Local AI PCs, Home Networks and the Launch of Double Tap Live

In this episode

Microsoft has set 7 October for a Windows and Surface event built around local AI, and the rumoured Surface Laptop Ultra with NVIDIA RTX Spark silicon could finally give Windows a proper answer to the MacBook Pro. Steven Scott and Shaun Preece work through what that means for price, build quality and blind users, then turn to the home network tools that keep solving real problems.

The Surface conversation covers more than specs. Shaun makes the case for the Surface Pro form factor, Steven pushes back on using one on a train, and both land on the same point: build quality matters, and the cheap end of the Windows laptop market has quietly got worse while prices went up. Steven’s hands-on with the MacBook Neo sets the benchmark that Microsoft now has to meet.

Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast writes in with a Tailscale feature worth knowing about. An exit node turns one always-on machine at home into your personal VPN, so your traffic tunnels home and back out as though you never left. That leads into why Tailscale is so hard to explain and so easy to use once it clicks, including the moment Steven had to edit himself out of an old episode to hear the explanation properly.

Steven also walks through the Raspberry Pi 5 running Pi-hole on his network, set up entirely by asking Claude to do it. Ad blocking turns out to be an accessibility feature, since pages load faster and articles stop trapping a screen reader in ad after ad. There is a serious note too, on the 415,000 attacks logged against one unremarkable web domain in a single month.

Scott from Sydney corrects the record with a full demo of port forwarding on eero, which is not behind the eero Plus paywall after all. Barry has thoughts on calendars, Robbie from Ohio defends the new Notepad, and Shaun explains exactly why he does not.

Chapters
0:00 – Microsoft confirms a Windows and Surface event for 7 October
3:03 – Surface Laptop Ultra, NVIDIA RTX Spark and local AI
5:56 – Build quality: MacBook Neo, Surface and Pixel
11:28 – Satya Nadella on slowing down, and Copilot falling behind
13:26 – Building your own apps with AI and the fear of releasing them
18:35 – Allison Sheridan on Tailscale exit nodes
24:09 – Pi-hole, the Raspberry Pi 5 and ad blocking as accessibility
32:42 – Double Tap Live launches 30 September
43:29 – Scott from Sydney demos port forwarding on eero
50:29 – Robbie from Ohio on language, Notepad and the Franklin Language Master

Relevant Links
Double Tap: https://doubletaponair.com
Tailscale: https://tailscale.com
Pi-hole: https://pi-hole.net
eero: https://eero.com
Microsoft Surface: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface
Lumin: https://trylumin.ai
Podfeet Podcasts and the NosillaCast: https://www.podfeet.com
RØDECaster Pro II: https://rode.com/en/interfaces-and-mixers/rodecaster-series/rodecaster-pro-ii
AMI Scholarship: https://www.ami.ca/scholarship