Episode Details

This week, Brian and Phillip get bullish on VR, talk hype in cryptocurrency, and wish for a facial recognition burger ordering system. Listen in for a recap of CES 2018 and all the interesting news in retail tech.

Future Commerce Tells the Future:

Predictions we made in December have already come true: 10 days in:

• Phillip is Eating a hat with Costco ketchup, because:

• Brian predicted VR fitness, and BlackBox VR made it so.

• Choice quotes:

  • "All the nerds are going to be the fit ones now."

  • "We're going to have a super race of Crypto Bros."

Phillip predicted that companies would start using personal attributes to tailor products to you. Two new strange developments to report on that prediction:

• 1st: Ars Technica reported on an ingestible pill that tracks personal fart development in real time on your phone.

• Ikea wants you to pee on their ad. Ad Week wrote about Ikea's pregnancy advertisement for discounted cribs. How to prove you're pregnant? Pee on the ad and bring it into the store.

Bitcoin:

• Either we're idiots or wise pundits depending on when you listened to our episode discussing Bitcoin

• Worth watching: Seth Meyers Bitcoin commercial

• Bitcoin reminds us of the early dotcoms. The local news coverage of the "world wide web" is very similar to the reporting happening on cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin in the news:

• Warren buffet says cryptocurrencies will end badly.

• Long Island Iced Tea corporation rebrands for blockchain.

• No word on how DJ Khaled, fanboy of Rich Cigars, feels about its business model pivot to a cryptocurrency only company.

By no means our last words on bitcoin:

• If bitcoin is the AOL of cryptocurrency, then we are only at the very beginning of this conversation.

• Note to merchants: using bitcoin on your website is an antiquated understanding of cryptocurrency.

• Bitcoin is now a commodified investment similar to oil.

• It uses up a ton of energy. As much as Denmark.

• If Visa was on the blockchain, it would take the equivalent of 5000 nuclear reactors to meet its needs.

• Our favorite bitcoin tweet of the week comes from Petter Brannen, author of The Ends of the World.

• Remember: cryptocurrency has nothing to do with buying and selling goods right now.

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