Hello, everyone. It's that time, for the JMOR tech job show. Where we answer questions about technology, explain the way they should work and why they tone sometimes. And now here's your host, John C Morley.
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John: Welcome once again to the JMOR Tech Talk Show. Happy new year to everyone. Great to be here Marcus, happy new year to you.
Marcus: Oh, happy new year. It's definitely a pleasure to be with everyone again. Thank you, John.
John: It is my pleasure to be here. We have got an awesome, awesome 2021 coming down the pike with some amazing people and we're working really hard to get some, even more amazing people. Our guests that we have actually coming to us later on in this show that I’ll be interviewing, he is going to be talking to us about the internet of things and the thing that's very interesting about this gentlemen Karl Weaver, He is a global business development director for what he calls BoAT, blockchain of AI things. But we'll talk to him more about that later, but he's going to be talking to us how he has done things overseas and how those impacts are greatly advancing technology actually overseas, but we really need to catch up to things on this side of the US.
Marcus: I tell you, you know, we are far behind, you know.
John: Yeah, Marcus, it's really interesting because you know, everything that they make in China seems to cost, you know, not a lot of money. And then it comes over here, the United States and they mark it up. There was a person you may know, Mr. Gates. And he had said that is if we are as advanced in our cars in the production, like we are with computers, we will be able to be buying one of the most expensive cars for only a hundred dollars.
Marcus: It amazes me that, like, we were still pans almost, we still playing close to a hundred thousand dollars for a basic automobile. You know, not getting anything extremely lavish at all.
John: Exactly. And I think it's because it's a mindset and, you know, because let's face it, if computers were going to cost $10,000, I think that would chop a lot of the market away. A lot of us would buy it, but a lot of people would not go out there and get one because they would look for something else.
Marcus: Exactly. But you know, unfortunately, you know, the way in which the market's dictating things you know, we're not going to see this happen for, you know, we're too far behind. But you know, we know our friend Elon Musk is, you know, he just shooting for the stars on this.
John: Right. And, you know, the funny thing is they're going to have all these rebates and incentives coming up in several years, not tomorrow, not next year, but you know, this is something very interesting. And I was just thinking about this. Cause, you know, I just came back from vacation a couple of days ago. And the thing that was really interesting to me was that, you know, Elon Musk and their team had approached Tim cook from Apple. But, you know, Tim Cook did something that I wouldn't have expected him to do. It's something millennials do. It's something that rude people do. It's something you do to a salesperson when you want to communicate with them, you ghost them.
Marcus: Oh, wow.
John: He ghosted Elon Musk, Tim Cook ghosted, Elon Musk. Now I just, I don't know what to say about that. Like is he just like, got something so stuck up that he's like, better than God? I mean, why would he do that?
Marcus: It's, you know, I think he took the words, you know, the thoughts of dots everyone who's watching, he thinks that he's God. Obviously, there's some type of intimidation that these feeling, you know, he feels threatened by Musk.
John: I think you're right. And, you know, we're hoping to have Elon as a guest sometime on the show, but, you know, I don't know, Elon Musk, you know, that well as a personally from, you know blog interactions and posts and things that the company does and what I see on TV, he actually is somewhat of a humble person. Which surprised me. I mean, yes, everyone can have their quirks and stuff like that, but he's actually kind of humble. And for him to go to Apple. Now let's face it, He went to Apple because there was going to be a deal there's going to be money. But the fact that he was willing to go to Apple and want to collaborate with them, you know, that doesn't say, that says he's not such a bad guy.
Marcus: To me, it sounds like he's really trying to figure out a better way to improve things, you know in this country for us by, you know mastermind you know, with another bright mind, another seeding company, and you think it would make sense for that company to be receiving, but it's the complete opposite.
John: Tim has no interest in talking to him. And he just claims he's going to have a bigger, better faster car that's going to just be so much better in so many ways. He doesn't say how it's going to be better, but he just said, it's going to be different because, you know, we're Apple. You know, the old saying you know, everybody says you can get viruses on a computer, like a PC and laptop, but you don't always hear them much on a Mac and you don't hear them much on an iPhone, but you do hear them on an Android phone. Many years ago, the first person took their phone and plugged it into one of those jacks at the airport. Unfortunately, those USB jacks were actually hooked up to a network and somebody, at least some software that let's just say it wasn't too friendly. And cause those Androids to have a problem. Now, Apple kind of learned from this issue and now they make it that you have to agree to install everything on your phone. You don't want to turn that option off. So I don't want to say it's impossible to put a virus on an Apple device, but it's next to impossible with the way the securities are set right now and if you leave them in place. But I mean, can you imagine that? And then there's a company out there trying to sell you a little USB dongle. I think they're like two for $10 or 2 for $15. And what it does, Marcus, is it breaks the chain for the data. So when you plug in your USB device into whatever, you're going to plug it into, usually that port at the airport, you don't know what you're plugging into. So what I tell people is if you don't have those dongles, and you're not sure if you're going to have an issue, just take the stupid plug, plug the device into the electric and then plug in the wall because there's no way right now currently that any data can flow through the electricity. There's no way. We can send electric, we can send wireless signals and we can send signal through the electric and stuff like that. But we're really not far to send viruses through the electric, there's sign wave and stuff like that. So, you know, to have that extra little adapter in your bag, it probably pays, but I just thought that was kind of interesting. And here is a company Marcus capitalized on that. They capitalized on this little device, two for 10 or two for $15 bucks on Amazon or other sites. And everybody's buying them, and you know, what got people to buy them now Marcus? They get a press story, and the press story is scaring everybody, but you don't need it on an Apple device, but they don't say that in the press release.
Marcus: Of course not.
John: And I said, that press release. Now we all know press releases are designed to create attention, but that press release was designed to get people to buy a device you really don't need if you have an apple.
Marcus: And this is why, you know, many journalists are now tiptoeing on the type of stories they re-share and put on their platforms because you know, just a fear of you know getting found out that like, Hey, you know, you're spreading fake news here.
John: Right, exactly. And to speaking about news today, and we have to touch on this, you know, today was a calm day. And then all of a sudden, it's like this fire broke out in the house and, I mean this whole thing, and I'm not trying to get to politics, but this whole thing was just so crazy. One particular person I'm not going to name names. You all know who it is, actually told people to come to the Capitol and to protest, then just about a half hour or so before the show he got on it, or I'd say a few days before actually he got, and he actually said that he was going to tell everybody to just go home. You know, we lost. It wasn't fair. We lost, but please people go home now, rest. I appreciate what you've done. Go home, rest. You know, we know everybody else is wrong. But we need to go home now. We know we love you. You're special and all this great BS but go home now and just rest. I mean, what the heck was that Mark? Cause what the heck was that?
Marcus: Well, it turned it to total chaos. You know, that's what it turned into.
John: One lady or one Man went to the hospital.
Marcus: It was terrible. And you know, for, you know, it's no wonder why Twitter and, you know, Facebook, you know you really put the clash now on that characters account, you know? And because like, you know, the words he say, you know, has definitely, you know, empowered people to, you know, think they can do certain things.
John: But Twitter didn't block anything today.
Marcus: No, they didn't.
John: So where is that whole organization is supposed to be watching over things? Where are they?
Marcus: Yeah. So, they did put out a story about that they were going to.
John: They didn't though.
Marcus: Yeah. But they didn't.
John: And, and it made all kinds of prime-time news. It was the center of Twitter, the center of everything. And it was driving people crazy. And they had pipe bombs even going off and supposedly it's calmed down. Then they enacted the national guard to come in when that same person started the whole thing. And then he called the national guard to cause to have peace. I don't know what to say about that, but it just goes to show you that, you know, when somebody takes something and that thought gets extorted and I’ll give you a quick example. If you make a statement against your neighbor, your friend, or your foe, and you said they did something and you go down to the police and your report that, I want to tell you something, that's not a game. Because the law States that they have to take what you say as truth. Because if you've testified that, and they, it's something, let's say somebody was at harm or their life. Now they could be in trouble or be sued because they didn't react to your complaint. And so my point here is that when someone opens their mouth to say something like this, person's this, this person's that, a lot of times people say stuff, whether it's in social media, whether it's in life, because they don't have, and I'm trying to be polite here. They don't have the whatever it is. If it's the gentleman or the lady, they don't have the proper attitude, but they don't have the proper respect. So they're just going to go ahead and cause this problem, and I almost call it basically abusing the law where, you know, you create these full salary, these stories, and they actually have a charge now that somebody can get for causing a false vacation. Now, even though this whole thing could go many, many months and maybe a year or more, you can't just turn a switch to stop the court proceedings. Once you've let that Canon go, or you've shot that gun. There's no way of stopping that bullet. Or you're pushing that TNT down, there's no way of stopping that signal. And I think sometimes people don't realize the actions and the implications they cause by opening their mouth. They can't handle the truth. So rather than sharing the truth, they're going to lie about something and say, it's someone else's fault. I just think that's wrong. And the same thing happened here today with our Senate, they were all lies, Marcus, they were all lies. And it got all these people to retaliate because something they said, people thought was true. Our news isn't in factual, is it anymore? It's more of a glorified soap opera. I hope tomorrow doesn't go like that because that was just a, a very, very long, long, long day. But on some warmer notes the COVID vaccine. So, you know, we have Pfizer, we have Moderna and we have AstraZeneca. So right now as you may or may not know the people on the front lines, that's your doctors, your nurses, and the people that live in nursing homes. They are first on the jab to get the vaccine. If you are a front care healthcare worker, if you're helping administer tests, wherever you are, you're also at the front. And then what they're starting to do now is even if you're not the front, but you want to volunteer your time to help at the front. And you put in so many hours, well, now you could be bumped to the front. They are running out of help Marcus. They're begging people to help for testing and for all kinds of crazy things. Bu the real weirdest thing is this, many of you know, I went to Florida, went to Naples and before I traveled, I went and had a COVID test. When I came back, I went and had a COVID test. And literally today I just got my results back negative. But my point is, is that the tests that they're giving around the globe right now, these rapid tests and all these other tests they're giving what's quick, but they're not giving what's the most accurate. The test I took was called the Yale test, which is over the 92%, 93% accurate. Why are we wasting time with things that are quick with things that are not accurate? Now, the test that I took Marcus is almost a hundred dollars. And do you know, my insurance company will not cover that test? They will not cover the Yale saliva test. One of the best tests you can take, they will not cover it. The problem with the nose test is if somebody doesn't jab you enough up the nose, then you could get a false positive, you know, and that's a problem. And the people Marcus that are going through these tests, it's not people like you and I that are concerned about our health. It's people that felt they got exposed. Oh my God, I’ve got to go get a test. And what's that suddenly going to do that you find out you're positive. Like, why do you want to know instantaneously? Why shouldn't you be protecting yourself anyway? So they go get a quick test and then they get a bad result. And then they go take a look like why is our government not having the insurance company pay for these longer tests? The saliva test is a little longer to take because you have to sit there and basically spit and only have a certain amount of bile. You can't have bubbles. So it takes a little practice. But the point is, everybody wants everything fast. Here's the thing I think that's really the kicker and this wasn't even on my plan today, this is kind of spontaneous. The whole thing that Yale did, I think is admirable. The agents that actually will test to see if you have COVID or not in the test are only about four to $6. That's it. That plastic, maybe another 50 cents to a dollar. So you're talking about $7. Yale says it should be about $20 to $25 for the test. So that's about 26, $27, right? Okay. Which the lab goes. So now let's say that the pharmacy wants some market up $20, $46. Okay. They're charging a hundred dollars. And supposedly what I'm being told is the pharmacy is being charged somewhere around $70 or $80. That's way too much money.
Marcus: That's ridiculous. Wow.
John: Yale did this specifically to help because they didn't want people to get ripped off. And they're ripping people off on the test so much that when you get four tests, your fifth one is free, or you can buy five and get 20% off. It's just like, I don't know Mark is, it's like the direction that our world is falling. I don't know who's giving these directions. There's no plan on vaccination. Now they have a guy I'm not going to mention his name. Who's going on social media, trying to implicate and get people to go get vaccinated. Now I'm not going to talk about whether you should or shouldn't. That's not what today's show's about. But my point is that the decision you make is your decision. But now they've got someone on social media trying to implicate you through social structures and social psychology to affect your brain so that you feel you're going to need to take a shot. That's what people are doing now. So I don't know, I think this is just, I think it's really wonky, but about the vaccine, which is where I was going. So there are basically one, two, three, four, five, I am going to call six phases. Phase one, there are 43 vaccines currently testing safety and dosage as we speak. There are 20 vaccines in phase two, which is vaccines and expanded safety trials. So they've gotten a little more freedom to be able to go to phase three, phase three has 20 vaccines in large-scale efficacy tests. The next phase, phase four is limited that's vaccines that are ready for early or limited use. Approved vaccines, approved for full use three, which I just named. And there's been one vaccine that has been abandoned.
Marcus: Which one would that be John?
John: Well, they are saying that the vaccine that was abandoned, there is some stories about which one, but they don't actually tell you which one has been abandoned. There's some data we probably could figure out, but I'm not actually going to mention it because I don't have enough evidence to really prove. And one thing I don't want to do is spread rumors to what I think is the one. So we have enough of that going on. So, but yeah, they have some evidence, but it's not a hundred percent to a fact. But if you take those numbers, Marcus, you know, you take the 43, you know, you take the 20, you take the other 20, you take the seven and you take the three. That means we have 93 vaccines, okay. That have gone through the process and of which only three are ready for full use and 90 more still coming up the pipeline.
Marcus: That's still pretty impressive.
John: It's very impressive. Now, vaccines of this grandeur usually take years to go through research, but they are stepping this up Marcus so much with volunteers, people coming in, you know, you got Pfizer, you got Moderna, you got Gamaley, you got Oxford, AstraZeneca, Johnson and Johnson, you got vector Institute. You got Novax, you got Sinopharm, you got Sinovac, you got Baharat biotech and there's a lot more. The one that Baharat biotech is actually was used in India and that one was actually taken off the market, but that's not the one I'm referring to. Another one had limited use by Sinovac in China, but only in China. So it just, I don't know, it just doesn't make sense to me how this is all working, but basically to break this down for you, they have this down what they called preclinical testing. So scientists test a new vaccine on cells, and then they give it to animals such as mice or monkeys. And they see how they respond and how their immune system actually responds to this drug. Do they, you know, do they build the necessary cells to fight off the antigens? Yes or no? Safety trials were just phase one. Scientists basically give the vaccine to a small number of people and they test the safety as well as to confirm that it stimulates the immune system. Phase two is the expanded trials scientists do the same thing again to now hundreds of people in split groups, such as now children and the elderly to see if the vaccine acts differently in them and in different ages. Then after they do that, they go to the Efficacy trials. Scientists give the vaccine now to thousands of people, and they wait to see how many become infected compared with the volunteers who received a placebo. So they give one with the true vaccine and one with a vaccine, but it's not really the vaccine, the placebo, it's probably just a water shot. And then these trials determined the vaccine protects against the coronavirus measuring the efficacy rate. And phase three are large enough to reveal evidence of basically whether there could possibly be side effects, but it doesn't say a hundred percent. Now the earlier limit approval Britain and other countries have begun giving emergency authorization to vaccines on a preliminary evidence basis whether they're safe and effective. China and Russia on the other hand have authorized vaccines without waiting for the results of phase three, which experts say pretty serious. So what's interesting Marcus that China and Russia is being very, how can I say? Very rough and also very inconsiderate of these you know, vaccines, I think at least in the US we're not rushing. I mean, we're really taking the steps and then the approval regulars review the complete trial results and plan for vaccine manufacturing and decide whether to give it the final approval. Now there's something called the combined phase. So one way to accelerate vaccine deployment is to combine phases, which they have been doing where some vaccines are now in phase half trial and half phase of trial two. I'm not really thinking that's a great idea, but they have given permission Marcus for them to do that so that they could get this accelerated. So when we say paused or abandoned, it actually means the same thing. So if investigators observed any symptoms that could have caused them some concern in volunteers, they can pause the trial, which could be paused indefinitely, or for our words, it really means abandoned. If they don't unpause the trial, it is abandoned. If they pause it, if they re-update, resume the pause, then we could say the trial is not abandoned and it's in process. So there's a lot of steps. You know, the RNA, the DNA, the genetic you know, like for example, the Pfizer dose they are saying is 95% in the efficacy rate, two doses over three weeks apart. It's a muscle injection and the freezer storage, it has to be at negative 94 degrees, Fahrenheit, or negative 70 degrees Celsius. That's pretty cold. That's colder than many people want their beer, I think.
Marcus: It is. You know, and I mean, and you wonder, you know, what happened, you know, here in Wisconsin, you know, where they had, you know a mishap where they had to throw away some spoiled-up vaccinations.
John: I think that was the Pfizer. So the problem with the Pfizer is you have to keep it really cold. And that's the other reason that one's a lot harder because you have to transport it while keeping it cold. Now, the Moderna is actually at negative 4 degrees Fahrenheit and negative 20 degrees Celsius. That's the Moderna and that's two doses and four weeks apart. And it's 30 days with refrigeration and six months at the temperature I just mentioned. So that one has a little more give to it does it than the other one. So again, when they make these vaccines, they don't come up with the you know, the biological requirements for these things. They just happen based on the components they use, they don't pick them. It just sort of happens by what agents they use. There is another one called the efficacy which is unknown right now. Two doses four weeks apart, it's a muscle injection and it's stable at least three months at 36 to 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and two to eight degrees Celsius. So you know, there are different things coming up the pipe. There is AGO302 COVID-19 and it's unknown, the efficacy. Two doses, two weeks apart. Now this is not a muscle injection. This is a skin injection. So the important thing to know about this is that some of these, how could we say these vaccines have to go directly into a muscle others can go directly into the skin and can go from there. The reason for that is certain agents in the way they develop these vaccines will not actually activate unless they're in a muscle tissue. And the storage for this one is over a year at room temperature. And that was actually made by a Japanese company. But again, a lot of these, they don't have studies to know. There's unknown three doses, four weeks apart, skin injectable. And then they have another one, the INO-4800 it's unknown for efficacy. The doses to be determined and the type of skin injection it's over a year. I mean, you can't put drugs on the market when you have no clue what their efficacy rate is or what the dose should be. You can see why a lot of these are still in trials.
Marcus: Yeah. And the issue is, cause sometimes you have, you know certain drugs that, you know, all though they manufacture for a certain intent, you know, whatever happens during the whole process of it, it ends up having the ability to treat something else and, you know, they won't admit that right away, you know, they'll let the doctor find that out. And then the doctor writes a nice report on it.
John: Yeah. One of my first clients was in the medical industry and they're actually a pharmaceutical company and they had a drug and the drug actually got black label. Now I, at the time didn't really know what that meant because I wasn't into pharmaceutical. And they set it got black labels. So I said, what does that mean? She said, Oh, if it is black labeled, we have to take it off the market. I said, Oh, I said, so you can't do it. Oh, no, no, no, she said, we'll repurpose the drug. So what do you mean? Well, what we do is we look at the studies to see what side effects it has, but then when we find out what it helps, we'll just go ahead and tell them that it's good for that thing. And just let people know about the side effects. I said, you're kidding me. Yeah. We do it all the time. We get about two or three drugs that blacklist a year. But then within three to four months, we use it again to get them back on the market again. Isn't that crazy Marcus?
Marcus: It is crazy, you know and again, you know, people are, you know unsuspecting of this and, you know that's why you got these so-called generics and name brands. When in reality you just getting some, that's just was took off the market for a while.
John: Yeah. Like something, for example, that might've been, let's just, I'm not going to just give an example. Let's say something that was used for supposed to be for, I don't know, I’ll just take an example. One might've been for to prevent a pregnancy. And they said it didn't work, but they discovered it's a great drug for relieving back pain. I mean, what about all the side effects that could happen to your personal organs? They said they just list that. And I love when you hear on TV, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they say, Oh, and many of these and also this, this side effects, this cancer, skin fatigue, vomiting, yada yada yada, and minor cases, death can result. I mean, they put that right at the end of the commercial and I'm like, and they say it so fast. And you know, most people don't listen to that, but the law says, as long as they state it Marcus, it doesn't matter how darn fast they say it.
Marcus: No, they don't, you know, there's nothing regulating that.
John: And you could print one of these. Like if you ever look at those black labels on a bottle, when they black label them, they are, the print is so darn small. And then I swear when they put it back out again and they repurpose it, I think they take the print, and they make it even smaller. You ever saw one of those things, you have to take out a bottle and they have those things. It's like, you need a 10 times magnifying glass, even if you have 2020 vision.
Marcus: Exactly. That is so true. You know, you are really touching on something that, you know, deserves a lot more attention.
John: Well, I think it's important. And I know we don't talk a lot of medical things, but I think it's important, especially with COVID and what's going on and my message to you is this, I'm not going to tell you here on the show to take the vaccine or to not take the vaccine. That's your choice. You need to research and figure out which is the right one for you and decide whether it's the right thing to do or to not. I'm not going to tell you whether I'm going to take it or not, because I think it's not fair to influence our viewers. I think they need to make the decision that's right for them. But the most important thing is to just be smart, whatever you be smart and realize that these vaccines, they are not a cure forever. You're going to have to take them again, possibly. And just understand that, just be mindful that just because you've taken the vaccine, somebody else may not have.
Marcus: That's really huge. And you know, thank you for putting that message out there. I think a lot of people really needed to hear that.
John: My pleasure, you know, and so we'll keep up on what's going on with these different drugs, but, you know, on more of a happier note, you know, the Workday, Marcus is changing. Did you hear this? It's no longer going to be a nine to five Workday.
Marcus: Oh, wow. So what do we have now?
John: We have a three, two, two. So what that means is you're going to work three days at home. You're going to have two days in the office and you're going to have two days off. So the nine to five, nine to five, or just three, two, two. Three days in the office. Two days at home you know, working remotely and two days that you have off on the weekends, which I think you've got off anyway on the weekend usually.
Marcus: But didn't we kind of see this coming though.
John: We did. And so this is changing our world a little Marcus, because the expansion of remote working and need for teleconferencing is becoming inevitable. Team training systems needs for those are coming out there more and more to get teams, to collaborate. Remote teams, whether they are right in your backyard, whether they're across the country, whether they're in China, whether they're in Washington, whether they're across the street or whether in your same office, they are tools. And what we mean by collaborating is you probably seen this before with Google docs and things like this, you save something and then someone else can even read then also make changes or comments to it while you're working on it simultaneously.
Marcus: Yeah. You know, and it's funny because you know, this used to be sound crazy to people, you know, explaining this to people. Now, it's really going to be the norm.
John: It's got to be the norm. And we were starting to see some of this, I'm going to say about 10 or 15 years ago, where, you know, you had a network and people want it to be able to modify a file and you could write the file type your word document, but the other person couldn't open the document, unless they were reading it, only one person could make changes. Now we have grown so much with collaboration tools that allow us to have multi users where you can be typing. I could be typing, and I could see that you just commenting, and you can see what I commented.
Marcus: Yeah. So, you know, and you know, with cool apps like Slack and all the other places, you know, you can zoom right from it, you know, and be able to like, you know, even see each other while you're doing it.
John: Office 365.
Marcus: Yeah, office 365, teams, yeah, it's going to be a huge need. And you know, this is going to be the new way of working. The virtual office in the street is going to boom in the coming years.
John: It is, you know, and the thing is this, people think that because of COVID work is going away, but it's not because you still need to have things that are in the office. And when you think about a virtual office, you know, the tools that are coming out and some of them that are here right now are basically making the virtual office more seamless. And this gets into something I like to call remote employee engagement or remote employee engagement solutions. So that comes into a whole host of umbrellas. You got hosted phone systems where you can make and receive calls, send, and receive texts, get transcriptions of your voicemail messages, not just recordings which we've been seeing for a few years, employee and staff time clock solutions to keep track of their time through phones, on apps, on computers, whether they're working at home or in the field, things that can gate them. So they can only log in at certain times, or from certain geo locations. Email solutions that allow people to check their phone, check their computer. And now being able to not just be able to pull emails down, but to work with a copy of the email or something, we're going to see a lot more, which is IMAP, where we're actually working with the actual email. So if you work with IMAP, when you delete an email, that email is gone. If you work with something from POP and you delete it, well, the other email may still be sitting on your server somewhere. But IMAP, there's no backup, unless your server has a backup, you're working with the real live data. So think of it like this, Marcus, I gave you a signed contract. And if you were using POP, I actually made a photocopy before I gave you. I didn't give you the original. I gave you a signed copy. That's a copy. And you're working with copies. But if I was going to deal with IMAP, I'd say here, Marcus, here's the original contract I signed. And if you make changes to that or you destroy it, well, you destroyed the only contract you ever have and ever going to get.
Marcus: You know, this is, people going to have to be careful with this.
John: And the other thing that's happening too Marcus and business is COVID cameras. You've probably seen this, you know, when you're going to a, whether it's a restaurant or you're going to an office, buildings are actually checking your temperature. Some places are taking a, you know one of these little thermometers, which has made in China and they're scanning your wrist or your forehead. If they scan your forehead, a lot of times your forehead temperature changes so much that it's hard to be accurate, especially if you just came in from a run. Now what we're doing is we're scanning people's wrists under their wrists. So basically right where the hand, the Palm touches right into the hands. So just where it joins on the backside, not the front side, where you put your watch, the other side and just scanning that. And that area is always accurate. So things like COVID cameras are now becoming the norm. VPN solutions, virtual private networking, where, you know, whether you're at the hotel where you're your home, you want your data to be secure, but also you need to access your company's resources. And the only way to do that securely, because the company doesn't want to be dealing with your network. They just want to make sure it's secure. So you go through a VPN tunnel. Then if you want to go ahead and crash your own computer around that, well, that's your business. And the company doesn't care about that. Because most people that work from home, a lot of people I'm going to say the smaller companies don't have their own laptop or computer. They're using their home computer, and they're using a VPN on it. And then they use something called OTP, one-time passcode. Where are you seeing this? When you go to banks and sends you a message on your phone one time or what we like to call a hardware token or we call, in other words, we call it is a two-factor authentication. Where a lot of times, you'll answer a question and then it will send you a code to log in to make sure it's you, they could do it through a text, or it could do it through a hardware token which you have around your key chain usually, and you press the button, and it will give you a code that's good for like maybe 60 seconds. They have apps now that are free, like the Microsoft authenticator app. And by using that app you can actually create as many as you want, but the one caution I want to alert you to is the Microsoft authenticator and many of these other apps are fantastic and they are secure, but here's the one thing. When you go, and let's say, you get a new phone, as you guys know, I got one not too long ago, I got the latest phone. You have to make sure you have a backup of all these codes on, back them up on a Microsoft server, when you use your phone and you just back up your phone, guess what? You're not backing up the authentication data that it has all of your two-factor authentication one side keys. Imagine Marcus having 10 or 20, five of those. And now you get your new phone, and they don't work.
Marcus: You know, I'm having issues right now something very similar to this. Something like that, where I can't even retrieve my Apple iCloud passcode. And, you know, and they told me I have to wait 30 days to be able to reset it. Just imagine the frustration.
John: So the 30 days is not a hundred percent true. This is their way of going and telling you to go away. You can go onto their website and do a reset if you knew your email address and they'll send it to you. But the other way you can do it as you can actually authenticate through another Apple device, that's already authenticated. So if you have another device with the Apple on it, you can use that device to help you regain your password.
Marcus: Unfortunately, I'm only one Apple device.
John: Okay. So that's not going to, but a lot of times it's usually Marcus it's not 30 days. It used to be 24 hours. Now they're saying it's seven days. Because what happens is Marcus, it's a manual process. It's just that they don't, they really don't want to spend time doing it. There's no automated process. They have to go through and match up your name to your original account. In fact, Google, if you forget it, good luck. They won't help you. It's bye bye, it is gone. Unless you are a paid subscriber. If it's free and you lost it and you don't know the right information. Well, sorry, we can't help you. They will try. But if you don't know something on there, you're done. There's no number to call. And so, you know, this gets back to things like we talk about those crypto wallets, right? Where they give you these weird passwords that it's like eight or 12 words you don't pick. And they tell you to write them down. And if you forget them, you'll never get your money back.
Marcus: Yeah. Which is just insane.
John: It is. That's why I tell people to be careful with that before you start putting money in those solutions. So ticketing solutions with internal customizable knowledge basis are going to be, become more important for non-tech companies as well, because a lot of issues are going to be coming up Marcus where, you know, you don't want to reinvent the wheel every time that problem comes up, you want to be able to go to a knowledge base and either forward that article to a client or a follow a procedure, you know, or keep things aligned, maybe you have staff that changes and you can't train them every five minutes. So you want some type of system that it's going to keep track of these things. And I think it's important because as we start to be more knowledgeable and start to understand that it's not a question of if we're going to work from home, it's when we're going to work from home. And I have to tell you this lady, gentlemen, if you decide that you are not going to work from home you're going to be retiring early.
Marcus: Exactly.
John: Unless you are going to deliver paper, newspapers, maybe, or work in the store, maybe pushing shopping, carts, nothing wrong with that. But I'm just saying everything else is going to use technology. We learned from our friend just last week, right? A couple of weeks ago, Michael Whitehouse on Christmas day, that technology is all around us. And you have to have some knowledge about it. You don't have to be a guru or an engineer like myself, but you have to be somewhat comfortable with it because if you're not, the opportunities are going to pass you by. You're never going to get to them. You are never going to see them. They're not going to be in a newspaper.
Marcus: Yeah. You know, there's so many ways to create, you know, a job, you know, or replace what was done physically, you know, with technology and you know, and one thing the pandemic has done is forced me to companies to, you know, to innovate doing so. So yeah, there's going to be a lot of people that's going to be, you know replaced or fired.
John: They're going to hopefully be repurposed. But what we're going to see is a lot of these people are going to be, I don't want to say they're going to be fired, but they're going to be put into a position where they're going to have to do five jobs at once. And what's going to happen is the company is not going to fire them, but they're going to have to do these five tasks and they're used to doing one or two. So one of the things, when you run a company is you have to be very resourceful and you have to be able to do things, walk and chew gum at the same time. And if you can't do that, then you're going to have to figure ways to do those things. Or you're going to be replaced with someone who has the skills and the knowledge of the tools. It's not so much whether you can do it because you're going to need technology to do it. You're not going to be able to do all those things, but if you're not familiar with the technology, they're going to say next.
Marcus: I don't think, you know company's got the resources anymore to retrain, you know, people.
John: They don't, they don't. And so many companies now Marcus will tell you that they can do this for you because they're so desperate to get the work. And then by the time you've gone through the whole process, they can't do it. And then you want to get a refund and it's like, Oh, wait, wait, we'll take a look at it. Well, so I think there's a mismatch. And I think this is happening because people are not listening, Marcus. That's what it comes down to. People are not listening to what the others need. I always told you, there's two radio stations. WIIFM, and WIIFU and the F-U is not what you think. WIIFM, what's in it for me. And what's in it for you. If you're listening to WIIFM well, then your customer's eventually going to go away. You need to be listening to what they want and what they need, not what you want.
Marcus: Exactly. And, you know this is why, you know many of these companies are, you know so slowly fade in a way. So it's terrible, you know, you hit it right on the head here, you know, once again, John.
John: So you know, there's so much information out there about this, but I do kind of want to wrap in this one point that you know, China is, you know, for a while had been doing contactless delivery and shipping as we know. Meituan, it's M-E-I-T-U-A-N was the first company in China templement using autonomous robots to do food deliveries and stuff like that. But where's the US on this? Nowhere.
Marcus: We're still busy doing door to door with our cars.
John: We are using door to door services, like many of the things you see out there and they have one service. I'm not going to mention the name. They hire people, okay. And they give them a credit card. I thought this was kind of neat, but it's not what you think. They give them a credit card. So when you place an order, you could go ahead and pay for the order on the credit card, because the money from the customer doesn't get into the account for a few days. So they give every person that works for them an allowance based on the amount of hours they work on that credit card.
Marcus: That's cool.
John: So it's interesting. But imagine what happens if somebody abused that? I mean, they get fired obviously. And the other thing too, is that this one company I'm not going to mention their name. They actually do not pay by the hour. They treat them as contractors. They don't have to pay benefits. And basically the only thing they're making money on is their tips. So when you go deliver pizza, whatever you're delivering for this door company, you don't make anything per hour. And if you don't get anything from that customer, any tips you didn't get paid. So they average that most people make $12 to $18 an hour on the average. But if some people don't tip, you're not getting paid. They said it balances out. But where I'm trying to go with this is that the US is behind. So there are many door-to-door delivery services as we know, but we are going to start with another phase soon, Manna, star ship technologies, and neuro using robots in artificial intelligence is coming. It's coming. And when that hits, I'm hoping we're going to start to see something like this, maybe by the end of the year. But again, I don't know how fast they're actually going to develop these technologies. But star ship technologies believes that their robots are going to revolutionize the food and package delivery industry better than anyone could ever imagine. So they're building this brand-new network of robots that are going to be ready to serve you anytime, anywhere. It's interesting, but is our world really ready for that, Marcus?
Marcus: I say is not completely, not here in the States, at least.
John: So this is something that they are, it's a new kind of business. It's a self-driving delivery robot. These robots are an advanced type of machinery. That's going to carry items within a four-mile radius on a delivery platform and enabling instant delivery. So again, they've just limited themselves four miles. So they're going to move at pedestrian speeds and they're going to weigh no more than a hundred pounds. They're reliable and they're clean and they claim they're going to be able to deliver all over. So it's going to be interesting, but I think that's still in the works. So that's something that supposedly the United States is working on and in the neuro using robots so they can learn, but something else that's happening, Marcus is you know, a lot of people have, unfortunately had to go to the doctor. Do you know, Marcus, the tele-health visits have crossed the barrier of over 50% compared to pre pandemic times?
Marcus: This has been a very boom in, you know particular industry here. And this is definitely going to continue to increase too with the way, you know, people have been sick here and much more research that's needed to be had into health care and how to make it better. So yeah, I can understand the why.
John: It's definitely booming, but I have some concerns. My concern is again, Marcus security. So if you're talking to your doctor or someone, and you're using a network, where is the credibility of that network to say, like, I just feel like the networks that they're using, they need to be building the trust within the customers, not the doctors. You know what I'm saying? If a doctor says, oh yeah, use me on tele-health something. Okay, great. Well, what's that? It's a service we use. The doctor can't really say that's a great service or they stand behind it.
Marcus: No, they can't, that is concerning.
John: So the marketing has to come from these big providers, these Goliath that are putting these together and really assuring people what the service is like, how your data is being secured, how it's being encrypted and what their policies are for cookies and for selling data third-party companies. And that they won't do this.
Marcus: It'll be good to know, you know, what are the competitors too, you know, like, you know, like show me, you know, who else is doing this besides you, you know, like because there's many, many companies out there and most times, you don't know what companies represent who, because the hospital just slap their label on it and then company is concealed.
John: Exactly. And who's responsible as we talked about this before, if something goes wrong, who's going to take responsibility. I mean, I saw just the other day in Florida, where there was a doctor saying, Oh, go to this app and I’ll help you. Well, you're going to go to some app and you're going to get some doctor that you don't even know, and they're happy to help you and you can pay them and they'll take your insurance. I mean, that just sounds a little weird.
Marcus: Yeah. It does.
John: I mean, you don't know the person. And I mean, we used to laugh about this with the Jetsons many years ago, you know, where they would have Elroy and he had a sore throat, and they opened the teleprompter there and the vision screen. And he looked at it, he stuck his tongue out, looked at him, so, okay, they'll be $150. And he wasn't sick, and he went to school. But the point is that these type of things that we saw many years ago are becoming more reality. I mean, we even have the pill dispenser now that is supposed to keep seniors happy and healthy by reminding them with friendly tones and words, to help them take their appropriate prescriptions and also alert family members or medical teams if assistance is needed. But again, that data Marcus is really vulnerable.
Marcus: Because you used to hear so much about HIPAA, but now like you don't.
John: You don't hear about it so much because it is blowing up in the IOT market. And things like something like an IOT device that can take your blood pressure, even though it's communicating wirelessly, has your provider done the right things to make sure that then communicates securely in the network? I can't tell you how many doctor's offices that we've helped, that didn't even know what secure wireless was. They were just using one of the local internet services and just connecting to a free WI-Fi.
Marcus: That's true. Boy, you know you go to so many of these doctors’ offices, the internet is slow then the internet you got at home.
John: So, you know, we took care of that for them. And the funny thing was these different exam rooms, they had, they didn't have cameras in exam rooms, but rather than buying new computers right now, they went and bought those, you know, Logitech cameras. But do you know, there was one guy I don't know his name, but it's crazy what he did. He bought all these cameras from all the stores and I'm going to just say he bought them all. There might've been several people that did this. And so I had people that had graduations, medical offices that needed cameras. I couldn't get cameras. I had to order cameras from Logitech in China. And it was over a month wait to get them. Oh man, that's terrible. And you won't get the best one. If the camera normally costs $60, I was paying twice what they normally were worth because they were in demand. That's terrible. But that guy that had did the extortion, he was taking the camera for $20 or $40 and he was selling that camera, that was $40. How much you think he was selling that camera for?
Marcus: You know, give or take, you know, probably, you know, I’ll say 10 grand.
John: No, no, not that, not that bad. About $600. A $40 camera for $600.
Marcus: Yeah. It's still ridiculous.
John: It is absolutely crazy. So more development is going to be happening in 2021, it is going to continue from 2020 for startups expected to expand telehealth and biomedical offers, things that can help people monitor. We're already seeing things where people can monitor their glucose levels and different other things to their body by these different devices. And all these devices are communicating wirelessly or using Bluetooth to connect to your phone. And that connects to the internet. It's a problem. It really is a problem. So I just think people need to be on their guard with what's happening. Online education and e-learning systems Marcus is going to explode even more. The kids aren't learning in school right now.
Marcus: No, that's just the reality of it.
John: But that can change. If the right technology was in place, kids could be learning today. If the right technology was in place and the right training was given to the administrative staff, they can put curriculum together that the students can do. Colleges have been doing it. Other companies like IBM and large other fortune companies are doing it. Why can't the schools do it?
Marcus: You know, it's just that refusal to invest in our students. You know, it's just that, it's absolute, you know excuses being made here.
John: Yeah, exactly. It's excuses, excuses, excuses. And with all these excuses being made, nothing is really getting done. They claim that there's going to be more money going out to help the schools. Now this new money going out is supposedly going to help schools to get better filtration. Now, the one thing I have to tell you when I was flying to Florida, I was a little bit concerned because you know, leaving, I had my COVID tests and I waited then got on the plane. And I had a good seat where there was no one on either side, which was great. But one thing I was really happy to know when I got to the airport, they gave me a bottle of water. They gave me a sanitizer. And when I got on the plane, they had gone over the fact that they sanitized, they had a video after the safety video saying that they cleaned all the areas. And not only did they clean the areas when they came by to give you there, you know, the little snack bag or wherever it was in a little safe, clean baggie with another little sanitizer, wipe, a bottle of water, they brought your drink if you want a drink. And the other thing that they did is they changed all the filtration systems on the plane to actually filter down to a lower micron level. So this way it would be safer. Now, I'm not going to tell you flying on the plane was all roses, because it wasn't. The trip was very smooth. There wasn't really any turbulence, but I can tell you being on a plane for even a couple hours with that mask on, even the cloth mask, it's not comfortable. Breathing through that, you get very tired, you can get a headache and it's a challenge and you are allowed to take it off when you eat and then you have to put it back on you. So it is a challenge, but I was very happy to note that being on a plane was probably one of the safest places that anybody could be. Because remember, even though the plane was only at 50% capacity, you're breathing everybody's air. So they were actually taking the air, filtering it and pushing it back out. And they explained how they were doing that. So I have to tell you that I would fly again. And it definitely opened my eyes that the airlines for the first time in my life, I was really pleased with how they responded to this pandemic and what they were doing. They even had tests with dummies in the seats. They were showing us and how they did all these tests to make sure that the environment was cleaned before people would board. I mean, I thought that was way above and beyond.
Marcus: That really counts. It really gives you security in traveling.
John: And that was United airlines.
Marcus: United airlines, you know, and they're best known for just little peanuts or something.
John: Yeah, and they really did try. I have to give it to them. And even the security people, everybody was very nice. But the one thing I have to say is coming back, there was a gentleman in the airport now, you know, in New Jersey, New York and where you are, you have to wear a mask in the airport. It's required. Well in Florida, it's not required to wear a mask in a lot of places. So I'm in line. And first the one lady behind me, she kept moving up and I was like, excuse me, she said, okay. I said can you keep a little space? And she didn't speak a lot of English. And I kept trying to hold my hand to like to push her away. And finally, she got it. There were like dots on the floor and I'm pointing the dots and she wasn't getting it. And then there was a guy who had no mask on, he gets in line. And the security officer comes over to him and he says, he points to his face. He says your mask. He says, you don't have to wear a mask here. He says, this is Florida. He says, there's no sign outside saying I have to wear a mask. And the officer says, well you're correct. There is no mandate to wear a mask here in the airport. There is one on the plane. He said, I’ll worry about it when I get on a plane, mind your own damn business. So I thought that was a little bit bad. And he comes back, and he says I would put the mask on, he says, because all these other people have a mask on. I don't think you want to cause a problem here. There was almost going to be a fight. They had TSA from New York, and New Jersey, which is big security. The Florida hired to come down to that airport just to police and make sure there were no fights. There was going to be a fist fight or a fight breaking out there with somebody. He don't want to put his mask on.
Marcus: It was going to get nasty really quickly. And people nowadays, you know, now that we have gotten accustomed to it, and it's like another piece of article or clothing now. Yeah, I think he would have had more than just one person you know, address him about this thing.
John: They were all looking. We were all looking at him like he was, you know, like, how disrespectful can you be? And I think I said this before, it's one thing Marcus, to be disrespectful for yourself. If you want to not take care of self, well, that's your business. But if you're going to be disrespectful, and it's going to harm other people's health, well, shame on you. I mean, that's really, you don't have that choice to decide if you're going to harm someone else's health because of the steps you take. That's not fair.
Marcus: And that's when it gets out of line then.
John: But for them to bring in TSA actually the port authority of New York and New Jersey security into Florida, I thought that was something. And they were just there to keep an eye on things. Because Florida is usually a very peaceful airport. But it just goes to show you that people are getting crazy. I was at a food store and there was a sign on the door, and I figured it would say the normal thing about wearing a mask. Went inside and I was there with my mom and the workers weren't wearing masks. So I went up to customer service and I said, excuse me. I said you know, several of your employees aren't wearing masks. Oh yeah, yeah, did you see the sign on the door? I said, no. She said, well, go read the sign and come back. So I go outside, and I read the sign that says welcome to such and such store. We are aware of the current pandemic and our owners such and such does not agree as well as with the laws of Florida, it is not required to wear masks in stores or facilities. Thus, we are not enforcing it. If you like to wear a mask fine. If it bothers you that we're not wearing one, go shop somewhere else. I just, we walked out. I thought that was terrible Marcus. You can't make this up.
Marcus: You can't, you can't. And you know, people will say, you know, right away that like, Hey, you know, what were they listening to?
John: Exactly. You know and another thing that's going to happen in 2021 and going beyond is increased development. Now we're on 5G, but there's going to be increased development of 5G networks expanding. And it's slowly going to migrate into the 6G, which we're going to start seeing in the next year or two after that's going to happen. So 5G is not fully deployed yet. It is out in a lot of places, but it's not fully rolled out, but they're going to slowly start working on 6G I would say, toward the end of the year. We're going to start to see some 6G popping in and that's going to open up even more opportunities for different types of connectivity and data. Cause it's all about data. It's all about how fast we can transfer data back and forth. We are already seeing cars, okay. Cars never had 4G service built into them. They're now coming with 4G wireless service built into them and having the ability to do hotspots.
Marcus: And this is going to be great. You know, I think that's going to be a real feature that, you know, people are going to be very attracted to.
John: But it's not 5G. The car is always behind. It's only 4G. 5G probably won't be out for, it's the same thing they did with the Bluetooth. They had the 2.0 or the 1.0, then they had the 2.0, then the 2.1. Then they went to the next version and it was the same. It was the same thing, you know. It's going to change what goes on. And I think the big thing people have to understand is that as technology emerges, the interconnection of these pieces of internet of things and how our world communicates is going to change. And I believe a lot of it's for the good, but I believe some of it may not be for our greatest good. And we have to be on watch for that. And be mindful of what technology we, as people decide to employ in our homes, on us Mobily, in our businesses or even just you know, outside if we're going somewhere. So I think there's some things are really important, but you know, the internet of things, business is going to grow very, very, very rapidly. I cannot explain to you how much that's going to grow. My next guest, I am very pleased and privileged t