Techstrong Gang – October 15, 2024

Hey, everyone. Happy Tuesday. You know, a MD is, uh, making some moves and some noises really ambitious.

Uh, there's trouble in Windows 11 in Windows City and indoor solar panels. How do they work when the sun goes down? You are watching Techron Gate.

Hi everyone, it's Alan Shimmel for Techstrong. Happy Tuesday. We've got a nice show for you lined up today.

Um, let me, we, as I mentioned in the opening, we're gonna be talking about AMD's ambitious agenda to take on Nvidia and ai. Uh, this troubles in Window Cities with Window 11 and a special report from Bonnie Schneider on indoor solar panels. No, it's not an oxymoron.

Uh, but before we get started, let me introduce you to our gang. Today. We have three, well, including me, three.

We have two other ones besides two other gang members besides me. First of all, joining us, I think from back home in, in the Cleveland area. He's the founder of Tech Field Day, and, uh, many other things.

Gestalt it our own. Steven FoST. Hey, Steven, how are you?

It's good to be here. Uh, Cleveland, uh, by the way, we'll be facing, um, some team called the Yankees, which seem kind of Pathless team coming up here soon. So we'll see what happens.

Those damn Yankees. Those damn Yankees. Um, but yes, I'm looking forward to it, though.

It should be a heck of a a series. Actually. Cleveland's had a great season.

Yankees have had a good season. Yep. Um, you know, we've got the Mets against the Dodgers and the Yankees against the Guardians, though that still doesn't roll off my tongue.

Steven, how do you feel? Indians, guardians. I'm a big fan of the, of the Guardians.

I liked Indians because of the origins, uh, so Alexis and all that good stuff. But, um, but I like the Guardians too, because it's named after this very cool architectural thing in Cleveland that I've always admired. So, uh, I'm cool with it.

Cool. All right. Hey, one vote for the Guardians.

All right. Joining Stephen and I to my left is our, uh, it sustainability green weather climate change analyst editor extraordinaire, Bonnie Schneider. Hey, Bonnie, how are you?

I'm well, thanks. Great to be here, Alan. Thanks, you.

Great, great to have you on. All right, and that's it for today. So let's jump into things.

So, uh, at a recent Goldman Sachs conference, uh, A-M-D-C-E-O laid out an ambitious agenda and an a MD about laid out an Avis, uh, an ambitious agenda to take on Nvidia, maybe even more ambitious than dare I say, Intel or, or some of the other chip makers that we've seen. Um, is this for public consumption and analyst or, or do they really think they could, you know, give Jensen and team a run for their money? Steven, what do you think?

I, I think that, um, in the world of corporate announcements, this is close to a slam dunk as you can get. Um, essentially a MD went from zero just a couple of years ago in the AI market to, as was reported at these, uh, at these events. Uh, let's see.

I don't, I don't wanna misquote her four and a half billion dollars. And, um, you know, I think it's very safe to say that in a market that is 200, 300, $400 billion, that there's room for a MD to double, triple, quadruple that. I mean, it, it just, you know, we're talking about big numbers, but we're talking about big numbers that a MD has shockingly not played much of a part in on the one hand.

And then on the other hand, they've got really great products on offer. The, um, the MI 300 X has been a very solid, uh, GPU for use with AI training. The, uh, the new 3 25 x, which is basically an updated 300 x, uh, looks like a pretty good, uh, alternative as well.

And they're already previewing a, uh, three 50 x with a next generation architecture next year. That should be much stronger than anything NVIDIA has. So on, on a hardware standpoint as well, AMD's got the goods.

They've also done a nice job courting partners, which is the key to this market, essentially getting some of those hyperscalers to deploy their GPUs and deploy training models on them. But the final piece of the puzzle is something that a MD is still working on, and that is mindshare among developers. Uh, everybody still uses cuda, everybody still loves Cuda, and so far, at least, uh, rock m, which is AMD's, uh, alternative has not seen much traction, but of course that could change.

Uh, a MD has recently made some acquisitions. They bought Silo ai, which is a great AI platform, and that really could help accelerate it. So, to, in answer to your question, no, this is not just something that A CEO says in front of a bunch of analysts.

I think you can take this to the bank. So, look, I, I'm not gonna trivialize $4 billion, $4 billion is a heck of a lot of money, but as you say, in a market that's two to $400 billion, you know, it's 1%, 2%. What it, what, you know, my question is, even if they double or triple that, is that still, is that enough for them to be taken as a player in this market?

Right? And, and part of it is, look, if you've got Nvidia with 95% market share and a MD has 2% and the rest of the gang has the other 2% or 3%, yeah, you know, they're probably second or third in the, in the, in the market. But at two or 3% compared to one guy having 95%, I, that's not being a player in my mind.

So, you know, when, for these kinds of things, I always go back to the PC days, right? When Microsoft had 95% of the PC market, and, you know, it was when Apple hit about 20% of the laptop desktop market, it was more laptops, right? It was when we switched away from desktops to laptops.

But when Apple hit 20% of that market, or thereabouts, clearly they were the, you know, the number two and a big player. And we didn't, we didn't use the M word around Microsoft's windows for, for laptops because there was a, there was a, a, uh, a real competitor. Do we need a MD to hit 20% of this market for that to come in?

And if so, you're probably talking 40 billion something in that range, $50 billion. That's a, that's a big, that's a big lift from four. Yeah.

And it's a bigger lift, I should note than, um, Lisa Sue is suggesting, I mean, she's not saying that they're gonna quite get to that kind of number in the GPU, uh, you know, training market even now. And so, absolutely. I I'm completely on board with your analysis there, Alan, that, you know, we're talking very small numbers, and that's why I feel so confident in saying that a MD is gonna hit this.

They've got a compelling product, it's got a good price point. It does the thing, they've got good partners. Why not?

Why not get 4%? Why not get 6% sure no problem. But 40% or 20%, 20%, even 10%, that's gonna be a lot harder because, uh, CUDA has such an embedded, um, uh, market.

But I think that there's an interesting thing happening here as well. And I, I, I suggest that the, uh, AI chip market is going to radically change and grow in the next couple of years because we're gonna see more and more AI applications deployed in more and more places. And we're gonna shift from these AI supercomputers that are using these high-end MI 300 X and Blackwell, uh, GPUs to do training.

And we're gonna see, um, deployment of, uh, AI chips everywhere. And from that perspective, I think a MD and actually Intel and, and Qualcomm and many others are, are in a, in a very good position to take on Nvidia because NVIDIA's really focused on this high end market and, and who can blame 'em? I mean, they're selling these things like hotcakes, but soon, uh, when we need low powered NPUs and we need to put these things in edge devices, and we need to put these things all over the place, it's gonna be a market for, uh, PC CPU makers.

And that's where Apple is well positioned. It's where Qualcomm is well positioned. Intel has a very solid, uh, laptop and desktop CPU lineup right now.

I mean, they're even looking better than a MD right now in those markets with their latest parts. And of course, a MD is right there. So that's why one thing that I'm gonna be keeping an eye on is the rumors that Nvidia may get into that PC CPU market, and that would be a game changer.

Well, I, I think Nvidia may be eyeing that market, but I, I don't, you know, they're not gonna come in there with 95% market share, right? Because it, you've got some very established players, as you've said, who are, who are working that market. And Steven, I, I think you're dead on, right?

I think what we consider the GPU market is gonna drastically change when GPU and AI chips are more than just, you know, these big hyperscaler core, core kind of, uh, CPUs. The other thing I'll tell you is, you know, a MD knows a little bit, a little something about how to, how to attack a market where you have an 800 pound gorilla, right? It's taken them a long time, but they've steadily chipped away at the, at the apple there with Intel over the years, right?

And they've, they've had ups and downs, right? But you know, over time, they, their processors probably rival, or if not downright better than Intel's, you know, us, uh, personal computer chip. So, you know, I think a and I agree, a MD is well positioned.

I just think this isn't a, a 12 or 24 month kind of situation. This is, this is a longer term kind of deal, an A MD that's gonna be in it for the long term. And you know how Wall Street hates long term strategy?

They, they live quarter to quarter. Well, I was just gonna say in the short term, I know that Nvidia had mentioned there was gonna be delays, um, with Blackwell coming into 2025. So maybe there could be some window, I mean, if it, if there is an opportunity in the short term that there are some delays, there's also just bringing back to something I talked about earlier on another show about sustainability, if they're able to do this more locally, as you were saying, more on, on devices, then that is gonna make it a more sustainable, more attractive investment.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll Have to, and that's actually a good point.

Uh, Bonnie, I wanna make, um, uh, with regard to the, the competition between NVIDIA and a MD and the data center, GPU, uh, compute market, uh, one of the things that you don't see in these press releases is comparison of total system power consumption and thus total system heat generation. And one of the reasons I've heard that a MD has lagged behind is because when you look at the total systems that are deployed with AM D based GPUs versus NVIDIA based GPUs, in many cases, the power consumption is significantly higher. Now, that has been changing with these latest generation parts, but I think that's another factor that kept a MD behind, and it's a huge factor when it comes to these massive GPU supercomputers.

It really is. I I was reading an article this weekend, uh, you know, a lot of these public utilities made promises to meta and Google and Microsoft and the rest, that if they would build data centers in, in Omaha or somewhere like that, they would have sufficient, they would make the utility, you know, give them an SLA to provide sufficient power. And now they built these data centers, they're using power like mad with these, you know, aa AI chips.

And, um, as a result, the utilities are, are like, are mothballing coal-fired plants? They had mothball, you know, for in, in lieu of cleaner plants, but they, they can't produce enough energy to meet demand. So they, they have to bring these old ones back online.

And that's, you know, sitting here in Florida where we get one monster storm after the next. And global climate change is very real for most of us. Maybe not the state government, but for most of us.

And, um, you know, the last thing we want is more coal fired plants firing up. Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of those, um, that, that comes right here in the middle, middle America, we talked about that last week with the A EP Ohio, trying, trying to force these hyperscalers to have long-term contracts.

I don't really blame a EP from trying to force long-term contracts, but at the same time, they've stood in the way of renewable energy in the past, and I don't wanna see that happen again. Um, I think that what we need is more deployment of green energy rather than just these short term, uh, approaches. Like fire up that old coal plant again.

And yeah, remember here in Ohio, we just had a huge scandal, bribery scandal about, uh, firing up a coal plant in Ohio, in, uh, Indiana using Ohio taxpayer money. So, uh, yeah, the yep. Uh, the, uh, the, the, the speaker or the, or the leader of the Senate or Speaker of the House, I think Speaker of the House is in, in prison for it, which is just really, Oh, yeah.

Wow. Great story. This is scandal season, I think a scandal related to coal powered plants.

Yeah. To that, that must have been in one in the band books down here. 'cause we've heard nothing about it.

That's true. Um, anyway, all right, let's take a break here. Um, but you know, will good luck to a FD and it'll bear watching.

We're gonna come back and we're gonna talk about the trouble with Triples. No, no. The trouble with Windows 11 is doing a little Star Trek there.

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All right, we're back here in Textron Gang. And our next story for today is The trouble with Windows 11 specifically upgrading to Windows 11. You know, for as long as I've been, uh, a Windows user, in full disclosure, I haven't used Windows as my primary computing device for probably close to 10 years.

But, um, I always have a Surface or a Windows device handy. 'cause sometimes you need one. And that's just how I roll.

I like that with a lot of computers. But that being said, I'm an early adopter. I can't wait for the next version to come out and I'll take it in beta, I'll play with it.

And, but, you know, mainstream people don't generally take to upgrading Windows. It's a major step in years past and in the history, it's been fraught with, with landmines, um, which is why a lot of people, you know, we still have Windows XP around, but that, that being said, windows 11 is starting to, it, it seems it's starting to gain a little bit more traction, but more needs to be done. As the article over in Text Drug, ITSM says, um, Steven, your take, Yeah, it's an interesting situation, isn't it?

Because, um, the Windows 11 is still only, you know, according to the article here, uh, what is it? Only, uh, uh, 23% of Windows installations. And this is an operating system that came out in 2021.

So three years ago, um, windows 10, which is by far the dominant operating system among Windows machines that came out in 2015. I don't know, I mean, remember that, that, that 10 years old? No, I do, I I think that's the last Windows I was actually using.

Absolutely. I mean, I had that on a Dell laptop back then, and, and you know, I mean that, uh, it's been a long time, but I know that, you know, when Windows 11 came out, there was some criticism, there was some pushback. People were worried about hardware requirements.

Yes, I think people are trying to get longer lifespan out of their, uh, PC hardware. Um, but, but that being said, you know, you look at the hardware requirements of Windows 11, it's really not that onerous. I mean, I think a lot of us have, you know, machines now with modern processors and eight gigs of RAM and things like that, but many people don't.

And those people are the ones that are, that are lagging behind. There's also been a lot of pushback from corporate and educational users who haven't wanted to switch, because of course, if you're especially one of those fleet users of Windows, you need to switch everybody at the same time or else you're gonna have a support nightmare. And so many of those have held back and stuck on Windows 10 just because that way they can get a little bit more use out of their older machines that, you know, and some of those machines remember, were purchased in 20 21, 20 22 with Windows 10.

So it's very likely that there's a lot of pushback on that. But that being said, um, you know, the, the, the, the support for Windows 10 is finally coming to an end here. Uh, the last, uh, update version is finally going to run outta support.

People are gonna need to upgrade. And that's gonna cause a lot of grumbling and a lot of moaning. But it's time.

It, I mean, you're talking 10 years since Windows 10 was released. I, I think there's a couple things at play here. And, and I'm, you know, I'm going back and anytime I go back too far, I'm always a little shaky.

But if I'm not mistaken, they did change some of the licensing, fleet licensing with 11. And so I think that was, uh, you know, people resisted that. Number two, um, I think it was with 11, they made the decision, rather than coming out with a new version of Windows every two or three years, they were going to just, you know, do the upgrade thing.

5, you know, and, and so you weren't going to see a Windows 12, I think by design, windows 12 was way out in the future, right? They were gonna just make it more like, uh, like your apps on your phone, your os on the phone, right? But just to give you a little contrast, right?

You look at Apple, look, iOS comes out with a new version of iOS basically every year, um, on your Mac os, though they're still called, you know, Mac os, uh, we get one, I think it's about every year around there, right? Every year. Um, I, I don't know.

I mean, but you know, and is Microsoft by design just always running one version behind, right? Just in time to close Windows 10 support. When, when is, is there plans for Windows 12?

Yeah, I, I don't know about that, but I will say that, um, I, I agree with you that one of the challenges has been just this whole monumental this. I mean, I think about it, you know, if, if, if the upgrade came out, you know, basically this was, this is Windows for, for six years, seven years, and then there's a massive upgrade, it's gonna be hard for people to make that jump. I think Apple was wise, as you point out, to switch to an annual release cycle of the os.

Now, I don't recommend people to jump on the latest Mac os, just like, I wouldn't recommend them jump on the latest Windows. 2 of Mac os most people are switching. And the same with iOS.

I think a lot of people are stuck with iOS, but I mean, you look at the Apple numbers, it's the exact opposite here. So, whereas, you know, on the Windows side, it's like 80 20 still using the old operating system. On the Mac side, it's more like 80 20 using the new operating system.

And that's, you know, I think the only thing that's holding that back is that Apple won't run the newest operating system on some of their older, outdated hardware. And there again, I think Apple's in a different situation because they make the hardware so they can make sure that there aren't any cut rate corner cutting systems out there at the last minute that won't run the operating system from two or three years ago. Well, they could, but it seems like sometimes they release products that are obsolete real quickly.

But setting that aside, um, on the PC space, I mean, one of the reasons that I switched to the Mac wasn't because of the operating system, was 'cause of the hardware. I was so tired of constantly dealing with just garbage PCs that were at bottom of the barrel, lowest possible specs, you know, cheap, slow, low Ram, low CPU, everything. And, and, and with Apple, basically, there's no bad machine because there just is no bad machine.

And, and I think that that's another thing that holds back these upgrades because basically people with, uh, uh, you know, who, who's bought a, a cheap machine on, you know, a Black Friday or something, you know, they can't run Windows 11 on it, or they're worried that it won't run fast. And that's a good one too. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of resistance here for that.

And frankly, one more point of resistance is I've talked to some of my friends who are in the Windows space and wrote Windows devotees. A lot of them just don't like Windows 11, especially now with the latest update that's got fricking ads in the, in the start menu. I was Just gonna say that, I mean, Uh, I, I don't blame you for not liking that.

Yeah, no, I, I have Windows 11, and that is exactly why I don't like it. The ads. It's, it's very distracting and it's annoying, and they already have enough of our money.

Why Shouldn't, I don't have to, shouldn't. Well, but that goes back to the licensing. They were trying to diversify revenue sources to kind of cover the cost.

Because, I mean, let's face it, windows used to be the, the razor and office was the razor blades, right? For Microsoft, right? So if they had you on the razor, they, they would just selling razor blades and, and that's a good business as, as Gillette.

But now, you know, people use Google, you could get Office on any platform. And so if you ask Windows to stand on its own financially, they, they gotta make their money somewhere. The other thing I'll mention though is well, we talk about Windows.

Yeah, we tend to think of it as the pc, but you know, there's the server version. There's embedded windows, there's headless windows, there's kiosks that run windows underneath it, as we saw with the recent, uh, CrowdStrike and Blue Screen of Death. You'd be surprised where those Windows boxes show up at airports and stuff like That.

And how they outdated those machines are too. That's, they are always shocks those of us in the IT security space is those things are just so incredibly outdated. They're not updated, they're not patched.

I mean, you wonder where these DDoSs are coming from. It's coming from the, the sign in the airport probably. Yeah, no, I'll tell you something else though.

I was talking to someone last week. Uh, I was at the Qualis security show out in San Diego. Do you know that there's a good chunk of ATMs that still run xp?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And if you've been to Black Hat and, uh, listened to some of those talks, those things are very exploitable gas pumped.

That's true. Yeah. I, I was a black hat when Barnaby Jones made it Rain Money.

The a TM was spinning money out, you know, for That's what I was thinking of. Yes. Yep.

Um, that was, and that was, geez, that, that's gotta be 15 year, I mean, Barnaby Jones dressed his soul passed away, but that's gonna be 15 or more years ago, Steve, that was a long time ago. And, and it's, it's still the same. Our last's still running on many ATMs Today.

A lot of those ATMs are still running even after that black hat. And, and, and you'd think, you know, banks and cash, you'd think that that would be something that people would want to update and make secure. It's just gonna take a big mistake, a big glitch, something.

And, and that, that might be the impetus of It. But that being said, you know, I think that Microsoft really does have to get people on a more steady cadence of upgrading and a more, uh, I, I like the idea of just having windows just just windows, no number. It, it upgrades when it upgrade.

Yeah. You know, and, and, and, and try to get people on that cadence because it, you know, it, it's just, it's not good. It's not good for any of us to have so many people running outdated os I look having, you know, having, uh, co-founded a few software companies.

I've gotta tell you what a major PIA it is just having your support team to, to support multiple versions like that. Um, I mean, that was one of the big things when, when we first started still secure, you know, Mitchell was one of my co-founders and my friend Raj Bar gava. Um, we, we were selling a security appliance now between US chickens, there was nothing special about the appliance.

It was a straight on Intel. You know, I think Dell, we were OEMing from Dell, so they were just, you know, regular Windows boxes. But we were able to control what the hard giant, hard disk controller was, what network card was on it, what the IR shows you, how long ago this was, what the IR kids and conflicts and, and all of that was stuff, right?

And, um, we then made the switch because people were like, why should I spend all that money on an appliance from you? And it's just a pc. I can get PCs cheap.

Okay, get the pc, we'll sell you the software and our support cost and, and buried and went through the roof. 'cause now, you know, that's the, again, the difference between the Apple world and the Windows world. You are supporting every, you know, every little chip or or card made in Taiwan, and there's millions of them, and some are standardized, some aren't.

And it was damn near impossible to support all of the variations out there where we just had to have lists and lists of like network controllers that we couldn't support or, you know, different kinds of hard drives that we wouldn't support. It's, it's, IM, it's an impossible thing. Now, multiply that by multiple versions of the os, you don't need that headache.

Who wants that headache? Absolutely. And, um, yeah, I, I, I pity the support people too, who are gonna have to push this update now that Apple's or that Microsoft's support of Windows 10 is because, you know, I think that's the best place to leave it.

Um, many of these users do not want to update whether they're industrial, I ot, whether they're servers, whether they're, you know, regular human beings out there doing regular human jobs. The last thing they want is a big update and a and, and a bunch of stuff breaking and a new OS to get used to. Man, that's not gonna be fun.

And it hasn't been fun for the last few years. No, it won't be. All right, let's move along.

Um, we're gonna take a break here on Texture and Green Gang, and we're going to come back and talk about indoor solar panels. I'm not kidding. You're watching Tech Stroke Guy.

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Contact us today and tell your story to the world in the most powerful way with Textron Group. Well, we talk a lot about solar panels to power data centers and renewable energy, but what about powering things inside your home? Sounds said it does seem like kind of an oxymoron.

Like how could you do that if you don't have sunlight? Well, new technology is making this possible through utilizing indoor light sources and even natural light that comes in inside your home. I took a closer look at this technology.

It's not perfect. There are some challenges that, that it faces, but, um, it's an interesting idea that I think we'll gain more traction. Let's take a look.

Hi everyone. I'm Bonnie Schneider with your Ecotech Analyst Insights. Do you ever find yourself searching for an available outlet to charge your phone?

Well, soon you may not have to. That's the promise of indoor solar technology, also known as ambient photovoltaic. These innovative light absorbing panels have the potential to make disposable batteries obsolete and reduce e-waste.

The latest advancements in this field are impressive. Some indoor solar panels can now convert nearly 40% of indoor light into electricity. That's almost double the efficiency of outdoor ones.

Leading companies in this space, like ambient photonics, are developing cells that can generate enough power to charge smartphones and small devices. Their technology can turn low intensity light sources like LED and fluorescence into usable energy. But it's not as simple as it sounds.

One of the criticisms of indoor solar power is that it can be inconsistent as the light source may be unstable. Individual habits and the amount of natural light available can vary. Plus the cost of production and integration remains high, making it tough for these solutions to gain widespread traction.

Researchers are working to solve these problems. Some teams are experimenting with hybrid systems that combine indoor solar cells with small batteries to ensure consistent power output. Indoor solar technology has the potential to change the way we use and store energy as innovation works to ensure cost efficiency and integration with existing infrastructure.

The key lies not only in technology, but also getting people to use it. Indoor solar advocates will push for greater adoption to make these systems a viable part of everyday energy solutions. Well, it does sound appealing, especially not having to look for outlets all over the home to charge devices.

Um, I think that's true, particularly for people that live in older homes where the, the outlets aren't, you know, always available. But the challenges of cost for these, um, indoor solar panels is key. And also getting the traction of people to accept it.

That's something we were just talking about with Windows, getting people to change. Um, that that's another hurdle, but I think it's an exciting idea. I know, um, Steven, that you have, uh, an interest in solar, so I'm curious to see your thoughts on this.

Yeah, I Feel like you guys set up a solar story for me every week, and I thank you for it. So let's, let's dive into this one. So yeah, I love solar.

I love the prospects of solar. Um, but as you point out in your video, we, these are not your father's solar panels. We're not talking about taking that big, you know, four by eight sheet off the roof and sticking it in your living room.

What we're talking about here is specialized panels for specialized low powered devices. And I think that's the thing that needs to be, um, focused on first off. So as you can imagine, as you said in the video, uh, and as is widely, you know, I mean, you can probably understand this, um, the light indoors is number one, not as strong as the light out outside, but also it's different from the light outside.

You know, obviously, uh, these lights above me are not pumping out ultraviolet radiation on my skin 24 7, because, you know, that would be, I hope not pretty bad, you know? Yeah. I, you know, and, and the same with infrared.

I mean, why would they, why would they have a bunch of infrared coming down? You know? I mean, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

So a lot of the, the, um, indoor lighting, especially LED lighting is carefully tuned to the visible spectrum. And, uh, especially a cool white light that is, that doesn't have a lot of the, a lot of the spectrum outside of that. And that causes problems for conventional solar panels.

You know, you look at, at what these panels are, are pulling in, they're pretty impressive, but a lot of them, the mainstream technology is, um, you know, pulling in light, not even visible light and converting it into electricity. So indoors, there's other technologies, uh, there's some exciting ones. I mean, we're talking about, um, printing solar panels.

We're talking about a technology called gallium indium phosphide that has much, much better efficiency, essentially building solar cells just specifically to work under the kind of lighting that we have indoors. Exactly. And it is pretty cool.

Let me tell you, I have some devices already that are using solar panels, both in inside and outside to provide power, you know, point power, and they work very well. Uh, they, for, for, for purpose. They're not high powered.

It's not gonna power the whole house or something like that. But if you've got iot devices, thermostats, you know, um, maybe even some lighting, as weird as that sounds, you know, having light powered lighting. Um, but, you know, things like that could absolutely work indoors.

But we've had 'em on those cheap calculators forever, right? But lately, You know, I I I, I found an old calculator in my basement yesterday, uh, from, uh, that I picked up at Macworld, uh, 25 years ago. And it looks like a floppy disc.

And you, you slide it over and there's a solar panel and it works. Yeah. And it works, it works on indoor lighting.

So it, it, you know, the technology has sort of been there. I'm sure they're improving it. Um, look, it doesn't kill animals cause cancer or any of the things, you know, I, why not?

Because, and I, I think it, the other thing to remember is that, you know, so down here in Florida for instance, we get, I get spammed almost every day from, hey, install solar panels on your house and you get all these great tax benefits and all of this, and it's the usual nonsense. And that's great if you're a homeowner and you're allowed to put solar panels on your, on your roof, and they've actually passed the Lord down here that the HOA is not allowed to stop you from doing that as long as it's not an eyesore. But what an eyesore is, is I guess debatable.

But you know, beyond homeowners in that kind of situation, how else can we harness the power of the sun? Well, it's not the sun. That's the interesting thing.

How else can we harness, harness solar panels even though it may not be natural sunlight, um, to help keep our cost down to help be more greed, to help be more sustainable. And, and this is a great thing, Reduce and to reduce the use of the, of, of, of disposable batteries and the chemicals and batteries. I mean, most of these devices are probably gonna have batteries as well, or at least capacitors, right?

To help, you know, level out the fluctuations. But I think many of them are gonna have batteries. But, but there again, you know, if we can reduce the amount of disposable batteries, it's so frustrating, isn't it, to have to have buy that big pack of batteries things When they have to throw them out Yeah.

And then Suck them. I hate that. Hate that.

Yeah, me too. Why don't move this stuff out a solar panel? Well, there, that's the part of the technology that if it's, it is unstable with indoor light, but maybe there's hybrid solutions.

And I'm curious to think, to, to talk about the adaptability. We were talking about how we're a tech enthusiast. We might try something where someone else might think this is a crazy idea, but do you think that people would be more apt to even just try indoor solar panels to power their devices?

I personally think people in cities might be, even though having lived just recently in New York City, you don't, I, I had good life, but it's, it's very difficult because you're surrounded by buildings. But I'm just thinking that it could be something where someone, as you were saying, Alan, if you don't have a home and you're in an apartment, but you wanna do something that's green and you wanna try to get, get that solar energy, maybe there is an angle for urban dwellers to adapt it. Well, And you wanna get off the double a triple A, you know, a hamster wheel.

Yep. Right. I can't tell you, you know, I go to Costco and I buy them by packs like this and then chip away at the stone two and three at a time.

And it's, It's frustrating. It is. Yeah.

And it's so wasteful. It really is. I mean, the rechargeable ones are probably a little better, but of course they have their own set of problems.

I'm not gonna get into it. I think that what's gonna happen is, is I think the thing that'll drive adoption of this is basically just having these things on the market. Yeah.

Can you imagine, I mean, just think about it this way. What if Apple introduced the next magic keyboard and magic track pad and they didn't have a cord that plugged in The U usb? That would be great.

You know, that Would be great. It, it, it's, it's, it's applications like that that I think would lead people to adopt these things there. By the way, there already are solar powered keyboards available on the market, solar powered wireless keyboards.

So if you want one, you can get one. They don't work great. But it, it would be great if we had the technology, but, you know, think about it.

You know, what if the next nest thermostat, uh, didn't require that that wire, the power wire coming up from the furnace, The red wire, You know, what if, um, you know, the next, I dunno, remote control for your TV just had a little solar cell and you, you set it down and it just sort of charged itself. I think that's ultimately what's gonna make these things widespread is just when they just become ubiquitous and then, you know, people will adopt them without even knowing that they're adopting them. That's A good point.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't think you're gonna need a solar, indoor solar generator kind of to power your whole house.

But for these discreet uses like that where it makes sense, I think you could replace a sizable amount of the batteries. Yeah. Just Remote controls.

If they were to take that, that pull The battery started, maybe they could put a little fine me in it too. So I, when I lose the remote. Um, anyway, great, great, great story on this body and, and we'll be watching as that continues to move along.

I think that's gonna wrap up our chauffeur today. We've got a full on tech, strong tv, uh, lineup for you immediately following this. Steven, I'm gonna see you in Austin this week.

Very excited. Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty excited to be able to come out there and spend a little time with you and the Techron team. Yeah, We'll be working, working.

Well, it's not gonna be the Techron team. It's me, rum folks. Yeah, Rum.

There you go. And also fu I wanna, I wanna shout out as well, um, we're gonna be live with a security field day this week as well. So if, What is, what do those Yeah, watching on text Strong tv, it's gonna be Wednesday and Thursday.

Uh, we've got DigiCert, Dell, SonicWall, and Citrix presenting, and that's gonna be live streaming on Textron tv. And of course on the tremendous I one of your best sites Security Boulevard. Absolutely.

I love Security Boulevard. I actually love the people at DigiCert too. They really smart people at DigiCert speak to them off.

Yeah. So that'll be tomorrow and Thursday. Check it out.

It'll be on text, drunk tv, probably immediately following the game. All right. That's gonna wrap it.

I hope you've enjoyed this show. Enjoy the rest of Textron tv everyone. For now though, this is Alan Shimmel for TechOne Gang, and we're out.