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Tech News Weekly 370: TikTok Might Shut Off Its US App
01:05:26
CES 2025, Windows 10 Office EOS
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- [00:00]
Micah Sargent
Coming up on Tech News Weekly, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy is here and spent a lot of time at ces, so we spend the first half of the show covering what she saw. Then Kaya Yurieff of the Information joins us to give us an Update on where TikTok stands with its shutdown and ban before Ben Wilson of Windows Central joins us to help everybody calm down about the end of Windows 10. Microsoft 365 support all of that coming up on Tech News Weekly. Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is Twitter. This is Tech News Weekly. Episode 370 with Jennifer Pattison Tuohy and me, Micah Sargent. Recorded Thursday, January 16, 2025. TikTok might shut off its US app. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech. I am your host, Micah Sargent, and I am joined today by someone who hopefully, in theory, escaped the conference. Crud. It's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of the Verge. Welcome back, Jed.
- [01:15]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Hi. Great to be here. It's been a while. Very excited to be here. Yes. Healthy so far. Touchwood. Just got back from Vegas on Saturday because my flight got delayed by the big storm and there was another storm coming in, so it's. It's all stormy on the East Coast.
- [01:32]
Micah Sargent
Oh, my goodness. Yeah. That I hadn't considered being at a conference and then having a delay must not be very fun at all.
- [01:41]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
No, yeah, I was. My flight got canceled, actually, from. I was supposed to leave Friday and then it was canceled. And so I actually got to go spend some more time on the show floor, which was kind of fun and actually stumbled across something very cool, which I hadn't told you about. So this is gonna be a surprise. On my last day, I found this. Ha ha ha. This is keyboard that works with matter.
- [02:07]
Micah Sargent
Oh, wow. Okay. We're gonna talk about that in a minute. That's. So. Yes. You went to ces, formerly the Consumer Electronics show, now just CES Artists, formerly known situation.
- [02:19]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yes.
- [02:20]
Micah Sargent
And every year there are lots and lots of products that are announced. Some of them are so many gadgets. Right. And some of them are just spaghetti projects. They may never see the light of day, but it seems like, um, this year we saw a lot in the Smart home that actually will be released. But you actually kind of have a theme of 2025. Why don't you tell us about that?
- [02:45]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah, so lots of stuff. Smart Home has become a huge show at CBS over the last three or four years. I would Say it's just increasingly got bigger and bigger in terms of the coverage of the smart home. I mean, traditionally, CES has been a television audio. TVs are still there, although much smaller representation. Auto is a big theme. Lots of cars. Again, not so many this year. And the smart home gradually has just been getting bigger and bigger. So it's a lot of fun for me. But this year there were two really dominant themes. But the one that I was most excited about was door locks, because I wrote a piece just before CES predicting that 2025 was going to be the year of the smart lock. And I'm so that made me happy. There were smart locks everywhere. You couldn't throw a cat without hitting smart locks. Not that I throw cats, but there were so many, so many, so many. It's. It was, it was kind of a little overwhelming. But this is because, and this was one of the reasons that I mentioned this in my piece. At the end of the year, there is a new standard coming for smart locks which is going to solve or augment one of the main purposes of smart locks, which is making it easier to get into your home not having to use a key. And this new standard is called a Lero. And it is basically going to make it so that it's easy to use any smartphone or wearable. So like smartwatch from any manufacturer to unlock any smart door that you are authorized to unlock, so you don't have to have an iPhone to use tap to unlock, which is the home key. The current way that a lot of smart locks work, if you buy the correct lock and have the right phone, is you can tap your phone to unlock it that uses nfc. But that is soon going to be coming to all smart lock like all smart lock manufacturers will be able to use NFC to work with any smartphone, not just iPhones. This is hopefully coming this year. It's also including something called UWB Ultra Wideband, which is a technology sure people are familiar with, which is currently used in locks for cars. So you can, if you have a newer car, you may have had this experience, Tesla's BMWs, where you walk up to your car with your phone and your car will automatically unlock. And this is, this is technology is coming to smart locks. Apple actually announced it would be supporting at WWC last year. So we've written, I've written about it quite a bit, but there hadn't been any locks that supported UWB yet. UWB is part of a lira. Olyero is coming this year. It hasn't arrived yet. But at CES we started to see several locks announced that they will support UWB and eventually Olyro when it arrives. And Olero is being developed by the lock manufacturers and the smartphone platforms.
- [05:51]
Micah Sargent
So that was going to be my question. They know I freak out when I hear about another standard because oftentimes it means we will never have one official thing and everybody's kind of competing. And so you hear about, oh, you know, because we've already got these other standards that have to do with the smart home. So now there's something called a Liro as well.
- [06:13]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
I know one more standard, but it.
- [06:15]
Micah Sargent
Sounds like it is something that is blessed by the big companies that are involved. Does it also. Is it also blessed by not just the lock manufacturers but the companies making devices like Apple, like Samsung, like Google? What is it working from that end as well?
- [06:36]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah, so Apple, Samsung, Google are all involved in developing Olero. Alira has actually been developed by the Connectivity Standards alliance, which is the group behind Matter. So it's the same crew and it's actually very simple. It's not the kind of whole smorgasbord like Matter is. This is a very simple device to device communication standard. Just making it clear that your smartphone can unlock your door using nfc, which is tap, or your watch, which is tap, or uwb, which is in theory completely touchless. So the idea of UWB is you can be walking towards your door and if you carry in an authorized device, your door will automatically unlock as you approach and it will do so based on how fast you're moving. So like if you're moving really fast, it'll unlock sooner. If you're just strolling, it'll, you know, it'll only unlock at a certain point, you know, as you get there. So there's no kind of latency or lag which is. And some people may say, well, I already have auto unlock on my smart lock. August Locks have supported this for many years and so have several other locks since August came out. But that technology is uses three different technologies. It's WI Fi, Bluetooth and geofencing. So GPS and it's very unreliable, Very, very, very reliable. Like I'll be lying in bed and my door unlocked because my be a little bit further outside of my, you know, outside of the range. I mean it's. I also have cellular service, I have bad GPS service in my house. UWB is device to device communication. Just you have to have the UWB chip in the lock and you have to have the UWB chip in your device, your phone or watch, and it knows which. It's about positioning. It has precise positioning to within like millimeters. So it knows which side of the door you're on. So it's not going to unlock as you approach your door from inside. It knows which direction you're mo. So it's not going to unlock when you walk past your door. It's only going to unlock as you walk towards your door. So it's addressing a lot of issues with the earlier implementation of this type of technology. And I just think it's going to make smart locks so much simpler for people and much more likely to drive adoption. Because right now I think that something like 10% of US population has smart door locks. And I think smart door locks are fantastic when they work. They can be a little tricky and fiddly and this is going to hopefully make them a lot easier to use. And hence why I think we're going to see a big up, uptick in popularity around smart locks. And we saw some great ones. Schlage has a new one that's got UWB sports Matter thread, NFC and it looks really cool. And Lockley not Lockly. So many, so many smart locks. Utech has released one that also works with uwb and I think we're going to see it from all the manufacturers in the next few months. So it's exciting times for the front door.
- [09:40]
Micah Sargent
It absolutely is. Yeah. I agree with you that once you have one and once you have one that works reliably, that the technology is very handy because there will be inevitably situations where you are looking to let someone into your home and you're not there or, you know, you need to. I mean, I've had a bunch of different situations like that and being able to just give temporary access or if I'm going to be away, right whenever the person is supposed to be coming that they can, can, you know, easily get inside, it's just very, very handy. And the more reliably this technology works, the more likely it is that people who otherwise would be opposed because it's simpler and less finicky to use a key in the lock, that means that they're more likely to hop on board. And that is really what pushes it forward, drives it forward and makes it more common. Now, smart locks, definitely the year of the smart lock, as you pointed out, particularly with this, these newer technologies. But that wasn't all you saw at ces. And you know, I'm starting to think that we Might just spend this first part of the show talking about your CES experience instead of doing my story of the week. Because there's a lot still.
- [11:00]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
There's a lot.
- [11:01]
Kaya Yurieff
I know.
- [11:01]
Micah Sargent
Yeah.
- [11:02]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
But yours is cool, too.
- [11:04]
Micah Sargent
Maybe we'll do a little brief mention at the end. Yeah. So in the next four minutes before we take a little break, I guess it's three minutes now. Tell us a little bit about. Because. Because we've got a robot that we're going to talk about and we've got a keyboard that we're going to want to hear about.
- [11:21]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
The keyboard.
- [11:22]
Micah Sargent
I. Yeah. Well, I think we should save those until after the break. I was hoping in these little few minutes we've got left for you as a smart home person, was everyone there talking about matter? And is, do you feel like we're now officially there when it comes to matter being a standard? And then I guess my last question for you would be, any new announcements on the front of new Matter supported devices that we can look forward to?
- [11:57]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So there was so matter kind of felt like it had moved from being the hot new thing to sort of being just the thing this year. So like most smart home companies, companies were saying, yeah, well, and this will work with matter. But they weren't like loudly proclaiming it. So it's almost like it's become. It's getting to that point, especially for the CES audience, where, you know, the manufacturers are incorporating it into their devices. I think the area I was most interested in were the new device types that had. We hadn't seen devices come coming from manufacturers. So we've got lights, locks, switches galore with matter. So that was. There were many more of those, but I wanted to see more around, like, energy management appliances. You know, these were the new device types announced last year that we haven't actually seen products yet. So there was the first matter smart fridge for the US that I got to go see, which was very exciting. I do get excited about home appliances.
- [12:57]
Micah Sargent
I know. I think they're cool. I think they're really cool.
- [12:59]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
They are. And we talked about this before, so we. We'd seen one at IFA that was for Europe and this was. This one is for America. And they're from the same companies from Bosch. Well, BSH in North America, which manufactures Bosch and Thermador. And in Europe, it's Siemens and Bosch. But it's the same company that developing. They're really pushing appliances in matter and they say they will have most of their appliances matter compatible in the next year. So not Existing ones. Unfortunately it has to be new products which is a shame. But yeah, so that it was good to see a few things like that. We saw the. One of the first home energy management systems that supports MATTER from ecoflow. So that was exciting. So you know that's, you know if you have a home battery backup and smart home panel that will control different devices in your home to manage the energy use so that you can, you know, reduce your use on when it's expensive, use battery backup, use battery power when you, you know, say your power's gone out, you want to balance your loads and that's now going to be. That's part of matter. That's cape can work with your matter platforms. Unfortunately none of those platforms, Apple Home, Google Home, Alexa really support this yet. So that's that stuff we're still waiting for. We are still waiting to see more of support from the platforms and we didn't get much news on that front other than Amazon is going to support fridges. They did say that was the only sort of small bit of news we got from the platforms. So that was. Yeah, there was some, there was some movement around matter but again it wasn't kind of like the big star of the show because it's or you know, it's become sort of. It feels like it's become the norm for a lot of smart home manufacturers and that's a good thing. We did get one other interesting piece of news which might be a bit weedsy but I people got excited. Was that MATTER certification for products now? Yes, if you go through Matter, if your product gets certified by Matter and you go through their what they're calling their interoperability lab where they test your device with all the ecosystems your device can get automatically certified with Apple Home, Amazon, Apple Home, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, not Amazon yet, but hopefully soon. So device manufacturers don't have to go to each company to get their certification for their works with badge and that should really help speed up development of more products in in matter. So that was exciting for manufacturers. Were excited about that.
- [15:36]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, I think that's really cool because it used to be very time consuming, difficult and time consuming, expensive and costly. Yeah, to be able to get all of those certifications and I think for simplicity for the user being able to. Because in fact just the other day my significant other was looking for a floor lamp that we wanted to put in our living room space and one that had, you know, different lighting options and you know, he was coming to me. Does this one work with Apple does this one, you know what I mean? And trying to figure out what did and what didn't. Because as it stands, many of them are not able to market that it works with Apple Home, but they are matter compatible because this is brand new and so soon they'll be able to. And that can be, you know, easy to understand. It was a, it was a Govee Light which I knew that through Matter it would work with Apple, Apple Home, but without that badge, he did not know.
- [16:37]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So yeah, and it is confusing because in theory the Matter badge should mean it works with everything, but people aren't used to that. People still, we've trained them for many years to look for that works with Apple, works with Google, works with Alexa badge. So I think those are going to stick around for a while. But this is like the first step towards those going away, I think, because what, you know, now it should be a lot easier for manufacturers to explain what they work with and eventually, you know, they'll be able to put the badges on without having to go through all the extra steps. But eventually I think the consumer consciousness, it'll come through that if it has this Matter badge, it works with everything. But it's going to take a while to take a few product cycles probably. But yeah, it's. This was good news for, for the manufacturers because I think that's been a. It's one thing I've heard a lot from manufacturers, is it expensive to develop a Matter product? And the CSA announced a few other things that are going to hopefully make it less expensive and quicker, which should mean we'll see a lot more devices coming out this year, next year that support Matter because the manufacturers are able to get through the process a lot quicker. So yay.
- [17:52]
Micah Sargent
All right, we need to take a quick little break before we come back with Jennifer Pattison 2. We have the Verge, who's freshly back from CES, but I need to take a moment to tell you about Delete Me, who are bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. I'm going to guess many of you have probably searched for your name online and when you did, you thought, oh, not, not too jazzed about how much of my information is actually available. You know, maintaining privacy, it's not just a personal concern. Type in a family member's name and you realize it is a family affair. With Delete Me's family plans, you can ensure that everyone in the family feels safe online. Delete Me helps reduce risk from identity theft, cybersecurity threats, harassment and more. I've used Delete me. And I have been impressed with Delete me's ability to remove information online that I don't want online, while keeping information online that I do that my professional, you know, the professional aspects of what I do are still available, but it's that personal information, who my family is, the places that I've lived, that kind of thing, that those things are removed from online, that's what makes this very good. And it, more importantly, helps keep me and my family safe, that they are not getting messages from people pretending to be me and walking them through the process of, you know, installing something on their computer, those kinds of things. Delete me. Experts will go find and remove your information from hundreds of data brokers. You can assign a unique data sheet to each family member that's tailored to them specifically. With easy to use controls, account owners can manage privacy settings for the whole family. And DeleteMe will continue to scan and remove your information regularly, including addresses, photos, emails, relatives, phone numbers, social media, property value, and more. You choose what you want removed. So protect yourself and reclaim your privacy by going to joindeleteme.com twit and using the code twit tw I t. That's join delete me.com/with the code twit for 20% off. And we thank Deleteme for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. All right, we are back from the break here on Tech News Weekly. And I am joined for this. The third week. Are we already. No, that can't be right. The second week, we are well into January, believe it or not. And we are joined by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, who is back from ces. And you have some pretty cool things that you saw. Some terrifying things as well, in my opinion. So you pick. What do you want to start with? The keyboards.
- [20:34]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So the, the robots with arms. Robots with arms, you know, buried the lead. I'm more excited about door locks, but everyone else was very excited about robots with arms. Robot vacuums. Sorry. With arms.
- [20:48]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, true.
- [20:48]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So, yes, specifically. Specifically robot vacuums with arms. So Roborock released its Saros Z70 or announced its Saros Z70, which it says is coming to market in the next few months. So this is not a concept product which has. Yeah, that's the life. That's not the life size version. That's a blown up version that was hanging on the CES show floor. They had a giant version of this robot vacuum hanging on over their booth. But it is. It's basically a mechanical arm. They call it the OmniGrip that will come out from the. It comes out from the body of the robot and can pick up things like socks and light sandals and tissues. And there was something else.
- [21:36]
Micah Sargent
There were all things they throw on the ground.
- [21:38]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yes, things. Things that you know, often, actually if you run robot vacuums in your house, those are the kind of things that quite often it will suck up. Even with the like AI Obstacle avoidance. Like a tissue is kind of hard for it to. To see and they get gummed up in the. Anyway, the idea is it's going to clean up for you, which is exciting. Minimal cleanup to start with. Very slow watching it go and pick up the sock and then take it to the basket. But it will put it away for you. So you tell it where to put what it picks up. And so it can like move all your socks to one spot. And then Dreamy, who's roborock's main competitor, debuted at the same show. It's concept vacuum, which has an arm and legs.
- [22:25]
Micah Sargent
Whoa, legs.
- [22:27]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
What does it do with its legs? I know, I know. I mean, the legs, maybe I'm over egging it a little bit, but they're little kind of levers that it can use to get up over a step and push itself over so they can climb steps one step at a time. So, yeah, they're basically growing appendages, but all in the quest of being able to better navigate around your home. So if you have a room, a large room transition, you may have found that you haven't been able to get your robot vacuum to clean your whole house. I, for example, have a high transition into one of my bathrooms, so the robot could never get in there. And this helps them get over one step or a high transition. And then the arm helps them pick up things. The dreamy arm says it will pick up larger items, so it can pick up pickups, even a shoe, which I think would be more useful.
- [23:21]
Micah Sargent
But also then I'm worried I'm going to come home and it's trying to pick up my dog. And the dog is very.
- [23:27]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
So it has a camera in it. So the arms have a camera in so they can see what they're trying to pick up. And they're obviously using machine learning to specifically.
- [23:34]
Micah Sargent
Which always works, right?
- [23:36]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Always works. I did ask a number of times. I'm like, what if it picked up something it shouldn't? And they both companies were very insistent that they're very carefully trained to only pick up what they should. And in fact, so carefully trained that they're more likely to not pick up what they should than they are to pick up what they shouldn't, which is good.
- [23:59]
Micah Sargent
That's what I would prefer for sure. So if you have slippers that look like cats, it's probably not going to pick up that slipper.
- [24:05]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
It might not pick up that slipper. Right, exactly. And then the dreamy one also, you can. Can designate different areas. So like, you can say, okay, if you find shoes, go put them by the front door. If you find cat toys, go put them by the cat bed. So that was kind of fun. And then one thing that I thought might be useful, I mean, so this is basically coming to the point where the robot is becoming more than just a vacuum. It's also tidying up for you. And you can program or this feature will be coming soon to the Sarah Cross Z70, which is a Roborock one. You'll be able to program its machine learning. So, for example, you can tell it to learn about your favorite. Your daughter's favorite teddy bear, or you can learn it your purse, or you could learn your wallet. And then you can say, robot, where did I leave my teddy bear?
- [24:56]
Micah Sargent
And it's like, well, when I was cleaning up, I saw it under the bed.
- [25:01]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yes. And then eventually you could see it getting to the point where when it finds this item, it knows where to go put it away for you. Which is, you know, this is Rosie the Robot.
- [25:11]
Micah Sargent
It is. We are getting there. I had a question about the one with legs. Can it use the arm in concert with the legs to. No, it's just the legs, because I was. The transitions are still not. It's not. I'm thinking about in my house where there's a side door, and when you walk into the side door, it's up some stairs. You walk into the side door a little bit and there's a landing, and then you walk up a step and up a step to get into the kitchen area, which is kind of raised. And the rest of the house is on that level. And so when the robot vacuum that's on the main floor goes around, it sweeps everything except for that entryway. And that entryway is a place where the most dust and stuff collects. And so being able, I thought about it going to down the stairs, but I don't think it would be able to with just its little lever legs because the stairs aren't long enough, aren't, you know, stick out far enough.
- [26:10]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
It would need to be the length at least of the robot for it to. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [26:14]
Micah Sargent
Maybe if it was a Little mini robot. Then it could. I've seen a few companies with those.
- [26:18]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Little tiny, really small ones. Yeah, switchbot has that. They have a tiny one. And they actually came out with basically like a Rosie the Robot, like a modular robot vacuum platform that you can put different appliances on. You can actually even 3D print different attachments. So you could put whatever you want on this platform that it could then move around your house for you and bring to you whenever you want. And it's got power data.
- [26:42]
Micah Sargent
You can put a ghost on it.
- [26:43]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah. And then they said that one's going to have an arm soon too. So it was all about the robot vacuums with arms. It was, it was. It was definitely a big, big part of the show. And this stuff is coming like this. Like you said at the beginning of the show, this is all product that is coming this year. So we're definitely legitimate. Yeah, we're going to be seeing this. And then speaking of legitimate, not vaporware, because I did tease this and I should, I should tell everyone about my keyboard really quickly, which lights up, by.
- [27:12]
Micah Sargent
The way, for the listeners who see.
- [27:15]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yes, it's got color rgb. It's the whole game, a keyboard thing. But it's a matter button. I mean, it's ingenious. It was ingenious. It's by a company called Third Reality. And when they. They were showing at the booth, they do all sorts of things. Sensors. They mainly work with Zigbee and Thread. But this has a matter WI FI chip built in. So it doesn't actually even have to be connected to a computer. It just has to have power. And the function keys are each individual matter buttons, which means you could program them to control anything in your smart home. So that was matter related. So a scene like you're sitting down at your desk and you want to start your off office scene where you turn on your lights or maybe start your coffee maker or get the AC going or open the blinds. You could just hit function F1 and run your scene.
- [28:04]
Micah Sargent
I love it.
- [28:04]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
It's like. Was it the steam? The stream.
- [28:07]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, the stream deck.
- [28:09]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
But yeah. But for smart home built in.
- [28:11]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, into the. Because that's what. Right now I have this little waymo.
- [28:18]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Oh, right, the button.
- [28:20]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, yeah. And so I use that to turn on and off my studio lights. Technically what actually have. It's just not set up right now because I just recently did a paint job. Here is a.
- [28:29]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
That looks very nice.
- [28:31]
Micah Sargent
Thank you. Is an Aqara presence sensor that uses the like radar. And that thing is Amazing. I love that thing so much. It works so well.
- [28:41]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Oh, the millimeter wave sensor. Yeah, the. Just came out with a new one with. That's battery powered.
- [28:46]
Micah Sargent
Oh, it's battery. I did not realize it was battery powered. That's cool, too, because. Yeah, the long wire is kind of annoying, but. Yeah. These different methods of being able to, you know, sort of tell your home to do different things is really nice, but it's like I have to remember whenever I'm using the physical stuff to sort of build it into my muscle memory. And I'm so used to using my keyboard that I could really see my keyboard being that tool.
- [29:14]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah.
- [29:15]
Micah Sargent
More than anything else. Yeah. Because there are so many other ways to do it. Right. So then in the moment, I'm going, now, do I want to open up the home app on my Mac? Do I want to hit this button? Do I want. You know what I mean? And so if it was on my keyboard, then that makes the most sense to me. So I think that's a pretty cool device. Do we expect to see more of these just Matter controllers? And I think this will have to be our last question.
- [29:36]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah. Oh, because there's a lot of those. There were a lot at ces, that was. The other big trend was I was expecting to see more than I did. But Acara and Shelly both came out with new control panels, touchscreen control panels that you can wire into like an existing switch. So, like Brilliant used to do, if you remember the Brilliant control panels rest in peace. Well, they're still around.
- [30:00]
Micah Sargent
They're sort of around.
- [30:00]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Yeah. More commercial. Right. But touchscreen interaction for controlling smart home devices, they mainly work at launch with Acara or Shelley devices, but they do have matter compatibility for buttons. So if you. You can program anything to work that works through matter to work with the button on the control panels, but they also work as intercom for, say, like a video draw doorbell. Like if you have an Acara video doorbell, it will pull up and show you who's at your door and you can talk to them. So. And because of matter, you can expand an interface like this, which is useful because otherwise you're limited to your ecosystem that you bought it in. But matter is helping make it so that you can bring in more devices, which is what both Acara and I believe Shelley are going to do. The products are coming out later this year, Europe and in the US and this kind of interface is key, I think, in the smart home like, because it's much more intuitive for people who aren't, you know, a button like you have on your desk is great, but if someone walks up to your desk, they're like, I don't know, how do I do? What's it going to do? Whereas a touchscreen control panel with a little shade. Oh, well, this must open the shades. It makes it so much more intuitive. So I'm excited that we're seeing more of these interfaces, which is, you know, largely because of the interoperability that that matter is bringing.
- [31:21]
Micah Sargent
So it's real, it's finally here. Remember talking about it so long ago, like it's going to change things. It will actually. And it's, it's, it's coming soon.
- [31:30]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
It's getting there.
- [31:31]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, we're exactly, we're getting there.
- [31:33]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
And the very last thing, because I know I've told, I've got, I've taken way too much time. But Google Home is now fully matter supported in through the home hubs. So you're going to have local control from your Google Home hubs, which is something that I think a lot of people have been looking forward to. So yeah, that should make things faster and much less latency and more responsive in your home. So Matt's matter too. So yay matter.
- [32:00]
Micah Sargent
Yay matter. Jennifer Pattison, Tui I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today post ces. It's always a pleasure to have you on the show and get to nerd out about smart home stuff when we do. If people are looking to follow what you do online, where should they go to do so?
- [32:16]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
TheVerge.com is the best place to find me. I have my author page there with all my articles and links to everything that I do on the web. So yeah, check me out there. Marthome Mama threads too.
- [32:28]
Micah Sargent
Beautiful. Thanks so much and we'll see you soon.
- [32:30]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Bye. Thanks.
- [32:32]
Micah Sargent
Alrighty folks, we're going to take a quick break before we come back with my first interview. I want to tell you a little bit about Veeam, who are bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Honestly, without your data, your customers trust will turn to digital dust. That is why Veeam's data protection and ransomware recovery ensures that you can secure and restore your enterprise data wherever and whenever you need it, no matter what happens. As the number one global market leader in data resilience, Veeam is trusted by more than 77% of the Fortune 500. That's mind blowing to keep their businesses running when digital disruptions like ransomware strike. That's because Veeam lets you back up and recover your data instantly across your entire cloud ecosystem. Proactively detect malicious activity, remove the guesswork by automating your recovery plans and policies, and get real time support from ransomware recovery experts. Data is the lifeblood of your business. So get Data Resilient with veeam. Go to veeam.com that's V E-E-A-M.com to learn more. And we thank Veeam for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. All right, we are back from the break and I am excited to talk to our next guest who is here to give us an update on where things stand when it comes to TikTok. From the information, it's Kaya Yuriev. Welcome to the show, Kaya.
- [34:00]
Ben Wilson
Thank you so much for having me.
- [34:02]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you here. I was hoping that you could kind of start by giving the listeners a bit of a refresher on the current state of the TikTok tok ban. You know, why is the app facing a ban in the US and for how long has this whole thing been underway?
- [34:17]
Ben Wilson
Yes, I mean, it's crazy. I've been covering the story for four years, so this is really the crunch time of the story. But the app is facing a ban due to national security concerns. So the worry from lawmakers is that TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, could put sensitive user data into the hands of the Chinese government. So location data, you know, information about American users. And there's also concern that China could use TikTok to spread misinformation or manipulate American users. I think what the magic of TikTok has been is that you open the app and it just serves you a feed of videos that it thinks you will like. And it's really a passive experience where you're not really following creators. So there is this concern that because of the way TikTok is structured, it would be very easily easy to manipulate the recommendations. You know, TikTok has long denied allegations that China can access the data or that it's ever, you know, use TikTok in this manner. But the concern is there and the potential for that is there. So this all really goes back to 2020, when Donald Trump was in his first presidency and he tried, he kicked all this off by trying to ban it through an executive order in 2020. Then you fast forward, it goes sort of through the courts. Biden gets elected, he revokes that executive order, but he signs a new order requiring the Commerce Department to review foreign owned apps that pose security risks. So even with the presidential transition, TikTok was always, you know, this threat was always hanging over them. But then you fast forward to March of this year and there is a very popular bill that basically requires TikTok to divest from ByteDance or face a ban. And that passes, you know, with widespread bipartisan support. And Biden signed it into law in April and the deadline is Sunday now.
- [36:00]
Micah Sargent
Wow. See, thank you so much for providing that because it is, it was a multi year, multi presidency situation. And the way that it changed from piece to piece from starting out as an executive order to going to, you know, the Commerce Department looking into it, there's been a lot and there's been a lot of conversation around sort of the reasons behind why it's taking place and the national security concerns. So it's really good, I think, to have that. Now part of this of course, was the opportunity for TikTok to divest its, its U.S. portion of the company. I know that this wasn't part of the original question, but I guess I'm just kind of did the tick tock give that the old college try? Did it try. Did bytedance rather look at all into selling it? Was that any part of this process over the last four or five years?
- [37:00]
Ben Wilson
So ByteDance has been very resistant to sell and throughout this process they publicly said that, that they are not interested in selling TikTok. China has very strict export laws which would require Beijing to sign off on any sort of acquisition because of TikTok's powerful recommendation algorithm. So it's always felt like a sale has been sort of a non starter. Even in 2020 we saw, you know, Oracle, Walmart, all these companies try to make an investment in TikTok to sort of change the ownership structure. You know, Walmart was going to acquire them at one point in 2020, but you really have not heard much about a sale throughout this process. So it hasn't seemed like it's been on the table at all or something. ByteDance has considered.
- [37:42]
Micah Sargent
Got it. Now you have reported that TikTok is looking at planning to shut down the app. I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about that and how that differs from what the law technically requires and the implication for existing users who already have the app installed on their device.
- [38:06]
Ben Wilson
Yes, I think the assumption everyone had was that existing users would still be able to access TikTok after the deadline and that slowly basically TikTok would be prevented from shipping updates, security features, and that eventually the app would sort of be rendered useless. But what we reported on Tuesday is that TikTok is actually planning to shut off the app. So the plan is on Sunday, you know, barring any sort of government intervention from the Supreme Court or, or Biden, which is very. Looking very unlikely at this point, existing users will open TikTok's app and see a pop up that will direct them to a website with information about the ban. So they will not actually be able to scroll TikTok, they will not be able to see their profile, they will not be able to watch videos. So that's very different from what people were expecting. But the law actually requires TikTok service providers to cut off service. So that doesn't just include the app stores, but also cloud providers like Oracle. So my understanding is that TikTok is deciding to shut down to protect those service providers from legal liability. So. But it will also have, you know, the immediate effect of angering TikTok's user base all at once and really bringing the reality of, of the band home instead of this sort of slow burn of the app becoming, you know, nonfunctional over time.
- [39:21]
Micah Sargent
Absolutely. What steps do we know has TikTok taken to prepare for the shutdown? And I think more importantly, it's got us employees, it's got us users. I remember, remember when the company put out a notification letting people know that the, the shutdown was imminent and it really seemed to spark some activity on the platform. Are we looking at the same situation this time? And maybe you could talk a little bit about the way that the platform itself, the people on the platform have looked at alternatives to TikTok should the ban come through.
- [40:02]
Ben Wilson
Yeah, so before the bill passed, they really tried to energize the user base. They sent push notifications to TikTok users actually in very specific parts of the country to try to flip senators and House members. So that was before the bill even passed. But it's been really interesting because we've been reporting on this story for months and it's been fascinating to see TikTok actually just totally operate business as usual. They have been very focused on the legal fight and challenging the law. And they've said, you know, that they feel very confident. They know this will go to the Supreme Court. You know, now that the Supreme Court oral arguments happened, you're not hearing as much kind of confidence from TikTok. But, you know, as recently as earlier this month, you know, TikTok sent executives to CES, the major tech conference in Las Vegas. They gave a panel on 2025 trends, they were talking about the impact of, of TikTok. So you wouldn't, if you were sitting in that room, you would not think the app is getting banned. So they have really been pushing ahead. They've been shipping features. They were pushing TikTok shop during the holiday season. So. So they really have almost been like, ignoring the reality of the ban. I mean, obviously their legal team is working on it, but for the rank and file employees, I mean, they were still, you know, forging ahead on their goals and shipping features. But this week, employees finally heard internally from the company. They sent a memo to staff indicating that their jobs would be safe. The law doesn't require the company to shut its offices in the U.S. so they said, you know, know, they indicated their jobs would be safe, but at the same time, you know, longer term you could expect layoffs. But I think they are still hoping that they could broker some sort of deal with the, with the Trump administration. But for now, they sort of reassured employees that there would be no change to their benefits and roles and their offices would continue operating next week.
- [41:46]
Micah Sargent
Interesting. Now, you talked a little bit about kind of the history of things and how TikTok has and ByteDance have moved through this process. What did the company argue at the recent Supreme Court hearing? And why is it that the company believes this ban violates the First Amendment? I know this is a really complicated question, and so I'm telling everyone out there we're not going to go into the pedantry area. Listeners, thank you. You're giving us a brief kind of broad overview of their argument, of its argument, and not, of course, personal opinions being involved here. So, yeah, I need those grounds.
- [42:31]
Ben Wilson
I'm not a lawyer also, I will preface that. But I have spent a lot of time over the past few months speaking to lawyers and legal experts. I was actually at the Supreme Court. I was in the room for the oral arguments. So I got to hear them live. I was there, but, you know, and I was at the oral arguments in the appeals court as well. They lost in the appeals court. And it was a very similar message from TikTok's lawyers. They have a parallel, parallel suit actually from both TikTok and creators of TikTok. So they have, you know, those two suits that have a very similar message of, you know, TikTok is a U.S. company operating in the U.S. so it should have First Amendment protections. And for the TikTok creator suit, they're saying that creators should have the right to publish on the platform of their Choice. And they tried to make this argument of like, Spotify is a Swedish company, but artists who are American can publish on that platform. It was interesting in the previous oral arguments with the appeals court, the judges were really not having that argument and were like, yeah, but Sweden is not an adversary of the US in the same way that China is. Right. So they didn't really like that Spotify comparison. You didn't hear that level of skepticism from the Supreme Court justices, but there was a lot of skepticism about the freedom of speech piece because the justices were sort of signaling, yes, but you have an option to keep TikTok alive. You're just choosing not. Not to sell it. So that's sort of where the justices, you could see there was some skepticism there. But, you know, they emphasize, you know, TikTok has 170 million U.S. users. You're stifling their freedom of expression. Other platforms are not the same as TikTok. And, and basically saying that, you know, American users and creators and businesses should have the right to post on TikTok.
- [44:11]
Micah Sargent
Understood. Now, I was hoping that to kind of round things out, you could help outline the potential paths forward for TikTok, including the possibility of a sale or other ways that the company could comply with the law or maybe the law could be affected itself.
- [44:34]
Ben Wilson
Yes. So, you know, like I said, I think a sale is very unlikely. You know, bytedance has really said that throughout this process that they're not going to sell. You know, there is the question of Trump.
- [44:45]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
Right.
- [44:45]
Ben Wilson
He will take office a day after the deadline. There was reporting yesterday from the Washington Post that he is mulling, you know, options to save the app, including an executive order once he's president, that would suspend the enforcement of the ban for 60 to 90 days. I mean, that is, I think, quite unlikely. I mean, the precedent that would set is that any president can come in and just knock out any law they don't agree with. Right. So it's not likely to pass muster is sort of what legal experts have said. But, you know, there's also this possibility that Trump could, you know, tell his new attorney general to not enforce the law, but that really is up to the service providers. Are Apple, Google, and Oracle going to risk these hefty, hefty fines? Like, what assurances are they going to need from the Trump administration to feel comfortable doing that? Because they're still breaking a law. It is a law. There could be concerns from their general counsel that they could retroactively be fined. I mean, these are enormous, enormous fines for anyone downloading to TikTok that the companies have to incur. Again, TikTok is not incurring this. It's their service providers. So I think the piece of the bill that gives the most wiggle room is actually the piece on the qualified divestiture. So everyone has been focusing sort of on this 90 day extension which the President has the ability to give. But what's interesting is the 90 day extension actually has much stricter language that they have to really prove that a divestiture is in progress and that includes legal, binding legal documents like, and again, like a sale. There's no evidence that there's any sort of sale happening. And for that to happen, you know, between now and Sunday just seems crazy. But. So an extension actually has a very big barrier for, for a president unless there's actually a sale happening. But the piece on the actual qualified divestiture actually gives a lot more wiggle room to the President, which at the time will be Trump now to sort of give the President a lot of discretion to prove something like that has occurred. So there is some gray area in the law. Perhaps Trump and TikTok will be able to broker some sort of agreement. But it's interesting that even Trump is trying to mull what he can do because he's indicated that he wants to save the app. So there are some paths. I mean, the easiest one is for them to sell high level. But the lawyer during the oral arguments explained how complicated that is because it's ByteDance technology, they have global engineers, it's very hard to just cut TikTok off from the rest of their global oper. So he was saying the complexity of the sale is very complicated but high level. If you think about it, they could sell and avoid a bear, but that's not the likely path.
- [47:25]
Micah Sargent
Wow. There's so much that's involved with this and we're going to continue, of course, seeing how this all plays out. I'm sure you have been keeping an eye on everything as you're pulling everything apart and understanding it. I want to thank you so much for taking time to join us today to give us the this, this overview. If people would like to follow along with the work that you're doing in regard to this and other things, where is a good place for them to go to do that?
- [47:50]
Ben Wilson
Yes, they can follow me on X on LinkedIn and I have a newsletter as well called Creator Economy which is available on the information.com awesome.
- [47:58]
Micah Sargent
Thank you so much for taking the time today to join us. We really appreciate it.
- [48:01]
Ben Wilson
Thanks for having me.
- [48:03]
Micah Sargent
All righty, folks, we're going to take another quick break. Before we come back with our final interview of the show, I want to tell you about Z SC Zscaler, who are bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Zscaler is the leader in cloud security. Enterprises have spent billions with a B of dollars on firewalls and VPNs, but breaches continue to rise. In fact, they rise by an 18% year over year increase in ransomware attacks and a $75 million record payout in 2024. These traditional security tools, the firewalls, the VPNs, expand your attack surface with public facing IPs that are exploited by bad actors more easily than ever because of the use of AI tools. And they struggle to inspect encrypted traffic at scale, allowing compromise VPNs and firewalls. They also enable lateral movement by connecting users to the entire network. That allows data loss via encrypted traffic and attacks other leakage paths. Hackers exploit traditional security infrastructure using AI to outpace your defenses. So it's time to rethink your security. Don't let bad actors win. They are innovating and exploiting your defenses. Zscaler Zero Trust +AI stops attackers by hiding your attack surface, making apps and IPs invisible, eliminating lateral movement. Connecting users only to specific apps so they don't have access to the entire network. Continuous verification of every request based on identity and context. Simplifying security management with AI powered automation and detecting threats using AI to analyze more than 500 billion daily transactions. Hackers, they can't attack what they can't see. So protect your organization with Zscaler Zero Trust and AI. Learn more@Zscaler.com Security that's Zscaler.com Security and we are back from the break, which means it's time for our next topic. And this one is a really important one because the moment I heard about this news, I thought of all of the people out there who would start going, oh no. For some reason we always use dentist's office as the sort of area where they don't update to the latest versions of operating system. And so I guess I was thinking about all of the dental health professionals out there when I reached out to windowscentral.com and the delightful Ben Wilson decided to join us today. Welcome to the show, Ben.
- [50:40]
Kaya Yurieff
Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
- [50:42]
Micah Sargent
Absolutely. So to get into it, Microsoft recently announced it will no longer support Office apps on Windows 10 after October 14th of this year. Year can you kind of walk us through the key details of this decision and what it actually means for users.
- [51:01]
Kaya Yurieff
Yeah, sure. It was particularly intense news for some people when it first broke. Like you say, doctor's office is a nice connection because it seemed to imply that on the on the day of Windows 10's death, that Microsoft 365, if you have a subscription, will just stop working and that's it. But Microsoft did follow up with some notes after they were pushed by a lot more than one publication, put it that way, to clarify that it's not exactly the case and that support will end as part of its modern lifecycle policy. So essentially there's no more bug patches, no more security fixes for exploits. No or anything like that. So you can in theory keep using the app, but it will be on an unsupported Windows 10.
- [51:47]
Micah Sargent
Understood. That is good clarity and the little sound bite we definitely need to help people not panic. This announcement does coincide with the end of Support for Windows 10 itself. How are the two connected? And why is Microsoft pushing users to Upgrade to Windows 11 if they feel like Windows 10 is just fine?
- [52:10]
Kaya Yurieff
Yeah, sure. So once we're past that end of life state for Windows 10, there will still be Microsoft 365 developers on the team adding new features and functions and tools, just everything to the suite over time. So realistically I don't think they'll be able, or maybe they won't be allowed to prioritize testing on both versions of Windows, to be honest. Which feels potentially like it might be one of the biggest driving factors for Microsoft to just cut down down on what they might consider unnecessary efforts and maintaining stability on what it will consider a dead operating system. There's, you know, a lot of cost cutting measures and things like that. It just can't run both at the same time though I understand it from the perspective like you say, some people that panicked as somebody, if I'm honest, who skipped vista and skipped 8. No shade to Vista and 8 fans. But I get it it that there has often been a jump of two windows at a time and that's just not the case this time.
- [53:12]
Micah Sargent
Understood. Now, as you mentioned, Microsoft went on to clarify that Office apps will continue to function on Windows 10 after support ends, but warned about potential performance and reliability issues. Can you talk about what this actually means for users who choose not to upgrade? What are the potential performance and reliability issues they'll experience?
- [53:30]
Kaya Yurieff
Yeah, it's a deliciously vague quote, right? Performance and reliability issues. That's just what you tell anybody oh, you don't want to keep this computer. The performance might fail. Like why. So if somebody chose not to upgrade and maybe they paid, there's a fee for extended support if they stayed in a secure environment, as far as the operating system, as far as Windows 10 is concerned, but they were only sticking around for this unit. Unsupported build this now unsupported build of Microsoft 365. There might be system updates from Windows 10 protecting them against like malicious code and things like that, but there won't be any guarantee that a serious exploit in Microsoft 365 would ever be fixed. And it would probably just stay that way unless there was a serious, I'm talking crowdstrike level fuss, they just wouldn't fix it. It's, it's too bad. But on the other hand, if somebody stays on Windows 10 and doesn't pay anything and just gives up on updates entirely, it is just going to become increasingly risky, especially if you're using Office for anything with remotely sensitive information. It's. For me, it's more about the risk of security than it is. The app might crash like apps crash anyway, but it's a security thing to me.
- [54:50]
Micah Sargent
Understood. Now here's the rub, so to speak, with this transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11. It's not just a button I can press on my machine to Update to Windows 11. In every case, strict hardware requirements are involved that people argue are involved with the limited roll up to Windows 11. Does the company have any plans to address these barriers for users who have older machines that run Windows 10 but won't run Windows 11? Or is it just kind of like a shruggy emoticon and just, you know, good luck.
- [55:31]
Kaya Yurieff
Yeah, that, that's the big one. And it, it's fair to a degree with the TPM requirement like I get it. So, so Office, this is and has been for a long time available through a browser, just any browser. And most of the apps work practically the same way with a few exceptions. Right. Like maybe like the complete toolset isn't on the web. But I think generally the primary recommendation for regular people from Microsoft is going to be to use the browser. And that might not apply to Enterprise. A lot of people forget how, how incredibly massive Enterprise is. They think it's my PC and it's my thing. But Enterprise is one of, probably one of the biggest Windows 10 users, right, who have very old hardware. But if you have a hardware that's so old that it doesn't have a TPM chip, then you've probably passed your cycle anyway. So it's, it's a, it's a tough one. But there is a gray area where you can bypass tpm. But to me that does encroach on that same thing of are you just putting security at risk? And just because you can doesn't mean I'm going to say you should. I'd send you down a different route, but yeah, it's going to be office through the browser. That's where they'll send people. If you stay on Windows 10 and you pay for the extended support, they'll just send you to the browser.
- [56:55]
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- [58:24]
Micah Sargent
It's good to know that you know the browser is an option. In that case, Microsoft mentioned extended security updates for Windows 10 at a cost. If someone were to hear about that and be interested, can you talk about how those updates work and who might actually benefit from that specific option.
- [58:44]
Kaya Yurieff
Yeah, so it's a $30 fee for one more year essentially for a consumer machine, it's one extra year and it's extended support for Windows 10 as an operating system like I said. So it's. That will be the absolute dead end though for its plans. Once you get to the end of that year, it's over. So that year would basically be used to prep whatever you haven't been prepping for already. So even if you did stick with 365 on a browser or if you maybe you went to an open source alternative because there are alternatives to Office obviously, but you'll still be running the risk of an unsupported operating system that will just get worse over time. So it'd be likely somebody who was sticking around because maybe they have an app that's stable on Windows 10 but not an 11, which isn't impossible. Like a lot of users will hear that and go it's essentially the same operating system. You don't get different exe, you don't get different installers. Like no, but they are slightly different. And while you'll have a compatibility Mode on Windows 11 like we have had for every operating system from, from Microsoft basically forever, it doesn't guarantee that it's going to work. So you're kind of buying yourself about 12 months to either figure out a compatibility solution or a replacement. So long term, long term service builds have been around for a while and they are, they're for dentist offices. That's what that's for. That's why you'll see them, they'll be extended. I think they're extended for five years. But that is because, because it runs the dentist app and that's it.
- [60:18]
Micah Sargent
Right.
- [60:18]
Kaya Yurieff
Like it, it doesn't have paint or anything to the end of it. So that's like kind of a separate thing. But I can't imagine a scenario even in those weird, even even really small maybe charity fed businesses that really rely on this. They, they're going to have to get to the end of that cycle and replace it because it's beyond a 10 year cycle plus a 5 year cycle. It's mostly people that are holding out for maybe an obscure app that's just not functional, which I can understand. I haven't heard of a lot of examples but I know they're out there.
- [60:52]
Micah Sargent
Lastly, a question for Microsoft. Broadly, Microsoft's use of Mehdi dubbed 2025 the year of the Windows 11 PC refresh. So what strategies is Microsoft using to Encourage users to upgrade, grade and yeah, how effective do you think they are or will be?
- [61:16]
Kaya Yurieff
One strategy is killing Windows 10. But you know, that's a strategy. But I mean it's impossible to ignore. I don't have to tell anybody here how much Microsoft is all in on artificial intelligence. Right. On AI. AI is synonymous with everything they're doing, particularly Microsoft 365 actually today or yesterday. Microsoft 365 with Copilot is an excellent brand, but it's Copilot and everything. There's Copilot plus PCs, the range of laptops that are AI certified. And even at Windows Central most of us like to speculate about Windows 12. Right. Even though Windows 10 was supposed to be the last version of Windows, there's now maybe going to be Windows 12 that will be heavily integrated with a AI and using things like the NPUs, the Neural Processing Units for local AI stuff. It's all about AI basically. It's all going to be AI. You'll have seen it, we've all seen it. And I think that's probably what's bothering a lot of Windows 10 holdouts. At least if you go on social media and read the comments, they just don't want AI in the os. I see one comment, I see a lot is, is the OS should stay out of my way. But AI is not going to go away. But there's a lot of misconceptions about AI. There's a lot more that it can do behind the scenes. It's not all image generation with extra fingers. You know, there's, there's a lot more to it than that. But yeah, I like, I get it. As somebody that doesn't like change on the best of times, I joke with myself that I would, I'd still use Windows XP if I could, but no, no I wouldn't. If you installed Windows xp on my PC I'd be sick of it in 30 minutes, you know. Yeah, it's, it's all going to go AI and these older machines just, they just not going to have the hardware to do it. It's going to kind of be, I mean a 10 year cycle is pretty fair and it's going to get beyond that.
- [63:14]
Micah Sargent
I agree, I agree. I think that is a pretty fair cycle. Ben, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today to calm everyone's nerves a little bit and help everybody can understand where things stand and where they're going. Of course people can head to windows central.com to check out the work you're doing. Is there anywhere else they should go to follow along with what you're up to?
- [63:33]
Kaya Yurieff
Who? That's an interesting subject. At the moment, social media is kind of up in arms. I wouldn't say follow me on TikTok, put it that way. Pretty much at the minute I'm only using Blue sky and that's about it. There's not a lot else that's kind of catching my. They're not very appealing right now. But Windows Central. Go to Windows Central. That's. I'm doing everything.
- [63:56]
Micah Sargent
That's good. Thank you so much for your time.
- [63:59]
Kaya Yurieff
All right, thanks for having me. See you later.
- [64:01]
Micah Sargent
Bye bye. Alrighty, folks, we have reached the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. The show publishes every Thursday at Twitter TV tnw. That is where you can go to subscribe to the show in audio and video formats. If you would like to get all of our shows ad free, well, we've got a way to do that.
- [64:18]
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy
That.
- [64:18]
Micah Sargent
It's called Club Twit. Have you heard of it? For just $7 a month, you out there can join the club at Twit TV Club Twit. And for a limited time we are still running our free two weeks of Club Twit promo. So if you would like to give it a go, that is still on the table. When you join Club Twit, you get some pretty cool benefits. You get access to every single one of our shows ad free. Just the content. You gain access to the Twit plus bonus feed. That is extra stuff you won't find anywhere else. You also gain access to the members only Discord Server, a fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club Twit members and those of us here at Twit and access to the video versions of our Club Twit exclusive shows like Hands on Mac and iOS today and hands On Windows and so many more. So be sure to join the club. And I remind those of you who are watching live who are members of Club TWiT. TWiT TV Club TWiT referral is where you should head because you can earn months of Club Twit free when you refer your friends, your family and your enemies, whomever it happens to be. If you would like to follow me online, I'm ichasargent on many a social media network. Or you can head to Chihuahua Coffee. That's C H I H U A H u a coffee where I've got act, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online Be sure to check out iOS today and hands On On Mac, which we'll publish later today. And tune in on Sunday to watch Hands On Tech. And before I go, I want to remind you to fill out the survey. The CL or not the Club Twitch survey, but the Twit survey at TWiT TV survey 25. Filling out that survey is very helpful. I promise it won't take that long. We all had to kind of go through it to test it to make sure, and it doesn't take very long to get through. But in filling out the survey, you are kind of helping us better understand who you are, who our audience is. And I say who you are as the sort of royal you, not you in particular, but the group. Right. And so a little bit of information will go a long way in helping us better understand our audience and also make sure that we are linking up the right sponsors with you all. So please head to Twitter TV Survey25 to participate. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll catch you again next week for another episode of Tech News Weekly.
- [66:44]
G
Bye bye.
- [66:56]
F
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- [67:17]
G
Virtual prepaid card allow 15 days qualifying unlock device credit service port in 90 plus days with device into eligible carrier and timely redemption required card has no cash access and expires in six months.
- [67:26]
H
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