Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Inge and I'm Scott Stein the much-hyped magically beone augmented reality headset is finally slated to arrive this summer according to tape demos so that's not really much this headset appears to provide more realistic AR images than a lot of the current consumer tech but we still don't know a lot about price power consumption and haven't tested it ourselves so Scott you know a lot about AR and VR is this something that we should be excited about or still pretty skeptical because we haven't really seen much about it well definitely skeptical because we haven't seen much about it but there aren't a lot of head-mounted what they call mixed reality headsets microsoft hololens is really one of the only ones out there along with meta and a couple of other random players so what this is trying for something new and in that sense they're about to be some growing pains right so I don't think any of this territories is fleshed out as VR which already is not selling particularly well and this is you know you've got a are on your phones but this stuff wants to project it in three dimensions this thing they've revealed a few extra specs like the fact that as an nvidia tegra x2 processor if you follow chips and this was the first on-camera demo that anyone had seen but it looked not unlike what you've seen with microsoft hololens which has been out there for a while something kind of ghostly and floating and appearing in your space a lot of people thought that seemed pretty disappointing because you've seen a lot of videos and captures of things on your phone that already looked like that so alfred would you spend like something like 500 spend and who would you know but but like when you see videos of this is this something that you think that you could get into really like his comparison to the hololens like made a lot of sense for me and i tried on the hololens and i really didn't like it that much like for me I feel like it makes the most sense to just do something with your phone at least when it comes with something like mixed reality like I I feel like I'd rather just you have either have a full-on VR headset or just use my phone yeah next up Apple and Microsoft both announced new hardware this week Apple with a lightly updated MacBook Pro and Microsoft with the all-new inch surface go tablet for anybody paying attention these two reveals seem to reinforce the narrative that Apple has become a little bit too bland with its hardware updates and Microsoft a little bit more innovative and daring would you guys agree okay I don't see how its innovative and daring on Microsoft's and but I would say it's more like the thing that I would want in the sense that I've wanted an iPad to finally be a full computer for a while and I don't want to have to also carry around a MacBook and these changes that the MacBook Pro introduced none of them are the things I was dreaming of but maybe if you're a pro user you want a true tone or a quieter keyboard it's not necessarily a more reliable keyboard which is the thing people were complaining about and there is actually a repair program now to address that those keys have been failing so no new keyboard design really and nothing to address the lower end area am i hearing you guys correctly you don't want to give Microsoft any credit for trying something a little bit different I was right I was excited about the surface go in the sense that they finally made a cheaper model and a cheaper version for people that didn't want to shell out like you know for the the surface pro tablet or anything like that but I didn't like the fact that you still have to buy the keyboard and the stylus separately which is like an additional like what like 150 brings you in all this like $700 I here's this cheaper version cycle you got to pay more than what you actually want haha last speaking of getting credit for things Elon Musk jumped into action to try helping the soccer team stuck in a cave in Thailand offering a mini submarine the head of the rescue mission deemed the sub technologically sophisticated but quote not practical good for him for trying though yeah it's like when someone gives you a gift for your birthday that's like this weird like little robot thingy but weird mini-sub right that I've also tried and nobody's calling me a hero so I don't really understand why you know nobody's saying good on me for trying I I sent my thoughts and prayers to them so I don't why I'm not getting all the credit for helping save them I always have that interesting mini-sub yes oh that's out there thanks for the trash if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Inge I'm Scott Stein thanks for listening all right welcome back everybody thanks for joining us for the grand return of the 359 podcast as always so excited I'm trying to ramp up the energy here actually energy for Bryan it's the most amount of sleep I got last night I got four whole hours of sleep I'm feel good Mazel Tov I'm gonna get in the chat I'm gonna dig out your questions and comments so we can keep the conversation going in the meantime Scott why does everybody care about magically one so much cuz I sure as hell don't that is a super good question I mean not always the last story but magically didn't really get all that much interest but you know for four years now this thing has been building up nothing but hype billions of dollars in investment Google's been involved a lot of big companies have invested and partners like the NBA plus they've just been you know talking this up for a long time they're based in Florida so there's a lot of mystery Florida a lot of mystery around it but you know you're right in that now I think years ago when this type of stuff did not exist at all it seemed magical and new now there's a lot of stuff out there that's touching on that territory hololens is years old and also you have both ios and android doing a lot of a are things which are gimmicky but they're there for you to look at all right but I agree with Alfred's impression that if you already have your phone and you get more value from doing AR on your phone why would you spend a ton more money to get this like one headset you know like the separate headset it really does have to be cosmically better and even then where's the content gonna come from yeah when am I gonna use it I don't know I don't see how this would fit into my life but you know look at five to ten years from now maybe I eat those words and we're all living in a our world I don't know I think all these companies are trying to solve all the meaning I think all of them like I think Apple Microsoft Google a lot of the big Facebook are all trying to solve for this like potential future from different directions but all heading there like maybe some of them are looking at the phone and saying o AR and your phone and then we're gonna slowly build towards something else or maybe it's we work out the kinks on a headset for like five years but yeah what is you're using it for and when is a huge question and it's a it's a big problem and it's why VR has had a really hard time getting anyone to really care or buy it is that it's an extra piece of tech no matter how interesting the demo even is it's something extra you gotta get and do which doesn't work with all the other stuff necessarily already have mmm I ran out of air their answer you did good sometimes I like breathing everything is good at the very end my ran just all those times I don't and I was like done with this this just in Elon Musk just tweeted that he's going to distribute oxygen masks actually oxygen tanks to everybody in the United States is that something he'd say that way to help with help with people breathing for people who like to breathe he must he must be a fan over my work here is done good job what it what good on ask look we were talking about this before the show do you one tech CEOs to be loud and obnoxious and tweet all the time and yell at people or do you want them to be like a little bit more staid and boring so and great that I guess we have both so I think you have your genres years and then you have your I don't know other CEOs I don't like how Musk tries to directly target reporters which he has done before but they're okay right and they're filled with fake news but you know some things where he does try to engage with his like you know my school lovers and you know talk on my social medias yeah he's musketeer it's like so it's some of it is interesting and it certainly like live-ins up things and makes him you know presents him as the Tony Stark that he wants to be um I think I want something right in the middle it's just like real human interaction where I don't want friends that are like withdrawn and just stayed and boring all the time but I also don't want like really over-the-top in-your-face friends and we're always trying to say something thirsty yeah got to calm down and breathe I want to just write tech billionaire can we get one of them yeah what a Goldilocks tech billionaire I want the porridge to be right in the middle the little soft warm taste sure right in the right in that spot okay yeah do it do we have questions of course we do let's go ahead and talk about VRA our since we had already kind of kicked this off with the magic leap Mack Steph says would it be worth it to get a rift for $200 or as any VR really worth the money I think this is a perfect opportunity to put Scott on the spot yeah and just kind of give us the the rundown energy are Scott called which it's great it's Scott on what I've seen it what's the current there the current layout of the market what VR where are people gonna put their money best if they're interested in VR which in itself is still very niche great question I think of VR like a toy right so game system or a toy or thing that you say you're you get if you get like enough use out of it it justifies the purchase like I mean I had a Nintendo GameCube a long time ago like if I hit I still do yeah like so I offered you want to go play mailing yes I'm with you so that's the thing is like I had this like rule of in my mind this rule like if there were ten great games then I could justify the hardware purchase depending on like it's the math of like the cost of the individual titles per the hardware it's the razor and blade thing so I think um I think VR is like that where you know $200 you know you could see a handful of great games you would get yeah it's worth it I mean you want to try it out just know that it's not the final step it's gonna get overshadowed by other stuff in the PC side of things I don't think it's gonna overshadowed that soon a lot of the stuff that oculus is doing is mobile like the next step beyond go is a full six degree of freedom Santacruz headset that I got to try that's not gonna be PC base so I love the touch controller so if you're talking about if it's being packaged with those touch controllers in the rift I love the oculus apps store I don't love all the oculus apps but it's kind of the best software out there and the best packaging of the software so you like just kind of presentations it in check so you like the rift content more like their library of stuff newer than the PlayStation I do because I feel that Sony has done a pretty good job I think for their unique first party apps the PlayStation assortment is not as good as their regular ps4 games are like the ps4 games are awesome I don't think the same attention has been paid to psvr for reasons that it's not as probably not as worthwhile they're good ports but also I don't like the fact that on the you have to get a pro to really get the most out of you and PS VR as a graphic experience it was all about value in price now it's great if you don't have a PC but if you have a PC and for the price that the rift is dropping to I think you're probably better off getting that not wild that Facebook has oculus truthfully I just feel like in the end I wanted that to be its own platform aside from that because I think there's a lot of social ambitions that I don't really know where all that's going it's okay I mean plus the last generation of oculus social updates aren't even hitting rift they're skipping it so is that gonna be left in the dust that's my long answer so it is like in a weird territory because Facebook is not really like a PC company there are a mobile company so use it for now get it on sale just don't you know next year basically saying it's don't yell at me in a year if like this all just disappears but it could I feel like VR is in a kind of a strange place right now Scott its YouTube they're gonna yell at you of course yell at me but I really love the rift I the rift touch controllers are the best VR controllers absolutely that are out there until knuckles if your knuckles from Sonic not clea exactly sonic and knuckles because vibes vibes and that vive in valves upcoming hand motion controllers I've never used those are promising I'm just not wild about the steam VR landscape quite as much I think it definitely offers a tremendous breadth of stuff but you have to hunt around for things a little more I like the video game console package of apps you get on good let's look sorry it was a long answer no no you know a lot about this stuff but let's let's get to the next question okay so let's jump in hang on I can't tell what the hell I'm doing anymore okay let's talk about these surnames so we've got the surface go then there was the oculus go before we have Pokemon go Android go Amazon go surface Go Go Daddy oh thank you sir enjoy for pointing out that Go Daddy was always the og what the hell is with this naming convention going on these days why does everybody want you to lean on places to go it's just easy remember the doug liman movie go know about deep cut Scott yeah I mean that goes all the way back that came ahead of its time I'm sorry everybody everybody steals naming conventions we all know that all the pay's knows are those are those are like the least creative names ever the same go CS go yeah but the ghost it for like global Offensive so it's not it's a what is the hot turn if they area they're these terms that just come flying through and the impression goes yeah thing now so the impression that I get is is that all the tech companies hire the exact same marketing agency it's this really cool guy would slicked back hair he has an amazing pitch and he's like guys yo use gum just use go you little sell it comes with a stop sign right people don't like this no people of like stock but they like Don Draper he's like we're always trying to stop we're in motion right go and they're like that's exactly it we're going we're going the Paracel memories yeah I think it I do think it's a play for mobile to that like everyone wants to be mobile so things that are not necessarily mobile like a surface you know Microsoft doesn't really have a phone there that you know not anymore right so this can seem mobile so I think same thing with oculus a fee are always mobile though it was it was this is the surface that you'll be able to travel with as opposed to these other ones the one the home one is like what what do you mean like this one is the go version let's go yeah they really want you to like be encouraged to travel freely and then there's this new like search engine website like goggle or something like that so yeah go go what you did there I saw it I loved it let's take a question from from livestream for the first time cuz I'm trying to branch out here well-read twitch we don't know I'm getting there I'm getting there come on goggle plugs from Rita love it how about other computer eyewear what else can we see coming in the form of wearable PC snapchat spectacles you know I never fit my glasses um apparently snaps are working on some AR thing so what can we expect I would say these things always come in waves so when you see something emerge it's like the early days of smartwatches I think everybody's working on something like this and it's only a matter of time before the multi-year project everyone's working on emerges that's just and um it's just a gut feeling I have based on it nothing really but the rumors of Apple having an AR headset Google has dabbled in this before with Google glass but now with their continuing movement in AR could they eventually get back in this or partner with a company totally likely Samsung who you know they have ambitions in every electronic space and like to create show pieces especially and also developing screens and OLED and interest ways that seems tailor-made for them at some point did you mention Apple yet because I feel like Apple is an apple at the front yeah and sharra had written that story about the the you know the reports of a 20/20 headset Apple is really building a lot of it's a Ark it's tough to really build from the inside out I wrote about that Percy net a lot of the tools that you would need in a headset like multiplayer object recognition and things like that so I think that you and Microsoft supposed to have a new version of hololens and Microsoft is still pursuing headset like things with their VR for PCs in a lot of ways those those um camera equipped six degree of freedom headsets that are out there from partners are using hololens like tech and they're supposed to eventually blend there are also a lot of random players like meta is a maker of another headset that's been out there and they could develop something we also might start seeing a lot of like saris a long answer you've got does you want to hear more but also you stick your breads like Rick this technique a death listen let's go get your phone into there's gonna be like the equivalent of those you know things you see those VR headsets at Target all right I'm gonna force you into a lightning round let's do lightning round questions and then call it a day okay let's talk about the old muskie key seaman real quick Matthew dad sure wants to know was the mini-sub just a publicity stunt and following up for that will must be able to actually fix Flint and I want to branch off of that and ask what the hell is musk gonna do next I don't think that it was a publicity it's not I mean a lot of people like to call him out on that is like oh they like he just want a publicity Edelen like was riding on the coattails of you know this this whole thing with the soccer team in Thailand it almost doesn't need publicity dude like this guy like he can tweet out that he wants a cyborg dragon and like everyone's writing about that like the guy doesn't need publicity I think he was generally like trying to help was it actually helpful it was a completely useless yes um you know what I I thought it was pretty thirsty but you make a very good point yeah he's nine make simplicity yo he comes up he comes up with a boring company flamethrower and people have been writing about it for my point is like I think that like in this scenario though it makes no sense for him to like just like throw himself in there's like and then like he shows these videos like we're testing out this submarine in this like swimming pool like check out these divers that we have and it's just like why are you doing this like this doesn't help at all dude like you're not this is it's really just like check out these cool thing I'm doing on the side by the way oh it didn't help I mean whatever equal if it did because a lot of those soccer team kids were very bad swimmers and thank God they all got out but I will say in laning ran like the the ability were in an era okay where let's just say in general to pronounce things all of a sudden if you have power can generate a lot of interest a lot of activity all across different channels that's a messy situation everywhere in lots of different ways so if you're in a position of great power like he is enthusiasm might be there but I'd rather some thought go into you know just have it be as well-planned and executed as possible you know to to broadcast attention it's just like where do things end up going obviously Flintshire that's great would love to have and I'll have that happen just want to see that happen wait wait this is your lightning round answer alright we're going to the next Oslo III I don't know vex lightning rod I just want to point out we do have questions on Twitch oh we do yeah nice one asking if there's ever gonna be a new counter-strike there probably will be it will probably take a while there was like a long gap between the original counter-strike and like csgo and even between that there was like and it was like counter-strike source that like not that many people played way to be on brand twitch asker sure they'll make one yeah there's probably gonna do counter-strike there's a new everything the twitch twitch your you're allowed to ask questions that don't directly relate i don't nothing about the next counter-strike yeah but when is counter-strike brawl coming out everything against everything gets remade yeah sooner or later by fans or whatever else like a.m. came back as like a developer project I'm still waiting for vine to come back you can just mark we all take second videos on your Brian are we good or more questions let's take one more for the road this one's a little off-topic but I actually thought this is really good and we could provide some really fantastic advice Mac Steph on YouTube wants to know is there any foolproof way to easily tell if something is refurbished or if it's actually legit or just some kind of bizarre marketing tool how tell if something is officially refurbished or if it's just you know secondhand trash it's usually the packaging isn't it I mean like it's pretty hard to remanufacture the packaging especially if you're getting it off of like an off-brand site if you're buying a mini sub from Thailand oh I'm pretty sure it's unused it's not technically it's not new but like it's never been used so it might be refurbished on around also just one other thing is you just buy directly from the manufacturer that's absent considering and they will always tell you if it is or isn't refurbished yeah you usually end up paying more but then you know that it's new yeah I think the answer is to go to as clear a source as possible for the refurbished stuff I mean I'm sure there are ways that I'm not aware of to be able to check some of that stuff out I think it's really tough just know that the person who's promising it is as close to the actual source mmm cool so that's it we are out of time but we are resuming our regularly scheduled programming starting Monday so we'll be back on mic weekday mornings to join you thanks for joining us on our new platform twitch most of you are already well aware of it but it's new to us so let's celebrate when we come back we'll be streaming on vine go and counter-strike battle royale will be our next let's play and yeah who wants to take us out today how the ahead so the Scott on the spot podcast is available on iTunes tuna and stitcher feedburner google play music google podcast the amazon echo and of course cnet.com you can also subscribe watch us and join in on the conversation weekday yeah I'm sorry Wednesday morning weekday mornings unseen at YouTube livestream periscope and twitch thanks everybody for watching and thanks for joining us Scott hey thank you bye bye cleanse yourself of that he was very bad fit streaking lights loud sound you