Windows Weekly 863 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
00:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's time for Windows Weekly. Lots to talk about Windows 11, ai, microsoft 365, sea of Thieves we got it all. If it's about Microsoft, paul and Richard will talk about it next on Windows Weekly. This is Windows Weekly with Paul Therratt and Richard Campbell, episode 863, recorded Wednesday, january 10th 2024, full of corn. This episode of Windows Weekly is brought to you by Thinxed Canary.
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Visit canarytoolstwit. For just $7,500 per year, you get five canaries, your own hosted console, upgrade, support and maintenance, and if you use the code TWIT in the how Did you Hear About Us box, you'll get 10% off the price for life. You can always return your canaries with their two-month money back guarantee For a full refund. I have to point out, though, during all the years we've partnered with THINKSED Canary, their refund guarantee has never been claimed. Visit canarytoolstwit and to the code TWIT in the how Did you Hear About Us box. It's time for our Windows Weekly Hello, windows Hello Dozers. All of you joined together to hang with these two. Actually, if you tuned in a little early, you were hanging with them and talking about passwords and stuff. Paul Therat gruntled as usual. He's from throttcom.
02:23 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I'm nervous, as usual. Now he's nervous. Richard just agreed with me before the show and now he's like I'm going to jump all over you and he's going to just make fun of me for the thing he agreed with.
02:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And Richard Campbell, are you in Madeira Park or have you moved somewhere else?
02:36 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I am in Mad Park, but I have been modifying my color temperatures as requested. It looks so good.
02:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, your microphone actually looks gold now I mean you're very, you almost look human. And now Paul looks like a vampire, thanks to you.
02:49 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yikes, so we got it really, and I've come to appreciate that. The problem is that I'm letting the natural light into this room. Yeah, and it's about 5,000 Kelvin out there, pretty darn gray, and so I just had to manually adjust the color temperatures to get us to. I am not dying, oh Canada.
03:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, canada, it looks like you're in the golden hour, like a sun, beautiful sunset actually, yeah.
03:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, very nice, I'm trying, paul. We bet you know we're down side to being up here.
03:19 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
We are what we are.
03:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I tell you, Can you here's the deal Just try to match your mic color to Richard's. You both have the same microphone His is gold and yours is silver.
03:32 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, but mine that, mine is silver. This is the right color.
03:35 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It should be a different color.
03:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Mine is actually gold really gold yeah mine's gold too.
03:39 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Oh, you have a gold mic you sent it to me.
03:42 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, I didn't know we sent you a golden one. I didn't know you could get a golden one.
03:45 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
You sent me a gold mic.
03:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'll send you a gold mic next time, mine's probably just lead.
03:50 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Well, and I know I must have already told the story, but you know you weren't happy with my, my AT mic, and so you sent me this one, which is very generous of you, and the moment Carl heard it, when we the next dotnet roster recording, he ordered one yeah, it's like that's the best sounding thing I've ever heard.
04:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
These are great mics, yeah that's why we yeah.
04:07 - Richard Campbell (Host)
And then my editor, brandon Ping, means is you know, I love that new mic. You have to reshoot all the ads, yeah, but yeah, oh, yeah, I don't know I had to reshoot all the ads.
04:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
This these mics are good for our voices. The both the Besso Profondo. They have a very nice low end.
04:23 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Sure the fact that they actually have a squeaky voice in real life. So it must be working. It's just the bike doing the job.
04:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Somebody said this conversation before. The show where you were talking about passwords should really be reprocessed and published as Paul and Richards ASMR.
04:39 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Very soothing. Is it because we put them to sleep?
04:42 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, I think, because it was soothing, the soothing sounds. You have beautiful voices and it was. It was just a beautiful sound.
04:50 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, you know, the geek out episodes that I do periodically for dotnet rocks, which are mostly me talking, are also the ones that are popular with kids who are tired of dad playing dotnet rocks in the in the car.
05:01
So these are about topic sort of more, but it's apparently so soothing that they will put them on for the kids to fall asleep to, yeah. And so I was looking at the log numbers for that and like the nuclear weapons, one was really popular for sleep Nice, and like that's the most suppressed I've ever been making a podcast Kids didn't understand it.
05:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So that's why they felt so amazing.
05:22 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
If they only knew what you were talking about they'd never go to sleep again. Yeah, never fall asleep again, you know oh great, that's amazing.
05:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm not going to listen to that one.
05:30 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So funny Well I did two two hour long end of year, one on energy and one on space, and, yeah, the notes are coming in. You know you've done it right when everybody's angry with you, yeah, oh, I'm going to have to listen.
05:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, I'm going to have to listen. Were you provocative?
05:47 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I, yeah, yes, I was Nice, that's the way to describe it. I shall.
05:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I shall make sure to listen and don't email me. Email Richard. Yeah, it's my fault. He's his own man.
05:57 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I'm okay. I have good email filters, I'm ready.
06:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So I know that neither of you are in Las Vegas at the moment.
06:05 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Right, mm-hmm. Yeah, there's a certain maturity to not going to Las Vegas in January that I'm proud to embrace.
06:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's the senior tech journalists who abstain.
06:17 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I would hope so, because all you got to do is go there a couple of times to understand you don't ever want to do this again. Yeah, you know, the first couple of times a year goes by and you're like, oh, maybe it wasn't as bad as I remember. And then you're going like, oh, it was worse.
06:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's like pregnancy it's carefully arranged so that you forget the pain.
06:33 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
My issue, though, is there are two times of year Let me think about that, yeah, two times a year that my tech feeds really stink. One is in the buildup to Christmas, because it's all sites trying to sell. You like, oh, you can get this Lenovo laptop for $700 off, and they get like a kickback. And the other end like that's the only reason that article actually exists. And then in January, because these people have to justify what they're doing in Vegas, and it's like if I see another story about a robot vacuum or a smart microwave, oven or whatever the nonsense they're looking at god damn, it's just such a waste of time.
07:07
It's awful.
07:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know, what I realized is that's why they have these mini show events the day before. Showstoppers. Yeah. Pepp Common Showstoppers and the. Ces has its own thing unveiled.
07:20
Hey, they do it because it's highly profitable. Companies pay a lot of money to get ahead of it, basically ahead of the queue, so that the journalists who are there and want to get out, like as soon as possible on Sunday or Monday or Tuesday, before the show floor even opens, go to these events and you always can tell because it's the first item in the door, which is usually something dopey that gets all the attention. That remember the happy fork, the haptic fork, that was in the front door at Pepp Common. Remember the toilet roll robot that would bring you a roll? That was also in the front door, and I think these guys paid for this kind of.
07:58 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
They pay a hundred out to get in there and or whatever I just ah boy, I, I, I don't look. I can't claim that I've done everything or even most things right in my sort of professional life, but very early on I realized not reporting on things that don't matter is important. You know, and um, you know, ignoring stupid topics smart. You know, trying to be a little judicious. Now someone could look at the last 24 hours and find eight examples of how wrong that is, just looking at my site.
08:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But that was the goal, you know well, no, but see, the benefit is that we, what I think we've all realized is you get the kids to do it. They, they still enjoy it, and we sit back and we read their reports, whether it's from our company or others. And, uh, right now, in my case, I got a priest to do it, father Robert.
08:46 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Right, right, right. I just saw a beautiful picture of me kissing him at CS a couple years ago. I love him. I love him. He is there and because he's, the look on his face is beautiful.
08:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He wears his collar when he's going around, so people like just say oh, father here, please take this like it's a donation. Yes exactly. And so he will join us Sunday on Twitter, and what he has done the last few years is he's laid all this swag out on the table and he tries to pick some good stuff and then some fun stuff, and so we'll have that on Sunday. There you go, that'll be our coverage.
09:17
That'll be great, but, but from a windows point of view, I think there were some new PCs until made yeah.
09:22 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, there always are Right so.
09:24
I mean, yeah, there is stuff right and none of this is a robot vacuum, unfortunately. So some things that are direct related, some things that are kind of tangential. I guess the big one, of course, is well, all well. Intel and AMD both announced new, you know, pc chipsets and video announced some new GPUs. The Intel stuff is a little confusing. I mean, if you go back, I don't know, mid December, when we talked about Meteor Lake and the Intel announcement, I said at the time I talked to a buddy from Intel and he was like you know, this is years different. We're doing Meteor Lake laptop, only there's not going to be a desktop version of the chip. We will realign next fall and so for 15th gen, you know, we'll do it in the normal order and they'll be both Great. And then Intel announced new 14th gen desktop chips and I was like wait, what's going? On here.
10:18
And this is what's happening. Those are not ultra core, those are core. They don't have the MPUs and they also don't have our graphics, right, which is a significant step up from the Iris Xe graphics, which that brand they've actually given up on. They don't talk about that anymore, it's just Intel integrated graphics. So there are. I guess the way to think of it is the 14th gen has been forked, so there's core, as there has been for many, many years now, which comes in both desktop and mobile variants that both announced at CES. And then there's this meteor like variant that has the MPU and also the Intel graphics.
10:56
I didn't I'm embarrassed to say I don't know. No, I do know, I'm sorry. The 14th gen non-ultra chips are just the same architecture they've had for the past actually three generations, right. So it is a minor upgrade over the 13th gen chip set. It's kind of a placeholder in some ways.
11:14
I don't really see these as being a big deal, and I said this to Brad this morning, but the other morning I walked by a Lenovo ThinkPad laptop that I actually have to reset and send back to them and I reviewed that, I don't know, sometime in December I guess, and I looked at it and I thought to myself this is the end of the line, right, we're not going to see these non-NPU, non-aipcs anymore.
11:40
But I guess we are right, because Intel's still doing these non-NPU chips. I think one of the we'll talk about this in a little more detail in a bit. But one of the weird things right now is we're in such a transition phase that there aren't really a lot of great AI applications, and I say that I don't mean like apps literally, but ways in which you can use AI locally on a PC. It's kind of a thin area right now. I think that is going to change, but I still would not buy a PC now without getting an AI chip in it. If I was buying a brand new PC right now, I would never consider a non-Ultra core or it's equivalent, right?
12:17 - Richard Campbell (Host)
And when you're saying PC, you're really only thinking laptop, right?
12:21 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, right now I have to mean that, because there is no version of a desktop PC with that integrated in although I've been talking about this for a while without having ever seen one but Intel does have an architecture where you can plug in an MPU to it.
12:34 - Richard Campbell (Host)
And I bring that up for exactly that reason is I'm because I'm trying to do image recognition on small form factor stuff for the house. I'm actually trying to identify the animals. I think there's a few different variations of TPUs that are on small PCI, bas and M2. Huh Okay, right.
12:51 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Okay, there you go. I wasn't sure. Yeah, brad asked me about this. Is it like PCI Express? Is it M2? Like I actually don't know.
12:57 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But the PC you have. It's all of these above and there's also a USB version, but it's a little bit bandwidth constraint.
13:03 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, since we're talking about this real quick, one of the things that's kind of interesting about this to me right now is that because there haven't been that many MPUs out in the world in the PC space right, qualcomm has had them for a few years, but nobody really buys those computers. None of the local AI type apps are really designed for that. They're designed right off of GPUs, and one of the interesting side effects of Nvidia's kind of dominance of this space is that not only are they now starting and that's part of their announcement this week, they're really they're starting to put these beefy GPUs for PCs that are optimized not for games. Although they're great for games, they're optimized for AI. Based on the years of experience they've had coming from these companies coming say look, this is what we need, this is what we need, this is what we need. These apps are all optimized for the hardware as well. So GPUs right now actually have kind of an interesting leg up on MPU as far as just hardware accelerated AI workloads.
13:59 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I guess the original scalar processor. Like there's always been an argument about why are we bothering, making something new?
14:04 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
and we've solved this with the GPU, so I don't know if you've seen an Nvidia CPU or something like this and that might be why.
14:14 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So I wanted the house right. It's a double wide, full length PCI card with three fans on it and not enough.
14:21 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
You have surely noticed this, surely on your computer, because you have an MPU in your surface that the only kind of mainstream application for it right now it's built into Windows. This is Windows Studio FX thing, right, yeah, and this is just all the stuff. We're all. It's all very common across all of our teams. And Zoom type apps. Where does background blur or background replacement, it does your eyes look like they're moving forward?
14:49 - Richard Campbell (Host)
You're always looking at the camera.
14:51 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, it comes with you when you move and all that kind of stuff, right? So you look at the Microsoft solution for this, you think, well, what do you need an MPU for this? For, right? I mean, we already have this stuff. But that stuff relies on is either software based fully, or hits the GPU, it will. You know, depending on what you have, depending on the solution, they'll do what they have to do.
15:09 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But how is that different from a GPU? Really Like it's kind of the same thing.
15:14 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
No, it's literally the same thing. It's just that the MPUs that were first developed by Qualcomm are designed for the mobile space. Right, that's where they came from. They came from these very small, low watt devices and they're just more efficient. So Microsoft wrote their AI product, windows Studio Effects to that and the idea, the thing is, it's not.
15:36
You're not generating an image, something that might take 30 seconds. You're not doing a one-off thing. You're in a video call and you might be. You know, this call will be here for two and a half hours today. Right, I'm not going to blur my background and I don't have that here anyway, but you want, if you're going to be in a call, you want that to be efficient.
15:52
This is like a. This is an ongoing workload. Right, it's a, not, it doesn't. I mean it does end, but it's. It's not a quick hit, you're done. It's. It has to run the whole time. So that that's the point of it.
16:05
But, yes, I, this year you know, richard's been a big point and is right. You know, in the sense that 2024 is the year that AI needs to be implemented. Yeah, there's actually a nuance to that, because it doesn't, it also needs to be optimized for whatever the chipsets are that people have right. And I know in the Intel UltraCore there's a I don't remember the name they use, but there's like an Intel AI engine, which literally may be the name, by the way. And it it doesn't just mean we use the MPU, it means we look at the workload and we route it intelligently through Intel Arc, which is a GPU or the MPU, whatever that's called. And you know it's an it's it's, it's an intelligent system. Some. The GPU is better, I think, for a lot of things right now because of its. Its experience has been in the market for so long.
16:56 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's also. I also think it's much wider right, like the ability to ray trace onto a 4K screen requires so much more parallel processing than is typically needed for a neural net. It's kind of overkill.
17:08 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Not not a hardware expert, but I believe the MPU, the Intel MPU, is two cores. Yeah.
17:14 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So so, not. So.
17:14 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's the 12,000 that's in my 40, 60, right, Right, Exactly, and, and you know, just like processor cores, my God, like even the latest, you know, the UltraCore, whatever the I don't even know the names whatever the i5, i7, or I guess it would, yeah, i5, i7 equivalent. I mean, I think these things like 16 cores, and they, they don't just have performant and efficient, they have a couple of ultra efficient and that's the little God I got. 20 years later, Intel's finally paying attention to mobile. You know, I love to see it and I wonder how like is all derived from mobile right.
17:47 - Richard Campbell (Host)
The original tensor out of the phone, like every time we described this and like this, came from a phone Right and that's why it's so thin and light and low power and so forth, because it had to run a phone.
17:57 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
This is, you know, I, I, I love and hate Steve Jobs for all the right reasons, but one of the things he I think he got right and and he had, and he had a special way of just communicating it in a very plain English way where normal people would understand it, which is the thing we miss from with him is that there's a virtual cycle that occurs right, and in his case, what he was referring to is we. We had this big UNIX based computer system and we shrunk it down so it would fit on a phone, but we also added all these things to it that were unique and really cool, and now we're bringing that stuff back to the Mac, right. So we kind of went down to a phone, we did the iPad and now we're kind of now everything benefits from everything. It's not just one thing pushing in one direction, it's literally, you know that virtual cycle.
18:37 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But it makes sense that you start with the base set. The phone is the hardest problem. If you solve it for the phone, it'll work its way through everything else Sure. You're just not going to get that 4080 running in a phone. That's not a thing, right?
18:49 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And that might. I still don't. Maybe it would just be, maybe it would just look so lackluster by comparison. But if you think I don't know what a mobile GPU looks like, you know I have a dedicated GPU chipset in your laptop. Obviously it's not a giant card like you see in a PC.
19:05 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's a sock right, it's a little tin box. Yeah, it's a little thing, but, you know, with a lot of pins on it.
19:09 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, comparatively it's probably still bigger than the processor or whatever else, but it's still maybe relatively tiny. So the difference between the CPU, the GPU and the MPU on a mobile system is probably not dramatic physically, but when you go to a desktop computer, the GPU is this thing that's the size of a Volkswagen. I think they might just not be ready to have an MPU that can exist in that world. It makes sense. So that might be why we're seeing this, because knee jerk. My reaction is I don't understand why you would ignore a desktop, and I think it's because the people who want this stuff on desktop have already bought really beefy GPUs and they're using these scientific work Well, and I see no reason to get that large.
19:47 - Richard Campbell (Host)
There are little, four lane cards which are probably enough on PCIe. But the more logical form factor is M2. The thing you typically stick SSDs into, but that is a PCI bus connection and it's nice and small. And you take a Google Coral which normally you interface through a USB port. If you pull that chip out, you can stick it on an M2 chassis and it'll drop in your machine.
20:13 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
This has been a theme today. I'm not really good at the details, but I did read in a fascinating article. But M2 versus like even the fastest whatever bus, like Thunderbolt 4, whatever they were saying for five years before, it is an order of magnitude faster to go over PCI Express, whatever whatever.
20:29 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, and a modern ATX motherboard has four of them. Listen, you don't need that, you get. You can get two terabyte SSDs now. You don't need more storage. Oh my God, use that slot for something else.
20:39 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
This is, like you know, like Wi-Fi seven, right Fascinating. It's going to be awesome, yeah, except for this thing called Ethernet, and I'm sorry, I don't care how good it is, it's just not on the same page. And that's what? Pci versus USB, thunderbolt, whatever it is, yeah.
20:53 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Not the same league.
20:54 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's just not the same thing. This is a convenience, you know, to plugging things in and out and all that stuff, but anyhow. So that's where we're at. That's the Intel bit. So to me that was in the PC space. I you know this is a big deal, and then we don't have to go through most of these.
21:08 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, the one I want to talk about is the ACE is not because that makes me happy.
21:12 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Okay, Well, I was guys. So all the PC makers, all the major PC makers, have announced everything right. So this is what happens to CS. So what's the other thing that you love so much? The ACE is NUC.
21:22 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, oh, the NUC. Of course I love NUCs, right, I do so, and I love that. I understood why they don't move away from them, because they made some beautiful machines, no two ways about it. My question, of course, is that ACEs immediately went to gaming NUCs, which seems insane. What I really want is fanless NUC. That's right. That was my favorite NUC of them all.
21:43 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
This is yeah, I've owned several NUCs. I never owned one of the gaming ones. This was like Skull Canyon and those names, whatever those things were. To me, I look at, I mean, this is a small form factor computer. To me it's not really a NUC, but I love that they're going forward with this. I do expect to see replacements at some point for the traditional. You know we're talking laptop chipsets and like a tiny little square package.
22:07 - Richard Campbell (Host)
What if you made a laptop with no screen, no keyboard, no battery, like, what are you left with? You're left with a deck of cards. Yeah, and wanted to. It's where you. You know the whole ubiquitous computing thing involves computers. You can't notice, so they better not have a screaming fan in them.
22:23 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So this was all right, this was the deal with the, but a month ago I got an HP Spectre X360, the new version. They just announced it the other day right, this is with the funky hinge Altar core. Yeah, it's that I don't care, but I just use it as a laptop because everybody does. But it's a beautiful machine and all that stuff and that's fine and there's a lot going on in there. They have a nine I think it's a nine megapixel, you know, 4k video webcam built into this tiny little screen thing, which is awesome and there's a lot of stuff going on there.
22:51
But obviously the big deal is the, the new processor, the ultra core with the new integrated graphics and the MPU and, like I said earlier, there's not a lot and I want to see that in a nuke, right Right, because right now I would say there's not like a lot going on in the AI space. But actually this thing is a significant step up, just performance generally and then GPU performance right Over the integrated graphics. And it's not a meteor like this is generation before. This is no, it's a meteor like this is a meteor, like okay.
23:24
So the thing that's interesting about it is that there's there's always been this kind of dividing line between what I would call like an ultra book, like a ThinkPad X1 Carbon or you know. There's really thin light thing that you know, so thin you can Julian Fry's with it?
23:39
right, yes, and you bring it out the world and you do Word and Excel and your web browser and all that stuff. It's great for that stuff, right? So this thing's a great. And then you know, the next thing up is like an inch thick gaming laptop with RGB lights and blah, blah, blah and it's all you know. It's loud and it's you know. The battery life is like two and a half seconds.
23:53 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, and that's time for you to move the power plug from one space.
23:57 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah exactly so I feel like the one. The big contribution to Meter Lake in the short term is actually just that they've bridged that gap. There's this thing in the middle now, so I installed a bunch of games on it just to kind of see like it literally has no dedicated GPU. There is a 16th version. It does, or can. This one is just using those Intel art graphics and I got to say, honestly, like it's not, it's not a gaming PC. I want to be very clear. But then again, the types of people who'd want to play a modern 3D shooter at higher than 1080p, there's a tiny it's important, but tiny audience, whereas the more mainstream group that, hey, I can, you're telling me I can play Half Life, black Mesa now at ultra settings, all on native resolution and 240 frames a second oh yeah, no, that's awesome and I, for someone like me, like in this regard, I'm semi normal, I, and I know that's going to there'll be some contention about that, yeah.
24:55
But the I just let a let's let a flow of you for a second. Let that go for a second. Just let that one go. I don't, I'm not, I'm not there with a controller playing you know whatever, but this it works like it works well. So I think that's, I think that's really neat, like there's a, there is this midline, not a gaming PC, right, yeah? And I think it will evolve to be, you know, someone like your wife who might need to do her work on the road but doesn't want to carry something big or whatever.
25:22 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, she needs that. She needs that 3D CAD horsepower like no to his body Sometimes yeah. I mean, but you have to does? She need a single RGB light on her keyboard, Not a one which you enjoy.
25:33 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And no skulls, please. Right, there are no skulls. There's no RGB. It looks like a traditional.
25:40 - Richard Campbell (Host)
You know, productivity, the ultra book whatever, even if a couple of jet engine fans have to crank up to really let that GPU do its thing. But you know, that's, that's rendering man. That's fine, right, I have the horsepower, yep.
25:54 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So I think that's very interesting. I didn't. I didn't pay too much attention to the new Intel stuff, otherwise the AMD stuff either. Nvidia is now getting far more into software than I recall them ever talking about before, and I think this is smart because they're protecting an ecosystem. Now, right, they know that.
26:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Well, we're also at a fragmentation moment. We need a new set of drivers, and whoever can command that? Well, the big thing here is, if you leave this up to third parties, your product will be poo pooed because the driver's bad, just ask.
26:27 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, they're even, they're even doing and and you well developer, or whatever software like they're writing, you know AI going all the way through to the AI workbench.
26:35 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So, I think that's exactly for that reason you want to show off your hardware. You got to make sure the software doesn't suck.
26:40 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yep, this is what do you call this? Ecosystem protection Makes total sense and who knows? I kind of talk about how they kind of waltz into this market and all this stuff, but the reality is they dominate right now.
26:52 - Richard Campbell (Host)
They are kind of the Intel and they're choosing not to sit back, because the logical thing for the competitor to do is to do a better end to end solution and and be able to embarrass their inferior, your superior hardware with their better implementation. So the fact that they're on this is how you protect your lead.
27:07 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, I think what they're doing is smart, so I let you know. Good for them, I think that's all good.
27:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
No, no, I, I'm more power to them. You know they've been doing good things all along. I love that they found a new market. Welcome to the Trillion, you know. Valuation club To the club, my God yeah.
27:22 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Hello. By market cap, they're the biggest hardware maker, the biggest chipset maker.
27:27 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But what they haven't done is what most tech companies do, which is freak out when you're in the lead. Yeah, I right now they're they're.
27:34 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
they seem poised right now, so we'll see if that lasts.
27:37 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But it's hard. Tech companies suck at leading. They like chasing. That's what they know how to do, and so it's like can you actually keep focusing on your knitting when you're in front Right?
27:47 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
No, that's true, Most of these other things I have here specifically PC related. But there's there's a reason for this. There's kind of an interesting thing going on now. This is in a variety of ecosystems, a variety of ecosystems kind of like mobile, smart home, whatever, and the idea is we have all these devices and we have phones, we have computers, obviously tablets, we have TVs, we get smart home devices around the house. And if you're in a PC space Windows as you are, you're here you may know that there are these competing standards for doing things like sharing files or casting a screen to another device and that we don't really get to take advantage of a lot of this stuff in the Windows space. So mirror.
28:26 - Richard Campbell (Host)
What mirror cast is lovely Paul.
28:29 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I said no one who has ever used mirror cast ever. It is the biggest pile of crap and I it's always bothered me Some cast as a product line or whatever. It is over 10 years old now. I've always wanted them. I still recommend them because they're so good. I would love for Microsoft. I don't understand why they never just such a solved problem, yeah.
28:51
It's such a solved problem. So Google last was last year. Google last year yeah Well, it might have been over a year ago, but last year they improved something called nearby share, which is their version of nearby sharing, which is a Windows feature that allows two computers to you know, you know you know, I'm starting to get a little bit of care about this because I finally got rid of my active directory infrastructure of my house, so I was just the two of us and we actually just want to share files.
29:15 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's like I really don't want to stage this through OneDrive. Can I just give you this file please?
29:19 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It doesn't matter how technical anyone listening to this is. Admitted, you have all done this. I emailed a file to yourself. You have done all the stupid stuff. I will save it to OneDrive on this computer. Go over here and load it on OneDrive on this computer, Like we've all done this.
29:36
The thing is, you know back in the day, this is still built into Windows. It does not work very well at all, but there's this kind of standard file, SMB file share technology. To give you an idea of how old this is in 2001, Microsoft released Windows XP and one of the big features was something called Simple Share, and Simple Share was designed to make the Windows NT share that's still in Windows today, by the way simpler. The problem is that since then, we have these new authentication types and we have online accounts that we sign in with and you cannot type in your Microsoft account and then your password and they would do anything. It does not work and you have to really know what you're doing to get that stuff to work, and it's hard and basically you just have to do a workaround, which is not worth discussing here. But anyway, we had home groups for a little while. Remember that Windows 7? Those are gone and now we're in our home server. It was a beautiful day, oh God, home server, of course. So now we have Nearby Sharing, and Nearby Sharing is great but it's nondiscoverable. It only works on Windows. It's not cross-platform.
30:38
Google brought their Nearby Share to Windows, but you have to install an app. It only works between Android and Windows. Obviously, Apple has their own stuff. They have their casting technology, airplay. They have well, it's better than it's more than casting, but we'll call it casting. And they have AirDrop, which is a way to share files between Apple devices. But, again, proprietary Amazon during CES that's why I mentioned this adopted something called batter casting. So, and I look at this stuff and I think, oh, and I should also say, a Nearby Share on Android is going to turn into something called a Quick Share, because Samsung because this is what they do had their own sharing product called Quick Share. So Google and Samsung are partnering. They're going to rename to Quick Share, they're going to adopt the best of both and that's fun. It's fun If you're on Android. It doesn't really help all this other stuff?
31:25 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, is there strength in your own ecosystem so that you'll spend more time there? It's like feeling more walled gardening than you're used to from Google.
31:33 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
When Microsoft introduced Cortana to the PC in Windows 10, I made the argument All 10 minutes of it. Yeah, I know it was a burst, it was a little. Yeah, it flew too close to the sun and burst into flames, but at the time I said, in keeping with the philosophy of Windows, what we should have is a default assistant interface in Windows that we could plug in if we want to use the Google thing or whatever else. We should be able to replace Cortana with that. And now what I'm going to say is they are, they don't. You don't really see this word in the UI, but it is mirror cast that Microsoft uses in Windows. If I go, you know Windows, key plus K is that cast screen. I should be able to cast to Chromecast. I should be able to cast to, you know, air I guess it would be AirPlay. I should be able to cast to MatterCast thing. Now I mean, I would like to see Microsoft actually adopt something that works everywhere.
32:27 - Richard Campbell (Host)
What a thought. Well and the dev team routinely does this where they won't do their own implementation of a popular open source library, they need more of the company to do that sort of thing. I just delighted the idea that you think that these companies will possibly agree to use the same old notation.
32:44 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Oh, no, no, no, I don't believe that at all. I know they're not going to, but what I? I look, Apple's not going to change. Apple's always going to be Apple. It's going to be home kit, Yep, so I don't know. I feel I think one of the biggest missing or missed opportunities I guess I'll call it in personal technology is that Google hates Microsoft so much that they can't see that this is a natural partnership to counter Apple and they should be working together and that whatever casting technologies that Google has should be in Windows natively. And I think we're going to talk is this in here, Please.
33:23 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But you know why Google's jumpy is because they collaborate with Microsoft to advance the W3C standards that Apple was resisting on it and ended up with Microsoft finally going. You know, we agree on all these things. We're just going to use your library now.
33:37
That should be complimentary they should be. I would hope they would see it that way. Right, that that's actually a better answer. I also wonder how they actually feel about Kubernetes, because, you know, having the container market consolidate on Kubernetes is very good for the industry, but it was one of Google's competitive advantages at the beginning, and then Brendan Burns went to Microsoft and then AKS home adages and then in, you know, when Amazon jumped on board, it's like game over. The big vendors all use the same containers now, I think the.
34:07 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
You know, we talked about this a few months ago. There's this notion of native cloud apps. Now, right, what does that look like?
34:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
And I will. That's not a notion, paul. Come on, that's a real thing.
34:16 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Okay, I'm making shows about it, so it must be real. There you go, so I. But that's the point. That's the Microsoft of 20 years ago. A native cloud apps would have been native to Windows, or are you sure they would have been native?
34:31
Now these things are designed literally to be. They don't really. It's cloud agnostic. You could be on Google, could be on AWS, could be on Azure, it doesn't matter. And to me that is the reality of the Microsoft of today. I think Google when they came up in the world 20 years ago, ish, microsoft was dominant and they just had a very natural fear that if we're going to get stabbed in the dark, it's going to be by this company and his co-founders put this into their kind of corporate mentality, whatever, and I think it's still there and it's too bad because there's an opportunity here and Microsoft has indicated many times their willingness to work with Google. Ranted. They are not exactly helping in Google's current antitrust case, but you know, leaving that aside, yeah.
35:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I mean, I am not sure how Google feels for a company that generally has been more open than Microsoft ever was, right, but it's almost like you know, the subtext to all of this is the game of corporate giants playing the open source game and in some ways I think Microsoft has outmaneuvered Google in the open source game in a pretty profound way. Right, they're kind of allowed their own GitHub, I know, I know and people are happy about that, right?
35:43 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
No one could have foreseen this. I just think that these companies need to answer what you said earlier. No, I don't believe that will ever happen. I really don't. I wish it would. We would all benefit from this collectively, and it would be smart. It's too bad. So all I know is there's different casting things occurring, different files, wireless files, share, whatever you want to call that and Microsoft is really not a big part of any of it and they need to I don't know license something, do something.
36:15 - Richard Campbell (Host)
This is part of me that says this is just not that. This is almost like too consumer-centric for them. Well, and yet they make the consumer operating system that a lot of people run Like yeah, we need the Windows client guys to look and go. Oh yeah, I would know we should probably be.
36:30 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, like I said, you know, 2021 PCs were so not just ubiquitous but the only personal and competing platform that mattered that they could. They felt it was important to make file share over network home network easier. Right, and then they did home groups, and which integrated with Windows Home Server, by the way, and that was the very early 2000s.
36:52 - Richard Campbell (Host)
And then they have done nothing since except Then small businesses started to use it and the cork group got freaked out and they killed the whole line. Yep, it's a gun. Yeah, so I know. So it's a small business. Additions Right.
37:06 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So it's a different world and it's a heterogeneous world and I think interoperability is the key and you know, windows still has a sizable user base. A lot of people use Everyone who uses a Windows PC uses a phone of some kind, like you know.
37:20 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I know that. I know that it's sell cloud because of it doesn't sell cloud.
37:24 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Which is why, yes, there is a share experience in Windows today. That debuted in Windows 8 and has been updated in small ways, right. One of the weirdest things about Windows 11 today let's see this for yourself is select a file somewhere in a OneDrive folder and share and look at the UI, see what it is, who each choices are, and then grab another file somewhere that's not in OneDrive, do the same thing, and it's a completely different share. In a phase, guys, you can't even get your own share in a phase, like, what are you doing? What you mean? They got at least six of them. It's crazy. So, anyway, I'm not saying I matter, casting is the answer. I'm not saying Google cast or Chrome cast is the answer, but maybe I am. One of those is the answer, maybe both of them, but why don't we give people options and work with what they have?
38:07 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, the phone link is not cutting it.
38:09 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I can tell you that.
38:10 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Boy. No, I'm ready to turn that thing off. It's making me crazy.
38:13 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
But it's not just phone link, you know it's, or phones, it's screens and all the other devices. You know I want to some some of the TVs I've experienced in my life. Actually, I bring up the projects, you know, projects, remote display, and there it is, yep, and the ones. But the ones I have in my house right now Nope, no, not there. So and there's Samsung devices. Those guys used to be really big on a very cast.
38:36 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, now, these days, the one thing we're using up here more than anything is casting YouTube to the TV. Yeah, and how do you do that? Just from your phone, pick the thing you want to do. And I mean, it's not surprising that I'm doing. I'm blown away that she's doing it. Yeah, how are you watching this? You go. So I sent it to you from YouTube. I'm like, okay, that's awesome.
38:57 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Wow, there you go. That's the yeah. No, that's great. That tells you it's gotten fairly good. It works, yeah, and it works yeah, it has to just work too.
39:05 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, I said she. Yeah, it's got to work for a strive, she's not going to do the second try.
39:09 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Moving on this. This isn't related to Windows, but I kind of wanted to throw this in here because if, if AI hadn't exploded the way it had last year, I think the way I would have broken down 2023 is I would have selected at least five and as many as eight of the really kind of big stories of that year, and that would have been how I would have defined that year. But you know, ai obviously overwhelmed everything, but but one of those stories was how matter ended up really not mattering to him. That's right. No, they, they came up with a standard. Everyone said yes and nothing works together.
39:41 - Richard Campbell (Host)
All the devices, I told me just the same way ZigBee came out. It was a standard, everybody agreed to use it. Nothing works together.
39:49 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So a lot of this stuff actually came out of Google, including one of the two network protocols that it supports, which is something called thread.
39:55
The other one is, you know, wifi and one I get.
39:58
Apparently I didn't know this, but one of the problems with thread is that if you bring in thread devices from different ecosystems you know Amazon, google, whatever the other, you know home kit, and then all the third party ones, whatever they're all out basically on their own segregated network over thread. Somehow they never thought that they needed to let the you know they're doing it in a way that's basically like a credential pass through, but to the end user it doesn't matter. The point is to the end user these things are all in the same home network. They should all be talking together and seeing each other and the idea is that I should have one device from this company, one from this one, one from this one and whatever dashboard I choose to use, the Google home app, the home kit, what it does matter. It should see all of them and I should be able to do routines and you know all that stuff. And one of the reasons that matter hasn't kind of worked out is that thread actually doesn't support that today.
40:47 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So unless you're using home, assistant, unless you're using.
40:50 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's fascinating, because that's actually. That's actually what Brad is using right now. That's funny, right, which is like I just it's like a, it's not really, but maybe it is. I think of it as a Raspberry Pi that solves all your problems, the kind of a thing, except, don't run on a Raspberry Pi, right, but that's what I mean, but it's sort of that kind of a device. Yeah, yes, so hopefully if in a perfect world, that will no longer be necessary, because this, the underlying protocol, should just support this. It's the point of matter is literally interoperability.
41:20 - Richard Campbell (Host)
We shouldn't be working around this.
41:21 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, yes, so that will happen, but this will fall back on the companies to support it, so I do not believe.
41:30 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, I don't know. They've done it. Why would it be different this time?
41:34 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
No reason to Yep.
41:36 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But you know, we keep kicking a kick at that football.
41:39 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's gone so well so far. Someday I'm going to connect.
41:43 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Speaking of Lucy. Hey, yeah, lucy, oh no, the other Lucy, sorry.
41:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
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43:38 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, I buried the lead because Microsoft announced a new key for Windows keyboards for Co-Pilot.
43:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Wait a minute, just one, is it? I don't know, schwa, what is it?
43:53 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's a Co-Pilot key. Oh, what's it look like? I was delighted to watch all of my colleagues in my space get the story wrong. It's the first new key on a Windows keyboard over 20 years.
44:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, it's not. No, it's not. Do we need? I know Matt Apple does this now. Do we need a dedicated operating system key? No, no, we don't, and it just makes it. I mean, besides, we already have one.
44:18 - Richard Campbell (Host)
We have a Windows key, yeah.
44:20 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I feel like we got two.
44:22
Yeah, we don't take advantage of some of the things we could be doing, like getting rid of superfluous keys like caps lock. You know, also, we could be doubling up functionality on certain keys. So caps lock, for example, maybe pressed in, held on shift or something, or double tap shift, it would do that. You know it could toggle a light or something so you could know it was in that mode, whatever. I mean, there's a lot of efficiencies we could be doing. I would say the Windows key solves a purpose because it opens the start menu and I do think, you know, as someone who uses the keyboard a lot, I do like that. Nice, it's easier than control escape, you know, or whatever, which is also the shortcut. Yeah, but yeah, do we need a co-pilot key?
45:03
No, no, until we don't, and especially because co-pilot on Windows is so terrible right now. Right Now that could change they. I don't know I this came up with Sacha Nadella, I think it came up with who else talked about this, someone else. Microsoft talked about this notion that co-pilot will one day maybe replace start. You know that this will be our app orchestrated and this is where we will literally start lowercase s, you know, getting stuff done and yeah, that's fine. And in the five to 30 years it takes for that to happen, you know, maybe we can talk about this key, but maybe at that point that becomes the Windows key. I mean, what's the difference? Like I don't. So here's the good news You're not gonna see this in all keyboards.
45:47
For one thing, it is replacing a key that has different names, the menu key. You'll see on the right side of a lot of keyboards, right side of the space bar, which is the context menu key right, which, like the Windows key, is related to functionality that debuted not really, but debuted officially, formally, in the OS in Windows 95, and was not particularly discoverable or well-understood by the user base and they thought, you know, people will look at this thing and say, oh look, it makes a menu come up, you know. So people weren't using that. Microsoft, of course, had an office keyboard with an office key and all the office apps have their little goofy window office key shortcuts, which you can still do through a contorted three or four key shortcut, and blah, blah, blah, whatever. But yeah, I don't know.
46:36 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I don't know really Well, and I'm just looking down at this keyboard going well, I have two Windows keys. That's a lot of Windows, yeah, really, yeah, oh really One. On each side of the space bar it goes Windows key, alt space bar, alt Windows key.
46:50 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Oh boy, well, I guess that's good for lefties or something, I don't know.
46:53 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's just too enthusiastic. It's like look. And then there is that context menu key, the one that nobody uses.
46:59 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Oh yeah, that as well. Oh, okay, so you kind of like everything to be symmetrical.
47:04 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I only have one of the context menus keys, because it is, after all, right click, so why shouldn't it only be on the right? That's right.
47:11 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It is kind of a weird thing, I don't know Anyway.
47:13 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't see this as a. I feel like keyboards should be standard across the board.
47:16 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I do too. Oh God, please, that would be the best. Yeah, chance, that's something. Actually. Google will give them a little credit. People around these parts probably don't pay attention to this, but Chrome OS keyboards are pretty damn standard, Like they're almost exactly the same everywhere. Menu key, you know that one. Yeah, I just I feel like what's happened.
47:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
it's the same thing that happens on the first page of your phone. As companies decided that's keyboard is realist, is valuable real estate, let's put an ad there.
47:45 - Richard Campbell (Host)
That's right.
47:46 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I don't want an ad there I want a streaming box. It's like, when you buy a streaming box it has like preset buttons Netflix, hulu and whatever and you're like I only subscribed to one of those and it moves around because it's been made this year.
47:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know it's really frustrating.
48:00 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, it's stupid, yeah, so, whatever, I don't think this is going to be a big change, but there are some companies that have added it already, in fact. Okay, so I skipped over this. Let me talk about one of those companies briefly is Samsung, and if you thought those guys put a lot of crap on their phones, let me tell you people you got to check out their PCs Awesome. And aside from that little problem which is not a little problem, it's a big problem there is the other problem with Samsung and Microsoft, which is they have a secret little partnership going on, and I don't like this because it leaves out a lot of people. And what I mean by that is to date, if you have the phone link app and you have an Android phone, you get a certain set of functionality. It was always better than what you got on an iPhone. But there's a third level of functionality, and that's if you have a Samsung flagship phone from a recent year. You get additional functionality around such things.
48:57 - Richard Campbell (Host)
S21,.
48:57 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
S22, that kind of thing, Yep. So you get like a remote app from the phone we're running in a window on your desktop. You get remote desktop, remote display of the entire phone. There's some other stuff. So there's some stuff that you only get with Samsung.
49:09
It's not that those phones are any more powerful or whatever than other phones, it's just they have a partnership Right, and so this is. You know, you'll see Bing, as you know, the Bing Apple be on a Samsung phone. There's a little bit of you know quid pro cro going on here or whatever. There's something. It's a partnership Right, and unfortunately, with their latest devices which look nice, you know Galaxy Book 4. And there's a series of them. I'm sure over time they'll have laptops in 360s and whatever they have, but you know, they're nice looking machines, They'll be loaded down with crapware. They actually have additional features that are unique only on Samsung, and in this case you have to have a Samsung laptop of this Sorry, it has to be the newest one and one of the more recent year Samsung flagship phones and you get additional co-pilot functionality in windows.
49:58
It's like, guys, what are you doing? Is that why you should even run windows? Yes, it is a Windows laptop. Okay, Yep. So I am not a fan of that kind of exclusivity type of thing, and so I'm just going to. I'm not going to read this whole thing, but the way the integration, as Samsung describes it, means you could let co-pilot track down restaurant recommendations your friends have made in previous messages on your phone, Search visitor reviews in the browser, Send a message to someone else if they want to go to dinner that evening all from your PC through the phone. So, in other words, you have a co-pilot app that no doubt is being bundled on the Samsung phone.
50:34
Now, right, you have co-pilot in Windows, obviously, Co-pilot key in the keyboard and these things are going to integrate, but only if it's all Samsung and guys, I'm sorry but like, come on, that's ridiculous and that's too bad. So that's where we're at there. So there's your how's your co-pilot key now? I don't know. Anyway, since we talked last Wednesday, there has been only one new build of the Windows Insider program and it was just a bug fix build for the beta channel. So we talked last week about Dev Canary updates. I was expecting I don't want to say hoping, but I was expecting to see something by now as we speak. Maybe on the next break I'll take a peek and there'll be something else, but no, there's been nothing. So this has been kind of quiet and I don't.
51:22 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I really can't explain that too much. So still getting back to work is this is holiday hangover.
51:27 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, it could be. But they but you know, they did have those builds last week. I don't know. Yeah, but they were pre they were probably setting up a holiday. Yeah, they probably pre-staged or whatever.
51:36 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, that could be, it's just the drag there. So now you're actually doing that feeling that two, three week window, yep, yep.
51:42 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, I mean, I have my own hangover. I don't have to suffer from that, from theirs too, but I guess I am. You mean both. I was going to make this a tip, but I'll just throw it in the windows 11 section because I don't.
51:54
I try not to provide too many updates to readers. I know it can be a little, you know, a little bit of an interruption, but it's been two months since I shipped the first updates for the 23H2 in the windows 11 field, guys, so since then I've actually added 160 pages to the book. Holy man, yeah, three, all new chapters, it's all you know. Over a thousand and 50 pages long now. So if you haven't looked at it or downloaded it or whatever recently, you know, grab a new copy, because it's it's been, you know it's getting there. I'm going after the Bible, I think is what I'm trying to say, and you know we'll see. Why do you shame for war and peace, man, like, well, you know baby steps, and obviously, if you haven't got it, please think about it. And then I haven't written about this yet, but Zach over at Windows Central is reporting that there is code inside of some insider builds that suggests that Microsoft is looking at adding AI writing assistance to notepad, and I know the collective groan that this news will trigger, because I literally groaned out loud when I read this and I thought to myself you know, this is not the right place for this right.
53:07
People don't write in notepad necessarily. I mean, I know Mary Jo might disagree with that statement, but you know I, if you're going to, if you're going to make notepad acceptable as a writing tool, I think it needs a few more basic features first. You know, frankly, I mean there is some form of spell checking that's available through the system, that passes through, et cetera, et cetera, but this is the type of thing that needs to be in Word. I think there's a case to be made for Microsoft replacing WordPad with some kind of a modern rich text editor, and maybe their goal is to turn notepad into that thing. If you think about how, just leave notepad alone. No, I couldn't agree more, I 100%. But if they're going to screw with it, I guess I would look at text edit on the Mac and say you know, it does rich edit and play in text, and I mean it did kill WordPad?
53:57 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Was this all part of their greater notepad expansion strategy?
54:01 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I bet one of the problems with notepad was that architecturally it was very hard to add AI to it, right? I mean that could be, that could be. I mean notepad has a lot of older code underneath it and a front kind of a fun yeah.
54:14 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I would also say, this feels very interning. Yeah. It's like you need something for the intern to do. So it's like why'd you go mess with notepad some more?
54:20 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It doesn't bother anybody, it just feel you know what, but to see, I use notepad every single day. It bothers me.
54:26 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I know I don't I now. Why'd you go mess with notepad? It only bothers Paul.
54:30 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, I don't. Actually, I don't really thought about this, but I here's the problem I have with it. I don't mind that features are available. What I mind is that I use a lot of different computers. So every time I run notepad for the first time, a popsable of dialects says, hey, we're doing this now. I'm like okay. And then they go into settings and I turn that thing off because I don't like that. I don't mind that. It's available for everybody, and by that I mean the session state saving. Yeah, I don't want it. That's not how I use this product. So it's another thing I have to do to make this thing more like it used to be, which is the way I want it, and it's just like yet another thing I have to configure Like it. They're never going to save that setting. So all you're doing is annoying me A lot, because I review a lot of laptops. Okay, so there's that.
55:14
And then on the Microsoft 365 front, we also got some. This is actually tremendous news. This is one of the this has made me so happy. Microsoft sometime last year announced that. Did they announce this really, or did we just find out? I'm not even sure they announced it. I think they might have announced it, but it was revealed, it was let known or whatever that they would be putting all of their hardware under the Surface brand and getting rid of the Microsoft hardware brand and unfortunately that meant they actually discontinued virtually every single product that that part of the company was making, including some this thing that I use, which is a Microsoft, microsoft Sculpt Keyboard. I'm surprised to tell you, by the way, I was over 10 years old now.
55:56 - Richard Campbell (Host)
That I rely on. I have a friend who has six of those in a closet, so when he wears it out he has it back.
56:00 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I used to have three of them in a closet, and now I am done to. I have one here in one of Mexico and there are no more. So here's the thing, it's coming back. So when Microsoft.
56:09 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Justin, you're on inventory, yep.
56:11 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, I might be moving on to something else. We can talk about that too. But yeah, because there's some interesting options now for this kind of thing. Microsoft when they, I guess they had a call with all of their hardware partners to reveal that this was happening and the folks from Incase said, hey, can we talk Because we might have a solution for this, and they were like, how about letting us do it? And they're going to do it, so Incase later this year is going to re-release. I can't say all of them, but I think most of the stuff that Microsoft discontinues coming back through Incase, including this keyboard that I love so much. That's neat. Hp announced a keyboard very much like this at CES. They also I don't really use this kind of thing, but they also announced like a vertical mouse, if that makes sense.
56:54 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I don't feel like I use this thing like that. If you've ever Folks that are dealing with repetitive strain, the vertical mouse is really good for that.
57:00 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, and they can use the angle of the wrist. They got it exactly right, and there's also a logitech option that can be angled this way, because most of these kind of ergonomic keyboards either don't angle or angle in the back, which is exactly wrong. You don't want to do that to your wrist. You want yeah, you want us to kind of sit as flat as possible on top of it. Yeah, so this thing is. I think it saved my writing career and Protect your wrist anyway. Yep, so, yeah, so that's fantastic.
57:26 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Anyway, my favorite mouse of that whole lineage when we were messing around with was the Roller Ball mouse, where you just put your hand down. Well, because I did the original triple screen rig way before.
57:35 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Windows knew what to do with it. You needed to squeeze up like an old mouse pad. When you get that thing away, yeah, so I got 10 feet to go.
57:41 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I got to keep spinning that ball. What?
57:42 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
do you call it? What's that effect? It's a it kind of increased or the friction decreases over time or something. What do you call it Like? It's kind of like a speed-up effect or whatever. I could never get used to that. I tried so hard. There was a I think it was actually logitech, but it had a red ball that was the size of a pool cue Humongous. Loved it and I could never get used to it Loved it Loved it, I would touch it.
58:05 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I actually get it in another one. The cursor would be like it would just take off. It definitely has a groove to it, but it also is another one of those Anything to keep your wrist from being flat down to turn it on its side? Yeah, so what I use?
58:17 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
is the sculpt mouse, which looks like a softball. But I also use a gel. Your hand sits on it very nicely, yeah, but especially if you have a gel. I just replaced mine with a gel wrist pad. Yeah, you can get a really nice Belkin gel wrist pad on Amazon for $8, which I know is not expensive.
58:34
I just did. It's fantastic. So, yeah, that ergonomics is super important. A lot of the Microsoft's come up with over the years has been almost maliciously non-ergonomics, so like their surface branded ergonomic keyboard is terrible, but this thing I love. I love the sculpt keyboard so much.
58:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But I'm glad that Incase is going to. Yeah, it's wonderful, I think that's great.
58:59 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, yep, these are great products, so that's really nice.
59:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Keep them alive. And they're apparent what they're stuff that was never released, right.
59:05 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, that's. Oh sure I should have mentioned. I'm sorry. Yeah, so Microsoft had some products and development that they hadn't released, and Incase is going to release those too, so that's.
59:14 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So they really did buy it lock, stock and barrel, yeah, and it took. Presumably they can manufacture more efficiently than Microsoft ever could.
59:20 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, I think some of them, god, they're more in that space. Yeah, I think of Incase as being kind of like a backpack company. I've had at least one Incase laptop backpack but I think they they made all kinds of stuff.
59:31 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I think they did the whole peripheral thing.
59:32 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, yeah, they're all nice.
59:34 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But it brings up the situation. The question is, like you realize, there was a great team at working at Microsoft designing stuff to a company that largely didn't value it.
59:43 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Right, which is crazy. I mean, the Panos Panay and I think others on the service team came up out of that group. Yeah, and I think they did some good work. Mm-hmm, I don't know. So, when we think about, what kind of products could I compare this to? So Windows RT is a great example of this.
01:00:01
It's something that looks like that thing. It says it is, but it isn't that thing, right? In other words, what do you call a version of Windows that looks like Windows, quacks like Windows, walks like Windows, but doesn't run Windows apps? We call it Windows RT. So what do you call a version of Microsoft Teams that looks like Teams and can't join Teams meetings or chat with Teams? We call it Microsoft Teams because Microsoft gets branding horribly wrong. But what they're referring to is the free version that's in Windows 11, right, it's Teams per end free, right.
01:00:30
But if you look in your start menu, by the way, and you type in Microsoft Teams, you will discover that that product is identified as Teams, and the one you installed on the web because you need it for work is called Microsoft Teams Worker School, worker School. Yeah, which is come on, I mean guys. So here's the thing. On mobile, microsoft has one Teams app, you can switch between consumer and work and there you go. Solve problem. When Microsoft replaced Skype with Teams, I made the argument that which they didn't really do they just?
01:00:58 - Richard Campbell (Host)
let Skype they left it hanging there Because that's what they do.
01:01:02 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's what they do. The baseline to me for that would have been like Teams works, it integrates. You know, it's just works, it's Teams.
01:01:12
That would be kind of thing I'd be looking for. This was like three and a half years ago, it was almost four years ago, like. So they're like okay, this is the build up to. Microsoft is apparently in the process of allowing people on the free version to Teams to seamlessly join Teams, meetings with the people in worker school, right, like the very basic functionality we sort of assumed would be there from the beginning.
01:01:37 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It would have been incredibly valuable in 2020.
01:01:39 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And maybe would have triggered a shift to that app. You know, frankly, I mean for me, like even when I was at a company, I mean I honestly didn't really need the full Teams app. I just needed to join meetings and have chats, you know.
01:01:54 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Look, I still pay for Zoom because if you're not already using Teams, you don't want to use Teams. I know I have to call you on Zoom.
01:02:02 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
You'll, I Matt. It's just to be fair. I guess I ripped on Teams for I don't know three years straight because it deserved it right. It was horrible. Like every there was five days in a work week every week. At least three of those days it misconfigured my audio and video devices. Even though nothing changed right. That made me insane for a long time. Zoom has done a wonderful job of that.
01:02:26 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yep, but Zoom. But they're now on the Doctor O path too. Oh my God, are they.
01:02:30 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Oh my God, it's like Brad and I connect every morning. It's a seven minute 21 step process, yeah.
01:02:37 - Richard Campbell (Host)
And it's like guys it just keeps chucking stuff at you. It's like what a platform, I swear.
01:02:41 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
This is what you do. What are you doing? You know, I yeah I don't, I don't understand what's happening there, but yeah. I'd love to use something that, hey, I don't have to install. It's built in Nice right.
01:02:51 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Somebody made their VP making the video chat product successful. That person's now moved on and a new person wants to make their VP, so fly golly.
01:03:00 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
In the spirit of I use a lot of computers and every week almost, I'm bringing up a new computer of some kind. It might be a computer I already had that I've reset for whatever reason. And I talked about how I don't like to have to reconfigure things over and over again. Richard, you must have experienced everyone. Anyone who uses Zoom will have.
01:03:18
When you first sign into Zoom first time on a new device yeah, I'm not gonna get the wording exactly right, but it says, hey, we can, we can integrate with your Google, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Do you wanna set that up? And I'm like, can I sign in with Google? I'm like, yup, I have never gotten it to work, not once. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I. I've always just backed out of that wizard. I've never gotten through it. I, I can't get it to integrate, even though I mean, when I click on the link to start this show, it's in Google Calendar, like it? No, I sign in with Google. Yep, that does not work.
01:03:48 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Not a thing. No, it's not gonna happen, oh my God. And you wonder if it isn't a battle between Google and Zoom too right, like the sabotage each other I. I like the notion that.
01:03:59 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Google is fighting with some other company right now, so that's that would be good for me.
01:04:02 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Well, it's just a simple sabotage process and it's, you know, it's very old old gate C in Microsoft too. It's like, yeah, the, the software ain't done till Lotus won't run. Right right, right right.
01:04:14 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Hey, you know that seamless sign on thing we did. It's everyone but Zoom. Yeah, there's a new Lotus. Yeah, yeah, that's what. Maybe I don't that could be. Well, I can sign into it with Google, that's not a problem. It's the. You can't actually get the calendar. I don't know what they call it. This is. I could look it up, I guess, but it's, there's some name for this and it's like, yeah, that doesn't work. It's like I don't know, I can't, I'm not gonna find it out, but it's. It's a maybe. I mean, I semi obviously you have to sign it with a Google account to see it, I guess. So that's how I do sign into Zoom. So I see it every single computer. Every time I'm like, no, I stopped doing it. But yeah, you stopped trying. I bet 17 times in a row or something.
01:04:50
I was like, all right, I'm gonna no, I'm like I'm gonna get there today. Today's the day. It's like nine o'clock in the morning. I got this and I'm like, and my soul is gone by 1130. I'm like I can't write today.
01:05:02 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah no, it's unbelievable, it's sucks and it's call of duty for the rest of the day. Well, not anymore.
01:05:08 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It doesn't, but but yes, it's. Yeah, something else, that's for sure. These days it's black Mesa, which is a there you go, fantastic.
01:05:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Love it so good. Wait a minute. Is it based on?
01:05:20 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It is a. It's a remake of the original Half-Life. Yeah, it was made with Valve's blessing by. We talked about it a few shows ago. Yeah, so, so great. So this thing, on on a on a core ultra laptop runs full res, ultra graphics. It's beautiful. It's beautiful, by the way, speaking of which one of the Nvidia demos I didn't mention was Nvidia has an, an optimizer tool for older games where you can bring them up to 4k and special. I mean all this stuff and their. The demo is Half-Life 2 and yikes, that game to me already looks great. But then you put it through this thing and you got to go look this up on YouTube or whatever. It's a Half-Life 2, you know, and I think it's called GeForce Optimizer or something like that. It's awesome. I cannot wait because then I got to get it.
01:06:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
And that's now. You're playing more old games. You know what? Who cares?
01:06:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Excellent.
01:06:16 - Richard Campbell (Host)
There's so much these games are so much better, yeah, and playing, and it's good to sell G games, no question, but she. The problem is, you get on a Half-Life 2 and then you realize book three is never going to exist. And then you're sad all over again.
01:06:28 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So what you got to do is play Half-Life 2 and just stop. Don't. Don't play the episodes, it's not, it's just we'll break your heart. Although. I guess you can play. Alex, I guess, and or like what?
01:06:37 - Richard Campbell (Host)
is it Alex?
01:06:38 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
yeah, yeah, Alex definitely you could.
01:06:41 - Richard Campbell (Host)
it's soul wrenching now two ways about it. I know.
01:06:44 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, I'm hope, but I'm hoping all of this interest. Now they did the 25th, I think, or 20th anniversary, when it was, of the original Half-Life, which is great and it was a documentary, it was beautiful, and now this Half-Life 2 thing is being redone through NVIDIA. I mean, val, are you getting the message here?
01:07:00 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Like people, people care People love the universe of black Mesa and aperture science and that whole. There was a larger story map that was going on there that never got to manifest itself. That would be fun to play. Exactly.
01:07:14 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
George RR Martin can suck it. This was, yeah, this, this I. You could play Half-Life 2 right now. Pick your system, doesn't matter how good it looks, it's gonna look awesome on whatever system and wonder to yourself, how did they never make a movie out of this? And these days it would be a 10 part multi season, HBO slash, whatever.
01:07:35 - Richard Campbell (Host)
TV series. The crafting of the open of Half-Life 2, which makes you feel like you're just playing another scrolling corridor shooter, and then you go out the door Into the dystopia.
01:07:47 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah the things flying around and the towers in the background.
01:07:51 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Perfect rendering of old school Soviet brutalism.
01:07:55 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yes, it's like this East in Europe, yep.
01:07:59 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's just stunning and you're literally a gape and then a policeman beats the crap out of you.
01:08:04 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yes, exactly, you run through a house. Yeah, no, it's the best. I have probably played that first. It's not really a level, but that first level of Half-Life 2, like a hundred times yes.
01:08:13 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's just so, especially as a storyteller, just to realize when you're playing it you're too busy playing it, but now, as a storyteller, you go back and watch it. It's like, oh no, it's fascinating.
01:08:22 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
You can just leave it, I got your.
01:08:23 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Wolfenstein right here yeah exactly.
01:08:25 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Boom. Yeah, it's a slightly different kind of game. Yeah, perfect, that's so good, that's so good. And then you know, just because you have to, just because you know you have to, you know Apple. The one thing I vaguely appreciate about them is how much kind of passive, aggressive feature all they have for the rest of the industry decided on the opening day of CES oh yeah, an industry-wide event they do not participate in To an ounce that Apple Vision Pro will be coming out on February 2nd in the United States and pre-orders are starting in about nine days. You know, $3,500, it's not for everybody. The question is, is it for anybody? Yeah, that is the question we're going to find out.
01:09:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You're my man. You know I got tired of teasing and people gruel, so I'll let you do it. Go me the killer app.
01:09:19 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Wow, well, that could happen right.
01:09:20 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I just mostly and I think it's me personally, but I think I'm not alone. I just don't want to grab.
01:09:26 - Richard Campbell (Host)
When you talk about the original killer app of the smartphone, go all the way back. What was the thing that said you must have this? Like what was it? It was an actual voicemail. It was an actual voicemail. Well, that's just a browser. No no.
01:09:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well that's a killer app? No you have an internet device in your pocket you could surf the net with. That's pretty good.
01:09:45 - Richard Campbell (Host)
That sounds awful. It was Google Maps. Oh, Google Maps.
01:09:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That was good too. There were a lot of things you know.
01:09:51 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Having your. Yeah, but that was the one that just changed everything. Like your, you were paying several hundred dollars for a separate device.
01:09:58 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I thought it was the finding NEMO wallpaper.
01:10:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I think there were a lot of things. The iPhone was pretty much a killer app. All in all, they had that.
01:10:07 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
They had that kind of I'm forgetting the word the same effect with the ball I was talking about, were you scroll down to the bottom and bounce a little bit Like it was an acceleration effect.
01:10:13 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, a few more for your fact.
01:10:14 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I think they called it rubber banding or something, but it was a yeah like an acceleration effect which I thought was kind of cool. Yeah, but I just yeah, we got.
01:10:22 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Now I have a, you could have an Apple Watch. No, you take it for granted.
01:10:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's how good, it is Safari. Let you on a little device, and it was really little.
01:10:30 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Look at a normal web page and double-touch it and it would zoom, it would scale, it would fit the column, would fit the. That was.
01:10:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And now remember they didn't have an app store for another six months or something, so you, didn't have, a For a year you didn't have, or a year you didn't have. Waze or Google Maps, but you did have Safari and that meant you could use Waze and Google Maps and other things.
01:10:49 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, it was Well, I think Google Maps was built in. That was an app. Was it built in? Yeah right, first of all, Okay. Oh back then they were lovey-dovey.
01:10:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, yeah, they didn't have Apple Maps.
01:10:59 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, Well wait, Well, they didn't have Google making their own phone yet either.
01:11:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, so you think that that's what's going to do it as a killer app?
01:11:06 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Because my objection is more to the form factor. I think this is like AI.
01:11:11 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I don't think there's going to be. You will forget the form factor the moment it's good enough.
01:11:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I think there's going to be a, I think it's. We're looking at more small things, I think, just like AI.
01:11:19 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I don't think there's one thing you know, no, no, and one thing's not enough. But there has to be something that makes you forget social norms, that makes you forget the cost. Right, that's just like this is such an advantage. I do not care Well, and that's Because I remember I had early smartphones, well before the iPhone.
01:11:35 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Right and they were painful.
01:11:36 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, and some of us, you know, they have moments of good where someone say, can I play with that? And they play with the wheel. I'm like how? Like this is amazing.
01:11:44 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I was on a plane, I was running NT4. So, whatever you can go back in time how long ago this was, and On a laptop, on a laptop and I was playing Quake.
01:11:52 - Richard Campbell (Host)
This is where your self-loathing comes from.
01:11:55 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
This is software, accelerated software, rendering Quake the first Quake game, so 97 or something like that. And this woman, crossiel, she leans into me and she goes is that virtual reality? And it's like sort of Sort of, it's a virtual something. Also, my battery just died.
01:12:13 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Thanks.
01:12:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Interrupting me.
01:12:16 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, that's interesting. Anyway, I mean I'm glad they're launching it's Apple, you can't ignore it?
01:12:22 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, you have to. You have to wonder. Because, yeah, that's right.
01:12:27 - Richard Campbell (Host)
And I own a HoloLens and I drained its battery a couple of times over playing with it and then I put it down and then I had to take it back up again. Yeah, that's what happens. And I had, you know, even had the Google Glass there are less expensive regrets to have. Yeah. You know, yeah, I just know this is going to be an interesting test of their influence though it really is.
01:12:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I want you to help me because it's $3,500. It is very likely because it's highly constrained in the manufacturing capacity that if you don't order it a week from Friday, which is when the order is open at 5 am, you're not going to get one for a while.
01:13:05 - Richard Campbell (Host)
No, I also think that cooks shorten the production a lot for a reason. It isn't the thing you're going to sell, many, or they're hard to make.
01:13:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I mean, this thing is pretty.
01:13:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Here's the thing. So here's the thing. My question Excuse.
01:13:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I need you to help me.
01:13:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Should I buy one?
01:13:17 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, you should, you should, so we don't have to. Leo, I would argue, you have to and I and the it's not you then who? No, I really think you have to. And look, if the net result is you were like, hey look, I feel like I was right, this thing is, at least you have that to offer the world.
01:13:34 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Please, we want to. The thing is, we want to. I told you so bad, I don't, but this is Apple will let you return this. No, no, no, you're keeping this one.
01:13:43 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Oh no, look, it's going to look beautiful. You could sign it the E-bay Right? I could sign it E-bay.
01:13:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You're right. If it's in enough demand, I could probably but here's the thing.
01:13:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Everyone knows this, but you kind of have to remind yourself about this kind of stuff because Apple has such a tremendous grip on its consumer base that people is like dying to throw money at them. You know, and I, but I think their biggest success ever has been their ability to get developers on board with what, at the time, was the crappiest development environment imaginable, and yet they were creating the best apps on the earth. Mm, hmm, yeah.
01:14:17 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But that is. That was against their will. We had jailbroken the phone, so they released the internal apps.
01:14:22 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
But they that's the horrible, yeah, and they were so successful with that. And now it's years later and there's a whole generation of developers who are just in that ecosystem. They know Xcode, they know Swift, they know these APIs and frameworks and we'll see. But I I don't think you can discount it. I mean, I don't mean to say it is absolutely going to succeed, but if anyone can make this fly, this is the best shot. And if that Nothing's?
01:14:51 - Richard Campbell (Host)
leaked so far is concerning yeah Right, if a great game developer or a great app developer has made something amazing for the Vision Pro, I think we would have heard there are going to be a lot of spatial markdown apps which I think are going to be not exciting in the slightest.
01:15:08 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I think there's going to be. There's going to be crap, but but we'll see, I don't know. Look, they brought games to the iPhone. I should say console, pc quality games. It's not an awesome experience. But these resident evil games that you can find out If they can do that on an iPhone, yeah, I realize you would vomit within 10 seconds. Seconds. Yeah, on an AR VR headset. But yeah, I don't know. I just don't think you can discount it.
01:15:35 - Richard Campbell (Host)
No, I think it's good. Yeah, but she's not that hard to write software to make it seizure inducing, right Like the trick, right no?
01:15:41 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
the trick is going to be not doing that. Well, maybe that's the killer. App Non seizure inducing interactive.
01:15:47 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I'm looking for a mist for VR.
01:15:50 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, there you go.
01:15:51 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah right.
01:15:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
A 2024 mist, we actually walked around in a real time and you know well exactly. So slow moving and the hardware is there.
01:15:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I mean, the hardware is extremely sophisticated. It's just a question of whether OK, now I'm thinking I'm probably going to have to buy one Is this an?
01:16:08 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
orphan. I really think you do. I don't want to. I think you're right. Logically, I listen to your argument against it. I'm like, yeah, no, he's right, I mean, but the little asterisk is always Apple and part of that asterisk isn't like there's such a high quality company. I don't mean that. They just have done a tremendous job of pipe ring these communities of both users and developers, to a degree that no other company has ever done and I don't think ever will. I mean, they're uniquely successful like that.
01:16:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And they have a history. I mean, they did it with the iPod and they did it with the iPhone. Now you could argue the iPad, while it was a much.
01:16:45 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's been reduced expectations since then. The iPad not as much, the Apple Watch absolutely not as much Again.
01:16:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I think that's a success. I see that everywhere.
01:16:53 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, but only on the fifth iteration. Yeah, well, it's just in what way, though?
01:16:57 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Like what, like the, the, the, the one has he signs in his pixel watch, the watch has. I use this. Well, I use this like I use an Apple Watch, which is like a glorified Fitbit, you know right, that was my primary thing. I was more irritated than excited when something would happen like a start playing something on your Apple TV and then, like a little playback control, appears in your watch.
01:17:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Like no what are you talking about? There are three ways to control this. I can't get in my car with the watch.
01:17:23 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
There you go. Yeah, but you have to have a certain kind of car. You do you know? For now I mean a number of kinds of cars but my car I can Like.
01:17:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I was shocked because I didn't have my phone and I walked next to the car and went hello.
01:17:35 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So what was the feature? No, no, no, no, you have a Mustang right. Still the new one.
01:17:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, this is a new BMW i5 has. Oh, okay, so this is the car key, apple car key.
01:17:45 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
There is some unique stuff coming to the Mustang and I want to say a Lincoln of some kind, but I thought it was from Google, never mind, it's something like what you're describing like the ability to.
01:17:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm just saying that the watches become more useful. To the point where I don't leave home without it now, yeah, sure, so it's also not but it's not necessary. It like.
01:18:08 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I think the thing with the iPhone is the iPhone made smartphones necessary to the point, and not just necessary, but more necessary than anything else. Right, For a huge portion of the population worldwide, that's their device. They don't even use a computer. This is it. No, they don't own a computer or whatever. These other things are sort of peripheral to that right, Like an iPad or a Mac, even a watch, Apple TV, whatever these things are sort of. They're eco, they exist because you have an iPhone. Almost right, I mean. But by the way, there's no reason that this headset thing couldn't be successful within that context. I mean, you obviously have to have an iPhone, you wouldn't be getting this thing right.
01:18:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I don't know, you don't have to have an iPhone. Have the Vision Pro, although I don't know how you'd be partially in that, but you were right.
01:19:00 - Richard Campbell (Host)
We're not going to see a lot of non-iPhone owning. Well, and, believe me, when I, when this was approaching, it's like if I'm buying this, I'm going all the way in, right, I'm getting the Mac and I'm getting the phone. And it's like you either go in the gardener, you don't Right.
01:19:16 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And the answer was and then you hear that lock sound behind you and you're like what?
01:19:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
just happened. Welcome man, you could check in, but you can't check out, you'll never leave.
01:19:28 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
At least it's warm and the food's good. Yeah.
01:19:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It is a very nice warm bath.
01:19:35 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Leo, I don't see how you can avoid it, frankly, I mean it's just to be objective about it.
01:19:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, we're money-sensitive.
01:19:41 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I can easily avoid it and will, and I'm happy because I don't really want to spend 100 bucks on something I know I'm never going to use.
01:19:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But it's true. I you know, I can't really comment on it if I, if I haven't used it yeah. You know two of the four Mac Break weekly hosts are getting it.
01:19:55 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Jason Stonlegett won and Alex Stonlegett won. Do you ever get to be in the presence of these people?
01:20:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I could go over to either one, so they're around, ok, yeah.
01:20:04 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Because that would help. I think seeing it in person would be important at least.
01:20:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I declared I wasn't going to get it, but yeah, but if it, if there's anything. I don't mean to be a part of the trigger that reverses that decision, but I no, Richard is actually I blame Richard, because he said and I think he might be right if there is a killer app, that will be enough.
01:20:25 - Richard Campbell (Host)
That will be. You just got to anchor it on something and you can't.
01:20:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I can't judge a killer app until I say, oh, it's a killer app, you know, I have to use it. Yeah.
01:20:34 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, no, it's when you can't put it down right Like that's the whole thing, what happened with smartphones is one day. Somebody wanted to play with it and I couldn't get it back from them. Right, it's going to be a sad day where my wife and I and your wife and you are going to be sitting on the couch.
01:20:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
All four of us with spooky headsets, yeah.
01:20:51 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
There's no screen in the room. Yeah, we've got immersive audio, we've got immersive video, yeah, and we're watching, whatever it is the new season of the Sopranos or whatever and yeah, that's the way it's going to be. We're going to be like these. We're going to be like in the Matrix. You know, I don't know and I don't know, is it bad? That's a bad thing, yeah, but we're almost there already.
01:21:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I mean, how many times do you go to dinner? And everybody's looking at their phone?
01:21:12 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I know I mean Well, but okay but this doesn't have to be exclusive, right? I mean, there could be. We could do an MST thing where, like you guys are actually in the front row facing me while we're watching the thing and we're interacting. That could happen. Yeah, we don't even have to be in the same room. Like you could be on the outside of that country. We could be doing this in real time. It's a possibility. I'm not saying it's, I'm not.
01:21:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
There's some real issues with these headsets. Movement, for instance, is a problem Cause you, you, right, even though these have external cameras, so in theory, you could walk around. Apple's been pretty clear. No, no, no, no, you're not going to be leaving the area. Yeah.
01:21:48 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Don't walk out the front door, yeah.
01:21:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Battery life is limited, but although they have interchangeable batteries and you can even plug it in and you know, there's just this issue of strapping something onto your head as you get sweaty.
01:22:02 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So if you, guys, if anyone wears a CPAP and you were looking for more stuff to stick on your face, this is going to be a great solution.
01:22:08 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Are you not feeling claustrophobic enough yet? It's a great problem for you. It's a great time for the daytime, you know? Yeah, that's right.
01:22:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Don you sit daytime CPAP so you can get some work done, and that's really what something that really is weird. Microsoft pushed this I think failing at it and now Apple's pushing productivity in these things.
01:22:25 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Apple has an audience that is engaged, like aggressively engaged, and, and you know Holland saw some level of success in what we kind of think of as vertical and niche markets or whatever. But you know the nature of that world is it's not, it's not. You know it's not exciting. I mean it's the technology is interesting, obviously, but you know you've got a Skype call back in the day with a little picture in picture thing with a guy saying don't cut the red wire, cut the blue wire. You know useful Absolutely, but it's not, you know it's not exciting, like it's, I don't know.
01:23:01
I think if anyone can do it, it's happening yeah.
01:23:03 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, I'm not convinced, but you're right, if anybody, if they do pull it off, I'm okay with the. I told you so like legit. I'm not feeling blindsided, it's not even I know.
01:23:13 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Often do we get a brand new category.
01:23:16 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's not very often actually.
01:23:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, that's exciting.
01:23:20 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I think it's. It's not. It's not fits the Apple model. They're not the first, by any stretch of imagination.
01:23:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, but maybe they've got it. Yes, was loaded with VRR.
01:23:30 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I would not use this as an. I told you some moment I would. If this thing were to fail, I would just say, yeah, that was one of the outcomes. I mean, they went for it and they fail, whatever.
01:23:38 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So yeah, apple also made the Newton.
01:23:40 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Right, yes, right, although yeah, I mean, I guess you could make the argument as a say different company really, you know, yeah, this is well, this is.
01:23:51 - Richard Campbell (Host)
You know, you want to talk about the larger context on there is like is this Tim Cook's folly? Finally, because he's kind of been firing all cylinders, he immediately did the things that that jobs didn't want him to do. When he got charged, he made them, he made the iPad mini and all that stuff that jobs was blind to. Yeah, bigger, smaller, ipad, smaller iPad A lot, yeah, yeah.
01:24:10
Yeah, but this one he seems like he forced through against the will of some of his engineers, other ones just kind of his things, sort of yeah and TV2, he hammered his way through that. And that's one of the things is, you know, we and we often forget this part about Apple they are persistent, you know, they believe the original iPod was not that good. One would argue that the fundamental thing that transformed the iPod was the 99 cents song.
01:24:33 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I was going to say when this compatibility in the USP, yeah, and then that too, when iTunes appeared on them, on the, on the windows.
01:24:39 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, you know, but they don't give up, right, They've made a lot of versions of Apple TV.
01:24:44 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Before it became good, they made a lot of versions and the investment, the investment they would have made into this is exponentially bigger than any of the investments they made for those previous products.
01:24:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We were speculating about this, and I think it's probably been at least seven or eight years they've been working on this Sure and you got to figure they're spending 10 billion a year. I mean, I mean, meta was right.
01:25:07 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But the good news is they just don't know how they make a B2 without much.
01:25:11 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
They have that cash, it's no problem. Yeah, they can afford it. As a percentage of the size of the company, that's probably less than they spent making the iPod.
01:25:20 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And in fact, only Apple could do it frankly. I mean, there are very few companies Microsoft might be one of them, but very few companies that could make this kind of commitment.
01:25:29 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Right, anyhow. Anyhow, this is more time that I might spend on Apple, but I think they're going to.
01:25:33 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, let's take a break because next we're going to spend way more time than it deserves on AI. So, and that's you know, that's what we do here. Thank God, Activision Blizzard is over Our show, Is it though? Is it?
01:25:46
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01:27:56 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I sense a certain lack of enthusiasm. No, I like AI.
01:28:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I like AI. I'm an AI guy, you know, I'm an accelerationist. I'm the one who says I give him everything.
01:28:07 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I would like people to appreciate the AI generated image I made of Sam Altman as the funds jumping over.
01:28:17 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Very bad was your prompt Huh yeah. Let me pull it up here. That's fantastic, wow, yeah.
01:28:25 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I was pretty happy with that, which is what's going to happen with AI. Really, when you think about it, we're going to be so proud of things we didn't actually make.
01:28:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
There you go. It's okay In a nutshell you wrote the prompt.
01:28:38 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I wrote the prompt. My God, it's like saying, hey, honey, I'd like to have lobster for dinner, and then being proud because we had lobster, you know, when she went out and bought it and made it you know, yeah, what you make for dinner reservation.
01:28:51 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I prompted you, yeah.
01:28:53 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's pretty much all we're good for prompting, yeah.
01:28:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But who has ever had a Sam Altman jumping over a shark?
01:28:59 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
before Thank you the original idea.
01:29:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I can't get up.
01:29:02 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I thought, it was.
01:29:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You'll just have to imagine it. How many times have I said that before? It's on my site. Go to Paul's site. For some reason I'm not getting my screen up on the screen.
01:29:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I'm perhaps too proud of it. Anyway, open AI responded to the New York Times lawsuit with a blog post on their site. I originally started just to cover it as a straight up news story and then I read the quote that I quoted and I was like, oh my God, are you kidding me? And then I started. They scanned the thing again and I was like, oh my God, these guys are out. They're out to lunch, so I'm not going to beat this one to death.
01:29:40
I wrote an article about it. It's I. Actually. There's absolutely a debate to be had here about how whether this thing breaks the law or bad, whatever, we can debate this, but their response is out to lunch. And I will leave it on a happy note and just say this at the end of this post, they actually extended an all of a branch and said Look, we want to work with the New York Times. We want them, you know, we want them to be a good partner. And and you know, I I do think that was both sides eventual goal here or real goal here, right, and then yeah, I thought this was a money play and they just didn't want to spend a lot on lawyers.
01:30:18
Yeah, so I think I might. I still feel the same way that the way this ends is some form of settlement. I do think it's telling that Open AI made the argument that they've had discussions with dozens of news organizations, but they can only cite four of them and none of them will announce what they're being paid for, their content being licensed, right, and there are all kinds of reasons why that might be the case. But anyway, I I there are concerns here, but I have a bigger concern that I live in the state of Pennsylvania and my proud commonwealth just became the first US state to adopt a GPT enterprise for use in state operations.
01:30:57
Yes, so I moved twice last year. I hope I don't have to move again, but I'm a little. This is a little upsetting. They're starting with kind of well actually, I mean, they're use of, they're use of generative AI. Is is right, doesn't sound horrible, honestly, and and they do make the point this none of the data or input that we make is going to inform chat GPT or train it or whatever right or any future products.
01:31:29 - Richard Campbell (Host)
But let's face it, like everything you need to find is on their website. You just can't actually find it, and so you know putting a chat interface onto it so they can lead you to self-service. Well, it's even. Is that what you sit on hold for days?
01:31:42 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well they're. So they're actually doing it for their own employees, and so I I have to say, some of this sounds pretty good to me. So, for example, they're going to help use it to help them create an edit copy like okay, make outdated policies more accessible, right? Okay, that's pretty good. So rewriting a language on them? Yeah, address duplication and conflicting guidance and hundreds of thousands of pages of employee policies. Help man, help employees generate code. I don't know what that means.
01:32:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
HR is a good place actually for yeah, like, it's like okay. I mean, I'm not yeah, put your employee handbook into an AI expert, because at least we get a lot of questions about our handbook. It's like well, I know it's hard to read it all. Yeah.
01:32:24 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So okay, um sometime I was like okay, we're right.
01:32:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Sam Altman has jumped the shark. Ladies and gentlemen there he goes oh, the.
01:32:37 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
The EU announced that they were investing a couple of general things virtual worlds and a generative AI but then very specifically said we are investigating Microsoft's strange relationship with open AI and whether it breaks antitrust laws because they've effectively found a way to in is sort of acquire a company but not acquire a company and thus never had be held to a kind of regulatory standard. I think we can all agree if Microsoft tried to buy open AI, activision, Blizzard or not, they would have been like, no, like. The multiple regulatory bodies would have blocked that purchase.
01:33:09 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So yeah, but they almost got it on an Aqua hire right Like that. That's right.
01:33:14 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That would have skirted it too. I know that's so, so crafty. I love that.
01:33:18 - Richard Campbell (Host)
That. If only any of it was intentional, yeah well, yeah, sometimes you stumble into a good strategy.
01:33:26 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And then open AI. Just announced that, right before the show started, I think that they have launched their GPT store. This is only for paying customers, so I think it's GPT, chat, gpt plus, enterprise and teams. Teams plan was announced today. That's, you know, 30 bucks per month per year. Is that right? But 25 bucks per month per user when you build annually and this is the team's application, I would say of chat GPT. Right, you have an app store now and it's a platform and I don't. You know, it's interesting, I Leah was making the case last week. You know, can chat GPT replace the New York Times? Right? And the answer is no. I mean, today, of course it can't, but you know these kinds of things, you know people are going to be able to build off of chat GPT and build AI applications. I mean, it's kind of it's kind of interesting. This is the path they wanted to go on.
01:34:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm using it every day now with my little expert Lisp expert system.
01:34:28 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Oh right, okay right, right, right, and actually that's a GPT. That's a perfect example.
01:34:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah.
01:34:33 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So when you think about, like the New York Times, fearing this kind of thing, which I get on one level, and there's also a bigger issue where a team or not a team a company like Google especially fears the possibility that this kind of technology could unseat it, especially its search dominance, which is where it's advertising and revenue all it comes from right.
01:34:52
So that's very interesting. But I think when you hear that, you think, well, it must be Microsoft, bing, which is powered by this, or maybe chat, gpt itself, and honestly, I think the thing that may be an issue for Google, although they're working on this exact type of thing themselves, right, is going to be these things that build off of it. And I think the real power well, that's not the right term, but I think the real advantage of this in many ways is going to be not the internet's body of information, but rather a company's or a very specific data set, like Leo's talking about, from Lisp right, where it gets squirrely when we go out into the world. But when we constrain it down to a company-sized amount of data, maybe right, and don't worry about the internet per se, or, in Leo's case, a subset of what's out there on the internet very specific. I think this is. I think this stuff is going to be. This could be very interesting, so we'll see what comes out of it.
01:35:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I uploaded websites that have the common Lisp spec books that I had on my bookshelf that are PDFs. So this is, if so, really what it duplicates is if I and I just happened the other day I was doing a coding challenge and I said, oh, does common Lisp support least common multiplier? So I asked and I said, yeah, here's how you do it.
01:36:12 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And the reason that's so great is because that is a very explicit question that has a finite and I could have flipped through three or four books. It has a very specific answer, Right.
01:36:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, I know right, but.
01:36:24 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I told it specifically don't hallucinate.
01:36:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Only come up with answers that are from these sources. Don't hallucinate.
01:36:29 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
No, like oh, you know what Corpus. I'm just going to go to town, but you told me not to. Yep.
01:36:37 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I think this is very interesting, so we will see and by the way you know that don't hallucinate thing is right A lot of that comes from it just trying to take. It takes a low affinity answer and produces it anyway.
01:36:49 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So you can say. I think the word you're looking for is trying to be creative.
01:36:54 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's. You know, it's a byproduct of that of the early version.
01:36:58 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
The biggest problem conceptually with AI and it's something that open AI and I think Microsoft too, but open AI explicitly is putting out into the world on purpose. Is this notion that we're humanizing it right? It's like yeah, I have to go more advising. We are using it's learning, you know, like as if this thing learns in any way, like a human learns, like you think you understand what it's doing, because you're like oh yeah, no, I have read things and learned them myself and it's like that's not, this works and anyway, they're very purposefully. That's in their retort to the New York Times. There's some stuff in there where you're like oh my God, guys, like seriously like.
01:37:38 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I'm now using the open AI API through Home Assistant so it actually maps to the house and because the language model is so much better, it gets in a way, because it's so specific, right To what you need, yeah, right. And the same thing is. The correct answer when it's not sure is to say I don't know.
01:37:55 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
This is going to come up later, but I I've been using Brave Search lately, right, and I I have to say I don't. It's not as good as DuckDuckGo search, whatever that's worth. I had that magical moment with DuckDuckGo where I was like, oh wow, this actually works really well. And then I used Brave. The way you know something's not working is when you have to go back to the old thing, right. So I found myself doing that thing I always found myself doing with search engines in particular, which is you go back to, just go back to Google, and then you search like, yeah, there it is, there's the answer I was looking for, and I think that's kind of what AI is like. When you put it out into, when you put it against the world's data, it's like, oh, you're making me work too hard here. I you're you should be giving me exactly what I asked for, but I think maybe because the data set is too big or something it's, it doesn't. This is you know God. The guys from Yahoo tried to do this. I think one of the earliest successes at Google technically was this notion of like rank based results, right, where we somehow determine the relative authority of a source and then do a good job of promoting that thing, and I feel like AI is not always doing that as well. Maybe, I don't know, that's maybe overly simplistic, but that's what I am Okay.
01:39:12
And then we found out this past week which Microsoft executive is sort of on the open AI board. Remember, this is a non voting observer observer, and her name is D Templeton. Do you know this person? Yeah, oh, okay, I wasn't aware of her. She. Yeah, she is a cute. She's from Australia, 25 years, sorry, sorry. Well, as you know, richard, the same place. Yes, moving on, I'm sorry, just kidding, kidding, it's a joke. The US and Canada, the same place. That's all I'm saying. There you go, 25 year Microsoft veteran advisor to CTO Kevin Scott, right, who orchestrated the partnership with open AI. She, I, she'll be the one doing the grime or room tongue thing. You know, this is what we joked about to like open.
01:39:59
A is going to say we're going to get in a certain direction. She's actually. I guess we're going to go in the southern direction.
01:40:05 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Everyone, yep, good, everyone voted, you know long long, as someone who sat on a few boards. You know, when I figured out this, I was an advisor and this particular CTO we're having a problem with was a smoker. Yeah, and I started to go into the smoke breaks. Smart, just a deal. Just a deal, just to have that conversation over the smoke break.
01:40:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's where stuff gets done.
01:40:29 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Hold on. And it said that's, you know, the important part of our observatories. Yeah, you don't get to vote, but the action in a boardroom that's mean you can't not in the boardroom. Yeah.
01:40:38 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's everything around it. You can still impact everyone's opinions and whatever.
01:40:43 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I've never seen a meaningful board meeting where you didn't know the outcome going in the door. You do your homework.
01:40:49 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Ask him about that one.
01:40:51 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, yeah. And so the fact that she's going to be there, which means she gets the package before the board meeting and she and there's go and it will be looped in on some calls Like that's the reality. Is she going to have influence? You're damn right. And, by the way, she kicks ass Like smart. You know the she's a reason she ended up an advisor to CTO she's. She was always working on the research side of things. She bounced it out of MSR. She was really good at putting partnerships and stuff together. She built a lot of good stuff, like. When I saw who it was, I'm like, yeah, good call.
01:41:26 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Plus she's dressed like someone from the matrix so you can tell she kind of kicks ass.
01:41:29 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Well, if you're going to hang out in Kevin Scott's world, that's kind of a givny. Yeah, what a big exactly.
01:41:36 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Anyway, yeah, that's great. Okay, so that's cool. I was. I'm not familiar with her, I'm sorry to say.
01:41:40 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, and I'm not I mean, I'm not old friends with with Detail, I think we met once, but I know her her work from ran around MSR and she was always smart as hell.
01:41:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I didn't write about this one and I guess I probably won't, but Duolingo, which is the language learning service and app, mobile app. And, by the way, my wife and I are both subscribers to Duolingo max, which is the, you know, the paid subscription version of it announced this past week, or at least admitted to the fact that they are laying off about 10% of their contract workers as they start to rely more on artificial intelligence, which, because this app is heavily based on AI. In fact, that Duolingo max service I just mentioned incorporates a chat GPT to do conversational exercises with their users.
01:42:28 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So and I also, you know, part of me was just like hey, you know what? You know what ML has been really good at for a long time? Translations.
01:42:36 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah Well, this is right, another, another finite, you know, data set or whatever. And I think the thing that Duolingo is I've gone in and out of it over the years. I I think I've been using it. I want to say I could look it up as I think. I want to say it's a 2014 or something. It's a long time. There was a time where you could I could finish their lessons for French and did, and then moved on to Spanish, finished it, then went back, and so I'm just going to start over again with French, and then at some point they expanded, and now I don't think I'm going to live long enough to remember.
01:43:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The Duolingo is interesting because of its origins. It was a. He came out of Carnegie Mellon In fact it was funded by a MacArthur grant because he wanted they were the professor behind it. So same guy did recapture.
01:43:25 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Who? Does this? Remind you of any other company, by the way, because of the way they kind of turned on their heels and it reminds me of open AI a little bit, because originally he wanted to be free right Duolingo was going to be free and the idea was we're going to pay for this by by providing this data to the companies that need it and they're going to pay for this, and it was. It was very altruistic. You know, we're going to make the world a better place.
01:43:45 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It was also. I don't think nobody would pay them. It was a crowd.
01:43:48 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So now it's about 120 bucks a year and yeah it's yeah, they raised money from Union Square Ventures. Yeah, but it's honestly, it's a good service and it's gotten very sophisticated 120 dollars a year is a bargain. It's probably not even that much.
01:44:00 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I'm sorry, I just threw that, I don't know. But 10 bucks a month Are you kidding Like, yeah, it's a good service If you want to learn language.
01:44:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
it's, you know, it's a lifetime to Babble, who is now a sponsor. Yeah. But before they, before they were sponsored by the lifetime membership, because I thought, you know, I'm always going to want to learn a language.
01:44:16 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's a great thing to have Sure you know I don't know that they ever did this, but they were talking about they were going to and probably have already done that. They're going to do math, I guess. So people can learn different types you know types of math or whatever and be more advanced there. They should do. I guess maybe it's too late now, but they can do coding languages, why not, you know. Anyway, yeah, we're going to start with all that stuff.
01:44:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
By the way, Joe Esposito has created a special sticker for you, Paul Now the AI update corner. I like it. This is like the good keeping the good housekeeping silver approval.
01:44:50 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
There you go.
01:44:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, this was done by AI. This was the problem for.
01:44:55 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Sam is the shark, behind him is Microsoft. And it's hungry, wow, yep.
01:45:04
Okay. Yeah so obviously AI people are worried about layouts and yada, yada yada, but this is this is not. You know, we've replaced our staff with robots. These are contract workers. I mean, this is them becoming leaner and probably faster moving and all that kind of stuff, and this is the kind of place where I think AI can help with efficiencies and whatnot. So we'll see a couple of years. So now we'll be talking about Skynet, but and I for one can't wait. That's good for Skynet yeah.
01:45:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They just want you to know rain down the missiles all in on the robots, yep.
01:45:37 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yep, yep, I made a. I used AI to make artwork for one of the other articles we just discussed. It was a, I think, at the EU investigating open AI and Microsoft, and, uh, it was an image of shackled robots standing in front of a tributary butal of some kind, and I had to crop it down low because the AI images of robots that were up on the screen had boobs and I was like, hey, I think people are going to focus on that, depends on what you have trained on.
01:46:06
Obviously, it's not what I uh, that's not what I didn't mention the boobs, um, so it's a scatter that I don't know. Maybe it's trying to understand humans a little better, I don't know. Anyhow, okay, you said you like boobs, I, it's just not taking a stance one way or the other.
01:46:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Um, I've been tracking your eye motions Paul.
01:46:25 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Paul, yes, there was a great movie in the eighties about that, uh, looker, do you remember that? The girl from the parters family was in it and it was about the computer training where people's eyes looked during ads and it was always on the woman's bathing suit. As she went by in the thing they were like we're going to target ads this way and actually that was pretty precious. I had to say before it was cool. Yeah, a long time before it was cool. Alrighty, um, I haven't seen looking right 30 years. Um, any hope. So, yeah, we got a bunch of Xbox stuff as well this week, which is kind of cool, I have to say.
01:46:59
Uh, last week, remember, we did the X-Fest Game Pass thing, the first uh of those game pass titles I was going to play as not panned out for me unfortunately, and I think it's called like hell, half no fury or something like that. It's a world of two shooter. Um, it's not a, it's a massive online game. So you get into it's, it's it's multiplayer, but it's like hundreds, it's a hundred people per level and it's kind of the old school kind of PC server model. So I got in there and I was like I'm in a platoon and there are people yelling instructions at each other and I'm like what the heck is going on? It was like it was organized and and, uh, it was not what I wanted. Um, anyway, so I'm going to move on.
01:47:38
Hopefully, resident evil Uh, I think it's for remake will be the next one I try, which I think is next week, but any hope? Uh, where are we? Uh, so Microsoft, uh, now they have not announced this, but there is a a reports from venture beat saying that, um, microsoft is looking into bringing more of its Xbox exclusive games to other platforms, including the PlayStation, and specifically they talked about see a thieves, which is one of those kind of low boils success stories. Um, that, I think, is a good example of Microsoft is getting uh, they've done this a bunch of times, but this is a game I think a lot of casual people have never even heard of. It's a where there's actually. I like it, it's fun.
01:48:15
People playing at 30 million people, right? Wow, two years, that was two years ago, I'm sorry, um. And they keep adding content to it for free, which is one of those neat things that they do. And what could make it better? Uh, cross platform is what could make it better, so that's not a horrible idea. Monthly subscription Nope, there's nothing, just the games that you buy at once. And you know, I mean you could get it through Game Pass and that would be a subscription, but no, this is. They've done this for things like, uh, flight simulators, like this. Uh, gears of war does this. Halo is doing this. Uh, the latest Halo.
01:48:47 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Um, yeah, it just begs how they pay in the content creators yeah.
01:48:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Uh, well, right, I think, yeah, I don't know. I was going to say I'm sure I actually don't know. Yeah, it's a good question. Um, but it's a good, yeah, it's just kind of it's anything for gamers, I would say. And so I think, uh, this is the trick. Is you want it if it put those games everywhere, which, by the way, it was kind of their marketing during the whole Activision Blizzard thing? They're like you know, I think you understand, like we want to put these games everywhere. Um, we're only talking about a game here, so I would get too too excited. But, um, you know, sony start has been increasing their uh hoarding of games to the PC, for example. I, I think anything that puts games uh in as many places as possible is a is a good idea. Yeah, and I guess Anthony is saying that I guess they do have season passes for cosmetics and other things, so a lot of the content they put out is, in fact, free, but that's interesting.
01:49:36 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So they actually does. And if you're playing on the console, you have to have game pass. Oh, you do Okay.
01:49:41 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
There you go, so that's how they do it.
01:49:43 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Hey, you know I worry about revenue models just because it's. It's one somebody's going to cut it.
01:49:48 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I'm just like who cares? It's great, Um, you know, uh, Microsoft is going to hold a developer direct live stream on the 18th, which is a week from tomorrow, so a week from Thursday um, where they're going to talk about some, uh, much anticipated Xbox exclusive games, um, including Shenoua's Sega Hellblade 2, which you know. Whatever, that doesn't mean whatever. Um, there's going to be a new Indiana Jones game, which actually is eagerly, uh, uh, awaited. Um, they very specifically say, as they do with these days, uh, nothing from Activision Legion.
01:50:21 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So not there yet.
01:50:23 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I mean yeah, I know, I don't know how they're not there yet.
01:50:27 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's time to get your hand around. Yeah, I wish it would be a little faster. They're still looking for the landmines left behind by Kotec, right? Yeah, yeah, that's for sure.
01:50:37 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Um, microsoft Minecraft Legends, which was a Minecraft RTS game right Released. Uh, it was last year. Sometime last year. Uh is being end of life. That was quick. Yeah, they've done this a couple of times. Remember, right before the pandemic started, they were coming out with a um, I think it was an AR VR Minecraft. Uh, spin off that within a year, wound down because you know people weren't doing stuff out in the world, um, but that was part of it. They were. It was going to be the thing where you could go to a place and kind of experience things. But now that you know they got rid of that, um, yeah, I guess this one it's not that unusual for massive multiplayer games.
01:51:17 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It just costs so much to run the infrastructure unless you get to a certain number of players. You got to stop right. You know, ask electronic arts how many attempts they've made on how many games and spin offs are tough, right?
01:51:29 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Um, everyone remembers Laverne and Shirley, but you forget the other 30 games those guys try to put out that are TV shows.
01:51:35 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, yeah.
01:51:37 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's terrible spin offs Like look at all the spin offs of like the Jeffersons was a big one Uh.
01:51:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Lenny and squiggy.
01:51:44 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, oh, I hope so, joni.
01:51:48 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I love those, joni.
01:51:48 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's a piece of garbage, uh, terrible. Hey, who do you like least on this show? Yeah, let's make a show about those guys. Um, although you know they spun off a better call Saul from Breaking Bad and I I was like of all the characters on that show this would not have been what I picked, and it was awesome, so well, I guess any because that character also exceeded expectations.
01:52:11 - Richard Campbell (Host)
The original story too, like they ended up changing the writing. Yeah, he was completely comedic.
01:52:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Right, that's right, yeah, yeah. Look, if that show had been very good, we would have been like great, but, like many people think it's better than the original and it's like that's an interesting conversation because they're both fantastic but uh well, and did spin off movies from there.
01:52:29 - Richard Campbell (Host)
That did, okay. Yeah, yeah, like that Camino one was there.
01:52:32 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, that wasn't great.
01:52:37
Um, I also. They made a horrible commercial. Uh, g force now, uh, as part of NVIDIA, is kind of sweeping announcements at CES. Uh, a bunch of you know Activision Blizzard's coming, obviously, but they're going to start having day passes, which is kind of interesting. So you know, because if you think about it like the tiers, you know these monthly tiers, you can go in and out of these subscriptions pretty easily. But they'll let you just try this thing, you know, for 24 hours, right, so maybe a hot new game comes out. You're like, you know what I'm going to spend. You know $3.99 to $7.99. It's kind of like renting a movie that's in the theater now and it's a little expensive, but it's like, you know, I just want to see it.
01:53:15 - Richard Campbell (Host)
You know, yeah, I'm um when I saw this, my first thought was I have a buddy who doesn't have a subscription that I want to play with, so I'm going to buy him a pass for the days that he can play with, yeah, and then maybe he loves it, he'll buy in and he maybe becomes a customer, right, yeah?
01:53:27 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
There you go. Yeah, I think this is a good idea. That's kind of a mechanism right.
01:53:32 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Some way to make that work.
01:53:33 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I actually took this. I saw this announcement and I said you know, I haven't looked at cloud gaming in a while, but I'm meaning to do this. I've been meaning to look at G-Force now I played a couple games.
01:53:43 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's a market that's very important.
01:53:45 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's. Yeah, streaming is still tough. You were talking about like a um, like a missed game for the Apple headset, and that's a good target, because cloud gaming suffers from a different but similar problem with fast moving games where it's like it gets squirrely.
01:54:01 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Well cause the internet's only so fast, right? This speed of light is hard to beat, right, right.
01:54:07 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's true. We got to figure out. We're going to ask the aliens how they did it. They did.
01:54:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It was a movie, right oh yeah, that was fake.
01:54:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So Twitch announced there are also some laughs at Twitch. This is not AI related, but Twitch is owned. They're owned by Amazon, amazon, yeah, so Amazon actually has other laughs. We didn't discuss around, I think, Prime video and I think they're devices right.
01:54:31 - Richard Campbell (Host)
A layoff section for today's show.
01:54:34 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, I don't have Amazon, but you know Twitch kind of factors in um I. They had a bunch of layoffs last year. So this is 500 lay 500 people. So it's not doesn't sound bad, except then it's a third of the company 35%. Exactly, I'm sorry, I was looking at Amazon. I'm sorry Amazon was Amazon who had the bigger play up. Yeah, it's actually a big part of the company, of that part of the company Well and arguably they had their best revenue year ever.
01:55:00
right Like you, can you for a small percentage, one or two percent, the very best they're making a living off of Twitch really, people probably forget the 15 seconds during which Microsoft was paying exorbitant fees to YouTube or Twitch streamers or whatever they were to get them to come over to their thing at the time which can anyone remember Mixer, mixer, yeah, mixer, yeah, let's go over to the mixer and then Ninja 10 mil, millions and millions of dollars.
01:55:24
And then they were like oh wait, you can't make money doing this Like I, joe Rogan grace. So they got rid of that and they also got rid of mixer. So yeah, um, I don't know which I. Maybe this falls to YouTube at some point. I feel like isn't Twitch the biggest of these services? I feel like yeah after you buy far they're dwarfed by YouTube.
01:55:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's the point. Yeah, oh, totally yeah, but the.
01:55:47 - Richard Campbell (Host)
What Twitch got nailed was interacting with people while you're playing a game. That YouTube still doesn't do a good job of that, Like that's its own unique thing.
01:55:57 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
But so where does discord fall in all this?
01:55:59 - Richard Campbell (Host)
discord is a kind of plays in a space to well, discord was in the gamer space, but it was much more the forum for the game, although they added the video side in so you could watch someone play, but it doesn't scale, I mean. I mean it's not meant for scale. Yeah, it's much, it's still. It's a community space rather than the broad game.
01:56:20 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So that is really okay, interesting, yeah, we have 77 people watching us right now in Twitch, but it maxes how many 660 and YouTube maxes at 500 million or something.
01:56:31 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I mean, oh yeah slightly, slightly bigger.
01:56:34 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Okay, fair enough.
01:56:36 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So what the max is. But it's also just I think it's part of this is just Amazon is quite ruthless about margins, and so some number was missed and blood was well.
01:56:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They're also laying people off at MGM in prime.
01:56:48 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I mean right, this is you know, they're cutting this is last year, after they gutted a lot of their devices and Alexa stuff and I think you know look, this is very pragmatic. I, job losses are always horrible, I don't mean it like that way, but this was always the Sacha Nadella thing Like you get to justify your existence, I mean, I think well and it, and there's a new CEO.
01:57:08 - Richard Campbell (Host)
You don't know his name, but he's right, it's not a surprise.
01:57:11 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah Right, Nobody, no David the person who's not Bezos? Such a faceless company.
01:57:18 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, well, except Jeff.
01:57:20 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Lasse.
01:57:21 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Jeff, yeah, so yeah, I get it. Sure, you know it's. It's. It's no different than what's happening at Unity, not to I was going to say so, everyone's favorite company in gaming. Unity. Talk about a self actually.
01:57:38 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well unfortunately, it's the people getting kicked to the employees, right? Yeah, because, remember, apple forgot to fight with.
01:57:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Epic, which makes it unreal. So the Unreal Engine is really not preferred on on Apple platforms. So Unity is the company that's going to be making stuff for Vision Pro.
01:58:00 - Richard Campbell (Host)
So this is interesting, but Unity also had a better solution for the 3D work. It's really hard. Unreal is C++. It's tough to work in right. Unity's got a much friendlier approach to doing things.
01:58:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, because Unity works, among other things, with like C-Sharp. You can use it in a managed language right.
01:58:20 - Richard Campbell (Host)
You run its, you work for it, for the studio, yep, obviously, when John Ricatelio had to leave after well, herein lies the question Was this truly a self-inflicted ruin? I want more money, so I'm going to do this. You upright the whole thing. Now you're out of job, the new guy's in it, he's realigning. Or did he actually know the budget, knew they weren't going to make it Right, and so it's like we have to find you revenue streams. Then he screws that up, yeah.
01:58:47
And now we're seeing the consequences of your new revenue stream didn't work Right.
01:58:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
They certainly didn't help themselves. It felt like a money grab and I think could have been handled a lot better.
01:59:00 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, Especially something this thing is the Unity community is tight Like you. Have a tremendous asset there the fact that you didn't know how to use it. You need to go work somewhere else.
01:59:09 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I don't know if you notice this in our little tech space here, but people have infinite memories for things that went wrong. I still have people bitching at me about Sonos bricking devices that never own Sonos speakers. People just remember this stuff.
01:59:23 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Silver light.
01:59:24 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, so there you go. No, I don't think people are going to forget what Unity did. That's the problem.
01:59:30 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, that's unfortunate. It's going to be hard for them to dig out from that. So yeah, and looking at the press release, it's like okay, this could be. We're just cutting away the bits that aren't making money anyway, or they've rethought the strategy. Now they're focusing in your direction so you get rid of the stuff that's not on the strategy or the well, we're running out of money, so let's ditch enough people to extend the ramp while we try and figure out what to do.
01:59:56 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Oh, I just got access to the Arc web browser on Windows, that's very exciting.
02:00:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Congratulations. You're a winner.
02:00:03 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I gotta go guys, so okay.
02:00:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
By the way, yeah, I don't understand why this company, the Arc company, Arc. Yeah, because I mean I've been using, I tried their browser on the Mac. I don't get it.
02:00:14 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, oh, okay, I don't, I've not seen. Wait, I think I used it briefly on the Mac.
02:00:19 - Leo Laporte (Host)
This is new. Yeah, on Windows, they didn't have a Windows version.
02:00:22 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, it's just it's in. It's in like a invite beta thing now.
02:00:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So I guess I don't know, I don't get it, I don't, I don't know.
02:00:28 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I'll let you know. I don't know.
02:00:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I mean I'm. I want diversity in the browser ecosystem. I'm not against that, I'm all for that. I just don't know. All Chromium, all the things, yeah, that's not good. That's why I use Firefox, but I'm a tiny man. Or Firefox, though. Do you do read the?
02:00:43 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
little big interview with those guys, the recent one, I don't know where it was. They're like usage shares, like 2% now. Yeah, yeah On desktop. That's not good. Well, they've made some bad decisions too. It's not just, I mean, there's been some questionable. Well, give us a review of the ART browser.
02:01:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Maybe you can you know? You've made me switch browsers more than once, so I'm ready to do it again.
02:01:09 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Well, I only put Brave on one of my machine. There you go.
02:01:13 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Brave is perfect. It's just so perfect.
02:01:15 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's good days and bad. It's Chromium based browser. It's still Chromium Engine.
02:01:19 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I really want to get some diversity in the ecosystem.
02:01:23 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I don't know that. I understand the thought, Leo. I don't know that it's important when it comes to rendering.
02:01:28 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, I think when it comes to rendering, I think compatibility Trump's.
02:01:31 - Richard Campbell (Host)
The diversity I was hoping for with Edge was stop selling my stuff.
02:01:35 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, yeah, so the thing we talked about this earlier remember you were saying about mobile apps and how we thought everything was going to be apps, and then it's like, well, hold on a second, I've got all these apps. I need to maintain. This is nonsense and that's what the web would be like if we had five different rendering engines, like it's.
02:01:50 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Well, in fact, it's what the web it is.
02:01:53 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, this is the days of what works best on Internet Explorer.
02:01:57 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, and then there was that great period where if you tried to open that website on AirExplorer, it's just go get a real browser.
02:02:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, Well, I mean you have a standard. The problem is, people don't adhere to the standard.
02:02:07 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I mean you have a standard? They do, but they implemented differently, and so it's. You know. That's the thing.
02:02:13 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I mean that's in Google's interest that there be. Yeah, they're sure there's W3C, but there's also a Chromium standard. As we become more dominant than sites need to work with Chromium and that's anti competitive and there's a good reason for having not having a monoculture is security. A flaw in the Chromium is yeah.
02:02:35 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yes, I agree, but on the other side, the other hand, I mean I don't know, it makes a little. I think it's counting to Google.
02:02:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's saying okay, we have a web standard, but you've created your own. By the way, microsoft tried to do the same thing with IE.
02:02:49 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Oh yeah, absolutely. That was the entire point of internet Explorer.
02:02:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Why there's this comp problem with compatibility.
02:02:57 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Listen, I completely understand. I just it's just.
02:03:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I think the place You're giving Google a lot of power. For instance, they've changed the way extensions work so that ad blockers don't work.
02:03:09 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, okay, hold on.
02:03:13 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They've changed the way third party cookies work. They've deprecated those. They have so much power in the space already, letting them dominate the browser ecosystems of the ad blocker thing is, is not actually happened yet.
02:03:27 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I mean for everybody, and all of the major Chrome and browser makers except for Microsoft, by the way, which has been quiet about this have said we're not doing this anyway. So then they're ignoring that part of it.
02:03:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Right, they don't have to. They'll do manifest V three. They will, yeah, they'll do it. And you know what? Everybody ended up doing it Because, well, I don't know how hard wired it is into the code, maybe non-trivial to extract it.
02:03:53 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Right, well, you know what?
02:03:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
These code bases are forkable, they are open source, but then you have exactly what you don't want, which is that I'm sorry you're asking for diversity.
02:04:02 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, but that's the wrong kind of diversity.
02:04:03 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Right. Well, I just speaking purely rendering engine. I think having a standard there is the right, that's fine.
02:04:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, that's really what we got. It's too bad that it's cool.
02:04:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
But, I honestly. I love the idea of Firefox, I gotta tell you there might not be a better mobile browser right now than Firefox.
02:04:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I love Firefox.
02:04:23 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I actually have Firefox on my phone and my tablet and I'm just waiting for all those praises for Safari you were going to give us.
02:04:29 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Where is that Me, anybody?
02:04:32 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I got nothing Anybody at all. It has a minimalist UI I like. I don't use Apple devices too much, so not a big deal for me.
02:04:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
If Safari were cross platform?
02:04:42 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
they have their own rendering engine too.
02:04:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm yeah, no, no, I like it, but I'm cross platform.
02:04:47 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And I so right, that's the thing for me. Like that, right that's me is yeah, you talk about. Diversity is important, but I actually think I will call it. I don't know, portability or whatever is to me, is the biggest thing. Well, or one of the bigger things, I guess.
02:05:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Standard is what standards are what's important?
02:05:02 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, maybe that's the best way to say it. Standard.
02:05:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Unfortunately, these companies are bigger than the standards bodies, and so they just do what they want, right.
02:05:10 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Well, they're the factors. These companies are on the standards body.
02:05:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, they are the standard. We are the standards, yeah.
02:05:15 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's right. It's all the Alexander Hague of standards.
02:05:19 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The fix is in Yep. Yep, oh well that's life.
02:05:24 - Richard Campbell (Host)
What are you going to? Do why don't we pause here?
02:05:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Okay, we will be getting to the back of the book. How about that? Richard's had it. The back of the book coming up.
02:05:37 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I like the big text. Leo makes me happy. It's like I know what to do now I'm going to put it there.
02:05:43 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I always need to like a little like a spotlight effect.
02:05:47 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, you know like hey, I do.
02:05:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I do want to mention that this is a good time for people to consider joining club If they're not already a member, reason being ad sales dwindling. You know, we've been looking ahead. We do. We forecast every year, just like Twitch, just like everybody else, not just like Twitch, leo. Well, we had to lay off an equivalent percentage 35% of our staff last month Cancel shows, and they could continue it, because we are not owned by Amazon, we do not have deep profitable pockets. We are just what we are and hey, if you like what we do and I think it's really important I believe in our mission to educate, you know, a group of tech enthusiasts like you on what technologies was happening in technology. I guess that's why I'm going to buy that stupid vision pro.
02:06:45 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I want, I desperately need for this not to be my fault. I don't care.
02:06:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
in a way, I had to get it. I'm going to spend my own money I won't use Twitch money, I'll just use my own money. But you know it's good to do that, though, because then you really feel the pain. You know what 3500 bucks means to a real person.
02:07:08 - Richard Campbell (Host)
It's an extra layer of rage, yeah.
02:07:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Anyway. So your money will not go to my vision pro. Your money will go to keeping the lights on the studio, running the people employed and the shows expanding things like Paul's hands on windows, which is a great show and is in our club only. So what do you get? Well, first of all, seven bucks a month is all you pay that free versions of all the shows, additional shows that are only in the club. You get access to the discord, which is a wonderful community of geeks, and we talk about a lot more than just Twitch. We talk about everything geeks are interested in. You also get the Twitch plus feed with special stuff.
02:07:44
Lisa and I did an inside Twitch kind of explaining the situation last week. That's club members, only that kind of thing. But the real reason is because you want to keep Twitch going and I think that's a small price to pay. Seven bucks a month, $84 a year. There are family plans and corporate plans. Do me a favor please visit twitchtv. Slash club Twitch. Do what you can. Some people are actually giving more than seven bucks and if you feel like it's worth it, that's great. We appreciate it. Seven bucks is all we ask. All right, plug over. Let's get to the back of the book, starting with Paul Therrat, his tip of the week.
02:08:24 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So two interesting sides related to this tip. I just signed into the Arc web browser and I was able to use the pass key saved on my computer here to authenticate, which is the way pass keys are supposed to work, so it was great. In the bad news department, it's based on Chromium, so yikes, is it Arc?
02:08:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's another Chrome? Yeah, it is. It uses the.
02:08:49 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Chrome Webster.
02:08:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So why wouldn't it be?
02:08:54 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So, anyway, interesting looking, looks like an Apple product, but whatever, I'll get over that. So I've been writing a bunch of security topics lately. I've been looking into password managers. Coincidentally, last past last week I think, we talked about this started requiring 12 character master passwords, which is like, guys, it's 2024. Passwords are you kidding me? Why don't password managers all support pass keys? And I don't mean just storing them, I mean letting me sign in, authenticate to their service right.
02:09:24
So if you look this up, every one of these companies has announced at some point in the past year that they are going to support them. The two that I would consider, well, the one I moved to last year, bitwarden, and the one I would consider using one password mixed results, I think it would be the best way to say it. One password, in mid December, launched a public beta of a version of their product that supports pass keys, but it only supports pass keys, which is kind of fascinating. There is no master password and you cannot add one. You cannot add an authenticator app, it's. You use pass keys. And this is very interesting because if you sign up for this thing, have it on one computer and delete the thing, it's gone Like there's no way to recover it. So you have to proliferate that thing out into the world, and that's where I ran into problems. It doesn't work very well, and I asked Richard the discussion Richard and I were having before the show was related to this because, as a non security expert, I feel a little out of my league in depth when I discuss this topic, because I don't want to say something that people will follow my advice and they'll go down some insecure path.
02:10:32
But here's my theory, and it is this we all have secure devices now. They have secure storage in a security chip like a TPM or a Titan or whatever it's called. In your device, pass keys work. Oh, I'm sorry. We also have secure sign in biometric facial recognition, fingerprint recognition or some kind of a pin, which is typically like an additional step. So you're not typing passwords, right? These systems are considered so secure that pass keys will allow themselves to be stored on those things and then they can move around to your different systems. So, in other words, I'm signing into Google on my computer and I type in my username and it says, hey, you have a pass key on another device. Do you want to use that? Like yeah, I do, and then I can okay the pass key on here, and then it says, hey, do you want to put a pass key on this device so you no longer have to worry about this because this device is secure to him? Like yeah, I do, and that's how I just signed into the ARC browser.
02:11:26
So if that system is so secure, please explain to me why I sign in securely. I look, I have to exercise some common sense, right? I am signing in securely, I don't not have a password, etc. Etc. But my computer is secure, I'm using it and then when I'm not using it, it's locked right and plus, it's in my house 99. Something percent of the time anyway.
02:11:51
Like why? Why do I have to type in a password to access a password manager after I've already authenticated myself onto a system? That could have a pass key that would keep this thing safe, but doesn't, but doesn't have to? What's the difference? Like when I sign into Windows, I'll just use Windows, right, I let that authentication passes through to one drive. I can access all my online stories to teams, to outlook. It passes through to the web. So if I have to access my Microsoft account on a Microsoft website or wherever else, goes right through, no problem. I don't ever have to type in anything, just goes right through. So if it's that secure, why does my password manager need a password? It doesn't make any sense. So I'm not actually telling, please, leo, especially because Leo takes me.
02:12:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So I am going to change. I'm going to fire a bit warden. I'm going to change password managers. Paul told me I think it's a hard thing to do. I have been using pass keys with bit warden. I like the idea of pass keys being stored in the password manager, not the device, because then I can use it everywhere.
02:12:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Is there portable?
02:12:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah.
02:12:54 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And and automatically put it up.
02:12:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now I get that it's tricky. Yep, it is tricky. I don't know why password managers aren't using single sign on right for the master password. It seems like they should, okay.
02:13:08 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I asked Richard this question semi rhetorically. I guess I'm asking you as well, leo, if these things are so secure, that pass keys are safe, why? What's the difference? Look, you have to be, you have to be smart about this. You can't leave a laptop and a cafe, walk over, get another cup of coffee. You have to lock it, right, but the but. If you're sitting there using the thing, why isn't? I'm here, I've signed in securely.
02:13:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I so everything on there. So bitwarden does support login with device, so you can use it.
02:13:40 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yes, but it's a ponderous and you you actually do. On Ross, yeah, but I think that there's a reason.
02:13:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I mean that. Well, that's what I'm wondering what's the reason they got to make it secure? Why?
02:13:49 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Look, I mean, I'm saying this semi facetiously, but because to my mind it is secure, because it's on this secure device. I'm already using it, but it's, isn't it?
02:13:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
do it Bitwarden, does it by? I'm on my windows device and it says okay, approve the login on your iPhone. And now we know it's you, and that's good. Isn't that what Microsoft's doing?
02:14:10 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So here's the. So the problem is this is not a bitwarden problem. So the problem with password managers standalone password managers is that they're extensions for web browsers, and an extension is not a full fledged application. That's true. So if you want to integrate with the system in certain ways, you actually have to install the app as well. This is a problem with, but not a problem.
02:14:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's true with most password managers.
02:14:29 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It has to be because there's no other way for them to do this stuff. So, okay, there's an additional thing you got to do whatever big deal, but to my mind, like if I have a fingerprint reader or a phase I should be able to, it should just do this Like I I should on that device, same device, you mean? Yeah, yeah, Like I don't understand why. Why is this thing ever locked when?
02:14:49 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I'm sitting in front of the computer, yeah, and you know I'm digging around in here. I think it's the existing bit one. They've just named it badly.
02:14:58 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So there is a thing you can sort of turn off some device features. Yeah, the problem is eventually your computer reboots, right yeah, and when it does you actually have to authenticate in some way, and I can't. This is the the consistency problem I ran into over the weekend. I spent all weekend on this. I spent so much time in this I that Sunday at 8pm, when we usually start watching a movie, I was like I need another hour. I'm sorry, I have to finish this and I never did. It was so frustrating.
02:15:25 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I was up half the night because you know your mind's like whatever, yeah, but what you're looking for and the thing you want and what Bitwarden should say is how do I get to passwordless? Yeah, I want this thing to be passwordless.
02:15:36 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
No, they have they do, but they, they, they, they don't really. That's the problem. It's not both. One password and Bitwarden have hurdles that like, for example, I'll just use the because I spent. So I there was a point I thought I was going to be switching to one password because I'm like, here we go, they do pass keys, yeah, but no. The answer is no, because they do pass keys so poorly.
02:15:58
That system I just described does not work. So, for example, I said, it doesn't matter what I'm using what system, it doesn't matter. I'm going to sign into some account and it says you want to use a pass key on your phone? Yes, I do the pass key thing on my phone. And then it says, hey, do you want to? That's how pass keys are supposed to work. You're using a secure device. We can put a pass key on this computer so you never have to do that again. The answer is yes. One pass key, one password, does not do that. It is so lousy.
02:16:25
It's these systems that just you would think, these companies that are in charge of our passwords, would get this one thing right. The goal is passwordless. Anyway, I'm I the tip, honestly, is a tip from me. I need help with this. I'm trying to figure out whether or not my vague belief that I do not want to recommend to others, which is this that if I don't care what device we're talking about, I, I signed in securely. I should just be able to run any app, I don't care what it is, what. What's the difference? I've signed in, I, you know what's your?
02:16:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You're swimming upstream and correct me if I'm wrong, richard, but I think you're swimming upstream, because the modern standard is zero trust, right? Yes, and zero trust means just cause you're logged into your device doesn't mean I should trust you, just as much as you're in the network, I think.
02:17:17 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
But pass keys work that way and what I'm saying is what I'm adding to it, is that element of common sense. I'm saying as the user, I trust myself enough to know that I'm not going to leave this thing open to the world for other people to use, that I'm using it myself and that when I go away, I'm going to close the lid. If I'm in a public place or if in my house, I don't care, and that's on me and I I'm trying to think of a way I can sort of write this or say this to other people and not come off. As you don't understand security and what you're suggesting is ridiculous, when in fact this is literally how pass keys work and I don't understand.
02:17:52 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I will ask you know, I will ask the wonderful Steve Gibson cause you're right.
02:17:57 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
You're right. Uh, I want my pass key. My password manager should write a pass key to the TPM on my computer, to the tightenshift on my phone, and I should be able to authenticate on the device and have that pass through, and I should never have to sign into that thing again. That's why?
02:18:13 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Okay, here's part of the problem. Uh, that's not in the past. I'm asking spec. Oh, okay, and that was. That was the whole thing. Was PASCII authenticates you with a device, but but, and this was the- whole thing is if I, if I have pass keys on my iPhone, they're not on my windows device. That and they can't be moved to my windows device.
02:18:34 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
They live on they can't be moved, but you could use that to create one. No, I, I am Pat. Paranoid enough, that's my point. I'm paranoid enough that I have not written this and I'm asking a question.
02:18:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm not saying I'll ask. I'll ask Steve I I that's an interesting.
02:18:48 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, so I, I am. Yeah, it's an interesting problem. Um, I want to do the right thing. Yeah, you know, and I think, and I swear.
02:18:58 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I think it exists.
02:18:59 - Speaker 2 (Announcement)
I think we're just, yeah, I think the security, the one thing we know for sure about security people is, they don't know how to build a UX to save their lives.
02:19:07 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, okay, and so, by the way, it's absolutely fair.
02:19:09 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I, yeah, I think this feature and yeah, regarding, yeah, sessions should expire, of course, and then I should securely authenticate with windows Hello my PC and it should be fine. Now the question is, I do, do's the, uh, the service determine that with with your Google account? Yeah, google does. We all know this. Every once in a while, google says, hey, you get a sign in and I, whatever. That time, what is it? A month or less, I don't know. Whatever it is, you know whatever.
02:19:35 - Richard Campbell (Host)
And it really is sent by you know when we. Of course I'm leaning on on Azure because I spend so much time on that particular problem. It's like it's actually accounted for the number of unusual things in this login Right. Your IP address. Change. Yeah, and it up. You need devices change. You never logged in from this device report and this is a.
02:19:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
This is probably not the right word, but this is almost like a heuristic approach to security. Yeah, you say look, you have signed in at this IP in this physical location every day for the past 90 days. Like you know you, you're signing in securely with windows. We think it's you. Now if, if, while you're doing this, while your session is still active, someone you try to sign in in Vietnam, yeah, we're going to throw up some roblox there. That is not just expected. It's what should have, it's what you should want.
02:20:17 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Right, yeah, linkedin fired me an email saying are you logging in from Florida?
02:20:23 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, you don't want to see that, but but then again you do want to see that because now you know the system's working. So I hate to. I don't mean to say like I'm just asking questions, like some kind of a jerker.
02:20:33 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I mean I literally ask people to ignore security is by asking the same question over and over again for no reason. Yeah. You want that question to be asked when something's different.
02:20:43 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
So it's okay. So someone has said bit warden's discuss, you do that. That doesn't work. So that's the problem. That's what I'm saying. It doesn't actually work, so it's you can't you? I'm sorry you can't. Yes, you can configure it in a fairly insecure way and then you sort of take it on yourself. You can do that.
02:21:00
What I'm saying is we shouldn't have to think about this stuff. No, what it should allow is the thing I've described, that past key style experience where I'm authenticating with whatever the local security is. Yeah, this setting that someone has put into the discord. I've done this on seven or eight different computers. I've done this a lot. It is such an inconsistent experience and part of it has to do with, I think, because I'm signing in in different ways or whatever. But I'm really trying to come up with something where it's like I'm balancing, I'm not balancing. Actually, that's the point. It's not a compromise between security and convenience. I'm trying to arrive at a thing that is both secure and convenient, because that's what makes people do it. If something is secure but it's a pain in the butt, they just say no that's why my wife will never use the security key.
02:21:47
Okay, so it's just too much for her.
02:21:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm looking at Bitwarden right now. You have to have the app. You're right, because you don't want to do that and you really don't want to do it as a browser extension, this JavaScript, and not approve logon devices. Logon Because you use this device to approve login requests made for other devices. I check that Now. My Windows machine will use Windows Hello when I want to log into Bitwarden, let's say on my iPhone.
02:22:13 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And I can do the same on my iPhone. Yeah. And, by the way, that is a very past, key-like experience that's how this thing should work.
02:22:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's a two-factor thing. You need another device.
02:22:26 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
But it also has to be a secure device. It has to have secure sign-in, secure storage, security chip. All these things have to exist. That's what makes this thing make sense.
02:22:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Let me see. Yeah, the problem is. So the problem is on my iPhone. It also says is a box that says use this device to approve login requests made from, and then other places.
02:22:56 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
All right, listen, I've done this a thousand times.
02:22:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, okay, all right, you've been here I know.
02:23:03 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I just did it and it's like okay, but you got to use it for a couple of days.
02:23:05 - Richard Campbell (Host)
The thing is you get this Now. Actually, it seems it better.
02:23:08 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, and and does it work If I actually reboot the computer or sign out and sign back in, or whatever? There's a million ways to do it, if I go to a browser that I've never used before, or whatever? There's all these different scenarios. What is the behavior? And right now, these things are all very especially Bitwarden's. Inconsistent is the way I would describe it, but I'm going to reboot my one Password might be just broken.
02:23:31 - Leo Laporte (Host)
See if it doesn't work. See if this can do it. It's a beta. Okay, yeah, I'm going to reboot my Windows machine and then in theory. I should be able to log in.
02:23:41 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It should just be there. It should be open. It should be wide open to the world. Because you turned off?
02:23:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, actually no no, no, I don't want it to be.
02:23:47 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I want to do some authentication you want to unlock with. Ideally, it would say hey, I just sent a request to your iPhone.
02:23:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Approve it and you're in, just as it does with Windows, right.
02:23:56 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, okay, that's a little inconvenient. I mean, ideally you I think you set it up, didn't you, that you could sign in just using?
02:24:04
Windows I don't mind authenticating every once in a while. First time after reboot, that's fine. Like I get it. The problem is it's not one of the, not the problem. There are a million problems. But one of the problems is it's not proactive, right? So what you really want is for that thing to authenticate explicitly. Give you the opportunity, because otherwise you get the situation where you're clicking in the box and nothing's popping up.
02:24:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
What I want is to never have to type my long master password.
02:24:34 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Exactly. That's why I'm my matter by the way, fingerprint reader unlocks Bitwarden every time.
02:24:40 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's one thing Apple doesn't do well at. There are too many times when you sign into a Mac where it's like gotta type your password or your sorry your pin, like you can't, you can't use the finger, you have to type your pin, and it's like guys, like what do you take? Come on, I don't know, I don't. That kind of stuff makes me a little crazy, but I'm really. I want to figure this out. I want, I want there to be a way that is, it can't be compromising security for convenience. I want it to be convenient yeah, convenience enough, and to me Windows Hello is convenient enough, and then you can set whatever timeout you want. I mean, we have all you know we have different ideas there, but I don't mind authenticating. I like that. You know there's a, there's a part of that to me that is Well, I think, communicating safety.
02:25:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You're right. Here's where you're right. The master password is not the ideal situation, because people are using short easy to remember master passwords. Ideally, you would use these strong authentication methods available now on many platforms like Windows Hello to do the authentication, because that's better than a password, um and so yeah, no, I'm, I'm with you.
02:25:49 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Some of us can memorize 36 character passwords.
02:25:53 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Leo, this is like I asked Richard before the show. I said did you, do you literally type in your master password? And he said yeah, and, by the way, that password is 30 characters long and I was like yeah, mine's 32 or something, and it's not when I, not when I reboot the machine when I reopened the browser, I can't even accurately type a four digit pin. I'm not going to type 30 carat. My God, well, you get used to it.
02:26:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't know, you can't feel real good at it actually yeah, okay, and you know I always use a mnemonic for my master passwords. So I'm uttering the monotonic in my head. I hope I'm not mowing it. She sells seashells down. I'm not using it. I'm not using it. I'm not using it.
02:26:26 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I'm not using it, I'm not using it in my head. I hope I'm not mowing it. She sells seashells down by the sea shore.
02:26:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I hope I'm not saying it out loud, but yeah, I have a mnemonic. Actually, I have a mnemonic and then I I pad it with some additional stuff, so it's really two mnemonics to make it really long.
02:26:42 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Mnemonic harmonies.
02:26:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yes, are you done with this? Yeah, welcome to my Pam.
02:26:49 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Sorry, I just I wanted to throw it by you guys because I trust you and I love that you're writing this, because this will really help people. I'm not sure I am writing this I get it.
02:26:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm not sure I trust myself to write this. You don't want to look at me. You don't want to mislead people.
02:27:02 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I don't want to mislead it. God help me if anyone ever comes back and says you told me and then they lost their credit card numbers or whatever. I could never live with myself. It's too important to get this wrong which is why I'm not published.
02:27:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I have to be honest. I don't have this problem on on with Bitwarden on either the iPhone or the Mac. I love. When people deny the experience I've had, I love that. I feel like I'm in this.
02:27:25 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I don't no, no, no. I don't have this experience, so you're wrong and it's like I'm not saying you're wrong.
02:27:29 - Speaker 2 (Announcement)
I'm just saying it's because you're using one else's and I'm like.
02:27:32 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
my answer to that is always oh, I see, cancer exists, even if you don't have it. So this please, dear God, please, don't deny the experience. You don't know what I experienced. That's not fair. Let me reboot.
02:27:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Anyway, the iPhone. I think I don't have to enter the master password ever on my iPhone or my Mac.
02:27:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Okay, by the way, this experience is actually closer to what I want on mobile. So for some reason, on mobile biometrics, the biometrics pass through and this is honestly in the. I've gone down this weird kind of path because it doesn't work all the time on Windows.
02:28:07 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I haven't know. Now that I'm looking at it, I'm not that far away because I'm okay, I'm ordering USB fingerprint readers for these, right, because that's awesome.
02:28:14 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Is the biometric part works? Yeah, okay.
02:28:17 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Fingerprint readers are great, like here I am. Actually, I just unlocked with the watch on my Mac, which is even better Right.
02:28:26 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
And I got a Microsoft authenticated thing the other day and I was walking around the house and I looked at my watch buzz and I'm like, oh my God, here we go. Nope, can't do it.
02:28:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Apple watch, my friend, apple watch yeah. Anyway it's a, it's a Paul rant, you know, take it, or leave it.
02:28:44 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well it's, it's your Paul rant Maybe.
02:28:46 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, I don't think it's going to be easy, other than system ends.
02:28:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's too much to get the Yuba key with fingerprint reader, I thought, ah, perfect, right. No, this is the solution. Right. It's actually worse because you have to. I think anyone could print.
02:29:01 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
My cat could unlock that thing. I don't I in fact. I looked it up. I'm like is this really a fingerprint? This is just, it's just pushed the button, you know like I think.
02:29:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I think anything but it. But it's not. My experience has been not reliable enough that I ended up ending entering the panel.
02:29:16 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It's very good.
02:29:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I thought this is. Oh, this is perfect. Right, here's the real solution A hardware key that uses your thumbprint. So it's super, you know, reliable, right, Right, yeah.
02:29:27 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, security is a tough I I I could get away with. I could absolutely use a security cable, obviously, but and I I've been testing that- If you don't mind, I could, never, I could never give that to my wife.
02:29:39 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I hope this multi device thing works Like you know what would make me happy with with opening a browser on my PC, that my phone popped up and said should I open, bit warden for you? And I'm like, yeah, here's my thumb.
02:29:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Thank you, I do the authenticated thing. I had an iPhone pin, because they require you to enter the pin when you restart. Well, because you rebooted it. Now let me see if bit warden opens from my face, or do I have to? But it does. I bet it does Well, yeah.
02:30:04 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That stuff works better on phones.
02:30:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Just once I'm in the, once I'm authenticated on the phone, I'm actually glad you went Bitward.
02:30:11 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, I'm just gonna go back to the direction because I that's the path I started down was I wanted this to work as well on the computers. It doesn't work on the phone, right, and it just kind of doesn't, you know, and it's, it's.
02:30:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
it's a little frustrating, Dare, I say it. It doesn't on Windows. It also doesn't it really doesn't on Linux, yeah.
02:30:29 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, but whose fault is that? Right, Actually, it doesn't matter. I mean it does matter, but I, yeah, okay. I'm not going to spend a bunch of time experimenting on a Chromebook or a Mac because Let me reboot my Mac.
02:30:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It works, that's great but I I needed to work on Windows.
02:30:44 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
This is for a book about Windows.
02:30:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, no, I understand, but I'm going to reboot my Mac and my guess is it's going to be very similar to the experience of the iPhone, which is once I authenticate on the Mac, but you have to type in your, your code, your pen or whatever.
02:30:57 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Well, Apple does that.
02:30:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And then when you reboot a system, you do have to use the password. So, by the way, that's one thing Microsoft doesn't do.
02:31:04 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
When you reboot a Windows PC, you can sign in with Windows low face or finger.
02:31:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yes, you never have to type in the pen. Maybe that's why the password. Maybe it thinks it's not as secure for that reason.
02:31:16 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's. It's interesting to me that a four digit pen would be more secure than a. It isn't an easily broken four digit pen Like, although I guess it has a timeout where it would fail after a number of.
02:31:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You mean on the phone at six digits, First of all no, I meant on Windows but yeah, Now let's see. My password is required to log in because I rebooted Yep and that you know I'm content with that, First of all because I don't reboot that often, Sure.
02:31:40 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's how I know you're not using Windows, but go on.
02:31:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But, and you're right, Apple has decided not to use the fingerprint reader as right the first time all this devices?
02:31:49 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Google does the same thing. If you reboot an Android phone, you have to type, so there might be a reason for that.
02:31:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Let me start the bit. Oh, I'm sure there's a reason I'm not sure I started the bit it says unlock with touch ID. And there you go.
02:32:01 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's good. Yeah, that's not the experience of Windows, so I am. I'm going to keep trying. I appreciate you guys, your feedback.
02:32:09 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, I want it solved too, Right? I'm just, by the way, this bit warden experience where I say, hey, can I turn on the security feature? So I was. Yeah, let me send you to the web, Like, yeah exactly.
02:32:19 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, so right. Here's the problem in a nutshell, regardless of the details, is nobody will use these security features if they're hard to use. Yeah, that's it. Well, so I'm trying to, like I said, I'm not balancing security and convenience, I am trying to mate them. I'm trying to make them both. I'm trying to make it both of those things. And it is on the phone. I would say, using your face or whatever it is to sign into that thing on a phone is convenient enough. That's how I would describe that Ideally, and part of the reason for that is you're doing it on the same device, like when Leo signed in with his, with his finger on the Mac. It's that's what I want. This is one step too many. Every time I'm using a computer, I would like I have security here. I would like to pass through and anyway I'll keep working on it. It may not be a solvable problem right now, and Windows I don't yeah.
02:33:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And I just, by the way, logged into Bitwarden also in the browser and it was fingerprint, so yeah. In theory, once I've logged into my Mac and I admittedly have to type a password there. Maybe I should.
02:33:28 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I'll look at this in the Mac just to get even more upset. And then, Well, just to see.
02:33:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
well, I wonder if there is some. I think Windows Hello is secure, right, it's a trusted, secure enclave. It should be.
02:33:41 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
It has all the bit Like the TPM was started with Windows, right? I mean the security chips we have on mobile now have their roots in this.
02:33:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We should point out, not all Windows machines support Windows Hello, but I guess Bitwarden's, like any app, could say do you?
02:33:56 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
support Hello and a pin is considered Windows Hello, so a pin works as well. If you only have a pin.
02:34:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
you can do that, you can do it. And how long is the pin?
02:34:08 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
For consumers, for the just minimum.
02:34:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, that's a terrible security monitor. Come on, I I only 10,000 possibilities, I only need four, and my phone it's the same. What phone is that? Every phone.
02:34:26 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
No, no, no, you don't know. You can. You can choose for?
02:34:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, it's six by default, but you can go during care about anything. There's plenty of you.
02:34:36 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Who is this? All right, look just again. The part of the point of this is for me, yes, but part of the point is also for other people, and what I'm saying is normal people like my wife. My wife's not putting in a six digit pin, she's not using security. I had to Terrible. I had to convince her to use an authenticator app. You know it's. This is just. This is hard for these people. I have never had to use a six digit pin on any Apple device ever, so that use a bunch of them.
02:35:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So that's I'm sorry. Then I so you write Don't write this article because you will be mocked.
02:35:07 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
No, no, I'm. There's a way to write it. I would. I'm not going to.
02:35:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And what I.
02:35:20 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's how hello works. Yeah, so to step back for a second and a Chromebook, the minimum is 6. If you have a Microsoft work or school account and your organization has not edited the setting, it is also six, but for consumers it's 4. And that's true at all of my devices, all Except for the Chromebook. I did not know. You could you absolutely can Any Apple device, I do not recommend.
02:35:45
I'm not saying I recommended either, but that's the point. My article would not be. I'm a genius, and so here's what you should do. My article would be look, here's the problem, but don't encourage. I'm not encouraging, I'm describing.
02:35:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Ignore people to do the wrong thing.
02:35:59 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I am. I literally don't want to encourage anyone to do to improperly.
02:36:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We're trying to encourage them to do the six digit pin right. We're trying to train them. I don't know, Is that what? I'm not sure?
02:36:12 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Actually even the six digit pin is not enough, really.
02:36:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, I agree. In fact, it's all soliness. What we do say is an Apple allows you to do is use it. There's no such thing as an iPad that every required a six digit pin.
02:36:23 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I have used. I've owned every iPad that's ever existed, almost every iPhone that's ever existed. I have always used a four digit pin, every single time, everyone. There's no such thing as it requiring a six digit pin ever. That's not a thing. That one I am positive.
02:36:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
All right, I have six digits everywhere, yeah you do?
02:36:40 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
No, it's fine.
02:36:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But when you go to put the pin, when you set up, the device, you can click and say no, I want to use it for yeah, yeah, I believe you?
02:36:46 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yep, I've never used a six digit pin. That's why the Chromebook sticks out to me, and also my work in school account. It's like six. I'm like, oh and, by the way, if you have a, there's a little fun Windows factory to bring it back home If you have a sign in for a worker school account that has a six digit pin requirement, you have to have at least a six digit pin on a Microsoft account. If you have a sign in for that as well, it will not lead you to a four for that account. So there you go.
02:37:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So if you want this passwordless world you're hoping for, you might want to. I think it's the get get rid of six digit. Get rid of pins.
02:37:19 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, I mean, I like what Apple's done here, which is you log in with your password to your Mac account.
02:37:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now you can use fingerprint everywhere. That seems sensible.
02:37:27 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I'm asking someone is it a password or your pin? It's a password? Oh, it is, you're right, I'm sorry, you know what. So what I do on my Mac is I use I basically use a pen as a password because I can't stand it.
02:37:40 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I've got a password, yep, yeah, yeah, I don't think I want to drag this.
02:37:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It definitely warns you when you do that. Hey Paul, that's not secure, I'm not sure it does.
02:37:47 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Oh, it does it doesn't, I know it does. Okay, it does that one. I'm not sure. I don't. I don't travel out in the world with a Mac.
02:37:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't my Mac's just sitting in a yeah, we got a wrap up. We got a wrap up. Enough of this. Yes, we do, yep, we do. I'm sorry.
02:37:59 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
All right, what's your app? Pick Windows, ipad and iPhone. It's out on Android now. So now you get that, cross all the whatever the better. Who cares? And Opera a lot of people don't know this, although there are apparently 10 million users has a gaming focus browser called Opera GX. They have a new version with that. They've partnered on with MSI, which you can grab. I mentioned earlier I was I've been trying Brave Search this week. That hasn't been going great, unfortunately. It's not as good as DuckTek Go, but they just today released a and I'm sorry that's not true, that's not there. They just today released a software code generation a lot of them capability. So if you ask a developer really a question, you'll actually get a unique UI that will start. You know doing all that stuff. They also, by the way, one thing DuckTek Brave does pretty well and I can't speak to the other browsers because I've been kind of using this for a little while is they have a nice AI summary thing at the top of it which is actually that's. That part's pretty good.
02:38:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Anyway, took that from Neva my favorite morabund search engine Morabund.
02:39:06 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
What's your morabund, Neva I?
02:39:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
was used to pay five bucks a month for Neva. Yeah, yeah, yeah the paper Right and then when I had businesses that we can't compete against Google now I'm using Kagi, but Kagi doesn't do the AI summary which I really liked on Neva.
02:39:19 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
All right, Richard, I didn't mean to shortchange your stuff here. I'm sorry.
02:39:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's all right. That's what I'm going to have to do. Richard, run as radio.
02:39:29 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yes, new year, new stories. This is a show I've been chasing for a while because, boy oh boy, it's hard to get anybody to talk about active directory these days, but because we're all using it, at least in the assistive men world running Windows servers. Jerry DeVore is a former Premier Field Engineer. These are easily the smartest people in existence out of Microsoft, which is why they got rid of them, these. Back in the day. If you were a larger company, you could get a Premier support contract and that meant you had access to this extraordinary group of people that worked out in the field making stuff work, and I loved interviewing PFE's because they had all the real world experience. You were struggling with your 1000 seats of active directory. Here's a guy who's just deployed 100,000. He gave you the high bar. He still works for Microsoft. He's now called a cloud solution architect, but he's been writing this series on hardening active directory.
02:40:25
So active directory is not a primary exploit for the black hats, it's a secondary exploit. First, I fish you. Now that I've gotten you to load a chunk of code onto your machine, I'm now going to lateral into AD to be able to take control of other machines. I got to get off the client machine. I want to get up into the servers where I can persist, and so exploiting AD is important and we can resist it because active directory can be quite robust. It's just that it usually isn't.
02:40:56
People haven't done the work, and so Jerry walks us through some of these fundamentals of the mistakes we make and the efforts we need to go to to improve this. And this really goes into the series that I've been working on about hey, we don't have a lot of budget to buy new stuff, but the company still needs to be more secure. Like, what can we do? There's nothing to buy here, the software is free. This is configuration problems. If you just put the hours in, you can toughen up your IAD to the point where it's not an effective vector. And that's the essence of this whole story. Was everything we pointed to was free to download. They were just tools to monitor your configuration, just things to look at to realize, hey, we've turned on the security feature because it broke this app, but we haven't used that app in 10 years and God knows we never turned it back on again and up leveling your functional level of active directory. You never knew why you wanted to do it. This is why Nice.
02:41:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Wow, I wonder where all of these PFE's went.
02:41:54 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, they're out there still. They adore every one of them. They're all fantastic, but they've gotten you their advocates and architects and things like that. But talk about people that fought the good fight and carried it back to the product teams to make them better.
02:42:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, Very nice. All right, you know what's next. My friend, we're counting on you.
02:42:14 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Well, you know we've done it. We've done a few weeks of Scottish whiskey and so American bourbon. I was feeling bad for the Canadians so I had to Right. I mean, when you see a whiskey called bear face, you know it's Canadian. Right On the bottom it'd be hard to see in the camera and certainly hard for a podcaster. There's slash marks on the bottom to the point where it cuts into the label From the bear. I love it From the bear.
02:42:41 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yes.
02:42:41 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Attention to detail. All bears, especially Grizzlies, tend to mark trees for territory. In fact, it's known that as they get older they'll mark higher and higher on the tree to just let you know how tall they are, why you should go somewhere else. Yeah, Like like grizzly bears don't like people. The generally will stay away from them. If you manage to sneak up on a grizzly bear, that's on you, Don't don't do it, don't do it at all.
02:43:09
But that's not the cool part of the story, it's not just the name. Bear faces a very unusual whiskey and for starters, it's a Canadian whiskey, which means it's not bound to a lot of rules. You know, scottish whiskey has to be barley and all those sorts of things, american whiskey's got to be a certain amount of corn and then it's got to be aged a certain way. The Canadians, we kind of do what we want. So the creator of this whiskey is a guy named Andreas Faustalini and he's born in Venezuela, but he was originally trained in Italy as a wine blender, so working in Tuscany making the blended wines, and then he fell in love with the West Coast of North America, california, oregon, washington State and British Columbia, and so he liked blending different wines together and he started blending other kinds of alcohol and eventually fell in with this group. That makes bear face, and bear face doesn't own a still. So the way this is literally a composite whiskey. So what's in the bottle is 100% corn, no barley, nothing else. And they come and they obviously use a different whiskey maker. There's only two. It can possibly be just doing the math. A 100% corn is very hard to make because you need the enzymes. But you know I did that show a while back about Pendleton Rye and I talked about Alberta Stillers. That has their own microbiologists and they make their custom enzyme so they can make 100% rise. So it might be them. There's also a group in Collingwood which is in Ontario, which is where this where a lot of this work is done. Initially that makes a kind of whiskey called Canadian Mist. But the cool part about this is okay, he's essentially ordered 100% corn whiskey aged seven years in ex-burban casks. But for him, for him, from his perspective that's the starting point. He's essentially made a sweet whiskey. It's all corn, so it's quite sweet. But then, as his own notes say, he starts with that blank slate and then he starts finishing it in the wine maker style, because wine makers do not barrel for years. The bottles might lay up for years, but they barrel for months, nothing more. And so this is called the triple oak, because the first oak was the ex-burban barrels that were used to make his initial template. And then he cut a deal with the Mission Hills winery in British Columbia. These are obviously BC wine makers from the Okadoga Valley, but they principally use French oak and they make excellent cab sabs, cab francs, merlows, all those big fat jammy French style wines, and so he uses ex-French oak casks from Mission Hill to flavor it, to give it a little depth, but they're only in the barrel for about three months After that.
02:46:15
Now we need our third oak, and what Andreas talked about in one of the interviews was that he was happy with the flavor. The sort of open was very approachable and it had a depth of character. But he wanted a little heat, a little spiciness, and typically you would do that with green right. We'd have a little rye in there that would give us the heat. That's not what he wanted to do, and so he utilized another kind of cask, as he describes it, an air-dried virgin Hungarian oak cask, which is an interesting phrase I never expected to say. But what really was is an unusual species of European oak, the Hungarian oak.
02:46:53
But they use multiple casks toasted at different levels, so there's a different amount of char on the inside of the barrel. The initial toasties are quite light and then it gets darker. Three different stages, two weeks in each kind of barrel to introduce some spicy notes to it. But they don't have a barrel room. This is where the elemental age comes from. They actually have shipping containers, the big steel containers, teu's, eight foot by eight foot by 20 foot, out in the British Columbian wilderness Act with these barrels. To finish this whiskey, and since we went long today, obviously I'm going to open this and taste it. How dare you.
02:47:37
So what we have is a composed whiskey, a very different approach to building a whiskey, only because you're not confined to the rules. Only a seven-year-old right. There's an awful lot of color there, but remember it lived in some wine casks for a while. The nose is very sweet, like this, is clearly corn and a little alkali. It's only 42.5%, which is not that high for a whiskey per se.
02:48:03 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
You find jackals to be sweet? Yeah, fairly. Would this account or would this be similar or sweeter?
02:48:13 - Richard Campbell (Host)
This is sweeter. This is surprisingly sweet, still got a nice amount of heat to it and it does have a rich shit Like it's. There's something odd about this. It's unusual, but it's a drink, there's no two ways about it. And, more importantly, 30 bucks.
02:48:28 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
There you go. I don't think you can. You get it in the US, though you can.
02:48:33 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Okay, but it's not in the big shops. Bev Moe had a couple of them. They had that One of the special editions called the Matsutake, which was actually aged with mushrooms. Weird, that's really weird isn't it. But they are starting to show up more and more in the US and they show generally in specialty liquor stores, so they're doing direct sales. They haven't got the numbers for the big guys, so you're going to have to dig around for this. But also, with $30, make it into a mixer, right, right.
02:49:03
Last Christmas we were mixing this little Apple brandy and making sort of a Christmas cocktail from it. You can have fun with this. It's a fun drink. The bottle is beautiful. It's very Canadian because they've just. What Andre has said is like why are we going to comply with these rules that mean nothing to us? Let's go have some fun and make something different. And he pulled it off.
02:49:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Nice. Wow, what a story Aged in shipping containers.
02:49:31 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Shaged in barrels inside the shipping containers. Wow, a bloody raven just landed right in front of me and scared us. Not out of me, it's like whoa, I think that's an omen. I don't want to say anything, but maybe that raven is just saying I've got the whiskey now, so never more.
02:49:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's time to wrap up Windows Weekly. Paul Therade is at Theradecom. T-h-u-r-r-o-t-t.
02:49:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I'm also full of 100% corn.
02:49:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He's full of corn and aged in the barrel. But somewhere you can, kevin. Our producer says they should call them barrels Beryls. They're in barrels.
02:50:14
Paul's books Windows Everywhere and the Field Guide to Windows 11, available on Google at leanpubcom. They are must purchases. Richard lives at runasradiocom that's both for Run as Radio and thenetRox podcast and they join us every Wednesday, 11 am Pacific, 2 pm, eastern, 1900 UTC for Windows Weekly. Now we do it on a Tuesday. You can watch us do it live at YouTube youtubecom During the show. Of course, club Twit members are watching live all the time in our Club Twit Discord. You can also listen at or watch after the fact twittv. There's a YouTube channel dedicated to Windows Weekly, but the best thing to do is subscribe in your favorite podcast client. That way you'll get it automatically. You can just listen or watch whenever you're in the mood.
02:51:04
Our survey is up. If you haven't yet taken the survey, we want to get everybody who listens to all the different shows to respond so we get a good picture of who you are. It's shorter than ever. Twittv slash survey 24. Don't wait too long. Get on in there and take that survey before the end of the month. We appreciate it. Thank you very much. It helps us a lot and that's all I have to say. Anything you guys want to say.
02:51:30 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Just delete all security from your password manager and you'll be fine.
02:51:33 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Everything's easy. Turned off, automatically.
02:51:35 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Turned off I don't even know why you even have a manager.
02:51:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
really, Just use the same password everywhere and the whole thing is easier.
02:51:41 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Just use.
02:51:42 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Exactly yeah.
02:51:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They call it one password per reason Thank you In fact do four digits One, two, three, four. It's easier.
02:51:52 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
There you go, You'll be good. Well, mix it up. I mean four, three, two, one. You could do that.
02:51:55 - Richard Campbell (Host)
That's probably going to live on the edge.
02:51:58 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
I think that's twice as secure.
02:52:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
One, two, three, four, five Stand back.
02:52:04 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
That's like 25% more secure.
02:52:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Okay, we know who to listen to now. You might want to do that for your next step. There's a reason he doesn't have a co-host that's called me.
02:52:17 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Just remember those windows Hello pins are specific to the device.
02:52:21 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, that's, by the way, that's right. You're supposed to have a different one. That's exactly right.
02:52:26 - Richard Campbell (Host)
Yeah, the device that is right, that's the point of the pin. That's why the pin is not as bad as you think it is. It's well, except that people are people and they use the same pin on every device.
02:52:36 - Paul Thurrott (Host)
Yeah, and it's their birthday. They should be able, they should be able to say you know what we know. You use this pin before. With this account you can't use it. They don't want to make it too hard, I know.
02:52:46 - Richard Campbell (Host)
I know People wouldn't use it. Which great basic question.
02:52:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Get rid of pins, use a biometric or an RQ or something you got the biometrics, Use it. Yeah, Thank you Paul. Thank you Richard. Have a wonderful week. We will be right here January 17th for our next Windows Weekly. See you then.
