Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Reuben Joni salzman something called the Zozo suit may assure in the future of online apparel shopping it's a polka-dotted spandex suit that allows folks to create 3d images of themselves in their homes then use that data to order Custom Fit clothing through the Zozo website the suit is just one of several new efforts to develop 3d scanning tech to get better measurements of you for instance Amazon last year bought the 3d scanning start up body labs there's also this company called naked labs that will sell you a $1,400 3d body scanner to like for weight measurements but what do you think of this stuff would you use any of this well it depends I mean there's a lot of variation while we're talking about but the Zozo suit kind of sounds like an interesting proposition it it's kind of low low commitment you get this suit as long as you can commit to putting this really weird body suit on by taking some measurements then the idea is that you can buy a t-shirt that's perfect for you jeans that are perfectly fitted for you for like the price that jeans normally cost right like something like $58 for jeans the t-shirt was a little more expensive it was like 22 dollars but the idea is to do custom fitted clothing and do it through online which like apparel is growing very quickly online anyway but a lot of retailers obviously understand that if they can get better measurements of you they'll be able to sell you more stuff one of the concerns that I think people may have about all this is like what about your data like do you think people will be pretty concerned about having their body measurements being you know controlled by somebody like Amazon or Google I think the bigger hindrance will be people just not liking having to look at him picture of like their body disengaged from it like when you can't suck it like the idea is you can't like you can't suck it right you can't like angle yourselves because it doesn't matter I think that's gonna be something that just settles people that's unsettles people more than like a company knowing it but it's true like you could probably be worried about a company knowing such intimate details about you you you were telling me before the show also about this thing called volumetric what is it you metric scanning specifically for like entertainment as well right yeah well you metric capture so it's like imagine in the matrix where you know they jump in the air and the camera moves around while their paws in the air it's basically like that idea except it's become more accessible and as it becomes more accessible still you could take a volumetric video of yourself walking up and down a straight line and you could superimpose clothing from a runway onto you so you can see what clothing looks like on you before you even have to have it made and shipped to you mmm some of that sounds pretty interesting but yeah I'm still a little unsure about the data stuff next up Amazon said it'll soon start selling more Apple products directly and have access to Apple's latest devices which include the iPad pro and the iPhone 10 are I actually pronounce that right this time do you think that this could be worrisome for other retailers especially going into the holiday season and was once worrying to all retailers isn't it I mean that's the absolute euler plane answer yes yeah and the other thing that I thought was interesting about this announcement was how lousy Amazon's selection of Apple products was already like if you go and you try to find some of the newest Apple products on Amazon you basically you're stuck trying to get it through the 30 programs as these two come together do you think that kept them before before before apart before was on the Amazon slider on the Apple side like which one is really hard to say I mean like a lot of people have raised the issue of like why now why did this happen now and like it's it's really hard to say but obviously it seems like both of them should benefit the third-party retailers that have been selling these products will probably not benefit you bad for that big caveat so the inventory the Apple inventory that'll be on there that is absolutely right the home pod will not be included thank you very much for reminding me of that last alibaba's singles day took place over the weekend and set a new online sales record big surprise there hitting 31 billion dollars in sales in 24 hours just as comparison amazon's prime day raked in an estimated two billion dollars in last year's black friday Lester's Black Friday brought in I think this is us only but five billion dollars yes that's that's all the money if you read more about these stories check them out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben johnny salzman thanks for listening and thus concludes another broadcast today no just kidding we're just done with the audio recording so you can subscribe to that and listen on any your favorite potting platforms until then go ahead and send in questions and comments for me I'm gonna go ahead and kick this off the hell's Alibaba Oh oh yeah it's the biggest entire planet right yeah it's the biggest online retailer in China and probably Asia but not no okay no they're not they're probably more profitable than Amazon but as far as like total revenue Amazon is way bigger than Alibaba but yeah Alibaba is based in China created by a guy named Jack Ma who obviously is now a super duper billionaire and yeah they popularized this thing called singles day which is on 11:11 you know because it's like I don't know those are several singles lots of ones together and it's it's similar to prime day and that it was just an invented holiday by retailers to get you to buy stuff and it's very very successful apparently are there any holidays left that aren't designed to get you to buy stuff no actually one of the last ones was Thanksgiving and now they've totally taken that over so retailers now like Thanksgiving is very quickly becoming one of the biggest sales days of the year and that used to not be as much of the case especially with like mobile phones people do a lot of their shopping when they're supposed to be talking to their in-laws which is which is understandable not for me of course I'm pretty sure Black Friday started like three weeks ago so it actually yes this is true Black Friday starts before Halloween now so and we're only gonna be hearing more about this stuff I mean like the competition is just gonna keep getting fiercer but Ali Baba manages to sneak in singles day and snag a lot of attention for itself with that 1 billion dollars oh yeah all the holidays and romanticism of the world boiled down in this show all right so we're gonna shout out to our fans in India California be safe out there guys lots of a guess Paraguay and once again thanks everybody for acknowledging yes happy Veterans Day and then let's go and take some questions from the chat kicking things off right here's sir enjoy did you notice that the 3d body measurement suits are advertised by the ideal body shapes yeah like that's new I mean I think they so the guy that created this said that he was having a hard time finding stuff that actually fit him properly apparently he was a little shorter than normal so his idea was why don't why don't I make it easier for people to do these 3d scans in their home and then just get custom fitted clothing and just do it really simply online one of the interesting aspects of this is that apparently at least in Japan where the started they're going to be phasing out the suit entirely and that's because they already have so much data from so many like hundreds of thousands of customers if not millions that they don't they don't need it anymore you just basically punch in your height your weight and a couple other basic details and they'll be able to suggest specific clothing that's pretty close to custom fit for you yeah yeah and it'll be a little less kind of weird right to tell people to put on this like polka-dotted cat suit right take like a bunch of like images of yourself like all around so yeah as far as like the feeling of like having it be a little weird I could solve some of that yeah because right now they're sticking with things that are you don't need detailed measurement information for t-shirts button-ups jeans like you don't need like it's not like having a custom-made suit so I wondered if like if they would want to continue to keep the body suits so they could go in that high-end direction so right now they're shooting for just like basic staples yeah which is interesting you would think that you would want to do suits suit yeah hey guys you're watching Zozo suits please and send me a polka dotted suit no please don't I'm not gonna wear it so on that note Marvin's asking who would actually want this like who is a targeted user that would actually embrace the voluntary bodysuit measurement thing rather than just go to a tailor or just figure it out yourself why is this a market now I think like Ben mentioned the guy that created it had trouble finding clothes that fit him because he's so short not even so short he just was shorter than clothes are designed generally for and so that's one use if you have a body type that's unusual and you feel like the fashion industry doesn't really take into consideration your particular needs and that's one reason also there are people that just hate going shopping my husband's one of them I like shopping he hates it and so I have to buy all his clothes for him because he will refuse to just do it himself that's another thing if you don't like going shopping you don't like being bothered by sales associates if you don't like going in changing rooms or having to deal with malls or whatever then you can just do it at home and I already know and already know what the measurements are like if you're looking for jeans at a new store you've never been to before you don't have to try on this pair and then another pair that's slightly bigger and there are a lot of people that like shopping online that's that's a big reason why a lot of traditional retailers have been dying off or shrinking people just find it a lot more convenient but is this the solution is the other question is like is the spandex suit I don't know I I would think that would be very like it's yeah it's inexpensive and it's like party right it's it's very durable you don't have to worry about all these different connect like bluetooth connections or whatever like you can machine you go to you go on the website and they're like very like specifically like this is part of their branding is that they show a bunch of people in these polka-dotted suits so I almost thought it was kind of weird that they would get rid of the suits even like their primary market because it's it's part of their branding like this kind of like goofy funny idea to try to convince people like hey we're different or we're interesting and yeah I would definitely be interested in seeing them do other types of stuff like suits because that would make a lot of sense to me yeah it would be nice if you could for some things that like it's hard for you to find the clothing that does I'm not talking about staples like bathing suits I always find it's difficult for me to in a bathing suit that like actually cuz that's not that's an it's at least for women that's an instance where it's something that really does need to fit your body well and you hate it's just not fun to have to go and try on tons of different bathing suits go to tons of different stores to find one that's actually flattering for you so like that's an instance where I think that it could be really helpful for the whole female market yeah yeah and this proves the point that like this is still a very nascent market because they also don't provide bathing suits so that's another area that they could potentially build out onto sometime later this is sparking a lot of really great conversation in the chat people pointing out like is this helpful to people who happen to maybe fluctuate in their weight a lot Mary Ann says I would totally get this I live in northern Minnesota the closest mall is like three hours away and I do most of my shopping online and it can be frustrating so yeah this is proving proving the point this this could be very helpful I forget not everyone's like me finds the one black shirt that fits the one pair of black jeans that fit and then the one pair of black slip-on shoes that fit and then bookmark them and reorder them every eight to ten months yes your Batman stuff in between that eight to ten months you just like get to the point where smell so bad that people like that's not in the opposite direction that's not sure I smell great okay so tech slackers asking did Americans buy something during singles day from China I'm assuming the do do Americans participate in Alibaba purchasing as well I guess so yeah I guess so they do Alibaba does not have a very strong presence in the US as shown by BVG not actually knowing who Alibaba is which like I wouldn't knock you for that because Alibaba has not made a huge effort to get its name known in the United States outside of like the business industry because there they are listed in the United States as a publicly traded company yeah the IPO is probably the last time you heard about Alibaba because it was like the biggest for an IPO ever if I remember right correct for it it was at the time yeah it might still be I'm not sure yeah so they do not Chinese company coming up there might beat it but which ones that one that's we WeChat music we sent music I can't remember it's it's like the Chinese Spotify basically they're gonna be listing yeah Alibaba you could order from Alibaba I think internationally using Aliexpress which I know a lot of people do so that is one area to go but alibaba's market is so huge in China that they don't really need to focus very much on the US and if anything they're expanding more into India because India is also a massive market and a lot closer yeah yeah there's another really good consideration to be made as brought up by Marvin when you're buying things online you can't always tell if it's good quality material sometimes the sizes aren't completely accurate that's a really good point so can the zou zou zou zou soo is a ho zou zou I'm pretty it's zero zero so I'm pretty sure it's not Zhu Zhu unless there's like an umlaut there that I'm not reading there's no Japanese whatever reason I want to pronounce it so so suit I don't that's neither here nor there but yeah it could could this actually are there better ways to interact with these online retailers like who who uses Zozo suit what brands are on board with this project nobody's no brain they make the merchandise themselves well actually they make it a but they make it in China so as a Japanese company the merchandise is made in China and so yeah it takes three to four weeks for you to get your stuff so you are getting it is you you are it's quite a commitment I would say yeah you're getting this thing sent to you you have to put on this weird cat suit you take like 12 pictures of yourself at every angle and then you have to wait like a month to get your clothing so you have to be pretty committed to this idea of well-fitted or better fitting clothing online to actually go along with something like this yeah do we we'll see other brands and manufacturers kind of hopping on board with this method I and and guarantee maybe this is quality or do you think this might actually motivate some kind of shift and clothing making an industry with people showing off like we're not all you know perfectly tall and ten percent body fat you know well I am good night everybody statement I've ever made um not specifically this method I think the dotted spandex concept is very like Zozo like they've kind of like but I think with body labs which Amazon purchased I would say expect something to come from Amazon if not next year the year afterward they're becoming a much bigger apparel retailer and if they could just get a little bit more of your data if they could just convince you to like hand over more of this info and do a 3d scan I mean the smartest way to do it I would think is with your phone because your phone has a camera and your phone is pretty smart but I'm sure there are a lot of complications there so yeah we'll see how long it actually takes for them to do it but Amazon I would definitely expect they would probably come up with it when they purchase body labs it probably signal to a lot of other retailers we have to start paying attention to the space because Amazon's gonna be moving into it yeah yeah and I think also the the fashion industry merchandising clothes much and I think industry has generally been moving to be more body inclusive over the last decade or so and so I think that one one kind of implication if personalized fitting clothing become sort of a thing is that that could send actual direct signals to merchandisers that you can't just close people that look the way you think they should look that you have to have a more diverse and broader idea of what clothing should fit like yeah we just keep amaz giving Amazon a little bit more information and a little bit more information and a little bit more and then suddenly hello this is your prime replacement clone oh I was gonna go with putting a amazon chip in your brain yeah primer placement clone that's even now they're far more interested in replacing you entirely with a perfect consumer replicant that only buys everything on Amazon of course oh my god okay so before we wrap it up well I want to ask real quick does anybody actually own an Amazon echo look is that like still a thing are they it is they're still selling it was like five people get those do you know they haven't given any sales figures right have it it's not a big seller it's not a big seller I think Strategy Analytics has I'll try to pick pull up a study that I think Strategy Analytics has like the actual breakdown I don't think the echo look is a big seller it most certainly is not but yeah that one is is one where it's a echo with a camera attached to it and it's supposed to use like some sort of AI engine in the background to suggests like to give you clothing tips so you try on one outfit and then you try on another in front of the echo look and it tells you which one looks better and yeah a lot of people were already saying like oh you could just do body measurements through this and that's entirely possible yeah but it's not it's not what they're doing right now but maybe they will do it sometime in the future I think it's just kind of a fascinatingly niche area for them to get into a lot of people are just kind of sensitive about their shopping experience I expect some people to break embrace this as a way to kind of warm up to the idea and maintain a privacy to ironic extent but I feel like there's a lot of people that are just going to like no no way too touchy I hate getting scammed the airport not about to bring it into my bedroom yeah I I would completely agree with you there are probably gonna be concerns about that and that's why it's important to like talk about it now because it seems pretty clear that a lot of tech companies are already positioning themselves to do something like this in the near future so when it comes to the Zozo manufacturing are they is it literally custom or they going to a premade inventory and finding the closest variant with in as close as humanly possible from what I understand from the story from our very own Jackson Ryan these are custom fitted clothing not something where it's the closest approximation because if you're between small and a medium or a medium and a large and you're going through all this effort to put on the suit and take the photos you don't want them to just approximate you'd be like yeah you're close enough to a small we're gonna send you a small so maybe but he told me you can either you can even tweak the measurements after you've taken the photos to like add add in a little bit of extra space like in the hem or the seam or whatever so that if you want the jeans to fit slightly differently you can so to me that sounds very much like a custom fit as opposed to just kind of closest approximation I would just wonder if they had more intermediate sizes so there's like small a small B small plus boot stuff like that it might be as they're going towards this not doing the suit model anymore they might have enough they might have the data that says we have enough templates for enough sizes and the outliers are so minor they're so small that they can kind of you know only custom say certain types right and they'll have everything else on hand yeah that does make sense it's also it conveys the point that like there is a reason why retail was drawn to this concept of small medium large XL you know because most people in general fit into those sizes whether you know it didn't fit perfectly or not you still basically fit into those sizes yeah so we're almost out of time but Mary Ann is on fire today this this question kind of just blew my mind can insurance companies gain access and raise your rates if you're overweight I'm assuming Zozo does not have to comply with HIPAA and furthermore can employers target more attractive employees who may be at lower risk to their insurance pools holy cow what a great question I mean that's a dystopia that I don't think Zozo really wants to enter into they say so they say that they won't ever sell your individually identifiable data to anybody but they might anonymize data and sell that to a third party so that means the answer to your question is unless they're lying and they chain or there's some sort of dystopian tech dictatorship that ever takes the entire world his name's Yvonne then this data that you're giving them it's not like your employer's gonna know what it's not like your insurer is gonna know it that it's you that has these measurements or it's you that has had these memberships and now it's getting a little bit bigger or whatever that's a really fantastic question though my mind did not even go anywhere near that path when when this topic came up so props Marianne very very good question but on that note we are out of time so thanks everybody for joining us I hope you all enjoy your new spandex life-affirming body suits they'll be in the mail soon until then been Joan who wants to take us out here today don't do it 359 is available on iTunes TuneIn feedburner stitcher google play music google podcasts the amazon echo and of course cnet.com thanks everybody for your great questions we'll see you again tomorrow take care folks you you