This week we look back on Microsoft’s big announcement and unpack what it means and how Ai will change jobs and how Australia can and should adapt.

Stephen is with Dreame in San Francisco – why did they reveal a rocket powered car?

Trev’s in China with observations on the car industry there.

Plus Spotify adds fitness and Samsung’s latest headphones get a good review.

Full AI Generated transcript below

[00:00:00]  Trevor Long: Check, check, one, two. Uh, look, an irregular program for you folks. Uh, no YouTube this week, so stick that up your YouTubers. Um, loyal audio. Well, they don’t even know.

[00:00:16]  Stephen Fenech: What a welcoming opener, mate. Wow, for too long, mate, you’ve turned into an arc.

[00:00:24]  Trevor Long: Turned into? How’s that gonna get back? How’s that gonna get back to the YouTubers, you know what I’m saying?

[00:00:29]  Stephen Fenech: Like, okay, I hear where— I hear.

[00:00:33]  Trevor Long: That’s, that’s my point. But, uh, we’re on, we’re on different sides of, uh, of the pond. Um, same pond, different, different countries for both of us though, which we’ll talk about shortly. I’m in China, Stephen’s in San Francisco, and I love it. Um, and weather-wise, Stephen, you said it’s lovely over there?

[00:00:51]  Stephen Fenech: It is. It’s actually a nice 18 degrees Celsius, very short sleeve weather. Which is pretty nice for San Francisco. San Francisco can be a very, very fickle town when it comes to weather. It could be very cold one day, but it’s been quite nice, quite pleasant, uh, in the last few days. And what about China, mate? What’s the go?

[00:01:10]  Trevor Long: Where are you?

[00:01:11]  Stephen Fenech: Beijing?

[00:01:12]  Trevor Long: No, I’m in Hangzhou, which is, uh, sorry, okay, south. Like, it was a 5-hour, very fast 5-hour train ride at 350 kilometers an hour.

[00:01:23]  Stephen Fenech: Wow, that would be awesome.

[00:01:25]  Trevor Long: So it’s a long way away. Um, we’re kind of— I think we’re inland and a tiny bit south of Shanghai, which is on the east coast, right?

[00:01:33]  Stephen Fenech: Um, so where are you flying out of Shanghai? Is it still—

[00:01:36]  Trevor Long: oh no, we’re flying out of Hangzhou. Here’s the thing about China, it’s an international airport there, isn’t it? Yeah, it— no, we’re going to Beijing. We’re flying out of here to Beijing and then out. Most people, the other journos on this ride, are going to Hong Kong and then out, but Whatever. Um, it’s— mate, I, I have so many thoughts on China. My biggest negativity, I’ll put that up front, is it’s just disgustingly, um, smoggy. And it always is and always has been. That’s very hard to, to challenge when you’re such an industrial country. But outside of that, if you could, if you could ignore that, this place is spectacular. Like, genuinely spectacular. The people are so lovely. On the first day, we arrived super early in the morning and, um, had to go straight to the motor show. Like, literally, we had an hour in a hotel room to freshen up. So, and I’m at the hotel, and you might remember from last time you’re in China, it’s a pain in the ass to pay for anything here. You, you can’t just have a—

[00:02:32]  Stephen Fenech: what’s, what’s that?

[00:02:33]  Trevor Long: WeChat?

[00:02:34]  Stephen Fenech: You got to use WeChat?

[00:02:35]  Trevor Long: No, Alipay is what you want. And so I’d set up Alipay before I left, um, but I went to pay for something and it’s the, the app said ID not verified. I’m like, what the hell, whatever. And so then I saw a vending machine. It wasn’t a vending machine, it was just a fridge with a locked door that this computer screen on the front, you scan the code, Alipay, same thing, same app, and, uh, that you’d open the door, grab a drink. And mate, I couldn’t get it working. There was two fridges and there was a Chinese bloke and his girlfriend or wife next to us watching me struggle. And he goes, hang on, mate. And he— and I thought— and he was helping me out like he worked there. Like he, like he owned the fridge, do you know what I mean? Like, that was my thought, was, oh, this guy’s just here on day one of the show making sure the fridges work. And, um, and he’s doing it all. And, and he opens up the door, he gets two Cokes, not one, two, gets one to me, one to Rob. And I go, mate, what, uh, do you work? He goes, no, no. And I went, mate, how do I give you the money? I’ve got to pay you now. And he goes, no, no, thanks. Yeah. And I’m like, that’s the, that’s the loveliest thing. I’ve never had that happen in any other country where someone is just genuinely that friendly. Yeah, like, it was so good. And you notice that— I get— you get that with hotel staff if they don’t speak the language, but where they do, they say—

[00:03:48]  Stephen Fenech: that’s how us friendly people would do it, mate. Us friendly people do things like that, you know.

[00:03:54]  Trevor Long: All right, mate, you don’t have to make this about you. You really don’t. Um, I’m just saying, like, would you do that for someone else? Yes. Yeah, I would.

[00:04:02]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, okay, absolutely. I’m always helpful like that if I see the closest thing.

[00:04:06]  Trevor Long: Especially though, they know—

[00:04:08]  Stephen Fenech: they knew you were a tourist too. They knew you were a foreigner, mate.

[00:04:11]  Trevor Long: Look, I was going to say, the closest thing I would kind of— that you’ve done this too, is if you see tourists trying to take a selfie, you go, ‘Can I— do you want me to take the photo for you?’ Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, but here’s the thing, mate. This town we’re in, which is— I mean, it’s huge, big town, but— and you know, big building, it’s a city. I went for a wander the other day, which is rare for me, as you know. I sit in my hotel room and, mate, little kids are like pointing at me because this is not a tourist town.

[00:04:35]  Stephen Fenech: It’s Trevor Wrong from the Today Show.

[00:04:41]  Trevor Long: I knew you were gonna do that. Is that what they said? I knew you were gonna do that.

[00:04:50]  Stephen Fenech: Where you going, Mr. Wrong?

[00:04:51]  Trevor Long: But, but Stop it. But like genuinely, they were like, who’s— what’s this fat white person doing in our town? Like, it was— what Stig said to me, Stig went out and he sat in the cafe and yep, these little kids, like, you know, 6 and 7-year-old kids came running into him and they’d say, do you like chocolate? And then they’d run out again. They’d come out and go, what’s your name? And they run out and come back in, what’s— where are you from? And so he said he reckons the parents were sending the kids in to ask these questions because mate, there’s No white people here. This is not a tourist area.

[00:05:25]  Stephen Fenech: I’ve got to say, I had a similar experience in Tiananmen Square. Yeah, I remember I’ve been to Tiananmen Square a few times, and, and each time you— they see a white, a white person, for a non-Asian person, and they, and they, they think, oh, what a novelty, you know.

[00:05:41]  Trevor Long: Never—

[00:05:42]  Stephen Fenech: don’t see this stuff. You don’t see every day.

[00:05:44]  Trevor Long: Yeah, well, yeah, it’s fascinating. But the, the other thing I’d say before we actually get onto the program— I know people are desperate for us to, uh, talk to tech as we sometimes do on the show. But the— this was a 5 and a bit hour very fast train ride from Beijing to Hangzhou. And yeah, so, you know, thousands of kilometers, what would that be? I don’t know, but you know, that’s more than Sydney to Melbourne. It’s, it’s, it’s Brisbane, Melbourne, probably in 5 hours. Wow. 300— well, we were going 350 km/h for 5 hours with a couple of stops. So we covered some ground, right? And, and here’s what I noticed. If you, if you drove or trained that far in Australia, you’d see a lot of farmland, uh, and maybe the odd township, right? But what we saw was farmland within towns and cities, um, industrial centers like, you know, smokestacks and, you know, actual industry just everywhere. Like, the whole way is just industry city, because it’s on a transport line.

[00:06:48]  Stephen Fenech: That, that’s why it’s on a transport line. That’s why.

[00:06:50]  Trevor Long: I think that’s just China. Like, it’s just— yeah, this is not a transport line. This is not a line that has freighters on it.

[00:06:56]  Stephen Fenech: This is just very fast trains, just passengers.

[00:06:59]  Trevor Long: But, but you realize the scale of this joint. And then you’ve seen the buildings here, like the residential buildings they’re building. There are more— there are more cranes operating in the places I’ve seen in China than there are in Australia in 10 years. They’re just building.

[00:07:14]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, exactly.

[00:07:15]  Trevor Long: All they’re doing is building. But is that—

[00:07:17]  Stephen Fenech: yeah, you mentioned the fast train. If there’s one country that’s got the room for a fast train, these wide open spaces— hello, we should have this in Australia.

[00:07:29]  Trevor Long: Yeah, well, you know, what we don’t have is the ability to go, hey, see this line here? We’re gonna, we’re gonna just go to build a train line on that line and just demolish everything in its path. I’m pretty sure in China they go knock knock, um, tomorrow we’re building a train here.

[00:07:43]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, we need you out by midnight. All right, see ya.

[00:07:46]  Trevor Long: That’s it.

[00:07:47]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:07:48]  Trevor Long: Okay, I’m pretty sure, I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. But, but yeah, it’s a weird thing to be so, uh, so impressed— not in love with this country, but very much impressed with this country— but just disappointed that it’s so smoggy. It’s just dead, you know. I, I’ve I feel like I’ve got a cold, but I don’t think I do. I’ve just breathed too much of the air here.

[00:08:10]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, I’m in downtown. My hotel’s about like 3 blocks away from Union Square and Market Street.

[00:08:17]  Trevor Long: They’re really—

[00:08:18]  Stephen Fenech: it’s a really desolate part of town, you know, Market Street, all the empty stores and all that. But other parts of San Francisco are actually still quite vibrant. But the downtown part here just seems to just have— it’s just slowly dying. All the shops are shut. There’s up there— Macy’s is still open, but It’s a little cleaner than a lot of homeless people.

[00:08:36]  Trevor Long: 3 or 4 years ago, though, it’s a little bit cleaner.

[00:08:38]  Stephen Fenech: Apparently he’s trying to put his stamp on things, but it’s, uh, yeah, it’s a bit sad to see that this— I remember coming here and it was bustling, that Market Street area and all that down part downtown, then near the tram turnaround there. But now it’s a lot of homeless people and just a lot of desolation.

[00:08:56]  Trevor Long: Anyway, all right, enough tourist talk. And, uh, what are we, Expedia? The Two Blokes Talking Expedia. Um, let’s, uh, let’s get on with this.

[00:09:07]  VOICE OVER: Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:09:09]  Trevor Long: Not a bad price.

[00:09:10]  VOICE OVER: With Trevor Long from eftm.com.

[00:09:13]  Stephen Fenech: Really handy device.

[00:09:14]  VOICE OVER: And Steven Fennick from techguide.com.au.

[00:09:17]  Trevor Long: Great to have your company. Episode 730, I believe it is, uh, Steven Fennick. Uh, thanks to Netgear and Arlo. We’ll tell you more about them shortly. And what we ask of you is quite simple. If you are in the market for a new Wi-Fi system at home, consider Netgear as a part of your buying choices. So look at everyone in the retail store and then go, oh, Netgear, that could be good. And the same with security cameras. If you’re looking to upgrade or add to security cameras, Arlo is a brand we’d love you to consider. Pick up the box, read, read what it tells you about it, and we’ll tell you about a bit more about them shortly too. Stephen, good to be with you, mate. Uh, before we get into what we’re each doing, um, on, on opposite sides of the world, Let’s rewind a little bit because it’s pretty much like a last week, end of middle of last week story, but we didn’t really get to unpack it last week, was, was AI and data centers. Microsoft made a $25 billion announcement investing in data centers in Australia. Satya Nadella was here at a big AI workshop kind of thing. It was very interesting. You know, he did a keynote talking to actual Microsoft customers. He, he met with Microsoft customers to talk about, you know, what they were doing in this space and rolling out software, all that kind of stuff. Um, but the big data center announcement really did get a lot of traction, but it’s kind of 50/50 people’s views on it because some people are just like, well, we don’t need it, we don’t want that here. There’s some, there’s some analysis I noticed, I think it was David Swan in the, in the Herald, is— I’m not going to say he’s negative, he’s just being, um, specific about his reporting on it. Um, very much looking at it’s a $25 billion announcement, but how much of that is really staying in Australia because once you buy the land, once you build the building, which obviously takes Australian workers, you’re not putting Australian racks in there. Are you putting Australian computers in there? Maybe there’s some Australian air conditioning. So how much of that money is really feeding into Australia? But here’s my mindset. My mindset is, I think that even if it’s $25 billion and only a billion dollars of it goes into the Australian economy directly, I’d prefer there was data centers in Australia than anywhere else in the world so that I could hopefully in the future will be able to go, I want my data in my country.

[00:11:25]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I think we should consider that they could have— they’ve probably already got data centers in other countries. The fact they chose Australia, that says that we’re up, we’re a priority for them as well. I think they want to not only be present in Australia, but as you said, they were going to be using their— it’s going to just help increase their footprint. But I, my approach with it on my, on my Tech Guide podcast was, well, what’s the catch? What you would get here is $25 billion. What, what, what’s the deal? Like, I think if you look at the fine print of what, what Australian government demands, and it’s a problem in here in the US as well, is how are you going to power the thing and what about the water conservation you need as well? That seems to be the, the sticking point for a lot of them here, here in America. Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have, uh, have all started building data centers that are all nuclear powered because Trump in the State of the Union a couple of months ago said that any tech company building these data centers have to power them themselves. In Australia, I think Albo and, and what’s his name, Chris Bowen— Casanova Bowen— he, uh, he, uh, the stipulation was that they’ve got to contribute to the renewable energy and also take part in the water conservation. So yeah, it’s all right for them to come out here and say, yeah, we’re going to build this big building, and many of them, but they can’t just plug into the grid and expect it to be free power for them, or, you know, be— take away from power that other people may need to be using. That’s been the negativity I’ve heard about it, where, you know, they’ve got to sort of pull their weight. They’re here, they’re paying the money, but they’ve got to pull their weight to power it.

[00:13:17]  Trevor Long: The water one’s interesting because I was, as I often do, reading the comments, um, and one of the, one of the comments I saw about the, you know, the inefficient use of water and all that kind of stuff was, um, actually what you probably don’t realize is that most of these data centers now kind of reuse water. Um, they’ve worked that, they build that into it. So I’m not sure the water argument is as strong as it used to be. I’ve got no doubt it’s a different impact. But also, and I don’t want to upset some people, but water is cyclical. Like it doesn’t just disappear. Water doesn’t disappear. A data center doesn’t get rid of water. It just uses it.

[00:13:59]  Stephen Fenech: Doesn’t drink it. Yeah, it just, it washes its mouth out and spits it out again.

[00:14:04]  Trevor Long: Correct. Yeah. So, so as long as there’s a process and that’s what I would hope our governments are working on is ensuring that they build in regulation. And that’s the critical thing here, is regulation. Government— if the government— and I hope they are, and I feel confident they are, because I don’t think Albo’s an idiot. And I think that they have, you know, they’ve been working on these deals. They’re not, they’re not just overnight things. I think as long as they’re talking to these companies and the industry generally about what regulation will ensure that they do do things around power and water, then mate, I mean, what are you going to do, say no to it? No, because that’s the thing, you could— you can be so negative Nancy about it, but in the end then we lose the potential to be— and I asked Satya Nadella this, I said, can— I think my question was, can Australia be an AI powerhouse? Like, can we be a leader in AI? And he said, the thing is, everyone has that opportunity. It’s really now about how your government, you know, your government invests and regulates in it and the opportunities that exist. And mate, having data centers onshore is going to be a critical win for that. Because I think that, you know, in the geopolitical climate that we’re in right now, there’s definitely a future where I see people choosing onshore versus offshore. You know, I want my data, I want to know where my data is.

[00:15:22]  Stephen Fenech: Well, it’s kind of like a bit of a gold rush happening at the moment. AI, everyone’s trying to stake their claim in it, and Australia with this investment is going to hopefully be a player on the world stage. But that aside, I think that the other part of the deal was to train up like up to 3 million people.

[00:15:44]  Trevor Long: 3 million Australians.

[00:15:47]  Stephen Fenech: That’s like a— what is it, a fifth, a fifth of— I know, a ninth or tenth of the country into AI skills. And my approach with this is that there’s probably jobs they haven’t thought of yet that are required. Do you remember, say, pre-2000 when internet really sort of took hold and became a thing and commercially successful? And how many roles do you reckon from then to now have been created that you wouldn’t have even thought of in the ’90s? You would have thought, who would have— if someone said to you in the ’90s, they said, you know what, we’re going to need app developers, you’ll go, what’s an app? What do you mean?

[00:16:30]  Trevor Long: Well, that’s what I was going to say, was, you know, the, the internet’s one thing, and then you, then you say there’s the iPhone and the App Store that created hundreds of thousands of jobs in app development that didn’t exist before. So I think the problem is—

[00:16:42]  Stephen Fenech: but, uh, but AI, the problem, it’s, it’s sort of two sides to the coin. One side is that AI, yes, it’s going to cost people their jobs, right? AI is going to put people out of work, no doubt about it. But does this make up for that? Is it possible to retrain people?

[00:17:00]  Trevor Long: I don’t think it does make up for it. I think it’s a challenge. And I think also the question around 3 million Australians getting training, what does that mean? Because one of the things that happens in a big business when you make people redundant, which is what we’re talking about happening over the course of the next decade, different jobs being made redundant, is you don’t just get a check to say you’ve been made redundant. You also are offered certain things like post-redundancy resume training, HR. So maybe This AI training is just one portion. So it’s, it’s like, look, your job’s been made redundant for many reasons, but one of them is because it’s now, um, being utilized— it’s, it’s using AI more. So here’s a course you can do that’s a one-week course through Microsoft Online, and it’ll end up with a certificate that you can take to anyone saying, I know how to use AI. I mean, in, in simple terms, that’s a, that’s a good thing to have on your resume if you— even if you’re starting work at a real estate agent. If you’re pitching for the job as a marketing manager or real estate agent or even receptionist, whatever, and you say to them, I’ve got these skills, and then the person next to you says, I’ve got these skills, and they’re the same, and you say, but I’ve also been trained in AI, that person might go, oh, well, this is good. You can help me understand how we can be better and grow our business because of it. So that’s the idea, I would have thought.

[00:18:14]  Stephen Fenech: Can’t hurt. Can’t hurt. Absolutely. Yeah. But it’s a massive investment, and I think it’s going to be over the next few years, like, I think 2029 2029. But they’re also adding to, you know, the part of that is going to be adding to the Cyber Shield. Remember they built that with the Australian government, and I think they contributed like $5 billion a few years ago in, in that to set it up, and they’re going to obviously reinforce it now. But look, the fact that Microsoft’s taken an interest in the joint and throwing that kind of money around, that can’t hurt us. I think it’s, uh, I think I look at it, I look at it mainly positively that this is, uh, something that’s happened.

[00:18:53]  Trevor Long: I’ll give you and other people an example of something that I didn’t see with AI before I, I worked, met with Microsoft last week. I had to shadow the CEO for 20 minutes, which literally means just stand in his aura, um, no conversation, just stand around him while he met with Australia Post, AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, ComBank, Cricket Australia, and University of Sydney, right? And they were all pitching what they— how they’ve used Microsoft Copilot or whatever. And they’re all interesting. CommBank, you know, they’ve got a chatbot they’ve built that is essentially, you know, customers when they’re asking questions, it’s using data and sources and then it feeds them off to a human. Great. Cricket Australia, lots of data built into the app, stats, whatever. Um, but the one that was interesting to me and was— is theoretically the most boring— is the Australian Energy Market Operator. And they had up that— mate, they, they took way too much of his time, but it was fascinating anyway. They had up a, you know, chart of all the things that the Australian Energy Market Operator do. And they’re looking at, you know, the poles and the towers and the transmitters. And, you know, it’s the fundamentals of our electricity grid. Right. And they said something, and I’m not quoting, but just let’s just use random numbers here. But, you know, if they have 60,000 points of data in a minute that, you know, are feeding information, you know, alerts, flags, different things from all the different sensors that exist on the network. And they had a bunch of people analyzing that data on a regular basis. The cognitive load for those people to be scrolling through a spreadsheet or looking through a website going, oh, there’s a red light, okay, and now go, what does that affect? And then go down the line and go, that affects this. And they go, here’s what we built. Click a button, 3.9 seconds, it analyzes 60,000 lines of, you know, output, and it goes, here’s your priority issue here’s your mild issue, and here’s some other things you might want to follow up. And so basically it took the cognitive load away from the people and, and gave, uh, not instructions to anyone, but it gave the ability for the people then to go, right, here’s what we need to prioritize. And you know, that’s like, that’s something you and I would never see. You know, a cognitive load was a really interesting thing, a way of understanding how AI helps. You know what, And yes, a human being— I’ve been doing it with it, with an analysis I’ve been using Claude for. It’s like I could go to all these websites and check this fact, or I could say, hey, can you go and do this? So it takes away my time and my cognitive load. And then what I get back is a bunch of data that I can then go, okay, so here’s what it said, and I can check this and that and go, ah, here’s my analysis of that, here’s what I think is interesting about that. Cognitive load. I’d never thought about it that way. And that’s when you think about the— do you want the electricity grid to go down if there’s a fault?

[00:21:39]  Stephen Fenech: Of course not, you know, and take 1 hour to diagnose.

[00:21:42]  Trevor Long: No, 3.9 seconds would be amazing, thanks very much.

[00:21:45]  Stephen Fenech: Well, in that instance, you know, that’s, that’s just tailor-made for AI. AI, yeah, if someone pointed— so, well, what’s the best use of AI? Well, that’d be a great example of having to take off the cognitive load something that would take humans and even today’s computers a lot longer to analyze. Yeah, you know, if that can, if that can make things that, in that instance, it’s making things more efficient so they can highlight any kind of dangers. So how’s that going to hurt us?

[00:22:15]  Trevor Long: See, I think the great thing is, and we’ve talked about this before, that example I’ve just given with the AIMO is, is an example of AI in its purest form, because you could argue that A computer program— see, there’s a difference between a computer program and AI. A computer program could be trained or written, sorry, to analyze this, then this, then this. But AI can analyze this, then this, and this, and then make these assumptions about that and go back to this and do more thinking, right? And it’s different to when you— the conversation you and I’ve had is just when they slap an AI label on things. And I had this yesterday in a car factory. There was a bloke doing a presentation and he had AI on every slide. And I went, mate, come on, like, that’s, that’s advanced computing. I’m sure there’s advanced computing built into that part of the car. I’m sure there’s advanced computing built into that thing, but it’s not AI. Let’s be real. Yeah, that’s my, that’s my only gripe still with AI is just the slapped-on label.

[00:23:12]  Stephen Fenech: I’m getting the same thing here at the Dreamy event too. Everything’s AI. It’s like, it’s like salt and pepper. It’s in everything. AI.

[00:23:21]  Trevor Long: Yeah. All right, well, you can read more about Microsoft’s AI announcements at techguide.com.au and aftm.com.

[00:23:30]  VOICE OVER: Everything about tech you never wanted to know.

[00:23:34]  Trevor Long: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech, and we do it all thanks to the great people at Netgear. And Netgear is creating the utility for your home that, uh, ensures you have connectivity for days, for ages, and speed And we can hear Steven opening his Diet Coke because his microphone is just so sensitive. It’s great to know.

[00:23:56]  Stephen Fenech: I can’t hear any more. You can hear it in your pants.

[00:23:59]  Trevor Long: Yeah, no, it’s all good, mate. It’s all good. Um, you’ve got high-speed internet at home, uh, gigabit internet, but you’re— and you’re paying for a gigabit, you’re paying for 500 meg, but you’re only getting 100 or 200 around the TV or in the bedroom or in the lounge room, wherever it might be. Well, why don’t you upgrade your home Wi-Fi? And Netgear Orbi is the perfect solution for that. We’ve been talking about it for a decade or more, folks. Great products, and you know, they’ve evolved and they continue to evolve with the latest Wi-Fi technologies. They’ve evolved through all the different Wi-Fi, through now the recent Wi-Fi 6, 6E, and now Wi-Fi 7. This is future-proofing your home. It might not be that every device you own is Wi-Fi 7 compatible today, but as you upgrade your laptop, as you upgrade your phone, you upgrade your tablet, They’ll all begin to be compatible with this latest technology, which means you’ll get the best from your network. So consider upgrading your home network today with Netgear, and you can check out the details and you can buy directly from Netgear at netgear.com.au.

[00:24:53]  VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.

[00:25:00]  Stephen Fenech: Well, I— the reason I’m in San Francisco, I was invited to Dreamy Next, which was a— is a 4-day conference. At the Palace of Fine Arts, same place where Samsung had their S26 launch. So they’ve got this place for 4 days. It’s like going to the office every day.

[00:25:18]  Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:25:19]  Stephen Fenech: And it’s basically them— there were some things that they did unveil at CES, but this is looking at living, motoring, all kinds of areas of our lives where Dreamy are creating products, prototypes, concepts to take us into the future. Now, the attitude of Dreamy, interesting how they kind of, they do business. They’re very much obviously a tech-driven company. They were founded in 2017, so they’re not that old, but they’ve really blazed a path of sort of the technology that they’re pushing boundaries and Their goal is to— the reason it’s called Dreamy is they want to make your dreams come true and make your convenience of everyday life. But they said the company ethos is really technology first and then great products will follow. One of the executives made a really good comment. He said, well, we like to touch the ceiling first and then build the staircase. So that was not a bad analogy on how they consider their development of their products. And I’ve seen that, you know, they’ve got— you can read this on Tech Guide this week— they’ve got new refrigerators that can talk to your wearables. You know, they’ve got kitchens that are smart. They’ve got an air conditioner that’s got robotic arms that can prevent, you know, the airflow, the wind hitting various people in the room. It can it can shape the wind in the room to avoid people. It’s got a laundry device that’s got arms that can pick up clothes and take them and put them in the washing machine and then take them out and then put it in the dryer without you having to lift your finger. I think that was at CES as well. So the approach is obviously high-tech, but they’re— it’s people-centric as well. They want it to be like fit into your home sense, using AI of course, sensing what’s required, sensing the people around it as well, and just meeting their needs. Uh, yeah, it’s interesting stuff. So they’ve got, you know, fridges, they’ve got, uh, steam mops, and everything’s got AI in it. But I do like the approach of how they can— there’s all these— everything’s got a robotic arm in it too, by the way. Even they’ve got a television that they’re going to produce too with a robotic arm to bring the speakers out wider than the television. They’ve got robotic arms on their new robot, uh, vacuums have robotic arms so that the, the mops extend underneath chairs and stools and into areas where that— where the actual body of the, of the robot can’t reach. So it’s, uh, yeah, it’s the— even the air conditioner’s got robotic arms to open the different, uh, the flaps and the— and direct the air as well. You know, 8 different motors in it. It’s, uh, yeah, it’s pretty high-tech stuff, but the approach is to, you know, to cater to the— to meet our needs, to meet the needs of the customer, uh, in an easy way. You and AI, they’ve got algorithms everywhere to sort of to, to analyze things. But yeah, really interesting approach that this is kind of— I see this as a lot of these products we probably won’t see this year maybe not even next year, but it’s kind of a shot across the bow to the Ecovacs and Roborocks and Movers of the world that are also in this, in the same field. So there’s a bit of a flex here.

[00:29:05]  Trevor Long: It is an interesting flex, isn’t it? Yeah, I mean, it’s an issue, and we’ll talk about that along with, uh, the stuff that I’ve seen. But it’s an interesting flex because if you think about Ecovacs, right, um, they have stayed very path steady, into the point where they have not done things that aren’t ready for market. I would argue that stair climbing robots have been a gimmick, or, uh, even the Roborock with the arm, the Sauros that picks socks up and stuff like that, um, future-facing gimmicks, right? All right, so Ecovacs has been strong. We’re releasing products that work and, uh, you know, support what people need right now, whereas Dreame, I feel like they’re trying to very much showcase a vision, um, and that to do that they have to stand out, right? You have to show innovation. And I think— I don’t think it’s a bad thing to show innovation other than to say that you’re exposing your product roadmap, you know, because essentially by showing all the things— just, just think robot vacuums. If you show all the things that a robot vacuum could do, then you’re showing every competitor what a robot vacuum could do.

[00:30:07]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, I think— well, the reason there, I reckon this, this was a really smart move to do this because it basically says Well, it says that here’s what we’re doing so they can say, well, we were first with it. But, uh, it’s, it’s remarkable how the, the developments don’t seem— they— the way that they’ve, they’ve thought them out, they don’t seem gimmicky. You know, when you first saw that Roborock, the arm, that seemed like a real gimmick to think, okay, it’s sort of a new novelty. Whereas how they’ve deployed their tech, it’s you’re thinking, yeah, actually that makes sense. It fits into— it’s not just there for the sake of it, it fits into how the product could be used and makes it better. So I think that they’re not the sort of company that you just put— does stuff for the sake of it.

[00:30:56]  Trevor Long: Do you think you’re experiencing a Beyond 2000 moment? And what I mean by that is when you look back in 3 years on these 4 days Do you think you’ll go, I saw them mucking around with that, and now what we see is the end product that has two of those features in it and that kind of thing?

[00:31:14]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, quite possibly, because a lot of the products, yeah, they got names and, you know, the Z1 or whatever it’s called, but there’s no— there was no release date given, no prices talked about for like 90% of the products that they’re showcasing. These are like pipeline products, I call them, because they may come out this year, they may not. So you can’t get a straight answer. Is that— well, is it coming out this year or not? They said, oh, maybe, maybe this year, we’re not sure. So it’s, uh, I think that they’re— it’s a company with many departments that are all, that are all trying to be the principal’s favorite. They’re all, they’re all trying to push their little bits, the different divisions of the company trying to rise to the surface. Interesting.

[00:32:00]  Trevor Long: You reckon it’s also a litmus test for them to sprinkle all these ideas out there and see how many of them, you know, gain traction?

[00:32:08]  Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. Yeah, I think so. And like how I’m treating mine, like it’s not like I’ve been here for a couple of days already for this conference that I haven’t received a single press release. It’s all just what’s been told on stage. That I think— and the reason there’s no press release is because they don’t know when it’s going to come out. And the technology was explained pretty well on stage. I might get flooded with press releases, who knows? But I think it’s very much— I reckon it’s almost like a poll depending on what we write about. There’s press here, there’s influencers here as well. I think what they see that we’ve engaged with will think, okay, well, these work. They didn’t really mention this. So that could possibly be half the purpose of this.

[00:32:53]  Trevor Long: And I think there’s an interesting pivot there from, from what you’re seeing to what I’m seeing in China. I went to the Beijing Auto Show and on the first day I saw the Dreamy stand with 3 big cars and I thought to myself, I didn’t see that at CSI, maybe I didn’t go to their stand, but one of the cars wasn’t—

[00:33:08]  Stephen Fenech: yeah, they had the Dreamy, yeah, the, uh, the Nex Nebula there.

[00:33:12]  Trevor Long: Um, and, and I just— you look at it, you know, this is, this is amazing. And it reminded me of Mobile World Congress, I don’t know, 2019, somewhere back when, when Xiaomi had a car. And you’re thinking, Xiaomi make mobile phones, they make vacuums, they do, they do pretty much everything, right? But a car? Come on, what are you talking about, mate? Yeah, now as I walk around the streets of Hangzhou and Beijing, there’s Xiaomi cars everywhere. They are pumping those things out. Well, you know, it’s not a concept car. It’s real.

[00:33:44]  Stephen Fenech: Interestingly, Xiaomi is actually— my understanding is that, that, um, Dreame spun out of Xiaomi, that they were sort of— I had a look, they, they—

[00:33:54]  Trevor Long: while you were talking, I had a look. Yeah, so what they did, they released their one of their first products in partnership with Xiaomi, a stick vacuum, and then they ended that partnership and did their own thing. So, and with the robot vacuum. So, okay, I don’t, I don’t know that it’s spun out. I think I feel like they just work together and to maybe source you know, um, factory things like that.

[00:34:13]  Stephen Fenech: But first thing they announced at this thing here was a rocket-powered car, the Jet Edition. Like, you’re thinking, do you think you’re going to be screaming down the, the, the Pacific Highway with that in Australia? Like, it’s, uh, it’s, uh, yeah, interesting. I think it’s like, look what we can do kind of thing. And, you know, 0 to 100 in 0.9 seconds.

[00:34:39]  Trevor Long: Like, that’s— yeah, no, I want to have a solid backrest for that. Yeah, but that’s what they say.

[00:34:43]  Stephen Fenech: There’s a video, they’ve got a video. I don’t, I don’t know how real it is, but yeah.

[00:34:47]  Trevor Long: But look, the thing is you don’t really appreciate— we’ve talked about this a lot on Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars, and if you are listening to this and you haven’t listened to the Two Blokes Talking Electric Cars, how is that possible? For a start, it’s in the same feed, it comes up on Monday. What are we talking about, folks? We know you’re listening because the numbers show it, okay? We’re unlike the private feed, we know that you’re listening to Two Bikes Talking, uh, electric cars. Um, and it’s, it’s, it’s a fascinating thing for us to be on that journey too because we’re as owners and drivers, we’re hearing from people who are in the market or already existing owners and drivers, and we talk to them on a weekly basis. In the last two weeks, we should say, we’ve put out two, two episodes we would describe as evergreen. So 2 weeks ago we put out a show called You’re Buying an EV, Here’s What You Need to Know. And this week’s episode on Monday was You’ve Just Bought an EV, Here’s What You Need to Know. So things you need to know about charging at home and things like that.

[00:35:42]  Stephen Fenech: 2 great episodes.

[00:35:45]  Trevor Long: And look, the YouTube— we’ve said this a million times— one of the reasons we do the YouTube is not because we get better numbers there, but because it’s more shareable. So if you’ve got a mate or a friend or a family member who is in the market, then send them the episode about being in the market. If you, if you know somebody who’s just bought one, send them the episode about having just bought one. My uncle’s just put an order down on an ATTO 3. I’m going to send him this week’s video and say, mate, have a watch so that you’re ready, you know what you got to do, you know. But walking around China, you realize— I remember coming here in 2006, 2 years before the Olympics. I was, uh, going to the World Broadcasters meeting and, you know, fascinated by the place and there was a lot of Audis, a lot of Audis, big long wheelbase, um, A6s, which is a car exclusive to China. It was built in China. And now, mate, there’s not many of them because the cars are 90%, it feels like 90%, Chinese brands. Yes, there’s, there’s the odd Porsche and Mercedes, um, and there’s some really cheap Chinese brands, but there’s some staggeringly beautiful Chinese cars that we’ve never heard of. Yeah, there’s brands obviously that we’re getting like BYD and Chery and Geely and all these, Zeekr and stuff. But we— there’s so many other brands here and it’s fascinating to me that we— people talk about the Chinese car market or the Chinese car industry with a bit of disdain, don’t you reckon? In Australia, we’ve had callers decide I wouldn’t want to buy a Chinese car and often say to them, you buy a Tesla Model 3 that’s made in China, what are you doing?

[00:37:16]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, true. Like, it’s funny to me that, yeah, the reputation, you know, that it has.

[00:37:20]  Trevor Long: And yeah, And I think, I think that stems from— and this, uh, without, uh, um, giving away my entire Today Show story that’ll run in a couple of weeks— but, um, for me, the story of coming to China— and I’m here as a guest of Jillian Zika— um, the— is that 10, 15 years ago, a Chinese car was cheap and frankly not great, right? Yeah, um, they were just cobbled together, but China has the ability to grow so fast, build factories so fast, and engineer so fast that they have created an industry that is high quality, luxury, strong, reliable, and most importantly, safe. I, I stood and watched a, uh, a crash test yesterday in the world’s largest crash test facility. So if you said to me, where’s the world’s largest crash test facility, you’d say just Germany Japan, or like, no, no, it’s here in China.

[00:38:17]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, well, but you know what you’re saying though, it kind of reflects what’s happened with, with the Chinese tech companies. Do you remember years ago when, you know, Hisense, sort of when they first came in, everyone goes, oh, another Chinese company, and, and they had to really fight. They earned their, uh, their reputation, they earned respect from customers because they kept producing great products. And it’s the same thing with the, the Chinese car companies. I think I think the other— the thing that goes against them is that just the sheer number of them, everyone’s thinking, oh, the assumption that there’s so many that they can’t— or any of them can’t be any good because there’s so many of them.

[00:38:52]  Trevor Long: But, and, and the risk in Australia, the risk in Australia is Australia is a small country. We sell a million cars a year. Um, and for context, there’s a car, a small car coming out in Australia later this year called the Geely EX2. It’s a hatchback Um, my guess is it’ll be around $30,000, and they’ve already had two— that was shown at the Melbourne Auto Show. They’ve had 2,000 orders for that car. No one’s driven it.

[00:39:17]  Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:39:18]  Trevor Long: So none of those 2,000 people have driven the car, they’ve just ordered it sight unseen. They might have seen it at the motor show, but that car was the number one selling car in China last year. They sold 450,000 of them.

[00:39:31]  Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:39:32]  Trevor Long: 450,000 of these cars Mate, Australia is just a— it’s, it’s 2 minutes on the production line, then we’ll have the year’s supply. It’s like, you know, it’s meaningless essentially. And so the challenge for Australia, I think, for Chinese brands is how many survive. And so I think if you look at— go to Big W, um, look on Amazon, there’s a bunch of TV brands and you can get— man, you can get a 4K 65-inch panel from whatever brand— Echo, Philips, you know, some of them, some of them sound like names, some of them don’t sound like names. And, and it’s like walking through Walmart or Best Buy in America where there’s just— Target in America, there’s just a TV you’ve never heard of but in the aisles. Anyone can make a TV because you can come there, come here to China and get them made. Absolutely. It’s a great example of a company that can make a TV and then ensure that they have the support, the, the warranty, the after-sales service, and the quality that maintains them as a brand.

[00:40:33]  Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. Well, what do they say? The cream rises to the top. So it’s— that’s the case with— same case with the Chinese, the Chinese cars.

[00:40:41]  Trevor Long: That’s why we’re so big in this industry and, you know, Australia’s most respected.

[00:40:46]  Stephen Fenech: I’ve had a lot of cream in my life.

[00:40:50]  Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah. Okay.

[00:40:52]  Stephen Fenech: Cream rises to the top. That’s—

[00:40:54]  Trevor Long: yeah, yeah, fair enough, fair enough. Anyway, so yeah, cream on my scones. Oh yeah, no, I’m on butter, margarine, just straight on the scones.

[00:41:04]  Stephen Fenech: Jam first, cream.

[00:41:06]  Trevor Long: I’m hungry right now. I’m so— I mean, I’ve eaten— I’ve had breakfast every day, and most nights I’ve had one, one quick plate at a buffet at the hotel. There’s clearly no food in China that I’ll eat. Man, I had that McDonald’s one day. You know, we travel a lot. You’ve never seen me at McDonald’s on a trip apart from Taiwan. That was the last time. That was the last time I’ve seen you. Where? When?

[00:41:29]  Stephen Fenech: Where? Oh, we’ve been— I remember we went, we went to Melbourne one time. I think you had me— you had, um, you had McDonald’s. I was shouting.

[00:41:36]  Trevor Long: Melbourne’s not— mate, I’m talking about overseas trips.

[00:41:40]  Stephen Fenech: Have you had McDonald’s in America?

[00:41:42]  Trevor Long: Never. No, 2012 was the last time I did it. On my way to Vegas, and it was horrible.

[00:41:49]  Stephen Fenech: You’re more an In-N-Out man or a Shake Shack man?

[00:41:53]  Trevor Long: Definitely, definitely. But in Asian countries, like, I struggle because there’s just—

[00:41:56]  Stephen Fenech: yeah, of course. Yeah, well, I know there is, uh, I think the— yeah, Chinese food in China is a lot different to what people think. Chinese food in Australia is the westernized Chinese food. Like, Chinese, proper Chinese food in China, way different. And You know how much of a foodie Stig is, right?

[00:42:16]  Trevor Long: So we, last night we came in with our translator into the hotel before everyone else, and we said we’re going up to the buffet for dinner, where are you going? She goes, I’m going to have Chinese, local Chinese. And I said, you should take Stig, he loves, he loves actual food. And she just, she just looked at him as if to say, no, I’m not taking this poor white man.

[00:42:38]  Stephen Fenech: But isn’t Chinese food in China redundant? It’s just food, isn’t it?

[00:42:43]  Trevor Long: Well, her point was she’s having local cuisine. She’s having local, you know, right? And she wasn’t— okay, she wasn’t taking these two white boys.

[00:42:49]  Stephen Fenech: And she never took Stig. She said no. Really?

[00:42:52]  Trevor Long: No, brushed— she, she politely brushed him. Uh, it was— there was no answer given, but she was clearly not taking him. Anyway, she was hilarious because, uh, her name is, is Christy. Um, but for the first and second days, she was wearing long black boots, and I just— I, I’d point and say, can I— um, because I hadn’t met her yet. Everyone else had already met her, but I knew she was the person that was translating stuff. And I said to the girls from Jill, I said, can you get the— I don’t know what her name is— boots? Can you get— so I’ve been calling her boots. And so this girl, we’re on the bus, and I said, hey, what— and she turns, she goes, what did you call me? I went, boots. And she goes I’m, I’m Christian. I went, no, no, Boots is a nickname. And she goes, oh, why? I went, because you wear boots for 2 days. Well, it turns out this is the worst part of the story, right? So we’re on the, on the, on the car coming back to the hotel yesterday. Turns out she’s from Sydney. Oh, what?

[00:43:49]  Stephen Fenech: Really?

[00:43:50]  Trevor Long: She’s not even a local Chinese fixer. She works for Geely in Sydney. Oh, because she knows the language, they brought her with us.

[00:43:58]  Stephen Fenech: Of course.

[00:43:58]  Trevor Long: I wondered why the, why the nickname thing stuck so well. Anyway, it’s just been great for us. She’s really sorted out—

[00:44:04]  Stephen Fenech: she’s just, just make sure that ruin their diplomatic, the diplomatic relationship. Okay.

[00:44:10]  Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah. No, I’m on a journalist visa. I can say and do whatever I want, and they could probably lock me up. I don’t know.

[00:44:18]  Stephen Fenech: Wow, wow.

[00:44:18]  Trevor Long: Anyway, um, yeah, good stuff.

[00:44:20]  Stephen Fenech: Representative Trevor Long in China, that’s our representative.

[00:44:24]  Trevor Long: Wow. Um, my name here is Travis Lang. Um, all right, uh, Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:44:32]  VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:44:36]  Stephen Fenech: Two Blokes Talking Tech is proudly supported by our great friends at Arlo. And as Trevor said earlier with Netgear, Arlo has been a very loyal supporter of the show. And we urge you, if you haven’t begun your security journey, if you haven’t got any cameras in your house, then Arlo is the place to go. They do have a great range of products that I’ve got to say, every time I travel I’m so thankful that I’ve got my Arlo cameras that I can see if there’s any alerts, check if there’s any packages being delivered. You know, it’s funny, Joe gave me a nice little smile through the camera yesterday, so that was, that was pretty nice. But it— look, I think if you want to, if you want to get some nice peace of mind, having these cameras really gives you that sense of security. I think you can start from an essential camera for inside your house for under $100 They’ve got the Essential outdoor cameras as well, as well as their other Pro and Ultra cameras that are naturally weatherproof. They can— you put them outside. Their wired floodlights are also probably my favorite product. The wired floodlight, don’t need to worry about charging the battery, and it’s got the amazing bright lights when someone walks past it as well. Uh, great, great to monitor that. Uh, and also too, they have their security plans that allow you to have up to 30-day storage, uh, of your— in the cloud— of all, all your video, all your footage from all your cameras. And also having those smart notifications. So when your package arrives, it’ll say package detected, or if there’s a person, a vehicle, an animal, you get all those smart notifications as well. If you want to take— get in onto the journey with Arlo or add to your existing systems, check them out now. There’s always some sales going on. I think they’ve got a Mother’s Day sale that’s kicked off as well. Head to the website too. If you do bundle a lot of products, you do get a great discount. Check it out, arlo.com.

[00:46:19]  VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech.

[00:46:27]  Trevor Long: Well, in a bid to, I guess, make their app even more sticky, uh, in a bid to compete with even more parts of the audio world, Spotify is doing some work to basically expand their app into, into more places. You know, obviously they started as music and then they added podcasts. They’ve now got audiobooks, video but they’re adding fitness guided workouts. I mean, Stephen, my first question to you on this is, how big is this industry? Because I remember when Apple Fitness launched, it was like, it’s, uh, it’s getting interesting, and I think it works for, yeah, you know, your iPhone, your Apple TV people. But then you’ve got Peloton, you’ve got plenty of apps out there that people sign up for to get, you know, from couch to 5K and all that kind of stuff. Um, but I don’t know, I just I, I guess I, I just not sure how big this market is to, to include fitness into these workouts. Is it Spotify? That’s essentially what it is.

[00:47:23]  Stephen Fenech: Is it part of the deal if you’ve already a Spotify customer paying your full freight every month? Is it included or now, or do you have to pay extra?

[00:47:32]  Trevor Long: So both free and premium users get the curated playlist from established kind of wellness creators. So there’s a bunch of them in there. So there’s since think of the way I look at it is it’s like the fitness people, any content they’ve got, they’ve just gone, well, let’s make them into podcasts so that— and but we’ll put them in a different category because that’s all a fitness video is, it’s just a video podcast. But you know, it’s labeled 5K, 10K, warm-up, and you know, yoga and Pilates, whatever it might be. Interestingly, Peloton is also available to premium Spotify users, so you’ll be able to get workout Peloton workout classes as a premium Spotify user. Now that’s fascinating because weirdly I don’t use the Peloton classes, I just use the physical device. Um, uh, but you know, no, I, I use Disney Plus or Netflix. I just watch a show.

[00:48:23]  Stephen Fenech: Ah, I’ll watch a show, then you just walk or do whatever you gotta do. But so does that mean that if you’re a premium Spotify, you can get— you can now view it on the Peloton?

[00:48:33]  Trevor Long: Well, I don’t think so, because how do you, how do you log into a Peloton? So really it’s just about, you know, the fitness class, the video, Spotify account. So Amanda, for example, has— she has a treadmill at home which she uses every day, but she doesn’t follow any training. She just watches a TV show. But if she wanted to now, she could be signed into Spotify on her phone or tablet and bring up a Peloton class and do the Peloton treadmill workout, you know.

[00:49:05]  Stephen Fenech: Well, is that— I think that sounds like a pretty good deal because isn’t Peloton like, it’s about like $50 a month or something?

[00:49:11]  Trevor Long: Yes, $60.

[00:49:12]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:49:12]  Trevor Long: Wow. One of the things is, you know, you’re not getting the live classes. You’re not, you know, you’re not— one of the things about Peloton is the competitiveness of when you’re in a class, you’re, you know, you— if you walk faster, your points go up and you go up the leaderboard, you know. You’re in a live class, you’re actually competing with people. There is that competitive nature to it. But I think Peloton might have misjudged how popular just recorded basic classes are.

[00:49:37]  Stephen Fenech: Just whether or not—

[00:49:38]  Trevor Long: yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s a great way to get access. They’re excellent. The Peloton coaches or trainers are excellent. They’re very, very lovely, personable people. They’re very, uh, very gentle in the way they push you to go. That you don’t— yeah, I’ve, I’ve— as a fat bloke on a treadmill, I’ve never felt like the fat bloke in the class. When I have done the classes, I’ve always just felt like he’s a guy that’s training, because I always used, uh, the, the— there’s a bloke called John who I met in Sydney at the Peloton, at a Peloton. I was doing a story and it just felt good to have a bloke I was familiar with. And so you’re just following his guidance, you know. And I, I think that’s a great system that Peloton have. So it’s wild that it’s available to Spotify.

[00:50:17]  Stephen Fenech: Is it a response to, to Apple Fitness Plus?

[00:50:21]  Trevor Long: I think that was, uh, and everyone else, what Spotify was thinking was—

[00:50:26]  Stephen Fenech: well, Apple was thinking, we’ve got all this great music in our library. Spotify’s thinking, hang on, we’ve got all this music in our library. Well, they saw Apple create workouts around that same music, which comes from iTunes, or Apple Music I should say. And, uh, Spotify thought, hang on a minute, we could do the same thing. So I think this, uh, and And you know what, when you think about it, like being a member of a gym is expensive. You go to those, you know, you go to those classes, those gyms, it’s like $60, $80 a week to be a member of that, you know. Yeah, fair enough, you’re working out with people and everything, but who can afford that? There’s a lot of people who think, well, this is the easier and cheaper option for many people.

[00:51:09]  Trevor Long: Now this is interesting. I’ve just opened up Spotify and found one of the Peloton things. And it says Explore Premium. Well, hang on, I thought I was already paying. Now, oh, you know what I am? I’m Basic Premium. Do you remember we had this conversation about how there’s Premium and then there’s one that’s $3 less a month because it doesn’t have the audiobooks? And so I, I went, I don’t need the audiobooks, so take me out of the ball game, thanks very much.

[00:51:33]  Stephen Fenech: Boom.

[00:51:34]  Trevor Long: So you’ve got to be on the main normal Premium account to get the, these extras here. That’s all.

[00:51:40]  Stephen Fenech: So you’re going to get the fitness and the audiobooks in there.

[00:51:43]  Trevor Long: I’m not going to do either of those two things.

[00:51:44]  Stephen Fenech: I reckon you, you do. I can recommend some books for you to listen to. I reckon you’d like that, mate.

[00:51:49]  Trevor Long: I don’t want to listen to books. I fall asleep and I don’t know where I was up to.

[00:51:54]  Stephen Fenech: It’ll— when you hit stop, it’ll resume where you were up to last.

[00:51:59]  Trevor Long: Stop when I fall asleep? Who’s hitting stop?

[00:52:02]  Stephen Fenech: Well, yeah, you can go back though. You can go back 30 seconds at a time.

[00:52:07]  Trevor Long: But where was I up to?

[00:52:09]  Stephen Fenech: You’ll, you’ll remember. I won’t remember if it’s a good book.

[00:52:13]  Trevor Long: We did last week, but I just want to listen.

[00:52:18]  Stephen Fenech: Catch me if you can. Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks.

[00:52:20]  Trevor Long: What are we, what are we doing next week after Rocky?

[00:52:23]  Stephen Fenech: Rocky, Rocky’s, uh, 50th, uh, we’re doing The Firm with Tom Cruise after that.

[00:52:29]  Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:52:29]  Stephen Fenech: Which I told you in the show. Did you put that in your little spreadsheet, mate?

[00:52:33]  Trevor Long: I don’t know.

[00:52:34]  Stephen Fenech: And then the week after that, I can tell you what we’re doing the week after, but I might hold my fire. I might hold my phone.

[00:52:40]  Trevor Long: Tell me, do it. Tell me.

[00:52:41]  Stephen Fenech: The week we’re doing The Firm, and then we’re going to do the movie called The 10 Things I Hate About You starring Heath Ledger.

[00:52:50]  Trevor Long: That’s not a movie, that’s one of my notes in Apple Notes.

[00:52:54]  Stephen Fenech: Ah, 10 Things I Hate About You, which is—

[00:52:57]  Trevor Long: you want to know what they are?

[00:52:59]  Stephen Fenech: Starring Heath Ledger, and it’s based on the Shakespearean play Taming of the Shrew, would you believe? You’ll find this out.

[00:53:08]  Trevor Long: I’m not excited.

[00:53:09]  Stephen Fenech: Watch when you— when we record the show.

[00:53:12]  Trevor Long: You know what I’m going to bring to that movie? I’m going to bring a list of the 10 things I hate about you.

[00:53:17]  Stephen Fenech: Is that right? About me? Hey, good luck getting to 3, mate.

[00:53:21]  Trevor Long: What do you mean?

[00:53:23]  Stephen Fenech: Good luck getting to 2.

[00:53:25]  Trevor Long: Good luck getting to 3, mate. I’ll get— if you need help with your list, I’ll get Amanda to contribute.

[00:53:31]  Stephen Fenech: No, mate, I don’t hate anyone, mate. I don’t know, I’m not a hater.

[00:53:38]  Trevor Long: Um, I think the non-public private— oh, interesting, interesting.

[00:53:47]  Stephen Fenech: Not hate, I’m a reactor.

[00:53:49]  Trevor Long: Interesting.

[00:53:50]  Stephen Fenech: Anyway, okay, there is a difference.

[00:53:52]  Trevor Long: Um, I don’t know what we were talking about, but, uh, Spotify stuff is available if you’re on the full— if you’re on the full premium subscription, you can get it now. On your Spotify app.

[00:54:02]  VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:54:06]  Stephen Fenech: Well, isn’t it a coincidence that the two blokes posted their Buds 4 Pro reviews at the same time? Unbelievable. We both— great minds think alike. And I’ve got to say quickly, uh, that these really surprised me. And I think that they’ve— Samsung are like number one in TVs and number one in, in phones and mate, they are— they need to be taken seriously on the audio side as well. These, uh, these punch above their weight and can really— I think they’re, what are they, $399? So they’re not cheap. So they’re in the same ballpark. Yeah.

[00:54:44]  Trevor Long: Yes, but I think they’re cheaper than most of the things they’re genuinely competing with. But they’re not— they’re not $100 cheaper, but they’re, they’re very good value. What— here’s the thing, Samsung’s buds have struggled over the years to differentiate themselves from AirPods, right? There was a couple of years where there was like, hang on guys, that design is just Apple, what are you doing?

[00:55:05]  Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:55:05]  Trevor Long: Um, they last year they went with that beautiful triangular look with a light bar on it. I liked it. Yeah, but the Buds 4 Pro have gone with this flat metallic bar and it looks nice.

[00:55:16]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I really like it. Nice. Yeah, and small too. Like the, the buds themselves are actually a little bit smaller than last year’s. Uh, the, the design is sort of the minimal design. The, the charging case is nice and small as well. They’ve got the little recess spot on the, on, on the stalk so that you can actually, you can feel for where you want to adjust your volume or go to the next track. Uh, it’s all been thought out very well. And look, under the hood too, they’ve got wider woofers and, uh, I think 11mm drivers. And you, you got to remember, they’ve got an audio lab. We’ve been there, remember? Yeah, the audio lab in LA. So they’ve got the facilities to really pump up the audio quality.

[00:55:56]  Trevor Long: They’re using AKG and JBL.

[00:55:59]  Stephen Fenech: Oh yeah, and Harman. Audio credentials. Absolutely. But I think they’ve really— this is a home run for them. I like the case. I like the size of them. The sound quality is great, even at high volume. It’s awesome. Uh, the ANC is not— it’s not better than Sony and Bose, but it’s up there. Uh, and but everything else, I think they’re in the ballpark.

[00:56:23]  Trevor Long: I look at ANC in the same way I look at TVs. When you, when you’re in this, if you’re lucky enough to have 3 TVs side by side and you can compare them, you’ll be able to pick the one that’s best. But when you get home, if you took the third best one home, you will never notice what you’re missing out on. And so we’re lucky, we fly sometimes and we’ll go from a set of Bose to a set of Apple or set of Sony because we’re testing right? And you might— even then, it’s hard to really, because you’ve got the sound, it’s hard to really notice which one’s better and which one’s worse. The fact is, these are excellent. Now, I— in my, in my review, I’m like, are these better than AirPods at noise canceling? I don’t think so.

[00:57:00]  Stephen Fenech: No, I don’t think they are.

[00:57:03]  Trevor Long: Yeah. Is any Apple user considering a set of Samsung headphones? No. Is any Samsung user considering a set of AirPods? No. So it’s, it’s irrelevant. Completely irrelevant.

[00:57:14]  Stephen Fenech: The other thing too, uh, and I didn’t— I know I sort of noticed this, but that they— I read a couple other reviews that said that they sound better if they’re connected to a Samsung phone. So the Galaxy connection, if, if you’ve got that, slightly better, does it lossless? Yeah, so a lot. But also too, the spatial audio is better as well. But I, I’ve listened to them on the Samsung, which they sounded amazing, but they sounded just as good on other Android phones as well.

[00:57:40]  Trevor Long: But also, same thing to be said for a set of AirPods. You can pair AirPods with an Oppo, of course, but you don’t get spatial audio or head tracking or anything. These headphones are made for Samsung phone owners, full stop. And anyone else who wants to buy them, good on you. Yeah, but if you’re smart, the ecosystem is exactly what Apple’s done.

[00:58:01]  Stephen Fenech: Exactly right. And I love how the charging case is really small as well. They’re really easy to carry around in your pocket. Uh, battery life’s gonna be solid too, about 6.5 hours each time.

[00:58:11]  Trevor Long: I’ll tell you my favorite thing, and it’s completely inane. When you take them out of your ears, you put them straight in the case. Last year you had to take them out, magnetic, twist them. Yeah, twist them. They, they didn’t— they came out in a way that wasn’t natural. It was stupid, but it was a really annoying observation for last year. Yeah, it wasn’t, it wasn’t the wrong way around, it was just that you had to twist They snap back in the case too.

[00:58:34]  Stephen Fenech: There’s a bit of a magnet in there, boom, it sort of takes— sucks it back in the case. It’s really nice and it’s so small. Transparent lid on them as well, really nice.

[00:58:42]  Trevor Long: They’re on a winner.

[00:58:43]  Stephen Fenech: I like them.

[00:58:44]  Trevor Long: Yeah, they’ve done well there. It’s, it’s a weird one, isn’t it? It’s kind of— we’re almost getting like smartphones, like how do you improve now? How do you make headphones better? And look, I think we’ve talked about one, one, one area is call quality. I think anyone, even the ones that say they have the best mics and all that kind of stuff Well, we still—

[00:59:01]  Stephen Fenech: I made a lot of calls on this. I like this. I like these. They put it this way, I reckon these are better than AirPods for calls. Yeah, I made a lot of calls, including— and the other one that was really good was the Sony one. The Sony earphones were really good on calls. These were not as good as that, but not— they were very, very close to the Sonys as well. So I don’t know what, what’s happening with that with the AirPods. How many times have we heard people on AirPods and it sounds like they’re talking through a tube? Whereas these sounded, uh, Joe, I’ve had a lot of conversation with her on them. She said they sound— I didn’t even know you’re on headphones.

[00:59:35]  Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, that’s what you want. Pretty nice. Anyway, $399, it’s a, it’s a good deal. Uh, the Samsung Galaxy Buds 4 Pro. You can read our reviews at techguide.com.au and eftm.com.

[00:59:49]  VOICE OVER: Everything about tech you never wanted to know. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:59:57]  Trevor Long: What time is it there, Stephen?

[00:59:59]  Stephen Fenech: It is, uh, 7:45 PM.

[01:00:03]  Trevor Long: All right, on Tuesday, the office today. You can go again to the office tomorrow, down to your palace of fine arts.

[01:00:09]  Stephen Fenech: Correct, that’s right, correct. Yeah, I’m gonna go get some dinner now, uh, finish off my stories and get a bite to eat.

[01:00:15]  Trevor Long: And so are you, John? Breakfast, breakfast for you, dinner for me. I’ve had my breakfast. I’m gonna, I’m gonna go and finish up some stuff, and I think I have to check out early, so There could be a bit of time in the lobby, in the lobby bar, getting orange juice and gelato, waiting for a shuttle bus. All right, mate, well, lovely to see you virtually, and, uh, we’ll be back again in the studio next week with a YouTube version for those, uh, who came from the YouTube version to the audio version because you’re worried about where we were. Apologies for how I opened the show, but you deserve it. Okay, this This audio version is for our most loyal audience. Simple as that.

[01:00:56]  Stephen Fenech: Yeah, absolutely right. I will. So I’ll see you three-dimensionally next week.

[01:01:01]  Trevor Long: Oh, okay, let’s just keep it to three dimensions, okay? No more.

[01:01:05]  Stephen Fenech: See you, mate. Bye-bye.

[01:01:09]  VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Steven Fenech.