The Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast – #745 – An AI Royal Commission? Why? Fold8 Thoughts and more

Two Blokes Talking Tech
TBTT #745 – An AI Royal Commission? Why? Fold8 Thoughts and more
2026-08-13
Hosts: Trevor Long (eftm.com) & Stephen Fenech (techguide.com.au)

[00:00:00] Trevor Long: How many Diet Cokes do you have a day?

[00:00:02] Stephen Fenech: Mate, I have about 2 on average, 2, 3 maybe. Weekends though, I cut loose, I reckon I have 4.

[00:00:09] Trevor Long: Mate, what about these numbers just keep going up?

[00:00:11] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:00:11] Trevor Long: They're like interest rates.

[00:00:12] Stephen Fenech: The weekend is sort of, you know, like Saturday I try to be good all week, which is my new thing. And Saturday night is when sort of my cheat meal, Saturday night.

[00:00:26] Trevor Long: I don't want to break it to you, Wednesday lunchtime's your cheat meal.

[00:00:29] Stephen Fenech: Well, you know, that wasn't too bad.

[00:00:32] Trevor Long: That wasn't too bad.

[00:00:32] Stephen Fenech: I've had worse than that.

[00:00:34] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:00:35] Stephen Fenech: No, I did a big walk and everything. I'm good, mate. I'm good. I'm back in the groove. Just let you know, I'm back. But no, my, uh, how does your, uh, would I compare to Amanda's intake?

[00:00:44] Trevor Long: No, she'd smash you every day. Really? Yeah, mate.

[00:00:47] Stephen Fenech: I thought I drank a lot.

[00:00:48] Trevor Long: I hear those crack open at 10 o'clock at night.

[00:00:50] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I'm like, I don't mind a late night.

[00:00:52] Trevor Long: I see them in the walk-in wardrobe shelf. Hey, cracking a Coke.

[00:00:55] Voice Over: Wow.

[00:00:55] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:00:58] Stephen Fenech: Okay, I'll tell you what my mother-in-law said about it. I opened a can in front of her and she went, "That's the worst thing you can drink." Is that her voice? No, it's not, but I said, "I don't know, if I drank petrol, that'd be worse, would it?" I think the response should have been, "If I drank a full-strength Coke, I think it'd be worse." Well, what do you wanna get, the sugar or the chemicals? What's better?

[00:01:16] Trevor Long: That's a myth. Yeah. It's a myth. The chemicals that are there for the no sugar taste. They're cancer-causing if you eat, if you drink like 300 a day for 30 years.

[00:01:28] Stephen Fenech: 300 a day, no, I'm well below that.

[00:01:29] Trevor Long: The amount you would need to drink is extraordinary.

[00:01:32] Stephen Fenech: I'm well below that.

[00:01:33] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:01:34] Stephen Fenech: Yep, I'm in the safe zone.

[00:01:35] Trevor Long: And if those same chemicals are in Sunkist?

[00:01:38] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:01:38] Trevor Long: Cheers to that.

[00:01:38] Stephen Fenech: Zero sugar, yeah, they probably would be.

[00:01:40] Trevor Long: Cheers to that.

[00:01:40] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they probably would be. Yeah, here we go.

[00:01:43] Trevor Long: What's the name of the chemical? We're gonna get so many emails now. It just says preservative.

[00:01:51] Stephen Fenech: Sweetness. Sweetness.

[00:01:52] Trevor Long: No, yeah, it doesn't actually.

[00:01:52] Stephen Fenech: You know, here it is, it's phenylalanine.

[00:01:55] Trevor Long: Oh, the old phenylalanine.

[00:01:57] Stephen Fenech: PH.

[00:01:57] Trevor Long: Yeah, I don't have that. Oh, hang on.

[00:01:59] Stephen Fenech: Phenylalanine.

[00:02:00] Trevor Long: It contains phenylalanine. Let's go, baby!

[00:02:03] Stephen Fenech: Phenylalanine. Let's both have a sip at the same time. Wide shot.

[00:02:08] Trevor Long: White. Oh, watch out. What about how you call it? You called the wide shot. Ow. And it did it.

[00:02:18] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I didn't do it. Do you know the voice control command on this thing?

[00:02:21] Trevor Long: Oh, you've upgraded, have you?

[00:02:22] Stephen Fenech: Okay, come on me now.

[00:02:25] Trevor Long: Yeah, well, that's how it's made.

[00:02:27] Stephen Fenech: It's control, baby.

[00:02:28] Trevor Long: And now it'll come on me.

[00:02:30] Stephen Fenech: Okay, but not for long because it likes me better.

[00:02:34] Trevor Long: Because it follows the microphones, you idiot. Is that how it works? Yes, I knew that. I thought I was so worried there for a second.

[00:02:42] Stephen Fenech: You don't think I knew that?

[00:02:43] Trevor Long: Because we still need, we need better microphones still because What?

[00:02:46] Voice Over: We—

[00:02:46] Stephen Fenech: so better this week.

[00:02:48] Trevor Long: Yeah, but you know, no, this is the first time it's been in auto. Oh yeah.

[00:02:51] Stephen Fenech: Oh, you've been manually doing it all that time? Yes. What? No wonder you get so much camera time.

[00:02:55] Trevor Long: Get over it. What the hell? So I've noticed when other people use the studio, it works absolutely beautifully. Hang on a minute.

[00:03:01] Stephen Fenech: When other people use the studio, you mean someone else sits in this chair when I'm not here?

[00:03:05] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:03:05] Stephen Fenech: How dare you?

[00:03:06] Trevor Long: It's unbelievable. How dare you? Anyway, it's because we talk talk so loudly. So if we talk like this—

[00:03:14] Stephen Fenech: I get that, I get that a lot— it would work really, really well because essentially if we talk in these dulcet tones—

[00:03:20] Trevor Long: yeah, but if I talk like this, it partly comes through your microphone as well. So it doesn't—

[00:03:24] Stephen Fenech: it's still on me then. See, we're still on me.

[00:03:25] Trevor Long: I know, I can't win. So sometimes when I want the attention, you get told— you'll notice I do this.

[00:03:31] Stephen Fenech: Do you get told?

[00:03:31] Trevor Long: I know I talk loud.

[00:03:33] Stephen Fenech: Well, my wife always says, 'You talk loud.' I said— she says, 'Oh, you're deaf, you talk.' I said, 'How do you get that?' And I said, 'I've done the AirPods test and my hearing is good to Very good.

[00:03:44] Trevor Long: You want to go to a real hearing specialist?

[00:03:46] Stephen Fenech: I don't have a hearing issue. I did the test. That's clinical grade test. I'm good.

[00:03:49] Trevor Long: I don't know where we were, but we were sitting somewhere and I think it was with one of the kids and there was someone else near us and I said to one of the kids something or other and they looked to me as if to say, why did you say that so loudly? That person definitely heard you. And I'm like, oh, that was loud, wasn't it? They go, yes.

[00:04:03] Stephen Fenech: Inside voice? Inside voice? I don't have—

[00:04:05] Trevor Long: Is it inside voice when you say to yourself or when you're indoors?

[00:04:08] Stephen Fenech: That's a good point.

[00:04:09] Trevor Long: I think an inside voice is when you're indoors.

[00:04:12] Stephen Fenech: I think it's inside voices to say to yourself.

[00:04:15] Trevor Long: No, inside voice is like, come on, we're inside, you don't have to yell.

[00:04:18] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:04:18] Trevor Long: Because if you're outside, sometimes you've got to, you know.

[00:04:20] Stephen Fenech: No, I thought it meant inside as in say it to yourself, don't say it out loud. Anyway, if anyone knows the definitive answer to that, we'd love to know.

[00:04:28] Trevor Long: Get in touch with Steven because I don't know.

[00:04:29] Stephen Fenech: Because I'm, yeah. You've had enough messages, have you, mate?

[00:04:34] Trevor Long: Yeah, I don't need messages about, you know.

[00:04:37] Stephen Fenech: Your inside voice, you might get flooded now with the inside voice messages.

[00:04:40] Trevor Long: I'm going to tell you exactly what it is. Your inside voice is for when you're inside. Your outside voice is when you're outside. Your inner voice is when you talk to yourself.

[00:04:48] Voice Over: Okay.

[00:04:48] Stephen Fenech: All right. I'm saying I can understand that. That's a good interpretation.

[00:04:52] Trevor Long: I think I've nailed that.

[00:04:54] Voice Over: Yeah.

[00:04:54] Trevor Long: All right.

[00:04:55] Stephen Fenech: Let's set this record. Let's say that that is correct then.

[00:04:58] Trevor Long: Oh, it's official. Yeah. Well, it's on the record. It's in the transcript.

[00:05:01] Stephen Fenech: So no need to email Trevor your opinion.

[00:05:03] Trevor Long: No, definitely not.

[00:05:03] Stephen Fenech: If you want to email him, he loves getting emails from random people, hey mate? Do you love people slipping into your DMs on Instagram?

[00:05:08] Trevor Long: I won't reply. Producer Rob will.

[00:05:10] Stephen Fenech: Do you get some messages on Insta?

[00:05:12] Trevor Long: Yeah, I get them now and then.

[00:05:14] Stephen Fenech: I don't really, A lot of spam on there I get.

[00:05:18] Trevor Long: A lot of spam. I get more spams in email though. Not spam, but you know, collaborations, inquiries, and all that sort of rubbish. No, just like influencer stuff.

[00:05:27] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I know. Yeah, I get that too.

[00:05:28] Trevor Long: You know, I want to write an article for your website. Pee off. I don't want you near my website, you disgusting, filthy human being.

[00:05:35] Stephen Fenech: So they want to get to know Trevor Longford of the Today Show?

[00:05:38] Trevor Long: No, they don't. They don't even know who I am. It's like when PR people pitch a guest for this show.

[00:05:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I know. They've never seen it before.

[00:05:43] Trevor Long: If you work in PR and you send me an email saying we'd love for you to to see if you wanted to speak to such and such on Two Blokes Talking Tech, I know straight away you've not— you've never listened. Yeah, ever.

[00:05:55] Stephen Fenech: We will have a guest on the show. It'll cost you though.

[00:05:57] Trevor Long: So yeah, sure.

[00:05:59] Stephen Fenech: If you want us to have your company representative on the show, then to quote Jerry Maguire, show me the money.

[00:06:07] Trevor Long: Those business deals will definitely come through me because he'll agree to anything. He'll just take anyone's money about anything. I, however, want to protect the integrity of the show. Absolutely. I'm only allowing deals that are of interest to our audience. Yeah, it's official. That's it. We're agreed.

[00:06:25] Stephen Fenech: Yep. We're in agreement for sure.

[00:06:27] Trevor Long: All right. I think we will take any inquiries. Yep.

[00:06:33] Stephen Fenech: And I'll refer you to my people. I would say talk to my people over here. His name's Trevor. I've done a couple of recent deals that have worked out all right for us. You've done very well. Yeah. Doing very well.

[00:06:42] Trevor Long: Doing very well. Okay, Steven, let's do this.

[00:06:46] Voice Over: Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:06:48] Trevor Long: Not a bad price.

[00:06:49] Voice Over: With Trevor Long from eftm.com.

[00:06:52] Stephen Fenech: Really handy device.

[00:06:53] Voice Over: And Stephen Fenech from techguide.com.au.

[00:06:57] Trevor Long: Episode 745, as I move the can of Sunkist so I can see the rundown. Episode 745 of Two Blokes Talking Tech with a great thanks to Netgear and Arlo. We'll tell you more about them shortly. Uh, Netgear, uh, with all your networking needs Arlo for all your home security needs. We would just ask that you consider them when you're in the purchasing moment. That's all. That's all simple stuff.

[00:07:18] Stephen Fenech: So when you're in the store, just hear the two blokes in the back of your head. Netgear, Arlo.

[00:07:23] Trevor Long: Oh, here we go. Arlo Secure does AI stuff and tells you who's at the door. You know, you know, you'll just remember things.

[00:07:30] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:07:30] Trevor Long: Yeah, you remember little things and that's all we want. Great to have your company, folks. We got a bit to get through today. There's a headline. I saw this on the news last night and over the last few days I've seen these photos. The headline on the ABC website, you know, Australia's, you know, publicly funded website, is the perfect introduction to what I want to talk about. Why is South Australia holding a Royal Commission into AI? And why is it necessary? Well done, ABC. Yeah, you get to retain your funding for another 3 years on my watch because that's the right question to be asking.

[00:08:00] Stephen Fenech: Well, well, in that article, if you refer to it, there is a picture of Peter Malinowski, who's the South Australian Premier. Yeah. In a photo with Tim Cook, the outgoing Apple CEO.

[00:08:13] Trevor Long: Well done, mate. You met a bloke in his last 3 weeks.

[00:08:15] Stephen Fenech: Last 3 weeks. He goes, yeah, mate. He goes, I've only got another couple of weeks. Come in.

[00:08:18] Trevor Long: I'll see him whenever I want. He's not working on a keynote.

[00:08:21] Stephen Fenech: If we requested an interview, we'd get one right now.

[00:08:23] Trevor Long: He's got no keynote to work on at the moment. There's other teams working on that.

[00:08:27] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, he's got his big brown box.

[00:08:29] Trevor Long: He's just struck out of meetings. Yeah, he's got the box.

[00:08:32] Stephen Fenech: He's got his box ready to go.

[00:08:33] Trevor Long: The iconic, you've left your job box.

[00:08:35] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:08:35] Trevor Long: In movie world. Look, The thing is, I saw this, you know, he shared on social media his photo with Tim Cook. Then I saw him share a photo of him with someone from OpenAI signing a memorandum of understanding.

[00:08:48] Stephen Fenech: Correct.

[00:08:50] Trevor Long: And I thought to myself, what is this bloke on a publicity tour? And you know what this reeks of for me? Presidential race. You know, in America you can tell when a senator or someone is angling for the next presidential race because they start doing things that are, you know, a little bit more broad speaking. This bloke's the Premier of South Australia. With the greatest respect to South Australians, it's bloody South Australia, okay?

[00:09:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:09:13] Trevor Long: Take a chill, relax, okay?

[00:09:16] Stephen Fenech: Do you think he's got broader ambitions? So he's trying to say—

[00:09:18] Trevor Long: He absolutely, he absolutely would back himself as Prime Minister.

[00:09:23] Stephen Fenech: Really?

[00:09:23] Trevor Long: So I would— here's my guess, my bet. Next state election.

[00:09:29] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:09:30] Trevor Long: He either rolls through it and then waits for the next federal election and leaves. Yeah. I don't think he would leave for the next federal election because it's probably, it's only 2 years away.

[00:09:39] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, right.

[00:09:40] Trevor Long: But yeah, he absolutely wants to be the Prime Minister.

[00:09:43] Stephen Fenech: 2 blokes talking politics, but it is also, isn't Chris Minns was someone who was floated as a, they might parachute him into the leadership.

[00:09:52] Trevor Long: Let's go full politics. The Labor and Liberal parties are stuffed. They've both got rubbish candidates everywhere, right? Everywhere.

[00:09:58] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:09:58] Trevor Long: The Labor Party doesn't have are next, and especially young, fresh, you know, honorable looking people. They all just look like lifelong politicians. Chris Minns, I would vote for. Yeah, like I would if Chris Minns was my local member and he was running for Prime Minister, I'd vote for him.

[00:10:17] Voice Over: Yep.

[00:10:17] Trevor Long: Right. Peter Malinaskis, absolutely not. I said very clearly when he announced, because he was the first person in Australia, I'll give him that credit, to float the idea of an under-16 social media ban.

[00:10:28] Stephen Fenech: Yes. So he's taking credit for coming up with that at the time.

[00:10:32] Trevor Long: I was on Triple M Radio and I called him a dickhead for that very reason.

[00:10:34] Stephen Fenech: You called him out. And so you called him that at the time?

[00:10:36] Trevor Long: At the time.

[00:10:37] Stephen Fenech: Nothing happened?

[00:10:38] Trevor Long: No, nothing happened. And I don't think he cares, obviously. And I still think the bloke is a D-word. He's deluded. Ah, right.

[00:10:46] Stephen Fenech: So you think he's sort of overestimating his importance?

[00:10:49] Trevor Long: To stand up in front of the world and take a photo with Tim Cook and say, I created the social media, it's the most unsuccessful piece of legislation almost in the history of legislation.

[00:11:00] Stephen Fenech: So, but, but Why is he— and the good question from the, uh, the headline— so he goes and meets OpenAI. This is the co-founder Greg Brockman in that photo, signs a memorandum of understanding, and then he calls for a royal commission.

[00:11:13] Trevor Long: So what do they—

[00:11:14] Stephen Fenech: is it a royal commission when you investigate after something's happened?

[00:11:17] Trevor Long: Yeah, a royal commission into child abuse or into the Catholic Church or into the Bondi Aboriginal deaths in custody and that sort of stuff. Like actual commissions. Now, I know state-based ones are slightly different, they're not as big, but Okay, come on, still royal. They're going to spend millions of dollars on a royal commission. Millions of dollars.

[00:11:33] Stephen Fenech: What are they saying?

[00:11:34] Trevor Long: Because, because he wants to, he wants to understand AI fully and understand how they can make it work for South Australia, right? How they can shape it, shape it, you know, make, make sure it, it works for people, not people working for it, and these kind of things, you know. It's about jobs. I admire that thinking, but I don't think you need a royal commission for that. Don't you just need a policy? Yes. Isn't that what politicians do?

[00:11:57] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:11:57] Trevor Long: Get the best people in the state, get the best academics, get the best AI people, get people in a room. Not quite— remember Kevin Rudd in '07 or '08, he had all those people at the old Parliament House to have a forum on, you know, what should happen over the next decade or whatever, and it was just a think tank?

[00:12:14] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:12:14] Trevor Long: Like, that kind of thing needs to happen, but a real one that actually does stuff. I admire the idea of saying We want to get ahead of this because what we have today is legislation following technology and that's not ideal.

[00:12:29] Stephen Fenech: That's always been the case though, technology moves too fast for politics.

[00:12:33] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:12:33] Stephen Fenech: Technology is advancing in leaps and bounds and politics traditionally is catching up. And AI, that's happening with AI already, right? So I know, remember a few weeks ago we mentioned Albo had his little AI speech about what he expects for the guidelines Fair use of AI.

[00:12:48] Voice Over: Yeah.

[00:12:48] Stephen Fenech: So, so he's sort of basically trying to get this accomplished, the same thing. But is it with the cooperation of the— to me it appears that he wants these people to be on side. So when they do decide the rules, he'll say, mate, I know you're my mate, but you're going to do it this way in Australia or in South Australia.

[00:13:07] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:13:07] Stephen Fenech: Is that what he's trying to do?

[00:13:09] Trevor Long: Here's the rules for AI in South Australia. Yeah. Tell you what, how about we don't do it in South Australia?

[00:13:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:13:14] Trevor Long: Like, how about we do it in other places?

[00:13:15] Stephen Fenech: So is this the kind of—

[00:13:17] Trevor Long: you reckon he's stepping outside his lane?

[00:13:18] Stephen Fenech: Is that what you're trying to say?

[00:13:20] Trevor Long: Like, this is way outside.

[00:13:20] Stephen Fenech: This is a federal issue.

[00:13:22] Trevor Long: Correct.

[00:13:22] Stephen Fenech: He should have gone to the Prime Minister and said, mate, let's have all the premiers come and meet you. Let us contribute to the AI discussion and go from there.

[00:13:30] Trevor Long: Like, what he should have done was say, you know, I respect Anthony Albanese's decision on these, these points around AI and we plan to adopt those things, but we want to go one step further and understand how we can actually supercharge it so that more jobs are created. Because let's think about it, as a, as a premier of a state, your job is to support the economy of the state. So you want jobs, of course. You want taxes, infrastructure, all that kind of stuff, right? So how can they utilize what it— what— see, what he should be doing is going, here's our roadmap. We want, you know, 20 data centers. We want the best, you know, connectivity capacity. We want Telstra and everyone to build the best connectivity in South Australia. We want to have the best renewables that allows— remember, they were a leader in battery technology because of the stuff up on the grid, you know, a few years ago, which is their stuff up on literal grid.

[00:14:16] Stephen Fenech: So before he came into power, that was well before his.

[00:14:18] Trevor Long: So South Australia actually has the kind of credentials to say we've got solid renewables, so we want to support—

[00:14:25] Stephen Fenech: they make a lot of batteries there. You know, my Sonnen batteries, Sonnen, a German company, set up a factory in South Australia to make them. Yeah. So, but let me ask you this then. Is he trying to position himself as sort of the high-tech, the tech-savvy politician here?

[00:14:37] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:14:38] Stephen Fenech: Like, what is meeting Tim Cook achieve apart from a photo op?

[00:14:41] Trevor Long: A great photo.

[00:14:42] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that's all.

[00:14:43] Trevor Long: Great.

[00:14:43] Stephen Fenech: What does that get him? National authority. I'm tech-savvy. I can—

[00:14:47] Trevor Long: I've got photo with Tim Cook, national notoriety. So when he does run for Prime Minister or for federal parliament, because that's the first step, he comes to it with credentials that are essentially federal. Like he's having federal conversations.

[00:15:00] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, absolutely. Well, he's— well, he's— through his whole career, he would be trying to represent Australia, not just South Australia. That's right. Trying to be, hey, I'm the Aussie dude who came up with the social media ban.

[00:15:10] Trevor Long: Exactly. Yeah, that's 100%.

[00:15:12] Stephen Fenech: Is that the only reason he got in the room with Tim Cook to begin with or what?

[00:15:14] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:15:15] Stephen Fenech: He would— if he just said, look, I'm the South Australian Premier, they'll go, ah, yeah, okay, so, yeah, okay.

[00:15:19] Trevor Long: I created the social media ban.

[00:15:20] Stephen Fenech: So he said, oh, social media ban, that was my idea. Okay, let's have a chat.

[00:15:24] Trevor Long: Look, I mean, you've got to remember, Apple would have wanted that because they— when iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max come out in September, the iOS 27 will release, and there are a bunch of family parental focused things in that, right? So it helps Apple to see Peter Malinaskis and have that conversation continue, right? Because they can push that credential that is, yep, you know, family-oriented devices. Yeah, but this— I just don't understand the concept of a Royal Commission into something.

[00:15:56] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I know, like, but isn't it a slap in the face for OpenAI, who is happy to pose for a photo? Then he goes, oh, by the way, we're going to do an investigation into AI when I get home. So thanks, be nice seeing you.

[00:16:08] Trevor Long: Well, but that's— maybe that's the problem, is a Royal Commission sounds like a bad thing, and maybe—

[00:16:13] Stephen Fenech: isn't it? What, do you have a Royal Commission about a good thing? Do you have a Royal Commission about how lovely the gardens are looking this year, or for how beautiful the sky looks?

[00:16:24] Trevor Long: And that's my point, is it's a policy conversation. It's a think tank. It would normally be— wouldn't it be, what do they call them, a white paper? You know, they'd have a think tank that would come up with a white paper which would form policy.

[00:16:35] Stephen Fenech: Yes, we've seen that in the past with other things.

[00:16:37] Trevor Long: Of course.

[00:16:38] Stephen Fenech: Didn't they have the social media ban up for comment as well for a while?

[00:16:41] Trevor Long: Well, yeah, but that's different. That was kind of already—

[00:16:44] Stephen Fenech: they asked for feedback.

[00:16:45] Trevor Long: That was already on the rails. That was already happening. Yeah, when a political party says, here's our policy on something, it's normally just an idea, or it was born out of something bigger, which might be some sort of think tank with leaders of that kind of industry or whatever it might be. You know, I just, mate, I don't understand how— yeah, where's he coming from? So let me check myself here.

[00:17:08] Stephen Fenech: If you've already called him a dickhead, mate, so you know anything's possible here.

[00:17:12] Trevor Long: If if Chris Minns announced a Royal Commission into AI. Yeah, I think he'd be the laughingstock. Yeah, I think it'd be the same.

[00:17:20] Stephen Fenech: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:21] Trevor Long: Do you know what I mean? Like, I think I, I just don't understand how we're not questioning the use of the term Royal Commission and the powers of a Royal Commission.

[00:17:28] Stephen Fenech: Well, does he sort of want to give it more weight by sort of— Royal Commission is sort of sounds a bit more official, or does he— it doesn't— he have the credentials or the pull to say if they're doing this in South Australia just as a policy discussion, is that not a big enough stage for him? For his— for what he wants to achieve.

[00:17:45] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:17:45] Stephen Fenech: Is that so? He's sort of trying to shoot for the stars with it.

[00:17:47] Trevor Long: I think it also— maybe it locks it in. Maybe it means that when he's not in power, it's hard for others to ignore, because if you ignore the findings of a Royal Commission—

[00:17:55] Stephen Fenech: there you go.

[00:17:56] Trevor Long: I don't know, it's kind of— it's just weird to me. Just weird.

[00:17:59] Stephen Fenech: Well, he's saying here that in this article, he says— the ABC article, he says, uh, South Australia is launching a Royal Commission into adult financial issues, with the state's Premier saying society is at a fork in the road. So we're at a point where we've got to choose how this is going to work best for us.

[00:18:14] Trevor Long: And it is. But isn't it like, again, I don't need a Royal Commission to tell me that this unbelievably powerful computing technology exists and I should be using it, I should be looking into it. And I think if you've been listening to us for any number of weeks, let alone years, and you're not dabbling, you're mad.

[00:18:31] Voice Over: Yeah.

[00:18:32] Trevor Long: And so, like, and again, we've talked about examples before, but, um, I did— you mentioned in a different show or a different time, I did a LinkedIn post about the listenership of the Carl Sanderlands Show, right?

[00:18:43] Stephen Fenech: That's what the, that was the private subject that it was this week.

[00:18:47] Trevor Long: There you go, write that down.

[00:18:48] Stephen Fenech: Private.

[00:18:48] Trevor Long: So let me tell you how I used AI to do that, right? I was just, I was working and I had it on beside me on a web browser and I noticed on the second day that the browser had like a little counter on it, like a number of viewers, which is very, very weird thing for like, I would never try and publish viewer numbers in real time. It's pretty big exposé, right? And for him, I thought that was huge. So I started taking screenshots of the whole stream, the chat and the viewer numbers. And I knew that screenshots on a Mac have, they say screenshot and then there's a date and time code, right? So I just, I took 36 screenshots across the 4-hour period and I went, oh man, I gotta write all these down. I went, no, I don't. I just uploaded them to Claude, and I said, here's a bunch of screenshots. They're exactly the same thing. You'll notice in the top right-hand corner there's a white bubble with black text in it, which is the viewer count. I want you to use the timecode of the file and the viewer count to create a graph.

[00:19:48] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:19:48] Trevor Long: Boom, boom, did. That would have— now I could have done that myself in Excel. I could have gone, okay, timecode, timecode, timecode, and viewer, viewer, viewer, probably 15, 20 minutes maybe of my own time. And then I would have to, you know, work out how to make it a graph and things, which I can do.

[00:20:03] Voice Over: But dude, it just went boom.

[00:20:06] Trevor Long: And if you are not thinking about those kinds of things, what are we doing here? Do you know what I mean? Don't you think that?

[00:20:12] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. No, use the tools at your disposal and they're becoming so, so much better and so much that can get you help get things done. There's menial things, there's repetitive things can now be taken outta your hands. But also too, and obviously Peter Malinowski thinks about this, he wants to make sure that it's applied in the right way. How many times have you heard, if this is— if this gets in the wrong hands, what happens? If it's used the right way, then AI can be a massive benefit. There's still a lot of naysayers that are, oh, this is Skynet and, you know, taking over. But, you know, that's the movies and that's kind of the clickbaity headline about it all. But AI, I think, not generally a very positive addition to our lives.

[00:20:57] Trevor Long: I was trying to find a press release that I got very, very recently which I thought might be relevant, but I can't remember who it was from. What's the name of that, um, uh, group? The Australian Computer Society, maybe it was them.

[00:21:10] Stephen Fenech: Is it ACS?

[00:21:10] Trevor Long: ACS, yes. So ACS released some data, just checking something, um, new data from the Australian Computer Society highlights the urgency to build local AI and tech capability. Now I'm feeding into Peter Malinuskis here, but what I'm continually saying is I don't think you need a royal commission to act upon these things. Australia's tech workforce shrank 0.3% in 2025, the first ever recorded decline.

[00:21:35] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:21:36] Trevor Long: Ever. This contraction comes despite the sector adding $142 billion to the economy in financial year '25, exposing a widening gap between the tech's economic output and the workforce needed to sustain it. So basically, and they go on to say, as a national AI framework is drafted, that's all we need, draft something.

[00:21:56] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:21:56] Trevor Long: The Australian Computer Science's ACE Australia's Digital Pulse report warns Australia will need another 259,000 tech workers by 2035 to grow productivity and maintain competitiveness. Dude, that's— why do we need a Royal Commission that's going to take $3 million and a bunch of time when we've got people, experts in the field going, hey, here's what we need.

[00:22:17] Stephen Fenech: Talk to them.

[00:22:18] Trevor Long: We need, we need to support training, education. Because again, I'll go back to Carl. Weirdly, this morning he said, they were talking about AI or something, and he said, that's the big— he goes, people who go to school to learn coding, that's the first job that's going to go.

[00:22:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:22:34] Trevor Long: Which is, to be honest, not so untrue. Yeah. Like, yeah, you know, AI can do a pretty good job at coding and it's really directing it that you need to learn. But there's also, there's also the people that need to build AI, build the data centers, support all that stuff.

[00:22:47] Stephen Fenech: But there was also AI they mentioned, I think it was Current Affairs story, or might have been 60 Minutes, one of the Channel 9 news shows, talking about how students, like 99% of students, use AI to do their work and to even take their exams as well. They need, they said, and this astonished me, they said they need to bring back in in-person exams. I mean, what? In-person exams so they can't use AI? Like, hello?

[00:23:13] Trevor Long: Well, they still do in school. They must be, it must be universities that's happening.

[00:23:16] Stephen Fenech: I don't know, but this sort of led to it was sort of different tangent to it about how were young people growing up aren't using their brains in the same way as us when we were the same age. Because you think about it, a lot of the thinking and reasoning and communication we had to do manually in person and do it ourselves, whereas AI and technology is taking that place. So we don't have to use that part of our brain anymore.

[00:23:43] Trevor Long: This won't surprise you, my next line here, but I had an argument with a bloke on LinkedIn the other day. Oh my God, what a shocker. Which I probably won't.

[00:23:51] Voice Over: On LinkedIn.

[00:23:52] Stephen Fenech: Is that another platform you have to leave behind, mate? Just leave it smoking wreckage.

[00:23:56] Trevor Long: I'll spread my wings to a professional platform. Wow, okay. So I'm pretty sure this guy is—

[00:24:04] Stephen Fenech: I've had a long— Is that your conversation you're flicking through?

[00:24:06] Trevor Long: No, I'm looking, it's just notifications because I wouldn't be able to find— I don't remember the bloke's name. But anyway, I'm pretty sure this guy— I once was not— it wasn't a beat up. I wasn't— unaware that it was happening, but I was put on a panel or something with The Current Affair where this guy was talking about phones in schools or something like that. So this guy is essentially super anti-technology at school, right? Um, I found the thread and I'll name him because I'm happy to have the debate. Uh, Danny Aleshie, the Heads Up Alliance. Now I think there's a backstory to his involvement in this issue, but anyway, basically he's saying there's pressure to, you know, move on from technology in the workforce. But I said and because they talk about age estimation. So it started with me saying, mate, the government knew age estimation was bad. So I said, if we were serious, we'd be banning devices, not software. And he goes, shall we do that then? Do I have your support? And I wrote, no, let parents be parents. If parents are more engaged in their kids' digital lives and are restricted from platforms or apps, that's how you do it.

[00:25:10] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:25:11] Trevor Long: And he said, what's the point of your comment? And then he sent me a change.org petition, which is about less screens, more learning, right? So this petition, which has 15,000 signatures, um, so it's well supported, I'll admit that. He's saying, because NAPLAN— or this, this is— this organization is saying NAPLAN reports are down, yada yada yada, we should go back to the principles of this. Primary school should be device-free. Foundation literacy and handwriting must be restored.

[00:25:40] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:25:41] Trevor Long: Default mode for high school learning must be books, handwriting, paper, and human relationships. And it goes on. And generative AI has no place in school learning. Let me tell you a little thing here. Harry, my little Harry, would struggle with hell if they didn't have computers because he's dyslexic, and that makes it very hard for him to do handwriting and a whole range of things. So, okay, you've got to have a balance where you go.

[00:26:02] Stephen Fenech: I agree.

[00:26:02] Trevor Long: Also, the workforce today is digital.

[00:26:06] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:26:06] Trevor Long: Can you imagine? But going to a workforce today and going, oh, I've got to get a pen and paper. Yeah, you'd be laughed out of the meeting.

[00:26:12] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but I still think there's a place for it. I agree with there needs to be balance. But do you think that like a student should not be able to learn how to write? No, like with a— Kids are taught how to write something like— They're taught how to write. But also, but I know, but I know that the slant is towards sort of digital learning, which is fine.

[00:26:32] Trevor Long: It's not though. It's not. I've got two kids in high school. They're not allowed to use laptops in the HSC. Right.

[00:26:38] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:26:38] Trevor Long: Even if your child is diagnosed with a learning difficulty, the best hope you've got is they get a scribe, someone that they can— they sit in another room and they go, I think the answer should be this, and write this down. Like, that's the best hope you get, really. Whereas in many cases, a child might be very good at typing, they might be very good at dictating. Like, we should be embracing technology that can make life easier for kids so that they can concentrate on the fundamental Fundamental learning.

[00:27:06] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, true, but not at the cost of them developmentally lacking. You know, like the thing that I was talking about before is that the developmental— what's missing nowadays is what we used to do when we were young, whereas talking to people, writing things down, working these things out for ourselves, we're using our brains. And that, because technology is doing all the heavy lifting now, we're not using that part of our brain anymore. Now that's all I'm talking about. If you can use technology to to help you learn and do things more efficiently, great. But I think we need to still keep, need to stay in touch with our intelligence and our own thinking. And I think kids need to be raised that way, thinking that the computer's not gonna do everything for you. You're still in control of that.

[00:27:56] Trevor Long: I think, you know what, it weirdly comes back to our same old motto, let parents be parents. Because if your kids, are using AI too much and therefore not actually learning, like you say, and I accept that. You've got to ask yourself the question, are you looking at how your kids are using it? Because I remember saying, I remember being asked to help with a maths question. I might have told this question this before, but I took a photo of it and got ChatGPT to answer it.

[00:28:20] Stephen Fenech: And thanks, Dad, I could have done that.

[00:28:21] Trevor Long: No, no, but I said to, whether it was Victoria or Harry, I said, but let me just be clear here, neither of us are learning how that maths equation was done. Yeah, just the good thing was ChatGPT at the time did spell it out.

[00:28:33] Stephen Fenech: I said, so show your work.

[00:28:34] Trevor Long: So what you've got to do is, is if you, if you get stuck, don't, don't beat yourself up because you didn't get it. Get the answer, work through it, then learn it backwards. Learn why it did it. Because absolutely, that's how, mate, that's how I learned nearly everything I do.

[00:28:50] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely.

[00:28:50] Trevor Long: The amount of times that I'm trying to do something somewhere and I Google it to— yeah, I can't work it out for myself. It would take me 4 hours working backwards. Fair enough. I don't know, there's a balance. Anyway, how we got on that, I don't know, from Peter Malinowski.

[00:29:01] Stephen Fenech: It's all about balancing.

[00:29:02] Trevor Long: Balance and let parents be parents. Yep. The number one motto of the two blokes.

[00:29:06] Stephen Fenech: Well, look, it's, I know if your kids had their choice, they'd be on their computers and devices 24/7. But if that's how you wanna raise your child, that's your business. But you wanna raise someone who, I'd like to think my child can think for themselves, has, you know, he's intelligent, he is, you know, compassionate and considerate. And those things don't take computers, they take parenting. That's, that's, that's part of the deal.

[00:29:37] Trevor Long: Comments from the Supercoach. Yeah, there he is, Grandpa Steve, with the knowledge and wealth of his many years here on Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:29:45] Voice Over: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:29:49] Stephen Fenech: Two Blokes Talking Tech is brought to you by our great friends at Arlo. And did you know that Arlo has a section on their website called Bundle and Save. And funny enough, when you bundle, you save.

[00:30:01] Trevor Long: That's unbelievable.

[00:30:02] Stephen Fenech: So if you are starting out, you might want to be— you might think, you know what, it's about time I got with the times and I created a security system around my home. Cameras. You can go to the Arlo website and put them all together. You might buy a 4-pack of cameras, or you might buy solar panel, you might buy a doorbell, you might buy an indoor camera, a pan and tilt zoom. You can get the lot, and if you put them together, you can get up to 20% off. Depending on how much you spend. I think, I believe it's $500 gets you 10%, $1,000 gets you 15%, $1,500 gets you 20%. But if you are putting them together, that is a great place to start. And all of their devices, of course, you can look through and see live notifications on your device, on your phone, through the app. Or if you do subscribe to the security plans, which we highly recommend, you can have save your, your footage for up to 30 days in the cloud and also have all these AI features as well, including smart notifications that tell you if there's a person, an animal, a vehicle, a package on your doorstep, as well as many other safety features that we've spoken about before. So check them out, uh, go to arlo.com and see this for yourself. You can put them together and bundle and save.

[00:31:16] Voice Over: Everything about tech you never wanted to know, this is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:31:23] Trevor Long: Stephen, it's been 2.5 weeks, nearly 3 weeks, 3 weeks, 3 weeks, and it goes officially on sale. They've been delivering them for a week and a half, so it's not really that big a deal. But you can buy the Fold 8 and the Fold 8 Ultra now. And we've spent literally that nearly 3 weeks using and running the Fold 8, the past.

[00:31:42] Stephen Fenech: Most of us, you're still— I actually reviewed mine earlier in the week and I've gone on to the Fold 8 Ultra now. So, but you've still got— I literally changed to this yesterday. I already published my review.

[00:31:52] Trevor Long: You can, you can read our reviews at techguide.com.au and eftm.com. But But look, I, I, I respect what it is, but it's still not right, right? That's, that's my simple summary.

[00:32:05] Stephen Fenech: Okay. Uh, my, my report suggests that this is going to open the floodgates for foldable users.

[00:32:13] Trevor Long: Agreed.

[00:32:13] Stephen Fenech: It's going to be the first and most popular consideration now for people who finally decide, I'm going to get a foldable phone. They're going to pull the trigger on that. And, you know, I've been a fan of the Fold way longer, way bigger than you've been. Yes. You've never been a real fan of the Fold. No, I've always been a fan of the Fold. And I found the Z Fold 8 is, I think, the ideal size and shape for a foldable device.

[00:32:39] Trevor Long: Potentially.

[00:32:40] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. It takes a bit of getting used to having that smaller device in your pocket and in your hand.

[00:32:45] Trevor Long: No, and a lot of the best—

[00:32:46] Stephen Fenech: how many people said to us, oh, what is it?

[00:32:48] Trevor Long: What's that? You know, we were together so much in the last 2 weeks that it became weird that people noticed us together with these things. Yeah, but there's no doubt it's, it's attention grabbing and for good reason. There's no doubt it is pocketable and very good in the hand. Excellent in the hand. And to be clear, it's the width of an iPhone Pro Max. Like, it's, it's not actually a big wide phone. It just looks wide because it is not as tall.

[00:33:10] Stephen Fenech: I put a comparison of the, the S26 Ultra and the Z Fold 8, and the Z Fold 8 is 5mm wider. It's bugger all than, than the, than the S26 Ultra screen.

[00:33:23] Trevor Long: It's really not much at all in the hand. Yeah, but what you do is you chop the top off, and here, that's my biggest gripe, is you've got to realize the keyboard takes up 50% of the screen when you're doing anything typing.

[00:33:34] Stephen Fenech: And on some apps too, like, uh, it's, it's some of the apps haven't been optimized for this form factor yet. And did you— I don't know whether you found this— like, there are some apps where you need to access the button below and it won't let you. Even when you put the keyboard away, it wouldn't let you go down the screen. Had to open up the device to sort of get the bigger version of it.

[00:33:53] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:33:54] Stephen Fenech: Some. So I think, I think apps will fall in line.

[00:33:56] Trevor Long: Yes, like, so I think that's my biggest concern is that it's not 100% efficient in all apps now. Now Instagram's a great example. It works in all form, all three ways, you know, passport, wide on the inside, and portrait on the inside, right? Works in all three ways. But if you happen to go from one to the other, it can get confused. Yeah, like I went from open to closed and look at the front screen and I got this weird narrow, like it wasn't even taking up the whole screen. I had it, had it so it was overlaying Instagram stories above my notifications. Like, what is going on?

[00:34:29] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I had that too.

[00:34:29] Trevor Long: So just a lot of little bugs. Interestingly, yeah, get this, Kayo, when you were playing with it in Perth, which is 4 days ago, yeah, we couldn't get it in full screen mode, right?

[00:34:39] Stephen Fenech: What?

[00:34:40] Trevor Long: You remember we couldn't make it go?

[00:34:41] Stephen Fenech: No. Yeah, not on the Fold 8. We couldn't. I did it this morning on the Fold 8.

[00:34:46] Trevor Long: I went to take photos of the bloody thing not working, and it worked. But there had not been an update. So what was I doing wrong? I don't know.

[00:34:52] Stephen Fenech: There was an update.

[00:34:52] Trevor Long: No, it was July 28th was the last update.

[00:34:55] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:34:56] Trevor Long: I checked. So that was a weird thing for me that we, we did have some bugs with.

[00:35:00] Stephen Fenech: So you're saying don't go full screen?

[00:35:02] Trevor Long: Why? Open full map, I could go full wide.

[00:35:04] Stephen Fenech: So 4:3 didn't work, but 3:4 it worked?

[00:35:07] Trevor Long: No, it was working both ways.

[00:35:08] Stephen Fenech: Right. Yeah, because it was only working in 4:3 when, when we were— it was working 4:3 that way, not just not wide.

[00:35:15] Trevor Long: Yeah, I, I just think that there's a lot of little things, like I feel like the keyboard's a great width width at that size, because I think all Pro and Ultra-sized, you know, phones have a good keyboard. So I think it's good to type on.

[00:35:26] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:35:27] Trevor Long: Um, I just found there was a couple of times when I was in the comments or something, and you'd be typing, it'd be 3 lines in, and then you'd lose like the lines behind the keyboard. So I don't know, I just think there's a lot of work to do, and it's a very small part of the market. So yeah, it's a lot for even Instagram, right? Yeah, even Instagram to dedicate time to making just slick. Yeah, he's a big deal.

[00:35:48] Stephen Fenech: I think, I think I've said this before, when Apple eventually— and Apple, to be clear, we know, put us a bit— worst kept secret that Apple's going to have a similar shaped phone down the track. And I think I said to you, I said, when Apple released theirs, every app will be perfect on it. They'll get every app, every developer will have it ready to go.

[00:36:06] Trevor Long: Because for us to have a little gripe about a Samsung phone, it's life. But if you have a gripe about an Apple phone, it's a headline. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, so Apple can't afford—

[00:36:15] Stephen Fenech: like, yeah, well, Samsung can't afford either with the Fold 8, they— because like I said, a lot of people are going to consider this as their first foldable device. And I've always said you only get one chance to make a first impression, and if this doesn't play up— if it plays up, it doesn't give you that best experience, then that might turn other people off it, right?

[00:36:33] Trevor Long: So it was kind of interesting because one of the examples I was trying to give was, um, you know, the inner screen and when you might use it and whatnot. I thought about that's, you know, Instagram Reels is something that we, we both look at a lot, right? I've got to turn the volume down. And so if you look at an Instagram Reel upright on a, on a vertical size here, it's the same size as an Ultra. Same size as a Samsung S26 Ultra. Or it's made, it's, it's 5mm wider, slightly bigger. So it's not actually that remarkably better. But you know what, you know what, this is, this is better to hold in your, weirdly, this is better to hold in your hand. More comfortable because it's lighter.

[00:37:10] Stephen Fenech: Well, look at the Fold 8 Ultra, right? So we've got the square inside screen. So yeah, you can't— this is a bit harder to grip. You can, but that's easy to grip because it's narrower. So this is— and this only goes one shape. You look at it, it's the same shape no matter how you hold it, right?

[00:37:25] Trevor Long: So the comments will tell you otherwise. I get a lot of people telling me that the— that is the same width or that it's not. No.

[00:37:32] Stephen Fenech: Well, the widescreen video on that in 4:3 is wider than you get on this one. One, which is 4 by 4, whatever, 1 to 1.

[00:37:40] Trevor Long: So many comments that it's not. Well, and we don't have the—

[00:37:44] Stephen Fenech: what I like about the Fold 8 is that you get to choose how you want to view your content. It gives you choices. Yeah, hang on, here's a video, I need to hold it this way. Or hang on, I'm reading a book or browsing website, I can hold it this way. Or on the front, it kind of does everything. You can do your messages and all the everyday things. So I think that the fact that it gives you those choices to enjoy your content in its best form, best shape, best size. That's good, skinny, attractive. That's a content viewer's phone.

[00:38:14] Trevor Long: In defense, yes, I said it's, it's, it's the perfect phone for viewers and readers. Yeah, no question. If you're someone who just reads a lot of websites or books or whatever, if you're someone that views a lot of content, it is unbelievably good for that. And I, I've said that I feel like those intricacies of the front screen force me to open it more. And I didn't begrudge it.

[00:38:37] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:38:37] Trevor Long: So let me be clear, I didn't not want to open it. I just wasn't— what I wanted to do right then. And you know, if I found myself for more than 5 minutes scrolling Instagram, I'm like, I might as well open this thing up and get a better screen. Yeah. So it is that perfect mix of, yeah, I'm just here to quickly do something, or actually I'm going to embed myself in this now. So yeah, I'm going to open it up.

[00:38:55] Stephen Fenech: So get comfortable. Yeah.

[00:38:56] Trevor Long: Let me be super clear, way better than a Fold, traditional Fold, in my mind. So I would pick this every day over the Ultra. Does the camera ultra meet standards. Yeah, of a premium smartphone.

[00:39:08] Stephen Fenech: No, well, it's not, it's not, it's not an ultra level.

[00:39:11] Trevor Long: I did some zoom tests and the zoom's pretty good even though it's digital, right?

[00:39:14] Stephen Fenech: And you get, you gotta remember, there's two 50-megapixel cameras that are both wide and ultra-wide. You've got a 10-megapixel front camera, uh, and you get the same benefits of the form factor too. Like, you can take selfies with the main camera because you can activate the front screen to frame.

[00:39:29] Trevor Long: It's very hard to hold in that It is a bit.

[00:39:32] Stephen Fenech: The dual recording is great feature too, but I think Apple has that anyway.

[00:39:36] Trevor Long: There's not a lot of, yeah, you know, apps that allow you to do this. Yeah, like the Flip would.

[00:39:42] Stephen Fenech: Well, the Ultra does that too, doesn't it? You could do YouTube like that, can't you, with the Ultra?

[00:39:46] Trevor Long: Uh, I haven't done that on this.

[00:39:47] Stephen Fenech: Let me see. You can't do YouTube.

[00:39:49] Trevor Long: It definitely doesn't do it on that.

[00:39:50] Stephen Fenech: No, it definitely doesn't. Yeah, now that, that is— yeah, it's sort of become more customizable like the Flip. So the Flip has those functions that you you can—

[00:39:59] Trevor Long: it's kind of by default, by default it's like that anyway. But it also doesn't really have a hard— like, it doesn't have multiple stops. It flicks open.

[00:40:06] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, true.

[00:40:07] Trevor Long: It's like, like the Flip does.

[00:40:08] Stephen Fenech: Well, that's, that's the other thing too. Like, they made it easier to open as well. Did you notice that?

[00:40:12] Trevor Long: A million times.

[00:40:12] Stephen Fenech: Remember the Fold 7? And we sort of said, oh, it's a bit tough to open, it's hard to get a grip on this.

[00:40:17] Trevor Long: So much easier.

[00:40:19] Stephen Fenech: It sort of pops open. The hinge is a bit more, yeah, receptive to it.

[00:40:22] Trevor Long: Yeah. And mate, this crease isn't good. Sensational.

[00:40:26] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you can hardly see the crease.

[00:40:27] Trevor Long: It's pretty good.

[00:40:28] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, and what about battery life? How'd you go battery life?

[00:40:31] Trevor Long: Unbelievable. Yeah, it's an all-day battery.

[00:40:33] Stephen Fenech: Day and a bit I got.

[00:40:35] Trevor Long: Yeah, it's an all day. Like, who's— no one's charging their phone halfway through a day. All right, what do you either want to get, a full day or two full days out of a phone?

[00:40:42] Stephen Fenech: That's true. What else? Uh, one thing I commented, and this was other people said this when I gave it to them to hold, they said it's very slippery. It's a very slick phone.

[00:40:51] Trevor Long: Unlike you, I never dropped mine.

[00:40:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I haven't dropped mine either, but, uh, Dropped it on carpet, like, in— that's still a drop, right? Okay, but it's not, not high drop.

[00:40:59] Trevor Long: It drops a drop.

[00:40:59] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but I think, uh, yeah, I reckon, uh, get a case for it, not just to protect it, but I reckon a stand. If you've got a case with a little stand that pops out the back so you can rest it in that 4:3 mode, that'd be awesome.

[00:41:13] Trevor Long: I didn't bag them for it, but the fact that it doesn't have Qi 2 is ridiculous because that'd be the perfect way to get a magnetic—

[00:41:19] Stephen Fenech: it has got wireless, eh?

[00:41:20] Trevor Long: Yes, but it doesn't have Qi 2. Like again, and you know what, this form factor needs it more than anything. We were talking about this in one of the cars we were in. It's like, there won't be, won't be long hopefully before Qi 2 becomes a standard in new cars. It's going to take 6 to 10 years for it to be genuinely acceptable, but this is a phone that doesn't fit normal proportions. So is it too high, too low in the charging pad? If it was Qi 2, it'd just go, it's there.

[00:41:43] Stephen Fenech: And in a car that makes sense, say, because it's held in place, it's not going to slide around.

[00:41:46] Trevor Long: It's held in place.

[00:41:47] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, although they do have sort of grippy surfaces for phones now, but they don't—

[00:41:51] Trevor Long: it's never good enough. And also still too wobbly. Locks around.

[00:41:56] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, true, true. But in general, I rate it highly. I would, uh, I would use— it's funny how I've gone back to the Ultra and I'm, I'm thinking now it's actually— the front screen is actually not too bad to be able to still type on it now. Like, I don't know whether that conditioned me or something, but I'm finding I'm actually really enjoying going back to the bigger screen, the bigger Fold. Yeah, so That's just me.

[00:42:22] Trevor Long: Imagine they could get those cameras just embedded in the thing.

[00:42:24] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I know there's no bump in it.

[00:42:26] Trevor Long: I know there's a lot to take out.

[00:42:27] Stephen Fenech: How do you do that?

[00:42:28] Trevor Long: It's so thin, mate. Take out some batteries.

[00:42:31] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, then you've got no battery life at all.

[00:42:32] Trevor Long: You get plenty of battery life.

[00:42:33] Stephen Fenech: That's thin. It is fairly thin as well. That's no thicker than a regular phone.

[00:42:36] Trevor Long: No, not at all.

[00:42:37] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the Fold 8.

[00:42:39] Trevor Long: We're past the point of folds being problematic for their weight at all.

[00:42:42] Stephen Fenech: Can't wait for him to bring back the tri-fold. Come on, Sam.

[00:42:46] Trevor Long: Come on, he's desperate, Stephen Finn.

[00:42:49] Stephen Fenech: Come on.

[00:42:51] Trevor Long: Look, great phone, pricey, $2,700.

[00:42:53] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, she's not cheap, but I think the entry-level memory is 256, if from memory, is that right? And then, because you remember that last year's entry-level price was— this is higher entry level, or not that there was one last year, but that you're now getting the second level of memory as standard rather than the first level of memory.

[00:43:12] Trevor Long: It's a hard thing to compare apples with apples.

[00:43:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:43:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, because it's a Samsung for a start. But anyway, yeah, the Apple, the, the Ultra is the same price as the first Fold. Yeah. So we haven't actually— no, we haven't actually gone up too much. It's just that we went down over the years and have gone back up. Yeah.

[00:43:27] Stephen Fenech: But again, mate, all eyes are on what Apple do now. How do they respond?

[00:43:32] Trevor Long: They'll respond with an iPhone Ultra. Yeah, really that simple.

[00:43:34] Stephen Fenech: Is that in the name, you think?

[00:43:36] Trevor Long: Correct. I mean, according to Mark Gurman, that is the only name they call it inside Apple. That's all they call it. Right, you know, it may be that that's a project name. Yeah, I just don't know what else they call them.

[00:43:47] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I reckon where Apple's gonna surprise and delight people is how the fold works, and they'll have some quirky feature that is— everyone's gonna go, whoa, that's amazing!

[00:43:58] Trevor Long: Whoa!

[00:43:58] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see how it compares. I still think it's going to be very expensive. The Apple foldable will be very expensive. Expensive. My pick was at least 3.5.

[00:44:10] Trevor Long: I'm under 3.5. We're just playing the line.

[00:44:12] Stephen Fenech: If it's under 3.5, that's an achievement if they get it under 3.5, because don't forget the Pro and the Pro Max, they're going to be more expensive to begin with.

[00:44:23] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:44:23] Stephen Fenech: And so the Ultra has got to be, I believe, probably ahead of them in terms of pricing and positioning. This is the new deluxe. You're getting a tablet and a phone. You're getting an iPad Mini and a phone in one.

[00:44:36] Trevor Long: I think that's— I think there'd be people who work in the frontline sales of Apple that would say, guys, that's fine, but remember the rest of the market is way below us. Well, so that's why I think $3,500 is exorbitant.

[00:44:51] Stephen Fenech: I, I could— I'm thinking it could be even more if we hadn't had the chip shortage.

[00:44:56] Trevor Long: $2,999.

[00:44:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, that'd be—

[00:44:59] Trevor Long: for that reason, I think it could be $3,149.

[00:45:02] Stephen Fenech: If it's anything under $3,500, I'll say well done. Well done if they can get it under that.

[00:45:09] Trevor Long: Yeah, mate, the people that are buying iPhone Pro Maxes are not buying them outright.

[00:45:12] Stephen Fenech: No, of course not.

[00:45:13] Trevor Long: They're buying on a contract.

[00:45:14] Stephen Fenech: That's right. Exactly right. That's why they can afford it.

[00:45:17] Trevor Long: Frankly, it doesn't matter what they charge for it. Yeah, it will just sell.

[00:45:20] Stephen Fenech: It does. It does matter because I don't think— you remember with the Samsung, their pre-sale, they had all the telcos had massive discounts. And will they— are they allowed to do that with iPhones, to do the same thing? Will Apple let them take $800 off the price?

[00:45:35] Trevor Long: No, they'll do trade-in deals instead.

[00:45:37] Stephen Fenech: So it's going to be different. And because the Samsung's on record, their prices are out there, that's going to— Apple might be rethinking where they stand.

[00:45:47] Trevor Long: Well, we're essentially 4 weeks away. Yep, there you go. If the rumors are to be true, we're less than a month away.

[00:45:52] Voice Over: Wow.

[00:45:52] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:45:54] Trevor Long: Thursday, what are we saying, Thursday 11th here? Is that the day?

[00:45:57] Stephen Fenech: Sydney time. Yeah. So you believe it'll be Wednesday the 10th?

[00:46:01] Trevor Long: Only because I personally would've backed Tuesday, but all the conversation in America is, oh, there's a public holiday in America on the Monday and we can't make people do a thing on the day after. Why not? You're at work. Something to do with travel. I think the rumors are that it's all about how, you know, they don't wanna have to make journos fly on a public holiday.

[00:46:21] Stephen Fenech: But also too, there's rumors that they reckon to put a lottery out to Apple Store staff to volunteer to apply to be part of the launch day. So they'll be on hand as they normally do. You normally see the people in the different colored shirts coming from across the country. Yeah, the Apple staff, they'll no doubt offer that again as well.

[00:46:40] Trevor Long: I'm sure they will. All right, well, we'll find out in a month. But our full reviews of the Samsung Galaxy Fold 8 at techguide.com.au and eftm.com.

[00:46:49] Voice Over: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech. With Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.

[00:46:57] Stephen Fenech: Well, Amazon has announced yet again another, another delivery feature, Prime Day. Same— well, they've already had sort of same-day Prime delivery as before, but now you can choose from— is it 3 windows now? So the point is you can get Amazon delivered if you live in Sydney or Melbourne Melbourne with an order over $49 of qualifying eligible products to your door in as little as 5 hours.

[00:47:27] Trevor Long: So there's a million products in Sydney, there's half a million products in Melbourne. We're basically talking about things here that are in their properly automated, easy-to-use fulfillment centers. And obviously that $49 limit essentially just is a price issue. They need to make— this is costing them money. But if you order before 10:00 PM, you can get it delivered between 4:00 and 8:00 AM. If you order by 8:00 AM, you can get it by 2:00 to 6:00 PM that day. And if you order before midday, you can get it between 5:00 and 10:00 PM.

[00:47:54] Stephen Fenech: Well, I tested it out.

[00:47:56] Trevor Long: Yeah, nice.

[00:47:56] Stephen Fenech: I'm thinking, and I put my order in there. I scrubbed out certain details, but I left, I bought 3 books. I placed the order at 12:26 PM.

[00:48:07] Trevor Long: Right. That's after the midday window.

[00:48:09] Stephen Fenech: Correct. Delivered at 6:06 PM. 6:00 PM.

[00:48:14] Trevor Long: Nice.

[00:48:15] Stephen Fenech: So what's that? 5.5 hours. Yeah, right. 5.5 hours from midday to 6:00 PM. And I don't live actually right near the fulfillment center. So that's pretty good.

[00:48:24] Trevor Long: Yeah, no. Yeah. I mean, look, it's cool. Sydney, Melbourne get those super fast deliveries, but there's plenty of places across Australia where you can get reasonably good deals. So Perth, Canberra, Geelong, New South Wales Central Coast, Newcastle, and Hunter all have order as late as 11:00 AM for same-day delivery by 10:00 PM. That's pretty good.

[00:48:41] Stephen Fenech: You think about it, like everyone's saying, oh, why would you want something so fast? You think about it, imagine you've forgotten a birthday present your anniversary or something.

[00:48:47] Trevor Long: Has happened in our house recently. What am I gonna get 'em?

[00:48:50] Stephen Fenech: And knowing that you can, there's something there that can get within 5 or 6 hours, that's a game changer, lifesaver.

[00:48:56] Trevor Long: It's insane basically.

[00:48:57] Voice Over: Yeah.

[00:48:57] Trevor Long: Some of the ability. So I ordered some stuff this afternoon that'll be here tonight and I'm like, okay, but I didn't think about it. I'm testing a bunch of those vacuum seal bag things for trips because A, I'm gonna be away for like 5, 6 weeks. Okay. So I'm like, ah.

[00:49:12] Stephen Fenech: Do the research.

[00:49:13] Trevor Long: How many shirts? Is this for the whole family or just you? Who knows? So I'm gonna try it over the next few weeks, just, you know, see, 'cause they're great. The idea of a vacuum sealing your clothes is brilliant. You can fit 5 times as much in, right? But the problem is when you're at your destination, you don't have a vacuum. So you get these little things, right? And they're normally rubbish. So I bought a really high premium one, plus I bought a bunch of Amazon ones. And I bought one that was a US, like, wall-powered vacuum, little handheld thing. If one of them does a reasonable job, and the reasonable job to me is I've packed my clothes in a bag, I want no more than 5 minutes to suck the air out of this thing. If we can do that, isn't that great? Faster than that, are we? No, because it takes, it takes a while. Like with a proper vacuum, it takes—

[00:49:52] Stephen Fenech: So all those ads are all sped up, are they?

[00:49:54] Trevor Long: They're all sped up. Oh yeah. Even with a normal, like proper vacuum, it takes minutes to properly suck the air out of a bag. Because when you suck the air out, they're like, it's like hard as rock.

[00:50:04] Stephen Fenech: They're like, yeah.

[00:50:05] Trevor Long: So I want something that's powerful, super portable.

[00:50:09] Stephen Fenech: So you bought all of them in one day?

[00:50:10] Trevor Long: I bought a bunch of different cheap ones, expensive ones and stuff. And I want to see which one will be good at it because I keep saying to Amanda and the kids, 5 weeks or 4 weeks they're gonna be away. I'm away for 5 or 6. When I get to join them, I've done 2 weeks already. So I've either gotta offload a bunch of stuff or do some washing.

[00:50:28] Stephen Fenech: Do some washing, mate. Get to a laundry. Get to a laundromat.

[00:50:31] Trevor Long: But see, a laundromat, that's 2 hours out of your day that we should be doing tours and things, touristy things.

[00:50:35] Stephen Fenech: Of course.

[00:50:36] Trevor Long: Do you know what I mean? So it's a balance.

[00:50:37] Stephen Fenech: Get the hotel to do it for you.

[00:50:38] Trevor Long: Have you paid? Have you seen how much they charge?

[00:50:40] Stephen Fenech: If you don't want it to impinge in your time, then that's what you pay.

[00:50:43] Trevor Long: I pay stupid money for stupid things. Things, that's where I draw the line. Okay, there is no justification. I only buy a minibar when it's someone else's card. Thanks, Optus.

[00:50:52] Stephen Fenech: I never touched my minibar. I wish I did now. You know what?

[00:50:54] Trevor Long: No, I'll give you a tip.

[00:50:55] Stephen Fenech: I wish I did now.

[00:50:56] Trevor Long: The minibar was on our credit card.

[00:50:58] Stephen Fenech: Ah, I never touched it.

[00:50:58] Trevor Long: There was only room service in the restaurant.

[00:51:01] Stephen Fenech: See, this genius goes, I know, I just leave it and check out. I checked out and they gave us room, like our meals. Yeah. And they said, no worries, Mr. Fenech.

[00:51:09] Trevor Long: But what, what would have changed?

[00:51:11] Voice Over: Used?

[00:51:11] Stephen Fenech: Uh, well, I didn't pay a cent.

[00:51:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, but I— yeah, I would have paid a cent because it was still my minibar. Okay, I had to pay.

[00:51:17] Stephen Fenech: So the minibar wasn't covered within meals?

[00:51:19] Trevor Long: No, no, but I would have bought it anyway.

[00:51:20] Stephen Fenech: I never touched the minibar.

[00:51:21] Trevor Long: I needed a chocolate badly.

[00:51:23] Stephen Fenech: Okay, there was a couple in there.

[00:51:24] Trevor Long: My first day, we arrived late, there was nothing on. I'm like, oh no, I've got to smash something.

[00:51:28] Stephen Fenech: I smashed room service that night, it was great.

[00:51:30] Trevor Long: Yeah, we went to a beautiful steak restaurant, mate. You missed out. Yeah, probably one of the best steak restaurants.

[00:51:34] Stephen Fenech: Well, that was a day I had other— we'll discuss.

[00:51:36] Trevor Long: The Tipsy Cow in Perth.

[00:51:37] Stephen Fenech: We'll discuss in the private why I was— remember to get a lot of things signed and that was the day everything had to be finalized.

[00:51:42] Trevor Long: Oh, we're gonna discuss that as well. You gonna write that down?

[00:51:43] Stephen Fenech: Maybe, yeah.

[00:51:44] Trevor Long: I've forgotten other things.

[00:51:45] Stephen Fenech: I'll remember.

[00:51:45] Trevor Long: Will you?

[00:51:46] Stephen Fenech: I'll remember. I already remember two things.

[00:51:48] Trevor Long: You can only remember two things at a time? Yeah. All right, well we'll get to the private feed. You'll hear that. If you're watching the YouTube video, the link is below for the private feed.

[00:51:55] Stephen Fenech: Just one last thing on Amazon.

[00:51:56] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:51:57] Stephen Fenech: The other announcement they made was a thing called Amazon Day, which is really smart because you can choose what day you want your stuff delivered. So say you wanna, your day off's Tuesday and you think, oh, all my orders, I want 'em to come on Tuesday. You can nominate Tuesday as your delivery day.

[00:52:09] Trevor Long: I see. Absolutely no purpose to that.

[00:52:12] Stephen Fenech: Well, I know they leave it out the front, but people who maybe want to be there when the packages arrive, they might live in an apartment building or something that I want to— they want to be around.

[00:52:19] Trevor Long: You don't want to wait an extra minute. If you can get here now, get it here now.

[00:52:23] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I want it now. You sound like Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka, you know, the one— I want it now, you know, the one who wants the golden goose and she goes down the hatch. Okay, you know, the spoiled one.

[00:52:33] Trevor Long: I'll take your word for it.

[00:52:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, Veruca Salt. We've done it, mate, on the movie.

[00:52:35] Trevor Long: Remember those names?

[00:52:36] Stephen Fenech: We've done it over at the movie.

[00:52:37] Trevor Long: I know. We have, but I just don't remember it. Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:52:40] Voice Over: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech.

[00:52:47] Trevor Long: All thanks to the good people at Netgear, netgear.com.au, for all your Wi-Fi needs. If you, if you've got great internet. I just got a message from someone who's a long-term listener. Where is it? Here. Adam Pooley sent me a DM, said, I just did the NBN FTP upgrade because my neighbor was doing it. I saw it and I did it. He's just sent me a screenshot. Used to get 82 down down, now getting 495. Yeah, baby! No point doing an upgrade like that if you're not putting in great Wi-Fi to support it. A lot of people have got the modem that came from their internet provider or a modem they bought years ago. A good Wi-Fi system is what you need. We say system because it's not just one box, should be multiple boxes, a router and multiple satellites around your home will give you great Wi-Fi across your whole home. A dome of Wi-Fi is how we often describe it. The best speeds across your whole home for every device. So the TV in the back room should get great speed, speeds, as, as does the Xbox in the front room. Doesn't matter what— where you're in, the end comes into your home, the Wi-Fi will cover the whole home with the Netgear Orbi system. So check them out now. You can find the details at netgear.com.au.

[00:53:51] Voice Over: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.

[00:53:57] Trevor Long: I was so nervous last night.

[00:53:58] Stephen Fenech: Why's that?

[00:53:59] Trevor Long: Well, 10 years ago I was called in to do the Today Show.

[00:54:05] Stephen Fenech: And was that the last census, or did we have one 5 years ago?

[00:54:08] Trevor Long: They're every 5 years, right?

[00:54:10] Stephen Fenech: I remember that. I was in America when that happened.

[00:54:12] Trevor Long: It crashed so bad. And I thought to myself last night as I sat down, we had a family meeting about Disney World. And then I said, stop, we've got to sit here and we're going to do the census. Vivi was at netball and Jackson was in bed and I called him down. And anyway, so I got the kind of piece of paper and I set up the login and everything and I started doing it. And I thought, I said to Amanda, if this crashes, great story, but I don't have time for it tomorrow. Like I was just so nervous that because we've got a long day, I just didn't have time for our days to be ruined by a big big story, right?

[00:54:42] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:54:42] Trevor Long: Anyway, it went great. Yeah, no dramas. It's good. Tick, tick, tick, tick.

[00:54:47] Stephen Fenech: Well, in, in, uh, Joe did ours. Joe, she said, you want me to? I said, my car, I was gonna do it. I said, yeah, okay, you take it. And she was saying, she then yelled out, hey, what's your sexual orientation? And I went, you need me to tell you, dear? Hello? She was being funny.

[00:55:02] Trevor Long: Yeah, she's funny. And she said, what's your religion? How many hours did she put down for you for work?

[00:55:08] Stephen Fenech: 2.

[00:55:08] Trevor Long: That's 2 hours a week. That's over.

[00:55:10] Stephen Fenech: And she put herself down for 40.

[00:55:12] Trevor Long: How many? What were the 2 hours you did?

[00:55:14] Stephen Fenech: Uh, dishwasher, hanging the washing out, putting the washing in, um, vacuuming my office, uh, setting up the robot vacuum to clean the floors.

[00:55:25] Trevor Long: That's work.

[00:55:25] Stephen Fenech: That's, that's 5 to 10 minutes.

[00:55:26] Trevor Long: I put down 72 hours of work and no, no, no housework.

[00:55:30] Stephen Fenech: I don't know how many hours of work she put down for me. It's a mystery, but she put me down for 2 hours of— hopefully she topped me up.

[00:55:38] Trevor Long: It was fun though, because, um, and I'll be honest, this was well done from a technical execution.

[00:55:44] Stephen Fenech: It was well done.

[00:55:44] Trevor Long: You were posted— there was a— I saw a great TikTok last night of a comedian on stage. I'm gonna say his name's Blakey or something like that. Anyway, funny as hell because he goes, I'm sick of all these cookers and idiots on the internet going, I don't want the government to know where— like, I've just got a letter telling me to do the census data, I don't want the government to know where I live. And the bloke goes, He goes, mate, they just sent you a letter.

[00:56:04] Stephen Fenech: They just sent you a letter, you know where you live.

[00:56:07] Trevor Long: That's a great line.

[00:56:08] Stephen Fenech: That's a great line.

[00:56:09] Trevor Long: I don't want, you know, the government should know where I work. The ATO does, but it's not about your overall employment. It's about where you were yesterday or today. It's about that day.

[00:56:17] Stephen Fenech: It's a snapshot in time. Jo and I discussed this and she was saying they asked about, are you a vaper or a smoker? They asked about, yeah, apparently that was a question.

[00:56:28] Trevor Long: I did the questions.

[00:56:30] Stephen Fenech: Anyway, well, that's what I think. I think that she said, I heard it on the, someone said on the news that it was one of the questions. Anyway, she was saying, look, they did not ask about how many cars there are in the family.

[00:56:40] Trevor Long: Yeah, they did. It must be random. They asked us how many cars were registered to the family.

[00:56:44] Stephen Fenech: She reckons that wasn't in there.

[00:56:45] Trevor Long: I 100% answered 3 cars 'cause I thought I've gotta include the Mazda.

[00:56:48] Stephen Fenech: Okay, that's weird. Wow. Must be different for different areas.

[00:56:52] Trevor Long: I'm just trying to go back and have a look at it.

[00:56:55] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but like, obviously the idea of this is to see where everyone is, what they're doing. Like I did, my mother's still in Malta, right? And I did, I check her mail every couple of days. So I got her one, did hers, and I was sort of answering on her behalf to say, I'm not here, I'm overseas. And she said, okay, you don't need to answer any more questions.

[00:57:13] Trevor Long: Once you've submitted it, you're off the hook.

[00:57:15] Stephen Fenech: No, no, you can't.

[00:57:15] Trevor Long: Look, but it was fun because I did mine and Amanda's, and Jackson came down here because Amanda goes, don't do his, he wants to do it. I went, okay, he can do it. He's a big boy, he can do what he's own. Like he wanted to answer his own questions. He wanted to, and you know, I think 'cause someone, I was on the radio this week, someone asked me about the census and I said something about, you know, your kids don't really know what it is. And they go, there used to be a song or something in schools where you'd learn about it. And I'm like, I don't think there is anymore. No one cares, right? But you know, Harry did his, he took, he was way quicker than Jackson. And then I left him, I just said, I told the kids what the password was out. We've got a password for our streaming services. I said, I'm going to bed. When Victoria gets home, she can finish it. It's just the login is this. I gave her the letter and the password is our streaming password. Password. And I got an email in the morning, well, that had come overnight saying census complete. So if my 15-year-old can log in and do it, great, well done, good system.

[00:58:03] Stephen Fenech: What about the fines? If you don't do it, they fine you, and then per day it takes you to do it.

[00:58:08] Trevor Long: Yeah, well, I mean, like, again, I don't think people understand how important this thing is. Like, we spent at SBS— when I was at SBS for 20— hmm, must be in the 2011 census. Anyway, we took a whole census and we rejigged because it was in the radio division where we had 68 languages. And our argument as a management team, the new white management team was, 'cause that's how they saw us, commercial radio management team was all these languages have been split up like this, got this many hours, they've got this many hours, does not reflective of the current state of Australia. So we just went, what's the current census? And we rejigged the whole thing, which resulted in like hundreds of redundancies.

[00:58:47] Stephen Fenech: It was crazy. Really?

[00:58:48] Trevor Long: Geez. Yeah, because why aren't we doing Tagalog or why aren't we doing a bunch of other languages that now exist in Australia?

[00:58:55] Stephen Fenech: Australia?

[00:58:55] Trevor Long: And why do the Vietnamese get so many hours when Arabic and Chinese are just as big as that in Australia now? So we realigned all that. That's a simple example of decisions that are made. And cars, how many cars are in an area? Yeah, you can get that outta Regos, but it doesn't tell you how many are in a place on a random night in August. So yeah, people that, and I did see Dr. Nick Coatsworth, Coatsworth, Coatsworth, yeah. He was on Instagram going, I am— I've never— I've always said no religion in the answer. I am gonna fill in a religious answer tonight because I'm annoyed by Andrew Denton and others campaigning that everyone fills in no religion so that we don't make decisions in government about religion based on religion, right? But in the end— and I said this to Amanda, I said, what do you want to put down? And she gave me a religion to put down. She hadn't been to church since I've known her, but I— and neither have I, but I put down a religion because I was always, as a kid, I was just, we went to, my nana was Presbyterian and we went to the Presbyterian, like I just put that down. That's what I, if I was to stand in front of the Lord and he said, what's your religion? I say Presbyterian. Don't ask me any more questions, bro.

[01:00:04] Stephen Fenech: Prespo.

[01:00:04] Trevor Long: Prespo, bro. Don't ask me anything at all about what's in the book, bro.

[01:00:08] Stephen Fenech: How many apostles were there?

[01:00:09] Trevor Long: I haven't read it.

[01:00:10] Stephen Fenech: 12. 12, cool. Name 'em.

[01:00:13] Trevor Long: No.

[01:00:14] Stephen Fenech: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

[01:00:15] Trevor Long: Some of them have fallen into the ocean on the Great Ocean Road, I'm sorry.

[01:00:19] Stephen Fenech: They are different.

[01:00:20] Trevor Long: Anyway, it's a round of applause for the ABS. We've successfully had a census.

[01:00:24] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it was a big one. So when's the next one? It'll be in 2031. Yeah.

[01:00:30] Voice Over: Wow.

[01:00:31] Stephen Fenech: Geez, we'll both be old then.

[01:00:33] Trevor Long: Oh, I'll be 54. Wow.

[01:00:36] Stephen Fenech: I'll be, what year is it? I'll be 63. Ooh. In 6 years. 5 years.

[01:00:46] Trevor Long: Will you be retired?

[01:00:47] Stephen Fenech: Hope so. Yeah, who knows? How many years we got left in this podcast? It's another 4, 4 after this.

[01:00:54] Trevor Long: We're in our 16th.

[01:00:55] Stephen Fenech: We promised 28, we promised 28.

[01:00:56] Trevor Long: We're in our 16th, so 17, 18, 19, 20. So there's another 4 and a half.

[01:00:59] Stephen Fenech: So maybe just before the census, we might be pulling the pin.

[01:01:02] Trevor Long: We'll come up to the census and there'll be no more.

[01:01:03] Stephen Fenech: We'll have to work it out.

[01:01:05] Trevor Long: What do you put down as your occupation in the census?

[01:01:06] Stephen Fenech: Journalist.

[01:01:07] Trevor Long: I put broadcaster. 'Cause I don't like the term journalist.

[01:01:10] Stephen Fenech: I'm a journalist, mate. I'm a trained journalist.

[01:01:12] Trevor Long: I'm not. Yeah, I'm not trained anything.

[01:01:14] Stephen Fenech: Trained as a cadet.

[01:01:15] Trevor Long: I should have written trained monkey.

[01:01:18] Stephen Fenech: Jedi Knight, I might have put. Jedi Knight.

[01:01:21] Trevor Long: Is that a religion you could put down?

[01:01:22] Stephen Fenech: No, not anymore. Used to— wasn't it not last one?

[01:01:25] Trevor Long: You didn't do it.

[01:01:26] Stephen Fenech: So you were— Jedi was, um, everyone was putting down other and said Jedi. Yeah, as a joke.

[01:01:32] Trevor Long: But the favorite one is the housework one because, yeah, mate, Amanda's in the kitchen, I can hear her doing the dishes or something, and Jackson's doing his doing his thing, and I go, oh, housework, Jacko. And Amanda from the other room goes, don't you even dare, because he doesn't lift a finger. Really?

[01:01:46] Stephen Fenech: No, I suppose he earns money.

[01:01:48] Trevor Long: He doesn't need any pocket money full-time now. I don't think he's signed it yet, but he's got a contract with the big network. Wow, so weird. He's got a job.

[01:01:56] Stephen Fenech: He'll be taking over the tech segments on the Today Show before you know it.

[01:01:59] Trevor Long: No, he won't. No, he's not qualified to do that. He's qualified to edit the videos of them.

[01:02:04] Stephen Fenech: That's good.

[01:02:05] Trevor Long: Congratulations.

[01:02:06] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that's great.

[01:02:07] Trevor Long: All right, Stephen. Well, happy census. And yes, here endeth, here endeth the Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast. I think, yeah, we've given our guts for the, for the show.

[01:02:15] Stephen Fenech: Have we ever?

[01:02:16] Trevor Long: We've got some—

[01:02:16] Stephen Fenech: taken you over an hour.

[01:02:17] Trevor Long: We've got some—

[01:02:18] Stephen Fenech: we've taken over an hour.

[01:02:20] Trevor Long: We've, we've got lots in the feed. We had 7 days. You will get a break this weekend. Yeah, there is no Sunday.

[01:02:26] Stephen Fenech: First break in 2 weeks you'll get.

[01:02:27] Trevor Long: Yeah, that's huge. We appreciate everyone for watching and listening to that, actually. I'll be honest, I found it fascinating that the YouTube numbers were higher than normal. Talking about the Optus Show?

[01:02:39] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[01:02:39] Trevor Long: And look, 'cause I accept that it's very clearly a sponsored podcast.

[01:02:44] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[01:02:45] Trevor Long: But I, and I genuinely meant what I meant early, which is we could do a million sponsored podcasts a week, but we don't.

[01:02:51] Stephen Fenech: Really? A million a week?

[01:02:52] Trevor Long: Not a million, you know what I'm saying?

[01:02:53] Stephen Fenech: I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate.

[01:02:57] Trevor Long: Don't exaggerate. But I do think We think it's important that the shows are of note and worthy of our audience. So I hope that people realize that we're not doing them just for the cash.

[01:03:04] Stephen Fenech: Other companies might be thinking, hey, why don't we do that?

[01:03:07] Trevor Long: Okay, stop selling. I'm talking to the audience, not the sales team, okay?

[01:03:11] Stephen Fenech: Always be selling, always be contenting.

[01:03:14] Trevor Long: Yes, ABC is my motto, always be contenting. But we respect the audience. So we want you to know that when we put those out, we hope that they actually—

[01:03:21] Stephen Fenech: Clearly label.

[01:03:22] Trevor Long: —are good content. Clearly label. But we also want them to be good content. Of course.

[01:03:24] Stephen Fenech: We wouldn't do it they weren't going to be good.

[01:03:27] Trevor Long: Well, I think others do. That's what I'm saying. Other people make content. Yeah, just because there's a check.

[01:03:33] Stephen Fenech: For the sake of it.

[01:03:33] Trevor Long: Yeah, the number of influencers I follow, they go, mate, come on, you don't really enjoy that thing. We're not selling. You only went to that event because you got a check.

[01:03:41] Stephen Fenech: What are we doing here?

[01:03:42] Trevor Long: Exactly right.

[01:03:43] Stephen Fenech: Um, speaking of which, oh yeah, does Apple pay their influencers when they take them to events? How do you know?

[01:03:48] Trevor Long: I don't know, because they never— would you— they never, they never put sponsor.

[01:03:52] Stephen Fenech: Would you be offended if that was the case, that they're paying them to attend and you're just there?

[01:03:55] Trevor Long: There's not for a a second that I've seen any indication that they are.

[01:03:59] Stephen Fenech: You don't think?

[01:04:00] Trevor Long: Not for a second. Yeah, I think they're the kind of company that can, got enough sort of pull and prestige for them to say, "Sure." I've looked at enough of the content that comes from people there to note there's no disclosure. And these are, with respect, professional influencers who very clearly disclose things with hashtags. So yeah, it's a no from me. This week on the movie show is The Dish.

[01:04:21] Stephen Fenech: The Dish, yes. Sorry, the late Sam Neill. In tribute to our man here, late Sam Neill. The Dish is one of his really great movies, surprisingly good movie.

[01:04:29] Trevor Long: Such a good movie, we did it twice. There you go.

[01:04:32] Stephen Fenech: Yes. What Trevor's referring, can I say? Yeah. What Trevor's referring to is that we actually recorded The Dish on the Gold Coast, didn't we? On the Mercedes trip. Yep. We had, we were being super efficient between the drive and then the dinner. We said, let's record the podcast. And we went up and did it. And then Trevor sends me a WhatsApp saying, I can't find the file.

[01:04:52] Trevor Long: File. We did 4 shows, 3 shows that day, 2 of them fine.

[01:04:55] Stephen Fenech: Don't you get out of that room till you find that file, and you couldn't find it.

[01:04:59] Trevor Long: I paid $400 for software to scan an SD card and still didn't find it. Get your money back?

[01:05:04] Stephen Fenech: No. Oh my God.

[01:05:05] Trevor Long: But anyway, the other thing about that is if I lose a file again in the future, I'll forget what the name of that software was and I'll just buy another one.

[01:05:13] Stephen Fenech: Like, that's how, that's how ridiculous, that's how well Trev's gone.

[01:05:16] Trevor Long: Yeah, that's how stupid I am.

[01:05:17] Stephen Fenech: But yeah, we end up having to record it in Perth. Yeah, so we were— we did two movies in Perth, but The Dish is the latest one coming out this.

[01:05:27] Trevor Long: And I just want to say, we are— we've talked about how we're recording in advance as much as we can because I'm going away, and then I appreciate Steven's extra effort to— we're going to— to make that happen. We are long advanced in the Electric Car Show. If you're not a fan of the two blokes talking electric cars, we've got some cool stuff coming, some nice innovation We are in the show. We're stepping up production, shall we say. Absolutely. Stepping up production.

[01:05:51] Stephen Fenech: No other podcast would have that kind of use of the— Mate, I— Our content. Yeah. Our ideas for the content and how we present it, I think is gone to another level.

[01:06:07] Trevor Long: I'm very comfortable that I've not come across, I've still not come across another talkback show like ours. But what we're doing with the talkback—

[01:06:14] Stephen Fenech: TV broadcast quality and level of— of technology used. Yes. Like, it's—

[01:06:19] Trevor Long: shout out to Howie, who does not listen to these podcasts, but one of the boys, one of the moderators, will let him know who did. He helped me with understanding how to make it work here in the studio. What my— I took my idea and I went, this is what I want to do, can I do it? And because he initially set me up with the software that does the screens and things.

[01:06:35] Stephen Fenech: So that guy who set you up with the software here is when you're one of your moderators? Yeah. Doesn't work at Channel 9? No. Oh, I thought the guy works at Channel 9.

[01:06:42] Trevor Long: He's an event events guy. He does like big— hello— events lighting and stuff. So you imagine, you just think the simplest event like a ballroom with a stage. Yeah, but it's such a wide boardroom, there's screens everywhere. Yeah, right. So, you know, he can do the lighting and the screens for all that and stuff. And so he told me about the software.

[01:07:00] Stephen Fenech: And so software and hardware you had to purchase?

[01:07:02] Trevor Long: Yeah, it's the same software that we're using for the screens, just another implementation of it, and then a bit of hardware that allows us to do the thing we're not alluding to, but we're doing in the coming weeks. And to be honest, yeah, super proud of it. I think it's come up really well. Plus, that's not just the studio idea. There's other things coming to the EV Show which Steven came up with while we were away. That's right. And I, yeah, I'm confident that by October we're going to have a super slick show that we're going to take. Yeah, we're going to do good things with. Yeah, exactly. I'm really proud of how much— I'm just, I'll be egotistical. I'm really proud of how much effort we put into these shows. Absolutely. I've watched a lot of podcasts and how they're just people on Zoom and it's like, guys, get in a room. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. So yeah, that's super cool things coming.

[01:07:45] Stephen Fenech: Well, yeah, I'll wait. I'll reserve that comment about what I said about not having to come here anymore. I'll just phone it in, mate. I could. It'll be decent quality.

[01:07:55] Trevor Long: It'll be all right. All right. Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[01:07:58] Stephen Fenech: Thanks, mate. See you later.

[01:08:00] Voice Over: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech. With Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.