Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 196 of the IA cast. We have some great folks and we have a new face voice, however you want to look at it on the episode today. I'm Michael Doeies and we have Taylor Arnt. Hi, Taylor.

Hey, Michael.

Hey, good to have you back. And making her Iacast debut an appearance is Alicia Geary. Welcome, Alicia.

Hello. Hello. Glad to be here.

Yeah, we're glad to have you. So through one of our mutual friends that we know very well, I don't know that we could ever say his name again on the podcast because of reasons that were explained in the episode 160s or something like that. This person introduced Alicia to the group and we're very glad he did because we got such a great marketing person and somebody that knows what they're doing with social media and all this great stuff. So it's been fantastic. And so we figured we'd have her on and she even has some podcasting equipment coming very soon. So it's really cool stuff. So it's so Taylor and Alicia are here with us right now. We may have more folks joining us as time goes on, so be on the lookout for some familiar faces that may pop know that's what I love about this show is we are a podcast, but people could come in in the middle of the episode and keep talking to us and I think that's great. Again, we're always on the radio every time we do this and YouTube, if you want to leave us feedback, you can email us at [email protected]. And so let's get started. And if you are listening to the Iacast Network, you can go back through and listen to all of the content for Unmute Presents and our other shows like Friday Finds. The travel show with Katie was last week. Fantastic episode. And Michael has been putting out episodes of the Shellphone show. Technically, working is always great. So there's some great content out there if you have not heard it yet. Believe it or not, it's been a very busy week for me. So I'm behind on our Iacast network podcasts. I actually try to listen to keep up with all of our podcasts. I do, too, so that I know what's going on. But this week was just kind of a busy week. And if you haven't checked out Friday Finds yet, we're trying to promote that feed. But at the same time, I genuinely really like that podcast on the network. I like all of our shows because I have to say that because I do infrastructure and keep things running. But specifically, Friday finds and technically working are great shows. Technically Working because you learn some good productivity habits or non habits, depending they're talking about. But Friday Finds Lynn goes out of her way to find three very interesting stories that you may not find in traditional tech news. And she kind of gives her opinions and thoughts on those. So I really love that.

Are like, of course I love all the podcasts on the network, but those are the ones that I absolutely love as well. And technically, working has a new day. Michael, do you want to talk about have a new recording day?

Well, they're changing around. They have if I could talk Fridays through Sundays to record. They're shifting more towards Saturday currently. But it's not a permanent thing, I don't think. So I don't want to tell people you could expect them always on Saturday, because they may not be.

But for now.

Yeah, for now. And I think that they will be on the radio later this evening recording their episode. Yep, very exciting stuff. So that's the latest in Iacast. Oh, there is, as Tim Cook and Steve Jobs before him, like to say one more thing. If you are listening to Vo Starter Weekly season two, or section two, however you want to look at it, podcasts call it Seasons, but it's kind of the second section of the app we'll be starting up in October. So Wednesdays in October, section two will be vo starter. Section two will be back on the podcast. So check that out. Cool stuff. So I want to start with a little bit of news that we haven't talked about, and that is that slash whatever you want to call it today.

Yeah.

The overlord Elon Musk.

Uncle Elon.

Was talking to somebody about having people pay for Twitter, everybody to keep bots off the platform. I do believe that if he does do that, that would be the end of the platform as we know it. But I've kind of had this thought that I'm predicting, and I have been predicting this in my head, and I'm just putting this out here. I feel like Elon kind of wants to change Twitter to be more like a WhatsApp or something else instead of a massive social media app. But if he does this paid thing, then it will make it to where everybody has to be a paid member to keep bots off the platform. And I'd be curious to know, y'all's, thoughts on this if this happens. Because I've heard talk that this is being rolled back, that it's not going to happen, but who knows?

I don't think that it's going to happen. However, he's talked about it before and he has talked about things and then actually took action on them. So I think it's something to look out for. Honestly, if I find out that he's charging members to be on the platform, I'm deleting my Twitter. I'm deleting my Twitter. I am not going to hesitate to delete my Twitter, because that's a load of baloney. That's baloney. If you are going to charge someone just to simply be a part of a social media, then that's not necessarily social media anymore. That's an exclusive membership club type thing at that point. That's just not what I'm out for when it comes to social media, when it comes to having a space to promote myself and express myself. Yeah, that's my piece.

I agree with Alicia and social networks should not make users pay for access. Like Alicia said, that's a whole bunch of baloney know, in her words and really is in my eyes, uncalled for. See, the conundrum that I'm going to be put into is this is that all of my accounting friends currently are slash whatever its name is today. And the problem with that is if the overlord, as Michael just said a minute ago, makes everybody pay, it seems to me like the accountants are just going to say, hey, well I guess it's time for us to pay know, some groups of users like accountants or others don't really know another way. And so then I'm kind of like, well, I don't really want to pay to be on this platform, but if the group of people that I really need to interact with is on this platform, I may not have any choice.

There's always other options, especially since you're talking about professional communication. There's always places like LinkedIn and things like that for you guys to go hang out and actually interact and network.

That makes sense though. I mean, the only thing is though, some of the times in those communities, not everything we talk about is actually professional. Sometimes we talk about personal things or things that we're doing. So not all of it is professional natured and it's more of a community. And LinkedIn may not fit its needs.

At least the last time everybody talked about it.

That's fine. There are people that talk about personal things over LinkedIn. It just has to be. LinkedIn is rumored to be this boring business community and it's not what people say it is. Yes, it's for professional networking, but LinkedIn, there's no rules that every conversation has to be professional. You can still be social on LinkedIn. I am in the wholehearted belief that it's perfectly okay to talk personal stuff if you're talking with your field, especially if it relates to work. But yeah, no, it's not necessarily a big deal. You are okay to post things like that. I wouldn't post, I would have conversations maybe over messages or a group chat or something, but I wouldn't post about your personal life on LinkedIn. But it is definitely okay to have conversations about stuff like that. It makes sense, not a crime.

I think the big issue here is it's not a matter of Taylor wanting to be on X or things like that if they start charging for it, but it's know, people have been using something for so long and just changing. I think they would rather stop using social media than actually make a change to somewhere else in some cases.

Yeah, that's another thing.

And I believe that's the biggest concern. I believe even Tim Cook made a statement that the reason why Apple is on X is because that platform is still considered, even with all of the changes, to be a town square, and that's why they're still there. But if things change even more there, I think that will not be the case much longer. Interesting, it being a town square. I don't know. I can't speak for Apple staying. That's not something.

I think a lot of tech outlets, whether it be like tech, YouTubers, tech creators, big tech company tech corporations, are going to lose a marketing platform, and I think they're going to lose a space to give news and update people on what's coming next. And they're going to have to find.

Somewhere else to promote know, believe it or not, even though Threads lost a lot of its popularity, I still see a lot of the creators that I follow posting on Threads instead of Twitter or other places. So I'm just waiting for that Activity Pub integration with Threads so that we can all benefit from users on Threads. That's really what I'm excited about.

I keep forgetting about Threads just because it doesn't come up in conversation. But yeah, that is a good point, is that I think Activity Pub could make this a whole lot better.

And I keep saying that. I believe that the answer for a lot of our problems is for all of these social networks to integrate something like Activity Pub so that the town square is there, but it's everywhere. It's where the users want to be. If I want to be on Mastodon, great. If I want to be on Threads, great. Pixel Fed. Great. Instagram, great. Wherever I want to be, I could follow anybody else. It wouldn't matter. If we had a way to have a federation type of decentralized social network, then that would be the answer to all of our problems. It's just the corporations who have the user bases want this thing called money. Yeah, well, I don't want to be too depressing on this podcast episode because there's been a lot of great tech news.

I don't think it's depressing. I think it's just a thing that's happening.

And I think well, I think a lot of users consider but I think a lot of users consider it to be depressing because of what's happened to Twitter. Right. It was a great place to be, and then it slowly went downhill and it's kind of that mall in your city that all the stores closed and only the riff raft kind of hangs around now. Yeah, it's kind of turning into that. So that's why I say that, but onto very cool stuff. We did an unboxing of the iPhone 15 Pro Max yesterday, and that was Alicia's first time on an Iacast network podcast. Go check it out.

Don't click away. Go wait until this episode is done.

And then yes, wait for that. And afterwards, I hooked my Sennheiser profile microphone up to the iPhone and it was pretty great how well it worked. And if we have to, we'll edit it out. What I'm going to about to talk about, but we're going to try to put in a little bit of recording from that sample that we took after the unbox cast that we did. So that will go in about this point in the show I am recording so I could see how I sound on this microphone later on. Okay, so I'm about five inches away, about six inches away right now and just talking into my microphone.

That clips set on a lot of the room noise too right there. Yeah, that does.

Now I'm right up on my microphone talking right into the top of the microphone and this is me talking right into it for an extended period of time. Probably popping some peas and doing all that really. So, yeah, that was pretty cool. And it just shows what the iPhone can do with USBC because you both were there last night. So what were your thoughts of the phone?

I am in love with the blue color.

It is pretty nice.

When I go to purchase my iPhone 15 Promax, the blue color is definitely going to be what I get for context. I have an iPad Air five and I got the blue model. So I'm in love with the fact that the two blue colors are going to pair nicely well together whenever I purchase my iPhone.

That is really awesome.

I am coming from a Galaxy S 23 Ultra to the iPhone 15 Pro Max and it's going to be my first iPhone. So I'm extremely excited. But that is pretty cool. The profile, the sound of the Senheiser profile when you hooked up to the iPhone actually was really clear. Kind of sounded like you were coming from a studio. It sounded like you were in a high tech, like the souped up studio with all the insulation foam and whatnot. You guys know what I'm talking about, right?

Yeah, the soundproof studios.

Yeah.

This is audible.

So I have to agree.

Sorry, Michael.

No, you go ahead. What are your thoughts?

I have to agree with Alicia. I had hoped that Michael would have taken our advice and made the podcast on the phone. But now that I think about know, you can't really run the audio hijack for the phone. Hey, maybe that's what Robomiva should do, make audio hijack for the have.

I could have joined on Zoom on the computer to do that, but I didn't want to go through the headaches of joining on two devices and doing all that fun.

It sounded so good. I couldn't even tell you were on an iPhone and just sound like an awesome studio, like a recording studio or just a sound studio that you would just literally have soundproof room. It sounded very clear and it was definitely podcast quality.

But you know what's interesting is that we're in the same house. And I don't think you've even held the new phone.

No, I haven't, because I had a lot of stuff going on yesterday, and I was just so tired after all of our festivities, and I wanted I need to go hold it now.

Michael?

Yeah. You'll have to come check it out. It is different. It definitely feels different. Somebody said it feels closer somebody said it feels closer and less distinguishable between the 15 and the 15 pro lineup. So they both feel very similar. Since the titanium has a different feeling from stainless steel, I will say I will miss the shininess of stainless steel. I just love the color, the shine of stainless steel. But that's what happens when you upgrade your phone. So it is lighter. It's easier to hold. One of the things I've always loved to read books and comics, and just holding my phone for a while just gets heavy in one hand. But I think this phone will help with some of that. So I read loads of Marvel Comics on my iPad Mini, and that's really a nice device for that. And then sometimes if I'm out, if I want to read on my phone, I can do that, too, because they're very similar screen sizes.

I feel as if we've gone on a tangent.

Oh, this happens all the time on the IACAD.

Yeah.

This is not new. This is not new.

No. Yeah, because we wanted to give our first impressions on this phone, and that's part of the episode today. It's a great device. And I would recommend, if people want to upgrade from if you're thinking about upgrading from the 14 pro and 14 Promax, figure out why you need to upgrade. See if it's what you need and make those decisions. I don't know that it's for everybody.

No.

But USBC, if you're a power user, this is really a great update.

I know. I'm excited. I know I'm excited. I was talking to a friend, probably it was the day I got my iPad, which it's only been like, a month since I got the iPad, and they were just ever just trying so hard to get me to switch to the iPhone. Since I had an Android phone and an iOS tablet, they just really wanted me to switch. They thought it was just the best idea ever to switch. And I made a joke with them, and I was like, oh, well, let iPhone get USBC, and then we'll talk. Well, a month later, we find out that the iPhone 15 has USBC. Yes, but also a month later, the iPad worked its way into my soul, and I found out that there was a bunch of things that iOS does better that Android does do, but somehow iOS does.

I think. I think for the Android fans that are listening to the podcast, simpler would be that.

Better? Simpler? It depends on how you look at it.

And perspective. Some people, absolutely. Android just works with their headspace better.

Yeah. For the record, I'm not waging this war of iPhone versus Android. I feel like they both have their pros and their cons, and I feel like it's not a matter of which one is better, it's a matter of which one works best for you.

Exactly.

There you go. There's my point.

I actually plan to have a whole episode on I call the term platform shaming where people say, oh, you've got this. Well, how dare you?

Oh my God, this is better.

Right? That's the term I use, is platform shaming, where people put each other down because of what platform they use and it's not the right thing to do. So that's another conversation for another day. But let's actually get into the things that have happened this week.

Amazon and Microsoft.

Yes, Amazon, Microsoft, we had two announcements, two events that we didn't actually watch, but we got we were sorry, but we have the details for these events, or at least most of them. And I want to start off with Amazon.

After all, they are for me alphabet, so it makes sense.

Well, that's true. Good point. So we didn't get a lot of devices this time. We got a new Echo show, Eight. And I don't know how I feel about this device. It's supposed to have all these new things and the screen is supposed to do certain things as you move around the room and all this other stuff, it's great. It's just a new show, eight. Right. I think it's more iterative than revolutionary.

I was a little disappointed that they released the new Echo show Eight because I purchased not too long ago the previous version of the Echo show. Noticing as I'm looking around at what Amazon is presenting this Echo show, Eight as it's not as much of an upgrade as we might think it is. It has a new screen, the UI is a bit better. I think it's supposed to I honestly can't remember. I don't know if they're selling it on Amazon already.

Well, I'm looking at the new everything coming and it looks like there's a new ambient experience. And I think that's what I was talking about earlier.

Oh, my goodness. Okay, so I found everything coming. The Echo show eight. This thing looks strange. Have you looked at it?

I have not seen a picture of it yet.

It's like a hybrid between the Echo show oh, that's the Echo show ten.

Okay, so it does look like a little bit of a hybrid. It has a rounded speaker on the back and kind of that shows the time and all that on the front. It's a lighter color.

Yeah, it looks like a bit of a hybrid between the Echo, the normal Echo and the show.

Interesting.

It kind of reminds me of the Nest hub. You know how the Nest hub has like, that speaker wedge in the back and then the screen kind of looks like a tablet pressed on top of the speaker.

Right.

I honestly don't know how that holds up over time. Can anyone tell me something has ever happened to their Nest hub? I would love to hear that.

Yeah.

Hashtag IACAs.

Yeah, I've had a nest. Hub. It's worked, but the ambient thing is supposed to really focus on where you are with the camera and shift audio and things like that. So it's kind of like instead of building like the Echo Show Ten, it's a speaker that rotates. It looks like the top of the astro robot or astro or whatever it's called.

And if no one's ever seen it, it rotates. The stand has a motor in it and it rotates around to follow you and it uses the camera to do that.

Interesting.

So for the Echo Show Eight, the new Echo Show Eight, it's going to use the camera and it's not going to follow you, but it is going to track audio and track where you are to be able to push the audio in a direction that's more suitable to your location.

Yes. So the next one is the Echo hub. And this one is supposed to compete with the Nest hub.

That's an interesting topic.

Yeah, it's basically a smart home hub for echo where you can go in and change your house stuff. You could hang it on a wall and things like that.

I think LifeX came out with something like that, where it was like a tablet panel that you hung on the wall and you could touch it and interact with it to get the smart home stuff to work.

And there's apparently like a map view that's coming out where you can manage your smart home from your phone, where you can map your home.

Interesting.

Now there's a new Fire TV soundbar that's come out.

I'm excited about that. I feel like that it's not as expensive as I thought it would be.

There's a new Fire TV Stick 4K that's under $50, which is pretty nice. Wow.

Fire Sticks have always been the same price. I think they've always been like $49.

And there's a 4K max Fire stick love that. With a Fire TV ambient Experience just like The Echo Show eight.

Love that.

And it supports first streaming stick to support WiFi Six e. That's interesting.

That's really cool.

We have new Fire TV search and personalization features. So that's all pretty cool. Back to and we talked about the soundbar. Let's see. There's some more TV stuff that was announced, but the important things are the a lady, as we call her on the show, is getting generative AI. So it will be some people think this is great and some people think this is a very big privacy concern. And the reason is that with this, it's going to send all of our requests to an LLM large language model and some people find that to be okay. Some people are very hesitant about I mean, look, we're already sending all this stuff to Amazon anyway.

Yeah.

So let's just I'm excited about mean, I feel like it's going to has anyone ever asked a question to the Amazon Echo to be able to get information quickly right off the bat, right off hand? I feel like it's going to make it better at answering those informational questions right.

As long as it doesn't hallucinate.

Because it's able to pull data from somewhere and be able to answer these questions right off the bat instead of you having to that going to be an answerable question or not? Because there are some questions that are okay to ask it and then there are other questions that sound too complex to ask it that it's not going to have an answer for. And then there are questions that you just know right off the bat that it's not going to be able to answer. Just pull out your phone and ask.

A question right on.

This question.

Yeah. So that's all things that we're going to see with the Echo and fire devices. Now here's the one announcement from Amazon that really has me kind of excited. Even though this for once is outside my huge I'm a huge fan of the Eero routers. Okay. They announced the Eero Seven Max Router System. And this is WiFi Seven routers for consumers. Not businesses, but consumers already.

I feel like WiFi Six has only just come out.

WiFi Six has been out for a while. Six e has been out for the last year or two. Seven is the latest now and I.

Said, oh my God.

Yeah, and these routers are pretty beefy. They look like the old airport. Extreme Routers from Apple. They kind of really do. They're big, tall, bulky things and they have four ports on the back. I think from what I heard, it was two 2.5 gigabit and two one gigabit ports. And they start at 599 for just one.

That's crazy.

I think it's fine for them to be bulky because they are the first WiFi Seven routers available for consumer. That's a big jump. I feel like it's totally fine for them to be bulky, but I do hope that in the future that more companies are able to make them more compact and able to be put in a smaller space.

Well, the thing about WiFi Seven is there's just so many radios that have to go into it that I'm fine with that because I'd rather a big bulky box instead of a router with a bunch of little antennas.

Oh my God.

Kind of like the Netgear and others. They are very powerful radios. But yeah, I just like the design of the Eeros and I just think that I'm fine with it, but just the price needs to come down a little bit before I upgrade my whole house to those. I think one of those cost about as much as two or three of the six e versions cost.

Do you think they'll come down in price? And do you think you may not need as many of them?

I don't know. I really do not know. But I really trust the Eero brand. We had a router recommendations episode a while back where the consensus was Ero or Ubiquity for your networking from our panelists here on the show. So if you've not heard that episode, you may want to go back and listen to it after this conversation.

Oh, but don't forget about the unboxing.

Right? We just did that, too. So we're making a list for listeners to go listen to. I think that's kind of the no, that is not the end Echo frames. Now, a lot of people thought they were going to discontinue these.

They released another they did.

So they released new Echo frames. They are supposed to look nicer. Previously, they did not look the best.

They do, by the way. They look nicer. They look a bit more cleaned up. The previous version kind of looked like a Rush launch. It didn't really look all that great. I was not necessarily a fan of the Echo frames because I feel like they were just capitalizing on an orchid that was trying to push itself forward.

Right.

Because Bose makes audio glasses soundcore even makes audio glasses. Now. Then Amazon was just like, OOH, let us jump on the bandwagon. Let's do this. And they kind of rushed it. And I feel like that's why they didn't look all that great.

Right.

They looked a little ridiculous. But they actually do look a bit more the form factor is a bit nicer.

Yes. And I've heard they sound better, too.

One of the podcasts, look at the price tag.

Yeah.

How much are they?

Do you want to share that?

I can't remember what it was, but.

I know I was like, yeah, well, if you look them up, they're not the cheapest. But none of these mean a podcaster was talking. And they said that Amazon has had a history of releasing a lot of products that they didn't know how well they do. And so their way of beta testing was, hey, let's just sell it to customers and see if they like it or not. And if they don't, oh, well, we have their money. And I feel like that's a little bit of an extreme view on that, but it's kind of true.

I feel like Amazon is just one of those companies that's not afraid to try. By the way, I did figure out the price. 269 99 for the Echo frames.

Third gen. That's a little expensive.

Yeah, that's nuts. A price tag?

Yeah, it's a bit much.

Yeah. No, for audio glasses. I don't know. I'm just not a fan of the audio glosses market. I would rather just buy some dedicated bone conduction. Headphones and call it a day.

Honestly, see, the shocks never have fit me.

My head's too big for you.

Yes, it does. My head's too big now.

They actually are designed to mold after a while to your head. And I think they've actually gotten bigger.

I've tried all of the latest ones and they still don't fit.

Oh, my goodness.

Yeah.

That's sad.

Yes, it is.

That's a really good bone. I think Bose makes a pair of.

They make the bone frames. Bose frames. But they're discontinuing those. Are they at least certain models? I'm not sure if they're discontinuing all of them.

I wonder if there are any other foam conduction headphone manufacturers out there. Yeah, because that is a really good thing to have, especially if you're walking around in public and you need to hear things.

Right.

They're like my best friends because I wear them in public to keep people from eavesdropping because I use a screen reader. So I don't want people hearing my business and hearing my text messages and my calls.

I always walk around with one AirPod in, is what I do.

I don't really feel safe doing that in public because sure, you're aware because the AirPod you can put on transparency or something. But I don't feel safe because that's not my own ears. That's me hearing through a microphone.

Right.

And that makes sense. I just don't feel like it comes through as clear as my own ear canal. I don't feel like it's as clear. So I would rather just use a bump conduction headphones because it leaves my ears open for me to be able to directly hear what's happening around me. And I'm kind of the paranoid type. If I'm walking around in public, I want to be aware of what's happening right.

For.

Myself.

That's what we've gotten from Amazon. And the next thing I want to talk about is kind of what excites me is the Microsoft event. They had a lot of announcements. So Windows is going to be getting a new update very soon. 23 h two. I was talking to somebody and said 22 h three, or something like that.

I know, I heard that too. I was like, I don't think that's right.

So that was pretty funny. But it's 23 h two. And basically this update is going to add copilot throughout Windows, which is neat because you'll be able to even paint with, like, the paint application. You could paint with words, which I'm kind of interested to try out.

That'd be cool to find out if that actually works.

I'm sure it uses Dali or something like that to do so. That's very interesting to me. There'll be more customization.

So is that AI integration? Basically?

It is, yes. It is generative AI integrated into windows. And so you'll be able to tell your Copilot in Windows to do different things in Windows, like move files around or do certain things. And it will do it.

Oh, God. Will this replace Porjana?

Yes, this is kind of the replacement. Oh, my gosh.

Really exciting.

I was watching a video on TikTok yesterday and it was one person that.

Kind of makes me want to keep my just that kind of makes me want to keep my Surface and just save up for the Mac so that I could still play with platforms.

Yes. And basically what happens, what you'll be able to do is do all of these different features, pretty much tell Windows what to do. And it's coming out in the next week or so, I believe, is it?

I'll have to look at that because I want to try it.

At least the rollout is since I.

Am a Windows user.

Yeah. So, yes, there's more customization to the taskbar that's coming. These are just highlights. There's so many things to cover today, so I'm not going through everything.

Watch the event.

They're going to announce they're having all of these new features. You'll be able to control your computer type to Windows to do different things, all this stuff. So it's all coming. So we got new devices from Microsoft this year and one of them has me kind of excited. And I'm not going to start with that one. So you'll have to wait and hear my excitement later.

That's for last.

So we got the Surface Go Four, which is a small tablet that is going to be very it's kind of like the Surface Pro, but smaller, ten inch tablet.

And I think those surface go is use an armchip, if I'm not mistaken.

They didn't used to, but they may be now. I don't remember. I haven't looked at the specs. But it is a small Windows laptop or small Windows tablet and it's just tiny.

Who is that good for?

It's good for people that kind of want a tablet, but they don't want to go with an iPad or an Android tablet.

It has the ability to connect to a type cover. You just have to buy it separately.

Yes.

I liked the idea of the Surface Go, but it wasn't really high spec enough.

Right? It's really not.

I wanted a bigger display, so I.

Got the Surface Pro and it can be used with a monitor duh.

That's kind of a duh. It has a USB C port.

Right.

I wonder if Microsoft got rid of their magnetic charge connector.

I don't know if they have or not. It is an intel processor, n 200, I believe it's called. So it is still an intel chip and it's very low powered.

I think it's the surface.

Pro X that is Arm. Yes, for sure. The next one up is the surface. Laptop. Go three. Because that's not confusing. That's not confusing at all.

Yeah, that's very right.

But it is a proper laptop with a touch screen.

And the go laptops are typically smaller.

Than.

The laptop, smaller than the normal laptop. And they're typically smaller than the Surface Pros.

Yes. About the same size as the Pros, but they don't have a type cover. They have a full keyboard.

Yeah, and it's not detachable.

Right. And you guys can go look up the specs and prices if you would like, but we just want to tell you what's coming out now. The one that really has my interest. Oh, wait, there is a new Surface Hub. So keep that in mind.

Oh, surface, hub. What's? A surface hub.

Yeah, what's that about?

It's basically a dock where you could take your Surface and hook it up to it. And you get your monitor, you get your keyboard mouse and all that stuff.

That's dope. I didn't know that was a thing.

Yes, that is a thing. It's expensive like everything else.

Yeah, but it's a thing that's so cool.

Then my favorite one that was announced is Drumroll. The Surface Laptop Studio Two.

This one interesting thing.

This thing.

Laptop Studio is an interesting yes, it is.

This one is a replacement to the Surface Book. I'm calling it a replacement to Surface Book because it's been many years since they have built a Surface Book. So I'm kind of thinking that we're not going to get one.

No, I don't think we are either. I think the Surface Book is years in the discontinued department.

Yeah, unfortunately. And the nice thing about this Surface Studio is it is using a 13th gen intel core processor. I seven on the base model, which starts at 1999. Yeah, I know it's expensive, but this year we're also getting an NPU, a neural processing unit on the machine for usage. So that is interesting to me. The Surface Laptop Studio is the line on this is it's a laptop? So you could open and close the screen just like a laptop, but then you could also pivot the screen at angle, kind of like the magic keyboard on the iPad. But then you could also turn the screen where it's completely covering the keyboard. So it's like a two in one. Yeah. Well, it's kind of a three in.

One, almost, I'd have to see to actually understand it.

I would say two in one with an extra viewing angle.

Yeah.

Honestly, because it kind of has that cantilever vibe that the magic keyboard has.

Right.

And then it has the normal laptop angle and then it has the tablet.

Yes. The reason why I'm excited about this is because of that 13th gen intel processor, but also because this is the first time that, well, the Surface Books had whatever Nvidia graphics card of the 60 variety, the 2060 back in the day or whatever. And the Surface laptop studio one had a 30 50 in it. This one has a 40 50 as a configurable option, but now also, again, has the 40 60 option. And that has me intrigued as a gamer, because if I could have a Windows development machine and a gaming machine in one, that would be pretty interesting. Enticing. Right?

That is insanity. To be able to switch from workhorse to tablet to gaming horse.

Right.

In a cinch. That's nuts.

Also, one of the other things that really has me excited about this machine is very few Windows laptops have a haptic trackpad. And for reference, that is what the Mac laptops have and have had since, like, 2013, 2012.

Thank you for the heads up.

Most Windows laptops have a diving board where the closer to the front of the trackpad, you get better clicks. Well, this one is a fully haptic piece of glass, just like the Apple ones.

So it'll vibrate.

Right. It makes you think that you're clicking your mouse or your trackpad insane. And so having that on a Windows computer is, in my opinion, kind of big. So that's why I'm saying that this machine, out of all of them, is the most interesting of them all, even if it does start at 1999.

Yeah, that's a bit much, but you're getting a lot with it, so I feel like those who purchase it will actually be very happy. I wonder if it's is it going to support since they're releasing all of this new stuff. Is there going to be a new Surface Pen?

Yes, I believe it's called a Surface Slim Pin or something like that, from what I remember reading. So it is a new surface pin.

There is a new okay, that's cool.

There's a lot that has come out this week. My highlights are the Eero seven Max and the Surface laptop studio. Funny enough, they're the most expensive things on the list.

That's interesting.

Yeah, that's always so what is it.

That kind of stands out to you two that you're interested in from these?

Probably the Generative AI from Amazon and the Microsoft Surface Laptop studio.

So I would say probably the generative AI from Amazon, as well as the Copilot for Windows. Because I already have a surface. I don't know if I need a Surface Studio, per se.

I think.

Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

I think for what you have for what your use case is, you've never needed more than what you have on your laptop.

Exactly.

And Taylor has a surface laptop. Five.

Yes.

Oh, okay.

So it's a great right?

Yes.

So and for what she does, it's perfect. So do you guys have any comments before we wrap this thing up today?

Nope, I don't.

Okay, well, as we typically do at the end of these things, taylor, what is your pick for this week and where can people find you online?

So my pick is Spotify, so Alicia introduced me to it basically where we have group sessions. So when we're in our coworking room on Zoom, she starts up a session, and then I join it on my devices so I could listen to exactly what her and Michael are listening to. People can find me online on Macedon Tayarndt at techopolis. That is techopolis dot social. And I'm just pretty much all over the Internet and all over Iacast.

All right, and Alicia, what is your pick for this week and where can people find you online?

All right, my pick of the week, michael has just recently got me hooked on a game called Minecraft Dungeons. And if you haven't played it before and if you're a Minecraft fan, it's going to come pretty natural to you. It's $20 for the Nintendo Switch, and I'm pretty sure it's $20 for Xbox. And I'm not sure about Sony's prices, but it's probably $20 there, too. But it's pretty much minecraft. But a dungeon crawler. So that's insanely fun and really fun to play multiplayer. It's really fun to play co op.

And it's not a very accessible game, but it is a fun game if you have low vision.

It's actually kind of accessible if you have low vision. My Nintendo Switch even was reading out all of the menus and all of the objectives and how to do the things. So if you do have some vision, you can kind of navigate and the objective arrows are very bright and easy to see. So if you have low vision, it is going to be a good game. But where you can find me online. I am blind. One lives. Capital B, capital O, capital L. Pretty much everywhere. Twitter or X. Facebook. I am something different. I think I'm blind. Copywriter and LinkedIn. You can find me as Alicia geary and Discord. Obviously, if you add me on Discord, it's going to be the same thing. One lives. Capital B, capital, capital. Feel free to hit me up.

Fantastic. And the audience has to guess what my pick is. I don't think it's very hard for them to guess. It's my iPhone 15 promax. I knew you all guessed it. I knew you all guessed it. Great phone, great color. Blue, great experience. I think the speakers are better. Microphones, I think, are a little different. Even so, great purchase. Now the fun part of just trading in my old phone and getting things ready. Yeah, fun times. As for where people can find me online, I'm pretty much Mike DOE's everywhere. Mike Doey's on Twitter. X. Whatever. You can email me at [email protected] and you can find me on Mastodon at mike DOE's. That's Mikedoise at Techopolis social. And we are now updated to Mastodon 4.2, which I'm happy about. That just came out with full text search and all kinds of neat features like that. So people are more than welcome to register there and hang out with us on Techopolis Social if you're very into very techy things. So it's good stuff. And everybody's welcome. This has been a good another great episode of the IA cast. We are inching ever closer to 200.

We need to think of a milestone celebration.

We have plans for that. You do we do have plans. I will tell you about them. Offline plans. Offline, yeah, so we have some good plans for that and I think it'll be a fun episode, episode 200, because we're not going to talk about tech, we're going to talk about us the whole time. So it'll be fun. We're going to have a big group, probably. We'll have more than just our typical three to five person panel. We'll have a lot of folks here. It'll be a great episode, so make sure that you come around for that on the recordings and everything else. So it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm very excited about it. So with all that being said, thank you, everybody on the radio who came to listen today. Thanks, Taylor and Alicia for being on the show today. It's been a very good episode and we'll be back next week for episode 197 of the Iacast. So thank you, everyone, and we'll see you next time.

That's a wrap.

Bye, everyone.

Bye, everyone.

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