Alexa are starting to talk to each other. They have a partnership. And so, fine, it's on laptops. I'm like, oh my God, this is huge news. Everyone's like, nah, not really. I think down the line, as they talk to each other more, and you can like just ask for what you want and the computer figures out whether it's Alexa or Cortana that does it, that will be very, very interesting.

• 19:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and I think the idea of Alexa going everywhere. Amazon's pushing that very hard. I think getting it onto the PC, they're gonna have to figure out how to get it on the phones. You see a lot of people, there's a ton of like Alexa for the car products, and the problem is Alexa still can't do anything that you want to do in a car. It can't pull up a map, it can't do GPS, it can't make a phone call, it can't send a text message. So I think these other assistants that are connected to those things, those kind of partnerships become really interesting to them. Right now, it's just an app on a handful of PC vendors who've announced support for it.

• 20:07Speaker 09

  What is the incentive there for Microsoft to allow infiltration of a competitor, right?

• 20:13Nilay Patel?

  Microsoft doesn't allow anything.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  Well, no, but the...

• 20:16Speaker 09

  If Alexa's on Windows 10 PCs, they have Cortana built in, right?

• 20:19Nilay Patel?

  Well, so first of all, they have the partnership.

• 20:21Speaker 09

  Right, so what, I'm saying, what is the benefit of that partnership? Why is that?

• 20:24Speaker 00

  Alexa's so much further ahead than Cortana right now that it doesn't make sense to them.

• 20:27Speaker 09

  So Microsoft is saying, your product is better, we'll put it on our hardware.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  Well, plus, it's also like, there's a possible future where like Alexa becomes a more important platform than Windows, and Microsoft certainly doesn't want that. So if they're partnered up, then Windows continues to be an important platform with Alexa dependent on it.

• 20:42Nilay Patel?

  Also, I think both companies are in Seattle.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're just hanging out.

• 20:46Speaker 09

  They're just hanging out, grabbing beers with each other, yeah.

• 20:49Nilay Patel?

  But like, I mean, you know, this is like, there's this like dominant force in mobile with Apple, and like you can make this partnership and like come at it with a bunch of like...

• 20:57Speaker 09

  So they're kind of teaming up.

• 20:58Nilay Patel?

  I think so.

• 20:59Speaker 09

  Interesting.

• 21:08Speaker 10

  Hey, it's Ashley Carmen, co-host of Why'd You Push That Button? Here live from Pepcom at CES. It is 8:00 PM. It's happening. We're tired, we're hungry. Got gadgets. My beat this year at CES has been beauty gadgets, which I very much enjoy and I want to test more of. So last year, I saw a lot of smart mirrors and skin analyzers built into those smart mirrors. This year, I'm actually seeing, I'm seeing alternative gadgets that also do analyses of you and give you suggestions on products to use. But this time, they're not necessarily limited to mirrors. But the overall take is that all these beauty companies are just trying to use gadgets to sell their products, which is like, fine.

• 21:53Speaker 10

  Like, the beauty industry naturally wants to sell you more stuff, and that's, that's what it does. But it's bringing gadgets into the mix. And I think that's kind of interesting. I think it speaks to a changing demographic. Like, maybe they're trying to get to younger people who are more interested, or anything that can promise to make you look better through technology, you're like inherently probably a little more interested.

• 22:15Speaker 11

  My name is Sam Byford. I'm an editor based in Tokyo. And a thing I've seen a lot of this week at CES 2018 is a thing that I was kind of looking for, a lot of monitors. And I feel like I'm more into monitors than most people. I sort of have a thing for them. But I've seen two in particular that are kind of like my dream product in two different categories. One, LG made this 5K ultra-wide monitor with Thunderbolt 3, which is the kind of thing that I just really want on my desk at home. It would up my productivity game a lot. Well, I don't know, it probably wouldn't. I would just look at the same things, put more of them at once. But I really want it. It would charge my MacBook at the same time as putting the image on the screen. It would dominate my desk, and it would be amazing. Earlier this morning, I saw something in the total opposite direction. It's more of a hardware platform than a specific monitor,

• 23:00Speaker 11

  but Nvidia announced this thing called the Big Format Gaming Display for BFGD. It's a sort of platform for manufacturers to make their own 65-inch 4K HDR gaming displays. And they're not really TVs, but they're kind of like TVs and gaming monitors all in one. And they work with G Sync, which is like my favorite thing in the world. It's the thing that syncs your GPU output to the frame rate of the monitor. So you have this super smooth, realistic output and games feel like natural. And it's difficult to explain without seeing it, but it's amazing. I have a G Sync monitor at home. It's my favorite thing on my desk and this is a way to bring that to your living room. And it will probably cost several thousand dollars and I will never ever own one, but I will lust for it as long as it exists.

• 23:55Nilay Patel?

  This episode of The Vergecast is brought to you by Audible. Audiobooks are great for helping you be a better you, whether you want to be healthier, get motivated, or learn something new. Audible helps you listen to more books by letting you switch seamlessly between devices, picking up exactly where you left off, whether it's on your phone, through your car, from a tablet, or at home on an Amazon Echo, you can get through tons of books hands and eyes free while doing almost anything. Audible members get a credit every month good for any audiobook in their store, regardless of price, and unused credits roll over to next month. You don't like your book? You can exchange it, no questions asked. Plus, your books are yours to keep. With Audible, you can go back and re-listen anytime, even if you cancel your membership. So start a 30-day trial and get your first audiobook free if you go to audible.com/verge

• 24:37Nilay Patel?

  or text VERGE to 500-500. That's 500-500. You can do it with audiobooks. So that's audible.com/verge or text VERGE to 500-500 for your 30-day trial and your first audiobook free at Audible.

• 24:55Nilay Patel?

  Yesterday was the biggest news day of CES and we kind of know what's going on. So Dieter, what's happening?

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, we promised that there would be a bunch of Google Assistant news and good lord, did we deliver. There was just a ton of it. So we already mentioned the new smart display platform. So Google Assistant will work on smart speakers with screens. There's a whole bunch of nitty-gritty details which we're going to get into, but there's one from Lenovo. Actually, there's two from Lenovo. JBL promised they're going to bring one. Sony promised they're going to bring one. Somebody else. LG. Yeah. It's got a carver interface. And of course, it supports YouTube. Sorry, Amazon.

• 25:32Nilay Patel?

  Well, I think this is like the next big front.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:34Nilay Patel?

  So we're gonna bring on the Lenovo one, we're gonna talk about this whole thing.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  Speaking of Google, so it's Las Vegas and it has been raining and it's, I know it's boring to talk about the weather, but good lord, this city does not understand how to deal with it's a disaster. The streets are flooded, so Google had created this gigantic monster booth out in the parking lot of CES and they had to shut it down for the day because it was too dangerous. Because they had big light up screens and they had a slide that was outdoors and they were gonna have electronics outside and there's a car and who knows what else? And because it was pouring down rain, they shut it down for the day to make sure everything was hardened against the moisture. Just like a Pixel 1.

• 26:11Nilay Patel?

  I feel like Las Vegas should shut down when it's raining.

• 26:13Speaker 00

  Come on, that's a good Pixel 1, Joe.

• 26:15Nilay Patel?

  It was a great Pixel 1, it's just such a soft spot. It was like a great five weeks of my life. Google Assistant also coming to Android Auto, which is really just like a rebrand.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, so you could talk to Android Auto now, but now you get the poodle, the little dots, which...

• 26:30Nilay Patel?

  It's not a poodle.

• 26:31Speaker 00

  It's totally a poodle.

• 26:32Nilay Patel?

  Looks like a poodle.

• 26:34Speaker 00

  But like you can do a little bit more Google Assistant stuff on it, but it's basically the same.

• 26:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  But the partnerships that they're getting on top of that standard Android Auto thing is crazy. There's a bunch of car companies that are announcing that they're integrated. There's new decks that you can get.

• 26:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, with new head units.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  New head units. My favorite one is the Sony one. It's got almost like a 7-inch capacitive display this year, so it's proper capacitive. And what's really cool about it, you know, it supports CarPlay and I think it supports Android Auto. Of course it supports Android Auto. It also, it's a double din, so it's double tall, but the thing that actually goes into your car is just a single height din. So you don't have to fuss around with much getting all the adapters and cables and stuff.

• 27:20Nilay Patel?

  The cables just sort of like fit in the top.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  You know, it's ready for rear cameras and all of that stuff.

• 27:23Nilay Patel?

  This is great because new, modern car can accept. And you stereo.

• 27:26Speaker 00

  So Sony's last head unit was 400 bucks. I'm sure this one will probably end up being about the same price. And it makes me furious.

• 27:32Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Because you used to be able to put a new stereo in your car. Now you can't anymore because they're all whatever.

• 27:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 00

  But back when you could, getting a car stereo this good with a touchscreen and all the features and maps and whatever was like 1,200 bucks. I bought that.

• 27:46Nilay Patel?

  And now it's insane.

• 27:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. And now there are incredibly good, elegant, decent head units that are easy to install than ever before. And you just can't put them in your car because unless you've got like a Civic from 1996, you're out of luck.

• 28:00Nilay Patel?

  My car, I have a Chrysler car and the controls for the heated seats.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:06Nilay Patel?

  Built in a touchscreen. So I can just never get anything else.

• 28:08Speaker 00

  But I know they, Google partnered with Kia, Google Assistant's coming to that. Panasonic has got a bunch of Googles and stuff. HighSense is putting it in their TVs.

• 28:17Nilay Patel?

  This is like last year, everything was Alexa.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  And this year, everything's Google Assistant. My favorite one, I think, is probably Philips has a kitchen TV. It's a 24-inch Android TV.

• 28:26Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 28:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it's a, you know, a display that sits on top of a speaker. So it looks like a TV just sitting on a concrete block.

• 28:36Nilay Patel?

  I like it.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's cute. It's a neat little gadget thing.

• 28:39Nilay Patel?

  I feel like that what's screening goes in the kitchen is like a big beam of the CES.

• 28:42Speaker 00

  Oh, for sure.

• 28:43Nilay Patel?

  Is it the Lenovo thing? Is that TV? Is it just?

• 28:45Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 28:45Nilay Patel?

  You're gonna mount a 37-inch TV above your stove?

• 28:48Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 28:48Nilay Patel?

  That's all out there.

• 28:49Speaker 00

  Kilch? How do you pronounce this?

• 28:50Nilay Patel?

  Klipch.

• 28:51Speaker 00

  Whatever.

• 28:52Nilay Patel?

  These notes are incredible. Mid-century modern speakers?

• 28:55Speaker 00

  No, they've got copper knobs and buttons and they've got like wood paneling and they look great. They're just like big, you know, grandpa speakers.

• 29:03Nilay Patel?

  I have a pair of big grandpa Klipch speakers.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:06Nilay Patel?

  They're great. I don't need all the... Anyway.

• 29:08Speaker 00

  It's great.

• 29:08Nilay Patel?

  Everything has Google Assistant.

• 29:10Speaker 00

  JBL, Sony. Sony's updating all their old headphones. Just a ton of Google Assistant stuff.

• 29:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Then this is my favorite one.

• 29:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 29:17Nilay Patel?

  There's a pet feeder. It's one of those robots.

• 29:20Speaker 00

  Why not?

• 29:21Nilay Patel?

  It's like the oldest gadget in the world, a timer that just opens to feed your pet.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:24Nilay Patel?

  And now your pet can be like, "Okay, Google, dog, this is what we'll teach dogs to talk."

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:29Nilay Patel?

  They will be able to say, "Okay, Google."

• 29:30Speaker 00

  They're incentivized.

• 29:31Nilay Patel?

  They finally have a reason. It's gonna be great. So it's everywhere, basically.

• 29:35Speaker 00

  Other thing that's everywhere, if you are a company at CES and you are not releasing truly wireless earbuds, get out.

• 29:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  Everybody has proper wireless earbuds.

• 29:46Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so can you hear an AirPods stand?

• 29:48Speaker 09

  AirPods.

• 29:48Nilay Patel?

  AirPods.

• 29:49Speaker 09

  AirPods.

• 29:50Nilay Patel?

  You love AirPods.

• 29:50Speaker 09

  The dog, it's a close.

• 29:51Nilay Patel?

  It's, I got dogs in the brain. But you know, you're like, you're like, AirPods are just the winner, right?

• 29:55Speaker 09

  For if you're an iPhone user without a headphone jack, yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 09

  It offers a level of convenience that I think is pretty much unmatched. You open them, connect them, you don't have to go into settings ever.

• 30:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so everyone's building products like this. I think it's important to note, there are a lot of iPhone owners out there. You can use AirPods with an Android phone.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 30:13Nilay Patel?

  You do it.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  I do it.

• 30:14Nilay Patel?

  Um, it's not as good of an experience, but Android has more market share. Android phones, unfortunately, also losing their headphone jack. There's a big market for a one true wireless earbuds company to come in and capture that Android market share in a way that Apple's not gonna do.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  And so what those companies are doing is they're solving the problems that they can. So for example, Qualcomm has a brand new chip for wireless earbuds. It's got, you know, longer battery life, less power consumption, it supports noise canceling natively, and it also, it's gonna have, quote, "more battery life than, quote, 'the most popular true wireless headset.'" I wonder what they're talking about.

• 30:52Nilay Patel?

  I wonder what company they're in a lawsuit with.

• 30:54Speaker 09

  Oh, oh, oh, yeah.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  So they're solving, yeah. Those are, headsets based on that are coming out later this year. So they're solving like, they're starting to solve the battery life problem and the like, some of the features problem, a bunch of the stuff, you know, support Google Assistant and noise canceling, all that stuff. But they haven't been able to solve the... Actual problem.

• 31:12Nilay Patel?

  Which is the connection.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  The connection. Is Bluetooth 5 coming? Is it going to be good enough? Is it gonna... Is aptX supported? Is it going to be as easy to pair as a pair of AirPods are?

• 31:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So this thing that Qualcomm's announcing, it actually has 120 MHz processors.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Why not?

• 31:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but this is the thing. We're seeing it's under... It's under the radar a little bit. It's a thing that's happening. All the wireless chips are showing it processors in them.

• 31:36Speaker 00

  Right.

• 31:37Nilay Patel?

  To control that wireless connection better and make it more stable.

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 31:39Nilay Patel?

  This is a thing like, you know, ARMs says it to you. The Bluetooth people say to you.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:43Nilay Patel?

  That's the thing, you know, Apple was able to do that very quickly.

• 31:45Speaker 09

  With the W1, right?

• 31:46Nilay Patel?

  With the W1. The W1 has a little processor.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 31:48Nilay Patel?

  You know, Apple's integrated. But that idea very quickly gets commodified. So you're gonna see people catch up fast.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  A bunch of the new headphones, not truly wireless yet, but a bunch of the new headphones that support Google Assistant, they don't... They haven't named the chip, but they talk about the special circuitry.

• 32:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  That allows them to, as soon as you start talking, it starts sending the message on to Google Assistant.

• 32:05Nilay Patel?

  And that's like an audio buffer kind of thing.

• 32:07Speaker 00

  So there's like, there's the Ashley-Chloe earbuds. There's a bunch of other earbuds. But maybe some tweets here before we get into too many of these little guys.

• 32:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so here's a good question from JP. How much of Alexa news from last year's CS actually came to market? I know there's Google Assistant news everywhere in school, but I'm worried it's all hype right now.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  It's a lot of hype.

• 32:23Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I will... It's funny because I think Google's actually in a little better position. Like, nothing came out from last year's Alexa news.

• 32:29Speaker 00

  When did Lenovo speaker, Alexa speaker finally come out?

• 32:31Nilay Patel?

  I thought Lenovo speaker, like, that was the big news. Lenovo made their own, it was supposed to have better audio. Like, basically, never came out. I think Amazon beat them to market with their own second-generation products.

• 32:40Speaker 00

  Not good.

• 32:42Nilay Patel?

  I think that was a big wave of people learning how to make this stuff.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:45Nilay Patel?

  Like, how do we make a thing with microphones and lights and a cloud connection? Like, a lot of these companies have never really done it before. Now they've figured it all out, and it's just a different SDK. It's what Google Assistant is.

• 32:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:56Nilay Patel?

  Obviously, some other details, but like that core work.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  Like the money that Google pays them to make those speakers instead of Alexa speakers.

• 33:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, exactly. It's a different business deal and like a little bit of different work. But the fundamental question of what... How do we get microphones on our product? That engineering is starting to get figured out. So I think Google, you're gonna see the Google stuff faster because they've already done the work to put the Alexa stuff.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  And theoretically, if it stays competitive, if Google can stay as competitive with Alexa in getting products out... It could end up being like an actual quality battle, not just on what questions the assistant can answer, but also my hunch is that for the time being and for the foreseeable future, Google is going to be better with crappier microphones than Alexa. I've used a bunch of third-party Alexa speakers and if they have bad microphones, it is a horrible experience.

• 33:40Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 00

  But Google only needs two and they're better at, you know, you know, computer machine learning, hear you stuff. And so it may be that they'll do better with third-party with crappy microphones than Alexa. We'll see.

• 33:52Nilay Patel?

  I still think it ultimately all this stuff is really interesting, the car stuff in particular.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:57Nilay Patel?

  I actually know a lot of people with Echo Dots in their car, which is really funny.

• 34:00Speaker 09

  In a car?

• 34:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. If you have a car with Wi-Fi or you just like don't mind tethering to your phone, people just plug an Echo Dot in the car.

• 34:06Speaker 09

  And what are they, what kind of commands are they parking at their Echo Dot in the car?

• 34:10Nilay Patel?

  They're just like turning on the lights.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:11Nilay Patel?

  Or just playing Spotify. It's paired to Bluetooth.

• 34:13Speaker 00

  So this is one of the reasons Assistant in Android Auto is interesting is you can turn on your lights when you're way home, whatever. But it also, all of your preferences and defaults from Google Assistant now work in Android Auto. So if you told Google Assistant, I'd listen up to music on Spotify and I play news with this and I have this routine. Every time I get in my car, I'm going to say, hey, Google, I'm in my car. And you're going to read me the news and then you're going to turn off my lights and then you're going to like play Spotify. Like, that's potentially interesting.

• 34:38Speaker 09

  I still think though, that when you think of these smart home device assistants, it's the Echo line of products and it's the Google Home line of products. And like, we've already went an entire year from last CES and I don't, like, I can't think of anyone that's like, oh, there's this smart speaker and this one, and then like they name five others. It's Alexa, like the Echo Dot or Show or whatever, the tall Echo and then the Google Home, the Puck, the regular one. Or like, is there, who's going to be the third or fourth manufacturer to?

• 35:10Nilay Patel?

  Right. Honest Connor says, is Apple too late to just join this game? It's going to be Apple. Duh.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:14Nilay Patel?

  Right. It's like, obviously Apple forgot to home.

• 35:16Speaker 09

  It's so expensive though. 400 dollars, right? 400?

• 35:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's 349.

• 35:20Speaker 09

  350, it's expensive. You could get the, the little donut puck from Google for 50 bucks.

• 35:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you get them both. You're like, I got the HomePod and then you pick up this other thing.

• 35:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:29Speaker 09

  You think it's going to be Apple?

• 35:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Like Facebook, I think there was a rumor about the Facebook one came out today. It's like 500 bucks called Portal.

• 35:36Speaker 09

  I'm leaving.

• 35:38Nilay Patel?

  That's it, we both said it.

• 35:39Speaker 00

  One last pair of wireless earbuds there is Sony has these open ear headphones. They look, they look a little hearing aidy, but they've got this incredible way that they fit into your ear. So you, it's open, but you can still hear it like an earbud.

• 35:51Nilay Patel?

  That's pretty cool.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  And then they have microphones for letting in ambient noise if you want to. So you can have basically music playing constantly, but you can still hear the world around you pretty well. And they're truly wireless earbuds. They're, they're interesting.

• 36:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're just gadgety.

• 36:03Nilay Patel?

  I think we should point out that WillIAM made news here.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  Oh gosh.

• 36:06Nilay Patel?

  He bought a wireless earbud startup called Erin, which is...

• 36:09Speaker 00

  If your company's getting saved by WillIAM.

• 36:11Nilay Patel?

  Goodbye Erin.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  What are you doing?

• 36:12Nilay Patel?

  It was nice to see you. And there's a bunch of VR stuff.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, so we already talked about, or we're gonna talk about later, the HTC Vive Pro. Oculus Go, so it's sort of came out that it's getting manufactured by Xiaomi.

• 36:27Nilay Patel?

  Makes sense.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  And Hugo Barra is the one who said, hey, we're making this thing and we're also making a version of it for China.

• 36:32Speaker 09

  But it's not here at CES, right?

• 36:34Speaker 00

  They're not demoing it here at CES.

• 36:35Speaker 09

  But it's coming out.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Yep, and it runs on a Snapdragon 821 processor. It's gonna be 200 bucks coming out later.

• 36:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they basically just like collapsed the gear VR.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:45Nilay Patel?

  Like they put a phone in the thing, right?

• 36:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:47Nilay Patel?

  That seems about right.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:48Nilay Patel?

  It's funny because Hugo Barra was like, he was at Xiaomi.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  He was at Xiaomi.

• 36:53Nilay Patel?

  It's funny. There's some AR glasses. AR glasses are sort of everywhere, I think. The AR definition is real fuzzy here.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:00Nilay Patel?

  You're like, anything that you can see.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:02Nilay Patel?

  It's like, what about the augmenting of the reality?

• 37:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, not too many of them are actually augmenting, but there are so many garbage, like put a screen in front of your eye. Displays here, it's out of control. There's one that's actually pretty good that Nick Stat tried out called the Vuzix Blade. And I was very skeptical because Vuzix has been coming to CES and like putting a screen in front of your eyeball for at least five years. Just every year it's like, alright, what do you got this year with Vuzix? And this year, they have these things that like, look... Techy, but not wildly insane Google Glass techy. And they put a big display over your right eye, and you can actually move it up and down in your field of view. You can control the touchpad if you want, but it has, guess what? Alexa.

• 37:43Nilay Patel?

  Of course.

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 37:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. We got one question here, actually, I think is really interesting. Now that automakers are just putting Google Assistant in the cars, is Android Auto dead? So this is actually, I don't know if this is yes or no, but what is interesting is automakers have always hated CarPlay and Android Auto. They don't like it.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:00Nilay Patel?

  Because it gives Apple and Google control of that interface, and they want you to be in their interface. That's a thing that they want. So they've been doing it begrudgingly, that's why you see it's come out slowly. That's why, for example, Toyota just doesn't support it.

• 38:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:14Nilay Patel?

  They're gonna put you in their interface. And Toyota's like, well, we sell all of the cameras in the world.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:18Nilay Patel?

  We don't have to deal with this. I think once you start integrating Google Assistant, now that asks the question, like, should Google Assistant be able to turn on your seat warmers?

• 38:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:27Nilay Patel?

  Should it be able to adjust your climate?

• 38:29Speaker 00

  It should.

• 38:30Nilay Patel?

  So like, that battle line is starting to shift.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  In the same way you wanted to say, use your voice to turn your lights, you want to use your voice to change the heat. So the last piece of news we should probably talk about is Intel had its major keynote

• 38:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 38:43Speaker 00

  last night. We saw the Volocopter, the crazy drone helicopter thing, take off on stage. They announced that they were actually keeping their promise to ship the quantum computing chip to researchers. No, the nummic chip to researchers, they hit 49 qubits, which is like, close to this thing called quantum supremacy, which is when quantum computers are actually practically more capable than current standard processors. So they're getting close.

• 39:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And researchers was hacking the quantum.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, they made little, yeah. They also made tiny little drones that can fly around indoors without GPS, and they flew 100 of them.

• 39:20Nilay Patel?

  So you got to go backstage before this keynote.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 39:24Nilay Patel?

  We should talk about this thing that happened. Because you were invited backstage, and this is true. Dieter was supposed to interview the CEO of Intel.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  I was.

• 39:32Nilay Patel?

  So all this was arranged, and then the meltdown in Spectre news happened.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  And they didn't immediately say you're not, but it was like a rolling like... And then it was like, no, you're not gonna be able to interview the CEO.

• 39:41Nilay Patel?

  Especially because now he's like, under some like scrutiny, because he sold a bunch of stock before the meltdown news came out. So you like, saw him.

• 39:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, so what happened was, um, you know, we're there, we're behind the scenes to get early photos and to like, talk to the production staff and all this stuff. And like, see the crazy light show early, and it is a crazy light show. And I get, I go on stage and he's there. And I'm like, oh, now's my chance to go talk to him, but I was doing a stand-up. He photobombed me while I was doing the video and I had no idea. Right? And so it just, it just happened. And so then people laugh, I'm like, oh, oh, this, this just happened to me, okay. So I go over, I'm gonna try and talk to him, but he's surrounded by staff, he doesn't want to talk to me, but like, well, okay, at least give me a selfie. We get the selfie, and I'm like, ah, and then he, you know, they, they had to start the rehearsal, so they shelved me away.

• 40:29Speaker 00

  So I didn't get a chance to do the like, 2020, like, jump on you, answer the question thing, which I wanted to do, but couldn't.

• 40:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I like that your impression of 2020 is jumping on people and asking them questions.

• 40:39Speaker 00

  Well, what's the guy with the mustache that back in the 80s that used to do all the time anyway? Yeah, okay. Yes, Stossel, yeah.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  The, but seeing the keynote early and like, seeing how they put it together in the background was fascinating. And we've got a whole video about it, you're looking at some of it here. What's interesting about Intel, and we, we were talking about this all week, is Intel wants you to care about Intel. But you don't buy stuff directly from Intel, you buy stuff from Apple, which has Intel in it, you buy stuff from Microsoft or whomever. And so Intel has to create a story that tells you, like, why you care about Intel and actually gets you to directly get something from Intel. So they started with all these sports experiences. Because if you're having a sports experience, you're watching football from the perspective of the quarterback, or, I don't know, a movie experience where you've got volumetric video and you can like, look at a scene, whatever. You can go to directly to like intel.com to get that experience.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  And, so they tried to tell that story, uh, but they also tried to tell like, five other stories, and they ended up kind of telling a confusing.

• 41:38Nilay Patel?

  And you still kind of don't buy anything from Intel?

• 41:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:41Nilay Patel?

  Right, like at the end of the day, you're watching football, you're like, Intel's great.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:45Nilay Patel?

  But like, you haven't purchased any, you're still just buying a football package.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:49Nilay Patel?

  By the way, check it out, by the way, watch that whole video, go to verge.com, go to our YouTube channel.

• 41:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:54Nilay Patel?

  It's all there, Dieter spends a lot of time behind the scenes, you can watch the CEO of Intel, photobomb Dieter.

• 41:59Speaker 00

  Do stuff.

• 41:59Nilay Patel?

  If you're interested.

• 42:01Speaker 12

  Hey, I'm Dami, I'm a social media manager slash aspiring reporter. This is my first CES, um, reporting on things that I've seen. So far, I saw two laundry folding robots, one of which was significantly cooler and more expensive than the other one, because it uses artificial intelligence to analyze what it's exactly looking at. Oh, tomorrow I'm gonna fight a ping pong robot, so I'm really looking forward to that. And then right after that, I'm gonna fight a Scrabble playing robot, so I'm looking forward to that. And then I'm gonna look for more robots I can physically fight.

• 42:38Speaker 13

  Hey, this is Dani Deal, reporter on all things DJ gear related and other weird audio products. So that is the type of thing that I was looking for at CES, and I thought there might be a few things, but not so many, because sometimes the audio stuff gets relegated to other trade shows. But surprisingly, there were a few standout products that were really revolutionary, and I thought could actually be very helpful for musicians. In particular, there was a MIDI ring that you would wear in conjunction while you're playing a keyboard that could actually add effects on the fly, such as vibrato, or pitch bend, or low pass filters.

• 43:20Speaker 13

  And it connects with a DAW on your computer, such as Ableton or Logic, and can record all of that automation. And there was another piece of gear from Isotope.

• 43:33Speaker 13

  Called the Spire Studio. And Isotope is really known more for their software. And this is the first piece of hardware that they've created. It's a little puck. And it's basically an all-in-one recording studio that you can put in your backpack with you and record multiple tracks of audio on the fly. It's got a microphone in the front. It's got a couple of jacks for headphones, a couple of dual jacks on the back for plugging in instruments or XLR cables. And it does a lot of things for you, like automatically checking your input levels to make sure that you're not too hot or clipping. So those were the types of things that I saw that really actually solve problems that

• 44:12Speaker 13

  musicians have in terms of doing what they want to do on the road, on the fly, or expanding the capabilities of the instruments that they already have.

• 44:27Nilay Patel?

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• 45:11Nilay Patel?

  to find the most qualified job candidates with immediate results. And right now, Vergecast listeners can post jobs on ZipRecruiter for free. That's right, free. Just go to ziprecruiter.com/verge. That's ziprecruiter.com/verge. One more time, try it for free. Go to ziprecruiter.com/verge.

• 45:30Nilay Patel?

  TS is still going.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  Ton of news.

• 45:32Nilay Patel?

  Regardless of the power and flooding situations.

• 45:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, and so we try and hit all the major categories, but I want to talk about something that didn't make a huge splash. I want to talk a little bit about smartwatches.

• 45:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Speaker 00

  Because there were a handful, and the most interesting ones were not Android Wear, because nothing is interesting in Android Wear.

• 45:50Nilay Patel?

  Ayy.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Sorry. But, so there was this Blocks modular smartwatch. It was here at the show, they were on Kickstarter and they were delayed, blah blah blah blah. But it's a smartwatch running a proprietary thing, but it was interesting because it's modular.

• 46:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  So the smartwatch itself is like 260 bucks, and then you can buy these little $35 blocks that like attach to the band, in between the watch and the band, and it gives you like extra sensors, or like a button to do a thing.

• 46:18Nilay Patel?

  Is modularity, everyone's trying it, or they're just like, "Well, it didn't work on phones."

• 46:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. Moto's still going for it, they've got a keyboard that...

• 46:25Nilay Patel?

  It's true, there is a Moto mod keyboard now.

• 46:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:28Nilay Patel?

  You're that person.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  I don't think modularity on watches is a thing.

• 46:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  It's whatever. But there are others, like, so there's a Power Watch X. It's a smartwatch that is powered by your body heat. It's been out for a while, they made a new version, and this version is a full, proper hybrid smartwatch.

• 46:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  Which means that it can get notifications and show some stuff.

• 46:48Nilay Patel?

  That's cool.

• 46:48Speaker 00

  And you never have to charge it.

• 46:49Nilay Patel?

  Does that...

• 46:49Speaker 00

  As long as you're warm-blooded. No.

• 46:52Nilay Patel?

  Okay, so the notifications are like...

• 46:54Speaker 00

  It's a screen, but it's like one of those weird low-power.

• 46:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then there's also the My Chrono, so they made a smaller version of their smartwatch that does have a screen. And it's a screen underneath the physical dials.

• 47:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 47:08Speaker 00

  Which has sort of been everybody's dream, but I don't know, you're looking at it here and you're like, "Man, if they could just do that, it'd be perfect." And then you look at it, you're like, "Maybe I don't want that."

• 47:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I don't want that at all, actually. That seems not the right move.

• 47:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it's, you know, it's 200 bucks. Battery life should last about three days for the screen, about a month for just the hands. It's running a proprietary operating system, which I would get very angry about. But again, I repeat, not a fan of Android Wear the past few months.

• 47:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and Android Wear, it's funny... Just in like in the Vegas airport.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:38Nilay Patel?

  Uh, you know, Michael Kors is like, the Kors Connect, like they're doing the ads, it's like fashion stuff.

• 47:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:42Nilay Patel?

  Like Kate Spade announced a watch at the show.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Yep, that's uh, it's 325 if you get it with a metal bracelet. It's just straightforward Android wear. I don't think it looks that good personally.

• 47:51Nilay Patel?

  But it's interesting, if you think about like the smartwatch OS is like the movement of a regular watch. All the fashion companies like, sure, Android Wear, we'll let Google take care of the platform.

• 47:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:00Nilay Patel?

  And we'll just continue to do what we do, which is like, make pretty bands and cases.

• 48:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, the, the best looking one is the Skagen, Skagen?

• 48:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:07Speaker 00

  Skagen? Um, it's 275.

• 48:09Nilay Patel?

  That is amazing.

• 48:10Speaker 00

  I think this, this looks pretty good. And this is again, is straight Android wear. It's like the Pebble Time Round. Remember Pebble? Yeah, except it's a full LCD. Don't.

• 48:17Nilay Patel?

  Hey, but it's actually no flat tire.

• 48:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:19Nilay Patel?

  Skagen looks out doing moto.

• 48:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, that's not.

• 48:23Speaker 00

  Moto's out of the game.

• 48:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:25Speaker 00

  So the, but the most interesting watches to me are the full, proper hybrid smartwatches. So that's what I wear. I've got a Fossil Q Hybrid. But Misfit came out with a new hybrid watch.

• 48:36Nilay Patel?

  What is your Q Hybrid?

• 48:37Speaker 00

  Oh, here, uh, put it on this camera here. You can hit a button and it'll like, the dial will turn and show my steps, or I can hit a button and the dial automatically turns around to show the date. Those are physical dials? Yeah, they're physical dials. And then when I get a notification, I program each of the apps that I get notifications from to a different number. So nine is the calendar. So when a notification comes on my phone, I can glance at my watch, like, oh, it's a text message, I should look at it. Or you just get super confused and you're like, wait, it's not nine o'clock. Yeah, right. Well, I mean, it moves back. Um, anyway, Misfit has one of these now.

• 49:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:08Speaker 00

  It is 150 bucks, so it's pretty cheap. And it, uh, does measure your heart rate, which a lot of these little hybrid watches don't. And the batteries on them usually last like a good, anywhere from like a month to six months.

• 49:18Nilay Patel?

  That's great.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  And you can just replace the battery. Um, the other like sleeper hit in the smartwatch world is Garmin. Lauren Good is gonna be on later. She actually owned, went out and bought a Garmin smartwatch.

• 49:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 00

  Because they're actually pretty great. Uh, the new Garmin here is a 645 and it lets you store music and it's, um, it's basically like an old school iPod, because the way that it stores music is it, you get 500 songs.

• 49:43Speaker 00

  It works with iHeartRadio and Deezer.

• 49:45Nilay Patel?

  Of course.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  Womp womp. But it's relatively inexpensive for a smartwatch and the battery life just goes on forever because it uses this particular kind of screen that looks kind of bad indoors, but you can see it just fine in the sunlight.

• 50:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  So I think that until something more interesting happens with Android Wear, and I think that more interesting thing is make better looking watches that are smaller, that all the action, at least for Android users, is looking at these other types of smartwatches and just get something that looks good to you and you'll get a couple extra features with it, but don't try and go full, like, don't try and compete with the Apple Watch right now if you've got an Android phone because you're really not going to get there.

• 50:26Nilay Patel?

  You know, the Garmin thing is interesting. Our science editor, Elizabeth Pato, has been screwing around with Apple Watch a little bit because of all their health and fitness claims. And she told me, she didn't take it on a hiking trip because she looked at it and was like, "This was made for indoor kids." And she took her Garmin watch, which seemed a lot tougher, more resilient, had a longer battery life for kind of a long trip off the grid there. Yeah. So. It's interesting. It's like, we keep seeing them, they keep happening. Sam, what do you think? Sam? You're not Sam at all.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  Whoa! You're not Sam?

• 50:54Speaker 14

  Hey, guys.

• 50:55Nilay Patel?

  It's Scott Roguski from A10 Tribute on the tweets right now.

• 50:59Speaker 14

  Yeah, I'm just tweeting from Sam's account here. "Where is the nearest strip club? Send."

• 51:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you're in Vegas.

• 51:07Speaker 14

  Yeah. There's one, I think, down the hall.

• 51:09Nilay Patel?

  Scott, what are you doing here, buddy?

• 51:12Speaker 14

  I am, you know, I was cruising around Southern Nevada.

• 51:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:18Speaker 14

  And I heard about the CES thing. It was like Woodstock for tech people.

• 51:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:22Speaker 14

  Thought I'd come by. No, I'm here, Super Deluxe brought me out to do some work for them and OMD. I'm doing a livestream from the floor each day.

• 51:30Nilay Patel?

  Oh, very cool. So are you hosting an HQ?

• 51:32Speaker 14

  No, this is not HQ related.

• 51:34Nilay Patel?

  Oh, cool.

• 51:35Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 51:36Nilay Patel?

  So what are you seeing at CES? What are you looking?

• 51:38Speaker 14

  I'm seeing a lot of long lines for the men's room.

• 51:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 51:40Speaker 14

  Which is unusual because I'm used to, you know, ladies have the long lines and here it's dude-heavy.

• 51:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. We have a lot of women on our staff and they point out, like, at least we get to do that.

• 51:51Speaker 14

  It's like equal opportunity now.

• 51:52Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's pretty good.

• 51:53Speaker 14

  But I'm seeing, you know, I'm like, I saw a guy with a sword today that makes light-up noises and sounds.

• 51:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:00Speaker 14

  A lot of pointless things is what I'm trying to say. I don't know how much of this stuff is actually useful.

• 52:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:05Speaker 14

  But maybe, I mean, you're talking about the Garmin watches and everything and I guess there are some applications. I mean, these drones.

• 52:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:10Speaker 14

  A lot of drones.

• 52:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So have you been in the conventional, you've been looking at the stuff?

• 52:13Speaker 14

  Yeah, yeah, I've been going around, but I just, I'm like, I'm not really a tech guy.

• 52:17Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 52:17Speaker 14

  I'm not a consumer, I'm not a good consumer.

• 52:19Nilay Patel?

  So nothing's grabbing you.

• 52:20Speaker 14

  I don't buy a lot of stuff.

• 52:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:21Speaker 14

  But like these drones, like what is, what is the purpose? I mean, I guess for cinematography, I get that.

• 52:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 52:26Speaker 14

  But why do we need so many drones?

• 52:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, if you've got, like, if you, if you've got a house out in the middle of nowhere, flying a drone is just fun.

• 52:32Speaker 14

  It's a fun hobby.

• 52:33Nilay Patel?

  Don't think this is like, one of the themes of technology for the past year is everybody's waiting for the next, you know, iPhone. Everyone's waiting for the next thing that's gonna change our lives. And it's like, that'll be a while, so in the meantime, just buy some toys.

• 52:45Speaker 14

  Well, you've got that, you've got HQ, I think.

• 52:48Nilay Patel?

  That's me at your time.

• 52:49Speaker 14

  But, no, I saw, you know, I saw these sleep beds and everyone's perfecting sleep now and cardio, uh, doing this heart sensors, biometrics. I mean, some of the scientific practice, you know, applications are interesting.

• 52:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 14

  But there's a lot of just, you know, disposable income. A lot of late capitalism on display here.

• 53:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I think there's, there is that hot, it's like, everyone's not looking for the next iPhone because they know they can't do it. But then there's also the like, well, what if we did?

• 53:12Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 53:12Nilay Patel?

  And that thing is a bed that watches you and it's like, I don't want that.

• 53:16Speaker 14

  Yeah, or a robot that, you know, follows you around and plays music.

• 53:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:19Speaker 14

  I thought my phone followed me around with my earbuds is good enough.

• 53:23Nilay Patel?

  So to me, the enduring question of CES is.

• 53:26Speaker 14

  Why?

• 53:27Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 53:27Speaker 14

  Why?

• 53:28Nilay Patel?

  But no, the one, it's the heart of every, every year, what will make you buy a new TV? So when was the last time you bought a TV?

• 53:34Speaker 14

  I don't, no, I don't buy TVs, I've never bought a TV.

• 53:36Nilay Patel?

  So nothing you sell this show will make you buy a new TV?

• 53:38Speaker 14

  No, I mean, I just, also.

• 53:40Nilay Patel?

  They're thinner, they're high resolution, they, I don't know, light up brighter now.

• 53:44Speaker 14

  I mean, those two, those new TVs are probably not new anymore, but the ones where a few years ago I started seeing them, the 4K, I guess, the high def, where it looks like everyone's in a play.

• 53:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:52Speaker 14

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:52Nilay Patel?

  You gotta turn that off.

• 53:53Speaker 14

  Yeah. That's terrible.

• 53:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 14

  It's scary.

• 53:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So by the way, you can turn that setting off. Live on Circuit Breaker, Scott Grasky hates motion smoothing.

• 54:00Speaker 14

  Is that what that is?

• 54:01Nilay Patel?

  It's called motion smoothing.

• 54:02Speaker 14

  It's the worst.

• 54:03Nilay Patel?

  There's a whole movement of directors, Ryan Johnson, J.J. Abrams, Sam Esmael, they're all tweeting that these manufacturers should just disable that by default.

• 54:11Speaker 14

  Yeah, it's bizarre, it's unsettling to watch that, so, no, I don't, I don't buy TVs. I have a 3CD stereo changer that I listen to, uh, going to bed at night and waking up in the morning and.

• 54:22Nilay Patel?

  Are you gonna recognize that on the floor?

• 54:23Speaker 14

  That's happening a lot, yeah.

• 54:25Nilay Patel?

  Has your life completely changed because of HQ?

• 54:27Speaker 14

  It has changed in the ways that, yeah, strangers want pictures with me where they didn't before. But beyond that, I mean, it's just, it's nice. I got 30% discount at Pinkberry.

• 54:36Nilay Patel?

  That's pretty good.

• 54:37Speaker 14

  The guys recognized me at Pinkberry. I'm like, can you give me an HQ discount? And they had 30%, friends and family.

• 54:43Nilay Patel?

  Have you ever won one of your own games? Do you play?

• 54:45Speaker 14

  I do play when I'm not hosting and...

• 54:47Speaker 00

  Did you play today?

• 54:48Speaker 14

  I couldn't play today, you know, I was busy, but I played yesterday and yeah, I don't get very far. It's hard. I'm going to about Q6, Q7, maybe 8 if an extra life, get me to 8 or 9.

• 54:57Nilay Patel?

  Sam got to 12 today and then Dieter gave him the wrong answer.

• 55:00Speaker 00

  Well, I guess, I guess, okay, so the very first line of Conan the Barbarian quoted somebody that I quote Marcus Aurelius, Genghis Khan, or Friedrich Nietzsche.

• 55:10Speaker 14

  Yeah, I'm gonna go with Nietzsche.

• 55:12Speaker 00

  That's correct!

• 55:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so everyone got this right except Dieter and Sam, Sam lost today.

• 55:18Speaker 00

  I owe Sam 40 bucks.

• 55:19Nilay Patel?

  And then he raged quietly in the corner.

• 55:21Speaker 14

  But is it about the money? I'm curious because as someone, I don't really get to use it. So is it about the money or is it the hunt, the chase of playing? What appeals to HQ? Appeals to you about HQ?

• 55:30Speaker 00

  It's one of the few live communal experiences you can have on your phone on the internet right now.

• 55:37Speaker 14

  Right, so it's more about the community and me on Twitter and talking to people after the game and during the game and on Slack?

• 55:42Speaker 00

  And it being a game show is really smart, so like, I'm old enough where I was like, when Who Wants to be a Millionaire was a thing, you'd be like, oh, we're gonna go watch it and like, the rest of America will watch it with us and we'll all be having this experience together.

• 55:53Speaker 14

  Right.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  And HQ has a tiny little like phone-sized version of that and that's interesting to me.

• 55:58Nilay Patel?

  I think for a lot of people it's about the money. I'm not, I disagree with Dieter. We actually have reporters who've written about it and the notion that there's free money available twice a day is like, makes that game really interesting. It changes your dynamic with that shared social experience.

• 56:12Speaker 14

  Despite the odds being so difficult, you know, people play the lottery still for the chance to win millions of dollars. I mean, this, you don't have to put in, there's no buy-in. So it's just free money, you're right, free money, that dangling carrot. But I think Dieter is hitting on it because it's that watercooler aspect that we sort of lost. With all this DVR and, you know, lazy media consumption, you have to be in it to win it. You gotta tune in.

• 56:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:34Speaker 00

  You got your phrases, man.

• 56:35Speaker 14

  Yeah, I got it.

• 56:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, the media training has arrived for you.

• 56:39Speaker 14

  Yeah. Where's my doggy treat? I got my little...

• 56:42Nilay Patel?

  So, you've become like a star because of HQ.

• 56:44Speaker 14

  Have I?

• 56:44Nilay Patel?

  You trying to turn that... I mean, you're like, literally, Ashley Carmen is like, "Oh, man, we gotta get selfie with Scott." Like, that's a flex on Instagram. So, get ready, you're gonna leave here and like 15 people are gonna take selfies with you. So, are you trying to turn that into something else? You trying to, you trying to become a TV star?

• 56:57Speaker 14

  What's your move? I mean, I'm just, look, I'm happy where I am. This is, truthfully, I've been doing comedy, you know, for, professionally for about 10 years.

• 57:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:06Speaker 14

  And there's a struggle. I mean, all my friends, every other comedian I know coming up with, you grind it out, you grind it out, and you hope something hits. For a lot of my friends, they stuck with the stand-up and they built that up and built that muscle and got onto Conan and got a half-hour special and now doing hour specials and touring the country and headlining clubs. I sort of went a different direction and started doing my own talk shows and doing videos for YouTube and building up my hosting skills. And then, and I always thought it would lead to a talk show. And then this game show came along and that's changing everything. But, you know, it just comes down to, I enjoy doing it.

• 57:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 14

  I like, you know, the fact that I can now afford an apartment. In New York. And, and it's just a fun, it's a fun, and being the face of this thing that so many people enjoy.

• 57:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 14

  And fomenting that sort of, that community. And we're building relationships and friendships. People are tweeting about the fact that, "Oh, my kids never want to hang out with me." And now when that HQ theme music comes on, we're all getting in the room together. And like, it's really, and over Thanksgiving and Christmas, we saw that families coming together and playing HQ, schools stopping their class, teachers saying, "Okay, time for HQ."

• 58:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:11Speaker 14

  Offices shutting down and, and...

• 58:13Nilay Patel?

  The economy grinding to a halt.

• 58:14Speaker 14

  The economy grinding to a halt.

• 58:15Nilay Patel?

  Planes falling from the sky.

• 58:16Speaker 14

  Productivity disappearing. But, at the same time, you know, team building. How many, how many team building exercises are there? You go to some ropes course somewhere. That's not fun. This is cheaper and easier to get the whole community on board the Office Together show.

• 58:28Nilay Patel?

  Well, I gotta cancel this ropes course.

• 58:29Speaker 14

  Yeah, forget the ropes course.

• 58:31Nilay Patel?

  Well, thank you very much for being here. What are you doing this week?

• 58:34Speaker 14

  I am, uh, I'm gonna meet Mike Piazza tomorrow.

• 58:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:36Speaker 14

  I just got invited to meet Mike Piazza. He's in town. And I'm a huge Mets fan, so that's a dream. And tonight, I think Rick Ross and Lauryn Hill are performing. I saw McLemore last night.

• 58:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 14

  So I'm trying to, you know.

• 58:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you're getting the full CS experience.

• 58:48Speaker 14

  I think so, yeah.

• 58:49Nilay Patel?

  Were you there when the power went out today?

• 58:51Speaker 14

  I was at the sand, so we were saved from that.

• 58:53Nilay Patel?

  It just sounds like a...

• 58:55Speaker 14

  Is it still out? What happened?

• 58:56Nilay Patel?

  It finally came back on. But they have to turn on all the computers on the booth, so it's taking hours. So power's back, and then they gotta reboot all the booths.

• 59:01Speaker 14

  Someone might be, uh, losing some money. There'll be lawsuits.

• 59:07Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna be something. All right, Scott, thank you so much for stopping by.

• 59:09Speaker 14

  Thank you, guys.

• 59:10Nilay Patel?

  Really appreciate it.

• 59:11Speaker 14

  Appreciate you. I appreciate the coverage. The Verge is loving us.

• 59:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we're doing all right. Uh, play HQ.

• 59:16Speaker 14

  Yeah, HQ. Download if you haven't, if you haven't heard about it yet. It's in the Android, Google Play Store now.

• 59:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:21Speaker 14

  I, I...

• 59:22Nilay Patel?

  Are you an iPhone and Android guy?

• 59:23Speaker 14

  iPhones? I don't even know how to say it. I have an iPhone.

• 59:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:26Speaker 14

  Apple Store, iOS. You can get it. It's free. Type in HQ. It should pop right up.

• 59:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:30Speaker 14

  Except no imitations, because there are some now. All right.

• 59:34Nilay Patel?

  All right, buddy.

• 59:34Speaker 14

  Thanks, guys.

• 59:35Nilay Patel?

  Well, that's great.

• 59:36Speaker 14

  That happened to us.

• 59:37Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I hope Sam's okay.

• 59:39Speaker 14

  Probably.

• 59:39Nilay Patel?

  He's probably gonna be fine.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  Uh, that was, that was most of our news. Do you want to say, like, two things about cars?

• 59:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  Because it's a car show.

• 59:46Nilay Patel?

  There's so many cars here. North Harrell is actually where the power went out first. So, like, just imagine a car show that was no power.

• 59:52Speaker 14

  Right.

• 59:52Nilay Patel?

  Like, people probably stealing the cars. Just an enormous amount of car news. And I think that the main takeaway for you watching this show is, like, yes, there's new head units and Mercedes has a new voice assistant called, uh, in this, I'm not making this up, Linguatronic.

• 1:00:06Speaker 14

  No.

• 1:00:06Nilay Patel?

  That's what Mercedes is named, it's new voice assistant. Their new interface in the car is MBUX with Linguatronic.

• 1:00:11Speaker 14

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:12Nilay Patel?

  Someone should help them. Uh, but you're seeing big platform plays from the carmakers now. So GM is doing self-driving taxis. Toyota has, like, basically rolling boxes with stores in them.

• 1:00:23Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:00:23Nilay Patel?

  Ford is like, we're building an autonomous platform for cars. You're seeing them all trying to do...

• 1:00:28Speaker 14

  Pizza Hut?

• 1:00:29Nilay Patel?

  Pizza Hut is like gonna do-

• 1:00:30Speaker 09

  Is that a thing? Is that a real thing?

• 1:00:32Nilay Patel?

  I think-

• 1:00:33Speaker 09

  Are they driving around with pizzas?

• 1:00:35Nilay Patel?

  Uh, I mean, they might be doing it as a stunt. The way to think about technology and pizza companies is that pizza companies just want you to remember that you can order a pizza.

• 1:00:42Speaker 09

  Yeah. People want pizza.

• 1:00:44Nilay Patel?

  So Domino's-

• 1:00:45Speaker 09

  Remember push for pizza?

• 1:00:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah, no, but every time there's something-

• 1:00:48Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:00:48Nilay Patel?

  Domino's is like, "Now you can order a Domino's with an Alexa." "Now you can order it off your Xbox." Right, like, all they're trying to do is make you remember that Domino's exists.

• 1:00:57Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Nilay Patel?

  Right, and maybe you're gonna order a pizza because it's like fun to push the button and it's gimmicky.

• 1:01:03Speaker 09

  I think it's mostly gimmicky, though.

• 1:01:04Nilay Patel?

  It's all marketing for them.

• 1:01:06Speaker 09

  It's easier to just go online or use the app or pick up the phone and just say, "Hey, I want this" instead of sending a- throwing a frisbee and having a bird catch it and then, you know, there's a whole-

• 1:01:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18Speaker 09

  But if that Pizza Hut thing is not a concept, how- do you guys know how to get Pizza Hut from that autonomous pizza vehicle?

• 1:01:26Nilay Patel?

  We could find out. We'll figure it out. That seems like a question The Verge is capable of.

• 1:01:29Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:01:30Nilay Patel?

  Can we get a pizza from a robot? I feel like-

• 1:01:32Speaker 09

  Yes.

• 1:01:33Nilay Patel?

  We're organized around that question.

• 1:01:37Speaker 15

  Hey, it's Sean O'Kane. I'm a transportation reporter at The Verge. What I was looking for at CES this year was probably a couple of different things, but the two biggest were all the different self-driving stuff that was gonna be here because there's a lot of different kinds of it. The most exciting thing I saw was probably the volocopter, which is this wild octodecacopter is, I think, the term for it. Um, or at least that's what I tried to figure out myself, which was onstage at Intel's keynote and they have the sort of even newer version at a little booth near our trailer here. And that thing's just, it's crazy. It's like the thing I want to fly out of here the most, even though they're definitely not gonna let me.

• 1:02:18Speaker 16

  Hey, it's Tom. Um, I've been searching around CES for laptops. More laptops than I need to see in a month, let alone a year. I've been checking out, so HP did their Spectre X360, a 15-inch. Dell's done another 15-inch, the XPS 15. Uh, they've also refreshed their XPS 13. And I've kind of been looking around- Those and some stuff from Lenovo and Acer and trying to figure out what's what's happening in 2018 with laptops and what's the best one from the show and all that sort of stuff. I'll say that we usually see spinning, crazy flipping laptops and crazy giant gaming rigs and all that sort of stuff. We haven't seen so many of those this year. But in terms of the stuff I have seen, I'd say the XPS 15 is probably even more impressive

• 1:03:01Speaker 16

  just because it's got a MagLift keyboard, which in real terms basically means it has magnets underneath the keys. So the keys are still physically there in place. And what this allows it to do is just a little bit clickier, even if you've got the short travel of the keys. It felt pretty good and we haven't really seen a lot of that from PC makers. Obviously, Apple does quite a lot of cool stuff for the keyboards on their Mac line. And so it's interesting to see. Also, inside that laptop, there's an Intel processor that's been combined with AMD's Vegas GPU, which is their mobile chip essentially. And that should be a little bit better for gaming than the than the sort of Intel stuff that we've seen before. And it's just an interesting combination of Intel and AMD in the same laptop essentially

• 1:03:46Speaker 16

  and being all powered up by Intel. So I don't know, I feel like we'll probably see a lot more of that throughout 2018. And it'd be interesting to see where that partnership goes. It'd be really cool if we see some laptops that can play games that aren't like giant. Starting to see some of those come through, but it'd be nice to see them come down to like the 14 inch or even the 13 inch reform. In fact, it would be pretty, pretty good to see.

• 1:04:09Speaker 16

  But apart from that, Acer did a Swift 7 update. So then now the world's finished laptop again. The keyboard and it's not very good though, so we'll see what happens there. But it's still kind of interesting to see them pushing everyone to go thinner and lighter and stuff. That's always a good thing. But I feel like we've got to the point where laptops are probably light enough anyway. Obviously, Razer did like their Razer Phone Dock stuff. And the laptop is just a prototype, so kind of like similar to the stuff that they did last year with their prototypes. And that's just basically you dock, you dock a phone into this like fake laptop essentially. And that powers it all up. I don't think we're going to see a phone that's going to turn into a laptop anytime soon. It's certainly not this year. But CES is all, a lot of it is about experimentation.

• 1:04:53Speaker 16

  A lot of these products don't even come out half the time, so still good to see.

• 1:05:02Speaker 00

  I want to do a little tiny bit of news because we couldn't do it yesterday because QuizDaddy blew up our whole show.

• 1:05:08Nilay Patel?

  QuizDaddy happens.

• 1:05:09Speaker 00

  I call him QuizDaddy. No, but TVs, it's a TV show. We've already talked about a bunch of stuff.

• 1:05:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  But Sony's got their new TVs, fine. TCL's got the Roku Assistant. And last year, the TCL 4K TV was one of our favorite TVs of the year because it was like the best deal you could get. They've iterated on that TV and we expect that's still going to be a great deal.

• 1:05:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Speaker 00

  So we're excited about that. But I think the most interesting TV news here actually didn't come from TV companies and isn't technically TV news.

• 1:05:39Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 1:05:40Speaker 00

  It's Nvidia has been doing, you know, G-Sync with monitors. Like, they've made a 65-inch version of this.

• 1:05:48Nilay Patel?

  So if you don't know what G-Sync is, it's Variable Refresh Rate. The best analog, probably the most, the Razer phone has a variable refresh rate LCD on the phone. But probably most of you, where you'd experience it is on the iPad Pro.

• 1:06:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:06:03Nilay Patel?

  Apple has ProMotion, so the iPad Pro usually runs, you know, 60 frames a second. When you're using a pencil, it zooms up to 120 Hz refresh rate.

• 1:06:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:06:11Nilay Patel?

  Which is way more responsive.

• 1:06:11Speaker 00

  So there's a bunch of technology that PC gamers have taken for granted that allows them to do really great, get great picture. And I think that we're going to start to see that come to TVs. I love that Nvidia's thing, by the way, is a big format gaming displays, BFGD.

• 1:06:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:27Speaker 00

  There's an F there that maybe is...

• 1:06:29Nilay Patel?

  That's pretty good.

• 1:06:30Speaker 00

  But the coolest monitor technology that everyone's excited about, there are just a couple of mirrors that Asus made. And you put them in between your two monitors. And it refracts the light just a little bit so that the two bezels disappear. And, you know, it's like, it's not, there's no actual display there. It's just like refracting a little bit of light. But it makes a three-display setup completely immersive.

• 1:06:51Nilay Patel?

  That's pretty cool.

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  And, you know, Samsung's got its panels, so we're starting to see different ways to plug all this stuff together. Anyway, that was my quick TV side.

• 1:06:58Nilay Patel?

  I want to, just on the G-Sync Variable Refresh Rate stuff. If you're a big home theater nerd like me...

• 1:07:07Speaker 00

  Man, oh my god.

• 1:07:08Nilay Patel?

  You're out there.

• 1:07:09Speaker 00

  G-Sync is another light for you to try and turn on in your system. You like, it's very angry.

• 1:07:14Nilay Patel?

  But no, there's a huge problem. So games are great. You want to zoom up the refresh rate for games.

• 1:07:19Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:07:19Nilay Patel?

  Drop that latency.

• 1:07:22Nilay Patel?

  What do the kids say?

• 1:07:23Speaker 09

  PUBG?

• 1:07:23Nilay Patel?

  Fragmore PUBG.

• 1:07:24Speaker 00

  Fragmore PUBG?

• 1:07:26Speaker 09

  That's not something anyone's ever said before.

• 1:07:28Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 1:07:29Nilay Patel?

  Cool. Whatever Sam says to himself.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  You are not that old.

• 1:07:33Nilay Patel?

  I'm just leaning into it, man. Look at this baby face over here. Alright.

• 1:07:38Speaker 09

  Wait, I want to hear what you're gonna say, though.

• 1:07:39Nilay Patel?

  So you want to zoom up that refresh rate. But when you watch a movie, you actually want to crank it all the way down to 24.

• 1:07:47Speaker 09

  Because that's what it's shot in.

• 1:07:48Nilay Patel?

  When you watch YouTube, you shoot in 24, which is more cinematic.

• 1:07:51Speaker 09

  Right.

• 1:07:52Nilay Patel?

  It's been really hard to do that. So, another good example is you plug the Apple TV in, or whatever. Apple wants to run it at the highest refresh rate possible.

• 1:08:01Speaker 09

  Right.

• 1:08:01Nilay Patel?

  There's tons of menu animations, Siri, all this stuff. But then they've got to compensate for it when they show the movie.

• 1:08:06Speaker 09

  Right.

• 1:08:07Nilay Patel?

  Variable refresh rate display. You don't see that blackout black when you switch modes.

• 1:08:11Speaker 09

  Right.

• 1:08:11Nilay Patel?

  It runs at 24, you hit the Siri button, it zooms up to 120. So you get this user interface pattern that's much better for everything in home theater. I've been waiting for this stuff to hit TVs forever. I'm super excited to see it.

• 1:08:23Speaker 09

  Wait, so you're saying like the UI elements will be at 120 frames per second, right? And then like the actual film movie can stay at the 24 that they shot it?

• 1:08:33Nilay Patel?

  No, they won't be operating independent speeds. I'm saying, you're watching a movie, the TV runs at 24, yeah. You hit the Siri button, the TV will speed up to 120. Because now you're trying to use...

• 1:08:43Speaker 09

  And that hasn't existed before, like on televisions?

• 1:08:44Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 1:08:45Speaker 09

  What about like the true motion stuff? It's either on or off with that?

• 1:08:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so all that stuff has weird labels and weird marketing names. But like fundamentally, what they're doing is they're saying, okay, we give in. You're gonna run this at 30 or 60 frames per second because that's, makes animations look smooth.

• 1:09:00Speaker 09

  Right.

• 1:09:00Nilay Patel?

  Now we're gonna do a pull down and find ways to duplicate frames so it looks like 24 frames per second.

• 1:09:06Speaker 00

  So, bottom line...

• 1:09:07Nilay Patel?

  And it's like, that's a very complicated math puzzle.

• 1:09:10Speaker 09

  And now we're seeing it at CES.

• 1:09:11Speaker 00

  Right, now. We're seeing it in Nvidia with the BFGD or whatever. But I feel like that's a step towards, maybe they're gonna try and infiltrate TVs and I hope that happens.

• 1:09:20Speaker 09

  On it.

• 1:09:20Speaker 00

  For me, the bottom line is there haven't been enough acronyms and weird terms in TV and now we're gonna get some more. And I'm just really excited.

• 1:09:26Nilay Patel?

  I've never been more excited. I'm so down for this.

• 1:09:29Speaker 00

  Best, best to see, okay, we're talking about the best CES.

• 1:09:31Nilay Patel?

  Let's do it.

• 1:09:32Speaker 00

  You want to start with the best TV?

• 1:09:34Nilay Patel?

  Well, the best TV, yeah, we're just talking TVs. It has to be Samsung's The Wall.

• 1:09:38Speaker 09

  And homage to Pink Floyd.

• 1:09:41Nilay Patel?

  I looked at it today.

• 1:09:42Speaker 00

  Okay, tell us what you thought.

• 1:09:43Nilay Patel?

  I went and looked at it. It's a... So like the thing about the walls is it's modular bricks and putting together a TV.

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  And it's also micro LED, which is potentially a very exciting technology because you get the benefits of all that without many of its drawbacks.

• 1:09:57Nilay Patel?

  What are the drawbacks?

• 1:09:58Speaker 00

  They burn in and they like fade and they do weird things over time. They don't last as long.

• 1:10:03Speaker 09

  What do you mean it's modular?

• 1:10:04Nilay Patel?

  So it's the way the wall is built is it's segments of micro LED displays and you click them together and you make a TV of whatever size you want.

• 1:10:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:14Nilay Patel?

  That's the promise of the wall.

• 1:10:15Speaker 09

  So you can go as big or as small as you want. You can change the aspect ratio.

• 1:10:20Speaker 00

  They said the max was 120.

• 1:10:21Nilay Patel?

  No, it's 146.

• 1:10:23Speaker 09

  What size did you see it at?

• 1:10:24Nilay Patel?

  The biggest 146.

• 1:10:25Speaker 09

  Is there, are there bezels or edges?

• 1:10:27Nilay Patel?

  So if you get real close to it, you can see, but you can't at any normal distance, you're gonna look at 146 inch TV, you can't see it. TV looks great.

• 1:10:33Speaker 09

  Wow.

• 1:10:34Nilay Patel?

  It's beautiful, it's bright, it's big. I just think it's the best TV because it's the most innovative. It is a repackaging of technology that's actually been around for a while, which is how they build stadium displays.

• 1:10:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:10:44Nilay Patel?

  So they're consumerizing this like set of solved problems.

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  Do you not want a stadium display in your living room?

• 1:10:49Nilay Patel?

  I kinda do. I just, I looked at it today and I was like, alright, like it's a cool display.

• 1:10:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:56Nilay Patel?

  But would I rather have a 4K projector? Would I rather just have like a giant TV? It's like, they've gotta explain to me why I want a custom sized screen.

• 1:11:05Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:11:05Nilay Patel?

  But it's cool as hell.

• 1:11:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:07Nilay Patel?

  I think the role of TV, we gave that a different award, but I think the role of TV is actually much more interesting.

• 1:11:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:11:12Nilay Patel?

  Because it's like a much more complicated.

• 1:11:14Speaker 00

  Well, okay, so we'll just jump ahead.

• 1:11:16Nilay Patel?

  But anyway, we did, the staff voted and best TV is the wall.

• 1:11:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:11:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:20Speaker 00

  Best robot, Paul here. Best robot has to be the iBO, the new Sony iBO. Have you seen this thing?

• 1:11:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:26Speaker 00

  It is ridiculously cute. It's way more articulated than the last iBO, like things are like rolling instead of just like on a hinge. Like, every part of the dog is touch sensitive. It is pretty mobile, can move around, it can pick up a bone. It looks very expressive, it has OLED eyes, so it can make more expressions with its eyes. Yeah. It has its own charging pad, and it knows where it is, and it will just tootle itself over there and lay down on it. Literally, every person who's seen the IBO has fallen completely in love with this. Yeah, it's just, it is, they have done such a good job of making this thing adorable.

• 1:12:00Speaker 09

  Did you just like fragging joystick jockeys?

• 1:12:02Speaker 00

  Oh, wow.

• 1:12:03Speaker 09

  We saw this thing like a decade ago. I remember when I was 15, and you went to like those like, on the bottom of an article, "Five mind-blowing robots", and it's like, "This dog that costs $8,000."

• 1:12:13Speaker 00

  Right, so they discontinued it.

• 1:12:15Speaker 09

  Right.

• 1:12:15Speaker 00

  Some people were so sad about them discontinuing it, they've held funerals for their robot dogs. They're bringing it back with all the technology advances we've had in those past 10 years or so.

• 1:12:25Speaker 09

  How much is this thing? 500 bucks?

• 1:12:26Speaker 00

  I don't know, it's only available in Japan for now, but it understands English commands, and so we are very, very hopeful it will come to the US. How are you not in love with this, Sam? It's got a camera on the top, so it can like, look around, see where it is.

• 1:12:37Speaker 09

  Are we, are we going toward a point where we're gonna have robot pets now?

• 1:12:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. This dog, this dog, if you interact with it more, it becomes imprinted on you, and it wants to hang out with you more than the other people in the family.

• 1:12:50Speaker 09

  That's, okay.

• 1:12:52Speaker 00

  I can't believe you're skeptical about this.

• 1:12:54Speaker 09

  It's just like, why not just get a real dog?

• 1:12:57Speaker 00

  Because you have to, a real, a real dog has to do stuff.

• 1:13:01Speaker 09

  Yeah, you need to bring it to the vet, you need to feed it real food, I get it, I get it.

• 1:13:04Speaker 00

  Do you get it?

• 1:13:05Speaker 09

  When I, when I was at the Sony booth last night with my dad, in the corner, there was just like, 25 people with their phones up, taking pictures, and it was a robot dog!

• 1:13:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. The dream. Alright, if you refuse to be excited about a robot dog, are you excited about a, um, a new Atrix? I don't know who you lie is.

• 1:13:24Speaker 09

  Ooh, I like this segue, I like the segue, yes, yes.

• 1:13:27Speaker 00

  That segue made no sense.

• 1:13:30Speaker 09

  He tried.

• 1:13:31Nilay Patel?

  None at all.

• 1:13:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, it's fine.

• 1:13:32Nilay Patel?

  This is my favorite category. Most, or best CES.

• 1:13:36Speaker 00

  Best CES.

• 1:13:37Nilay Patel?

  Not best of CES, just the best CES.

• 1:13:39Speaker 00

  The most CES thing.

• 1:13:40Speaker 09

  Okay, that's what that means.

• 1:13:41Nilay Patel?

  The thing that encapsulates this show.

• 1:13:43Speaker 00

  The most ridiculous.

• 1:13:44Speaker 09

  Like, when you think of CES, like weird quirky gadgets.

• 1:13:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, just the most insane thing.

• 1:13:49Speaker 09

  This is what we have?

• 1:13:50Nilay Patel?

  This is what we have. Project Linda, it's from Razer.

• 1:13:53Speaker 09

  Concept, though, right?

• 1:13:53Nilay Patel?

  It's a concept, it's not shipping, but it is an idea that's been around for a real long time, which is, you have a smartphone, it's a big powerful computer, what if you just make it a laptop? So that weird, Dieter was saying, the Motorola Atrix, years ago, came out at CES. You could stick it into a, we called it the lap dock.

• 1:14:10Speaker 09

  Yes.

• 1:14:10Nilay Patel?

  You could stick it in that.

• 1:14:11Speaker 09

  It's a dock, though, right? Like, on the screen, right?

• 1:14:14Nilay Patel?

  No, it flipped up behind the screen, it was weird.

• 1:14:16Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:14:16Nilay Patel?

  It was not a good product, and it failed.

• 1:14:18Speaker 09

  The best.

• 1:14:19Nilay Patel?

  This, the Razer phone, becomes the trackpad of a laptop. It's such a brilliant, every time I look at my MacBook lap, like, because they're huge now.

• 1:14:27Speaker 09

  It should be, yes, it should be the phone, right? You should be able to, like, eject.

• 1:14:30Nilay Patel?

  You can put information there, there's all kinds of stuff. So it's just a concept, it's called Project Linda. It is the most insane thing, because at the end of the day, what you have acquired is an Android laptop.

• 1:14:42Speaker 09

  So it's, does it have a brain, the computer?

• 1:14:45Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 1:14:45Speaker 09

  Or it's just a keyboard and a screen? And then you put the phone in, and then it boots Android, like, it kind of just turns?

• 1:14:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, mirrors Android up on the screen.

• 1:14:53Speaker 09

  Okay.

• 1:14:53Nilay Patel?

  So you use all your Android.

• 1:14:54Speaker 09

  So there's no hardware in the laptop, there's no?

• 1:14:57Nilay Patel?

  Presumably some hardware in the laptop to drive all the keyboard and display and whatever.

• 1:15:00Speaker 09

  Okay.

• 1:15:01Nilay Patel?

  But it doesn't have its own independent processor.

• 1:15:02Speaker 09

  The brain is the phone.

• 1:15:04Nilay Patel?

  Is the phone. You get a battery, and then the phone screen becomes the trackpad. I'm telling you, this is like one of my dreams.

• 1:15:10Speaker 09

  You think we'll see this thing? Because remember last year, the TriScreen Razer laptop, and then Project Ariana, the whole, kind of, that, those are not?

• 1:15:18Nilay Patel?

  Razer, I think Razer wants to, hey, buddy.

• 1:15:21Speaker 09

  They love to concept things, proof of concept, win Verge Awards, and then, eh, we'll see you next year with something else.

• 1:15:27Nilay Patel?

  Hey, people love, people love the Razer phone. All right, this is your favorite.

• 1:15:30Speaker 00

  This is our best mobile accessory. This is the new DJI Osmo.

• 1:15:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:34Speaker 00

  Um, it's, this is still a beta version that I'm using right now, so it's a little buggy, but it does all the stuff you expected Osmo to do. I can, like, draw a box around Eli's head, and then I can track him automatically. So there he is, and then as we move around, it follows him.

• 1:15:49Nilay Patel?

  Wow.

• 1:15:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. So what's interesting about this thing is it's way cheaper. It's like 130 bucks, which is

• 1:15:56Nilay Patel?

  I'm buying one.

• 1:15:57Speaker 00

  super cheap.

• 1:15:58Speaker 09

  Less than half the price of the original.

• 1:15:59Speaker 00

  They switched it to an internal battery, so you can just recharge it directly, which some people are annoyed by, it's fine. They put the mount on the bottom. But most importantly to me, you'll see here, vertical, you can mount your phone, either, oh, it's still following you. It just loves you so much. You can mount your phone horizontally or vertically, which means if you want to get your Snapchat game on, if you want to... For me, it's Apple Clips, because I'm an old nerd.

• 1:16:22Nilay Patel?

  The one Apple Clips user.

• 1:16:24Speaker 09

  Yeah, literally.

• 1:16:24Nilay Patel?

  If you're the Apple Clips team, please reach out to Dieter.

• 1:16:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:16:27Nilay Patel?

  He's the only person with a note for you.

• 1:16:29Speaker 00

  But I mean, look, this is like...

• 1:16:32Speaker 00

  It's pretty good.

• 1:16:33Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:16:35Speaker 00

  It's like I said, this is still beta.

• 1:16:37Nilay Patel?

  So you have the old one, right?

• 1:16:37Speaker 09

  But it's super cheap. It's great. That feels a little bit cheaper. The material feels just like a little bit cheaper. And then they got rid of the trigger on the back. I like that they moved the mount to the bottom. Does it still charge over 3.5 millimeters?

• 1:16:50Speaker 00

  No, it charges over a micro.

• 1:16:52Speaker 09

  Micro.

• 1:16:53Speaker 00

  But like, it got rid of the... They changed the power switch, so it's a standard like DJI double tap to turn it on and off.

• 1:16:59Speaker 09

  Like all the drones.

• 1:17:00Speaker 00

  And it folds up really, really small here.

• 1:17:03Speaker 09

  I think the price here is the whole story. When the original Osmo came out, I bought it at the Apple Store for $300. And I thought it was worth $300. And now, like I said, the material, it feels way cheaper, I think. But I mean, for 130 bucks. For 130 bucks.

• 1:17:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. Like, if you vlog at all, this is an easy buy.

• 1:17:23Speaker 09

  If you're an Instagram storier, that's probably for you.

• 1:17:27Nilay Patel?

  You vlog a little bit.

• 1:17:28Speaker 09

  Yeah, here and there, on the tubes.

• 1:17:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, between your PUBG frag matches.

• 1:17:33Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 1:17:35Speaker 00

  Okay. So we already... We already named...

• 1:17:39Speaker 09

  I'll put that. Neil Patel is texting me, "Your frag matches."

• 1:17:45Speaker 00

  Do you want to say anything else about the best prototype, the LG OLED TV that rolls up?

• 1:17:50Nilay Patel?

  I mean, this is... I was on the show for it with a bunch of people, and I was like, "This is fundamentally a show about display technologies."

• 1:17:56Speaker 00

  Yep, it makes sense. Should make that sound. It's just a show about display technologies, ultimately. Where are we going to put them, what they're going to look like, what shapes they're going to be. And I think having rollable displays that can actually be products, you're going to see them everywhere.

• 1:18:09Speaker 09

  It's like the super high-end... I mean, there's probably one in this room with a TV at the foot of your bed goes in and out, right?

• 1:18:17Speaker 00

  See, that convinces me. Just up against the wall, it's done, but to have it at the foot of your bed.

• 1:18:22Speaker 09

  Right, if it's like in your, it's contained in that box.

• 1:18:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:18:26Speaker 09

  And it's presum-, I mean, no one's seen the inside, right? Does it actually roll up? No one's seen the mechanism of that, right?

• 1:18:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that's what we want to see.

• 1:18:33Speaker 09

  But presumably, it rolls up, right? And then, yeah, I think that would be a really cool application.

• 1:18:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't think they're like David Copperfield-ing this, right? They're like, it's like, whoa.

• 1:18:41Speaker 09

  Yeah, like.

• 1:18:42Speaker 00

  No, I think it's actually doing what they say it's doing.

• 1:18:44Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:18:44Speaker 00

  They've demoed that kind of technology before.

• 1:18:46Speaker 09

  And then you can probably connect like your Xbox to it, or your...

• 1:18:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just a TV.

• 1:18:50Speaker 09

  Right.

• 1:18:51Speaker 00

  So I love this thing. All right. Google Assistant has been everywhere. Yeah. Uh, it came out on a few new speakers that look interesting, but we haven't really tried them yet, so we don't really, like, we've used them a bit. Uh, but they're like pretty derivative of Alexa, so rather than giving them best in show, we have given Google Assistant most in show. Yeah, it's just everywhere. It's just, it's just the most. It's here the most. Yeah.

• 1:19:15Speaker 00

  And then lastly, this was a big fight. This was like a long, involved conversation. The best of CES, the best in show for The Verge. We gave it to the fingerprint sensor. Yeah, the Synaptics Clear ID fingerprint sensor. Now, here's why. Um, I think it's going to, it's real, it works, it works very well. It's in a shipping product, which almost nothing in CES is. We expect it's going to be in many more shipping products. The Vivo, yeah.

• 1:19:39Speaker 09

  Which like...

• 1:19:40Speaker 00

  No, but it's gonna be in the S9. They still made it. I mean, it's gonna be there. Yeah, it'll be in the S9. It'll be in a million Android phones, I'm sure of it. Yeah. Um, and what's, it's, they solved the problem that nobody else has solved. Everyone's putting fingerprint sensors in the back, or way up in the corner, or they're inventing entirely brand-new laser technologies to scan your face. They're like, Apple put so much work into Face ID, and, you know, it's worth it, that's where they're going. Uh, but Synaptics with the fingerprint sensor under the screen solved that problem in a way that like everybody wanted, everybody to solve that problem for the past five years.

• 1:20:13Speaker 09

  How did they do it and no one else did?

• 1:20:15Speaker 00

  Well, they had to wait for, uh... Well, it's their business. Yeah.

• 1:20:17Speaker 09

  Synaptics?

• 1:20:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, Synaptics makes, they make touchpads, they make fingerprint sensors.

• 1:20:20Speaker 09

  And then they partnered with...

• 1:20:22Nilay Patel?

  They are the component supplier for almost all of these products.

• 1:20:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Speaker 09

  So why, why did they choose that phone first, do you think?

• 1:20:30Nilay Patel?

  Because Vivo probably was like, "Yeah, screw it, we'll launch a phone."

• 1:20:32Speaker 00

  Vivo's the fourth largest phone manufacturer in the world. They're huge, and nobody knows it.

• 1:20:36Speaker 09

  Oh, I didn't even know that.

• 1:20:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, they're just, they don't out in America.

• 1:20:39Nilay Patel?

  But Vivo also makes Oppo, like they're every, one plus.

• 1:20:42Speaker 09

  It's just a little bit surprising.

• 1:20:44Nilay Patel?

  No, if you're Samsung, you don't want to give the S9 away.

• 1:20:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:48Nilay Patel?

  Right?

• 1:20:48Speaker 00

  Samsung's gonna announce it when I have mobile.

• 1:20:50Speaker 09

  You, you both are banking on the S9 having this built in?

• 1:20:53Nilay Patel?

  Every Android phone's gonna have this thing.

• 1:20:54Speaker 00

  And so, S9's coming to World Congress. They didn't want to announce it here because you don't announce phones here unless you're Vivo.

• 1:21:00Speaker 09

  And then win awards.

• 1:21:02Speaker 00

  Or, right.

• 1:21:03Speaker 09

  There it is again?

• 1:21:04Speaker 00

  There it is. But Synaptics does want to be here because half the business of CES isn't us going out to the show floor, you and me and nerds. It's making deals, selling your components, getting into retail, and so Synaptics had to be here. So if Vivo's willing to announce their phones so they can show off the fingerprint sensor at CES, of course they're gonna, they'll, they'll take whoever is willing to do it. And they took Vivo.

• 1:21:28Speaker 09

  And you don't see any markings on the screen or anything? It is a...

• 1:21:31Speaker 00

  I mean, they have a, there's like a graphical response, so you know where to push and it works.

• 1:21:35Speaker 09

  Right, but there's no...

• 1:21:37Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:21:37Speaker 09

  A ring or something?

• 1:21:39Speaker 00

  It requires OLED because OLED, you can see through because LED, LCD has to be backward.

• 1:21:42Speaker 09

  I see.

• 1:21:43Speaker 00

  Right? And so OLED doesn't because it's, you know, organically, it's from the pixel itself.

• 1:21:47Speaker 09

  We are really, I mean, that is very cool technology to really exist.

• 1:21:51Speaker 00

  I think the, yeah, the component's like 7mm thin if I remember correctly.

• 1:21:54Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's cool.

• 1:21:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:55Speaker 09

  Yeah.

• 1:21:56Speaker 00

  There it is.

• 1:21:57Nilay Patel?

  But what's the argument? Like, what's the best in show? Is this a wild razor thing? And the answer is like, it's the thing that's gonna ship and change our lives. And it's already shipping.

• 1:22:04Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:22:05Nilay Patel?

  And I think this is gonna be a really important... I don't think anyone, everyone else is gonna race to face ID. I think they're gonna go with this thing.

• 1:22:11Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:22:11Speaker 09

  I'm into touch ID every day.

• 1:22:18Speaker 17

  I'm Vlad Sav, Senior Editor with Verge. So I've come here to CES 2018 looking for the latest developments in headphone technology. A lot of it is actually a continuation of what has already been happening. It's a segment of tech industry that is very much in flux at the moment. There's been a big switch toward wireless headphones, especially in ears. There's this phenomenon called the neck buds, which are essentially wireless headphones with a connecting cable and sometimes even a plastic column, which I find atrocious and horrible. They've kind of made a resurgence this year at CES. But in general, Qualcomm has also introduced a new True Wireless chip, which is making it easier to make true wireless earbuds without any connections.

• 1:23:01Speaker 17

  So that is really the big thing that every tech company seems to be pushing when it comes to consumer-level audio, portable audio especially. One thing that is almost entirely missing nowadays is a pair of over-ear wired headphones. Everybody seems to be doing wireless. Noise cancelling is another big feature. It does seem to be the case that features rather than just pure audio quality are the things that the companies are pushing hardest. One of the highlights on the audio fire front actually is Sennheiser. They just introduced the HD 820, which is a closed-back version of their flagship headphone, the HD 800S. It's the exact same audio driver, it's just in closed-back, which means that you don't need a dedicated listening room for it.

• 1:23:44Speaker 17

  It makes the audio fire habit a bit more social, although it doesn't make it any more affordable because they cost $2,400. So it's an interesting development, but maybe only of academic or enthusiast interest.

• 1:24:01Speaker 06

  This is the moment we've all been waiting for. I'm Paul Miller with The Verge, and I've found a robot that can go to the kitchen, go open the fridge, get a can of Diet Coke or a adult beverage, and bring it to you.

• 1:24:21Speaker 06

  And then it dabs.

• 1:24:24Speaker 06

  Two dabs on the robot haters who thought this day could never come. So my buddy Aeolus has other functionality other than fridge beer delivery. You can actually attach a vacuum cleaner. It can sweep. It can move chairs around, so it gets the chairs away and then it sweeps. It's supposed to be able to find your glasses, we'll see how well that works. So what's important to know is that this will not be cheap, but they're trying to make it kind of affordable. It's gonna ship by the end of this year. And they're saying a roughly equivalent to a family of four on vacation overseas. So whatever you think that means. So like maybe less than $20,000.

• 1:25:07Speaker 06

  In the labs, like universities build robots that have some of these functionalities and it's like $300,000. So it's really cool if they can get this into the home for, under the cost of your home. That'd be nice. I'm obviously pretty excited. I've seen a lot of robots, seen a lot of robots at this show, but none of them do anything other than like vacuum or just like look cute. So I'm ready. I'm ready for this to happen.

• 1:25:33Nilay Patel?

  Okay, everybody, this is the end of our show. Thank you, Ashley, Lauren, Sam, bring it in fam. Come on in. Like and subscribe, but our channel, not Sam's. I'll bring it back. Thank you everybody for watching our show here at CES. It's been a wild four days. So many people have watched the show. It's actually, the numbers are kind of astounding. It's been really fun to make. Thank you to this crew. It's been super fun. We're gonna go back to where we live. We're gonna keep doing this show. It's gonna be really... We do now, Sam. I have terrible news. Thank you everybody for watching. CES is over. There's still yet some more coverage on the site that tricked me out. Go on our YouTube channel, watch all the videos, read all the stories, and we will see you on Circuit Breaker Live soon.

• 1:26:22Nilay Patel?

  You want to talk about CES?

• 1:26:25Nilay Patel?

  Let's talk about CES.

• 1:26:30Nilay Patel?

  Every year, the most important people from tech, and media, and science, and art, come together in Vegas to talk about the future. What our world is going to look like next year, five years from now, and 100 years from tomorrow.

• 1:26:45Nilay Patel?

  And let's be honest, a lot of this stuff never comes true. CES is all about dreams and hype, not about reality. But you know what? That's great. Because you can complain about being in Vegas, you can complain about noise and crowds, but you can't complain about hundreds of thousands of people all gathered together for a week to try and build the future. A future where cars, and phones, and TVs, even refrigerators are getting smarter and smarter every day. Why the hell do we need a smart fridge? Who knows? But it's amazing to think about the possibilities. That's why we come to CES. Not to complain about the lack of prices and ship dates, but to see the biggest ideas on the biggest stage in tech.

• 1:27:27Nilay Patel?

  And maybe, just maybe, catch a little glimpse of the future.