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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer

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Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works in a love all things tech,

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Speaker 1: and today we're going to talk about a pretty amazing subject, vaporware.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna do this for a couple of episodes. Actually,

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Speaker 1: this one we're going to talk about hardware that is vaporware,

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Speaker 1: or that was vaporware, or that never was. It gets complicated,

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Speaker 1: and in our next episode we're going to focus more

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Speaker 1: on software. So what exactly is vaporware? Vaporware is a

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Speaker 1: future product that someone has announced, but one that is

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Speaker 1: not yet available for purchase and possibly never will be available.

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Speaker 1: These are products that could still be in development, or

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Speaker 1: they could be in a design phase, and they might

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Speaker 1: never see the light of day. So vaporware is kind

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Speaker 1: of a you can't call it a definitive classification. Not

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Speaker 1: everything or remain vaporware. Some stuff may eventually emerge from

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Speaker 1: vaporware to become an actual product. Some stuff may ultimately

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Speaker 1: collapse in on itself, and you could say, well it

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Speaker 1: was vaporware because it never came out. But vaporware itself

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Speaker 1: is sort of a transition. Now, you don't want your

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Speaker 1: product to be classified as vaporware because that comes with

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Speaker 1: it some pretty bad implied messaging, things like we have

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Speaker 1: the intent to bring this product to market, but we

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Speaker 1: don't know how to yet, or wouldn't this product be

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Speaker 1: a great idea give us your money. So vaporware is

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Speaker 1: not necessarily something you want to have associated with you

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Speaker 1: or your products. And uh, this episode is sort of

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Speaker 1: a preview of some stuff I'll be talking about in

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Speaker 1: upcoming episodes for tech Stuff, because we are fast approaching

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Speaker 1: episode one thousand, one thousand episodes of tech Stuff, And

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Speaker 1: in that episode one thousand, I'll be dedicating a discussion

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Speaker 1: about critical thinking and skepticism in general and how we

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Speaker 1: can apply those skills towards technology in particular. And then

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Speaker 1: I planned to do an episode about hoaxes and scams

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Speaker 1: in technology stuff that was pretty clearly uh a falsehood

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Speaker 1: from the beginning, And I need to be clear that

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Speaker 1: vapor where is not necessarily a falsehood. There are many

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Speaker 1: cases where companies and people probably believe they were going

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Speaker 1: to bring this product to market and it just didn't happen.

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Speaker 1: So I don't think that all vaporware I list in

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Speaker 1: this episode represents an outright attempt to deceive people. Like

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Speaker 1: I said, some of them may have been, but I'm

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Speaker 1: willing to extend the benefit of the doubt and assume

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Speaker 1: that most, if not all, of the products that I

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Speaker 1: will be talking about, we're actually supposed to come out

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Speaker 1: at some point, and they just did not for various reasons,

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Speaker 1: uh legitimate reasons. As opposed to this was someone who

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Speaker 1: is just trying to scare up a whole bunch of

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Speaker 1: money really quickly. And I've talked extensively about some examples

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Speaker 1: of vaporware in their own episodes, notably the Phantom game console.

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Speaker 1: I did a full episode dedicated to that, but here's

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Speaker 1: a quick refresher. The Phantom was supposed to be a

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Speaker 1: video game console that relied exclusively on digital delivery. You

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Speaker 1: would download games to your console directly over the Internet,

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Speaker 1: and the idea was ahead of its time, and some

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Speaker 1: of the folks in charge of the company had a

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Speaker 1: bit of a shady reputation. But I still think that

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Speaker 1: a lot of people who were involved on the Phantom

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Speaker 1: team had every reason to believe that the thing they

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Speaker 1: were working on would one day become a real product.

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Speaker 1: I can't say for certain the folks at the top

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Speaker 1: shared that belief. They may have been running a scam

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Speaker 1: the whole time, but I know people who were attached

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Speaker 1: to it really thought that they were working on something

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Speaker 1: that was going to be an actual consumer product. At

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Speaker 1: the end of the day. The phantom never or fist,

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Speaker 1: which led to a lot of jokes about the phantom

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Speaker 1: never materializing. But since I've done a full episode about

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Speaker 1: that product that never was, I'm going to look at

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Speaker 1: other gadgets that were promoted at some point by a

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Speaker 1: company but never actually became a thing you could actually buy. So,

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Speaker 1: sticking to the realm of video games, that is a

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Speaker 1: a wealthy treasure trove of examples of vaporware, even if

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Speaker 1: you're talking about the hardware side of things. Let's talk

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Speaker 1: about the retro VGs a k a. The coll Eco

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Speaker 1: Chameleon a k a. The Retro Chameleon. This vaporware game

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Speaker 1: console gives proof to the old adage if it seems

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Speaker 1: too good to be true, it probably is, although again

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Speaker 1: not necessarily meant to be a way to fool people. First,

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Speaker 1: this console was meant to be a cartridge based game

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Speaker 1: system with no connectivity to the Internet, kind of like

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Speaker 1: a throwback to the old classic cartridge based game systems,

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Speaker 1: things like the Atari twenty, the coll Eco Vision and

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Speaker 1: tele Vision, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo, the

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Speaker 1: Nintendo sixty four, the Atari Jaguar, all of these cartridge

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Speaker 1: based systems, and the value proposition for this device. The

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Speaker 1: selling point was that games were going to be complete

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Speaker 1: experiences the moment they hit store shelves. They would have

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Speaker 1: to be because the whole game would have to exist

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Speaker 1: on the cartridge. There was no way to patch or

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Speaker 1: update games. There's no way to get downloadable content because

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Speaker 1: the console itself would not connect to the internet. The

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Speaker 1: developer for the console argued that this would be a

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Speaker 1: return to the old days of gaming, where a player

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Speaker 1: could be assured that the title he or she picked

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Speaker 1: up was a playable, complete game. There'd be no need

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Speaker 1: for a day one download. So this was sort of

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Speaker 1: a response to a trend in video games where you

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Speaker 1: go out, you buy a brand new game, and whether

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Speaker 1: you have a physical copy of it or you buy

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Speaker 1: it digitally, once you installed on your machine, immediately the

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Speaker 1: machine searches for a download and arts to download a

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Speaker 1: day one patch. Why because the game when it went out,

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Speaker 1: when it shipped, when it went gold, was not actually

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Speaker 1: complete and the developers were still working on things. And

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Speaker 1: while the game had been mastered and sent out, uh,

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Speaker 1: they were still working on code to make sure everything

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Speaker 1: was playable, patching bugs, fixing things, um, all that sort

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Speaker 1: of stuff. And a lot of gamers get sick and

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Speaker 1: tired of this. They think, well, by the time the

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Speaker 1: game comes out for purchase, it should be a complete game.

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Speaker 1: I shouldn't be waiting for another patch to make the

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Speaker 1: game I just bought playable. So this game console was

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Speaker 1: kind of a response to that, saying we should create

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Speaker 1: a console that forces game developers to create a full

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Speaker 1: game from start to finish. There's no way to patch it,

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Speaker 1: there's no way to update it, so they have to

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Speaker 1: be certain that their game works. They have to test it,

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Speaker 1: and then they have to go through the whole manufacturing process.

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Speaker 1: There's no way to just deliver the code. You actually

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Speaker 1: have to hard code the game onto cartridges, which actually

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Speaker 1: puts up a pretty big barrier to entry. It's not

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Speaker 1: a cheap thing to do. Cartridge as though, have their benefits.

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Speaker 1: They allow for some pretty fast load times. For example,

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Speaker 1: there's no need for a an optical drive to locate

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Speaker 1: a point on a on a disc and read information

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Speaker 1: off of it. Cartridge games load very very quickly, but

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Speaker 1: they also tend to have a limited storage space on them,

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Speaker 1: and the retro console designers said that their special fpg

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Speaker 1: A circuitry would allow for all sorts of retro based gameplay.

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Speaker 1: F p g A, by the way, stands for field

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Speaker 1: programmable gait array, and it essentially means that there's an

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Speaker 1: integrated circuit in this device, and it's a blank slate.

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Speaker 1: It can be configured by the end user. That's what

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Speaker 1: the field programmable part comes from. That you can program

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Speaker 1: this blank circuit in the field to make it do

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Speaker 1: whatever it is you need it to do. So, in

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Speaker 1: this case, the console itself would be an f p

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Speaker 1: g A and the cartridges would contain the information that

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Speaker 1: would essentially reprogram the console to make it behave like

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Speaker 1: a specific type of console to run the code that's

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Speaker 1: on that cartridge, whether it's emulating an S and E

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Speaker 1: S style game or an Atari Jaguar style game or

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Speaker 1: something like that, not that it was meant to play

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Speaker 1: those old games that wasn't the point. This wasn't a

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Speaker 1: clone console where you could shove an old S and

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Speaker 1: E S cartridge into the console and play a classic game. Instead,

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Speaker 1: it was to create a new ecosystem based off that

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Speaker 1: style of game, the old retro games. So you would

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Speaker 1: be making brand new games based off that old style

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Speaker 1: of game making, and they would have that kind of

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Speaker 1: retro look to them and that retro gameplay field to them,

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Speaker 1: but they would be brand new titles. Originally, the project

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Speaker 1: was pitched to kick Starter in early twenty team, but

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Speaker 1: the team chose instead to port the project over to

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Speaker 1: indie Go Go, allegedly because they did not have a

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Speaker 1: working prototype to prove their hardware was actually feasible, and

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Speaker 1: by Kickstarter was starting to get a little wary about

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Speaker 1: tech based projects because there had been some pretty high

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Speaker 1: profile failures on Kickstarter. I'll do an episode about that

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff in the near future. So the company

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Speaker 1: would cancel the indie Go Go campaign about a week

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Speaker 1: in because it became clear the campaign was not going

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Speaker 1: to have the momentum they would need to hit their goals.

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Speaker 1: They had some pretty lofty goals, and while they raised

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Speaker 1: something like eighty thousand dollars in their Indie Go Go campaign.

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Speaker 1: Eighty thou dollars within a week was not tracking for

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Speaker 1: them to actually hit their goals. Typically in crowdfunding campaigns,

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Speaker 1: by the way, you make the most of your money

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Speaker 1: in the very first week and the very last few

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Speaker 1: days of a campaign. The middle section tends to be

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Speaker 1: pretty quiet, So if you don't have a huge amount

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Speaker 1: of momentum going into your campaign, you're probably not going

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Speaker 1: to hit your goals. Well. The team would eventually show

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Speaker 1: off a prototype of this retro video game system and

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Speaker 1: the New York Toy Fair in February, but the only

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Speaker 1: games they showed off were old S S n E

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Speaker 1: S titles and they were plugged into a case that

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Speaker 1: looked like in the old Attari Jaguar. They said, well,

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Speaker 1: we got the molds for the Atari Jaguar, and that's

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Speaker 1: what's going to be the casing for our our new console.

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Speaker 1: But folks began to suspect the team was just using

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Speaker 1: an S and E S circuit board that was housed

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Speaker 1: in a repurposed Attori Jaguar case. A second planned kick

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Speaker 1: started campaign failed to launch in that same month, the

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Speaker 1: February sixteen. The company then posted a photo of what

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Speaker 1: was said to be an early build of the console

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Speaker 1: that which was now branded the Colleco Chameleon, And in

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Speaker 1: the photo there was a clear case and you could

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Speaker 1: see the circuit board inside the case, which I thought

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Speaker 1: was a pretty cool design choice, except for the fact

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Speaker 1: that people began to point now that the circuit board

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Speaker 1: bore a striking resemblance to a CCTV DVR video capture card.

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Speaker 1: They were actually naming the specific card it appeared to be,

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Speaker 1: So this was not a a console motherboard or circuit board.

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Speaker 1: It was instead a card that you would put into

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Speaker 1: a computer in order to give it DVR capabilities. So

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Speaker 1: then that image, that promotional image, disappeared from the company's

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Speaker 1: social media accounts, but the damage had already been done.

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Speaker 1: Collico demanded that their branding be removed from the device

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Speaker 1: after the console team was unable to provide for Colico

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Speaker 1: a working demonstration of the gadget, and the whole project

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Speaker 1: pretty much fizzled out at that moment. Now, again, I

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Speaker 1: don't want to suggest that this console was a scam

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Speaker 1: or anything, although there was some very questionable choices that

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Speaker 1: were made to show off these devices that clearly were

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Speaker 1: not the retro video game system. It may well have

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Speaker 1: been that the team in charge really one to create

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Speaker 1: a console that catered to a certain breed of gamer,

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Speaker 1: and they just kept running into challenges during the design phase.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps they made some extremely ill advised decisions to showcase

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Speaker 1: stuff that wasn't their actual design, all in an effort

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Speaker 1: to keep support going for a project that was in

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Speaker 1: danger of failing due to lack of funds. So, in

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Speaker 1: other words, they just were trying to get more investment

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Speaker 1: until they could catch up and actually produce the thing

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Speaker 1: they wanted to make. But whether they made those choices

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Speaker 1: poorly due to an act of desperation, or they were

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Speaker 1: trying to fleece gamers, the result is the same. It

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Speaker 1: never became a reality. Next, how about the Sega VR headset.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty nine, Sega had released the Sega Genesis

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Speaker 1: in the United States. Uh that system had already debuted

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Speaker 1: in Japan in nine. It was called the Mega Drive there.

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Speaker 1: In fact, the Mega Drive is pretty much what the

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Speaker 1: rest of the world calls this particular gaming console. In

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Speaker 1: the US, we called it the Genesis. But Sega was

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Speaker 1: doing really well for itself by the early nineties and

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Speaker 1: In nine, the company first announced it was working on

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Speaker 1: a home video game system peripheral that would be a

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Speaker 1: VR headset. Now, at the time, virtual reality had generated

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Speaker 1: a lot of buzz and excitement. This was back during

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Speaker 1: the first real frenzy around virtual reality. This was the

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Speaker 1: one that would eventually result in a bubble collapsing in

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Speaker 1: on itself and destroying an entire group of technologies for

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Speaker 1: about a decade, but in VR seemed like it was

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Speaker 1: gonna be the next big thing. So Sega had a

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Speaker 1: big prototype to show off in nine at various trade shows,

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Speaker 1: and it planned to release the consumer model in At

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Speaker 1: least that's what they announced. The headset featured a pair

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Speaker 1: of l c D screens and speakers that would fit

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Speaker 1: over your ears, It had sensors for head tracking, and

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Speaker 1: there were at least a few games that were in

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Speaker 1: development for the peripheral, and then Sega stopped talking about it.

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Speaker 1: I'll mention of the VR headset disappeared. Later, the company

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Speaker 1: would claim that the problem was that the experience of

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Speaker 1: the headset delivered was just too darn realistic, and that

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Speaker 1: there was a year that users might hurt themselves while

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Speaker 1: wearing the headset because everything was two gosh darn real

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Speaker 1: when you wore it. But some people said that maybe

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Speaker 1: there were other issues at play here, such as some

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Speaker 1: problems with head tracking, the resolution on the screens might

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Speaker 1: not have been very good, or maybe there were real

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Speaker 1: problems with latency that tends to lead to a nauseating

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Speaker 1: experience in VR. Latency is that lag you experience between

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Speaker 1: performing and action and having something actually happened in a game.

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Speaker 1: So an example in VRS that you're wearing the headset

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Speaker 1: and you turn your head to the left, and then

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Speaker 1: a half second after you turn your head, your view

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Speaker 1: starts to change, and there's that lag between what you

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Speaker 1: see what you've done, and what you actually see happening,

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Speaker 1: and that kind of gives you this sort of uncomfortable

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Speaker 1: motion sickness. It's very off putting. But we never had

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Speaker 1: to put off Saga VR headsets because they never came out. Well,

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Speaker 1: I've got a lot more vaporware to talk about in

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Speaker 1: just a minute, but first let's take a quick break

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Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Back in the ES, a personal

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Speaker 1: computer debut that in many ways left competitors like the

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Speaker 1: Macintosh and the various IBMPC clones in the dust. And

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Speaker 1: it was called the Amiga. It was the brainchild of

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Speaker 1: a designer named J. Minor, who had worked for Atari

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Speaker 1: and designed the chip set for the Video computer System

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Speaker 1: also known as the VCS and also known as the

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Speaker 1: Atari twenty hundred. Minor had advocated for a new machine

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Speaker 1: running on more advanced chip sets, but he met with

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Speaker 1: some resistance at Atari, so he left the company and

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Speaker 1: eventually he landed at another company that had the name

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Speaker 1: Hi Toro, and that company wanted to make a video

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Speaker 1: game console, and so he started work on it. And

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Speaker 1: his idea was, I'll make a video game console that

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Speaker 1: can also act as a personal computer. I think that

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Speaker 1: would be more interesting. I just will downplay the personal

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Speaker 1: computer stuff to my boss is because they're really gung

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Speaker 1: ho on this whole video game console idea. But then

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Speaker 1: in three the video game market totally crashed, the home

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Speaker 1: video game market. That's when all the consoles started going

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Speaker 1: out of business. There was a glut of terrible, terrible

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Speaker 1: games on the market, and everything collapsed in on itself.

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Speaker 1: So then the owners of hy Too were panicking. They said,

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Speaker 1: could you maybe instead of making a game console, could

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Speaker 1: you make a personal computer? Because personal computers seem like

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Speaker 1: they were immune to this problem they could keep going,

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Speaker 1: and Miner said, well, here's the good news. That's what

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Speaker 1: I've been doing the whole time. I've been working on

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Speaker 1: creating this personal computer that also could run games. And

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Speaker 1: the company also discovered that Hi Toro was a name

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Speaker 1: that another company had over in Japan, so they decided

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Speaker 1: to rename themselves Amiga. Commodore, the company behind the insanely

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Speaker 1: popular Commodore sixty four computer, would end up acquiring Amiga

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Speaker 1: in night four. Amiga was just on the verge of

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Speaker 1: running out of cash at that moment. They had not

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Speaker 1: yet been able to produce a computer and they were

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Speaker 1: in danger of going out of business when Commodore came in,

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Speaker 1: and then Commodore was able to pour some more money

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Speaker 1: into the development of the Amiga, and the Amiga computer

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Speaker 1: became one of the best machines to own if you

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Speaker 1: loved sound and graphics. Came out in nineteen eighty five,

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Speaker 1: and people who bought an Amiga, they loved it. The

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Speaker 1: games that came out for the Amiga seemed to be

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Speaker 1: world's ahead of the games you could play on IBM

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Speaker 1: clones or on Apple computers. But despite this, the computer

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Speaker 1: itself in sales was a distant third place behind IBM

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Speaker 1: clones and Apple computers, especially when it came to software.

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Speaker 1: Commodore would eventually have to declare insolvency on April twenty nine,

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Speaker 1: nineteen nine four, and a German company called s Com

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Speaker 1: swooped in and acquired the Amiga assets, and for a

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Speaker 1: brief time it looked like there was going to be

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Speaker 1: a new Amiga machine that was going to come out

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Speaker 1: in nineteen and while the specs weren't particularly mind blowing,

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Speaker 1: the case was pretty darn cool, and this was called

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Speaker 1: the Amiga Walker. The Walker is a little tricky to describe. Physically,

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Speaker 1: the case stood on four little feet, so it didn't

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Speaker 1: sit flat against the ground. It actually had these four

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Speaker 1: little peg feet. It was a squat rounded tower design,

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Speaker 1: and some people said it looked kind of like Darth

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Speaker 1: Vader's helmet. It was a forty Mega Hurts machine with

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Speaker 1: a sixty eight e C zero three zero processor for Motorola,

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Speaker 1: so it was not sporting the hardiest of processors at

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Speaker 1: that time. The specs would have made it a pretty

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Speaker 1: decent computer maybe in the early nineties, but by nine

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Speaker 1: when it was going to come out, it would have

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Speaker 1: already have been obsolete compared to the hardware on other machines.

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Speaker 1: As it turns out, it never did hit store shelves.

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Speaker 1: It never emerged from the vapor, and one day I'm

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Speaker 1: going to have to do a full series on Amiga

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Speaker 1: to talk about the history and evolution of that company

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Speaker 1: in more detail. I've talked about it a couple of

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Speaker 1: times in the past, but never in as much detail

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Speaker 1: as the subject warrants, because it's a fascinating story. Transitioning

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Speaker 1: over to film, let me talk about Silicon Film and

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00:19:07,040 --> 00:19:10,119
Speaker 1: the e F S one product, because this was another

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Speaker 1: really interesting idea that did not quite materialize. So the company,

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Speaker 1: which was originally called a Magic, announced in that it

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Speaker 1: was working on a device that you could insert into

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Speaker 1: a normal thirty five millimeter film camera and turn your

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Speaker 1: film camera into a digital camera. This was at a

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Speaker 1: time when digital cameras were still pretty expensive, especially a

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Speaker 1: digital s l R, and it would allow photographers who

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Speaker 1: had invested hundreds or thousands of dollars in their film

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Speaker 1: cameras and their lenses to take advantage of that hardware

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Speaker 1: while switching to the digital side of things. At least

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Speaker 1: the concepts seemed to say as much. The initial claim

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Speaker 1: was that the company's first product, the electronic film system

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Speaker 1: unit called e F S one, would fit into any

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Speaker 1: thirty five millimeter camera and it would call us less

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Speaker 1: than a thousand dollars. The specs revealed the sensor would

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Speaker 1: not be able to take full advantage of a film

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Speaker 1: cameras field of view. It would only capture about thirty

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Speaker 1: five percent of the full frame yikes, less than half.

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Speaker 1: It had a one point three megapixel s MOSS censor,

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Speaker 1: so not terribly high resolution, and enough memory to hold

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Speaker 1: two dozen images at twelve eighty by ten twenty four

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Speaker 1: resolution in uncompressed format. So it wasn't exactly a killer

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Speaker 1: set of specifications, but still it was an interesting idea

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Speaker 1: for a product. The problem was that years went by

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Speaker 1: and the company had nothing to show off for it.

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Speaker 1: Remember they made the announcement in and it wasn't until

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Speaker 1: two thousand one, three years after that initial announcement, that

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Speaker 1: representatives attended the p m A show and demonstrated the

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Speaker 1: e F S one. The following September, the company had

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Speaker 1: to stop operations when a majority stakeholder pulled funding due

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Speaker 1: to issues The company was facing with European environmental standards agencies.

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Speaker 1: As it turned out, the e F S one was

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Speaker 1: never capable of working with any thirty five millimeter camera.

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Speaker 1: It only worked with about half a dozen Cannon or

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Speaker 1: Nikon cameras, and then it was not compatible with the others.

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Speaker 1: But the company had hopes of making other systems that

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Speaker 1: would have increased compatibility. It just never was to be.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, digital SLR cameras have become more attainable,

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Speaker 1: and that largely negated the market for a digital adapter

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Speaker 1: incapable of taking full advantage of a camera's features. So,

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Speaker 1: in other words, they took too long to bring their

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Speaker 1: their device to market. They had announced it and they

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Speaker 1: got some interest early on, but by the time they

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Speaker 1: were getting ready to have something to come to market,

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Speaker 1: the the alternatives were more attractive and easier to get.

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Speaker 1: So bad timing. One gadget I do have to talk

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Speaker 1: about was supposed to come out from Polaroid several years ago,

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Speaker 1: and I'll need to do a full episode about Polaroid

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Speaker 1: at some point because that's another fascinating company story. Let

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Speaker 1: me give you the super short version of this particular tale.

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Speaker 1: In two thousand eleven, Polaroid was trying to mount a

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Speaker 1: late innings comeback. The company had been in pretty rough

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Speaker 1: shape twice over the last decade or so. But to

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Speaker 1: understand where they came from. In nineteen thirty two, Edwin

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Speaker 1: Herbert Land, who was the inventor of instant photography, partnered

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Speaker 1: with a guy named George Wheelwright to create the Land

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Speaker 1: Wheelwright Laboratories, and in nineteen thirty seven that company would

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Speaker 1: become Polaroid, and for decades the company was known as

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Speaker 1: an innovator and popularized photography. It was the it was

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00:22:36,240 --> 00:22:39,760
Speaker 1: the company that brought photography to the average person. And

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Speaker 1: of course their work inspired a song. Obviously you probably

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Speaker 1: are all thinking about it's in that classic line and

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00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:48,800
Speaker 1: hey yeah, and which we're told to shake it like

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Speaker 1: a Polaroid picture. By the way, shaking instant film does

406
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Speaker 1: not make it develop any faster. So you can shake

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Speaker 1: it like a Polaroid picture. It's just I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to make the picture developed any faster, but it might

409
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Speaker 1: get you some some appreciative looks on dance floor. Anyway.

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Speaker 1: One thing Polaroid was a little late on was adopting

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Speaker 1: digital camera technology. They were sticking with film for the

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Speaker 1: most part, and as a result, they were starting to

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Speaker 1: fall behind in the market. That might be one of

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Speaker 1: the big reasons the company found itself in financial trouble

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Speaker 1: towards the end of the nineteen nineties. In two thousand one,

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Speaker 1: Polaroid would file for bankruptcy protection and it would stay

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Speaker 1: in protection until two thousand six, but then its parent

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Speaker 1: company would have to file for bankruptcy protection in two

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Speaker 1: thousand eight. So there were stretches of years during those

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Speaker 1: times when Polaroid wasn't making any products at all. There

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00:23:36,760 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 1: were no new Polaroid cameras coming out or being manufactured. Instead,

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00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 1: the name Polaroid really only existed as a brand name,

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00:23:44,600 --> 00:23:48,400
Speaker 1: something that could be licensed. Flash forward to two thousand eleven, right,

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Speaker 1: so the company is trying to re establish itself. It's

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Speaker 1: trying to make this big comeback, and it had secured

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00:23:54,560 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: booth space at CS two thousand eleven. I was actually

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Speaker 1: there that year, and in fact I visited their boot

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00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:05,399
Speaker 1: that year and they had something interesting on display. It

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Speaker 1: was a digital camera in the form factor of sunglasses,

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Speaker 1: and it was a product linked to Lady Gaga. Lady

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Speaker 1: Gaga had joined Polaroid in two thousand and ten as

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Speaker 1: a creative director of specialty products, of which these glasses

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Speaker 1: were an example. And the glasses included not only a

434
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: camera lens, but also a pair of l c D

435
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,120
Speaker 1: screens inside the glasses, so you could see the pictures

436
00:24:31,119 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 1: you snapped. And there was an earpiece on the glasses

437
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 1: that had a USB drive attached to it that served

438
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: as the storage device for the glasses, so you could

439
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,600
Speaker 1: store a certain number of images on them. They're supposed

440
00:24:41,640 --> 00:24:44,000
Speaker 1: to come out during the holiday season in two thousand eleven,

441
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 1: but they didn't. In fact, they never came out, though

442
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:50,639
Speaker 1: several online retailers had pages set aside for pre orders.

443
00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: Eventually Lady Gaga would leave Polaroid, and no telling if

444
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 1: it was because someone tried to poker face Pap Pap,

445
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 1: Pap poker face. Next, I'll talk about touring phones, all right,

446
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:05,719
Speaker 1: So come and listen to the tale of the Touring

447
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:09,800
Speaker 1: Robotics Industries, a company that intended to rise from the

448
00:25:09,840 --> 00:25:13,439
Speaker 1: ashes of Nokia in Finland. And if you've listened to

449
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: my Nokia episodes, you know that the famous cell phone

450
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: branch of the company moved over to Microsoft before effectively

451
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 1: getting shut down. Touring Robotics Industries set up shop in

452
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: an old Nochia manufacturing facility, and former Nokia employees were

453
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 1: the founders of this company, and they had high ambitions.

454
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: They planned to make luxury smartphones and their first such

455
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: device was called the Touring Phone. Originally, it was meant

456
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 1: to be a secure communications device, and if you were

457
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,360
Speaker 1: to send and receive messages on a couple of these

458
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 1: touring phones, you would be certain that all communications were

459
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 1: safe because they were using end to end encryption on

460
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: the devices, which would theoretically make it impossible for a

461
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: snoop to see what you were sending back and forth.

462
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: If they if they intercepted anything, it would be meaningless gibberish. Now.

463
00:26:03,760 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: Originally the company wanted to use Android as their operating

464
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 1: system of choice for the phone, but when they were

465
00:26:09,080 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: eventually able to ship a working model several months after

466
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: the originally planned ship date, the operating system was Sailfish,

467
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:21,919
Speaker 1: which was a little known Linux based operating system for smartphones.

468
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 1: And when they shipped these it wasn't really the customers.

469
00:26:25,400 --> 00:26:28,159
Speaker 1: They mostly sent them to reviewers. They only a few

470
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: Touring Phones ever made it out to people who had

471
00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: pre ordered them, so they never were really widely available.

472
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:36,719
Speaker 1: They didn't and they certainly didn't get to everyone who

473
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: had backed the company. But some of those early builds

474
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:43,360
Speaker 1: did get to reviewers, who I have to say, did

475
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 1: not have a lot of good things to say about

476
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: the device. At least one of the reviewers ruined a

477
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,679
Speaker 1: review model because they dunked it into water. The actual

478
00:26:52,760 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: touring phone was supposed to be able to withstand such treatment,

479
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,919
Speaker 1: as supposed to be water resistant, but turned out the

480
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 1: review models that were sent out, we're not built on

481
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 1: that specific hardware specification. Yet. They were working with the

482
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: Cellfish operating system and they had the software on them,

483
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: but they weren't the actual hardware handsets, and so the

484
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: review model was ruined. The company kept talking about other

485
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: phone models in the various design and production phases, with

486
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:28,359
Speaker 1: frankly unbelievable specifications, such as a sixty megapixel camera, which

487
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: is insane, or hydrogen fuel cell batteries, which people have

488
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: talked about, but no one's really used those for cell

489
00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 1: phones as far as I can tell. These uh these

490
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 1: concepts had names like the Touring Monolith Shakne and the

491
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: Touring Phone Cadenza. None of them ever came to market.

492
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:50,199
Speaker 1: People who pre ordered the phone received an unfinished build

493
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: of the Touring Phone, which was really just meant to

494
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,320
Speaker 1: be a temporary solution, but it never became less temporary.

495
00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: The same was true for what would have been the

496
00:27:58,280 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: second phone to actually make it out of the manufacturing facilities.

497
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: That one was the Apaschea Nato. Only a beta version

498
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: of the handset ever made it to reviewers and a

499
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,800
Speaker 1: few early customers who had pre ordered the phone. This

500
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 1: one ran on Android, not sail Fish, and the security

501
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: features that were so central to the original Touring Phone

502
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 1: were absent in this one. In February two, Thoeen Touring

503
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:24,480
Speaker 1: Robotics Industries declared bankruptcy in Finland. The CEO, Steve Chow,

504
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:27,360
Speaker 1: said that it was a strategy meant to push pause

505
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: on business operations while developing a new approach. But general

506
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,639
Speaker 1: consensus seems to be that the company is put and

507
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 1: no phone from them will ever be available for customer purchase.

508
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: Now I've got a little bit more to say about

509
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 1: gadgets that are vaporware. But before I do that, let's

510
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: take another quick break to thank our sponsor. All Right,

511
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: I gotta talk about a proposed Apple product that never

512
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: came out, and it was a communications device. It was

513
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: actually a telephone capable of sending facts messages. It could

514
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: recognize handwriting and had a touch screen and a stylus

515
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: user interface. You could choose custom ringtones for it. But

516
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 1: this was a landline telephone, not a smartphone that you

517
00:29:12,720 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 1: would carry. You would actually have this plugged into the

518
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,120
Speaker 1: outlet in your house. And Apple announced it all the

519
00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: way back at Macworld. It was called Walt, and Walt

520
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:27,720
Speaker 1: was an acronym that stood for and I swear I'm

521
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: not making this up. Whizzy Active Lifestyle telephone. Boy, does

522
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 1: that sound like an Apple product? Whizzy Active Lifestyle telephone.

523
00:29:37,600 --> 00:29:40,480
Speaker 1: You can tell that this was not during Steve jobs

524
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: run over at Apple. Is one during the time where

525
00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs was not at that company. Apple had partnered

526
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:50,360
Speaker 1: with Bell South on the design of this proposed product,

527
00:29:50,760 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: and what appeared to be a production model, as in

528
00:29:53,120 --> 00:29:55,440
Speaker 1: not just a prototype, but something that would have actually

529
00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: gone out to store shelves of this Walt telephone showed

530
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: up on eBay back in two thousand twelve with a

531
00:30:02,960 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: cool asking price of eight thousand dollars. And I found

532
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: conflicting reports online about whether the auction actually went through,

533
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: or whether it was taken down early. I don't know

534
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: what the case is. Maybe it actually went through and

535
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: someone bought it for eight grand, or maybe for some

536
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: reason the auction was taken down, but either way, the

537
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: walt never saw the light of day on an official basis. Now,

538
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: sometimes we actually will get a product, it's not true vaporware,

539
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,479
Speaker 1: but the product that we get is different from the

540
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: one we were originally pitched. Actually, that happens quite a bit,

541
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: and if you're lucky, it happens in the good way,

542
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:47,400
Speaker 1: and that the thing you get has more features than

543
00:30:47,520 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 1: what you were originally promised, and that's awesome, like you say, well,

544
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,840
Speaker 1: this is even better than what they were talking about before.

545
00:30:54,440 --> 00:30:57,680
Speaker 1: But more frequently than not ends up being a case

546
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: where you get something that has fewer or completely different

547
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,360
Speaker 1: features than the ones you were promised. So to start

548
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 1: off with, I want to talk about Vessel V E

549
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 1: S S y L. This is one of those cases

550
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,960
Speaker 1: where you've got a lot of unhappy people ready to

551
00:31:15,040 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: accuse the founder of the company mark one of shenanigans.

552
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: That founder's name is Justin Lee. So what's the story. Well,

553
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: Vessel was supposed to be a smart cup that could

554
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:30,600
Speaker 1: actually analyze the contents that were inside the cup using sensors.

555
00:31:31,120 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: The chemical analysis would include a nutritional breakdown of the

556
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: liquid inside the cup, and then by pairing the cup

557
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: with a mobile device via Bluetooth, you could keep track

558
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: of your nutritional habits. And it was all part of

559
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:49,040
Speaker 1: this quantified self philosophy that was really a big deal

560
00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: just a few years ago, where people were trying to

561
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: track and analyze all sorts of data about themselves, and

562
00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: some of us still do, like I still track all

563
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: of my meals, and I still track all of my stuffs.

564
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: But this cup was supposed to be able to analyze

565
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: anything you poured into it and then automatically send that

566
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: information to a companion app. So if you poured soft

567
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: drink into it, like coca cola or pepsi, it would

568
00:32:11,800 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 1: identify that and say, here's how many calories you're consuming,

569
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: here's how much caffeine, etcetera, how much sodium that kind

570
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: of stuff, it would identify it as, whether it's coke

571
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,960
Speaker 1: or pepsi. Even at least that was the concept or

572
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,560
Speaker 1: of his fruit juice or coffee or whatever it might be.

573
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: The principle was supposed to be the same no matter what.

574
00:32:28,760 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 1: Lee would start taking pre orders for the smart cup

575
00:32:31,200 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: starting in two thousand fourteen at nine a pop, with

576
00:32:35,080 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 1: the idea being that the eventual actual cup once it

577
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: goes on sale, would be a hundred dollars, so essentially

578
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: you get it for a hundred dollars off by pre ordering,

579
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:47,520
Speaker 1: and he raised more than a million dollars that way.

580
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 1: The cup was supposed to ship in two thousand fifteen,

581
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:54,520
Speaker 1: but it didn't. Eventually, his company issued a statement that

582
00:32:54,560 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: said the cups were taking longer to produce than anticipated,

583
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: that finding a sensor technology that would work for mass

584
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: production was problematic, and that the company would instead offer

585
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:07,440
Speaker 1: out kind of a stop gap. They wanted to offer

586
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: up a cup called the Prime Vessel Prime spelled p

587
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: r y m E. For some reason, the Vessel company

588
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 1: likes to get rid of perfectly fine vowels and replace

589
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: them with wise Anyway, this Prime Vessel would track how

590
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 1: much water you drank in a day, assuming you use

591
00:33:24,240 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: your cup for all your water drinking, which was a

592
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 1: big step down from the originally promised gadget, and according

593
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 1: to a statement from the company made to the Better

594
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: Business Bureau, anyone who chose not to get a Prime

595
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: Vessel could request a refund. So, in other words, you

596
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:42,120
Speaker 1: you had a choice. You could say, I'd like my

597
00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: money back because you have not delivered the thing that

598
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: you promised, or I will take this prime vessel in

599
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: the meantime and I will keep waiting for the actual

600
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: cup to come out. I should also note that unlike

601
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: the promised vessel, the Prime model actually shut. A lot

602
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 1: of people had problems with it, but did shut. Whether

603
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 1: all of the models shipped to all the customers, I

604
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: can't say, but something did actually leave the company and

605
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:09,760
Speaker 1: go out into the world. In fact, you can find

606
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,919
Speaker 1: Prime Vessel on stuff like Amazon. The company, by the way,

607
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,240
Speaker 1: has since gone out of business. And while some people

608
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,759
Speaker 1: have essentially accused Mark One of perpetuating fraud, I'm not

609
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: ready to do that. I am not certain that that's

610
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 1: the case. Justin Lee studied biomedical computing at Queen's University.

611
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,800
Speaker 1: He had a background in that field, and he partnered

612
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:33,400
Speaker 1: with a designer named Eves Bihar who had worked with

613
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:37,799
Speaker 1: jaw Bone to build wearables. I suspect that Lee was

614
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:41,400
Speaker 1: perfectly sincere in trying to bring this product to life,

615
00:34:41,480 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: but he tackled a project that was far more complicated

616
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 1: than he anticipated, not necessarily just technologically, but economically, and

617
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:53,040
Speaker 1: that this might be an honest failure. I do think that,

618
00:34:53,160 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: based off reading various forums and Reddit threads, that Mark

619
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 1: one was not very good at communicating things and being

620
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,479
Speaker 1: transparent about what was going on, and so that ended

621
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 1: up sewing a lot of discontent. I should also point

622
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:12,600
Speaker 1: out that there were lots of people who are skeptical

623
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: that a sensor or even a group of sensors that

624
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:19,880
Speaker 1: could perform chemical analysis with any degree of accuracy in

625
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,319
Speaker 1: the form factor of a cup would be unrealistic. So

626
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 1: there's some who say there's no way this could work

627
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 1: just because the technology doesn't exist. We don't have a

628
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:34,040
Speaker 1: technology that could work in that form factor. So this

629
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 1: sort of fits in with the episodes I'm going to

630
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:39,359
Speaker 1: do later on critical thinking and skepticism, that concept of

631
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:44,240
Speaker 1: if something sounds really, really incredible, then you need to

632
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 1: take a step back and look for the evidence that

633
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 1: supports those incredible claims. It doesn't mean that the claims

634
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: are automatically false, but it does mean that they require

635
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 1: that evidence to support the claim. At c. E. S

636
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:02,720
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen, a new company called Emmiota captured interest

637
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: with their prototype product design. Here's a quick insight into

638
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:09,719
Speaker 1: c e S. C S is a show where you

639
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:11,960
Speaker 1: see a lot of the same sort of stuff year

640
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: after year, and you'll see incremental improvements in that stuff,

641
00:36:15,040 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 1: which is totally understandable, but it also gets a little boring.

642
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: If you've been to ce S more than five or

643
00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:23,239
Speaker 1: six times. There's only so many times you can look

644
00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 1: at a big wall of televisions and actually feel excited

645
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:30,760
Speaker 1: about it. And so occasionally you'll run into a product

646
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,879
Speaker 1: that is outside the normal types of stuff you see

647
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:37,840
Speaker 1: at c S and you get really excited because it's different.

648
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter if it's a good idea or not. Necessarily,

649
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: it just matters that's different. Well, in this case, the

650
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:48,879
Speaker 1: product that was a smart belt buckle that could automatically

651
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:52,359
Speaker 1: loosen or tighten the belt around your waist, so if

652
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 1: you were to sit down or stand up, it could

653
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 1: keep your trousers nice and snug without being uncomfortable or

654
00:36:58,480 --> 00:37:01,239
Speaker 1: presumably after you orch it yourself. Let's say you're at

655
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner, it would be able to let out a

656
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 1: little space, you know, loosen that belt a little bit.

657
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: It also vibrate occasionally let you know that you've been

658
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: sedentary too long and that it was time to haul

659
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 1: yourself up to your feet and take a little bit

660
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: of a walk. And a lot of folks also said

661
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:18,840
Speaker 1: it was really ugly as sin it looked more like

662
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: a safety belt than a fashionable accessory. But then again,

663
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:24,359
Speaker 1: this was a prototype that they were showing off. Then

664
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 1: you flash forward a year and now it's c e s.

665
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: The m Eota team was out again with Belty, only

666
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:35,359
Speaker 1: the new design of Belty was very different. For one thing,

667
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 1: it looked more like a fashion item. For another, it

668
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: had ditched the self adjusting feature entirely and no longer

669
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 1: could tighten up or loosen by itself. Um Instead, it

670
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: would sync up with an app on a smartphone. Now

671
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:52,239
Speaker 1: would still vibrate to let you know you need to

672
00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:54,560
Speaker 1: get up and walk around, and it would let you

673
00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: know if you need to drink more water to stay hydrated.

674
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure how that last feat was supposed

675
00:38:00,560 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 1: to work, As the folks at Emiota said the belt

676
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 1: would continue to give you notifications even if you did

677
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:08,439
Speaker 1: not have your phone on you. So how your belt

678
00:38:08,520 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 1: happens to know whether or not youven drinking water is

679
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: beyond me. I don't know what the mechanism was supposed

680
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 1: to be. For that the projected pre order price for

681
00:38:17,280 --> 00:38:22,919
Speaker 1: this belt was the princely sum of three. Now let's

682
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: flash forward again to today. You can order a Belty online.

683
00:38:27,840 --> 00:38:29,800
Speaker 1: You can actually go out and buy one of these things.

684
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 1: It costs a hundred forty nine dollars, so less than

685
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: half of what the price was quoted as being back

686
00:38:36,520 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: in two thousand and sixteen. But as far as I

687
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:42,000
Speaker 1: can tell, all the previous features are no longer part

688
00:38:42,040 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 1: of this belt. It does not tighten up or loosen

689
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 1: up on its own. It no longer vibrates to let

690
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 1: you know to walk around, doesn't keep track of your

691
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 1: water consumption. Instead, BELTI acts as a supplemental battery. You

692
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 1: recharge the battery it's housed in the belt buckle, and

693
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: then you can plug in a device into the buckle

694
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: for a quick recharge via USBC. So you can stand

695
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 1: there with your phone plugged into your belt buckle and

696
00:39:10,000 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 1: it looks about as great as it sounds. So the

697
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: product you can actually purchase is a far cry from

698
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 1: the one that was shown off back in two thousand fifteen,

699
00:39:17,520 --> 00:39:21,840
Speaker 1: and again that's just a demonstrate how vaporware might refer

700
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:25,240
Speaker 1: to a build of something and that you do eventually

701
00:39:25,280 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 1: get that product, but it ends up being very different

702
00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 1: from the one that you were promised. It's always a

703
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:33,560
Speaker 1: smart thing to think of whenever you're looking into a

704
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:36,600
Speaker 1: crowdfunding campaign. Will cover more about that in a in

705
00:39:36,640 --> 00:39:41,319
Speaker 1: a future episode, but that wraps up this one about gadgets.

706
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:43,760
Speaker 1: In our next episode, we're going to take a look

707
00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: at the software side of vaporware. It's just as entertaining

708
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: and varied as the hardware side. And uh, if you

709
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:54,399
Speaker 1: guys have any suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,

710
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 1: whether it's a type of technology, a company, a person

711
00:39:57,760 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: in tech, maybe there's someone you would like me to

712
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,359
Speaker 1: interview or have on as a guest host, send me

713
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 1: a message. The email address is tech Stuff at how

714
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Or draw me a line on

715
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter to handle at both of those is

716
00:40:10,680 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 1: tech Stuff H s W. Don't forget to follow us

717
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: on Instagram and I'll talk to you again. Really sit

718
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics because

719
00:40:26,080 --> 00:40:37,080
Speaker 1: at how stuff Works dot Com,