The next item of business is topical questions, and we start with question number one from Jamie Greene. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve out-of-hours GP services in the NHS greater Glasgow and Clyde area, in light of reports that only one and five centres were open on Sunday. Minister Clare Haughey. I expect all integration authorities to take every measure possible to ensure a safe and sustainable out-of-hours services is provided. However, arrangements are in place for Sir Louis Ritchie and senior Scottish Government officials to meet with the management team in Glasgow regarding their on-going review of out-of-hours and difficulties being experienced by the service. Since 2016-17, the Government has provided an additional £6.6 million to the Glasgow integration authorities to support the implementation of Sir Louis Ritchie's review of out-of-hours services. Jamie Greene. I thank the minister for that response, but the reality is that this weekend in Glasgow, across the whole of the city of Glasgow, only one centre was open, and I pay tribute to the staff at Vale of Leven who had to deal with the huge amount of people coming in to see them. However, what happens is that when they phone NHS direct and are directed either to an out-of-hours service in the south side of the east end of Glasgow, it is virtually impossible out-of-hours to get to that location. It would require a taxi or a lengthy car journey, or indeed, as most people do, they will turn up at A and E, putting more pressure on our emergency centres on a very busy Saturday night. What I did not hear in the first answer is what action the minister or indeed the Scottish Government is taking to address this issue of GPs who, whilst they are not contracted to do the out-of-hours shifts, are choosing not to. What are the reasons behind the GPs choosing not to do this? Why is this becoming a systemic problem in Glasgow? Last year, more than 211 shifts in that Greater Glasgow and Clyde region were not filled because of staff shortages. In the second answer, perhaps the minister can go into more detail as to what action she is taking to address this problem. I thank Mr Greene for his question. My understanding is that arrange regiments were put in place between Glasgow and NHS 24 over the weekend to deal with the closure, and that a home visiting services by GPs was available to those with that particular clinical need. I am not happy with the level of service, and I expect Greater Glasgow and Clyde and the health and social care partnerships to take every step possible to prevent that happening again. As I said in my first answer, Sir Lewis Ritchie and the out-of-hours policy team have a planned meeting with Glasgow on Monday 10 June to discuss the progress with Glasgow's review of the out-of-hours services, and this weekend's issues will form part of that discussion. We expect to receive an update following that visit in due course, and I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the staff at the Vale of Leven, who were under pressure at the weekend considering that they were the centre that was open. The reality is that across Scotland, more than 100,000 patients have had to find new GP services because their local practice has closed due to excessive shortages of GPs right across. Every one of us will have constituents who are struggling to get an appointment, who are queuing on a Monday morning or can't get through on the telephone to get an appointment. That is not just an out-of-hours problem, but a during-hours problem as well. What I would like to hear is what action is the Government taking to address the systemic problems of GP shortages right across Scotland? Can the First Minister assure us and ensure the wider public that that is not just a blip? What happened at the weekend in Glasgow was not just an out-of-hours problem, and that it is not a systemic problem that is facing us right across the country on a continuous basis? That Minister simply is not good enough. I assure Jamie Greene that I share his concerns and that I want to ensure that the people of Glasgow and the people of Scotland get the NHS service that they need. He will be aware that we have had recent roll-out of the new GP contract, which helps to reduce the workload on GPs so that they are able to spend more time dealing with the more complex cases on their caseload, the more complex patients, and we are looking at the expansion of the primary care team encompassing advanced nurse practitioners and EHPs in order to free up GP time so that they have a lower workload but also that they are able to use their skills more effectively. We have also been investing in primary care pharmacy and the minor injuries or the minor ailments services, so I can assure him that we are looking at the workload of our GPs and looking to expand the number of GPs that we have had, and we have increased medical places in Scottish universities by 22 per cent. That is an extra 190 places between 2015 and 2021. I am delighted that the Vale of Leven out-of-hours service was open and joined in praising the staff. The irony, of course, is that it is normally the Vale that is closed. Over 80 shutdowns for out-of-hours last year alone, over 40 so far this year. Will the minister look at using salaried GPs or, indeed, even allowing local GPs covering the Vale catchment area to arrange out-of-hours care at the Vale of Leven hospital? I would expect that that will be something that will be discussed at Lewis Ritchie's review and looking at what Gracie Glasgow and Clyde are doing to ensure that they have adequate GPs to cover out-of-hours. My understanding is that there are some salaried GPs within the out-of-hours GP service as a whole. However, most of the GPs who work in out-of-hours are not salaried GPs. As a minister, I am aware that staff can be deployed throughout the system to ensure that adequate cover is maintained across the health board area. With that being the case, is there a minister aware that if there is a preference as to which out-of-hours centres will be open on any given weekend? I do not have that information to hand for Mr McMillan, but I can make a commitment that I will request that he gets that information as soon as I have it. Obviously, Saturday night is a peak time for A&E services across the west of Scotland and, indeed, across the whole of Scotland. Does the minister recognise that there are two impacts, one on the patients who may be having to wait much longer to access NHS 24 or showing up on A&E, whereas they normally show up on A&E for increasing their own waiting time, and secondly an impact on the NHS staff who are already overworked as it is in terms of the more pressures that they will face in terms of less and less staff and more and more requirements on them? If she recognises those two pressures, what urgent steps—I understand the point about the review—what urgent steps will she take to reassure patients across Glasgow and the west of Scotland that they can have a wraparound out of our service? As I said in my previous answer to Mr Greene, I am not happy with the level of services that were provided at the weekend. We expect that Great Glasgow and Clyde and the health and social care partnership will look at their service to ensure that we do not end up in a situation as we did at the weekend. The points that Mr Sarwar raises are quite valid points. Again, I would like to pay tribute to the staff who were on duty on Saturday, Sunday night and who provided a service to the people of Glasgow. Daniel Johnson To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that prisoners are being transported in family vehicles. Cabinet Secretary Ash Denham The prisoner escort and court custody services contract is with GEO Amy. The services provided under the contract include movement of those arrested from police custody to court and those held in prison to court and to any other location, including hospitals and other prisons. GEO Amy has a range of different vehicles within its fleet and the contractor carries a robust risk assessment and makes a decision about the most suitable vehicle in which to escort the individual. The type of vehicle is only one factor in ensuring the security of an escort. For example, the type of vehicle to which Daniel Johnson refers is used to transport sentenced children and young people, as well as pregnant women in custody. Non-sellier vehicles are used where it is appropriate to do so. The safety and well-being of the staff of those being transported as well as the general public is of paramount importance to both the Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Government. Daniel Johnson I thank the minister for that answer, but the reality is, according to those reports, that we have convicted murderers being transported in such family vehicles, who then went on to strike prison staff while that vehicle was doing 60 miles an hour on the A90. Surely the question is, is that vehicle ever suitable for transporting such a violent individual as reported in the press at the weekend? Cabinet Secretary for Justice I checked with the SPS this morning, and as the member will no doubt be aware, a new contract has been awarded and started in January this year. To date, there have been no incidents reported to the SPS under the new contract. A dynamic risk assessment is carried out before deciding the most appropriate vehicle in which to escort an individual. If someone is considered to be high-risk, it is unlikely that a non-sellier vehicle would be used. At the appropriate stage of their sentence, individuals who have committed serious offences such as murder—that was mentioned by Daniel Johnson just now—are escorted in non-sellier vehicles. Although the offence is of a serious and high-profile nature, the individuals being escorted will have been subject to that risk assessment to determine that they are suitable for this type of escort. Those types of individuals are most likely to be accessing the community on licence and therefore are not considered to be high-risk at that point in time. Daniel Johnson Again, I thank the minister for that response, but does such a possibility, not at least hint at the possibility that the risk assessments are inadequate, or does the minister not feel that, at the very least, a partition should be installed in such vehicles to protect hard-working prison staff from the risks that such prisoners may pose? Finally, will the minister agree to meet with representatives from the GMB who represent those staff to discuss the safety concerns that they continue to have? minister Thank you. With regard to the point about safety within cars, in April 2019, you and Amy tested new bulkheads for the cars. Those are now being installed throughout the fleet as a way of improving driver safety. I have been advised that that roll-out will be complete at the end of this month. This additional measure has the support of the community trade union, who are the recognised trade union representing staff who work in that area. However, the member has obviously requested for a meeting with the trade union, and I am sure that the cabinet secretary would be happy to take that meeting. I have got up to five members that wish to ask a supplementary. If members could keep their questions brief, Rona Mackay to be followed by Liam Kerr. Can the minister confirm whether non-cellular vehicles have been routinely used to transfer high-risk offenders, including those convicted of serious crimes such as murder? I thank the member for that question. There are about 180,000 movements that are undertaken, and the vast majority of those are undertaken in cellular vehicles. There are occasions when non-cellular vehicles are used, and they are sometimes appropriate. For instance, if children and young people who are being transported are also pregnant women who are going to hospital appointments and so on, I am sure that the member would recognise that in those types of instances, a non-cellular vehicle is the most appropriate form of transport. In terms of appropriate equipment and staff safety, prison officers have to deal with an increasingly high-risk environment. Prison officers south of the border have been equipped with body-warm cameras, but the SNP has refused to give the same to our officers. Why does the SNP think that their safety is less important? We absolutely do not think that their safety is less important. Obviously, the Scottish Prison Service does not have a record of concerns raised by staff, but if any instances are raised with a contractor, they would then be passed on to the SPS, who would investigate every single incident to see if there are any lessons that need to be learned in that case. I assure the member that there is a robust process in place to monitor and investigate all incidents as reported by the contractor. However, as I reiterate in my previous answer to Daniel Johnson, so far, under that contract, which began in January, there have not been any incidents reported so far. John Finnie to be followed by Liam McArthur Thank you, Presiding Officer. Minister, is not the issue here that with only one bidder for a contract worth £230 million, you talk about robust risk assessments, but then you qualify it by saying where appropriate and unlikely? Is not it time that the Scottish Government reviewed this provision and took it back in-house? I thank the member for that question. I take on board the concerns that the member has raised. The escorting contract has freed up front-line staff in both the Scottish Prison Service and Police Scotland and allowed them to undertake their core duties. Prior to the inception of the contract, those duties required staff to be diverted from key tasks to escort prisoners to and from prisons, from police stations to hospital appointments and so on. The Scottish Government and its agencies set the standards of the service and assessed bidders on a number of criteria, including their organisational values. That allows us to ensure that the terms of how they operate are well aligned with what the Scottish ministers would want to see from the service in Scotland. Those contracts are rigorously monitored to ensure that they provide the taxpayer with the best service delivery that is possible. Liam McArthur to be followed by Fulton MacGregor Fulton MacGregor, you and me were awarded this £238 million contract, as John Finnie said, after alternative providers dropped out. Despite a track record, including multiple violent escapes and critical equipment failures, does the minister believe that companies must be held accountable in these circumstances? Does she agree that that could be achieved by extending the remit of FOI legislation to include private companies operating in these public contracts? I think that the member has raised an important point there, and I do believe that those contractors should be held accountable for their level of service. I do not have any further information on the point that the member has raised, so I will undertake to write to the member with a fuller answer to his question. Fulton MacGregor Thank you, Presiding Officer. Following on from Bona Mackay's question earlier, can the minister clarify what vehicles children and young people are travelling? Fulton MacGregor Children and young people are transported in non-cellular escort vehicles, which have a range of securing measures. For example, each vehicle must be fitted with a locking system such that the child or young person cannot operate the windows and doors. Those vehicles must not in any way identify the purpose for which the vehicle is being used, and they must be of a size capable of accommodating a minimum of three adults in the rear seat to ensure for sufficient comfort on a long journey. Fulton MacGregor Thank you very much, and that concludes topical questions. We are going to move on now to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion 17503 in the name of Liam Kerr on whole-life custody sentences. I invite all members who wish to participate in this debate to press their request to speak buttons as soon as possible.


Everybody forced here ripping it upper deck skybox metal universe. This is 2022 Random pack style one box number 30. Good luck everybody. Let's random now and Then uh, yeah, so he's got what let's do it. Let's do it go five and two Seven times on our random. Oh before we do the random will do seven times But there's three stacks of five. This is one through five top down and then six or ten and then 11 through 15 It's like the last one seven here names first one two three four five six and seven Felix and down to drew B and then the packs seven times one two three four five six and seven 12 down to two All right Felix with 12 Tim L 7 Brian G 11 drew B 8 Brian G 3 John E 13 Drew B 1 Felix and 14 drew B 15 Ruben Y 6 Brian G 5 and 4 John E 10 and Drew B with 9 and 2. Let's get these posted And let's rip. So you have basketball and football coming up soon everybody Let's get these filled up Matthew S with a couple of spots and select basketball hobby hybrid Taking it down to 13 to go We are past halfway on that we're getting there on elite and luminance as well guys An affordable basketball and football tonight And here's your link for the results if you want to see him again, let's do this All right fresh foundations aging Griffin and you got a Garrett Wilson Metal shredders There's a 2,500 degrees drew Jones is packed to by the way, and then you've got Armando Cruz pack three That is that cut above Riley Greene Degarious all right pack four Skybox premium Allen Iverson And Kenny pick it Number five Basketball coming up next guys. There's drew Jones Z-Force With a Yovitch fresh foundations and Sharapova metal shredders.  We'll probably have to do that one next. We still got psyched hobby hybrid Which is that 12 to go now, right? Yeah, it's all to go on psyched hobby hybrid Got Michael Foster skybox premium going on to number eight here Looking to the future CJ Stroud my stroud there John Pack Spiller number nine Jackson holiday intimidation nation number 10 Just can you pick it right there? Marcella Meyer and Marge on Bochamp. I'll season season my stuff here number 11 Roger Garius and a Riley Greene Number 12 skybox premium Christian Hernandez followed by a Brady house 13 gotta be coming up with something here. That is a Z-Force Garrett Wilson. That's pretty cool Fresh foundations Christian Hernandez and a Adrienne Griffin 14 PMG red for pack 14 is Oswald Paraza nice red PMG. It's gonna be number it's 67 out of 100 Never Carl Pepe and 15 is an Armando Cruz auto Nice 14 and 15 again. It's like the last break Armando Cruz auto. There we go And that does it for the break. Thanks everybody on us and basketball now


Do a comeback. Oh, it's it's time for the daily tech new show come back We're gonna talk about brains And the brain in a jar hey But put it in the car I'd subscribe with my AR device.  Hmm at first of all, I hate I like going to new places I hate the journey that it takes to get somewhere See I've learned to love the journey and I want to help you learn to love the journey to you know, I buy my book Poveria Not do anything to help you learn to love the journey though that book reminds me of old Pre-calculus book ahead what really, you know, that's Garrett he meet it in a good way. Okay, it's not like it sounds Bad, I just saying it reminds me because they had a lot of occasion though is like that covers like I did high school textbook Well in heist here. How about this in high school? Covers on your high school textbooks. Yes, we did we had all sorts of things. It's like love this Like why why would my out? You're just saying that because it has the grid. Yeah No Fine he sighed after a long pause I have a plan. I'll need a crowbar You know be kind of cool I've wondered if they could do this is if you flip through a book it could just start talking to you like it would narrate Like it's but it's power to do that with a Kindle. Yeah Kindle does that as you flip the page. Yeah I Think we have your technology already It's just not as he best of times Roger wants it in a book. Yeah, you want to like I want to kind of like a Harry Potter-ish thing Where you marry two incongruent technologies together to make it fun and Exciting we're reading this book called doomsday book by Connie Willis for sword and laser And it's set in the future and one of the things is books have hollows and the guy feels bad because he gets Gives this book to a kid for Christmas and doesn't it's such an old book. It doesn't have hollows Hollows H-O-L-O like holographic. Oh got it Hollows interesting not hollows like a hollowed out book that you keep your weed in Tom Tom Tom you're letting you're letting your your secrets out there. It's my Austin my Austin, Texas is showing Blizzard fill that position What was this so much for associate talent producer for overwatch?  I just wait. How do I get myself in trouble? You have it. I just You know you start go those brat People made of rats those brat people I Still waiting to see how my application at the local abattoir is doing Experience do you experience cutting meat? Well? Yeah, every time I eat steak We get that a lot buddy. Okay. It's not funny. Yeah All right, shall we begin? Yes. All right. Let's read when you tell me to go. I should give you control. Shouldn't I Roger? There you go. All right Here we go. Ross Scott's gonna read the open three two The Daily Tech news show is powered by you To find out more head to Daily Tech news show comm slash support This is the Daily Tech news for Wednesday, November 8th 2017 from DTNS headquarters in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt I'm Scott Johnson from the recently apologized to echo device. I have to tell you the story very quickly. I Got mad at my echo because it was playing something a little loud and irritated me upstairs and I said I Said the name and said not I said shut off or something like that and it felt kind of rude So for the first time ever I apologize to an echo and its response back was Sorry, my word was sorry and it came back and said sorry. I don't know about that So I'm just saying we don't yet have to worry about the feelings of our devices and that's how I wanted to start today show for me I love that where you could have just said from the silicon slopes of Utah I'm Scott Johnson. We get an entire story about how you feel bad about insulting your Amazon echo Also with this producer Roger Chang Roger, do you feel bad about insulting any electronic devices? I don't feel bad about insulting anything or anyone All right, there you go. At least you know I feel so let's start with a few tech things you should know The group planning a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain that was expected to happen on November 16th has canceled the fork Put your forks down No fork Segwit two X backers said they could not get a consensus and felt it was important to keep the Bitcoin community together. I Would agree even though I barely understand what they do no for Instagram stories Well, I'll let users upload photos and video older than 24 hours Here's the catch though the stories post will still disappear after 24 hours So sure you got an older thing and you want to put it up there and you forgot to and you're like, oh shoot I should have done this once it's up there in the stories part part of Instagram. It will be gone in a day CD Nets Mary Joe Foley reports that Microsoft's new resume assistant in office integrates with LinkedIn data To do cool things like suggest ways to craft your resume and describe your experience based on like all people in this industry often describe It this way, maybe that's how you should do it as that'll happen right there Microsoft Word features available now to Office 365 Windows users in the Insiders program and it'll come to everybody in the coming months. I'm I'm real quick I just would like to say to this and I mean this Facetiously so to save your emails. Okay, everybody, but I now finally understand what LinkedIn is for Finally user or sorry us users of iOS 11.2 beta 2 can start testing out Apple Pay Cash in beta right now system. Let's you as a user send and receive cash in Apple's iMessage to anyone else Who uses iMessage and it and is on the beta as well. So they need to be using it But that's big news if you care about paying that way now here are some more top stories Facebook and Australia's e-safety government agency are partnering on a system to combat revenge porn so if someone were worried that This person and I aren't getting along and I know they have this picture of me that can contact e-safety Which may then advise them to message? copies of those photos to themselves in Facebook Messenger Facebook would then make a hash identifier of the image They say we're not gonna store the image We're just gonna store the hash But we'd be able to block anyone else from posting an image that matched that hash Facebook total Australia's ABC that there are three other countries besides Australia participating in the trial. I have a theory that makes me a little worried about this. So Actually, it's a good idea. However, there's a workaround already in my head not that I've done this But it seems like if you send that photo Facebook makes the hash Which is basically a I don't know a digital a digital imprint of What's going on there so I can match it later all it would take is for somebody to change that image in some way Yeah, picture of it on a screen which would distort it enough to be still Recognizably you and still harmful but not match the hash So while I think this is probably a pretty good step in that direction or in the right direction I think it's probably got issues assuming that most of the time People conducting this kind of abhorrent behavior aren't gonna go to that trouble It's it's an interesting way to go about it it's it's On the one hand the idea let me state it this way the idea that if I'm worried someone's going to post a picture of me that they have In revenge or because they're angry at me. I can Say hey Stop that picture without having to share that picture. That's great When you're talking about Facebook, which has a lack of trust with a lot of people Wonder how many people are really gonna be feeling comfortable saying alright. I'm sending this thing through Hope they aren't really storing it. Just do like see you and send it at yourself and then everyone's okay Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and we hear a lot from on the show has sources that say Apple is developing an augmented reality headset That would ship in 2020 at least that's the idea the device would supposedly carry its own screen and run an Apple design chip with a whole new OS some sort of reality OS Apple's AR team supposedly works on projects under the codename T288 and uses the HTC Vive for testing purposes purposes, which is sort of interesting Gurman and Alex Webb Also have sources who say Apple may come out with an iPad in 2018 that includes face ID and removes the home button I would think that'd be the iPad Pro, but who knows until that happens. They would in effect be leapfrogging over the I don't remember the name of the difference between the touch ID that was an actual physical button and the one that was not and was tactile but That means we'll skip that all together because that currently is not an option on any of the iPads pro or otherwise So anyway, that'll be interesting but back to the same button. You're talking about they wouldn't get the haptic But yeah, right. It's haptic. There you go. This is I couldn't think of that word back to the AR VR thing It's weird to me that they're testing with it with a vibe I guess not weird, but if they're talking about doing a Augmented reality headset and they're using a vibe to test things Well, that means they're also gonna have it's probably mixed reality headset When you when you think because well, I am curious about that like that could simply be like what hardware Do we have lying around that we can run this thing on while we work out the kinks, right? It might have anything to do with form form and function, but it does imply That at this point anyway, you'd you what you see in augmented reality would be a Camera view, right? Hmm. So I'd yeah if and it's got a screen. It says it's got a screen So if it's got a screen, I mean I could see Apple saying here's what we're gonna do We're gonna give you this real slim cool-looking shades. They just look like you're wearing these like futuristic cool You know glasses, but honestly, it's the cameras. They're gonna be showing you reality you're not actually gonna see through them and And those screens then will will be your ability to view you won't be able to tell you're not seeing reality because it's such Good resolution or whatever like that would be the kind of thing I could see them aiming for and then wanting to unveil I I agree only other thing I would say is if they're gonna really make a new iPad Pro using Face ID. I need to see the What needs to happen there is we need to gain the extra real estate and maybe even an edge-to-edge solution on the screen Oh, yeah, there's no point. There's no no and German did say that that it sounds like it would be have either thin bezels They're almost no bezels. Yeah Over the next few months. Chrome's gonna start blocking certain types of browser redirects that load unwanted pages Gray the first phase will block ads that try to open a new page without being clicked So in those cases a toolbar will note the event case you want to be redirected. You're like now That's okay. I like maybe that's a function I like I don't know the second phase will block pages that reload as an ad While loading the clicked link in a new tab. This is a way to defeat pop-up blocking This is one I think is awful where you like you click a link It loads an ad in your tab and then loads the link you clicked in a new page That's just not the way the web supposed to work. So block that The those two will come in Chrome 64 and 65 the third and final phase which supposed to come in January We'll block hidden elements or ad links disguised as control buttons like play and pause on a video or sometimes They'll they'll make it look like you're gonna control the video and it actually opens a link Those are awful and those should absolutely be blocked as well any none of this is Talking at least that I can see and I'm re going over the article again, but I don't see anything about the Stopping video from model playing wasn't that also coming soon. Oh, yeah, no, there's all kinds of other things They've got it They've got an ad blocker that's going to be built into Chrome supposedly coming next year And there was a whole situation about you know What adds they won't block and how that will work and if that gives Google too much power because they're an ad company And and and how that works and honestly the verge article about this brings up that question too Which is hey, these are all great. Don't want browsers to be allowing this kind of behavior Nobody minds that all the browsers block pop-ups that's that's awesome, but This is Chrome do using their power for good What's the line? Where's the line where Chrome starts saying? Oh, we're just blocking any ads that don't have this this identifier this open source identifier in them that verifies it Well, the only people to use that identifier are our own ads right now So we're blocking all ads that aren't ours. That's that's the kind of stuff people are worried about I need to look at like I would love to see current data on Leadership in the browser market. I don't know where Chrome is compared to where I used to be Where I is now or edge now or any of those things I would love to know if they are inching closer to where Microsoft was thought to have too great a monopoly on browsers and if that has I don't know any blowback on them as well because You know for a long time Chrome was the little browser that could and then it was the one that you wanted Now it's the one that seems to be the biggest and that always has a way of coming back around on itself Very interesting that whole that whole market even even in 2017 browser still a thing man So here's the thing you can always do If you're if you like Scott or like what is the browser market share these days go to netmarketshare.com And you can get the browser market share chrome right now is at 35% Internet Explorer at 12.52. I believe that must count No, wait a minute. This has got to be old. No, this is october 2017 really i.e. Is still at 12.52 percent Chrome 55 at 7.4 percent. Oh, I'm sorry. They're breaking up chrome by version. So chrome 61 is 35 percent If you if you have to total all this up chrome is essentially like Just about 50 percent Firefox is 6.53 percent and i.e. Is 12.52 percent now granted That's all operating systems all device types on the desktop if you go to mobile It's going to be different if you go to console. It's going to be different. Yeah, that makes sense Logitech in the news They have notified users of its cloud operated harmony link device That's going to shut down the service for the hardware march 16th 2018 It's not that far off Meaning you'll no longer be able to control it with an android or ios smartphone though the remote itself should still work If your link is still under warranty though, uh, logitech is going to give you a free upgrade To the harmony hub and if you're out of warranty You might get a discount on the harmony hub. Well, you will there's you know, might there's no might You will get a discount on the can if you if you want it, uh, but you'd still have to pay To replace the thing that you bought in 2011 Intending to use for a long time. Uh, here's the thing. I've used logitech harmony remote since before harmony was part of logitech and I have only ever bought two of them I had a I had a harmony remote That I used forever Until that thing was just broken and then I replaced it Thankfully for me with a logitech harmony that has the hub So i'm lucky But man if I had if my harmony remote of brick broken in 2011, I probably would have bought a harmony link device Why it is have always been hesitant to pick up a harmony remote or or one like it And I remember all my friends I had friends with home theater stuff and they were all Oh, you got to get it. It's the best thing ever it'll change your life And I always seem to be resistant because I didn't like the idea of all these eggs in one basket And that seems dumb now. I think back on it like so what it's remote. I really would like to have I don't want a universal remote that has all my remotes in it. That's too many eggs in one basket Right because of that bad habit or habit. I don't know if it's bad, but this habit of avoiding that I've got so many dumb remotes. Tom. It's ridiculous even just right here by this in office Even with my even with my harmony I end up using the roku and the apple tv remotes because they'll have something on it Like a headphone jack on the roku or the voice activation on the apple tv Like it's just not as simple as it used to be either So I mean on the one hand don't overestimate this if you have a harmony link you can keep using it You just can't use the the web connected stuff like your apps, right? So it's not it's not like it. They've bricked it. You'll see a lot of people saying they bricked it They didn't really brick it. They just reduced its functionality. That does suck, especially if you've had it for a long time Researchers at Dartmouth have developed a program that can determine ways to optimize your router's wi-fi coverage and then 3d print An object that you can make reflective to put on the antenna and guide the signal This is a more effective version of wrapping aluminum foil or soda can Around to reflect the wi-fi away from the window and towards that room in the corner that doesn't get good signal But the program optimizes. It's you don't have to play around with it. You just print using wi-print and boom you got your device They have not released this software yet. They they have described it in a paper But they haven't let anybody else use it. Yeah, wow, will it help my my old Pringles can extender that I used to do Yeah, it might it might be able to do that I I haven't looked into how the software determines the parameters closely yet But you know, if if you can tell it like hey, I just want to have a Pringles can up in my roof shooting that way Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean it seems like a I don't know it almost seems like a little hackery thing to do and And sort of a sideline thing to do but man, I have been having the biggest problem where I live with new construction Creating additional interesting bandwidth or not bandwidth additional signal use on all the spectrums And it's messing with stuff my bluetooth axe funny My uh 5.4 gigahertz or 2.4 gigahertz wi-fi signals are weird Like everything's being affected by all of this stuff And if you look up just a wi-fi selection when you go check for new wi-fi signals It's hundreds and hundreds of wi-fi stations now So it seems like maybe I don't know this seems like maybe as relevant as it's ever been This is a way for me to not so much about distance but clarity You listen the thousands of you in the audience saying I don't need to print anything out I just wrap that thing around there works pretty good. You're absolutely right. This isn't about that This is about do you want the perfect wrapping? The parabola do you want the most efficient direction?  This is for that. This is for optimization geeks Uh who really want to have that that perfect situation and honestly for the paper It's more about determining, you know, how wi-fi signals propagate and what the science behind that is Yep, I would I and plus people like 3d printing stuff that they normally couldn't so this makes this is not a surprise to me or anyone here Hey folks, if you want to get all the tech headlines each day in about five minutes Be sure to subscribe to daily tech headlines You can get it at daily tech headlines.com as a podcast to put in your pod catcher Or you can find it on the amazon echo as a flash briefing in the anchor app as a daily channel That you can you can favorite Uh, you can even get in google home. Thanks to anchor. That's all daily tech headlines five minutes or less And you're up to date every day That's a look at our top stories So at the web summit in lisbon uber's head of product jeff holden Announced that uber will test its elevate flying taxi service in los angeles. Hopefully by 2020 In addition to the two previously announced test locations of dubai and dallas fort worth uber also signed a space act agreement This is a thing nasa can do with third parties To not have to go through congress to get approval to have certain partnerships A space act agreement with nasa has been signed to create a new traffic control system To manage low flying vehicles uber's one of a dozen companies developing flying taxi services right now That intend to use some kind of vertical takeoff and landing vehicle There's lots more to talk about as far as who's doing this and what uber plans to do and it's all in the concept phase They don't actually have these vehicles yet and a lot of people say they never will but signing that agreement with nasa to work on Some kind of traffic control system is helping to get over one of the biggest hurdles to doing this Which is a regulatory hurdle if you can come up with a good traffic control system You have a much better chance of convincing the faa that you can pull this off All of that said scott We're living in a world where at least 19 large companies like bowing Are are doing Flying car research for real not like hey, maybe someday but like yeah, we think by 2020 We can we can launch some vertical takeoff and landing taxis What's crazy? I mean it it does feel like an old forecast episode come to life in a lot of ways This used to be the thing of certainly science fiction and speculation and wouldn't it be cool if And all of that and and even lately you hear a lot of people saying well, we never got those flying cars. We were promised Boy, this sure smacks of that that possibility And this is real money and real brain power being spent on a real thing Not just you know a think tank going wouldn't it be cool if so I'm all for this research Uh, I think people should slow down their excitement Just a tiny bit in terms of where we're going to see this most it's going to be Like city-based services for the most part because i'm trying to imagine some sort of vehicle that will land on my rooftop It's not going to happen. Yeah, no no in fact the uber plan to elevate plan Is to lease rooftops with certain large property holders people who own multiple tall buildings Uh and and usually the places that might already have a helicopter landing on the roof of the skyscraper And say hey, we want to we want to lease a certain amount of time and space to test these things with the idea That eventually our service might use your rooftop But one of the examples they give for los angeles Is instead of taking the 32 hour and a half long drive from lax to the staple center downtown Anybody who's ever gone to e3 knows that place very well Uh, you could take this taxi which would get you there in 20 minutes because it just flies over everything Yeah, plus I think it's important not to forget that The as everyone's struggling to get automated cars to be a thing and they're working on All the aspects of that including where the ai is and how good it's going to be and how Human-free it needs to be or how many people do need to be in the car and this sort of stuff As that's all being argued about in the background You know quad copters and and and you know autonomous flying vehicles whether controlled by people or ai have just been advancing and advancing and advancing Collision detection All of that stuff is arguably easier in a sky with less variables There's just less to worry about now. I'm sure there's things. I'm not thinking of but if I had to compare Trying to get to a place where the technology is right for automated flying and automated cars. We're going to get there quicker with the flying Not to say that this won't launch in these small markets or these test markets Without somebody in the cockpit. I'm not saying that so much as I am saying I think the end ultimate goal here is this tax taxi service will will be johnny cab and you're going to go up on top of that thing It's going to pick you up take you where I want to go and then in 10 minutes rather than the hour and a half in traffic You're there and you're done in new york or la or some other major metropolitan area Yeah, and and you're right about the challenges I don't know if I would call them easier, but they're more straightforward, right? It's hard to manage aerospace because you got three dimensions So that that's tricky and that's why they want to partner with nasa to help figure this out On the other hand if you can say hey the air corridor at this altitude between these two buildings One at lax out of the flight path one over at staples center is ours Then you don't have to worry about like checking for lane changes and and and looking to see if the you know If there's something in the road or you know, there's all these variables on the ground that probably aren't going to be there Bird strikes maybe something you have to worry about But but there there are fewer obstacles and fewer lane oriented things More flying oriented things So I I go back and forth in my head like okay Well, it seems more direct because there's nothing else up there, but if this becomes common Maybe now we got a lot of things up there they have to look out for and The risk is greater when you can fall in three dimensions rather than just slide around in two dimensions That's true. Plus, you know, you're talking about airspace where You know an amazon courier service is also being developed and who knows how that stuff gets up and going So then now you really do have unpredictable traffic where something was Malfunctioning or whatever. So all of that stuff is true But I always look at it this way if I want to take a bus from la to new york Or if I want to fly from la to new york The statistically safer route is the air Why it's because we've created this system of like You know a pretty automated process Even the even the landing and taking off is so much more automated than it used to be Whereas that bus has got a million factors to think of between there and there That are human related mechanically related everything else so I do think the sky holds a lot of potential and I like that they're all working on this But I guess I'm amazed that we're talking about a thing that used to be just Almost a joke even in science fiction. It almost felt like a joke We're just never going to get to a place where that kind of thing is possible And yet here it is real money real people meet george jetson. Yeah I I know that there's a lot of skepticism About whether vtols can really work. Can they really be electric? Can they really be fully automated? Can you really get the regulatory hurdles out of the way to make this safe? And even if you can do all that can you convince people? Yeah, I want to take an elevator up to the 100th floor of a skyscraper and get in a helicopter with No pilot have it whisk me through the sky These these are all these are all big hurdles But the fact that there are so many I mean it's not just Boeing. It's airbus.  There's so many companies looking into this. There's the one in dubai There's the one in saudi arabia like they're they're all over the place And and and so it feels like just statistically Roger backed me up here doesn't feel like one of these has got to succeed One of them actually I would say even two I think really the the biggest hurdle that I see is And I've harped on this before it is just can you make money at it? Right, it's it's all and good you can get every pretty much all the issues that have been raised are Are not insurmountable. They can be solved The question is as a business does this can you can you elite? Can you even break even on this operation because running especially running Vertically Vertical landing and takeoff aircraft. They're just very maintenance intensive. I think this require a lot of Uh, well, that's partly what these companies are trying to fix is like can we make them less maintenance? Intensive can we make them easier to fly? The challenge is mount up. It starts to look very daunting, but Yeah, it's uber fix. They can do it uber fix. They can they can keep the ride down to like 20 dollars They're they're jeff holden still saying like you'll you'll want to do this and not own a car. It'll be cheaper than owning a car Yeah All right, and don't forget an optimist uber cars on the other end are part of this. It's not flying you everywhere It's you know, I take a car from lax to the lax Point that's outside of airspace then I take the taxi to staples center and then I take another car to my hotel Are you saying my transit system will now become its own ecosystem that I have to buy into? Lovely. Yeah. Oh, I can't I can't ride with you to the hotel. I'm on lift. Sorry I mean, you're not wrong and also, um It starts to make me wonder stories like this and conversation like this starts to make me wonder if automated cars and the uber on the ground world Isn't a stop gap to this other thing. Anyway, you know what I mean? Like we're just going to skip straight to we're going to be in the air all the time I don't know. There's always a last mile question, but yep very interesting All right, let's get to our message of the day in our analyst's slack. Sakane, right? noted a reason why amazon cut back its grocery Delivery remember we talked about well, that's odd. They just bought whole that's odd They just bought whole foods. Are they just going to throw in with instacart now somehow? Why would they be cutting back on their grocery delivery? Well, Sakane says the areas where service is being cut I believe all have groceries delivered by the u.s. Postal service instead of amazon's own drivers The post office has been doing an experiment since 2014 with what they call customized delivery services Which allows them to do weird things like grocery deliver at 4 a.m. On sundays that experiment after one extension officially ended on october 31st Now I assume amazon was planning on another extension of the experiment, but it wasn't approved for whatever reason So fresh service may return either once amazon gets new deal with the usps Or once they build out an appropriate network to service those areas So that makes a lot of sense and he's got a link to a consumerist com article about the u.s. Postal service delivery System that expired on october 31st and hey if you haven't been keeping up at our website daily tech news show dot com You may have missed Sakane's latest edition of his column your private driver Which goes into details of how drivers for companies like uber and lyft do or don't make money And he's got experience as a driver doing this so go check that out daily tech news show com nice All right, mr. Scott johnson. Thank you so much for joining us as always of course if you're wondering We didn't mention at the top of the show. I forgot sarah lane as I mentioned yesterday on assignment But she will be back with us tomorrow in the meantime scott if folks want to find out more about what you got going on Where should they go? Well, uh, I would like you know what i'm going to mention I'm going to mention this when I was at blizzcon last week I got to see you and got to hang out with a bunch of friends and stuff and it was great The big surprise for me at this particular con was how many people came up and in the context of dtns said Oh my gosh, I love it when you're on them wednesdays or I really liked your art tech segment or other comments like that I've been a dtns supporter. They would tell me and and it was great. It was like wow Yeah, these worlds have collided more than ever And so to those guys a I want to say thanks. Thanks for coming up to me and talking to me. Thanks for supporting this show um And also the good news is the uh the panel the live panel that we did at the event Which used to be locked behind the virtual ticket wall over at blizzard is now out and in the open for anybody to get their hands on There's an audio version on the podcast feed But if you go over to blizzcon.com and go into the uh the vods, you'll find it there It's now public and you can watch that entire thing Tom is in that audience and uh, you can almost you can almost sense his presence his technical presence there Um, so go check that out That's a fun thing to do and if you're looking for other ways to follow me Check out frog pants.com or find me on twitter at Scott johnson with way more characters than I used to have oh man look I I I loved uh the people who came up and and just said hey, I just want to shake her hand and say hello I'm a big fan of daily tech news show Way more than I expected Folks at blizzcon did that so so big thanks to every one of you who did and and a big hello back again From inside your ears this time But also I cannot express how excited I was to see the instance on stage at blizzcon It's something since I first ever went to blizzcon the first time I went to blizzcon I was like They should have Scott on stage doing a show Like this this all just doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't they do that? So I was very very very happy to see that. Well, you're extremely nice to say that I think it went off without a hitch and hopefully if the numbers are good And it would help people and watch it now even because they'll see more of those numbers They'll do something again next year and we don't know what that would be But um, it was a really cool opportunity and I have to say what made it great for me was knowing That not just my wife and kids, but all my podcast buddies We're out in that audience and somehow made all that stuff even easier. So So thanks to you and everybody who was there to support us. That was awesome Our email address is feedback at daily tech news show dot com We're live Monday through Friday for 30 p.m. Eastern 21 30 utc at alpha geek radio dot com and diamond club dot tv And our website is daily tech news show dot com back tomorrow with sarah lane and justin robert young We will all talk to you then This show is part of the frog pants network get more at frog pants dot com Diamond club hopes you have enjoyed this bro Goodbye I did that because we were at 29 59 Oh, so saying goodbye made it exactly 30 minutes Wow 30 minutes on the dot I think that timer thing is great Yeah, first time i've been here to use it and I think that's awesome. It makes me want to make my own for Good work roger That's really good I mean it was I don't know Maybe depends on your it might make some people panic, but for me, it's like the perfect Like no well one of the things I love about our little music gimmick on the round table show Where we hit 15 minutes and roger just starts playing some soft music to let us know like hey Okay time to move on is that I don't have to think there's one less thing as a host that I have to like I don't have to be looking at the clock and this is the same thing. It's like oh it's turning orange. All right Yeah Wrap it up because it's like the oscars when the music starts playing you off either know how to handle that gracefully Or are you Stay there even in monthly music. Well. Yeah with this That nobody else knows so you're feel like no, I've got one more point like You know, whatever um the music I try not to make it like oscars level where they make it really loud or anything, but yeah a little different whole different deal 30 minutes And don't get me wrong. I don't mind going 32 minutes I'm just being a numbers geek right now that we've hit 30. Oh, oh, exactly. I like it. I like if an efficient You know, that's great, and I'm not even that big of a nerd for it, but I think it felt really good nerd titles The internet of bricked things It's not bricked. Okay. Got it another brick in the wall Iot wall print the power of a Pringles can I used to do that I still used to download chrome browser You kind of have to when you first start windows 10 it's not like anything else is loaded Uh up up in uber away LA to get flying ubers in 2020 a year after blade runner Actually did uh, were there flying taxis in the blade runner. I thought it was just the cops Well, they were flying there were other flying cars besides the cop, but you just kind of saw them in the distance So I don't know my presumption is some of them are taxis. Yeah, they were they were more explicitly taxis in fifth element Yeah, there were lots of those Uber leaping tall buildings by 2020 uber ready for lift off Get it get it stick a fork in it. There's no fork. No fork for you There is no fork No fork That's pretty good In LA 2020 you you'll believe an uber can fly Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's uber man And he's still using gps to find out where you are on the same block I love this one. Sorry. This is never going to make it but scott fibs about understanding what linkedin is for All right, I need a title. What are we picking? um the Up up an uber away uber leaping tall building What we didn't really mention lift Ubers LA plan to take flight in 2020. Oh, it's so long All right, all right up up an uber away. All right. It's silly, but that's fine. That one works. Yep. That works Up up an uber way I also like uh Facebook's porn hash is pretty good I Good old face. That's a pretty daunting thing Because what you're being asked to do is put a photo up there that you think you might someone might hold against you someday It's just weird. Well, and and that's that's what I was trying to get at like if you trust facebook You're like, okay, this is perfect because I don't need to You know tell anybody but I can I can make sure this thing Uh stays away and nobody'll know Yep, if you don't trust facebook you're gonna be like, I'm not giving you my no. I'm not giving you that photo.  It doesn't remember the id three Malin do efficiency I'm with you. I also likes that Thrumwald wants to know why the hash couldn't be created locally. That's a great question. Um Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure facebook's saying well, you already have messenger So we'll just do it for you and we promise we won't keep it But there could if you could have a special app That could be audited so that people know that the code's doing what it says it's supposed to do You could do it locally. You absolutely could and then just up on the hash What's some hash brown? I'm not eating potatoes these days though. It's very much right here on the no carb diet. I'm not on the no carb diet I'm on the no potato diet Oh That's a hard diet. It's actually easier And it cuts out almost as many calories as doing the no carb diet without cutting out the nutritious carbs So you can do like a whole grain You know bread or something. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I like I eat whole grain bread.   The ranch dressing provides you protein I mean that would technically be okay under my rules, but it's violating the spirit I agree I don't think I would do that today, but I may have done that today. I'm just saying what did I do? Oh, Eileen, uh, brought us home fried chicken the other night Uh, and I was like, oh, that's great Then she brought it home and it had mashed potatoes and gravy in it. I'm like, yeah, you eat it. It's not mine. I didn't eat it Well, I'm fried the biscuit I'm terribly committing to things like that It's uh, it's hard It definitely helped me at blizzcon though because A lot of times when you're at conferences like that The easy food is the potato food and it's the one that's going to pack on the most pounds Yeah, potato food is the easy food yes I that's what my mommy used to say back in old county potato I metabolized different at that event. I end up walking so much and so hyped up that I It doesn't matter what I eat. I'd burn everything just burn. Oh, yeah I just nervous energy. Yeah That was the one thing is first time I've had the apple watch out of blizzcon I did not walk nearly as much as I thought I did I did all right Because yeah in my mind I usually go, oh, well, I'll be walking so much that'll make up for a lot of a lot of stuff But not as much as I expected that's so much Well, you do a lot of sitting down listening to talks and Sitting down and eating ice cream and Sitting down and watching I mean I sat for I kept running into the thing where I'd be like, oh wait, but I'm Telling me I need to stand up, but I'm in the middle of a But you know, yeah, you're in the middle of a con you stand up someone will leap on your chair Yeah, yeah, exactly There's people behind us someone's went to blows for blows Yeah, there was somebody somebody was holding seats in the press area with a couple of jackets, but not people and There was some really angry people Comic-con where the guy stabbed someone in the eye with a pen for a seat in hall H Oh, man That would have gone poorly I did I guess you got arrested Really? Hall H a comic on Yeah, you can stab someone in the eye Damn How could you do that? Because people don't understand like Part of it is that um when for anyone who doesn't know hall H is like this big um cement Auditorium at comic-con and typically those are all with the triple a Panels that are held in there and so they make you wait the lines are long And the lines take forever to pass through right so you'll be say it's on a Saturday or Friday you'll line up in the morning around eight You probably won't get until like one or 12 or one. So you're just waiting the entire time people just get kind of Frustrated It's like people sitting in traffic when they lay on the horn They throw stuff or they Do worse So I avoid those situations now I've never seen anyone throw anything in traffic. Luckily I've I've seen people throw things at me physically in traffic Well in a four-way intersection. Yeah, wow I had a friend who threw uh Were you wearing that shirt that says please throw things at me though?  He shoved his car into me and he pushed me into the intersection from the crossbar Oh, jeez Because I mean That's just awful. If he wasn't in a car I would have beaten the bejesus that in because well actually no He would have had been in the car to push me He was he was being a jerk and I don't know why like I'm like just kids Drive around me.   Oh, no I was uh, I was walking out of there was a the hole in the wall bar in austin Oh, wait, it was jack of the box not a taco bell There was a jack in the box right next to the hole in the wall So we're walking out of the bar we come walking somebody's coming through the drive-through and they're coming out and me and two other friends are walking and they just kept Coming and I ended up like leaping onto their hood So that they didn't knock me out or were they like somehow I mean, they weren't going fast. They were just rolling out, you know Who's drive-through coming from a dead stop but still Ken in the chat room says we should be glad we missed the la driver shooting each other back in the 90s I remember that that was in the 90s. That was the late 80s into the 90s When you say you remember it I remember seeing all the news reports. It was a big deal. Yeah, there was uh, there was a little There was a political ad About uh, and you can tell you it was late 80s.  That was is it the jerk where steve martin just pulls out his gun And he's like shooting on the three one I only remember bits of that movie I remember the glasses and the cross-eyed people because of the magnate la story. It was la story. Thank you Now the question is there's a question. What did I forget to do? Oh, I thought it was a quiz because I got distracted by talking about Freeways and getting hit by cars Yeah, I'm gonna say that la is a lot nicer than whatever. Remember as a kid like traffic isn't as terrifying And by kid I mean back in high school Well, it's because well, there's probably some truth to it, but also back then Everything's more terrifying the younger year. I think yeah, that's true, too No, I remember rolling out of the staples center because we were Back back when I was me and dan Mitchell were still on screensavers And we went to an event there and we were getting Met up with a with an old intern and we're driving out to Santa Monica and we got on the freeway and remember passing What neighborhood needs to lay sick? Oh my god don't And I went by that area recently and it's like not it's like 100 improved. It's like it does not have that same Not just the same feeling but before not only did you have bars in the window? You had chain link fence with razor wire on top of it Like I can understand the bars in the windows, but it just felt like well Manhattan That first time I ever went to Manhattan was like 96 I think and I felt like okay got to be careful in New York City You know because I'm not from here and I got to keep my eyes open Uh, I don't feel that way at all going to Manhattan now Manhattan is yeah the first time I went here I remember it was with Patrick Norton and he kept telling me it's like oh this used to happen here This used to happen here that yeah And remember when uh all the big names started moving to Times Square people said it's losing its soul the grittiness That you know the topless the topless right right. Yeah times square is like a tourist destination now. It's not a seedy See, you know downtown San Francisco used to be like that there used to be a bunch of not just topless topless Cinemas and stuff, but there also used to be like second-run theaters and stuff all the way down to the ferry building It's all gone. No more open-air arcades where kids and you know indigent people just kind of waste a while away the day stuff and quarters in the machines who I miss those arcades I don't I don't Air arcades. I miss those I Miss the camaraderie when all your friends came with you or you would meet them there I don't like playing video games with sticky joysticks and buttons that half work because some guy punched it in too hard well We try to punch it in hard for you every day here on daily tech news show And I I hope our efforts are appreciated We thank you for supporting us and um We'll be back tomorrow Bye and if you're a patron stick around for this special message from scott johnson listen


Welcome back everyone to the 830-9AM session of the 2021 Open Simulator Community Conference. This session, we're pleased to introduce the presentation Future Scene Gate 2.0. Our speakers are Lisa Laxton and Frank Ruloff and several of their interns. But before we get started, I want to just remind you that you can check out our website, conference.opensimulator.org for speaker bios and details from their sessions, like links to things that they may mention. As well as those of you listening on our pre-recorded or our recorded session, you can ask your questions through Twitter at OpenSimCC and hashtag OSCC21. Anybody else within the world, if you could direct message me your questions, that would be fantastic. All right, I'm going to start this session Frank. I'm going to toss it over to you so you can introduce all your great interns. Thank you, Meg. Again, nice to be here. I'd like to introduce the students that have been working hard on the Future Scene Gate 2.0 viewer. The last group that worked on that was Axel, Marion and Tiffen. They did the first initial work on it. The current group that is working now are Alex, Kojé, Pierre and Oscar. They all come from the CP in Lyon, which is a university. They have different trails of what they are learning to, but all in the area of software engineering. I would like to give the word to Tiffen as the first that he will tell more about what his group did in the last year. Over to you. Hello, everyone. I'm Tiffen February and during this presentation, I will present to you the work we did with my team last year when we were interned at Thales Netherlands as a strength. We were a team of three composed of Axel, Salmon, Marion, Clément and I. We were all French students from the Engineering School of CP Lyon. Our mission was to upgrade the rendering engine as a Senegal viewer. Next slide, please. Our first mission was to analyze the code of the Senegal viewer in order to identify the rendering part and regroup them together. We decided to classify the files involved in the graphic engine according to their use. For that, we looked for the central files which manage all these functionalities and that allowed us to identify all those which were necessary to their functioning afterwards. After the classification, we had to group them together in the single folder. The creation of this graphic brick engine will allow us thereafter to facilitate its removal in order to put a new one with better performance. I don't know if you can see the graph, but as you can see in the graph, we wanted to have an independent rendering part that could be connected or disconnected with the other parts, like the server or the physics. Next slide, please Frank. When this step was done, we had to find a replacement for our graphic engine. This new graphic engine had to have several particularities which are really important. It had to be visually more beautiful as a ground run because it's an upgrade. It had to have better performance in terms of frame per second. For example, the 3D headset in the future. It had to be open source because it's the key of this project. And finally, its programming language had to be a C++ in order to match the rest of the initial code of the Cinegate Bureau. After studying several known engines such as Unity or Unreal Engine, as Frank told you before, our choice fell on the Godot engine. This engine met all our criteria in addition to have an active community and a prospect for evolution. This part was really important for us in order to keep updating the rendering engine in the future or just adding new features. Next slide, please. Then we had to do the same classification work that we had done on the Cinegate Bureau. This step will facilitate the association between the files having the same function in the two graphic engines. So we sorted them in the same way we gave us the same table with the file of the new engine. You can see it on the presentation. Finally, the last step consists in run-placing one-by-one the Cinegate files by the Godot one. We had to identify which file had the same role as the whole one. Indeed, we had grouped them in categories, but we did not know their precise errors for each one. To do this, we had to read the whole code and find some documentation on the internet. Moreover, the two engines not having exactly the same functioning, certain files had the role of several old ones and users. We thought we didn't manage to finish this part, but we gave all the documentation and the work we did to the next team. You will meet right after me and I'll let my friend speak for the rest. Okay, thank you very much, Tiffen. Oscar, will you take the second part? Yes, so next slide, please. So I'll be presenting this year's progress and this year there are four of us from a CPE working on the project, including me, Oscar, Alex, Goetje and Pierre, who are also on stage. Next slide, please. So this year's main goal is to use Godot's rendering engine to improve the frame rate and stability of the scene gate viewer so that we can potentially use VR in the future. And to do this, we have set three goals that we were working towards this year. Next slide, please. So as you can see, this is a simplified structure of how we would like the new scene gate viewer to function. And so the three goals we have set are first to create a transition interface as an API that would convert everything that exists inside of the 3D world and that are sent from the server and convert them into entities with the API that can be recognized and used by the Godot engine. Our second goal is the integration of Godot's rendering functionalities inside of the scene gate viewer with the creation of an adapted Godot engine. And our third goal is the rendering of the world and creating an output onto the screen for the user. Next slide, please. So for our first goal of creating the transition API, our goal is to keep the changes of the Godot engine to a minimum. That way we can use most of its functions and also in the future have upgrades be a possibility. So we decided to create a world inside of Godot in which we would transfer all the visual elements from a scene gate such as the lightning, the objects, and the terrain. And that way we can let Godot's rendering engine take care of the work through its rendering process. Next slide, please. So the way we want to do that is that the elements from scene gate are sent by the server. They are then unpackaged inside of the viewer and sent into the rendering. And what we want to do is intercept those entities before they go inside through the rendering and pass them through our API that will convert them into objects that are then created inside of our Godot world. There are also all the updates of the camera and objects that go through the API into the world. That way every change that happens in real time will also happen in the same time in the Godot world. As of now, we've had some successful tests of creating objects sent by the server inside of the Godot world. But there are still a lot more to be done on that part of the project. Next slide, please. For our second goal of the integration of Godot's rendering functionality, our goal is in the end to create one single application with a single executable. And so we have to integrate all of Godot's useful functionalities inside of scene gate source code. The thing is that Godot was not made to be used as a library, which is why we want to create an adapted Godot engine. And to do this, we also need to understand all of Godot's architecture to get the most out of it and transfer all of the necessary rendering functionalities. There is also the issue that Godot uses S-Cons, which is a compiling application. And we need to use CMake inside of viewer. So there's also a conversion needed for that. And as of now, we've made some progress of implementing classes from Godot inside of scene gate. But then again, like our first goal, there's still a lot more to be done on that part. Next slide, please. So for our third and final current goal is the rendering. So our goal is to be able to create an output onto the screen, which is a result from the Godot rendering. Godot usually renders inside of its own application. And so we need to make it render inside of the scene gate viewer, which is why we need to create tools to make this rendering process possible. We also need to take into account that the rendering is done in multiple parts with the user interface, the heads of display, and the 3D. And we want Godot to of course take care of the 3D part, because that would boost the FPS by a lot. But we will also have to see if we keep some of the scene gate functionalities for the 2D components. For this goal, we're still at very early stages and haven't been able to do anything conclusive. So there's still a lot more to see. Next slide, please. So this is an overview of our goals for the new scene gate viewer's rendering process. There might be some changes that come with new challenges during our development later on. But for now, we will continue with this structure. Next slide, please. So in the case that everything I've talked about until now turns out to be an impossible task, we still have an alternative goal that we might work on at the end of the year, which is to improve and optimize the current viewer's rendering and communication with the server using Godot and other means we have at our disposal. And so this concludes our presentation on the last two years. Well, thank you very much. I think you all did a great job. I had a question to the first group. What did you find the most difficult in the work that you have been doing? I think the lack of documentation at the beginning was pretty hard. Maybe nowhere to start. We were kind of lost at the beginning, yes. Okay. And you, Oscar, Pierre and others? I think for us as well. I had to spend a lot of time looking into the scene gate code at the start, but we've had some help due to the previous interns' documentation and also diving into the Godot engine. And do you intend to make the documentation on the viewer complete when you finish, Oscar? Yeah. Sorry, you repeat the question. Do you make the design documentation, so the documentation that is needed to maintain the source code and to explain it? You're also making that in parallel with doing the work on the viewer, isn't it? Yes, we've already made some documentation to help us with our work. And when we make something that works, we intend to create a documentation for it as well. Okay. Are there any questions from the audience? Yeah. And Lisa kind of answered one of them, but I wanted to just put it out here. Nick asked earlier, can you use this in a mobile format? Oscar? Oscar, do you have a goal of making this so that people can use it mobily? For now, no. We haven't really thought about it. It's mostly on PC. Well, most of the most to answer this question a little bit more. The problem with mobile, of course, is the processing power of mobile phones. So if you can do the rendering somewhere else and then stream it to a mobile phone, that works fine. But if you really have to run the application on a mobile phone, mostly the CPU power is not enough to do that. And what we're doing now is not especially focused on mobile phones, but to run it on a normal PC laptop or whatever. But there is one application, but this is a costly one, is that you run these viewers in the cloud. And then you can, of course, to stream it to mobile phones, tablets, and other things. Right. But that in itself has a fairly high cost to it. Yeah. Around $60 a month per CPU or concurrent user. And, you know, so that if you look at companies like Bright Canopy, they recently shut down because they were not making enough money to fund that service. And they were providing browser access to a host of second life users, which is a much larger market than OpenTem. Along the money line, Alan Scott asked, who's paying for this project? This part of the project is paid by Talus. And the payment is in the form of, well, the interns, they get an allowance because they do work for us. And my hours that I put into the project, as well as having a laboratory available and some support or services from other parts of the company. And the coordination of this project with Scenegate in itself and some of our other work is covered on my side of the house. Okay. Gavin Hurd asks, what is your strategy to decouple the rendering code from the rest of the viewer code when not evenly the labs who wrote the renderer is able to do so? Well, that's one of the main objectives of this part of the development. Eventually, and we decided to first take a different rendering engine in the same code. And then the next research step would be to look if you can take that code and isolate it in such a way with an API or something else or separate, even a separate application to run it for 3D headsets. Because 3D headsets request a constant frame rate, otherwise you get the sort of motion sickness in 3D headsets. So you must allow that. And current viewers are not made to do that. Current viewers, there is a loop over the rendering part, but also goes over the internet to the server itself. So it means that the frame rate will, we did some testing in the part, we put very high performance computers to do that, but we never could it right because we also experimented with Oculus Rift and so on to see what we could achieve with that. But the frame rate we never could get on a stable. And it has to do with this. So one of the things is, can we isolate it somehow? Can we isolate it somehow in such a way that we can guarantee that a rendering part will run at a 60 hertz frequency? And that's one of the goals that we have for the future as a next step in the evolution. But first we wanted to upgrade the viewer with modern render apart. That at the same time learns us how in the scene gate viewer, everything is connected. So then the next step would be the research to see if you could decouple it somehow and run it and be sure that it runs at 60 hertz. Okay. Friends, Tommy asks, did you create your own documentation for the open simulator code that could be provided to update the open sim wiki? Well, we provide a documentation on the scene gate code. Because that's what we're doing now. Okay. So everyone, you can find it on the sim gate doc. Follow-up question by Gavin Hood. With the very tight integration between current content and the renderer, what is your strategy to transform the content to work with a new renderer? I think Couchay is one of the interns that is looking at that subject. So Couchay, could you tell something about that? If you're not on mute? Couchay? Is he up here? Yeah, he's up here. Yes, are you ready? Yeah, I hear you. Yeah, okay, sorry. We do it part by part slowly. We try to do some smaller objects, but we hope we're going to be able to do it for every kind of visual element at the end. So how are you doing that then? You look at the object, how it is being rendered in the current viewer and then put that against the requirements for the Godot engine. Yes, exactly. Yeah, okay. Okay. Art Blue is asking, he says, I know a bit on game engines like Unity, we moved two years ago and OAR to Unity and Google Cardboard and Oculus. I assume Godot has also a mesh-based database. Will there be a bridge from OpenSim to Godot or am I fully wrong in my understanding? I see you speak of the rendering machine in Godot. So do you take the data from the OAR OpenSim and bring it to via Godot to the user viewer or I'm not sure if my question, okay. It will go exactly like it runs with the current viewer. Your objects will be supplied through internet in a certain form which can be translated by the viewer into objects you see on the screen. Now, if you recall one of the slides that has been before, now you will get the same objects, only the objects are internally converted to the format that Godot knows that can handle it. So it stays internally. For the outside world, there's nothing that needs to be changed in the way the definition of the objects are in the OpenSimulator itself. This conversion is internally in the viewer itself. Ah, okay. Let's see here. Is there a way to map between the different platforms a standard of some sort and reference libraries? Well, that is difficult because every viewer has his own rendering engine. But there are, of course, there are, of course, standards about defining graphical components. But to what extent that is followed by OpenSimulator, I don't know to be honest, because we focused on what there is and to convert it, to change it on the OpenSimulator side. Okay. And Gavin Hurd asks, is your target group for this development users with 3D headsets? No, it's one of the target groups. And what are the others? See people with normal 2D PCs and laptops. Because I think, and we had this in a lot of earlier discussions, is that I don't think that people will, I think that in a lot of cases, having a laptop or screen is more effective for people than wearing a 3D headset. First of all, it's costly. People do not, and a laptop or PC you always have at home. A headset is only the thing you need for audio. And so not only the cost, but also I cannot imagine, at least I would not like to wear a 3D headset the whole day long. So it's also the duration that you can use this headset. 3D headset is limited. You cannot ask people to wear a headset for three hours or so. Yeah. And so it is a way of getting better emerged into a virtual world, but the time you can do that is limited. And so I think it's not only 3D, it's also the normal PC laptop and 2D screens that are important. So it's not targeted at only that group, it's targeted at all groups. Nick is asking, will there be a web viewer? That might be, but that's not our first, that's not on the road map now, because we first want to transform the viewer and provide it with the flexibility that we need. There is a way to do it with a web viewer, and that's what we said before, using rendering in the cloud. But that's a costly solution. But you can do that now. You don't need to wait for some changes. You can do that already, but you need a certain work in running it in servers, the rendering itself. And that's quite expensive. But not for now. And there's also still the limitation in graphical capabilities that you have when you simply want to run a web viewer. Okay. And then I just wanted to ask any intern that wants to comment on this, but I'm curious, as you're working on this project, how is it inspiring you to think of the next project you want to work on? Anyone? Oscar? Yes, I can give an answer. I mean, yeah, more or less, always wanted to work on projects like these, making a 3D application, games or just a simulator like these. So for the future, I could continue doing things like this. Nice. Nice. Go ahead, Frank. I'm sorry. Okay. Gavin Hurd has a question. Why is it that you think the M1 processor used in Apple's laptops and desktops running the current viewers perfectly fine, are now able to run a viewer in a phone when the exact same processor is used? Well, it's not only the processor, of course, it's the graphical the GPU that's in the processor that has to support it. Yeah. And the GPU is maybe not enough. I don't know. We didn't really have any experience, we didn't really have any experimentation on mobile phones because we are so far from having something that we can run on a laptop or PC and then we can maybe see if we can transfer to the phone to a mobile phone. But until now, all the articles I read is the limitation in graphical capabilities for that. Annope. All right. Let me see if I have a last question here. Are you guys going to be at a booth after this? Yes, we'll be at the booth at the break. And where is your booth? We are booth number four in Expo Zone 3. All right. Booth number four, Expo Zone 3. So if anybody else has further questions for them, please stop by there. And I want to thank gosh, all of the interns here. What great project you're working on. Very exciting stuff to move us all into the future when you figure this stuff out. So we really look forward to your success. Thank you very much. And thank you to all the interns that take the time to be here today to explain it to the audience. All right. Well, as a reminder to the audience, check out the website, conference.opensimulator.org, and see what's coming up on the conference schedule. Following this session, we do have a little break and their next session will begin at 9.30 a.m. and is entitled Digital Citizenship for Cyborgs and Avatars. Yes, please. Anyhow, oh, I added the yes, please, because I can't wait to hear it. Anyhow, all right. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you at 9.30 a.m. Thanks, everyone. And thank you very much to the interns.


So today, the Baltimore Ravens receive good news on Wideray. Excuse me. Today, the Baltimore Ravens receive great news, great news on wide receiver, Rashad Bateman. Just a couple of days ago, a report that initially when I saw it, and a lot of us saw it, it had us freaking out. We were going crazy. Like, hold up, Rashad Bateman got placed on the reserve to not report this whole, is this a hold out hold up? But then, after we read the report, and then read Eric Dacosta's statement, because Eric Dacosta said, hey, we expecting Rashad Bateman back very soon. I was like, all right, Dacosta, cool. That's what you're saying? You know what, this off season, Eric Dacosta really been earning a lot more of my trust because if you go back, Eric Dacosta also said, he said they wanted to revamp that wide receiver room. They wanted to redo the whole thing. And I was thinking, okay, like what's your version of redoing the wide receiver room here? But you saw how he's redone the wide receiver room. He's like, oh, okay, nice, I like it. But anyway, this is really, really good news. Before we get into it, team keeping clean, I appreciate y'all. Make sure you subscribe to the channel. Hey, things have been crazy. Things have been wild. As you've seen, subscribe to the channel, turn your notifications on, leave a like on the video. I appreciate all of y'all always sharing your input on everything, everything. I appreciate it so much. Rashad Bateman is back. Rashad Bateman is back. I remember when it came out that he got the court his own shot. Oh, man. I remember every single conversation that was had about that. I remember the comment section. I remember the Twitter conversation. I remember just everything that was said about that court his own shot. Some people like, oh, it's cause it's to help him heal. It's to help the pain with his healing. Oh, some people saying, oh, he's not healing, right? It's all, this is bad. And it could be a couple of different things. It could be a lot of different things. And it might have been all of those things, but the fact of the matter is that now Ravens have their wide receiver. First round pickle out here by the way, Rashad Bateman back in the building. Now, do I expect or should we all expect him to just be full goal right from the jumper training camp? In my opinion, I don't think so. I think even with him being taken off that list, him being added to the active list, take it slow, take it easy. It's not a rush. It's not a race. I can't even say we got a long ways to go. We literally right at the end of July. In a month from now, we'll be at the end of August. And then a couple of weeks from then, we'll be at the beginning of football season. So take it slow. Don't rush, Rashad Bateman. The fact that he's back now is an amazing thing and we love it, but Ravens need to pace it. Pace it. And I think they will. I'm very confident in them that they will, especially with the new direction, well, the new direction that we hoping it is when it comes to their strength and their conditioning regimens. Now they brought in a coach last year who was pretty much a, I wanna call him a recovery coach. That wasn't his official title, but that's what he specialized in, in player recovery and their rehab process, just helping them not only heal but heal the right way and completely heal. And he came from the Titans. I can not remember his name right now. My apologies, y'all I'm sorry. But we saw a change in that with the Baltimore Ravens. We saw some guys who came back from significant injuries and who just had not been themselves. We saw Ronnie Stanley, he came back and he looked good again. We saw Gus Edwards, he came back. We saw J.K. Dobbins, he came back and then he was like, oh, you know what? I'm not myself. We gotta clean this thing up. Then he came back again and he looked better. He wasn't his full self yet, but he got better along the way. And there were more guys that came back too, but the process has already started and it's already started in a positive way. So that's a good thing. So with Rashal Bateman, when it comes to Rashal Bateman, who we know the potential is there. The potential is there. It's all about putting it together now consistently. We know he can make plays.  And now, I feel like Rashal Bateman is the forgotten man. And when I say the forgotten man, I don't mean the forgotten from Team Keep It Clean because shout out to my guy Rodney, my guy GTR senior, my guy Terry, my guy Cam, my guy Nas, my guy Morgan. They all made sure. Like anything that Team Keep It Clean thinks I may even slightly miss or forget, you let me know every time. That's why I love y'all and appreciate y'all so much. So thank you. I didn't catch it. I knew what was going on, but if I would have missed this, y'all wouldn't let me miss it. So I really appreciate y'all for that. But Rashal Bateman is the forgotten man, not necessarily, even maybe actually by some fans. But I feel like with all the attention that Odell Beckham Jr. gets, obviously, I mean, he's a superstar. I all the attention that Lamar Jackson gives out. I mean, obviously that's that guy. All the attention that this JK Dobbin stuff has gotten recently. All the attention that Mark Andrews has continued to get in this office. All the attention that Todd Monkin has garnered since becoming a Baltimore Raven coach, an offensive coordinator this off season. I feel like I missed everything. Rashal Bateman is often a forgotten man. Because people will mention Odell Beckham Jr., what he could possibly do. People will bring up Zay Flowers, what he can do. People will bring up Mark Andrews, what he has done and what he can do. People will bring up if JK Dobbins is healthy, what he can do. And other players, and of course Lamar Jackson, obviously, but I feel like a lot of people are forgetting about Rashal Bateman. I've said it before, and I'll continue to say it this year. I really do feel like he's going to be Ravens as long as he's healthy. He'll be Ravens number one guy. I mean, Lamar Jackson said it back in his presser about a month and a half ago, whenever it was. But I really do think that Rashal Bateman will be the Ravens, their number one wide receiver. I think he'll be their go-to guy wide receiver. And the fact that the Ravens have options, they have options at wide receiver. The fact that they can open up the field with everything that they have, they can use all of the field with everything that they have. It should be nice, man. I'm excited to see it. Rashal Bateman has a good size. Sneaky speed, very, very sneaky speed. I feel like with Rashal Bateman, a lot of people, I remember Clu to myself, don't talk about his speed enough. Rashal Bateman, he got some decent hands. He does have the drops here and there, but again, like I always say, as long as you make it more plays, then you're missing. As long as you catching more, then you dropping, that's fine.  We don't want nothing like that. We don't want like no 50% ratio and nothing like that. But y'all get what I mean. As long as you make it more plays, then you're missing. But with Rashal Bateman, I'm very excited for him this year because I think Odell Beckham, Jr.  He certainly did make touchdowns, y'all get catches, get all that. And that's his incentives right there. If he leaves the Ravens and catches, extra meal. If he leaves the Ravens and yards, extra meal. If he leaves the Ravens and touchdown catches, another extra meal, he could get all his 18 meal. So I am, but I think one, another reason they paid Odell Beckham, Jr. is obviously to give Lamar Jackson another solid guy, but to take some attention off Rashal Bateman. Cause that's what it's gonna do. Everybody's thinking about Odell Beckham, Jr., everybody. Odell Beckham, Jr., what's he gonna look like? Odell Beckham, Jr., oh, we gotta watch him. What's he doing there? What's he gonna do with training camp? How's he gonna look? How's he gonna look like at week one of the season? How's he gonna look? Everybody, and I get it. Why they wondering that? We all wondering that, and we excited for it. And again, Mark Andrews, they flip, but a lot of people still forgetting about Rashal Bateman. So he can benefit all that attention that's going all these other places. He can benefit off of that so much. Even last year alone, he was doing his thing, and it was Rashal Bateman, Devon Duvenay, DeMarcus Robinson, and Mark Andrews, of course. But, and it's no offense to those guys at all, of course, cause they're NFL players, so they are excellent at their craft. But now with the group that they have, even more attention will be on other people. Defenses will have to focus on other people that much more. So, Rashal Bateman, the fact that what he was doing last year before he got hurt, if that's indicative of what it'll be moving forward, we need some real good shape. We need some real good shape. Again, health is wealth. That's the biggest thing with this team, man.  And I know y'all tired of hearing me say it, but I gotta say it again, because it's true. Health is wealth. That's the biggest thing that could stop them. Really, in my opinion, that's the only thing that could stop them. If they healthy, that's that past the sky is the limit. They could really do some damage. But anyway, team keeping clean with Glad, Rashal Bateman is back in the building. It's always great to get great news because I know as Ravens fans, it doesn't have to share bad news, but it's great to share good news. Oh, I love it, I love it. But it's great to get great news as well. So I love y'all. I really appreciate y'all. Thank you for always watching. Make sure you subscribe to the channel. Turn your notifications on so you don't miss anything because things have already picked up so much and the whole team hasn't even met together for training camp yet. Think about that. Think about that. Things have picked up so much and the Baltimore Ravens as a unit, as a team with all 90 men, they haven't even met together yet. Haven't even fully got there yet. We're not even at a full training camp yet. Think about that.  I love y'all. I appreciate y'all and we out.


So now that we're starting to discuss our data structure of a tree, one of the things that we have are, just like always, some operations. So let's say, for example, I'm looking at this C node right here. So I've built my tree, you know, tree, T, new, tree, and I added all these elements and we'll get to that later on. One of the things I might need to know is, you know, where's my root? This is very similar to when we were talking about stacks and queues, and I needed to know where my head was. I'm going to put air quotes around here. You could think of this as sort of like it was the head. Where's the starting point, if you will? So, again, air quotes only because when we don't look at it as a head, we look at it again as a root. But, again, I say I'm here. I'm at this node here and I'll change colors again. So I just made node C and I'll call it C for this sake. One of the things I can ask is, you know, give me my element that I happen to have here. The C is just a key for me to kind of work off of. But I also ask maybe something like, what's my parent? I need to know who this is because if I ever need to go up, I need to kind of traverse this tree in any way. I do happen to need to know who these people are, especially as we can kind of work. The same kind of thing. If I happen to be needing to know my parent, as you can imagine, I need to know who my children are, so I have the exact same thing going on there. I can always ask some other things like how many children, so the number of children. And last one might be, how many siblings do I happen to have? So, siblings. These are all very common operations because, again, if you kind of notice, they're pointing towards either myself or any of the connecting kind of nodes that may be in association with me in any sort of way.


And John 4, Jesus rebukes the people because he says, you will not believe unless you see signs and wonders. Well, that's not faith, and that's what we have today. We've got a bunch of people telling other people that they have no faith, that they have no faith in these signs and wonders, but the fact of the matter is true faith resides in the people who do not need signs, who do not need to see some demon cast out, who do not need to see some sort of ecstatic tongues, who do not need to see something at the hands of another man. True faith resides with the person who says that the word of God is enough. However, we indicate our lack of faith by a need for these particular signs. Be careful that you're not following people who only want to exhibit signs, but have no clear understanding of the word.