Windows Weekly Episode 759 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.
Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for Windows Weekly. Paul Thurrott here. Mary Jo Foley's here. Microsoft's put out the first Windows 11 build of the new year. We'll talk about what's there. The new Windows 11 media player is out. We'll talk about AR VR and mixed reality and Microsoft's ambitions there. And whether Meta is still a in the VR AR business. And then of course, a blue beverage to round out the show. It's all coming up next on Windows Weekly.
New Speaker (00:00:33):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.
Leo Laporte (00:00:43):
This is Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley episode 759 recorded Wednesday, January 12th, 2022. Local Hooch. Windows Weekly is brought to you by new Relic. That next 9:00 PM call is just waiting to happen. Get new Relic before it does, and you can get access to the whole new Relic platform and 100 gigabytes of data free forever. No credit card required. Sign up at new relic.com/windows and by Mo Melissa, the us postal service processes more than 98,000 address changes daily is your customer contact data up to date, try Melissa's APIs in the developer portal. It's easy to log on, sign up and start playing in the API sandbox. 24 7. Get started today with 1000 records. Clean for free at melissa.com/twit. It's time for Windows Weekly. The show cover the latest news from Microsoft. Here's Paul Thurrott, thurrott.com, leanpub.com. Say, say hi to the people, Paul.
Paul Thurrott (00:01:48):
I'm afraid to speak. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:01:50):
Who's been messing with his mic for half an hour. Also with us, Mary Jo Foley, all about microsoft.com. Who's eating at blog. Hello, Mary Jo.
Mary Jo Foley (00:01:59):
Hello, Leo. Hello?
Paul Thurrott (00:02:01):
Goodbye heart.
Leo Laporte (00:02:02):
Yeah, doesn't sound like a 50s song? Hello, Mary Jo.
Paul Thurrott (00:02:05):
Yeah. <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:02:07):
Goodbye Love <laugh>. Let's let's cuz you know, for the last few weeks we've started with things besides windows. Let's start today with windows. Let's let's make this a it's called windows weekly for a reason. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:02:21):
Well, is it? <Laugh> I guess it was.
Leo Laporte (00:02:23):
It was just whatever I happened to have flying around. Basically.
Paul Thurrott (00:02:27):
It it's two words that begin with W.
Leo Laporte (00:02:28):
That's it, alliteration. I like that. Yep. Yeah. We, well, we've
Paul Thurrott (00:02:32):
Had a lot of people over the years who said, why don't you call it Microsoft weekly? Or you know some
Leo Laporte (00:02:36):
Yeah, we have the same problem with all of our shows this week in Google's barely about Google. Yeah. MacBreak Weekly's as much about iPhone as anything. I mean it's mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah, yeah. What are you gonna do? Yeah. Yeah. So what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? What are you windows weekly on the air? Windows 11. What's the latest?
Paul Thurrott (00:02:55):
So since we last met <laugh> Microsoft has released two builds of Windows 11 to the insider preview program in the dev channel. One, one we must have, I wonder if we spoke about this last week, but one must have come out last Wednesday and then one just came out right before we started recording. The one from last week, I would say two notable changes. They're looking at bringing alt the alt plus tab experience. What we used to call wind flip very briefly back to a window based experience instead being full screen. So I think the last time it was windowed was probably Windows 7 I'm guessing. So they're experimenting with that. And they also added support for wideband speech. So when using something like Apple AirPods, you can get improved audio quality. That's kind of interesting. And then today's build actually has a pretty major improvement to the, Your Phone app, which I would imagine a few people use and 100% of them are Android users. And that includes a new right. I mean, a new calling experience that it's the window that pops up when you're making a phone call.
Mary Jo Foley (00:04:03):
So can I ask you a question about that? Is that a new experience or is it just like new fluent design?
Paul Thurrott (00:04:08):
Yeah, it's a new design. The, the call experience existed in new your phone previously. It's been updated in fact. Okay. The only meaningful updates in this new build are actually related to bringing things that already existed Windows forward so that they look more native in Windows 11 mm-hmm <affirmative> they're like hardware status indicators, for example, like if you yeah, change the, the volume or you change the brightness of your screen or whatever, they're gonna come up in the middle of the screen, right over the task by now. And it looks like, you know, it looks like normal in Windows 11.
Mary Jo Foley (00:04:37):
So many people are so excited by that. And I'm like, I don't, if you ask me what the volume indicator looks like on windows, I have no idea. Nothing.
Paul Thurrott (00:04:45):
Yeah. And in Windows 11, they made it a little weirder because the it's the network connectivity icon, the volume icon and the power icon.
Mary Jo Foley (00:04:54):
Mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Paul Thurrott (00:04:55):
If you normal click like left click, any of those, you get the same UI. It's one UI.
Mary Jo Foley (00:05:01):
Mm-hmm <affirmative>.
Paul Thurrott (00:05:03):
Right-Quick settings. I think it's called. And if you right click any of them, you actually get a different little UI for each one, which sort of makes sense. And then if you most over them, you get a little fly out text. I don't know what the, I guess, a shortcut, I don't know what it is, but that is related just to that one thing. So, so it's like three things that could do a total of nine different things <laugh> yeah. But they only do seven different things, if that makes sense. Yeah. It's very strange simplifying.
Mary Jo Foley (00:05:33):
Yeah. I keep, I keep seeing people ask members of the windows team on Twitter. Like why did you guys do blog <affirmative> and there's never an answer really? You know, <laugh> like, right. Like why did you take away the, the options that were right. Click on the task bar? It's never like a real answer or a good,
Paul Thurrott (00:05:50):
I think it's just simplification. Right? I, I, yeah. You know, when you think about where this UI would've landed originally when 10 X, which was originally designed for devices, not PCs mm-hmm <affirmative> that kind of simplification makes sense. Right? If you think about it running like an instead, like on top of and Android or something. Yeah. But they put it on full windows and they still kept it really simple as like, but full windows, we expect the full power, the, of the PC we get. Yeah. You know, where you to doing these things, we have muscle memory mm-hmm <affirmative> so I get, you know, anytime you simplify a UI that lots of people use for many years, that's what's gonna happen. You're gonna hear from every single person that use every single feature that that's true. Maybe 90% of people don't even know exist or never use. And that's what happens. That's always been the a, that's been the trouble with windows all along forever. It
Mary Jo Foley (00:06:40):
Is. I know it is. It is because if you, if you have a huge base with all different needs, like the enterprise people are just like, I don't really care what it looks like. <Laugh> make it work.
Paul Thurrott (00:06:50):
Right. Well, they only care if they have to answer support calls about it. Right. Which is one of the big problems when they change the UI. I, yeah,
Mary Jo Foley (00:06:58):
Yeah, yeah. So far as we move towards the one and only feature update of the year and which we think is gonna be like October, probably mm-hmm <affirmative> there hasn't been anything big and that's kind of typical, right? Like we're still in early phase of that. So it's not that weird that there's nothing big and maybe there's gonna be a case where there is nothing big. Right. Like the biggest thing would be the ability to move the task bar to the side or something like that. Well, Android
Paul Thurrott (00:07:28):
Apps would be the big one I would, I think. Yeah. Yeah. But I think a, a lot of it is just fit and finish stuff because mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you know, I, and I, I, I, I sometimes throw the, these like phrases out as if they mean, so, or if I know explicitly that this is true and I don't, but I, my understanding, and this is just based on a very high level understanding is that the task bar in windows 11 is not the task bar from windows 10. That's been simplified. It's a new task bar. <Laugh>, you know? Yes. And they've only implemented some of the features. Right. So mm-hmm, <affirmative>, you know, it might be written in a more or modern framework, or I, you know, I, I literally have no idea, but I think part of what happened when we lost features wasn't that they deleted lines of code. I think they reimplemented it and just did part of it. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, which is, you know yep. It's like my notepad application. I mean, look, I can write something. That's sort of like the original, but doesn't do everything. I mean, but Microsoft is a, you know, half, what are they a 1.5 or I guess a $2.5 trillion company or whatever. You would think they could recreate their old features in it using a new version of the software. But I think we're gonna get some of that back.
Mary Jo Foley (00:08:36):
Yeah. Like feature, like we said, last week, I think they were on a trajectory to release windows 10 X, and they were putting everything into that. Right. Then they decided a table windows 10 X, and it was like, okay, what can we take from 10 X and make into this new thing, like in six months. Right. And this is our sales
Paul Thurrott (00:08:53):
Features, but not, not to beat the dead horse, but we already asked the logical question. Like, why, why? Yeah. Like what, why did that have to happen so quickly? Right.
Mary Jo Foley (00:09:03):
Right. I do marketing marketing is always the answer.
Paul Thurrott (00:09:08):
Well, yeah. So why did Microsoft release windows millennium edition? Right. I mean, originally they were gonna combine nine X and NT into one product called windows 2000 and they didn't make it. And so they had a holiday season where they didn't have a version of windows to sell when they had had a new version of windows each of the previous four years or whatever it was. So they put out this thing that nobody liked <laugh>, you
Mary Jo Foley (00:09:29):
Know, you know, it's so funny. I saw, I saw you redoing the, like, look back at versions of windows. And I remember when they released windows me, because mm-hmm <affirmative>, it was such a low key, weird release. And I went to like the Roosevelt mall.
Paul Thurrott (00:09:43):
I was wondering if you got, yep. That's right,
Mary Jo Foley (00:09:45):
Right. And I'm like, that's where they're launching it in New York city. Like you have to go out to the mall in the suburbs and then you just went into the store and it was like, yeah, ha ha. It's the launch? And I'm like, really? Is this really how
Paul Thurrott (00:09:58):
They did a tour of 20 something malls around the United States? That's right. I went to the one in Manchester, New Hampshire, if I remember correct or no somewhere north north of Massachusetts actually, but yeah, just goofy. You know, we went from worldwide explosion with windows 95 to midnight Madison events for windows 98. Yeah. To we're driving around in a truck and we're going to malls like Tiffany did in 1980s, you know, <laugh> like, okay. Yep. So yeah, you gotta go where the people are.
Mary Jo Foley (00:10:29):
They tried it all. They've
Paul Thurrott (00:10:30):
Tried. They should do that for windows 11 today. Go to the malls, you know? Yeah. They could do it in the parking lot cuz none of them are opening do so thing like that. I really do. I feel like they must do something like that. Remember they did the Mojave project for windows Vista in the parking lot of, I think it was best buys. Yeah. to show off what they were showing off as windows Vista, but they were pretending it was some future version and everyone loved it. You know? I still think that they all knew they
Mary Jo Foley (00:10:56):
Idea is yep. I still think that was one of the best things I ever did. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:11:00):
I I, yep. I, I, yeah, I agree. It's good. So yes. Bring it back. Yeah. Let's reel back the years here, windows 11 mm-hmm <affirmative> okay. What else?
Mary Jo Foley (00:11:13):
Not much new yet. Not much new yet.
Paul Thurrott (00:11:16):
Two, two minor things. So it if you don't like the windows 11 start menu and it seems like a lot of people don't start 11 is out from star, as we all know. They just released today. Version 1.1 of that. And I think the big marquee feature for this release is folder support. So that works in both the windows 10 and windows 11 versions of the start menu. Folders is one of the things they did not add to the start menu in windows 11. So folders in your recent or just in the abs lists. So you can have folders full of oh, organize em. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's done really nicely. And if you're installing it clean on windows 10 for the first time, it will actually bring in whatever folders you had from the original start menu, which is really nice.
Paul Thurrott (00:12:02):
Windows 11 doesn't have folders, so they can't do it there. So 5 99 it's worth it. You know, if you don't like the aggravation of the start menu, it looks just like the start menu, but with extra stuff and it has the right click stuff on the Tasker and all that too. So fixes a lot of problems. It'd be nice if Microsoft fixed their own problems, but you know, <laugh> whatever. The other one, I, I, I should've done this. I, I think I originally did this as a tip, but a few, I dunno, a month or so ago or a few back Microsoft previewed a new media player application for windows 11 because God knows we need more of those. And it was really clear from the screenshots. They provided that it was the groove app, right. Which was the music app.
Paul Thurrott (00:12:46):
And the groove app came up out of, I think at the time was called the Xbox music app in windows eight. Then it became groove and they added groove music pass, remember the subscription service and it, and it was, as we moved into windows 10, I would say the one built in UWP app that was actually really kind of awesome and full feature like, like UWP really worked well for that kind of media application. But then Microsoft killed the music pass off. They also killed some really awesome functionality where it would play music off of your OneDrive automatically. And this there's ways around that, but that was kind of a neat feature. And it, you know, by the end of the run there, in fact, it's still, if you have windows lemon, you can still see it. Basically it's just a way to play music you might have on your computer.
Paul Thurrott (00:13:31):
And there's an advertisement for Spotify in it <laugh> which is kind kind of junky. I always thought mm-hmm <affirmative> so the new media player app will do music and videos. So again, it's just a local playback. It's no big deal. But I have an article that links to a G hacks article that explains how you can install it today, if you want to. For some reason, honestly, I can't think of many reasons why most people, whatever want this, but it's a very basic app, you know? Yeah. But it's there, if you want it, it'll be there soon if Microsoft ever updates windows 11 <laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (00:14:08):
Everybody else, you know, you know, what's kind of odd about some of these apps like this music app, the photos app, the paint, the new paint app, it feels almost like almost like windows 11 itself. They're kind of going backwards in the name of simplification and they're
Paul Thurrott (00:14:24):
Dumbing them all. Yeah. I was curious how you were gonna say that. I would've said it a little more cynically. Like it appears that they're created by college interns who went back to school and, and no one will knows even how to update at them anymore. Yeah, they're, they're they're not very well done, you know, the paint app, which I rely on doesn't support dark mode. So if you're in dark mode, it's like full BR it's not just light, it's white, like it's the white is white and the menus are different. It doesn't really have tab. What do you call it? Like a tab ribbon interface like it used to have, but that's okay. But the, you can't, you can't do basic shortcuts, like file save file, save. As, you know, those all were very easy to do and the, you know, the older paint and now they're either impossible or semi impossible depending or not whether depending or not on whether you've already saved it, but that kind of stinks.
Paul Thurrott (00:15:15):
You know, the Nopa app I think, is gonna be okay whenever that comes down the pike this app is fine. It's just, it's just, non-essential, you know, it's just like, okay, great. But these things are so small. They feel like things that should have made it in the one point release, except that the one pro O release was tested publicly for three months. You know, if they had done like a full year of development, these things would've appeared over time. Like they are now that would've seemed normal. And then in October, 2022 windows 11, would've shipped with the expected you know, a slate of updated applications and that would've been normal and fine. Yeah. Right. But windows 11 today is very, very incomplete
Leo Laporte (00:15:57):
As Mike sergeants really kind of getting on the windows bandwagon. He reminds you that Spotify. I know he's a good guy. He's not an ad. It's a placement. So just full clarification there, maybe it's just to let you know that it can play Spotify. I mean, that's a
Paul Thurrott (00:16:15):
No it's there because Microsoft struck a deal with Spotify when they got rid of groove, music passed to move temporarily, by the way, you can't even do this anymore. Well, I guess no one has these things anyway, but I think there was a process whereby you could move your playlist over and go to Spotify. Which is fine, you know, but I talked to them at the time and I said, you know, you guys, if you're gonna do this, you gotta make Spotify add that OneDrive functionality. Cuz one of the big wake links to Spotify is the ability to easily use your own music with the service. You can kind of do it on a device by device basis, but it's not very seamless. And if you could, if we could just put our music in OneDrive and then as one drive, as well as Spotify's music collection, that would be great. And that would still be great, but we can't. So whatever it was kind of a one way deal, I
Leo Laporte (00:17:06):
Think mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah. Should we let me take a break and then let talk about AR because
Paul Thurrott (00:17:15):
Microsoft can't believe this is the next thing <laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (00:17:19):
All right. And you know what? Okay. But you're gonna, you're gonna be very interested when I tell you why it's the next thing.
Leo Laporte (00:17:24):
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Leo Laporte (00:18:15):
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Mary Jo Foley (00:22:16):
<Laugh> okay. So there have been a lot of stories in various news outlets over the past week or two that touch indirectly and directly on what Microsoft has done and is doing and air and VR. So I don't know if you saw the wall street Journal's story this week. I think it was this week around 100 Microsoft holo lens folks have gone and joined meta. Then there was a story the week before from the, from the information meta has canceled its big extended reality operating system. So it was trying to kind of what Microsoft did years ago with Medo build an OS from scratch for AR and XR. By the way, meta disputed that story and said it was wrong. In fact, it was our old friend, Gabe, all who used to work at Microsoft. Yeah, that's right. He works.
Leo Laporte (00:23:07):
He went to Facebook.
Mary Jo Foley (00:23:09):
That bastard, he did, went to Facebook, started working on the Oculus. Right. And then he was the one who gave the quote to various news outlets saying, yeah, that story's not completely right. That whole thing about us canceling the operating system. We're still doing that by the way. That's what, that's what Gabe said. They also
Leo Laporte (00:23:27):
Approached people from apple by the but didn't they?
Mary Jo Foley (00:23:30):
Yeah. So who else? Yeah. MEA has poached a bunch of people. Right. And then yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:23:38):
What price your soul that you have to go to MEA <laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (00:23:41):
Well then what's his name? Mark Lapovsky was working at Facebook right on this project also. So mark Kovski for people who don't know he was on the original windows team, way, way back when that's right. And now he's joined Google to work on their augmented reality mixed reality project because he, he said publicly, I can't, I don't like anything they're doing publicly and I'm out done. Right. That sounds like today. <Laugh> yeah. Today magic leap, magic leap, who is headed by Peggy Johnson who used to work at Microsoft. They're still around <laugh> they're still around and they're doing what Microsoft did. They're saying we're gonna refocus our headset a on the enterprise
Paul Thurrott (00:24:27):
Surprise. She's not on education or games.
Mary Jo Foley (00:24:31):
Enterprise. Yeah. So the reason I started looking into all of this and started getting more interested was my old friend. And Paul's old friend Don box. He left Microsoft last year and wouldn't say where he was going. And then we found out he went to me when it was still called Facebook. Right. But he didn't say what he was working on. So I kept watching his LinkedIn profile. I'm like, he's gonna post this at some point. Right. So finally he posts, I'm working on the XR operating system at meta, which is
Paul Thurrott (00:25:00):
So are you friends with him on Facebook box? So you must have seen his 117 posts about MacBook pro. And I did, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever, how much he loves it. Yes. Yeah. He does love it. Yeah. Don box love it is a genius. I just, I just straight up as a genius. You go. No, he, he, he is a genius.
Mary Jo Foley (00:25:23):
He is. I not everyone's perfect. Let's just say that. No,
Paul Thurrott (00:25:26):
No, no, no, no. But look, I, when, when you're, when, when you are, no, you now have to suspect some of his intelligence. No, that's like saying, you know, Larry birder magic John or Michael Jordan were terrible human beings. Yeah, of course they were. They were too good at this other thing. Yeah. You know? Oh, I get, you have to, it has to give and take, you know? So I, yeah, he works for me, but no, but he's a great guy. And is medic kill this VR operating. So no. So,
Mary Jo Foley (00:25:50):
So supposedly no, no.
Paul Thurrott (00:25:52):
Right. Cause that was the news of last week.
Mary Jo Foley (00:25:55):
That was what the information reported. Right? Saying,
Paul Thurrott (00:25:58):
I didn't know, 300 engineers off the job. This is an incredible number. X Microsoft employee. Pretty notable X plays too, by the way. Right.
Mary Jo Foley (00:26:10):
There's many reasons why this is happening. Right. Okay. So first the official reason is right now, if you know about augmented reality, extended reality, the metaverse any of that stuff, you can command a huge salary. Right. So if you're Don box, you're Gabe, all, you're already super rich. You've been working at Microsoft ever, right? Like you have multiple cars, multiple MacBook, whatever you like, whatever your poison is. Right. Okay. But then meta comes along. Then meta comes along and they're like, Hey, wanna double, triple your salary, come work with us on this extended reality OS thing. It's gonna be fun. It's gonna be cool. Sure. Okay. Right. So it's about money. It's also about your colleagues. So Gabe all's over there. Don box is over there. Then I started looking on LinkedIn, who else from Microsoft is over there. And I was finding so many people, right? Like here's one guy, Carlos Perez ne a fare who was the lead software manager on the duo. He's there John Elliot principle software architect on the surface duo until June when he joined the same team that docs Don box is on Matt beaver. 11 year Microsoft veteran was working on the Microsoft Bluetooth course stack. Now joining the XR OS team at meta. So they're all pulling in all their friends and the people. They know how to build an operating system. Right. And they're like, come work with us over here. You know, this is,
Paul Thurrott (00:27:30):
This is a troubling new era in not for a long time. The, the majority of high profile, Microsoft evacuee ended up at Amazon. Right, right. That was something that went on for over a decade. This is, but these are, this is an incredible group of people. It is.
Leo Laporte (00:27:48):
It does kind of explain why apple just started giving its engineering team $180,000 bonuses. Yep. Not to go to meta. That's right. Clearly meta is staffing up.
Mary Jo Foley (00:27:57):
They are. And that's why I'm a little bit suspicious on that information story. The information does great work and they have great sources, but I'm like, you know what, the way Gabe all answered that makes me think they may have killed some part of the project, but the project is going on or
Leo Laporte (00:28:14):
Maybe it was disinformation. It could be, they should call it disinformation now. Well,
Mary Jo Foley (00:28:23):
Whoa, know what I mean? Usually if you parse the way people answer these kind of stories, when they're denying them, you look and it's like, we're not completely denying it. Right. But we're denying that it's a
Leo Laporte (00:28:35):
Severe, there's the non denial denial. Exactly. Yeah. There's yeah. And good at this is your,
Paul Thurrott (00:28:41):
This is your Microsoft. Hasn't killed windows 10 X, according to the official company line. Right, right,
Mary Jo Foley (00:28:47):
Right. Okay. Here's another reason all these Microsoft people are going to Facebook. The part of Facebook meta that's working on this operating system that they're building from scratch. If it's still a, is a project is called Facebook reality labs research, you know, where one of their main outposts Redmond, Washington, I was gonna say it has to
Leo Laporte (00:29:07):
<Laugh>.
Mary Jo Foley (00:29:07):
Right, right. So, okay. You're working at Microsoft. You're like, I like my job. I'm kind of bored this in Redmond. Oh, these guys <laugh>,
Paul Thurrott (00:29:15):
This is all right. So tech companies have always done this kind of thing. Microsoft has always had offices in Silicon valley, which a lot of people probably don't know about. Yeah. Google has opened offices in the Seattle Redmond area. Well, Nintendo's been there forever, but you know, this is, you go, you know, you can't always get people to move <laugh> right. I guess these days, but it's probably harder than ever. So you go to where they are clustered already. Exactly. And they're clustered in red. Exactly. Yep. Which is you know, and that's why Amazon was such an easy target for those folks cuz it's right across the lake from Redmond. Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (00:29:49):
Yeah. And if you're so, okay. Think about it. If you're a Don box who his last job at Microsoft was working on mixed reality, he worked with Alex Kipman there and was doing a lot of things around what, how they were building out the HoloLens and the mixed reality platform. If you're somebody who's like him or a lot of these other people who I just mentioned and Microsoft's focus right now is all about the enterprise and about the army and getting the HoloLens in those markets. But you care about consumer stuff. Where are you gonna go? You're gonna go to meta, right? <Laugh> that's where you're gonna go.
Paul Thurrott (00:30:21):
This is very troubling.
Mary Jo Foley (00:30:24):
This is for like that hundred person story from the journal. I, I have no doubts on that story. I would bet it's more than a hundred people have gone from Microsoft to meta. I would bet
Paul Thurrott (00:30:33):
This is a real gut check moment for people because my, my reactions Facebook comes to me for no reason I can imagine, but says, Hey, we'd like to hire you for whatever reason. I'd like, yeah, there's no way I'm working at Facebook, meta whatever. And like, yeah, but we're gonna give you like 2 million. Right. And be like, oh, okay. So what day do you want me to start? <Laugh> you know, like, I mean, at some point it's like foolish not to do this, right?
Mary Jo Foley (00:30:54):
So here's, here's the sentence Gabe all gave out as there sentence. So you, you read into this, what you want. There are several, several technical directions we are pursuing and our efforts to build reality lab operating systems, plural. We are still working on a highly specialized OS for our devices. That's what the, all these people are working on. Right? Whatever you wanna call it, that's what they're working on. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:31:18):
Just to be clear, Don Don box is calm. He is.net. This guy used to stand on stage at PDC and write code in real time with and Helberg Chris Anderson, Chris sells probably. I mean, this is he's one of the smartest people that's ever, ever gone.
Mary Jo Foley (00:31:38):
He moved to work on Xbox. I think he was working with Cutler probably
Paul Thurrott (00:31:41):
Probably on the container system stuff. Yep. Of course.
Mary Jo Foley (00:31:44):
Yep. Right. So
Paul Thurrott (00:31:45):
Now he, so Markowski is he's the guy Dave color would've said is the only person on the original NT team who actually understood all of the construction of NT, including the Colonel, even Dave Cutler didn't claim to understand that. Yeah. But that's how smart that guy was and I geez. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (00:32:04):
So they're all at meta now. And so far since the information story came out saying, you know, that project's canceled, I've been watching LinkedIn to see if anybody else is quitting. Nobody else has quit so far that, or at least hasn't posted that they quit. So that makes me think that we're still working on something, right. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:32:22):
Yeah. Who's left at Microsoft in this field, you
Mary Jo Foley (00:32:27):
Know, <laugh> the original yeah. The original windows team and the original com and dot. I mean, all that stuff works at Microsoft and
Paul Thurrott (00:32:36):
Works at still, still at Microsoft. They, and you know, a guys like Scott Guthrie is still there. That guy
Mary Jo Foley (00:32:43):
OV still
Paul Thurrott (00:32:43):
There, it was a key player in.net. All these guys are there. So just when, when the last person leave, just turn out the lights and yeah, exactly. You might as well. Just
Mary Jo Foley (00:32:51):
My, my point is that okay, a lot of people have defected and some may come back. Some may not come back. Some may go on to other companies, apple, Google, whoever is next in building some OS for the metaverse, but you know what? This happens a lot. Like people get dissatisfied, they move on. Sometimes they come back. Remember when everybody started coming back to Microsoft to quit when Nadela became the CEO, tons of people came back. So yeah. Let's let's it happens. I don't think it's like anything dire. Like
Paul Thurrott (00:33:22):
I think these guys, I think they get bored. They they're so far into their career. They've had so many successes, the stuff they care about the most is not the big thing at Microsoft today. Right? Yeah. I think we can all relate to that. <Laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (00:33:36):
Honestly, everybody who doesn't get bored, right? Like people of expand their horizon, you see the
Paul Thurrott (00:33:41):
New things the Ben Lika thing where he said, he suggested that Microsoft should spin off windows in office. Because they're just a cloud company now and, and that's super provocative. It's ridiculous. It is. But there is a part of me as, as kind of an enthusiast of that part of the company that I do feel gets not a lot of a these days. Yeah. Thinking to myself, eh, maybe. I mean, I, I would like Microsoft used to be the company that only cared about windows right now. Microsoft appears to be the company that only cares about everything but windows.
Mary Jo Foley (00:34:12):
Yeah. So right now, for people who don't know, we're talking about a story on geek, it was a, no, it was on CNBC where they interviewed a long time. He he's left. He left Microsoft years ago. Ben SL he was pretty important back in the internet, Explorer day and all. So he was quoted saying, I think what Microsoft should do is spin out windows in office. So to me, when I read that I'm like maybe windows but not office. Right, right. Like office fits in with what they're doing, Microsoft 365 and teams and all that. And I'm like, well, windows is kind of the odd one out of that, of that trio. Right? <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:34:45):
Yeah. It's the one legacy Microsoft product, successful legacy Microsoft product that doesn't lend itself to the cloud office was the poster child. They were able to do that first. Even Xbox makes sense in the cloud, another product people have argued should have been so spun outta Microsoft. Yeah. And windows, you know, not so much.
Mary Jo Foley (00:35:03):
No. But now with them doing things like windows 365, you know, which is the cloud PC thing and they're virtualizing your windows, 10 windows, they virtualize
Paul Thurrott (00:35:11):
Windows in AWS. I mean, why, who cares? I mean, they could still do it Azure if
Mary Jo Foley (00:35:15):
You know. No, but I feel like you still wanna keep that around. And the whole idea of having you know, a lot of the Microsoft three, five skews now have windows in them. So they, they're not gonna just be like, yeah, let's throw windows over there and do something else over here. You know? I just don't think it makes sense in it. I, I don't think you
Paul Thurrott (00:35:32):
Can separate it that way. I, I agree with you mostly, but there's a part of me that kind of listen, hears that. And thanks. I know he did this to be provocative. This was a headline maker. That's all it was. Wasn't he like, gates' one of his personal assistant guys, like SNO used to be wasn't he? That kind of person. Yeah. At one point
Mary Jo Foley (00:35:48):
He's done a lot of Ben SL I didn't, I don't think I ever interviewed Ben SLCA but he was pretty instrumental at Microsoft. Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:35:55):
Yeah. Yeah. Back in
Mary Jo Foley (00:35:56):
Thes. Now he's like, you know, running, investing in startups angel investor, blah, blah. Yeah. So for, let's see,
Paul Thurrott (00:36:04):
Does he wanna run the new windows corporation? <Laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (00:36:08):
14 years. He, he started working on OS two, Ms. Do six windows, 95 Java and MSN <laugh>. Okay. And then, then he worked on the, he he's credited with, on his bio, at least creating the internet Explorer team. So yeah, he did a lot.
Paul Thurrott (00:36:27):
Yes, yes, yes. I'm sorry. I was thinking he might have been the person that wrote the original warning to gates and the executives about the internet. And he was ignored. I actually, I still think he might be. I think he, that was
Mary Jo Foley (00:36:37):
OVS. Yeah. That
Paul Thurrott (00:36:38):
Was snaky. Yeah. No, no, no, no. I think it was, I think Ben, no, I think it was Ben Silvera.
Leo Laporte (00:36:42):
Oh man. That's a, that's a great anecdote. And I'm trying to remember somebody wrote, I thought it was maybe Ray Ozzie or somebody was, it was
Paul Thurrott (00:36:50):
Not Sinofsky it? No, it wasn't. No. Maybe
Mary Jo Foley (00:36:52):
Ozzie Ray Ozzie. No, that was too. He came much later. Hey, Google,
Leo Laporte (00:36:56):
Who told bill gates about the internet?
Mary Jo Foley (00:36:59):
I think it was OVS guys.
Paul Thurrott (00:37:01):
No, no
Leo Laporte (00:37:02):
It wasn't. All right. Well, let's see what Google says. According to David Letterman. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:37:11):
He wrote yes. He Ben's who I wrote the
Leo Laporte (00:37:13):
Memo. Ben wrote the memo cuz there was a famous memo. Yeah. The web is the
Paul Thurrott (00:37:17):
Next platform. That's right. I
Leo Laporte (00:37:19):
Okay. It was him. Yep.
Paul Thurrott (00:37:20):
Yeah. Yep. Huh? Yep. I thought,
Mary Jo Foley (00:37:22):
So look, look at you. Get on, get on windows joke.
Leo Laporte (00:37:25):
Well, we were, it's funny cuz we were talking about the road ahead last week. Yeah. Yeah. Where he came around.
Paul Thurrott (00:37:32):
Yeah. So eventually gates wrote his own memo. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:37:35):
Yeah. Very famous memo. Yeah. The internet title wave, right? Yeah. Yes.
Paul Thurrott (00:37:40):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> yeah. It's pretty clear. Like yeah. It's it's clear. Gates did not get this
Leo Laporte (00:37:47):
At first, right? No, he missed it. He was very he admitted it open about the fact that he did. Yeah. He said, yeah, I missed it. Yeah
Paul Thurrott (00:37:54):
Man. Did he did he embrace it when he got it? <Laugh> was a couple little trials may have heard of that came out of that, but yeah. Yeah. He turned that ship around. Yeah. Anyway. Interesting. Okay. Yes.
Mary Jo Foley (00:38:06):
So anyway, that's, that's why I wanted to bring this up because there's a lot of things happening in this space. Even whether whatever you think of HoloLens and what Microsoft's doing there and how far away, you know, their next project is for a lighter weight glasses. There's a lot of other things happening around the periphery of this that I think we get to pay attention to as Microsoft Watchers and windows watch. Yeah. I,
Paul Thurrott (00:38:27):
I, the problem with AR or whatever you wanna call it these days is that yeah, it's always seemed like flying cars. It's like this thing we all accept, this will happen. There'll there'll, there will be this meshing of reality, real, real reality. And then this art, you know, and they'll, you know, and we've seen little versions of it, Pokemon go. And the thing where you, you know, remember Nokia had a, a map app you could walk around and it would show you what all the businesses were. And now that's just a feature of, you know, Google maps, whatever. But the, the seamless, the you're out in the world and you're wearing contacts maybe, or glasses or whatever is still a little bit out there. And I think it just feels like science fiction. He says as a Tesla drives itself by by my house. But <laugh>, you know, like, I mean, it will happen obviously, I guess it the question now. Well, M what's it Terry Myerson made the argument that maybe this was the next platform, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> when he was running the windows team, that's part of the reason Microsoft invested so heavily in it in windows mixed reality or whatever, but yeah, I don't know. Maybe. Yeah, still, it just feels, it still feels like it's not quite there yet. You know,
Mary Jo Foley (00:39:35):
Does not. I mean, especially when you use the holo lens, like there's so many G whiz things about the holo lens, but also then you come back to like, really like, this is where we're at now. Right. <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:39:47):
Right, right. Not that there aren't neat things, but, and I, I, I bring this up all the time. I, the simplest, it would be a VR application, actually, not AR, but put a, put a headset over my head and I'm sitting in a cafe in Paris. People are coming in and going, ordering things. Glasses are clinking and you know, music is playing maybe or whatever. And if you put a cup of coffee in my face, in front of me in real life, I would think I was there. There's no doubt about it. Like this, this is possible. And probably there is something like this today, I would be happy, which is that <laugh>, I don't have to walk around and, and be in Paris. I just, you know, sit in a place and have it be like, I'm there or any other place on earth, whatever. It doesn't matter where it is. But I think stuff like that would be really cool. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but we still, you know, it still seems kind of,
Mary Jo Foley (00:40:34):
Yeah, we're getting there. We're getting there slowly. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:40:41):
Okay. Okay. I'm I'm, I'm believing, I'm a believer now actually I'm not, I totally
Paul Thurrott (00:40:48):
Skeptical. I'm not either, but the, but hearing those names is big, big name people. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:40:53):
Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:40:54):
Yeah. They're not just like famous people. I don't mean like, I don't think the white world anyone, but these are actually like, yeah. Like smart people, like really smart people. Right.
Mary Jo Foley (00:41:00):
People who know how to build operating systems. Right. That's the key there. Right. There're people who know how to do that. So, yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:41:07):
It's good. Actually. I'm actually glad we had this little talk because of yeah, well, I was buying the information's story and we reported it last week.
Mary Jo Foley (00:41:17):
Yes. You know what? I'm sure there, there are parts of that story that are a hundred percent true. And maybe what they're doing is just like, like the, I think the information said they may just base it on Android and build proprietary layers on top. That might be what they're doing. Right. And then they can deny the report as being true.
Leo Laporte (00:41:35):
So yeah. Doesn't seem like something Facebook would want to do though,
Mary Jo Foley (00:41:40):
But I know you wouldn't think so. Right. Because that's
Leo Laporte (00:41:43):
How the, that's how the Oculus quest works. I mean, it is, that's how it is right now. Right. And
Mary Jo Foley (00:41:48):
So my guess, because, because Gabe all answered in the plural when he did that, this is me putting my journalist hat on. Right. When I saw that quote, I said, there's more than one operating project. Let's say the quote
Leo Laporte (00:41:58):
Again, say the quote again. Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (00:42:00):
Yeah. So the quote is, hold on, let me call it back up here.
Leo Laporte (00:42:05):
Let's all
Mary Jo Foley (00:42:06):
Call my trustee notepad <laugh> so he, yeah, so he, instead of saying like, it was one thing Gabe all said, there are several technical directions we are pursuing in our efforts to build reality labs, operating systems, plural.
Paul Thurrott (00:42:25):
Okay. Well, let's, let's stop there for a second because that could be very simple that this thing will, or these things will run on multiple hard wear platforms. Like they have their own Oculus thing, but maybe it's a software thing that runs elsewhere or mm-hmm, <affirmative>, they'll integrate with whatever apple has or, you know, that might, it might be just that simple. Well,
Mary Jo Foley (00:42:43):
But go ahead. Wait, part two of the quote, we are still working on a highly specialized OS for our devices.
Leo Laporte (00:42:51):
Okay. So that's not Android. Oh yeah. I could see the plural because they are using Android for the Oculus quest. So there are two, but then that's a pretty affirmative denial that's saying no, no we're
Mary Jo Foley (00:43:03):
Working on something. I think it is too for their devices, but yeah. Right. It says,
Paul Thurrott (00:43:08):
You actually think this was like a, a brand new thing that has nothing to do with Android or anything else. Yes. That
Leo Laporte (00:43:13):
Was the know. That was,
Mary Jo Foley (00:43:15):
Sounds crazy. But remember Maddo at Microsoft and FIA at Google, you can build an OS that isn't based on your existing flagship product. You can do it,
Paul Thurrott (00:43:26):
Right? No, of course. Where did
Leo Laporte (00:43:28):
You know actually, I'm actually curious, where did this start with Microsoft? The first with HoloLens, Google glass, maybe predated it, but it's not really AR
Mary Jo Foley (00:43:39):
AR was HoloLens. Hololens
Leo Laporte (00:43:41):
Was first HoloLens was the first mixed reality. I mean, VRS been around since the early nineties. I remember doing VR thing in 92.
Paul Thurrott (00:43:48):
I just thought, it's funny. This is coming up now. I just thought of this Mary Jo, remember we always referenced this January, 2015 or yeah, I guess January, 2015 event, we went to up in Redmond. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> where they showed off HoloLens for the first time among other things. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I think it was that event. It doesn't matter when they was whatever that event was. We were in the audience. It was, I remember it vividly. Yeah. And the way it was building was I, it was very clear. They were gonna do some kind of an, a VR AR thing. And I thought as it was starting, that the way they were gonna do it was that they were gonna project things into the room in real time. Yes. Using cameras or whatever, sensors, whatever, all over the room that's because
Leo Laporte (00:44:25):
They showed that video. Right. That, so a gaming video,
Paul Thurrott (00:44:30):
I kept looking on the stage to see if I could see where there were little nodes everywhere and yeah. And then when they finally revealed that it was a helmet thing you had to put in your head, I was like, oh, well, that's, that's too bad. <Laugh> you know? Yeah. Because in a way I, I still think that kind of thing would be, would be neat because, you know, like, I mean, what <laugh>, how does just entertainment evolve? Right. Am my, are my wife and I gonna sit in my living room in front of an apple TV, both of us with apple headphones on listening to spatial audio that way, are we gonna sit in the same room or in different rooms, I guess, and both have like AR helmets on as we watch some, you know, I mean, I, I guess so. Right. Like I that's certainly possible and people do some of that today, of course, but like, ideally the mixing of real reality and artificial reality should happen without those things in the way. And I don't know, maybe contacts would do it, but isn't there a way to do it in space so that we can all be in the room and enjoy it from different angles or, Hmm. I don't know. I, I, from that moment, Holland's almost disappointed me because I thought that's what it was and it wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
Mary Jo Foley (00:45:45):
You know, they, if that makes sense, they mixed. Yeah. They mixed in a lot of aspirational videos with things that, that they knew they could, it actually do. Right. Right. Of course. So remember the ho deportation video we saw where it was like sales people collaborating in a space. Yeah. And there was a guy with a regular VR headset. There was a woman with a HoloLens type headset and they were talking together. Right. And seeing the same thing, but using different devices that like, that's something they're still trying to make real with all the things they're doing with the Microsoft mesh platform, but they still haven't really made that happen. Right. Like there's bits and pieces of that that happened, but mostly not happened yet. So
Paul Thurrott (00:46:27):
I it's, it's, it's fine for there to be multiple ways to do these things. Right. Yeah. I always liked the notion of a car designer using a hall ends to create a design in space. And then people walking around it virtually wearing mixed reality headsets because they don't have to create it. All they to do is see it like, to me that that's fine. Like this is a something that might have happened in a design center in the past. And the guy would've built like a clay model that would've been the size of a, you know, an elephant or something. And this is obviously more efficient and that's cool. But I mean, are, you know, are we gonna go to a movie theater and every single person's gonna be wearing a helmet and <laugh>, you know, yeah. I mean, maybe I, you know, maybe I, I, I it's just, it might be, it just seems like this room for a lot of different approaches and that some of these more like, if they're so busy trying to build interactive social events in, in some metaverse mm-hmm, <affirmative> when I, I don't, I don't know.
Paul Thurrott (00:47:27):
I, I feel like, yeah, there's a mixture that can happen. Like you have a, a live event where some of us go and some of us don't, but the people who don't go physically are there virtually, and you can see them like little OB, one Kenobi ghost over in the corner, <laugh>, you know, being projected into the room and it's like, they're there. Right. I it's, I, I don't know. I, I think that would be kind of cool. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:47:50):
Yeah. And of course, there's always a possibility that this is just Silicon Valley's idea of what somebody wants and nobody wants it. And and then it doesn't go anywhere. And I mean, yeah, some of this is follow the leader, right. I mean oh, well, Apple's doing it. Microsoft's doing it. We gotta, Facebook's doing it must be real. Yeah. Doesn't mean that people want it.
Paul Thurrott (00:48:12):
No, I mean,
Leo Laporte (00:48:14):
Imagine smart because there, there are definitely industrial and enterprise applications <laugh> for it.
Paul Thurrott (00:48:20):
Right.
Leo Laporte (00:48:21):
So that's, there are, but I don't know if there, I don't know if there's this, the metaverse notion nobody wants to wear this on their head real, do they? Right? No,
Mary Jo Foley (00:48:31):
Unless they're glasses
Paul Thurrott (00:48:32):
Like these, how do you guys like wear a masks? Right. Do people enjoy wearing mask masks with their, everyone who has glasses? Tell me what the experience is like wearing a mask. Yeah. You don't wanna even do that. Right. You're gonna put this Darth Vata thing on your head, so you can sit in a Paris cafe and enjoy some coffee. That's why I do
Leo Laporte (00:48:47):
Agree with you, Paul, your notion of somehow this, you know, device list, room projection.
Paul Thurrott (00:48:54):
Yeah. Like an internet of things, solution, right. Where you have little sensors and nodes and cameras and whatever else. Yeah. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I guess projectors essentially.
Mary Jo Foley (00:49:02):
Yeah. They showed a video of us, of, to us of that exact scenario when we first saw the whole and,
Leo Laporte (00:49:08):
And it never, never
Paul Thurrott (00:49:09):
Happened. I was so excited it for that. And then the guy walked out, like in a Darth Vader thing and I was like, I'm not sure. I <laugh> sure I understand what's happening here. And then we found out later the, the
Leo Laporte (00:49:20):
Just like
Paul Thurrott (00:49:21):
Smell slot, you can see like a, you know yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:49:23):
Yeah. See, I mean, this is, you know, on the one hand, people say, well, it's early days. Remember, you know, the very first I was watching <affirmative> I decided to watch soil and green cuz you know, it's supposed to take place in 2022. And I just wanted some idea in
Paul Thurrott (00:49:36):
San Francisco, right.
Leo Laporte (00:49:37):
In San Francisco. Yeah. and the it's widely considered the first appearance of a video game in a movie. They had one of the old, it's kind of like a space wars game. It's giant console. It's really, it's really cool. And so sometimes people say, well, that's, we're, we're in that stage of VR. I mean, you wouldn't compare what you're doing with call of duty to that old space war game. You know what though
Paul Thurrott (00:50:02):
VR has been coming forever and I'm not talking since literally 2000, I'm talking 30 years. We talked about it in the eighties. We talked about it. You know, jar
Leo Laporte (00:50:11):
VR was selling this hot hard in the early nineties. I remember going down to the SIGGRAPH and they had a giant million dollar computer. And you wore this thing that had a giant cable on your head. Yeah. Yeah. And you were riding it and there was a saddle and you were riding a te DLE. <Laugh> that's awesome. And it was amazing. And that was 1992 that's 30 years ago. Sure. And we made very little progress to be honest.
Paul Thurrott (00:50:34):
Yeah. It's weird. How little progress we made. Exactly. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:50:37):
The experience is the same. It's just that you can get something cheaper and lighter, but
Mary Jo Foley (00:50:42):
Guys it's a hard computer science problem. Okay. <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:50:46):
It is.
Mary Jo Foley (00:50:48):
It is <laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:50:49):
I just not even joking. I think it's I also wonder if it's a technology in search of an audience and that, that could be too. Yeah. That could be too. I say that all the time. Well, yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:51:00):
So we all think about it in terms of like consumer experiences and, and you always hear like some people play games in these environments. Some people educational things,
Leo Laporte (00:51:09):
Georgia, duh has four VR rooms in her family. Yeah. I
Paul Thurrott (00:51:13):
Did a, I I'll call it a 10 minute VR thing. We went to see that Vango experience thing that's touring around in the country. It's it's fantastic.
Leo Laporte (00:51:22):
Oh, you liked it. I've read some, the van, very negative reviews. Like you have
Paul Thurrott (00:51:26):
The Vango thing is fantastic, but the, but the, the end game is, well, ly you can go do like a little VR experience. And I got queasy just in that. Yeah. You know, it just flies you around and it it's like a pretend world where, you know, all of this paint, you can see like what he painted and then his paintings appear over the real thing, whatever it's. And I, and these VR headsets were unmarked. I suspect they were Oculus headset, but I didn't know what exactly what they were,
Leo Laporte (00:51:52):
If they weren't wired. They almost certainly were. Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (00:51:55):
OCUL would would've been sick? I can't, I
Paul Thurrott (00:51:57):
Can't. Oh, no, I got queasy just five to 10 minutes. I was queasy. Yeah. And, you know, there's that problem to overcome. There's a lot of problems to overcome, but you know, jokingly. Yeah. It's a hard computer science problem. It is a hard a science problem. It really is. But what you need are genius, computer scientists who can solve that problem. Well, they're working, I don't know that they can solve the, you know, will, will people actually need or want this stuff. But I mean, they certainly, I mean, I can't stand Facebook slash meta, but they are hiring the right talent. Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:52:25):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, I mean, it's gonna be something lighter or something maybe more like spectacles than like advisors. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's not gonna be so much about gaming, you know, I mean, right. I don't know.
Paul Thurrott (00:52:44):
I don't know, remember a Nintendo when the, we came out very briefly had a deal with call of duty. I think it was call of duty three, where you could use the, the numb Chuck thing to throw a grenade <laugh> so right. You're running around in the game,
Leo Laporte (00:52:58):
Broke a lot of TV sets. Yep. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:53:00):
Cause you throw a grenade at the TV <laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:53:03):
Boom, whoop gr I let go. Yeah, yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:53:05):
Yeah, yeah. And it, when you, when you at the time, and this was, you know, a long time ago, I don't remember the years. Exactly. 2003, 2000. Well, whenever that was, that was a long time ago. I thought, I guess 2006, 2007. But I thought that's actually, you know, it's kind of cool. You you're turning like this sedentary activity into something more closely resembling the real event, but the reality is pardon the pun this kind of thing never really took off and yeah. And that was not a VR system, right? Obviously the, we, but it had this kind of interactive physical component that, you know, it is, is a part of VR. They still, you know, I that's one of the things Microsoft found, you know, this little pinch, you know, nonsense is, is cool, but to get real fine guy in control, you kind of, you need something physical in your hand. And they created controllers, which we use now in windows mixed reality and Oculus has them. And you know, all of these systems have that.
Leo Laporte (00:54:00):
Yeah. All right. Goodness. Cause I could never do any of those gestures, like, ah, who's my conspiracy theory. Yes. So if you think about it, VR in all of science fiction in all the movies, it's always a world that you go to, to escape from your horrific dystopian reality, right? Yep. Always invariably. Yeah. And I think the companies, I think this is their plan for climate change. We gonna fix the planet, screw it. We'll give people something to do right. While the world burns and it'll be beautiful in there. And you know, you don't have to notice the rising sea level. You never have to go outside. Never have to go outside. I mean, that's what ready player go
Paul Thurrott (00:54:39):
To the beaches of Thailand in the 1980s while the meteors come crashing down. Exactly.
Leo Laporte (00:54:45):
Yeah. Do, yeah. I don't know. That's, that's kind of, I hope you're wrong. That's a dark, dark vision for it. Very darn it sounds like
Paul Thurrott (00:54:53):
A Netflix series. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:54:56):
Don't strap in. I'm just saying, okay. We, we actually have had this conversation every month or two for the last five, six, maybe 10 years. <Laugh> yeah. And I'm always the naysayer, I'm just skeptical. I, I, and I'm very
Paul Thurrott (00:55:15):
Skeptic. The, I think, you know, I think you guys are on the right in the right place because we have tried the things that have come out and I've wanted to believe that these could work and make sense. And every time I've been like, eh, you know, and I, I, I don't even remember any, what was the, before there was a ho lens or any of that stuff? What was the big first kind of VR thing before Oculus? Or what was there was some, you mean Google
Leo Laporte (00:55:38):
Cardboard
Paul Thurrott (00:55:40):
Or no, it was no, it was VR VR, but, but it doesn't matter. Anyway, I, there was someone had created like a, not the
Leo Laporte (00:55:46):
Rift before the
Paul Thurrott (00:55:47):
Rift. I think so. I don't remember. It doesn't really matter. It was a long time ago, but I tried some video game that was sort of like a doom unreal tournament, kind of a deal. And it's instant nausea.
Leo Laporte (00:55:57):
Can't you? Can't you're instant nausea. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (00:55:59):
You cannot do it, you know, or you couldn't at the
Leo Laporte (00:56:01):
Time. So I think part of this is because it's so cool the first time you do it, you go, I love this. This is gonna change the world. It's kind of like the segue <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:56:13):
Yeah. I still think the segue is
Leo Laporte (00:56:15):
Cold anyway, but everybody who first tried, the segue said, this is gonna bill gates said, this is gonna change the way cities are designed. Yeah. This is gonna revolutionize mobility. And it didn't
Paul Thurrott (00:56:27):
No dine came in like live in a carpet box in San
Leo Laporte (00:56:30):
Francisco. No, he's doing fine. You know what? It's interesting. His he's very smart. He designs his stuff, but never makes it, licenses it to people. Let's them lose their shirt on it then goes on something else. Okay. So he actually he's got it down. He doesn't,
Paul Thurrott (00:56:45):
He's like the the inventor dad from the gremlins movie, you know, he just kinda comes up with
Leo Laporte (00:56:50):
The idea. So he's doing fine. That's good. Okay. I have two segways. I should point out as well as a numerous VR headset. Think
Paul Thurrott (00:56:58):
Segways are cool. I I'm actually S segue. I okay. Hold on a second. Nice. You really understand there are scooters in every city in the earth now that you can rent. Yeah. You telling me those couldn't have been segues. I mean, well,
Leo Laporte (00:57:11):
There still are lots of segueway tours all over. Yeah. You look like a dork cuz you're 10 feet tall. <Laugh> I think they're one thing underestimated that's. But, but, but you wanna tour, this is exactly my point. Segues didn't go away. They didn't really fail. They just didn't take over the world. Yeah. And I think VR will be like that. I don't say VR is gonna go away. People love it. Some, a small portion. They have air force in early simulations. You know, cause they use simulators for pilots mm-hmm <affirmative> and their early studies said there are, there is a intractable 11% of the population that will always get sick and there's nothing you can do about it. And those 11% will always get sick. See, this is in contrast to what the industry says, which, oh, it's just a frame rate issue or we're gonna fix that. It needs to be higher risk. You know what?
Paul Thurrott (00:57:57):
If they can figure it a cross section of those people and the people who don't like cilantro, I think we have a we're
Leo Laporte (00:58:03):
On something maybe related.
Paul Thurrott (00:58:04):
I don't know <laugh> you know, but they'll
Mary Jo Foley (00:58:06):
Have, well, you don't like cilantro, Paul
Paul Thurrott (00:58:08):
Really? I love cilantro. I too.
Leo Laporte (00:58:11):
The three
Paul Thurrott (00:58:11):
Of those, there is no such thing as too much cilantro,
Leo Laporte (00:58:14):
But there is a gene that makes it makes you think it tastes like soap. There is in fact 23 in me when you send them, your spit will tell you if you have that gene.
Paul Thurrott (00:58:23):
Interesting.
Leo Laporte (00:58:25):
No, I don't. I don't either love it. I don't either. Yeah. In fact, I could eat a big cilantro salad right now. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> <laugh>
Paul Thurrott (00:58:33):
Put on your beer headset and pretend you're eating it in Paris. My
Leo Laporte (00:58:37):
I'll be eating silent green, but it'll seem like I'm cilantro
Paul Thurrott (00:58:40):
In Paris. So green is Solan will never,
Mary Jo Foley (00:58:42):
That will never
Leo Laporte (00:58:43):
Seem like cilantro. So you, Microsoft will take the enterprise business root industrial route and let Facebook take the consumer route. Or do you think they still and entertainment? I don't
Paul Thurrott (00:58:56):
Think consumer is, is I think Facebook probably will just take it or apple will. Right? I mean, I think apples. Well
Leo Laporte (00:59:02):
That's the that's that's unknown in. This is apple.
Mary Jo Foley (00:59:05):
No Microsoft keeps, they haven't given up on consumer and
Paul Thurrott (00:59:09):
This, they don't have to consumers have given up on Microsoft, you know? Yeah. It doesn't matter what they do. Yeah. Yeah. What's Microsoft. You think Microsoft has like a, like a 2.0 consumer thing coming out in the future where it's like Teddy Ruxpin or something and people care about the mold <laugh> you know, like I just don't I just don't see that happening.
Leo Laporte (00:59:27):
What about China? What about, do you think they're working on this or do they see this as capital? Sure. They're
Mary Jo Foley (00:59:32):
Nonsense. No, they're working on this for sure, right? Yeah,
Paul Thurrott (00:59:35):
Yeah. Yeah. I
Leo Laporte (00:59:39):
Don't know. I don't know. All right.
Mary Jo Foley (00:59:40):
Moving. Everybody thinks it's no. What last thing everybody thinks it's the cornerstone of web three. Right? So,
Leo Laporte (00:59:48):
Okay. Whatever you, but don't get me started on web three.
Mary Jo Foley (00:59:50):
Okay. Just don't get me started on three. I, I am not a believer, but man, that is like, of course they do corners being hired. Of course they do. Of course being hired who's beat is web three. Like
Leo Laporte (01:00:02):
This is the whole thing is driven by particularly by Andre Horwitz. It is it's BS and its just like everything else with the, with the crypto there's there's huge money in it. It's fundamentally the pyramid theme. I don't buy it for a minute. This is the
Paul Thurrott (01:00:20):
Ultimate culmination of like Silicon valley bro. Culture totally
Leo Laporte (01:00:23):
Is totally.
Mary Jo Foley (01:00:24):
Then they mix in air VR. Crypto might as well. Blockchain NFTs do. And they put it all together in like a block there it
Leo Laporte (01:00:32):
Is whipped it. It's all the new, it's the future. It's the future.
Paul Thurrott (01:00:36):
I mean, it might be the world's next great religion for all I know, but it's just it's nonsense.
Mary Jo Foley (01:00:40):
Yeah. I agree with both of you, but yeah, there it
Leo Laporte (01:00:43):
Is. And, and of course the history is littered with people like us who didn't believe the next thing was gonna be great. Yep. You know, so I've made a wrong,
Paul Thurrott (01:00:56):
It <laugh> wrong. You know, if there was possible to be successful and rich doing that, it,
Leo Laporte (01:01:03):
Although, you know, you could really look at the latest history of Silicon valley things like self-driving cars voice assistance, all of these technologies that we're gonna revolutionize the world. Sure. And are just stalled, you
Paul Thurrott (01:01:16):
Know? Yeah. So I gotta say, you know going from Google to the iPhone, one of the thing, cause I've really noticed is that <laugh> the voice thing on the iPhone is unbelievably terrible. Yeah. And <laugh>, it's especially good on the go the new pixels. Like one of the, if you have a pixel six, that thing is magical. I just I'll just throw that out there. I don't know if it's the processor just Google's really good at this stuff or whatever, but the apple one's really bad and sometimes is fine obviously. But sometimes you hit the microphone button. It does the little line thing. Like it's gonna, it goes beep and you talk and it just doesn't do anything. <Laugh> it just doesn't, it doesn't do anything. It doesn't do it poorly. It just doesn't do anything. And you know, that's the, that's exactly. That's the one thing I would say on the iPhone, that's notably terrible. I
Leo Laporte (01:02:02):
Wonder if I'm unique in this respect, we have all of them echo Siri, Google, and we have them throughout the house. And I have just become inured to the fact that no matter what we're doing every once in a while, one of them will wake up and then for no reason, make a noise.
Paul Thurrott (01:02:19):
Sometimes they'll go on and on there's one episode of one TV show, we watch invariably triggers, Google to go into a, oh, I can listen. Anyone who's listening to this on an iPhone right now I can trigger Siri immediately. Seriously, seriously. Every time, every, every time, like how do you make a the name of an assistant? It be a word that I say every other sentence. Yeah. Like <laugh> and I must be used to it because I was thinking about this. It would drive a normal person crazy. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> that? Literally every 10 minutes. Boo dude. I'm sorry. I don't understand it. What did you, what? And then you get mad at it. It's like, you don't have to, it's just background noise now. It's just the normal, the new normal. They're just waking up around. It's like a chorus of, you know, of voice assistance.
Paul Thurrott (01:03:04):
I'm like the guy in blade runner who had all his little robot machines when he came home, they go, hello? Hello. Hello. Oh, yep. Oh boy. That's the, I think it's the new normal, but it may just be me cuz I'm a, certainly an early adopter of all this stuff I fall. Maybe that's why I'm so skeptical. I fall for every one of these. <Laugh> every one of them, every time I, for, for a while here in this house had several Google assistant speakers and whatever. And I distinctly remember the day got rid of every single one of them. Maybe that's what I should, except for the smart display in the case agent. Cause it's a photo frame. They're so useful. Yeah. <laugh> they're they're no, here's what? No, but here's what happened. It's like your idiot friend who just hangs, you're arguing with your brother-in-law and then all of a sudden he goes, Hey, go, you know, whatever. And he's like, and then like some device in my, in some other room, not the one we're in front of, but somewhere else in my house, you hear the distant voice go. The capital of syn. I know, you know, or whatever. And it's like, seriously, I see. I can see how often I see it. <Laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (01:04:08):
I dunno, here he goes again.
Paul Thurrott (01:04:10):
Just think of all the random facts you're learning though. How valuable that is? Yes. All right. I hate to change the subject, but we do need to talk about Microsoft 365. Do we sure do we do what's we can do it quickly. No, don't speed through it. Take your time. I I'd like to know. I looked at your article about this. Where, where did, where was this promoted or announced? I know you said it was in like the admin center or something or yeah. Is that the only, they never like,
Mary Jo Foley (01:04:36):
Nope. So we're talking about Microsoft making it so that you can chat, but between teams, consumer, and teams for business not call, just chat. Yeah. So it's in the admin center in Microsoft 365, like that's where I saw it pop up. And the reason it popped up this week was because they delayed the rollout of it. I didn't even know about a plan for this. But then I found an old dating back to November and our, an item on the Microsoft 365 roadmap that mentioned this. So this is like how they federate remember when they federated Skype consumer with teams. So that if you were on Skype consumer, you could talk to somebody on teams. This is them doing that for teams, consumer and teams, enterprise. And the full rollout of this is supposed to be done worldwide by the middle of this month. So that's like next week, right? <Laugh> right. We'll see if it happens. It's for teams on the web teams, desktop teams, mobile. If you're an admin and want no parts of this for your users, you can shut it off. Yeah. I, I, I don't know how many people are gonna use it because I don't know anyone using teams, consumers still. I just, I don't know anybody. I know there are people listen to the show who do, but like people in the world, in the real world, outside of our world who use this,
Paul Thurrott (01:05:56):
I don't know. Can't think I, yeah, I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole, but it bothers me. Yeah. That there are people out there. So in the Microsoft world that they're making their kids use this product <laugh> cause you know, that happens, you know, it's something I might have done 20 years ago or whatever. But I, I don't know. Yeah, that's too bad.
Mary Jo Foley (01:06:17):
I just think it it's. I think it's interesting. They are bringing chat. I would assume next would be calls right? Starting with chat, then bring calls maybe at some point, bring, file sharing across the platforms. They're they're still, they're not giving up on teams consumer, but they've, they've turned down the volume on pushing it a lot, even though the, the bar is still on windows 11, but
Paul Thurrott (01:06:38):
Oh, tele will show, they most often turned off button and the default task bar will probably be widgets actually, but then followed by teams yes. Or chat or whatever they're calling it.
Mary Jo Foley (01:06:49):
Right. So yeah. So that's that item. If you're, if you have Microsoft 365 and you go in the admin center, you can find, you can probably see a, about this if you want more information. Okay. Okay. Then the other one, it was this it's, this was a huge announcement from Microsoft today. Like all their teams were involved in this announcement, but I don't think there's a lot of there, there to be very honest. So <laugh> Microsoft spent to talking about teams as a platform, mostly for information workers every once in a while you hear them talk about frontline workers. So frontline workers are the people on the front lines. So like healthcare workers, people who work in retail, people who work in fast food stores, people in manufacturing lines and Microsoft wants to get them on teams also. Right? So because there that is a huge, huge market giant 80% of the global workforce is estimated to be frontline workers.
Mary Jo Foley (01:07:50):
So today they announced a bunch of features that they're gonna be adding to teams and to Viva their employee experience onboarding platform that are, that the frontline workers, all of these are super incremental. In my view, you know, it's like adding a new module and new partners to the learning app in Viva. There's a walkie talkie teams, walkie talkie app that they've talked about before, which actually is a pretty big deal. If you're in the frontline worker space, these are devices made by primarily by a company called zebra technologies. And so they're adding a push to talk button to the walkie talkie feature for people who use that app with teams on their devices. And then they also announce cloud for retail. One of their vertical clouds is going to be generally available starting February one. So they had all these like little bits and pieces of announcements around retail, frontline worker productivity for those kinds of groups. And they just made it into a huge announcement today. But I just gave you the whole announcement. That's it? Pretty much
Leo Laporte (01:08:54):
They ever say how, how many people use these things. They ever, they don't ever been numbers. Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (01:08:59):
So they gave you a number, but they don't give you the base number. They said demand has doubled is 400%, 400%. It's meaningless. Yeah. Since March from some number we don't know, went
Leo Laporte (01:09:10):
From years.
Paul Thurrott (01:09:12):
I, yeah, these are all the jobs that nobody is filling these days was certain reason. Yeah. yeah. Okay. Yeah. Have they stopped calling them first line workers? I phrase
Mary Jo Foley (01:09:23):
I always, no, they're still calling them. They're still calling them frontline workers. Sometimes they call 'em flex workers. There's an overlap between those two things sometimes. Right. Gig economy workers. You hear that? Sometimes that's more like freelance workers,
Paul Thurrott (01:09:37):
Free loaders. Yeah. Yeah. Freelancers. Sorry.
Mary Jo Foley (01:09:39):
<Laugh> Hey, I'm a freelancer. I don't
Paul Thurrott (01:09:42):
Like that. No, you're a freelancer. You're not a, you're not a free loader. I mean like a gig, you
Mary Jo Foley (01:09:46):
Know, gig economy, right. Gig economy anyway. Yeah. So if you, if you're, if you are a frontline worker or if you employ frontline workers and you out those kind of things, there's many articles on Microsoft sites today and on my site and other sites and you can go see what's new, but I, I don't think it's as big a deal as perhaps they do.
Paul Thurrott (01:10:08):
Yeah. I mean, I, I had access to this and I looked at it and I, I had asked you, I'm like, I, I missing something here. I don't see anything. No, it seemed odd. And there was so much communication about it ahead of time, you know, like this was gonna be some kind of a big blockbuster and I didn't quite see what the excitement
Mary Jo Foley (01:10:26):
Was. No. No.
Leo Laporte (01:10:29):
Okay. Okay. There is excitement about the black mat surface go three.
Mary Jo Foley (01:10:34):
Oh, I know. And I put the wrong link here in our notes. Sorry everybody. <Laugh>. Is it beautiful? Yeah, it's beautiful. <Laugh> if you, if you care about the surface, go three. If there's a group of people who do and you care about colors, there is a black map.
Leo Laporte (01:10:54):
I wanna care about it. I really like the form factor. I know really wanna like
Paul Thurrott (01:10:58):
It. I wish it just worked like surface pro did, but was smaller. Yes.
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:03):
Yeah. But it doesn't. No,
Leo Laporte (01:11:05):
No. Cause is that cuz it's
Paul Thurrott (01:11:08):
It just says constrained pro you know, process. Yeah. This is an Intel problem is what it is basically.
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:15):
Yeah, it is basically right. So it has optional LTE also. Cause I know there are,
Leo Laporte (01:11:21):
I like that too. About that.
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:22):
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Leo Laporte (01:11:23):
Yep. It's pretty. I like how it looks.
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:26):
Yeah. I don't know. There's not a lot else to say. It's like now available in Matt black 5 49, 99 penny. Oh, so is this
Paul Thurrott (01:11:33):
Actually 65? Did this go official finally? Yeah. It went official week. It did. Okay. Yeah. I'm looking
Leo Laporte (01:11:39):
At it on the, on the
Paul Thurrott (01:11:40):
Store. I saw it was rumored, but okay. Yep. It's it's really, it's already, if you yeah. Surface pro is available in black as well. Yeah.
Mary Jo Foley (01:11:48):
And then there's the surface pro eight with LTE that also became this week. Okay. We had remember on our, on our discord chat last week, somebody asked us this exact question. They said, when is surface pro eight, coming with LTE? And we were both like, I don't know. Well it's this week and it's in the, you can order it from the Microsoft store. It's here. Now it's here now 13 49 99. This
Leo Laporte (01:12:11):
Would be just awesome. If it just didn't have that stupid gold Panum processor in it. I
Paul Thurrott (01:12:17):
Know. Well, you can get a version of the
Mary Jo Foley (01:12:19):
Core, right? The surface go has the M the low and no, I'm
Leo Laporte (01:12:23):
Talking about the co yeah,
Mary Jo Foley (01:12:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The per rate
Leo Laporte (01:12:25):
Is the high. Oh no. Pro it's great. Yeah. I just like the little, I like the dinky size. I like the hidden pen. It's basically kind of, I mean, I really like the mini, I like these little,
Mary Jo Foley (01:12:36):
It's just super cramped to type like, even for me,
Leo Laporte (01:12:39):
I don't have giant.
Mary Jo Foley (01:12:40):
Yeah. It's not a,
Leo Laporte (01:12:41):
But it's not a work. It's not a work. It's a consumption device.
Mary Jo Foley (01:12:45):
Right. You take it with you so you can look at things on the go. Yeah. And answer one word emails like that that'll work for that. Right. But
Leo Laporte (01:12:52):
It's built for everyone. It says, right. You, yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:12:55):
<Laugh>, it's a yeah. Well Microsoft has never exaggerated, so that's good.
Leo Laporte (01:13:03):
More speed for everyday tasks. Sure. So just as long as you're doing everyday tasks, it'll be fine. It's you think? I mean, here, they're showing a school room that really, this is, is maybe a kid, the kid computer maybe.
Mary Jo Foley (01:13:18):
Yeah. Not, not like high school or college. Not that kinda little. Right. I gave my, my, I bought a surface go the original one and I gave it to my sister who uses it as a recipe
Leo Laporte (01:13:30):
Computer in her kitchen, cooking in the kitchen. Perfect. Yeah. Perfect.
Mary Jo Foley (01:13:33):
Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Look at the
Paul Thurrott (01:13:35):
News and the more six, 700 bucks for, I, I know, I always thought like if you have that much money to spend, get a really nice iPad.
Mary Jo Foley (01:13:43):
Yeah. It's good for just if, when you wanna use it for a specialized task or, or you just don't need to be computing in a fast way, just looking so fast works.
Paul Thurrott (01:13:53):
Geez. I could take the car, but the, her and buggie works fine.
Mary Jo Foley (01:13:57):
Yeah, exactly.
Paul Thurrott (01:14:00):
Oh boy. I
Leo Laporte (01:14:02):
Dunno. Did you say the hearse and horse? Sorry. Oh, okay.
Mary Jo Foley (01:14:05):
The hears and buggy
Paul Thurrott (01:14:06):
I'll be taking the hears today. Honey might have been an accent problem. Sorry. <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:14:13):
Let's do an Xbox thing. We'll take a break. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> we'll get the bottom. And there's a cocktail awaiting all of you for sitting through this. You
Paul Thurrott (01:14:22):
Know, I don't actually have this in the notes, but I, I, this has been coming up on Twitter a lot lately. You know, Phil Spencer and I, and because the anniversary of Xbox, you know, Shamus Blackley has done this recently as well. They've come out, Xbox executives present in past have kind of come up and said, you know, there's too much toxicity on Xbox live. We gotta, we gotta fix that. You know, like, yeah, you've had to fix that since there's been an Xbox live. When are you gonna do something about it? <Laugh> I'm on Xbox live every day. I see. And credible instances of racism and oh gosh, political nonsense and blah, blah, blah. It's it's awful. And I think what Phil Spencer said, I think just to yesterday was, you know, Xbox live is not a, a free speech platform. Well, it is Phil <laugh>.
Paul Thurrott (01:15:07):
It is until you do something about it. I report people Xbox live, not every single day, but I bet if I were to play five, five, I'll say five times a week, three, three of those times I have to report somebody and I'm not like a kid I'm not on there 20 hours a day. I mean, I'm on maybe a couple of hours, whatever, but 15, a couple whatever that couple may be it's, it's alarming and it's a problem. And I, I, I I'm, I'm tired of people talking about it. Like, it means anything if they're not, they either do something about it or shut up, like just, I, Xbox live is a cesspool. It's just a fact. And I, I wish they would do something about it. So I just let that hang in the air. You know, the private
Leo Laporte (01:15:54):
Is yeah. People. Yeah. It's made of people, people.
Paul Thurrott (01:15:58):
It is. It's true. No, you're right. Yeah, you're right. It was also, I I'm not gonna God, I can't think of his name. I knew the guy. There was a guy who used to run content moderation on Xbox live, who was oh man. Almost had it. Steptoe, thank you, Steven. To a loose. Yep. Thank you. A great guy. And
Leo Laporte (01:16:16):
Look at, look at Mary Jo showing off her Xbox
Paul Thurrott (01:16:19):
Knowledge there. Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah. Steven impressive. He was such a great guy. And you know, he did what he could do for a time. And then, you know, he's, unfortunately he is not with us anymore, but he was a great guy, but you know, for the most part it's just been it's probably one, I
Leo Laporte (01:16:33):
Killed him to be honest with you. China did,
Paul Thurrott (01:16:36):
I think it might have contributed. So yeah. So that's unfortunate. I wish they would do something about it, you know, and I know kind of that they won't, this is like a platform that lets you, you know, create clan tabs in front of your name. So people put little racist things in there or they let you draw pictures to associate with your user picture and people will put like put nudity and you know, nonsense pictures and it's like, guys,
Leo Laporte (01:16:58):
They should just do what Mary Jo's doing right now. Put a cat, an Xbox life. <Laugh> a cat.
Paul Thurrott (01:17:04):
I'd rather have a cat, but than a picture of your egg. So
Leo Laporte (01:17:07):
You didn't really like that segment, right?
Paul Thurrott (01:17:09):
<Laugh> right. Okay. In the good news department there was a report suggesting that Microsoft has sold as many as 12 million Xbox series X ands consoles. Wow. Not to me, I'm having a hard time with the dates cuz the pandemic, like to me, it, it feels like last year was the pandemic <laugh> no, the last two years for the pandemic. Yeah. So Microsoft launched this console over a year ago, like 15, a months ago, ish. At, at a time when we already knew about the global supply chain issues and how are they gonna pull this thing off and they pulled it off poorly. But the one thing that they did do is Phil Spencer. Again, I think, you know, thinking about dates, it was probably sometime in mid 20, 20 ish or leading up to the launch of these consoles said, we know that the Xbox series X, which is the most expensive and more powerful version is gonna sell the best upfront.
Paul Thurrott (01:18:02):
But we also feel that over time, the less expensive Xbox series S is the one that's gonna sell the most because the hardcore guys are gonna hit it on day one and they want the good one. And then over time it's gonna be just normal users and they'll buy the cheaper one. And the one thing that Microsoft did do that helped contribute to this number is they adjusted on the fly because the Xbox series X is, was harder to make because the, you know, the components of it are more expensive and harder to get. And so they actually shifted the mix and they've sold a lot of Xbox series S and actually the Xbox series S has been in stock in a lot of places where the Xbox series X has not. And for whatever it's worth, I quietly switched to an Xbox series S over to the Christmas break.
Paul Thurrott (01:18:47):
And I don't, I don't notice a difference at all, like at all, I oh really? Oh, maybe I should get part of that is the part of that is because of the games I play. Yeah. And I think, you know, long term obviously games that are especially made for these consoles, they're, you know, they will look better on the, on the series X, but I, the games I play, it's fine. Like even like a new game, like halo, infinite looks awesome on the Xbox series. So that's just me, but, you know, whatever. But anyway, Phil Spencer explained he didn't confirm the number, but he said, yeah, we actually did make that change. And then Sony is also trying to adapt to this new normal. And they originally planned to stop making PlayStation four consoles that the, in the last year. So one year after the PS five debuted, but now they've confirmed that they're gonna keep selling PS4 and making PS4 through the end of this year in part, because, you know, it's an older device, older components, it's E they're easier to get the parts and all that.
Paul Thurrott (01:19:40):
And they expect, I don't know what they original estimate was or how many they would sell this year, but they expect to sell in additional 1 million PS4 units this year as a result because you know, people wanna play the games and they're like, well, I can't find a PS five. Most of the games play on both consoles. Anyway, this will be a stop gap for a few years. I can, you know, get this cheaper console. It works fine. And I don't know, you know, I don't I said 12 million on Xbox series X and S the last number we got from Sony for the PlayStation five was 13 point something million. And that was from October. It's possible. You factor in the holiday season, it could be getting close to 20 million. But that's not two to one. <Laugh> assuming that Microsoft number, the Xbox number is correct. Cuz that's an, but you know, that was always the, the problem in the last generation, they were outsold so dramatically by Sony and it doesn't appear to be the case with this gen. So that's good. Good news
Leo Laporte (01:20:44):
Still can't I still can't get one. I'm not one of the 12 million get an S did they break down the S versus X? I bet you like it's 9 million S and 3 million X, something like that. I think you're yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:20:57):
The PlayStation five. The big difference between that and the Xbox is both consoles are the same. The, the cheaper one just doesn't have the optical drive right with the X and the, the S has a lower end processor, less, less storage whatever. It's still awesome, by the way, it's still better than any Xbox one series or Xbox one model, whatever. But it's it's small and
Leo Laporte (01:21:21):
Cute and quiet. They should have just sold the S and then it S the X next year. Exactly. And they would've probably done a lot better,
Paul Thurrott (01:21:29):
Except if they came out with the gate with that compared to the PS five, they would look
Leo Laporte (01:21:32):
Like jerks. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So what do we have? We have PS five S at home, in the Xbox Xs for SS, sorry, sorry, sorry. Let's take a little break back of the book coming up. Gonna be a cocktail this week. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I know you look forward to those. Another one. I should get the picture. Destiny's Stephanie's Stephanie's sounds
Paul Thurrott (01:21:55):
Like you've been drinking those cocktails. Love
Leo Laporte (01:21:57):
The blue. I'm telling you,
Paul Thurrott (01:21:59):
This is an excellent cocktail. Destiny
Leo Laporte (01:22:02):
Are gonna work and, and Palm will be on the cruise. We're go all gonna get drunk in the Alaska. So do you join us? I don't, you know, I don't, I think we might have sold out. I don't know, find if you're, it's not too late. And I think by July, everything's gonna be great. It will be your coming out party. Go to cruise.tv and join us in Alaska and July. I'm who's
Paul Thurrott (01:22:25):
Coming what's happening. Coming out party.
Leo Laporte (01:22:28):
Yeah. Yeah. Be our coming out. Well, you know, it's over. Yes.
Paul Thurrott (01:22:34):
What do you mean coming out from under the COVID
Leo Laporte (01:22:35):
Party out from under the two years of COVID good. I hope so. And so, and as far as I know, as people would ask me, are they gonna cancel? No, no, no. I think it's still the only difference is they are reducing capacity, which means that's why, I'm not sure if we're sold out on, they did warn us they're we may be done selling cabins. So I don't know, but go to cruiser, turn that TV and find out Rob Campbell's going right? Rich cab. Rich Campbell. Richard. Yeah. Rafael. And Rafael's going, wow. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I know it's gonna be a windows Fest. I better get a, I better get a windows computer for this trip. Not show up with one of the Mackintoshes or something. No,
Paul Thurrott (01:23:14):
You could run it. Run windows in emulation or virtualization.
Leo Laporte (01:23:17):
And we, how about did this? What if I just volunteer to install Linux on anybody's computer that wants it? You know, I, that would,
Paul Thurrott (01:23:24):
I mean, maybe I, I <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:23:27):
We'll do have a Linux install party before dinner. One night.
Paul Thurrott (01:23:31):
I'll picket it, it I'll, I'll be carrying signs outside.
Leo Laporte (01:23:34):
Get your Manjaro here. It's free.
Paul Thurrott (01:23:37):
I'll have a Lennox's cancer sign on a stick. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:23:43):
<Laugh> don't boot up. All right. We are gonna take a break and come back friends. Don't let friends do Linux. No, <laugh> I think now I have to do it. Oh, look, I'll, I'll bring it just in case I'll bring it. And if you want it, I can help. <Laugh> are show they brought to you by Melissa. Guess what? It's a brand new year. Oh, you noticed. Yes. And you need customer data that is accurate so that your business can be a success. But did you know that in 2020, there were 36 million address changes processed by the postal service. It's not just addresses people, change their email, that change their names. They get married a huge chunk of cost customers. You might have bad info on that means you're missing out on 'em, but that's where Melissa comes in. They can help make sure your data is current and accurate. They know this business they've been doing it for 35 years.
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Mary Jo Foley (01:28:04):
Go ahead, Mary. I think a lot of people listening to this show might already know this tip, but because I see Microsoft answering this question over and over and over on Twitter, I'm gonna put it out there in case somebody doesn't know it. So the tip is, do you know on windows 11 that you can write click on the start button on the task bar and you'll you, you will get a quick access list. As Paul told me, this is called of a lot of different options that help you go directly to things like the apps that are installed on your PC power options, disc management, windows terminal file Explorer search. And to me the most important shut down or sign out because, because I feel like for normal users, it's really hard to find how to shut down and restart windows 11. It's not intuitive, which is weird.
Mary Jo Foley (01:28:57):
<Laugh> but this button it makes it really much simpler. Microsoft keeps answering this when people say, why did you take away the right click option on the task bar? And they said, well, we did, but have you tried right? Clicking on the start button <laugh> well, we did. Yeah, we did. I didn't know this. And then I right clicked on the start button. I'm like, oh, I wonder if everybody knows this is there. Cuz I don't ever remember the highlighting this or talking this up. Yeah. Task managers there settings. Right?
Paul Thurrott (01:29:26):
It's all there. So this is she asked me about it. She's like, do you know this? I'm like, yeah, it was it's in my book. It was, it was a feature windows 10 as well. So it's the menus almost identical in windows 10, originally command prompt, admin and not admin was the default for command line. They move to power. She at some point in windows, 11 it's windows terminal now, but the basic commands are all the same and task manager, I think for people who right click on the task bar and can't find task manager, this is a great tip, cuz exactly. You can still, you can still get it that way. And it's the same thing. You just have to click on a particular spot, not anywhere.
Mary Jo Foley (01:30:02):
Right. So it's not, it's not like, cause so many times I'm like, why did they take that away? And then I'm like, oh wait, they kind of just moved it over. Right.
Paul Thurrott (01:30:10):
Well I never said that. No I right. Click test. It's exactly. That was had other options as well. Yeah, yeah,
Mary Jo Foley (01:30:18):
Yeah. It's a, it's a start. I'm trying to be the glass half full here and say, Hey, he did take that away, but at least you have this
Paul Thurrott (01:30:27):
<Laugh> I would call this a workaround,
Mary Jo Foley (01:30:29):
A workaround. Okay. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, if you have normal users, parents, people who may not be experts and have their own windows feel guide at the ready, who love, who don't know, but sure. Guide them to right. Click on the start button when you're trying to, a
Paul Thurrott (01:30:46):
Lot of people call this the power user menu, you know? Yeah. What the official name is really quick. Action menu. Quick action menu
Mary Jo Foley (01:30:53):
Is the real name. Quick access is a quick access, access,
Paul Thurrott (01:30:56):
Access, quick access. Sorry. Access.
Mary Jo Foley (01:30:57):
Okay. Yep. Access quick access. So my tip is use the quick access menu
Paul Thurrott (01:31:04):
Please. <Laugh> please, please, please, please consider the, I mean I wouldn't use this on your computer, but no, you should. Yes. <laugh> nice. Very nice.
Paul Thurrott (01:31:17):
Oh gosh. Very good. Paul, do you wanna do the app of the week still or should I let Mary Jo why she can if she wants? I, I have two, I only wrote down one originally. I had start 11 in here as well. I just mentioned that again, you know, 5 99 fix the start menu, by the way. The other thing, one of the other things that this product adds is right. Click start min or right click task bar and you can get to task band again. So you can get it that way too, if you prefer it. So that's an alternative. And then Mozilla launched Firefox 96 this week. I didn't, I didn't see anything in the way of major new features, but I have spent a lot of time lately not using edge <laugh> I guess would be the way I would say it. And I still think the two big mainstream contenders are Chrome obviously, and then Firefox. So if you're kind of anti chrom, anti chromium I'm really happy with the Firefox. I have to say the only thing I,
Leo Laporte (01:32:15):
New anti Facebook features is the main yeah,
Paul Thurrott (01:32:18):
That's right. They're tracking Facebook. Yeah. It's like the guys that like scammers call 'em and then they turn on the scammers webcam so they can, you know, show that they're seeing them, that kind of thing. Except they're doing it to Facebook, which is of course hilarious. Yes, I, I just, there's a couple little things I don't like about Firefox. I wish one of the things I have to use a lot is like, I'll go to a Microsoft blog post or something and I want to use the image, but it's, you know, commingled with text. So I wanna find the underlying image. And so I do that by use there's an inspect element kind of feature in all browsers. And you can go to, you know, the different elements in the page and you can find it. And, but the way that Firefox does it is just different from chromium browsers. So I can't, I can't find the images this way. Like it's really hard, but it's, it's, it's a very esoteric use case. So I think for most people it, yeah, Firefox is, is great. For sure.
Leo Laporte (01:33:14):
And you said you had two,
Paul Thurrott (01:33:16):
Oh, I'm sorry. The other one was start 11, which I mentioned earlier up the top of the show. I just, we didn't have a lot under windows 11. I felt like it needed more, but originally that was gonna that <laugh>
Mary Jo Foley (01:33:26):
P windows, windows
Leo Laporte (01:33:28):
Section he pad in the segments again. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we do. Code name. Mary Jo code name.
Mary Jo Foley (01:33:35):
Yes. Code name is Gibralter this week. Gibraltar to be the code name for windows defender for sorry, Microsoft defender for windows. The new version that's coming. This week, our friend OUIA Lia on Twitter, who always gets really good scoops and images, posted a picture and said, here's, here's the sneak peek at. What's come coming for the next version of defender for windows. And what's interesting about this is it looks like it's a consumer update and it looks like it's going to enable you to, to protect not just your windows PC, but any iOS and Android devices that you have in your environment, your home environment as well. So it's almost like it becomes a mini suite of defender for your consumer based devices. So we don't know when this is gonna launch. There's actually a preview placeholder in the store and I downloaded the preview from the store, but I couldn't access it because right now I believe it's limited to Microsoft employees who are testing it. Maybe some windows in insiders. I'm not sure. But it's, I would say it's coming soon, given this image leaked. Nice. Yeah. That's what Gibraltar is. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:34:52):
Nice. That's a perfect code name for it. Actually. It is the rock of Gibraltar. Yep. Protecting you and your PC from the bad guys and your iPhone and your Android phone. Yes. Altogether. And now don't be blue Uhhuh. It's time for the cocktail of the week. And I take it, Paul, you're gonna do this one. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:35:16):
So my, my wife made this obviously looks she's looks. Yeah. So the key to this one is a a Laur called hypnotic, which is not spelled the way
Leo Laporte (01:35:24):
You might think. I was gonna say Caral cuz that's the other blue
Paul Thurrott (01:35:27):
Liquid. Right? Right. Yeah. So hypnotic is also has this unique blue color. I believe it is a combination of some kind of a French vodka, maybe Kanak and some root juices, but it has a Hypnos. Yes, exactly. Right. So it's three parts, HYP, T one part vanilla vodka, one part Malibu rum in case you thought there wasn't enough alcohol in it and then an Arum I'm sorry, an Arum, an egg white for the for the foam there at the top. So you shake all the ingredients without ice. So it's froth add the ice to a shaker shake again, to chill, serve it a martini glass. And you can see in the, if you can see the photo, I'm not sure if you're showing it, but if you are looking at the photo, I am, there is a a red blur at the bottom. That is a, that's just a bright red cherry, you know, normally used as those dark mash, you cherries that are also steeped in alcohol case. There wasn't.
Leo Laporte (01:36:18):
Those are so good. I buy 'em by the jar now. Cause it just, I can get it straight. Put 'em on ice cream.
Paul Thurrott (01:36:23):
It's so good with this color scheme. It's kind of cool. The the bright red. Yeah. It's pretty mm-hmm <affirmative> color. Yeah. They sink like rocks <laugh> in this alcohol. It
Leo Laporte (01:36:31):
Is, it is pronounced hypnotic. It's spelled weirdly H P N O T I Q. Yep. And it, it was created in New York, long island, but it's bottle in France. There you go. It was created in 2001 by Rafael. YBI a college dropout living with his parents on long islands is according to Wikipedia after seeing a loose
Paul Thurrott (01:36:53):
Person living on an island. Yeah. After
Leo Laporte (01:36:55):
Seeing a blue perfume, Bloomingdales, he decided to create a blue liquor.
Paul Thurrott (01:37:03):
I, yeah, I think this must be chosen specifically for the color, right? This it's just alcohol based. Well, some fruit juices, but
Leo Laporte (01:37:10):
His big breakthrough is when P Diddy agreed to sell it in his restaurant chain. <Laugh>
Paul Thurrott (01:37:16):
Actually, that was the big breakthrough for me when he decided to sell my book. Yeah. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:37:20):
P Diddy and field guide to windows 10. It's a very famous story. P Diddy field guide to P Diddy. <Laugh> it's, hypnotics been promoted by in rap lyrics from Kanye west, better known as yay. R Kelly. Yay. Ludicrous. Missy Elliott, JayZ, low Kim fabulous and Diddy himself. Wow. Wow. So you're drinking a, like a raper mm-hmm <affirmative> he is. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:37:49):
And then we're listening to the,
Leo Laporte (01:37:50):
The new rapper, the blue rapper. Oh,
Paul Thurrott (01:37:53):
I, but we listened to like Taylor swift and they yeah. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:37:56):
I with Mac. I see your music night choices. I see. I see. It's nice that you have music night though. I think that's really good. Yeah. Yeah. This is, believe it or not. The fourth bestselling imported Laur in the United States. That's incredible.
Paul Thurrott (01:38:09):
I'd never even, I never, I didn't heard of this until about two months ago.
Leo Laporte (01:38:13):
Huh? We also have, and maybe we can get Stephanie to do use this a, a purple Laur called harmony. Oh, I like it. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:38:24):
So we get a purple gin. Which is, what's the name of it? We have a purple gin. I don't remember the name. I'm sorry, but it's beautiful. It's a beautiful color.
Leo Laporte (01:38:35):
It's it's I guess it's got fruit juices, vodka and cognac in it. Yeah. Yeah. But it's only 34 proof. It's not, there's less Russian power on the
Paul Thurrott (01:38:45):
Others. Yeah. Yeah. You
Leo Laporte (01:38:46):
Got it. Well, Nile Boo's not notoriously alcoholic either, so yeah. You might want to get some ever cleared it. Just juice it up a little bit.
Paul Thurrott (01:38:53):
<Laugh> we? Well, we do have local hooch, local
Leo Laporte (01:38:56):
Hooch also. Good. As long as the revenue doesn't catch up with you
Paul Thurrott (01:39:00):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> yeah. Made from a, this a hidden still that this location I will not reveal. Is that really? Is that the case? Oh yeah, no. We know people to come in. Mason
Leo Laporte (01:39:08):
Jars.
Paul Thurrott (01:39:09):
Yes it does. Wow. Yes it does. We have
Leo Laporte (01:39:12):
You use it to start your barbecue. I believe
Paul Thurrott (01:39:14):
In fact, we have a very nice color coordinated row of Mason jars that are basically oh, Smarties or some kind of candy with dissolved shine. Yeah. So they come out like blue, green purple. You
Leo Laporte (01:39:26):
Know, do you drink it or just look at it? I, I don't think both. You
Paul Thurrott (01:39:30):
Don't drink 'em straight. That would be dangerous.
Leo Laporte (01:39:34):
Yeah. Well folks we've come to a roaring end on that one on that note. The blue bomb. Nice. Mm-hmm <affirmative> how, how often <laugh> do you drink? Do we
Paul Thurrott (01:39:50):
Drink? Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:39:50):
Weekends later. Just okay. Not like not every night you go have your cocktail. No, no, no. I that's. How America for years. I mean, that's I was gonna
Paul Thurrott (01:39:58):
Say there was a period in the, in the pandemic there, early on where we overdid it, we were eating cheeses from Canada and cocktails many nights a week. And we thought, you know, we're not scientists, but 800 doesn't seem yeah. Just doesn't seem
Leo Laporte (01:40:11):
Healthy. It's funny. Cuz Lisa has been saying, you know, we, what we really should do is get a charcuterie board. Right. Just and just eat charcuterie every night. Well, the,
Paul Thurrott (01:40:21):
The best thing about the pandemic era over drinking was that it happened when the gym was closed. So it was like the perfect
Leo Laporte (01:40:28):
Storm. Even better <laugh> yeah. Waddle back to the gym later. Oh yeah. <Laugh> we do windows weekly every Wednesday. 11:00 AM Pacific 2:00 PM. Eastern eight, 1900 UTC. Watch us live@livedottwi.tv. If you're watching live chat live@ircdottwi.tv or in our club, TWI discord we've got some big club TWI stuff this week we're gonna do Stacy Higginbotham's book club is tomorrow. Andy and ACOs ask me anything is Friday. If you're a member of club TWI, you can participate, live or listen after the fact cause there's a special feed for it. Club members called the TWI plus feed. There's also the untitled Lennox show that GI fizz and lots of other stuff. Maybe we'll get Paul and Stephanie's cocktail hour on tape too. That'd be kind of, kind of fun to do that. All of that's $7 a month plus ad free versions of all shows at twi.tv/club TWI on demand versions of all of the shows we do still available on the website, twi.tv in this case, twi.tv/dub dub, or, or subscribe in your favorite podcast player. And you should be able to get 'em that way too. And if you do use your, you know, favorite podcast player to listen, please leave us a five star review and tell the world about windows weekly. Paul throt blogs@throt.com become a premium member there and you get some extra goods stuff. His book, the field guide to windows 10 is available. Lean pub.com. What do what's your ship date for? Field guide to windows 11.
Paul Thurrott (01:42:02):
Yeah. I don't know. It's gotta be first quarter of this year. I, I would say I, I spent a lot of time working on it over the break. Yeah, that's nice. Yeah. And I, yeah, I there's a bunch of stuff I kind had put off for a while that I've been working on a lot lately. That's one of them so nice. But yeah, it it's, it will happen. Good. There's no, I don't know. I just I'd really like them to ship a more cohesive version of this thing, frankly. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but I don't know as the months go on it's like maybe I shouldn't wait, just get it out there.
Leo Laporte (01:42:33):
That's the beauty of lean pub is you can update it. People can get updates automatically and all that. Yeah.
Paul Thurrott (01:42:38):
But the problem with them updating it all the time is I have to update it all the time. Oh, you know? Yeah. You gotta remember how, how was last year gonna go? They were gonna ship windows 10 21 H two, nothing. Nothing. I had nothing to do. Second half of 2021 was looking great. And then windows 11 landed. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And they put the thing out in like three months. Not good.
Leo Laporte (01:43:05):
They don't think of you. That's the problem you know, true.
Paul Thurrott (01:43:09):
I more about your
Leo Laporte (01:43:10):
Schedule. Yeah, they should really,
Paul Thurrott (01:43:12):
You don't have to just consult, you know, ask,
Leo Laporte (01:43:15):
Would it be okay with you if we put out windows 11 now, or should we wait until next year? You should
Paul Thurrott (01:43:20):
Wait until next year that would've been my answer. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:43:24):
Mary Jo Foley writes for ZDNet at allaboutmicrosoft.com and is very proud to say she'll never write another book. I we'll at her. She, she cherishes her happiness and free time.
Paul Thurrott (01:43:37):
I got the title too. Mary Jo Microsoft 3.0, no one <laugh> 3.01
Leo Laporte (01:43:46):
Or just do like the kids do and go Microsoft three with no space, Microsoft three. <Laugh> right with no space. Exactly. No space. Just one word. Thank you. Both of you. I really appreciate all the work you do for us and the, and the great show you produce every week. And I know all our listeners do too. So thank you, Paul and Mary Jo have a great week. Thank you. You too. We'll see you next time on windows weekly.
Speaker 4 (01:44:08):
All right. Android is cost evolving. And if you are part of the Android faithful, then you'll be just as excited about it. As I am. I'm Jason Howell host of all about Android, along with my co-hosts Florence ion and Ron Richards, where every week we cover the news, we cover the hardware and we cover the apps that are driving the Android ecosystem. Plus, we invite people who are writing them about Android, talking about Android and making Android onto the show every tuesday@twi.tv. Look for all about Android,
Speaker 5 (01:44:51):
Right?
