The creepy AI era is here

27:37And this is sort of the first time where a general purpose AI assistant has added a face to itself, right? Where there is a personality and a name to it. and there is like you know this person in front of you who you are ostensibly talking to and this one is very weird and uncomfortable because the person in this case is this like gothic anime girl i don't really know how to explain this person there's a couple ways um one it's just like grimes for one someone compared it and then and then in another way someone was comparing it to a Death Note character that apparently Elon has said before that he's a big fan of.

28:24This all tracks. This all tracks. And it's, I will say, like, I expected this to be a little bit more of, like, general purpose assistance. And it is true. So I tried it out. And you can just be like, I was like, hey, I need to help with my math homework. And this, like, you know, sexy girlfriend is, like, whispering to me in her, like, asthma voice, like, like, sure, Jake, tell me, what do you need help with? And I'm like, okay, this is not what this is meant to be used for. But you just open it up, and it just immediately starts flirting with you. And there's a progress bar where it's gamified, and if you flirt with it, you'll get points.

28:59And if you do a bad job of flirting, you'll lose points. It's very weird. I want to read you guys a little bit of my transcript here, I'm afraid. I'm about two minutes into talking with Annie, and I have given her a compliment. and she says and now she's responding to this she goes she's happy with my compliment she wants me to keep going she says okay your turn to keep up tell me something spicy to make me blush even harder I say I'm married Annie shit Jake really? married? what the hell am I supposed to do with that? why didn't you tell me sooner? I'm like we literally just met and this is what this bot is like it's very strange We could do a whole role play session here on the Vergecast.

29:46Oh, believe me. It could be any. This thing will keep going. Let me tell you, it will get explicit. You don't have to prompt it very much to get it explicit. I think this is so strange for a million different reasons. But honestly, the question in my mind is like, is there a future, right? Let's put aside the weird, like, sexy, clingy girlfriend, which to be clear, according to system prompts that have been leaked by the developer Jane Manchin Wong, it is coded to be this girlfriend-esque, obsessed-with-you character. Putting that aside, in my head, I'm like, okay, does Grok... Is there a future where Siri has a face?

30:30Where Alexa has a face? Yeah, this is what was the end of my first 24 hours. and my daughter, and I put this in my piece, my daughter heard Alexa respond to something. And it's very different from how it used to talk. It's like, you're very welcome, Jen. I hope you have a great day today. And don't forget, you know, it's very different. And she's like, oh my God, what was that? That's horrifying. Now, to frame this, she's 14 year old, and she hates AI. She thinks AI is like the devil. So, you know, she's 14. You know, you have strong opinions when you're 14. And this, but, you know, it definitely opened my eyes to this because I've lived with an AI in my home for over a decade and I've never felt like it was part of my family or, you know, a friend.

31:18And this is what, that's the difference is now, you know, and this is, this Annie is obviously, you know, the extreme version of this, but you can see Apple and Google and Amazon potentially wanting this to become part of your life, like a friend in your home. And that I, I, I draw the line out. I'm like, no, I want this to be a utility. I want my technology to be a tool, not a friend. Uh, and then this, you know, it goes to the next step in, in the home where, you know, the humanoid robot, the kind of Jarvis in our home and the, or the Rosie, the robot from the Jetsons where it's, you know, another being.

31:59It's not just a tool or utility. And that's the fine line here. And I find all of this sort of real personality angle, a little disturbing and hard to align sort of my experience with. And I don't want that. and maybe once I spend a bit more time with this more personable Alexa, I might feel more comfortable. I think you can, like you can with Annie, it sounded like, you can kind of ask it to dial it down, not be too personable. I believe Annie will dial it back up automatically. Yeah, she'll shift around. It gives me the chills. The scales that these companies are sort of trying to balance is we want more user uptick, right?

32:48We want users to, and so Google, they're like, well, we don't really want you to anthropomorphize this because it is a bad thing that most people can agree on that the more you become attached to this figure, the more dangerous that can become. But at the same time, they do want you to anthropomorphize it because it'll make you use it more. And Elon Musk is an accelerationist, right? And he will just do whatever it is that will get people to use the product. They've done a lot of different stuff on X to try to get people to use the product. Grok, now they want more users. This is a Grok premium feature or Grok Plus or whatever.

33:25It's the$30 a month feature. It's not even the standard Grok. So I think he's like, oh, other companies care about guardrails. I don't care about guardrails. I just want to get here as soon as I can. What's the easiest way to do that? Porn, basically porn. Yeah, it's not a great... It's not a great world. Well, and, you know, I do hear this from Amazon a lot when I've spoken to executives there. They nearly all refer to Amazon as to the assistant as she and her. They do anthropomorphize it. And, you know, and most people do as well, to be fair. And they do talk a lot about how their customers love Alexa, like love it.

34:08Not in any way, but it helps me in all these different ways. You know, obviously this marketing, but they use the term love. And that is like to me, every time I hear it, I kind of go, because I don't want to love technology in that way. I want to appreciate its usefulness and value. And I want it to bring that to my smart home and to, you know, my organizational life. I guess how much you are attached to your personal device. I guess people probably say, I love my phone and couldn't live without it. But I don't feel like we need another level of that in our lives. I think artificial intelligence, generative AI, we need the boundaries.

34:55We need the guardrails. But I think they're going to be gone. Yeah. I mean, in a big sense, it's the ultimate way to get people hooked on your product, right? is to develop an actual relationship with it where you want to be checking in. Like when you're dating someone new, you feel like you want to text them all the time. And if that makes sense so they have more daily average users, they're going to do that. And good news, there's only more to come. Great news. Elon has already said that they're working on a character inspired by Edward Cullen from Twilight and Christian Grey from Fifty Shades.

35:27There's another one. He responded to somebody saying they're going to work on a Mr. Darcy character. Oh, they're going for the older demographic there. Can I tell you my conspiracy theory here? Okay. Okay. Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice, who starred in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film as Mary Bennett to Lula Riley, who was, hear me out, twice married to Elon Musk. Oh, and Annie looks like Grimes. There's something here This man's going through it I can't add this all up There's something here All of his exes will be represented Someday I think you're adding it up perfectly Anyway, if you want the experience of Dating Elon Musk's exes I guess try Grok Well, and There's now a roll open For AI waifus At XAI Which pay very well They pay between$140 ,000 and$340 ,000 a year.

36:35It's a lot of money to develop some AI girlfriends. It makes sense that that is where the money is. It does. That's where you're going to get people hooked. Makes a lot of sense. I am really curious to see where this goes long term. Because if you just think back to there, Cortana literally was inspired by a character who has a personification. And is this general purpose assistant? And it feels like, I mean, mercifully, Alexa is not there yet, but like they did start it with a name and now it's getting really smart. And it's interesting that your daughter, Keaton, there's a personality here now.

37:12And it's like we're at the beginning of something and it's going to get weird. And it is a little scary because every time Elon like goes way past the boundaries of whatever people are comfortable with, the rest of the market realizes that they could probably do it too. When he fired everyone at Twitter, every other company decided to do massive layoffs. Things just like follow in Elon's wake because we live in a society, but Elon doesn't like to live in the society. So everyone just kind of follows. Anime Siri, WWDC26. Google is going to rename Gemini to like Jenna or something. Yeah, yeah. All right, everybody.

37:46Be careful out there. Talk to real people. Talk to real people. Please.

37:55We should take a break. When we get back, let's talk cameras. Let's be honest. Are you happy with your job? Like, really happy? The unfortunate fact is that a huge number of people can't say yes to that. Far too many of us are stuck in a job we've outgrown, or one we never wanted in the first place. But still, we stick it out, and we give reasons like, what if the next move is even worse? I've already put years into this place, and maybe the most common one, isn't everyone kind of miserable at work? But there's a difference between reasons for staying and excuses for not leaving. It's time to get unstuck.

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41:17All right, we're back. So, David, I really wanted to have you on because Sony kind of surprise dropped a very expensive new camera this week. And this is like, I remember the original version of this camera over 10 years ago now. and it was a delight and a surprise and then it just disappeared and out of nowhere it just comes back so this is the sony rx1 r3 three one of the prized sony names yeah okay can you tell me about this like give me a rundown yeah i'll break this down for you because sony has some weird names and there's they do have reason to the names uh i just don't think consumers maybe necessarily understand it the original rx1 was a full frame point and shoot camera and that means as a fixed lens.

42:01It's a prime lens. It's great. They also have the ARX 100 series, which is not prime lens. It's still it's still a point and shoot, but it's got zooms. Usually the new ones have zooms. They used to have primes. Anyway, the whole point is that you now have this full frame point and shoot camera. This is important for Sony because in the past they had released this and it did not super well. That's the reason they only released two. Actually, the ARX 1 Mark II released 10 years ago now in 2015. This is crazy. 10 years ago, they just never did anything else with this camera line. Yes. And they were ahead of the curve here, I feel like.

42:37Yeah, they were. They were quite ahead of the curve because a few years ago, Fujifilms, geez, there's so many letters in all of these things. Fujifilms, I use it every single day. X100? X100. Okay. V. There's so many letters. This is, I can't do it. This is hard. this segment is gonna be it's gonna be difficult i'm sorry to everybody yeah the x100v which is their fifth edition of the x100 camera blew up on tiktok uh it got really really big uh it is my probably my most used camera is their their newest model the x106 anyway suddenly everybody wanted a small point-and-shoot camera because smartphones use computational photography to the point where images all look very flat.

43:21They don't really look realistic. They look good to a regular person's eye. That's what these camera engineers will all tune the smartphone cameras to look. They just have as much information as possible, but they don't really look realistic. Back in 2020, people started shooting film again because it was like more realistic and it was, you know, had more of a vibe. But then everyone realized film was too expensive and everyone's poor right now. So people just decided they should get an actual camera. So the X100V blew up because it has these film simulations right where everyone can basically shoot film for like free if they just buy the camera can i say something it's it's the film not only is the film expensive developing the film is expensive dude it's horrible it is i i have like 10 rolls saved up in my house don't you're gonna you're gonna be upset like they're just like in a closet that i need to send off for i get it man but it's like cheaper to do it in bulk yeah i was sponsored by a lab in arizona for for so many years and i only recently had to bring one roll of film in to get developed and scanned it's like 25 this is outrageous like the the per price of a photo oh yeah i can't i can't do this it's stupid and i i waste too much money on on film but but um this point and shoot game has kind of exploded in the last couple years specifically because of fujifilm right so everyone started coming out with more point and shoot cameras digicams have blown up they're these like kind of early 2010s cameras that you probably found in your parents' drawer or you would find in like a Goodwill.

44:48Those used to go for$5 at the Goodwill. Now they're$300. People are really all about these things, right? So people have been wondering, like, when is Sony going to bring back a point-and-shoot camera? Because most other companies at this point have brought out their own edition. Actually, only a couple of months ago, Canon brought out their like G7, I believe it's called, which was sort of a reimagining of an old camera that they had that was point-and-shoot, just like Sony is doing now. Anyway, the drama around this is that the X100 series, even the X106, the newest one, is$1 ,700, which was already more expensive than the X105.

45:25And people are kind of upset about that. This is the Fuji. The Fuji is$1 ,700. The Fuji is$1 ,700. On the other end of the spectrum, you've got the Leica Q3, which launched at$6 ,000. Now, after the tariff situation, it's like$6 ,800, almost$7 ,000. So that's a big price discrepancy, obviously. the RX1R II from 10 years ago was$3 ,300, which if you look at inflation is about 4 ,700 to be fair. Oh man. To be fair. Yeah. Anyway, this camera, just this new version of this camera, RX1R Mark III just launched yesterday. As you said, it was in, is like a stealth launch. The way I found out about it was an email press release directly from Sony, which is like not usually how I find out about cameras.

46:10Well, okay. And this is another thing that I want to bring up is, If you're like a camera nerd, you probably know that like when a new camera is announced, you go to YouTube and there are dozens of videos. And even though the company is like, here it is, here's a new camera. Nobody's heard about it before. A bunch of people have been using it for like a month or more. Yeah. Then they've been like flown out to junkets in like Japan and Prague to like take these gorgeous photos. And Sony did none of that. They really did none of that. Which is crazy because this feels like, I'm not even trying to knock influencers.

46:44This feels like the kind of camera that would appeal to a pretty wide audience. It's an aspirational camera. It's a full frame sensor in a super small body. Yeah, I guess we should talk about the actual camera. We just talked about the context. Well, we haven't mentioned how much it costs yet. And I really want to understand why. Yes, sorry. I'm not a camera girl. I'm sorry. Okay. This is an expensive camera. A lot of other people are also trying to understand why. So I get you. Oh, my God. It's$5 ,100. It's really expensive. The Leica Q3 is$6 ,800 now. That's also Leica, and Leica everything is always ridiculously expensive.

47:26Fujifilm released the GFX 100 RF, which is$4 ,800, and people are saying it was$2 ,800. And that's for a medium format. That's medium format 100 megapixel. Is this technically half, is it a technical thing? Like they couldn't be cheaper or is this aspirational? Well, the thing about Sony is, the thing about the Sony camera is no. This is the big question that everyone's wondering about, right? Is that there are all these sort of point and shoot cameras. And yes, the Leica Q3 is like the only other full frame one. And you get into Fujifilm with the GFX. But it is very, very weird that this is$5 ,100 because Sony also offers another camera called the a7 cr2 also horrible naming system not fixed lens but also quite small uh and it is half this price so wild it is weird it is physically okay let's talk about this camera it is 61 megapixels because the r always stands for resolution currently the a7r5 is 61 megapixels so they're all aren't they all high resolution now well defined resolution oh my god i know i know i I know.

48:33So it's 61 megapixels. It has a 35 millimeter F2 lens, which F2 on a full frame is actually quite good. You know, that's nice. They like a Q3 is F1.7. So it's a little different, but the lens is way bigger. It has an EVF now, but the EVF is like pretty old. It's like a multi-generation old EVF. So people are complaining about that. And it does not have a tiltable screen on the back, which is a really big miss. in a lot of people's opinions, including mine, because the way that a lot of people use these point and shoot cameras is sort of just like keeping it in their pocket or keeping it on a strap and then just sort of like shooting over their head or, you know, putting it down by their waist and kind of flipping up the screen so they can shoot at waist level.

49:19But now not being able to have a screen that flips out, you always have to have it up to your eye or you just have to guess. And Sony said that the reason they did this was because of this magnesium alloy body and it's like unibody and whatever, and they wanted to keep it slim. But it just feels like it takes away from the functionality a lot. And the paradox of this camera in general, is that Sony is generally about we want to slap the latest technology, the fastest readout, the highest resolution on a lens, like sensor to lens. That's what it's all about. It's getting the fastest data throughput, and it's getting the highest resolution.

49:56And there you go. And sometimes it can be expensive, like the a7r5 is expensive but or the a7 but the a8 a9 mark there's too many cameras sony has way too many cameras that's a whole nother that's a whole episode in code yeah i'm sorry if you and i know a lot of these yeah if you're not a camera person this is probably horrible but people are are just kind of upset about this because it takes a lot of last generation features and it sort of does this in the pursuit of compactness which antonio on the verge wrote a very good article about that this morning about how effectively sony wanted this to be small so much that they had to give away everything that would have made this possibly more palatable at $5 ,100 a primary issue is that these cameras are very small and this is even smaller than x100 but it doesn't fit in your pocket like you still have to have a strap on it and it's still gonna like sit on your waist sort of on the strap maybe you could put it in a large jacket pocket this is where I'm at with I got an X106.

51:00Yeah. I am one of those people. And the goal for me is to like bring it everywhere. Right. Because like I would like to take better photos than I can on my phone. Yeah. And I would like to not spend as much as I do on film. But the thing is, it is still like just a touch too big. Right. To be like, I have this everywhere and I'm not going to bother people if I'm just like holding this up. Yeah. And the Sony gets like a little bit closer. Yeah. It's still it's not there the rico gr3 is what people really use for pocket cameras yeah yeah um but that doesn't have like the same i think charm and full experience that these do right these these like the fuji the sony they have viewfinders yeah they hold like a regular camera and like admittedly the fact that they hold a regular camera is why they're not pocketable right but it's true um there's there's really nothing else like quite like this camera if you want a full frame sensor.

51:53I mean, I guess I say that there is the Q3, but the Q3 lens is humongous. Q3 lens is humongous. Who is going to buy this? Like, what is the end result that you're getting from this that you couldn't get from one that's maybe$3 ,000 cheaper? Yeah. I mean, it is sort of one of those things I believe where their thought process is make it as small as possible with a high resolution sensor so that if someone doesn't want to just use their phone all the time they can keep this in a pocket they see a moment it's got a pretty fast lens it's a zeiss lens they're really high quality um sony usually has good you know good image quality and they now have these film simulations but they're not very good uh at least based on what i saw and i don't know i guess it's for the person it's sort of the same reason fuji sold the gfx 100 rf which is again like 4 700 their whole market for that they told me directly is a lawyer or a doctor who has too much money and like just wants to be able to take photos of everyday life and they just want the best of the best and they don't really care.

52:59And it feels like to me, it is the same category of person, but they want something that is so small that they could keep it in a jacket pocket or a small bag pocket, which is true. Like it is, you know, it's going to be a good camera. I think it's just the fact that it's$5 ,100 that people are like, what is going on here yeah and the portability i think that seems like the biggest selling point i mean i have the last time i bought a proper camera was for my honeymoon which was i'm about to celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary so that tells you how how out of the market i think but we bought the you know the dslr it was a canon and you know we bought the two lenses two or three lenses and we were going to costa rica so we wanted to like capture the birds and the monkeys And, you know, we had the long lens and the big bag.

53:46And, you know, after the honeymoon, we basically never used it because carrying it around, you know, this was pre-smartphones too. So we had a little point and shoot that we used for everything else. And that being able to have a fantastic camera that you could like frame the photo you have taken and put it on your wall that you can fit in a pocket. I can definitely see the real benefit there. But you can also get really good images out of your smartphone today compared to what you could do, you know, a couple decades ago. That's a huge difference. But I understand for like the purist having a camera like this, you're going to come up, you're going to be able to do so much more with the image that you produce.

54:32But are you actually printing out these photos or are they just living online and everyone's just seeing them on the screen anyway? This photo is going to be for the people who are photographers. This camera is going to be for the people who are photographers. It's definitely a pro level. It's definitely a pro. And almost every pro photographer who shoots weddings or does whatever will tell you that they have a fun camera that they carry on them because it is small. That is the whole reason that they buy it. Yeah. And this helps bridge that gap between fun because it's small and, oh, this is like the same specs as my a7R5 with a fast lens on it.

55:06it just has that sort of like okay but you have to be able to justify that because pro photographers in general are not making below 5100 money all the time uh so you know it's it could be a tariff thing it could be an inflation thing it is just surprisingly expensive yeah i mean this is the thing like i think these cameras are necessarily about trade-offs like they're they're saying right once you're at a fixed lens yeah it you are talking about a camera with trade-offs yes and you are making the trade-offs for the size right i think it's very difficult when it's five grand and doesn't have you know uh ibis image staples that is a huge thing yeah no ibis and this is yeah i i think that gets really difficult but like i i do think there is some level in which like you sort of have to be okay with it because you're right like if you are a pro photographer this is probably your second camera or if i think you're an enthusiast like me you know the reason that I pick, you know, an X100 over any, like a Fuji with interchangeable lens is because I don't want to deal with it, right?

56:08Like, I just, I've done this before. I've shot Sony before. I've had a bunch of lenses and it's like, I got to choose, I'm not going to bring multiple lenses with me. Lenses are too big. Okay, I can get a pancake lens, but then this lens is the one lens I want. I do think like trying to pack it all into as small of a package as you can and make it like a freaking good one too. right like i think i have no doubts that this this camera is going to shoot some great photos sure but absolutely it is true like there's a lot of kind of weird trade-offs that they're making here that feel like they're not quite the right ones for the market for the price and you know especially when we look around like right if you just want something a little bit fun save four grand to get the x100 yeah and then yeah right like if you want something splashy spend a little more get the q3 although the q3 i guess i'm curious have you shot with a q3 i have yeah i i assume it shoots very different than the sony it's a very different type of camera for sure even the down to the ux design and the way that the menus work is like very different sony is very utilitarian when i've shot with sony it has felt like i am like operating a computer yes that's what they are other computers.

57:23It's like not fun. Like they're very good, but it's not like the experience I want. That is, yeah, that is true. I mean, it's always felt like they've put a sensor and a processor and slapped it to a lens. And that's been like what we can do. And Zeiss, like Zeiss invented a lot of different lenses like way back in the day. And Sony has this strategic partnership with Zeiss. So you're obviously going to get really good image quality anyway. You know, They have extremely sharp lenses on a really fast computer, and that's generally the thing. It feels weird to be in a world where the Q3, for example, can sort of justify the price now in a weird way.

58:02Because all Leica gear, right? Sure, it's technically good. They have a good 60 megapixel sensor. Their lenses are really good. But it's always been like, yes, I know that this is not good value for money. Like, I know. I get that. I'm buying this for the build quality. I'm buying it because it really feels amazing to shoot. I'm buying this because it's like more compact. And I like the range finder and an M11 or something like that. But now that the Q3 is like not a ton more than this camera, relatively speaking, I suppose. I cannot believe Sony made Leica look like a good value. This is where we're like.

58:37That's the thing. That's rough. That's rough. And if the Q3 was still$6 ,000 because that's what it launched at. Oh, yeah. It would be like because the Q3 has IBIS, right? That's a huge feature. It's really a big feature. It has a faster f1.7 lens. It's got a Sumilux lens, which those lenses are really amazing. It's got a better interface design. It shoots 8K 30 video. And to think that the Sony shoots 4K 30 video. And to think that a Leica camera shoots better video than a Sony camera, it just completely flips the script on everything. So it almost makes the price gap like more justifiable, which is weird because the only justifiable thing of a Leica used to be the fact that it's a Leica.

59:18That's like, yeah, the main thing. It's a fashion device. They are built better. Generally, they're they feel amazing. But you have to really just decide, like, I'm going to go out on this for no reason. So I don't know. Like you said, all cameras are good now. And this is going to shoot amazing photos. and it is it's even smaller than an x106 which is kind of crazy because the sensor is way bigger yeah um but you know it's 5100 fuji fuji get on it please i mean they sort of did with the rf right i mean so you you read the the i did gfx100 rf for us yeah um which is fuji's i'm gonna put air quotes compact medium for my camera yeah yeah um which feels like it's sort of an entire different It is.

1:00:04It's the same idea as all these, but it feels like it's its own world, particularly like because it's still kind of chunky, right? Yeah, for sure. It's certainly not pocketable. Yeah, it's slower than this. But it is like I am curious, like what is make like where does this trend come from? Right. It is because there's that in between that would normally come right after smartphones is not better than smartphones. And so you need to go all the way to I'm spending five grand to get this dramatically better photo. It's become the point where either you want something worse than your smartphone, which a lot of people do because worse is like trendy and feels more real.

1:00:43And, you know, the Zoomers love it. The Alpha, the Gen Alpha kids love it. So they're buying like the Digicams, you know, or you want something that's dramatically better. like you said like the smartphone is so technically good now but the thing about the smartphone is that computational photography crushes the highlights and brings up the shadows the tone curve is flat so the entire image is just gonna be like everything's in focus and everything is you can see everything because there's there's detail and everything and while that's like useful for transferring information to one another it's not that useful in terms of like being an artist so driving me crazy yeah i am really curious when the camera companies are going to be like oh like man we should do something like it feels very weird to me and i wonder if it's just that they just don't have the processing ability or something but like i spoke to someone um very recently that said there are going to be isps that are going to come to dedicated cameras very soon that have been used in uh smartphones so like about to get much faster i i think there are some potential upsides to this and i think there's a lot of potential downs but like it the the power and flexibility of like a smartphone's isp with the actual capabilities of a great lens and a great sensor would love that that's coming soon but i mean that's i'm i'm surprised it has taken this long um yeah but yeah it is true like right now it is it is sort of the worst of both worlds because we uh that we have all that power and none of the flexibility.

1:02:15Yeah. Your photo looks the way it looks. And like, you can sort of tune it in the iPhone's photo style thing. But like, you know, not everybody's doing that. You have to like set this up in advance. I'm not sure. It's the convergence of both things. It's sort of like when manufacturers make a computer that's also a tablet. And so it's like, cool, this is a tablet. But when I hold it, I feel the keys on the back of it. Right. And that's like not fun. But if you try to make an iPad a computer, it's also still not quite there. So people want the dedicated things, you know, it's like, I'm just going to use my phone as a phone.

1:02:45I'm just going to use my camera as a camera. But we can't do that right now. That's what frustrates me is that we've got phones becoming cameras and cameras becoming phones like the size of a phone. It's like eventually we're going to end up with everything exactly the same. And like, how do we pick and what's the turn? Because phones are getting bigger in order to be better cameras for the majority of the reason. Obviously, some people want the bigger screens as well, but I've not done a Plus phone for a long time. I'm still, I like, I used to do the Plus. I was like, this is just too big. Now I want a phone to be a phone.

1:03:21I like the idea of a smaller camera, but yeah, that convergence is slowly happening. And it's going to be interesting to see when we're at the same. We're getting close. I mean, a lot of the Chinese phones are getting insane with their image quality. They're going up to what, one inch sensors now? Yeah, bigger than one inch at this point. using glass lenses and all this stuff and attachments vivo has this phone now that has like a telephoto lens like attachment on it crazy stuff so i don't know we're getting there it's it's been a long road but i don't know i there were some posts about this sony camera on threads where some influencers i suppose uh got access to it like the weekend before so they're posting like photos from the weekend before but like you said there was no grand like everyone's got a review out it seems like they didn't do that and that is questionable i'm i'm curious if it was like it either was like a sourcing thing or it was like a maybe we don't want to make a big splash about this because we sort of know that it's really expensive and that people are going to get yelled at in their comments section yeah right the fact that i got it in a press release when they announced it instead of any kind of embargo was especially interesting for something that's like so hyped and so like long awaited yeah and like this this lineup was ahead of the curve and then just sort of disappeared yeah it's very strange i am i am really curious why because honestly even when i know a camera is like not gonna be amazing or like it's kind of a weird one like those are the videos like i actually like want to watch the most what was the one might have been a sigma not the light f not the bf what was the one before that might not oh it It was like, I feel like there was a blue one.

1:04:58It was a bunch of different colors. The weirdly shaped one that uses the foveon sensor? Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember the name of it because just like all cameras, it has a weird string of letters. But yeah. Right. It's like whenever there's a weird high-end camera, don't get me wrong, I race to watch these things, even though I know it's like you've been set up in the perfect environment to take these photos. Yeah. But yeah, it's very interesting. I am excited to see the first photos of this start to hit the web because don't get me wrong, even if this thing is a bad deal, I'm very envious of it.

1:05:32Yeah. It's a great looking small camera, but yeah, it's a weird mix of features. I think overall you can just think of it as an a7R5 that's in like a hyper compact body. And you're paying for the fact that they were able to shrink this thing that you previously had to like carry around in a bag with you to something that could potentially fit in a jacket pocket. That's what you're paying for. I think before I make this purchase, I need to commit myself to actually carrying my X100 a little bit more often. I think we can all make that commitment. Oh, yeah. Okay, we've got a lot more to talk about.

1:06:04The Thunder Round is coming up next. Stay tuned. Every great company's story is defined by moments when the founders make bold decisions. These are high stakes moments that risk the business, but can lead to greatness. I'm Rolof Boota, managing partner of Sequoia Capital and the host of Crucible Moments. We're returning for a brand new season. Join us as leaders from Stripe, Zipline, Palo Alto Networks, Klarna, Supercell and more. Share what it's actually like to navigate the make or break decisions. Crucible Moments is back on October 23rd. Until then, catch up on seasons one and two wherever you find your podcasts.

1:07:12Thank you.

1:07:19Bridges, why are you still living above our garage? I want to be in a T-Mobile commercial like you. Teach me, Sildana. I couldn't possibly. At T-Mobile, get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system. Impressive. Let me try. At T-Mobile, you can save up to 20 % versus the other big guys. You heard them. T-Mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible trade-in in any condition. Check them out to see how much you can save versus the other big guys at T-Mobile.com slash switch. All right, we're back.

1:07:52So I don't know if you guys heard this last week, but I went on a little bit of a power trip, right? Neelai is gone. David's gone. They can't stop me. I can do whatever I want now. And I have officially rebranded the Lightning Round as the Thunder Round. Now we got, I'm going to say a little bit of feedback on this, right? I got one email saying the Thunder Round was a branding disaster on the order of changing HBO Max to Max. Okay. Sick burn. Dramatic. That one stung. I got to be real with you. Nonetheless, I will persevere. The Thunder Round is here to stay until Neelai or David stops me. Until the investors come back and have you change it back.

1:08:42Just like HBO. But listen, Thunder Round is about chaos. As far as chaos, we will once again be making some changes. It's new. It's improved. Here's what we're going to do. Five stories, five minutes each. Our producer, Eric Gomez, once again has been given the power of thunder to keep us in check. He's going to hit us with some rolling thunder around 30 seconds when we need to wrap up. And then if we hit time, the thunder will strike. All right. Okay. Okay. Thunder round, take two. The thunder will rumble. Thunder doesn't strike. We're getting into lightnings. This is, again, we'll fix it next week.

1:09:21We'll fix it next week. There's always room for improvement. Thunder will crack. Thunder crack. Oh, crack. Okay. Okay. Yeah. We've got, you know, again, these are good notes. These are good notes. Our research team didn't have that up front. ACDC didn't know that either. They named that song Thunderstruck, which didn't happen. There we go. See, okay. Well, I'm going to add another item onto the Thunder Round, and it's going to be rooms for improvement. Okay. All right. Let's dive into it. Thunder Round Story 1. I want to talk about what happened in the Android world this week, where Android ecosystem president Samir Samad said, quote, we're going to be combining Chrome OS and Android into a single platform.

1:10:08and this feels like there's a lot to unpack, right? They have theoretically been combining Chrome OS and Android for, I don't know, forever now. They've been sprinkling features between the two, yeah. Because you've already been able to run Android apps on Chrome OS, but it kind of stalled out. It was never very good. They sort of forgot about it, stopped talking about it. I'm not really sure what this means long-term for Chrome OS. Does Chrome OS stick around? Does Chrome OS just become Android? Because Android, at the same time, and they showed this off at I.O. in the spring, Android's getting a desktop mode, right?

1:10:49They're working with Samsung. Samsung has DeX. You just plug it in, you get a desktop. This sort of makes sense, right? Chrome OS, if you go back, when it came around, Android, there was not a world where Android was going to be a desktop operating system, right? Google needed a desktop operating system. They needed something that was kind of light, ran on lightweight devices. We also just did not have these ARM processors that could run super powerful desktop applications. And now that they've become so powerful, it's like, what purpose is Chrome OS serving? And I know they're super big in schools.

1:11:25But I'm curious if that continues in this new world. and I'm wondering if they are looking out at the trajectory going, hey, there's not really anywhere further for Chrome OS to go, right? It was a Chrome browser. It's kind of it. You don't need any more than that. Android, on the other hand, it has a Zapp ecosystem. It's getting windowing. You can keep going. Have either of you been Chromebook users in the past? Oh, absolutely. I've dipped in and out over and over and over again. But now that the browser wars have been happening, I've been trying like every new browser. Why do you bounce off Chrome OS or Chrome?

1:12:02Chrome OS. So what makes you bounce off Chrome OS? Well, I'm a photographer. Yeah. Right. So that's all you really need to know. Although Android is not great for photographers either. Right? The photo editing ecosystem is not. Yeah. There are laptop tasks. Actually, I was at a Chrome OS event like a month ago, maybe three weeks ago, where they introduced a bunch of new Chrome AI features. and one of the presenters, his thing was, that's a laptop task. Now you can do it on the Chromebook. That was his whole motto. So they're like, new and improved Chrome OS, it's like a laptop. Well, he was saying that's a laptop thing.

1:12:43He was saying, oh, I have this task, that's a laptop thing. Now I can sort of actually do it with my voice on the laptop, you know? Yeah. This is weird. It's weird. Okay, my take on this is that Chrome OS and Android should never have been different. I kind of, it's a good way, Chrome OS was a good way for Google to sell laptops, right? Because they didn't want to build a whole desktop ecosystem like Mac OS, you know, they didn't want to compete with Windows. And so they never built these desktop applications. And in some ways, that was like a little bit of forward thinking. They were thinking of the internet computer way before, you know, the browser company was because that's what Chrome OS was supposed to be.

1:13:23It was log in your Google account. You've got everything. It's right here. That's why it works in schools. That's why it works in libraries, things like that. Very smart for them. Now that you were, like you said, these processors that are in smartphones are so fast that they can run these applications that are almost having feature parity with desktop. Like Lightroom, for example, Lightroom Mobile is getting very close to the same sort of Lightroom classic functionality. So there are some, you know, photo editing features that I could use. And so now what they're doing is they're like, okay, well, like, why do we have these two platforms?

1:13:56because over time they've had to be like, well, okay, Chrome as just a computer platform that is just Chrome maybe isn't the move. They bet on this world where everything was in the cloud. But they realized that maybe everyone doesn't want everything to be in the cloud all the time. So they had to allow you to use Android apps on your computer. Also, if they wanted to compete with the ecosystem of the iPhone and the Mac, they had to have some sort of like file sync between the two devices, some way to be able to interact with them together. It's like, oh, well, if you could just run the Android app on your computer, and then now you can push text to your computer, and they added that.

1:14:36They added all these push notifications that were coming directly from your computer. There's syncing between your Android phone and your Chromebook. At this point, it just feels like, why aren't they just the same platform? Well, can I say this? It has always driven me crazy, because I've had an Android phone as my main phone for a while now. I don't know why Chrome and Android do not talk to each other, right? I can't get my Android notification. I use a Mac, right? And so the Android, Mac, they don't play super well together, right? If I use an iPhone, I would get all my iPhone notifications on my Mac.

1:15:11That would be delightful. Can't do that with Android. And I would love, I don't understand why they can't push over to Chrome. I don't understand why there can't be those sort of interactions when Chrome is already like it's a pretty beefy app, right? Like, I don't understand how much more work they would have to do to link it up with Android and having have started that integration way back already. Yeah, it feels like if you're logged into the same Google account, they should be able to push notifications through your account rather than through your device. And then it would show up on your Chrome browser anyway.

1:15:45I don't know. Right. Like, give me the file sync. give me some sort of like parody across yeah yeah websites and apps i feel like there's something more they could do there and i think it's interesting that they have just not done that and and now they're just like chrome os yeah like a couple of years ago they said that they were moving parts of the android kernel into chrome os and it's like just make it android it's like right already have it in tablets the pixel tablet has has android you know that's running android not Chrome OS. That's like, yeah. Yeah, right. The key, though, is the education.

1:16:16And the thing that makes it so good for education is how simple Chrome OS is. And once you add in more of a operating system, more of an infrastructure with Android, it will make it more complicated, which I think is, you know, my main experience with Chrome books is my kids use them for school. Although the first one I bought was when they promised to bring Android apps. I was like, oh, now this could be more interesting. But it was such a poor experience to begin with, and then I never went back. I don't know if it ever got much better. But yeah, that simplicity is the key, really, right now.

1:16:51And it's interesting because on the Mac now, I mean, so much is a web app anyway. It's not that often that you're actually going to find, other than high-end software, that you need for things like photo editing. You really don't need specific apps. So it's interesting. I think it makes sense to bring it together, but I think the key here is going to be maintaining the simplicity that Chrome OS has really sold the market on, making sure it doesn't make it complicated like a Windows machine. I think all these companies have had different ideas of what an app should be. Like, should it be in your browser?

1:17:27Google thinks everything should be running in your browser. That was the browser company's idea, too. Proton you know the whole Proton thing was well everything's sort of a web app but we could just put it in a different sort of environment where it feels native and that was the whole idea behind that because again you know if I'm running a chat app on my laptop I don't wait quick reaction do you feel good about the future of Chrome OS now with Android yes no sure I think I feel worse really? Yeah, yeah. I feel like it'll be more native. But OK, next up. Wow. Jen, we last week in the Thunder Round in our rapid fire, when we talked about how Ikea had this new lamp.

1:18:12I know. I was screaming at you guys when I listened to him like the speaker was not the big news, people. It was a pretty it was a really pretty lamp. I thought the lamp looked cool. I wanted to talk about the lamp. And honestly, I don't understand matter well enough. And so now, Jen, okay, actually, Ikea had some really big Matter news. Big Matter news. Yes. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Matters. Okay. So I'll tell you why it matters. So Ikea has launched an entire or announced that it's launching an entire new line of smart home products for its stores that will be based on Thread and use Matter.

1:18:51So Thread is the protocol. Matter is the connectivity protocol that it runs over. And as David mentioned earlier, is the sort of promise to make your smart plug work with everyone. So the promise of Matter is that it works with every platform that's Matter compatible, which are all of them right now. And new ones are coming along as well. So this is really exciting because IKEA, obviously, big name, big mass market name. To date, Mata has been very niche, whilst Apple and Amazon and Google are all involved. For most of them, it's a very small segment of their offering. And this is really pushing Mata into the mainstream.

1:19:34Because crucially, as everyone knows, IKEA products are very inexpensive. And so this is going to make it so it's easy to buy smart light bulb that will work with any platform. And that's huge. And the fact that it's on Thread is really big because Thread is very much a new protocol, like about a decade old, which in the protocol space is quite young. And it's only recently been seen sort of broadly in the smart home outside of Apple and Google. So they basically ditched Zigbee for Thread. Zigbee is the foundation of Thread. So it's not a huge leap, but it is a big leap. and it's going to be very interesting that they say they're launching over 20 new products by January.

1:20:19Ikea kind of rolls things out in a weird way so we may start seeing things sooner like light bulbs, plugs, sensors, some air purifying devices like temperature, humidity, that kind of stuff and it's replacing the entire Trad Free line which you may be familiar with if you've ever bought smart bulbs in Ikea and then they have a newish hub which has been out for a couple of years now. And when they launched it, they promised it would have, it has a thread radio in it, but they hadn't turned it on. This seems to be quite a common theme. So they announced this last week that they had turned on the thread radio and they are now supporting thread devices and they've turned their hub into a matter controller, which means that you can control any smart plug that is matter compatible with it.

1:21:07So you don't have to use IKEA devices. You can add any device to this hub that works with Matter that is supported by IKEA. And then the flip side, you don't need the hub anymore to use IKEA's products. So if you go into an IKEA store and pick up a smart bulb and plug it in, turn it on, you don't have to have a hub for the more advanced features because it can connect to any Matter hub. So if you have an Apple Home, Apple TV, HomePod, or an Amazon Alexa Echo Show 15, that can be the hub. So it's just simplifying it. I don't know if anyone's ever, if people are familiar with what it was like to use.

1:21:51You deserved it. I'm sorry. I did so well. After all we've done in this. Didn't do it before. I know. I can't believe we made it this long. I tested the trap for you a while ago. And I was very skeptical. like ikea making tech products but they were good they were like really solid cheap uh smart gadgets but a little complicated setup and that was kind of one of the issues and this should make it a little it should make it easier um but you know you don't have you didn't have to use the hub but you couldn't have connectivity outside of the home so you would only it would just be in the home little they would have the remotes you could use um what what did you buy what was your Oh, I tested the lights at some point.

1:22:32Yeah, yeah. And now I'm on Hue, which maybe they're in. I don't know. Yeah, so you can now. So they always were in some ways interoperable because they both use Zigbee and you could add them to each other's bridges. It was a little complicated, but now it should be a lot more straightforward. And that's, you know, this has been the promise of matter since it launched all those years ago, that it's going to make the smart home easier and more accessible. And this is a big step in that direction because it's, you know, mass market on your IKEA shelves, much less expensive than most products and a brand name that people recognize and trust, not just something they're buying off Amazon for like$10 and who knows where it came from.

1:23:16Yeah, I think this is a pretty big deal because the best way to get people to adopt a new protocol and actually get that protocol moving is to not tell them that they're adopting a new protocol and getting that protocol moving. And having it in the Ikea where people go to when they're moving, they're like, I'm going to replace all my furniture or I'm moving across the country and I just need to redo everything. OK, buy lights. OK, I want them to be smart lights. Not think about it. Go through the setup of like scanning a QR code. Suddenly they have matter and everything in their house can be like interworkable.

1:23:45That is that is like very big. Yeah. Right. Like, I think that that's pretty huge. So I don't know. I'm excited that they're doing this. I still have problems with matter and my apartment consistently. What what matter gadgets do you have? So I have. Oh, gosh, what are they called? I'm trying to remember the brand. They are smart plugs. And I also have I also have smart blinds. Oh, man. And it was the company that promised first to upgrade to matter. Eve. Yes. I have the smart plugs and they're really, really great. and I have the Eve smart blinds and they're really, really great. But every single time I try to upgrade them to Matter, it like crashes the network, it removes them from the network and then I have to like reset up everything and it still doesn't work.

1:24:26And then I just go, oh God, I'm going to go back to HomeKit. Yeah. Which sucks because... Because it's Thread. That's Thread. Yeah. Eve updated everything from Bluetooth. I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. Eve updated everything from Bluetooth to Thread and just as Ikea is moving from Zigbee to Thread. But Eve was one of the early adopters and they tried, they promised and carried through on firmware updates to their products. But that is always, you know, completely changing the infrastructure of a device can be tricky. And I've had similar issues with that. But yeah, it's, I mean, you were an early adopter there and early adopters definitely feel the pain points.

1:25:04They go to the pain. Exactly. If you're a brand new homeowner, you're moving to a new home and you don't have any smart devices yet and you start with Matter, I'm sure this stuff works like pretty well. Yeah, and it's a great point you made about making Thread and Matter mainstream, because actually IKEA did that for Zigbee like 10 years ago when it started Tradfree. So it'll be interesting to see. All right. Next up, David. You went to a Beeper event? I did go to a Beeper event. Beeper being the chat app that is now owned by Automatic. Yes. Yeah, Automatic, who also owns WordPress. There's a lot of WordPress drama this year.

1:25:41Yeah. Also owns Pocket Cast, my favorite podcast player. Yeah, they own a lot of very interesting programs. They quietly own a lot of the internet. A lot of the internet. Literally, like, I mean, we're literally. Tumblr. Tumblr, yeah, Tumblr. Yeah, so there was a Beeper event last night. A little context. Beeper is a chat app that their whole idea of it is that you can connect all of your different chat apps into one place. This is sort of a nebulous, if you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't. This is the dream. Right? It's like you don't have to. Potentially. It's like Matter for your messaging apps.

1:26:11Yeah, that's sort of the thing. Where it doesn't always work. What is happening? I feel a little mixed on it because sometimes I want to compartmentalize different parts of my life. Like I talk to a lot of photography people over my Instagram chat and I talk to a lot of normies over iMessage. Right. And I talk to a lot of my tech friends over Telegram. So it's sort of like, you know, it puts them all in one place. You can have little different sections. Anyway, what they're changing here is Eric Mijakovsky, who is the guy that invented Pebble, eventually moved on and made this app called Beeper that does this.

1:26:43Last year, famously, they figured out how to basically reverse engineer the iMessage protocol so that Beeper Mini, their new app that they had for a while, worked with iMessage. You can run iMessage on Android, which was crazy. Apple got real upset about that. They shut it down. Now it's sold to Automatic. Eric is no longer at the company. he is restarting Pebble, which is very fun. Those are starting to ship actually, which is a whole nother thing. But Beeper had this big launch last night with Automatic, where they are relaunching it with a couple of new subscription features. They also changed a lot of the apps.

1:27:17So a little more context, Automatic already owned this chat app called text.com. And the idea of text.com was exactly the same idea as Beeper. And so I actually talked to the CEO of Automatic last night. And he told me that they are using the foundation of text.com with the UX of Beeper. So it is sort of like the best of both worlds in a lot of ways. Also, if you had a Beeper account, it automatically works with the new Beeper. But the big thing is they're introducing a few new features specifically in these subscription models because they need to figure out how to make money off of Beeper. What are they selling?

1:27:53Okay. Yeah. So Beeper Plus, it's a little expensive. It's$9.99 a month, which is quite a lot. but you can have three accounts per network. So if you have multiple Instagram accounts, you can have multiple logins on each Instagram account, which is like a power user option. The whole thing is for power users. They have an incognito mode. So the interesting thing about Beeper is that even if the platform itself didn't offer a feature, if Beeper offers the feature, you can do it with the app, which is quite cool. So incognito, for example, you can read messages without people seeing that you've read them.

1:28:28if it's forced read receipts. Right? So that's cool because we've all done the thing where we've just long pressed on a notification so that it didn't technically open it all the time. Okay, I would pay for that. Well, that's great. It's good. Oh, man. Yeah, okay. They should have just called it like beat the read receipt subscription. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also hate read receipts. Voice note transcriptions. So if the app didn't have voice note transcriptions, now it does. That's great. It has chat reminders to remind you to reply to people. I need that. I'm really bad at replying to people because I'm always busy and then I don't reply to you.

1:29:06That's bad. It's good for me if I use this. And then there is send later on every service. So I think like in the last iOS version, iMessage added this like schedule send feature. It's been my favorite feature. I love that so much. It's amazing. So useful. So useful. Also, if you want to say happy birthday right at midnight to somebody to show you care by automating a message, that would work. And then they have a you can there's a custom app icon thing. It's that's good. The whole. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, that's the plus. It doesn't end there, though. Right. It kind of ends there. OK. Yeah. Wait, but what is Beeper plus plus?

1:29:45OK, so then there's plus plus. OK. Plus plus is for enterprises. OK, OK, OK. So it's not. Yeah, it's sort of this. But like instead of three accounts per network, you can have unlimited accounts per network. Gotcha. This is like I'm a social media manager. Yeah, I will. I am entering the matrix. 100%. I will chat with everybody who responds to our account. Yes. 100%. Does it still work with iMessage or did that go away? No, it does. They got longer. That's completely gone. Like there's no integration. Completely. Like you cannot even. Yeah, you can't even put your regular text through. there's Google chat or there's Google messages I believe but there's no iMessage.

1:30:23I think it's still worth it. It works with WhatsApp, right? It works with WhatsApp. Yeah, I have it right now. Oh, interesting. I mean, I'm not trying to be a salesperson but Well, I have the same thing and like you know, constantly from different sources and then I also talk with people in different time zones and it would just be so nice to have it in one spot. It even has Slack. It has Slack? That might get messy. It's going to be messy. I don't want Slack, period. Well, yeah. Yeah. So you get like your Instagram messages and like your ex-DMs. Yep. And your threads DMs? Not yet. They don't have threads DMs.

1:31:01They don't have blue sky DMs. Okay. But they do have X. Yeah, they have Discord. LinkedIn. Okay, this is the thing with Beeper where I feel like you have to be a very specific type of person. Yeah. Who is either like, I don't know, like a messaging madman and like just lives in their inbox. Yeah. Or just like works organizationally that way. But honestly, like putting all those things in there, I understand why you would want that. And it also sounds like a nightmare. Yeah. I like get this away from me. Yeah. It does have some quirks, for example, on Mac OS, in your little notifications area where you normally get like one little text or whatever.

1:31:37every single notification you've got from every single different chat app shows up as a notification you can turn them off you can turn it off so turn it off once you're fine anyway again it's for p it's for people who are just like truly it's a power user yeah hardcore you gotta be that okay next one up jen um you want to talk about google's nest aware subscription price is going up. And this is like a trend, right? There's been a lot of this. Tell me what's going on. Yeah. So Google is raising the price of its Nest Aware service. So this is the service that you subscribe to if you have their cameras predominantly.

1:32:16So the Google Nest cams or the Google Nest doorbell. So this enables recorded video up to 60 days, I think it is, and other features such as familiar faces, so facial recognition. There's a whole bunch of services that come with Nest Aware, you do get some, I think you get up to three hours of free cloud storage with, or three video storage, because it's not stored in the cloud, it's stored locally, with your Google doorbell or your Google Nest camera. But if you want more, you need to pay. And it was$8 a month or$80 a year. And now it's going from$8 a month to$10 a month or$100 a year if you pay up front.

1:32:58And that's for the basic Nest Aware. So the Nest Aware Plus adds just it has all the same features as Nest Aware, but you get 60 days of video history instead of 30 plus 24-7 recording if that's what you want. So there's extra features in Nest Aware Plus and that's now going from$15 a month to$20 a month. So from$150 a year to$200 a year if you pay annually. And this is a big jump. And they announced this yesterday with no extra features. Like it's not like, oh, we're adding all of this and we're putting our prices up. It's just we're putting our prices up. I think the verbiage that they said was that this was, you know, around the current sort of atmosphere.

1:33:44And I'm trying to find the exact wording. Do you have any, like, premium camera subscriptions currently? I have all of them. Of course, of course. I'm so sorry. Yes, I know. This is one of the things that, like, has always – I understand, right? If you, like, if you need a security camera, which, like, a lot of small businesses do, this makes a ton of sense. But, like, for a homeowner, you have to keep tacking these on. And it keeps going up. And a lot of them you have to pay extra for more. Yeah. And they keep going up. This is the second time in, like, three years. Right. Yeah, it had gone up.

1:34:13I think in 2023 it went up. And, you know, if you just have one camera, like a doorbell camera, it's like this is a lot of money to be paying. And what's happening that's interesting, and I think this is why we're seeing the prices go up, because Ring went up recently. Arlo is another in this space that went up recently. They're all adding AI-powered features to their higher-tier subscriptions. Things like text descriptions for alerts. So one of the most annoying things about having cameras in your home or around your home is you get a constant stream of like motion alerts. Or maybe if you have, if you pay for the subscriptions, you can get like a person alert or if it's an animal or a vehicle.

1:34:52So you'll get a specific and it'll tell you what was there. So you don't have to open the app to see. Now with these text descriptions, it'll actually describe, like it'll tell me, I just set up an Arlo in my backyard for testing a floodlight. And it says, a black chicken walked across the yard. It's a calm scene. And there's a ripple of sun in the background. And he needs to get face identification and like tell you which chicken it is. He needs to be like, Mary walked across the lawn. I'm sure we'll get there. But the thing is, I don't know. I mean, it's useful. I can see in the future there could be some use because if you AI could kind of filter out and only send your notification when there was something you needed to hear about.

1:35:34This is something that Wise is doing. They have something called the no big deal filter, which is supposed to take away like it determines what you need to know about. So a chicken walking across my yard probably don't need to know about, but a man with a balaclava, maybe send the alert. But then you're, you know, so that's what we're seeing happening around smart security cameras is this extra level of functionality. But for the majority of people, I think, who just want to know if there's a package at their front door, this is this continual price increase is getting pretty hard to stomach. And most of the other services, which are around the same price, so Ring's premium service is$20 and Arlo's premium service, I think is$29, that includes professional.

1:36:20A month? Well, they include professional monitoring. So if you have a security system as well, the cameras in the security system are bundled. You can just pay, I think for Arlo, it's$10 a month for just a single camera. But it used to be free. This is the thing. If when you bought the camera, it showed you the price for a full year of service, nobody would buy these things, right? Because what you're signing up to is... 400 bucks a year on top of the camera price. Yep. You're paying too much. Like indefinitely, right? As long as if you want these things to function to their full stability. Yeah.

1:36:55And there are like a couple of them. What is it? The blink cameras that I think like do it all locally. So you can. Yeah. And well, and Arlo has the option of local recording. Ring also has the option of local recording. But Nest does not. There is a minimal amount of local recording that you get for free. But beyond that, you have to use the cloud. And that's another sort of galling thing because there are many now on the market options where you don't have to use a cloud service at all. You can use a micro SD card or you can record to a hub in your home. Like Apple's HomeKit Secure Video offers that.

1:37:26You do pay for your cloud storage on your iCloud server. But yeah, it's just getting a little crazy. It is fundamentally not in their interest to make it easy to do this yourself, to store it locally, right? Right. It's so much easier for them to be like, oh, it's a small amount. It's like, what are we supposed to do? And it's like, oh, what you're supposed to do is make it easy so that I don't have to pay you$200 every single year. Yeah. Well, and they're really pushing these AI features. And it's interesting because they're not on the Google Nest cameras yet, and they're still increasing the prices.

1:37:59They've promised them. They're in like a beta in a public preview, these text descriptions and some other sort of AI-powered search, Gemini-powered features, but they're not available yet. So it seems it's such a weird move to increase the prices now before offering these features to everyone. And honestly, I think Google is kind of done with Nest. There's my spicy take. That is the take to end on. I don't know that you're wrong. I do like the thunder immediately after you said that. I know. Okay. One last story. And it is a big one. We saved the finest story for the end of the show. I have so many thoughts.

1:38:41David, over to you. All right. New emoji are coming, guys. It's a big deal. Okay. Every year, the emoji subcommittee of the Unicode Consortium, that's the specific way they wanted me to say it, releases a number of new emoji. Usually it's not that many. This time it's not that many. This time, kind of weird. Sometimes kind of weird. Last time we got like a splat emoji that was just like a bunch of slime. this time we got eight new emoji I believe yeah about eight so we have apple core we have ballet dancers distorted face which is sort of like I think this is basically a meme that they turned into an emoji it is sort of that like really up close super wide angle face with like eyes popping out of the side it looks like yeah it's like a bug eye situation yeah you got a fight cloud which is basically like in a cartoon when two characters are fighting and like there's a cloud and there's all those like things zipping around it.

1:39:36There's a trombone, very specific. There is what they call a hairy creature, which is clearly Bigfoot, a treasure chest and an orca whale. So if you don't know how this works, effectively, every single year, the Emoji Subcommittee of the Unicode Consortium will take all of these proposals for emojis. And you have to be able to say this is important because it has cultural significance across the entire world. People are using this a lot. You give them Google Trends data. You give them all this information. And then they vote on whether or not they should actually take in your emoji. Famously, Jay Peters of The Verge did make two emoji.

1:40:13He made the waffle emoji. That's huge. Yeah, huge emoji. Obviously, people are using that all the time. And he also made one other one. I'm trying to remember. It's a face of some kind. These are important contributions to humanity. They are. If you're getting a good yawning face. These are good. Yeah, people use the yawning face. There are some weak years. Oh, yeah. And it's like, you guys. Yeah, there are some really. You went to the drawing board, and this is what you came up with. There are some very weak years, and I would say that maybe the orca whale or the fight cloud. Kind of like the fight cloud.

1:40:46I feel like, I'm going to say, this is like, I don't know if this is an A plus release, but this is a solid. This is one of the top tiers. You threw this in the middle. I don't know how you didn't make a point. they have one called they've named it hairy creature which is bizarre it is Bigfoot it is Bigfoot walking and glancing at the camera it's the famous fake photo yes yes yeah it is that is I am astonished that the grand committee of the Unicode consortium yeah went you know what we need to make sure that the entire world has access to it's a Bigfoot Bigfoot emoji I love it that's that alone the rest of these could have been total losers trombone makes sense trombone i have trumpet they should have trombo they should have everything that could be in a ska band should be yes if they had done that as one pack the sky year they really yeah yeah they had to start branding it a little bit more right like why isn't there a pirate hat to go with this treasure chest they should do themes yeah yeah i will say i am wondering because apple you know they have a seat on the unicode consortium they must have had some strong opinions about this apple core.

1:42:00This is an apple that has been bitten down to the core. That is true. That's not good for them. I bet Google submitted that. Probably submitted that. That is quite funny. Apple core is kind of strange. I understand there being an apple, but why the core? Weird. I will say a couple of years ago, I interviewed the inventor of emoji, Shikataka Kurita, and he told me that he thinks that there are too many emoji. It is getting a little out of hand. I'm not going to lie. It's getting a little crazy. I do think the ballet dancer makes sense because they already have like a disco dancer and they need other types of dance.

1:42:35So that makes sense. But there also opens up this whole other question, which honestly, I just might write something on or make a video on or something about what we do now that you can just generate like any emoji you want. Right. Like the fact that there's a trombone or an orca whale. If these didn't exist, you could make this with Genmoji in like half a second. That's true. So it becomes this giant question. The main thing is these are coded into Unicode. So they are standardized. So they're going to work on any computer that supports Unicode. I'm very torn on the too many emoji versus not enough emoji argument.

1:43:09Because like fundamentally, you cannot. There's way too many emoji. It's outrageous. On the other hand, so we use Slack at work and we have a zillion custom emoji. And there's some, I don't realize they're not official ones. So then I'll go to like, you know, just send a normal text message. And then I'm like, why isn't this in here? How did they miss this really obvious one? That's true. It's outrageous. And I think particularly like there was a time before they figured out how to do like search for emoji. Yeah. Now that you can just type it in, it's like, yeah, I will say I feel terrible. Right.

1:43:43If you're starting up, you know, I mean, I don't know who is in this position, but if you're starting up an app and you want to have your own presentation of the emoji. oh boy that's an uphill battle now you got a lot of little things to draw yeah you can use you should just use the platform yeah um twitter famously has its own emoji for some reason but usually it's just google slash android apple microsoft are like the main ones and you can as a app developer you can default to system emoji and you should because you want to make your own emoji you can but you gotta you gotta draw every single one so yes you know if you only have to make an eight new ones a year.

1:44:20That's very manageable. Yeah, if you've already made the other, like, you know, I don't even know how many there are. You gotta choose wisely. You gotta choose wisely and, you know, these are pretty good... I don't know. I think I would have cut the whale. The orca. I don't want to be rude, but, like, I'm not using the orca. It's a cute orca. What are you gonna use Bigfoot for? It's smiling. Please tell me what you're gonna use Bigfoot for. I'm telling you this. Bigfoot is going to... Is there, like, an emoji ranking chart? It is going to shoot to the top of... It is. Actually, this is part of that news, kind of, because World Emoji Day was this week.

1:44:51And as part of World Emoji Day, they brought back the emoji ranking chart because they used to have a world emoji ranking chart that used Twitter as its database of how much people were using emojis. But then Elon cut off the API. So now they were able to bring it back as of this week. So we're going to see. I'm telling you. Listen, one year from today, this is my prediction. Bigfoot's going to be in the top 10. I'm setting a calendar Anytime I think it's going to ebb and flow as government Conspiracies come and go Oh boy, I think there's a lot of room For Bigfoot right now There is a UFO emoji, so I guess there should be a Bigfoot emoji Yeah, I think Bigfoot's a But then you need like a Loch Ness monster This is why they need to do themes If they had done a monsters year Yeah, oh man Yeah, that'd be funny Yeah, I'm very excited by distorted face I have to say, I think distorted face with the eyebrows leaving its head.

1:45:44I'm going to be using that one a lot. And the Fight Cloud, pretty fun. But yeah, I agree with Jake that Bigfoot really is the shining star of this. I want to know how we can get, like, I'm not very up on the emoji world because, you know, it is how my children communicate with me. But how do these get chosen? Like, can I submit some suggestions, please? Yeah, you can. You actually can. Oh, good. Yeah, you can do it yourself. You actually literally talk to Jay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's a process. It's quite a process. It is really funny. It sounds like this formal body. It is the most religious-esque body in all of technology.

1:46:31It is these counselors from all the companies. I technically am part of it because I pay$75 a year. Oh, right. So you're the guy we should talk to. I don't know about that. As someone who has built a career on writing words, I have always slightly shied away from using emojis. But I have to learn how to communicate with the youth. So I'm getting there. My mom, who is 80, all of her text messages are basically emojis now. So it's not a generational thing. I think it's a writer thing. I like to use the words. I like find a few and I just like key in on them. Right. Yeah, that's probably what I would say.

1:47:07And that's what I like about the distorted face. I feel like I could use that a lot. That's it. That's what you've got to find. Yeah. The sweating face. Everything. I sent it with everything. Yeah. I think this could replace that though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Slack also has HDR emoji, by the way, which is awful. Wait, what is it? HDR emoji. HDR emoji? Yeah. So you can send them in Slack. And if it's an HDR emoji, it's just way brighter than everything around it. That is crazy. It just uses those pixels on your MacBook display and lights them up like five times as bright. It's horrible. That's terrible.

1:47:38Do not recommend it.

1:47:43I'm really, I live in a place where we have a lot of thunderstorms and I'm not going to lie, this is kind of giving me some trauma. And that's it for The Verge Cast. Mia Sato is hosting Tuesday's episode. You should tune in. It's going to be great. If you like what we do here, the best way to support us is to buy a paid subscription to The Verge. And we would love to hear your feedback. I actually, I just got access to The Verge Cast email. So please hit us up there. vergecast at theverge.com or you can give us a call 866-VERGE-11. The Vergecast is a production of The Verge and Vox Media Podcast Network.

1:48:18Our show is produced by Eric Gomez, Brandon Kiefer, Travis Slarchuk, and Andrew Marino. See you next week.

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