The day is E4M DNPA digital media with that ladies and gentlemen We are all set for our second panel for the day on digital media and its social impact Joining us for the session once of course the stage is set will be our session chair Thank you Just doing my job right here and I hand over the session of course to the session chair to kindly take the discussion Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen good afternoon. My name is Pranayupadhyay and The the afternoon sessions in any such event are the most challenging one to hold the attention because they are prior to lunch and But I can assure you that if you sit tight for next 40 45 minutes You are going to have a very Interesting overview and very good takeaways because this is the most diverse panel one could have Because we have on one side Mr. Vijay Chedha who is who has almost lived three lives three professional lives an ex-army officer to Ambient air quality activists and on the other side we have Shreya Kapoor the youngest content creator so such a diverse experience we have and Most of them, you know very well. They are the known Influencers speakers, so I don't have to waste my time in in their formal introduction and Once he is vacant for Arjuna. We are waiting for Arjuna to join us, but let me start the discussion With this thing and I'll be throwing Questions of some the basic Housekeeping thing would be that our session would be divided into three segments one question to each of my panelists And then we'll keep it free for some of their comment and the informed audience here can also ask questions so in last Eight to ten years. We all have seen tremendous Change in terms of the technology and the digital landscape and today we are the one of the fastest Digitized economy the fastest digitized world and the most populous country probably we might be after the census so Mr. Arvind Gupta, I would want to start this discussion with you that with 84 crore or 840 million connected citizens We talk about building the digital highways in India and making it more like you know connected But is this digitally digitized India more inclusive and democratic or are we becoming more chaotic and divided So, thank you, Pranay. Good afternoon Two things. I think let me just give you a Little bit of a overview of what he was asked and in a few Comments number one India is of course the biggest free internet market in the world 850 million or 85 crore internet users globally in India with the with three clear Characteristics number one The lowest data anywhere in the world the data cost in India is the lowest anywhere in the world Also the highest per per Capital data consumption bandwidth consumption is the highest in India eight years ago this we used to be 155th So from 155th in the list We are now top in the list of lowest data highest data consumption lowest cost highest consumption to The clear trend in India and that's why it's inclusive and it won't be possible because 86% of the Indians don't speak Don't understand what I'm speaking The English language Right, so if 86% of Indians are on the digital highway They won't be without the three V's working the three V's are vernacular local languages voice and video without that this this revolution in And the third thing is this consumer is now spread all across all across the income pyramid So from the lowest strata of society's the below poverty line to the aspirational class to the middle class to the top class I mean the aspirational onwards everybody has a as a smartphone Even the lowest strata of the below poverty line. There is at least one or two users in a family who have smartphone connectivity very inclusive and I'll give you one two examples which will tell you that How many in this room how many in this room have not got their vaccines? The answer should be zero right, hopefully And and the reason and one of the things that we proud pride ourselves is that we can get our vaccine certificate on a WhatsApp connection Anybody knows that you can get your vaccine certificate on a WhatsApp Anybody if you not please figure it out the number is 9 9 0 1 3 0 5 1 5 1 5 you send a WhatsApp to that number you will get Message which says that get a schedule an appointment Download your certificate whatever whatever you want to do now why I say that here There are two things in that Pranay which are important one number one is India has built the biggest digital inclusion Platforms in the world today what are called digital public goods whether it's UPI Coven this is an example of coven Coven is our vaccination platform, but the front end is what's up now the one of the secrets to reach a billion 2.2 billion doses was the ease of using the small WhatsApp chatbot To get your scheduling done and get your vaccination certificates in your own language So the principles I just told you were applied here now it made it more inclusive Everybody in India who could not download an app did not know how to do that does know one thing how to send a message on what's up and Because they could send a what message on WhatsApp they could get their vaccine schedule and all now can get their vaccine certificate Given to so I think that's pretty include And and the last point I want to make and then I will rest is that India does 8 billion by the way 8 billion payments a month Now 8 billion is an unfathomable number if you look at it 800 crores Transactions a month on UPI if you analyze it if you analyze it we do about a hundred billion transactions a year 400 million Indians transact using digital payments every month Has to be included it is all across the pyramid in fact the poorest of the poor Use it more than you and me because we are using it for e-commerce and e-tailing Whereas they are using for remittances which saves them money So digital technology in India is absolutely no doubt about the benefits of the digital technologies or the Indians reaping the benefit of it But the challenge remains with the digital media or the media and its digital arm and having its impact on the society And here I want I guess I'm I's here who's with her Burani jeans and So Simon if you have any view on the thing The on one side we are all reaping the benefits of the digital technology, but as a society Are we becoming more inclusive or they have been debate about the algorithm driven eco chambers? So where do we stand because the radio was the traditionally old social media and we have you know Live that age of old radio listener clubs. So from that age to this age, where do you see the landscape moving towards? Thank you so much for having me here and good afternoon everyone I belong to the medium, which I officially called the first social media of the world radio and From radio to you know all the different social media platforms today one thing that I would absolutely agree with mr. Wind is that 100% it is a much more inclusive world. I think this entire digital revolution has given Every single person in our society a voice a platform to put his or her voice forward and Connect in his or her own chosen community. So I think That's that's definitely there 100% as everything has its perils. I think as a society while we have this platform, which is giving Hugely inclusive, you know opportunity to all I mean look at our tiktok stars and look at the strata. They belong to They could become stars in front of the world without you know without the the traditional struggle that they would have had to actually go through but I think It is a challenge and we'll have to see that The input that we have as far as information, knowledge, awareness is concerned. That's less and the output is more The base of connecting the consciousness with which the responsibility with which we should be connecting with each other The knowledge and the education That is less The sense of responsibility that comes with it. That is less And the output the will to Connect the will to display the will to go viral the will to go popular At the cost of anything sensationalism fake news Is going up. So the challenge is absolutely clear How do we build a digital world Where each one of us Also inculcate that sense of responsibility And go in the right direction of a responsible society Thank you very much. You actually rightly pointed out that every technology comes with its own set of regulation Also the set of responsibilities and here I want a nankupal rajan you are leading a very Dynamic newsroom of indian express and its digital arm and like we all follow indian express on on the digital platform On various things of yours are especially the explainers. I'm really fond of that but People lot of people talk a lot lot about this social media and social media often drives and dominates When we people talk about the digital media But something great is being done by the traditional media the mainstream media In content curation to fact checking putting across and reflecting the real picture of the society But what are your challenges in in a newsroom? Especially as a responsible media and you know reflecting the impact on the society when The things are often driven by algorithm or the clickbait journalism And when the virtuality is becoming the reality Yeah so I would like to start by giving a little bit of context and I think because I've covered technology Especially these platforms for many years now and I was a big votry of a lot of these platforms for many years I'm still am in a way, but I would also I've also seen how they've evolved and how they have impacted the society. So if you look at it You know this big surge we had in people coming online You know because of the very cheap data and the very affordable smartphones that india has And it's been happening for about four five years now And we had millions of in fact hundreds of millions of people who came online For the first time in the past five years and they came in without a lot of context of the internet, you know And and we had maybe you know Actually run out of people who had the context of the of the internet people who look at their mail and see inbox And understand the word inbox comes from something which was very physical once upon a time Right, a lot of people who did not have context of computers for instance because they just use smartphones Now what also happened is that a lot of these platforms, uh, you know, which were maybe there for communication or Messaging and also ended up being a hard core consumption platforms for a lot of people Because you know, maybe they were not even literate enough to you know type or have a conversation But they were consuming content and I remember for whatsapp for instance A lot of people joined groups where they were just sitting and consuming content You look into any whatsapp group You will see that not more than maybe 15 20 percent actually have conversations on those groups Which are like full to the limit. No others don't they just consume But it also meant that a lot of people were consuming news Which did not uh, you know Of course digital media and internet and social media democratized content it made everybody a journalist But then you know you also took away the editors the people who were filtering the content so that like you know A lot of content even if it is true, maybe it's not put out because of You know people taking a call that it could have a negative social impact You know those kind of calls were not being taken and of course they're Also brought in a lot of eyeball content, which doesn't have to be true Right people are creating content just because you are chasing likes and that's the only thing or you're chasing revenue Because there is an ad funded model you can cater to with any kind of content So, you know, so all of that, you know, I think it's been a few years of that We are maybe Coming down that peak of that kind of content because I think our our audiences are finally maturing They are also realizing that some things are maybe are not as true as they are being touted out to be and not Everybody can be trusted and I think that is also the opportunity for You know old school media where people actually come to verify things But the problem is that there is a lot of content which anybody can put out and anybody can accept Or assimilate without that filter going Yeah, absolutely really, thank you for this great insight and like I completely agree with you on that on that count that Like, you know, we really have to think about that where this thing is leading towards But let me move on to the new To the other side of the topic and I want Mr. Vijay Chathar to have his comment on You have seen the transition of of like you have witnessed almost major part of India's journey in last 75 years and While coming having the challenge of communication on from while serving at the frontiers of India To leading some kind of a campaign for the ambient air quality You have seen this entire journey But at a time when India is rapidly urbanizing with over 20 percent, we have a lot of challenges coming up So how do you see is digital media? Or the digital digitized media dissemination or information dissemination really coming as a help Or how do you see this transition as are we becoming more chaotic? Sorry for I'm being repetitive on this count But I really want to have a comprehension of your views on that. So so pranay. I think thank you for You know giving me this opportunity. I think I need to put things in perspective. I'm I'm neither media Nor am I a digital expert All I have with me is 51 years of work experience. I joined the national defense academy in 1968 As a professional soldier as a colonel in 92 and I retired I came into the corporate world and held leadership positions in in large multinationals and So and I saw I've seen the world changing right and I moved to the social sector In 2008 right when I joined bharti et al as ceo of bharti foundation So, I mean there are many here who are born in the 90s. So so in 92 When when I came into business, right? One of the businesses that I ran was DHL. It's a courier express company Growing phenomenally, right and we were opening offices almost every week Right and I was responsible for North India One of the reasons why we couldn't open offices was because we couldn't get telephone connections You couldn't get a telephone connection in those days, right? So it hampered business. It hampered everything. So that was the world So from there we came to a place where We started getting telephones, right? Then suddenly mobile telephony came in and then You know at almost the same time in the mid 90s you got on to emails, right? But even then when we started emails, right? I worked for a multinational. We were a jv, right? So people used to send emails and I said, yeah, I'll check it tomorrow Right. So that was the world. So today you expect a response immediately, right? So you came to that then we had something called y2k when the century was changing, right? 2008 when I joined Bharti, I used to attend all the Airtel leadership conclave So that's when I got a little exposure to digital and mobile mobile The mobile world, you know, even that has changed phenomenally, right? I mean When I think back, I just can't imagine that this is how the world has has transitioned, right in my 51 years of work life I'm fortunate that I'm working 92 when I came into the corporate world. Everyone said your colonel. I serve all this go And now when I run a foundation, I have youngsters working for me Kids who are a little older than my grandson say hi, Vijay. Can I can I come and see you as sure? So that's how the world has changed just the perspective the subject is actually the impact of digital media On on the social sector, right? So so I spent almost 15 years in the social sector Largely in education and Bharti foundation where we built 250 schools and villages And we ran them and worked with over a thousand government schools last three and a half years I've been running a foundation which works on air pollution I must share that Problem that I'll come to that in the end, but I think The digital media has been a lifesaver Right in terms of its social impact. We don't know what we would have done We all know what happened during covid All these schools I have also happened to be chairman of modern school barakambar road, right? So I've seen that transition even the most Premier schools as to how people had to change over to use of digital media to even to impart basic education I think it's a blessing in a moon, right? A lot of people talk about the various other issues around impact of digital media But without that, I think survival would have been difficult Right like it has been said, you know, I was also amazed at at our nation and our country The strength that we have as a nation the power that we have as a nation, right Where now almost every family has a phone how those phones were shared Even in my modern school, you have 25 percent EWS children Bharti foundation everyone is in villages, right as to how people adapted To using digital media in terms of education For the social sector Iran foundations, we always need money. We raise money The ability to raise money by using digital media The ability to convey the work that you're doing to the world that this is what it is right to take To take things to remote areas, right connect remotest of areas To a donor sitting in the us to say look, this is what is happening to the child Sitting in a small village in jharkhand because of the money that you sent to adopt the school I mean, look at the power of digital media Even this foundation that that I work in the air pollution action group We started this in June of 2019, right But in April 2019 along with the elections, a colleague of mine who was also the marketing director of air tail He ran a campaign to say for the elections in Delhi, you know, let's do Little clips to say pollution ka kaplan hai Right, so we ran that digital media campaign Which was funded by Ashish Dhawan my sponsor, you know cost about 40 50 lakhs at that time I mean we got about 30 40 lakh views A toll-free number which was set up. Then we said yes. I mean people are concerned about pollution So let's do something about it Today we are working in five states Without digital media. I don't know how we would carry on with our work We have a lot of funders and sponsors with whom we use digital media to You know To get money from them to tell them what we are doing to make our work more effective, right? So I think it's it's it's a great moon Especially in education. I mean the changes which have happened the transformation It was not a one-time thing just to take care of kovat. Yeah, I think it has now become a Part of education, right? So now you have people say, oh, that's online. We are offline So I'll just tell them no no, you know, what is offline is actually online. That's real education in the classroom Right, but what we call online that is an add-on, right? Yeah, definitely and kovat has actually transformed it. Absolutely online Education and consumption. So we're still in the learning curve I think there's much more to be done, but I think I'll stop my commensure. Sorry for telling you my life history But yeah, obviously and as being said like, you know, learning is a journey We learn all through our lives but I'll Take the cue from what you said like, you know the connectivity between a u.s. Donor and Indian development initiative has actually improved and here comes Arjuna Vyas who also comes with a unique philanthropic experience and She works with the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. So we all know that which foundation this is and who has promoted it so There also comes a responsibility and challenge Arjuna about the tech giants on one side Organizations we all talk about these tech giants their roles their algorithms and on the other side the developmental initiative So in the kovat times on one side, definitely it is there That we all have got the benefit which Arvind Gupta has mentioned or Saima or like Vijachar Dha has mentioned about it But on the other side, how do we have capability to contain this? You know the business model or the algorithm driven technologies or the tech giants They have becoming a parallel economies and are now our societies our lives are being controlled by these algorithms So where comes the balance? Thank you so much for the opportunity I don't know how much do people know about bill and Melinda Gates foundation, but the foundation has been working in India for 20 years The focus really is so first of all the fundamental belief of the foundation is That all lives should have equal value and everybody should have a chance of leading a healthy and productive life The foundation has been working in India for about 20 years now and Bill and Melinda actually come from Fundamental belief that if they have the wealth They wanted that wealth to be given away to improve lives of people So we work in the area of health urban sanitation agriculture productivity gender as well as You know other other areas that can help solve for problems The question that you posed in terms of technology and tech giants and their responsibility I think first of all, I would like to say is technology is today all pervasive That's why we are in this forum Today talking about its benefits, but also responsibility in terms of how You know with rapid explosion of technology The regulation also has to catch up with it, right because what's happened is the fact that government society people private sector Perhaps are are not keeping In pace with When it comes to to regulation and governance In in pace with how the technology is actually moving forward At the foundation, we look at technology for solving people's issues, right because it's not necessarily saying Okay, we will look at only technology based solutions only because bill comes from that background It's not one size that fits all kind of An approach, but definitely we think that technology can bridge certain gaps The areas that I spoke about which is either in the case of agriculture We know that you know, india is an agri agri- agri- agrarian society The contribution to gdp is about 18 40 percent of labor force actually comes from agriculture, but about 70 percent of The the workforce is actually small land-holding farmers And in India, at least about 50 to 90% inefficiency creeps in because they're using either primitive tools and therefore the production can actually yield can be made better if technology and its solutions were made available and those tools were made available to the farmers. I think for the past five years, there's been huge infusion of funding in agritech. And we're excited with that because I think if you look at the broad... You're funding the agritech in terms of the information dissemination reaching out to the farmers? No. Or how are you... So some of the solutions that we are funding is improving their productivity and not necessarily but also information dissemination because they do not have the right kind of information. They do not have market access. And if the tools can be predictive so that they're able to look at effects of climate change to be able to build for that resilience and to be able to look at their produce and yield accordingly, then definitely it helps the farmer. And I think likewise, we've spoken about benefits in health. We've spoken about benefits and financial inclusion. I think the last area that I would want to talk about is if more and more digital access can be provided to women, that can really change. It can have fantastic changes for a society's concern. We are about 50% of the population but there are still limitations in terms of digital access to women. One is because of literacy. The second thing is because they're not as educated because they're prevented from going to school, at the same time digital literacy then digital literacy becomes an issue. There are social norms that prevail as well. Woman is taken as primary. She's going to take care of the household as well as there are not enough women in STEM in science and engineering and medical. So if the one that the government is doing a lot, our Honorable Prime Minister has spoken about women-led development and there is definite belief as well as action in terms of how can we make change happen for women. So I think that's another area. Definitely. It remains a challenge for our economy also to how to increase the participation of women and like in last one decade we have seen the data which is suggesting like you know the participation of women has gone down which is really a challenge for us. But yeah I want Shreya you to come in and you are a unique example of a COVID era entrepreneurship model also the content creator economy which has come up as a parallel economy and especially it's largely a very encouraging sign that the women are like especially the those who are staying at home or the girls are exploring that possibility and it is a high revenue generating right now. But what has been your experience and since everybody is talking about some kind of a regulation what is your perspective because you are the youngest one on the on the dice. First and foremost thank you so much for having me here and before I deep dive into the pointers that you've mentioned I would want to clarify some of the points that I think came across in the panel. So there's this idea that you know the sensationalization of information is happening and this eyeball journalism while all of that is true I think just holding content creators accountable is not okay because I think the fact that these things are going viral shows the fact that that's something that the society is consuming more of. So I think it's echoing the society's sentiment more than just the content creators will. First and foremost not to say that content creators are not responsible but yeah I have to speak up for my plan. That being said I think there is not all bad there have been good things that have come out of digitization and of especially around the COVID era. The fact that 10.7 million team at accounts were open especially in the last two years which was sort of record breaking and I'm sure a lot of people in the room here started their investing journey probably in the past two years if not sooner. So the idea is that it's not all bad. I think a very big reason why that also happened was because of social media. I think because there was again as Saima said democratization of information and everybody was able to speak up about things they were passionate about no matter where they came from no matter what their beliefs were no matter the language right. I saw your mention that even if you speak in a vernacular language it's completely fine because you will find your tribe. I think that's something that social media brought to the platforms that no matter what no matter the language you speak no matter how you look you will find people who believe and look similar to you and have similar beliefs as you do. Now coming back to your question you mentioned that regulations are very essential and I don't think that we should shy away from this. I think because this space is still sort of figuring out what it is it's very new in comparison to say radio or television for instance. I think we are still struggling to figure out okay how do we regulate certain things. To give you an example when you see an ad on television you know that's an ad but when you see an ad on social media specifically say Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. A lot of times you won't even get to know that's an ad right whether it's an ad or whether it's a personal opinion of the creator you never really get to know about that. So I think stricter regulations around that is something that's need of the eye and it's already in progress as we speak. A lot of brands now are very proactive specifically in the finance niche that no you have to make it very clear that whatever you say is from a promotional perspective and does not show the opinions of the brand or the creator themselves and doing your own research is the need of the eye. So that being said I think social media while we all know has a very negative connotation to it especially in the millenials and the Gen Z segment but what I do want to say that it's not all bad as I said there's always two sides to the story and whatever's happening on social media is actually a very big indication of what the society as an average and as a whole wants. So yeah. Definitely yeah I think Arvind Gupta can add to this thing and but like the challenge remains that those who are emerging as a social media influencers how influenced are they what is the parameter to evaluate that and this could be out of ignorance also but how it become a challenge for the governance how it becomes challenge for the regulation and when government trying to regulate it there is generally a resistance from those are being regulated about it. So what's your perspective since you work with the government also and like you are CEO of the of the my gov. It was a citizen initiative but like lot of lot of ideas come to you then people want to participation in any democracy. So what's your take on that. So Pranay thank you two things two very quick two three quick points. Number one my gov is a digital platform of the Prime Minister which is which leads with the public participation so you know where the voice of the of every Indian and of course using analytics can be heard. We get so much responses. You talk about civic participation. The Indian postal bank that you've heard of is a creation of an idea that came from my gov. Even the whole Jan Dhan movement this Jan Dhan accounts India has done 46 crore Jan Dhan accounts more twice more than population of America by the way. That name Jan Dhan came through my gov. The sign of the rupee came through my gov at a 50,000 rupee cost not a 50 lakh rupee cost of hiring a design agency and doing it. So it's all you know public participation. Number one two you talk about influencers. I think this is where India is going to lead the world in two things and this is a very important topic because two things have happened. First of all we don't have tiktok influencers in India because we don't have tiktok in India. You call them that category but I just wanted to clarify. We don't have any Chinese platforms. Hopefully we have insta influencers. I call them insta influencers or social media influencers. Second thing is within this you know I think India will be one of the biggest content factories of the world and as we go towards that we need to balance between what is as you said and what you know what my co-panelists have said on what is really the content that you want to give out of your own personal belief and faith and what is sponsored content. What could be as really influenced either by money or gifts or awards. We don't know what the thing behind it because of the nature especially of the nature of the consumption in India. Everybody's talked about India has reached 850 million 85 crore users. We understand the literacy levels in that whether it's financial literacy, digital literacy, vaccine literacy can all be very very diverse as diverse as you can imagine. So if two social media influencers stand up and start saying the vaccines gave them instead of two three years and because XYZ I mean it could be many many things and you know what all has been sent against the vaccines or whatever else it actually creates a much much big trickle down effect very big trickle down effect. So I think same thing we've had instances of influencers gathering money from senior citizens and putting it in their own personal accounts and just you know disappearing in the virtual space because that itself was a so we have to balance and as we go forward we'll have to come out with better the regulation. So far the regulation is a very self-regulatory environment where advertisements the Advertising Council of India has put some certain restrictions really not enforced but as we go forward I feel this is an area where will the industry will have to work with the algorithms the algorithms means the platforms with the influencers and and the and the and the citizen rights groups to understand to make sure that there is a balance between the three we don't kill innovation we don't kill an industry but we also make sure the consumer is protected and lastly I want to just leave with a thought that you know and this is the motherhood statement everybody in the G20 year where India has a presidency is looking at what India does. Gone are the eras where and I know you have a session with ADIF in the in the afternoon gone is the era where some algorithms sitting in Silicon Valley where I worked for 20 years are going to dictate what happens in India and what how India regulates its digital media how India regulates big tech and I know the honorable MP from Australia is here Paul Fletcher I saw him somewhere and you know this is what India will do now gets a global voice whether it's the content industry or it's a fake news industry or it is big tech or algorithms or the competitive the anti-competitive powers that all these platforms have India is at in the eye of the global world to say hey let's understand what India is saying because not only we are we are doing the right thing from a bottom-up approach but we have the highest user base it's high time that we get our voice also. Shreyi what do you add something? Yeah just one quick point while I completely agree with what's said especially around the fact that India is such a big market also because it's such a diverse market right like every language like every vernacular language is a market in itself which I think isn't true for a lot of major economies that being said I do believe there's an increase of scams and like fake news as I mentioned and especially around the crypto space when it comes to finance right because again that's a very fairly unregulated market so in the past couple of years we've noticed that the NFT scam the bubble came around right the crypto bubble came around stuff like that largely unregulated and there were a lot of influencers that became a part of it and sort of supported it wholeheartedly but that being said I think the other side of the story is that such Ponzi scheme have always existed like from time immemorial we've always had such bubbles come around from like 1890s since the tulip bubble came around right so we've had Ponzi schemes come around since forever but I think because of social media and the impact it has on society now there's a larger discourse around these issues which I think is even more important scams aren't a thing that came around in 2020 they've been here forever but I think there's a discussion around it now if there's an overvalued IPO there's a higher probability that people will discuss about it and there they'll be discourse around it and people will you know voice their opinions because now even they have a platform to sort of voice their opinions and not just bigger corporations and you know bigger stars so I think that's where social media is a challenging part of the digital landscape that like you know the financial implication of it scams are there people are losing money out of it and definitely there comes a responsibility to explain people that where they should be putting and there comes a responsibility for the regulators also like RBI like SEBI and other people also but there is also a security implications and I want Mr. Vijay Chedha to have a quick comment on this issue since you come with a unique experience of having served in the military forces also we have seen during the Galwan crisis and as a journalist we have seen that how a map a satellite imagery coming from US or a technology platform changing the dynamics of it giving like everyday deployment scenario of it it actually brings a challenge for India to having taken the negotiation with with China resolving the issue and where like you know making a impression that the government is hiding something and something has happened how do you see this aspect of it it's an open domain US platform set sharing the satellite imagery and having implications on our ecosystem I think this is a very major issue like you said and it's becoming integral part of the armed forces strategy today right if you've heard the Northern Army command I think a couple of days ago he made a press statement that what is going to drive future wars is going to be technology right it's something that we can't be you know oblivious to it has to be integrated we have to be prepared to face all the challenges which technology brings it gives us a lot of benefits right gives a lot of information how we're going to use it of course the political part of it and how the media handles it that's a different domain altogether right because there are something like when I was in the army we felt that you know we were something special and what was inside the army could not be discussed outside the world like I said is no longer the same right everything is transparent like you see them satellites there they know everything that we don't know right so it took us many years to make the army headquarter in ADGPI to understand that like you know TV has a different need social media has a different need you're rightly pointed out so I think I think the armed forces needs to change yeah they have to adapt right it is in their own interest because it'll also help our national security we've got to meet all these threats we can only handle these threats if you're actually aware of what is happening you're transparent you're willing to listen right and you're willing to be changing continuously you know what changed once in 20 years is now probably changing every hour the world is changing so fast right so so it is integral it has to be taken cognizance of do we have to deal with this challenge sorry do we have to deal with this challenge like every now and then no I think I think it's being dealt with and I think feel secure you got the best one of the best armies in the world something to it not specifically to the defense issue but related is mistis information right so that's what we're discussing at this point in time that it has an impact in terms of society it hasn't so let's look at the covert scenario one the fact that everybody in India has 90% of us have got double dose now this happened only because there was a conscious there was consciousness ahead of time that mistis information can play a role that was a big part of government strategy in terms of you know they can be they can be vaccine hesitation but they can also be vaccine eagerness but hesitation was was a big issue that was handled proactively and to that extent I think tackling mistis information there's a lot of work that's happening globally by academics in terms of understanding how it can be tackled but at the same time there was willingness so you know we approach the big big tech right the source of this disinformation we know that can come from meta it can come from Google it can come from other sources as well but you know at that point in time those big platforms also realize that they have responsibility and they did come forward I have to say that but media also played an extremely responsible media came forward to debunk media came forward to actually disseminate accurate information so I I think that if different the stakeholders understand their own responsibility but also look at you know one one is responsibility there is huge amount of work that's happening in terms of debunking myths there is academic work that's happening so I I I still think that there is hope it it's not about there is hope but I think Simon wanted to add something and Simon if if you can take forward this argument that definitely tech giants or the digital regulators have their own responsibilities but by the time they step in something has damaged within the society because society bears the impact of it so if you can I think it's pretty simple you know digital world or digital revolution today is like fire we either learn how to cook food with it or the fire can destroy so I think our different departments areas have to work together as a country we need to have huge emphasis on education literacy awareness we need to have the same kind of revolution in education department while we have the digital revolution we know how to optimize on the digital revolution because everything goes viral everything happens rapidly there is no time so we as a country as a nation must know how to optimize on the digital revolution rather you know go towards the destruction and that can also happen you know as quickly as we kind of I'll just add on that that this awareness level of the country as a whole needs to go up that this is not something you can will live in this is the future we are living in this digital you know era and you know I just keep telling kids and all that like if smartphones have made all of us journalists now is the time to become editors too so please don't you know share anything saying as received on work on WhatsApp please don't share unless you're very sure about it and if that level of self-regulation comes into every single person then a lot of the virality for the wrong content will go away on its own thank you very much and this was really very interesting discussion and as Nankopal has finally concluded it that if you really want to become journalist yes you have part of this digital technology in your hands in the form of your smartphone but please try and be good editors also and use your own discretion before putting out something or before consuming something thank you very much for the for the panel and have a round of applause for our panel Thank you


So we're here with MV4D who are you? Yeah, I am Moshe Karakor. I'm the director of marketing of Mantis Vision and we are here to show Development platform called MV4D SDK. There's a color channel. There's the infrared channel and if for example, I'm shooting this chair and I press here We will have this chair in 3D Whoa in real time in real time. Yeah, let me just see behind. What's this tablet? This is special. No Yeah, you have like a Strobe flash for infrared. One second, a strobe flash? Yeah for infrared and you have a new infrared camera Okay, and working with the with the algorithm You can create 3D in real time. Let's do it. Can you do me in 3D? Can you record me? I can scan around here. We can scan this guy for example And we can see him from all angle although I'm only standing here. We can see him from Every angle. Can you scan by moving around the object? I am registered. Yeah, I can do that But it's not right now. It's not working right now. It's an offline process The real time is the SDK. For example, we can see we can see this table and We can walk around it or for example, I can shoot the floor and For a picture we have a surface That's really fast way of making 3D. Yeah, it's real time. Yeah And I can show you a few application we made With information that we scan. Is this your app? Yeah, this is the app. in the giveaway that we are giving this show It's called 3D Pop and actually it works like this. You have a girl and she's making a makeup and I can extract the girls out I can extract the girls out to be 3D and I can put her back in to the movie This is crazy You do that kind of stuff but this has to be filmed. I can do one more thing. It only works if it's filmed with this tablet. I can crop her out I can decide that I'm leaving only part of her of everything This is really awesome. She has to be filmed with this system, right? Exactly Otherwise it doesn't work. Yeah So is this Tango? No, it's the same technology inside Tango but this is not Tango SDK This is Mantis Vision SDK So do you make Tango? We are the technology inside Tango But Tango is wrapping our SDK with their own SDK Google is wrapping Mantis Vision SDK with Tango SDK So some of the features are not implemented and you need to use our SDK if you want to do more advanced things What is Mantis Vision? Mantis Vision is a startup company based in Israel And what is the idea? This is the idea This is the product, the first product you do? Yeah, the core technology is the structured light The way to get an infrared image or any image to be extracted to 3D in real time We had a longer history working in forensic area, in CSI systems and in the past two years we moved to doing it in consumer devices So you're a real CSI company, you're the real thing This is what we did in the past nine years Which CSIs? Only in Israel or everywhere? Well, forensic around the world Actually our first customers was the NSA NSA, so you build a system that people complain about, I'm joking We built systems to scan, it was in Afghanistan, it was in Gaza It was in South Korea Scanning faces? No, scanning for large environment, internals and villages and tanks and whatever And we decided at some point to take this technology and give it to the masses This is a good idea You have to give it to the masses And so this is potentially also going to be useful for indoor positioning Because if you don't have beacons, maybe you can still recognize where you are This is where Tango, this is where Google is taking this At least 8UP, Google 8UP, the guys that build Tango They're taking it to indoor navigation, augmented reality All kind of things that related to position location Or position estimation They're putting a bunch of resources into that, I hope They're making it work Because this could be part of everybody can make street view for maps Everybody is going around with their phones Google Earth for the indoors as well Health? Google Earth Earth indoors Indoor Earth But everybody can take their phone and adding information to a new street map To a new street view But with Mantis Vision SDK you can scan people and put them inside the matrix How much data is it? It's like a picture plus a little bit more No, it's like a 2D movie with a layer of 3D information How much is this layer? It's not so much? It depends on what the quality that you need, it's going to be configurable And right now you said that you don't do right now video We just walk around, but how much do you need to make that work? Just walking around anywhere, just adding everything into a 3D model That depends on what you're keeping, what you decide to keep You can keep the mesh environment, the stitch environment You can keep every frame, you can keep every second frame That depends on what is the application For example, in order to scan your full body, 360 I can do it in 20 or 50 mega of data And right here at the booth, you're giving out these cardboards The same application that you saw, the same application that I saw, the 3D pop You can download using the QR code Then you put your phone inside this And then you can walk inside and see from many angles You can see the information This is just a demo, just a promotion for this show How about a gamer who wants to scan this exhibition hall And start doing a 3D first person shooter here And scan the people as well and use them as avatars inside Yes, exactly How soon? Exactly Well, we're working on that right now We're working with Qualcomm Vuforia Qualcomm Vuforia Qualcomm? Vuforia, Vuforia is the augmented reality software team inside We're working with Google, not only Tango, but other teams in Google We work with few tier 1 OEMs to get this hardware inside a mobile phone What's the CPU here? This is now Dragon 801 801, so it has a hardware extension for what you do a little bit? No, we just used one of the four ARM cores inside So it's just ARM stuff? Yeah, just ARM stuff The Tango, which CPU is in Tango? The Tango is NVIDIA Tegra K1 And it's also when it does this stuff, it's also using the ARM core, that's it? No, on Tango we use the GPU The Kepler Yeah, this was the decision, we are completely portable That means that the OEM or the OEM can decide What needs to be left free and what is a formatist vision, we can cooperate This is the future of Android, no? This is the future of making content The next generation of content people that make What people do today is actually taking pictures and share it This is what people do And it's just flat, it's just 2D They don't share how far everything was in the picture You have to kind of like psycho-visually guess Exactly, what we are able to do is just extract the 3D out And you say it from different directions And of course there's a lot of things to do with that Besides taking pictures, for example The data is very accurate That means you can use it for online retail For example, you can measure your shoes or your fingers to measure for a ring So online retail is very big in this area We have few partners on online retail that are very interested in this technology Because this is actually a measurement tool So you measure a guy and then you custom build a suit Like a tailor can just Well, you know that there are not many cells of rings in the world Because rings have to fit very tight to the finger You can miss a lot by one or two millimeters So it would know exactly the size of stuff Exactly It knows Like taking a snapshot Because it knows exactly how far the infrared is from the camera On the tablet or something Because the data is very very accurate Every frame that we shoot We have exact sub-millimeter accuracy of the points located along the area How many people, how many guys in your company? Well, there are 50 people in MantiVision Most of them in Israel A few in Switzerland and sales in South Korea What do the Swiss guys do? They do unity-based demos like the one that you adjust to They're doing Unity which is Unreal Engine Yeah Or the other one, something like this is an engine They build a rendering software based on Unity For demos or to show what this technology capable to do But in general we open the API and we open the SDK So all the developer community can develop on top of this Has lots of people been interested here at the conference Are you busy every day? Yeah, yeah, it was very busy here I'm guessing you're talking maybe with hardware makers Who want to differentiate And who want to integrate these technologies in there Make the next generation of hardware Even though it's a software solution The focus at least at this exhibit is Let the developers create the ecosystem for this And we are closing the OEM site The OEM will bring this inside a mobile phone But we need a lot of ecosystem, a lot of applications That use this hardware So this is what you're promoting here A bunch of people have patents somewhere? Yeah, the core patent of MantiVision Is the structured light, the format of the 3D data This is what we license to the OEM Is it possible to lock Apple out of this so they don't get it? Apple bought PrimeSense like this here So they did for this purpose So they are like our competitor for this matter Alright, so good luck in getting Apple out of the way Or I'm joking, we'll see Well, they can ignite the market like they did before And we will just join the stream of this market ignition Yeah, they'll try to help you a little bit to get it popular Exactly, I'm not worried


Daily Tech News show is made possible by its listeners. Thanks to all of you, including Philip Shane, Paul Boyer, and Brad. Coming up on DTNS WhatsApp plans to become a super app. Netflix introduces gamer handles and what Apple's really up to with mixed reality. This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, August 29th, 2022 in Los Angeles. I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood, I'm Sarah Lane. I'm Roger Chang, the show's producer. And joining us, the chief technology officer at Skidmore Owings and Merrill Rob DeMillo. Welcome back. Thank you, folks. Nice to see everybody. Good to see you too. Let's start this show with a few tech things you should know. NASA delayed the launch of its space launch system rocket after an engine bleed issue caused an engine to not reach the appropriate temperature range at launch time. The next attempted launch will be Friday, September 2nd at 12.48 p.m. Eastern. They spent so much money on it. Sony acquired the mobile game developer Savage Game Studios. The studio hasn't launched any games, but its co-founders worked on some games you probably played. Clash Clans, Angry Birds, et cetera. With that acquisition, Sony plans to launch PlayStation Studios Mobile, which will operate separately from the console division in order to, quote, reach new audiences unfamiliar with PlayStation and our games, end quote, to which I add, and give us money. Late last month, Pinterest launched the invite-only collage-making app Shuffles on iOS. The app has quickly proved popular, hitting number one in the lifestyle category and in the top 20 of non-gaming apps in the U.S. on August 21st. Sensor Tower reports it's now number 66 overall in the U.S. app store and tops the charts in Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.K. Elon Musk's attorneys, subpoenaed whistleblower and former security chief of Twitter, Peter Zatko, aka Mudge, we talked about Mudge last week on the show, and the complaints that he filed with the U.S. SEC, accusing Twitter of, among other things, material misrepresentation and omissions about security and privacy protections built into its platform. Among that were some allegations about the number of bots on the platform, something that Musk has been on about a lot. Zatko has been ordered to provide documents related to the impact of spam on Twitter's business, any documents related to illegal activity at Twitter, as well as materials related to the end of Zatko's employment by Twitter. Musk's lawyers will depose Zatko on September 9th, so he has to give the documents and then they'll interview him about stuff, and that will be under oath. The trial is set for October 17th. India's top mobile carrier Reliance Geo said it will spend $25 billion to roll out 5G service in the country, starting this Diwali, which happens in October. The rollout will deploy standalone 5G architecture, not relying on existing 4G networks. Plans to extend 5G to every town in India by the end of 2023. Speaking of Reliance, one of the biggest companies in the world, they've got something going on on WhatsApp. But before we get to that, it's good to remember that in many parts of the world, there are super apps that everyone relies on. Users in China, for example, do everything in WeChat. They pay the rent, they buy tickets to things like sports and concerts, they get food delivered. Super apps generally make their money off the payment processing fees, off of subscriptions to premium features, and of course, ads. So while WeChat is definitely dominant in China, Meta's WhatsApp has a big giant footprint in India with more than 400 million users. That's about 20% of WhatsApp's global user base. A lot of Indian WhatsApp users. Meta sees business messaging as its way to make money, and in April, the company received approval from the National Payments Corporation of India to extend its use of UPI payments on WhatsApp in India from 40 million to 100 million users, giving it the ability to let companies set up a variety of shops on the platform. For starters, the good old Reliance Industries we were just talking about is setting up a grocery service called Geomart on WhatsApp, J-I-O-M-A-R-T. To try it out, if you're in India, you can text hi to Geomart's number, and you'll get an in-app shopping experience without having to leave WhatsApp. So like Instacart, but you don't have to go launch Instacart. Users will be able to browse Geomart's entire catalog, make UPI supported payments, and arrange delivery all within WhatsApp. Super apps, obviously huge in China, huge in large parts of Asia, but they are almost entirely WeChat. Like that is the example, right, Rob? Everybody talks about a Super app, you talk about WeChat. Yeah, WeChat in China is what WhatsApp is trying to be in India, right? And WeChat has the support of the Chinese government in various ways, so it makes sense. The gamble here for Metta is that folks in India who are used to bouncing from app to app to app are going to want to stay in one app to do all their purchases. Yeah, and this is what everyone who's not WeChat wants to replicate, right? There's Grab is trying to be a Super app in Indonesia and Singapore. You've got Metta who's been trying to figure out how to make WhatsApp into a Super app somewhere. They've been doing things in Brazil to probably, you know, try to increase payments there, and they've run into trouble with Brazilian courts over and over. This looks to be the most likely way to become a Super app. Do it in India where WhatsApp is incredibly popular, so you already have the user base, and partner with the biggest tech platform in India, particularly a giant in the telco space. So people who are using Reliance Geo for their service are likely to want to use GeoMart. This seems very smart on WhatsApp's part, or on Metta's part, I guess. This just seems like a slam dunk. You have so many users who at least are using WhatsApp, Reliance Geo, and potentially both, probably both, and you can do everything from within the app. Is this a good idea, you know, to give Metta that much more power? I mean, you could argue that Super apps are too dominant, but it's also about convenience for people. I mean, if I had this sort of situation where I could do a lot of things within apps that I'm already using for just kind of chatting socially with my friends or, you know, various communications, I love that idea. I love the idea of not having a bunch of separate apps for a lot of different things, but it just, you know, there are a few different ways you can look at this. Yeah, I don't know if the catch is on in the US or Europe because of the privacy culture here, right? There's so much more suspicion of one app having everything and what they're going to do with that data. There's almost an allergic reaction anytime an app moves in that direction here. Well, it's also usage patterns, right? Here everyone has got 300 apps on their phone, right?  So I think staying inside of one app is going to feel a little claustrophobic to people in the US. Yeah, and if they could build up the trust, then they would have to overcome that usage habit of like, no, no, but I go to this app to do that. I don't stay in an app. Yeah. I wonder if a super app will ever catch on in the US or Europe, honestly, either one. I just don't see it happening. I mean, we just don't. So WhatsApp, I get notifications from WhatsApp every so often and mostly from my friends who don't live in the US. It's not an app I'm using on a daily basis just because there aren't enough folks that I know who are using it. And yes, iMessage is kind of my main app because I'm an iPhone user. WeChat, I don't use at all, but I'm quite familiar with how much people love it for all the things. So yeah, I don't know about the US here. We seem to beat to different drums than the rest of the world on many things. I was just in Italy for a couple of weeks and we chat, I'm sorry, we chat WhatsApp. They need to change the name. WhatsApp was everywhere. I didn't see anything that was using it as a super app yet, but definitely every shop vendor had a WhatsApp placard outside with the QR code. So it might gain some acceptance there. Yeah, it can make some inroads. I could see that. I just don't know if it can overcome, you say, the habits. It would take a lot. Not impossible, but it would take a lot. Like starting a new game service, for instance. Oh gosh, yeah. So Netflix's efforts to get into mobile gaming have been fairly modest so far. We've certainly talked about it on this here show. But it's steadily added to its catalogs of games that subscribers can access ad-free, some of which already were based on existing Netflix intellectual property. The company made a bit of a bigger splash back in April when it announced it would launch an Exploding Kitten original series in 2023 based on a mobile card game that a lot of people love. The first time one of its games would proceed streaming content with the same IP. Yeah, so they will make Exploding Kitten's content after the game comes out.  Your gaming handle lets you present your identity to the world separate from your actual name or even your username. It's used for knowing who's on your team in multiplayer games as well as seeing who's on the leaderboards because you always gotta know who's winning. Yeah, so Netflix has launched the ability for users to create gaming handles. So granted, for now it lets you use them in games like Majang Solitaire, Bowling Ballers, Heads Up, Into the Breach. You might be familiar, you might not. In fact, Into the Breach was the first to get it on July 19th. So your profile name and your icon aren't being used. Instead, other gamers see the gamer handle. A lot of people think that the gamer handle is really important. Developer Steve Moser first noted the feature and has also found references in the Netflix app to the future abilities to invite users to play games. And of course, there's the whole leaderboard thing. This goes along with recent news that Netflix has been hiring people with backgrounds in cloud gaming. Netflix is taking this pretty serious. They're going slow. They're not trying to gain attention at this point. But we opined with Scott Johnson not too long ago that that's what Netflix is up to. The way they started their streaming service in 2007 by just putting it out there and saying, hey, if you find something you want to watch on there, you know, if you've got it in your DVD queue, it'll show up there. Maybe you'll want to use it. And then eventually it took over the world, right? I think that's what Netflix is hoping they'll do here is just kind of slowly test things out, try things out, hire some cloud gaming stuff until they finally have things where you turn around and go, well, wait a minute, I want to play that. Oh, and they've got gamer tags and all that kind of stuff. Great. I didn't even know they had built that. I expect people to say, if you're not following every little nugget as it leaks out like this. Yeah, I'm up to minds about this. There's part of me which is, you know, hey, Netflix, stay in your lane, right? But there's another part that understands the idea to use the technology that they already have in place to try and increase their ad revenue. The issues I have with this are sort of analogous to the Super App concept. Their market is passive viewing, right? Just sitting on your couch and having a beer and watching a movie or whatever it is that you're doing. It's not necessarily the same audience that will take up gaming. So they obviously did their research and they obviously think that there is a market there for it. So I'm probably not right. It just doesn't seem to flow for me. I mean, I think the whole Netflix, stay in your lane thing is exactly what Netflix has been doing very successfully for some time. And now understands that, ooh, streaming services, there are many to choose from. And a lot of people aren't going to keep paying for Netflix if they have other choices and other places that they want to watch things. Where other streaming services aren't really getting into this yet is the whole, well, if you're already here, maybe you want to play a game based on some IP that Netflix is part of. I think that as slow of a rollout, like you mentioned, Tom, as it has been, I think that Netflix thinks this is where we become unique again. Where we can offer something that nobody else is offering. They're testing it. They're learning. They're in learning mode. They're not ready to convince people to come play games at Netflix. They're just sort of floating things out on the water to see what stays afloat and what sinks. And that's what they did with streaming. In some ways, it's different. In some ways, it's similar. But when Netflix started streaming, everyone said, stay in your lane, Netflix. People want DVDs. They want to watch on DVD. Nobody can stream. Nobody has enough bandwidth. Nobody can stream a video. And Netflix played a long game knowing that eventually people would. Video games are a little different. They're the same in that it's like, hey, it's entertainment, right? One's lean back. One's lean in. But we're in two of the biggest entertainment industries in the world, movies and TV, and possibly video games. On the other hand, going from DVDs to streaming was a technical barrier that they surmounted. Going from TV shows and moviemaking to video game making is a creative boundary. And as you rightly pointed out, Rob, it's a different type of content. It is. I'm not following the analogy of staying in your lane from DVDs to streaming because it's still content delivery. When you're talking about moving to gaming, you've now got a two-way connection. I'm pretty well versed in cloud technologies at this point. And I've also hired folks from cloud gaming technology companies to work on some of my stuff. It's not the same animal, right? So they are obviously putting a lot of time and effort and research into this and keeping an eye on Stadia to see how Stadia's market is picking up, which it is, by the way. It's kind of interesting. But they have to try it carefully. They have to because it is so extremely different to have a two-way communication between the viewer and the servers. Yeah, I think you're right to point out that it's a different business. Netflix has done different versions of its business, right? The delivery method was different between DVD and streaming. The content acquisition aspect was different between buying things from stars and creating House of Cards. But video games is a much different enterprise than TV shows and movies. They've never gone that far out of their lane. Sorry, Sarah, we have to keep saying it. Yeah, it's fine. I'm used to those sort of jokes. But one of the things that I'm not currently a Netflix subscriber, just for various reasons, I'm in other streaming services. But when I think of Netflix, I think of how you said, Rob, having a beer, sitting on the couch, watching some stuff, maybe binging some stuff. And I think, for me, the whole idea of Netflix gaming, I'm sitting on my couch with a remote control, playing a game, well, maybe. But the mobile gaming thing is important to at least remind myself that, oh, yeah, Netflix is accessible in lots of other ways besides me sitting in my living room in my underwear, watching something passively. And there are a lot of opportunities, not just for Netflix, but for a lot of companies to be able to make the most of this. So Netflix has hit its first real competition since it started its streaming service, right? Disney Plus and Paramount Plus and HBO Max, whatever Zaslaw is going to do to HBO Max, right? But so they've got some uphill work to do in their production and content delivery methodologies. And I would be more vocal against this if I found out that they were stealing my production side to fund this stuff, especially in times like this because their productions, you could say what you want about them, but they're excellent. The Sandman is excellent, right? They've done a lot of really, really creative, interesting things, and that should not get robbed. You should rob Peter to pay Paul. Well, folks, if you want to know if Netflix should stay in their lane, rob Peter to pay Paul or just survive on its merits, let us know. Feeling social, get in touch with the DTNS audience on the socials, DTNS show on Twitter, and DTNS pics, DTNS P-I-X on Instagram. As we get closer to the expected announcement of Apple's much reported on mixed reality headset, we keep getting some new information, just dribs and drabs. We've heard that the software has been in development for a long time. Bloomberg reported on references to R.O.S. back in 2017. Apple referenced RealityOS in pre-release builds of iOS 13 back in 2019, and it looks like maybe that name, RealityOS, is going to stick around, showing up again this year in App Store upload logs. What else have we found, Sarah? Well, Tom, I'm glad you asked. We also recently received some possible details about the name of this mixed reality hardware. Bloomberg reports that trademarks were filed for RealityOne, RealityPro, and RealityProcessor in the U.S., the E.U., the U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica, and Uruguay. All filings reference virtual and augmented reality headsets, goggles, glasses, and smart glasses. Now these trademarks were not actually registered by Apple. They were registered by Immersive Health Solutions. Which was incorporated in February by another company called the Corporation Trust Company. And the Corporation Trust Company, despite its Orwellia name, is actually kind of well-known as a company that files trademarks on behalf of other companies who want to avoid people knowing that they filed those trademarks, right? You sign a deal with Corporate Trust Company and they say, great, we'll file the trademark and agree to give it to you as soon as you're ready for it. They are the same company that filed a trademark for RealityOS. But it's a fair bet that they are filing these trademarks on behalf of Apple, either that or we have another Cisco iPhone situation brewing, but I'm guessing it's on behalf of Apple. And just a reminder that although the device isn't expected to be announced at Apple's event next month, Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a very good track record on all things Apple, now expects Apple to make it public early next year. We just don't know. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman expects that Apple's first mixed reality headset will use an M2 system on a chip and 16 gigs of memory on the headset. Yeah, and if you're like, wait, next month, I thought it was in a week. Those are both true. It's not quite September yet. So yeah, we're not we're not going to hear about we're not going to hear about Apple's RealityOS at the announcement coming up next week. I wouldn't think. I mean, maybe a teaser, but that's very un-Apple. Exactly. Yeah, they wouldn't do that. Oh, Apple. What do you think we're going to see from Apple? It's very bold and very Apple like to call something reality. We're the company with the reality that operating system for reality, the headset called reality. I mean, it's a better word than meta. I'm going to give it to them. Okay, if that's what it's going to be. I don't know, Rob, what are your feelings? I've said this on the show before that I'm a big proponent of AR. I'm less excited about VR for a thousand reasons that we can we can list off here. I think there's a couple things happening. So Apple's been trying to get into this game for a while, literally since Google Glass, actually, maybe even a little before that. So it's been going on for a long time. They're realizing how hard it is. It's really hard to track objects in the real world and interspersed CGI on top of it into a user's visual field without having them throw up. And so they either have solved something or they believe they're going to solve something very shortly. I also think that the marketing uplift that you get from any Apple product, you know, again, Apple, right, is going to help the entire market float up if they're successful. Yeah, the reality one or the reality pro could do to the quest what the iPhone did to BlackBerry, right, which isn't immediately squash it, but just pull the rug out from under it. Yeah, reimagine what everybody's used to. Yeah. And Sarah, you're right. I mean, it's first of all, it's a better name than Meta. And I suspect it will be a better experience than Meta.  And there are things that I don't love about it.  Immersive health solutions on your head. Immersive health solutions, which in a way it really is because I'm doing a lot of like exercise stuff, you know. Yeah, that could be true, right?   Let's make this all better for everybody. The health, the health market, it's a smaller market. And approaching, you know, healthcare providers and using this as almost an enterprise insert into that world is very similar to what Google's doing with the next generation of Google Glass. It's a very limited audience. It's very enterprise based. It's not a public release yet. But going into these sort of quiet, like covered environments will give both those companies a chance to work on these products to make them consumer-ready. I don't like doing predictions as much as scenarios. And a scenario that I think could fit the facts is the reality one is akin to the Apple Watch, right? It does a lot. Apple's been working in this space by measuring your health. It also is going to work great with Apple Fitness. And it's for your home health and exercise. And they oriented towards that saying, yeah, games, the metaverse like Neil Stevenson, we're not there yet. This is something you can do for real that will help you now, the way they have marketed the Apple Watch. And then the reality pro is what you're talking about, Rob, where it's like, and then in a more clinical setting for the professional use when you're rehabbing, et cetera, et cetera, we've got the reality pro that helps you do that. I think that's a scenario that fits a lot of these facts. We'll see. Well, switching gears just a tad. If you're not familiar with the ivory trade, it's been illegal for decades globally, but that has not stopped elephant poaching. To do something about that, 17-year-old Annika Puri spent two years creating something called ELSA, which is short for elephant savior, a machine learning software prototype that analyzes the differences in movement patterns between elephants and humans in thermal infrared videos. Because drones are looking for this, but she noted, well, humans and elephants move very differently. This is something that we could improve upon. ELSA uses a $250 FLIR-1 pro thermal camera with 206 x 156 pixel resolution, plugs into an iPhone 6, then is attached to a drone, then the system notes in real-time whether objects on the ground are human or elephant. Four times more accurate than existing drone detection methods on existing footage, says Puri, but still needs to be tested on raw video. It could also be used to track populations of species. We're just general research as well, so elephants, great example, but this could definitely do other things. Puri's project won the Peggy Scripps Award for Science Communication at a top award at the competition's Earth and Environmental Sciences category at this year's Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair. If you're not familiar, it's the world's largest international pre-college STEM competition. Yeah, this is genius, because what Puri did was say, well, when you're looking at this video as a human, you're looking at pixels, and those pixels move, but it might be hard-pressed to tell if it's a human or not. We can train machine learning and say, this is how an elephant moves, this is how a human moves, automatically tell me whether those pixels are a human or an elephant in a way that a human can't, and it looks like it works. In which case, if it works, then you can train it to look for like, oh, we just want to tell how many monkeys are in this population because they're endangered, and we can track that with the drones as well, because you can tell by movements which monkeys are which and track them. This is great stuff. Yeah, I think this is wonderful, and the fact that she's a teenager makes it even more wonderful. There's a long-storied history in the last five to seven or eight years where teenagers can get a hold of advanced technologies, and they learn very fast. There was Ben Choi, who created a prototype for a prosthetic arm that basically ran off of brainwaves to move the arm, and part of their motivation, if you look at all of the teenage inventors over the last few years, is to help humanity. They don't have a profit line that they have to worry about, and I would argue they're even more altruistic than university researchers who have to deal with grant money and the rest of it. There's a little bit less of like, but this is the way we do things, which as adults, we all can fall into that trap to have somebody say, and if you read her story in the SmithsonianMag.com, which we'll have in our show notes, it's a really great story. She said, I went to India with my family and I saw all these things that were made out of elephant tusk ivory for sale, and I was like, isn't this illegal? Why is this happening? Well, what's going on with the poaching, trying to crack down on the poaching industry? What's wrong? Well, they've got drones, but the drones don't work very well, and here's how it can work better, and it's genius. Yeah, it is. Machine learning is available to everybody at this point, so the fact that she's used that, it's just great. There's no downside to this story at all. No, it's good. Innovation. Thank you, young people. All right, let's check out the mailbag. Let's do it. This one comes from Jeffrey. Jeffrey was writing in about our conversation of a camera that could perhaps blur certain things out of an image and leave other things in an image, particularly video. Jeffrey says, Sarah mentioned teaching it what you looked like and blurring you out, and then Tom mentioned it might be a bit hard to do and get everybody to use that camera, so everybody's using the same thing. Jeffrey says, I, for one, would like that. I have cameras outside my house, wouldn't put any inside, but if I could have it edit me out, then I would get it in a heartbeat. Clearly this won't happen for a long time to be able to make my own camera that edits me out of my house, but it's a great use case for when it could be possible. Now, to be clear, if you didn't hear this story, you may not realize this was a camera that was built physically not to reflect the photons of a particular object. We weren't sure if it could be used for humans. We were speculating, because once this camera is built, it can't be changed. Whatever you train the machine learning to design the lens not to see, that lens, once you build it, doesn't see. So it's not like on-the-fly editing, but I like what Jeffrey's saying. He's like, yeah, just build all the cameras in my house so they can't see me, and then I'm fine. I can walk around my house. I thought that was pretty good. Smart idea, Jeffrey. Good idea, Jeffrey. Thanks to everybody who writes in a lot of great ideas all the time. Keep them coming. Feedback at dailytechnewshow.com is where to send that email. Also, thanks to Rob DeMillo for being with us today. Rob, where can people keep up with your latest? Well, there's... you can probably go to the About Me for me. If you go to About Me slash Rob DeMillo, you'll find me. You can find me at s-o-m dot com under the People's page. So I'm pretty easy to get hold of. Well, it's so nice to have you back on the show. It's been a while. It's been a while. Yeah. Don't wait so long next time. Also, a special thanks to Harrison Ward. Harrison is one of our top lifetime supporters for DTNS, and we love to shout y'all out when we can. Thank you, Harrison, for all the years of support. Yeah. You know, it's not no surprise that people are cutting back right now, and so we are, you know, we are down a few patrons on the month. Going into September, so we really, really appreciate folks like Harrison sticking with us, and any of you listening on the free feed who want to get a little extra stuff, get the ad-free version, if you can't afford it, we appreciate you always at patreon.com slash DTNS. Speaking of patrons, stick around for our extended show, Good Day Internet. What joys will we talk about? Probably food. You can also catch this show live Monday through Friday at 4 p.m. eastern. That's twenty-hundred UTC. Find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. We're back doing it all again tomorrow with Allison Sheridan joining us. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. Diamond Club helps you have enjoyed this program.


COVID-19 has slipped all of our worlds upside down, but for Cal's international students, their college experience has gone from day to night. I'm Ritika Kapam for CalTV News and here are some of their stories. This month marks the one-year anniversary of UC Berkeley's transition to online learning. However, international students continue to make difficult sacrifices every day to adapt. I found that, you know, with all the club meetings happening in the evenings and like some of the sections happening at like what, 4 a.m. in the morning for me, I thought it would be a better idea if I just, you know, switch over and don't knock on it. While Jayaditya was able to adapt to this lifestyle, men, a Vietnam-based freshman, cannot say the same. Yeah, I'm taking this semester off because I felt like it's actually really hard to live the next corner of life. I thought it would be easy. Turns out with the amount of work they were expecting on you, that workload on top of your personal expectation herself, it's a lot to compete with the people. So I thought it wasn't really a healthy choice. In addition to time zone issues, international students have been struggling with the constantly changing immigration policy this past year. People went home and both announced that their classes will be remotely. And then Donald Trump announced that only students who have, I think, hybrid classes or in-person classes can still like maintain their visa status. Erin Skelly, international student advisor, states that the university has made strides to support and accommodate students of all backgrounds. We've been working with our professional organization to advocate for our student population and the things that need to change. And we've seen some positive changes. The university has a government affairs unit that works in DC and works with our office as well to advocate kind of on a higher level with the US government. However, Antonia, junior student based in Chile, feels differently. Honestly, I kind of regretted going to the US because of the way they treat foreign students. Berkeley has never been accommodating with anybody. They're not. There's specific professors who are accommodating and care and take the time to reach out and that's super valuable and they do it with all their students. And yeah, and there's specific professors who don't and they don't care on the school, doesn't push them to either. So I don't know. I guess it's just depends on who your teacher is. As a domestic student, I didn't feel it right to end this story myself. Here is a message to the university courtesy of some of the students featured in this story. The professors are like the DAs or GSIs are gonna listen to this. I hope that they know that they're international students in their classes too. International students are very valuable. They bring in different mindsets, different perspectives and they need to be appreciated because it is a big sacrifice to leave your country and go somewhere else. And I really hope that, you know, Berkeley can pick up some of that feedback and act on it soon. If we're still, you know, doing only three. For CalTV News, this has been Ritika Kupam.