Hi everyone Marius from Render Street Thanks for being here this is my presentation Thank you To I'll start with a very brief intro I I am one of a co-founder and currently the CEO of Render Street This means that I've wrote. I'm a technical guy. I wrote Half about half of the original code of the platform. So I know exactly what's inside Well, of course now it's left less than half written by me because the platform evolved in all these years But still I know everything that's going on there. I know a lot of butter rendering and I'll so know about What it takes to grow a business and to do a business in the blender world. It's not an easy task and To put things into perspective We started our farm just a moment Okay, so we started our farm in 2012 That was our logo about that time We started it because one of our founders had a need. We are three people in the company. One of them is an architectural rendering Designer so she had a need for a render farm We didn't we short story long or long story short We weren't able to find any good ones at the time. So we decided to do our own so we started out as a need of our own and we decided to do this for for the render artists and Finally Seven years later, we are the most recommended and the farm for blender we've been we've been having this title for a few years now and It's because of our hard work and also this translates into a few unique things that we can offer you as our users One of them is the monthly plan that at the moment if I know correctly We're the only ones offering this kind of plan. It's an all-you-can-run the plan for a fixed fifth months I'll tell you a bit a bit more about it later Another of our unique advantages is that we have EV support We've had it since November last year since 2.0 was in beta We still have it to the day and it works well So if you have projects on using EV that are more complex that your hardware can use you can use our farm for them Also, we have a unique mindset. We are not a hardware company like Most of the render farms in the market. We are technology company Our most valuable asset is our platform and we work very hard on improving it We work continuously and I'm not exaggerating when I when I say this We've had more than 50 updates this year alone to the platform Even if you don't see them, they are there and they work on your benefit. So we always upgrade we always improve we always do new stuff and improve stuff for you and Also, we try to make your life as easy as possible. We have a very easy to use interface We have CPU and GPU supports who you can render your projects no matter how big or how small they are and we can We can put at your disposal a lot of resources. I think the most The biggest amount of resources allocated to one single account was 500 machines. So this is One personal once to the over and on 500 machines while all the other users render their own project at the same time One important aspect in this thing is that we keep your private I know there are a lot of solutions in the market because Melner is free So everybody can work out their own solution and give a shot at rendering market I think it's very important to check the privacy of the solution that you decide to use whether this renders to another one We take privacy very seriously We have several layers of security implemented in the platform Starting from the code level our entire platform is custom built So we didn't take an off-the-shelf product and use it on our infrastructure So everything is private at the code level and the infrastructure level at the operations level So you have the certainty that whatever you send away it remains private And you decide whether you want to share it with other people or not. We don't Also, our platform is flexible. We so it was built from the start to Be able to take advantage of the cloud so we can expand Our infrastructure into the cloud dynamically. This means that no matter how big your job is or how small We can render it without any Advanced notice without reserving the render farm for a number of hours without Paying in advance or booking or looking into the calendar and see whether we have availability or not We always have availability. There is no waiting queue for the renders You just send your project and it's completed fast no matter when you send it and Also, we want to be flexible to allow you to Use our platform in your own way. So we offer various upload and down solutions so you can just Use the one you most comfortable with or the more the one that integrates into the pipeline best so Here is and of course, we have all the features we need we support all the blender versions We have I think 10 versions in the back. So you can have maximum compatibility for all the projects. We have You will support simulations baking simulation or uploading your own simulation We support texture baking we support third-party plugins So if you use animation nodes or flip fluids, they work on our farm or blender gurus add-ons whichever whatever you use it will work on our farm and Yeah to to wrap up this first part of the presentation if you are to remember just one thing about today's presentation is that renders it delivers No matter how big or how smaller project is no matter what kind of tools you use what kind What are the memory requirements? What are the what is the complexity of the project we deliver? We've had a very high delivery delivery deliverability rate in the past years over 99% so This means that Whatever you send our way it gets done Okay to move to the second part of the the presentation Whether you're using it or not already here are a few tips that you may not know about how to use our platform in a in the most optimized way I Wanted to talk about this because we have quite a number of options quite a number of things that I Know people that people don't really read the documentation. So there are mentioned in our knowledge base, but It's better when somebody talks to you about them The first the first thing to to consider is that we have three different plans We have the monthly plan, which is a low-cost plan status starts at $50 45 euros per month It's great if you have Large volumes or relaxed deadlines So you can render quite a lot of frames quite a lot of hours for a very low cost The next one is the on-demand plan. This is the workforce of our farm Most of the projects are rendered with this plan. It can render everything very fast It's also more expensive than the monthly plan And then there's the the studio plan, which is dedicated for studios or people that render Have large pipelines over 500 hours per month or larger projects like short films or future films This works the same as the on-demand plan, but the prices are a lot lower. So they can they can accommodate larger volumes So this is a comparison to help you understand better We took a hypothetical project taking 500 hours to complete on our farm this is a comparison of how the three plans work and What the project would cost when used with any of those three plans so you can see the monthly plan is the cheaper It only cost 150 dollars to deliver the project. So this amounts to 30 cents per hour per server hour. So the unit we use is the server hour But it takes longer then the on-demand plan delivers very very quickly in just a few hours it costs more and The studio plan delivers faster than the on-demand plan. It also costs less. The trick is that I said that the studio plan Requires a certain volume of rendering to to be activated Now the difference between those is that the monthly plan works differently than the other two So if you have a volume of rendering that's that's four times this one. So two thousand hours per month It will still cost the same. So the hourly price will decrease under 10 cents per hour If so the more you render the lower your hourly cost with this plan So in addition to that because it's it has this particular way of working you can do a number of things with them and You have to wrap your head around it a bit because as your cost don't increase with the volume You can start thinking things a bit differently So first of all it frees up your workstation or your computer You can just send the render to us and we'll take care of it and you can do something else with your computer Just I don't know play a game work on a null project Or just power it off and go for a walk Another thing you can use it for is animation check So you can render a quick version of your animation a low resolution low samples it will render quickly You'll check that animation is looking right that all the textures are there and then you can launch the full render with the Normal parameters you won't need to reupload the file You can just clone the job in our interface Modify the parameters the sample counter resolution and just launch the final render You can also use it for previous or for customer acceptance So if you have a lot of versions that you need to present to the customer You can just render them all no matter how many versions your price will demand the same and that's an advantage You can also use to estimate the cost of your renders and also the time you can render a few frames with it You'll see how much it takes how long it takes to render a frame from that you can compute the cost You can also have our our system automatically Calculate the cost for you with the one plan with the monthly plan and then you can switch with just one button to the on demand plan to finish it quicker As I said before you can render large volumes for a very low price Sure about that you've seen probably most of you the Box film that won the animation award at the Suzanne That was ended using the one the monthly plan So you've seen how it looks like you can imagine the number of hours it took to render it it was all done with a low cost and Of course you can use it you can combine using it with the on-demand plan because the two plans can be Active at the same time in the same account So you can have for instance if you have a project with the daylight in five days from now You can render launch it with the monthly plan for four and a five four and a half days And then just half a day before the deadline you can switch it to the to the on-demand plan Which will deliver it in the reminder of the job in a couple of hours So this way you make sure that you have the lowest price for the animation and you still meet your deadline no matter what it is And if you're asking if it works. Yes, it works We've rendered 35 million frames to the date So those frames are all successfully delivered And we have hundreds of people using it and it just works. So try it out Another feature that is not that no not more a lot of people know about is that our farm works in a different way So We as if you send a larger project our way, it will get more resources allocated to it So because of this if you have a project taking 100 render hours in total and a project taking having 1000 render hours in total they can be delivered in roughly the same time We do this to offer you predictability because I know that you need to Have repeatable and predictable results so we can plan ahead for projects So you know that no matter the size of a project you it will be delivered in that amount of time And you can put that in your timeline You can put that in your quote and you can put that To to plan your project ahead so you can both you and the client will be happy Also, we have a feature that it's helpful for rendering large still images So if you have very complex or very large still shots You can we have a feature that automatically splits them into several pieces and renders them on several machines So we can deliver them faster. So if you have a Project that takes 10 hours to render on a single machine We can most likely deliver that in under one hour with this feature Here are the I was talking about the upload and download options here are all of them You can see each of them has its own strengths So you can upload directly on the website. We accept files up to 10 Gigabytes so we can upload them directly in the browser. It's a very fast upload with the new interface that we're about to see And it's the simplest way. So just drag them up the file in the browser and it will work We also allow FTP both for uploads and downloads and you can also Upload the entire project folder just ship it to on FTP to our farm and it will work And you can also set automatic downloads on FTP so that you won't have to wait until all the renders are done You you'll just get the frames as they are completed So when the project finishes rendering, you'll also have the frames You can also use the add-on which is the simplest way to send a job to our farm just click and it does everything else This is the slowest upload options there because of the security scheme used in encryption traffic and Of course, we have cloud integration. We can both take your projects from your dropbox account or one drive or Microsoft or Google cloud And you can we can also send the frames back to your cloud and I know this is Obvious probably for most of you, but check the knowledge base. We have a lot of information there It will help whether you have questions or if you encounter some issues For instance, we have a troubleshooter for Pink textures or missing textures. Just check the knowledge base And if you don't find us there will be happy to help you out and now the new interface You're the most you're the among the first people to see it It's in closed beta right now, but we're showcasing it here. You can see it live at the first floor in our booth It's a total rewrite of the job management interface. We dumped everything and started from zero and This is what it looks like We try to keep the same clean and easy to understand the aspect of the website while making it more more modern and more responsive The interface has more information Displayed about the jobs you can see larger thumbnails. It's also mobile friend and basically any device friendly So we can use it on your mobile phone. You can use it on any device on the tablet and so on It has as I was saying it has faster uploads So this is the comparison the old interface versus a new interface the same file the same connection the same time You can see that in the new interface the upload is almost complete though in the old interface The upload is almost that halfway The number of the new features are in the new face. You can now sort of the jobs by a number of criteria You can filter the jobs again by rendering engine or CPU GPU status and so on You can tag jobs and this is an important feature that a lot of people ask for if you share the account with more than one people or If you work on more than one project at a time You can just tag the respective jobs with the project name or the person that we use it Uses the account so you can just work on the specific jobs that you want For the monthly plan understood one there's also a feature that allows you to manually reorder the jobs so that You if you want to prioritize a job just drag it at the top is dragon drop and it will get all the resources assigned to it So if it will finish faster And of course, there's a dark mode Everybody does that mode now a lot of people had asked for it I know that a lot of people a lot of people work at night So a dark mode is easier on the eyes. So now you can choose between the dark mode and the light mode That's all the presentation ends. I want to thank you for your support We wouldn't be able to do this without your continuous support and thank you for using us all of you For those who are noting you using us just give us a shot and you won't be sorry Thank you for watching the presentation if you have any questions, I think we have some time. I'll be happy to answer them Thank you Yeah, you So that you can sign up for the account and you get some free credits or you can take the Trial for the monthly panel which is just one dollar for 24 hours and you can use all those 24 hours to render and Just everything wrong. I cannot give you an answer to that because As I said our platform can expand seamlessly into the cloud. So We don't really have a limit We can Allocate resources from the cloud as as many as in it for the jobs This is why I said that we don't have cues Any job that comes just gets assigned its own set of servers and starts rendering. So Basically, it's kind of the limit we can use all the major cloud providers if we decide to okay going once. Yes We use both on premises and Rented hardware. So we we have quite a mix of hardware and The beauty of it is that we manage to put everything together in a way that's transparent for the user So the user doesn't need to know and or concern the server with this They just need to know that they can they send the job to us and we take her a bit. Okay going once during twice Thank you


So I came here for Red Hat Summit and interestingly I found that Todd, he founded Purism, he also lives in San Francisco so it's a great idea to just meet up with him. So today we are meeting Todd, nice to be meeting you in person, we have been kind of interacting over emails and we had a long, more than one hour long chat over phone. I met Richard Solomon last week and we had a lot of discussions and one discussion was about mostly when you see that we are living in an age where we are surrounded by IoT devices, right? I mean just look at the kind of marvel of technology that we have at disposal but sadly it's kind of a threat to our freedom, to our privacy, to actually our society, right? At one hand you have all this amazing beautiful technology but at the same time it's also kind of, it can destroy your life. So we are discussing that is it possible to have a balance between technologies and business models? Is it possible that those companies who do pure open source, maybe they are more ethical than those who do commercial, not commercial but proprietary software? So your name came up. So can you tell us about, sorry it's long to build the foundation what I'm asking about. There's a lot to it. Yeah.  Yeah, so you touched on a bunch of things which actually it's great because the systemic difference between purism as a social purpose corporation and all of the other corporations you'd see, C corporations, that we actually have a social purpose first. And what this highlights is solving, you know, paving the way to solve the topic you're bringing up of IoT devices. So my belief is that IoT devices and you also can look at smart cars, right? All the way to self-driving cars or, you know, any of these advancements that society's making, my approach is that all of those advancements are great. We should just do them all ethically, right? And so that's a clear line of bifurcation for existing companies have to drive for maximizing shareholder value, which means that given a choice between gathering up more data on an individual because that means more advertising dollars or more information that they can exploit the user for, that we as a social purpose corporation can go to the opposite end of that extreme and say we can still advance and create amazing technology, but we're going to do so entirely ethically. So that means that when we can point the finger at Google and Facebook and Apple and Microsoft, et cetera, and all of them are C corporations where they have to, they have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value. So for us, by having that systemic change, then we have a strong belief system behind what we're doing, and then we can create more and more products that actually respect individuals. So when you're talking about IoT devices, which is an area of peers and plans to get into in the future, that we'll be able to create security cameras that the user is in control and the network is completely secured. So the device is secured, the network secured, and the user has the keys to that network and device. And that single simple change actually comes down to we care about user's rights first and foremost, as opposed to trying to say you must have a centralized server that you log into or you pay a subscription for your camera feed. So it's an important distinction because it is the nucleus of change. So when you were talking about with Richard Stallman from Free Software Foundation that he's had 30 some odd years of being right on the trends of where the direction of technology and the issues are coming up, and one of the things that Purism has done is adopted a number of those philosophies and applied those to security, privacy, and freedom. And so by applying those to those pillars, then we can actually solve a lot of these topics that the Free Software Foundation raises as concerns because we're coming at it from a different perspective. You talked about that you will be getting into IoT devices as well at some point of time. Why is it that existing IoT devices or is it because of the business model or it is about technology that like you said, users will have control, you will have the keys. So what is the reason that the current IoT is like, as they say, the S in IoT stands for security, there should be a P also for privacy. The P in IoT stands for privacy. How can it be achieved and why is it that the current breed of IoT devices don't offer that? Oh boy, so there's a lot of reasons and so I'll kind of generalize because at any given company could fall into a few of those and not all of them. So the generalization is that it's a race to market. So you're having a specific, let's say, niche that you're targeting, be let's say it just takes security cameras as an example. And so what you're trying to do is penetrate the market and get market share and potentially, you know, if you're going after investment to then, right? And so each of those cases, you're striving for, right, getting your product to market. So you're not going to care about security as much. You're going to say, I, you know, we just got to get to market. We got to start selling. So the motivating factor behind all of them typically is to sell more product. A lot of it comes with additional services that you need to lock yourself into signing terms of services that individuals might not want to agree with long term. And so there's, I feel like it's a lot of scrambling going on and all of the scrambling you lose on privacy protection and security because the first and foremost is sell product, make revenue, right, maximize shareholder value. And so if you had, let's say, an organization had enough funds, then it gets to, okay, well, I can, they could maybe make a secure device, right?  And so by purism, stepping into that space and we're not going to be doing this in 2018 or 2019, maybe it was the first year we're going to start looking into that. A lot of it to do with our phone coming out that we're putting a lot of effort in right now. But when we enter into the IoT space, we will be coming at it from a different perspective. And so we'll be able to have the funds, we'll be able to have enough of the focus on security. And we also care about the individuals itself. So the products that we will put out will be thought as, hey, it gives you peace of mind because you're the one protected and you're the one in control. And that peace of mind story is resonates really well with an awful lot of people because they can look at, put yourself in the shoes of somebody who's looking to go buy a security camera. You would see a security camera that's, you know, from Google. And then you see a security camera from Purism who respects your rights. That if all other things are equal, you would choose a security camera that respects your rights. Now all the other things have to be equal to make that decision because you'd have to get to the point of saying, hey, this is, I want to go with ethical. Which comes down to ease of use, convenience, which is a huge thing that we push for at Purism. You said, you know, that if there is an option, you will choose, you know, the one which is kind of respect to privacy. But when you look at Facebook, like almost every American is a Facebook user and login to Facebook and everybody knows that Facebook is basically harvesting everything. But still they make the choice. If you walk into any store, people are willing to give their home address, their phone number just to get 1% discount. So I don't, I mean, how do you see that same people will make a conscious decision about choosing a phone that respects their privacy when they're willing to log into Facebook? Yeah, that's a fantastic question. And the difference is the precursor to that, which is if all other things were equal, and primarily that's around ease of use. So if there were an alternative to Facebook that was just as easy to use and had a billion users of your friends and you could just say, oh, good, the water's warm. I could choose between Facebook or the same exact equal version that's ethical, of course they would choose ethical. The reason that the free alternatives, let's say the ethical alternatives to Facebook will see a challenge is because of the marketing spend of Facebook in the early days and the early adoption and also the when they were starting out, the pendulum overall society pendulum was so far to the right of digital rights, you know, being stripped and completely non-existent. So people were signing up like crazy. So what we'll start to see is more of that pendulum swinging back to middle. And as we start swinging it back to the middle, then people are going to be made aware, like, oh, I'm, you know what, I could sign up for a service. I don't have to, you know, completely give up all of my photos and everything that I have historically. And I'm locked into that. And the terms of service are terrible. So, so your example is really valid because it's highlighting that big corporations with a lot of money will be able to outmarket the small incumbents. And so one of the things that as purism we have in what I consider the ideal business model is that we have a business model that has revenue. So we have leverage and we can gain leverage. Gaining leverage allows us to influence positive change upstream. So be that upstream into the supply chain for hardware. Or be that upstream into services where we can start to get in. So as an example, when you're bringing up the phone or IoT devices down the line that we can actually push because we'll have leverage, we'll be selling hardware and we'll utilize the margin from the hardware to release all the software under free software licenses. And then we can advance the overall digital rights and have a product that can compete. So today in the phone market, there is no option, right?  So what we're doing on the phone is we're putting out a phone that is a completely different hardware stack that allows us to run completely free software, Linux kernel and the GNU OS. And what we get on top of that is the ability for an individual to say, hey, you know what? I can have a choice now. And our choice, day one, right? We're only talking about encrypted communication, right? So being able to make a phone call, SMS messaging, web browser, email, right from that device, then apps will continue to grow. But by creating a really core, strong offering that can expand, then we can actually influence change and start to disrupt the giants. Canonical tried that and they did not succeed and they had like money and influence and resources. Do you think that you can really break the duperly of Apple?  But so are, is that the market you're targeting or you're looking at, you know, average users? So we are looking at average users. However, we know that the business model that we put together was really targeting the nucleus of the core, which are the examples you gave. And then already, we've already expanded to the core with our laptop sales and the phone interest is already to that. And so what you can think about is it's forming a strong beachhead and then expanding. And so we've already seen some expansion, but not, you know, not significant. So we have the core audience, which can still grow and that's already millions strong, right? Then we can see that growth. So when you bring up your introduction to that question was canonical, quote unquote, tried it. So canonical did work on the Ubuntu Edge phone and then of course Ubuntu Touch. The, there's a couple of key differences, right? Was the timing. The other piece is that what they were actually looking to accomplish was really Ubuntu on a phone. Right. As opposed to let's say the three pillars that we stand behind. And then also by us being a social purpose corporation is something that really drives the belief system and what we're trying to do. We're trying to change the future. We're not just trying to put out a, you know, a Linux kernel based phone. That was more about, you know, being able to use Ubuntu and the terminal on your phone. It was not about focusing privacy and security and more control over your own device if you, if you want it. Sure. And the other piece of course is that while they did run a crowdfunding campaign, I believe it was about $32 million asked and they raised maybe $12 million that that was seen as like not enough to execute. And at that time, it was probably, you know, the maybe the right amount. It was a lot more expensive to do fabrication at that time when that campaign was out. So for us, we have the ability to do all of it and more with a lot less money. A lot of that's cash management, making sure that we can execute appropriately. But it's also that it's our core, what we believe in, right? So, you know, Canonical historically hasn't done hardware and Purism does hard brands often. And so by bundling that together, that gets it to where, you know, we are entirely focused on it, right? It's not going to be something that in next quarter, I'll look at the line item and say, it's not going to happen, right? So it's, we're very, very excited about, you know, how we can influence that change. So when you say hardware, are you, because most of the time what happens is that people take it from the Chinese vendors and rebrand them or do you really design your hardware? How does it work? So it's a split. So, and part of that process is sort of initially, we went to existing ODMs for our laptop. And so in that case, we can source certain component parts. So these are called what's called public molds. So like our case is from a public mold. And that allows us to save an awful lot of money upfront on tooling costs, right? Because these are very expensive tooling. And so we can, so we did a combination of utilizing existing public molds and then modifying them to our needs, such as anodizing it black, adding some after tooling, adding some cutouts for hardware kill switches.  So that was a design change. So we have a full list of what we source versus what we modify versus what we manufacture entirely. That's for the laptops. So as an example, the motherboard is a Intel reference design that we then modify to our needs, adding hardware kill switches, rerouting certain components, adding a TPM, you know, in some cases for some of the versions we put out where we have additional RAM slots. So we've started to gain more leverage into that space. That's all the way up through version three. Our version four of our laptop that we're going to come out with probably late this year will be from schematics on up with our own industrial design and mechanical design. Part of that is because we've just grown and been able to gain leverage so we can influence more of that change. On the phone side, that is entirely us, meaning the- All the way from talkable, okay. From schematic to all the EE, all the ID, industrial design, all the MD, the mechanical design, and all fabrication, PCBA, right, everything. So we have worked with individual groups within mostly just outside of Shenzhen to do that fabrication. And so we've gone direct to each of those and we're managing that entire process. So that's on the phone side, which then also we get to then replicate for laptops to come back to say, you know, we have grown large enough where we don't need to leverage shell case from a public mold where we can do our own because we have the cash to do so. So that type of growth allows us to then leverage more and more up into that supply chain. Right, right, right. You mentioned kill switch, what is that? So we have in all of our devices a physical switch which actually severs the circuit of webcam and microphone together. And this is gonna be in the, this is already in our laptops and this will be in the phone as well.  We'll also have one on the phone. And then we're also gonna have a third switch on the phone that severs all circuits, I'm sorry, all sensors. So it severs the circuit of all the sensors that you can say, I want all my sensors off, which would be like a GPS, accelerometer, even light sensors to, and then you can end up toggling it back on if you want. And then you can individually select the ones you'd like to have off. And so then this removes an awful lot of these what were previously, let's say theoretical threats, but they move into an area that there's more and more proof that some of these, even an accelerometer can show certain things that are, privacy, let's say privacy issues that you could encounter. And so these theoretical threats are starting to move where now they're actually being studied and tested. And so what we want to do is be ahead of that curve and say that, hey, you can toggle them off if you want to, if you're not using them or toggle them on through a switch and then individually select them. So then we end up with a device that is truly in your control and then you get to enable or disable the things that you'd like to do. I mean, this is a cat and mouse game because I do cover security a bit, not too much. And last year they were approved that researchers have been able to, speakers can be converted into microphones or just few weeks ago for Linux Pro Max and also where, even if you have an air gap computer, it can be compromised totally remotely. So it's a cat and mouse game. Well it is, it is a cat and mouse game, but there's also a couple of nuances because that's basically saying it's sort of binary and it is rather nuanced. So what we do is we look at all the potential threats and this was where free software is the crucial piece from software standpoint, meaning that if all the software is released and the source code's available for audit, then that paves the way for the strongest security story. Then on top of that, then we have the ability for nuanced control. So if someone wants to have an air gapped machine, but then they say that, okay, we have a screen that could be remotely viewed, then they could look at minimizing, basically reducing the threat surface as much as possible and then looking to solve that one case that they're trying to solve for. So with our hardware, all from the laptops and as well as the phone, is that by releasing the schematics, releasing all of the source code, then that puts the control into the hands of, let's say a security researcher or a government that wants to completely secure devices or enterprises that say, you know what, the IT team wants to make sure that it's locked down with their keys and all the employees make sure that they're utilizing the appropriate services, VPN, et cetera. And so they have the ability to mitigate and reduce their threat model down to whatever they are concerned about. And so that's the important piece about the cat and mouse game, is that if somebody's really concerned about turning speakers into a microphone, that they have the ability to disable that. Right, right. And that's not gonna be for everybody, but having a platform in which they can do it is actually quite powerful. But even if it a cat and mouse game, at least you do have, you are chasing, otherwise without these switches, you're just, you know. Right, so today, all the phones, I mean they're all Qualcomm and MediaTek based, which is a concern to begin with, where the base bands attach to the CPU, right? So the security story by definition there is that it's going to be that the service providers have direct access to the CPU. So this is where in our device, by separating the two, then we can actually get to that point of a really strong security story. When and why did you create Purism? What was the drive? What were the reasons? It's a lot of reasons. It has started, you know, kind of let's say, you know, bubbling up for a decade as I continue to go shop for new devices and I get frustrated by what's available out there. I've been in the hardware and software space for a long time, a huge free software advocate. And so these things are concerns for me and have been for a while. A big catalyst for me was having kids. And I have two young daughters and looking at the future of computing and where things were going. And, you know, me as an individual, and I think this is the case for a lot of people, especially pre-kids, right? That you're thinking about yourself. So I was willing to give up convenience for my control. But then looking at seeing, you know, having kids and then looking at the peer pressures, devices, how they're just, you know, there's no IoT device that actually respects the user's rights. There's really nothing out there from phones at all. Laptops are also a concern. And what I wanted to do was actually say, you know what, I can change the future for other people, not just for myself. And so that to me was where I thought I'll open up that idea and see if there's others that are interested and I know that I have the drive and knowledge and ability to execute in that space and have the passion toward it. And that's when I put out the crowdfunding campaign to see if other people were interested in, you know, have starting Pearson basically. Yeah, and that worked. Yeah, that's right, very well. From talking to you, what I see is that you focus too much on, you know, that the company should be ethical, you know, you should be doing the right thing. At times, you know, people do make wrong choices, you know, as we talked about.  I don't even, most of the time, I don't even know. It's Boeing plane or Airbus. Actually, it's just like Android and Apple, you know, Boeing or Airbus at the same time. But what I do trust is that there are regulations, you know, there are laws. Do you think that, you know, regulations can also play a big role in ensuring like Europe, you know, GDPR is up. Yes, yeah. So what do you think about US, what you're thinking? So I think your analogy is actually fantastic because it does show that I talk about these two worlds that we have, the physical world where we have centuries of physical rights and in the digital world, we don't have any. And so I do, I'm a very strong believer that we should have digital rights and those digital rights should be founded off of what benefits people in the society. And so these are things that when I was looking at, right, should I be more of an activist, right? I already have been an activist for decades and it's an education process, right? And what I have to do as an example is I have to educate people to say, let's take your analogy, say, no, you shouldn't fly that, you know, let's say Boeing airplane, right? Instead you should fly a different airplane and then you would come back to me and say, yeah, but that doesn't get me from point A to point B. And I say, and my activist stance would say, yes, but you're giving up your rights to participate. So taking the analogy of saying that that flying and there was no regulations would actually be a sort of this unethical approach if we apply that to that analogy. So taking that same analogy forward would be that in the digital rights world, right, we have barely anything, right? So what has happened in Europe is a step in the right direction. But people need to be comfortable that when they just, quote unquote, board the plane that they know that the regulations are there to protect them. And that's why it's one of the safest forms of travel. That's why people are comfortable in getting on. And so that same type of thing could happen with devices and the internet and digital rights. And this comes all the way from anti-bullying all the way through to just general, you having all of your privacy rights protected. As society advances more and more toward you know, where our online life is going to be more than our physical life, that these are going to be real concerns that need to be addressed. So what I looked at doing was, I'm going to both be an activist as well as well as three things, activist as well as work towards lobbying to make sure that regulations can be in place. And then also provide a business that can create a business that has the ability for creating products that can actually solve these problems as well. And by doing that, then I can influence, maximize my influence on the future of computing. So you have been doing laptop for ages and as you said, there's a good market, there's a user base. What about phone, you know? Building a phone, no hardware and software is challenging, but the main thing is getting people to use it. So what is your strategy towards applications? So it's similar to forming a strong beach head and then expanding. So what we actually, we know that we are not going to have all of the applications to compete head to head with Android day one or iOS. And so what we're doing is we're taking an approach and have a business model behind it that allows us for incremental growth. So that approach allows us to put out a product that focuses on just the core applications that are needed for secure and encrypted communication. So you can imagine enterprise, they just simply are like, I need to be able to open up a browser, check my email, communicate, message, make phone calls. And that's the core that they need. And individuals need. And that's the primary focus of what we're delivering. We actually are shipping around 350 development kits to active developers who are going to be advancing certain features. We've already heard from some of them already before we even have the dev kits out that are working off of our development documentation and emulators. So we can start to see that that's going to then expand.  Yeah, it would be Apple. So Apple is a prime example where initially they were very, very focused on, let's say the creatives and graphics designers. Yeah, so they formed a very, very strong beachhead. Now they also made really great quality product. And then as you, if I'm sure you remember that, you know, initially the concern back then was, well, I can't get my Microsoft Word to run on the Mac. And so it was a evolutionary change to get to that point where now you can do everything that you would like to do on an Apple device. And so what we need to do is solve the same exact problems and take the same incremental approach. And so that's what, and then the difference for us is of course we're doing it by forming a strong beachhead by doing so ethically. And then we can advance to say, hey, you know, we're putting out high quality products. We focus on an initial core set of applications that know that it can sell hardware and then we can have a community of developers who all believe and have believed, right? This is, you know, decades of building up this, the free software world who can then just immediately port things to an application and a hardware application that they believe in. So it takes, so our app store, right, which is really going to be just a repository of applications will continue to grow. And taking an approach that at any point in time we are selling hardware, have enough margin to continue to grow, then that means that we actually will influence change, right? We're not gonna be a flash in the pan or burn up or anything else, right? We're taking a approach of solving a problem that needs to be solved five years from now and 10 years from now. And that is a business model decision, which is counter to a lot of Silicon Valley type of businesses where it's a quick hit and cash out and who cares what happens, right? And that's, so that's another reason why I get that question a lot, right? It's almost like you have to have 10,000 apps or else you're gonna fail as opposed to thinking, well, actually let's just take an incremental approach and it's a marathon on the sprint. But you mentioned Apple and, but Apple had a very, you know, first of all, there are a couple of things that were interesting in Apple's case. One of them was that, as you said, they targeted graphic artists and stuff. Graphic art or, you know, these kind of professionals, they also spend a lot of money on their hardware. I mean, I also have no very high-end machine, and I love that system. So first of all, there is a revenue model, you know, it's for the users who are willing to throw money. Versus a lot of people in the open, so some of you do something, the thing that free software means a few of cost software, so they're not willing to pay for it. Number one. Number two is that Google Chrome is a good use case where they targeted a very niche audience. There was nothing, you know, with Chrome you get to do less that you can do on your Linux machine, but it succeeded, it's working. So what is your, I'm sorry, I take a lot of time to build the foundation, you know, so that there is context, you know. So what is your core audience? First of all, who's willing to pay? And second is that there's a niche that, you know, whatever you're offering, they're happy with that, and you know, even if they don't get word for two years, they don't mind. So there's kind of two parts to that question. The first piece is that everybody understands you have to pay for hardware, because it's physical good. And so by having a business model that sells hardware and services, and you know, releases everything under free software and has an ethical approach even in our articles of incorporation, then we gain the respect and the community behind what I very strongly believe in. So that's one key piece is that everybody understands you have to pay for hardware. So a phone, you understand you have to pay for the hardware of a phone. So that means we have a business model that can actually compete against the giants, as opposed to let's say, just simply a free software service where you're trying to take it in on donations, right? That will never have the financial leverage to compete against the giants. So you just by definition are relegated to the people who care about those topics, which is gonna be a smaller market. So that's the first part. The second part is by forming a really strong, very, very strong core audience who are dedicated to advancing and solving this problem, yet having a business model that can actually compete. I can stand on solid ground and point at Google and Apple and Microsoft and Facebook and everybody else in that C-Corp world and say that's not the best approach that's gonna help users. And by having that major differentiator, they're all going to, all of those in the C-Corp world will market like crazy that they protect your privacy. Or we've modified our privacy rates or because they see that the pendulum's swinging away from there. So it's gonna be a lot of marketing heavy that we're going to be competing with. But by having such a strong solid base that for them to actually compete head to head, they would need to release all their software, actually change their corporation status to something that actually is meaningful for the social good. And so that gives us a major differentiator where we can continue to grow and influence change. And then this also gets to the point of when you're bringing up Chrome OS, the areas that they've seen success is an area that we would be able to target down the line because we can get to lower cost products as well. The last point that I think you raised was about graphics designers willing to pay, meaning to pay a premium. So we sell high quality hardware and a premium and we are ready you're selling and seeing growth in that space. And that's because we don't just focus on only free software advocates. Free software is the core for the areas of privacy rights and the areas of security. So security is a huge area that we've seen growth in. These are CTOs, CIOs, CSOs who all sit in a room with their executives and the executives will have a story of we can't have a major data breach. Because major data breaches can be company threatening. And so they're tasking the technical people to say we need to lock down our devices. We need to lock down our customer service devices because they have access to all the customer data. So how do we go about doing that? And Purism continues to pop up as the means because we actually just recently announced our tamper evident laptops, which means a single bit change can be flagged as say that's been modified. So it means it can flag to any type of ransomware or malware or any remote access trojan that tries to hit the system. So being able to advance that security story also helps with enterprise. And as you can imagine, enterprise sales is a huge area with security. So this all gets back to while we care about ethics, ethics and free software is the nucleus and sort of that foundation to have a credible story in security. Anybody else, if someone's trying to make a security based Android phone, in the security world, they just get laughed out of the room because it's so hard to actually lock that down, which is also why security firms, even if they're using Android now, are looking to have it be on our hardware where they can just swap out the Android and put it in the Linux kernel but still use whatever system they have on top. Be that, say like Elo or even Copperhead or these other types of things. Ubuntu Touch is another example, where it's currently an Android core but that can get swapped out on our hardware with a Linux kernel and then we can actually advance that security story tremendously. Right, yeah. So that's what, there should be some core audience and then you can expand beyond that because that's what, because I don't think you can really target everybody because this is really hard. So we have a pretty clear business plan to begin with which was we do, we want to have a product that can reach everybody but we know, unless we went out and raised hundreds of millions of dollars that we wouldn't be able to solve all those problems and hit that entire market day one. We knew we had to increment there and so the approach we took, which is pretty simple, based off of my entire belief system of saying let's target security, privacy and freedom. The nucleus of that of course is free software and the more that we can make available and transparent, the stronger the security story, that has a really strong business model and the beachhead we've already formed and are already starting to expand in is around those three pillars, privacy, security and freedom. And then what happens is the audience beyond that because you realize these are also the taste makers, these are the influencers, right? CTOs, CIOs, CSOs, software developers, these are the people who the average users will be asking what phone should I get, what laptop should I get, right? You probably get asked that regularly. And so you provide the recommendation based off of what's gonna be the best for that individual. And if you start to see that oh well, I can provide a Libram laptop or a Libram five phone and they can do everything they want to but they're completely protected, that's a huge market and huge amount of difference that we can make. The last point I'll make there is that we actually have seen interest, a growing amount of interest from parents, which is actually why one of the reasons I started Pearson was to say phones should respect the individuals and respect the kids in this case. And so parents who are trying to figure out the future of computing and what online bullying and social media and what can they provide their kid and how much data is being gathered on their child. As a parent and provider, it's a growing concern. And as you can imagine, that market is starting to grow for us, which is one that I would consider well outside the core, right? And so those are some examples of where we'll start to see kind of these large areas of growth down the beach and then we'll start to advance into the city of average users. Do you remember a few weeks ago, Facebook announced Facebook for kids, children? I'm not aware of that. It was like criticized, but it was for kids also. Oh, I do think I remember hearing about that. Just very briefly. And to be honest, I don't want to contradict you, but there are a lot of people who themselves are not tech savvy. That's right. They're intimidated, so they're willing to hand over those kind of twice to their kids because when their kids play with that, they feel that their kid is a techie. If you can swipe an app on your iPhone or iPad, oh, my kid is a techie. So I don't think that contradicts anything. That bolsters what I'm saying. No, no, sometimes the parents, you know, there are, I mean, parents who are aware, but at the same time, there are a lot of parents who are not aware of the privacy risk. Oh, right. So I think that. VTEC twice, you know, they get VTEC twice and they're infamous for, you know, they have webcamps in there twice and they're stealing all the, not stealing, but nobody's paying attention to security so it was getting harvested. So. So I agree with you. And I think that what you're highlighting is the long term story. Exactly. Is that what we need to do is make it where ethical products are seen as the comparable, right? So just as easy to use, but fully respect your rights. And so then an individual, right? And so yes, Facebook can come out with Facebook for kids or they could come out with secure Facebook or whatever they try to market.  But at the end of the day, a lot of people, and we don't even need the majority, but we just need a lot of people to start to be made aware. You know what? That's still a C corporation. Their entire business model is to extract as much information about you as possible and exploit you as an individual. And that cannot change unless it's a systemic change from Facebook, which is not going to happen until they start to see a huge decline and realize how can we survive? And I also believe that will happen. Because it's just so easy to switch. Even when they have all your data locked up. The data before, right, the stickiness of a user was stickier a decade ago. Now, so much data is just temporary. That the ability to switch to something else is so much easier now. And that also has the giants scared. So the long-term future, I think, is by providing something and we can stand on solid ground to say what we're actually doing is protecting the individual and making sure the user is in control. And in this case, the child is in control. Or the parents are in control of their family. If they want to. And that allows for the people who, let's say, are in the know, these people who recommend devices. So let's say if you go talk to a school counselor. And the school counselor says, hey, we should use this product that will start to be introduced more and more into that conversation. And then people can start making educated decisions. And I actually believe that as I described, this overall pendulum has swung so far to the right of digital rights invasion that as it's swinging back, we get to be seen and pointed to as the opposite end of that. And so if the pendulum swings all the way back to center, we'll be completely happy because then users will have a choice. If it swings farther, all the way back to, let's say, the far left side of that pendulum, where we have solid regulation to help making sure that users who don't know that all their private data can't be retained for a long time, data retention policies, right? And other types of regulation that would be smart. And the most interesting thing is, as I was talking to Richard Salman, and we actually discussed before that, also that, telling them don't use this device because, I mean, as you said, just make that sacrifice. Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't board on plane. But here, at least, you're creating an option. So even if there is a drive to make people aware, so you can just the way we tell our kids, you know, OK, you can either take a shower or bath. We're not saying, do you want to take a shower or not? So there is at least an option. And that option is also not really the poorly written option where, OK, you will have to make so many compromises to use it. It's fully full blown option. If you want, if there's an awareness driver, if there are regulations, so there is something that people can go back to. Yeah, that's right. So at the same time, I also feel that it's kind of also future-proofing in a way that if push comes to shove and people do need, I mean, I was watching Black Mirror, you know, and extreme cases are there. So people, if they do want, there is an option. They won't have to unplug themselves from the matrix. Yes, that's right. So you're highlighting two really important parts about purism. So we stand for convenience and control. So what we do is we provide convenient products that give the user control. And that hasn't been done before. And so by us doing that means that if you have a convenient option, then all of the advocates, which I am one of them, can point to that and say, actually, here. I'll just hand you a phone, use this, and you can go, great. I can now participate in digital society, but I can do so where I know that I have a piece of mind that I'm not being a product or being manipulated, and I have control. And so this analogy that I like to provide about advancing toward, let's say, right now we have these devices that are external to us. And then pretty soon we're starting to already read some internal biometrics, and then it'll start to get embedded. And so we can actually control, let's say, your heart. So monitoring it. There's already devices that are computers that can provide electrical shock to your heart. And so these are things that as we advance in technology, these are going to get closer and closer and closer to our brain. And so I ask the theoretical question that in the future, when you can choose a brain embeddable device that can be surgically implanted, and it can read and write the electrical signals of your brain, which means it can read and write your thoughts. And it can insert memories, record everything from your optics. What company would you like that to come from? Would that be Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple? The list is none of those, because they're all C corporations, which are going to try and maximize shareholder value, which means to try and utilize everything they can and insert whatever they can into your brain. And purism as a social purpose corporation has the ability to say, we would have you control your own brain. So the difference is it does come down to control. The future corporations are all going to be vying to control the user more and more and more. And we're going to fight against it. But the primary way in which we can succeed is by making the products convenient. And so your example of saying that you could give up some convenience or you could choose ways you brought up like Richard Stallman, who stated, I just choose not to use it. Individually, that's what I choose as well. I choose not to use services that exploit me. So if I have to read a terms of service, I will not sign up for the service or create a sock puppet account or something to temporarily use that service. And so that's inconvenient. So I choose to be inconvenienced. And I don't think that everybody should. And so that's, again, back to having kids and seeing the future that we need to have easy to use products that are convenient. But then that gives control back to the individual so that they aren't manipulated. You keep saying C-sharp, but there are some companies I've already had, for example. It's a C-sharp, a C-carp. They're not kind of evil, per se. While I do agree with your thoughts fully that those companies, their primary goal is to do that. But at the same time, there are companies that may be. Oh, sure.  I mean, as a matter of fact, purism, we could be a C-corporation. And it'd still be good. Yes. And my belief system would be the thing that carries it. So in the case of Red Hat, that they have made a lot of, I mean, there's some really amazing advancements.  So Red Hat, I don't put into that camp of being a malicious across the board, as I do those other examples. But that's because, not because that they're a C-carp, it's because of their management decisions. And other things that they have done that at least are trending in the right direction. And so the other piece is that also they have a business model. They do it. It has nothing to do with data gathering. It's simply a trip. So there's plenty of businesses that, let's say, fall outside when you're outside of data, you're outside of services, and you're providing, in their case, business to business licenses for software. And then they contribute back to the free software world. That's a perfectly fine business. And also, they're not put in a position. But let's just say that if they were put in a position where they could install a back door and it would maximize shareholder value, their board of directors and the executives would have to look at those two and say, well, being paid to put in a back door, maximizes shareholder value. And so we have to. We have a fiduciary duty to do so. So they could then try and weigh the ethics of it. But in the end of the day, shareholders could sue them for not maximizing the shareholder value. And that's a real threat. I mean, that happens. It's not a theoretical threat that happens. And so Purism, why we formed as a social purpose corporation is so then all investors, any shareholders, anybody involved as executive level, the board of directors, we all have to look at the ethics first and say, what's going to benefit users and their digital rights first and foremost? And in our case, if we're given that choice, back door or not, we would have to. We have a fiduciary duty actually to avoid putting in any back door, even if it were to increase our revenue because the first litmus test is digital rights for users. I will once again go back to the airplane analogy. And that is that yes, their shareholders will want to just put cheap food, just get food from China or Mexico or India, but they can't do that because their laws and regulations and there will be massive fines that they will go to business. So while it is nice to have one Purism, but there can't be, at the same time on the other side of the spectrum, it's nice to have red hat. But in this space, as you mentioned earlier, the point that the reason I asked was that I just wanted to stress the point that you made earlier that we need the same kind of rights in digital world also. Yes, exactly. So we just need, you know, just the way we have road science and traffic science and all those laws. We need the same thing.  So this is where I believe that there's a number of three pronged approaches that I take. Personally, I advocate. You have been doing it for a long time. So that's part number one, right? The advocates out there are great. The second piece is I do believe that we should have digital laws that respect the digital world because it crosses over to the physical world. And so in the physical world, right, we've had so many centuries of laws and precedent. And we can take a lot of those laws and precedent and apply them to the physical world, which includes law enforcement being made aware of, if somebody calls up, I give the analogy of, if you put a physical camera on your kitchen and a kitchen window, right, or, excuse me, somebody else comes up and puts a physical camera on the kitchen window and you're in the room and you see that there's a camera spying on your kitchen, you would immediately call the authorities.  There was a camera put in, which is peeping down laws and then they take that. So you'd have a criminal case opened. It would possible that they would be arrested if they could find who the individual was and charges were repressed, right? So the whole process would come full circle. In the digital world, you're carrying around a camera that can be lit up anytime by anybody involved in the tech stack, be that from Google to the ISP, and your microphone and your data, just by signing a terms of service, you've agreed to give everything to Facebook, right, or Uber, or whomever, right? And so you, by signing a terms of service, you just give it all up and you're willing to, you're not gonna read the terms of service. Most people don't. You can't, it's too long. You would never sign up for anything.  And the reason you think that is is because in the physical world, we have all these rights. In the digital world, you don't. And so they're just being exploited all over the place. So that second point is lobbying, right, to, and as Pearson grows, we'll actually be able to lobby and say, hey, you know what, we can, these are the things that we'd like to see. And then the first, the third piece of that is the, being a social purpose corporation means that we can stand on solid ground and put a point to saying, hey, we're doing it the right way. This is the way we'd like it to be for society. And so we can try to influence change by lobbying, but also we can influence change by just being what we'd like to see. Okay, so I think we kind of covered it broad. We talked for almost an hour and we covered it broad. We just talked about the company, the tourism and we also talked about kind of, you know, ideal society where not only people like you, we need more, you know, entrepreneurs like you who have, who are driving that kind of business model plus maybe some help from the administration and governments also to make laws. But awareness also plays a big role where people themselves are aware of what is the right thing. So I think we covered a broad topic. And once again, you know, thanks for.


Rhywbeth yn ystod i'r Ddiwylliant yma ar y ddechrau Ffwrdd William. Prosesr dros yng nghydrych Trisha Marwick, ydw i gwerthwyr yr argynwyr ystod i gyfnodd y Ddiwylliant yn y ddyddol i ddyn nhw i gweithio'r gael ac yn yr ymgyrch. Mae'r ddweud yw William, sef yw'r ddweud yma, ac mae'r ddweud i'r ddweud gwiriaeth a'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ddweud i'r ffrwyngau lleol. As part of that, we have two committees, the Local Government Regeneration Committee and the Devolution Further Powers Committee, who are taking evidence from local people. The visit started with a civic reception at the Fort William campus of the University of the Highlands and Islands, where pipers from Lochaber High School piped guests in. After the presiding officer welcomed guests, Lochaber High School's Youth and Philanthropy initiative presented an overview of the work they had been doing, encouraging philanthropy in the local community. The people's panel of the Great Tapestry of Scotland was on hand throughout the evening, allowing locals and the occasional MSP to add their own stitch to history. Music was provided by Salise McMaster and the Buzz project. Based in a touring bus, this project provides a mobile music studio for young people to develop and showcase their musical abilities. Catering was provided by students from the university, whom the presiding officer visited in the kitchens before the event, while they were preparing the locally sourced canopies. Afterwards, the presiding officer and MSPs from the Devolution and Local Government committees were able to meet with local community, business and third sector organisations. The following morning, the presiding officer met local MSP Dave Thompson at Neptune's staircase, the longest staircase lock in Britain, at the entrance to the Caledonian canal from Loch Lliney. Their first visit of the day was to a local radio station, Nevis Radio, to do a live interview telling listeners in the Lochaber area about the Parliament and how it works. The next port of call was to Nimble Fingers, where adults with learning disabilities interact with volunteers and high school pupils to learn social skills and develop their creativity through craft-based activities. Using recycled materials, products are made which are then sold to help fund the enterprise. This gave the presiding officer the opportunity to make a starter Christmas shopping. The Great Tapestry was also on hand, allowing people to make a stitch or two. On leaving, the presiding officer gifted a signed copy of the Great Tapestry book to the Nimble Fingers project. A working lunch at Voluntary Action Lochaber provided a chance to meet with some of the volunteers from various local initiatives. Voluntary Action Lochaber is part of the Active Citizens Project, funded by the British Council, which aims to give people the skills to take positive social action to improve life in their community. Meanwhile, the Devolution Committee, led by convener Bruce Crawford, was taking evidence from 16 and 17-year-olds on their experience of voting in the recent referendum. In the evening, the local government committee met to explore how Lochaber folk get involved in local communities as part of their inquiry in the community empowerment bill. Before leaving Fort William, the presiding officer and Dave Thompson visited the local paper, the Lochaber News, and met editor Stuart Taylor. What was the presiding officer going to remember about her visit to Fort William? It's been a very, very warm welcome for the Scottish Parliament in Fort William. The two committees have been working really hard on their own investigations. I've been out and about in Fort William. I've been meeting with local projects and the local voluntary sector.


So the recent Borderlands 3 hotfix made changes to a few of the characters, Amara, Flak and Zane. Today we see the before and afters. How's it going guys? My name's DP, Jen. I'd like to thank you for stopping by and checking out the video.  Also guys, I'm giving away copies of Borderlands 2, win one for yourself or a friend. Simply subscribe and make sure you have notifications turned on. Drop a like on the video only if they comment down below. Okay so Amara, I didn't think it was worth the trouble of actually recording said changes due to her changes not being that effective. I'm saying that guys, after seeing the before and afters of the Flak, I ain't sure they were worth recording too. But I did it anyway so we will check them out. So let's start with Flak indeed. So the nerfs that happened were as follows. Google is in a misduration reduced from 8 seconds to 6 seconds. Not a massive difference but 2 seconds is actually quite a chunk. Google is in a miscritical. Damage bonus reduced from 50 to 25%. Okay so watching the before and Grave Ward mayhem 3, the damage output this build is capable of is on another level as you can see on the screen now.  And if he is, I ain't seen the build yet. So here is the same boss being Grave Ward on as close to mods I could get which really didn't affect much either run. So the differences we see here are quite apparent although 2 seconds being knocked off doesn't seem like a lot like I said. In game, in a game like Borderlands 2 seconds is a lot of extra time and we see this in the after version of the boss fight. The damage also being reduced by 25% is significant and is also very important. Damage numbers we can see are reduced too. The difference is it seems mainly from the 2 clips on the fact it now takes 2 action skill usages to kill what's basically the same boss. And we'll shout out that the weapon here being used is the King's Coole which also received a nerf. The Kings and Queens Coole fire rate reduced by 50%, Firestorm and Storm base charge times reduced to 1 second down from 2. So basically being nerfed 50% that will also have a major factor here. But looking at both videos because of Flak's ability to regen ammo I ain't sure the fire rate is being too badly affected. You have a perk definitely is locked and unless you really slow down the frame she can't actually tell. But the difference is in damage this weapon is capable of that's definitely dropped significantly. Now I've been told that although Flak has been nerfed the changes ain't too drastic and I suppose it is better that way. Gearbox don't want to be nerfing a character into the ground. I mean what good would 2 Zanes be? Talking to Zane let's move on to him. So the change to Zane where this follows, Digiclon damage increased by 38% and Drone damage increased by 50%. Trial bullet damage penalty removed, Drone rocket damage increased by 50%, Almighty Ordnance rockets damage increased by 75%. So on screen now you can see how effective both action skills are against the 4 billets. And let's be honest they ain't very effective at all. Hence why this buff was needed. So we can make out the damage numbers here with the Digiclon doing 172 damage per shot and the Drone doing roughly 312 per shot. With what looks to be the Ordnance doing multiple hits at 234 per hit marker. After the patch we do see some great increased damage that's for sure. The Digiclon per shot now is doing 308 which is amazing and we can see now the Drone is now doing 400 per shot. So that's definitely a better difference. Question is, does this change put Zane on the level of other characters in terms of build for damage output? I ain't sure about that. But what I am seeing here is much better than what we had before. And in my opinion Zane isn't as bad as people actually make out anyway. Where other characters do indeed fall short, he stands tall. I said this in a previous video. Zane seems to be that one character to put into the game where he's that all round character. He's got a bit of everything thrown into him. And that's why I like him. That's why he's my main. I mean I could have moved characters, I could have switched to Flak, I could have switched to Moura. But nope, I'm sticking with Zane. Because Zane is my main people. But yeah guys, this is just a quick before and after of said changes to Flak and Zane. Not massively different. That's why I didn't go too in depth into the actual video. So you're not massively different but definitely enough some might say. They obviously don't want to overdo it this early into the game's release. And on that note guys, we have come to the end of the video. If you guys enjoyed it, leave it a like, leave a like, leave a like, leave a like. So as you come new around here and want to see more Borderlands 3 videos, be sure to subscribe and if you never want to miss a video or upload, you can turn on notifications on by hitting that bell button. But guys, thanks as always for stopping by. Hopefully you enjoyed the video and hopefully I will see you on that next one.


Tell me about coming here you've done it many many years. Do the the expressions on the kids faces when your team turns up does that ever get old? No it doesn't I mean I just think the interaction between the players, the kids, the parents it's it's really a special thing. There's nothing quite like it when you're getting that just that general talk and the players really do express themselves in a different way which we rarely see so man for me personally it's just it's great to try and make a difference to the kids and the parents in some small way. This one's special for us, special for me in many different ways just seeing the kids in such difficult circumstances and seeing the parents holding that situation and the bravery that they do is inspiring and that's why we try and try and come here when we can. I just think everyone that's involved in this organization is heroic there to say their bravery their way of dealing with people to try and make every moment for the kids fun and enjoyable and an everlasting memory is truly as I said earlier inspiring and it really is and I think whenever you go away from a place like this you feel you feel better about yourself and the fact that you've tried to make a good difference. Giving presents out to the young kids being very beneficial for us see how the smiles on the faces and some kids are really ill here and they've got to go through a lot for them and for the parents as well so when you come to places like this and you see the kids and make sure you realize that something like what I've just got is stuffing really this is this is serious stuff and what I've just kind of forget about mine it's about them and like I say it's nice for us to come and try and give a little bit back and put a few smiles on their faces.