The Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast – Episode # 748 – We’re in Berlin for IFA

Two Blokes Talking Tech
Episode: TBTT #748 – We’re in Berlin for IFA
Date: September 3, 2026
Hosts: Trevor Long & Stephen Fenech

[00:00:00] Trevor Long: I am now.

[00:00:00] Stephen Fenech: There you go.

[00:00:02] Trevor Long: What we just said is private and confidential, Stephen. No one will ever know. Well, imagine what people think we were just saying. Yeah, you were just asking about your level and your headset and your microphone.

[00:00:11] Stephen Fenech: Because people can only hear out of one ear. What is— do I need a new headset? Yes, because I can only hear out of one ear.

[00:00:15] Trevor Long: That’s broken. That little plug there is clearly broken. Or the bit in the—

[00:00:18] Stephen Fenech: the microphone’s going to work good, so it’s fine. All our listeners will be able to hear me.

[00:00:22] Trevor Long: No one gives a rat’s basically about your 50% hearing disability.

[00:00:27] Stephen Fenech: It’s the headphones, by the way, not me personally. It’s the headphones. The headset.

[00:00:31] Trevor Long: How do we know?

[00:00:32] Stephen Fenech: Sennheiser headset.

[00:00:33] Trevor Long: How do we know?

[00:00:33] Stephen Fenech: I’ve had these a while. I’ve had these for years.

[00:00:35] Trevor Long: Yeah, ages.

[00:00:35] Stephen Fenech: Should upgrade, huh?

[00:00:37] Trevor Long: No, they’re fine. I mean, you need to because yours is broken. Yeah. I need to tell you, because this is private feed, normally it’s conversation, but we probably won’t do that this week. I finished The Westies on Stan and it’s excellent.

[00:00:50] Stephen Fenech: Is it good?

[00:00:51] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:00:51] Stephen Fenech: That’s Aussie show.

[00:00:52] Trevor Long: No, no, No, no, it’s about the Irish and Italian mafia.

[00:00:59] Stephen Fenech: Ah, I was just saying, the West Side of New York. Yeah, you did Godfather of Harlem, and they got you in straight away with that one.

[00:01:05] Trevor Long: Yeah, that promo got me in. And mate, it’s a good show.

[00:01:09] Stephen Fenech: They had you at Halloween.

[00:01:10] Trevor Long: Decent cast.

[00:01:11] Stephen Fenech: When it was called The Westies, it’s on Stan, yeah?

[00:01:13] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:01:13] Stephen Fenech: When I saw it, I’m thinking, that’s an Aussie show.

[00:01:15] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:01:16] Stephen Fenech: The Westies.

[00:01:16] Trevor Long: Westies.

[00:01:17] Stephen Fenech: That’s an Aussie slang thing, innit?

[00:01:18] Trevor Long: But that’s like West Side of New York, I shit, you know?

[00:01:22] Stephen Fenech: I know.

[00:01:22] Trevor Long: Which was the Irish.

[00:01:23] Stephen Fenech: And you, how many episodes?

[00:01:25] Trevor Long: Oh, 8.

[00:01:25] Stephen Fenech: And you smashed it? Yeah. Before you even reached Doha, probably?

[00:01:28] Trevor Long: No, no, I only started it. I smashed a bit of it in the last day and a half because I was like going to bed, I’d watch an episode or so. Okay, right. I think I watched 3 or 4 on the plane and then the other 3 or 4.

[00:01:41] Stephen Fenech: I’ll tell you what I watched on the plane, the Ricky Gervais cartoon, Alley Cats. You seen that? No.

[00:01:46] Trevor Long: What’s it on?

[00:01:47] Stephen Fenech: Just trust me, it’s a cartoon but not for children.

[00:01:50] Trevor Long: Right, what’s it on, Netflix?

[00:01:51] Stephen Fenech: Netflix, yeah.

[00:01:52] Trevor Long: All right.

[00:01:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, mate, just Netflix.

[00:01:54] Trevor Long: I watched that, um, Toxic Love Story that you recommended.

[00:01:58] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, mate, wasn’t that just laying it on thick?

[00:02:01] Trevor Long: So good, so good, because it’s one of those ones where you’re like, okay, so hang on a minute, why is the bloke only voice here? Like, why is he not on camera, right? And then you get half— you get to the end of the story and you go, I’ve still got half the show to go.

[00:02:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I know, you’re thinking, oh, it’s fit. Oh no, hang on, there’s 35 minutes. Yeah, yeah, it’s crazy.

[00:02:16] Trevor Long: I’m like, it’s, you know, it’s an hour and a half and we’ve only got 40.

[00:02:19] Stephen Fenech: It’s a real two-turner, that one. That’s great, that’s a great Doco.

[00:02:22] Trevor Long: Um, so I’ll smash that. I’ve watched the first 5 episodes of Reacher. Oh, season whatever, the new one.

[00:02:28] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah, I’m still smashing out the back end of 3.

[00:02:30] Trevor Long: Get it happening, mate.

[00:02:32] Stephen Fenech: I might— that might be my journey home.

[00:02:34] Trevor Long: Good show, good twists and stuff happen in that show as always. Okay, yeah, the Westies, very good.

[00:02:40] Stephen Fenech: Okay, now I’ll, I’ll, you know what, I will say I won’t be able to download it unless I pair my phone to it.

[00:02:45] Trevor Long: It’s paid. Pay to your voter.

[00:02:46] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. And also too, I need to work out how I’m going to watch the Souths game on Friday midday here. No meetings at all for 12, between 12 and 3. Right. I’m going to watch the Souths game. So Foxtel Go doesn’t work on my phone.

[00:02:59] Trevor Long: You’ve got Tango installed on that.

[00:03:01] Stephen Fenech: I do too, yeah. So if I just watch it through—

[00:03:04] Trevor Long: Just on your Vodafone SIM.

[00:03:06] Stephen Fenech: That’s what you— that’s your— it’s your account. Yeah. Oh, how good’s that? I forgot about that.

[00:03:11] Trevor Long: Because you’ve still got the Fold, so.

[00:03:13] Stephen Fenech: Yes, there he is.

[00:03:14] Trevor Long: Optus Go.

[00:03:15] Stephen Fenech: Hang on, it’s going to ask me to log in again though.

[00:03:16] Trevor Long: No, it won’t. Why would it? Did you reset the device?

[00:03:20] Stephen Fenech: No, I changed phones and came back to it.

[00:03:22] Trevor Long: Yeah, so it’ll all be on there. There’ll be no—

[00:03:24] Stephen Fenech: “How isn’t available in this country.” Yeah, because you’re on the Wi-Fi. Ah, damn it. So kill the app, turn the Wi-Fi off.

[00:03:30] Trevor Long: Like, tip for people, we’ve mentioned this before, but when you’re traveling, if you’re roaming, we know this for sure on Vodafone, but I’m pretty confident it happens with the other telcos too. Your phone, if you’re just on roaming, so not connected to any Wi-Fi, will essentially identify as being overseas, sorry, being at home in Australia because you kind of routed everything through.

[00:03:49] Stephen Fenech: I know, I’m already logged in.

[00:03:51] Trevor Long: Try and press play.

[00:03:53] Stephen Fenech: Join live, here we go.

[00:03:54] Trevor Long: I knew we smashing it.

[00:03:55] Stephen Fenech: Dublin versus Rotterdam.

[00:03:57] Trevor Long: That sounds exciting.

[00:03:58] Stephen Fenech: How good’s this? Yeah, great podcasting this is.

[00:04:01] Trevor Long: No, that’s good. Italian Formula One Grand Prix. That’s genius.

[00:04:05] Stephen Fenech: So that should work, hey? So I’m still your account. You’re welcome. Yeah, I’m Trevor. You’re welcome. Good luck to you, mate.

[00:04:13] Trevor Long: Yeah. Who are they playing? Because they were— it’s all Roosters. Yeah, because it’s—

[00:04:18] Stephen Fenech: they’re playing the Roosters Reserve grade team. Oh really? The Roosters have rested everyone. Sam Walker’s out. Half the team’s been rested because it doesn’t matter.

[00:04:29] Trevor Long: It doesn’t matter.

[00:04:29] Stephen Fenech: Doesn’t matter for us. It’s important because Souths win, we get a home final against Newcastle, right? Newcastle’s got the bye, so they’re going to get 2 points anyway, mate.

[00:04:39] Trevor Long: I will— I’ll tell you, I will fire up the highlights because I want to see the start of that game.

[00:04:43] Stephen Fenech: That’s going to be the most joyous 100th hour, mate. I was bawling my eyes out the other day watching him walk on.

[00:04:49] Trevor Long: That is so hard to watch.

[00:04:51] Stephen Fenech: If you—

[00:04:52] Trevor Long: I would say this, if you don’t get emotional about that, I don’t know what would make you emotional.

[00:04:55] Stephen Fenech: Check your pulse. Yeah, you might not be human.

[00:04:56] Trevor Long: Yeah, like what?

[00:04:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, crazy.

[00:04:58] Trevor Long: How could you not be emotional about that?

[00:05:00] Stephen Fenech: It’s amazing.

[00:05:01] Trevor Long: Obviously, if you don’t know the story, then sure. But if you have followed any part of the news, yeah, because mate I just—

[00:05:08] Stephen Fenech: Even Campbell Graham was on a podcast talking about it and he’s the Souths winger and he was talking about him and Cody. Remember how Cody Walker was with him and chatting with him, making him laugh?

[00:05:16] Trevor Long: Yeah, trying to make him laugh.

[00:05:17] Stephen Fenech: And he said that Cody and him had got really close. They’re really close mates. And he got emotional. Campbell Graham said, “Oh, you know what he’s done to the club?” And he got, he almost teared up in the podcast. So imagine for the 100th. And you know whose idea, did we discuss this last week? You know whose idea it was?

[00:05:31] Trevor Long: I think we did discuss it last week.

[00:05:32] Stephen Fenech: Wayne Bennett’s idea. Wayne Bennett suggested it.

[00:05:35] Trevor Long: Wow. So mate, what a gesture. See, the thing is Wayne has disabled children, doesn’t he?

[00:05:42] Stephen Fenech: Yes, he does.

[00:05:43] Trevor Long: And so I think, ’cause I saw a vision of Wayne putting his socks on in the change room and I just went.

[00:05:48] Stephen Fenech: And Jai laughed his head off.

[00:05:49] Trevor Long: Yeah, but see what that was, that was Jai laughing off a situation that was in many terms embarrassing for him, right?

[00:05:56] Stephen Fenech: Maybe, yeah.

[00:05:56] Trevor Long: There’s no doubt, you know.

[00:05:58] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, of course.

[00:05:58] Trevor Long: A grown man having someone else put your socks on is embarrassing, right? But he was laughing it off, but all I saw was the absolute emotion and care of Wayne Bennett as a father.

[00:06:08] Stephen Fenech: Totally, mate. Well, that’s what he’s like to the players, mate. He’s a bit of a father figure to them. And you can see that Jai, he’s sort of, he’s starting to lose a bit of control of his hands there too.

[00:06:17] Trevor Long: I saw a clip from Brandy Must Have a Show on SEN and whoever his host is with was talking about it. And he goes, and he said it in the clearest possible way that I’ve ever heard anyone say it. He said something like, ‘Cause we all know what’s to come for Jai.’ And it’s like, no one really speaks of it. And I get that. I understand no one would want to do that, but Anyone watching can see the change just in— what’s it been, 6 months?

[00:06:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:06:43] Trevor Long: You know, we can see that we’ve heard the change in his voice. We’re starting to see physical signs, and that’s really hard for people who’ve been close to it like you with your dad and seen the rapid progression.

[00:06:54] Stephen Fenech: The long goodbye.

[00:06:55] Trevor Long: But it’s like a rapid progression over a long period. It’s a weird way I’ve put it, you know what I mean?

[00:07:00] Stephen Fenech: He’s younger, so hopefully he’s got years left. My old man was 84 when he got it. So he was, but he was healthier than me, my dad, when he got it. 9 months later, because of his age, I think that was it.

[00:07:12] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:07:12] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. But you know, if there’s one thing that could come out of this, people’s, the knowing more about it would maybe spur more money for research. And because imagine they get it, they can cure this thing.

[00:07:27] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:07:28] Stephen Fenech: Unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. And hopefully, mate, we touch— Jai might still be alive when they find it. Yeah, wouldn’t that be good?

[00:07:35] Trevor Long: It’d be remarkable.

[00:07:36] Stephen Fenech: It will be hard for a dream scenario, right? Imagine Souths make the semis. Yeah, Luttrell’s back, they’ve got a bit of momentum, they win the comp, and Jai Arrow lifts the trophy. Would that be not the ideal scenario?

[00:07:51] Trevor Long: Stop it.

[00:07:51] Stephen Fenech: Would that be good?

[00:07:52] Trevor Long: Stop it.

[00:07:53] Stephen Fenech: Be great to Souths win the comp, right? But imagine that, that, mate, that will happen. If they win the comp, he will lift the trophy up. That will happen. Wouldn’t that be amazing?

[00:08:02] Trevor Long: Could you imagine, mate?

[00:08:03] Stephen Fenech: From my mouth to God’s ears, please. Wouldn’t that be amazing, mate?

[00:08:09] Trevor Long: Could you imagine the ovation?

[00:08:11] Stephen Fenech: Oh, it’ll make world headlines. It’ll go around the world, that image of him holding the trophy with all his mates celebrating the 2026 Premiership. Come on, let’s go. If that doesn’t fire them up, like, come on, boys, you know, fire up, fire up.

[00:08:30] Trevor Long: So now I know the Roosters have rested players. Now I know why Souths was $1.09 when I did my tip.

[00:08:35] Stephen Fenech: That’s why. Yeah, well, we’re full strength, mate. They’ve rested Talis Duncan, our center/hook second rower. They gave him a rest. He’s got a bit of a tight hammy, but everyone else is back. Like, Latrell’s playing, everyone’s there. So yeah, that’s why they’re down.

[00:08:49] Trevor Long: All right, well, that’s this weekend, folks. That’s what Stephen will be doing to interrupt his day.

[00:08:55] Stephen Fenech: Oh yeah, mate. I’ve knocked back meetings saying, sorry, I’m busy that those couple of hours. That’s how important it is to me.

[00:09:01] Trevor Long: All right, we’re in Berlin. Time to do this. Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech. Not a bad price. With Trevor Long from eftm.com.

[00:09:10] Stephen Fenech: Really handy device.

[00:09:11] Trevor Long: And Stephen Fenech from techguide.com.au. Not a bad price, this show. $0. Episode 748. Really handy device. Thanks to the great people at Netgear and Arlo. We, we appreciate you listening and downloading and sharing with your friends. Um, uh, if you’ve discovered the show for the first time, wow, where have you been?

[00:09:30] Stephen Fenech: You’re only 16 years late.

[00:09:31] Trevor Long: You’re a bit late. You’ve got a little bit of binging to do, and you’re going to hear about some crazy stuff. I mean, when the PS2 comes out, it’s going to blow your mind. Um, I don’t think it was PS2 until the iPhone 11 comes out. It’s amazing. I actually, you know what I saw on TikTok today? I was scrolling, you know, people I’ve started to get angry again, as you would well know.

[00:09:48] Stephen Fenech: That’s not like you.

[00:09:50] Trevor Long: People that put up a video and they claim to be tech guys, right? They swipe to their profile and they’re like, they got 40,000 followers and they’re tech something, right? They put up a video, you know, first look iPhone Fold, and they’re showing a video, and I just get in the comments and go, I respect that you’ve made this content, but you should disclose to people that it is AI generated or it’s a mock-up. Don’t lead people on.

[00:10:11] Stephen Fenech: I actually saw—

[00:10:11] Trevor Long: you’re doing it for clicks. It’s embarrassing.

[00:10:13] Stephen Fenech: I know the video you’re talking about. I watched it and it was on I saw it, I think, on Facebook, and there was a silhouette of the bloke just standing there sort of, you know, pointing at it. Is that the same one?

[00:10:22] Trevor Long: I think that is it, yes.

[00:10:23] Stephen Fenech: And it said, you know, John Turner. It had all the facts there.

[00:10:26] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:10:27] Stephen Fenech: And a voiceover that I don’t know, I can’t remember what John Turner sounds like.

[00:10:30] Trevor Long: No, it’s not him.

[00:10:30] Stephen Fenech: But it was, I’m thinking of, geez, is this, this is the world’s biggest leak if this is real. And then I Googled leaked video and then it came up everywhere, like AI generated. Wow. But look, look, I’ll tell you what gave it away, the dimensions of the product in his hands.

[00:10:46] Trevor Long: Right.

[00:10:46] Stephen Fenech: Did you see that?

[00:10:46] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:10:48] Stephen Fenech: In his hands, it looks way bigger than what it really is. Like, you know how the Fold 8, we know it’s going to be similar. It looked twice the size of it, right?

[00:10:56] Trevor Long: That’s what gave it away. So I’m scrolling through, I start seeing all these bloody Fold videos, and then I see one, uh, exclusive details of what the iPhone 6 is going to be, and it’s the exact specs of the 6. And I just thought, I thought, that’s great content, I’ll play that, you know, just sit outside. Like, imagine, imagine, you know, we put up a podcast clip of us going, you know, we should go back and reenact the podcast where I go, they will never release a big phone, you know what I mean?

[00:11:18] Stephen Fenech: Yep, we should, we should reenact act that with video.

[00:11:22] Trevor Long: 2014.

[00:11:22] Stephen Fenech: 2014. Yeah, I remember that when you were saying that. There’s no way that I said, mate, trust me. And then look what happens. Yeah, big year that year. That was the Apple Watch.

[00:11:32] Trevor Long: Apple Watch, Belle Gibson. That had all happened.

[00:11:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, mate, it was everything. Did you— were you not offered an interview with her? Did you— you were too busy doing your CrossFit. But I remember I did a CrossFit Studio 10 back then when it was on, when it was still on. And then I did the Belle Gibson interview too.

[00:11:46] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:11:46] Stephen Fenech: And hasn’t that made me some money over the years?

[00:11:48] Trevor Long: Hasn’t it? What? You’ve told us many times. Thanks for rubbing it in. Yeah, good.

[00:11:51] Stephen Fenech: It’s just the gift that keeps on giving, that one.

[00:11:53] Trevor Long: Anyway, Netgear and Arlo, support them when you’re in the market for home security or Wi-Fi. We are in Berlin and it’s a regular trip every year for the IFA show. Don’t ask me what it stands for because it’s International Frankensteindunkelbestelesdelong or something.

[00:12:08] Stephen Fenech: IFA is the first 3 letters.

[00:12:11] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s the IFA and it’s I’m gonna say it’s back. So about 3 years ago when it came back from COVID it was a bit meh, and then the ownership changed and it was even more meh. But I think they’ve worked it out. Yeah, I think they’ve worked it out from a floor plan point of view, because the other thing about this show is it’s open to the public. Yeah, I don’t know how many days it’s open to the public.

[00:12:35] Stephen Fenech: People from Germany can walk in and mix, rub shoulders with Trevor Long from The Today Show. Can you believe it?

[00:12:40] Trevor Long: It’s tough, but it can be done. Anyway, and so it’s laid out properly this year. So it’s like, you know, smart homes here, robotics is here, appliances are a bit all over the shop, but you know, they’ve, they’ve category— excuse me, categorized the areas very well. And I think that really works if you’re, if you’re looking for stuff. But for us, this show is normally like 6 years ago, 10 years ago, we would say this show was about appliances and then you’d have the odd interesting launch like Sony. When I first came, it was Sony releasing their WH-1000s, right?

[00:13:11] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:13:11] Trevor Long: Yeah. And, and little things like that would happen, but it was very much an appliance show. Yeah, no doubt.

[00:13:15] Stephen Fenech: Lots of fridges, lots My first IFA I did back in 2007. I came with Philips.

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

[00:13:22] Stephen Fenech: Brought me, I was working at the telly, and it was though they had gaming products, appliances, just household stuff, and TVs too. Remember that? This is when Philips were still making TVs, and they had the— I think at that event they launched the TV, remember, that had the lights at the back of it that responded to what was on the screen? That was the first time that was released here.

[00:13:42] Trevor Long: Yeah, right.

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

[00:13:43] Trevor Long: So because it’s such an appliance show, for years we’ve had a lot of time we’ve had to dedicate to like Samsung. They would have fridge announcements, AI in the fridge, not TV announcements. They would certainly be showcasing them.

[00:13:56] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:13:56] Trevor Long: But they had— there’s this newish building, not this, not the newest because there’s another newer one called Hub 27, but the, the CityCube. It’s this big, big building on the south side of the, of the fairgrounds because it is a big fairgrounds area and it’s called the CityCube. And Samsung would own this thing, big big billboard. You’d go in and it was just— it was a showcase of everything Samsung: appliances, TVs, phones, every part of the business was there, gaming and everything. This year, Stephen, they’re not there.

[00:14:20] Stephen Fenech: Yes, I know.

[00:14:21] Trevor Long: They’re just not there at the show at all.

[00:14:23] Stephen Fenech: No, other brands like LG’s there.

[00:14:26] Trevor Long: I know LG’s still there in their hall.

[00:14:27] Stephen Fenech: Is Hisense there too?

[00:14:29] Trevor Long: I believe they’re down in their normal kind of spot.

[00:14:30] Stephen Fenech: Because last year, remember Samsung, they— that’s when they launched micro RGB.

[00:14:34] Trevor Long: That’s right.

[00:14:35] Stephen Fenech: For the first time. And it was also all about the smart things, sort of how all your smart home, how it all works together.

[00:14:40] Trevor Long: Which they talk about pretty much every show.

[00:14:42] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah.

[00:14:42] Trevor Long: But it’s an interesting shift. Now I was thinking about this and I was thinking, is it— so from Samsung’s point of view, as I understand it, it’s a strategic move to allocate funds. It costs money to do these big shows, right? And so there’s another big show on called Gamescom right now somewhere in Europe.

[00:14:57] Stephen Fenech: Just finished, yeah. And that was in—

[00:14:59] Trevor Long: you know, you’ve got to remember they’ve got some serious gaming monitors.

[00:15:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they do. Well, they were there.

[00:15:03] Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. So rather than try and find extra money to do that, why not spend a bit of time and resource on that and go, hang on a minute, yeah, what’s the value of this show? Because when you’re that big, do you need to showcase your stuff?

[00:15:16] Stephen Fenech: Don’t forget too, this— they just came off the back of the Z Fold launch too in London.

[00:15:21] Trevor Long: Yeah, but from an appliance retailer point of view, yeah, like, are they— I think also Samsung has worked out a way to deal with retailers directly. Basically they take them to Korea.

[00:15:32] Stephen Fenech: Exactly.

[00:15:33] Trevor Long: They have—

[00:15:33] Stephen Fenech: they don’t need to bring them to Berlin to show them their stuff.

[00:15:35] Trevor Long: It used to be that you’d fly them here to show them stuff, maybe even ahead of Yes, but then nowadays I think they just take them to headquarters and say, let’s show you everything that’s coming up for the year. So I think it’s a different strategy for them, which is, it’s funny because it’s such a huge business, so much money, you’d think, why do they need to save money? But then I respect a company that goes, why are we spending?

[00:15:54] Stephen Fenech: Do we really need to do that? Yeah, yeah. But look at the brands though that are, I reckon, gonna be massive here. It’ll be, tell me if you agree with this or not, Roborock, tick, Dreame, tick, Um, uh, Ecovacs, tick. Uh, who else is there? Mova, tick.

[00:16:12] Trevor Long: And so, oh, Motion’s there, mate. That whole, whole line.

[00:16:15] Stephen Fenech: Mammotion, that was the lawnmower that I reviewed at home. So the, the, the robotic slash home appliance slash vacuum.

[00:16:24] Trevor Long: So it’s interesting in that, so Hall 9 is where Ecovacs, uh, Mova, Mammotion, Aiper, and a couple others are. Roborock.

[00:16:34] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:16:35] Trevor Long: They’re all in this one. That’s the kind of side hall. It’s good.

[00:16:37] Stephen Fenech: Fuck, all my meetings are in the same hall.

[00:16:38] Trevor Long: Exactly. And then Dreamies, where they were last year, just very close, but down underground in Hall 7.

[00:16:43] Stephen Fenech: Cristiano Ronaldo turn up?

[00:16:44] Trevor Long: He’s on the billboard on that TV. So the thing is, they’re labeled home appliances. So that area is not called home robots, it’s called home appliances. So they’re seeing— IFA is categorizing the home vacuum and the home lawn mower as appliances.

[00:17:03] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:17:03] Trevor Long: Aiper, spoiler alert, they’ve got a robot lawn mower. And so I’m like, that’s interesting.

[00:17:09] Stephen Fenech: So they’ve climbed out of the pool and onto the lawn.

[00:17:10] Trevor Long: So everyone else is coming out of the vacuum. Yeah. Into the outdoor.

[00:17:13] Stephen Fenech: They’re going the other way.

[00:17:14] Trevor Long: Aiper’s going the other way.

[00:17:15] Stephen Fenech: Interesting.

[00:17:15] Trevor Long: Which is fascinating.

[00:17:16] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:17:16] Trevor Long: And you know, I had a quick squeeze around today.

[00:17:19] Stephen Fenech: Oh, you went in there too already?

[00:17:20] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah. I just told the security guards to get stuffed.

[00:17:23] Stephen Fenech: So yeah, it’s all over again.

[00:17:24] Trevor Long: Bloke on the Dreamy booth goes, mate, what are you doing here? I’m just looking around. He goes, you can’t be here. No, no, he goes, you can’t be here. I said, mate, I don’t want to break it to you, but if you look at the official IFA website, it’s press day.

[00:17:34] Stephen Fenech: Press day’s today as well.

[00:17:35] Trevor Long: Yeah, second and third, right? I said, so mate, good luck.

[00:17:38] Stephen Fenech: Did he not recognize you?

[00:17:39] Trevor Long: No, he didn’t. Uh, anyway, I just, I just wanted to have a quick squeeze to see if there was something other than stairs. And you know, it’s the same, same as last year basically. Robots that climb stairs, robot vacuums that’ll go up 10, 10 centimeter lips instead of 3 centimeters and stuff like that. Um, and then you’ve got—

[00:17:54] Stephen Fenech: still climb stairs. Yeah.

[00:17:56] Trevor Long: Mate, there’s robot lawnmowers. I’m not going to name names in case there’s any embargoes.

[00:18:01] Stephen Fenech: Well, there are embargoes.

[00:18:02] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, but there’s robot lawnmowers that, mate—

[00:18:05] Stephen Fenech: Although by the time this is going to release, we could cut loose.

[00:18:09] Trevor Long: One of the robot lawnmower test paths is on such an acute angle, I would say it’s 70 degrees. It’s insane.

[00:18:17] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:18:17] Trevor Long: That you think, I mean, who’s got a hill that big anyway?

[00:18:20] Stephen Fenech: For a mower?

[00:18:20] Trevor Long: For a lawnmower, yeah. So, mate, it might be something. It is genuinely, it’s the show of the home robot. It was last year.

[00:18:30] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:18:30] Trevor Long: But see, last year felt to me like the concept car at a motor show.

[00:18:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:18:34] Trevor Long: You know, just there to make you go, that’s inside. This is now what can you do, not what could you do.

[00:18:40] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:18:40] Trevor Long: I think that’s exciting.

[00:18:42] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. And I think we’re going to see those brands we just mentioned, and they’ve got a massive presence not only in Australia, obviously, but around the world. They’re They’re gonna probably tell a similar story about sort of all-around help in the home, but still having the human at the center of it all, even though it’s robots. Still human-centric technology. So it’d be interesting how they sell that and how they prove that.

[00:19:09] Trevor Long: I’m fascinated by it because I saw a grab of, and I don’t know how new it is, but it was sent to me today of Elon Musk talking about humanoid robots. I think he was at the G20 or something like this, so it might be old, but he said in 10 years from now, I think there’ll be a billion humanoid robots and they’ll have the capabilities 5 times greater than humans. So essentially it’s like a workforce of 5 billion. Wow. And I’m still yet to see a humanoid robot that does anything.

[00:19:31] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, right.

[00:19:33] Trevor Long: I’ve seen plenty of great, um, you know, humanoid-looking things in factories that just lift box, lift, lift box, put one down, lift box, put one down.

[00:19:40] Stephen Fenech: But you’ve got very specific tasks.

[00:19:41] Trevor Long: Specific task-based robots are the future.

[00:19:44] Stephen Fenech: Exactly.

[00:19:45] Trevor Long: Yeah, mate.

[00:19:45] Stephen Fenech: If you— if you will see some here at the show, there’ll be some of the show for sure, won’t they?

[00:19:48] Trevor Long: I don’t know if there’ll be humanoid Yeah, robots.

[00:19:50] Stephen Fenech: I do know that one company’s got a robotic arm. Yeah, doing the business, doing the various things.

[00:19:57] Trevor Long: That’s a task-based. Yeah, yeah.

[00:19:59] Stephen Fenech: Um, but yeah, I know, but, but again, you look at those and we saw them at CES. Remember LG had their robot and like, that was so slow. I’ll fold the clothes 20 times faster than this.

[00:20:10] Trevor Long: And that’s not something I do well.

[00:20:11] Stephen Fenech: It’ll take 10 minutes. Yeah, so you’ve got to wonder how time poor you really have to be. Yes, but also The, what Musk is talking about, the, how dextrous they are as well. Like I heard that the, what is their one called? Their robot is called.

[00:20:28] Trevor Long: I don’t know.

[00:20:29] Stephen Fenech: It’s called, geez, what’s the name of it? Anyway, the company.

[00:20:31] Trevor Long: It’d be some stupid name.

[00:20:32] Stephen Fenech: No, no, it’s been, the name’s been around for ages.

[00:20:34] Trevor Long: I know, I know, yeah.

[00:20:35] Stephen Fenech: But it can apparently thread a needle.

[00:20:38] Trevor Long: Right. Yeah, I’d like to see. How quickly?

[00:20:40] Stephen Fenech: That’s pretty good. I don’t know, but if it can do that, a human finds that hard, let alone a robot.

[00:20:44] Trevor Long: I’d still like to see it head to head with a human.

[00:20:47] Stephen Fenech: What’s the name of it? It’s going to come to me.

[00:20:48] Trevor Long: Look it up on your phone.

[00:20:49] Stephen Fenech: It’s going to come to me.

[00:20:50] Trevor Long: Um, but see, my, like, I expect to see humanoid robots at the show like we did at CES, but just for to get attention. They’re a way of getting eyeballs and foot traffic.

[00:21:01] Stephen Fenech: I had them last year. I remember there was one.

[00:21:02] Trevor Long: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:21:03] Stephen Fenech: There was one in the hall last year that was doing the laundry. Yeah, moving from the machine to this, and it was a great video, real fun. But how many of them you reckon they’ve sold?

[00:21:11] Trevor Long: None.

[00:21:12] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, Optimus.

[00:21:15] Trevor Long: Optimus Prime, that’s why. Optimus. He’s a weirdo, Elon Musk, isn’t he?

[00:21:19] Stephen Fenech: But yeah, I don’t think they’re the sort of robots we’re going to see here. We’re going to see some robots with greater capabilities, ones we know already that can do more.

[00:21:27] Trevor Long: And I go back to our conversation 3 or 4 weeks ago about robot lawnmowers. This summer is the first summer where you could without hesitation, you know, look at a robot lawnmower and that’s even the first crop of the good ones. Next year it’s going to be even greater.

[00:21:41] Stephen Fenech: Even better, yeah. And they can legit do the lawn. Yes, properly. No setup.

[00:21:47] Trevor Long: Mate, I’m not getting back till somewhere in October. Our front lawn is going to look spectacular except for the edges. I know that I’ll just need to whipper snip, but I’ll come home for half an hour, I’ll whipper snip.

[00:21:57] Stephen Fenech: Make sure you keep an eye on them, mate. No one’s going to walk off with one of them.

[00:22:00] Trevor Long: Well, they can’t. It just beeps and alarm goes off and there’s no good to you.

[00:22:03] Stephen Fenech: Okay, there you go.

[00:22:04] Trevor Long: That’s what happens with it.

[00:22:05] Stephen Fenech: It’ll lock down, will it?

[00:22:06] Trevor Long: Yeah. Yeah. Because for that Today Show segment a few weeks ago, I took one out the back, I picked it up And it goes, you know, robot lifted, robot lifted. And then by the time I got to the side of the house, it was beeping an alarm.

[00:22:16] Stephen Fenech: I had to turn it off.

[00:22:17] Trevor Long: And the only way to get it to stop beeping was to turn it back on again while it was in its dock.

[00:22:23] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Yeah, well, because the Vax 1, the GOAT, had a passcode too.

[00:22:28] Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s right. So to reactivate it, you need that. I’m legit probably over summer gonna tell my neighbors that I’m gonna do their lawn.

[00:22:36] Stephen Fenech: Just do it. You let it go.

[00:22:38] Trevor Long: Well, I’ll have at least 4 on the go at a time. How about this?

[00:22:40] Stephen Fenech: Just tell them what Well, mate, I’ll do a deal for you. I’ll mow your lawn, you do the edges.

[00:22:45] Trevor Long: Well, no, I’m not going to do their edges, that’s for sure.

[00:22:47] Stephen Fenech: No, but they’ll do your edges though.

[00:22:49] Trevor Long: Oh no, no, I wouldn’t ask them to do that. I’m happy to. I like to. I still like doing the edges.

[00:22:52] Stephen Fenech: You do like doing the edges. Are you an edge last guy, aren’t you? Or an edge first guy?

[00:22:56] Trevor Long: I used to be edge last, but then I converted to edge first.

[00:22:59] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I had this conversation on the radio with a listener rang up and I said, I’m an edge last guy. I want to see, let the mower do its stuff and then I’ll come over the top later. And he said, no, I’m an edge-first guy because then the mower picks up the grass, can eat the grass. Yeah, because, you know, when you’re— there’s grass on the ground, the mower can come and pick it all up at the end.

[00:23:20] Trevor Long: That’s a good strategy.

[00:23:21] Stephen Fenech: That’s— I’m thinking, yeah, that’s, that’s pretty good. So that’s a good idea, you smarty.

[00:23:25] Trevor Long: Robot’s going to go out within 24 hours of me doing the edges, so it’ll, it’ll mulch it up anyway. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, like, because I live in a cul-de-sac, I could, I could theoretically do 5 people’s houses. With 3 different mowers.

[00:23:36] Stephen Fenech: You should open a lawn robot lawn service, mate. Trev, what is it? Jim’s Mowing? Trev’s Mowing? Trev’s Robot Mowing.

[00:23:43] Trevor Long: Jim, it’s the biggest fraud in history. His name’s Dave.

[00:23:47] Stephen Fenech: Okay, it’s his business.

[00:23:47] Trevor Long: His name’s not his stage name. Jim Penman is what he calls himself. His name’s not Jim.

[00:23:52] Stephen Fenech: How do you know? I asked. You’ve done research? Yes, it was bothering you, wasn’t it?

[00:23:56] Trevor Long: It was bothering me. Oh my God, I think his name’s Dave.

[00:23:58] Stephen Fenech: Okay, yeah, Dave. Anyway, so what else are you going to see here? Um, let’s talk about the big brands. I know LG, you’ve got some sort of, you know, smart TV source, you know, mini announcement as well. Okay, that’s, that’s coming. Um, is Sony here? No, because they used to be—

[00:24:15] Trevor Long: they’ve been in that front hall for a long time.

[00:24:18] Stephen Fenech: Remember down the front?

[00:24:19] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:24:19] Stephen Fenech: And I remember being here for so many announcements over the years for them.

[00:24:23] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:24:24] Stephen Fenech: Uh, LG also had a— they were, they were pretty took a pretty—

[00:24:27] Trevor Long: LG’s got the same big hall as— but they used to do the big OLED walkthrough and they don’t do it that anymore.

[00:24:32] Stephen Fenech: It’s— I always say they’re for CES. It’s, it’s the wave sort of thing, the big wall.

[00:24:36] Trevor Long: Um, it’s more of a— LG do more of a holistic, you know, brand presentation, you know, sort of smart. Yeah, it’s, it’s less about a product.

[00:24:47] Stephen Fenech: That’s what CES is like now too.

[00:24:49] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s less about a product.

[00:24:50] Stephen Fenech: Samsung, Samsung, it’s, it’s— yeah, there’s TVs there, but But remember when they had a stand at the show, it was all about let’s look at your whole home and saving energy and our concept, driving system and all that. Where’s that? Is that still on the horizon or that was just a concept for the time?

[00:25:08] Trevor Long: It’s concepts, mate. Concepts are concepts for a reason.

[00:25:09] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, right.

[00:25:11] Trevor Long: So I think it’s gonna be an interesting weekend, but I don’t—

[00:25:13] Stephen Fenech: Smart security I think is gonna be a big one too. Security, cameras and doorbells and video doorbells and all those.

[00:25:19] Trevor Long: Yeah, there’s a million of those.

[00:25:20] Stephen Fenech: All those bells and whistles. Bells and whistles. Yeah.

[00:25:22] Trevor Long: Like we did there.

[00:25:23] Stephen Fenech: All of them there. Yeah, that’s going to be, I reckon you’re going to, you’ll trip over 10 of them in every hall. Yeah. I’m hoping there’s some other little surprises though. Well, what do you, have you, have you been, you registered, are you getting all the emails?

[00:25:38] Trevor Long: I don’t really read them.

[00:25:39] Stephen Fenech: I get, you get a whole flood of them. People say, can we set up a meeting? I said, I’ve never heard of you. Do you sell in Australia? That’s the downside of getting on their mailing list is they give it to all the exhibitors. And so you’re getting all this, all this spam, but But I think Mammotion, I met them here last year.

[00:25:58] Trevor Long: Yeah, they’re quite big. Yeah, big spot.

[00:26:00] Stephen Fenech: And also there was another one too that I did something for them last year and they’re still waiting for the mower to turn up. Their one had a catch on it. Yeah, you know, robot mowers don’t have a catch. Their one, their back wheels look like a tank, you know, the tread.

[00:26:15] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:26:15] Stephen Fenech: And the front had a normal front wheel and had a big long—

[00:26:18] Trevor Long: I don’t want a catch, I want to empty it.

[00:26:19] Stephen Fenech: And a catch out. Well, I think if people, I think if you’re a fair dinkum lawn mower, you pick up the grass.

[00:26:27] Trevor Long: No, but you’ll find that actually mulching is healthier for the grass.

[00:26:30] Stephen Fenech: Well, you know what? I wanna ask a greenkeeper or someone who knows about it, ’cause what it’s done in our yard, like we normally mow, pick up the catcher and do that. We all had electric mower. What we’ve noticed this year since we’ve been doing the robot, and it’s mulching, we’ve got more bindies in the grass. Mowing before, when it was taking the grass away, the bindies weren’t there. Now that the sort of— we’re fertilizing the bindies, they’re growing even more. Maybe that’s what I’ve noticed.

[00:26:59] Trevor Long: Yeah, right. If anyone’s heard of that, maybe you need to run a bindi spray over the lawn.

[00:27:03] Stephen Fenech: Well, I might do that, but it’s, it’s just one possible downside of not having a catch on your mower.

[00:27:10] Trevor Long: So I think you call it a catch.

[00:27:11] Stephen Fenech: What do you call it?

[00:27:12] Trevor Long: Catcher. Catcher.

[00:27:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, catcher. Yeah, that’s what I mean.

[00:27:15] Trevor Long: Okay, catcher. All right, so home security, robots, and, uh, no big brand.

[00:27:22] Stephen Fenech: And other, like, yeah, they’ll obviously be, you know, smart fridges and other, other brands.

[00:27:27] Trevor Long: I don’t know, there’ll be any of those.

[00:27:28] Stephen Fenech: There’s a lot of European brands that— do they even sell in Australia?

[00:27:31] Trevor Long: No, they don’t.

[00:27:32] Stephen Fenech: There’s heaps of brands here. Oh yeah, the shows, these things. Yeah, yeah. They’re massive.

[00:27:37] Trevor Long: You gotta remember, Europe’s a pretty big place.

[00:27:39] Stephen Fenech: I heard. I was down the street here. There’s a market. There’s like a 5-level— it’s like the Moorpark Supercenter sort of, right down here near the Kaiser Wilhelm, you know, the broken church, the Kaiser Wilhelm Church around there. Yeah. And it’s 5 levels of, you know, one level is dice and stuff, and there’s a dice store next door.

[00:28:03] Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s where they did the thing last year.

[00:28:05] Stephen Fenech: But yeah, there’s brands in there I’ve never heard of. Thinking, wow. And I thought, oh, look at all these DVDs and 4Ks and everything’s in German.

[00:28:12] Trevor Long: I’m thinking, oh, ah, these are Germans.

[00:28:14] Stephen Fenech: But the disc, it says, yeah, English track is on there. But yeah, it’ll default to German first, won’t it?

[00:28:22] Trevor Long: That’s not what you want unless it’s a— but if it was a 4K you couldn’t get in English, you’d probably go for it. But that’d be pretty good.

[00:28:28] Stephen Fenech: There was one up there that I’m thinking, I’m going to see if I can find it. If I can’t find it, I’m going to go out and buy it. This one movie called Arlington Road, and I’m waiting for it to come on a server so we can do it on the show. Tim Robbins, uh, Jeff Bridges, awesome movie.

[00:28:42] Trevor Long: So we’ll get back to our pre-show chat. I watched 2 movies on the way out that I downloaded. Oh, the first one was called—

[00:28:51] Stephen Fenech: did one start with Cleaner? Cleaner?

[00:28:53] Trevor Long: Yes, that’s Samuel L. Jackson. Samuel L. Jackson. How old?

[00:28:56] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s old.

[00:28:57] Trevor Long: So I don’t know why it was on my—

[00:28:58] Stephen Fenech: it was on Netflix.

[00:28:59] Trevor Long: Yeah, I just hit download.

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

[00:29:01] Trevor Long: Have you seen it?

[00:29:03] Stephen Fenech: No, but I know, I know he’s in it.

[00:29:05] Trevor Long: Yeah, I mean, the whole premise is, is pretty good, but you just ask so many weird questions throughout it, like why would you do that and why would you do this and why did that happen?

[00:29:13] Stephen Fenech: He’s a movie critic now, look at him.

[00:29:15] Trevor Long: But look, it’s a, it’s a 6.5 out of 10 for me.

[00:29:17] Stephen Fenech: All right, I’ll tell you now, that’s not on our list, okay?

[00:29:20] Trevor Long: Yeah, and then the other one, um, was Kiefer Sutherland, uh, Brothers Under Fire, which I think was on Adult Prime?

[00:29:29] Stephen Fenech: Oh, is that made for streaming?

[00:29:31] Trevor Long: Well, this is why I’m so perplexed by it, because it wasn’t a cheap budget movie, right?

[00:29:36] Stephen Fenech: Like, how old?

[00:29:37] Trevor Long: Well, let’s look it up. Brothers Under—

[00:29:40] Stephen Fenech: if it’s less than 5 years old, it’s a streaming movie, right? Yeah, I reckon.

[00:29:45] Trevor Long: Brothers Under Fire, 2026. There you go, it’s brand new.

[00:29:48] Stephen Fenech: Streaming, wasn’t released in Sydney.

[00:29:49] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s Prime Video.

[00:29:51] Stephen Fenech: Well, isn’t it funny how that’s changed, how, you know, when—

[00:29:53] Trevor Long: and it was pretty good.

[00:29:54] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, pretty good.

[00:29:55] Trevor Long: It would have been. 7.

[00:29:56] Stephen Fenech: Remember years ago when direct-to-video was the, you know, it’s a bomb?

[00:30:00] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:30:00] Stephen Fenech: Now direct streaming is like a Blockbuster. Crazy how it’s changed, eh?

[00:30:05] Trevor Long: Well, it’s like, you know, Prime, they’ve got to justify the subscription. They’ve got to say, even if you don’t like all these shows, because they’ve got new movies.

[00:30:10] Stephen Fenech: They’ve got some good movies on there.

[00:30:11] Trevor Long: They’re making stuff. Yeah.

[00:30:13] Stephen Fenech: Did you watch, um, the Jack Ryan stuff? You know, the guy—

[00:30:15] Trevor Long: Oh yeah, I did watch John Krasinski.

[00:30:18] Stephen Fenech: He’s got a new one. Yeah, it came out a few months ago.

[00:30:20] Trevor Long: Yeah, I think I saw it already. Wow. Anyway, IFA 2026, you’ll read about it across the entire weekend and week ahead at techguide.com.au and eftm.com. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:30:33] Stephen Fenech: That was sudden.

[00:30:34] Trevor Long: I feel like your things— I’m just going to play that again.

[00:30:38] Stephen Fenech: Have I put them on repeat?

[00:30:39] Trevor Long: Yeah, I think— hang on. Yeah, they’re on continue.

[00:30:43] Stephen Fenech: They’re not on repeat.

[00:30:44] Trevor Long: Yeah, okay, so everyone, I apologize for the jump scare there, but I must have played that one half earlier. Yeah, and I was testing the audio. That definitely wasn’t normal.

[00:30:53] Stephen Fenech: Anyway, definitely Two Blocks Talkie Tech, proudly supported by Arlo. And get into— if you’re into your, or not into your security cameras and want to get into them, give Arlo a try. I’ll have a range of cameras. You can start from as little as less than $100. You can get an essential camera. There is an indoor version and an outdoor version, and that’s all you need to get started. You can connect it to your Wi-Fi directly, get the notifications on your device, and Bob’s your uncle. You’re in. You actually have a security system set up. And you can add to it. They’ve got video doorbells. My favorite is the wired floodlight. Now wired because it needs power, but it still wirelessly connects to your network. And this is— this can— this lights up your area so well that it—

[00:31:37] Trevor Long: it—

[00:31:37] Stephen Fenech: you could— I’ve said it before, you could shoot a movie under those lights. It’s that good. And, uh, and it’s also obviously reacts to movements. And once someone walks in within range, and boom, the lights come on. And so you’re never, you’re not gonna miss it at my place. If you come to my place, you’re gonna be under the spotlight, literally.

[00:31:54] Trevor Long: MCG floodlight, that’s what it is.

[00:31:56] Stephen Fenech: But you can add to that too. They’ve also recently just released the PTZs, the pan, tilt, zoom cameras as well. There’s an outdoor and an indoor version. The outdoor version is awesome ’cause it tracks as well, picks up a movement and follows it. So if you’ve got a large area to cover, the pan and tilt camera is there. There is a camera for everyone, or to cover your house front to back, top to bottom, Check them out at arlo.com.

[00:32:21] Trevor Long: Everything about tech you never wanted to know. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech. Would you pay $799 for an electric toothbrush that also flosses between your teeth using a camera to look at where the gaps in your teeth are? Stephen, yes, it’s a lot of money.

[00:32:41] Stephen Fenech: You know what, uh, this is— I know, and if the brand on it starts with D We were saying the Dyson.

[00:32:48] Trevor Long: Yeah, this Dyson, Dyson Camera Jet.

[00:32:50] Stephen Fenech: The Camera Jet. I’ve got to say that the interesting stats, they said that people on average, 9 out of 10 people don’t floss. Yeah, really?

[00:32:59] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:32:59] Stephen Fenech: And nearly everyone only on average, on average, 45 seconds brushing. 45 seconds brushing. You should spend 2 minutes, right? So you think about that, right? We don’t floss, we don’t brush long enough. And then we don’t use a lot of mouthwash. Are you a mouthwash guy?

[00:33:14] Trevor Long: No.

[00:33:15] Stephen Fenech: So there’s 3 things that this thing could do all at the same time.

[00:33:18] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:33:19] Stephen Fenech: And it’s remarkable the technology they use with the camera. People think, what a camera? Well, the camera uses machine learning to detect the gaps in your teeth, takes like a— like analyzes 20 images per second or whatever and can spray a jet within like 0.001 of a millisecond. Of mouth rinse to target the plaque in a— not a jet stream, a conical stream that they’ve worked out is better at breaking down plaque.

[00:33:51] Trevor Long: Dyson went to the trouble of creating their own fake plaque so that it was— and kind of, I’m not— I’m going to extrapolate a bit— essentially medically certified plaque so that they could make small changes to the software, the hardware of this thing, and, and test iterations without having to go to a clinical trial. Yeah, so they were that certain in the, uh, in the accuracy of their fake plaque that they could make a tweak and then test it, know that it worked or not without having to go to a 5-week clinical trial.

[00:34:25] Stephen Fenech: They called those engineers, uh, dynamicists, I think they’re called, right? And they spent years perfecting the shape of the jet stream.

[00:34:33] Trevor Long: That’s crazy.

[00:34:34] Stephen Fenech: Imagine going into work every day thinking, how we are today, boys, let’s try this shape today.

[00:34:39] Trevor Long: Let’s, let’s—

[00:34:40] Stephen Fenech: 6 years later, we’ve nailed it.

[00:34:41] Trevor Long: I think, I think the right-hand side of that conical jet needs to be 1 degree wider, you know. Yeah, like that’s the kind of stuff. Test it. And so the thing is, it’s a, it’s a weird looking thing because plenty of electric toothbrushes out there, uh, the Dyson one looks similar.

[00:34:56] Stephen Fenech: Call it Sonic or is it electric?

[00:34:57] Trevor Long: What do you call it?

[00:34:58] Stephen Fenech: Sonic. Yeah, yeah, Sonic toothbrush.

[00:35:00] Trevor Long: So instead, like, if you, if you know your toothbrushes I don’t mind an Oral-B because it rotates, so it’s got like a motor that rotates. And your Braun, Braun, yeah, they’ve got to have one that it’s sonic, so it vibrates. So instead of oscillates— is oscillate the right word?

[00:35:17] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:35:17] Trevor Long: No, Oral-B oscillates.

[00:35:19] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:35:19] Trevor Long: And the other one just vibrates. The other one is a sonic vibration. I hate the feeling of a sonic one, I’ll be honest with you. So I don’t— I’ll tell you right now, I don’t think I’m going to like this toothbrush.

[00:35:28] Stephen Fenech: Well, no, but what they claim, Dyson says that their bristle, they’ve got the dual bristle, whatever it is, They said the problem with a lot of other toothbrushes is the bristles jam up on your teeth, so that’s probably why you don’t like it. It’s sort of a bit—

[00:35:40] Trevor Long: I don’t like the feeling of it.

[00:35:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, that’s why it’s sort of there. They reckon their bristles actually don’t get jammed up on the tooth, but see, they move around.

[00:35:49] Trevor Long: So I believe, and I understand, you need to brush a certain way. So you need— look, I just like to brush my bloody teeth, right?

[00:35:56] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:35:57] Trevor Long: Whereas this thing, you’re going to need to essentially brush each tooth. Tooth, so that as you move from tooth to tooth, the camera on the arm can see the gap and then spray the mouthwash, right?

[00:36:07] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:36:08] Trevor Long: And so it’s a very diff— you’re going to need to rethink your brushing completely.

[00:36:11] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:36:12] Trevor Long: Like completely rethink how you brush.

[00:36:13] Stephen Fenech: They’ve turned it on its head, the whole, this whole category.

[00:36:17] Trevor Long: I think the real innovation in this is the tank. There’s a 12.5ml tank.

[00:36:23] Stephen Fenech: Anti-gravity tank.

[00:36:25] Trevor Long: Because you think if the brush is upside down or it’s on an angle, how is it going to pick up? The tank actually includes a little bag inside it, so as it uses up the mouth rinse, it inflates the bag so there’s never air in the tank.

[00:36:39] Stephen Fenech: Because it doesn’t— it never shoots blanks. So it’s just an air blank into your teeth. That’s right. It’s liquid there.

[00:36:44] Trevor Long: Yeah. Well, which is— that’s very good.

[00:36:45] Stephen Fenech: So much detail.

[00:36:46] Trevor Long: It’s very, very cool.

[00:36:47] Stephen Fenech: It’s— that’s why you’re paying— what is it, $7.99?

[00:36:49] Trevor Long: $7.99.

[00:36:49] Stephen Fenech: That’s why it’s $7.99. But electric toothbrushes aren’t that cheap either though.

[00:36:52] Trevor Long: Oh mate, for $499 is an expensive Oral-B, right, toothbrush. Most people are probably spending $200 to $300. Okay, um, but the real, the real $799 value here is the app allows you to live, live view your teeth.

[00:37:07] Stephen Fenech: Now I’ve got to tell you, if you’re having an issue with your teeth, you can actually do that, screen record it, show it to your dentist.

[00:37:14] Trevor Long: Yeah, mate, why do you need to screen record it? You just go and say, mate, there’s one back here. He’ll notice it. Quickly.

[00:37:19] Stephen Fenech: In motion, you might tell, hang on a minute, go back a bit. I spotted something.

[00:37:23] Trevor Long: Mate, he’ll see it without you having to brush your teeth.

[00:37:26] Stephen Fenech: Well, you know what? I think the whole idea here is to, A, save you a bit of time. So you’re brushing, rinsing, mouthwashing, the flossing, all that. But also, it’s, look, anyone who spends $799 is gonna use it properly. So they’re gonna improve their oral health. They’re gonna go to the trouble. That this puts them through, that guides them through. And there is guided brushing too on the app as well.

[00:37:50] Trevor Long: Just what I want, an app telling me how to brush my teeth.

[00:37:53] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, have you ever thought of that? Have you ever thought that you were brushing wrong?

[00:37:56] Trevor Long: Always, I’m sure of it. But yeah, what am I going to do? Oh well, here’s my biggest problem, Stephen. You full well know that I’m a picky eater. No, I’m also a picky toothbrusher. Oh my God, I can’t— I have the same brand and flavor of toothpaste that I’ve ever had.

[00:38:13] Stephen Fenech: Really?

[00:38:14] Trevor Long: Are you a Colgate guy? Yeah, Colgate, but it’s Colgate like the basic, whatever the entry-level one is, right? It’s not whitening, it’s not any of that. It’s just the standard friggin’ Colgate, right? No. And so I had to once at an airport, you know, buy a tube of toothpaste and it wasn’t, it was Colgate, but it wasn’t my one. And mate, I’ve still got it just as an emergency, but I didn’t like the taste of it at all.

[00:38:36] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:38:36] Trevor Long: And you can, as I understand it, you can use any toothpaste, but—

[00:38:40] Stephen Fenech: Yes, you can. And any mouthwash.

[00:38:41] Trevor Long: What they’ve developed though, is a toothpaste that doesn’t foam. If you use your regular Colgate, trust me, the camera’s not going to pick up the gaps. Yes, so that’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to go, it’s not shooting the, the jet of mouth rinse.

[00:38:55] Stephen Fenech: Can you buy non-foaming toothbrush already?

[00:38:58] Trevor Long: I don’t know, Stephen, it’s not something I’ve ever investigated.

[00:39:00] Stephen Fenech: Might be able to anyway. Really? Yeah, anyway, but unless you—

[00:39:04] Trevor Long: then you’ve got to basically—

[00:39:05] Stephen Fenech: Dyson, stuck with Dyson.

[00:39:06] Trevor Long: Dyson want you to buy a $799 toothbrush and their toothpaste and their mouth rinse.

[00:39:12] Stephen Fenech: So that’s like a— it’s like the printer, you got to buy the ink for it later.

[00:39:15] Trevor Long: That’s a very good analogy.

[00:39:17] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah, how it works in it. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, but, but I understand, you know, the mouth— the flossing, you can use water.

[00:39:25] Trevor Long: Yes, just plain, you know, Waterpik and stuff like that. That existed for ages.

[00:39:28] Stephen Fenech: So it’s, it’s not the chemicals in it, it’s the force of it, that’s the shape of it, that’s how it’s used.

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

[00:39:33] Stephen Fenech: Um, and I— and if you can use— if you use your regular toothpaste, it’s going to foam up and the camera’s going to go, what, what’s going on here? Can’t see, mate. But, um, yeah, Dyson’s not only into the toothbrushes, also paste.

[00:39:46] Trevor Long: So vacuums, fans, hand dryers, how about hair dryers?

[00:39:52] Stephen Fenech: Hair product. I’m getting there.

[00:39:54] Trevor Long: Hair dryers and hair curlers and stuff.

[00:39:56] Stephen Fenech: Hand dryers too in the public. Did you say that as well? Yeah, you’re not listening.

[00:40:00] Trevor Long: Hands and, and, and now your bloody teeth.

[00:40:02] Stephen Fenech: Teeth, hands Yeah, well, hair. What else? What other parts of your body?

[00:40:06] Trevor Long: He’s got a problem with the bathroom. He’s got the hand dryer, the hair dryer, and the—

[00:40:09] Stephen Fenech: yeah, well, that’s where we step out of the house, mate.

[00:40:12] Trevor Long: That’s where we have a look for something else.

[00:40:14] Stephen Fenech: Well, remember they were, they were working on electric car.

[00:40:17] Trevor Long: Yeah, and they brushed it.

[00:40:17] Stephen Fenech: Ditched that pretty hard. Yeah, I would love to look. Imagine a Dyson electric car would be amazing. It’ll cost like half a million dollars, but it’d be amazing.

[00:40:26] Trevor Long: It would be expensive, you’re right. I wouldn’t mind going to see that because it’s on display in there in Singapore. It’s in.

[00:40:31] Stephen Fenech: Did they build it?

[00:40:32] Trevor Long: Yeah, they built one.

[00:40:32] Stephen Fenech: Oh, they built one, just a prototype. They went ahead with it.

[00:40:35] Trevor Long: Oh, right. Yeah, yeah.

[00:40:35] Stephen Fenech: What’s it look like?

[00:40:37] Trevor Long: Not anything extraordinary. Yeah, because I imagined it to be something crazy.

[00:40:41] Stephen Fenech: Speaking of EVs, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for the new CLA on the road here. Haven’t seen one yet. The new, my future car, the electric CLA Mercedes. Right. Haven’t seen any yet.

[00:40:53] Trevor Long: Haven’t seen one here?

[00:40:54] Stephen Fenech: No, chief.

[00:40:54] Trevor Long: You are in Germany, you should see some.

[00:40:56] Stephen Fenech: Oh, mate, they should be taxis or something.

[00:40:58] Trevor Long: They should be everywhere. Oh, I know that.

[00:41:00] Stephen Fenech: There’s a lot around.

[00:41:01] Trevor Long: Have you had an update on delivery?

[00:41:03] Stephen Fenech: No, he said it was an August build. We’re now in September, so I’m assuming my car’s been built.

[00:41:07] Trevor Long: I’d be sending an email going, has it been built? Yeah, what ships it on?

[00:41:11] Stephen Fenech: Oh well, it’s, it’s middle of the night in Australia, or late at night.

[00:41:14] Trevor Long: Emails are timeless.

[00:41:15] Stephen Fenech: I’ll send him a message. Yeah, give me an update, bro, I’ll say.

[00:41:20] Trevor Long: All right, if you want to check out the Dyson camera jet, you can see that at techguide.com.au and aftm.com. With Trevor Long.

[00:41:27] Stephen Fenech: Oh, there’s another one.

[00:41:28] Trevor Long: That’s, that’s all that matters. Two blokes having That’s the name of the show.

[00:41:32] Stephen Fenech: It did the most important part.

[00:41:33] Trevor Long: It did the best bit.

[00:41:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s right.

[00:41:35] Trevor Long: Well, my fault for testing the stings earlier.

[00:41:37] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, there you go, all Trev’s fault. Yep. Uh, Uniden have, uh, have come up with— yeah, new— Uniden is a brand we know for— obviously they’re, they’re a big outdoor company, CB radios, CBs, antennas, uh, also big in security, security cameras, dash cams, as we all know as well. Yeah, they’re the very proud sponsors of our EV podcast with their award-winning dash cams, but they’ve just released, uh, these new Bluetooth rugged Bluetooth speakers that, mate, punch above their weight, not only quality-wise but price-wise too.

[00:42:07] Trevor Long: Yeah, wow, crazy.

[00:42:08] Stephen Fenech: They start at $49. In fact, there’s a 30% off special on the website. I know one of my readers said, oh, that the one that starts $49 is $34 on their website.

[00:42:19] Trevor Long: Is that that little one?

[00:42:19] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the lantern. It looks like a lantern, the one, the itchy one. Itch, because it’s Japanese numbers. 1, 2, 3, 4. Ich, ni, sa, yon. San Yong. So that’s what they are. And the bigger, the more you go up, I think they started like, it’s like, is it 5 watt? Then it goes up to 20, 30, and then 50.

[00:42:39] Trevor Long: I just noticed that they were small, medium, large, and extra large.

[00:42:43] Stephen Fenech: And the largest one’s got a handle. The largest one’s also, and I think the, what is it, the third one, ichinise, the San has also.

[00:42:50] Trevor Long: I love your Japanese.

[00:42:51] Stephen Fenech: Has also got a, both of them can be used like a power bank as well. Yes, power up your device.

[00:42:57] Trevor Long: They’re a good-looking unit.

[00:42:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, and they’ve got dynamic lighting too, so the, the lob, the throbbing lights, uh, in, in time with the music. If that’s throbbing light, that’s what you’re into.

[00:43:06] Trevor Long: I don’t think that’s how Uniden, uh, described—

[00:43:08] Stephen Fenech: they call it dynamic lighting, right? Yeah, but it’s sort of, you know, it pulses along to the music.

[00:43:12] Trevor Long: Throbs, apparently.

[00:43:13] Stephen Fenech: Throbs pulses along to the throbbing music. Oh wow, I should be their copywriter.

[00:43:18] Trevor Long: I don’t think you should be.

[00:43:20] Stephen Fenech: But no, I think, uh, and the great thing about them is you can take them anywhere. They float as well, water, water resistant.

[00:43:26] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:43:27] Stephen Fenech: So if you’re a customer who’s already got their antennas, I know my son Aaron would smash this because he’s got all the Uniden gear on his car.

[00:43:34] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:43:34] Stephen Fenech: And if you’re, if you’re into your camping or outdoorsy type of person, you want to take your music, the Uniden range will absolutely smash it. Loop. Yeah, Loop with 3 Os. Yeah, interesting. I did a bit of research on the name, right? The 2-letter Loop was already taken No, really? Yeah. Well, but you know by who? Apple.

[00:43:59] Trevor Long: Really?

[00:43:59] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. So the two letters with, I think, iLoop, I think is what Apple owns, which is rumored to be their, like this, the Amazfit, like a Whoop type and screenless band. That is apparently the rumored name of that future product is iLoop. They’ve already registered it. Own the—

[00:44:21] Trevor Long: Mate, it won’t be the iLoop.

[00:44:23] Stephen Fenech: You don’t reckon?

[00:44:23] Trevor Long: They’ve moved on from the i’s.

[00:44:25] Stephen Fenech: You reckon? Or might just be the Loop then. Yeah, Loop.

[00:44:28] Trevor Long: Apple Loop makes sense. Yeah. And you know where they’ll have that? Where? During the keynote in 5 years, whenever it is. Yeah, they’ll announce it.

[00:44:34] Stephen Fenech: 5 years?

[00:44:35] Trevor Long: That one infinite loop.

[00:44:37] Stephen Fenech: Oh, there you have it. There you have it. I like that.

[00:44:39] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’ll be—

[00:44:40] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but that’s— But the Loop with the unit in, it’s 3 O’s. Put another O in there.

[00:44:45] Trevor Long: Just throw an O in.

[00:44:46] Stephen Fenech: Throw an O in there.

[00:44:47] Trevor Long: How are we going to call this The Loop if we can’t register the name?

[00:44:50] Stephen Fenech: It’s called The Loop.

[00:44:51] Trevor Long: How would the name be registered in the audio space though?

[00:44:54] Stephen Fenech: I don’t know, but word is that these were made in pretty much similar factories as other well-known brands.

[00:45:04] Trevor Long: I’ve got no doubt.

[00:45:04] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah. And so there you’re getting a lot of bang for your buck.

[00:45:08] Trevor Long: And, uh, you need n.com.au, I’m assuming?

[00:45:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s right.

[00:45:11] Trevor Long: Any major retailers?

[00:45:13] Stephen Fenech: Uh, I believe so, yeah. Okay, so I haven’t looked. Yeah, but they sound great.

[00:45:18] Trevor Long: I’ve been— yeah, I fired up that little, I fired up that little, uh, the lantern, lantern one.

[00:45:22] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s a cute little sound. That’s good. I reckon your daughter would like that.

[00:45:26] Trevor Long: I think she would actually.

[00:45:27] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah, she’d like the look of it. It looks nice, sounds good. Then your son will like— Jackson will say, I’ll take the, the— what is it, the Yon, the bigger one with the handle? Jackson will say, that’s mine. Like Aaron would have said, that’s mine, I’m taking that. Hayley would have taken the, maybe the lantern one. Jacqueline would have been happy with the knee or sand.

[00:45:47] Trevor Long: Knee or sand.

[00:45:48] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the regular looking one.

[00:45:51] Trevor Long: I love how our kids are the same. What are we taking today?

[00:45:53] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s it. Oh, hey, I haven’t got one of those.

[00:45:55] Trevor Long: Okay, I’ll take it then. Can you go to the office and pick me up an express post envelope? Like Amanda will be like, can you go to Dad’s office and get an express post envelope? Yeah, and they’ll just go, Dad, can I have this? I’m like, yeah, whatever.

[00:46:05] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:46:06] Trevor Long: Well, the thing is they know, so they’re in charge of putting stuff away.

[00:46:09] Stephen Fenech: So they know, well, they know my kids, they know what stuff is done.

[00:46:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s been reviewed or used.

[00:46:16] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, so the other Unit N product we’ve been using lately too is the baby monitor.

[00:46:20] Trevor Long: Oh yes, of course.

[00:46:21] Stephen Fenech: Yes, we’ve got one at our place too. Yeah, well, Hayley’s got a couple at her place.

[00:46:24] Trevor Long: And when Hayley’s not down visiting, Joe uses the monitor. That’s right, we thought, well, yeah, Stephen’s crying again.

[00:46:32] Stephen Fenech: Stephen’s snoring again. I’m not going up there.

[00:46:34] Trevor Long: He’s watching another movie where he’s crying. She’s got the monitor in the theater while she sits down and makes dinner.

[00:46:40] Stephen Fenech: But when little Jack was there, he’s going to be back there in a couple of weeks again. Yeah, I’m going to have the— I think Aaron is going to be home in early October. Hayley will be there too. I’ll have everyone, all three of my kids in one place in early October. They’re going to be there for about a week.

[00:46:56] Trevor Long: They realize Christmas is several months away.

[00:46:58] Stephen Fenech: That’s the, you know, they’ll go home and come back for that as well.

[00:47:01] Trevor Long: Really? Yeah. Why is Aaron coming back?

[00:47:03] Stephen Fenech: I think he’s got a Bucs night.

[00:47:05] Trevor Long: Yeah, the big issue, Bucs.

[00:47:07] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, and just to catch up, to say g’day to his family, mate, to see us again.

[00:47:12] Trevor Long: Fair enough. Yeah. All right, you need the product, the Loop Loop.

[00:47:18] Stephen Fenech: Um, well, that’s how you’re going to say it. It’s not loop, it’s loop.

[00:47:21] Trevor Long: Uh, read more about it and see photos at techguide.com.au and eftm.com. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech, and we do it all thanks to the great people at Netgear, netgear.com.au for all your networking needs. If you’ve got the best NBN, there’s no point having that unless you’ve got the best Wi-Fi, because it’ll, it’ll end up with speed differentials throughout the home. So you’ll get great speeds at one part of the house, rubbish speeds at the other. That’s going to cause anger and upset among your family, and it’s going to mean that things like gaming won’t happen perfectly.

[00:47:51] Stephen Fenech: You don’t need an alarm at your house when there, you know, there’s some things that gives you notification that the internet’s down.

[00:47:56] Trevor Long: Yeah, your children. Children are allowed. Jackson went to watch the Roosters the other day. Oh, sorry, mate, I should have sent him a box of Kleenexes because he had to watch it on delay because we went to dinner.

[00:48:08] Stephen Fenech: That’s right.

[00:48:09] Trevor Long: Yeah, we went to dinner.

[00:48:10] Stephen Fenech: Did you give him a box of tissues just so this later?

[00:48:13] Trevor Long: It was very hard not to rub it into him before he went and watched it. But anyway, he, uh, it was just his, uh, his login wasn’t working. It was nothing to do with the internet because we’ve got a strong Wi-Fi network throughout the whole home. With the Netgear Orbi system, Wi-Fi 7 throughout the home. One or two satellites should do your home and give you that coverage of Wi-Fi in every room at the speeds that you’re paying for. That’s all available and you can buy them online at netgear.com.au. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.

[00:48:44] Stephen Fenech: That worked okay. You never touched that.

[00:48:45] Trevor Long: I hadn’t touched that. I’ve only done two tests. Yeah, yeah. So my fault, my fault.

[00:48:49] Stephen Fenech: Mate, that’s been on there for years, that file. I haven’t looked at it. You’re the last person to see that.

[00:48:54] Trevor Long: It would, but once you power it off, it’d lose its memory of what was played.

[00:48:57] Stephen Fenech: Oh, of course, that would happen. Yeah, of course.

[00:48:59] Trevor Long: Um, uh, after we recorded last week and before the show went, uh, to air, a major announcement was made in the United States. And look, in simple terms, uh, Meta was before the courts in a bunch of states for basically put child safety abuse. So the algorithm upsetting kids, causing kids self-harm, the addictive, the addictive nature of the algorithm. And Mark Zuckerberg was due to give evidence in one of the states, and before that happened, they agreed to a settlement. They agreed to terms with pretty much all the United States— two, I think there’s two that didn’t, um, and Meta agreed to pay $17 billion US, US dollars, uh, and commit to a bunch of changes to their platforms. We’ll get to the changes in a minute. Yeah, let’s just talk about money. $17 billion is less than they make profit in 3 months, right? $17 billion.

[00:49:54] Stephen Fenech: Still a solid hit though. $17 billion US dollars still to be paid.

[00:49:58] Trevor Long: It’s not just sort of chunky paid over 10 years.

[00:50:01] Stephen Fenech: Ah, okay, right.

[00:50:03] Trevor Long: Now, good news, the money goes to the states for mental health and child safety programs. That’s a win, right? Okay, but Meta is only required to pay 70% of that, so unless TikTok and YouTube also enact the same changes to their platforms that they’ve agreed to. Okay, so they’ve basically gone, okay, we’ll do a bunch of things, but we’re not paying the full amount unless you get TikTok and YouTube to do the same thing. And secondly, we’re paying it over 10 years. So like, honestly, it’s— yeah, I think it’s a win— it’s a win-win-win because Facebook wins because they don’t have to pay much money. Honestly, it’s not that much. The states win because they get money, and parents and kids win because These are the greatest changes you’ll ever see. Now, yeah, my point on this was you won’t hear an Australian politician say it, but this is far more impactful for kids in America than the Australian social media ban. Far more impactful because—

[00:50:54] Stephen Fenech: so the American decision is—

[00:50:55] Trevor Long: the American decision will do wonders for, for American kids and parents. Yeah, because American kids, teens, are required to have a 2-hour time limit Yes, across both platforms.

[00:51:06] Stephen Fenech: That’s part of the deal.

[00:51:08] Trevor Long: They’re required to get nudges. So basically get a notification saying you’ve been on for 15 minutes scrolling constantly.

[00:51:13] Stephen Fenech: It’ll, yeah, it’ll pop up.

[00:51:15] Trevor Long: No notifications at night or during school hours.

[00:51:17] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:51:18] Trevor Long: The ability to opt out of the algorithm. So no algorithmic—

[00:51:22] Stephen Fenech: sounds like something two blokes said a while ago.

[00:51:25] Trevor Long: And several other changes, right?

[00:51:27] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:51:27] Trevor Long: The way I’ve described it is it’s basically all of the existing parental controls are being forced onto accounts as opt-out, not opt-in.

[00:51:35] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:51:36] Trevor Long: Right, and there are some of those things that the parents can opt to help them change, so they can turn off the time limit, but only with the parents’ help. So it’s what we’ve said, uh, 6 months ago.

[00:51:44] Stephen Fenech: Exactly right.

[00:51:45] Trevor Long: It’s put the parental controls in place by default and let the parents be parents.

[00:51:50] Stephen Fenech: It’s put on the platforms, making it their responsibility rather than— because the problem with our social media ban in Australia is that once they’re 16 Nothing has changed. Yeah, the platforms are the same. So this is the way they’ve done in the US. They’ve forced the platforms to change rather than us say, okay, everyone out. Well, parents can’t be trusted to do that. Everyone out. And then when you’re 16, you’re back in and the platform is exactly how you left it.

[00:52:16] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:52:17] Stephen Fenech: But now with this new ruling, they’re going to have all these things you mentioned, the notifications, 15-minute nudge, that sort of stuff. That’s what we should have done 2 years ago.

[00:52:26] Trevor Long: Yeah, and the Australian government could, um, like, they could go, uh, you know, hey Facebook, you’re going to implement these changes here, or we’ll fine you, like, in the same way that you’ve had to in the US. Yeah, Facebook has made, or Meta have made, no, uh, decision to implement these changes anywhere but the US, let’s be clear. But if you’re like, and I’m, I’m being a lunatic here, but if you’re Facebook, Meta, morally you’ve basically admitted without admission that there is a problem, why wouldn’t you just roll this out globally?

[00:52:56] Stephen Fenech: You know what, just roll it out globally. Exactly. If I was Mark Zuckerberg, I’d say, listen, Albo, how about we do a deal? Let them on younger than 16, but we’ll make these changes that sort of play into what you’re going for. Can we make that work? What do you reckon Albo would say?

[00:53:14] Trevor Long: No, we’ve got a great system already. We’ve banned them. That’s the problem. This is my problem with this being a political football. Is that any reasonable person with the knowledge that we have, to be frank, on this whole thing would go, hey, ban not working, that looks really good.

[00:53:30] Stephen Fenech: Ban is definitely not working.

[00:53:31] Trevor Long: Let’s see if we can get— why don’t we try and get a billion dollars over 10 years, just 1 billion over 10 years to put into mental health and child safety. So do you remember a year ago I said, because I think we were talking about, okay, what would you do? And I think I said if I was running for parliament, I would do a few things, and one of them would be I would fund school counselors. So I’d want a program of school counselors funded so that we could deal with kids that are having problems online.

[00:53:56] Stephen Fenech: Exactly.

[00:53:56] Trevor Long: We could help kids that are having problems online. So let’s get a billion dollars from Meta to fund child safety programs that can help kids, right? And then let’s make them enforce these changes. Now, it’s fascinating to me that TikTok and YouTube are a part of this without— no, without having been part of it.

[00:54:12] Stephen Fenech: Just dragged them in.

[00:54:13] Trevor Long: I just dragged them in. And you know what, I know everyone says they’ve got these measures in place, but the fact is not all parents get it. And so what you need is to implement these as opt-out scenarios for kids. The only way to opt out is to link a parental account.

[00:54:32] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:54:33] Trevor Long: And that parent has to prove their ID using an ID, which kids don’t have. That parent has to pass an age assurance test. And that parent then gets to choose how their kids go online. Well, you know, not rocket science.

[00:54:46] Stephen Fenech: These changes that are going to happen in the US, they’re things that, that you can’t skip. They’re gonna— everyone’s gonna affect it. Yeah, the ban in Australia is skippable. They’re, they’re working around it. There’s workarounds. Yeah, so far less effective when it’s done as an opt-in and you can’t— there’s no missing it. You can’t get out of it.

[00:55:07] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:55:08] Stephen Fenech: Can’t sidestep it.

[00:55:09] Trevor Long: And remember our big— the policy we came up with when we discussed it, and we literally came up with on the fly, was the algorithm should be rolling, a rolling deletion. So as a 13-year-old or something, the algorithm has a week’s memory, and then, then, and then every day, like a dashcam, it drops off a day’s worth of knowledge. So if you looked at a banana peel, uh, exhibition on day 1, you won’t see bananas on day 8 because that was 8 days ago, right?

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

[00:55:34] Trevor Long: Unless you kept watching bananas.

[00:55:36] Stephen Fenech: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

[00:55:37] Trevor Long: I’m just trying to come up with different things. I understand.

[00:55:40] Stephen Fenech: But you know what, like, do you think— I know that the meta, the meta that we’re talking about is more Instagram than Facebook, right?

[00:55:45] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:55:45] Stephen Fenech: The kids aren’t really on—

[00:55:46] Trevor Long: No, they’re not.

[00:55:47] Stephen Fenech: That’s a mum’s and dad’s— that’s sort of the oldies’ social media. You meant Facebook? You’re still on Facebook?

[00:55:53] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, I don’t go there much.

[00:55:54] Stephen Fenech: Me too. But, um, yeah, I’d say Instagram more than Facebook. But, uh, TikTok, I think, have a bit of explaining to do there as well.

[00:56:02] Trevor Long: That’s quite a different They’ve got the exact same parental controls, they just need to be enforced as an opt-out.

[00:56:08] Stephen Fenech: So there’s— ah, right, so the way they do it now is you’ve got to opt in, so it’s default off everything.

[00:56:13] Trevor Long: It’s the same with Instagram. All these things, yeah, pretty much everything they’ve agreed to, yeah, it’s for them to enact is a zero dollar thing. It’s like, okay, we’re going to make it opt-out, not opt-in. That’s it. That’s the technical change. Yes, so TikTok has parental controls. They just need to admit that parents aren’t using them enough.

[00:56:33] Stephen Fenech: And I love how nothing’s going to fall. Zuckerberg just put them on and gave them a bill, said, okay, well, I’m not going to do it unless they agree. Yeah. Are they going to pay some of it too? Are they?

[00:56:40] Trevor Long: No, no, no. So Meta will pay the full—

[00:56:42] Stephen Fenech: really?

[00:56:43] Trevor Long: They’ll pay the full 100% only if TikTok and YouTube come on and have to probably pay some money as well, right? Wow. So they’re only up for 70% of that $17 billion if the others don’t come on board. Okay, if they don’t come on So if YouTube and TikTok are not forced into the same changes in the US states, they’re gonna only pay 70%. Meta is only required to pay 70% of that.

[00:57:05] Stephen Fenech: So if they do, they do, they’re not paying money, they’re just making changes.

[00:57:09] Trevor Long: TikTok and YouTube. You can imagine that in the negotiation, the states would want to get a little bit of cash.

[00:57:15] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:57:15] Trevor Long: Also, here’s the other thing, Albo, mate, you’re having this problem getting money out of these platforms for the news and all that kind of stuff, right? Just, just before I get the money out of them for this.

[00:57:24] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, like, and the $50 million, $49.5 million fine, which they’ll never impose.

[00:57:30] Trevor Long: Never.

[00:57:31] Stephen Fenech: That’s, that’s like the, the change down the back of their lounge.

[00:57:34] Trevor Long: Mark Zuckerberg has that in his belly button.

[00:57:37] Stephen Fenech: Are you kidding? Yeah, he’d spend it on lunch in a week.

[00:57:41] Trevor Long: Oh, you won’t, you won’t be surprised. I commented on a lady’s TikTok today. Um, she said she’s sitting there and she goes, are you bored?

[00:57:48] Stephen Fenech: You don’t have enough work to do.

[00:57:49] Trevor Long: There was, I’ve I’ve struggled a little bit to get things happening. Anyway, I’ve got a list. Anyway, so she goes, um, if your kids are on TikTok in their school uniforms, they shouldn’t be on here. And if they— if their school says something, just know this: I called the school. And I wrote in the comments, I said, listen, calling the school’s useless, calling the parents is useless. There’s no— the kid is committing no offense by being on this platform. The only person committing an offense is TikTok for not kicking them off the platform. The only punishment is on the platform, not the kids, the parents, or the school. So why are you calling the school for?

[00:58:26] Stephen Fenech: Is this an Aussie?

[00:58:27] Trevor Long: Yeah, some Aussie one. I said there’s no point ringing the school if you’ve got a problem, report the account.

[00:58:32] Stephen Fenech: Was her name Karen?

[00:58:33] Trevor Long: It probably was. And what am I, Darren?

[00:58:37] Stephen Fenech: Um, anyway, so Karen’s been sold out.

[00:58:40] Trevor Long: Sold.

[00:58:40] Stephen Fenech: Imagine if you were called Karen. I know a few women named Karen. Yeah, they hate that. No. I’m totally the opposite. Imagine being— imagine if they— that the term for that was Trevor. Wouldn’t you be filthy? You’re a Trevor.

[00:58:52] Trevor Long: I’d be pretty unhappy about it. Yeah.

[00:58:55] Stephen Fenech: Now I’ll tell you what we should do. The person who does the angry comments, and then that’s being a Trevor. Yeah, you know, someone who takes them on online.

[00:59:03] Trevor Long: Yeah, that’s being a Trevor.

[00:59:05] Stephen Fenech: That’s being a Trevor. So if you’re a Karen, you know what a Karen is like, you know, oh, you shouldn’t park here, whatever. Yeah. And you’re online.

[00:59:11] Trevor Long: So if you have a bad day one day, Online? Whoa, whoa, whoa!

[00:59:15] Stephen Fenech: You took that too far.

[00:59:16] Trevor Long: Online argument— so if you have a bad day one day, you’ll text me and go, mate, just say I’ve had a trevor today, and I’ll be like, oh, where’s he gone? Let’s jump into the comments.

[00:59:24] Stephen Fenech: Let’s go, bro. Yeah, that’s it. I reckon we could stick to that.

[00:59:28] Trevor Long: I’ve just been banging my bonnet about misinformation over the last few years. I’ve noticed this random iPhone stuff. It’s like, guys, come on.

[00:59:35] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I know, I know.

[00:59:36] Trevor Long: And the algorithm’s just feeding it too much.

[00:59:39] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I know. Well, but that’s all they’re doing. The only reason they’re doing it is to go viral. Yeah, that’s the only reason. And we know influencers go to great lengths to go viral, including breaking the law in some time and just doing stupid things. Yeah, and I love that dude, you know, the Dardy Snacks guy, you know, the bloke.

[00:59:56] Trevor Long: Oh my God, he’s a genius. He used to be such a good journalist.

[01:00:02] Stephen Fenech: Oh yeah, he used to be a journo, and now he’s gone on to YouTube. His YouTube channel’s blowing up too, calling out all these influencers.

[01:00:10] Trevor Long: Awesome.

[01:00:10] Stephen Fenech: Just, mate, he’s an absolute avenger against these Influences. Big fan. Great. Love it. Oh my God, you guys, it’s the, it’s the way he filmed it. Yeah, sort of like he’s laying back against the desk there.

[01:00:24] Trevor Long: Yeah, no effort.

[01:00:26] Stephen Fenech: Solid head of hair, mate. He’s got the best head of hair. Yeah, yeah.

[01:00:29] Trevor Long: All right, thanks for rubbing that in.

[01:00:31] Stephen Fenech: Cheers, bro. No, but Dadi Snacks is apparently a, uh, flavored popcorn that he’s, he’s got an Indian heritage. His mother, his grandmother used to make it for the family and they They started selling it in the US and apparently they’ve sold out. They’re going nuts. And that’s sort of on the back of that. That’s his account. Yeah.

[01:00:50] Trevor Long: Does he promote the Darty snacks as well?

[01:00:52] Stephen Fenech: Just to tell people that we’ve stocked these flavors and that’s it. Like, he’s not as much as he is against sort of calling out influencers.

[01:01:00] Trevor Long: I’d love that. That’d be great.

[01:01:01] Stephen Fenech: Mate, that’s you. You’ve done it. What was the one you did where the telcos— what was the telcos? The news.

[01:01:08] Trevor Long: When the— you mean the journo that reported on Vicky Brady? Was that the one?

[01:01:12] Stephen Fenech: No, there was one where they were going to do something about country coverage or something.

[01:01:17] Trevor Long: Oh yeah, that reporter that wrote about Starlink. Yeah, and I’m like, what are you doing? Yeah, this is stupid.

[01:01:22] Stephen Fenech: It’s clickbait. Yeah, that’s the problem, it’s clickbait.

[01:01:25] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’s journos writing off their beat. They’re offbeat. Yeah, because the beats don’t exist anymore. Do you know what I mean?

[01:01:31] Stephen Fenech: Like, it’s like tech.

[01:01:32] Trevor Long: Tech. Yeah, who’s the tech?

[01:01:33] Stephen Fenech: Who, who would—

[01:01:34] Trevor Long: who could that So like, and I’ll be— and you know, I don’t work for Channel 9, but obviously I have a strong affiliation. But I’d be really annoyed if that article had been published on 9.com.au and no one had rung me, because we’ve talked about this. I think you came into the office the other day when I was talking to someone at a really big TV show, and I— and they said— you said to me, you’re going to be on the show? No, no, I was just helping them out. I want them to be right. I want them to at least have a bit of my knowledge. I don’t claim to know everything, but If a journo had rung me and said, can you tell me about this Starlink in rural areas, I would have given the whole rundown and that article was still a strong article but vastly different. And I just, that’s what’s annoying is people don’t have that knowledge to go to.

[01:02:17] Stephen Fenech: Don’t you, every time there’s an outage we hear all the general reporters from the TV stations with zero tech knowledge. Yeah, how can this happen again? Another outage? How does it happen again? Like, think if there’s only one type of outage you’re going to have.

[01:02:31] Trevor Long: We can already predict now there’ll be an outage again in the next 12 months of big or small that has triple zero effects. And none of the journos will know anything about this campaign that’s been going on. It didn’t even go on. It was rubbish. It was a poor—

[01:02:44] Stephen Fenech: sorry, not rubbish.

[01:02:44] Trevor Long: It was a poorly executed telco-wide, you know, communication to everyone about triple zero and the things you need to do.

[01:02:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[01:02:53] Trevor Long: One press release. I mean, how’s that going to change anything? And a bunch of emails.

[01:02:56] Stephen Fenech: We spoke about it.

[01:02:56] Trevor Long: I know, but it’s you and me.

[01:02:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[01:02:57] Trevor Long: Yeah, you and me the only people talking about it.

[01:02:59] Stephen Fenech: I got a message from Optus saying, oh, thanks for spreading the word.

[01:03:03] Trevor Long: Oh yeah, sure. Yeah, but you know, did you get any— like, people aren’t reading emails from their telcos. Well, I said an EDM from your telco is not a great way of communicating.

[01:03:14] Stephen Fenech: But speaking of which, apparently there was a report released by Telstra.

[01:03:18] Trevor Long: Yeah, basically they stuffed up. Yeah, they need to change their processes.

[01:03:23] Stephen Fenech: The error that they found they needed to place more importance on it. Yes, pretty much. And remedying the issue, they need to get better at it.

[01:03:31] Trevor Long: And they’ve committed to looking at other parts of the technical, technological systems that might have the same severe impact and making sure that they’ve been prioritized.

[01:03:41] Stephen Fenech: What did they name it? They said it was some, the sovereign effect or something on how it’s like such an important part of the network that they didn’t give it as much attention.

[01:03:50] Trevor Long: Yeah, I mean, we know what it was.

[01:03:54] Stephen Fenech: Was it there? Was that an independent report?

[01:03:56] Trevor Long: Yes, they had an independent— this was the handing down of the findings from an independent.

[01:04:00] Stephen Fenech: Not too much attention it got, did it?

[01:04:03] Trevor Long: It must have got an email. It must have got a bit, because I got a call from Nine News wanting to do something. I said, I’m in Berlin, so good luck. Yeah, right. Um, yeah, Telstra had a press conference, etc. Anyway, uh, Two Blokes Talking Tech, folks. Thanks, Anik, Gear and Arlo. We’ll be, uh, here in Berlin for a few days. So you can follow all of our adventures on techguy.com.au and aftm.com. And next week, somehow, some way, somewhere, we’ll squeeze in a show about Apple.

[01:04:26] Stephen Fenech: About Apple.

[01:04:27] Trevor Long: Yeah, I’m desperate. I’m not sure how I’m going to get that done.

[01:04:30] Stephen Fenech: What are they doing?

[01:04:31] Trevor Long: I will do my best, mate.

[01:04:32] Stephen Fenech: John Turnus too, first week in the job.

[01:04:34] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:04:35] Stephen Fenech: Has he sent you an email yet?

[01:04:36] Trevor Long: No, he hasn’t. I, um, honestly don’t know what time that episode will drop next week.

[01:04:41] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[01:04:41] Trevor Long: Because I’ve got to get from the event at 7 o’clock at night to my hotel and back to San Francisco.

[01:04:50] Stephen Fenech: The event is—

[01:04:51] Trevor Long: I’ve got stuff all through the day until the night. So yeah, we might be recording at like 8:30 San Francisco time PM.

[01:05:00] Stephen Fenech: Which would be what time in Australia?

[01:05:01] Trevor Long: I’ve got no idea.

[01:05:03] Stephen Fenech: So like 3 AM or something?

[01:05:04] Trevor Long: No, no, it’ll be late in the afternoon. Like I think we might not make the 5 o’clock I’m all good. Uh, output time. And I’ll put it out there right now. Yeah, it might be a quick show because I’ve got to get to my family. Understand.

[01:05:16] Stephen Fenech: Just to be clear, Trev’s going from here, aren’t you?

[01:05:19] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, yep.

[01:05:22] Stephen Fenech: I got the email, I think, oh, Apple Events, oh, watch it online. I went, hey, cool. So I’ll be home, and a couple of rodeos have asked me, they’ve said, oh, you, are you, have you been invited? I said, no, mate, I didn’t get it. He goes, what do you want? What? And they said, oh, they prefer more attractive influences over tech journos, mate. Yeah, and that’s the truth, isn’t it?

[01:05:41] Trevor Long: I mean, I don’t think Trev’s an attractive influence.

[01:05:44] Stephen Fenech: Their policies, but yeah, well, that’s the deal, isn’t it? I know Val’s not going either. Oh yeah, now, mate, you know, he’s the bloke off the bench when you’re away. Yeah, yeah. So, um, but we’ll make it work. So you’re not gonna have— you can just have the—

[01:05:58] Trevor Long: I’ve got the scarf.

[01:05:58] Stephen Fenech: We’ll discuss the production off air.

[01:06:00] Trevor Long: Yes, let’s do that now. All right, all right, we’ll be back next week, folks, with all the news from Apple’s iPhone somehow, somewhere, some way. Yes, I thought I might even do it in the car on the way to San Francisco. I don’t know. Oh, are you gonna—

[01:06:10] Stephen Fenech: oh, you’re there in downtown?

[01:06:11] Trevor Long: They’re in downtown.

[01:06:12] Stephen Fenech: Drive from there, right?

[01:06:14] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, you’re gonna—

[01:06:14] Stephen Fenech: are they got you in the middle of nowhere again, or you don’t?

[01:06:17] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, I’m sure they held you hostage. Yeah, yeah, Tetra again.

[01:06:20] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the remote, remote area.

[01:06:21] Trevor Long: Yep, yep, you love that, don’t you? I love it, it’s my favorite thing in the world.

[01:06:25] Stephen Fenech: All right, folks.

[01:06:26] Trevor Long: See you next week.

[01:06:27] Stephen Fenech: Bye.

[01:06:28] Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.