
Steven Colbert On Vessyl Digital Cup [video] - rickdale
http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/9nzwjt/vessyl-digital-cup
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guiomie
Doesn't work in Canada.

See this link for Canada:
[http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheColbertReport?vid=39...](http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheColbertReport?vid=397740)

It is the full episode with annoying ads at the beginning...

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gatehouse
& the segment starts at ~10:20

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joshfraser
1 can of coke contains 160% of your recommended daily intake of sugar.
Lobbyists have worked hard to keep that information off the label, but it's
true. Vessyl is an amazing feat of technology, but their messaging is
confusing -- if they really want people to drink healthier, they should just
encourage them to drink more water and less sugary drinks.

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GuiA
> they should just encourage them to drink more water and less sugary drinks.

This is a US based company. The USA is a country where water is close to being
unheard of as a drink. Kids in school mostly drink milk (genuine WTF moment
for me as a European kid who moved to the US), most restaurants either have
soda fountains or try to upsell you on other drinks, soccer moms bring
Gatorade/Powerade to their kids, etc.. I've been to restaurants where the
waiter seems genuinely pissed when you ask for pitchers of water for the table
and nothing else.

I guess you can't make much money from water (unless you convince the average
American that the water from their tap is dirty and full of germs, in which
case you can sell them placebo filters that you have to renew every other
month), and that doesn't fly in the country where dollar is king.

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tvdijk
Huh? As a European living in the US, I've had the opposite impression. I've
never been to another place where _every_ restaurant will automatically give
me a free glass of water (and continuously refills it) without me even asking
for it. I've also never gotten a dirty look for sticking with just water.

In Europe, you generally have to pay for bottled water, unless you
specifically ask for tap water (and get a dirty look in response).

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joesmo
Absolutely hilarious.

What would actually be useful is something that does the same for food,
although I have no idea how that'd work (perhaps a probe of some kind). It's
trivial to calculate nutritional information for beverages as a human, but for
those of us who track such things, I have yet to see a really good system for
solid foods that doesn't rely on human guessing about portion sizes and
matching to existing known entities from a database of foods.

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chriskanan
Computer vision researchers are starting to work on the food calorie counting
problem. See this video demo from SRI International:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH2c_F6YB-A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH2c_F6YB-A)

Related information: [http://www.psfk.com/2014/04/siri-creator-builds-
platform-tha...](http://www.psfk.com/2014/04/siri-creator-builds-platform-
that-guesses-calorie-counts-from-photos.html)

[http://gigaom.com/2014/04/03/dont-eat-that-sri-built-a-
calor...](http://gigaom.com/2014/04/03/dont-eat-that-sri-built-a-calorie-
counting-food-app-that-works-via-a-photo-snap/)

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GBKS
Reminiscent of the Amazon Fire Phone promo video. Woman holds up phone to a
book cover and says "Fire Phone can instantly identify this book, tell me the
title and where to buy it." Information previously unknown...

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DanBC
That information might not be as easily a a ailable to people with visual
impairment.

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sebular
I've never heard of the Vessyl before, but it sure looks like something
that'll be gathering dust in people's cupboards.

It might be a valiant engineering effort, but the concept strikes me as a poor
way to digitally tap into peoples' diet information.

The real solution is ultimately going to be at the point of purchase. Sales
already happen in the digital space, so that's the logical point to start
building a database of food intake. If you had a digital grocery bill, that
information could be used by your digital fridge (or just a simple phone app)
to track what's been purchased and consumed by each member of the family.

Taking that idea a step further, the marketing / monetization of being able to
sell that usage data back to advertisers, or creating a "diet API" that knows
peoples' habits after they leave the grocery store would be a gold mine. In
that light, the Vessyl just seems insanely shortsighted. It's a shame that
Colbert had to be the one to tell them.

Honestly, who uses the same cup every time they pour a drink?

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tdicola
Grocery stores already know what you purchase through tracking with the the
club/value cards they promote. The information is sold to marketers, etc. and
even in some cases used by the police and insurance companies.

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jkestner
I would love love love for someone to make a loyalty card with an API. It
would be a win for grocery stores since they would have more accurate data and
more users, who would actually be more loyal if they're able to get real
personal value out of shopping at a particular store. Fine detail on what I'm
buying, and when. I could see a slew of services for brick-and-mortar that can
compete with some of the data that Amazon keeps to itself.

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jonhmchan
The CEO of Vessyl responds: [https://www.myvessyl.com/blog/posts/9-vessyl-on-
colbert-repo...](https://www.myvessyl.com/blog/posts/9-vessyl-on-colbert-
report-toylyt-coming-soon-in-real-time)

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smacktoward
Glad to see he was a good sport about it -- that's exactly the right way to
respond to a story like this, even if you really want to blow your stack and
punch the wall a few times.

Which isn't to say you shouldn't blow your stack and punch the wall, just that
you should only do it in private :-D

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NickWarner775
Colbert raises a great point about the practicality of it though; why would
you take the time to pour a beverage into the Vessyl just to get the same
readings you could have obtained from the initial container?

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ithought
Wine.

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tdicola
Wine connoisseurs would probably scoff at drinking out of a giant cup. There's
a whole art/science to the cup shape and ritual of drinking wine.

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ithought
All due respect to them, I'd like to know how many carbs are my wine. If this
device can do that, it's the only possible reason I'd buy it.

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bellerocky
A hardware startup is hard enough without this kind of mocking, but mocking
the new smart objects does make for some compelling humor. Google Glass for
example was mocked pretty extensively recently too. This take wasn't fair,
since this product saves you the time of having to type in your calories for
each drink into your phone by figuring out what you are drinking, but it was
funny.

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anon808
What is the everyday benefit of this for the regular person? Humans have been
drinking things for a long time without knowing the exact stats of their
beverages. What is this product trying to optimize?

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sp332
Yes, and Americans have become increasingly obese, partly because they don't
know how many calories they are eating and drinking. What this optimizes is
how much you have to think about journaling. Just check your phone
occasionally to see totals, trends etc.

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tdicola
There have been clear calorie counts on foods and beverages for many years
now. I seriously doubt a phone telling you how many calories you've consumed
vs. reading it right off the can in front of you is going to change anything.
If you are concerned about reducing calories, drink all the water you want and
log a big 0 in whatever calorie tracker you use.

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sp332
Weather reports existed for a long time, but it's much easier to look up the
weather on my phone now. Encyclopedias, dictionaries, movie reviews too. Just
because a clear calorie count exists somewhere doesn't mean I have it on the
container I've got with me, or that I know how much I've had so far today.

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tdicola
You're missing the forest through the trees. People are still going to consume
more than they need regardless of how many labels and apps are warning them
otherwise. High calorie/sugary drinks taste good and bring pleasure to the
brain. Solving the obesity epidemic requires re-learning how to consume and
work off calories.

Look at all the warning labels on cigarettes, etc. yet people still smoke
them. Would a phone app telling you how much nicotine you're consuming get you
to change your habit? No, the addiction is much deeper than just a lack of
awareness that it's bad. We know sugary drinks are bad but we drink them
anyways because we like them.

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jcromartie
This is what they meant when someone said that "work on real problems" was bad
advice for single male engineers in San Francisco.

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LandoCalrissian
Talking about the design part was the best for me. We made this new elegant
future cup, that looks exactly like a cup, innovation!

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gk1
The silliness is easy to recognize in this context, but I roll my eyes just as
much when I see some site or app with "beautiful" or "elegant" in its tagline.

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InclinedPlane
This beautiful and elegant design will delight our customers while disrupting
the industry with its game changing real-time social collaborative mobile
experience.

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ejain
Vessyl's reluctance to answer questions about the sensor they are using is a
big red flag for me. I'm guessing it's some kind of photospectrometer? It's
hard enough to build consumer gadgets even when using off-the-shelf sensors...

The other issue is that knowing how much liquid you drink is not as
interesting as knowing how dehydrated you are.

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bravo22
99% chance it uses a bunch of LEDs and optical sensors to measure things like
refractive index and volume, couple that with a built in scale (likely a small
load cell) and you can classify the drink.

Note how they never say it "measures" the sugar in your drink. They say it
recognizes that it is orange crush.

I'll be interested when I can mix up a batch of sugar, water, and salt and
have it tell me exactly what I've put in.

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gk1
Buying an expensive gizmo to track every liquid you consume, and limiting all
your drinking to just that one gizmo, seems like an awfully roundabout way of
improving your health. Simply drink more water instead.

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headbiznatch
Detecting rohypnol, or similar scenarios where you are "truth testing" the
ingredients. Pretty sure rohypnol detecting glasses (or drink umbrellas, etc.)
exist, but I am not Googling that.

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jkestner
Disposable stirring sticks and coasters that detect roofies do exist, and
they're more convenient than bringing your special cup around to bars.

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ethana
A "toylyt" would be a good medical analytic device actually. Get it on
kickstarter Steven!

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j2kun
This already exists. I saw a live (text) feed of a toilet that would post
statistical information about the contents — get this — in real time.

Apparently it could also determine if you have STDs, and which ones.

[EDIT] here's the site:
[http://quantifiedtoilets.com/#feed](http://quantifiedtoilets.com/#feed)
Apparently it also tracks blood alcohol content and doubles as a pregnancy
test. The former sounds convenient for a toilet in a bar: it will tell you if
you're legally able to drive before you leave the bar.

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bstpierre
That's not real:

> This was a thought experiment

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gdilla
I think they do have toilets that analyse things and send it to your doc. in
japan, for the elderly. [http://mashable.com/2014/05/27/japans-lixil-apple-
toilets/](http://mashable.com/2014/05/27/japans-lixil-apple-toilets/)

