Gadgetory

hey 404 crew hey Arielle and I asked question for you this is a Baltimore from Dave and I am just catching up a Monday show and I notice there's no Jeff now I'm wondering if he called out advanced warfare today it's Bakalar at home playing call of duty just curious if not if he's at home and like at some funeral funeral or something horrible I'm very sorry but I got a funny feeling Bakalar is getting double xp right now well the rest of the world is working anyway thanks for uh thanks for the great shows talk to you later what's up everyone it's Thursday November 6 2014 thanks for tuning into the 404 show I'm Jeff Bakalar joined by dan Graziano the three-peat it's it's official the third time I love it thanks for being here dude love it you're gonna help us out while I as is still under the weather Arielle Nunez over on the board howdy who is this guy's name golden does it matter art jerk no I don't remember no I just don't I don't remember either Baltimore something about Baltimore from Baltimore great he would have felt really bad if I really was at a Funeral wouldn't ya yeah no it's all good I just had the day off no I wasn't playing call of duty how much xp did you get a lot that's not that's not the point okay you know I played a lot of Call of Duty but had nothing to do with why I was out I think if you wanted to play call of duty at work you would just play it at work so it's not reason to be out this is just there's a smart man exactly should bring you to the office and see what it is it's better here than at home so I'm 12 sometimes construction all right we got a great show planned for today so I I emailed the winner oh did you know we gave away a sunset overdrive Xbox one do you know that the hell the hell it's not like you could win if I enter no you can't my brother who you don't know it's like a family it's like friends and family that game looks of any employee your employee they you picked the winner so I picked the winner no I did oh you didn't know it's a third party that's a bit of no that's right I didn't know like did they pick the winner not you yes yes the Royal they yeah they did and it's a guy named Stephen F and I email them a minute ago and Stephen has three days to write back and claim his prize or it goes to someone else imagine you miss out on that though yeah that would suck right that would suck big one like it's what is it white or something yeah special edition white cop case it's like their answer to the Destiny bone I sure exactly so and then in a few weeks we're gonna give away the Call of Duty one too and that's got a one terabyte hard drive mm pretty sick that's nice oh so Steven get your crap together and email me back if you want a free xbox one do that and then you've got until tomorrow to enter the Back to the Future contest that ends sometime on Friday so make sure you do that we've had tons of submissions thanks to everyone who's done that what else do I got to take care of here before we jump into the stories I don't know I think that's it so let's get rolling all right let's there all right first things first thing this new thing is hitting the Internet it's from Amazon it's called the Amazon echo okay Dan myself and Arielle just finished watching their little teaser product video and after all the cringing and squirming in our seats was over we were like what the hell is this thing so Kay so here play the video and we'll talk about it while it's playing what the hell is Amazon so go it seems like Amazon is like trolling us let me get that if you think they're trolling it's literally yeah it's the video is so cheesy and the cheesy video I mean it uses a voice recognition and everything that obviously like think about how bad Siri is think about how bad all of these voice activation or voice activated products are right like it's clearly it has has have a disclaimer saying like screens are stimulated sure sure sure smartphone commercials and that's what this has to be because it's not gonna be that good I'm very pessimistic I was I'm gonna buy one if I get you invited I love these like this thing sucks but I can't wait to buy me so here's what it is I'm just a downer I know voice technology I know I mean it promises a lot right it's and it's saying it's gonna do a lot it looks cool they could have done a better job on the video right the video is a little suspect so here's what it is if you're listening to the show but you probably are Amazon echo it looks like the size of a Pringles can a little small maybe a tennis ball canister is that a good a now no definitely print like that but lighter everything more Pringles yeah yeah it's a little bigger than Pringles is yeah I guess it is because we're looking at it in scale with these yo-yos in this video anyway so it's like this you know cylinder looking sort of thing that is a Bluetooth speaker and also has this voice in it sort of like within alluded to a series sort of helping hands sort of thing where you can tell it to do things and it hooks up to your Amazon devices I don't know if it's gonna work with all your Android devices I would imagine it would do something I might not might not I might only work with your freaking fire phone that you don't have or your your Fire tablet which only a fraction of people have so I don't know but it's always connected it can answer questions in the vein the way Google answers with Google now it's very similar to Siri yeah it's like tell me a joke it tells you joke but one of the cool features what we're seeing now if you're watching the stream is that it can do a long clock you can wake you up and everything right and you can just say so you activate with a code word I can just be like hey Jeff right you can oh I don't know you think it's gonna let you set your own what said it says always listening but it activates with special words no I was it like a wake were it was way cooler had a name for it yeah I took it as you could set your own name maybe you can't I don't know but I let's just say like oh hey Jeff like Sheriff their alarm right so it I love that idea of not being like not getting out of bed they shut off your alarm I would just finish I will miss work so often if I have this product and then they played a man pisses me off when like I hate when a new product comes out and it does something for you that you don't need it to do oh no okay like this guy he wakes up and he's like hey alarm oh nobody called it Alexa Alexa oh hey Alexa turn your alarm off lady and and he's like hey the wife goes why are you turning your he said cuz it's Saturday and then they go what day is it Alexa and it's like it's Thursday where were you that you lost all concept of time you forgot it was the middle of the guy that week no one does that the only useful feature is what's the weather I would love to say good without it like with OK Google you say ok Google what's the weather or you have to hit the Siri button asked there is if you can just say it without pressing a button I love that let us not forget so to your point I agree that is a cool feature to your point though they show this sample video and this echo is in every room in their house so they're obviously so you know you're only gonna buy one of them you gotta move it everywhere you go and that doesn't work for me if it's in your bedroom well then it's in your bedroom I'm gonna leave for work I'm gonna leave the echo in the living room now no you're not crazy that's not what you want to do it's just it's by invitation only right now right so you can't even buy one if you want okay so it's it I request an invite because I want to buy horse you did you can seven so if I'm selected I will receive an email with an invitation to purchase it in the coming weeks it's like let me give you money but Amazon does this all kind that they always announced things with that like surprise sure we had no idea this was coming there were no rumors about it no leaks sort of like the fire TV stick that came out of breaks ago but no one cared and they're doing a special offer where if you're a Prime member you save $100 no significant it's still a dollars normally you get a 50% off for 99 dollars I think what they're thinking is just I mean for 99 bucks I guess I'd buy this you I think I'm gonna it's an impulse buy yeah 99 is the one right now is is like crazy to me but for 99 it's like yeah like I bought two um the fire TV stick Stu because they had the same prime pricing right what was it it was like 15 bucks oh yeah so cheap very cheap Prime members anything glows you know at the top has a rim sort of light that glows real nice you can tell it it has examples of phrases you can say to it will it rain tomorrow play music by Bruno Mars now don't forget this is all gonna probably operate within the Amazon ecosystem so you're gonna say play music by Bruno Mars does that mean it'll work with your Amazon Prime music subscription I hope so like it obviously won't work with I assume Google Play Music or iTunes maybe Spotify I could see them doing that it would be nice to get some sort of clarity on can so there is an Amazon echo app it says here for fire OS Android desktop and iOS okay I can handle that but yeah we you know look this thing is literally an hour old hmm so we'll find out much more about this tomorrow oh wait maybe you have to say what yeah you can't set a custom world I guess it says echo is always ready to connect just say wake the wakeboard Alexa right but no it's not like you can pick awake oh yeah it'd be like Alexa Robert and some magic you're married to one of them is just Graziano oh that'd be awesome like hey Graziano I don't have that much pull at Amazon not yet so there it goes and then the other thing I want to touch on real quick before we move along they-they-they bragged about this thing called far-field voice recognition which is something apparently that is a sophisticated seven microphone array that will somehow hear you better than any other voice listening device out there it just it comes off so pretentious it's these sensors use beamforming technology to hear you from any directional form of beam like with enhanced noise cancellation stuff yeah it just it's easy to get a little skeptical I hate the way that they just I don't know be simple explain it be simple sure sure and and I want to know what the Bluetooth speaker sounds like you know Bluetooth audio for the most part sucks right yeah it's not the pet you you get what you pay for is what I do but I'm seeing in general that technology oh yeah not deliver the best sounding the modality and you know I want a really high-end sort of you know Bluetooth speaker so we'll see how it goes I was also a little unclear about if you can charge it or not like uh if it sounded like in the video they kept having it plugged into the wall it seems like it only it doesn't have a battery it has to be plugged into the wall I see the power adapter here and everything and the little girl in the video said one of my favorite features is that it can just sit there plugged in which is like the weirdest every features that it doesn't have a battery and I can't bring in it it's not portable so if you're like going camping but it makes sense because guess what's not going camping with my guess I can't because it needs to be connected to the cloud as well so it has some sort of Wi-Fi in it and alright jury's still out I wonder when we'll get our our hands on one I'm sure it'll happen real soon okay I wanted to there's a bunch of pop culture stuff that we got to get to today number one Star Wars Episode seven has a subtitle what is it it's Star Wars The Force awakens the force awakens which I don't know how I feel about that yeah I mean they've never been really good after the first three in terms of subtitles hope is cool Return of the Jedi and Peyer Strikes Back I like all that I have to rewatch them actually because it's been so long re-watch them or see them for the fine Ives in there be honest we watched the Vita going-away party were you there when we have no it was nice yeah no I've seen them I really like I think it's the second one I think it's uh what's that not Return of the Jedi it was the second one with my favorite one Empire yeah Empire Strikes Back yeah really good okay is it so I always get them mixed up the third in the second a lot of people do like return I mean they were all very good I liked them all there was none died like there was no moment where I just didn't like it sure uh the newer well I guess not new anymore it's been 10 years no but there's yeah we're gonna say they're terrible not terrible they're good movies outside of the Star Wars franchise they're not bad they they entertain but for I mean I'm younger to it's not like I did grow up in Star Wars but I didn't see them in theaters or anything - yeah um and I love Star Wars but and when these new ones came out was just it wasn't the same feeling as when I saw the first one it's tough for me to comment on the whole thing just because like you said it's it's a Jenner it's a few generations before us and maybe the generation before us and I'm not gonna just like associate myself with you I know you're significantly younger than but growing up I didn't see them until maybe I was like 13 or 14 and you know I remember watching the first three and being like oh this is kind of alright and then you know what it really did did for me like Spaceballs really Baseball's was my real sort of introduction in our Wars because I feel like I saw Spaceballs first really and I was like man this is really good yeah like funny I know Brooks is great he's the best so yeah I don't know I feel like I can't comment on them because it's this situation where those movies have a certain kam penis to them - mm-hmm and I can't you know say like oh the first you know episodes 1 through 3 you know because they looked so much better than the original 3 it's like we're I mean is this working looks alright they don't really do anything for me it's I love old movies I love black-and-white movies I'm sure like that but in terms of like the aesthetic that they're trying to oh yeah man you face a little jarring where it's like Oh after the third one all the Jedi Technology want to trap and let you know what I mean like everything's made of cardboard I mean yeah you can look at it that way but that's that's the things that continuity I mean I all I'm asking for is a little continuity hmm but yeah I don't know I don't you know I've really I think I'm just not into I just don't care about Star Wars I know are we talking about this because if people do this I know people do care about I mean I love JJ Abrams - I've loved ways done with Star Trek I like super 8 so I think he's like the one to make Star Wars I mean I can't say mainstream it's always been mainstreamed yeah but to get a new generation hooked on it sure but then again there's always like what the Clone Wars is all those shows there's a lot of good news yeah so I think the younger generation may be hooked on it but he will make it like what he did with Star Trek how Star Trek now I do like analyst who knows yeah really good I don't even know I don't know why I'm even gonna ask him this question but Arielle come on show me those thumbs down for Star Wars yeah you know it's not I don't hate it have you seen them I've seen two of them return to the J and Empire Strikes universe plane it's the first door yeah maybe I did but I just don't remember yeah Oh such a yeah so young when it came out yeah for sure I watch them again though no yeah it's worth checking out once yeah you know I don't know no we have Star Wars fans listening in their Pony like bash in their head and gonna hate the fact that I didn't call it mainstream kill me yeah more pop culture news so I'm have you been watching South Park this season oh it's been magnificent I like it because they have continuity finally right like every episode in the old one it was like Seinfeld there was no it was just a whole new day zone and no one here that Cartman did something crazy right at this time like what butters burned down the gym he was still suspended from school the week later right the joke in it like Stan's dad is secretly Lord or Lord and everyone's going gluten-free alright so there's these things that they're doing but the bigger theme about South Park this season is that they're tackling mostly tech issues they did last night was an episode about freemium about mobile gaming and free-to-play apps and they were comparing it to the sort of you know addiction reliant corporations that basically make money based off people's addiction and they were comparing how alcoholics fund you know alcohol companies and beer brew and all you have to say is drink responds right and so they do they were comparing that to the freemium apps people who you know are just sort of addicted to the instant gratification and those micro transactions and you know they they make a really compelling point with a really silly delivery and that's something only thing they tackled this year they've done uber they've done drones over also was the whole like Tesla and everything yeah scenes from like Tesla's announcement which is the thing I love about South Park because they have such a quick turnaround where they had parts of like President Obama's acceptance speech years back right so I just love that they're so relevant totally well they may make any mention for day yeah you know that's what happens really amazing stuff if you're not watching in I know it's not for everyone in its crass and it's it's taboo and you're so easily offended but it is very smart television there's a reason they've been on the air for almost 20 years yeah it's and it's actually a very smart because freemium they at one point Stan spins I think like $200,000 on again it's like 28 grand and we always see those articles come up on seeing it where it's like parents are out of outrage because their kids are spending so much on mobile games I mean I play clash of clans on my phone it's like the only mobile game I play and that is a freemium game but you dump money so it I paid I think five dollars I've total yeah okay at one point they said Stan you stayed home from school and you built a new hospital for Canada right and you did that all in eight hours and that's what these games are my clash of clans as we speak I think I'm like gaining gold right and if you want to gain a quicker you pay right admit gems and they the the funny thing is that so the idea is that Canada is behind this Terrance and Phillip mobile game which is also the devil is in flu and all of that spoiler but so so so basically they go so Canada's making money off American and they basically lay out the entire on like a white board lay out the entire structuring of how a freemium game works and why it's profitable mm-hmm and what and basically they say they're like look all it is it's just fun enough and it revolves around waiting its and people's desire to skip the waiting is like that trigger that pops the corridor into the machine that makes them suspend you know the 40 cents at a time yeah it was very smart with when they mentioned how you and 99 or 90 percent people won't pay right and then you have the ten percent for the tiny fraction and that's weak and that is completely true - it was crazy so I I love South Park we weren't gonna do a show without mentioning this week at least without mentioning advanced warfare that came out on Tuesday hmm and for my money it's the best Call of Duty game in a very long time but there's a feature on the PlayStation 4 exclusively that is hitting a roadblock so over the last couple weeks Sony rolled out a new version of the firmware for ps4 2.0 that introduced something called share play which basically lets you toss or essentially hand the controller over right as you would on your couch but to someone over the Internet someone's on your friends list and I'm on the fan I'm you know in a party chat with him like hey Dan you want to play this game at that I'm playing for my house you can set that up on the console and then Dan will have an hour with the game oh so it's not like split-screen or anything it's not share play do you have to have a I know to play on so the person hosting it has to have PlayStation Plus so if I don't have place is fine real yeah Wow pretty cool me buy ps4 now there's the thing well you're spending a lot of money today here's the thing though there's a little bit of controversy because Sony had advertised that like any game would play mmm nicely with share play turns out collodion Vance warfare mmm they're blocking it and they're not letting people share the game over the Internet controversy has ensued and yeah we're starting to wait and see how it plays out I mean it's yeah that's definitely I could see that being an issue because there are all these companies it's activision activision yeah and allocation is it EA too or no oh it's not EAS titanfall oh okay because I know EA always has issues and games right oh he's against the AI it's tough to hide a feeling it was launches like um I don't know it's crazy because ridiculous that yeah they're blocking this feature because it it only benefits them because it gets people talking it's like oh my god I played this for an hour I'm gonna go out and buy one like it's is an awesome title it's weird if you're hosting it you can sort of like take control back at any point cuz you could be like oh man I let Dan play this part but I want to play this part and you can you can virtually rip the controller out of his hand but they can't play online I would assume like it and then you know I don't be single-player missions I don't believe you can I do believe you can do co-op stuff though like offline Co it's cool yeah it's really impressive sort of stuff I've I haven't been able to test it out just yet but on paper it sounds pretty awesome I'll have to wait and see how it plays out in reality finally a little bit of show-and-tell oh yes can I see this of course excuse me so this is I'm holding it wrong I was holding this what is this thing H the Asian looks like it looks like some sort of paraphernalia it or an inhaler I mean yeah you know very high-end inhaler it's it's HTC re camera right and it's it's supposed to take on GoPro it's HTC's whole idea with it is you put your phone down so when little Billy is playing basketball you are not behind your phone washer you're just holding this and it can take photos like that and take videos yeah because that's totally normal I mean this is it's like your own little like periscope it's very it's very smart it has a wide-angle lens right so it can capture everything there's no power button when you pick it up it powers on automatically neat and there's no viewfinder you just use the lens we're gonna go but you can connect it with your phone I think over like Wi-Fi direct and have a viewfinder on your screen so and so I just hit this button and also if you hit that button one snap is a picture okay 16 megapixels all right now I want to start filming holding it will film oh and when you let go it so no if you hold it it will start blinking okay and I think that's how it starts filling up oh yeah look at that it's gone I mean it's a very good product we gave it a very good a three and half star rating from Josh Coleman who reviewed it right and it's kind of neat so it's more to play do it oh that's the GoPros are waterproof but they need a case response waterproof up to about like three feet right and you're just dunk it in the front has a small button where you can press it at the 720p so the back is 1080p gotcha 720p slow motion so it's I love the idea it's cool that you can you could just stand it up like we said think if you're not watching think about it like an inhaler and I always hate when you see people and they're always behind their phones taking photos with the words like this elites conceal Deacon sweet just you can stick in your pocket or yeah like right here stick right in there the issue is though so it has about like I think like an hour or so of battery life continuous recording obviously it's not meant for that it's meant for quick videos it's just gonna peaked up in the my head you see that he's like but the issue is it's $199 the sweet point I buy it haven't gonna buy it on the show I like it there you can put two now you're upside down though you can put an SD card into it well I'm like we know it's recording right now yeah no it's been recording so an opposed the video leaves oh pretty cool I love the idea of it it's just the price seems too expensive it can hold it comes with eight gigabytes of storage and you can hop out and put a I think 128 gigabytes I got an SD card really yeah okay so I mean it can store ton sure and I think there's like an extended battery that clips on to the bottom right for long expense it comes in different colors a bit yeah uh I actually don't know really I was at the launcher it comes in in the paler white and I hope it comes in like flashlight black cuz that's what I would get like it was it was other colors yeah oh yeah yeah rare you forget that we were actually sitting next to each other apparently the issues are though that it's audio quality isn't like that good right does audio quality is poor sure I'm gonna live with that but yeah I mean look a little rugged and the whole thing is this the photos it takes aren't any better than a smartphone okay that's so you're spending $20.00 on a smartphone you're spending $200 on this this is fun because you know I don't like you said I'm buying this strictly because I don't want to be that guy doing the whole like you know in front of my face like a reject you know what I mean I mean what HTC has had a really tough time in the smartphone game and they they make incredible products I love to HTC One in the metal design right so me being pessimistic again when this hits the bargain bin I'll be the first to pick it up I just think $1.99 is you heard it here first folks man are you like are they paying you more than we know I don't know I'm just so biased no you're not biased you're only two Apple products that's the biggest fan boy ever uh speaking of fanboy I did a video with Sarah Harbin I want everyone to go check it out I'll post the link in the and the show notes we're doing this thing called nerd rage have you heard about this I did yeah you see it I didn't see it so it was live so Sarah's having us like record these uh these minute long rants and I did one on fanboys and then she animates the ring yeah it's great so we'll post that in in the show notes as well boys can you give us a quick rundown of without spoiling your video what were your rants with fanboys I just think they're the worst people in the world and like they're just I just don't I don't respect anyone who just chooses blindly blind allegiance to a specific brand product right mmm definitely and people are like happy they like proudly label themselves like I am a Sony friend I mean to get so intense the Apple versus Android this Microsoft or Sony Windows it's just the worst thing ever it's like a way of life I love my Android phone but I think the iPads a great tablet I think the iPhones a great product too um it just it's my personal need I don't have anything against it and that's my problem and then like fanboy ISM can be applied to a lot of different things in the world the way people just like do things without thinking I mean yeah you know like religion a lot there's a lot of things politics whatever it is you know people just do it because they think they belong to a certain side anyway we're not going to go down that rabbit hole but I'll link to that in the show notes don't forget your chance to win one of four back to the future flux capacitor chargers ends tomorrow November 7th so make sure you tweet out and follow the rules for that the Call of Duty advanced warfare xbox one one terabyte bundle will do maybe next week or the week after and then we have tons more giveaways from Sideshow Collectibles we're giving away a Batman armory thing like it's amazing it's amazing give it up for Dan Graziano thanks for helping me out here kids I hope we make this a 4-pete yeah I love the three-peat I mean Arielle just clap for you it doesn't do that I don't mean we're we're at the HDC event together we're tight that's special don't forget that we're back here again tomorrow finishing up the week 866 404 CNS a number to call you can reach us through the emails the 404 at cnn.com and then follow us on Facebook Twitter Instagram reddit and we'll talk to you through those things we'll be back here tomorrow until then I'm Jeff Bakalar I'm dan Graziano and I'm Arianna yet it's been the 404 show high tech lowbrow we'll see you guys next time