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Hello, everyone. It's that time for the JMOR tech talk show. Where we answer questions about technology, explain the way they should work and why they don't sometimes. And now here's your host, John C Morley.
John C. Morley: Hey everybody. Welcome once again to the JMOR tech talk show. It's another wonderful Friday tonight. Isn't it, Marcus?
Marcus: Absolutely. John, we have made it to the end of the week Unscathed.
John C. Morley: Another week in the new norm of life during this pandemic, and now we have so I'm not going to comment on good, bad or anything, but it'll be different. And hopefully there will be changes.
Marcus: Yeah, looking forward to see what they new president term will bring.
John C. Morley: I'm looking for as well. Well, welcome Marcus. Thank you again for being such a trustee cohost, and let's get on with tonight's show. So when we're talking about technology, you know, gaming I think a lot of times people talk about gaming, but for whatever reason, they don't put the emphasis on things, things that really are going to drive home like an amazing immersive playing experience, I think because it costs money. The other reason is because I think people have been scammed by lots of technology that's out there. So there is one I want to talk about tonight is called PADI PATA, it’s a, you say that a million times fast, right? It's an interactive punching bag. It has a light, basically spot guidance. It is music interactive, there's courses. It has an interactive gaming experience, and this is something that's starting to really pick up. It did come out a while back, but lots of people are starting to use this, not just celebrities, but I guess it gives people excuse to gym equipment. Is that what it is, Marcus?
Marcus: Yeah. And that's what I'm getting out of. But for the price tag, you better use it.
John C. Morley: Well, that's the thing, I mean, something like this, I mean, it looks like I said, really nice. And they have a smaller version, a larger version. And the thing about it is you will notice that they actually do not put the price tag on their website. So when they don't put a price tag on the website, I'm guessing it's more thousand dollars.
Marcus: Yeah. I, for one, I was very interested in it when you brought it up, so I already took the sneak peek at what some of these techs run about and they are pretty hefty.
John C. Morley: What would, you know, what type of prices we're talking?
Marcus: We are talking 1200 and up.
John C. Morley: Okay. So we are talking, we're not, we're talking a few thousand dollars, so we're not like 10,000, so it's going to be kind of a modest investment, but again, it's just a bag and it has some sensors on it. And I think where they're really making their money, Marcus is not in the product itself. I think they're making it in the courses and the interactive programs that you basically have to get involved in if you have this device, because what are you going to do? Just buy a punching bag and just punch it and listen to music. I think there's got to be more to it than that. So I think they got a very captive market. What do you think?
Marcus: I think so too, this is definitely something that is going to.
Make it a little bit more interactive than just punching a bag in the old punching bag thing. Yeah. It can be like work.
John C. Morley: And you're going to have, you're going to have the music. I know when I do my walk, I always like putting on my Bluetooth headphones and listening to something inspirational. And that hour walk doesn't seem really very long on my way back. It's like, wow, where did that half hour ago? Wow. I'm actually over an hour. Wow. That was a very quick walk. And then the breeze, and as long as you're comfortable and you know, not too cold I think technology can really motivate us to work out. And I think it can give us a reason to be doing something, maybe we don't necessarily want to do directly, but it just kind of makes it a little more bearable, right. When we can add music or add something to listen to while we're doing something else.
Marcus: Yeah. Generally that's the idea. And I think they might've nailed it right here.
John C. Morley: I think so too. I think the price tag needs to come down a little bit. That's my feeling. If this price tag could come down under a thousand dollars, I believe they would get a lot more people that would probably, you know, plop down and want to this. I also didn't see any money back guarantee. I don't know what the tech support was like, but it seems like you have to go through a form, and it doesn't seem like you're going to have support right at your fingertips.
Marcus: That could be troubling John, and you know what you say about that? You're going to be going through the email game.
John C. Morley: Yeah. You're going to be going through an email or you're going to be going through chat. And then when you finally get somebody, you're going to talk to them, and then you're going to just explain to them your problem. And they're going to get all annoyed with you because they think you're yelling at them. And all you're trying to do is explain the situation. And you're just frustrated, because they don't understand English. I was on with someone not too long ago and I was very, very kind and I said to them, I don't think you understand English. And with all due respect, maybe you should check out babble or maybe you should check out, you know, something else like another language learning program, because you're really starting to, how can I say? Not give good customer service. That's probably the best way I can put it, right? So as we think of these, you know, different types of technology out there you know, the future is a remote work and a lot of remote work, believe it or not, Marcus is getting into gaming. There are so many different jobs now for people that are actually getting into some type of immersive gaming experience and whether that be doing it for work, or maybe just test piloting something and actually getting paid a nice chunk of change to give reviews on how to do stuff. So I think that's an interesting thing to what's happening. But I don't know when we talk about virtual reality it does kind of put a few people on the fence, doesn't it?
Marcus: It does. I think this is a generation thing that they are looking at. And I think this is what kind of driving that because you got, you got the millennials of course, that you want to kind of keep engaged on at work and who knows people might've been gaming, doing work anyways. And somebody might've figured like, Hey, we might as well kind of incorporate this.
John C. Morley: Exactly. It's like, now these apps are getting more ways for people to spend money. So now your home where you buy something, but when you buy something Marcus, it's like, this product doesn't work unless you pay for description a prescription like a subscription, like the mirror or something like that. I mean, it's useless without the subscription plan. So I think this is where everything is going. They're trying to get people down this rabbit hole, not that it's a bad rabbit hole, but I just feel that they're not really being a front with people about what they need to, you know, get when you buy this product, the product is not going to do anything because you have to buy a subscription plan. So now you spend a few thousand dollars on a mirror or something, and it doesn't do anything until you pay for a plan because your first 30 days is all you get. And I just think, don't think they're being upfront with people about that.
Marcus: That's pretty sneaky. And you know, we're still in the pandemic era and there's not a lot of people with a huge bank account to be able to afford just being deceived this way.
John C. Morley: So it's definitely a sneaky play, but something really interesting. One of the world's fastest growing startups burned through 300 million.
Marcus: Oh Jesus. This is terrifying.
John C. Morley: Jason Goldberg's e-commerce company, fab.com was once valued at $1 billion. Three years later, it was one of the biggest startup flops in history.
Marcus: Oh, wow.
John C. Morley: No, this is crazy. I mean, when you have an idea to do something, it's great, but I think it just comes down that if you're going to do something and make it a hobby, then don't turn it into a business. Because when you try to have a business and then make your business a hobby, that's a problem. If you have a hobby and go into a business and you start adapting business principles, well, that's fine, but don't go the reverse way. So fab had raised 336 million since rebranding itself as an e-commerce platform around 2011. And at one point they were valued at 1 billion. It had 750 employees on multiple continents, pretty interesting. And an enormous warehouse stocked with millions of products. Now, the company was selling for less than one 10th of its original valuation. Something went wrong in that plant. And this guy had experienced ups and downs before, but this was different. This was really a major screw up. It's like, you know, you want to do something, but you didn't do a market study to see if it was even feasible or do people, you'll want your product.
Marcus: Yeah. You definitely got to turn your head at the CEO and then ask yourself, what were the board members thinking as well? Why, how come they did not check this guy and ask this guy, you know, what direction are we going into once they start seeing the money just plummet.
John C. Morley: I think what you have to do, whether it's a call campaign, whether it's a sales campaign or whatever it is, you have to set a triple goals. And then you have to keep yourself and your team accountable to those goals. And if you see the goals are not reaching where they're supposed to be in a certain period of time, you have to step in and say, Hey, we got to make some adjustment. And if you can't get them to even the minimal level by a certain date, and you know what the resources are going to cost to possibly, you know, even waste money to try to get there. You have to figure out that upfront to say, Hey, this doesn't make sense. And after four weeks, we have to cut our losses, just stop this and go a different way. So this kid he grew up in Rockville, Maryland. And he was always the first one in the neighborhood to get the newest computer when it came out. He spent his early days programming on an Atari 400 with his dad. I remember the Atari, I actually had an Atari 800. I remember that. And what I got the program, not to take a tangent here, but that's what my parents learned that I was a, let's say a prodigy because when I was doing programming, I actually didn't have anything to program with other than in school. When they bought me this Atari, I actually won it. I didn't play any of the video games that came with. It came with loads of video games. I took out the cartridge and I put basic in there. Beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code, and I started writing video games and writing things instead of playing with all these characters and stuff like that. So I can definitely attest to how that feels. And later he was an undergrad at Emory university and was drawn to a different field of machinery which is now politics. And in 1991, Goldberg took a hiatus from the college to work on Bill Clinton's, president central campaign. When Clinton won Goldberg was hired as a special assistant to the president's chief of staff. And he was there when the internet was first implemented at the white house in 1994, he also witnessed firsthand the gold rush opportunities it ushered in, so at the height of the dot com bubble, which was just about bursting in 1998 he packed his bags for California, where he earned an MBA at Stanford and developed digital strategies for AOL, Time Warner and T-Mobile. See, this is the thing, a lot of people think that you can just go back and get a degree, and I have nothing against getting a degree. But you really have to have a direction, don't you? I mean, you can't just go get something. What are you going to do with that degree?
Marcus: Yeah. A lot of people tend to really wave the degree in front of your faces and tell you like, Hey, you know, I know what I'm talking about. I know what I'm doing, but at the same token, on the other hand, have no life experience. And as you've mentioned, John, no direction, no vision.
John C. Morley: And he decided, you know, after working for AOL, time Warner and the T-Mobile set of companies, he decided to go out on his own. And in 2002 Goldberg felt he had the tools to build his own startup. Two years of planning went into this by himself and a close friend. They moved to Seattle and they launched a job Stir, a B2B job referral site. Then they tried to do things with LinkedIn and the company raised 52.5 million from investors. And it was cited as one of Seattle's fastest growing companies. In a very unorthodox move for a young startup, Goldberg used the new capital, listen to this, to buy out a series of other companies and scaling the team at lightning speed. That was a little dangerous, wasn't it?
Marcus: It's crazy.
John C. Morley: He's not a large corporation, that's on the stock market. And even those companies have to be careful, but what this little enigma he believed that he was headed for success and I want to quote what he said. We were so focused on growth that the product itself suffered. That's the problem. We were so focused on growth that the product itself suffered. And they also want to quote, we were good at selling a vision, but we weren't able to deliver on the products we promised. You see a lot of times Marcus people have these great visions and they go to implement them, but then they get so hung up on the vision that they don't do what's necessary to make a product any good. It seems great. They design a very catchy, flashy, sexy bag I’ll call it or wrapper and then unwrap the candy or you unwrap the present. And there's nothing in there, but Unscathed.
Marcus: Yeah. And like you said, when it's nothing but paper Mache in there, it's easily crumbled up and it is down to nothing. Just like this guy. And of course he was honest enough to take the blame. Here, as we learn further he said it was all his blame. But you know, this, we've got to take from these stories. You know, we can't just put the horse before the cart. You know, as the old cliche says.
John C. Morley: You know, a lot of times you get a professional company because they have this great big name and they're on wall street, or they spend billions of dollars in advertising. I have to tell you something, ladies and gentlemen, that doesn't mean they're any good. They may have convinced you that they know what they're doing, but when you sit down with them and when they start telling you that they're going to be billing you to learn about your company and they have no clue. Well, you're with the wrong company. Now, I'm not saying they're going to know everything about your business, but they should have some idea of where to go with your type of business. So Goldberg, as well as many other people in our world, they waste time Marcus, because they get hung up on the vision, which I think is important. But you have to really look at what is it that you're building and what is your outcome? Like, where do you want to go with this? And if you can't answer those kinds of questions, how am I different than somebody else? Is there a market for my product or my service? Where am I going to get potential clients from to start, do I have seed money to work with? Or am I going to take the risk of trying to get Evangelists and then realizing that I'm going to be putting my life on the line, because I'm not going to be able to make many decisions because he or she is going to basically be the one controlling the company. I think a lot of people don't realize the costs. It's like when you build a house, you have an estimate for what the house should be. But then there's always a budget. And then you could go way over that budget, can't you? By changing the tiles, by changing let's say the finishes or even changing the amount of glass or the molding, crown molding, etc., or maybe changing a room or something as simple as making your basement a finished basement. And if you can't understand, you know, what your buffer is, well, then I think you've got to figure that out first, before you should even put a shovel in the ground. What do you think, Marcus?
Marcus: Yeah, I'm right there with you all the way. I think so many times people can definitely look at the house, but they don't see the, you know, all the framework, you know, necessary to keep it standing and, you know, the plumbing that's going to be necessary to keep it running. And, you know, you got to be able to dream and have the same dream continuous every day and hold on to that dream. And some people just, you know, fascinated with like just, you know, what are they looking at on the outside and don't have it in, you know, have it in there.
John C. Morley: It doesn't have to be at Goldberg, like Goldberg did and many other people, and I’ve done this as well. I've written my ideas at a diner or a restaurant on a napkin. And you just, we laugh at that, but, you know, not paper, but a material. Nobody said you had to put them on paper. And when you can do that and make something formal, cause when you put it on the computer becomes very formal, doesn't it? So when you can just have a conversation and put something on a napkin or on the back of a menu, it just seems like play. And my advice to people is that, you know, when you want to do something new, play with it, okay, don't rush into it immediately and then figure out what are the resources you're going to need. The technology you know, do you have the resources to build the project yourself? Do you have the resources and time? So you have to really think about those things. And then you have to set not just a goal, but you have to come up with a way to measure whether you're going to be successful or not. And if you're not successful, you have to be man enough or lady enough gender here not specific to, I guess, turn the ship around if it's slightly or on a dime, if need be to get it back on track. Because sometimes you just get down all these side streets and you're just so far off the beaten path. And you wonder, what was it we were doing. We were making cookies or we're creating a company to make pictures. Oh yeah, we build bridges now. Well, there's nothing even related to that. So I think that's where Goldberg went wrong on Marcus.
Marcus: Yeah, absolutely. You know it's so hard to just, you know, put the brain in multiple areas, you know, before you realize, you're splattering your brains all over the place.
John C. Morley: I’ll give you an example. I mean, they were spending 14 million a month. Look at what your money is coming in. We always say, you should do a third, a third, a third, right. And one of those thirds should be used for R and D and to help grow the company, you don't spend the whole 10 million or 12 million. You got to have a plan. And then if that plan isn't yielding things, you got to have a plan B, you got to know that if you spend, let's just call it a thousand to $2,000. You got to understand that if you spend that money, that's a risk. But you also have to understand that by spending that money, there's a chance it could work, there is a chance, it may not. When you spend that money, don't go spending more money until you first see if the money you spent has gone somewhere if you're going to spend it on the same kind of thing. And what they did was they invested in so much inventory. They tried to become an Amazon overnight and they flopped and then the board blames everyone else. And of course, they're going to blame the person with the idea because that's the person that they claim is responsible for the company failing. So it's a very sad story. But you just have to focus. I mean, I think he had the potential to be honest with you to become a Facebook or become an Amazon, he had the potential and they didn't make cuts. They didn't monitor what was going on. And this is something else that's really important is you never want to grow fast. And the reason I say that is because if you grow too fast and you don't have the resources to handle that growth, you're going to look terrible. And not only are you going to have problems keeping up with things, you're going to get a bad reputation. So there's a strategy. And there's a reason why schools teach that a million dollar, a billion-dollar business, it's not built overnight. It's built after years of reviewing things. I mean, you can't get lucky and things can happen overnight, but that's not usually the norm. It's not the norm. But so thinking about a company, how they could go through $300 million probably will boggle your mind. And all it comes down to is there was no governance in that company. We've used that word a lot. Haven't we over the last few months? But I think it's kind of where the world is going now, 2021 and going further governance has to be on technology, has to be on people, has to be on business. And we have to understand what we're regulating and not regulating. And what are the consequences if we don't. And sometimes I believe we're too afraid to step in and say, Hey, what do I do if it fails, if it fails, pick yourself up and do something else, but don't keep dumping money down a rabbit hole. You know, that isn't going to produce anything.
Marcus: I agree. You know, you have definitely just offered up some real important advice to a lot of people out there. And I think people should really, you know hold on to that.
John C. Morley: Thank you. Thank you. You know, we've all heard the phrase, you know, don't let your friends drive drunk. We've all heard that before, but I bet you've never heard the phrase before friends don't let friends get tracked.
Marcus: Absolutely. This is my first time hearing that one, that's a very good one. That's a very, it's a very good slogan. And I love what duck duck go is doing with this.
John C. Morley: I do too. I have to tell you, you know, www.duckduckgo.com is a website, it's actually a search engine that you can use instead of Google or other search engines. So why would you want to switch to www.duckduckgo.com? So there's no costs to switch to www.duckduckgo.com. You just go to duck, duck, not duck, duck goose, in case you're trying to go that way. Www.duckduckgo.com. And when you go to that webpage, you'll be able to install the program on your computer. What it does is it's actually www.duckduckgo.com, privacy filter. And what it's really reporter is what I should say. Cause it doesn't filter. It really reports. It tells you whether the site you're visiting has a good level of privacy. And if it doesn't, it lets you know, so it lets, you know, if there's an encrypted connection, is anyone tracking you right now? Is good practices and privacy policies being upheld by the site. Yes or no. Okay. Well let's just go to another website. I don't know, Let's go to Google just for the heck of it. And when we go to www.google.com, okay. I see we have an encrypted connection. I see there's zero trackers found, but real big one here, ladies and gentlemen, there's poor privacy practices. Here's what it says. They can use your content for all their future services. They can track you on other websites and then logs are kept forever. So what you didn't know, my friends when you Google and in case you're wondering if you happen to want to use Yahoo. Yahoo actually has a cryptic connection, zero trackers found. But when we get to the privacy policies, this is interesting. They don't publicize it. It's unknown privacy practices. So it seems like it's green, it gives Yahoo a B plus. So it rates them, which I think is really cool, Marcus. It actually gives a Google a C plus. So Yahoo seems to have on the surface, a better privacy grade. So you can download that from www.duckduckgo.com. So what does that actually mean? Well, that's a great question. So duck duck go actually is a browser you can use. And you could set it to be your default homepage. And on that page, they tell you things like explain how Google tracks you and the fact that we don't. Duck duck go apps, block Google's hidden trackers. You can get unbiased results outside the filter bubble, and you can stand up for being pro privacy and for business. And I think just amazing. Now the one thing I wonder with you about duckduck.com, it's not Google and it's not Yahoo, but again, they don't track you. Duck Duck go has a, I guess a cute little duck with the yellow Mallard and a green tie. And if I type something like whether, for example, the search engine is a little bit different than the other ones. But I got to tell you, it brought my local town's weather up in literally 30 seconds. If I go over to Google and I type the word weather, let's just see what that pulls up. Well it does pull up information as well. But the problem again, with the one about Google is that they're tracking everything I search and that's on their servers forever. That's a problem. That's why I tell people if you ever post something on the web, especially on Google, Facebook, it's there for life. So you're really have to be careful you know, where you post stuff. And that goes for Tumblr and a lot of the other social networks, they don't have to take your post down. Some of them will let you. Others will say, it's your problem pretty much. So try www.duckduckgo.com. I think there you're going to be really pleased with it. I think there needs to be more standards Marcus in the way privacy is being upheld in our country and around the world. And duck duck go is just a real friendly way to spread the love of keeping your searches private. Now, if you're on a Google, you can go or I should say Firefox, and you go to the little open menu and you click on where it says new private window. They're saying that that window is actually private. So when I look at it, it says here there's zero trackers found, but poor privacy practices. So the thing about it is that even though it's a private window, I don't trust Google. I just don't. And it still gives a private window a C plus. And I think it's because of the privacy grade. That that's why, but it says poor privacy practices. So you can go try at www.duckduckgo.com try it out, let us know what you think about it. Again, it is a little bit different than the other search engines. It may not be as pretty, but Hey, I’ll sacrifice some glamour for some privacy. Wouldn't you Marcus?
Marcus: Yeah, definitely. Especially when you got so much lurking going on and you definitely want to get away from this stuff. And if you're all about being pro privacy, just the way to go.
John C. Morley: Yeah. So start spreading the movement. And once you do go to duckduckgo.com, make sure you set that as your default homepage. Otherwise when you load your browser, you'll be going to MSN, Google or some other search engine. And that would defeat the whole purpose going to duck duck go in the first place. All right. So keeping ourselves secure is always very important. But you know, strategies to improve efficiency and long-term stability of a solar cells is something that's been amazing in the news right now. Over the past few years, researchers have been trying to develop new concepts for these cells that would basically affect their performance and improve them, their stability over time. And they're hoping that one of the ways they may do this is to combine 2D and 3D halide perovskites in order to leverage the properties of the two different types of cells. So I think it's on the right track. They're going to provide something that is going to have a smaller footprint, have a, you know, less energy consumption and be a lot more reliable. So again, as we're getting more into things with solar, whether that be for your building, whether that be for your IOT, and don't be surprised, and gentlemen, if robots and other IOT devices, we already see it now for, you know, the signs, you know, when you get those flashing signs Marcus and you drive by and they tell you how much you're doing flashing, when you're going too fast. And a lot of them now they're actually powered by solar.
Marcus: That's pretty awesome. And who would have knew?
John C. Morley: Yeah. So solar is really kind of amazing. And I know some people now you know, want to have you know, their address lit up. And sometimes if there's a power outage for many hours, you know, you're not going to see the person's house. Let's say if the emergency of vehicles, fire, EMT, or ambulance have to come to your home, well, what are they going to have to do? Play detective to find your address and hope they get the right one? Wouldn't it be better to have like a you know, a number that actually lights up because from the sun and this way they could actually find you, I think that's pretty cool.
Marcus: That would be so cool. And that will solve so many troubles, even if we didn't even have it for emergency purposes. Like, you know, when you think about addresses, they are hard to find like, you know, where there's no streetlights.
John C. Morley: Exactly. And I find one of the biggest problems, Marcus, when there is a power outage, I'm not sure if this happens by you a lot, when the power goes out, some of the lights that you need to make left-hand turns, well, they're not functioning. And suddenly they have a decommissioned, all left-hand turns and everything is now right-hand turns. And one way on the traffic and that other lane is like, got cones down it.
Marcus: Yeah, we have definitely had that issue before.
John C. Morley: In fact do you know what they do, and I learned about this not too long ago. If you look at your intersect, you will see it there it looks to be like a stop sign, but it's folded up. And if you're wondering why that's there, I'm going to share a little secret with you when your power goes out, that's your town's backup plan for keeping things safe at the intersection. They unfurl those stop signs. And everyone has to stop at a three-way or four-way intersection first, before going, not the greatest thing, but it's still a lot better than everybody all going at once.
Marcus: A little bit of a traffic insight there. I love it John.
John C. Morley: Thank you. So, you know, we've been talking about robots a lot, right. And how they are going to be doing so many things for us. We talked about that one friendly robot that's going to pour you and your date, a glass of wine, and hopefully you don't get on the robots nerves. Otherwise it'll be throwing the wine at you and your date, which that would never end well. But anyway, a new Wi-Fi based system for collaborative robotics is being announced. It's all WSR. So this is going to be a way that robotics can actually communicate better with each other. And the robots don't have to all be stationary. In the past you had to have one robot that was actually not moving, and the others could be moving, but the ones that were transmitting, so they had to be stopped. Now, they all can move around and be able to transmit, receive first, similar to the way your GPS does in the car. Only that actually transmits to a satellite in space. But now they're trying to develop that on earth. And this is actually coming to us from Harvard university. So a neat little system and the system is presented a paper but they pre-published on the AR XIV. And they say that you can essentially emulate Antenna Rays in air as a robot moves freely in a 2D or 3D plane environment. So this is going to really be a game changer for how robots communicate as they're moving around you know, outside or they're in a home. But I think a lot when you talk about things like drones, and there's multiple drones, let's take Amazon for example, or Walmart, and there's several drones in the air and we don't want them to hit each other. So they need to be able to communicate. But if they weren't quite sure about their triangulation of the positioning that may not end well and could be very expensive for the company doing logistics. Cause they have a bunch of robot drones that have basically got destroyed. So with this method, they're able to get a visual field from one robot to the other, and they're actually able to use what's in the surrounding areas. So if you have one robot, another robot across from it, it can send and receive signals. And they also can balance with the walls. So this way they get better usage of the actual walls. Now another constraint that they actually relaxed in the paper was the requirement for a Wi-Fi signal transmitting robot to remain stationary. As I mentioned to you while the receiving robot moves and generates what they call an AOA profile, which is a special type of profile which is allowing it to keep track of where it is and communicate a lot more efficiently. So I want to quote here the system they develop essentially captures information of all the Wi-Fi signal paths, traveling between a transmitting and receiving robot. Jed have explained, and I quote, again, it does so by leveraging the receiving robots trajectory to emulate a virtual antenna array, something akin to Sinek, aperture radar, very similar to what we see in the military. And they're always years and years ahead of the civilian products. And what they do is they trace an antenna Ray in the air, and then they can use direction of arrival where a DOA algorithm, which is what that stands for and the algorithms based on the antenna array for example, like music, etc., to estimate the direction of the strongest signal path. So what the main summary of this WSR is we've all had Wi-Fi in our home, right Marcus, we've all experienced situations where our Wi-Fi drops out. Maybe it's not the latest Wi-Fi, maybe there's interference. And there's lots of things we can talk about, like you know, Mac encryption hiding your SSID beyond that. And let's talk about the signal. If we could have a system, almost like an artificial intelligence, if you will, that learns the best way to communicate with all your devices. It's going to basically step up the reliability and the performance of the device, because there's going to be fewer times when the device is not able to communicate. And it's going to build a database of the best paths to communicate on an ongoing basis. What do you think of that technology Marcus?
Marcus: That's freaking amazing, you know, and truly awesome. And you know, just no one that is full mission capable. I can really see it you know, coming into, come in and be available right away. You know this type of technology has been worked on you know, as per mentioned in the military for quite some time and not you know, in this particular way, but for it to be used like this, you know, this is going to be pretty amazing.
John C. Morley: I believe. And I'm just speculating here that, you know, our, our military and our government probably has something very similar to this. It's called something different, but this is a different type of protocol. And again, it's using Wi-Fi, but using it in a way that is going to allow civilian as well as business devices, like robots, drones maybe floor robots and things of that nature to make sure we know the positioning of them at all times and make sure that there's always the best way to communicate to that. So one example of this might be hospital, and let's say that there are maybe different stations where they've done IV and they have pumps, or maybe they have devices that manage people's heart rates just to kind of check on them like monitors and these devices, if you will, could all actually be part of this because if the person is moving around, then they would be a perfect candidate for the system. If they were stationary, then we wouldn't need the system. But if they're moving around and the things that were starting to triangulate or get an actual perspective location on, are around the hospital or all different places, and they're all moving well, then I think this might actually aid the medical field. This could aid the transportation field. This could aid the security field. There's so many industries Marcus, that I can see this device helping.
Marcus: Yeah, it's definitely going to transcend across so many different industries and going to definitely boost the productivity of these industries and really upgrade the way things are being done already. So just spec the changes.
John C. Morley: So again, it is a new type of protocols, how I'm defining it. It has not been adapted by like 80211 or one of those standards, yet it has not been adopted by that or an OSI model. So it's the, WSR, it is the Wi-Fi system for collaborative robotics. We call it WSR for short. And when we think of robotics, remember robotics is nothing more than a device that has some sensors on it usually will communicate via Wi-Fi and needs to gather information. Now, in the prior days, there was no need to communicate with a cloud or anything like that because robots were not really part of an AI network. They would do a task and they were very limited to what they could do, but they never could learn. Imagine now with this technology helping, which is robots that can actually learn to do new things. So let's you say, for example, you had a device that you got, and let's say that device was a drone well through technology, that drone is able to fly back and forth, but maybe by learning new technology, that's being sent to it that may do things like increase the level of where this drone can fly. Maybe increase the speed, maybe even give it possibilities, like changing how well we can steer, because again, the device would be able to learn and can learn not just from itself, but from the cloud. So that means that all the devices around the world that are part of this network that we talk about would be able to share information. But again, it's a security issue, right. So I can see this being in apartment stores. There's one device right now. You might know what it's called, Marty. Have you ever heard of Marty?
Marcus: Yep. Remember I was talking about Marty before.
John C. Morley: You were. Okay, so Marty is at your local Superstore or your supermarket? And do you know what Marty does?
Marcus: He greats the customers.
John C. Morley: Close. He actually doesn't greet the customers. He actually, he has an interesting purpose. A lot of times people in the store spill things, right? His job is to monitor the floors. And when there's a spill, he doesn't clean it up though. He just calls out over the PA system by sending an announcement, telling what aisle needs assistance for cleanup.
Marcus: Yeah. Okay. Now it comes back to me. Yeah. So I remember that.
John C. Morley: So I'd be nice. So, but a feature, like what you just said about greeting the customers. Well, if he was part of the AI network, he'd be able to learn that ability, if he had those sensors. And if you remember Marty was not for a cheap.
Marcus: No, he wasn't. Marty was very expensive.
John C. Morley: Yeah. He's not very cheap. And the thing about Marty is that he is a like a robot that goes around, I believe he could do some vacuuming too. But you know, and he has these eyes and if you get close to him, well, he basically freaks out and kind of just like just stops. And they're now trying to use them for things like security, but his main goal is to keep the stores you know, clean and that when there is a danger in those stores, that he can alert people so they can respond. But you know, the feeling of shopping, amidst this device kind of bothers some people because they don't necessarily know like what to do, what to say. And Marty's not that intelligent. He basically just connects to the PA system over the Wi-Fi network and sends one of so many signals and that automatically tells them which place to go clean up. And then when he's all done, he goes and parks himself back at his charger base, ready to come out again. So that just gives you an example of what devices can do if they have the sensors on board. And if they are AI enabled, which just means that the robot or the computer can learn from it or from another network of information, but really the whole goal was that it learns. So that's something I think is going to be pretty amazing. It's going to change the way robots interact around the world. And I think it's even going to help the efficiency of robots, whether that be on production lines, maybe there's a problem with one particular machine. It might be able to communicate to the other one and say, Hey, I'm having a problem. Could you help me out? I've got a slipped disc or my tire's flat. Could you help me out with this task?
Marcus: That's going to be cool. I think they would definitely will want that feature as you know, you know, who wants to constantly send someone out to keep these things service. So having them learn how to repair themselves would definitely be an idea.
John C. Morley: It's going to be neat. And I think the other thing that's going to be really neat about it is that they're going to be able to report. I mean, some elevators right now are already doing this. Before an elevator breaks down or when it needs maintenance, it actually calls out over the internet, notifying the company that it's time for service. And if something breaks down, it alerts them what part has broken down. They even now, if the elevators get stuck, will send a call for help before the person, the elevator even responds to get help. Pretty cool. Right?
Marcus: This is really cool.
John C. Morley: I thought you'd like that. It's only going to get better, but this is why I said to you, Marcus, we have to have this governance. We have to have this way, that all these devices are going to have some kind of security that the information cannot be shared when it's personal and confidential, because imagine sharing information in a pharmacy and now suddenly other networks learn that information. And that information is supposed to be HIPAA compliant. Well, suddenly gets because it's part of an AI learning robotic network.
Marcus: I think that's the scary part about this and, and those who are listening and watching. I think they you know, maybe, you know, cause just as concerned as you know, we are.
John C. Morley: Yeah. We're all concerned. I wouldn't tell you to be too crazed about it, but we do have to be concerned and know that it's the message we send our manufacturers and the software developers, because we need to put the pressure on them as much. As I'm not into politics, I believe that if the manufacturers and the software developers do not respond to our call, then we need to take this and lobby this in Washington, because if they don't want to do it, it's because of costs. And the only thing I can say in this is that way these companies continue to, if they're not going to play ball the safest way possible.
Marcus: Exactly. So, that's going to be real crucial. We're going to have to continue to monitor this and we're going to have to get many of these outside groups ready, have them at the ready to be able to come in and step in and say, hey dude, you know, you're not playing fair. You're not being compliant. So, you know, you need to fix it up.
John C. Morley: We'll keep an eye on it. And I think a lot's going to happen, especially with the new administration. Remember I told you, Marcus, nothing seems to happen until something causes someone a problem, whether it's someone gets hurt or whether it's a lawsuit, unfortunately it's like no one responds until something causes an adverse reaction. Isn't that terrible?
Marcus: That is very terrible. Unfortunately just the world we live in. They rather see it hurt first before it's better.
John C. Morley: Well, like we were just talking about the traffic lights before, right? The traffic lights cost $150,000, $300,000. They won't put traffic lights on a corner until there's been enough accidents. That's just, it's stupid.
Marcus: It's irresponsible. That's what it is.
John C. Morley: It is absolutely. And, you know, speaking about it, have you ever heard of something called a basically an E-scooter? Have you ever heard of something of that?
Marcus: Oh yeah, definitely. These things are very popular, you know, and quite controversial here in Milwaukee a few years back, well, two years back before the pandemic.
John C. Morley: What happened?
Marcus: They were definitely fighting about, you know, if they should be on the roads or if they should be on the sidewalks.
John C. Morley: Well, that concern is coming back up to head again. Right now a lot of people don't realize that these E-scooters are on public roads and they're on the same roads that cars and buses are on. And right now in Europe, I believe it's 300. And I think in New Jersey, it's quite close to four or 500 dollar fine. So it's about a 300 pound fine in Europe, but I think that's right around four something in the United States. And you can get a six penalty on your driving license and additional fine for not having insurance.
Marcus: Oh, wow.
John C. Morley: So, but the government is saying that the operating company will provide insurance and it can be written. So when you're these things, they're putting the onus on the company that is renting out these devices. A lot of people don't own these. They go rent them in a big town or when they're touring somewhere. And the driving license States that things above 15 miles per hour and need a license on roads and regions where this is being deployed. And so, you know, they've been trying to get help from the parliamentary advisory council for the transport and safety. In fact David Dames and I want to quote says using privately owned E-scooters on UK roads is illegal. So wow, he really stuck his neck out, there didn't he?
Marcus: Yeah, he did.
John C. Morley: And he also says there are legitimate safe concerns, both for riders and pedestrians.
Marcus: Wow, it's really putting the hammer down there.
John C. Morley: He is, there's been no laws in the United States that have gone that far. But what I can say is that with this type of let's say entertainment or recreational cruising type vehicle, it's a concern for people. And I believe that when you get one of these scooters, I think it should be very similar to a boat Marcus. Remember I was talking about this, a few shows back where I said that when you get a boat, your driver's license is not enough. You need to get a boaters certificate. And I think they need to have that for scooters. If you have a scooter, you must have a license and you must have an E-scooter certificate. And what I'd like to see is in addition to the points, I'd like to see them have four points. Those four corners on a certificate. So you get your points, you have your fine, and it's 4 corners. If all four corners of your certificate are chopped, you lose your scooter privileges. You're banned for a while. And you have to go back to remedial school to learn how to ride a scooter.
Marcus: That is a pretty, I think it's pretty, pretty fair enactment of just regulating these things because they were pretty out of hand when they came here and, you know, no one knew what the heck to do about them. So I can see the concerns here and I can definitely understand why our UK, France definitely went ahead and just said, you know, the heck with it. We're not going to deal with them at all. But again, you got these rental companies, they're, you know, they look into just make the bucks. So you're going to have to deal with them and they're going to continue to try to push back. So there's a lot of moving parts here.
John C. Morley: The thing that's really interesting to me is that, you know, they're allowing these rental companies to do this right, but I don't want to see this happen. It's just like what happened with theme parks. And you probably remember what happened many years ago with you know, the water slides, okay. People got very seriously injured. They didn't crack down on things until someone almost split their head open or until someone got so bruised, they were bleeding, or they came down the slide and they nearly had a broken bone or broken leg or rib. Nobody took things seriously until something happened. And now when you go to these parks, you have to basically sign away your life and you have to follow all these regulations. And if you don't, you can be kicked out of the park immediately without reason.
Marcus: It makes sense. And it definitely should be the same, again, you know, I still feel like we're behind on this. And when these new novelty things come out, it's really hard to get ahead of them when they're coming out with fun. And the people love fun.
John C. Morley: I agree with you, but I'm just going to go back to the same record that I keep going on. And that is no one's going to do something until someone gets hurt, unfortunately. Or until it becomes a lawsuit. And that's when the company is like, Hey, you know what? We need to rewrite our policy, or we need to change the way we do this. Or maybe we should start monitoring when people go down the slides and actually, you know, flag them or, you know, radio each other to make sure it's safe, that we send someone else down the slide. Yeah, That's a good idea. We had almost a million-dollar lawsuit last year. Probably a good idea we buy some radios, and we train everybody on saying, you know, okay, you can go, no, you got to wait. Some theme parks even went a step further. And they put the green light system whereby you have the radio. But when the slide was red, you wait when it was green, you could go. And then somebody would literally say, okay, you can go. But all it was a red and a green light, but they were just there to kind of make sure that you know, you follow those lights. So I think people do want to do the right things. But a lot of times when you're very zealous about playing or you're in the moment you forget about safety though, don't you?
Marcus: Yeah, you do.
John C. Morley: All right. Well, on a lighter note, Marcus speaking about play our next topic talks about Centurion, Centurion VR, and virtual reality. It's where our world is going. Imagine being able to play cricket. And playing cricket, just like you would outdoors in your own home. Wouldn't that be amazing?
Marcus: That would be, that'd be definitely pretty interesting. I am not a cricket guy, but, you know, maybe give it a try though, at least.
John C. Morley: I would too. So let's talk about how it works. So you basically have a bat. Very similar to a cricket bat has some sensors and whatnot, you know, in that particular bat. And then you would swing just like you normally would. But the question you're probably asking me is, how does it actually track you by just swinging a bat? I mean, when you play cricket, there's so many things that have to be correct for that ball to be in the right spot. And if you don't get that, how are you going to bring that to the virtual world? It will be a problem. So they've come up with a way to do this, and here's how they do it. They have sensors in the room, very similar. They look like speakers and they're up probably around maybe seven, eight feet. And they actually sense the room that they're in and they can get pretty precise so that when you're hitting that cricket bat, you can actually sense the ball.
Being hit. So I think that's pretty neat. And the thing that's really important about it is that never work if you did not have all these sensors, because you'd be so frustrated because the cricket bat would seem like you're not able to hit anything. And it's not because you weren't hitting it. It's because you are not really getting picked up for the area that the ball is in. Pretty neat, isn't it?
Marcus: That is neat. That's really a realistic experience. And that's given some tailor solutions to something that's really a popular game. One of the second, most popular games in the world.
John C. Morley: So now you can play it indoors with everything happening. They call it the immersive cricket experience, and there's a lot of virtual cricket clubs that are popping up all over the globe.
Marcus: That'd be great.
John C. Morley: You can play cricket with your friends down the street or all the way in London or cross the globe or anywhere that you want pretty much. And you can get better with cricket. And then when things are better and you go outside, well, you'll really kick some butt when you play cricket with your friends outdoors.
Marcus: Absolutely.
John C. Morley: So that's where things are going. And again, Centurion is the company that has been coming out with this. And if I had to guess, Marcus, I'm guessing this bat is probably around $1,500.
Marcus: That seems like a good guess.
John C. Morley: That's the bat cost, but then I know you also have to buy the sensors. So I think that's also extra. So I think that's the other thing that happens when you get into virtual reality is that it's not just what you're buying, but you have to have the sensors for the experience and the more involved the game, the more sensors you're going to need to basically monitor your room.
Marcus: Yeah. That makes a ton of sense. And boy that really can drive the costs quite quickly. So if you get motivated by it, by just the experience, I don't think you're going to really care about the price too much.
John C. Morley: No, but it's something that you don't just want to get if you haven't played cricket, you know what I'm saying? I would go play with it before you invest the money. But I think it's definitely something that is going to bring a lot of cricket fans that can't get out and play cricket right now. You know, the experience to playing it and having just as much fun. My only question is this, Marcus, are you going to get as much exercise playing virtual cricket? Because you do swing the bat as you do outdoors, because remember you don't really move around much in your house. So I think there's probably a lot less energy being burned.
Marcus: I definitely going to agree with that. I don't think there's going to be any much of a movement. You might get a little sweat, but I don't think you're going to get a lot. It reminds me of that, the Nintendo Wii, there was a big promise with the Nintendo Wii.
John C. Morley: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Everyone though they were going to like.
Lose hundreds of pounds by just popping in this game. And then you step on the scale and everybody thought they were just going to lose so much weight, but really you didn't burn that much. I mean, it was fun. Don't get me wrong, but you really didn't. It didn't do what it was marketed to do. Let me put it that way.
Marcus: No, it didn't.
John C. Morley: So let's talk about more virtual sports, cause I'm on this role here tonight. So I hope you guys like sports. So how many of you out there like baseball? I'm sure you watch baseball Marcus, right?
Marcus: Oh yeah, definitely a baseball fan.
John C. Morley: You have a favorite team.
Marcus: I'm going with the home team. I'm a brewers fan all the way here.
John C. Morley: Okay. So I'm going with the Yankees. I have been a diehard Yankees fan for a long time. Since Derek Jeter was there and many other players. And what was the guy? There was a gold glove. I'm trying to remember his name. He played third base, what was his name? Mark Teixeira. I think he had the golf clubs that he wore. And then there was also Alex Rodriguez who played shortstop. So really enjoyed it. And in New Jersey, it was interesting because, you know, they actually, we had heard several years ago, you know, they closed the Yankee stadium down and they built a brand-new stadium, and it was quite amazing what they did. And I actually got to be at the game, and it was at the, it was the old stadium, it was one of the last games of the series I got to be there when Derek Jeter I forget which one it was, but he had one of those milestones and I got to be there when he hit that. And that was an amazing experience. So there's lots of fun in baseball, right? Lots of memories. Lots of good times games. But you know, when we think about sports Marcus, it's really all about how well you play, you know, that's what it's about. And so the way you make sure how well you play is really simple. You measure that by using one of those $3,000 guns and they could see how well you threw the ball, right? Maybe or of you don't have a $3,000 gun or somebody that sit there for hours and hold that gun while you throw the ball at someone else. And then you need something to hold the gun, maybe in a stand. So I wish there was a better way, right. Well there is, there is something called smart baseball.
Marcus: That's pretty interesting.
John C. Morley: Do you want to guess what this is before I even tell you?
Marcus: I'm going to just say this is going to be virtual reality.
John C. Morley: No, but pretty amazing things. It's not virtual reality. Remember I talked about baseball. Everyone that plays baseball is concerned about throwing a better pitch, learning how to pitch better, right? So you have to know your numbers. How do you get your numbers if you're not on a team where you don't have somebody watching you or a device. So there is a ball called strike and this ball by jingle tech, TK actually and let me just ask you so this ball first, I’ll tell you what it does. And then I’ll ask you what you think it costs. You throw the ball. Basically you hit the ball to your glove, like once or twice that turns on the Bluetooth sensor. And then it will communicate with an app on your phone. It'll give you the pitch types, the pitch movements and the most sophisticated techniques in baseball. It is the world's first smart baseball that captures all the tiny measurements that your human naked couldn't possibly fathom. With multiple precision sensors it will help pitchers attain their optimal performance in baseball for pitching.
Marcus: Oh yeah. This is a revolutionary. Definitely for coaches and athletes that like you said, they want to quantify that data. They want to analyze it, want to increase the training, this is going to be great.
John C. Morley: So some of the things that they like to summarize is four key measurements. Complete grasp of the pitch quality, perfect feel in hand professional materials and the wireless charging uncompromised appearance, the package come with a smart baseball, very similar to a regular baseball, wireless charging pad, a smart baseball manual, and a wireless charging pad manual. The product meets the official baseball rules requirements of the United States. In case you're wondering the circumference of it. It's 9.00 to 9.25 inches. For those of you in centimeters, that's 22.9 centimeters to 23.5 centimeters. The weight is 5.0 ounces to 5.25 ounces, in grams that's 141.8 grams to 148.8 grams roughly. The size of the ball is 9 inches to 9.25 inches or 22.9 centimeters to 23.5 centimeters, which is basically the same thing as the circumference. The product surface has a full grain leather, which that's pretty impressive, isn't it? That they put leather on this. It's core has rubber and wood inside it, I guess, similar to a regular ball.
Marcus: I'm looking at this thing down, this whole science, you know, you're really catching the science behind pitching and I can see why it's so.
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