Solid State Podcast

• Episode 115 - Microsoft has new Surfaces... sort of

  It’s kind of funny, in the office lately we’ve been half-joking about being careful how you manifest things… it’s great when you “put out there” that a new project kicks off well… and it does… or you hope against all hope that a concerning trend isn’t here to stay… and it isn’t. So, should we be surprised that after weeks of lamenting the desert of gadget news we’ve been traversing… we are suddenly greeted by the relatively unexpected arrival of not one but two new Surface devices from Microsoft?  It’s no secret that we review, use, and maintain a relatively vast fleet of devices made up of every brand and logo you’ve ever heard of… and several you haven’t. Dell, HP, Acer, Asus… yep they’re all there and many times they’re really good and even great at what they do.  But some lineups… just hold a special spot in our hearts and for whatever reason Surface has just always been one of those! From the arrival of the first Surface RT almost thirteen years ago to the latest Snapdragon-powered behemoth that arrived on our doorstep just last summer… we’ve been there for it all. A few have been great, several have been… not… and a rare couple have even been game changing (at least for the industry that was left to chase them). Like the best concept car, sometimes Surface hasn’t been about selling a certain number of units or directly moving the needle of one of the world’s largest companies… but instead about putting the channel on notice for what they could (and should) be making out of their own products.  I’m here to tell you, the laptop you have today, regardless of what it is, is better because Surface exists. Believe me.  So, when Microsoft suddenly shakes things up not with a “next generation” but instead with what appears to be novel entries in-and-around their existing lineup… well let’s just say we’ve found an oasis in the desert, and it’s about to get exciting around here!

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• Episode 114 - We didn't get a Switch 2 and now we're sad...

  This week on the Solid State Podcast, we realized something… odd.  We’ve mentioned it off-hand on several recent episodes, but it has come more and more into focus as the weeks have gone on. It’s quiet out there… too quiet.  Sure, we’re in the post CES, MWC, etc lull that exists every year as we wade towards Summer’s more splashy, developer-focused events like Google I/O and Apple’s WWDC… but even that expected downtime is so quiet right now, the silence is honestly deafening.  Don’t get us wrong… there’s plenty of people talking, but what’s actually being said? Switch 2 pre-orders took place… which mostly left a lot of people tired after a night of no sleep and sadly almost as many with no actual Switch 2 order with their name on it… Companies seem to be coming out of the woodwork left and right making noise about buying a pretty ubiquitous web browser that… isn’t actually for sale yet.  And on top of all that, prices have begun to not-so-subtly fluctuate across consumer tech… from video cards to cameras… something is afoot and we’re just not so sure it’s 100% correlated to the things dominating the daily news cycle.  Are you confused yet? That’s okay, because we are to! So, for a stroll through what we’ve unceremoniously deemed the “un-News”… let’s take a crack and figuring out what the heck is going on out there…

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• Episode 113 - The thing about AI & Cybersecurity

  This week on the Solid State Podcast… well there’s just no way of sugar coating it… Jet Lag reigns supreme… See, it turns out that when you get hundreds of technology professionals together in a room on the other side of the globe for a week and tell them to turn their brains into hyper-idea-craziness mode… well the impact doesn’t fade quickly… Events like these are special because, on paper, you have a bunch of people who are objectively "competitors" all being asked to talk freely and openly about the “secret sauce” of how we do what we do… and to be honest you’d think that would lead to a very quiet room… right?  Ohhhhh is it ever the opposite… and it is safely what I find most magical about what we get to do and call “work” every day. Nope, instead it’s opening a pandora’s box of collaboration, idea sharing, and community that I’ve only ever experienced in these multi-day caffeine-driven pressure cookers.  So when we had the opportunity to not only attend but participate and engage in just such an experience… well what do you think our answer was? Fuel up the plane, pack the bags, and figure out what the German equivalent of Monster is… (it’s Monster, by the way…) And what, you might ask, was the actual moral here? Well, keep listening for the full story, but suffice to say the status-quo was challenged (as it should), ideals were re-affirmed (not that they needed it), and a reminder was starkly delivered that not only is there no competition in this room but instead we’re all connected by an imperative to, at the end of the day, be better…

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• Episode 112 - The (growing) Cost of our Smart Homes

  Image with me for a moment, if you would, the start of a perfectly normal day in the “modern smart home”… Your alarm goes off right on time, and your start-of-day automation scene kicks in. Lights begin to subtly come up, adapting to eyes still very much wanting to be closed for at least 10 more minutes. The Air Conditioning goes to your preferred morning setting, while the living room TV kicks on with the morning news. After the tea kettle reaches the precise temperature for ideal steeping, reminders start arriving on your Home Screen summarizing the day ahead. Left over dishes go into the washer, and that last pesky load of laundry kicks off. Everything works, everything communicates, this is… “good”… right?  That’s the thing about smart home tech or, honestly anything in the gadget-filled world we know and often times love… when it works… it’s freakin magical!  The cost of that little slice of magic, though, is the other side of the coin… imagine once more that same scene with one vital change… last night a storm blew through and this morning the unthinkable… the internet is out… Don’t mis hear me, we’re not talking a life-and-death “rise of the Cylons” situation here… but it’s shocking to take mental stock of everything in our homes that grind to a halt when suddenly “offline”. Will your alarm still go off on time? Automation scenes, smart lighting, and adaptable thermostats? Better be running something like Home Assistant. And more and more, even something as table steaks as that load of dirty dishes comes into question without a lifeline to the cloud.  The cost of convenience so often is security… but more and more it also seems to be one of resilience. Maybe there’s a better way? 

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• Episode 111 - Selling your Tech in 2025

  This week on the Solid State Podcast… Spring in the air! Okay, it’s actually 80 degrees outside already, but hey that’s life in the swamp that I call home…  But historically, the Spring season also conjures memories of the time-honored tradition of, yep, you guessed it… Spring Cleaning…  For some, it’s clearing out a closet of clothes you’ll never wear again, and others its about finally clearing a path wide enough in the garage for a full-sized human to actually navigate end-to-end… but for the Solid State crew, well, let’s just say things are a little more, uhh, “gadget-y”… Yep, for every un-used sweater my wife needs to get rid of there are easily three phones, tablets, laptops, or frankly TVs I would be better served sending off to, shall we say, “future endeavors” in someone else’s service… You know, all so I can then use the money (and reclaimed space) to buy yet more phones, tablets, laptops, and frankly… TVs…… And this got us thinking, in 2025 a TV isn’t just a TV anymore, a toaster many times isn’t just a toaster and heck… a car isn’t even just a car… Every single one of these “smart” gadgets, devices, and appliances has, by nature, our digital fingerprint inextricably linked to them… and without a healthy dose of intentionality, that fingerprint goes right out the door with it once we sell, trade-in, or dispose of it.  As with so many things, there has to be a “right” way to go about it then, so let’s fire up those eBay accounts, clear space in the junk drawer of charging cables you know you have, and let’s see what it takes to actually sell your tech in 2025…

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