Ep. 1458: Where we're glad it's not the Amazon Fire Tube

It's Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014. I'm Ariel Nunez from our CBS Studios in New York City, welcome to The 404. [MUSIC] Hey, what's up everyone? Thank you for tuning in to the 404 Show. I'm Jeff Bakalar. And I'm Justin Yu. So it's Wednesday. You know what that means. Kindle day. Yep. It's time for someone to release something. Mm-hm. And that's what happened today. We've got that story, plus what else? We are gonna talk about that. We're also gonna talk about something kind of creepy on Indiegogo. Strange thing on that crowd-funded website. And then we're gonna talk about Homestar Runner. Hell yeah. Have we talked about Homestar Runner ever before on this show? Definitely. Definitely. It was definitely around when we first started broadcasting, too. Of course. So nothing new to report there. Just kidding. There's a new episode of Homestar Runner. I'm really excited about that. And then we'll finish up with some emails and then something about Tinder. So if you're on that online dating site, Tinder You gotta be careful, cuz nothing is safe. You gotta get yourself checked out- Yeah. Right away. There's something spreading on Tinder. Yeah. And it's in your junk. But first, let's get right into the reason why we're broadcasting a little bit later today. Amazon just came out with a whole new sort of set top box, I would call it. And it joins the ranks of like the Roku and the what else we got? The Chrome cast? I guess you would put that in the category right? Maybe. Like, streaming boxes that let you watch the internet on your television. Right they're just, they're just stream boxes basically. Amazon Fire TV is what it's called. It's $99. Like you said, you put it up against the Roku, the Apple TV, you know pretty much anything that's like sub, $100, or less. Right. That hooks up to your HDTV and streams content. Yes. So you know, they come out in New York this morning, and they announce this thing, and its' got you know, some cool features that let it sort of stand by itself. Mm-hm. The remote that it comes with, you can actually speak into like a microphone. That's cool. For voice search. So if that's something you've been clamoring for. See, you know, it's funny, when you think about that and what it's used for, is like the you know, the, the search functionality when you want to, you know, find certain products or certain, you know, content or whatever. Mm-hm, mm-hm. It's always buried. Well, no I'm saying like it's great because you're always kind of like anything that uses voice search or voice recognition. Yeah. It's usually a microphone that's like really far away from you. A remote microphone, you know, it's nice. You put it right up to your mouth. Mm-hm. And you just say, hey, I'm looking for the latest, you know, Nick Nolte movie. Mm-hm. Yeah, they, I think they demonstrated it by saying John Malkovich. Right. And then that brought up every movie that had him in it. Right. And it it's kinda cool- It is kinda cool. Although I still can't really see anybody actually using this. Oh, definitely. I mean, do you think people will do that. How has it been? It's better than searching. X-box for example. That sucks. That's been pretty good. No. No? Because I would say, that Siri for example. There's obviously no way one of us is going to be proven right or wrong on this. But, at least anecdotally, people don't really use Siri for anything, it does a decent job at dictation. Yeah. I guess if you're writing out a whole text message or something, then you maybe would use it, but- Right, but with the case- I don't know. With the case of Siri. There's no keyboard available Exactly. Then sure maybe you would use it. And that's why they're offering this as an alternative. Right. To manually entering on like a d-pad. Right. You know, up a sentence or a search term. So I think this is actually the greatest thing it's got going for it. Mm-hm. I don't know how well it works, though. My experience with voice search across the board is crap, unless my voice is indecipherable. I don't, I don't know, but I think I have a very lucid sounding. Right? You, you, ever, ever have a problem understanding what I'm saying? No. Great. I don't think so. You don't think so. But I'm not a robot. So, that's kinda cool to me. There's going to be a game controller for $40. Yeah, that's separate from this, although you can still play games. I guess we'll get more in to the gaming aspect of it in a little bit. Right. But you can also play games on the actual remote control itself, which is a Bluetooth connected remote. I think that's pretty cool. No? You don't like that? I mean, I'm not really excited about- You're a radio man? I'm just not excited about, like a clicker remote control for a game. That sounds terrible. Yeah. Do we have a photo of the actual remote? Not the external game pad, but, is it gonna have a d-pad on it? Well, so that's what it looks like. Oh, that's what it looks like. Okay. yeah. I don't know what kinda game I'm controlling with this. Yeah. Who would wanna play with a remote. [LAUGH] Besides maybe like, I don't know, Arachnoid or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It looks, oh that looks miserable but, it's a Bluetooth remote control which I think is nice. So that means you don't need line of sight. Mm-hm. And yeah the microphone feature, to me, is smart because people, are much more, I guess, in my opinion, willing to just kinda hold it up to their mouth and, and say something, [LAUGH] Right Whereas when you have Kinect, you're sort of just like screaming out loud and hoping someone will hear you. Right. And you're competing with all the other. Noise in the room. Whereas a microphone you're sort of you know, hand holding it, and putting it right up to your mouth. So I'll give them points for that for sure. You know, what I also like is, in addition to the Bluetooth and the actual remote, it has its own GPU inside, so it has graphics built in. It's got two gigabytes of RAM. Essentially, this is basically a tiny microcomputer that you're gonna connect to your TV, cause it has Wi-Fi built into it. Right. Right? It's got this thing called Memo Dual Band Wi-Fi. They didn't really go too much into that in the press conference so we don't know much about it. But they're claiming that it's three times faster than the Roku box, which I felt was really fast already. Yeah load up a movie in maybe in what, five seconds on the Roku? I don't know. So it's going to maybe two seconds. They can spout all of the freaking fancy jargon they want. It ain't going to mean crap until we review it anyway. So, yeah obviously these are little tiny computers. The you know, I think the graphics stuff, they were showing some demos of video games, like we said, you can buy the controller for $40. It's gonna be available, right now, actually. Mm-hm. Controller to me, looks kind of bulky, little over sized. It does resemble I guess mostly something like an XBox 360 controller, or even those old OnLive controllers. Remember that? That service that didn't really do anything. Yeah. But, so, so and there you have it. It's, you know, there's plenty of services that are available for it: Netflix, Hulu, Showtime on Demand. There's, there's a handful. Notably absent is HBO Go but apparently they're gonna be getting that service down the road. Mm-hm. But here's where we, a-, and then, it's $99, and that was basically the end of the press conference. Alright, and it's got some like, kiddie features, whatever. [LAUGH] So here is where I struggle with products like this, that get released. I think it's a good product, for the most part, but again, who is it for? Like who needs something like this, that doesn't already own something that overlaps in terms of a feature set. Like, to me- Yeah. I already own everything that this thing can do, right? I think- And that's fine. But I, but what I'm really wondering is like, where, like, that, that space is so crowded right now. You've got Chromecast, you've got Roku. Yeah. You've got Apple TV. You even throw U-ya into that mix. Yeah. Of like a game, like a crap game, I say crap because the graphics just aren't really, really like. Well, I think obviously this is for somebody who already subscribes to Prime. Right. And then maybe already had the Kindle too, because they told us in the press conference, you could use that second screen, so if you already have A Kindle fire. A Kindle fire, or a Kindle fire HD, you can, you know play a movie on your TV that you're, you know, playing off, and then do something else on your tablet at the same time so you're not taking up that screen. Sure, like you're- That's kinda cool. It's sort of like the Chromecast, but for an actual device. And then if you already have a Prime subscription, then you have that media library already at your fingertips. Right. I'm imagining that if you subscribe to the Amazon model with those 2 services, then this would be good. But for everybody else, I would probably recommend at $99, just get a Roku for $49. And then get a Chromecast for $30. And you'll be, you won't even spend as much money as it will cost to buy something like this. And I think you would get nearly all the services. You would get close to the amount. I think. Plus whatever else you wanted to do on your phone, you could watch on your TV with Chromecast. Right. That's kind of one up on the Amazon screen share can do. I think the, the built-in sort of game play stuff is definitely an advantage, because they're kind of covering the ground of, you know, people who are maybe hesitant about owning a Roku. Yeah. Or an Apple TV and wanted the ability to play games with a controller. Yeah. But I'm still not sure like, that's a proven, you know, demographic. Like I'm not sure there's people who are like, man, I'm not gonna get an Xbox, I'm not gonna get a- Yeah. Next gen, or old gen, or a last gen console. But I am gonna spend, you know the $140 it's gonna cost just to have a Amazon Streaming Game Console. Right. Solution Yeah. I'm not totally sold on that. It's such a weird, you're right, it's a really niche group of people that don't own a console, so they're not just buying regular games. Right. I mean the games are cheap. But they also wanna play games, but then they still have money to spend left over, and then don't have anything else already. Right. It's kind of strange. I think the price sucks, too. Like, Amazon historically has always undercut the competition. Mm-hm. Like obviously with the Kindle, obviously with the Kindle Fire, I'm really surprised this is not like a $49 unit. Yes, certainly not the design either. I mean. It doesn't that great. The controller is sorta bulky. Yeah, I just, I, to me, it's like what, you know, the whole thing, the entire marketing campaign when you put Apple iPad up against Kindle Fire. Mm-hm. Like, throw away all of the specs, there's $100 plus price difference that is super attractive. Right. Here you know Apple TV is the same exact price. Hm. hm. The best Roku is the same exact price, so it's sort of like well alright, I guess like we said earlier, if you are invested in that Amazon Eco System already. Right. Then it's a logical sort of you now, purchase. But if you're not sort of like you know, maybe not as attractive as it would be at $49, which is what this should have cost. Right, oh you think it should have been just like 50 bucks? Oh definitely, should have been. Yeah, definitely should have been. Or like 69, $79. Right. What do you think about the games? Cause do they show any of the actual game-play? I know they talked about how a lot of the developers are on board. Like they have Disney and Sega. Yeah, they have a few developers on board and they have an in-house game development team on board. But are they going to be more like IOS games? Like, really crappy, just kind of like point and click? No. Or is it going to be a little bit more [CROSSTALK]? No, I think they're going to fall between very low-end PC games and like that Ouya space. Right. And and then mobile games. That's where it's gonna fall. I mean, they showed all, like, you know, they're gonna have The Walking Dead on there. Right. But that's a point and click game that you can play on your phone. Mm-hm. So none of these games are super graphic, graphically-intensive, but, you know, I mean, it's bet, it's a lot better than what you're probably used to playing if you don't have a, a game console as it is. Mm-hm. So I think that's cool. I think there's a lot of great games. I'm, you know There's a lot of Indie games that don't require a lot of horsepower, and I would love for them to find their way on. Right. On this, Fire TV. How do you like the name? Fire TV? I'm okay with it, yeah, I have no problem with it. Yeah. I don't hate it. No problem with it. I don't think I hate it too much. Someone said that it should have been called Fire Tube and I just wanna. Fire Tube? [LAUGH] Come out and say, no. There's no way this should have been called Fire Tube. Yeah. That they never would have heard the end of that. [LAUGH] Right. You know what's crazy is so David Katzenmeyer, and we'll post a link up to this in the blog, bu he put out a really great, handy chart that compares the Amazon Fire TV to the Chromecast to the Roku to the Apple TV. And it's so much content. I mean, there's Crackle, there's PBS, Disney Channel. There's a lot of stuff there. It really doesn't even matter what you wanna watch. There's, you know, any of the systems will basically play all the same thing. There's a lot of stuff that they already have available for this thing. Yeah. But, you know, and, and at the bottom of the, of the page here, you know, on the actual Amazon Ki Amazon Fire page, they do have-. I don't know why they have this greyed out because So, let me take care of this. Okay, so check it out. Mm-hm. If you go all the way to the bottom of that page, they show you What, what it's compatible with. Yeah, yeah, right. This sort of comparison thing, and, I don't know, if you are a chart guy, this isn't the most compelling sort of comparison. Mm-hm. So I don't, I don't know, it's tough to really like make a case for where it stands out and where it doesn't. The fact it doesn't have HBO Go out of the gate is kind of a bummer. That and also the it doesn't have, as of right now slingplayer support too. So I'm wondering if people that are really into watching sports or other live television shows, maybe they wanna go with the Roku instead. How do you access your Slingplayer on you phone? You have the, just the app? Yeah, I don't really use it that much, though. Okay. Or, or, or I just use it through the, the Web. Mm-hm, mm-hm. There's the web player's really cool. Yeah, see, that's kinda the beauty of the Chromecast is that you're not tied to any one device. And you can bring the Chromecast to your friend's house, or something [CROSSTALK] I guess these are all essentially portable, though. I guess. They're not, though. I mean, they're, they're not weighing your suitcase down. No, no, no, no. I mean, the Chromecast is definitely the smallest out of all of them. Sure. That, yeah, and that you put in your pocket. I still feel like that's just the best deal straight up, you know, it doesn't matter what you're watching as long as you can pull it up on a browser, you can display it on your TV. It still feels kind of janky, though. Really? Yeah. You ever play around with it? Yeah. It's just not perfect. You and I had a bad first experience with that. We did. Cuz we were in the old podcast studio. But then I used it at a buddy's house. Which was basically lined with lead. Oh, and it's still looking good? Yeah, I'm not blown away by it. It depends on your internet connection. But all of these do. If you're plugged up, you're not going to get it fast anywhere. So, there you have it. We'll probably have the review sooner than later. So, head on over to our coverage at cnet.com. And that's the FireTV. Yeah. The app that Amazon announced today. I still have the original Brocku box and I'm, still fairly happy with that. Is it HD? Yeah it's HD Yeah. but you know, it doesn't, do any of the special things. Really I just use Netflix and Hulu. Yeah like what else you're gonna do? That's like 95% of what everybody's using this stuff for. Yeah, of course. People are just buying $100 Netflix boxes. Yeah no one's like oh can it see Crackle. Like what is crackle? No. You like Crackle. No. I've never even used it before. I don't know what crackle is. Is it free stuff? I, I think it's like some sort of portal. Yeah, yeah look it up what the hell is that? Well, it's an online, yeah it's basically the same thing as Netflix and Hulu except they have different types of older movies and things. It's getting like, does anyone else realize what's happening? That we have to go to a different website for like every single thing. But we used to have all of these different kind of channels on TV, and now we just have channels on the internet. Yeah. It's all that's really happening. Right. And they all sign their own, you know, exclusive deals, like Amazon has Downton Abbey. Mm-hm. Oh, right, right. Right? And they all have these exclusive sort of deals. Amazon just got 24 I think. Right. And it's like all we're doing is emulating, mimicking what happened with the, with the cable boom on, on T.V. Right. We're just doing it all over again on the Internet. [LAUGH]. And we're just spending more money. But the difference is that, like, yeah. Well, I dunno if it's different but no one's gonna actually buy the Apple TV and the Roku just to be able to watch, you know, those television shows. No way. There's no way. You're just gonna buy 1 and if you can't watch it then, I dunno, you gotta find some other solution. I, again, I'm just not 100% sure. I'm sure people listening to this program Yeah. Fall into the category of them having some set of products that already do the majority of what FireTV can do. Mm-hm, Mm-hm. So again it's good for like I don't know your grandma or, or your second house that you have. Mm-hm, right. Throwing it in there. Yeah. And just, like, leaving it. That you're gonna rent out on AirB&B for guests. I, I guess. You know that's what I struggle with. Weird, yeah it's hard to understand too, but I want to know if people are actually buying this. Nah, people are tweeting about it. If you could throw down the one hundred bucks, let us know because i'm interested in what your situation is. People are buying it. Yeah I'll play anything with that little Prime logo now. [LAUGH] I feel like you should get a discount if you're already paying for a Prime account on Amazon. Well, a lot of people thought that this thing was going to be free, maybe free or you know, $19.99 with Prime. Especially the fact that they just jacked up the price of Prime. Yeah, that's true. Maybe it's like, would be built into the, to the price, nope. Yeah it would have been a nice a nice incentive. It would have been. But not a chance. Alright, so you want to start on this next story here, it's kind of funny. Yeah. Let's go into this Indiegogo funding campaign. So, it's you know, you know, Indiegogo. It's just like Kickstarter, where everybody can contribute to product or a service. Sure. In this case, it kinda reminded me, this product, of the story that you told about catching that creep. Yeah, Trying to take a creep shot. He did take it. On the PATH train. Yeah, Yeah. You caught some dude trying to take a photo, an upskirt photo, was it? Yeah, yeah it was a girl, you know she, she wasn't doing the best job of crossing her legs. Right, yeah not that, that was implicating her at all but some huge creep tried to take advantage of it by taking a photo. Yeah. You called him out on it, which I really liked. I did. That's awesome but this Indiegogo product is about to make it much worse for everybody. It's called, oh man this is so creepy, what is it called actually? I don't know, this is your story. Well, bring it up here. Here we go. Oh, it's so creepy. It's called the Spy Cam. Okay. Spy Cam Peek-Eye. And this is what it looks like. It's basically a little lens that fits over the over the camera lens on your phone. [LAUGH] And, you know, you've seen these before, th, know sometimes have filters or lenses that you can put over your camera. This one, the Peek-I is basically just a mirror. And it acts like a periscope, so whatever image you're looking at through the camera actually gets reflected at a 90 degree angle off this mirror and lets you take creepy shots of people that you have the front of the phone pointed at. People are gonna catch onto this though. It's not exactly subtle. Right, Obviously. You can definitely see something on the lens. Of course, and if you are holding that thing at a certain angle, Mm-hm. I mean, it won't be long before I realize, oh you're looking at my cleavage. Right, so basically anything you point your headphone jack at on top of your phone, is going to be the lens. Right. So if someone is like holding it up to your face or something like that. It looks like you can angle it from any which way. Yeah, yeah, totally, but I mean come on. It's kind of cool. It's not kind of cool Not cool, not cool. I mean, yes, cleavage is cool. Cleavage is cool, but the thing about this is that if you watch the promo video the screenshots you're looking at right now if you're watching our video, that's taken directly from the preview trailer for this product. Mm-hm. And if they were smart, they would just say, you know, you would maybe wanna take a, a video of a fight going on in the subway, or like, you know, a shirt that you really liked, but didn't wanna ask because that'd be embarrassing where they got it from. You know, there are non-creepy times when you wanna take a photo. No, that is still creepy. Secretly. That is still creepy. Yeah, but not pervy creepy. It's not pervy creepy. Like they shouldn't be marketing this to towards- Semantics, please, semantics. But that, you know, like, in the video they show someone taking a photo of a waitress' cleavage who bends over to serve them food. Yeah, that's not cool. Yeah, that's It's not cool. They shouldn't be marketing it like that. This is not, this is, there's no way this will be used in the positive manner. No, no. Definitely not. There's one scene where they show a guy holding a phone underneath a table, to take a picture underneath. You could do that normally with a regular phone, you don't need a, you don't need this product for that. But it's going to get funded. Scroll up to the top of this page. Check it out. Look how, they've already blown past the $1,000 goal. And they're right now at, how much have they got? 9,298 bucks. [LAUGH] So they're going to be producing these in mass. Great. Be careful! Just be careful. And where's the app that like, let's buys this for me without anyone knowing I bought it. Yeah seriously. Because I don't wanna be, the creep who buys this. Well I got two so I'll just give you one of mine dude. I know you did. There's no way you're not gonna own this thing. [LAUGH] I think it's kind of interesting but not surprising either. You've got a lot of tiny cameras everywhere now. Yeah. Don't ever wear a skirt, man, [LAUGH] And you'll be fine. Tell us about Homestar. Homestar Runner is back, ladies and gentleman. And it happened yesterday, on April's Fool, which I thought really funny, too. We didn't talk about any pranks except for this one. I think that was really clever. I suppose it's for people that were saying, you know like, hey check out this new Homestar Runner episode to their friends and their friends would be like no, it's an April Fools joke. But it's not. After. How long as it been? Four years. Four years. The last, the last new episode aired in 2010. So, after four years, you've got a new Homestar Runner cartoon up on the Internet. So, for people that don't remember this thing. Can you explain your experience with it? I mean, Homestar Runner was it was like a flash cartoon franchise- Yeah. That aired, I wanna say, man, it's been up forever. I wanna say- Late '90s, early 2000s. Definitely not late '90s. Probably early 2001, maybe, 2002. It could have been longer than that actually. You're right. It was created in 1998. So- So- Late 90's, early 2000's So, when it became, it became super popular in the mid 2000's and, it just kinda went away. And these two brothers, Mike and Matt Chapman, went on to do, bigger and better things. I think Yo Gabba Gabba is them. Oh, really? I'm pretty sure. I didn't realize about that. Pretty sure. They also do the Aquabats cartoon show. Right. As well. Which I think was really funny. So, I believe that's them. Anyway yeah I mean, they had different characters in the series. And They were all bad guys. They would update it at least once or twice a week. With really funny stuff. And there really was like no, sort of, like revenue there. No, they really didn't ask you to buy anything, they sold like plushies, they sold like DVD, but it was never in your face. And it was sort of like this great, you know, example of like, awesome, hilarious and, and most impressively like PG stuff. Yeah. Like anyone can really appreciate it. Definitely something of a simpler time, on the internet. Yeah. Absolutely. I didn't realize this but we were reading about this article, I guess those two brothers actually did the first episode, and a lot of them, on Mario Paint. Really? Yeah. Through an interview on Cataco actually, a couple of years ago. They said that the first couple episodes were entirely done on Mario Paint. Which is really impressive, cause that can't be a very easy program to make full cartoons on. I did not know about that. My favorite was Strong Bad. I think everyone would probably remember the Trogdor. Right. skits. If you've never really, if you don't understand what the hell we're talking about, just go to homestarrunner.com. You can still watch all the cartoons. They're up there. Yeah. But during this four year hiatus you know, they chose April 1st, [SOUND] yesterday, to actually make a new comic. Mm-hm. But, I was there and I went to the site, and I'm not going to lie man I don't know how to get in there. What do you mean? Like so, I pulled up the website here. Yeah. And there's nothing really clickable. Oh, well, it, it should, it's starting to play right now. Oh, okay. Yeah, the audio starts playing. And this is a new cartoon as well. Got you, yeah. And once you hit that come on in thing, that takes you back to the legacy. Okay, I, I maybe I was just impatient. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, this'll eventually switch to the actual episode back here. Pretty neat. It's amazing. It, four years it's been dead. It's like this classic and it's finally back and it's awesome. Yeah, do you think that if strongbad or homestar runner came out now it would still be popular? Yes. Just as popular? Totally. I think it had a lot to do with the voices. I truly believe without Homestar Runner, there's no like oatmeal. That's true, that's a good point. You know what I mean? Yeah, it was just like It was so funny because there was like this whole time on the internet where everything had to be dirty to be funny. Right And this cartoon comes along and the cool thing about was, like I said, it was clean-ish. Yeah And like I could share it with like my nieces and nephews who are super young. They would laugh at it. Right. And I wouldn't feel like a total creep for sending them something awful, you know. Yeah. [LAUGH] Any other websites that you can think about that are entirely made in flash? There used to be so many, in the late 90s it was huge. It used to be such a big thing, yeah, early 2000s it's like you were cutting edge. I remember there was that that game you could play Booty Call, with that guy, Jake. Hmm. Who would like, the whole object was to like get him laid. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was all Flash? It was all Flash. Flash was a huge deal. Newgrounds, right? Or is it, is that what the website? Who's that? Newgrounds, is that all games, flash based games? Yeah and like comics and games. Mmm. I want to say newgrounds.com or newgrounds.net. Yeah. That was a big. Oh the one with the tank. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know those guys. Huge huge section of, of the internet just for that sort of stuff. Mm-hm, mm-hm. And it was cool, it was like a just like a really unique way to do flash animation. Yeah. And it was like a great portal and it's cool to see it come back. I wonder how many kids actually discovered Homestar Runner. I think a lot, yeah. Younger kids, because of Doge, you know that new meme that- Did that have anything to do with Homestar? Yeah, that came from Homestar Runner. Oh, it did? I didn't know that. Yeah, the pronunciation Doge came from a Homestar Runner skit. Right. So I wonder if any kids went back, I don't know if you look on the Wikipedia, it tells you exactly the episode. I didn't know that. It's funny, Homestar Runner is this, the character Homestar Runner, was he, his, the best part about him was his voice, he just had this awful speech impediment. Yeah, yeah. And that was the funny thing about him, not to mention he was a complete airhead, who didn't know his **** from his elbow, but that's another you know, story. So good, so go and check that out. Last thing, Tinder. Apparently a lot of people are reporting, mostly guys, they're reporting that they're being matched with fake profiles of women. So there's something called astroturfing going on, on Tinder, and that's when you get bots that are actually messaging people. And so if, if you scroll down through this article, you can actually see a screenshot of a conversation somebody posted. And you know, the typical thing that happens is they'll get a message from this random girl. In this case it's someone named Alicia. And they'll message you first and be like, hey, what's up, what are you doing, on Tinder? I don't like any of this. Yeah, and when you respond, cuz this is how Tinder works, right, you basically just say if someone's hot or not, if you think they're hot, then you can message them. And it's just a regular, casual, you know, chat thread. So, they'll start off by asking you how you're doing, and it'll be a full-on, bot-based conversation and you have no idea. Mm-hm. You're not talking to a real person. Bad news. And then, all of a sudden after a little while if, if you ask, what are you up to? They'll say well I'm just relaxing with a game on my phone, Castle Clash. Have you heard of it? And then no matter what you write after that they'll then send you a link to the game. So this kind of like a really creepy way that maybe the creators of Castle Crash, this company called IGG, they haven't come out an admitted that they paid people to do this, or bots to do this but it could be the next wave of spam. All good things must come to an end. [LAUGH] Yeah, everybody get off Tinder, Tinder is compromised. I mean is this surprising? Does it matter. I mean it was basically an app that got you laid in 7 steps. Right. You didn't think advertisers were some how going to infiltrate it. Yeah. Come on. Yeah, the jig is up. Wait, is Tinder owned by anybody? I don't know. Is Tinder owned by Match.com? It's owned by Trojan. Yeah. I have no idea who it's owned by. I'm not sure either. I think it's its own thing. Yeah, but be careful if you get a message from someone named Aaliyah. Alicia. No, Aalyiah too. Oh, Aalyiah too. Aalyiah as well. Just be careful, yeah. These vixens. Yeah. Full on conversations. Let's head to some emails before we say goodbye for the rest of the day. Real quick, Richard wrote in and said by the way pretty much every mobile phone maker cheats on benchmarks. Yeah. So that sucks. Kevin writes in, in regards to light gun games. I just listened to the show where you briefly discussed light gun games and Justin was saying that those are his type of game. Yeah they are. You were wondering if anyone had made any of those games recently, and sadly the answer is no. Not, or at least not really. Like we also said, Lycon Games don't work with LCD's or Plasmas. Right. The closest extremes you can get is like something with the Wii remote. Or you could probably you know finagle your way with Playstation Move Wand. Mm-hm. Is that what they call it? Hm hm. [LAUGH] A wand. Yeah. They might as well. But yeah it would be cool to reinvention of these games. But you know whether or not there's a market for it, it's a technological limitation. Right. Because Lycon games worked- Reflectively. Yeah, and it just, it's not working with the plasmas or LCDs. What about the PlayStation Move? Did you review any games using that rifle? Yeah, it's terrible. What do you mean, like accuracy wise? Nope, it's just no fun. Not fun at all. No fun. Bummer. No fun. In the fun column? Zero. Really? And I'm definitely not going to buy, like an old, you know, whatever. You should buy an Area 51 cabinet. Stop talking about it and just do it already. That would be cool. That's my pinball man, I'm as passionate about those cabinets as you are about pinball machines. Oh god, pinball is so much cooler. If I had an Area 51 cabinet in my house You would never see me again. No because- And I would get carpal tunnel like tomorrow. No, because you would just like hit the free credit button you'd finish the game once and you'd be over it. It's probably true. And you'd be like, man I shouldn't have spent $1400 on this Area 51 Cabinet. [LAUGH] I would love that. Then I have to buy like a Time Crisis cabinet. Oh those are the best, too. Are they? You didn't enjoy those? You can still play them in arcades. Except now they're huge rifles. You can? Right, and there's cobwebs all over them. No, people still play those. Have you, have you ever played, someone wrote this in the other day. Have you ever played Typing of the Dead? Yeah. [LAUGH] That was like where you killed zombies by typing quickly? [CROSSTALK] And you would probably excel at that. That is not fun! That is the opposite of fun. That is, that is as much fun as shooting. Really? Yeah, come on. I mean, I get it. That's hitting one button. You see, when you talk about the light gun stuff, I like the analog version of that. Not actually shooting things, but using like light gun. Like there was this old arcade staple, it was like a carnival staple- Uh-huh. where you would basically get a rifle, and it didn't shoot any pellets or, or bullets or anything. Mm-hm. But I guess it just shot light. Oh you mean like a tiny shooting range. Right and like- But physically. There was like there was like a skeleton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like playing piano and you shot his target and he started playing piano. Right. Or you shoot the can and the can you know, moves. Yeah. To me that was awesome. Or the games that you play at the carnival when you have to shoot the clown's mouth. Right. And when you shoot it most accurately, then the balloon fills up with water and- I'm not talking about that. Just gun games. The lamest thing ever. Just gun games period, I'm in to. Why would you bring up the worst incarnation of that? Cuz I always won at those things. I'm really good at them. I'm sure you, crack water pellet shot. Get outta here. [LAUGH] Basically any game where I get to play with a toy gun, I'm down. So- But that, to me I do know what you're talking about though. Those games are cool. Those light trigger things, those are fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People listening to us think we're freaking You gotta go to a nickel arcade to play those things. I dunno, they're, they're like a boardwalk, yeah. They're like a boardwalk staple. Chris writes in, hey guys I live in a small town just outside Charlotte, South Carolina. This is in regards to the smoking coffee beans story. And I wanna let you know that no one really watches WCCB around here. Most of the people I know watch the other networks. Mm-hm. I have a feeling that this is one of those shock value news stories from a similar news studio because, they have nothing else to report on. It reminds me a lot of the Key and Peele skit, about the time feeling Pegasus story. [LAUGH] Which is a really funny skit, you should check that out. I graduated from high school last year and now a full time intern at my former middle school and I've never heard of any smoking, trying to smoke, or even talking about smoking coffee beans. I'm not even sure coffee beans is possible. But I'm sure it tastes delicious. Yeah. Thanks, love the show. This is from a guy calling himself Laid Back Man. Which is my kind of guy. guys, I once put a sandwich bag that contained a bagel closed with a twist tie in the microwave. I put in on for 40 seconds. Went to go get coffee, came back and there was smoke and the smell of burning plastic. The metal in the twist tie had gotten so hot, it melted the plastic bag, and topped the bagel with a smear of saran wrap. [LAUGH] And then, he goes on to say saran wrap is what cling wrap used to be called. But we're aware of that. [LAUGH] Yeah, thanks for the history lesson. So yeah, you know it's a thing. We've gotten a lot of emails about, about microwaves. And PNE also confirmed for me this morning that yes, if you do microwave a bag of chips, it becomes- [LAUGH] [LAUGH] it becomes- Told you. Told you. it becomes tiny. And- There's Youtube videos of it. I think both of you were actually trolling me. No. No, I did look up Youtube videos. Yeah, it's hilarious. Youtube doesn't lie. It's like a GI Joe chip. Right, nobody has ever faked anything on YouTube. No. Everything is real on Youtube. [LAUGH] Therefore, no but I did it in college all the time. It, that's like a funny. There was like a, there was like a four week period where I was doing it nonstop. Yeah. Just to show people. That is a huge waste of. I was throwing the Doritos out. Yeah, yeah. Not even consuming them. It's hilarious. [LAUGH] Look man, you should make a little photo of it. [CROSSTALK] I don't understand. It's just one of those things dude, you also have to cut off the top. I don't know what the reason is for that even if you open it perfectly you still have to remove the top. You know layer of it. Yeah, There it is. [LAUGH] It is adorable. It is so cute, I'm going to try and, you're so much better at it. Yeah look at shrinking chip microwave. It's, if I ever met God, that would be the first question I would ask him. Like how does that science work? Well that's such a juxtaposition in itself, go do yourself a favor and just take another science class. Yeah. Look at that. How freaking cute is that. This isn't stuff they should be teaching you in science. They do. No, they don't. Where did you go to school? They don't tell you this, they don't say, you don't walk in and you look at the syllabus and say oh in week 4 we'll talk about shrinking Sun Chips day, no. But there's nothing. It's basically like a personal sized chip bag that shrinks into the size of a Taco Bell sauce packet. Right. That's ridiculous. That's what I said yesterday. That's amazing. [LAUGH] I. [LAUGH] I'm so fascinated by that. That's the coolest thing I've ever seen. It pisses me off. That should be on Cosmos next week. It pissed me off that yesterday you just wrote this off like it was science fiction. Well, one guy says it, of course, I'm not going to believe it, but two. [LAUGH] Alright. [LAUGH] I guess that's where we end the show. So good. The404@cnet.com. Email us. Do it. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit and all that junk. The social junk. We love it. Be part of the conversation. We're back here tomorrow with the brand new program. Until then, you guys have a fantastic Wednesday. I'm Jeff Bagella. I'm Justin Yu. I'm Ariel Nunez. That's the show for today. High tech, low brow. We'll see you guys tomorrow. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]