NASA's Modular Robotic Vehicle belongs in Mario Kart (Tomorrow Daily 167)

On today's show, Microsoft's new motion tracking is going to change the way you do hand gestures. Google finally unveiled its wireless service and we're gonna tell you all about it and NASA's got a crazy little car that looks like it's driving on ice all the time. 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, joining me as always, the man, the myth, the legend, Oh, hey, so You almost did the Benny Hill song I know I can hear it in your head When you were, I can hear the Benny Hill song I don't want to even speak of it >Bill, strike this video down >. Strike this video down like Obi-Wan Kenobi Our loved ones will just Die, is not cool. I'll come home, be a, a horse head in my bed, just like in the Godfather. Oh, I didn't think we were going that dark. Well, I don't know. People are really serious about copyright infringement on that Benny Hill song, yes. It is Thursday. Thursday's when we, we unravel. Yeah. Thursday's an unraveling day. But, all right. We've gotta talk about these headlines cause they're pretty awesome. So, let's hit it. [MUSIC] Okay, so NASA Did you know that NASA has a a car, like they are working on a car?>>Then, is it like a space car? Kind of yeah, Okay. So. So then I'm very very interested. It's roaming around Earth, it's a vehicle roaming around Earth, this is from, and I swear this is note a joke, this is the actual name of the department, NASA's Game Changing Development Program Office I like that. That's modest. Game changing. Listen, that's what you have on your business card, alright? Right. So, this is called an MRV, alright? And it is a fully electric vehicle that NASA says would be very capable in an urban environment. Here's why They, each one of the wheels is independently operated, so it looks like a normal little car. But then here he goes. So now all of the independent wheels means you have zero-degree turn radius. So in essence, this is like kinda the coolest thing ever. If you needed to parallel park, you would just pull up right next to the space, turn your wheels 90 degrees, [LAUGH] and then just drive sideways into your space. That's amazing. I know. I know. I love it. Love it so much. Okay. It looks like you're driving on ice, a little bit, cause of the, cause the wheels can all shift. They can drift this thing, like look at how cool this thing is. So it's a fly by wire driving system, it's like I said, four independently capable wheels And they have a top speed of about 43 miles an hour. Look at him drifting. It reminds me of Mario Kart. Yeah. Just sliding around in circles. It's amazing. Everything does, but yeah. This was developed at the Johnson Space Center, and there is even a joy stick for more advance control, like if you feel ike you need more advanced controls. Right. You don't need the steering wheel. Look at, you see him park [CROSSTALK] For people that play a lo of GT Total. I gotcha.>> And, there is also forced feedback so if you, for the steering wheel vibration and stuff. So if you want it to feel more like a traditional car as you're driving. It will like send more traditional feelings like your driving a real car, which is kinda cool. But here's the thing, not in development for commercial sale. However they are working on this for future rovers that go out into space Oh good for them Technology for futures rovers, but also, but they said they wouldn't mind if this type of technology was used in cars [UNKNOWN] in the future. So we might see this technology show up in cars in the future but it wouldn't be like hey, NASA's releasing a car you can go buy at a dealership. That won't happen. That won't be a thing. But, yeah, so I thought that was just really fun and cool because I've been on a, Mario Kart, the new DLC pack is out today, Which by the way correction everybody. I said Friday, it's today, Thursday. << So they're, they mm, don't really have a goal for this car. Other than to improve other their. << Other rovers. << Lunar rovers. Things like that. << Things that end up getting send out to, like Curiosity and stuff like that. This is a really good way to << [UNKNOWN] [CROSSTALK] Yeah, yeah. So that brings us to our hashtag of the day, TDMRV is our hashtag of the day, it's the name of the car. And- Merve. Merve. TD Merve. And, the question is, I think you guys could think of some really fun ways to sort of use this vehicle, or maybe upgrade it? Like. Okay, so, how to use it or upgrade it. You could upgrade. [CROSSTALK] You could upgrade, or how would you, where would you wanna drive it, what would you wanna do with it? So I would, so, personally, I would want to improve tires, because we're still using the, like, rubber and air technology, and I've seen people do, like, spokes, like plastic. Circles but like with spokes and its not like an air based system I thought for sure NASA would be on top of that, so their lunar rovers didn't have to like Get flat tires Yeah, get flat tires and whatnot but I mean, maybe I'm not fully researched on this but I've seen a lot of like, demos and stuff like that. And I mean, well that does look like a standard tire, I went to, I did a tour at JPL and they had some stuff on the they have like a whole field that's like the Mars kinda area where the kinda simulate rocks and stuff like that. And they have these like really cool sort of experimental tires and things like that and they're like... Basically if this breaks, like it can, this one can take over and like, all this stuff. Oh, all right. So they have some stuff like that, but it wasn't, it wasn't the same as what we saw in the video, so I think you're right in saying, like, we need some better tire tech on this one. Yeah, TDMRV, okay. TDMRV is the hashtag of the day. What's yours? I would say, I would want to take this to, I would want to take this to, I would want to speed it up. Are you going to put in, we put in turbo. Yep. With some nitrice. Yep. And I want to see this in the next Fast and Furious. Family. All about family. Yeah. That's right, I want to see a heist scene, or a chase scene done with this car, just like seven of them, like, or eight of them. And then just all. And then they jump it from one building to the next. Yeah. Yeah. Over and over again. God. I want Fast and the Furious EIght to happen in space in, on, like Europa. And I want Vin Diesel to drive this thing like a maniac through the canyons Of Europa. That's what I want to see. It's about family. Listen, a, that's really the only next place I could go, and fast, and Fast and Furious 8. NASA Cars? Space. Space, yeah. I feel like, space. I feel like they've done everything on Earth, they can't really, there's not much left. Well they're going to New York in the next one. Well, that's not as good as Europa. I mean, to me. I guess. Fair enough. Better food, in New York. Better food, better pizza, but not necessarily better driving. More exciting. So [INAUDIBLE] TDMRV. So what do you know about particle swarm optimization? Nothing Noob. I know. Alright, well, let's talk about what Microsoft is doing to improve the hand gesture game. Okay. Okay? So we've seen technology like Leap Motion show how the, in virtual reality in a space we can have that sort of motion gestures. Right. Well, Microsoft research has decided that they want to improve the Hand Pose Technology. Now try to keep up with this one because it's even tricky, to kind of explain. Okay. So basically, they're using a Kinect to scan and create a 3D model of the user's hand which takes about, like, one second with this technology. Wow, that's fast. Yes. Well, this new technology, handpost technology it's more accurate. It can work for a much further distance and it can work on existing hardware or even smartphones, which is cool. Ooh, yeah. So,now, usually, motion tracking is, is really slow. It, it has to read like 30 different points on your hand, and and, and it's, it's really slow to calculate it. Well, they've Right. Improved it Ten times faster with their pro, their processor called particle swarm optimization. Particle swarm optimization. You know what that is PSO, good old PSO. PSO. So this makes a trillion, so usually it takes trillions of potential hand gesture combinations. Yeah, and they've gotta, like, calculate, like, all of the different ways you might move your hand? Yeah, maybe. Okay. So, they've got that down to 200 logical guesses Which. Oh, wow, look at that. That's amazing. Yeah, it brings it down to it's closest yet. It's really responsive. And it's really impressive. All the details. Yeah, and the guy in the video keeps talking about like, minority report Yeah. And how that's kind of what they're going for, [CROSSTALK] you want to be able to, like, Quick I need to see, yeah, so that's basically what they're aiming for there's no retail yet, which. No, bummer. Which is a bummer. But they said that it's gonna be about five years before they'll feel safe It's gonna be a public use, I'll bet you they figure it out. Hopefully, yeah, let's say. Figure it out in a couple of years. Let's say, yeah, maybe two and a half. Split it in half. Let's say, well, yeah, that, that's your Tomorrow Daily guess: two and half years. Two and half years, instead of five. But yeah. So, they're They're hoping that's, they're hoping that it'll improve motion gesture, so, So hand pose is what it's called. That's pretty cool. That's awesome. Hand pose uses particle swarm optimization. So it's just fast, it's not brand new technology per say, but it's Greatly improving. Okay Something that was already there. And they're using Connect, which is all oldish technology, but it. Yeah. It was technology that was beyond its time. So, there you go. [CROSSTALK] Alright. Cool. So that's some awesome stuff from Microsoft research. So going from one big company, from Microsoft to Google. They're doing some pretty interesting stuff. Lots of people have been dying for this to happen. Google finally announced that they're going to get into the wireless game. Yeah. They're going to be kind of a cell phone carrier for you, which is pretty cool. Oh, that would be amazing. This is, this is an interesting move by Google. It's called Google Fi. F I. Google Fi. And this is a move into wireless service here in the US. No word on any international Any international you know, launches or anything like that. But here's how it's gonna work. So it's gonna use T-Mobile and Sprint towers>>towers okay>>and as your driving instead Stuff is going to, is going to optimize which towers to use or open wi-fi. So for example, if you are in an area where there is an open wi-fi connection that's safe then it'll, it'll connect to that it'll switch back and forth. So your phone which I'll get to in a second, which phone you can use Will seamlessly hand off between cell towers and wi-fi signals, so making it a little bit easier for you to not use as much data. Mm-hm. And so what they want to do is they want to charge you $20 a month. That's the base plan. And then that's unlimited talk and text. For twenty bucks a month, but for data, they want to charge you ten dollars for every gig. So, if you're using five gigs, that's about like, seventy bucks a month. Or, I think you, it might come with one gig, so it might be sixty. But you get a refund if you don't, you prepay for it. So you say, okay, like I usually use three, lets say like three gigs of data, four gigs of data or whatever, you pay You are $20 plus let's say, I, it's either, I, I thi, I want to say if it includes that one gig, you would pay an extra 30 bucks. And then let's say you only use two. Well, they would refund you. So they would refund you 20 bucks and they say hey, you only used two gigs instead of four like you paid for, so we are gonna give you that money back. How is this better than a normal cell phone plan? So, I think the big thing is is that they want to kind of, they want to kind of free people from being locked into, there's no contract at all and, but there a couple of catches to this. You must use a Nexus 6 for this first, like, testing portion of Google 5. Just to even be able to sign up. To try the service you have to have a Nexus 6. And even then, like, you may not even get into sort of the testing. Yeah. I know my brother signed up for this. He was like, I already signed up. Cuz I was like, hey you should sign up for Google Fi and try it out and he was just like, I'm already signed up. I'm dying to get in. So, the, so, yeah, they're saying that it's not. For now, they're saying it's not directly competitive with these large carriers because this is really kind of a small scale project that they're working on. Right, I mean, they're just starting, they're testing it, they're seeing if it works. Just seeing how it works. Ya, I get it. Do you think it's possible to do on a larger Scale like I would imagine in a lot of rural areas. This would be kind of difficult because one, you're not going to run into a lot of towers, and two, you're not going to run into allot of WiFi. So it seems like maybe it will work the best in urban areas. The one thing I did like about this is it will store your phone number on Google servers So, you can use your phone, tablet, or laptop to make calls? Like, you can just open up your laptop and make a call, because it's like, it's going through Google servers, and not directly via sim card. I don't think any of these things are really different than any other like, pay service for Data So there are two other companies doing this. It's like Republic, let me see. Let me make sure I get these right. Republic Wireless and Scratch Wireless are two companies that are doing something very similar to this. And we've seen carriers like but they're kind of small regional carriers, like Cricket, things like that, where they have this sort of regional and they use the towers of another company, a bigger company Sort of piggy-back off them. So it's similar in that way, but it's not quite that. So it's, it's a, slightly different, it's just an interesting move by Google to even get into this, like, I don't think a lot of people were ex- Yeah. Not expecting them to, but they were hoping, and then, now, they're kind of like, okay, well we're gonna do this officially. So, I don't know, I don't know that I would use it, I mean, looking, there was a really good infographic, and I'm so sorry, whatever website posted it this morning. I'm not, I can't remember what it was. Really good infographics showing like, exactly what the rates were for certain amounts of data. And T-Mobile and Google Fiber were pretty close. And then it was like, some, some carriers were a little cheaper, like regional carriers. And then, like, the big two, AT&T and Verizon were more expensive. So, It definitely is not a like groundbreaking change in, it's not to cut your bill in like, into 25% of what it was, like you're not going to be paying $10 a month for your cell service. So maybe it's not the savior everybody's hoping for, but its' definitely at least more competition, which is always a good thing It's really bold to be one of the first users of this, though. Yeah, you In there That's, I mean, if you're jumping in with both feet, goon on you. Both that's Google [UNKNOWN]. So that's what they're doing with that and and We'll see where this goes. I think that's what [INAUDIBLE] I will be very curious to see how this kind of expand or if it doesn't. Very. Might not. Very skeptical, Mister Google. [LAUGH] Call me by the way, call me Mister Google. I think that's a gift that needs to happen guys. If you want to make that a gift please do, send it to me via Twitter at Ashley [UNKNOWN]. All right guys, we're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back with Into It. We have some good ones this week. And then, of course, your user feedback and our phonetograph for the day, so don't click away. It's Tomorrow Daily. [MUSIC] Welcome back to the show. [MUSIC] Khail's getting in the groove. It's got a good, it's got a good bass on there. It's got a good bass line. Yeah. We, we get to hear the drop, you guys never get to hear that part. No, it's good. [INAUDIBLE] It, it's really good. Every week we like to tell you on Thursdays the stuff that is draining our wallets, so this is Into It. Is it always draining our wallets? No, I didn't pay for this. Yeah, that's true. I didn't. I didn't pay for mine. I didn't pay for mine, either, but I'm really excited. Ha! This week, so I guess maybe, maybe it's not. Take that! Maybe we're just obsessed. Okay. I wanna go first. Okay. Cause I have. Oh, you have a show and tell. This is the Samsung Gear VR. This is something I've been screwing around with for the past two weeks. I've been. Working on a special project but I had a lot of time to put some time into this and this is the first time I've ever used it. Because I've used the Occulus and I've used Google Cardboard but this is the first time I've used what is considered portable VR and also consumer portable VR so you just basically, as you're going to see on the screen, You pop in your note for your note three into the into the gear V-R and it automatically boots up as if it was an Oculus, Oculus headset. That's so fun. So it uses all the Oculus programs and, you can play pretty much, pretty much anything that Oculus themselves Put out into their, into their app store. Oh. I, I like it. I think it's pretty cool, I don't own a note, so that would be an extra purchase. This costs about like, I think, like, two hundred dollars. Two ninety nine. Yeah. Three hundred dollars and then you have to buy a note, which is you know, exorbitant So it's, it's not a cheap VR set. No. Considering the Ipost is, is cheaper. But if you or, it's just not a cheap VR set. No. But, but, but the big proke here is that it's, it's portable. I'm not trying to sell you on it. It's just I I'm, I'm telling you what I liked about it. Is that it was portable. Yeah. I could take it places and it was fun. I could take it and show it to somebody. What's up? What's some of the stuff that you got to like do or, or play or like wha, what were some of your favorite things that you did wi, using this? I did, I did a cooking simulator which was pretty cool. I, I was a little toy in like a, a little kid's room and you like go around. And then I also was a space pilot. That one was, that one was my favorite one. I was in a movie theater watching a movie which was- That's weird and awesome. Yeah that was a very expensive movie. 300 dollars and then a note. [LAUGH] To go see that movie. But yeah it's pretty cool. I mean I wouldn't, I wouldn't go out of, of my way to get one. 'Kay But it's been, it was a blast. I would just put the headset on. And sit next to my girlfriend on the couch, and she'd be like, and I'm just like in space, like, woo, and she's just trying to watch Pretty Little Liars or whatever, so, Looking at you, just like oh. Yeah, but, so that's what I'm into. That's awesome. The Samsung Gear VR. So cool. Very, very easy to use. And I like that they worked with oculous. I like that they worked with oculous on them. Yeah. It looks good, it looks good. Don't like to me. It looks like it belongs there. Don't like to me. It looks like it belongs there really. What are you into? This week I'm into People who are online who are calling the Sushi Bazooka. Oh, I gotta see this. Sushezzi [UNKNOWN] something else they are referring it to. Oddly enough not from Japan. You'd think it would be. Yep, but it had all the qualifiers. All the qualifiers and even a really rad like Asian host. I was this has to be from Japan. Yeah. No, it's not. No it's from New Zealand. How weird is that? Yeh, so here's how it works. You're watching the video right now. This guy by the way is sort of like the Asian Kale and I love him. Like he's really energetic and fun. I love you Asian Kale And so you put the rice in, you put your sticky rice, you line it up on both sides, do all these other things, and you put your fillings in. You gotta put your sushi. Gotta put your cucumbers. Gotta put whatever else. You can put avocado, maybe whatever you want to put in there like you do with a roll So then once you do all that junk you smash it all together. So yeah, here, okay. So [LAUGH] watch this. So that's sorta loading the the push out. That's like the sorta thing that's gonna push out the roll. So here you go. They, like, lock it down. Yep, you snap it in place. And then you put on the end. This reminds me of using Playdoh as a kid. Like you know the Playdoh factory.>> Yeah.>> OKay it's like that. So you twist the edge here and then you very slowly squeeze out this roll. Cause it tightens the, it tightens the tube, and then now, so there you go. So that's your little roll, and then you squeeze it out. Well, I'll be. It pushes out your little roll, and then it just, so he puts it on a bed of, a bed of seaweed. We've got some nori there, a sheet of nori. So, yeah, he'll put that down and then he just rolls it up, and then you know you cut all your slices. So it doesn't, listen guys. Bazooka is not the right term I would have used. No, it's not. It's not a bazooka, it's not a, I wish it fired out of that thing like a cannon, that would be the funniest thing in the universe. But unfortunately it doesn't, it's a much slower process. Look at how, like, it's very clean. Ya, not everyone's capable of making sushi, myself included. It's a nice little workaround. How much does it cost? It's like $26, it's on Amazon. Not bad. And they also give other examples too, it's not just the sushi thing. You can also use it for anything where you have a roll. So like You know those little cake like, pumpkin rolls for the holidays, like, jelly rolls, and things, you could- Yeah. You could use, you could use this to make. That looks good. Yeah, nice. Sushi Bazooka. 26 bucks. It's so silly, but like, I saw it, and I was just like, man, I gotta get one. So what do you think, consumer? Which product would you buy? Sushi Bazooka? Samsung VR for $300 and then you have to have a Note, or the $26. Or the sushi not really a bazooka for $26. That's so street. Yo, yo. Please walk around like that today at the grove that would be amazing. Yeah. Ok you guys, we talked about what we like, its time to talk about what you like. It's time for User Feedback. [MUSIC] Finally, a good transition, it's a miracle. I wouldn't say good. Acceptable. I, I just, I just said it wasn't bad. Okay. Not bad, I'll take that, I'll take not bad. Okay, so, yesterday, we asked you guys to use the hashtag TDCON to tell us what conference is, that you guys want to throw, and where. Mm. You guys came up with some really good There's some really bad puns in here which make my whole day a better place. Rick wrote in and said, TDCONS Presenting HipsterCon Buy, buy, new style Nerd Glasses. Yeah. That's like what you have today. Yup. Learn how to use a typewriter, know how to groom your hipster beard and much more. [LAUGH] I think hold hipster con? Portland? I wish I was a hipster. Yeh. Or where, where is where's not cool. Where's a place that's not cool, but like you can pretend like it's cool? I bet you could do like somewhere in Wisconsin. Yeh Like if they were, and everyone is like oh man we gotta go to this con [CROSSTALK] I wish I was a hipster. [CROSSTALK] Being a hipster would be very easy. Yeah. Cuz you just know what kind of music you should be into. [CROSSTALK] You know what you like. You know what you hate. You gotta go, know what kind of clothes you wear. Yeah. All right. Very good. Frank wrote in and said TDCons, we should start the San Francisco Villains Con. [LAUGH] And then he made a little graphic, which I really like. And had like people like Cat Woman and the Joker. There's like a whole bunch of special guest Like Lex Luthor I like the actual Megatron Yeah. So these are really good TD Con Vedaprime wrote in and said TD Con given me swancon, seven species of swan int he world black black necked Coscoroba, Mute, Trumpteter, Tundra and Whooper! #SwanHype guys. It's real. SwanHype is real. People are still enjoying that, by the way. Nice job. I love it. Nice job. I love it. [LAUGH] our next. Okay our, this is our next user feedback. Bring that up on the screen here. Gail says the thing about cons is, if you can think of it, they've done it. A magic trick con. Call it decepticon. #puns. [APPLAUSE] You know who would be the guest of honor at the first decepticon? Don't say a transformer. No. Okay. Joe Bluth. That'd be great. It's an illusion, though. It's not a trick, Michael. An illusion. An illusion. And then lastly, school boy NY, school boy Y, @schoolboyc, I can't read, said, I don't know if this exists but I would like for an 80s pop culture convention to exist in California. That would be amazing. I would totally go to- Yeah, yeah. 80s Con? That'd be a lot of fun. I would all about 80s Con. That would be amazing. So that's that's what you guys wrote in. Don't forget hashtag of the day today, TDMV, MRV. It's like Merve but without the E in it. TDMRV. That's a really hard on to remember. Tell us about the Nasa stuff. I'd be, I'd be impressed if people. I put it into the description of the YouTube video now. Like, I started adding hashtag of the day into the description, so people don't have to scrub through to remember. Okay. So, look at the description, that's all that I'm saying. Alright guys, it,s user feedback is over, except for our very last piece, which is our Phonetographer of the Day. [MUSIC] I like [CROSSTALK] You had the transitions, and you lost the transitions all of a sudden. I did, I did. Oh, no. It's okay. Adam wrote in. Listen, this is over. It's over, this is all over, except not quite yet. Oh, it is definitely a Thursday. [CROSSTALK] It is. Adam wrote in to us, sent, sent in this picture that he took with his iPhone 5. And he said, I would like my rainbow photo that I tweeted out to be considered for phonetographer of the day. The content of the tweet and the link to the photo are given below. This serendipitously appeared as I was getting out of my car in a grocery store parking lot. I was surprised at the relatively small size of the rainbow's arc. I used the panorama feature of my Iphone 5s. Oh, it's a 5s, I'm sorry. To get the full rainbow from where I was standing. Another really good shot. There's actually a double rainbow. Yeah. Do you see it on the side? On the left?>>There is a double rainbow.>>There's a double rainbow there. What does it mean? What does it mean?>>That's incredible. That's a fantastic shot.>>Yeah, so Adam.>>That's a cover photo status.>>It is. It's really good. You caught two rainbows. Not just one that day.>>You didn't even know that. That's why you have to send in your photos. To us. Also, where is this parking lot that is so empty? I've never, did you notice there's not one single car in that parking lot? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe on the other side, there's like tons of cars. There's tons of cars. [UNKNOWN] There's a gas station. Anyway, let's not Let's not dwell on that. Rainbow. Pretty rainbow. Pretty double rainbow. They're faint, but it's there. But Adam, that was a really good picture. Nice job. If you guys want to send in your phonetography, you want to send in story ideas, you want to send in your user feedback? You can email us tomorrow@cnet.com. We're also on social media. We're on Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Google Plus. We're Tomorrow Daily on all those things except What about Snapchat? No more Snapchat guys. No more Snapchat. But on Google plus we're Tomorrow Daily TV, which you know, that could be the next to-go, you never know about these things. I don't even think you can get rid of your Google plus. It's like American Idol, I just have people vote. Really? Vote with their phone. Vote what to get rid of instead. Ya, they just call in and they vote for the worst. Oh. And also if you are watching on YouTube, don't forget to like, favorite, and subscribe. If you are listening to the iTunes podcast, don't forget to write a review and [CROSSTALK] You sound like a micro machine [CROSSTALK] That's, that's a compliment. It is. That guy is married and probably really well off. Rich. So. Yeah. Anyways, so don't forget to like, favorite, and subscribe, and don't forget to follow us on everything. Anyway, so don't forget to follow us on our personal Twitters. That's true. I'm @AshleyEsqueda. And I don't know what Twitter is. And he's never used Twitter in his life. I'm @Kaleannonymous since Thursday. And it's Thursday, yeah. At the end of this episode, it's just getting crazy. Yeah. Rails are coming off, guys so that is it for the show, we will be back on Monday. We have a brand new talk of weird, wonderful technology, science fact, science fiction blowing up in your face in the best way. But until then, be good humans. We'll see you next time, bye