Solid State Podcast

Episode 43 - Playstation... a History

It’s kind of funny to me how many people end up in their career because of a childhood love or hobby…
You have the architect that couldn’t get enough Legos, the mechanic that collected way too many matchbox cars, or even the artist sees a star-filled sky and grabs brushes instead of a telescope…
These things become such massive parts of who we are, often at such young and formative ages… they become us…
Well, if that’s the case, and you’ve been listening to this show for any amount of time, then it’s not hard to connect the dots that for your three Solid State presenters one of those early loves was games… and in the case of today’s episode specifically the hardware we used to play them. 
We’re going to take a step back and walk through decades of truly foundational gaming history that started with a alliance that should have changed the landscape… and instead created a fierce rivalry that lives on to this day…
So sit back, log in, and let’s talk Playstation, a History…

Episode 42 - The cost of (no) competition...

Competition is one of those things that, whether you like it or not, makes sense right?
If I make bicycles and you start making a better kind of bicycle, my choices are pretty straightforward: start making a better bicycle, start making a cheaper bicycle, or sooner-or-later stop making bicycles…
Okay, I know I’ve vastly over-simplifying what can feel like very complex games of market share, dominant messaging, outright morals & ethics… but at its minimum and most basic, we’ve long held on this show that competition is a good thing, especially in the world of technology…
So, as we navigate a world of mass consolidation, roll-up strategies, and the outright stifling of startups in virtually any space… it was well past time to ask ourselves the question, what is the long-term cost of only three meaningful cell phone carries, of two dominant smartphone platforms, of one ring to rule them all… Eh yeah I let that one get away from me, but you get the idea… 
In all seriousness, though, was IS the cost… of no competition…

Episode 41 - What’s next... for Over the Air TV

 
Some pieces of technology eventually reach the point of truly becoming ubiquitous… a computer on every desk, a smart phone in every pocket, a drone in every backpack… 
Okay, maybe that last one is just me, but you get what I mean…
What we all probably can agree on, though, is one of the first gadgets to reach this critical mass of scale is everyone’s favorite big-screen rectangle, the television…
What used to be a stand-out possession of one or two households per neighborhood has now become the centerpiece of several rooms in any given house. But the thing about these screens is, they’re not all that useful without anything to actually put on that screen…
Going back through the decades, one of the earliest answers to that problem is by sending content to the viewer over the literal airwaves… one set of silver, telescoping “bunny ears” later and suddenly Johnny Carson was right there in your own living room. 
As with any technology, though, evolutions must continue… those telescoping bunny ears may have long-since been replaced by a more modern antenna, and the black-and-white static we all knew and hated has been upgraded to high definition goodness. 
With additions like HDR quality, true data delivery, and on-the-move access… the next chapter in Over-the-Air TV sounds like a solid upgrade, but as with anything else what are the hidden costs? 
Let’s tune in and find out…

Episode 40 - Hacking the Human

It’s really frustrating when something breaks… this is true of everything from a garage door not opening to a lightbulb burning out… we just want things to work. It seems, though, this is somehow doubly frustrating when what fails is our tech. 
The printer runs out of ink when you need to print a boarding pass, your phone freezes up completely after a bad update, or the Roomba gets stuck on the same rug no matter how many times you tell it not to try and go there… 
Yeah, we’ve all been there, and it sucks. But for all the times the technology seems to fail us, recently we started talking about all the times we the human fail the technology. Was the printer blinking a “low ink” light for weeks before it finally ran out? How many other updates did we knowingly skip before this one bricked the phone? And now that I think about it, did I actually update the Roomba’s cleaning map or did I just yell at the robot expecting it to know what I want? 
All of those examples are frustrating for sure, but thankfully none are what I would call “dangerous”. When it comes to our data, privacy, and digital wellbeing though that story can change in an instant. See for all the firewalls, Multi-factor Authentication, and advanced security software we put up in the name of “staying safe”… all of that goes out the window the moment we fill out a bogus survey or hand over critical access information to “Jeff from the IT department”…
So once again, let’s take a minute, “slow down to speed up” and talk through all the ways we can help stop attackers from Hacking the Human…

Episode 39 - What’s in the box... Razer Blade 16

In just about any product category, ideally you should have options… entry level, mid-range, consumer, pro-sumer, the list is nearly endless…
But every so often, you have an entry into the space the is so outlandish, so devil-may-care over the top that most people see it and wonder who in the world would ever buy it for, frankly, what’s usually an equally over the top price tag. 
Yeah, the topic of this week’s episode firmly falls in line with this theory… compared to virtually every competitor in its space its larger, thicker, heavier, hotter, pricier… just… "more"… than anything we’ve tested before.
When all of that crazy comes together in a single package though something… unexpected happens. The brightness and fidelity of the display makes you almost forget the back crushing weight. The ever-rising warmth under the keyboard deck isn’t as uncomfortable when Ultra High graphics settings in your latest games don’t even making it flinch.
Suddenly, what was so unexpected, may have become special…
Okay, so clear off some space on your desk (because you won't be wanting to run this on your lap) and let’s take a long hard look at Razer’s latest flagship, the Blade 16…

Episode 38 - What’s next... for Movie Theaters

You say the word “Blockbuster” and for most people it conjures the image of blue and yellow signage, cardboard stand-ups, and the never-ending question of what do we watch this weekend… 
The thing was, all the movies in that store had likely already had their spotlight-moment on “the big screen” in move theaters across the country and the globe. With any luck, their creators and producers had long-since already made their money back and then some, so every rental and sale of the movie afterwards went straight to the bottom line. 
Fast forward to the streaming era and really that narrative didn’t change much right away… major films would hit the local 20-screen monstrosity and then weeks or months later would find their way to a streaming service of choice to collect fractional pennies from your $14.99 per month. 
Today though, that tide has turned dramatically the other direction… 
Major productions are hitting streaming services “day of” more and more frequently, and even those that don’t are still finding a viewing public perfectly willing to wait it out for the benefit of watching from the comfort of their own home. 
You still have standouts that will draw a crowd and, most importantly, drive up popcorn sales… but is that enough? The other meaning of blockbuster was the summer tentpoles that literally made the year for studios, producers, and outlets alike. Is there enough steam left to keep that engine plowing forward, or has the Streaming World really, perhaps permanently, changed our movie-going experience? 
Let’s tune in and find out…

Episode 37 - Nintendo... a History

Picture something with me… 
You’re on a long road trip, sitting in the back seat of the car fully engrossed in the screen in front of you… headphones in, buttons being mashed, absolutely sure you’re just one more push away from beating your all-time record…
The miles and hours go by, but none of that matters because the world around you begins and ends with the pixels in front of your face. You’re lost in the game, and the experience. 
The funny part is, most of us today would complete that picture with the screen in question being your smartphone of choice, burning hours in the latest game you downloaded from someone’s app store. But in fact, this story took place decades ago in the back of a 1993 Buick rolling down the Interstate between Pennsylvania and Florida. 
The device: a Nintendo Gameboy. The game: Super Mario Land. The batteries: Double-A and someone always dead or dying…
That exact story is forever part of my personal gaming (and technology) past, and it's ones like it that I’ll remember fondly for life. Nintendo made it possible at a time when other such experiences took place tethered to a TV in the Living Room that had better be turned off by bed time. 
So this week, we’re going to give Nintendo their well-earned moment in the spotlight to talk through their distant beginnings, pivotal contributions to our present, and likely undeniable role in the future.
Found some more batteries, so lets play…

Episode 36 - Samsung’s Unpacked 2023 Event

This week on the Solid State Podcast, there’s really no need for a big extended intro because, well, everyone already knows what we’re here to talk about!
Yep, exactly as announced Samsung called the tech world together last week to show off their top-of-2023 wares in the flagship smartphone and laptop space… 
The mere fact that this event was finally in-person again might really be the single biggest bit of news… on the smartphone front at least. Cameras were upgraded, processors got snappier, and edges got “boxier”…
This is hardly just a Samsung problem, but this space is hitting an all-new stage of maturity that almost lends itself to seem even more yawn-worthy when showcased in big, overdone events versus the infomercial style announcement of the high-Pandemic years. 
But even so, Samsung still brought the flair, the leaks, and shockingly three laptops one of which may just have stolen the show if it’s battery can stand the test of real world use. 
Okay, I wouldn’t exactly call that a short intro after all, but lets dive right in anyway and talk our way through Samsung’s Unpacked 2023 event…

Episode 35 - The Cost of Connectivity

Grocery shopping might be one of the last great bastions of a one-to-one exchange of money for goods… I stand in the check-out line, my items are scanned, and I hand over entirely too much money for a dozen eggs before leaving the store with my bag of soon-to-be-dinners. Thankfully, for now at least, there are no monthly recurring costs associated with my four-pack of Orange Celsius…
What I’m trying to get at is, for the most part, I know the cost of that bag of groceries the moment I leave the store. 
Enter in the question, what is the real cost of so many other things in our lives? You’ve got raw dollars, up-front, post-sale, social, personal, mental… the list is exhausting! 
This isn’t one we’re going to entirely crack here today, or frankly any time soon… but for starters we’re going to spend some time interrogating the questions around our connected lives: Social Media, Cellular Data, the “ding” heard round the room every time someone leaves their ringer on…
So today, let’s talk the TRUE Cost of Connectivity…

Episode 34 - Apple’s surprise M2 Mac and HomePod Announcements

When you follow just about any industry long enough, things can get a bit… cyclical…
Tech is no different there, and possibly one of the leading offenders: CES happens every January, Samsung shows ever-larger phones early each year and folding-ones later that year, and the next thing we know it’s time for another Black Friday “sales” spectacular…
But, every so often… any one of these brands are poised to throw out a curve ball, and this week Apple pulled exactly that...
In a relative one-two-punch of announcements, we went from a perfectly normal post-CES kind of week to new entries in the laptop, desktop, and Smart Home space straight to your ears from the Cupertino space ship…
Once we recovered from our shock, watched a couple of infomercials, and poured over entirely too many spec sheets, we decided the only thing left to do was dissect each announcement for your listening “pleasure”… and see if we can whittle down to what really has been announced, is it any good, and most importantly… should you buy any of it? 
Sit back, load up your favorite benchmark tool, and lets talk our way through Apple’s surprise M2 Mac and HomePod announcements…