The 404 1,512: Where we can't afford to pay attention
The 404 1,512: Where we can't afford to pay attention
38:45

The 404 1,512: Where we can't afford to pay attention

Culture
It's Tuesday June 24th I'm Mark [UNKNOWN] from our CBS studios in New York City welcome to The 404 [MUSIC] What's going on everyone. Welcome to the 404 Show. I'm Jeff Bakalar. I'm Justin Yu. I hope you're having a great day. We sure are. Mark [UNKNOWN] in for Ariel Nunez today. What's going on guys. What's up sir. How are you? Very good. So good. So good. Those, those intros he does. They bring the, they just bring the energy up, and that's what I need this early in the afternoon, you know? Oh, thanks. Mark, how was your E3? Did you enjoy L.A.? Yeah I did. I mean, I didn't really leave outside of downtown L.A., and apparently downtown L.A.. No offense to people that are from downtown L.A. that are listening, but there are other areas that are worth exploring that we don't really get out to check out. Yeah. But it was kind of convention center, hotel to edit, convention center, hotel to edit, and then maybe like two nice dinners, but I mean, I love Jeff, so that was, that was the highlight of it. Wow And wherever Jeff goes, I go. Wow It's funny, he didn't say anything about you when I asked him about E3. No, of course not. It's not mutual, the love is definitely one sided, but it's a one way street it is. It's a one-way affair. But no, it is most certainly mutual, sir. We had a blast out there. And you know, he did a great job with all the video stuff. Was there somewhere that you wanted to go in L.A. that you weren't able to? It sounds like you kind of had a plan but then [CROSSTALK] I I I honestly had no plan I mean, to be completely honest, I'm not a big L.A. fan. Yeah. It kind of reminds me of, of Vegas a teeny tiny bit. And that's not a bad thing. I'm from Vegas, and I love Vegas, but. Right. If I'm gonna be in a place that reminds me of Vegas, I'd rather be in Vegas, you know? Right. It's hard coming from a big city and being able to go anywhere you want within half an hour on public transportation. And then going to a place like L.A. or I guess, Vegas, where you have to jump in a car and, and, and hit a freeway for an hour to get anywhere. For sure. And I just have no interest in driving. I mean, driving does not relax me. Yeah. I don't enjoy it. I don't. I don't care about cars. I don't know, it just, it doesn't do anything. All the, like, the whole commuting thing. Yeah. Also I have like a ten minute walk to work, so that makes a huge difference. But But you were fine when I was driving. Well, Jeff's kind of a terrible driver, so I, I just sort of encourage him and I, I, I try to make him feel like he's a good driver so he doesn't kill us. I can vouch for that. First of all, I'm the best driver you know. Number two. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah. Because you would know that. I made that decision. Same with you, Justin. I've been in the car with you before. It wasn't. [CROSSTALK] Yeah, Jeff is the best driver that anyone knows. Yeah, yeah, I'm, you know, that's the one thing I'm, I take a lot of pride in. Being better driving than you. Last time when were in a car together. When was that? I thought the drive was bad and I figured it was the crappiness of the Buick we were driving in. No, no, no, no. But now that Mark is saying that you're a bad driver, maybe it's the skills and not the vehicle. No, you guys can both shove it. You don't know how good you have it. He just gets really distracted and then he tries to like, run over people, and I'm like, this isn't Grand Theft Auto, you can't just I didn't try to kill people. All right. They weren't people, they were animals. Don't lie, Jeff. There's a difference. A deer means nothing at the end of the day. I think you just werent wearing your glasses. Theres no deer in LA. You'd be surprised when the sun goes down in Los Angeles. Okay. [LAUGH]. alright, so weve got some stories to get to today, so check it out for tomorrow real quick, its the google IO keynote. Every week a new keynote I know, enough with the keynotes. I don't know, android HIJKL I don't know. Liquorice, Oh, new version of it. I don't know, I don't know. Am I interested? Well, marginally. You should be more interested than me, because you own an Android phone. You don't care? Yeah, whatever, come out with a new Android, just give it to me. I just don't care. It'll come over the air eight months after I want it to. I don't disagree with you, but we have to at least act passionate. No we don't. Cuz we're on a show. Now people are tired of these upgrades. Exactly. So tired. And, and our, you know, lethargic attitude towards it. Yeah. It's going to be. Our apathetic attitude towards it is the you know, that's the barometer of the industry. Yeah. So you know, we, because we decide what, the, the way people feel. Mm-hm. Update fatigue. Yeah. Update fatigue. I mean, let's coin that new phrase. Yes. T-M. I was on this show. You got it? T-M. Update fatigue. The R and the C in a circle. That's for us. Update fatigue. [LAUGH] I sorta read about it. I don't need the big fan fare and the band that opens up and the demo. I just want five minutes. Yeah. Because CEOs aren't performers. Yeah. They're not entertainers. [INAUDIBLE] cook. Yeah. Looking right down your freaking, and you too, Jeff Bazoes. My God, I'd rather watch paint dry for 90 minutes. [INAUDIBLE] Anyway. Anyway. That's happening tomorrow. That's happening tomorrow. so that's at 12. So get exited about it everyone. No. Dude. Man. We would [UNKNOWN] H-I-J-K-L liquorice. Liquorice that might team up with lemon drops. I don't know. It's going to be really depressing when we reach the end of the alphabet and have to go back to the beginning. Yeah, and it won't, it'll be like fruit, or something. Right. Anyway. I'm excited, I am, I say I'm not. But you know, deep down there's a fire that burns and it burns, it yearns for, for Android updates. So, plus you never know they might announce like a phone. Like a Nexus 6, probably not, actually they won't. But nevertheless that's like, you know, let's get a little excited about stuff. Yeah. You know, they, they've made products before, so we'll see how that works out. So that's at 12 o'clock Eastern time tomorrow. So we will be recording our program a little later in the day, so that we may update you, the fine people who listen to our show. You know, to tell you what transpired out west, with Google and company. So, that's what's coming down the way tomorrow. I'm excited about it. Yeah. Because what we see tomorrow. We'll probably get a new iPhone the year after. Right. It's actually like a crystal ball for 2015 Apple. Shots fired. Yeah. No. I'm just kidding. I have an iPhone, so why would I talk **** about Apple? Because you're just a dummy. You're just a sheeple. No, because I'm a rational human being, so we have to not pick sides in this battle. No. I've definitely picked a side. We're all on the same side. The consumer side. Yeah. We're on your side. All right, let's talk about a follow up to yesterday's story. You know, how we were talking about sort of the decline of the movie website and how movie promotion's gotten a huge business behind it now, with hashtags and social media and things like that. Well, today, there's a story that I found that's sorta similar. The idea is to use social media to promote a movie that's sorta taken off, and advertise. okay, what am I, what am I, this is, is not a good. I'm just letting you go down this treacherous path. This, this is an, I mean, it's kinda weird. I wanna know what you think about it. A couple of filmmakers in New York this week, they announced that they're going to be publishing a television series, a brand new television series. Quote unquote television. Yeah, you can call it television series, but it's not gonna air on your TV. This series is gonna air exclusively on Instagram. So, yesterday we're talking about the attention span of humans kinda going down. This is really the the end of that. And this is what it's called, it's called artistically challenged. It's gonna start on July 1st. [LAUGH] And it's a New York based program, so it's going to take place here. And it will go live with seven 15 second episodes that will air each week. And then 25 additional updates going everyday starting July 8th for a total of 32 episodes, and a whopping eight minutes of footage for the entire series. Don't call that an episode. An episode is not 15 seconds. There's no rule about what you can call an episode. All right. So let's, let's like, let's. Let's not hate on this too much. Yeah. Let's not hate on this. Because we haven't seen it yet. It's gonna have a big production value, I mean. You'd think that with. You sure? Yeah. You'd think that with stuff like this it would just be shot on an iPhone or a Handycam or something. Right. But there, said they're gonna be using DLSRs and they're gonna have sets and a budget for wardrobe and things. So first they're cheating at Instagram. Yeah. First thing out of the way they're cheating. Well, what do you mean cheating? Cheating at Instagram. Like you should only be using your Instagram with your mobile phone. Okay. The same way we would. No, that's not true you can access the desktop app. We use to, but we use to accuse, no, you can't upload desk, you cannot upload pictures from the desktop. Oh, you can't upload, right, right. Yeah. I thought you meant looking at it. Right no, you can definitely look at it. But, right, we, we don't like people who take SRL photos. Uh-huh. The way that we used to accuse Ariel of doing so, right? And put it on Instagram. Not cool. Right? I'm just saying how gonna stay with our track record. I guess so. All right, fine, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. I'll check out your 15 second TV show. You know, I don't know, like, how, when, when is it gonna be, like, where are we going with this, like, when is it gonna be. Its gonna have, we're gonna be less then 15 seconds? Yeah. Am I gonna be like a one second episode? I mean, would you rather watch something like this? I mean the, the story's about a young artist living in New York city, and he's kind of struggling. But then he becomes an overnight celebrity, and it's sort of how he deals with that. Cool. Kinda sounds like Entourage a little bit. But, would you rather watch a fictitious show like this on Instagram, or would you just rather watch videos of your friends? I feel like if I really wanted to watch videos on my phone, I'd just pull up Vine or something. [CROSSTALK] Cuz there's a personal element to it. I mean, I dont' think Vine. I mean, I think Vine is really kinda dopey too. I mean. Yeah. I don't really think it's great. I love Vine. Do you really. Yeah, yeah. You never post Vines. No, no. I don't post. I just consume. Like Reddit. Oh. All right. I just like watching Vines. Yeah, I mean, sometimes they're really creative and that's only six seconds, so, I mean, they've got more than twice that. But I guess the real challenge here is like alright, how much exposition can you cram into 15 seconds. Right. And to me that's like an experiment sort of thing, and it kind of goes against the whole attention span thing. Right? Where we're like complaining that people have lost their attention span. But in a 15 second episodes quote unquote,. Mm. You really had to cram a lot of exposition in that little amount of time. hm. So if you're one of these people that just are easily distracted, you are not gonna get whatever is happening. Right, unless I think. you replay it a thirty times I guess, or maybe not. I mean it's 15 seconds. How could you do it? But I don't, I don't know. You, you studied film in college. Sure. Do you think it's a good idea? Or is it just that? Well, when I was in college, there was barely any video on the internet. Internet. Yeah, so. The idea. The idea? I don't know. To me, it's, it's more of a gimmick. Mm-hm. Because you're essentially drawing all the attention to this project because of it's absurd sort of timing restraints. Where as, you know, if I, I mean look. It, it's a smart idea from a marketing perspective. You're not going to get this kind of attention if it was just a normal, episodic thing. And I, and I kind of dig that. again, I don't think video should ever be in, like a, you know, one by one ratio, in a perfect square. I think that Sucks. I'm not gonna enjoy watching that, but that's just me being a film snob. You've got to think about where they're gonna be making money off of this, cuz they're spending money. They can't. They have big budgets. Unless it's all product placement. But yeah, you've got to figure, any video that you create and put on Instagram is gonna belong to Facebook. Sure. Right? So, any, they're not gonna make money off this; there's no advertising, backing. It's to get discovered. That's what they, they want this to, they want to parlay this project into some sort of professional thing. That's creative. No one, no one should ever strive to make Instagram videos for a living, cuz I just don't think there's money there right now. Yeah. But look, people do this on YouTube. People get discovered on YouTube. Why can't people get discovered on Instagram? Sure. I'm not going to hate. People are getting discovered on Vine. It's a good way to promote yourself. And look, I never would have heard of this unless they decided you know, handicap themselves with these restraints. So I will check this out. Yeah. Because it's also 15 seconds, and you know what? What else you have to do? For three NYU students. Yeah, I guess 15 seconds I can spare for you fools. Yeah. If you can stop and watch a subway performance, you can definitely check out 15 seconds on your phone. Yeah. I just wont Sneeze that day, and I'll watch it instead. "Artistically Challenged" airs July 1st. Go and add them on instagram. Alright next one. I wanna get your take on this too cuz it's sort of your industry. That's good because, it's, you know, it's how the show works. Yeah. Just me asking you a bunch of questions. [LAUGH]. It's be like, look, this is what I wanted you to give me your opinion on. Yeah. Well also we were talking about E3 earlier. You know, Mark I'm sure you can chip in on this one. If you wanna you can chime in on this too. We went over how Mark. Can't talk anymore. That requires 100% of his attention. No, it's because I'm a bad driver. And because I'm a bad driver, you're going to sit shotgun and you're gonna shut up. Whoa. Okay? Okay. [LAUGH] scared. You killing scary Jeff. I love it. [LAUGH] This is a great topic and I, I am curious to hear everyone's opinion on it. Yeah, so we're talking about Esports here and the news that's been making the rounds this week is that Robert Morris university they're out of Chicago I believe. They're going to be the first college they announced that they're gonna be giving out athletic scholarships, again lose term athletic, for students who play the game League of Legends. So they're essentially passing out scholarships for Esports players. The scholarships are going to be worth $19,000 a year. I'm not sure how much it costs to [CROSSTALK] Yeah, that's a drop in the bucket. Yeah, that's nothing. It's probably not a very expensive University. I don't know actually. But they're looking to hire a video game coach as well to sort of manage these kids. So, so, so this is implying that the school now has a team? Yeah, yeah, they're building a team, similar to a lot of high schools. I, which I didn't know, until I read this article. A lot of high schools have their own E-sports teams, that are broken down per game. So there'd be, you know, like a Counterstrike team, or whatever, like a Crisis team. I pretty much was on my college's Counterstrike team. They just didn't know it. Oh yeah. Just a collective team of people. Yeah. All right, so the question is what? The question is, is this a good idea? Is this gonna encourage kids to stay indoors and play video games, or is what they're claiming it to be, which is sort of a way to draw more students into the school itself, which is the point of all football scholarships. Sure. They're meant to galvanize the students around the school. Right. Is it a good idea? Is it something that we should be encouraging our kids to do? I think detractors of this idea would, would say man, we're just telling our kids that they can make an industry out of playing video games, which is. Valley can. Yeah they can. It's no different than someone who's excellent at Hockey, or soccer, or football, or basketball. Right, but to encourage it with money, does that change things? Well, I don't think it, I mean, it's not like you stop what you're doing and train so that you can get a scholarship. Maybe you do though. Maybe you do, that's a waste of time. What do you think Mark? Is it a good idea someday to say, one day you have a kid, and he says, I wanna strive to get an ESorts scholarship. Is that good? Well, I figure, I figure if you're playing that game, you have a passion for it already, and you're not gonna necessarily start playing and force yourself to like it. I mean, then at the same time, if you're so good at that game to the point where you're getting a scholarship. Mm-hm. It's probably gonna make you more social because you're already going to be tapped into all these other kids that are, you know, sharing the same passion as you. Yeah. And you get to sort of turn that into a community at school. I don't know. The thing, I'm not sure there's a level of, of sociability that there is in other conventional sports than there would be in something like league of legends. Mm-hm, okay ,what is league of legends for people that haven't heard of it? League of, its an online game im not terribly familiar with it, but its super popular. Like im not too familiar either but its, its just an MMO that's very similar too, i mean would you say its on par with wow, or. In terms of popularity, it feels like it. Yeah. Look at the, the culture of like high school you know football in some areas, and the culture of high school sports in general. I'm not sure there's, you know, and for their, you know, the people who are in, there, there is a sort of you know, cultivation that happens there where if you're on the football team and you're on varsity and it's like one of the leading high schools in the country well yeah, you're gonna get recruited. Right. I don't know how that works with the with, with Esports. Right? Yeah. Because maybe, but maybe there will be recruiting going on. Like that's, like that's to me, that's the only way you really get a scholarship, is if you get recruited. Right. Colleges have scouts, and they go out, they talk, and then all of a sudden your parents' like, house is paid off, and you're like, I guess I'm going to your school. So, I feel like with college sports, the goal is to, you're right, to get recruited and seen by a professional sports team, [CROSSTALK] So what [UNKNOWN] a similar path? But if you're in Esports, and you're really, really good at League of Legends, you could stand to make a couple million dollars a year to putting yourself out on YouTube if your channel gets popular. And, and if you're good enough you'll probably just get scouted playing the game. Do you really need the attention of a college to sort of verify. Perhaps, [UNKNOWN] then maybe you would. Maybe that's how these people will get scattered through like twitch or something. Right. Cuz I'm sure there are a lot of players that are really good at League of Legends that aren't even old enough to go to college yet. But maybe are better than the guys that are [UNKNOWN] Yeah Sure. So that to me is like the most fscinating thing, like how will this process go. Right. But in terms, of like, you know, that loose, you know, nomenclature, of athletes. Mm-hm. I mean, if your school has a chess team. Yeah. If your school has a golf team. And I'm a guy, and I'm a golfer. And I will admit. Like, it is the least physically taxing thing you can possibly do. I mean, you know, unless you're like walking the course. That's a little more tiring. Right. But come on, these are games. Right? There's sports and there's games. Golf maybe walks the line. But Chess is a game the same way that the League of Legends is a game. Bowling? Bowling is a game. It's a sport. If you need like. Is, is bowling a sport? Justin, the intern, says yes. I, I don't know, and I'm a great bowler, too. I'm a great, I'm good at games and I'm good at sports. Yeah. Is ping pong a sport? Sure. It's an olympic sport. To me, I get equally as tired playing ping pong as I do bowling. Wait, is it an olympic sport? Yeah. Yeah, so then it is a sport. Recognized by the Grecians. Right. The standard for sport declaration. It's [UNKNOWN]. I don't know man, you know? I feel like if they're gonna use it as a sort of as an academic scholarship. Right like when professional sports athletes get scholarships, they also are required to take classes along with it. Of course. And I'm hoping it's the same with this where they would if you got an Esport scholarship they would encourage you maybe to sort of pivot into a programming major. Definitely. Right or something that's loosely related, like engineering. Something that you can apply to a career after your E Sports. Yeah. Retirement comes. I know why the, I know why colleges wanna label these kids as athletes. Why? Because that would bring up the GPA of all athletes across the board. Oh you're assuming that gamers are good at academics. I'm assuming that. If they can pull themselves away from the game. [CROSSTALK] A smarter group of kids. That's, let's, maybe I'm [INAUDIBLE]. Yeah, I don't know. That, that I, I'm sort of on the fence about that. Don't get me wrong. There are very bright football, basketball, and baseball. And I know plenty of gaming dummies too. Do you? Oh yeah. I don't, but like Don't ask. I don't know anyone that's like completely, I guess like the just stupid couch potato stupid **** in their mother's basement sort of thing. I wouldn't call them all **** but a lot of them are very Yeah. And I personally know a lot of dumb gamers. Like who? Present company excluded. You want to just name names. Yeah. [LAUGH]. I want an example of a dummy that you're just like get your life together you maggot.". I mean, they're not stupid. They're just too lazy to apply themselves, I guess, to get a good job. laziness and intelligence aren't necessarily opposites. Right. but, those both effect your GPA negatively. That's an interesting study. I'd want to see. What was your GPA in college? I don't even know. I need to know right now. Yeah, let me bring that up. You can bring it up. No, I'm, I, I've no idea. Does anyone care about your GPA in college? I think they do. Unless your going to medical school. Every now and then, I'll like see someone resume. [INAUDIBLE] school GPA. And they have their, their college GPA on their resume. Oh, yeah, I don't do that. Justin, do you that? I think that's like a young person thing. Once you ,you get a job for the first time, you put your GPA down. No? Never did? Not either. Not either. No, and look, he got hired. That's cuz he has a bad GPA! And look and he [CROSSTALK] No, no my GPA isn't bad actually. Yeah? I don't believe it. It's just, I fig, especially like applying for this, I figured Mark just wouldn't care. [LAUGH] It's true. He's very, he's, he's, he's very open. Yeah. To all kinds of, of smarties and dummies. It's based more off what you actually do versus you know, oh, you're good at math. Right. But I'm gonna apply for video productions. Yeah. You know. Right, you could have a 4.0, but if you're, if you're not a normal person that can actually socialize and work together with others, you're pretty much useless. All right. So I think we learned a lot there. I want to know more about Esports players. It'd be great to get somebody on the show to interview that, that makes a lot of money on one of those services. I mean, I definitely have access to people like that. Yeah, let's get them on, let's talk about this kind of thing. Is that what you want? Yeah, yeah. Because we've been talking way more about Esports lately and I'm sure there was a big presence at E3 this year, right? I mean, they're building whole arenas and stadiums for this kinda thing. Yeah, but you know, it's still not as popular in America as it is overseas, but it's getting there and Twitch is huge, MLG, that's huge. Yeah. You know, I, you know, it still kinda escapes me though. We had that one, or you guys had that one on, I think it was last winter. Who won some tournament on Twitch. And you had him on the next day, or something like that. no, no, no, that was the, the MLB 2K. Right. Right. The, the 2K contest, the kid won a million bucks, like pitching a perfect game, and. Yeah. Some 19 year old kid It's amazing how well he pushes those buttons. Yeah, he really knows how to push buttons. Okay, so that's gaming maybe in the future we'll get someone on it if you want to talk to him about it. Yeah like It's not going to be me doing it. I have a friend Or her I have a friend who is a massively successful poker player online. Oh, what the hell then? And I just don't get it. You just don't get how he makes money? But would you consider him an e-athlete? I guess so, he's made most of his money online. Is that all he does for a living? Yeah, pretty much. Call him a professional poker player Oh he's definitely a professional, that goes without saying. He was, he's a ranked notable person. Well, that's cool. Don't put that on your resume though. I guess, right? I don't know. I guess I would, right? That's what he did. Depends on the job you're applying for. Yeah. Interesting. All right. So, let's talk a little bit more about our summer vacation cuz we're going on a few, right? We, we're taking some time off this summer. Where, where are you going? I'm going to Hawaii in August. Oh right, of course, yes, you've talked about your itinerary and whatnot. Yeah. I'm really excited about that. I forget the exact date. Eh, that's not important. [CROSSTALK]. It's on the calendar, and I'll let you know when it comes closer. But I'm gonna be going to Hawaii, and you're going to be take another trip or two, right? Yeah, I'm going down to the Jersey shore in August. It is a season for traveling. You know, I would say that hitchhiking is probably the worst way to travel, arguably the most dangerous. Yeah. Pretty fun. Have you ever hitchhiked before? I've never like done the traditional thumb out the window. Yeah. Or not the window, but like on the side of the street. Mm-hm. Never gave the old, you know? Some move Never did that. what do you call that? Is there a, is there like technical term for the For the thumb? For like the thumbs up but to the side? Yeah. I don't know. I've only done that once. Yeah. And it was when I was on a bike trip in Staten Island Sort of like I got a flat tire and had to do that. You did? Yeah. What is that maneuver called. It's just like jerking off the wind a little bit. If you will. What? I don't think that's what you call it. No, I'm sure that's not [CROSSTALK] And why is your thumb out if you're doing that? Yeah, I don't know. [LAUGH] That's how the wind likes it. [LAUGH] How about just rolling the dice? You call it that. You [UNKNOWN] call it jerking off the wind. Oh yeah. Oh, so it's like a mouthful there. Yeah, this is sort of, plugging, yeah, like hole plugging. Hole plugging. Anyway so. What were we talking about? The hitchhiking. Hitchhiking. Right, right. You guys ever hitchhiked before? [CROSSTALK] You guys ever you ever jerked off the old wind? I'm gonna try to make that a new thing. Make it happen. scenarios. I've I've gotten rides from strangers before. Oh yeah In college, not my proudest moment but I've done it. It's cool. Yeah What about you guys? You ever live on the edge? I've never hitchhiked but I've picked up, well my family has picked up like two hitchhikers. Oh that's weird. Both women. Oh that's weird yeah. So what. There's nothing to do about it. No, I'm just saying. They both women. Yeah, but that's an extra bit information that you can take whatever you want. If I were a woman I would never hitchhike. I think is way more dangerous for a woman to hitchhike, probably is why you see less of them. Yeah, but I figure if you were with a family, like you hitchhike and you see that you know, two adults have a kid, or two kids on the back sit, that's a little bit more comforting. yeah, I don't know. I consider myself really like skilled at sizing people up. Not you know just like what kinda person they are. Like love making first. Judging people. You're like I'm really good at judging people, is what you think. I, I think I am. Okay. I truly think I am, and I have like a personal success rate of around 78%. Just like how you're a great driver. Yeah, well that's 100, but I'm really, you know, I take a lot of pride in that. And I still would never pick up a hitchhiker. I would never, I would just never. There's just, you just, you never know. What was that girl's story that you picked up, both women, do you remember their stories? Where were they going? Yeah, and were their thumbs out? I can't remember the thumbs, I mean, this was, this was, I was maybe six. Uh-huh. Six was maybe the last time this happened, That's interesting, your parents are letting [CROSSTALK] I think she was, she was running, she was in like athletic gear. Oh she like hurt herself, or something. She was sweaty and I don't know. Oh no, my legs broken. She's like, I ran too far, I'm too lazy to walk, to run back, [LAUGH] so let me just hitchhike. I don't know. [UNKNOWN] Forest Gumbo. That got tired. Alright, so that's strange, especially like, your parents are like, oh, here's our six year old in the back. Yeah. Let's teach little Mark how things really operate in the wild west. Right. And they picked up, I think they just, they just felt bad for her. I don't know your parents are total humanitarians. Yeah, so where is this all going? Why are we talking about weird hitchhiking experiences? Because up in Canada, there is a robot, a robit, I'm sorry, that just got developed, called Hitch Bot. Oh my God, he's adorable. It was, yeah I know. It was developed by a roboticist at Ryerson University up in Canada. He built the Hitch Bot sort of as a social experiment to test how humans interact with robots. See, I think most of the time when you hear about robots discussed in the news, it's always about, can we trust the robot? But he's sort of flipping it around and asking the question, can robots trust humans? And just to be clear, that is a Photoshopped picture. That is a PhotoShopped picture. It is? Love the robot standing on the side of the street. But that is what the robot looks like. So, they just took a picture of the robot and then superimposed it. I mean, it's just basically a trash bin with arms and feet. That's exactly what it is. But it was designed to look non-threatening on purpose. So now the idea is that the robot will, will, will use it's thumb. Yeah. And then someone. And people will come pick it up. Yeah. Literally pick it up. Yeah. It's light enough to get picked up [CROSSTALK] so it's important for any hitchhiker. So is it gonna say like hi, my name is whatever? Yeah so it's cool. Switch back to that screen cuz I think it's so cute here. He's adorable. He's made out of a bucket, literally, and it's wearing gardening gloves, like those bright yellow gardening gloves, or dishwashing gloves, with rain boots too. It's like, It can get rainy out there. It's like a bucket has the worst outfit ever. Yeah, and its arms are made out of pool noodles. Nice. There's a cake saver on top of the bucket to sort of house the computer inside of it. And it's adorable on purpose. Because if you had a really realistic looking robot, it would probably freak out a lot of people, and not get picked up. I feel like despite those rain boots attempting to, like, combat the rain, Yes. I feel like they would get filled up really quickly, look at those holes. Yeah. With water. With water [INAUDIBLE] They're like giant water buckets. I want to see before and after shots of Mister Bucket. I don't think Mister Bucket would be too light after a rainstorm. [LAUGH] I don't know if, I don't know if he'd be able to be picked up. He's too cute though. I can't yell at him. He's too cute. What is that sticking out of the middle of his body though. That's, that's a tripod. Why does he have a third leg. Cuz he ain't gonna stand. It's a tripod. What is, what's that made out of though. Is that just a plunger stick. Titanium. Weird. Anyway. So the robot can speak using microphone built into it's mouth. And it can also Wait a minute. What? Yeah. The robot can speak Yeah. using a microphone built into it's mouth. Yeah. So it can hear and speak. Oh, what does it say? [CROSSTALK] You were acting like it has a voice, it needs to be microphone. Yeah, yeah so it can listen to you and then speak back. So it can respond. It can respond. That's cool. And the way that it was programmed. One of the coders programmed the entire Wikipedia website into this robot's brain. So that's where it's drawing all of its knowledge [CROSSTALK] Oh my God, the most annoying shotgun passenger you could possibly [CROSSTALK]. Know it all, yeah. Yes, what lake did we just pass robot? How many? How deep is it? How many cubic [CROSSTALK] [LAUGH]. Did you know? Get out of the car. He's only going to make it 100 feet at a time. Yeah. [LAUGH] And a lot of misinformation on Wikipedia. Right. So here's what they are going to do. They're gonna place it on the side of the road in Halifax on July 27th. That's in three days. They're gonna put it on the side of the road in Halifax, which is way on the East coast of Canada. Hitch bot. Hitch bot. It's gonna try to make it's way to Victoria, which is 4000 miles, all the way across, Victoria is all the way across, so Victoria is right above Washington I think? Vancouver? East to West, basically the entire width of the country. Cool, so is he gonna be like, ake me to Victoria, or is he going to plan out the most reasonable... Amount of distances [CROSSTALK] considering the person. [UNKNOWN] Starts speaking french at one point, too. To adapt. He could. To adapt. [LAUGH] I think I think the goal is to just get picked up and dropped off wherever, you know? Like, I'll take you as far as whatever, and then he'll probably drop him off. That'll probably be in the southern regions where [LAUGH] people talk like that. This is the cutest part, though. So the first thing that the hitch-bot will do when it jumps into a car is ask the driver if he can plug it into the cigarette ? Aw. Lighter to charge its batteries. Yeah, that's so cute. To whoever gets it picked up. Mind if we top off? [LAUGH]. Yeah. Why do all robots have that voice? They'd better not ever sound more human than that, or I'm gonna be upset. Yeah. That's cool. I like it. You can track it though. That's a good idea. You can follow it on instagram, twitter @hitchbot and then go to hitchbot.me to follow it on the website. July 27th that's when Hitchbot hits the road. I'm excited. I shall follow Hitchbot. You think it's a good idea or will someone just throw it into the nearest lake? No, someone's gonna run it over. [CROSSTALK] I feel like somebody's just gonna pull it's, just gonna yank it's cord out,. Yeah. And then it'll just die a slow death. Right? And leak oil or something. [LAUGH]. Yeah, oh, I don't think it will make it very far either. Awe, poor little guy. I hope. It will be covered in trash. You know what though, Canadian's are way better people than we are. That's true. So this thing, this thing will have, it will be polished by the time it gets to Western Canada. It will have like money taped all over it's body. Yeah, [LAUGH] It will be fine. [UNKNOWN] medals around its neck and what not, it'll somehow be like the governor of one of those provinces. Yea [LAUGH] It'll be fine. It'll be fine. I'm not worried about it. Hitchbot, you're fine. Check it out. Alright last story of the day kids. Last story of the day. I think this is really cool. So we're starting to use our ears more with our electronics, right? That's my intro to the story. Ears, so hot right now in technology. [LAUGH] We start to use our ears more. Yeah, we're, and it's not just [CROSSTALK]. Someone's gotta make a collection of like your best stuff. That, this is just, I mean. None of the stories are connected, so I have to do my own transitions. We're not just using our ears for music in our devices any more, right? [LAUGH] Right. And sometimes there's a lot of noises that you wish you couldn't listen to, that you couldn't hear. Okay. well, again technology is here to save us from that stuff, so there's a sound designer. He, right now he owns one of the largest hearing aid companies in the world and they just put out a different design for a new earpiece called Sound Hawk. Okay. So you remember in the movie Her? With Joaquin Phoenix? Sure. They all had those earpieces. Yeah. That constantly respond to their commands. Correct, yeah. Well Sound Hawk is sort of like that. Cool. And here's a picture of it. It's a way to tune out the noises around you. It's a wearable earpiece. Looks a lot like, sort of a paired down version of your traditional Bluetooth wireless headset. Sure. It's $299 on sale right now. And our own Nick [INAUDIBLE] actually reviewed it for CNET. It pairs with your phone by Bluetooth version 2, I believe. And then there's an app that you can download for your phone. And when you fire up the phone, there's actually four pre-sets. One for indoors, outdoors, dining and driving. And each of those profiles sort of have their own presets for it on what noises to drowned out. So you can also adjust it to, if you want, minute sort of little adjustments. You can you know, boost up the highs or, or lower it. Boost up the bass. All different frequencies are acceptable to the app. And so the idea is, yeah, if you go into a bar or something like that and you can't hear your partner or someone that you're with, maybe you can tune out those sounds yourself. It's only in mono, of course, because it's only one ear piece. But that's the, that's the basic concept. I don't get it. You don't get it? No. Everything you just said, I'm not, I, I still don't know what this product does. What do you mean? I just don't get it. So okay, let's say we're hearing construction in the studio right now, right. If, if you were in here trying to work or something and we weren't broadcasting, you could. By fiddling around with the app a little bit. Hopefully drown out that sound and concentrate on, on like a video you're playing on your computer, for example. But I have two ears. You could do that. You will still hear it in your other ear. It's my point exactly. Yeah, yeah, that's the problem. Maybe it's like if you don't like the sound of cars honking. Yeah. And you drown that out, so that you don't get hit by a car. But it's also meant to boost noises that you want to hear. So, voices for example if you ever, if you ever have trouble listening to that in the video. It's like a hearing aid sort of. Yeah, basically like a hearing aid. Did Nick write about the two ear issue? I don't think he did. Because to me and look, That's why a regular hearing aid is always gonna be better than something like this. And I'm no doctor. Mm-mm. But for a hearing aid. You just wanna hear. Right. Right? Like you're not selective. You're just like, I need, the world has passed me by. Mm-hm. I need to hear everything fine. Mm-hm. But for this, you're trying to drown out stuff. Yeah. You're only gonna get half the picture. I think it's more for boosting up the sounds you're having trouble hearing. Gotcha. So in, in the video the guy sorta sits down at a big table and he's having a hard time hearing all the other people there eating, and so the the sound hawk also comes with an external microphone too. And so he puts that into the center of the table. Gotcha. Oh wow. Now I can hear everybody. Okay. That means you don't have to shout especially if you're the only one that has the sound doc. That's an excellent example. But that, yeah, that's one of them. I'm not sure how the drowning the other sounds actually works. You're right that doesn't really make sense if you have only one of them in. Strange, right? And, I don't know if you're gonna have an easy time picking out the exact frequency that you wanna drown out. Right, sounds like it would be a tough thing to do If you're not like an audiologist or something like that it would be difficult. Alright, we'll make sure you head over to cnet.com where Nick Stat wrote more words than I thought anybody could possibly write about such a subject. Pretty big. He did it. A pretty big article. But go check it out. And you can find out more about Sound Hawk, which I've decided is the coolest thing about the product is the name. You think that's the best part? [Laugh] Yep. That's about it. But we'll see. We shall see. All right, that's it for us today. Shoot us an email at 404@cnet.com. And if you like free things, we don't say this enough, we should probably start saying this at the beginning of the show, at the top of the hour, when people are most engaged but nevertheless I'll repeat myself here. We're giving away free stuff compliments of Mr. Steve Guttenberg. Really awesome amp, a set of headphones, and also more 404 prize pack stuff. All you gotta do is come up with a fake Tinder account for me, Justin, and Ariel. That's right. Fake, now not the actual account, no one has to create an account, just make. Don't do that. Yeah, please, do not do that, I mean. Yeah, don't do that. Just make a fake little Photoshop thing. We have about a dozen entries that are pretty good that, that are in consideration, but we're giving everyone the rest of the summer to do it. So shoot us an email before the404@cnet.com and attach your submission for your chance to win. Approaching $200 worth of awesome prizes. Alright that's it. We're back tomorrow with a Google I/O wrap up. And then we'll see you then, a little later in the afternoon tomorrow. Until then, I'm Jeff Bakalar. And I'm Justin Yu. I'm Mark [UNKNOWN]. Thanks to Mark [UNKNOWN] for filling in. Ariel should be back tomorrow. Until then, this is the 404 Show. High tech, low brow. Have an awesome Tuesday. We'll see you tomorrow.

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