Speaker 1: Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and how the Tech area. You know listeners who have
Speaker 1: been tuning in to tech stuff for a while. No
Speaker 1: that I haven't really been terribly enthusiastic about the metaverse,
Speaker 1: uh whatever that may end up being. I think the
Speaker 1: main issue for me is that I recognize how that
Speaker 1: you know, we're very early on in the hype cycle,
Speaker 1: like we're on that steep climb. We haven't rounded the
Speaker 1: peak of hype yet and started to go down the
Speaker 1: like the slope of realization of what the reality is
Speaker 1: actually going to be. And I think until we start
Speaker 1: going down the other side, I'm just seeing too many
Speaker 1: opportunities for folks to get taken advantage of, either on
Speaker 1: purpose or you know, just coincidentally. But that means that,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm focusing on the near term. That's really
Speaker 1: what has been concerning me. Clearly, the metaverse is coming,
Speaker 1: whether I want it to or not, So maybe I
Speaker 1: need to take a moment to really think about what
Speaker 1: that's going to look like once it has arrived. You know,
Speaker 1: to know that, yes, the road to get there is
Speaker 1: going to be a bumpy one, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that the destination isn't worth going to necessarily. So to
Speaker 1: kind of help me get out of my you know, blinders,
Speaker 1: to get out of that hyper focus I have on
Speaker 1: sort of the issues right now, I invited Pete Morrison
Speaker 1: onto the show. Now. Pete is the chief commercial officer
Speaker 1: at Bohemia Interactive Simulations, and Pete has been working in
Speaker 1: the military simulation game pun Intended for nearly two decades,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to first get an understanding of what
Speaker 1: he and Bohemia Interactive do and then sort of transition
Speaker 1: to talk about the concept of the metaverse because what
Speaker 1: he does in many ways serves as the foundation for
Speaker 1: what we will see in a fully realized general purpose metaverse.
Speaker 1: So what follows is my conversation with Pete. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy it. Pete. I want to start off by
Speaker 1: just saying thank you for joining Tech Stuff. It's a
Speaker 1: pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you. I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to be here and I can't wait for
Speaker 1: us to talk about simulations and and what what Bohemia
Speaker 1: Interactive does but I really want to start off just
Speaker 1: by saying, uh, how did you get into this world?
Speaker 1: Did you come at it from like sort of a
Speaker 1: a video game fan perspective and then developed that into
Speaker 1: a career? Was it something that kind of uh of
Speaker 1: all old at the same time as your studies. What's
Speaker 1: your personal journey story? Right? So I started out as
Speaker 1: a gamer, I guess in the late nineties, and discovered
Speaker 1: pretty quickly that I was having more fun creating the
Speaker 1: games than I was having playing them. And my mom
Speaker 1: actually got me a book on programming when I was
Speaker 1: still at high school and I was using the Commodore
Speaker 1: sixty four or Commodore or whatever we had, and I
Speaker 1: was I was kind of starting to build these computer
Speaker 1: games and it was the domain that I fell in
Speaker 1: love with from a very early age. And then later
Speaker 1: when I joined the army again thanks to my mother,
Speaker 1: I was actually intending to be a plumber, but my
Speaker 1: mom pushed me in the direction of the Australian Army.
Speaker 1: They put me through university where I did computer science
Speaker 1: and I was involved in bigger game developments there and
Speaker 1: then in the Army. In the Australian Army, I was
Speaker 1: actually in charge of people who did simulation, and I
Speaker 1: was one of the people in the very early days.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just me who had the idea that we
Speaker 1: could apply computer games and military training, specifically specifically collective
Speaker 1: tactical training. UH. And I started working with VBS Virtual Battlespace,
Speaker 1: which is the product created by Bohemian Interactive Simulations. I've
Speaker 1: been involved with that since about two thousand and four,
Speaker 1: and I've been with Bohemian Reactive ever since I left
Speaker 1: the Army in two thousand and five. So as a gamer,
Speaker 1: I've had a very rewarding career. Wow. And and for
Speaker 1: those who may not remember the nineties, some of my
Speaker 1: listeners are young enough where they didn't experience them. Um
Speaker 1: like that. That was right around the era where we
Speaker 1: started to see the mods space really take off. You know,
Speaker 1: you started to see games in like in like the
Speaker 1: Doom and Quake spheres where people started to create level,
Speaker 1: editors and entire uh mods of the game that just
Speaker 1: completely transformed the game. In fact, some games that emerged
Speaker 1: out of that era started off as a mod of
Speaker 1: a previous game. So was that kind of the world
Speaker 1: you were in when you first started kind of tinkering
Speaker 1: with the stuff. Yeah exactly, And so older people like
Speaker 1: myself would remember Operation Flashpoint, which came out in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, and a big modern community formed around
Speaker 1: this game. In fact, one of my best friends was
Speaker 1: one of the hackers. He later became my business partner
Speaker 1: who pulled apart the file formats and started to build
Speaker 1: some of the level editors for Operation Flashpoint. But I
Speaker 1: ran a moddeing site called the Operation Flashpoint Editing Center. Um,
Speaker 1: I'd like to say, I'd like to think that I
Speaker 1: was a little bit famous online. It was. It was
Speaker 1: pretty big, and we had staff running that and it
Speaker 1: was really really enjoyable. I loved Operation Flashpoint modifying that
Speaker 1: computer game. It almost it almost cost me my college
Speaker 1: degree because I was spending so much time in that
Speaker 1: in that computer game. But it was that same game
Speaker 1: engine that we took back to the military, you know,
Speaker 1: years later, that that same Operation Flashpoint based engine. It's
Speaker 1: called real Virtuality. And I initially hired when I started
Speaker 1: the business in two thousand and five or so, the
Speaker 1: people that I knew from the modern community, Like I
Speaker 1: knew a pizza delivery person in Seattle and he was
Speaker 1: a really good uh scenario creator and mod editor and
Speaker 1: I actually brought him to Australia to work, uh as
Speaker 1: one of our initial employees. And that's where I went
Speaker 1: from my my first workers, the people who knew the
Speaker 1: computer game. So my career and my business was a
Speaker 1: testament to the power of the modern community. Um that's
Speaker 1: only got stronger since then. And you you sort of
Speaker 1: touched on it already, but can you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit more about exactly what Bohemia Interactive Simulations does,
Speaker 1: like what is their mission and you know, tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about some of the stuff that's been
Speaker 1: created through there. Right. So behem Interactive Simulations is a
Speaker 1: very interesting company. And to go back to the start,
Speaker 1: we were an offshoot of Bohemia Interactive Studio that created
Speaker 1: that Operation Flashpoint computer game. Since then, they've added many
Speaker 1: big hits, so to speak. The Armor series Daisy Daisy
Speaker 1: was huge for them, which is a zombie game created
Speaker 1: by Dean Hall that was also based upon the same engine.
Speaker 1: And there was an Australian it wasn't me an Australian
Speaker 1: gentleman who had the idea of building this first military
Speaker 1: product based upon Operation flash Point. And I was in
Speaker 1: the military at the time actually left the military when
Speaker 1: I saw the potential of that technology and I wanted
Speaker 1: to get on board. Uh and we started to build
Speaker 1: a version of Operation flash Point that was specific for
Speaker 1: the military training. And it's not training a soldier how
Speaker 1: to use a rifle or how to drive a tank.
Speaker 1: It's really training them how to think and putting them
Speaker 1: into scenarios where they can play out training vignette to
Speaker 1: draw out learning points. Now, when you see the soldiers
Speaker 1: using this computer game, I'm not technically allowed to say playing,
Speaker 1: but they're playing the game. But they're playing the game.
Speaker 1: It looks like they're playing Call of Duty from an
Speaker 1: outside observer. But what they're doing is navigating, communicating, thinking,
Speaker 1: making to see as making mistakes in a very safe,
Speaker 1: cost effective environment. And the idea is to reduce the
Speaker 1: amount of time they need to spend training in the field,
Speaker 1: teach them lessons that they might otherwise learn in a
Speaker 1: more dangerous environment, potentially even in the theater. And computer
Speaker 1: games have been fantastically successful in this particular type of role,
Speaker 1: and so today the Human Interactive Simulations is a much
Speaker 1: bigger company. When I started, I was that I was
Speaker 1: the second employee. We now have thirty staff in I
Speaker 1: think six or seven studios around the world. We provide
Speaker 1: software to the U. S Army, the U. S. Marine Corps,
Speaker 1: the UK Industry of Defense, pretty much all of NATO.
Speaker 1: Now there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers trained each
Speaker 1: year using VBS, which is based entirely on originally a
Speaker 1: computer game, which we've modified heavily over time. I have
Speaker 1: to say it compared to call the duty or battlefield,
Speaker 1: it's sort of boring because you don't want soldiers to
Speaker 1: be able to jump in the air, to jump over
Speaker 1: rocket launched rocket launch rockets that are coming at them.
Speaker 1: You want them to be only able to move at
Speaker 1: a certain speed. You want them to be fatigued, you
Speaker 1: want them to be a little bit inaccurate. You don't
Speaker 1: want them to be able to snipe at four at
Speaker 1: a moving target in the real world that's very hard
Speaker 1: to hit. But overall, we're quite unique and what we do.
Speaker 1: We were the first company to to really branch into this,
Speaker 1: and today we continue to win contracts. We've updated our
Speaker 1: engine multiple times, our rendering engine multiple times to keep
Speaker 1: it consistent with triple A quality. And yeah, we're used
Speaker 1: all over the world. So I'm very proud of of
Speaker 1: what Operation Flashpoint has begun, my favorite computer game. The
Speaker 1: fact that we're still using elements of that original engine
Speaker 1: is is pretty amazing. That is phenomenal, And I love
Speaker 1: this idea of being able to use a virtual environment
Speaker 1: to simulate things that that soldiers will potentially actually encounter
Speaker 1: in the field, but in a way that is safe
Speaker 1: and replicable, so that you can make mistakes without the
Speaker 1: obviously real world heavy consequences that come with making those
Speaker 1: mistakes when you're actually deployed, and being able to learn
Speaker 1: that that sense and be able to actually understand the
Speaker 1: consequences of certain UH actions. I assume also that as
Speaker 1: UH as since you've been doing this for more than
Speaker 1: a decade a decade and a half, that that things
Speaker 1: have changed quite a bit in the way UH that
Speaker 1: militaries conduct various operations, everything from updated equipment to uh
Speaker 1: you know, the different kinds of theaters that soldiers find
Speaker 1: themselves deployed in. Have you have you seen a pretty
Speaker 1: dramatic shift over those years or has it been fairly steady.
Speaker 1: Certain things have changed and certain things have tried sort
Speaker 1: stay the same. So if you look at a soldier's
Speaker 1: basic training tasks, shoot, move, communicate, those of very similar
Speaker 1: to what it was even twenty years ago when I
Speaker 1: was in the Army. The theaters that we operate, the
Speaker 1: equipment has changed dramatically and the capabilities of the equipment,
Speaker 1: for example, a UAVs. I mean you might be seeing
Speaker 1: some of the footage coming out of Ukraine. There are
Speaker 1: ua vs everywhere, drones everywhere, and this is a fundamental
Speaker 1: change in the way that our forces operate. It's affected doctrine,
Speaker 1: it's affected a lot of things, and so we've been
Speaker 1: doing a lot of work to simulate those types of
Speaker 1: devices and even experiment with those types of devices within VBS,
Speaker 1: allowing soldiers to figure out how do we work this
Speaker 1: new equipment into our tactic techniques and procedures. So, yes,
Speaker 1: there's been a change in equipment that the basic doctrine
Speaker 1: hasn't changed a lot. Inferguce soldiers still does what an
Speaker 1: infant Inferguce soldier does. And then when it comes to
Speaker 1: the locations where we're operating, what we heard very strongly
Speaker 1: about two thousand and twelve was that the military wanted
Speaker 1: a whole Earth experience. They didn't want a level they
Speaker 1: didn't want to map, they wanted to go anywhere on
Speaker 1: the planet at a moment's notice. And in two thousand
Speaker 1: and twelve, that was pre Star Citizen, pre Nomad's Sky.
Speaker 1: The idea of having an entire procedural planet that you
Speaker 1: could just go anywhere on that planet and immediately start
Speaker 1: training or playing, that was very early days. So we
Speaker 1: actually invested in that in our VBS blue engine and
Speaker 1: we built a game engine that supported that. So within
Speaker 1: VBS four, which is our current release, you can go
Speaker 1: to Africa, you can go to Europe instantly, and there's
Speaker 1: quite a good representation of that part of Planet Earth
Speaker 1: out of the box. And of course in the gaming space. Uh,
Speaker 1: and yes, I still play a lot of computer games.
Speaker 1: This is this has become commonplace. I mean, the latest
Speaker 1: Star Citizen drops are amazing that the technology they have
Speaker 1: for going to different planets. Uh. And what's changing now
Speaker 1: is access to the cloud, so we have a lot
Speaker 1: more uh, different data sources that we can pull from
Speaker 1: down into the game to create higher fidelity environments. Quicker. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would ry you were still in a pre Star
Speaker 1: Citizen world, but maybe that's because waiting for the full
Speaker 1: game to Finally, I have not, but I've also been
Speaker 1: I've also been that kind of person who was like,
Speaker 1: how many years have been have I been hearing about this?
Speaker 1: I know that the the there have been releases of
Speaker 1: significant content. It's one of those where um, as someone
Speaker 1: who covers tech and and games, occasionally there there tends
Speaker 1: to be this Uh. Certain certain gamemakers have tendencies to
Speaker 1: really drive up the expectation not just of what you're
Speaker 1: gonna get, but when you're going to get it, um
Speaker 1: and Star says, and I shouldn't just you know, target,
Speaker 1: because it's by far not the only one. I can
Speaker 1: think of one GameMaker in particular who has quite the
Speaker 1: reputation for driving up expectation and then perhaps under delivering. UM.
Speaker 1: But getting back to this, I wanted to ask a
Speaker 1: little bit more to kind of get the sense of
Speaker 1: the scope of the simulations that we're talking about here, Like, typically,
Speaker 1: how many people can one of these UH simulations support simultaneously.
Speaker 1: So right now we are typically servicing what they call
Speaker 1: battle simulation centers. UH. These are everywhere. The US Army
Speaker 1: has eighty seven of them, I think, and they look
Speaker 1: like a huge computer lab and they're full of soldiers,
Speaker 1: and it's not just desktop PCs. There's also tank simulators
Speaker 1: and aircraft simulators in these massive warehouses where they where
Speaker 1: they train. So typically two fifty is the maximum number
Speaker 1: that we would put into a single simulation, and that's
Speaker 1: each soldier playing from the first person perspective, just like
Speaker 1: in Call of Duty. We support two thousand to three
Speaker 1: thousand artificially intelligent units in addition in our current construct.
Speaker 1: But as I'm sure we'll get into a little bit
Speaker 1: later once we move towards the military meniverse, we are
Speaker 1: going to say some dramatic changes there. But right now,
Speaker 1: that's about what we're doing, and that's still I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, anyone who's played any like multiplayer online like
Speaker 1: first person shooter games would understand that two that's that's
Speaker 1: no small shakes. That's pretty impressive. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people who play, uh some of the
Speaker 1: games where when they first come out have support for
Speaker 1: maybe one hundred or more, maybe up to close to
Speaker 1: two d simultaneous players. But uh, they often then are
Speaker 1: the targets of a lot of criticism because there tends
Speaker 1: to be a drop in performance. Obviously, when you're talking
Speaker 1: about products that are meant to help soldiers train. That
Speaker 1: drop in performance isn't really that's not acceptable because you
Speaker 1: need to be able to have that that tool be
Speaker 1: dependable and usable for that purpose. So um to that end,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm curious, what are what are? Do you
Speaker 1: happen to have some idea about kind of the back
Speaker 1: end systems that are running this software, Like how how
Speaker 1: would you compare that to say, gaming rigs today? Or
Speaker 1: is it because we're talking about militaries are we talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, much lower end but robust computer systems. Now
Speaker 1: I'm very proud that we have forced militaries all around
Speaker 1: the world to buy gaming PCs. I'm most only half joking.
Speaker 1: The we use everything that a modern graphics card provides,
Speaker 1: and in a lot of our procedural generation capability, which
Speaker 1: means kind of automatically creating a higher fidelity virtual environment
Speaker 1: than the data kind of gives you automatically putting in
Speaker 1: trees and grass. Most of us have heard about procedural
Speaker 1: generation now that requires a modern graphics card. So we
Speaker 1: we take advantage of whatever the customer has, and I
Speaker 1: recommend that the customer upgrade to at least the video
Speaker 1: graphics card for example, um, we are working on the
Speaker 1: Vulcan Port right now. If anyone's not heard of Vulcan,
Speaker 1: you you will hear about it shortly. It's it's the
Speaker 1: new open g l to really exciting graphics library that
Speaker 1: a lot of games are porting to at the moment.
Speaker 1: Gives a lot of really powerful capability to these game engines.
Speaker 1: So we do not recommend that the military use what
Speaker 1: they traditionally had for simulation, which wasn't gaming tech. Gaming
Speaker 1: technology has just progressed in leaps and bounds, and there
Speaker 1: was a time I think it was in the early
Speaker 1: two thousand's when Silicon Graphics was delivering kind of better
Speaker 1: hardware for gaming to the US military that there was
Speaker 1: available in the game space. That's completely different now and
Speaker 1: almost all of the big flight simulators that I know
Speaker 1: of they're using Nvidia X y Z. And in the
Speaker 1: gaming space, we're recommending the video gaming cards as opposed
Speaker 1: to the professional cards, which is good because they're getting
Speaker 1: We generally try and make sure our software will run
Speaker 1: well on anything might in the last five years, just
Speaker 1: like a normal computer game. So we don't want to
Speaker 1: force our customers to spend millions of dollars on thousands
Speaker 1: of new PCs, but we do expect to expect our
Speaker 1: customers to stay to stay current. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: more to come, and we'll be back after we take
Speaker 1: this quick break with more conversation with Pete Morrison of
Speaker 1: Bohemia Interactive Simulations. When VR was first starting to become
Speaker 1: a thing, we saw some early very proprietary approaches to VR. Then,
Speaker 1: because the VR hit this hype cycle and wasn't able
Speaker 1: to live up to the hype in the eyes of
Speaker 1: a lot of people, there was a dramatic drop in interest,
Speaker 1: and it got to the point where people who were
Speaker 1: dedicating their work to VR suddenly found no support from
Speaker 1: f I, financial institutions, to academic institutions, and they turned
Speaker 1: to the video game sector in order to kind of
Speaker 1: pick and choose things that enabled them to continue their
Speaker 1: work in VR. So you started hearing about people using
Speaker 1: all sorts of things like even uh consumer tech like
Speaker 1: the Microsoft Connect became an element that VR researchers were
Speaker 1: interested in that we that we actually was enormously important.
Speaker 1: So so it's great to see that there are these
Speaker 1: parallels where you might start off in this very proprietary,
Speaker 1: closed garden approach which obviously they're their pitfalls to that, right,
Speaker 1: because if the company that makes that thing goes in
Speaker 1: a different direction or goes away, you're stuck with a
Speaker 1: system that no longer has support. It can go obsolete.
Speaker 1: Whereas when you pivot to using technology that is is
Speaker 1: marketed not just for the military but for consumer use,
Speaker 1: you can have a pretty strong level of confidence that
Speaker 1: you will continue to get that support. And it's we're
Speaker 1: just fortunate that the consumer level of of h technology
Speaker 1: has reached a point of sophistication where you don't feel
Speaker 1: like you're trading off right, You're not losing something because
Speaker 1: you are no longer going in this very focused niche
Speaker 1: um proprietary approach. I completely agree, and I have said
Speaker 1: many times talking to various customers, we don't have technology
Speaker 1: problems so much anymore. The technology is there. We have
Speaker 1: endless compute power in the cloud, we have fantastic realistic graphics.
Speaker 1: It's really now um. For example, in the military, it's
Speaker 1: a it can be sometimes waiting for certain people to
Speaker 1: move on, people who don't believe in game based training,
Speaker 1: for example. Uh, there is a cultural shift that has
Speaker 1: to happen, not just in the military, but in many
Speaker 1: uh serious game type applications. A lot of people still
Speaker 1: think of computer games as the annoying things that their
Speaker 1: kids play, the wastes of time, A little bit like
Speaker 1: my father, who I who I love, but you know,
Speaker 1: he always viewed my computer at home as this kind
Speaker 1: of waste of time, this box I wasn't using my hands.
Speaker 1: I viewed it into well, a future for me, an
Speaker 1: entire future. It was a portal into a career. And
Speaker 1: uh yeah, So it takes time for cultures to change,
Speaker 1: and we've seen that acceptance and I've been quite proud
Speaker 1: to drive that change in many military organizations. Um I
Speaker 1: would say that the U S. Military organizations have always
Speaker 1: been forward thinking. Ah so I don't think you've had
Speaker 1: that problem here in the US, but in other countries
Speaker 1: it's it's it's certainly been an issue. I can imagine.
Speaker 1: It's so interesting that the convergence of technology was enabling
Speaker 1: this approach on a technical level, and it's the buy
Speaker 1: in that becomes the bottleneck for certain militaries that is
Speaker 1: really fascinating to me. It is somewhat understandable. I mean,
Speaker 1: I I suppose if you are someone who hasn't had
Speaker 1: that hands on experience, it can be difficult to imagine
Speaker 1: that it would have that level of beneficial effect. Heaven knows.
Speaker 1: We see that in politics as well, right where we'll
Speaker 1: see politicians who perhaps print out their emails. Uh, then
Speaker 1: legislating tech, and you clearly get in the tech sector,
Speaker 1: you you feel this this very intense resistance to that
Speaker 1: because there's there's this gap between a person's understanding and
Speaker 1: the way things really are, and yet that person is
Speaker 1: still given the responsibility of of perhaps legislating that area.
Speaker 1: So it's one of those parts of tech that I
Speaker 1: love to talk about, even though it's not you know,
Speaker 1: it's not how tech works. But you have to take
Speaker 1: kind of this holistic view in order to understand why
Speaker 1: is tech the way it is now and why I
Speaker 1: are certain things in tech uh perhaps taking longer than
Speaker 1: you might have anticipated to get you know, a larger
Speaker 1: roll out. Um, it's because people are not like tech. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's way back in in the day when I was
Speaker 1: first given the assignment of being the tech head writer
Speaker 1: for how Stuff Works dot com, which is where I
Speaker 1: started when I started podcasting. Um, everyone was all of
Speaker 1: my coworkers were scared of tech. They were all we
Speaker 1: were all English literature or English majors, communications majors, and
Speaker 1: everyone was scared of it. Uh and I wasn't. And
Speaker 1: when people asked me why I wasn't scared, I said, well,
Speaker 1: because tech either works or it doesn't. People, that's way
Speaker 1: more complicated. I agree, And I mean there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people making decisions related to computer games that don't
Speaker 1: understand the medium. And that always shows me a little
Speaker 1: bit crazy as a game. And my ad bossed to
Speaker 1: parents I'm also a parent, is to play games with
Speaker 1: your kids. You know, see what they're doing to stand
Speaker 1: and it doesn't just apply to the computer games, apply
Speaker 1: to anything. Understand if what they're doing is complete waste
Speaker 1: of time, are they just consuming or are they creating.
Speaker 1: If they're playing Minecraft and they're building castles and they're creating,
Speaker 1: encourage them to do that. If they're modifying computer games
Speaker 1: like I was, encourage them to do that. Don't watch
Speaker 1: YouTube videos of other kids playing computer games like that.
Speaker 1: That is arguably a complete waste of time. I might
Speaker 1: get shot down for saying it, but that's just my opinion.
Speaker 1: And then in Australia we have the situation where computer
Speaker 1: games are regularly being banned by a committee of people
Speaker 1: who I believe have never played a computer game because
Speaker 1: of they think they're too violent or you know, and
Speaker 1: so on. And I find that very problematic as well.
Speaker 1: You know, so this technology is with us, it's here
Speaker 1: to stay, and we need to all make an effort
Speaker 1: to understand it. And I'm forty two years old and
Speaker 1: my daughter is doing things that is already kind of
Speaker 1: beyond me. The metaverse, for example, which we'll get to.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I kind of rolled my eyes, but you know,
Speaker 1: we can't do that. We can't be cynical. And these
Speaker 1: technologies on moving, uh with huge momentum, and we need
Speaker 1: to understand them and grapple with that well. And and
Speaker 1: that's a great way for us to even segue to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the metaverse. And this is
Speaker 1: going to require a lot of extrapolation on your part.
Speaker 1: And and so this is really us kind of batting
Speaker 1: around our understanding of what the metaverse is supposed to be.
Speaker 1: It's a little complicated because there is no firm definition
Speaker 1: on the metaverse. Generally speaking, I think the accepted definition
Speaker 1: is it's a persistent um variation of the Internet, perhaps
Speaker 1: except um perhaps it's something that is really focused on
Speaker 1: things like virtual reality or augmented reality is a way
Speaker 1: to interact with that persistent representation. UM, you have persistent
Speaker 1: virtual environments where you can pretty much do all the
Speaker 1: things that you would do in the real world, but
Speaker 1: you do it online through this virtual environment. Whether that's commerce,
Speaker 1: you're going to concerts, you're hanging out with friends, you're
Speaker 1: having business meetings. Maybe you're touring a an actual real
Speaker 1: world location, either for virtual tourism, virtual vacations, maybe you're
Speaker 1: virtually touring a house that you're interested in buying. Like
Speaker 1: they're all these different potential applications. But the the thing
Speaker 1: that I keep coming back to is that if in
Speaker 1: fact the metaverse is going to support all of these
Speaker 1: and more, it is going to have to be such
Speaker 1: an incredibly robust infrastructure to support that that it's it's
Speaker 1: hard for me to get my mind wrapped around it
Speaker 1: right now. And since we were talking earlier about military simulations,
Speaker 1: and you're talking about simulations right now that can support
Speaker 1: up to two fifty simultaneous human operatives and then a
Speaker 1: few thousand more artificially intelligent ones, like that's to me
Speaker 1: is phenomenally impressive. It is also at the same time,
Speaker 1: I would argue probably a fraction of what most people
Speaker 1: are thinking of when they're envisioning the metaverse, right, because
Speaker 1: they're thinking of essentially they're thinking of Ready Player one
Speaker 1: or some other science fiction incarnation of this virtual world.
Speaker 1: So what is your kind of concept of the metaverse?
Speaker 1: What does what does that? What does that word conjure
Speaker 1: up in your mind? Right? So, I my thinking about
Speaker 1: the metaverse and the military metaverse has been shaped by
Speaker 1: an article called the Full Potential of a Military Metaverse
Speaker 1: by Jennifer Maccardell and Caitlin Dormant, And I do encourage
Speaker 1: people interested in this and how it might relate to
Speaker 1: the military to check that out. Uh. And it became
Speaker 1: very clear to me that people are talking about the
Speaker 1: metaverse versus art metaverse, and there have been metaverse is
Speaker 1: for a very very long time. You know. Gave Neuill
Speaker 1: spoke about this recently in a in a in an
Speaker 1: interview that he did and if we have an online
Speaker 1: virtual world with the appearance of persistence, then that could
Speaker 1: be thought of as a murder verse. Um. They quote
Speaker 1: Neil Stevenson, a sci fi author from way back and
Speaker 1: he says, it's a series of interconnected and immersive virtual
Speaker 1: worlds that afford their use as a sense of presence
Speaker 1: via agency and influence, and that was coined over thirty
Speaker 1: years ago. So this concept of this online virtual world,
Speaker 1: it's it's not it's not new. But what's interesting about
Speaker 1: this is the idea of the metaverse, the idea that
Speaker 1: there would be only one and this is an intriguing concept.
Speaker 1: Within the military, we've been connecting simulations together for twenty
Speaker 1: five years using various wondrous technologies. We can connect a
Speaker 1: flight simulator to a first person shooter like what we build,
Speaker 1: connected back to what we call constructive simulation, which is
Speaker 1: like hearts of Iron where there's divisions kind of moving
Speaker 1: around as icons and a map. And in the military,
Speaker 1: we've been connecting those types of things together for years.
Speaker 1: And what I think is going to happen over time
Speaker 1: is that we'll see the Microsoft net reverse the Facebook metaverse,
Speaker 1: and then these things will begin to connect because unless
Speaker 1: they do, we're not actually achieving the vision of the metaverse,
Speaker 1: when we're not actually reaching the promised Land, which has
Speaker 1: a lot of potential, right, I mean, the idea I
Speaker 1: think is really really intriguing. But the problem is going
Speaker 1: to be that these gatekeepers that within Web two point
Speaker 1: oh sort of one one the fight, so to speak,
Speaker 1: these centralized companies or or companies that have all the
Speaker 1: data centralized. Facebook is a portal onto the Internet in
Speaker 1: some countries around the world, for example, They're going to
Speaker 1: need to somehow work together or there needs to be
Speaker 1: an open source, uh push that gains enough momentum to
Speaker 1: actually become its own thing that these big companies have
Speaker 1: to connect to. So when you think about the metaverse
Speaker 1: as an open architecture where there are different entities and
Speaker 1: interoperable servers kind of all interconnected vice via shared and
Speaker 1: agreed upon interfaces, then it becomes a very interesting prospect.
Speaker 1: So that's my thoughts about the metaverse. And you know,
Speaker 1: I I might talk a little bit about what we're
Speaker 1: doing in the military just because I think that could
Speaker 1: be interesting. So to go from where we are today,
Speaker 1: the players too, with two thousand artificially intelligent units to scale.
Speaker 1: We are using cloud technologies and we are working as
Speaker 1: part of a big team on the US Army Synthetic
Speaker 1: Training environment, and they are looking at employing cloud really
Speaker 1: in new ways to achieve the kind of scale that
Speaker 1: the military needs for its training, but also you would
Speaker 1: expect to see in the metaverse eventually, using containerized simulation workers,
Speaker 1: we can scale up the number of artificially intelligent units
Speaker 1: into the millions. Because everybody is connected directly to the
Speaker 1: web architecture instead of being connected to a game server,
Speaker 1: we can also dramatically scale up the number of human
Speaker 1: participants that are connected into that military metaverse, so to speak.
Speaker 1: So when all the metaverse hype began, I was quite proud,
Speaker 1: especially of the U. S Army, who are already thinking
Speaker 1: ahead and have companies like Alazon contract to solve these
Speaker 1: these types of problems. I believe that VBS four, our
Speaker 1: current VBS, will be the final version that is sort
Speaker 1: of tethered to an old school game server. The next
Speaker 1: version will almost certainly connect directly to a web architecture.
Speaker 1: So you're seeing some really massive changes. And if there's
Speaker 1: one organization that could make at metaverse work for itself,
Speaker 1: it would be the U. S. Department of Defense. And
Speaker 1: I think you're going to see almost a parallel development
Speaker 1: along with sort of Whip three point are happening out
Speaker 1: here in the civilian world. Uh and I think that's
Speaker 1: quite exciting. It's almost like a rice pete and I
Speaker 1: will dive further into discussions about the metaverse, some of
Speaker 1: the challenges we face both in the near and long
Speaker 1: term and more after these messages. I think we can
Speaker 1: learn a lot of lessons through the way that the
Speaker 1: Department of Defense approaches this continual evolution of the military metaverse. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think those lessons are ones that will be valuable. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's I think because the military approach has a I
Speaker 1: would argue a much more focused view on what the
Speaker 1: metaversees and what's purposes and what needs to do and
Speaker 1: how it needs to do it that these are all
Speaker 1: things that are doably beneficial. When you're actually engineering it
Speaker 1: out right, you can start to define your parameters. What
Speaker 1: are your what are your deliverables, what are the things
Speaker 1: that you absolutely have to be able to do? How
Speaker 1: can you do it the best way that supports the
Speaker 1: most people. At the same time, these are all things
Speaker 1: that are easy, not easy. These are all things that
Speaker 1: are answerable. But like when I look at conversations about
Speaker 1: a a metaverse, it's more of a general purpose metaverse.
Speaker 1: What I what I typically don't encounter are those kinds
Speaker 1: of easily identifiable objectives where you could see, like, this
Speaker 1: is something you can actually work towards, like an engineering
Speaker 1: problem you can work towards solving. And I see this
Speaker 1: could be the issue of the media too. I don't
Speaker 1: want to put everything on all the companies that are
Speaker 1: working on creating a metaverse. Obviously they're not going to
Speaker 1: share everything that they're working on right now with everybody. Um,
Speaker 1: it would be overkill. And no one's really certain which
Speaker 1: pathways are going to end up being the profitable ones,
Speaker 1: and I don't just being profitable from a financial standpoint, um.
Speaker 1: And so there are there are a lot of reasons
Speaker 1: why I think this is. But the problem falls that
Speaker 1: falls on me as someone who's just kind of passionately
Speaker 1: following developments in tech, is that I'm getting a lot
Speaker 1: of information about the well vague information about the destination
Speaker 1: we're heading, but very little about the steps that need
Speaker 1: to be taken to get there. Apart from the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, you have people like representatives from Intel
Speaker 1: saying that in order to achieve a really robust metaverse
Speaker 1: that allows for things like VR and ARE implementation, the
Speaker 1: tech we have is going to need to be a
Speaker 1: thousand times more powerful than what we have today. Um,
Speaker 1: again suggesting that if you want to support a large
Speaker 1: number of people in the same environment at the same time,
Speaker 1: and we've seen that sort of with VR right now,
Speaker 1: where I think Horizon Worlds, I think metas Horizon world
Speaker 1: supports maybe twenty or people simultaneously right now. So obviously
Speaker 1: that would not be that would not give you the
Speaker 1: feeling of attending like a massive concert for I don't know,
Speaker 1: Metallica or something. I mean, it feel great, like I
Speaker 1: can't believe Metallica is playing for me and twenty four
Speaker 1: other people. But but but it's But it doesn't create
Speaker 1: of the experience of the promise of the metaverse um.
Speaker 1: And so I think there's just this big disconnect between
Speaker 1: sort of the the marketing speak and the hype of
Speaker 1: it uh and where we actually are. And that, to
Speaker 1: me is what I like to warn people about because
Speaker 1: I fear that with that lack of of clarity, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunity for people to either uh get
Speaker 1: scammed or maybe just engage in speculation that it's probably
Speaker 1: not the wisest choice, especially if it's you know, you're
Speaker 1: pouring money that you can't really afford to lose into something.
Speaker 1: The thing to get excited about is web three point
Speaker 1: oh and sort of ignore all of the noise and
Speaker 1: potentially ignore what big companies are doing. So Web three
Speaker 1: point oh it's it's it's almost a redesign of the
Speaker 1: Internet around open technologies, like this concept of an open
Speaker 1: ledger that the technology that underpins crypto and I hate
Speaker 1: saying it, but you know, blockchain, these technology technologies have
Speaker 1: huge potential and you you you sort of need to
Speaker 1: take a long view or you will get depressed because
Speaker 1: in the short term, I mean crypto and n f
Speaker 1: T S I'm not going to invest in them because
Speaker 1: I believe in the short term they're they're kind of
Speaker 1: like a scam. It's pure speculation, and I think it's
Speaker 1: fact that n f T s R a scam. But
Speaker 1: you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater and
Speaker 1: ignore the potential of these technologies is long term, and
Speaker 1: the web three point o vision is really appealing, right,
Speaker 1: and it does go against I think the interests of
Speaker 1: these companies that want to control all the information and
Speaker 1: host all the information on their servers and and scour
Speaker 1: through that information so they own the data that they
Speaker 1: can sell to others. Web Web three point oh is
Speaker 1: a reimagining in some ways, of what the Internet could be.
Speaker 1: They called the semantic Web. Its it's this ubiquitous, open
Speaker 1: internet that uses artificial intelligence to give you what you
Speaker 1: need based upon your browsing history and what you're doing.
Speaker 1: But it's designed to do this in a way that
Speaker 1: that information isn't necessarily owned by Google. And I don't
Speaker 1: know a lot about it, but the reading that I've
Speaker 1: done I am excited about because it's a vision that
Speaker 1: I think we all can get behind, right and if
Speaker 1: enough people understand the vision and where Tim Burners Lee,
Speaker 1: you know, the founder of the Internet, wants to take
Speaker 1: kind of Web three point oh, then I think it
Speaker 1: has a chance. Personally, I think what you're going to
Speaker 1: see in the short term is the Microsoft's and the
Speaker 1: Facebook's kind of doing their metaverses pretending like There's is
Speaker 1: the best at the same time as there is almost
Speaker 1: a community driven Web three point I metaverse that begins
Speaker 1: to take shape. I mean, I truly hope that's what happens,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to have to access the metaverse
Speaker 1: through a single company. I wanted to be like the Internet, right,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have to access it through Facebook. I should
Speaker 1: be able to disconnect and um and there I am.
Speaker 1: And then if I want to contribute to that, I
Speaker 1: should own what I create. If I create a new
Speaker 1: house using whatever design tool is provided to me, the
Speaker 1: intellectual property of that house should belong to me. And
Speaker 1: that's what should be stored on the open Ledger, which
Speaker 1: obviously is immutable, you know, and everybody can see that
Speaker 1: I created and own that house. So Web three point
Speaker 1: I was definitely worth looking at. When it comes to
Speaker 1: n f t S and what's happening in the short term.
Speaker 1: I mean, there is an amazing I mean it went viral.
Speaker 1: I think it's Dan Olsen's the problem with n f
Speaker 1: t S YouTube video. I don't know if you've seen it,
Speaker 1: and it's an amazing takedown of n f t S,
Speaker 1: but it's extremely shortsighted. Y. Yes, n f t s
Speaker 1: are really bad right now, but the technology that underpins
Speaker 1: them is awesome. And so I do worry that people
Speaker 1: are kind of taking a position with a very short
Speaker 1: term view when we should be talking about where we
Speaker 1: want to get to. Does that make sense? It totally
Speaker 1: makes sense. I think, you know, I have repeatedly slagged
Speaker 1: off n f t s like I have, but it's
Speaker 1: again on the way that they're being dealt with right now,
Speaker 1: which is largely as the speculative investment slash scam. Depending
Speaker 1: upon the actual you know, implementation, some cases it's out
Speaker 1: and out scams where people are just trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: capitalize on the combination of the fact that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people out there who are eager to
Speaker 1: see their money increase and they have a large ignorance
Speaker 1: of what n f t s actually are. And when
Speaker 1: you have those things paired together, you've got marks, you've
Speaker 1: got targets for scams. So I have a pretty negative
Speaker 1: feeling for n f t s in their current manifestation.
Speaker 1: I can see the potential benefit of n f t
Speaker 1: s down the road, just as I could see the
Speaker 1: benefits of cryptocurrency if it ever emerged from being this
Speaker 1: speculative commodity and turned into an actual working currency. I
Speaker 1: just have never seen crypto really behaving like a currency.
Speaker 1: I've seen it behave more like like stocks or you know,
Speaker 1: investing in precious metals. That's the way people have treated it.
Speaker 1: And so it's like the intent of the thing didn't matter.
Speaker 1: It's how people interact with it once it gets into
Speaker 1: the real world and and it becomes a totally different thing. Um,
Speaker 1: So I agree with what you're saying. I also, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just recently this past week covered the story about
Speaker 1: how Snoop Dogg acquired death Row Records then started to
Speaker 1: remove some of the albums and songs off of various
Speaker 1: streaming services because of his pronouncement that he's going to
Speaker 1: turn death Row Records into an n f T music
Speaker 1: label and be the first major music label in the metaverse,
Speaker 1: another move that I think I would say is perhaps
Speaker 1: a bit premature right now. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I can see a world where the music industry tries
Speaker 1: to get behind the idea of UH and n f
Speaker 1: T approach as opposed to streaming or the classic download
Speaker 1: digital store model. I don't know if that's going to happen,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly potentially. You know, it's a possibility with
Speaker 1: all this focus on the metaverse. I also agree with you.
Speaker 1: I don't want a world where a massive company has
Speaker 1: created UH the gateway to the metaverse, or I would
Speaker 1: argue even worse, you could have siloed metaverses that don't
Speaker 1: have any connectivity between them. You could have the Microsoft
Speaker 1: metaverse or the Facebook metaverse, which just kind of creates
Speaker 1: splintered internets. UM. It makes me think of like back
Speaker 1: when before Facebook dominated all of the social networks, you
Speaker 1: went to wherever your friends were, so like, I was
Speaker 1: on my Space holdout for a long time because I
Speaker 1: was out of college by the time Facebook came around.
Speaker 1: I couldn't get into Facebook when it first started because
Speaker 1: it didn't have a college email address. I was on
Speaker 1: my Space and I was thinking I was Facebook thing,
Speaker 1: that's flash in the pan. It's never gonna be like,
Speaker 1: it's never gonna stick around. Um, But you know it
Speaker 1: does create like like you either get into a scenario
Speaker 1: where ultimately these entities have to work together to integrate
Speaker 1: their uh their their interfaces so that you can pass
Speaker 1: between these or you get to a point where no,
Speaker 1: they decided they're going to stick it out. They're just
Speaker 1: going to pummel the competition until they're the only one
Speaker 1: left standing. Neither of those are particularly good for the
Speaker 1: individual user. UM. I also think that an open source
Speaker 1: approach would be ideal, like having that having everyone agree
Speaker 1: you know, it makes way more sense for us to
Speaker 1: all focus on open interoperable standards so that we don't
Speaker 1: have this painful process where everyone's fighting for dominance, nothing
Speaker 1: is portable from one experience to the other, and the
Speaker 1: consumer is just kind of left holding the bag. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of faith in the Internet, and you
Speaker 1: need to almost go one step below the hype. Right.
Speaker 1: So n f T s speculative asset, lots of scams, bad.
Speaker 1: But the idea that I have data that everybody can see,
Speaker 1: that diet of his mind, and it's stored for everyone
Speaker 1: the Internet and can't be deleted, it can't be changed,
Speaker 1: like that's that's kind of a cool concept, right. So um,
Speaker 1: I was I was reading about are We've or are
Speaker 1: we've a r W E A v E dot org
Speaker 1: and they're trying to make make it a little bit uh.
Speaker 1: I guess makes sense in the sense that you could
Speaker 1: store like an entire document, so to speak. At the moment,
Speaker 1: you can only saw like a little bit of text
Speaker 1: like a U R L in the n f T.
Speaker 1: But what if you could actually store a document? What
Speaker 1: if you could store more data? And there are these
Speaker 1: initiatives that I'm very excited about that are looking at
Speaker 1: the problems and trying to solve them and do it
Speaker 1: in an open source way, right, So I'm really excited
Speaker 1: about about that. I think that's you know, for the military,
Speaker 1: just kind of bring it back to what the military
Speaker 1: is doing. You know, they're going to go a different route.
Speaker 1: The biggest problem with the blockchain approach is the fact
Speaker 1: that everybody can see the ledger, right, there's no concept
Speaker 1: of security, and one of the things that slows the
Speaker 1: military down, uh in anything I t related is security
Speaker 1: for very good reasons obviously, and there are very big
Speaker 1: contracts with certain companies for secure clouds and the like.
Speaker 1: So I think that figuring out where blockchain technology actually
Speaker 1: is useful and where it simply adds overhead uh and
Speaker 1: is not necessary it's really is really important as as well.
Speaker 1: And I think every Internet user is almost obliged to
Speaker 1: do their research a little bit. I don't I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that people should sign a do a training course
Speaker 1: in order to access the Internet, but and I guess
Speaker 1: it would start at school, but it would definitely help.
Speaker 1: Like everybody needs to do the training that my company
Speaker 1: makes me do you know, twice a year. The anti
Speaker 1: scam UH anti phishing training. I feel like that sort
Speaker 1: of mandatory, especially for grandmother's I think they would really help. Yeah, again,
Speaker 1: it gets to that, it gets that that target of
Speaker 1: opportunity for scam artists, right like ignorance is one of
Speaker 1: the biggest opportunities that that cons have when it comes
Speaker 1: to pulling off their scams. The more the less aware
Speaker 1: someone is of something, less educated they are in something,
Speaker 1: the more likely you're going to be able to take
Speaker 1: advantage of that. And so but that I mean, we've
Speaker 1: also seen that in pretty much every security story that's
Speaker 1: out there. You typically, when you really get to the
Speaker 1: end of most, not all, but most computer security stories,
Speaker 1: you ultimately get to someone somewhere fell victim to a trick.
Speaker 1: And that's how the Hollywood version of someone trying to
Speaker 1: log into a server and typing in a password, getting
Speaker 1: two incorrect ones and the third one works almost never happens.
Speaker 1: You do have brute force attacks that occasionally happened, but
Speaker 1: they are pretty hard to do. If you're talking about
Speaker 1: even semi sophisticated security systems, it's far more likely that
Speaker 1: someone somewhere got compromised um one way or another. And
Speaker 1: we can just apply that across the board for everything,
Speaker 1: like not just for basic computer security, but pretty much
Speaker 1: all like Internet etiquette could could benefit from people having
Speaker 1: that level of Oh, I understand what the bad guys
Speaker 1: are looking to do, like how they're looking to exploit it,
Speaker 1: and by understanding what they're looking for, I have a
Speaker 1: better appreciation for various processes. I know that if someone
Speaker 1: calls me up claiming to be from the I T
Speaker 1: department and they want my admin admin level name, login
Speaker 1: and password, probably it's best not to give it to
Speaker 1: them straight away. We've got a bit more to go
Speaker 1: with our look at the future of the metaverse, but
Speaker 1: first let's take this one last break. I love this
Speaker 1: conversation Pete, largely because, like I have been so kind
Speaker 1: of laser focused on the issues that I see with
Speaker 1: the metaverse that it it often can be hard for
Speaker 1: me to step away from that and say, well, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: yes there are problems that have to be solved before
Speaker 1: we get to that destination, but that doesn't mean the
Speaker 1: destination isn't worth going to. That's where I can kind
Speaker 1: of lose my way. Sometimes I get so focused on,
Speaker 1: you know, worrying about big tech playing too large a
Speaker 1: role in this, or worrying about the scam artists who
Speaker 1: are taking advantage of people when there is a lot
Speaker 1: of excitement around this idea, or worrying about companies that
Speaker 1: might be investing heavily in a future but without without
Speaker 1: a clearly communicated pathway for how they want to get there.
Speaker 1: Those are the things that kind of worry me, just
Speaker 1: because I see it as opportunities for this to take
Speaker 1: longer than it should honestly, Um, but with your talking
Speaker 1: with you, I feel better about that because I do
Speaker 1: think that you know we are going to get it there.
Speaker 1: The question is just like how much how much garbage
Speaker 1: are we going to get to go through before we
Speaker 1: hit that destination. Hopefully, by the time that we start
Speaker 1: seeing metaversees uh like common youth general purpose metaverses start
Speaker 1: to really take off, I'll still be interested and I
Speaker 1: won't have turned into a luddite hermit who lives in
Speaker 1: the woods. Yeah, it's very easy to be cynical about it,
Speaker 1: especially if you're like an older gamer. We've all seen
Speaker 1: Second Life, we've all played massively multiplayer online games, and
Speaker 1: the first inclination is too eye roll. When you speak
Speaker 1: to someone who's just learned about the metaverse and they've
Speaker 1: never played a computer game in their life, but this technology.
Speaker 1: I mean, my advice to companies that are interested in
Speaker 1: investing in this area is is to look at the
Speaker 1: problems that we're seeing in the short term, you know,
Speaker 1: the security issues, the problems within n f T s,
Speaker 1: and invent ways to solve those problems. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: mean you probably end up selling a business to fight
Speaker 1: this book, but ideally contribute to some of these these
Speaker 1: some of these organizations. I mean, you know, that's I
Speaker 1: think that's the best thing you could do right now
Speaker 1: if you're kind of a tech entrepreneur Personally at Bohemia,
Speaker 1: we are looking at the terrain aspect. So the idea
Speaker 1: that a metaverse requires one of two types of terrain.
Speaker 1: Either it's a full on fantasy land, which is totally fine,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's what the Internet is amazing for,
Speaker 1: and computer games are amazing for just building these fantasy lands.
Speaker 1: But but also there will be a in our opinion,
Speaker 1: a need for really realistic, a really realistic virtual earth
Speaker 1: where you can kind of build your own house in
Speaker 1: the metaverse in the same location as your house is
Speaker 1: in the real world. So we are doing a lot
Speaker 1: on the terrain side. We have a lot of technology
Speaker 1: related to streaming terrain from the cloud and processing that
Speaker 1: terrain and procedurally enhancing it and getting it out to
Speaker 1: multiple different simulation engines. Obviously focused on the military, but
Speaker 1: it has applicability outside the military as as well. So
Speaker 1: I really do think this is an exciting area. And
Speaker 1: but to get involved and just jump on the HiPE
Speaker 1: without kind of understanding. I mean, how many companies were
Speaker 1: selling blockchain stuff five ten years ago with no real
Speaker 1: idea of what that was. Um, yeah, you really do
Speaker 1: need to to look at it. I think especially the
Speaker 1: tech investors are sort of smarter than ever. And um,
Speaker 1: even as I was sort of researching to talk to you,
Speaker 1: it became clear that it's just moving so so fast
Speaker 1: it is hard to keep up with it. There's no
Speaker 1: there's no doubt. Yeah. I actually taught to one of
Speaker 1: my co workers yesterday and I said, the weird thing
Speaker 1: that I'm going through right now, the weird realization I'm
Speaker 1: going through is that you know, we're uh, like ten
Speaker 1: years ago, the big concept in tech, like the far
Speaker 1: off future concept of tech that was a conversation that
Speaker 1: was just going was about the onset of the singularity,
Speaker 1: this era where technology is changing so quickly you can't
Speaker 1: even define the present. And I said, here's the weird thing,
Speaker 1: because I think part because of the pandemic, which forced
Speaker 1: a lot of companies to go through very rapid evolution.
Speaker 1: They started to adopt practices and processes and technologies that
Speaker 1: maybe they had been considering but perhaps was on like
Speaker 1: maybe a five year plan, and they ended up saying, well,
Speaker 1: we got to do it now because we have to
Speaker 1: be able to continue to do business in a world
Speaker 1: that's completely changed. And we saw such an incredibly rapid
Speaker 1: evolution that is continuing because now the companies are saying, well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make sense to go back to where we were.
Speaker 1: It makes way more sense to build upon what we've
Speaker 1: learned just trying to get through the pandemic. So it's
Speaker 1: a very exciting time. I said, It's it feels to
Speaker 1: me like we might be in the singularity now. It's
Speaker 1: you know, maybe in the maybe in the future will
Speaker 1: look back and say like, yeah, no, that's what it began.
Speaker 1: We just couldn't tell because we were too we were
Speaker 1: in it. But but I feel like that's kind of
Speaker 1: where we are. It's not the science fiction version of
Speaker 1: the Singularity. It's not like we're all, you know, playing
Speaker 1: Shadow Run for real and plugging directly into computers and
Speaker 1: injecting our consciousness into the Internet. But but it feels
Speaker 1: like we we are almost in this this cycle of
Speaker 1: such rapid change. The just defining what's happening now is
Speaker 1: a huge challenge, let alone kind of projecting out what's
Speaker 1: it going to be in five to ten years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: ignoring the noise is certainly hard. I mean, within my
Speaker 1: little industry, there's a lot of hype around hardware as well,
Speaker 1: so the latest VR or m R a R headset.
Speaker 1: And for me personally, what helps is within my industry
Speaker 1: is to identify what we're trying to do. The heart
Speaker 1: of my business is training soldiers. Do soldiers need device
Speaker 1: X cloud y in order to train? Will it make
Speaker 1: them train better? And so for me, I get the
Speaker 1: luxury of doing that assessment against any new technology that
Speaker 1: comes along within bohemiteractive simulations. And it's been very interesting
Speaker 1: for me to see hype even within military simulation about
Speaker 1: for example, VR headsets via hype ramped up a few
Speaker 1: years ago, many many computer games were created. A lot
Speaker 1: of game developers were very unhappy with the profits that
Speaker 1: they got from that because the market was so inundated
Speaker 1: with VR games. I think a lot of people were
Speaker 1: just like me. I bought an expensive v I headset,
Speaker 1: I played a game, I got a headache, I put
Speaker 1: it back down and went back to my PC. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's because I'm forty two and too old to quite understand,
Speaker 1: but VA headsets were kind of a painful experience for
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of people. Now Here we
Speaker 1: are today, and instead of just pure virtual reality headsets,
Speaker 1: we now have mixed reality headsets where we can similar
Speaker 1: to Microsoft holl of lends, we can mix the virtual
Speaker 1: in the real world. It's a much more pleasant experience
Speaker 1: for the operator. You don't get a headache as quickly,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing for the first time, for example, pilots
Speaker 1: saying on yeah, this could potentially work, whereas up until
Speaker 1: one or two years ago, the pilots were saying Nope,
Speaker 1: unless it's a big dome with images projected on a screen,
Speaker 1: I don't want to use VR. So we are beginning
Speaker 1: to see changes, but but these changes come slowly, like
Speaker 1: they don't come quickly, and it's very interesting for me
Speaker 1: to go back and look at presentations from futurists in
Speaker 1: the past. I mean, I've been doing this almost twenty years,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think that the progress has been
Speaker 1: steady within our little area. Obviously, things like social media
Speaker 1: sort of exploded, uh, and you never know when the
Speaker 1: next explosion is going to be. But with for me personally,
Speaker 1: what I've done to focus our business is just how
Speaker 1: do we how do we do our thing better? How
Speaker 1: do we train soldiers better? And if it doesn't do
Speaker 1: that thing, then it's useless or potentially useful for marketing.
Speaker 1: And that's about it. And that's the sort of approach
Speaker 1: I want to see kind of adapted across the industry.
Speaker 1: I feel like with that approach, you're able to work
Speaker 1: towards that goal. More concretely, you're more likely to achieve
Speaker 1: the goal than if you have a more vague definition
Speaker 1: and no one's really sure one what you mean, and
Speaker 1: even if they kind of have a grip on what
Speaker 1: you mean, they're not sure how to get there. It
Speaker 1: makes me think I have a background in acting, and
Speaker 1: I once had a director jokingly give me the least
Speaker 1: helpful direction I have ever heard. But it was a
Speaker 1: joke where he said, Jonathan, could you act more? Which
Speaker 1: doesn't mean anything at all, Like it doesn't mean anything,
Speaker 1: but it was. It did make me laugh. Um, and
Speaker 1: then later he gave me very concrete direction that was
Speaker 1: actually helpful. But that's that's the way I feel that
Speaker 1: a lot of companies are kind of taking this, or
Speaker 1: at least that's the communication. Again, I shouldn't project too
Speaker 1: much on the company's A lot of this comes from
Speaker 1: press releases, which might be drawn up by someone who
Speaker 1: is working from bullet points, or it might come from
Speaker 1: the media, where you've got, you know, another degree of
Speaker 1: separation from the actual source. Uh. I am trying to
Speaker 1: be a little more gracious in my uh in in
Speaker 1: the way I analyze the metaverse. H Pete. I have
Speaker 1: to say it has been a real pleasure to have
Speaker 1: you on the show. I could have you back and
Speaker 1: we can chat about computer games as much as you like.
Speaker 1: I love computer games. They're they're amazing. I still play them.
Speaker 1: I I think I'll be the guy in the nursing
Speaker 1: home when I'm playing the computer game. You know, I
Speaker 1: just can't. It's such an important part of my life. Um,
Speaker 1: everything that I have is a result of computer games
Speaker 1: and the amazing people that are behind them. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I recommend people play more games well out of curiosity
Speaker 1: before I before I let you go, what's a computer
Speaker 1: game that you're currently playing. Doesn't have to be your favorite,
Speaker 1: but something that you go to. So I just played, uh,
Speaker 1: Space Engineers. Because I have a gramming background, you can
Speaker 1: actually like program awesome, awesome inventions in Space Engineers. It's
Speaker 1: like it's like it's like Minecraft, but a little bit
Speaker 1: more for forty two year old men. Say so, I
Speaker 1: love I love computer games that where you have to create,
Speaker 1: and I've really enjoyed that. I've been playing Star Citizen,
Speaker 1: which I do recommend people check out. It has come
Speaker 1: a long way. I I've enjoyed it. I've played it
Speaker 1: for about a hundred hours and it's been in a
Speaker 1: positive experience. And so I used to be very pessimistic
Speaker 1: about their chances. Now I'm just kind of lukewarm. So
Speaker 1: we'll see when that goes. Just two more elden Ring.
Speaker 1: Elden Ring, Oh, yeah, of course. I mean that's like
Speaker 1: the big one right now. Now I have to play it,
Speaker 1: have to play it now, I love it. A big
Speaker 1: fan of the Soul series, so I love I love
Speaker 1: Elden Ring. And then I have been playing the computer
Speaker 1: game that's got banned in Australia Rim World. So I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to my Australians. Uh, you guys can't get that game,
Speaker 1: but it is. It is fantastic, excellent. As for myself,
Speaker 1: In case anyone's curious the game, I go to game
Speaker 1: because I can play a level and then like bounce
Speaker 1: off Not Tonight too. If you ever wanted to be
Speaker 1: a bouncer in front of a nightclub. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like Papers Please. It's one of those games where you're
Speaker 1: like checking stuff against data that's in your hand. Um.
Speaker 1: I know I'm not really selling it the best way here,
Speaker 1: but it's I really love those games. I was a
Speaker 1: big fan of Papers Please, and a big fan of
Speaker 1: the first Not Tonight and this one. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of pretty heavy handed commentary in it, but I'm really
Speaker 1: enjoying it. Choice, the amount of is amazing. What's available, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you dive into the independent gamer like the
Speaker 1: stuff that's just being released directly to the internet, and
Speaker 1: like you go to place like ich e O or
Speaker 1: something like that it is beyond overwhelming to see that,
Speaker 1: like you're gonna be spoiled for choice when it comes
Speaker 1: to innovative experiences. UM. Yeah, I'll definitely have to have
Speaker 1: you back. We'll have a rap session about like computer
Speaker 1: games and the various eras and the standout and things
Speaker 1: of that nature. But for now, I should probably let
Speaker 1: you get back to creating virtual worlds, uh and and
Speaker 1: doing what you do best. Thank you again for being
Speaker 1: on the show. My pleasure, Thank you. Thanks again to
Speaker 1: Pete for being on the show. I think it's important
Speaker 1: to chat with folks who have a different perspective on topics,
Speaker 1: particularly people who are kind of in the thickest things,
Speaker 1: you know, and something that's at least related to that topic.
Speaker 1: Pete certainly has, you know, tons of experience building out
Speaker 1: platforms that allow for numerous people to congregate in a
Speaker 1: virtual space. I don't have that experience, so getting his
Speaker 1: insight was invaluable. I'll likely have to do a future
Speaker 1: episode about web three uh, you know, Web three point oh,
Speaker 1: which is another tech concept that I have some concerns about.
Speaker 1: I like the idea behind web three point oh. I
Speaker 1: think the idea is a very strong one. It actually
Speaker 1: kind of the same way. I think the Internet idea
Speaker 1: is a very strong one, this giant communications network that
Speaker 1: democratizes so much of what previously had been siloed. However,
Speaker 1: I do have some concerns that what we're gonna see
Speaker 1: in practice with Web three point oh will effectively be
Speaker 1: the same old song played on new instruments. Uh. In
Speaker 1: other words, that some new parties will end up becoming
Speaker 1: the sort of uh, centralized monoliths of that particular incarnation
Speaker 1: of the Internet or the Web. But you know, that's
Speaker 1: another topic for another episode, and I'll probably reach out
Speaker 1: to someone who has more experience in that to kind
Speaker 1: of address some of my concerns and explain where I
Speaker 1: may or may not be off base. So look forward
Speaker 1: to that. I don't have anything firmly in the works
Speaker 1: on that right now, so it might be a little
Speaker 1: bit before I get it, but I really want to
Speaker 1: get my head wrapped around the whole thing and just
Speaker 1: to make sure that the the concerns I have are
Speaker 1: either merited or maybe that it's based off of misunderstanding,
Speaker 1: which is entirely possible. I don't magically understand everything right away,
Speaker 1: but in the meantime, If you have suggestions for guests
Speaker 1: that I should have on this show in the future,
Speaker 1: or topics that I should cover on tech Stuff, please
Speaker 1: reach out to me. The best place to do that
Speaker 1: is over on Twitter, where we use the handle text
Speaker 1: stuff h s W and I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.