Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: Diamond executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech are
Speaker 1: you well. On Monday, I did an episode about some
Speaker 1: of the tech community's April Fools gags this year, and
Speaker 1: I mentioned the Razor, a computer mouse that doubles as
Speaker 1: an electric razor from the company Razor. That was, of
Speaker 1: course just a joke. No such device exists, but I
Speaker 1: also mentioned how Razor, the company behind the gag, has
Speaker 1: a history of introducing product concepts at events like cees
Speaker 1: that never really seemed to go anywhere, and that convinced
Speaker 1: me to do a quick episode to talk about a
Speaker 1: few of razors vaporware products. So first, let's define a
Speaker 1: couple of terms. Vaporware refers to an announced but as
Speaker 1: of yet unreleased product. Vaporware can cover hardware or software,
Speaker 1: and typically we reserve the word for products that are
Speaker 1: either taking longer to come to market than was expected,
Speaker 1: or ones from a company that has a reputation for
Speaker 1: failing to release stuff. And I've done lots of episodes
Speaker 1: about vaporware in the past. For years, the quintessential example
Speaker 1: of vaporware was Duke Newcombe Forever. It was a game
Speaker 1: that was in development for fourteen years. Many gamers were
Speaker 1: convinced that the Duke Newcomb's sequel was never going to
Speaker 1: come out, and when it finally did a lot of
Speaker 1: folks wish it had not come out. Now. I never
Speaker 1: played Duke Nwcombe Forever myself. I did play Duke Nwcombe
Speaker 1: three D. The reviews I read for Duke nukembe Forever
Speaker 1: were pretty darn harsh. Anyway, While I don't intend to
Speaker 1: put Razor on blast or anything, I thought it might
Speaker 1: be interesting to look at some of the concepts the
Speaker 1: company has shown off that have yet to materialize, and
Speaker 1: that brings us to the other term here, like concept.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the word prototype is used. Concept and prototype those
Speaker 1: are words that should not immediately lead us to use vaporware.
Speaker 1: It might be unfair for me to use that term,
Speaker 1: because really these are ideas. They are sometimes the materialization
Speaker 1: of an idea, but it's not necessarily an idea that's
Speaker 1: meant to go into production. So I should clarify that
Speaker 1: when Razor shows off these concepts, it's doing so without
Speaker 1: the express promise that this is going to become a
Speaker 1: commercial product down the line. So I could be sitting
Speaker 1: here arguing, Hey, it stinks because this thing Razor showed
Speaker 1: off never came out, and Razor could legit say we
Speaker 1: never said it was going to come out. This was
Speaker 1: kind of a proof of concept and we just thought
Speaker 1: it was really interesting and we shared it with the world.
Speaker 1: And that's fair because they did not promise that it
Speaker 1: was going to be a product. One other thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind is that some of these things may
Speaker 1: still come out as a product, or at least have
Speaker 1: some of their features worked into a product in the future,
Speaker 1: and it might be that that product is not as
Speaker 1: flashy or capable as the concept was, but it could
Speaker 1: still show that that concept served as a guideline for
Speaker 1: certain features of products in the future. Some vaporware, like
Speaker 1: the infamous Phantom Console, never materializes, and others like Duke
Speaker 1: Nukem forever eventually clawed their way into reality and often
Speaker 1: don't measure up to expectations. So this is not me
Speaker 1: saying that the following Razor concepts will definitely never ever
Speaker 1: come out or materialize in some meaningful way. All right,
Speaker 1: So Razor does have a history of showing off concepts
Speaker 1: at CES that, as I record this, have yet to
Speaker 1: actually become a product, and it does raise some questions
Speaker 1: like why would you show off a concept that you
Speaker 1: do not plan to bring to market? Now, there are
Speaker 1: a few potential answers for this. Maybe the answer is
Speaker 1: that Razor is considering bringing these things to market and
Speaker 1: just hasn't pulled the trigger yet and needs to gauge interest,
Speaker 1: Or that the company may still be fine tuning the
Speaker 1: design and that the concept as it stands isn't practical
Speaker 1: for a finished product, that things need to be tweaked.
Speaker 1: Maybe the plan is just to stand out in a
Speaker 1: very crowded field of competition at big events like CES,
Speaker 1: because these concepts always seem to garner a lot of
Speaker 1: media attention and that can be hard to come by.
Speaker 1: Like if you ever visit CES, it is such a
Speaker 1: huge show with thousands of companies exhibiting at CS that
Speaker 1: finding any way to grab attention becomes a big driver
Speaker 1: for a lot of these companies. Otherwise they're just sitting
Speaker 1: there as countless people walk past their booth. But let's
Speaker 1: start with a concept that came out several years ago,
Speaker 1: so way back in twenty fourteen, Razor showed off a
Speaker 1: modular desktop computer concept called Project Christine. The foundation for
Speaker 1: this concept was a simple tower chassis. It had no front,
Speaker 1: had no back, it didn't even have sides. It was
Speaker 1: just sort of a vertical rectangular stand and the corners
Speaker 1: were a little bit rounded off, so it wasn't like
Speaker 1: a sharp rectangle, but imagine a vertical rectangular stand that's
Speaker 1: empty in the middle. This served as a rack, and
Speaker 1: in this rack you could plug in modules that would
Speaker 1: serve as different computer components. One might be dedicated to RAM,
Speaker 1: for example, or the CPU, or maybe more specific things
Speaker 1: like LED controls, and you would be able to install
Speaker 1: and uninstall these modules really easily. You just essentially plug
Speaker 1: and play hot swapping if you wanted to, so you
Speaker 1: could theoretically quickly swap out parts to upgrade your machine. Though,
Speaker 1: because these modules were being made by Razor and so
Speaker 1: was the chassis, presumably you would have to get everything
Speaker 1: from Razor to upgrade your machine. So let's say that
Speaker 1: there's a new faster CPU on the market. If it
Speaker 1: was just available in general but not from Razor, you'd
Speaker 1: probably be stuck because you had to use this modular approach.
Speaker 1: It's almost like plugging cassettes in in a way. Also,
Speaker 1: the concept used mineral oil as a coolant, so a
Speaker 1: module near the base of the chassis act as a
Speaker 1: reservoir for mineral oil, and then each module that would
Speaker 1: attach to the chassis also had its own little pump
Speaker 1: system to pump mineral oil through the module and thus
Speaker 1: cool it down as it operated, which was a really
Speaker 1: neat concept. I imagine it would really appeal to people
Speaker 1: who wanted a bit more flexibility with their desktop computers,
Speaker 1: but who were not yet comfortable at building their own
Speaker 1: or swapping out their own components, because that is a
Speaker 1: big step for people. Right, you have your average consumer
Speaker 1: who just wants something that works, and they buy their computer,
Speaker 1: and then over time their computer is getting outpaced by
Speaker 1: the complexity of software demands and you need to upgrade. Well,
Speaker 1: those folks are probably more likely to buy a new
Speaker 1: computer than they are to open up their machine and
Speaker 1: swap out components, because that's an intimidating step for someone
Speaker 1: who's never done it before. This concept project Christine created
Speaker 1: kind of a stepping stone toward that, this modular approach
Speaker 1: where it seems much more intuitive and simple and harder
Speaker 1: to screw up, so that the average person would say, oh,
Speaker 1: I just need to pull this module out, plug this
Speaker 1: new module in, and I'm good to go. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the concept was really intriguing, but we never got a
Speaker 1: production model of Christine, which might be for the best
Speaker 1: because if Christine the computer gained sentience and then developed
Speaker 1: romantic feelings for you, then Stephen King would have to
Speaker 1: write Christine too, this time she's a computer. The next
Speaker 1: razor concept made me say, won't you come on over?
Speaker 1: Stop making a fool out of me? Why don't you
Speaker 1: come on over Project Valerie. That's a shout out to
Speaker 1: the late Amy Winehouse. So yes, we're going to now
Speaker 1: talk about Project Valerie. We're skipping up to twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: at this point. By the way, I got to see
Speaker 1: Project Christine and I got to see Project Valerie because
Speaker 1: this was back in the time when I was still
Speaker 1: going to CS. Well. This was during a time where
Speaker 1: we were getting a trend where companies were trying to
Speaker 1: make laptops and experiment with having multiple screens built into
Speaker 1: that laptop. I remember seeing a few concept laptops around
Speaker 1: that time that were extra chunky, and the reason for
Speaker 1: that extra chunk was that the laptop hit a second display,
Speaker 1: typically housed inside the casing of the main display, so
Speaker 1: like you would pop it out and it would stand
Speaker 1: off to the side, so you would extend this secondary
Speaker 1: display out and then bam, you've got a laptop with
Speaker 1: two displays or two monitors. That was not good enough
Speaker 1: a Razor and Project Valerie was a gaming laptop with
Speaker 1: three displays. Not only that each screen measured seventeen point
Speaker 1: three inches that those are big displays for a laptop,
Speaker 1: and all three had four K resolution. Deployed, the s
Speaker 1: could create a one hundred eighty degree viewing arc, giving
Speaker 1: gamers a really immersive perspective. That is, if the game
Speaker 1: supported that kind of setup, it would. Razor told booth
Speaker 1: visitors that if they wanted to learn more, they could
Speaker 1: sign up for updates. I do not think I signed up.
Speaker 1: CS is a really busy time, but I did a
Speaker 1: little digging for this episode and I didn't find any update,
Speaker 1: So I imagine Project Valerie is fairly dormant at the moment. Now,
Speaker 1: there are dual screen laptops out there, most of them
Speaker 1: are not side by side screens. Instead, what you get
Speaker 1: as you open up your laptop, and then at the
Speaker 1: base of your primary display you have a touch display
Speaker 1: that is kind of it's above the keyboard and at
Speaker 1: the base of the primary display. Sometimes it will even
Speaker 1: tilt up a little bit so that you have a
Speaker 1: little touch screen that you can use to do something.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't get this. I've never found one of
Speaker 1: these laptops to be useful for the way I use computers.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean they're not useful. It just means that
Speaker 1: the way I use computers, and to be frank, I'm
Speaker 1: old and I'm setting my ways the way I use computers,
Speaker 1: it just doesn't gel with this. I've said this before
Speaker 1: in the past too. I feel the same way about
Speaker 1: laptop computers that have a touch display built into them,
Speaker 1: where the display you're looking at is also a touchscreen.
Speaker 1: I don't ever use that, Like, I don't have a
Speaker 1: computer that currently has that, and the few times where
Speaker 1: I've worked on a laptop that has that, it's just
Speaker 1: it's the last thing in my mind. It just doesn't
Speaker 1: work for me. So it may very well be that
Speaker 1: some of y'all out there have one of these dual
Speaker 1: display laptops where you have like that very wide but
Speaker 1: short display, I guess, and it goes across the entire
Speaker 1: with the laptop, but it's not very tall. In other words,
Speaker 1: maybe some of y'all out there have laptops like that
Speaker 1: that are incredibly useful, and that's cool. It's just one
Speaker 1: of those where I could not find a use for it.
Speaker 1: But that's more common, right. You can find dual screen
Speaker 1: laptops like that out there. They aren't the norm, but
Speaker 1: they exist, and they are more frequent than say a
Speaker 1: side by side display laptop. There are also aftermarket products
Speaker 1: that let you mount extra displays to your laptop screen
Speaker 1: and effectively turn it into a multidisplay laptop. These typically
Speaker 1: will plug into a USB port, often a USBC port,
Speaker 1: so you can dy your own Project Valerie laptop if
Speaker 1: you so desire, though, I would definitely watch some videos
Speaker 1: online first to get an idea if it's right for you,
Speaker 1: before you PLoP down the cash for them. One video
Speaker 1: I saw showed that if you had a laptop with
Speaker 1: a fairly large screen, it was hard to find a
Speaker 1: solution that worked properly for that. It don't work better
Speaker 1: for middle sized laptops. But I don't have one of
Speaker 1: these I haven't used it myself, so I can't really,
Speaker 1: you know, comment on it one way or the other. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about some more concepts slash vaporware
Speaker 1: from Razor. Okay, we're back now. Project Valerie was shown
Speaker 1: off in twenty seventeen, but that wasn't the only concept
Speaker 1: that Razor had for folks visiting their booth that year
Speaker 1: at CES. They had another one called Project Arianna. Also,
Speaker 1: you'll notice, you know, Project Christine, Project Valerie, project Ariana.
Speaker 1: Razor names its projects after traditionally female names. If Project
Speaker 1: Valerie was asking the question, hey, wouldn't it be cool
Speaker 1: if your laptop had three screens, Project Ariana asked the question, Hey,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be cool if you could turn the wall
Speaker 1: behind your computer into a giant screen. So basically, Project
Speaker 1: Ariana was a four K projector that would connect to
Speaker 1: your computer, and you would have this projector pointed at
Speaker 1: the wall behind your computer, and the projector would display
Speaker 1: images on that wall, essentially creating a wall sized display.
Speaker 1: It couldn't magically extend your view necessarily, though it could
Speaker 1: give that impression. The projector used a fisheye lens to
Speaker 1: create a one hundred and fifty five degree projection. It
Speaker 1: also supported depth sensing cameras, which Razor said meant that
Speaker 1: the projector would be able to detect objects that were
Speaker 1: in between the computer and the wall and thus adjust
Speaker 1: the projection so that it could compensate for any obstacle.
Speaker 1: So if you had like a chair between you and
Speaker 1: the wall, or maybe it's another table or a little
Speaker 1: brother or something, you know, the cameras on this projector
Speaker 1: would detect that and adjust the projection so that it
Speaker 1: would be flat from your perspective, right, so you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have these weird distortions in your view due to the
Speaker 1: obstacles in place. I don't know if that actually worked
Speaker 1: or if that was just an idea, but that was
Speaker 1: what they said. So it's kind of like a very
Speaker 1: low technology version of three D mapping. You know. That's
Speaker 1: the type of art that you see where there's a
Speaker 1: projection against a permanent structure like a building, where the
Speaker 1: animation creates these really really powerful and compelling effects on
Speaker 1: actual structures. You know, I've seen somewhere it makes it
Speaker 1: look like a building crumbles down into nothing. And then
Speaker 1: rebuilds itself as a fantasy structure. It's cool stuff. It
Speaker 1: was kind of supposed to be able to do that
Speaker 1: at a very low end. Now. Really, Project Ariana was
Speaker 1: more about showcasing a product Razor already had called Razor Chroma.
Speaker 1: This is Raizel's technology that aims to incorporate hardware into
Speaker 1: the experiences of gaming through lighting. So think of stuff
Speaker 1: like a backlit keyboard or a gaming mouse has LED
Speaker 1: elements worked into it. Chroma would aim to match the
Speaker 1: colors and patterns of light on these devices to accompany
Speaker 1: whatever game or movie or whatever you were running on
Speaker 1: your computer, so that the experience of that media would
Speaker 1: extend beyond the media itself. It wouldn't just be you
Speaker 1: playing this game, be your keyboard is enhancing that experience.
Speaker 1: And it's a nifty concept like one where there's this
Speaker 1: enticing idea of the game experience extending out into the
Speaker 1: real world in some way. Virtual reality kind of takes
Speaker 1: that on the other direction, but it's the same general concept, right,
Speaker 1: incorporating us into the game experience in new way. So
Speaker 1: Ariana was really meant to show off Chroma at large scale.
Speaker 1: It just, you know, never became a product of its own.
Speaker 1: Something that did become a product, though only for a
Speaker 1: short time, was the Razor phone. Now, I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about the R A z R Razor phones, the ones
Speaker 1: that were originally made by Motorola. They were very popular
Speaker 1: a couple of decades ago in the time before smartphones.
Speaker 1: The Razor flip phones were like a must have accessory
Speaker 1: for a lot of people of a certain generation. I
Speaker 1: was never cool enough to have one, So instead I'm
Speaker 1: talking about Razor R A Z er phones. These were
Speaker 1: Android based smartphones that Razor produced. Starting in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Razor acquired another company that was in the smartphone business
Speaker 1: and then started to use that company's technology to produce
Speaker 1: phone with Razor branding on them. Now, Razor only made
Speaker 1: two models of their phone, and the Razor three model
Speaker 1: was apparently shelved, and from what we can tell, it's
Speaker 1: shelved permanently. But in twenty eighteen, Razor took the opportunity
Speaker 1: to create a concept that further promoted its brand new smartphone,
Speaker 1: so the Razor one was introduced in the end of
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. Ces twenty eighteen, they come out with Project Linda.
Speaker 1: Now At a glance, Linda looked like a typical laptop computer,
Speaker 1: but it really wasn't a computer. It was a dumb terminal.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, just a place for you to
Speaker 1: plug a phone into. Really, so the secret to Linda
Speaker 1: was that it would get its processing power and capabilities
Speaker 1: from a razor phone. So if you were to look
Speaker 1: down at the keyboard of Project Linda, you would see
Speaker 1: that where the touchpad normally would be on a laptop computer,
Speaker 1: there was kind of an indentation, and it was a
Speaker 1: space where you could plug a razor phone into the
Speaker 1: machine and the phone would act as your touchpad, but
Speaker 1: it would also actually be the brains of the laptop,
Speaker 1: and really the laptop would just become a new interface
Speaker 1: for your phone. It was a dock. In other words,
Speaker 1: it was a smartphone dock. And there were actually a
Speaker 1: few computer concepts from different companies around this same time
Speaker 1: that used a similar idea that you would have a
Speaker 1: smartphone doc that would allow you to tap into your
Speaker 1: phone's processing power but use it like a computer, which
Speaker 1: would be arguably better for cases of stuff like like
Speaker 1: productivity software. It's way easier to type on a laptop
Speaker 1: than on your typical smartphone, and these docks would have
Speaker 1: their own battery. Obviously, they'd have a keyboard, and they'd
Speaker 1: have a larger screen, but otherwise they would rely on
Speaker 1: the smartphone to provide the oomph behind comput This was
Speaker 1: also around the era of ultra light laptops. This was
Speaker 1: an evolution of the teeny tiny netbooks that had come
Speaker 1: the decade before. Netbooks were extremely portable computers, but they
Speaker 1: were also a nuisance to use because they were so small,
Speaker 1: they had really cramped keyboards. It was hard to use
Speaker 1: them and not feel uncomfortable. So ultra lights kind of
Speaker 1: followed along behind that, and you can even find a
Speaker 1: few companies that sell these sort of smartphone doc style
Speaker 1: laptops today. But Project Linda was clearly more about promoting
Speaker 1: the Razor Phone than it was about actually selling a
Speaker 1: smartphone doc itself. Now, as you no doubt have already
Speaker 1: gathered by the fact that I've included Project Linda in
Speaker 1: this episode, it never saw the light of day. But
Speaker 1: more than that, Razor would actually abandon its smartphone production entirely.
Speaker 1: The company did release the Razor Phone two in late
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, so you know ces happens in January of
Speaker 1: each year, so this would have been well after they
Speaker 1: had showed off Project Linda. They came out with the
Speaker 1: Razor Phone two. But then after that thing's kind of
Speaker 1: wound down when the Phone three did not emerge in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. The original excuse we were given the reason
Speaker 1: for its delay was that Razor was waiting on five
Speaker 1: G network deployment, that the five G networks were slower
Speaker 1: in rolling out than Razor had anticipated, and rather than
Speaker 1: release a phone that had limited utility, they would wait
Speaker 1: for more five G coverage. That was the excuse. I mean,
Speaker 1: I get that, but at the same time, it does
Speaker 1: seem like it's an excuse because presumably the phone had
Speaker 1: the capability of tapping into LTE networks, because I mean,
Speaker 1: even with full deployment, five G was going to have
Speaker 1: spots that it wasn't going to reach, So you could
Speaker 1: roll the phone out early and then five G capability
Speaker 1: would come online once the networks were in place. But whatever.
Speaker 1: Slash Gear actually published an article in twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: that showed photos of a supposed Razor Phone three. It
Speaker 1: was at least a phone that had the Razor logo
Speaker 1: on the back of it. Though of course that could
Speaker 1: have been faked, and it did have differences from the
Speaker 1: previous two Razor phone models, but it didn't look that different.
Speaker 1: So in other words, it had a couple of features
Speaker 1: that set it apart, So it obviously was a different phone,
Speaker 1: but it didn't set it apart so much that it
Speaker 1: looked truly innovative. So in that article, slash Gear ends
Speaker 1: up saying that, well, maybe the problem was that Razor
Speaker 1: determined that they were slowing down in innovation with the
Speaker 1: phones and that it just wasn't going to live up
Speaker 1: to expectations. It wasn't going to compete in the market
Speaker 1: against flagship smartphones from other companies, and so they decided
Speaker 1: to hold the plug on the whole division. They've been
Speaker 1: pretty quiet on that front ever since. The Razor continued
Speaker 1: to support the earlier phone models, so at least people
Speaker 1: who had a Razor Phone or Razor Phone two didn't
Speaker 1: immediately find their devices unsupported. In twenty nineteen, Razor actually
Speaker 1: took a little bit of a breather with their Blue
Speaker 1: Sky concepts. They still had plenty of things to show
Speaker 1: off at ces, right, like, they brought new products in
Speaker 1: to show people, but these were things that were actually
Speaker 1: real products or soon to become real products. So there's
Speaker 1: no fun in that, right, Like, we can't talk about
Speaker 1: all these crazy things that Razor showed off but never produced,
Speaker 1: so we're got to skip ahead. And boy, howdy did
Speaker 1: Razor go hard In twenty twenty. That was the year
Speaker 1: that the company showed off the Razor Erasing Simulator concept.
Speaker 1: No female name for this one. This thing, however, is
Speaker 1: massive and you should look up pictures or video of this,
Speaker 1: the Razor Eracing simulator. It consists of a big metal
Speaker 1: frame that holds everything together. You got yourself a racing chair,
Speaker 1: so it's a gamer chair in the race car style
Speaker 1: that's mounted on a sturdy hydraulic platform so the platform
Speaker 1: can create movement. The chair includes both a lap and
Speaker 1: then over the shoulder seat belt actually over both shoulders,
Speaker 1: and those were necessary not just so that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: fall out of your racing chair while you're racing, but
Speaker 1: also because they connect to motors, and the simulator would
Speaker 1: tighten the belt at times to simulate the g forces
Speaker 1: you would feel. Let's say you're breaking really hard, well,
Speaker 1: it would tighten the seat belt so you would feel
Speaker 1: that pressure as if you were being pushed forward from
Speaker 1: the momentum you were experiencing, or you know, if you're
Speaker 1: going through a really tight turn suddenly, that's when the
Speaker 1: seat belts would create the sort of haptic FEEDBA for you.
Speaker 1: Mounted in front of the chair is a huge curved
Speaker 1: projection screen measuring an enormous one hundred twenty eight inches
Speaker 1: and giving more than two hundred degrees field of view
Speaker 1: to the player. In between the chair and the screen,
Speaker 1: you of course have your super high end gaming steering
Speaker 1: wheel with leather covers and as sophisticated controls, including magnetic
Speaker 1: paddles for gear shifting that kind of thing. The whole
Speaker 1: setup is meant to create as immersive and experience as
Speaker 1: possible to really capture the feeling of driving a high
Speaker 1: performance race car, and if it were an actual product,
Speaker 1: it would likely cost about as much as a race
Speaker 1: car does if Raser actually put it up for sale.
Speaker 1: As it stands, this concept may actually see some use
Speaker 1: in esports organizations, but you know, you're not likely to
Speaker 1: see this as a consumer product. It's just it would
Speaker 1: be too prohibitively expensive. But it might be something used
Speaker 1: by professional esports organizations for things like virtual races, and
Speaker 1: there are other high end simulators from different companies out
Speaker 1: on the market that do a very similar thing. I
Speaker 1: took a look at some of them. Some of them
Speaker 1: have price tags that top out at more than one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. So yeah, if Razor is making these
Speaker 1: things for real zes for esports, then my apologies for
Speaker 1: including this on the list. I couldn't find examples of
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean it isn't happening. It's completely plausible that
Speaker 1: it could happen. There's nothing about this design that is
Speaker 1: so futuristic as to make it impossible, but it's certainly
Speaker 1: not a consumer product. Okay, we're going to take another
Speaker 1: quick break. When we come back, I've got a few
Speaker 1: more examples of Razor concepts that we're probably not going
Speaker 1: to see become actual products. We'll be right back at CES.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, Razor had a couple of different
Speaker 1: concepts on display. One was called Project Hazel, and this
Speaker 1: was a face mask with RGB lights built into it
Speaker 1: and a filtration system and some other cool bells and whistles.
Speaker 1: It was a timely concept in the wake of the
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen pandemic, but this one would eventually become a
Speaker 1: real thing. By the time it became a real thing,
Speaker 1: Razor had renamed it. They called it the Zefier, and
Speaker 1: they sold them for ninety nine bucks a pop in
Speaker 1: late twenty twenty one. Now I should add that the
Speaker 1: zef Ear does lack a few features that Razor included
Speaker 1: in the original Hazel concept. So the ze Ear, for example,
Speaker 1: doesn't have interior microphones built into it with exterior speakers
Speaker 1: built into it, and that was meant to make it
Speaker 1: easier for other folks to understand your masked mumblings while
Speaker 1: you wore the thing right, kind of like Darth Vader,
Speaker 1: you would be able to speak through the mask and
Speaker 1: people would be able to understand you. It also does
Speaker 1: not have a charging stand and an ultraviolet light to
Speaker 1: sanitize the mask, which was in the original concept but
Speaker 1: not in the final product. But still, Project Hazel made
Speaker 1: it further into reality than most of the concepts on
Speaker 1: this list, so we won't spend any more time on that. Instead,
Speaker 1: we'll move on to Project Brooklyn. Brooklyn is definitely a
Speaker 1: concept rather than an actual product, so at first glance,
Speaker 1: Brooklyn looks like a high end gaming chair built on
Speaker 1: an actual like legs system as opposed to on casters,
Speaker 1: so you can't scoot around in it. It is in
Speaker 1: the race car chair form factor, but after that first
Speaker 1: glance where you just think, oh yeah, it just looks
Speaker 1: like a like a race car style gaming chair, after
Speaker 1: that first glance, the science fiction stuff starts to take over.
Speaker 1: There's an animated diagram that shows that an arm extends
Speaker 1: up from the back of the chair. When I watch
Speaker 1: that animation, the thing that makes me think about is
Speaker 1: like someone who's wearing swords on their back and they
Speaker 1: reach back behind them and pull both swords out at
Speaker 1: the same time over their shoulders. That's kind of what
Speaker 1: this animation makes me think about. Anyway, this arm extends
Speaker 1: up from the back of the chair to reach up
Speaker 1: over the user, so it kind of arcs up, so
Speaker 1: you've got it's almost looks like a scorpion tail sticking out.
Speaker 1: Then it splits into two arms and unrolls a sixty
Speaker 1: inch transparent OLED display in front of the user in
Speaker 1: the chair. So now you're sitting in your fancy schmancy
Speaker 1: chair and you have this curved, transparent OLED screen in
Speaker 1: front of you. The chair hooks up to your computer
Speaker 1: or your console, and the transparent screen becomes your display.
Speaker 1: The chair includes haptic feedback, so it can send vibrations
Speaker 1: through the chair as you play, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're playing a shooter game and you're getting hit,
Speaker 1: then maybe you feel like the little thuds. It of
Speaker 1: course has all the lighting elements you would expect from
Speaker 1: Razor and their chroma technology. The concept looks like it
Speaker 1: came out of a cyberpunk film, maybe set five or
Speaker 1: ten years in the future. Like, there's nothing about it
Speaker 1: that is necessarily impossible, with the potential exception of that
Speaker 1: oh led screen concept, Because to have a transparent display
Speaker 1: like that that could roll and unroll and be resilient
Speaker 1: enough so that you could do it more than once,
Speaker 1: that would be incredibly expensive if it were real. Now,
Speaker 1: you just look at OLED televisions right now that don't
Speaker 1: do any kind of flexing at all. Those are super expensive.
Speaker 1: Having one that was built to roll up and unroll
Speaker 1: like a window shade over and over again, I can't
Speaker 1: imagine how expensive that would be. But you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about that, because again, it's just a concept,
Speaker 1: a cool one. There are a lot of other features
Speaker 1: on this particular device Project Brooklyn. You can look up
Speaker 1: at Razors press release if you want to see more
Speaker 1: about it. I'm not going to spend more time because
Speaker 1: there's really little point to talk about the features in
Speaker 1: a pretend product. But in twenty twenty two, Razors said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what we've done the whole gaming chair thing.
Speaker 1: What have we turned a gaming desk into a computer?
Speaker 1: And that's where Project Sophia comes in. So imagine that
Speaker 1: you've got your standard flat top desk, maybe with like
Speaker 1: a glossy finish on the surface of the top of
Speaker 1: the desk, but the backside of the desk you have
Speaker 1: a port where you can plug in a display that
Speaker 1: essentially stretches from one end of the desk to the other,
Speaker 1: so you can have a sixty five inch or seventy
Speaker 1: seven inch display truly ginormous. The surface of the desk
Speaker 1: actually has little indentation sports where you could slot in
Speaker 1: a module to create a computer that meets your specific needs,
Speaker 1: or you could even hot swap out a module with
Speaker 1: a different one and convert your killer gaming rig into
Speaker 1: a productivity machine. When that zoom call you have scheduled
Speaker 1: starts to creep up on your calendar, Project Sophia reminded
Speaker 1: me a lot of the old Project Christine concept. Remember
Speaker 1: that's the modular desktop PC, except in this case, instead
Speaker 1: of having a vertical rectangular chassis that would serve as
Speaker 1: the basis for your modular computer, the desk itself is
Speaker 1: the chassis where you would plug modules in. But it's
Speaker 1: the same basic concept, right The desk acts as the
Speaker 1: base level computer, and the modules you slot in determine
Speaker 1: how you've optimized that computer. And the concept is interesting,
Speaker 1: but it immediately raises questions about things like upgrading the system.
Speaker 1: Presumably you would need to depend upon Razor once again
Speaker 1: whenever you wanted to upgrade to a better CPU or GPU,
Speaker 1: because at least based upon what I saw, it didn't
Speaker 1: look like it would be particularly easy for you to
Speaker 1: take an existing module, open it up, replace a component,
Speaker 1: and then plug it back in. Instead, you would have
Speaker 1: to get a whole new module. Again, this is a concept,
Speaker 1: so it's almost ridiculous to even talk about that, because
Speaker 1: there's no reason why you couldn't create a concept where
Speaker 1: the individual components inside the modules are also swappable like
Speaker 1: that could be part of your concept. As long as
Speaker 1: we're talking about the hypothetical. Why would we limit ourselves, right,
Speaker 1: because there's there's no restriction here. We're just sort of
Speaker 1: blue skying stuff. And again, it's just a neat idea,
Speaker 1: but it's not an actual thing. And plus that might
Speaker 1: be you know, that might be for the best, at
Speaker 1: least for me. I can't speak for everyone. Again, I
Speaker 1: don't want to paint everyone with the same brush. But
Speaker 1: for me, I don't know where I would put my
Speaker 1: coffee cups which accumulate on my desk, or any of
Speaker 1: the other stuff that accumulates on my desk, because I
Speaker 1: would actually need all that surface area to be able
Speaker 1: to interact with my computer. Otherwise I'd just be covering
Speaker 1: up stuff like who really needs to see that temperature
Speaker 1: gauge on my GPU? I'll just that's where I'll put
Speaker 1: my coffee cup. It's still a nifty idea. The most
Speaker 1: recent concept that Razors showed off at CES is one
Speaker 1: that I think we might actually see a version of
Speaker 1: in the future. But it's called Project Carol, and essentially
Speaker 1: it's a high tech head cushion designed for gaming chairs. Now,
Speaker 1: what sets it apart from your standard cushion is that
Speaker 1: it's supposed to have both haptic feedback and something called
Speaker 1: near field surround sound capabilities. So if you had one
Speaker 1: of these headrests on your gaming chair rather than wearing
Speaker 1: headphones for that high fidelity gaming experience, this cushion would
Speaker 1: create the localized sounds for you. You would have amazing
Speaker 1: spatial awareness in games that support three D sound, and
Speaker 1: that comes in awfully handy if you're playing a competitive
Speaker 1: shooter and you need to hear when someone is about
Speaker 1: to pop around a corner or when they've started to
Speaker 1: reload their gun, and it gives you an opportunity to
Speaker 1: get the drop on them. Now, I'm familiar with surround
Speaker 1: sound in general, but I have to admit the phrase
Speaker 1: near field surround sound was new to me, so I
Speaker 1: decided to look into that to see how it worked.
Speaker 1: Because your classic surround sound works by positioning a bunch
Speaker 1: of different speakers in specific positions around you. So typically
Speaker 1: with a surround sound system you have stuff like a
Speaker 1: center channel, a front left channel, a front right channel,
Speaker 1: back left channel, back right channel, and then a subwiffer
Speaker 1: to create really deep bass sounds. You could also have
Speaker 1: a couple of supplemental speakers that projects sound over you
Speaker 1: to really create a full envelope of sound and increase immersion.
Speaker 1: There are different approaches around sound. They're almost all proprietary,
Speaker 1: so also that makes things really kind of frustrating for cinephiles.
Speaker 1: People who love movies, they'll go out, they'll create their
Speaker 1: audio system for their home theater, and if the movie
Speaker 1: you want supports one version but not the version you have,
Speaker 1: that gets really frustrating because you're probably not going to
Speaker 1: get the ideal audio experience out of it. It's a
Speaker 1: whole area of tech where there's a different proprietary approaches
Speaker 1: that can become extremely frustrating. But anyway, that's how basics
Speaker 1: around sound works, right. You literally have speakers pointed at
Speaker 1: you from different positions to create this sensation of sound
Speaker 1: all around you. What the heck is near field surround sound?
Speaker 1: And how would a headrest do it well? Near field
Speaker 1: turns out to be one of those terms you encounter
Speaker 1: in audio file circles that gets a bit whibbly wobbly,
Speaker 1: which is frequently the case with audio files. A lot
Speaker 1: of the listening experience is personal and psychological, so you
Speaker 1: can't really create these overarching, broad explanations that are universally
Speaker 1: applicable because the way you experience sound and the way
Speaker 1: I experience sound is different to what degree, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It might be very slight, to the point where we
Speaker 1: can have a deep conversation and feel like we're talking
Speaker 1: about the exact same thing, or it could be fundamentally different,
Speaker 1: to a point where we could both be speaking the
Speaker 1: same language and still not really understand what each other
Speaker 1: is trying to get at. Now, as near as I
Speaker 1: can figure, near field references a listening experience and which
Speaker 1: you take in less of the sound of the room
Speaker 1: you are in and more of the sound of the
Speaker 1: audio itself. So a good near field setup would minimize
Speaker 1: the sounds of the actual environment you are in, but
Speaker 1: maximize the sounds of the audio source, whether that was
Speaker 1: music or a video game or a movie or whatever.
Speaker 1: A far field experience would have more room sound, which
Speaker 1: is not always a bad thing. Think about seeing a
Speaker 1: band play at a concert venue. The acoustics of the venue,
Speaker 1: the positioning of the speakers in that venue relative to
Speaker 1: your own physical position, the crowd. All of that affects
Speaker 1: the sound quality you experience, and that might be a
Speaker 1: wonderful thing, like it gives you a very special, a
Speaker 1: unique experience with that sound. So near and far do
Speaker 1: not necessarily mean better or worse. But how the heck
Speaker 1: a headrest a cushion create near field surround sound? How
Speaker 1: would speakers that are behind your head, maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit to your left and your right, with the way
Speaker 1: that the headrest kind of has arms that jut out
Speaker 1: to your left and right, how would you create surround
Speaker 1: sound using that particular speaker setup. Well, that is an
Speaker 1: excellent question, and the good news for Razors it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to explain it because this is a concept. Maybe
Speaker 1: if they did answer the question, they would use some
Speaker 1: sort of explanation relying on how sounds from the left
Speaker 1: and right speakers would interfere or boost one another in
Speaker 1: some vague way to create a rich, three dimensional soundscape
Speaker 1: that seems to be all around you. But they don't
Speaker 1: really have to do that because ultimately, this is just
Speaker 1: a concept for a high end gaming chair headrest, so
Speaker 1: you don't really need to explain how it works because
Speaker 1: you're not actually making the thing in the first place.
Speaker 1: Maybe you could come out with a product that has
Speaker 1: some of these features in the future, but I doubt
Speaker 1: any headrest with incorporated speakers will actually support true near
Speaker 1: field surround sound that's capable of masking the noise of
Speaker 1: the room you are in while also giving you PenPoint
Speaker 1: precise acoustic cues for the game that you're playing, or
Speaker 1: a really convincing surround sound experience for the film you're
Speaker 1: watching or whatever. To me, this feels like, wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be cool if we could do this? Rather than oh,
Speaker 1: I know how to do that. I'm not saying it
Speaker 1: would be impossible to get at least some surround sound
Speaker 1: feeling or at least positional sound. I think you could.
Speaker 1: I just don't think it would be surround sound seven
Speaker 1: point one experience the way the marketing material does or
Speaker 1: the concept material does. It would be really neat if
Speaker 1: we could make it. But then again, it would also
Speaker 1: be really neat if we can make a hoverboard like
Speaker 1: the kind they had and back to the future too,
Speaker 1: and we can't. This brings us up to speed with
Speaker 1: some of razors various concepts. Again, some of these are
Speaker 1: just meant to promote other technologies that Razor is marketing
Speaker 1: with their various products, so it's really there to highlight
Speaker 1: something Razor is doing with a largely fictional piece of technology,
Speaker 1: but they have incorporated their real tech into the concept,
Speaker 1: and the end goal is to promote the real tech
Speaker 1: that underlies it. Some of them are just floating ideas
Speaker 1: that we may or may not see incorporated in future products.
Speaker 1: And again some of them look like they're just there
Speaker 1: to try and get more eyeballs directed at Razor during CEES,
Speaker 1: which is never an easy thing to do. So no
Speaker 1: shade on Razor for doing these sorts of things. Like
Speaker 1: I said, some of these we've actually seen emerge into products.
Speaker 1: They do tend to be scaled down quite a bit
Speaker 1: from the Blue Sky concepts. But Razors not alone in
Speaker 1: this right. The entire auto industry has a history with
Speaker 1: concept vehicles that never become production vehicles. They're just there
Speaker 1: to show off ideas and get some attention and get
Speaker 1: some excitement and buzz behind them, and then maybe we
Speaker 1: see elements of those work their way into future models
Speaker 1: down the line. But you know you're never going to
Speaker 1: be able to actually drive one of those concept cars
Speaker 1: because maybe one or two were built ever, and often
Speaker 1: it's just a chassis and nothing is inside of it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Razors not alone in doing this, but I
Speaker 1: thought it would cover it because I've actually seen some
Speaker 1: of these in person when I was at CS and
Speaker 1: I admit like seeing it in person. It gets you pumped.
Speaker 1: You get excited at the idea. You think, Man, wouldn't
Speaker 1: it be cool to have a laptop that has three
Speaker 1: screens and to create one hundred and eighty degree view
Speaker 1: as I play a virtual racing game or like X
Speaker 1: wing style simulator like Rogue Squadron or something that would
Speaker 1: be really neat and it would be It's just unfortunately
Speaker 1: a concept and not reality. Okay, that's it for this episode.
Speaker 1: I hope you are all well. If you would like
Speaker 1: to reach out with suggestions for things I should cover
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