Tomorrow Daily 097: Puzzle Phone, The Game Awards, a hardware store robot and more

On today's show a new competitor has entered the market for modular smart phones. A new awards show for video games and we've got all the details. Yes. And a robot helper is officially put into service at a hardware store right here in the US. That's scary. Yeah. It's Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] Greetings, citizens of the internet. Welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best geek talk show in the known universe. I'm your host, Ashley Esqueda. Joining me once again, Kale Anonymous. Yeah, we got a video game award show, so can we just skip to the. We have, we can get in a second. In a second. Okay. Okay. So before we do that, though, we have to have the graphics. So, let's hit the headlines. [MUSIC] Beautiful, beautiful. We're cutting right to the chase today guys. Cutting right to the chase. Yeah beautiful. Okay so, very first story today this is really interesting. So, project Ara is a Google owned project that is working on modular smart phones. You know how PC gamers build [UNKNOWN] switch things out, you upgrade your video cards, all that good stuff. Upgrade your ram over time. This is kind of the same concept for phones. They wanna use modular things. Well, this company is really interesting. This is called Puzzle Phone. This is a new challenger approaching. Okay, yeah. Very interesting. So. They say that they have created this kind of sustainable smartphone that will last longer because of upgradable parts. So, it is similar vein of project Aura. But the way they do it, is a little bit different. So, project Aura if you've ever seen pictures of the sale, looks like a, a lego board. Like it's literally just like pieces of a smartphone all along the back. And it looks like a little puzzle. This one, Puzzle Phone is what this is called, is three parts. Okay? So, they split it up, a phone, into three different sections. The spine, which is the LCD screen, the main buttons, the speaker, and the microphone. The heart, which is the battery, and some secondary electronics. And the last thing is the brain, which is the processor and things like the camera. Camera. Nice! So this is really cool. So it's a modular standard and what they're saying is that basically those are the three basic smartphone parts that you would want to upgrade. You probably, for example, want to upgrade things like the processor and the camera at the same time. Yeah. So, one of the things about Project R that a lot of us have kind of had questions about is, how viable is it really for consumer market? Because it's really overwhelming, I would imagine, to have to pick out all those parts just like you would do building your own computer. For a lot of people that's very overwhelming. Mm-hm. They don't even know where to start. And so this company is saying, well, listen, we can do this and it can be modular, but we can make it really simple. Yeah, it's very simple. And if we have three parts. Then maybe regular consumers will be more apt to try it. Do they talk about the upgrades? Like, like, you know, what you, I know what you would upgrade but, like, do they have any improvements that they'd be like oh, this is the brain that's in there now. This is the next step. And here's, and here's proof. Okay. And so... Here's the next step for the brain. I would imagine, over the course of the next. It's probably a couple a year or two. If they're on the same kind of time line that Project R is on we're gonna start seeing these sort of used cases where they say here's this camera and here's a picture of whatever and then like we're gonna switch it out for this camera and here's this. So I have a feeling we're gonna start seeing all that, but not in this particular video that we've pulled for today's show. Have any have any providers adopted this yet? Or is it just kind of like a theory? This is very conceptual so far, kind of prototype. But they did say, that for an OS it'll be an Android fork [INAUDIBLE]. First but then the cool thing about this is that they said they want to make it compatible with other operating systems in the future so they can encourage a huge development community. Yeah. So they want to be able basically for you to say I want android on this phone. Oh, next week maybe I'll switch out the camera and make it a Windows phone. Cool. Or maybe I'll do, like this is really cool stuff. So I think it's really fascinating. I,I love and I've always said that. The future of phones is gonna end up being just like computers. We had this sort of, for awhile there, we had this kind of processor race, where it was like how many cords could we get into a phone,and now we're at a point where, just like PC's, we kind of plateaued out a little bit, like we're still getting better, but we just kinda plateaued to a point now where people are like okay well what about. We want modifying them. Hm-hm. Like, can I swap out parts? Like, that's the new thing. Yeah, cuz you can't do anything with an iPhone. There's is just a, just a block. Well, you're still not gonna be able to do anything with an iPhone. Never. Yeah, nah. I'm just saying, like in comparison. Yeah. [CROSSTALK] Speaking of blocky, it looked kind of big. It looked kind of chunky. I haven a feeling prototype device. I mean, it's always gonna be a little bit bigger,. And more like, you're always gonna kind of see these prototypes be a little bigger than what they're retail would be. Yeah. But. I'm really curious. Yes. I mean keep an eye on Puzzle Phone. Those are obnoxious but I'm very, I'm very interested. Yeah, just keep an eye on Puzzle Phone because it does seem very fascinating. Okay, the Game Awards, tell me all about it. Tomorrow, tomorrow the, the Game Awards are going on. Tomorrow night. In Las Vegas and you can watch it streaming on any device, that's right. Pretty much everywhere. It's not on TV. You can watch it on Twitch, and you can watch it on your XBox and your Playstation. Do you want the whole list? But, what? Of where you can watch it? Go for it. I have it, okay. Yeah. You can watch it on PlayStation Network, X Box Live, Wii U, Steam, Twitch, IGN, Game Spot, Niconico, MLG, Kotaku, and of course YouTube. So basically on the, the lack of success of a lot of other award shows, a lot of us are excited about this one. Because it's kind of fueled from exactly where it should be, which is like. You know people that are into the industry. So. Right. Jeff Keeley himself is partially responsible for bringing this into fruition. Yeah he is, he's the ringmaster of this whole thing. Yep. There's a lot of new categories. Ones that you know, a big, big name company wouldn't have even think to put in there. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of really good judges. So can I share with you some of the, the. Please. The categories cuz this is the part I think is the most interesting. Well. Yeah. Part of it was interesting. There's a category for best remastered game, [CROSSTALK] That's a good idea! A good idea. There's a lot of that going on. There is, and that's a very good idea. There's a lot of work in that. There's also, There's funding. We're going to sweep that next year! Okay. All right. so, the e-sports player of the year, Love that! Somebody big in e-sports. Yeah. Which is a huge thing. One of my friends is nominated, so that's good! Mm. Well, aren't you fancy? A trending gamer. So anybody that's like doing you know like you know, the lets plays. Lets plays or yeah, yeah okay. It's an influencers in the gaming industry. It's kind of a popularity contest, I feel. But we'll see how that turns out. But their fan category, so they are popular in the contest. But then there's best. Fan creation. This is celebrating anybody who's you know, inspired by gaming and is making something. To make something out of it. And there's, there's, there's a lot of variants in this such as switch place Pokemon if you're a member. Yeah, oh that was amazing. Like people were putting the directions. We did that on the show, we did that on the show. Best Zelda rap ever by eagle raptor. There's, there's. And then there's like a Minecraft song. So there's a lot of really cool, you know, lot of cool categories. I have to say, the one thing I always look forward to for shows like this is the, is the unveil, the reveals, the trailers. Hm-hm. Like, they were saying they were gonna have, was it, 14 or 16 new? There's like 16 new trailers. They're. New, I've never before seen World of. Exclusive. There's no, Fallout four, which is. And if you couldn't hear Cale through his gritted teeth, yes, there's not Fallout four. Fine. But there's, and also Xbox says they're not gonna be revealing any Xbox exclusive reveals. So that still leaves multi platform, Playstation, and Nintendo. And p c. All of which, and p c. Well all of which are totally supporting this. So- Yeah, I've heard, I've heard that. So it's not just a no-name show. No this is a lot of, most of the Triple-A developers need to [UNKNOWN] behind this. Why not watch it? It's the first, it's the first one. Yeah. It's honestly the one that seems like the most legit and like most fun. They're not like, hosting is Kim Kardashian. Yeah. It's nothing like that. I'm excited to watch it, so. I, I will, I will watch it. I'll watch it. Oh, Game of the Year. Can we I know Bayonetta 2 is nominated. Okay, so here are the Game of the Year nominees. Okay, GOTY. Let's see if you guess any of them, 'cause you didn't already know 'em. Aside from Bayonetta 2 which I just said. Bayonetta 2, all right. Amazing. Dark Souls 2. Good game. [LAUGH] A lot of people are like, darn it! Dragon Age Inquisition. Amazing. Hearthstone, woo! Amazing. And Middle Earth, Shadows of Mordor. Woo! Also amazing. Yeah. So a good, great list. I feel like Dragon Age should take it. You're shaking me, what's happening? Check this out! Check this out. They are all like. Like a medieval period thing. So I mean, look at Middle Earth. They're fantasy. Yeah, fantasy based [CROSSTALK]. Swords and stuff, yeah. Hearthstone. Yeah, Dragon Age. And Bayonetta's a little weird. And Dark Souls, except for Bayonetta. There's no, like, future tech stuff, there's no, like, alien stuff. Mm. Sci-fi, that's rare. War games, no, no battle fields. No war games. None of that. Crazy. Gonna be an interesting year to see which, which sword wielder [INAUDIBLE] I think it's gonna be Dragon Age. You think Dragon Age? Yeah. Okay so that's you're vote. I'm gonna say [INAUDIBLE]. Dragons of [INAUDIBLE] [CROSSTALK] Now you see where my head's at. I love it. Alright. So, there you go. What do you got next? Sorry. We geeked out a bit, okay. so, Oshbot is a robot that actually was announced a couple of months ago, but now it is actually officially in service. So, this is, I was very excited to hear about this. Right. I want to see exactly how it's gonna work in the real world before talking about it in the show. A bit of those promises, promises. Mm-hm. So, this is by Lowes innovation labs, we're watching the video, here's the robot. [LAUGH] Here he is. That's Oshbot. Take your time. And, osh, is for orchard supply hardware, which is the chain that Lowes actually owns. So, it's a smaller chain that's a hardware store. It's orchard, orchard supply. You're able to walk in, you can talk to this robot. You can bring it. The cool thing that they taut about this robot is that you could bring in like, a tool, a part. And say, hey, I need this. What, what is this? And then the robot could tell you, oh hey, it's over here. Follow me. And then they take you to the parts section where you could get that bit, which is kind of awesome. But the other cool thing about this is that it speaks multiple languages. So, in the video, they actually have somebody speaking to it in Spanish. It understands. It's really cool. And you can also ask it for things like I'm looking for a hammer. Like and she's like I'm looking for a hammer, help me find a hammer, whatever. But here's the thing is that this finally went into service. So this is the shiny promotional video that Lowe-, that Lowe's Labs put together. Oh, so we got some real stories. Okay, so now we got some real world use case. Our friends over at Ars Technica, if you're familiar with Ars Technica got to, go t-, go check it out. And there's actually one in service now in Silicon Valley. So there was a bunch of reporters there. And it didn't quite go as planned. The robot, they asked for a screwdriver, and it, it separated the word screwdriver, and t hen it couldn't understand what you were asking for, because screwdriver one word is different than **** driver two. Oh no. So it didn't really get that. And then once they fixed that, as like an error, it. They were able to find screwdrivers, that's fine. Uh-huh, so, what was the dude, what was the ratio? Like just, by assumption, what do you think it is? By assumption, it seemed like it didn't, it wasn't great. So, like a 75% fail rate. You know how annoying self checkout lines are? I knew someone's gonna bring that up. It's like that. It feels like it's maybe like that where you're gonna be screaming at this robot and just getting really frustrated, but. They also said there were a lot of reporters there and then and point it just really confused and then it was like I'm sorry I just can't help why [LAUGH] I just have no idea [CROSSTALK] Oh no What's happening so. Well see that's the thing is, is that all the things sound great like,the like the robot technology [CROSSTALK] so you know When put in use, when put in use, it's tough You've been to a hardware store. Maybe you have or haven't. And you see the person that's helping people out, and there's usually like a couple of people waiting for them to finish. Hovering. Yeah. Yeah, see I'm always, that's always me. I'm always like hovering, just going like. Well, whenever they're done like, I'll ask. And this robot is gonna be wandering around with people, helping old ladies. It's gonna be just a trailing line of people just waiting to try to the robot. Yeah. The. [UNKNOWN] Is that going to be a thing? I mean, it's cool. It's awesome. I'm sure it'll get better and the thing is that it's in youth. Which is, it's always nice to see something go from, hey this is a prototype to actually being used in the real world even if it's a little buggy. Still pretty cool. Yep. So And it's phase one. Yeah, exactly. Like, let's give [CROSSTALK] a break. You know, [CROSSTALK] You buy first gen, you know what you're getting, right? It's like a first gen. Yeah, wait until it gets like the mechanical spider arms Wait until it has hammer for arms. flamethrower, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah! See! It should have some that are just like, it can dispense it. Like, whatever the most common items are. They can just dispense those items. Well, that's one thing that they're actually pretty excited about, which is data collection, of course, but they're like, we wanna to know what people are most commonly asking for in the stores- So they can raise the prices. So we can make it easy to find. Oh, okay. Like make it easy to find, and probably also raise prices. But on that note, we are going to take a quick break. We'll be back in 30 seconds. We're going to talk about what we're into this week. Before we let you go for the weekend. As if you're in school. And then we will of course talk about our phonetographer for the day. And then we have something a little different for user feedback. So don't click away. [UNKNOWN] [MUSIC] Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. We're, we're, we've returned. And it's that time of the week once again, where Kel and I discuss all things that we're obsessed with. Mm-hm. This is called" Into It." I'm gonna let you go first. No. Why? I, You have to go first. Oh, I do? It's a, it's, well, we're both kind of into this. It's a Playstation. Do you like Playstation? Do you have- I can't, I can't. Playstation friends? Okay, so Playstation is having the Playstation experience on December 6th through 7th. I kind, of like the first thing that they've ever done. This is the first time they've done something like this here. It's their 20th- Here. Here in the U.S. It's their 20th anniversary and so their doing it with, you got to watch this promo video- It makes me a little choked up. There's a Playstation experience that's allowing what it seems like the biggest fans of Playstation to come and just have, like, enjoy everything about Playstation, come play some new games and even have some of the devs come out and do panels, so you can ask them questions and stuff like that. Yeah, it's like a Playstation, Play-Con. Play-Con. Yeah, a Playstation convention. I, I really, from what it seems like, from watching the video, and I may just be easily influenced, but it seems just kinda like a celebration. Yeah. It doesn't look really like. They're, they're, you know, too many of their products are being, I mean, I'm sure maybe [CROSSTALK]. There's a lot of unreleased stuff that they' ae gonna have on the floor,. Like I know Grim Fandango Remastered is gonna be there. [CROSSTALK] Okay. I know. I'm sorry to bring it up twice, but I know that will be there cuz I saw Tim Schafer tweeting about, like, that's gonna be one of the things that's playable. Oh. They're gonna have stuff that's unreleased. Yeah. So it's almost like e three, but for the public. You're gonna be able to go. And make no mistake, they didn't pick this date for no reason. Yeah. The game awards, remember I just mentioned that? Is the day before the thing starts. The night before, so a lot of you in Las Vegas for the Playstation experience who are also going to game awards, are going to be really hungover the first day. Really, really hungover from video games and happiness and camaraderie. All those great things. Except some like announcements, I mean obviously we might see some trailers for new games at the game awards, Yeah, and then more. And then playable at the Playstation thing. Yeah, we might see a playable Playstation experience. But this is really cool. If you're watching this and you go to either. Please tell us. Tell us. About it. You might see Kale, one or both. You might, if I can find a ride to Vegas, just. He's going to hitchhike. Then, and then we'll go. But there we'll go, another great weekend for video games. So the thing. 2015, nope. 2014. 2014, not yet. We're almost there, we're almost there. All right. So my thing that I'm into is, actually attached to the Play Station experience, but it's an item specific to the Play Station experience. And I don't think you're going to be able to buy it if you're online. This is the 20th anniversary edition PS4 Hype. Which looks ridiculously awesome. Hype, hype, hype. I want it. Just, shut up and take my money. Like [UNKNOWN] Something tells me you're not gonna get it. So you have to be at the event to get this? No. Okay, no no. So there's, okay. Let's just take a look at this. It's actually grey. It's a grey PS4. Just like the olden days of the original Playstation. The first Playstation, the take oh, the box set is ridiculous, it's my favorite. This box set you get a Playstation camera, the camera for the PS4, you have the I. You also get a controller that's grey it's just it's really, really pretty you guys. I want it. It's really pretty Yeah. It just reminds me of playing Final Fantasy Seven. This is so just for us like mega ultra gamers everybody else is like it's just grey dude. It's just grey guys. It's just grey. It's just spray painted. Lay off. Lay off is going to be limited to 12300 units. Translation, you're not gonna get it [LAUGH]. You may not get one. Well where, where's it gonna be again? Okay so, you're gonna be able to buy it. You will actually be able to buy it first, at the Playstation experience. And, do we know how many they're gonna be selling there? I don't know, but it might just be that you're able to preorder it there, like first. And then, actual online preorders are gonna open, on the Sony Playstation store. On the sixth. Did they say it's going to be any more expensive? So on Saturday. So well, it's gonna be the same day. So it'll be the same day as opening a PlayStation [UNKNOWN] you might be able to actually take one. They may have them there. I'm not sure though I can't. Please I can't corroborate that. That's speculation, pure speculation. But yeah, so they're, it's gonna be 500 bucks, 499. Which Yeah. Limited edition, not bad. [CROSSTALK] Yeah limited edition's gonna be worth more than that. Okay, so yeah a little more. And yeah you get, you get all the stuff, and if you, and you'd be able to preorder it from what is it, store.sony.com on December 6th. Really wish PlayStation or Sony was sending us to this event. the, that would be cool. That would be cool guys. We'd like that. Next, next year? Next year? No? Well we go, we go to E3 We go to E3 Yeah but I mean we get locked out of stuff a lot. That's like one out of And at E3 [LAUGH] Fair enough. Even when you're press they're like you have to be you gotta be the president of [UNKNOWN] to come in here. Well actually, [CROSSTALK] well I'm hoping the PlayStation experience has actually helped minimize the people trying to like sneak into E3? Mm-hm. Like maybe that'll help. Like, and I wish like, the other two gaming companies would do these things too. Yeah. Like, Nintendo direct, I really like that they're able to do these like, demo, stations. It's super cool, yeah. At like, Best Buy and stuff. Where you're able to play smash brothers before it came out, and all that. I like that, and I think we should do more of that. I think the gaming industry should do more of that. I think it'd be awesome. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. Why not said, why not give gamers more places to like, celebrate. Check out things that are coming up. Like well, it, it gets people excited. It gets you really excited about everything. Do you remember that, that Nintendo thing at the end of the wiz. Yes. Or this The Wizard. Sorry. The Wizard. First of all, The Wizard was a movie that I watched as a kid. And I was like, I want to go to the video game championships so bad. And play Super Mario Brothers 3 in the championship. Super Mario Brothers 3. And he found the flute for some reason, sorry. And Lucas had the Power Glove on the way. Like, it was, oh boy It was so bad. Man, what a great Fred Savage film. That's his finest really. Oh, definitely. If you haven't seen the Wizard, track it down. I think it's, you can probably see it. Oh, we need to reboot the Wizard. That was the Wii U. [LAUGH] Let's go get silly and reboot the Wizard with the Wii U. With the adult versions of everybody. That's what we should do. It would be amazing. That would be pretty good. He's got the Ngage on his arm like what is this. No, the opulent drift. Oh. [CROSSTALK] like oh man. Man, would be so good. Okay. You're gonna go first. Alright, so we, this is where we normally do User Feedback. So let's run the graphic. [MUSIC] I know we said we were gonna read your Suicide Squad tweets today, but maybe we lied. Maybe it, it wasn't really a lie. More like an, untruth. I don't know. Last minute change? What do you want to call this? A lie. Okay. It's a lie. We are gonna read them, though. We are gonna read them on Monday. But, we decided today, because we are very, very close to our 100th episode, which will be next week. I believe next Wednesday, if I'm not mistaken. 100th episode. We've done 100 of these. And you're, somehow you're still here. I, I just don't know about you guys. Check yourself. You're all wonderful for sticking around. Yeah. But 100 episodes is a big deal for us, and we think that's pretty cool, so we want you guys to send in your favorite thing about the show that you've ever seen. Your favorite story, your favorite Khail moment. Whatever, I don't care what it is. Just your favorite Favorite phontographer. Your favorite T-shirt, favorite phontographer that Khail's. You know, what- I like my Syndicate t-shirt. He, he's got some good ones. Got some really good ones. But, yeah, so send in, send in whatever your favorite is. It, hashtag is #TD100, the number, so T-D-1-0-0. It's really easy. Mm-hm. Send it in, send us our favorite. Tomorrow daily moments. Yeah. There, there aren't, there's only 100 episodes worth of moments. Just dip into that little, tiny speck of, of your, of your brain that's actually a fan of the show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [LAUGH] And leave all the rest behind. A little. Like a little [CROSSTALK] And just share with us like what, what you enjoy about the show. Just so, like, we can just have one solid solid episode of just celebrating. We're just celebrate. Yeah, we're just gonna celebrate. Yeah, everything, so. And we're and we're celebrating you guys, too. Great. And maybe we'll, we might. Gotta come up with something cool for the 100th episode. We may pick our favorite tweets of yours from the last month, few months. Yeah, we got, we definitely will. But, I, we gotta come up with something real cool for the 100th episode. I know, we gotta come up with something really good. All right, I'm gonna tr, we're gonna work on that [CROSSTALK]. We can start thinking about that. So, and then, what we do have for user feedback today, a phonetographers. Let's check that out. [MUSIC] [NOISE] You know, phonetographer Devon,. Emailed us and he said, "Hi, my name is Devin. I took this picture off my Iphone 4S in panorama mode. That day I went on a fishing trip with my mom and dad on Boone Lake and since it was early when we got there it was still a little foggy. I love your show, you guys are funny and I watch you every day. I hope you pick this picture. Thanks if you do.". iPhone 4s, pretty good. This was done by JJ Abrams, right? Yeah, this was all JJ Abrams. This is actually a production still from the next Star Trek. It looks like a fish-eye lens. Yeah. But its, you said its a panorama. Well is pano, but see it's not because even go like way all the way around. Yeah. It kind of almost gives that effect. And also the lens flare right in the middle also probably does it. That's fantastic well done. Good Nicely done Devon. I wanna go it looks so peaceful I wanna go fishing there. Looks like a good place to fish. Devon write us back and tell us if you caught any fish. Yeah and lie What kind Be a fisherman and lie about it Yeah just is totally this big. Giant fish. Huge catfish. [LAUGH] Must. If you guys wanna submit your phonetography and be Kiehl's new favorite because, obviously. Yeah. That guy's, that guy's definitely my new favorite. Yeah. That's what I figured. My favorite. You can email us tomorrow at cnet.com. You can also send us your your, your TV 100 moments if you. Can't contain them to 140 characters. But if you love social media and you'd rather use that instead you can find us @tomorrowdaily on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and tommorrowdaily tv over on Google Play. And if you caught a fish this big, and you're on YouTube- You should subscribe. -you should subscribe. And if you caught a fish this big, you should also subscribe. But anywhere in between, don't even bother. [LAUGH] And then, also if you're listening on iTunes flow. but, don't forget to, you know, subscribe to the podcast. Yeah. And give us a good rating. Rate and review us. Rate, r, r, Something like that. And review. And yeah, so there you go. It could help. And have a good weekend. Yeah, and you can find us over on Twitter @ashleyesqueda. And @killanonymous. Super easy but we're gonna let you go for the weekend. Listen, road trip it out to Vegas, 'cause there's a lot of cool gaming stuff happening out there this weekend. So if you're anywhere nearby. I highly recommend it. And we'll back on Monday with a brand new docket of weird, wonderful, awesome, cool, tech, geek, pop culture, gaming stuff for you, to tell all your friends about because you are the best. But until then be good humans. We'll see you next time. Bye guys. [MUSIC]