 Hey and welcome to the Vergecast for the week of November 28th, 2011. I'm Josh Topolsky. I'm Neelay Patel. And I'm Paul Miller. Oh really? You are. That's right. Paul Miller has had a sex change. Yeah. From Dallas. And has become a lady from Dallas. In Dallas. In Dallas. From Dallas. And he now looks strikingly like Joanna Stern. It's my new favorite CBS show by the way, Sex Changed Dallas. Sex Dallas. Sex Changed Dallas. Sex Changed, Sex Changed, Cola, Dallas. As if there were like other sex chains. That's a franchise. Yeah, Sex Changed Miami. Sex Changed LA. Yeah. That's good. So anyhow, this is the Vergecast. We bring you the week in consumer electronics and technology, news, information, and philosophical meanderings. We were off last week because of a very, very important holiday in America, Black Friday. Yeah. And. And killed a man. And sent him to the capitalist gods. With pepper spray. Yes. And then after this we'll be Occupying in case you're wondering. Union Square. Have you seen it? Occupied? Yeah. Cops everywhere. I think that's just for the holiday sales. It's just Thursday. Yeah. I don't think they're Occupying. I mean when I was walking to the office I saw some guy go, can you hear the drum circles? Yeah. And like took off running. Really? And I was like, oh god. I haven't seen any of this. That sounds like dialogue you hear like when you're walking around Deus Ex. That kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. No, he actually. He said the drum circles and then they took off running. His friend was like, I better run too. And like took off running. I'm just, I want to just say I understand that my shirt is causing, is probably causing seizures right now at home. When I put it on tonight I thought, I bet this is going to mess people up pretty bad. And then I put my coat on and left the house. Oh my god. Yeah, it really does. Right? Freaking you out. I mean no seizure there. I think this is going to be like my shtick. Yeah. Geez. Shirts that don't work. Shirts that don't work on these cheap ass video cameras. So we should get underway. Paul is sick by the way in case you're wondering. Sick of my shirt. He actually saw my shirt and started throwing up uncontrollably. Or I did something with him. We should start. Big week. Big couple of, you know the last 24 hours have been kind of interesting. It's been a very dramatic soap opera. Very dramatic. A lot of drama, a lot of makeups and breakups. Breakups and makeups. Actually that's pretty accurate. It really is. You want to delve into the news of the moment, Neelay? Betrayal. Yeah. Do you want to talk about the only thing I talk about which is carrier IQ. You know it's my favorite thing to always talk about nonstop. Can you tell us what is carrier IQ? So this started I want to say like last week. This guy Trevor Eckhart posted a video of an HTC Evo 3D saying there's a software on here that's installed by Sprint or HTC. We don't know but it tracks everything you do on the phone. It tracks what you dial. It tracks what you type on the keyboard. We don't know what it sends away but let's go look at carrier IQ's website and see what their software can do per the training materials. And it can do all this crazy stuff. It can track individual users. It's up to the carrier to track. It can key log. Yeah. It can do all this. It knows who you've called. Yeah. It knows your location. Theoretically. All the stuff in theory. Everything you do on the phone. So carrier IQ freaks out basically. And they send them a cease and desist letter and say we're going to sue you for copyright infringement because you copied our training materials which are publicly available on our website. And dude was like no that's insane. Told us, told the Electronic Frontier Foundation, everybody started freaking out about carrier IQ. They backed off. They put out this insane media advisory that said we just help carriers do network enhancements. But that media advisory is from two weeks ago. It's from last week. It's from the 16th. Yeah. Last week. The media advisory. No there's like this whole series of media advisories. Well there's the media advisory where they attempt to explain what they do. Which I think is the best one. And actually can I read, do you mind if I read a line? By all means read. I have to pull it up. A dramatic reading. Media alert. Important information. So here's the thing that's interesting about carrier IQ. They refer to their customer, when you hear the word customer you always think of yourself. Right. A person. So the customer for carrier IQ is. Sprint. It's OEMs and carriers. Yeah. Well it's mostly Sprint from what we can tell. Yeah. AT&T. So they say the information derived from devices is encrypted and secured within our customers network or in our audited and customer approved facilities. Which is like, that tells me nothing about what happens with that information. Oh you've been logging all my emails but it's encrypted. No it's like we have, our customer has it. And we have. In some place. Don't worry about it. Our customer's got it and we've got it. That's no problem. And our facility is customer approved. We're customer, it's customer approved. So you shouldn't have to worry about, look we've got the information. It's not just out there. We're not selling it. It's like I don't want, I don't know what that means. Does that mean that a guy at Verizon or Sprint, well Verizon says they don't do it. Right. Except. Except. Except for the microphone. Yeah. Talk towards the microphone. Let me just finish this crazy narrative real fast. Yeah. Okay yeah. So this company has terrible PR skills, right? And they start, they basically, someone's like oh my god you're tracking everything they do. And their response is to threaten a lawsuit. Sue. Which is like, okay you're a shady company. You're reacting in a shady way. So now there's all this tension over carrier IQ and what they do and what they're tracking, what phones they're on. Yeah. This sort of, it started blowing up last night a little bit. And then over last night and today, we found out last night that Google doesn't put it on its Nexus devices. That was confirmed today by Google. That's right. We found, last night we found some evidence of it in iOS devices. But then today Apple says that's all going away. And there's this race of companies and carriers to get away from carrier IQ and say we don't put this on our phones. We don't support our network. So Verizon said it. RIM said it. The only people who haven't come out and backed away from it are Sprint. Sprint says this is an integral part of our service. So they're right there with carrier IQ. Apple says most of our products don't have carrier IQ. So if the Touch doesn't have it, what's the problem? Here's what I think. So I think AT&T Pride doesn't run anymore. Verizon doesn't run anymore. Although there's some question there. But I think if Sprint's saying it's an integral part of our service and the iPhone's on Sprint, I'm guessing that the Sprint iPhone probably has carrier IQ on there. So Verizon, so I had an exchange with- Samsung put out a statement saying they do it at the behest of customers. I had an exchange with Verizon's, one of their PR dudes, Jeffrey Nelson. And I said, I tweeted something about this is all on the carriers. And he responded and said, and I think we have this on the site somewhere, but he responded and said this is 100% not on our devices. And then somebody replied to both of us and said, well, why do I find this? Because you can test it to see if you've got it on your phone. And somebody was like, well, why do I have this in my logs? And I responded to both him and Jeff. And I said, what phone is that? And Jeff was like, don't make me say the name of that phone because I'll get millions of responses. I assume he means on Twitter. I assume he's talking about the iPhone. So I think that code- I'm just assuming. I think the old iPhone on Verizon, the iPhone 4 before iOS 5, probably had it on there. Last year's iPhone. Last year's iPhone. And Apple says, we moved away from it with iOS 5. And Verizon says we don't have it anymore. So I'm guessing that that's like remnants of the old stuff on the iPhone 4 code on Verizon, and now they don't use it anymore. I mean, that's Apple's story. And I feel pretty confident that when I talked to them today, that's what they were- they wouldn't say it directly, but they would- I kept on asking about Sprint, and I kept on getting no comments. Right? So- Can I ask a question? Yeah. And it might be a stupid one. Why are we not hearing about this till now? Like, is it just because this developer- Yeah, it's one guy found it. Yeah, I don't think anybody saw it. Because he just found it. Yeah, I don't think anybody saw it. And actually, he found it kind of a long time ago. I mean, this is like- this story's been bubbling around for like a month, and it's just hitting critical mass now. And I mean, it's really gone critical mass. No one else has before this guy had talked about it. Like I haven't done a lot of this before. Not really. I mean, you know what's funny is all the coverage of Carrier IQ before is all like they got investment of $12 million. They're signed up another 50 million customers on carriers around the world. And it's like, nobody actually stopped to ask, what does this company do? And finally, when they noticed that the software, it's called the IQ agent, runs on- IQ agent. That sounds totally fine. Yeah, totally normal. No problem with the IQ agent running it. So here's the thing about all these denials. At this point, we're kind of at where Carrier IQ has become this loaded term. But all the carriers are doing it. They're just not using this software. There's another Carrier IQ. Right. And you know, Nokia makes Nokia Siemens networks, which is not Nokia, but they make one. But here's the thing that we don't know. We actually don't know what they're doing with the data. Yeah, what is the worst case? They may be- well, worst case is- I want to know the worst case. I'm- Okay, here's absolute worst case. And I'm not going- That's the kind of thing I am. Well, there's a couple- You're the doctor. Just tell me. I'm gonna tell you. I'm gonna tell you what I have left. That's it. Absolute worst case, right? Yeah. They are storing all of the data in a- I broke my phone. All of the data of what you're doing on your device. And I think what we've seen is that not every device is tracking the same amount of data. Right. Right? Worst case is you've got an Android phone that's fully logging, and it's storing that data, some structured data somewhere with your device attached to it. And yeah, your name. And it's user accessible by an employee of Verizon or an employee of Carrier IQ. Right. Or actually- I've got to- Maybe you go one step beyond, maybe they're doing something with it. But I'm saying the worst case of what this software is doing- And then the second part of that is, and it's discoverable by the government, right? Or by an advertiser or whatever. I think the- But you don't want the FBI to be like, let's see what all- we're hunting for terrorists. Let's go through everybody's records. Well, yeah, I've got nothing to hide. Maybe the problem is that you've got something to hide. No, dude, the CIA definitely does. I've been watching Homeland. Is that good? Is that show good? Oh, it's amazing. Should I watch it? You should watch it. I like Claire Danes. Claire Danes is amazing. I don't like that redhead guy though. I'm not crazy about him. He's great too. I don't like his face. Them together, even better. Really? That's two redheads. Are they dating? I thought she's like- I don't want to give it away, but it's pretty great. Don't ruin it for me. Okay. She's definitely got all my Carrier IQ. Can I tell you what- And I'm okay with that. I don't know if this is true or not. I've seen the trailers. I've seen the ads on buses. I think the show is about this. Claire Danes is like an FBI agent. CIA. And she's whatever. She's highly suspicious of this redheaded guy, but they're also making love. Yeah. Is that right? That seems right. You're almost right, but I don't want to get into it, but- Please don't. Okay. Okay. Does he have Carrier IQ? He has Carrier IQ on his phone. He is the inventor of Carrier IQ. If he did, we would solve all this. Like Carrier IQ, the more I hear it, the more it sounds like a contagion. Right. Like does he have Carrier IQ? Like he's a carrier. Yeah. He's a carrier. Carrier IQ. Bird flu. Okay, but hold on. So wait. So best case- Bird flu IQ. What's best case scenario? The best case scenario is Sprint announced, what, yesterday? I have to turn down my headphones. Or the day before. We got the iPhone 4. People are complaining about network performance. And based on user complaints and our own testing, we're going and doing spot upgrades to the network. Wait, this is the best case scenario? Yeah, so the best case scenario is they're actually doing what they should be doing. What they say they're doing. Right, which is we're tracking drop calls on devices. We're seeing where data speeds are low on devices. And we're using that data to go build that network. Like they're using raw, anonymous data about their cell networks that are not like, it's not personal. They're not logging phone calls. I mean, they're only logging drop calls and signal stuff. And the best case is that it's not really logging it, right? It's just like the phone knows that it's dropping a call. And when it does, it's a little billing cycle update. It says, I dropped this many calls. I think the middle ground is probably the gray area is what's scary. Where there's a software on the phone that can and will track all this stuff. And they're saying, we only collect X of it. And that's scary because it's like, what's going to stop you from doing more? What's going to stop some malicious employee from doing more? What's going to stop Skynet from becoming self-aware? I think what's important is they're sending me a bunch of spam ads. Awesome spam ads. That's what Skynet will first do. Yeah, no, they'll try to- Spam. Spam everyone. Of course. No, no, Skynet will be like your uncle in Africa. My Nigerian prince uncle. That's Skynet's first scam. That's what I got. I mean, I think there's a big- Can I have a few notes that you text him by the way? I think there's a big delta between what they say the customers are collecting and the ability of the phone to collect things. And I think when people find out that the phone can collect things, they get scared and confused. I mean, I want Sprint and AT&T and Verizon to make better networks. What I don't want them to do is I don't want them to use software that also collects all the text messages I send. Because those text messages are nasty. They are sexts all the time. I'm basically sexting 24-7. Right now. 24-7 sexting. It's a record I'm making. I'm pretty sure. I told you about- That definitely is already a Sean Paul song. That definitely is already a Sean Paul song. 24-7 sexting, yeah. I told you about- Rapid texting. Unlimited sexting, right? No. It's a new offering from Vicarious. From Verizon. Unlimited sexting. I've not talked about this in the podcast. No. I mean, the Vergecast, excuse me. Yeah, with the brand. It's so wonderful that Paul isn't here to- I really hate that name. The Vergecast or Paul? Are you doing a Paul in person? I'm doing a Paul in person. That's pretty good. But anyhow. I really hate that name. So here's where we're at right now with this story. And by the way- This story is insane. You've seen it, but we've been tracking it pretty closely today. We have 15 stream updates right now. I wish we could come right now to carrier IQ update. And have the person like, just in. Listen to music? Yeah. We really have been tracking. Like a storm tracker. Yeah, exactly. Excuse me, I'm getting updates. That's good. I like your doing it. So we should say, but we should say Sean Hollister- We went to carrier IQ. He actually was like, earlier in the day, he was in our chat room and he was like, I'm walking to carrier IQ right now. So apparently he lives or his fiance works just down the street. If you want to know where Sean Hollister is, take that. Somewhere near carrier IQ. He's in the parking lot. He's waiting in the parking lot in the darkened car. This story is amazing. He's in carrier IQ. So he goes there. He knocks. Privacy invasion. So he knocks on the door. They won't let him in. He basically bullies his way in the door. And he sits down with the VP of marketing. Wait, that's really how it happened? They didn't have an appointment? No, he just shut up. No, this happened. They won't talk to anyone. I've been emailing for like a week and a half and they won't talk to anybody. This is all too real. He sits down in the room and he gets the VP of marketing in the room with him. The VP of marketing's name is Andrew Coward. A Coward. You know, that guy's fought against that name his whole life though. Yeah, I respect him. And he's fighting back by tracking every single text message that he sends. I'm going to get you. Who's the Coward now? No, that's rude. We shouldn't make fun of him. It's the guy's name. He didn't, he wasn't, he was born with it. I mean, he wasn't born with it. It was given to him. He was born this way. Just shortly after birth. But anyhow, so yeah, so Sean, but we couldn't get much out of him. Right. I actually feel bad for Carrier IQ. I mean, I don't believe that they were, I don't believe that they were, I don't think they started doing this maliciously. I don't think they started doing this. Let's make a nefarious piece of software. But then they did. Right. Well, you know what happened. Some engineer was like, you know, boss, we could just track all the stuff and their boss was like, that's a good idea. Just do that. Yeah. We'll scale it back. I think look, they're not defending Carrier IQ now. Yeah. Hey, go easy on him. Okay. Well, I guarantee you. Why am I defending them in that like Brooklyn accent? Hey, the dice, the dice man is defending them. Yeah. That's what they, that would be better than what they're doing. Their choices are to speak on their behalf. That would be better. That would be a vast improvement. We need the dice man to represent Carrier IQ to the world. Like, but full on, like totally profane. I can't think of a worse person to represent anyone. Right. But this is what I'm saying. It'd be such a huge improvement over like suing people and putting out insane media advisories and saying things like. They're just confused and scared. They had no idea what to do. No, and they said, you know, the quotes here, we have to do independent testing to verify this person's claims. And it's like, well, you made the software. Somebody just suggested I had shares in Carrier IQ. Are they publicly traded? I don't think you can, I mean, I guess I could be like an investor. Yeah. I'm an angel investor in Carrier IQ. He's reading a text message right now. Stop talking about this. Yeah. Fine. Look, so, so, uh, Carrier IQ says to Sean, uh, with you independent testing to verify this guy's claims. It's like, no, you know, like so many claims like you're murdering someone. Like you have to be like, I'm going to do some independent testing to verify that. It's like the rim thing. They're like, you know, we think you don't need two CEOs. They're like, we're going to personally independently look into that ourselves. Jim and Mike are going to do a deep dive on that and figure out if it's true. They're going to play a game of dominoes. Also anyone can test it there if this is on your phone. Yeah. There's an app. There's an APK. Hey, there's an app for that. We should, do you throw that Lincoln? Yeah. I threw it in the chat. So yeah, so Ross just went and got hands on with the new LG nitro. The nitro. Can I be like, could I be less interested in any phone? I'm sorry. Any tested. The nitro has. AT&T's LG nitro. Every phone that isn't running pure Google honey ice cream sandwich. Well now it's like, yeah, right. Huh? Who told you? I told you get a galaxy access. I just complained about it in my post column. Did you see this? That it's not out? I wrote a, what do you mean? Yes. I wrote a column and basically the column was about how. It wasn't even about phones. You were just like. It was about. No, no, no. I'm very mad about this situation. No, it was about, oh, this is actually our last topic. Might as well talk about it now because I kind of segued into it accidentally. But no, it was about how Android, I mean, this is actually, it actually is weirdly good timing because it was about how Android's identity has been kind of destroyed by like Verizon and Motorola in the sense that I was, I was at Thanksgiving dinner and people started talking about how they hated droids and they hated the ads for droids. And I've heard this a bunch of times, like droids, droids are a thing and people don't like droids. They don't, they think they're complicated. They think they're like tech, really technical. They think the ads are scary and aggressive. And like they're definitely the idea that they're selling. And maybe it's true. I do think that like Android is pretty complicated compared to iOS, but the idea that they're selling definitely makes people feel like it's complicated. They're not going like this will make your life easier. They're going, this is really highly technical and complex. And also it will slit your throat while you sleep, especially the droid razor. But so I would say, and I say, you know, the Galaxy Nexus, I think it's the best Android phone that's ever been made. In my opinion, the combination of hardware and software is really good here. And I think people want it and Verizon is going to sell it, but you couldn't find it on, if you went out on Black Friday to like get that new smartphone for somebody, you couldn't get it or for yourself or whatever. And it's getting late. We don't know. It's late in the year. I mean, it's December. I'm looking at me. Yes. I can confirm. Actually Verizon's PR tweeting people. What do they call it? Professional tweeters? Pro tweets? Yeah, pro tweets. Pro tweets. They've been pretty, I mean, they're out there like saying it'll be out by the end of the year. And like I said, people reply to them and be like, so that's like now. Then a quarter of the news. Exactly. But I'm saying, so they're saying a couple of weeks, but I was complaining. So about how like the whole message of Android has been, you know, now, now you've got the Gelli, Gelli, Matias and you know, obviously we've spoken to them extensively and heard that they have this initiative to like make Android useful and beautiful and fun. And I think it is that I think it's getting there, but like you wouldn't know because you're just going to get Moda, blur and gingerbread. Yeah. And it sucks. In talking to some people, you know, like a phone, like the Amaze on T-Mobile, like that's not like Google has nothing to do with that phone really. Yeah. I mean, it's like a complete. It's full of carrier IQ. I mean, literally it is, the software, the software is 60% carrier IQ and 40% actual operating. It's actually just predictive. It tracks you so much that it knows. It knows it's predictive tracking. I like that. It's like, are you about to say it's like silk. Yeah. It's like predictive tracking. Yeah. Pretty much. You get silk and what am I doing here? Carrier. You get those two together. What happens next? Babies. All right. So anyhow, but yeah, so I'm just, I'm mad about the Galaxy Nexus stuff and I have to say I, so I still have the review unit. I've been using it. You're keeping it. It's been my deal. By the way, Google, not giving it back. Sorry. This is the one review unit I'm not giving back. But it's on, you know, it's AT&T. Right. And I really, really want to not have AT&T anymore. Yeah. I was going to buy, I was going to buy one. Chris bought one. Donnie bought one. No, no, no. I actually thought, because the HSPA Plus is really fast on it. Yeah. But it just is not, it's not LTE. I mean, there's no more frustrating experience than seeing like 3G and four bars and it does nothing. Right. Have you experienced that? No. I believe this is, I mean. The question you're asking is not have you experienced it. You're asking, are you an AT&T customer? And by the way, everybody I know who has AT&T every time I call them, it's a miserable experience. Yeah. Anyhow, just totally off topic. So by the way, I'm waiting for Verizon. I'm waiting for Verizon too. Verizon, I want to give you my money. What is your problem? They take my money. Why promote the Droid? That's what they want to do. I'm ready to drop my wallet. I've heard it from more than one person. I know. Verizon is completely committed to Droid. Droid is their brand. They own Droid. They can do whatever they want with it. You want to put Bing search on a Droid? No problem. Verizon will do that for you. Right. They don't care. They don't give an F. So was that your argument in the post piece is like basically Verizon keeps trying to protect their Droid? The point that I was making is that consumers don't really know what Android is. I think the public perception of it is actually quite negative. It's not made any less negative by these ads, which only appeal to dudes who are really into robots, which is fine. And killing people with phones. And killing people with their Razr. Yeah. And then the Rhyme ads. Yeah. I don't know who that ad appeals to. No, that's a terrible ad as well. It appeals to people who are on the Droid. But at least there is the idea of the phone. She has like 15 arms and she's just whispering. It's nothing sexy about that. It's kind of like shades of palm. It definitely does. It's out of the same playbook. It's Verizon. It's Verizon again. Verizon saying this is how you market to women. Verizon didn't do the creepy ones. Those were just palm. Those are all palm. That was all palm, but Verizon had... They had the 50s moms. No, 80s moms. Oh, it was 80s moms? Whatever. 80s moms. Yeah. Yeah. Moms who are busy. Yeah. So they need a palm tree. So it basically comes back to Verizon. I mean, well, I think what it comes back to in all of this stuff that we're talking about right now, holding phones that we think are great that you can't buy here and this carrier IQ stuff, I think it comes back to carriers have too much freaking power. Yeah. Look, there's only four of them and they can't reasonably compete on privacy. Right. They're not... You don't go to AT&T because it has better privacy policy than Verizon. I want them more private. Right. You go to AT&T because it has faster service and lower prices or whatever. Right? Yeah. And what should be happening, and I keep talking about this at length, is that you should be buying devices from the vast array of manufacturers who can really compete on the services that are important on devices. Dream scenario. Take them to a carrier that can really compete on faster service and low prices. Yeah. But, you know. This is the old toll. It's a dream. The old toll. Yeah, this goes right... Can I wrap up carrier IQ for a second? Close down the tolls. Because this goes right into AT&T. The tolls. The tolls. Yeah, this was your analogy. Yeah, you got to pay the piper. Yeah. No, it's... Right, my analogy was... It's their tolls. The highways. It's like building cars that only go on certain highways or vice versa. Right. But that's part of the control. That is part of the control. It's also... It's a system, man. Occupy. I mean, also... Do you guys hear the drums? Do you hear that drum circle? Do you hear the drum circle? Anyhow, you were going to say something? No, I mean, the carrier IQ story, this is... Nice. It's a little story. It's here's this one company that has the software. The big story is every carrier does this. Every manufacturer probably cow-tows to every carrier and puts some version of software that tracks where your phone is, what its service is, whether you dropped a call. And that's like the big question, right? What does Verizon use? What does T-Mobile use? And I think we're going to get some answers soon. Al Franken... What's Apple? What's Apple? Yeah, you have Franken. Franken's on the case. Oh, yeah. And he's like a bulldog, right? He chairs this committee of privacy and the law. And he's holding hearings. He's like, I'm going to send letters to everybody. What do you think about this, like, did they violate wiretapping laws? Dude, that guy is way out in the limb. I mean, you have to know what they did before you can say it's illegal. Well, but let's say they did the worst-case scenario. Yeah, of course. That's a violation of wiretapping laws? It's a violation of like 5,000 laws. I can't help but feel a little bit bad for carrier IQ. Oh, shoot. There's a company of like 12 people probably. They're doomed. They're basically doomed. Right. And everybody's running away from them as fast as they can. Right. Except for Sprint. Sprint's like, they're cool. It's like... It's just guys. And Hesse's like, just ride it out. Just ride this. Just get on your surfboard and hit the curl. Well, you know what's going to happen? This is what I expect to see is I expect to see either carrier IQ or somebody probably leak a story that's like Verizon does this but 10 times worse and try to deflect it away. Well, whatever. The problem is we got to... Or AT&T or T-Mobile or whatever. We got to stop tracking people's personal data. Right. That's the long-term. And you know, it's funny is all of the manufacturers say we don't build this until the networks make us do it. Yeah. This whole question of... This goes right into AT&T and T-Mobile and the FCC, which have been fighting all week. This is the other big, silly, dramatic story of the week. So last week, the FCC said, we're going to basically not let this happen. We're going to hold a hearing about AT&T buying T-Mobile. We don't think it's in the public interest. AT&T responded or now they claim they preemptively withdrew their application. Hold on a second. So there's a story on AllThingsD that is more from the carrier IQ people. They're saying... AllThingsD went to camp outside our... They went out. They followed our lead over to carrier IQ. Right. They're saying... SOPA receives a huge amount of information from the operating system, but just because it receives it doesn't mean that it's being used to gather intelligence about the user or passed along to the carrier. What the ACR video demonstrates is that there's a great deal of information available on a handset, but it doesn't show that information processed, stored, or forwarded out of the device. They're using weird language here, though. We don't read SMS messages. We see them come in. We see the phone numbers attached to them, but we are not storing, analyzing, or otherwise processing the contents of those messages. So are they saying that they're... Just tap them? Well, it says they're not storing them. So they're saying that it's immediately deleted? Or it just passes through. I mean, I don't know. Right? I mean, this is like... These are their... The questions like... This is what I'm saying. There's this... Oh, oh. It's the customer that determines what data is collected. What happens with it. Yeah. They make the decision based on their privacy standards and their agreement with the users, and we implement it. Right. Right. So this is what I'm saying. There's the potential of the software, and there's what the software actually does, and it feels like carrier IQ should be more responsible with the potential of the software. Because there's nothing stopping Sprint from recording everything, apparently. They see all the information. But there's software in your phone that sees all the information. Okay, so there's a new piece out. What's that? A new... Piece of the new. Like an updated statement from carrier IQ. Oh, another media... To clarify misinformation on the functionality of carrier IQ software, the company's updating a statement from November 23rd, as follows. Yeah. Another media advisory. And this is the same stuff. Media advisory. We need to cut right now... Media advisory....the cut to the carrier IQ watch. Yeah. This is literally... The storm watch....carrier IQ alert. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We need to cut... Excuse me. There's a breaking development in the carrier IQ story. There really is a breaking development. All right. Anyhow... Do you want to talk... This is what we knew. This is what we've been talking about the whole time. I mean, this is... But this is what... Yeah. I mean, this doesn't... It's still unclear if they're keeping something. Right. I think the answer there is you have to go to Sprint and Verizon and AT&T and whoever else and say, it doesn't matter if you're using carrier IQ. We want to know what software is on your phone and what data you're storing, and the company that you contract in the middle to do it for you is not important. Yeah. And I think that's the big... All right. I don't want to say carrier IQ anymore today. Let's see if we can... Can we talk about Trevor Eckhart for a second? Can we see if we can... He's just a regular developer. He just found this. Yeah, but... I think his story is really interesting. You know what's amazing is that everyone refers to him as a security researcher now. He's just been given this title. But is he just a guy in the XDA forums? I mean, he did research. He did research his security issue. But I don't think he's a pro security. It's like... Hey. Look, I ride a bicycle from time to time. You're a pro bicyclist. You're a pro bicyclist. I'm a bicyclist. Let's see if we can not say... I'm not even going to say it. CIQ for the rest of the... We need to cut to the carrier... Well, you said it. Oh, okay. Well, I said it different. Let's see if we can not say carrier IQ for the rest of the broadcast. ICQ. ICQ. All right. Let's keep going. That was a great chat protocol. Yeah. Let's keep going. So this AT&T thing, this is the other big dramatic piece of news. Even this is such a back and forth too. So SEC says we're not going to do it. AT&T says whatever worth withdrawing application. There are all these rumors about what they'll do after they withdraw the application to try to get the merger through, including selling up to 40% of T-Mobile to Leap Wireless, which makes no sense. Like what is 40% of T-Mobile? How do you... I bet that doesn't really count with that. Right. T-Mobile has a large fleet of cars. It accounts for 30% of their business. We're going to sell all of the paper in their Idaho office. So they're going to sell it to Leap Wireless, which makes no sense. Leap Wireless has 7 million customers on Cricket. T-Mobile has 33 million customers. Where are they going to get the money to do this? And then... Hail Mary. It's basically the Hail Mary. Isn't this being billed as their Hail Mary? This is being billed as their Hail Mary. Yeah. But they have to do it. They have to formally announce it. Is this going to work? No. Is this going to work? I don't think it's going to happen. The AT&T T-Mobile deal? AT&T and T? I don't think they can find a... Here's a standard, right? To make this happen, basically the government is saying, you have to create... You have to replace T-Mobile. So you can buy T-Mobile, but we're worried that you're going to go from four carriers to three. And if you do it, you have to somehow build up one of the remaining carriers to be T-Mobile again. It's so stupid. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Yeah. Which part? That you'd have to create another one? Well, yeah. I mean, their goal... AT&T's goal is to not do that. The goal is to... So there isn't another carrier that can beat with them. Right. But AT&T's big lie is that they're doing it for two reasons. One, they need the spectrum to do LT, which they kind of don't. And two, that they'll create a bunch of jobs, which is like, that makes no sense. That's actually a total lie, right? What merger of two giant companies has ever created a bunch of jobs? Job creation engines is how I'd refer to it. Right. And so AT&T's, we're going to create a bunch of jobs, isn't we're going to hire a bunch of people. When we put LTE out in the farmland, new businesses will come out because of broadband. And that's like, that's not true because no one has a job to buy LTE right now. I mean, it's, you know, it's times like this, you feel like you can just see so clearly what BS it is. And you just are like, how can you possibly look people straight in the eye and tell them what you're telling them? So I felt this way during... I'm interested in this... I felt this way during the... What could they possibly come up with? Right, but this is, we're going to sell a bunch of T-Mobile to Leap Wireless. It doesn't like to make any... Well, you know, we'll build Leap Wireless... We'll make them the fourth. We'll make them the T-Mobile of next year. This is how I felt about the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Like really? You believe that? You think that's the guy? Yeah. He's the guy you're picking? That's the dude. Really? So anyway, so the FCC says, well, you know what, we're going to release this 109 page report anyway, right? So the AT&T pulls out its application to buy T-Mobile. The FCC is basically like, well, we just did all this work shooting down your reasoning. So we're just going to release it so everybody knows. And it's basically just like this lengthy... Chris did an awesome piece on it. It's basically just this lengthy slam of everything AT&T says, including this whole jobs thing, you know, whether or not they need the spectrum. AT&T then responded to that and said, we have no idea why you released this. The FCC is no longer objective. It's doing advocacy. It's not... So basically AT&T and the FCC are now in a fight. They're dissing the FCC. They're dissing the FCC. They're like, you guys don't... AT&T says the document lacks all credibility and basically accuses individual employees of the FCC of being impartial. Anybody we know? No. That sounds great. And then the FCC starts tweeting at AT&T saying they're deeply concerned about AT&T's behavior. So like, we're like... We're concerned about their emotional well-being. Now it's like you have this company that has like a $160 billion company in the FCC, like literally acting like 12 year old girls on Twitter and being like... I like it. Throwing it out. I think this is what this country needs. Yeah. More of this behavior. I think I'm getting a cold. Yeah. I feel like I'm going to start sneezing and get trolled. You're just allergic to this nonsense. Do it right over the microphone. I'm allergic to BS. I can hear everyone so loudly. Really? Maybe you need to turn down your volume right there. You should turn down your headphones. There's a control for your headphones. I did. That's mine. You turned me down. So anyway, so we're... I can't hear anything. So I think this merger is over. Right? I mean, I don't think there's anything... I mean, now they've... Should I turn you down? No, I can't hear it. I can... No, it's me. Are you good? Yeah. This is so cool. Yeah. No, I mean, I just don't think... Like they were already like out of the game and now you just turned me down. I know. I mean, are you just... What are you doing? I don't know. She's like, come on, can we talk about the transformer already? She wants to get out of here. Blah, blah, blah. You think it's dead in the water. TNT, we're not gonna have a merger. Well, so here's the last... How is anybody gonna compete with Verizon now? Well, here's the last thing. So in the UK, T-Mobile in the UK, in orange, they're separate companies, but they do everything together. A joint venture that's called Everything Everywhere. They're like partners. They're not married, but they're... How does that partnership there work? I don't know. It's called Everything Everywhere. They share infrastructure and resources. They do all this stuff. So I'm sure... That sounds like socialism to me. Yeah. Well, no, it's... Sharing? But it's not managed by the government. So I think there's... Isn't sharing really a socialist concept? Yeah. Construct? Well, it's the UK. For hippies. They... In Brooklyn. Sharing for hippies. So many taxes and doctors just everywhere giving away healthcare. No doctors. Can't get a kid an appointment. So the Wall Street Journal says, AT&T, this could be the next move for them. I honestly think... You mean sharing everything with T-Mobile. Yeah. Or T-Mobile basically being like, just run a company for us. That's a great idea. I think it's wonderful. I mean, it's... Yet they would still keep two separate businesses. Yeah. Have separate devices. Would... Have separate plans. But the device would be interoperable. Who knows? I mean, this is coming up today. How would that help T-Mobile? I think T-Mobile... Cash infusion. Their German parent, T-Mobile, does not wanna spend any more money. Deutsche Telekom? Deutsche Telekom. They don't wanna spend any... You just wanna say that. Yeah. They don't wanna spend any more money on T-Mobile USA. I think they're done with it. And they don't wanna buy the Spectrum DLT or go down. Or they call it T-Mo USA. That's a really good name. T-Mo USA? T-Mo USA. Yeah, it's pretty good. Anyway, so this is like, it's falling apart. Even if they come back with something and it's like... They thoroughly irritated the FCC in saying, we're never gonna let you do this. Yeah. Well, the FCC is now... They're now fighting with it. They're fighting mad. It's bad stuff. It's nasty stuff. So this was the drama of today. Like literally, I think Chris did a post every four hours about the FCC or AT&T saying something was gonna be... I wish we could cut now to the AT&T, T-Mobile, FCC. Live from the hearings, Senate hearings. Yeah. So they're not going on. No, no, no. Like our updates. Oh yeah. I wish we had this same thing. What is the component you're looking for on the Vergecast? You want us just to be able to cut in. Yeah. And like, and because we keep saying we've been tracking this. I understand like now we now go live to the line of the FCC. Chris Ziegler's on the scene. He's like, what can you tell us about what's happened today? And he's got a big map. Well, yeah, I know. Well guys, it was very contentious on Twitter today. Like with Twitter, the Twitter back and forth. It's like versus. Why would it be a physical map or would it just be like a... No, it's like a screen. He's like a weatherman. Chris Ziegler, Verge weatherman. You're kind of mixing your cutaways. It's true. It's a CNN local news. No, one is like cutting on location. One is cutting to the weather guy. One is like, what's the weather gonna be like tomorrow? And he's like, what's the weather gonna be like tomorrow? And he's like, what's the weather gonna be like tomorrow? And he's like, what's the weather gonna be like tomorrow? He's gonna have a giant multi-touch screen, but out in the field. Out in the field. In fact, it's like a holographic screen. Like a John King, Wolf Blitzer style, but in the field. And then Sean comes in and he does the carrier IQ. Sorry, I said the title again. Oh, God, you blew it. It's like we have this... You're a bozo that's blowing it. We're tracking it. I really am. The point is that we're tracking these stories and I love that we can say that. Can we do the... I mean, I can say this. I love story streams. They're cool. They're the best part of our site. Yeah, we're tracking them in the story stream. I mean, you can say that. I love it. I think they're great. You can't say that. Nobody's gonna be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, don't say that. We have this thing, you know. This is like the... Don't say you love story streams. But that's when we're really saying we track it. Yeah, we're just updating the streams. I need to brainstorm with Chad on this idea. We now go live to Chris Ziegler. Who's updating a stream. Who's updating a stream as we speak. I wish we could do it now. Now I get it. I just wanna go say we now go live to blank. Where we're tracking. Where we're tracking. That would be we now go live to the White House where we're tracking this story. Because we're tracking. Have you ever seen the news? I'm watching Senator Al Franken send a letter to AT&T. I was at CNN today. I have no idea what I was doing there. I was like, what do you guys do here? News? Yes. We now go live to the... To the Transformer Prime. To the newsroom. Yeah. Where Joanna Stern is reporting on the Transformer Prime. I'm not tracking this story. I'm not tracking it. I'm just reporting on it. There's actually something to track here because... Well let's... Begin. How can we... Can we do like a close up of this or something? Yeah walk towards the camera. Uh oh. Billy's up. Billy's up. Disney's up. Billy's moving. Disney. Can I talk about your website that you own? Everyone watching, I have been using the Transformer Prime. One of our new video guys, his name is Billy Disney and he owns the website notwalt.com. Notwalt.com. Check it out. Is there anything on there? Is there nudity? What can we expect? No? You don't want to talk? Fully closed. Fully closed. Let's take a look at it. Fully closed nudity. Not Walt. It's pretty good. Billy Dee. Why is that redirect? This is a bunch of urge stuff. Yeah. Come on man. It is. Here's some guy. Oh yeah, Vidler. Yeah, Billy used to work at Vidler. Before everything fell apart. I don't know if things fell apart. I can't say for sure. Anyhow. All right. Can we talk about this thing? Yeah, I guess so. I'm going to need another celery stick pretty soon. Stern. Yeah. Are we on? Yeah. Yeah. So this is the Transformer Prime. I've been using it. I wrote the review yesterday. This is like the video review. Can I ask you a question? Do they name this thing the Prime because they thought it was going to be the Nexus Prime and they just wanted to glom on to the name? That's my guess. Oh right. That was the code name. That was definitely the code name. Can I ask our Ustream, is this video completely insane for you guys? Because it looks like highly, highly artifacted to me. No. They said no. Okay. Keep going. All right. Keep going. I can't even see it. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Just do what you're doing over there. I do not know why they called it the Prime. I'm pretty sure. I mean, I'm basically 100% sure they're like, oh, it's going to be the Nexus Prime. Oh. People will think it's the same. Why don't they call it the Galaxy Transformer? You know, I really wish they did. And that right there is the story of the review. What? If they had called this the Nexus, I mean the Galaxy Prime, then perhaps then Google would have put Ice Cream Sandwich on it at launch. You think so? And the software experience would be a little bit better. And I think Ice Cream Sandwich is definitely going to make this a much better tablet. Well, I mean, I don't know. We don't know yet. We don't know yet. So yeah, let's talk about the, we can get there later. But so this is the tablet. As I say in the review, it's really nice, really nice display. So this costs $499, 32 gigabytes of storage versus. Yeah. And then you're holding a keyboard. You know, there's people who are going to listen to you. So this is the keyboard. Yeah. All right. So people won't be there. So this keyboard is like really thin. Really thin. They really like slim down everything. It's got the latch on the back though. Yeah. I mean, it has these huge, the tablet, the bottom of the tablet has these huge docking slots, which I mean, I understand why they're there and they're not terrible, but they're not beautiful. I will say that. Anyway, continue. I have to say, after reading Joanna's review, can I play with that? Yeah. Thank you. So then these dock together really, really nicely. And I think that's. Do I have to like work hard to dock them? No. You just snap in. Right. So it just, and then it makes a little laptop and it's like the old transformer did all this. Yeah. But it wasn't as good. I love this. I love the mouse. Yeah. The mouse works really well. The buttons are a little gross. The buttons. Yeah. So the mouse gestures work really well. I didn't mean to do that. That was a missed press. And then if you. It's weird. It's very weird using Android. Yeah. If you haven't used the mouse, it gets like with Android, it gets a little, you're like, what am I doing here? And I actually end up touching the screen and using the keyboard a lot. Like I wrote most of the review on there. And like when I would have to like sub in a word, I would end up touching the screen. But I have to say like the stuff with the controller by the Shadowgun, I'm really into this game, really, really shows by the way, Shadowgun really shows what Android can be capable of. Yeah. No, no. The gaming performance is amazing. When I take the controller out, I'm like, this is awesome. I mean, this is crazy to think that you can do that. Because we haven't said this yet, is the first quad core Tegra 3 tablet. And NVIDIA is saying that it has five times the graphics performance of Tegra 2. The problem is Tegra. But that's all you get. But the issues with doing this stuff, this stuff with Tegra now, it's like they'll make the Tegra version. You can't get it on another device. Right. The games. I just think that it's a flawed. It's like a total failure. So actually, it's taking forever to load. Yeah, the game takes forever to boot up too. Also it takes a little bit longer for some reason in the keyboard dock. I don't know why. What? Yeah, for some reason, like super weird. And also when we have the HDMI hooked up. You can't use the keyboard for this? No, I'm not. Oh, you can. I think the mouse will work, but it's not fun. And some of the controls will work, I think, on the mouse. The mouse doesn't work. So basically everything about this is like, it's really awesome hardware and you look at it and you think, this is going to be amazing. And then it's stuff like that where you're trying to play a game with the mouse and keyboard and it doesn't work the way you want it to. Well, I mean, I don't know why you'd really mostly want to do that. Like I actually think- But it's not finished. And I think the tablet experience on Honeycomb is not finished. I mean, it's Honeycomb. Everybody knows the strengths and weaknesses of Honeycomb. That's definitely where it falls apart. Like everything else is amazing, especially the graphics performance is amazing. But one of my complaints in the review is that the performance isn't much better around Honeycomb. This water texture is incredible. Yeah. And the shadows, if you do the glow ball thing, that is like mind blowing. We've lost Josh completely. I'm looking in his eyes right now and they're glazed over. Can we just zoom in right on his eyes? He's gone. He's lost to us. This is what's happening for the rest of the podcast. Just so you know. So when is he going to get ice cream sandwich? I mean, that's the problem, right? That's what's holding this thing back. Well, I think it's two things. I think it needs to get ice cream sandwich because I really do think that the software experience there is going to be cleaner. And like Josh said in the review, in the Nexus review, I mean, it's just like seems like just so much more polished in certain places where you've always wanted to be polished. Yeah, it really is. And that was a huge issue with Honeycomb. But I will say this though. Okay, I have to put this away. My turn. Yeah, when you play it with the... And Josh mentioned the game controller doesn't come with a game controller. But if you plug the USB port, the USB dongle into the keyboard, you can use any game controller. This thing did not like waking up from sleep. And it's great. And you can hook that up to a TV. It is great. But here's my... We hooked it up to this TV, this 52 inch TV and it was like insane. Here's my problem with Honeycomb and with what will likely be the same issue with ice cream sandwich, I actually... What's so amazing about... I've got the Galaxy Nexus sitting over here. What's so amazing about it is that it feels... It's so hard for you to be so far from it. I know. Just... Oh, God. Don't you... Here we go again. No. I'm not going to. But what's so interesting about it is that it has all the operational... It operationally does what Honeycomb does. But it feels easier to use on a phone. My problem with Honeycomb and what I think will continue to be my problem is that it puts pieces of the UI all over the place. It's got the apps thing up here. It's got your home button down here. You're constantly going back and forth in these big areas. So I think that that is still not going to be... They're still not going to fix that. I think that's a fundamental problem. I actually feel like it wasn't really made... Well, we don't really know exactly what it's going to totally... Well, I don't think... I don't see them fixing that. We do. I mean, we've seen the builds of it. Right. We've seen the in the SDK stuff. Right. Wow. Yeah. Can we cut to the game? Can I do this? No, no. He's got you. Just keep playing. I just got killed. Thanks. Thanks, guys. No, it's your fault because you lifted it. Pull up the glow ball one, too. I mean, that's not an exciting game. No, no, no. You don't have to do that. He's got the screen. I don't understand. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm watching it here. I'm like reliving that moment. My frustration. Oh, what did you do? Why are you... Why did you quit out of the game? Because I was going to load up the glow ball. Huge mistake. So anyway, my biggest... Basically everything here hardware-wise is perfect. I just wanted the operating system to be optimized a little bit more for the new power, and I want better apps for Honeycomb. But you're also saying the browser isn't fast. Yeah, the browser has an issue. Apparently that is going to be fixed in an update, and they're saying that's going to be better with Ice Cream Sandwich. So there are some core things that are going to be better with Ice Cream Sandwich. I am worried about the app stuff. I mean, a lot of people are saying, oh, why do you need these apps on here? But the truth is, when I wanted to use this as a laptop, I wanted Google Docs. And the Google Docs experience on here is disgusting. Oh, it's awful. I don't think I've ever seen anything worse. It's really bad. And in fact, by the way... And it's like that's a Google app. I've been trying to use it on my Galaxy Nexus, and it's actually crashing a lot. I mean, that's a Google app. No, it's not even... It just loads the web view. Whoa. Same here. It's garbage. Yeah. And a lot of people are saying, oh, well, you can do that in the browser. But first of all, the browser support here, the browser performance isn't amazing. It should be... The browser performance is very good on that. It is, right? I think so. Yeah, it looks way better than this. I mean, the Sunspider tests were faster than iPhone 4S. Yeah, and this Sunspider were slower than some Tegra. So there's some browser stuff going on here. I mean, is this final software? Final software, I mean, I've got a firmware update that I have to do tonight. But I think some things will come with ICS, but I'm still on this kick about there needing to be better apps. I feel like our conversation, the level of intellect is raised is what Neil is just playing. I'm gone. But how awesome is that? I keep playing Google. This is pretty great. I have no idea what I'm doing. I mean, it's not really fun. You just roll the ball around. Actually, I don't even know what the point is. They've been showing this demo for a while. Yeah, but it's just cool to see. Look at the ball. It's like you're lighting, and you're in a carnival. It is. It's great. Look, I mean... Anyway, I love the hardware. I couldn't make that any clearer in the review. I do have an issue with the software, and where I took a different angle in the review, and I actually wrote the whole review with just a pretty basic angle at first. And then I was like, you know, this is sort of making me think of what the future of the computer is going to be like. It's heavy, though. Well, with the keyboard dock, it's heavy. It's actually probably the same weight. You know what Joanna said to me when I came in the office? She said, this is the netbook I always wanted. Yeah. So sad. It is. Very sad. But I think there's this angle in the review that this is what computers are going to look like. It's got a fast, low-power... Well, this is what Microsoft is banking on. Right. I mean, this is what we were talking about yesterday. But I think Apple is going to bank on this, too. What's the resolution of this, though? No, I mean, I don't think Apple is going to run around making keyboard docks. I mean, I think they think the iPad is great. Well, they've made a number of keyboard docks. Well, they made the one, and I think that was like a toss-off. I don't know. I mean, the more and more the air is meshing with the iPad. Right. I think what Steve was like, what if an iPad and a MacBook got it on or whatever? Yeah, but they made that product. What if they hooked up? And that's where this sort of thing is going. Well, they made this version of it. But I don't think they're going to do a detachable. Well, they're also bringing... They might not make it detachable, but what they might do is say, when you get home, you want to bang out some emails, drop it into some thing that's like... Yeah, no, this is... They won't call it a dock. They'll call it like a... It's the Thunderbolt display. They'll call it a sleeve or a pouch. Yeah. Would you say a coffin? No, I said something awesome, but a coffin maybe. A coffin? Yeah. That doesn't make any sense. I think a sleeve or a pouch. A pouch. The eye pouch. The eye pouch. The eye sleeve. Yeah, a papoose. That's exactly what it's going to be. A what? A papoose. Isn't that the thing that you wrap, you put the baby in? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that what they're called? I think so. I don't know. I like how the two dudes go about it. I'm like, what? And the girl's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. What's a papoose? I don't know. I know. I think it's the I-Bjorn. I do think this is awesome. The I-Bjorn. Yeah, the hardware is awesome. I have to say, I just wish that... You wish you had that for your iPad. This is what Microsoft is staring... Why does we make this exact thing for an iPad? How do you dock it? Because the Bluetooth... You don't get a mouse. The wire. The Bluetooth thing doesn't work very well. Right, no mouse. It's not a product of a good machine. Asus is a really good hardware manufacturer when they want to be. Yeah, when they want... Let's cheap out as much as possible. When they want to be, though, that display is really nice. Are there settings... And the keyboard is fine for what it is. Is the mouse better than a Windows laptop? Yeah, the scrolling is better than a Windows laptop. It is better. That's really... The scrolling is definitely better. It's Linux. Where are the settings? Oh, here they are. I still think... I took this angle in the review that this is what we're going to... No, this is what Microsoft wants to build, right? But I want Google to do it, too. I want Google to give us some better support. I think Google has to commit to the tablet. They're not. And that's where I was trying to go at the end there, where it's like we need some software. And companies like Asus are building great hardware, and NVIDIA is giving them great power, but Google is not giving them the software. It's weird that they're not. And the developers are not giving them the software, and that's because of Google. Google's not pushing hard enough. Right. I don't... And I'm going to keep banging my arm on this desk until I get the apps I want. This trackpad is a little annoying, I'll be honest with you. Well, use your finger. I end up touching the screen a lot, which isn't very comfortable because you're on the keyboard and then you touch the screen. Their fast speed is really fast. Really fast. It makes my Macbook faster. Anything else about the Prime? I mean, I could go on and on all day. Look at that. I want these companies to get good software. Windows 8. It's going to be Windows 8. I hope it is Windows 8. Windows 8 is... We've got to see what's going to go on. I mean, if your problem is this doesn't have the software via productivity machine, like when Microsoft... Some of the productivity, but it's some of the other stuff... When Microsoft puts Windows on there with IE10 or whatever it's going to be and Office, like what... You don't have the problems anymore. Yeah. I want nice apps too. I want nice software. I think what you're talking about is a computer. Yeah. But a computer that is blending all these new... These new things. New ideas. I just sent you some documents. Cool. On the internet. There you go. Definitely edit them in the terrible Google Docs on here. Yeah. Well... What about Docs2Go or Polaris Office or whatever? Polaris Office? There's something that's on there. But I was writing my Google Doc review here and I wanted Ross to jump in and I had to then copy it from Polaris Office to Google Docs. It was so much work for me. Kill me now. Is there a sharp object in here I can just end it all? There's a razor. Is there a razor anywhere? A droid razor. We need a droid razor. We need to kill Josh in the neck. So we should move on. What's your... Anything else? I mean, I know you want to talk about it. No, I love it. I love it everywhere. Just the software. You want to talk about WebOS? Sure. WebOS. Maybe Asus should buy WebOS. Oh my god. I said that to Nealye. They need to control their own software, Destiny. Yeah. I don't think Asus is that constant. Look. It's over. There is no new OS. No. Right. It's like. Settle in. The next 10 years it's going to look... I don't know how many times we're going to talk about this. It's now... This is it. It's Migo, right? It's Windows Phone. Whatever it's called now. We're gonna gain ground, especially when Microsoft does Windows 8, I'm sure there's gonna be all kinds of integration and stuff. This thing again? This, yeah, just gonna kind of, and then boom. See, if we didn't do a video podcast, we couldn't do this. We couldn't do this. Did you get a manicure? Yes, I did. Looks nice. The people listening to this on the audio are loving this. Forget the audio. It's the past. No, I'm kidding, the audio people built us. They made this, they built the city. Okay. Really? They're like, they can't see you getting up angrily and walking off. Is that what just happened? One more Starship reference in my head. She's like, is that what just happened? I'm sitting right next to you. I didn't look. Web OS. Web OS. Oh, let me finish what I was saying. So, and then Android? Yeah, it's iOS, Android, and Microsoft's spending money to get back in the game. And on desktops, I mean, that's kind of, the real question is what happens to desktop operating systems over the next 10 years. It's iOS and Mac OS X merge. I think that's what we'll be. I don't think it's 10 years. I think it's a shorter period. That's five. But overall, they're coming closer together. I think Windows 8 and Microsoft, or Windows Phone are destined to become the same thing. Which is funny, because you would think that isn't their destiny. Google has no desktop play beyond Chrome and Chromebooks. And that sucks. It sucks now, but it could become something. No, that's where Android needs to be. I mean, Android One sucked. Right. I mean, it was cool, but it wasn't like. No, they need to stop with Chrome. They need to just toss it away. To Android. Improve the browser on, or bring Chrome, or whatever they want to, you know. I don't see. Mesh it with the Android browser. Right, yeah. I don't see why that'd be a problem. And do it. Yeah. Just do it. That's basically what it is getting out of this review. Is we need better software. What if that were a Chromebook? I would cry. I would cry. We would have less to do. I mean, we would. Docs would work better. Docs would work better. Yeah. What you should do is be able to open real Chrome on that. That's all you need. That is a really good point. That's all you need. Real Chrome on that thing. That's a really good point. Somebody out there. Couldn't that run Chrome? Yeah, dude, the processors are ridiculous. You could just. So why don't they just make a real Chrome for it? I don't know. That's what I'm saying. That's what Google should do. Why doesn't somebody do that? Google. Listen. Listen to me. Do it. We did just put up something on the site that Google's making a shopping service. What? Yeah, they're getting into next day shipping and retail. Next day, really? Maybe they can ship us a Chrome for Android. I need more shopping options. Ship us a Chrome for Android. Shop options, they call them. Yeah. Shop options. Shop options. Oh, that's gonna be, that's a good. Shop options.com, go ahead. Yeah. It's gotta be taken, right? That's a freebie. That's gotta be like a shopping analytics. That's the company that shops what you, that tracks what you buy in stores. It's parked on GoDaddy. Shop options. Shop options. It's kinda hard to say. Yeah, it's not great. Shop options like you. Do you wanna talk about WebOS? WebOS. Let's talk about WebOS for a second. No, no, no. Let's do, I'll just quickly, just Meg Whitman said to some French people. Two weeks. That in two weeks a decision's gonna come down. I wish you could say it in French. But she said it in English to the French people. I would've meant. But she said it in two weeks we'd make a decision. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, please. Oh. What? When you go to France you have to talk in a French, it's only polite. How do these work? Really? Uh-huh-huh. Oh no, no. I could say so many things right now to offend French people. And I am. Okay. I know. All right, go ahead, let's talk Spotify. This is supposed to be the week's kinda big news. No, you didn't finish the WebOS thing. Oh, right. Whoops. Oh, that's it. She said the decision's coming in two weeks and one of two things is gonna happen. They're gonna keep it or they're gonna sell it. Here's my guess. They're not gonna keep it. No, why won't you say it? It's like, it can't be taken this long to make this decision. Yeah. She probably knew two weeks ago when she canceled the event. Highlighter, highlighter. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, that's what I believe. My conspiracy theory is they were going to announce and then we ruined it for them. Right, and now they're just dragging it out. And they were like, screw this, we're not gonna announce. Too much hype around it now. And she's on vacation in France. She's taking it easy. Her whole plan was to do it and then get out of Dodge. And now she's got this thing hanging over and people asking her what's going on. Everywhere she goes, every baguette she buys. The baguette baker. Is that a song? Everywhere she goes, every baguette she buys. The guy's handing her a baguette and he's like, by the way. It's the French version. By the way, what's happening with webOS? She's like, two weeks, okay? Just let me enjoy my baguette. I wish I knew how to say this. Baguette and brie, I know, right? Okay. I, for some reason, think that's so funny. I don't know why. I'm glad that you're enjoying it. Spotify. So Spotify news. They had an event in New York. They said this is the next big thing for Spotify. This is it, for everything. For everything. And they announced basically apps, right? So Spotify is now an open platform. You can build an app within Spotify. You can build, like Rolling Stone built an app. Pitchfork built an app where within the Spotify window, you can read all the Pitchfork reviews and they have playlists to the album. It's basically like they're. Pretty cool. You know what's funny? Last of M has one that's like the social app where it tracks everything you listen to and what your friends are listening to. It's basically like what they're saying is we don't wanna build all these features as Spotify. We wanna be the underlying platform of music. And then everybody else can build the features that you would want. So Spotify has bad social features. I think we all use RDO because it like, I can see what people are listening to. I don't use it for that reason. Is that? I mean that's why I use it. I actually, my least favorite part of RDO is. I know why. I don't like, no, no, no. I just don't. I can't. I like to. Maybe I'm just following the wrong people, Joanna. I know why. But like music discovery isn't that fun for me on RDO. I'm like really? It's like what are your friends listening to? Can I give people a little sneak peek? Face palm every time I look. Into the Virge office there. I was having the conversation with Joanna earlier today that she interrupted and put on headphones so she could watch a Justin Bieber, Mariah Carey Christmas video. I told you she bought it. Super excitedly and said, hang on. I need to experience this for myself and then put on headphones. Way to do headphones. I now own a Justin. I now own a Justin Bieber book on my Kindle. That's not my fault. I didn't do that. Oh, who did it? Billy Disney. Not Walt. Billy? This guy named not Walt. Billy, is that true? Why'd you buy Justin Bieber book? I only bought the sample. What is happening? We don't have the rights to this. Sorry. Ah, whatever. Hey, hey. Anyway, this is why Josh doesn't like RDO because I put this over. Really, why are you playing Baby? I don't know. It was the first thing that came up. Look at his hair. That is just offensive. He used to be so young and innocent. Yeah, now apparently he's doing things to Mariah Carey. This is terrible. Can you turn this off? You know what's amazing about Justin Bieber? Can you turn this off, please? You know what's really amazing about Justin Bieber? He's not addicted to coke. And I've seen Never Say Never. Yeah, I've seen it too. It's pretty good. His music is terrible. I mean, I'm just saying, I know people say, oh, Britney and whatever. Some people don't like pop music. Now, I don't really like pop music. I'll go by Britney Spears' record, but I can at least identify when there is a song that's catchy. I can say, you know what? I don't necessarily respect this person or the music, but it's got a pretty good beat. I don't like the word you're saying right now. It's a pretty good beat, pretty fun melody. Justin Bieber's music is lacking both a good beat and a pretty fun melody. You're wrong. There is zero redeeming musical quality in what he does. Like, it is just. You haven't been this wrong since. No, no, I'm quite right. Since you, I don't know. That's right, because I've never been wrong. And I think there may be some verifiable times I've been wrong from the podcast. You go back in the archives, I'm sure you can find some. I think there have been some times through the, working with you. But seriously, this kid, I know he's talented or whatever. He played the drums when he was two. Yeah, it was great. You know, we all did wonderful things when we were two. Wow, wow, yeah, that's great. I was there. It was fantastic. What, he called Usher? He called Usher. He was fine. No, no, but look, I'm not trying to. He called Will Smith, he's like, I need to borrow your son. The guy is a North American sensation, okay? He's a Canadian dream come true. But his music is truly bad. And I just, I have to say, it's like, okay, you know what it's like? I'm getting up and leaving. Yeah. It's like Creed. Oh, no, Nickelback. No, no, Nickelback has one or two songs that are like, you know what, that's pretty catchy. They're also Canadian. They're also Canadian. That's right, but Creed, honestly, literally, no redeeming musical qualities whatsoever. Somehow wildly popular. Though they were part of a payola scheme, so that might have something to do with that. And also, they sound exactly like Nickelback. No. The acoustic. No, no, they make Nickelback look like The Beatles. That's the thing. That's how bad Creed is. Go back and listen to Creed. Get yourself. I love Nickelback. I like, I like. It's a song. I enjoy performing a single Nickelback song during karaoke. That doesn't mean I like Nickelback, but How You Remind Me is pretty tight for karaoke. Can I say, last week, you know, like they got booed. They performed at a football game on Thanksgiving, and they got booed by the crowd. There was also a petition. Yeah, there was a petition. Like 100,000 people signed. And then they came on, and they didn't play How You Remind Me. Well, no, they have a new song. It's all of the things you do. But have you heard their new song? Yeah, because I was watching the football game. It is so bad. I muted it. It is so bad. So you're gonna perform it? Yeah, and then they played one song. And it reminded me of how good their old songs were. I was like, look, if you're gonna be Nickelback, you're gonna get booed. You're gonna go to Detroit where nobody wants you, where the people of Detroit are saying, please don't come here, Nickelback. You gotta show up and play How You Remind Me. You don't play your new song. But then they left. I don't know another song they sang. Right, nobody does. And so there's like just. Who, Nickelback? Quiet, awkward silence. No, they had a couple other songs. Didn't you ever hear, by the way, have you ever heard, this is old. We are so off. No, no, but like Nickelback, they did. We should just talk about people. They released their first single, which is I think, How You Remind Me, and then they released another one right after. But it sounded exactly the same. And somebody did a thing where it's like one's on the left channel, one's on the right channel. And it's actually like this kind of beautiful, like semi-cakoff, and it's like, wow, this is kind of awesome, but they are the same song. Like breaks are in the same place. It's like they took the template. Anyhow, getting back on topic. Justin Bieber, Justin Bieber is not good. I'm gonna continue to Bieber bomb you on REO. Bieber bomb. As a, as a, as a. It's gonna happen every day. As a singer-songwriter, he's not good. Is he a songwriter? Is he a person? I think that's part of the problem is he's a songwriter. Oh. All right, go ahead. Let's talk about Spotify. Look, so they got some apps. And. People are talking about deftones in the Ustream right now. I'm glad it's like brought out, like people are like talking about music. I'm excited about that. Go ahead. Well, I think Spotify, this is it, they won. You know, I was talking to Thomas Houston. They won? They won. I don't think there is another, I don't think REO can survive. So you think REO's out? I don't think Mog can survive. REO could become an app. That's actually what Thomas Houston is like. They'll do all those social stuff. Is an app on top of Spotify. That's funny. Which is like, that's like, all right, well, we're just gonna be your butler. We're gonna cut it out. They're gonna pivot. They're gonna pivot. I mean, this is it. What about Turntable? What about Turntable? What about Turntable? Turntable's a different thing. No, is it? But you could build a Turntable style app that works on Spotify. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's fine, but it's different rights. Like it's like a different game. No. Yeah, I mean, like Turntable's built on a different set of deals. Incorrect. Spotify. Like Spotify can't do this radio thing that Turntable does. Objection. Overruled. Denied. Is that a thing? Sustained. In Spotify, like do you have to log in to Facebook? Denied. It's like a football thing, right? I don't have to, because I had a Spotify account before, but now if you have a new account. So anybody had it before. But I mean, I don't see anybody being able to compete against like this critical mass of Spotify. They're about 10 million active accounts. I don't understand. I'm not paying for Spotify. Oh wait. And that's the other. I am. Right. You are? Because you have it on mobile probably. So you're paying like 10 bucks a month. Yeah, I'm trying to think of, I have so many. I'm paying for Ardia. I'm paying for both. I'm being nickel and dimed so hard by services. It's outrageous. I've got like, Dime. I've got like, you know, Hulu Plus, which is totally a waste of money now. I don't even know what it's for. You know what I don't understand is how, I mean, you're paying for every service in existence. I'm paying for every service in existence. I don't understand how content companies are like, we're not making any money. Well, like I'm paying you. And I have cable. I have like full cable. Well, considering you two are. I'm paying you more money. But I think a lot of people are. I think a lot of people are. I think people are picking like one service, but they also have to be really convinced. No, no, I do. Cause I see a lot of people like, you know, ask me, which would you pick Spotify or Ardia? Right. And I'm saying, I think everybody's gonna pick Spotify. Well, Spotify does. I will say this. I'll say this. Let me tell you something about Spotify. I hate Spotify's interface. It's better. So download the beta. Okay. It's mildly cleaned up. Is it? Yeah, it's not great. I really dislike Spotify's interface, but I will say this, the other night I was writing. It's awful. And I wanted some music to listen to. And there is this finish band called Circle. It's like a finish weird, like metal Prague, like kraut rock band. And I, they're not on any, you can't download the records. Would you say they're the Nickelback of Finland? No, I wouldn't say that at all. They're insane sounding. They're really good. And Nickelback is really bad, but not as bad as Creed. So anyhow, I was, I wanted to listen to them. I was like, I want to find it on Spotify. Cause I'd never looked. And there it was. And that kind of blew my mind. Right. Their selection is really good. It's good. It's much better than RDO. And their idea of we'll integrate your local music and it'll sit, it'll just sit in for, Yeah, it's good. It's a good idea. It's a good idea. So they're apt. But I also like the way RDO works. I mean, Spotify doesn't do a lot of things that RDO does too. First off, there's no web interface. Is there? So that's a big one for me. Also, they don't do the pause and pick up elsewhere. Which is awesome. And I hate the way it caters. Like how do I, how do I put stuff in my collection? I have to star it? Is that the way you do it? It's weird. It's stupid. It's bad. Yeah. I mean, like none of it, Spotify has weird, I think our video just went out. They have very different ideas about how to run, how to run like a social music subscription service. And like RDO has a lot of great ideas, but like Joanna was saying, their app is like really slow and really crashy. All their apps are, Yeah, their phone apps are like kind of terrible. I mean, it's kind of like they have this huge opportunity. They were first in America. You know, RDO was like here. Yeah. And Spotify wasn't. First is, you know. That's what Mog is here too. Hey, you know what? That guy in comments was first too. Where did they get him? We're not with a product that we all sign up for. I was saying, where did they get him? Okay. First doesn't always matter. They sat still. I mean, they launched a product, here it is. And all of us signed up for it. We're like, this is great. And I was like, when? I mean, Spotify had, but Spotify has been, the vibe of Spotify has been around. I mean, it was in Europe. Long before, I don't know if it was long before RDO. All RDO had to do was show up and be like, we're Spotify for America. And they could have done it. They should have said that in their marketing materials. We're Spotify. Spotify can't get here and we're here. Yeah, but it didn't have that. It didn't have that recognition of being this cool thing that everybody was doing. Also, a lot of people don't know about these services. No, no, no. Everybody knows about Spotify. No, no, we're way in the depths of early adopter. Spotify has gotten its break because of Facebook. Maybe. I mean, I had people, like friends of mine, when they launched without Facebook. Yeah. They were like, we're signing for Spotify. Yeah, but you're nerdy. No, I think there was a buzz. When I play music at a party, all my friends are like, oh, how are you doing this? You didn't pay for all this? I think Spotify got some buzz. I'm more in touch with the people in the audience. You're going to more parties. You're playing more Bieber. I'm always partying. You paid for all these Bieber songs? I think Spotify. Always at parties. No, I'm just trying to make a point here and it's not happening. It's never gonna happen. I think Spotify, how many times am I gonna say I think Spotify? I think just think Spotify had this buzz from Europe and people were kind of aware of it, but I will say I do think we are in the extreme minority in terms of people who are paying for streaming services. Extreme, extreme, deep, super deep minority. Right. And that's not, it's changing, but it's not gonna happen overnight. So you say that content providers aren't making, or content creators or providers aren't making money. I mean, this is one place, but how many subscribers do you think Spotify has? 10 million. In America. Oh, I don't know. They just had 10 million active subscribers this week. In the world. I would say that's mostly in Europe. Europe, yeah. They just launched here. I wanna get the US numbers. How about RDO? Get them. RDO's like a baby. No, I will say when I went to AT&T to their GNoc, their what? Their GNoc, it's their, I can't remember. Global network operations. Global network operations center. Thank you, thank you. When did you go to GNoc? It has been kind of a long day. We did a thing for the Angadget show. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought you were like just there at GNoc. No, I wish. No, but they were. Trashed up at GNoc every day. No, but they were like, the three things that use the most bandwidth with our. Netflix, porn, Pandora. No, no, no, no, no, no. It was YouTube, porn, and Pandora. Yeah. And porn is just another, it's another kind of YouTube. By the way, I think a lot of people listen to music on YouTube. I think a lot of people are like, I wanna listen to it a couple times. I mean, one thing I'll say about YouTube, and it's kind of fascinating, is that it's become like, you can find really obscure, I can go back and find old techno records that are just on a little label that nobody really cared about. And people are putting them on there. And it's just like the song with a black screen or something. Yeah, or some cool like, psychedelic graphics. Yeah, right. Anyhow, so. Yeah. So I think we're actually close to wrapping up here. Yeah. We should wrap up. You know, actually on the YouTube piece, apparently they're sold out. We should talk about the Transformer Prime again. Oh no, no. No, one of my, when I was a lawyer, one of my first clients was a company called Songza, and all they did was they built a player. They built a player for YouTube. Yeah. And you could type in Songza and find it. Oh yeah, I saw that. I remember that. Oh, that's right. It was a YouTube. It seems like they've sold the company though. It was. To Spotify. To Spotify. No. So that's our, I think that's our Verge cast, our podcast for the week. Yeah, we didn't, the only thing we didn't talk about on this list is the playbook is dead. Oh yeah, okay. So that's our Verge cast for the week. We. It is dead like the end of this podcast. We of course love to hear from you guys. And if you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email at podcast at theverge.com. You can leave a comment for us. You can start a forum thread if you want to talk about anything that you heard here. And or saw if you were checking out the video. You can also find us on Twitter. The Verge is at Verge. Yeah, that's right. On Twitter. I know I know it's right. I'm just making, I was a dramatic pause. Pause for effect. I'm at Joshua Topolski. Neelai is reckless. Joanna is Joanna Stern. Beiber Stern. Beiber Stern. You should definitely get that. And. Joanna Beiber. No. Joanna Beiber sounds nice though. Yeah. Do you think. Forever. I mean you would. I write that in my notebook sometimes. Let me ask you something. I write that with my stylus on tablets. I want to get personal for a second. I want to get real personal. Would you date Justin Beiber if he asked? I mean if he was like. Oh my God. There's a Joanna Beiber in Chicago. If he was like, I love you girl. I want to go out with you. All of you. It's not legal. He's not legal. He's 17. That's not legal. In some places. Neelai would be my lawyer. I don't know. He impregnated a woman apparently. Neelai would you be my lawyer? Yes. For this I would go back and forth. What do you think? Where does the law fall here? The law falls at Joanna Beiber needs to not tweet in all capital letters. That's the first rule. Does she have a lot of followers? No. Is it related to Justin Beiber at all? No. It doesn't seem like it. Okay so but if he was 18. Yes. Yes. Okay you've heard it here. With his guitar. With his guitar. He cannot play the guitar. What do you think he just walks around? With his drums from when he was five. Okay I don't like. I don't like. I just like. I like the tune. I think it was cute. I don't like where this is going. Like a kid. I really don't. No I am not attracted to him if that's what you're asking. I think he's cute. I don't know. It's all getting a little bit. Like a kid. It's all. It's a little muddled. It's all going a little bit. It's not. Pear shaped here. I don't like it. On that note. I've had to share too much here. We gotta. I don't think you've shared enough. On that note we gotta wrap up. Thank you so much for listening and we will of course be back next week. Maybe with Paul. I don't know. I mean I hope he's feeling better. Paul comes he goes. He comes he goes. Paul must come back. He'll be back. I can deal Paul. And we'll be back. So thank you very much for listening. And I wish you and yours all the best on this upcoming weekend. Only the most joyous and playful celebrations should be had. You just turned my headphones down. What's happening? That doesn't mean. So I can turn off the microphone. I have to say joyous and playful celebration sounds really really gross. It doesn't do. That's it we're gone. We're out of here. Rock and roll. That's why I turned your headphones down. So you couldn't hear me. I can still hear you. And you're fired.