Team Spherical

This week on the Vergecast, Nilay welcomes some of our video team: producer Tre Shallowhorn, directors Tom Connors and Miriam Nielsen, and creative director James Bareham, to discuss the process of developing our 360 video interview with Michelle Obama and also talking about this week in tech news. 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 and welcome to The Vergecast. This is a very special edition of The Vergecast. It's very special because my headphones are so incredibly loud, which means I'm just gonna be crazy this whole time. No, hello and welcome to The Vergecast. I'm Yehudi Patel on the energy of The Verge. And a thing that is happening today, March 17th, but you're gonna listen to it on March 18th, think about it, in your car, is that I don't have any of the usual crew with me. Dieter's gone, Nicola's gone, Lauren Grush, center, center in the space. No, if you have been looking at The Verge this week, you know that on Monday we published what I think is a remarkable interview with the First Lady of the United

• 0:47Nilay Patel?

  States. We shot it at the White House. I have the crew that was behind that piece with me, The Verge video crew, Verge Creative, if you will.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 0:57Nilay Patel?

  I just like, there's a division of our company called Vox Creative, so I just like to...

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Verge Creative.

• 1:02Nilay Patel?

  So, over there is Tom Connors, who's our senior director. In the middle, we've got James Barham, who's our creative director. He shot the photos of the First Lady. I certainly did. On the website, if you saw those, they're beautiful.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Fantastic.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Thank you. That's actually fantastic.

• 1:16Nilay Patel?

  Trey, I haven't introduced you yet, man.

• 1:18Speaker 02

  Come on, hurry up.

• 1:19Speaker 01

  Trey, you gotta understand, you don't talk until you get introduced.

• 1:23Nilay Patel?

  Miriam Nielsen is one of our directors, also did all the post-production stuff, making it all work. And then in the hype seat, where he belongs, Verge executive producer Trey Shallowhorn.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Alright, alright, alright.

• 1:37Nilay Patel?

  This was a huge mistake.

• 1:40Speaker 02

  Can I take on an alias?

• 1:41Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  Like a DJ alias?

• 1:43Nilay Patel?

  Your name already sounds like an alias. Your name is Trey Shallowhorn.

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Is this just a west coast thing? But growing up, listening to radio, all the radio DJs had like, super deep voices. And it'd be like, this is DJ...

• 1:57Nilay Patel?

  That's a radio thing.

• 1:58Speaker 02

  DJ Dirty Do Rags.

• 1:59Nilay Patel?

  What are you doing, man?

• 2:01Speaker 02

  This is K Verge 105.9.

• 2:04Nilay Patel?

  Can we mute Trey?

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Trey Shallowhorn, between...

• 2:10Speaker 02

  Refer to me as DJ Dirty Do Rags from now on.

• 2:13Nilay Patel?

  No, definitely not.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Not gonna happen.

• 2:15Nilay Patel?

  100% not doing that.

• 2:17Speaker 02

  Sorry, I'm just bringing you that ultra hype.

• 2:18Nilay Patel?

  No, you're just bringing me that lawsuit.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Since 1985.

• 2:21Nilay Patel?

  Straight up lawsuit. That's what you're bringing me right now.

• 2:26Nilay Patel?

  Oh, man. No, it's great. Vox just got an HR department and we're gonna see if it works.

• 2:32Nilay Patel?

  It's gonna be awesome. Anyhow. This is why Trey is always behind the camera. Like, it's like, there's a camera, there's a person in front of the camera, then there's like the guy operating the camera, then there's like, someone else looking at the camera, and then Trey in the background, like, far, far away.

• 2:47Speaker 02

  Just always, permanently in the hype seat of production.

• 2:54Nilay Patel?

  Tension's running high already. This formerly tight crew falling apart. Alright, so, we gotta, so, I hope you watched the video in 360. It's on YouTube, it's on Facebook. Move your phone around, do that thing. I think it's really great on a tablet, that experience, because you have a much bigger viewport. If you have a headset, it is tremendous in a headset. We've been demoing it in a headset for a bunch of people. I want to actually talk about, sort of, the headset stuff a little bit later on, but I thought we would just use the show, at least the first big chunk of it, to talk about how we made the thing, how the reaction has been, how we're thinking about the future of, kind of, VR on 360, because there's a lot of VR news this week.

• 3:34Nilay Patel?

  PlayStation VR came out, Oculus is coming out soon, it was GDC, we saw a bunch of games and things, and then we, sort of, like, are obligated to talk for five minutes at the end about Apple, because there's an Apple event next week.

• 3:47Nilay Patel?

  They're gonna put out a small phone and a small iPad.

• 3:52Nilay Patel?

  Anyhow, but let's talk about, so where this project came from at the beginning. So we were at CES, and Trey and Tom and I were very tired.

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Not a glamorous CES. To paint the picture a little better, we were in a trailer.

• 4:07Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  That didn't have great ventilation, and we locked ourselves into the, like, incomplete room, like, the room we, like, didn't do anything with, we just put a couch there.

• 4:16Nilay Patel?

  It was like a room full of boxes, a couch, and a small table, and like, three rapidly deteriorating people.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:22Nilay Patel?

  So just imagine that glamorous scene. And we got on the phone at the White House because they had asked to talk to us. And they're like, let's do this thing with First Lady. We talked a little bit about what kind of story you want to tell. They were very interested in talking about her social media stuff. So we thought that was cool. And then we're like, we gotta do a video. And they're like, what do you want to do for the video? And all of us sort of like silently mouthed 360 at each other. I think Tom was like very excited about it. And then they're like, yeah, that sounds great. And we humped the phone. And this is where I want Tom and Trey to take over. We're like, how do we make a 360 video? Because we've never made one before. And then these guys were like, well, we're at CES. And they like literally walked out of the trailer, walked onto the show floor of CES and started finding 360 camera vendors.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Which we listened to a lot of pitches.

• 5:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, if there's one place where it's like, I don't know how to do something technologically. I better figure it out. Like CES is the place to be.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  It was the luckiest place.

• 5:11Speaker 03

  But here's a question. So when you went out onto the floor, did you sort of shout, hey?

• 5:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Tell me, walk me through the adventure.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Well, Trey, you started the floor, so I'll let you start.

• 5:20Speaker 02

  Right. So well, we started walking around and at one point, we basically ran into a bunch of a bunch of walls, like really crappy 360 cameras out in the market. It's immature technology.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. And CES was showcasing a lot of consumer grade stuff.

• 5:37Speaker 02

  Right.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Consumer grade stuff gets you 1080p and 360, which is nowhere near 1080p quality.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Right. A lot of beta products.

• 5:46Nilay Patel?

  I will say the overwhelming theme of this is that everything is first generation.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 5:51Nilay Patel?

  And I actually really want to get into how many stumbles we had along the way.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  With 360, it's also just like not how you capture it, but then how you stitch it in the backend and making sure you have a robust system behind you to do that. Because stitching it together could be the worst part of it.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Right. So the moment I actually discovered the company that we ended up partnering with, we were actually shooting our Verge horror film.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  There's a verge horror film?

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 04

  It's beautiful.

• 6:19Nilay Patel?

  It's wonderful.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  It's B film classic, guys, by the way.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  And so we're shooting this horror film and I just, you know, start walking around and I and I see a trailer for another VR company and I started talking to one of the guys there and I won't say their name, but I'm talking to them and explaining to them what the project is. And at one point, he's like, hey, come over here. And I'm like, we're about to do some shady drug deal in the middle of the movie. Why are you whispering and telling me to come into the corner of your shady trailer? And he's like, you know what? So honestly, this camera's shit.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  It's just like, I got, I got the real deal for you. I got that, I got that good stuff.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  It's like, all right, dude. So what's up? And so we exchanged numbers and give him a call. He puts me in contact with another producer, give them a call, puts me in contact with another producer and then voila, opened up the doors with our partnership.

• 7:17Nilay Patel?

  John.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  With John.

• 7:18Nilay Patel?

  John. And they were great.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  John VR.

• 7:20Nilay Patel?

  But like everything, so then we're there, we're like figuring it out. The other part of it was we needed photos of the first lady. So I literally texted James. I was like, are you around?

• 7:30Speaker 03

  I was.

• 7:31Nilay Patel?

  And then James came. So that, so fast forward. Okay, we've got the camera, we've got it lined up. It's the night before. Everyone's getting there. Like, we set up a fake sheet.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Vox has also an office in DC, which had a pretty much empty floor that we like brought all of our stuff up and we mapped out the room. We like paste what we thought would be like the kind of like layout.

• 7:53Nilay Patel?

  Cause no one's ever done this stuff before. We just have to like try it.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  And we had like, it wasn't just the VR camera we had, or the 360 camera. We had five other C 100, C 300 Mark II's there that we had to set up because we were still, we're not 100% sure. We could like go to the White House, set one camera down and hope it doesn't fail. So like, we needed a backup in addition to that.

• 8:11Nilay Patel?

  Boy, were we ever correct in that assumption.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  So yeah, we had the whole thing set up the night before. And the 360 company, John, came in, started us up their camera.

• 8:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Have you ever flown with a big piece of technology? Things shift. And the moment we opened up the camera, it didn't work. And.

• 8:32Nilay Patel?

  But this is like, it's just first generation stuff.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 8:36Nilay Patel?

  Like, it's a beautiful, high-end camera, like.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  The shit looks like the Death Star. If you guys haven't seen this, it's scary.

• 8:44Speaker 01

  It's like, I wouldn't even say it's first generation, it's just like, you travel with gear.

• 8:48Nilay Patel?

  It breaks.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  It move, like, things move around. And the only thing, I think, from what I understood, the thing that happened was a wire got loose inside.

• 8:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  And it just got to be plugged in.

• 8:56Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. But they spent, like, they were up all night trying to fix the software. Like, it was like crazy. But that's like, when I keep saying everything in VR is like first generation, like, this is the best camera. It's stereoscopic 4K, like, it can do everything. That company is like, designed it, they like, have a thing. But like, they spent, they were up all night. So in the middle of the night, I'm going to bed because I have to interview the first lady in the morning. It's a thing, I was like, I should go prepare. But goodbye, everybody. And I just get this text from Trey that's like, yo.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  That's how all my text messages start off, by the way.

• 9:30Nilay Patel?

  They're usually a lot more fun after that. But Trey's like, we might be hosed, right?

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:35Nilay Patel?

  And so Trey, at 3:00 in the morning, something crazy, calls a second VR production company.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  360.

• 9:42Nilay Patel?

  360 production company, fine. By the way, I really want to talk about 360 versus VR.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Oh, we can have an argument.

• 9:48Nilay Patel?

  Because I'm ready to have that.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  I'm gonna win.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Wow, I keep saying the wrong thing all the time.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  You can just call it spherical, and then you get both.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  There you go. Miriam, compromise.

• 9:57Speaker 03

  Spherical.

• 9:58Nilay Patel?

  Anyhow, Total Cinema 360.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:01Nilay Patel?

  And they got on a train.

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Came through the clutch.

• 10:03Nilay Patel?

  At like 2:00 in the morning, got on a train in New York and came to DC. And arrived at like 7:00 in the morning with like two of their cameras. Now, I will say this, to get into the White House, you need to be cleared by the Secret Service.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  You have to have background checks done.

• 10:18Nilay Patel?

  You have to have background checks, you have to.

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Done weeks ahead of time.

• 10:20Nilay Patel?

  Weeks ahead, we've been submitting forms and like this and that, and we're like, here's five new people. Like, just like, here they are. Like, can you figure this out?

• 10:30Speaker 01

  Also, table that for later in this story, because that comes up again.

• 10:33Nilay Patel?

  Oh, it does come up again. Just keep that in the back of your mind. So Total Cinema shows up, they're there in the morning, the jaunt guy in the morning is like, I fixed the camera. And so now we're like, oh, we just told the story.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Interesting. Cause we just brought other people down.

• 10:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, we just brought other people. It was great, actually. We used both shots, but um.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so in the video.

• 10:54Nilay Patel?

  Imagine the scene of these like, we've now hired two companies. It's like the lobby of a hotel. We're like getting ready to leave and they're just like looking at each other.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  Right, the stare down.

• 11:03Nilay Patel?

  It was like.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  It was not tense.

• 11:05Nilay Patel?

  It was not tense, but it was just like a.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Everyone was tired. It wasn't tense at all.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  It was tense.

• 11:09Nilay Patel?

  Everyone was tired. I had to talk to the first lady.

• 11:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  I was super tense.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  You weren't even there.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  Well, I was there.

• 11:14Speaker 04

  No, Neil, I wasn't.

• 11:15Nilay Patel?

  No, I was there. Trey and Tom were like driving. Oh, we had a van full of gear.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  Okay, so that's the other part of the story. It's like, we all stayed up, we've got out of the office at like 2am. And had to load all this gear, you know, big lighting equipment, back into this van that we parked in the alleyway, which I got like three tickets for.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  This is definitely like the creeper van, by the way.

• 11:35Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that's what, that's what blew the budget here.

• 11:38Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 11:38Nilay Patel?

  Tickets in your unmarked white van.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Well, that's the other thing is we chose like the shadiest looking van to pull to the White House, which I had to drive, which was not.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  But like Trey can attest to this, because we unpacked and repacked that van. It was a feat of strength to get that in.

• 11:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 11:56Nilay Patel?

  So, just so you know, to get the van into the White House, they had to drive to a separate location.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Scanning facility.

• 12:03Nilay Patel?

  Where the van was x-rayed and scanned and like searched. And then, this is the part I don't understand. Then they just sort of like let you go. Like, they didn't like escort you. You just like took off.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  No, we got escorted.

• 12:12Nilay Patel?

  Oh, you got escorted? Oh.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  I don't know. So we, I don't know how much we can describe like.

• 12:15Speaker 02

  We go to one.

• 12:16Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, just because we were all standing at the White House and all of a sudden these two jokers roll up in their white van.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  Hey, hey, kids. Hey, kids, got some stuff back here.

• 12:25Nilay Patel?

  Why are you on this show?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  So, well, we go to one location. They check everything for us.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  DJ Do Re.

• 12:30Nilay Patel?

  No, no.

• 12:31Speaker 04

  Absolutely not.

• 12:32Nilay Patel?

  Forbidden.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  So we go to one location. They check all of the stuff inside. And then we get to the White House and they're like, okay, can you bring everything out? And Trey went like.

• 12:42Nilay Patel?

  All of it? And then they just stood like really well put together military men just stood there and watched us. And suit and ties like tried to haul all this gear out by ourselves in the freezing cold.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  It is freezing. It's freezing. And we're wearing a suit, no coat.

• 12:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  Just freezing.

• 13:01Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so then we get to the White House and we were like, in all of the back and forth of putting names on the list and updating the list, James's name has fallen off the list. So we finally get in.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  Isn't that a surprise?

• 13:15Nilay Patel?

  So I had this photo of James looking like he's in prison outside of the White, like holding on to the bars of the gate. Just so sad.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Just pacing back and forth.

• 13:25Nilay Patel?

  And I'm like, yo, he's the, like, he's the person doing the work here. Like, he's the photographer.

• 13:30Speaker 03

  I was actually, I remembered, I just walked around in circles.

• 13:34Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 03

  It was the only thing I could do. And the funny thing was, the Secret Service were really nice. And every line of voice would come out of the door. Sorry, sir, you're still not in the system.

• 13:44Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Could happen to anybody.

• 13:45Nilay Patel?

  Well, because James is not.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  But it happened to me.

• 13:48Nilay Patel?

  Well, because James is not an American citizen, he's a British citizen. Right, British?

• 13:53Speaker 03

  I am British.

• 13:54Nilay Patel?

  Is it British or UK?

• 13:55Speaker 03

  It is British.

• 13:56Nilay Patel?

  It's British, alright.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  British and I lived in the UK. All Britain. And this could go down a whole thing.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  Let's not play this game.

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Let's not play.

• 14:04Nilay Patel?

  Do you think it's called VR or 360 video? Anyway. So because James is not a US citizen, he had to get a special check and then wear a different color badge and have a minder. Because there's nothing more dangerous to our country than a British asshole. Like, I don't know if you know about the War of 1812, but it was a situation. So that's like, James like waited outside. So we're inside, we're setting up. Miriam is like furiously setting up gear just everywhere.

• 14:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 14:32Nilay Patel?

  And we have this massive crew, we're in the White House. And finally, obviously, Michelle Obama shows up. James takes her photo, you can see that in the video. We shoot the thing. Tell me what shooting it was like.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  It's kind of crazy because you you're preparing and you're thinking, I just need everything to work.

• 14:49Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Because the funny thing was that the White House wanted it to be a tethered camera so that people could, that her crew could see the pictures as they came in. And there's people everywhere and you're just thinking if the camera cable gets pulled out midway through the shoot and I'm over here. But the funny thing was when we started shooting, I couldn't actually see the computer anymore.

• 15:06Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:06Speaker 03

  Neither could for the First Lady. And I actually stopped and said at one point, and it's funny, you know, you and me are the only people who can't see a single picture that's been taken. And everybody else is going fantastic.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  That got picked up.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  The end joke is that, that's what is said in the very beginning of the video.

• 15:23Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:23Speaker 01

  Numerous times. And trust me, it goes on.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  It goes on. Thank you.

• 15:28Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, because he's direct, it's like, that's the thing, he had to direct her.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's great. And she got great photos.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  She was very good.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  You cannot.

• 15:34Speaker 03

  It was fantastic. I mean, she wasn't, she really got into it. It was great. And we, we got some stuff, as you've seen.

• 15:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 15:43Speaker 03

  Twenty minutes goes by very, very quickly in those circumstances.

• 15:46Nilay Patel?

  Those photos were only taken in just twenty minutes.

• 15:48Speaker 03

  It's incredible.

• 15:49Nilay Patel?

  And then I got a question here. Oh, by the way, tweet at me if you want to ask questions or tweet at any of these people.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Also, if you want to make a poll for if it's three sixty or VR, go for it.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  Or spherical.

• 15:58Nilay Patel?

  Spherical. You're gonna get there, Miriam. This is vision. This is what vision is like. You say it over and over and over again because it comes true. So Miriam, you were like operating cameras in the room. What was it like for you?

• 16:09Speaker 04

  I mean, the actual shoot, aside from like the glow off Michelle Obama was really easy.

• 16:14Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Like, once everything was set up and everything was working again, the actual shoot was very chill.

• 16:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. She's like chill. She's like.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Oh, she's amazing.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Fantastic.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  Trey has a crush on the First Lady.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Cut away.

• 16:31Nilay Patel?

  I know it's true. I'm just putting it out there.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  End of stream now.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  Just gave that peep to the camera.

• 16:36Nilay Patel?

  Nope.

• 16:37Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 16:38Nilay Patel?

  How are you charging anything?

• 16:40Speaker 02

  Let me, let me just say, she's, she has such an aura, a glow to her, that's just, it's so captivating. Like, she commands attention. Like, when she steps into the room, it's just like, oh my god. The queen, the queen has arrived, the queen has arrived.

• 16:55Nilay Patel?

  She's super tall.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  She's so tall.

• 16:58Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. No, and she was great, and she was really, like, the interview, you should watch the interview, because she says smart, interesting things in the interview, and she's like, totally on top of it. But she was also just a commanding presence in the room, and like, uh, she really just thought through all the thing that, all the things that we were talking about. Uh, and she charmed the hell out of everyone.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah, completely.

• 17:17Nilay Patel?

  At the very end, she took James's glasses off her face, and I thought James was gonna melt into a puddle on the floor.

• 17:20Speaker 03

  Yes, I was. I felt like I was about seven years old, and being told what to do. Uh, and I didn't mind at all.

• 17:25Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, so then, so we're done there, we pack up, we leave the White House. I mean, just, literally, it, from three to five in the morning, Trey and I, like, this isn't gonna work. Like, we're texting each other, cameras are broken, but everything came together, everything worked. Describe what happened next. Like, how do you, how do you go from shooting two 360 cameras in there for you?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Wow, okay. Ready? Here we go.

• 17:44Nilay Patel?

  This is Tom and Miriam time, I wanna know what happened next.

• 17:47Speaker 01

  I mean, so, the process is, is actually not very different than any regular video we'd make, right? So we brought all of our footage back, um, we ingested all the, the five cameras that we shot with besides the 360 camera.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  The two 360 teams came back, uh, gave us proxies, maybe, what was it, like, two weeks, three weeks after? It was, it was like, long, but not too long after.

• 18:10Nilay Patel?

  So you didn't have final files, you just had, like, early renders?

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, yeah, in an ideal world, it's like, this is the file you, this is the same length of file you're gonna get, this is the same amount of time, it's just, like, low quality, stitches imperfect. Um, you know, maybe you'll see double of me in one place, or double of someone else, but like-

• 18:28Speaker 04

  The entire video.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Or the entire video.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  Too tall.

• 18:30Nilay Patel?

  Walk me through something really basic. So the cameras you're using, they were really just collections of cameras, right? Pointing in all different directions. Right. Tell me, Miriam, tell me like what a stitch is. Like, just explain it to the listener for a second.

• 18:43Speaker 04

  All right, so they, it's the same way if you like took a panorama photo with your iPhone or whatever, it takes all of these pictures and seams them together, except for this one seaming them together in a big sphere and then flattening them out into an equi-rectangular projection, which is similar to the way you see your world maps, like in your high school classroom.

• 18:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 04

  Because that's the globe made flat.

• 19:02Nilay Patel?

  And then you edited in that distortion.

• 19:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, we edited in the equi-rectangular.

• 19:06Nilay Patel?

  Wow. It would look crazy. By the end, we were all looking at it and it was like, it was very normal to us.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, and it, if, especially near the center, it does look almost like, just like the world, like in the center parts of that stretched out projection of the earth, like, they do look pretty normal. And then like, as you grow further away, and Greenland looks awful, um, just like the bottom of the floor looks bad.

• 19:27Speaker 04

  I mean, there's some really great footage of Trey during the photo shoot, like, looking into Total Cinema's camera and his head becomes like this size.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  Also, also one thing, I don't know if you guys caught this, but I was so determined to stand next to Michelle Obama when we were taking the photo at the end, that I went behind whoever was in front of her and was standing on my tippy toes the entire time. So I want you all to go back.

• 19:54Nilay Patel?

  Who else remembers that? Best Easter egg in the thing.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Watch the end.

• 19:58Nilay Patel?

  Actually, the best.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  Are you jumping?

• 20:00Speaker 02

  The first person. No, I'm standing on my tippy toes because I'm trying to make sure that my face can be seen, but I'm also as close to Michelle Obama as.

• 20:06Nilay Patel?

  The best Easter egg is when we were setting up the 360 camera, we said, this is recording the entire room, and, uh, her staff was like, oh, where are we going to put the Secret Service? Because the Secret Service can't be on camera. So, I'm not going to show it, but if you look at it, you can see how they were like hiding. It's in there. There's like.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  Can you?

• 20:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they peek in at one point.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Oh, I never saw it.

• 20:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I watched.

• 20:30Speaker 04

  You can see them moving.

• 20:31Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. It's crazy, but they were not a lot, we weren't, they don't want their movements to be known. Like, they don't want people to study their patterns. So they're in there. Right. But they are very, they figured out how to avoid the camera.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  I've looked at this piece a lot of times, I've never seen it.

• 20:45Nilay Patel?

  So they're very sneaky.

• 20:46Speaker 04

  I mean, you've never looked at that, like, part of it, because.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  But do you remember when we were setting up the photography? These guys are so good, and ladies. Miriam hid her pass, and this guy suddenly appeared, like, ding ding. Excuse me, madam, can you show the pass?

• 21:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  She pulled it out, we turned around, he gone. Dunno why. He was amazing.

• 21:04Nilay Patel?

  That's actually a ghost. That was Abraham. I don't wanna... That was Abraham Lincoln.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  That would be so cool.

• 21:11Nilay Patel?

  That'd be amazing. The ghost of like Taft shows up and says, "Where's your badge?" Poops away.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  In my defense, I didn't hide it. The chain broke.

• 21:18Nilay Patel?

  Oh, I see.

• 21:19Speaker 04

  So...

• 21:20Speaker 03

  Ah, just while you're being a little bit rebellious.

• 21:22Speaker 04

  I mean, obviously.

• 21:23Speaker 03

  Making a statement.

• 21:25Nilay Patel?

  Anyhow, I got a question here. Discuss 360 versus VR. We're gonna get there.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 21:30Nilay Patel?

  I promise we're gonna get there.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  I think this is the thing we just teased the entire episode. Never.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  Never talk about?

• 21:34Nilay Patel?

  Well, this is obviously VR. Um, duh.

• 21:38Speaker 03

  See?

• 21:41Speaker 03

  So what's the... What is it?

• 21:43Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Why not? Okay.

• 21:45Nilay Patel?

  So you've got your octo-rectangular map. Ecto.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Equa.

• 21:48Speaker 03

  Ecto. Sounds like something from Ghostbusters.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Like equal. Definitely sounds like something from Ghostbusters.

• 21:52Speaker 04

  Equator.

• 21:53Nilay Patel?

  I'm not sure. Equator makes a lot more sense. Equa-rectangular?

• 21:57Speaker 04

  It's projected, so the equator is correct, so octo-rectangular.

• 22:00Nilay Patel?

  Okay. So you've got that. It's what? It's in Premiere.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 22:04Nilay Patel?

  Right? And then you were working in After Effects, right? Do we have plugins? Like, what... How do we make it? Like, I think it's not obvious to people how this stuff actually gets made.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, I mean, the equiptime projection is just a two-by-one, kind of a longer video than you would normally see. Like, you only get 16 by 9. And then we just edit with that, so I... We make cuts the same way we'll make cuts in Premiere.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  The more tricky stuff comes with how you make cuts look good. Because cutting video in a little box makes sense. Like, we've all watched a lot of film. We've all watched a lot of movies. We understand that concept. But in 360, it's a much different experience to have your entire world flashing and changing all the time. So figuring out how to do that was kind of where we landed. And I'll let Miriam take away with some of the After Effects tricks we learned how to figure out. How to... How to make cuts and how to hide things in 360.

• 22:59Speaker 04

  Okay. I mean, as for plugins, we relied pretty heavily on Metal Skybox, which like distorts everything for you so you don't have to do the math, which is great when you're editing at like 2:00 in the morning.

• 23:11Nilay Patel?

  I don't know if it's

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Very important.

• 23:12Nilay Patel?

  I don't know if it's obvious here. Miriam almost died making this thing.

• 23:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, so but like, we tried a couple of different ways to disguise the cuts in that distracting people by making them look at these great floating boxes of tablets and phones. We tried a couple of things with having the background blur so you don't actually see the cut happen, which there are like varying degrees in the comments of how well that worked.

• 23:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, oh, really?

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Really? I thought it worked really well.

• 23:39Speaker 04

  My friends, my friends on like the spherical video side of the world are like, "Why didn't you use a Mobius transition?" Well, sorry.

• 23:46Nilay Patel?

  Wow. By the way, spherical video world cuts like a knife.

• 23:52Speaker 04

  That's rough out there, guys. Be careful.

• 23:58Nilay Patel?

  Well, so then let's talk about the next thing, which is, so we got through the editing where we've got proxy files or stitching it, or you're editing the stitch files. Then we added this data layer, I think of it as the data layer over it, like a virtual world that's full of little animated cell phones and things. How did that work?

• 24:15Speaker 01

  I mean, I would, so how did it work? I'll talk sort of conceptually, and I think Miriam can talk about technically.

• 24:21Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, I have a question here that's like, where to go? Let's talk about the UI in the piece, because it actually has UI, right? Here it is. Alex Rider says, "What kind of paradigms are you using to help guide the viewer to look at the focus item in 360?"

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Sure, so conceptually, like, think of these kind of worlds we made up as really no different than animation that you would do in a video to help explain something. Or, you know, B-roll you would throw over concepts to kind of help reinforce that. The same idea in this 360 video, it's just happening all over. And one of the things we talked about was that we kind of wanted you to have, like, if you're going to put yourself in 360, you might as well get rewarded for using 360. So the idea was to always kind of like give you something. So if you want to look completely behind you, there's always something you could look at. Or if you want to look to the left or the right, there's always like at least some element that'll get, give you into a new direction.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  And the graphics kind of help push you in that directions where we wanted you to, but didn't just say, "Okay, now look here, now look there," because that would get boring and everyone wants to do what they want to do.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  How did they work? Was that the question?

• 25:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So I mean, so that's the concept. And we talked about it like, and I didn't actually think of it in terms of being a user interface until I was just at South by Southwest. And our company has a director of user experience on our product team. And he started talking to me like, you built a UI. Like, there's a little orange dot that like helps you move around the scene there. A lot, what was really interesting to me, and I actually want to talk about this in more depth later, but I put a lot of people into a gear VR and had them watch it. And they thought the thing was interactive. If they instinctively, because it's so much like a user interface, they would look at things and then like, tap on the side of the thing to try to zoom into that moment.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Right. So a lot of that is like, we know about where you're probably going to look, especially for the interview. There's three people on chairs and they're talking. So that's the most interesting thing. So graphics emerge from there. Right. So a lot of you, if you watch a lot of the graphics, will have little elements that Miriam helped make that pop up and then push out this way, or push out to the right and they curve and that makes your eye kind of follow them. And when they land, iPhone pops up or Android phone pops up and there is a video in there and you start watching that. And maybe there's another one that extends from there. And it's all about, graphics are always trying to push you in a certain direction, but it's not necessarily you need to follow them. And at one point we have this Vine interview, right? Where, or Vine Q and A that Michelle did.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  And she's talking to kids as they ask questions. And what we did was we put a little orange element behind the phone. And when she stopped answering, ask, when someone asked a question and she started to answer, that ball would shift to the next phone. So your eye would follow that. It's like you're, it's that like movement in response. You're seeing something move and you're responding to it. And that's sort of the idea behind like guiding people when they need to be guided and, but giving them something to look at when they're not.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  I thought the best, the fun one was the tire from the car, the way they just went all the way around. You could follow it all the way around back to the beginning.

• 27:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. For three people on our video team, you guys are all terrible talking into the microphone, by the way.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  I'm sorry.

• 27:23Nilay Patel?

  All three of you are bad at this.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  Behind the cameras.

• 27:28Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Well, let me tell you, give me a little tip from in front.

• 27:34Nilay Patel?

  I'm sorry. So Miriam, as you were like building these layers and we, there's a great company called Lunar North that helped us do all this stuff.

• 27:41Nilay Patel?

  So you got the, you have the, the video we have, you have the after effect, the animation. How'd you put this stuff together in TweakO? Like, how'd you make it work? Like, I think our, a bunch of questions I've had is like, how did you layer in the Vine video onto an animation into a VR world? Like, what was that process like?

• 27:59Speaker 04

  I mean, again, it was like, it's wildly similar to when you regularly animate in just like a bigger, because we did everything in the echorrectangular flat out thing. The tricky bit was like exporting it, getting into a headset to like see, does this work? Does this not work? But for the most part, you layer it in, you apply metal software if it's not on the equator or.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Closer, yeah.

• 28:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's like sometimes when we didn't use it and did use it, like messing around, seeing what worked and what didn't. But for the, and for the most part, it's very similar, just much bigger files than we've been working with. So our computers struggled a little bit.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I would say like.

• 28:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, they struggled a lot.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  That, that largest rectangle that we've been working with is really absolutely no different. And it doesn't really get changed into a sphere until you upload it to something like Facebook or YouTube. And their, you know, their software is doing the wrapping into like what looks like a sphere.

• 28:50Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  So like for us, really, the, the, the secret of it is like, it wasn't that different.

• 28:56Nilay Patel?

  Right. That's kind of incredible.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Editing in 360, unfortunately, that one kind of.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  Oh, man. I have thoughts about that.

• 29:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, yeah. Tom sent me a text that was like, I've set up virtual desktops in the Vive and I'm never leaving again.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  So Virgil, um, John Oplinger came in on Saturday and he was like, I want to look at the Vive. And then you like set up the virtual desktop and let me tell you this.

• 29:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  In a year from now, I will be editing all my videos in a swivel chair with a keyboard attached to me and a mouse. And I'm just going to turn around and edit like that because I think it's the best way to do it. Like I'll have as many monitors as I want around me.

• 29:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  I can just, eventually I'll be able to just touch things. So I'll just grab.

• 29:35Speaker 04

  Leap controllers.

• 29:36Nilay Patel?

  Oh, my God.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  Grab my footage from a bin, cut it in there. Yeah. It sounds like the best way to live.

• 29:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Speaker 04

  So for the eye strain.

• 29:44Nilay Patel?

  And you know what's going to be incredible though, is that the interfaces are going to get way more and more skeuomorphic. So you'll actually be grabbing rolls of film, of footage, you'll have a virtual cutter.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:54Nilay Patel?

  You'll be Scotch taping them together. I mean, that would be perfect, right? It's like, you went back to analog, you're like, there was like an analog VR movement.

• 30:02Speaker 01

  I'm down for it.

• 30:03Nilay Patel?

  I'm coining it right now, analog VR. Someone buy the dummy. It's just, it's doing things as analog as possible in a totally virtual reality. I've got a great vinyl collection in virtual reality.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  See, that you can call virtual reality?

• 30:16Nilay Patel?

  Okay, let's, let's get into it, man.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Oh, wow, are we throwing down?

• 30:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:20Nilay Patel?

  Look, here's what I think.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 30:21Nilay Patel?

  I've watched.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  State your argument.

• 30:23Nilay Patel?

  Here's my argument. It's very simple.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 30:26Nilay Patel?

  People are dumb. Right? Just go with me.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Does that include?

• 30:30Nilay Patel?

  No, just go with me on this. Only one term can win. Only one term is going to win. I have seen, I've seen so much coverage of our video on other sites. Half of them were like, watch The Verge's amazing 3D video. And I was like.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  I know, that's the worst.

• 30:44Nilay Patel?

  What are you, are you, do you know 3D? You understand, you live in three dimensions. And then on the screen, there's only two, right? Like.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  I'm gonna, I'll argue this, because I know your argument's going.

• 30:55Nilay Patel?

  Only VR is gonna win.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  If you want to say that, then you could say, if you're saying that is true, you should, you should also say that 3D is also equally as valid as VR.

• 31:06Nilay Patel?

  No, define your terms.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  My terms is that VR is an experience through which you can watch 360. It is not 360 video.

• 31:16Nilay Patel?

  That, that's, no, that's not, okay. Let's define.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  That is too complicated, you just lost.

• 31:20Nilay Patel?

  Let's define the word definition. No. Zoo crew trailer.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  I'm the band, I'm just the band over here, just make sounds, music.

• 31:30Nilay Patel?

  No, define, define VR.

• 31:34Nilay Patel?

  And if you don't do it, I'm making Miriam do it. Because she's ready, I can, she's like bouncing with it. Miriam, just do it.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  You can, so, I don't know if this is the argument I want to make.

• 31:45Nilay Patel?

  Definitely not.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  I mean, you can watch films on TV, but it's not TV when you're watching it, right?

• 31:51Nilay Patel?

  What?

• 31:52Speaker 03

  What?

• 31:52Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 31:53Nilay Patel?

  Let me explain.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  I love you, Tomlin.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Here's a question.

• 31:58Speaker 02

  Lose to me over here.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  If a film, if a film is on TV.

• 32:00Nilay Patel?

  Wow, your squad just broke up, dude.

• 32:04Speaker 03

  Question.

• 32:05Nilay Patel?

  I want.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  Can you have VR that's not 360?

• 32:08Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 32:09Speaker 04

  Yes, because you can get in the gear and you can watch a regular like TV, movie, whatever.

• 32:14Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  In their little like weird.

• 32:15Nilay Patel?

  But that's not VR.

• 32:16Speaker 01

  And you can watch 360 without VR. So saying VR. How? You spin your phone around. How we've all been watching it.

• 32:23Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  You get in the vibe every time.

• 32:24Nilay Patel?

  Let me try.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Because then you have to say augmented reality is the same as virtual reality. Do you want to go down this argument?

• 32:28Nilay Patel?

  I'm ready to do it.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  Spherical guys, spherical is better. No numbers.

• 32:32Nilay Patel?

  Wait, everyone stop for one second.

• 32:34Speaker 03

  Spherical people are scary.

• 32:35Nilay Patel?

  Define these terms. As I understand them now, what we're saying about 360 video is it is video in which the camera is stationary. You can like look around the camera. You can look around and that's 360 degrees. And that is deliverable to a wide variety of platforms.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:51Nilay Patel?

  Desktop computers, phones, tablets, up to a headset.

• 32:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:55Nilay Patel?

  In the headset, that thing is often virtual reality, right? You're in the space. You feel like you're in the room.

• 33:00Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:01Nilay Patel?

  But 360 video on a desktop computer, it's not virtual reality because you're not in the room. Virtual reality requires the headset. So you look around like you're in a virtual space.

• 33:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:10Nilay Patel?

  This is the argument you're making, right? I know it's the argument you're making because I believe it's true.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Yep. You just don't think people are ready to accept it.

• 33:16Nilay Patel?

  I think what I just said is so nerdy that everyone's just going to call all of that, that whole chain of things VR.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  I mean, if the argument, if your argument is that people are just.

• 33:27Nilay Patel?

  I think the VR AR thing is going to just collapse.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I agree with that. But I think that's like a more intro, that's even a more nerdy conversation to have.

• 33:34Nilay Patel?

  Well, it's the Vergecast like this, if we're going to do it, this is where we're going to do it. There will also be jokes and Trey will make some sounds.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  Hey, wait till Mary starts making sounds. We have to talk about that.

• 33:44Nilay Patel?

  Is that how you think of it? Or tell me, give me your argument for spherical, which I've been dismissive of only to harden you into making the argument with as much passion as I want you to make.

• 33:53Speaker 04

  I mean, spherical is just a better word than both of them.

• 33:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  That's why. I mean, it's not an acronym. It's not a number and you're entering a sphere space. It's the Echocaching Projection. It's like a globe. That's my, my argument for it.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  It's so into Stella.

• 34:05Speaker 01

  Something I want to stand behind.

• 34:06Nilay Patel?

  Spherical video.

• 34:07Speaker 01

  Spherical video I can get.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  Because then you have to like decide, do I put the degree sign in? Well, because it hasn't happened yet. We're making it happen now.

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, we're starting a trend, James.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  This is it. Team Spherical.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  I just don't think it's going to catch on.

• 34:18Nilay Patel?

  She did tweet it.

• 34:21Nilay Patel?

  I don't know. I'm just, I, I, to me, this like argument about terms is it needs to get solved. Right? Because.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Right, but making the, we should be making the right, we solve, right? We should be making the thing that is correct and make that part of the culture, right? That's our job. That's, that's our job.

• 34:35Nilay Patel?

  We do, right?

• 34:36Speaker 01

  We do run a media organization. Like a really influential type of media organization.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  I feel like, I feel like Tom is about to have a Kanye West moment.

• 34:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 34:43Speaker 04

  It's already on the site.

• 34:44Nilay Patel?

  It's already on the site.

• 34:44Speaker 02

  We make the culture.

• 34:45Nilay Patel?

  No, because go ahead, Tom.

• 34:49Nilay Patel?

  Thank you, Sean. Here's what I'm saying. I, I think we can push for it. We've tried to push for other names. We have lost many times. For example, the word fablet.

• 34:58Speaker 04

  Try it again.

• 34:59Nilay Patel?

  The word fablet exists, right? I did everything I could in my life. Like literally everything I could. I left my family. I don't have any friends. I was like, stop calling it a fablet. And then everyone's.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  I don't know if anyone calls it a fablet anymore.

• 35:10Nilay Patel?

  No, did they? Walt calls it a fablet still.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  My dad calls it a fablet.

• 35:13Nilay Patel?

  Hey.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  It's okay. But we're, we're moving out of that generation. We are, we're moving through it, right? We're gonna get better.

• 35:20Nilay Patel?

  All right, all right, all right.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  So you've, we conceded that VR is the incorrect way, but you think people will keep saying it. But it's our job to say it the correct way.

• 35:29Nilay Patel?

  I think a good way to, to make it seem as though you won an argument is to begin a sentence with, so you've conceded.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  Can I bring up a point?

• 35:36Nilay Patel?

  Because you haven't won this argument, but it feels like you've.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  It feels like I have.

• 35:41Nilay Patel?

  What is that trick? For the radio listener, Tom just smugly drank his beer at me.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  I'm just gonna say drones.

• 35:48Nilay Patel?

  Drones.

• 35:49Speaker 03

  What is the same thing?

• 35:50Nilay Patel?

  What do you mean?

• 35:51Speaker 03

  Well, people call drones, they say it's a drone. It's not a drone. It's a radio controlled.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  I mean, it's becoming a drone now.

• 35:57Nilay Patel?

  They are becoming, like they fly themselves now.

• 35:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, now people call them autonomous drones, which is like redundant or whatever.

• 36:02Nilay Patel?

  I think what we can all agree on is that we are huge nerds who care about the names of things.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  But they call it drone racing.

• 36:07Nilay Patel?

  They do, but the.

• 36:09Speaker 03

  But they're controlled.

• 36:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but they're still flying themselves to an enormous degree. Like I've flown a drone, like a Phantom 3, like, if you just gave me a quadcopter and you're like, control all four rotors and hold it in space. I'd be like, well, that, that crashed.

• 36:24Nilay Patel?

  I've killed many people, like, you know, like, I'm sorry, I'm a murderer now.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  But it still has the same thing that people say, well, it's drones and it just covers everything. And people aren't saying, well, this bit has got.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Right, and it's our jobs to argue for the right.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  But why? Everybody calls it a drone.

• 36:38Nilay Patel?

  All right, I'm stopping this, I'm stopping this.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  Cause you're losing.

• 36:41Nilay Patel?

  Zach Khan has asked me, if I wanted to do a 360 video in the next month for a personal project, what three things should I know going into it?

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Know that you're not going to get the same resolution that you're used to getting in 2D.

• 36:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 36:56Speaker 01

  Especially if you're getting consumer grade cameras. There's a lot of great ones out there that make stitching very easy. I think the Theta's pretty great.

• 37:03Nilay Patel?

  I think the Theta is like the clear in a way, like best one, right? Oh, get a Theta.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. It, yeah, I mean, between actually being able to shoot with it and the software they put in to stitch it for you, like, it is by far the best way to do it. But know that like, you're not going to get, it's going to say 1080p, it's going to even say 4K. And you're going to think, oh, I'm going to get a 4K camera, and you're not. Like, that's a, that's a 4K image stretched, much bigger than the same frame size you're using.

• 37:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. I mean, I think, I was talking to, because we put up on Facebook, and by the way, when I say everything's first generation, like, Tom, Tom had to like pull blood from a stone to like get these platforms to actually work with the video, because they, everything is new. Just that's the.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  It's, you know, struggling to find what is high quality enough that we're happy with it, but will play back smoothly.

• 37:52Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  So like, finding that middle point where everyone's happy about that is, is still a challenge.

• 37:57Nilay Patel?

  There, there was one moment, I think, when like every computer in this office was rendering a slightly different set of ones. Like, everything was like, what about this random collection of settings? And I was at Southway just on the phone being like, I can't render anything here. I'm actually, I've rendered this beer into my mouth.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  I asked, like, do you have a computer?

• 38:15Speaker 03

  How long did it take to render?

• 38:19Speaker 01

  I mean.

• 38:19Nilay Patel?

  Maryam just like let out the PTSD laugh. She's like.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  So I would say at the end of it, when we, if we were to try to export a full version of what the After Effects file was, it would be about a seven hour render. I would say, we chunked it out, I think the last time we exported, most of them, I think we have three different chunks of when we exported. And then putting that into Premiere, that needed to be exported.

• 38:44Speaker 04

  And then converted.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  And then converted. So it's an hour and a half probably of an export out of Premiere. And then an hour conversion to an MP4.

• 38:52Speaker 04

  And all that's assuming I didn't screw anything up.

• 38:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  Which I did a lot.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  And so did I, but more so.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  I more broke the project. And Adam McMiriam going clean it up.

• 39:06Nilay Patel?

  Oh, it's awful. But it came out.

• 39:11Nilay Patel?

  3DR makes drones.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  We've been there.

• 39:15Nilay Patel?

  They're cool. Do you know 3DR? America's largest drone maker. Their Solo Smart Drone is the first drone optimized for your GoPro, so you can get live HD video straight to your mobile screen and full control of the camera from the ground. 3DR made Solo Smart because flying has gotten easy, but getting Cinemax shots still takes a lot of practice. So Solo has an extra onboard computer that turns practice time into software. It works like your automatic personal camera crew, the Hollywood toolkit at your fingertips, Tom. This drone's putting out a business.

• 39:41Speaker 01

  I'm very, I am very wary of this drone.

• 39:42Nilay Patel?

  The Solo drone is basically an aerial motion control rig in a backpack. Smart shots guide both the drone and the camera to automatically capture smooth and Cinemax shots that not even pro cinema pilots can get. So take that, pro cinema pilots. You're out of work now.

• 39:56Speaker 01

  You know who one of those pilots is?

• 39:57Nilay Patel?

  Who's that?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Wes Reel.

• 39:58Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 39:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, just put up a, a good, a good freelancer that we've used for Verge videos in the past. A lot of our drone operators has come from him.

• 40:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  Just did some in 3DR, shot something at a, I don't know, there was snow, so it was really like snowboarding.

• 40:10Nilay Patel?

  Beautiful.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  I watched half of it and I was like, I can't watch anymore. It's too good.

• 40:14Nilay Patel?

  Well, this is an ad for both 3DR and our friend Wes Reel. Look up Wes Reel if you're looking for it. It's only too bad that the Solo drone will eventually put him on a business. Because it's so good. Because of its cable cam for shooting a story with multiple frames. Or its orbit feature for wraparound circles and towering, mind-blowing spirals that no other drone or pilot, Wes, can imitate. Just tell Solo where to go, push play and Solo does it all. It even follows you. 3DR gives a Solo away every month to one of their email subscribers. So sign up today to learn more about drones at 3dr.com/verge.

• 40:48Nilay Patel?

  We're gonna have to have Wes on the show.

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:50Nilay Patel?

  This thing eventually ruins his life. Robots are coming for all of us. So let's talk about watching it. So here, this is actually really funny. So Galaxy S7, micro SD slot. I was able to just like grab an MP4 from you guys. Dieter figured, like, put it on the thing, figure out how to get in the Oculus viewer. So I had it on an S7 in a Gear VR headset. I was at a bar, basically, Saturday in South by Southwest. People were rolling through the bar, a lot of people we knew. And I just kept putting people in the headset. And the most interesting thing that I found was if you hand somebody a 10-minute video on a phone at a bar, at a party, it was like a good party, it was like fun.

• 41:30Nilay Patel?

  And you're like, "Watch this 10-minute video." They're just gonna like hate you. Right? They're gonna be like, "No, I'm not doing it." Like, "Send me a link and I won't watch it later." Right? I put people in the headset and they just sat in there for 10 minutes. I ran the Gear VR for so long that the S7 overheated and died.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 41:46Nilay Patel?

  And by the time Emily Yoshida got there, I was like, "Try this out." And it was dead. Like, it just wouldn't go anymore. I did, I was like charging it, I had a battery pack. Like, people just wanted, there was a line to watch it.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  So one day in the future, we're just gonna show up to bars and everyone's gonna be in a headset.

• 41:59Nilay Patel?

  Dieter did this thing. I'm like, "Are we together or are we alone?" Like, if we're in a room together, we're both wearing headsets. Like, are we together?

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yes, we're together.

• 42:05Nilay Patel?

  Why?

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Because we're both experiencing VR together.

• 42:07Nilay Patel?

  But what if we're in different realities?

• 42:08Speaker 01

  But what if mine? That's a, that's a whole new reality on top of that, right?

• 42:11Speaker 04

  I mean, isn't that what life is like? Anyway, it's VR.

• 42:14Speaker 02

  Whoa, Miriam.

• 42:16Nilay Patel?

  So you only got the one day of sleep?

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:19Nilay Patel?

  That's true. I do experience a different reality than most people all the time. But I'm on drugs. So that's what drugs are like. I think that's what we're getting to.

• 42:28Nilay Patel?

  Anyway, but so I, what I found was just watching the fact that you can put somebody in a different world. And I, you know, I think our content was like, great. It was like, it was a great thing, it was like really interesting with the animation. But then I would be like, "Watch the Blue Angels." And you'd put them in the Blue Angels. And that was like a totally different thing. And they would just like, "Watch that whole thing too." And I, it came, I came to realize that... A, there's no notifications and B, you can't look at your phone. So like, you're just like trapped in this space and you have to pay attention. And I asked, started asking people about it and they're like, yeah, I just wanted to pay attention. Like I wanted to, I was just there and I wanted to just stay there for as long as I could. Um, but you guys have been demoing it in the Vive upstairs, which is a much better headset than the Gear VR. What, what's been your sort of takeaway?

• 43:10Speaker 01

  I mean, the most interesting thing for me is like, you always have that awkward moment when you show someone your work. Like when you make films or make video of like having them watch it and then you also watching it, but also kind of watching them.

• 43:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  And like looking at their eyes and looking at their facial expressions. And the great thing about the, any VR headset is it takes away their eyes and you can just look at their mouth. And look at the, how they're reacting and it's like, you're like, you can't really see what they're seeing. You can't really know what they're reacting to. Um, but you get to just see them emote and you're like, it's a really interesting way to wa, get feedback from people.

• 43:43Speaker 03

  I did, I, we were in there and I put the actual Vive on and said, I'm going to watch the whole thing.

• 43:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  And it's a completely different experience.

• 43:51Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 43:52Speaker 03

  It's just you're wrapped in it and it's the fact that you can move that fast.

• 43:55Nilay Patel?

  So then that's virtual reality.

• 43:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's like having an.

• 43:58Speaker 01

  Because he's in virtual reality, that's fine. He's watching a 360 video in virtual reality. We're done.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  The cast is over.

• 44:06Nilay Patel?

  Fantastic.

• 44:07Speaker 02

  Tom just dropped the mic.

• 44:08Nilay Patel?

  All right. Um, okay. Was you learning anything, Mary, while you were watching? Cause you've watched, you've been like, I mean, you have a spherical video community.

• 44:15Speaker 04

  I haven't actually watched it all the way through in a headset though.

• 44:19Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 44:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  I don't know if I have either.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  I've watched like chunks of it and like each bit of the animation that I wanted, I like, I would watch it and I would give it to someone who hadn't seen it to see if they like followed their head the way that I wanted them to. But I haven't actually watched the way through. Probably should do that.

• 44:31Speaker 01

  Well, it's honestly though, because it's like, it's a really bad way to Q C it.

• 44:36Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Because chances are you missed something.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 44:38Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 44:39Speaker 02

  That's why I found myself just watching it over and over again and looking in some different space. Like whether that's behind me or to the sides or in front of me.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  We mostly locked Trey in a room and just made him watch it.

• 44:48Nilay Patel?

  That's why Trey is crazy now. That's why Trey is so excited to talk to other people right now. Um, well, so then the other thing I want to talk about is it's kind of the resolution piece, which is what Tom was saying earlier. Um, so we were talking like a Facebook product manager, uh, you know, as we were like setting up. Putting on Facebook and he's like, you know, this is going to drive the next great cycle of hardware innovation in phones. Because if you think about the Gear VR, it's not doing anything terribly complicated, right? It cuts the S7 screen in half and it projects a warped right eye and a warped left eye and it like put lenses. It's like very simple what it's doing. I think it's a game changing product. Like having that thing, I mean, I'm the, I'm the douchebag who flew to South by Southwest with a VR headset in my backpack.

• 45:32Speaker 01

  I wouldn't call you a douchebag.

• 45:33Nilay Patel?

  I know, but you've called me other names and I appreciate that.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  But not for, not for not having a Samsung, I would have one.

• 45:39Nilay Patel?

  I mean, everyone else had them there, but like I was on the plane. I was like, am I going to wear a VR headset on the plane? And I really like, I had a moment where I was like, I can't do this.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Really?

• 45:46Speaker 04

  Well, you didn't do it?

• 45:47Nilay Patel?

  I didn't do it.

• 45:48Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 45:48Nilay Patel?

  I'll do it next time. I just couldn't, I don't know.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Let's, let's break and have a support group for this. Because you should have done it.

• 45:53Nilay Patel?

  Whoa.

• 45:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 45:55Nilay Patel?

  Whoa.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  I'm trying to make this really clear. No, you should have done it.

• 45:59Nilay Patel?

  I should have. I'm sad that I didn't, but it was like, if I wasn't a plane that wasn't a plane to South by, because like the last thing I wanted was like, because South by is like all people tweeting about being in a plane the whole time they're on a plane.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 46:11Nilay Patel?

  And I might just pull it out, like, have there been a thousand tweets?

• 46:14Speaker 01

  This brings up.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  It could have been another meme.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  This brings up another.

• 46:17Nilay Patel?

  Who wants to be a meme?

• 46:18Speaker 01

  This brings up another VR problem that we have, which is VR selfies, which is a thing we've been doing.

• 46:22Nilay Patel?

  Problem. Non-stop.

• 46:24Speaker 04

  These are a gift.

• 46:25Speaker 02

  Exactly. Why would you call that a problem?

• 46:27Speaker 01

  To explain this.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  Phone's loaded with them.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  To explain this, something that's been happening around our office, especially whenever someone gets into a VR headset for an extended period of time, everyone tries to take a selfie with them.

• 46:38Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  And it's a little bit of a creeper like environment where there's no safe space for VR.

• 46:44Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  We need to have like a safe, like no VR selfie.

• 46:47Nilay Patel?

  We need to close that door more often. Like people come running in from other rooms to stand behind you and take a selfie.

• 46:52Speaker 01

  And no joke, they're funny every time.

• 46:54Nilay Patel?

  Every time.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  But I'm worried that we're setting a precedent that cannot be sustained.

• 46:59Nilay Patel?

  Nah, it'd be fine.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  It's great. Never stop.

• 47:02Nilay Patel?

  I mean, we, I've been playing a game where I try to get as physically close to Dieter and Chris Grant as I can when they're in that. I don't win that game a lot. It's really easy to tell even when you're in a different reality that someone's like breathing on you. It's super creepy. Just super creepy. Especially when Grant is like, hey buddy.

• 47:24Nilay Patel?

  Um, anyway, what was I saying? Oh, uh, phone innovation. So it's like, we have 4K screens now on phones, but nobody knows why, because you can't see it. But the second you start thinking about cutting the phone screen in half, like, you do need a 4K screen. Yeah. That's a great reason to have a 4K screen. And even the Vive, which I think is the highest quality headset, it's pretty grainy in there. Yeah. Right? And like, the, the Gear VR is like, just pretty, just like a low resolution environment. Yep. Um, and then you need way more bandwidth. Like, on an LTE connections, like even doing YouTube 360 is like real bad. So like, that's a great reason to have faster Wi-Fi and 5G networks. Uh, and they need faster processors. The reason I said it got so hot is because I was running a processor at max, like, for a day.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Well, I think it's because we, we've, even TVs, right? We've talked about that 4K, like, do we really need AK? Like, is AK something we really need?

• 48:12Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  Um, but VR is that thing that drives that, right?

• 48:17Nilay Patel?

  Right.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  That's the exciting thing for me, is that we need screens that are smaller and better.

• 48:22Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Faster now.

• 48:24Nilay Patel?

  Now.

• 48:25Speaker 01

  Can we start it?

• 48:25Speaker 04

  Give us more.

• 48:26Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. No, I mean, it's weird, because I, I think there's, we've talked about this a lot on this show, which is, like, phones are boring, right? Like, they're pretty boring. Um, I mean, literally, we should, we need, I need to read another ad, and we can talk about Apple for a couple of seconds, but like, um, phones are boring. Apple's putting out a smaller phone. That's the most exciting thing they can do. Like, tiny phone.

• 48:46Speaker 04

  Apple needs to get on the VR train.

• 48:47Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. And that's worth talking about too, right? Like, I, a good reason to buy a Galaxy S7, in my mind, an excellent reason, and a reason that I think I might recommend people do it, is because the Gear VR is like, a life-altering experience. Yep. Um, and it actually is. Like, you put people in it for the first time, and they freak out.

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And really, the barrier to entry is having a, uh, an Android phone ready to run it, right?

• 49:10Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  And having a Samsung, the S7's screen is fantastic, and it's probably the best way to view it.

• 49:14Speaker 04

  Also, like, the Gear VR headset's so much more comfortable than the Vive.

• 49:17Nilay Patel?

  Yes, the Vive is really uncomfortable.

• 49:19Speaker 04

  It feels like a freaking weight.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  Vive Pre.

• 49:21Speaker 04

  Dragging down your head.

• 49:22Nilay Patel?

  Sure.

• 49:22Speaker 04

  What?

• 49:23Nilay Patel?

  But it's not gonna get, it's, whatever. It's the same thing, essentially.

• 49:26Speaker 03

  But it's like wearing, uh, it's like you're going scuba diving. I mean, it's just, and then the cable.

• 49:30Nilay Patel?

  But the Vive, like, the straps, the one over the top of your head, and the cable pack, the cable pack on the Vive is like, you're...

• 49:37Speaker 03

  It's no joke.

• 49:38Nilay Patel?

  Like, it might as well just go into your, like, spine. Like,

• 49:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:41Nilay Patel?

  It's huge. It's like, when you plug in the headphones in the back, it really does look like that scene in The Matrix.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  Yep. And you trip over it continuously.

• 49:48Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 49:49Speaker 04

  Or if you're in a spinny chair, you're just done. You're just tangled. It's awful.

• 49:52Nilay Patel?

  Well, we're getting Oculus soon, right?

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:55Nilay Patel?

  Because it's coming out soon.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  I'm gonna get mine when I'm on vacation and it's the saddest thing in my life right now.

• 50:00Nilay Patel?

  So I'm still trying to.

• 50:02Speaker 02

  Does your wife know that you're bringing your Oculus with you?

• 50:04Speaker 01

  I can't. That's the thing. I can't because I need my PC to run it and I can't bring my PC with me.

• 50:08Nilay Patel?

  Where are you going on vacation?

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Scotland.

• 50:10Speaker 04

  Scotland?

• 50:12Nilay Patel?

  Can you? Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to an internet cafe in Scotland and be like, do you have?

• 50:16Speaker 01

  No, it's coming the day I leave. There's no, I've definitely thought about this already.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  Like it's going to the office April 1st, which is also probably not going to happen.

• 50:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  And I'm leaving April 1st. So there's no way.

• 50:29Speaker 04

  Does that mean I can play with it?

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes.

• 50:33Nilay Patel?

  Beautiful.

• 50:36Speaker 03

  Guys, March Madness is almost underway. You're probably scrambling to figure out which teams are good this year. And yet, we all know Susan from the office is going to randomly fill out her bracket and beat you in a half.

• 50:48Nilay Patel?

  Harsh!

• 50:49Speaker 03

  What you really should be doing is figuring out how to get a good, clean shave at an affordable price. And by the way, if you like Cinderella stories, a startup by the name of Harry's is taking on the Razor Giants and winning guys over left and right. Harry's is the only shaving company that has both amazing quality and low prices. Quality, German engineered, five blade cartridges, close, comfortable shave, no cuts or burn. Quality guaranteed, full refund if you're not happy. Price, factory direct prices, cut out the middleman, ships right to your door, sell the blades at half the price of the leading brand. Proof, over one million guys have already made the switch and thousands more switch every day.

• 51:31Speaker 03

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• 52:05Nilay Patel?

  You're supposed to sell it.

• 52:06Speaker 03

  Enter code VERGE. I'm gonna spell it at the end.

• 52:08Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Don't it? This is my, enter code VERGE at checkout. That is H A R R Y S dot com. I thank you.

• 52:19Nilay Patel?

  Alright, so Apple then.

• 52:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 52:21Speaker 04

  It's happening.

• 52:22Nilay Patel?

  You guys are all big nerds.

• 52:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:23Nilay Patel?

  Tiny phone, tiny phone excite you?

• 52:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  It's, it's, why?

• 52:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, over it.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  I've not heard a, I've not heard a convincing argument, why?

• 52:31Nilay Patel?

  I think there's a lot of people who have iPhone 5s.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  I think there's a lot of people that really like-

• 52:34Speaker 04

  I mean, I want a smaller phone, I just don't want iPhone.

• 52:36Nilay Patel?

  What do you have?

• 52:38Speaker 04

  You don't want to know?

• 52:38Nilay Patel?

  I want to know what it is.

• 52:39Speaker 04

  Like a really old Sony Z3?

• 52:41Nilay Patel?

  Oh, people love that.

• 52:42Speaker 04

  I mean, I love it because-

• 52:43Nilay Patel?

  That thing has a great camera.

• 52:43Speaker 04

  Water, no.

• 52:44Nilay Patel?

  No?

• 52:45Speaker 04

  This is the Z3 V.

• 52:46Nilay Patel?

  Oh, that thing does have a great camera.

• 52:49Speaker 04

  It's good because I can get caught in the rain on my bike and it won't die.

• 52:52Nilay Patel?

  The V stands for Verizon. It stands for Verizon branding on the front of the phone.

• 52:56Speaker 04

  It's awful. It's a god awful phone, but it doesn't, it can't, it can get wet.

• 53:00Nilay Patel?

  You should get an S7, you can get wet.

• 53:02Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 53:03Speaker 02

  I gave, I, so I-

• 53:04Speaker 04

  Win my contract, so.

• 53:04Speaker 02

  I gave Dieter my iPhone 5 earlier for whatever reason and it just felt so freaking tiny.

• 53:11Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Speaker 02

  Like it was just, I, I don't know how, how I did it. Just a little tiny phone. So I don't match, I can't match it.

• 53:18Nilay Patel?

  What do you have now? You have a 6?

• 53:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:19Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. My favorite thing is other people's 6 pluses look huge to me and then mine is like, oh, this is the right size for a phone.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:24Nilay Patel?

  And then I get on the subway, I'm like, what is that monster? What is that big stupid phone?

• 53:28Speaker 02

  What's that fablet over there?

• 53:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:32Nilay Patel?

  Tom, what do you have?

• 53:34Speaker 01

  I'm, oh, what do I have?

• 53:35Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  You want to, you want to talk, we were moving on from Apple now?

• 53:37Nilay Patel?

  No, what do you, not, not like, what in your life, like, what kind of phone do you have?

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I have a 6.

• 53:41Nilay Patel?

  You have a 6, yeah. James has a 6.

• 53:43Speaker 03

  6 plus.

• 53:43Nilay Patel?

  He has a 6 plus.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:45Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah, you do.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  But honestly, I'm, I, this is the first time I've really been tempted to switch to the S7.

• 53:50Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Because of the VR stuff.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  The VR stuff, that's a huge thing and also just like, the screen is really nice.

• 53:56Nilay Patel?

  And the camera's amazing.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  James actually just did the camera.

• 53:58Nilay Patel?

  James, when's your camera shoot up going, shootout going?

• 54:00Speaker 03

  Tomorrow, I think.

• 54:01Speaker 04

  Didn't it go up today?

• 54:02Speaker 03

  I'm not sure.

• 54:02Nilay Patel?

  We did an iPhone, we did a 6S versus S7 camera shootout. If it's going up tomorrow, we can talk about it.

• 54:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:09Nilay Patel?

  You basically found that the S7 camera did better than the 6S.

• 54:11Speaker 03

  Oh, I mean-

• 54:12Nilay Patel?

  Down the line.

• 54:13Speaker 03

  Down, I mean, hands down.

• 54:15Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 54:15Speaker 04

  But.

• 54:15Nilay Patel?

  And it wasn't that big of an improvement from the S6, the camera.

• 54:19Speaker 04

  Like it.

• 54:19Speaker 03

  But the focus is so much faster that it's like.

• 54:21Nilay Patel?

  Oh, yeah, no, yeah, using it, but like resolution and all the stuff wise.

• 54:24Speaker 03

  And and changing anything on it's a lot simpler. I got, I've forgotten how confused I am about how to change any settings on the net on the iPhone.

• 54:32Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, changing, changing like the speed at which like your F, your frame rate for shooting slow motion in the iPhone is the worst.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, because you have to bounce to another app, right?

• 54:41Nilay Patel?

  It's the worst thing.

• 54:41Speaker 03

  But you have to go down.

• 54:42Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 54:43Speaker 03

  You're going down into settings and then.

• 54:45Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so you leave the camera app, you have to go into settings and then you can change it there.

• 54:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:49Speaker 04

  Geez.

• 54:49Nilay Patel?

  And 4K is enabled by default and I'm pretty sure they don't want people to accidentally shoot 4K because it's the highest one. So it will destroy the storage in your 16 gig iPhone.

• 54:57Speaker 03

  Oh, right.

• 54:57Nilay Patel?

  So they buried the setting.

• 54:58Speaker 04

  That is incredibly depressing. I'm sorry, everybody.

• 55:00Speaker 03

  The other crazy thing about the Samsung.

• 55:02Nilay Patel?

  Mary, I'm sorry, everybody. Harry's dot com slash the bridge.

• 55:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 55:05Nilay Patel?

  H A R R Y S. Dot com.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  Dot com.

• 55:11Speaker 03

  The other thing with the Samsung is they're.

• 55:12Nilay Patel?

  Come back, Harry.

• 55:14Speaker 03

  I just think they got the best bargain for an ad ever.

• 55:17Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  Um, I was going back to the Samsung is the one thing I've never gone with those phones is I just cannot handle Samsung's software.

• 55:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:24Speaker 03

  And the camera app is remarkably simple and straightforward. So whoever that that sort of rebellious team were, they've.

• 55:30Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  They've done something very simple.

• 55:31Nilay Patel?

  So, so here's the flip side of it, which is, James, you are the only person I know who uses an iPad Pro all day, every day.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:41Nilay Patel?

  I've like, James has his laptop set up in front of him and then he's got his iPad Pro stuck up on it like a, on the case. And he's just like, uses both all day long.

• 55:50Speaker 03

  But it's.

• 55:50Nilay Patel?

  Incredible.

• 55:50Speaker 03

  It's, well, I have to say, it's, I've used it, we did the feature, Casey Newsom featured, drew that, drew the whole thing on there. It's amazing.

• 56:00Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  Because you can draw freehand in vectors and things. It's, it's just amazing because you can draw, you just hit, you go straight out of the Adobe thing.

• 56:08Nilay Patel?

  Did you retouch any of the first lady photos on the iPad?

• 56:10Speaker 03

  Uh, that wouldn't work.

• 56:12Nilay Patel?

  Why not?

• 56:13Speaker 03

  Because.

• 56:14Nilay Patel?

  I mean, Apple would definitely.

• 56:15Speaker 03

  It's actually really, well, it probably, it, you probably could, but the problem is it's weird. Retouching a picture when you're actually drawing on the picture is really hard.

• 56:25Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 56:26Speaker 03

  It's much easier to use a tablet and just look at what you're doing. I don't know why.

• 56:29Nilay Patel?

  Huh. You mean, you must use keyboard and look at what you're doing.

• 56:31Speaker 03

  Well, covering it up. No, to use a whack on tablet down below, so you're not actually.

• 56:35Speaker 04

  Original tablets.

• 56:36Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. Oh, the original tablets. I thought you meant like, I'm using my random iPad over here and like, what's happening over there?

• 56:43Nilay Patel?

  Uh, really?

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:45Nilay Patel?

  Huh.

• 56:45Speaker 03

  It's very strange. I mean, whack or make tablets that you can draw on and illustrators like it. But for retouching, I just can't do it because you're doing a lot of keystrokes.

• 56:53Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 56:53Speaker 03

  All the time. And then to that whole thing of using a pen to tap keystrokes plus do the retouching is just way too slow.

• 56:59Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. So are you excited about a tiny iPad Pro?

• 57:03Speaker 03

  Uh, I kind of got used to the new one now.

• 57:05Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 57:06Speaker 03

  I mean, and honestly, if you're drawing on it, the size is useful.

• 57:08Nilay Patel?

  Right. So if you were, I bet you have an Air. I'm assuming you do.

• 57:13Speaker 03

  I do, but I don't use it.

• 57:14Nilay Patel?

  Upgrade your Air to the Pro, the tiny Pro?

• 57:17Speaker 03

  I, I think if I haven't.

• 57:18Nilay Patel?

  That's what they're gonna call it, the iPad tiny Pro.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  The iPad tiny Pro.

• 57:21Nilay Patel?

  Be good.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  Tiny Pro.

• 57:22Nilay Patel?

  I'm using the iPad Pro Pro.

• 57:24Speaker 04

  There's so many good tiny bro jokes there.

• 57:26Nilay Patel?

  iPad tiny bro. It's like some guy in a coffee shop just like drawing.

• 57:31Speaker 04

  Double pop color.

• 57:32Nilay Patel?

  Hey, girl. I'm just drawing on my iPad. I don't know how, how any of that works anymore.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  But I tell you something, I'm not using.

• 57:39Nilay Patel?

  Is that what cool guys do to pick up chicks?

• 57:41Speaker 01

  That's how we do it. I've been married for 40 years.

• 57:48Speaker 03

  You heard it here.

• 57:49Nilay Patel?

  That's how we do it. We married guys go to coffee shops for iPads.

• 57:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:52Speaker 01

  With their tiny pros.

• 57:53Nilay Patel?

  Trying to pick up side pieces with their iPad.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  Do you remember when we were coming back from?

• 57:57Nilay Patel?

  That's right.

• 57:57Speaker 03

  No, no, seriously, guys. Is that joke, is that working?

• 57:59Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 58:00Nilay Patel?

  Nope.

• 58:01Speaker 03

  Try it?

• 58:02Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Nah, doc.

• 58:04Nilay Patel?

  The iPad side piece is not a thing.

• 58:07Speaker 03

  But do you remember when we, after the floaters shoot, we were in the train station and we were watching that guy with the big iPad Pro? Set up with his keyboard and all he was doing was swiping back between the screens onto different apps and just opening them, closing them randomly.

• 58:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, literally, we were like in the train station and I was like, James, that guy is just switching apps. He's not doing anything.

• 58:26Speaker 03

  No.

• 58:26Nilay Patel?

  He's just enjoying the size of the screen. He's like, what does this app look like? It's huge. What about this app? Also enormous. Like, and he was so happy. And I was just like, what are you doing?

• 58:40Speaker 01

  You have to make yourself happy with your purchasing decision somehow.

• 58:43Nilay Patel?

  You ever just buy something and just like look at it for a while? It's like a thing that I do. I don't, I don't have a lot to do professionally. I like to purchase things and gaze at them. So, I don't know, Apple doing tiny stuff. I mean, that's like, that's their vibe.

• 58:56Speaker 02

  Well, who are they targeting? Like, who?

• 58:59Nilay Patel?

  Well, I saw it.

• 58:59Speaker 02

  What's the demo here?

• 59:00Nilay Patel?

  I had, I had this long conversation.

• 59:03Speaker 04

  Regular sized hands?

• 59:04Nilay Patel?

  Yeah. No, I think there's a lot of people who had fives and they like iPhone fives. Right, like, there's, if you haven't, people, there's a lot of people with iPhone fives who haven't upgraded. There's a lot of people with the iPhone 5S. There's a ton of people, a surprising number of people with a 5C. Like, why not just be like, you, you didn't upgrade because the phone got too big for you? Here, here's a, here's a better version of the thing you have. And that's like a, a pretty sure that that's, yeah, that's like a, that's a thing you can sell. I think the thing Apple's running into is they are traditionally the company that has like a very focused product line. They're like, this is the right size. And for years, is Samsung's screens and everybody else's screens got bigger. They're like, no, no, no, that's stupid. Then they put out a phone with a big screen and their sales skyrocketed.

• 59:48Nilay Patel?

  So now it feels like they have to walk back or they're, they're making, I mean, they have more screen size than anybody right now. Like, they're, they're, they're coming up on that point when they have like a Samsung number of screen sizes. They have like the watch, they have the iPad mini two, they have the iPad mini four, iPad mini three is like the, that's the kid we don't talk about anymore.

• 1:00:08Nilay Patel?

  Really fell off. There, iPad mini three. Should've gone to college like your brother.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  That's brutal.

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  It's cruel.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Is it really that cruel?

• 1:00:22Nilay Patel?

  No, it's just the one, he's just not in the family photo.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  He just didn't make it far enough.

• 1:00:27Nilay Patel?

  Never left the hometown.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  It's fine, though.

• 1:00:29Nilay Patel?

  Look, every town needs townies.

• 1:00:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Nilay Patel?

  No.

• 1:00:32Speaker 02

  For all the kids out there who didn't go to college, it's okay.

• 1:00:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, you don't have to go to college.

• 1:00:36Nilay Patel?

  I'm saying you can be successful.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:38Nilay Patel?

  But it's just, I bet, Steve Jobs didn't go to college.

• 1:00:44Nilay Patel?

  But like, you know, he just, he's not in the family photo anymore.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Oh, so something happened, like some trauma.

• 1:00:49Nilay Patel?

  It's got bad for him. So there's the two minis, then the regular sized iPad, the big iPad, now a smaller iPad Pro. Then like the variety of screen sizes of laptops, then like two sizes, like you could just make that chart that they used to make about Samsung, which is like all of Apple's screen sizes and they're like some small to enormous. And I think that is fine. I actually think that's fine. I think computers should come in all shapes and sizes. But it's just, it's blowing their narrative a little bit. Cause they're just like, here's an event for tiny things.

• 1:01:19Speaker 04

  Phone body positivity.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  I think that's what makes me not interested.

• 1:01:23Nilay Patel?

  You know, they're just, they're just computers. The computers don't need body positivity, right? Like, no one, no one's shaming the computer and it doesn't have feelings.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  There's like some serious phone size shaming, I feel like.

• 1:01:32Nilay Patel?

  Really?

• 1:01:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Speaker 04

  I mean, like the people who have the small phones and people with the big phones are dumb, vice versa.

• 1:01:39Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but that's fine. Cause those are just consumer choices and not like, not your body.

• 1:01:44Speaker 04

  That's not what Twitter thinks.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  My god, look at how small your phone is.

• 1:01:50Nilay Patel?

  Such as stuff you bought, I guess. I don't know.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  I don't know. I feel like though, that's probably the reason I'm not interested in the event as much as I would normally, like, once Apple like comes out and announces like a car or a actual VR headset.

• 1:02:06Nilay Patel?

  So the VR thing, they're missing VR. I think the two big things of the past few months that we've talked about endlessly are VR and the Echo.

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:02:14Nilay Patel?

  And Apple's just like, and the VR is like really nascent. Like, like we've been talking about, everything's first generation. It's not their moment for VR. Like, Apple doesn't jump into it at this time. They're gonna wait for the market to mature. People know what they want. They'll make a stylish headset. It'd be great. It'll only run on iTunes.

• 1:02:30Speaker 04

  Oh god.

• 1:02:32Nilay Patel?

  Right? But they don't have a video distribution platform. Like, Google's gonna do VR and they've got YouTube and.

• 1:02:37Speaker 04

  Can't even freaking watch 360 video in Safari.

• 1:02:39Nilay Patel?

  You can't. I know.

• 1:02:40Speaker 04

  It's ridiculous.

• 1:02:42Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, you can't. Their browser doesn't support it. By the way, mobile web, you can't do 360 on the mobile web. Just like, you can, but you can't, right? Like.

• 1:02:49Speaker 04

  You can't with the big players. There is open source software to do 360 on the mobile web.

• 1:02:54Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, but we tried a bunch of it and it was like, eh.

• 1:02:57Speaker 02

  Can we talk about that for a second?

• 1:02:58Speaker 04

  I have like a lot of thoughts.

• 1:03:00Speaker 02

  Why Safari does not support that? I have so many friends who, and of course I put in emails, like, hey, watch this video that we did. It's amazing, but you can't watch it in Safari. Watch it in Firefox or Opera or Chrome.

• 1:03:11Nilay Patel?

  You mean the popular one?

• 1:03:12Speaker 02

  Right, right, right.

• 1:03:12Nilay Patel?

  Watch it in Opera is like the meanest thing you've ever.

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  Anything other than Safari. And of course, I still got replies of like, wow, cool panoramic video, bro. Just like, ugh.

• 1:03:26Nilay Patel?

  But anyway, but Apple's just like not there and it's fine. It might not be their moment, but Google has a huge video distribution platform. Facebook is building a huge video distribution platform. Apple has iTunes and like they, they're gonna need to do something where people can upload and share 360 videos because that will be the bulk of the content for a long time.

• 1:03:45Speaker 03

  But what about the fact that all of these VR headsets are a bit run off gaming PCs? I mean, it's

• 1:03:50Nilay Patel?

  Well, yeah, but they have a phone.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  I think the phone is the way it gets delivered, right? That's the App Store, right?

• 1:03:55Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Like, the thing you're talking about, like how you distribute like all these like VR videos? It's the App Store.

• 1:04:01Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  You download their app and that serves all the content.

• 1:04:04Nilay Patel?

  Right, which is I think where that mobile web thing comes in, right? I think everybody, there's not a lot of development emphasis on plugins for the mobile web because people want you in their app, in their store.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  Because it's the best way to watch it.

• 1:04:15Speaker 04

  They want to control the experience.

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Streaming is not a great way to watch it.

• 1:04:17Speaker 04

  It makes sense. It's annoying.

• 1:04:18Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, no, the web is dead and I mourn it every day. I wake up every day, I light a candle for the death of the open web.

• 1:04:23Speaker 01

  Can I bring up a thing?

• 1:04:24Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  We have a lightning round to do.

• 1:04:26Nilay Patel?

  Oh, is this lightning round?

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  It can be, yeah.

• 1:04:28Nilay Patel?

  Okay.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Well, I have a thing that

• 1:04:29Nilay Patel?

  Your thing is the first thing in lightning round.

• 1:04:30Speaker 01

  Oh, really? Oh, great.

• 1:04:31Nilay Patel?

  Google, lightning round.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 1:04:37Nilay Patel?

  Everyone make a lightning noise.

• 1:04:38Speaker 03

  But we didn't speak about her sound effects in the actual thing.

• 1:04:41Speaker 04

  We don't have to.

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  Just demonstrate one.

• 1:04:45Nilay Patel?

  But that's you?

• 1:04:46Speaker 03

  That was, she recorded the sound effects for the video.

• 1:04:49Nilay Patel?

  That's you?

• 1:04:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yes.

• 1:04:51Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:04:52Nilay Patel?

  That's you?

• 1:04:54Speaker 04

  It's like a song request?

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  Just backhand Eli up.

• 1:04:59Nilay Patel?

  One of, like Mary was like one of the most talented people who works here and then she can also make fucking computer sounds?

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:05:05Nilay Patel?

  That's unfair. I hate it.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  You haven't heard this one? You sit behind her.

• 1:05:07Speaker 04

  I do nothing but this all day long.

• 1:05:09Nilay Patel?

  You just make computer sounds? When you type, you make the sound?

• 1:05:20Nilay Patel?

  Why don't you do this all the time?

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  She does.

• 1:05:23Speaker 04

  Everybody else is so over it.

• 1:05:25Nilay Patel?

  I'm not over it at all and I run the joint.

• 1:05:27Speaker 02

  Eli, she sits, she sits behind you, next to you.

• 1:05:31Nilay Patel?

  I'm busy. I'm like, I'm trolling Dieter.

• 1:05:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:34Nilay Patel?

  And I got a whole thing going on. Well, now I'm just gonna pay more attention. Damn it. Okay, make a lightning sound.

• 1:05:41Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, what? Can we hang out all the time? God damn it. All right, lightning round. Google selling Boston Dynamics. They're a robot company. They bought, and the story is crazy, right? Bloomberg, like, Google employees were emailing back and forth about how the latest Boston Dynamics video, uh, showing them like with humanoid robots and like pushing the robots. They were like, this raises questions we don't want to answer at Google. They got leaked to a public listserv. Google's like, screw it, they're gonna sell. They're like, we don't want to be in this business. It sounds like chaos, which is sad.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  Makes me really sad.

• 1:06:14Speaker 04

  So sad.

• 1:06:15Speaker 01

  Well, honestly, because like the people that came out of like Amazon, like I don't really want Amazon to buy it. It's like, Google is that one company that like, they have these weird projects that can go somewhere, can go nowhere, but like, I'm interested in the company funding, like these like crazy new tech fields.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Well, Toyota's also interested as well.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's like, seeing it, like, Google doesn't feel like they have any like actual application for it, right? Amazon, you feel like they'll develop a-

• 1:06:41Nilay Patel?

  The dog is gonna come running down the street. By the way, that is literally, I think, in Snow Crash, right? With like the angry dog that like attacks. You guys know what I'm talking about?

• 1:06:50Speaker 04

  No idea.

• 1:06:51Nilay Patel?

  In Snow Crash, the novel by Neal Stephenson, one of the, one of the main-ish themes is that they have like robot attack dogs that like run around. That's what Amazon is gonna build, but instead of attacking you and protecting you, they're gonna like-

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  Deliver your socks.

• 1:07:04Nilay Patel?

  Deliver paper towels.

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  It's like a robot Saint Bernard with alcohol under the chin.

• 1:07:09Nilay Patel?

  Do we have- I would a hundred percent get down with a robot.

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  I would fuck with that. Please, right now.

• 1:07:16Nilay Patel?

  Family show, although we've been swearing insult. Anyway, you have a thing.

• 1:07:19Speaker 01

  So, one of the big things that I have always thought about with them acquiring Boston Dynamics when it happened was that, if you ever go on the Google campus, they have all these bikes.

• 1:07:27Nilay Patel?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  These like different colored bikes that everyone rides around on. And when we were shooting a feature out there last year about this time, uh, Virgil, uh, Ryan Manning and I were thinking, you know what, 10 years from now, all these bikes are replaced with big dogs.

• 1:07:42Nilay Patel?

  Oh my god.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  And sadly, that dream might die.

• 1:07:45Nilay Patel?

  It will.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  It's sad that it's over.

• 1:07:47Nilay Patel?

  It's not over, the company's gonna exist, but the dream of writing about the Google campus-

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Is dead, and that's what I'm-

• 1:07:52Speaker 04

  Maybe they'll rebuy it later. Seems like a Google thing to do.

• 1:07:56Nilay Patel?

  Okay, next slightly errant topic.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:59Nilay Patel?

  SeaWorld no longer breeding orcas.

• 1:08:01Speaker 04

  Heck yeah.

• 1:08:02Nilay Patel?

  Well, that was a layup for you. I did that one for you. Fantastic, fantastic. Uh, Samsung put out a new convertible tablet PC called the Tab Pro S. Any reaction from anyone? The tadpole? Okay. And then I've just put South by Southwest here, which I'm just giving like a mid thumbs up.

• 1:08:21Speaker 01

  I didn't get to look at anything from South by.

• 1:08:22Nilay Patel?

  It was a boring show. I think the best thing that happened is Caitlin Tiffany, one of her features, or one of her reports, was she tried to go to every event and make a true friend.

• 1:08:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's the best thing that came out of South by.

• 1:08:30Nilay Patel?

  Which is now, you can read that on the side. Uh, that's it, that was our show. We're a little bit over, um, a little bit over time, but it was a good show. Thank you guys for coming. Thank you guys for working so hard on this video. Uh, thank you, uh, Miriam for letting me know about the computer sounds. Play us out, Miriam. God, it's so good.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  It's so good.

• 1:08:46Nilay Patel?

  Uh, anyway, uh, we'll be back next week. Obviously, there's a big Apple event. We're covering a hell of that on Monday. Tune in The Verge. Uh, Dieter and Lauren are going this time. I'm hanging back. Uh, they're live blogging, they're covering it. We're a video with hands-on. Uh, we'll obviously have Vergecast when Dieter comes back with all the new stuff. That'll be very exciting. Hopefully, it's more than just a tiny phone and tiny iPad, but what are you gonna do? Um, and then, if you're looking at Follow It, you can follow at Verge on Twitter. You can hit us up on Snapchat. We're Verge, Dieter and Lauren will be snapping from the event. Uh, you can hit us up on Instagram at Verge. We're not the biggest tech brand on Instagram, by the way. Woo! Tell them how that is.

• 1:09:21Nilay Patel?

  I love you. Anyway, uh, and then you can also, we have all these other shows. You can, uh, What's Tech comes out every Tuesday with Chris Plant. Control Alt Delete, which I host with Al Mossberg, comes out, uh, um, on, we record on Wednesday, it comes out on Thursdays. Uh, Verge ESP hits every Friday with Emily Shida and Liz Lopato. And then Lauren Good has Toom Bears to Ask over on the Recode Network, um, which is also wonderful. And all that is available at iTunes.com/TheVerge. These fine people, their work is available on YouTube. Mm-hmm. And the Facebook, on YouTube, it's just YouTube.com/ TheVerge.

• 1:09:51Speaker 04

  The Verge.

• 1:09:52Nilay Patel?

  The Verge. On Facebook, it's Facebook.com. You can do it.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  Search for The Verge on Facebook. It's easy.

• 1:09:58Nilay Patel?

  Well, no, if you're not gonna- If you get it wrong on Facebook-

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  It goes to some weird thing.

• 1:10:02Nilay Patel?

  It's like some weird Canadian rock radio station.

• 1:10:04Speaker 01

  If, if you're listening and you've honestly thought you're gonna come in and go to your web browser and type in Facebook.com/TheVerge.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Just like search for The Verge on Facebook.

• 1:10:12Nilay Patel?

  The Verge, fucking Google it.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  Also, please subscribe to YouTube for us.

• 1:10:18Nilay Patel?

  Subscribe to YouTube, we're so close to a million.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  Yes, we're so close to a million, it helps us do crazy things like interview the first lady in 60, and we want to do more of that in the future, so more subscribers actually lets us do that.

• 1:10:29Nilay Patel?

  Yeah, so we're so close to a million. So here's what I want to do. I'm gonna say The Verge, and then I want you to make a laser sound, and that's gonna be the end of the show. You ready? Alright. The Verge, fucking Google it. Hmm.