The Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast – Episode # 751 – Coming to you live from Meta Connect 2026 in Silicon Valley

TBTT #751 – Coming to you live from Meta Connect 2026 in Silicon Valley

Podcast: Two Blokes Talking Tech
Date: 24 September 2026
Hosts: Stephen Fenech and Val Quinn

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[00:00:01] Stephen Fenech: Well, Val, we’re together again, you filling in for Trevor. Thank you very much for being here, mate. Well, we happen to be in California again.

[00:00:09] Val Quinn: That’s right, here we are again.

[00:00:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, we’re here together at Meta Connect in Palo Alto. Is that where we are? Palo Alto, Menlo Park?

[00:00:17] Val Quinn: Yeah, Menlo Park, sort of that sort of Silicon Valley sort of area.

[00:00:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, so we, uh, it just worked out that we were in Sydney last week and we knew we were going to be together here this week, so we thought we’d bring you the podcast, tell you all about everything that’s happening in, uh, Meta Connect and all the announcements. So this is funny, you were here for Apple, what, 2 weeks ago, a week and a half ago?

[00:00:38] Val Quinn: Yeah, it seems like you were yesterday.

[00:00:40] Stephen Fenech: It really does.

[00:00:41] Val Quinn: That hotel room looks the same and everything.

[00:00:43] Stephen Fenech: And you’re back again. Geez, how does your body go with all the traveling, mate?

[00:00:46] Val Quinn: It’s just—

[00:00:47] Stephen Fenech: oh, you must be a veteran now, like traveling. You don’t get— I don’t get jet lag. You don’t get jet lag?

[00:00:51] Val Quinn: Really? I think we find our coping mechanisms, you know. You have your, your coffee and your melatonin and your, your sunlight and your melatonin. Yeah.

[00:00:58] Stephen Fenech: So you have that to sleep on the plane, do you?

[00:00:59] Val Quinn: Yeah, definitely on the plane. And then when I’m— every night that I’m here until I can do it on my own. It’s not falling asleep, it’s staying asleep. That’s the tricky bit. Like, I can fall asleep, that’s fine.

[00:01:09] Stephen Fenech: But it’s— well, mate, I was across the aisle from you over on the way over, mate. You were sacked out solid for hours. I think you banked a good sleep.

[00:01:15] Val Quinn: That was a melatonin sleep. I knew I was going to need it.

[00:01:18] Stephen Fenech: That’s the plan, innit?

[00:01:19] Val Quinn: That’s the plan.

[00:01:20] Stephen Fenech: That’s awesome. All right, mate, let’s get on with this.

[00:01:23] Voice Over: Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:01:26] Voice Over: Not a bad price.

[00:01:26] Voice Over: With Trevor Long from eftm.com.

[00:01:29] Voice Over: Really handy device.

[00:01:31] Voice Over: And Stephen Fenech from techguide.com.au.

[00:01:34] Stephen Fenech: Two Blokes Talking Tech, episode 751, uh, brought to you by Netgear and Arlo. We’ll tell you more about them shortly, but as we mentioned at the top, Val and I— Val again kindly stepping in for Trevor, uh, as he’s on his break, uh, we’re both here in Silicon Valley at Meta Connect. My first one, you’ve been here before.

[00:01:54] Val Quinn: Yep, and then just finished literally, um, you know, we just kind of came back from it. We’ve only been back for about, what, 20 minutes?

[00:01:59] Stephen Fenech: We’d left, we even left the party early to come back and do this show. That’s how dedicated we are.

[00:02:05] Val Quinn: We want to get out, plus we’re old and it’s a bit—

[00:02:08] Stephen Fenech: it’s been a long day.

[00:02:09] Val Quinn: Yeah, the young people stayed, but we decided to come back and do some work.

[00:02:14] Stephen Fenech: The act was it— was it Sophie Tucker?

[00:02:16] Val Quinn: Was it Sophie Tucker Nelson? I think it was Sophie Nelson. Um, okay, this is bad.

[00:02:20] Stephen Fenech: I, I wouldn’t be able to pick her out from a lineup, but anyway, uh, I think it was Sophie Tucker.

[00:02:26] Val Quinn: Sophie Tucker.

[00:02:26] Stephen Fenech: There you go. Well, that was the—

[00:02:28] Val Quinn: they’re playing some old stuff—

[00:02:29] Stephen Fenech: the guest act. And one of the— we did— we, we were here as guests of Meta, and we, we did, we did meet a lot of the Meta Comms team from all around the, all around the world, like from India and the UK, and, uh, they were great hosts. So, uh, thanks to them.

[00:02:43] Val Quinn: Yeah, absolutely. Really good.

[00:02:45] Stephen Fenech: The event is— well, as I said, you’ve been here before, so how did this compare to last year, and was it what you expected?

[00:02:51] Val Quinn: Yeah, well, look, it’s— I, it is, I guess, first and foremost, it’s, it’s more of a developers conference. So they, they kind of get their whole team and staff together and celebrate and talk about what they’re doing, what’s coming up. So I think there’s a lot of other things that we don’t see as press that go on behind the scenes. A lot of plans come to fruition. There’s a lot of maybe, you know, some pat on the backs and that kind of thing. So acknowledgment. So it was— look, I think this year, I think the announcements are probably more relevant to everyday people. There’s a lot of, a lot of, I guess, a bit of controversy out there right now around privacy. And I think it’s good timing. It’s also an opportunity, I guess, for Meta to, I guess, take the lead in the conversation about privacy because obviously they’re creating wearable devices, and we can go into that.

[00:03:34] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely, yeah, we’ll talk about that. Yeah, but, uh, I, I was, I was thrilled to be on Meta’s campus. So, you know, we’re talking Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and, you know, the, the product teams now, they’re, they’ve got their, their, their, um, AI labs as well, Meta Labs as well. So, uh, it was an interesting experience being here, uh, the, seeing the campus. It seems like a pretty fun place to work.

[00:03:57] Val Quinn: Yeah, it seems really pleasant. The funny thing is it’s a gigantic campus, so if It’s, uh, it’s two campuses. One they sort of, they bought off Sun Microsystems, and it’s sort of an older style one, but it’s sort of like a— that you described as a bit of Disneyland. Yeah, a little bit.

[00:04:10] Stephen Fenech: It felt like I was walking through Disneyland. There’s a restaurant just here, then there’s another, like, another office here.

[00:04:17] Val Quinn: Yeah, it seemed really pleasant. You know, you can ride bikes around and big open areas between the buildings. But it’s just incredible how many people are employed by this guy that came up with this idea in college to, and, you know, create the Facebook, as I think it was called. And, um, and now it’s thousands of people across the world. But the funny thing is, most of them we talk to, I’m like, where’s your office in this giant campus? And they’re like, oh no, I work from home.

[00:04:40] Stephen Fenech: They’ve got a huge place.

[00:04:44] Val Quinn: I don’t know if anybody comes in anymore.

[00:04:46] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I got that, I got that. But speaking of the man you referred to, Mark Zuckerberg, we just saw him at the keynote.

[00:04:53] Val Quinn: We did.

[00:04:54] Stephen Fenech: Which was, uh, a bit of a thrill seeing him live and delivering the keynote, which, which, uh, He announced a few products which we’re going to go through one by one on the show, but it was— it reminded me, there was all the claps and the cheers when he made the announcement. So I— they were probably the staff that was in the audience, but yeah, there’s a few journos and a lot of creators here as well, you know.

[00:05:14] Val Quinn: Yes, true, there was a lot of excitement.

[00:05:16] Stephen Fenech: Influencers who I noted were seated at the front of the, of the arena, of the area.

[00:05:21] Val Quinn: I know, they said we get better seats.

[00:05:22] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I don’t know how that works, but yeah, I wonder what that says. But let’s get into the announcements, and mate, you’ve got to say the biggest announcement, the—

[00:05:31] Val Quinn: my—

[00:05:31] Stephen Fenech: what I consider to be the biggest announcement was the Meta VR glasses. Now this is, this is their answer to— obviously we’ve— they’ve had the Meta Quest in the past, which have been okay, a little bit clunky, big controllers. But mate, they have gone to another level now with the Meta VR glasses.

[00:05:49] Val Quinn: Yeah, well, I think these are the, the VR glasses that are going to make people who don’t care about VR glasses maybe a little bit more interested. Yeah, because we’re moving to a place where I mean, the concept here is that you wear a pair of glasses and you can, you can see your normal world, but also your world gets augmented or you have like graphics and screens and things in your, in your world too. So the problem is, is that in the past these have been uncomfortable, they’ve been heavy, they haven’t done a very good job. And Apple really kind of raised the bar with its Vision Pro that was launched not that long ago. But of course it had challenges, it’s expensive and all of that. So this is an evolution of that. And this is moving more towards something that you can actually wear on your face. It’s— you don’t have to wear a head strap, you don’t wear a headband, it’s not a pair of goggles, it’s a pair of glasses. And that’s the really big shift. And to do this, um, it’s a huge deal. The technology, the, the design, and to make it smaller and lighter is actually really quite, um, hard to do. And I was really impressed with what they were able to do with this.

[00:06:48] Stephen Fenech: And he— I think on stage, um, Mark Zuckerberg said it was in— been in development for a decade.

[00:06:53] Val Quinn: Wow, yeah, that doesn’t surprise me.

[00:06:55] Stephen Fenech: You compare it though to the, the previous— so let’s— the Meta Quest, was it 3? The Meta Quest 3. And I can remember having that at home to review it, and my wife says, oh, give me a try. And I put it on her and I said, okay, here’s the controller, you got to do this and this. And she went, nah, too hard. She just gave it straight back to me because it was too hard. But I’m really happy that this, the Meta VR, has— look, let’s, let’s face it, they’ve borrowed— it seems they’ve borrowed a little from the Apple playbook here with their No controller. That’s right, just gestures. So it’s the same pinching action to select the same eyeball, the app or the button to highlight it. So very similar to the VR as well. Little cameras pointing down at your hands. I think to scroll you make a fist and you rub your thumb on your finger. It’s interesting, but, but mate, it’s something— if I gave that to my wife, she would know it in 30 seconds, like the Vision Pro. And, and be done and be there. Uh, but I think what, what the VR— several advantages that Meta VR— we’ll talk price later, how they’re much, much cheaper than the Apple Vision Pro. But just this, the size of them. And, and did you remember during the keynote he said, um, it is a— the, the glasses that he mentioned, the VR, remember there was a whole room full of glasses.

[00:08:13] Val Quinn: Yeah.

[00:08:14] Stephen Fenech: And he said they’ve been here the whole time. That’s how small they were. They look like other ones. And so when he pulled it out, and I think what he said, it weighs the same weight as the deck of cards.

[00:08:24] Val Quinn: That’s right, 100 grams for the glasses and then 300 grams for the, uh, little, uh, sort of battery and, uh, chip.

[00:08:32] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they call that the puck.

[00:08:34] Val Quinn: Yeah, they call that a puck. So similar to the Vision Pro, which has sort of a tether and there’s a little battery that you have to put in your back pocket. It’s the same idea, only this one has the processor inside too. As well as the battery. And, uh, it creates some challenges because this has got a little fan in it, has to keep itself cool. So like, can you put it in your pocket? So I think they’re still working out a few things on that front.

[00:08:56] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they’re still 6 months away from launch, we should note. They’re saying March— or sorry, spring next year, US spring, which is March, April, around that time. Is that right?

[00:09:04] Val Quinn: Spring 2027.

[00:09:05] Stephen Fenech: But, um, what, what, like, you and I, we both had hands-on time with it behind closed door sessions, about half an hour. So very luckily, we were the first people, one of the first people to try it. But set up, and I think both of us wear reading glasses, so they took our glasses. It’s like the Vision Pro, they had these little magnetic little lenses that they put on there. They probably had in stock, you know, the ones that are similar to our, our specs. And then, uh, and away we go. And they just— I don’t— you’ve probably had the same session as me where they said, okay, they told you what to do, and it was so easy to do. But I was still getting over the fact that I just put on a pair of glasses. Yeah, and while it doesn’t cover all the ambient light like the Vision Pro— like the Vision Pro really wraps around your face and really isolates you— this, this did that. I think I, I could have had mine fit a bit better. Remember I was telling you my nose bridge? I think there was 3 different nose bridges you can get to bring it closer to your face.

[00:09:59] Val Quinn: Yeah, you can.

[00:10:00] Stephen Fenech: I think I could have gone closer, but it was still a great experience. Yeah, and how the adjustment too, like the— what is it, the pancake lenses there is on them? Pancake. So it’s very thin and you— and adjusting the eyepieces as well was adjustable just with your hand inside. And then it gave you the thumbs up. You— and like the Vision Pro, you can still see your hands and you select with your eye and have the gestures. Mate, I think— do you think Apple is thinking, wow, um, look at that?

[00:10:32] Val Quinn: Yeah, look, I think, I think they have to. They have to. I mean, they probably got some pretty interesting stuff in their labs too, I would imagine, but Yeah, I guess the way I kind of sum these up is that they took sort of the best of what the Vision Pro has done, and the Vision Pro really put this kind of device on the map because they did it so well. In the past, a lot of virtual reality headsets were really frustrating for a lot of people, so they put this on the map with hand gestures and with eye tracking. No controllers, no controller, very intuitive. And what Meta has been able to do is they’ve taken the best of that only they’ve made it much lighter and much more comfortable. It’s now glasses, not goggles. Goggles need to be worn with a headband and a strap, and these can do pretty much most of the same things and to the same, or in some cases better, um, experience, uh, only they’ve lightened it up and made it smaller. And then that’s really a big, big progression for this type of technology. And they’re, they’re absolutely on the cutting edge. They have these, you know, like Micro OLED displays that are, you know, really hard to make.

[00:11:33] Stephen Fenech: And yeah, I think it was like 37 pixels per degree. That’s correct.

[00:11:37] Val Quinn: And 37 pixels.

[00:11:38] Stephen Fenech: So the thing with it, like, I don’t know if you’ve still got a Vision Pro. I’ve still got the Vision Pro.

[00:11:41] Val Quinn: Yeah, I still love it.

[00:11:42] Stephen Fenech: I pull it out and when I’m using, I’m thinking, this is amazing, I should use this more often. But you got to put it on and it’s a bit heavy, you got to adjust it, and it’s a bit of— it’s a bit of a job to get it set up. Whereas the Meta VR glasses, you just put them on. Yeah, and that’s it, you’re ready to go.

[00:11:59] Val Quinn: Well, I think that’s an important thing is like, why would anybody want them? Like, why would you use these? And I think that what they would do for you now is that they’re, they’re much more portable. You can take them with you, throw them in your bag. Say you’re, you know, you’re working in a cafe, all you have to do is pull them out, put them on, and then what you can do is it actually can, um, display a virtual keyboard on the tabletop.

[00:12:18] Stephen Fenech: Well, that was really quite good. Amazing, I thought.

[00:12:21] Val Quinn: So you put them on, do you remember they, they described it—

[00:12:23] Stephen Fenech: sorry, mate— they said, they said it’s a gaming device, entertainment device, and a productivity device.

[00:12:30] Val Quinn: So yeah, it’s, it’s not just like the Meta Quests are meant to be more of a gaming sort of focus thing. This is, you can do a lot of different things, travel as well. So good for travel, good for work.

[00:12:39] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, they’re so small, you can take them anywhere.

[00:12:42] Val Quinn: Yeah, so you can do that. You can sit in a plane, you can put your seat tray back down and use that as your virtual keyboard space. So what it does is when you, um, want this virtual keyboard, so say you want to type out a long message, you know, you don’t want to tap it away with your thumbs like on a phone. You can put on the goggles— sorry, I should say glasses—

[00:12:58] Stephen Fenech: goggles. Don’t call them goggles.

[00:12:59] Val Quinn: And you put your hands flat on the surface that you want to be keyboard, and then it will map the keyboard onto that. So the first time I did it, I had my, like, my, um, it wasn’t flat. I had my kind of fingers, um, just on the, on the, the desk, and it was curved upwards, so it kind of put it in midair. But when I laid them flat, then it mapped it onto that, and then you just tap away. And there’s a trackpad as well.

[00:13:19] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:13:20] Val Quinn: And it did it really well. And they told me that it will work in, uh, like in a plane where it’s dim. Uh, it doesn’t really matter about the shape, that as long as you put your hands flat. But where it does struggle, it will be in really, really dark places because then it can’t map it, or places that don’t have a lot of contrast. So, um, yeah, it’s— if there’s a couple of instances where it won’t be perfect, but, um, it was great.

[00:13:39] Stephen Fenech: It worked super well. I did like the fact that you could— well, I think it works on its own, so you could have your work up, up on in the glasses. It connects to Mac And Windows PC, so you can connect that, or your phones, I believe, as well.

[00:13:54] Val Quinn: Yes, it does. Yep, there’s a USB-C connect. You can do it wirelessly. There’s a USB-C connector as well. With, um, with, uh, PCs, they’ve got an arrangement with Microsoft. So if you have a Microsoft Surface laptop, when you are wearing the glasses and you look at the laptop, a little button will pop up, and it’s very seamless. With a Mac, you need to download some software first, uh, to work, but it will, uh Yeah, I mean, it’ll work across the devices. And we did this, a 3-screen demo where it extended my screen, my laptop screen. So I had 3 big screens floating in space.

[00:14:24] Stephen Fenech: It was a Surface—

[00:14:25] Val Quinn: they had a Surface tablet, um, with mine they had, um, well, yeah, I guess it wasn’t a Surface laptop or something, but, um, and so one— the example that we were shown, maybe you’re showing the same, is that we were creating a website. So on one screen was the finished website, in the middle was code.

[00:14:39] Stephen Fenech: The code, yeah, the same, mate.

[00:14:42] Val Quinn: We were asking AI to drive because, you know, who knows how to code these days? And then on the other screen there was a color palette. So you’re choosing and it was quite a good example of just doing a lot. You know, the text was clear. I found that the text was very clear and easy to read.

[00:14:55] Stephen Fenech: So easy to read. And on the keyboard too, very responsive. I was typing away like I had in my demo. They brought up an Instagram account and they said, I just choose, choose one of them. And it was like a design account, real account, but we couldn’t add to the account. And he said, oh, if you want to leave a comment. So I just sort of looked at the, at the text area, click, did the little click with my fingers, and then typed away into that little text box and then hit return, and then it was posted, or supposedly posted.

[00:15:24] Val Quinn: Yeah, it’s, it’s, yeah, it’s, um, it’s really easy to use, it’s intuitive. And, uh, and of course I knew you would love the sports demos.

[00:15:32] Stephen Fenech: Man, well, the ESPN— was it ESPN Immersive Sports?

[00:15:36] Val Quinn: Yeah, it’s like 180 degrees, 180 degrees.

[00:15:38] Stephen Fenech: 8K, filmed in 8K to give you higher resolution, and you could like turn to the left and right and you, you were like courtside or ringside or field by the field, whatever, wherever the sport is.

[00:15:50] Val Quinn: Oh, and the clarity as well, because they had— it was a really, um, uh, a really exclusive basketball game. They had Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner in one side and then Taylor Swift is in the other. I could see it really clearly.

[00:16:02] Stephen Fenech: And you can make them out, you can tell who they were very clearly.

[00:16:05] Val Quinn: And, and there was a 3D, uh, Billie Eilish concert, which, uh, direct—

[00:16:08] Stephen Fenech: yeah, again, like I’ve said, directed by James Cameron.

[00:16:10] Val Quinn: Oh really?

[00:16:11] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, he directed the concert film.

[00:16:12] Val Quinn: Yeah, but it was— the layers of 3D were, were believable. Um, you felt like, uh, like there are all these people in the audience holding their phones up. I could see what was on their phones, uh, on their screens, and you really kind of felt like you were right in there. Um, I mean, Apple did a similar, um, sort of demo with, uh, the Vision Pro, and that was the first time we experienced the technology at this level, and it was mind-blowing.

[00:16:33] Stephen Fenech: It was amazing.

[00:16:33] Val Quinn: But it was good to say that the, um, with, with the Meta VR, uh, glasses, they were really, really up there as well, like very similar type of experience.

[00:16:40] Stephen Fenech: What was impressive, you mentioned James Cameron before, they had a nice, they had a nice video of all these celebrities, actors and directors, and, and remember trying that out and just being amazed. James Cameron was, was involved and thinking, wow, this is incredible.

[00:16:54] Val Quinn: Yeah, there was a lot of, a lot of famous people who’ve had some access to these devices, A-listers on, on that screen that were really endorsing it.

[00:17:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, so yeah, that was amazing. Now, um, Let’s, uh, the other part of it was obviously gaming. Did you— I got a chance to play—

[00:17:08] Val Quinn: we tried different things.

[00:17:09] Stephen Fenech: Beat Saber I had, where you, your hand, the red buttons you had to hit with your left hand, the blue buttons with your right, and the other ones with both. And you had like a little chain, you had to sort of cut these things as they come to you. It was sort of cross of Guitar Hero slash music.

[00:17:26] Val Quinn: Yeah, it’s about timing to the music and yeah, hitting the right thing.

[00:17:28] Stephen Fenech: And it got faster and faster, and it was like a bit of exercise. I was on my feet and I’m thinking, oh wow, I’m burning some calories here. Yeah, what game did you play?

[00:17:35] Val Quinn: Well, this was kind of like a sort of a fantasy puzzle game, and, uh, what it is is a 3D, um, sort of a— it’s like a giant bonsai tree that you’re building by connecting these, um, sort of leaves to it. And then this dragon is kind of flying around, and you can get him to breathe smoke on this thing that you’re kind of growing. But anyway, the point of it is that it was very clear, it was, it was in 3D right in front of me, very colorful, bright, and you move it around, and it was all very accurate. Where I grabbed it, it moved, and I felt like it was a real object there. It was fascinating. There’s lots of detail, and I was just— it’s kind of a puzzle, fun, relaxing.

[00:18:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I think they said, uh, at launch there’s going to be 75 controller-free games.

[00:18:15] Val Quinn: That’s right, from Meta Quest. Because what they have done, they haven’t recreated Meta Quest’s interface, they’ve just kind of adapted it to this. So a lot of what’s available on their existing headset is going to come across or already is available.

[00:18:29] Stephen Fenech: Of course. And also too, I think Xbox Live is accessible through— you can Bluetooth, you can Bluetooth the controller.

[00:18:35] Val Quinn: Yep. So what it is, it’s just a, it’s just a cloud screen. So basically there’s a big screen that opens up and it just streams the game in from, uh, Xbox’s cloud service. And yeah, you can connect a controller and, and have that big experience. And of course, movies, we can’t forget movies.

[00:18:47] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. I was just going to say, yeah, on the entertainment side, they’ve done deals with uh, the— I think Disney, uh, and, uh, Paramount Plus and all the—

[00:18:57] Val Quinn: that’s Star Wars, right?

[00:18:57] Stephen Fenech: Star Wars. Yeah, well, that’s Disney, uh, and Marvel. So they’re gonna have like a, a, like an augmented sort of movie. Did you watch the Avengers?

[00:19:06] Val Quinn: Avengers one?

[00:19:07] Stephen Fenech: And it had Chris Hemsworth in it. And so you could see the frame of the movie in 3D. The 3D was awesome, by the way, really well done. And then outside the screen was like all colors and shapes and objects that sort of was part of the story.

[00:19:19] Val Quinn: Yeah, so, and that will change. So if there’s a scene like a scene where, uh, I don’t know, the part that I saw was like he was in outer space and he’s kind of forging the— yeah, yeah, um, and all of the— I guess so you have your, your cinema screen, but then the surroundings are all kind of themed to the place that you’re in. And then when it changes scenes, they all kind of change again. So if you’re a real fan, it’s just all this extra detail to kind of get, get into and look at.

[00:19:41] Stephen Fenech: So they’re saying that the— that they— the— it’s also IMAX, uh, sort of enhanced as well. So it’s Dolby Atmos, Dolby Atmos as well. Yeah, and they’ve got— they’ve done the partnerships with the streamers, so Amazon Prime, YouTube, Plex, Tubi, HBO Max, Paramount Plus. Paramount Plus offering 3D, their 3D catalog for the first time. Okay, so, and, uh, and Meta obviously, uh, has done deals with ESPN for the sports, uh, and the Billie Eilish concert that was, as I said, directed by James Cameron. I was just looking through the list here. Now, mate, Netflix is not on that list. I don’t know why. Um, is there— the deal hasn’t been done yet, or are they going to be loyal to Apple?

[00:20:22] Val Quinn: Yeah, possibly. Like, I haven’t heard anything confirming that either. And you were the one that noticed that was— it was—

[00:20:26] Stephen Fenech: that was conspicuous by itself. It’s not about Netflix in there.

[00:20:30] Val Quinn: Yeah, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have it, but, um, maybe it’s just a deal to be done yet, so they can’t say much.

[00:20:34] Stephen Fenech: Now, what about— I think the best feature is the price.

[00:20:37] Val Quinn: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:20:38] Stephen Fenech: So $12.99 US dollars. Which I did the math, right? The, the straight conversion of $1,299 US is $1,871, I believe. So the— that’s— let’s call it, let’s call it— if it, mate, if this goes on sale in Australia for $1,999, under $2K, yeah, that’s it. That’s amazing. It might be $2,099, $2,199, but still, that’s still 1/3 of the price of the Vision Pro.

[00:21:10] Val Quinn: That’s right. So the Vision Pro right now starts at $6,299, and it went up recently, $3,799 in the US for— so it’s, yeah, a third of the price but not a third of the capabilities by any means. Oh, it’s pretty much all the capabilities but lighter, uh, more comfortable.

[00:21:27] Stephen Fenech: Um, I think I said this to you in the keynote. I said the Vision Pro is not $4,000 better than this price. Yeah, definitely not $4,000 better.

[00:21:37] Val Quinn: Yeah.

[00:21:38] Stephen Fenech: And, and so, well, like, what’s Apple— what’s Apple’s next move here? What do you think? I remember when, when they announced the Vision Pro, and I still remember, and I think you can find it on YouTube, where Mark Zuckerberg really tore into them and said, overpriced, over-engineered, you know, where’s the value? And, and I think he— the Meta Quest 3 had just come out, which is really not comparable to it.

[00:21:57] Val Quinn: No, it didn’t compare.

[00:21:58] Stephen Fenech: Uh, but I’m, I’m, I was hoping he’d throw some shade at Apple today. I was waiting. He kind of did. Yeah, he sort of, he gave a little jab. But like, what does Apple do now? Like, is, is, is there next? But what I’ve always thought is that Apple, I think cleverly, went to the top first. They made the Pro, Vision Pro, so they can only come down from there.

[00:22:21] Val Quinn: Yeah.

[00:22:22] Stephen Fenech: So I reckon their next move would be to release the Vision Pro the Vision Max or some other lower-tiered product that’s comparable to the VR glasses, the Meta VR glasses.

[00:22:33] Val Quinn: I think that’s really the only direction they can go. It certainly can’t stay at that price point. I mean, I talked to Meta’s head of their VR devices and they said, look, the— there’s a lot of cost in the Vision Pros. They’ve got a lot of silicon, which is expensive. The screen is very expensive. The outer screen is expensive. They use a lot of high-end materials. And what they said was for them it was an exercise in balancing. They said, we want to include the things that really matter to people, but we want to save money on the things that don’t matter as much. So the outer screen is gone, and they have like different types of materials that might not be as premium and all that kind of thing. Not to say it felt in any way not—

[00:23:09] Stephen Fenech: I sort of felt pretty good. The build quality felt great.

[00:23:12] Val Quinn: Yep. So they found, I guess, the right mix, and that price point is incredibly sharp. I was really surprised for such an advanced product in terms of the, you know, what’s out there. Um, so Apple, I think they probably have something in the labs. They— I’m sure they’re going to scale back some of the, uh, the more expensive parts of this device, and, and they’re going to compete on a similar level. But I don’t know if they can meet that price. That’s a—

[00:23:34] Stephen Fenech: I don’t think they can. I think that their, their next move— and who knows, they might have had this in the plans to release the next year or so— another version of the Vision Pro that was a bit more accessible. Because I can remember before Vision Pro, I’m thinking if there’s one company who can make VR and, uh, more consumer-friendly, accessible— you know, Apple is doing it, so everyone wants it— it’d be Apple. Yeah, but then they priced it out of anyone’s reach.

[00:24:00] Val Quinn: Yeah, so the—

[00:24:01] Stephen Fenech: it sort of— it, it, it sort of, uh, it sort of— it worked against itself. Yeah, in that way.

[00:24:08] Val Quinn: I mean, from a technology point of view, I’d never seen anything better.

[00:24:12] Stephen Fenech: I’m with you. Exactly. It was incredible. It still is. But here comes the Meta, and the straight conversion, by the way, is $1,834 Aussie dollars, right, which is a conversion of, um, $1,299 US dollars.

[00:24:27] Val Quinn: Yeah, and then of course the GST gets added to that.

[00:24:29] Stephen Fenech: Of course, yes, you do. But, but bottom line, mate, this is cheaper than the iPhone 18 Pro.

[00:24:34] Val Quinn: I know, when you put it that way, it’s pretty incredible.

[00:24:37] Stephen Fenech: Apple just released a phone that’s more expensive than this, and then we’re not even talking about the Duo, which is even more. You could buy two of these for what, for almost for in Australian dollars. But yeah, I think, uh, interesting times ahead in terms of VR. I think 2027— this isn’t out, as we said, for another 6 months. But, uh, mate, I’m, I’m on board. Yeah, I honestly, I’ll tell you now, I— if I don’t get given one to review, I would buy one.

[00:25:02] Val Quinn: Yeah, I would. You’re an absolute cinema buff. Imagine, yes, for just—

[00:25:06] Stephen Fenech: I would buy this.

[00:25:07] Val Quinn: Big, big movies on, on a tiny little device like this.

[00:25:09] Stephen Fenech: Well, you know what, mate, I reckon it’d be great. There was a, there was a shot that I shared, one of the pictures they supplied was a woman on a plane.

[00:25:15] Val Quinn: Yeah.

[00:25:16] Stephen Fenech: And like, this is like— I’ve used the— you’ve used the Vision Pro. We look like idiots, right? And it’s a big thing.

[00:25:23] Val Quinn: You gotta—

[00:25:23] Stephen Fenech: it’s a, it’s a real task to bring it. It’s a big box, big case. And this, it seems— and, and one of the pictures they, they added was like a little travel bag with the little— with the VR glasses on, just hanging out of the pocket.

[00:25:35] Val Quinn: Exactly. It’s, it’s really small. I mean, we haven’t seen, we haven’t seen any sort of proper packaging yet or anything, but it is going to be so much easier to travel with. Absolutely. I think so. But I think the key takeaway for this is that this is now— we’re talking VR glasses. This is no longer—

[00:25:49] Stephen Fenech: not a headset. Don’t call it a headset. Goggles. Yeah, that’s right.

[00:25:52] Val Quinn: This just rests on your bridge of your nose and on your ears, and that’s it. And but they’ve created— they brought the experience of something much bigger and heavier into the space. I think that I’m really excited about it. I can’t wait to get my hands on one too. And I think I would really find a lot of practical uses for it for me too.

[00:26:08] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. Like just the productivity side of things. Like that’s one thing I enjoyed with the Vision Pro was working on one more, having it as my big screen. And, and that adds like privacy if you’re working on some sensitive material, you know. And this is a perfect way to work on it. That I reckon is going to be a heavy use case as well.

[00:26:23] Val Quinn: Yeah. The only thing you won’t see, I don’t think you’ll see, is, you know, with the Vision Pros, you have all these people wandering around the subways in New York when it first came out. I don’t think we’ll see that with this. It’s not meant to be as portable, walk around with.

[00:26:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I don’t think so. Maybe not.

[00:26:35] Val Quinn: Even though it’s lighter, it’s meant to be, um, this is what they told me anyway, they said it’s because it’s tethered, um, it’s meant to be used like take it to place to place, but you’re not going to be like wearing it as you’re walking around all the time. You, you could, but they don’t intend it.

[00:26:48] Stephen Fenech: There’ll be some goose on social media trying to go viral, mate, but they won’t— they look—

[00:26:52] Val Quinn: they won’t look as strange.

[00:26:53] Stephen Fenech: I mean, yeah, they won’t. Does it look like a pair of glasses?

[00:26:56] Val Quinn: These— I mean, these are a bit— I mean, I’m not going to say they’re totally— you’d still be noticed because they’re quite, um, you know, they kind of— well, at least the way they kind of sit off your face a little bit. Yeah, you’d still be noticed for wearing something not normal, but they don’t look bad.

[00:27:08] Stephen Fenech: They’re not like Vision Pro. I think you— did you share a picture of yourself with Vision Pro? I did on socials too as well. But, uh, yeah, if you want to read more, uh, Val has done a video and a story on gadgetguy.com.au. I’ve got a video and a, and a hands-on review as well at techguide.com.au. So you keep an eye on that. We’re going to be, uh, following this one closely, mate. Uh, I was at the launch of that, so yeah, we were, we were. Check out our reports. On gadgetguide.com.au and techguide.com.au.

[00:27:41] Voice Over: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:27:46] Stephen Fenech: Two Blokes Talking Tech, proudly supported by Arlo. And if you’re in the biz, if you’re after a security camera, then Arlo is a great place to start. They’ve got a lot of cameras. They’ve got from the front door all around your house. They’ve got the video doorbell, they’ve got the wide floodlight. One of my favorites, the wide floodlight. When people come near that, it just lights up my front yard like I’m shooting a Hollywood movie. I’ve also got the pan and tilt cameras as well, and they’re great for covering large areas in your home. So if you’ve got a big yard or a big front yard, it actually can— if it can detect movement, it actually tracks the person or whoever is moving in your yard. And, and of course, you can get the smart notifications as well that can tell you whether it’s a person, a package, a vehicle, or an animal on your property. Also, uh, you can set the areas that you want to receive notifications as well, as well as having 30 days of storage of your footage as well in the cloud when you are an Arlo Secure member. So check out their website. They also have a, a bundle and save section, so if you’re buying several products, bundle them together. You can save up to 20% of the price when you put them all together on the website. So check them out, arlo.com.

[00:28:53] Voice Over: Everything about tech you never wanted to know, this is Two Blokes Talking

[00:28:53] Stephen Fenech: Right, Val, we, uh, let’s move on to the other announcements.

[00:29:04] Stephen Fenech: And of course, even before today, we knew Meta for their AI glasses. And yes, we’ve talked about the— and that was a big topic of discussion— the controversy about over privacy. And it seems, from what I gather, the people I spoke to about the, you know, the hysteria in Australia about the, the Perth glasses, as they were calling them, It’s not just exclusive to Australia. There are other parts, other markets around the world having a similar discussion.

[00:29:30] Val Quinn: Yeah, that’s true. Like, we’ve spoken to a lot of inter— international journalists and been to a lot of roundtables, and the topic keeps coming up. And it isn’t just Australia that this question is being asked. It seems like a lot of, a lot of people are concerned about privacy. And just with those AI glasses, I guess you don’t notice that they have cameras in them. You might not realize you’re being filmed. That’s the worry. Yeah, like you said, purpur glasses, which isn’t entirely a fair thing to say really.

[00:29:53] Stephen Fenech: But yeah, it is, it is. Um, it’s only though since, since Kmart came up with their, their knockoffs, I called them. And I had an interview, my one-on-one was with Alex Himmel, who’s the VP of wearables. You’ll hear his interview on my Tech Guide podcast, which will be out next week. And I raised it with him, and, and he, he was pretty diplomatic about it. He said, look, he goes, yeah, we understand privacy’s concern, but they’re very, they’re very easy to tell when they’re recording. There’s a bright pulsing light. He said that if you tamper with it, you’re gonna, you’re gonna break it. And he said, we’ve, he said, we’ve had 1/10 of 1% of glasses returned that had been tampered with.

[00:30:32] Val Quinn: Yeah, it’s very, very small, which is a very small number. So tiny, like really, really small.

[00:30:37] Stephen Fenech: And he was saying that, look, if privacy— he said, look, if, if the people around you are not comfortable with you wearing your glasses, then don’t wear them. As simple as that. He was saying, if you want to know that the people around you, if they’re comfortable, if you can, you can tell if they’re not, then don’t wear them. It’s up to the user to be more responsible. And but then he also brought up a really good point about how these are glasses that are used for by people to, you know, people obviously who main audiences, you want to stay in the moment. He said he was at a concert, he has everyone was looking at the concert through their screen I was watching it with my own eyes because I was recording with my glasses. So that’s an example of how staying in the moment.

[00:31:18] Val Quinn: Yeah, that hands-free is, is a really helpful thing. Like, I was skiing and I wanted to ski, but I could record them with my glasses and it was fantastic. It was really nice to have.

[00:31:26] Stephen Fenech: So the— yeah, and the other, the other example he gave was that people with vision impairment— like, he told a story that you’ll hear on Tech Guide, that a friend of his who’s blind could use it to read the menu at a restaurant. And he even— this blind person, the friend of Alex Himmel, was saying that he did a keynote address blind using the Meta glasses with the audio prompts coming through the speakers. So his script was to him in the end, and then that was— so I think people, when they criticize these products, they forget that side of it.

[00:31:59] Val Quinn: Yeah, but there’s a lot of great, you know, great accessibility features that they have.

[00:32:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:32:03] Val Quinn: And that, like, of course, these are glasses that have cameras in them, and then you can ask the AI what is the camera seeing, and that’s how they use them to help out.

[00:32:11] Stephen Fenech: That’s the main use, I think, for AI. But we have now seen that Meta is releasing an audio— a Meta AI Audio, which has no cameras, has, uh, because of the— it doesn’t have the camera componentry, it’s thinner, lighter, better battery life. And according to Meta, this isn’t in response to the, the, the dramas around the having a camera on your glasses, but it is apparently a reflection of the most popular use of the glasses.

[00:32:45] Val Quinn: Yeah, that’s right. So their market research says people, you know, use the sort of the audio side of it more than anything else. They’ve been in— this has been in development for a couple of years. I mean, I, I still have to think the timing, you know, maybe they could have come out with it a year ago. Yeah, but I think the timing— I still think that they can’t ignore what’s happening, and, and these are a great answer to that, or response to that?

[00:33:05] Stephen Fenech: According to Alex, in my interview, he mentions this in the interview, he said that these have been in development for 2 years.

[00:33:13] Val Quinn: 2 years.

[00:33:14] Stephen Fenech: So it can’t— he says this isn’t a knee-jerk reaction, we’ve been working on this for a long time.

[00:33:18] Val Quinn: Yeah, fair enough. And I think, sure, they probably thought they want— well, the idea is they want to have, um, a pair of glasses that suits, you know, a variety of different, you know, needs and wants. And for those of us who want to just take calls, maybe listen to— say you’re looking at your Instagram feed and you can listen to the sound with your, you know, your glasses on, or you want turn-by-turn directions, or you want live translation, listen to music, podcasts. I mean, you don’t need the camera for that.

[00:33:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:33:41] Val Quinn: And so why pay for something you don’t need? Although it is a nice to have, of course, when you want it.

[00:33:46] Stephen Fenech: Well, we had this chat about the, you know, the reaction to the privacy, and I think another great thing— and look, I believe Meta when they say they’ve been in development for a while. Yeah, I think that’s true. And but it’s, it’s handy now that they have this to— if they do, if they are questioned about privacy, so, well, look, if you’re concerned about that, then buy the audio-only glasses. So they do have this other club in the bag now they can recommend for customers.

[00:34:13] Val Quinn: Yeah.

[00:34:13] Stephen Fenech: And I remember in, in the, in the, uh, keynote, Mark Zuckerberg was saying, why glasses? I don’t think he was saying 2 billion people in the world wear glasses, whether it’s for, for reading, for correcting their vision or sunglasses. So it was a pretty good market to get into.

[00:34:30] Val Quinn: It’s a pretty big one. Look, I think we have to be, you know, acknowledge that Meta is in the business of selling glasses, and of course they’re, you know, going to keep saying that, you know, we’ve got glasses for this solution or that solution, and it’s within their best interest. But I think at the end of the day, when it comes to the privacy stuff, I think the privacy concerns are absolutely valid. But this is the world in which we live now, and yeah, there are going to be many devices that are going to have cameras, and there are uh, there are— our sense of privacy in the public domain is going to change forever, and it already is. I mean, there’s so many phones with so many cameras in them.

[00:35:02] Stephen Fenech: Everyone’s got a camera in their pocket, mate.

[00:35:04] Val Quinn: I mean, there’s potentially going to be cameras in earbuds, there’s going to be cameras everywhere. And I think that it’s not realistic just to say these should be banned, um, because they have a lot of practical uses, a lot of good uses. And they’re actually— the more you understand them, that the more I think you might understand.

[00:35:17] Stephen Fenech: I think you’d appreciate them more.

[00:35:18] Val Quinn: Yeah, like for example with Meta, these, um, every time it is, uh, you’re having a photo taken or recorded, a light goes on, a white light that’s been designed to be seen in sunlight. It can’t be tampered with. It’s like they, they have all kinds of different algorithms to, to make it so if it’s covered up with tape or whatever, you can’t— it won’t record. And they’ve spent a lot of time kind of learning from how people have tried to abuse it. So the reality is, you know, it’s not foolproof, but it’s pretty secure. There are other brands that may not be as secure. But at the end of the day, yeah, people wearing glasses may have the ability to film you. And I just think that’s a reality we all have to understand.

[00:35:55] Stephen Fenech: We need to be clear though, like, the— until the Kmart knockoffs came along— yeah, like, the Meta Glasses have been around for 5 years.

[00:36:01] Val Quinn: Yeah, it’s not like a new thing, is it?

[00:36:03] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. So once the knockoffs came out, then everyone thought, hey, a minute, what’s up with this? And then they started doing it. Like, now I did an interview— I do a regular Tuesday segment on 2HD in Newcastle Newcastle. And Richard King, lovely bloke, the host, said, oh look, you know, they’ve— what do you think of the glasses? And then they’ve banned them at the Newcastle local swimming pool and the gym or whatever. And I’m thinking, well look, are they going to ban phones then? Yeah, phones have got cameras in them.

[00:36:30] Val Quinn: Exactly.

[00:36:31] Stephen Fenech: Are they going to do that?

[00:36:32] Val Quinn: Don’t forget your dash cam is recording stuff and grabbing license plates.

[00:36:35] Stephen Fenech: Great, great point. You’re recording number plates in your dash cam.

[00:36:39] Val Quinn: Or your doorbell camera could look at the neighborhood going by.

[00:36:42] Stephen Fenech: There you go.

[00:36:42] Val Quinn: Like, it’s unfortunately, this is just the world in which we live. And I think it’s, it’s just saying, oh, we’ve got a ban, there’s a ban, that isn’t, isn’t that realistic. The other, the other thing as well, um, with these glasses too is just, you know, like, think of all the, the memories you can capture. I think all the things you might be missing out on. And, and it’s gonna, it’s gonna— I think we’re gonna need to develop a new etiquette for these things.

[00:37:03] Stephen Fenech: I agree, man.

[00:37:04] Val Quinn: Like, we need to learn and say, hey, by the way, these glasses will film, do you want me to take them off? Um, or like, do you announce it? Do you not? Like, we still got to work that out.

[00:37:11] Stephen Fenech: But I think I’ll give you a scenario, right? Imagine you turned up at a, at a birthday party, right? And it’s your best— your mate or whatever, whoever— whose ever birthday it is, and they’re gonna blow the cake out. If you’ve got your glasses and you want to film that little, that little— the cutting of the cake and then blowing out the candles, do you reckon you need to tell people that you’ve got cameras in your glasses? Because everyone else is going to have their phone. Yeah, yeah. Do you need to do it at that time?

[00:37:37] Val Quinn: That’s what I mean. Like, we’ve got to work that out. Just like when phones came out and people had to learn, hey, it’s rude to sit there and check your, your phone when you’re in a group of people, and they’re all waiting for you to stop checking your phone. Like, I think with the new technology, there sometimes is new etiquette. We get used to it and then we don’t look back.

[00:37:53] Stephen Fenech: Well, yeah, now I think it’s a topic that’s not going to go away, but I, I think this, this— and I pitch this as a story for, for— I think this, this is the big— other news outlets jumping on this, the fact that, well, it’s not, it’s not Meta It’s not Meta admitting defeat. They’re still going to sell cameras.

[00:38:09] Val Quinn: Yeah, they’re going to sell a lot.

[00:38:10] Stephen Fenech: They’re giving you an option here. But, um, speaking of new announcements, um, well, let’s talk about the new, uh, well, the what we call the hearing aid feature of the glasses. And this will work apparently with— is it Gen 2, Gen 3, and the Audio glasses? Where you can pay a one-off fee to upgrade the glasses because I think the new glasses have a 6-mic array in them. So basically turning them into a hearing aid for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. And so now you can use these rather than having to wear an ugly hearing aid, which is expensive, by the way. They’re like— you’re talking thousands of dollars.

[00:38:49] Val Quinn: Yeah, $800 to $8,000 sort of thing.

[00:38:51] Stephen Fenech: Now I believe it’s like $149 US, $149.99 one-off payment.

[00:38:56] Val Quinn: And the thing that’s interesting about this too is I thought, does it just raise the volume, um, on everything, so you get the volume sort of cranking your ears, but it’s not actually like that. There’s more sophisticated than that. So it listens and then it supplements, I guess, the wavelengths where people who suffer from hearing loss kind of traditionally lose it, like in the higher frequencies. So it’s not just a blanket raise all levels, it raises the right levels.

[00:39:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, to be more sort of—

[00:39:22] Val Quinn: it’s like compensating for the hearing loss rather than just volume.

[00:39:26] Stephen Fenech: It’s like beamforming on the voice, I think it might be. Where— and you did the same demo as me, did you put the earplugs in?

[00:39:32] Val Quinn: Yeah.

[00:39:32] Stephen Fenech: Which was surprising. And like, I’m— you’re literally blocking your ears, right, to simulate your low hearing, and the voices, their voice still got in.

[00:39:41] Val Quinn: Yeah, and environmental sounds as well. So, so yeah, if it— I think this is great because it’s just such a, um, just a seamless thing. You put on the glasses, you’re getting your hearing sort of back up to normal levels again. It’s comfortable, nothing stuck in your ears. $149 US, one-off price. It’s coming early next year as well.

[00:39:57] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I think also it might be later this year, I think.

[00:39:59] Val Quinn: And actually Mark Zuckerberg mentioned in the keynote that where they’d like to go with this is, is to personalize it. So it’s not just, um, yes, it’s not a one-size-fits-all. It’ll fit your unique hearing profile and raise the levels where it needs to be raised for you. So I think it’s going to get even better. And this means that you don’t need to buy a new device necessarily if you already got Gen 2s, Gen 3s.

[00:40:21] Stephen Fenech: And I think too, there’s a bit of a stigma. I think some people who maybe have hearing loss, I think, I don’t want to wear a hearing aid, people are going to see it. They’d be self-conscious about it. So I think just putting on a pair of glasses to improve your hearing, I think that that’s, that’s a winner.

[00:40:34] Val Quinn: You know, I think it’s next you get a heart rate sensor on the bridge of your nose, wasn’t it?

[00:40:38] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, yeah, I remember talking to the boss of Essilor Luxottica, which is an Italian company.

[00:40:43] Val Quinn: He was Italian, which is what makes, um, they make Ray-Ban, that’s Ray-Ban, Oakley.

[00:40:48] Stephen Fenech: I think they’ve got a few brands, and even Meta’s own, um, brand now.

[00:40:51] Val Quinn: They, um, they make the actual frames.

[00:40:53] Stephen Fenech: So yeah, but I remember he told me, and this was at another launch of a, of hearing glasses with, um, I think you’re— I can’t remember the name of the audio company. And he was saying, he hinted at, um, well, he was saying, oh, what he was sort of saying, oh, what he noticed, my Oura ring and my smartwatch. He goes, oh, I see you got some wearables, how do you like that? And he said, I think he said, there’s one place that’s more sensitive in your body, 100 times more sensitive than your wrist and your finger. And he just pointed to the bridge of his nose. And I went Oh, so you could wear glasses and have the sensor there, so giving you all your, all your vitals and everything. It could be a hearing aid. You’ve got a camera.

[00:41:35] Val Quinn: I know, it’s, it’s like as we get older, top heavy. As we get older, you know, we’ve got something that you, your vision’s gone, so you’ve got your glasses, then you’ve got your, uh, your hearing, and you’ve got your heart rate too. So yeah, this will keep us healthy.

[00:41:47] Stephen Fenech: So, so when is, so is it out later this year or early next next year.

[00:41:50] Val Quinn: I believe it was early next year. I believe it’s, uh, coming out, but it’s, it’s a software. All it is is a software thing. So you just— that’s right— download it to the app, um, pay for it, unlock it, and off you go. So it’s— I think it’s a really nice application for people.

[00:42:04] Stephen Fenech: Yep, you’ve done it. You did a video. I did a little social video.

[00:42:07] Val Quinn: You want to see what it looks like, how it works? Yep, definitely check it out.

[00:42:09] Stephen Fenech: I think I bombed— I think I photobombed your video.

[00:42:11] Val Quinn: Oh yeah, have a look at— it’s on Gadget Guy.

[00:42:14] Stephen Fenech: Watch to the end.

[00:42:15] Val Quinn: It’s on our Instagram or our our, our YouTube, uh, there is an appearance, uh, Steve might make an appearance and help me finish that video.

[00:42:22] Stephen Fenech: So well, you can watch Val’s, uh, videos on his YouTube channel Gadget Guy, uh, and also on his website gadgetguy.com.au. You can see my stuff also at techguide.com.au.

[00:42:34] Voice Over: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.

[00:42:39] Stephen Fenech: It’s not Trevor Long this week, it’s with Val and Stephen Fenech. Well, the Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast also proudly supported by Netgear. They’re the company if you want to improve the Wi-Fi in your home. So many people say, oh, what, my Wi-Fi’s not very good, or my, my NBN’s not very good. I said, are you sure it’s not just your Wi-Fi? And what I recommend, a mesh router. I recommend the Netgear Orbi Wi-Fi 7, and that solves their problems. From the front door to the backyard, you’re getting Wi-Fi 7 in every corner of your home. Connected to you, the— to your modem. You’re getting this, then you’ll get the speed you pay for across your entire home. Everyone I’ve recommended this to has come back to me and said it solved my problem, because normally modems are at the front of the house, your TV and your entertainment’s at the back of the house, and being able to share the Wi-Fi, especially you’ve got family and other people in your home, is very difficult. But Netgear makes it a lot easier with their state-of-the-art technology. They’ve been at it for more than 25 years and really nicely designed Orbi 7 devices as well. So check them out, netgear.com.au.

[00:43:44] Voice Over: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:43:46] Stephen Fenech: Righto, mate. Uh, AI also, I think, uh, Mark Zuckerberg actually opened the podcast with Muse, which has only just released here in the US. And we tried to download it on our phones and we couldn’t. It says not available.

[00:43:59] Val Quinn: We tried to use the VPN to trick it, we couldn’t get around it. They must be, uh, pretty good, uh, developers over there. They’re good at how to block us.

[00:44:06] Stephen Fenech: They are, yeah.

[00:44:07] Val Quinn: But Muse is, uh, it’s couple of weeks old.

[00:44:09] Stephen Fenech: It’s just released here in the US, and Canada I think has got it now too. So this is Meta’s AI agent. It’s a cute little— I think, what’s it called? Jolly?

[00:44:18] Val Quinn: This little, little fuzzy kind of friendly little, little thing.

[00:44:22] Stephen Fenech: You meant to give him a name, or her a name, or a, and a voice. And it’s basically your companion, and you can, can get out, can do shopping for you. I took a photo of all the things it could do. Can find you the better deal. Book flights and all those sorts of things. And of course available through all of their wearables as well.

[00:44:41] Val Quinn: Yep, so that’s coming. So I guess the difference with Muse— and you’ve like, you’ve heard that Meta has AI. Yeah, so it’s moving from, uh, sort of the chatbot, the information sort of thing, you ask for information, the LLM as they’re sometimes called, into, um, what’s called an agentic AI. So that’s an AI that can do things for you. But there’s— you may have heard of CoWork— I’m sorry, um, Claude CoWork and things like that. So that’s kind of a little more maybe in the professional world, it’s a little more business focused. This is kind of for the everyday person. So it’s an AI, or they call it your own super intelligence, your own personal super intelligence that can go out and do things for you. So it can shop for you, it can stock, you know, getting the best price online for you. It could go out and make arrangements for things. So you can ask it to do tasks. It learns about you, it’s personalized to you. And the way they describe it too is it lives in its own little, um, Sandbox, which is its own little computer. So each person’s Muse lives in a protected little computer. So it’s like a computer, private. Yeah, so it’s like a, it’s a virtual machine as it’s called. But basically the idea is, is that when you’re running it on your computer, it’s got its, it’s like it’s got its own little computer that it does all the work in. So it doesn’t go and go online on your web browser, goes online in its own little web browser. And it’s a way for kind of protecting what it does from your machine, so it kind of keeps the integrity between the two. So it’s very well designed, very well thought through. It’s very personal and fun and friendly. Um, and of course Meta wants you to, to make this a part of your life.

[00:46:09] Stephen Fenech: I think coming from Meta, and let’s— I’ve often said on this podcast that for a lot of people, like Facebook, Instagram, that’s the internet for them. That’s their internet, and that’s where they get their information.

[00:46:21] Val Quinn: That’s right.

[00:46:22] Stephen Fenech: So having news now coming from the same source or the same ballpark, I think is sort of going to really drive up usage among consumers. It’s not— I know Claude and OpenAI, I think you need to be a little— have a bit of tech, pretty tech savvy to use those other agents. This to me appears a bit more approachable, a bit more usable for customers.

[00:46:44] Val Quinn: Yeah, I think that’s exactly it. It’s bringing that sort of, uh, that sort of personal assistant that can do things, um, to everybody and make it easy and accessible and fun. And they have these, um, in, in the US anyway, and I’m sure we’ll start learning more about what happens in Australia and Australian companies, but they have these connectors, which means that, yes, the, uh, Muse can go out and, and talk to, um, you know, it could talk to different, uh, like Best Buy stores.

[00:47:10] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I saw, I’m just trying to find the list.

[00:47:11] Val Quinn: I took a photo, yeah, for example.

[00:47:13] Stephen Fenech: So here’s the list of, uh, the connectors. They’ve got Best Buy, American Eagle Outfitters, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Gap, Walmart, Sephora. So this means that you can say to— say you wanted to go shopping for makeup, you can look at the Sephora website and you, you can say, okay, you can use— I think PayPal was one payment method you could use. And so you could technically say, right, go out and buy me the cheapest mascara you can find at Sephora or whatever. And you can either get it to act on your behalf and buy it or seek your approval first. So I think in terms of— and they, they were sort of— they had some examples of people how they— there was, there was one woman who said, oh, she used Muse. I wanted to, um, learn to get my baby to sleep throughout the night. She said on night 6, my baby slept throughout the whole night. That’s just another example of how it can be used.

[00:48:07] Val Quinn: Or they had like an MMA athlete who—

[00:48:09] Stephen Fenech: yes, wanted to train like a boxer or MMA fighter.

[00:48:12] Val Quinn: Yeah, it was everything from a training plan, but also getting information from the smartwatches and the devices that were tracking her performance, and then a diet, and then looking at food saying, oh, there’s this many calories in this, and, and just bringing together a whole bunch of different things into one personalized, I guess, coaching session for her. So that was good. But I think, um, the way to understand the connectors too is that, uh, there’s a difference. Like, you can still ask it to go and do something online for you, for example, and it’ll, it’ll actually navigate to that page, it will open it up, it’ll try to log in, or if you have an account, it’ll ask you if it doesn’t know, and then it’ll go and navigate through the menus. So it can do that for just about anything. But what a connector does is it’s sort of like a backdoor that just connects the AI easily. It doesn’t have to navigate through anything.

[00:48:58] Stephen Fenech: So is it like an API?

[00:48:59] Val Quinn: Yeah, it’s like that. It’s a similar type of thing. And you can even some with some AIs have it connect via an API, but or an MCP or a different kind of server.

[00:49:08] Stephen Fenech: So this API stands for Application Protocol Interface, I think it is. But there’s the way that they talk to each other.

[00:49:13] Val Quinn: Yeah, there’s also like a new type of server designed for AI. So basically there’s the, the network plumbing is becoming, I guess, specialized to allowing AIs to do a lot of things that we used to. So if there are these sort of connectors or APIs, then it means that the job can get done faster using less tokens. Tokens are kind of like a, uh, the economy of AI.

[00:49:34] Stephen Fenech: Let’s talk about that. Interestingly, at the very top of his— oh yes, when he was talking about Muse he said we’re gonna make it free, but we’re gonna maybe just a couple of percent of what you make on Muse. Did you understand? Did you hear that as well? Yeah, like, so how is that gonna work?

[00:49:49] Val Quinn: Look, I, I’m only guessing here, but maybe just like, um, if you sell an app online, uh, uh, and it goes through, say, Apple’s App Store, they get a cut of whatever you make. So maybe somehow they figure— they’ll figure out, like, if you create a service using their Yeah, you know, they’re, they’re a, they’re AI, like they get a bit of—

[00:50:08] Stephen Fenech: is it going to be a case if, if you, you tell it, okay, go out and find me the best flights, uh, best cheapest flights to Las Vegas, maybe? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Is it the same? Say you saved $100, do they, do they get $5 of that or something?

[00:50:24] Val Quinn: Or what? Maybe.

[00:50:25] Stephen Fenech: Is that how it works?

[00:50:26] Val Quinn: I mean, I’m sure they’ll figure out a way of charging if they want to charge you for it, but, um, he, he was not vague, but he sort of glossed over it.

[00:50:33] Stephen Fenech: It was sort of one line in his keynote. Yeah, he didn’t really expand on it too much. So while everyone’s all happy and great about Muse, we don’t know exactly how we’re going to pay for it yet.

[00:50:44] Val Quinn: Yeah, well, I mean, if it’s free to use, then it’ll get—

[00:50:47] Stephen Fenech: hopefully, you know, people will try it out. It’ll get sky—

[00:50:49] Val Quinn: yeah, yeah, get used to it. But it’s— yeah, it’s a really, uh, it’s a big move, I think. Um, like we’ve seen with MetaConnect this time around, we’ve seen some really big moves, I think.

[00:50:58] Stephen Fenech: Um, and absolutely, Muse is only available in the US at the moment so far, but I think in, in the, in a matter of weeks I reckon we’ll get it in Australia too, like, or months. I think it’s soon, sooner rather than later we’re going to get it. Um, but let’s also talk about, um, the Muse charm. So at the moment, right at the very end of the year, Muse is available on your phone, and he said he announced today it’s available on your computer, on your Mac as well, PC, but also He was sort of hinting at this handheld product throughout his keynote, and at the very end of it, he, he pulled out what looked like a Tamagotchi. Yeah, it was like about that size. It had a little screen on it, and it’s basically a little interface for your Muse agent. And I think, what do they call the Muse Charm? So it’s like had a little wrist strap.

[00:51:46] Val Quinn: Yeah.

[00:51:46] Stephen Fenech: How’s that going to work?

[00:51:47] Val Quinn: I guess it’s—

[00:51:48] Stephen Fenech: so you’ve always got it, you’d have to get your phone out.

[00:51:50] Val Quinn: Yeah, that’s— it’s separate to your other devices. It doesn’t have to be built in, and, uh, it’s like some of the other— like the— there was the— the— was it the Rabbit? There’s these AI standalone AI.

[00:51:59] Stephen Fenech: I thought of that, and they died to death.

[00:52:01] Val Quinn: Yeah, they all—

[00:52:02] Stephen Fenech: they disappeared.

[00:52:02] Val Quinn: Yeah, they all did. So this is— yeah, it’s another way of accessing your Muse. It’s got like a little screen on it which is a picture of your little character making sort of, you know, expressions and gestures and faces and things. So I guess if you don’t want to always have to find a physical device, um, you can have this little charm on your bag and just— it’s there.

[00:52:20] Stephen Fenech: And he said it’s going to be out before— by That’s right.

[00:52:23] Val Quinn: So that’s coming up very quickly.

[00:52:24] Stephen Fenech: So we’re going to see this sooner rather than later.

[00:52:27] Val Quinn: Um, I bet you’ll be really, really inexpensive. Just another way, just a way to onboard you to Muse.

[00:52:32] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely, mate. Before we wrap up, I thought of seeing we’re talking about AI, I just want to chat about a story that broke in Australia while we were here, and it is AI related, and it’s about OpenAI that actually hacked an Australian government website back in June.

[00:52:52] Val Quinn: Yeah.

[00:52:53] Stephen Fenech: And so now is the— and the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in the— in on TV talking about it, and now suddenly talking about guardrails and what we need to do for AI. But geez, it doesn’t— not a really big wrap on Australian security if an AI agent can hack them.

[00:53:09] Val Quinn: No, no, it really, uh, it goes to show you just how, uh, capable AI is, especially when it comes to navigating the internet and websites and things like that, because finding those little, those little weaknesses. Yeah, I mean, like, the way I understand it is that I’m in— and if you kind of like— that sounds a little silly, but if you put yourself into the perspective of the AI itself, because what, what it is is that it was assigned a task. It was assigned to go out and find out some information. And like, it doesn’t see a website like we do. Like, it doesn’t go to the front page and say, oh, I don’t have the password here, I can’t get in. It, it’s like, it’ll try that and try to get some information. We’ll say, oh well, I can’t get it that way, I’m going to try to find another way. And because it’s obviously, it lives and breathes code, it, it said, oh, well, here’s a little, little, uh, exploit, a little hole in this thing. Maybe I’ll just go through here. So like, it doesn’t see the website like we do. It sees it in the terms of code. And really it’s just trying to complete the task that has been assigned. So I think it’s a great reminder to everyone that it’s, you know, it’s these, parameters that you would think a normal person would understand, and AI doesn’t. And it’s not like it’s evil or anything like that, it’s just this is the task, you know.

[00:54:18] Stephen Fenech: It brings up though, like, the, the whole sort of code of ethics of AI and how Microsoft last week had their AI code of ethics.

[00:54:26] Val Quinn: Yeah, which is—

[00:54:27] Stephen Fenech: spoke about—

[00:54:27] Val Quinn: love that.

[00:54:28] Stephen Fenech: And, uh, like, is this— I know OpenAI had— I don’t know how they explained it, but they, they said, look, there were no records taken, no patient records, so no information was taken. But the fact they could get in there, um, it’s— mate, I think more than ever, now’s the time where we need these companies to step forward, show us their code of conduct, show us what their, what their safety net is as well for their AI agents. Because who knows— this is what only what we know about— who knows how many other websites they’ve cracked without us knowing. And, and imagine if like an evil— like another player in the world, like an evil agent or an evil actor, whoever, wherever they come from, is not trying this right as we speak.

[00:55:14] Val Quinn: Yeah, well, this is, this is why, I mean, if, if, uh, something as powerful as this is available to anybody who wants to pay the subscription, um, then we have to be aware that our websites also have to be designed well enough to resist what’s available on the market to anyone today. Yeah. And, uh, it’s, it’s in some ways, uh, our own faults, our company’s own faults not to be saying let’s run an AI, you know, check and ask an AI, can you break into our site?

[00:55:41] Stephen Fenech: What’s—

[00:55:41] Val Quinn: yeah, are there holes? Do you find any?

[00:55:43] Stephen Fenech: I’m sure there’d be— what, there’d be companies who will offer that service?

[00:55:45] Val Quinn: They’re absolutely—

[00:55:46] Stephen Fenech: what do they call that, penetration testing?

[00:55:47] Val Quinn: Yeah, penetration testing, red team, blue team. There’s all kinds of stuff and that is being done. And I’m not saying it isn’t, but it’s, it’s, it just goes to show you that with the more powerful AIs that come out every, you know, new build, then we need to make sure that we’re also protecting ourselves. And I do, I guess from the AI company’s point of view, when we talk about guardrails with something like this, it’s like, how do you define the rail? Because it’s saying, look, if you can’t get the information that you should from a website, don’t try to find holes. Like, try to hack it. Like, but then that’s a very difficult thing to actually describe in detail to an AI. It’s like, what do we mean, don’t find a hole? It’s like, it’s just trying to find— so it’s, yeah, again, technology is moving so fast. We haven’t figured you know, these problems out there get created. The government, you know, the legislation can’t keep up with it.

[00:56:34] Stephen Fenech: It reminds me of a story, like the— they’ve sent the AI agent to sort of do the task. It reminds me of a story of Kostas Tszyu. Remember Kostas Tszyu?

[00:56:42] Val Quinn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:56:43] Stephen Fenech: And Johnny Lewis was his trainer. His very first fight, Johnny Lewis told him, win the first round, right? He heard win in the first round. He went out and knocked this bloke out in round 1. Not thinking, I thought that’s what you wanted me to do. It’s sort of like the AI thing. Yeah, I thought that’s what you wanted me to do.

[00:57:02] Val Quinn: You want me to get in there, you said find information about X from this site, and it’s, it’s like, well, I can’t log in, so I might as well just break it.

[00:57:09] Stephen Fenech: I’m just going to break it. Yeah, there you go.

[00:57:10] Val Quinn: So yeah, like, it doesn’t know the difference.

[00:57:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I don’t know how many titles OpenAI is going to win, but anyway, mate, thank you for joining us, mate. It’s been great chatting to you again, buddy.

[00:57:20] Val Quinn: We’ve got the, uh, the, uh, the hot seat there while, um, Trevor’s One more, one more, and then you’re off the hook, brother.

[00:57:27] Stephen Fenech: But, uh, mate, everyone can read all your stuff at gadgetguide.com.au and your YouTube channel, which has just gone half a million followers. Hello, very excited, he’s flying over there, doing very well.

[00:57:39] Val Quinn: Oh my goodness.

[00:57:39] Stephen Fenech: So, uh, mate, appreciate all your stuff about MetaConnect and everything else you do. Of course, gadgetguide.com.au, your YouTube channel, and all my stuff, of course, techguide.com.au, and my little humble little YouTube channel as well, Tech Guide AU is my YouTube channel. But, uh, keep following both of us.

[00:57:53] Val Quinn: Val, you’re a genius.

[00:57:55] Stephen Fenech: Thanks, mate. Safe travels home.

[00:57:57] Val Quinn: Great talking, and, uh, yeah, look forward to joining you for the next one.

[00:57:59] Stephen Fenech: We’ll see you then, buddy.

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