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Virtual reality has long been hailed as the next big thing in tech. It’s pure escapism: Strap on a headset and immerse yourself in a different world. At least, it would be easy to truly immerse yourself if the headsets were comfier to wear, less awkward to use, and a little cooler-looking. As unwieldy as they are, the technology inside them is actually getting pretty good. The latest headset to make news is Sony’s PlayStation VR2. It’s the first update to the PSVR in six years, and Sony gave us a preview of the device as it nears an official release next year. We are also expecting to hear details soon about Meta’s newly beefed-up Oculus headset that aims to hook you into the company’s weird metaverse.

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[#iframe: week on Gadget Lab, WIRED staff writer Boone Ashworth joins us to talk about his experience trying the PSVR2, what’s next for Meta and Oculus, and whether dying in VR means you die in real life.

### Show Notes
Read Boone’s impressions of the day he spent [trying out Read Lauren on the recent [Oculus price Read all of our [virtual reality Recommendations
Boone recommends the book [*Paradise*, by Lizzy Mike recommends the game [*Johann Sebastian Lauren recommends breakfast salads, for some reason. Boone Ashworth can be found on Twitter Lauren Goode is Michael Calore is Bling the main hotline at The show is produced by Boone Ashworth. Our theme music is by [Solar [Sign Up
##### [Sign up for our Podcasts and never miss an episode of Get WIRED, Gadget Lab, and Geek's Guide to the Galaxy.
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If you’re on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just [tap this You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Podcasts app just by [tapping We’re on too. And in case you really need it, [here’s the RSS Transcript
**Lauren Goode**: Mike.

**Michael Calore**: Hi, Lauren.

**Lauren Goode**: Hi, Mike. When’s the last time you hung out with a friend in VR?

**Michael Calore**: Never.

**Lauren Goode**: Really? Never?

**Michael Calore**: Never. Never have. All of my VR excursions into the metaverse have been solo so far.

**Lauren Goode**: What are you doing in there?

**Michael Calore**: Playing games, moving things around.

**Lauren Goode**: Well, Mike, despite how fun VR can be, not a lot of people have gotten into it.

**Michael Calore**: That’s very true. It’s still less than mainstream.

**Lauren Goode**: That’s correct. We should talk about this.

**Michael Calore**: Let’s do it.

*[Gadget Lab intro theme music plays]*

**Lauren Goode**: Hi everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Lauren Goode. I’m a senior writer at WIRED.

**Michael Calore**: And I am Michael Calore. I’m a senior editor at WIRED.

**Lauren Goode**: And this week we have a very special guest. We’re joined by WIRED writer Boone Ashworth, who is typically here in the room with us for this podcast because he’s the producer of this show and who gets to hear all of our inane dialog every week. And now he gets to participate in it too. Hey, Boone.

**Boone Ashworth**: Hi. How’s it going? It’s weird to be on this side of the mic.

**Lauren Goode**: I’m so excited.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. Listeners may know Boone as the voice of the ad.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. Yep. Yep.

**Lauren Goode**: Yeah.

**Michael Calore**: Because he reads most of our ads.

**Lauren Goode**: He does read our ads.

**Boone Ashworth**: “Do you like this mattress in a box?”

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: He’s like our Paul to David Letterman.

**Michael Calore**: Exactly.

**Lauren Goode**: Yeah. Also, Boone Ashworth is his real name.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: Like, it’s such a cool name. It sounds made up, but it’s real.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. I blame my parents. Hi Mom\!

**Michael Calore**: Who’s ... Who’s running the board, man?

**Boone Ashworth**: I don’t know. So, I guess we’ll see how this goes. What could possibly go wrong?

**Lauren Goode**: I hope that this podcast makes it out into the universe, or maybe the metaverse. All right. So, today we’re talking about VR. A lot of companies are still trying to make VR happen. Later in the show, we’re going to talk about Meta, which has huge ambitions and has said it’s willing to spend billions to get people jacked into the metaverse. But, first we’re going to talk about Sony. Sony also has a VR system, and it’s tied to its popular game system, PlayStation.

Next year, Sony is going to be releasing the new version of its VR headset. This is the first update in six years. It’s got all sorts of new tech. And, Boone here got a demo of it. It’s called the PS VR2. Boone, I see you’re back here in the real world, which makes me think we haven’t lost you forever to the metaverse. Did your PS VR2 demo live up to the hype?

**Boone Ashworth**: If by hype you mean Sony’s promise to “escape into worlds that feel truly real,” then I guess sort of, sometimes.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Boone Ashworth**: There were like brief flashes where I kind of felt myself fully immersed into the virtual world that I was in. But for the most part I kind of just felt like I was wearing a VR headset. I mean, it’s very pretty. The resolution is incredible. It feels much nicer than any other VR system that I’ve ever put on. But you’re still wearing a headset that’s plugged into the PlayStation and waving around some controllers. So.

**Michael Calore**: So, it does come with controllers? That’s a change, right?

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s ... There are updates of like PlayStation’s move controllers, which they came out with or paired with the PlayStation VR 1 released in 2016. The new controllers are called VR2 Sense Controllers. I think I have that right. They’ve got the same kind of features that the dual sense controller on the PS5 has now, which is like these adaptive controls that have this tension when you squeeze them so it feels like you’re pulling a real trigger. I guess. I’m not really a gun guy, so I don’t know if it feels exactly like a gun trigger. It’s also got this haptic feedback, which is kind of the little rumbles that you feel when you run into something in the game. You’ll feel the vibrations in there. And it’s got these motion controls.

The controllers feel ... They’re a little less intuitive for me than just sitting there with a normal game pad, just because I’m not as used to it. But definitely when you get in the motions of it, of swinging things around, classic VR type stuff, moving your hands around and chopping zombies’ heads off and stuff like that, it’s pretty cool.

**Lauren Goode**: And the headset itself also has haptics in it this time. Right?

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. Yeah. So, the headset will straight up vibrate against your forehead while you’re doing stuff.

**Lauren Goode**: Does it feel like a scalp massage? Does it feel good?

**Boone Ashworth**: To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really notice it all that much. I don’t know if the vibrations get quite that crazy. That would be something I think that they should look into, though, because that seems like a good use case.

**Lauren Goode**: I would buy it if just like these little hands reached out in the headset and started massaging your head.

**Boone Ashworth**: If there were little hands in the headset, yeah, I don’t know if I would buy it.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: Advanced robotics.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. That might be a special accessory. So, do we know when it’s coming out exactly or how much it costs or anything like that?

**Boone Ashworth**: Nope. I’m a great podcast guest because I don’t know any of that.

**Lauren Goode**: Does anyone know?

**Boone Ashworth**: I asked all of those questions. Sony’s still withholding it. They said sometime in 2023, so that could be January or December, I suppose.

**Michael Calore**: Sure.

**Boone Ashworth**: I don't know ... They wouldn’t give me a weight for it. I forgot my little scale to set it up on. Don’t really carry that around much anymore.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Boone Ashworth**: So I don’t know how much it weighs. The last one was 1.3 pounds, I think. It felt right around that. Like, when you just pick it up, it feels pretty light. Putting it on your head is a little bit different. I could definitely feel it on my head the whole time.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Boone Ashworth**: But, I have no idea how much it’s going to cost. The first one came out at $399, I think, and I think now you can buy it for about 100 bucks.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Boone Ashworth**: So I could imagine it would be more than that since it’s got a lot of new fancy features in it, all LED screens and all these haptics and it’s ... It’s a premium headset for the PS5 alone, so that’s already a pretty expensive console. I can imagine the accessories would be expensive too.

**Michael Calore**: I do want to ask one technical question about this because this demo day that you participated in, it was basically like the first look that journalists got at what the headset looks and feels like and what it’s like to wear it.

**Boone Ashworth**: Mm-hmm.

**Michael Calore**: And it has some new technology in it called foveated rendering. Am I saying that properly?

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. I think so.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah?

**Boone Ashworth**: It’s really exciting stuff.

**Michael Calore**: Tell us about that and what it does.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. So, I am not a foveation expert. I don’t know if that’s a real thing. Foveated rendering essentially is ... So, what this headset has in it is it has eye-tracking technology, which is a thing that VR headsets have been doing lately. And so, you put it on, you set it up, you move your eyeballs around to kind of get a sense of where your pupils are looking, and the foveated rendering ... Foveated rendering? Yeah. 

**Lauren Goode**: Sounds like a band, except a band name that no one wants to ever say.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: Please continue.

**Boone Ashworth**: It ... Essentially, it renders in focus what you’re looking at. So when you look at something in real life, if you were to hold your hand up to your face and focus on that, everything else around it is kind of blurry.

**Lauren Goode**: Mm-hmm.

**Boone Ashworth**: You see this in photography, in video too. It’s the depth-of-field stuff.

**Lauren Goode**: Mm-hmm.

**Boone Ashworth**: So what’s in focus is obviously sharp and in focus, and everything around it, you know ... It’s kind of blurry and out of focus. Foveated rendering does that in the headset because wherever your eye is looking, it renders that sharply but everything else around it is kind of blurry. So it actually saves processing power and energy by just kind of focusing on where exactly you’re looking and then not focusing on what’s around you quite so much.

It’s cool. I think in theory it’s a great idea. I think it’s going to kind of depend on how games implement it because some of the demos that we did ... Some of them did it better than others. There were some times that I would like ... I would look from thing to thing and I could definitely feel this sort of like out of focus blurriness around everything else that felt a little disorienting.

**Michael Calore**: Mm-hmm.

**Boone Ashworth**: That might just be that I don’t have my sea legs, so to speak, in VR. But, yeah. When you kind of move your eyes around and look from place to place, you can kind of feel the focus shifting, and I think it just takes some time to get used to that and use the tech to implement it properly.

**Lauren Goode**: So this thing has a 4K OLED display.

**Boone Ashworth**: Mm-hmm.

**Lauren Goode**: It has eye tracking. It has foveated rendering, which I now want to call bloviated rendering. It has 3D audio, haptics, improved controllers, and haptics in the headset and controllers. It’s like this whiz-bang high-tech super cool headset that we don’t know when it’s shipping, but that’s OK. It’s still tethered, right?

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. So what’s nice about it is that all you need is a PS5 if you can get one of those. You know, that’s its own task. And it just plugs right in with the USBC port to the PS5. But it is still hooked up to a cord. You can’t unplug the cord from the headset. So like the Meta Oculus Quest Two has a wire-free connection and so you can basically just wander around, jump up and down, without having to worry about hitting the cord. I definitely hit the cord on the PS VR2 a number of times because it’s right there and you’re flailing around with your controllers and it’s kind of just hanging off the side of your head. So I think you get used to it and you might know how to move around it, but it is still ... You’re still hooked to the machine, so …

**Lauren Goode**: And the idea I guess is that this is really going to be for gamers, and gamers are primarily sitting there playing games, as opposed to waving beat sabers around and doing jumping jacks.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. Yeah. Or standing in one spot. You know, it lets you set up a play area and account for if you have like stools or random things in your house. But yeah. You can just sit there on the couch and just wave the thing around too. So, I think if you’re doing that, it’s not that big of a deal. But if it was kind of a meta thing and you’re wanting to hang out in the metaverse and wander around and play a pickup game of VR basketball or whatever Meta was trying to say you could do, then I think the cord’s going to get in your way. I mean, I think it’s like a minor annoyance, but it’s definitely something that I would like hit and get angry at every now and then, especially if I’m in the heated moment of trying to whack a zombie with a baseball bat or something.

**Lauren Goode**: And how many games do we think are going to be available when this thing ships?

**Boone Ashworth**: I don’t know. I believe all of the ones that are available for PlayStation VR 1, is I think what they’re calling it … I think those are all going to be available on the second iteration of it. We tried out ... The demo thing, they gave us four different games to try out. I think there might be a dozen or so that’ll be available. I don’t actually know the exact number, but between several and several dozen. Told you, great podcast guest.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: You’re welcome back anytime. All right. Should we take a quick break?

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: Let’s do it.

*[Break]*

**Lauren Goode**: All right. Let’s ... Let’s widen our field of view. What do you say? Sorry. OK. All right. We cannot talk about virtual reality without talking about Meta because Meta has the overwhelming share of the VR market right now. But it’s still a really small business compared to Facebook’s broader business, and it’s still a tiny, tiny sliver of the consumer tech market.

At the same time, I will say that based on personal experience using it, Meta Quest Two is probably the best VR experience I’ve had. I have not had the Sony demo that Boone has had. And yet, it’s still not mainstream. So my question to you both. What will it take for VR to go mainstream? Anyone? Anyone?

**Boone Ashworth**: Not having to log in with your Facebook account, for me.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: I don’t think you have to do that anymore.

**Boone Ashworth**: Oh.

**Lauren Goode**: I think now Meta slash Oculus slash Quest Two etcetera is decoupled from the Facebook log-in.

**Boone Ashworth**: Oh. Oh, good.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: Yeah. So, that’s part of it.

**Boone Ashworth**: I take back everything bad I said about Facebook, then.

**Michael Calore**: Well, I mean, you have to ... You have to log in to Oculus.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah.

**Michael Calore**: Which is owned by Facebook.

**Boone Ashworth**: Eh.

**Michael Calore**: So, it’s still ... You’re ... The tunnel is still leading to the same place. It’s just a longer journey, I think.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. But just not having it linked to my public Facebook account is nice. Or, private, I guess, account.

**Lauren Goode**: What I’m hearing you say is that the whole idea that it’s made by the company formerly known as Facebook is what’s sort of, in your mind, a barrier.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. I mean, I ... The whole thing is ... I get a little squeamish about it, mostly because Facebook has done some crazy things that we here at WIRED have written about. I’m just not ... I’m not 100 percent ready to just jump straight on in to the metaverse. That’s almost like a little bit of the appeal of the PlayStation one is that it’s just hooked to your PlayStation. And yes I have a PlayStation account, but I’m using that to play games, not to go in and make purchases in metaverse stores or anything like that tie into my real-world wallet or real-world accounts or anything like that. 

**Michael Calore**: Well, you know, I would say what it would take for VR to be mainstream is something that is, first of all, much cheaper. Right? Cost is a huge barrier.

**Lauren Goode**: Mm-hmm.

**Michael Calore**: The fact that you have to spend at least a couple hundred dollars to get into this world. And you have to have something to plug it into, whether that’s a PS5 or a computer with the correct graphics card or something else. That’s a big deal. Wireless is also a big deal.

**Boone Ashworth**: Mm-hmm.

**Michael Calore**: You know, when they can make something that is inexpensive and is not tethered. But really I think the awkwardness is probably the biggest barrier for most people, even people who have the money and are interested in it. The fact that you’re wearing this dorky headset and that you’re flailing around your living room waving controllers ... It just ... It feels awkward to a lot of people. And I know people who are serious gamers don’t have a problem with it. A lot of people have gotten over that because they’ve had really good experiences in VR, so the awkwardness is not that big of a deal.

But I ... This is ... I know this is asking a lot. But if they can make a headset that looks cool, it will be much, much easier to get millions of people to wear them. And I must say it is very strange to be in this world that we’re in, to be talking about something that has sold literally tens of millions of units as not being mainstream. But we’re talking about breaking into the ... Like, the hundreds of millions of units.

**Lauren Goode**: Right. Right.

**Boone Ashworth**: Agreed. Yeah.

**Michael Calore**: And mass adoption. Like, when you go ... The water cooler conversation is not about *Sims* or the new Switch game, it’s about a VR game, which hasn’t happened for me yet.

**Lauren Goode**: Right. That’s fair. So, what you’re saying is that Facebook’s upcoming Project Cambria isn’t going to be the thing that tips it over the edge for you because it doesn’t look cool.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot to be said about high-powered VR headsets. Right? About pro-level VR headsets and things that can be untethered and have a great experience and are not heavy. But those are not mainstream devices. The mainstream device is something that is much, much more manageable for everybody.

**Lauren Goode**: Yeah. I agree. We should also probably just like talk about Facebook’s remarkable history in VR. Right? Because, Facebook first purchased Oculus I believe in 2014 for $2 billion. Side story. I was in grad school at Stanford at the time and this was either in late 2013 or the first month of 2014 when there was sort of a commotion in the communications department at Stanford one day because Mark Zuckerberg was visiting. And he was visiting the human computer interaction lab at Stanford University’s campus, which is where they had all the Oculus Rift headsets to run experiments.

**Michael Calore**: Mm-hmm.

**Lauren Goode**: And he was basically there to try out the Rift. Fast-forward a couple months later. Buys Oculus Rift for $2 billion. And pretty much since then Facebook has been expanding this business. They call it Reality Labs now. They’ve committed billions of dollars to building this business, and yet when you look at some of the data that’s put forth by third-party analysts, they’ve sold like 15 million units. That’s still a lot more than other companies, but it’s really, really small.

**Michael Calore**: Mm-hmm.

**Lauren Goode**: And for the past couple of years, they’ve been teasing this new thing called Project Cambria, which is still like your ... Your face is sort of fully immersed. Your eyes are fully immersed. But they look a little bit more like goggles than they do a giant headset.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: And that’s a thing I think we’re going to see next month in October. I think what’s going to be most interesting is just the next ... The next, next thing. Like if Facebook is working on augmented reality glasses that are going to come out in either late 2023 or 2024, that’s what’s going to be the most interesting. If Apple comes out with a VR headset next year, 2023, and it’s bigger, bulky, over a thousand dollars and is aimed at enterprise or whatever, whoever it’s going to be for. Developers, maybe. It’s going to be the thing after that that’s most interesting.

**Michael Calore**: Mm-hmm.

**Lauren Goode**: The most interesting thing might not even be Sony’s PS5 VR2. Right? It might be the next version, although this one did take six years, so hopefully it doesn’t take that long again.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: I think it’s still very early, and I think there’s been so much emphasis. I’ve talked to people in the industry about this, and they say there’s so much emphasis on the hardware right now.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: And hardware is like ... You know, it’s marching along, but it’s going to be software experiences, like really compelling software, that will drive the VR market, and it’s going to be really lightweight headset stuff.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. That is a good point. We don’t really have a killer app yet.

**Lauren Goode**: No, we don’t.

**Michael Calore**: It could be *Halo* if there was an Xbox headset.

**Lauren Goode**: Oh.

**Michael Calore**: It could be *Halo*. *Halo* could be the killer app.

**Lauren Goode**: Do we know if that's coming? I’m looking at Boone. Do we know if that’s coming?

**Boone Ashworth**: Oh. Oh, I wish I knew if that was coming.

**Lauren Goode**: It’s not going to be on HoloLens, you’re telling me?

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. I think there’s a lot of DNA at Microsoft. Right? There’s like ... Yeah. The HoloLens.

**Lauren Goode**: Right.

**Michael Calore**: Which is still $3,500. There’s Kinect, motion-tracking that plugs into Xbox. But, yeah. There’s no Xbox headset.

**Lauren Goode**: Hmm.

**Boone Ashworth**: That’s ... I mean, it kind of seems like the use cases for VR, at least for me, aren’t enough to get me to spend $400 on a headset yet because, I mean, some of the games that I played were pretty cool, but it’s a lot of like ... It’s a lot of like, hey, here’s the thing that you can pick up and toss around. You know, it feels ... I don’t want to say gimmicky, but it’s a lot of like, OK, you can knock bottles over or you can throw a dart at the dartboard in VR. Something like that. Or, it’s, hey, here, you can have a virtual board room or something. There just isn’t something that compels me to want to jump into the world and put on this still pretty uncomfortable headset.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Boone Ashworth**: You know, it’s awkward. I’m not so concerned about looking cool. I’ve kind of given up on the point of my life where I imagine I’m going to look cool doing anything. So I just want the headset to be comfortable. I just want it to not dig a big divot into my nose when I’ve been wearing it for a half an hour. You know?

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: And, a half hour does seem to be like the max, generally.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: People say that. They’re like ... It’s totally anecdote, but it’s like, oh, 30 minutes of wearing that and then you take it off and like your forehead is just sweating like ...

**Boone Ashworth**: Oh, yeah.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. I’ve definitely felt that.

**Lauren Goode**: Yeah.

**Boone Ashworth**: That is the limit for me.

**Lauren Goode**: Yeah. The most hilarious thing to me is when you do a VR demo with the company that's building software for the enterprise but in VR and you end up like taking a half hour to just make sure the thing is charged and log in, authenticate using hand controllers, which is super awkward, navigating in VR, finding the app, adjusting it so it’s comfortable on your face and everything. And you end up in this briefing where they’re like, “And here’s our 2D whiteboard in a 3D virtual environment.” And, I’m like, we could have Zoomed.

**Michael Calore**: Yes.

**Lauren Goode**: We totally could have Zoomed.

**Michael Calore**: Yes. I completely agree because right before the pandemic hit, there was all of this talk about presence being the next big thing for VR. It wasn’t going to be games. It was going to be presence. It was going to be we can hang out with each other around the world wherever we are. And it’s like we really just are fine with Zoom and screen sharing and just looking at each other’s screens. FaceTime is fine. We don’t need to put on headsets to connect with one another, to feel like we can have a real conversation, because it’s much more natural to have a real conversation like you’re actually having a conversation. Right?

**Boone Ashworth**: This is going to sound very old man yells at cloud, but I’m still fine with audio. I mean, the whole pandemic, my brother and I have been staying in connection via playing games and we just put on the headset.

**Michael Calore**: Yep.

**Boone Ashworth**: And we’ll play on PlayStation or whatever and just play a game but be able to talk to each other, and I don’t need to be able to make eye contact with him in order to know he’s there or carry on a conversation. Like, I don’t ... I don’t need to feel like I’m in the room to feel like I’m connecting with somebody. I just need to be able to talk with them and have some fun while I’m doing it.

**Michael Calore**: So are you going to buy a PS VR2 to plug into your PS5?

**Boone Ashworth**: The one game that made me consider it was *Horizon: Call of the Mountain*. I like the Horizon games a lot. They’re like ... It’s like a bunch of people were like, “Hey, let’s make the prettiest game we could possibly make.” And so the environment is really cool. That was the game that I played and it felt like there was a moment where I kind of forgot that I was wearing all of this gear and holding all of these things and standing in this weird room with the PlayStation studios and was able to just kind of exist in this beautiful jungle world.

I don’t know if that’s enough to make me immediately buy the thing when it comes out because I would want more experiences like that. You know, it’s like going to be a seven-, eight-hour game, something like that, and there just ... A lot of the other stuff that I’ve seen in VR feels kind of blurry, feels kind of like let’s knock some more things off of shelves, and it’s just ... There aren’t enough games to pull me to it quite yet.

**Lauren Goode**: That’s fair. And *Horizon* is not to be confused with Meta world’s Horizon or Horizon worlds.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. Horizon work rooms.

**Lauren Goode**: Horizon something.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: Yes.

**Boone Ashworth**: It’s very confusing, especially when you try to Google it.

**Michael Calore**: Horizon conference rooms.

**Lauren Goode**: Yes. I can't possibly imagine why the normies haven’t adopted all of this yet. It’s not confusing at all.

**Michael Calore**: You know, it may never happen.

**Lauren Goode**: You think?

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. I think it may never happen.

**Lauren Goode**: Oh my God. Kevin Kelly just shuddered, wherever he is.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. Sorry, Kevin. But it may never happen. We may just use this as like a bridge to the thing that actually does happen. Maybe it’s AR through a smartphone’s camera. Maybe it’s not glasses. Maybe it’s not something that’s face-worn. You know? Maybe it’s holograms. Who knows? But, it’s possible at this point that we’ll look back in 20 years at like 2012-ish to about 2025-ish as, well, we tried VR but it didn’t really work.

**Boone Ashworth**: Just go full matrix. Just plug a thing in the back of my neck and put me out.

**Michael Calore**: Yes. BCIs, baby. BCIs. Bring them on. Chip me.

**Lauren Goode**: Oh my God.

**Michael Calore**: I’m serious. It’s like ... You know, it could ... It could just be like, OK, we don’t need goggles because we can tap right into your retinas.

**Boone Ashworth**: Is this a pitch for Neuralink?

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. Maybe not Neuralink, but yeah. Brain computer interfaces. That’s where it’s at. That’s where to put your money, kids. All right. I’ll wait for that.

**Lauren Goode**: All right. On that note, let’s take another quick break while we implant chips in our brains.

**Michael Calore**: Or at least mine.

**Lauren Goode**: This is the part of Gadget Lab where we give our weekly recommendations for something that we’re into this week. And Boone, as our guest of honor and our producer, you get to go first.

**Boone Ashworth**: Ooh. OK. All right. Fun.

**Lauren Goode**: What’s on your mind this week?

**Boone Ashworth**: I mean, this is probably a less fun recommendation. If you are on the West Coast or in California specifically right now, you probably know that it’s wildfire season.

**Michael Calore**: Mm-hmm.

**Boone Ashworth**: Everybody’s favorite time of the year. Just kidding. It’s all year long now. I have been reading a book called *Paradise: One Town’s Struggle To Survive An American Wildfire*. It’s by Lizzie Johnson, who is now a writer at *The Washington Post*, I believe. But back in 2018, she was at the *San Francisco Chronicle* and she reported on the Camp Fire, which was the state’s deadliest and most destructive wildfire to date. And last year she came out with this book, *Paradise*, which is based on all of that reporting and all of just this really in-depth conversations with people who actually experienced the fire. It’s essentially a narrative that starts at the beginning of the day and goes all the way through the aftermath of the fire, of all this chaos, of this evacuation. It chronicles the narrative of people who went through it, like their personal experience, and it’s just written in a really compelling way. You really feel connected with the people who are in the stories. It’s terrifying. It’s heartbreaking. But it’s an incredible read, and I highly recommend it.

**Lauren Goode**: And Boone, I’m going to put you on the spot, but as someone who reports on fires when you’re not reporting on consumer tech or producing the podcast, this is also something that’s personal to you.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. I mean, I grew up in northern California, which burns every year. I evacuated since I was a kid just about every summer. I’ve had family lose houses and kind of livelihoods to fires and whatnot. So I think living in the state and just experiencing it more and more every year, I really felt a connection to this book and all of these fires that are out there. So stay safe everybody.

**Lauren Goode**: Excellent recommendation. That’s *Paradise* by ... What’s the writer’s name?

**Boone Ashworth**: Lizzie Johnson.

**Lauren Goode**: Lizzie Johnson. Thank you for that. Mike, what’s your recommendation?

**Michael Calore**: I’m going to recommend a game.

**Lauren Goode**: OK. Wait, a VR game?

**Michael Calore**: No. It’s ... It is a virtual world game, but it takes place in the real world, so it’s what’s called like a playground game, where you hold a controller and you actually have physical movements but the gameplay is dictated by a computer. It’s called *Johann Sebastian Joust*. It’s available for Steam and a couple other platforms. But it uses the PlayStation move controllers.

**Lauren Goode**: OK.

**Michael Calore**: Which, if you haven’t seen them, they look kind of like ... like a handheld microphone, or like an ice cream cone.

**Lauren Goode**: Mm-hmm.

**Michael Calore**: They’re cylindrical with like a ball on top, and the ball has a light. It lights up. It lights up different colors, and they’re wireless, so they connect wirelessly to your computer or to your PlayStation, and it allows you to run around the room and hold this motion-sensitive controller. So the game plays over a speaker. It plays Bach music, and when it’s playing slowly, the sensitivity of the movement sensors in the controllers is very, very high. So you have to move very slowly so it doesn’t sense your movement, and then when the music speeds up, the sensitivity drops, so you can move around a lot more vigorously.

The point of the game is to knock the controller out of your opponent’s hand. So if you do this while the music is playing slowly you’ll lose, because just you moving in on them to swat their controller is enough to set off your own controller. So you have to wait until the music speeds up, then you make your move. So it’s a lot of fun, and it’s very physical. I’ve played this game over the years, and it’s gotten a little bit better over the years. I don’t know if it’s been updated recently, but I can say I played it two or three months ago and it was much better than when I played it two or three years ago.

So, yeah. *Johann Sebastian Joust*.

**Lauren Goode**: And so you’re listening to Bach as you’re doing this, presumably.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like ... You know, it’s sort of like an ambient experience. It’s not ... You’re not wearing headphones or anything. It’s like you set it up outside usually. You do need a big room, so you need probably like 25 x 25 in order for it to be really fun, and you kind of play round-robin and then if you have a big group of people, you can sort of have a champion at the end who’s beat everybody else in the room. It’s a lot of fun. I recommend setting it up like in a backyard or at a block party or something.

**Lauren Goode**: Do you own this?

**Michael Calore**: I do not.

**Lauren Goode**: Oh. I was going to say I was feeling slightly offended that you had not invited me to play.

**Michael Calore**: I have not invited you over to play because I don’t own the PlayStation move controllers or a copy of this game.

**Lauren Goode**: OK.

**Michael Calore**: But enough people in my circle have it where I’ve played it in a couple different venues. It’s most fun outside because there’s a lot of shouting involved.

**Lauren Goode**: That sounds really fun.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. It really is.

**Lauren Goode**: Also, I think like Sony ... You’re probably going to get a box at the office in the next three days from Sony that’s like, “Here you go.”

**Michael Calore**: Oh, yeah. Right.

**Lauren Goode**: Because you just said you don’t have it.

**Michael Calore**: Well, I should mention it's an indie game.

**Lauren Goode**: Mm-hmm.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: That’s great.

**Michael Calore**: So Sony could send me the hardware, which is fine, if they want to. I would send it right back.

**Lauren Goode**: Yeah. Support the indies. Yes.

**Michael Calore**: What is your recommendation?

**Boone Ashworth**: Wait. Wait. Wait. Can I ask it? Can I ask for her recommendation?

**Lauren Goode**: Yes, absolutely. OK.

**Michael Calore**: Sure.

**Boone Ashworth**: Lauren?

**Lauren Goode**: Yes.

**Boone Ashworth**: What is your recommendation?

**Michael Calore**: Nice.

**Lauren Goode**: My recommendation is not nearly as fun or as deep as the recommendations you guys have offered today. I was going to recommend *Impeachment* on Hulu because I’ve been watching that lately, but I’m pretty behind on it in the sense that I think it came out in 2021 and now I’m just ... I’m just catching up.

**Boone Ashworth**: I thought you were going to say the concept of impeachment is what you’re recommending.

**Lauren Goode**: The concept. Absolutely. The concept of impeachment.

**Michael Calore**: Wow.

**Lauren Goode**: Especially if we can get the Senate on board. But no. My recommendation this week is breakfast salad.

**Boone Ashworth**: Hmm.

**Michael Calore**: Two of my favorite words.

**Lauren Goode**: So combine them.

**Michael Calore**: Combined.

**Lauren Goode**: Yes. And, sometime between the hours of 7 and 11 in the morning, eat it and it’s a breakfast salad. And this just happened because I’ve been making some salads in the evening and then in the morning when I’m looking for something to eat—and we’ve been going back into the office, so I’m rushing to leave for the office, I just grab a salad, throw it in a plastic bag and have it for breakfast at the office, and it’s great. It’s delicious.

**Lauren Goode**: And I am a fan of pastries. Like, I love pastries.

**Michael Calore**: Mm-hmm.

**Lauren Goode**: But your sugar sort of crashes after you have that. They’re not the most filling or healthy thing to have in the morning, and then you’re hungry again by like 10:00 am if you’ve just had like a croissant or something. This has been so much healthier and more filling, depending on what you put on the salad.

**Michael Calore**: So we’re not talking about salads made of breakfast things? There’s not like eggs and granola and bacon bits in your salad.

**Lauren Goode**: Well, you could.

**Michael Calore**: You’re talking about salads that you would normally eat in the evening that you eat in the morning.

**Lauren Goode**: Yeah. Or, a lunchtime salad but have it in the morning.

**Michael Calore**: I’m a big fan of breakfast for every meal.

**Lauren Goode**: Same. Typically, I have a ... Yeah. Like, eggs for every meal.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: Absolutely.

**Michael Calore**: Like, chilaquiles for dinner. Come on.

**Lauren Goode**: Just mix it up.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: What I’m basically saying is live your life. Don’t be constrained by whatever ideas you had before of what you’re supposed to eat when. Just enjoy life.

**Michael Calore**: This is difficult for me because you’re asking me to take my favorite meal of the day and replace it with my least favorite part of another meal of the day, which is the salad course of a dinner.

**Lauren Goode**: That’s really your least favorite part?

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. I mean, you know, it's like, it’s important. But do I draw as much enjoyment? Well, OK, no. I can’t say that because a tomato with salt and olive oil and a little bit of balsamic on it, especially this time of year, delightful.

**Lauren Goode**: Perfect. Perfect.

**Michael Calore**: Absolutely. Divine.

**Lauren Goode**: Yes.

**Michael Calore**: Right?

**Lauren Goode**: Yes. Now, I will offer one caveat as part of this. I put this on Twitter this morning. It has been somewhat controversial.

**Michael Calore**: The concept of breakfast salads?

**Lauren Goode**: No. The concept of hating arugula.

**Michael Calore**: Oh, yeah.

**Lauren Goode**: Arugula is hands-down the worst leafy green.

**Michael Calore**: No. No way.

**Lauren Goode**: It’s bitter. It’s stringy. It’s like practically a choking hazard. I hate arugula so much. So don’t put arugula in your breakfast salad is my advice.

**Michael Calore**: What if I like arugula?

**Lauren Goode**: Well, I don’t know what to tell you, then.

**Michael Calore**: You just told me to enjoy life.

**Lauren Goode**: Oh, that’s true. That’s true.

**Michael Calore**: And now you’re telling me to restrict.

**Lauren Goode**: If you get enjoyment out of arugula, I don’t know what to tell you.

**Boone Ashworth**: Oh. I’ll go to bat for arugula. It’s all right. It’s pretty good. I’ll eat it.

**Michael Calore**: Yeah. The worst ... By the way, the worst green leafy vegetable? Iceberg lettuce.

**Lauren Goode**: That’s true because it has no nutritional value.

**Michael Calore**: And then radicchio.

**Lauren Goode**: Right? It ... No. Radicchio is so good. Oh my God. Have you ever had like a little endive and radicchio with a little bit of cheese? Oh, you’re vegan.

**Michael Calore**: Sounds horrible.

**Lauren Goode**: Never mind.

**Michael Calore**: Sounds horrible.

**Lauren Goode**: Never mind. It’s delicious.

**Michael Calore**: Endive and radicchio at the same time?

**Lauren Goode**: You know, just when I’m starting to think you guys were like little gems.

**Michael Calore**: Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness.

**Lauren Goode**: Lettuce please end this podcast.

**Boone Ashworth**: I don’t think I can romaine here any longer.

**Michael Calore**: Lettuce wrap up and leaf.

*[Everyone laughs]*

**Michael Calore**: Oh no.

**Lauren Goode**: Oh. And Boone cannot romaine here any longer. We must let him go. But Boone, you have to come back some time because this was really fun.

**Boone Ashworth**: Yeah. I mean, I’ll be here.

**Lauren Goode**: That’s true. You’ll just be here in the room.

**Boone Ashworth**: I’ll be here every week. Unless you fire me, which, you know.

**Lauren Goode**: Please come back to the microphone sometime soon.

**Boone Ashworth**: Happy to do it.

**Lauren Goode**: All right.

**Boone Ashworth**: Thank you.

**Lauren Goode**: And Mike, thanks for being a great cohost even if you do like arugula.

**Michael Calore**: Of course. No shade.

**Lauren Goode**: And thanks to everyone for listening, especially if you’ve made it this far. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter. Just check the show notes. Our producer is the man who was our guest today, Boone Ashworth, the one and only.

**Boone Ashworth**: That’s me.

**Lauren Goode**: Goodbye for now. We’ll be back next week with more hot takes on lettuce.

**Boone Ashworth**: Lettuce Lab.

*[Gadget Lab outro theme music Calore**: This is ... This is difficult for me because you’re taking like my favorite meal of the day and you’re asking me to replace it.

*[A loud hammering sound from outside interrupts him. The hammering batters on for a few seconds.]*

**Lauren Goode**: That’s the inside of my brain right now.

*[Everyone laughs. The hammering gives way to the sounds of a loud drill, screeching obnoxiously for several seconds.]*

**Boone Ashworth**: That’s just a sick beat.

**Lauren Goode**: This is ... I should just go back to pastries.

*[Everyone laughs again. The drill screeching continues.]*

**Boone Ashworth**: I’m just going to leave all this in.

**Lauren Goode**: Yeah.

Source: Wired

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