Episodes
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Apple has been hyping up its late-ish foray into the world of LLMs and artificial intelligence since June. But now a decent range of Apple Intelligence features are available — as long as you have the right device —like writing tools, image generation, notification summaries and so on.
In this ep we talk about it, Apple's strategy, and why it all feels a bit weak.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Australia passed legislation banning social media for kids under 16, as we've discussed in previous eps. But in today's episode, we're getting into the nitty gritty.
We're joined by Crikey reporter Cam Wilson to tease out some of the specifics of the legislation and how it might be enforced. We also force him to debate the greatest question of our time: should we save Australian children from the evils of social media? Or should we let the megacorps continue to poison the innocent minds of the youth?
You be the judge.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Crypto is back. The industry is excited by the forthcoming Trump presidency and what it means for their little online coins. Bitcoin just hit $100,000.
But the mood is a little different this time. There's less pontification on the future of money and finance, less attempts at making art and culture, and a whole lot more brazen bag-pumping and sweaty gambling.
In this ep, we talk about the current crypto surge, and what it means for you and your family.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Kickstarter. A gadget head's paradise... and hell.
The boys revisit the glory days of crowdfunding, what was the vibe that made it prolific, and the pitfalls that befell it. And, most importantly: what does it tell us about love?
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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The US Department of Justice wants to force Google to sell Chrome, its browser, for antitrust reasons.
It raises the question: who would buy it? Could it live as a standalone company? That opens a whole can of worms for your favourite tech podcast, as we talk about browsers and why they're such a strange business.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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The the wake of the US election and the increasingly weird vibe on X, there has been yet another exodus of users to the promised land of "any text-based timeline but Twitter".
That means people are talking about Bluesky again. In this episode, we revisit the erstwhile decentralised social media platform and check in on its progress, asking the question on everyone's lips: does it have the juice?
Also, prices of Down Round Premium are sensibly increasing in line with Australian PPP. But we're offering the current pricing for yearly subs for the next couple of weeks. Subscribe here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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It's the first week after the US election, and Down Round is officially making the leap into being an American politics podcast.
OK, not really. But there's actually plenty of Down Round relevant themes here. In this ep, we talk briefly about the new state of tech politics now that the conservative side of the industry is on the march. Then, we go into three big tech narratives that got the most attention at the election: podcasts, X and prediction markets.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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We are joined once again, for our sins, by the Australian Financial Review's Rear Window columnist Mark Di Stefano.
A freewheeling episode on everything from smartphones to AI girlfriends, where we all perform some ruthless self-critique and ultimately come out happier, more self assured and about 10 IQ points dumber.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here.
We're putting on our hazmat suits and going back into the world of crypto. Or, at least, one promising part of it.
Stripe recently bought Bridge, a startup which built a stablecoin issuance and settlements API. That sounds boring, and perhaps it is. But one day, it could play a serious role in helping pay the person or bot who replaces you.
In this ep, we talk about why one of the biggest payments providers in the world is suddenly enamoured by stablecoins.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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It's Halloween this week, and we've got an appropriately spooky episode for you. We're looking back at a random selection of some of our favourite dead and/or zombified companies, platforms and products of the past couple of decades.
From instant delivery and Google Reader to Adobe Flash and the Microsoft Zune, prepare to be utterly terrified by these terrifying spirits from tech's past.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Today's ep is the first and last edition of the Down Round Book club. We're talking about Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment, by Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier. It documents the story of Blizzard Entertainment, the developer behind WarCraft, Diablo and StarCraft which is as of last year a subsidiary of Microsoft.
James read it last week and felt it hit on some interesting Down Round areas, namely:
The evolution of monetisation Why eSports was never going to work The tension between art and commerce in creative businesses Laundry powder, which we discuss for at least 5 minutesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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We're lauching a bonus episode this week to officially welcome in the silly season (commences mid October).
We're joined by James Chin Moody, CEO of Sendle, a virtual courier service who is quite likely responsible for some proportion of the treats you receive via mail.
We discuss the Australia Post monopoly, the funding environment and the future of ecommerce.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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It's another Tesla event, folks. At the tail end of last week, Elon Musk got up on stage and showed off the CyberCab, the company's attempt at a robotaxi. He also gave us some updates on Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus, and even had some of these evil computer men walking around the event and serving beers.
But there was some digital trickery afoot, and not everything was as it seemed. In this episode, we discuss.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here.
Fun times create happy people, happy people create lovely times, lovely times create fun people.
It's another loose, shot from the hip premium ep, folks. ChatGPT’s voice mode is finally here, while OpenAI itself s going through more weird palace intrigue for us to pick through.
A digression into AI podcasts.
Meanwhile, all the VCs and founders are arguing about drugs. So we will too.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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In last week's premium episode, we sounded off about the state of VR and smart glasses. In true Down Round fashion, Meta had already announced its concept product, a pair of AR-enabled smart glasses named Orion, by the time the ep aired.
We will never admit we were wrong. Instead, we press forward. In this ep, we talk about Orion, Meta's plans, and why it seems like everyone is now locked in on the idea that smart glasses are the smartphone successor.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Intel may have more or less invented modern digital computing, but it hasn't been going so crash hot lately. Following decades of strategic missteps and blunders, it's now experiencing weakening earnings and stock price declines as it attempts to engage in the mother of all turnaround jobs with a little help from the US government. Now, the sharks are circling, with Qualcomm popping up as a potential acquirer.
In this ep, we discuss what brought Intel to this point, what might happen next, and some general microchip chatter.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here.
After 2 months of cringe-posting references to strawberries, OpenAI have released their latest model: o1. And AI heads are losing their minds.
Ostensibly, it's intended for the kind of thorny math and reasoning problems that LLMs tend to struggle with. The guts aren't public, but it seems to use chain-of-reasoning prompts to really force itself to 'think'.
So, is it any good? Is this a huge step change on the path to AGI. We investigate.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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We didn't cover the Apple iPhone keynote last week because it wasn't particularly exciting and there were virtually no surprises. But, having been given a week to ruminate on it, we have thoughts.
In this ep, we talk about why analysts have been obsessed with an AI-driven iPhone supercycle, why Apple has backed itself into a corner by overcharging for RAM, and the slow death of the smartphone.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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This is a free preview of a premium episode. To subscribe to Down Round Premium and get access, head here.
Social media. Is it too dank for the malleable and developing mind?
The Australian government seems to think so. Labor has joined the ranks of a number parties and bodies in various jurisdictions in attempting to set a lower age limit for social media.
We consider the following questions:
Why? How would it work? Who is to blame for society crumbling?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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For decades, technologists have fantasised about the ultimate prize: a humanoid robot, available to consumers and industry, which can perform a range of humanlike tasks. The recent AI moment has reignited those aspirations, with everyone from Tesla to Apple – and a handful of ambitious startups – either openly or secretly working on humanoid robot projects.
In this ep we round up the rumour mill, and talk about what these things could actually be useful for, and why they're suddenly everywhere. (In spirit, if not actuality.)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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