14,233 or 263rd show on this program, think take a wise human human architecture, which tries to make us aware that our most beautiful natural environment here in Hawaii should be as beautiful as our built environment and in some cases it was and in many cases it isn't anymore and we need this back and that's what we keep talking about and we think we need to widen our sometimes limiting ourselves horizon in order to do that so we'd like to send us out and in most ideal case for many many shows we had three stars aligned strategically positioned at three different locations which was as it is again with you DeSoto Brown in your Bishop Museum hi DeSoto. Hello everyone, me Martin Despang used to be back in Germany but I'm back with you here too which is good in one way but as far as we just talked maybe not so good so we have our third star back which is our tropical exotic master Ron Lindgren from his long beach in California welcome back Ron. Hello I'm such a pleasure to be with you Barton and DeSoto again thanks for having me. Well thanks for being back and you're back in many capacities logistically we are have been for the last nine shows and many more to come comparing two windy cities and the other windy city is the one of Chicago Illinois which is in the Midwest and that's where you are from but also we want to compare it of course to us here and you had us blessed with many of the most tropical exotic buildings here thanks for that but there are other buildings they're not quite up to that pace from actually that same era bring up the first slide for that and that's what we promised the audience last time that while this building here in downtown Honolulu has been converted recently into unfortunately exclusive hermetic invasive housing we said how could this be done better and one way to do it better is the emerging generation at the very bottom there the three model pictures is going the full route in basically recognizing that all these buildings although some of them might want to look as being stereotomic monolithic as being made out of the material that you see on their surface but it's mostly not the case they're mostly um domino house the pervisian basically slabs on columns and they wear and are dressed with a mumo as we like to say because it kind of suffocates them this one is what did you think Ron was it clad with rightly so because it looks like from a distance yeah I I surprised when I first saw this unidentified tower I thought it was probably in Chicago because uh it almost looked like it was a brick construction uh DeSoto's mentioned that it's actually a red granite that has a sort of an appearance of brick but my biggest uh wonder about it was how childlike the design appears in the model that you see there uh you know when you ask a kid to draw a house or even a tall house the windows are always punched square openings right you know into the facade and everything is to be a house or a tall house has a gable roof which this does but even more is this kind of childish rendering of a stepped uh another stepped tower that's embossed no it's actually projected out from the facade of this building it's all a very kind of juvenile sketch in my mind it is and and this generation of children here is the more mature the emerging generation of architects who basically takes that childishness off and matures and transforms it into an easy breezy building just getting rid of that mumo or maybe less radical uh being inspired by actually the real existing top of the building that you see up there in the middle where the architects intended to attribute to that sort of traditional declination of a high rise from the bozards which has the base the shaft and the crown and here having pushed these windows back and that's something that another student basically proposed and knocking out the glass pushing back give each and every uh you know window a lani behind and then having you know pushed back a couple of peds where the wind according to myself study here in Waikiki grant that we're broadcasting from the the wind hardly ever goes in and last time we were uh referring to you wrong because in the conversation we have as you also being our most loyal viewer uh after the shows um it reminded us of a show we've been doing quite some while well actually about a year ago a little bit more and I wanted to have years ago when it reminded you of Philip Johnson back at that time right you want to bring that back to our memory a little bit I'll Philip got into that fashion a lot yeah I certainly had my foray in the postmodernism and Philip Johnson had a very famous foray in the postmodernism and the the most recognizable uh in to the public was the AT&T building in uh right in downtown New York City which was open in 1984 I sort of remember in 1984 because that was the same year that uh holly cloney uh hotel opened but uh Johnson made kind of an inside joke here by making a tower be or appear like at least to those who had some art training or or had loved the arts they might recognize it it was an enormous exaggerated mid 18th century chippendale wood highboat highboy cabinet and those in the know would get the inside joke the general public wouldn't but the general public at least had a crown of a building that was very active and uh as compared to its surroundings and the surroundings were a bunch of squarish ordinary generic glass towers with flat tops you you want to add your uh your zeitgeist memory of that building the soto well I happened to visit New York City in 1984 when that building was new and I spent time with a good friend of mine who was at that time an architecture student herself she's now long since become a very very uh successful architect with her husband and that was one of the things that she wanted to see and from a distance as Ranja said it does have a little quirky top on it which is a reference to this historic not architecture per se but woodworking and furniture making but down my memory is down at the bottom where the humans actually interact with the building I don't remember specifically what the base of it was like but it was not inviting and it wasn't very appealing and it wasn't something you really wanted to walk into and as I remember there was an open space but it was just kind of drafty dark uh and again not appealing so yes from a distance you had this uh sort of playful finish to the building but at the level which you actually interacted with it as a human it I thought it was lacking and I'd like to jump in too and say that the era of Chippendale furniture in England that Philip Johnson pulled this high boy cabinet top design out of only lasted 10 years in the history of art from 1850 to 1860 so in some respects it's in fact that was a portion of the Royal Cocoa area era in England yeah that's what happens when you don't sort of you know have an attitude but you mimic a style that's about the surface and not the substance yeah and it has proven to lack timelessness because a gentleman that actually you wrong brought to our attention a sort of little dismissed big colleague of ours of yours Mr. Gensler who passed away in upper age recently he had a chance I guess just before he passed away in high age we just looked it up to actually renovate and to remodel the lobby of Philip Johnson's AT&T tower so you know that is what what happens and you know we we will continue to talk about that certain things need to be adapted and adjusted and brought up to current code or energy sufficiency next slide and by the way not to forget we shouldn't have even jumped in but we're operating once again under most turbulence and turbulent times and moments we have Hurricane Ian plowing through Florida as you brought to my attention this sort of because you watched it right before the show at category four to five and we have over there you know Nord Stream one and two being blown up and leaking and Putin has threatened with nuclear war so there's like scary stuff going on all over the place so hard to not think about that and get distracted by that one but getting us back to the subject matter once we start to evolve things this project of ours where we had this several hundred-year-old farmhouse to renovate and take out a lot of the former salt brick infill and push it back and replace it with a new spatial and thermal envelope and creating these porches or lanais as we call them as they're very familiar to us being for you Ron how you grew up in the Midwest and for you at the Soto in Hawaii where we call them lanais the only way to do this in freaking cold Germany that we're fearing so much without Putin's oil and without Nord Streams and you name it is to have used something that often it makes it takes a long time to make it into architecture technology that's out there somewhere else and that's in this case I'm holding up this card here I picked this up found it somewhere it was the local Hawaiian band rebel soldiers and they gave a VIP concert here what we're introducing to your here is a little material signs which is a very important panel that is called vacuum insulation panel and astronauts in up in space would freeze to death if they wouldn't wear this material and also we would have really bulky refrigerators if we wouldn't have this material because it can do massive insulation and very very shallow fineness and so by pushing back the the facade here you would have the cold creeping up to you above right and we couldn't use a foot of rockwell insulation and the ceiling would have been too low so we use this material why are we saying that because if we can do this in Germany the student who was proposing to pushing all the windows back in that pommel piece of cake high rise could have done that just as well versus just leaving the the flush to the granite fixed glazing and just beefing up the AC behind which it already had by the way as an office building so how can you do this better and how has it been better and how can you achieve timelessness we call you on stage once again um around with that and gets us back to your hallig pilani with the next page and with the next slide and I let you guys talk about it yeah when I when I see you bare-chested like Putin on horseback uh and one of the head valets at the hallig pilani who's been there a long time uh you all remember the the cheers tv program and when you walked in everybody knew your name and every time I come to the hallig pilani I swear that all of the uh the people who greet you uh out at the front when your car when they hand you out of your car they for some reason they still remember me and all of a sudden I'm home and I'm with family again so that that's such a nice reminder of people who have lived uh in fact they have worked their entire careers at the hallig pilani as a place that they choose to work even when they had other options that could have been in some ways uh more attractive to them instead they found their their family membership at the hallig pilani so strong that they wish to stay there instead yeah this gentleman next to me his name is Terence and he's one of them and it's just like the situation that we're show courting at the bottom right these few years ago when you both were keynote speakers at our national docum almost symposium and you returned after many years and I witnessed that these people were saying hey I haven't seen you since 84 wow right and in this case uh when I come back out of the water as you spotted me also a show called talk ride when you were there and having a coffee in the morning you saw that same half naked man walking by and you took that picture that we incorporated in there so when I do this every morning Terence tells me the story and he told me I've been there since 83 actually because when the open when the hotel opened when he was half finished he already started there and he said Marriott wanted him but he didn't want Marriott he wanted the hallig pilani and he never regretted it as you said it's his family it's your family and there's these terms in the American academe that we call evidence-based design post occupancy evaluation life cycle assessment if you have not just the hotel management which has obviously changed over time and we should say thank you to Peter Shantlin who is the current one who basically in his last remodel accept the guest rooms that we were elaborating on quite a bit everything else kept in the original and including one aspect that we're worried about that we're going to show in the next slide soon basically have kept it but it's even more important it's like the people in there I mean there's just like this longevity and integrity going on that Terence just basically says you know you are his architect and the only time I heard that that is very warm harmony warm hearting is in Nathaniel Khan's movie about his dad my architect where the users of the project like the capital in the Bangladesh they even say oh the architect we don't really know it might have been an American or so but it doesn't matter he's our architect and this is our building he did it for us so not to get this wrong we're not having any kind of a starkal textual thing going on here that you know here's the master coming and they all have to go to their feet and worship right this is a real true appreciation of a workplace that you have been provided to them that they feel it's paradise and Terence is also teaching people like he said oh Martin I want to tell you about Dickey do you know about the Dickey roofs and I pretend like I wouldn't so there's staff that is educated sufficiently to teach people including architectural professors how much better could that be P O E E B D L C A Y's awesome so which is that element that they were worried about that might not be brought back next slide you guys tell us oh the fabric yeah there's that there are the fabric panels that's right um yeah when the when the re when the remodel was done recently for quite a while they did not reinstall the fabric that was placed on the sides of the pillars in the outdoor section and fortunately when Ron pointed that out and I had gone to visit to see what it what everything looked like I saw that the hardware was still there for those and so I was hopeful that they'd come back and in fact they have so we can see in the recent picture with Suzanne on the left in the distance behind her there are those fabric panels that were re-established and Ron I think that was the work of the woman who was the interior designer is that right the lighting person and she did the lighting in the interior design is that right oh well first it's great news that they're hanging again this was actually a I sort of designed Joe upon the part of the interior designer who was a gentleman from Seattle and the idea was if you want to really kind of cloud the difference between indoors and outdoors how about having outdoor hanging hanging material there and the material was such that you could take the rain you could take the weather and so forth and so that was one contribution to add a very residential soft touch of curtains hanging off of concrete columns and a very successful one too yeah and before the show we actually included our exotic escapism expert Susanna who you said already so that we saw at the bottom left anything you want to share from your exchanges Ron with her well what I'll say there is the one person that I'd even more like to see when I came to the Holly Clonnie other than Terence is number two Suzanne would be number one and this this photograph where he where I imagine that she's offering me a cup of hot coffee out of an official Holly Clonnie cup really makes me want to come back there and enjoy that experience again you know it's a half a lifetime ago for me since I designed that I'm an octogenarian now I was 40 years old when I was commissioned to design it and it's still my most memorable and important piece of architecture and if an architect even gets to have long memorable important piece of architecture he should consider himself very fortunate and speaking of generational this is really interesting about that guys because extending the family Suzanne's oldest and our third oldest together Sammy who we also showed the project he was just indulging and enjoying and he's sweet 16 now and so he was just like saying oh it's so calm it's so tranquil this is really paradise and only after he basically at some point started to look up and he said oh my god this is huge this is a big hotel what are we counting 500 rooms wrong about 456 originally see you know your numbers so he was just like absolutely so usually with I mean talking generations I mean you know this is the I mean they walk around like zombies with their cell phones as we old fogies come you know playing about it they got tiktok going on all the time with whatever it's on there right and I was about to say we're listening to Snoop Dogg who's your neighbor in Long Beach Ron as he once told me but of course Snoop Dogg is an old fart for them so they're listening to they're exposed to to stuff right if you can get a 16 year old slash young excited about that one once again that's the best P O E E B D LCA that one can possibly get so congratulations on that one that is very high praise and I agree with all of the everything that everybody just said and I feel exactly the same way about as I said when you walk into the grounds of the holy kulani and you walk into this sort of courtyard area which is a courtyard on a very large scale it is so tranquil you've just driven down a very busy street with a lot of traffic and a lot of pedestrians and you come into this area and all of that is closed out yet you're still in the open and it's so successful and it always has been and so yes thank you Ron for for creating this which I still love to go to 40 years later as well and if we go to the next slide we'll see something that I have obviously I thought a lot about it because I designed the hotel but the last nine volumes of you're talking about skylines in Chicago and and Honolulu and sort of comparing them and seeing what's good and what's not so good about them in my case I had the happy opportunity for the first time in my career not to design an object building but design a bunch of buildings that are in fact linked and interlinked sometimes in hidden ways that created courtyards and and exterior spaces but at the same time it created a very lively skyline of its own very variegated all those dicky roofs that Terrence were talking about actually occur at 18 different levels in amongst the buildings and you see that in this watercolor rendering of the hotel that was completed about a year by before the hotel itself opened up yeah and it's very successful it's very successful and there is something we have to correct because I keep running around and telling a story that you have to say you can't confirm so I have to go back to your business partner Larry Stricker who we also gonna talk about in the next slide but not now we stay on this one here and that is that I obviously wrongly correctly or wrongly remembered obviously that I remember that adds a killingsworth the founding principal of the firm who was a high modern master and in that tradition obviously of the growth POS and and the Mies van der Rohe flat roof boxes that way he was objected to the to the dicky roof but before the show you inform me that in case the opposite is the truth right please share that with us and everyone yeah I had especially when he worked overseas and southeast Asia but also overseas from California and Hawaii always wanted to see if he could include uh some local building uh methods materials and ways of planning and putting them together so in reality uh when he and I first went to Hawaii and saw the Haleiklani site ourselves for the first time we met the clients at the time which is the wire house or number company before they sold it to the Japanese and when we got back on the plane we looked at each other and if he he looked relieved because he said Ron what are you going to do on that site and left it to me so I had my two weeks to design the hotel before we had to have some drawings done uh and and turn around again and go back to uh Hawaii now surprisingly during that time although he looked over my shoulders a few times as to what I was doing he never made a single comment of their positive or negative of what I was doing and the greatest praise that he gave me was when the drawings were done he packed them up went to Hawaii made a presentation to the Hawaiian Honolulu press and the AIA chapter in Honolulu of what the Haleiklani would be like that was the first time that anyone had a chance to see what the old Haleiklani was going to be replaced by and uh I felt miffed at first that I didn't get to make the presentation and then I thought wait a minute what what uh a great honor it was that Ed himself took it and did did the selling and enjoyed the the uh the process very much and came back a younger man wow and being one and a half minutes before the end of the show uh you made our day uh run in multiple ways also because I have to go back and coach in the afternoon the emerging generation and I was feeling a little bad this semester because I'm asking them to do four projects four designs two by the way and temper it in the cold and where all this mess is going on then two then back in the tropics then hopefully appreciating it more but again I felt like okay you know four designs in one semester might be a lot but it's not because I will go back today and we'll say you can design a 497 room hotel 56 sorry uh in the in the most challenging yet beautiful context in two weeks which I learned today so wow thanks for that I wish there were one of my two week sessions working for a children's room could have been that productive the the project the site the challenge the opportunity was so great that somehow I rose to the challenge and I never I've never risen uh that high uh certainly before and not after unfortunately well you you did a darn good job in fixing up the Kahala Hilton too so don't don't downplay that you've got two masterpieces here we saw Kapalua Bay which stupid people tore down so there's more there's many more there's the there's the Long Beach Marriott so there's many more but as humble as you are we we all see why you love this the most and we agree so with that we're at the end of uh these try and verette back and hope to have you back uh next week Ron because we got uh we got to talk about the ihilani on behalf of your business partner Larry Stricker and more things so hope to have us all back next week and until then please all stay as easy breezy breezy easy as you Ron bye bye thank you so much for watching think tech Hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think tech hawaii dot com mahalo


In a recent paper by the researcher Yannir Bar-Yam, he describes the study of complex systems as, a new approach to science studying how relationships between parts give rise to the collective behaviors of a system and how the system interacts and forms relationships within its environment. For someone new to the subject, this might seem like a funny thing to be studying, but this definition goes to the heart of one of the key issues in complexity theory, what we call emergence. Emergence is of central interest to the study of complexity because complex systems are typically composed of many small parts distributed out without centralized coordination. In such systems, order is formed out of the local interactions that give rise to the overall organization, and we call this general process emergence. Thus, with complex systems, we do not search for global rules that govern the whole system, but instead how local rules give rise to emergent organization. To understand this better, we need to delve deeper into a discussion surrounding what we call holism and reductionism. Such a discussion is of critical importance to understanding the foundations to complexity theory as an alternative approach to scientific inquiry. One of the most basic observations that we can make about our universe is that things are made of parts. Almost everything that we are interested in is a composite of other things. If the workings of a whole system are not apparent to us, the obvious way to conduct some scientific inquiry would be to look at those parts and try to understand the whole by understanding these elementary components. But once we start to take things apart, we quickly find that those parts are also made of more basic elements. In trying to understand the human body, we have identified that it is made of different organs, which are a combination of tissues, which in turn are made of cells, which are formed of organelles, formed of molecules, which are formed of atoms, which are formed of elementary particles, and this quest for ever more elementary parts continues today in the search for little strings. The power of this approach is in looking for the most basic building blocks that are common to all kind of systems, and from which we would be able to form a description of all things in terms of some combination of a set of these elementary building blocks. This would then in some way fulfill the aim of science to create a unified description of our world. In this endeavor, we have made extraordinary progress. We now know that the same building blocks of elementary particles form the very wide variety of things that we encounter in our lives. From trees to cars to rocks to people to butterflies and waterfalls, all are made of the same fundamental particles. Physicists and biologists use these basic building blocks to form precise descriptions of how these systems work. In this scientific quest for a complete understanding of our world, we have come a long way and we have combined many previously disparate aspects of our world into a coherent picture of how they work as a function of some set of basic building blocks. This approach to scientific inquiry is called analytical reductionism, where we break systems down into their parts, study the parts in isolation, and then recombine them to form a description of the whole in terms of these elements. This is largely the story of modern science as it has developed over the past centuries and it is through analytical reductionism that we discovered the atom, that we developed the cell theory of biology, that we formulated the periodic table, that we have cured many diseases. Given the fundamental role that science has come to play within modern societies, this approach has come to extend our collective understanding of the world, how we manage organizations and design systems. For example, we divide universities up into different subjects. However, we have little understanding of how these different subjects are interrelated, for how they should be arranged so as to deliver an integrated learning experience for the student. This illustrates the limitations of the analytical approach. In focusing on the parts, it inherently downplays the significance of the relations between those parts and how they work as a whole. By becoming more analytical in focusing on the parts, we become more removed from the network of connections between things and the whole that they form. We get a detailed description of the trees and all the different types of creatures that might live there, but we fail to see the forest. To make a full-balanced inquiry, it is necessary to see from both the perspective of the parts and from the perspective of the relations that form the whole. A system is a set of elements and relationships between those elements through which they form a whole. Thus, when we look at a composite entity, like a tree or a chair, we could equally ask a different question from talking about the parts. We could ask how the parts are interrelated to form the whole organization. This is a very different way of looking at the world. This approach to reasoning about some entity is called synthesis. Where synthesis means the combination of components or elements to form a connected whole. This basic set of assumptions that support an approach to scientific inquiry is called a paradigm. Thus, we can identify these two different paradigms, one of analytical reductionism and the other of what we call synthetic holism. Synthetic holism, also called systems thinking. To understand why synthetic reasoning is of importance, we have to understand better this idea of emergence. Emergence is a process whereby novel properties, features, or structures are formed as we combine elementary parts. With emergence, when we put things together in a particular way, something new is formed that none of the parts has, and we call this newly combined organization an emergent phenomenon. For example, we can say that walking is a type of emergent phenomenon. In walking, we coordinate our two legs to enable our motion. However, with one leg, we cannot walk, we can only hop. But walking is not simply a combination of two hops. Walking is a qualitatively different form of motion from hopping. Walking as a system of motion is far more effective and efficient than two hops combined. This new pattern of motion that we call walking is an emergent phenomenon. The reason that walking is qualitatively different is that moving by taking two hops involves no coordination between the parts. While walking requires a very specific type of coordination where the legs are working together to enable the overall process to take place. We call this phenomenon where two or more elements are working together, a synergy. It is these synergistic interactions between the parts that adds or subtracts value from the whole organization and thus makes the whole something different from the parts. Such emergent properties are a product of the synergies between the parts and thus they cannot be seen to derive directly from the properties in interaction of the elementary parts but exist instead only as a global structure. In such a way, emergence gives rise to new levels with new properties, features and processes as we put component parts together. Such irreducible patterns of organization are called integrative levels. This idea of emergence reveals the need for synthetic reasoning and the inherent limitations of analytical reductionism. With analysis, we focus on the parts and assume that the whole is nothing more than the sum of the parts. Thus, traditionally areas like physics have focused primarily on component parts and not directly on higher level whole systems, tacitly assuming that such whole systems are nothing more than some combination of the parts. However, as soon as we recognize the emergence of new properties on different levels, this inherently requires us to switch our focus from not just studying the elements but also how those parts are interrelated into a whole and the new features and properties that emerge as we do this. How new whole social systems are formed out of relationships between people, the brain formed out of neurons, how financial bubbles are formed out of the interaction between traders, the weather formed out of air flows. Thus, we can understand how complexity theory really is on a fundamental level a new kind of science. One, that is Mr. Barr-Yam, puts it, studies how relationships between parts give rise to the collective behaviors of a system.


are increasingly seeing Asia being the hotbed for different kinds of online businesses and it's now being driven by a shift in technology. What is most interesting today in Asia is the quick adoption of this technology and that's what I'm going to discuss with my panelists today. A shift in in the kind of companies that are being developed out of Asia also the technology that is moving from developed countries to Asia and also another very interesting point about entrepreneurs is the opportunity that lies today you know in your business and your experience what have you seen and what do you feel about this changing ecosystem and it's a survival. Perfect. A very interesting question. So to me I am the founder and CEO of a company named Miss Bees. We do beauty services via our mobile platform and we deliver the beauty services to your home at your convenience 24-7. So as a mobile company we see tremendous shifting in the past three years when we started the company we still were concerned about the adoption of smartphones which now stopped to be any type of concern and now we see our customers shifting from e-commerce to mobile e-commerce and what's interesting about is that we go with our phone everywhere it's technically becoming slowly and carefully are wearable and as a wearable it keeps collecting data about our behavior our friends our usage our purchases and we can see immediately how we expect as consumers the phone to know who we are so we kind of expect brands to personalize their experience because if they know and collect this information about us at least what we can gain out of it is the personalization and the seamless experience that we experience now so I think that's the major shift and the way we manage our platform is really to create real-time communication with customers based on the data that we collect and I think this is also why large corporates now shift to instant messaging and incorporate many technologies in communication with customers to get this real-time quick response and adapt accordingly John what is your point of view on that do you see Asia upping its game in e-commerce how is it different from other Western countries yeah so I run an e-commerce a company in Los Angeles we're about six years old and I think it's there's been a massive shift in the tools available the cost of them and the speed to market over the last call it decade when we launched the books company in 2012 it wasn't early but it was certainly earlier than now and Shopify wasn't a thing then the tools that were available were so so fewer and so much more expensive and so much more complex to actually make work and I think what's what's really happened in the Asian market is there's a there's a sort of jumping off point from what has already happened in the US and other Western markets where the pain of going through that transformation has already been borne by those markets and the Asian markets are now sort of hitting the around running in a way that is so much faster because of so many trials and errors and mistakes made within those other markets that they can learn from I think that the mobile shift is another one you know when we started the company 75% of our sales were through desktop today 70% of our sales are through mobile and that's in a five-year period we've seen that shift and again when we started the company we focused on desktop because that's where our sales were in a lot of these Asian markets they don't even think about the desktop as a place to start it's really mobile first and so I think a lot of the learning and the reps that that we've had on in the West have have helped really accelerate things in Asia Sammy in your experience have you felt that new technology adoption is the driver for the changing ecosystem that we see with respect to e-commerce and do you see high-end technology beyond mobile you know we have e-commerce companies like Amazon looking at experimenting with drones where do you see all of that moving technology thank you very much technology is enables us now to do so many different things it's it helps us achieve our purpose in life much more easily my own company we are a life insurance company and who would have thought that a life insurance company can actually create something meaningful and something that's relevant but we're finding now that technology totally transforms the space and not only that we actually find a new technology for example we've created the currency of well-being called a ucoin you can earn the ucoin through very simple things like walking and meditating and that new currency of well-being where we actually collecting data from thousands of well-being apps out there in the ecosystem and recruiting data scientists to understand that data and then to create personal pathways for healing and for well-being to help people live their best lives something that technology can do which has never been able to do so the new technology can enable us to leave richer more meaningful lives that's what I'm particularly excited how much of an investor interest lies in the changing ecosystem for e-commerce we're we're seeing companies mushrooming at an alarming stage we have we have you know stats that say we have up to 10 companies alone in India that start up on an everyday basis and these are all driven by technology I think the landscape as an investor for e-commerce investment is changing quite a bit so first of all I would our crowds perspective is very broad and global so I would differentiate what I see going on in more developed markets like the US and Europe versus emerging markets and then China I kind of put in its own special category so when I look in the developed markets I think that you know the the shift to e-commerce is already well underway so I have pretty much no interest in funding anyone that's trying to sell product online I mean I think that's been done already and the one exception to that might be someone that has some kind of amazing new model that's really new unique and original that has never been seen before but other than that if you're selling product online that ship is probably sale I can tell you that the kind of trends that do interest me are or that I'm trying to play off of are things like getting offline and online right so clearly Amazon and Alibaba are opening stores they're gonna have a strong presence that's very challenging for the traditional retailers that also opens up an opportunity so I'm particularly interested in companies that developing different types of tools that help traditional retailers compete in this emerging world so that could be things like analytics I'm actually launching a new investment on our cloud platform around that in a company called CB4 I'm also interested in people that are providing critical pieces of infrastructure like delivery systems there's been a big change in expectations around delivery and all kinds of retailers need help to be able to compete with what Amazon is doing in that area and another area I'm interested in is payments so I think there's still room for innovation and payments I think credit cards are good for certain use cases but I think there's interesting new technologies emerging there so that's pretty much where I'm looking and then the last one that I'll cite although I think it'd be a challenge for me to look at but I actually invested but I'm open to our companies that are kind of disrupting a traditional retail sector that has high service requirements so there's been several examples of that in the US like mattresses for example we just did an investment in Casper the mattress company you wouldn't think there's too much room for innovation there but just by bringing it online providing better service cutting out the middlemen you can do a lot so that's been played out quite a bit in the US I think that in other geographies it's still kind of early games so there might be some opportunity there you're almost sounding like a death knell for you know e-commerce online but the savior is that you say that payment space still has the window for growth Mario tell me in your opinion how much of what has existed in the US and other countries has percolated to other countries have you seen ripple effect and do you feel that the US has reached the epitome of their growth and now there's not much more room left and that room will then be filled by other countries so first of all definitely I think there's a ripple effect in several countries right because you get all the you have a large amounts of capital in the US so you can test a lot fail a lot I mean I'm not saying that you have to fail always right but you can test a lot you can fail and because the size of the market you you get to test and try new things and that gets ripple to everywhere so I'm from Mexico City actually I'm not from the US and we see a lot of direct to consumer startups which is the most I'd say the hottest thing in e-commerce which is D2C brands there are just copycats from the US or from elsewhere and I'm and I've heard I don't know very much about the presentation but I've heard that it's the similar case


Ladies and gentlemen on the left side of the room I will give the floor to Director General Francis Gehry who will be speaking to you about two subjects today the first one here the international patent statistics for 2011 then we'll take questions on that and then we'll move to the cyber squatting arbitration mediation center activities in 2011 because that is embargoed until Wednesday so it's just to make the taping easier downstairs so Karsten Finke is also with us our Chief Economist and Eric Vilbers the Director of the Arbitration Mediation Center. Thank you very much Sam our ladies and gentlemen very good morning to you thank you very much for coming this morning so let's start with the PCT as you know the international patent system in Safari so it exists and therefore an extremely important indicator of what is happening internationally in the field of innovation in particular it's one of the most important output indicators in the field of innovation and let me say that 2011 was an exceptional year in many ways and I will deal first in terms of volume or if you like demand how much activity is going on in the field of innovation in so far as the patent system provides an insight into that and then who's doing what you know which players are active so first in terms of demand despite the uncertain economic conditions we had a record year with 181,900 nearly 182,000 international applications being found under the PCT that was a growth rate of 10.7 percent over 2010 and the highest growth rate that we have had since the year 2005 it was excuse me it was also the year in which the two millionth PCT international application was filed and in terms of the use of the system and the accelerating pace of innovation it's useful to remember that it took 26 years for us to reach the first one millionth application and then a further seven years only to go to the two millionth application okay so that's the first thing I think to note that it was an extremely strong year despite the relative uncertainty as I said of the economy who's doing what well it's I think a similar story to the one that we have been telling for several years now there is an ongoing geographical shift occurring in the use of the PCT PCT system from generally speaking North America and Europe to Asia or if you like we see the emergence of Asia and as a consequence the relative decline in the share of North America and Europe in relative terms Asian now accounts for 38.8 percent nearly 39 percent of all international applications found under the PCT Europe is 30.9 percent and the North America is 28.3 percent so that is a significant change we saw extraordinary performances last year 2011 by China first of all who's the number of applications increased by 33.4 percent and by Japan where the number of applications international applications increased by 21 percent the explanations for the rise in the two cases are we believe different in the former case it's a reflection of the increased innovative activity that is taking place the second place in the second case Japan while the amount of innovative activity perhaps increases all the time at a relatively modest rate the very large increase in the number of international applications filed represents a shift in the use of or a change in patenting behavior on the part of Japanese enterprises which tend now to file a lesser number of domestic applications and a higher fraction of the domestic applications they tend to internationalize two other comments then in relation to who's doing what and then I'll stop talking on this point it's very interesting to see the middle-income countries increasing the use of the PCT system and their filing of international patent applications presumably reflecting their journey to higher value or to a higher level on the value chain and to increased innovation so we saw Brazil increased by 17 percent 17.2 percent in 2011 and we saw India increased by 11.2 percent in the case of India that 11.2 percent rise followed on a 36 percent rise in the preceding year so we now have two years in a row in which there are significant or double digit growth from India and we will watch with interest to see if that trend is confirmed in the future also from the Russian Federation there was an increase of some 20.8 percent and from Turkey of 12.7 percent so this we feel is very interesting to see at last if you like the reflection in terms of output in innovation area international patent applications of the changing position of the middle-income countries my last comment is perhaps on who's doing what in terms of individual corporations where we see that the biggest father the father of the highest number of applications was a Chinese corporation ZTE active in the telecommunications area and it overtook Panasonic Corporation of Japan as the top father in this regard we see that Japan has 21 separate applicants in the top 50 applicants rank so a very significant performance by Japanese corporations okay I shall stop my remarks at that point and we would be very happy to take any questions yes Daniel Prusin with BNA Francis I'm wondering if you can tell me ZTE is that the first time a Chinese company has topped a list of corporations filing patents and I'm also wondering as well in terms of we have a lot more patent applications being filed from China and other emerging economies but do you have any idea how successful these applications are the quality of these applications are they on a par with the filings in say Europe or North America thank you Dan on the first one if it was if I understand quickly you're just asking for a confirmation yes ZTE was the Chinese corporation that was the top father no first time they were two years ago and two thousand ten was yeah but China was also before 2010 it's not the first time that China 2009 it was also but I think it was Huawei from memory not ZTE and 2010 was Panasonic yes the success of these we don't short answer have a measure of that you would need to track you know the use of the inventions in the corporation's business and within their accounts you know what amounts were attributable to it so it's a very difficult thing to to track the quality of an invention unless it's a really absolutely you know outstanding basic fundamental invention I'm sorry I just follow up I was thinking more in terms of rejection of the applications do we have any idea whether our applications from China and other emerging economies fair in terms of the number that are rejected no chance we don't have any indication and I think it may also be worth pointing out that it is too early to tell because many of the applications most of the applications in fact that have been filed by the Chinese companies let's say over the last two or three years are still you know in in undergoing examination in national patent officers so I think in a few years it would be interesting to look back and see you know how the strong increase in patent filings especially under the PCT system from Chinese companies and I think ZTE technologies and Huawei technologies the two dominant PCT filers stand out here you know how those international patent filings have translated into national phase entries and then how those national phase entries have fared in national patent officers but I think it is too early to to make any assessment in that regard you know the the Russians what what sort of areas with a filing patents in our applications run well short answer is we don't know without examining those all of their applications you know which is possible you know you can do that but we don't have that information available now but what we could do is if you're particularly interested I mean this is all public information I think it wouldn't be difficult for us to provide you the breakdown by field of technology as you see in annex 4 we have the breakdown by field of technology for all applications it wouldn't be difficult for us for you to provide you the breakdown specifically for applications from the Russian Federation have you just got a any general ballpark estimation of idea of what the what the air is the well no okay time at quiet news agency yes on page three there is a decline in the growth in Florida the United Kingdom, Northern and Finland, Australia and Spain and other Western universities also do you think that there is a relation between a relation between this decline and the financial crisis in supporting or financing the development and their research? I'd say first of all that there were very mixed results from Europe some European countries have used as you have pointed out have risen and others fell down for example Switzerland was up 7.3 percent and France was up 5.8 percent and Germany up 5.7 percent but as you have said Netherlands minus 14 percent Finland minus 2.7 percent and Spain minus 2.7 percent also you point out Australia has declined as well my own view and then I'll ask Carsten to correct it or to add to it is that this is a direct reflection of the economic circumstances with the exception of Australia where there has not been an economic recession in the case of Australia I'm not sure what the explanation is but my guess is that it's related to the principal sources of of national income being in the manufacture in the mining sector and less in the research and development area although their percentage of GNP devoted to R&D has been rising so I'm not sure what the explanation is but for Europe I would say these figures are related to different strategies adopted during the economic crisis to innovation and research and development but also secondly and perhaps more importantly different capacities to be able to address research and development during the economic crisis well if I maybe could add one or two thoughts here I think you know in any given country pattern filing trends are influenced by a number of factors and we know for a fact I think there is enough evidence accumulated evidence that suggests that the business cycle does play an important role and certainly if the economy is on a downward trend you know that does affect companies patent filing behavior on the other hand we also know that there are other factors that are relevant you know certain let's say industry trends the industrial structure of the country's research and development activities matters in that regard so it's very difficult for us you know on the basis of these headline numbers to say you know this is directly related to the economic crisis on the other hand I think it is no coincidence you know that we have a rather mixed performance from European countries and you know this as you know has been the region you know most affected by at least the latest wave of the economic crisis that we have observed


nanostructured semiconductors with controlled isotope doping offer improved efficiency in engineering thermoelectric devices by manipulating phonon transport and reducing thermal conductivity without degrading electrical conductivity, which could lead to future commercial thermoelectric devices. This article was authored by H. Brakt, S. E. On, R. Freeling, and others.


Fuel is a necessity for combat operations. And ensuring service members throughout Helmand Province have the fuel they need is the responsibility of General Support Motor Transport Company, First Maintenance Battalion Minus Reinforced and their non-commissioned officers. The Marines and sailors of the company hire local Afghans, inspect them and their trucks, and then escort the civilians and fuel to different Ford operating bases throughout the battle space. What we're doing today is we are going through several local national fuel trucks. We're getting ready to move fuel to a couple different Ford operating bases. We actually contracted out. All we do is we provide logistical support for local national truckers to move the fuel about. When preparing for the fuel movements, the Marines and their non-commissioned officers conduct multiple inspections on not only the trucks, but also the drivers. After inspecting the Afghans, the Marines check their person for contraband. Additionally, the Marines utilize a technology called the Biometric Automated Tool Set and handheld interagency identity detection equipment, also known as the Batson Hide. Today we came out here with the Batson Hide system to try to get some information on the local national truck drivers that we're hiring to transport the fuel. After each driver is inspected and screened, the next step is searching their trucks for contraband as well as conducting mechanical inspections. We inspect everything from the fluids. We have them start up to make sure the engine runs correctly. Like there's no air leaks, fuel leaks, any type of fluid. We have to make sure all the tires are like they're not going to blow out when we go out on the road, and we have to make sure that they have spares so if they do go out and they can change it very quickly. While inspecting drivers and their trucks may take some time, the non-commissioned officers continue to improve upon the process, and their Marines consistently get better with each completed mission. I think my Marines are doing an outstanding job out here. We've come out here and done this several times and with repetition is going to come muscle memory. So every time we come out here, the job gets done more thoroughly and more quickly as well. The opportunity to work alongside the Marines and deliver fuel throughout the area is something the local Afghans appreciate. Well, I think it is very good, especially if it's for the peace for Afghanistan and for the people. Reporting from Helmand Province, Afghanistan, I'm Sergeant John Jackson.


The final game of the 2020 season, Super Bowl 55. The Kansas City Chiefs for the hometown favorites, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This is the first Super Bowl where both quarterbacks have won a Super Bowl MVP and NFL MVP award as well. Patrick Mahomes could join Tom Brady as the only two quarterbacks to win two Super Bowls in their first four seasons. Great matchup that we've got and a lot of people predicted this to be their preseason matchup as well between the Chiefs and the Buccaneers. Given that the Chiefs, their journey, if we want to talk about them first, second straight Super Bowl appearance would have been third. I 100% honestly believe that if the Chiefs went to the Super Bowl in 2018, that they would have won and they would have beat the Rams and now they'd be playing for what would have been the third straight Super Bowl championship. Instead, they lost to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots at that time. The game went into overtime. There was a pre-snap penalty that kept the Patriots on the field in overtime and eventually they were able to score, go onto the Super Bowl, win it all, Patrick Mahomes never had a chance at the ball in overtime. But the Chiefs are playing for their second straight Super Bowl and this could be the meaning of a next big dynasty after the New England Patriots dynasty has what we presume to have ended at this point. For the Buccaneers, they started off seven and five. Listen, in the pre-season, we have to go back to that. Tom Brady signed in the off-season. All of these big stars come into the mix when Tom Brady signs, Leonard Fournette wants to sign after it gets released by the Jaguars and Tony O'Brown later on in the season wants to sign and play with Tom Brady. So all these players and all these stars want to play for Tampa Bay, but they started off seven and five and it looked like that this season would have been a little bit of a disappointment given all the hype that you had going into the 2020 season. Well, that game against the Chiefs is what got them to seven and five. Tony Romo makes an unbelievable prediction like he always does and says that the Chiefs and the Buccaneers are gonna play in the Super Bowl. Seven and five had that buy week after the Chiefs lost and then all of a sudden never lost a game since. Goes 11 and five, wins out in the post-season on the road and now they're playing at home in their stadium for a Super Bowl 55. Let's take a look at some team comparisons to kind of break down the matchup and kind of give you guys a feel of where each team stands as far as how good their offense and their defense are. Let's start off with the Kansas City Chiefs looking at their offense to start off with. They're ranked first and pass offense 16th in the run. Sixth in the NFL in points per game, 14th if you want to talk about pass defense and then 21st in rush defense. So their defense is kind of mediocre. Their offense has been the bread and butter of this Super Bowl appearance. For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers talk about them, their offense right behind the Kansas City Chiefs as far as pass offense. The Chiefs are ranked first, the Bucks are ranked second but it's a little lopsided when you talk about the pass offense versus the rush offense. Second and pass but 28th in rush offense. They've got to get Ronald Jones and Leonard Fournette their healthy amount of carries and get the ball moving. Points per game, second in the NFL much better than the Chiefs, pass defense. This is where it's been lacking for the Buccaneers and has been attributed to the reason why they've been seven and five because of their 21st ranked pass defense and then the rush defense, no question about it the rush defense, they do not need to be concerned about that with one of the better defensive lines in the NFL with Jason Pierre-Paul, Nadal McCong-Sue and all those good guys on that defensive line first in the NFL. Let's look at the comparison between the two quarterbacks that are playing. You've got the, what people label as the goat versus the kid, Tom Brady versus Patrick Mahomes. They're talking about Mahomes, passing yards, 4,700 yards passing, 38 passing touchdowns to only six interceptions, 66% of his passes completed, 108.2 quarterback rating as opposed to Tom Brady, 4,600 yards passing, 40 touchdowns to 12 interceptions, 65.7 passing up of his passes completed at 102.2 quarterback rating. We expect this to be a pass heavy game. We don't expect anything less than that. We expect them to go back and forth and what matters in a pass heavy game are your weapons. Looking at the wide receiver comparison, if you want to talk about the big targets that each of these players have, their number one targets Mahomes and Brady, you've got Tyreek Hill and Mike Evans, the wide receivers of each respected team. For the Chiefs, Tyreek Hill, 87 receptions, 1,200 yards receiving, 15 touchdowns, 14.7 yards per reception and 64.7 catch percentage, meaning that the targets versus the receptions that he had, he caught 64% of them. Versus Mike Evans, who's a little bit lower than Tyreek Hill as far as statistics go, 70 receptions, 1,006 yards receiving, 13 touchdowns, 14.4 yards per reception and then catch percentage, 64.2. Now, even though his stats might be a little bit lower than Tyreek Hill, that could be attributed to a lot of things as far as Brady liking to spread the ball around a lot. A lot of good targets like Antonio Brown who stepped it up late in the season. Chris Godwin as well, Rob Gronkowski, Cameron Brait now, emerging as that tied in one. For Tyreek Hill, it's pretty much him at the wide receiver's position. Yeah, you've got Travis Kelsey to kind of split targets with but it's pretty much just Hill and Kelsey at that point. But both of them great red zone targets if you want to talk about Mike Evans especially, I believe in the last five, six, seven years has been targeted more than any other player in the red zone Mike Evans has. So a great red zone target on top of that. What are the keys to victory for each team? Cause you gotta talk about how can each team pick up a victory and win the Super Bowl? Let's start off with the Kansas City Chiefs. They're keys to victory. First off, zone blitz often. The reason they play it is because it gives a quarterback more time in the pocket to really read the zone and see where each of the defenders are to try to find that open window so they can throw the ball into that open window. So if you apply a lot of pressure on Tom Brady as far as giving him the ball in his hands for so long and you send a blitz as well, all of a sudden that's gonna pressure Tom Brady and he's gonna have to throw it out quick. Meaning that the zone defense could intercept the ball, could cause a turnover, fumble, whatever it may be. But zone blitz is what the New York Giants have used when they won against Tom Brady in the Super Bowl in 2007 and 2011. The second key to victory for the Kansas City Chiefs as far as the offense goes, the pass-run ratio has to be at least 60 to 40. So what does that mean? That means you're gonna have to pass the ball a lot. This defense is the best team in the NFL against the run. Clyde Edwards-Layer, leaving on bell, great talents. Darrell Williams as well has been very underrated, but you're not really gonna do much against the best run defense in the NFL. So you're gonna have to pass the ball a lot, at least a 60 to 40% share. I wouldn't be surprised if you make it more 70 to 30. And that be your game plan and give the ball to Patrick Mahomes and give it to him to lead your team to victory. As far as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, what are their keys to victory? Number one, you have to prioritize Travis Kelsey guarding him over Tyreek Hill.  He got 200 yards and three touchdowns in that game that they had against the Buccaneers in week 12. But if you prioritize Travis Kelsey, that will make a big difference because what Patrick Mahomes likes to do on third and 10, third and 15, when the moment counts, when it matters the most in the middle of the field, Travis Kelsey is his go-to guy to try to get that yardage and try to get that first down. If you try to double cover Travis Kelsey, you're gonna eliminate that threat and you're gonna have to force the ball to other targets such as Tyreek Hill and then it's a big drop off from there with Mikko Hardman and other receivers that they have. So if you prioritize covering Travis Kelsey, he's a silent assassin. He's gonna rack up yards and rack up perceptions slowly and surely and then all of a sudden, he has eight receptions for 100 yards and a touchdown. You cannot let that happen, cover Travis Kelsey. And the number two, another defensive key to victory, force Patrick Mahomes to make quick throws. That's what matters. We talked about Travis, Tom Brady. Try to make him throw some quick throws as well, apply that pressure. The best way to make him throw the ball out quick is to blitz. That would be your best option. With that defensive line, you don't have to be worried about that. But they beat the Packers, 14 points, came off of turnovers in that victory against the Packers. And that was because they blitzed Aaron Rodgers and caused him to throw the ball out quick. Yeah, no way to throw it. How to throw incomplete passes, how to throw the ball away, get the ball out of Patrick Mahomes' hands and that's to blitz Patrick Mahomes and make him throw some quick throws and get that ball out of there pretty quick. But those are the keys to victory for each team. So what we like to do with each of these game previews, we like to ask polls on Instagram. Get your thoughts. Ask you, the town of football fans, who do you believe is going to win the Super Bowl? So it's pretty close, 51 to 49 in favor of the Bucks from what people say. This is gonna be a very, very close game. It's gonna be exciting, which we expect as well. We expect this game to come down to the wire, but 49% of you believe that it's the Chiefs that's gonna win, but 51 believe that the Buccaneers are gonna win a Super Bowl in their home stadium and Tom Brady is gonna win. Yet again, another Super Bowl, his seventh Super Bowl in his already remarkable career. Leave your thoughts and leave your comments down below. What are your predictions as far as who do you think is gonna win the game, but also Super Bowl MVP? Is it gonna be Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, or is it gonna be a non-quarterback? Maybe even a defensive player as well. Leave your comments, leave your thoughts, leave your opinions and interact with us. Down below.


Okay, we're back, this is theCUBE, SiliconANGLE.tv's continuous coverage of Dell Storage Forum. We're here live in Boston. I'm Dave Vellante of wikibond.org, and I'm here with my co-host, Stu Miniman. At Stu, we've seen a lot of, today is really day zero of the Dell Storage Forum. Dell's got a number of announcements, I guess, coming this evening after the close. Yeah, absolutely. At 4.30, we're going to hear about redacted and redacted, so. Okay. Great, yeah, so the big keynote. There's been some buzz about convergence and some of the other things going on. The big keynote is tonight, right? And then we've got Darren Thomas tomorrow morning, and then he's going to be in theCUBE. But we've heard a lot about end-to-end, and there's a lot of hints about converged infrastructure. I suspect that some of the announcements are going to be around that, but what do you make of the day? Yeah, so, good day. Some good guests digging into really explaining as we've talked about the transformation of Dell. So Dell's not only made a lot of acquisitions, but as you pointed out, Dave, they're doing a good job of integrating, and it's not just about having the building blocks, but all the things we've been looking at where the market needs to go. So specifically talking about workload-aware storage. So not just making something that works for a virtual machine, but something that really understands that application can automate, get data to the right place, have the other things to do. So we really need to understand that. Strong messaging on virtualization with VMware and Microsoft, and Dell's not just a Texas company anymore. They've got the big group in Minnesota. Dario came on and talked about where they're growing in Silicon Valley. So they're right in the, they've got the big group in Minnesota. They've got the big group in Minnesota. They've got the big group in Minnesota. They've got the big group in Minnesota. They've got the big group in Minnesota. They're right in the kind of the heart of the networking and innovation groups there. You know, cloud, convergence, networking, kind of pulling it all together. And so the man who really runs that whole initiative, Brad Anderson is speaking tonight. I believe it's at 5.30. 4.30 actually. Okay, 4.30 East Coast time. We will be broadcasting that tonight. So he's essentially, Dave Donatelli's counterpart for Dell, right? Right. Run server storage and networking, and has essentially, you know, responsibility for that whole converged strategy. Right. Yeah, so we've got that. We also have a replay of last year. One of our best guests was Phil Soren, the CEO of Compellent. We're going to be, we'll be showing you that from the Dell Storage Forum 2011 with John MacArthur and Kelly Lewis. Yeah, so an interesting thing even, you know, we talk about, like, flash. You know, Bob Fine at the end kind of showed a little leg telling about that that RNA network's acquisition, and that can help be the underlying piece to help get Dell to that all-flash array when they really feel that that's necessary. Well, it was interesting to me to have, we just had Commvault on. Now, Commvault is a company that I've been sort of passively tracking for years. They do a lot in backup and archive, and they've got a very rich set of capabilities. And what's happening, Stu, is, as I said, the moves in the chessboard are, to me, quite interesting. A company in EMC that owns a lot of its own software destiny, you know, used to work there. You know how EMC sells hardware and then sells software and sell services behind it. They sell stores like bananas. They sell things in bunches, and that's a playbook that's really worked well for the company, and I think you're seeing others now finally come around to do that. Certainly HP and IBM. Yeah, and what I heard from Dario today, you know, John Furrier's in the valley watching these venture companies. I didn't know that Dell had a Dell Ventures Group there, in Silicon Valley there. Yeah, relatively new initiative. Spreading some money out there. These guys have to do it. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. The enterprise business has become an oligopoly, and you've got five or six or seven companies that really own the chessboard.  It's IBM, it's HP. It's Dell is certainly in there. Microsoft, Cisco, and I would put EMC in there because of VMware. They're like the little of the bigs, and they're clearly on a growth trajectory to do that. So, any move in Oracle, if I didn't say them, any move that any one of these vendors makes ripples through and affects the others. I mean, imagine, so you saw what happened when Dell made an offer for 3PAR. HP had to come out and counter. It's like, Stu, you're a football fan. It's like in the draft when somebody picks a left guard, and there's not a lot of left guards left. Boom, there's a run on left guard. You saw that with the storage of virtualization companies. The question we have is, will you see that with Flash? Will the Extreme IO acquisition, create a ripple effect, the domino effect, and a spate of acquisitions around Flash? I think it will. Obviously, Dell has made some moves there with RNA, but I think there's more to come. Absolutely. Yeah, so we're here. This is theCUBE, and we're here live at the Dell Storage Forum. We're hearing about the transformation of Dell. Five, six, seven years ago, Dell essentially just put together other people's parts. They still do that, obviously, for their desktop and laptop business. Reselling largely Microsoft and Intel technologies, but they've really been on a tear lately to acquire companies with significant IP. In particular, storage has been a major area of focus. We heard that from one of our guests that it used to be storage was, the last thing they talk about, they talk about storage if they had time, right? And now, storage is the first thing that they talk about at the meetings with Michael Dell. VDI is big. We've got why is now part of the portfolio. You've got the scalant piece. You've got Boomi on the cloud side, so just more and more acquisitions. The last four years, Dell's done that, and we pointed out at the beginning of the show, Dave, Dell's still got a sizable war chest that they've built up over the years from their server and desktop business. They've got more money than IBM has in the bank. They've got more money than EMC or NetApp, so not just a storage company, we're here talking about storage, but broad portfolio across the entire infrastructure and starting to build some of the software pieces to make them more strategic. So, Stu, big day today, obviously, gearing up for the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. It's always an event that people look forward to because, basically, Tim Cook and Apple are going to show some leg. They're going to show some leg, talk about new operating systems, new devices. You know, hint at the... Well, they probably won't hint at it, but, you know, new iPhone coming, I guess, December timeframe. But today, evidently, Apple is adding features back into Siri that the app had before Apple acquired the company. Mark Hopkins tells me that he was party to a personal demo from Siri prior to the acquisition that had a new movie functionality in it. That was about a year before the acquisition. Siri buttons are now becoming available in high-end cars like BMWs. And we're also hearing of a massive upgrade to the MacBook Pro, which was announced earlier this hour. And along with that, as you expected, a massive price hike. Apple focusing still on margins. Let's see. MVP ships today. iOS 6 update is coming soon as well. So I'm excited about Siri, Mark. I'm hoping that Siri actually can get some utility in it. You know, remember, Mark, we were at Oracle Open World, and I was really questioning, you know, the whole voice activation. You said you had some early demos of it. This is Mark Hopkins of SiliconANGLE. You were quite impressed with it at the time.  I guess unless you're a famous actor and you want to do a TV commercial and have somebody to talk to. If you're really lonely, Siri's good. Have a companion to talk to. Otherwise, it's really not that useful. And the other big show with Apple, the forgotten company from technology is Microsoft. So, you know, expect to see a lot from Microsoft on the cloud aspects. So, you know, where is Azure these days? We've got Scott Lowe on the ground hoping to bring him into our broadcast. TechEd. TechEd, thank you. Yeah, so I'm excited about that. And again, I'm personally very excited about Siri gaining some utility, because that technology, that voice activation technology, to the extent that you can talk to computers like Spock did, you know, on Star Trek, you know, which is going to happen, because everything on Star Trek actually eventually happens. So, okay, so we are live here at the Dell Storage Forum. We've got a good lineup tomorrow, Stu.  He's the vice president general manager of the Dell Storage Group.  As I said, we've got the big keynote tonight from Brad Anderson. I think he's pretty much doing a drive-by. Michael Dell is not at this event. He was at last year's inaugural Dell Storage Forum. But I think, you know, hey, he's a busy guy. He's doing a lot of things, and I think the Storage Group is now sort of solidified. He wanted to show his presence last year. And the other thing we've got a lot of Dell executives on today, we're going to have some customers. So we've got real end users. We've also got some influencers, a lot of them that are very familiar in using the Dell technology for many years. Some of them channel partners. Some of them also end users. So two more days, lots of good guests. You know, it's interesting. I just got another note from Mark Hopkins saying that Apple announced a Google Docs-like function synced with iCloud. Now, here we have a situation where David Gerard left Google. He was the head of their enterprise apps group.  There's good, there's bad, and there's ugly. But essentially now you have Apple and Google and Microsoft now all competing with each other for the enterprise. And I, for one, welcome it. I think it's made Microsoft better. I think Microsoft has actually done a very good job of maintaining its franchise and responding to the cloud.  So now maybe with Apple and Google, maybe that will foster some new competition and, you know, put some pressure on Microsoft who always has responded, you know, since Netscape in days. So we're here live, Dell Storage Forum 2012. Talking about the transformation, Stu, we're on the summer tour. We got a lot going on this week. We're here at Dell. We'll be at Intel Forecast tomorrow as part of the Cloud Expo. And then the big event toward the end of the week is the Hadoop Summit, which is sponsored by Hortonworks. The Cube will be there. We've got a big team going out there. It's big data. It's all the action out in San Jose. But we're here at the Dell Storage Forum talking about the transformation of Dell. Dell bringing in its own IP. We heard from Dell earlier today saying, hey, it's not about us expanding our margins. It's really about, you know, driving the customer need. Yeah, that's probably true, but it's also about expanding the margins. I mean, I think there's no question about it. The Dell, the viability of Dell depended upon the company going on this acquisition spree and increasing the intellectual property that it owns. And as overseen by Michael Dell, he got very much heavily back involved in the business and very impressive.  Data General didn't know what to do. It just didn't know how to buy the companies or invent things. It just didn't know how to pivot. Michael Dell has orchestrated a massive, giant, $60 billion pivot for Dell. Will it work? Well, I mean, Dell is relevant. Dell is in the conversation. Dell is making moves that are really keeping it relevant, in my opinion. What's your thoughts, particularly on the networking side? Yeah, no, Dave, you know, as we talked, they've made a lot of moves. It's a lot of hard work to become relevant. You know, networking, they're hitting things at the right time. So virtualization changed a lot on the storage side and that gave the opportunity for the equilogists and compilants to kind of come in there and gain market share. In networking, we're also at a pivot point. The combination of virtualization and big data are going to have massive scale-out architectures which have different requirements than what we had in the past. And as we talked about, actually, with the Broadcom guests today, those actually intersect. So while on the storage side, I need a different architecture for something like Hadoop than I did traditionally for VMware networking. It's that flattening of the network as we've talked about. Lots of east-west traffic, low latency, high bandwidth scale-out architectures. And that's where Force 10 fits well into that piece. So Dell still, as Dario said, a lot of white space and there's probably going to be some more acquisitions to help flash out the portfolio. They need to partner with a lot of companies to have a full security environment too. In the layer four through seven, they're starting to go out with their Sonic wall acquisition. But there's still lots of pieces. Dell doesn't have nearly as broad of a portfolio as an IBM or an HP when it comes to the full stack. But they've got the major pieces here. They've got the building's blocks. They've got a solid start to their convergence strategy. And looking forward to seeing some of the announcements this week that we think are going to push the ball forward a little. You know, I meant to ask Dario when he's on. We ran out of time, but maybe I'll ask you. So if you look at the networking business, Cisco's got a dominant share of networking. If you look at the Gartner and Magic Quadrant for networking, you know, there's really Cisco and HP. You're really the only two in the upper right. So it's amazing that in networking, Cisco has been able to garner such a dominant share. And storage, that doesn't happen. I mean, you used to work with EMC. I don't know what EMC's worldwide share is probably 30%, right? Right. Maybe 35. So you haven't seen that type of domination in other market servers, same thing. You know, it's a very fragmented market. Why is it in networking that Cisco was able to garnish so high a share, and is that sustainable with guys like Dell coming in and IBM, you know, with the BNT acquisition and others? Yeah. So great question, Dave. And, you know, Cisco really rode that wave of Ethernet. So, you know, standards are great and we want to have everything interoperate. But at the end of the day, it's a lot easier if I have a single network and I manage things up. Cisco helped build an army of Cisco-certified engineers and network designers that basically became their sales force. So, strong channel presence, built a whole economy of new jobs around their products. We've seen that in the VMware environments. VMware has, you know, the VMware user groups and they have VMware-certified people. They have Evangelis.  So, building that whole ecosystem from the channel, from the customer, and building jobs around this, you know, the job of the future isn't just, you know, a storage administrator that provisions loans. You know, a VMware virtualization administrator has to be cross-functional and do a lot of things. And nobody has had that next-generation networking job to displace Cisco yet, even though we think with SDN coming in software-defined networks, there might be that opportunity. That opening, yeah. Yeah, now Cisco's recently done a spin-out called NCME that's expected to be their play for software-defined networks. But, you know, it's early and those spin-outs take two or three years to kind of come to fruition. And in the meantime, there's a little bit of space for the other networking guys to try to get there.   You know, Stu, the other thing we've been hearing a lot about is integration. And actually, Dell doesn't make a huge deal out of it. It's just an observation that I made and we've been making, is that it seems like Dell prioritizes integration of its acquisitions more so than some of the companies. I mean, you used to work at EMC, a very acquisitive company. And I always felt like EMC was more concerned about the performance of the asset than they were integrating that asset. Now, that may be changing a little bit, but with Dell, it seems to be an very intense focus on integration. I wonder if I could get your take on both Dell's, you know, integration and my statements about the EMC. No, no, absolutely, Dave. And something really interesting to look at, because if you look, there are some pieces that you want to fold in and hold tight. From an EMC standpoint, if you look at some of the bigger acquisitions, like RSA or like VMware, there needs to be integration, but they wanted to let those businesses run on their own. And I think, you know, we talked about VMware being just one of the best acquisitions of all time, and one of the best things that EMC did is they kept their own buildings, they kept their own people, and they really stayed at arm length and eventually spun out as an IPO. RSA in a lot of ways is still that independent, excuse me, security company, you know, so people don't think of it's an EMC company, it's RSA. They have a great ecosystem built around them. Dell's a smaller company. These are smaller acquisitions, and they are more core to their intellectual property. Well, it's not a smaller company, though. It's three times the size. Okay, from a storage standpoint, you know, if I think on EMC's standpoint... That's clean sheet of paper. Yeah, clean sheet of paper from storage. If you look at EMC, you know, an Avamar and a Data Domain, you know, EMC has their backup and recovery group, and they kind of bundle all those together. From Dell, they're taking the Exynet piece, and the Ocarina technology, and they're spreading that through the Power Vault, the Equalogic, and the Compellant technology. So it's... And maybe times have changed. Well, now, so first of all, I should clarify. So EMC's obviously done a great job of integrating with VMware, and has probably had a leadership position there. So it's done that very well. But in terms of taking assets that it acquires and integrating now... You know, an example, just to give you a counterpoint on that, EMC bought the Kosh acquisition. It was an Israeli-based CDP-CRR, and that's RecoverPoint, which is heavily integrated into the replication product for the VNX platform, and it also supports the VMAX now. So, you know, there's pieces, but... Yeah, but I could argue, Stu, that that has the opportunity to be integrated into its BRS portfolio in a bigger way. So that's what I'm saying. To me, it's mixed, whereas... And maybe it's just my perception. But with Dell, I see a very intense focus on integration, and we asked one of our guests that there might have been Travis Vigil. You know, why is that? And he said that basically the small and mid-sized customers actually need it more because they don't have the resources to do integration on their own. Now, so I wonder as well if the times they are changing in that regard, too, with open APIs and open source, and, you know, new software methodologies if integration is somewhat easier today than it has been the last 10 or 15 years. But that seems to me to be something that bears watching here. I mean, look at NetApp. You know, the NetApp integration of Spinnaker has taken a long, long time. You know, we're still seeing that labor of love play itself out. It's unclear to me what's going on with Bycast. I think that's an asset there. I want to hear more next week at the NetApp Analyst event. And I think NetApp is learning how to do that. My sense is that Dell was very, very aggressive about doing that. Now, maybe it's acquired certain assets that are easier to integrate, but I don't think so. If a lot of these, most of the acquisitions you're talking about from Dell are software components that become features inside of the storage. What about compelling equal logic? Well, they're two separate product lines. Sure, that's true. And I guess Exynet is the sort of glue that's holding those guys together. And that is taking a while in fairness. But it just seems to be an emphasis on it. Whereas I think a lot of other companies are defensive about integration. Oh, we'll get there. We'll get there. We'll get there. As opposed to Dell, that is our main thrust of our investment in R&D strategy. Now, maybe that's because they're not inventing a lot of stuff in Dell labs, right? Like HP labs, or IBM research centers. Although EMCs, they do a lot of R&D, but a lot of their internal R&D is on new product features. So it's something that was worth watching. It may be just a misperception on my part, but I see Dell as more aggressive on integration than some of its counterparts. Okay, so we're here at Dell Storage Forum. We're live. This is Dave Vellante. I'm here with Stu Miniman. Stu, any closing thoughts? So excited for the 430 announcement. We have some more stuff we're going to be able to talk about tomorrow. Good buzz. Nice to be here at the hometown in Boston after so many weeks in Vegas. Yeah. Well, it is great to be in Boston. And of course we couldn't be here without the generous support of Dell. We really appreciate, you know, Dell bringing us here. And of course, legal seafood. You know, my favorite hangout.  Yeah, absolutely. You know, Mark, Mike and I went to legal test kitchen last night and had a great meal. Yeah, so, yeah, right across the street, the new Harbor side, you should check it out. Legals, we got some great gifts here for some of our guests. A lot of people don't know Stu. Legals has a, they ship anywhere in the U.S. Right, you go to shop.legalseefood.com.  So definitely check that out. When I go to Legals, I love to get a grilled piece of fish over salad. That's what I get.  Good. All right, so check that out. Thank you to Legal Seafood. All right, so keep it right there. We've got some segments coming up. Phil Soren actually is coming up with a segment that we did last year at the Dell Storage Forum. So watch for that. Keep it right there and we will be back with more coverage from the Dell Storage Forum. Storage Forum, this is the Cube. We'll be back.


Hello! Hi, this is Janice from Newsmine and we are manufacturing for portable power stations. So what is this product we see here? It is a 300 watts portable power station. So it has this kind of specs you see here. It can do a lot of power, but it's compact, it's not too heavy. Yeah, it's about 4.5 kg and for AC output for outdoor camping and home backup power supply. Alright, and the stuff on the display here? Yeah. Maybe it's, oh, there it is, out of power. You need to charge it, right? How long it takes to charge? About two hours. And then how long you can use it? Depends? Depends on what kind of devices you want to support. Normally for maybe two to three days for laptop, for cell phones, for cameras. Nice, because if you use something like this, can you connect your coffee machine to it? Yeah, coffee machine you maybe need a big power. This one is not big enough for the coffee? Yeah, that one is a little bit small, but like 600 watts, it's okay. And what is this power bank we see here? This is 1000 watts output. 1000 watts? Yeah. This is EU output and EU style and USB. And you have different lights and you can turn it off also? Oh, you can blink it? Something like that? What kind of price? Is it possible that you provide very good price? All of us, our products are good price. Best in the market? Best in the market is 300 watts. 300 watts? Yeah, and this is a new for 2000 watts. Wow, it's a big one. Yeah, it's made by Mentor material. It's got a bunch of plugs, it's tough on the LCD or LED. This is an expandable pack, expansion pack. So if this is not enough power for you, you can add more? Yeah. But it's not double, it's more than double? Yeah, it's more than double. More than double? This is the inside of the product. Oh, so down here? Down here is a battery. Is it high quality? Yeah, high quality. So made in China? Yeah, it's EV neighbor for EV cars. So it's like the same they use for Elon Musk? Tesla? Yeah. Similar? Similar. And stuff in here, all these high quality components. You got all the resistors and what you need to have in there. Do you talk about price when you say MLQ or something? What is MLQ? MLQ for OEM order. And each one is a little bit expensive? How much? Like 2,990. And the 300 watt? Less than $100. Less than $100? Yeah, around half $100. And what we see behind there is the same? Same one? The bigger one. This is $3,000 output. $3,000? Yeah, a little bit bigger than that one. So that's even more expensive, $3,000? Yeah, it's around $100. It's about $1,000 FOB price. And here we see medium? This is $1,600. Ah, right, $1,600? What kind of price is happening for that? Around something, yeah? Because this is new. New one? No problem. And this one? This is also $300 output. Is it also less than $100? This one a little bit price higher. $475. Nice. Is also $300 there? Just different color? Yeah, different color. Is a new SMI before do different product? Yeah. Is a new market for you? But Power Station is a new market for us. How long can you do this? We have been doing this for five years already. And from 100 watts to 3,000 watts, we have different product tonight. Because I think I did video with you 10 years ago, something like that.  Yeah. All right. So export market. Nice. Is this the $300? This is how it looks inside? Is it dangerous to touch it? It's better not touch. And what happened there? This is the bad inside battery of the product. If people buy a nice big one like this, and they use for three, four, five years, is it still going to keep the same capacity after three, four, five years? Or will lose a little bit? A little bit. But the left battery cycle time is up to 1,500 times or maybe 2,000 times. And you can last thing at least five to eight years. After eight years, you can be maybe a little bit lower. But it's still continuous using. But if some people use every day all the time, maybe after four years, can they change the batteries inside or it's too difficult? Yeah, it's a little bit difficult because all the products are already finished. Can they send it to you and you change the batteries for some price? We'll see. It would be nice if you could do that. Yeah, we will find the solutions. Because it would be nice if people invest in such a nice machine for their convertible van. And then they powered the whole van with something like this. And maybe they use it every day. Yeah. And maybe four or five years it would be nice to keep the nice capacity. Okay, cool. Okay, so do you have a nice show? Thank you. No product over here. I see. And also I see solar. How's your solar? Yeah, this is a 200 watts solar panel. It's an easy carry. Nice. Especially when you go outdoor. It's not too heavy? Yeah, lightweight. Can I install this on my house or is it going to break with the wind and the rain? Sorry. It's not for permanent installation. It's for a temporary camping solution. You cannot drive it on the car with this? Can you leave it on the car and drive? Yeah, if you can leave. And it comes together with a cable. So that you could test it. This is the MC4. Nice. And you have different DC and the MC4 and the two XT60. So different options for different power stations. It's charging for 8. How much is the price for solar? Like this. A solar power, like 200 watts, about 160. Is this 200? Yeah, 200 watts. This is 200 watts because 160 dollars. So guys at home, you just need solar and that's it. Don't do the nuclear. And here I have built in, I can see a built-in solar on top of the charger. It can charge a little bit. Not so much, no? Yeah. Small size. All right. And oh, it's ink. That's cool. So it will never use power for the display. This is your new product? Yeah, it's new. New? Can I touch on it? Or how does it work? Maybe socket switch. Something happens. Yeah, the battery can be full. Removable. Removable, yeah. But maybe you need to part off before you do that? Or you see stuff in Chinese? This one not yet in mass production. Ah, it's very cool to use e-ink for the front lights. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. Thank you. Thanks very much. Thank you. Ah, sorry, one last thing. I was seeing here on the screen. This is your factory? Yeah. Isn't Shenzhen? In Shenzhen. How many people in your factory? Right now around the Shenzhen factory, but in headquarter we have around another 200. So total about 500 employees.


And now for your U.S. Army Europe spotlight. Exercise Allied Spirit 1 held at Hohenfell's training area in Germany consists of more than 2,000 personnel from five nations. A grid squad, 0, 4, 6, 5. Its mission is to enhance Allied effectiveness with a focus on secure communication among NATO allies. But it also has an added benefit. Leader development. I think that this training center, best leadership lab in the Army, opportunity for young men and women to solve tough problems and that's what's going on with the exercise today. The Allied Spirit Exercise series continues in August with Allied Spirit 2. To learn more about Allied Spirit and other exercises, visit Army Europe's website. For U.S. Army Europe, Matt Oldham, Hohenfell's Germany.