Gadgetory

and good morning on Thursday May 25th episode 233 of the 359 podcast and we apologize for such an unprecedented unfortunate hiatus that was due to unforeseen circumstances and on my name's dvg and in the house today we got offered a and Ben Fox Ruben welcome back everybody it wasn't really a hiatus well we haven't been like the audio we haven't been live all week amazi yeah yeah yeah it is it is nice to be back I bought a house in New Jersey so that's where that's where I was last week so I'm very happy to be back what we are talking about today Motorola was throwing some shade on Samsung's battery testing which seemed very bold to me we'll get into that Roger Cheng wrote that story yesterday also there's a new feature from t-mobile called digits we'll get into that and we'll end with a Brobot police officer Robocop in Dubai Robocop in Dubai I'd watch that movie that would be the lamest movie ever I would watch it it would be better than sharknado so sending your questions and comments Brian our producer is going to get to as many as he can at the end of the show let's let's do it I suppose Brian's ready we'll we'll make it happen oh we're ready okay let's go then then here we go buckle up three two welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Aang Samsung cobbled its reputation back together thanks in part to its new 8 point battery testing process which should prevent future train wrecks like the note 7 but rival Motorola this week and the new testing as more of a quote marketing campaign and said it could have avoided the note sevens battery problems from the get-go that's pretty bold why do that why not just is it bold it's very petty it's just one of those things or it's like it's after the fact that it happened yet we could have prevented that like you didn't know what was going on is much more than you're backing this yeah don't don't act like like you knew what the problem was and like no that's never happen uh yeah and there's a we could stopped it yeah uh but partly partly that this came from Motorola you know had a meeting with a handful of journalists this week and it was asked like have you changed your battery testing in any way since the note 7 debacle they said no we we know what we're doing with lithium-ion batteries we didn't change anything it does it does seem almost a little too Cavalier it was just such an odd shot for them to take in in this sense as far as like why don't you tell like your phone's great battery life you know with Motorola and they're like modular phones like how it's different from the note 7 where you know all the phones are stuck in there with their batteries where like with this you can put like an extra battery pack or like mod it so like it's a you know things like this wouldn't happen but more so is like no we would have fixed that error yeah never was great come on it's so weird ads are dead mods never time and they're still trying to push for it try to push for it but I don't think mods are really going to happen so I guess the best thing that they can do is you know take a crap on Samsung no we're best it's such an absurd like claw their way back next up t-mobile introduced a new feature called digits which lets you sync your phone number across devices and get this use one phone for multiple phone numbers letting you toggle between like your work and personal phone numbers which sounds like a pretty nice feature I mean I really like it it makes so much sense like think about like your email where it's like if you leave one computer at home you don't think like oh I can't check any because I don't have that computer like it makes so much sense to have all the numbers on like one device like there were a few like on Monday I left my work phone at home and I was like I hope nobody calls it of like wants me to do any work today because I'm not like doing have to call me on my landline right but who would benefit we talked about this before the show who would benefit the most from this feature I mean this seems like perfect for drug dealers there you go where they can just have their burner numbers on the envy a burner number and not a burner phone and then you don't have to keep buying like really like cheap phones yeah I love it I love I love drug dealing I'm gonna die I'm not juggling uh-huh what if I did if I word I would use digit this is very useful last Dubai put into action a new police robot this is really hard to keep my face straight on this one which it will station in malls and tourist attractions you can use its touch screen to report crimes it also looks like a mannequin which is pretty creepy and it's got an adorable little hat on it it's such a weird form factor is it why why the Hat why what is it like you don't put like a bowtie on you're like echo I would wear a tie on wears like to like you know give it like a little human look or whatever it's a machine it's meant to like serve its job like in Stanford at like the Stanford mall they have those like mall cop robots right called the night scope and it looks like a little dome it's a little trash can yeah that makes sense like it's there like I know it's a robot but like you give me this like mannequin looking robot that I can come up to and like press buttons on its chest it's so weird I don't know about this whole thing so get this also you buy plans on eventually having 25% of its Dubai police force robe be robots by 2030 this is just I don't know there's a lot of robot hats tonight Pritikin overrun at a robot hat anyway if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNET I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alberta thanks for listening you may not put a bow tie on your echo but the hipsters in Brooklyn do okay they definitely do and they get those bow ties off of Etsy I love that you just started cracking up the moment that yeah it's just so silly looking I'm sorry look I don't I know I'm not enough about this story to judge it objectively but if done luck Sal he's got a little hat he does he does I mean the very low point is like for like low profile stuff so like if you want to go pay like your font like a fine like a parking ticket or whatever you don't have to go all the way to the core or like the police station you can just go there but I'm also like does I also drove up I could also just be a kiosk of collect report crimes and get information like they literally have that in New York City of like on the subway like that little like kiosk thing that you just press the button and you talk to somebody or like pops up a screen depending on like how old your station is you don't have a mannequin dude I think this is what I think I think like everybody in the tech world and government and whatever looked at their watches and we're like it's 2017 we should have had more robots by now kind of like the book report was do or something and now we're cobbling together a bunch of these ridiculous looking robots like I don't understand what the point of it them DeMarre listen we'd have this alright look at the literal Robocop from 1987 and then remade in modes of 2014 2014 and as arguably bad as the remake was like the Robocop still look kind of cool in a way like far from perfect far from his iconic as the original was like alright that doesn't look silly it looks kind of man but then and then you get like ghost in the shell' that just came out this year and it's still kind of about technically a Robocop to a certain extent and you go yeah yeah I know well I think one of the problems is is and we've discussed this before is that any robots that do come out that are that are kind of facing the public like you know consumer-facing they intentionally try to make them look cute because they don't want to make them look scary cuz holly has made as Michael everybody robots are scary back up you don't think that looks scary it looks creepy it looks kind of weird but back off and that's um I Robot maybe that's why I'm gonna throw a punch at that robot any day of the week that is not affordable but the thing is like it doesn't have to be like cute to not be scary has been like a kiosks or like a literally like a stick with that screen what does it need arms that stick what is it roll I gonna do those arms if it was this joke you in your sleep right if it was a stag I still would want the adorable little hat on it though at least with the hat off cause like it's supposed like the the main point of it is that like touchscreen on its chest right so like you built a whole thing around it just for the touchscreen but why doesn't eat I get maybe legs floor like we also can move around and stuff and like tell people to get out of here son what are they gonna do those arms it looks like it's I mean it looks like it could like judo chop some body with that though we are 100% in agreement that this robot is stupid I'm just wait hold on scroll to the right a little bit look how serious this man is right like he's like this is yup this is we're doing this for two hun it is although like metals and stuff I don't know what that's for button the robots got some catching up to do right he's a rookie cop this let this look like a buddy cop movie oh my god I would watch we're taking you off the Robo floor and then like the season finale is that that robot gets caught up in like ransomware robot go give me back my robot I'm getting too outdated for this let's pull it back let's pull it back the show is officially gotten off the rails do we have any questions or comments I like to comment from Matthew Matthew dancer who says I don't want to live in a world with uncanny uncanny valleys around every corner amen totally yeah great comment great comment um all right let's uh sorry so distracted by this damn thing it doesn't need I those cameras they may be camera it has ears it's honest all right horrible focus focus it's a serious show this is this is yeah we came back from like not doing video and like now we're just cracking okay let's talk into something that we do like let's talk about digits okay I think that's kind of a radical idea like the idea that's kind of like you know Apple I'm messaging how it yeah how it goes in different devices yeah absolutely have to be a hardware loyalist lost legacy points out that you are arguably better off still just using Google Voice because it's free that's a good point I think this is also free but you have to be a t-mobile customer yeah so this is this is a way it depends on how many lawns you want to add right also um I mean I really like it I I'm saying like they made a good point where it's like we're treating like phone numbers as if they're like emails or no no no they're not treating them as of their emails like before like right now like the way that we look at phone numbers it's like it's almost as if it's like a social security number mmm or something was like this number is directly tied to me kind of thing and it's only directly tied to this device or this SIM card that's in it and it makes no sense like you should you're treating it like messengers or like well previously a telephone number was more like an IP address yeah I to a physical location right address but now it's more like a QR code that's identified with a subject the person a hand yeah they're I like the way they're thinking about this I mean I wouldn't even put a pass at someday the idea of a traditional number is kind of retired yeah sure yeah that's that's true yeah in their marketing of this too they also mention the idea that you would have a specific phone number that you would give out only for dating or something like that so you would have disposable numbers the like you know like the song or whatever like keeps calling you and just like ditch that phone number right not to me seems pretty smart because like we were saying before like your phone number is so tied to your I guess that kind of makes it like we have a work email a personal email yeah I know more have like a spammy ideal email yeah yeah let's get back to the drug dealing I know I know reporters that will only give out like their Google Voice number and smart may I have more able a better filtering yeah that's the idea with this though where it's like the weird thing in there a design of the opposite though isn't it there you're able to I mean it's not the same number though it's just all numbers can sync onto one phone oh I see I guess I'd interesting when there's all those evil numbers but they all go to the same phone yeah yeah it's cool yeah cuz I get largely utilize that anyways like all my notifications buzzing getting yeah causes me major anxiety it'd be nice to have more controller but then like I look like a jerk on the subway a lot of times when it's like I get a work email but I'm also reading something I'm like my oh I do that all the time I'm just like I'm trying to show off it's really crowded and like I'm already holding my phone and then I'll like accidentally like elbowed somebody and it's just like I haven't sorry this is for my second phone I'm more important than you oops yeah at one point I was carrying around three phones when I was like messing around with the Samsung Galaxy we did how did you hold the third one Oh were you testing it though I was testing a Yaris playing with a with a galaxy what was it just like the edge of field last you didn't actually have three phones I did yeah but like I was really bad marine I were you just wearing two of them like shades I would just put like them all down on my lap and tried to read the New York Times like you know across at least you didn't have like three phone holders like oh that would be amazing nobody somebody walks - like this guy's an intense hacker definitely nobody has ever said that about me here's a fascinating thought from Matthew in the chat again our 10 digits enough numbers to be throwing them away willy-nilly good point it isn't really good that that is that is one of the issues who they're like legit running out of phone numbers I didn't know that we're gonna have to actually start using the 555 at least at least in New York that's why they've had to come up with like new area codes whereas i7 one eight six four six two one two they're already had taken because there's so many people in the city I was like all right we're nine to nine now like that's like I don't even know if 99 is new I know they came out with a new one recently I can't keep track yeah I know worse six four six which is a newer one I just sent that ones I think we're going to see more I think you're going to find a way to repurpose some of the area codes being that they're not going to be tied to a physical location again like we talked about you know the phone numbers are less about they they brought in the air there's a lot of rural areas where they don't but saw shows number they brought them in originally because it's like they ran out of like like phone numbers with just like seven like digits is the thing so I was like okay we'll use this one for like min Han this one for Queens that kind of thing because it was like we need more combinations kind of thing I remember being able to call somebody in Brooklyn like with only seven digits I was like oh so great that was yep definitely back in the day that was like late 90s yeah that was that was back um when I was a four late 90s but like that's what I've ER whatever that was back in like when I was growing up in the Philadelphia area everybody was to one five and then eventually we got switched over to six six one zero so it was the same situation I will say this this is what I do like about area codes though is that it tells you how long somebody's been like an OG like in that neighborhood for somebody like comes through and they have like a six for six numbers or like a they're 99 numbers I I know you're not from here I know you're a baker yeah Abdul points out three five nine area code I looked it up to Bulgaria really mm-hmm what yeah that's maybe that's where we do the 359 episode ooh what we doing in Bulgaria so first we actually need a budget travel which we do $359 Hey before we bring things all the way around full circle and take some shots at the shade uh-huh Andres getting a little pushy in the chat here hey what's up would any of y'all buy the Galaxy Note 8 any of y'all three yeah how do you know that that's his a like voice he typed y'all a different I say y'all um your assimilate your on assimilate biology I I would yeah I would I would definitely consider getting it uh one of my major hesitations with wait a minute did he ask about the note eight the note the note eight it's not happening I thought he was asking you about the same day but like theoretically in a nano a he's asking us erratically a phone that I've never seen before and that I would consider it is now just rumored no I wouldn't because I don't like phablets I get like cell phones so that's no I wouldn't buy that I'm basically not buying a venue phone until they come out with another se like upgrade mmm yeah the SE I mean like we're waiting to see what the next Google pixel will look like obviously the 10th anniversary iPhone is expected to come out I was strongly considering the s8 for a while but the fingerprint sensor in the back kind of caused me a little bit of hesitation so I don't know it just it to it I mean yeah it's one of those things that's just a learning curious about what it was just it was an odd choice yes all it was it was it seemed pretty clear that it was a last-minute thing so um it wasn't you know the worst thing in the world but still yeah alright let's talk about let's talk about Motorola first of all Ankit says does those motorola even exist anymore that's a good point I mean like that was partly why they threw shade in the first place at Samsung because Samsung yeah an apple or like the duopoly that's the other thing too when when you introduce that storing you said like rival like rival Samsung that was Motorola and a rival yeah I mean like they're a rival stronger I don't think that their rivals they're both phone makers that's true those are surprised I mean yes they both they're both vying for the same category like me in the same rival category but that's a very good point yeah and I like that as easy-peasy as uh I don't know if that's the user name Samsung's up Samsung eight point testing one does it catch fire - does it catch fire three doesn't catch I mean that's pretty much if you look at the eight point stuff it kind of is a lot like that so there's one where they do like um there's like heat testing they do one where it's like leakage testing there's one where it's like like puncture testing where they like they don't like exactly hammer nails into it but say it's all mechanical right um but it's pretty much we like make it go through all these conditions and see if it catches fire wait wait wait you hear that here comes a wave of people getting mad at us for beating a dead horse over the Samsung exploding mine I mean like look it was it was like the a chemise mad at Motorola long luck it was the biggest like major flagship phone train wreck in years I mean like obviously we're going to be talking about it a lot so yeah that's fine if you guys think we're beating a dead horse we are a question from Jacob coming in here at the 11th hour speaking of the pixel do you think it's possible we could see Google double down on it and purchase a new phone maker again or just continue outsourcing the manufacturing um I would probably say the latter they already had purchased Motorola and it pissed off a lot of the phone makers that use Android and I ended up jettisoning Motorola and now Lenovo owns it so it doesn't seem very likely to me that they would shell out billions of dollars don't own a phone maker again yeah I mean that they don't really need to like own a phone maker when they can like just like give money to HTC for this yeah I and if they can with the second iteration actually make it a little bit more customized make the design a little bit nicer then there really isn't much of a purpose for them to like you know like whatever the hardware all the hardware and the factories and employees and all that other stuff that being said though Google is also like kind of rich though yeah maybe they can kind of do it yeah but like Apple doesn't make its own phones make an entire time to do that yeah so it wasn't like ships it out at China and like you know Foxconn does does like all the heavy lifting for them so from a business standpoint it's pretty obvious that outsourcing would be the smarter way to do it but but at least for Google because if Google were to own like a brand like Motorola again I just think that it would it would be the same situation that was a couple years ago where everybody's like wait a minute why are you why are we using Android if you're gonna like go after us like this heavily I just I just hope that all future headlines related to Motorola and Samsung are like anytime something bad happens Samsung Motorola comes out as like we would have caught that like yesterday I wrote a story about how like the iris scanner on the galaxy si is like easily hacked right with like a piece of paper and like contact lens like you take if you take a photo of somebody's eyes like in like night mode it like uses like the infrared like shots and then you put a contact lens over it so it looks like it's an eye it's like it's textured holy cow and then like they held up the piece of paper to like the galaxy si and then like it unlocked it I really want to see a headline from Motorola like we would have caught that we were caught that because we don't offer an iris scanner mm-hmm what had never happened you get snaked okay one more this is this is a god nothing goes over my head a good question of how a little out of left field from Andres again who by the way was from Texas whatever happened to Motorola project ara I was really hoping to that to come out i project ours from google that was Google as an angle but that that was a modular thing too they correct they canned it because like Ben said earlier uh mods are pretty much dead yeah um except with Motorola yeah you're such a cool promo demo thing that they showed off though what's the idea it is a fun idea but I think in practice people don't really want to do that they just think there's a lot of liability to it there's a lot more moving parts to fail your ass got from you have to carry around and you know if you want well I feel like you if you want to deal with em right get a good camera I think you'd build your dream phone you wouldn't get sitting out there going you know Optimus Prime on the single day day yeah but I the ID again moving parts sliding parts connections fail that thing is just asking I mean I thought it was a great idea but then it came into like that thing is like that project are like did not seem like future proof to me in the Centaurs like okay I got all these parts and stuff and then like one year later it's like oh there's these new parts out and the phone that you have is not compatible with them so you need to get the new thing too and well it just like didn't seem very future proof to me yeah that's probably a good place to wrap it up for the day but before we go loss of legacies asking what our e3 plans are and I'm going to advise you to go ahead and ping old Jeff Bakalar right over on the 404 because I believe he's your guy to talk to about synergy 3 coverage very much yes yeah you know is likely going to be there I can't confirm that percent but historically he's been the guy to go also we might as well tell people that we're going on hiatus next week Memorial Day hiatus so we'll be back in time for WotC we sketched out for a few days and now we're formally taking a few more games I'm sorry guys catch up a little sorry so but yeah we'll be we'll be out enjoy the long weekend and yeah let's let's wrap this thing up 3:59 podcast is available on iTunes TuneIn stitcher SoundCloud Feedburner google play music and cnet.com I didn't expect you to stop I was just gonna like read it okay Rama C that would have been even weirder we'll work on our harmonies for next time I say y'all I'm anyway thanks everybody for watching and we'll be back in time for WWDC see you then