WW 916: ¡Agua Gigante! - OpenAI, Stargate Project, 24H2 Preview

Summary

Windows Weekly Episode WW 916: “¡Agua Gigante! - OpenAI, Stargate Project, 24H2 Preview”

Release Date: January 22, 2025

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1. Introduction

In Episode WW 916 of Windows Weekly, host Leo Laporte is joined by veteran Microsoft insiders Paul Thurrott and Richard Campbell from their sunny base in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Despite the relaxed setting, the trio dives deep into significant developments within Microsoft and the broader technology landscape, focusing on artificial intelligence (AI), Windows updates, PC market trends, and the latest Xbox offerings.

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2. AI Developments at Microsoft and Google

The episode opens with a comprehensive discussion on the rapid expansion of AI in both consumer and business sectors. Paul Thurrott emphasizes the convergence of Microsoft and Google in their AI strategies, noting how both giants are mirroring each other's moves in integrating AI into their core products.

Paul Thurrott (02:14):

"Google as it does, has been copying the market leader like they do in mobile in this case Microsoft... essentially you get the same thing Gemini advanced for as a consumer with the Gmail account, 2 TB of storage, etc."

3. Microsoft 365 AI Subscription Changes

A significant portion of the discussion centers around Microsoft's recent adjustments to its Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Paul Thurrott highlights the introduction of AI credits and the restructuring of the Copilot services.

Paul Thurrott (04:30):

"Microsoft raised the price of Microsoft 365 for consumers... they introduced a system of AI credits so that if you had a Microsoft 365 account, you could do things that previously might have required Copilot Pro."

The hosts delve into the complexities of the new pricing model, weighing its benefits against consumer affordability. Richard Campbell points out the challenges consumers face with the added costs for accessing advanced AI features.

Richard Campbell (07:34):

"Why are you going to pay $20 a month for Copilot?"

4. Consumer vs. Business AI Offerings

The conversation contrasts Microsoft's AI offerings for consumers against Google's recent changes for businesses. Paul Thurrott notes that while Google has discontinued its Gemini Advance for businesses, Microsoft is expanding its AI services to consumers, albeit at a higher price point.

Paul Thurrott (08:29):

"Google killed Gemini advance for businesses... Microsoft announced their changes... price hikes for personal and family."

This strategic divergence reflects the companies' differing approaches to monetizing AI capabilities, with Microsoft aiming to make AI more accessible to individual users despite the increased costs.

5. Microsoft OpenAI Partnership and the "Stargate" Project

A focal point of the episode is the evolving partnership between Microsoft and OpenAI, particularly the ambitious "Stargate" project. Paul Thurrott discusses Microsoft's significant investment in AI infrastructure and the potential implications of the partnership.

Paul Thurrott (65:02):

"Microsoft gains access to OpenAI's technology... Microsoft is one of the few companies that could even afford or attempt to try to host their stuff."

Richard Campbell adds that this partnership is crucial for Microsoft's dominance in the AI sector, especially in the face of competition from other tech giants.

Richard Campbell (65:06):

"They're also getting OpenAI's technology... this is a win-win for Microsoft."

The hosts speculate on the long-term impact of Microsoft's investments, including the construction of new data centers and the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

6. Windows 24H2 Preview and Updates

Transitioning to Windows updates, Paul Thurrott provides an in-depth preview of the upcoming Windows 24H2 release. He outlines several new features and enhancements aimed at improving user experience and system performance.

Paul Thurrott (41:05):

"Windows 24H2 is of such high quality... they’re pushing it aggressively to Windows 10 users as well who have compatible PCs."

Key highlights include:

• Tabbed File Explorer: Organizing Quick Access, favorites, and recent items into separate tabs.
• Enhanced Windows Studio Effects: Direct access via the system tray for easier control of camera effects.
• Improved Taskbar Animations: Higher quality previews and animations when hovering over taskbar apps.
• New Outlook App: Replacing the older Mail and Calendar apps with a more integrated experience.

Richard Campbell (44:11):

"It's going to contextualize search in a way. So it works with a bunch of different document and image formats."

These updates signify Microsoft's commitment to refining the Windows ecosystem, integrating AI-driven features to streamline workflows and enhance productivity.

7. PC Sales Growth and Market Analysis

The hosts examine the latest statistics on PC sales, revealing a modest growth of 1.3% from the previous year, totaling 254 million units sold. Paul Thurrott contextualizes this growth within the historical landscape, noting that the only previous decline was linked to the smartphone revolution.

Paul Thurrott (28:04):

"254 million PCs sold last year. More than the 251 million sold the year before. But 1.3% growth, not great."

Richard Campbell (28:48):

"Numbers are pretty clearly linked to [people's] mass migration to the phone."

The discussion emphasizes the saturation of the PC market and the stabilization of sales figures, attributing the minimal growth to longer device lifespans and the entrenched preference for smartphones as primary computing devices.

8. Xbox Game Pass Updates

In the Xbox segment, Paul Thurrott introduces the new "Game Assist" feature available in Microsoft Edge, which integrates a mini-browser within the game bar. This allows gamers to access walkthroughs and other helpful content without leaving their gaming sessions.

Paul Thurrott (88:00):

"Microsoft Edge game assist feature, which is basically a mini game or Microsoft Edge browser inside of the game bar."

Additionally, the hosts highlight the latest additions to the Xbox Game Pass, including titles like "Far Cry" and upcoming releases such as "Doom the Dark Ages." These updates reflect Microsoft's ongoing efforts to bolster the Game Pass library and enhance the gaming experience for subscribers.

Richard Campbell (91:04):

"So, yeah, that's it. All right."

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9. Conclusion

Episode WW 916 of Windows Weekly offers a thorough exploration of the intersecting realms of AI development, Windows enhancements, and the evolving PC and gaming markets. Through insightful discussions and expert analysis, Paul Thurrott and Richard Campbell provide listeners with a nuanced understanding of Microsoft's strategic maneuvers and their broader implications within the technology sector. As AI continues to reshape productivity tools and user experiences, the hosts underscore the importance of staying informed and adaptable in this rapidly changing landscape.

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Note: This summary excludes advertisement, intro, and outro segments, focusing solely on the content-rich discussions relevant to the episode's main topics.

Transcript

[Leo Laporte]

It's time for Windows Weekly. I am so jealous. Paul Thurat and Richard Campbell are in Puerto Vallarta. But they're going to focus. They're going to focus and talk about big news changes in how Microsoft and Google deliver AI to their office tools, Windows and the PC market, tiny growth. A little analysis of what this means for the future of personal computing. And then we'll talk about AI everywhere and Microsoft kind of loosening its hold on OpenAI. It's all coming up next on Windows Weekly. Podcasts you love from people you trust.

[Paul Thurrott]

This is twit.

[Leo Laporte]

This is Windows Weekly with Paul Thurad and Richard Campbell. Episode 916 recorded Wednesday, January 22, 2025. Agua gigante. It's time for Windows Weekly, the show. We cover the latest news from Microsoft and today we take you to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where our two protagonists are enjoying the sun and fun. Hey, boys. You look very relaxed.

[Richard Campbell]

We've been having a good time.

[Leo Laporte]

Nice. Paul Thurat on the right there in the navy blue, dark blue. Paul is of [e-mail] that's his blog and his books are leanpub.com on the left there in the. In the Mexican mosaic, it's Mr. Richard Campbell of RunnersRadio.com. wow. Do you get news down there in beautiful Puerto.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, but it's all in Spanish.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. Which, you know, makes it less stressful actually. Everything sounds like a novella.

[Leo Laporte]

I've learned Tele nolla, Spanish swear words, open AI. Okay, well, there is a lot of news, so I, I think I'll let you get right into it. Although I wouldn't have started with this, to be honest. Yeah, I would have started with the AI story, but. Okay, you. You buried it. Buried it. That's fine, that's fine.

[Paul Thurrott]

No, I don't really honestly think that matters to myself.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, well, there you go. Good, good. You've ranked these in order of importance.

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, I moved this one ahead of Windows because to me, this is a fairly profound change and it's probably just the first of several that are coming along these lines.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. Well, what's happened?

[Richard Campbell]

I'm not going to get into color. You tell the story first and then I'll.

[Leo Laporte]

He's the color man. Paul, you're the play by play guy.

[Richard Campbell]

We were talking about this over tequila.

[Paul Thurrott]

Anyway, so everyone knows. Last two years have been this rapid expansion of AI for individuals and for businesses, different go to market strategies. Google as it does, has been copying the market leader like they do in mobile in this Case Microsoft. Right. And so when Microsoft announced copilot for Microsoft 365 they we'll do it. We'll do a Gemini something something that be the same thing and cost exactly the same amount. And the consumer side's a little different but basically you get same thing Gemini advanced for as a consumer with the Gmail account, 2 TB of storage, etc. So very similar strategies. If you wanted AI, you had to pay for AI. Microsoft of course has Windows and they're putting some free things in Windows. If you have a Copilot plus PC they're putting a few more things in Windows that are AI related, local AI. But the cloud based stuff which is far more powerful and feature complete by now for sure has always been pay for play. Right. That's kind of the simplest way to say it I guess. But there have been some changes happening. So I don't remember when this was but back in August, September, timeframe, something like that. Microsoft raised the price of Microsoft 365 for consumers. So the personal and family versions in select markets, Australia, I think it was parts of Southeast Asia. Almost like they were just testing to see how that went. They also introduced this system of AI credits so that if you had a Microsoft 365 account paid Microsoft 365 consumer account, you could do things that previously might have required Copilot Pro, which is that $20 per user per month service that's analogous to Microsoft 365 Copilot. Let me know if I lost you completely because this is dense.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, and the point being that consumer365 isn't even $20 a month. So why are you going to pay 20 bucks a month for Copilot?

[Paul Thurrott]

That's the tough thing. So at the time family was at $99 a year, six users terabyte of storage each, full access to all the Office apps on desktop and mobile, yada yada yada, whatever else. And or you could add $20 per user per month which is $240 per user. So all six whatever that it's over a thousand, it's like 1200, whatever, $1300 plus 100 for Microsoft 365. The thing that's weird about that or you know, I think is unfair about that to consumers. Anyway, Microsoft's costs are enormous but the amount of functionality you get are exponentially smaller than what you get just from Microsoft 365. Like you know, the value prop wasn't really there. So with this system of AI credits and even US Here in the United States, Western Europe, wherever. Have you've seen this? Like, you can do things like designer.Microsoft.com and create images and you could go against this AI credit balance, which at the time we didn't even know what it was, let alone what each transaction costs. But you know, we've been doing this for a while. It's the reason I stopped paying for Microsoft Copilot plus because that was what I was using it for. And now I've never exceeded any limit. So I just use it to make images every month. And it's free. It's. I mean, I'm paying for Microsoft 365, actually twice. But I'm paying for. I pay for these subscriptions. So to me, like that made sense. Like I get this kind of benefit. So then last week happened and it's really, it's so complicated because Google and Microsoft have both made major changes. The Google changes that were just announced are only for businesses. The Microsoft changes that were just announced are only for consumers. But these things are still roughly comparable. So we talked about this part of it. I think last week that Google killed Gemini advance for businesses. They still offer it for consumers. And all of those features are now in workspace. And workspace went up per user per month, some couple of dollars. So I think the math I did at the time was 17% if I remember correctly, a day or two later. So probably was after the show, would have been after the show last week, Microsoft announced their changes that they'd already made in some parts of the world are going everywhere, including the United States. Price hikes for personal and family. Microsoft 365, they still offer Copilot Plus. So if you want to pay that $20 per user per month. So a little different from Google. And my life has been upended ever since because, you know, people are technical, pick everything apart as they should. And it's. This seemed to me to be very fair. And then you kind of dig into it and you see little problems. And I still think it's. I still think it's okay. But the more I think about it, I think this is a step to a future where this will maybe be more equitable. Right. So the issues, I will say the primary issue is that only the primary account holder on Microsoft 365 family gets these AI credits.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, that's a mistake.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, there's no way to dole them out to everyone in the family. There's no way to allow everyone in the family just to access from that single pool. There's no option other than if someone else wants to access those features, they have to pay $20 per month, which, you know, again, is super expensive. So I sort of think about this and I still feel like for people, you know, individuals, families, Microsoft 365 families, a no brainer. Six users, I should say. The price went up to $130 per month. So it's 30% price increase. It's a big increase, but it's the first time the price has ever gone up on this thing. And it's still an incredible value just for all the stuff. It's incredible. It's, it's still a no brainer to me. But, but I hear the complaints and I feel it too. Like my wife would want to access this. It. There's different ways to kind of look at this.

[Richard Campbell]

Someone here, the cleaners.

[Paul Thurrott]

This. I'm sorry, there's different ways to look at this. But in my view, not that this is all of it, but if the $30 per year thing covers the cost of me having AI credits for the year, I mean, why not let me pay 30 bucks a year for another person? Right. To join it like that to me makes a little more sense. So I actually think we're going to get there.

[Richard Campbell]

I think the pool for everybody is the answer. I see the juggling that's going on right now. If you make the family deal too good, you're starting to start sabotaging your business. That's right.

[Paul Thurrott]

Which has always been a big problem.

[Richard Campbell]

For us, which I think is an unreasonable fear.

[Paul Thurrott]

But, but, yeah, but it's.

[Richard Campbell]

When you talk about the AI stuff.

[Paul Thurrott]

It'S always been a concern.

[Richard Campbell]

But the other part of this is you don't want to make the, like really, they should make copilot for families, like five bucks a month.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

Except that they'll overuse it. So the idea of doing the points pool, so if you're barely using it, it costs you nothing more.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's right.

[Richard Campbell]

And as soon as you use it a lot, it's like you should be paying for this.

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, I, I, and I think there's a middle ground too, where I hit or we hit or whoever's in the family, whatever the system is at the time you hit the limit and they're like, yep, sorry, you shut off seeing, you know, the top of the next month. I mean, how about let me buy more AI credits.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

And if I do that enough or.

[Richard Campbell]

10 or $20 increment, whatever it might.

[Paul Thurrott]

Be, and if I, if I start spending that $20, it's like, okay, well, now maybe now this.

[Richard Campbell]

Let's roll you into a monthly.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's right.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. So in the end, these guys, it's not like they need. They're not worried about the money. It's the utilization. Like, you want to see that people are using this. Like, to me, that seems more important.

[Paul Thurrott]

So there's no way for us to know what this costs Microsoft, but we have this vague understanding that these AI transactions, for lack of a better term, are expensive. They're getting less expensive over time. I think that's why they're able to do what they're doing now. If you compare January 2025 to 2024, it's better. You know, it's better than the previous plan, which was only you can pay a lot to get this a little.

[Richard Campbell]

Right. I think if you just feels like mvp, you know, that they're just experimenting to see what people will pay again. I don't see any accounting anywhere. They're looking and saying, oh, no, we're making a profit off of this.

[Paul Thurrott]

Oh, got it.

[Richard Campbell]

This is more about charging enough that people pay attention to its price to see how many people are willing to pay it all, regardless of what it actually costs. Because I think if they gave it away for free, which I almost feel like they're headed down that path. This eventually is just a feature that's included with your other paid products.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

That you would never know if it's actually valued.

[Paul Thurrott]

But yeah. So if, look, we go from 100 bucks a year to 130. Okay. And if a year from now it's 130 and everyone gets in or whatever, they change, great. If it was $200 a year, we started to have a conversation. I guess you could argue it's still a good value on some level if you use a lot. Yada, yada, yada. But, you know, there's a conversation there. But yeah, I think as their cost comes down and as they have a sense for what people are actually using, they'll iron this out. And so everyone's freaking out because that's what we do. But I. I mean, I wish it was a little better. I'd like to get my wife in on this. I think she would use some of this stuff.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. And it's a big. The biggest thing is I want people who are not in this industry to be playing with this and they see value in it.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So also, I, you know, just in the negative column for this offering, I will just point out, you know, one of the big battles I'VE been fighting for the past, I don't know, two years now or year and a half. Whatever it is, is this notion of forced OneDrive usage in Windows 11. Right. And how they just enable folder backup and don't give you an option as part of the way I use this product, which I admit is not the common mainstream way to do so. I have specific folders in OneDrive that I use for my documents and how I do things and whatever, and I don't use that folder backup feature. But when I do use products like Microsoft Word or Excel or whatever that save documents, I save them to the desktop, which is not backed up automatically on my computers.

[Richard Campbell]

Only because you can veered it that way.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, it takes, by the way, you really get to work at it to get it there.

[Richard Campbell]

No, he really wants to back up.

[Paul Thurrott]

I can't use Copilot in Word or Excel or whatever unless I am backing up to OneDrive. So this is sort of like the auto save feature. Right. You can't use auto save in the Office apps unless you're saving to OneDrive. Doesn't have to be one of those backup folders, but it has to be OneDrive. So yeah, you know, they're still, they're directing users. It's using what Microsoft products is like a. Playing a Rails game. You know, you're going to go from point A to point B and there is only one path from Microsoft's point of view. You're going to take their path and I like to go on side quests. I don't know, I'm a little different.

[Richard Campbell]

You're an adventurer.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. But yeah, I think, look, AI is the biggest thing that's happened maybe in this industry in our lifetime. Maybe. But if not, it's one of the biggest. Obviously it is going to have the most profound impact in not consumption tasks, but, you know, creation tasks. Right. Whether it's straight up Office productivity or creation like you're creating images or videos or whatever, that's. That's where it's going to have its impact. And that's why this is important because. Because this is still the primary way that most people create documents, you know, whatever.

[Richard Campbell]

You know, untoward media on the YouTube channel made a great point, which is, you know, one of the upsides to putting in a little bit of pricing is so that not everybody tries it at once.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

Because they can only scale so far. So this is also a way to control the rate of expansion, keep your systems from tipping over.

[Paul Thurrott]

So Copilot plus for consumers and you've argued otherwise into a good point too, I think. But if you're a small bit. A very small business with one of the lower tiers on the business side as well, you know, Microsoft 365 copilot. Copilot. Plus we're too expensive, but it's a little too expensive to experiment. Right. Whereas I think now kind of we're in the opposite equation where, yeah, it's still too expensive if you want everyone to have it, but now we're limiting it so that someone in your family gets it and the others don't.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. How I made my family fight over.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, it's like that's kind of silly. That's kind of a tough one.

[Richard Campbell]

It's also a feature I think they had a lot of use of full stop. This idea of a credit pool for a variety of services.

[Paul Thurrott]

You know what this reminds me of is that point system they had in Zune when it first came out. Remember, you couldn't, you couldn't pay for things with dollars or whatever your currency was. You had. You had to buy like Microsoft points. And it's like AI credits. Huh? It's like you did dust off those Microsoft point gift cards and like just transfer. I don't know. All right.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, I mean, to me it feels like progress. It really does.

[Paul Thurrott]

100.

[Richard Campbell]

Or is it progress?

[Paul Thurrott]

It's progress. Thank you. Um, let's get it.

[Leo Laporte]

You're. You're in Mexico now, buddy.

[Richard Campbell]

It's progress.

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, him and his, him and his wife, Canadians have said the word progress one too many times in my, in my presence. Right. I start to twitch like. Oh, that's how you say that anyway. Yeah. So if you're a, if you're looking at this from a business perspective, Microsoft 365 hasn't changed. I'm curious where that goes. Right. I feel like it's going to. And if you're looking at it from the Google perspective, their consumer stuff hasn't changed. Right. Only the business side's changed. So it's the opposite sides of the fence in a way. But the business models are very similar. The big difference there is that Google, at least for businesses, is not even offering a paid AI add on anymore. And Microsoft for consumers is. But they've made it possible for many more people to access these features in a limited way for free or as part of the thing they're already paying for. Right. The Microsoft 365 subscription. And by the way, until just. I think it might have been even yesterday when I started writing about this. As this was happening, I was like, you know, one of the weird things here is there's no place you can go and see how many AI credits you have or how you're spending them.

[Richard Campbell]

It's just. This is half baked.

[Paul Thurrott]

No, it's there now. So they. You actually can go to the Microsoft account website and go to your Microsoft 365 subscription page and you'll. I think it's 60 AI credits a month. And then I, I'd actually still, at the time I looked, I, I still had 59 credits somehow. So I don't know.

[Richard Campbell]

Is this almost a Dan. I wonder if Microsoft thinks about not looking like a cell phone company. You know, like cell phone companies have these family plans with a pool of. Of data.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's exactly. Yes. So, okay, so I don't want to get too. When you said this pool should be available to everyone, this is what I, this is what I thought of. And I could see people complaining about it. And I got to be honest, I have no sympathy for this whatsoever. So back when cell phone plans were really expensive and you could have a family plan, but it was not unlimited and everyone had the same pool, my wife, my daughter, and my son were all on the same plan and my son would exceed the limit every month and my wife would just be like, come on, man, what are you doing? He was off the charts. More data usage than any else. Right. The teenager, he had a, he had.

[Richard Campbell]

A routine that involved a lot of data, probably video.

[Paul Thurrott]

So you could say, well, that's what's going to happen here. To which I would say, good.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

This is. People are sharing Microsoft 365 family accounts with random people they know.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

So if you don't want Bob that got your neighbor across the street using all your AI credits, here's an idea. He's not part of your family. Like, like nobody cares. You know, like, see, to me, this is not a huge problem.

[Richard Campbell]

It's actually a really useful solution. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

[Paul Thurrott]

So I think it's okay. That's my point, I guess.

[Richard Campbell]

Okay, here it is.

[Paul Thurrott]

So I've used two AI credits this month so far. It says you use a credit each time you prompt AI in apps like Word, PowerPoint or Designer. So it hasn't been since January 1st. Right. This is going back to December late last week. Well, not even. Yeah, no, they just been introduced. They've had AI credits, but they haven't been lob. You know, like keeping a tally. Kind of like when Azure launched. They're like this Is here it goes. So now they are. And you can kind of see. So it will take some months, I think. I suspect in my case there might be a month or two where I'm like, oh, I actually hit the limit. My problem is not that I'm hitting a limit. My problem is I can't buy my way out of it without subscribing.

[Richard Campbell]

Going to the full hall.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. See, I'd like to see some middle ground where it's like, all right, 60 more credits. Here's an idea. Yeah, give me. Yeah, yeah. Whatever the number, whatever the amount, just give me Something that's not 20 bucks a month.

[Leo Laporte]

You know, it sounds like it's almost a freemium model, Right. That they expect you to pay for it.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, I kind of. Yes, exactly. So, like, you know, my wife and I pay for whatever the duolingo subscription is called, but every once in a while I'll run out of the in game currency, which is used to, you know, do certain things, whatever it is. And like, you can buy these things for small amounts.

[Richard Campbell]

Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

And I. If you were to look at the last 12 months, I bet I did that twice. You know, I'm glad it's there. I mean, I don't like paying, but I mean, it's better than nothing.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

And I feel like this is the natural.

[Richard Campbell]

It's a progression of things.

[Paul Thurrott]

Progression that will happen. Yeah, exactly.

[Richard Campbell]

I agree.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep. So, yeah, big deal. I. I think this is. I can't stop writing about it. You know, people keep finding these little things they don't like about it, which is what our world does.

[Richard Campbell]

And I often debate this whole. Go ahead, Leo.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm just going to say, do you think this is an acknowledgement that AI is costing them more than they thought it would?

[Paul Thurrott]

Actually, I think it's an acknowledgment, implicit acknowledgment that that cost is starting to come down.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

You know, if it was still as expensive as it was to them a year ago, they wouldn't be able to do this. Yeah, right. I think that's. That's why one of the articles I wrote was baby steps. I call it baby steps because, look, this is a step forward. It's not a big step forward if you want, just want everyone to have AI, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, a year from now, and maybe less, because it happens fast. Right. But maybe less than a year from now or whenever it is, the next step will be one of the things we've talked about. I mean, I don't Know what they'll do, obviously, but maybe they open it up to the whole family. Maybe they let you buy credits or something.

[Richard Campbell]

When you're thinking on the backs inside of this. They've now had 18 months, two years worth of workload to look at, which means they've been able to tune the infrastructure, optimize the LLMs, like all of these different things and they're probably getting some substantial returns on that. So it's costing them less to operate it and that gives you room to start playing with. Now your problem is not enough utilization. So how do I increase the workload? Dropped the price.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. Yep. So yeah, I don't. Look, it's. Unfortunately this is still a subscription service. Prices still go up over time, etc. Etc. But I, I what Richard said, which was I think it just becomes a feature of that thing you're already paying for. I think that that's. It has to land there. Right. And Google already got there. Google just did it for businesses.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. Or it's an acknowledgement that not enough.

[Richard Campbell]

People are using well and enough is a relative concept.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right.

[Richard Campbell]

It's like some are, but we'd like more now because we're not tipping over.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

So let's stretch.

[Leo Laporte]

How come you use so few credits, Paul? What are you using instead? I know you're using AI.

[Paul Thurrott]

I've only used it to create a few images for my website.

[Leo Laporte]

You, you like something else better?

[Paul Thurrott]

No, I don't. Well, I'm not. I don't use AI for writing. I don't use Microsoft Office for anything.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

So I basically use it to create images. So I. This is the type of thing like I think my wife would like using this and I don't have a way to make that happen. Like I can't. There's no way to transfer without her paying a lot.

[Leo Laporte]

She's not the primary. Yeah, right. That's a very weird thing to do.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. But I use.

[Leo Laporte]

You have a family account, right?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

So weird.

[Paul Thurrott]

And it's actual family members in it. I don't know that my kids, I don't know what they think about this. Like I don't know that they would care one way or the other. I really have no way of knowing.

[Richard Campbell]

But you know, I set my girls up with accounts but they barely use them.

[Leo Laporte]

I guess I'm a weirdo because I bought the 20 chat GPT subscription, the Sonnet Claudropic subscription, the Perplexity a subscription I spending probably a hundred dollars a month on these various AIs.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, but you're in the business, right?

[Leo Laporte]

It's part of my job. But I also find that different ones are good at different things.

[Richard Campbell]

That's right, yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

And I think that. And that's going to shift over time. Right. But I did the same for a little while. I paid for Microsoft Copilot plus for, I don't remember, three, five months, whatever it was. I paid for OpenAI, ChatGPT, whatever that's called. Pro. I have been using GitHub Copilot a lot in Visual Studio and if I hit a limit there, yeah, I could picture. I'm not going to do it for the. I'm not a professional programmer. I don't use it like I'm not going to. This is not my primary aim. But yeah, as I'm working on this really complicated project, the value there is unbelievable. I would absolutely pay for that. It's fantastic. But, but yeah, I mean I, you know, last time I wrote that editorial like I will not pay for AI, it didn't mean I wasn't going to use AI. I just, AI is going to be a part of this is kind of, my tip is about this a little bit, you know, it's going to be a part of everything that we use. So we're going to use it, you know. But I feel like fundamentally to me, the product is Microsoft 365. It's Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, whatever. It's whatever amount of storage you get in OneDrive. It's the integration you get with Windows where you can access everything seamlessly. There's value there. The AI stuff is. Well, it's spell checking, it's grammar checking. It's the stuff that used to just get with it. And to me that's how it should be. And like you said, I think that's where it's going to go. Yeah, that's what I think I said, spitting on my screen.

[Leo Laporte]

All right, before we go on to Windows, even more exciting than Office, I'd like to interrupt with a word from our sponsor, if you don't mind. Gentlemen, take a nice little, I don't know, what do you like, a Jamaica break? And we'll be back. Little horchata for all. Stay away from the tequila. That's all I can ask our show today, brought to you by 1Password, ladies and gentlemen. And something new from 1Password, something very, very cool. Let me ask you a rhetorical question because I know the answer. Do your end users always work on company owned devices?

[Paul Thurrott]

Rah rah.

[Leo Laporte]

And IT approved apps. They're good people, right?

[Richard Campbell]

Wrong.

[Leo Laporte]

No, of course not. So how do you keep your company's data safe when it's sitting on all those unmanaged apps and you know, the BYOD devices and all of that? 1Password has an answer that works. It's called Extended Access Management. 1Password Extended Access Management helps you secure every sign in for every app on every device. It solves the problems traditional IAM and MDM cannot touch. Imagine your company security like the quadrangle of a college campus. You got your nice brick paths between the buildings, the ivy covered buildings. Oh, they're so pretty. It's a perfect. A lawn is perfect. Those are the company owned devices, the IT approved apps, the managed employee identities. But that's not all. If you've ever been to a college quadrangle, you know, there's those little shortcuts people take through the grass, right? The actual straightest line from point A to point B. You know, there's lots of them. And those are the unmanaged devices, the shadow IT apps, the non employee identities, like contractors. Here's the, here's the problem. Most security tools just assume, oh, happy brick paths. It's all going to be happy brick paths. But really the real security problems happen on those little muddy shortcuts. The way people really work, not the way you imagine they're working right or you would like them to work. 1Password Extended Access Management is the first security solution that takes those unmanaged devices, those apps, those identities and puts them under your control. It makes sure that every user credential strong and protected. You know, 1Password's been doing that forever. I mean they really are the kings of this. But every device, and this is the cool part, is known and healthy and every App is visible. 1Password's Extended Access Management. 1Password is ISO 27001 certified. They undergo regular third party audits. They exceed standards set by various authorities. They're just a leader in security.1 Passwords Extended access management Security for the way we work today. It's now generally available. This is good news. When we started talking about it, it was in beta, but it's now available to companies that use Okta and Microsoft Entra. Okay, is that you? It's also in beta for Google Workspace customers, so you could try it too. Secure every app, every device, every identity, even the unmanaged ones. Especially the unmanaged ones. @1Password.com Windows Weekly. It's all lowercase 1P a S-S-W-O-R-.com Windows Weekly we thank them so much for their support of Windows Weekly. Paul and Richard. They wouldn't be in Puerto Vallarta without the help of 1Password Extended Access Management. Thank you. 1Password. And make sure you use that address because that's how you tell them you saw it here. 1Password.com Windows Weekly. Okay, guys, let's talk about. I'm shocked. Big growth in PC sales. Huge.

[Paul Thurrott]

I think this was the best year we've had in one year and by a very slim margin, in fact, when.

[Leo Laporte]

You put it that way.

[Richard Campbell]

Wow.

[Paul Thurrott]

Depending on how you look at this, flat. But yeah, 254 million PCs sold last year. More than the 251 million sold the year before. But 1.3% growth, not great.

[Richard Campbell]

Better than a 1.3% decline.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, sure. So, yeah, you have to go back to. Well, last year was worse, but other than last year, 2006, to find a year where PC makers sold fewer devices.

[Richard Campbell]

Basically before the smartphone, before the iPhone.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's right.

[Richard Campbell]

That's what we're talking about.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

Numbers are pretty clearly linked to.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

People's mass migration to the phone.

[Leo Laporte]

That's fascinating. You connect the two. I mean, yeah, a smartphone doesn't replace a PC.

[Paul Thurrott]

No, but. Except that it does for a lot.

[Richard Campbell]

Of work for a lot of consumers it does.

[Paul Thurrott]

You got to remember, before the smartphone, before the iPhone, all. Everything that we did that had anything to do with personal computing had been a computer.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So if we were still using Facebook and we didn't have phones, we'd all be doing that on our, on our PCs, like Grandpa's doing right now. You know, still, for some reason. But yeah, I mean, if you. Ignoring the pandemic, which was that weird outlier, you know, I think we've kind of settled into where the PC market is. IDC and Gardner, one of them a little less fervently than the other, still believes we're going to see a big punchy kind of upgrade cycle because of Windows 10 going out. But I honestly, the way Microsoft is spreading that out over three years for businesses, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not really convinced. I don't. You know, there's lots of micro data in here that I didn't write about. But maybe worth is worth mentioning just briefly. You know, there are rumors that these Snapdragon. Well, there's a rumor that the Snapdragon X based PCs didn't sell. Right. Like under a million units, you know, and it's like, oh, you know, but okay, but how many million units of business class ultrabooks are PC makers selling? And is that not closer to 30% of all of those computers? I mean it's probably not as bad as people think.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, and if you look at these, PC sales are largely business. Business doesn't buy first generation machines.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep. Let alone a new platform. Right. So that kind of staggers it.

[Richard Campbell]

And they don't buy when it's released. They buy when they're on cycle, when their warranties are expiring and they have to cycle out. So you can ship a new machine but you're not going to get a shot at a business for to four years.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. I think you know Microsoft and the PC makers, but we're working to try to make this seem exciting and they.

[Richard Campbell]

Thought that wrapping it in AI would be the solution.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. Whereas I think wrapping it in 12 hours of battery life and no fan noise and. Yeah. And instant on it actually works. Maybe. But that said, we have been stung so many times by poorly performing or unreliable computers that who would even believe that? So I think we need some amount of time.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. There's no substitute for time on this. The enterprise buyer in me is like, I'll take a second gen, thanks. And I might get one of the first to just experiment with. And then I'm also watching and saying how well does it play in intune? What's its update policies? Right. Oh, we threw ARM into the mix and ARM still isn't in the normal update cycle. Okay. I just can't manage this machine. Why would I introduce it?

[Paul Thurrott]

Right. I think it's gonna, I think it's gonna happen, but I think. But I also don't think it's gonna trigger a PC revival in the sense of additional sales every year.

[Richard Campbell]

It's gonna, it's going to scavenge sales from traditional platforms.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, right.

[Richard Campbell]

That's really what's going to happen. That's fine.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep. So you know, 250 million ish devices still pretty good, I guess in the scope of things. I mean, I don't know where smartphones landed last year exactly, but it's going to be a billion. Right. So 25%. And then tablets are whatever they are. 100 something.

[Richard Campbell]

No, if you want to be sad, be in the tablet market.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, turns out there's only one vendor.

[Paul Thurrott]

And I was gonna say if you're not named Apple, you could be very sad. So you know, they keep trying.

[Richard Campbell]

People keep their iPads.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's right.

[Richard Campbell]

They keep their iPads longer than they.

[Paul Thurrott]

Keep their PCs that's right, yeah. And as a relatively newer platform, they're probably ever more reliable anyway. I mean, just less.

[Richard Campbell]

One of the reason people replace PCs because they're breaking down.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

Fans are failing, you know, they're starting to squeal and, you know, and Windows software rots. This doesn't.

[Leo Laporte]

This doesn't tell us what the turnover rate is. I wonder what the turnover rate is like. Do people keep them for five years?

[Paul Thurrott]

They do. It's. It's a lot longer than it used to be. It's the same normal PC on the.

[Richard Campbell]

Business side is four to five years now.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

It used to be two, but it hasn't been for a while and there's. Because there's just no reason for it. You're not getting anything that matters.

[Leo Laporte]

So what you're seeing here is there's no growth in the market.

[Paul Thurrott]

No, no.

[Leo Laporte]

Which is what you'd expect. It's saturated. Everybody wanted a PC, has one and all the sales are basically turnover. After X number of years, fewer people.

[Richard Campbell]

Want them, I was going to say.

[Leo Laporte]

So that makes it go down.

[Paul Thurrott]

Very few PC, the proper one looks forward to getting a phone. You know, it's exciting, kind of. I mean, I know that slowed down too, but, you know, that's where you spend your time, you know.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

The problem, the PC, just from a perception perspective, is that it is for work. You know, I know the gamers and.

[Richard Campbell]

I guess it's a funny thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Why would I need a PC? I think you're right, come to think of it.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. What do you need it for?

[Leo Laporte]

What do I need?

[Richard Campbell]

And this is where it came from in the first place. PCs were too expensive for personal use. They were business advice.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right. And they've come full circle in a sense. I think that a lot of people, some percentage of people who this year, going forward, they hit the end of the run with whatever PC and they start looking around, you know, some of them are going to go with an iPad, some of them are going to go with a Chromebook, even. Some of them might not go with anything. They'll be like, whatever I have else is fine. I mean, you know, it depends.

[Richard Campbell]

You can hit a point where you haven't turned on that PC in a long time. When you turn it on it blue screens like. Or it goes into an update cycle that takes an hour.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's why I hate it. And you back off, you're like, yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I know it's. It's not true of everybody. Of course, people watching this and certain Classes of business users. Those people who need Excel, like full Excel, are like, yeah, no, I'm never getting that my PC.

[Richard Campbell]

But no, and. Or they want that 40 inch screen like usable.38, 40 by 20.

[Paul Thurrott]

But this is, this is the minority part of the market. The good news is it's a lucrative part of the market. So even though this is, you know, small, the market's smaller than it used to be. The chances are pretty good that the Average price of PCs is much higher because the netbooks have come and gone and these are higher quality devices.

[Richard Campbell]

And I don't know if it did break these envelopes out, like how many of those PCs are laptops versus actual desktop machines? Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

Oh, it's.

[Richard Campbell]

I think it's. The vast majority is a laptop. People want a portable computing device.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's not even close. Yep.

[Richard Campbell]

And they're not happy with how small the form.

[Paul Thurrott]

I'd like to get something that's like a laptop, but I want it to lock me to one of the rooms in my house.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you have one of those? Yeah, we have this Kensington lock thing. You could put it around the.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. You could latch it to yourself like you're a prisoner exchange program, like. Yeah, I guess. But I mean, even just within a home, it's nice being able to sit out in front of the TV or lay on the bed or whatever, you know.

[Leo Laporte]

So at some point you're going to see not a decline. Yeah, you think?

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, this is the question. I think we're, we're kind of in this rolling.

[Richard Campbell]

I think the early oscillation is the smartphone revolution and the second oscillation is the COVID Pandemic. Is pandemic.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. And I think we, if you just kind of ignore that, you know, you can kind of see what the trend really is.

[Richard Campbell]

Trend. It's slow 1%.

[Leo Laporte]

Steve Jobs said the PC is a truck. It's for people who are hauling so coding or they're doing video editing.

[Richard Campbell]

Their F150s.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's. Well, it's what we. It's, it's what used to be a workstation. Right, right.

[Leo Laporte]

It's for work.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Even you don't need a PC. You know, just for yourself personally.

[Paul Thurrott]

There are all these trends we talk about the integrated graphics and PCs can play games awesomely now. The ever less demand for add in graphics cards and things like that, like the PC is, you know, it's, it's matured. It's, it's.

[Leo Laporte]

They sold a quarter of a billion of them. We Gotta say, that's not bad.

[Paul Thurrott]

There's still only. Only.

[Leo Laporte]

So what that sounds like is there must be what, one and a half billion out there? It sounds like there is. What we said five year turnover. Yeah, yeah, five year turnover.

[Paul Thurrott]

Look, there was a period of time right before the iPhone hit where we were looking at. We were going to sell 500 million of these things a year. This was going up and up and up. Something happened this past.

[Leo Laporte]

So specialists need them. I need it because I'm a coder, for instance. By the way, it's a laptop. It's not a desktop. Gamers might want desktops. So video editors, 3D designers, they may want desktops.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. Where big screens and peripheral devices matter.

[Paul Thurrott]

Here's the irony. Apple could kill this market right now if I wanted to. They could just make the iPad more powerful. The chips are already there.

[Richard Campbell]

They.

[Paul Thurrott]

All they do is improve the software.

[Leo Laporte]

They've been saying this for a while. They've been putting out ads to say, what's a computer?

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

But they don't. But they haven't taken this technical steps.

[Leo Laporte]

They need to make this.

[Paul Thurrott]

I don't either.

[Richard Campbell]

They have.

[Leo Laporte]

They still sell Macs. Maybe they don't want to pro.

[Paul Thurrott]

How about an iPad? Pro OS.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

You know, and I guess because Macs are lucrative from a unit, you know.

[Richard Campbell]

Like a margin and they don't turn fast.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. Where.

[Richard Campbell]

You know, I think Apple's got an incentive there. But The Mac mini M4 is an unbelievable device. Oh, I love two decks of cards.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

It's tiny.

[Leo Laporte]

It's amazing.

[Richard Campbell]

It also is astonishing.

[Leo Laporte]

So you could put that into a smaller device that is more like. Yeah, I don't know.

[Paul Thurrott]

I would put that into a laptop, frankly. And then. Well, they will.

[Leo Laporte]

That's coming. We'll see that soon.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. Anyway, I. I love always be a market for PCs, but I'm a PC guy.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm a computer guy.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, no, I am too. But we're also. How old are we again?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, the other thing. Well, we use it for zoom. Okay. So for podcasting, we need PCs. Well, we don't do. No, no.

[Paul Thurrott]

I've been doing the podcast in the morning on my phone. The picture quality is better than it is on my computer.

[Leo Laporte]

Gosh darn it, what a world we're entering.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And soon you. The as. And so the only thing that's tying you to this is a keyboard and a mouse. You have these user interface devices that you kind of still need, but AI and voice recognition someday may replace that. Then you really won't need a PC. You won't even need a device. It'll just be in the house.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

You can see at a point everywhere where your phone is really your carrier of your identity that you can harness. Compute on demand.

[Leo Laporte]

That's right. For instance, I'm wearing this. Oops. Where is it? Oh, here it is. I'm wearing this AI device that's recording everything. Sending it now. It doesn't have the power to do anything. It sends it to the phone. So it's a little phone companion. And I think we're going to see more and more of that kind of thing. The phone will be the base station.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

And then I get insights on my screen, on my phone. Email. Is that the last bastion? Phone's not great for email.

[Richard Campbell]

No, but there's whole generations of. There's younger generations now that are not using email for anything.

[Leo Laporte]

They don't use email at all.

[Richard Campbell]

Nope. That's where you see your teams and your slacks come into play.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Gosh darn it.

[Richard Campbell]

It's all changed. Yeah, it's a changing.

[Paul Thurrott]

We're gonna have to kill this show.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm sorry, guys, but yeah, yeah, there's.

[Paul Thurrott]

No reason to do Windows ourselves. I know.

[Richard Campbell]

Thank goodness. I could be drinking tequila right now.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, seriously.

[Paul Thurrott]

Except that it's still a thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, well, it's a thing and it's now primarily enterprise.

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, yeah, I mean, I would add a couple of things that a lot of gamers.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

But also just creators, you know, people who maybe they are. They have a YouTube channel or a blog or a stub stack or whatever it is. They're doing stuff like we're doing right now. Maybe they're out in the world. You know, the travel blog guys are out doing stuff and you know, they need something. You can edit video on a phone.

[Leo Laporte]

Luke Steve's has been doing amazing travel blogs with his phone for years.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, sure. But his TV show isn't made on an iPhone, right? It could be, but. It could be.

[Richard Campbell]

But it's pretty sure there's some production done on a different device. Yeah, yeah, but it's. It is the exception. That's a narrow pool, relatively speaking.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, but it's a lucrative pool too. Like that's the point. Like the, the. The creator types just to make it a simple term. Or the gamers, small percentage probably of the spent.

[Richard Campbell]

They're willing to spend money. They want.

[Paul Thurrott]

They want something good.

[Richard Campbell]

And let's face it, like the gaming industry is swinging PC again. The consoles have their problems.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, right. I mean it's. And PCs like I keep talking about it, are awesome for games, new ones.

[Richard Campbell]

All right, why don't you talk about something fun like 24H2. That's fun. Is it fun? I think it's fun.

[Paul Thurrott]

So usually in February, March, but this year in January because 24H2 is of such high qual. I know they've reached this new phase in their staged rollout of the product where it's going out basically to everyone. So if you are as an individual, I mean, businesses can control this, but if you have a computer that is compatible and have not gotten it yet, you're going to get it now. And of course this is that last year before the support ends without you paying for it. So they're also pushing it aggressively to Windows 10 users as well who have compatible PCs.

[Richard Campbell]

They are willing to take the PSS hit they're about to take for going after home versions because it's a big PSS hit. They're going to get a bunch of calls. People are going to be upset.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. And unfortunately in this case there's reasons for it because 24H2, aside from just the reliability and compatibility issues, is some fundamental lower level changes. Whereas 23h2 was a minor update to in fact was the same code base as the previous version. So that was really easy. This one is actually a big update.

[Richard Campbell]

So it's an OS update. It really is not just a minor patch, it's a new version of the OS.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, it's the first version that makes the Windows 11 base hardware requirements start to make some sense. So. Yeah, anyway, but hey, damn the torpedoes, man, it's going out. So I don't know what they're doing but they're, they're shipping it to everybody now, so that's fun. And then there's actually some interesting movement in the Insider program. I don't have this yet on my computer actually. Let me test it again just to be sure. Yeah, I don't have it still. But if you have a Copilot plus PC running on Snapdragon X enrolled in the dev channel, which I just described. A pool of seven people.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking like.

[Paul Thurrott]

Meaning both people, all seven of you listen up and I'm one of them and I don't have it, you will start to get an AI powered Windows search experience, which Microsoft announced in October. Back with a bunch of other stuff they announced for these Copilot Plus PCs. It will come eventually to other Copilot Plus PC owners, meaning AMD or intel based. And I can't describe it adequately because I don't have it. But, you know, for people who like keyboard shortcuts, you probably know that Windows key +Q and Windows key +S to date have both brought up that search highlights box, the search box essentially, instead of the Start menu. They both do the same thing on my computer. Windows key +Q now brings up this little goofer thing. This is the beginning of click to do outside of recall. The idea here is that I could put it on something and it will tell me what I can do with it.

[Richard Campbell]

So it's like a glowing mouse pointer, except there's a ball.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep. And it also is not working. I just reset my computer before I came here. So this was working before. So I already had that feature. Now I'm going to get it again at some point. I'll keep trying on that. But anyway, so they. They got rid of that. But the Windows key +S will continue doing search. And as I do it now on this computer, it's the old, you know, the original, the standard.

[Leo Laporte]

Does it have to build up a database before it can do it? Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, I think so. It's pro. Well, yeah. So I bet part of it is they're downloading an LLM or an slm. Right. Because this is a local feature. It's going to. And it's certain languages. But this might be the thing that solves search. Right. We talked about this before. It's going to contextualize search in a way. Right. So it works with a bunch of different document and image formats. And it works with OneDrive, interestingly, of course, but it will also work with other cloud storage services. So we'll see what this looks like. But it's going to be tied to this refine text action that's in the click to do thing. I was just showing Richard, but no one else. You don't even know what I was talking about, but click. There's also. I think there's like a. It's like Windows Key plus click or. Yeah, so that does it too. And actually that one's. That's almost working. See, it did a little ripple effect there.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. Had your whole screen ripple.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

By the way, the first day we were here. Earthquake.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

6.2. It was a good one. It was cracks in the walls, all kinds of good.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's a shaker. Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

Woke us up.

[Paul Thurrott]

Unrelated to click to do.

[Richard Campbell]

It's like quick to do, only different. Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

Just want to make sure I left.

[Richard Campbell]

The ripple across your screen and thought 6.2.

[Paul Thurrott]

I don't want anyone to think Microsoft. Microsoft did not cause that.

[Richard Campbell]

No. Make that earthquake.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow.

[Paul Thurrott]

But it's. But yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

This is a new UX experience.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep.

[Richard Campbell]

This idea. And you're basically asking Copilot to participate in search.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

Like this is. This is Stevie Batish's whole, you know, the outside part where it's like, find me the copilot appropriate for. And I'll point to something and you'll just. The copilot will appear.

[Paul Thurrott]

This is the type of thing I think AI is going to be. This is how we're going to know it. Just the contextual. Like, what can I do?

[Richard Campbell]

Yep.

[Paul Thurrott]

And it's going to expand on that list of things. It was like the big.

[Richard Campbell]

And don't make me make the choice for what to do and how to do it.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So in. Boy, I got to think about this. It was Office 4.0, the mid-90s. They added right to right click right. The Office did it first. Then I came to Windows Context. That was the point. It was specifically context because I worked in a computer lab and people would say. They'd be sitting there in Word, Excel or something, which I didn't know the products very well. And I say, how do I. And I have no idea. And then after a while it was like, well, did you right click on it? And like, no. And they right click, like, oh, yeah, there it is. Yeah. You know, so like, that's kind of nice.

[Richard Campbell]

And then I tell Windows 11 and they sabotage that. You don't recognize. Is it better now?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, it's like an eye test where both sides are blurry. You're like, honestly, they're both really bad. But yeah, so this. This is kind of, to me is like the modern version of that. It's going to give you more contextual help with things. So you can click on an image and search for like, show me other images like this or tell me what this thing is. You know, you can think of all the stuff it might do. But anyway, this is coming to Windows very slowly and only on copilot plus PCs at first. Although I have to think this is going to have to come to everybody. But right now, early, early testing, in some ways the more interesting bit, just because it's closer to happening, is if you look at the calendar, you will see that next Tuesday is the fourth Tuesday, which means it's week D. And it's going to be when we get the next preview update for our first patch Tuesday, cumulative update of 2025. Right in keeping with that schedule, Microsoft either today or yesterday released a build of 24H2 to the release preview channel, which is what they do right before they break it to the preview. I'm sorry. To the preview update. Right in stable. So we actually have this list of features like these are the things we can expect to see in stable in February. And honestly I'm not sure I heard about any of these before this week. I kind of fully expected to be like, okay, I'm going to know what all these things like. No, not so much so. Mobile hotspot feature in Windows Share your Internet connection. It's going to support 6 GHz connections for Wi Fi 6e, which I guess it doesn't. Obviously it doesn't now, so that's kind of cool. There's a. Actually let me look at this computer. I started to see it on this computer. I'm not seeing it here now, but it's coming soon. So File Explorer is getting a tabbed homepage. So instead of those kind of areas where it's like Quick Access, favorites, recent items, whatever, those are all going to be on separate tabs and they're adding one for shared. And depending on whether you're a consumer or business customer, you'll see files and emails and other things that people have shared with you. I think business users, you'll see things that have been shared in a group at work or whatever as well. That's new. If you've ever used a computer with Windows Studio Effects, you know that you usually get like a little pop up, but not always where you can control that stuff. So Microsoft added this thing to Quick Settings where you can, which is not just Windows key plus A where you can control it from there. But now they're just going to put it down in the system tray. So it's just there. So anytime you're in an app that is using the camera and can take advantage of Windows Studio Effects, you'll see a button in the system tray and then you be able to get to the features from there, which is pretty cool. Then this one I don't quite understand. It reminds me of when Microsoft improved the quality of the icons that are on the widget. The widget area down there in the corner. So the description is improving the previews and animations that show when you mouse over apps on the taskbar. So when you mouse over apps on the taskbar, it tends to just show.

[Richard Campbell]

A miniature of the window.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's a little thumbnail. Yeah. So I think, I guess the quality of it's gonna go. It's kind of hard to say because they don't show a picture of it. So I don't know.

[Richard Campbell]

You said animation. So it's like, please touch me.

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, it's the. Yeah, the. The thing that. You know, the way it appears or.

[Richard Campbell]

Will it fly around the room? Yeah, I don't know.

[Paul Thurrott]

I hope so. Yeah. Hopefully there'll be like a purple and pink AI extravaganza. I don't say so. We can look forward to that. So next week I bet we talk about that happening in the preview Update and then two weeks later it will.

[Richard Campbell]

Be in stable 24H2 add edition. Yeah, exactly.

[Paul Thurrott]

And then there's three more builds that one this week and one two from last week that actually are kind of interesting. All of them. So yesterday or early this week, which. Yesterday, the day before, I guess there was a Canary build. Nobody really knows what Canary is, but whatever the hell Canary is, which is I think the first to include a feature that Microsoft announced at Ignite, which is what's called admin. It's just admin protection.

[Richard Campbell]

Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

So admin protection is basically what Microsoft does with Windows. Hello. Ess. It requires you to authenticate every single time. In this case, you do anything that requires admin privileges.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Richard Campbell]

You elevate up, even when you're an admin. We're trying to get to sudo.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right, right.

[Richard Campbell]

We're really trying to get admins to not be an admin account.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So we're like, look, we get it. You're going to use an admin account. You can't help yourself.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, fine.

[Paul Thurrott]

But actually you're going to do everything at standard use level protection and if it requires an escalation, you're going to have to authenticate with Windows. Hello.

[Richard Campbell]

That's right.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So that's actually really cool. I will say super important.

[Richard Campbell]

Like this is about just administration. Right. It's really helpful.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's super important.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

Super annoying too, by the way, but super important. It's super important. So they're doing that now.

[Richard Campbell]

I. I've talked to organizations that have when you escalate to a min privileges, they want flashing lights in the room, right?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

They want them not at admin privilege because they're the real effect. Admins are being targeted by the black hats because they have the privilege.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's right.

[Richard Campbell]

It's all a riskier and everybody clicks on the wrong thing once in a while.

[Paul Thurrott]

And the first user on any PC, if you're an individual, is an Admin account too. I mean, you know, inevitably. Yep. So that's good. They know. Look, I know some people do this. You might even do this, but some people will sign in the first time with an admin account, then create their actual user account, and then they'll authenticate against the admin account, but using the standard users account. That's very responsible. But very few people do that. So this is kind of basically forcing that on people with one account more.

[Richard Campbell]

So, I mean, it's, you know what you also call it UAC2, right?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

That way. But this angle with Windows. Hello. Where while you're in elevated privileges, it's taking screenshots the whole time.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

And look, I've been the administrator accused of wrecking the production assistant, even though I didn't touch it. But they're like you were the last person to log into that account because all we have is that you logged in with that privilege level. We don't really have a telemetry of what you did.

[Paul Thurrott]

Sure.

[Richard Campbell]

I would want these screenshots. Yeah, these screenshots show what I did.

[Paul Thurrott]

Like it wasn't me. I was browsing porn the whole time. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

I'd rather an HR violation than taking down production.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yes. Last week there were actually three, but two of Windows 11, one of Windows 10. So the beta build, which is tied to 23H2, is getting some new interfaces in the Settings app, which is cool. Microsoft's been talking about this since last year, I think, but they're going to allow third party developers to extend widgets on the widgets board and the widgets interface.

[Richard Campbell]

Really looking forward to developers coming up with ways to make widgets go away forever.

[Paul Thurrott]

And then alternative search providers for Windows Search in Europe because of the DMA. So that's fun. And then 22, this is 24H2. It's basically the features I just. Some of them are so some of the features I just mentioned. So some of the stuff from Explorer, the Taskbar, the Windows Studio effects stuff, but a couple of others, OneDrive continuity, because Microsoft cannot stand that they're not Apple. And the idea there is that using OneDrive on your phone to do something and the next time you go to your PC it says, hey, did you want to keep working on that thing, whatever it might be, but on your PC, which I think is going to have limited success, frankly. But I appreciate what they're trying to do. Improve Windows, share improved or extra keyboard shortcuts in the Magnifier app that you'll be shocked to know weren't there to begin with. And then the biggest one of all, Windows 10, is getting the new Outlook app. So starting in the release preview channel, you can get that now or you can just wait till next patch Tuesday. And you're going to get it whether you want it or not. As we say in Mexico, Tomolo. So it's coming and it's replacing the Mail in Calendar app that expired at the end of last year. And then this is early Windows, but I wasn't really sure to put this and I, I had to say I had to read this three or four times before I understood.

[Richard Campbell]

What does this mean?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So Microsoft is making a subtle and yet not at all subtle change to what happens when you sign into your Microsoft account on the web. Right. The way it works today is you sign in, you authenticate whatever it is, you have two FA and you get, you get through. And it says, hey, did you want to stay signed in on this computer? Like you know, if you trust it. I don't know that anyone even know what that meant, but much less does.

[Richard Campbell]

It actually do anything.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right. So the way, if it's my computer, my browser, I'm like, yeah, I want to stay signed in. I don't want to go through this all the time. But now they're just getting rid of that. And if you sign in, you will be signed in all the time. Right. So you actually want to be careful with that because if it's a shared computer, if it's a public computer, God help you, you don't want to sign into your Microsoft account, walk away from the computer, close the browser, doesn't matter, you'll stay signed in. Do not do that. So they want you to use like an in private or whatever they call, whatever your browser calls it tab, if it's not your computer. But basically they're saying, look for this stuff to just work, we're doing so much interaction with your Microsoft account now that actually it would just ruin the user experience if you weren't always saying.

[Richard Campbell]

They'Ve been ruining the user experience for a long time. Nothing new. Yeah, I don't know if it's going to make it better, but. Right. And I don't know that how many people actually, you know, use kiosk machines? I know, I know. Well, but they need that dialogue, show up less often. I think people will be happier.

[Paul Thurrott]

So I don't think this is a common source of security problems, but I think it is a common low hanging fruit kind of. We could fix this and it would Solve one of the more egregious problems, even though it doesn't happen that much. Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

It'll be interesting to see if it actually makes a difference in any way.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

Or people just. Because when it's. Once it stops popping up, nobody will notice that it's not popping up.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. Somebody sent me this on Twitter, one of those things, and I was like, I don't. I don't even know what this means, you know, but then they. They announced it, and I was like, yeah. And I still don't think I know what this means, you know, but now I get it. And I. You know, I think people who use the Microsoft account like I do, you're like, look, it's my computer. I. Windows, hello. I'm signed in. It's whatever. Yes, please stay signed in. It's fine. Like, it doesn't change anything for me personally, but. Yeah. I don't know who, like, who's using a public computer with their Microsoft account. I don't know, but it's dangerous, I guess, so don't.

[Richard Campbell]

All right.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. Well, you know, we could talk about AI in just a second. How about that?

[Richard Campbell]

Let's do that.

[Leo Laporte]

How do you feel about that overall in general?

[Paul Thurrott]

Let me ask. I'm gonna ask Kopilai what I think about that.

[Leo Laporte]

My B computer.

[Paul Thurrott]

I think really, I think very highly of it.

[Leo Laporte]

I have to train this thing to give us show titles because it's pretty funny, right? It gives me funny insights into the world. Somebody in the Discord said you should use that for show titles. Oh, yeah, Good idea. Just see what it thinks. My day, my daily memories. Frustration yielded a relief and cautious optimism amidst lingering health concerns.

[Richard Campbell]

Oh, my goodness.

[Paul Thurrott]

Wow.

[Richard Campbell]

Do you have lingering health concerns?

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I've been feeling poorly, but otherwise, no. Sunday laughter and love filled the air. Tinged with a hint of melancholy.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yes. Tinged with a hint of tequila.

[Leo Laporte]

Of tequila. Let's see here what's going on today. Because it's been listening to the show.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

As I have. Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's like, you know, we found the weak link. And his name begins with a P and ends with a T. Leo explores.

[Leo Laporte]

The humorous potential of AI in generating creative show titles. What? And reflecting on personal experiences and miss Ongoing health issues. It's really focused on the ongoing health issues.

[Richard Campbell]

Yep.

[Paul Thurrott]

You know who doesn't have ongoing health issues?

[Leo Laporte]

AI AI Never does.

[Richard Campbell]

Never does.

[Leo Laporte]

Our show today, brought to you by US Cloud. I can't imagine a more appropriate sponsor for this show. It is. US Cloud is the number one Microsoft Unified Support. Replacement. Replacement. We've been talking for a few months about US Cloud. Now I think they are the global leader in third party Microsoft support for enterprises. They now support 50 of the Fortune 500. Now, why would you switch to US Cloud? There's actually three reasons. Let's start with money. Switching to US Cloud can save your business 30 to 50% over Microsoft Unified and Premier support 30 to 50%. But that's only reason number one. It would be no good if you went to a less expensive solution that didn't, that wasn't better. And it is better. It's faster, twice as fast. Average time to resolution versus Microsoft 200% faster time to resolution. They also offer features I think that are really great. This is a feature Microsoft isn't going to offer you. US Cloud has a new thing called Azure Cost Optimization. See, Microsoft does not want you to optimize your Azure cost, but frankly, as all cloud users, there's a creep, right there's Azure creepy. When's the last time you evaluated your total Azure usage? If it's been a while, you got some Azure sprawl going on. A little spend creep. Good news, saving on Azure is easy. With US Cloud, they offer an eight week. They call it an Azure Engagement. It's powered by VBox. And this engagement, what does it do? It identifies key opportunities to reduce costs across your entire Azure environment. With expert guidance, you'll get access to US Cloud's senior engineers. This is the third thing that they do better. So less expensive. They're faster, they're smarter. The US cloud senior engineers have an average of over 16 years with Microsoft products, all US based. And they will be there. They're the cavalry that comes in when you need them. At the end of those eight weeks with the Azure Engagement, you'll get an interactive dashboard which will identify, rebuild and downscale opportunities and unused resources. Is Microsoft going to tell you that, hey, you know, you could save a lot of money allowing you to reallocate your precious IT dollars towards needed resources. Or you, you know, just a suggestion. You could invest your Azure savings in US Cloud's Microsoft support. That's what a few of US Cloud's other customers have done. Completely eliminate your unified spend. Here's a quote from Sam. He's the Technical Operations manager at Bead Gaming. In a review, unsolicited, unprompted, he gave us Cloud 5 stars, saying, quote, we found some things that have been running for three years which no one was checking. These VMs were, I don't know, 10 grand a month, not A massive chunk in the grand scheme of how much we spend on Azure. But once you get to 40 or $50,000 a month, it starts to add up. Yeah, it's simple. Stop overpaying for Azure, identify and eliminate Azure creep, and boost your performance all in eight weeks with US Cloud. Just one of many ways US Cloud can save you with faster, better support. Visit uscloud.com book a call today to find out how much your team can save. That's uscloud.com book a call and get faster, better Microsoft support for less. That's the three. Faster, better, less Microsoft support. USCloud.com the number one Microsoft unified support replacement. USCloud.com we thank him so much for supporting Windows Weekly. Oh, and look at the view in beautiful Puerto Vallarta.

[Richard Campbell]

Somebody was asking, so figured I'd bring it up.

[Leo Laporte]

Such a. It's a perfect day, despite the earthquake.

[Richard Campbell]

It's a little hazy.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's a little hazy.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's pretty nice.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, haze is good. You don't want that direct sun beating down on you. Where. Where are the ladies?

[Richard Campbell]

They are down at the pool, like.

[Leo Laporte]

Letting the direct sun beat down upon them.

[Richard Campbell]

I'm hopefully.

[Leo Laporte]

Do you like this resort? Would you recommend it?

[Richard Campbell]

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. The Vedanta Resort in. In. In Nuvo is fantastic. It's been great. Stayed there before, or we have. This is where I did the Hornitas show last year.

[Leo Laporte]

Ah. I. Or as I call it, Horny toes.

[Richard Campbell]

There you go.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow. Now, see, now I. I'm thinking because we. We need a. We need a vacation. Now I'm thinking I might. This might be the place to go.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. Lots of choices. You can. There's quieter spots and busier parts, like whatever you prefer.

[Leo Laporte]

So here's my question. And can you swim in the ocean? Because that. Yeah, most of the places in Mexico you can.

[Richard Campbell]

No, you. I mean, because of riptides. There's riptides. Yeah. So you. You. You can do a little wading. I would not recommend swimming. Riptide risk is significant.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't see the red flags every time we go. We've gone to both Cabo and Cancun. There's giant red flags and there's guards on the beaches saying, don't go here. You can't go in.

[Richard Campbell]

Good, good. It's big, long, sandy beaches here, so it's a long walk to the water too.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, okay. It looks pretty, though. All right.

[Richard Campbell]

Beautiful.

[Leo Laporte]

How are the tacos?

[Richard Campbell]

Unbelievable.

[Leo Laporte]

As good as Mexico City.

[Paul Thurrott]

Paul, man, don't make me laugh.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. But they're the next best thing.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, they're good.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. All right, I'll be. We'll be right down.

[Paul Thurrott]

This place, so little to do with Mexico City. It's almost not.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, that's town. Right.

[Leo Laporte]

These are the tourist regions that Mexico set up separate from there, where real people live to.

[Richard Campbell]

And only recently have they started putting in highways so that locals can even get here. Recently.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. They didn't want locals to get there.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. That being said, I mean I. I very much want to go up to Tequila and do a distillery tour, but it's still a three hour drive.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

There's nothing like driving on those high on those Mexican roads. I love Mexico though. I love the food. The people are so warm. I just love it.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, it's a fantastic place.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And pv, you can stay in town. So maybe, maybe we'll look at that. I want to stay. There's a hotel called Casa Kimberly. It's the old Elizabeth Taylor Richard Burton complex.

[Richard Campbell]

Yes, absolutely.

[Leo Laporte]

I'd love to stay there. They have rooms for each of their movies, as you do, as one does. I want to stay in the night of the Iguana room, but that's all right. Let's talk AI.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So you might have heard about this little Microsoft OpenAI partnership.

[Leo Laporte]

So this is to me, this was the lead story. Stargate, man.

[Paul Thurrott]

Stargate.

[Leo Laporte]

Stargate. Plus it showed that Microsoft was perhaps relaxing its grip on OpenAI. Yes.

[Paul Thurrott]

I don't really. I don't see it that way. I think of this more like the part. I think the important part here is that Microsoft gains access to OpenAI's technology. Everybody understands that OpenAI exclusively to date has been on Microsoft Azure cloud was the original deal. Yep. But Microsoft is one of the few companies that could even afford or even attempt to try to host their stuff it's requested.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, but there's Oracle. Right. That's who the.

[Paul Thurrott]

But I mean, but this is so rare and so hard to do that there really aren't too many other places for this company to turn. Microsoft has struggled to meet the needs of OpenAI.

[Richard Campbell]

Sure.

[Paul Thurrott]

So Microsoft also.

[Richard Campbell]

And by Oracle you mean Amazon.

[Paul Thurrott]

He said Oracle, but I. Oracle. It doesn't matter who Oracle, Amazon, Google, whatever, It doesn't matter.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, I would be more afraid of AWS and Google if our Microsoft than I am of Oracle.

[Paul Thurrott]

All right, but so Microsoft makes some percentage of everything.

[Leo Laporte]

Oracle's a big partner in this Stargate thing. I don't see those other guys.

[Richard Campbell]

Okay.

[Paul Thurrott]

Microsoft makes some. We don't know. But 20%, I think, is the thing we've that's been reported of whatever revenues that OpenAI makes. Microsoft pays for the infrastructure that this company uses and it's not profitable. It's really expensive.

[Leo Laporte]

You think they want to get out of it?

[Paul Thurrott]

Nope. But I think if they could move part of it to other clouds, they'll still make money and it will ease up their own infrastructure. I mean, this is kind of a win win, you know, plus. Well, I guess, I think I said this to you earlier, Richard, this morning. The one thing that's kind of weird about this is OpenAI, in using other clouds, will start to have an idea of where each of them is good, bad and different. Whatever. Right. So it might be kind of interesting if they're like, actually, man, we should have went with Google or whatever it might be.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, wasn't one of the stipulations on this is only if Azure can provide capacity.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. They have a right of first refusal, right? Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

So I wonder if they didn't present the Stargate proposal to Azure and they said, yeah, you know, we really want to run your Oracle stuff on our thing. You go run it wherever he want, but not here.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So I, I don't know. I don't, I. We all know they're careening toward not being partners on some day. Right. But I also feel like OpenAI is going to be as much of a relief to lose as it was a boon to get, you know, that. So that if they end up going or just splitting their time and resources between different companies, that from Microsoft's perspective, it's going to be. Not happen quickly enough. So I don't, I don't know. I don't, I don't really see this as that huge of a deal.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. I do.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. Okay.

[Richard Campbell]

I think it is another step on the path.

[Leo Laporte]

I think the huge deal is this. So Microsoft is joining with OpenAI. Larry Ellison is also on the stage there to create this and sun of Masayoshi, son of SoftBank to create this. Now, there are people who are saying, who are skeptical, including, by the way, ironically, Elon Musk, who says, I don't know what they're talking about. SoftBank doesn't have more than $10 billion. I've seen a larger number like 30 billion, but the commitment is to 100 billion this year and 500 billion over the next four years, which is, by the way, an important number. That's how long Trump's gonna be in the White House. Well, according to the Constitution anyway. That's how long Trump's gonna be in the White House. So this is a deal that is a big win for the Trump administration, but I think is also more. Well, I don't know. That's my, I mean, that's my question. This, I, to me, this is a fascinating. What they're going to do is build a giant data center and they're going to go after AGI and they're going to spend a lot of money doing.

[Richard Campbell]

So, and it takes a couple of years to build a data center, so.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, four years is a fast time.

[Paul Thurrott]

Microsoft is in this fiscal year, which they're three quarters of the way through, spending 100 billion, I'm sorry, $80 billion on just AI infrastructure of their own. I mean, so, so this could, and.

[Leo Laporte]

There is, there is some sentiment. This is just a silly political statement. It has nothing to do with reality.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, and it might be and it.

[Leo Laporte]

Could be, but I also think it's interesting.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, it is, it's interesting, but I, I just don't think it, I don't think it's going to have any immediate impact, if any.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, it's one thing to raise a hundred billion dollars to go build a disadvantage center. It's nothing to find the location, actually start construction, and also have enough power and water to operate it.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, well, that's why maybe it's not, it's not realistic.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

I'll be in Arizona where there's lots of water, Right?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep. Nothing contested there. I don't know. We'll see.

[Leo Laporte]

All right. They just thought that was very interesting in this. And the Microsoft sub note is that this is kind of an opening of Microsoft's what has been previously.

[Paul Thurrott]

I think it benefits Microsoft because I don't. I think they're tired of shouldering the load here.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. You know, I'm sure OpenAI is throwing proposals at Microsoft all the time for other things they want to do on app.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. And it's like, guys, you know, there's physical limits to what we can do, and we're the only company that can do what we're already doing.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

You know.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, it's like, we also notice they're not talking about building their own data center.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, that's right. That's right. I mean, if this was just OpenAI, they wouldn't be able to do this.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, no, no, no. This is, this is. But it's big, big names, big money.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, no, I know. But if OpenAI, the reason is OpenAI couldn't do this right by themselves, Remember.

[Leo Laporte]

Also President Trump negated Biden's executive order on AI safety, basically saying, hey, don't worry about safety. Let's go full speed ahead. His administration is very clearly. Of course, this is all about AI, Right?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. Well, they're definitely embracing big tech in general.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. You know, that's because of Elon's influence. But David Sachs is in there running the cyber czar of AI and Bitcoin.

[Paul Thurrott]

Sure.

[Leo Laporte]

I just think it's very interesting. What I see you looking at each other. What are you thinking here?

[Paul Thurrott]

One of our concerns doing this outside here is that somebody would start power washing the side of the building. I don't hear it.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't hear it. Are you getting misted? Gently? Misted?

[Paul Thurrott]

No, no, no, no. It's. But there's some. I don't know, it sounds like a.

[Richard Campbell]

There's some kind of machine, but it may be gone in a minute, too.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

It's okay. We hear parades going. Paul's. By Paul's house in Mexico City. It's normal. This is all normal.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

It's a. Mexico's a party. Let's just face it.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

You never know what's going to happen. Earthquakes, power washing parades. Any of the above.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yes. The three pillars of Mexico society.

[Leo Laporte]

Big three.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I'm not trying to poo poo this. I just think in the context of Microsoft, it's like. Yeah, you know, it's fine.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Okay.

[Paul Thurrott]

I think.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. Yeah. I think that we're gonna watch what happens and we'll, we'll cover this in greater detail. I'm trying to get some experts on intelligent machines.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. I mean, Right. AI generally, I just. From US versus China, kind of competitive thing, et cetera. Yeah. I'm sure it's a big deal. But from Microsoft's perspective, I think people are looking. Oh, it's just being like their relationships coming to unwinding and it's like. I don't know. I don't really. This seems normal to me, but we'll see.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. Okay. AI is one of those things where it's so funny it's hard to have a real opinion. Is it bs? Is it real? Is it going to change the world in two minutes or is it going to just fade away and it's just really hard to know.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. I think all of those things may be true.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

If you were to go back to, I don't know, let's call it 1990, WordPerfect was selling their product where they had one floppy disk for the app and 12 floppy disks for all the printers, for the drivers. The drivers, Right. And then you could buy like a third party spell checking module or whatever they called it. And you were like. And people are like, I think spell checking is just going to be built into word processors. And they're like, I don't know if that's going to happen. That sounds like crazy. Why would that even work? I mean, do we talk like that? I don't know. I mean I, I feel like, I think AI is a big deal, but I, you know, we talk about this. I think it's just a thousand needles of.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, it's just a UX extension. Yeah, eventually.

[Paul Thurrott]

But it makes everything better. I mean, for the most part. Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

There are certain workflows that are interesting.

[Paul Thurrott]

I mean the news headlines are getting really creative. I mean, you know, it's, it's good.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know what's going on.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. From, from my sort of Microsoft Prism, I would just say it's fascinating to me that Microsoft is literally betting the company on this. Where they, yeah, Gates used that term a hundred times, never met anything and now they're not even really saying it. It's like, no, you're betting the company on. This is a lot of money.

[Richard Campbell]

He bet the company on Internet and went full born Internet worked out just fine. What he never did was bet the company had something that didn't succeed. Ultimately.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's true.

[Richard Campbell]

And this and the pivot to the cloud was a big deal. Right. Putting Windows from the center of the company Elsewhere after 30 years, that's huge. This is Satya's play. I think he might be overdoing it, but I get what he's doing and right now there's no downside because nobody's holding his financial feet to the fire.

[Leo Laporte]

Right.

[Richard Campbell]

This company had so much cash, all it could do was buy back stock. The fact that it's investing it in any.

[Leo Laporte]

Now they have something to put that money into.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, exactly.

[Paul Thurrott]

And they're being aggressive. You know, they're, they're. And I, I don't like how chaotic it is, but I have to say this is Microsoft being aggressive is something I've grown very uncomfortable. It's been a while. It's been a long time.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, and I think in the, in general it's a good thing when you get all these companies involved. Stargate is OpenAI, Microsoft SoftBank, Oracle Being Investment is the parent company of ARM, ARM Nvidia and the president all kind of Saying, hey, let's go after superintelligence.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. I don't know if they're doing that politically.

[Paul Thurrott]

I think this is about beating China. And from the perspective of, I don't.

[Leo Laporte]

Mind beating China, let's beat China.

[Paul Thurrott]

No, everyone agrees on that. But I mean, but the big tech rallying around this administration is really about no more regulations. Take off the shackles and let us just eat unfairly to beat the rest of the world.

[Leo Laporte]

Put your foot metal to the pedal to the metal and let's go.

[Paul Thurrott]

So, you know, I'm not against it.

[Leo Laporte]

They say they're building. The build out has already begun in Texas. That's where they're going. It's in Abilene. It's a big data center in Abilene.

[Richard Campbell]

Okay, so they're taking over an existing data.

[Leo Laporte]

It's Oracle's. Yeah, Oracle's. Oracle's been building this.

[Richard Campbell]

That'll help. That'll get them going sooner. Of course, they're in Texas, so that means their electricity will be very unreliable.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, they're going to need a pocket nuke right next door is what they're going to need.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

If only one existed.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, Bill Gates has those natrium things going. Maybe he can get that liquid sodium.

[Richard Campbell]

He does not even have the license to actually build the nuclear.

[Leo Laporte]

No, NRC has not approved it. Just. No, just the state says, well, you could break ground. But.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, no, they're. They're allowed to build the turbine island, the part that would make electricity. They're not allowed to build the nuclear island.

[Leo Laporte]

Right, yeah, that was the news last week. Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

That's 10 years away then. Yeah. Really?

[Leo Laporte]

So Microsoft's press release did say, Microsoft and OpenAI evolve partnership to drive the next phase of AI. It's evolving now.

[Richard Campbell]

They open. AI started asking for crazy stuff and we said, go do it with somebody else.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

I mean, Italy and Germany's relationship was evolving in the early days of World War II. It's.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, but who's going to be Czechoslovakia in this? That's the question.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right?

[Leo Laporte]

I don't. It's. It's. Boy, I'd hate to be trying to navigate this right now. You know, I'd hate to be Satya trying to figure this.

[Paul Thurrott]

No, this is happening in real time. That's what's amazing about this. It's so fast.

[Leo Laporte]

We thought it was crazy when they fired and hired Sam Altman in two days.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, well, we. And Dark Satya showed up for the first time.

[Leo Laporte]

Dark Satchel, you may not now.

[Paul Thurrott]

I still don't think this is as big a deal as Mark Penn and Google screw gold campaign, but, you know, whatever I can do. Put it in perspective, dudes.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm just telling you, PCs are dying. You need to find a new beat. I'm just saying. AI.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, yeah. And cloud growth is easing off, right?

[Leo Laporte]

Is it easing off?

[Richard Campbell]

Part of the problem is that the timing on this was impeccable. Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Interesting. Finally they got something to use.

[Richard Campbell]

All making was when they're about to say, hey, our rate of growth on cloud is starting to go. Yeah, totally.

[Leo Laporte]

It's perfect. It's really interesting.

[Richard Campbell]

They have incentives other than actually ushering a new era of computer.

[Leo Laporte]

I mean, it's. It's good for business. Until it's not.

[Richard Campbell]

Meantime, the FTC put out the report.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, yeah? What's the FTC think?

[Richard Campbell]

Well, I don't know that it actually is good for business. I'm still looking.

[Leo Laporte]

Is there anybody in the FTC anymore? I mean, I know they all went home.

[Paul Thurrott]

Who's the single light bulb swinging in a dark.

[Richard Campbell]

I think this is the going out the door report.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, well, it is.

[Paul Thurrott]

Oh, it is.

[Leo Laporte]

Came out on Friday. This is their.

[Paul Thurrott]

The F is so this meaning. Yeah, this is just going out the door report. The parting.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, well, nobody's gonna do anything, but they want people to know what they found.

[Leo Laporte]

This is their version of leaving a note in the desk.

[Richard Campbell]

Microsoft should never have bought Blizzard.

[Paul Thurrott]

But this was just. This was a. They started this a year ago, January, this month, a year ago. So they had a report and it was never meant to. It was never going to turn into some criminal action or anything like that. It was just. We want to understand what's going on. Honestly, the report's worth reading, especially for just mainstream users, because they do a pretty good job of explaining generative AI and what all this stuff means. And that's still kind of complicated stuff. But in the end, they didn't say anything profound. They said exactly what we know, which is that Big Tech is going to partner with AI startups to retain and extend their dominance in this market and no one is regulating them. It's like, yes, yes, you are correct. These deals were all structured to avoid regulatory scrutiny, that they are acquisitions by proxy and they're done to prevent regulators from stopping them from moving forward. You know, so. Yep, 100. So, yeah, that's. It doesn't matter. No one's gonna act on it.

[Leo Laporte]

It's. Yeah, it's kind of weak sauce because.

[Paul Thurrott]

They did a pretty good job of swelling it out.

[Richard Campbell]

I think when you, when you can't do anything about it, you leave the report out there.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. I'm telling you, it's a letter in the desk.

[Richard Campbell]

Put out the report.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's. Well, they can, they can hand it off to the next group and they can do what they want with it. I'm pretty sure they're going to play record, they're going to play paper trash can basketball with it, but whatever.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah. At least it's part of the public record.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's right.

[Richard Campbell]

The reckoning comes in there, up against the wall.

[Leo Laporte]

That's true. We warned you. Yeah, we want.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, right. Except we won't know that because AI will take over the news waves and we won't be able to tell anyone anything.

[Leo Laporte]

So areas to watch regarding potential implications of the. They say that it's concerning that all these companies are partnering. They say the partnerships could affect access to certain inputs such as computing resources and engineering talent. In other words, could suck up all.

[Paul Thurrott]

They're already talking about. They're just talking about things that are happening.

[Leo Laporte]

Right. Could increase contractual and technical switching costs for AI developer partners. I don't know.

[Paul Thurrott]

Say you're some small garage company that just started. Like, we did it. We have this AI advanced. The only thing we don't have is compute. We got to go to can't get it. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, whatever. We're like, hey, we're going to, we're going to do this. We solved it. And they're like, yeah, we don't have anything for you. You can barely keep game pass, you know, streaming going, let alone anything.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to agree with them. There is a legit concern that AI is going to be in the hands of just this handful of big companies and that there is not going to be any.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's a certainty it's already done, you know?

[Richard Campbell]

Well, I almost don't know that it was possible for it to be any other way.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right.

[Leo Laporte]

So.

[Richard Campbell]

Because in the end it was all driven by data. So those who had collected the data in the first place had the option.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yes, name the big cloud companies and then replace the word cloud with AI. Yeah, we're done.

[Richard Campbell]

How else was going to come out?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep.

[Leo Laporte]

They also warned that the partnerships provide these companies with access to sensitive technical and business information others won't have access to. So it's really going to tilt the scales in the direction of the big companies.

[Paul Thurrott]

The fun thing is they actually spelled out what all those things were, but then redacted it before they put it out in the public.

[Leo Laporte]

So can't tell you because it's private.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's worse than you think. But we can't tell you.

[Richard Campbell]

Just look at these black bars. It's awful.

[Leo Laporte]

And they're saying that the Companies are Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, Anthropic, and Google. Those are the bad guys. In effect, that is the cadre, the dominant companies.

[Paul Thurrott]

The cartel, as we call them. Yeah, the AI.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. Okay.

[Richard Campbell]

Everything's fine. We're fine.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm gonna get Amy Webb on to talk about this. I think this would be good thing for her to address. She. She predicted everything that was going to happen because she's a futurist. She knew. She knew. And that was her. That was her warning. Yeah, she actually wrote a book about all of this, like, years ago. The Big Nine, she called it. She. And it's nine because she included Chinese companies like Baidu and. Which, you know. She's right, of course.

[Paul Thurrott]

Okay.

[Leo Laporte]

All right. Anything else to report in the AI segment?

[Richard Campbell]

All is well. Hasn't taken over the world yet.

[Leo Laporte]

Yep. Would we know? Would we know, I think is the question.

[Richard Campbell]

Oh, yeah, you'll know. Well, no, you'll get an email.

[Leo Laporte]

Hello, this is your new overlord. Just want you to know I like humans. Yes, I think they're okay. You're right.

[Paul Thurrott]

Humans are now going somewhere else.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, we have a little adjustment to make in our relationship, and I think you'll enjoy your new role on Mars.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, I was going to say that adjustment is you're no longer necessary in this relationship.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, well, I think that's what the oligarchs think. But who's going to buy their crap if they don't have us little people? That's what I want to know. Somebody's got to buy. Buy all these phones. All right, let's take a break. Then we can talk about the fun. The toy store is just around the corner. We're going to talk about Xbox. And of course, because you guys are in pv, I think we should talk a little bit about tequila.

[Richard Campbell]

It's a good idea.

[Paul Thurrott]

You insist.

[Leo Laporte]

I do, I do. And I can't wait for the tasting. Our show today, brought to you by Zscaler, the leader in Cloud Security Enterprises, have gone down. You know, it was a natural thing. They've gone down the road of perimeter defenses, right? Firewalls, then VPNs, of course, so that the employees can get in to the network. Hasn't really protected you, has it? Breaches continue to rise. Ransomware attacks went up 18% last year. Year over year, $75 million record payout in 2024. I. I know that's low. I know that's low. That's the people who said we're paying these ransomware creeps. You know, there's many, many more that didn't tell anybody. It's not. Look. What. We don't have to argue over the numbers. The trend is not your friend here. Part of the problem is that these traditional security tools, the perimeter defenses, expand your attack service because they give you public facing IPs for the VPNs and they're immediately exploited by bad actors. And now more easily than ever with AI tools. Plus these VPNs and firewalls struggle to inspect outbound encrypted traffic at scale. Why is that important? Because as soon as the hackers penetrate you, the first thing they do is start exfiltrating your company data so they can blackmail you so they can see what you're up to. There's a whole bunch of reasons you don't want that. There's another problem. Firewalls and VPNs. Just assume once you're in the network, hey, you're good, you're golden. Which means lateral movement through the network is trivial. You've connected users to the entire network. They go, the hackers go around. They look for where you back stuff up, they look for your emails, they look for your customer lists, all that stuff. And they exfiltrate it with encrypted traffic and other leakage paths, which you're completely impotent. You can't stop. Hackers exploit traditional security infrastructure using AI now to outpace your defenses. It's time to rethink your security. And look, we cannot let the bad actors win. They are out innovating all of us and exploiting our defenses. That's why you need zscaler Zero Trust plus AI. It does some very important things to stop bad guys. It hides your attack surface, which immediately, I mean, you can see how important that would be. It makes apps and IPs invisible, so hackers don't have anything to grab onto, eliminating lateral movement within your network. Because you connect users only to specific apps, not the whole network. And you continuously verify every request based on identity and context. It simplifies security management with AI powered automation. And you need the AI because Zscaler is analyzing half a trillion daily transactions. AI sifts through them to find the ones that really matter and detect those threats. Hackers can attack what they can't see. Protect your organization with Zscaler Zero Trust and I learn more at Zscaler.com Security I hope you understand how important this is. Zscaler.com Security you've got a partner. They're here. They're ready to help. Zscaler.com Security we thank them for partnering with us for supporting Windows Weekly. You do the same when you go to that address, then they know that you saw it here. Zscaler.com Security okay. Don't go to sleep. Paul, wake up. It's time for the Xbox segment.

[Richard Campbell]

Yay.

[Paul Thurrott]

Finally.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm sorry it took so long.

[Paul Thurrott]

I'm sorry.

[Leo Laporte]

I blame myself.

[Paul Thurrott]

I kind of blame you too. Honestly.

[Leo Laporte]

It'S all my fault.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's not true. Okay, So I don't remember when a couple of months ago, Microsoft previewed this notion of a Microsoft Edge game assist feature, which is basically a mini game or Microsoft Edge browser inside of the game bar. And it is now available in stable. So you have to go find it in Edge and enable it. It's not there by default, but once you do, I'm doing this now just to look at it. You can bring up the game bar and then one of the available floating widgets you can have is this little browser. I guess there are going to be automatic experiences you get. So if you're using an arm.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, this is cool.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

So it's like a little walkthrough of the game that you can watch while you're in the game.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So I just did a Google search for a game walkthrough just to see it. But I mean, there's a little. They call it.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, so you explicitly, explicitly looked for it.

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, I did because I'm not running a game, but depending on the game, it will actually just come up automatically. Right. So which is kind of cool.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that is cool.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, it's kind of neat.

[Leo Laporte]

It's like Clippy, I see you're playing Crisis.

[Paul Thurrott]

No one who has played a video game of any kind has ever not gone to a web browser and type in how do I.name of game. Is that okay?

[Leo Laporte]

That's allowed. Because I do that and I, of course, everyone. I feel like it's cheating.

[Paul Thurrott]

No, it's. Come on. I'm trying to have fun. Not, you know, I'm not trying to crack a puzzle here.

[Leo Laporte]

That's true. It's not a test.

[Richard Campbell]

I got about 20 minutes for your puzzle and then I'm just gonna go get it.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, exactly right. Or you fail so many times. It just gets frustrating. You like that here to be Frustrated.

[Leo Laporte]

Back in the day when you go to GameStop, you'd buy the game and the book that goes along with it, right?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the web change, that this makes sense. I mean, I think I like. Yeah. When they announced this, I was like, yeah, no, this makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, I like it too. So that's cool. Nice. Yeah, it's good. So it's there.

[Leo Laporte]

Now do I have to use Edge, I mean, to play these, Do I have to be playing the. I'm not playing the game in Edge, right?

[Paul Thurrott]

No, no, it's just a floating thing.

[Leo Laporte]

Okay. It's just a little.

[Paul Thurrott]

You can pin it to a pair if you want.

[Leo Laporte]

Does Edge have to be my default browser to do that? Probably. Huh.

[Paul Thurrott]

That I'm not sure. But I do know that I switched the default search and when I search that it uses my search, not Bing. So it does at least.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, that's good. Oh, that's nice.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

All right.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, I was. You know, because you get pictures of them saying, hey, this isn't going to work unless you make your default search in Edge. Bang.

[Leo Laporte]

And it's like, could have done that.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, yeah, they didn't do that. So good.

[Leo Laporte]

Thank you.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, that's good.

[Leo Laporte]

I'm excited. It looks like the new Xbox game Pass is adding Mexico power washer. That's. Yeah, it's got to be fun. I can't wait to play that.

[Paul Thurrott]

It's called Agua Gigante. No, it's so there every month. Every two weeks. Obviously there's new games on Game Pass across whatever, multiple platforms. This is actually a pretty big month. Not for Activision.

[Leo Laporte]

Look at all of these.

[Paul Thurrott]

You know, why would it be. There's 14 titles, but there are a bunch. And one of these is kind of curious. So one's called Far Cry and Do Dawn. I. I don't. I'm assuming. I assume this is sort of a. This is like an add on for the latest.

[Leo Laporte]

I love Far Cry. Great game.

[Paul Thurrott]

I do too.

[Leo Laporte]

Beautiful game.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. Sniper Sniper, Elite Resistance spin off of Far Cry 5. Okay, so it's Spinoff.

[Leo Laporte]

This is my game, you know, Looks like Citizen Sleeper. Do you sleep in the game? Is that the. Now you're talking Now I don't sleep.

[Paul Thurrott]

Very well, so I would do. I would do poorly.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, I noticed any of these are Blizzard titles, right?

[Paul Thurrott]

That's what I.

[Leo Laporte]

Not one.

[Richard Campbell]

Am I giving away your thunder here?

[Paul Thurrott]

But no, no, you're right, you're right.

[Richard Campbell]

I just looking through goes any of these Blizzard titles like that. Ubisoft Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

I don't see any.

[Richard Campbell]

Wow.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

The shady part of me, I like that.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, that looks kind of fun. Orcs Must Die, Death Trap. Hilarious.

[Richard Campbell]

Awesome.

[Paul Thurrott]

So, yeah, anyway, pretty good. So that's kind of. That's nice. That's nice.

[Leo Laporte]

That's a nice.

[Paul Thurrott]

And then I. Next.

[Richard Campbell]

Nice.

[Paul Thurrott]

Next week. Next tomorrow. Next Thursday, which is. Tomorrow we're gonna get this online event developer direct, which is a live stream and they're gonna show us gameplay from a bunch of games. Most notably the one is the new Doom game. Right. Which is roaming down to be coming up in May. So Doom the Dark Ages, which is the third of the new generation Doom games.

[Leo Laporte]

This is completely replaced E3, hasn't it? This is just.

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, this and the seven or eight others, they do occur over the course of the year.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes. Why would you bother? Right?

[Paul Thurrott]

I know why.

[Leo Laporte]

Exactly. Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

So you want me to go physically to a place so I can see.

[Leo Laporte]

A game so I can watch this video?

[Paul Thurrott]

No, it's going to download it. Yeah. No, I think of the world. Yeah. The industry is caught up, I think.

[Leo Laporte]

Yep.

[Paul Thurrott]

In that sense. Which is fine.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

So, yeah, mostly I'm looking forward to doing. But there's other stuff in there that looks really interesting and you know, vowed, for example, which is kind of amazing. So we'll see. And I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't a few we don't know about. But the biggest news of the past week was Nintendo finally came clean on. Well, finally teased The Nintendo Switch 2, the creatively named sequel to the. What was that other thing called? The. The original Switch. So, you know, it's a bigger switch. It's whatever percent bigger. People have done these like deep dives, like measuring it and figuring out that, you know, how big it, you know, whatever. So I. Whatever. This is obviously a proven formula. I think it's going to be very successful. I'm looking forward to finding out how powerful it is because there are rumors that this thing, that it's an ARM chip inside and it could be three to four times as fast as the original, which would be kind of cool.

[Leo Laporte]

But nobody bought the Switch because of its high quality picture or speed.

[Paul Thurrott]

No, they bought it because the games were awesome.

[Leo Laporte]

And now great games. Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So if they can add performance and probably resolution improvements, I think. And it's going to play all most of the old games. Right. Of course. I think this is going to be a big deal, obviously. So looking forward to this. I guess I said. Did I say May? No, May was The doom thing. So April 2nd and the original trailer or the original video they released was the UK version. So everyone's like, awesome, we're going to find out more on February 2nd because they wrote the date, you know, 4, 2.

[Richard Campbell]

Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

20, 25. And it's like, no, no, that's April 2nd, guys. Sorry. So, yeah, April 2nd, we're going to learn more, but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't know more.

[Richard Campbell]

They wouldn't go for April 1st. That seems sad.

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, obviously you don't want to hit April 1st, but I think that April thing is not coincidental because Nintendo's fiscal year ends at the end of March. Right. And their goal is to become the best selling console of all time by then. So that might be their big announce, like now that we are the biggest in the world, we are going to do the next thing, you know, so that. I think that's the timing. So that's fun. Like that's really good.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

And is that everything or. I guess that's it. I thought there was more, but I think that's it. All right.

[Leo Laporte]

There you go.

[Paul Thurrott]

There you go.

[Leo Laporte]

There you have it. Well, that was good fun. Well, I guess it. I can't believe this. Maybe it's because you have a date at the pool.

[Paul Thurrott]

I thought, I thought we were going to go long today. No, I did. I looked at this and I was like, man, how are we going to get through this?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, okay, well, let me do one more break and then believe it or not, here we are at the back of the book. Ladies and gentlemen, our show today brought to you. I told you about some of the sponsors, but really, to me, the most important sponsor of the show is you, our listeners. We do it for you. That's the whole point of what we do. Well, there's two points. I'll confess. There's a selfish point, which is I like hanging out with our hosts and I am trying to learn more about all these subjects and what a great way to do it. Maybe you feel the same way. You get to hang out with us, learn. We are all in this together and we are headed into a maelstrom. In the next 10 years, technology is going to change in every way possible. And I want to be here for those 10 years and keep giving you these shows. Now the good news is we have advertisers and they do support us, but they don't support us truthfully, at the scale we would like to. I mean, we've had to close the studio, we've had to let people go, we've had to cancel shows. That's why we started the club a couple of years ago. Club Twit is an extra revenue stream that can make all the difference. Right now it's only about 5% of our overall revenue. I'd like to increase that. Heck, if we get it to 100%, we wouldn't need advertisers. We could just do it all for you. I don't ever want to do a paywall though. I'm not a paywall guy. I want to make sure everybody who wants to see this show can. There'll always be ad supported versions of our shows, but if you want to support what we do and you want to add free versions of the shows, you want video for many of the shows that we don't put out in video and public like Hands On Windows, Paul's show. If you want to join us in the Club Twit Discord, which is a great hangout, it's my favorite social networks where smart. I mean, imagine a social network where it's just smart, interesting, creative people with one easy subscription. Come boogie down in the club. Thank you, Joe. He's been making magazine ads for Club Twit. That's just one of the many fun things that happens in the Discord. I love it. I love it. We also have events, special events. We've got some coming up home theater geeks. You can watch it live. You can always hear the show after the fact, but you can watch it live. IOS today. Chris Markwart's photo time coming up February 6th. Gruden Micah is going to do another crafting corner February 19th. And we are going to set a date for Stacy's book club that's coming up. So we do, we have little, you know, in club parties. It is, it is a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun. And I, and I invite you to join the club. It's only seven bucks a month and you get lots of benefits. Visit. You can pay more by the way if you'd like, visit the website, Twitter, tv, Club Twit. And if you're interested, and I would be very grateful, you, you Club Twit members really make all of this possible and they make all of us feel good knowing that you like what we're doing.

[Richard Campbell]

If you love your phone but not your carrier, just switch to T Mobile. You can keep your phone, keep your number and we'll help pay it off up to $800 per line. You can also use our savings calculator to compare Our plans and streaming benefits against Verizon and AT&T. So switch and keep your phone, keep your number and keep more of your moolah. @t mobile.com up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card.

[Leo Laporte]

Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service port in 90 plus days with device and eligible carrier and timely redemptor required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months. I'm no tech genius, but I know if I want my business to crush it, I need a website. Now. Thankfully, Bluehost makes it easy. I customized, optimized and monetized everything exactly how I wanted with AI. Within minutes, my site was up. I couldn't believe it. Plus, Bluehost keeps me protected 24 7. No more worrying about hackers. I just relax and focus on my customers. So whatever your hustle may be, secure your online presence in 2025 with Bluehost. Head to bluehost.com to start now. One other thing you can do to help, whether you're a club member or not, that's take our survey. As you know, we're not able to spy on you. This is a podcast. It's an RSS feedback. We can't really. We don't know anything about you except the IP address you used to download the show. Now that's fine as far as I'm concerned, but once a year we do a little survey. It's a voluntary survey. We would like you to do this just so we get to know you better. Helps us decide if we're doing the shows that you want. It also helps us with advertisers. We don't tell them anything about you individually, we can't. But it's nice to know in aggregate that there's a certain number of you that are it, decision makers, things like that. So if you will, when you go there to sign up for the club also Twit TV survey, we'll leave it up for another week. It's nice when we have a large number, then we know that those answers are More valid. TWiT TV survey should only take you a couple of minutes. And thank you for that as well. We now take you back to Puerto Vallarta where Paul and Richard are relaxed and ready to go with the back of the book. Are you ready?

[Richard Campbell]

Ready.

[Leo Laporte]

All right, so start with your tip of the week. Paul.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, we kind of talked about this a little bit earlier, but now that AI is becoming so widespread, right. Apple Intelligence is going to be opt out any day Now. As of iOS 18.3 and the other releases, Microsoft, Google, et cetera, putting it in all their office productivity services. I use Grammarly and some other tools for spell checking. Grammarly.

[Leo Laporte]

So you use some paid tools. That's a paid tool, right? Grammarly.

[Paul Thurrott]

I don't actually pay for Grammarly, but.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, there's a free version.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, yeah, there's a paid version as well, but yeah, I think it's, you know, kind of tight. Like you were saying, Leo, that, you know, you pay for a bunch of different services, which makes sense.

[Leo Laporte]

That's my job.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. For what you're doing. Right.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

I mean, I think there are enough options now for people that we should all be looking at this and trying to figure out what makes the most sense for us and where the best services are for what it is we're trying to get done. And look, I mean, most of this is going to be you're texting or writing an email that says, hey, this could be better. This is spelled right. That stuff is super helpful. But depending on your work, it makes so much sense to integrate it into your workflow where it makes sense. Right. So I didn't show Richard this yet, and I'm not going to do it now. It doesn't make sense. No one can see this, but I've been working on this project I'm doing in Visual Studio, and increasingly I mentioned this last week, GitHub Copilot, but I've been for the past week hammering on this really gross, difficult thing that Windows Presentation foundation just comes up short, where you kind of have to programmatically, like, scale through, like, this visual tree to find a control so you can do something to it, because there's no way to access it directly. And I've written three different versions of this app, this version of the app, to try to figure it out. This morning I just started over again because I wanted to write about it and how hard it was. Then I wrote the name of the. I wrote it differently this time. I gave one of the methods, I broke it down into modules. One of the methods had a very descriptive name. Then GitHub Copilot filled in four lines of code. And I'm like, yep, that does it. The thing I had written. Yeah, the thing I had written was so complex, by the way. Did the job. I did it. I'm actually super proud. I figured this out because it's not very well documented, but I nailed it. No, I didn't, because what I did in 30 lines of code, it was like, boop. And it was like, yikes.

[Leo Laporte]

There's a better way.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So look, we can be indignant about this, we can be proud, whatever it is, but I'm telling you, we're at the point now where depending on what you do, I mean everyone does different things obviously, but there's something out there that can help you dramatically and oftentimes it will be free. I think it's time to stop pretending otherwise and take a look at the stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

It's, I just like playing with it, frankly.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, Yes, I, I, I, I mentioned this last week. I think I, we were at a family event over the holidays. There's a, a guy who's, he's not really my brother in law, he's like the brother in law of my brother in law or whatever, but super nice guy, whatever. Normal human being, mainstream, not technical, pays for OpenAI chat, GPT chats with it every, all day long, every day. And he's super into like health, fitness and wellness stuff and he's, he uses, he just uses it. It's crazy, like talking. I talked to him for about two hours and it's just a normal human being and I think this is the inflection point. Like I, when my friend Chris asked me about whether he should get an ipod was one of those moments, you know, like I, you know, in the distant past now, but where someone who's just kind of a mainstream person is like, I've heard about or in this case am using what is a fairly advanced new modern tool and seeing real value there, you know, And I, this is a huge problem, I think in the technical space where I think a lot of people just don't want to change. They, they don't believe it, you know. So I don't know what to tell you other than try it, please, because I think you're going to be really impressed depending on what it is, obviously. But I mean it's come such a long way and I don't know what seven stages of grief you have to go through to get there, but at some point you will come around because you'll notice everyone else is getting ahead in life and you aren't sorry it's happening.

[Richard Campbell]

It is a productivity booster.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep.

[Richard Campbell]

There are certain areas and in certain ways you have to find the parameters.

[Leo Laporte]

I think you could also be an AI denier at this point and just say, I will never use it and I don't like it and I want to, and I want to live in a log cabin if you don't mind.

[Richard Campbell]

Try having a daughter who makes her living as a Web comic artist, like AI art is very threatening to her.

[Leo Laporte]

I bet it is.

[Paul Thurrott]

Oh no, that of course. But. But an AI denier at this point is like a flat earther. It's like, I'm sorry, but you're just not, you're not paying attention. Like, I get that you have strong opinions about something that you've never actually researched in any meaningful way, but you know, it's like are in the same area.

[Leo Laporte]

I think there's going to be a human first movement where I do too.

[Paul Thurrott]

I do too.

[Richard Campbell]

Are already seeing it in, in the art and music spectrum.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep. It's going to be incredibly expensive though because you know, this art like this, the artisanal human made creative item.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

Or whatever. But you know, the story I tell all the time and have told on the show is just this notion of how I use it, which is creating this artwork for the articles that could go on the web. I write on many days, several articles and I don't use AI art for every one of them. But if I use this once or twice a day, there's no human being on earth. I could go to and say, here's the idea in my head. Make three versions of this picture. Oh. And do it instantly. And then show them to me. And then I'll say yes, no, or indifferent. And then maybe ask you to do more. And then I will pay you nothing for this service. How does that sound? Nope. You're not going to do that. Interesting. So I mean, this is a problem now. That's not every. That this isn't replacing someone's job.

[Richard Campbell]

Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

In this case, wouldn't have the art. It just wouldn't.

[Richard Campbell]

You'd use stock.

[Paul Thurrott]

I'd use stock photos. Exactly. So it will. Obviously it's going to replace jobs. I'm not, I'm, I'm not just. I'm not trying to talk anyone out of that. But job losses are unsaddly, a fact of life with any new technology.

[Richard Campbell]

And some of them are foolish. Right. You're seeing companies who dump all their staff to implement AI quickly find out that it's not that simple and they've just crippled their businesses. Right. Like there's a lot going on here, but it is a twitching moment.

[Paul Thurrott]

Well, we talked about this. You know, the, the advent of photography meant that people who could create oil paintings of a family were no longer in demand. You know, and then the advent of digital photography meant that professional photographers were no longer in demand. It doesn't mean they go away 100%.

[Richard Campbell]

No.

[Paul Thurrott]

There are still some people doing painting.

[Leo Laporte]

I have a picture of my great great great great grandfather on my wall that an itinerant painter in the 1830s went around and he'd go around in a wagon and he'd say, paint your portrait for $1.50. And I have it. It's an amazing thing.

[Paul Thurrott]

You know that when photography first started that the reaction of I'll say painters at the time was exactly the AI deny our response, which was, let me get this straight. They have to hold perfectly still while you take this stupid photo and then you won't find out for a long time if it even came out. And half the time they're sitting there with their eyes closed. It's black and white.

[Richard Campbell]

You know when you think about daguerreotypes and there's a non trivial chance that you will set fire to yourself and cause an explosion.

[Paul Thurrott]

They're like, this will never take off. Oil paint and tungsten oil have never.

[Richard Campbell]

Oh, wait, you know Church's missives about Gutenberg's press.

[Paul Thurrott]

Right.

[Richard Campbell]

Like every people get affected. There's no two ways about it.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah. So I don't know. I think I've come full circle on this stuff.

[Leo Laporte]

I don't know.

[Paul Thurrott]

Let me try. I'm not sure I paid directly for anything. That's literally AI, but I pay for products and services that use AI. And that's going to be something we don't even say anymore because of course they will all do that.

[Richard Campbell]

They're a productivity amplifier. Like, like your laptop and the Internet, you know.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yep.

[Richard Campbell]

Just another layer of that.

[Paul Thurrott]

That's right. Right.

[Leo Laporte]

All right, I'm ready to use another browser. You got an ideas? Any ideas?

[Paul Thurrott]

I do. So actually this one, this is getting interesting. I know I've recommended or talked about Opera in the past, but this, this is, this, this recent announcement was interesting to me because they have a sidebar now. Lots of browsers have sidebars. Right. Big deal. Right. But they also have a lot. I don't know what they actually call these things. They probably just call them sidebar apps. But one of the problems I run into, and Richard could see it now if he looks at my laptop is I have whatever browser I use. I have six, seven little, these things that I pin. Right. They're services that I want to be able to access every single day in every browser. Right. So it's email, calendar, some social networks and actually that's the best way to describe it. So I use them all day long, every day. But they're sitting there sucking up browser Resources. And a browser is just sucking up computer resources. Most of the time I'm not actually using those tabs, but I have to keep them open. And there's several other tabs I also just have open in the general course of a day. But there's this model that exists in mobile where if you have messaging apps or social media apps, you can be notified when something happens and you don't actually use the app. It's not taking up resources when it's not sitting there in a browser tab or just open on your device. That's what this sidebar thing does, right? So they added last week it was support for bluesky, Discord and Slack, all three of which I use, by the way. I don't need all three open every day, all day long, but I do two of the three I do. And Slack I use and Discord too, as a standalone app. BlueSky is one of those things I keep pinned in the tab. So these things can be installed, as I'm going to call them sidebar apps. And they will notify me when something happens, when nothing is happening. They're not taking up resources. They're just like mobile apps. And maybe they're taking up some small amount of resources. I'm not actually 100% sure about that. And there are other things going on, but that's actually very interesting to me. Like, what if I could have all of those services that I have pinned one day, just part of a sidebar? Like email is a classic example, but also social networks, where I go use them when I need to, or they alert me when there's something new, and otherwise they're not taking up resources. That's actually. Not to mention just the UI space too. Right. Because you can hide the sidebar, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, I don't know what to call this. I guess it's an alternative to the way I use a browser in a way that I think makes some sense. I've been testing it since I came here. I've actually just been using Edge again, But the Opera browser, I have it set up the same way. I use the same tabs, whatever, But I have these. All the services I use are over here, and I don't pin those. And I feel like I'm going to go back from time to time. And as all of the services I use become these sidebar apps, maybe it becomes this more lightweight, better. Rich is like, yeah, probably you've never used technology. That's not how it works.

[Richard Campbell]

No. If there's one web view. It consumes the same amount of memory for every instance. And the fact that you just embedding view them and call them something else. Is it a web.

[Paul Thurrott]

No, no, no. They're configured to check the accounts. So in other words, the way it actually works is messenger is not sitting here running, but there's a background thing that will. It will. You know, what do you call it? Like a. When it alerts you that that form of notification is a. I can't think of the term for some reason, but it's the same way mobile works, right? So you have all these messaging apps on your phone or whatever, social media apps or whatever. They're not actually sitting there taking up a lot of resources, but they will ping you when something happens. So that's actually pretty smart that maybe that should be part of the whole web architecture thing, I don't know. But they're kind of getting around it in a neat way and they do other things around media playing and pop up, you know, picture in picture, video, etc. Etc. But just from that perspective, I was like, okay, this is actually really interesting.

[Richard Campbell]

So that's cool.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, it's kind of cool.

[Richard Campbell]

Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

[Leo Laporte]

Hey guys, let's talk about Runners radio. What's coming up.

[Richard Campbell]

I'm excited. Oh boy, oh boy. Nicely leading up to the fact that we're doing the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference at the end of March. I have a show with Anna Hoffman this week, who hasn't been on in a few years. Brilliant lady, calls herself Analytic Anna for a reason. She's been in data analytics for forever. And this is specifically about an announcement that came out at Ignite about the fact that you can now run a SQL Server 2025 instance inside of the fabric workspace. Now why would you want to do this in these early stages? Especially very much a greenfield thing. The point being, if you're building an app that you know its data is going to be key to analytics, you might as well position the data as near to the analytics system as you possibly can. And so this is that option to just say, here you go, stick with the database. You know, it runs in the context of fabric, so you don't have to do any data syncing and the like, so you get quickest access to analytics and can be part of the real time experience. As just one of those folks that knows this whole problem space backwards and forwards and so walked us through some very rational scenarios for what is definitely a V1 implementation, because I immediately went at her on the Brownfield. It's like, okay, got an existing database wanted. She's like, easy, easy text. You're going to need to do a few things. Like there's specific configurations. It's a managed instance of SQL Server, which is fine. You just need to know the rules. But getting the reality that we're not just about collecting data, we're about being able to do stuff with it. And this makes it easier to do that.

[Leo Laporte]

Hey, look at that bottle of tequila. Tequila.

[Richard Campbell]

You know, last week when I was here, I went and grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the commissary because it was Buchanans and I'd never talked about Buchanans before. And it's hard to find in Canada, but easier to find in other places. So that's why I went that way. But oddly enough, I've been drinking tequila lately with my friend. Well, and so we should probably talk about one of them. And this particular one is the Fletcher Azul. They're extra anejo.

[Leo Laporte]

What does that mean? Extra nejo really means extra old.

[Paul Thurrott]

Okay.

[Richard Campbell]

It really comes down to.

[Paul Thurrott]

So let's.

[Richard Campbell]

We've talked about it before, but let's quickly recap. The generic name for agave based alcohols is Mezcal.

[Leo Laporte]

Yes.

[Richard Campbell]

Tequila is a subset of those mezcals, specifically made in particular regions like Jalisco and Nayarit, Mihoan and Guanajuato. We are in Nayarit right now because on the, on the. Because we're on that. The north side of the Amica River. But you know, Jalisco is right there. And that's where Tequila is. And Tequila is a town with full of distilleries. The blue agave plant grows best in at high altitude. Prefers 1500 meters or higher, 5000ft or so.

[Leo Laporte]

That's hot.

[Paul Thurrott]

Wow.

[Richard Campbell]

It's a big succulent. You know, just like the things that are growing around your house that don't die easily.

[Paul Thurrott]

You're a big succulent.

[Richard Campbell]

And of course you've seen it. It's got the spiky plants, it's so forth. But the part that you want to make into tequila is called the pina. It's right in the middle. It takes about a year and a half to grow to maturity before they start chopping out the pina and then they're ready to make tequila. Now, there are complex carbohydrates in that pina that are not particularly good for making alcohol. So you have to break them down. And the traditional method is to bake them. So they have stone or brick Ovens that they cook them very slowly on. If you've had mezcal, you know it's smoky. And that's a byproduct of this cooking process. When cooked with charcoals and things that introduce those flavors very much the way peat is used to dry barley malt in the Islay and other related whiskies. There are modern processes now to improve the overall yield and performance of making pinnas, where they use extraction, diffusion of things. But the traditional methods are more fun, including that they actually use this tona, this big stone wheel, to crush the. The roasted peanuts, often pulled by a donkey these days, typically a machine. Then the now that you've crushed it down, you've squeezed the juice out of it, now it's time to make some alcohol. So you need to ferment. They do use breweries and some more industrial process, but traditionally, again, that the area of tequila has a lambic yeast, a resident yeast that tends to inoculate these tanks. The fermentation rate is relatively slow, typically runs for several days. And if you're careful, you control that so that you get the product you're actually expecting, and you essentially make a wort that they call Musto, 6 to 9% alcohol. We typically call that brewers beer on the whiskey side, but it's very much the same process. And now you distill normal. Typical tequila distillation is a two distillation process using initially a column still, they call that shredding. And they get up to about 20% or so of alcohol. And then they do a rectification step, which would be the traditional name, the proper name. It is a kind of pot still called a rectifier. It's a little bit different. It also tends not to be made of copper because agave doesn't have sulfur in it like barley does. So you don't need the copper for the sulfur chelation. And copper is expensive and tougher to take care of and so forth. So they tend to just use stainless steel rectifiers, and they typically come out about 65% after the second pass. There are some folks who do a third pass, but, you know, they're weird. It is common in tequila at that point, at the high distillate level, to then do a chill filtration step. And that is to avoid, as we remember the term flocculation.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yes.

[Richard Campbell]

Which is the tendency for the alcohol to be cloudy when cold. And there's a reason for this, because typically, especially in Mexico, they don't even serve the tequila at 40% alcohol, they like 38. You don't see that abroad because 40 is a magic number for what is a spirit. But here, if you're buying domestic tequila for consumption, you'll find it mostly 38% and it will cloud very easily. And that's why this is shelf filtration step. Now if you simply cut the product to 40 or 38% and bottle it, you've made blanco or silver tequila, the most common kind a lot of folks talk about. This is the only true tequila because it only tastes of the agave. As soon as you put it in a barrel or anything, you're introducing other flavors to it. Now if you put it in an oak barrel for a few months, you make a reposato, also also known as rested. And that's typically only a few months. And it gets a little colored, it'll be a bit straw colored. And it has a slightly different flavor because the wood's now playing its game. Put it in for a year and you've made an anejo. Typically one year is, it's not that long.

[Leo Laporte]

They age it for no, the extra.

[Richard Campbell]

Anejos are three plus years. So that's about as long as you typically see tequila. And that also changes the barrel behavior. So reposados, often, while they're only to bear for a few months, these barrels are enormous. 20,000 liters, like multi thousand gallon barrels. But as soon as you get into a nay hose they go down to 600 liters or what we consider a typical 50 gallon barrel. And the extra day hose almost exclusively. You will also find in the longer aging that they use bourbon casks. Why? Because there's lots of them and they're inexpensive and they introduce a nice flavor to the tequila. And so this is an extra naho and it was indeed aged in bourbon casks. So Fletcher Azul is a new manufacturer of tequila. Was founded only in 2020 by a fellow named Aaron Marquez with his friend Abraham Anser. So Aaron Marquez is a Mexican native, born in Mexico, but he immigrated to the US in the early 2000s, was educated in the in Oklahoma and went into the oil industry. He is well known in the oil industry. He runs, he owns, created a company called Wildcat Oil Tools. He was, he's one of the fracking billionaires, so made his money in the fracking explosion of the Permian Basin. In fact, today he's now one of the board members of Permian Resources. Abraham Anser is born and raised in Mexico and he's the number one PGA golf player in Mexico. So these two are friends, and they decided they wanted to start making whiskey. They want to do it very traditionally, as they could afford to do. So within a year or two of starting, they got Mark Wahlberg on board as a major investor.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, is this Marky Mark's Tequila?

[Richard Campbell]

This is Marky Mark's Tequila. Right.

[Paul Thurrott]

That makes me like it less.

[Richard Campbell]

What I want you to understand here is this tequila. This is a. Professionally. This is wealthy people decide they want to make a whiskey, but then also chose to do it in very much traditional style. So how they actually make the whiskey is they went to one of the oldest distilleries in. In. In tequila. The Auradan Distillery has been around since the mid-1800s.

[Leo Laporte]

Wow.

[Richard Campbell]

And. And they. They are super old school. They have their own brands and so forth. But they agreed to make their whiskey following particular approach. The ordained distillery believes firmly in the stone oven roasting method of peanuts. So they use that traditional method. They still use the roller mill, the Dijones, although, again, mechanically operated. But they don't like the other extraction methods. They have modernized fermentation, distillation for reliability. So stainless steel tanks for fermentation in a sealed process and in stainless steel column and pot stills. Some of their products are triple distilled, but not this one. And it has spent three years in bourbon casks. I couldn't find out which one, but it's probably Jack.

[Leo Laporte]

Forget that Marky Mark had anything to do with it. Paul, what do you think?

[Richard Campbell]

Well, rule number one is, is it good? Right?

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah. Rule number one, is it good?

[Richard Campbell]

What I like in tequila is that pepper note. And this pepper note is there still, which is not easy to do in an extra nejo. An extra nejo often takes a lot of the agave flavors out, which is why a lot of tequila aficionados purely want blanco, because they just want the pepper note. But there's definitely wood in this. It's bourbon, so it's a little sweeter. It's got a lot of heat, which is surprising. It's only 40% alcohol, right?

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah.

[Richard Campbell]

But there's a lot of heat in this, so I appreciate that. Very skilled tequila makers made this for what is totally a nouveau marketing company. Fletcher Azul has gone everywhere. They're at this. They've clearly cut a deal with this resort. They have specific displays for Fletcher. They have their own cocktails.

[Leo Laporte]

It's all about marketing.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, it's all about marketing. And so by that token, I did check you can find this tequila in America. I saw it on Total Wine however.

[Paul Thurrott]

In the Boston area, it's a little price.

[Richard Campbell]

This is a 300 bottle of.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, yeah, Paul. Now, how much would you pay?

[Paul Thurrott]

That's how much I did pay.

[Richard Campbell]

So my friend Paul decided he wanted to buy the bottle. I don't think he checked the price before he did.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, my God. And so it better be good. Is it good? That's a lot of money for tequila.

[Richard Campbell]

Pretty darn Good. Is it? 300. Good.

[Leo Laporte]

So you're not gonna make a margarita with that, though.

[Paul Thurrott]

I'm staying here for five days for free, so 300, big deal. It's kind of us.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, yeah, it was. Nice gesture and I'm glad to have got a chance to taste this.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, me too.

[Richard Campbell]

And we will finish it before Friday because I'm not taking it home. I've had people been bringing me whiskey now in. In like three ounce containers they put in their toiletry bag so I can try stuff.

[Paul Thurrott]

And then here's like. Here's the empty bottle plus the three little containers.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, that's what they've been doing.

[Richard Campbell]

But no, this is lovely and warming.

[Paul Thurrott]

It is.

[Richard Campbell]

You know, it's. In that sense, it is more bourbon. Like, interesting. It's got that kind of bourbon heat to it. It's not that light, that lightweight. Fun to drink tequila. This has got a lot more robustness to it. I don't know that I. You do this as a gift. This is not your everyday tequila. This is a special one for Christmas. And it better be something you like because you spent 300 bucks on it.

[Leo Laporte]

Yeah, yeah. They have a variety. Do they? Have you tried the extra anejo?

[Richard Campbell]

This is the extra nejo. Oh, that is it. We did try the reposado as well, so we went with the most expensive one.

[Paul Thurrott]

Yeah, that's. We had that at the bar.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, we were drinking. We were drinking the reposado at the bar, which was nice, without a doubt. Okay, So, I mean, again, this is two Mexican people, one of which has made a lot of money in America, decided they want to make their own tequila. They got Marky Mark involved because it's good for marketing without a.

[Paul Thurrott]

Sure.

[Leo Laporte]

And remember, every celebrity has a tequila now.

[Paul Thurrott]

I mean, that's.

[Richard Campbell]

Well, it's the thing, right? And this guy is a top tier PGA golf guy, so that's also a tie in as well. They know what they're doing, Right. They're running a marketing machine, but they chose to make their tequila in a very legit way. So they're helping to support the old establishment. And at the same time using modern marketing methods. So I have a tough time being upset with Fletcher Azul. They're fine. They're doing their thing. Know what you got, right?

[Leo Laporte]

So we're going to test the. The theorem that tequila makes your clothes fall off.

[Richard Campbell]

I'm not a. I'm more of the tequila makes me. When I drink too much tequila, I start believing I'm invisible. And that makes other choices.

[Paul Thurrott]

Maybe it's the tequila talking, but I like tequila.

[Leo Laporte]

Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, Windows weekly. We're going to let them go back to their important duties there in.

[Paul Thurrott]

What's that thing called on the beach of the cabana. The cabana. Our important cabana duties. Yes.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah, Cabana duties, actually celebration tonight in the theme park. So in an hour or two, we have to head to work.

[Leo Laporte]

So jealous.

[Richard Campbell]

Oh, man, we're gonna have some fun.

[Leo Laporte]

I've been seeing Paul's pictures on Instagram. It looks so much fun. Have a wonderful time, you guys. Thank you so much for being here, even on vacation. Paul Thurot is at therot.com t-h u R-O-T t.com Become a Premium Member for all the goodness. But it's a great place to check out for the latest news all week long. He also publishes his books Field guide to Windows 11 and Windows [e-mail] I just.

[Paul Thurrott]

Sorry. This reminded me yesterday. I was in the cabana alone. Everyone was gone. You took off.

[Richard Campbell]

I had to do my thing.

[Paul Thurrott]

Girls were off walking on the beach. Guy comes over and he goes, hey, is there anything else he can get you? And I was like, oh my God. I thought you'd never ask. It's been forever. And he goes, I was here three minutes ago. I'm like, it felt like forever.

[Leo Laporte]

Ask for a foot rub. Excellent. They come down the beach, they'll give.

[Richard Campbell]

You the cabana section has a couple of massage tables.

[Paul Thurrott]

Oh, yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

Oh, yeah.

[Paul Thurrott]

The service is not terrible.

[Richard Campbell]

No.

[Leo Laporte]

Richard campbell. He is runasradio.com and of course.net rocks with Carl Franklin. You'll find [e-mail] and he is our whiskey slash other kinds of liquor.

[Richard Campbell]

I like the brown liquor.

[Leo Laporte]

He likes the brown stuff. But crystal will be okay too. Thank you so much for being here. We do Windows Weekly on Wednesdays, 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern Time, 1900 UTC. You can watch us stream live. Yes, we're back on TikTok.

[Richard Campbell]

Did survive somehow.

[Paul Thurrott]

It was a tough couple hours outage there.

[Leo Laporte]

A rough couple hours doesn't constitute an endorsement in any way, shape or form. We just want to be wherever you might be. So of course our club members watch on Discord, but We're also on YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, X.com, we're in all the Nazi bars, LinkedIn, Facebook and Kik. So you pick, you watch. The chats are open and all of them and I see all the chat comments. Great to have you all there. Now you don't. Somebody was complaining yesterday. He said, well, you never start on time. I just want you to understand this is not a TV station. You're watching the behind the scenes recording of shows. It says that on the schedule, the times are, you know, suggested if you want to listen exactly at the time you want to listen. There's an easy way to do that. Go to Twitter, tv ww. You can download or just watch on the website the video or download the audio or the video. There's also a link there to the YouTube channel. Start the video at any time. And probably the best way to do this would be to subscribe. It's free. It's a podcast. Right? So get your favorite podcast client wherever you get your podcasts and search for Windows Weekly. You can get it automatically, audio or video versions and listen. You know, if you want to listen exactly at 12:01, you can whenever you want to listen. Paul, Richard, I needn't say, have a wonderful time. I think you're gonna.

[Richard Campbell]

Yeah.

[Leo Laporte]

And we'll see you back here next week.

[Paul Thurrott]

I'll be in London and you'll be in Mexico City.

[Leo Laporte]

Don't think about the future, just enjoy the present. You're there, that's what matters. Yeah. Thanks for joining us, everybody. We'll see you next time on Windows Weekly.

[Richard Campbell]

Bye.

[Leo Laporte]

Bye.

[Richard Campbell]

If you have a locked AT&T phone.

[Paul Thurrott]

We'Re here with bolt cutters.

[Richard Campbell]

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[Leo Laporte]

MasterCard in 15 days.

[Paul Thurrott]

Free phone up to $830 via 24.

[Leo Laporte]

Monthly bill credits plus tax and a 10 device connection charge. Qualifying port in trade and service on Go5G next and credit required. Contact us before canceling entire account to continue bill credits or credit stop and balance on required finance agreements. Deal bill credits and if you pay off devices early.