There’s nothing quite like the thrill of fresh hardware, and this week, the studio is buzzing with a surprise live unboxing of the brand-new MacBook Neo. The central focus of this episode is Apple’s latest addition to its computing lineup, a device that not only turns heads with a striking new yellow finish but also represents a major leap forward in out-of-the-box AI integration. As emerging tech continues to blend into our daily routines, the MacBook Neo matters right now because it seamlessly bakes powerful tools—like Apple Intelligence—directly into the foundational setup of the operating system, making advanced AI accessible to everyday users right from the start.
Paul and Dave share their candid, in-the-moment reactions as they tear away the eco-friendly packaging and boot up the machine for the first time. They offer unique perspectives on the tactile unboxing experience and the immediate prioritization of accessibility features, while Producer Jeff Kidd helps capture the sleek details on camera. Their final verdict is one of genuine excitement: the MacBook Neo isn’t just a colorful hardware refresh, but a highly capable, AI-forward device that sets a new standard for user-friendly, modern computing.
Key Topics
The Tactile Unboxing Experience - Paul and Dave walk listeners through the physical unboxing of the MacBook Neo, highlighting Apple’s signature packaging. They note the satisfying, plastic-free pull tabs and the paper screen protector, emphasizing how these thoughtful design choices create a premium and environmentally conscious first impression.
A Bold New Aesthetic - The hosts immediately react to the laptop's vibrant yellow finish, a refreshing departure from traditional muted tones. They discuss how this bold colorway brings a sense of personality and fun back to the Mac lineup, making the hardware feel as creative as the software it runs.
Prioritizing Universal Accessibility - Right upon boot-up, the team points out how quickly the setup process introduces universal accessibility options. By putting visual, motor, and hearing accommodations front and center before anything else, they explore how the device ensures an inclusive onboarding experience for every type of user.
Apple Intelligence Out of the Box - As they navigate the setup screens, Paul and Dave highlight the prominent introduction of Apple Intelligence. They break down the native integration of features like Live Translation, Writing Tools, and Genmoji, showcasing how this new era of macOS is designed to effortlessly weave generative AI into daily workflows from day one.
Mentioned in the Episode
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Transcript
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Dave Ghidiu: oh this is the best day of my life i'm going to give you a hug and maybe shed a tear as soon as you turn the cameras off Jeff Kidd: warm and inviting and I love that they Paul Engin: Welcome to the Immersive Lens the podcast exploring the technologies reshaping how we live work and learn from AI and virtual reality to creative media and design we are diving into the tools and ideas shaping our connected world my name is Paul Engin join us as we uncover the people and ideas driving the next wave of interactive experiences Dave Ghidiu: and I'm Dave Ghidiu this is the immersive lens Paul Engin: and Dave I have no idea what we're doing i've been I have so much anxiety over the last few days ever since I heard this is happening so uh we've been asked here by Jeff and um we have no idea why and I'm hoping you'll tell us why are we here at 8 in the morning Jeff Kidd: yes yes so I'm just curious do you guys have any idea do you have any idea what what I have planned for today Dave Ghidiu: nothing no i tried to ease drop once or twice on conversations but Jeff Kidd: Okay um so I've actually been working on this for a while oh no this has uh taken a lot of uh moving parts and I'm going to give a couple shout outs to a few people but um today uh we're going to do an unboxing um and so Paul you are going to man the camera that is going to get the beauty shots of the unboxing and Dave are going to do the unboxing so you need to clear your space Dave Ghidiu: oh boy this is the happiest day of my life are you kidding an unboxing Jeff Kidd: yeah we're going to do an unboxing and this is a mystery unboxing and you guys have no idea what it is Dave Ghidiu: no do you want us to guess Jeff Kidd: no I don't want you to guess i just want you to be prepared for it Paul Engin: so am I doing video on this Jeff Kidd: yeah it's video all right Paul Engin: is this all set up Dave Ghidiu: yeah is Is this enough space here on the desk Jeff Kidd: that's enough space Dave Ghidiu: oh my gosh oh my gosh this is so exciting unboxing i bring my un unboxing blade with me Jeff Kidd: no I already I didn't just for the sake of you know for the sake of like you know saving time and stuff so doing some like nice ASMR with like slicing the I think the box on the inside is where we're going to get that all right so right now folks uh Paul is taking some photos uh no this is a video we were taking a video it's a 2026 now for the folks that aren't watching us on YouTube this is Dave Ghidiu: Yeah i'll put a box on top of our desk okay all right can I Okay i'm going to Walmart now the Walmart box is a decoy it's a decoy i've opened flap two flap three and flap four what we have in here folks is some really nice looking kind of like packaging air bubble stuff and a mystery box oh which is heavy give me I'll take that box let me get this one out of the way Jeff Kidd: all right so what we have here is a um just a cardboard box that is very nondescript it has the battery the UN3 everyone knows the UN 3481 uh symbol for the flamable lithium ion battery so we know there's a battery in it we believe there's a battery in there there's Dave Ghidiu: Oh can can we get the audio on this Jeff Kidd: okay and and now folks um I see the Apple icon part of the Apple logo has been exposed i'm lifting up the box we have the MacBook Neo which is the new in the new line of Apple products this is their 599 price point uh laptop that is um I believe it's built on like the the A18 architecture this is a mobile chip for a phone in a computer Dave Ghidiu: that's correct Jeff Kidd: and I was very happy to see that Apple had um done a computer at kind of this price point i think they're looking to like kind of close the market on Chromebooks maybe make it a little bit more accessible to people and in classic Apple fashion we have these really slick packaging i just pulled off two cardboard strips and now we're lifting up the top and the packaging in Apple products is just out of this world Dave Ghidiu: it is i love I love their packaging and they they've done a very good job I think of setting the standard so now a lot of companies like Samsung and Google still have this like really minimalistic packaging but look at this this is I I don't know if you can see that and get that in the camera but the the computer is exposed i can see the entire computer and it is covered obscured in some kind of like translucent vellum type paper but the the Apple touch is there's a little tab on this that kind of sticks up and it has a nice script writing the word hello which is just such a nice touch and I don't have my glasses on so if it's in focus let's hope for the best Paul Engin: that's right we can fix that in post too see if I can sharpen it up Dave Ghidiu: all right so now I'm going to pull that tab and the the laptop lifts up and I'm lifting it Jeff Kidd: there's some heft to that is it Dave Ghidiu: yeah and I'm just peeking underneath there's like this little instruction booklet it's uh probably got like the quick start guide or something and it has if you lift that up we'll see the charger which is USBC um it's very nice that they're putting chargers with this cuz not every device comes with a charger uh I'm actually really impressed that it's just like one of these tiny wall warts it's not like a bigger uh power supply that a laptop would usually command more like an iPad Jeff Kidd: like Yeah or a phone charger it's a small little one that's nice Dave Ghidiu: so I'll put that back in there paul is still getting some some footage of that okay so now what we're gonna do is Jeff Kidd: Yeah there you go and so for those of you at home Jeff is taking all the cardboard and all the the packaging shrapnel to Paul Engin: What is this is this color yellow gold Jeff Kidd: they call this citrus citrus is that a new color in the Apple line Dave Ghidiu: wow so I guess the next thing is I'm going to carefully lift it up and I'm going to peel off this vellum oh it's like an envelope oh listen oh that's nice this is actually better than uh I'm a Google guy so most my computers are Google so this is just a little bit nicer of an experience it's just that much smoother everything kind of comes off in one piece there's There's no struggling with it all right now I'm going to Oh my gosh paul can you hold this i just want you to feel that Paul Engin: oh that's nice yeah it feels legit it's an aluminum chassis Dave Ghidiu: yeah you know I was worried it was going to feel flimsy but it feels pretty sturdy yeah and let me look at uh So we have the same kind of like torque screws on the back there i see eight screws which means that we can probably get in there Jeff Kidd: yes i did not bring my torch that you can get into it much more easily now now let's pause for a quick second i'm going to sort of go through how I came to this and why we have this and all that stuff so I want to know the pros of Dave Ghidiu: Spill it man spill it Jeff Kidd: so when it was announced you Dave sent a text that was like "Ooh this is interesting i'm intrigued by a $600 Mac." Yeah instantly I was like "I know what I need to do." So I messaged Deb Woff and I said "I have an idea for the podcast uh don't tell Dave don't tell Paul is there a budget that exists somewhere where I could procure one of these?" And you know takes time around here to get stuff moving and she said yes so the show has a budget well I wouldn't go that far but you know this is the budget so next year we can get another one uh this was uh graciously procured and um I think paid for by it so shout out to Robin Campo for uh it for you know this up Dave Ghidiu: this is an unplug i say this all the time whenever I'm talking about it this is the best IT department I've ever worked for or worked with like they are unbelievably friendly responsive and get stuff done Jeff Kidd: yeah they definitely support everything we're asking for so and my my thoughts were that this is yours Dave Ghidiu: oh my life oh boy oh I was just talking to my wife yesterday i was like Katie I think I need to get one Paul Engin: wait is this Are you trying to convert him Jeff Kidd: no no I'm not that crazy i'm not that weak i think he would need if I really wanted to convert him i don't know if the college would want to pay for this but if you're listening like you know maybe an Apple Watch maybe some AirPods maybe uh but this is a slow process every year the budget will be trying converting and then Dave will see Dave walking around the hallway with a vision pro and you know suddenly just be drinking all the Apple Kool-Aid um Dave Ghidiu: Oh that's this is a awesome thank you so much b I'm really stoked to kind of see what this does Jeff Kidd: yes i figured out of anybody because you'd like playing with toys you like exploring things i thought there's no better person to explore this brand new product and test it out and you know your and what struck me about you is that your primary computer is a Chromebook yes which is which is this is the analog this is the Apple version of the roughly the same size except like the aluminum chassis build just off the bat we haven't even opened it yet um makes it look it's this is like a premium machine and you know it's Apple so it's going to be good so and I wanted to tell you I wanted to get all that out because I figured you should set it up as you would Dave Ghidiu: oh my god Jeff Kidd: so you set up you know do you even have an Apple ID Dave Ghidiu: i do cuz I had um a MacBook 212 Pro to 2012 that I just retired cuz I stopped doing security updates last year Jeff Kidd: okay so this is the timing is perfect okay i didn't even know if you've ever owned an Apple product Dave Ghidiu: i I had a Mac Mini i've had an iPhone and I had my MacBook 12 my MacBook Pro which I loved the hardware that Apple makes is unparalleled and I thought you could test it compare it i'm going to test it on test it like how does this compare to it you're a Chromebook user how does it compare to the Chromebook i'm going to test this running some AI stuff on it you know all that stuff Jeff Kidd: well I I'm I'm actually looking at I needed a computer for openclaw and this might be actually because uh I don't know if I can run on this but there's a lot of other things I need to run on this like I can easily run um on your Chrome Dave Ghidiu: yeah Chromebook now I have one other really important question that stressed me out the most do you like the color Jeff Kidd: i was just about to say there's this line in Indiana and Indiana Jones in in the Last Crusade where I don't know if you guys probably know this line where they're talking about the Rolls-Royce and he's like I even like the color i I really stressed out is that the hardest part about buying a computer these days Dave Ghidiu: i didn't I had no idea i was like what would Dave get what would Dave get and I was like not not the white one not the pink one i would get myself I think it's like a blue i think they call it indigo or I forget what they call it every tech YouTuber that I watched that reviewed this it was always citrus Paul Engin: you got Have you seen my backpack man i know that's what I'm saying like you like the bright colors Jeff Kidd: but I was like but is it a blue one or should I get the yellow this is that one Dave Ghidiu: wait can we now you can open it and start setting it up Jeff Kidd: so um I will say that the computer has two USBC and a headphone jack but that's that's all the connections it has so the power is through the USBC and that's the output yeah okay so you need some type of dongle which is true on almost every computer for like HDMI um happily I only have like 16 different dongles Dave Ghidiu: i will say that's one of the biggest complaints I have really because I understand why they did it but like I I like the pros because they have the at least an SD card um uh and HDMI HDMI um do the new Pros have HDMI that I don't know Jeff Kidd: the Pros yes not the MacBooks okay so you need to get not the error or anything no and I here's one thing that one thing that Android has done well over the years is they convert everything to USBC years ago and all my friends who have Apple were like "That's so it's such a stupid port." And now that every Apple device they're like "Oh this is so nice that like every device has the same exact port." Dave Ghidiu: Yes it can handle basically you know if it's if it's Thunderbolt 5 you know 8K at 60 fps or 4K at 120 or something Paul Engin: this can do 4K Dave Ghidiu: no no no no not that one like this that's I'm saying like higherend like Thunderbolt USBC ports like really fast like 120 watts of power I think or something like No 240 watts of power and like you know like I said Thunderbolt 5 speeds i think it's like 80 gigabytes a second or something like that 80 gigabytes a second 80 gigabytes a second yeah not this one though but this is a Jeff Kidd: Yeah this is So I just pulled up my password manager because I'm going to need I was going to say like are we are these the mics so the speakers are not downward thrusting or upward they're sideways thrusting which is actually really nice because then you can hear it no matter what and in the front Dave Ghidiu: I'm also curious do you think that the cooling will probably be similar to all the other Mac products where we're not hearing the Jeff Kidd: Yeah this it should be silent especially cuz the the phone chip right the mobile chip it probably it might not even have a fan i know a lot of Chromebook fans yeah I think this I actually think it was I was going to say that I think this is fanless Dave Ghidiu: okay so I'm excited to kind of open it now ready okay we'll we'll wait for the recording boy I wish I if I knew I was recording I would have brought my glasses but I'm doing my glasses focus assist Paul Engin: all right you ready i turned the focus assist up to high one so one of the other things Oh you did yeah i really appreciate about laptops these days but especially Macs is that usually there's enough heft where you can just lift up the screen you don't have to like hold down the computer Dave Ghidiu: i wish you told me that now i just pushed the button for the focus is your first day doing videography Paul Engin: no I usually have everything set to manual so I'm manually doing focus every time you move the manual should be Dave Ghidiu: but the screen is really foggy and for those of you who don't get the punch line it's because there's a piece of like another piece of vellum on the screen oh it's tissue paper oh look at that and it's laser cut oh and the the screen that says hello yeah that's Oh that's that's real nice so it says hello in the same script font as the uh Oh and it says Bonjour now and the same script font that was in the little pull tab it does make you feel nice and warm and inviting and I love that they they even got the color i wonder if each probably oh yeah so the color of the the desktop image is kind of like these round rectangle oval type things is in the same color scheme as the the uh the chassis the Citrus Jeff Kidd: oh that's cool i bet you it is that'd be that that's something to do Dave Ghidiu: so uh just to the specs this looks like maybe a 13-in type computer and the trackpad is kind of the oversize that you would expect from Apple well it's not quite as big as the MacBook Pro one but it's it's big considering the size of the computer it's also actually a physical button it's a physical touchpad rather than like a haptic like the other ones it's a physical Jeff Kidd: Oh so like every other computer that I've used that's not a Mac which is nice like cuz I'm used to that Dave Ghidiu: correct this This is the stepping stone Mac man all right so now I'm going to set up the English language press the return key oh look at that it's talking to you the computer's talking to me it's an amazing time to be alive accessibility and now we'll get his password Paul Engin: get real tight on the screen when he types in the password Jeff Kidd: yeah no it'll be the keyboard cuz we won't be able to see the screen Dave Ghidiu: oh that's true um I'm going through all the stuff so do you guys know can this run Mac OS apps or does it have to be iOS apps Jeff Kidd: no it's Mac OS so Dave Ghidiu: Oh so I can run like Camtasia and stuff Jeff Kidd: oh yeah this is full Mac OS Dave Ghidiu: oh so I might be able to put open claw on this Jeff Kidd: yeah full Mac OS yeah because Oh wait you'll have to see because everything I've seen it's it's in um Well Apple Silicon is This would be considered Apple Silicon right yes so it's going through accessibility Dave Ghidiu: yeah yeah it's going through the accessibility so we have vision motor hearing and cognitive oh that's really cool uh I'm going to explore those later but I'm going to hit the not now button oh Wi-Fi good luck we're going to have to pause for about 14 minutes while tries to attempt to connect to our network i think it's just me with the Paul Engin: He'll He'll connect no problem Dave Ghidiu: i'm going on the Well I don't want to no i turned off the recording on Oh you're just going to do the guest oh that's that makes sense guest Wi-Fi all right success it says success and the screen let me actually adjust the uh brightness on the screen i think it's 500 nits yeah I don't know what a nit is but 500 of them look like it's more than sufficient um I for right now and I like a bright screen and this is certainly a bright screen and it helps because the the interface of the OS is like very bright white and rounded color so it's very minimalistic and design ccentric all right we're doing the data and privacy now we're going to create a Mac account actually I don't need to create one Paul Engin: let's see let's see what icon he's going to pick Dave Ghidiu: yes i'm going for panda Jeff Kidd: uh I was going to go for panda were you you going to go chicken now um monkey wolf no what's the one on the far right is that an owl Dave Ghidiu: yeah owl Paul Engin: get up at 5:00 in the morning he said earlier he's an owl he's a night owl Dave Ghidiu: oh that's good yeah okay all right so this is kind of an interesting dilemma I have because I have a Mac i used to have a Mac and I haven't used it yet so when I go to set it up it says "Do you want to set up from a Mac?" which I don't because I no longer have one from a Windows PC which I don't have sign up for an iPhone or an iPad which I also don't have or set up as new new so I did new yep but it wants me to create Jeff Kidd: Oh my goodness i'm in the Wi-Fi Dave Ghidiu: oh my goodness it It wants me to I think create a new like an Apple ID Jeff Kidd: yeah i was So I can link that up later Dave Ghidiu: all right so I'm going to now pick the icon so what are you guys thinking Paul Engin: i was going to say the owl the owl and I was thinking panda panda i like the rooster Dave Ghidiu: okay do you do you this is you all right well uh I'm going to do You do you i'm doing the cow the cow just just right out wow Jeff Kidd: how are the keys oh the the the travel for the keys so I don't know if this is the same butterfly mechanism as the typical ones is this Dave Ghidiu: Oh yeah it was the latest one yes not the one it's nice the keys have no shimmy to them it's very minimal pressure needed to make it go down um the key the key caps are a nice size and that it sound feels like there's a small divot in there it is not a backlit keyboard which I'm fine with and that's one of the trade-offs right for the which I think is fine um Oh but it feels nice and the key the keys are kind of the perfect size i really like Apple i will say they're I think the trackpads are the best they're so nice and sensitive you can do the double tap the two finger or the if you need to the gestures are Yep i think he's going to be a Mac person in about a month Paul Engin: i don't know i think I'm like a Mac person right now you know you know when we'll know is if he stops bringing the Chromebook in but is he doing it just for the podcast h if he still carries the Chromebook then i Dave Ghidiu: Well I might be like a two device guy now Jeff Kidd: yes i was going to say he's going to be that guy that's going to have like two laptops out with his tablet and Dave Ghidiu: Well yes well and yeah right now there's three devices of mine on the table Paul Engin: what's your tablet your tablet seems like it's pretty close to the same screen i think it's an 11 in Dave Ghidiu: yeah I was going to say it's a little smaller 10.9 which is also not an iPad right that is the Pixel tablet okay which uh unfortunately and I I love the iPad i've actually had a few iPads um the the Pixel tablet is nice but it the the iPad is a little thinner it's got the rounded corners the bezel on this tablet is is quite large um so there's some really Jeff Kidd: And my my brother I have a twin brother we we've been Android guys the entire time he and I both have had an iPhone in the past and about 3 months ago he was like "I have some bad news i'm an Apple guy now." And so he bought a MacBook Pro he has an iPhone and three uh iPads he he completely Dave Ghidiu: Yes and this started so he's taking pilot lessons and cuz he wants to be a pilot so he's an assessment and they have this app that you kind of need and it's only on iOS so he's like I had to buy an iPad then he has like a this high flutin simulator at his house he's like "I need a second iPad for that." And then he bought I think a third one oh you're good you can just enter your Apple ID you don't need to do a new one Dave Ghidiu: i will say okay so I'm going to give you a pet peeve right now i don't think there's enough contrast with that lime color and that white i'm sure they hit just that exact like 30% contrast but for accessibility I don't think that's accessible from back here it's difficult to read unless I get close and um just but of course I'm sure that they can verbalize it too if it Jeff Kidd: Yes yes you could he's going through verification double authentication Dave Ghidiu: yeah so the it does ask you it's like we will send this is a nice thing when you're in the Apple ecosystem is like we will send a message to your MacBooks and you can just like hit yes but I don't have a MacBook so this they they now have a a workflow so it's like if you don't can't get to your MacBook press this button and I can't get to it so now it just sent me a code Jeff Kidd: how did you receive it though via text okay so it's just a text is it green is Dave Ghidiu: Yeah was the text green bubble oh my god is it shameful i can't I can't even think of that that's funny Paul Engin: do you guys want to explain that go ahead Dave Ghidiu: okay so Android is well is it green bubbles in Android like Android to Android too Jeff Kidd: okay i just Oh wait i don't know android to Android is it green or is it a different color when Android to Android does it depend on the Dave Ghidiu: Oh I don't think it depends no it's always green for Android i I mean we can change whatever color i was going to say that's kind of one of the things like you can just change it you customize it but anyway it's Apple Apple phone users or you know iPhone users feel very superior that it's uh the text bubble is blue then if you text if you're an Apple user and you text other Android users it's green and it's just you know kind of a status symbol of like oh I'm texting someone with that's got a green text bubble and they not running an iPhone Dave Ghidiu: that's weird it just came up with a dialogue that says uh Vision Pro i see it looks like a Vision Pro yeah enter device passcode i actually don't have a vision pro this might be from when I borrowed it from the college oh but there's no workflow oh I can enter the passcode later it might want to link it Jeff Kidd: oh yeah okay so I just said I'll enter that later okay yeah that threw me i was like wait a minute Paul Engin: yeah I was going to say that assumes you have Vision Pro um just so you know he has a Vision Pro and he's not telling anybody he's like a closet Apple guy Dave Ghidiu: oh I didn't think of that he's a closet Apple guy that's true now it is asking to enable location services and with other companies i'm I'm you I trust Google but I don't trust a lot of apps but I do trust Apple apple is the guardian of all data and analytics i I have no qualms there so I'm I'm happy to share my data with Apple they are the gold standard for security and privacy Jeff Kidd: yeah for security and privacy Dave Ghidiu: all right now for the screen time I'm going to set that up later apple intelligence I think oh I think I do want to set the Apple intelligence up um although just in the interest of time maybe I'll do this later real quick what are the Apple intelligence live translation writing tools clean up in photos and uh Genoji and image playground which the image playground I have seen that on iPhones where you can you guys can probably explain it better than I can right for the image where you can uh just do a prompt and and it'll generate a little icon for your Jeff Kidd: Yeah but it's like in the app it's not like a whole separate experience you just the workflow is very nice for that it's built into the Yeah and Apple Intelligence I think will be rolling out kind of in June they'll announce it in June their WWDC event is announced and then it'll be included with all the new operating systems which will then launch in the fall so they'll announce it in June and then when the new phones and stuff come out the new operating systems it'll be developers time to developers time do you know so originally it was going to be backed by Open AI and I think they pivoted to Gemini is that true the Google Gemini um that's awesome Dave Ghidiu: yeah I did hear Google too yeah so it says I'm going to enable Ask Siri because I want to use Siri in the future just say Siri and then your request or press and hold the microphone there's a microphone key f5 is a microphone key watch your language whoa i will so I typically up until last year when I got rid of my MacBook Pro I'd have three different operating systems I'd kind of float between it's um I'll have to talk to it i'm going to set that up later i would just hear you later so it's asking to share um audio recordings for learning but it's for you i think it's it's not well I didn't read it but it's usually so it learns your system locally i don't think it's I agree with that uh in the firewall so that's like their online encrypted backup no I don't know it it encrypts the I don't Jeff Kidd: Oh it's just on boards like a Yeah i don't I don't know if I do that because enclave yeah oh get get that camera out of there Paul Engin: oh you know what hold on i was still recording just don't put that on the Oh you didn't see anything i just showed my like it was pointing at the number oh Dave Ghidiu: Touch ID this is the Touch ID Jeff Kidd: okay that was So I got you the upgraded that didn't come with the Touch ID the base model does not b extra that's $100 extra and it comes with more RAM too when you do that right no more storage more storage more storage Dave Ghidiu: uh I'm going to do that later too just cuz I want to really dig in here Jeff Kidd: I didn't care so much about having extra storage for you because I figured you were testing you probably work at table but just it's an Apple feature to touch ID i'm like well that's a neat feature you should be able to Dave Ghidiu: I am jealous of So my wife has an air and she can just like touch it and Jeff Kidd: Yeah well now you have one Dave Ghidiu: i know i'm No I'm not going to talk about the storage huh what's the storage 512 Jeff Kidd: 512 okay and kind of this way is tough with the storage the the way I operate though is almost everything is like cloud-based that's why I didn't think it mattered for you so much but I just I wanted you to have Touch ID so it's Dave Ghidiu: Oh my gosh thank you i've never had Touch ID before now my brother and my wife will stop making fun of me now we got it see this is why this is why I did it Paul Engin: so there was an Apple Pay set up he said he'll do it later and then now it's uh the color scheme Dave Ghidiu: the color scheme so like light mode dark mode or auto and I'm going with auto i'm always a light mode guy but I think I'm going to go with auto on this and check out it's a new me right update yes always update folks it's asked me to update the Mac automatically and like yes always update everything automatically otherwise you run into problems oh now it says "Welcome." Oh this is such a smooth experience it's so beautiful the screen is crisp is this the um what's the display that Apples have Paul Engin: oh the retina Dave Ghidiu: the Yeah I don't know if it's that well it looks sharp uh I can't remember oh it's got widgets i Chromebooks don't have widgets so I don't have a widget on my Chromebook i do on my tablet though Paul Engin: look at that he's got his dock he's ready to rock and roll Dave Ghidiu: now an interesting thing to note and this is just like one of the nice Apple touches so normally on most computers I have um or have used in the past there's the bar at the top that has you know the battery the clock and the f like might have like the Apple icon finder and normally that's like a solid color but this is transparent so the whole desktop the wallpaper stretches from floor to ceiling on this which is quite nice Paul Engin: and I got to say cuz we're pro users I hate the notch the notch with the camera yeah it's this giant notch with just a little camera it's like overkill for us but it's got the LAR or something right Jeff Kidd: no no no Dave Ghidiu: why i thought that's what they were going to do with it i was like well they're probably going to make it make Face ID into the laptop screen which would make sense because of the size of the notch they never did Jeff Kidd: interesting i think because the screen would be too thick Dave Ghidiu: and this is the um the notch on my Pixel phone it's just like a teeny tiny little little dot a little dot i know so let's actually one of the things that I appreciate with the Neo is it's in embedded into the bezel so you don't have an Paul Engin: I was going to say like does this even have a webcam Dave Ghidiu: it does Paul Engin: oh that's insane it's up there somewhere Dave Ghidiu: so there there must be So there the the bezel is maybe 3/4 of an inch not even maybe half an inch and uh which is really nice for a laptop um and although I think like on the Pros you don't even really have a bezel i don't really think about but the bezel like this is nonobtrusive bezel it's quite nice the uh but it has a hidden webcam in there which is nice Paul Engin: yeah it does have a thinner bezel than Dave Ghidiu: Okay yeah yeah you have a thinner bezel on the Pro stinking notch wow this is a beautiful machine i'm This is Oh this is the best day of my life an unboxing and a Mac Neo actually so I I hang out with a whole bunch of like computer nerds Wednesday nights and we were talking about the Neo and I was like I think guys I think I'm going to get one and then I went home i would have been Jeff Kidd: So do you have any idea how pissed I would have been if you did that i would have just melted i would probably taken the day off i'm like "Oh my god all this work." Dave Ghidiu: What's my homework assignment Jeff Kidd: your homework is to explore it like and you actually like you said it without me having to to tell you or ask you about it it's like install do the things that you would do but on here compare it to how it would work on your Chromebook or whatever and then I thought we could check in with you like you do the hot topics and stuff hey Dave what's what's new with the Neo that's interesting Dave Ghidiu: so and I do want to say this about the Chromebook uh cuz I've been thinking a lot about technology and like especially in the last episode we were talking about the different AI services and at one point we were like you know folks it's kind of like whatever works for you is the best solution like you don't always have to get the shiniest thing and so the Chromebook I like it because I love the operating system i understand the the keyboard commands and uh like it's all cloud-based but now I'm really excited to start this whole new venture with like a different paradigm of computing Jeff Kidd: yes i knew you were going to be able to exp like really run this gambit of different tests comparisons and stuff battery life you know compare that to the Chromebook and are you going to try to install the cloud co-work on here or Dave Ghidiu: I'm going to put cloud co-work on here for sure i think the first thing I'm going to do I I want to see how that works on here and then Jeff Kidd: if you do open claw I guess you'll have to figure out if you want to do that on this or not Dave Ghidiu: yeah i don't know cuz you might be using this in a more regular basis versus you know what I mean having a st like a separate open claw machine and one of the things so with our micro credential one of the courses is talk more about like agential AI and claude is doing the code work and the claw code and like which is kind of towing the line of agential and I can't do any of that on my Chromebook but this is going to allow me to really explore um the the next frontier the next like mountain for us to kind of conquer Jeff Kidd: That's awesome oh that's awesome Jeff that was a good Dave Ghidiu: I'm going to give you a hug and maybe shed a tear as soon as we turn the cameras off Jeff Kidd: i can't wait i can't wait to hear all the stuff that you do with this and report back and this is great wow what a surprise episode Dave Ghidiu: this he folks I'm not joking he literally and I think there were other people involved i've heard murmurss and uh I kept every time I'd come there'd be a quiet and I'd be like what's going on so you really you didn't know i did i did not know Jeff Kidd: well he scared me the other day because he's like hey just so you know the mic's not muted in the in the control room like in the recording like you guys can't hear me but the recording is still there and he's like just FYI I can hear you and at first I was like we didn't say anything inappropriate did we and he's like no no no no but just so you know like I can hear you and I'm like okay and immediately I was like "No did he hear me talking about this?" Like "No." And I thought you maybe did and you were kind of like pretending that you Paul Engin: I was like "No I can't tell if he's putting it on an act." Just No because I look at the spikes and when there's a high spike I know that you you you switch it so to so I can I know where it is so I'm not So I I cut it Dave Ghidiu: oh so when you're editing you can tell just by looking at the the soundwave Paul Engin: the Yeah I look at the soundwave and when there's a spike you're like that guy from the Matrix the numbers and you're like you can see like the world through just like dropping numbers yeah i'll I'll scrub it i'll go and I'll be like "Okay yeah that's that's Jeff responding." Dave Ghidiu: So wow this is awesome actually one of the things that I do want to Can I just load one thing up here Jeff Kidd: yeah do it Dave Ghidiu: okay we can do it on camera if you want um so we didn't do any of our like hot takes things that are happening and I did want to share something i'm going to load on this computer because I think this will be a really cool experience so NASA Artemis NASA has the Artemis mission and NASA the on Wednesday night at 6:24 they initiated launch and put the first this will be this is the first man mission to the moon they're not landing on the moon are orbiting the moon and they're going farther than any human has in like decades right and I think it's a it's a catalyst to get people on the moon they're going to do the backside of the moon right so correct and so one of the neat things is so when I was hanging out with my computer nerd friends on Wednesday night we watched the live launch which was it was fantastic um but there's once the cameras once the the the once it goes out of the scope of the cameras you're like how do you watch it so NASA sends telemetry thousands of data points like every second the the pitch the yaw the velocity all that stuff and that data gets received down to Earth and so they have software called Arrow A R O W which takes that telemetry and they have 3D renderings of all the the spacecraft and so you can watch it live um you can watch it live in just by like going to their website and seeing it and and I was like "Oh this is really really cool." Uh but one of the things that's really neat about this is a was made in Unity it was made in Unity you can see that's what we use that's what we use here everyone and so so as it's loading up um and I thought this display would be really nice Jeff Kidd: can I just say so I I keep So Unity is a game engine it's equivalent to an Unreal so um there are several game engines but the two most popular game engines are Unreal and Unity and really what they do is um they allow you to they have built-in physics built-in components that allow you to quickly build games um and uh you have different deployment mechanisms as well so you have the ability to deploy to mobile to um mobile uh devices VR devices online um but Unity is a platform we use here and they used Unity to build the what you're seeing on the screen right now Dave Ghidiu: yes and when you say the what you mean is Seth Lambert who is a graduate of FLCC he is the only one at NASA that has been working he might have like some interns or employees working on it but he is responsible for this Paul Engin: oh are you serious this is anc graduate Dave Ghidiu: this is an FLCC graduate from the video game design program and he went to RIT afterwards and at RIT you have to do an internship i think they have a different name for it and so he happened to get one at NASA and they offered him a job so he's been there ever since and he he did the one for the first Artemis mission and this one so you can see this is live so right now we can see that it's traveling at 4,000 m 4,370 mph and it it can it has a record of how many miles it's gone so far and it's 85,314 315 316 317 um so I'm going to Paul Engin: Does it Does it actually update positioning of the model based on that Dave Ghidiu: well yeah and so like I'm going to zoom out so we can see the the whole mission so you can see where it is right now in the mission which is really cool so it's going to do kind of like an orbit slingshot like if you've watched Talladega Nights they're going to do the slingshot around the moon or or in the Martian Jeff Kidd: great comparison our astronauts to talk about Talladega Nights Dave Ghidiu: and there was uh so I I was always kind of fascinated about space but once once Seth got this job I was like really following this whole like Orion and um he actually got me one of the mission patches um but this is always running on one of my computers or my TV so I can watch it Paul Engin: that's cool this is great that's awesome this is really cool what a great use of uh Unity too especially it's getting fed real-time data to have access to that data that's awesome Dave Ghidiu: yeah it's it's it's a really fascinating experience um and this is actually if you go to YouTube and you're like can I follow the Artemis mission there's a 100 channels that are streaming this software so Seth Software is getting out to like millions and millions of space nuts out there Jeff Kidd: yeah people just fascinated by space you know what's interesting is so um Artemis is is NASA is NASA funding SpaceX for this is yeah NASA NASA does a lot of contracting right but it's still through NASA it's not SpaceX at this point Dave Ghidiu: correct this is not SpaceX may have collaborated I actually don't know um but but I know NASA does a lot of an awful lot of contracting Jeff Kidd: so on a side note SpaceX is supposed to be going public soon maybe even by and now it's like SpaceX and XAI and yeah they lumped everything into it but yeah another conversation for another day but um very cool and this is so cool that it's a former FLCC student that built this Dave Ghidiu: yeah and one of the other cool things is his boss built kind of a simulator so they'll set it up at like big events where you go in and you're like in the spacecraft and then it uses it's it's just really neat Paul Engin: oh that's awesome i went over to Seth's house once and he had like a soldering iron out and like all these like video like the arcade buttons and stuff Dave Ghidiu: he's But this this is fantastic i can't wait i'm going to send um a text to all those guys I was hanging out with Wednesday night and I'm going to send a text to my wife too and let them know i'm just going to send a picture of this Jeff Kidd: yeah I was going to say take a picture with you Dave Ghidiu: i'm just going to take a picture of this Jeff Kidd: awesome well this is a wonderful surprise thank you i can't wait to dig in Dave Ghidiu: yeah so just I think we should probably say a quick dis disclaimer for the audience that these are episodes we record some of them in advance and this being a very topical very relevant you know current thing that's going on with the new laptop I wanted to jump on it real fast so this episode's going to air immediately on Monday on Monday we're going to turn this around all right but that means that three episodes that we have done that we're gonna air next are not gonna be preempt Paul Engin: man bump them yeah but but like we don't have that yet so like four episodes from now really is when we would check in with you Dave Ghidiu: oh I see okay so So I have like a month to really kick the tires on this as far as the audience is concerned Jeff Kidd: yes so let me ask you the conversation oh my gosh this is like weird inception conversation when you heard him talking about this that's not been that's not so you talking about hey the new MacBook's really cool like the audience is going to hear they like didn't they just open oh this is some like temporal distortion that's right the Matrix there's a blip in the Matrix so yeah so you the audience are not going to hear him talking about this again for probably another three or four weeks but I'll be using it every day Paul Engin: you'll be using it still yeah this is interesting and when you hear him say that I want one in the future future episodes you already got one Jeff Kidd: yes yeah yeah so there's All right um anything else anything else no I think I'm burned i think I've expended everything that I had planned for today oh my gosh this is wonderful can I Oh look at He just brings out Why you got to do that cuz I have a script for the Yeah I was going to say like you guys have your script actually you can get to it like there i have to log in and authenticate Dave Ghidiu: well um Jeff I want to first thank you for doing all of this this is a awesome different I love it wonderful format too the unboxing uh I wanted to thank Jeff for basically producing this episode and uh Hugh for engineering this episode um Hugh thank you very much i know you guys were all conspiring thank you to Deb it uh thank you to Rob and thank you to everyone who was involved um this is really a cool different type of episode and uh you now if we get new things I wonder if we should bring it unbox here versus um like the meta glasses I should have unboxed here like we did yeah we talked about it we talked about it but I like the it if we don't know about it it's kind of like a cool Paul Engin: Yeah i don't know i do like the surprise and by the way I have a surprise for you guys in the next time we record okay oh boy lots of surprises he bought us MacBooks too i got you guys meals well no he bought himself one and now he So now he's Yeah so he actually did buy it but he doesn't want to tell everybody so um this episode was obviously produced by Jeff engineered by Hugh recorded at Fingerlakes Community College podcast the global headquarters located in beautiful picturesque New York in the heart of the Fingerlakes region offering more than 55 degrees certificates micro credentials and workforce training programs thank you to public relations communications marketing and the Flick FLX AI hub eager to delve into passion discover exciting and immersive opportunities at www.flcc.edu we just switched this whole thing around oh man it's a whole new world switch chairs i know switch mics really quick just kidding um as part of our mission at FLCC we're committed to making education accessible innovative and aligned with the needs of both students and employers the views expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Fingerlakes Community College music by Den from Pixabay this is the immersive lens and Jeff thank you again this is awesome this is like this is crazy citrus citrus that's your new color
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