Gadgetory

good morning from the scene at New York studios it is Monday October 2nd I'm bvg and we are here for episode two ninety two of the three fifty nine podcast and on today's show we've got Alfred in Ben Fox Ruben and David Katz Mayer is back again thanks for coming back yeah you know I feel like I was just here there's like so much streaming news I know well you know it's it's it's TV time is there can you even say whether you know if there's gonna be even more coming out on Wednesday during the Google yeah I I don't know I mean they always release they've last couple years they released chromecast 2015 and then chromecast ultra last year I'll be curious to see if they want to update it I don't feel like they're going to just cuz we haven't heard anything okay well for this show we're gonna be talking all about Roku the streaming family got an all new update we'll also be discussing virtual credit card skimmers with out Freddy wrote that story over the weekend and then we'll wrap up with the SNES classic edition hopefully somebody out there got one and we'll discuss that without further ado yeah one David oh yeah let's let's get to the podcast send in your questions and comments BVG we'll get to as many as you can at the end of the show and let's go and we'll be recording the podcast back in 3 minutes and 59 seconds from 3:00 to welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred hang and wait Katz Meyer I was gonna intro you that's okay I'm gonna do it anyway with us for a second time in a row is David cat's in the cradle Katz Meyer our epic TV reviewer there you go you got it anyway we brought you back to talk about the new lineup of Roku devices which ran from $30 to $100 yeah what are the big changes here really there's only one new player among those five the other four we've seen in review before although they do have bumped up processors but the one I want to talk about is the streaming stick plus the new $70 stick that goes right up against the Amazon fire TV just rolls off your tongue oh yeah oh it goes yeah yeah so those are the two kind of big 4k HDR streaming sticks coming out this year it's the cool new addition is this remote that can control your televisions so it's got buttons on it for following the power the programming so long well you know they've had it forever on other devices for example cable box controls but this is the first time streamers have had it I think it's just an extra expense that nobody wanted to add but they're putting it even down on the $50 non 4k streaming stick and it's cool because you know again one remote controls your TV volume and power you know I need to reach for the remote and you can probably leave it in a drawer for the most part I was thinking about how frustrating that was the other day where I had like to turn the volume down but I couldn't find the other remote yeah it's oh you poor baby yeah I know that happens to me all the time it still it's like such a first-world edge oh yeah so for anybody that has a Roku or another streaming box right now is there a good reason to upgrade like what would be a good candidate for an upgrade um I mean maybe somebody that got a new TV and and you kind of just you know cascade them down you know put the older streamers on the older TVs and put the the new nice one on the new one new TV you got otherwise you know some people are annoyed by their older streamers sometimes the Netflix app isn't updated or you know it goes slower or maybe you're sick of Amazon trying to push stuff in your throat for example so there's a lot of different reasons to get something like this and they're so cheap you know at the end of the day you might go oh it's a great gift just put on my list yeah I'm thinking of upgrading just to get the extended Wi-Fi range you know if it works at all yeah did you actually notice the amped-up processor they always say it's like 5 X 7 X 15 X faster I did just because the old was so slow so the original Express the $30 entry level device is hella slow the new one is like super fast which means it's kind of like it takes the place of the streaming stick which was really fast as my new recommendation because it's 20 bucks less and by the way does everything you know all the apps and everything and it's it's cheaper so it's it's kind of the new go-to it was so far out testament full in a little bit roku choice well um switching gears alfred you wrote about virtual credit card skimmers what are those so you know how they had credit card skimmers already at your ATM where when you you know people like stick hardware onto it then you put your card in and it's deal with your card information now that's gone like virtual so in the same sense you know instead of them having go to every a team and pudding-like this piece of hardware on it and then going back and then extracting it a research firm had discovered that basically there had been several hacking campaigns against you know major banks most of these are overseas I haven't seen any attacks happen in the US yet but basically they'll hack the bank like either through phishing some kind of exec there and then install the skimmers on all of their ATMs at the same time so there was this one campaign in Croatia in like January 2016 where basically it made like 1.3 million euros before they were was there wasn't it 13 but I might have been in it yeah yeah yeah they but they ended up making a lot of money is there anything the consumers can do about this it's really hard to detect when it's a virtual skimmer because it's literally exactly the same thing as yours but I mean there there's been things that people have been able to do for Hardware skimmers a company called spark fund came out with an app called skimmer scanner a few weeks ago where basically a lot of these skimmers use like a Bluetooth chip on it so it like purposely seeks out this Bluetooth chip and if it detects it it you know there's likely a skimmer around you so also we wanted to get to the NES classic edition which went on sale SNES classic sorry what did I say NES classic that also existed went on sale this past Friday and the meaning console was probably like sold out in all sorts of places but David you got one yeah well actually I think you might have as well I did not go oh you didn't go I didn't I didn't show so we all went seeing it as a posse kind of went down because the Amazon treasurer truck was right there we were among lucky few so it's you know it's a it's a really cool $80 you know a device that has all these games built into it you know and I'm pretty excited to play some games from my childhood you know Super Mario I'm not that excited I spent the weekend playing a different game so you know I'll go back to it you know and and maybe it'll be a cool thing around the holidays with the family coming sounds good if you want to read more about these stories check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm alfred Inge and I am David Katz my thanks for listening your catchphrase now you were waiting for that you were waiting for that though had a real damn time I told you I was gonna intro you you know there was comments on that in the last episode of like yeah I'm here because I heard the whisper on the podcast I would say what happened did somebody stub his toe no it's now you have we have to stumble over each other every time you're on the show yeah well you know what this is David I'm David I'm David I'm David I just want to do all the intros that's fine connect can I do that everything's okay Gigi all right I don't know he's so good at it known that all right I'm gonna start farming the the comments section for for any good questions but David what game were you playing that wasn't the SNES you just dropped like a hundred dollars on its oh no way I mean come on you got to defer I mean I'm a one game guy I can't read more than once it's called divinity original sin - it's a game that I'm actually acraman wrote an article about it recently about our popular is on Steam I was there before the article but it's just it's over the top isometric since Martin first cast it at first exactly so those it kind of gives them into recently it's like a little bit like a baldur's gate old school type RPG yeah but see see ya know well actually it's I'm running on a PC but I'm complaining with a controller which is my preferred tactic so I plugged the PC into the TV and play a 65 inch PC games with a controller from my couch sorry I'm gonna stop now well um but yeah it's fun it works great even though it's an isometric with a lot of control and crazy inventory and all that stuff that the controller works awesome yeah what's the first game you're planning on playing on the SNES classic Mario World of course I mean come on yeah recently like played through it again yeah nice nes classic I was telling Ben this where I felt like I didn't need to get one considering that I can get all the games I wanted to play already on a yes plus the Raspberry Pi that I have at home about the games porn yeah and I'm like I don't I don't care for that so you know I you know I'm not a guy that just like likes to get something to show something off and that's what I feel like this that's me I feel like so much of the music industry was that for a long time now not so much but you know your comment on vinyl records or something no not so much for vinyl records but if you just repackaged like Greatest Hits or stuff like that and you made it like a really impressive package or a box set remember there's EVD boom box at boom the TV box alkaline item because people reason enough to get it or last like six weeks but there was a big deal so is Nintendo cresting off of that general feel of you know I felt that they've been taking like the the streetwear approach to this or like the Jordans approach where it's like oh we're gonna make it like limited supply so it looks like it's really rare and then all these people want to come and like buy it and it's like really good marketing for them yeah well not only that but like the IP existed from yet twenty or twenty or to me I'm like that's like the only reason why they have such limited supply for it like that because they want this kind of like Jordan's like appeal to the which are also collector's item if people aren't buying Jordans because like they make you like they're better to play basketball in they're not I would I would really be interested in the GameCube mini console which by the way the Gamecube was already pretty tiny again with and and when the Nano they got a fine line to walk because with the NES classic them you know by all accounts it was much smaller inventory than this and this is kind of like they decided all right now we're gonna beef it up we're gonna try to avoid some backlash yeah I I would the Gamecube like mini console would be the only one that I would buy maybe that or like a and n64 only because you know you can't really do like Virtual Console like GameCube games that well and like if you if you want to do like dolphin emulator that's like you you actually need like a decent rig for that well both of those consoles I wasted so many hours of exactly which is why those were I I played those too so so often and considering that we've got the NES classic and the SNES classic now and they have been really big heads yeah the likelihood of those additionally many consoles coming out seems pretty significant I think at least a 64 they might cap it after that though because then it becomes contemporary when did the class I was in high school on the Gamecube came out it's been a while I still that feel like that might be right on the edge of what you would call the the concurrent generation of Nintendo consoles of video gaming consoles I know it's only what was at fourth gen that was fourth gen something like that yeah and I know that's that's relatively far back now but still I think it's more associated with like gaming today than gaming of yesterday it's also like hitting a demographic people of a certain age you know like that's those the games that I grew up playing was NES and SNES and it's like I don't really care that much about the GameCube game so it's like you got to hit the window of when those guys have a disposable income the biggest reason why I'd appreciate a Gamecube Classic though is if they you know started selling Cape doom controllers again just because like those are optimal for playing Super Smash Brothers on definitely and yeah wait a minute was it the GameCube controller or the n64 controller that had like the three prong that was 64 that's the Batarang controller that I liked a lot the the Trident you like the 64 controller yeah yeah yeah that was great for Super Smash Brothers I hate it I was god yes I have three hands so it was perfect for me all right do we have any Roku questions or any other questions in the chat we do we have some great questions Josh Buddha asks David is it worth getting a Roku if I already have a chromecast depends on whether you want to use a remote to SH as opposed to your phone which I yeah I used a chromecast for a little while and using my phone I found to be yeah I will say this I swore by chromecast for a bit but it became really like annoying whenever oh my phone is dead alright and I can't watch anything now that's kind of silly yeah and and just having physical buttons means you don't have to look at anything besides your television screen and to me that's like a great you know a single kind of concentration as opposed to you know driving around on your phone oh I just got a tweet oh wait somebody's calling me oh yeah I gotta figure out well not only that but like you also don't have to unlock your remote every single time you have to change you want to change the channel or well you can put the stuff on the lockscreen for some of them but yeah yeah at the end of the day I think the remotes more convenient I broke down and put just one of my old iPhone fours threes I forget what the hell it was let's turn that into a universal remote I just park that dock near the table or like Matthew dacher says and our buddy I as in house they're they swear by the Harmony remote yeah yeah that's what I use at home and again it controls a Roku doesn't control a chromecast so you know you're you're you're kind of one of the other I mean it's a valid argument that the chromecast has a lot of you know features especially the app updates usually come faster you know to the to the mobile apps that the chromecast uses then for example something on a Roku where they got a you know brew up something new for everything but Roku's really good at keeping up to date so David while we're staying on topic at the Harmony remote Matthew doctor says he's sick of the or my problem with Roku and other sticks is a lack of IR control how or others handling that problem with universal remotes well in Leon Harmony yes so harmony again does a great job because they have IP control built into the hub and it can control Roku's it can control playstation 3 you know stuff like that that doesn't have IR you know I don't know about other devices cuz honestly in the remote control game harmonies kind of the beginning and end they're the ones that have the most technology and and do the greatest for sales I think there's other guys you can go to CVS and probably have a remote you know from the from right behind the cash register there but at the end of the day I always recommend harmony and they've they've done really well for me and and that control of stuff that doesn't have IR is is one of the main things or you could just you know get a device that has an IR receiver on it but those are getting more more rare I mean that's why I hated using my Roku like the the really old rogue before though weird like okay that's not working that's not working right I gotta aim yeah yeah now it's like you know you can go across the house or whatever and a Harmony app works pretty good too so yeah I've been using my app as a controller a lot more and I will say I do appreciate the chromecast more only because I can cast stuff on it that's not like from YouTube yes or anything like yeah you can put anything or screen your you know whatever you want to put up there there's no option like that for right well they have mirroring but it's in beta and it's been in beta for I think like five years so they don't really care that much about it their main thing is Dedinje for the actual apps on the box or the dongle it's fun for them the Donald the dongle Roku would all stick this time by the way no no dongles it's still yes kind of but that's the thing you have to ask what's the difference between the stick and a dongle yes a dongle technically has attached HDMI cable that you cannot remove whereas the stick is the HDMI and the box or whatever want to call the Express that little thing has a detachable standard HDMI cable so so is the the chromecast is a stick then it's a dongle because you can't I guess the chromecast or TV yes right yeah that dangle dangle dangle dangle but isn't a chromecast just a stick on its own though diddily diddily well the original chromecast was a stick yeah that's all I saw that's what I'm referring even in 2013 man I'm talking about the quote-unquote new chromecast which came out in 2015 which is a little puck and oh yeah yeah yes they went from stick to dongle leading the industry in that direction it's more questions yes I mean my head is spinning so yes absolutely all the semantics of dongle ISM James favor asks will these new features be on Roku TVs yeah oh great question so a lot of them yes the short answer is yes the new features especially well the remote that controls your TV isn't really required if you have a Roku TV in general but this gives me an opportunity to talk about Roku TV they have a new update coming out too and November but the cool thing about Roku TV is their televisions that Roku built-in you don't have to connect anything to them to get all that Roku functionality and streaming or whatever it is and there are favorites more TV operating system because they're super easy to use the new thing that they're rolling out so you watch over-the-air antenna right if you cut the cord especially you have an antenna connected it's got a program guide on it so Roku finally adds that program guide the thing that the program guide does that nobody else does it's a little asterisk next to the names of shows and like you know whatever I did it with night chord and American Ninja Warrior or whatever it was stuff that was over-the-air you press a button and it immediately shows you where that that exact episode is streaming on other services you click the button again and you start watching that episode it's crazy it's like I'm basically using my over-the-air as a browse as a super-powered browse for all the stuffs available on streaming so you're sitting there like oh wait this isn't on yet it's it's you know tomorrow night oh wait click I'm watching it and you know it's it's a really cool way to kind of subvert the teat life TV experience by saying hey by the way do you know this stuff is actually probably on Amazon and maybe as a prime subscriber you can watch right now and you don't have to search you know actively on those apps it's all kind of thrown at you by God you need the Roku TV for that type of feature you are correct sir so again if you have a stick or whatever it doesn't have a TV tuner built into it yet and that you know I kind of functionality for TV tuners basically just for the TVs why don't they have a TV tuner like functionality built in because I do have like own over the air like antenna I'm already and like to have both of those things kind of annoying I mean yeah that would be cool I could picture like them making a Roku ultra box whatever this 100 bucks and maybe another 20 bucks to put a RF you know jack on the back of a can screen antenna - I think it's just cost you know and and the fact that at the end of the day every TV now has a built-in tuner so they figure why are we duplicated this stuff buddy and the same logic applies in Smart TVs every TV smart now so that's the TV tuner dongle dangle I got it - entertainer all right skip to a couple more questions before we wrap it up for the day Michael Brown ass wouldn't supporting Android pay and Apple pay be the easiest route to combat fake skimmers yes it would and that's why a lot of people in the industry are kind of trying to move toward that or like contactless pay and things like that you know what with the whole foods thing that happened on Friday so I wrote an article on Friday morning Whole Foods had announced that some of their stores had points of service like system sabotage basically like if you swiped your credit card at any of their tap rooms and restaurants one why are you going to a bar and a restaurant and a Whole Foods but anyway that's not the point like your system was like huh like because I just got over the fact that I spent six hundred dollars in groceries and I need to drown my sorrows that's oh that was a credit card skimmer no it's not a skimmer situation because that's points of service that's like--you pain it's not that's not my situation but the point is is that like they were saying that Apple pay an Android pay and all that stuff all the all the phone paying systems that those were not compromised because they have like security depending on the phone like etc etc right yeah tokenization yeah so a lot of people are like moving towards that the problem is is that you know not everybody can switch that it's kind of expensive to move to a system like that those are far from not you know entirely safe gender so also I'm horrified at the idea of like I can't afford my sandwich today my phone's dead yeah that how many on the train had to buy a physical ticket sucks anyway for continuing with their first world problem podcast but basically you know yeah a lot of places are trying to move to contactless pay like banks are trying to encourage more businesses to be doing that yeah that's a good fix but you know the these are that's not like an end-all be-all to it to this thing of course not never be an end all be all because they're gonna keep making it to be a pain in the ass very good question though Michael X excellent question alright let's just go over a couple wish list things for Nintendo before we wrap it up for the day you know what if they made a switch classic with a TV tuner [Laughter] entertainer only it was a dongle switched on they would be the perfect product the great mr. lizard regarding the words welcome back great mr. lizard awesome regarding the SNES classic I'm waiting for these games to hit the switch Virtual Console yeah obviously and then Michael Brown I'm just waiting till Nintendo partners with smartphone OS makers to allow Gameboy game support or games in consecutive app stores they're never gonna do that they're never gonna do it one game at a time is they can't about it because Nintendo is a huge tease and all they want to do is make their fans very angry at them at all times as a pokemon yellow coming to iPhone OS and limited availability only 300 downloads in 22 like them know like they're never gonna put any like specific gate like remake games because on the phones because like why would they do that when they can do it for their consoles that's what they did they remade they want to sell hardware they made gold and silver available again but that's only for like a 3ds or / 2d s download just astonishing to me because they have such a great software catalog why not tout that why keep pushing the hardware game it's a matter of getting the right perfect if you notice that they will when they get to notice if you notice the games that they make for like mobile that's all like a big money grab for them Super Mario run whatever like they charged and I was the one that was one game and it was super tough hyped I mean Apple was talking about that yeah Pokemon go where you know like all these businesses bought into like buying pokey stops and Bates or like other people go to their stores for one it can't just be monetized it has to be ultra moms yeah exactly so I think about the many consoles like the SNES classic is just minting them cash yeah maybe it's you're spending $80 on a piece of plastic when you literally already had right with with like just a handful of games inside there their profit margins on that must be like because I can still sell it on eBay for like a hundred and ninety so go for it alright no you're not a sucker you're just giving into the nostalgia bomb that's happening man they got the pictures of the games on the back it's really cool you're gonna most imagine myself playing them 15 years young and then call your mom on like your Nokia I don't know video game for I was playing a ton of Game Boy Advance games on my phone when Google didn't really police the whole emulator stuff there but those were good days man yeah yeah we threw Pokemon read on my phone before they shot that down I was playing any weighted Chrono Trigger it was no this was like the first Android phone this is like the g1 so it had like if you want yeah I like the first week it's awesome we're going out of talk rabbit you still have it no going out on a limb here to close things out it's a one place that Sega is kicking Nintendo's ass is in software nostalgia Hawking get the pudding put put the at games console aside cuz that that blue that blue mega balls make a drive it's fine no but you can now that they're rolling it out all these mobile ports for the classic games all the way up through the Dreamcast era genius take my they've already got all my money they've already got only money I'm downloading everything so far and these are good ports like Crazy Taxi on the iPhone and on the Android works fantastic he got Christian Whitehead working on those original sonex with which were the big motivation behind all of this they they're done a killer job putting classic Sega in your pocket I mean Sony I'm not Sony but like games that were like exclusive for the PlayStation have been doing a really good job of that too I saw some when you play like Vice City phone that's ridiculous I think that's existed for a little while yeah I know but like that's like it's like straight from but it's the same strategy we want in tendo to yeah right and if only they would well I mean tremendous tremendous immense money its its second king of you know just enough money they did well with Super Mario run I would imagine in Mario yes Mario Mario dude he's really I'm not changing it I'm going to say Mario along with all my other Philadelphia brethren do you also say like what's his brother's name Luigi okay understand you're behind this I've had this fight with people before he says it's a me a Mario I don't pronouncing your name wrong bean yeah what if I called you bean all the time you can call me bean you guys if you want to steamroll me over the way I say Mario go ahead I'm being if it was it definitively stated I'd be open to the argument but he says it's a me a Mario I also don't say it's a but he doesn't say and don't say Mario yeah well you know what here in America we pronounce name in America area all right language everybody leave this mic is on droppable oh it's time to leave oh that's alright we're we're being cute off alright the Andes and you screwed up wrap it up the 3:59 podcast is available on itunes tune in stitcher SoundCloud Feedburner Google Play Music and Mario calm CNET calm let's see that doc Camarillo Tom doesn't exist thanks somewhere Mario comm exists I don't know what the hell Mario come thanks everybody for watching we'll see you again tomorrow everybody that'll do it you you