The Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast – Episode # 732 – AI Personalisation, who’s winning that battle?

[00:00:00] Trevor: Just say that again, Stephen.

[00:00:03] Stephen: When do you ever know what you’re doing? We never— every week is the same story. We think, what are we going to talk about? We’ve got nothing to talk about. And then we end up talking for an hour and 10 minutes.

[00:00:11] Trevor: You did propose taking a week off.

[00:00:14] Stephen: Yeah. I said, why don’t we just have a week off? Let’s just blow it off.

[00:00:17] Trevor: Well, I mean, it’s a great idea if you hadn’t already been here for 6 hours.

[00:00:21] Stephen: Yeah, exactly right.

[00:00:22] Trevor: But you’ve come all this way while I’m here. You’ve gone through passport control.

[00:00:26] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:00:26] Trevor: You’ve made it further than Kelly Holiday. And, um, you know, here you are.

[00:00:30] Stephen: Hey, while I’m here, that’s it, let’s lay down some stuff.

[00:00:35] Trevor: Yeah, right. Next week we’ll have a week off. Uh, imagine we took a midweek just week off just randomly.

[00:00:44] Stephen: Wow.

[00:00:44] Trevor: I don’t think anyone would care. I don’t think anyone— I don’t think we’d get an email. You don’t reckon? What are your thoughts?

[00:00:51] Stephen: You mean if we just didn’t do Two Blokes for one week?

[00:00:53] Trevor: I think if we just disappeared for a week, like no content.

[00:00:56] Stephen: No content for a week, people will think what happened. They’ll be sending out a search party.

[00:00:59] Trevor: I don’t think they would.

[00:01:00] Stephen: So you mean none of us, like Tech Guide, EFTM, nothing for a week?

[00:01:05] Trevor: Yeah. Podcast goes dark.

[00:01:08] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:01:09] Trevor: Like it could be in like a strike. Strike for what? Exactly.

[00:01:16] Stephen: Higher wages.

[00:01:17] Trevor: I want double.

[00:01:18] Stephen: Yeah. I want double what I’m getting here.

[00:01:20] Trevor: Hang on, we do get paid.

[00:01:21] Stephen: Well, we do have sponsors.

[00:01:22] Trevor: I was thinking about the listener. We want higher revenue fees from the listeners, yeah.

[00:01:28] Stephen: We’re gonna up the price. We’re gonna double the price.

[00:01:30] Trevor: This is an announcement, folks.

[00:01:31] Stephen: Double the price on the podcast.

[00:01:33] Trevor: Thanks to the federal budget, from July 1st, 2026, double the price for this podcast.

[00:01:40] Stephen: This feed is gonna cost you twice as much. Yep, yep. Sorry.

[00:01:44] Trevor: That’s the unfortunate nature of the changes that Jim Thomas has made. Stephen is pretty upset about this. Inflation. I won’t get him started about it, but trust me, he’s pretty upset.

[00:01:53] Stephen: Yeah, not happy. Aye. Not happy.

[00:01:54] Trevor: Couldn’t give a rat’s.

[00:01:56] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:01:57] Trevor: And it is what it is.

[00:01:58] Stephen: Yeah, it’s, you know, upward pressure, all these cost of living pressures. We have to put the price up.

[00:02:04] Trevor: Who’s Grogu?

[00:02:05] Stephen: He’s in The Mandalorian.

[00:02:06] Trevor: Oh, you just missed it on the—

[00:02:07] Stephen: That’s Baby Yoda.

[00:02:08] Trevor: On the baseball booth. Baby Yoda. Exclusive Star Wars—

[00:02:11] Stephen: There’s a new movie coming out next week.

[00:02:12] Trevor: Grogu bobblehead on May 14th, Star Wars night.

[00:02:15] Stephen: Wow.

[00:02:16] Trevor: Yeah. Anyway, Stephen’s upset, but we’re going to not talk about the budget.

[00:02:20] Stephen: Yeah, we’re not going to talk the actual things, but yeah, it’s— things could have been— if it was up to me, I would have— it would have been a few different things.

[00:02:30] Trevor: Yeah, well, we’re not in government. Also, I was—

[00:02:32] Stephen: we—

[00:02:33] Trevor: I was in— we, you and me.

[00:02:34] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:02:36] Trevor: Also, I was in Griffith on the weekend, as we’ll talk about on the private show, I’m sure. And the— I didn’t realize Griffith was in the Farah Yeah, the by-election. So it was like polling booths and stuff. We were there on voting day. Oh yeah, wow. Yes, swung hella orange.

[00:02:55] Stephen: Oh, did it ever. Yeah, yeah, did it ever.

[00:02:58] Trevor: Just another bunch of politicians who didn’t see it coming. Isn’t it wild?

[00:03:02] Stephen: And it was funny how I loved how like Jim Chalmers was calling the Libs gutless and sort of saying, yeah, there was a bloodbath, but Labor didn’t even put up a candidate.

[00:03:12] Trevor: They never do. They never do. Yeah.

[00:03:15] Stephen: The Libs had a crack. Well, it was their old seat. Yeah. And yeah, they want to have a crack. They got solid dusting just there.

[00:03:21] Trevor: They got smashed.

[00:03:22] Stephen: And it was, yeah, One Nation to the rescue.

[00:03:26] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:03:26] Stephen: Not to the rescue.

[00:03:27] Trevor: It’s going to get elected. But I am getting popcorn ready for the next federal election. It’s going to be great.

[00:03:32] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:03:33] Trevor: I don’t give a shit what happens.

[00:03:35] Stephen: Yeah. I don’t know how there’s a lot of mixed feelings about this budget and a lot of people have got some reservations about it. I’ve heard a lot of small business owners and like business associations sort of talking it down a bit. It’s a bit of a hit, the capital gains increases and stuff and the changes to negative gearing. It’s gonna have a wide effect.

[00:03:55] Trevor: I’m not sure it’ll cost them the election. I’ll call it.

[00:03:58] Stephen: Well, you know, if there was a, I think, well, the reason they did it and they were talking about this, like Charles Crouch, I watched the Nine coverage, which was really good. Charles Crouch has said it best. He said they wouldn’t do this if they had an opposition that could challenge them. So they chose this time where the opposition’s probably at its weakest and they thought they’d just sort of, you know, get it through. If they had a solid opposition who had a chance of actually catching them— They wouldn’t have the guts to do this. And, you know, kicking them out of government, they might not have gone as radical as they did, but I’d, if I was Angus Taylor, I’d feel suitably insulted by that and hopefully go to another level. So come on, mate, do something.

[00:04:40] Trevor: Pretty hard when you’ve got 3 people in Parliament.

[00:04:42] Stephen: Do something.

[00:04:42] Trevor: It’s not much they can do.

[00:04:44] Stephen: Yeah, well, you know what? It’s a real challenge, mate. It’s a look, it’s not, the election’s not for another 2 years yet.

[00:04:49] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:04:50] Stephen: So there’s plenty of time to get moving. Yeah.

[00:04:54] Trevor: Crack the whip. Yeah. Interesting, interesting times, folks. Interesting times. And I’m sure Souths is doing really well.

[00:05:00] Stephen: Souths had a win. Are they? I’ll convince you not to change. Change your tip, mate.

[00:05:04] Trevor: Thank you for that.

[00:05:05] Stephen: I did have some reservations myself, but I always stick solid.

[00:05:09] Trevor: So you tip the Souths every week. You wouldn’t dare tip against?

[00:05:13] Stephen: No, I’m not in a tipping comp.

[00:05:14] Trevor: Oh really?

[00:05:15] Stephen: No, haven’t been for years.

[00:05:17] Trevor: Why?

[00:05:18] Stephen: I just, I keep forgetting. I’d be forgetting to put it in.

[00:05:21] Trevor: Same here. We should do a 2×2, just me and you.

[00:05:23] Stephen: Yeah, I think I know who’d win that.

[00:05:26] Trevor: Yeah, I’m coming literally last in our family one.

[00:05:28] Stephen: So I’m pretty sure I’d be killed. I saw you tipped Brisbane too then. I should have told you to change to Manly though. Manly was specials at home that night.

[00:05:34] Trevor: All right. I would have got good points because everyone tipped Brisbane except like 2 people, I think. Oh damn, I should have taken that. Maybe you could just log in and do my tips for me every week.

[00:05:41] Stephen: Hey mate, if you need help, mate, you can talk to me.

[00:05:44] Trevor: Hang on, hang on. I don’t think I’ve done them this week. All right, ladies and gentlemen.

[00:05:47] Stephen: Oh, we can do them live. Yep.

[00:05:49] Trevor: Footy tips.

[00:05:50] Stephen: Don’t forget this is Magic Round, so they’re all at Suncorp. So there’s no home ground advantages.

[00:05:55] Trevor: Is there a reason that matters?

[00:05:57] Stephen: Well, it’s Souths are playing the Dolphins and it’s our home game and it’s on their home ground.

[00:06:02] Trevor: Right.

[00:06:03] Stephen: Yeah. So they got the home ground advantage even though Souths name comes first.

[00:06:06] Trevor: I’ve got to log into Disney just to put my tips in. No, I want to put my tips in.

[00:06:12] Stephen: Hang on, do it off air, mate.

[00:06:13] Trevor: No, I want to do it right now.

[00:06:14] Stephen: Do it off air. I’m sure this is brilliant podcasting.

[00:06:16] Trevor: Edit tips. No, round, round— what is this, round 10?

[00:06:20] Stephen: Round 11.

[00:06:21] Trevor: You sure?

[00:06:22] Stephen: Pretty sure, yeah. Magic round.

[00:06:26] Trevor: I’m 9th. That is so embarrassing. Tip now. NRL round 11. Sharks v Bulldogs.

[00:06:33] Stephen: Sharks.

[00:06:34] Trevor: Rabbitohs v Dolphins.

[00:06:35] Stephen: Hello.

[00:06:36] Trevor: You just said the Dolphins home game.

[00:06:38] Stephen: Rabbitohs will win. We’re in form, mate.

[00:06:40] Trevor: Oh, the Dolphins are 8th on the ladder. Okay. Tigers v Manly. Manly. Roosters v Cowboys.

[00:06:45] Stephen: You know what? I’d go Tigers there. They’ve had a couple of big losses. They’re going to bounce back.

[00:06:51] Trevor: Roosters v North Queensland.

[00:06:53] Stephen: Roosters.

[00:06:54] Trevor: Eels v Storm.

[00:06:55] Stephen: Storm.

[00:06:56] Trevor: They’re both at the bottom of the ladder.

[00:06:58] Stephen: Storm have had a win. They’ve got the wind in their sails back, mate.

[00:07:01] Trevor: So did Parramatta.

[00:07:02] Stephen: Yeah, but I think Storm have got a bit more momentum there. Anyway, that’s my choice.

[00:07:08] Trevor: So if I get this wrong because I picked the Storm, it’s on you, Stephen. Knights and Titans. Knights.

[00:07:13] Stephen: Knights. Yeah.

[00:07:14] Trevor: Warriors, Broncos. Warriors.

[00:07:17] Stephen: Is that—

[00:07:17] Trevor: 4-game winning streak.

[00:07:19] Stephen: Are they— it’s at Suncorp. So it’s Brisbane home game technically. If Reynolds is playing, if Adam Reynolds is back in the team, I’d tip them. So tip Brisbane, and if Reynolds is not playing, I’d go the Warriors.

[00:07:32] Trevor: Panthers, Dragons, top and bottom of the table.

[00:07:34] Stephen: Penrith, yeah.

[00:07:34] Trevor: That’s embarrassing.

[00:07:35] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:07:36] Trevor: Hang on, has Dragons not won a game at all? No.

[00:07:38] Stephen: Oh wow, they’re 0-10.

[00:07:39] Trevor: Is this the worst?

[00:07:40] Stephen: 0-9, they’ve had a bye.

[00:07:41] Trevor: Is that the worst anyone’s ever performed?

[00:07:43] Stephen: Uh, it’s pretty bad in modern day, modern era. Yeah.

[00:07:46] Trevor: Wow.

[00:07:47] Stephen: Them sacking the coach was, uh, was, didn’t do much.

[00:07:50] Trevor: Yeah, you didn’t even get the coach, you didn’t even get the next week bounce, you know, the sugar hit. Yeah, the normal, like Manly did.

[00:07:55] Stephen: Like Manly have won, only lost one game since Sucker there, Coach.

[00:07:57] Trevor: All right, everyone can relax now. Yeah, tips, timecode 8 minutes. Tips are done. Let’s do it.

[00:08:04] VOICE OVER: Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:08:06] Trevor: Not a bad price.

[00:08:07] VOICE OVER: With Trevor Long from eftm.com.

[00:08:10] Stephen: Really handy device.

[00:08:11] VOICE OVER: And Stephen Fenech from techguide.com.au.

[00:08:14] Trevor: Great to have your company for episode 732 of Two Blokes Talking Tech. Uh, thanks to the great people at Netgear and Arlo for all your home networking needs. Give Netgear a shout, head to their website netgear.com.au and find all their cool new products. And Arlo, likewise, if you’re in the market for home security, they’ve got you covered. Arlo.com.

[00:08:33] Stephen: Literally got you covered.

[00:08:34] Trevor: Literally. I mean, literally, you’re front of me.

[00:08:36] Stephen: I was just checking my deliveries just now.

[00:08:38] Trevor: Wow. Yeah, just checking the parcel.

[00:08:40] Stephen: Check to see what time Joe would have to go to work.

[00:08:42] Trevor: Wow, that’s stalky.

[00:08:44] Stephen: No, I just came up with the thing. It said, and it recognized it too, said Joe Fennec shuts the front door.

[00:08:49] Trevor: Yeah. Do you give her a full name?

[00:08:51] Stephen: Just says it on the thing.

[00:08:52] Trevor: Yeah. Why wouldn’t you just call her Joe? I don’t know.

[00:08:56] Stephen: Bit formal. It sometimes mistakes her for Hayley. It calls her Hayley sometimes. They do look alike.

[00:09:01] Trevor: They are mother and daughter.

[00:09:03] Stephen: Yeah, they do.

[00:09:03] Trevor: So there is that. Very much alike. Anyway, episode 732. Thank you for listening. Thank you for downloading and hope you enjoy the show. We don’t know what it’s going to be like, but you never know your luck in a big city.

[00:09:13] Stephen: We’re going to give it our best.

[00:09:15] Trevor: Let’s talk AI. And Google today at the time of recording announced personal intelligence coming to Gemini for Australian news.

[00:09:23] Stephen: For Aussies, yeah, correct.

[00:09:25] Trevor: So basically it’s initially launched in the US and Australia. That’s basically it.

[00:09:28] Stephen: That’s it.

[00:09:28] Trevor: Still restrictions in other places. And it’s funny because the idea of the word intelligence seemed like it was like Apple intelligence, you know, ’cause Apple was the first to go, we’re giving it a weird name. Yeah. Like instead of using AI. Yeah. So it felt very much like a shot across the bow at Apple when I first read this. I went, okay, so they’re trying to say we’ve, one up them here. But it is really a device agnostic technology, isn’t it? It’s really just Google saying if you’ve got Gemini or you’re using Gemini, you can connect your Gmail and your calendar and Google Photos and, and, you know, have that intelligence shared across those, those.

[00:10:07] Stephen: So the example they gave, which is very similar to what Apple did 2 years ago, remember when they said, oh, you’re, you, if say you’ve got a trip coming up, your email, or you can, you can find the tickets and the bookings and everything, and it’ll just, if you ask about it, it’ll go, here it— everything is right here, rather than you having to dig through. That’s an example they gave. And in this instance too, I said, I’ll even remember, because you can connect YouTube, so it’ll even remember that video you watched about the food of that particular region and remind you about that and do all this sort of stuff. So can really look at all of your digital stuff across Gmail, Google Photos, YouTube, and then bring that to the surface when you need it. So the holiday trip Booking is a great example of that where it’ll surface very similar to what Apple did. Remember a couple of years ago when they demonstrated the personalized Siri? Yeah. Which we are yet to see. And, and since then and a few months ago, we learned that Apple are going to use the Gemini as their foundation model as well. So I’m thinking this is great. If you’re—

[00:11:10] Trevor: you can—

[00:11:10] Stephen: if you could download Gemini on an iPhone, you can use it on an Android phone, of course. And get this working. But my second thought was, is this like a sneak peek of what Siri is going to be like? Like, is Siri going to be able to sort of bring up this sort of information from your emails and all of that using Google as its base? Is this—

[00:11:34] Trevor: Well, it’s fascinating because in reality, the promise of Siri was that it was happening on device. It was using this private enclave on your phone. To, you know, mind map all of your things. So your emails, your meetings, and kind of mind map it all so that when you made requests, it could, you know, it could work it out based on that little mind map that was going on and created in your phone. They clearly—

[00:11:56] Stephen: on device, you say—

[00:11:57] Trevor: they clearly never worked out how to create that mind map properly, right?

[00:12:00] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:12:01] Trevor: So this is all very kind of cloud-based. Now, my argument is I can already do this with ChatGPT and Claude. I can already link Gmail and Calendar. So yeah, there’s some extra services there.

[00:12:12] Stephen: But can you do that with the free accounts? If you, with Claude and ChatGPT, if you had, because I think I understand with Gemini it’s available across all of them, right? Including the free one.

[00:12:24] Trevor: Okay.

[00:12:24] Stephen: Obviously different levels of it. But is that something that they’re offering or is that like an added, is that something you’ve got to pay for with Claude?

[00:12:33] Trevor: I think it might be part of the paid versions. But then I’m trying to understand where this really comes into play because think about even the Samsung demos of Gemini, you know, you press the button and you get the Gemini assistant and it was like, you know, using multiple apps at the same time. Is it, so is it in like reading all my emails as they happen so that it has that knowledge? Or is it only looking at my emails when it needs to find that knowledge?

[00:13:00] Stephen: I think it would’ve had a look at everything first of all and then surfaced what you need. So it kind of knows what you’ve been doing, who you’ve been talking to.

[00:13:07] Trevor: Here’s the example. We used Claude earlier today while we were recording the EV show and I made a request and you said, how long will that take? I said, it’ll be done, By the time we were recording, you were like, so it could take 10 minutes. I went, I don’t know. It took 1 minute.

[00:13:19] Stephen: 1 minute. Yeah.

[00:13:19] Trevor: And that was 1 minute to make a request to essentially a database in the cloud and work out what’s going on. That’s too much. If I’m going, what do I need for my trip this weekend? Yeah, I want to know instantly. I want it to go, of course, for New York this weekend. But if it has to go and query my Gmail and work out where I’m going and then find my flight details and then service it, that’s all. That’s too long.

[00:13:45] Stephen: But we don’t know how, like it could take a matter of seconds. Like the inquiry you made with, was it Claude? Yeah. That took a minute.

[00:13:52] Trevor: I know, but that’s— And it went through, let’s be clear, 200, more than 200 shows. That’s completely separate, but it’s an example of making a request of an external service. So a third party and coming back. So the third party in that case was a database. In this case, I can ask Claude, hey, can you find me the most recent flight? I could probably ask, can you find me my flight itinerary for this weekend? And it would just scan my emails for a flight itinerary and then find one that matches this weekend.

[00:14:19] Stephen: So wouldn’t it though, my understanding would be it would, as each email comes in, it’s reading them all.

[00:14:25] Trevor: So I think that’s gonna scare people, right?

[00:14:27] Stephen: Well, but it’s all private, it’s all in secure with Google. Your Gmail’s part of Google, so your emails are there on their server. So if you, and they admit, they say, look, privacy is a central issue. So it’s all secure in the service. So my understanding would be, well, how I would do it, as each email is coming in, you go, okay, yep, that’s about that. All right, that one’s about that. Okay, yep, that’s it. So then it’s ingested it as they come in. So then when you need to refer to it, it doesn’t have to ingest it again.

[00:14:59] Trevor: That’s what it has to be. Yeah, it has to be that way. It has to be that it knows my calendar, it knows all my emails by default, so that I can ask questions.

[00:15:07] Stephen: And your viewing history of YouTube, all of those things.

[00:15:09] Trevor: So you can Where do you think your viewing history of YouTube is relevant at all to an AI search?

[00:15:15] Stephen: I often look at stuff like, see how stuff I want to buy, you know, like I’ve looked a lot of, for example, I’ve looked a lot of videos of the Mercedes CLA electric. I’ve seen they keep popping up in my feed. I’m thinking, oh, I’ll check this out. Another one’s not someone, other bloke’s on the video. So it’ll know that about me. It’ll know that I’ve watched a few trailers and of other things like that. And so yeah, I think if you— YouTube, I think, didn’t they say YouTube is the second biggest search engine after Google?

[00:15:43] Trevor: That’s where people search for stuff. I saw a thread the other day I was reading and it was a good point. How is it that YouTube— that no one’s created a strong competitor to YouTube for horizontal long-form video? Yeah, obviously TikTok has taken it as a strong competitor.

[00:16:00] Stephen: They’re too big, mate, too big to to go up against. It’s like, you know, it’s like someone— it’d be like someone creating a new phone operating system against Android and iOS.

[00:16:11] Trevor: Doesn’t that then come into all that antitrust style stuff? It’s like, are they too big to be part of Google? Should they be split out?

[00:16:18] Stephen: You know, like, it’s funny how big they are, but there are, there are other services like that. There aren’t there other— you can upload video, they’re minuscule stuff like that. But yeah, but they still— they would be out there, but they’re nothing to the scale of all popularity.

[00:16:31] Trevor: It’s a remarkable story of success, YouTube on its own.

[00:16:32] Stephen: Do you know, I remember when I remember when that first happened, I was, I think I just, it was like, was it ’03 or ’04 or something? It was when they sold YouTube, these two guys sold YouTube to Google. I think it was $1.3 billion back then.

[00:16:46] Trevor: And how much it’d be worth?

[00:16:46] Stephen: It’d be worth $200 billion now.

[00:16:48] Trevor: Easy.

[00:16:49] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:16:49] Trevor: 2006. Yeah.

[00:16:50] Stephen: Oh, there you go. I was doing, I was writing tech then. I remember writing about that. It was like a young Asian guy and an American guy who were the co-owners of the startup and boom. Google said, thank you very much, here’s $1 billion, we’ll catch you later.

[00:17:05] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:17:05] Stephen: And then are they sitting on a beach somewhere now or they’ve turned that $1 billion into $5 billion?

[00:17:10] Trevor: And what are they doing? Look, I’m sure they’re doing very well.

[00:17:12] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:17:12] Trevor: That’s really, really all that matters. The question for personalized intelligence is what does this really mean for Apple and WWDC, right? Well, we’re a month away.

[00:17:25] Stephen: It really like, there you, I think before pre-show you said, and you said it again, oh, you know, ChatGPT could do this and Claude Google can do this and now Gemini can do this. And we’ll say, well, Apple can’t do it yet. So if there’s your order, Apple’s still dead last. So this is, and the fact that it is basically gonna be the same foundation. Apple announced in January they’re gonna use Google Gemini as their foundation. They’ve sort of whatever they had planned before that, they ditched it and they’re gonna go the Google route. And there was even a guy stood up at the Google Cloud conference a few weeks ago saying, yep, it’ll be out later this year. And it’s, it’s, it’s all going to be backed by Google. So is this a sneak peek into what we can expect?

[00:18:10] Trevor: I don’t think this has anything to do with Apple Intelligence. Yeah, because I think that—

[00:18:13] Stephen: but I mean, the, the, the, the how it works and how it can respond to your requests.

[00:18:19] Trevor: I don’t know, because dipping in your—

[00:18:21] Stephen: Apple Intelligence will dip into your mail and into your photos and into other stuff, your calendar.

[00:18:27] Trevor: Yes, well, that was the original plan.

[00:18:28] Stephen: Yeah, but that’s, that’s what this is basically doing. It’s just added— it’s added Gmail, YouTube, and Google Photos. Yes, to what it could already do.

[00:18:36] Trevor: I understand, but what I’m arguing is that Google has nothing to do with the implementation of personal intelligence on an iPhone. Okay. I think Apple is in charge of that on their own.

[00:18:45] Stephen: Okay.

[00:18:45] Trevor: They may need a better foundation model to power it.

[00:18:49] Stephen: Ah, okay. But the actual workings of it.

[00:18:52] Trevor: So the knowledge base, if you think of it as a fountain of knowledge about you, because on your phone there’s a large language model that has the knowledge of the world in some way. I don’t know how. It’s unbelievable.

[00:19:02] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:19:02] Trevor: That’s able to do things with AI. Then you add in the foundation model of Google That’s just more knowledge for it, right? But then you need to add in a bunch of data about you and how you use your phone, what apps you use, what data is in those apps.

[00:19:16] Stephen: So you reckon that’s separate?

[00:19:17] Trevor: I think that’s a separate thing. I think Apple has to own that and work on that themselves.

[00:19:21] Stephen: So that’s Apple Intelligence?

[00:19:24] Trevor: That’s Apple Intelligence.

[00:19:24] Stephen: So there’s Apple Intelligence and then Google’s just sort of the engine for that?

[00:19:28] Trevor: Yes. Right.

[00:19:30] Stephen: Okay. We’ll need someone to stand up at Dub Dub and explain that maybe. I think it’s someone from Apple to explain it.

[00:19:36] Trevor: And what’ll be the best thing is comparing the 2024 dub dub to this one and going, what, what’s new?

[00:19:44] Stephen: What’s different?

[00:19:45] Trevor: What’s new?

[00:19:46] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:19:46] Trevor: Or is it just— you’re just going to replay that? Yeah, just replay the 2024 one. Was that where Craig Federighi jumped out of the sky in the plane?

[00:19:54] Stephen: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. And no, I think there’s a— this is the ball’s in their court now, isn’t it? So everyone sort of come out with their stuff.

[00:20:03] Trevor: We need to see and understand how this works.

[00:20:06] Stephen: And of course, Apple being Apple will explain just how private it is.

[00:20:11] Trevor: That’s why I believe the data enclave, everything of your information will be held and managed by Apple on your device. Maybe they won’t want— I don’t think they’ll want any user thinking that Google has access to their mail, calendar, and it— like, if you, if you don’t use Gmail, if you use iCloud and, and yeah, and mail storage for your own mail and calendar You won’t want to think that Google has access to that.

[00:20:34] Stephen: Yeah, of course. But no, I think, you know, Google has a massive advantage here because like how many people use Gmail? They’re like, nearly everyone’s got a Gmail account.

[00:20:45] Trevor: I don’t think it’s nearly everyone.

[00:20:46] Stephen: Well, it’d be a high percentage of people.

[00:20:48] Trevor: How many people use Gmail? I’ll ask Google. They should know. As of 2026, Gmail has approximately 1.8 billion active users.

[00:20:57] Stephen: Boom.

[00:20:58] Trevor: Google Gmail holds roughly 30 to 40% of the global email client market. Wow, that’s pretty dominant. Gmail processes over 121 billion emails a day. Well, who’s getting the other billion? Because I get 120 billion. Most users are between 18 and 45. Rock solid on the oldies here. Let’s go, oldies. Um, yeah, yeah.

[00:21:21] Stephen: So, and of course, in Google’s version, so the personal intelligence, they’re obviously playing in their own backyard, right? So they’ve got Gmail Google Photo, YouTube, 3 Google products.

[00:21:33] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:21:33] Stephen: So how will Apple implement— when Apple implements this, it’ll be Mac Mail.

[00:21:39] Trevor: Well, photos, you know, you’re just confusing. Mac Mail’s just a client. Yeah, it’s not a mail server. Okay, so it’s, it’s a—

[00:21:49] Stephen: well, how’s it going to crawl through your emails then? It’s going to have to crawl through something.

[00:21:53] Trevor: Well, yeah, that’s, that’s the challenge. I don’t use Mac Mail or the Mail app on an iPhone ever.

[00:22:00] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:22:01] Trevor: ‘Cause they’re dumb.

[00:22:02] Stephen: Well, I use Mac Mail just on my Mac.

[00:22:05] Trevor: And then it’s called Apple Mail.

[00:22:06] Stephen: Gmail, Apple Mail. But then I use on my phone, I use, I’m on an Android phone, so I’m just using Gmail.

[00:22:13] Trevor: No, but when you’re on an iPhone.

[00:22:15] Stephen: It’s the Mail app. Yeah.

[00:22:16] Trevor: See, I don’t use that.

[00:22:19] Stephen: But you use Gmail on your iPhone. Is that right? You do the Gmail app or just the browser?

[00:22:22] Trevor: GPT is superhuman, but yeah, but I always have the Gmail app for simple access to it.

[00:22:27] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:22:28] Trevor: But you know, is Apple going to be able to let Apple Intelligence work if I’m not using the mail client? I don’t think so. They’re going to make you use the mail client, as you say. You’re going to have to use, of course, Apple Mail, iPhone Mail.

[00:22:39] Stephen: So there you have it. So you see this how customers need to know how it’s going to work for them to appreciate the value of it and the complexity of it. I think Apple really at dub dub, they got their work cut out for them to explain, right? Here’s how it’s gonna end. And also too, how it’s gonna be different and or better than the other AI that’s out there. ‘Cause Apple’s got great spin on their marketing. Everything they do is the best. So how are they gonna spin this to say, we’re last to the table. So, but ours does this, this, and this, and it does it better than this, this, and this. So the, it’s gonna be a very interesting time.

[00:23:16] Trevor: I know they’re last, but you gotta remember, they, the majority are not using these services the way we’ve even talked about, right? So the majority will look at it and go, cool, my phone does that now. Or how do I stop my phone doing that now? I hate it. You know how many people say that to you when they’re like, the photo I’ve now changed.

[00:23:34] Stephen: Yeah, how do I get back to the previous one?

[00:23:36] Trevor: Whatever it might be. Well, that’s what people want. They want to go back to what it was.

[00:23:40] Stephen: Maybe, maybe. Well, it’s going to be interesting. Like DubDub is going to be on a, there’ll be a lot of people waiting to see Apple’s response and how they’re going to are you gonna announce this and roll it out, explain it, demonstrate it?

[00:23:54] Trevor: Because like last year was their mea culpa. Yeah. But last year they admitted that they weren’t there yet. They let some executives be talked to, they did all that stuff, right?

[00:24:04] Stephen: Yeah. They let a few executives go too by the sounds of it as well.

[00:24:07] Trevor: The problem is a year on, if they bring executives out again and they’ve got some really cool announcements to make, it’s still, that took a year. What are you doing?

[00:24:18] Stephen: Well, I think they wanted to obviously bake it into iOS 27. They wanted it to be the, the starting gun for this new version, the version we were promised for 2 years ago as their— that’s going to be the key to this. And that’s why you can safely say it’s not going to be ready till September. So when the new iPhones come out, when the new iOS update comes out. So they’ve got a few months still up their sleeve, but yeah. DubDub is going to be the opportunity for them to sort of— it’s their Sermon on the Mount, you know what I mean? It’s their way of expressing what they’re doing, their plans, how they’re going to do it, and explaining why it’s taken so long as well. We know that Google is now their partner, has been, you know, they’ve been partnering with Google for decades. But it’s interesting to see. I think the pressure’s right on.

[00:25:08] Trevor: The problem for them is it’s 2 years in a row where we won’t be talking about iOS features, new cool things. We’ll just be talking about how they’re late to the party.

[00:25:17] Stephen: It’ll be different, I think. Yeah, they won’t describe it as being late to the party.

[00:25:20] Trevor: No, but we will.

[00:25:21] Stephen: Yeah, yeah, maybe.

[00:25:22] Trevor: But I’m saying when instead of— and I’ve said this before— but instead of spending the day of Dub Dub saying, oh, there’s a cool new thing called Do Not Disturb While Driving, or, you know, whatever the cool new thing is, which we’ve done in the past, we’ve picked one or two little features we think, oh, that’s cool, that’s interesting, that’s the thing I’m going to talk about on the radio, the TV, or write about. We’re gonna, their first priority is to say where are they at with AI? And then you might get room for one or two other things.

[00:25:47] Stephen: True.

[00:25:48] Trevor: It’s two years in a row.

[00:25:49] Stephen: I’ll have to write more than one story, mate.

[00:25:50] Trevor: It’s two years in a row.

[00:25:51] Stephen: Yeah. Now, well, last year I think they said, well, that’s didn’t meet our standards. And then they, and straight away they said it won’t be till next year. And so we all assumed that it would be early in the year, not knowing it’s gonna be, the next up.

[00:26:07] Trevor: So yeah, wow, insane.

[00:26:10] Stephen: But Apple will say, you know what they’ll say, like, good things take time, good things are worth waiting for.

[00:26:18] Trevor: They won’t say that.

[00:26:18] Stephen: That’s how they’ll spin it.

[00:26:19] Trevor: That’s the underlying message of what they’ll give.

[00:26:22] Stephen: Good things take time.

[00:26:23] Trevor: So 1, 2, 3, 4 weeks until Apple dub dub. Okay, that’s when we’ll know.

[00:26:30] Stephen: Do you reckon they’ve already started working on the keynote, mate, by now?

[00:26:32] Trevor: Oh mate, It’s filmed already. They’re in final production. Like they got to cut, edit, color grade and do all the stupid things that people do.

[00:26:38] Stephen: I don’t know how far in advance they do that.

[00:26:41] Trevor: Well, I think that a lot of the stuff, it depends on the pieces, you know, like the pieces to camera are probably the last things they do maybe in the 2 weeks beforehand. But I think all the little product demo stuff probably is already filmed.

[00:26:52] Stephen: What about when they do the iPhone product launches like that and talk about all that? That must be the ultimate secrecy of all of that.

[00:26:59] Trevor: Imagine being on the camera crew.

[00:27:01] Stephen: Yeah. Thinking, oh, I’ve seen the new iPhone. They would have signed an NDA.

[00:27:04] Trevor: I’ve used it to film a keynote where the bloke talks about it. I can tell you everything there is.

[00:27:09] Stephen: Wow.

[00:27:10] Trevor: I would say they pay overs for crew.

[00:27:12] Stephen: Maybe.

[00:27:12] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:27:13] Stephen: And sign a document that if you give it up, you’re— yeah, they own you.

[00:27:17] Trevor: It’s all over for you.

[00:27:19] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:27:19] Trevor: All right. Two Blokes Talking Tech. That’s the Google Personal Intelligence coming to your Google Gemini app. You can download it now for iOS or Android or use it on the web, muck around with it and see just how personal the intelligence is.

[00:27:32] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:27:34] Stephen: Talking Tech.

[00:27:36] Trevor: 2 Bucks Talking Tech is proudly supported by Netgear. netgear.com.au is the website to go to if you’re looking for home networking, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a small home or a large home, they’ve got something for you. The Nighthawk range, perfect for you if you’re a young gamer looking for the latest speeds for your PC to ensure that you’ve got priority over the rest of the network no matter what someone’s watching or streaming in other, other rooms or on other devices. The Nighthawk range is perfect for that with quality of service options. Then the Orbi range is great to spread the best Wi-Fi throughout your your whole home. So no matter which room you’re in, you should get the best Wi-Fi, the, the right speed, the speeds that you’re paying for. So if you’ve got high-speed gigabit internet from the NBN, you should be getting those speeds throughout the whole home. And that’s what you can almost guarantee with a mesh Wi-Fi system like the Netgear Orbi. And to find out more, you can find them at major retailers like JB’s, or you can go to their website netgear.com.au.

[00:28:28] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:28:33] Trevor: So earlier this week, the federal budget was handed down. We talked about it earlier, but I noticed there was a $600 million commitment to digital ID essentially. Now don’t get overwhelmed with the headlines, folks. A lot of this is just extending existing funding. So what happens in— and I worked at SBS for years— one of the things that they would do is they get base funding, but then they might go for what’s called triennial funding. So every 3 years they’d make a bid for something like, oh, we want to expand the newsroom and do this special thing. Thing, um, and they would ask the government for $20 million for this special thing, and that would be funded for 3 years. And then 3 years later, you have to go back and say, we want that for the next 3 years as well. So you have to keep asking for it. I feel like the Digital ID stuff is being separated out of the Services Australia and other budgets right now so that it’s its own project. They’ve basically funded the Digital ID with a bit more money for an extension of time because they want to make it a, um, tell us once process. I love this They want you to be able to just tell the government once what you need to tell them, and then whenever else you need to log in, sign up, do things, you just use your MyID app and you’re telling the government just once because the information’s already on file. The ATO already know everything about you. Why should you be signing up for something else and having to hand over that information?

[00:29:46] Stephen: That’s what fascinates me when people are sort of really suspicious and worried about, oh, they know everything. Of course they do. They’ve got your tax returns, they’ve got your tax file number, they know how much you earn, they know everything about you.

[00:29:58] Trevor: And there’s a little line in one of the budget papers that talks about a trial among the real estate industry for rental applications. Now, this may be the smallest of trials in one suburb, I don’t know. But essentially what’s gonna happen, Steven, is they’re gonna trial with an area of real estate agents or whatever, rental applications using digital ID. So think about when you’re making an application to rent a home, you have to prove your ID. So you gotta bring 100 points of ID. You gotta bring a passport, a driver’s license, and a bill or something like that, right? And that real estate agent, what do they do? What do they do? They photocopy your Medicare card, your driver’s license, and your electricity bill from your last place. So where’s all that data being stored? Have we heard of Optus, Medicare, Medibank? Optus, Medibank, and others?

[00:30:40] Stephen: Data breaches, yep.

[00:30:41] Trevor: The data breaches, that’s what becomes vulnerable. So what they’re saying is, hey, when you’re signing up for a rental agreement, click here, do this, and then use the Digital ID app to prove your identity.

[00:30:52] Stephen: To confirm your ID, yeah.

[00:30:53] Trevor: And all you’re doing is going confirm identity. And then the real estate agent gets a big green tick that says he is Trevor Long, he is Stephen Fenech, he is who he says he is. Says he is, and they don’t need to retain any information about you.

[00:31:03] Stephen: Yeah, so they don’t have to keep a copy of your driver’s license or anything like that.

[00:31:06] Trevor: Yeah, yeah. Who’s arguing against that?

[00:31:09] Stephen: Yeah, no one.

[00:31:09] Trevor: No, they are. Cookers, nut jobs, conspiracy theorists. Malcolm Roberts for One Nation, the bloke’s a nut job who complains about everything, mate. He’s currently— I’ve seen TikToks of him, sidebar, completely different topic, talking to the people in charge of the new vehicle emissions standards and all that rebates the car companies get if they’re cheap green vehicle, sorry. And he’s bagging BYD for importing vehicles and getting a new vehicle credit for them without selling them. He’s saying there’s thousands of these things on the docks and the ports. And I’m in the comments going, mate, do you have any idea how inventory works? You idiot. Like you import 10,000 cars with the hope of selling 10,000 over the next 3 months. There’s no spare cars sitting on the docks. They import more than they need for that month, and then that stock supply diminishes, and then another boat comes in. This bloke’s a goose. And when I interviewed him 2 years ago on the FTN Podcast, mate, lunatic. Like, can’t even hold a conversation about one thing, has to go on and talk about digital currencies and all this other bulldust. Bottom line is digital ID, the best selling point for the digital ID is exactly what we just talked about. You never need to hand over your ID that someone else might then have breached in a data breach.

[00:32:30] Stephen: Exactly.

[00:32:32] Trevor: We should be marching in the streets for that.

[00:32:33] Stephen: It’s kind of like the ultimate passkey, isn’t it? So if it’s in, you know, if it’s stored in one central place with the government, then that’s your passkey rather than having to share your stuff and type in your password each time. You know, like when you go to sites.

[00:32:47] Trevor: Your local LJ Hooker doesn’t need to know your driver’s license number. They just need to know that you are a real person. They don’t even know you’ve got a driver’s license. They just need to know that you’re a real person.

[00:32:57] Stephen: You’re you, you’re who you say you are.

[00:32:57] Trevor: The other thing that Cooker talk about is the government app. And it’s like, yeah, I use the MyID app because that’s the government app, but there will be third-party apps that come out that are also digital ID apps. And whatever, whichever one you choose to use, you will verify your identity with that app, which will involve handing over some personal information. But once verified, from that point you simply need to click a button and be verified. But you know, it’s so easy. I logged into, I was doing an ACBA thing the other day, your tax department, your MyHealth, you just open up the MyID app. App. Yeah, you get a 4-digit code and you go yes, that’s it. It’s the simplest bloody thing.

[00:33:33] Stephen: Absolutely, mate. It’s like, like I said, like the passkeys on you on some sites where everything’s on your computer. You just got to verify with your face, your fingerprint, or your Face ID. Boom, in.

[00:33:44] Trevor: You need one more app on your phone, folks.

[00:33:46] Stephen: Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:48] Trevor: I think the government’s got my information. They’ve already got it.

[00:33:52] Stephen: You know who you are. Yeah, I know they know where you You know, I know what you do.

[00:33:55] Trevor: I was talking to my Auntie Val on the weekend because she was driving with us for so long, and her husband passed 3 months ago. And she went to— they had a little MG, historic MG, and she went down to the ACT Motor Registry, whatever it’s called down there, and said, I’ve got to renew the rego for this because it was due. She thought she’d renew it, then she’d go through the process of changing the name.

[00:34:16] Stephen: Yeah, yeah.

[00:34:16] Trevor: No, they cancelled the rego. What? Because birth tests and marriages have gone. He’s dead. They cancelled the rego.

[00:34:23] Stephen: Wow.

[00:34:23] Trevor: Like, that’s— the government knows and can disseminate information, which you would argue is a good thing, right? You actually want the dissemination of information. The problem is just in that circumstance, it’s a bit, you know, hard to go in and find out these things.

[00:34:37] Stephen: Say it’s his child or someone else.

[00:34:39] Trevor: Exactly.

[00:34:40] Stephen: Want to take it over, what happens then?

[00:34:41] Trevor: They’ve got to go and re-register it. And because it’s had historic plates, you’ve got to get the club information. It’s complex, but The concept of governments communicating with each other is a good thing. It’s a good one. Yeah, absolutely. We like that. Like, if I’ve got information in the tax department, then I don’t want to have to share it with another government department. You should know that already.

[00:35:01] Stephen: Definitely.

[00:35:01] Trevor: It’s quite simple.

[00:35:02] Stephen: Well, we’ve seen the issues in the past. I think that’s another thing too, where whenever there’s been some major government stuff-ups online, that stays with people. Remember the census and things like that where, yeah, you know, And it still baffles me why there’s no voting online still.

[00:35:20] Trevor: Oh mate, that’ll never happen.

[00:35:22] Stephen: With the digital ID, well, if they, why couldn’t it? It’d be even easier to have an election and identify who you are if it’s all digital.

[00:35:29] Trevor: And single, one-off, voting once, vote only because you’ve already been verified once.

[00:35:35] Stephen: So why? I know it’s tradition, but things move on, mate. We do stuff online now.

[00:35:40] Trevor: Yeah. Like, I think they’re worried about it crashing, basically.

[00:35:44] Stephen: Well, in—

[00:35:47] Trevor: I think they also know that people vote multiple times and there’s vote rigging that goes on.

[00:35:53] Stephen: What?

[00:35:53] Trevor: People join electorates for— like, if you register in a different electorate, but that’s not your recorded address, like, what’s going on there? I voted electronically in New South Wales once, like 3 elections ago. There was a ID vote or so, there was a name for it, but it was only available to people that were doing absentee, like because you were sick or you’re gonna be away. And I went—

[00:36:13] Stephen: State election?

[00:36:13] Trevor: Yeah, I’m gonna be away, state election. And I did it, it was easy, worked great. But they’ve never done it since.

[00:36:19] Stephen: Boom. Yeah, well, yeah, it’s just, if they’re gonna spend all, how much are they spending? $650 million to bolster the digital ID and security? Then get some value for your money.

[00:36:32] Trevor: Interestingly, there’s no success metrics around that either. Either. Like I looked at all the budget papers, there’s no, we want X number of people to have the app by this date or anything like that. It’s just, you know, it is gonna be what it’s gonna be. But you know, it’s not hard. I taught my mom how to use it. So if you’re gonna log onto the ATO, you’re gonna need this app. So click it and if they ask for it, you do it. It’s not rocket science.

[00:36:52] Stephen: Yeah. I’ve, yeah, I haven’t got my mom on it just yet, but I’m sure the day will come.

[00:36:59] Trevor: Oh, I’m sure it will. Yeah.

[00:37:01] Stephen: But we seem to be doing all right without it at the moment.

[00:37:05] Trevor: Well, it depends how many times you need to log on for government services and stuff like that, really.

[00:37:09] Stephen: My mom doesn’t use too many government services.

[00:37:10] Trevor: I can imagine. Yeah, yeah. She’s doing very well.

[00:37:13] Stephen: Self-funded retiree, mate.

[00:37:15] Trevor: Doris is loving it. Yeah, loving it. Anyway, if you want to complain about the Digital ID, start a TikTok account, wear a tinfoil hat, and you will fit in really, really well with a bunch of other cookers out there.

[00:37:26] Stephen: Yeah, cook. What do you call it? Cookers? What do you mean cookers? Is it short for what?

[00:37:30] Trevor: I don’t know.

[00:37:30] Stephen: They’re cookers.

[00:37:31] Trevor: They’re cooking. They’re— Nut jobs, lunatics, conspiracy theorists. Is that what you mean?

[00:37:36] Stephen: Cookers.

[00:37:37] Trevor: Yeah, they get called cookers. People who are sovereign citizens. Oh yeah.

[00:37:41] Stephen: Listen, I’ve seen enough of them online.

[00:37:42] Trevor: If you’re a sovereign citizen and you subscribe to this show, unsubscribe. I don’t want you.

[00:37:48] Stephen: If you get pulled over.

[00:37:49] Trevor: I don’t want your numbers.

[00:37:49] Stephen: If you’ve been speeding. Is that what they are, those people that think, I know, I’m a sovereign citizen.

[00:37:54] Trevor: Fake license plates.

[00:37:55] Stephen: Doesn’t apply to me. Yeah. What?

[00:37:58] Trevor: Yeah, cookers.

[00:37:59] Stephen: Yeah, that’s just— that’s half my feed on TikTok.

[00:38:02] Trevor: Two words: Desi Freeman. Like, yeah, you know what I mean?

[00:38:06] Stephen: Yeah, look at that turned out for him.

[00:38:07] Trevor: Yeah, and the people he killed.

[00:38:09] Stephen: Yeah, so unbelievable.

[00:38:11] Trevor: Yeah, nut jobs. Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:38:14] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:38:19] Stephen: If you’re after a good pair of headphones, all-day headphones, JBL have just dropped some nice new live headphones. They’ve got their— these are a new range of headphones there. They’ve got the 780NC over-ear. Now, over-ear means the cup covers your entire ear. On-ear, as it says, it just sits on your ear. So there’s a difference. And obviously the on-ears are smaller, lighter, but both offer the same kind of audio quality as well as, uh, active noise cancellation, adaptive noise cancellation as well. But what I like about this range too is is that they’ve really had a go at the colors. Yes. Because they’re everyday wear, that of course they sound great, but they look really fancy too. Pretty funky colors, blue and green and beige.

[00:39:08] Trevor: I mean, in reality, Apple’s about the only people that have tried with their over-ears to push the boundary on colors. You know, Sony, Bose, all those kind of people, they’re being pretty conservative, you know, that kind of stuff.

[00:39:20] Stephen: Yes.

[00:39:20] Trevor: We’re talking greens, blues, some really nice colors here.

[00:39:24] Stephen: Nice ones.

[00:39:25] Trevor: Orange, purple. Really nice.

[00:39:28] Stephen: They are good. Yeah. As well as sounding great as well. Don’t forget they’ve still got great call quality too. Like if you make a call through the headphones, they’ve got 4 microphones, beamforming technology. So this is for that user who has got headphones on all the time, you know, during the day.

[00:39:43] Trevor: Why would you choose on-ear? I’ve always wanted that because you want this cup to look small.

[00:39:48] Stephen: Maybe just size. Yeah. You don’t want it to be— I remember having a pair of Bose on-ear noise cancelling and they just used to sit there, created enough of a seal to still be—

[00:39:57] Trevor: For the passive audio, for the noise cancelling.

[00:39:59] Stephen: But yeah, it had active noise cancelling as well, but they were really nice and light and small.

[00:40:04] Trevor: I just find it hard to wear for a long time.

[00:40:07] Stephen: The on-ear ones?

[00:40:08] Trevor: Yeah, ’cause they squash my ears.

[00:40:10] Stephen: I’m not that mad, not that bad. The pressure on your ears.

[00:40:13] Trevor: I much prefer an over-ear.

[00:40:14] Stephen: So over-ear then just covers your whole ear, just full cups it in.

[00:40:17] Trevor: Full cuppage.

[00:40:18] Stephen: Full cuppage. Yeah, I’m more an on-ear guy, mate, myself. I can use both. I mainly, most of my headphones are over-ear, but I could cop an on-ear, could you? Occasionally, yeah.

[00:40:31] Trevor: Okay, fair enough. Wow, there it is.

[00:40:33] Stephen: Yeah, but I know they— and you know what, they’re not too expensive either. These are worth— it’s the 780s, uh, $249.95. Let’s call it $250 price. Yeah, and $200, $199.95 for the on-ear. Yeah, and, and basically the features, if you look at all the features, they’re all basically the same. They’ve got—

[00:40:51] Trevor: it’s literally just the same headphone but on-ear or over-ear is a great option. Plus Yeah, 80 hours battery life. Amazing. Do you remember what was it, the Tune?

[00:40:59] Stephen: That’s a whole week.

[00:40:59] Trevor: What were the last ones we tried that were noise cancelling? They’re their premium, they’re Live with the, with the little transmitter. Yes.

[00:41:04] Stephen: Yeah, they’re called Live Mark 2s or something.

[00:41:08] Trevor: Yeah, anyway, the battery life on those were outrageous.

[00:41:13] Stephen: Yeah, they’re my default travel headphones, the JBLs. Yeah, I love that. And I love having the little— these headphones are compatible with that too, by the way.

[00:41:20] Trevor: Oh really?

[00:41:21] Stephen: Yeah. So if you get the little— I don’t think they come with it. No, the more expensive ones come with it.

[00:41:27] Trevor: That’s right.

[00:41:27] Stephen: But it’s great if you want to watch a movie on the in-flight entertainment system. You just plug the little transmitter into your headphones, and then the transmitter talks wirelessly to your headphones, and boom, works a treat. You’re watching it. I did that too with my old— I had an old iPod, so I pulled an old iPod out and plugged the Smart Ear straight in, and boom, wirelessly connected to my old iPod.

[00:41:50] Trevor: Happy days.

[00:41:51] Stephen: Awesome. Awesome.

[00:41:52] Trevor: Great colors, great design, and you can read all about them at techguide.com.au.

[00:41:56] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.

[00:42:02] Stephen: Two Blokes Talking Tech is proudly supported by Arlo. Now Arlo have a great range of cameras. We know they’ve got their outdoor cameras, they’ve got their pan and tilt cameras, and all of them work together very well. But what brings them together even closer is Arlo Secure. Now Arlo Secure is a subscription service that allows allows you to have smarter notifications and enjoy several other new features like Arlo Intelligence. You can have notifications for people, vehicles, animals, and other things like that. You can also look through your video and event history, and I do love the fact that it does actually give some great descriptions on what you’re looking at. So it’ll, it’ll, rather than you having to watch the video, it’ll tell you Person dropped, person dropped off a package and walked away. So you know that, okay, they left the package and, and you don’t have to watch the video. So there’s all these things, got personal, a person and vehicle recognition as well, uh, as well as some safety, uh, features too, like sound detection, flame detection as well. And it also lets you set interactive note to get activity zones. You can say your cameras sort of face the street, but you don’t want all the passing cars to be sending you notifications. You can actually designate the area that you want to monitor. So little things like that, these— and on top of having 30 days of cloud storage of all your videos, that’s the advantage of having the Arlo Secure plan. It really does bring all your cameras together even closer, makes them— make them even better. So yeah, check it out for yourself, arlo.com.

[00:43:39] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech.

[00:43:46] Trevor: So So I would argue that Windows computers have struggled to compete with Apple in one core area, and that is creativity.

[00:43:55] Stephen: Right.

[00:43:56] Trevor: Video editing, photo editing, that kind of stuff. Now they’re good, they do a great job, and there’s plenty of powerful computers out there. Like you can get big gaming computers that have the power to do the kind of video stuff that I want to do. And nothing I’m doing is crazy complex, you know, might be a 10 or 20 minute video and you edit clips and you put layers in and whatever.

[00:44:13] Stephen: Whatever.

[00:44:14] Trevor: I’ve struggled to do that on many Windows computers, but I had a play with the ASUS ProArt GoPro Edition, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s a super impressive little bit of kit. It’s expensive. Yeah, it’s like— it’s— I think it’s meant to be $5,900. Uh, it’s currently priced about $5,500, but I’ve seen it for $4,900 on the ASUS website. Right, so you’re talking about $5,000 laptop here, right? Yeah, but it’s 13-inch. Super lightweight. Yeah, ports for days. So HDMI port, USB-C, all the things you’re going to need. Yeah. And SD, microSD reader. So, you know, GoPro. There’s actually a GoPro button on it so that you can launch the GoPro suite because this is obviously a GoPro partnership made for that. But yeah, honestly, I didn’t look at it as a GoPro thing. I looked at it as a, as a, as a creative laptop.

[00:45:01] Stephen: Okay.

[00:45:02] Trevor: Super impressive. It’s AMD Ryzen processor. And mate, I clipped my entire, the story we shot in China, which is hours of footage. And I clipped down to about a 4-minute segment and mucking around with that. It just felt like I was on any other computer, any other editing computer.

[00:45:18] Stephen: So what software were you using?

[00:45:20] Trevor: I was using Premiere Pro. I didn’t bother with the GoPro.

[00:45:23] Stephen: That’s what you use anyway.

[00:45:24] Trevor: I use that all the time, right?

[00:45:25] Stephen: So even on your Mac.

[00:45:26] Trevor: Yeah, that’s my go-to for editing. And mate, it didn’t miss a beat. It didn’t miss a beat at all. In fact, it was as high-performing as I could ever need. And the interesting thing is, is I think it, I think this device hints at what’s possible because we’ve talked about the Apple Neo effect, the MacBook Neo effect. I think, and I spoke to Bradley Howe a couple of weeks ago on the EFGM podcast and I got the sense that, you know, there’ll be more to come and next year there’ll be some stuff, but this proves it can be done. What it doesn’t prove is it can be done a little bit more affordably. And if this device was 3:2, yeah, it would be an unbelievable seller because it’s got a beautiful OLED screen, touch screen, because of the name like GoPro, the branding and all that on it. I mean, it’s spec to the hilt, right? Plus it’s, it’s ultra thin, so it’s obviously got thermal cooling and all these different things that are challenging, right? Yeah. But it’s also just a premium brand and premium product for them. The ProArt series for ASUS, that’s what it is. But if you wipe away all that and you go, okay, This is actually just a gorgeous chassis, so it’s a really nice device. And I think that when people start to go, why am I buying an Apple? It’s sometimes it’s because it’s a gorgeous device. And so I think laptop manufacturers like ASUS need to actually acknowledge that some people just don’t want a thing that looks like every other bloody laptop. You know, it’s like this.

[00:46:48] Stephen: It’s so good though.

[00:46:49] Trevor: Yeah, it’s so aluminum.

[00:46:51] Stephen: Beautiful finish.

[00:46:52] Trevor: If they put that They would sell more.

[00:46:55] Stephen: It’s really— and you know what I like about ASUS makes, you know, the computers are really nice, right? And not only performance-wise, but also they actually look really cool. They’re— they’ve really sort of— they have stood themselves apart with that Cerillumin, mate. They really stand out from the crowd.

[00:47:11] Trevor: That weird stone feel finish is sensational.

[00:47:15] Stephen: It’s good. It’s proprietary stuff too.

[00:47:17] Trevor: I mean, if they could make something this big big with even 80% of the power. Yeah, maybe with Cerilluminium, uh, and put a 3 in front of it. It’s still a very expensive laptop, so it’s competing with a Pro.

[00:47:29] Stephen: And so this is a GoPro partnership, right? So having a GoPro, there’s like a, there’s a, their own application, and it just makes it a breeze to download the files.

[00:47:38] Trevor: Made to work in that world. So to fit the GoPro, it also comes with a couple of, uh, a couple of carry cases. One of them’s like a hard shell, the other one’s a hard case, you know, so they know you can take it out in the those kind of things you can fit in.

[00:47:52] Stephen: And it’s pretty rugged, sturdy.

[00:47:53] Trevor: It’s pretty rugged. I wouldn’t actually take it into the mountains like they did with some of their photos. Yeah, it does have a chunky as heck power brick. Oh, but that’s because it’s like a 200-watt power brick or something like that, right?

[00:48:05] Stephen: Recharge.

[00:48:06] Trevor: I didn’t use it.

[00:48:07] Stephen: I didn’t—

[00:48:07] Trevor: I never take the power brick out of a laptop for review because I’ve just got so many power cords hanging around.

[00:48:13] Stephen: Everything’s USB-C. Yeah, yeah. Bit slower, but still does the job. Job.

[00:48:17] Trevor: Well, no, I’m running off 100-watt USB-C. It’s not any issue and plenty of power. Yeah, I did feel that it wound up the fans a bit now and then when I was pumping it, and that’s life. But mate, beautiful, beautiful device.

[00:48:32] Stephen: 3K resolution screen, is it?

[00:48:33] Trevor: 3K resolution OLED. Yeah, beautiful touchscreen.

[00:48:36] Stephen: Wow. And touchscreen as well.

[00:48:38] Trevor: So think about this as a—

[00:48:40] Stephen: this could be your work device. Yeah.

[00:48:43] Trevor: And when you’re on the plane, you finish working, flip it around, stand it up like a tent on the tray table, and you got yourself a stream It’s a streaming device as well.

[00:48:49] Stephen: Yeah, yeah. Is that what you did? No. You took it to China, you said?

[00:48:52] Trevor: I did take it to China, yeah.

[00:48:53] Stephen: Yeah, nice.

[00:48:53] Trevor: Great device. Big fan.

[00:48:55] Stephen: Does it come with the cases as well? Yes.

[00:48:57] Trevor: So that’s included in the price? It comes with those cases.

[00:48:59] Stephen: You’d think so at that price.

[00:48:59] Trevor: I mean, it— Everything.

[00:49:01] Stephen: Does it come with a GoPro too?

[00:49:02] Trevor: No, but it comes with a GoPro, like the first year of the GoPro subscription.

[00:49:05] Stephen: Ah, but it’s not an actual GoPro though? For that price, it should. BYO GoPro.

[00:49:09] Trevor: Yes.

[00:49:10] Stephen: Right.

[00:49:11] Trevor: But it’s got a nice little GoPro logo on it, so you feel—

[00:49:12] Stephen: Yeah, well, you know what?

[00:49:13] Trevor: You know what? Some people are strong into that brand, right?

[00:49:16] Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, of course. And if they know that there’s like a shortcut or like a little workflow that’s designed just for them for the, to ingest all the GoPro footage and help them edit it, then yeah, that’s half your battle there.

[00:49:28] Trevor: Worth a look, folks. So you can read my full review at eftm.com.

[00:49:33] VOICE OVER: Everything about tech you never wanted to know. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:49:41] Stephen: Have you heard of Dua Lipa? Do you know who Dua Lipa is?

[00:49:44] Trevor: I’m aware of her work.

[00:49:45] Stephen: She’s a—

[00:49:46] Trevor: I’ve seen some footage of her concert.

[00:49:47] Stephen: She’s a pop star.

[00:49:49] Trevor: She’s a very attractive pop star. Some of the footage I’ve seen from her concerts is—

[00:49:53] Stephen: well, she is, uh, going head-to-head with Samsung in a $15 million lawsuit. Now what’s happened is that Samsung— you know when you, you have the TV boxes?

[00:50:07] Trevor: Yep.

[00:50:08] Stephen: And rather than just— I think they do it here too— rather than just being just a plain brown box with some writing on it, they put this color sticker on the side of the box. Yep. What they’ve done, uh, in the US, I believe— I don’t, don’t know if it’s here— they have, uh, used her image on, on the box. Now if you take a look at it, I’ve just downloaded— these pictures were on the Samsung website that I downloaded.

[00:50:31] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:50:32] Stephen: And you’ll see that the picture shows the actual TV, and the top half of the TV shows a Samsung TV channel, which just happens to be a music channel, which also happens to be showing Dua Lipa’s face. Now according to her her representatives, that photo was taken at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2024, to which she owns the rights to that image. She owns that image. Her argument is that if they’re using her face on the box— and, and the claim has been backed up by comments made on Instagram saying, yeah, I bought that thing because I had Dua Lipa on it— people were commenting about it. So she’s thinking, Well, this has been happening, by the way, since last year, and she’s been contacting Samsung and say, look, you know, cease and desist, or what are you doing?

[00:51:23] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:51:23] Stephen: And Samsung has had no response until— and we still have no response. She has since started a copyright and trademark infringement lawsuit in the California U.S. District Court.

[00:51:35] Trevor: I would think they need to bring in a third party here because the question is, you know, we get all these ads at the top of the TV, I get them for the streaming channels. Did Excite Hits, which is the channel, yeah, or did Samsung make that original image that is on the screen? So what, what showed on as an ad, yeah, on Samsung TV Plus, ad for Samsung TV Plus at the top of a Samsung screen, yep. Did I— did this have a show?

[00:51:59] Stephen: Yes.

[00:51:59] Trevor: If it did, who made it? Was it Excite Plus or was it Samsung TV Plus?

[00:52:03] Stephen: That’s right.

[00:52:03] Trevor: So who’s it? A Samsung? Who’s really responsible?

[00:52:05] Stephen: I’ll, I’ll ask you another Anyway, imagine if that was a scene from a movie. Imagine if that was Brad Pitt and George Clooney in, you know, one of the movies, or Brad Pitt and F1.

[00:52:15] Trevor: It’s slightly different because, yeah, and there’s normally promotional, maybe, right? So in this case, it’s a photo she owns, right? That’s the challenging difference, right? They’ve found a photo she owns.

[00:52:25] Stephen: And well, but who’s to say, right? Who’s to say that at the instant that photo was taken, she wasn’t being filmed in this, at Festival, and that channel broadcasting it on Samsung TV Plus.

[00:52:38] Trevor: I mean, I’m genuinely fascinated by it because, yeah, seriously, is it really that big a deal?

[00:52:44] Stephen: $15 million, solid. And like, she’s no stranger to work— she’s never worked with Samsung before, right? But get who she’s worked with before.

[00:52:50] Trevor: Who?

[00:52:51] Stephen: Apple, Porsche, Puma, Versace, Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Nespresso. So she’s no stranger to a corporate gig there, corporate partnership.

[00:53:03] Trevor: Like if you glance at my TV there, BBC Food and a picture of steak or something, right? So if you can imagine folks, the exact same picture that’s on Stephen’s website techguy.com.au, except instead of Dua Lipa, it says big steak. Now that’s not as sexy to sell it to me, but who owns that photo? Yeah, you would assume that BBC Food have licensed that photo for that thing there. Yeah, I’m actually wondering whether Excite Hits is available in Australia. Australia. And whether or not therefore it is actually— that TV might have had that, that logo just to be shown. Yeah, yeah.

[00:53:32] Stephen: It seems that they’re still allowed to do that over here.

[00:53:36] Trevor: Well, no, if they’ve— if she hasn’t licensed the photo to them, then no, no, we don’t have Excite Hits. We’ve got Stingray.

[00:53:41] Stephen: How that’s going to play out. But you can see the picture on Tech Guides here. They put the sticker on the side of the box. Yeah, quite— yeah, the size of the box to show what the TV looks like and the, and the homepage.

[00:53:51] Trevor: I think it’s very simple. Uh, Sam’s stung.

[00:53:54] Stephen: Settle out of court.

[00:53:55] Trevor: Just write a check.

[00:53:56] Stephen: Settle out of court.

[00:53:57] Trevor: What you do is you have a bit of fun. You go, listen, you want $15 million, right?

[00:54:01] Stephen: We’ll give you $50. We’ll pay you in TVs.

[00:54:02] Trevor: No, I’ll give you $30 million if you come to our next launch event and perform. Like, you know, like, you know what I mean?

[00:54:08] Stephen: Like, that’s over the top.

[00:54:09] Trevor: Turn it into—

[00:54:10] Stephen: do you reckon it’ll cost $15 million to get someone to perform?

[00:54:13] Trevor: I’m just saying a bigger number. Just, yeah, right. Okay, do it bigger.

[00:54:16] Stephen: So we’ll give you $15, but you’ve got to perform at our next 3 launches.

[00:54:19] Trevor: Yeah, we won’t haggle. We’ll just pay the $15, no, no, just, and just come to one.

[00:54:24] Stephen: Yeah. Well, I think if it wasn’t for the social media commentary, they—

[00:54:30] Trevor: Social media commentary come before or after the lawsuit? Because before, where?

[00:54:34] Stephen: Well, it said on Instagram, though, people, you search on whose post? Millions of people’s posts.

[00:54:40] Trevor: It’s someone talking about the lawsuit?

[00:54:42] Stephen: No, someone talking about they bought the, they bought the TV because I’m going to buy whatever picture, wherever her picture appears, I’m buying that thing. That’s the sort of comments that triggered the lawsuit.

[00:54:52] Trevor: I don’t believe that someone made that post before this lawsuit.

[00:54:54] Stephen: Well, there was a post that was someone said, yeah, I’m going to buy, I bought it because of her on the side of the box. They’re the sort of comments that has helped trigger the lawsuit.

[00:55:03] Trevor: That just sounds like the kind of thing that like in Australia, we had a classic example at 2GB back in the early 2000s, bloke on the radio, I think I think he’s dead now. Malcolm T. Elliott, lovely guy, but a bit cookie. Quirky is a better word for him. And he said something frankly racist on air about a politician. And you know what? It just went to air or whatever. No one killed it. We didn’t get a single complaint. But then Media Watch ran a story about it and the Australian Communications Media Authority got 10 complaints. None of the people who complained heard the broadcast originally. Yeah, none of them. Yeah, not one of them.

[00:55:46] Stephen: So what, should he get a pass then? Should that be— it’s been and done and that’s it? Well, what do you do?

[00:55:51] Trevor: All I’m saying is in this, that’s why I’m curious about Instagram posts, because I don’t see too many people going, I bought a TV because Dua Lipa’s photo’s on it. Well, that’s what I wonder if they saw. But have you seen the post? Have you physically got the post?

[00:56:01] Stephen: I’ve seen them. They showed it. I’ll look it up for you now. There’s a lot of posts that have gone in after it, right? But there were posts on Instagram that they referred to in the lawsuit and included the comments saying, I bought this TV, I saw the picture of Dua Lipa, had to have this TV. And that’s what’s helped spur them to do the lawsuit, right? But if you just do a search for Dua Lipa Samsung, you’ll end up with— you’ll end up with 40 million posts.

[00:56:27] Trevor: Yeah, I want the one that’s in the law.

[00:56:28] Stephen: Well, no, well, the ones that were before the lawsuit were the ones that were saying, oh, look what I bought, a TV with Dua Lipa’s picture on on it. You’d be like me buying something because there’s a Star Wars logo on it.

[00:56:38] Trevor: I think that’s actually a good example. I’m gonna buy that.

[00:56:40] Stephen: That’s great. There’s a Star Wars— if it’s Star Wars, I’m getting it.

[00:56:43] Trevor: You are that crazy.

[00:56:44] Stephen: That’s it.

[00:56:44] Trevor: Have you been to the Golden Auction yet?

[00:56:46] Stephen: Uh, yes, I have seen anything there. Yeah, a few things. Yeah, I’ve got the stuff that they’ve got of like the 12-backs and you’ve got all the other figures. I’ve got them all already, but they’ve got the 20— the 20-backs and The Empire Strikes Back and all the other movies as well. But I can only go so far, mate.

[00:57:03] Trevor: You’ve watched that King of Collectibles, haven’t you? I have, yeah. Can you imagine one of his team coming to your house and going, looking at your Phantoms and the whole Star Wars thing and going, we’ll consign it? Yep.

[00:57:12] Stephen: Yeah. Well, I’ve got, mate, I’ve got 1 to 5 Phantoms now. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

[00:57:18] Trevor: Just missing 7 or 9.

[00:57:20] Stephen: And missing 6. And that’s it. 6 in the top of all 8 recent acquisition, number 8. 8. But, um, yeah, number 6 is all I’m missing in the top. So all up, I’m only missing— I could have the whole Fanta collection. I think I’m missing, uh, 12 comics. 12 comics, and I’ve got the whole set.

[00:57:41] Trevor: Some of them are much higher numbers, are they?

[00:57:42] Stephen: Some of them are solo. Although, you know what, the more expensive ones now, I’ve got most of them.

[00:57:47] Trevor: So I mean the ones in the teens, as in higher numbers, as in the—

[00:57:49] Stephen: yeah, as in they’re in the teens. Yeah, like 11, 12, 14, of those ones. I’ve got one in, I think in the ’50s, one in the ’40s, couple in the ’35s. And yeah, then I’m done.

[00:58:03] Trevor: So what Steven does in his spare time.

[00:58:05] Stephen: The collezione.

[00:58:06] Trevor: If it’s raining and he can’t play golf, he’s on the eBay.

[00:58:10] Stephen: Well, you know what? It’s really actually quite good because I know the people who are dealing in this area. They all know me.

[00:58:18] Trevor: Yes.

[00:58:18] Stephen: So, and they know they’ve got my list. List, my list of want what I need.

[00:58:22] Trevor: Yes.

[00:58:23] Stephen: They’ve got ’em. So I’m getting messages saying, oh look, I’ve just found this. And when I think it’s not real good condition or yeah, okay, I’ll take it. So they’re on the lookout for me as well.

[00:58:32] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:58:33] Stephen: So they know the deal. The main people dealing in this stuff, I know them very well. Yeah. And they know me very well. Yeah.

[00:58:43] Trevor: You need the Barn Find, you need the—

[00:58:45] Stephen: Yeah, I’d love to look at the old deceased estate. Some old bloke’s got every one.

[00:58:49] Trevor: Just open a box and say, holy hell, he’s got everything.

[00:58:51] Stephen: No, well, there was, there was a, I ended up with number 4 and one that got that over the line. It was just some bloke, I got my grandfather selling his stuff and this was in it. And mate, it didn’t take long to find out what it was worth thanks to the internet. Like anyone, it’s easy to look stuff up and see what they’re worth.

[00:59:13] Trevor: Yeah.

[00:59:14] Stephen: Anyway, I don’t know, how do we get talking about comics?

[00:59:16] Trevor: I don’t know. I don’t know.

[00:59:18] Stephen: We just did.

[00:59:18] Trevor: We just did. We just did.

[00:59:19] Stephen: That’s the beauty of the show.

[00:59:20] Trevor: That’s the way it works.

[00:59:20] Stephen: Oh, well, let’s move on.

[00:59:23] Trevor: TV. You can find him at techguide.com.au. Yeah, uh, Stephen, uh, solid performance. Uh, we’re giving you an hour this week. Uh, you always— we owe you 6 minutes.

[00:59:31] Stephen: 6 or 7 minutes. Yeah, we’re nearly— we’re tick— if we could, we could talk for another 30 seconds and go the— you don’t reckon Trev’s had enough, eh? That’s it. No más. That’s it. No more.

[00:59:43] Trevor: No más.

[00:59:44] Stephen: Done and dusted.

[00:59:45] Trevor: It is.

[00:59:45] Stephen: But if the Dodgers weren’t playing, you’d be keen to go further. How are they going? They win it?

[00:59:49] Trevor: No, there’s struggling.

[00:59:50] Stephen: Oh no, is that why you want to wind it up, mate, so you can sort of hopefully rally?

[00:59:53] Trevor: I want to wind it up. No, they’ve got bottom of the innings, they won’t win.

[00:59:56] Stephen: Ah, okay.

[00:59:56] Trevor: Um, I’ve got to edit all these shows, mate, so of course, so the shorter they are the better, is that right?

[01:00:00] Stephen: So next week’s show gonna be half an hour?

[01:00:02] Trevor: Means I can get started on it. Ah, okay. But it is an early finish for you. Yeah, I’ll be able to get out the morning, get home ahead of the traffic, mate. Smashed out the morning session.

[01:00:10] Stephen: What? Yeah, helps when you get here early.

[01:00:12] Trevor: Well played. Yeah, well played.

[01:00:14] Stephen: Thanks, mate. We’ve gone over an hour. There you go. Ciao!

[01:00:18] Trevor: See you next week!

[01:00:20] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.