Gadgetory

and welcome to episode 36 of the TechnoBuffalo show I'm of your to house for today Sean ani editor and chief of the site and i'm joined by deputy managing editor Todd Hazleton hey everybody how are you doing today Todd I'm good like I was just telling you I've been getting some good sleep this weekend sleep is always a good thing is definitely a good thing so we got a couple of topics we want to tackle this week and the the first one we want to talk about and we're going to try to be nice about this is comments on the site and the first thing I want to dress is we we get a lot of people saying you know you know it's getting too radical in there you need to fight the trolls the thing is we do fight the trolls the we band them you know we block them via IP address email address everything else well the problem is the dedicated trolls create another email address they rotate their IP address and they come right back yet and so we do attempt to fight the trolls and you know short of discontinuing comments which is not something we want to do it's just unfortunately an ongoing battle and as I've described it previously in the comments it's kind of like playing a giant game of whack-a-mole because as soon as we knock one down two more papa so we are working on that the other thing I wanted to address and this relates directly to todd todd wrote an article about you know why he is happy to use apple products and their customer service there were quite a few comments and todd decided that he wanted to do an article about addressing some of the questions raised in those comments and inevitably we have been accused let's see Todd's been accused of holding apple stock todd has been accused of taking payments from Apple using better words to describe apple products that may be one of my all-time favorite comments that someone actually implied that Todd changes verbiage we're talking about apple to make them sound better folks I read probably ninety five percent of what Todd publishes his verbiage does not change based on on what he he is writing about so you know I just always want to address this we do not in any way shape or form take payment from a company like Apple or Google we have done sponsored posts those are always disclosed they state very clearly this post was sponsored by someone's up also never from Apple anyway I i er Apple to actually talk to us yeah that's another thing everyone needs to realize Apple really doesn't talk to the press you know if Todd own stock ethically he would have to disclose that legally he would not because it's not referring to apple stock but ethically he would have to disclose that he does not own any Apple stock no Todd why'd you say that inside I don't know an apple stock hey if he owned enough Apple stock he probably wouldn't work here so yes the sponsored posts are always disclosed at all times and yeah we are never ever ever sponsored by apple yeah I think just to take away two is like I wrote about my experience and I wanted everybody to know you know about a good experience i had and had it been any other company i would have done the same thing it happened to be apple and i think our commenters you know as we've talked about people love to you know defend android and defend apple and i think that's great i mean go at it I think it's when they start going against each other you know me I fine you know tech me all you want but it's just like you know do so professionally and have a good argument then then we're all good and I think you know that's that's what was good though but there was great discussion in that first post and that's why I want to do a follow-up post like sort of highlight some of the discussion there are a lot of people made some really good points about you know Apple carries create in the United States but when you leave you States is not good this something i didn't know because i haven't had any experience with that so and uh i think somebody worked for AT&T and said like hey you can bring in your device get it swapped out too so there was good information there and i just wanted to highlight that but of course you know and i think we talked about this to a little bit people are going to defend their purchases in a way that makes you know vindicates the purchase like sure and i expect that you know like maybe you bought a honda and you really love honda and so you're going to say like if somebody's going to shoot down honor you'd be like no no I love Honda Lee how dare you see that so I think feel like that's a big part of it too yeah but see that's something it's never me because i believe i've talked about on the show before when the blue were a HD DVD war was going on i went HD DVD i I did my homework I felt that was the superior format that's what I purchased as you could tell by walking to any store looking at the five dollar blu-ray bed and I obviously picked the wrong format but at no time did I ever feel the need to the little blue ray it was that was my purchasing decision I that's what I went with right yeah it's stung when it lost but I was just like you know you live and learn you move on yeah so I just I've never understood why people feel the need to be little or attack the the format that they you know OS format whatever that they aren't using fine right you chose what works for you yeah I just did it that there's been something that's been always very lost on me that I don't know why so anyway yes we we are very aware of the problems in the comments and you know as for leaving comments we love engaging with you all of you we encourage you to engage with us and if we get something wrong call us out on it all we ask is call us out with a little bit of professionalism yeah you know we understand your all's not professionals but there there's no need to say that you know we're an idiot or you know believe us our skin has gotten thick enough that doesn't faze us and I don't believe I've ever gone home crying well right but for totally different reasons anyway so moving on to our other topic Mobile World Congress Todd you leave yeah take a few early embryo yup I leave on tuesday and i have meetings leading up until the show which actually kicks off on i think it officially kicks off on the second but like all of everybody's big events there on the first so i want to say like HTC huawei nokia you bring up the calendar samsung obviously and then there's a pep calm and stuff like that so 10 meetings in between every one of them so it's it's going to be a really busy first day even before the show starts yeah and for the first time ever we're sending it with help yeah I'll have a videographer so we'll have some great quality videos on the YouTube channel yes Rock Run harita is going over to Spain with Todd so big help because otherwise you just see me with my hands and the past I didn't have the best camera so I I've done that like once or twice you know i think was like CES 2012 or something like that and i was like I know so my my hat my tip of my hat to you Todd hey I don't know how you manage to do that for so long well and actually we have a question from Sasha Mahal about who will be at mw2 which we just answered taught in Iran parita will be there mm-hmm this will be how many mwc s for you oh boy four or five yeah somewhere around there yeah it's been quite a few third year with technobuffalo going I don't know if I think it's my fourth altogether and we have another question from Sasha bahal related to mobile world congress in terms of scale how big is mwc to compare to CES or Eva ah I think in terms of actual like attendees I think there's like 70,000 something like that CES this year I think had like 93,000 but then I had you know like exhibitors and stuff too and I don't know what if a is but in terms of news coming out of it Mobile World Congress is huge CES is huge and Heath latifah this year was surprisingly big so I don't know like in terms of you know the amount of people but what's being announced in terms of being pressed their mobile world congress and Aoife are becoming too huge global shows yeah yeah definitely I what about do you know anything on the square footage I don't um it's really big why don't you have these facts and figures right at your fingertips done yeah well they actually switch the conference center two years ago in Barcelona from one of the theaters to another one and this one is a the old one used to be like it was almost like city center area and you'd walk in these huge big pillars on either side of you and then there would be like conference hall sort of lining on both sides and then towards the end and it was like an outdoor Hall separating everything um obviously they weren't boots and that's where now the new one is very much more like CES like you're indoors he walk from mike hall one like Halle Berry back which show was that you were at the head the putting green that was Mobile World Congress last year there's usually like a little pudding area I'm sure it'll be there maybe I should do something like that we still don't know exactly why the putting green exists but it's like they call like a social area or something yeah yeah so there actually is a little fake grass putting green earth which is just the bazaars thing I've ever heard about at a trade show yeah the food in Barcelona is amazing as you can expect so that's what one of my I really look forward to that part of a World Congress yeah i am telling the you're going to get to experience it you get to go to all the great me because you know you get to go to Germany you get okay you know I'm in Missouri i'm going to irvine next week yeah I'll over there Orange County yep so uh which actually has a really good barbecue spot I've never figured that one out yeah we went there last year great barbecue yeah lucille's yeah I really enjoyed lucille's BBQ but moving along here so in this guy relates to mwc from sasha baja what do you expect to see at mwc besides the s-sex in the m9 well I think we're going to see something from Nokia the part of the company that Microsoft didn't buy remember they bought the devices and services and that's now Microsoft's mobile team and then nokia still existed and they launched the n1 i think it was the android tablet they have a press conference I think we might see some news from them i don't know if it's going to be device-related but perhaps and then I also think we're going to see some windows 10 stuff windows 10 for phones but as we saw the other day there's still the gdr2 update coming for windows phone 8.1 so maybe we'll see like new hardware that will obviously work with windows 10 for phones but maybe it has that gdr2 update on it I don't know but I'm hoping microsoft introduces some new you know something to replace the 930 or 920 and fifteen twenty ten twenty all the Lumias that still have nokia branding stuff um and then I think we're gonna see a lot of probably a lot of wearables and stuff like that from various companies but I don't know you know blackberry has a press conference maybe we'll see one of their new phones a lot of it's sort of you know a surprise until we get there at six and M Niner one of the you know two of the topics that have been teased for a long time now so there's they seem pretty definite you know galaxy s6 edge 2 I think and maybe they have nine plus i don't know HEC just tease this morning on twitter expect something huge and that could just mean like oh it's a big announcement but i don't know me either and have their phablet to seems early me yeah I don't know I i I'm curious what the heck HTC meant by that tease but I maybe they just think the m9 will be huge i right and also they're wearable I think we'll see one from HTC with their under armour partnership and then samsung's new round Tizen SmartWatch is supposed to be make an appearance so here's a question related to you travelling to all these countries and I actually don't know the answer does how many languages do you know Todd that's from Brisbane Franco only one unfortunately I wish I knew more and I actually lived in Arizona and took Spanish for years but I wouldn't say that I'm fluent in it at all I i know enough japanese to basically say excuse me I'm a giant American and I'm in your way yeah but my that order coffee and food in all of these countries that's not I actually I got one thing I did in Japan was I started like on my third trip I started carrying around a little notebook with me and their restaurants there will have like wax representations of the food outside where they'll have pictures so I'd look at that and see what I liked and then I would just copy the kanji exactly oh there you go and then when they came to take my order I would just show them that it worked great that's a great idea yeah it worked in the past I've used google translate a lot to like I'm telling a taxi driver where I have to go and we're lost in translation somewhere you know you can type it in in English it'll translate and on everything's great so that that was the other thing I did every time I got there the when I would check in i would get a business cards from the front desk oh right yeah yeah and then i could just hand them to the cab driver but yeah yeah the of course now this was back before camera phones were really around so now you yeah i could just take a picture of the food i wanted or whatever right yeah but uh probably yeah there's a part of me that wants to go back to japan just to experience it now with all the new techno ecology well with google translate and everything else I just it'd be a very different experience I don't know if loopers in japan i assume i don't know but in germany it was just relaunched in Berlin when i was there for evo which was uh which was awesome to have uber I mean yeah oh I use is hard to find cabs I use the heck out of uber when I was in Manchester this last trip yeah it just launched her like eight months before and uh made life so much easier yeah it does especially when you're running from press conference to press conference and they're like on march first it's we're not going to be at the conference center it's sort of like Las Vegas when they hold them all in different hotels so going all over the city to try to get to each one hun time yeah very useful yeah exactly also from Brisbane Franco will t be review the BQ and Bluetooth device I never know if I'm pronouncing that correctly to uh released last week for low-end device it seems interesting has the OS is novelty and we also consider viewing the jolla phone although a bit late to ask that now um where was then boon to phone release in Europe but they're doing the way they're doing it is sort of like you can buy one if you're following them on Twitter and you see like where it's going to be available for retail and stuff so it's sort of like I think it's a flash sale it's not like everybody can get it so it's our I'm sure I we'd love to review on I know we followed them for a long time all the way through you know his first demoed it early pep calms and show stoppers and stuff up to this launch so it's great to see it finally launch and I'd love to try it out but um we don't have a review on the weight right now probably know we just simply don't have a unit widely aveiro available yeah it's kind of like someone's going to apply the Puerto Rico bright / at some point that's gonna be fun yes I Google's modular phones yes we do plan on going to Puerto Rico to get the our phone as to this yes if we can get those funds we'll gladly review them it's just a matter of getting them that is definitely always on our radar so before we move on is there anything else you'd like to say about mwc no um it's going to be really busy we're going to have as much news as we can put up on the site so keep an eye out exact words ticket get you everything exactly um so from and this is a good question for Todd because he is co spearheading this project from Sasha Mahal what is the main reasoning for starting a newsletter for TechnoBuffalo yeah I think it's something we've always talked about doing for a long time but our competitors are doing them the main reason we thought it would be a fun way to pick out some of the stories we like so i curated it actually the first one and moving forward it'll be you know input from everybody but some of the stories we think are the best ones on the site that we think right readers might have missed and so you can if you want you sign up for the newsletter right now it's going out wednesday at ten a.m. in the morning hopefully we'll schedule it so its local in the future but really it's just about serving you content we think you might have missed and it covers all departments so you'll get mobile gaming video news all kinds of stuff so it's really just a fun thing we hope our readers like and just for clarification that's 10 a.m. eastern time in the future we hope to make it 10 am-4 every tour ever you are yeah yeah yeah so that that is coming down the road um and then we've got a question here from keegan anderson apple cart rumors say it looks like a minivan has Apple decided to accept that they aren't completely baby I can't believe it would actually be a minivan I feel like cuz i saw you know like the leak like car it was like an actual like chrysler minivan I don't know maybe they have like a shell that they're using on purpose or who know if there's even a car I know xge um sorry X GM CEO yesterday said like Apple has no idea what they're getting into like we're taking steel and creating a car out of it like apples never done that but you know today there are all the reports that Apple's sort of grab people from what GM and Ford and Tesla to help build a car so I don't know it again this is sort of like what we talked about in last show it's like this rumor has been going around for so long that at this point it's like until I see something like I just have a really hard time believing it and maybe like we said maybe apples experimenting with it or maybe it's seeing what it can do to improve you know technology for an existing car maker so for example yesterday that the GM CEO a former GM CEO the guy who said Apple has no idea what they're doing he said if I was still at GM I give Apple full control over the infotainment and all the entertainment in my cars that's a pretty good compliment and I think that maybe you know maybe Apple is working on something that that it could you know a manufacturer could say here you guys take full control of this part of the car or maybe they're really building a car yeah now as for the minivans we know yes we've seen the pictures and even some videos of them but my suspicion is that is not the car I think that is actually a street view and that's pure speculation i think it's apple doing their own Street View right yeah that was the other thing yeah I i don't think the minivan is the car but that being said I I still not convinced they're working on an actual honest-to-goodness car but you know I guess we'll find out some point or we may never find out i mean you know we've brought this up before you know we've heard about the Apple TV now for years and even to the point of people saying they've seen it in jony ive's office and everything else who knows you know I did that it could be that this never comes out they could be working on we never see it and I was thinking yesterday to GM guy could have been saying this because he doesn't want Apple in this space so that's always a possibility to shoot down the rival before they even get it I mean I know he's not technically in a space anymore but he was right right right uh from taj mahal what are your guys thoughts on home automation and what is stopping you from making each of your home's smarter we've actually I know I've uterus this before on the show for me it's that there's still too many platforms you know I desperately want home automation I actually am talking or not talking thinking about buying a nest thermostat because now it works with Dropcam and it works with ooma telo both devices i already have so if i buy the nest thermostat then it becomes a hub for those devices and that intrigues me I'd like that idea and because nest is making it somewhat of an open APK so maybe you know but for right now for me at least it's just a matter of there's too many platforms and nobody seems to be able to decide on one standard on one yeah I actually um so what stops me as I lived in an apartment and I don't own it so I can't you know I'd love to put a Bluetooth lock on my door and have all kinds of fun stuff but I can't go banging up the walls but i did my father-in-law is beach house i did put a nest in probably a month ago two months ago super easy was really fun to do so I'd say the only thing stopping me from home automation is that I don't have a home I'm in an apartment what I'd love to do it and I guess I could do the outlets you know the smart outlets and stuff like that but it's a one-bedroom apartment I mean I walking three feet to my lamp is sort of just like I'll just do it I'm not gonna buy it but I'd love to you know if I had two stories and I want with the lights on downstairs that'd be great about to do from David berkovich you should rename the podcast show to the ton and Todd happy hour good y el nene it would be a great name I own maybe have some cocktails yeah that's a coffee tales yeah exactly hits a high to low go I don't know we're not sponsored by start yes agent uh from Sasha Mahal how about making Joey a substitute for Todd when he's not here I the whole problem with Joey and it just get this out of the way because I know we've had some skip weeks where it seems like oh you can just drop Joe Ian the problem is Joey and his team have been up to their eyebrows and he in games to Romania and you know that that's something I know we we've addressed this as well before the the thing is go with the phone you're using it in your everyday life with a game if it's a 70-hour game that means Joey or error Quran have to sit and stare at a television hours and get through this get through it so it's just simply been a matter of unfortunately joey is swamped now that being said there is no show next week because i'll be in irvine and Todd will already be in Spain and it's always difficult for me to do a show while i'm out in irvine the following week i am talking to Joey he's checking his game review schedule hopefully in two weeks Joey will be on the show if he's not I will get somebody else I do not want to take two weeks off again so no show next week i toid the managing editor just I am me that's not the only problem with Joey ah yes Joey has a lot of problems but in the aspect of being on the show so no matter what there is no show next week but in two weeks there will definitely be a show we will figure that out the people I work with from keegan anderson what are we expecting from pebble i really want one but the black and white screen is not appealing even with the week long battery life any plans to change that no i don't know but i feel like they wouldn't give that up they shouldn't give that up because it's sort of like why we recommend pebbles right now like if you don't if you need a long battery by pebble um yeah right but i hope they do something with like color e-ink maybe um and they also teased when they said they're having they have new hardware coming these tees the new software platform too so maybe it's a little smoother quicker and then they said they had like new controls for the software so presumably different buttons or something like that and I wouldn't be surprised but I'm not positive I'm just guessing here if pebble this time around release you know like say it's like pebble two point oh I don't know I'm just making it up say it's pebble 2 point 0 and then like pebble steel two point oh I think they should do at the same time this this time around policy definitely yeah I definitely think they should come at the same time yeah make buying decisions a little easier from Dominique Webber and this is an interest question how did that partnership between TB and Volvo come along the way any of these partnerships be it you know sponsoring videos or whatever you know either the usually the company's reach out to us and say hey are you doing anything related to this event we tell them yes they come to us with what they're looking for and if it you know we do turn down some sponsors we don't just take every anything that comes along it's not a sponsor though just our coverage on them was just through an agency that represents although reached out for some of the broadcast work we do 10 didn't then they sponsor some of our videos no thank you no back at sea yes I mean not all though oh what's that okay well no although it's just like any other company just ya know that Todd's trips were not sponsored no you know yeah but it all right so speaking to anyone that sponsors us that's how it happens so but no I for some reason I thought both of the sponsored seat I don't want that I i can't remember last win why we do with all a car company coverage so like lexus honda I when we review their stuff or write about it I've tried to just sort of write my articles are on volvo around experiences with the cars because I'm not okay John is you know they have nerve on they know a lot more but although actually has an office nearby me so it's easier for me to grab the cars and play with them and be with them so that's actually how it work just kind of like local in New Jersey yeah uh from Brisbane Franco with all the new linux based mobile OS Tizen sailfish and boom to Firefox me hitting the market do you think windows found and blackberry are still able to maintain the third position now yeah I think so simply because we won't be lumping all those into the same name yeah those are all going to compete separately and they're right eat it eat at each others chanted market share in emerging markets which is where all of those phones are targeted including windows phone and blackberry especially so right so yeah it's going to come out to one winner I think windows phone is probably going to try to take a lead in those markets and I think it already does a lot of areas so yeah hopefully that's on track but who knows I mean I like some of those operating systems Ubuntu looks great Firefox is super low cost but androids going there too with Android one so i think that's that's the thing is these guys are going to face google's initiative which is android one in these emerging markets with low-cost Curie android devices so yeah pretty tough yeah the charts unfortunately aren't going to just say linings and consider what is the the core of each of those operating systems they're going to be considered bison and firefox and so on so yeah it won't be easy for it to get into a third place spot yeah I mean uh lease on the next ship so yeah uh from Sasha Baja what are you guys thoughts on the new viewmaster by Google and Mattel will it be a gimmick or be great nostalgia experience I think it's giving it it seems silly I mean I get the idea looks like augmented reality and virtual reality for kids I don't know what it costs it they didn't say I don't think but to me I'm most impressed by the gear if you are right now from Samsung I feel like that's sort of a real experience it's a neat this view masters a neat little google cardboard based thing but I think it's kids toy speaking as someone who was way into view master discs when he was like four I like the nostalgia aspect of it but hey you know kids have so many other distractions these days mmm it's a cool novelty but I don't see it doing much yeah I feel like a kid these days can be like where's my iPad exact I don't know I need to play candy crush can this play candy crush but going back to the comments for just a sec second from brazen Franco one really annoying thing on the comments section is the flag trolling and that we can't post pictures and links unless you have super mod powers okay the problem with the links in the pictures is that those are in all-or-nothing situation we can't turn on links without turning on pictures the the concern we have with the pictures is while we have filters set up for certain words we can't control what's in a picture yeah so we're very very concerned about exactly what would be in those images and there's another layer of moderating that we would have to add we are looking at it we are actually talking with discuss and seeing if there isn't something else we can do but yes we've heard all of you we know that you want links and pictures but it's a yes we could just walk over and flip a switch but we also are discussing what are the ramifications of flipping that switch so that is why it's not happening immediately uh let's see now very timely here from william zing do you think Sony is going to give up on the hardware business since there are reports that they are selling most of their hardware divisions yeah it's interesting I mean I guess if you look at it now what's doing well for them has done what PlayStation and some of their camera businesses and then they're gonna I guess are looking at getting rid of mobile and their TV businesses which you know if it's not making money and it hasn't been for a while maybe it's time they do that and I think they also said maybe audio right which is interesting so it would be I saw i was talking to Roy about this yesterday and where we was actually on CNBC I think yesterday right talking about this very topic and it's only no longer a hardware company and I saw some headlines its it said the same thing I think you know yes and no play station is still very much hardware right but if it's Roy said Bolden it's also sort of like an entertainment hub and once you own one maybe you're not buying it that frequently it's not like you're still you know buying a sony phone than a TV and a playstation that that's electronics company so i don't know it's weird maybe they are sort of really exiting the hardware business if you think about it that in that aspect and focusing on playstation seems like a good idea I mean you get sales on the unit itself and then obviously on the games and everything through PlayStation Plus and everything yeah I don't know I I understand why they exited the pc business but I any readers yeah well any readers but I don't know I I'm concerned about Sony Sonny's got a lot of issues right now so we'll we'll see where it goes I mean I'm an old-school sony e oh I had an original well not original original but very early Sony Walkman and all that I've always had a deep affection for somebody but I don't know we'll see how they come out of this I I have faith that they can restructure this mm-hmm but we shall see from Dominique Weber how happy are you about Wi-Fi routers like arrow that set out to make setting up router is easier you said I haven't used it either you know the thing is that's one of those situations where I've never found setting up routers to be difficult yeah that being said I know if I told my father to set up wherever he'd look at me ago that's not as gonna say easier the better you know it's a company that if you know maybe somebody will pick by Euro and build that technology and their own stuff and make it easier but it's exactly what I was talking about with you I think on an earlier episode when I went down to set up that nest that we were talking about the smart home it won't connect to a certain router with optimum online because optimum controls all of the router settings which is ridiculous I've never this before New York I do i hear a loud I do I'm fired your router and all this stuff but if this gyro thing you know can make it easy so that people can buy an S and not worry about configuring the router or if it works or not then that's great so not only just setting it up but then also using the router to power other things in your house in this case an ester whatever it is you want yeah I think it's a great idea no definitely if it helps people out from Britain Franco with a raspberry pi in a little knowledge and see and hobby level electronics you can have home automation now yeah yeah that's not me I I don't know NEC took c plus plus for several years but i don't probably don't remember any of it yeah exactly exactly I and one last question here from Jordan Becker your opinion on the Nexus 6 we get this one a lot yeah I love it it's expensive but I love it it's crazy yeah yep well I believe that is going to do it for this week as always we appreciate you joining us and as I said we will be off next week because I will be an Irvine and top will be in Spain and the week after that it will be me for sure and somebody else hopefully Joey we're going to try to work that out so until next time please do find us on the iTunes Store where if you do rate and review us that does help out the show you can also find us on pocket casts you can find us on the stitcher app which means you can listen to us anytime anywhere or you can subscribe via RSS feed anywhere there are podcast you can find the TechnoBuffalo show until next time I've been shown on am the editor-in-chief of technobuffalo com and i've been joined by deputy managing editor Todd Hazleton hi everybody until next time everyone take it easy bye bye