Gadgetory

greetings mobile accomplishes welcome to the verge mobile show this is a special edition it's a day late because mobile world congress is crazy the big giant phone show in barcelona we are joined by our reporters in barcelona also hosts of the ridge bubble show Dan and Vlad chris is here as well and we even have the enesta bowl evan rodgers AKA quiz on tata rack i doing guys that's not a word cuz that's how to rock hello a good dune joke I didn't let everybody say hey I'm so and so and so inside said everybody's name but that's because it's a crazy wild show we do things differently the second day so how is the house Barcelona guys how's the show going for you it's actually been pretty good it's a you know than a surprisingly happening show for things that you know are being announced here there's been a lot of products announced a lot of companies are doing a lot of things which is kind of like a stark difference from last year we're not a lot of companies did anything so we've been quite busy here yeah last year was really very businesses it almost so like him but we she was kind of dying in terms of consumer interest it was Oh behind-the-scenes deals and things that then panned out during the year which is probably still going to happen was going to happen maybe in the later part of the week whereas this maker who had Sony Samsung come out when you flex your phone's stuff it didn't really happen last year HTC also had an announcement and a big teaser toward its event a month from now so it's a bit more exciting I think so okay I mean it seems like the biggest news of the show has to be samsung right even even though Sony stuff I think looks pretty great Samsung is you know the dominant Android player and they've got their new flagship phone and it looks like a band-aid that that gold color is not flattering setting aside a comparison I think I mean honestly it doesn't just look like a band-aid it feels like 10 frankly it's like you took the galaxy s4 you're like we need to give people something new to buy so we'll just it would do incremental changes to do comment to upgrades that might not be the most charitable assessment to give it because the camera promises to living bhajan proved it now has faced detectors contrast detect auto focus from this is a fast sort of focus on any spot for camera no point three seconds that could be a really big advantage over the long term but honestly for myself I'm on the world they just made the screen a bit bigger 5 41 inches they gave it a new physical design which is still very much samsung gear and so far as its glitzy and just on a paving I mean maybe my taste a tube macho but you know the curves feel a little wrong like where the headphone jack is it kind of seems like it's a break in the design or something I don't know at the colors mean it just the samsung said and this is just so crazy to me they did research and they said the number one thing people demand for this platform is and I quote a modern glam book haha and I feel like they really match that demands with what they've delivered it sounds like a terrible idea and it looks like one that's why it says nervous Venus yeah I don't like what does that mean modern glam look I like this this does not say clam to me this says iterative update on the gs4 which was itself an internet iterative update on the gs3 and that's not necessarily a bad thing but I mean just looking at like this camera module on the back and this you know what it's stippled or whatever it's just super its Nexus designed yeah so the other thing that is super uninspiring to me is I know they want to make it waterproof and that's actually really great way we were all super impressed with the galaxy s4 active but this thing flap over the the USB port is kind of the worst yeah don't they have the technology I mean we've been seeing it for years at trade shows they have the technology to like hip phones in some coding that makes it waterproof without needing these stupid flaps right well there's a gamer's go ahead then I was going to say there was actually a couple companies I hear this year showing off even more ways that they can do that the same idea just like a different approach of dipping some other different chemical and then they don't need to have the silly port connectors and things like that you know it's it's funny that there's a port connector or report cover on the USB port but the headphone jack is fine so obviously they figured out ways to waterproof those ports without requiring a flap and you know we see Sony does the same thing with its waterproof z1 and z2 they have flap covers over the micro USB port so it's it's must be something to do with those those connectors where it really has to be kept free of water yeah I was going to say is that there's also distinction between bead waterproof and water-resistant and the new galaxy s5 it's only water resistant it's ip67 rating which if you care to go read is slightly lower rating than the waterproof experience that too from Sony and you know I've already made the jokes I'm not gonna repeat it but okay I'm gonna repeated facility should market the exquisite to by saying that whereas samsung's new phone can just get wet Sony's can take hold I've you know yeah okay okay you live that Jeff I would like to point out that uh that IP 67 that in fact they spelled it out on stage I P stands for ingress protection and when he said that I was thinking it there was some sort of tie into ingress the game and it took me like a good minute to realize that he was talking not about some sort of like you know I thought there was like some co-branding thing or co-marketing thing where you know the game that are that the phone would come bundled with ingress and it there'd be some like natural protection for like a player if they were using a gs5 but then I later realized that it had absolutely nothing to do with that yeah Chris you're the only person in the world that made that connection no but but they all they needed to say was ip67 because that's it like a acronym we've before but no he's like ingress protection 67 on stage like I bring this information to the masses like they want people to know it's not just acronyms it's real in grass protection yeah so what vibe at their unpacked event because typically unpacked events are totally batshit insane and this one was like you know standard like Samsung gets up and lifts off a bunch of features well excited 15 minutes of orcas of random orchestras oh well I mean that the the orchestra was kind of like when people were walking in and filing to their seats the orchestra was playing and it was I think they were having some technical difficulties that push the actual event back a few minutes so they had they the orchestra play on but as far as you know a samsung event this was the straightest samsung of event as I've ever attended they just played it right down the middle as far as like showing their products showing what their ideas behind these products were what they do what they're capable of and what they their their mission with them or whatever and they had people who you know represented the products talk on stage as opposed to having a Broadway show and an actor try to represent these things and you know as far as press going to this event where you go and you want to be there to learn about the new products this is kind of something that we've been asking Samsung to do for a while you know there was no misogyny there was no damn oh I totally failed yeah laughing at dance so one of the things I failed to mention at the top of the show is that these guys are actually at the press area in Barcelona at the the conference center and so connectivity is as it tends to be at the mobile show in the mobile conference really bad I think they're just missing with us yeah i mean we're miserable so the other thing is about the gs5 I mean I know we're talking a lot about this but it's like the most important android phone we were like there'd been all these rumors about they're going to tone down the design and it just like they didn't slather on a ton of features other than the health stuff which we should get to but they did like basically keep the same Samsung experience as you know it's not it's totally the same it's a little insane now you've done not just the same software but the same ID which we already talked about before like with the exception of the back but like if you look at the phone from the front versus the gs4 and like if you looked at them separately not literally side by side but if you saw a picture of Jesus for that picture of gs5 from the front I think you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference and it's like it just feels like Samsung is in cruise control right now which I mean this is the classic like complacent like company that's like basically printing money and becoming complacent you know and this story has played out time and time and time again over the past 15 years in the mobile industry and Samsung kind of needs to like step up its game I like it if the GS 6 comes out and it doesn't look significantly different I'm going to be very very upset good thing I would say is that Apple is kind of set expectations with respect to that insofar as you can have one design and then you can pretty much reissue it the next year but you're an out two years you can't do it yeah yeah that's the thing as Samsung has urged that sorry Samsung Apple has done more to update its iPhone design it iterates more often than Samsung at this point which is which seems counterintuitive and crazy but that's totally what what's happening right and the thing is Apple praised it a bit more strained by saying this is not the iphone 6 it's the iphone 5s all right so it's pretty much like the old one you just fortified it a bit when i'm going to call it a six I think that's a bit more faithful a bit more truthful to do too much um hey I mean come on you know how it is every year you have to reassure your flagship phone whether you're ready to or not whether you know the silicon is ready one thing I would say there's a Snapdragon 805 chip which is looking amazingly powerful as you go to sale today are they moving silicone around into me but yeah it's time driving at five it's a great chip but that's coming this summer where's Sam somebody needs to issue is the processor and its new device now so we can get the sales going so the it's kind of forced into this corner essentially I mean it's just the market dynamics it's it's them is the carriers everybody wants something you people want something you so they kind of get these overly incremental upgrades one thing I'll say about that first penned by the way um Jen says he's happy with the iron man i'm kind of disappointed that there wasn't a nice Michael Bay interview to tell us about the phone tell us about a five inch bike will wanna display Michael so what place but I'll a hundred wanted to celebrity to just peace out that's what you wanted and pretty much okay okay uh oh the heart rate monitor like you guys tried that how's that thing work it works as advertised believe it or not it's able to grab your heart rate in like five to ten seconds I mean it's kind of a clunky design because you have to hold your phone and wait for it I am going to talk about their wearables that they announced and i think that the implementation of the heart rate monitor and those is a much better system but if you don't want to buy wearable you know now your phone can read your heart rate if that's something you want to is five seconds fast enough for a heart rate monitor or a heart rate reading like when would you be using this heart rate monitor i would say probably in between sets if you're working out that would be my base um and if you get in freaked out that you're about to have a sec that's true yeah but it's not a it's not an EKG it's a it's just a heart rate monitor yeah so you can take isolated like readings of your heart rate did they say anything about like specifically what kind of athletics or activities you would use this in regard to SL ah i mean the day they had a bunch of things and all they didn't really go into that name um yes Oh Dan Dan DRA know which and I think it was so kind of overlapping with a lag here yeah but what was going to say is they had things in the background they had icon showed people running and cycling into how those things and as Dan says I really think is something that you can for example measure your resting heart rate and then go into simpler exercise and then come back measure heart rate again then judge how intensive that is and whether it's a good idea maybe you can provide the information to your doctor and oh I don't know your trainer whatever people do it's an extra piece of information and tracking but to dance point I really think that these heart rate monitors make a ton more sense in the new wearable to give to that get fit and doing fun self right so actually let's let's talk about these so the let's let's talk about the boring ones first and then move into the Icicle so there's this there's the gear the gear fit and a gear neo right and the gear the gear 2 and the gear neo seem like basic iteration so like what's the difference between these two what difference in to get you in to get you neyo is that the latter does not count which is awesome because the camera is a silly feature and I just rip is it'll also looks cheaper it doesn't have the metal finish on the top like the gear to does oh I do want to our game paired with the camera because that was basically the sole thing that I should liked about the original Galaxy gear is it's a it's a quick little thing that you can you know just take the quickest it's not just with and it really doesn't get into where you don't have to pour anything out and unlike to browse you have to have something stuck on top of your head yeah but yeah I mean I looking for gear to folks devices and I just from and like to get a cig it wasn't terribly good idea this is not either it is they they fixed the software like with minimal effort they basically just added the ability they added a home button so that you wouldn't have to like remember one of the right which to me just basically tells me tells you that this is just from his bad display I've a very important question is the display always on on the gear to not if you way would it would have no matter my god now these are these are running Tizen right that's correct so yeah that's the biggest changes yeah so done any notable difference with the these things running Tizen that they seem faster it is the software seem exactly the same was it the the software experience is exactly the same I mean they're running they do feel snappier and more responsive but that also could be because Samsung probably upgraded the internal hard way the the big difference here is that samsung claims you can get two to three days of battery life with this as opposed to the one day that you got with the galaxy gear whether that's attributed to more efficient chips or ties in being more efficient we don't really know but you know it is definitely a welcome improvement I mean you you do you do not need let's put it this way if your SmartWatch requires a dual-core 1 gigahertz processor you're doing something fundamentally wrong in the design of your SmartWatch no no SmartWatch should should have functionality that requires that kind of horsepower as it's just like it's so Samsung that this entire product is so Samsung I'm glad they refine this and like took out some of the major pain points from the original Garen actually they were really like I thought that they were almost apologetic onstage about the original gear when they were announcing the gear too but yeah that'd be nice losses shit yeah but but that being said this is not I mean I think we can all agree this is not the gear to get excited about right absolutist estimation on the positive side of the equation with the gear to did not have interchangeable straps which again is a step forward sorceress yeah but the earlier point and it's a very important one of these are bakes they put a home button on it look that just tells you everything you need to know you're taking an interface that requires a home button an interface that is usually fit on for 25 inch devices and you shrinking it down to the wrist and it's just wrong you need something that is specific to its physical dimensions in a way something that if it needs a button it should be a home button at the bottom of it it doesn't that's the same plane as the that's the same complaint is the sony smartwatch to write that you know it has basically the standard android buttons below the display on the front which is insane and the thing is you operate these things with either your fourth finger or thumb and they don't bring right all right so the android pot and stay the same size in order to 384 your thumb to be able to touch them properly but then they are so much more space on something that fits on your range something that is essentially supposed to be a watch right okay well let's talk about the gear that's awesome which if you're fit and it looks like pretty freakin good like it you know it's maybe a little bigger than I might want to fitness band to be but if they would just put the functionality of a SmartWatch just put notifications on this thing and have it be a health monitor I would buy the hell out of it well I did I'd also want them to have it work with you know non Samsung devices but this thing looks great I was gonna say theater it actually does do notifications you can get your calls and your messages and your emails on there but you know it only works with Samsung devices so and like you said if I would buy one of these but I don't really want to buy a galaxy s5 or whatever yeah was it so it was it's their initial slides uh doesn't then that include like openness and like cooperation with an industry like weren't those the words they used yeah they just they said that they were the gear was an open platform or something like that and you know is kind of sun silly when it only works with Samsung devices so it's an open flat form for people to bring their apps to but not but you can't take it to other apparently that's what they mean not or not only does it only works with Samsung not only does it only work with Samsung devices by the way I apologized the light in this room timed out and there's nothing I can do about it not only does it only work with Samsung devices but only specific Samsung devices because we saw over the course of the get the original galaxy Gear's very short lifespan they slowly rolled out compatibility two additional samsung phone models it wasn't like on day one it would work with any samsung you own it originally only worked on the gear I mean the note 3 I think and then they rolled it out to the fore in the gs3 so it looks sweet though yeah that's literally cool well it looks sweet I mean Vlad wrote a really great report about it like the thing that we were talking about before and I'm going to steal his thunder and then I'll let him yell at me for it is this is Samsung when it's at its best yes it's iterative yes they're using technology they've got off the shelf yes they're stealing ideas from other companies but when they like every now and then they do all those things but they are able to turn something around really fast that's remarkably like compelling and you know sometimes samsung samsung is it up and we get the gear and sometimes samsung sang sends it up and they do something that's like whoa hey this is really nice yeah it's been a long time since we've actually had that latter experience yeah and but what you said central to some psychology of the show to do a community of the Samsung show you know we mock Samsung and LG to high heavens about those curves with blazing smartphones and we're still right we don't think you're wrong because they don't make that much sense in a smartphone but putting that curve display on something that is supposed to wrap around your wrist and actually requires a curve makes perfect sense and the thing that I would say with the gear fit is that it's just instantly recognizable to me it's the exact opposite of the gs5 you know I'm seeing people the gs4 all around mwc shop for I'm thinking to this guy set of GS five already you just can't tell the difference whether it's gonna get fit because it's super amoled if it is so strong and because Samson for once it's not something really google software gets really simple and given it some really bright colorful wallpapers anytime some somebody is actually worrying on their wrist like I spy it I recognize it and I start MV okay and that feeling of desire and essentially gadget lust is something has been read to the Samsung before a hotel other manufacturers yeah okay so we've got flagships are other companies do you guys want to talk about you want to talk about the Sony you want to talk the the g pro 2 seems totally forgettable to me I mean am I crazy that like with LG stuff is not affection whatever yeah it's just whatever and the g2 mini also fine so many stuff let me let's let's clear out some of them would love to talk about experience stuff wow this would be a sexy the z2 there's a Z 2 which is the new flagship than the z2 tablet which is like look at us with me too thin tablet if the z2 is really come on look if you guys eat too seems appealing you have to give visitez have a little bit more Freddie yes is big asset importance it's in this but I mean in terms of technological feat engineering feat I think Sony is really stepping back into old habits which is being way out ahead of everybody else like the feeling I get with other phone manufacturers is that damn meeting engineering limits before although engineering limits than Soviets by selling can touch things so much harder and just such greater extremes than everybody else please easy to tell you have to holding out it's extremely extreme again he's seen and it keeps the same 6000 AF car battery as tablet Z Jetta succeed it's waterproof and it has this new display which really is the highlight for Sony this year but of the Z 2 + z2 tablet they have these lab color LED displays and you know having complaining about 72 place in this my affection for years now and the fire exit and the face of such quick fashion I mean Jesus place right hey black people they really are is Nora but glad I just have a question for you and you and I talked about this a little bit on birch live on Monday but why is it do you think that Sony has not been able to make inroads and become a samsung level competitor on android yet because by all appearances they they are making phones that are as good as any phones in the industry right now yeah it does is very much the case but i would say right now um they just fixed data spec like the phone but as they're also amazing display isn't there you just got an ounce ya know so we basically to give them some time I've been saying this for all that time the display is probably the most fundamental spec that you can have with your device it's your April your Apple device is the first and last when you see any use so if that's thinks if the person doesn't enjoy it they don't enjoy the entire years experience so I mean I feel like I've Joseph of prejudice against Tony Tan Driscoll's just before just because their displays in the bad so so glad talk to me about this like the specifics of this device a little bit I know on the tablet Z they kind of use a material that was similar to the Xperia Z and it was like a polycarbonate kind of material what is the outside perimeter material on the c2 tablet it's a woman like the z1 and z2 that's correct the spot phone it has an aluminum frame around the outside and has glass on the front in the back and the template he has a soft soft touch back which is just I can't prove them that like I can't think of a more way to feel sick and so a good reason to use an android tablet I mean the Dead Sea tablet would be the one so the lot on the Z 2 i'm the Arak weighing on you gotta you gotta come up with a reason to use an android tablet especially at this size these puzzles are pretty big I mean I'm using a nexus 7 as my primary tablet right now and I gotta say like android tablets you look great I don't know I mean like I think Sony is actually doing a super interesting thing with their with their tablet zone right now because the tablet Z last year's model is actually super affordable like compared to the ipad you can get a Snapdragon I think it's the 800 in the sea oh so he's making a great tablet here this this this z2 tablet looks great look for any they're selling but you're 16 you goodbye like the hardware doesn't matter because there's no support from the ecosystem for Android at this size that's the problem like let me like that's the only thing that's how the ecosystem that Sony has available to them yeah well I mean I I mean yeah but it's like all right for your luck guys like you're making great stuff that nobody should buy right now is this true sandy astra so what's way more thing to me is the z2 phone I think the z2 phone looks awesome I agree yep Emily about it what's there to tell me aside from the display it really is more or less the z1 it keeps the exact same footprint but close to five point two inches which means that much of a braid it has a Snapdragon 801 which is a very incremental upgrade on the 800 basically the same chip which it's no bad thing chip cameras basically lift same and that is for the video recording but again it's one of those upgrades plays like I don't have anything that plays back for K not even the phone place back for K so who care about the damn video being at that resolution and it really is what about that display because it is very nice it's great color fidelity beautiful view language I mean they claim it has the widest color comic of any mobile device which is something that you all need to measure I just as part of the very federal one of the better ones the market right now which is much as Oh needs doing I mean then it still got the glass back that's fine i mean not hearing that the cameras been improved much is a little bit disappointing to me but I gotta say like looking at this comparing it to the nexus 7 that i'm using now and even you know the HTC One which is generally regarded as one of the better design or best design android phones like this seems really nice like and you know as long as they haven't screwed the software up too much and it sounds like they you know they've continued their trend of like like doing what they doing a soft work with the z1 which is not being totally overbearing with it this is an interesting phone to me like this is the kind of phone that like if this doesn't have any success then I feel like like there's something fundamentally wrong with the Android ecosystem that Sony can make a phone this good and nobody cares yeah but the same could be said about the HTC One right yes yeah but I mean you can always like you can chalk up HTC to know getting money being that Sony does not spend market monies us right well that's the other thing I mean I hopefully they can get some success with this in some other markets I think it's great i will say that sony is one of the few companies mobile phone makers whose mobile phone division is is making a profit but yeah they do have trouble breaking into the u.s. they bring their devices to the US far later than anywhere else in the world so I and they're only on one carrier so far so you know it's really hard for them to really make a dent in the US market with these devices even if they are really excellent than attractive devices and also let's not let's not overestimate the difficulties that HTC as I become he just announced this week that issue one and the one family ladies most successful phones in terms of sales mostly smart folks so they have been doing okay in terms of sales is just they haven't had a portfolio around the one you know they had one flagship phone and when people can't afford to buy the Frenchie phone HTC just hasn't really had the compelling lower price point device to find out if you know then they end up consuming coffee from Samsung what yeah what about the one mini oh and he's not a one minute that's exactly the program it's a 1 minus a couple of his most fundamental advances like what if they called it the one if they called it the one minus that would be like a religion game for the box so frankly they shouldn't have done it she should have done a better phone yeah now I totally agree we the other insane thing that happened at Mobile World Congress is nokia has announced android phones so that's the nokia X the XL can the X plus so I mean how are they are they fast are they any good as it is a terrible is it awesome job tell me about these fun so I got to play with all three of them and I guess the the ex and the X plus are pretty much the same thing the X plus just as a dual sim and you you know I I keep coming back to the point where nokia has a Windows Phone already at this price point that offers a better user experience in the nokia X the X is running a forked version of Android that's based on Android 4.1 so it's like two years old it's really dated software and you know the performance is very apparent that this is older version of Android when you're jumping into third party apps and you're trying to bounce around between your apps and things like that there's a lot of lag it's pretty sluggish it's just not a really pleasant user experience with a bird right they they your inbox them are mimicking the home screen interface of their Lumia phones but they kind of missed like it looks like the home screen of your inner of the Lumia phone but you know it loses all of the animations and all the other Beauty parts of Windows Phone so it's just like very surface level similarities and the main navigation is pretty fast as far as swiping up and down the home screen but you know once you're in apps things get pretty pretty dicey uh and then it's it's hard to say that this is going to be Nokia's Savior they they're really using this as like a Trojan horse to get people onto Microsoft's cloud services but I'm not sure I fully by that approach i think it'll give people used to using android apps instead of using Microsoft services I think the biggest thing here is at least the vibe that we get is that essentially it's a windows phone with a shortcut into running Android apps that's what's happening it isn't really an android phone because it doesn't have any of the Android applications in tries replace it with Nokia Microsoft alternatives and it's like we have on this bone we can't get traction with it we also can get it cheap enough so we're going to run the cheaper platform as a much wider a vehicle scott i disagree i don't think i don't buy that they can't get a cheap enough and unlocked lumia 520 is $69 in the US yeah this is going to be named that is going to be launching 489 euro that's that's considerably more expensive 520 is right now and you know this thing looks like Windows Phone but it does not perform like Windows one it's not a Windows Phone experience so like it's it's very surface level you know nokia said numerous times that they plan to keep pushing this price lower but you know they're already lower with Lumiya don't get it so I the only one who thinks this looks like an unholy monster like this has none of the advantages of Windows Phone and all the disadvantages and ugliness of basically square and rectangle you lie okay let the first this is this is though this is the worst of both worlds there's just a lot of confusing things with the UI like when you install a new app there's no app tray or app list it just gets thrown down at the bottom of your home screen and so like you can put it in folders and stuff like that but there's really no great organization there I they it's got this like second home screen called fast lane which nokia is kind of like combining your your most recent apps and notifications into one feed which they say is very popular on there Asha phones but I'm not sure it really translates that well on Android and then you know it it no keys always known for putting great cameras in their devices and these have like these particular ones have like fixed focus three members that are terrible so it's like there's there's no advantage to the only advantage that a user has when they buy this is the fact that it has a nokia name like you're not getting no keys great design you're not getting Nokia's great camera technology you're not getting Nokia's great software here you're getting like the scraps that's really like it doesn't even seem like a good this is like a sadist vendor lock-in ever like for google it makes sense that they are pushing devices that really bring people into their you know their service ecosystem because their lock-in is so great but this is like oh well introduce people to Microsoft services but you'll still be running Android APIs but there's like but Microsoft doesn't make a huge amount of money from these services I don't that another google had anything to do with this or any participation or anybody go Google when I would you mind if we did a really garbage Nokia such services running on top of Android and but I think the biggest issue here and also from Microsoft's effective it's just kind of his head scratches I see one microsoft acquired nokia there's a lot of reasons to think you know if Nokia was going to pursue this plan anyway Microsoft wouldn't have liked to have its main windows phone manufacturers split its focus between windows phone and Android that would not have been a good hit once Microsoft just drinks acquire not gay and I know that dealers associate anybody should have put a stop to this because what is it safe to Windows Phone developers like do we carry on making where his phone apps there or do we switch to android knowing that Microsoft is going to support android apps now it's really confusing situation for isn't it yeah no it's totally confusing and I mean honestly to me it just seems like what nokia has decided is they don't believe that they're going to get the apps that they think that people want at the low end anytime soon and so they just said look we're gonna do android on the low end because we want people to nail the side load those apps on there like the UI is whatever it's not great it's a little like i can't decide if I think it's patronizing like there's like the simplification of just having a single home screen but then there's the fast lane which is a little complicated whatever it's it's like fine it's not that interesting to me what's interesting to me is that nokia somebody inside nokia felt that in order to do what they were trying in order to achieve what they're trying to achieve in the emerging markets that they're trying to tackle that Windows Phone wasn't going to get there and if we're right that it's not really about price it's not really about driving down the price of Windows Phone driving down driving windows phone down to work on lower and lower hardware because the 520 seems to prove that they're relatively close and they could get closer if it's not about the hardware and it's not about price it's got to be about software it's got to be that like inside nokia they had a fundamental wrong weren't going to get what they needed to get in terms of app support in order to drive it in emerging markets gotta be your answer that make sense I said this I said this before but it really feels like to me that you know nokia had a group within that was working on this for a long time and it's very apparent that they were working on it for a long time it's based on android 4.1 which is a two year old version of the operating system and they were just like you know this microsoft deal is closing soon we are pushing this to market we've been working on it for so long we're not having this scrappy and so there's there's that part of it the other part I think is that it like you said theater that's a tacit admission that when this phone does not have the apps that people are looking for and that people buy phones because of the apps you buy a smartphone because of the apps that it could use and and that's why Nokia initially explored this android project for however long ago when they started developing our I think most people disagree with me on this but I think there's a very real possibility that that Microsoft will Ken this and it will disappear within like 30 days of the closure of the acquisition so I would really that i would say that you're you you I would believe you more if if nokia had announced one phone but they announced three and they announced the line of them and they announced the nokia store that they need to maintain and all these other things that are like pretty you know entrenched ideas i guess and entrenched services that they need to offer with these fellows yeah well but ken was two devices and an entire cloud network devoted to them so I mean that's fair but it was also two devices sold on one carrier that nobody let her literally nobody bought yeah right well on the other hand nukka didn't Zack to spend I don't know even five minutes remaining these devices they just a bird ACC's things for like two years ago well let's let's put it this way i think that if you if you want a collector's item you should strongly consider picking up a nokia X because i can't see Microsoft continuing to put our d dollars into developing android devices so even if these last say a full year on the marketplace I don't think they're going to get successors that would be my guess but you know what else this basically disproves Oh gates because he said the world is getting better all the time roars aah 23 years ago the collectors device from Nokia was the n match which to this day is one of the prettiest and nicest devices even though it's kind of left but these these are no headlines that's for sure these are these are no and nines that's my point that's my point the collectors device is getting worse it's not getting better so the other thing i really really need to hear about because you guys have held it and i have not is a project tango which is google's i can see the whole room and space thing out spatially mad right on the phone better than a connector like a connect i know it seems insane so like yeah he'll tell me about this thing so so i remember talking to you guys like a week ago or so when when google announced it and I was pretty pretty mad on the whole announced when I was like oh so they're announcing another phone to give us augmented reality games but then you know I got to see the thing in person and it is pretty wild what it can do it's got these multiple cameras and sensors on it that capture a greater far greater amount of data it can measure distance it can measure spatial awareness and things like that and then it's got a custom processor inside that can crunch all that data feed it into an API and spit it out to a nap and then so it can do things like you can hold up the phone and then it can just literally start to build a 3d model of the room as you move the phone around the room in real time and so like you move the phone around and you can see the object in front of you get built in a 3d model on the screen and so like this technology's actually been around for a long time the founders of the company mph idiots that developed this particular device compared it to the what the Mars rover does when it was on the surface of Mars mapping things out but they've now shrunk it down into a thing that can fit in the palm of your hand and run on a smartphone battery it's it's pretty wild it's quite a trip to you did it work yeah like work I mean it like worked like they they had the they built this thing it's a developer's device that Google is going to give out to developers to build to actually make use of all this data but they had a couple of demonstration apps to show the capabilities of it and like so this one that is playing on the video right now is a distance heat map so items that are further away our darker blue items that are closer to you are orange and as you move things that it adjust as you move the phone around so it's everything pretty much worked as they they said it would it was able to build a 3d model of the table in front of me right before my eyes and things like that so it was quite impressive i came away far more impressed with it after seeing it in person than I was a week ago when I just seen that google announced it so okay I mean obviously the hardware's super janky but that's like because it's developer device and they're only making 200 of them did they talk about whether or not this was going to turn into like like they have plans to do production or is this just a crazy wild experiment what the hell so so they were really cagey about that I think they were really uh we were talking to my videos we were not talking to kona side of things so I think lavinius was very concerned about spilling Google's plans and things like that but the the CEO did hint to me that this could be in consumer products in the very near future but he wouldn't say like how much it cost to build these developer devices or you know an exact time when it'll be like in a smartphone on a shelf in a story mom I mean well if something you need to pay more for this thing Oh what app would make me be like you know what I want to spend an extra 50 bucks you know super tengo powers like I've so i put the killer app i I mean I think we need to wait and see what the killer app is e like that's why these developers are going to get it you know some sample applications are very obvious things building a 3d model of a room or a set very quickly and easily but they also say that you know they could put this in like a neck worn wearable device and use it as something to assist the visually impaired since it can detect how far away things are if an obstacle is in someone's path that can give them an alert or an audio clue and then you know there's the visual effects industry that could use this build 3d models for movies and things like that I don't think it's an application that everybody would make use of why they're definitely things where this would be a useful device so then let me ask you this like they it kind of seemed like the the fact that this is this technology is bundled into a smartphone is actually not the most important part just that they can get it down to the size like they have it in a smartphone for the convenience's sake it's a mobile computing platform essentially and if they're going to do that like why not just make it a phone but it's like were they also were they also talking about having this in a slew of devices that weren't quite as good but computationally powerful as my friends I mean that that's a that's a fair assessment I mean the thing that the key development that they did they wanted to stress was the fact that they have this processor and will develop that can take all of this data and analyze it and crunch it and manage it and they've made this processor small enough and we are efficient enough that can run in a smart perform back so they're using this one it's like a vehicle to show it off but you know there's no reason that it couldn't also be applied in other small size things like a GoPro camera with this type of technology or something like that right i mean like the not only could you have it in a gopro you can have it in something like glass and I mean I'm sure they I'm sure goob was very interested in that for indoor mapping like I said in their announcement video um but this it seems like this is something that you can possibly go into all sorts of other products but it is interesting to see yeah I don't see why they couldn't apply it to a variety of different form factors I just wonder if there if there if that was what they were most vocal about at mwc uh you know they did they were really kind of caging as you know what future plans would be to be honest with you but they it's not really they didn't make it seem like it was limited to just smartphones what else is going on out there guys what else did you see uh well I don't know what else we saw that we could talk about uh okay stuff firefox and we wish talked about for the new firefox OS the new uh so they updated firefox to they showed us version 1.3 which is the latest version it's on a couple of devices that will be hitting market in like a month or whatever and it's a faster much much more refined interface than the firefox we saw a year ago really felt like this was Firefox growing up quite a bit in the past year it's still definitely very low end and definitely it gets lit like a device like the Moto G with android 4.4 run circles around it but it's a lot it's a lot better than it used to be and you can have devices with higher resolution displays and faster processors and things like that that make it an actually usable smartphone I remember last year when we first saw the the first Firefox phones you would open up the dialer and then you'd wait and then you'd push a button and then you'd wait for it to receive the button command and then it was like when basic things like the dialer were virtually unusable it was like a non-starter but you know they've addressed though as a performance for those basic core features is a lot better but it it's hard to see this really competing well against the the cheap Android phones that are really flooding the market you're the cheap I mean the cheap Android phones let's be super clear are not good right like I guess there are the moto moto g's excellent phone the Moto G is the is the counter to your organizer yeah but the Moto G unsubsidized is what a hundred and 180 bucks $109 yeah and I mean Firefox is going to move a lot lower than that yeah but there's no reason that like you know the monetary is just like the first of like a really good low end yeah right i'm feeling that motorola motorola has said you know that it plans to go even cheaper and still maintain the quality so right i don't think i don't think firefighter has a long time to hold that slot without being really challenged yeah yeah and i also feel like to dance point and your phones are likely to trickle down into lower price points quicker then Firefox OS is supposed to be able to really build out any sort of app ecosystems and really get stuff to sort of responsiveness that can hope to match device elected moto g link just this week it was revealed from motorola that the moto g apparently is one of his best selling phones and that the company is making a profit would ever say so it's not a law sleep also I know motor itself has been losing money but the Moto G has right I mean mozillas ultimate goal here is a thirty-dollar phone which is pretty remarkable when you consider that Nokia on stage this week like their first announcement before they got into nokia X was the 220 which is a 29 euro phone that has a keypad a tiny color display and like its headline features that it can get on the internet so the fact that that Firefox wants to actually produce a true touchscreen smartphone for thirty dollars is pretty remarkable no it's not to say that you can get a headline experience on that i would say i would say you have to put a heavy quotation marks around smartphone very heavy right i mean there's no se me than i even crush what like what is most aside from price what is mozillas competitive advantage in the market right now there isn't one well though no I'll tell you what it is it's the fact that they cater to the needs of carriers so you're seeing what you get where you're seeing a lot of wins for Mozilla and I think were you going to continue to see the most wins is in carriers that operate in emerging markets and maybe you know European countries where r poo is a little lower I think correct me if I'm wrong but I think that Poland was one of the first countries where they released a device last year on vodafone i believe so i have my guess is that and these are countries where like and these are carriers where they're really keen on like branding the experience top to bottom so it basically looks like a vodafone phone i don't know if you guys remember but a few years ago vodafone released basically it's an operating system that lasted about a month but if that releases the new feature phone yeah it but it well yes and no i mean it but it's worse the preacher phones this is the problem with it is worse than feature phones I I should go to try out the 25 total concept and it really proves nothing into I mean to to dance point the new phone out so much more mature the last year and so much more usable the last year with file photo of West but here's the other thing that I can tell you and it's the thing that gives me no hope for this OS nobody at Firefox's presentation nobody at firefox of booty or at mwc is using a Firefox of West fuck so if it's not good enough for the people who are making it and for making the software to use the regular basis it's just not going to happen because you need those people to essentially be testing it for you I'm just flood markets that can't afford the higher end smartphones and hope that that will somehow give you success I take Chris's point about you know being friends carriers but you know I just don't i'm not that was not sure this bar box of us has anything to offer consumers like I would look no but I don't think no but I mean he is a thing this 25 votes Marco but i haven't had booths at today he has accomplished display and he has amazing lag like his almost is like it's like an anchor man where he's dug ate the whole wheel chains you can't even get mad at alive because it's so crazy so so yeah you feel bad for the boat yeah so I don't take those $25 i would add you know five dollars extra somehow and i would get the cheap nugget because of that the team at least get me litter today but I mean to be super clear the Nokia referring to the 220 is just a candy bar like a candy bar straight out of 2005 the 220 looks great though you're smoking I don't know what you're smoking you're smoking some powerful narcotic well here's the thing if you want a disposable phone for example and you only have thirty bucks you guys are nokia because that thing will get things something if you will be frustrates to the high heavens you played it 25 though is if you get the five books of us Bob and you get nothing done like um see if you don't worry about those in you can't afford I spend more and I don't know save you money instead of sending telegrams didn't Thea is the last telegram network in the world just shut down last year if I'm not mistaken it was in India yes but yesterday we cover telegram the new security focus mobile messaging app that's true that's the underlayment our transition yes maybe but no it's not goods completely unrelated all right okay so also to hold on us yeah I know just I need to loop back to this Chris it is in fact you aura who is on drugs because the the 220 is a beautiful candy bar bone and these Firefox phones look like garbage ah cool story bro that's where I stand on it okay yeah so HTC had some like random announcements like you're gonna be able to share your processor power from your phone which story guys but now it's good I'll come on it is good I mean I I don't be one of the big fan boys been engaging ever since set at home and so those ones are a big deal on PC and I think wait am so what kind of work they doing and where depends I think you can pick your own project but they do basically doing scientific research um and they're using you know this year's like our cycles from your phone to contribute to it it's like folding at home that was sweet whatever and it doesn't it doesn't affect battery life or consume cellular data it only works when you're connected to Wi-Fi and plug into the wall I believe hmm so I don't know maybe this is too nerdy but like one of the big things one of the most important factors of distributed computing is floating point performance and like our processes are really bad at that so I would love to know what kinds of projects are available for you to choose it's because the legs the performances for Watson's bed it's worth noting that Samsung is doing the exact same thing they they launched an alarm clock app like a week that does the exact same concept so there's they're obviously applications for it I don't know how much or what specifically they are but they're both both companies are pursuing is almost the same exact idea okay I'm see the course all this it's just total alright Yusei horse swallow the key I don't know my name is vini escalated it's bull crap okay let's let's just remind everybody that evan is from Kentucky I thought it was cotswolds I didn't know that horses had swallow what does it's all up I'll of you sense of public responsibility and communal cooperation guys like we get a little bit a bit of a trigger confusing and contributing to good causes and discoveries and whatnot and then that's convincing what was not know what I'm not like sure that's fine and like I'm I want everybody to do is tributed computing really well unlike you know and accomplish the goals and like do the research but the thing is like if this is a PR stunt because like you get to feel good about doing something with your family that's great but if it's just wasting electricity and like wearing out your parts and it isn't actually react yes now no haven't you totally right it is way under 50 because all the other battery power that you use on things like flappy bird and whatever that's a you know productive well it will Elise that's entertaining no that's right yeah that's providing you utility like in the means that you wanted to be like you want it to do believe this is well I'll wait to see which projects are on glad every time I break 30,000 and threes on the iphone another angel gets its wings and i have given where at least six angels so humble brag that wasn't even a humble brag goes just a break let's just say the bread regular alright i'm not ashamed of that straight up rags at all that is the definition of holier-than-thou I i used to uh-- I used to be a big contributor to distributed net in the search for prime numbers back in the day but and actually my roommate installed covertly installed study at home on countless workstations at the University of Michigan and was eventually caught and got into some amount of trouble for it so I understand the appeal of contributing to distributed computing efforts but I don't know like there's there is a I think that this is indicative of two troubling trends one is the trend that maybe we've topped out we've topped out at least in the short term we've topped out the need for additional process or power and phones because you know you look at me never mind the gs5 you look at the gs4 or the HTC one from last year they're perfectly fine and fast and there there's no there are no new capabilities coming to Android short or something like project tango that would that would require a a sea change in the amount of processing power that's available to you so now you're just sitting on this massive excess of of you know gigaflops that that you know you might as well contribute to a distributing distributed computing effort that's problem one then problem 2 of course like Evans says the i mean the the additional power consumption is a very real phenomena like I my power bill went up when I when I had distributed that net running on my desktop PC like it was it there was a measurable impact in my bill so it just becomes a big thing that's going to be something to consider okay yeah I agree that's the worst transition ever is there anything else that you guys want to chat about I mean we the HTC the new HTC One leaked it looks like we thought it would look it's got an extra camera sensor on it it comes in several colors and seems I don't know it looks like a slightly more rounded one yeah it does look slightly more agile Oh excited I let's say sorry dear nicole say about the HD one is that it looks a little bit more forgivable in light of the galaxy s5 yeah true yeah good point well I don't know like like the I really hope that the the new one has a regular really great camera like if the if the main camera is so far and they try and kind of like that with whatever could possibly be going on with the second camera I'm gonna be so dissatisfied i presently I can't even Evan that's what the Sony qx100 is for bro oh my god it is the Serbian well ladies Jenna I'm calling it that is the virtual show Barcelona edition 2014 I want to thank lad and Dan especially for joining us from the show or in Barcelona pretty awesome you can follow them on twitter as ec seaport glad Sabba you can also follow the rest of us i am back on chris is e power evan is evan rodgers with addy although i'm sure the guy without for the g is also nice but you should follow evan because he's awesome we are all at verge you can leave a comment on this very post when you could do it right now you do whatever you want you can also talk to us in the forums and we will be back soon probably next week and until then we're gonna miss you dearly