 Hey and welcome to the Vergecast, the final CES 2012 Vergecast. Final voyage. I'm Josh Drupulski. I'm Paul Miller. I'm your laptop. And we are very tired. I'm not going to lie to you. You know, I was just saying, I think Snooki really emerged as the unofficial mascot. She really has become, she's become the human ball. I have talked about Snooki twice a day, every day that I've been here. Do you know, you know, when I say human ball, does that make sense? Because she looks like she could be rolled. No, sexy potato. She looks like a sexy potato. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Just stop for a second. There is no, there is nothing. What? There is nothing sexy about Snooki. I used to. But there is nothing sexy about a potato. I used to work in the potato industry. I seriously did. And I was grading the quality of potatoes. And I witnessed an entire huge warehouse, like three football fields large, be filled with potatoes. So I've literally seen millions and millions of potatoes pass by my eyes and I've never seen a sexy one. I'm just saying. Paul, I love you. If you tarted up a potato, you would end up with Snooki. We came up with a new game just before the Vergecast started. In all of your time. I want to talk about our new game that we invented. Yeah, it's pretty good. Where you come up with a fake website and then you do.com and then someone counters with another domain. Domain. Just TLDs. Another domain, what do they call it? TLDs, top level domain. Yeah, top level domain. So for instance, sexypotato.com. I would say.org..net.co.jp. You didn't let me finish..co.jp. Well, I'm going with just.co. My favorite..co..co is acceptable too. It's sex-ceptible. It's sex-ceptible as well. No, I'm freaking tired, man. I'm not going to lie to you. Also, can I just admit something to the viewer? Yeah. I am not here mentally. Yeah, I don't think any of us are really here. The Inuke, what is this called? The Inuke? The Inuke Boom. The gigantic speaker jam box that is like eight feet wide is outside of our trailer right now. The Inuke Boom has been delivered. And that is where my heart is. I have to say, it is loud. We turned it on for 30 seconds. It is amazing. We turned it on for 30 seconds and people just were drawn to us. I can't say it particularly sounded that good to me just on the first listen, but it was loud. That's all that matters. It was loud, it's not clipping. No, the Inuke Boom is here. We're doing it, in case you guys don't know, if you're in Vegas at CES. If you're watching this live for some reason. I don't know why you would be. We're doing it just like a totally random impromptu meet up with everyone. Are you coming to adjust my mic? Okay, what's going to happen? This is a nice shirt. Where did you get that? Hi Trent. Check this guy out. A friend made it for him. Trent has all his clothes custom made. He's like the Joker. By house guests. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's like the Joker. He's like the Joker. And I think he commits similar crimes. And he has no ID on him at all. And he likes money because of business. He likes money. He likes money. He likes money. He likes money. He likes money. He likes money. And he likes money because it burns. But anyhow, the Inuke, we're going to jam, three o'clock. Just come over here. We're going to just be pumping music out of it. Yeah, really loud. It's going to be awesome. So this is our final CES Verge cast. We've done one every day this week. Yeah. And we're just wrapping up the trailer. It's going to get broken down in a little bit. Our team is going to leave. They're going to depart for locations unknown. I mean, we actually know exactly where all of them live, but you don't. But we switch their tickets. We switch their tickets, and we're doing a hilarious reality show based on them arriving home to a new life. They like, they land at the airport like, where am I? Oh my god, I'm in Japan! And then they get picked up by their new wife, and get taken to their new home. At first it's kind of jarring, but then they kind of learn that like, you know. We're all basically the same. Yeah. And then the new wife is like, oh, but you also do nothing but ride my taxi all day long. It's kind of like ALF. They realize when they argue with the new wife, it's kind of like, it was really all about them when they argue about their old wife. Right, right. It wasn't the problem with the wife, it was the problem with themselves. And I think that like, that like. Why are you always ready to just write the perfect movie? I know, and I think that also. That's what you've been doing all this time. I think that also, like the show ALF, they learn that. You're really trying to take this to ALF place? Yes I am. Okay. They learn that. They learn that. Kath. And you know, it could be, you know, you could be an alien or you could be a human being, but sometimes you feel like you're not, you know, you're out of place. Oh yeah. Remember, we talked about this on the Lost podcast. It's not the human condition. It's the sentient condition. It's the sentient condition that, that, that, you know. Brings us all together. Yeah. I mean, we, sometimes we feel alone and that's why we need others to make us belong. We need a family. We need a family. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what family it is. It could be an adoptive family or it can be a, you know, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, what's the word? Biological family. Or a nuclear family. A nuclear family. It could be a nuclear family. It could be an alien family. But I think that you guys don't know this because you didn't see it, but we had a conversation about Alf where we plumbed the, some, the depths of what Alf really meant. And it wasn't about eating cats. It was about feeling alone. We start, we definitely started with eating cats though. No, you were like, that was so weird that the main plot point was the show was about Alf eating cats. And I said, but it really wasn't. What it was about was someone was a, a, a, a being that felt out of place in a strange world. Isn't it weird that they were so, that is such a common sitcom thing. We should talk about CS. You'd be like Mr. Belvedere. No, I've heard a lot of shows about it. What's the, what's the new one? Like, like, uh, something like that. Where it's this guy, he's like, he's totally, he's totally a regular white guy, but his new extended family is all Hispanic. It's so awesome. What? Is that a real show? Yeah. What's it called? I don't know. It's a very famous person that I can't remember. Very famous personality that is not that famous. He did three PNCs. That's how you know how famous he is. It's kind of like Small Wonder too, I guess, which is the, which is by far Small Wonder. Mork and Mindy. The creepiest show that's ever been put on. They have a creepiest sitcom ever. Yeah. With the robot daughter. Oh, Small Wonder. Yeah. Small Wonder. I thought, oh, we got really confused about Mork and Mindy. Anyhow. Let's talk about CS. We've talked about Small Wonder on the podcast before. Yes. It's extremely true. We were at that Small, okay, we should talk about CS. Honestly, there's no news right now. The news is done. No, there's some news today. There's been some weird. Oh, non CS news. No, no, no. There's some, there's some, you want to talk about that first? The Apple stuff. There's a couple of Apple pieces. They wanted to make sure that the CS didn't get away scot-free and clearly their announcement about this. There's been three big Apple news. Clearly the Apple's announcement about the event on the 19th wasn't enough to like distract people from CS. It was kind of a mind. It got forgotten. It kind of got lost because it wasn't that big of a deal. They're doing like education stuff. But today they released their findings on the workplace. They audit their suppliers. They check for child labor. What is it called? It's labor and supplier relations. Labor and supplier report. Audit, trail, accounting. Yeah, so they found that child laborers are down this year. The number of child laborers are down. The number of incidents. What? Five incidents. No, no, at five different suppliers they had incidents. Not at five different incidents. So not five different child laborers. No, no, no. We don't know that number. They had five incidents of child labor. Where they walked into a factory and it was just a field of children. No, right. I don't know. But anyhow, so they're cracking down. They have a zero tolerance, which apparently means they tell the supplier to stop hiring children. Which is the opposite of zero tolerance. Yeah, it's zero enough. Like when you're in middle school, you have a zero tolerance policy towards like weapons. But no, so what's interesting that we found, because they made kind of a big show of it. They gave an interview to the Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. They did make a big show of it. Tim Cook was in the Wall Street Journal. Yeah, Tim Cook. First interview since he's taken over. And they released this document. But other companies do this. Sony does it. Yeah, we looked at HP's. HP does it. And you know, Ashley, the first thing I said was other companies do this, I'm sure. But Apple's probably the only one that does it as readably and as built for consumers. And then we went and looked at HP's. Only since that huge first Foxconn. I'm saying, but we went and looked at HP's report, and it's just as readable and like easy to read. Right, it's very similar. Right, but like this was never Apple style to be really over the top and very transparent about this stuff. Yeah, and it was just Foxconn. And then Foxconn really, that controversy really blew up. And they avoided it for a while. And then they started just saying this stuff. Well, I don't know if avoided it is the right phrasing. I think they just were trying to find a way to address it. Yeah, I think they did what they needed to do until they had something reasonable to say. And now they're consistently coming out with these things. You know, I think we're a little cynical. I think we look at this, we're like, where's the angle? Like, why are they doing this now? What's their motivation? Well, I think, you know. It's like, on the one level, I think that's important. We have to understand why they're motivated to do this. On the other hand, I'm just happy that they're doing it. Right, they are inviting people to scrutinize the practices. And that's great. I just, I don't know, like, I just don't know how you can have a whole factory. It's like, we don't live like, it's not like you have to get on a ship and it takes like, you know, half a year to get to China to figure out what people are doing in your factories. Right. Like, why don't you just have an Apple employee in each factory and they see a child walk into that factory and start. Now that's a great idea. Like, it's like, oh, you know what? So that's what they're doing. I mean, fair enough. You think that's the incident? I don't think it is what they're doing. Fair enough, that's what the report says they're doing. I mean, they have an Apple employee watching the production line. No, but they say that, you know, they work with the suppliers and that all the incidents at the five factories were because of, like, insufficient age verification. Yeah, I will say. And they say, and we worked with those suppliers to beef up their age verification process. Whether or not that's an Apple employee or not, you can have that little argument. But they are having somebody to, like, watch what's going on. And that's like the purpose of what they're doing. Yeah, Paul. So before you judge, maybe you ought to get all the facts. I mean, it was, I will say this, it's extremely weird. Sorry, I felt bad. You seem to be, uh. That on the last day of CES, I mean, we really did sit down and look, comb through, you know, supplier and labor relations documents for three companies because Apple trolled CES with this. Also, and what I'm about to say- I mean, I don't know if this falls under the winning CES banner. It's kind of a dark way. Well, there's a second piece to me. Like, hey, it was child, these child slaves are- You know, like, we were flying high all CES and now we've just crashed back to real, like, the whole hard reality. Yeah, the reality. Well, and the reality actually is, and I just want to say this, and we were talking about in the trailer, and we've talked about it many times. The reality is all this stuff here is built in places where, in a lot of cases, not every case, but in a lot of cases, there are inhumane working environments. There are bad business practices for those workers. And there are underage workers who are probably in some way abused because of the work that they're doing. Well, and what's crazy, I mean, in the way you mentioned it, I'm sure there's a lot of underage people that are actually, like, they want to get into a factory to work because they can make money. Yeah, and that happened a long time ago. No, I'm sure that families are sending their kids to- I mean, like, when I was, when I was, like- I mean, you had to work in a potato factory. No, no. When I was, like, 12 or 13, like, I had to, you know, I was working a lot for my dad doing graphic design and, like- That's basically a sweatshop. We had, like, I was bumping up against the US limits of child labor. Like, I literally was. And I think if we just lived- When did you transition from the potato factory to graphic design? No, it was graphic design to potato factory. I think if we just lifted those limits, this country would be producing a lot more. This is high, I'm going to say something and- Shocking. Everybody's going to know I'm horrible, but, like- You're a horrible person. Basically what happens is you have an industrial revolution and you start out with horrible human rights abuses. Your economy explodes and then you start cracking down on human rights abuses. And your economy shrinks. Well, no, and then you're a mature, you know, like, first world country. Developed nation. That's deprecated language for sure. Yeah. I think developed is what I would say. Developed nation. Okay. Well, so, I mean, what happens is, like, that happened to China and China's finally starting to crack down. So a lot of manufacturing is going to Vietnam, which has horrible human rights abuses. And slowly their economy will explode and Vietnam will become a much better country. In a way, capitalism is bringing better human rights. Horrible. It just takes one- It's going to have to go through 50 years of terrible human rights abuses. Two to three generations of children lost. Pretty soon we're going to come full circle and realize that imperialism is really great. Who do you think- It's working out. Yeah. Here's what I'd like to see. I'm not going to get into this. I'm not going to talk about Apple building, like, factories here in America and having, like, American buildings. We've tried to add to the conversation. No, I mean, I'm just saying- This is a future we should run. I mean, I would happily pay $600. I would happily pay full retail price for an American- And you know what's happening is Foxconn is actually researching a lot in robotics to automate this stuff more and more. And there's going to be a point- That's going to be very bad for their economy. Well, there's going to be a point when you can do- Well, maybe they'll just produce a ton more stuff and be able to pay those fewer or slightly fewer workers more money. It would be interesting if you could choose where your product was made. I definitely agree. What do you think, like, maybe, like, it's a $100 premium if you want a made in the USA product. Right. You know what's interesting about that is that- And they make a bunch of cars in the US now. The only- No one would click that button. No, I think people would. No one would. I, you know what, I'm seeing our guitars. But all these car manufacturers are advertising- I mean, real Americans would. They're advertising the fact that they build their cars in America. Like, there's almost all car manufacturers doing that. That's because they're trying to get Americans to buy their foreign cars. Yeah. Well, but- Wake up. Who's you gonna call it? Chrysler. Is that the one? Top Biz. No, like all these Detroit ads. You know..org. It's like, buy a car because you feel bad for Detroit. There's a lot of those ads right now..cc. I may be crazy. Well, there's that. But, with guitars is a good example. Fender guitars. You can kind of pick your country. Well, they have- That's true. They do have American made in Mexico. They have made in Japan. Yeah. I don't- Do they do China? I don't know. Maybe a made in the USA- No, you can buy it at $99. But they are, but the American guitars are more expensive than the Mexican guitars. Well, maybe a made in the USA phone would have better acoustics. It wouldn't have the death grip problem. Yeah. Which is like really- So, then the second piece of Apple. So, that's one thing. Yeah, that's one thing. I think all of us as an editorial staff are very interested in this. We should do a future- There's more to talk about. There's a lot more to unpack about this issue. And then the second piece of Apple news that has been rocketing around. Yeah, Bloomberg had a report that iPad 3 is in production. I don't know if you knew this. There's gonna be a new iPad. March. March. And a higher- Will ramp by February. Yeah, higher-res screen. And the interesting piece here is that they say it's gonna have LTE. And quad-core processor as well. Quad-core. Quad-core. Which makes sense. The LTE for sure makes sense because- It's a big battery. There's no way the next generation of products aren't doing LTE for, I mean, they cannot wait another generation. They cannot wait till the iPad 4 to do an LTE iPad. I don't think they can. Right. And it's too long of a wait. They've already gone through two generations with 3G. But now AT&T and Verizon have LTE, Sprint will have LTE. Sprint's doing it. And, God, it'd be so great if they could just be interoperable. I mean, think about how much better the networks would be instantly. You know, I asked Julius Shinkasky about this. Yeah, what did he say? He said that, he said politician words. Did he chuckle slightly? No. He was like, oh, he lied. No, he's- So naive. So beautiful. So naive. I will say- I had to break something, too. Yeah. No, no, he was, I will say this. He's the chairman of the SEC. He has to be very careful what he says. We know that. He doesn't- He doesn't take kindly to questions. He doesn't show up in interviews and start harshing at everyone. But he knows. I mean, every question I asked him, he understood. Of course. He's aware of that. We're actively ignoring it. No, he knows. He said interoperability is good for consumers. And I asked him, I was like, you know, my dream is to say, instead of worrying about other people's spectrum and how to open up more spectrum, is to say, well, AT&T is really choked right now. I want to push a button and switch to Verizon. Right. And he was like, yeah, that's the dream. So he knows. Yeah, cool idea. We can definitely help you with that, but we're not going to. Because we've got some lobbyists to hang out with. Because I got to go see Ralph de la Vega and have very expensive martinis. Yeah. You know, I'm not accusing him of being corrupt, but I'm just saying that the government- Can I say one thing? Generally in cahoots with the audience. We had two meetings with Julius. The first was here. Julius, your buddy, Jules. Jules. Jules. Jules. Jules. Jules. We were met at the end of a- Jules. Jules. Jules. That's terrible. So TJ became the next most expensive person to go to third-ری. Tiger Industries came over. Well, they're like, hey. I want to keep the ladder. I want to build this up. Oh shit, you are a fucking faggot. He can't do their regular business. You never know what's gonna come from everybody. We were in a room. We spoon-fed it. Ière, as you can see this isn't subscribed, but this is. That's cool. Simple. It's on tins. in Vlad's homeland of Bulgaria, that the V's are pronounced like W's. No. And the H's are pronounced like nothing else in the world. And the H's are silent. Let's look into post-mine. And the S's are pronounced like P's. And all the vowels have umblats. Yeah. I thought your V's were W's, they're not? Yeah, in Germany. You gotta talk to him. When you write W in Germany and in Poland, it's pronounced as a V. What about Bulgaria? I mean, we've got the Cyrillic alphabet. We've got a whole different alphabet. That's the Russian alphabet. You say the Cyrillic? No, that's a good point. Yeah. I thought it was Cyrillic. He's about to tell us it was a V. Cyrillic alphabet? Wait, can we hold on one... Vlad's about to get a microphone. Are you getting a mic? I see what Trent is doing. Are you taking my mic out? Is that my mic? No. Oh, okay. Damn it, Trent. Here we go. Vlad. Shall I make love to the mic? You mean what? Yeah, make love to the mic. You mean what? Get it up in your face. What? What? What? All right, Vlad. What's the best thing you saw today? Hold on, hold on a second. Do you want to ask about the alphabet? I want to hear about the Cyrillic alphabet. Well, the Cyrillic alphabet actually comes from Bulgaria. And Russian people took it away. They basically speak a dialect of Bulgarian. That's a fact. I mean, Bulgaria claims a lot of ownership of a lot of things I've noticed in your area. We also invented yogurt. Yogurt. Yeah, and the personal computer as well. And the personal computer. Yeah. Wait, so just to be clear on this... Did that computer run on yogurt? Was there a confluence? Was it Cyrillic? So you invented the Cyrillic alphabet, the personal computer, and yogurt. Which he pronounced yog-urt. Yeah. So... I think maybe some of this might be a little bit of a Bulgarian propaganda. Did Russia ever impress you guys into child labor? No. They did far worse than that, I'm sure. No, the Russians are our brothers. They're awesome. How do you feel about the Ukrainians? Same. I mean, they're technically Russians. What's your top level of... Do you have a beef with any country? Yeah, where's Bulgaria's anime? It's.BG. Oh,.BG. I'm putting that in my pocket. Who is the enemy of Bulgaria? Anyone who opposes the PC yogurt or the Cyrillic alphabet. Hello. I don't know. I've already got a kiss on. I'm not visible? Yeah, come stand over here. Perfect. This is perfect. It's our son, Vlad. Vladislav, tell us about your day. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Tell us about your day. We didn't do this with you last night. What's the best thing you've seen here? Actually, the best thing for me has been not a new product. It's been the Nikon D3S. I like it. You're so low-down here. This is extremely... That's not a new product. And you're going with Nikon. Then I'll just go with the Nikon D4. I'm sorry, you mean the Nikon? No, the Nikon. Nikon, okay. Do you want me to get started on that as well? I mean, since you invented all alphabets everywhere. Should I talk about Nokia instead of Nokia? Nokia. Nokia. That's how Ballmer pronounces it, Nokia. He wants to be genuine. Anyhow, so the Nikon D3S. Because you've been using it all week. Yeah, it's been amazing. You love it. I've been using it all week. Did you use it to take that picture of us outside? That's right. Yeah. One shot. So we went out, the picture we've been using for these Vergecasts, we went outside, like, let's go do it. Vlad went out with us, and we stood in front of the thing and he snapped one picture. That was it. We came back in. It was perfect. And the D4S. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And that was that. The low light is incredible. Right. And the D4 is even better. So that big ass sensor. Yeah, the D4 is really cool. We have a video on the site. It has a web server in it, which is insane for a camera to have a web server in it. It has an ethernet jack. Can you run, like, a quick camera? I'm certain somebody will run it. Oh, speaking of, we've got to play our, we've got to get our quick live session going on. We should play it through the iNUC. That's a good idea. We've got to wrap this up. Yeah, I want to play some games. What's the thing that's here? Yeah. Gosh, I don't know. Probably the fact that it hasn't been anything spectacularly awesome. And I have to talk about another thing. I would like to point out that that's not what you said earlier. You said the biggest waste of time is ES. That's right. Oh, yes. Yes, I did. And I got mad at you. The Beaver Bot. I said the purple thing. Oh, yeah. The Beaver Bot made Joanna so happy she forgot the experience. She had to watch the video of her meeting Justin Beaver to remember what it was like. What did you say to him, Paul? Well, Joanna has basically hit or had under embargo or met with and then handled about half of the important products at this. Joanna has been- She works harder than anybody. She's worked harder than me, for sure. And she deserved her moment of happiness. Yes. And Vlad wanted to take it away from her, as he often does. Right. Yes. So you're just mad because Will Gary didn't invent Justin Beaver. Well, we don't know that for certain. I feel glad to have some faith in him. Actually, his father is half-bonding right now. What do they call Justin Beaver in- He only eats yogurt. Yes. I mean, will you just try and pronounce it similarly? It's like Euston Beaver. Euston Beaver. Beaver. It will be Justin Beaver. Beaver. Oh, Beaver. Yeah, Justin Beaver. Beaver. I called it. Classy. I like it. That is classy. No, listen, the only thing I took offense to was the thing that Joanna loved, with Justin Beaver. You know, it's not the most awesome thing in my judgment. Oh, you don't like the bot. I have no offense to Joanna. Everybody has their own personal taste. Yeah, that's true. All right, Vlad, any other parting words? Yeah, I'm going to let you guys do yours. I mean, it's not really. I mean, we're so tired. You can just stay if you want. Yeah. Well, I see TC floating around out there. Oh, wow. TC, you want to- Wow. Switch with Vlad. All right. Here we go. All right. Give them the mic. Vlad, stop. Everybody. TC is drinking in the afternoon. Swabal, Swabal, is that what you call him? Have a seat, my son. Is that right? I really like this people sitting down here. Look, TC, when you were a boy, I thought to myself- Listen, you were adopted. I didn't want to- I think you're old enough to know that now. Why is this the best chair we can afford? It's not a chair. It's an apple box. Oh, and there's Ricker. All right. So why did you bring him here? I love Trent. TC, best thing you've seen here? Probably the parrot AR drone people dancing after the floor closed. Very cute. In unison with a robot. Was that planned or were they just- Totally unplanned because I went back and they hadn't been doing it. Everybody else had left, so they were- They were just practicing. But the girls had a little dance they were doing. No, they're dancing with the drones. They had watched that thing do the same routine on and off for three days straight. They had it memorized. So they were just getting out of the system. So what's the worst thing? Keep that up to your close to your face. Probably the Samsung Smart TV. Am I allowed to say that? Yeah, you can say that. What are you going to use that for? I don't know. I don't remember which site it was on, but someone wrote Samsung is the next Apple because- That person's a moron. More like dumb TV, right? So John Biggs wrote that. He's not a moron. Oh, I was thinking it was someone else. He's not a moron, but he referenced Smart TV as well. Let's not be rude. I was thinking it was somebody else who wrote that. Apologize. John Biggs, I apologize to you. Yeah, thank you. You're not a moron. The other guy, that guy's a moron. I don't remember what he wrote. I don't know. I don't even know what you're talking about, but he wrote this Apple's Samsung is the next- John, John Schmakes. You referenced the Samsung Smart TV as part of that innovation, that direction. We saw it, and it was just like- Well, yeah, but why wouldn't you be able to say that? I don't know. What is this? What are we trying to hold you down? Can I say this? Cece lives in Washington. You're a lobbyist of former life. Let me tell you something. He's playing all the angles. Maybe, and maybe, I don't know how you maybe did not get this message. Have you ever seen the Vergecast or read anything on the site? Yeah, you guys do it like five times a day. You can say whatever you want about any product you want to say something about. I love Windows Phone. Oh my God. Get out. I love Windows, custom-built PCs. No, that's fine. That's fine. You guys, you do love Windows custom-built PCs. I do. I build Windows PC. You know, he ran a gaming site before he came here. I'm sure he did. Hardcore. We've all made our mistakes. I have blonde hair. All right, Cece, get out. All right. That's a lot of controversy. Can I drop the mic? No, don't drop that. It'll probably break and then nobody will be able to... I would like to say, Cece, you're getting some compliments on your jacket. Ricker, get in here. Yeah. Rick Dog. Thomas Ricker. Let's go. Oh, Thomas has a matching butt bubble. Rick Dog, nice. I like this. I like what we're doing. Okay, how do you feel about the name Rick Dog, by the way? Hi, Josh. And what do you want? And what do you want for Christmas? Welcome to Josh's clubhouse. I like the Nokia. Yeah. Oh my God. The 900 is really nice. Yeah, you like the 900. Yeah, I haven't seen it because I never got to go to the show. It's really odd. No, it's great. It's weird being... Hello. I'm seeing new parts of you that I've never seen before. This is really strange. The top of your head. I don't like it. So what's the best thing you've seen here? Yeah, like the Nokia 900, the Lumia. What? Look, I gave these guys a cap for years over Symbian. No, no, no, no. It's a big deal. I did an interview with the CA today. They were asking me about the show and I said, that's probably the biggest product of the show. And I think it is. And it's a big product for Nokia and it's a big product for Microsoft. I don't disagree at all. Can I just say, I think Microsoft has been commended for how they handled the show because they have nothing new here. I think they should have made... At all. I think they should have made... And they have emerged from the show as, look at all Microsoft's reinventing itself. I think they should have made their keynote, they should have gotten rid of that Ryan Seacrest crap and shortened it by a half an hour and made it like all about Windows 8 and Windows Phone, we're going into the next generation. Yeah. And not done any of that Xbox stuff. It's almost like, I dare you to think we're irrelevant. Right. They should have gone heavy on that 900 stuff. But you know, it's funny, they came out of it and people are, they're laughing at the keynote, but that message is here. The keynote's awful. But that message is here. Yeah, but the message of that keynote sticks with you too, which is they seem like they're out of it in terms of how to get people charged up about their stuff. Yeah. I mean, Nokia did a better job. But this narrative of... Even Nokia, they're like blazing through stuff and not really like, they don't feel like in their element. I mean, they did a decent job with the introduction, but I felt like they were, it was a bit like fast paced and a little bit too much information in one thing. But Microsoft had an opportunity to say, we just announced this and we really want to drive this thing home. We're going big. This is our flagship device. You guys are going to love it. You know, they didn't really do that. They had the dumb sit down with Ryan Seacrest. I thought that was a waste of their opportunity to say, we're going out with a bang. They went out with a whimper. I was whimpered. I'm saying all that stuff is bad, but I will say the dominant narrative out of CS is Microsoft is back in charge. They're leading again. Yeah, Thomas, what do you think about that? I think they have turned the corner. I mean, Windows Phone is a really impressive operating system. I like this angle. It's so weird. How do you think I feel? Windows Phone is really good. I think that it is good. It's really good. Yeah. I mean, they have a small platform. They got Windows 8 coming around the corner. So I mean, the company, I'm not going to say they're back. They're no Apple. Do you see yourself switching from, could you see yourself getting a Vizio Ultrabook and if it turns out to be decent with Windows 8 on it? I mean, be honest. I mean, I have to try it first. I mean, it's possible. Or like an ARM tablet with Windows 8 on it. I think the more likelihood is that I might switch to Windows Phone at some point. I mean, I've tried. I've got the 800 and I've used it a lot. And every time I pick it up, I set it down for a month, well not even a month, but a few weeks and then I pick it up again and I'm like, wow, this is... Polycarbonate is really nice. The Metro is so nice. I like that. But I just don't have all the apps I need. They need a gray. No, that's the problem. The apps and the way the apps background and the way they update, I think need to be... We're hearing these rumors that they'll have another big release at MWC in just like a month or whatever. That'd be cool. I just want them to do a gray theme. I hate the color themes. I want like a dark gray theme where it's like gray tiles. There's a light gray for sure. No, there isn't. What's your worst? Yeah, worst. The worst of CES. Well, it's just all the duplication. I mean, there's a true lack of innovation. There's a lot of... Well, I said, I think some of this stuff is okay because you want to have iterations of technology. You want people to say, we established it a year ago or two years ago. Now we're like turning into... The product is becoming mature. So you see some of that. I think smart TVs, not all of them, a lot of them are crap, but there are some that you're like, okay, this is a bit better than what you've been doing. This is getting closer. I think Ultrabooks are a big deal in the sense that we've been seeing the same laptops forever and now it's like, yeah, these make a lot more sense. They're thinner, they're lighter, they've got way better battery life and their performance is good. And immediately Apple got there first, but I'm fine to see everybody get there because there's a place we need to go. But you do see a lot of repetition and just kind of like... I will say on this note, I think Vizio has been one of the big stories of the show. They surprised us. We didn't think they were gonna get into the PC market. Nobody heard about that. No, but the way they're doing the PCs, I interviewed Matt McCray, their CTO, in this room actually, and he's like, we don't think we need to differentiate our PCs. We're doing a completely stock build of Windows. There's no crapware on it. Yeah, well that's great. And he's like, and we think we're just gonna deliver it. We're good at supply chain and building TVs. We're just gonna make premium computers, sell them cheap, no crapware. And he actually said, we believe consumers know what they want out of the PC. We don't have to hold their hands. That's true. We can buy it. That is great. You know what? Which is awesome. He brought the 15-inch thin and light here. People freaked out over it. Our whole team freaked out. No, people were really freaking out. Joseph Harris was like falling to his knees trying to buy this thing. I said, how much is it gonna be? I was like, you know, compared to a MacBook. You said competitive. He was like, no. He was like, way cheaper. Oh, really? Yeah, he was like, it's not gonna be nearly as expensive as a MacBook. So 15-inch, full HD display. The trackpad, by the way, they said the trackpad was about 30% of where they wanted it to be multi-touch trackpad. It was working really well, I thought. It was working pretty well. Look, I've used some heinous... They've got a lot of work to do. No, but I've used some heinous Windows trackpads. And this one was like, two-finger scrolling was working great. The cursor was moving. Clicking was working. Palm rejection, that's the big one. Well, it's got a little bit of palm space. Yeah, they made it smaller. I actually asked them about it. It's a little bit small. I asked them about it in the interview. But long and short is, it felt okay to me. And I have to say, the design, if they come with a decent price point, I think that'll be really competitive. I think that's the idea. That is sort of like, that's the phone. It's the PC version of the phone I always want, which is, here's some well-thought-out hardware. They optimize the driver. Relatively anonymous. It's totally stock. Yeah. I actually prefer... One of my favorite computers of the recent past few years was the first Chromebook, the beta Chromebook. Yeah. It was just... So, super anonymous. The CR-48. Yeah, the CR-48, it was just black, everything, no logo, no nothing. I think that's really great. I wish more companies... I wish the Mac, I wish they'd take the Apple logo off of these things. I just don't... I don't think it's... I like things to be just... Or an entire logo in the corner. Or on the bottom. I don't care. I just think that clean and blank is really nice in comparison. You know what I actually did like, though, that Dell was doing, and I don't know if they still do it, where they had all these customizable patterns and art and stuff? I wish more companies were doing... And Aaron Woodman talked about this when we were at our Super Session about customization. Thomas, you don't mind being here, do you? No, no. I actually want to talk about one other topic. Okay, no, no, we'll get to it. I was just going to say, about actual customization, like they were doing these like, Zune... What was it called? Zune Originals? Oh, yeah, Zune Originals. I think that that's some place that we really, in this industry, have shied away from. You make a standard product, you can get it plain Jane, but then the user can do customizations to it in terms of like, how do I want this thing to look? I'd love to get a smartphone that's like, I want this kind of back, and I want to have this color, you know, like basically be able to color wear it or something. I think that's a frontier that we have yet to get into and I would really like to see, because I think it's a little bit boring to see, you know, the same thing. It's either like overblown or very plain, but there's no chance for you to customize. Anyhow, Thomas, what do you want to say? I was just thinking, there's a story that, from this year's CES, that I think is a bit disappointing and it's the reaction to the first OLED TVs. We have two OLEDs on display here at the show that have been announced for retail this year. If that had happened, what, two or three years ago, I mean, remember when the OLED was a big story? The XTL1, remember the Sony XTL1, the little one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we used to run out to the floor. That was the number one story, right? OLEDs are finally coming, you know, they're on sale. But I think the reason for that is people are, OLEDs are common now. Well, yeah, people know OLEDs, but also there's a real fatigue, I think, right now with television technology. I mean, that's one of the problems is like, you know, I actually said, I wrote about this in the post, in my post column before we came here and then after, that oh, smart TVs are everywhere and there's going to be a trend of TVs, you're going to see tons of TVs. It is that like, it's just fatiguing already. Like, every TV is slightly iterative. That's a place where the iterative changes have slowed to like ground to a halt, in my opinion. I know why. With like, the actual display tech. The display tech is moving forward. Not really. No, no, it has been moving forward. I mean, OLED is a jump, but... It's not that big of a jump anymore. I mean, LCD has really improved. LCD, LED. It's become much thinner as well. No, but the, so this is something else that Vizio was, that Matt McCrea was saying. He said the display technology changes, right? And he's like, it's really great to be the TV manufacturer because I own the last set of pixels, right? I can over, I can put my interface on top of everything else. Yes. That's wonderful. Well, no, no. That is wonderful. But the display tech, you can track the changes. We started out with regular, like backlit LCDs. We went to edge lit LEDs. Now we have local dimming LEDs. Like, the displays are, they're looking better and better and better. And OLED looks dramatically better. The problem, the reason nobody cares is because the TVs we have are good enough and there isn't the compelling, the distribution part of it and the interface parts of it are the things that are broken. Yeah. I just think that, I think we are at a place with TVs like to your typical consumer, those differences are completely invisible and also they can't, they're not seeing those differences. You've got to add, you've got to add something else. You can take an OLED, but you've got to add. We need 4K. This has, there's a lot of, we need a cheap, I mean, how, how... I think the 4K stuff is really interesting. How expensive do you think that 55 inch OLED is going to be? I think when, it's going to be priced like a plasma back in its day. Yeah, $3,000, $4,000. Well, I think it's going to be closer to $6,000, $7,000. Is it better? Is it true? I think they're going to be really high. I mean, it's just going to be for early adopters. Is it truly better though? I mean, is it really, will you get one? No, I'm not going to get one. How, I mean, I actually haven't seen them out on the floor. I haven't yet. I mean, for me, the more, the more compound thing, you know, TV is a commodity. I'm much more interested in the distribution mechanism. All that stuff is going to change. Yeah, you know, moving it around to different screens in my house, you know, the TV is truly a commodity. I'm just going to get the best thing at that moment. Right, right, yeah. No, and I think that's a good point. Like, you know, the rise of tablets and these thinning lights and the idea of like, they're being able to beam what they're doing elsewhere. The TV is becoming like the secondary, you know, it's still obviously the focus of your entertainment life and certainly for gaming. If you're a gamer, it's a big deal. But I do think like people are watching more and more other places. Well, like in the content. The TV is like going into the background. But even if the content ends up on your TV, it's not necessarily coming from your home theater stack. It's coming from a computer. I mean, I think that we're just entering this kind of new paradigm of, you know, a single viewer experience. I mean, think about it, really. You could watch, yeah, well you could watch TV in your living room, you know, but a lot of times if you're a family, you're doing it with a group of people, right? It was always this battle for the remote, right? It's been like a thing for 30 years now by people battling to being in control of the television. And now we're starting to enter this era where there are these beautiful displays you can hold in your lap and experience like whatever you want to experience on it. That's a completely singular experience, completely personal experience. And then the family disintegrates. Right. Well, I mean, but I'm saying, but we haven't explored. You know all about that, Don. The psychology. What are you saying? Wow. Yeah, that's rude. The psychology, you're a hurtful man and you deserve to go. Twice today, first Vlad, now me. I'm talking about your children and how your family has been blown apart. Put the tablet down, Thomas. Yeah, actually I love his kids and they skateboard so they're the best. And they are beautiful. They are like, they are like child models. They're so good looking. Thank you very much. When are you going to start exploring that? Yeah, we explore those models. They appear in videos every once in a while. But no, but I'm saying like we're just starting to experience this. We have no idea what the psychology of this is right now. I mean, we're like, the iPad has been around for two years, not even. Yeah, a year and a half. I think it's two years. Well, we're getting there. But anyhow, but you know, so people are just waking up to like, oh, I do this differently now. I don't sit down to watch TV or I don't sit down to watch a movie. Like I go wherever I want to do it. So like, you know, the TV is, there's a psychological thing happening with people and that's going to, that should be reflected in what's happening with that space. And I think that TV manufacturers are going to have to, like everywhere, you know, trim down the models, like find the things that are really valuable and just do that because the TV is becoming, you know, a modern-day product. Was it with you that I called this show the death rattle of the traditional television business? I don't recall hearing that. You've just been saying that to everybody. You can't remember who you said it to. I've said it like four or five times. Death rattle. Death rattle. This is it. This is the last time. Death rattle is like after you've died and there's like a little bit left, I think. I think death rattle is... That's what I'm saying. I think that's like, this is like the... What's a death rattle? When he's saying it's dead, it's the body. This is it. This is it. They can't do this anymore. Like electrical impulses that are still fired off. Everything they've tried to sell. You know, have I just really brought you... We just brought Paul down big time. I thought a death rattle... I'm always like... Paul's having a D-moment of learning. In my mind, it's like a baby rattle and then somebody dies. That's like a terrible horror movie. This baby's just walking around. Oh yeah, the rattle. You hear the rattle and then you die. Yeah. That's a really fast rattle. I just realized that was... It's a tight, small rattle. It's a baby rattle. I have a way you want to take it. They can't do this anymore. They can't show up at CES and say, you can't do this, guys. No, they can't. They're all failing. We actually have a story stream about the death of the TV industry. They can't keep selling these TVs. Nobody wants to buy these TVs. Whoever this company is. They seem to be figuring it out, right? Because everybody is selling smart TV. But nobody wants those. Everybody's buying a smart TV and you'll get a smart TV, but no one wants a smart TV. Where's your baby? He looks like a little baby. What's going on? Gerard is just trolling the podcast. Don't worry about it. No one wants a smart TV until... And nobody wanted 3D. Hold on. These are all tricks. No one still wants 3D. And no one still wants a smart TV. They want a smart TV when it can give them something they want, right? What do they want? Maybe they left the child. They want content. That's fine. And until the smart TV proves to them that they can get something really enjoyable that they can't get elsewhere. This is why I'm saying this is the death rattle. You can't... That. If you do that every time I say death rattle, they're in a good place. They can't show up here next year with iterative smart TV. They're going to. No, next year Apple will release its big TV product, whatever it is. Whatever it is, it might be a TV or a TV thing you plug in, and they're going to be here with their versions of that. I actually heard from... I talked to a lot of vendors here, and I've heard that if Apple gets the deal, Hollywood is dead set on giving somebody else the same deal. Sony. Because... Maybe Sony. Probably Sony. Maybe Samsung. Samsung. Because they don't want another iTunes to exist. Well, they're smart. They should foster competition. Not inhibit it. But so they're having... What I've been hearing from the show floor is that these discussions in Hollywood have become extremely, I would say, hostile, basically. Because Apple wants a special deal, and you can give Apple... No. You can give Apple the special deal, but extending that to a Samsung or a Sony or whoever else, then you end up giving everybody... You have to change the business model entirely. You can't give everybody the special deal. Well, Apple probably would also say, we want an exclusive on this. They're not going to say, give us the deal and you can do whatever you want with everybody else. Right. Because then it's... That's what I'm saying. It's a hostile. What Thomas was saying about a TV being a commodity, I think TV manufacturers are scared of this, but a TV could just become a dumb pipe for pixels. That's the other model. The TV doesn't necessarily have to... It's not about the TV becoming smart. There's a box that's the smart thing. It is a dumb pipe. I mean, it is a pixel. It is like a dumb... It's a display. Let's let Thomas say something. I've used a couple smart TVs recently on a regular basis, and the user experience is awful. Terrible. The TV's are really bad. The interaction model between you and the TV... They're remote. It's bad. But almost all... Yeah, it's all really bad. But you can argue that almost all user experiences are bad. They're especially bad on TVs, but there's also horrible user experiences in auto tech. There's horrible user experiences in remote technology, in stereo technology, audio technology. I mean, it's hard to do... Even on Android skids, there's like Moto Blur. It's hard to do good UI. I mean, when you're backporting UI onto something that's never really had UI... Right. Like a car. And you're trying to use an old-ass paradigm like the remote to get around, we need a better remote. You know what the problem is? I've been harping on this remote thing. The problem with the TV is remote. It's not content. We need a better remote. No, I will say I've been harping on this remote thing all week, and every TV... Both on and off the... No, I'm talking to everybody. All the manufacturers, I ask, why did you make this? Why did you take a keyboard and mouse and then make a remote out of it? And they all say, this is an interim solution. We know this isn't the right answer. We're waiting for Siri. They're waiting... No, I... But you know what's weird is they all know that there's some answer. I don't think... I don't know why... They don't know what it is. I honestly don't know. I think we will see a lot more of this human... The human sort of interface, natural interface, rather. But there's this idea that it's gonna be voice and motion. And I think that like... I don't think it'd be motion. I don't think so. No, but that's what everybody's pushing. Not right now. But that's what everybody's pushing. But I think that the voice and motion is much more likely. Yeah, I think so. I just think when you're watching TV voice is like... Well, yeah, LG's remote is... The microphone isn't at the TV. It's in the remote. And I think that's actually a little bit more interesting. It's fine. I just don't think that's a great way to control things. I don't. I think, you know what's incredible? Our eyes and our hands. They can do incredible things. Pushing an arrow up and down. I mean... No, but like... Give me a D-pad. I wanna roll my eyes at what's on the TV. And it changes. It's just supposed to go like that. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, sorry about that. You want an extremely deferential TV. It's a crazy thing to have. I'm sorry, Paul. Please forgive me for that. And then it bows slightly. Yeah. I'm saying... It has a top hat. I mean, Thomas, I feel like you're in the same place as me. Like you see what's happening with TVs. Yeah, he's a little bit lower. And you're kind of disappointed by it. They can't... They're not gonna sell more. They're not gonna sell these TVs. I've never understood the... Well, they're gonna sell them because they're gonna be... You know, the only TV's in the store. They're gonna be in every TV. Just the way they did with 3D. But the difference is somebody might actually accidentally use like Netflix on the TV. Maybe. They're not gonna accidentally use 3D. You have to really go out of your way. I will say that that's fair. But I don't think that's gonna kick off... But I don't think people are using... I'd like to know the numbers of who's using Netflix on smart TVs versus in a Roku versus on their computer. Well, here's what I think happened to the TV industry. They switched from SD to HD. And they were essentially made to do it. And they saw this huge boom in sales because here's this feature that consumers can see. And it's a major improvement in the experience no matter what the TV. They got hooked... Oh, man. It's almost time for our thing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Go ahead. They got hooked on a big bump in profits. They over-invested in developing TVs. They all built these factories. Yeah. People bought TVs. Sales plateaued. And now everything is crashing. The only TV manufacturers that's doing really well, Vizio and Samsung. Sony's falling off a cliff. Panasonic fell off a cliff. Pioneer was probably the best TV manufacturer in the game. So there's just gonna be one TV. Just one. The Apple TV. Maybe. I'm saying they have been searching for that second spike. I'm kind of bored. They thought it was 3D. Can I just say I'm bored of the living room. Definitely 4K. I don't care about the living room. It'll be 4K. There's only really one thing I want to do in the living room. It's very simple. You want to watch television. I want to watch movies and shows that I like without interruption at my leisure anytime I want. Speaking of interruptions. Yeah, hold on. And I want to play games. And that's all I care about. We'll be back after these messages. And on that note about interruptions, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right back with more of this. Death rattle. Get up at 5 in the morning, staggered, dazed, down to the trailer, and then just begin, you know, there's a flood of news. The SCS takes over the entire industry and because we cover the industry so fairly, it takes over our entire site. You know, it's really our biggest event of the year. It's like the Super Bowl. You know, it's just total insanity for a week straight. We should request interviews with people that we think would be significant or interesting to get our hands on because we'll have a set up at the trailer. We think it's really important to not just see the products, but to hear from the people who are making those products. It's a mandate to ourselves to capture those stories. We're really good at taking a lot of information, making it presentable, making it readable, and still showing you what's important. What really is going to make the coverage great is that we have a staff, a big staff, of really smart, really talented, very sharp writers that are putting these stories together, that are building narratives out of these stories, and they can tell the stories better than anyone else in the industry. And we're back on the Vergecast. Tonight's topics. Iran. Do they have nukes? And what are we going to do about it? Caller, you're on the line. God, I wish we could do that. That would be... Talk about Iran. Chad, next year we have to have callers. We'll have it next week. We'll have it next week? Yeah, in the studio. Really? Oh, man. We might have callers next week. Get ready to live troll the Vergecast. Dieter Bohn is here. Tell us about your best and worst of the show. My best... I forget what I had chosen last night. My best... You know, honestly, I'm going with the Lumia 900. Nice. It's one of the few double ups. Is it a double up? Somebody else went with it? Yeah, Thomas. Oh. But nobody else picked this... But I want to hear what you think. Well, I'm not picking it for the phone itself because the phone itself is not that exciting. It's just a stretched out Lumia 800. But it's indicative to me of how shockingly fast we've had LTE roll out in the US. We won. Yeah. To see AT&T actually have these phones coming and soon. And even Sprint, like the Galaxy Nexus on Sprint with LTE. That's crazy. But Sprint always said it's a software upgrade for us from WiMAX to LTE. Yeah. And they built the network already. Are they going to upgrade their old WiMAX phones? Eli's unimpressed. Look at the challenges. It's not a software upgrade for the phones. Yeah. I mean, they still are hoping that LightSquared is going to happen. What a weird abandoned technology WiMAX will be, isn't it? Yeah. It's a lot. It was just that little moment. Isn't it? It's big in Korea, right? WiMAX? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think so. I think so. I agree. No. WiMAX? Why not? Because everybody knows the answer to that. Sprint would have won. I have to say, the Galaxy Note with WiMAX. Phone, tablet, it's Galaxy Note. WiMAX? Why not? Feel free. AT&T and Verizon will be scrambling all out. I don't know if you guys have seen a picture of this, but the giant Galaxy Note billboard here says phone, tablet, it's Galaxy Note. It's not answering the question. It's also not, it's the Galaxy Note. They're trying to pull an iPhone. It's iPhone. On the mobile podcast, we're trying to make phablet happen. What's that? It's a phone and it's a tablet. I thought it was a fabulous tablet. A phablet. Ooh, fabulous tablet. Worst thing? The worst thing is a prototype Intel tablet. The Cloverfield. Cloverfield. Cloverfield. No, no, no. Yeah, the Medthorn. It's rising out of... What was it called? Silvercoff. Silvercoff. The river. Cloverbox? Clovertrail. The Clovertrail. But that's not it. It was the Medfield one that they unveiled at Intel Developer Forum like six months ago. I waited at the Intel booth for an hour and a half looking at a tablet that was wrapped in a shroud because they were going to unwrap it when the keynote was over and I would get the first picture. And they unwrap it. I hugged the rep because we've been chatting up for so long and we're like buddies now. And he looks at it and he goes, oh no, it's not it. I was like, ha ha ha, very funny. And he's like, no, no, seriously, it's not it. And it was this guy. Oh my God. That was like six months old. The old rope and dope? Yeah, it was terrible. Awesome wrap. This isn't the rope and dope. And then they couldn't bring it out so I had to wait until they brought it out. You know there's a lot of... But we still got it. There's a lot of CES as a show encapsulated in your story. Yeah. Waiting, hugging, excitement, disappointment. It's war. It's war. Unwrapping tablets. It's war. It's war. You sit around and you wait and you eat really crappy food and you feel terrible and then you are like going like insane. I think we're all a little bit... We pick our staff based on immune system as one of our top... You should fire me right now. Yeah, are you in bad shape? I met Thomas Huston. All right, let's get... Are you going to get out of here? Let's get Joanna. Stern. Stern. Wrap this up with us. Excellent work. Unless Chris is around. Watch your head. Joanna. Joanna. Can I bring the peanut butter and chocolate? Yeah, whatever you want to do. Oh, I'm allergic to peanut butter. Just kidding. Get in here. I'll hold the microphone for you. I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. I'm going to sit down. Joanna is like, you know what, I'm going to come here for some food. I'm going to schlep in here. I just had three more meetings. Go ahead. I just had three more meetings. What were your meetings? I can't talk about them. Actually, I can't really talk about them. Hey, Joanna. Nukes in Iran. What are we going to do about them? We're going to put Intel inside. Look, best and worst, I want to turn on the iNuke. Intel is going to be powering Nukes. We're going to put Intel inside. Best thing you've seen in the show? Justin Bieber. Wow, not even a moment's hesitation. Yeah. I'm going to put Intel inside. I'm going to put Intel inside. Wow, not even a moment's hesitation. Yeah. Worst thing. Worst thing. Justin Bieber. Oh, why? Why? No, the Tosi robot. Justin Bieber's robot. Can I do an impersonation real quick? I really don't. That's all I have to say. I think this could be a little inappropriate. Well, no, no. Yeah, I guess you're right. Really best thing that I really liked about you? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But you told me that, that I really like the best. I like this, by the way. Well, she's here all day. She's got her hands full. Here, I'll take the coffee. You want me to drink that? I don't know. Where am I? Where am I? I'm so tired. Welcome to the Verst Mist. Alright. She did her best at worst. Best at worst. No, no. For real, I don't really have a best, but I did like the Lenovo Yoga. You didn't say this. Because I think it's indicative of what's to come. Movie. Just get out. No, it's over. I don't have a worst. Please leave. I watch you leave. Please leave. I want you to leave. The last words we'll ever say to Joanne. I'll see you at the iNuke party. I like the stroller too. The stroller. She liked the stroller. All right, let's do ours and then the stroller party. Okay, we're gonna go back to worst and then we're gonna do the iNuke party. 3 p.m., don't miss it. Nukes in Iran. Sam looks more like a Frenchman than ever today. Okay, let's go. My best and worst. What are we talking about in terms of the presentation or what I liked? Best and worst of CES. Best and worst in CES. Interpret how you will. Broad, expansive interpretation. I mean, there was not a lot of highlights. There were not a lot of highlights. There were a lot of, like I said, very middle of the road stuff. This was not the most exciting CES ever. I'll openly admit it. I do think the most notable product, I mean, it's a split between the Lumia 900 and the Vizios. I mean, I'm kind of like either or, but they were like without a doubt the two things that were most interesting to me here. The OLED TV, the 4K stuff, not that interested in. Smart TV I think is all a little bit half baked, though better than it has been. Some of it is better, you have to admit. I will talk about it. We'll talk, we'll talk, it's all the time. I got my own time. We'll bro down. Would you rate, like maybe the best CES as far as a broad swath of middle to good stuff. Like middle of the road to good middle, good of the road. I mean. The best iterative CES. No like, oh my gosh, this is blowing my mind, but a ton of like really good iterative stuff. Yeah, I mean, I think it was like a very, first off, our economy is like a roller coaster right now. I think this is a reflection of that economy. I think it's a reflection of our shrinking ability to spend just globally. You know, I think that, and I think that listening to Sanjay Jha talk about things like how they wanna make fewer phones, and I think HTC intimated to us when we did our super session that they would like to make fewer phones. I just think, you know, we're seeing this kind of contraction a little bit of the industry. And I don't think it's a bad thing. I think that fewer products with more care put into them is a good thing for us. Well, this is one of Apple's things. Steve Jobs said this a long time ago, like I don't know, five or 10 years ago, maybe more like five, that like when the economy took a downturn, like after the dot com bubble, Apple had a bit of a nest egg, and they invested really heavily in R&D. They invested through the downturn. Yeah, and they didn't come out with a ton of products during the downturn because people couldn't really buy them. But as we were coming out, like they had a ton of really great stuff to launch. And they've been private workers. So I hope some of these companies are doing that. Yeah, and so the worst thing that I've seen at CES, I think the worst thing I've seen is maybe speaks to our industry, which is like the desire or the quick, you know, the kind of quick reaction to say like, stuff sucks, to say the CES sucks. And by the way, I'm not cheerleading for CES. Like there are- This was a middling CES. This was not that great of a show. But that's reality. Sometimes stuff is awesome. Sometimes stuff isn't that good. Sometimes Apple releases something that's really awesome. Sometimes it releases something that's just okay. And that, by the way, does happen. People don't remember. But there are plenty of times that Apple releases stuff that's either a failure. I mean, PING's a recent memory. Like they made a big deal. Jobs went on and on about what it was. The social network. No one cares. Music. No one uses it. It was a flop, you know? And like, you know, sometimes it's cool, and sometimes it isn't. This is a CES where there wasn't that much cool stuff. Last year there were things that seemed cool that didn't pan out. Yeah. The idea that you don't need to pay attention to what's happening here is completely flawed. But like, I just think that like, I just think that- Even if it's not good. I think there's a lot of fatigue. You know, it's hard to see this stuff and write about it and talk about it. You know? But to wholesale write off an industry, basically, is lazy and unfair. And I think that's the worst thing I've seen CES, is people acting overly negative or overly mean-spirited about what people are doing here for no reason. Like, you know, the fact of the matter is, this is the consumer electronics show, and we're talking about consumer electronics. And you know, there isn't gonna be one company making consumer electronics. And that's just the reality, no matter how much people want it. And I don't know why anybody would want it, frankly. Like, I don't see any appeal in that whatsoever. Even if they have the best, if you think they have the best ideas in the world, I still think you're going to lose innovation that way. And that's what I'm saying, is the difference between being a technology enthusiast and being an Apple enthusiast. And it's fine to be either, but you need to know which one you are. And you, I mean- Don't be surprised when you're disappointed about other stuff because you're an Apple enthusiast. Just recognize that you don't like other stuff. That's not what you're into, and that's what this is about. And so you gotta- Yeah, but you can't write this off. And you know, I was actually saying- I mean, you either see it or you don't, basically. Like, you know, we have, I think we all use Mac laptops, and I have an iPhone. I love it here. I'm definitely running Ubuntu right now. Yeah, no, but I love- I mean, it's- Split screen with- This is like, it's hell on earth, and we don't get any sleep, and we eat like crap. Yeah, very badly. But I love this week, actually. No, it's fun. It's like, we're basically in gadget town, right? And our whole team is here, and everyone's excited. Like, at least our team is just uniformly excited to cover technology. You know, one of my favorite things, like, I've, especially the kind of big crunch days, I stayed mostly in the trailer trying to run- Well, we really got around that, sorry. Trying to run news and put videos up on the site and stuff like that. And so I wasn't going out to the floor a lot, and you had a lot of meetings and stuff like that, schmoozing. Schmoozing, schmoozing, yeah. And then, Nealight was hitting some stuff, and Nealight has this presence, and he rolls into the trailer, and he's got a story. Smell like grooves. And he's like, let's get this video up. He's like, okay. It's always like, okay, you will not believe what happened. Guys, guys, yeah. Yeah, like, it's like, you have the clear space, because he breaks up down. They seriously put a beeper on our clock. What is going on? That's the hour. That's a 63 minute beep, guys. It's a little passive aggressive. What is happening? What is going on? Can you get this thing out of my face? This is insane. The Lord is trying to tell us. Okay, best of worst. All right, Nealight, best and worst. We gotta just throw that in the garbage. Throw that in the garbage, and it's head on fire. Best, I will say, I think Visio, to me, as a whole, not the Ultrabooks, not whatever they're doing. You know, we were talking about this. They're an American company. I think that's, it's wild for a new American PC manufacturer to just exist. Well. What other ones are there? Well, I mean. They don't just come out of the blue. And they're doing it in a major way. Yeah, I agree. They're gonna be a dominant PC manufacturer. I agree, I agree. I like that. We have to call them American now. I mean, you know, they have a partnership. The way they're successful is they have a partnership with a company called Amtech. Right, no, I mean, that's the thing. And another company called Walmart. Yeah, but that's, but they're, you know. All American companies. But their offices are here, and their product people are here. So the Visio story is your best. I think what they're doing across the board, they wanna really compete with Sony and Samsung. We got an iNew party in five minutes. I know. I hate to rush, I know I took forever. But I think that story, that emergent story of Visio here is gonna be really important. Right. And I think the worst stuff is, on the flip side, the worst stuff is the TVs. I think every smart TV here is the same. You really are down on the smart TVs. I think they, look, we came into this saying they're gonna pre-act to Apple, right? They're gonna try to do something to react to Apple. They definitely pre-acted. And they flopped. They fell on their faces. I mean, it would have been amazing if somebody showed some really beautiful cohesive, you know, with content partnerships. I will say, it's really interesting that one of the biggest smart TV stories here was not the LG or the Sony or the whatever Google TV. It was Google saying, we'll have another version in a couple months. Yeah, I agree. Dude. Stop that. Yeah. Stop saying you're doing things down the line. You know what Josh's grandpa used to say. Yeah. All the time. That's right. Yeah. You can put dreams in one hand and Google TV promises in the other. And these are way more. It's wishes and crap. But you know, that's fine. Yeah. Go ahead. Best of words. My best was the iRobot Ava, which came into the trailer and very successfully navigated things. Like the robot mapped this space for itself, rolled around it. I could just touch on a screen and it went to waypoints. It didn't bump into anybody. Like it was just really functional. And the thing about robots, it's so hard to make something that works reliably, consistently in the real world. Yeah. Like I've seen so many robot demos and they fail repeatedly. And then finally they get it right. And then we can see the demo, you know, and there's 50 engineers like all huddled around it. I was just wandering around this trailer with my tablet or with their tablet, you know, tapping things. And like as much as fun as phones and tablets are, I think we kind of know what it's gonna feel like for the next few years. You know, different companies will go up and down and dominance, but we kind of know what that looks like. We're kind of about to figure out what I think TV's gonna look like, you know, pretty soon. For a while. But robots are about 10 years out. Yeah. And that's really exciting to me because I feel like at some point, not right now, especially not based on the comments I get on any posts I do about robots, not right now, people aren't super excited, but at some point, I think when robots start doing things that you actually need them to do. Exactly. And that's what the iRobot guy said, you need to have a practical problem to solve. Yeah. I have a practical problem. There needs to be a practical problem. Making me a drink. At a price that can solve, it's like a- A price that's cheaper than having our intern. I was trying to find a quote from the interview and it kept on being like a price to use case, like you kept on saying- It's like a drive. Like the most drive phrase ever, but it just makes a lot of sense. All right, worst. Okay, worst thing. I don't wanna name names. And I'm sure they had a very- You got two minutes. I'm sure they had a very nice product and then I don't know anything about their product. I'm sure they're nice people, but somebody walked in here, you know, some people kind of come into this trailer unannounced to show us something, walked in here, knocked over my skateboard, looked down on the ground as my skateboard's just like wallowing and didn't do anything about it. It was rude. It was really rude. I was personally very offended. Could you even name names? No. No, no, no, I'm not asking you to like- I don't know if press- I don't know that product. That's what I was saying, you're like, I'm not gonna name names as if you would be able to. Okay. We're wrapping it up. Yeah, rude people are rude. Chris, can you yell your best and worst from over there? No, we're done, we gotta wrap up. That's our Vergecast from CES, we'll be back. That's not CES for us. That's CES for us, this is it. And we're gonna go party with the iNuke. Can I say something really sappy? Okay. Really sappy. This is our first CS with this team. It is our first Verge- Verge. CES. With our tools, with all the stuff we're doing. It's the inaugural you guys were here for. And I know, I will say, I know we had some problems on the site, we had some video issues. No, no, actually, let me just, can I just jump off that for a second? We had huge- Sorry, I was gonna be sappy and you want to jump off. No, no, no, no, no, no, I do, I wanna, I do, we had huge video issues this week. We had problems with the people who were providing our video who are great guys, but the video player sucked ass, okay? It broke. It was broken and we feel really shitty about it. I really do. Okay. Like it really upset me. Can I say a sappy thing? Can I transition back to happy? Yeah, hold on, but I just wanna say, I just wanna say that problem is going to be corrected. Starting immediately, like the video problems we've been having on the Verge, they're going to stop. I promise our readership- Yeah, we know about it. Trust me. I promise our readership and our viewers that, and we will cease to have those types of video problems on the Verge. Go ahead. Okay, so aside from the problems, which causes stress. Which were really stressful for us. This week has been amazing. It's been amazing to see all the readers react to what we're trying to do with this stuff. Traffic was crazy. Traffic was crazy. To be brand new and to feel successful in the face of pretty impressive competition. We had CNET and Gadget gives- Everybody's here. Everybody's here, everybody's covering. Wall Street Journal, all things D. And it's like, it is the, we sat down in a meeting and it was like CBS, MSNBC, the New York Times. What is this? And we've been officially doing this for like two years. Oh my God, what is this? Is it a little- Oh my God, they 3D printed our logo. No way. Oh my God. That is awesome. Sorry. I'm just gonna hold this here. CS 2012. Best product of CS. Best of CS right here. Where you gonna finish your- Is that it? Thank you. Is your statement done? I'm done. I love you. I love everyone. Thank you guys so much. And we'll be back next week with regular Vergecast and obviously we're doing news. So just, you know. There's gonna be a really awesome video from the iNate soon. And now we're going to play with the iNate. I'm gonna party like a boss. And you know how to find us. So thanks guys. And we'll see you back in New York. Take care.