Looking for a BIG TV in the EOFY sales, and talking HP Laptops and AI on board

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I was God's mate. I spoke to you on the Tuesday.

Thursday afternoon there's this lovely courier man at me back door with a parcel for me.

All I know is we've been 24 hours mate. You had it sorted after five weeks of hell, raising hell.

Mate, I can't thank you enough.

Join the conversation. Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

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Thank you for listening. Great to have you company.

Once again here on the EFTM Podcast. Busy show. We've got a bunch of calls to get through.

I'm not sure I'm going to solve these issues. Couple of Apple issues ahead.

I'm looking at the call sheet but we'll get there.

And we're going to talk laptops now. The reason I want to talk laptops with Mark Benson from HP

is because it's got to be a month ago now. It was before London and Apple, which is a few weeks ago.

I went to an event with HP. They called it the HP Hotel.

They took over the W Hotel in Sydney, Staling Harbour and had a couple of hotel rooms there

where they just showcased a bunch of their products. It opened my eyes a little bit.

Sometimes you kind of just get shown a product and you're like, cool, cool, cool.

Sometimes you think you know a product and then you're like, wait a minute, what?

And so that was a bit this way. I was like, oh, right.

So I want to unpack that a little bit with Mark from HP as well as take your calls.

And most importantly, I'd love to hear from you.

If you know someone in your life that needs some tech help, just refer them to me.

Send them to me. 0-4-7-7-6-5-7-6-5-7.

They can send a WhatsApp or a text or they can go to the website eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

It doesn't matter what the question is. I'll try and help as best I can.

If I can't help, I'll find someone who can, broadly speaking.

So that's just what we do here.

We've got a bit coming up next week. We're going to talk TVs again with Chris Mayer from High Sense.

Can't wait to catch up with Chris. He's been on a honeymoon for many, many weeks.

He's one of the absolute nerds and legends of High Sense.

So we'll find out more about their TV range for this year.

But that's next week. I'm just looking ahead at the rundown.

But no, most importantly, this week, we've got a bit to get through your calls as well as talking laptops with HP.

But yeah, let me know what you've bought recently. What have you purchased?

You know what? Weirdly, I've been playing with a cassette player.

We should catch up with that lovely lady who's been writing those songs for the elderly in the aged care home.

We did send her a radio of some sort from Laser.

But I suspect the expense of buying SD cards will probably make that a non-starter for her.

But anyway, Laser sent me at the same time one of their little retro cassette boomboxes.

And I do have a few cassettes here. I've got a cassette here, which I definitely won't be sharing.

And it's me calling TalkBack Radio in 1994, maybe 95.

I'm calling Straight Talk with David Tapp, which was where I first got into the media race.

I would ring the radio every weekend.

David would say it would introduce you to Trevor on the line from middle age.

Get a spark plug, spark plug trip.

Well, see Tappi's been coming to my office here. He's using my studio for his new podcast.

And we started talking about that.

And I went, oh, no, I've definitely got a tape somewhere.

But I don't think I want to play it.

And I listened to it and my god, my voice, like a nine year old.

And I'm pretty sure I was at least 16, maybe 17.

Anyway, weirdly, I was playing that back and then I just, I've got a few cassettes of different weird things.

So I've been going full retro.

But what I can't find, I've got one somewhere.

Is I've got a cassette to USB so I can play it and ingest it into an audio file.

Because even though I don't want to listen to myself, I want to save it and essentially, you know, put it in a drop box.

So it's there forever because it's a fascinating thing.

I've got in my position a leather folio briefcase, not really a briefcase.

It's more of a like a leather soft bag.

It was my dad's.

My dad died 50 years ago.

So this bag is 50 years old, but has his initials on it, TWL, which are my initials.

And so I've been taking photos of that and getting it.

I'm trying to find someone in Sydney who will restore it.

Because I want to restore it, but not make it brand new.

Like I want to still want to have the, the bit like the handle.

I don't want to touch because my dad held that handle and I want it to feel that way.

But you know, the metal clasps and everything and anything that's kind of been an unsone.

Anything that needs repair might get that all done and whether it can be loosened up a bit.

But anyway, inside it was all this stuff.

And here's the crazy thing.

I found all this, these newspapers that my mum had obviously kept over her time with dad.

Just mentions of dad in the paper or anything.

And there was a box of matches.

And I found out my dad worked at the Daily Mirror as a classified salesman for a very short amount of time.

Anyway, it's, it's one of those weird things.

You start going down memory lane when you have artifacts like that.

And so I think the tape recordings of me, whether it's singing or on the radio,

aren't things I ever want to share with the world.

But I figure when I'm dead, the kids can listen to them.

It's about as good as it's going to get.

Anyway, enough about me.

Let's get on with the show and take your calls.

Send me a text if you want to talk tech.

Great to have you company.

Get in touch if there's something you want to talk about or a question you've got.

I'd love to try and help you out.

Shaun's on the line.

Hey, Shaun.

Hey, how are you?

Mate, really, really good.

What can we do for you?

Yeah.

As I said to Rob, I'm just looking to buy a new TV and everyone knows it.

So it's always a bit of a minefield.

But once you get up into the really larger sizes,

it becomes a little bit more confusing, I guess, just with regards to specifications

and things and obviously pricing, et cetera.

So I just wanted to pick your mind a bit on that.

Have you got a budget?

Yeah, I'm happy to spend up to about five.

And what size are we talking?

We've got a massive.

Yeah, 98, 100 inch, something like that.

Go big or go home, as they say.

Why wouldn't you?

I mean, there is a lot.

So 98, you know, TCL is kicking into the six grand mark.

100 inch, though, at that price.

I sense I've got the U7, which was listed originally at like 6999.

Yeah, that's the one that I was looking at the other day.

Right now, it's 49

Yes, they were offering it about 47

I could get in the store sort of thing, but I just wasn't sure I've never had.

I've had a couple of smaller, higher sense TVs just for my kids and things.

And they seemed fine, but I had a 75 inch Sony previously,

but it had the Google operating system.

I just found it terribly slow and particularly good.

Yeah.

Look, I've got, I would say it's the equivalent 100 inch TV at home,

but it's from three years ago, maybe.

I think mine was called the U7KAU, which was still on sale,

might still be on sale in some places.

But the one you're looking at is you want the 2026 model.

Let's be honest.

Like the one I've got is literally the 2023 model.

It's like, mate, I love it.

It's perfect.

Yes.

If I put a brand new TV next to it,

I'd probably notice some differences in contrast and color and all those kind of things.

Sure.

What apps do you use?

What are you streaming?

Just the normal ones.

You know, KO, Netflix, Disney, that type of thing.

There's nothing unique or weird that you watch.

No.

Because for me, we watch the Major League Baseball.

We love our MLB and there's no MLB app on the High Sense TV.

So it's quite a pain in the ass for me to watch the MLB.

I've got a Fetch TV logged in normally into HDMI1

and so I have to plug a Google Chromecast into that.

Because I do like the Google operating system that you had on the Sony.

So it's disappointing here.

It was sluggish and slow for me.

Well, it was just, it was fat, but also I had a,

I've got a Bose surround sound system and I had it,

every time the TV turned on, it would never connect

and I'd have to manually connect it.

And then when we moved house, I sold that TV

and connected the sound systems straight into my other Samsung TV.

And it just connects perfectly every time.

But the Sony just never would.

Yeah.

Look, just little things like that, but they drive you mad after a while.

No, they absolutely do.

Yeah, for sure.

But look, in the end, to go up a spec is pricey.

You jump on up to 10 grand.

Samsung's best is 7 grand and that's not at all discounted at the moment.

Obviously, there's, there's Kogan's that are heaps cheaper,

you know, about $1,000 cheaper than what you're looking at.

But on balance, I think the high sense is an unbelievable good value TV.

And it has the match to the match screen as well.

Is that what you call it?

Yes, it does have the glare free.

The U7 does have the glare free.

Yeah.

Because it's going to be, we're moving into a big unit,

but it's got sort of large glass all along one side.

Have you stood in front of a TV with the glare free?

Yes.

It's amazing, isn't it?

Yeah.

He was showing us in the store, you know,

shining a light on the ones that don't have it and on this one,

and you couldn't see it virtually at all.

They were willing to point that out to you today.

Point out other ones that had it or were they focusing just on the high sense?

No, other ones that had it and just ones that didn't have it,

you know, that were even more expensive.

You know, as he said, you're going to have a major issue.

I think it was, was it, I forget what he was saying about something to do with

the OLEDs and things that just in the really bright rooms, they have a problem.

Well, look, what the, the, the, I guess the complaint about OLEDs over the years

has been that they're not bright enough, but they're plenty bright these days.

It's really, it's really not that big.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't reckon, I reckon if you could afford a hundred inch OLED or a 98 inch OLED,

you'd be very happy to get it.

Put it that way, man.

Yeah, that's right.

But they're a lot more expensive.

It's crazy money.

I think the TV that you're looking at is the genuine sweet spot.

I think it's basically the one that's, that's taken the place of the,

of the hundred inch that I have, because it's strange to me, the U7,

which is what you're looking at, the U6 hasn't really been listed anywhere yet.

And it's, it's priced higher than, than the U7.

So, you know, you're in a, you're in a pretty great spot to, although now I'm looking at it,

that does look like I'm just going to go to the good guys here.

Yeah, it's still listed at six grand.

So it's, it hasn't even come down.

That was in the good guys the other day though, but they had that price.

And that's, this is the model below yours, the below the one you're looking at.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

So it's kind of insane to me that that TV hasn't yet started the discounting

because what I've started doing, and I don't know if you've had a look at my,

my buyer's guide, but on the website, but I've started charting it.

And so it's fascinating to me to look at and you go, okay,

your, the one you're looking at has a retail price of 6999,

but it's currently at 6, 6, no, sorry, 4, 9, as you know.

But there was this whole week where it was at 5, 9,

and it's funny to look at the graph and realize that these, these things jump up and down.

And so it looks to me like it's probably got another week left at this price.

And you got to remember, they can't keep prices low.

I don't know the legislation, but I think it might be 10 days.

So if the price stays low for 10 days, that becomes the new price, the new standard price.

So they can't, they can't say it's discounted anymore.

So what they do is they'll jump it back up.

My guess is they'll jump it back up to 5, 9, and then they'll bring it back down to 4, 9 again,

and it'll fluctuate across the year at those prices.

But I don't think you'll have any regrets with that TV.

It's a great TV.

They make beautiful TVs.

The operating system is excellent.

I don't think you'll have a problem at all, mate.

You'll be loving it.

How quickly are you trying to buy it?

I want to, well, I was just going to buy it in the sales because our property is going to be finished in a month or two.

And they said they'll just hold the stock and you can just collect it at any time sort of thing.

So yeah.

Hey, that's pretty good.

Because I was going to say the other thing is mate, 100 inch TV is enormous in a box.

Yeah, I know.

You said you're moving into a unit.

Is it like a high rise unit or?

Yeah.

Have you checked the size of the lift?

Yeah.

Okay, good.

Yeah, it'll fit in the lift.

The table we're buying won't.

We've got to carry that upstairs.

Oh no! Pivot! Pivot!

You going to have some fun there?

But the TV will fit in the lift, yeah.

Oh, okay.

Well, just make sure you check these things.

No, exactly.

Look, what worst case scenario out of the box?

It's a lot smaller because obviously the box contains a lot of foam and padding and things.

But mate, in the end you're on a winner, mate.

It's a great TV.

Perfect.

I appreciate your help.

Enjoy the 100 inches when you fire it up, mate.

Will do.

Thanks, Trevor.

Good on you.

Thanks for getting in touch.

Great to hear from you.

Well done.

There you go.

Happy days buying 100 inch TV.

Look, when you get your first 100 inch TV, you've just got to smile.

Smile on your dial.

That's all it is because it's great.

It's such a great way to watch TV.

It's just, it sounds ridiculous, but it just looks so much better.

It's the simple things in life, isn't it?

It really is the simple things in life.

And I reckon a big TV is exactly that.

So enjoy.

You're listening to the EFTM podcast.

Join the conversation.

Head to eftm.com and click Ask Trev.

Great to have you company and happy to help wherever I can.

0477657657 the number of texts.

David's on the line today, David.

Good morning, Trevor.

How are you?

I'm really good.

What can I do for you?

Trevor, I recently wrote to you regarding an issue with Apple.

My youngest daughter had all her Apple devices stolen.

Well, not all, everything but her iPhone.

And they were stolen while she was at work.

She left them in the car in a backpack.

Anyway, when she got back to her car some eight hours later

and realized that they'd been stolen,

she did the Apple thing because she's pretty smart.

She discovered that the devices were pinging about two streets away

and rang the police, but the police couldn't attend.

They were too busy.

Of course.

And then instantly she...

I'm not an Apple person, Trevor, unfortunately, but she is.

And instantly she knew she needed to lock the devices down.

Yep.

So she went into her iPhone, which she still had.

And in the device list, her laptop, her MacBook Air

and her iPad and Apple Watch, they no longer existed.

And it also said that her account didn't exist anymore.

Wow.

Yes.

So I won't take up too much of your time.

So the next morning we immediately went to an Apple store to the Genius Bar

and we spoke to the techs there.

And two of them just said instantly,

well, that's weird.

We've never heard of this before.

And I said, well, that's why we're here.

And I said, she can't log into her Apple account

because her Apple account doesn't exist anymore.

And then another couple of techs came out and they said,

oh, God, we've never seen this before.

They took her phone and they tried in the settings too

because they thought it was a simple fix.

Anyway, they couldn't do anything.

So we got no joy.

And Holly sort of lost all her data.

She can't log in because she no longer has an Apple account.

And so then I rang Apple in Sydney and spoke to two guys called Rob and Seth.

They were pretty high up apparently.

And had a one hour discussion with them, explained everything,

gave them the case number and all that.

And they said, yes, everything's here on her record.

But we're sorry we can't do much for you

because the account you've just given us doesn't exist.

I said, well, we know that, but that's not her fault.

But it did.

So and I said she's lost, you know, 27,000 photos,

all her uni assignments and just terrible.

So yeah, so my couple of questions to you are,

I don't understand the cloud like you do,

but I know that your data is stored in data center somewhere.

And what I don't understand is I said to the two guys in Sydney,

how can you tell me that her data does not exist?

I mean, it's somewhere.

Where is it?

Surely each and every Apple user has an account number and an Apple ID.

And surely their data has an assignment spot somewhere.

You think of it like there's just a folder in the cloud.

Why can't you just give me that folder?

Yes.

You're right.

It's absolutely extraordinary.

There's a lot.

How old is your daughter?

23.

Okay.

So she's my girl, as you said.

She's had Apple phones since she was first name.

What was lost?

An iPad and a Mac or something?

MacBook Air, an iPad and her Apple Watch.

Wow.

Sorry, not Apple Watch, Trev.

What do you call them?

Earpods.

Earpods, right.

Earpods, sorry.

Look, so there's a couple of things that I would say.

We don't know what happened to the account.

But let me give you a reason why it might have happened.

Just a random potential reason.

It's possible.

It's possible, but I'm not suggesting it.

It's possible that, say, the iPad didn't have a passcode on it.

So you could just swipe to open it and unlock it.

And it's possible that they then went in, they got it,

and they went in to her Apple account,

and not only changed the Apple ID,

like changed the email account and all this kind of stuff,

but essentially went in and hacked her account.

So they had her, once you've got your device,

if you can get into a device, then you might be able to hack the account.

But normally that's very hard because you need to know the password

or you need to know, you know, the secondary code, like on a phone.

But again...

All her devices were password protected and had dual factor ID.

You know, the retina and the fingerprint.

And my question to the guys in Sydney was,

I said, you guys sell your products on what's...

You claim to be the safest platform in the world.

And yet someone can steal her devices, bypass her password protection

and her dual factor ID and change her account number.

And I said, I accept that someone in this day and age can possibly do that.

But what I want to know from you is, where is her data?

So what I want to do is, I want to get you to a point of understanding that it's possible.

It's possible that it happened.

And I'll explain where the data is in a minute.

So I think we need to understand that if this was a prolific bug with Apple devices,

I'd hear about this every week.

Yeah, that's why.

I don't.

And so...

And I'm not suggesting you daunted anything wrong.

I'm just saying, there's a couple of things.

If it's local, there's also a chance your daughter was targeted.

Let's take it to the extreme.

Okay, let's take it to the extreme.

Let's say your daughter was targeted.

She's at uni, I think, did you say?

Yeah, she's at work.

There's a criminal network at the university that purport to be studying the arts,

but they're actually just wandering around profiling people based on what devices they hold, right?

And I'm being extreme here, but let's say they've been watching her for months,

and they targeted her, and they also learnt about her, right?

And the reason they did that was because they wanted to obtain as much information as they could about her

so that they could know her passwords potentially.

They might have even spied on her to see her pin code, right?

So we've gotten to a point, let's just, in our heads, establish that someone targeted your daughter

in such a way that they were able to get the devices and unlock them because they found it her pin

and reset her account and password, right?

So that allows us to say to ourselves, Jesus, that's elaborate, but that's how it happened, right?

That's how it happened, which leads us to the question of, right, where's her data?

And this is where you've got to understand that actually Apple's processes

and Apple's security and privacy are exactly why the data doesn't exist anymore,

because what happens is there is a big data center with all of our data in it,

but even if you were to stand in front of that computer inside a data center

and say, Trevor's photos are all on this hard drive here,

you can't, even if you could see the file, you can't unlock the file without my device

and without my Apple ID, it's like the code, key to getting in.

Yes, I understand.

And so because these thugs have gotten her key, they've gotten her a whole account

and they've just moved it.

I think what they've done is they've renamed her account, set a new email address

and basically just migrated it over so that they can then have control of the account,

reestablish the two-factor authentication and then wipe the devices.

Because the thing is, if I left my iPad sitting on an airplane,

which I could likely do easily, right?

It's of no use to anyone because they can't wipe it without my Apple ID password.

But if they looked over my shoulder for enough flights, they might have seen my pin code

and then if they knew enough about me, maybe they'd worked out my password

and then they get in.

So it's extreme.

Everything we're saying here, mate, is extreme.

But I'm trying to logically suggest to you that whatever happened,

happened and it can't be changed now.

And the reason it's frustrating that her data is also gone

is essentially because Apple does link your data securely to an Apple ID

and that Apple ID is now gone.

So, mate, it's horrible.

There's nothing you can do for your daughter in this circumstance

because the data is gone.

And that's not a fun thing to hear.

I get it.

The guys in Sydney said to conclude after a one-hour conversation,

they said the only thing that we can possibly see has happened

that they've somehow managed to change her Apple ID.

That's what I...

Yeah.

And I said, how, though, the devices were locked and double-protected?

How?

And they can't give me an answer.

Well, I'll only give you another answer to that.

Do you remember MediBank was hacked?

Yes.

That wasn't...

That was not some nerd sitting behind a computer going,

is this how I get in?

Is this how I get in?

This is how I get in.

This is a nerd that got in by sending an email to an employee there

saying, and I'm making this up, but I'm giving you the scenario,

saying your Netflix account will shut down tomorrow

because your credit card is out of date.

Click here to renew your credit card, and you click here,

and it asks for your Netflix account and password,

and then you put in a credit card,

and now the hacker's got your credit card,

but they've also got your password.

And now they log back into MediBank,

and they go, Blake's using the same password here,

and they're inside the MediBank system because they got the password,

and then they go in and they hack the whole thing.

So through some...

It's called social engineering, right?

And again, it feels really extreme to me,

but it's absolutely possible, right?

That at some point, at some way,

through the last six months of time before this all happened,

your daughter clicked an email and did something

that was completely incongruous,

but it allowed them, and it might have been an Apple email,

but it wasn't really Apple, it was a fake one,

and it allowed them to find out what her password was

and allowed them there to turn off two-factor...

I don't know, mate, it is extreme,

but unfortunately, it happened.

Now, your daughter sounds like she did all the right things

in the first place.

Excuse me, two-factor authentication, all that kind of stuff,

so she shouldn't be put off any of these things

other than to say that the learning for your daughter

should be strength of password

and regularity of password change.

Those would be the two things I would learn,

and I would want to have security software,

like Trend Micro is a sponsor,

but they're who I use on my Mac and my phone,

and Trend Micro stops me clicking stupid emails

that look real but aren't,

and so by having some form of security software going forward

and by setting a stupidly long password,

and the way to set a password is this.

You look around the room you're in,

and I'm looking at my office right now,

I'm going, okay, there's a DeLorean in front of me,

I've got a Lego DeLorean, so I've got a DeLorean,

I've got a vacuum,

and in front of me, I can see a Blackberry.

A DeLorean, a vacuum, and a Blackberry

are three words that would never exist together

in a dictionary or in any words ever written in society, right?

So DeLorean vacuum Blackberry is my new password,

DeLorean vacuum Blackberry,

and now I'm going to capitalise the use in vacuum,

DeLorean vacuum Blackberry with capital use,

and I'm going to throw a hashtag 52,

because the clock is 52 right now as we speak,

between a vacuum and Blackberry.

DeLorean vacuum with capital use, hashtag 52 Blackberry,

and I just keep saying that to myself,

and now I write it down and now I type it a few times,

and that's my new password,

but it's so long that it's unhackable,

it's so obscure, it's unhackable,

and then mate, in three months, six months from now,

I'm going to change it, I'm going to look around the room again,

and I'm going to go synovus, dad, tablet,

and they're my next password.

So unfortunately, you've just got to take this time

and go, we've got to learn from it and walk away,

because mate, you're never getting the data back.

That's the solid truth of the matter.

Well, I did say to the guys in Sydney,

I said, I'm not being rude here,

I said, but I can't help but think

if it was an Apple executive's daughter,

they'd find her data.

And I'll be honest with you, I don't think they would,

because, so the FBI rings Apple and says,

we want to open this phone, and Apple says we can't,

we can't get through it.

Yeah, I've seen those issues on the news.

We don't do it, like that's, what do you call it?

It's a frustrating, obnoxious kind of approach

to security that they have that even,

even if there was a terrorist on the loose,

Apple would not break into their phone.

Yeah, I've seen that on the news in different issues.

You know, so the other little, little,

little annoying learning is non-cloud backups.

If this has happened to you,

and it's probably making a lot of people think,

you know, you want to put your photos,

you want to back them up to somewhere

that you've got a physical drive,

physical copy of them.

Unfortunately, that's the only thing.

Yeah, well, her elder sister is a schoolteacher.

She's got everything in the cloud too,

and she came over to console her the day it happened.

And she said, well, I'm changing my storage now

to external hard drives.

I don't trust it.

And that's, with that experience,

I don't begrudge you that at all.

Yeah, you know, I would be doing the same.

Strong and crazy security,

even though she was on the right path for sure,

strong and crazy security,

and a real robust attention to what you click on

and where you click,

because your daughter will never know what it was,

if we're to assume that she was the victim

of a social engineering attack.

She'll never know what it was.

She'll never know what email it was she clicked,

but it was something.

And it may have been a year ago.

It may have been six months ago.

It may have been two days before it happened.

But it happened, most likely,

and that's how they were able to circumvent all this.

Oh, good, Trevor.

Well, thank you so much for cutting that out.

Not what you wanted to hear,

but I guess we need to move on,

because it's not going to change.

Well, I used to drive for a living.

I used to listen to you every Wednesday on 6PR

and also watch you on the Today Show.

And after a month had gone by,

you were on the Today Show last week.

And I said, oh, the week before, I think it was.

And I said, oh, my God, that's who I should contact, Trevor.

He may know something.

And now you'll say he was bloody useless.

No, I won't.

All right, well, I won't take up any more of your time.

Good on you, David.

Thanks so much, Trevor.

Thank you, mate.

See you, mate.

Cheers.

Bye.

Look, it's all conjecture.

I'm guessing at every part of it.

But something happened,

something more than just the theft happened.

And that's a real challenge for his daughter,

because she won't trust the cloud or Apple,

probably for a very, very long time.

This is the EFTM podcast.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks for downloading.

Lovely to have you company.

Michael's on the line today, Michael.

I'm very good.

Thanks.

How are you doing?

Pretty darn good, mate.

What can I do for you?

I'm going to inquire about my iCloud account.

Right.

Yeah, my iCloud account,

my iCloud account,

it changes, it changes names.

What?

It changes names.

So, like, you go into the settings and you go,

like, open your phone,

you got the iCloud at the top.

Yeah.

You can't change the picture.

The picture stays the same initials.

And then once in a blue mood,

the name changes.

Now, is this when you're in settings

or when you're, like, messages and things?

In settings.

Right.

So, like, one day,

I was opening my phone and my phone went to,

like, my daughter,

I had my daughter's name,

all her details and stuff.

And then the next day it was my other daughter

and then it went back to myself.

And then my name,

my profile name changes.

Do your daughters have their own iCloud accounts?

Yeah, they've got all separate, yeah.

Everyone in the whole house is all separate.

Okay.

But do they have a device?

I'm trying to think.

So, it sounds to me like there might be

a shared device somewhere,

which is essentially getting conflicted.

And I wonder whether at one point

you had, like, an iPad or something

that had your account,

and after that you got everyone an account.

And so, yeah,

that feels like the way the conflict would occur.

Is there any shared devices?

No, no shared devices.

No, nothing in the house, no.

I think the best thing to do then

is to sit around the dinner table one night,

get everyone's Apple devices in one place,

and get everyone to sign out.

I can sign out and everything, yeah?

Sign out, because I don't just say,

you know, I did it last week

when I was in America.

I signed out of my Australian account

to log into my American account.

It's totally fine.

It doesn't change anything.

It's all good.

So, yeah, sign out of your iCloud.

And remember too, there's two types of sign-in.

So, one of the things that you can do

is you can sign out just of the App Store

and sign into another one there.

But your iCloud account for the phone can be different.

So, you want to sign out of everything, right?

So, sign out of the iCloud account

at the top of the settings,

sign out of the App Store,

and then on each one, sign in.

And the other thing to do would be

to open up a browser and go to iCloud.com

and see what settings it says in there,

because that's like the single source of truth.

That's like the knowing exactly

what Apple thinks the name of the account is.

And maybe changing the settings there as well.

Okay, yeah.

All right.

I can try that.

That's the best advice I can give you right now, mate.

Okay.

And the picture doesn't change either.

Like, I can't change the picture.

Well, that's a profile setting on your iCloud.

So, you should just be able to go to your...

And again, it might be useful to do it

on the computer as opposed to on a phone.

So, if you go to iCloud...

Yeah, I've done that as well, yeah.

And you change the photo.

It doesn't update or does it revert back?

Okay.

And when you go on your...

If you go to your MacBook or iCloud

and you sign to iCloud.com

and you go into the settings

and you go change my profile picture,

there's no profile picture in there.

Well, that's why I think signing out of all the devices

and then going browse your device on your Mac

for a new image so that it finds an image

that is suitable to you.

And then saving it on the computer

so that you see that it's there

and it's properly all updated there

and then sign in on your phone

and try and see if the same image is reflected.

Okay.

I'll sign out all the devices.

The other thing you can do on the web

through iCloud.com

is you can sign out of all other browsers as well.

So, you know that there's no other place

where you're logged in or anything like that.

Okay, yeah.

I'll try that.

I've been to the Apple store and they couldn't help me either.

Wow, that's grubbish.

And they sent me the...

I went to the shop store and they couldn't help me

and then you know you get like a call.

You know you get a call back from an engineer.

Yes, yes.

I've been gone for two months

and they still can't fix my phone.

All right.

Well, do the mass sign out.

All right.

The bulk sign out

and then see whether or not that has any effect.

Okay.

I'll do that today then.

I'll sign out on all of my devices.

All right, buddy. Good luck.

I even wait my whole phone

and put the cloud back on

and that didn't work either.

Oh, Jesus.

I reset the whole phone.

I reset the whole phone again.

I had to leave the whole phone

and then reset it again

and that didn't work either.

That's wild.

You've got some freaky stuff going on, my friend.

Well, let me know how you go, buddy.

All right.

I'll let you go.

Thank you for your help today.

All right.

We'll do our best, mate.

I hope it goes all right.

All right, cool. Thank you.

Cheers, buddy.

Thanks for getting in touch.

I don't know. That's a tough one

because I get the conflict.

I've had it where,

so for example, mine is like the emoji me

and I don't love that,

but there is also a photo of me

kind of listed on the iCloud.

Now I'm trying to think,

how do I update mine?

If I get a personal information on my account,

I don't want to change the photo,

but the poster I've got

is completely different to what the photo is.

So yeah, not quite sure how

that's continually happening for the great man,

but anyway,

maybe the mass bulk sign out

could have some effect for him.

We shall wait and see.

Good luck, buddy.

Tech Cars.

Lifestyle.

This is the EFTM podcast with Trevor Long.

You can text Trev now

thanks to Vodafone on 047-657-657.

Great happy company

and if you want to get in touch,

as we say, 047-657-657,

if you're in the market for something,

then give us a call.

We'll try and help you buy,

guide you through the buying process

because it's a nightmare out there.

There's a lot of products in every category

from TVs to mobile phones to computers.

There's always a lot to consider.

And every single person is different.

And unfortunately,

when you go to a retail store,

you might get swayed one way or another

based on, well,

the retail store's own personal decisions

rather than what actually suits you.

So happy to help wherever I can.

Speaking of buying, laptops.

Big market.

What about that for a segue?

My next guest is from HP.

Mark Fenson joins me.

Mate, great to be with you.

Great to see you, Trevor.

Welcome back to our great show.

Yeah, I know I've been traveling a bit,

but we caught up before I went away.

And that's why I wanted to have this conversation

because just some weird things

crossed my mind during our conversation

when HP was spending some time

just running through the new AI PC lineup.

And I guess I kind of found myself learning a lot

when I thought I knew already what an AI PC was.

So for example,

and the one thing I want to throw at you early is,

I felt like when,

and I was at the launch of Copilot Plus in Seattle

and it was exciting.

We've got this new generation of PC category

with all these tops of processing power

and neural processing.

It's all very exciting, right?

And I went, well, if you want good AI,

you're going to need a great neural processor.

But what you demonstrated to me was,

yep, that's excellent.

It does a lot of great legwork.

But actually the power of the PC is still

in the CPU and the GPU.

That's doing the legwork.

Doesn't matter whether you're playing a game

or doing AI functions.

That's exactly right, mate.

And Intel has just released their latest Core 3 series processor.

And there's different varieties there.

But again, it can be quite confusing,

but you're quite right.

Whenever you start looking at what your overall PC wants to do for you,

you need to look at a good CPU,

a good GPU graphics processing unit,

and include a neural processing unit.

We can have an AI PC that has a smaller size

neural processing unit,

or as you said, a co-pilot plus next-gen AI PC,

which has 40 plus tops.

And that's trillions of operations per seconds

on the neural processing unit.

But you need a good combination of all three.

Most AI tasks now, there's been such a big float of AI

being sort of, what is it actually going to do for me?

But now we're really starting to see it come into the forefront

for general day-to-day users.

And as I showed to you at the HP hotel,

showing you what you can do,

but it doesn't all use the neural processor,

it doesn't all use the GPUs,

it uses a good combination of all three.

And that's what you're looking for when a good CPU.

Plus, of course, the memory and the hard drive size

that comes down to what your requirements are

for what software you're doing.

But the CPU comes into all aspects of that.

Now, the neural processing unit, what does it actually do?

Well, it's there designed to do AI tasks in a low power state.

So this is great for things that are going to be running security

in the background that's not going to take away your resources

from your GPU or your CPU.

They're just going to run in low power.

So it's not going to have two hours of battery life

and you're not getting the daily use that you want.

These new CPUs can have anywhere between 22 to 33 hours of use.

So we're really seeing a huge jump due to that neural processing unit.

And it's fascinating because one of your colleagues

was showing a demo doing some stuff in Adobe Premiere,

which I use a bit for video editing,

but way more advanced stuff like, you know,

cutting out a person and putting text behind them

and some really amazing things which we see now are possible.

And there was a lot of people might have seen

over the years on their computer.

You can bring up like a graph that shows you how much, you know,

CPUs being used.

And so there was like these four graphs.

And I'm staring at him doing all this work going,

the NPU, the neural processing unit,

which I'd been trained to think was the thing doing cool AI stuff

was just flat line.

It wasn't doing anything.

And the GPU was going off its head trying to, you know,

create this work and do these amazing things

and doing it with ease.

And what he explained to me was it's, as you just said,

it's that balance between, you know,

trying to understand what you need now versus your battery life versus

is this a task that can just be done in the background?

Because if it could be done in the background,

the NPU might be perfect for it

and just throttle away and do its thing

and then give you the results or the answer

or the outcome of whatever command it is.

Whereas something that's happening in your actual workflow,

in your daily workflow,

whether it's processing a video or a photo

or something cool that a piece of AI software does,

can use the GPU and get it done for you.

And that's, I think that's a really powerful distinction

for people who are thinking,

oh, I do want my,

because a laptop is something you buy for the next five years.

Like this is a device I'm going to hold on to.

So I don't know what I'm going to be doing in five years from now.

So actually talking about the power of the GPU

and what Intel's doing is just as important.

Absolutely.

And prime example is your podcast right now

where recording this through Teams

and say that you want to edit this later

or you want to just put a transcript of this whole conversation.

You can have that transcribed through the NPU

and it can sit in the background and run as long as it likes.

You don't need it instantaneous,

but you could then go and use other parts of your PC

using the CPU and GPU

and you're not taking those resources away

from those other tasks that you want to do.

If you want it done very quickly,

the GPU is probably where you'll go

because when you start comparing this tops number,

you've got about 50 to 80 tops in the neural processing unit,

but you've probably got 120 or 100 or so

or if you've got a dedicated graphics card,

you could have up to thousands of tops

sitting on the graphics card.

So if I want something done instantaneously

like my Premiere Pro editing and things like that,

I want that to be done through the GPU.

If I want an answer through a large language model

sitting on my device using something like Intel Playground,

AI Playground, I want that done instantaneously.

So that's where I'll use the GPU.

So I think the best AI is AI that you set and forget

or it just happens in the background.

And this is where I want the computer to make the decision

of what the task is what I want to do.

If I want it instantaneously, use the GPU.

If I wanted to run in the background with low power,

use the CPU.

It's like when we started moving to Teams

and we had background blurring and our battery would die

very quickly because it was using the GPU.

Now that uses the neural processing unit,

we can have a low power state through our whole meetings.

It's kind of like we needed everyone to catch up

with what they were developing.

You know, we had all this rush towards Zoom and Teams

and then we had the AI stuff, but it wasn't.

I guess the software was built without knowing

how to correctly channel its needs.

And now software is being built to go,

okay, we're available to do this and we're available to do that.

But those decisions on both the software and hardware

for a while we're getting now,

laptops that have these just phenomenal battery life.

Exactly.

And HP and Intel are doing a lot around focusing

how they create the software that sits in the background

that can run specifically to the processor that's best for it.

And you're starting to see a huge shift in

more and more ISVs starting to use the NPU

and use those extra tops that are sitting there.

And that's why sort of you're going to future-proof yourself.

Next-gen AI PC is exactly the sort of,

if you've got the budget to go there,

absolutely move to those products because

that's where you're going to get the future-proofing

that will last you five years.

Not to say that an AI PC that's at a lower level tops

is not going to be perfect for you.

It can still do enough for having a neural process, you know,

that will do some of the dedicated tasks that's required.

Is it as much in demand in the corporate world of disease

in retail for consumers,

or is there a vast difference between the buying decisions

that are being made there?

Definitely, I think commercials now starting to click into it

because if you're going to have 10 and a half hours

of Teams calls all day and having three by three video walls

and your battery's not going to die, that's perfect.

I'm not designed to do 10 and a half hours of Teams calls all day,

but that's just me.

But people do do that, and you don't want your battery dying.

You want to have that full day of work,

whatever your workflow does.

So absolutely, commercials now starting to see it really start

to drive to that neural process unit.

And you're starting to see more and more security software,

particularly commercial security software,

running that neural process unit because it's low power.

It can kick into using a CPU or GPU when it does is required.

But if they can sit in the background using low power,

it's perfect for that security always on type of stuff.

What's the challenge in retail for the consumer market

when it's such a busy space?

Like there's so many brands in this space.

There's such a wide variety of price points.

And look, I said directly to one of your competitors recently,

I said, I think that Apple's moving to that sub $1,000 mark

really shook the laptop market up in a good way.

But how do you compete in that space?

Because you have such a wide portfolio.

What is it that sells HP in a retail store to a consumer?

And I'll go back to my days of when I used to work

in a Harvey Norman store many, many, many years ago.

But you'd have the parents coming in with a budget this big

and the kids that are now getting down to kindergarten

and say we want to compute it this big,

that has a budget this big.

And that's some of the biggest problems that you're trying to balance

between the kids wanting to play AAA title games

and having the biggest budget they could possibly imagine

with mom and dad trying to go, well, we also need a printer with this.

We also need this.

So that's probably one of the biggest challenges of walking in.

And it can be quite confusing,

but you are getting that space of that entry-level consumer space now.

Then you're really defining sort of those thin and light devices

next-gen AIPC, that premium space.

And then gaming has really come out of its shell

and really started to take hold that there is a large differentiation

between that entry space, that ultra space,

and now that gaming space that it really does show

that I think it's a little clearer now in my sort of sense

that you can see exactly which budget you can suit to

and what you can get from that.

And you're starting to see Intel release the new X7, X9 chips,

which have onboard graphics that can rival the dedicated graphics card.

So you're really getting that.

You showed one of those with like running Formula One or something on a laptop

and I was like, hey, I mean, this thing's running on a,

not even on a discrete graphics card.

That's it. It's running the X7 integrated graphics

and it was running F125 at around 100 frames per second,

matching a previous gen dedicated graphics card.

So this is in a small CPU GPU integrated solution

matching a discrete graphics card.

So running on less power and just performing really, really well

and being able to play those triple A titles.

Yeah, I mean, I love the space.

But it is a multi-year decision, whether it's a school kids laptop,

like I said to my kids, they,

I think they got laptops in like year five or six,

thinking about high school and now they're in year nine, 10.

So they lasted, they lasted four years and for a kid,

their first laptop, that's pretty good.

But I said to them both, listen, this is the last laptop I'm buying you.

I don't want to break it to you.

Like, I don't know if you're going to go to uni.

I might buy you one in uni,

but it's a long-term decision you buy.

And I feel like also one of the other confusing parts

of the laptop market over recent years has become the processor

because it used to just be, hey, it's got Intel inside and that was it.

But it's a super competitive space now where, you know,

all the brands have multiple processors,

but it's not really a difficult decision

because they will all do the same broad things.

There's not really one thing that one CPU does that another doesn't.

It's more about the fundamentals of actually,

how does it impact its battery life

and what are you going to do with the device,

which has always been the first question?

It is.

And I've come from the workstation space where you're designing cars,

you're designing F1 Ferraris with it.

And they were always, the first question I have asked is,

what software are you trying to run on this?

And sometimes when you see the software,

it gives you the minimum specs that

are just going to give you a minimum performance type of thing.

You need to decide what is the workflow that's going to happen on this.

Are your kids going to go into Premiere Pro

and need large hard drive spaces and great GPU performance?

But you're right.

You're completely right.

And this is where I know my kids,

when they were in primary school, high school,

they'd throw the bag across the room and go on,

run off and play with their mates.

And you're starting to see some of our workstation class

sort of engineering come into our consumer grade devices

with military grade specs.

This is a US standard for the military to purchase,

our commercial devices.

And we now do that in our consumer range

across our Omnibook 7 and X range.

So you're getting that sort of commercial type of business grade

security, reliability, sturdiness,

now coming into our consumer devices

because that's what we want to do.

We want our kids to be able to treat these like kids do

and we want them to have it for three to five years,

depending on what it is.

And that is exactly how businesses are looking

at their IT investments as well.

You also mentioned how kids have a bigger shopping list

than parents often.

My other message to parents is you're the one paying for it.

So just remember.

And again, I said that to my kids.

I said, listen, we've got more Xboxes in our house

than the average home.

So be thankful.

So the device I'm buying you is not play games.

It's to get your schoolwork done.

And unfortunately, those are the tough times as a parent.

Sometimes you've got to go, buddy,

no, I'm not buying you a gaming laptop.

Because also a gaming laptop,

while it can also do all your schoolwork,

there's a couple of problems.

It might not meet those durability requirements

that you have for that backpack.

And it also might be heavy.

And there's a bunch of reasons why gaming laptops

are gaming laptops.

So sometimes parents have got to play the game

of being a parent and going, actually,

we're here with a budget.

Let's find the best one we can buy.

So standing in a retail store, there's nothing better really.

I still do it.

I'm sure you still do.

You walk in there and you go,

you pick up all the different laptops.

There's a different feel to every laptop.

That's what's fun about being in the market

for something like that.

But your messages really know that,

know the capabilities that you need

before you walk into the store.

Yeah.

And of course, the ultra premium are going to be thin light.

Have a great CPU.

But do you have the budget to go to that level?

And what we're seeing now is with all the developments

around AI and data centers around the world,

we are seeing a constraint on RAM, hard drive, CPUs

around the world.

And this is affecting commercial and consumer.

And we need to be mindful that going in to just buy

a notebook these days isn't a simple plan.

The budgets have started to stretch further.

The devices are getting slightly more expensive.

And we need to be mindful of that when we walk

into our retail stores.

And you mentioned price.

This is a problem for the market.

The price of memory, the price of computing technology

has unfortunately been driven up by the AI data center rush.

And that's not going to turn around any time soon, is it?

Even though there might be some pretty good deals

around now in the financial year,

it's not suddenly going to be amazing.

In fact, it's probably a reason to look now

than later in the year.

Absolutely.

And there's some great deals out there with a lot

of the retail partners and our HP online store.

It really, again, as you said before,

walking in with the right mindset that this is the budget

and this is my wiggle room if I want to go a little bit further

for something else.

But you need to be very conscious of all these challenges

that are happening at the moment.

It's an exciting time because I genuinely,

and I mean, I think I said this to your team.

I was blown away by some of those demonstrations you gave us

because it made me realize that you probably,

I probably overthought the AI part of the PC

and not really understood what Intel had suddenly brought

to the table with their latest generation

and that integrated graphics and the performance

that you can get from something like that.

So it's a pretty cool time to be doing stuff.

It's a pretty cool time to be you because you get to muck around

with cool things and find not just the capabilities

but the limits of these devices,

which are pretty hard to find, I'm guessing, mate.

I'm so glad you took that away from our event

because that's the exact experience we were trying to do,

that you went from this is the consumer room that I was in

showing you what a general user.

Now, I'm not saying I'm a master at AI,

but I was able to show content creation.

I had this little musical talent

and I was able to rip a song into four different instrumental

bass drums, vocals very quickly and easily,

able to turn AI from a picture into a moving video

and really being able to show what consumers can now do.

And this is where AI is going to be fantastic.

It starts to take away the mundane in your work life

to make you more creative and think differently

about the other aspects of your business

and be far more productive in that space.

And that's what we were really trying to do with that event

is to show how, yes, there's so much fluff about AI,

but there's so much more that is now in your hands of every user.

I feel the fluff has existed

because we wanted to make people think about AI

and now we're finding the reasons we can cut through those fluffy moments

and actually give demonstrations to people, which is super exciting.

Make great time to be in your space

and really appreciate the explanation for folks.

No problems at all, mate.

I hope that was easily explained for everyone.

Always, always.

Thank you for listening.

Great to have you company once again.

And as I always say, I'd love to hear from you,

wherever you're listening.

Let's get in touch. Let's talk tech.

You've got something new.

You're in the market for something.

We just want to talk about something you've seen on the internet.

Let's just shoot the breeze.

You don't have to have a problem.

You don't have to have a question.

You could just bring something to the table,

if you know what I mean.

I'm happy.

There's no drama.

Bring it on.

Send us a text.

Producer Rob will get in touch with you on the show.

We'd love to hear from you at any time, any day.

And we'll try and line you up for a chat on the show.

Thanks for listening.

Let's do it all again soon.

Next week, in fact, we'll talk to Chris Mayer from High Sense

and take more of your calls.

Delorean DMC-12

neural processing unit

low power state

AI tasks in the background

GPU

CPU

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