WTF Happened in 2025 - Waveform Rewind

We've all watched Hot Ones enough. We

should >> Everyone but David has watched Hot Ones enough that we should >> The only Hot Ones episode I watched was the one where uh what's his name? Like

>> You better be careful right there.

>> Marquez has been on it twice.

>> I think I watched that one. Wait, twice?

I watched one. I didn't know you went on again.

>> Unbelievable.

>> I talked so much about you on that episode. That's crazy.

episode. That's crazy.

>> He was like my good friend David. There

was a whole section where Sean is like, "I heard you're friends with David."

>> It was You should totally watch it, dude. It was so good.

dude. It was so good.

>> All right, that's cool. Keep it up.

>> Yo, what's up people of the internet?

Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. We're your hosts. I'm

Waveform Podcast. We're your hosts. I'm

Marquez.

>> I'm Andrew.

>> And I'm David. And this week, we've got a regularly scheduled I said Ellis is going to >> I am going to interrupt you. That's

right. Because

>> and I'm wrong. Burgundy.

And I'm interrupting you because >> this episode is not like normal episodes. Do you guys know why this is a

episodes. Do you guys know why this is a very special episode?

>> Is it because it's the last one this year?

>> It is coincidentally the last episode of the year, but that's not what >> Lastly scheduled of the year.

>> Yeah, but that's not what he means.

>> Hit it, Rich.

>> Oh, no.

>> Guys, this episode is being taped at 5:00 PM, which means this is the first ever episode of Oh, >> waveform after dark.

>> After dark.

>> Thank you, Rich. You can get the ticket.

>> I was wondering why Rich is here. I was

like, this is a long clip for um >> that was it.

>> Should we talk about why we're here at 5:00 p.m.?

5:00 p.m.?

>> Yes, we should.

>> Transition. Okay, so uh today I got to finally get some hands-on time with this thing right here, which is the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold.

Uh this morning we went into the city, got some info from Samsung on what it was about and got to shoot some footage of it and then we got back to the studio and the one that I bought from Korea had also arrived the same day and that is

this one right here. So how much did it cost you from Korea? Do you know how much it cost? So I'm going to get my invoice later. Um, so I don't actually

invoice later. Um, so I don't actually know, but I hear it's somewhere between $2500 and $3,000.

>> It's an expensive phone, but I, you know, I've watched other people's videos on it and I've seen photos of it and it looks like such a chunk and I keep thinking, oh, it's kind of a gimmick, like whatever, Samsung's doing the trifold thing. Uh, but it's obviously

trifold thing. Uh, but it's obviously not going to be reasonable to use. And

then I picked it up and held it and I used it with the screen closed, which is basically the same as the ZFold 7. And

it's fine. And then I opened it and it's a whole tablet on the inside and I'm starting to think this is actually kind of a nice like a really nice phone this year. It's obviously super expensive,

year. It's obviously super expensive, but um I'm holding up to the camera for the video viewers. This thing is a full diagonal 10-in tablet on the inside and I like it more than I thought I would.

>> So, are we going to get rid of short form video now that we're going to be able to have landscapes in our pockets?

No, because like you said, you you said this before.

>> You can put >> You don't have to do that.

>> You can put three short form videos across it and play it like a slot machine.

>> Wait, can you actually >> It's literally short form slots, >> dude. And if you get all three screens

>> dude. And if you get all three screens showing the same short like before you page, then you win >> and you can't stop until that happens.

>> Yeah. Instead of it being like a seven, a cherry, like three or four things, it's millions of videos that you have to get lined up.

>> So yeah, you can do three things side by side.

>> If you get all three videos being the same, then Neil Moahan has to step down and you become the CEO of YouTube.

>> His name is Neil Bohan. Wait, not Moahan Station.

>> Sorry, Neil.

>> I love Moan Station. That's beautiful.

So there's a couple quirks about this.

Um I'll I'll go through. So the basic specs are actually kind of fine. and

they're just like a a one-year-old flagship. Samsung is using the

flagship. Samsung is using the >> Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy. So, not 8 Elite Gen 5, but 8 for Galaxy. The only

spec is 512 gigs of storage and 16 gigs of RAM. So, that's pretty sweet. Uh the

of RAM. So, that's pretty sweet. Uh the

outside screen, like I said, is the exact same as ZFold 7.

>> Wait, real quick. Is there a 1 TB version?

>> Uh I thought on the Samsung Press mobile something.

>> Uh maybe that's not coming to the US because I was told it's only one spec 512. Okay. There might be somewhere

512. Okay. There might be somewhere where you can get a one TB version.

>> Oh, okay. Even better. Um, but yeah, the outside screen, the cover screen is just your classic uh 21 by what is it? 21

by9. I think it's a wide screen obviously. 2600 uh nits 120 hertz. Why

obviously. 2600 uh nits 120 hertz. Why

am I It's hard to talk. I've been

talking all day. It's been a long day.

>> It's been a long day. Uh but then you open the phone. Oh, and the back has the cameras. Uh same as the ZFold 7 as well.

cameras. Uh same as the ZFold 7 as well.

So 200 megapixel primary and then an ultra wide and a 3x telephoto.

>> So mid. Great. Okay.

>> Yeah. Mid. But then you open it and it's like >> it's a tablet.

>> It's it's all the things. You can watch full screen videos. You can game. You

can have apps side by side and they're not actually cramped.

>> That's huge.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh you can type on a full-size keyboard.

You have decks all the time even without being connected to a monitor. Uh you can also connect it to a monitor, mouse and keyboard and use it as a second display.

>> It's Can I ask a stupid question?

>> Go for it.

What does Dex not on a monitor even mean? Because isn't the whole point of

mean? Because isn't the whole point of Dex that it goes on Windows?

>> It's just like it's just more computer like I guess but on the screen. Okay.

>> No, that's a very valid question.

>> Yeah. So, it's like full it's full screen apps that get >> what's a computer >> different like like if you're in the files app it'll show the full tree structure.

>> Uh and then you can resize windows and you can keep them in certain areas. It's

literally a desktop.

>> Everything's computer.

>> Everything's computer.

>> It's just an iPad. Well, it's a Samsung Galaxy Tab.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh, wait. That's kind of >> So, I've got three windows open here.

And then I go, you know what? I want to go to a new space.

>> Whoa.

>> And do three more windows and then move back.

>> I'm going to say something real quick.

Those creases are pretty rough right now. Those are not good.

now. Those are not good.

>> Pretty rough.

>> So, the creases are rough. And

>> it's like when it's kind of similar to the early generations of other phones with crease where when I'm looking at it and using it, the content is more than enough to distract me from the crease.

But if I am analyzing the hardware, yeah, it's so obvious the creases, the creases are two different sizes because there are two different hinge ratios because the left side is the inside fold and the outside folds around the inside

fold. So, it's even bigger.

fold. So, it's even bigger.

>> So, yeah, there is a lot going on with the hardware engineering, but uh I found that actually using the phone and just watching videos and like typing and emailing and all that stuff is really solid question.

>> Yeah. Uh considering the square aspect ratio of a biffold is kind of lame uh for watching videos and doesn't really do anything for you >> in my humblest opinion.

>> Um how much of a 16x9 video fits full screen on this? How much how many black borders? There's small black borders. So

borders? There's small black borders. So

the whole thing wide open is 16 by 11.

So, it's pretty close to like if you watch I don't know if you can find a 16 by92 video, but uh our videos are 2 by1 and there's reasonable black bars, but it's way bigger than a slab.

>> Uh and if you go Yeah. 16 by9 videos, you're even smaller black bars top and bottom.

>> So, it's like it's most of the display though, you'd say?

>> Yeah, >> it's pretty nice. Apps that use the whole screen like gaming or whatever.

>> The split screen keyboard is literally there's no keyboard on the middle panel.

>> That is so wide.

Samsung's tablets do that, too. So, they

just treat it like that, too. It makes

sense. It's just really jarring to see a whole panel with nothing in it.

>> Love the idea of like being on an airplane and being able to play like a PlayStation 2 game with a controller.

Like, is that not >> Oh my god, that's >> Is that not awesome? God of War.

>> Yeah.

>> I'm I'm preemptively thinking about what the comments will be. Like, we just published our video, my hands on with it. I think one common concern or

it. I think one common concern or question that I have is like, "All right, I already have a tablet. Like,

why is this better than a tablet?"

>> It's not. It's just that it can fit in your pocket. Yeah, that's like the main

your pocket. Yeah, that's like the main >> like obviously if you already have a phone and a tablet, this isn't for you.

But the person who wants to have a phone and a tablet, but take it in their pocket with them, >> this does that.

>> I mean, you have to have a bag to carry a tablet with you basically. And you you don't with this >> with a 10-in screen. Yeah,

>> that is pretty amazing.

>> So, that's sweet. Um, it has a cellular connection all the time, which is nice for a tablet. It's thinner probably than the tablet you're thinking of. But the

other thing is it's definitely a smaller battery than the tablet you're thinking of. Most 10-in tablets have like an

of. Most 10-in tablets have like an 8,000 mAh battery roughly. Even

Samsung's like S10, >> Tab S10 has a roughly 8,000 mAh battery.

This has a 5,600 mAh battery. Uh, is

that YouTube's desktop site?

>> No, that's actually I'm trying to find a 16 by9 video. So, that's your iPhone 5S review. Is that a 16 by9 video?

review. Is that a 16 by9 video?

>> I'm I was guessing we switched to 2x1 when Brandon and Vin convinced us to in like 2018. So

like 2018. So >> that's pretty good. And then you can enlarge it and then it's and that looks awesome.

>> Looks pretty good.

>> That's pretty Oh no, that's definitely cutting a lot off the sides when it's full screen. Full screen. It

full screen. Full screen. It

>> is when you full screen. But yeah.

>> What is the IP rating of this range?

>> 48.

>> IP 48, which is also the same as the ZFold 7. So you can drop some water on

ZFold 7. So you can drop some water on it next to it around it.

>> That's impressive for a Gen One. dust

particle or like piece of sand being folded in not once but now twice.

>> Probably that >> probably don't get dust.

>> I'm concerned about that. That's going

to be the uh longevity test for people that have this early.

>> Yeah, I think this is fair to consider it a firstg product. Like it's a firstg trifold. So, it's firstg something. I

trifold. So, it's firstg something. I

think I I'll turn lock off. Rotation

rock. Rotate rotation I turned I turned rotation lock off.

>> I've said so many words today. Have you

seen that trend that's been going around that's like uh it's on the TV and it goes rock sock, rock sock, box? I feel

like you could not do that right now.

>> I'd be very bad at it right now.

>> Marquez, are you going to daily this?

>> I've been thinking about it. You got it.

I I imported it from Korea, so I'm not exactly sure what the banzer situation is going to be looking like. But on this on this phone, I think I would like to daily it. I think I can get my EIM in

daily it. I think I can get my EIM in there and try it. It's pretty

>> Oh, it's not landscape lock is not Oh, wait. Yes, it was. Hold on. Oh,

wait. Yes, it was. Hold on. Oh,

>> almost didn't jail it cuz we almost just lost it. dropped it on the floor.

lost it. dropped it on the floor.

>> The amount of products that we've like taken out the box and dropped on this podcast is like >> Lionus, watch out.

>> All right, cool. Yeah, I'm I'm more of a fan than I expected to be. I really

think there's a big difference between the onscreen presence and the inhand presence of this phone >> for sure.

>> Which is so hard to convey in video because you're watching this on a screen. So, it's like it probably

screen. So, it's like it probably doesn't translate very well, but you'll have to take my word for it. I can't

wait till there's another Chinese version of this, but it has uh better batteries and it's got like 12,000 millah or something.

>> Seems like that's in route. I mean, are we talking about this later? But isn't

there uh some more steam for this iPhone fold this year?

>> Yeah, it's coming out next year.

>> People think it's going to be like kind of a squat regular size phone and then it opens up to be wider than it is tall, >> which makes sense because the whole idea with all these square folds is you don't

really get a ton out of a lot of media situations. Is that a new leak that just

situations. Is that a new leak that just came out?

>> I saw someone posting it, but it looks rumors >> so poorly like rendered it felt >> I just like glazed.

>> So, it like opens up into like an iPad mini like turned on its side basically.

>> Yeah, I think I saw somebody did a mockup of basically like imagine like the first gen Pixel fold like that sort of passport size, but then you open it and it's >> wider screen and that makes it better

for watching videos on the inside, >> which I could see that being a highlight, you know, with this phone.

>> Okay, question for you guys about this.

>> Fast forward 10 years.

>> Are we using smart glasses or are we using phone like this that unfold into like a giant tablet?

>> This I mean we'll have smart glasses as well.

>> You said 10 years or 5 years.

>> I say 10 years. Let's do 10 years.

>> I think that not everyone is going to if you're if you don't have a prescription, you'll use smart glasses as sunglasses.

If you do have a prescription, people will start using smart glasses on the daily. But I don't think it's going to

daily. But I don't think it's going to replace their phone. I think it's just going to be the Meta Ray-B band style.

You know, it'll have a display. It'll

give you notifications, but >> I don't know. I probably won't wear it cuz I have perfect vision.

>> I think >> show off. I think there's like a a degree where like we're now that we we're we're hitting like max dopamine technology, you know, we're finding that

like outside of video games and vertical video, like people don't really spend like that much time using tech. So I I think the value prop of a device that

can't really do vertical video that well or game very well, like >> I don't know if people are going to wear No, no, smart glasses. Oh, smart glasses can't think though. But

>> videos, >> I would argue smart glasses. That's kind

of the point of it is it's just it's there when you need it and because it's so convenient that it's there the times you do need it and you don't have to pull something out of your pocket or it's just like

>> right there. Fun fact, you >> I ain't trying to waste time pulling out of my pocket. I don't even I use wireless charging. I'm efficiency major

wireless charging. I'm efficiency major right here.

>> Wow.

>> You can doom scroll Instagram reels on the meta. uh on the highway. That's

the meta. uh on the highway. That's

right.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh god.

>> That's one of their use cases. Yeah. I

just looked it up. Um we went from not having any foldables to having foldables the way we have them now in about eight years.

>> Mhm.

>> Has it been that long?

>> Like the ZFold one is 2019 and we had foldables for maybe a year or two before that. So like

that. So like >> 2017 to 2025. And it's progressed so much that even this triplefolding, well, the trifold is thinner than the

Zfold 5.

>> It was that thick for that long, >> but when it's folded up, >> when it's folded up, it is thinner than the ZFold 5, but the ZFold 5 >> unfolded. It's thinner than the iPhone

>> unfolded. It's thinner than the iPhone Air. We put it up to the to Brandon's

Air. We put it up to the to Brandon's thinner.

>> The panels are three different sizes.

Are they all smaller than Well, you know, as thin as its thickest point.

>> Yeah, if you can't fit it through a slot. That is one of the interesting

slot. That is one of the interesting things about this phone is each one of these panels is a slightly different thickness. 3.9

thickness. 3.9 mm on the left, 4.2 mm in the middle, 4.0 mm on the right

>> to fit battery and USB type-C and, you know, speakers and all the things happening in this phone. Uh, that's just how it Yeah, they're all thinner than the iPhone Air. And then you fold it up and it's thinner than ZFold 1, 2, 3,

four, and five.

>> Kind of crazy. I think I just realized a very small mistake we made in the video.

>> I cut that out.

>> I'm thinking the same thing >> cuz you said the middle panel for USBC, but it's the middle panel when it's folded. When it's unfolded, it's the

folded. When it's unfolded, it's the right panel.

>> Yep. Oh god.

>> I caught that and cut it out.

>> Good. I Yeah, I never would have thought of that.

>> Things a lot harder to describe when you have 3D space.

>> Audio people are like, I don't understand what >> Yeah, audio people when you're unfolding it, they kind of looks >> I'm not doing that anymore.

>> The phone's USBC port is on the bottom.

uh when it is folded up. But because the bottom is actually the middle, >> the rightmost panel.

>> Wait, never mind.

>> It's the rightmost panel >> is the USB.

>> It's the rightmost panel, which is the bottom when it's folded.

>> What is >> You ever You ever bought like a like a fish from a fish monger? It kind of unfolds like that. Like like you lay it down, you go one, then two, and then you

got your fish. I actually

>> isn't there like is it on Reddit or something when you like retire a phrase because it perfectly hits like you found the perfect description for that.

>> I think we can retire fingerprint magnet with this phone because lord the amount of fingerprints on the surface area of this phone.

>> It's crazy.

>> You got to wear gloves.

>> It's like this black and gray carbon fiber mimicking fiberglass composite.

It's smoothish.

And I think it makes sense in here.

Yeah. Because you have to make something smooth with a little bit of a bezel that you can then safely close the outside screen over.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh so no real texture, but yeah, very much a fingerprint magic.

>> Did you get the kickstand case with it?

>> Uh the case that comes with it is just a sort of a back spine and back cover case.

>> So that's that's the Samsung case. It

also comes with a 45 watt charger in the box.

>> It's crazy. throw you a little bone for $3,000.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> That wobble is crazy.

>> The wobble is wobbling down.

>> I saw I mentioned it in the video. I got

Every time I mention it, people are like, "Well, you put a case on it."

Okay, so fine. So, you'll put a case on it, it'll be fine. But this is one of the biggest wobblers of all time.

>> The case it comes with is thin enough.

It's still going to wobble. It wobbles a lot less. It I tried it. I actually

lot less. It I tried it. I actually

think that they thought about that when they made a case for this.

>> They should bring back the bikini case for this.

>> The bikini case was actually It was kind of iconic. It was iconic. Ellis doesn't

of iconic. It was iconic. Ellis doesn't

remember it. Search Galaxy S8 bikini.

>> Was it S8?

>> Galaxy S8.

>> Galaxy S8.

>> Can I Can I hold it?

>> I for one am excited for you to test this so that I can decide whether or not I definitely will not speak.

>> I did it wrong and it yelled at me.

>> Oh, I did want to see that. It yells. It

vibrates at you. It vibrates strongly.

>> Can I see that? I want

>> So you >> can I break it? Is it bad?

>> It's bad if you break it.

>> Nothing's really happy. I mean, if you try to like smush it, you're probably not because >> No, you can do that. You can do it the wrong way.

>> Yelling at me.

>> No, it does. When the screen doesn't Yeah.

>> Ah, stop.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah. It doesn't like it doesn't like it. It yells at you.

it. It yells at you.

>> But otherwise, yeah, very intuitive.

>> Well, I'm excited to see whether or not you actually get value out of this. This

is what I have considered like the dream device for a very, very long time. And

uh if I could have something that I could just carry a little bit a little keyboard with me and a little mouse with me and I could just write on Google. All

I want to do is write on Google Docs.

>> That's all I want to do without having to carry a laptop. So if this can do that, I'm very happy.

>> I just like that the Light Phone and this came out in the same year.

>> Wow. Maximalist and minimalist.

>> I I do maintain like the most fun I've ever had on a foldable is e-reading with one page on each side. And I don't know what that would be like >> cuz it looks like a real book. It feels

like a real book.

>> A real book couldn't even do this.

>> Can this do three pages?

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Fourdimensional book right here.

>> Yeah.

>> Um Okay, great.

>> So, yeah, that was our We have the Zfold in in-house for real for real on God_fal.mpp4.

God_fal.mpp4.

>> Last week's episode, we titled the Galaxy Zfold. The Galaxy Z trifold is

Galaxy Zfold. The Galaxy Z trifold is here for real for real on God.

>> Mhm.

>> What are we supposed to title this week's episode? underscorefinal.mpp4.

week's episode? underscorefinal.mpp4.

>> They like that.

>> No, I think Yeah.

>> All right, >> that title went hard last week. Also,

>> CTR was fantastic.

>> It was really Speaking of the things that you can do on the Galaxy Z Trifold, >> if there there is if if there was this new social media app coming out that is

supposed to replace Twitter >> Mhm.

>> you could run it on one of the three screens.

>> Was that a Was that a segue? That's what

I was trying to do.

>> Oh, yeah. C plus.

>> Yeah.

>> What?

>> I expect >> Come on. It was all right.

>> All right. Was

>> Segue Wordle last night.

>> Yeah.

>> Was last night. Last night.

>> I think it was >> Segue.

>> It's either Segue or Suede.

>> Segue.

>> I think I guessed to Suede first.

>> Wow.

>> Well, what is the social media app?

>> All right. Let me tell you about this.

>> Yeah. Okay. So,

>> federated.

>> No, it's not. And this is why I think it's point.

This is why I'm like, if you're going to make a social media app in the future, just stop nonfederating them. Come on,

guys. So, what is it? Okay, so a couple weeks ago, this startup popped up called Operation Bluebird. Um, and effectively

Operation Bluebird. Um, and effectively what they're trying to do is get the Twitter name back because they are making the claim that X abandoned the Twitter name when they switched

everything to X, >> which I would, you know, agree with. Um,

I would disagree.

>> Really, >> dude?

>> I think they very hastily changed some things like the URL and the logo to X, but for a long time, pieces of the UI in the settings still said Twitter, >> but that was them being like lazy.

>> I Yeah, I like agree with both of you. I

think it is still everywhere and is still almost considered Twitter for the most part, but I think the owners of Twitter, >> they said, >> yeah, >> it's not Twitter anymore.

>> And like they make fun of people for calling it Twitter still. And like

>> Elon replied to you on X. You said, "I'm still calling it Twitter." And Elon said, "You won't."

>> Yeah. Well,

>> is that That's got to be used in the litigation right?

>> We're still calling it Twitter today.

>> That's got to be used in litigation.

Yeah. Anyway, so last week they filed a petition to the US Patent Office to cancel X's ownership of the trademarks for Twitter and tweet.

>> Trademark.

>> Yeah. Trademark. Uh because X had made it clear that they didn't have any intention to use the Twitter name anymore.

>> Okay. Right. Um, X has now sued them, which they didn't need to do. They could

have just filed a motion to cancel the trademark infringe the trademark cancellation.

>> I'm sorry, what's X? You keep saying X.

>> Okay, here's another problem. When I'm

trying to Google something on the X platform, it's impossible cuz you just write X in Google after and it nothing comes up. Twitter doesn't come up.

comes up. Twitter doesn't come up.

>> I'm trying to search Twitter and you're using like space X.

>> Yeah, it doesn't do anything.

SpaceX.com. Does that work?

>> You could probably do space. ASAX is a different company.

>> Look what you look what happened.

>> Yeah, >> it's bad.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh anyway, they're suing trying to stop them from doing this. They're arguing

that as of December 14th, more than 4 million users came to X by typing in twitter.com.

twitter.com.

>> I'm one of I am one of them, too.

>> Everyone has all the users.

>> This is so frustrating cuz I want to stick it to the man and call it Twitter, but I'm actually >> on the platform. You want them to lose the >> Yeah. I I want them to get and I'm I'm

>> Yeah. I I want them to get and I'm I'm helping them not do that.

>> I mean, they were big about changing it to X, so you know, commit. You know,

this is such a weird thing because like if you even if you like if I own a trademark or whatever and I stop using it, >> Yeah.

>> that doesn't mean people immediately sue me to cancel my ownership of >> If you have no intention to use it in the future, then they can file to cancel your ownership.

>> Interesting. So, it's up to them to determine if I intend to use it in the future or not.

>> It's like the guy who got lambo.com.

>> Yeah. Actually,

>> that's actually a lot like that. Wow.

Yes.

>> How long has it been called X?

>> I think since 2021, right?

>> No, no, no. It was after I started working here.

>> 2022.

>> I think it was 2023 when I went down.

>> Oh, wow. Okay.

>> Well, anyway, uh this Bluebird startup has this site called twitter.new up

right now where you can sign up. you can

reserve your handle in case they ever actually do get the Twitter name.

>> That's brutal.

>> Right now, they don't have it. So, it's

kind of a if we do, >> um I just don't think that they're ever going to make it be able to be exactly like old Twitter was unless they literally copied the source code. And

the reason that old Twitter was able to be old Twitter was because Jack Dorsey did not care about it making money.

That's the only reason that it was the way it was for so long.

>> I don't know if he didn't care about it.

He just wasn't good at it. Well, he had like No, I mean he had like majority ownership and like he didn't have to he didn't have to like go by the whims of some investors, you know, to try to like inshitify it.

>> Well, until he sold it.

>> Yeah.

>> And then he Yeah. Yeah.

he Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. I there I will say that there will never be another OG Twitter. Like that

was an error that came and went and now there are things that are trying to be it and it's not going to happen again.

>> It's not going to happen again. And it's

almost cringey that this new startup is trying to be the new Twitter. Like I

don't really think that's a good goal to have but >> I just got Elon Musk on Twitter.

>> Oh my god. I take it back. I take it back.

>> You reserved it >> and it said nobody had already reserved it.

>> That's insane.

>> This is one of those things where >> the Twitter new thing is it's like I don't care. This is stupid. But it's

don't care. This is stupid. But it's

really funny to watch X like squirm a bit and be like no, no, just kidding. We

do really want it. Even though we told everyone we don't, >> I still use twitter.com to go to X.

>> Oh, yeah. So do I. So

>> yeah, there's just too many there's too many microcasms of the internet at this point and being able to have like one central social social media site where things are happening is just not possible anymore,

>> isn't it? I think you mean microcosm.

>> I think you mean microcontrast for >> Yeah, they don't know that reference yet.

>> Oh yeah, that'll be next week. That's

funny. Yeah, I Yeah. Well, I don't know.

They're going to try, but I kind of think that we're just going to keep using Yeah. the things we use.

using Yeah. the things we use.

>> Which Which way do you think that they're going to rule? What's your

prediction?

>> Ruling.

>> What's your prediction?

>> Um, I think because twitter.com still links to x.com, they'll probably go, "Oh, well, seems like that's still in use."

use." >> That might be enough.

>> But I'm not a lawyer, so legal advice, but I'm not a rapper.

>> That's funny. All right. Well, let's

take a quick break. When we come back, we still got more to talk about. End of

the year type news. Uh, but before we take a break, >> yes, >> trivia time, >> guys. Let's get the energy up. Come on.

>> guys. Let's get the energy up. Come on.

>> It's 5:00 p.m.

>> I know. It's 5:30. It's 6 p.m.

>> We got to We got to get hype. Uh before

I do trivia, I just need to issue a correction from last week because last week I got mad and called out a uh

a a company that sort of sounds like buy mommy for raising the price on my domain. And that doesn't sound like

domain. And that doesn't sound like >> this is really embarrassing. Um because

a very nice fan wrote to me who runs a website called domain details which posts helpful information and stuff about websites and whatnot. And he

explained to me that uh it actually wasn't GoDaddy that raised the price. It

was the registry which is really embarrassing.

>> Donuts inc. >> Uh I don't know who does Vin Donuts is the big one. Yeah, it's pretty embarrassing because we did like three hours of podcasts on how this all works and I still got it wrong. And if you

want to know what a domain registry is, you can go to domain details.com or listen to our two-part series on how the internet works.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh David and I and Adam go to Virginia.

>> We did. We shared two beds with three people.

>> Yes. And they did have an indoor pool.

>> Watch the episode to find out.

>> It's really weird. You all slept in the same bed.

>> Two of us did. And if you want to find out which two of us slept in the same bed, you'll have to go and listen to the episode.

>> Yeah, we had two beds for three people and we only used one.

>> I mean, this is way for me after dark.

So, >> yeah, that's true. Wait for dark. Okay,

guys.

>> Next, we're going to kiss in the vision pro.

>> Uh, anyway, >> 6 p.m. What's the question?

>> All of it. All of it's making it.

>> Come on. I love it.

What three letters represent both a Chinese tech conglomerate and the initials of an American blues legend?

>> I'm going to write down what I think it is.

>> The blues legend. It's their initials.

>> Mhm.

>> It's the initials of their stage name, not their birth name.

>> I did not know that.

>> Conglomerate >> or company.

>> Is that going to help us at all?

>> It would. Okay.

>> It would cuz I know >> I feel like I feel like if I tell you which one I mean I did already say >> you said conglomerate.

>> Yeah. But that might you know that kind of makes it a little easy.

>> What? But that's the question.

>> That's just the question.

>> We'll be right back after the break.

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>> Oh yeah.

>> Waveform after dark.

>> Whose voice is that?

>> It's always Ellis's voice.

>> I like the like the tone at the end like it's nice. Bravo.

it's nice. Bravo.

>> Is that the PS3 startup music? What

>> what do you think I'm doing in the audio room all day, man?

>> Valid >> making that.

>> All right. So, Instagram launched a new app.

>> Yeah, but only it's for TV, but it's not Instagram TV, >> correct?

>> It's for Fire TV.

>> Fire TV.

>> So, I'm assuming this just lets me doom scroll my TV now.

>> Yes.

>> Sick.

>> I've been waiting for that.

>> But worse, >> you know what's crazy? I have the YouTube app on my Samsung TV at home and you can doom scroll shorts on it and I've done it.

>> That's all.

>> No, me too.

>> Wait, do you do did you do it on purpose?

>> No.

>> Well, I didn't enter the carousel on purpose, but once I entered the carousel, I was like, I wonder if I can Oh, no. Hold on.

Oh, no. Hold on.

>> And you're like, >> yeah, >> YouTube, I have a feature idea.

>> Let you rotate 90 degrees so you can lay down on the couch, use all of your landscape screen real estate, >> and doom scroll that way.

>> Whoa.

that really efficient.

>> So, new Instagram TV app. It's not the IGTV though. We might be too old for

IGTV though. We might be too old for this. You might be too young for this if

this. You might be too young for this if you're listening, but Instagram did launch a thing called IGTV before reals were a thing. Um, that failed spectacularly, but it was also like you had to turn your phone sideways. It was

around it was around the Quibby days, if you know what that means.

>> Remember when we asked >> it was just vertical video.

>> Yeah. Well, people sometimes like me uploaded horizontal videos on GTV.

>> Um, but remember when we used to ask the question, is this >> like a product or a feature?

>> Yes.

>> In hindsight, it was so obvious >> that vertical video is just a feature of Instagram and they should have built it in, but it really to them was so vastly different that it was an entirely separate product.

>> Yeah. Which is crazy.

>> Am I crazy? Because you guys have talked about this.

You guys have talked about this a few times and I feel like I'm having like a Mandela effect cuz I only remember IGTV as being a button in the bottom of the Instagram app.

>> They put a button in the Instagram app that launched the other app.

>> That's what that button did and it launched the IGTV app.

>> I never pressed it.

>> They they eventually obviously moved it in to just be a section of Instagram, but there was probably a couple months there where it was a whole separate thing.

>> Yeah, they had a crazy launch party for that, too. It was a whole thing.

that, too. It was a whole thing.

>> The logo was kind of fire.

>> Yeah. Well, now, yeah, it kind of looks like um MTV.

>> I >> Oh, that's the other fake logo.

>> Okay, so this app is currently only launching on Amazon Fire TV devices, which is a very, very niche collaboration.

Look, I think that short form video is a scourge on humanity and is melting our brains. However,

brains. However, >> whoa, >> this is my like, >> hey, subscribe to Waveform Shorts.

>> Yeah. Well, well, you can't subscribe to the shorts. You can only

the shorts. You can only >> You can try.

>> You can subscribe to clips, but that's that's not >> We don't Yeah, we haven't done a short vertical >> way year >> vertical short content.

>> Well, that was embarrassing for me.

>> Yeah. So, however, and this is only like a 2% however, this is a like I still think this is bad, but you know, if you're watching it on TV, there is a

much higher chance that you're watching it with somebody else. M

>> and I think that considering people send reels to each other so much because they want like we have a whole reals channel in Instagram where we just send it it's a studio channel where we just send it

to each other.

>> The social aspect of watching video together is very strong >> and considering the content quality of many reels has gotten very high. I think

having your friend, your partner, your dog on the couch with you, your cat to watch your reels with you. There could

be 2% value in that. You know, the social video watching experience.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. So,

>> you're saying Lane and I should sit on the couch and watch reals together.

>> I mean, there is obviously to an extent people already do this with every other form of video. It's just adding short form vertical video to the list of things that you can watch on your >> TV. Yeah. I mean, which fine if I'm

>> TV. Yeah. I mean, which fine if I'm going to be forced to watch reals, I'd rather watch it on my TV with somebody than with than on my phone with >> I was just going to say we're already forced to watch reals. So, would you

rather have this split off into its own IGTV app that has reals?

>> Yes.

>> But they'll never do that.

>> Yeah. At this point, yeah, it's better for us because we're less likely to open it and therefore less likely to get addicted and we can go over there intentionally when we want that brain rot and then we come back. But

obviously, that's the opposite of what they want. They want us to just stumble

they want. They want us to just stumble into short form video and just start scrolling.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is hilarious because you used to just swipe over on Instagram and that would be your inbox. Now you swipe over, it's just reals.

>> Yeah.

>> Convenient.

>> I mean, if they swap them into separate apps, I would download Instagram again, >> but I undownloaded it cuz I was so tired of reals and like looking through it.

So, >> does your brain feel better?

>> Hell yeah.

>> For a lot of reason. wrinklier

software.

>> Much wrinklier again.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, anyway, um, OpenAI has also launched a new image generator model, which is best for enterprise use, they say. And I think the only reason that

say. And I think the only reason that they're saying that is because they just did a $1 billion deal with Disney. Um,

if you we didn't talk about this last week, but OpenAI struck a1 billion dollar investment deal with Disney where uh Disney now gets to use Sora very very

extensively and there will be Disney characters in Sora >> and I've already seen what some people are doing with it and it's not good.

It's pretty bad. The last thing I would want is my children'sbased animated characters to the >> heathens of the internet. The reason

that Disney said they want to do this is because they are going to add like short form generative video feeds to Disney Plus, >> which if you really >> What does that even mean?

>> They're they're going to do the Sora app to Disney Plus. They're going to have like generated Disney videos on the Disney Plus app that are generated with Sora.

>> User generated.

>> I don't think so.

>> I think like by Disney people.

>> Yeah, it's hor it's really bad.

>> So instead of hiring animators to do that, they're just going to have Sora do it.

>> Yeah, >> they're lean team over there.

>> They're a lean team over at Disney.

>> Really weird. This is a company that's known for a like bespoke making everything by hand like with armies of artists and engineers and imagineers and

animators and b >> suing the be Jesus out of anyone who uses any of their IP.

>> Yeah.

>> And now they and now they've and now they've gone and done this.

>> Yeah. So I I think that OpenAI needed to make the new image model to compete with Gemini because Gemini 3's image model was really really really good and that's the reason they did it. But the reason that they're saying it's best for

enterprise use, I think is just because they made this deal with Disney. And we

didn't also did not talk about this, but last week, the day after they announced the $1 billion investment deal with Disney, they also sued Google for massive copyright copyright infringement on a massive scale.

>> Oh, I thought it was the same day.

>> It was the day after.

>> Oh, okay.

>> Um, basically, yeah, they're just trying to get everyone to pay them, you know, or to work with them in different ways.

Disney paid like they're trying to get Google to receive a billion dollar. Like

what's the >> to work with them in some way? I don't

know.

>> I think they're like these companies are just going to steal our IP no matter like you can go on Gemini right now and just generate Disney characters.

>> So I think that they're like all these companies are stealing our our IP no matter what. We should figure out a way

matter what. We should figure out a way for this to work for both of us because otherwise, you know, it's just going to happen.

>> Yeah. Sorry to depress you on a Tuesday night, Wednesday night. This kind of stuff hits way worse at 6 p.m.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, in more positive news that happens in the morning.

>> Nice.

>> Google has launched a new CC uh feature in labs.

>> See, that's the kind of high quality segways I'm looking for. Thank you.

>> You're welcome, Adam. Uh and effectively what this is, I think you would actually like this a lot, Marquez.

>> I'm on the wait list.

>> Oh, you are on the wait list. Yeah.

Well, you do like it a lot. Um, it plugs into your calendar, your Gmail, and your Google Drive to basically give you a morning briefing of everything you've got going on during the day, things that

you might want to schedule, that you might want to take a look at. It's

basically a Gemini sort of uh butler assistant thing, but in your email, I have a theory about this that's going to be extremely niche and only apply to a few people. Do it. So, for those of you

few people. Do it. So, for those of you who are like me who every morning ask, "Hey G, how's my day or what's my day like?" And then Google Assistant goes

like?" And then Google Assistant goes through and does the normal routine of like here's your A, here's your B, here's your commute or whatever, whatever you put in for it to tell you,

it does that. This is that. And I think when the teams that make these two separate products realize like they meet each other. When these teams meet each

each other. When these teams meet each other on Google campus one day, they're going to combine them and they will give me like an AI like good version of this at some point. But they have to meet first. So hopefully one of them is

first. So hopefully one of them is watching this podcast and they realize that they exist. It's almost like they have a video conferencing app that's called the exact thing.

>> Starling Hangouts meet.

>> Yeah.

>> Um Yeah. So I don't I mean, I'm curious how it might use like your Google Drive >> to let you know what you need to do that day. I can see the calendar making

day. I can see the calendar making sense. I can see your email making

sense. I can see your email making sense. Google Drive seems strange.

sense. Google Drive seems strange.

Unless there's some enterprise Google Drive feature with like due dates that I don't know about.

>> Could be fun if it knows like which video script Google doc I've been working on and it's like, oh, you're going to need a link to this doc today.

>> Yeah, it'd be cool >> if it just like opened all the tabs you needed at once. That'd be fire. That'd

be fire.

>> Starline is what I meant to say.

>> Oh, >> cuz I'm an idiot.

>> I was like, Starlink, I remember Starline.

>> Yeah. Uh, so it is in beta right now in Google Labs and for Gemini Ultra and paid users in the US and Canada. Um, I

think Google's just trying to put Gemini in every little aspect of people's lives. Even people like people who live

lives. Even people like people who live in their email inbox, which is a lot of people. It's me. Well, you also live in

people. It's me. Well, you also live in a inside a camera.

>> You also don't use Gmail.

>> I don't use gmail.com.

>> Yeah, >> but I use Gmail.

>> I thought you use superhuman.

>> Well, yeah.

>> Yes. Which syncs Gmail?

>> Yeah.

>> But I mean like well you you wouldn't get this feature, would you?

>> Unless you're using >> I think you get it as I think it arrives as an email.

>> Oh, I thought it was like a a popup in the email app or something.

>> I mean, ideally it's it's reading all the emails or whatever for my account and then just shows up as another email.

>> Yeah, >> maybe. What's interesting, if you want

>> maybe. What's interesting, if you want to talk to CC, you can email CC or you can reply to one of the emails it sends you and it'll send you an email back.

So, it's kind of like and then it turns into a chatbot and then it's Gemini and then suddenly you're in the Gemini app.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Now I'm confused. The the AI's name is CC or you you CC it in >> the product name is called CC as a play on words to the fact that it's through your email.

>> Okay. But you're not actually CC.

>> You're not carbon copying anything.

Yeah.

>> I thought it was closed captioning. No,

I thought it was the famous Yankees clos.

>> He gets it.

>> I don't know what that is.

>> Um >> F1 driver.

>> Anyway, speaking of things that are former >> You said former.

>> Yeah, that's sad.

>> Um the Ford F-150 Lightning is discontinued.

>> What?

>> Isn't that crazy?

>> Only as we know it, though.

>> As we know it. So, the Ford F-150 Lightning was one of the original like competitor EVs to Tesla. Tesla was

doing their thing for a while and then we got a couple big like new EV competitors. There was like the Mach E.

competitors. There was like the Mach E.

There was oh, what was the other I'm going to remember them actually. F150

Lightning was the the pickup truck and then Rivian R1T came along and uh Jaguar Ipace. I remember this era. There was

Ipace. I remember this era. There was

every new EV got compared to the Tesla.

F-150 was one of them where we went, "Ah, that's good. That's one of the things that Tesla doesn't have and that people are going to want." And they basically just made an F-150 with all the same benefits and accessories and every module would fit. It's just with

an electric powertrain instead of gas.

And it's sold okay. I see them on the road once a while, but it didn't sell to the rate that Ford was hoping that they would. And so despite their best efforts

would. And so despite their best efforts and their refreshes and their special matte black version that they brought to the studio here, uh not enough sales, so they're discontinuing it. That said,

they are still going to continue to do like hybrid stuff with F-150 platform.

Yeah.

>> So there's lots of versions of F-150 obviously and they're going to do I guess they're they're trying to do a version that drives on electric motors as the powertrain, but is fueled by a

gas generator that fills battery and then powers the powertrain. So, it's

more of like a Fisker type setup.

>> Karma Rivero.

>> Yeah, exactly. They said they can get up to 700 miles on that.

>> Yeah, I was confused by that because there's like no information, but 700 got thrown around in like every article that I saw. But I guess,

I saw. But I guess, >> believe it or not, >> I'm assuming there's still battery involved into it. And the gasoline engine is a >> is a generator.

>> Is a generator that's extending range in quick scenarios. Um, sounds like a

quick scenarios. Um, sounds like a really cool way to have two things to go wrong in your car. The gas engine.

That's what people say about hybrids.

It's more complicated, but it is you do have the upside of more range. So,

>> I see it as a pickup truck, especially at the F-150 range of, you know, the most popular vehicle in America. This

making way more sense.

>> I mean, you get the torque of an electric car, which is great.

>> It's weird though cuz is that that torque is not always the same kind of torque they want when it comes to towing right?

>> Yeah. I don't know how this will do with towing, and I'm not a towing expert, but I kind of feel like the F-150 Lightning was weak with towing, and that was one reason why a lot of F-150 owners wouldn't have wanted it as much, but it was really good at a lot of other stuff.

Obviously, not as much range when you're towing or in general.

>> Grocery is tough to tow.

>> Yeah, that's the thing is like there's two types of F-150 owners. There's the

ones that buy an F-150 because they need an F-150, and then there's the people who buy an F-150 just because that's what I want.

>> Uh people who everyone else has a truck, I want a truck, too. And it's a popular here's the truck you get. I might have to help my friend move one day.

>> Yeah. I had multiple people in my life that were excited for this truck just because of the giant battery that they could use in case like the power goes out in the house. Like that was the killer feature. Yeah. Everyone was

killer feature. Yeah. Everyone was

excited about that.

>> Yeah. So power vehicle to grid power is still like a sort of a niche feature that a couple big battery EVs will do. I

don't know. I'm gonna mess up the list if I try to name them, but there are a couple that also still do this where they can be your house's battery backup in a pinch. Pretty sick.

>> Uh it'll be like 150 kilowatt hours, last you for days.

>> Uh but yeah, now that this truck is discontinued, that's one less option that's not really good for anyone.

>> Yeah, agreed. Can I say there's a quote from Jim Farley that I really dislike.

>> Ford, CEO of Ford. What do you say?

>> This is a customer-driven shift to create a stronger, more resilient, and more profitable Ford. Is he implying that the customers are driving a more profitable Ford? Like we want that?

profitable Ford? Like we want that?

>> No, I think it's just I don't care about any of you. We're going to make as much profit which >> every company ever, but just like >> I'm trying to read into this because it's a CEO statement. Customer driven

shift implies people weren't buying the electric ones. So, this is

electric ones. So, this is customer-driven. You guys are doing this

customer-driven. You guys are doing this >> uh to create a stronger, more resilient, and more profitable Ford. So, the EVs were smaller margins and less profitable. and what we're going to

profitable. and what we're going to switch to and pivot to will be more profitable for Ford.

>> Do we all care that Ford is more profitable?

>> Well, it's the CEO. He's talking to shareholders.

>> Yeah.

>> And to be clear, customers were not driving the F-150 Lightning, >> but it was a great truck.

>> Customer-driven truck.

>> Uh, yeah.

>> Wait, I have a question about this.

>> So, the EU also this week just announced like a plan to stop doing electric vehicles and stuff like that. Well, no.

To stop the plan to >> stop gasoline.

>> They removed their mandate for all new vehicle sales to be electric by, I believe 2035.

>> Thank you for putting into words my incoherent thought.

>> I got you.

>> But my question is, is this more of a trend now? Are we like reversing the

trend now? Are we like reversing the whole EV thing?

>> Well, I think the bigger thing is right now is we're losing or have lost the US EV tax credit. And I think that's I think everybody understands that that is

for EVs in general hurting sales pretty hard.

>> Just to be clear, I don't think this has that much to do with the F-150 thing cuz it's really hard to buy an F-150 in Europe period.

>> I think he's just saying the trend like we're seeing all these 2030 promises are probably just going to be that they were promises three or four years ago. That

>> if you're if you're paying enough attention to this industry, there is definitely a trend. It's kind of like reading between the lines. I remember

like we saw Porsche promise that the 718 Cayman was going to be EV in its next refresh and then they kind of went and also a gas one >> and oh I I was expecting that to be

fully electric but like we see stuff like that happening. We see companies who are going ah we're going to go we're going to have all these electric cars and we're going to go fully electric by this year and then quietly they're just not doing it.

>> Yeah. So c customer-driven probably and also just being realistic like I'm I'm reading up on this and by reading up I mean I googled EU electric mandate and

the AI overview is telling me that the recent change removes the hard 2035 ban on new cars that are gas powered but they are still allowing up to 10% of

sales to be combustion engines. So it's

like instead of 100 it'll be 90. Just

slowly walking it back to be more realistic and more in line with >> 10%. Yeah. Versus zero over that.

>> 10%. Yeah. Versus zero over that.

>> Yeah. So, I I I agree that it's a trend.

It's a slow iceberg movement type of trend where it doesn't look like a disaster, but it it just feels like we're calibrating to what's realistic >> and customer trends and profit.

>> Well, yeah, but the realism is based on company profits.

>> Profit. Well, if you're not if nobody's buying EVs and the the government incentives go away and and sales drop, it's like you can't make people buy EVs if they don't want them. Well, that's

why we were incentivizing people to buy EVs. >> We're incentivizing them because they're more expensive uh per car. So, it's like if I want someone to choose the EV, it needs to be the correct choice for them.

They don't get to just force people into buying EVs. So, if it was, oh, $7,000 less. Well, now it makes it a better

less. Well, now it makes it a better buy. I'm going to choose the EV. But now

buy. I'm going to choose the EV. But now

that that incentive goes away, in this specific case in the US, it's like >> now the gas car is a better buy. I'm

going to buy the gas car in the hybrid.

And Toyota's sitting there going, "Yes, more Prius buyers for us."

>> That's true. So that's true. That's just

>> Toyota sitting in the middle ground forever with the Prius was probably their best call cuz they just knew that no one was ever going to like fully switch one way or the other.

>> They're hybrid kings.

>> They are.

>> I'll throw one more thing out there.

Yeah, >> because I already can feel all the truck people yelling at me. I figured why not have all the Tesla people yell at me.

Also, >> let's go all in.

>> Even though the F-150 Lightning literally is a car that Ford says this isn't worth producing anymore and still outsold the Cybertruck in 2025. Woo.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. But have you tried Have you tried version 14, Andrew? Have you tried version 14, bro?

>> Yeah. It's funny that like Tesla sells Well, Tesla only has >> There's a lot of nuance to that and I don't care.

>> Yeah, the joke is funny.

>> They have four or five models. Ford

F-150 is the most popular vehicle in America. So, the fact that one of the

America. So, the fact that one of the trims didn't sell well and got discontinued is kind of not huge news.

>> Yeah.

>> But it is what it is. Um, speaking of EV trucks. Oh, so easy.

trucks. Oh, so easy.

>> There we go.

>> Because I wrote it in the outline.

>> Oh, you did? I didn't even see that. I

saw Rivian in bold and I was like, I got this.

>> But yes, speaking of EV trucks, Rivian had an event this past week. And it was really interesting because I couldn't tell who the event was for. The first

part of it was this really engaging and interesting like AI chat from R.J. who's

a CEO talking about how they're going to be making their own silicon and their generation 3 platform of vehicles is going to be fully self-driving on millions of miles of roads. And I was like, whoa, that's really interesting.

But this is also their autonomy day event. So then it transferred into this

event. So then it transferred into this really, really long, very detailed and honestly complex, but explanations of how they're doing these things and the neural nets and the advantages of their

approach mixing in LAR with radar with cameras, why they believe this is the right solution for the future. And it

feels like they were talking to >> shareholders, engineers.

>> They know who they were talking to.

>> Yeah. And and the comments section was people watching a live stream on twitter.com or YouTube. So it was like people who are terminally online and maybe a little bit too in the bubble and

they were like this isn't close to what Tesla's doing. And then they had uh

Tesla's doing. And then they had uh hands-on after which was allowing people to ride in these new self-driving Rivian. Mhm.

Rivian. Mhm.

>> And so there's some footage online of these these these rides and some of them look okay. Some of them look like they

look okay. Some of them look like they had some errors and misses which is normal. They didn't do like a closed

normal. They didn't do like a closed course thing. Um so there's a lot going

course thing. Um so there's a lot going on. My takeaway which is very much just

on. My takeaway which is very much just from my own perspective because I own a generation one Rivian was I'm glad I didn't buy a Gen 2 Rivian because none

of those are going to get the the new silicon. It's the Gen 3 which is

silicon. It's the Gen 3 which is basically R2.

They announce new silicons. Sorry.

>> Yeah, you kind of have to be in the lingo. Rivian has R1, which is the first

lingo. Rivian has R1, which is the first generation of their vehicles, and then they have R2, which is the SUV, like second generation thing. And then they

have R3, which is even smaller.

>> But they also have generation one, which is Rivian R1T and R1S, and then generation 2, which is also Rivian 2, R1S, and R1T. Yeah.

>> And then generation three, which is R2.

And presumably there'll be an R1 gen 3 >> and R3 >> and probably probably an R1 gen 3 >> and R3 will be Gen 3.

>> So the takeaway here is R2 is the first gen 3 vehicle that will have the silicon in it that will have all the full self-driving that they're talking about all these new capabilities.

>> It'll have LAR up at the top and they talked about how smoothly integrated that LAR box is. And the Gen 2 vehicles now that are like a slight update to my

Gen 1 R1 are not going to get all of that.

>> Dang. Sad for those people.

>> Yeah, they might get some of that, but they won't have the silicon. Obviously,

they're already shipping.

>> Anyway, >> yeah, >> it's interesting. They are they're promising a lot. Uh it's kind of hard to take all their word for it because we see these >> I love how much they promised.

>> They promised a lot.

>> Felt really Tesla.

>> Yeah. And I, you know, I feel like that's a combo of like maybe a little bit of fundraising and talking to the public about like, oh yeah, we are super AI first and and self-driving and all that stuff and then people who invest

and and have lots of money to give Rivian might go, oh, seems about right and and be more down, whatever.

>> Um, I don't think it's going to sell them any R1s, though, because it doesn't have the stuff that they were talking about. to Tesla's credit,

about. to Tesla's credit, >> them going all in on the cameras, it was like now for their customers, their customers get to, you know,

theoretically use more of the self-driving features as they get updated >> because all of the Teslas for a very long time have cameras.

>> Yeah.

>> And so they're not going to need like new sensors and stuff. There's like

>> Yeah, >> they've switched out the the boxes.

>> They've changed the sensors, the cameras.

>> Yeah. But they're not there's no like hard limit on like your Model 3 can do it and yours there is.

>> No, I think there is hardware like a joke.

>> Haven't they not updated the hardware versions in like a while? There was at least one statement on stage that Elon uh sort of skirted around. He'd said,

"Oh yeah, all Model 3s are going to have full self-driving." And then you hear

full self-driving." And then you hear someone in the crowd go like, "What about hardware 3?" And he kind of just goes, "Let's not pay attention to nuance." Like he literally says like,

nuance." Like he literally says like, "Let's not get nuanced." because he knows that this is for a certain X date and forward version of Tesla and it's not actually all Model 3s that are going to get all these features.

>> Got it.

>> But if you just kind of avoid nuance, it seems like a nice thing to say.

>> Um I don't know if there's a lawsuit about that, but it's like the same thing is going to happen with everyone who has updated hardware in their cars. They

build new capabilities around the updated hardware. And so everyone who's

updated hardware. And so everyone who's on previous gen like me, a firstg Rivian buyer who spent tons of money on a truck to support this early thing, I'm not getting any of these features. Yeah.

>> So, oh well.

>> Too bad they can't just like update the box.

>> What features did they announce, though?

>> So, Rivian's main thing was their current uh driver assist feature. I'm

not going to try to name them because they all have different pilot auto type names or whatever, but the current driver assist feature is something like a 100,000 uh fully lined highways.

>> 135,000 miles of roads that is getting updated to 3.5 million miles of roads. I

think the quote that one guy said later was, "If it has clearly marked painted lines, you can drive on it." To which >> every comment I saw from that is like, "Well, where I live doesn't have that."

So, like, I'm not coming to work. Yeah.

>> There's a lot more roads in the US, but it's like the current driver assist that I try to use doesn't work on neighborhood streets, doesn't work on lots of regular roads that you think it should work on. It works okay on a lot

of highways, but it's like just a regular road with lines on it, it wouldn't work. So, this theoretically

wouldn't work. So, this theoretically multiplies by several orders of magnitude how many roads it can drive hands-free on um whether you choose to use that or not or if you were planning on using it for everything, there's

still a long way to go for them. But,

>> and then the next the next level of things they're doing for the uh gen Gen 3 >> Gen Sanong, that's a different company.

>> Um >> Oh, yeah. In 2026, they're claiming point to point. So, like put it address to address and I'll drive you the whole way. Um, and then Gen three architecture

way. Um, and then Gen three architecture is eyes off. So he's claiming you can like read a book and do stuff like that.

And then after that would be personal level four. This is the level of

level four. This is the level of promising where I was like, I don't like this. This is way too much. That's also

this. This is way too much. That's also

just out of Rivian's hands for quite a bit of it in terms of regulations.

>> And that's a lot to promise. Um,

>> yeah, >> there are laws.

My question is if you're doing eyes off but you also can only do it on marked roads. If you are eyes off and it

roads. If you are eyes off and it >> GPS doesn't know the road has lines or not and you get to a unlined road, >> what happens?

>> I guess it'll just beep at you. It beeps

at you and says take over.

>> Yeah, >> cuz it it's probably not like you can sit in the back seat.

>> No, no, you can't beep in the back. But

like if you're reading a book like he said and in a split sec if you're going 60 and now the road doesn't have lines on it anymore, what is your ditching the book and grabbing the wheel? Doesn't

>> just like slow down like it slowly slows down until it basically does it pull over.

>> Okay, that sounds unsafe for other people driving on the roads to just have a car slow >> better than barreling down a road that you don't know.

>> So that's also true. Hey, listen. I'm

not the one who made the problem here.

>> What happens? It accelerates. goes even

faster.

>> I think one of the most interesting battlegrounds on the internet, which has been hilarious, and this may just be comment farming, but I think it's hilarious, is the LAR versus no LAR battle in in the self-driving world. And

really, it's just people who listen to what Tesla Elon says, which is lighter is stupid. You don't need it. or what a

is stupid. You don't need it. or what a lot of others like Jaguar with the iPace and Whimo and obviously with Rivian now are doing which is adding LAR to the

suite of sensors to help augment the downsides of vision only >> right >> and the argument is like vision only can do a lot if your systems are really good if your AI is really good but there's

this really really really really long tale of edge cases of things that are kind of weird to solve for with vision >> fog >> fog and and rain and and all that other stuff, but also just weird stuff that

happens on the road. And LAR can see further and has obviously a better uh long distance vision than just the cameras. And so I guess what R.J. was

cameras. And so I guess what R.J. was

saying on stage with Rivian's event is LAR has come down enough in price that this is not prohibitively expensive.

We're going to do this. We're going to map build this into all of our data. And

so the camps are people who say this is doomed. you're just adding noise to your

doomed. you're just adding noise to your neural nets or this is actually better than not having it. Of course, you should add it. They fight a lot on Twitter.

>> Marquez, people have been driving cars for millions of years without LAR in their eyes. I don't know what you need

their eyes. I don't know what you need LAR for.

>> Well, that goes to my like humanoid robot argument, too, which is people going that human robots should be human shaped. I'm like, you just inherited all

shaped. I'm like, you just inherited all the blind spots and all the downsides of humans, including drivers. Of course,

human drivers are worse than robot drivers. We have no eyes in the back of

drivers. We have no eyes in the back of our head.

>> Do you know what the best part about this episode is? What?

>> We get to leave for two weeks and not read any of the comments. It's going to be a brutal comments of every episode.

>> Can some machine learning engineer please explain to me why all the AI companies were like, "No, we need to steal everything because the more information we have to give to the models, the smarter they're going to

be." And that somehow doesn't apply to

be." And that somehow doesn't apply to cars. Like, like, oh no, that's too much

cars. Like, like, oh no, that's too much information. Get the LAR out of here. No

information. Get the LAR out of here. No

radar, just just cameras. That's too

much. It's like, what? How does that make any goddamn sense?

>> Well, they are, to be fair, they are working on ways to not just feed more data to the language models. Like

they're they're working on ways around that >> after they stole everything.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. After they stole everything.

>> One other thing they did announce, Rivian assistant.

>> This is interesting, >> which was kind of like Yeah. Exactly

what you would imagine is your own incar assistant. But one thing I thought that

assistant. But one thing I thought that was interesting is R.J. shows a way that you can like obviously you can do vehicular commands in terms of with your car. That definitely sounds like

car. That definitely sounds like breaking a law like a charge manslaughter.

>> But uh you >> you said vehicular commands like turn on my heated >> I didn't say that out loud.

>> Um but it also like it could make changes to Google calendar and other Google things which >> if you're partnering with Google somehow or connecting with Google, give me

Android Auto. You can do it, coward.

Android Auto. You can do it, coward.

Just do it. It makes no sense to not do it.

>> Wait, I'm trying to think, okay, what their logic would be like if I asked them right now, what would they say? Cuz

the lot, okay, I use Rivian software.

Rivian gets all the data about how I use the car. If I have Android Auto, I will

the car. If I have Android Auto, I will just use that and so I won't put all my navigation data or anything else like that into Rivian system. So Riven system can't learn and get better. So what they

do is they plug in certain parts of Google's ecosystem so that I keep using Rivian software but that I can still interact with Google services.

That's probably what they would say.

>> I don't care just but yeah I I will definitely use it to do things in the car and I will definitely not use it to change my calendar. I do not trust that.

calendar. I do not trust that.

>> Do you trust that? Would you ask your car to change your calendar? I feel like I wouldn't trust that.

>> No. No way.

>> I like having my calendar in my car.

>> Yeah, but on like something I can see and like do with my hands, I guess.

Theoretically, >> touch screen.

>> Theoretically, it's self-driving. Yeah.

Is it going to show me my calendar?

>> We're just old. I need to physically see myself moving it. I don't know if I would trust like some automated system to do it just for me telling >> I don't even have to do that.

>> The automated system. No, but if it showed like a little calendar widget on your screen and then I could see the box move, I guess I'd trust it then.

>> Yeah, >> I'm a very visual learner. I don't want my car to have any thoughts. I don't

want my car to have to think about where to turn. I don't want my car to have to

to turn. I don't want my car to have to think about my calendar.

>> I don't want my car to think at all.

>> Just API.

>> I want it to go pedal down and go go forward. I want car to go. I want car to

forward. I want car to go. I want car to go go and beep beep. And that's that's like good enough.

>> No break. Just horn.

>> I think we need I think we need an ad break.

>> Let's trivia.

>> I'm really Wait, I'm really curious what the last No, it's okay. This is This is a trivia question. Oh, okay.

>> I'm just really c curious what the last trivia question of the year is going to be. Better be good.

be. Better be good.

>> Oh, I really want to.

>> Don't you want to know? All right. So,

this is a bit of a teaser for this next segment coming up.

>> Oh, but >> I'm looking at Ellis as I say this.

>> Question number two of this episode.

Last one of the year. What is the Scoville rating of the bomb?

>> Super hot question.

>> Closest without >> Closest without going over.

>> Going over. Yeah,

>> I think we should just do Delta. We've

all watched We've all watched Hot Ones enough. We should

enough. We should >> Everyone but David has watched Hot Ones enough that we should >> The only Hot Ones episode I watched was the one where uh what's his name? Like

>> you better be careful right there.

>> Marquez has been on it twice.

>> I think I watched that one. Wait, twice?

I watched one.

>> I didn't know you went on again.

>> David, just leave. Just leave.

>> Unbelievable.

I talked so much about you on that episode. That's crazy.

episode. That's crazy.

>> He was like, "My good friend David."

>> There was a whole section where Sean is like, "I heard you're friends with David."

David." >> It was You should totally watch it, dude. It was so good.

dude. It was so good.

>> All right, that's cool. I'll keep it up.

>> Anyway, >> I'll keep it up on my one of my three screens.

>> Well, we'll think about this one.

Answers will be at the end like usual.

We'll be right back.

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>> Guys, thanks for helping me carry my Christmas tree.

>> Zoe, this thing weighs a ton.

>> Duski, live with your legs, man.

>> Santa. Santa, did you get my letter?

>> He's talking to you, Bridget.

>> I'm not that.

>> Of course he did. Right, Santa?

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the nice list.

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after dark. A yeah,

and we're back.

>> I was petting Zuri. Okay, sorry.

>> She's just sitting right here next to me.

>> My my shirt's back on now.

>> So, 2025, how do we end the last episode of this calendar year of our regular scheduled programming? How should we end

scheduled programming? How should we end this?

>> Well, Adam was nice enough to go back and look at all the predictions we made at the start of the year >> and kind of has a little recap going on, too. So, I think we just jump straight

too. So, I think we just jump straight into what we predicted. Is this waveform wrapped?

>> Kind of.

>> Kind of. Sort of.

>> I hope I got everything right.

>> You didn't.

I did not.

>> Damn it.

>> All right. What did we say?

>> Do you want to go through these, Adam?

You wrote them all down. We'll just

react to them. Yeah.

>> Also, quick note, this is the last regularly scheduled program of this year. We will have a bonus episode next

year. We will have a bonus episode next week at the time of you listening to this. So, if you're traveling for the

this. So, if you're traveling for the holidays, >> Yeah. next Tuesday, there there will be

>> Yeah. next Tuesday, there there will be an episode.

>> Yes.

>> Uh, okay. 23rd.

>> Yeah, 23rd. Random 2025 predictions. The

first one was, "Will the S25 have G2 wireless charging?"

wireless charging?" >> David said yes.

>> G2 meaning with the magnets.

>> Yeah, with the magnets.

>> With the magnets, >> cuz I was G2 as we knew it before.

Ready?

>> The first like two episodes of the year were usating this.

>> CH2 got us like five times and they kept changing the spec. They're like, "Choo, >> as we predicted ready."

>> Andrew also said yes. Marquez said no. I

said no. Ellis said yes.

>> So, I got that right.

>> So, Marquez and I got it correct.

>> Whatever.

>> The only phones that had G2 were just the Pixel >> and the iPhone.

>> Speaking of Pixel, that was the next one. Marquez,

one. Marquez, >> was it only the Pixel?

>> Pixel HMD Skyl.

>> Well, yeah, that's it.

>> Marquez, you said that 2025 would be the year of the Pixel 10. Oh.

Oh no.

>> How do you feel about that?

>> You shut me down last week with my hot take.

>> I I remember what I was thinking when I said that and it had a lot to do with Tensor and that did not happen.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> Damn.

>> You were saying that this year it would take a big leap and then next year in the in the 11 we would get a big visual refresh.

>> I don't know why I have that much faith.

>> That might be true >> because it's 10.

>> Yeah. I mean, this would have been a great year to do it.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, that was the question. David, you

said because it's the 10, do you think they're going to do something big? And

Marquez was like, nah.

>> But >> wait, he said no or he said yeah.

>> He said it wouldn't they wouldn't do anything big to the hardware. It would

be the same hardware and tensor is going to be a huge leap and it's going to be the year of the Pixel 10.

>> It should have been.

>> It ended up being that Pixel Snap was a bigger deal than any of the rest of the stuff that >> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> True. True.

>> Unfortunately, >> we like Pixel Snap.

>> Yeah.

>> It's called Tenser, right? And then it's the 10th. It's Pixel 10. Come on, guys.

the 10th. It's Pixel 10. Come on, guys.

with the 10.

>> How many hot dogs would you like?

>> 10.

>> 10, sir.

>> Exactly.

>> Why is it hot dogs?

>> Like, how many?

>> It's always hot dogs. It's always hot.

>> Yeah, it's always hot dogs.

>> Okay. Uh, then we had our hot takes predictions.

>> Okay.

>> Which All right. Mine I'm just going to get the way. You can all laugh at me.

>> We only had two predictions.

>> Well, no, that was the >> those are just like random >> random ones that I picked. We had a bunch that episode, but those were the ones I felt like were worth re talking about. Uh, random hot take predictions.

about. Uh, random hot take predictions.

Mine was that someone will get the the AI wearable right this year.

>> I >> How do you feel about that one?

>> The Pebble.

>> The what?

>> It's not out yet.

>> It's not AI.

>> Dude, when is when does anything ever come out anymore? Okay. Like, come on.

>> Yeah, I don't feel great about that one, but it's in 2026.

>> I don't know. Mark had like three different AI wearables on the testing desk that just dustable cuz I don't I cannot confirm or deny this about the pocket one that I got or the friend one that I got. I got to try

those things. I can confirm they did not

those things. I can confirm they did not get it right.

>> I've seen >> Friend definitely did not get it.

>> I've seen those subway ads.

>> Subway ads.

>> It was like everywhere on the subway.

>> Which one?

>> Friend.

>> Friend.

>> They booked out the entire New York subway.

>> Did they spend any money on the hardware or just a website domain of subway?

>> It's the size of an air. It's just a air tag.

>> That's all it is. Kind of looks like it.

>> Is he out of business yet?

>> No.

>> No. He was whining on Twitter the other day though. I mean, turns out when

day though. I mean, turns out when you're just like a Chad GBT rapper, you don't have to spend >> That was the tweet I saw. That was

>> Hey, 20% of the people on this podcast are paying customers of Chat GBT >> for friend.

>> You bought the >> You pay for >> You can buy the friend.

>> You pay for sitting on my desk >> and you're paying for the >> You know what's funny? I don't think that's I don't think that's a different AI necklace. I'm pretty sure.

AI necklace. I'm pretty sure.

>> Oh, the one that I have.

>> Yeah.

>> Whoops.

>> There's another one that kind of looks like the Oh, god.

>> All right. Well, I'll I'll test them all later.

>> That just shows that Adam was especially wrong. I want to confirm that, but I'm

wrong. I want to confirm that, but I'm pretty sure it's something else.

>> I'll go back and find that. I cannot

confirm or deny.

>> Well, the next one was Andrews. Rabbit

will survive and release the Rabbit R2.

>> I was close.

>> You're close.

>> Survive.

>> They are not out of business yet.

>> Well, yeah, because they didn't have to pay any employees.

>> If they haven't paid any of their employees, are they still technically >> still alive and teased teased a new one?

>> Exactly. Okay.

>> Oh my god.

>> Technically, >> are we I got closer than that.

>> Another CES where a bunch of influencers like talk about how cool it is and it ends up being >> Can they afford a plane ticket to CES?

>> They'll get flown out there. Fighting

words Andrew.

>> Uh David, you said Yeah, >> this is this is a little crazy. You

said, "I think Humane gets sold in 2025."

2025." >> Correct.

>> Correct.

>> But you also said probably not to HP.

>> No way.

>> How did you do that? Did he really say that? It did seem a little obvious

that? It did seem a little obvious because like HP humane pin, you know, a little on the nose.

>> Thank you, Alice.

>> Did I really say that?

>> You did. I think it was because it was around the time that rumors first started popping up. It hadn't happened yet, but it was like around the time that there were rumors.

>> I think it I think I was just thinking that would just be that would be too funny. It would be too depressing and

funny. It would be too depressing and funny.

>> Wow.

>> Andrew also asked if when it inevitably sold if it would be more or less than Juan Sto's contract. Not even close.

>> Player of the Mets, which was $765 million. They sold for about $116

million. They sold for about $116 million.

>> So, not close.

>> That's still too much.

>> Although, his contract was for 15 years.

So, you know, they made that in like what three.

>> Are they making the AI for the printers better over there?

>> Do you have an HP printer?

>> Yeah. What's going on over there at HP?

>> What? Who?

>> They're just printing money.

>> HP decided to buy Humane. I have so many questions.

>> Yeah, I know, right?

>> That are not yet answered about that.

It's probably the They did invent some sort of projector technology.

>> Hey, printer.

>> Hey, printer, connect to Wi-Fi again, please, for the love of God.

>> HP makes laptops still.

>> Dragonfly.

>> Yeah, >> they make a lot of Chromebooks.

>> The next hot take was Marquez. You said

the browser wars are back.

>> True.

>> I got that right.

>> Yep. I got that right. But there are so many browsers >> useless. He also correct didn't expect

>> useless. He also correct didn't expect the main browser war to be the company killing their own browser and starting another one and causing a giant side. We

got plots we got side plots. We got main plots. We got chat GBT threatening

plots. We got chat GBT threatening Google threatening. We got a whole bunch

Google threatening. We got a whole bunch >> threatening.

>> Well, existing enough for a little code red action. I feel like that's

red action. I feel like that's >> Oh, I thought you meant like Atlas.

>> No, the Atlas.

>> Well, I mean that's one of the things.

>> Yeah, the browser wars are back.

>> I thought you meant they sent a threat to the other >> Yeah.

Sundar >> and that's it.

>> Yeah, that's it. Oh, wait, no, there's one more. Ellis,

one more. Ellis, >> you said last year that Microsoft will not be adding live translation to any of their products in 2025.

>> You also said that if they do, you will sit at the big table and apologize while eating the bomb.

>> The bomb, >> sorry, the bomb.

>> Did Microsoft technically >> Microsoft >> Teams >> team? But did they really

>> team? But did they really >> interpreter mode? Well, I don't I haven't heard anything about We've joked about the live translation thing all year.

>> Thing where like I'm pretty sure I'm wrong. Like even if I did just say

wrong. Like even if I did just say Microsoft, like my whole thing was like this is this is not real. And as the reason I say I'm pretty sure I'm I'm

wrong is because like earlier we were talking about this and I was like, "Yeah, because now the PixelBuds and the AirPods both have live translation." And

everyone was like, "But but do they?"

And I was like, "No, they they do, right? Who's used it?" And no one in the

right? Who's used it?" And no one in the office had used it.

>> Yeah.

>> And it still like >> doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

>> No, I agree. I feel like >> it got added to everything and I haven't heard a peep about any of it.

>> But no, I >> The Pixel has it for phone calls. Have

you heard a single person?

>> That doesn't mean it doesn't work.

>> I'm just Yeah. Yeah. I use it.

>> I just thought if it would be like real like life-changing, we would have heard about it a little more.

>> Anyway, this is all the same. How much

do you speak a different language?

>> Yeah, we don't we don't use it, but that doesn't mean it's not good for people who do speak another language. Like I

use it. I remember when the Pixel came out, everyone was trying this demo in all of our first hands-on in our reviews and we they literally would call us and have someone in another room speak another language to us and we would hear the translation in English. We'd speak

back, it would translate, and it would work. And I haven't used it since then

work. And I haven't used it since then cuz I don't need to make phone calls to people who I don't speak to in different languages, but it works.

>> Yeah, >> I am a man of my word. Uh after we finish the next part of waveform wrapped, I will take a seat at the big table. I will issue my apology.

table. I will issue my apology.

>> Stick around >> and I will I will debomb.

>> You should do the readout with You should do the bomb and then do the read out.

>> But you got to I was going to do the bomb and then read you guys a trivia question.

>> I like that. I like that better. Yeah,

>> because uh man, that waiting music is going to feel a little >> Do are you going to do a spoonful?

>> I don't know. I

>> I think a dab is plenty.

>> I'm going to do a dab. I also It's dinner time and I haven't eaten. So, I'm

probably gonna like put it on >> This is bad.

>> A Pringle.

>> We do have milk in the office.

>> Can you scar your stomach lining?

>> That's called an ulcer. Yeah, you can >> sit there for a while until you cover it with other food.

>> No, we're going to Yeah, I'm sorry.

>> I did hot ones on an empty stomach. It

was bad.

>> You did hot ones.

>> I feel like every time I say it, I'm like, maybe I'm flexing. Maybe this is just unnecessary.

>> Uh yeah. Yeah. Uh, I did watch one of them.

>> Mhm.

>> Yeah.

>> Did you?

>> I did.

>> Okay.

>> Which one?

>> The I don't know.

>> One of the two. I think it was the first one.

>> Anyway. Yeah. So,

>> I've been here a long time.

>> I think it's safe to say that while some of us were kind of right, I was the most wrong.

>> It's okay. I think that's Yeah, >> I think you had fair data, you know, cuz they have announced live translation like 50 times over the last 10 years.

>> I I I had 11 years to make this bet >> and the one year I make it is uh is the year I Yeah, >> probably not best to guess the year that like all the LLM actually started working.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, that was our our predictions. So,

now looking back at this past year >> Mhm.

>> What do you think was the story of the year if you had to pick one? What's the

theme? Tech story of the year.

>> I like your list and just liquid asses in the middle of it.

>> Damn, there was actually a lot of stuff this year.

>> There's Do you want to read just read this list, Adam? It's a pretty >> These are all things that happened this year.

>> This all stuff that happened in 2025.

>> Okay.

>> Nintendo Switch 2.

>> Let's go.

>> Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo Switch 2.

>> Tik Tok got sold.

>> Sort of.

>> Kind of maybe.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh the first waveform live stream, which Ellis added. I completely forgot. I

Ellis added. I completely forgot. I

think another one of those has to happen in 2026 somehow. At least one >> uh the Galaxy S25 happened. I feel like Galaxy and iPhone just by themselves are big things of the year in tech.

>> I would argue S lineup >> basically not news this year.

>> Didn't do anything.

>> Is that news? Okay. Uh next, Apple Vision Pro turned one.

>> I don't remember. Deepseek.

>> Remember that? The whole industry shook.

That was this year. Yeah, that was crazy.

>> Did we ever find out if that was cap or not? Like

not? Like >> I don't >> No, I don't think >> I don't think it was. They just released some new stuff last week.

>> Uh then there was the iPhone E which confused us all.

>> Woof.

>> And got of the year.

>> Yeah, I forgot about that.

>> Yeah. Sigma BF camera. Remember that?

>> Oh, the Sigma boyfriend.

>> Yeah, that was this year.

>> Coolest thing for two weeks and >> all metal, baby. Hey, two weeks is longer than a lot of stories last.

That's true.

>> Yeah, that's true. Live at Southby.

>> That was fun.

>> Our first show. That was cool. Uh, the

Dodge EV Charger.

>> Room v room.

>> That was this year.

>> That was this year with this >> loudest EV of all time >> that Marquez really hated.

>> The fratsonic chamber exhaust man.

>> You could hear us pull up from outside the studio.

>> That was the muscle car that was too heavy to do burnouts.

>> Yeah. Not enough power.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Unfortunate.

>> Damn.

>> Uh, iPhone Air.

>> That happened. Big story happened. Big

story. And iPhone air getting discontinued >> allegedly.

>> Allegedly. Wow. Uh, liquid ass, of course.

>> Yeah.

>> An orange iPhone.

>> That might be the story. That might be cool.

>> What? Liquid Glass.

>> Yeah, it's one of them.

>> Yeah. Well, there was also the Jimmy Fallon Pixel 10 event.

>> That's the one.

>> Meta AI glasses part part two or three, whatever.

>> Uh, humanoid robots coming back. Didn't

see that coming.

>> Oh, that was a lot. Yeah.

>> Steam Machine and Steam Frame announced, which everyone yelled at me because they said people were actually excited for the Steam Frame. Oh, the frame. Yeah, I

think people are excited for the frame.

I don't care that much, but I'm excited for the Steam machine.

>> I had a lot of Normies hit me up and say they were stoked on the Steam machine.

It was kind of surprising.

>> Um, >> I think kind of surprising kind of surprising that normies care about Steam hardware. Really?

hardware. Really?

>> Yes.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Was I not just saying this?

>> Elliot's grandma has never heard of Steam Machine or the Steam Deck. Aneot,

he's in our Discord server. Oh, sorry,

dude.

>> He's the guy whose grandma thought that the fold was AI.

>> Yeah, >> someone doesn't watch the video.

>> Uh, airdrop coming to Android.

>> Come on.

>> I think that might have been one of the big Titanic news.

>> Yeah, >> we'd know more about it if they got Jimmy Fallon to announce it.

>> Xiaomi 17 Pro Max.

>> That did happen.

>> I don't think I pronounced that correctly. Xiaomi.

correctly. Xiaomi.

>> Xiaomi.

>> Xiaomi.

>> Xiaomi. Uh, the Xiaomi Sue 7. That

happened this year. Wait, I I I'm pretty sure it's SU7. So, I made a SUE7 joke once around the office and and no one has referred to it as the SU7. So,

that's why >> it's the SU7. It's so perfect.

>> I mean I mean I'm sure it's not pronounced that way in every market, but it's literally SU7. Like, how else would you pronounce it? Maybe you're not supposed to ever pronounce it >> SU7, >> but I naturally just started saying Sue.

So, >> yeah.

>> Sus.

>> Or was it today's episode with the trifold? Is that the story of the

trifold? Is that the story of the >> trifold is pretty crazy. No,

>> no, >> I I like the story of the top three. I

have a Mount Rushmore guy.

>> I have a top.

>> I'll take that. I'll take that.

>> I have a Mount Rushmore for this year.

>> There are four heads on Mount Rushmore.

>> Yes, I have a top four. I was adjusting.

Sorry. I had three and now I have four.

So, I have a Mount Rushmore for this year.

>> The last one, George Washington.

>> My Mount Rushmore for Waveform and for Stories of 2025. Number one

is liquid glass.

>> Okay.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah, >> it's liquid glass. Not even necessarily number one. It's just on the mountain.

number one. It's just on the mountain.

Yeah. Liquid glass. Yeah.

>> Number two, live at South by Southwest.

>> Oh, >> I have to throw that on the M rush mark.

That was pretty bomb.

>> Pretty bomb.

>> Number three, Sue7.

>> Sue Seven.

>> I didn't even do that.

>> Let's kick it off.

>> We're too old for this, dude. Shouldn't

be.

>> And number four, >> let's throw uh let's throw Meta AI glasses on there.

>> Hot take.

>> I think that was really interesting.

Switch two did kind of make a repeating I could make an argument for that.

>> All right, throw switch two on there.

Switch two is in there over the meta AI glasses goodness.

>> But I did find uh I got more people asking me in real life about the AI glasses.

>> I'm not going to do a Mount Rushmore, but I think the cool circle thing is we got Project Muhan in like January

and we went to that event and they like teased the trifold in that little uh like timeline and we got it right at the end of the year. Yeah.

>> Which is kind of cool. just barely

slipped it in by the end. Yeah,

>> it's sick.

>> I think that, you know, Liquid S um being such a like a story that was just so prevalent throughout the entire year.

Like people have still are talking about this and and now a lot of the normies are updating their phones >> and they're all like, "What the is

this?" Uh nobody likes it. Notably, a

this?" Uh nobody likes it. Notably, a

lot of the Apple executives have moved on to other companies. the design chief that made Liquid Glass left for Meta.

So, he's going to make, you know, everything over there is going to be horrible now, >> even worse than it already is. So,

>> I feel like Yeah, I feel like Liquid Glass has been the most like it's been a story all year, >> you know? I mean, we It got announced in June of

>> Was that this year? No, last year. No,

this year.

>> No, this year. This summer. This year.

>> They showed it off this summer. this

they showed it off this summer coming to an iPhone near you and now it's coming to everything >> maybe but we're going to change it a few times.

>> Yeah. So, and considering all the other companies like copied liquid glass and to for their UIs in China, I would say that's one one of the big ones. I do

have a sorry I can't say this, I guess.

Um what I'll just bleep it.

Yeah. So

>> complete is still going. Don't worry.

>> Just leave it.

>> When tech got like banned for the night.

>> That's so true. Right. Good one.

I forgot about that. I do too.

>> They're like, "Wow, I can picture."

>> And you had And then we started scrolling like no like I know this is a finite scroll right now. Like that's

right now. Like that's >> damn that did happen.

>> I remember reaching the end >> crashed and I was like oh my god >> that was January.

>> I remember walking out of a bar with like my friend and he opens his phone and he goes, "Oh my god."

>> Tik Tok is gone.

>> Yeah. It was like a >> Yeah. It kind of staggered because I

>> Yeah. It kind of staggered because I remember I was still scrolling but my friend stopped scrolling so they came over and watched me scroll for a little bit. January. Yeah, that was January.

bit. January. Yeah, that was January.

>> Give me my dopamine.

>> All the the video content was like this could be gone.

>> It was basically people saying like goodbye and where else to find me.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. On Red Note >> and then >> I forgot about that.

>> 12 hours later it was back.

>> It was all back. Yeah. The next day scrolling.

>> Did it cross any of your minds? Because

it crossed my mind cuz I'm like logged into TikTok and you know all that stuff on on my phone for like the Waveform podcast. Did it cross your minds that we

podcast. Did it cross your minds that we should say goodbye >> on Tik Tok?

>> On Tik Tok? No, it didn't cross.

>> We're not like Tik Tok native. I think

it was the Tik Tok creators, those who have no other channels anywhere who are like I need to like take these people with me somewhere. Like the panic in the strategy of I'm just going to spam like

please go follow me on Instagram now was very real.

>> We have a a diversified audience on a couple platforms. Our Tik Tok going away would kind of suck but wouldn't be the end of the world. So we didn't feel it need to say goodbye. Yeah, but it would have been pretty wild if it went away.

>> Yeah. Do a Lipa interviewing Tim Cook was last year, right?

>> Yeah.

>> I guess that won't be on my >> I would have made it.

>> That's on my Mount Rushmore period.

>> This year I interviewed Tim Cook and he just didn't answer any of the questions.

>> So >> that was this year.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh my god.

>> Really? I was like, "You want to do a blind ranking of some Apple stuff?" And

he was like, "What's that?" I was like, "This is not going to work."

>> The magic mouse. Yeah.

>> Yeah.

>> I forget.

>> That moment is on my Mount Rushmore this year.

>> Yeah.

>> Where I could see the clip as it was happening.

>> The ergonomics.

>> Ergonomics.

>> Yeah. This year just felt like a bunch of nonsense to me. I don't know. Like

>> I It's hard for me to make my Mount Rushmore, you know? I like like Samsung put out some really great stuff.

>> Orange iPhone was great. You know,

>> what did Samsung put out was good?

They're trying. Well, we don't know if it's good yet, but they did it. You

know, they said they said they were going to do it and they then they did it. They did Android XR goggles, too.

it. They did Android XR goggles, too.

>> Yeah. You know, even even Meta said they were going to do a thing >> and they did it.

>> I have a hot take.

>> They also >> It's cooking.

>> Yeah. Honestly. Honestly, my Mount Rushmore is all of the unsealed documents from the Meta lawsuit that Roy has reported on. I don't know if there's four of them, but man, like >> there's definitely at least four.

>> That's good.

>> Yeah. Um

>> Yeah. And the Nintendo Switch 2.

>> And the Nintendo Switch 2, a device I don't own and I've never played.

>> Yeah.

>> But it there was a lot of hype for a lot of months.

>> Marquez, what's your hot take? We're

also going to start the next year with predictions again, but we will do that next episode in a couple weeks. But

>> next, the week that >> Oh, yeah. You're right.

>> That's regularly scheduled.

>> Yeah. In the new year.

>> I was just going to say Samsung ships a car in three years.

>> Whoa.

>> Whoa. Where did that come from? What?

Oh, >> Xiaomi just shipped a car.

>> Do you know something we don't?

>> Yeah, but Xiaomi is Chinese.

>> Yeah.

>> And China like pumps money into car companies.

>> Yeah. Samsung's going to show up.

>> Samsung like owns >> They're also going to like collab. Yeah.

They have a lot of funding >> and they're they're going to collab.

They're going to scrap a bunch of stuff together, a bunch of metal, a bunch of collaborative companies, and they're going to make a car.

>> Do they're just going to collab with Kia?

>> Yeah, pick insert Korean. Yeah, sure.

>> Yeah, but it'll have a Samsung logo somewhere in there. Samsung sold their car division to Renault a bunch of years ago and it got rebranded to just Renault Korea. They still have a minority stake

Korea. They still have a minority stake in it, but it seems like Samsung's auto business >> is now mostly a Renault thing and Gily also has a minority stake in it.

>> Did the twerking hamster in the uh did that happen this year?

>> No, that was last year.

>> Really?

>> I think that might have been two years ago. I think that might have been two

ago. I think that might have been two years ago.

>> Bring it.

>> That would have been on my Rushmore for me for sure. You know, I'm really hoping I'm really hoping I get one more trivia point this year. It's been so long since I got a point in trivia. It might have

been before Thanksgiving last.

>> Might have been when the Corgi was twerking on the mini group.

>> That's true.

>> So, uh I say we do the trivia.

>> Trivia, dude.

>> Trivia, dude.

>> But first, Ellis has >> It's What's Okay, >> it's us.

>> Sorry, Ellis was just shaking the shaking. You're holding a computer with

shaking. You're holding a computer with two hands, Marquez. Wait, where'd your computer go?

>> It's in my hand.

>> All I see is a phone.

>> It's in my pocket now.

>> Where' you?

>> Sorry. Sorry.

>> It's time for Ellis to eat the bomb, >> guys. Okay, so as promised at the

>> guys. Okay, so as promised at the beginning of the year, >> um I said live translation >> wasn't going to be a thing because every tech company had been announcing it every year for the past decade. And lo

and behold, the year I place my bet is the year it all comes out. And so, as promised, >> I will be doing the bomb on a spoon. I

have with me some aids, a glass of milk, some extra toasty Cheezits, and string cheese. This is just what I ran and got

cheese. This is just what I ran and got from the >> save you.

>> There's some solidified stuff at the top. So, I'm just going to get get that

top. So, I'm just going to get get that out of the way because I feel like that's going to be extra concentrated.

>> My heart is like already racing.

>> I'm nervous for you.

>> I've had to bomb before. Have I had it raw on an empty stomach?

No, it's like maybe an ulcer >> probably.

>> It smells horrible.

>> It smells like battery acid.

>> Yeah, it tastes like I'll just let you experience it.

>> You know what battery acid tastes like?

>> It tastes like what you imagine battery acid tastes like. I don't have to taste battery acid to tell people this tastes like battery acid. You know,

>> fair enough.

>> Okay, just >> that is a whole dab.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, Ellis is being very brave right now. I was worried.

>> I'm worried. I'm worried. I'm gonna Am I allowed to Am I allowed to to coat my palette with cheese at first? Not going

to save you, bro. It's not going to help.

>> Is there anything Okay, I need like a safe word for you. Like, is there something where like if you actually need >> once he does >> I don't know what am I supposed to do if you like are going to die.

>> They don't come after 7:00 p.m.

>> Yeah.

>> So, I'm nervous.

>> I will say I am a spicy food expert.

>> And something I do know about spicy food is that the trick is small bites and that is impossible on a spoon. So, I'm

just going to touch this chopstick to my tongue a few times as a ramp up and then we're going to dive in.

>> No, the trick is a glass of water.

>> I apologize. I never apologize. That was

the whole thing. I never apologize.

Computer programmers of the world, software developers, machine learning engineers, AI venture capitalists, Apple, Google, Microsoft executives, Mag

7 employees.

I'm sorry. I thought y'all were full of I thought y'all were mad full of and taking billions of dollars from people who were also full of to sell people stuff that didn't work. And uh I still

think that's what's going on.

>> Welcome to America.

>> I was wrong.

>> Um and now I'm going to pay the price.

So let's get a little warm-up going.

>> Do it.

>> It doesn't work that way. It's just like getting stabbed by a thousand tiny knives basically.

>> I thought I was smart.

>> Yeah, baby.

>> Yeah. All right, give him the first question.

>> Did you do it?

>> No.

>> You should prepare exactly what you plan to say because I know it's going to be hard to >> You can back out, Ellis.

>> No.

>> Out of my word. Thank you, Marquez.

>> You're in.

>> I wrote down the answer already.

>> Mhm.

>> Oh, I forget the question. What was it?

Oh, you're going to say it. Is that the whole amount?

>> Yep.

>> It's enough.

>> He did it.

>> Oh, >> he took a spoonful.

>> Careful around the eyes.

>> Marcus Brownley. Andrew Mangadelli.

>> Mhm. Yeah.

>> David Mill.

>> It gets worse when you talk.

>> Oh yeah.

>> Yep.

>> What three letters represent both a Chinese tech conglomerate?

>> No.

Chinese tech conglomerate and an American blues guitar legend.

>> I don't usually do trivia from here. I can

see Marquez's board. I was never going to guess that, so I'm just not going to guess.

>> Damn. I'm so sorry.

>> I've We've never done this before.

>> Alice is at the big table and Andrew is next to me at the producers table, which has a great view of Marquez's board. So,

that didn't work out.

>> Didn't think about that one.

>> I kind of thought that bomb was going to be like too old, but uh >> Oh, it did say refrigerate after and it has been on our table unrefrigerated for like two years.

>> It seems like it's getting in pretty good though.

>> Okay, Marquez, what did you put? I put EC L.

>> And what American Blues legend has got the initials up?

>> She's going for the middle. He's going

for the middle.

>> I don't know. Tom Core.

>> I don't know. I hadn't thought that far ahead.

>> David, what' you put?

>> I put BBK.

>> Okay, that's right.

>> David, what's the point? What?

>> Jeez.

>> What? What? Blues guitar legend.

>> BB King.

>> BB King is correct.

>> Good job.

>> Thanks.

>> Can you play the after dark music or something?

>> Wave for >> Yeah, baby.

>> I'm ready for the next one.

>> Next question.

>> Okay. What is the Scoville rating of the bomb that Ellis just inhaled?

>> And it's Delta.

>> Answer.

>> I don't know.

>> He's not gonna answer because he saw Marquez's board.

>> Oh, and I had no answer.

>> Actually, I'm I'm changing.

>> We're Are we doing Prices, right, or Delta?

>> Oh, we are doing Delta. Okay, cool.

>> I prefer United. Just kidding. I don't.

>> Um, >> all right. We're good.

Okay.

>> Wait, real quick before we flip.

>> Am I wrong?

>> Quick update on the score. Oh,

>> Marquez has 10. David, after that correct question, well, after that correct answer with 12, Andrew with 14.

>> I need more.

>> All right, flip him and read. What do

you got?

>> Please be >> Oh my goodness.

>> Andrew, what' you say?

>> Big range.

>> 2.3 million.

>> Marquez.

>> 835,000.

David, >> how do I 35,000 minutes? Uh, 10,000.

minutes? Uh, 10,000.

>> Y'all really going to make me do some crazy math?

>> Yeah.

>> Is it like 1 point something?

>> It's 135K.

>> That's what I wrote the first time.

>> So, Marquez is closest.

>> Wait, wait, wait, wait.

>> No, I'm further. Wait, no. David's

closest.

>> You can even kind of see it. I wrote I thought it was 135,000 and I was right and then I erased it and wrote 835,000.

>> Well, I doubted myself. I almost nailed it.

>> Never doubt yourself, Marquez. Never

doubt yourself.

>> It's going to be a whole year before I get a point.

>> This is tough.

>> All right, Ellis, how are you doing over there?

>> Uh, actually pretty good. It's just my lips at this point. I mean, I say that and then I'm sure it's going to come back. It also like

back. It also like >> it will on the toilet later.

>> It somehow regardless is in my nose.

Didn't touch my nose.

But um >> that's a wrap.

>> That's hot, man.

>> Congrats on on keeping it to your word.

Hopefully hopefully the bets that we make next year are >> No, I already know. Next year, none of those humanoid robots are coming out.

And and if if one of them does, I'm doing this again, baby.

>> I love it. Do it do two of them next time.

>> If one of them comes out.

>> Okay, that's perfect. I like that.

That's a great place to end it.

>> The humanoid robot can serve you the spoonful of last. Yeah, that's actually that's what we'll do if if one of these humanoid robots actually comes out and it actually works.

>> That robot can come on the show and spoon me another >> man >> to bomb >> from the same bottle. It

>> smells so bad even from here. Please

take us out. Thanks for watching. Thanks

for listening for all of 2025. Uh see

you on the other side. 2026 is going to be sick.

>> Do it.

>> Except for next week's episode. We'll

also >> one more bonus episode next week.

>> Yeah. Play After Dark 3.

>> There's a third one.

>> Waveform is produced by Adam Molina and Ellis Roven. We're part of the Vox Media

Ellis Roven. We're part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

>> We're uh uh Vain Still wrote the music.

This has been 2025 on Waveform. Let's

get it.

>> Whoops. Just fade to black.

All right, for this clip's outro, Ellis is going to be taking another hit of the bomb. Ellis, where'd you go?

bomb. Ellis, where'd you go?