Okay, you may not be able to tell this, but we have actually moved since last week.
Not much.
Well...
Is it an improvement?
It was enough that...
No, it's not an improvement.
You might not know this, but things got worse.
Welcome to the land show.
We're only half an hour late.
What is this music?
And his laptop has audio.
Oh, shut up.
All right.
Good.
We've got cool topics.
Yeah, we've got great topics today, so at least there's that.
And the reason we're late is actually pretty much the coolest video that I have ever made.
Do you think I'm overselling it?
Do you think...
Really?
There was a bug.
Okay.
What about...
Do you think I'm overselling this video?
Maybe not.
I think there's really good contenders, but this is pretty badass.
So guys, it's a build log, but it's gonna be a build log where the part where I physically
build the computer is literally like 30 seconds to a minute.
And like the least important part.
Yeah, it's the single least interesting part of the build log.
It's like over there.
It actually legitimately isn't working now, but there's a good reason for that.
And people are like, the land show logo is too big.
You know what?
We have...
You're too big.
There's no such thing as too big.
Technically.
You could train up to it.
We have had way worse issues than like the land show logo is a little bit big.
Way worse.
Way worse.
Beyond way worse.
Please fix the left hand logo.
You know what?
Tell you what.
That'll be what we tackle next week.
Instead of completely moving the entire set to make room to make the coolest video that
I have ever done, I will change the location of the land show logo.
In the meantime, though, we've got a bunch of great topics for you guys today.
Microsoft announced a whack ton of hardware, including the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, the Surface
Pro 4, the Surface Book.
I've actually got a Surface Pro 4.
I will be unboxing it live later on the show, so we'll be getting our first impressions
of it.
What else we got?
You can hack smartphones with just a text message.
Thank you, Edward Snowden, for telling us these things.
Yeah, basically.
The people site that we smashed on last week, and honestly, I thought of a ton of reasons
why it was even worse later on after the show, has apparently kind of disappeared, but the
creator is still moving ahead with the release.
Dell's got a bunch of interesting stuff that they... Actually, there's just like a ton
of stuff this week.
Ars Technica has their Android Marshmallow review up, so we'll be talking about that
a little bit.
So, stay tuned.
And there's a sale on the line at Tech Tips District Line Store.
All remaining inventory is 50% off, mostly small, and 2X and 3XL shirts are remaining.
Lanyards are still there for only $3.99.
Oh, okay.
Weren't we supposed to do that later?
I don't know.
We can also do it later.
What's up?
Are you really selfie-ing during the land show?
You're taking a blurry selfie.
You managed to close your eyes.
Did I?
Okay.
What?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
It's not even that bad.
Oh, okay, okay.
You're just not smiley.
You're like, what?
Your selfie cam is not very good on that phone, actually.
It's pretty terrible, actually.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's actually kind of surprising.
You know what has a great selfie cam?
The new Galaxies.
Oh, really?
Yeah, the S6 and the Note 5.
They have wicked selfie cams.
It's actually kind of amazing.
Okay.
Because I was going to say, that would be a whole other level of fail.
Managing to blink when you're the one controlling the shutter.
Like it's-
I've actually done it.
Just to be fair.
It's one thing to be like, someone else is taking a picture and you're like, right when
they take the picture.
Yeah.
That's like still kind of fail.
A little bit.
It's a little bit fail.
Yeah.
But to do it to yourself is pretty bad.
Oh, you know what else arrived today?
I got my rose gold iPhone 6s.
Oh, damn.
Also known as pink iPhone 6s.
I was just going to say.
Yeah.
But that works.
Because calling it rose gold is the most pretentious nonsense thing ever.
Is it actually, does it have a golden hinge or is it just super pink?
Well, okay.
Do you have it?
We got to be careful.
Bump in the mic.
Sorry about the mic bumps.
Like it has a rose gold look to it in the same sense that the gold iPhone is not a yellow
iPhone, which it like, it doesn't look gold.
It looks like kind of, you know, orangey yellowy kind of goldish.
So it looks rose gold in the same sense that something-
It's behind the, they can't see that.
Something rose gold would look kind of pink.
So well, you guys can't see this at all.
So whatever.
You'll see the role of it in the review that I do later on, which I had that there for
a reason.
I know, but you can't.
It's okay.
You can't see it because it's behind the- We'll deal with that later.
Okay.
There.
So let's go ahead and why don't we just kick things off with our first topic here today.
Sure.
Let's actually start the show immediately for a change.
So the 10 most important things from the Microsoft event.
This was posted by Matt Woodson on the forum.
I'm going to go ahead and pull up the original article here from Ars Technica.
You want to go ahead and throw that forum link in there?
I wasn't sure which one you were doing.
Oh no, I thought you were doing the forum link in the chat, right?
Okay.
Don't we usually do that?
No.
Oh.
Well, okay then.
I can.
Turns on the Surface Pro 4 is a design that's settled down.
Refines almost everything, but keeps the basic look and feel of the Pro 3.
Excellent.
Very nice.
Okay.
So let's go through what all happened at the event there.
There goes a train.
So they announced the Lumia 950.
This is the Windows 10 mobile flagship.
It's got a Snapdragon 808 processor, which seems to be what the smart smartphone makers
are using these days.
We actually have a video up on Vessel where I took two Snapdragon 810-based phones, a Snapdragon
808-based phone, an Apple A9-based phone, and an Exynos 7420-based phone and liquid-cooled
them all to find out how much they throttle and how much they're capable of if they don't
thermal throttle.
And both of our 810-based phones were just abominable, like it was terrible.
Like class, liquid-cooling technology, as if it needs that with an 808, but whatever.
It features USB Type-C. Huge thumbs up there.
I don't even care about rapid, quick-charge features compared to having a Type-C connector.
Okay, compared to, yeah.
I was going to say, they're pretty cool.
No, no, I do care.
Yeah.
Like, I've actually found myself not being bothered nearly as much by iPhone battery
this time around.
And I don't know.
Maybe I got a TSMC chip versus a Samsung chip, which is supposed to get better battery or
something, but, and I haven't checked.
I haven't checked what CPU mine's using, but I found I'm actually doing really well.
Like I had a three and a half hour call with someone yesterday.
In addition to using my phone like I normally do, I've got the Apple Watch, so I'm paired
via Bluetooth all the time, and I almost made it to bedtime.
Like it ran out like half an hour before I was going to go to bed.
That's still so not okay though.
I know, but hold on.
But then you plug it in for like 20 minutes and you've got a very significant charge.
I don't care.
Like, there's a fail or not fail for me.
And if you fail, you just failed.
I don't care if it was close, you just still failed.
Droid Turbo 2 is rumored to be coming in about a week.
So I have already started trying to get my tentacles into either Motorola or dbrand or
someone.
I don't care.
Heck, I would even talk to Verizon if it was, it's going to be a Verizon exclusive again
is the rumor, but man, I am super stoked on that.
It looks like the battery capacity may be a touch lower than last time actually, but
I mean, assuming they get a bunch of other optimizations, right, it could still deliver
just exceptional time on.
Anyway, back to the Lumia 950, sorry, I got distracted by phones that matter.
Oh dang, actually Windows 10 mobile has some pretty cool looking stuff.
So yeah, USB type C, 32 gigs of storage with a micro SD slot and launching in November
for $549.
There will also be an Excel version featuring the Snapdragon 810 processor, hopefully the
chassis is big enough to dissipate the heat, with blah blah blah, what else changes, not
a whole lot, 5.7 inch screen.
So there are some other devices, there's the Lumia 550, so this replaces the 640 and 640
XL.
The Surface dock, so it's a display dock.
So this will allow you to turn your phones into a PC like experience.
This is some cool stuff.
Now to be clear, because these Snapdragon processors are ARM based, you're not gonna
be, you know, running friggin' XSplit on it and you know, game streaming off your phone,
you won't be running x86 applications, but you will still be able to have a very Windows-like
experience and for applications that do have ARM versions like Office for example, you
will be able to use those.
This is something I was wondering about, I was actually gonna pitch this to you as a
Linus Tech Tips video, again, I've done this before, it's probably a terrible idea, let's
pitch it to you on stream, we'll see what you think.
I was thinking about like, OTG extravaganza, where we take a phone and try to be like,
could you manage to like, go through school with just your phone, so use an OTG cable
and like splitters and an inline power thing.
So you would wanna do it the getaway.
Yeah.
So you try and get like-
See if we can get like a keyboard and a mouse, maybe even see if we can get that portable
monitor running off of it.
Off of like a massive battery bank or something?
Yeah.
Well no, cause you're in class, you could plug it into the wall.
Yeah, I don't know, back when I was in school, there was a severe shortage of plugs, like-
I went to class with a power bar.
Okay, fair enough, so you could just tell someone else-
You wanna make quick techy friends in school, bring a power bar, I'm not even kidding, that's
all you need.
Anyways, sorry.
But I thought it could be fun, just like, what is the extent you could go, and with
like modern pretty fast phones that you could have word processors on, is it enough to just
like take notes with a keyboard and mouse and maybe a bigger screen?
Microsoft wants it to be doable out of the box, but then you'd have to use a Windows
phone.
Yeah, and like how much does that thing cost?
So you have to have a Windows phone, and you have to buy this thing.
My idea is like, hopefully you just have to kind of buy the adapters and you already have
a keyboard and mouse.
The dock is pretty cool though, so it plugs in with the Type-C connector and provides
ports for HDMI, DisplayPort, and three full size USB ports.
So you really could have like a very desktop-like experience plugging into this bad boy.
Other things, so the Surface Pro 4, maybe now's a good time to do the live unboxing.
Hopefully it doesn't just fall out.
My box is very plain, I actually got this from the Vancouver Microsoft folks, they dropped
it off today.
The timing is terrible because I ordered one last night, thinking that I was just gonna
have to buy one in order to get one.
Can't you just cancel it?
Yeah, yeah, no I still can, because it's just a pre-order.
So I will cancel my order, but there you go, it's the Surface Pro 3.
The pen is sort of magnetically stuck to it right now, I'm actually legitimately not sure
if that's supposed to go there.
No, that's for the Type Cover, so we'll go ahead and...
You have a Type Cover?
Is that for the Type Cover?
I do have a Type Cover, yes.
I asked them that too, because I was legitimately not even gonna bother taking the device from
them if they didn't have a Type Cover for it, because I was just like, yeah, realistically
I can't review a Surface device without the Type Cover anyway, so I might as well just
wait.
People are saying 3 or 4?
Did you say 3?
Did I say 3?
Sorry, no, this is the Surface Pro 4.
Yeah, okay.
So, there we go, that snaps on a little something like that, it's got a kickstand a little something
like that, it still closes, something like that, it's got a couple of different like
angles and junk, so you can do things with it.
I sort of think I agree so far with Ars Technica's evaluation.
Not having a Surface Pro 3 in front of me, you could just tell me this is a Surface Pro
3 and I would literally never know the difference at all.
So you've got your mini display port here, you've got a regular USB connector, over on
the other side you've got your headphone jack, you've got your webcam, you've got your micro
SD slot, yeah, pretty much looks like the same damn thing.
I've got the 128 gig model.
So what's it saying to show the screen disconnect joint?
The screen disconnect joint?
Is it not the same as the old one?
This isn't the Surface Book.
Yeah, this is not the Surface Book.
This is the Surface Pro 4, so this is still just the tablet that I turned off when I went
to turn it around and show you guys the screen, which, whoa, whatever, let's just get through
the specs, there will be a review coming, I do also have an order in for the top tier
Surface Book and I will be reviewing that as well.
So the Surface Pro 4, 12.3 inch display with reduced bezels, so a bigger screen without
actually increasing the device size, up to a terabyte of SSD storage, up to 16 gigs of
RAM, thank you!
Both the Surface Book and the Surface Pro 4 are available with up to 16 gigs of RAM,
thank you, given how much memory a frickin' web browser can use these days, and don't
tell me it's Chrome's all Chrome problem, alright, they're all guilty of it, 16 gigs
of RAM is a must if you are multitasking.
It features a 6th gen Intel Core i5 or i7, I think there's an i3 model actually, Skylake
processor, and they're claiming it is 50% faster than a MacBook Air and 30% faster than
a Surface Pro 3.
Is its battery life as good as a MacBook Air?
Yeah, that is a serious thing to overcome about the MacBook Air if you're gonna try
and compete with that puppy.
It's got a fingerprint scanner, a hybrid cooling system, Gorilla Glass 4 and you can call Cortana
by holding down the button on the Surface Pen.
The type cover is also the thinnest ever, actually that may be noticeable, it's been
a while since I've played with one though, and has a 40% larger trackpad, that is a noticeable
improvement with 5-point multi-touch support.
And the Surface Book is the first ever 2-in-1 laptop built by Microsoft, this really looks
like a game changer, like I'm somewhat interested in the Surface Pro 4, as you guys know I wasn't
a huge fan of the Surface Pro 3 and this looks like very much an iterative improvement.
Surface Book on the other hand though, that could be a game changer.
I think that's what people in chat were kind of looking for and I understand that too.
Yeah, 13.5-inch display, 267 pixels per inch, that is one high resolution screen, Pixel
Sense for touch, 6th generation Skylake processor, latest generation Nvidia GeForce GPU, they're
being very coy about the graphics processor in it, apparently Microsoft worked with its
Xbox team to tune in graphics performance, it's advertised at 12 hours of battery life
per charge and has a dynamic fulcrum hinge that can accept the screen in either direction,
so you can have it turned this way for like a laptop or you can turn it around and use
it as a tablet and it starts at $1500 with the highest end model at $2699 with the unnamed
Nvidia GPU.
I am super stoked on this one, really excited to see if it throttles because it looks like
a really slim, like very beautiful device but maybe thick enough that they actually
managed to cool the bloody thing unlike the 2015 Retina MacBook, which we got literally
double the performance out of when we water cooled it, so yeah I don't know, I don't really
know what else to say about that other than that I'm stoked, yeah I'm like super stoked,
I've preordered the Core i7 model, so yeah!
Facebook has a new universal Windows 10 app, that's honestly basically all I have to really
say there, yeah, it'll work on all your Windows 10 platforms and everyone just uses Windows
10 computers, so yeah, but if you get like a tablet or a phone it'll work on there too,
it's just so boring, yeah, the Microsoft band is being positioned as the ultimate fitness
device, everyone wants to sell you a freaking wearable based on fitness, how many people
actually work out?
Think about how much money you make out of that, and honestly so many of them are useless,
I know, if they don't have a heart rate monitor then don't buy it as a fitness device, because
there's a huge amount of stuff that can count your steps, like you can get like a couple
dollar things that you just reset every day that can count your steps and you don't have
to spend like hundreds of dollars on this crap, I don't know, you know what, Austin
was saying this and I think it's pure bullshit, I mean I think he believes it but like for
me it doesn't work at all, but he was saying one of the things he loves about the Apple
Watch is the little fitness tracking bars, like the step tracking and standing bars that
are like hey you've only done like 40% of enough for today and every time he looks at
it it's a reminder, you can get free apps on your phone, but you don't stare at your
phone every time you want to know the time, well okay you do, but okay just calm down
for a second okay, you're less likely to see something else, because like I don't know
about you but Droid Turbo, I straight up do not even have to unlock it to see the time,
I will legitimately not see anything, I really like that about Motorola stuff, yeah, if the
Droid Turbo 2 doesn't have the proximity sensor and like wave to preview my notifications
crap I'd straight up not interested in it, that was my favourite thing about it, that
is a killer, also why isn't everyone doing this, Jester for Flashlight, I don't even
have to think, why isn't everybody doing this, that's really cool, there's a few little things
about that phone that I love, so anyway here let's do my straw poll results here, Linus
is saying, do you even work out bro, we've got 32% of you saying yes, with 42% of you
saying no, and 27% of you weighing in with turnip throw away your votes, I mean this
is one of those things, it's like you're trying to sell wearables to like, I mean I guess
maybe that's it, they're not trying to sell them to geeks, no, not specifically, yeah,
because there's a lot of people that buy wearables that aren't geeks, yeah, like I have friends
of mine that aren't geeks that want to get a fitness wearable, would they buy a Microsoft
band, it's Microsoft, probably not, but Microsoft is probably trying to get there, so it's got
an OLED screen, a curved Gorilla Glass display, apparently there are lots of third party partners
like subway, Starbucks, Twitter, and Uber, good luck with that, it can track elevation
with the built-in barometer and is coming for $249 on October 30th, and Uber, I understand
it's like so you can call a cab, but like Uber, run for a little bit and then Uber for
the rest of your run and then run back home, for Halloween I'm gonna go as a Microsoft
fanboy with my Microsoft band, oh my god we have to do something for what, when does Halloween
happen?
On the 31st?
Oh my goodness, no on Saturday, I was wondering what day, oh, so we have to do, the 30th,
the day before, yeah, is WAN Show, oh, we have to do something, oh I don't know what
to do, I'm just so tired lately, just tell someone else to figure it out, yeah, I guess
that is the point of hiring people, Colton, Colton, so this is kinda huge, huge price
tag that is, oh I'm so sad, I wanted one so bad, and now there's no way I'm gonna get
one, hololens, dev kits, $3000, I don't even have to look at the doc to know that, it's
just, oh, so expensive, the kits will apparently be fully untethered, so no cables or connection
to a PC is required, so you could trade in your PC, no, towards buying that hololens
dev kit, I wouldn't even, I don't even think it would cover it, no it wouldn't, and perspective
augmented reality devs can put in an application now, so the dev kit is coming Q1 of 2016,
we were actually just commenting the other day that the whole hololens thing has been
extremely quiet lately, they just completely shut up about it, and then now they're talking
about it, and I want them to shut up again, yeah, go away, figure out a way to make it
cheaper, go away, find some way to make it cheaper, apparently Colton's gonna figure
out Halloween stuff for us, okay, good, alright, so that's pretty much it for the Microsoft
event, I wish we had more to say about hololens, so this article is from gatek.edu, edu, oh,
like edu, yeah this is the Georgia Tech site, yeah, okay, so liquid cooling moves onto the
chip for denser electronics, this is looking like some pretty freaking cool stuff, so microfluidic
passages cut directly into the backsides of production field programmable gate array devices,
so FPGA devices could allow better density of transistors and therefore better device
trends, excuse me, better device performance per size, which could lower costs, although
we would need to know how much this costs to implement, and could improve performance
as well, so if we're not looking at low cost devices, then just packing everything in denser
could improve performance as well, to make this they etched cooling passages into the
silicon, incorporating silicon cylinders, approximately 100 microns in diameter to improve
heat transmission, geez, so the information presented on September 28th at the IEEE conference
in San Jose, California, and like all the like, wow, that's crazy bananas technology,
stuff that we talk about, we could be looking at years before any of this ever gets implemented,
if any of it ever gets implemented, when things are presented at IEEE, you see them in a while,
yeah, apparently with water inlet temperature at approximately 20 degrees Celsius, and an
inlet flow rate of 147, you gotta stop putting the thing over what I'm reading, sorry, sorry,
sorry, I'm trying to, I'm reading along, and I'm trying to be an active listener, 147 millimeters
per minute, the liquid cooled FPGA operated at less than 24 degrees Celsius, which is
pretty crazy, that is so cool, they don't talk about what that FPGA was doing, or what
is actually dissipating the heat, yeah, so like, I don't know, would your motherboard
have the liquid cooling radiator for the CPU, like at the back, and then like, so, yeah,
cross that bridge when we get to it, I mean, and then like, to be clear, FPGA is not like
an Intel CPU, that would, totally different class of device, that's why I took back my
soldered in comment, yeah, alright, smartphones can be hacked into with just one text message,
and then used to spy on the owners, this is according to Edward Snowden, the famous whistle
blower for the whole NSA shenanigans thing that's been going on for, god, it's been over
a year now, hasn't it, jeez, alright, did you hear about his Twitter account, sorry,
he made a Twitter account, which was immediately official, so this was obviously planned, which
was probably smart, one thing I was wondering about is, does he have a login method just
for him, does he have a special way to log into Twitter, I kind of bet you he does, and
I bet you his login is monitored, like all the time, anyways, he had like a huge amount
of followers already, he's following one thing, and it's the NSA, hilarious, anyways, so yeah,
apparently they can be hacked into with just one text message, and then used to spy on
their owners, as he said, the government communications headquarters, GCHQ, has a set of tools called
the Smurf Suite, there's, kind of hilarious, there's three of them, first one is Dreamy
Smurf, lets the phone be powered on and off, Nosey Smurf, which lets spies turn the microphone
on and listen in, even if the phone is off, and Paranoid Smurf, which hides the fact that
the phone has been taken over, apparently Snowden says that the NSA has spent one billion
dollars on similar tools, that's where your tax payer money is going, if you're American,
or UK, whooo, let's have a tax party, I think that's what it's called, we're in the whatever
eyes thing, probably our tax money too, oh I know, I was just being, I was just being
smug about being Canadian, there's nothing to really be smug about it, our tax sellers
probably look towards that as well, with respect to this, anyway, Australian researchers make
a quantum computing breakthrough, this is from smh.com.au, are you posting the link?
Yeah I got it, okay, paving the way for world first chip, ooh quantum, it could be a real
thing now, okay again, to be clear, even if a quantum chip existed, you wouldn't be installing
it in your home computer for a very, very, very long time, though it might be super good
once we're able to do that, due to like encryption and all this other kind of stuff, but, so
basically until now, this technology has relied on exotic materials to construct quantum computers,
making them completely unsuitable for commercial production, like we're talking, like we have
to have it at this hugely sub-zero temperature and maintain it exactly there and then it'll
do something for a bit and yeah, proof of concept, but they have apparently patented
a way to scale their technology to millions of qubits, so that's like quantum bits, using
standard industrial manufacturing techniques to build the world's first quantum processor
chip, so basically their patented design modifies the transistors found in regular computer
chips to store zero or one on the spin of a single electron, which works like a tiny
compass needle, so it builds on previous research that produced the first quantum computing
transistor of this type, so they've demonstrated the first time that we can do the first quantum
calculation on a silicon chip, working with two of these quantum bits, so stay tuned I
guess, and to be clear, quantum computing is not going to be like the be-all and end-all
of oh, now we can do like way better 3D graphics for gaming, but it's great for things like
Luke was saying, like encryption for example, way faster for that, this is kind of, and
like the idea is, if you mess with the data, it will change the data, so if you try to
read it and you're the wrong person, I believe, it will actually change what the data is,
so if someone tries to break into your encrypted whatever, it won't matter, it will suck, because
if you try to read it later on, it'll be changed, but it's kind of like the idea of having your
phone wipe itself if it gets read too many times, that's actually a good thing.
I had to turn that feature off because I have children.
I've had someone like grab my phone and just be like doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, and fail
a whole bunch of logins, I'm like no, stop, please, what are you doing?
So to get some idea of why that is, I mean look at CPUs and GPUs, how they are much better
for, hold on a second, how they're much better for specific workloads than each other, not
because like one is better and the other is worse, but because they're optimized for different
workloads.
So I'm going to go ahead and fire up this article from BBC and Luke is going to handle
this people topic.
Okay, didn't see that coming, and yes, I know that's not exactly how quantum encryption
works, give me a break, it's actually not a bad representation, you can go look it up.
If you want to know more about quantum anything, you should probably look more deeply into
it than like a couple second description on a land show.
People sites disappear, creator is still moving ahead with release, that is what he opened,
right?
Social website is inaccessible for many, so I'm just getting a landing page, social outlets
such as people's Twitter and people's Facebook pages have been taken down, but co-creator
Julia Cordray is still planning to release the app, pushing its release date from November
to next week, probably just because how much people have been talking about it, you got
to jump on that hype train as much as you can.
Adjustments to the app include individuals cannot be reviewed without their permission,
which is probably a good idea.
No way to make a negative review at all, apparently, and review must be approved before it is posted.
So basically, it's just going to be a circle jerk of everyone telling each other that they're
great because nothing else is going to get approved, unless people want to be self-deprecating
about it.
Emily Laidlaw, a University of Calgary assistant law professor, says the app could potentially
have huge legal ramifications for its creators, which is super not surprising.
She also states that in Canada, if you run an app or you're hosting a website and you
are informed that you're carrying content that is defamatory, you now have knowledge
and you have control, so you risk liability if you don't take the content down.
That being said, they probably won't run or host it in Canada.
So that probably doesn't matter, but they could.
There is actually one good hosting company in Canada that I know of, maybe a few more
than that.
So who knows?
I don't know.
I can't really open another topic.
So let me try.
Give me one second.
What we're going to talk about as Linus comes back, can you open that topic?
It's hard like around the mic.
Which one?
Japan?
Oh, that is so cool.
Yeah, I'm like super stoked on this.
So Japan Display, 8K, 17-inch LCD, bam.
I don't know, that's cool.
Can you tell the difference between a 4K screen at that size?
Maybe.
Yeah, probably.
4K and 8K?
Yeah, well, okay.
To be fair, I heard you talking and didn't read it and heard 7-inch, and was like, why
does he care?
17-inch makes a little bit more sense.
Oh, yes.
Yeah, 17-inch.
I mean, to be clear, okay, okay, it's just cool because it's like nerdy cool.
Yeah, it's cool because it's 510 PPI on a 17-inch screen.
Yeah.
That's pretty bad.
It's like groundbreaking pixels per inch, even like Sony's upcoming Xperia Z5 is going
to be like 700.
But that's not 17 inches.
But it's not 17 inches, and it's a mere 4K display, so it's actually one-quarter as many
pixels as they've managed to build here.
I gotta wonder, how much does it cost them to build this thing?
This is cool, though.
So the module can actually run at a refresh rate of 120 hertz.
I don't know what they're using to drive this thing because there's no display, there's
no off-the-shelf display interface in existence that can drive 8K at 60 hertz, let alone 120
hertz.
And I'm talking, obviously there's other stuff that exists, but I'm talking like your HDMI
or your display port or heaven forbid DVI or whatever else the case may be.
So I have no idea what they're using to drive this thing.
In fact, I've been tempted at CES sometimes to be like, okay, so that's an 8K TV.
You're playing back some 8K content.
Can I see what's behind here?
What is plugged into this?
How are you running this?
It must just be a proprietary flash-based direct-to-the-display interface or something.
Could you build it as memory into the display?
Maybe.
Maybe.
I don't know.
Like if you actually used RAM, like if you just had like flash-based storage that loaded
it into RAM that interface directly with the display.
I have no idea how they're driving, like 8K, okay, so hold on, 8K resolution.
Let's find out what that is.
So that's 7680 by 4320, okay?
So calculator.
Why are these things happening to me?
Calculator.
Okay.
So that's a 7680 RCA time, no.
I know a bunch of people are saying that too.
No.
I can't do it.
No.
Many people are saying that.
Why would that work?
So this is 33 megapixels.
Like think about it.
If you're like a DSLR photographer, so you take high resolution photos, even then you're
not taking 33 megapixel photos, how long it takes just to like open one of them on your
computer.
So we're talking 120 of those per second, freaking bananas.
Sometimes I don't really understand, is this a Colton thing?
Like how that gets classified as a main topic and like other stuff gets classified as like
a rapid fire topic.
I don't know.
I often do not really understand the logic because there's nothing to really say other
than like, that looks bananas, I guess I'll enjoy it in about four or five years.
People are still saying RCA, the Twitch chat is great.
Also, I can't believe that you didn't think of having 60 different VGA connections together.
What?
Why not?
Yeah, that's probably it.
Why not?
All right, so the Dell XPS lineup has been refreshed.
Oh, we haven't been saying who's been posting stuff on the forum.
Wow.
So this is from SirSquid, the Japan display one is from Good Bytes, the people site disappearing
is from Stuarty211, the Australian researchers with the quantum computer thing is Kill Comic,
smartphones being hacked into with just one text message comes from Cyborg Warrior.
And liquid cooling moving on to the chip is from Numpad.
All right, so I am sort of stoked on certain things and super stoked on others.
So the things I mostly don't give a crap about are the XPS 13 refresh and XPS 15.
So I guess they have slim bezels, which is cool.
That is cool.
It's cool, but the old XPS 13 that they announced at CES this year had really slim bezels, I
reviewed it, it was nice.
The old one that they announced at CES this year.
Well, whatever, I mean, the slightly less new one, whatever you want to call it.
So the 13 and 15 are getting updated processors and packing more storage into their thin frames.
Finally, they're available with 16 gigs of RAM.
I definitely care about that.
I ripped on the XPS 13 so hard for only going up to 8 gigs of RAM considering how much money
was getting spent on that computer.
There's an optional Nvidia GDDR5 GPU that can be added to the notebook.
So they're being coy again.
So Nvidia basically is like, yeah, you can announce it, but don't tell people what it
is or whatever.
I'm trying to do like a, it was supposed to be a cigar.
I think that came off as weed.
Yeah, whatever.
I screwed up the hand thing.
Yeah, I made an effort.
I think it's a cigar like, maybe, or what did you, no, but that's both.
Yeah.
It's kind of, yeah.
I don't know.
You got to like make sure it's big.
Yeah.
I didn't make sure it was big enough.
I mean, that could just be like a really big, that's true.
I mean that would, when the blunt's too strong.
Yeah.
That would be totally, totally, totally big.
But then like you were saying earlier in the show, it can never be too big around.
Circumference, diameter, these are good things.
So it can have up to one terabyte of PCI express based storage and I don't know, they still
have webcams on the bottom of the screen, which is kind of a bummer if you have like
kind of an upturned nose and you don't want people looking at your brain while they talk
to you.
Yeah.
Okay.
But the XPS 12, this is the one I care about because I used an XPS 12 for, man, it must
have been like over a year I was using that as my daily driver.
In fact, Luke's inherited it now.
Great little device.
It's been durable.
It's been rained on.
It's survived.
It's got a great keyboard.
Love that device.
So it is finally getting an upgrade, 12 and a half inch full HD display with an upgrade
to a 4K touchscreen, two Thunderbolt 3 ports using USB type C connectors, has support for
the Dell pen if you care.
And Dell is positioning it as a competitor to the Surface Pro 4.
I am super excited because I like the concept of a convertible that doesn't have a kickstand
versus a convertible that does have a kickstand quite a bit more.
Let's see if I can pull up some pictures here.
New XPS 12.
Here we go.
So it remains to be seen for me if this hinge design is going to light as many fires for
me as the old pinwheel design did, we can actually, we can show that here.
So check it out.
So this is the way the old XPS, well, we broke it a bit when we dropped it.
We broke it a little bit, but it usually, like that was a pretty good, just it popping
out doesn't work as well as it used to.
Yeah.
It going back in is.
So you turn it around, flip it into a tablet.
This one is using a bit of a different approach here, but yeah, so it's like actually disconnecting
and reconnecting.
But I still like that better than I like the whole kickstand thing because the kickstand
is so inflexible.
Like if you're not sitting on a table, it's kind of inconvenient, like even sitting on
an airplane.
Very inconvenient.
I hate kickstands.
Which is like, if I was going to pitch, you know, who is the Surface Pro designed for?
I would go, okay, you know, maybe the Traveler, but the airline trays are so slim that you
can't actually put your keyboard in the kickstand on the back of it.
The good news is that I did discover that you can kind of lean it against the seat in
front of you, but it's definitely not as secure.
I wouldn't trust it as much.
This is huge.
Original article here from the Verge posted by Rune on the forum, Volvo says it will take
the blame if one of its self-driving cars crashes.
So does this mean you wouldn't have to have insurance?
No.
I think you would still need insurance, but I think your insurance company would go to
Volvo for the claim.
So it'll likely be like a convoluted process, I'd imagine there's all kinds of legal ramifications
here, like from one country to another, this might be implemented somewhat differently.
But basically, up until now, no one's been willing to step up and say, okay, if an automated
car running in autonomous mode, by the way, you crash it, they're not taking responsibility
for it.
Right, so you'd have to have insurance because there's manual mode.
Yes.
So running in autonomous mode, no one has really stepped up and said, okay, yes, we
will take responsibility for this, whether it's your Google or your car manufacturer,
your insurance company.
Or I mean, the owner, as sort of a driver, I would kind of go, oh, shoot, you know, if
I make a mistake.
Even though I'm probably not as good as a self-driving car, I would rather take responsibility
for my own actions instead of the possibility of taking responsibility for one another's.
Yes.
Thank you.
That was very succinct.
Yeah.
And it's frustrating.
And that's a huge problem with self-driving cars in general.
So it's cool that these guys are actually standing up.
I would like to see everyone else that's making self-driving cars do the same thing, although
proving that it was properly in self-driving mode could prove to be difficult.
They also said they want hacking a car turned into a criminal offense.
I don't think they'll have a problem doing that, but they also need to properly defend
their own cars.
Yes.
We saw this problem with Jeep and all that kind of stuff.
The only ones doing it properly right now are Tesla.
If everyone takes the same stance as Tesla, I'd be okay with that.
But if people just leave giant holes in the security of their vehicles and they go like,
well, it's illegal.
It's illegal.
You probably shouldn't do it.
Then that's still not okay.
Yeah.
I think that's about it.
Yeah.
I think that's about it for that.
Why don't we do sponsors?
Yes.
So we've actually got a couple of sponsors today.
One is squarespace.com, the place to go to build it beautiful.
Thank you, Luke.
So basically, Squarespace allows you to use one of their many very flexible templates
and thank you and beautiful templates to create your blog or your store or your portfolio
or whatever the case may be and then show off your beauty.
Thank you.
They handle the, that could be a blog or a portfolio, both my portfolio would show off
my beauty.
It would.
Yes, it would.
It probably does.
It probably does.
So basically they handle the hosting.
If you sign up for a year, they include a domain and they've got 24 seven tech support
via live chat and email.
You unfortunately probably can't get beautiful.com.
That domain is probably taken.
Yeah.
Why are you even here?
Why are you even here?
Why are you even here?
That's the beauty of the whole question.
All right.
So visit squarespace.com and use offer code Linus to save 10% today and start creating
your beautiful website.
Thank you.
Our next sponsor, FreshBooks.
You know what?
I don't remember if it was you I was talking to about this, but I finally clued in to why
FreshBooks sponsors us because I was like, who in our audience is like, wow, I need accounting
software because I run a small business.
Was it you?
No.
Okay.
I would counter argue potentially a lot of them.
Well, yeah.
Cause maybe it was Nick.
Cause he was like, how many people in your audience do you think are running a small
time computer repair business?
Yeah.
And I was like, Oh yeah.
I feel like we've talked about this on the land show.
Oh, maybe we have.
Well, whatever.
The last time there was a sponsor, I was like, tons of you would be interested in this because
small time and computer repair or computer building or it work or, or, or, or, so the
point is FreshBooks is a cloud-based accounting software that allows you to track your jobs,
track your hours, uh, submit bills to your customers and have them pay you a via credit
card.
You can actually even see once they've opened the bill, which is great to know.
So it is actually really cool.
It really is.
It takes away excuses and lets you focus on actually doing the repair work or, or plumbing
or whatever industry you happen to be in that you want to be doing.
So you are earning money.
You can access it from anywhere and you can try it out for free today at freshbooks.com
slash when, and we have a new sponsor today.
Logitech has us showing off.
I actually haven't done my review yet.
So you're the only one sitting here who has actually used it, but they've got us showing
off the G6 33 Artemis spectrum headset.
It features 7.1 Dolby surround sound with Logitech gaming software, 40 millimeter pro
G audio drivers.
It's compatible with the PC as well as the PlayStation four and Xbox one.
And it has adjustable RGB lighting with custom tags.
One thing that I have to say is the, with Logitech gaming software with the Dolby surround
sound thing.
And what I do actually like about that is that it has Dolby surround sound and DTS,
and you can have either one of them on or you can have them off because I do know that
there's some people that wouldn't want that touching their sound.
So you can just turn it off.
So that's a good thing, but if you think it's a bad thing, you can just turn it off, which
makes it a good thing.
I just wanted to clarify that.
Good job.
Yay.
There's a couple other things that I've already observed about it.
I did get hands-on with it, although I didn't get to listen to it, unfortunately at PAX.
And it's that they actually just, they took a common sense approach, which seems like
the kind of thing that I shouldn't really have to say is amazing.
It's not super common with gaming headsets though.
I know it's a point that is good to me, but the ear cups are actually designed in like
the shape of a human ear, as opposed to whatever types of ears are around like perfect circles.
And he doesn't mean like they exactly follow the shape of a human ear, but like they're
more vertical.
Yeah.
They're, they're shaped in somewhat the shape of a human ear.
So yeah, I actually, I think this is not our, when show like showcase sample, this is supposed
to be my review sample.
So I'm supposed to be working on a review, so stay tuned for that.
But in the meantime, if you guys want to check it out, there's a link that I posted in the
chat.
I'm going to go ahead and post it one more time.
And if you guys are watching the archive, then the link is in the video description
to where you can check it out on Amazon.
There's also like a how they made it video where I have a very, very short comment on
the end about how I thought they were.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, that's right.
I didn't want to comment on it in depth and I'll say basically the same thing here, which
was I didn't have direct comparative data to things that I use all the time and I didn't
have the music that I use all the time.
So I can't like very accurately say exactly how they sound, but I was pleasantly surprised
for a gaming headset and they didn't, if you put it on and didn't tell me it was a gaming
headset, which you can hide the mic very well, so you might've been able to convince me,
I wouldn't have immediately thought it was a gaming headset, which is like pretty good
praise.
Well, I will be, I will be pulling out all the headphones.
Yes.
So that's the proper audio review you should take that for.
So this is interesting.
This is actually, it's funny, this isn't a rapid fire, but this is the first thing we've
really talked about today that actually has some discussion that we can do about it.
The video game voice actors give the national board the green light to vote to strike if
needed.
So there you go.
The original article here is from GameSpot and this was an overwhelmingly positive response
to the vote here with 96.52% of members voting in favor of the interactive media agreement
strike authorization referendum.
They only needed 75% in order for this to get authorized or in order to give the national
board that authority.
And so basically what they're coming to the negotiating table with is, let's see, so the
original agreement was signed in the mid 1990s and it's still in effect today despite very
significant industry changes.
Like we're talking in the days when a game studio like, oh, I don't know, Blizzard would
have been a small company to now blockbuster games getting as much or more, if you look
at stuff like Grand Theft Auto 5 spent on them compared to a blockbuster movie, the
industry is very, very different today and the board is basically asking for a couple
of things.
So better transparency in the addition process for games and they're asking for, I think
they're asking for some, when the parts that they're doing are particularly strenuous,
they're asking for limits to how long they can work for at a time and they're asking
for better compensation, including a performance bonus for every 2 million copies slash subscribers
sold of a game.
So that's the part that I want to talk about because who gets the performance bonus when
something does really well?
I know that there have been cases where actors have negotiated such a thing, but it usually
comes along with negotiating for a low salary to participate in the project.
That's usually a per case thing, usually only the really big actors get it and it's like,
I think probably I'd say that it's probably less common now due to people seeing how ridiculously
epic it was.
I'm going to forget his name, which is going to make me a terrible person, but the actor
that played Han Solo, Harrison Ford, didn't Harrison Ford get a copy sold agreement on
Star Wars?
Wasn't that just insane?
Hold on, I'm not sure, I'm not sure.
I feel like someone did in that cast.
I feel like someone did and I don't remember who it was.
Someone in Twitch chat is probably already telling us.
Well, in between slaying me for forgetting his name.
People are like, oh wow, wow, wow, Luke is dead to me.
He forgot Ford, oh wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
How does he not know, Luke just lost all nerd cred.
You are stupid.
I remember the guy's name on the show, I remember Han Solo, but I remember Harrison Ford.
Alec Guinness, Alec Guinness, it was Obi-Wan Kenobi, there we go.
He did that, okay.
Yeah, there we go.
And then he made like huge amounts of money off of it.
Yeah, I'm not convinced he ever worked again and apparently Spielberg also got a royalty
cut from Lucas.
So anyway, the point is, if the movie does really well, that can be very disastrous for
the folks that are investing the actual money into the project.
I mean, with that said, it's not like an investment of time isn't also an investment, but it gets
looked at a little bit differently when we're talking about the actual money that gets paid
out when the project gets super successful.
So companies tend to shy away from agreements like that because it means that they can't
really control their costs after the fact.
So I don't know, do you think it is fair for voice actors to ask for royalties based on
how many copies are sold?
I don't necessarily think that it's fair that that is a guarantee in every single contract.
I think that it is fair for them to ask, I think it is fair for them to negotiate for.
I don't know if as a company, I would hire as many voice actors, and this is something
I think they need to realize, if I know that every single voice actor that I hire is going
to get a performance bonus for every 2 million copies of the game that I sell.
And for games that try to strive for having every single one of their characters having
an individual voice actor, which is awesome, that is super cool when you're playing a game
that everyone you talk to sounds different, I wouldn't want to pay them each individual
one of them out, unless it's like 50 cents per, which they probably have some extra lines
saying that it has to be a certain percentage or whatever.
So I don't know, that makes me a little bit uneasy, but I do think the ability to request
it should be there.
And I mean quite frankly that probably already exists, I mean if you're freaking Samuel L.
Jackson or something and you're like, yup I'm going to want a performance bonus based
on-
What was it in Fallout 3, Liam Neeson I think?
Like there's pretty big names that do these voice acting things, and I'm sure they could
pull for leverage on that if they really wanted to, I don't know if I agree with it being
in every single contract.
Having more transparency, super cool, possibly getting compensated better, you know what,
I want really good voice actors, if that helps really good voice actors be a thing, cool.
I actually, speaking of really good voice actors, it's funny, I saw some comments on
the, this was posted by Boozoo on the forum by the way, and in the original thread, I
saw some comments from people saying like, ugh why are they being such bitches, all they
do is like sit in front of their microphone and like voice act, it's easy.
It's not as easy as you think.
Yeah, you just, really, you do it.
There was Skywind, Skywind is like a whole bunch of people trying to develop for Skywind,
and I decided that I would try to do voice acting, because they were looking for voice
actors to do a whole bunch of different parts, and I knew I had like an okay mic, it was
the snowball, it wasn't great, but like they said on the thing that it was one of the approved
mics, and I was gonna try to get like a ghetto pop filter for it and stuff, and I went through
the list trying to pick like what could my voice work for in here, and I'm like wow,
nothing, oh wow, and then like found something that would work for, did like 80 takes of
the one line that I had to do, remembering and listening to that line being delivered
from the original Morrowind, and then eventually being like nope, there's better people, they'll
do it, I suck, and moving on.
Yeah, I mean especially when you don't even have any actions to go along with it, and
you can't even necessarily look at the character doing what they're supposed to be doing, like
trying to emote in a way that is gonna not look and sound completely weird and unnatural
when the player is experiencing it, it's not an easy task, and you could kinda go, oh well
you know, once they practice it up and get good at it, then it's easy for them, well
you know what, that's the investment they made into developing a skill, I mean quite
frankly, here, here I'm gonna blow your mind, pretty much everything is easy if you break
it down enough, is plumbing rocket science, no, so why is it that I have to pay someone
75 dollars an hour to come to my house and do it?
Because I don't know how, and because that person invested that time into learning how,
and if I were to go and educate myself on how to do it for the four times in my entire
life that it'll ever come up, and go acquire all the tools, another investment, that I
would need in order to do it with any standard of quality, I would spend more than it costs
to just pay someone to do it, that is how these things work.
Some people think math is very easy, and they're probably justified to a certain degree, and
some people think art is very easy, and they're probably justified to a certain degree, and
some, but not all, of those people don't cross over.
Some things are easy for some people and they're hard for others.
Oh okay, well I was talking more in terms of like practical things, I wasn't necessarily
talking about, I wasn't, okay by practical I mean things that you like do.
You don't do math?
You don't do art?
You're not being very helpful.
I wasn't talking about, I wasn't talking about like high level thinking conceptual stuff
or subjective art, I was talking about things like plumbing, or things like dry walling.
Is dry walling hard?
Not if you know how to do it, but you have to actually learn how to, oh shut up, shut
up with your math, he just, he likes ragging on me because I can't do math.
Both of the things you said both have math involved, plumbing and dry walling both have
math involved.
Alright so Ars Technica has their, you can do without math, Ars Technica has their Android
Marshmallow review, this was posted by Zmule on the forum, basically brings in a lot of
user requested features, but still has no update solution, I'm glad that Ars brought
this up because it really is the Achilles heel of Android right now, the fact that there
is just no strategy in place to address the way that Apple updates their older devices
and that Microsoft is coming out saying yep, Windows 10 is like the last Windows, and I'm
sure there's an asterisk in there somewhere, but the last Windows, but basically it's a
statement about support as well, where they're saying on notebooks, on desktops, on phones,
we want this to be the Windows that just kind of, you do rolling updates to the way that
you would with a mobile OS.
So there's some good stuff, there's a new home screen with some genuinely useful features
like app search, predictive apps and vertical scrolling, I feel like we talked about this
last week.
We did, yes.
Yeah we covered this last week, why the hell is this in the WAN Show doc?
I don't know.
I think it's not the first time this has happened, but it hasn't happened in a while.
It's been a bit.
There are some more companies added to the diesel emissions scandal.
Quite a few, Mercedes Benz, Honda, Mazda and Mitsubishi, that's not a small amount at all.
Yep, so things are getting real here kids.
So in some realistic on-road tests, some Honda models emitted 6 times the regulatory limit,
while some unnamed 4x4 models had 20 times the limit coming out of their exhaust pipes.
Last week, whoa, I'm going to fail at saying a bunch of these.
Is it Renault?
Renault, Nissan, Hyundai, Citroen, Fiat, Volvo and Jeep are all added to the list last week.
I think it's Renault?
Renault?
Renault?
Renault?
Renault?
It's French, so Renault.
It's French.
Whatever, someone's going to correct us.
Oh, we're going to get slammed.
I haven't watched enough Top Gear.
Yeah.
Oh, we're getting slammed.
Yeah, whatever.
I don't care.
Oh, there it goes.
So this is hilarious.
VW's North American, I want to say President or something like, anyway, basically came
out and said, it was a couple of rogue engineers who did this behind everyone's back.
I'm paraphrasing.
Bullshit.
And so, yeah, and then basically just pulled the diesel lineup from North America, which
is about one in five of the cars that they're selling across VW and Audi in North America.
So it is going to be dark times for VW over the next little bit here, and this is interesting.
Some consumers are refusing the recall, and in California I believe there's legislation
that can cause them to not be able to re-register their vehicle.
I was going to say, they're illegal to be on the road.
But in some states, there is actually no law in place that would prevent people from continuing
to drive the vehicle even though-
Wouldn't they have to pass environmental standards?
Is that, because we have that up here, do they not have that up here?
Air care's gone.
Oh.
Yes.
Yeah, air care's gone.
It was dissolved, I think, last year.
That doesn't seem like a good idea.
I don't know.
Anyway, the point is, some people citing performance concerns, because it will nerf the car a bit,
are saying they don't want their car recalled.
They don't want it fixed.
I don't want your car dumping crap into the air.
Yeah, I mean, it has been, there's some more numbers out now, I think it's something like
400,000-
California has emission standards, but it depends on the state.
In some states, they just don't care.
I said that.
I'm clarifying.
Oh, okay.
Because you said you think, didn't you?
Oh, maybe.
Okay, so yes, California for sure.
Anyway, so it's something along the lines of 350,000 or 400,000 cars.
This was an article I was just reading earlier today, I don't have notes on it, that are
using a first-gen engine or something like that that requires not just a software update,
but also physical changes.
Hilarious.
And then I think it's only the third-gen and maybe second-gen ones that can maybe be fixed
with a software update.
So this is, I mean, the bottomless pit of how much this is going to cost VW just continues
to gape open.
Yeah, this is looking pretty ugly.
Actually, some of these topics are kind of boring, so I think I'm just going to kind
of skim over a lot of them.
Oh, wow.
What ones are you skimming so I don't know where to show them?
Kind of a lot of them.
Oh, right.
Oh, this is cool.
So an OnTech article here, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, AnonTech showed some preliminary
results that revealed that they are using an NVMe SSD, which is a huge, huge deal.
They also appear to be using a smart SLC, kind of hybrid SLC, TLC, NAND solution that
gives it really fast burst performance with slower sustained performance, something that's
not terribly important because you would almost never be writing huge files continuously that
would exceed what the TLC flash is capable of.
Even recording video continuously is going to be fine.
It's been measured at up to, I think, I've got in my notes, up to sequential read speeds
in the neighborhood of, oh, balls, no, I don't think that number is right, so I'm just going
to ignore it.
Sequential reads of, okay, yeah, 256 kilobytes sequential reads in megabytes per second of
400 megs per second with sequential writes of 160 megabytes per second.
So we're talking getting pretty close to an entry level SSD controller in here, not to
mention that because it's NVMe, random performance is significantly improved.
I had been trying to put my finger on because I have not done any actual objective benchmarks
on the iPhone 6s, but I'd been trying to put my finger on why the crap app launching and
switching was so fast, and features like the 3D touch to preview web pages, why web pages
even seem to load faster, like everything about this phone is just so fast, and I was
like, yeah, the CPU is better, but that really doesn't account for enough of the difference
in performance.
It's because the NAND absolutely blows away anything that we've ever seen before, like
here's the graph on AnandTech comparing this to, so here's the 6s Plus up at the top here.
So the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were already pretty fast, but compared to the Galaxy S6, it's
like almost twice as fast.
That's killer.
So yeah, the iPhone, yes, it's an expensive phone.
Yes, Apple charges a lot for phones, but this is a conversation that I've been meaning to
have on WAN Show for a little bit.
Everyone looks at something expensive and wants to use the word overpriced immediately.
What is overpriced?
Overpriced means you're not getting something for your money compared to what you could
get for that money somewhere else.
If someone's like, no, this costs more, like look at the Razer Blade, you could say the
Razer Blade 14 is overpriced, okay?
Compared to what?
Compare it to something.
If you want something that has all the stuff that it has, slim design, high-powered GPU,
touchscreen...
I don't think that's the only definition of overpriced.
Well what does overpriced mean then?
If you have a chocolate bar, and there's no other chocolate bars that are exactly like
that chocolate bar, and you charge $50 for that chocolate bar, it's probably still overpriced.
Yes, because other similar chocolate bars that could have similar features and similar
performance in your mouth...
So what if they don't?
What if they don't?
What if it actually tastes 50 times better than another chocolate bar?
But it would have to actually taste 50 times better.
Right.
Because if I just put chunks of licorice in my chocolate bar, no other chocolate bar has
that.
That's a unique feature.
You cannot get that anywhere else.
You'd have to tear the chocolate bar apart and put it back together.
That's not the same.
That's not an out-of-package experience.
Therefore, you could price it as whatever you want, but if you price it at $50, it's
obviously overpriced.
Okay, so bringing it back to...
You can't just do comparative data for overpriced.
So bringing it back to your phone...
It has to be value.
Okay, fine, but let's talk value, because that's why I'm saying you have to compare
it to other stuff that's out there.
So if you take the iPhone 6s and you go, yeah, this costs a lot more than a Galaxy S6, but
it has this technology that the other thing completely straight up doesn't have, because
Apple went and invested in building their own NVMe solution.
They built their own storage.
So is it...
It's not off the shelf.
It's kind of like what they did in the iMac 27-inch retina, where they're like, okay,
well nothing can drive 5K, so we're just going to build our own thing.
And that's fine, but if they charged 50 grand for the phone, then it would be overpriced.
Overpriced can be independent.
Value can be seen independently.
Yes, it should cost more.
They have put more research into it.
The thing that is inside is better than the other thing that is inside the other thing.
It should cost more, but it should cost a scalable amount more.
I'm not even saying you're necessarily wrong for just the phone, but saying that overpriced
is based off of comparing it to something else that's similar is not technically right.
Something can be overpriced on its own.
Well, it can be...
You have to compare to something to evaluate price.
What if there isn't something to compare it to?
Because I didn't say it's not worth it or it's worth it.
Overpriced?
Yeah, value is...
No, no, overpriced is...
Okay, so here, let's take another good example would be, okay, like a diamond studded phone.
Okay.
Okay.
Does it cost $50,000?
Yes.
Is it overpriced?
If it has $40,000 or $45,000 worth of diamonds on it, no.
Okay, actually diamonds are a bad example because they are by definition overpriced
because they're actually worthless.
Okay, so let's talk a solid gold phone then.
Okay.
So if this thing...
But then if the value's in the gold and there's a reasonable amount of markup, then it wouldn't
be overpriced.
Right, so it's not overpriced.
That's what I'm saying.
So if the feature...
We're trying to say the same thing.
Not necessarily.
I wasn't saying that the phone you are talking about is even overpriced.
That wasn't my argument.
Okay.
Because it might be worth the value because there's, like I said, technologies that are
in it that are better than the other ones, so it should cost more because they invested
in it and they made it better and then they should charge more for it.
That's how markets work.
But saying that something is overpriced solely because you're comparing it to one other thing,
you can look at it from more angles than that.
You were saying that you determine if something is overpriced by comparing it to something.
You can say something is overpriced if there's nothing to compare it to.
If I offer a stick that happens to have...
You would still compare because you would have to compare.
So let's go back to your chocolate bar.
You would have to compare it to the cost of licorice and chocolate.
That's still a comparison.
You have to compare to something because otherwise there's no point of reference.
How much does Jupiter cost?
HoloLens.
HoloLens.
Okay.
It's $3,000.
It's $3,000.
Yeah.
What if HoloLens was $50,000?
If it was $50,000.
Because $3,000 is like, ugh, but they have a whole bunch of tech in there that might
be interesting.
I don't know how much that costs.
Well then, same thing.
You have to break it back down to the components inside.
But it's not going to cost 50 grand.
That would be overpriced.
It won't.
Yeah.
So you would compare it to-
You can't compare it to the $3,000 version.
That doesn't exist in any of this.
No.
No.
No.
You can't.
You compare it to what's actually in it.
So is it made of unobtainium?
Then, okay, fine.
That's what I'm saying.
$50,000.
So if it has an NVMe device in it, it's not in the other one, it's fine.
But you don't have to compare it to another phone that doesn't have it in it.
You have to compare it to what made up the phone.
Okay.
I see.
Yes, you can do that.
It has to be value.
There's going to be markups.
There's going to be distribution.
But you can individualize the comparison.
The problem is that a lot of people don't consider, because if you look at bomb cost,
when they say, oh, the iPhone is overpriced, they don't consider that there's an enormous
team of people working on it for a year.
That's because they're ignorant.
Oh, okay.
Because there's R&D teams, there's distribution, there's manufacturing, there's resale.
Yeah, I know.
I don't really remember my original point, and I don't know what yours is.
Mine was that you were stating how you were lining up your phrase was not right.
You're saying everyone's wrong because everyone compares overpriced this thing, saying it's
overpriced because of whatever.
I'm going to have to go back and watch the archive and figure out what the crap I said.
Okay, my point is that you can't just say something's overpriced because it's expensive.
Yes.
You cannot say that.
That's stupid.
You can't do it.
Because something could be very expensive, and it could still be a phone, and it could
not be overpriced because whether it's full of gold or whether it is full of a bunch of
technology that was very expensive to develop, you can say that doesn't have a value to me,
and therefore I will not spend my money on it.
But that doesn't mean it's overpriced.
That means you don't want to buy it, or you can't buy it because it costs too much for
you to justify compared to the other things in your life.
For example, let's take the Model S. Great example.
Is it overpriced?
No.
Is it too expensive for me?
Yes.
Yes.
In this context, is it overpriced for me?
Sure.
For my means, it's overpriced.
But that doesn't mean it's overpriced.
It means it's just expensive.
So there.
That's the distinction I'm trying to make.
The difference between overpriced and expensive, deal with it sunglasses, and they're not the
same thing.
Okay.
So anyway, a lot of people say the iPhone is overpriced.
But in this context, or in this case, Apple has delivered something that is truly different
and truly unique in spite of the fact that it looks like exactly the same thing as the
previous damn iPhone.
It looks like they haven't done a bloody thing, but they went, they developed a new processor.
They've developed a new storage solution that flips things on that flips the industry on
its head in a way that hasn't been done before.
Much like Apple went and introduced the retina display, and then all of a sudden, like the
Android handset makers, they never know when it's been enough of a good thing.
And they're like, okay, 1080p, 1440p, 4K.
And then Apple runs and goes, meanwhile, you idiots are all increasing your fricking screen
resolution for no reason.
We're going to go and make the storage faster.
Which totally makes sense because in computers, if you're making a computer for someone who
wants to do a lot of the things that you're going to be doing on a phone, not everything
I know, but a lot of the things you're doing on the phone, a lot of times an SSD is their
biggest upgrade.
Yes.
And as you know, it's really funny because people, everyone loves to get pissed off and
be like, Apple never invented anything.
And you know what, in this case, Apple didn't invent NVMe.
They didn't invent SSDs.
They didn't invent the concept of fast storage being important, but they ran out and they
actually did it.
They put it in a product and no one else had the balls.
One of the chatters saying they didn't do that.
Part of it was Samsung.
It doesn't matter.
It's in that phone.
Who cares?
Who cares?
It's in that phone.
Apple cut the PO.
Yeah.
Apple put their money where their mouth was.
They ordered the NAND chips.
They ordered the controllers.
They invested in the R and D to put it in a phone and they put it in a phone.
No one else had the balls or the resources or some combination of the two to just do
it.
And that's what it sometimes comes down to.
You don't have to invent it.
You just have to do it.
We didn't invent a weekly podcast.
No.
That concept existed since before I like knew how to, I don't know, I'm trying to come up
with something internet related.
Before you were a host of anything, I think.
I've got people saying this topic sucks.
I don't care.
It's my podcast.
So, and his too, actually.
We share it.
Aww.
Aww.
So we didn't invent the concept of a video podcast, but we went and did it.
We didn't invent the concept of YouTube videos.
Yep.
I definitely didn't invent YouTube.
We didn't invent the concept of unboxings.
Nope.
Nope.
In fact, I just did unboxings because I was like, I need to do product overviews and I
need a keyword that's like somewhat useful.
Yeah.
People are like, we hate this topic and other people are like, I love this topic.
I want to talk about something that we used to hate and that is hopefully getting less
worse.
What are we talking about?
Need for Speed from EA.
Oh, yes.
This isn't in the doc, but I'll throw the link in the chat and you should be able to
Google this pretty easily.
The one I'm looking at is on PC Gamer.
Just look at PC Gamer, Need for Speed, you should be able to find it.
Sure.
I'll throw it in the Twitch chat.
This was like, ah, my brain is like not okay with accepting this, but EA looks like they're
doing cool things, which is good.
We have to give them credit for doing cool things.
I just, I have trust issues when it comes to EA.
Are you going to preorder?
No, I will not.
Need for Speed is not going to have any microtransactions in the game.
They're saying that for sure, but they're saying it probably won't have paid DLC.
So I'm going to go with, there's probably going to be paid DLC and car customization
is like huge and expansive and awesome.
And it looks like an old Need for Speed game.
And that makes me really excited.
Right down to the shiny road.
Yeah, that's cool.
I don't care this, this whole time I've just wanted like the old school style Need for
Speed games.
I saw an example of someone driving around and the car physics looked ridiculous and
I was like, yay, thank you.
You know, what's really funny about this is that all EA ever had to do to make Need for
Speed fans happy is apply their NHL NBA formula to Need for Speed.
Here it is the same game, new roster, please.
And they would have, people would have actually just been happy.
Every time I played a Need for Speed game back in the day, I was like, wow, this storyline's
terrible.
And I love it because that's not the point.
And I want to not feel bad for skipping cut scenes ever.
And I just want to go into some crazy race and then have cops chase me for no reason
and then have things blow up.
No reason you're speeding.
Smash into some other car and then be like, lol, just go around the corner and my car
is fine anyways and be going so fast in one of the games that grinding against the wall
to go around the corner was actually more effective than braking.
Need for Speed.
That was awesome.
I'm just trying to picture you getting pulled over by a cop.
Be like, there was no reason.
There was no reason for you to pull me over.
I was only going 200 miles an hour.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I think that pretty much wraps it up for our topics today.
Yeah, I got nothing else.
Thank you guys very much for tuning in.
We will see you again next week.
Same bat time, same bat channel.
Doo doo doo doo.
Vote.
Can't leave the intro.
Yeah, but I have to film three fastest possibles right now, and I also am tired, so we'll just
do it very soon.