Better Offline CES 2025: Day 4 - Pt. 2 - Better Offline

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
As media.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Sponsored by Alaska Airlines. It's not sponsored by that. Betrofline
is not sponsored by Alaska Airlines. You just want to
be abundantly clear. However, my name is ed Zeitron. That
is not made up. It's on my passport and my
birth certificate. Welcome to bet Rofline with Day four and

(00:30):
our part two episode. And we're joined now by Sean
o'cane of tech Crunch, the Transportation Senior Transportation Report, I believe, Yeah,
among other things, wonderful, Curissa Belle of n Gadget. How
are you doing, Carissa, I'm doing great. Hell yeah. And
of course David J. Roth Hi, which is what you
have to type in to find you on Blue Sky.
Can't just type roth.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
No, there's another guy. There's a more famous guy with
my name.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
No, there's just a bunch of other guys with Okay,
you'll roth maybe, No.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
The Van Hilling.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Yeah, he's not on Blue Sky.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
You don't know that.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
He's probably just I've looked he's on an old Yeah,
it's Adrian Ditman.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Oh god, that's like a hours of kind of okay. Anyway,
so Surean, what have you seen that the show that.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Mattss well, it's a weird show for me because on
the transportation side of things, for years, this was like
everybody was, see he as is a car show, See
he has a car show. All the people who ran
Detroit Autric the other American auto shows felt very fearful
that this was what was drawing all the attention right that.
You know, I don't know if it's a commodation of
the pandemic or the US automakers not caring as much

(01:34):
about trying to show off that they're innovative. That's just
not there's nothing here on that side of things, on
the automotive side of things, so it's been a lot
of trying to find anything else within our sort of
scope of that kind of broad transportation stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
So I don't know, it's been weird.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Like the biggest thing that we've had keynote wise, there's
been two. There was BMW, which was just showing off.
It was the most like I always separate them into
sort of like there's just the straightforward press conference keynote thing.
There's the mid tier one, which was BMW was definitely
that it was like Tim Meadows sadly making jokes about

(02:12):
like his dick because the whole Conceit was like we
were being shrunk to fit inside of a BMW be.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Most the woman allowed into that really didn't like it.
Yeah it was yeah, I mean it was.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
It was not explicit, but it was a year is
this well and he was joined by Ken Jong, so
you know at least twenty seventeen. But that was all
just about like, you know, a user interface that's years
away from being here. It wasn't even about like a
new vehicle or anything nice. But then there's like the
top tier like go all out and that this year
that was Delta, which ed Bastian the CEO of that.

(02:45):
They they did it in the sphere. They filled the
room with what seems like many Delta employees. Nice so
people were like going crazy and they brought out the
whole thing started was this with Lenny Kravitz. Yes, it
ended with Ley Lenny Kravitz. It started with Viola David,
who is that uh famous that yeah, what did she?

Speaker 4 (03:03):
I know?

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Lenny Kravitz played a song where her rhymes fly with fly,
what if what if my old Davis dude like just
come out there and have gravitas And yes.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
Absolutely, I mean you could.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
That is that it is probably that is definitely what
they wrote on the invoice.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Yeah, she rocks. I'm sure that nobody does it better.
There's just kind of.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Like somebody in our somebody in our on our team
that's been helping cover this. Made the joke that it
was like the biggest gap between talent and substance as
far as these like celebrity presentations of this week, and
it was definitely true.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
But yeah, it was wors and Wells Paul mess on
wine commercial. Yeah, yeah, and Wilson Wells would really fucking
hate apps anyway.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
He would be here at ce S though, taking a
check Samsung Bali. But it started with her.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
It started with her.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
Had you know it was It was very weird because
Ed Bashion was It felt like he was trying to
like justify being in the sphere and being at CEES
by talking about we're going to talk tonight about the
next one hundred years of aviation And I was like,
that's weird.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
That wasn't in the embargo press materials. But he never did.
That's not what it was.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
It was like them spending They had these like little
vignettes about how generative AI is. Gonna tell you not
to take the car through traffic and instead you'll take
a electric vertical takeoff and the landing thing to the airport.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
It was just it was all you think. It was
the very real vetoles that definitely exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
It was like, here are all the ways we're going
to treat the richest passengers on Delta like babies, because
that's what they want. And uh and then Tom Brady
came out and really, yeah, this is why I'm surprised
you didn't know about. Tom Brady came out and two incredible.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Gifts that he gave the world.

Speaker 3 (04:46):
One, they're launching an exclusive travel show hosted by him
that will only be available on Delta flights. It's incredible
and and we're a threat and in lieu you know.
In addition to that, he wanted to offer the second gift,
which was his top three travel.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Hacks be Richt Yeah and see one and two.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Do you remember what the hacks were going?

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Oh yeah, actually genuinely wondering.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah, I mean you're really you're awfully close, sir. The
first one was drink water.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, the second one don't eat night shades is the
third one some dietary ship. That's even crazier than that.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, I mean you guys, I mean I was imagining
that you would be pretty close to the heart heat
on this one.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
So many ideas other than water, Yeah, that's what he
started with.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Number two was make sure you're healthy, make sure you're
maintaining your health.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Okay uh.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
And then number three so no, uh, number three, get
work done on the airplane. Use that time to be productive.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Thoughts of dog. That's really great.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
So Carissa, how's your show?

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Beam?

Speaker 2 (05:51):
What have you been on? Anything good?

Speaker 5 (05:54):
So I've been on the robot beat.

Speaker 2 (05:56):
Cool. That sounds like a real thing, like, yes, don't
break his heart.

Speaker 5 (06:05):
Mostly the best ones I've seen so far are been
cute robots that don't really do anything but make you
kind of happy.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Uh huh. I saw one that I found heart rending.
We went down Edward hungayso and I went down to
the like the Eureka Room, which is basically like like
Gollum lives there most of the city, and they had
it was a very cute robot dog. But it was
for people that have like dementia or that like couldn't
really have a pet, but that the experience of having

(06:33):
a pet would work for them. You know that would
be beneficial. And I mean that part was nice and
heart rending to me for reasons I don't need to,
you know, put on this podcast because they're trying to
keep the light. But mostly I was just like, damn,
that's a that's a cute robot dog that you've made.

Speaker 5 (06:49):
They're a surprising number of emotional support robots here at CES.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Interesting is that like a long standing thing.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
This is my first few years ago, Like they've had
them before, They're.

Speaker 5 (07:00):
Not necessarily new there. A lot of them are from
Japanese companies, which is kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Is there a reason behind that or I mean, I.

Speaker 5 (07:08):
Don't know if there's like an official reason other than
I think they have, like they like weird.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Stuff there, Like, I don't know, that's cool.

Speaker 5 (07:17):
Our favorite one, which we actually ate, won and Gadget
Award for Best of CS, was this cute little furry
robot that can sit on your arm or on a
purse or something. It all does a stare at you.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Okay, they mentioned this earlier and it chilled me to
the bone. I'm just thinking of the morrowind MPC like
just snapping on you, like criminal. Put that down.

Speaker 5 (07:36):
No, it's so cute and it's like soft, and it's
not what I like about it. It's not supposed to
do anything other than just like make you happy when
you look at it, and it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
So does it need to be a robot? Yeah, because
like what you're describing could work as a stuffed animal
to me and less like what's the robot stuff that
it does? Oh, the eyes follow you.

Speaker 5 (07:54):
Yeah, the eyes look at you a little bit. I
mean that's pretty much it. You know, it's more of
a like souped up Ferbie.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Actually I saw a bunch of stuff that to me,
like in you know, again just as more or less
being ignorant with it. Just I was like, yeah, that's
a Furby of some kind. Like I'm going to come
back to that. But yeah, they're still like refining the
Ferby experience for different you know, market sectors and needs.
It seems like, which I guess is cool. I mean
that Ferby is probably was here.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
It was Ferbie actually here, I don't think so, Yeah,
I don't think. So that's a disappointment.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
I can't stop thinking about iterating on the Ferbie to
return more shareholders.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Val Right innovated.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
As far as the Furby goes in non cut gems.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Banging on a table in like on a zoom call,
but like three.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
People check this out.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, he loves to say it.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
This is how I lose. So did you see any
weird robots though? Other than the emotional support ones? Did
you see anything bizarre? Yes?

Speaker 5 (08:52):
So I was attacked by one.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
Perfect is how.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
Was that.

Speaker 5 (09:00):
Slightly terrifying? So there's this Chinese company called, I think
it's pronounced Unitary that they have a like the like
knock off Boston Dynamics robots. So their new one is
like a like a quadruped that's like spot you know,
it's like, yeah, those creepy dog ones that runs around
and they bounce around.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (09:17):
And then they have a humanoid one, oh no, that
I think it's called the g One. And so we're
at the booth and we're taking photos of it, and
I'm standing right in front of it, and there's a
guy controlling it and he puts the controller under his
arm and mashes the joystick forward, so it runs at
me full speed. Oh my god, I got sixty pound
Jesus probably four foot doll robot and just and he

(09:39):
didn't really realize what was happening at first, So there
was probably about four seconds where it.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Was just like, fully, yes, God, what the hell?

Speaker 5 (09:48):
I know? But I can't even blame the robot because
it was user error from this guy. But the funniest
part was was that the conversation that happened immediately after
this implied that this was not the first time that
it happened.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Come on, man, that feels like a skill issue visa
Vie the joystick though, Like you just need to stow
that shit in a different way.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Well maybe you're trying, but all right, things are.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Feel like in the four seconds when the robot was yeah, like.

Speaker 5 (10:15):
Like a sixty pound piece of metal knee capping you.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, Like does that hit you?

Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (10:19):
Oh no, it made full contact with me. I thought
it was like chasing you, and you were kind of like,
turn this off.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Vegas is a personal liability haven. There are like lawyers everywhere.
You can call one. Now that company is dust.

Speaker 5 (10:32):
I know, we're just we're really disappointed that we somehow
failed to get to somebody. I was actually taking photos
at the time, but I was so shocked by what
happened I did not take photos of it.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Actually, I mean, you were being assaulted by a robot.
That is crazy and happened multiple times. Any good ones
like positives we're really trying the little steering guy, Yeah,
the steering one.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
That's yeah, it.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Would never hurt you like that robot couldn't even chase
you probably, No, just look could you?

Speaker 5 (11:00):
It just looks at you and is you know, gives
you a little shot of serotonin.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah, I don't get that. I don't have that in me.
So anything else, like is it just robotics for you've
been covering on this trip? No.

Speaker 5 (11:13):
I also I went to Linda Akarino's keynote.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Oh wow, yeah, so I hey, the power is crazy.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
She I have to like watch that tape just as
a it's a longtime fan of her work. Was she electric?
Was the vibe in the room electric? Have you ever
seen her speak up a little bit? And it looks well,
I mean whatever, strangely rendered like it just doesn't it's
life like, So credit where it's due.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
But we were talking about this, you know, for somebody
who was a media executive for a long time, she's
very at least I mean, and I never saw her
speak in her prior role, but you know, when she's
speaking her capacity as x CEO, she just you know,
it kind of sounds like she's speaking in sort of
like soundbites, but they don't make sense together. Yeah, you know,

(12:00):
like she's memorized like these three word things that she's
supposed to say.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
But someone tucked a joystick under their arm does have
a like the bit that I always have as my
comparison is like those like soundboards that they used to
have online where it would just be like different, like
Arnold Schwarzenegger saying different lines from Kindergarten Cop and you
push a button then he goes no. When you push
another one and he goes, how are you? And like,
but that's like sort of she just feels like she's

(12:24):
got the presets and then someone's just back there going
to town and whatever.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
I can actually expect running a pe off them. I
can tell you she is perfectly media trained. The problem
is that media training is very rarely prepared for a
person who has nothing else. You usually, I ideally your
training so.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
They can use that magic inside them, they can bring
out the personality.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
The problem is I don't know whether Linda has one,
and she does. She does everything. She even does the
accordion the you meant to gesture and bring them in
and then gesture, which is meant to not be literally
doing these movements of your hands like out and then
in instead the whole fucking time. And also she sounds

(13:04):
like she's prepared the sound exactly. But you're meant to
fill those in, Linda, you meant to have other thoughts
that connect these thoughts together, not just be like exes
where it happens and that's what's online.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
So that's what you're saying, then, is it was sort
of like similar to the experience of her feed, Yes,
which sounds like it would be incredibly jarring to witness life.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
I mean it was lots of you know, uh, the
legacy media is basically fan fiction for something like I was.
Even even just trying to get like a usable quote
is very difficult because it just when you look at
it and in front of you, like the words together
don't make sense.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
It's fantastic spinning a big wheel the legacy media.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, it's like, uh, oh, this was adjective, this could
be anything.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
Well, no, you say that, but she talked about like
the grooming gangs in the UK, So it kind of
was that. It kind of actually she did.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
Yeah, I kind of tuned out that part.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
I would have too.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
At that end, but I think she just uses like
whatever Elon Musk is tweeting about that day as kind
of like inspiration.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
Yeah, X has been grateful the fourteen were Oh maybe
not if No, she she has managed to stay, like
for now, somewhat pure. But it is interesting that the
CS thing she started to just crack and she's letting
the Elon Musk bits through. And I think by this,
like this time next year, she'll either have left or
been fired and blamed for everything as the money runs

(14:30):
out of the X.

Speaker 5 (14:31):
The funny thing was that this keynote room was at
best half full, and like half of the people were asleep,
but then the other.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Time to find a seat here, so the other half were.

Speaker 5 (14:44):
Really into it. People were when she started talking about
the grooming gangs, people were cheering, Yeah, like wow.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
So what were how many people should there have been
in that room? I don't know the space.

Speaker 5 (14:56):
It was one of those larger ballrooms in the Venetians,
so it's definitely not you know, one of like the
mega kenote size rooms. I really couldn't fine, but there's
are of like two sections, like the front half was
pretty full, but like there's an entire back half that
was completely empty.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
It's the idea of her getting up there and like
free associating about grooming gangs in the UK to sixty
people feel like this has been the whole, This is
the actual I mean, like you know, cards on the table.
I don't really like Linda Ya Karino's work that much.
I was just I was doing a bit. But I
do think that there's something about her as like as
a character and as a performance that I found really fascinating,

(15:36):
just because she has to get up there and like
abase herself on Elon's behalf and in Elon's words, that
like that's the actual gig, you know, and so the
idea of seeing that happening to it, it's like it's
weird enough, you know, to every now and then. I
don't really look at Twitter much anymore, but people will
sometimes send me when she says like a weird reply,

(15:57):
like the one where she just said hot dog, you know,
like I got that a bunch of times. I'm really
glad that I did. It's cool that that's my brand
that people are like, you'd probably like this bit of
check out this, But the idea of there being like
a real person doing that in a room feels like
I would have felt I would have had a hard
time I think watching it, like, I feel like I

(16:19):
would have felt embarrassed for her.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
I've been sharing the whole time.

Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, was there a point because she was being interviewed, right,
It wasn't just was there like a point to the interview?

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Like what were they trying to achieve? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (16:30):
So much.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
It's a good question.

Speaker 5 (16:33):
So they started off, you know, talking about Mark Zuckerberg
and him saying that he wants to you know, do
community notes on Facebook, and of course she was, you know,
a very big fan of that. She had like this
one very obviously cand line that was, you know, Mark Metow,
welcome to the party.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
Okay, that's good though, you got to have a couple
of but some real bangers written ahead of time that,
you know, I imagine I got a huge pop.

Speaker 6 (16:57):
In the room.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Everybody was like, yes, go off, queen. I was silent, Yeah, weird.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
I'd love to be the guys that Yeah, yeah, welcome
to the party.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
Pal.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
I paid two hundred bucks a month for groc Yeah,
anyone check out the logo of Grok by the way,
I feel like someone brought this up before, but the
logo of Grok is insane. I looked I need to
I now realize how impractical it's going to be to
show every visual medium. I'm just going to show this
to David because I'll describe it. It's like an x I.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
Like, Oh, it's it's the x AI logo, isn't it
right that? Yeah, it's the logo for his artificial intelligence company.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, it looks like a generative AI defect.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
It's like you're talking about the one with the cat.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
No, no, I'm saying that it's just the fucking that's
my phone background, David.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Right, Sorry, it's my beautiful boy pingus like that's a
cat rock fingus.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
So mad feeling all our best ideas.

Speaker 2 (18:03):
I'm not an uncle with three horrible sons that each
have a full dealership. Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
So I haven't seen as much about like who's speaking here?
I know? Yeah, that like Yakaren, who I was aware
of because again, like people in my life like to
tell me when she does things. But the other stuff
is that like again as a you know, nube to
the cees, experience, it doesn't seem like people are here
to well, they're here to like do deals and like

(18:29):
have or be pursued by robots. Then there's not like
it doesn't feel like there's a thing where people are
here to like watch people talk. Is that a part
of the culture that, like his speech is usually a
big deal here?

Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, okay, historically, I mean there's a
really good one. I mean, if I could genuinely recommend one,
there's one from two thousand and nine that you should
watch where Tom Hanks came out to do some presentation
on behalf of Sony because this is when he was
doing the Angels and Demons Da Vinci Code fr Oh yeah,
So it was basically like written into his contract like
come to CDs and cs and like talk about these

(19:05):
new ar glasses that clearly materialized in the last decade.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
That was the first time anybody saw them before they
became ubiquitous.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yeah, And it's just the best example of like someone
who was really willing to take the piss out of
the whole experience and not like Tim Meadows, like the
other day at the BMW thing was like sort of
doing it, but in like the lightest touchway like making
fun of like all these German automotive executives around him,
but like you know, within generous reason.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Tom Hanks is.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
Like like you could feel them sort of like slipping
the hook around his neck to get him.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Off the stage. Nice. So it's it's definitely part of it.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
I haven't witnessed any of the famous person part of
it because I know that's apparently there's like a Williams here.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
William william I wouldn't be surprised. He's here like pretty
much every year, Yeah, with some new bad products, some
new scam. Yeah, there's the first few nights. There's always
some big event. It's you know, somebody. Different companies get
to get it every year. The last time I was
here twenty twenty, one of the big ones was Mercedes

(20:06):
Benz did a big one of the big keynotes and
they rolled out some concept car that was sort of
based on Avatar, and so the concept car had these
like scales that rose up and stuff, and then James
Cameron came out and was like, here's a still from
Avatar too.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, I'm still making it.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
It's coming, and like you know, it was whatever that
was when people were still kind of unsure about that happening,
but so yeah, it's it's a part of the culture, Okay.
It's a thing for people to do after they've been
like suffering on the show floor all day, is like
go sit in an arena and watch Michael Bay talk
about Samsung display.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
He was gonna say, like I would have by the
end of today, Like I would sit pretty much anywhere
and watch pretty much anyone to.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Talk about take too much any of the not off
in the back.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure that. Yeah, Like if I
could get in there and like charge my phone, I'd
be like, just not the grooming gang stuff. It's bringing
the mood down in the room, but the rest of it.
I got ten minutes before this thing's full. I just
let me sit. Did you like anything at the show, Caissa,
Anything good?

Speaker 2 (21:02):
Anything like truly joyous, like anything, put a big smile
on your face. Anything. I'm really trying with everyone.

Speaker 5 (21:08):
So we saw a cane for people who are blind
that has AI in it, and it was actually like
an We thought it was an interesting use of AI
and chatchupt.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
How did it use it?

Speaker 5 (21:21):
So it has a camera on it and a little speaker,
so as you're walking around, it can tell you like
when it sees an obstacle like help you, like like oh,
there's a stare ahead of you, or there's, you know,
a lamp post.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
This sounds really good into the hallucinations.

Speaker 5 (21:37):
But what we liked about it was that it's still cane,
so like, even if the AI stuff doesn't work, it's
not like, you know, the person is stranded and has
no way to sure. But if you're around nation.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
I know, it sounds like it'd actually be useful, especially
because I assume that no one would trust it fully.

Speaker 5 (21:55):
I mean the person who made it, who runs the
company is has been blind.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
Since that's essentially a genuinely like sorry, that's not a
good thing, just to be clear, but it's they have
the experience to make a product that would be good.
They would go for awless.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah, the accessibility tech was the stuff today that it
was like the first thing that I saw that. Like, again,
I'm a soft touch, so I'm like impressed by like
a cool TV. There's a part of me that's like, damn,
you got a lot of colors on that thing.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Nice nailed it.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
But the yeah, there was some of the I think
if it's the thing that I'm talking about. There's like
two of them right next to each other on the
Eureka floor, the smart can or maybe there's more of
them here, but I did see there was one that
did have like the AI bells and whistles, and then
there was one of them which I remember Edward and
I both being struck by that was like, you don't
have to have the Internet to use this, Like it
was like clearly designed for like people that were like

(22:42):
older and wanted a simpler experience of it without any
of that stuff. But in both of those cases, there's
you know, so much of For me walking around on
the floor was like seeing these technologies that could potentially
deliver solutions applied weirdly to non problems in really overdetermined ways.

(23:03):
And in this case, it's sort of like, oh, well,
this would actually help somebody have a better life. That's
kind of a cool thing to do with technology.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
Yeah, But also, how does it connect to the Internet.
I'm now chat GPT requires an Internet connection? Do you
have to have Wi Fi for it? Does it connect
to your phone?

Speaker 5 (23:19):
That is a good question. I didn't write her a
piece about it.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Sorry, I don't know not your problem. I would be
looking at the piece later. But also that's the thing.
Every time you hear as a listener, if you hear
chat GPT, remember this thing needs the internet. These do
not have on device models, which means that your cane
is just like not telling you where things are. Every
time I try and avoid the diplope be open.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
So this is going to probably piss you off. But
they have two different kind of models. So one is
that you it's a subscription for the chat GPT functionality.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah that's the good stuff.

Speaker 5 (23:53):
Yeah that's or you can buy the more expensive one
which comes with.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
It for the lifetime subscription. See I think is that
stuff does actually cost money, so they do have to
do something. But it's also like, oh man, granddad, sorry,
life's being rough right now. Can't afford the cane. You're
just gonna have to work out for yourself. You're gonna
have to turn the subscription off. Yes, sorry, grand dad.
We don't have the pro subscription. It's only going to
tell you some objects, although again it does have we

(24:17):
don't wave for the car out on.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
If you turn the subscription off, it's like, well, your
cane's going to be a lot quieter this month. It's
not like it's going to turn into like an oblong
cylinder of plastic, which it was before, and now it's
just not going to talk to you.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Give them a year that make the subscription. They make it,
they might get load bearing, I guess.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, the subscription stuff is really sinister to me.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
It's everything now. So Sean, you, how do you feel
about Delta though? What ad Dela do differently what it
was the Delta thing? We're talking about useful companies. I
assume Delta wouldn't buy the sphere out to just shovel
a bunch of operating system stuff, right, No, it's pretty
much a lot of that. Oh it really.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
I mean, like I said, it was the the build
up that Ed Bashian did at the beginning of like
this is the next one hundred years, and it was
it almost made.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Me want there to be more bullshit, like insane stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
Yeah, and it's weird because, like I haven't been here
since twenty twenty and they were a big part of
twenty twenty show. I feel like I saw more from
them then because at that point they were still working on,
you know, adding a bunch more features to the screen.
Experience in like you know, in the seatback experience, they
were working on this thing, you know, sort of a

(25:32):
privacy nightmare kind of thing, but an idea at least
that was interesting to think about of like a screen
when you go into the terminal that it has. There
have been these kind of TVs at ces in the
past where you'll have sort of a screen display that
can split what it's showing you depending on where you're
looking at it from, so theoretically multiple people could see

(25:54):
multiple different things on the same screen.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
They pair that with facial recognition.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
You would theoretically walk into the terminal, You and I
could stand next to each other, we could each get
personal information about our flights and where we're going and
all that kind of stuff. At least that was like
we're working on this tech and seeing this year it
was it was very like, you know, it's all of
course about generative AI, and it really was just a

(26:19):
really weak showing of what they think that can do
because the experience they showed off and yet it's it's like.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
It's some of that same stuff.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
It's really the best way I can desgard, But is
it's treating these people who like a baby it's like,
assuming you are like a high class Delta sky Miles
person and you can't be bothered to get to the
airport on time, you can't be bothered to you can't
be bothered to. It was like it'll tell you which
gate is, which gate your flight is at, and where

(26:50):
that is, as if you can't look at the gate
number and like count down, you know, like when you
the airports are built pretty.

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Well, find out where my flight is.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
Yeah, like I know, I make gate seventeen. I see
gate three. Oh, look the numbers go to seventeen. That way,
I really do not need Generative AI to tell me that.
And it was just, you know, the other weird thing
about it was they're clearly trying to, like so many
tech companies, subsume all of your experience into Delta, So

(27:20):
it's like you'll be flying there and then you'll be
able to plan out your trip while you're in mid
air on your screen and Delta will help you book
your reservations at all of these places. And it's just
like there's no room in the vision that they're painting
for you to have any part of your experience outside
of the Delta.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
So none of this seems to make the flight beta no,
and that's I mean, that's the thing that really bums
me out.

Speaker 3 (27:48):
Has bummed me out a lot about CES this year,
not just a delta, but for so much of it,
Like nothing is about making a lot of the little
stuff better.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, even the convention itself.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Like it's just there's so much about being here, like
the Vegas is built up all of this extra stuff
to makes it, yes, even bigger. There's this whole new
hall that wasn't here when I was here five years ago,
and it's still not enough to like contain the people.
Like I went to get lunch today at like a
relatively off peak lunch time. Yeah, there's not enough seats
for people Like I'm going to sit at this one

(28:19):
counter that I see available, and then I'm told that
it's part of some sort of display that I can't
sit at because I don't belong to those people. So
it's like it's like, Okay, I'm gonna go sit on
the floor, which like I've done plenty of times in
the many years I've come here, and like eat my lunch.
But it's just like no one's working on any solution
for the dumb stuff like that or even the weird
thing is like not even using that as an opportunity

(28:40):
to present some of the technologies that are being promised,
is like, oh, wouldn't it be. It's just like it's
the most pedestrian mall ass experience like here, and it's
just you know, you can just feel how no one's heart,
isn't it.

Speaker 1 (28:54):
That's what I was thinking about when you were talking
about the idea of like the full you know, stem
to stern delta travel experience, is that like I flew
Delta out here. I had a perfectly fine flight, but
like you're still going through an airport, Like it's still
the sort of thing where it's like I was at
JFK on a security line that took forty five minutes
to get me through, and so there's, you know, some
of that's my faults. I don't I'm pre or whatever,

(29:15):
I'm not rich enough to have whatever the I mean,
like Tom Brady does not have to go through security
at least flying private, or if he just you know,
signs the football for somebody and like gets sent through.
But in all those instances, it's like these sort of
weird pie in the sky solutions to things that do
not necessarily scan to me as problems, like things that

(29:36):
are basically like minor activations of agency, like looking up
at the board and like finding the number of my
flight and then being like what gait is it? Like
I don't necessarily need that solved. If you could find
a way to make it less unpleasant to get to
or go through JFK, like that would be sick and
yet like that's harder. This is the thing we keep

(29:56):
coming back to in these conversations, is that like that's
a systemic, like structural that would require like state level action,
whereas here they're sort of like, with the power of
generative AI, you are going to be able to read
words on a screen. I'll fly through their leave you
the gentleman.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
Enough about mister Kravitz. We have to finish up the episode, Sean,
where can people find you? Well, this block of the episode,
I mean where can people find you? I'm on blue
Sky that's the best place. Okay. Do you want to
say where Sean o'can do? BEISKI? How do you say that?
I don't know, Nan, and you'll find me. Okay, where
do you work? I work at Techne for a year
it's amazing, lovely Chrissa. Where can people find you?

Speaker 5 (30:37):
They can find me on Blue Sky, still on threads
for now, Carissa b on both of them, and and
Gatget wonderful.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
David Defector dot com is the website and the distractions
the podcast.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
I do for them. You can find me off to
the ad break listen download by it. It's been like
hours of this stuff. Now I'm not giving you anything special,
and we're back. We've got Sean Okine, of course from

(31:12):
tech Crunch. We've got Carrissa Bell from Engadget, and David J.
Roth of Defacta and we're CHRISA said something very important
just before we broke, and that is that Faraday Future here,
my favorite not quite car company. They love to be
on fire, don't they, folks. So what did you hear?
Faraday Future? I must hear.

Speaker 5 (31:32):
So they were here pitching their their latest kind of
pivot strategy shift whatever you want to call it, okay,
which is fx A new a new subsidiary of Faraday
Future that will sell cheap evs and their plan is
to source parts from China, bring them here, make them

(31:53):
look nice on the inside, and sell them for probably
like between twenty to fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
So perhaps you can give some history about how well
Faraday Future is done selling cars.

Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah, all of you guys are making faces that I'm
hearing that.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Illuminate how great they are.

Speaker 5 (32:10):
They have to date have sold fifteen or sixteen f
F nine one, which I believe thou fifteen or six
Now fifteen or sixteen six that's more manageable. So good
of the only car that they've ever managed to actually sell,
that f F nine one. Yeah, they're making about one
a month, is what?

Speaker 2 (32:31):
And if I sell, you mean.

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Essentially leased to these people and in some in some
cases actually strike contracts with them that basically reaburse them
for the cost of the sale.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Of the car. How long has this company been around
twenty fourteen? That's so good. You're eleven years old.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
Do they advertise themselves as a small batch automotive?

Speaker 2 (32:51):
No, they should asset light. Yeah. So the new plan
is to sell a cheapest, shitty a.

Speaker 5 (32:55):
Car, a cheaper minivan specifically.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Right, so a smaller total addressable market this company.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
Listen, I actually don't they. We were just talking about Mike.
They refused to let me come see it because they
didn't answer.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Me a manu forrid like seven different very aggressive stories
about them.

Speaker 3 (33:15):
I don't know what they well, yeah, we don't have
time for all that. But my assumption is this van
is a thing that when they did still have some money,
because they don't really have a lot of money right now,
but when they did have some money, they're one of
their plans was to make this type of vehicle in China.
So my assumption would be that this is one of
the prototypes that they developed back then that's just been

(33:36):
sitting in China collecting dust, and now they've been able
to put some new veneer on it. The problem with
this company is they well, a problem with this company
is that they need money because they've run out of
the money from the founder. The founder basically created what
was at one point sort of like a combination of
Netflix and Apple and China. It had grown to like

(33:58):
ten billion or more invaluation, and then it ultimately crashed
because he just over leveraged everything. I believe the term
that the New York Times used at one point was
debt bombs, and those debt bombs started going off, and
he exiled himself to the US in twenty seventeen and
has been here ever since, running the company. But the
point is they don't have any money left, and they've

(34:18):
been trying to raise it from people related to him
and close to his orbit, and so the idea of
selling a two hundred thousand dollars car to people that
clearly don't really necessarily want to buy it.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
At scale is unpalatable.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
So they are going after this idea of making a
low cost card because they think it's a more investable business.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Carrissa, when we say lower cost, I didn't realize it
was two hundred thousand dollars fed.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
That's the regular is. I mean, I think it's a
sliding scale. To be fair to them, exist and you
won't never existing.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
I won't hear me say this often. To be fair
to them.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
The goal with that one was to always compete with
like the Maybacks and Bugattis of the world.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
So it's not like extremely well engineered caused the well
known for the design and their execution on set design.
Eventually yeah, well, eventually it's kind of the whole Faraday
Future yeah thing. Yeah. So how much is the vent,
like the cheap van that they're.

Speaker 5 (35:13):
Doing unclear, Probably around fifty thousand dollars based on what
they said. I'll just see the prototypes we saw. You
said that maybe these have been sitting around for them.
Maybe that's true that these were rough.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
I mean I believe that to define.

Speaker 5 (35:28):
So there was two different ones. One had sort of
the morphinished interior where they were trying to show off,
you know how they were kind of going to make
a minivan but you know for grown ups and fancy. Right,
had no door handles. Okay, Our friend John said, of course,
of course it will have door handles the real one,
which is always great when they have to tell you.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
You know.

Speaker 5 (35:50):
So I had some you know, white leather captain seats
that had you know, massage functions, and you know it
was it was okay, no door handles, no door handles,
completely like wrapped in that.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Did they have to like airlift you into from the
top or how did you get in?

Speaker 5 (36:05):
I mean the doors opened, they just didn't have they
don't clear how. Yeah, and then there was the one
that we could actually ride in, which was just covered
in fabric that was held together by binder clips, like
the entire interior literally binder clips. Show They said it
was a plug in hybrid I got to drive it

(36:27):
around it. Honestly, it could have been a toyo to
Sienna covered in fabric for all.

Speaker 2 (36:30):
I know, Like it did it feel like an electric vehicle?

Speaker 5 (36:34):
Like I mean it felt like yeah kind of.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Yeah. I just loved the idea that they would this
company sounds like they would actually do the toyo to
see anything.

Speaker 5 (36:44):
So yeah, I mean, I don't know, I'm not embarrassing,
but it could have though been for like especially I'm
not an automotive journal so it was very funny to
me that they invited me to do this. Max did
tell me I was the first lady to drive that
particular vehicle, so.

Speaker 1 (37:03):
That's an amazing honor. Yeah, thanks for knowing that, like
really doing the like not having door handles thing is incredible.
Like again, from being completely outside of this story, like
this company rocks to me, like everything that you've described
where they're just sort of like and this one it's
like got a tarp on the inside of it, like
you're just getting into whatever Kurt Russell's car from Death

(37:23):
Proof to be like just take it for a spin,
take it around a lot, like temp wild thing. Why
would you want somebody to drive a car that looks
that messed up on the inside.

Speaker 5 (37:32):
I mean, maybe Sean can speak to this, like you
don't expect a prototype vehicle to necessarly be finished and
have held together.

Speaker 2 (37:39):
Find Eclipse.

Speaker 5 (37:40):
But what was also telling to me was that the
one press image they gave us was so low rests
and it showed them it was like these two vans
like in a field, like at a great distance.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
And also the vans are covered in like camouflage like wrap,
but which is you know that's a traditional automotive thing,
but set.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
In this field.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
Because I saw this image earlier today, it just looks
like cow cars because it's like, you know, blocky black
and white, but in the field, in this weird setting
that you don't normally see like a prototype car.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
And it was like my brain just like cows just.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
Love the idea of being just like a deep fried
jpeg like five K sending that up to the depressed
mean like, so don't you could use this as like
your avatar on social media. Do not put it on
your website.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
This will not render on blue.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
It's got to be pointless.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
Tell you like again, to be fair to them, they
do not have many employees left it's basically most of
the people who are here on different types of work,
vices that staff the company.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Everybody purloughed or laid off pretty much.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Is there like an end gameless? The idea there that
like whatever technology they have would be purchased by some
other company. Is there like or what happens?

Speaker 3 (38:47):
I think the founder is singular in his vision of
wanting to say that. I mean, from what I've heard,
from the conversations I've had with people who have worked
at this company over many years, this this man is
I'll say two things and then I'll try not to
go too long on it. One is that he since
he self exiled himself from China to hear, the thinking is,

(39:08):
he wants to build up a successful business that would
let him go back into China without just being snatched
and thrown into avoid upon landing because that's like he
was put on a debtor blacklist. He is is kind
of I mean, he he left the company with like
billions of dollars owed by himself.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
One of the consequences of a debt to blacklist you
could just probably be disappeared by the state. So can
you not leave China? Is that one of it on paper.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
The limitations are like you can't buy train tickets, or
you can't you know, like you have like actual economic
restrictions placed some of your assets or frozen and things
like that. But like the realistic thing, given the scale
of the collapse of his business there is that he
would probably be you know, hidden in.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
A corner somewhere, right, Yeah, in a place. But having
lots of money would allow him to avoid that. I think.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
I think in his mind he thinks that if I mean,
he's he's it's too much to get into. But he
is a very specific person when it comes to believing
in the value of you know, sort of billionaire entrepreneurs.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
So I think he thinks that that has enough cachet
that it will other than the having the billion, Yeah,
that seems to be the problem. Yeah, so I will
I will say this. I if I see a car,
I expect the bits to be on like the like
the like. I think I think that like that feels
like a reasonable thing. Did they react to the falling

(40:30):
apart this of this vehicle that allegedly would buy no,
I mean sick so good.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
It's a fairly common thing to show up with a
prototype that's like seats half baked. It's ces We've seen
some weird stuff over the years, especially from these startups.
I think there's gradations of how complete it is or
how much polish you want to put on it. I
will say I think that this company's probably coming from
the experiences they've had with the more expensive car, which

(40:59):
is actually quite technologically accomplished four seven years ago when
they developed it, and they got away with a lot
of bad finish, you know, sort of rough edge demos
at cees in years prior, because people would forget about
that because they jam on the pedal on this thing
and it would I mean, it's fast as hell. Like

(41:20):
the more expensive car that they've built is like incredible
because or incredibly capable because they hired when he started
this company, they had all this money that he had
and they just overspent so much. I mean, so they
they went from being founded in twenty fourteen to fifteen
hundred people by twenty sixteen, and they did that by

(41:42):
basically paying fifty to one hundred percent more than the
going right for like every position inside the company. And
so they attracted all this talent from Tesla, Apple, all
these other companies but they were very secretive about what
they were doing because they're kind of trying to hide
who was backing it. And this combination of like secrecy
and obvious signs of money at one point had people
believing that this was a front for Apple's secretive project,

(42:05):
the car project. Yeah, and so like that's how like
crazy the mania was getting around, Like what that's scam.
But so the point of the reason I say that
is like when the people who developed to the car
included like the team that made the GM EV one,
which is like thought of as like the first real
mass market EV in the US, so like they had
like real engineering behind it. And when they were demoing

(42:26):
that car years ago here, people were like kind of
falling in love it because they were like, yeah, this
company is kind of crazy and like it doesn't really
look like they're anywhere near ready to build these things.
But these things are fast as hell and fun and
it's a fun experience and for a CEES experience like
that just doesn't involve getting attacked by robots in the
mood like, oh yeah, that was one of my better experiences.
You know, when I went zero to sixty in like
one second.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Do you not think that some of this is a
reflection of how the tech presses looked tech though, because sure,
because I feel like thanks to the way you law
musk was covered, there were a lot of companies that
kind of get away with this shit.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
Well they've gotten away with it in the sense that
they were one of the companies that did one of
these spack mergers and raised another billion dollars. So just
define a s back merger for the listeners, a special
purpose acquisition company. There's kind of a long history of
reverse mergers like this on the public markets. But essentially,
if you are an investor or some sort of business type,

(43:23):
you could theoretically create a company that's just basically a
holding sell for cash that's publicly traded, and you can
basically like vaguely state your intentions for we want to
invest in this market or that market, and here's our
pot of money. We're going to go look for a
company in that space to acquire and take them public, Okay,
And so that you know, maybe there's merit to that

(43:47):
approach to things. But that whole process got really perverted
in like twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, where a
lot of different kinds of companies, but especially electric vehicle companies,
were getting taken public left and right, well before they
were ready to be a public company.

Speaker 2 (44:02):
And Faraday Future doesn't sound like it should have ever
been taken out of the box. Well, I'll put it
this way.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
They went public in twenty twenty one, and within four
to six months, their board of directors decided to launch
an internal investigation into the founder and the people around
him for basically more or less allegedly lying in the
paperwork that they filed to go public. And then eventually
the internal investigator investigation led to him being removed from
a particular role at the company, having people around him

(44:29):
pushed out of the company, and they referred it to
the SEC, which is still actually actively investigating the company.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
So rough few years for this guys.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
I mean, listen, he's here and not insl in China.
So he lives in a mansion, you know, in Rancho
Palas Verdes and in Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
So he's done well for himself. Yeah, we're four days
in and I keep trying to find I bring in
new people.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
I love the voices we get, and I keep being like, well,
maybe this will be the person who found a real company.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
Well, I'm sorry I've mentioned this before. I got to
drive an electric boat this morning. Okay, that was fun.
They're a company called Arc Boats and they're based out
of Los Angeles, and it's a bunch of former SpaceX engineers.
That kind of stuff gets thrown around a lot with
like Tesla and SpaceX, especially where it's like, you know,
this company's founded by SpaceX engineers. It's like these guys

(45:22):
are actually genuinely smart at coming up with interesting ideas
and trying to apply them to products and their whole thing.
I mean, there's a lot of different electric boat companies
that are trying to find find a way to replace
gas boats, whether that's in water taxis or more traditional
sort of just like fishing boats. These guys are really

(45:43):
going after a market that I think makes sense, just
like boats for rich people, you know, Like originally they
had one that it was just really kind of like
a fast fun boat on the water. This one's more
specifically like almost like a wakeboard boat, like wakesports. It's
like tailor made for that, and it costs a lot
of money. I think it's in the high one hundred
thousand dollars marks. But it's the kind of boat that

(46:06):
you're already talking about spending almost that much with a
regular gas version, and I am, yeah, of course. So
they've been around for a couple of years. I think
they got founded in twenty twenty one. But they're actually
delivering these They started delivering this boat. They handbuild them
or mostly handbuild them in Los Angeles. They started delivering
them a couple months ago to the first owners, so

(46:29):
they're actually generating revenue. They have a bunch of investment.
They have some celebrity investors. I can't remember who they
are off the top of my head. That always makes
me wary. But they're also though, yeah, so I have
to drive it this mort yea Lake Mead. That's the
only the only bummer of the experience was it was
at leak Mead, which.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Is like it's like it's fair.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
So it's like you know, the you know, if I
if I removed myself from the experience, it was kind
of depressing because you're like, oh, this isn't it fun
to tool around in this electric boat in the lake
that exists.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
The time for the end of the inland freshwater experience
here in the United States.

Speaker 3 (47:07):
Yeah, but you know, if I was able to set
that aside for a moment, it was a pretty fun experience.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Other than just the terrible threat to humanity. Yeah, and
you know, I mean, like, I think it's pretty clear
there's somehow putting on the boat company. I apologize, no.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
But I you know, I think it's interesting that some
of these products, these these vehicles, you know, for a
long time especially it shows like, see, yes, we're sold
as solutions to that larger problem of what we're doing
to the planet.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
As opposed to the fact that corporations are causing it.

Speaker 3 (47:37):
Yeah, and now that's just you know, that doesn't that
doesn't really get put front and center anymore because I
think people a they don't want to have to like
live up to that, yeah, right and be like because
it doesn't seem like that's actually going to help us.
So like, you know, I don't begrudge them for not
trying to like put that front and center. But it

(47:57):
was it was hard to separate it from the experience.
But you know, it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Yeah, that was something I was sort of struck by.
I mean, I guess just in general, I think that
assessment is correct in terms of how people are thinking
about like, you know, not individually, but I think that
like broadly speaking, that there's like a turn in the
culture towards like, well, we're not going to win this one,
and so either people are being hedonistic and you know,
like sort of being like, oh whatever, let's see what
happens if you put literally the worst guy of his

(48:23):
generation in charge of the country again and see where
that goes.

Speaker 5 (48:26):
Well.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
But in this instance, it's like I haven't seen as much,
like very few of the even in the like big
tech spaces that I saw this morning at the convention center,
like people don't like energy efficiency kind of seems like
I expected to see more of it, like even just
in terms of people wanting to save money on bills
or whatever, and I didn't see a lot of that.
Like I don't know if it's just like if it's
considered to be like you know, off the vibe of

(48:49):
like people showing up and wanting to get excited about
stuff and about having new.

Speaker 3 (48:53):
Things, or yeah, I mean I think a place like
this sort of incentivizes the people who are coming up
with the weirder, dumber, more boisterous displays anyways, and it's
kind of hard to like, you know, I think that's
where there actually is some value in these like weird
shows they do the first few evenings, like Cees Unveiled
or Pepcom, where it's basically just like a gauntlet of
like two hundred startups in a room that don't seem

(49:15):
very properly vetted. But like that's where you're going to
find like the place that you know, the company of
like three people that's like we can actually use AI
to like save you nine bucks a month on your
energy bill or something like that, because like they're not
going to be able to afford a show floor booth.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
I also need to be the pepcom is an enemy
of Better Offline. There an enemy of Better Offline. Fully
because we applied and they said I've run a po off.
I can't be allowed and enemy everything at pepcom diseased.
I stand shoulders shoulder with you, thank you.

Speaker 5 (49:44):
Than they have standards I was too.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
That's what was so offensive. Yeah, like do you know
how bad it is? Like I already get looked on
down on quite a lot for many reasons, many listeners
know for your dangerous views, my dangerous views, my political
opinions of I don't know anything, but also just like,
oh my god, I'm not going to spend money on
a pep compot. No one should have to pay to

(50:07):
go there. The booth people, sure, but not me. Why
would you do that to me? And that is why
they're an enemy at the show. Now, nobody has to
agree with this. Everyone's looking at me like very worried.
Don't worry. This is my opinion, not anyone else's. Not
to be like self promotional.

Speaker 3 (50:22):
But it was one of the things that I really
enjoyed about going to our conference, TechCrunch Disrupt a couple
months ago for the time because I had never gone
to it before until I worked here, and I was
so almost like low level nervous walking in for the
first time because it looks a lot like pepcom and
CS unveiled. It's like people at like these little like
cocktail tables with like a sign behind them as the company. Yeah,

(50:45):
there's two hundred that were there, And I'm just so
attuned to like the like hawker vibe of these events
here where it's like guys just popping out at you
like they recognize your name or you're out and they're like, hey,
can I tell you about the new robot vacuum like
or whatever, and uh, and it was such a different
experience because at least there we were trying to like
find companies these events. It's like they're paying to be here,

(51:07):
and there's really not like a vetting process. There's like
some sorting you know that like each day it's going
to get a little bit worse, but other than that,
there's really not much of a bar for most of it.
So it was it was I didn't realize how much
like the pepcom's in the Cees Unveiled had ruined me
for like that experience until we.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
Went to the same we have like an assault style Yeah,
and Carissa gets attacked by humans and roybooks.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Apparently literal assaults.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Do they do you feel that they treat you differently
as a woman robots? Well, I mean I don't know
a guy who got attacked by one, so yes, but no,
do you get different.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
First woman to get attacked by that, they didn't specify
that man, But no, they do you get treated differently,
you know, I.

Speaker 5 (51:52):
Think, I mean I don't think that I do most
of the time, but then you have those moments where
somebody makes that comment like Oh, you're the first lady
to drive.

Speaker 1 (52:00):
And you're like why Chris, what Yeah?

Speaker 5 (52:03):
Second of all, like why would you feel need to
just say that out loud? So, you know, I think
there's always those little moments, especially when you come to
see us and you know, you end up interacting with
a lot of people who are maybe either like not
used to interacting with so many people all the time,
or are just so exhausted from having to give their

(52:24):
same speech over and over again that people say weird things.
I try not to.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
That's very generous of you. Edward had a similar statement
when you had some weird stuff happen when we were
down on the floor earlier. And I think it's like
the I guess you just have to assume that, like
at baseline, these are it's like the least socially adept
salespeople that you're likely to encounter.

Speaker 5 (52:45):
It's also just such an unnatural environment because you have
so many people from all over squeezed into you know,
these really small spaces and you're just trying to survive
at least.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
That's yeah, you know, that's how I feel that they
never get to go outside. It seems really brutal, you know,
what it reminds me of. Actually, this is like that
kind of puts a finger on something that I've been
like kind of trying to figure out. I covered the
dog show the Westminster Kennel Club show many years ago
so jealous, and it was amazing. I would do it
again for no money. It was the best experience ever. Basically.

(53:16):
I mean, whatever it's like isn't sports writing. You know,
like I was able to sort of fake it at
the time and have it pretend to be you know enough.
But the people that so part of that is like
a trade show. You know that, like the dogs competing,
you can go up on the floor. It's like literally
the floor of the garden where like the nixt play
and watch like some corgis running a circle. And I
obviously had a great time doing that. Yeah, you know,

(53:39):
better than anything that happened at the garden, like until
like Jalen Brunson came to town. But everything that happens
below that is breeders trying to like basically get you
to buy either their dog's seed or to like promote
their their breed. You know that they're like because it
is like there's a eugenics yes, light aspect to it

(54:01):
where you're kind of just like my Like I'm a
Belgian Malinois guy, Like that's everything about Belgian mallawaws is
more important to me than anything else about anything.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Else in my life.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
And yet those people, so that's a level again, like
a baseline level of weirdness, like somebody that's just like
such a terrier pervert that they can't be normal about
other stuff. And yet like there is something kind of
like a wholesome ish about it too, because like they're
they're under this incredible duress they're in like the room

(54:31):
under the room under the locker rooms at Madison Square Garden.
It's like the room smells like dogs and people intensely.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
We're talking about the dog show still.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
The dog Show, still, yes, and it gets it gets
worse and worse. And yet like they wouldn't be doing
it if there wasn't some part of them that was
like strange in the way that made that seem like
a good idea to them at some point, right, And
I guess that's probably true to us. I mean, I
don't know that that's every differ, but.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Most people are not like that. Hit Everyone is like
just like I gotta come here for the I gotta
stand there and be like, yeah, this dishwasher can wash
in five seconds. Please don't count how many seconds. It's eight?

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Yeah, I mean I guess. It's also there's like a
level of uncanniness. It's more fun when it's dogs.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
But also with a dog, I feel like there's a
there's not that much abstraction. You know, you're getting like
a fine ars terrier. Yeap, Like this Pekinese is really
gonna do it for you, you know what comes out theoretically.
But with this it's like you've got pr people, you've
got like sales development people, you've got random people who
are just like I kind of know the product and
it's theoretical anyway. So it's like, can't take that next step.

(55:36):
If you need depth, I don't have it. Man, And
the guy who pays me will be very angry if
he has to answer a question for reasons that I've
chosen to ignore.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Yeah, that's true. The dog version of that was basically
like guys being like, oh, yeah, he loves ice cream.
You know that's fine. You know, like that was actually
the most intense question that I had about this dog.

Speaker 5 (55:56):
The best is the look of panic that comes over
you know, someone in the booth's face when you ask
what you think is a relatively simple, straightforward question, Yeah,
and they just get this logo sheer panic and they're like,
well I can find someone.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
We had my one when I was walking on with Edward,
who actually is a tech journalist, there was a moment
where like there was one guy that was talking to us,
he's sort of doing his sales thing, and then like
every started asking like the good follow ups that a
tech journalist woul ask, like in terms of like DM
a prototype is it like? And it was exactly that,
Like this guy who kind of reminded me a little
bit of like Mark McKinney from Kids in the Hall,
like just kind of like a big goofy Canadian guy

(56:31):
being like, well, that's a great question, I think. But
there was a moment where he clearly was like there
were reach and grasp issues that were not going to
be reconcilable, and he tapped himself out. He was like,
there's our product, guys eating pizza back there. Can you
wait like thirty seconds because like I'm not gonna like
lie to you and I can't tell you the truth.
I don't know it, which you know I found honorable roast.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Honest guy at see.

Speaker 4 (56:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:55):
I woked up to the post night and told the
story in the show already and I was like, it
was a thing claiming to be a new hope for
autism and dyslexia. Yeah, shocker, it wasn't. And I walked
up and said, if you talk to the FDA about this,
and they just went what's that, which is what we
call a good start. And I had to walk away
because it was too pissed off. But that happens a

(57:16):
lot to me with almost everything. It's just so weird
having a show with so many I keep coming back
to this point. I've said it. I think every episode
where it's like, it's so weird, how much of this
is fake? Just completely made up? Even the expensive ones. Yeah,
what the I Even with cars, I didn't think you
could fake that one. They got fucking wheels like go

(57:38):
forward and backwards inside the side tesla sometimes a little
too much, but it's like, you can't fake you can
fake cars hundreds of millions of dollars. It sounds like, yeah,
and across multiple companies. I'm going insane by the end
of this trip. I'm gonna I think it's nice. And
I guess they're doing this so they can get more
investment capital. They just like keep doing the con the

(57:59):
car company in particular, Yeah, yeah, Faraday. Yeah. I mean
they're trying to raise money from the Middle East now again. Yeah,
from the UE.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Oh my god, I got a lot of money over there.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
I just I keep bringing people in and hoping they'll
help and help redeem this show, but they can't throw it.

Speaker 1 (58:16):
I keep coming back. Well, the dog door, there's a
really good dog door.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yeah, okay. I talked to the cat door company just
to be clear, and I said, what was the training
data you use for the company, and they said, oh
my cat. And he was British, so I gave them
a little easier time. They're simple people, but I wanted
to be like, you've never seen those different shapes of
cats alone. And it just had this video of this
cat with a bird in its mouth, just shoving its

(58:40):
face again and again, and I just stood looking at it,
and I think the guy worked out that I was
already coming up with an annoying question and just turned
his back to me. So honestly, a pro move. No, no,
that is expert offensive line work. But before we go, Chris,
how many CS is this view?

Speaker 5 (58:57):
I think this is number seven?

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Nice? Sure, I think around the same. Yeah, yeah, Is
this better or worse? Would you say?

Speaker 5 (59:08):
Worse in the sense that I see less fewer things
that are really cool and interesting and excite me. And
that might also just be because I'm more jaded now
from having done this seven times.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
It's ydrop to impress you, but.

Speaker 5 (59:22):
Better because I also get a lot less stressed out
when I first started coming to see Yes, you know
used I used to show up and be so stressed
out and make too many appointments and spend the whole
week running around and forgetting to eat. And you know,
now I feel like I can maybe not relax is
not the right word, but I can, you know, have
a I don't get too worried about it anymore.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Sure, I think that's a really really repeatable experience for
the people who do it a lot, where you start
to realize, you realize you can let go of what
seems important. But I do think it tracks with there
being maybe less interesting stuff because we're also just in
this weird It's like a moment where so many people

(01:00:07):
have started over the line with the AI stuff and
like people feel like, oh, I had better do it too,
regardless of the product. So I don't know in that sense,
I feel like it's worse, but I better in that
I know how to like hack the experience more because
I I got well, Like I came here with goals
and I like accomplished some of those goals. But those
goals are not about like finding a lot of new technology.

(01:00:29):
It's like, I know people are going to be here
who I need to get information out of or or
build a relationship with, And it's like that's more of
what I'm after. Although you have you can't separate yourself
from all the other stuff, so so I will now.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Get information from you. Where can people find you?

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Shown I'm a I'm at tech Crunch. Go to tech
runch dot com. It's a great website. I'm on blue
Sky Sean Kaine, Carissa.

Speaker 5 (01:00:55):
I'm at Engadget and social media blue Sky threads. Still
technically have an.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Account on x the Everything app.

Speaker 5 (01:01:03):
Yes, yes, if you just google my name you'll find Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
And David right for Defector dot com of the podcast
There is the Distraction. I have a podcast about Hallmark
movies called It's Christmas Town. It did the alternating thing
like we discussed earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
I'm still putting it in.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
Uh and yeah. David j Roth at b sky or
dot bsguide, dot social.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
My name is Adam, thirty eight years old, and I
just started a podcast called Better Offline. It's paid for
by the blood the ads that follow this, So can
you please click from this time? I'm going to lose
the podcast if I'm not careful, so please look at
the ads. I need this. Welcome back to the show.

(01:01:54):
It's me ed zitch On you link to Better Offline.
You're still within the same episode. Why am I reintroducing you?
You don't need this? But more importantly, I'm joined by
Rob peg Gerarro. Well they're low old school dogs have
free lance tech gym. That's I'm feeling very old after
five days here for cees. Yeah, this place age, it's
the beach that makes you old of tech? So what
are you writing? Full right now?

Speaker 7 (01:02:14):
PC mag Fast Company, Wirecutter, various other publications as they
come up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
How many cs is this is the twenty seventh for me? No,
that's not hell?

Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
How many? Say ninety eight onwards? So the only one
I did not attend in person.

Speaker 7 (01:02:30):
Didn't happen in person twenty twenty one, And at the
start of that I realized, Yeah, my kid has never
seen me that week of January either as my wife.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
We started dating in nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
So was it always called CES?

Speaker 5 (01:02:42):
So it was.

Speaker 7 (01:02:42):
Originally the Consumer Electronics Show, and then it was the International.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Cskay, it's just CES. It's like AIRP. It doesn't stand
for anything anymore. Right, Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, we have
the debate day or two ago. Honestly, at this point
I have no idea what day it is. Let's be honest,
Fellas day, but no one really Definitely a weekday. Yeah,

(01:03:06):
that seems clear.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Now we're at the point in the week and you
will know this from your ment's experience. The CS begins
to just crackle like I have one. Everyone left over
it on the Thursday is just like I just want
to I just want to see my family again.

Speaker 7 (01:03:18):
Yes, yes, but also traffic starts getting a little bit better.
The line to get lunch or a cup.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Of coffee or a beer whatever is not as bad
as it was two days ago.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Well, have you had a good show? Yes, I have
very fired enjoyable. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:03:36):
You know, to me, the most interesting transformation of CS
I've seen over the years. How first it started becoming
a car show to the extent that basically killed off
the the January Chicago North American International Auto Show, although
Chicago weather in January may have had some factor, and
that's it, right, But then it's become all these other

(01:03:56):
aspects of it. So now you have the West Hall
of the Las Vegas Convention Center where you have like
giant earth moving machinery from Caterpillar. John Deere is going
to line up of agricultural and construction machinery. You have
boat makers, You've got Oshkosh showing off a battery electric

(01:04:17):
garbage truck, and the cute little duck build truck they're
building for the US Postal Service.

Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Right, Oh they have that here? Oh yeah, yeah, Well
it's like my dream to see that truck because I
feel like they're going to spike the project.

Speaker 7 (01:04:29):
I'm a little worried about. Yes, my my new neighbor
coming to Washington, DC. They're super behind on it, right,
or there was another company that was screwed up worse. No,
it's the New York Times that the Wall Street journals said, Yeah,
they've shipped wayfier than they should have. It's like they say,
they're delving in volume now, and I'd like to see
them because, yeah, the letter carriers of my neighborhood are
using these Carter Administration vintage. Yeah, and I'm like, every

(01:04:54):
time I see what, I'm like, is the word going
to fall off while I'm looking at it?

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Yeah, it's miraculous that they're still upread. It's like the
trying pictures you see from Havana kept the STUDI Baker
going for. We're actually going to sell them to the
Cubans next.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
I'm surprised we haven't threatened to take over there at
this point, but I have anybody, I think they've already
had it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
We're going to do a great deal. It doesn't even
forget it. Yeah, we hate doing it. I hate doing
the voice now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
Yeah, the voice is less enjoyable due to the consequences.
But have you enjoyed any Is there something you've seen
that actually like felt good? I'm really desperate at this point.
I'm like, everyone I talked to is just like, well,
I saw something that worked. Well.

Speaker 7 (01:05:34):
Yeah, So there's a lot of junk. There's a lot
of AI slop out there. Like, so I stop by
Amazon's booth. They have this feature where you can have
your fire TV show art on the wall.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
Samsung did that with the frame.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
I've always wanted to put stuff on my wall that
looked good.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
That's a good idea.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
Here you can go to stores that sell exactly that stuff.
That sounds implossible anyway, So you can ask the fire
TV to do some art via generative AI.

Speaker 7 (01:05:57):
Oh and so that well, okay, I'm going to be
a nerd about this. I said, uh, draw a new
Glen rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. And
the first time I'd heard nuclear rocket. And then it
threw this generic rocket Like, okay, at least just not
a rocket with a reactor cooling tower attached or whatever.

(01:06:17):
Then I said, it's slower, and that's still through generic rocket.
I thought, shouldn't Amazon's AI know about its founder's space company.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
These things don't know anything.

Speaker 7 (01:06:30):
Yeah, people are throwing AI into anything and everything. So
see now I'm just complaining about it. Yeah, I'm just
gonna stick with that for a little while.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
That's fine.

Speaker 7 (01:06:37):
Delta had this keynote, So this is a mix of
a good beat. The production values were nuts. I've never
been to this fhere before, right, And so they had
this thing at the start where it's the screen that
enveloped you goes all around and above and around you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:06:52):
It's a sort of cockpit perspective of taking off down
the runway and seeing its speed at you. The subworb
in the seats rumble as if you know you're like
and they've got these fans blowing wind faster and faster.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Exactly like Shrek forty yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:07:09):
Yeah, and so the and they had the whole smell
of vision feature which I didn't actually know about.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
G Yeah, that they the guy next to you on
the plane, you can smell the awful lasagna that they're serving,
even even that's good comfort, plain food.

Speaker 7 (01:07:29):
The uber CEO showed up because they're doing a partnership
and he had a sort of joke delivery of two
hazel net lattes and so that they had the smell
of it actually smelled like a good hazel and out
caramel latte.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
And that guy got paid three dollars probably, yes, And
the last part was maybe they wouldn't do this now.

Speaker 7 (01:07:49):
It was fireworks bursting over downtown l A and the
airfield with the sort of smell of gunpowder like you
would have actual fireworks.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Yeah, they might.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
One of those poorly timed ones by acts. It didn't
seem like a great idea two weeks ago. Yeah, so
great stagecraft.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
It was really neat.

Speaker 7 (01:08:06):
But then the announcement they had this Delta concierge, which
will be this gen AI assistant in the fly Delta.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
I held a little bit about this, but I love specifics. Yeah,
so I'm an alf geek.

Speaker 7 (01:08:15):
I fly a lot, although usually United being based in DC,
and they're talking about things like it will suggest alternate ways.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
To get to the airport, your past, best path to
it through it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
I thought, is that really Ai?

Speaker 7 (01:08:28):
Because like United zapp will say, you know, you can
use DSA pre don't take it, the night club is here.
I was doing things like it will book an uber
for you when you land, which in the example was
a woman taking a business class flight to Tokyo, like
take the train, man, it's Japan, what are you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
Take the butt like, but also you can also just
do this by using your finger.

Speaker 7 (01:08:53):
Right, Yeah, And it's all these contribed examples, and of
course obviously you can't talk about a on airlines without
air Canada had a chatbot which made up a customer
service which.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Wasn't even GPT by the way, it wasn't even who
I've been over this one because people really want to
make this one.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
No, it's gonna be shit in the future, not in
the past.

Speaker 7 (01:09:13):
Yeah, and so I'm like, there's lots of ways this
could go bad, and the actual example seem kind of
you know, are you sure this isn't just software but.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Also not that exciting or useful.

Speaker 7 (01:09:24):
Yeah, you know, I'm like, I'm thinking areas where I
could use help. AI would be useful if when, like
your flight gets canceled, or if you were trying to
fly here on Monday when there was a snowstorm in DC,
evaluate my options, what's the best chances of me getting here?

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Yeah, like Flighty, which is one of the best apps
of all time. Flighty is just what if an air
a flight tracking piece of software worked, it will tell you.
It will tell you, usually more reliably, whether your flight
is being moved or canceled. But Delta appears to have
come up with a new idea which is less you.

Speaker 7 (01:10:01):
Yeah, you know, they're they're talking about they're going to
have YouTube clips curated in the Seatbeck Entertainment.

Speaker 2 (01:10:06):
That's fine. I never know one what's on YouTube?

Speaker 7 (01:10:09):
You know, the the Uber partnership, a lot of it
was just a whole lot of stagecraft and apparently didn't
go overwhell on the YouTube stream. In the audience it
was it was a lot of Delta employees, so it
was a big love fest for all the Delta employees.
So I guess really do like their CEO, which you
cannot count on in the airline industry.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Right, well, they were probably worried to not like miss me.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
I don't know, I don't spend enough time on the airline.
Was he a real showman?

Speaker 2 (01:10:33):
You guys at Bastion and he's not enough, He's not
like a natural at it.

Speaker 7 (01:10:40):
But he didn't seem like overwhelmed or you know, like
I've seen a lot of musket of keynotes not what
you want.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
No, well even less these days. Yeah, well that's true. Yeah,
just form and content being separated in this right, Yes,
form content, substance, style, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
What was Lenny Kravitz like?

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
He was good?

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Like I not seen him play before he plays circus him? Yeah, no,
It started out with.

Speaker 1 (01:11:06):
Are you Gonna Go My Way? And of course the
closing song was fly away.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Gotta do That.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
How many songs did he play? Was it like forty
five minutes? It was like, you know, that's actually a
decent set, you got, like a festival set. I mean,
I was glad it was that short because they did
have to go on to the next and you're in
the pit.

Speaker 4 (01:11:23):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
Now, the press seeds were in like the two hundred level.
Those are actually really good. I watched the NHL with
draw off there and it was really cool. Like the
sphere is objectively cool.

Speaker 2 (01:11:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:11:34):
So my the parts of CS have enjoyed the most
are the unusual experiences the sphere.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
Uh. Sunday afternoon, I had a ride in a Zeke's ROBOTAXI.

Speaker 2 (01:11:42):
How was that pretty cool?

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Very smooth.

Speaker 7 (01:11:45):
In general, it gets a little skittish around traffic hones.
And we had this part at the end which there
were a lot because you all apparently never stop repaving
or rebuilding the streets.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
Yeah yeah, but Constance Day of Chaos. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:11:58):
And so this one road there was a lane row
of traffic cones, a lane another row of traffic cones,
car drives between the two of them and stops as
if it's just been like, uh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
Now, yeah, this seems like you got the actual robotaxi experience.

Speaker 7 (01:12:14):
And so then apparently there's some sort of overseer who
could say you can back up. And so for people
who haven't seen this, this is a pure robotaxi.

Speaker 2 (01:12:23):
It's not a.

Speaker 7 (01:12:23):
Converted car or anything. I was like a Jaguar with
its two seats on each side facing each other. There's
no front or back end. There's an engine over that's
kind of over both sets of yeah, and so it
can reverse front end becomes the back end.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
Whatever.

Speaker 7 (01:12:44):
We backed up, went into an little lane. It was fine,
and we had a couple of moments where people looked
at it. You know, if you're in a robo taxi,
there are these rockstar moments where people have like, is
that what I think it is? So this kind of
tesla starts doing video of us how to stop mind
you not driving? This couple in a jeep were like
waving high. They were rolling down in the window. But

(01:13:07):
you can't up in the window on a zooke.

Speaker 2 (01:13:10):
On the how big get held up a side actually.

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
Just like thumbs up. Can't get out.

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
Yes, uh.

Speaker 7 (01:13:16):
And Monday afternoon I took a little field trip to
Lake Mead Rhyme this company called ARC the.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Electric boat show.

Speaker 7 (01:13:23):
Yes, tell us about battery electric Yeah, and that thing
halls ass that's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
Yeah, And apparently I I'm not a boat guy like
I like other people's boats, right, I had not looked
up winterization checklists for boats. You don't want to do that.
It's a whole lot of work if you have a
gas engine.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
And this is why I don't have a boat. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:13:45):
Well, also, this thing is like it will cost two
hundred and fifty eight thousand dollars, I think, Yeah, I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
What boats cost my regular series of boats.

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
I prefer boat as a service where somebody else.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
You know, that was quite literally a twenty thirteen aristotical
boat bound, I believe. Sure, why not sounds it actually existed.
Pray for the end anyway, but it sounds like the
fast electric boat was fun at least.

Speaker 7 (01:14:13):
Yeah, and you know the whole way, we're finding ways
to electrify all these different modes of transit.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
That's good. Yeah, that's good and useful stuff. How do
you charge that thing? Though?

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
Same?

Speaker 7 (01:14:24):
It's actually the same kind of plug on most non
Tesla evs, the J seventeen seventy two slow charging.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
How does that do with water?

Speaker 1 (01:14:34):
It's all sealed, so the whole thing, Yeah, the batteries
in a silk compartment. The plug itself is at.

Speaker 7 (01:14:40):
Like the top of the hole you step over at boarding, right,
And the whole model is this is something built to
toe like water skiers. People like surfing on the wake.
So you don't spend overnight with it. You do like
four to six hours. Everyone is tired, needs a nap
dock it, plug it in and slow charging is overtime.

(01:15:04):
It's fine, right, but it worked though, yes, actual and
also like just pulling out in the no wake zone
on the lake really quiet and there's no smell of
gasoline like regular boats there there make a certain amount
of noise efficient engine stretch.

Speaker 2 (01:15:22):
So Ed David, you went to the Venetian expoe and
you went down to the Eureka zone. Yes, real toilet.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
I was there earlier today.

Speaker 2 (01:15:31):
What did you fellas see? What wonders did you?

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
I thought it would be weirder than it was. It
really is disappointed. I've seen weirder stuff there. Yeah, yeah,
that was prepared to go down there, and it was
just going to be like a hair dryer that's been
trained to scream at you. You know, it's just like
the nonsense tech sold to you by media. Let me
look at your my nose to see if anything sort
of jumped out. But we had I think the biggest

(01:15:54):
challenge for us, and this is maybe it's my sense
of direction issue, is just finding stuff that like there's
multiple food courts and then there's a lot of like
country type zones. Yes, the French tech one is the
single biggest occupent of space. Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean,
like some of the stuff I saw I was like
boring but useful.

Speaker 7 (01:16:13):
There was some French startup They make a little pogystick
on the floor of a garage to tell you is
this an ice car or an EV? Has the EV
been there too long? And ice means in term of question, yeah,
which you know, boring but useful. Yeah, probably need that, Yeah,
but nothing really weird and fun.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
It was weird I saw I had I don't try
to gas you up here on the podcast as an
actual journalist watching you ask good questions of people that
were we were sort of wandering around the like accessibility
tech h area, and that stuff is like kind of
hard to parse in some ways because it's like it

(01:16:53):
seems useful to me. I don't have limited mobility, right,
and it does have that sort of veneer of it,
and yet you were able to and I don't. I
don't want to make you like break down your own
tape here like it's John Gruden's Quarterback Club.

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
But well, I think that's one major reason why that would.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
Well, right, But in this case, it's like you asked
a series of questions about that the like bluetooth earpiece
thing that I found like really illuminating in terms of
like all stuff gets sold.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:17:22):
So we there's a section of the area that was
for digital health, and some of it was for people
who are unable to use their arms, and so you
want to give them some tech that they can put
in their ear or somewhere close enough to the jaw
so that when they clenched that can be assistive and

(01:17:43):
be used in place of their arms. When we first
approached one of the boots, the guy was pitching it
as something that would be useful immediately in retail. Let's
say you're at like a fast food restaurant or at
some sort of store and you are unable to use
your hands because you're doing another task. You can you know,
clench your jaw or use it in a certain way.
And he was talking about how you know, these firms

(01:18:04):
love their product because they are able to have the workers.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
You know, do multiple task at once perfect.

Speaker 6 (01:18:10):
And then we talked to the product guy and it
there's actually there's nothing. There's no real product. It's in development,
and the core concerned is accessibility, which makes sense, like
it is people who are not able bodied, and that
all this other stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
Is uh proposed.

Speaker 6 (01:18:28):
It feels as if a way to attract investments so
that they can do the core thing that they actually
would do, which is one would hope, yeah, you know,
I would hope so or it could be reversed, which
is that you are developing something that is clear, concrete
and and has a definite use case, but then pitching
investors the much more speculative and spurious thing so that

(01:18:50):
you can scale up and build and never really eventually
land there, but keep you know, pulling in funds.

Speaker 1 (01:18:56):
Interesting also, it was interesting to me about that, like
tonally and we were talking about this the difference in
the approach between like the marketing guy who like kind
of knew some stuff but was mostly just like a
goofball Canadian dude, yeah, and then the product guy, who
was more or less able to be like not only
in the sense that one guy's like, we've already got

(01:19:17):
a prominent fast food place that's like ready to place
in order, so like act now, and then the other
dude was just sort of once you got into the
like as you were saying, like for the accessibility stuff,
like it more or less makes sense, Like there's the
things that you'd be doing with it, are you know,
which is basically it's like a very small facial gesture.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
What they can do things actually do, Like what are
the commands.

Speaker 6 (01:19:39):
So in conjunction with moving your hand or maybe tilting
to get it with some sort of micro expressions or
small gestures, with clenching your joy be able to move cursors, click,
you know, very simple commands. But the way that the
marketing guy was talking about it was as if you
would be able to immediately as someone's making order, parsed

(01:20:00):
through a menu or a screen faster than you could
tactile and.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
Then like make change. Yeah, right, and so the product
guy was basically like the way that he explained it,
which I thought was like pretty honest, was like, you know,
so it's like building like a sort of a user interface,
and like theoretically you could get really complex with it.
You know that it could all of these could be
different applications. But at some point you're making a lot
of expressions and you're like moving your nose very slightly

(01:20:27):
because you're basically like scrolling through this long series of
options so that you can select that this person is
trying to get like a four piece box, right, you know,
and like he you know, obviously he was like professional,
He wasn't like that's a stupid use for this technology.
But it was the sort of thing where you could
see how like that is not just like sort of

(01:20:49):
harder and like further down the line, it's also like
it's hard to make something that is designed to be
one thing do something else, Like theoretically it could happen.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
It sounds like it sounds like it isn't designed for
anything because it doesn't exist. Yeah, that's the other It
doesn't sound like they've tried it, Like they didn't even
have a protest when we talked about it.

Speaker 6 (01:21:07):
They said they were in late stage prototype development with partners,
and tried to press them on what them doesn't seem.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
Like cover of Multitude, Yeah, exactly is there like yeah
the PR guy Yeah no, no, So speaking to that,
I can actually speak to this. Nothing exists.

Speaker 2 (01:21:28):
In my opinion. This is my professional opinion, not having
seen it, but anytime, and I don't work, never work
with clients like this. I think the time I stop
was in like twenty fourteen when I had my first
client that just had something completely fucking made up and
like the fit. They had a thing like a nutrition thing.
I'm being as vague as possible, and it's set on
fire during a demo, which is traditionally not a great

(01:21:50):
nutrition thing. I guess if you're eating something. Nevertheless, that
was them like, I need up the quality control because
if they're saying yet late stage prototype development. Yeah, that
phrase has been through a few people, none of them lawyers. Yeah,
because the lawyer would be like, don't say, don't say.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
It's kind of a lot of words. It is taken
a long time for you to say that you don't
have a thing, yeah, like there's nothing to use. And
if they're saying if they had the way around.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
That professionally is you actually have a video of someone
using it and you they go, well, we'll do rendering
you like no, no, yeah, no, no, no, there's none
of that.

Speaker 6 (01:22:24):
All that was was it felt like there was an
earpiece that someone had, but there were no efforts or
you know, attempt to demonstrate it and purely uh sort
of like the X ray blue outline of a body
illustrations illuminating what muscle groups would be used when clenching

(01:22:44):
your jaw, which is.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
These also feel like very different use cases because the
experience of I imagine not having arms, like not not
actually being able to move one's body and the things
you would need to do as a result a vastly
different to someone who doesn't have the hands free. On
top of that, people have different sized faces. That's yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:23:07):
We talked about this a bit where it's like, you
know what you would need to do to be able
to with micro expressions muscles whatever outpace tactile manipulation or
do it fast enough where you could do it and
have it as a secondary task.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
I mean we're getting.

Speaker 6 (01:23:25):
Into like sci fi territory at that point, because you
need to be able to create some sort of design
that you know, it would distinguish between all these gestures,
be able to immediately and reliably one hundred percent of
the time get them to get to there, and be
able to internally manipulate them with thought because this is
also a non invasive alternative to brain implants, So it

(01:23:45):
has to somehow create a mental schema that's one to
one matching with gestures movements. You know, we're getting into
territory where each step is less and less peasible.

Speaker 2 (01:23:58):
Even say how they would receive the signals? Would it
be uh? What did they say?

Speaker 5 (01:24:05):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
E M it was e emg's which was I don't
remember that sounded for Honestly, it seemed legit enough to me,
again as a simpleton, I also invested three hundred million dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
I mean, we all will.

Speaker 1 (01:24:20):
But the there it was like one of those things
where like more or less the technology seemed to make sense,
the usage didn't seem to make sense. Like I believe
that there is probably like high level engineering that could
make something like this work. I don't think that there's
anything that's like gonna make it work for Wendy's.

Speaker 7 (01:24:40):
But that was also one example, I think of what
there I've seen I think two different companies doing some
some kind of powered exoskeleton, and it is it will
help you hike.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Oh I will. I want the rubboat sit like one.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
My thought is if you can do that and so
it works naturally with you, not like against you. You know,
older people who might have be a.

Speaker 7 (01:24:59):
Risk falling, which one thing I've learned from having you know,
ask anyone who's got a little relatives. Gravity can kind
of be terrible for older people. And yeah, that's why
that's what We're going to retire to a space station
if I can afford them.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
But yeah, that's It's interesting also how you'd market it,
because I did see those that was yesterday. I saw
that and it was definitely sort of like a lifestyle enhancer.
Like the way that they were pitching it was being like,
you know, you're gonna be able to hike like you
never hiked before.

Speaker 7 (01:25:26):
I'm not actually get the tech bro who wants to
be like iron Man, right, I'm trying to bet money
and use it to then you productize it for a
larger market.

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:36):
And in this case, it was like the the idea
that you had to imagine the larger market because I
guess of like how comparatively unglamorous to investors the actual
market would be.

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
Pivot. Yeah, So Rob, would you say this is a
more bullshit or less bullshit? Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:25:51):
Hm hm, I might say slightly less, like one thing
and this is a piece I still needed to do
for PC mag AK television. You go back like four
years ago or six years everyone was like, well, it's
going to be the next four K. I'm like, actually,
it's the next three D and full K is yet
to be the next four K. It's it's become a
sort of pyrrhic victory for the industry. They got it adopted.

(01:26:15):
It's in any set you'd buy bigger than like forty
two inches. But because everybody's doing it, there's no profit
margin left, which was the problem it was supposed to solve, right,
But yeah, Ak Samsung is still trying to make it happen.
No one else is, right, and I'm like, that's great.
The industry realized no one actually wants to buy this,
so they found a new thing that no one wanted

(01:26:36):
to buy out. You know, yeah, like just just at
AI as a label. You like what Delta is doing
with the concierge that maybe just software. I just you
know your aktvs now have AI upscaling instead of just upscaling.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
No, they were doing that last year. Probably, they absolutely
were doing that. If they try to say again, is there.

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
A distinction between those two things.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
Well, eight K is actually eight K resolution versus upscaling,
which is effectively filling in the front.

Speaker 1 (01:27:03):
It's on which you need because there's nothing to watch.

Speaker 2 (01:27:06):
In a K. Well, you can't even watch terrestrial television
and four K, so in theory you can't.

Speaker 7 (01:27:11):
You can your next gen, but that's not going to
be doable until stations take that note. My first CEES
was the introduction of digital TV in nineteen ninety eight.

Speaker 1 (01:27:21):
Jeez, that's y'all. Can't see the gray hairs on my head,
most of which your CES is fault.

Speaker 2 (01:27:25):
Why would you watch something in four K?

Speaker 7 (01:27:28):
I would watch it if it's a big enough if
it's a big enough screen, you appreciated, like I was
a skeptic for a long time. The monitor on my
Mac at home is a four K screen, and yeah,
for all mankind is pretty great at that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:39):
Lee Well, sport like baseball, especially with very precise placement
but past that point really.

Speaker 7 (01:27:44):
Yeah, now there's no reason for AK And you know,
maybe I guess the sphere I guess has sixteen case
screens on the wall.

Speaker 1 (01:27:51):
But that's the definition of an edge case.

Speaker 7 (01:27:53):
Yeah, if your your ease case is a two billion
dollar building in Vegas.

Speaker 2 (01:27:58):
Yeah, yeah, is not as well.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
Also to your point on the watching things and four
K things, like I think so we're also uh current
on for all mankind la postorous. But it's like, you know,
it's guy's a strong seats. I've noticed that. And this
is the case with a lot of the Netflix stuff,
which they make them shoot on four K cameras, right,
Like that's like, yeah, it's it's a really goofee show.

(01:28:21):
It's like a space soap opera. But the but a
lot of the issues I like it too, And but
so the effects look incredible. The scenes of people talking
in rooms often look like a telenovella to me, Like yeah,
and that's like an issue with a lot of Netflix
stuff too, because they shoot in four K and then
they have to mush it down to get it through
your pipes and then it expands again on your TV.

(01:28:42):
And that's why everything on Netflix kind of looks like
you're watching it on your phone even though you're watching
it on your TV. I think this is like my
understanding of it. But I do think that there's like
as much as it would be cool to like watch
sports like that, and I do think it's true, like I,
you know, have my mind blown by like how good
a lot of the TV displays were in the big
you know, TV manufactured things that I looked at this morning.

(01:29:05):
And yet it's like you do kind of at some
point like bump up against the like necessity question on
any of this stuff, Like.

Speaker 7 (01:29:15):
We like the whole Apple definition of a retina display,
like can you no longer see the constituent pixels? Which
is absolutely a thing in TVs, And so yeah, you
need such a huge screen for AK to be discernibly better,
and so yes, content for it, Like now there's nothing
the odd time that EFA in Berlin, I want to say,

(01:29:35):
like two years ago, and that's what is EFA just
for the it's the basically the European version of CS.
It originally stood for German for international radio show. I
don't speak German to tongue. International now focus along. Now
they say it's innovation for all I do.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
And that was really okay, I dun'k it, And that EFA.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
Has gone on from like twenty twenty three up for
a few years in the forties. I don't like to
talk about.

Speaker 7 (01:30:03):
And so Samsung had commissioned an AK version of the
series Dust Boots. Okay, and that's like literally the only
time I've seen a TV vendor get you something to
watch in AK.

Speaker 2 (01:30:16):
The movies like four and a half, isn't that very
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:30:18):
Even know they'd min a series out of the movie
the series.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the movies very long.

Speaker 7 (01:30:23):
I have watched the movie and it was in an
old school theater in DC and Connecticut Avenue.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
Yeah, the movies from like nineteen eighty five too.

Speaker 2 (01:30:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:30:30):
I feel like watching that in a K would feel
like you were on LSD overprocessed. Yeah, just like you're
so much closer to Jurgen Prunk now than you really
need to be.

Speaker 2 (01:30:39):
Hug and Krunk.

Speaker 1 (01:30:39):
We love Yurgen pro is a good actor.

Speaker 2 (01:30:43):
So let's bring this to an end. Rob. Where can
people find you?

Speaker 7 (01:30:46):
You can find me at pc mag dot com, mass
coompany dot com. My website is Rob Pacerrero dot com.
I am on bluesky at the exact same handle was
on blue Sky. Everyone has a website, mister.

Speaker 6 (01:30:56):
Guisa newsletter, the Bubble dot Substack dot com podcast, this
Machine Kills and on actually everything site in blue Sky,
Big Black Jacobin.

Speaker 1 (01:31:10):
I'm ready for Defector dot com the podcast I do
there is the Distraction and I am David Jroth dot
bsky DoD social on Bluescape.

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):
So you're at the end of day four of the
CS coverage. We are absolutely high energy. All of us
are and are more peaking out, more awake than we've
ever been able to take these boys out for bergers
after this, thank you so much for listening. Everyone. Two
more days. You've got another double tomorrow, another two pairs,
another two pairs. Jesus Christ ninety minutes each, two episodes

(01:31:42):
hard and then a finale on Saturday. Jesus Christ, It's
not that bad. I have not been this tired.

Speaker 6 (01:31:50):
God knows how.

Speaker 2 (01:31:53):
I'm brimming with life and I'm like a decade older
than you, full of full of the spirit of csh
of John CS, the founder, the Christian cult leader, give
us so much at the first CS who did a
sacrifice and that's why the show is still around. Yep,
that's facts. Anyway, I'm at Zitchron. Thank you for listening.
You've really indulged me this week. More to come tomorrow.

(01:32:15):
Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to Better Offline.

Speaker 4 (01:32:26):
The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
and audio projects at Mattasowski dot com, m.

Speaker 2 (01:32:34):
A T T O S O W s ki dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:32:39):
You can email me at easy at Better Offline dot
com or visit Better Offline dot com to find more
podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really
recommend you go to chat dot Where's youreed dot at
to visit the discord, and go to our slash Better
Offline to check out our reddit.

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 5 (01:32:57):
Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media from
from cool Zone Media. Visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com,
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Better Offline CES 2025: Day 4 - Pt. 2

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Host

Ed Zitron

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Better Offline CES 2025: Day 4 - Pt. 2