Gadgetory

good morning from cnet New York Studios on Wednesday februari 22nd it's episode 183 of the 359 podcast and joining me today as a dream team Ben Fox Rubin and Roger Cheng good morning guys OMG the originals original the a choice yep yeah welcome back Roger by them thank you roger was a little sick yesterday it was feeling a lot better feel a lot better mostly mostly still eating oatmeal bread yeah he's still slow so be kind of nice to him on the tred now it's fine if you want to punch me the face plug benefit oh yeah if the guy is not in the stomach context he had food poisoning exactly the guy that says I want to punch Roger Cheng in the face shows up today we would definitely be happy to have you so what's on the show today we're gonna be talking about a VR backpack that's almost two thousand dollars Rogers gonna fill us in on more 5g wireless network trials oh yeah it's it's coming it's coming eventually yeah and also Alfred Inge who is often on the podcast wrote about the brooklyn botanical gardens new algorithm powered a drainage system so we'll talk a little bit about that too as always send in your questions and comments Brian will get to the best ones at the end of the show that's about it let's let's get moving as do it all right we're gonna get this recording out of the way everybody hang out will be back and join you in the chat and we'll hang out have a lovely morning together in exactly three two welcome to the 359 where we talk about the top tech news of the day plus whatever crap we want to throw in I'm Ben Fox Rubin I'm Roger Cheng our own dan ackerman reviewed the MSI vr1 a fairly ridiculous looking 1900 dollar virtual reality backpack that lets you move around a little bit more easily in vr by untethering you from a stationary PC oh yeah this is genius Roger would you buy this thing no well I mean if I wanted to ensure that I would never have sex again yes totally ah this is the best for messages option it really is some serious birth control you can watch the video here Dan moving around in the viewers some and to be fair it does what its promise it promises it does work it yeah usually with these high-end VR systems like oculus rift revive you have to plug it into a a PC a powerful pc at usually stationary so you've got these wires and cables everywhere I find them really annoying actually Oh totally so it's one of the most annoying parts of like it's apparently you're supposed to be immersed in this VR were right which console eat ripping over this caves axis oh so this is a solution right to take away that that that cable element and put it in put in your backpack case you're wearing your VR system it looks a little comical it's a little dorky I think it's way too pricey at two thousand dollars yeah and you still need to get a VR headset it's not like it includes exactly this one is integrated with the HTC vive right did I pronounce it right that time yep the vibe okay bye you know so it's I was still clunky I can appreciate what they were trying to do this this feels like this kind of bridge to you know that that real solution of getting everything kind of integrated into your headset so you don't have to worry about having this cable connected to your PC whether it's all your back on your table this is sort of a sort of a quick fix if you really need to have right now featherless VR experience a full of your experience you know this is probably your best bet but it's also just wait around for a little yeah the long waited a little bit longer we did see some of this stuff at CES that there are going to be some wireless vr add-ons a little bit later this year so I would probably recommend you hold off and not buy this thing but if you really really need it today I guess go for it next verizon is continuing trials for its 5g wireless network Roger Phyllis in on the details the 5g hype train continues so so much hype I know for those of you not know five G stands for fifth generation the next generation of wireless technology where you've got 4g LTE now which is pretty comparable to your home broadband speed a 5g is supposed to be way way faster you know ten to a hundred times faster than what you're getting today that's than anything you can even get at home with a wired connection yeah that's better right better than even fiber yes if it actually does what it claims it's good though what verizon announced was that they're launching test more tests in 11 US markets and Arbor Atlanta Bernards ville New Jersey Brockton Massachusetts Dallas Denver Houston Miami Sacramento seattle and washington DC if only I lived in Bernardsville New Jersey sadly I would be on the L on the dodgy New Yorkers are out of luck as well as folks in SF post both coasts unless you're new jersey I guess so theme it is is it's not true 5g mobility that's the other hook right this is really meant as a more of a home broadband replacement so instead of all the cables coming into your house your cable box or dsl modem you'd have this actual 5g modem and it actually be broadcast to you wirelessly powering your home's Wi-Fi internet connection pretty cool stuff we're slowly getting them yeah pretty cool stuff it's not really you know it's not the full promise of 5g but step in the right direction right so last Alfred in wrote about the brooklyn botanical gardens algorithm powered drainage system which makes sure the water garden there doesn't overflow during rainstorms seems like a pretty cool concept definitely check out the story and yeah if you want to read more about these check us out on CNN I'm Ben Fox Rubin Roger J thanks for listening and welcome back I think we actually ended on time at that time no you didn't I got yo good I gotta yell that yesterday and enough for picking 20 seconds over in seconds this is difficult this is this is listen we are very rigorous here at that's 359 for those of you end at four-twenty that is not good for those in well it might be great for some it might be for those ambitious podcast pursuers don't ever try to marry yourself up to a distinct time right and have it be the title so you can never change never get away from it until you started caring right Danny Green in the chat is looking forward to 5g tests and charlotte so shout out to charlotte all right yeah is that blowing on the city's i mentioned i don't know you named all named a whole bunch of them probably wait to find out probably way too many all 11 um let me see I don't think sure I don't see it on the list yet know that good oh you're looking forward to yeah I mean look it's it's gonna get there again this is this is kinda the early days 45 days I've been really true 5g since they haven't figured out what the standard looks like but it is compass it's a cool idea that you know I thought the deal with a verizon technician rolling up to my house and like laying down cable and wires going my drilling holes into my house putting cables in to connect my home this is all done wirelessly right kind of nice yeah Annie's definitely cool Danny also asks if the iphone is going to work on a 5g which nope nope sorry not for a long time nope no no sorry Danny how many years are we talking here a couple years okay so look again this is a home broadband replacement it the 5g signal goes in your home and it turns into basically your Wi-Fi signal or your online connection right powers everything in your home but it's Ted in terms of things actually be able to keep capable of picking up a 5g signal we're still a couple years away because companies in the world hasn't really agreed upon a standard what 5g looks like since this why Verizon stopped laying down fios cable because this is going to be the next iteration pretty much I mean I ok they kind of see this as ultimate solution in terms of getting past the expensive hurdle like deploying all that physical wire right fibers right so--okay so does that mean that the cable company is not going to have these monopolies in like they do in a lot of areas that's why I was pretty attention about the idea of fios but then they stopped developing it they stopped growing it out well they also realized how expense for wine all right but if this is if this is a way for them to you know provide some level of competition in the market then yeah no that's great for custom this is these are all early trials they don't have enough spectrum to really do this in a real big way so we're a couple years many years away from this being a real legit service for everyone I mean there are a lot of this is test love this is its kind of building on the hype of 5g but it's not quite there yet we're not this could be a couple years before we cuz this isn't all the hype show we're talking to the hype of VR the hype of 5g fiber VR that backpacks real man package is real it is beautiful yes the backpack just makes you want to play laser tag yeah that's that's what it looks like our minds me a Ghostbusters a little bit ago Tom pack but more laser tag just because it doesn't look as cool as it Ghostbusters proton pack the truest busters thing is definitely cool looking like you would walk around like imagine if they have that at for Halloween imagine if I had peripherals like the actual proton gun you know I mean that's because DC vives has that accessory that if someone built like a fixed actual what is it done the proton gun actual proton gun they could plug in the five accessory and it actually see in the virtual world you actually bring the back gun ok right now sold on virtual reality and shall we get thousands and thousands of dollars I can live at all my childhood fantasies yeah Stay Puft Marshmallow Man shows up in the virtual world firing at with your proton gun why hasn't anybody done this yet let's go back to 5g for a second let's talk about competitors yeah about eighteen t 18 eighteen t was they actually put out another announcement today in five you saying that they'd actually completed that trial testing streaming DirecTV now video service over 5g so they're the same kind of place of verizon it so kind of doing these little small trials kind of trumpeting the fact that you know we're doing fudgie we do the 5g you know you can make the argument that they're they're talking about fives you so much because they're for the core business is not doing so great right yeah yeah in terms of core wireless business t-mobile and Sprint or eating their lunch right now and so they're kind of looking to the future like yeah so our business today isn't doing so great but look at tomorrow so the you are those discount guys you know t-mobile and Sprint are they also doing these five trees yea big yes they're all doing 5g trials to some extent I would save verizon AT&T or definitely up ahead they've talked about this a lot earlier they've been deploying these tests around the country for longer than sprint and t-mobile have so the thing of it is is again it goes back to spectrum they all have like a little bit spectrum that they can test 5g at on nobody has in a spectrum to run like a full nationwide network which is why no one's talking about that right now so until that matter gets settled until we actually get some nights 5g is still kind of a come a pipe dream staying on the topic for a second Arjun and Danny arjuns got 150 megabyte internet in India he says and says this God light jealous of you also jealous of Danny yeah who says he's got google fiber which we do not have here in New York yeah but he's still looking forward to the 5g because it sounds like it's a whole lot less to install a lot less overhead yeah and that's great for for both companies like Verizon as well as well as a customer right cuz it's really just like sending you a box and like go pushing a few buns on the Home Office and that's it you can it sounds like Google Fiber probably ran into the same problems that Verizon I think that's what I think that's why Google's pulled back on the fiber is so expensive it is it's it's expensive and you know what a lot of cities google actually go fiber head really easy because a lot of cities were inviting them in to like bring in bring Google Fiber to us we wanted Verizon and even 18t when they were deploying fiber over the last couple years they had to deal with a lot of this municipality is asking for things right like oh well if you're gonna put this fiber and could you also like install a park here and maybe add this little thing like they were asking for all kinds of favors to get the full permissions called franchise and get the franchise to be able to actually put in fiber it was always a weirdest thing because when Verizon was fighting this battle to get fiber in it seemed like an obvious there's no brainer like bringing a competitor to cable right like we want to have something else that's competitive to cable TV and fast internet service but communities all over the country overs were like well you put the stuff in could you also write water my garden yeah you know but it's interesting they didn't treat google that way i guess a lot of those municipalities probably looked at it and be like hey we have google as a partner yeah becky i think at the point that google started doing it they community started smart nothing like whoa actually having fast internet is a serious draw now it wasn't as it wasn't before is a lot more of a draw now and of course you have the cachet of being a Google Fiber city which was its wrath is so rare thing right it's gonna yeah I mean it's it's going to continue to be rare because they're just not laying down as much fiber as they had been well because they say also see what Verizon sees what ATT sees the food isn't doing it wirelessly right without in the ground infrastructure you save so much money so much time so it's just yeah it's just easier to go wireless it's just interesting to hear that we're not really close to that actually happening you're talking two years away I mean like 35 years away something like that which is a long time in the time you know you know I mean optimistically yeah three years would be good ooh you know it's it's it's a little tough I mean I think the i think verizon 18t would probably quibble on a timeline but I've said it's gonna be difficult getting the spectrum for us all right speaking of timelines before we wrap up because we're just about out of time here yeah let's speculate one more time about iphone support for 5g because who was asking in the chat um oh I'm sorry I lost track oh come all was asking in the chad do you think it's gonna be upwards of 10 years or less than that oh yeah let's lesson take that would be business suicide i'm thinking they'll be honda like 7g by then I think everyone's saying broad adoption of five jill happen by 20 20 20 20 20 21 that sounds about right so i can see apple kind of jumping in around that time maybe maybe a little bit longer because apple usually takes a little bit longer to adapt new technology yeah they've just remember the first iphone the first iphone was not 3g ryuuji phone they went to 3g a year later so same with LT like it took them a while to get the LT it's interesting to things that Apple tread so cautiously on it's not like faster service is thin ice right but they they all whatever it alone take the backseat it when everybody else innovative in favor of it as much as Apple gets you know just credit being an innovator they really do like to sort of follow along I'm saying it's interesting what they play it safe on I would argue they play it safe on almost everything yeah fair enough fair enough if they had balls iphone 8 would be 5g well no I would be a little that would make no sense because there's no 5g now that was a great marketing though that would be if they Jesus age I'm a 4k TVs before anybody broadcast friday it's true that's true we're ready it would be a fun little coup are they do part of the problem is to stick a 5g radio the phone now would make it the size I don't know a couple of bricks yeah look at me i would have the old school break ya again welcome to iphone 5g oh hey right bae one last minute question came through and it's a good one um what do you guys think about the comeback of the note 7 uh wait what come back of the nose oh you were sick oh you said you saw it early I I saw the headline it's a little bit of a rumor mill but apparently the note 7 may be coming back I really I wonder skeptic no nothing just in an augmented form so it's gonna be small with smaller battery to accommodate and it's basically like note 7 light no 7 diet I mean the euro same phone if I were samsung I would just wait for the no date like that's what everybody yeah that's I think that's kind of what everyone's playing Alex what are you doing yeah cuz they're trying to salvage the name well they had to recall the thing twice already so I think I were if I were samsung I just just wait for the sled dog it's gonna be awesome the eights gonna be awesome they learn from their mistakes arguably the seven was also awesome well you jazz some soft rough minor minor problems are you minor very minor just saying it's a good question thank you for a total for submitting jacket I mean I don't I'm skeptical about that but yeah all right okay that's a good place to wrap it up you wanna you want to out Ross go I'll do it I'm guys yes all right I'm gonna look up at the at the notes the 359 time gave myself a label on iTunes TuneIn stitcher SoundCloud feedburner and google play music boo boo and of course of course of course on sina com thanks everybody for watching we'll see you again tomorrow cuz of me I'll be gone for a week going off to Barcelona for mobile world congress oh look please check in the cnet and see all of our swords we'd have a ton of stories of the next couple days about all the comings and goings admirable congress 10 two phones it's gonna be awesome cool all right good riddance Roger bye everybody