Hulu launches an ad-free tier...with 7 exempt shows (Tomorrow Daily 236)

On today's show IFA kicks off in Berlin and we're gonna tell you what our two favorite announcements were from the show. You remember that announcement from Amazon yesterday? Well, Hulu is stepping it up. Kind of? Yeah. It's enough. Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] Greetings citizens of the internet. Welcome to Tomorrow Daily, the best geek talk show in the known universe. I'm Ashley Esqueda, that's Khail Anonymous. All three of us, including producer Logan, cannot stop talking about Metal Gear Solid. I am pretty sure Solid Snake might be in this room right now. Waiting. I'm just worried about everything now. Waiting, waiting. Yeah. I'm gonna shoot out these lights. Shoot out the lights. Confuse me. Great. That sounds good, but before you do that let's talk about the news. Let's hit the headlines. [MUSIC] I do feel like you know how- Wake. Sorry. Keep going. You know sometimes You go to sleep and you've been playing a game so much that you dream about it. I feel like in my dreams I keep hearing random silencer sounds from my gun. Like pew pew, like you randomly hear that. You should move to a safer neighborhood. I probably should. Alright let's talk about IFA. IFA is a huge, huge, huge, conference, technology conference in Germany. I went. a few years ago it was really, really fun. Kicked off today, couple new products I want to tell you about that I personally was very excited to see. That finally we got, first of all just announcements from everybody because everyone was trying to get in before Apple next week. So this was a great opportunity to be like, look about our stuff. Let's talk about us first before you get an Apple So, for a new product line, Sony, Acer, Lenovo, Rahway, everybody, Samsung I think is tomorrow, Microsoft maybe Friday. It's gonna be crazy. So first things first, we love phonetography on this show, and you'll really like this phone I think, the Experia Z5 was announced. This our first look that we have over on CNET. They have three different versions of this. The one that we're looking at in this is called the Xperia V5 Premium, Five and a half inch 4K screen, which could be very handy in virtual reality viewing if you pop that into a headset. So that was one of the bonuses that people were talking like oh, why do you need a 4K screen on a phone, I'd say that's probably the number one reason. Why you would want a 4K screen. Water proof, so you can just drop it into water. And it runs on Android Lollipop, most recent version of Lollipop. It's got a mirrored back in three different colors. Oh my God, I love this so much. Playstation Remote Play, because it's a Sony device. 23 megapixel camera that we're gonna be testing. Over on CNET, and a 3600 milliamp battery that Sony says will last for two days. Oh my God, I want this thing so bad. I knew you would really like this. I saw all the specs, and I'm like, oh, we got to talk about this. That is a. Oh, my God, Luke. Check your reflection Luke Westaway! Luke Westaway. No you look handsome, No need to look my friend. No, you don't need to look in a mirror, Lou Sagastume. You're fabulous just the way you are. Yeah, so I figured you would enjoy that phone. And a lot of our viewers too cuz we actually get a lot of Xperia devices as our photography subjects, so, pretty awesome stuff. That's a sexy phone. Pretty glorious. Especially with Lou Sagastume on it. But of course, I wish they could just emblazon that in. Like laser it into the mirror. Luke Westaway's face. I bet I could do that. CNET needs to make cell phone covers from Luke Westaway. I'd buy it. By the way, I hope he pays us for all this Luke Westaway advertising. Yeah, Luke, send us checks please. And then also there was a very interesting wearable that I saw. A watch that I actually feel like, if they offered it in a smaller model because they don't, I would wear it. The Huawei Watch, which we saw over in, I believe, Barcelona for Mobile World Congress. But now it has an official price of $349, starts at $349, goes up to around $700, and comes in a variety of bands and different finishes. But it's a full circle screen so unlike the Moto. Watch. The moto 360, it doesn't have that weird little band at the bottom for like gestures. This is a full screen. So it's full circular screen and I think for me in my opinion the most beautiful wearable smart watch out there right now. Sure. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Runs on androidware and Google just announced two days ago that Android wearer devices now work with iOS. So if you have an iPhone and you're like not into the Apple watch. But you're like, man I don't want to get an Android phone but I really like some of the devices that are coming out with Android ware, you can now use that with your iPhone, so that's pretty exciting for anybody's. Still waiting to be sold on these watches, man. I, I am too. I, if this came in a smaller size. Cause this is super thick. Their huge, and it's like, I, I just, I'm still waiting for them to be smaller. I can't, I can't get on board now. Cause I don't even like wearing like bracelets. And it's like those are like lightweight. I just don't Watch all them. Although, I will say this weekend at Pacs was the very first time I thought about like I wish I had a smart watch. Cause I was constantly pulling my phone out of my pocket. Like, finding people, like getting emails about pitches and stuff. I just, I didn't want a I have my phone out the whole time. Yeah, but you've gotta respond to them and you're gonna need your phone for that. But I'm gonna use the archive. Like a lot of the announcement e-mails, like PR emails, I just wanna archive those really quick. And I also just wanna check the time without opening my phone because it died really fast with the show [INAUDIBLE] because the service was not great. Cuz there was so many people. So I wanted to keep the juice in my phone for taking pictures and uploading and stuff and not constantly checking it for messages. [INAUDIBLE] Right. That was the first time that I actually said, I could have used a smart watch. I don't know that I'm gonna go right out and get one, but I could have used it. But lots of Internet-themed stuff over at IFA, lots of smart home stuff, just all over the shop, and then, as I said, tomorrow Samsung's gonna be talking about some more stuff. Generally not phones because they already announced the Note 5. Which is their big thing right now. And then also maybe, some Microsoft devices on Friday but I think, probably not. It would probably be like here's how you can connect with Windows 10, like new internet thing stuff, and then they'll have a separate event for maybe like Surface 3 and then like a Windows 10 powered smartphone. Okay cool. So, okay. Tell me about Hulu because we talked about this yesterday with Amazon, like changes? So yesterday we talked about the fact that Amazon is adding offline mode, which is really great because streaming services need to start moving forward. It'll start costing more money, we've got more content, we're viewing it in more ways. But who cares, because Hulu is now offering ad free videos. So you can watch all your content ad free. Finally. Not really. Oh, wait. What do you mean not really? So. Is she crying because not really. [LAUGH] I don't like Hulu because of the whole like, first of all, there's region codes. Like some people can't watch certain content. And there's ads, even though you're paying for a service $8 a month. Now, keep in mind you're actually getting content the day after that it comes out- Which is good. Which is the good part. That's the big plus of Hulu. So now they're operating for $4 more, so $12. You can get commercial free content, which is like, hooray. I mean that's more than Netflix, but again, you're getting it in the content the day after it comes out. So, if it's an NBC show or whatever. That's great. However, again with Hulu there's always some sort of stupid stipulation. Okay, what's the catch. It's not on every piece of content, there's still seven shows they're gonna have pre-rolls and post rolls. Here they are, Grimm, New Girl, the most popular shows, Scandal, How to Get Away with Murder, Grey's Anatomy, Once Upon a Time, Marvel's Agents of Shield, So those are the ones with a 15 pre-roll and a 30 second post-roll. Shonda Rhimes does not come cheap my friend. Shonda Rhimes shows are not Cheap. So it's $4 more, it's $12 a month, you're paying more to not have those ads, and then you still have ads on the most popular ones. Some ads. Maybe you don't watch those shows though. Maybe you don't watch those shows. Can I just have one where I just pay and there's no commercials? Just 20 bucks a month and I'll just no commercials, period, ever. Like fine. I know people that swear by it. I swear by this. I swear by Hulu. People love Hulu. Like, yeah. I feel like it's all or nothing for me. Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. That's why when Netflix was going to add commercials. You were like I am out. Well, everyone was like no. And I was like, well, guys, Hulu. Like, nobody is like pitch forking. The one thing I don't like about the commercial breaks in Hulu like there is less, like less commercials in each break, but then the breaks, there are a lot and then also they break at weird points in the show. So like we are trying to catch up to Doctor Who at one point and we got to a point where it wasn't available on Netflix. We had to go through Hulu. And because it wasn't on TV, so we went through Hulu and it was like, it felt like every minute and a half there was a commercial. Yeah. And it was just like one commercial, or maybe two, but it was just too many breaks and they were in weird arbitrary, This is in the show Editorial. There was a few people, I'm sorry I'm looking it up, there was a few people yesterday about the Amazon thing that were like, other certain services were already doing this, which these services aren't as big as which is why it's much bigger news. Yeah, like Google Play has pinning. Some services you can pin stuff or download like Ardio. Right. Forgive, okay. So they said, other services they said were Sky Go. Okay, Sky Go. Yeah, and Showbox? I haven't heard, well maybe I've heard of Showbox. I think I've heard of Showbox. [CROSSTALK] But these are much I feel like these are much bigger. I want to acknowledge that there are other things. You guys were right. Nice work commenters, you're right. For twelve bucks a month. I don't know. So that's actually our hashtag of the day. Yeah, we want your opinion on it. So here's our hashtag of the day. It's #tdhulu and we want to know if you're going to pay the $4.00 a month. Actually I want to know, if not, what would it take to pay the $4.00 a month. And I think they'd have to remove all the ads. But again I understand there's like hurdles and there's like deals you have to work out. Like ABC and maybe they want. You know. They want some money. I think, they should, they made a mistake going with this, like, oh most shows, except these seven. Because that keeps the door open for new content to come in and license it out to have a [INAUDIBLE] Pre and post-roll? You go, girl. And so for me while factoring in the fact that you get a show the day after, on network TV. That's a very nice thing. I would say $15 a month. That's what I would pay for. No ads anywhere on the site, like on any of the video. Period. That's what I would have gone with, Hulu. I'm just saying. Just say, we can run your business better than you. Probably not. Alright okay. So that's your TD end of the day. But, okay I guess. TD in the loop. TD in the loop. So let's yeah. Yeah. That's it. That's the part. Show's cancelled. It's not cancelled. That's it for our headlines today because we want to talk about [UNKNOWN] and cord cutting, which are two generally conversation starting things for topics. Yeah. So, here's some commercials. Here's some, yeah, here's some, well but first, a robot going through the drive thru. This is pretty great. Take a look. Oh my god, oh my god. Hello. Oh my god. Hi. I am IO. [BLANK_AUDIO] This confuses me. [MUSIC] Welcome back to the show. We hope you enjoyed those delicious ads. [LAUGH] $12 a month and we won't have any ads. Yeah, just write us a check for $12 a month. So, it's Wednesday and we like to talk about really cool stuff people put together, cobbled together with their own hands. DIY. So this is Mod Squad. [MUSIC] Are you familiar with American Hacker on YouTube? Not familiar with him? So American Hacker does some really cool stuff and put up this video that I thought was really fun. Now, to be fair, it's a fun little project that literally requires no extra technology. It's just all household stuff that you can put together into a bionic hand. But mind you, it's not like an actual myoelectric bionic hand, but, it would be a fun DIY project if you are a young person or if maybe you have a young person in your house, it could be a fun thing. So here it is. We put this thing together. Put it together using cardboard, paint, glue, rubber band, straws, string and an X-Acto knife. life. It's kind of awesome. Okay, cool. So, it's a fun way to sort of teach kids, maybe how an arm like that would work. Like prosthetic arms run on that sort of similar pulley system. So, he does this very quickly. It's a pretty great, like little short tutorial. You cut out whatever hand shape you want. And then you use, you can paint it, so he paints his black. And then use, you make some holders out of cardboard for your arm, which is like these two longer things that turn into sort of like cubes with holes in them that you put your arms through. And then you glue everything together, you have rubber bands to return the fingers to their original shape so they can like kinda snap back. And those kind of act as like muscles a little bit. And then use strings to pull the fingers down through the straws that he segments in like 16 pieces. So like I said, it's not high tech, it's not super mind blowing. But it's also, I saw this and I thought it was It's really fun and easy to do and labor day weekend is coming up for those of us in the States and this could be a fun project if you're at home bored, wanna do something. And i'm sure you know, the VIY community just goes bonkers with stuff like this so I feel like we're gonna see some modification made to this design and then people are gonna make even crazier.>> Yeah. So he does the whole thing and he's like puts it together and it's kinda fun, So Well done, American Hacker. Really enjoyed that. Very cool. And again, really good little project if you're feeling ambitious this weekend. Yeah, where you don't have to know about raspberry pie and- You don't have to solder anything. Freaking have your whole workshop. That's a bionic arm I can make. You make a robot, of course, guys. DIY. Here's the video how to do it. And it's 800 steps long and you need to have a background encoding. So you take your sawsall and your power drill and then your then your mech suite and put this thing- Exactly. So yeah. So something everyone can try which is nice because usually I'm out scouting feature stuff that we'll never be able to make which is super impressive none the less. Okay, so Now we are gonna talk about you guys and what is inside your brains. It's time for TV Minds User Feedback. [MUSIC] Alright, as I said TV Minds we asked you guys yesterday, tell us what would it look like inside your mind if we could take a virtual tour. Did we talk about GE Neuro. Yeah. Lots of people thought this was really interesting. Got some good feedback. So we're gonna get to your Hulu feedback next week on Tuesday. But because we have to discuss one particular piece of user feedback tomorrow in depth. Because it really. Turned my world upside down. It was a little bit like being told we are living in the Matrix and so we'll discuss that tomorrow. But today Mitch wrote in and said a whole world that is constantly under the effect of the Google deep dream software. Wow your mind is screwed up. Loved that. Have you used the deep dream software very much? No it was too many hurdles to jump through to get it. It's also really just terrifying. Okay. Like some of it. I've seen it Some of the stuff that people have come up with. Turn everything into dogs, all the pictures, everything's been dogs. It's really scary. Will wrote in and said House music, bass and paint. And more bass. Woo-hoo! Looks like Khail's weekend. This guy is, well, that's actually this weekend. Is it? Yeah, I'm going to be going on Saturday. Awesome! You guys, by default you can just know I'm going [INAUDIBLE] I know, I'm like, of course you are. But I love you, whoever you are. That's Will. Come with me to- Will. Nocturnal wonderland. [INAUDIBLE] And then Gregory just wrote in with this picture. He emailed us and said, where's Gregory? [LAUGH] Which I love that. I think that's great. Yeah, its time to pause the screen. Yeah, pause the show right now and find Waldo. Can you find him? Do you see him? Neither do we. Okay, let's move on. All right guy it's time for our very last piece, the user feedback which is always our phonetographer of the day. We have a phone that we've never featured on the show before. Cool, the iPhone? No. Okay. Although that would be nice. If you guys have iPhone pictures send them in. Kind of weird. Aaron wrote in and said "Hi there, this picture of a butterfly should help with those waking nightmares brought on by Kale's creepy fallout mask." [LAUGH] And he took this with Good luck. A Blue Studio X Plus. Which I never actually heard of. So, pretty awesome. That's a great picture. That's what sounds made up. It does sound made up- Blue studio -but that looks pretty good. It's a little bit less, I would say it's just a step lower than the flagship step we normally see. Show me a picture of the blue studio X plus. [SOUND] Okay. Continue. All right. Here are some images of the blue studio [UNKNOWN] plus I found on the web. There you go. Thanks, man Siri. Siri man. Oh, it's on an Android device, okay. Yeah, it's pretty cute. But I've never heard of the blue [INAUDIBLE] Yeah, nice picture. Yeah, Erin, thanks [CROSSTALK] Logan kicking ****. Producer Logan [CROSSTALK] This is just like with the iPhone where it's like even bigger. Okay cool, right on. Pretty cool. Well thank you very much, Erin, for sending that in. If you guys wanna send in your phonetography, please do. Email us, Tomorrow@cnet.com with your picture, a story about it, what device you took it with, and permission to use it on the show. We always love permission. And then of course if you want to find the show on social media, if you want to keep up with when the show posts everyday, you can go find us on Facebook and Twitter and all that good stuff for Tomorrow Daily and all those things. But really, find us personally, because we're so much fun. I'm @ashleyesqueda on twitter. I'm @khailanonymous on twitter. Yeah and that's the best so if you wanna share the show with a friend or frenemy or a straight up enemy, just send them to tomorrowdaily.com. That's it for the show today. We'll be back tomorrow with Randy Docket of Weird Wonderful Science Facts and Science Fiction smashing it all together, blowing up your face. But until then, be good humans, we'll see you next time, bye. [MUSIC]