We scratch the Surface on Microsoft's upcoming hardware event (The 3:59, Ep. 129)
We scratch the Surface on Microsoft's upcoming hardware event (The 3:59, Ep. 129)
2016-10-25
good morning on Tuesday October 25th
it's episode 129 of the 359 podcast and
we are gearing up for Microsoft big
event good morning jounin been how are
you hey thanks for having us hey
everybody thanks for having us again
we're going to be talking about
Microsoft's event that's going to be
coming out tomorrow 10 a.m. eastern 7
a.m. pacific so wake up really really
early if you're a super duper Microsoft
fan will also be discussing Friday's
DDoS attack and also Twitter's expected
layoffs as always send in your comments
and questions and try to be nice to me
about Microsoft questions not to
specific because I might not know
everything there is to know about
microsoft office but i will try to
gamely answer as many questions as you
can with the help of brian and joan so
okay Jon Snow yeah either way let's kick
it off all right let's start the
recording of the podcast will be back
answer your questions and exactly 3
minutes and 59 seconds from 32 welcome
to the 359 where we talk about the top
tech news of the day plus whatever crap
we want to throw in I'm Ben Fox ribbon
and I'm Joanie salzman so tomorrow
Microsoft will host a hardware launch
event but a lot of the best-known
products aren't expected to show up
there likely won't be news on Microsoft
Office or Microsoft band or a new
microsoft surface pro but then what will
be there we may see this could be
interesting this could be interesting
i'm gonna try to get excited about this
there may be a new surface branded
all-in-one desktop right on is that yeah
is that is that right on I think I mean
that is correct that is correct that is
the best rumors that we actually have
like an all-in-one desktop you know like
they've been doing really well with the
surface tablets the surface book seemed
pretty interesting when they announced
that last year like a desktop does this
make sense to you well I think that it's
noteworthy in a sense that it's
something that Apple hasn't done you
know like that's a place where they're
all in when they don't have a
touchscreen all-in-one for total Mac
right so that at least if nothing else
it
puts Microsoft in a contrast with Apple
providing something that Apple hasn't
gotten so you can like touch the screen
if you feel like it yeah yeah which you
know as I'm sure you know and I know
like in today's world people are getting
used to the idea that you can touch
every screen if it doesn't work you get
annoyed yes absolutely i'm trying to do
that right now that's not working so
there's also the potential that they're
going to announce or provide more
details on their ugh mented and virtual
reality effort which is called windows
holographic is this something that you
see taking off that somebody's going to
like put on a hollow lens and start I
don't know doing though like work
updating their spreadsheets yeah doing
their Excel species and talking to a
virtual dog yeah go fetch my document
virtual dog I don't see it I don't I
think like maybe that's like gonna be
like super future tech or something but
like I don't really see the possibility
that a lot of people are really gonna
jump into that kind of technology it
doesn't know it does seem a little
hackneyed doesn't to kind of force where
Microsoft has a lot of skill set which
is in you know office kind of like
documents right things to force that
into the gov'ment of reality or a
virtual reality you sort of use when I
mean people are gonna start using
virtual reality or augment really for
gaming and for entertainment and like
not once they get used to it yeah not
spreadsheets it's necessarily so the
event kicks off at ten a.m. eastern
tomorrow will be live streamed check us
out at cnet com will be writing all
about it next our cybersecurity reporter
Laura hatala wrote a follow-up on
Fridays big DDoS attack she explains how
DVRs and security cameras are very easy
to hack because they're so easy to
access remotely these days so to me this
shows that like technology convenience
can come at a price which to me makes a
lot of sense and a lot of what I've read
about that attack is is that these are
supposed to you're supposed to end up
with more of these and more severe ones
coming into the future right I mean
there's so much especially right now
there's so much emphasis on
packing and how it can disrupt elections
how can do anything and the fact that
very popular services on the internet
were brought down for most of one day
because so many people just don't change
their passwords yeah from admin admin
password yeah yeah it just makes it
totally default passwords yeah I could
be a hacker you could be a hacker I can
do that I would love to do that no I'm
kidding that's a horrible thing to do
last twitter is expected to announce
hundreds of job cuts and the as the
company continues to struggle
financially I mean I feel like every
single time we talk about Twitter on
this show it's to really I don't know
sad trombone those guys do they do they
have a chance they almost got bought but
then everybody was like no thank you I
mean they're definitely I mean this is a
sign that they're going to be
retrenching they're going to be
re-evaluating where they need to stand
in terms of how many people they have
how much money they're spending how much
money they need in order to continue to
go but I don't think you don't think
Twitter is going to disappear I don't
think now a great disappear but like
there's nothing sadder than like a
social network where like you know all
the rats are fleeing so anyway if you
want to read more about these stories
check us out on cnet I'm Ben Fox Rubin &
I'm Jenny salzman thanks for listening
we don't have should I always do that we
forget so ghagra from back obviously
it's just probably it's just a YouTube
thing um so we don't have a ton of
questions by our conversation going on
with thank God no no just you know who
doesn't hate DDoS attacks but hey Joan
are you new has anyone seen you before i
have i've been alive in this world for
more than 30 years and I've been on yes
you don't look a day over 29 we love it
so it says that's what you say yes
you're buttering me up Joan sits next to
me and she's my awesome buddy I brought
Ben is here then been sprung into
existence like a pokeymon at Cena thanks
thanks to me yes and I'm always grateful
you can send all your fruit baskets and
flowers to me for making been your lives
and see me yeah and we've been shown on
the on the podcast every so often
especially to talk about hey can we talk
a little bit about time
Warner thinking it was you yeah I would
be very happy to hear some of your
insights so the time warner 18-team deal
it's very important in terms of media
like industry chessboard landscape stuff
it's very important for a really big
company in our country which is AT&T but
in terms of how it's going to affect
people on the ground normal folks it's
really not going to it's going to be
kind of a non-event if it goes through
or doesn't presuming that for it to get
approval for it even happen it's going
to have a bunch of regulatory conditions
set upon by root ball so we saw
conditions similar so the last time we
had a situation like this was when
comcast was taking over NBC Universal
and even though the conditions that were
put on that deal have gotten a lot of
criticism for not being easily and for
being difficult to enforce and therefore
not very effective I mean it'd be I'd be
hard-pressed to find a consumer that's
really really pissed off about NBC
writing part of what I'm change because
nothing like nothing really changed your
comcast bill still went up because all
cable bills don't went up it's not like
that was unusual and the complaints that
sprung out of that deal are things like
Bloomberg TV was not pleased with its
number it's like channel number being so
far apart from other like like CNBC like
he like they wanted those to be close
together so if you're watching CNBC
which is an NBC own thing on the comcast
grid then you'd be able to find
Bloomberg very easily and they were
separated so those are the kind of
compelling ho hum I never liked that
means like Bloomberg's annoyed by that
but just get a number your money for
that care of Bloomberg people and number
of consumers like care about stuff like
that it's pretty small and also the grid
is going away in like a year and a half
anyway so it doesn't even matter
interesting yeah so in case anybody's
interested I didn't provide necessary
context joan is our digital media guru
so that's why i asked her about this and
it's very interesting and it also we
talked about this a little bit
on the show yesterday that content
providers want to distribute as widely
as possible which is why you know Game
of Thrones or whatever else is going to
continue to be distributed the way it is
so the time warner can keep making the
money that it wants to make yeah you
don't need to worry about HBO or CNN or
TV a sortie you don't need to worry
about them not being on any of the
things that you liked already watch them
on that's not going to happen right
because that would be a really stupid
movie it would make it almost pointless
to spend 80 plus billion dollars on a
company and then completely undermine
how it makes money mmm-hmm well put
right yeah our longtime friend and
listener Michael yo Michael how you
doing uh he says with all this talk
about Twitter failing should I mention
google+ well google+ arguably never
actually got off the ground yeah and
when I can only crash and burn so hard
barely out but when i am on google plus
you're on google very much very
infrequently but when i am on there it
is actually like a reasonably enjoyable
experience it's clean it's well set up
by terrible i mean like it's it's fine
as like an experience to like post your
stuff and see what other people posted
it is perfectly fine i mean like it's a
little bit more like tumblr i guess that
yeah twitter or facebook where it's like
the newsfeed is a little bit i think
you're given I think you're giving
Google+ way too easy to be extremely
generous to let your social the social
network that doesn't really exist so I I
can I can stand to be generous in that
situation by i don't i don't think
twitter is going to turn into Google+ at
all but i think that it's just not its
financial viability is a lot less than a
lot of folks expected it to have yeah i
mean that's that's the thing its
expectations versus reality like it's
really on garbage in my eyes so it's a
pretty good quote unlike unrealistic
expectations it's like a breeding ground
for it mm-hmm um so well not only yeah
there's gonna be companies like that
that fall too close to this that's what
does it fly too close to the Sun and
then right and there were big
expectations the Twitter was going to be
like the third one along with Google and
Facebook to make a ton of money
off of digital advertising and they just
didn't bear out I think that these guys
continue to be non profitable so I think
that Twitter and it will be diminished
but continually continuing to exist
company I also don't understand like
what is its headcount that they're going
to be cutting hundreds of people because
they're cutting 300 and that's eight
percent so how many people work at
Twitter like I don't know the mess right
now um oh god math is hard yeah I became
a journalist for a reason yeah give up
on this wait i said was eight percent
eight percent so that's like 3750 people
i don't want to be no not against that
many people work at Twitter that's I
don't wanna be mean about it but yeah I
don't like it's not like they're coming
out with like new features every day on
Twitter I don't actually know like what
all those people are doing they're
probably all sales and partnerships yeah
there's yes that's certainly a
possibility and internationally at that
so sure yeah it's a company yeah it is a
company it's just a larger than all
agree it's a larger number that I agree
then I pictured in my head I know bagel
about the business aspect from a user
standpoint though I don't want to be and
again I still think I want to be unlike
the experience their job like that sucks
so like I don't want to be glib about it
and of course yeah somebody did work
hard allegedly yes so we haven't we
request uh well poor poor muser in the
chat just had the revelation that we can
read his chats so yeah watch out what
that's of chats are he's a big fan of
joan however oh cool great dimitris
wants to know do you think they will
come out with a new surface pro i think
that is the expectation is absolutely
not tomorrow though many tweaks to the
current one to the surface pro for the
expectation is is that there's not going
to be a surface pro 5 coming out not at
this event anyway so yeah so like an S
year yeah to speak in Apple Apple
ecosystem speaking Tamil there's also
going to be an apple hardware event on
thursday so it's going to be a very busy
week for us here
and that's the one where we're likely to
see stuff with Mac and with me on TV and
so maybe Microsoft is trying to you know
take the wind out of apple sales a
little bit but it's with like an
all-in-one desktop which I would be
surprised if Apple spent that much time
focusing on an all-in-one during their
event yeah yeah if Google Plus were dead
cnet wouldn't post there we do post
there we do post there yeah probably
automatically they live yeah they make
us kind of cover a blanket across
everything when we do anything currently
I also hear there was like a change in
our instruction as reporters that you
don't really need to post right like
that Jen says with a but with a whisper
don't do that you're gonna get to some
like weird yeah what's it what is mr
yeah yeah that engine BuzzFeed does that
don't do that they report the news and
like this weird whisper well while
putting ice cube it's a Spanish thing so
stop there okay to just convinced me
forget it alright this show's over this
is done shutting it down shut it down
once the whispering starts we're so
sorry everybody our brains are pre
melted before the events this week so I
that's fine we'll be back later tomorrow
after the microsoft event I believe Joe
yeah well we'll figure it out on the fly
as we usually do it the 359 either way
the podcast is available on iTunes
TuneIn stitcher SoundCloud feedburner
google play music and of course on
cnet.com Joan thanks very much for
visiting today always happy to have you
and thanks for watching guys
you
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