Google Cloud Next Conference, Iron Fist, and Hot Tinder

On this special episode of The Vergecast, the ladies of The Verge take over the show. Did you know that nearly half of the team is female? Seriously, we’re probably two women away from a 50 / 50 split, but you’d never know that if you only listened to The Vergecast! That’s why, in honor of International Women’s Day this week (and Women’s History Month all month!), we have Megan Farokhmanesh, Adi Robertson, Natt Garun, and Ashley Carman in the studio talking about Google’s big and enterprise-y week, Iron Fist, and the exclusive, invite-only version of Tinder for mega-hotties. Whatever that last thing is. Culture reporter Kaitlyn Tiffany also joins in to tell us her account of the Women’s Day strike. 00:49 - International Women’s Day 10:49 - Google's giant 4K digital whiteboard, Jamboard, will cost $4,999 13:55 - Google’s Gboard will now translate text into another language as you type 15:32 - Google confirms small number of Pixel phones have broken microphones 17:35 - Google Hangouts is getting a major overhaul to take on Slack 21:39 - Google can now recognize objects in videos using machine learning 23:55 - Iron Fist isn't just racially uncomfortable, it's also a boring show 28:45 - There’s a secret version of Tinder for hot people and you can’t use it 36:31 - Ashley’s weekly segment “Yo, when will I be able to afford this phone case?” 39:32 - The CIA is hacking Samsung Smart TVs, according to WikiLeaks docs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Hello, welcome to The Vergecast, the flagship podcast of Theverge.com. I'm not Neelai Patel, which you might have already guessed. We're actually going to do a special episode this week because maybe you've listened to The Vergecast before, maybe you haven't, but it's usually run by Neelai and Dieter, which would probably make you think there aren't that many women who work at The Verge. Turns out, we have a lot of women on staff, and they are here to talk with us today. So this week was not only International Women's Day, but also was a really important day because of the Day Without a Woman strike. So to talk about it, we've got me, your host, Megan Frobenesch, but I'm also here hosting with Nat Garin. Hey. We've got Addie Robertson.

• 0:43Speaker 01

  Hi.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Ashley Carmen, who is currently not here, but will be here in about 10 minutes. And we are going to kick this off.

• 0:49Speaker 01

  Cool. So International Women's Day was on Wednesday. A majority of The Verge staff decided to partake in the strike, which I found really profound because I got here in the office and it was extremely quiet. And the only people here were me and Addie. And it was really strange, walking into an empty room. I mean, you walked here, and then there's just nobody. The social team was not here. I feel like everybody was sort of freaking out, like, who's going to put all our stuff online? If we don't put the stuff online, no one is able to see our content. We can't optimize anything we do. We're writing all this stuff that I think is important, but we didn't get a chance to consult with the people who truly impact the way people consume our content, which I think is insane.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  It's really eye-opening for me, even as a woman, how impactful our female staff members are. And to talk about that is someone from the social team, Kaitlyn Tiffany, who also reported a story about International Women's Day. And I'd love to hear more about your insights on what you thought about what happened this week.

• 1:53Speaker 02

  Cool. So yeah, the piece that I wrote was basically, well, I didn't really have to write anything. It was just like 3,000 words of quotes from people. I talked to a bunch of women who work in the media about how they felt about skipping work on Wednesday, because I had kind of had mixed feelings about it. Not to be dramatic, like, oh, God, if we all skip work, the internet will crash to a halt, and 4chan will win, and whatever. But like... You know, it is like a little weird to be like, let's let boys do all of the writing about the world for a day. So I talked to people about how they felt about that and people had lots of mixed thoughts. And I still had mixed thoughts after reporting it, so it was useless. No, just kidding. I think basically like the big takeaway was

• 2:35Speaker 02

  that a strike is a lot more complicated and a lot more radical of a political action than I think most people are used to taking or even considering. So it was useful just to discuss it with people, I think. And it also made me think more carefully about like places that we work, which is a great place to work. And I don't think any of them, like, I don't feel like, oh, no, my male coworkers hate me and don't value my voice. But like when we took away the women from our website, what was left for the most part was still like tech coverage. And that is something that lots of men every day, I'm sure you guys can attest to this, are constantly asking for, for The Verge to be only tech and for

• 3:19Speaker 02

  The Verge to only be written by men and for the women at The Verge to go learn what they're talking about, et cetera. So, yeah. But, I mean, I think we did a good job planning ahead. And I think the men on our website did a great job looking for ways to amplify the stories we prepared. So it was a good day.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. What I loved about our webpage on Wednesday is that in our homepage hero, basically, the hero is dominated by female bylines, which is extremely rare to see. Like, we all write great stories every day, but I think if you went to theverge.com right now, you'd still see a lot of male bylines that are represented on the homepage. And that's clearly not true. So many female writers write great stories every day for The Verge. And yesterday was one of the first times I've ever seen all of that put front and center. And I think that it really highlights the impact and just really shows how many women work here and all the stories that we care about. For example, yesterday, I think the science team, which is comprised of entirely women, took a strike. And there were really great stories about why they took a strike.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Lauren Gooden also technically took a strike, but took partake in the strike. And she showed up, kind of, you know, like, came here and there to kind of offer her opinions about some stories and sort of hopped out and came in here and there, check in. But she did write a good story for us about the whole Uber debacle last week and the blog that Susan Fowler wrote about the toxic culture at Uber and how women aren't surprised when they hear news about when Silicon Valley treat women like crap because it is extremely normalized and we have a president who normalizes that it's okay to take advantage of women. And I think that was really interesting insight for her to go through and talk to other women and also at the end of her article offers a lot of different ways for how companies

• 5:07Speaker 01

  can surprise women by not mistreating them, by giving them a real pay raise and not subject them to all the discriminations that we're just so used to at work and just all the misogyny that I think people come to expect and people, women, are just expected to quote-unquote "deal with" in order to make it in our industries, which I think is so, so important. What's also important in yesterday's coverage is I wrote an essay about a cancer support group on Facebook that I was a part of because throughout my life, in my childhood, I grew up knowing that I had a strain of cancer that was extremely rare and my doctors couldn't really figure out what happened or why.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  And one day, after long Google searches, I finally landed on this Facebook group of a woman who's trying to figure out the same thing of what happened to us and trying to, in a way, crowdsource information on what we know or don't know about having this cancer. And I think that part of being on theverge.com and writing about technology stories is that Inherently, these stories aren't about technology at all. It's about human and people. And technology plays a supplemental role in driving these stories forward. The story wasn't about a Facebook group, the ForFest. The story wasn't about the Internet. So it was about people and having connections and coming together. And it happened that it was a supportive group of women.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  And I think that that's really powerful. And that's something I want to see The Verge write more. I mean, I joined The Verge in November. It's one of the first big stories I've ever wrote for The Verge. And I'm hoping that my presence here encourages the team and all of us to figure out more stories about the people who built technology, use technology, and are affected by technology. And I hope that our absence yesterday reminds the boys of that, too.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  Before we move on, I think I thought of, Caitlin, can you give kind of a brief example of what the history or the background is of the day without a women's strike?

• 7:10Speaker 02

  According to our intrepid photographer, Amelia, who took photos of all of the protests yesterday, there was a 1909 garment workers' strike in New York. And that's the first International Women's Day. So like, the original story of Women's Day is one of like, pretty radical activism. So it's like, I guess it's like, it was exciting yesterday to see Women's Day kind of, ooh, going back to its roots, even though, you know, like, people struggled with it. And I know a lot of people thought it was dumb, including people that I usually think are smart.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  Did anybody get a chance to go to like, the rallies? Or basically, I'm curious, like, did anybody, who actually took the day off to strike? Who went to rallies? Who worked? Like, what did you guys end up doing?

• 7:52Speaker 02

  I kind of worked. I watched the Internet to see if there was anything I wanted to write about. Turns out, there really wasn't. So at like, 3:00, I left for the Washington Square Park rally, which was great. The Washington Square Park protests always have a lot of weirdos, which makes them more fun. There was like, lots of organized labor people there, like, lots of signs about different labor unions, which was cool. Lots of socialists, as there always are at New York City protests. Lots of adorable dogs. Honestly, it was great. It was beautiful outside. Chloé Seon-Ye was there, the actress.

• 8:27Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  From Big Love, starring Bill Paxton. Were you around for the arrests? No, I didn't go to the, that was at the Uptown March. I guess like some of the organizers, including Linda Zarsour, got arrested. But I think they were released pretty quickly. And they were like tweeting from the police van. So it seemed like pretty

• 8:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, I saw the photos.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Low key comparatively. Not to be like, you guys got arrested, but it wasn't a big deal. But like, it seemed like it got resolved.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Addie, you decided not to partake in a strike yesterday. Why is that?

• 9:02Speaker 03

  I guess essentially because I'm an egotist. And because I figure that I'm a writer and I'm in this sort of unusual position to be able to actually make the things that other people are doing visible. And so, yeah, I was online. I wrote a bit about a really interesting Tor.com flash fiction project. So covered some other random stuff. And it was great. And I'm very happy that other people struck. But I did not.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  I agree. I fully support the people who decided to not come to work yesterday because like I, like I mentioned, I think that their absence is absolutely noticed. I decided not to strike yesterday because I wanted to be in solidarity with the people who can't financially afford to strike, like my mom. She runs her own business and I think that if she shut down the business for a day, sure, some people won't be able to get some delicious Thai food. But I think for her, it would financially impact the fact that she's lost income for a whole day. And that is not something she can just easily afford to do. And I think that that's important too, that some women who want to partake in a strike can't afford to, but that doesn't mean they don't care. So I wanted to be here to do that.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  And I think that being here and being able to run the stories that we did yesterday helped us do that in a way that showed people that you, even even you can't strike, there's something you can still do.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  Today's episode is brought to you by Crizal, no glare lenses. If you wear glasses, they know that fingerprint smudges, scratches and glares can be a constant obstruction to your vision and a huge distraction. Sometimes you end up focusing more on what's on your glasses than what's going on around you. They give you the clearest vision possible by offering resistance to glares, scratches and smudges. So, confession, I don't actually wear glasses. We have somebody in the room who does, though, and that is Asha Gorman, who is joining us.

• 10:48Speaker 04

  It's me!

• 10:49Speaker 00

  It's you. Ashley, so there was some big Google news that happened this week, huh?

• 10:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, this week, there was the Cloud Next Conference from Google.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  So exciting.

• 11:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like, oh, okay, guys, settling, cloud next time. A lot of enterprise news, but Google did kind of announce some fun hardware things as well, which obviously I'm pretty excited about. Google clarified that its Jamboard is coming out soon and it's going to cost $5,000.

• 11:17Speaker 00

  What is a Jamboard? I'm sorry.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  Don't you immediately think of a guitar?

• 11:22Speaker 00

  Like a keytar that you wear around your neck is what I immediately think of.

• 11:25Speaker 04

  Yes, no, it is not. It is a 4K digital whiteboard.

• 11:31Speaker 00

  They gave that such a cool name that does not fit that description.

• 11:33Speaker 04

  I know, it's like, alright, guys, we're gonna go write our meeting notes on the Jamboard now. We're gonna jam out this meeting.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think they're just making it exciting for people who actually work in meeting rooms and have to have meetings all the time. You're like, let's jam!

• 11:47Speaker 03

  At least they're not gonna announce another product called the Jamboard and have to rename the Jamboard in like, five years, the way that Microsoft did with the Surface.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  So what's special about this Jamboard that costs $5,000?

• 11:58Speaker 04

  Well, so it competes with the Surface Hub, which is Microsoft's version of the Jamboard. Jamboard is way more exciting of a name. Really, it's just a collaborative, massive digital whiteboard, which is just cool. Yeah, it's 4K.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  Does it do anything? Does it animate emojis?

• 12:14Speaker 03

  If it is vaguely the way I've ever seen people use the Surface, it's like a whiteboard that if you're...

• 12:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, you can draw on it.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  You can draw on it, but it's like it's a telepresence whiteboard, so if you have a bunch of people in different, I don't know, offices, as one presumably does, then it appears on all these whiteboards simultaneously. It probably also does some kind of like animation stuff, I don't know.

• 12:34Speaker 01

  I feel like the most exciting thing I've ever seen happen on a giant interactive board is when like weathermen like move shit around and like during the news like nightly show when they're like, ah, look at this. Statistics are like, we're CNN and we're going to show you now and like, let me drag this piece of news over and like, check this out and like, I don't understand how that can cost $5,000.

• 12:55Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, it says that there are different touchpoints and there's 16 touchpoints. You can obviously have multiple hands on this board as built in microphones, speakers. It's just supposed to be the thing you put in your meeting rooms and you guys can all use it and collaborate and whatever you're doing.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  It sounds extremely chaotic to have more than one person touching a giant board at the same time.

• 13:16Speaker 04

  Hey girl, I don't know how these people do their meetings, but.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  That's the funny thing is the game, like Microsoft, it was all about games. That was the only thing people demoed on it was that you turned it over like a table and you had people like pushing around a puck or something and playing air hockey with their fingers. Because it was cool that it could detect different hands.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, but the tilt is pretty cool on that. You gotta mean when they turn it down, you're like, okay, that's kind of cool.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  No, it's awesome. The idea of a table, like the idea of a smart table that you can draw is so much cooler than a whiteboard.

• 13:42Speaker 04

  Totally, totally. And I believe that the Jamboard does tilt.

• 13:46Speaker 03

  I really feel like it should be a skateboard. I feel like I should be able to surf on it or something.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  One day, Addie. One day, Google will do this for you, I hope.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Speaking of other boards, Google also had some other board, other board related news. They released an update to their Gboard keyboard app and it's awesome. It now auto detects when you type and you want to translate your language into different foreign language and that's really cool. I feel like all of us know somebody who, like, we live in New York. We communicate with a lot of people from different backgrounds and like, sometimes I use Google Translate to translate things to Thai so I can talk to my mom and I feel like this is awesome. So that's like Jamboard, Gboard, awesome board. Thank you, Google.

• 14:26Speaker 03

  So I actually had a question about that because so Gboard already, it had the sort of assistant center thing where you could. Auto-translate a page. What is new about this auto-translate?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  I think that like as you type now, there is a little thing that pops up at the very top that you can it it it's basically like Google Translate got built into the keyboard like, you know, like on some texting app, you can type and then like it detects that maybe you want an emoji and then like suggests emoji. So like in this, I think that they are able to have it automatically translated and like as you're typing. So you can just tap and then change the word into whatever that foreign language is, which I guess saves time.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  Eventually, it'll be like a save your wharf kind of thing where it'll be like, I detect the contents of your speech and I believe you could translate what you're saying better if it were in German. And then you translate it into German and you get one of those giant like portmanteau words. And then translate it into other languages. That's an awesome future.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  I also wonder what happens if you just like tap it back and forth and then just like get a super mangled paragraph at the end. It's just like, this is poetry.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  You get the classic translate songs back and forth and see if you can guess them game.

• 15:32Speaker 01

  Not all Google News were super exciting this week. We got some news about Google Pixel and how it's having some major microphone issues. My Google claims that it only affects like less than 1% of phones.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  We have a lot of Pixel lovers on staff.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, and there's a lot of big Pixel lovers online too, and they've all flocked to like the support page to complain to Google about how their Pixels microphones won't work and they all get replacements and they still don't work. So there's like a big hard

• 16:02Speaker 04

  Wait, really?

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there's a big hardware issue going on here and Google is really attempting to downplay how bad it is. It doesn't seem that way.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  I mean, they said that it's only affecting less than 1% of devices, so.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  It's tough if you are getting replacement devices that are also not working, though. That seems really unlikely, unless you have some kind of batch-based problem.

• 16:21Speaker 04

  Well, they said that in their quote, it was a quote-unquote hairline crack, but they said it's only affecting less than 1% of devices.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  And to be fair, people have had such a hard time getting a Pixel that it probably amounts to like a couple thousand devices because people can't buy Google Pixels.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Are they still sold? I I pre-ordered mine like five hours before pre-orders closed.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  I think it like magically came back online one weekend for like two hours and I think Chris Welch on staff managed to get his hands on it. And after that, it went offline again and people were just kind of like yelling at their computers until their shipment statuses update.

• 16:59Speaker 03

  The Pixel is like the only Google phone people have been excited about.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  I know, that's why this is so sad. Because the camera is so damn good.

• 17:07Speaker 03

  So much of it is good. Like, I should stop talking about the Pixel. I really like the Pixel.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  So do I, and I think a lot of people would like to like it, but microphone problems. What are we gonna do? And not shipping.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  It's funny, does I think a problem like the Nexus 4 had or something, I think it was audio problems? You just couldn't hear it. It also had lots of other problems. It was terrible.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  As long as they're not blowing up, I feel like people have such a low baseline now for what makes the good phone.

• 17:30Speaker 03

  Wow, that's a metaphor.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Another big Google thing that happened, Google is still trying to make messaging a thing. They relaunched Hangouts into this Hangouts Chat thing that they want to go against Slack. And it's very confusing. It's called Google Hangouts Chat, which is not the same as Gchat. It's all one.

• 17:53Speaker 03

  Or Hangouts, is it not the same as Hangouts?

• 17:55Speaker 01

  And it's not the same as Hangouts. We don't know what the hell it is. It's supposed to facilitate group chats. It looks basically like Slack, but completely flat design and white. It looks really pretty, but Google has a million messaging apps. Like, what is it, what's, why can't it figure out what it's doing here?

• 18:12Speaker 03

  Or at the very least, why does it not have a custom launcher that will just hold all of your messaging apps in one place? I guess you could just do a folder, but that would be so much easier.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  See, the thing is, there's a bunch of third-party apps that like claims to like, "Oh, we'll centralize all your messaging apps, and we'll centralize all your emails and all this stuff." It's like, I don't, like, I shouldn't have to ask a third-party, like, person to help me do that. Like, Google should just not do that.

• 18:34Speaker 03

  My standards are low. I don't even need it to integrate them all into one app. I just need a thing to remind me what all the Google apps that are out there right now are.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I need a guide to Google apps, for real. Yeah, and like, even though we're really annoyed that Google has released yet another messaging product, they also didn't really want to talk about it at the Google Next conference. Like, Dieter Bowen was there. He was waiting for them to announce it because he thought that this is a big thing that Google is now doing yet again. And they're taking on a big company like Slack, and everybody loves Slack, and there's like a cult following for Slack. And they didn't even mention it on stage. It's like, is Google, does Google even care anymore?

• 19:15Speaker 03

  That's kind of like the position Microsoft is in for enterprise, though, right? That it's super boring and nobody cares, but everybody's on it, so it doesn't matter and they don't have to advertise it.

• 19:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what I'm wondering is if people are just like forced into the Google apps. Like, they'll care when they have to use it, I guess, if your company decides to switch over to Gmail and then everything else that comes with it. But until that day comes, like, I don't know. Like, we're on Slack here, but we do use Gmail. I feel like we're in a really interesting spot because we're tech reporters, but I really don't have to share documents all that often. I'm like, okay, one Google Doc a week, share that with you. Like, I just work in our CMS. Like, I feel very sheltered from app world, enterprise app world. So I feel for all the office workers out there who have like 10, 100 apps to navigate.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  But like, let's pretend Slack actually doesn't exist and we have to use Google.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  Actually, if Slack didn't exist, we would be using IRC.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  True.

• 20:03Speaker 03

  Like we did for many years.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  That's true, but now that Hangouts, Hangout, Google Hangouts Chat, not just Hangouts, Hangout Chats is a thing. If Slack didn't exist, would you use Hangout Chats? Would you, would you then go to just regular Hangouts to talk to your coworkers? Or would you just go to the little bubble of Gchat, I mean, Hangouts that is in your Gmail client that you can use to just DM somebody? Like, which is it? Or like, do you use ALO to like coordinate a thing? Because you and your coworkers have to like hit up a meeting? Or like go to a presentation? Or which, which would it be? There's too many options. And I just don't understand why Google keeps making so many different apps.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Like, I understand the need to be consumer-facing versus enterprise-facing. But fundamentally, all it does is let people talk to each other. Like, that shouldn't be, there's no need for a variety. Like, I think people just want to be able to talk to each other and like get the message straight.

• 21:05Speaker 03

  What we need is Google Assistant to be able to tell us what we'll need to use at any given moment. I mean, actually, that would be cool if something could more or less deduce what you were going to do and pick which app would be good for it. Like, are you trying to collaborate on a document with lots of people? I'll open up Slack clone. Is this, you know, your boyfriend? I will open up Hangouts or whatever and I'll encrypt it.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Hey, Google, tell me how I should talk to my friends.

• 21:34Speaker 03

  Careful with this.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Hey, Google, I need to sex. What should I do? Well, OK, what else happened with Google? There's now a Google Cloud Video API, which is an AI that looks at videos and tries to figure out what's going on and is like machine learning and image recognition but for video, which I think is kind of significant. We see this a lot in image recognition. People, everyone from Facebook to Flickr now has image recognition and machine learning and are now trying to group and sort and tag photos. But this is one of the first few things that we're seeing big companies start making a push for in video. I think that's kind of cool.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  It has weirdly political sort of internet cultural ramifications because for a really long time, if you want to say something really terrible, you go to YouTube and say it. That's sort of why this whole Milo Yiannopoulos thing didn't blow up for so long, because you can Ctrl+F through a bunch of text and so you can like eviscerate somebody if they did a tweet or if they write blog posts. But if it's video, like audio recognition still wasn't great. Like, you can't really tell who's on, you can't tell who's saying what. You can't really mine it. And the idea that now video will eventually be as completely searchable and quantifiable as text is really weird.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, how do you feel about that, though?

• 22:52Speaker 03

  I feel like I'm getting even because I like text. And so if you're, I'm going to suffer with this, you will all suffer with me.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  It makes our jobs easier, I think.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  I think I also did a video a couple of days ago that it enabled this gen, it's called the GDIQ and it measures gender on screen. It's like a robotic Bechdel test detector. So it can detect gender of characters presumably imperfectly on a screen and then tell how long they're talking and how long they're on screen and calculate the percentage of like women's screen time in Oscar-winning movies or whatever.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Oh, interesting. But what is it basing that off of? Is it just like, that lady's wearing a dress, lady, like?

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Ah, it's facial features, as far as I can tell. It seems weird because, yeah, as somebody who... Like, yeah, there's a lot of weird, gender-fluid people in my life. I don't know how it would detect those people. But that's, it's Hollywood. Hollywood doesn't.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  It's clearly never met a usual kilt. Okay, so I, I want to jam on over to a new topic, you guys. This is really important. Jam on? I'm gonna make- You're over the Enterprise software? I'm gonna, I'm gonna make jamming a new thing we do. Uh, I want to talk about Iron Fist, because I am deeply upset about Iron Fist.

• 23:59Speaker 03

  Okay, so I don't know what Iron Fist is, but apparently my, the people of my culture are upset.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  Okay, so, um, a quick background. So basically Netflix has been creating these shows with Marvel, um, that are based on The Defenders, which is kind of like low-rent The Avengers. Um, it's like this team based in New York, and it's Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Iron Fist. So everybody's gotten their own show. Daredevil's up to season two. Um, Iron Fist is the last of The Defenders to like get his own show. This will lead up to, um, the actual team-up mini-series that is also called The Defenders. So basically, Iron Fist, it's coming out March 17th, but reviews have finally hit. It's about Danny Rand, who is, the story is supposed to be this like fish out of water story about this like white guy who learns mystical martial arts and then comes back to New York and fights ninjas. So, it's already struggling. This is like a really-

• 24:51Speaker 03

  That's a bad idea. Yeah. It's like, it's really bad.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  It's, it's really bad, and it's hard because, um, if you look at what, you know, Netflix and Marvel have already done, Luke Cage was an excellent show because Luke Cage is a black superhero in Harlem who is fighting in a hoodie and is bulletproof. Like, that means something, right? Like, the whole thing is about the black experience and what it's like to be a hero. Um, Jessica Jones, the entire plot is essentially hunting down your rapist. Like, it is like serious shit. Like, that is a show that I can recommend and have recommended to people who don't like comics and still are just like here to see these characters do their thing. I didn't like Daredevil that much, but I don't know, it's-

• 25:30Speaker 03

  Daredevil, I think the review that we have up of Iron Fist is really good at the idea that, yeah, you have this leading man who projects Catholic guilt and he has a central motivation that makes sense, and the fight scenes are sometimes good, and I don't think it's that good either. But I can, I see why you could like it. Iron Fist, among other things, is just, there are certain tropes that feel so, like, dated and discredited that it's like, oh, you're gonna like remake Birth of a Nation? No, no, you're not gonna do that anymore. So, some plots just don't seem like they should be resurrected.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's tricky because the representation is not great. And that's what a lot of people are upset about because like this was a good chance for them to remake this character. It was a white guy originally, but they could have put an Asian actor into a show and made this mean something. Instead, you have Danny Rand, a white guy, played by Finn Jones from Game of Thrones, who will occasionally just like mansplain martial arts to like one of the other female slash Asian characters in the show. Like, at one point, he's talking about martial arts in her fucking dojo to her. Like, she's like a master of this. It's insane. But even if you take all that away, like, the show itself is just kind of boring. Like, it's very clearly not the best written out of all of them. It's slow. Like, I will say, I've only seen the first six episodes.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  I don't know, by the time the sixth one wrapped up, I was like, I'd keep watching because I want to know what happens, but I feel like it's like visual Stockholm syndrome. Like, I'm in, I'm here. I'm here to see the rest of it.

• 26:55Speaker 04

  Once you've committed a certain amount of time, you're like, alright, we're gonna just do this.

• 26:59Speaker 03

  Really? I don't do that.

• 27:01Speaker 04

  Really?

• 27:02Speaker 03

  I have so many shows I'm like halfway through that I've dropped because I'm lazy.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  If I make it past the first two episodes, I feel like I'm committed.

• 27:10Speaker 03

  Like, I've seen people on Twitter talking about ways that this show could have been interesting. I think, so, I think it was Grant Morrison's Animal Man comics, which were all about deconstructing stuff. And there was a superhero called Buana Beast, whose thing was kind of like this but for vaguely African culture. And that the entire thing was just him dealing with the fact that this weird mystical thing made a white guy the protector of this realm. And him trying, as I remember, to like hand this over. But this basically just seems like a boring superhero, generic superhero thing.

• 27:42Speaker 00

  It just feels like a missed opportunity. Someone said, you know, the character Colleen Wing, who is the dojo master I mentioned earlier, like, wow, wouldn't it have been great if she was actually Iron Fist, if they had taken that actress and made it a woman, if not an Asian, like, an actual Asian actress or actor? It's a missed opportunity. They could have done something cool with this. They could have made this character revolutionary in some way or relevant to any conversation today, but it just feels very tone deaf, especially because Asian actors have so few chances to have big leading roles like this or to be heroes in this way.

• 28:14Speaker 03

  Right. And that sounds all social justice-y, but it's also that just makes it specific. That superhero movies have been done so many times that the idea of anything that makes this distinctive is just something I'm going to be grabbing for. And it does not sound like it has. That sounds really bad.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's just, even if you can get past the representation issues, it's just boring. That is my review of Iron Fist so far. It's boring and the writing is bad and God bless those actors who are doing the best they can with what they have. Speaking of doing the best you can with what you have, let's talk about dating apps.

• 28:50Speaker 04

  Oh, sad.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  Sadest segue of all time. So Tinder, we found out this week, Tinder has a very exclusive dating app available called Tinder Select that seems to be just for hot or rich people.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, it sounds like they pick you out of the crowd and they're like, hey, you're hot. You get to be on this new exclusive part of Tinder where you only get to see other hot people and maybe some famous people, too.

• 29:18Speaker 03

  So when I was reading this, it was saying, it didn't just say hot people, it said like supermodels. It implied that it was basing this on someone else's external judgment and it wasn't just going through and picking people who are attractive. And I'm unclear on which one of those things it is.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  You mean like attractive off of just like, like a scientific level?

• 29:37Speaker 03

  Are they like a talent scout or are they a bouncer? Are they looking at this and saying, you're a model, you put this in your profile, I'm going to put you on Hot Tinder? Or are they looking through people and actually like seeing how they're rated? Because OK Cupid had a thing that was if you were rated above average, you got into this special club where you got to see hotter people. And it was weird.

• 29:59Speaker 04

  I got the impression that... They are operating under the assumption that if you're just a general hot person, like a model or something like that, you're going to get swiped right on all the time, regardless of who the person is that's viewing you. Maybe you're not really their type, but if you're just a general hot person, they're gonna swipe right on you because you're a general hot person. So those people are now being inducted into the new level of Tinder. That's the impression I got.

• 30:23Speaker 03

  It's not just hot people, though, because they also say it's CEOs and upwardly affluent types. So it's rich people. So there must be some sort of system, because like, how do you figure out who's a rich person based off of their photos?

• 30:34Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, like, Tinder doesn't ask you to... I mean, I guess most apps can probably figure out your demographics in some way, but that seems...

• 30:42Speaker 04

  Because it does connect with Facebook.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  Right, exactly. So I think in some ways, they can use the Facebook integration to figure out some... your demographic in some way. But I also feel like, once, like, I don't know anybody who's part of exclusive hot Tinder, but I feel like, once you're there, I wonder if you get, like, a placebo, like, Tinder moment, like, when you're there and you're like, "Oh, man, everybody here is hot, and everyone here is awesome, and everyone here is exclusive." Like, if someone handed you, like, a glass of red wine and said it was, like, some $9 bottle, you're like, "Ah, yeah, whatever." But if someone told you, like, "Oh, this is some exclusive $50 bottle from, like, 2005 Reserve, whatever," are you, like, instantly like, "Oh, man, this wine is great." So I wonder if, like, you're

• 31:24Speaker 01

  in this hot Tinder, and you're like, "Oh, everyone here is so great, and like, I'm so, like, it's so prestigious to be here, and what an honor. I'm just gonna swipe right on, like, fucking everybody, because everyone here is hot, like, because we're in this exclusive club," like, when really, it's probably just, like, some dude who, like, had money, or like, some dude who knew the guy who made Tinder, or like, some dude who went out once and partied with an engineer, who was like, "Yeah, I'll get into hot Tinder."

• 31:52Speaker 03

  But like, it doesn't... You will also, like, never want to leave, right? So you'll never want to settle down with anybody, because you'll get kicked out of the hot Tinder club.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  Maybe.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  The problematic thing is that the way this is described just makes it sound like it's preserving sort of gender roles in which you pick rich guys and hot women.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. But, I mean, Tinder, I mean...

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Generally Tinder is viewed as a hookup app anyway, like I don't really know that people are there.

• 32:18Speaker 03

  I've never used Tinder.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  I've met a couple of people who have met their like long-term boyfriend or girlfriends or partners like on Tinder, which is crazy to me.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, I've also heard of many people who've used Tinder for hookups. So it's like, maybe it's easy to just hook up with like rich people who are, you know, vain enough to just care about the fact that they're super hot and it's fine. And then they have fun and then they come back to hot Tinder and find the next rich hot person to hook up with.

• 32:43Speaker 04

  I don't know why, but I just, I haven't quite figured out my issue with these types of apps where they segment you. Like there's Raya, I think it's called, where it's exclusive, you have to get an invite. And then there's also like, I guess, Okay Keep It, like you said, Addie.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Okay Keep It is an older generation and I'm really glad I got in that generation of dating apps where it was obsessively like self-curating what you were gonna say and it was like obsessively faux-intellectual. And it was all about connecting via words and things like that.

• 33:11Speaker 04

  I just wonder though, like are they making, are they doing these more segmented apps to get hot people to use their app? Like what's the perk here for Tinder? Like, why is Tinder segmenting like this? Like, do they just want hot people to be like, oh, if I can find other hot people, I'll use this app? Or is it like, I'm not finding enough hot people, so I need to be in my own group? Like, I don't understand why they're creating this separate tier.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  Honestly, probably because it's really cheap to make the separate tier and it'll get people to talk about Tinder. Like we're doing, right now.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  But I feel, but I feel like it makes regular people who clearly haven't gotten invited to hot Tinder being like, well, fuck Tinder doesn't think I'm attractive. Like, why am I gonna keep using this shit?

• 33:48Speaker 03

  Well, you'll keep, put more work into it, but become attractive.

• 33:50Speaker 04

  Well, and you'll pay.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  I, okay. Uh, I think that this is, not that I'm saying it's okay, but I'm just like, I don't know if I'd wanna be in that tier anyway, because I feel like everybody in there is probably insufferable. Like, I don't think these are people that I'd wanna date anyway. Says Meg, and I don't wanna be in hot Tinder. Um, but two, like, I am really curious like how they vet it. Like, if I like make a profile with like photos of Kate Upton, if anybody works on Tinder hot select, select, or Tinder Select, hot Tinder, like, please don't listen to this section. If I make a fucking profile photo that's just like Kate and like slip in, like, are they gonna realize I'm a fake? Like, can I like?

• 34:24Speaker 04

  Are they gonna catch the catfishers?

• 34:26Speaker 00

  Can I be a catfisher on Tinder Select and get in?

• 34:29Speaker 03

  Is this Tinder Select fake news?

• 34:31Speaker 00

  I'm going undercover.

• 34:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know. All I know is I'm very curious about these types of segmented dating apps. And an artist I follow who I'm very in love with, it's a woman, she's just amazing, I'm not gonna say her name, but she's always making Instagram stories about Raya, which is the exclusive dating app. And it sounds like it's really not that great out there. So that's what I've taken away from her, is that actually these super hot people dating apps are just as bad as regular dating apps.

• 34:58Speaker 00

  I feel like if you're somebody like, I don't know, if you're Rihanna on Tinder, like, you probably do need that separation, because then you just get swarmed by like, fans. So it's like, if you are a supermodel, or somebody who's like, an influencer, maybe you do need it to be happy and find love. I don't know.

• 35:15Speaker 03

  Isn't the fantasy of being Rihanna that you never have to?

• 35:18Speaker 04

  That's the other thing. Yeah, like, if I'm Rihanna on a dating app, I'm really depressed.

• 35:24Speaker 00

  We don't know if this is true. Rihanna, if you're listening, please let us know.

• 35:29Speaker 04

  Although, there was a story about Zac Efron on Tinder, once.

• 35:32Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 04

  Where he actually had a Tinder profile, and people didn't swipe right on him, because they thought it was a joke. And he was like, no, like, I'm really on Tinder, and I'm really just trying to find someone to love.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Oh, my god, Zac, I'd swipe on you.

• 35:49Speaker 00

  So if you've enjoyed listening to us talk about Tinder, and Google, and all kinds of stuff, support for today's show comes from Squarespace. Whatever your next big idea might be, count on Squarespace to help you create an eye-catching online platform that brings it to life. Whether you're planning to start a new business, launch a creative project, or change careers, Squarespace's beautifully designed templates and customizable features give you everything you need to look like an expert right from the start. You even get a unique domain to set you apart in the field. So, Squarespace, there's a Verge code. If you enter VERGE in all caps, you get 100% off your first purchase.

• 36:21Speaker 04

  What did podcasts do before Squarespace?

• 36:24Speaker 00

  Didn't make money.

• 36:27Speaker 04

  Literally, how did podcasts exist before Squarespace?

• 36:31Speaker 00

  So, Ashley, you are here in place of Paul, which means that you have a special weekly segment to talk about in place of Paul. And I bet it has a better name than Paul's.

• 36:40Speaker 04

  Yes. My weekly segment called, Yo, When Will I Be Able to Afford This Phone Case?

• 36:46Speaker 00

  That's a great name. That's so good.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, it seems like it has very wide applicability.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  Louis Vuitton made a new phone case that I introduced this week that costs over $5,000 and is made out of crocodile skin. I love phone cases personally. It's kind of, I won't go on a whole rant, but basically I just enjoy phone cases because I feel like it's pretty much the only way I can express individuality with a smartphone at this point. So I think the $5,500 Louis Vuitton phone case is, definitely makes a statement. It's one way to express individuality. And you know, I'm gonna lust for this one, but I'm never gonna be able to afford it.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  Does it protect your phone though? Okay, when I get a case-

• 37:27Speaker 03

  Crocodiles, they're very tough.

• 37:28Speaker 00

  They're tough. That's actually a very good point. Like when I get a phone case, like I drop my phone a lot and the case is there to be Bubble Boy, the phone case.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  But I feel like if people own Louis Vuitton, like most Louis Vuittons I see are like purses or wallets, right? And then like, if I ever drop those things on the floor, I'd probably scream. So like, if I have a Louis Vuitton phone case and I drop it on the ground, I would full out cry.

• 37:51Speaker 03

  If you ever can afford a Louis Vuitton case, you never touch the ground. You're in cars at all times, in carpets.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  I still, you can still drop things even if you're in cars all the time.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, but cars are padded. They probably have crocodile skin on them.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  No, like if you're getting out of the car, like that's usually when I drop my phone. It's like, I always drop it when I'm getting out of a car. I don't know what it is. It's just like, that momentum of like, stepping over a little thing, like always forces me to drop my phone.

• 38:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's also just alludes to this idea that we've seen actually a ton of designers release their own phone cases and like, obviously, this goes kind of without saying, but hey, I'll say it anyways. Your phone, your phone is obviously your number one accessory. So like, if you're a fashion person, what are you doing when you're going out to the fashion shows? You're taking photos with your phone. When you're out just being photographed at the club, you're probably holding your phone. So it's really advantageous for these designers to get their phone case. In front of the cameras and I just love that this extreme luxury market has sprung up. That's so ridiculous, but also like, alright, cool, I guess there's someone out there who genuinely wants this $5,500 crocodile leather phone case.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  So I'm gonna make people mad about luxury for the second time this week and say this is actually way more practical than what existed before, which was the Virtu Phone. Like, this seems so practical compared to a $100,000 feature phone that's like encrusted with diamonds shaped like a dragon. That's gonna be like obsolete in a year.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  A dragon phone sounds pretty good.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  Oh no, it's great, I'm obsessed with Virtu Phones. Amazing. But no, it's like you get the phone that's crocodile skin and made by Cadillac or something, but it's the world's worst phone.

• 39:28Speaker 04

  It's true. Yeah, at least you still have the iPhone in here for this one.

• 39:32Speaker 00

  You guys, what's going on with WikiLeaks? I've been out of the loop on this one.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  Addywanna?

• 39:37Speaker 03

  So I can see the setup for this, which is that in February WikiLeaks started tweeting things that made it sound like it was gonna run some kind of ARG. It was a bunch of photos that were like, what is Vault 7? Who is Vault 7? Where is Vault 7? And people alternately thought maybe this referred to releasing Hillary Clinton's emails, which was pretty boring, or maybe releasing a theory about 9/11, which was more exciting. It turned out it was about the CIA. And so it's a bunch of CIA documents. As far as I know, this is not all of them, but the most interesting thing that people seem to have found so far is that Samsung's smart TVs have a vulnerability. I am not a security expert and I don't know exactly how much of a vulnerability is.

• 40:22Speaker 03

  Ashley, do you have a great sense of this?

• 40:24Speaker 04

  Well, okay, so I think the first thing is just noting that like, as you mentioned, Addy, WikiLeaks is hyping this so, so much, like, oh my god, what's gonna come? And really, their leak just reinforced everything we assumed about the government, and that is that they hoard vulnerabilities to get into Apple devices, Android devices, Samsung TVs apparently. The Samsung TVs, everyone was worried about this, I think it kinda confirms the idea of like... Hey, if you put a connected device in your living room with a microphone, it's entirely possible that someone out there is maybe considering a way to get into that device. I think it was just, we don't know if it's been used in the wild or not, but like if hackers

• 41:09Speaker 04

  have exploited this before. But I think that the bigger picture is more just like hitting, this hits consumers of, oh my gosh, should I be afraid? Is, I think it just hammers home the idea of like, is it a good idea to buy connected devices and are you willing to take those risks?

• 41:23Speaker 03

  The thing that's scary, scary to me about TVs specifically is that it seems like TV manufacturers will not let you not pick new features, that they just throw everything into their newest model. So it's like, I cannot get Alexa very easily. If I'm buying a new TV, what are the odds that in a couple of years, every single TV will be a smart TV with this kind of listening tech?

• 41:44Speaker 04

  Exactly, yeah, I think it's, that's kind of what's tough about the market right now is everything is connected and it's getting harder and harder to get those non-connected devices, even toys, which we've seen a ton of. Being kind of security conscious, you are probably aware of, okay, I don't think I should buy this random stuffed animal that connects the internet for my kid. But a lot of people do it because it seems like a fun idea in the moment and obviously there's, they sell it to you, it's fun. But, I don't know, it just sucks because I feel bad for people who don't realize that actually there are security implications behind these devices. And what's interesting too is like, these are the big name companies who are putting resources behind their security. And it also demonstrates that like, the government can find a way in, I think.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think the question is partly how easy or hard it is to compromise because if it's like, someone has to physically enter your house and get access to this and plug a USB stick in, that is not of interest for anyone except people who are, should be very paranoid already and probably care about this. If it's like, if you open a particular TV show, then it hacks your TV, which as far as I know is not a thing that exists, then that's actually really scary.

• 42:55Speaker 04

  Right, totally. But it's called Weeping Angel.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Oh, no, that's the other thing. It has the most amazing name.

• 43:01Speaker 04

  Who names this stuff?

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Literally every.

• 43:03Speaker 03

  And the Doctor Who.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Literally every exploit ever has like the most epic name. It's like, whoa, this just made security kind of somewhat fascinating.

• 43:13Speaker 00

  Well, you have to make it sound cool. So people will pay attention. It's like, yo, you heard about that Weeping Angel thing?

• 43:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 43:19Speaker 00

  That's bad.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  The opposite. I think it's that they never get to tell people about this stuff unless it leaks. And so they have free rein to do whatever they want. And this is their only outlet for creativity. And so they're like, you know what? We're just going to give things the weirdest names we possibly can. Which is a similar principle to like military operations, where you get like Operation Brunch.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Maybe every Sunday.

• 43:40Speaker 03

  Or maybe Operation Snack. I can't remember.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  They just make it sound so epic. Like it's some kind of like they want someone to like make a movie out of it. It's like heart bleeds. Like, oh, man.

• 43:48Speaker 03

  And they did with Prism. Prism kind of technically maybe got a movie if you count Snowden. And Prism was a great name.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it just made it sound so like cool. And it's not cool at all. I don't know. It's like hard to get it. Like, it's like you get excited about it and you're like, oh, fuck. My TV is like hackable. Oh, man.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Is that good, though? Maybe that gets people to take security more seriously? Because if you're like, oh, yeah, it's.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  No, but then you get excited about it and you're like, oh, man. But then my, like, that means I have to throw away my phone now.

• 44:16Speaker 03

  No, that's good. It scares them. It scares them straight. That you're like, oh, my, my phone might get infected with Weeping Angel? I'm throwing that in the trash. Whereas if it's no name, you're like, whatever, I don't care.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Or like if it's got a lame name, it's like, oh, man.

• 44:31Speaker 04

  But just to fully clarify, yes, it is now, it realized the exploit that the CIA was using relies on outdated firmware that you've probably updated by now. And also, I'm pretty sure the firmware has been discontinued at this point. And yeah, it was a USB. So really, general consumers do not have to worry about this exploit. But like. Again, I still think it kind of hits at the idea that people are attempting these, the government at least, is attempting these kind of efforts.

• 44:56Speaker 03

  And now the government is basically run by trolls, so 4chan is probably also doing something. I don't know.

• 45:01Speaker 00

  Everything is wonderful. Okay, so I think that is our show. Thanks again to our sponsor, Crizal. So if you like The Verge, and I hope you do because you listen to the show, you should follow us on Twitter. We're at The Verge. We're on Snapchat as The Verge, or on Instagram as The Verge. You can rate or review us on iTunes. You also can check out all their podcasts. We have Control Waltz Lee, which is my favorite name of all time, every Thursday. We've got Too Embarrassed to Ask with Lauren Good, Recode Decode with Kara Swisher, Recode Media with Peter Kafka. Something really important that I should have mentioned at the top of the hour, we're going to be at South by Southwest doing a live show with an audience, and you could be in that audience, I guess, if you want to. So you can check out Recode Media

• 45:42Speaker 00

  March 10th, Too Embarrassed to Ask March 11th, The Vergecast is going to be March 12th. Then we take a break. We've got Recode Decode March 13th, and then Vergecast is back March 14th. It's going to be great. It'll be Neelai, Dieter, Casey's going to be on, I'm going to be on, so you should come check it out. So yeah, you can leave us a review on iTunes and check us out on Twitter. I'm Megan Nicolet. Everybody else, we've got...

• 46:05Speaker 01

  I'm at NatGaren, that's two Ts.

• 46:07Speaker 03

  Ashley R. Carmen. I'm the dextrarchy, like patriarchy, but with right-handed things.

• 46:12Speaker 01

  That's what that is. I've always wondered.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a joke from college.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 46:15Speaker 03

  Because I'm left-handed.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Oh, are you?

• 46:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  There's only left-handers on the team, I'm so excited.

• 46:19Speaker 03

  Oppressed by the dextrarchy.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  Okay, thanks for listening.