Coming up on DTNS, a study on the effects of social media on children. Walmart's cloud gaming service leaks in the epic Apple court battle and AI that can make dubbed movies better. This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday. May the fourth be with you 2021 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt and from Studio Redwood. I'm Sarah Lane and from the pod feed podcast. This is Allison Sheridan and I'm the show's producer, Roger Chang. We were just talking about that CEO who got dismissed for taking acid and lots of other stuff on good day Internet. We even have some select quotes from the epic Apple battle. If you want that wider conversation, become a member. Patreon dot com slash DTNS. Let's start with a few tech things you should know. Apple hired former Google AI researcher, Sammy Benjio, who was an early leader with the Google Brain research team. Reuters sources say Benjio will head a new AI research unit under senior VP John John Andrea, who was previously Google's head of machine learning until joining Apple in 2018. Tuesday, India's telecom ministry granted permission to several telecom service providers to begin a six month trial of 5G in the millimeter wave mid band and sub gigahertz bands. It also encourages testing of something called 5Gi, which is an Indian variant of 5G meant for the specific conditions of the Indian market, particularly rural areas. The approved telecoms include geo platforms, airtel, Vodafone idea and MTNL. They will all work with equipment providers, Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and CDOT. No Chinese companies are among the approved participants. Instagram is adding a caption sticker option to stories videos so that users can watch without audio, great accessibility feature and also handy for anyone who's somewhere where having sound on is not ideal. Creators can record from the stories or soon reels camera in the Instagram app or also choose from their phone's gallery then add a customizable caption sticker, which will convert the speech to text. The feature is currently available in English and in English speaking countries with a rollout to other countries and other languages soon. And as I mentioned, Instagram will start testing caption stickers in reels videos as well. Amazon announced because I can never click the button that says play the audio aloud as fast as the person starts. Amazon announced select Lenovo PCs now support Alexa show mode in Windows 10. Lenovo's yoga idea pad and think pad Windows 10 PC can now be switched to show mode from a voice or app prompt then display things like trending news, timers, weather, Amazon orders and delivery info, anything an echo show can do when the PC isn't being used as a PC. The features available to customers in the US, UK, Germany, Japan, India, Ireland, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and New Zealand come into more PC models later this year. Twitter acquired Scroll, the startup that removed ads from participating news sites for five dollars per month subscription and also operated the Nuzzle service, which emailed users trending Twitter content. Scroll will no longer accept new sign apps, but the service will continue to existing customers. Nuzzle will shut down on May 6th. No, Nuzzle in the Nuzzle. All right, let's talk about that study I mentioned at the top of the show. Let's do it. So a lot of theorizing and correlation has been done around social media and social media's effect on mental health, especially in children. The latest is a survey of 430,000 10 to 15 year olds by the Oxford Internet Institute published by the Journal of Clinical Psychological Science. The scientists compared responses in 2019 to responses to previous surveys going all the way back to 1991. Obviously, Internet age, very different between those two times. Participants answered a set of questions with sliding scales about their own feelings and duration of activity in question. They weren't asked how they were spending the time specifically, such as which programs they watched or what kinds of posts they consumed. Between 1991 and 2019, there was a small drop in the association between depression and either social media use or TV viewing. There was a small rise in the association of these activities with emotional issues. Looking at a nearer time frame, study co-author Professor Andrew Shabilsky said, quote, we couldn't tell the difference between social media impact and mental health in 2010 and 2019. He also added, we're saying that the connection is not getting stronger. I was really fascinated by this. My niece has six children and she got tired of her kids being crazy about tech and just being overly connected to screens.  It's been over a year, maybe a year and a half that they haven't allowed their kids to have any kind of screen time. I think Sundays they get it for an hour or something like that. And she's writing a book about the experience because of the massive change in her children, how much her children are reading, how they're actually creating games together, writing books together. But she's also done a lot of research and read a lot of books on this topic. So I was fascinated by this because it sort of says that there isn't any evidence of a lot of it says there isn't evidence. And in particular, I was intrigued. There's a sentence in the abstract that says there is therefore little evidence for increases in the associations between adolescence, technology, engagement and mental health. So that even expanded it beyond just talking about social media. Yeah, there's because because these studies go back to 91. They have to cross platforms, right? This isn't just this isn't just social media. This is using TVs and and stuff like that. And what it's showing is, you know, 430,000. I know this is self-reported. It is a nice large sample size. It's a rigorous study. It's a peer reviewed journal. And they're saying there might be all kinds of other reasons why limiting technology or limiting social media might have this or that effect. But there doesn't seem to be any link between the mental health of children and the new technology, which frankly is what I would expect. Every time there's a new technology, everybody freaks out and is like, Oh, no, comic books are going to ruin our children movies. They're going to ruin our children. Television is going to ruin our children. Social media going to ruin our children. And it usually ends up being like, no, it changes the way they behave, but it actually doesn't have a net negative effect. This is only one study, but that's what this study does point to is like, looks like we're experiencing that again. I think the real study I want to see is what percentage of small children turn into absolute monsters when you take their their iPads away from them? Because in personal observation, it's all of them. Yeah, sure. Well, that's that this is this study is about 10 to 15 year olds, right? This is not given given your toddler an iPad. I could absolutely see studies finding that the iPad leads to, you know, less responsiveness to discipline because of distraction or all kinds of things. I could hypothesize all day because so it's not it's not that this study says there are no effects of technology ever on children. It says 10 to 15 year olds don't seem to be less mentally well because of this particular technique. You make a good point, Tom, my niece's experiences. All six children are under the age that this was done. So maybe there's a maybe there's a gradual point where it's okay to to introduce it at a little heavier scale. I mean, I know as an adult, it's like if I why I am on the internet most of the day and a lot of that is work related not all of it, but there are times where I kind of go like, I need a detox or I got to step away from this and it's not just to stretch my neck and my back and my legs and stuff. It's it's to give my brain a break and I think, you know, a lot of this is as a younger human, you are perhaps more a little bit more impressionable and and are still honing those skills to be able to say I need a break from this.  And I think it's your spot on Sarah. It's it's that at your age, you now know, I need a break where when your brain is still developing, you don't even know that that's starting to get to you. Yeah. And what this shows is that there are always those pressures and social media hasn't made those pressures worse, hasn't made those lessons harder to learn, at least yet. There may be other aspects of this that aren't studied, but this is good news to be honest. Yeah. The Epic versus Apple court fight is underway. Lots of little side revelations are coming out in the course of testimony and evidence. We're going to hold off talking about who's going to win this till we get closer to the end of it. But there's all kinds of evidence coming out in the case that is very interesting. For instance, Fortnite brought in more than nine billion dollars, nine billion dollars from Fortnite across 2018 and 2019 Epic made five point one billion in gross gross revenue in 2020, most of which was Fortnite. Hence them having cash to do this fight. There are also emails from Epic's Tim Sweeney to Microsoft's Phil Spencer asking if Microsoft could time the launch of free multiplayer with Fortnite season 14 promising plans that would highlight the value of consoles over mobile. Those emails happened in August of last year. Season 14 in August of last year was when Epic added its own in app payment system and got booted from the Apple and Google stores. So he wanted to be able to point to consoles and like look it's free to play. Everybody go to consoles. We got booted out of the mobile stores. Microsoft did not end up offering free multiplayer until earlier this year. CNBC spotted documents from 2010 where Scott Forstall, Phil Shiller and Steve Jobs all at Apple were holding the line against letting Facebook link out to its embedded apps in Safari because at the time Apple couldn't take a cut of in-game currency like credits in Farmville if they let them do so. Also, everyone's having fun pointing out a typo by Steve Jobs where he typed it Fisi book, F-E-C-E-B-O-OK. One of the most interesting exhibits included an email thread from 2019 where Epic Games co-founder Mark Ryan enthused about having tried a demo of Walmart's yet to be launched cloud gaming service. Ryan says it felt like playing on a PS4 even though it was on mobile and said they were talking about selling a controller attachment for a phone for two bucks. A beta was supposedly scheduled to launch in July 2019. Walmart owns Liquid Sky, which offers cloud window PCs that would be used for this service. The Verges sources say the project called Project Storm was put on hold during the pandemic and we don't have any indication yet if it's coming back. So there's so much in this. You know, I don't really understand the significance of the amount of money that Fortnite is made. Why is that relevant, Tom? Oh, it's relevant because we didn't know. We didn't know that number. And now you can look at Epic and say like, oh, most of their money comes from Fortnite. Hence, they want to break in the dough from Fortnite and keep more of it themselves. They're already making this much. They want to keep that going. And like I said, it also means they have money to fight this court case. Right. Well, so, okay. So, parsing some of the emails that you just mentioned, Tom, it's clear that Epic has been has been laying foundation for what was coming. Apple and Epic, we're going to go head to head. We've known this for some time. Epic trying to say to Microsoft, hey, what if we do a little of this and that? We both benefit, although really it's Epic wanting to benefit more. That all makes sense. I am not at all surprised that there would have been a conversation way back in 2010, including Steve Jobs saying, yeah, let's not let Facebook link to its own embedded apps and Safari because we want to cut. That's, you know, it's in 2010, they would have been, yeah, even, you know, holding line even more so, right? Than today. No one was even really challenging them on that. But yeah, I don't feel like anything I know now gives me any more indication of how this is eventually going to end. But I found the most interesting thing out of this to be the Walmart disclosure. The fact that the Walmart, the Walmart Cloud Gaming Service made Epic Games co-founder Mark Ryan super enthusiastic. Now, granted, maybe it was just a really good product demo, but I think having more of these cloud services out there would would be a good thing. And if it came from Walmart, fine. Put it up there next to, you know, Luna from Amazon and Stadia from Google and all of those. And I find that fascinating that this came out in a court case. And I'm very curious if Walmart's continuing to pursue this or not. It sounds like they had a really good product. If this is important in, I still, I keep having trouble finding the connections back to this case. Why is the Walmart Cloud Service important in Epic versus Apple? Oh, what Apple is going to try to show is that there are plenty of alternatives for people to play games because the case hinges on Epic saying Apple is a monopoly within iOS and Apple saying we're not a monopoly. There's lots of platforms. So it's the scope. Being able to say Walmart was even coming out with a platform and Epic was real excited about it, helps them make that case. Okay. So it's setting the scope for the trial. Well, the scope for the trial is set. This one thing doesn't set it. But this is another plank in their defense to say like, look at all these different platforms that are out there that exist in Vidya, Amazon, Google, even Walmart had one that there was developing and Epic was real excited about it and we're definitely going to try to be on it. It sounds like we're not a monopoly. They have plenty of options. I got you. Okay. I get it now. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Tell us about where all the chips are going to be made soon, Allison. Well, the Silicon Desert is just about to get a monsoon of investment. In May 2020, TSMC announced that it would build a 12 inch wafer fabrication plant in Phoenix, Arizona. It's a small plant that will make 20,000 wafers a month on TSMC's five nanometer process when it reaches volume production in 2024. However, since then, the worldwide chip shortage has put pressure on companies to increase capacity. Three sources now tell Reuters that TSMC has plans for as many as five additional fabs to be built in Arizona. TSMC has not confirmed this, but it did say last month that it plans to spend one hundred billion dollars over the next three years to increase capacity. And since that announcement, the U.S. has announced plans to spend in the tens of billions to support domestic chip manufacturing and TSMC isn't alone. Intel is building two new fabs in Arizona as well and announced Monday it will upgrade a plant in Rio Rancho, New Mexico outside of Albuquerque to make processors using Intel's Foverose stacking technology. The upgrade will add 700 new jobs to that plant. Yeah, man, Arizona and I guess Albuquerque will, you know, is Arizona adjacent really really shaping up to be an innovative area for startups in lots of ways. People have been telling that story for four or five years and this is going to continue that trend. If you see TSMC building six plants in Phoenix in the Phoenix area, that's amazing. Yeah, Arizona is extremely inviting to businesses to build factories there. I worked for a company where we had we had plants all over the country and we were all jealous of the of the overhead rates in Arizona because they paid hardly nothing for their property taxes and rental of the land and stuff. It was it's very very friendly to this kind of business. But I mean, this is jobs, right? This is U.S. jobs. This is great. I don't know about Silicon Desert, though. Maybe maybe Silicon Canyon. Is there anything besides perhaps just unused land where a factory could go where the hot dry air is an advantage for this sort of thing? I hadn't thought about that, but it's dusty. Yeah. I mean, that's that's kind of my first thought is like, is this really the right place to do it? But I assume that there are some really good reasons. I think they don't have water. It's the tax incentive. It's not the environment. You're right. Yeah, we'll figure out the water thing. Yeah. Have you ever heard that being a problem in some of these places? Oh, Taiwan. Taiwan has a route. TSMC has a lot of experience with that in Taiwan. So maybe they're like, oh, yeah, Arizona is a cakewalk. Not a problem. Hey, folks, if you want DTNS as a video podcast, you can get the video RSS feed. Just go to dailytechnewshow.com slash subscribe. Input magazine has an article about how director Scott Mann and developer Nick Lines have started a company called Flawless, which uses neural nets to make better dubs of movies into other languages. Usually if you don't realize this voice actors match their lines to existing footage from a script that is altered to fit the visuals. So it's not a direct translation. It's trying to take what, you know, sometimes it takes longer to say something in a different language. So they try to fit it to what the actor's mouth actually did with Flawless. The other language version of the script can be recorded first and then the neural network adapts it in video. The neural network is trained on daily rushes, the unedited footage from a day's filming to use millions of visual data points and create 3D models of actors faces. It can then generate new 3D models that fit the dialogue that's already been recorded in the other language. That is then converted to the 2D images and visual effects artists come in and touch up anything. The algorithm didn't get quite right so that it looks nice and smooth. The facial data processing is time consuming, but since the dialogue is recorded early in the process, instead of at the end, it can run alongside filming. Flawless is in talks with studios and is working with one streaming service already. First movie using the technology is expected within the next year within 12 months. I thought this was incredibly mind-blowingly cool. You guys have to go look at the link in the in the show notes to this at inputmag.com because it is it is really, really cool. They show a lot of face mapping things where they they tear off somebody's face and you know, remap it and everything and they give you there's videos there where they show, you know, Tom Hanks speaking in German in in I forget which movie it was, but they demonstrate exactly what it looks like. And there was a very thoughtful discussion at the end of the article too about what it means to have subtitles versus not subtitles and if you're reading versus being able to live the experience as the director imagined it. And yet there's other people who think it's impure to not be seeing it exactly as it was created. And so it will be interesting to see, but I would they also talked about this might just end up reaching more people because if you can see a movie in your native language and really watch the movie and live it, you're more I don't I can't stand subtitle movies because I can't do something else. I crochet while I'm while I'm listening. So I would love this. I'm a thousand percent favor of this. I'm I had the same issue with subtitles that you do. Alison, I prefer subtitles because I'm I can't handle dubs the way that they exist currently. It just it's like just the audio is out of I can't do it. And something like this while it does sound time consuming. It's such a better way to if something's got to be dubbed. And yeah, you either or I don't know. Maybe you can't read. I mean, there's all sorts of reasons that subtitles aren't always the solution that this would make the the experience so much more enjoyable. I've gotten so used to reading subtitles with my Korean and Chinese dramas that we watch that I resist this because I like I like that I hear the actors actual voice and I hear their tone even though I'm reading English. I like that I'm learning a little bit of Korean and Chinese. But that that I also realize that that's all just because that's the way I'm doing it. And then this is their voices. Yeah, well, it's it's it's done voices. It's it's done actors. Yeah, there's a great documentary about this. Like there are people who are George Clooney in Turkey. Every time George Clooney is in a movie, this person does. So it sounds right all the time then. Yeah. And in fact, they've done things where they bring the actual actor and they like learn German and do it and people are like, it doesn't sound right because it's always the real George Clooney does. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's it is an actor. Somebody the P squared was asking like, why don't they just adapt the audio to the video with AI? And the reason is because then the script still has to change. And what this does is let's the script to be a true translation rather than trying to adapt the translation which sometimes changes the meaning. And that is the way current dubbing does work, right? They adapt it and so you don't get the exact meaning that the that the director the writers had had intended in the first place. I think you got to watch the videos. It is it is fantastic. I really like it. I also that there have been I'm not fluent in any language besides English, but there are a couple that I'm fluent enough that I'll sometimes read the subtitle. I'm like, that's not totally what it said. Okay, close enough. But yeah, those could have been translated better. Yeah, totally. Apple release patches for iOS, iPad OS, Mac OS and watch OS to fix some serious WebKit flaws with maliciously crafted web content. Attackers could exploit a memory corruption issue and integer overflow that opened the door for arbitrary code execution. Always a bad thing. Even worse, Apple says it's aware these issues may have been actively exploited. So users should upgrade immediately. This is big news to me.  This is a zero day. Allison, you've noticed that every move Apple makes lately has become national news. Do you think we'll see Chris Wallace or Andrea Mitchell break in with the OS patch news tonight? Well, I would not be the least bit surprised.  Everybody knows that. And even I think it's weird how much coverage it gets. I was watching the NBC Evening News with Lester Holt. They spent 8% of that night's evening news talking about the Apple Spring Loaded event and all the cool new toys that came out. And that was on a day that the Derek Chauvin murder trial finished.  It was like it was an ad for Apple. They played clips from the from the thing, you know, the woman talking about awesome air tags are now they did end it with and by the way, they're going into some lawsuit stuff and federal regulation blah, blah, blah. But still 8% of the Evening News was an ad for Apple. I it just looked really weird to me. So I am sure this will be the top of the hour. I mean, this is huge. I mean, that I think the reason you're seeing that is because we still think of Apple as a little tech company. In fact, some of us, I think Allison, you and I are of the generation that still think of Apple as the upstart sometimes. Like we forget that that they are one of not only the most dominant tech companies now, but one of the most dominant companies on the planet. So this is a story you think of Apple as a little startup? I mean, I don't really. But there's part of me that still kind of has that category from back when they were back when they were the underdog, right? I like I still have that in my my my memory. I I'm overstating to say think of it that way. But I think when I see them on the Evening News, that's the part of me that still is like, Yeah, but that's just underdog Little Apple. It's like, no, they're like the biggest company in the world right now.  As the as the money continues to just get shoveled into Apple's coffers day after day. And I think that's why you see that and why you see Apple covered more than other tech companies because those other tech companies just aren't as huge. And the question I would ask you, Alison, do you see really easy for, you know, a news program that isn't necessarily like, you know, at the forefront of tech reporting to be like, look, colorful IMAX shiny. Well, sure. But they also they they are they're they're even looking because it's Apple, I guess, right? Yeah, they if it was if it was colorful small company in France, I don't see like Samsung. Is it unpacked? I don't see them talk about that. Right. Right. You know, they might go out with some new phones. Yeah, Samsung's market cap just not quite as big. Also not US. We're talking about US news. So that makes a difference to do you see Facebook, do you see Amazon covered like that? I do see Amazon. I don't see Facebook, but always in a bad way. Something they did story about sinister. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what will they know next? That's always a nightly news story about Facebook. Well, this might be kind of fun. Disney first announced its real retractable lightsaber. You might remember it was way back in April a whole less than a month ago. Now we have a video of it in action kind of cool. The lightsaber, which is a toy. It's not an actual lightsaber weapon, but it has a retractable light up blade that extends out from the hilt with the same crackling energy blades that the real Jedi's use because they are real. You know, based on Disney's patent filings, the blade seems to act like a modified motorized tape measure. So it retracts and extends a sheet of plastic and LED lights to mimic ignition. You'll likely be able to buy one or at least use it in some capacity at Disney's upcoming Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser immersive hotel. Due to launch in 2022. We have no word on price, but Disney's regular lightsabers cost about $200 a piece at Disney's Galaxy Edge Park Galaxy. I could save you some money. Just get yourself a Milwaukee 25 foot tape measure and you got yourself a homemade lightsaber to make light come out of it. Go Tom making the rounds on the Internet. People like, Hey, I can do this. I got a tape measure. No, these are really cool. And I haven't seen one in person, but in the video, they really does look like a lightsaber. Like it comes up fast. Faster than my tape measure does for sure. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Let's do it. Lori wrote in this message. We got on Patreon. Hi, Lori. Lori is looking forward to more accessibility discussions and we are putting together a DTNS special on accessibility. So Lori, great timing. Lori says as a teacher working with blind and low vision students, my approach to tech is always colored by wondering how my students are going to be able to access what their sighted peers do in the classroom. One of the things I've loved about Allison Sheridan is she always often she often looks at new apps and equipment with accessibility in mind. Can't wait to hear what y'all talk about. And thanks so much for all you do. Tom, Sarah, Roger and Len, Amos, Joe, Rich, the Patrick's Lamar, Justin Scott, and so many others who I feel are part of my friends of tech circle.  That's lovely. She's awesome. We are awesome and so are you Allison. So it's, you know, great minds, great minds. We are planning our next theme week. Every once in a while we do a theme week like security or something like that. And our next theme week will be about accessibility. Roger's working hard on that. So keep an ear out. We're going to have lots of good stuff on that soon. Yeah, you if you have any ideas for what could help that special or anything that we talk about on any of our shows feedback, a daily tech news show is where to send ideas, question comments and the like. Shout out to patrons at our master and grand master levels. Today they include Justin Zellers, James Seasmith and Miss Music Teacher. We also have some brand new bosses. Derek Silva and Kevin Brock. You just started back in our Sun Patreon and for that we thank you to our new bosses. Also big thanks to Allison Sheridan for being with us today. Allison, where can people keep up with your work? Well, if you're tired of me sounding like too much of an Apple fan girl, you might like last week's no silicast where I go on an eight minute rant about how my Mac is driving me nuts with how many different things are fiddly with it. You can also read about that if you prefer that medium and you can get both over at podfeed.com. Excellent. Well, we are live Monday through Friday on this show, which means, you know, Monday through Friday, including tomorrow and the day after that the day after that for 30 p.m. Eastern 2030. UTC find out more at daily technewshow.com slash live by Saab. Speaking of tomorrow, we'll be back with Scott Johnson. Talk to them. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com Hope you have enjoyed this program.


I've always been able to sense things when it's going to storm, when a car on the highway is about to lose a tire, when a distant family member is sick, or even the most mundane things like a cup of water about to be spilled. People think I'm just an observant person, but I can sense other things too, things that humans should never be aware of. The earliest example of this that can be remembered was when I was three. Like most children, I wasn't keen on going to bed, so there I laid, staring at the plastic glow stars on the ceiling. When a sensation I'd never felt before consumed me, someone, or rather something, was in my doorway. It starts the same every time, like you're falling, about to crash onto the pavement. But the pavement never comes, you just start falling faster, and you're beginning to get nauseous, but there's something demanding you look at it, and you're unsure if acknowledging its existence will make it better or worse. In that instance, acknowledging it made everything worse. What I saw poking its misshapen head in my doorway has been burned into my mind. I like to describe him as hamburger meat personified, though that doesn't really do him justice. But I really don't want to make anyone sick with the gory details. That's not what this story is about. I've learned in my short life that most of these entities are relatively harmless, and that if you suppress that feeling, do nothing to acknowledge them. They'll leave on their own. Sometimes curiosity will get the best of me and I'll look at them with their inhuman shapes while they slip out of reality. That's really all they want. Just to be seen. And then there's the entities that demand acknowledgement. No amount of ignorance or suppression will send them away. You have to play by their rules or you'll be nauseous and falling forever. And I truly do mean forever. Thankfully, I've only had two such encounters like this. It was around sunset in El Rido. I'd rented a room to stay in that night as I was just passing through town. I don't know if you've ever been to New Mexico, but the landscape is otherworldly. You can seemingly see for miles and I make no exaggeration when I tell you there's nothing. Absolutely nothing. No buildings, no people, not even a single tree. I was already uneasy. The place wall nice was extremely hard to find and there'd been no cell service for miles. The sun was cast in a way that covered the land in a blood red light. Someone else might have found it beautiful. I fumbled with a lock code to the door when the familiar nauseous feeling started to take hold. I wasn't in the mood for these anomalies, so I ignored it and hurried inside. The windows had all been left with the curtains drawn, presumably to let in soft natural light. Unfortunately, the softness was lost as the setting sun cast stark red lines all over the place, only adding to my nausea. Moving the place over, I found that there was no television, no Wi-Fi, and still no cell service. Falling faster, I stumbled onto the red leather couch, holding my eyes shut, waiting for whatever wanted my attention to get bored and leave me alone. You can probably guess by now that wasn't going to happen. Hours seemed to pass by and still I was falling. The sun had not set and the room was still bathed in blood. I studied my breathing and turned a peek out of the window trying to catch a glimpse of this persistent anomaly. Truth be told, I was expecting some Lovecraftian horror to be hovering out there in the desert. What was actually out there was worse. Just across the road, on the edge of the vast nothingness of the New Mexican Desert, was a solid white hair. If you're not familiar with hairs, they are not the cute rabbit you're thinking of. Imagine that small, cutesy little bunny stretched out over a skeleton far too big for its skin, with bulging wide eyes and so impossibly skinny. You wonder how it's even alive at all. And hairs are very rarely solid white in the desert. It was standing on its hind legs like hairs tend to do, staring right into the window as I looked in silent terror. Don't get me wrong, I'm by no means afraid of rabbits. But something about that stark whiteness on the Red Desert's scape was, for lack of a better word, wrong. I'd like to tell you that's all that happened, that it was just a strange encounter in the desert that I remember from time to time. And you know, I had to go across that road. There was no other way. I had to meet it. And it looked pleased as I nervously crossed the highway, its rabbit mouth twisting into an unsettling smile. I thought you'd never come. It spoke in many voices all mixed up together, yet separate at the same time. I said nothing. Do you know how hard it is to find observant people these days?  You mean cell phones? Cell phones. It almost yelled. That's what they're called. Thank you. I can't keep up with the rate you humans come up with things. Again, I said nothing. Let's not waste time on meaningless small talk. You, my friend, opened a door that you shouldn't have, and now I'm here to offer you a deal. I knew about the door he spoke of, but as I've said before, that isn't what this story is about. What kind of deal? I couldn't help but ask. I didn't think it was possible, but this rabbit mouth smiled wider. I believe your kind call a Faustian bargain, the devil at the crossroads. You understand. You want my soul. Despite the dangerous situation, I couldn't help but laugh. That's a little cliche.  Its eyes briefly flashed with anger before going back to its unsettling, smiling self. If you don't believe in that shit, what's the harm then? I did say it was a bargain, so by your logic, you'd get something for absolutely nothing. You can't lose. He was right. What's a soul when you believe there's nothing in the end? And truth be told, I didn't have a lot going for me. Besides my gift of observance, I was average in every way. Say I accept your bargain. What do I get out of it? Its form seemed to grow larger and more grotesque with excitement. Anything you want. This became a more existential question for myself. What did I want? I was okay on money. I wasn't horribly unattractive, just average, just plain. I thought about what made my life truly interesting, what made me different. I think, I said in a weaker voice than intended, I think I want to be whatever it is you are. It grew larger still to where it was now standing almost at my height and took an exaggerated bow as you wish. His many voices sounded more sad than unsettling now. With no more than a simple blink, I was now alone in the middle of the highway. The sun had finally set, taking its otherworldly red glow with it. I walked in a trance back to the unfamiliar place I'd rented for the night. Just instinctively, I checked myself over in the bathroom mirror. To my surprise, I still looked like me, maybe a little older, but that could have just been my imagination. The only difference that I could see were my eyes. They've always been dark, but now they seemed impossibly black with no discernible reflection in them at all. Beyond that, nothing had changed. I was still me, still human, in the desolate desert of El Rito. I'm still average, still plain, or at least that's what I'd like you to believe. The truth, like always, is much worse. But like I've said too many times already, that's not what this story is about.


I'm Richard Pascal and I'm here to talk about avoiding the innovation graveyard. It's almost oxymoronic in a way to think about the question, how does a large company with an established business model that's successful succeed in accommodating disruptive innovation? And the oxymoronic part of this is affected by all of the things that are necessary to be successful in your core business blind you to or prevent you even if you're aware of things going on around you from doing the very things you need to go to where you need to go because those very things almost always do harm to your immediate business and do harm to shareholder's expectations. Inevitably when these sorts of innovations come up they come in the form of features that are less exciting than the current offering. They are usually performing at a lower level. They almost inevitably involve lower margins and they actually go for customers that you don't have. So you're offering something even if you were brave enough to suggest it that your current customers don't want. And how you deal with this as a large organization, we're not talking about kittens and puppies, younger organizations for whom agility comes naturally. We're talking about old dogs and new tricks and it turns out to be really hard. The remedies are hard to come by. For all these reasons you're really hoping for or requiring a very special spirit which really involves every employee somehow internalizing the founder's intent that was courageous enough to do whatever was necessary to get the company going in the first place and to take the hard decisions that in the near term which can be 12, 18 months really disappoint or make a lot of people who are used to what you normally do quite unhappy.