The number one podcast about tech business and culture, from James "JR" Hennessy and Raph Dixon.

Apple have announced their new iPhones — and they sort of stink of desperation. But one of them is orange, which may or may not appeal to you. Plus, a notable absence of Apple Intelligence chat.  The boys are back in the same room after a prolonged interregnum and break it all down for you.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Down Round

iPhone, But Orange

We're dipping into the world of streaming and East Asian cultural dominance today, talking about Netflix's smash hit movie K-Pop Demon Hunters. We talk about the pandemic era deal struck between Sony and Netflix, what this means for the streaming landscape, and whether it would have been as much of a cultural phenomenon if it was a traditional cinematic release.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

K-Pop Demon Hunters

A big topic of conversation Down Under over the past couple of weeks has been copyright — namely, whether we should loosen the rules to make it easier for AI companies to operate in Australia, and for data centre companies to build here. The Productivity Commission and Tech Council boss Scott Farquhar think we should. Creatives are less enthused. We go into the dynamics of the conversation, the asymmetry between the parties, and answer the question once and for all: how much money do artists deserve??See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Copy Fight (UNLOCKED)

After many months of hype and news stories, OpenAI has released GPT-5, the next major numbered iteration of its large language model. There have been all sorts of models since it released GPT-4 in 2023, but this is supposed to be the big dog. In this ep, we talk about the rocky launch — starting with the fact that most people aren't that impressed with it, and ending with the much weirder world of people who developed an emotional attachment to GPT-4o and became furious that their friend is gone.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

GPT-5: Here We Go Again

Today James is joined by previous Down Round guest Cam Wilson, who has written a new book with (another former Down Round guest) Ariel Bogle, Conspiracy Nation, which is about the Australian conspiracy community. While Raph is living it up on the coastline of Croatia, James and Cam had a freewheeling chat about online conspiracy culture, how it has engaged with online platforms, and the future of going crazy on the computer in the age of AI. Also, we check in on Australia's teen social media ban.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What Are They Planning? (ft. Cam Wilson)

Several years ago, Down Round listener Tim Stewart submitted a question to one of our Q&amp;A mailbag episodes: when is the new rugby league video game for PlayStation 5 coming out? We couldn't answer him, because we didn't know what the hell he was talking about. But now, years later, it has come out, and everyone seems to agree it's really not very good. So we decided to bring Tim on to finally answer his own question. What follows is an odyssey into the world of Australian sports video games, and the virtues of pestering CEOs on Twitter.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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