 Giving a whole new meaning to preheating. This is FIRST. Well, we're back on FIRST, the Verge morning show. I'm Josh Topolsky. I'm Ross Miller. And it's been a crazy couple of days. It's really a disturbing couple of days. Kind of wish it was over already. It would be great if CES just ended right now and we could go home and go to sleep for several thousand hours. But we can do that. We're here. We're here to serve. For you. This is of course FIRST, our morning show where we recap the events of the previous day. We talk about what's to come for today. And this is the point where CES really begins to slow down a little bit. People are walking slower because of injuries. And I think that this is the point where I think we start to have a lot of fun because we get to go find weird stories and weird things out on the floor. But we're not done with events yet. No. Still stuff happening. We're still. There's the T-Mobile thing today. But that is kind of one of the last big... The highly controversial T-Mobile event. Yes. And we'll talk about that later. This is though, the show floors have been open for one day. Most of the press conferences really are done. It's now the time where we get to look at things. Last year when we were at this point, it's where we found the Pebbles, where we found the Oculus Rift. The real big stories that we really enjoy, the smaller companies that actually had an impact throughout the year. This is the time where we'll start finding them. Yeah. I think once you get through that, the kind of haze of Samsung and LG and all these companies with their curved whatevers, you do start to... You see the little guys are sort of out there and the noise has died down. You can actually go find them. Right. And I think speaking of little guys... Speaking of little guys. We have something here in the studio, which I'm pretty excited about. I'm very excited about this. We've got the new Pebble Steel. New Pebble Steel. We've got a couple options here. You have the whole box package. I actually have... This is cool. You want to check that out? We got the retail packaging. I don't know if anybody can see this. Probably not. Should I just throw this over to you? Actually... You can get an overhead shot. I can, yes. I do want to unbox this though, live on the show. This is the package right here. Once you open that lid, give it back to me. You got it. All right, now hand it back to me. That is beautiful. Give that to me. Anyhow, so this is the silver one. Now I'm more of a fan of the black. So Pebble last year was kind of a big story of the show, and we were very excited. I'm going to break this. This is broken. I'm not good at unboxing things. It's been a long time. You've been unboxing as a professional for many years now. But there's some other stuff in here, which I'm not going to. It's a charging cable. I have to say, I've said it a couple of times now. Last year, Pebble was a big story for us because it's this Kickstarter thing that became a real product, and it's a real product that actually works. I've never been a fan of the design, the plastic design. This one is definitely the one you've got here. What do you have, the black version? The black and black. I think the all metal with the metal face and metal strap is actually a pretty handsome look. I could see myself wearing this as an actual watch, which is a big change for me. Because there's not another smart watch that I've looked at and said, yeah, I could wear that. Right, and we've seen a number of smart watches this week, especially. Metawatch, which brought in Frank Nuovo, the R2 designer. Metawatch, which I've eviscerated on several broadcasts. I have seen that a few times. The weird thing about Metawatch is that here's a company that brings in this R2 designer, and it's supposed to be like, oh my god, they're going to create something amazing, and they create this, which I think is, it looks like it's from 1996. It's completely dated. I will say the staff is somewhat divided because I think it is a very classic looking design. Not this kind of classic, not refined, not luxurious, but it is something that stands out more than, say, a Fitbit Flex or a Fuelband, which is what we're seeing by and large here at the show. What are the health tracking features of the Metawatch? Must be like Fit. Well, actually, I don't know. But I'm assuming there are. I don't think there are any. I don't know. But, Merriam, are there any health tracking features of the Fitbit Flex? Or, not the Fitbit Flex, the Metawatch. Metawatch. You know? You don't know. Right, exactly. Merriam is an old friend of ours who's now a Pavel PR. Gone to the dark side. Switch sides. But, you know, I've got to say, I'm looking at this, and I'm liking it. Really? Surprisingly. You know, half the staff has already bought one. No, I know. People went a little bit crazy. So, you actually got it. You know how some of the new functions work on this thing. Why don't we run through some of the features of the Pebble. I clearly have not had enough sleep. You've had more sleep this year than I'd say. No, maybe, but I feel completely insane right now. Yeah. And if we're speaking of the Pebble, most of our staff is critically sick right now. Yes. I'm recovering. I've actually been sick for the last three days. So, but that has nothing to do with this delightful Pebble deal. Let's go ahead. So, obviously we've got the old Pebble here and the new Pebbles. What Pebbles does is it lets you run through a few of the software demos. Let's get these out of the way. I'm going to put this box away. So, the big thing here, obviously we have all the same watch faces that we had before. You go with this, you get notification menus much closer. Not only that, you can actually look through the old notifications you had. So, once you've had them, they don't immediately go away. They go all the way down here and we start getting into some of the apps that are available. There's DriveStyle, which is for Mercedes-Benz. We don't have a car here we can use that with, but no, that's a one. Yeah, that's a shame. Pebble Cam. It's a shame we don't have a Mercedes here. I know. Pebble Cam is kind of an interesting one. Let me go ahead and real quick. Oh, yeah, Pebble Cam. This is a new thing. Is this a third-party app? This is a third-party app. Small little company, actually. And what you do is it connects to your phone camera. I'll make sure it's working right now. Seems to be good to go. And then it becomes your viewfinder for your camera, which is actually really nice. Like a very slow updating viewfinder. Wait. You need to run the app and you get up. Yeah. Sorry, let's get this in. Let's connect it. We've only done this one time. Yeah, I have to apologize for that. It's going to take us a couple of seconds to get this working. That looks like it's working. It looks like it's working? Yeah. So, if we face it to you right now. Here's the middle button on the watch takes pictures. Great. And so we can actually use the watch right here. Sorry, I'm double-handing this real quick. There. And we've got a beautiful picture. Okay, but I have to ask. Is this really more convenient than just taking a picture with a smartphone? No. It doesn't feel like it is. I will say that it's cool. It's a very impressive tech demo. No, it's cool, but it doesn't actually feel like it's an improvement on pulling your phone out of your pocket and just snapping a picture. No, but let's say you're putting this like, this is the kind of Sony NX lens argument we had before where it's like, we look at this where we can put the lens somewhere here. Yeah. I think what's interesting about that is it shows the potential for when you've got an open system that you can develop for and it's a watch. You start to think about what are the different things you might do with it. And that's, you know, it's a weird idea. It might not be the perfect idea. But it's cool to see people trying to do new things. This is the surprising thing about Pebbles. They're very early on. They have an open API. They're very, so far, very accepting and warm of people who develop for it. And this app store is obviously a testament to that. Yeah. And for a small company to kind of come out and kind of define what the smartwatch industry is going to be in these halcyon days, like before Samsung really got a hold of it, before Apple obviously has done anything with it. Yeah. It's really impressive to say the least. What I wonder is how Pebble will fare, I mean, if Apple does the iWatch or whatever. Right. I mean, the Galaxy Gear doesn't seem to have made much of an impact. I mean, clearly there's some people that are buying it. It doesn't seem like it's a widespread adoption or anything. You know, they're very different devices in a lot of ways. But I am interested to know how something like the Pebble or the Metawatch or any of these smaller companies, how that's going to fare when you get into, you know, somebody like Apple who really knows how to do hardware and really knows how to do interfaces. Right. You know, Samsung is like struggling a little bit, I think, with the Galaxy Gear. They wanted to be first. I don't know if they're the best. So they're definitely not best. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see how the market reacts to that and how these watches change. I mean, I will say in the span of a year, going from the plastic version of this to the metal version, you know, it's like a huge leap in design. It's a huge leap in style. Right. Interface-wise, it's still very similar, though. Right. I mean, there's not a lot of new functionality. I think they nailed the simplicity part of this, and this is a watch that, you know, you're going to want to have for at least a couple years. Right. Like, it just looks that good. It's very casual. Well, but I wonder with a smart watch, you know, in a year, the idea, it seems to be like in a year's time, there's going to be a new one. It's going to be a better one. So, you know, that's the thing. I mean, this is the thing. It's very true. But these are expensive. They're not as wildly expensive as a Rolex, you know. They're not $5,000. But the one you have right there, how much is that one? I'd rather not say. It's a couple million. It was my grandfather's watch. Oh, wow. I didn't pay for it. So that's the important thing. Very nice. That's the important thing to remember is that I didn't pay for this. But the point is, nice watches are expensive. These are expensive for, most people would not spend $250 on a watch. I mean, the majority of watches, like you go buy a $50 watch or something. I have a bunch of Seiko's that I love that were like $80. Right. But then it's like, hey, next year there's an upgrade, and the watch has a bigger face, it's faster, it's whatever. I don't know how much we can upgrade every single thing that we buy, especially jewelry. You don't normally do that. You buy a watch and you keep it for 10 years or 50 years. I mean, historically, watches are the kinds of things that you keep in a family, that you keep for a really long time. And so I think what will be interesting to see with stuff like the Pebble is what's the lifespan of this watch. Right. And I think, you know, it's obviously this is so early with smart watches that we don't know, like, are they going to hit a plateau technologically where people are really happy with what they have. Right. Like, it's going to be obviously very early on. This is double the RAM. They are bringing the App Store to the old Pebble, so that does expand its lifespan. I think we're in the very early days of these devices. But I've got to say, I think Pebble got a lot of stuff right, and I'm relatively excited about what they're doing. I do want to say, sorry, go on. No, no, what were you going to say? I was going to say, like, we did talk about the Pebble cam. The one thing I want to show off before that is some of the other apps that they're talking about, which are more practical real quick. Okay. We have the ones like Foursquare. You can check in without having to, like, go anywhere. Do you still use Foursquare? Are you a Foursquare user? I started again. Really? Because I was using it for recommendations. Yeah, I don't know. I just can't get in the habit of checking in places. I feel like, I don't know, I just can't think of it. When I'm at places, I never think of it. And then I'm like, oh, I should have checked in there. It just doesn't happen. Right. To me, it's the airport, it's the gym, and then it's like looking for places to eat. And I don't want to auto check in. Like, I don't want to have anything where I'm auto checking in because that would just be a nightmare beyond description. Exactly. Or well within the realm of just being described. Either way. All right. So Foursquare, what else? Foursquare and then Yelp, of course, recommendations. Now that, I think, can be very useful. And the thing here, if you shake it a little bit, it'll actually give you a nearby recommendation. So Sushi Samba is apparently a good place around here. Did you say Sushi Samba? Yes. There's a Sushi Samba in Las Vegas. It's.9 miles away, and here's the phone number. That makes sense. Yeah. Let's all give them a call right now. Right. And we can get the reviews from there. There are currently several hundred people calling Sushi Samba. All in the local Vegas area, in fact. This second, yeah. Yeah. All right. What else? Anything else? Those are the big ones right now. ESPN. That one only shows like the days, scores right now. So everything looks kind of like zero, zero. That's great. So those are, that's sports scores? Sports scores. Sports ball. Okay. But you can choose your favorite sports. What other kind of scores might you show? Video game scores, I guess. If you have a, I mean that could be something if you are big into e-sports. Paul Miller, you know, he would love that. We could see Paul Miller's scores? You could check out his Dota, his Starcraft. Yeah. All right. What else? What's that? Those are the big ones right now. Was that a watch face? That's a watch face. This is, again, Miriam, our old friend. It's a Domo watch face. It comes with some of the standard watch faces, but also we have a couple of new ones that you can always download. This is probably the nicest one we've got right here, the classic look. That's very cool. Can I see the one before that? Yeah. No, no, the other way. Let's go here. Oh, that is awesome. That is awesome. I mean, I wouldn't use that face, but it's cool if the face exists. Right. Basically. All right. So I think, you know, that's a little look at the Pebble. We actually have a more in-depth feature on this. We have an interview with the CEO and all sorts of hands-on photos and stuff. You can check that out on the site. But very, very, very cool to see it in person and get a chance to play with it. And this is going on sale in a month, but you order it now. Yeah, so this is on sale now on Pebble's website, and it's shipping January 28th. They're like basically sold out now. Right. And so they're shipping, I think, in February is what it's telling people. Right. But late January, if you have the old Pebble, the App Store should be launching around then. It must feel amazing, by the way, if you're Pebble. Yes. And you're like, yeah, we wanted to make a smart watch. We started the Kickstarter project. And then a year later, you introduce a new model, and you're selling out like the day it goes on sale. Right. You know, that's pretty incredible. It's a pretty incredible story, and I think pretty incredible example of how much technology has changed. I mean, I remember a few years ago talking about hardware startups, and everybody was like, it's so hard to do a hardware startup. It's almost impossible. And you saw a lot of people fail. And now you're starting to see people succeed. No, let's just say, and this is only in the span of 12 months. Pebble was a story from last CES. Actually, I think the Wednesday of last CES, when we really got a time to look at it after this whole Kickstarter thing happened with them. And in the span of 12 months, they've really kind of changed how we talk about these small companies. Right. No, it's pretty incredible. All right. So up next, there is an event happening. It's one of the last events. There's an event happening today. Jean Lagier. Yes, the T-Mobile CEO. I mean, I think that's how his name is pronounced. I don't know for a fact. I say Lagier. We have some people say Ledger here. Yeah. Well, I'm saying Lagier. You're saying Lagier. From T-Mobile, who is a wild maniac. Rather audacious. Completely insane. Actually, one of the big stories from CES this year is that he went to an AT&T McLemore party. Right. Which, by the way, McLemore said it right. Or so I'm told. I don't know if that's actually the right pronunciation. It's not McLemore? It's apparently not McLemore. It's apparently McLemore. Really? I don't know unless I'm being trolled by somebody really hard. I think that somebody would be Laura. Which is possible now that I think about it. So, at any rate, either McLemore or McLemore was doing a show here at CES. It was an AT&T show. It was an AT&T show. Jean Lagier went to it and was promptly ejected by AT&T. Yes, kindly escorted out. By AT&T security. Which was great fodder for a start, of course. Sorry, hold on. There's something weird going on with my hair. I just have to fix this. Of course. Okay. It's really driving me crazy. It wouldn't be a broadcast with me if I didn't. There, I'm a much happier man. We can bring a mic here if you want to test it too. Anyhow, so Lagier shows up. He's like, I just want to jam to McLemore or McLemore, whoever he is. And then Ralph De La Vega kicked him out. Personally? Personally. Personally threw him to the ground. These CEOs are rough. Threw him out and to the ground. So, John Lagier is like, that's another story that happened just this year. I think March was the first big speech that we saw. I think Dan Siefer, myself, our director, John went. Yeah. John Lagier is like a new guy on the scene. Yes. He's not been around for a long time. But he is something that we just can't help but talk about now. He's made a real impact. For better or for worse. I mean, a lot of people think this shtick is old. I actually still like it. I still think. You enjoy it. I mean, how often do you see a CEO like this? And you're hearing people like Intel try to be like that. Right. Try to be a little more open. I think it's better than like a lot of the things we see. He is kind of refreshing. Yes. You know, because he's not pulling punches. Right. Or at least he seems like he's not pulling punches. So we actually have a video compilation of Lagier's greatest hits. Yes. So take a look at this. Holy sht. I don't have wireless industry experience. There's not a goddamn person in the world besides a wireless industry person that would understand why the hell this mess works this way. This is the biggest crock of sht I've ever heard in my life. Everybody's blogging. Holy crap. I can't believe he just said that. Oh, he said sht. That's how I lost the family pool. I bet he'd only swear five times. Look up. I feel like I'm the teacher. Hey, look at me. I don't want to hear a single one of you tell me after I announce this next thing. So what are you going to do if they respond? You can't do the next to this because you hosed chapter one on algebra. Get ready for another profanity laden tirade on AT&T. I can't resist. It's not the G rated version. It's like, hey, kids, is it better for your network to be crap or is it better to have a good LTE high speed network in New York? And then this is the one that comes up with the great answer. I'm going to explain how stupid we all are but not make us feel bad. Holy crap. What happened to my phone? Cut the crap on the prepaid, postpaid. We can do it just like... A guy like you. Hey, Billy, what's better, bigger or smaller? I mean, come on. I hope I'm not coming across as angry here. If the way you want to respond to this tactic is to say, no, there's a contract on the device. It's not really good. Go for it. It's bullshit. Hi, I'm AT&T and my customers hate me. What's keeping them up at night is us. Big Macklemore fan. I've already told you about the spaceship and the aliens coming in. Please stop the bullshit. You know how I spend my times tweeting, Skyping, blogging, posting, Googling, FaceTiming. Go. Frankly, you're just pissed because the little girl sitting next to you has a better phone than you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, if you're typing, I didn't say we're going completely into the prepaid business. Watch out, Boost. So we're going to make you pay your bill later in a very complicated way with a contract so we can take the shit out of your pockets for two years. It's so beautiful for me because this is just a broken industry with a bunch of arrogant people that don't know how to tell it like it is. I call them, oh shit moments. Oh shit is really an abbreviation. Not necessarily because your phone fell in the toilet. It's short for, oh shit, I'm tied into an effing contract and I can't get out for two years. And I'm going to hold that toilet ridden phone to my head for the next two years. Frankly, they don't have the balls to say it either to the manufacturers or to the customers. You are now, you are the first broadcaster on television to say balls right there. So we're a pair. By the way, my daughter is here today. You young bloggers, after the speech today, if you find yourself hitting on an attractive young girl whose tag says ledger, you're dead. I mean, we can track you down with these cell phones. Don't let them kid you. I mean, like I have to say, maybe it's an act, but it makes me want to be his customer. I feel like like just sounds first off, he doesn't sound insane. I mean, a lot of this stuff he's saying is right. And they have actually changed T-Mobile plans to be somewhat less restrictive and crappy. It's not like what you would expect after hearing that. It's not like this huge C change. Maybe today will be the huge C change. We don't know. But he is really likable and really funny. He's like the FX network of CEOs. He doesn't mind swearing a lot. He's saying the same thing in a lot of ways, but he's just bringing it in much more blunt. Yes, and frankly, it's just refreshing to see somebody who is so rehearsed trying to work through their script. Right. You know, this guy's just kind of he's just riffing and it works. And like what the weird thing is, if you see people's reaction to it, you know, in kind of the broad market sense, people are like, I like I know of the CEO's existence and I like him, which is something you basically don't hear anywhere. Right. You know, I mean, nobody's talking about how much they like Mark Zuckerberg. No, no. I mean, Elon Musk, people love him. But again, it's another audacious man. Flamboyant, very flamboyant, audacious character. Right. So, you know, it's pretty incredible. So John Legere is, as you can see, loves social media, loves Instagram. There's the two things. Like the press conference John Legere, everyone loves. People love seeing those speeches. That's never been a thing. Twitter in this day and age, of course, is a huge deal. Very active on Twitter. And he cannot stop tweeting. We have some John Legere tweets here. So this is the one right before he got kicked out of the AT&T party. I said this last night on the Vergecast, but I think we should be concerned about the fact that he's doing the bunny ears. That to me is problematic here, I think, in this day and age. Yeah. And this is what his reaction to it. What happens in Vegas will be on the Internet in seconds. This is the AT&T ad. John Legere, especially when you're kicking out the competition from your party. Right, AT&T? I mean, there are a few things you learn from John Legere reading his tweets. The first thing is he really, really does hate AT&T specifically. AT&T, he hates more than anything. All right, what else do we have here? This is him just going to AT&T. He's in a mall. He just went to a mall in New Jersey. He took a picture of an empty AT&T store and tweeted it. That's great. Just the biggest troll. What else? For the Breaking Bad finale. Yeah. He's suggesting AT&T for burner phones. Yes. I don't know what is this. He's just hitting me like a cool jacket. He loves looking at us, so he does a couple selfies. Here's one. Here's him talking about his turkey, changing the phone deals again. Trying to bribe a turkey for the first time. Changing the wireless industry was easier than being the chef. Yeah. I mean, I guess. It's a little bit. I mean, he's using. This and this is a sign of his hashtag obsession. He does a lot of very, very bizarre things. Hashtag covergirl Katie. Is that even a real hashtag or did John Legere invent that? I'm not sure. I think he's like, let's start this trend. I think so. All right. What else do we have here? We've got. Oh, yes. He also is a big fan of the Batman. Yeah, Batman. He's like obsessed with Batman. He fashions himself as like the Batman of the care of the mobile carriers. But it gets really weird. There's another hashtag example. Hashtag spinning, hashtag power hour. What does spinning mean? That's like the soul cycle stuff. Oh, he's spinning. Yeah, he's like soul. He's on the spinning class. I've learned so much about John Legere in the last 24 hours. What else do we have here? This is where the Batman obsession gets a little bit weird. Yeah. This is the Batman. I feel like at some point DC is going to take action. You must have. This is his office. He's got Batman logos. It's also like a bright pink, which is like, you know, Batman. Magenta Batman. Batman, you know, at times Batman's costume gets weird. A little weird. But typically not like hot pink or magenta. No. That's like when you're searching out criminals in the night and attacking them and beating them into a lifeless pulp. Right. It feels like magenta might be the wrong color. I'm not saying it's effeminate. I'm saying it's just really bright. Not to mention like it's... You know, it's just an extremely bright color. Like if you're sneaking around, magenta's probably not going to be the tone you're going for. Not to mention his hatred of AT&T. He's not going to actually beat up Ralph de la Vega. No, he might. He might. I mean, let's put it this way. If there was a story today, if there was a story today, John Legere punches Ralph de la Vega in the face. Right. It's not like we'd be like, what? I can't believe that happened. We'd be like, yeah, that was the logical conclusion of what was going on. Like, early morning we fire Ralph de la Vega like hanging from a light pole. Yeah, strange. Yeah, with a sign for the police. Yes, exactly. That's what's going to happen. Are there any more tweets? We've got, unfortunately, a few more. This is his own t-shirt now. He has the matches of Batman. Now, this is heavy. This is tweets. Okay. Always hashtag magnets. Yes. Okay. Wait. Yeah, that's good stuff. What's the next one? And then here we go. The full transformation is the last one. Him dressed up as Batman at T-Mobile. With a T-Mobile shirt on. Yes. I get it. He's like avenging the death of fairness in wireless contracts. I guess. Right? That makes sense. His family has a few. Anyhow, so clearly the man is a very colorful character and always entertaining. Very entertaining. Regardless of whether you agree with him or not, always entertaining. What's going on behind me? I'm just hanging out. It's just, yeah. Cool. Do you think he made this background himself? I bet he actually used T-Mobile money to do that. I feel like he's like, I'm going to spend several hours Photoshopping. Oh, you think he did it personally? Yeah, yeah, no, personally. So, we have the T-Mobile event. What time does it happen? It's at 12.30 today. 12.30 today. We'll be streaming it live. We're going to be live streaming the T-Mobile event. I'm just trying to figure out what camera I'm on. We're live streaming the T-Mobile event. John Legere is sure to do something completely outrageous and we will capture it. So, we'll be live blogging it, live streaming it. And that's the only event for today. Right. Now, it's just we're going to hit the show floor. Now, we're just going to go. You're going to be seeing all kinds of crazy news and reports. Our guys are out doing weird stuff at the moment. You're going to be seeing lots more. They've only been beaten. They've been tased, electrocuted. All by John Legere. All by John Legere. While he was being a vigilante. But, so there's going to be a lot more news today. A lot more CES news. We have a lot of stuff to do. And for the rest of the week, actually, there's much more coming from the T-Mobile event. Much more coming from the Verge. So, stay tuned. And then later on tonight, we'll of course have the Verge cast after hours. Last night was one for the books. Probably, honestly, I have to say, one of the best ones to watch. I don't know if that's true, but I'll accept it. If you like Yahoo, if you like trolling Yahoo and you love where Sony's going, I think it was a great one to watch. And alcohol, if you love alcohol. If you love alcohol. And I think that's it for first. That is it for tonight. I don't think we have anything else to talk about. We've got to hit the show floor and find it. At the moment, we really do. So, that's it for us. We'll be back tomorrow with more first. And until then, have a wonderful, wonderful day.