CES 2016 Day 3

Today on The Vergecast, Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn are joined by Nicola Fumo, Vlad Savov and Kirsten Frisina to discuss CES 2016. 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.

• 0:04Nilay Patel?

  Hello, welcome to The Vergecast on day 5 billion of CES. I'm a broken man, my name is Neelai Patel. I'm joined here by Dieter Bohn. I'm a shattered man. My girl Nicola's here.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  I have to take my hat off.

• 0:20Nilay Patel?

  Why?

• 0:21Speaker 01

  Because there's shadows.

• 0:23Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Okay. So Nicola's here, is, I think, already-

• 0:27Speaker 01

  Removing accessories, here, removing accessories.

• 0:30Nilay Patel?

  Already a fact, Nicola's here. And for the first half of the show-

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Yeah?

• 0:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you're good. Nicola's now wearing her hat back-

• 0:37Speaker 01

  Is it good?

• 0:38Nilay Patel?

  Literally the crowd is heckling Nicola to put her hat backwards.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  I'm doing a quick check. Wow, this is the most, like, authentic version.

• 0:45Nilay Patel?

  The guitar is playing. Everything about CES involves extraordinary amounts of noise that you don't want in your life. Yeah. And my boy Vlad Savov is here. Hello. You gotta, I don't think we heard you. Hello. Hey Vlad. Hey, I hear myself as well now. There you go. So it's day 3- Yeah. -of the show, according to our whacked-out math of whatever fucking day it is. It's day 2 of the show floor. It's day 2 of the show floor. Right. I have literally been talking all day long. All I've done today is talk. Why? Because there's something very exciting that happened this morning, which I'm just gonna lead with. Right now, as we record this, you're gonna hear it in your car later tomorrow in your life, but as we record this, the CEO of Vox Media, Jim Nikoff, the CEO of Intel, Brian

• 1:30Nilay Patel?

  Krasanich, and Kara Swisher, the executive at Recode, are on a stage somewhere else at CES announcing the Hack Harassment Project, which is a partnership between Intel, Vox Media, Recode, and Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation to fight harassment online, which is cool. I don't think we've ever been a part of a CES announcement ourselves. Yeah. So that's neat. So there was a call-out onstage during the Intel keynote a couple days ago, and today there's an event to formally announce the campaign with the Gaga, the Born This Way Foundation, and Lady Gaga. So there's a piece on The Verge about it. I interviewed Brian Krasanich, CEO of Intel, this morning, and we talked to Kara-

• 2:10Nilay Patel?

  About it, it's really cool. I will just say this, like, it's a problem that we deal with on our site. I'm sure Vergecast listeners know that we had to shut down comments, and now we started flipping comments on selectively, which works really well. We have a great community, we value that community. We want to keep it safe and positive for people. And there's going to be a series of hackathons throughout the year, next year, well, this year, where they try to build tools and resources for other platforms and other media companies to build safe spaces and safe communities for people. So I think that's really cool. I'm very excited about it, I'm proud to be a part of it. I'm also, it's like, just pretty cool to have a CS announcing. I never get to do that.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  We're here. Announcing stuff. You're pointing at somebody.

• 2:55Nilay Patel?

  Andrew and I are just, our producer Andrew and I, we're just doing, we're just communicating telepathically. Anyway, so that's cool. You can read about it on The Verge, we'll have coverage throughout the year. Obviously, we're part of Vox Media, so we're gonna, we're gonna maintain our editorial distance from the story a little bit, but I'm proud to be a part of a company that's doing it and working on this stuff. So you'll see more about that this year, and there's a cool video with Brian Kazan coming up. Anyway, so that's, I think, the big news. I'm very proud of it. I think it's cool. But let's get into not me talking, and not me, my voice going away. Vlad, I want to know, what's your CS like, man? What have you seen? What have you been into? Where have you been?

• 3:36Speaker 03

  I've been all over the place. I've done a whole bunch of live blogs. I took some amazing photos of Kaz Ry.

• 3:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 3:42Speaker 03

  Because...

• 3:44Nilay Patel?

  Oh yeah, Vlad and I did the Sony Live blog together.

• 3:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, which was beautiful. I mean, Kaz and Mike, they had absolutely nothing to announce, but they had so much swagger about it.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Your photos were the best thing to happen at that Sony keynote.

• 3:55Speaker 03

  Well, no, I don't necessarily agree, because they had so much swagger about the fact that they had nothing to announce. They were just really great fun. And like, my way of, well, my analogy to it is like, they're like your alcoholic uncle, who is nevertheless still really fun and amusing when he's drunk.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  This is like the third time we brought up alcoholic uncles on The Vergecast this week.

• 4:16Nilay Patel?

  That's our theme today. Get ready.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  But yeah, but apart from that, actually, on the show itself, and in terms of the new products that I've seen, I have somehow, as many laptops as I've seen and touched in my life, been excited by laptops again. Because HP have introduced this Elite Book Folio. Which is pretty much a 2015 MacBook, Apple MacBook on Windows. But you know, you laugh, but I'm not laughing. I actually want one.

• 4:44Nilay Patel?

  Why?

• 4:45Speaker 03

  You know, this thing has two USB-C ports, so it doubles up the MacBook. Um, it has just amazing construction. It's built beautifully. It has a touchscreen, it has a 4K display. And it even has Thunderbolt 3, 3.0. So, I mean, I, the only downside, and I think it's gonna be real one.

• 5:03Nilay Patel?

  What kind of processor does it have?

• 5:04Speaker 03

  It has an Intel Core R, but wait, wait, wait, okay?

• 5:07Nilay Patel?

  Man, look at all the parts on this thing.

• 5:09Speaker 03

  Last year sucked, right?

• 5:09Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  It was not good enough, um, and nobody should have bought a laptop with last year's Core R. But the new Skylake Core R has potential. I don't know that it's necessarily going to be good enough. But just browsing around the verge, and again, the touchscreen, pinching, zooming, doing all those things, basic web browsing.

• 5:26Nilay Patel?

  Pinching, zooming, swiping, tapping.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  It's, it's a basic but useful test for performance, and it looks really fluid. Like, I was impressed with it, and I'm willing to believe in it. What I'm more worried about is actually battery life, because it's just so tiny and thin. Uh, and it could be like four or five hours and just completely spoil things. But still, that is, you know, one of the highlights for me. The other is, uh, Razer just introduced, uh, the Blade Stealth. Which is an ultrabook that is nevertheless a gaming laptop, because again, it uses USB-C and it connects to the Razer Core, which is a breakout box to stick a desktop GPU into.

• 6:03Nilay Patel?

  Right. This is like an old idea, though.

• 6:05Speaker 03

  Oh, it's an old idea.

• 6:06Nilay Patel?

  You're gonna plug your laptop into a thing that makes it like greater games.

• 6:09Speaker 03

  Has anybody done it correctly, though?

• 6:10Nilay Patel?

  No, because we keep doing it, and I, it might be impossible to do correctly.

• 6:13Speaker 02

  Well, we believe in USB-C, so the work we have, we have hope.

• 6:16Nilay Patel?

  What a strange thing to believe in.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  We have hope in USB-C.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  I mean, ever since I could afford to buy a laptop, the first thing I wanted to have was a thing that I could take to lectures, so it could be portable, and then I could bring back and play some games when I'm at home.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:30Speaker 03

  And this totally solves that problem.

• 6:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  I mean, the... Looking at this HP thing, looking at the other, I mean obviously MacBook clones that we've seen here. And you know, even Dell's XPS 13, which is pretty old but around, they made a new version of it here too, like they made it gold, I think.

• 6:47Nilay Patel?

  And it looks gorgeous.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  There is no good reason to buy junky, plasticky laptops.

• 6:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 6:54Speaker 02

  You know, if you can afford it, like, once, if you have a thousand bucks to spend on a laptop, you can get something just flat out gorgeous.

• 7:02Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  And that, that has never been the case before. You could like pick your platform, pick your, even pick your manufacturer. If you're, I mean, are there HP fanboys? If you're an HP fanboy.

• 7:10Nilay Patel?

  Are there?

• 7:11Speaker 02

  You now could get gorgeous things.

• 7:12Nilay Patel?

  I think they're Dell fanboys.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:14Nilay Patel?

  They're like hardcore. They all live in Texas.

• 7:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:17Nilay Patel?

  That's where Dell is. One imagines they have some home time for them.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 7:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So what else? I think the idea that laptops are great again is really interesting. But you have to believe in Windows 10, which is like hard.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Hmm, to some extent. Um, there's, there's also the fact that their touchpads have improved.

• 7:34Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 7:35Speaker 03

  You know, the, the-

• 7:36Nilay Patel?

  Have they?

• 7:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:38Nilay Patel?

  Alright. Well, they have a touch, the touchscreen is like, actually kind of makes up for it in some ways.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  No, well, the touchscreen is always a workaround. I don't want to work around. I want to have, if there's a touchpad, I want it to work.

• 7:48Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 7:48Speaker 03

  That, that is like, one of the biggest frustrations for me with piece of technology and it's frustration you get with CES every year is, people put things in and they're like, maybe this works? We hope this will work. And that's what I see with all the kitchenware stuff. You can get me excited about kitchenware. Seriously, fridges and washing machines, et cetera. If I could see-

• 8:06Nilay Patel?

  Is there a washing machine in your kitchen?

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:09Nilay Patel?

  Alright.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  That's, that's actually in, in the UK.

• 8:13Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Washing machines are always in the kitchen.

• 8:15Nilay Patel?

  Oh, there's a washing machine in my kitchen. I live in a New York apartment. So technically, everything is in my kitchen.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  But, a, another bit of European trivia is that actually Dutch people are a bit smarter than us and they tend to put the washing machine in the bathroom. And I look at that and I think, why do they put it in the bathroom? And I think, actually, that makes a lot more sense than what we do.

• 8:35Nilay Patel?

  Why?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  When you take your clothes off to shower.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  And then you just throw them in the water.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  You then put them right in. Now who even needs a hamper?

• 8:44Nilay Patel?

  Strange, strange moments.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  Efficiency. But the, the, the point I was trying to make about CES. The point I was trying to make about CES is I see all these things being thrown at washing machines and fridges. Samsung, LG, et cetera. And I have zero confidence that they will be here again next year saying, this is our evolution of the last thing.

• 9:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  I think they're gonna come up with something completely different and random again. Like LG has this thing where you walk in front of the fridge and it cracks itself open. Okay, that's here today and maybe a couple of people will buy it, but is that gonna have an evolution in the future?

• 9:16Nilay Patel?

  Yes. I mean like.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  It opens up another three inches every year.

• 9:21Nilay Patel?

  Or, or opens the other, I mean like it's just, it, that stuff I see evolving. What I don't see evolving is like, will the firmware in the smart fridge ever get updated? Like you buy the one to, like next year they'll come out with a new one that has a whole new interface. A whole new set of like bad apps. Cause they have, they built a bunch of bad apps for the fridge that Samsung did. But are they ever gonna update that thing? Or is it ever, are they gonna issue security updates for your smart wifi fridge for a thousand years or whatever? How long do fridges last? Is it a thousand years?

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  No, 10.

• 9:53Nilay Patel?

  10?

• 9:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:54Speaker 02

  No, it's more than 10.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  We just had to, my dad just had to replace his.

• 9:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Fridges are good for like 20 years.

• 9:59Nilay Patel?

  But I think the tank like 50s refrigerators. Like what is the, what is the end of life cycle on the Samsung fridge? Like when do they stop updating Tizen on the Android fridge?

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Oh man.

• 10:08Nilay Patel?

  The Samsung fridge.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  There's no way that lasts more than, they're not gonna update that for more than two or three years.

• 10:12Nilay Patel?

  But then again, if you're the sort of person who's buying a fridge with a 21 inch touchscreen, you're like, you're like maybe like.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  You can swing it.

• 10:17Nilay Patel?

  You're like a fridge hype beast.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Yes. A fridge hype beast is a great thing.

• 10:22Nilay Patel?

  Appliance hype beast.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Oh man, waiting in line.

• 10:24Nilay Patel?

  Do you know one of my favorite blogs is?

• 10:25Speaker 02

  Appliancehypebeast.com?

• 10:26Nilay Patel?

  It, well, appliance-ist. Like reading about appliances is wild. Like people are into it. I'm telling you, this is the next, this is the next mobile device.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  A cooler?

• 10:40Nilay Patel?

  Cooler?

• 10:40Speaker 01

  A cooler is a mobile fridge.

• 10:43Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Well, you know...

• 10:45Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna, the next one's gonna have a touchscreen on top. Do you know that was one of the most popular Kickstarter's of all time?

• 10:50Speaker 02

  Was it a cooler?

• 10:51Nilay Patel?

  Was a cooler with like a Bluetooth speaker.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Like all Kickstarter's, it's kind of...

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Oh, for the best picnic?

• 10:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  It's simple.

• 10:57Nilay Patel?

  Is that called the coolest cooler?

• 10:58Speaker 02

  Yeah. It has a, it has a thing on the top and you can stick a blender on and you can make margaritas.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  This is amazing!

• 11:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and many, many people got scammed with Kickstarter. They can't, they can't make it.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  No, what happened was they started...

• 11:11Speaker 01

  It's too cool.

• 11:12Nilay Patel?

  Like dudes like, "I gotta get back in this lab, I gotta..."

• 11:14Speaker 02

  They're making it. I think they started shipping to people who bought it straight on Amazon before they shipped it to backers because they needed to get the revenue to keep making it.

• 11:21Nilay Patel?

  Oh.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Is I think what happened.

• 11:22Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. It's just funny, like the coolest cooler scam was like a real story. Like they kept on being like, "It's delayed again, I don't know." Like integrating this Bluetooth speaker is too much for us. It happened. Alright, so Vlad, what it sounds like to me you're saying is like, a bunch of stuff is really good and just getting refined. Like, we're at the laptop point? And then a bunch of other stuff here is like, straight garbage.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Well, it's not garbage.

• 11:46Nilay Patel?

  But there's nothing in that middle zone where you're like, "This is gonna get, I can see the next two versions."

• 11:51Speaker 03

  Yeah. We saw so much garbage. You know, when we come to CES every year, the first thing we do is we kind of try and shed our cynicism.

• 11:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  Because it's so easy to be jaded about technology and all of these things. And I think we succeed, as a group, we succeed. But it's, the companies make it really hard for us because they're super cynical themselves.

• 12:12Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Like, they will come out and just use language which just does not belong, does not fit in with fridges. Okay? Or front-loading washing machines. Like LG will come out and say something like, "We have America's favorite front-load washing machine." And I don't think America cares to have a favorite in that category. Okay? And the other thing is, like you're saying, how long does a fridge last? A decade, two decades, whatever, right? Everybody's trying to get this short-lived technology into long-lived appliances and just kind of force it in and then force you to want to upgrade the short-lived technology.

• 12:47Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  So we're literally facing the future where somebody's gonna say, "My fridge doesn't have a quad-core processor in it, so I can't get the latest software patch."

• 12:56Nilay Patel?

  Yes. And that is the future I wish to live in. Can you imagine if we were, everything around you is full of bad software and old hardware?

• 13:05Speaker 03

  I can.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Actually, I can totally imagine.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm not imagining it. We just take a walk.

• 13:10Nilay Patel?

  No, so I have this theory. I've been talking about it all day. I have this theory. You know, our most popular posts here were like record players. Seriously, two record players, a Sony record player and a Technic record player were our most popular posts.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  The analog renaissance.

• 13:22Nilay Patel?

  The analog renaissance.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  I'm standing right strong behind it.

• 13:25Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:26Nilay Patel?

  I believe that it is basically like Gen X, like we just, we experienced like endless amounts of convergence. We're like, first, this like, the smartphone ate the CD player and then it ate cameras and ate camcorders. But, and that was exciting. So we like went for the ride. But like another, like I think the millennial generation like didn't get to experience the heady rush of digital music. They're just like, this is what music is like. It kind of sucks. And like, there's a running away from software. Like, things that don't require you to interact with software are all over the place here and they're super popular. Like, the record player does not require software.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  I remember.

• 14:08Nilay Patel?

  The film cameras. Yeah, of course the Sony one. They can't help themselves.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  I remember covering National Record Store Day in like 2013 and having a stat that it was the, that was like the biggest year of vinyl sales ever.

• 14:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And that it's just every year is the biggest year vinyl sales ever. What's happening?

• 14:24Speaker 03

  Nothing.

• 14:25Nilay Patel?

  Alright.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  Don't worry about it.

• 14:26Nilay Patel?

  Does somebody have a record player over there?

• 14:28Speaker 03

  No.

• 14:28Nilay Patel?

  Alright. It's, I think it's too distracting for us to be on this stage. There's like a lot of people moving around.

• 14:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:34Nilay Patel?

  Um, no, so there's a vinyl boom. We've talked about record players every day on the show here because that's what people want to talk about at CES is like, have you seen a record player? Which is insane to me.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  I feel like I've been living in this record player moment.

• 14:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah?

• 14:49Speaker 01

  For a long time.

• 14:50Nilay Patel?

  Do you have a record player?

• 14:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:52Nilay Patel?

  Are you gonna get one?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Um, probably not.

• 14:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah?

• 14:57Speaker 01

  But that doesn't mean that many of my friends don't have record players, little carbon copies of me.

• 15:02Nilay Patel?

  Are you gonna get a?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Their record players, their collections.

• 15:04Nilay Patel?

  Carbon copies of me. Uh, do you have a film camera? Would you ever buy a film camera?

• 15:08Speaker 01

  I do have a film camera.

• 15:10Nilay Patel?

  What do you, and where do you send the film to?

• 15:14Speaker 01

  The one hour Walgreens in Times Square.

• 15:17Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 15:17Speaker 01

  Hell.

• 15:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Hell.

• 15:19Nilay Patel?

  You literally take pictures and send them to hell.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  I walked them there, to hell. And then I walked back an hour later through hell again.

• 15:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I'm telling you, there's like a whole movement of people who just don't want to use software.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  There's only like two places in, like two chain places in New York to get your, okay, I'm gonna say this wrong, I'm gonna get so many angry people on the internet. There's more than two, but if you're looking at like the CVS Walgreens, there's like very, very few options in New York to get your film, uh, developed.

• 15:44Nilay Patel?

  There's probably some dude in Bushwick who has like a basement photo lab, and he's gonna be like, "My boutique photo lab," and it's gonna blow up. That's a trend piece we should find.

• 15:51Speaker 01

  I mean, there's definitely not, not that right now.

• 15:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we should, we should do a trend piece on basement, basement darkrooms.

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:57Nilay Patel?

  If you have a basement darkroom in New York, I'm coming to your house.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Well, it's not as, you should probably specify for photography.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was coming to your basement.

• 16:04Nilay Patel?

  I just wanna hang out. What are you like? What are you like, person who buys chemicals to make photography? What's it like being you?

• 16:10Speaker 02

  I mean, you're, you're still a cool person.

• 16:13Nilay Patel?

  I was a darkroom person. But again, like I'm saying, like that was my experience with photography, it was like, you shot the Black and White photos in middle school and they taught you how to develop the thing.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:22Nilay Patel?

  I have a scar on my face because the negative processing room, the door was really heavy and cracked me in the face when I was like 12.

• 16:29Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 16:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and then I was like, "Digital cameras are way better than being physically abused by doors."

• 16:34Speaker 03

  But, but there is a question though, which is, who has all the space for all this analog stuff? Because I don't have a room that I can dedicate to photo processing at home, and I don't have, uh, you know, all the shelf space to be storing a massive, extremely heavy vinyl collection, and the other...

• 16:51Nilay Patel?

  But I don't think you get, so that's the thing, right? Like you live in the streaming moment, so you don't need the collection. I think you just buy the ones that you really, like...

• 16:59Speaker 03

  So it's just a completely hipster movement. It's like, I have two vinyl records from a vinyl player.

• 17:04Nilay Patel?

  Well, not like two.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  No, you go to thrift stores. This is what we do.

• 17:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, but, okay, you get them, fine, but then what do you do once you have them? Where do you store all this stuff?

• 17:13Speaker 02

  On a shelf.

• 17:14Speaker 03

  Right, but then also...

• 17:15Speaker 02

  Next to the record player.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  Like you're saying, uh, going back to analog, books are kind of having a resurgence. E-books didn't kill off physical books.

• 17:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, actually, independent bookstores doing better than ever. It's, it's just crazy to me that we're at CES and we're talking about physical media...

• 17:29Speaker 01

  People wanna touch stuff.

• 17:29Nilay Patel?

  On stage in front of people. Like, it's wild.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  I mean, I, I, I get the

• 17:35Speaker 01

  I, I know where you're coming from.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  I get the whole tactile response and the smell and all of that stuff. This is, th- these are my memories, comic books and encyclopedias and the particular smell of just ripping them open. I get that, but-

• 17:45Speaker 02

  You were ripping your encyclopedias?

• 17:47Speaker 03

  Nope, ripping open the cellophane packaging.

• 17:50Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  Um, right. Thank you for the correction.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Just saying.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  It's an important one. Uh, but at the same time, we're living in ever more denser, more urban environments, and I just don't have any idea where people are gonna store all this analog entertainment.

• 18:03Nilay Patel?

  But I don't think it's all of it, right? I think that's the thing, like, it's just so weird that we're talking about this here. It's, you're gonna store the ones that are like slices of your identity.

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 18:14Nilay Patel?

  Right? You're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna curate your bookshelf so it's like, it looks like, these are the books I read. Here's a person-

• 18:20Speaker 03

  So, so this thing means something to me, so I have it in the physical world in some manifestation.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, so you-

• 18:25Speaker 01

  It's like your Facebook interests, but in your house.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  Right. No, I mean, this is, this is precisely what I've done. Like, I, I, I dropped out of grad school, and, uh, I had a, a giant shit, like, wall of books, just an unbelievable amount of books. And then as I started moving, uh, I was like, well, these suck to carry, and then I would slowly call them down, and like, every time I'd move, I'd look at my books and be like, well, what gets to go? And what's left are like, the ones that I care about, or that I, you know, wanna care about.

• 18:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  And then, you know, but the record stuff, like, it's not like because I have an LP player, I don't have Spotify in my phone. It was just like, it's like, nice to like, we, we talked about records for like, a half an hour yesterday. It's just that you, you have the stuff you care about-

• 19:05Nilay Patel?

  It's the story of the show. I'm telling you, it's the story of the show. Is like, the two, the, the number of record players and film cameras and like, Kodak's Super 8 movie camera that shoots old film. Like, the fact that that stuff is coming back because there's a market for it, and the demand actually drove these companies to produce the products. Not, they just weren't like, we're gonna do some hype.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, they didn't try and like, create this trend, it like, happened to them and now they're trying to catch up.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Well, how would any tech company want to create a trend like, let's go back to paper books? Like, nobody's gonna, like, nobody has a library section here or a bookstore. It, it, it doesn't work. But I think your point about Facebook interests is very good be- Because what we're finding is like people who are used to having a digital identity. Mm hmm. As now figuring out ways to build it in the physical world, whereas as Neil says, we're old enough. Um, and shattered enough to have the memories of like all of our identity was and. Embodied in physical things and then we turned it digital and like you're saying now it's a reverse, so we're going back around. Which I guess you're gonna make.

• 20:08Nilay Patel?

  Wait, so let me ask you a harder question.

• 20:10Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 20:10Nilay Patel?

  Cause I I was thinking about this too. The other thing that we came up with was like. A handful of companies that transform the world over and over again. So like Apple, Google, Facebook. Like the.

• 20:25Speaker 03

  Sony?

• 20:26Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, no, yeah, Sony, but like we watched Sony die. We watched Microsoft, but like. Apple for me is the company that constantly reinvents things, right? Like that was the moment. Like they were like, we're doing the iPod. It's brand new. We're doing a phone. Here's what a computer looks like now. No, it looks like this. Here's a tablet. Here's a new like, that was the thing. And then Google was like, here's how you use the internet and then, right? But like little kids, like five, six, seven, eight, ten year olds, they don't have any of that context. And like walking around here and thinking like, why are people buying record players? It actually is like, what would it be like growing up in a world where Apple is the dominant one and Google is the dominant one? And that you don't recognize them as underdogs in any way, or you don't recognize them as having reinvented anything.

• 21:10Nilay Patel?

  Because those are the inventions in your life. And that this part, there's nothing at this show that like indicates to me that anyone will ever perform that other role. But it's like wild to think about like. Just as we move back to these other formats, like the the reference frame for everything that we think about the industry might be totally wrong.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:29Nilay Patel?

  Fifteen years or something.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Well, the thing is, if we if we're going back to.

• 21:33Nilay Patel?

  I've been smoking a lot of weed as I walk around the show.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  No, but if we're going back to analog now, I don't know that we'll necessarily ever have that sort of giant company.

• 21:41Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  Uh, the same way that like you're saying, uh, well, we had Sony in the nineties, we had Apple, et cetera. Um, so that might just end by itself. Maybe the next big um tech companies are going to be, well, not so much maybe, probably. It would be things like Facebook and their services. Um, and it might even be companies like Gogoro, uh, you know, I spoke with those guys today and. Their thing is, we have an electric scooter, which is just one part of this entire vision of rethinking energy.

• 22:10Speaker 02

  But their thing that CES was like, oh yeah, you can put some battery chargers in your house. But you still can't just go out and buy one unless you're in like one of these cities where they believe that they have a network, right?

• 22:21Speaker 03

  That's right. Well, you can, they have an open initiative now where people can volunteer their cities. And if they get enough city, if they get enough people, they will come, they will come up and set up their network in the city. But it does seem like in the tech world, what's gonna happen is you're gonna have like really massively successful companies, which finally solve the whole IoT internet things problem and do like a global massive thing. And if Gogoro works out the way that they envision it, it's hugely ambitious. So you're gonna have, like you say, a monolith. And you're gonna have tiny companies and this sort of, you know, the gadget maker that makes it really big, maybe that era is just over.

• 23:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but you need a run, you need a screen and a processor and a battery, right? Someone.

• 23:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, but those are commodities now, aren't they?

• 23:09Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, but the operating system. What do you think is better, Vlad? Android or iOS?

• 23:13Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  Good question.

• 23:15Nilay Patel?

  Is it time for us to switch you out?

• 23:18Speaker 03

  I don't know that there's enough difference anymore. I don't know if there's enough difference anymore. They've copied each other, everybody else to feature parity, so.

• 23:26Nilay Patel?

  That was an elegant dodge. Vlad has clearly been interviewing executives all week. He's just elegantly dodged the controversial question. Anyway, we need to break for an ad.

• 23:35Speaker 03

  The answer is not Windows phone.

• 23:36Nilay Patel?

  There you go. We need to break for an ad and we need to swap Vlad out for my friend Kirsten Frisina. So Vlad, it's been good to have you. I don't, I don't know what we're doing. This is like.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  That was awkward.

• 23:47Nilay Patel?

  I haven't had any sleep. I just wanna hold your hands.

• 23:49Speaker 03

  Oh, I've been advocating fist bumps, by the way. Let's do a fist bump.

• 23:52Nilay Patel?

  I've been advocating fist bumps.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Much more hygienic than a handshake.

• 23:55Nilay Patel?

  We, we need to make some money. Get out of here.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  Bye.

• 23:59Nilay Patel?

  Goodbye.

• 24:02Nilay Patel?

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• 24:46Nilay Patel?

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• 25:14Nilay Patel?

  We're back. Kirsten, what's up?

• 25:15Speaker 04

  This is my first CES.

• 25:16Nilay Patel?

  This is your first CES.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:18Nilay Patel?

  What's it like for you?

• 25:19Speaker 04

  I feel like I should tell a good laugh.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  This is my first CES.

• 25:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  We're having dueling first CESs.

• 25:23Nilay Patel?

  I really just want to hear what the two of you think of this show. I actually, I might not speak for the rest of the show. I just want to know what it's been like for you here.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Well, one, if you look at either of our Snapchats or the Verge Snapchat, you'll just see us doing a lot of things. Golf cards, booth babes, all kinds of different topics to be covered.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  I think...

• 25:44Nilay Patel?

  How many booth babes have you seen?

• 25:45Speaker 01

  Booth babes is a hot and dark topic.

• 25:48Speaker 04

  I can't.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  Really?

• 25:50Nilay Patel?

  The number of booth babes here is precipitously dropped.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Yeah. It is something like 5% of what it used to be.

• 25:56Speaker 04

  I'm sure that that's true, but like, being at CES as a woman is... Ah, it's weird.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  It's really weird.

• 26:03Speaker 04

  It's really bizarre.

• 26:04Speaker 01

  Like, walking by a wall of booth babes to get inside of a thing to go use your mind. It's like, "Oh, excuse me, let me just get through you and your tote bags." Oh, sorry.

• 26:12Nilay Patel?

  What, use your mind?

• 26:13Speaker 01

  You know, because I'm here to use my brain.

• 26:15Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I see.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  To do things.

• 26:16Speaker 04

  I'm not a model.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  But like, walking through, like, prop women? Being like, "Oh, excuse me, you're here to use your body, I'm here to use my brain, if I could just get past this wall you've created."

• 26:25Speaker 04

  And like, they don't know anything about...

• 26:27Speaker 01

  What?

• 26:28Nilay Patel?

  Did you get a tote bag?

• 26:29Speaker 01

  No, I hate tote bags.

• 26:30Nilay Patel?

  Oh, sorry.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  I have too many of them.

• 26:33Nilay Patel?

  They just want to give you a tote bag.

• 26:34Speaker 01

  I know. Actually, there's less swag here than I thought there was gonna be.

• 26:38Nilay Patel?

  No, you're totally wrong.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Maybe I'm not going to the right places.

• 26:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, go South Hall. Yeah, South Hall's full of... I mean, have you ever wanted a free USB stick in your life?

• 26:46Speaker 01

  No, I wanted some new hats, though.

• 26:47Nilay Patel?

  No viruses, I promise. Yeah. So, what else have you seen? What have you actually seen here?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Okay, yesterday I got here.

• 26:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  After some dilemmas.

• 26:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  And a desert road trip. And I wa... I spent the day at where all the wearables are.

• 27:02Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:03Speaker 01

  So, I pretty much looked at that fitness stuff, 3D.

• 27:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:07Nilay Patel?

  What, you've seen any hot wearables?

• 27:09Speaker 01

  You know, I got excited about a couple of things. I might have emailed someone this morning to ask if I could try it out, because I believe it might be the one for me.

• 27:16Nilay Patel?

  Whoa.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  More information to come.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  You finally found your wearables!

• 27:19Speaker 01

  Possibly, possibly. I feel really good about the new Misfit.

• 27:22Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 27:23Speaker 04

  Mmm.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  Right? It has, uh, like, this copper tube and like, a leather band around it.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, Lauren Good wrote up a piece about it, yeah.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  It has... you get notifications from your phone and such, but it's just that tiny colored light that you assign to it. I like... I like that one a lot. I like the materials a lot. I feel good about it.

• 27:41Speaker 04

  It actually, it like, looks like a piece of jewelry, potentially.

• 27:44Nilay Patel?

  I thought it looked like a battery on a string.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Really?

• 27:46Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  I dig it.

• 27:47Speaker 04

  I kind of like it, too.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  I think, like, the Minimal Girl, Meat Supply type girl is gonna be all over that, um, as an option. Fossil also has some new stuff coming out that looks really good, um, with like, these tortoise shell top things.

• 28:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Um, and I was looking at those, and I was like, you know, you know when J. Crew, they do like... They have like brands we love, like not just J. Crew stuff, they have like little curated whatever. If they had that there, I wouldn't be that surprised. It would not look out of place next to like some Chambre and like some brown leather shoes or something. It like really didn't look that.

• 28:21Nilay Patel?

  So if you're that person, you're wearing the tortoise show.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, you could throw it on, you know, get going.

• 28:27Speaker 04

  You know what, Nicola, you've been really harsh on all of the displays. I would love for you to talk about like the styling of the booths and stuff, because you have a very interesting perspective comparing it to different fashion events you've been to.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  There's one more wearable thing that I wanted to feel positive about.

• 28:40Nilay Patel?

  There you go.

• 28:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, tell us all the things.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Wait, what was the third one? Oh, it's so hard. We also looked at a watch today that's designed for women, which means they put

• 28:48Speaker 04

  Designed for women.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  They put sparkles on it.

• 28:51Speaker 04

  It's rose gold and it has glossy crystals, like everything else.

• 28:55Nilay Patel?

  Oh, so actually it was really funny. I was with a very senior person at a very large company yesterday and I was like, what's your big takeaway from the show? He's like, dude, fashion is everywhere here. Like glossy crystals, like all over. I was like, that's, I know some people who don't think that, who don't agree with you.

• 29:10Speaker 01

  It's just like, that's only one flavor of female.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  And it's such a small percentage.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Like, I would never wear something like that. That's not me, that's not you.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  One of our producers, Sophie, earlier, when, right before we started, made a great point, which is that like, they're styling this for like older women, like, and those older, like, more classically dressed women do not want a smartwatch yet.

• 29:31Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 29:31Speaker 04

  And so it's like, why are you styling this for people that don't even want the functionality? It doesn't make sense to me.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Still the displays. It's really funny. They'll just like put a little purse, like literally like these pink headphones and then a purse next to it.

• 29:46Nilay Patel?

  Just because.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  And if the purse is smaller than the headphones is the best part. You could never put the headphones in the purse.

• 29:51Nilay Patel?

  Because you're wearing the headphones all the time.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:53Nilay Patel?

  Constantly.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Never take them out.

• 29:55Nilay Patel?

  I mean, haven't you seen popular advertising?

• 29:57Speaker 01

  There was one where like

• 29:58Nilay Patel?

  Everyone's always jamming out in their headphones.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  There are these watches and then just like Flowers and jewels?

• 30:05Speaker 04

  Because women love pink jewels and flowers.

• 30:06Nilay Patel?

  Like big, like, plastic?

• 30:08Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Just like some flowers, like, not like fresh whatever flower, just like a flower, a plastic flower.

• 30:13Nilay Patel?

  Have you walked through the, like, Sony, like, built, like, a cool person's apartment?

• 30:16Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 30:17Nilay Patel?

  What did you think of that?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Wait, I don't know if I walked through that, because I didn't think I went to a cool person's apartment.

• 30:21Speaker 04

  Sony was the thing that we went to that had the weird purse, that you were, remember the...

• 30:24Speaker 01

  Oh, the Bad Urban Outfitters display.

• 30:26Nilay Patel?

  Yes.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  It looks like a bad Urban Outfitters.

• 30:30Nilay Patel?

  It's like a cool person's apartment, right?

• 30:30Speaker 01

  That's what that was supposed to be, okay, there's a teepee for children there.

• 30:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, it's very confusing, like, there's an entire array of things that, there's like coloring books.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:40Nilay Patel?

  And like blankets.

• 30:41Speaker 01

  No, this was like amazing to me, and I, and I was saying when we were walking around that I was like, I get what they're doing here, but it's executed so badly, and I'm really confused by it. I'm just gonna, I'm like, I'm surprised by how many of the booths just are like, are like, nothing.

• 30:53Speaker 04

  They're not well styled, yeah.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  It's so weird, because at fashion trade shows, like, obviously we have Fashion Week, but we also have trade shows, all of the booths are like, amazing looking, they look like little stores. Like, stores you'd want to be in, you know, they create environments and atmospheres, whatever, I'm like, really surprised here. I'm also surprised that there aren't more, like, designed-for-Instagram moments, because Fashion Week especially is just like lush with, like, anything you go to has the thing that you obviously want to take a picture in, and the branding is there, and whatever, I'm surprised by how few booths here have an area that, like, obviously you want to take a picture in.

• 31:24Speaker 04

  Well, you really, the only, the only place...

• 31:25Nilay Patel?

  Because most of the booths here are full of cameras.

• 31:29Speaker 04

  Yes. Well, one of the booths that Michael actually liked was the Kodak booth.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, the little house Kodak booth.

• 31:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, because we snapped it, check out the Snapchat.

• 31:37Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my god.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  They have stickers there, because analog.

• 31:41Nilay Patel?

  Today, I was, I was walking down a hallway with a large group of people, and Kirsten just appeared out of my peripheral vision, walking backwards and, like, periscoping. You're snapping, were you snapping at me?

• 31:51Speaker 04

  I was snapping at you.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  I saw the little flag, I was like, look, there's...

• 31:54Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying, these two are just popping up out of nowhere, Snapchatting things all over the place.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty wild.

• 32:00Speaker 04

  It's fun, yeah.

• 32:01Nilay Patel?

  So Kirsten, what have you seen that you're into, product-wise?

• 32:04Speaker 04

  What am I into?

• 32:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 04

  Like...

• 32:07Nilay Patel?

  It's your first CS, there's gotta be crazy shit here you've never seen.

• 32:09Speaker 04

  I'm just excited that people are finally executing on wireless headphones that don't, like, epically suck.

• 32:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  I still think that they all look like they're made for men, which is frustrating. Uh, I really like the Braggy Dash, I was into those.

• 32:20Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, those are, we did a big piece...

• 32:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, and Sean, Sean wrote up a piece about it, uh, that's really good. I, they're just black, you know what I mean, they're just, they're just one standard, black... They're at least comfortable, which is helpful, which is like a huge thing. But I don't, if I'm putting something in my ear, I would like it to look as nice as like an earring that I would put in my ear. It should look like a piece of jewelry if I'm wearing it.

• 32:45Nilay Patel?

  Especially the wireless, like headphones are signifiers though, right? Like white headphones were signifiers for a long time.

• 32:50Speaker 04

  Especially when you have the, the preconceived idea of like a hearing aid.

• 32:55Nilay Patel?

  No, right.

• 32:56Speaker 04

  So like you, you don't want to skirt the line between looking like a hearing aid and having that entire kind of stigma with it. Yeah, I'm, I was really excited about that. I'm trying to think if there's anything else that blew me away here. I don't know.

• 33:09Speaker 02

  What's your overall experience of the whole thing like?

• 33:14Speaker 04

  I, I mean, it's back to, it's back to the like, this show feels like it's built for men and I feel like I'm constantly being treated really weirdly.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Someone actually said to us, someone actually said to us, like, look at the two little girls in the world of men. I'm not kidding.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  I had a security guard help, help me up yesterday and like, like push my body against his body and I was just like, what is happening right now?

• 33:39Nilay Patel?

  Wait, who, wait, I want to hear both these stories individually.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  We were like walking out of a, we got off the golf cart and we were walking in the door.

• 33:46Speaker 04

  This is like 20 minutes ago.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  And I like, we were like walking, we both were in like this crazy state of like, we're like buzzing off like whatever.

• 33:52Speaker 04

  We gotta go get over there, yeah.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  You know, we're like in a rush, like, and I heard a man say that and I was like, did I actually hear, like in a state of like, that couldn't have happened. And I looked around and there was like three dudes like walking out the door and I was like, that really, wow.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  I also, a lot of people don't assume that I'm media, so they yell at me when I'm in the booths taking pictures because I look like I'm a like young-ish female person.

• 34:13Nilay Patel?

  Well, you are a young-ish female.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, but like the thing is I'm wearing my badge. If you looked, if you took one second to look down and check my badge, you would know that it would be fine for me to be taking pictures, but you're not even looking down at my badge because you're assuming that I am not a tech reporter.

• 34:27Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  It just makes my blood boil.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  You don't look like a best buy buyer either. Like I don't know what I would assume.

• 34:34Speaker 04

  But it's like, I buy more tech than probably anyone here, like besides maybe you two.

• 34:39Nilay Patel?

  I just bought another Nexus phone for some reason.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  Another one?

• 34:41Nilay Patel?

  Okay. Just while we were talking. It's weird. This show has, I mean, honestly, for years struggled to redefine it. Like, the booth bay thing is actually really interesting to me because five years ago, six years ago, this place was, five years ago, Casio over here, they had a line of cameras that could shoot in slow motion.

• 35:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 35:05Nilay Patel?

  So they hired the cheerleaders from ASU to come here.

• 35:09Speaker 04

  No.

• 35:10Nilay Patel?

  And the cheerleaders did cheer routines while people took slow motion video of them.

• 35:14Speaker 04

  That's so fucked up. That's the other thing that on every single TV here...

• 35:18Nilay Patel?

  That's like the level that we came down from, right?

• 35:21Speaker 04

  Look at every TV. Look at literally 95% of the TVs, they're displaying women wearing not a full shirt.

• 35:29Speaker 02

  Really?

• 35:29Speaker 04

  Yes. Look, go look at the demos of the TVs, except for...

• 35:33Nilay Patel?

  At the big companies or at the little companies?

• 35:34Speaker 02

  At the big companies, it's not.

• 35:35Speaker 04

  At the big companies, it's less of that.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  But you'll still, any other TV that isn't like Sony or Panasonic, has a woman where I can see her mid-drift. Why? Why?

• 35:46Nilay Patel?

  Right. We don't, so that's the thing, that's actually a weird part about this show that we have never adequately figured out or explained or written, like, it's a story, but it's such an uncomfortable story. It's the assimilation into the cultural values of America and the West by little companies that come, like, for example, two years ago, Huawei showed up for the first time and Huawei did a bunch of crazy embarrassing shit. Because they just didn't know. And then after a few years, Huawei has like a very nice...

• 36:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, their booth is fine to me. Like, they have got a really classy, like, Carlie Claus picture and ad with, like, I was into that.

• 36:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I just, no, that part, that part's really weird. Like, the, watching people come here and like...

• 36:26Speaker 04

  And then like learn how to behave properly?

• 36:28Nilay Patel?

  And then learn how to have a CES booth is like really, like, there's a whole globalization story that is like slowly happening. But it's just such a weird story to be like, first the Korean companies came and they did crazy weird shit. But now Samsung has the biggest booth here and it's the classiest and now the, now the wave of Chinese companies is coming in and doing very strange things. And it's like... Do you want to say those words out loud all the time? Well, I just did. So, you know, it's like, but that, that is a story. Like we, I think we started telling that story two years ago at CES when Huawei and ZTE showed up in force and those booths were crazy. And now they've toned them way down and there's a new generation of younger companies that has no idea what they're doing.

• 37:11Nilay Patel?

  And I think that's a lot where that's, like, there's a booth right over here that I was walking up and I was like, wow, those ladies on the TVs aren't wearing any clothes. Um, and I, you know, like, they're just gonna, like, someone will tell them this year, I'm sure, and they'll be back next year, or they won't be back at all because where do these companies come from? Where do their TVs go?

• 37:29Speaker 02

  I do not know.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  Who buys these TVs?

• 37:32Nilay Patel?

  I know, there's so many TVs here from companies that I've never heard of in my life. But...

• 37:37Speaker 01

  I'm surprised in general just by how much junk there is. Like, it's like...

• 37:40Speaker 04

  They warned me about the level of junk, but I was even still a little surprised myself.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  I thought, I mean, it's like not, like, vetted. Like, who's vetting these people coming?

• 37:47Speaker 04

  Is it vetted?

• 37:48Nilay Patel?

  What do you mean?

• 37:49Speaker 04

  How do you get a booth here? Do you just pay money?

• 37:52Speaker 01

  You don't have to, like, there's no, like...

• 37:53Speaker 02

  You buy a booth.

• 37:54Nilay Patel?

  How do you think we got this booth? Like, the one that you're sitting in? What do you think happened? Like, do you think I, like, I, like, applied to college?

• 38:02Speaker 04

  There's no, but there's no, like, selection panel? So, yeah, so at the events that you're at for, like, fashion showcases that are...

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, like fashion trade shows, there's, like, yeah, selection, but you can't just show, you can't, anyone can't just go.

• 38:13Nilay Patel?

  It's free for all. Consumer electronics, baby. It's the last fashion of freedom.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  I feel like that would be kind of hard to vet, this kind of a show. I mean, like, how would you vet this kind of thing? Oh, let's see a prototype working.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  You need, like, an application, you know, like, and a little bit of information. An application and a little bit of information. Just a tiny bit.

• 38:30Nilay Patel?

  Well, there are places, there are parts of the show that are slightly more curated, right? So, there's, like, Urican Park, where all the startups are. There is, I think, the part of the show that you were in, more of the wearable companies. The show is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  But some of, some of that curation is just convention. Like, it's just tradition that all the crazy car companies are in the North Hall.

• 38:48Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  And that, like, this part of the South Hall is, like, for meeting rooms. Like, there's, I don't know how much that is, like, the rules, how much it was just, like, it's always been this way, and, like, Sony always pays this much money to have that space. And if you had that space last year, you get first dibs on it this year.

• 39:04Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 39:05Speaker 02

  And so it just sort of evolves that way.

• 39:07Nilay Patel?

  Sorry, um, breaking news.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  Just blatantly working in the middle of the Verge test.

• 39:12Nilay Patel?

  Breaking news, uh, the FBI raided a Chinese hoverboard company's food.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  Isn't that hilarious?

• 39:16Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 39:17Nilay Patel?

  It's pretty good.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  Cause one, yeah, cause one wheel was like, you're copying us, we have trademarks, la la la.

• 39:23Nilay Patel?

  But now there's video of it on Bloomberg. Of the raid, the hoverboard raid.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  That's probably the most exciting thing that's happened.

• 39:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 39:30Speaker 04

  That's awesome.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  I saw Fetty Wap play four songs at the Google Chromecast.

• 39:34Speaker 04

  That was actually so awesome.

• 39:35Nilay Patel?

  So you're on the party beat, you know this, right?

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Uh, I know, I got assigned, like, I mean, I just know what I'm going to, but then I saw like an assignment and I was like, I'm sorry, what?

• 39:43Speaker 04

  You were assigned to party, can you handle it?

• 39:45Nilay Patel?

  Have you gotten any good party invites? Or are we just sending you to party? I don't even know how this works.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Um, well, last night was the one I was looking forward to.

• 39:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, that Google party was awesome.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  I had three tequilas at 6:30 PM.

• 39:56Speaker 04

  That's a lot.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  By 6:30 PM.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  They had lots of snacks, that's still a lot.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  I don't even drink tequila.

• 40:04Nilay Patel?

  You were just in the spirit, you were just in the CES spirit.

• 40:06Speaker 04

  Is that what they were handing out? That's what that drink was? Oh, god, I didn't take that drink.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Um, anyway, yeah.

• 40:10Nilay Patel?

  You're just a young girl in a man's world.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  No, it was really weird dream there because like, imagine the CES crowd and it's also Fetty Wap show.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  There was that one woman that we saw that was like totally bridging the gap. She had on like a leather skirt, like an all black outfit that was really sleek and stylish and then she had a Fitbit Force on.

• 40:29Nilay Patel?

  A Force?

• 40:30Speaker 04

  I think, is the Force the one with the little?

• 40:33Nilay Patel?

  No, the Force is, the Force is old. If this person is a stylist, it's the same, they didn't have an old Fitbit.

• 40:37Speaker 04

  They had the Fitbit that's this wide and has the tiny little display on it.

• 40:41Nilay Patel?

  That's a Charge.

• 40:42Speaker 04

  The Charge, yeah, so that was the Fitbit Charge.

• 40:44Nilay Patel?

  I know my Fitbit.

• 40:45Speaker 04

  But Nicole and I didn't even notice it at first, like, the woman was standing in front of us and we looked at her and we didn't notice that she was wearing a fitness tracker at the first moment?

• 40:52Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 40:53Speaker 04

  Which for me is like...

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, didn't scream like, "I'm out, technology."

• 40:57Speaker 04

  It just, I thought it was a really like, I never see that kind of a successful outfit.

• 41:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:02Speaker 04

  With a fitness tracker. Pretty cool.

• 41:04Nilay Patel?

  President Obama wears a surge every day. Tell you, man.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, and he's a real fashionable guy.

• 41:09Nilay Patel?

  He's got a look about him.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  He's alright.

• 41:12Nilay Patel?

  No, I'm just kidding. I'm getting the hard no look from Nick.

• 41:15Speaker 02

  I mean, he doesn't.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  He's a man.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  He doesn't have options.

• 41:17Speaker 04

  He doesn't dress horribly.

• 41:19Nilay Patel?

  There you go. That's a win.

• 41:20Speaker 04

  He dresses like a president.

• 41:21Nilay Patel?

  That's a win.

• 41:21Speaker 04

  Which is the thing.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Which is, has a blueprint. It's like you kind of know what you're gonna wear as prezzy.

• 41:26Nilay Patel?

  As prezzy. Wow, guys. So did you watch any of the press events? That was the worst segue that I've ever made in my life. But did you watch any of the press events?

• 41:34Speaker 01

  I watched the car come out underneath the sheet in the pink room on Snapchat.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  Oh, you watched the Faraday Future announcement on Snapchat?

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Yes. I watched that from like four different angles of like different people that I knew that were in that room. Kind of as a game for myself to like watch all of you guys get so excited about it. And then the like, the like coming down afterwards. Like, it was super funny.

• 41:57Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  That's hilarious.

• 41:58Nilay Patel?

  Do they not pull sheets off of things at fashion shows?

• 42:00Speaker 01

  What are you gonna pull a sheet off of?

• 42:02Nilay Patel?

  People, human beings wearing clothing.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  If you think if you come out of a runway, so you're coming behind, you're coming from behind a stage, so that's the equivalent.

• 42:09Nilay Patel?

  So next year Ford has to drive a car down a runway through a sheet?

• 42:12Speaker 01

  It probably will be.

• 42:13Nilay Patel?

  Have you been over to the car hall?

• 42:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 42:15Nilay Patel?

  So if you guys are, wanna see like the last bastion of the true crazy, you gotta go. Cause like the subwoofer companies are still there. The like monster truck with the world's biggest speaker, with the loudest truck in the world, like all that stuff is still over there.

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Well, they, they also tend to try to get away with more with like.

• 42:33Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, it's just crazier. Yeah.

• 42:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:35Nilay Patel?

  But then also.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  There's more garbage up there too. Like they, they used to have.

• 42:39Nilay Patel?

  Speaking of the loudest car in the world. We're just.

• 42:42Speaker 04

  This is the loudest speaker company ever. Hello.

• 42:45Nilay Patel?

  They mean, they're literally right behind us.

• 42:49Nilay Patel?

  You just wanna listen to that much. Be like, yeah, that speaker sounds great.

• 42:53Nilay Patel?

  No, it's great. No, play that hooting noise again. That was really, really sonically pleasing. But then the real car companies have started showing up in force.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:02Nilay Patel?

  So like Toyota has a massive booth, Ford and GM have these massive booths, and it's on.

• 43:08Nilay Patel?

  I said Ford at the Ford stage and then the lasers started shooting into my brain.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  I'm gonna go there, it sounds cool, I think I'll like it.

• 43:15Nilay Patel?

  That's, that's the one where it's like-

• 43:17Speaker 01

  I feel like car companies can put a booth together.

• 43:20Nilay Patel?

  Really? I like that you're like, you're really critiquing the interior design of these booths. Like they're trade show booths.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  That's so much a part of it, it's a trade show.

• 43:26Speaker 04

  That's what we were talking about.

• 43:27Nilay Patel?

  What'd you think of the Samsung booth?

• 43:29Speaker 02

  Fort Samsung, call it what it is.

• 43:31Nilay Patel?

  I call it Samsung City.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  No, it's Fort Samsung, because it's got walls.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Is that the one that's like white?

• 43:37Speaker 04

  That's the one that we, I don't know that we walked you through that one.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  And people were waiting in line for the big TV that you can see from outside of the line?

• 43:44Speaker 04

  Remember the booth that we passed that was all white and there was like a thousand people and we were like, we're not fighting through that? That was Samsung.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, the crowds are crazy.

• 43:51Speaker 04

  People are all about that Samsung fridge, you have to like push someone over to get to it.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  Which, by the way, you cannot interact with, they only have demo reels going.

• 43:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, and the doors aren't real, they don't open.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  Well, there's like, there's some like dummy fridges and then there's actual real fridges behind like things and you have to ask special permission to go open the doors and then you can't.

• 44:09Speaker 04

  Why would you, why would you want the Samsung fridge over the like LG fridge? The like knocked to transparent fridge?

• 44:14Speaker 02

  Oh, because you're, I don't know, Samsung.

• 44:17Nilay Patel?

  Would you buy a fridge with a touchscreen? If you walked into somebody's house, like you were, I don't know, whatever you do, for whatever reason you walk into somebody's house and you see that they have a touchscreen refrigerator, what's the first thought you have? Besides, please turn off that music.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  I would think, ooh, I would have a really conflicting feeling of like, I like the way you live and also like, we're probably not gonna get along in a really authentic way. Like, we can be going out friends, but like, we're probably not gonna like have deep talks.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  Well, when that fridge costs like $10,000, it's like, that's the moment. If the fridge costs like a normal fridge amount and they had that, I'd be like, sweet.

• 44:53Nilay Patel?

  How much does a normal fridge cost?

• 44:54Speaker 04

  Oh my gosh, I have no idea.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  $3,995.

• 44:58Speaker 04

  $2,000? I don't know.

• 45:00Nilay Patel?

  Does anybody here know how much a fridge or refrigerator costs? Like, average, in your mind?

• 45:04Speaker 04

  $2,000?

• 45:04Nilay Patel?

  We've got a crowd, can anybody just name, yeah?

• 45:08Speaker 02

  1,000.

• 45:09Nilay Patel?

  You're just like, I don't know the answer either.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  1,001, Bob.

• 45:11Nilay Patel?

  So literally you can say any number that you want. And I don't know that you can Google average price of refrigerator.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  Is a fridge $1,000?

• 45:18Nilay Patel?

  Hold on, I'm Googling average price of refrigerator.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  We know a lot about technology, we swear.

• 45:25Speaker 02

  I imagine you gotta be able to get a fridge for like 500 bucks.

• 45:28Nilay Patel?

  The average cost in 2013 of a side-by-side refrigerator with a through-the-door ice-water maker, where did this come from? Why is Cleveland.com writing about this?

• 45:37Speaker 04

  They SEO'd that.

• 45:38Nilay Patel?

  $1,109.

• 45:39Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 45:40Nilay Patel?

  Prior, but the new efficiency standard raised it to $1,197.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  Okay, sweet. Fridges are no small purchase.

• 45:48Nilay Patel?

  I'm just saying you can buy a fridge about as often as you buy a laptop.

• 45:52Speaker 02

  Right.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  But you don't want to do that much as a normal person.

• 45:54Nilay Patel?

  You want to be in the fridge upgrade cycle.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  You wait till that thing really, really, really, really doesn't work.

• 45:59Nilay Patel?

  When your fridge's fan starts spinning.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  Constantly.

• 46:02Nilay Patel?

  Constantly. When your fridge touchscreen starts restarting itself because you've worked it too hard.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  You wait until the white turns yellow on the plastic.

• 46:09Nilay Patel?

  No, fridges are, dude, we went through the stainless steel phase.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's stainless steel.

• 46:13Nilay Patel?

  There was a color phase for like two years. There was like a piano black and like a piano white phase for about two years.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:20Nilay Patel?

  And now it's black stainless steel. Oh, you missed it, I gotta show you this. We should make a video of you just reacting to LG and Samsung executives being like, "It's the age of black stainless steel. The revolution has been..." Like, it's like that level of like deep, crazy.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  So much hype, so much crazy hype.

• 46:37Nilay Patel?

  Like, he's like, "LG has been leading the black stainless steel revolution, and we've done it again with these washing machines." It's like, what?

• 46:45Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 46:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  I like the spirit.

• 46:47Nilay Patel?

  I just, I don't know. I'm gonna buy new appliances now. Wow, some of these are really expensive. I'm just looking at refrigerators. This is how it begins.

• 46:56Speaker 04

  You're gonna buy a fridge on the fridge cast too?

• 46:58Nilay Patel?

  What if I bought a fridge?

• 47:00Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 47:01Speaker 04

  That was a bad idea, I should not have said that out loud.

• 47:03Nilay Patel?

  What if, I mean, you know, I've bought dumber stuff on this fridge cast.

• 47:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, the thing about your fridge, Eli, is it's pretty old.

• 47:11Nilay Patel?

  Oh, no, it's happening.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  I saw it, it wasn't very good.

• 47:12Nilay Patel?

  My fridge is five years old. It's older than my laptop, and I think it's time for me to just purchase a random... Poor Becky.

• 47:22Nilay Patel?

  Now I want to know how much other things cost, like a microwave.

• 47:26Speaker 01

  I think you could get that for like $1.50.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  Oh, no, you can get a cheap microwave for like $60.

• 47:31Speaker 02

  I have a microwave that looks like an original iMac.

• 47:33Nilay Patel?

  I like that we're just playing the prices right.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  I was thinking about buying a microwave recently, actually.

• 47:37Nilay Patel?

  Actually, and then what happened?

• 47:40Speaker 01

  I'm still thinking about it.

• 47:41Nilay Patel?

  Continue with this riveting tale.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  I want to be able to make sweet potatoes really fast.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  Are there microwave? I haven't seen a microwave here.

• 47:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they have tons of microwave.

• 47:48Speaker 04

  Where are the microwaves?

• 47:49Nilay Patel?

  They just didn't put any touchscreens in.

• 47:50Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 47:51Nilay Patel?

  And they're not cloud.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  Why isn't there a microwave where the whole front of it is a screen? And then there's a camera inside it, so when the food's in there, they'll turn that on. But otherwise, it's just a computer in my kitchen. That's what I want. I want a microwave with a giant iPad duct taped to the front of it.

• 48:06Nilay Patel?

  So, right now, a Samsung engineer just got up in that chair, sprinting back. He's like, "I've got it."

• 48:13Nilay Patel?

  CS 2017.

• 48:15Speaker 04

  Don't tempt them, Dieter. Don't tempt them.

• 48:17Nilay Patel?

  They're like, "I know what to do." He's calling up the CEO. He's like, "I've got it, sir."

• 48:22Speaker 04

  Straight from the horse's mouth.

• 48:24Nilay Patel?

  I taped a Galaxy Tab to this microwave. I built a rough prototype. What I'm really hoping for is that when they break down the show, we can go buy those fridges for super cheap.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  No, they don't work.

• 48:35Nilay Patel?

  Because they don't like.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  So you can fly it home with you to New York?

• 48:37Nilay Patel?

  Well, because they don't want to fly any of that stuff home to Korea or China or Japan. So like a lot of, when you walk around when they're breaking the showdown, you can just like buy the TVs for a dollar.

• 48:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:45Speaker 04

  So, but how would you get, yeah?

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Is there like a Las Vegas house tours, like, series to be done around this of like people who, who buy all of this stuff? And have like these really nice, like crazy houses because they just live locally? Other flippers?

• 48:59Nilay Patel?

  They just show up at CS.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Like are people flipping the gadgets?

• 49:02Nilay Patel?

  Well, I think that you just found a lucrative side hustle.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  I can't believe I'm talking out loud about this. I should keep it inside my head.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  This is Project Figurehead.

• 49:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, Project Figurehead.

• 49:11Speaker 04

  Is now failing.

• 49:13Speaker 01

  I'm going to start flipping gadgets.

• 49:15Nilay Patel?

  Miklo, how did you achieve your meteoric success? Well, I plotted my way onto the 14th floor of Vox Media. And I started flipping old TVs at CS.

• 49:25Nilay Patel?

  That's great. No, we should do that. What was it? This is like nine years ago now. I bought a bunch of stuff for a dollar from like, there's a whole haul of just Chinese like clone vendors that sell nothing but like knockoff Kindles and iPads. I bought a bunch of them for like a dollar a couple of years ago. It was wild.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  It's a sample sale of tech.

• 49:45Nilay Patel?

  Kind of. Alright, we have to wrap it up unfortunately, but we're doing this again tomorrow. We'll be back here tomorrow. I want some positive adventures tomorrow. Yeah.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  I mean, the golf cart was positive.

• 49:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, we had a great golf cart ride.

• 49:57Nilay Patel?

  You told me a negative story about the end of the golf cart.

• 49:59Speaker 01

  Well, that didn't happen on the golf cart. The golf cart itself was great.

• 50:02Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, and that's always such a good mood.

• 50:04Nilay Patel?

  How did you end up on the golf cart?

• 50:06Speaker 04

  We walked up and it was there for us.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  CS, man, Vegas.

• 50:09Speaker 04

  How do you end up in a golf cart? You just do.

• 50:11Nilay Patel?

  I usually end up in limousines, so I don't know.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  That's what I'm trying to get to.

• 50:14Nilay Patel?

  Tonight's a limo night. Mark it. I don't know if that makes sense. Mark it in your limo book.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Wait, am I supposed to be here tomorrow?

• 50:21Nilay Patel?

  I don't know if you want to. Do you want to?

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can be here.

• 50:23Nilay Patel?

  Alright, think about it. Keep mulling it over. Alright, that's The Verge Cast. Uh, thank you so much for listening. We are doing it every single day at CES, um, which at this point I believe does not actually end. No, never. We're just gonna roll right into the next year of CES. Um, please listen to our other, I don't know, there's stuff I say at the end of the show. Please listen to our other. What I encourage you, the listeners, to do is go back to a show that was recorded before CES, skip to the end.

• 50:46Speaker 04

  Control, alt, delete.

• 50:47Nilay Patel?

  Listen to the end of the show. Oh, Kirsten.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  That's me trying to do that.

• 50:52Nilay Patel?

  Uh, just name other shows. Uh, Recode has a podcast. Listen to the hell out of that one. Just non-stop. Uh, Kirsten, what are some social channels that they should engage on?

• 51:00Speaker 04

  Uh, you should follow us if you want to see some of Nicola's and I's adventures. We're at Verge on Snapchat. Uh, you should also check out our Facebook videos because we have been rolling out some really awesome ones, including live videos also featuring Nicola. So, facebook.com/theverge.

• 51:17Nilay Patel?

  Awesome. Well, that's it. We'll be back tomorrow at some time, 4:00 PM here. Uh, it won't be live, so 99% of the people listening to this have no use for that information, but now you have it in your car.

• 51:29Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 51:30Nilay Patel?

  Rock and roll.

• 51:31Speaker 04

  Bye.