 Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast. Yes. For the week of July 9th, 2012. I'm Josh Dupolsky. I'm Paul Miller. I'm Neelay Patel. And yes, we are back on the Vergecast. Oh man, some real branding confusion there on the Vergecast. Oh, well, we are on the Vergecast. Yeah. We're on the Vergecast. Huh? I just keep on turning up. You have nowhere to go. Anyhow, we're back. It's been a hectic few days. Why did I just get very quiet? How did that happen? I noticed that too. And I just want you to know that if all goes according to plan, we will be receiving delicious smoothies here in the studio. It's true. Thanks to Michael B. Shane on Twitter. Check him out. He's our editorial assistant. Should we review the orders that we made? We should review. Just before I explain that this is the Vergecast where we discuss the week in technology culture, we should talk about our orders. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to give you the orders. I got Barry No Dairy. Barry No Dairy for Paul. I went with a hippy protein. Hippy dippy protein. Yeah, hippy dippy. Hippy dippy. And I went for Barry Explosion, which is basically Barry No Dairy. By the way, these are not actual flavors. They're not real things. They're just the way we described it to Michael when we were desperately trying to give him an order. Anyhow, so hopefully, and we don't know if he'll be successful. We have no way of knowing actually at this moment. So anything's possible. It's true. So Week in News was not crazy, but we had some sparks. We did. Some sparks. And by the way, you can't start a fire without a spark. Also, this gun's for hire, in case you're interested. Oh, God. I didn't eat anything today and I can't come up with the next lyric. It's even if we're just dancing in the dark. Yeah, it is. Oh, no. It's a... I don't know. What is the order? It's this gun's for hire. You can't start a fire without a... No, no. It's can't start a fire without a spark, this gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing in the dark. Yes, that's exactly right. I think that's about sex, right? It's about lovemaking. Thank you, Creighton. Is that about lovemaking? Yes. It may also be about getting out of a one horse town. Yeah, I mean, every... I think it's... All too many of them are all... It's about... It's both about lovemaking and getting out of one horse town, possibly at the same time. So anyhow, this is the Vergecast, and we do typically talk about some technology once in a while. What do you have on our topics list for the day? Well, we can open with two things. One, you get your choice. Gambler's choice. Ladies' choice. Yeah. You interview Torsten Heinz. Torsten Heinz. Or the Nexus 7 shipping. Really? Yeah. Oh, you didn't know about this? No. Let's do Torsten. Let's talk about Torsten. People really liked our Blackberry piece from the last episode. Yeah. I interviewed Torsten Heinz, the CEO of RIM, Research in Motion, as they say. And he didn't have that much to say about anything specific. Really? It was like, we have a plan that is going to go into action. And when that action occurs, there will be a reaction, and we will be successful. So here's what I think is really interesting about RIM right now. Jean-Louis Gasset, who used to be the senior executive at Apple, and now he's like- I mean, Jean-Louis Gasset. Jean-Louis. Jean-Louis. He's like, you know, they're setting themselves up for a lawsuit. Because if they keep making promises to shareholders, and they keep saying things like, our company isn't in trouble, when it's blatantly obvious to some shareholders that the company is in trouble, then they're violating their actual duty to shareholders to maximize value on the company. Well, it isn't part of their duty to shareholders to maximize value, so you make your company look good so that the stock stays- It's a weird cycle. It's like- I mean, Paul makes a good point, which is part of the job. You have to walk the fine line of pumping shareholders up. And lying. It would just be like a horrible, terrible lie. No, you have to walk the fine line of lying and telling the truth. And somewhere in the middle of those is going crazy on an airplane. Somewhere in the middle of that is getting so S-faced drunk on an airplane that you have to be restrained with those plastic handcuffs, which you then gnaw through with your mouth. You chew through it and continue to go totally berserk. That's the sort of passion that's going to make the next generation mobile operating systems. Those are completely revolutionary. When Torsten Hein said that they identified the people who really know and love Blackberry and they call them Blackberry people, those are Blackberry people, passionate users. Talk about your interview. I just want to remind, by the way, out there on the internet, if you don't know what we're talking about, there were two RIM executives that went completely nuts on a plane. Because this happened a few months ago. You know the news cycle is- More than a few months ago. I'm really dredging up irrelevant things. And that was before Torsten Hein. Look, I think that was RIM drunk, December 13, 2011. There you go. Anyhow, I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Lazaridis was like, maybe we're not doing something. Maybe we're doing something wrong here. Anyhow, I interviewed Torsten Hein, who's the new CEO. When did he begin? I think, was it three, four months ago? Sounds about right. I don't know the date exactly. And we spoke to another, we spoke to their head of marketing for the US. And- January. I never know where I'm supposed to look here. There's a camera that's on me. Creighton, what do you suggest? You're the director. Do you suggest I look at this camera when I speak or that I look at Paul? Look at me. I'd prefer to look at you. It's a conversation. I'd prefer you looked at me too. But then it looks weirdly like I'm looking away from the camera, doesn't it? No. Okay. I never thought of mental justice moment. If you're gonna address the audience, you should look at the camera. That's what I'm gonna do. You got it. You nailed it. So we spoke to their head of marketing for the US. He had a similar vague. He was like, we're gonna win. We've got a great platform. It's gonna change the way you use computers. And so Torsten basically said the same thing. He said that he admitted that they had basically no success in touch screen phones, which I thought was interesting. He also... What? They also... Well, go ahead. The touch screen phone thing to me is pretty hilarious. Well, it's funny that I think they're trying to draw this, and I called it imaginary line in the sand between QWERTY smartphones and touch screen smartphones. And I think that there are people who like QWERTY smartphones and there are people who like touch screen smartphones, but they're not different devices in the sense that you should be able to accomplish all you can accomplish on a touch screen phone with a QWERTY and vice versa. And I think that they're kinda like, but look, we offer this QWERTY and it's doing very well. The reason their QWERTY phone is doing very well is because nobody else sells a QWERTY phone. What are you talking about? The 4G slide touch X2. Well, so I love brand new UI paradigms and revolutionary changing ways people use computers. But if they're gonna do another playbook, like, look, here's our brand new crazy new ideas. Sure, we don't have any features yet, but just imagine, you know? They cannot afford at all to do that. That's what they're doing. My sister was looking for a recommendation for a friend for a phone recently. She's like, should I get a BlackBerry and iPhone? And I was like, well, what does she need to do with it? One of them was manage multiple Gmail accounts. I was like, no, no, no, no. You can't let, and so like, you're saying don't get a BlackBerry, don't get a BlackBerry and for there to be something that's a very modern, regular application that a lot of people need to do that you just literally can't do on your phone. That's no, that's a bigger problem than like revolutionizing, revolutionary eyes. In my, in my opinion, in my opinion, and again, it's only one man's opinion. The people who have a BlackBerry who are like, I could never live without my BlackBerry have not learned the skill of typing on a touch screen. And that is a skill you learn and a few months, not even a few months. I mean, it is a skill you learn. And once you learn it, what you discover is, and I've done extensive personal testing on this when you eat, you're faster on the touch screen. I mean, you, I mean, some people may be very fast, but I believe that I'm faster than the touch screen. I think a lot of people I know are faster than the touch screen. And like once you learn the skill and you go back to this, like the tension of the, of the physical keyboard, it becomes, it feels a lot harder to type. I mean, you don't have, I'm not talking about like if I had all of my fingers available, like iPad screen to keyboard, I would much rather, and I'm much faster typing on a keyboard, you know, I can touch type. I can, I mean, they're just like all my fingers are in play and they are confident on the, on a regular keyboard on a 10 finger iPad software keyboard than the, um, than iPhone or Android. I don't think so. I don't think I am. I think it's like, I enjoy it more just cause it's like, it feels like you're like playing music. I think I'm pretty good. But it's, I mean, I'm fast, but like it's, I prefer, I definitely feel more comfortable and it's not because the skill, it's not because I haven't learned the skill. It's because, um, like I believe there are real advantages to the, to the tactility and not having to look at a keyboard while you type. But you, you know that mentally, but you were saying even the other day, you still feel the draw to a physical keyboard, even though it's irrational, I feel the irrational draw to a physical keyboard. And yet I know like, especially when it comes to thumb typing and I think the people who use a Blackberry now are, have used them for a long time. They are very comfortable with them. They believe that they are getting things done better than they could get them done on another platform. And yet like what it really boils down to is like you haven't learned the skill of the newer platform and like what you're saying is not, is basically untrue. Like I don't believe, I don't believe that you're, I don't believe a Blackberry is a more efficient device in terms of getting things done than an Android, than a modern Android phone, than the newest Android phone or the newest iPhone. But it's not that that phenomenon is not like a new thing to the world of smart. I mean that phenomenon happens every couple of decades. Every time there's a new technological shift. I mean it's almost, it almost, it almost speaks to the maturity of smartphones where they're more like cars. Like, yeah, I don't trust an automatic transmission. Right, no, no. I think that's a great example. But, but I think what I'm saying is that like rim in a way is kind of, is, is hint, is hinging a lot of their success on, on, on Blackberry people who I believe that when Blackberry people are exposed to the other ways of doing things, they'll start to go like, oh geez. Like that's how you do a calendar entry on an iPhone or that's how you do it on an Android phone. When the Blackberry people are infected with the smallpox of the iPhone. Yeah. I mean, I just think that, I just think that like you can't hinge your, you, if your business is built on retaining customers that have shown clearly that they will leave you because something is better. And it's like, I think like relatively empirical at this point that the movement is not towards like, it's not like to retaining, it's moving towards the better platform. Like what I, and I think Android and iOS are the better platforms. If your model is based on like retaining, that's not a model for growth and you're not going to win. Like you can't win in the smartphone race if your model is to like hold on to the people you have and if you believe that those people represent the audience, the audience is every single person on the planet because in 10 years no one will not have a smartphone. When you talked to Torson about this stuff, what was he like? Yeah, that's what I wanted to know. What's he like? He was, he was, I mean, he actually was what I thought was surprising is he actually was like, we think Blackberry seven's really good. I mean, he's clearly trying to watch for the Osborne effect of like, I mean, you know, why is that go for it? I mean, I, I was worn down. I would agree, but, but I think that he's basically like, you know, I was surprised that he thinks that, that he really is still behind Blackberry seven and maybe he just has to be for the sake of the company at this point. But but he also went, he was like, went pretty deep on this idea that like, you know, he said there were, there were some parts that like I couldn't fit into the, into the whole, you know, I didn't want to write a whole transcript. But he mentioned, you know, like the Blackberries are for busy people, like not just business people, but mothers and families and, and it's like, yeah, it's so, and I, and it's like, so are iPhones and so are Android phones. Like if you don't think that vibe still persists, like, like marketing wise, it is their messaging. I mean, he's following their messaging, you know, he needs, he's reinforced even like, I think that image of people, when I see a guy on a Blackberry, I'm like, that guy's getting something done. He's getting, he's getting stuff done. Right. But the funny thing is like, I know because I went and tried to use the newest Blackberry because maybe his company wouldn't allow him to get a phone other than his Blackberry. When I see somebody typing on Blackberry, I think like, I know, I know, I feel like this person's all business, but like when I went and tried to use the bold, the newest bold as my main device, like taking care of business was not how I felt, was not what I felt was happening. I wasn't taking care of business. I was like waiting for things. By the way, taking care of business is not what I felt was happening. I wasn't, I didn't feel like, I didn't feel like I was getting stuff done. I felt like I was waiting and frustrated and like, w like how, in what way is it, what, in what single way is this better than any other modern smartphone? And frankly, like what instant email that happens on my smartphone, you know, instant messaging that happens on my smartphone. I mean, Apple has iMessage which accomplishes, uh oh, are these smoothies? It'd be funny if Michael was like, I couldn't get smoothies, but I got you the individual fruits that would make up a blender. So I think that, uh, so I think that, oh man, this looks exactly like in my mind what I was thinking of when I described the berry explosion. Is that a berry explosion? Yes, but that one has yogurt. No, he said no dairy. Oh, well give me that one. Wait, so does that have no dairy? This has no dairy. But Josh said no yogurt. I said no dairy too. But you know, yogurt is dairy, right? I get the yogurt one. I understand. Oh, so they're all berry. They're all berry explosion. I didn't get hippy dippy protein. Okay. So, so Neelai, Neelai fails out. Mine looks much creamier and delicious. It does. It looks great. It does look great. No one's going to knock you for enjoying that. So can we just take a moment and I'll enjoy a smoothie with our audience. I want to wait. Let's wait for first sip till we all have our straws in. Okay. Cheers. You got it. You got it. Like you got to like, you can't get it right from the bottom. Well you're going to get just like syrup. Are you sipping? Come on. Oh, that is delicious. Yeah. This is like not sweet at all. It's not sweet. But you know, it's healthy because it's not sweet. What is this? It's berries. It's just berries. No, but berries are sweet. It's berry, no dairy. This is extremely bizarre tasting. Berries aren't as sweet as you think. No, it's tart. This is, I have to say in terms of the verge cast, one of our stranger moments. This is great. Want some sugar or honey or something? No, this is not right. If you blend up strawberries and blueberries, they are tart, but they're also sweet. Well, no, you know what? You typically put like a lot of orange juice or something in there. You typically, all right. Okay. It doesn't matter. Let me get back to it. So speaking of berries, let me get back to this blackberry conversation. So I wanted to say something. No, no. Yes. Yes. So you know how, we're talking about, you know, blackberry getting left behind and stuff and I, I really need to do my mute button. Go ahead. I've been really a love iPhone. It's so comfortable to me. And I, you know, I like iOS on the iPad and the iPhone. I think it's great. And it's been so wonderful. I think it was very much ahead of its time and I feel just, it just feels right, you know, to me. But I, you know, I pulled out, someone at the office got a Nexus 7 and I managed to get through all the screens without getting it on the internet. And I could do literally nothing because there's no, you know, everything requires the internet, but the operating system felt like kind of a generation more modern than iOS to me. Oh, absolutely. The multitasking and just, I don't know, I felt like it's a modern UI and it's just, it's clean. It seems like it's really designed for the future. And iOS, like, you know, a lot of people I know were disappointed that the newer version is iOS. What's the next one that's coming out? 6. 6. 6. Is just, you know, it still looks exactly the same, still operates exactly the same. And I think, I mean, Apple, if Apple doesn't leap forward in a while, I just think they could be very content with how well they've done. And that's not a guarantee of, you know, that's a guarantee of a couple more years of success, but it doesn't give you forever success. And I just, I just feel like, I guess it's jellybean on the Nexus 7. It just felt so good. And I don't know, I don't even know how to use it because I don't really use Android very much. One thing you, one thing you have to say about Google and they've made some big missteps and mistakes in, in, I don't know how we're talking about Google now, but we'll get back to Blackberry. But one thing they do, and I think this is like the wave and buzz thing, like I think why we saw them and why they've been so ridiculed. Like one thing that they, Google does do is make pretty dramatic changes. Like they'll just do something like, Hey, we have this new product wave and everybody's going to use it. And like, they kind of don't go like, is it going to be a success or a failure? And I think they've started to turn some of their iterative nature towards like they're really focusing it. And I think that Jelly Bean is a real representation of like between ice cream sandwich and Jelly Bean, I see like an extreme focus and it just feels like they've hit, they've like hit something where they're really starting to, You want to just talk about this thing that's shipping? They're out, we can move on from Blackberry. Well, let me just say, one of the, Anything else he said that touches on this? Yeah, we quoted in the headline that he says, you know, I asked him, I said, do you think Nokia made the right decision? You know, partnering with Microsoft and abandoning Symbian and abandoning MeeGo. And he said, well, Nokia doesn't have what we have. We have nearly 80 million users. We have, you know, services. Well, you know, there was software, which I thought was weird because he says, I mean, I can't remember if I put the quote in or not, but he said, like, we have software and services and it's like, they had software and services too. And they had a lot more users than, The OV maps. They had a lot more users than, but like in terms of like their core user, it wasn't a smartphone user that was using like their email services. What RIM is talking about is in enterprise, everybody has a Blackberry messenger server and that's sitting there. And that's like a huge entry point for us. But there are lots of stories about Fortune 500 companies thinking about iPhone and Android because they don't know if RIM will make it. And they're heavily dependent on these BVM servers. He kept using this, he's like, they love using this phrase, BYOD. Bring your own device. He's saying, you know, with the new culture of bring your own device and, Like that's a bad thing. No, he's saying like, we want to embrace that. But to me, it almost sounds like he's hedging towards, we're going to license our, They really should. We're going to license our services to other manufacturers. I'm not talking about to HTC though. He did say like, we'd be open to like licensing our platform to HTC or somebody like that. Of course they would. But to Android and iOS. To Android and iOS. Well, and then I think it's a sustainable business. If they don't do that, every month is just worse and worse for them. Right. And every month is another month where Apple, well, Apple's going to do it anyhow. But where Apple and Google's going to do it anyhow too. But where they're going to beef up their security. They're going to beef up their enterprise services. They're going to continue to like push into that world. I mean, it's funny, but Microsoft and RIM are in this very similar place where they're like, we're strong in enterprise and that can support our business. But you have companies that are still on Windows XP and that sort of company would really love to just keep that Blackberry server that's been treating them so well all this time, except for those few times. I mean, how well has it been treating them? I think that's the question. I think it's like well enough to maybe stick with it. And so if like, but like all our users want these new phones and if those new phones can support that, I think that's a big jolt of life. It doesn't guarantee an entire decade of continued popularity. All they have to do is change their fundamental business. Yeah. I mean, sorry, I've got like bits of berry in my teeth. These smoothies have really turned into a double edged sword. You know, I feel like I need a beverage to wash down the smoothie. Could you grab me a seltzer? I'm just really like a lot of stuff in there. I don't know if it's fresh, but the yogurt makes it creamy. Freshly defrost. But you know, they have to change their business of like being a consumer facing handset maker that also does software and services. I mean, their business, their core business up until recently, I mean, and maybe still I haven't looked at all the numbers, but is their consumer business. I mean, they talk about it too. Yeah. You know, they're a consumer company. They've been selling curves like crazy for like 10 years. Like those two guys that are DJs and produce music. They can't work. They can't use an iPhone. They need tools, not toys. They don't need a toy like an iPhone, which is just for playing around and an Android phone, which is only like lame dorks use that aren't doing anything. I feel like that marketing is really wrong headed. You know what you should say instead of like, we do something basically different than you, you just say, we do something better than you. Like different is, is a lie. Better could be true, but this is the lie that they're telling. Right. We're going to do something so different. I'd love to make up for the fact that we're late. Right. I guess so. I'm saying like, well, yeah, they're telling both eyes. I don't know why I keep putting my hands up. Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I'm saying like if you look at this or you look at this as the nexus seven or you look at what iOS six is, um, you can't come out with a whole new operating system that's caught up to this. So real watch out. You almost have to do something different. Do I, is this for me? Oh, all right. Can we get rid of this trash? That'd be good. Sorry for making those slushy noises. Um, no, you can't come out with a, um, you can't come out with a whole new operating system the way they're saying they're going to do it and be caught up to jelly bean and caught up to iOS six. In many ways you're gonna be caught up to windows phone eight because that has had years of development. Right. Um, and so I think they have to tell this, this lie about how they're going to revolutionize fundamental communication. Parking meters are going to talk to your phone. Are you sure? Are you sure that's the best way to say it? Or a row of parking meters will burst into a chorus of song as soon as you walk past. ATMs will shoot money at not just out, but it will just magnetize directly towards your phone. It'll go flying through the air. It's a lot of time to do a mobile payment service. That's what I imagine is like you're, it's like, it's a cartoon and you pull your phone out and the, the, the parking meter starts singing and the ATM machines float money over to your phone. Like maybe, maybe I should talk to an ad. Yeah. It's like Ellen chanted and those birds. That's right. That's exactly right. Have you guys been in like Dwayne Reed or something and you walking down the aisle and then the aisle starts talking to you about, Hey, look over here. No, what you've been off the internet too long. I don't know. Those are not, that's not the aisle. So like, like in the, uh, in the deodorant, I don't know. Oh boy. There's like, like mid level little, little LCD and it's got a motion sensor. So you walk past it and you're like, what are two feet past it? It's like a dancing Santa. And then, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But it yells, there's a pretty loud speaker that says, Hey, over here. When you turn and there's a video playing like about like Gillette or something. Really good idea. It's a little LCD. It's worked. You've advertised Gillette. Do we have a sponsor this week? Oh, thank goodness. Gillette for shaving and for freaking you out. Hey, look over here. Gillette, Hey, look over here. Uh, okay. So let's talk about, you want to talk about the nexus? Yeah. And that was it. So that was all Torsten has to say. He was a very nice, by the way, very nice man. I'd love to, I'd love to have it more. We had a very short conversation, like a 20 minute conversation. I'd love to have a longer. Do you think he's the right thing for him? No, unfortunately, no, I don't. I think they need to like a really crazy visionary and he doesn't strike me as a visionary at all. I think they need somebody who is like, they need like an Andy Rubin and a Mattias because those are the guys who I think are driving what is happening with Android. Those two, you know, and they need like a guy who's just a crazy wild, who's like incapable of speaking on message. They brought on the tat, the TAT guys, you know, and I don't know what they're doing or if they're even still there, but you know, they had like design chops, but you know, I mean, I don't know if one of those guys would be the guy, but they need somebody who's like going to really, I don't feel inspired. I mean, he's a really nice guy, but I don't feel inspired hearing him speak and I don't believe the things that he says. I never see the video of Steve Jobs after he'd come back to Apple and he was just did a Q and a like a developer conference. Well, you know, he's talking about killing, he's only retiring some of the developers are yelling and they're like, why would you kill open doc? And he's like, look, here's what we got to do. Like I know you're probably mad about it, but I have this like big vision and like he just told him what he was going to do and he didn't see, he wasn't CEO yet. And he couldn't give them product specifics. Right. But it just felt like you watch it. So it's everybody should see it. Um, you watch it and you're like, that guy has a plan and like he's not telling us the whole plan because that it's not completely formulated. He's been on this job for three days or whatever, but he knows what he wants to do with Torsten. It's like you just keep making promises about a product that doesn't exist and you're not even owning up to the failings of your existing product. You're insisting that it's a success in a segment that doesn't exist. Right. And it's like you, you're not saying like we got to kill seven because frankly we tried with five, six and seven and those aren't, they're just not up to the task. Yeah. And we're going to, we're going to deliver something that is up to the task and even beyond the task. You need to, you need a CEO or the phone comes up to him like, Hey, Hey, here's what we built is like, are you kidding me? Right. I don't know. I think you need, you need to have that. Well, he did, to be fair, he did say the reason Blackberry 10 is delayed is because it wasn't polished. He did say he actually, he, one of his quotes is actually like he, he looked, there is something about him like looking at it and going like, this isn't, it's not, I still see the, I still see the seams. Okay. You know, but, Good for him. No, no, that's great. But I, but when I hear him speak about the company at large and their place in the market, you know, what I would say if I were the CEO of RIM is I'd say when somebody asked me and I did ask, I said, you lost a lot of market share, you know, and I wouldn't say, yeah, but our market share is still growing in lots of places or we have a lot of market share in developing countries. I'd say, you know what? You're right. We took our eye off the ball and we didn't do the things we needed to do. And we put out three versions of an OS that are lackluster and it's time to change the, the, the, the story, you know, it's time to change the theme. And like, and like that is to me would be, would fire me up. I'd be like, this guy understands completely what's going on. They screwed up for the last three or four years straight. That's totally boned it. And now like it's time to get serious. It's time to like play. Yeah. And like he doesn't, I don't hear that from him. I hear like our Blackberry seven projects are still good. Like don't tell me that you have six more months or whatever, you know, five months, six months, the hell out of the Blackberry seven. Say if you have the perfect audience to Osborne because they obviously don't want to upgrade anyways. Well, they're leaving, they're leaving anyhow. You have to say it the right way. You can't just be like, don't you buy our products. And you just say like, they're good products, but they're not great products. And we're the next thing we're going to make is going to be great. Right. G R E A T. And then just throw the micro. I would say if somebody is like, if somebody is like, should I keep angry cheerleaders? If you were me and you asked me like, like if it, if I were the CEO and you said like, should I buy today? Should I go buy a Blackberry seven device? I'd say don't buy a Blackberry seven device, but don't go buy an Android phone or an iOS device either because what we're going to deliver is what we're going to deliver in the first quarter of 2013 is going to blow away everything else in the market. You're going to want that. You can't say that, but you can say what we're working on is really significant and it's worth waiting for. Yeah, that's great. That's great. All right. All right. Okay. I'll go run. Ram. It's fine. Along those lines. I've been, um, I had this thought a while ago, but your, um, your piece on carriers, uh, which I only got to read like half of it before the podcast, by the way. So I still want to read the rest. He, uh, his printer ran out of the printer. The office ran out of ink. But, uh, I, I had this thought, I guess I talked to Chris Ziegler a while about this, about carriers could go, could just be so much better by just being honest. Like AT&T for instance, has been trying to message to, uh, especially journalists, but to everybody that their network is impeccable for so long. Yeah. You know? And if they just said, like, look, here's physics, right? Here's physics. Like, like in Times Square, you're going to get full signal bars because there's a tower right next to you, but the tower's full, you know? And that's, you know, that's a problem we're going to work on. Like if they just like let you know, like, you know, you know, cars tell you like the miles per gallon, you know, they don't say, don't worry about it. It's the best, you know, they say, that's amazing. The car, the car was like, like how much, how much longer can I drive? It's like, you're fine. It's good. It's the one of the best fuel container. What are you saying? The fuel container in the car is one of the best. It's got a huge capacity. Right. Don't worry about it. You're all set. It's a 4g container. 4g. Next generation. I just think if they were honest or just honest about their business model, you know, just there's certain reasons they can't be honest. I mean, that's because I probably, because like people, a lot of people are really stupid and we'll take them the wrong way. Like people will be like, what? Right. What do you mean? They'll be like, I'm going to the service and they'll start shooting at the tower. People ask you about the problems with their phones and I explained to them, this is why this and this sucks. You know, like you've been told that you bought something that was bulletproof and magical, but this is the reality of the situation, you know, and like the reality of the situation is different at the different carriers and it's, you know, some things are better, some things are worse. I love the idea of the people of companies, major industries being honest with their customers. I mean, it goes against everything that, that, uh, everything in the world that we've set up in terms of how big companies interact with their customers. I love the idea. What would happen if we were honest? You know, think about the food industry though. Like it has like the heavily regulated food industry that heavily regulated, regulated, that has to put proper labeling on all of its products, but it ha but also it really got ahead. Believe me. So, so if they weren't regulated by the way, I assure you the food industry would sell you rotten beef. I have no doubt. No, I have zero doubt. If they were new, there was like a level of tolerance. Like the human body can eat like, you know, 20% rotten beef. Like the human body can ingest. You might get a little upset stomach. They would sell it to you. Yeah. There's no question. They would love to do that. There are the regulated, um, nutritional fat, you know, nutritional facts on the back, but there's also like an increasing, like, like, like push to put some hot marketing nutritional facts on, on the front. Yeah, because the government is telling them to do it. No, no, no, no, no. That's marketing. The big little bold face stuff on the front is marketing. What do you mean? Oh, you mean like no gluten or whatever? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean that is, but, but that's because they're responding to an, uh, a society. Well, they're responding to those starting to know what's good and bad. That's right. I mean they're responding to, uh, they're responding to a society that's starting to put pressure on their government to tell them to make the bigger point here. That's great. So you have, I mean, I love that we're talking about like granola bars on the verge. I could go for a granola bar. Michael, just kidding. Wash out the smoothie. Wash out the smoothie. Like a berry berry. Oh, very like a berry explosion granola. No, look, so. No dairy. Just at the most basic level, we're like, there's the two sides of the box, right? There's the government side of the box. So there's actually way more than two sides. Well, there's a box. There's six sides of the box, but there's the two that we're talking about is the government side of the box. There's two flaps. Right. There's the two flaps that the government mandates. Yeah. And then there's the marketing side of the box and they're both like, you can, the thing about it is the government side moves slowly. Oh, you mean the food box? Yeah. The food box. Yeah. They're granola bars. Uh, the government moves slowly and passes these rules and changes. Yeah. But the market moves really fast, right? So that the companies are able to respond. It seems like people want gluten-free granola bars. It seems to have gluten-free. Michael, can you get my tote bag? I think all broad granola bars. No, I'm like comparison shopping protein bars right now. I'm really into this protein bar. Oh, the things you'll come up with when you don't have the internet. I've had a bunch of different ones. Hey, here's what I'm doing. Comparison shopping protein bars. All right. Let me just make this point. Okay, go ahead. So the thing is that those companies can move fast. They can say people want gluten-free food. Right. So let's put out a line of it. We'll change the market in one handset. You know what I think is you don't need a special kind of mouth to eat the food. Yeah, right. Any mouth can eat the food. You just put it in the store. Right. Right? That's right. Any stores can sell it. But the blackberry has to go through the carriers. The carriers have no real competition. Imagine if there were another... Hold on a second. Look at this. Zero grams of sugar, 20 grams of protein. Those are cookies. Gluten-free, high protein bar. Those are all marketing terms. Yeah, but you have to understand these are also... So some of those are regulated. Yes, but also... Fat-free is a great word. A lot of them are... Well... Yeah, no, I don't think they're allowed to lie about any of these. No, they can't lie about what's in the thing. They could say 0% trans fat and trick you. But organic is not a regulated term. No, organic isn't. But then you have the real government required fat. Well, there are some... We're way off. Hold on. But no, no, but actually, we're not way off because it is like... Imagine if this same situation existed, but there was another that the... I'm trying to think of who this would be in the food chain, every pun intended. That there's another organization that basically is not the government and is not the manufacturer of food that stands... Everyone is screaming that organic is regulated. Is it? Apparently. I thought it wasn't. Your wife just told me in all capital letters. All natural is not organic is. Yeah. God, why have I been buying all this all natural food? It's like not organic, but it's all natural. When I worked in the potato industry. Hold on a second. So imagine there was another entity that... By the way, Paul really did work in the potato industry. No, this is true. This is a true thing. He said, the man seen with his own eyes, millions of potatoes at a single glance. But imagine there was another organization that stood in between the person who made the food and was aside from the government regulations in between the person who made the food and the buyer of the food, the eater of the food. And they were like, we're going to tell you how to tweak this particular food and what kind of packaging to put it in. And whether or not you can sell it in different stores. Those are the carriers. Right. Yeah. And they don't have to... They basically don't have to do... They could add some gluten into your gluten free stuff. Right. But the thing about the carriers, even on that level is that there's rampant competition in the food. Right? So there are many kinds of protein bars for Paul the comparison shop. There's only four carriers. And Verizon and AT&T do insane things. Like AT&T says, the CEO of AT&T said, I think last week, we're signaling to the market and to Verizon that we're raising our prices by raising some bundled prices. And so their prices always match because they know that there's nowhere else for somebody to... Somewhere to go. So if there was a world that existed in which one carrier was being honest with customers and people would flock to that carrier, then AT&T would be honest with customers. That world doesn't exist. Because honesty is infectious. Well, market demand is infectious. Honesty is like a disease that you catch and you cannot get rid of. That's so not true. No. Okay. But hold on a second. All right. But honesty is the best policy. Can we talk about... Are we going to talk about Direct TV? We can talk about that. Because I feel like the segue is into it. We can. I think there are places that I see in our technology world, which I think is increasingly the world, where there is steam. There is like a lot of... There are a lot of steam people. Like there are things brewing that I think... You should say what you mean by Direct TV, by the way. Direct TV... Oh, sorry. Viacom raised its licensing fees. Yep. Yeah. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. Viacom raised its licensing fees for Direct TV or for everybody? For... Well, they renegotiated with Direct TV. They renegotiated their contract with Direct TV and they wanted to raise their licensing fees. Direct TV said, this is too much money. And Viacom said, well, we're going to pull our channels from your service. Yep. And then they didn't come to agreement. They pulled their channels and now there are 24 channels, I think. That's MTV, Comedy Central, and... All the 24? I heard about the... It's 26. I heard about the big three. We keep on saying MTV, Comedy Central, and 24 and more. Comedy Central, MTV, and a bunch of other things. That's great. So... And actually, they have a really interesting video. The CEO of Direct TV has this video where he's like, they wanted us to... They wanted to raise the license fee, it'll cost us a billion dollars and we think that's too high. And we asked them if they would at least allow customers, even if we don't license... If we could do a license so that customers could request the channels they want to watch and pay whatever your fee is for them. And they said no, which I think is a really interesting thing for him to have said. Maybe he's just grandstanding, but I think it speaks to... And this is my point. And then we can talk about Direct TV a little bit, what I want to say is I see places where there is... There are forces brewing, there's anger brewing that it's going to be... If these people don't see it soon, their businesses are gonna get screwed anyhow. There's a pot about to boil over. Yes, there's a pot that's about to boil over. And those pots, there's a couple of them right now. The first pot is the cable industry. I just don't think people are gonna... It's a stove with a lot of burners. I think that one's gonna take a little bit longer, but I think I see this Aereo decision that just happened. If you guys don't know, Aereo is this business that lets you basically stream broadcast HD to a device by saying we have an antenna in a warehouse somewhere that's picking up the broadcast signal and you're paying us for the service of shooting it. And they really do have the antenna. And they actually do have the physical antenna. So you can watch your local broadcast stations on your... Well there's a way to do it on your computer, but they have it on devices like iPad, iPhone, whatever. And they just won this kind of... I mean, I don't know, it's a landmark case, but it's kind of a big deal. But it's a big deal that basically they... They're allowed to continue. They're allowed to continue their business. So anyhow, in cable, I see something brewing that is like maybe a little bit longer, but it's going to be a major deal. I think that... Just to clarify, the case itself will be a landmark case when it is decided. It hasn't been decided. It hasn't gotten there yet. It hasn't gotten there yet. They got un... The broadcasters didn't win an injunction. But yeah, they didn't win an injunction, which is I think is somewhat... I mean, there's some sign there that there's some part of this that looks on the up and up to some judicial... Yeah. I mean, it always should have been on the up and up. Right. So that's the one. The cell phone, the mobile carrier business is the other. And then I think the other big one is... And they're all connected is our patent, the way our patent system works in regards to technology. And this is a better way of what I was saying the other day, just that I think some of this competition with Wi-Fi based and more open services like iMessage and FaceTime and stuff like that are part of fuel for the fire. They're not necessarily going to solve the problem. You say iMessage? Yeah. How's iMessage open? I'm saying these services... Device or network independent. Network independent services that are showing that the emperor has no clothes. And I think that's the bigger thing than coming up with one specific fix for everything is just to make people aware of how things are working. Well, I think they're becoming aware of how they're working. Excuse me, I got them buried. But they're also starting to figure out ways... Sorry, I need to wash this down. I knew that was coming. I was just waiting for it actually. Oh, God, that's terrible. But they're also starting to look at the way they do these things and they see there are now alternatives. And those alternatives are only growing in number. They're not shrinking. And I do think that a future of local mesh networks of neighborhoods that are independent of the overall structure is pretty realistic. I don't think that's a crazy idea. And I think that when people start to figure out when the things that are complex become less complex and we start to figure out ways to build some of these things on smaller scales for communities or neighborhoods, suddenly the hand of Verizon looks really different. I think they need to wake up to the possibility that they are not always gonna be in the position that they're in. If all of a sudden your kids are making a lot of their phone calls and most of their messaging on an iPod touch, look out. And that's definitely happening. Look out because then Comcast will be rich. But this is where it's all... Wait, hold on. Time out. Eutopia. Eutopia. This all goes back to net neutrality ultimately. There are a lot of questions here that we need to say. There's a lot of questions, but you're just transferring the power from wireless providers to wireline providers. Right, you're saying let's all put up mesh networks that connect to our what, our Fios? It's still Verizon. You could do local area wireless. You gotta connect to the internet at some point. But you could do... Well, I mean, maybe in certain nodes, but not through the entire thing. But that thing, that internet connection is the high value. But it's not gonna happen overnight, but I'm saying that you can get to a point where there are a lot of... I mean, what you're just arriving is everyone in the neighborhood sets up a LAN party. Yeah, but now... Everyone's like, screw you internet. But we think of that that way now, but there may be... What I'm saying is people are becoming more independent from... Well, they're more dependent on right now, but there is more possibility for independence from the things that... A phone, for instance, is a great example. We've always used... You had to call up AT&T or Verizon or whoever and get your phone service, right? No, that's actually not true. There was a whole period in the 80s and 90s when long distance phone services were deeply, deeply competitive. No, no, I understand that. On the transport level and on the device level, right? Because you could buy any kind of cordless phone. But the lines were... The lines were owned, but they were leased out to many other companies. And there was a similar very large carriers and then some smaller. There was some really heated competition, I remember. There was heated competition, but think about what happened there. I mean, like... What did happen? The internet happened. People started using voice... No, no, no. In that market, for that time period when that market was important, AT&T for a generation charged you by the minute for long distance phone service. And then Sprint came in and charged you 10 cents a minute. This was like a big deal. With the pin that drops. Yeah, with the pin that drops and they had digital voice and they ran a different kind of service. That's a different ad. That's for their cell phone. No, no, that was the Sprint pin drop ad. The pin, was it? It was for their landline quality. Yep. And they came in and 10 cents a minute. And then later, long distance just became free because there were so many other competitors in that market. Yeah, now... That people were switching to lower cost carriers. And now nobody buys phone service. Well, that was a different... That's a different disruption. I'm saying there was so much competition in that market. But what I'm saying is that now, like, I can make a call over Skype as easily as I can make it easier than I can make a call. Just focus on what I'm saying. There was the phone system that was owned by AT&T. And both ends of that system were locked into stagnation. So the phones that you use for those old princess phones. And AT&T said, you can't connect other phones to our network. We will control all of the phones. So that innovation stalled. Then on the pricing side, on the service side, nobody else was allowed to compete. So AT&T had their rates... You're talking about way back in the day. Wait, this is... I mean, this is... But the parallel is right in front of you. Right. So AT&T said, AT&T, this famous rule, the Carter phone rule, AT&T, you have to let other people plug into your phone system. You have to have other kinds of phones. Anything that works on the system can plug in. Massive explosion in phone technology. Suddenly you can buy those see-through phones that light up when they ring. Yeah, but think about the huge variety of phones and then this explosion of cordless phones. There was a whole arms race of technology in cordless phones, answering machines, and weird stuff that plugged into it. Panasonic made a great cordless phone. And on top of it, modems. The internet was created because the FCC said to AT&T... The lineage of the technology. Where are we going with this? We're way in the weeds. But his point is... No, but I'm saying is like... His point is in the way that we need carriers to be told, you have to stop locking these devices to your networks and let people have choice. I think that's your point, right? No, and then on the other side, there was a huge competition in service providing. Right. Right, in service providing? Service providing. Service providing. Service providing. That makes sense. Providing. Sure. And then there's also companies like Sprint. Yeah. And MCI and all these other companies. MCI that are now out of business. You know, that were bought by AT&T. What does that have to do with how Comcast is going to ruin our lives? I think... So you can't transfer the power from one dominant set of entrenched interests to another one. So you can't say, we're all going to go away from AT&T and Verizon. But we did that. We've done that. Well, we're doing it... What you're suggesting is, we'll build a neighborhood network. I'm suggesting total anarchy. Right now, Comcast land is more exciting because it's a little less regulated and it's a little cheaper. And if we start to go that way, then I feel like the wireless networks will have to keep up. Because they've got a lot of bandwidth in that 4G stuff. I think what Paul's point was with the iPod Touches and people iMessaging on iPod Touches and making calls on them is that the avenues in which we do these things are expanding. A phone call isn't the same thing as a phone call was five years ago, certainly not 10 years ago. And that's happening all over the place. iMessage is a great example of SMS without SMS services. You're not paying the 25 cents because it's being done a different way. But to Nilay's point, I think this is the ultimate point he's making is that those lines are still controlled by somebody. Sure. The Wi-Fi is still controlled by somebody. Sure. But they're not as controlled. But I think the same problem has... That's just a matter of Comcast flipping the switch. But they have a flip the switch. AT&T and Verizon have flipped the switch and that switch has been on for a long time. At this point, they can flip the switch and that's the problem. When you get right down to it, you need... This is a net neutrality argument. But my only point was that there are these storms brewing in specific areas and I think that they're all really related. And I think that they're all like the pot is coming to a boil. What they are, they're structural problems. It's how do we organize the system? And how do we make it so the system is constantly delivering innovation and value to customers? Better yet, it's not how do we organize... Well it is on a grand scale, how do we organize the system? But it's also how do we make a system that is adaptable, that makes sense? This system doesn't make sense. And it's not solving the problems we want to solve. The system we have, it's like I'm supporting... With my cable bill, I'm supporting a business that was created 30 years ago or something. And I'm serving the interests of a small group of people. And I think a lot of people feel that way. And I think that there are other ways to do it. And as they have to adapt and we have to adapt. I just don't see a lot of adapting going on from this. I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on this because I haven't been a part of the larger internet conversation. But I read in my newspaper two quotes that were very different. One was Viacom saying, because of the internet, we only have a larger viewer ship and it's not cannibalizing cable viewers. And DirecTV was saying, the internet stuff directly cannibalizes. So DirecTV was basically saying, look, Viacom is less valuable of a product because they put so many of their shows on the internet. And Viacom was saying, look, don't worry about it, the internet isn't cannibalizing and it's a growing viewer ship. And those are clearly two very different perspectives. Didn't Viacom also pull their streaming shows? We have a report that they pulled their full- Yeah, because DirecTV was pointing people at Viacom's streaming page. They pulled their full streaming episodes. Well, if you look at it from Viacom's perspective- Which is, by the way, great for the customer. Well, if you look at it from Viacom's perspective, they have to figure out how to- Get people to watch their stuff. And if they can monetize it, regardless, if they can monetize it all equally, regardless of distribution, they're happy because then they win. And this reminds me of a- From DirecTV's perspective, they have to make their profit per viewer or per subscriber as high as possible. So when Viacom wants to increase its rate, their profit, that eats in a profit margin per viewer. So I see how this is really bad for- So they're doing math way differently. I know this is bad for DirecTV, but if Viacom was really embracing online viewership, which you're saying they're screwing people over now, but if they were, they finally realized, look, we can make money both ways and we can really embrace... Because I feel for a while- Well, that's it. That would be the- For instance, HBO will not divorce itself from these cable companies yet because these cable companies, it's so valuable to pay them whatever they want. But DirecTV obviously, for a billion dollars, we can do without Viacom. We're not going to pay them this ridiculous amount. I feel like HBO could name whatever they want. So I think HBO is saying to us right now, they're saying, we need the cable industries, blah, blah, blah. I think they're probably furiously working on building a business to sell direct to the customer. They can't be that stupid. Like a company that produces- But they don't have to flip that switch until they've finally found the limit of what these cable companies will pay them to be part of this exorbitant package. Which seems indefinite. Like the HBO package, which is $200 instead of the regular subscriber package was a $40. Which is like, at this point, they don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes. They're like, how far can we push it? But they're going to find out really soon. But the thing is, when I think about this and I think about, well, what would the model be? Because you think about how much does it cost to make Teen Mom or whatever. And it's not that expensive, but MTV puts it on the air because Viacom thinks it's a good show. Yeah, straight back, he had me watch a show, I think that was just called DUI. People who were drunk driving. It's not even cops level. I was like, why are we watching this? And she's like, I don't know. It's just on. Yeah. This is a very- And that is the thing. And they actually count, they're like, yeah, people who just slip around and land on a show and then we sell advertising against it. And I'm not going to even get into the debate of whether those are quality or not. But there is this feeling of when we have a writer on staff, Josh Kopstein, who we've had some- You had a massive patent debate with him. We've had a lot of conversations. He's very anti-establishment everything, which is great. I love him deeply. Yeah, he's fantastic. But we always get into these conversations with him where it's like, and I feel like hearing this and thinking about what I, in my head, all I can think is the problem is so big and hits is on so many, is messed up on so many levels that it's true that the only way to ever solve it is nuclear war that wipes out most of the population of the planet. My mind goes to, well, we have to change this and then that would have to change and we need to do, and it's like, let's just blow up the planet because there's no way to, maybe if we had- Let's just blow up the planet. Yeah, if we had a farming society, then the things would be fixed. You think about all of the- You should write an editorial for The Verge. Let's just blow up the planet. Let's just blow up the planet because we're never going to fix this cable billing problem. We're never going to get all the channels we want for a good price. This is another ceremony, a scenario, not ceremony. Ceremony. What is a scenario? People come to me and it's like, look, I only watch two shows. Why can't I just pay for those two shows? Right, then you couldn't have those two shows. And then I explained to them like, why? And they're like, oh, that makes sense. That sucks. Right. That's what I'm talking about. It's like a trap. You're like, how do I get out of this trap? And there is a way to get out. We have to have less- A nuclear war. Well, it is the kind of thinking, we have to have the kind of think, we have to, I don't know if we can get as a society into the kind of thinking that will allow it to happen. Which is like- You can't solve your problems with the same sort of thinking that started those problems. We may have to live in a society where something that's made of corn syrup, 100% corn syrup, maybe isn't a product that we should be eating, like Teen Mom and the Kardashians. You have to get to a point where there's probably, I don't know, 90% of shows on television that can be wiped out because they offer nothing but straight up entertainment. And they also fall into the awesome shows that we love. In a society where what you need is like Teen Mom marathons, does that sound like a functioning society to you where you make great things and you move the world forward? Or does it sound like a society that does the opposite? I mean, because that's what, and that's why I think like nuclear conflagration, because like where do you get, because you have to get to the point where you go like, we should be out making, doing things and like learning and not watching Teen Mom. And then like we wouldn't need 500 channels that show Teen Mom marathon. This is why we need to settle. I mean, it's just funny because he's definitely- I'm making cough seeds. We need to go to- You're making cough seeds, you also sound like a modern day digital Karl Marx. Yeah, that was his argument. But I do think, I do think like there are, there are like positive contributions and there are like contributions that are meant to like distract you. We need to go to Mars because we just don't have anything to do. We're not going to go to Mars. Stop, stop, stop. We don't have a frontier. We're not going to go to Mars because- I'm not letting this go into an argument about whether we should go to Mars. We're not going to go to Mars because- No. Because we're busy getting fat watching Teen Mom. Okay, done. And I think that we should now talk about the Atrix HG. We have to wrap up pretty soon. We have kind of a hard stop today. What about the next episode? What do we have on our list? That's what we have left in this hour long podcast. In the next minute we have to talk about the Amazon smartphone, Microsoft calling it PC plus and saying Apple has post PC wrong. We have the Atrix HD, which actually ties right into that because- Please don't make me talk about the Atrix HD. Well, no, it's not- Lock food loaders. Nobody cares about the phone. Motorola is getting rid of all the laptop stuff, web top. All gone. All gone with the Atrix HD. I can't understand why. There's the OUYA that happened. OUYA. OUYA? You don't know OUYA? Oh my God. You love OUYA. You don't know? What is it? It's a $99 Android- Let's do this. Why don't we take a topic? Let's do this. We're going to take a topic and each one of us will make a statement on that topic. And then we go. And then we go to the next topic. We'll go to the next topic. All right. Amazon smartphone. Go. I think that Amazon has a real opportunity to do something interesting with the smartphone if they actually do something interesting with the services around the smartphone and I'm talking something like them as an MVNO or something along those lines. Or tapping into Wi-Fi calling and Wi-Fi based services heavily where it's like, you don't- Yeah. Okay. That's my statement. Go. Go. Amazon smartphone. I think you're right. I think they're going to be completely, they're going to be blocked by the carriers. The carriers are the biggest obstacle to whatever Amazon is doing with this phone. I don't think Verizon is going to jump into it. I think this is the best idea ever what Josh said. Okay. All right. Cool. PC plus versus post PC. Microsoft is saying it's not a post PC world. It's PC plus. Which by the way, Bill Gates has been saying since 1999. Can I say my piece? Go ahead. I'm just saying it. This is all, all of this post PC and PC plus is all BS corporate marketing talk. Doesn't mean anything. It is a world where things exist and they're either good things or bad things and Microsoft will either make good products or bad products and we'll either find ways to use them or not use them and they should hope that they're making the right products for the world that exists now and the name of that world is like 100% meaningless. I disagree. I think Microsoft is terrified that the world is moving beyond the PC as a primary center of what you call it. They're obviously showing, sorry, that's fine. I'm just saying I think there's, I think structurally, structurally it's really important for them to be saying, we can do another half hour. Yeah, we can. I mean there's, there's a lot to unpack here. Structurally they're saying you have to build, you have to expand the PC and Apple is saying we're done with the PC. We made it one thing. Yeah. We're done with the PC. No, but they're not saying, they're saying that like they want to like, here's our statement, but here's, they're saying here's our plan, but they're doing, they are doing, I can't tell you which one's right or wrong. Well, they're just not at, they're just not at like the full tablet experience because they're like scared for this generation, but next generation I'm sure that like there will be no desktop. Right. Well, we don't know. That, that, that takes you, I would argue post PC. We don't know, but I don't want, I don't want my, I don't want a PC to be an iPad. I can tell you that. So I, I mean, I agree the marketing message doesn't mean anything, but it's very important how they think of it. And if they do think of it as PC plus, they're really confused because they're making a kind of a tablet operating system for arm and kind of a desktop operating system for Intel. So they're not doing what they're saying they're doing. And that means it's a company that doesn't really know what it's doing. I agree that if this, if their philosophy is to continue doing like the tablet as a side thing to like whatever the PC, the real PC is, it's completely wrongheaded. But I also think that they've shown signs to me that what they're doing is they're embracing very much a new, a new type of computing that is like 100% like these, like this other thing, this hybrid of like a tablet and PC, which is ultimately what it needs to be. I agree. It should be a hybrid, but I don't know if they really know how to do that because their best consumer effort ever is the Xbox and that really has never integrated well with Windows. I mean, just show me a single person in the, show me a single person in the technology industry who will get rid of their laptop and only use an iPad. The technology industry is, well, this guy, but that's not right. You're not accurate. You're in a special place. If you look at, I mean, if you look at any other industry, if you look at, let's move to the next topic. I'm just saying, but if you look at Moyers or moms or whatever, a lot of those people are moving to iPads. There are, there is a segment and I think that they're going to try to embrace that segment. I don't think they're ignorant of it, but I agree that it's questionable what their philosophy is. All right, let's do, let's do rapid. Let's actually try rapid fire for the next ones. OUYA. OUYA. Well, he doesn't know what it is. Should we explain it? No, let me talk about it. $99 Android game console with three games with DLC. I was going to make things up. Go ahead. And I mean, I don't think that I have a full grasp of their, of the understanding of how they will, of how they will get great games on it and how I will get those great games. I mean, I get, I get how I'll get them. I mean, they're going to run smartphone games. No, no, I understand that. And that's a problem. Is a handheld or? It's a console, it's Android based. It runs Android games? It runs Android. Yeah. Well, that's stupid. Well, not entirely. I mean, there are some pretty complex Android games. I thought it was going to just like, like stream stuff. No, it's not like an online. Like smartphone games. That's the dumbest thing ever. Well, no, they're going to be customary tailored. No, that's even worse. I don't think that's like, no, I think if I think, okay, look how hard it is to get good games on the PS3 and the Xbox and they have billions of people that own them. At any rate, I'm all in support of something that is like a grassroots open source. Like let's try something different for the home, for the living room. Cause I think it's also a media, it's also a media player. It's a set top box. It does all that stuff. So grassroots open source means you've got the millionth thing that can emulate SNES now. No. So I, we're doing a bad job explaining this. I bought one just to let you know. Yeah. So it's like this huge Kickstarter success hit a million dollars in like eight hours. Um, and I think it's going to be an enormous success because it is going to take that promise of indie games on Xbox and actually bring it to people because it's people can code Android games. They can give them to an audience of people who have the console and a controller that is designed to be this distribution platform. And the big game is all be free to play with like downloadable content. So people will be able to get it and play like a hundred levels of a hundred different games for free, which is very compelling. I just think that it's, it's hard to, without a huge marketing budget to push into that world. They need to like have an incredible, I mean, grassroots, I mean, if they could get a million people playing it, that's significant. How many did they sell? Do we know? $9 in Kickstarter. I mean, anytime you require a game, anytime you require a game developer to do anything specific and unique for a console with like less than like 10 million people install base. But they're already building. I don't think you're going to get the AAA titles. I think you're going to get Angry Birds or Penny Wings. You just don't get good games if they don't have a huge install. But you build Shadowgun for Android. All you have to do is make it compatible with the controller. Right. I mean, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I think the, the, the Android piece of this is going to be huge. All right. Next topic. Steam, steam box. This is the last one. I think you're going to like this. Dig sold the beta works for $500,000. I, at one point it was worth like $200 million. I can only say that, that I wish I had known dig was available for such a low price. I would have found some people to buy it and I would have bought it and turn it into your personal homepage and turn it into my homepage. Joshua Topolsky.com. It just redirects. Just redirects to get enormous traffic to my, to my Tumblr. Enormous traffic. Or redirects to like Joshua Topolsky.com slash dig. And it's like, welcome dig users. Dig still does like large traffic. That's the thing that's weird. But it says like 7 million a month or something. Well, you know, 7 million, you could just start yanking in. Yeah. All I know is if I had known, that's good. I just remember what dig would, dig would like, like, like drive mad traffic to ingadget. We used to, we used to, oh yeah, we had dig badges. We used to put dig badges on. Dig badges. Oh, those were the days. Yeah. So happy they're over. So happy. All right. I don't have anything to say except that I wish I had purchased it. Yeah. That's it. It'd be awesome to own it personally. I have something random to talk about but now I can't think of what it is. Was it about your 1970s shirt that you have today? No, it wasn't about that. Paul's really, you can't look at this, but something amazing is on the screen. Wow. That's awful. Okay, we're done. That's it. That's it. That's the Vergecast for the week. If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at vergecast at the verge.com. You can leave a comment in the post, which we always love. You can also find us on Twitter. The Verge is at Verge. I'm Josh Wotopolsky. Nealai is reckless. Paul is future Paul. And P.O. Box 501, New York, New York, 10276 is the same. 1076? Yeah. No, 10276. Oh, 10276. Yeah. 10276. 10276. 501. 501. Yeah. How did you get a three-digit P.P.O. Box? They have those. Are they just like nobody wants one anymore? I think it's really based on that very specific zip code. And that's the show. Thank you guys for tuning in. We'll be back next week, of course. And as always, I wish your family all the best this holiday weekend. Is it a holiday weekend? No, it's not. Oh, rock and roll. Yes. Paul. Paul. Paul.
 Hey, and welcome to the Vergecast.
 Yes.
 For the week of July 9th, 2012.
 I'm Josh Dupolsky.
 I'm Paul Miller.
 I'm Neelay Patel.
 And yes, we are back on the Vergecast.
 Oh man, some real branding confusion there on the Vergecast.
 Oh, well, we are on the Vergecast.
 Yeah.
 We're on the Vergecast.
 Huh?
 I just keep on turning up.
 You have nowhere to go.
 Anyhow, we're back.
 It's been a hectic few days.
 Why did I just get very quiet?
 How did that happen?
 I noticed that too.
 And I just want you to know that if all goes according to plan, we will be receiving delicious
 smoothies here in the studio.
 It's true.
 Thanks to Michael B. Shane on Twitter.
 Check him out.
 He's our editorial assistant.
 Should we review the orders that we made?
 We should review.
 Just before I explain that this is the Vergecast where we discuss the week in technology culture,
 we should talk about our orders.
 I'm not going to do that.
 I'm going to give you the orders.
 I got Barry No Dairy.
 Barry No Dairy for Paul.
 I went with a hippy protein.
 Hippy dippy protein.
 Yeah, hippy dippy.
 Hippy dippy.
 And I went for Barry Explosion, which is basically Barry No Dairy.
 By the way, these are not actual flavors.
 They're not real things.
 They're just the way we described it to Michael when we were desperately trying to give him
 an order.
 Anyhow, so hopefully, and we don't know if he'll be successful.
 We have no way of knowing actually at this moment.
 So anything's possible.
 It's true.
 So Week in News was not crazy, but we had some sparks.
 We did.
 Some sparks.
 And by the way, you can't start a fire without a spark.
 Also, this gun's for hire, in case you're interested.
 Oh, God.
 I didn't eat anything today and I can't come up with the next lyric.
 It's even if we're just dancing in the dark.
 Yeah, it is.
 Oh, no.
 It's a...
 I don't know.
 What is the order?
 It's this gun's for hire.
 You can't start a fire without a...
 No, no.
 It's can't start a fire without a spark, this gun's for hire, even if we're just dancing
 in the dark.
 Yes, that's exactly right.
 I think that's about sex, right?
 It's about lovemaking.
 Thank you, Creighton.
 Is that about lovemaking?
 Yes.
 It may also be about getting out of a one horse town.
 Yeah, I mean, every...
 I think it's...
 All too many of them are all...
 It's about...
 It's both about lovemaking and getting out of one horse town, possibly at the same time.
 So anyhow, this is the Vergecast, and we do typically talk about some technology once
 in a while.
 What do you have on our topics list for the day?
 Well, we can open with two things.
 One, you get your choice.
 Gambler's choice.
 Ladies' choice.
 Yeah.
 You interview Torsten Heinz.
 Torsten Heinz.
 Or the Nexus 7 shipping.
 Really?
 Yeah.
 Oh, you didn't know about this?
 No.
 Let's do Torsten.
 Let's talk about Torsten.
 People really liked our Blackberry piece from the last episode.
 Yeah.
 I interviewed Torsten Heinz, the CEO of RIM, Research in Motion, as they say.
 And he didn't have that much to say about anything specific.
 Really?
 It was like, we have a plan that is going to go into action.
 And when that action occurs, there will be a reaction, and we will be successful.
 So here's what I think is really interesting about RIM right now.
 Jean-Louis Gasset, who used to be the senior executive at Apple, and now he's like-
 I mean, Jean-Louis Gasset.
 Jean-Louis.
 Jean-Louis.
 He's like, you know, they're setting themselves up for a lawsuit.
 Because if they keep making promises to shareholders, and they keep saying things like, our company
 isn't in trouble, when it's blatantly obvious to some shareholders that the company is in
 trouble, then they're violating their actual duty to shareholders to maximize value on
 the company.
 Well, it isn't part of their duty to shareholders to maximize value, so you make your company
 look good so that the stock stays-
 It's a weird cycle.
 It's like-
 I mean, Paul makes a good point, which is part of the job.
 You have to walk the fine line of pumping shareholders up.
 And lying.
 It would just be like a horrible, terrible lie.
 No, you have to walk the fine line of lying and telling the truth.
 And somewhere in the middle of those is going crazy on an airplane.
 Somewhere in the middle of that is getting so S-faced drunk on an airplane that you have
 to be restrained with those plastic handcuffs, which you then gnaw through with your mouth.
 You chew through it and continue to go totally berserk.
 That's the sort of passion that's going to make the next generation mobile operating
 systems.
 Those are completely revolutionary.
 When Torsten Hein said that they identified the people who really know and love Blackberry
 and they call them Blackberry people, those are Blackberry people, passionate users.
 Talk about your interview.
 I just want to remind, by the way, out there on the internet, if you don't know what we're
 talking about, there were two RIM executives that went completely nuts on a plane.
 Because this happened a few months ago.
 You know the news cycle is-
 More than a few months ago.
 I'm really dredging up irrelevant things.
 And that was before Torsten Hein.
 Look, I think that was RIM drunk, December 13, 2011.
 There you go.
 Anyhow, I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
 Lazaridis was like, maybe we're not doing something.
 Maybe we're doing something wrong here.
 Anyhow, I interviewed Torsten Hein, who's the new CEO.
 When did he begin?
 I think, was it three, four months ago?
 Sounds about right.
 I don't know the date exactly.
 And we spoke to another, we spoke to their head of marketing for the US.
 And-
 January.
 I never know where I'm supposed to look here.
 There's a camera that's on me.
 Creighton, what do you suggest?
 You're the director.
 Do you suggest I look at this camera when I speak or that I look at Paul?
 Look at me.
 I'd prefer to look at you.
 It's a conversation.
 I'd prefer you looked at me too.
 But then it looks weirdly like I'm looking away from the camera, doesn't it?
 No.
 Okay.
 I never thought of mental justice moment.
 If you're gonna address the audience, you should look at the camera.
 That's what I'm gonna do.
 You got it.
 You nailed it.
 So we spoke to their head of marketing for the US.
 He had a similar vague.
 He was like, we're gonna win.
 We've got a great platform.
 It's gonna change the way you use computers.
 And so Torsten basically said the same thing.
 He said that he admitted that they had basically no success in touch screen phones, which I
 thought was interesting.
 He also...
 What?
 They also...
 Well, go ahead.
 The touch screen phone thing to me is pretty hilarious.
 Well, it's funny that I think they're trying to draw this, and I called it imaginary line
 in the sand between QWERTY smartphones and touch screen smartphones.
 And I think that there are people who like QWERTY smartphones and there are people who
 like touch screen smartphones, but they're not different devices in the sense that you
 should be able to accomplish all you can accomplish on a touch screen phone with a QWERTY and
 vice versa.
 And I think that they're kinda like, but look, we offer this QWERTY and it's doing very well.
 The reason their QWERTY phone is doing very well is because nobody else sells a QWERTY
 phone.
 What are you talking about?
 The 4G slide touch X2.
 Well, so I love brand new UI paradigms and revolutionary changing ways people use computers.
 But if they're gonna do another playbook, like, look, here's our brand new crazy new
 ideas.
 Sure, we don't have any features yet, but just imagine, you know?
 They cannot afford at all to do that.
 That's what they're doing.
 My sister was looking for a recommendation for a friend for a phone recently.
 She's like, should I get a BlackBerry and iPhone?
 And I was like, well, what does she need to do with it?
 One of them was manage multiple Gmail accounts.
 I was like, no, no, no, no.
 You can't let, and so like, you're saying don't get a BlackBerry, don't get a BlackBerry
 and for there to be something that's a very modern, regular application that a lot of
 people need to do that you just literally can't do on your phone.
 That's no, that's a bigger problem than like revolutionizing, revolutionary eyes.
 In my, in my opinion, in my opinion, and again, it's only one man's opinion.
 The people who have a BlackBerry who are like, I could never live without my BlackBerry have
 not learned the skill of typing on a touch screen.
 And that is a skill you learn and a few months, not even a few months.
 I mean, it is a skill you learn.
 And once you learn it, what you discover is, and I've done extensive personal testing on
 this when you eat, you're faster on the touch screen.
 I mean, you, I mean, some people may be very fast, but I believe that I'm faster than the
 touch screen.
 I think a lot of people I know are faster than the touch screen.
 And like once you learn the skill and you go back to this, like the tension of the,
 of the physical keyboard, it becomes, it feels a lot harder to type.
 I mean, you don't have, I'm not talking about like if I had all of my fingers available,
 like iPad screen to keyboard, I would much rather, and I'm much faster typing on a keyboard,
 you know, I can touch type.
 I can, I mean, they're just like all my fingers are in play and they are confident on the,
 on a regular keyboard on a 10 finger iPad software keyboard than the, um, than iPhone
 or Android.
 I don't think so.
 I don't think I am.
 I think it's like, I enjoy it more just cause it's like, it feels like you're like playing
 music.
 I think I'm pretty good.
 But it's, I mean, I'm fast, but like it's, I prefer, I definitely feel more comfortable
 and it's not because the skill, it's not because I haven't learned the skill.
 It's because, um, like I believe there are real advantages to the, to the tactility and
 not having to look at a keyboard while you type.
 But you, you know that mentally, but you were saying even the other day, you still feel
 the draw to a physical keyboard, even though it's irrational, I feel the irrational draw
 to a physical keyboard.
 And yet I know like, especially when it comes to thumb typing and I think the people who
 use a Blackberry now are, have used them for a long time.
 They are very comfortable with them.
 They believe that they are getting things done better than they could get them done
 on another platform.
 And yet like what it really boils down to is like you haven't learned the skill of the
 newer platform and like what you're saying is not, is basically untrue.
 Like I don't believe, I don't believe that you're, I don't believe a Blackberry is a
 more efficient device in terms of getting things done than an Android, than a modern
 Android phone, than the newest Android phone or the newest iPhone.
 But it's not that that phenomenon is not like a new thing to the world of smart.
 I mean that phenomenon happens every couple of decades.
 Every time there's a new technological shift.
 I mean it's almost, it almost, it almost speaks to the maturity of smartphones where they're
 more like cars.
 Like, yeah, I don't trust an automatic transmission.
 Right, no, no.
 I think that's a great example.
 But, but I think what I'm saying is that like rim in a way is kind of, is, is hint, is hinging
 a lot of their success on, on, on Blackberry people who I believe that when Blackberry
 people are exposed to the other ways of doing things, they'll start to go like, oh geez.
 Like that's how you do a calendar entry on an iPhone or that's how you do it on an Android
 phone.
 When the Blackberry people are infected with the smallpox of the iPhone.
 Yeah.
 I mean, I just think that, I just think that like you can't hinge your, you, if your business
 is built on retaining customers that have shown clearly that they will leave you because
 something is better.
 And it's like, I think like relatively empirical at this point that the movement is not towards
 like, it's not like to retaining, it's moving towards the better platform.
 Like what I, and I think Android and iOS are the better platforms.
 If your model is based on like retaining, that's not a model for growth and you're not
 going to win.
 Like you can't win in the smartphone race if your model is to like hold on to the people
 you have and if you believe that those people represent the audience, the audience is every
 single person on the planet because in 10 years no one will not have a smartphone.
 When you talked to Torson about this stuff, what was he like?
 Yeah, that's what I wanted to know.
 What's he like?
 He was, he was, I mean, he actually was what I thought was surprising is he actually was
 like, we think Blackberry seven's really good.
 I mean, he's clearly trying to watch for the Osborne effect of like, I mean, you know,
 why is that go for it?
 I mean, I, I was worn down.
 I would agree, but, but I think that he's basically like, you know, I was surprised
 that he thinks that, that he really is still behind Blackberry seven and maybe he just
 has to be for the sake of the company at this point.
 But but he also went, he was like, went pretty deep on this idea that like, you know, he
 said there were, there were some parts that like I couldn't fit into the, into the whole,
 you know, I didn't want to write a whole transcript.
 But he mentioned, you know, like the Blackberries are for busy people, like not just business
 people, but mothers and families and, and it's like, yeah, it's so, and I, and it's
 like, so are iPhones and so are Android phones.
 Like if you don't think that vibe still persists, like, like marketing wise, it is their messaging.
 I mean, he's following their messaging, you know, he needs, he's reinforced even like,
 I think that image of people, when I see a guy on a Blackberry, I'm like, that guy's
 getting something done.
 He's getting, he's getting stuff done.
 Right.
 But the funny thing is like, I know because I went and tried to use the newest Blackberry
 because maybe his company wouldn't allow him to get a phone other than his Blackberry.
 When I see somebody typing on Blackberry, I think like, I know, I know, I feel like this
 person's all business, but like when I went and tried to use the bold, the newest bold
 as my main device, like taking care of business was not how I felt, was not what I felt was
 happening.
 I wasn't taking care of business.
 I was like waiting for things.
 By the way, taking care of business is not what I felt was happening.
 I wasn't, I didn't feel like, I didn't feel like I was getting stuff done.
 I felt like I was waiting and frustrated and like, w like how, in what way is it, what,
 in what single way is this better than any other modern smartphone?
 And frankly, like what instant email that happens on my smartphone, you know, instant
 messaging that happens on my smartphone.
 I mean, Apple has iMessage which accomplishes, uh oh, are these smoothies?
 It'd be funny if Michael was like, I couldn't get smoothies, but I got you the individual
 fruits that would make up a blender.
 So I think that, uh, so I think that, oh man, this looks exactly like in my mind what I
 was thinking of when I described the berry explosion.
 Is that a berry explosion?
 Yes, but that one has yogurt.
 No, he said no dairy.
 Oh, well give me that one.
 Wait, so does that have no dairy?
 This has no dairy.
 But Josh said no yogurt.
 I said no dairy too.
 But you know, yogurt is dairy, right?
 I get the yogurt one.
 I understand.
 Oh, so they're all berry.
 They're all berry explosion.
 I didn't get hippy dippy protein.
 Okay.
 So, so Neelai, Neelai fails out.
 Mine looks much creamier and delicious.
 It does.
 It looks great.
 It does look great.
 No one's going to knock you for enjoying that.
 So can we just take a moment and I'll enjoy a smoothie with our audience.
 I want to wait.
 Let's wait for first sip till we all have our straws in.
 Okay.
 Cheers.
 You got it.
 You got it.
 Like you got to like, you can't get it right from the bottom.
 Well you're going to get just like syrup.
 Are you sipping?
 Come on.
 Oh, that is delicious.
 Yeah.
 This is like not sweet at all.
 It's not sweet.
 But you know, it's healthy because it's not sweet.
 What is this?
 It's berries.
 It's just berries.
 No, but berries are sweet.
 It's berry, no dairy.
 This is extremely bizarre tasting.
 Berries aren't as sweet as you think.
 No, it's tart.
 This is, I have to say in terms of the verge cast, one of our stranger moments.
 This is great.
 Want some sugar or honey or something?
 No, this is not right.
 If you blend up strawberries and blueberries, they are tart, but they're also sweet.
 Well, no, you know what?
 You typically put like a lot of orange juice or something in there.
 You typically, all right.
 Okay.
 It doesn't matter.
 Let me get back to it.
 So speaking of berries, let me get back to this blackberry conversation.
 So I wanted to say something.
 No, no.
 Yes.
 Yes.
 So you know how, we're talking about, you know, blackberry getting left behind and stuff
 and I, I really need to do my mute button.
 Go ahead.
 I've been really a love iPhone.
 It's so comfortable to me.
 And I, you know, I like iOS on the iPad and the iPhone.
 I think it's great.
 And it's been so wonderful.
 I think it was very much ahead of its time and I feel just, it just feels right, you
 know, to me.
 But I, you know, I pulled out, someone at the office got a Nexus 7 and I managed to
 get through all the screens without getting it on the internet.
 And I could do literally nothing because there's no, you know, everything requires the internet,
 but the operating system felt like kind of a generation more modern than iOS to me.
 Oh, absolutely.
 The multitasking and just, I don't know, I felt like it's a modern UI and it's just,
 it's clean.
 It seems like it's really designed for the future.
 And iOS, like, you know, a lot of people I know were disappointed that the newer version
 is iOS.
 What's the next one that's coming out?
 6.
 6.
 6.
 Is just, you know, it still looks exactly the same, still operates exactly the same.
 And I think, I mean, Apple, if Apple doesn't leap forward in a while, I just think they
 could be very content with how well they've done.
 And that's not a guarantee of, you know, that's a guarantee of a couple more years of success,
 but it doesn't give you forever success.
 And I just, I just feel like, I guess it's jellybean on the Nexus 7.
 It just felt so good.
 And I don't know, I don't even know how to use it because I don't really use Android
 very much.
 One thing you, one thing you have to say about Google and they've made some big missteps
 and mistakes in, in, I don't know how we're talking about Google now, but we'll get back
 to Blackberry.
 But one thing they do, and I think this is like the wave and buzz thing, like I think
 why we saw them and why they've been so ridiculed.
 Like one thing that they, Google does do is make pretty dramatic changes.
 Like they'll just do something like, Hey, we have this new product wave and everybody's
 going to use it.
 And like, they kind of don't go like, is it going to be a success or a failure?
 And I think they've started to turn some of their iterative nature towards like they're
 really focusing it.
 And I think that Jelly Bean is a real representation of like between ice cream sandwich and Jelly
 Bean, I see like an extreme focus and it just feels like they've hit, they've like hit something
 where they're really starting to,
 You want to just talk about this thing that's shipping?
 They're out, we can move on from Blackberry.
 Well, let me just say, one of the,
 Anything else he said that touches on this?
 Yeah, we quoted in the headline that he says, you know, I asked him, I said, do you think
 Nokia made the right decision?
 You know, partnering with Microsoft and abandoning Symbian and abandoning MeeGo.
 And he said, well, Nokia doesn't have what we have.
 We have nearly 80 million users.
 We have, you know, services.
 Well, you know, there was software, which I thought was weird because he says, I mean,
 I can't remember if I put the quote in or not, but he said, like, we have software and
 services and it's like, they had software and services too.
 And they had a lot more users than,
 The OV maps.
 They had a lot more users than, but like in terms of like their core user, it wasn't a
 smartphone user that was using like their email services.
 What RIM is talking about is in enterprise, everybody has a Blackberry messenger server
 and that's sitting there.
 And that's like a huge entry point for us.
 But there are lots of stories about Fortune 500 companies thinking about iPhone and Android
 because they don't know if RIM will make it.
 And they're heavily dependent on these BVM servers.
 He kept using this, he's like, they love using this phrase, BYOD.
 Bring your own device.
 He's saying, you know, with the new culture of bring your own device and,
 Like that's a bad thing.
 No, he's saying like, we want to embrace that.
 But to me, it almost sounds like he's hedging towards, we're going to license our,
 They really should.
 We're going to license our services to other manufacturers.
 I'm not talking about to HTC though.
 He did say like, we'd be open to like licensing our platform to HTC or somebody like that.
 Of course they would.
 But to Android and iOS.
 To Android and iOS.
 Well, and then I think it's a sustainable business.
 If they don't do that, every month is just worse and worse for them.
 Right.
 And every month is another month where Apple, well, Apple's going to do it anyhow.
 But where Apple and Google's going to do it anyhow too.
 But where they're going to beef up their security.
 They're going to beef up their enterprise services.
 They're going to continue to like push into that world.
 I mean, it's funny, but Microsoft and RIM are in this very similar place where they're
 like, we're strong in enterprise and that can support our business.
 But you have companies that are still on Windows XP and that sort of company would really love
 to just keep that Blackberry server that's been treating them so well all this time,
 except for those few times.
 I mean, how well has it been treating them?
 I think that's the question.
 I think it's like well enough to maybe stick with it.
 And so if like, but like all our users want these new phones and if those new phones can
 support that, I think that's a big jolt of life.
 It doesn't guarantee an entire decade of continued popularity.
 All they have to do is change their fundamental business.
 Yeah.
 I mean, sorry, I've got like bits of berry in my teeth.
 These smoothies have really turned into a double edged sword.
 You know, I feel like I need a beverage to wash down the smoothie.
 Could you grab me a seltzer?
 I'm just really like a lot of stuff in there.
 I don't know if it's fresh, but the yogurt makes it creamy.
 Freshly defrost.
 But you know, they have to change their business of like being a consumer facing handset maker
 that also does software and services.
 I mean, their business, their core business up until recently, I mean, and maybe still
 I haven't looked at all the numbers, but is their consumer business.
 I mean, they talk about it too.
 Yeah.
 You know, they're a consumer company.
 They've been selling curves like crazy for like 10 years.
 Like those two guys that are DJs and produce music.
 They can't work.
 They can't use an iPhone.
 They need tools, not toys.
 They don't need a toy like an iPhone, which is just for playing around and an Android
 phone, which is only like lame dorks use that aren't doing anything.
 I feel like that marketing is really wrong headed.
 You know what you should say instead of like, we do something basically different than you,
 you just say, we do something better than you.
 Like different is, is a lie.
 Better could be true, but this is the lie that they're telling.
 Right.
 We're going to do something so different.
 I'd love to make up for the fact that we're late.
 Right.
 I guess so.
 I'm saying like, well, yeah, they're telling both eyes.
 I don't know why I keep putting my hands up.
 Go ahead.
 Go ahead.
 No, I'm saying like if you look at this or you look at this as the nexus seven or you
 look at what iOS six is, um, you can't come out with a whole new operating system that's
 caught up to this.
 So real watch out.
 You almost have to do something different.
 Do I, is this for me?
 Oh, all right.
 Can we get rid of this trash?
 That'd be good.
 Sorry for making those slushy noises.
 Um, no, you can't come out with a, um, you can't come out with a whole new operating
 system the way they're saying they're going to do it and be caught up to jelly bean and
 caught up to iOS six.
 In many ways you're gonna be caught up to windows phone eight because that has had years
 of development.
 Right.
 Um, and so I think they have to tell this, this lie about how they're going to revolutionize
 fundamental communication.
 Parking meters are going to talk to your phone.
 Are you sure?
 Are you sure that's the best way to say it?
 Or a row of parking meters will burst into a chorus of song as soon as you walk past.
 ATMs will shoot money at not just out, but it will just magnetize directly towards your
 phone.
 It'll go flying through the air.
 It's a lot of time to do a mobile payment service.
 That's what I imagine is like you're, it's like, it's a cartoon and you pull your phone
 out and the, the, the parking meter starts singing and the ATM machines float money over
 to your phone.
 Like maybe, maybe I should talk to an ad.
 Yeah.
 It's like Ellen chanted and those birds.
 That's right.
 That's exactly right.
 Have you guys been in like Dwayne Reed or something and you walking down the aisle and
 then the aisle starts talking to you about, Hey, look over here.
 No, what you've been off the internet too long.
 I don't know.
 Those are not, that's not the aisle.
 So like, like in the, uh, in the deodorant, I don't know.
 Oh boy.
 There's like, like mid level little, little LCD and it's got a motion sensor.
 So you walk past it and you're like, what are two feet past it?
 It's like a dancing Santa.
 And then, yeah, yeah, yeah.
 Yeah.
 But it yells, there's a pretty loud speaker that says, Hey, over here.
 When you turn and there's a video playing like about like Gillette or something.
 Really good idea.
 It's a little LCD.
 It's worked.
 You've advertised Gillette.
 Do we have a sponsor this week?
 Oh, thank goodness.
 Gillette for shaving and for freaking you out.
 Hey, look over here.
 Gillette, Hey, look over here.
 Uh, okay.
 So let's talk about, you want to talk about the nexus?
 Yeah.
 And that was it.
 So that was all Torsten has to say.
 He was a very nice, by the way, very nice man.
 I'd love to, I'd love to have it more.
 We had a very short conversation, like a 20 minute conversation.
 I'd love to have a longer.
 Do you think he's the right thing for him?
 No, unfortunately, no, I don't.
 I think they need to like a really crazy visionary and he doesn't strike me as a visionary at
 all.
 I think they need somebody who is like, they need like an Andy Rubin and a Mattias because
 those are the guys who I think are driving what is happening with Android.
 Those two, you know, and they need like a guy who's just a crazy wild, who's like incapable
 of speaking on message.
 They brought on the tat, the TAT guys, you know, and I don't know what they're doing
 or if they're even still there, but you know, they had like design chops, but you know,
 I mean, I don't know if one of those guys would be the guy, but they need somebody who's
 like going to really, I don't feel inspired.
 I mean, he's a really nice guy, but I don't feel inspired hearing him speak and I don't
 believe the things that he says.
 I never see the video of Steve Jobs after he'd come back to Apple and he was just did
 a Q and a like a developer conference.
 Well, you know, he's talking about killing, he's only retiring some of the developers
 are yelling and they're like, why would you kill open doc?
 And he's like, look, here's what we got to do.
 Like I know you're probably mad about it, but I have this like big vision and like he
 just told him what he was going to do and he didn't see, he wasn't CEO yet.
 And he couldn't give them product specifics.
 Right.
 But it just felt like you watch it.
 So it's everybody should see it.
 Um, you watch it and you're like, that guy has a plan and like he's not telling us the
 whole plan because that it's not completely formulated.
 He's been on this job for three days or whatever, but he knows what he wants to do with Torsten.
 It's like you just keep making promises about a product that doesn't exist and you're not
 even owning up to the failings of your existing product.
 You're insisting that it's a success in a segment that doesn't exist.
 Right.
 And it's like you, you're not saying like we got to kill seven because frankly we tried
 with five, six and seven and those aren't, they're just not up to the task.
 Yeah.
 And we're going to, we're going to deliver something that is up to the task and even
 beyond the task.
 You need to, you need a CEO or the phone comes up to him like, Hey, Hey, here's what we built
 is like, are you kidding me?
 Right.
 I don't know.
 I think you need, you need to have that.
 Well, he did, to be fair, he did say the reason Blackberry 10 is delayed is because it wasn't
 polished.
 He did say he actually, he, one of his quotes is actually like he, he looked, there is something
 about him like looking at it and going like, this isn't, it's not, I still see the, I still
 see the seams.
 Okay.
 You know, but,
 Good for him.
 No, no, that's great.
 But I, but when I hear him speak about the company at large and their place in the market,
 you know, what I would say if I were the CEO of RIM is I'd say when somebody asked me and
 I did ask, I said, you lost a lot of market share, you know, and I wouldn't say, yeah,
 but our market share is still growing in lots of places or we have a lot of market share
 in developing countries.
 I'd say, you know what?
 You're right.
 We took our eye off the ball and we didn't do the things we needed to do.
 And we put out three versions of an OS that are lackluster and it's time to change the,
 the, the, the story, you know, it's time to change the theme.
 And like, and like that is to me would be, would fire me up.
 I'd be like, this guy understands completely what's going on.
 They screwed up for the last three or four years straight.
 That's totally boned it.
 And now like it's time to get serious.
 It's time to like play.
 Yeah.
 And like he doesn't, I don't hear that from him.
 I hear like our Blackberry seven projects are still good.
 Like don't tell me that you have six more months or whatever, you know, five months,
 six months, the hell out of the Blackberry seven.
 Say if you have the perfect audience to Osborne because they obviously don't want to upgrade
 anyways.
 Well, they're leaving, they're leaving anyhow.
 You have to say it the right way.
 You can't just be like, don't you buy our products.
 And you just say like, they're good products, but they're not great products.
 And we're the next thing we're going to make is going to be great.
 Right.
 G R E A T.
 And then just throw the micro.
 I would say if somebody is like, if somebody is like, should I keep angry cheerleaders?
 If you were me and you asked me like, like if it, if I were the CEO and you said like,
 should I buy today?
 Should I go buy a Blackberry seven device?
 I'd say don't buy a Blackberry seven device, but don't go buy an Android phone or an iOS
 device either because what we're going to deliver is what we're going to deliver in
 the first quarter of 2013 is going to blow away everything else in the market.
 You're going to want that.
 You can't say that, but you can say what we're working on is really significant and it's
 worth waiting for.
 Yeah, that's great.
 That's great.
 All right.
 All right.
 Okay.
 I'll go run.
 Ram.
 It's fine.
 Along those lines.
 I've been, um, I had this thought a while ago, but your, um, your piece on carriers,
 uh, which I only got to read like half of it before the podcast, by the way.
 So I still want to read the rest.
 He, uh, his printer ran out of the printer.
 The office ran out of ink.
 But, uh, I, I had this thought, I guess I talked to Chris Ziegler a while about this,
 about carriers could go, could just be so much better by just being honest.
 Like AT&T for instance, has been trying to message to, uh, especially journalists, but
 to everybody that their network is impeccable for so long.
 Yeah.
 You know?
 And if they just said, like, look, here's physics, right?
 Here's physics.
 Like, like in Times Square, you're going to get full signal bars because there's a tower
 right next to you, but the tower's full, you know?
 And that's, you know, that's a problem we're going to work on.
 Like if they just like let you know, like, you know, you know, cars tell you like the
 miles per gallon, you know, they don't say, don't worry about it.
 It's the best, you know, they say, that's amazing.
 The car, the car was like, like how much, how much longer can I drive?
 It's like, you're fine.
 It's good.
 It's the one of the best fuel container.
 What are you saying?
 The fuel container in the car is one of the best.
 It's got a huge capacity.
 Right.
 Don't worry about it.
 You're all set.
 It's a 4g container.
 4g.
 Next generation.
 I just think if they were honest or just honest about their business model, you know, just
 there's certain reasons they can't be honest.
 I mean, that's because I probably, because like people, a lot of people are really stupid
 and we'll take them the wrong way.
 Like people will be like, what?
 Right.
 What do you mean?
 They'll be like, I'm going to the service and they'll start shooting at the tower.
 People ask you about the problems with their phones and I explained to them, this is why
 this and this sucks.
 You know, like you've been told that you bought something that was bulletproof and magical,
 but this is the reality of the situation, you know, and like the reality of the situation
 is different at the different carriers and it's, you know, some things are better, some
 things are worse.
 I love the idea of the people of companies, major industries being honest with their customers.
 I mean, it goes against everything that, that, uh, everything in the world that we've set
 up in terms of how big companies interact with their customers.
 I love the idea.
 What would happen if we were honest?
 You know, think about the food industry though.
 Like it has like the heavily regulated food industry that heavily regulated, regulated,
 that has to put proper labeling on all of its products, but it ha but also it really
 got ahead.
 Believe me.
 So, so if they weren't regulated by the way, I assure you the food industry would sell
 you rotten beef.
 I have no doubt.
 No, I have zero doubt.
 If they were new, there was like a level of tolerance.
 Like the human body can eat like, you know, 20% rotten beef.
 Like the human body can ingest.
 You might get a little upset stomach.
 They would sell it to you.
 Yeah.
 There's no question.
 They would love to do that.
 There are the regulated, um, nutritional fat, you know, nutritional facts on the back, but
 there's also like an increasing, like, like, like push to put some hot marketing nutritional
 facts on, on the front.
 Yeah, because the government is telling them to do it.
 No, no, no, no, no.
 That's marketing.
 The big little bold face stuff on the front is marketing.
 What do you mean?
 Oh, you mean like no gluten or whatever?
 Oh yeah.
 Yeah.
 I mean that is, but, but that's because they're responding to an, uh, a society.
 Well, they're responding to those starting to know what's good and bad.
 That's right.
 I mean they're responding to, uh, they're responding to a society that's starting to
 put pressure on their government to tell them to make the bigger point here.
 That's great.
 So you have, I mean, I love that we're talking about like granola bars on the verge.
 I could go for a granola bar.
 Michael, just kidding.
 Wash out the smoothie.
 Wash out the smoothie.
 Like a berry berry.
 Oh, very like a berry explosion granola.
 No, look, so.
 No dairy.
 Just at the most basic level, we're like, there's the two sides of the box, right?
 There's the government side of the box.
 So there's actually way more than two sides.
 Well, there's a box.
 There's six sides of the box, but there's the two that we're talking about is the government
 side of the box.
 There's two flaps.
 Right.
 There's the two flaps that the government mandates.
 Yeah.
 And then there's the marketing side of the box and they're both like, you can, the thing
 about it is the government side moves slowly.
 Oh, you mean the food box?
 Yeah.
 The food box.
 Yeah.
 They're granola bars.
 Uh, the government moves slowly and passes these rules and changes.
 Yeah.
 But the market moves really fast, right?
 So that the companies are able to respond.
 It seems like people want gluten-free granola bars.
 It seems to have gluten-free.
 Michael, can you get my tote bag?
 I think all broad granola bars.
 No, I'm like comparison shopping protein bars right now.
 I'm really into this protein bar.
 Oh, the things you'll come up with when you don't have the internet.
 I've had a bunch of different ones.
 Hey, here's what I'm doing.
 Comparison shopping protein bars.
 All right.
 Let me just make this point.
 Okay, go ahead.
 So the thing is that those companies can move fast.
 They can say people want gluten-free food.
 Right.
 So let's put out a line of it.
 We'll change the market in one handset.
 You know what I think is you don't need a special kind of mouth to eat the food.
 Yeah, right.
 Any mouth can eat the food.
 You just put it in the store.
 Right.
 Right?
 That's right.
 Any stores can sell it.
 But the blackberry has to go through the carriers.
 The carriers have no real competition.
 Imagine if there were another...
 Hold on a second.
 Look at this.
 Zero grams of sugar, 20 grams of protein.
 Those are cookies.
 Gluten-free, high protein bar.
 Those are all marketing terms.
 Yeah, but you have to understand these are also...
 So some of those are regulated.
 Yes, but also...
 Fat-free is a great word.
 A lot of them are...
 Well...
 Yeah, no, I don't think they're allowed to lie about any of these.
 No, they can't lie about what's in the thing.
 They could say 0% trans fat and trick you.
 But organic is not a regulated term.
 No, organic isn't.
 But then you have the real government required fat.
 Well, there are some...
 We're way off.
 Hold on.
 But no, no, but actually, we're not way off because it is like...
 Imagine if this same situation existed, but there was another that the...
 I'm trying to think of who this would be in the food chain, every pun intended.
 That there's another organization that basically is not the government and is not the manufacturer
 of food that stands...
 Everyone is screaming that organic is regulated.
 Is it?
 Apparently.
 I thought it wasn't.
 Your wife just told me in all capital letters.
 All natural is not organic is.
 Yeah.
 God, why have I been buying all this all natural food?
 It's like not organic, but it's all natural.
 When I worked in the potato industry.
 Hold on a second.
 So imagine there was another entity that...
 By the way, Paul really did work in the potato industry.
 No, this is true.
 This is a true thing.
 He said, the man seen with his own eyes, millions of potatoes at a single glance.
 But imagine there was another organization that stood in between the person who made
 the food and was aside from the government regulations in between the person who made
 the food and the buyer of the food, the eater of the food.
 And they were like, we're going to tell you how to tweak this particular food and what
 kind of packaging to put it in.
 And whether or not you can sell it in different stores.
 Those are the carriers.
 Right.
 Yeah.
 And they don't have to...
 They basically don't have to do...
 They could add some gluten into your gluten free stuff.
 Right.
 But the thing about the carriers, even on that level is that there's rampant competition
 in the food.
 Right?
 So there are many kinds of protein bars for Paul the comparison shop.
 There's only four carriers.
 And Verizon and AT&T do insane things.
 Like AT&T says, the CEO of AT&T said, I think last week, we're signaling to the market and
 to Verizon that we're raising our prices by raising some bundled prices.
 And so their prices always match because they know that there's nowhere else for somebody
 to...
 Somewhere to go.
 So if there was a world that existed in which one carrier was being honest with customers
 and people would flock to that carrier, then AT&T would be honest with customers.
 That world doesn't exist.
 Because honesty is infectious.
 Well, market demand is infectious.
 Honesty is like a disease that you catch and you cannot get rid of.
 That's so not true.
 No.
 Okay.
 But hold on a second.
 All right.
 But honesty is the best policy.
 Can we talk about...
 Are we going to talk about Direct TV?
 We can talk about that.
 Because I feel like the segue is into it.
 We can.
 I think there are places that I see in our technology world, which I think is increasingly
 the world, where there is steam.
 There is like a lot of...
 There are a lot of steam people.
 Like there are things brewing that I think...
 You should say what you mean by Direct TV, by the way.
 Direct TV...
 Oh, sorry.
 Viacom raised its licensing fees.
 Yep.
 Yeah.
 Correct me if I'm wrong on any of this.
 Viacom raised its licensing fees for Direct TV or for everybody?
 For...
 Well, they renegotiated with Direct TV.
 They renegotiated their contract with Direct TV and they wanted to raise their licensing
 fees.
 Direct TV said, this is too much money.
 And Viacom said, well, we're going to pull our channels from your service.
 Yep.
 And then they didn't come to agreement.
 They pulled their channels and now there are 24 channels, I think.
 That's MTV, Comedy Central, and...
 All the 24?
 I heard about the...
 It's 26.
 I heard about the big three.
 We keep on saying MTV, Comedy Central, and 24 and more.
 Comedy Central, MTV, and a bunch of other things.
 That's great.
 So...
 And actually, they have a really interesting video.
 The CEO of Direct TV has this video where he's like, they wanted us to...
 They wanted to raise the license fee, it'll cost us a billion dollars and we think that's
 too high.
 And we asked them if they would at least allow customers, even if we don't license...
 If we could do a license so that customers could request the channels they want to watch
 and pay whatever your fee is for them.
 And they said no, which I think is a really interesting thing for him to have said.
 Maybe he's just grandstanding, but I think it speaks to...
 And this is my point.
 And then we can talk about Direct TV a little bit, what I want to say is I see places where
 there is...
 There are forces brewing, there's anger brewing that it's going to be...
 If these people don't see it soon, their businesses are gonna get screwed anyhow.
 There's a pot about to boil over.
 Yes, there's a pot that's about to boil over.
 And those pots, there's a couple of them right now.
 The first pot is the cable industry.
 I just don't think people are gonna...
 It's a stove with a lot of burners.
 I think that one's gonna take a little bit longer, but I think I see this Aereo decision
 that just happened.
 If you guys don't know, Aereo is this business that lets you basically stream broadcast HD
 to a device by saying we have an antenna in a warehouse somewhere that's picking up the
 broadcast signal and you're paying us for the service of shooting it.
 And they really do have the antenna.
 And they actually do have the physical antenna.
 So you can watch your local broadcast stations on your...
 Well there's a way to do it on your computer, but they have it on devices like iPad, iPhone,
 whatever.
 And they just won this kind of...
 I mean, I don't know, it's a landmark case, but it's kind of a big deal.
 But it's a big deal that basically they...
 They're allowed to continue.
 They're allowed to continue their business.
 So anyhow, in cable, I see something brewing that is like maybe a little bit longer, but
 it's going to be a major deal.
 I think that...
 Just to clarify, the case itself will be a landmark case when it is decided.
 It hasn't been decided.
 It hasn't gotten there yet.
 It hasn't gotten there yet.
 They got un...
 The broadcasters didn't win an injunction.
 But yeah, they didn't win an injunction, which is I think is somewhat...
 I mean, there's some sign there that there's some part of this that looks on the up and
 up to some judicial...
 Yeah.
 I mean, it always should have been on the up and up.
 Right.
 So that's the one.
 The cell phone, the mobile carrier business is the other.
 And then I think the other big one is...
 And they're all connected is our patent, the way our patent system works in regards to
 technology.
 And this is a better way of what I was saying the other day, just that I think some of this
 competition with Wi-Fi based and more open services like iMessage and FaceTime and stuff
 like that are part of fuel for the fire.
 They're not necessarily going to solve the problem.
 You say iMessage?
 Yeah.
 How's iMessage open?
 I'm saying these services...
 Device or network independent.
 Network independent services that are showing that the emperor has no clothes.
 And I think that's the bigger thing than coming up with one specific fix for everything is
 just to make people aware of how things are working.
 Well, I think they're becoming aware of how they're working.
 Excuse me, I got them buried.
 But they're also starting to figure out ways...
 Sorry, I need to wash this down.
 I knew that was coming.
 I was just waiting for it actually.
 Oh, God, that's terrible.
 But they're also starting to look at the way they do these things and they see there are
 now alternatives.
 And those alternatives are only growing in number.
 They're not shrinking.
 And I do think that a future of local mesh networks of neighborhoods that are independent
 of the overall structure is pretty realistic.
 I don't think that's a crazy idea.
 And I think that when people start to figure out when the things that are complex become
 less complex and we start to figure out ways to build some of these things on smaller scales
 for communities or neighborhoods, suddenly the hand of Verizon looks really different.
 I think they need to wake up to the possibility that they are not always gonna be in the position
 that they're in.
 If all of a sudden your kids are making a lot of their phone calls and most of their
 messaging on an iPod touch, look out.
 And that's definitely happening.
 Look out because then Comcast will be rich.
 But this is where it's all...
 Wait, hold on.
 Time out.
 Eutopia.
 Eutopia.
 This all goes back to net neutrality ultimately.
 There are a lot of questions here that we need to say.
 There's a lot of questions, but you're just transferring the power from wireless providers
 to wireline providers.
 Right, you're saying let's all put up mesh networks that connect to our what, our Fios?
 It's still Verizon.
 You could do local area wireless.
 You gotta connect to the internet at some point.
 But you could do...
 Well, I mean, maybe in certain nodes, but not through the entire thing.
 But that thing, that internet connection is the high value.
 But it's not gonna happen overnight, but I'm saying that you can get to a point where there
 are a lot of...
 I mean, what you're just arriving is everyone in the neighborhood sets up a LAN party.
 Yeah, but now...
 Everyone's like, screw you internet.
 But we think of that that way now, but there may be...
 What I'm saying is people are becoming more independent from...
 Well, they're more dependent on right now, but there is more possibility for independence
 from the things that...
 A phone, for instance, is a great example.
 We've always used...
 You had to call up AT&T or Verizon or whoever and get your phone service, right?
 No, that's actually not true.
 There was a whole period in the 80s and 90s when long distance phone services were deeply,
 deeply competitive.
 No, no, I understand that.
 On the transport level and on the device level, right?
 Because you could buy any kind of cordless phone.
 But the lines were...
 The lines were owned, but they were leased out to many other companies.
 And there was a similar very large carriers and then some smaller.
 There was some really heated competition, I remember.
 There was heated competition, but think about what happened there.
 I mean, like...
 What did happen?
 The internet happened.
 People started using voice...
 No, no, no.
 In that market, for that time period when that market was important, AT&T for a generation
 charged you by the minute for long distance phone service.
 And then Sprint came in and charged you 10 cents a minute.
 This was like a big deal.
 With the pin that drops.
 Yeah, with the pin that drops and they had digital voice and they ran a different kind
 of service.
 That's a different ad.
 That's for their cell phone.
 No, no, that was the Sprint pin drop ad.
 The pin, was it?
 It was for their landline quality.
 Yep.
 And they came in and 10 cents a minute.
 And then later, long distance just became free because there were so many other competitors
 in that market.
 Yeah, now...
 That people were switching to lower cost carriers.
 And now nobody buys phone service.
 Well, that was a different...
 That's a different disruption.
 I'm saying there was so much competition in that market.
 But what I'm saying is that now, like, I can make a call over Skype as easily as I can
 make it easier than I can make a call.
 Just focus on what I'm saying.
 There was the phone system that was owned by AT&T.
 And both ends of that system were locked into stagnation.
 So the phones that you use for those old princess phones.
 And AT&T said, you can't connect other phones to our network.
 We will control all of the phones.
 So that innovation stalled.
 Then on the pricing side, on the service side, nobody else was allowed to compete.
 So AT&T had their rates...
 You're talking about way back in the day.
 Wait, this is...
 I mean, this is...
 But the parallel is right in front of you.
 Right.
 So AT&T said, AT&T, this famous rule, the Carter phone rule, AT&T, you have to let other
 people plug into your phone system.
 You have to have other kinds of phones.
 Anything that works on the system can plug in.
 Massive explosion in phone technology.
 Suddenly you can buy those see-through phones that light up when they ring.
 Yeah, but think about the huge variety of phones and then this explosion of cordless
 phones.
 There was a whole arms race of technology in cordless phones, answering machines, and
 weird stuff that plugged into it.
 Panasonic made a great cordless phone.
 And on top of it, modems.
 The internet was created because the FCC said to AT&T...
 The lineage of the technology.
 Where are we going with this?
 We're way in the weeds.
 But his point is...
 No, but I'm saying is like...
 His point is in the way that we need carriers to be told, you have to stop locking these
 devices to your networks and let people have choice.
 I think that's your point, right?
 No, and then on the other side, there was a huge competition in service providing.
 Right.
 Right, in service providing?
 Service providing.
 Service providing.
 Service providing.
 That makes sense.
 Providing.
 Sure.
 And then there's also companies like Sprint.
 Yeah.
 And MCI and all these other companies.
 MCI that are now out of business.
 You know, that were bought by AT&T.
 What does that have to do with how Comcast is going to ruin our lives?
 I think...
 So you can't transfer the power from one dominant set of entrenched interests to another one.
 So you can't say, we're all going to go away from AT&T and Verizon.
 But we did that.
 We've done that.
 Well, we're doing it...
 What you're suggesting is, we'll build a neighborhood network.
 I'm suggesting total anarchy.
 Right now, Comcast land is more exciting because it's a little less regulated and it's a little
 cheaper.
 And if we start to go that way, then I feel like the wireless networks will have to keep
 up.
 Because they've got a lot of bandwidth in that 4G stuff.
 I think what Paul's point was with the iPod Touches and people iMessaging on iPod Touches
 and making calls on them is that the avenues in which we do these things are expanding.
 A phone call isn't the same thing as a phone call was five years ago, certainly not 10
 years ago.
 And that's happening all over the place.
 iMessage is a great example of SMS without SMS services.
 You're not paying the 25 cents because it's being done a different way.
 But to Nilay's point, I think this is the ultimate point he's making is that those lines
 are still controlled by somebody.
 Sure.
 The Wi-Fi is still controlled by somebody.
 Sure.
 But they're not as controlled.
 But I think the same problem has...
 That's just a matter of Comcast flipping the switch.
 But they have a flip the switch.
 AT&T and Verizon have flipped the switch and that switch has been on for a long time.
 At this point, they can flip the switch and that's the problem.
 When you get right down to it, you need...
 This is a net neutrality argument.
 But my only point was that there are these storms brewing in specific areas and I think
 that they're all really related.
 And I think that they're all like the pot is coming to a boil.
 What they are, they're structural problems.
 It's how do we organize the system?
 And how do we make it so the system is constantly delivering innovation and value to customers?
 Better yet, it's not how do we organize...
 Well it is on a grand scale, how do we organize the system?
 But it's also how do we make a system that is adaptable, that makes sense?
 This system doesn't make sense.
 And it's not solving the problems we want to solve.
 The system we have, it's like I'm supporting...
 With my cable bill, I'm supporting a business that was created 30 years ago or something.
 And I'm serving the interests of a small group of people.
 And I think a lot of people feel that way.
 And I think that there are other ways to do it.
 And as they have to adapt and we have to adapt.
 I just don't see a lot of adapting going on from this.
 I'd love to hear your guys' thoughts on this because I haven't been a part of the larger
 internet conversation.
 But I read in my newspaper two quotes that were very different.
 One was Viacom saying, because of the internet, we only have a larger viewer ship and it's
 not cannibalizing cable viewers.
 And DirecTV was saying, the internet stuff directly cannibalizes.
 So DirecTV was basically saying, look, Viacom is less valuable of a product because they
 put so many of their shows on the internet.
 And Viacom was saying, look, don't worry about it, the internet isn't cannibalizing and it's
 a growing viewer ship.
 And those are clearly two very different perspectives.
 Didn't Viacom also pull their streaming shows?
 We have a report that they pulled their full-
 Yeah, because DirecTV was pointing people at Viacom's streaming page.
 They pulled their full streaming episodes.
 Well, if you look at it from Viacom's perspective-
 Which is, by the way, great for the customer.
 Well, if you look at it from Viacom's perspective, they have to figure out how to-
 Get people to watch their stuff.
 And if they can monetize it, regardless, if they can monetize it all equally, regardless
 of distribution, they're happy because then they win.
 And this reminds me of a-
 From DirecTV's perspective, they have to make their profit per viewer or per subscriber
 as high as possible.
 So when Viacom wants to increase its rate, their profit, that eats in a profit margin
 per viewer.
 So I see how this is really bad for-
 So they're doing math way differently.
 I know this is bad for DirecTV, but if Viacom was really embracing online viewership, which
 you're saying they're screwing people over now, but if they were, they finally realized,
 look, we can make money both ways and we can really embrace...
 Because I feel for a while-
 Well, that's it.
 That would be the-
 For instance, HBO will not divorce itself from these cable companies yet because these
 cable companies, it's so valuable to pay them whatever they want.
 But DirecTV obviously, for a billion dollars, we can do without Viacom.
 We're not going to pay them this ridiculous amount.
 I feel like HBO could name whatever they want.
 So I think HBO is saying to us right now, they're saying, we need the cable industries,
 blah, blah, blah.
 I think they're probably furiously working on building a business to sell direct to the
 customer.
 They can't be that stupid.
 Like a company that produces-
 But they don't have to flip that switch until they've finally found the limit of what these
 cable companies will pay them to be part of this exorbitant package.
 Which seems indefinite.
 Like the HBO package, which is $200 instead of the regular subscriber package was a $40.
 Which is like, at this point, they don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes.
 They're like, how far can we push it?
 But they're going to find out really soon.
 But the thing is, when I think about this and I think about, well, what would the model
 be?
 Because you think about how much does it cost to make Teen Mom or whatever.
 And it's not that expensive, but MTV puts it on the air because Viacom thinks it's a
 good show.
 Yeah, straight back, he had me watch a show, I think that was just called DUI.
 People who were drunk driving.
 It's not even cops level.
 I was like, why are we watching this?
 And she's like, I don't know.
 It's just on.
 Yeah.
 This is a very-
 And that is the thing.
 And they actually count, they're like, yeah, people who just slip around and land on a
 show and then we sell advertising against it.
 And I'm not going to even get into the debate of whether those are quality or not.
 But there is this feeling of when we have a writer on staff, Josh Kopstein, who we've
 had some-
 You had a massive patent debate with him.
 We've had a lot of conversations.
 He's very anti-establishment everything, which is great.
 I love him deeply.
 Yeah, he's fantastic.
 But we always get into these conversations with him where it's like, and I feel like
 hearing this and thinking about what I, in my head, all I can think is the problem is
 so big and hits is on so many, is messed up on so many levels that it's true that the
 only way to ever solve it is nuclear war that wipes out most of the population of the planet.
 My mind goes to, well, we have to change this and then that would have to change and we
 need to do, and it's like, let's just blow up the planet because there's no way to, maybe
 if we had-
 Let's just blow up the planet.
 Yeah, if we had a farming society, then the things would be fixed.
 You think about all of the-
 You should write an editorial for The Verge.
 Let's just blow up the planet.
 Let's just blow up the planet because we're never going to fix this cable billing problem.
 We're never going to get all the channels we want for a good price.
 This is another ceremony, a scenario, not ceremony.
 Ceremony.
 What is a scenario?
 People come to me and it's like, look, I only watch two shows.
 Why can't I just pay for those two shows?
 Right, then you couldn't have those two shows.
 And then I explained to them like, why?
 And they're like, oh, that makes sense.
 That sucks.
 Right.
 That's what I'm talking about.
 It's like a trap.
 You're like, how do I get out of this trap?
 And there is a way to get out.
 We have to have less-
 A nuclear war.
 Well, it is the kind of thinking, we have to have the kind of think, we have to, I don't
 know if we can get as a society into the kind of thinking that will allow it to happen.
 Which is like-
 You can't solve your problems with the same sort of thinking that started those problems.
 We may have to live in a society where something that's made of corn syrup, 100% corn syrup,
 maybe isn't a product that we should be eating, like Teen Mom and the Kardashians.
 You have to get to a point where there's probably, I don't know, 90% of shows on television that
 can be wiped out because they offer nothing but straight up entertainment.
 And they also fall into the awesome shows that we love.
 In a society where what you need is like Teen Mom marathons, does that sound like a functioning
 society to you where you make great things and you move the world forward?
 Or does it sound like a society that does the opposite?
 I mean, because that's what, and that's why I think like nuclear conflagration, because
 like where do you get, because you have to get to the point where you go like, we should
 be out making, doing things and like learning and not watching Teen Mom.
 And then like we wouldn't need 500 channels that show Teen Mom marathon.
 This is why we need to settle.
 I mean, it's just funny because he's definitely-
 I'm making cough seeds.
 We need to go to-
 You're making cough seeds, you also sound like a modern day digital Karl Marx.
 Yeah, that was his argument.
 But I do think, I do think like there are, there are like positive contributions and
 there are like contributions that are meant to like distract you.
 We need to go to Mars because we just don't have anything to do.
 We're not going to go to Mars.
 Stop, stop, stop.
 We don't have a frontier.
 We're not going to go to Mars because-
 I'm not letting this go into an argument about whether we should go to Mars.
 We're not going to go to Mars because-
 No.
 Because we're busy getting fat watching Teen Mom.
 Okay, done.
 And I think that we should now talk about the Atrix HG.
 We have to wrap up pretty soon.
 We have kind of a hard stop today.
 What about the next episode?
 What do we have on our list?
 That's what we have left in this hour long podcast.
 In the next minute we have to talk about the Amazon smartphone, Microsoft calling it PC
 plus and saying Apple has post PC wrong.
 We have the Atrix HD, which actually ties right into that because-
 Please don't make me talk about the Atrix HD.
 Well, no, it's not-
 Lock food loaders.
 Nobody cares about the phone.
 Motorola is getting rid of all the laptop stuff, web top.
 All gone.
 All gone with the Atrix HD.
 I can't understand why.
 There's the OUYA that happened.
 OUYA.
 OUYA?
 You don't know OUYA?
 Oh my God.
 You love OUYA.
 You don't know?
 What is it?
 It's a $99 Android-
 Let's do this.
 Why don't we take a topic?
 Let's do this.
 We're going to take a topic and each one of us will make a statement on that topic.
 And then we go.
 And then we go to the next topic.
 We'll go to the next topic.
 All right.
 Amazon smartphone.
 Go.
 I think that Amazon has a real opportunity to do something interesting with the smartphone
 if they actually do something interesting with the services around the smartphone and
 I'm talking something like them as an MVNO or something along those lines.
 Or tapping into Wi-Fi calling and Wi-Fi based services heavily where it's like, you don't-
 Yeah.
 Okay.
 That's my statement.
 Go.
 Go.
 Amazon smartphone.
 I think you're right.
 I think they're going to be completely, they're going to be blocked by the carriers.
 The carriers are the biggest obstacle to whatever Amazon is doing with this phone.
 I don't think Verizon is going to jump into it.
 I think this is the best idea ever what Josh said.
 Okay.
 All right.
 Cool.
 PC plus versus post PC.
 Microsoft is saying it's not a post PC world.
 It's PC plus.
 Which by the way, Bill Gates has been saying since 1999.
 Can I say my piece?
 Go ahead.
 I'm just saying it.
 This is all, all of this post PC and PC plus is all BS corporate marketing talk.
 Doesn't mean anything.
 It is a world where things exist and they're either good things or bad things and Microsoft
 will either make good products or bad products and we'll either find ways to use them or
 not use them and they should hope that they're making the right products for the world that
 exists now and the name of that world is like 100% meaningless.
 I disagree.
 I think Microsoft is terrified that the world is moving beyond the PC as a primary center
 of what you call it.
 They're obviously showing, sorry, that's fine.
 I'm just saying I think there's, I think structurally, structurally it's really important
 for them to be saying, we can do another half hour.
 Yeah, we can.
 I mean there's, there's a lot to unpack here.
 Structurally they're saying you have to build, you have to expand the PC and Apple is saying
 we're done with the PC.
 We made it one thing.
 Yeah.
 We're done with the PC.
 No, but they're not saying, they're saying that like they want to like, here's our statement,
 but here's, they're saying here's our plan, but they're doing, they are doing, I can't
 tell you which one's right or wrong.
 Well, they're just not at, they're just not at like the full tablet experience because
 they're like scared for this generation, but next generation I'm sure that like there will
 be no desktop.
 Right.
 Well, we don't know.
 That, that, that takes you, I would argue post PC.
 We don't know, but I don't want, I don't want my, I don't want a PC to be an iPad.
 I can tell you that.
 So I, I mean, I agree the marketing message doesn't mean anything, but it's very important
 how they think of it.
 And if they do think of it as PC plus, they're really confused because they're making a kind
 of a tablet operating system for arm and kind of a desktop operating system for Intel.
 So they're not doing what they're saying they're doing.
 And that means it's a company that doesn't really know what it's doing.
 I agree that if this, if their philosophy is to continue doing like the tablet as a
 side thing to like whatever the PC, the real PC is, it's completely wrongheaded.
 But I also think that they've shown signs to me that what they're doing is they're embracing
 very much a new, a new type of computing that is like 100% like these, like this other thing,
 this hybrid of like a tablet and PC, which is ultimately what it needs to be.
 I agree.
 It should be a hybrid, but I don't know if they really know how to do that because their
 best consumer effort ever is the Xbox and that really has never integrated well with
 Windows.
 I mean, just show me a single person in the, show me a single person in the technology
 industry who will get rid of their laptop and only use an iPad.
 The technology industry is, well, this guy, but that's not right.
 You're not accurate.
 You're in a special place.
 If you look at, I mean, if you look at any other industry, if you look at, let's move
 to the next topic.
 I'm just saying, but if you look at Moyers or moms or whatever, a lot of those people
 are moving to iPads.
 There are, there is a segment and I think that they're going to try to embrace that
 segment.
 I don't think they're ignorant of it, but I agree that it's questionable what their
 philosophy is.
 All right, let's do, let's do rapid.
 Let's actually try rapid fire for the next ones.
 OUYA.
 OUYA.
 Well, he doesn't know what it is.
 Should we explain it?
 No, let me talk about it.
 $99 Android game console with three games with DLC.
 I was going to make things up.
 Go ahead.
 And I mean, I don't think that I have a full grasp of their, of the understanding of how
 they will, of how they will get great games on it and how I will get those great games.
 I mean, I get, I get how I'll get them.
 I mean, they're going to run smartphone games.
 No, no, I understand that.
 And that's a problem.
 Is a handheld or?
 It's a console, it's Android based.
 It runs Android games?
 It runs Android.
 Yeah.
 Well, that's stupid.
 Well, not entirely.
 I mean, there are some pretty complex Android games.
 I thought it was going to just like, like stream stuff.
 No, it's not like an online.
 Like smartphone games.
 That's the dumbest thing ever.
 Well, no, they're going to be customary tailored.
 No, that's even worse.
 I don't think that's like, no, I think if I think, okay, look how hard it is to get
 good games on the PS3 and the Xbox and they have billions of people that own them.
 At any rate, I'm all in support of something that is like a grassroots open source.
 Like let's try something different for the home, for the living room.
 Cause I think it's also a media, it's also a media player.
 It's a set top box.
 It does all that stuff.
 So grassroots open source means you've got the millionth thing that can emulate SNES
 now.
 No.
 So I, we're doing a bad job explaining this.
 I bought one just to let you know.
 Yeah.
 So it's like this huge Kickstarter success hit a million dollars in like eight hours.
 Um, and I think it's going to be an enormous success because it is going to take that promise
 of indie games on Xbox and actually bring it to people because it's people can code
 Android games.
 They can give them to an audience of people who have the console and a controller that
 is designed to be this distribution platform.
 And the big game is all be free to play with like downloadable content.
 So people will be able to get it and play like a hundred levels of a hundred different
 games for free, which is very compelling.
 I just think that it's, it's hard to, without a huge marketing budget to push into that
 world.
 They need to like have an incredible, I mean, grassroots, I mean, if they could get a million
 people playing it, that's significant.
 How many did they sell?
 Do we know?
 $9 in Kickstarter.
 I mean, anytime you require a game, anytime you require a game developer to do anything
 specific and unique for a console with like less than like 10 million people install base.
 But they're already building.
 I don't think you're going to get the AAA titles.
 I think you're going to get Angry Birds or Penny Wings.
 You just don't get good games if they don't have a huge install.
 But you build Shadowgun for Android.
 All you have to do is make it compatible with the controller.
 Right.
 I mean, I don't think it's that big of a deal.
 I think the, the, the Android piece of this is going to be huge.
 All right.
 Next topic.
 Steam, steam box.
 This is the last one.
 I think you're going to like this.
 Dig sold the beta works for $500,000.
 I, at one point it was worth like $200 million.
 I can only say that, that I wish I had known dig was available for such a low price.
 I would have found some people to buy it and I would have bought it and turn it into your
 personal homepage and turn it into my homepage.
 Joshua Topolsky.com.
 It just redirects.
 Just redirects to get enormous traffic to my, to my Tumblr.
 Enormous traffic.
 Or redirects to like Joshua Topolsky.com slash dig.
 And it's like, welcome dig users.
 Dig still does like large traffic.
 That's the thing that's weird.
 But it says like 7 million a month or something.
 Well, you know, 7 million, you could just start yanking in.
 Yeah.
 All I know is if I had known, that's good.
 I just remember what dig would, dig would like, like, like drive mad traffic to ingadget.
 We used to, we used to, oh yeah, we had dig badges.
 We used to put dig badges on.
 Dig badges.
 Oh, those were the days.
 Yeah.
 So happy they're over.
 So happy.
 All right.
 I don't have anything to say except that I wish I had purchased it.
 Yeah.
 That's it.
 It'd be awesome to own it personally.
 I have something random to talk about but now I can't think of what it is.
 Was it about your 1970s shirt that you have today?
 No, it wasn't about that.
 Paul's really, you can't look at this, but something amazing is on the screen.
 Wow.
 That's awful.
 Okay, we're done.
 That's it.
 That's it.
 That's the Vergecast for the week.
 If you want to get in touch with us, you can email us at vergecast at the verge.com.
 You can leave a comment in the post, which we always love.
 You can also find us on Twitter.
 The Verge is at Verge.
 I'm Josh Wotopolsky.
 Nealai is reckless.
 Paul is future Paul.
 And P.O. Box 501, New York, New York, 10276 is the same.
 1076?
 Yeah.
 No, 10276.
 Oh, 10276.
 Yeah.
 10276.
 10276.
 501.
 501.
 Yeah.
 How did you get a three-digit P.P.O. Box?
 They have those.
 Are they just like nobody wants one anymore?
 I think it's really based on that very specific zip code.
 And that's the show.
 Thank you guys for tuning in.
 We'll be back next week, of course.
 And as always, I wish your family all the best this holiday weekend.
 Is it a holiday weekend?
 No, it's not.
 Oh, rock and roll.
 Yes.
 Paul.
 Paul.
 Paul.