Better Offline CES 2025: Day 4 - Pt. 2

26:54We don't have the pro subscription. It's only going to tell you some objects. Although, again, it does have... We don't pay for the car, Adam. If you turn the subscription off, it's like, well, your cane's going to be a lot quieter this month. It's going to turn into an oblong cylinder of plastic, which it was before, and now it's just not going to talk to you. Give them a year. They'll make the subscription... They'll make it load-bearing, I guess. Yeah, the subscription stuff is really sinister to me. It's everything now. So, Sean, you... How do you feel about Delta, though? What did Delta do differently?

27:26What's 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 was pretty much a lot of that. It really, I mean, like I said, it was the buildup that Ed Bashan did at the beginning of like, this is the next 100 years. And it almost made me want there to be more bullshit. Like insane stuff. Yeah. And it's weird because like, I haven't been here since 2020 and they were a big part of 2020 show. I feel like I saw more from them then because at that point they were still working on, um, you know, adding a bunch more features to the screen experience in like, you know, in the seat back experience, they were working on this thing, uh, you know, sort of a privacy nightmare kind of thing.

28:15but 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 kinds 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 multiple different things on the same screen. They pair that with facial recognition. 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.

28:48At least that was like, we're working on this tech and seeing if it works. Like a thing that might happen, whether you like it or not. This year, it was very like, it's all, of course, about generative AI. And it really was just a really weak showing of what they think that can do. Because the experience they showed off in these vignettes, it's like, it's some of that same stuff. The best way I can describe it is it's treating these people like a baby. It's like assuming you are a high-class Delta SkyMiles person and you can't be bothered to get to the airport on time. You can't be bothered to wait in traffic.

29:25You can't be bothered to... It was like, it'll tell you which gate your flight is at and where that is. As if you can't look at the gate number and count down. The airports are built pretty well for this. I don't have a way of finding out where my flight is. Yeah, I know I'm at gate 17. I see gate three. Oh, look, the numbers go to 17 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 it's like, you'll be flying there. That's what I want.

30:05And then you'll be able to plan out your trip while you're in midair 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. So none of this seems to make the flight better. No, and that's the thing that really bums me out, has bummed me out a lot about CES this year. Not just at Delta, but for so much of it. Nothing is about making a lot of the little stuff better. Even the convention itself, Like it's just there's so much about being here.

30:42Like Vegas has built up all of this extra stuff to make CES 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 lunchtime. There's not enough seats for people. Like I'm going to sit at this one 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 okay I'm going to go sit on the floor which I've done plenty of times in the many years I've come here and 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 not even using that as an opportunity to present some of the technologies that are being promised it's just like it's the most pedestrian mall ass experience like here and you can just feel how no one's heart is in it 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.

31:42Is 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. It took 45 minutes to get me through. Like and so there's, you know, some of that's my fault because I don't have pre or whatever. I'm not rich enough to have whatever the, I mean, like Tom Brady does not have to go through security. I don't know if he's Tom Brady. flying private or if he just signs a football for somebody and 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.

32:18Things that are basically minor activations of agency, like looking up at the board and finding the number of my flight and then being like, what gate is it? 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 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 while flying through the air.

32:53And here's Lenny Kravitz. And here's Lenny, ladies and gentlemen. Enough about Mr. 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 'Cain dot B-Sky. How do you say that? I don't know. Sean O 'Cain dot, and you'll find me. Okay, where do you work? I work at TechCrunch. Wonderful. I've been there for a year. It's amazing. Lovely. Carissa, where can people find you? They can find me on Blue Sky, still on threads for now. Carissa B-E on both of them.

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37:20And we're back. We've got Sean Arcane, of course, from TechCrunch. We've got Carissa Bell from Engadget and David Jayroth of Defecta. And we're, Carissa 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 of Faraday Future I must hear so they were here pitching their latest kind of pivot strategy shift whatever you want to call it okay which is FX 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 look nice on the inside and sell them for probably like between$20 ,000 to$50 ,000.

38:11So perhaps you can give some history about how well Faraday Future has done selling cars. Yeah, all of you guys are making faces that I'm hearing that. I'm like, that's not a surprise. Illuminate how great they are at this. They have to date have sold 15 or 16 FF91s, which I believe - 1 ,000, 15 or 16 ,000. No, 15 or 16 ,000, 1 ,500, 1 ,600. That's more manageable. So good. of the only car that they've ever managed to actually sell, the FF91. They're making about one a month is what the FX says. And if I sell, you mean essentially lease to these people and in some cases actually strike contracts with them that basically reimburse them for the cost of the sale of the car.

38:53How long has this company been around? 2014. That's so good. They're 11 years old. Do they advertise themselves as a small batch automotive company? no they should so the new plan is to sell a cheaper shittier car a cheaper minivan specifically right so a smaller total addressable market this company rocks listen I actually don't we were just talking off mic they refused to let me come see it yeah man you've written like 7 different very aggressive stories about them I wonder why 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, one of their plans was to make this type of vehicle in China.

39:43So my assumption would be that this is one of the prototypes that they developed back then that's just been sitting in China collecting dust. And now they've been able to put some new veneer on it. But 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 in China. It had grown to like$10 billion or more in valuation. 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.

40:19and those debt bombs started going off and he exiled himself to the US in 2017 and has been here ever since running the company. But the point is they don't have any money left and they've been trying to raise it from people related to him and close to his orbit. And so the idea of selling a$200 ,000 car to people that clearly don't really necessarily want to buy it at scale is unpalatable. So they are going after this idea of making a low-cost car because they think it's a more investable business. Carissa, when we say lower cost, I didn't realize it was$200 ,000 for the regular one. That's the regular one-ish.

40:56I mean, I think it's a sliding scale. To be fair to them - From not existing to never existing. You won't hear me say this often. To be fair to them, the goal with that one was to always compete with the Maybacks and Bugattis of the world. So it's not like - So extremely well-engineered cars that are well-known for their design and their execution on said design. Eventually. Well, eventually it's kind of the whole Faraday Future thing. So how much is the cheap van that they're doing? Unclear, probably around$50 ,000, I think, based on what they said. I'll just say the prototypes we saw, you said that maybe these have been sitting around for a while.

41:36Maybe that's true. These were rough. I mean, I believe that too. Define rough. So there was two different ones. One had sort of the more finished interior where they were trying to show off, you know, how they were kind of going to make a minivan, but you know, for grownups and fancy. Right. But it had no door handles. Okay. Um, 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. Um, you know, so it had some, you know, white leather captain seats that had, you know, massage functions and you know, it was, it was okay.

42:07No door handles. No door handles. Um, completely like wrapped in that. Did they have to like airlift you into it from the top or how did you get in? I mean the doors opened they just didn't have yeah okay just not 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 I love this show they said it was a plug-in hybrid I got to drive it around honestly it could have been a Toyota Sienna covered in fabric for all I know like it did it feel like an electric vehicle like i mean it felt like yeah kind of yeah i just love the idea that they would this company sounds like they would actually do the toyota sienna thing so yeah i mean i don't know i i'm not i'm not like i'm not accusing them of that just to be clear legalities but it 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 right um max did tell me that i was the first lady to drive uh that particular vehicle so That's an amazing honor.

43:16Yeah. Thanks for knowing that. Really doing the, like, not having door handles thing is incredible. Like, again, from being completely outside of the 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 Proof and being like, just take it for a spin. Take it around the lot. The contempt. That's a wild thing. Why would you want somebody to drive a car that looks that messed up on the inside? I mean, maybe Sean can speak to this.

43:46Like you don't expect a prototype vehicle to necessarily be finished and have all these things. But not held together with binder clips. But what was also telling to me was that the one press image they gave us was so low res. And it showed them, it was like these two vans like in a field, like at a great distance. And also the vans are covered in like camouflage, like wrap. But which is, you know, that's a traditional automotive thing. But set in this field, because I saw this image earlier today. it just looks like cow cars because it's like blocky black and white but in the field in this weird setting that you wouldn't normally see like a prototype car and it was like my brain just was like cows.

44:24I just love the idea of it being just like a deep fried JPEG like 75k sending that out to the press. So you could use this as like your avatar on social media. Do not put it on your website. This will not render on blue sky. It's going to be pointless. 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 visas that staff the company everybody else has been furloughed or laid off pretty much is there like an end game is the idea there that whatever technology they have would be purchased by some other company or what happens I think the founder is singular in his vision of wanting to from what I've heard from the conversations I've had with people who have worked at this company over many years this man is I'll say two things and then I'll try not to go too long on it.

45:14One is that he, since he self-exiled himself from China to here, the thinking is he wants to build up a successful business that would let him go back into China without just being snatched and thrown into a void upon landing. Because that's like, he was put on a debtor blacklist. And what is kind of just for? I mean, he left the company with like billions of dollars owed by himself. What are the consequences of a debtor blacklist? you could just probably be disappeared by the state. So can you not leave China? Is that one of the things? On paper, the limitations are like you can't buy train tickets or you have actual economic restrictions placed.

45:52Some of your assets are frozen, things like that. But the realistic thing, given the scale of the collapse of his business there, is that he would probably be hidden in a corner somewhere. Great. Yeah, in a place. But having lots of money would allow him to avoid that? I think in his mind, he thinks that if, I mean, 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. So I think he thinks that that has enough cachet that it would like to do that. Other than having the billions part. Yeah. That seems to be the problem.

46:27Yeah. So I will say this. if I see a car, I expect the bits to be on. Like, I think that, like, that feels like a reasonable thing. Did they react to the falling apartness of this vehicle that allegedly you would buy? No, I mean... Sick. So good. It's a fairly common thing to show up with a prototype that's, like, half-baked. At 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 is probably coming from the experiences they've had with the more expensive car, which is actually quite technologically accomplished for seven years ago when they developed it.

47:17And they got away with a lot of bad finish, you know, sort of rough edge demos at CES in years prior because people would forget about that because they'd jam on the pedal on this thing and it's fast as hell. The more expensive car that they've built is incredibly capable because they hired, when he started this company, they had all this money that he had and they just overspent so much. They went from being founded in 2014 to 1 ,500 people by 2016 and they did that by basically paying 50 to 100 % more than the going rate for every position inside the company. They attracted all this talent from Tesla, Apple, all these other companies, but they were very secretive about what they were doing because they were trying to hide who was backing it.

48:09This combination of secrecy and obvious signs of money at one point had people believing that this was a front for Apple's secretive car project. That's how crazy the mania was getting around what this company was broken. Damn, that's a good scam. But so the reason I say that is when the people who developed the car included the team that made the GM EV1, which is thought of as the first real mass market EV in the US. So they had real engineering behind it. And when they were demoing that car years ago here, people were kind of falling in love with it because they were like, yeah, this company is kind of crazy.

48:44And 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 CES experience, that just doesn't involve getting attacked by robots in a booth. Like, oh yeah, that was one of my better experiences when I went zero to 60 in like one second. Do you not think that some of this is a reflection of how the tech press has looked at tech though? Sure. Because I feel like thanks to the way Elon Musk was covered, there were a lot of companies that could kind of get away with this shit. Well, they've gotten away with it in the sense that they were one of the companies that did one of these SPAC mergers and raised another billion dollars.

49:19So just define a SPAC 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, you could theoretically create a company that's just basically a holding cell for cash that's publicly traded. And you can basically 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. And so maybe there's merit to that approach to things.

50:00But that whole process got really perverted in 2020 and 2021, 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. And Faraday Future doesn't sound like it should have ever been taken out of the box. Well, I'll put it this way. They went public in 2021. 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.

50:33And then eventually the internal investigation led to him being removed from a particular role at the company, having people around him pushed out of the company. And they referred it to the SEC, which is still actually actively investigating the company. Rough few years for this guy. I mean, listen, he's here and not in a cell in China. He lives in a mansion in Rancho Palos Verdes in Los Angeles. So he's done well for himself. Yeah, we're four days in and I keep trying to find, I bring in new people. I love the voices we get. And I keep being like, well, maybe this will be the person who found a real company.

51:11I'll tell you, I mentioned this before. I got to drive an electric boat this morning. 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 Tesla and SpaceX especially where it's like this company's founded by SpaceX engineers these guys are actually genuinely smart at coming up with interesting ideas and trying to apply them to products and their whole thing 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.

51:54These guys are really going after a market that I think makes sense, which is just like boats for rich people. 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 wake sports. It's like tailor-made for that. And it costs a lot of money. I think it's in the high$100 ,000 marks. But it's the kind of boat that you're already talking about spending almost that much with a regular gas version. And I am, of course. Yeah, of course. So they've been around for a couple years. I think they got founded in 2021.

52:31But they're actually delivering these. They started delivering this boat. They hand-billed them, or mostly hand-billed them in Los Angeles. They started delivering them a couple months ago to the first owners. So 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 you drove it though? yeah so I got to drive it this morning Lake Mead that's the only bummer of the experience was it was at Lake Mead which is like it's like it's fairly there so it's like 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 basically exists anymore just in time for the end of the inland freshwater experience here in the United States but if I was able to set that aside for a moment it was a pretty fun experience other than just the terrible threat to humanity I think it's pretty clear which I'm somehow putting on the boat company, I apologize I think it's interesting that some of these products, these vehicles for a long time, especially at shows like CES, were sold as solutions to that larger problem of what we're doing to the planet.

53:47As opposed to the fact that corporations are causing it. Yeah, and now that doesn't really get put front and center anymore because I think people, A, they don't want to have to live up to that. Yeah, right. And B, because it doesn't seem like that's actually going to help us. So I don't begrudge them for not trying to put that front and center, but it was hard to separate it from the experience but it was a lot of fun. 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.

54:26And 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 generation in charge of the country again and see where that goes. 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 like people showing up and wanting to get excited about stuff and about having new things or 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 I think that's where there actually is some value in these weird shows they do the first few evenings like CES Unveiled or Pepcom where it's basically just like a gauntlet of 200 startups in a room that don't seem very properly vetted but that's where you're going to find the place the company of three people that's like we can actually use AI to save you nine bucks a month on your energy bill or something like that.

55:38Because they're not going to be able to afford a show floor booth. I also need to be clear, Pepcom is an enemy of Better Offline. They're an enemy of Better Offline fully because we applied and they said I run a PR firm, I can't be allowed in. Enemy. Everything at Pepcom, diseased. I stand shoulder to shoulder with you. Thank you. I'm shocked they have standards. I was too. That's what was so offensive. Yeah. Like, do you know how bad And 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. Yeah. My political opinions of I don't know anything.

56:14But also just like, oh my God, I'm not going to spend money on a Pepcom part. No one should have to pay to go there. The booth people, sure. But not me. Why would you do that to me? And that is why they're an enemy of 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 self-promotional, but it was one of the things that I really enjoyed about going to our conference, TechCrunch Disrupt, a couple months ago. I had never gone to it before until I worked here. And I was so almost low-level nervous walking in for the first time because it looks a lot like Pepcom and CS Unveiled.

56:50It's people at these little cocktail tables with a sign behind them. And there's a lot of them. Yeah, there's 200 that were there. and I'm just so attuned to the 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? Or whatever. And it was such a different experience because at least there we were trying to find companies. These events, it's like they're paying to be here and there's really not a vetting process. There's some sorting. You know that each day it's going to get a little bit worse.

57:25But other than that, there's really not much of a bar for most of it. So it was, I didn't realize how much like the Pepcoms and the CES Unveiled had ruined me for like that experience until we went to our conversation. It isn't saying we have like an assault style. Yeah. And Carissa gets attacked by humans and robots apparently. Literal assaults. Do you feel that they treat you differently as a woman at the show? The robots? Well, I mean, I don't know a guy who got attacked by one, so yes. But no, do you get treated differently? You know, you're the first woman to get attacked by that robot. they didn't specify that man but no do they do you get treated differently You know, I 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 this.

58:12and you're like why first what? Second of all like why would you feel the need to just say that out loud? So you know I think there's always those little moments especially when you come to CES 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 same speech over and over again that people say weird things I try not to That's very generous of you. Edward had a similar statement when he 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.

58:57It'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 that's, you know, that's how I feel. 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 i've had basically i mean whatever it like isn't sports writing you know like i was able to sort of fake it at the time and 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 nicks play and watch like some corgis run in a circle and i've obviously had a great time doing that yeah it's like you know better than anything that happened at the garden for 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 where they're kind of just like my like i'm a belgian malinois guy like that's everything about belgian malinois is more important to me than anything else about anything else in my life 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 like be normal that other stuff and yet like there is something kind of like wholesome ish about it too because like they're they're under this incredible duress they're in like the room under the room under the locker rooms at madison square garden it's like the room smells like dogs and people intensely we're talking about the dog show still the dog show still yes and 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 true everybody here but most people are not like that here everyone is like just like i gotta fucking come here for the i gotta 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 yeah i mean i guess it's also there's like a level of uncanniness it's more fun when it's dogs but also with a dog i feel like there's an there's not that much abstraction you know you're getting like a fine-ass terrier yeah like this pekinese is really going to 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, I can't take that next step.

1:01:48If 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. Yeah, that's true. The dog version of that was basically like guys being like, oh yeah, he loves ice cream. You know, which is like, that's fine. You know, like that was actually the most intense question that I had about this dog. 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. And they just get this look of sheer panic. And they're like, well, I can find someone.

1:02:24When I was walking around with Edward, who actually is a tech journalist, there was a moment where there was one guy that was talking to us. He's sort of doing his sales thing. And then Edward started asking the good follow-ups that a tech journalist would ask in terms of, do you have a prototype? And it was exactly that. This guy who kind of reminded me a little bit of Mark McKinney from Kids in the Hall, like just kind of like a big goofy Canadian guy 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.

1:02:52And he tapped himself out. He was like, there's our product guys eating pizza back there. Can you wait like 30 seconds? Because like, I'm not going to like lie to you. And I can't tell you the truth. I don't know it. Which, you know, I found honorable. Most honest guy at sea. I walked up to the person I told this 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, have you talked 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 I was too pissed off.

1:03:27But that happens a 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 what the even with cars I didn't think you could fake that one they got fucking wheels that go forward and backwards and side to side, Tesla sometimes a little too much but it's like you can fake cars hundreds of millions of dollars it sounds like and across multiple companies I'm going insane by the end of this trip I'm going to I think it's nice and I guess they're doing this so they can get more investment capital?

1:04:09They just keep doing the con? The car company in particular? Yeah, yeah, Faraday. I mean, they're trying to raise money from the Middle East now. Again? Yeah, from the UAE. Oh, my God. I got a lot of money over there. I keep bringing people in and hoping they'll help and help redeem this show, but they can't do it. I keep coming back. Well, the dog door. There's a really good dog door. 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 him a little easier time they're simple people and 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 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 it's honestly a pro move No, that is expert offensive line work.

1:05:05But before we go, Carissa, how many CES is this for you? I think this is number seven. Nice. Sean? I think around the same, yeah. Yeah. Is this better or worse, would you say? Worse in the sense that I see 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. It's their job to impress you. But better because I also get a lot less stressed out when I first started coming to CES. 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.

1:05:46And now I feel like I can maybe not relax is not the right word, but I don't get too worried about it anymore. Sean? I think that's a really repeatable experience for the people who do it a lot where you start to 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 have started over the line with the AI stuff and people feel like, oh, I better do it too regardless of the product. So I don't know. In that sense, I feel like it's worse. But better in that I know how to hack the experience more.

1:06:33More efficient. I came here with goals and I accomplished some of those goals. But those goals are not about finding a lot of new technology. It's like I know people are going to be here who I need to get information out of. Right. Or build a relationship with. And it's like that's more of what I'm after. Although you can't separate yourself from all the other stuff. So I will now get information from you. Where can people find you, Sean? I'm at TechCrunch. Go to TechCrunch.com. It's a great website. I'm on Blue Sky. Sean Cain. Carissa? I'm at Engadget. And social media, Blue Sky, Threads, still technically have an account on X.

1:07:14The Everything app, yes, of course. You just Google my name, you'll find me. Okay. And David? Rightfordefector.com. I have 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. I'm still putting it in everything. And yeah, DavidJRoth at.bsky.social. My name's Adam, 38 years old, and I just started a podcast called Better Offline. It's paid for by the bloody ads that follow this, so can you please click them this time? I'm going to lose the podcast if I'm not careful, so please look at the ads.

1:07:48I need this.

1:08:00We'll see you next time.

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1:11:28Welcome back to the show. It's me, Ed Zich, and you're listening 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 Pegoraro. Hello. One of the old school dogs of freelance tech journalism. How are you doing? I'm feeling very old after five days here for CES. Yeah, this place ages. It's the beach that makes you old of tech. So what are you writing for right now? PCMag, Fast Company, Wirecutter, various other publications as they come up. How many CESs? This is the 27th for me. No. That's not... Hell yeah.

1:12:01I've seen 98 onwards. So the only one I did not attend in person didn't happen in person, 2021. And at the start of that, I realized, yeah, my kid has never seen me that week of January, neither has my wife, because we started dating in 1999. So was it always called CES? It was originally the Consumer Electronics Show, then it was the International CES, now it's just CES, it's like AARP, it doesn't stand for anything anymore. Right. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, we had a debate a day or two ago. Honestly, at this point, I have no idea what day it is. Let's be honest, fellas. uh four five fleurs day yeah um it's a day but we no one really knew it's definitely a week day yeah that seems clear now we're at the point in the week and you will know this from your experience the ces begins to just crackle like everyone everyone left over on the thursday is just like i i just want to i just want to see my family again yes yes but also traffic starts getting a little bit better right the line to get lunch or a cup of coffee or a beer whatever It's not as bad as it was two days ago.

1:13:05Well, have you had a good show? Yes, I have. I'm very tired. Isn't anything fun or enjoyable? Yeah. You know, to me, the most interesting transformation of CS, I've seen it over the years, how first it started becoming a car show. Right. To the extent that it basically killed off the January Chicago North American International Auto Show. Although Chicago weather in January may have had some factor in that too. Right. A little cold. But then it's become all these other 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.

1:13:41John Deere has got a lineup of agricultural and construction machinery. You have boat makers. Right. You've got Oshkosh showing off a battery electric garbage truck and the cute little duck-billed truck they're building for the U.S. Postal Service. Right. Oh, they have that here? Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like my dream to see that truck, because I feel like they're going to spike the project. I'm a little worried about, yes, my new neighbor coming to Washington, D.C. They're super behind on it, right? Or is it, there was another company that was screwing it up worse? No, it's the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal said, yeah, they've shipped way fewer than they should have.

1:14:17Yeah, it was like. They say they're delivering in volume now, and I'd like to see them because, yeah, the letter carriers in my neighborhood are using these Carter administration vintage. The ones without AC. yeah and I'm like every time I see one I'm like is the wheel going to fall off while I'm looking at it yeah it's miraculous that they're still upright it's like the pictures you see from Havana where they just like kept the Studebaker going for 60 years we're actually going to sell them to the Cubans next I'm surprised we haven't threatened to take over there at this point don't give anybody an idea we're going to do a great deal that doesn't even feel funny anymore we hate doing it I hate doing the voice now Yeah, the voice is less enjoyable due to the consequences.

1:14:59But have you enjoyed any? Is there something you've seen that actually felt good? I'm really desperate at this point. Everyone I talk to is just like, well, I saw something that worked. Well, yeah, so there's a lot of junk. There's a lot of AI slop out there. So I stopped by Amazon's booth. They have this feature where you can have your Fire TV show art on the wall. Samsung did that with the frame. I've always wanted to put stuff on my wall that looked good. Yeah, it's a good idea. Yeah, I hear you can go to stores that sell exactly that stuff. That sounds implausible. Anyway. So you can ask the Fire TV to do some art via generative AI.

1:15:33Oh. And so I thought, well, okay, I'm going to be a nerd about this. I said, draw a New Glenn rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. And the first time I'd heard nuclear rocket, and then I drew this generic rocket. I'm like, okay, at least it's not a rocket with a reactor cooling tower attached to whatever. Then I said, it's slower. And it's still their generic rocket. I thought, shouldn't Amazon's AI know about its founder's space company? These things don't know anything. Yeah, people are throwing AI into anything and everything. So, see, now I'm just complaining about stuff. Yeah, just bad.

1:16:11I'm just going to stick with that for a little while. That's fine. Delta had this keynote. So this is a mix of good and bad. The production values were nuts. I'd never been to this sphere before. Right. And so they have this thing at the start where the screen that envelops you goes all around and above and around you. It's a sort of cockpit perspective of taking off down the runway. That's kind of cool. Seeing it speed at you, the subwoofers and the seats rumble as if you're on the plane. And they've got these fans blowing wind faster and faster at you. It's exactly like Shrek 40. Yeah, yeah.

1:16:45And they had the whole smell-o-vision feature, which I didn't actually know about. Oh, man. I don't want to smell it. I don't want to smell it. No. The guy next to you on the plane. You can smell the awful lasagna that they're serving on Uber. That's good comfort of plane food. Uber's CEO showed up because they're doing a partnership, and he had a sort of joke delivery of two hazelnut lattes. And so they had the smell of it. It actually smelled like a good hazelnut or caramel latte. And that guy got paid$3. Probably, yes. And the last part was maybe they wouldn't do this now. It was fireworks bursting over downtown L.A.

1:17:28And the air filled with the sort of smell of gunpowder like you would have if it were actual fireworks. Yeah, they might. One of those poorly timed ones by accident. Seemed like a great idea two weeks ago. Yeah. So great stagecraft. It was really neat. But then the announcement, they had this Delta Concierge, which will be this Gen AI assistant in the Fly Delta app. We've heard a little bit about this, but I love specifics. Yeah, so I'm an app geek. I fly a lot, although usually United being based in D.C. And they're talking about things like it will suggest alternate ways to get to the airport, your best path through it.

1:18:02I thought, is that really AI? Because like United's app will say, you know, you can use TSA Pre. Don't forget the United Club is here. is 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? Take the bus. But also, you can also just do this by using your finger. Right. Yeah. And so all these sort of contrived examples. And, of course, obviously, you can't talk about AI and airlines without Air Canada had a chatbot which made up a customer service policy.

1:18:39Which wasn't even GPT, by the way. It wasn't even generally AI. Oh, no, I've been over this one because people really want to make this one. No, it's going to be shit in the future, not in the past. Yeah, and so I'm like, there's lots of ways this could go bad, and the actual examples seem kind of, you know, are you sure this isn't just software? But also not that exciting or useful? 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.

1:19:14What's the best chances of me getting here? Yeah, like Flighty, which is one of the best apps of all time. Flighty is just what if a flight tracking piece of software worked? 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 useful. Yeah, you know, they're talking about they're going to have YouTube clips curated in the CPEC entertainment. That's fine. I never know what I'm going to watch on YouTube. You know, the Uber partnership. A lot of it was just a whole lot of stagecraft. And apparently it didn't go over well on the YouTube stream.

1:19:52In the audience, 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. Right. Or they were probably worried to not like Missy. I don't know. I don't spend enough time on the airline. Was he a real showman? You guys not? Ed Bastian, he's not like a natural at it, but he didn't seem like overwhelmed or, you know, like I've seen a lot of Musk give keynotes. Not what you want? No. Well, even less these days. Yes. Well, that's true. Just form and content being separated in this case.

1:20:30Yes. Form, content, substance. style, etc. What was Lenny Kravitz like? He was good. Like, I had not seen him play before. Did he play Circus? I don't think he did that. It's the only other song I know by him. Yeah, no, it started out with Are You Gonna Go My Way? And of course, the closing song was Fly Away. Gotta do that. How many songs did he play? Was it like a proper set? It was only about 45 minutes. It was like, you know, a brief set. Oh, that's actually... You got 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 set.

1:20:57And you were in the pit. No, the press seats were in like the 200 level. Those are actually really good. I watched the NHL draft there, and it was really cool. But the Sphere is objectively cool. Yeah, so the parts of CS I've enjoyed the most are the unusual experiences. The Sphere, Sunday afternoon I had a ride in a Zoox robo-taxi. How was that? Pretty cool. Very smooth in general. It gets a little skittish around traffic cones. And we had this part at the end, which there were a lot, because you all apparently never stop repaving or rebuilding the streets. Yeah, yeah, but constant state of chaos here.

1:21:33Yeah, and so this one road, there was a lane, a 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, now what? Yeah, this seems like you got the actual robo-taxi experience. Yeah, 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 robo-taxi. It's not a converted car or anything. Like Waymo is like a Jaguar with a wheel. So it's just two seats on each side facing each other. There's no front or back end. There's an engine over a motor.

1:22:09That's kind of cool. Over both sets of wheels. It's electric, right? Yeah. And so it can reverse. Front end becomes the back end, whatever. We backed up, went into another lane. It was fine. Right. And we had a couple of moments where people looked at it. You know, if you're in a robo-taxi, there are these rock star moments where people are like, is that what I think it is? Right. So this guy in Tesla starts doing video of us at a stoplight, mind you, not driving. This couple in a Jeep were like waving hi. And they were rolling down the window, but you can't open the window on a zoo. Should have banged on the side.

1:22:46So help me. You could have held up a sign. Like, you're just like, thumbs up. Can't get out. Yes. And Monday afternoon, I took a little field trip to Lake Mead. Right. There's a company called ARC. The electric boat Sean O 'Cain just told us about. Yes, battery electric. Yeah, and that thing hauls ass. That's cool. Yeah, and apparently I'm not a boat guy. 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. And this is why I don't have a boat. Well, also, this thing is like, it will cost$258 ,000, I think.

1:23:27Only? Yeah. I don't know what boats cost. I mean, my regular series of boats. I prefer boat as a service where somebody else you know has it. That was quite literally a 2013 era startup called Boatbound, I believe. Sure. Why not? It actually existed. Pray for the end. Anyway, but it sounds like the fast electric boat was fun. At least. Yeah. And, you know, the whole way we're finding ways to electrify all these different modes of transit, that's good. Yeah. That's good and useful stuff. How do you charge that thing, though? It's actually the same kind of plug on most non-Tesla EVs. The J1772 slow charging.

1:24:08How does that do with water? It's all sealed. So the whole thing, yeah, the battery's in a sealed compartment. The plug itself is at, like, the top of the hole. You step over at boarding. Right. And the whole model is this is something built to tow, like, water skiers. Right. Or 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 overnight. It's fine. Right. But it worked, though. Yes. It actually worked. And also, like, just pulling out in the no-wake zone on the lake, really quiet.

1:24:50And there's no smell of gasoline. Like, regular boats, they make a certain amount of noise. Yeah, it's not an efficient engine. Yeah. It's a stretch. So, Ed, David, you went to the Venetian Expo, and you went down to the Eureka Zone. Yes. Real toilet boat. I was there earlier today. What did you fellas see? What wonders did you— I thought it would be weirder than it was. It really is disappointing. I've seen weirder stuff there, yes. Yeah, that was prepared to go down there, and it was just going to be like a hairdryer that's been trained to scream at you. You know, it's like nonsense tech sold to you by maniacs.

1:25:26Yeah, let me look through my notes to see if anything sort of jumped out at me. I think the biggest challenge for us, and this is maybe 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 document of space. Yeah, it was. I mean, like, some of the stuff I saw was, like, boring but useful. There was some French startup. They make a little pod you stick 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 internal.

1:26:00Internal confession, yeah. Which, you know, boring but useful. Yeah. Probably need that. Yeah, but nothing really weird and fun. It was weird. So I had, I don't want to try to gas you up here on the podcast, Edward, but as an actual journalist watching you ask good questions of people that were, we were sort of wandering around the like accessibility tech area. And that stuff is like kind of hard to parse in some ways. Cause it's like, it 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.

1:26:40like it's John Gruden's quarterback club. Well, I think there's one major reason why that would be. Well, right. But in this case, it's like you asked a series of questions about the Bluetooth earpiece thing that I found really illuminating in terms of how this stuff gets sold. Yeah, yeah. So 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 clench, that can be assistive. It can be used in place of their arms.

1:27:20When we first approached one of the booths, 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 clench your jaw or use it in a certain way. He was talking about how these firms love their product because they are able to have the workers do multiple tasks at once. And then we talked to the product guy and there's nothing. There's no real product. It's in development. And the core concern is accessibility, which makes sense.

1:27:55It is people who are not able-bodied. And then all this other stuff is proposed. Exposed, it feels as if a way to attract investment so that they can do the core thing that they actually want to do. One would hope. Yeah, I would hope so. Or it could be reverse, which is that you are developing something that is clear, concrete, and has a definite use case, but then pitching investors the much more speculative and spurious thing so that you can scale up and build and never really eventually land there, but keep pulling in funds, interest. I feel bad for the investors now. That sounds terrible. Also, what was interesting to me about that was 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.

1:28:46And then the product guy who was more or less able to be like, not only in the sense that one guy is like, we've already got a prominent fast food place that's like ready to place an 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 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 that can do different stuff. What are the things you actually do? Like what are the commands you're making? So in conjunction with moving your hand or maybe tilting it with some sort of micro expressions or small gestures with clenching your jaw you'd be able to move cursors click.

1:29:27You 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 an order, parse through a menu or a screen faster than you could tactilely. And then make change. So the product guy was basically the way that he explained it, which I thought was pretty honest. It's like building a user interface. Theoretically, you could get really complex with it. 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 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 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 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 it sounds like it isn't designed for anything because it doesn't exist that's the other bit it doesn't sound like they've tried it they didn't even have a prototype when we talked about it they said they were in late stage prototype development with partners and tried to press them on what that meant doesn't seem like there's an actual thing is there like any quantum state of superposition.

1:30:57You're the PR guy. So speaking to this, I can actually speak to this, nothing exists. In my opinion, this is my professional opinion, not having seen it, but anytime and I don't work with, never work with clients like this. I think the time I stopped was in like 2014 when I had my first client that just had something completely fucking made up. And like they had a thing, like a nutrition thing, I'm being as vague as possible. And it set on fire during a demo, which is traditionally not a great nutrition thing. I guess if you're eating something. Nevertheless, that was them like, I need to up the quality control.

1:31:32Because if they're saying, yeah, late stage prototype development, that phrase has been through a few people, none of them lawyers. Because the lawyer would be like, don't say it, don't say it. It's kind of a lot of words when you say it. It is sort of taking a long time for you to say that you don't have a thing. There's nothing to use. And if they're saying, if they had the way around that professionally is you actually have a video of someone using it and they go, well, we'll do rendering. You're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's none of that. 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.

1:32:09and purely sort of like the x-ray blue outline of a body, illustrations illuminating what muscle groups would be used when clenching your jaw, which is... These also feel like very different use cases, though, because the experience of, I imagine, not having arms, like not actually being able to move one's body, and the things you would need to do as a result are vastly different to someone who just doesn't have their hands free. On top of that, people have different sized faces. Yeah, 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.

1:32:59I mean, we're getting into like sci-fi territory at that point because you need to be able to what? Create some sort of design that, you know, it would distinguish between all these gestures, be able to immediately and reliably 100 % 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 has to somehow create a mental schema that's one-to-one matching with gestures, movements. We're getting into territory where each step is less and less feasible or even constructed. Did they say how they receive the signals?

1:33:39Would it be – What did they say? EMGs. It was EMGs, which was – I don't remember what that stood for. Honestly, it seemed legit enough to me, again, as a simpleton. I also invested$300 million. I mean, we all will. But 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 going to make it work for Wendy's. you know but that was also one example I think of I've seen I think two different companies doing some kind of powered exoskeleton and the idea is it will help you hike oh I want the robot suit like I want to be ultra strong my thought is if you can do that and so it works naturally with you not like against you you know older people might have at risk of falling which one thing I've learned from having you know ask anyone who's got older relatives gravity can kind of be terrible for older people and that's Let's retire to a space station if I can afford it.

1:34:48That's not good. But yeah, 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 going to be able to hike like you never hiked before. You get the tech bro who wants to be like Iron Man. Right. Take that money and use it to then productize it for a larger market. Yeah. And in this case, it was like 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.

1:35:22Yeah. So, Rob, would you say this is a more bullshit or less bullshit? Yeah. Hmm. I might say slightly less. Like one thing I've seen less of – With all the AI stuff? And this is a piece I still need to do for PCMag. 8K television. You go back like four years ago or six years. Everyone was like, well, it's going to be the next 4K. I'm like, actually, it's the next 3D. And 4K is yet to be the next 4K as well. It's become a sort of Pyrrhic victory for the industry. They got it adopted. It's in any set you'd buy bigger than like 42 inches. But because everybody's doing it, there's no profit margin left, which was the problem it was supposed to solve.

1:36:00But yeah, 8K, 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 to buy. You know, yeah, like... AI. Just add AI as a label. You know, like what Delta's doing with the concierge that may be just software. I just... You know, your 8K TVs now have AI upscaling instead of just upscaling. No, they were doing that last year. Probably. They absolutely were doing that. If they're trying to sell that shite again... Is there a distinction between those two things?

1:36:34Well, 8K is actually 8K resolution versus upscaling, which is effectively filling in the... Which you need because there's nothing to watch in 8K. Well, you can't even watch terrestrial television in 4K. So in theory, you can. There's a standard called next gen, but that's not going to be doable until stations take that. Note, my first CES was the introduction of digital TV in 1998. Jeez. Y 'all can't see the gray hairs on my head, most of which are CES's fault. Why would you watch something in 4K? I would watch a football game. If it's a big enough screen, you're appreciated. Like, I was a skeptic for a long time.

1:37:09The monitor on my Mac at home is a 4K screen. And, yeah, for all mankind, it's pretty great at that level. And sport, like baseball especially, with very precise placement. But past that point, really? Yeah, no, there's no reason for 8K. And, you know, maybe, I guess the Sphere, I guess, has 16K screens on the wall. But that's the definition of an edge case. Yeah. If your ease case is a$2 billion building in Vegas, maybe that's not a mass market. Yeah, that constantly loses money as well. Also, to your point on the watching things and 4K things, I think we're also current on For All Mankind. Last two seasons are pretty preposterous, but it's like, you know, it's got strong suits.

1:37:47I've noticed that, and this is the case with a lot of the Netflix stuff, which they make them shoot on 4K cameras, right? I've also never seen this show, too. Yeah, it's a really goofy show. It's like a space soap opera. I'm a space nerd. I like it. But a lot of the issues, I like it, too. So the effects look incredible. the scenes of people talking in rooms often look like a telenovela to me like they're overly sharp yeah and that's like an issue with a lot of netflix stuff too because they they shoot in 4k and then they have to mush it down to get it through your pipes and then it expands again on your tv 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 I have my mind blown by how good a lot of the TV displays were in the big TV manufactured things that I looked at this morning.

1:38:41And yet, you do kind of at some point bump up against the necessity question on any of this stuff. Yeah, like the whole Apple definition of a retina display, and 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, yeah. There's no content for it. No, there's nothing. The only time that IFA in Berlin, I want to say like two years ago. And that's, what is IFA just for that? It's basically the European version of CES. Okay. It originally stood for German for International Radio Show. I don't speak German, but it's something like International Funkstallung.

1:39:25Now they say it's innovation for all. Well, I do, and that was flawless. I don't. And that IFA has gone on from like 20, 23, except for a few years in the 40s, I don't like to talk about. And so Samsung had commissioned an AK version of the series Das Boot. Okay. And that's like literally the only time I've seen a TV vendor get you something to watch in AK. And that shows like, the movie's like four and a half. Isn't that very - I didn't even know they'd made a series out of the movie. Oh, sorry, the series. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the movie's very long. I have watched the movie. It was in an old school theater in D.C.

1:40:03on Connecticut Avenue. Yeah, the movie's from like 1985 too. I feel like watching that in 8K would feel like you were on LSD. Yeah, over-processed. Yeah, you're so much closer to Juergen Prank now than you really need to be. Juergen Prank. We love Juergen Prank. We love Juergen Prank. He's a good actor. So let's bring this to an end. Rob, where can people find you? You can find me at PCMag.com, MassCompany.com. My website is RobPeguerrera.com. I am on Blue Sky at the exact same handle. Lovely. Because on Blue Sky, everyone has a website. Mr. Anguaysa. Newsletter, thetechbubble.substack.com. Podcast, This Machine Kills, and on X, the Everything site, and Blue Sky, Big Black Jacobin.

1:40:45I write for defector.com. The podcast I do there is The Distraction, and I am davidjroth.bsky.social on Blue Sky. so you're at the end of day four of the ces coverage we are absolutely high energy all of us are and are just peaking out more awake than we've ever been i'm going to take these boys out for burgers after this thank you so much for listening everyone two more days you've got another double tomorrow another another two pairs another two pairs jesus christ 90 minutes each two episodes tomorrow and then a finale on saturday jesus christ man it's not that bad no i am i have not been this tired for god knows how long you get to be my age i'm brimming with life and i'm like a decade older than you full of full of the spirit of ces yeah of john ces the founder the christian cult leader that's so much at the first ces who did a sacrifice and that's why the show is still around yet that's facts anyway i'm ed zitron thank you for listening you've really indulged me this week.

1:41:50More to come tomorrow. Thank you so much.

1:42:00Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Ossowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at matosowski.com. M-A-T-T-O-S-O-W-S-K-I.com. You can email me at easy at betteroffline.com or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat.wheresyoured.at to visit the discord and go to r slash better offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:43:06We'll see you next time.

1:43:16Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. Did it occur to you that he'd charmed you in any way? Yes, it did. But he was a charming man. It looks like the ingredients of a really grand spy story. Because this ties together the Cold War with the new one. I often ask myself now, did I know the true Jan at all? Listen to Hot Money, Agent of Chaos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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