CES 2015, Day 3

They said it wasn't possible. They said the show couldn't go on. And yet, here we are, at the fourth and final Vergecast of CES 2015. Send the week off with your friends Nilay Patel, Casey Newton, Nitasha Tiku, and Emily Yoshida. 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.

• 0:06Nilay Patel?

  Hey everybody and welcome to The Vergecast. It's our last Vergecast of CES. I'm Neil Appertal, the energy chief of The Verge. I'm also extraordinarily sick, so there is a, I would say, greater than 50% chance that I actually just die on the show. And as Casey was saying to me earlier...

• 0:21Speaker 01

  It'll be a snuff film.

• 0:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's a snuff film. And I think that is what The Verge should be known for.

• 0:26Speaker 01

  (laughs)

• 0:27Nilay Patel?

  What was The Verge? It was a website and then they got really into the murder movie business. But I'm joined by three very exciting people today on The Vergecast. Two people who are new to The Verge and new to CES. And Casey, who every day is a rebirth. So Natasha Teague is our new senior writer. Emily Oshida is our new entertainment editor. Casey, actually, was just promoted to be our Silicon Valley editor. If you guys want to say hello, this would be an excellent time.

• 0:52Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 0:53Speaker 03

  What's up, CES?

• 0:54Nilay Patel?

  Wow. Hi. So... Yeah! Yeah.

• 0:59Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:00Nilay Patel?

  It's like a lot of tired people forcing it in the crowd today.

• 1:03Speaker 03

  Can I just say, this is my first time in The Verge lounge here at CES and I got so excited to see all these beautiful faces and then I realized that everyone here is just charging their phones.

• 1:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:12Speaker 03

  Because we've set up an incredible state... How many power outlets do we have? And what is the electricity budget for The Verge at CES 2K15?

• 1:18Nilay Patel?

  I don't know, but it's all coming off that Mustang over there. Oh, that's me. There's my brand of grace. I love the Mustang. It fills me with joy. No, but I will say this. This space is really cool, but next year I want to get even bigger.

• 1:30Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:31Nilay Patel?

  So, yeah. That's it.

• 1:33Speaker 03

  Same here.

• 1:34Nilay Patel?

  So that is the end of the introduction portion of The Vergecast. I'm like really, like, my brain is at like 30%. Yesterday I was really hungover and today I'm really sick. And tomorrow, I will, I'm telling you, I will just be a corpse on the ground.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  I think that The Verge has been really good at organizing, though, the levels at which we get sick. Like, it feels like we're in shifts.

• 1:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:51Speaker 02

  Like, I was definitely early shift sick and now I feel like a regular human being, which I feel really, really grateful for. But, you know. But now Neil is down, so, you know.

• 1:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I will say Natasha, we were in a car on the way to a party the other day and I asked Natasha how her day was going and she misheard me and thought I asked you, she thought I asked how her life was going. And then her answer was, "I'm more susceptible to cults now."

• 2:14Speaker 01

  I mean, it's true.

• 2:15Nilay Patel?

  CES. So, hey, so the two of you are new. This is your first CES, so I'm just gonna ask you straight up. Natasha, how is your CES? What is this like for you?

• 2:24Speaker 01

  It has been very disorienting. Even walking to find this lounge for the second time, I got a little lost. Went to a different giant tech corporation entrance. It's been actually, though, really fun, too. Like, I am getting really excited about a lot of the people who are talking to me, and I've been able to do some really fun things. I just watched Richard Branson give away 10 tickets to his private island at a startup contest.

• 2:55Nilay Patel?

  Like you do.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Not in person, but...

• 2:57Speaker 03

  And I think that's a trap, by the way. Whenever a mysterious billionaire invites you to his private island... We've seen this movie. You will be hunted for sport.

• 3:07Nilay Patel?

  I mean, it's Branson, though. He'll do it in a super handsome way.

• 3:12Speaker 03

  And that's what makes it so terrifying, is how good-looking he is.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Well, it's kind of weird.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Can we fact-check this for a second?

• 3:20Nilay Patel?

  Richard Branson is like a classic silver fox.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 3:25Nilay Patel?

  No?

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Wow. Sorry.

• 3:29Speaker 03

  All right. Name a more attractive billionaire than Richard Branson.

• 3:32Speaker 02

  Um... I don't even know the state of who's a billionaire and who's not. Like, you could tell me that Ryan Seacrest is a billionaire. Not that he would be my first choice. That's just the first person who came who popped into my mind.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  Your subconscious just revealed your crush on Ryan Seacrest, live in front of an audience of hundreds.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  I was saying, like, this is... Neil, I wanted stories. Okay, so I went to the iHeart Media panel. I think it was yesterday. I have no concept of time anymore. And I was in the second row, but in the first row was a lady... And this has made me completely not self-conscious about what I decided to take pictures of. She had her camera just fixed on Ryan Seacrest the entire time, for an hour. She has an hour of uncut footage of Ryan Seacrest sitting. And I'm like, that's dedication. I don't know why she's here for CES. I guess just for that.

• 4:17Nilay Patel?

  Can you imagine re-watching that?

• 4:19Speaker 02

  I know, I know. What are you gonna do with it?

• 4:21Nilay Patel?

  There he is again.

• 4:24Speaker 02

  It's like, that's all.

• 4:26Nilay Patel?

  Do you guys want to watch my Seacrest movie? It's an hour of him sitting quietly.

• 4:31Speaker 02

  Oh, maybe it's like a, you can project it. Like, get one of those, like, new fancy projectors.

• 4:36Nilay Patel?

  Oh, she pretends that he's in her house?

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, in the corner in the living room.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  That's what's in her Oculus Rift, is just Ritten Seacrest.

• 4:41Speaker 02

  In both eyes.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  Let's give her the benefit of the doubt. This could be very high concept, right? Andy Warhol famously shot a 24-hour movie of the Empire State Building, right? Maybe this is an elaborate commentary on celebrity. This is an hour of iPhone footage of Ritten Seacrest.

• 4:54Nilay Patel?

  Here's what I know about CES. Nothing here is an elaborate or thoughtful commentary on anything. Like, truly, deep in my heart, I'm aware of this fact.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  It's elaborate.

• 5:04Nilay Patel?

  It is, I mean, it is elaborate. I guess, you know, it's funny that you were talking about how you are disoriented here. I, this is eight years of this for me, and I, so, it's, I'm so sad that I know how it works so well. I'm like, oh, I gotta go here, and then, like, I just know, and it's like, why do I, why am I so aware of this, like, totally artificial space that will be completely gone tomorrow?

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Wait, what do you mean? What have you learned in eight years that this is artificial?

• 5:29Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, I mean, not just the way, what do you, I mean, that's a self-evident fact.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  Well, what I'm saying is, like...

• 5:35Speaker 02

  What about this is fake?

• 5:38Nilay Patel?

  It's just cra, I think it's crazy that it's like, a, like, a series of cities that are all built up, and the cities are owned by, like, various gigantic corporations.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  I can't wait to see Ross Miller's video he's doing of his day living at CES, like, taking advantage of, like, the bed that wakes you up, and going to wash his clothes at the Samsung booth, and doing his dishes, or whatever, going to the fridge. I, I, we're gonna put that up tomorrow, I think.

• 6:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, he was really, I mean, you can just live here. And people do, it, I don't know, it's terrifying. So, Casey, what, what have you seen? What's been going on with you?

• 6:08Speaker 03

  Well, I did an investigation of brands at CES. You know, CES is a show that is mostly about physical things. Uh, I wanted to do a show, or do a story about how those things are sold to us. So, uh, it turned out there was a event happening here called Brand Innovators, so I was already signed up, because how could that be anything less than fun? And so I went there, and, uh, not only was Shaquille O'Neal there to give his thought, the, the name of his talk was, how do you, uh... Like preserve your personal brand in the digital age or something very highfalutin. And then Shingy, who works for the AOL Corporation and his title is Digital Profit, and who is a somewhat comic figure in the media world these days because he makes these like sort of absurdist pronouncements about what all of our lives are gonna look like.

• 6:51Nilay Patel?

  Right. I mean AOL definitely employs a man named Shingy who made his own fake TED Talk. But you can go watch it. Like he set it up so it kinda looks like a TED Talk, but then you can also tell. Like I used to work at AOL. I know the room that he shot it in. It's the studio at AOL. And it's like he set it up, that room to like look like a fake TED Talk.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  That's so sad because they had a TED Talk at Burning Man. Like you can have a TED Talk anywhere. He could have just gone to like a small city TED Talk or TEDx Black Rock City.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Just buy a TED franchise.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:18Speaker 03

  All we have to do is just add the hashtag TED Talk to the Vergecast and it becomes a retroactive TED Talk.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  That is a true brand innovation.

• 7:28Nilay Patel?

  And that's what we're all about. So tell me about Shingy.

• 7:31Speaker 03

  Buzzwords galore. I still have no idea what to do with my personal brand or the Verge brand, but I do feel like...

• 7:36Speaker 01

  It's working for me.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  But it's working, yeah.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  On me. Your personal brand.

• 7:40Nilay Patel?

  Your personal.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  This is good news. What I honestly feel though is that brands are very scared because they used to be able to just buy television ads and then we would just sort of like some portion of us would mindlessly do whatever the ad said. And nowadays they have to develop a quote "authentic" voice, which really just means mimicking the voice of a teen boy and then just like use that voice on Twitter all day long in the hope that it will drive us to go buy a gordita at Taco Bell. So they are just like in an absolute wilderness right now and it's left them very susceptible to these like folk heroes like Shingy who can come along and if they talk really fast and look kind of edgy and different, all of a sudden, you know, you have a digital prophet.

• 8:15Nilay Patel?

  I mean, you know, it's funny because I get, I get what he's doing, right? Which is he's, he's supposed to teach them how to like buy ads in AOL and like talk to the new generation of internet consumers. But it's like, it's AOL. And like, I don't, I don't, I don't know. I love, I mean Natasha's the one who like broke the Shingy story at ValleyWag. Was her headline? It was like this man is representing AOL on national television?

• 8:39Speaker 01

  I don't, I think that was someone else's headline.

• 8:40Nilay Patel?

  Was that someone else?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. But yeah, I mean, they, I, it makes complete sense to me that like in the New Yorker piece, like the scenes that are set because I think what he's supposed to do, he's not actually doing any buying or selling. He just is supposed to make them feel creative. They want to feel like makers and like, you know, they're... Innovating, thinkfluencing, what have you, and he inspires them. Like, some spiky hair is all they need.

• 9:05Nilay Patel?

  I mean, truly, what I want-

• 9:06Speaker 01

  They don't want to be corporate.

• 9:08Nilay Patel?

  And my career is to known, be known as a man who inspires you to thinkfluence.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:13Nilay Patel?

  That's the end of the game. So, Emily, you've been going to parties, right? And then you stopped going to parties.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  I went to parties for about two nights. I thought, going into this, that that would be my beat, that I would be the party expert at CES, that it would be the only accessible cultural thing for me to pursue, and it did not end up being the case.

• 9:33Nilay Patel?

  What's that?

• 9:34Speaker 02

  People don't dance at the parties enough. I was expecting it, because I was going to be at these things by myself, so it's like, what do you do if you're at a party by yourself? You can't really talk to people, because it's very loud. So, I was just going to post up somewhere and watch people dance, and nobody- What's up, CES? You've got, like, the best DJs, apparently.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, can we get a show of hands? How many people danced at a CES party? Any of these people are charging their phones?

• 9:59Speaker 02

  Hey, okay, thank you for-

• 10:00Speaker 03

  I saw one hand in 90.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Now, what's it like when you're the one person dancing, though, in a sea of tote bags?

• 10:08Speaker 03

  He said it was awkward, which I believe.

• 10:11Nilay Patel?

  It is, I mean, every party here is extraordinary. I mean, did you hear about the three-day yo party?

• 10:16Speaker 01

  No, we went to that.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  We went to it.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  We went when they had alcohol, before it went dry.

• 10:19Nilay Patel?

  Why did it go dry?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  I think something happened after we left.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  It was very, very chill when we were there.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Well, I was trying to tell Emily that it was a good party, and she was like, "No." And then, I think she went to more parties, and she was like, "Oh."

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  They don't get more down than that.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  It was in a very picturesque location, very Instagrammable.

• 10:39Nilay Patel?

  Right. I mean, I think that the problem with parties at CES, and every year I try to go to one or two. I took Case to one yesterday, and he just looked at me. He looked at me with such anger and vitriol in his eyes. He just goes, "This is my nightmare."

• 10:54Speaker 03

  It really was like when when I was 22, the idea of like waiting in a line and then being escorted into a Las Vegas club by a bouncer had a lot of appeal. But then what you find when you get in there is that it's too loud to have a conversation, right? So you can either dance, which nobody is dancing, or you can just sort of like awkwardly shift your weight from one foot to another while drinking, you know, some overpriced beverage.

• 11:19Nilay Patel?

  You should have started thinkfluencing though.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  I should have. Well, what I should have started doing was trendfluencing, which is the word of the show for me. I didn't know it was a real word, but then I went to my brand seminar and the back of my program asked the question, are you a trendfluencer? Which, talk about an existential dilemma. I didn't know if I was a trendfluencer or not. Should I be a trendfluencer? I don't think I am. I'm trying not to be.

• 11:42Nilay Patel?

  Right. I mean, you should be though.

• 11:44Speaker 03

  Well, we'll see how it works out in 2015.

• 11:47Nilay Patel?

  I mean, I just think like parties here and all that stuff, we were talking about on the show yesterday, like there's just an entire world of like B2B, like people who are like, I actually really want to write this piece. There's a whole subculture of like suits who are bad at Twitter. And they just like, they just hashtag like Cisco at each other all day long and like it's like links to like B2B networking. And that's the parties, right?

• 12:10Speaker 03

  I think most of the people who come here and want to go to a party, they don't care what the party is. They don't care where the theme is. They don't really even care like what the club is. It's like, can they get like enough free liquor to make them feel like they had a big night out while they were here in Las Vegas? Like, that's all most people want. I think that's why they're not dancing.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Which is totally valid, I want to say.

• 12:30Speaker 02

  I guess. I mean, yeah, why not? If you're here, if you get to come to Vegas one time a year and there's a reason for you to go out, then why not? I mean, the only times I've gone to clubs here when I'm working or doing a story or something, so, you know.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  I think we're underselling the amount of partying that happens. I just think like we're, like the Yo Suite was a little, because it was 7:30, we walked in and the smell of marijuana is just like wafting towards us. Robert Scoville is wearing a like hat, a trucker hat with a blinking Facebook like on it. And this is at 7:20 in the evening. So like, and they had red wine and white wine. And then apparently something happened that made them go dry the next day.

• 13:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Facebook post.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  So people are partying in the suites, I think.

• 13:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  A yo-hibish.

• 13:15Nilay Patel?

  Did you see there were like, these two, this couple met on Yo? And I just like could not figure out like, how is that possible?

• 13:22Speaker 03

  Draw me a diagram.

• 13:24Nilay Patel?

  You looked really skeptical of this.

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Well, I did. I interviewed the CEO of Yahoo while I was there. And he did, I did not realize that they had made some changes. One of which is you can send your drop pin, send your location. So maybe like they sent it to a random person.

• 13:39Speaker 02

  So you just know you hit it off and you want to meet somebody based on your crackling conversation?

• 13:45Speaker 01

  And like, he was mostly talking to me about brands. He thinks the Verge brand should be on Yo.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  What could the Verge brand do on Yo?

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Well, as he told me, you should not be yoing more than once a day. This isn't Twitter.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  So what they do is you can tweet a link. And that is what BuzzFeed and CNN and various things are doing.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Huh.

• 14:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  And the TV have like a "Good Evening, Robert Scoville."

• 14:12Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God. I mean, every party I've been to here, and I like going, I mean, I enjoy parties. Casey knows this.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Same. Yeah, I can't confirm.

• 14:22Nilay Patel?

  Every year I end up like just randomly getting into a limo and driving around. And then the next day I'm wrecked. And so last year is like a way bigger party scene for me. And then this year has been a little bit quieter, but it's funny.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  This is better.

• 14:33Nilay Patel?

  Huh? It's quieter. I said quieter.

• 14:36Speaker 02

  Better, better is, is objective.

• 14:38Nilay Patel?

  I think CES is like, it just is. It is this level of itself and no further. So what else have you guys seen? Casey, anything cool that you've been looking at?

• 14:46Speaker 03

  Well, look, the big buzz of the show over the past day has been the Belfi stick. We were just getting comfortable with the selfie stick, which is, you know, the stick that you can put your smartphone in and then you hold it and you can sort of get some better selfie angles for yourself. But somebody made and is selling for $80 a Belfi stick, which is for taking butt selfies.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  Have there been any Belfi sightings at CES?

• 15:09Speaker 03

  I haven't, and it's my absolute greatest regret of the show.

• 15:13Nilay Patel?

  So you didn't purchase one?

• 15:14Speaker 03

  I did not. They're all sold out for right now.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Yes. But, yeah.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  You say that like you are the one who bought all of them.

• 15:23Nilay Patel?

  Well, this is what I think.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  I haven't, did we confirm that it's, okay, you confirmed that it's real. I think that it's just like. A really good idea for the selfie stick people because then there's something more ridiculous. So that you actually, I feel totally fine. Like as soon as I go home, I'm gonna buy a selfie stick.

• 15:37Speaker 02

  A selfie stick is a professional tool.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  It's less money. I see people, all these people, I feel totally justified. It's normalized. The belphi is now the, is now the new low.

• 15:46Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Or the new ultra.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  This is a good, this is a good general question. What gets normalized for you at CES? That you have to get used to once you go back to the real world?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  How will the entry be?

• 15:57Speaker 02

  Yes, how's the entry?

• 15:59Nilay Patel?

  We will probably all just burn up on dissent. No, I mean, this place is so, like, the idea that every person I talk to, I immediately like, look down and like, evaluate their career before continuing conversation. Like, that's just a week of behavior that I have to unlearn every single year. Where I'm like, "Oh, you're, um, oh, you work for Sony. Oh, you're interesting. I'll, I'll go ahead and continue talking to you." Mostly because I'm really bad at faces and names, so I find CES to be an environment in which I can succeed.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  So do you know what the colors stand for? Because I realize that I have not been paying enough attention.

• 16:33Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah, the colors are like, uh, so they're classes of warriors and orcs. Uh, it's like press and analysts and buyers.

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Charisma level.

• 16:41Nilay Patel?

  Right. It's basically they're like, who will provide you with money and then who will try to make you, trick you into saying something you shouldn't have? Analysts and buyers, like, they represent money.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  Guess which side we're on.

• 16:52Nilay Patel?

  We're the evil ones. Uh, so you know what, actually, Emily, you were telling me, uh, you tried the Oculus?

• 16:57Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:58Nilay Patel?

  So Ezra Klein was here and he apparently was like, super into the Oculus. And then you are not, which I think is wild.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Well, no, it's not that I'm not into the Oculus. I just think the experience I had was not ideal. But that is probably, I'm the entertainment editor of The Verge and like, there's very few stories here that I think like squarely fall into my area of interest. And the way that Oculus can be used for the motion picture industry is, is one of those things. And so, uh, so I went to go check out the demo of the, the wild Oculus experience. Which is a very interesting, like, it's like, it seems like a joke, but then you think that it's actually really, really interesting to do. Try to do emotional storytelling with Oculus instead of this like whiz bang like interstellar type stuff.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  And remind me like Wild is like Reese Witherspoon and then she's just set loose in the wilderness.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  She's uh so it's based on Cheryl Strad's book where she does the Pacific Crest Trail. It's like like a thousand miles or something like that. She she literally walks a thousand miles like the song. This Oculus experience is getting super weird.

• 18:06Speaker 03

  Just to date the proclaimers?

• 18:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, exactly. So uh so yeah, it's a scene. It's just a it's a few minutes, but you're basically in a stationary place in in the forest and you see Reese Witherspoon walk up to you and she takes a rest on a rock and has this conversation with basically the ghost of her mother played by Laura Dern. And it's very interesting. It's like very interesting to see how that works where it's not you're not flying a jet through space or whatever. But I think the environment that I was in was a little loud. I think so much of that actually, like for it being Oculus and being virtual reality, so much of it is still dependent on the the audio experience. And I was uh yeah, I mean, I could hear people yelling in my ear like throughout the whole thing, which kind of doesn't really do the

• 18:52Speaker 02

  trick. But I'm I'm really excited to see how that evolves like that. If I came next year, that would be something I would definitely want to check up on.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  And like and how much freedom do you have to look around like could you like did they film it in 360 degrees? So you could like turn around and not even be looking at Reese Witherspoon?

• 19:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a 360 degrees. It's like Which is always a choice I choose to make.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  That's why I prefer to watch Wild.

• 19:13Speaker 02

  Well, it's so weird. I was talking about this with Ross, who I went to go see with. And we're like, it's so strange to actually have this because I didn't see the interstellar one, but I don't think there were any people involved. And so this is like you're in a real 360 degree space and Reese Witherspoon is sitting right there. And it's like she's a real person just hanging out. Could you move around the space? Could you like walk up to her? No, no, that's the thing. It's like you're you're stationary and you're sitting down. So and it doesn't move.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  I did a Oculus demo where I was in a like a military installation in Iraq and it's the same thing where you're in a fixed point, but it's filmed in 360 degrees and that is a mesmerizing experience.

• 19:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 03

  Because no matter where you're looking, there's some other story unfolding.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:57Speaker 03

  Which for a filmmaker is gonna like pose some really interesting challenges.

• 20:00Speaker 02

  That's and I and I was also saying like it reminds me that for me, the most compelling example of what filmmaking will look like in the future was in her, the like 3D projection that he had in his living room. And this is basically that, just, you know, on a headpiece thing. And yeah, the the idea of having something going on around you like everywhere and you can kind of decide what you want to focus on as a viewer, that's that's super interesting. It's like, you know, it's like advanced stage or something, theater or something like that.

• 20:29Nilay Patel?

  My dream like Oculus thing is like a murder mystery. Right? Like like a like a where you a bunch of people like in Agatha Christie.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:38Nilay Patel?

  There's like a bunch of people in the house, there's a murder and you can like run around the house and like watch all the timelines and like see who's.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Well, and what is that show in New York where you sort of walk into the house?

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Sleep No More.

• 20:46Nilay Patel?

  Sleep No More. That's basically what I'm.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  Like, let me experience that. That would be fantastic.

• 20:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. I mean, yeah, I can't wait to, I mean, the technicality stuff aside, I mean, I think that they're that they're focusing on the right things. If it was just, you know, effects stuff, I think that would kind of go down the same route that a lot of 3D stuff goes where it's just like, oh, great, it's great for filmmaking, a very specific kind of filmmaking, so.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Well, in The Wild Thing, didn't they they included the worst part of the movie, which is like the CGI Fox? Like in the movie, it looks fake. And then they put it in their fake world.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  See, it was so loud.

• 21:21Nilay Patel?

  It was all so fake.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  Layers of fake.

• 21:24Speaker 02

  It was so loud in the room, I didn't even hear the cue, the audio cue that makes you turn around and look at the Fox, so I missed the Fox, so I want my money back.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  The Fox.

• 21:32Nilay Patel?

  No, I mean, the thing with that, every, Eddie wrote a piece about this today, everything with Oculus is a demo. It's just it's nonstop demo after demo after demo. And the only people who are like really interested in making anything for it are like basically like brands and entertainment properties that are like, here's a gimmick and then you will like engage with our movie a little bit because you're gonna wear this headset that you otherwise wouldn't buy. And I think until you like click over and you start making things that people want to watch at home, which I think that's like, that's the dystopian future, is like me sitting at home on the couch with my wife and both of us are wearing headsets and like watching something together in like totally isolated ways. I mean, I fear for that picture, basically.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Well, I like that they don't want to, I mean, you know, maybe it's gonna be like a failure at the end, but I like that they don't want to release a half-assed product or kind of take the market. I went to this, like, all these glass heads before they shipped in every model of like augmented reality eyewear, like, starting back through the ages, and they had some people, I mean, these were like the middle manager kind of people. It was just in this one room, and just looking at all of it was so interesting. It was just all poorly timed and sent to the wrong people. Like, in one case, they gave it to Toyota, like, car mechanics, so that when they're under the car, they can see it, and then

• 22:54Speaker 01

  nobody used it. So, I don't mind if they want to, like, figure it out a little bit. It's been tried so many times.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  Right. But the question is, like, is Oculus a product that is just gonna be perpetually six months away?

• 23:05Nilay Patel?

  Right. I mean, so you tried the Gear VR, right?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:09Nilay Patel?

  And you had very strong opinions about that one.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:11Nilay Patel?

  Because I think that's the future, right? Like, I'm never gonna buy, like, a dedicated headset. I'm completely involved, like, I think the right idea is I'll buy a big phone and, like, put it in there, and it will help me do this thing.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:22Nilay Patel?

  Because I, like, the idea of buying a $700 headset that, like, runs some software, all of that seems bonkers to me.

• 23:29Speaker 02

  Unless the movies start being really, really good that they put on there, like, everybody's like, "Oh, my God, you have to see this thing. You can only see it because you have this headset."

• 23:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but like, I don't know, like, if you want to watch a movie with three people in your house, and you have to buy three of them, it kind of makes more sense that you would all just, like, that everyone would...

• 23:45Speaker 01

  I'm saving my money for the Bell fee.

• 23:47Nilay Patel?

  They would buy...

• 23:48Speaker 03

  Also, like, I think that the smartphone has taught us one thing, it's that when you get three people in a room together, you know what they want to do, look at their smartphones separately and not talk to each other, right? So, like, I can absolutely envision a world where we all have separate headsets, and it's like, "Oh, you know, nice to see you, honey," and then... Slink away into your own private Reese Witherspoon CGI Fox world.

• 24:09Nilay Patel?

  I haven't seen any. The one demo I saw, Addie as well, she had the two hand controllers, like the Kickstarter hand controllers, and she was like lightsaber fighting. And I was like, okay, that, I would do that.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  What terrified me was Addie's stunning competence at fighting with virtual lightsabers. Like, she looked like she had been practicing for 20 years. She looked like Arya in Game of Thrones. She was like, you know, darting like someplace.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Is she a LARPER?

• 24:37Speaker 03

  I've always been afraid of Addie, but I'm terrified.

• 24:38Nilay Patel?

  So the answer to your question is yes, she's a LARPER. And we have 100% made a video of her LARPing in the past.

• 24:45Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:45Nilay Patel?

  And it's super hardcore.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Oh my god. You can always spot a LARPER.

• 24:49Nilay Patel?

  So you...

• 24:53Nilay Patel?

  Can't you, though? So, speaking of LARPs.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Let's talk about LARPs.

• 24:59Nilay Patel?

  No, let's not. Let's use that to awkwardly transition into you SoulCycleing with Dick Costlo.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, so that was my big adventure for the week, is SoulCycle and Twitter were doing a brand promotion that they somehow didn't really advertise that much, but somebody asked Dick Costlo, CEO of Twitter, if he was going, and he replied with the exact days and times of the classes that he was going to. So I was willing to... I mean, it took a little bit out of me to have to like, you have to send like two hashtags and it has to be like, at SoulCycle, and like, I saw the other people and they're like, please, please. So I just tried to just give in to the embarrassment of it.

• 25:43Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  And I won. I won these two spots. And I thought I was gonna have to be competing with all these other reporters, but I guess nobody else wanted to wake up at 7:00 a.m. and then at 6:00 a.m. to SoulCycle, which I've never done before, and was a little concerned would make me vomit.

• 25:58Speaker 03

  And I want to hear like all about Dick Costlo, but like for people who may not have heard of SoulCycle, like, explain what it is and what is actually happening when you're on that bike, because it sounds very cult-like.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  No, it is a cult.

• 26:10Speaker 03

  They're religious overtones.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Such religious. Yeah, but like, I mean, I am a rabid atheist, but I fell for it. Like, I am like praying at the Church of SoulCycle.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  What's different about it than spinning?

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Nothing.

• 26:24Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  The things I think that are different is that they come up with their own lingo. They repeat these like affirmational phrases, like, "You're stronger than you think."

• 26:37Speaker 01

  You have to turn their resistance. Like, they're constantly, the whole time, trying to get you to turn your resistance knob harder. And to do this, they just tell you, "You're stronger than you think." Like, no one else can tell you how strong you are. And you just like, you believe it. And I did it. I thought, like, it would be so easy to cheat. I mean, even though, like, Dick Costolo could see me. But I didn't want to cheat.

• 26:56Nilay Patel?

  Were you worried that he would be like, he would be mad at you if you were cheating?

• 27:00Speaker 01

  I mean, I was trying to prove to him, I guess, like, this is, you know, me playing in their world. I've never tried this angle of reporting, but I subsequently heard that, like, all these tech guys do it. So now I'm gonna, nobody else take this reporting strategy. I'm now gonna go to all the right SoulCycle classes. Because I could see who, like, the guy, Ian, who taught my class was, he's like, the people who are following him on Twitter are like top tech people.

• 27:27Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:29Nilay Patel?

  I love that you're like the SoulCycle master of the tech universe.

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Yes, a spinner to the stars.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  And they have really good music, and it's like dim lights, and you're all in it together.

• 27:37Nilay Patel?

  Was the CEO of Twitter good at SoulCycle?

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah. Ian called him out. He was like, "I see you, Dixie, like, good job." And also, he is kind of, it didn't include this in my story, but he's like, very ripped. Like, not like Jeff Bezos' Sun Valley, Idaho arms. I feel like that's always the picture that comes out of Sun Valley, is like Jeff Bezos' massive guns. He's not like that. He's more lithe, but very fit. And I think was very surprised that I was able to make it through the class. Which is a valid prediction.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  I love the idea that, like, in both your minds, it's like this sort of like passive-aggressive war that's happening. Where like, neither is acknowledging the other, but in reality, you're sort of like trading glances whenever the other person looks away.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Oh, well, what I tried to do is pretend I was taking pictures through all the rooms, so I could take a picture of him. And he was like, looking right at me, and I was like, okay.

• 28:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's not the first time somebody's tried to sneaky pick Dick Costolo, okay? You don't get to be CEO of Twitter without knowing who's sneaky picking you.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that was me.

• 28:34Nilay Patel?

  Let's, can I just, let's stop for one second and just examine the word "sneaky pick"?

• 28:38Speaker 03

  Okay. Okay.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  That's better than a creep shot.

• 28:42Speaker 03

  A sneaky pic is a creep shot. I mean, I guess it's like basically the same thing.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, what's the difference?

• 28:46Speaker 03

  Um.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  Is it non-sexual?

• 28:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:50Nilay Patel?

  Is it, wait, is a creep shot inherently sexual?

• 28:53Speaker 03

  To me, to me, a sneaky pic is when you are taking a selfie.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  I'm so worried. You thought that Richard Branson was handsome. You don't know what a creep shot is.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Aren't you glad you hired us?

• 29:04Nilay Patel?

  Yes. I'm learning so much about just the weirdest stuff.

• 29:08Speaker 03

  Look, a sneaky pic is when you are pretending to do something else while you take the picture. Like, I think, like, a creep shot picture is more just like, oh, like, this girl doesn't know I'm looking at her. Heh heh, and like, take a picture. But like, uh, you know, from time to time, in, in these, you know, journalism situations.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, no. This is the thing.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  You know, see, I'm like, oh, yes, I. And they actually make an app.

• 29:26Nilay Patel?

  Wow, is that your move?

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 01

  I hate when they can see that I'm recording.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  That's what you do when you're a celeb, when you're at the Ivy, uh, just chatting it up with celebs.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  So I'm just a friend.

• 29:36Nilay Patel?

  You take a fake phone call and then hit the shutter button?

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:40Nilay Patel?

  That's what Emily just did.

• 29:42Speaker 03

  You don't need to do a fake phone call because they make an app that looks like the, um, the New York Times app, except where the photo goes, uh, like, on the front page of the New York Times app. It's just the camera window. And so you look like you're reading the New York Times. And then you, like, line up the perfect shot and boom, you're done. And that app, by the way, is like three years old. That's not a new app, which just goes to show you how old the sneaky pic concept is.

• 30:05Speaker 02

  No, I know a lot of old-school entertainment reporters who use that app.

• 30:08Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 30:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  The paparazzi, if you will.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Well, I actually was thinking about this because on the drive, um, over here, I saw this guy trying to take a selfie. And, um, it's just the most embarrassing posture possible. And nobody, none of these solutions have, or no one solved this problem of, like, making it not look just, just really sad.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  I don't know. I saw a Hello Kitty selfie stick today, so.

• 30:36Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's adorable.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  No, now I'm starting to like, I'm, I'm, like, thoroughly converted, but at least with the selfie stick, you're honest with yourself. I feel like this, I trust this person. I would use it as, like, a, you know, a character test.

• 30:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  And.

• 30:48Nilay Patel?

  Wait, how, what would the, how would you fail the character test with a selfie stick?

• 30:52Speaker 01

  No, you win the character test because you're like, you're honest about your intentions.

• 30:55Nilay Patel?

  You're just out there.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, I'm a rabid narcissist who needs, like, constant, um, feedback and affirmation.

• 31:01Nilay Patel?

  And so I bought this stick.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  And so, yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  I don't get out of bed before I get 100 likes, okay?

• 31:07Speaker 02

  I uh.

• 31:09Speaker 03

  That's what it takes these days.

• 31:10Nilay Patel?

  This is, I'm super worried that I sent you guys out at CES to like talk to brand people and now you're both terrible people.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  We talked to too many brands in the eye.

• 31:19Nilay Patel?

  You've been subsumed into the cult of shingy and you don't know, this is like viruses growing within you.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  The man has a lot of good ideas. I think we should hear him out.

• 31:28Nilay Patel?

  I mean, go ahead.

• 31:29Speaker 02

  Oh, no, I was just gonna say, I also, I was telling them I saw the double selfie move, like regular conventional selfie with one hand selfie stick with the other one. Guess where I saw it? At the Tiesto Q and A. So.

• 31:44Nilay Patel?

  You did go to a fireside chat with Tiesto. What was that like?

• 31:47Speaker 02

  Fireside chat. It was, um, you know, he's got a headphones brand, which is really weird. Like a weird choice.

• 31:53Nilay Patel?

  Why?

• 31:54Speaker 02

  I'm being, I'm, it's an opposite shit joke.

• 31:58Nilay Patel?

  I'm too, I'm so broken. Why would you do that to me?

• 32:02Speaker 01

  He needs to take a minute.

• 32:04Nilay Patel?

  Why would you look at me in the eye and just like, alright, go ahead, talk about Tiesto.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  No, I mean, he, he, he only talked for a few minutes. He signed autographs, you know, I mean, he's got, he's got a headphones brand. 50 Cent's got a headphones brand. Uh, who else? Who else? Can we name everybody who has headphones brand?

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Justin Timberlake? He's like a advisor.

• 32:20Speaker 02

  That's like a professional audio mastering software.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  Doesn't that Nicki Minaj have her own headphones?

• 32:26Nilay Patel?

  No, those are Beats.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  She's just making money. Yeah.

• 32:28Nilay Patel?

  Right. But like Beats has most everyone and then like 50 Cent has SMS audio and like 50 Cent's Twitter is the best because it's mostly him like retweeting or replying to girls who send him naked pictures. And then he like hashtags his headphones brand in all the tweets. He's like, yo, like, good butt SMS audio. And it's like, I don't, this is not a reasonable strategy for you to mark.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  But then he made Star Wars headphones. So.

• 32:52Nilay Patel?

  Ross has a long story about 50 Cent's Star Wars.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  He got to talk to him today.

• 32:56Nilay Patel?

  Uh, and Ross also talked to RZA and we had Nick Cannon here yesterday. I mean, like celebrities at CES is a real thing.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Jason Derulo's castle? Are we gonna talk about Jason Derulo's castle?

• 33:04Nilay Patel?

  Tell me about the castle.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't know. I, I, you have to ask Kwame, but Kwame talked to Jason Derulo at the iHeart radio party last night and apparently Jason Derulo has a castle.

• 33:12Nilay Patel?

  I can, I can see that. I mean, like, he's like, cause he's a secret Game of Thrones fan, right?

• 33:16Speaker 02

  Oh, is he? I learned so much about Jason Derulo. I learned that his last name is actually spelt like French, like D E S R E A U L E U X or whatever. It's crazy. I don't think that... I already had a lot of respect for him. I'm not gonna say I had more respect for him because I already...

• 33:34Nilay Patel?

  No, but like he's a massive... Like Wiggle is like basically samples the Game of Thrones theme.

• 33:40Speaker 02

  Oh, wait. Are you talking about... Oh, yeah.

• 33:43Nilay Patel?

  Like crazy?

• 33:44Speaker 02

  I'm trying to... Every time I try to think of Wiggle now, I think of Talk Dirty, so it's sort of hard. No, I was talking about like, if I had gotten a chance to talk to him, I would have asked him just about like making the best meme songs of 2014. Because that's all those songs are. They're just like vine-length snippets of something that's super catchy that you can't get out of your head, which is pretty genius.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:05Nilay Patel?

  That's wild. Actually, I have a meeting to ask you. So CES for me is always like the worst musical environment in history. And it's like, what's that Black Eyed Peas song?

• 34:16Speaker 02

  I got a feeling.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  Oh, don't even say it. If you say it, then it gets... Don't say it. Don't say the name.

• 34:20Nilay Patel?

  Tonight's gonna be a good night, Natasha. It's gonna be great. That's not the next lyric.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  Oh, wow.

• 34:27Nilay Patel?

  Fill up my cup. Drink!

• 34:29Speaker 01

  That one's okay.

• 34:31Nilay Patel?

  It's the same song!

• 34:34Nilay Patel?

  No, like that song has just like haunted, like many, many, like massive corporations were like led to believe that people would definitely have fun if they heard that song.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Well, I've been going around Shazam-ing for a playlist, the songs that they think will move product.

• 34:50Speaker 03

  It's still better than two years ago because two years ago, every company had the independently hilarious idea that if they just played Gangnam Style at the right moment, everyone would go bananas. And it probably worked during the very first keynote, but like 17 keynotes later, you would just be like, "Oh, but Gangnam Style!" And the whole crowd's like, "Oh, my God!" Misery.

• 35:12Nilay Patel?

  So, wait, I want to hear from Emily about the music of CES because I feel like you care deeply about music.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  I do care a lot, and I've actually been surprised. I mean, I'd be interested to know the lifespan of a song and how often it has play here, like how long. Because I feel like I definitely heard some of Vichy levels, which, you know, it seems like that's gonna be on the downturn now. Yeah, yeah, I guess. I mean, what did I hear? I've heard a lot of the Ariana Grande...

• 35:39Nilay Patel?

  I said I've heard levels on the baggage claim here before. It's just Las Vegas. What's Ariana Grande's song?

• 35:46Speaker 02

  Oh, the Ariana Grande, the Zed Ariana Grande song, "Break Free." That's a lot of places. I heard there was a Skrillex song off of his most recent album that was played at the iHeart Media Panel, which was, you know, that's a deep Skrillex cut, which I felt proud of myself for recognizing. What else?

• 36:05Nilay Patel?

  My favorite is like, they start all the press conferences by like, just jamming tunes at you, and it's like, you're definitely making decisions about how I should feel right now, and most of the decision you're making is, like, this group of, like, pretty tired business reporters, or like, tech reporters, and like, financial analysts, like, you're basically-

• 36:23Speaker 01

  Are there financial analysts here?

• 36:24Nilay Patel?

  Tons and tons of them, like, all over the place. Like, that's-

• 36:26Speaker 01

  I want to talk to those people.

• 36:28Nilay Patel?

  Basically, like, there are suits everywhere here, and it's like, right before Sony talks to them about their new product line, and like, all the business stuff, you should also also want to get super drunk in the club. And it's like that.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. I remember what they, I was trying to remember what they played before Sony. It was the Fireball, the Pitbull song.

• 36:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:45Nilay Patel?

  It's just like-

• 36:45Speaker 02

  It's like, it's like, I'm excited about keynotes.

• 36:48Speaker 01

  Have you guys, have you seen the people dancing on the Astroturf in the parking lot?

• 36:52Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Like, okay, if you have to exit, like, at just the right time, and everyone is standing in line for shuttles, but this few people are just like, you know what, I'm ready to let loose. I'm on some orange Astroturf in front of, like, a show car, and I'm drinking orange beer, and just like, kind of moving around.

• 37:10Nilay Patel?

  It's time to go. There's a very unfortunately named company called Vox International here with two X's, and they own like, any number of like, mid-level audio brands, like RCA and Audiobucks. And every day, they have like, basically like, a PG-13, like, fake stripper, just going after it, while like, a DJ, like, a medium Vegas DJ, like, scratches over fancy. I just, I really want this to stop and I want your company's name to stop sounding like my company's name.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  I don't know, maybe we just embrace it and get a DJ next year and go head to head with them.

• 37:44Nilay Patel?

  I mean, that, if we get in this room, a lot of people just looked really happy about that. I think we should definitely put a DJ in this room next year.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  Well, and I have volunteered to, you know, get into PG 13 clothing and just dance.

• 37:58Nilay Patel?

  You know, here's what I've known about you for a long time, Casey, and I don't know that I've ever expressed this to you. You look really good in shiny clothes.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Glitter is a way of life.

• 38:08Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, glitter is for it. So, we should wrap this up. Is there more stuff? I want to, I want to hear from you, Mr. Newton. What happened, what happened to you at CES? How's this different?

• 38:16Speaker 03

  Well, I think here's the thing that I came to peace with about this CES. On a serious note, you guys. The unfortunate fact of life sometimes is that real progress is incremental and that we don't get these massive leap forwards every year, even though that's what we all come here hoping to see. But, watching this stuff particularly around autonomous driving, I did get really excited because that's technology that is going to save tens of thousands of lives in America alone every year. And man, it's coming really quickly and it's not just Google who's doing it. Ford is making some really interesting moves, Mercedes, BMW. So, I love to see that. Like, that's something to genuinely get excited about. And, like, as far as I'm concerned, they cannot spend enough money or hire enough engineers. Like, make that a reality, make me not have to drive a car anymore.

• 38:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I mean, the second I can buy one of those, I'm going to buy one of those. And I'll let it drive away while I get into a Mustang and like just rev the engine on my, no, I don't know.

• 39:07Speaker 03

  On the flip side, Internet of Things continues to be the most mundane of all technologies. Whenever the Internet of Things is described, it's always like, "Uh, flip this light switch and it'll get your toaster going." Right? Like, nobody can connect the dots in a way that makes me want to buy a single thing. People, you know, at this Samsung presentation, "Oh, when you wake up, we'll tell you what the weather is on your TV." I can see the weather on any imaginable screen, right? I'm pretty sure I can already get the weather on my microwave.

• 39:34Speaker 02

  Like, also the window.

• 39:35Speaker 03

  On the window, sure. I can even look with my own eyes if I wanted to get really old school for a minute, right?

• 39:40Nilay Patel?

  But you'll be wearing your headset.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  What I don't understand is that these companies are often incredible at marketing things. And the failures of marketing in the Internet of Things start with the name itself. It is the worst, like, most boring, horrible name. They tried to upgrade it last year to the Internet of Everything.

• 39:58Nilay Patel?

  No, no, that was, that was just a really, like, wild Snapdragon keynote. Like, it didn't quite...

• 40:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, they went off, yeah.

• 40:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, that was the one where, like, Big Bird was there, and then, like, a Mercedes exploded. Like, that is one of the craziest things I've ever seen in CES. And that's why they did Internet of Everything. Like, when I say Big Bird was there, I mean, Big Bird was there, and then they cut to Kofi Annan. And then a Mercedes drove itself on this, like, it was the craziest thing I've ever seen here.

• 40:24Speaker 03

  It had a certain internal logic. No, it didn't.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  But seriously, like, I like the autonomous, like, self-driving car people, like, you should feel really great about CES. If you had anything to do with any presentation about the Internet of Things, like, return to whence you came from. Hang in your heads in shame because you failed to sell what should actually be cool.

• 40:42Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  But this is why they need Shingy, because otherwise they'll be saying the Internet of Things. Like, has no one vetted that? Have they ever, like, put it out in the wild? They have no idea that hurt that is gonna come upon them when real people start hearing this. Like, I was trying to think of how we could shame them out of it, like, maybe if, like, a really cool person... Maybe if Nicki Minaj made fun of the Internet of Things, like, then it would stop, because it needs to stop. And I'm not powerful enough to do it.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Distract for the Internet of Things.

• 41:08Nilay Patel?

  Right, in terms of, like, ultimate verge moments, like, getting Nicki Minaj to make fun of the Internet of Things would make me so happy. Listen to me, Nicki. Help us. Help us. The brands are out of control.

• 41:22Nilay Patel?

  Natasha, what's your wrap-up? This was your first one. I'm, like, very curious with the two of you in particular. Like, what was this like for you outside of the, like, hassles of being in Vegas and the show?

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Well, I kind of had a different take than Casey, because I wasn't coming here looking for the latest thing. I often, like, I consider myself, like, the last, last of the early adopters. And so, what I really liked, even though there's absolutely nothing that I want to use here in terms of the Internet of Things, what I liked is, like, what I liked is that it's, like, actually being implemented. Like, all of it seems like it could. I get excited when things happen. Like, it's really frustrating when you write about software and you're downloading an app and no one else will play on it with you and they don't realize that you have to have like a full engaged audience. And even like, I was washing my hands in the bathroom and I was like, "Oh, look, there was a time when we didn't like, we would have to squirt the soap thing and not just

• 42:15Speaker 01

  like, put our hands, you know, up and down wildly." And so like, I'm excited for like, it getting actually into the infrastructure. Just through brands.

• 42:24Nilay Patel?

  Wait, can I really, can we connect soap to the infrastructure again? I'm very, very-

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's the internet of soap.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  The soap of things.

• 42:31Nilay Patel?

  Uh, okay, Emily, what about you?

• 42:32Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I mean, I am not also really a gadget person, but, uh, culture-wise, it's just, it's genuinely been something where, uh, I've definitely seen an entire world here that I would never have seen before and that's really fascinating to me. Uh, I think, uh, yeah, I mean, I'm kinda with Natasha, like, I think a lot of, I think a lot of the stuff you see here, it's gonna be the most interesting when you barely even notice it coming into your life, when it just sort of seeps in. And, I don't know, I like, the, I, 'cause I'm, like, I'm thinking, I'm like, "Oh, the coolest thing I saw was like, the 3D-printed shoes," 'cause I'm a girl, I guess. Uh, but, but it was cool, you know, and it's like, but the idea of like, you know, finding

• 43:15Speaker 02

  new ways to make things, or finding new ways to just park your car.

• 43:20Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 43:21Speaker 02

  Uh, that's, you know, that's all interesting. It's not stuff that I'm like, gonna wanna be on the first line of when it comes out, but like, when it becomes a part of our lives, it's gonna, it's gonna be the future.

• 43:30Nilay Patel?

  I think, well, it's this, for me, what this show is always about is, it's just about screens. And like, the screens wax and lean and it's like, what are you gonna put on these screens everywhere? And like, there are no, like, I've been saying it, it's crazy to me that there are no tablets at this show. Like, that, that was gonna be like, the main screen in our lives and we're, like, I would go to TV conferences and like, I would hear TV executives talk about how they were gonna build second-screen experiences, so you would definitely be holding your iPad while you watched a TV show, and it's like, well, that definitely didn't pan out, like, 'cause nobody wants- To do that.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Babies love them. Babies love iPads, so maybe they could just like read, find a new product market fit.

• 44:09Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Make it a baby toy.

• 44:10Nilay Patel?

  There's one like right over. The only tablet here is like a kid's tablet, like right behind her. Uh, no, it's just funny, cause like, I look at this show and what happened was, these phones ate everything. Like, they literally ate everything and they got pretty big, so nobody buys tablets anymore. And now it's like, there are TVs everywhere and those screens are gonna be computers. And it's crazy to me that we are better at putting a computer in a car, at making the car drive itself, and we still can't figure out like, how should we watch television? Like, that's still like a pretty hard problem that this industry has been trying to solve like 30 years. And they like, literally, like, cars are driving themselves now and the TVs are still like...

• 44:45Speaker 01

  Maybe because it's not a problem. I can watch television.

• 44:48Speaker 03

  I mean, yeah, it's, it's so hard to improve on on button and then up down and instant delivery of show.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  It's, it's hard to improve upon that. That's like the whole lesson of Google TV is, they could not improve on TV.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Reach the top and they should stop.

• 45:04Nilay Patel?

  We're good.

• 45:04Speaker 03

  Give up humanity.

• 45:06Nilay Patel?

  Shut it all down.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  No, you've reached peak?

• 45:09Nilay Patel?

  No, that's to me, that's, that's the question, right? Like, you would never say that about a phone. You would never say you can't improve this basic experience of like using a phone.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  No, I love my phone.

• 45:17Nilay Patel?

  Um, you're never getting a new phone, Natasha. Keeping this one forever. No, I just think it's funny. Like, that to me is like the story of the show. It's like, where are we gonna put all of the energy and all the investment in like making things better? And it's funny to just watch people try and like hit roadblocks and constraints and then move very quickly to something else entirely. And the show changes so fast. The other thing that I think is fun is that we all just get to party here. Like, our team gets to play together, which is really fun. And like, I don't know.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Get sick together.

• 45:46Nilay Patel?

  Huh? And get super...

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Share all our germs.

• 45:49Nilay Patel?

  What, uh, what, I mean, there's a lot of people out there listening to this show who like, one day you're working at The Verge, and what you should really know about it is that we do just share germs left and right. It's super weird and that's...

• 46:00Speaker 03

  There is a big jar of animal crackers in the trailer and the lid has been off since the first day of CES and I still just keep reaching my hand and just like grabbing two to three animal crackers every day.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Casey, I just took my first hand.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  Co-workers.

• 46:13Nilay Patel?

  Right. Casey, Casey will be dead within the week.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  No, Casey, I just took my first handful from that jar today.

• 46:20Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  Not bad, right?

• 46:21Nilay Patel?

  Well, I'm gonna go back to the trailer and touch all the animal crackers. So that's it, that's our show. It's great. I mean, I'm sorry that I am as like dead as I am, but that's the nature of CES. Like fundamentally, if you're not completely broken by the end of the show.

• 46:33Speaker 03

  You did it wrong.

• 46:34Nilay Patel?

  You did it completely wrong. You know what's cra- I actually haven't even walked in the other two halls. Like I haven't gone, look at, I'm gonna go look at the cars and I don't know. I'll go, the, the south hall.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  I tried to make an Oculus Rift appointment. It's fucking full all.

• 46:46Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 46:46Speaker 01

  All day.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  The Bluetooth on this one.

• 46:49Nilay Patel?

  I mean, of all of the, of all of the reasons to drop an F-bomb.

• 46:54Speaker 03

  The girl likes her VR.

• 46:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, who doesn't? Okay, that's it. That was Rich Gas. That was CES for us. Um, I hope all of us remain alive over the next few days. Uh, thank you for listening. Thank you for the people who are downloading the show. Thank you for listening. Uh, and that's it. Goodbye.