LG: Yeah. I tried to wear Focals for an entire CES a couple of years ago. Do you remember this, Mike?
MC: Yes, I do.
LG: Brian, you were there too.
BB: Yeah, I remember that.
LG: Yeah. I think I wore them for about three or four days. I don’t remember. I did write a review of them. But 2019 feels like 17 years ago. And they were heavy. They were heavy on my face. Like they didn’t seem that way right away because I think the company did a relatively good job of designing them to look like regular spectacles, but after awhile I was like, I’m very tired of these and the benefit I’m getting from them is minimal. Occasionally I’m seeing a text message come through. I also see the time of day. And then I had this experience that people have in Vegas without wearing smart glasses, which is, you’ve been in a casino for many, many hours and then you step out to the street, the real world, and you’re like, “Aah, blinding light.”
And I just couldn’t see the display as well once I was outside. So the times that I had to walk from casino to casino outdoors, I actually didn’t find the turn by turn directions to be at all helpful because I could barely see them. But anyway, I think they did a good job, considering they were a startup, scrappy startup out of Canada. And then they ended up getting bought by Google. So maybe at some point we’ll see Focals reemerge as a new kind of Google Glass.
MC: Great. And then we could all use it to measure our cake pans.
LG: That’s right.
BB: I also, I think I do remember sharing a cab with Lauren at CES that year and having her suddenly go and stare off into the distance for a minute as she got an incoming text.
LG: That’s right. There was something going on with like, you were telling me something and I was like, “Oh, this thing is happening at the Golden Globes,” or something like that. It was ridiculous. And you were like, “What?”
BB: Although I did appreciate the update. I am a big Golden Globes fan.
LG: I think it was the Golden Globes. It was something like that.
MC: I can’t wait for our technology to make us even more distracted than we already are.
LG: Right. I think Brian was probably telling me some really cute story about his family, and his wife and kids, and I’m like, “Uh huh, uh huh. Ooh, news alert on my face.”
[Brian and Mike laugh]
MC: All right. Let’s take a break and then when we come back, we’ll do our recommendations.
[Break]
MC: All right. Welcome back. Brian, you are our guest. What is your recommendation?
BB: I am going to recommend a book again. I like to recommend books. It’s called A Children’s Bible by Lydia Millet or Millet. I am sorry that I don’t know if that has a French pronunciation or not. It is terrific. It is a real gut punch. It is a climate change parable for the modern age. Everyone should read it, and it really sticks with you.
