Lauren Goode: Yes.
Brenda Stolyar: Yes.
Michael Calore: Lauren.
Lauren Goode: Mike.
Michael Calore: Lauren, where are you? I can’t see your eyes. I look at your face and I just see sort of a bluish purple blob where your eyes are. Are you in there?
Lauren Goode: Hold on. Let me twist my digital crown on my Apple Vision Pro headset.
Michael Calore: Oh, I can see your eyes now, but you still feel kind of like distant. You’re not really paying attention.
Lauren Goode: That’s the thing with mixed reality. You’re there, but you’re not. But you’re here, but you’re not.
Michael Calore: Are you present enough to do a podcast?
Lauren Goode: I think we should podcast.
Michael Calore: OK. Let’s do it.
Michael Calore: Hi everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Calore. I’m a senior editor at WIRED.
Lauren Goode: And I’m Lauren Goode. I’m a senior writer at WIRED.
Michael Calore: And we are also joined this week by WIRED product writer and reviewer Brenda Stolyar. Welcome back, Brenda.
Brenda Stolyar: Thank you. I’m happy to be back one year later.
Michael Calore: Yes, you are here in the room with us for our 600th episode. You should feel totally honored.
Brenda Stolyar: Oh, wow.
Lauren Goode: Oh my gosh. It’s the 600th episode.
Michael Calore: It’s number six zero zero.
Brenda Stolyar: Congrats you guys.
Michael Calore: Thanks.
Lauren Goode: I wonder what that number means in numerology. We should look it up.
Brenda Stolyar: Ooh.
Lauren Goode: Might be a special number.
Brenda Stolyar: Look it up for the end of the show.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. I will.
Brenda Stolyar: OK.
Michael Calore: It means the singularity is approaching.
Lauren Goode: We should probably tell people what we were originally planning for our 600th episode.
Michael Calore: We were going to float in a pool.
Lauren Goode: We were. We had an extremely random idea that we were just going to go find a pool somewhere, and all of us were going to sit there and tread water with our little Zoom handy recorders up to our faces and record a podcast. And our producer was actually on board with this.
Michael Calore: Sure.
Lauren Goode: Boone, the most excellent producer in the world. Most producers would be like, “This sounds like a nightmare from an audio perspective. You’re bringing electronics into the pool.” We were like, “No, we’re going to do this.” We had a pool in mind, and we were going to invite Mat Honan to come on the show.
Michael Calore: Yeah, just ghosts of Gadget Lab past, I think.
Lauren Goode: Yeah. We had this whole plan, and then Apple happened.
Michael Calore: And then Apple happened.