WEBVTT - TechList: The Phantom Zone 0:00:05.400 --> 0:00:09.600 Hey there, it's Jonathan Strickland, and I'm here to introduce 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:14.560 a playlist of ten episodes of my podcast tech Stuff 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.960 that are all about entertainment and entertainment related fields, from 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:25.720 video games to television series, two films to internet videos 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.440 from yesteryear. So I hope you guys enjoy these episodes. 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.440 You can go to the tech Stuff podcast page and 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.000 subscribe to listen to all sorts of episodes about tech 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:42.240 from all realms, and hopefully this will provide a little 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:46.040 bit of entertainment, a little bit of education, and probably 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.000 more than a few puns, because that's kind of how 0:00:49.080 --> 0:01:06.240 I roll. Enjoy this playlist. Welcome to text Tuff, a 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:14.000 production from my Heart Radio. Hey there, and welcome to 0:01:14.240 --> 0:01:17.080 tex Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.360 producer with I Heart Radio, and I love all things tech, 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:25.399 and we are closing out our entertainment playlist with an 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:31.880 episode about an infamous piece of hardware, the Phantom game consoles. 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:35.440 So this episode is called the Phantom Zone. This one, 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:40.120 uh became legendary in tech circles as people began to 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:42.679 do some detective work to figure out what exactly was 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.840 going on. And if anything was going on, really fascinating 0:01:45.840 --> 0:01:50.960 stuff I hope you guys enjoy. So what was the phantom, Well, 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.760 it is meant to be a next generation gaming rig 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:56.920 that would bring PC gaming to the living room back 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.560 in two thousand three two thousand four, and it opposed 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.840 something fairly revolutionary in the process. Now, today, if you 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:07.640 were to unveil a gaming device that required you to 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:11.800 download all the titles to a hard drive, you probably 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:15.960 wouldn't raise that many eyebrows. It's not uncommon for a 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.760 gaming PC to lack an optical drive, after all, most 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.640 gaming rigs I've seen these days don't have an optical drive. 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.840 And digital delivery of games has been growing in popularity. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.239 I mean, just take a look at steams numbers, They're incredible. 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.680 There's still a market for physical copies of a game, however, 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.280 particularly since you can potentially sell or trade in old 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.799 games if you use physical media. But overall, I'd say 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:41.720 the trend has been to move toward more of a 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.799 digital download experience. So if I said I was going 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.800 to launch a brand new console that could only stream 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:52.720 or download games, I probably wouldn't leave very many people 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.120 scratching their heads today. But the same was not true. 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.640 Back in January two thousand three. That's the year a 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:03.640 new company that was called Infinium Labs announced it was 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.520 bringing a gaming console called the Phantom to market. Now, 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.800 this was months before Steam would launch, let alone become 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.520 the dominant online market for computer games. In two thousand three, 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:16.840 it was pretty much common practice to go to game 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:21.040 stores or big box outlets to purchase computer titles. So 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.600 when Infinium Labs brazenly announced the company intended to turn 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.760 the home gaming market on its head, they got a 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:31.160 lot of attention. Now, ultimately the story would be followed 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:36.680 by controversy, anger, and finally mockery, and it includes allegations 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.000 of fraud or at the very least ineptitude. It involves 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.560 the company that changed its name and switched tracks to 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:44.920 create a totally different product than the one that was 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.920 promising to consumers. So we're really going to dive into 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:51.920 the story of the Phantom and what actually happened. Now, 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.320 our story begins. You guys know me, I like to 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.280 always dive further back than when the actual stuff happens. 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.480 Our story really begins almost a decade before any mention 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.480 of the Phantom ever hits the public in the early 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.640 nineteen nineties in St. Louis, Missouri. They're a man named 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:12.640 Timothy Munroe. Roberts was working at a computer store and 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:15.760 he had a customer named Andrew Gladney, and the two 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.080 of them began to talk about an idea for a business. 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.400 This was not the business that would become in Phenium Labs, however. 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.320 It was instead to create a data hosting service and 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:28.320 an early Internet data hosting company. They called it the 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:33.760 Savas Communications Corporation s a v v I. S now. 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:37.919 Gladwell put up the majority of the starting capital. He 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.440 had a pretty healthy trust fund to draw from. It 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:43.520 was left to him by his grandfather, who has a 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.960 founder of a company that made a little soft drink 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:50.120 called seven Up. Together they got the business up and running, 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:54.160 and the company saw some early success, with Robert's landing 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:57.720 a big deal with Apple Computer Incorporated. And landing Apple 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:02.120 meant Savas had some areous market buzz behind it, and 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:06.400 they soon secured several other big contracts. Roberts, however, had 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:08.680 decided that he wanted to try and do something else, 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.800 so he left Savaths in ninete and went out to 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.040 start a new business. Now this time, this was a 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.960 web hosting company called in Tira I n t I 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.560 r A, also based out of St. Louis, Missouri. Some 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.760 of the concepts the company pushed were predictive of the 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:29.920 cloud computing craze that would follow a few years later, 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:32.880 but perhaps it was a touch too early for the company, 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:35.520 and coupled with the dot com bubble bursting in the 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.640 early two thousand's, it ended up not surviving. It filed 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:44.320 for bankruptcy protection in two thousand one. Oddly enough, Roberts 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.680 had already extricated himself from the company at that point, 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.839 selling off most of his stock, which in hindsight might 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:53.559 seem like it was a bit of a tip off. 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:58.120 Roberts had left in Tira around so a couple of 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:00.599 years before the company went under, and he went on 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:06.480 to found another company, this time called Broadband Infrastructure Group Corporation, 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:10.640 also known as Big b a G. The company's mission 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.160 was to act as a sort of incubator for tech 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:17.760 companies and develop communications businesses. According to the St. Louis 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:21.440 Business Journals, this is still happening in St. Louis, Missouri now. 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:25.400 According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Big raised about 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.520 eighteen million dollars from investors in two thousand and it 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:33.640 even sponsored a race car during the Indianapolis five hundred 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.520 that year. There are also stories of lavish parties, expensive wines. 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.680 In fact, part of the bankruptcy proceedings because spoiler alert 0:06:41.240 --> 0:06:44.120 Big went out of business to part of the bankruptcy 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.520 proceedings include the auction of twenty four models of Chateau 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:53.240 Lafitte Rothschild, which was a worth about twenty four thousand dollars. 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:58.520 Within nine months of raising those millions of dollars, b 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:02.279 I G closed. Now that led to Robert's getting some 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.480 heat in St. Louis See I changed it to St. 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:07.960 Louis for this part, and soon he had folks at 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.280 the state and federal and city levels all asking some 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:14.440 really tough questions about his entrepreneurial efforts, and undaunted, he 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.920 picked up stakes and he moved to Florida near Tampa. 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:22.120 He started a new company called Infinium Labs, and on 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.240 January two thousand three, he started the company two thousand two, 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:27.600 by the way, but in two thousand three, on January twenty, 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.400 company issued a press release about their plans. It's a 0:07:30.440 --> 0:07:34.440 short one, so I'm going to actually read the press release. 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.680 A Tampa Bay area technology company, in Phinium Labs Corporation, 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.480 will develop and market a new game console that will 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:45.880 outperform the Xbox Sony, PlayStation two, and GameCube. The company 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.120 plans to market a high performance gaming console and delivery 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.320 system to provide consumers with options and capabilities that are 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.840 not available in today's marketplace. The console will appeal to 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.440 the hardcore gamer and the high end consumer electronic purchaser. 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.600 Then next generation game console provides a robust, fault tolerant 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:08.600 delivery system that supports games on demand, game rentals, game demos, 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.720 seamless upgrades, and patch management. The game console is an 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:16.800 always on broadband device. It is easy enough for children 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.880 to use independently, yet so advanced it exceeds the needs 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:24.160 of hardcore gamers. Infinium Labs was formed by veteran entrepreneurs 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:26.920 who have a successful track record in building large scale 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.640 companies and advanced architectures for supporting massive e commerce and 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:36.400 enterprise applications. Combining skills from tell COO, data communications, digital 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:40.280 rights management, software development, and security, the management team brings 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.320 together a unique array of skills to develop the most 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.200 robust next generation gaming console and delivery network on the market. 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.360 The Infinium Labs game console features a high tech design 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:54.360 and offers ease of use for the variety of game 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.800 players worldwide. The on demand delivery system will appeal to 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.160 hardcore gamers as well as casual users. The unique design 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.320 architecture allows for delivery of a large number of games 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.280 and the ability to participate in online massive multiplayer gaming. 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:13.559 Key features include fastest console on the market, broadest selection 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.839 of preloaded games, cross platform capabilities, stay of the art 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:23.120 design and architecture, advanced accessories and wireless capabilities, online connectivity 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:27.319 for multiplayer gaming, seamless upgrades and patch management. A multi 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.760 tiered subscription service that meets the needs of casual, moderate 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:34.960 and hardcore game players, demo games before purchasing or subscribing 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:38.840 games on demand, and game rentals. The advanced system provides 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:43.000 game developers and publishers a secure and efficient software distribution system, 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:45.679 and Phendium Labs intends for game developers and publishers to 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.160 reap greater profits using this new game delivery system. And 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.520 Phideum Labs has engineered its prototypes and expects to unveil 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.880 the new gaming console in March of two thousand three. 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.440 The company intends to launch the game console to the 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:02.840 US consumer market by No. Member two thousand three. Remember 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:06.280 that date. And Phenium Labs has chosen Florida as its 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.800 corporate headquarters. Florida has emerged as a leader in support 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:13.480 of technology companies with its e Florida initiative. Offices will 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.599 soon will open soon in Silicon Valley and St. Louis, Missouri. 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.320 About in Phenium Labs and Phenium Labs Corporation was formed 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:24.640 in October two thousand two as a global entertainment gaming company. 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.440 And Phinium Labs mission is to market a gaming console 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.480 and delivery system that will be the performance leader in 0:10:29.520 --> 0:10:32.400 the game playing entertainment industry. The company will market a 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:34.960 robust game console that will appeal to a wide audience 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.880 with its ease of use, quality assurance, and robust delivery systems. Now, 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:42.920 we could probably say today that those promises we're a 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.400 little astounding for their time and perhaps even a bit boastful. 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:49.000 I mean, you're talking about the fastest game console on 0:10:49.040 --> 0:10:52.760 the market. Back in two thousand three, this was a 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:57.559 new company, untested in this space, setting out to challenge 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:01.839 entrenched companies like Sony and Hindo. And then you had Microsoft, 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:05.200 which was relatively new to the video game console market 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:08.080 at this point but had already established itself as a 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.560 powerful presence in the industry, and the features the press 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:15.120 release listed were extremely innovative at the time. I'm sure 0:11:15.120 --> 0:11:17.240 the gamers out there recognized that many of those features 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.920 are now standard on several consoles. For example, both on 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:23.520 the Xbox One and on the PS four, you can 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:26.319 sample some games and even get some titles as part 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:30.319 of a monthly subscription service. So that kind of stuff 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.560 today isn't innovative, but at the time it was a 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:37.679 totally different way of doing business. So the promises being made, 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.560 while advanced, we're all features that would later on become 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:44.520 standard and video game consoles. It's just that in two 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.640 thousand three, this was a really wild idea, and it 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:51.760 raised questions was the world ready for an always on 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:56.160 internet connected console? Now? Judging by the resistance gamers put 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:58.920 up when Microsoft first said the Xbox One was going 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.640 to follow that same model and being always on broadcast service, 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:04.920 I think it's safe to say that, if I can 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:07.439 two thousand three, the world was not ready at that point. 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:09.840 Because it wasn't ready when the Xbox One came out. 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:14.800 More importantly, was the technology ready or did the company 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.640 make promises that would have been impossible to deliver upon 0:12:17.880 --> 0:12:21.920 even if it had been established as a play big 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.160 player in the space up at that point. In other words, 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:28.040 if this had been Sony or Microsoft, would they have 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:30.640 been able to pull it off? Or was this just 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.920 a promise that no one at the time could deliver upon. 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.640 We'll take a look at more details about the unveiling 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.320 of the Phantom and what happened in the wake of that, 0:12:40.480 --> 0:12:50.360 but first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. Now, 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:53.520 before I get into all the controversy that surrounds the Phantom, 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:54.880 I thought it would be a good idea to talk 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.959 about what it was supposed to have inside of it, 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:00.960 what kind of connectors it was supposed to have, you know, 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:03.720 how it was going to connect to your television, and 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.680 talk a little bit more about the subscription service and 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.679 the online element to this, to kind of get an 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:15.240 idea of what exactly was supposed to come out. Now, 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:20.600 keep in mind that not all of this ever materialized. Also, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.040 this is dependent upon technology of the early two thousand's 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.760 even the TV technology at the time. So there's some 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.720 things that you would have considered would have needed to 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.599 be standard that we're not included, like h d m 0:13:32.640 --> 0:13:37.360 I is not a component on the Phantom spec list, 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:40.320 and that's largely because back in two thousand three not 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:43.400 such a big thing. But other things that you don't 0:13:43.440 --> 0:13:47.000 see as much anymore, like composite or component video that 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.720 definitely was part of it. So for the standard components 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:53.320 of the Phantom, because you could also get optional components 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.160 added on, or at least in three you could. In 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:00.000 reality you couldn't get anything. The standard components were supposed 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.200 to include a custom operating system on a Windows XPE kernel, 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.679 so that custom operating system was to make it proprietary, 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.960 kind of like the operating systems you would encounter on 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:15.360 other video game consoles, and it would end up locking 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:19.040 you into the Phantom's ecosystem. It was supposed to have 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:23.560 an a m d Athalon xpred plus central processing unit, 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:27.080 which would have approximately one point eight giga hurts of 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:30.920 CPU power, and it was supposed to have an Nvidia 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:35.320 g Force f X fifty undred Ultra graphics processing unit. 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.000 Was also supposed to have an Nvidia enforce to Ultra 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:42.000 four hundred motherboard, two hund fifty six megabytes main memory, 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:46.200 forty gigabyte hard drive, Dolby Digital five point one surround 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:50.400 sound onboard, radio frequency wireless modules that would allow you 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:55.680 to connect things like UM wireless mouse or wireless controllers 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:58.840 or wireless keyboards to this and S video r c 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:02.360 A or component video connections also composite as it would 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:07.200 turn out a Ethernet port so that you could actually 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:09.760 plug that into your Internet connection that was supposed to 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:11.520 always be connected to the Internet, so you need to 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.080 have something a wireless controller, a wireless keyboard and mouse 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:20.080 to USB ports and for controller ports. Then there were 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.440 some optional components you could add on to that which 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:27.280 would include extra controllers either wireless or accorded ones, a 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:32.160 keyboard and mouse with charging, base station storage expansion for 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.280 additional game storage, so you could double the amount of 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.560 storage space on there in theory, a DSL modem, a 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:44.560 cable modem, a wireless WiFi card, memory upgrades, speaker sets, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.440 and flat screen displays. So in other words, you could 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:49.920 go from something that you were supposed to just hook 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.240 up to your TV to something that would have potentially 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.359 multiple screens, although as far as I can tell, they 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:59.360 the graphics card wasn't necessarily set up to support multiple displays, 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:03.120 but that doesn't mean that it couldn't happen. One thing 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.880 the Phantom did not have was any sort of portable 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:09.760 storage drive. So there were no CD drives, no DVD drives, 0:16:09.760 --> 0:16:12.760 no cartridges, no floppy disks, nothing like that was ever 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.680 supposed to go into the Phantom. All material was meant 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.600 to be downloaded or streamed directly to the console. Now 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:21.320 you may hear some of those specs and say, well, 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:23.800 that just sounds like it's a PC, and really, when 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:25.800 you get down to it, that's what the Phantom was. 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:30.560 But then, to be fair, all video game consoles ultimately 0:16:30.760 --> 0:16:34.480 end up becoming variations on the concept of a personal computer. 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.080 The big difference is you've got some changes in architecture. 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.960 Something like the PlayStation four has an architecture that's different 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:45.760 than most PCs. Uh And with a console, you typically 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.760 are stuck with the hardware that the system came with 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.760 when it first launched or whenever you bought it. So 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.120 if I go out and buy an Xbox one today, 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.360 it's hard for me to upgrade that I can probably 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.160 upgrade the storage by adding external storage, but I'm not 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:04.080 going to be able to upgrade the processor or graphics 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:06.840 cards or anything like that. With a PC, you can 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.919 actually upgrade components, at least until you bump up against 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.719 limitations like you've got stuff that's going to be too 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:16.000 big for the size of case that you have, or 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.480 the motherboard will no longer support it, something along those lines, 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.199 And technically you could keep on swapping out components are 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.960 essentially building a new computer at that point rather than 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:30.439 just upgrading. But it is a possibility, but consoles are different. 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:32.639 You pretty much have to wait for the next generation 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:38.679 to buy up and and increase your console's capabilities. The 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:42.199 Phantom was meant to play PC games, so that was 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:44.359 one concern a lot of people had early on, was 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.680 that if this in fact was to be a standalone 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.600 video gaming console for the living room, that would allow 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:51.760 you to play PC games in the living room, something 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:53.159 that a lot of people have been trying to do 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.679 and in fact today are still trying to do, like 0:17:55.800 --> 0:18:01.840 steam boxes are essentially that same kind of a pre coach. Uh. 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:06.359 Even though you know that was the mission statement, everyone 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.600 was pointing out, well, what happens when the games get 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.720 too advanced to run on the hardware of the Phantom 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:15.199 You would have to upgrade somehow, and you could do 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.520 some upgrades through firmware, but that's not going to make 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.640 the processor work any faster necessarily, or make the graphics 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:24.680 card work harder. So that was a big concern, was 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.880 that if, in fact, this is essentially a customized personal 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:32.760 computer running some proprietary software on top of it, then 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.920 what happens when the games get too advanced. Now, as 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:38.479 it turns out, there was never a need to answer 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:40.680 that question, but it was one of the early ones. 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:44.240 And as I mentioned earlier in this episode, the console 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:46.520 never hit the market, so some people would refer to 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:51.160 it as vaporware. But all the components existed. The stuff 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.520 that they talked about really did exist. I mean, all 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:56.480 of those different elements you could go out there and buy, 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.879 so there was never a problem with that. There's just 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:02.360 there was no consumer product that featured all of those 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:05.159 in that configuration as a Phantom console. There are a 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:08.520 couple of prototypes or show models that Infinium Labs would 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.000 trot out at various events like C E S or 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:14.119 E three, and there's some debate in online circles as 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:16.760 to whether those prototypes represented a real effort to create 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.520 a phantom console or if they were in fact just 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:21.760 a run of the mill PC inside a customized case. 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:25.160 In some cases, it wasn't even that. According to one 0:19:25.240 --> 0:19:28.240 story I was reading, a games journalist went to E 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:32.800 three and saw a demonstration of the phantom console, and 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.960 it sat down next to u representative from Infinium Labs 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.960 who was going to give a demo of the whole thing, 0:19:41.520 --> 0:19:44.160 and they had the console sitting in front of them, 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:46.440 and they tried to launch a game and it didn't 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:50.520 work out properly, And as it turned out, the representative 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:55.520 actually revealed to the games journalists that the game itself 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:59.439 was being run on a PC behind the cabinet, That 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:02.840 the console that was on display was in fact a 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.320 dummy console. It didn't do anything. It just had some 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:09.760 lit up letters that spelled out phantom, but there was 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.800 nothing going on inside of it. Now that's not to 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:17.840 say that every single instance was a fake console with 0:20:17.920 --> 0:20:21.480 a real PC behind the curtain, Wizard of Oz style, 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.359 but at least according to that one report, that was 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.439 the case. Now, as it turns out, years after the 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:31.320 Phantom controversy had kind of fizzled out. Ours Technica would 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:35.280 run a piece about a reader named Eddie Schlessinger who 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.320 worked at a computer repair shop in Venice, Florida. Now remember, 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:44.200 Infinium Labs was originally located off Florida, and around two 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:48.000 thousand twelve a customer brought in this weird PC console. 0:20:48.200 --> 0:20:52.720 It was branded a Phantom, So apparently this customer had 0:20:52.760 --> 0:20:55.240 bought the set from someone else who had no idea 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:57.960 what the heck this thing was for the princely sum 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:01.120 of two hundred dollars. Now, considering that it may be 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:03.600 one of a kind, or at least maybe one of 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.040 a dozen or so, that's not bad. Lessenger had a 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:09.640 chance to crack it open and look under the hood 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.560 and see what was there. Now, Remember Schlessenger was telling 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.800 Ours Technica about this a few years later, I think 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.680 it was so about three years had passed so, according 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:25.560 to Schlessenger, inside the prototype was a motherboard supposedly made 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:30.840 by a sus That's what Schlessenger thought, had the Nvidia 0:21:31.240 --> 0:21:34.680 f x a g P video card that had been announced. 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:37.280 It had some d DR ram um, some of the 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:39.639 ports on the back were working and others were just 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:43.199 for show. It had video outputs for composite component and 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:46.480 S video connectors, which again these days we had probably 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.639 just use hd M I instead. It also had audio 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.040 output jacks for optical co acts or r c A connectors, 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:57.080 and there were four USB ports. The system was not 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.920 in working order, so he ended up making some modifications 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:03.960 to it, and he even installed a Phantom promo video. 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:07.399 He took a video that had been circulated on the 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:10.120 internet for a while and he used that as sort 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:12.680 of the load up screen for the console, so that 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:17.280 the customer could say that he owned a working Phantom console. Now, 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:19.119 it sounds like a lot of the stuff in Finnian 0:22:19.200 --> 0:22:22.240 was claiming the Phantom would include found its way into 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:26.160 that prototype, which is something. At least not all those 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.480 sports were working. But then if the company wanted to 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:30.560 create a proof of concept to kind of show how 0:22:30.600 --> 0:22:33.639 the system would work, it might only focus on the 0:22:33.680 --> 0:22:37.080 necessary components to get to perform as needed for a demo. 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:39.920 So in other words, if you're shopping it around trying 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.600 to get some investors to give you money, you might 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:46.359 have a mock up where it's not a fully functional unit, 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:49.199 but you want to show off the concept so that 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:51.679 you can get the funding to complete it. That doesn't 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:56.560 necessarily mean that the company is shady or suspicious in 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:00.640 any way. Presumably the finished product would have included all 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:03.000 of the working components that were being talked about in 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:05.880 their press releases. Now, that would also mean customers would 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:08.520 get a keyboard and mouse in what Athenium Labs was 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:11.600 calling a lap pad. And this was an attempt to 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.119 make it easier to play PC style games on a 0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:17.879 home television in your living room. Many PC games are 0:23:17.880 --> 0:23:21.320 compatible with game controllers, but some games, like first person 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:24.600 shooters or real time strategy games tend to work best 0:23:24.720 --> 0:23:28.000 using a mouse and keyboard approach. If you use a 0:23:28.440 --> 0:23:30.840 controller and you go up against someone else who's using 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:33.879 mouse and keyboard, you will probably find your petuity handed 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:37.360 to you. So what about the online service part of 0:23:37.400 --> 0:23:41.200 this whole package? Will Atheneum Labs plan to operate a 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:45.440 Virtual Private Games Network or vpg N And this is 0:23:45.480 --> 0:23:49.359 a special type of virtual private network or VPN. And 0:23:49.400 --> 0:23:51.560 you may have used VPNs for work or for your 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:54.480 own computers. For those of you who are unfamiliar with 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:57.440 the idea, let me give you a real quick, high 0:23:57.560 --> 0:24:01.480 level rundown. So a VPN create it's a private network 0:24:01.760 --> 0:24:05.880 across a public network. So take the Internet for example, 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:08.760 that's a public network. Anyone can hop on or off 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:12.879 at any time. Private networks require access to machines on 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:16.520 the network itself, so like a physical private network is 0:24:16.520 --> 0:24:19.600 completely separate from any other network, or it only has 0:24:19.720 --> 0:24:23.360 very controlled portals to other networks, and the only way 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:25.720 you can get on that physical network is if you 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:29.120 have access to a machine that's connected to it. Um 0:24:29.119 --> 0:24:32.960 a VPN simulates that it's not a true private network, 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:37.520 but through code, creates a situation that is essentially like that, 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:41.680 and it can send that communication across a larger public network. 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:46.560 This means communication across the VPN is encrypted to protect 0:24:46.640 --> 0:24:49.520 data from snoopers. Otherwise you might as well just use 0:24:49.560 --> 0:24:53.160 a public network in the first place. It's typically used 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:57.919 by businesses to allow remote employees access to company intranet systems. 0:24:58.600 --> 0:25:01.360 Other folks might use a VPN to communicate securely with 0:25:01.480 --> 0:25:05.159 other people or to access services that might otherwise be 0:25:05.280 --> 0:25:08.200 blocked in their real physical location. So you might log 0:25:08.240 --> 0:25:11.280 into a VPN and use that in order to access 0:25:11.320 --> 0:25:15.080 something that otherwise you would not be able to touch 0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:18.000 from wherever you are. It's really handy if you happen 0:25:18.040 --> 0:25:19.800 to be in a country that has a, you know, 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:24.560 a more nanny state kind of approach to guiding how 0:25:24.760 --> 0:25:28.640 the Internet should be used by the population. So why 0:25:28.640 --> 0:25:32.240 would Athenium Labs want to operate a VPG n Well, 0:25:32.320 --> 0:25:35.600 mostly it's to lock a customer into an ecosystem. And 0:25:35.640 --> 0:25:37.879 here's how the business plan would have worked if it 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:41.679 had ever launched. You decide you're gonna go out and 0:25:41.720 --> 0:25:43.960 buy a Phantom console. Actually, you can have a couple 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:48.359 of different options. You could purchase one for ad dollars 0:25:48.480 --> 0:25:52.600 at least that was one of the amounts quoted, which 0:25:52.640 --> 0:25:56.680 is actually incredibly cheap. Or you could rent it. Or 0:25:56.720 --> 0:25:59.400 you could sign up for a two year subscription agreement 0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:03.800 with Infinium Labs on their Virtual Private Games Network, and 0:26:03.840 --> 0:26:05.760 if you subscribe for two years, you would get the 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:09.920 hardware for free. So the subscription would cost twenty nine 0:26:10.000 --> 0:26:13.840 dollars a month, and for that you would be able 0:26:13.880 --> 0:26:17.320 to use the Phantom network to download games, uh to 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:21.000 stream games, to play games online with other people. You 0:26:21.000 --> 0:26:23.600 would have access to a suite of games right away 0:26:23.640 --> 0:26:26.000 that would be included with your subscription fee, so you 0:26:26.040 --> 0:26:29.600 wouldn't have to pay any extra for a certain library 0:26:29.640 --> 0:26:33.440 of games. If you wanted games that were beyond that library, 0:26:33.440 --> 0:26:36.200 and Infinium Labs had secured the rights, you would be 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:39.159 able to download demo versions of those for free, and 0:26:39.200 --> 0:26:41.160 if you wanted to purchase it, you could do so 0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:44.800 through infinium labs as online store and download the game 0:26:44.840 --> 0:26:47.639 directly to the console. The console would keep track of 0:26:47.640 --> 0:26:50.080 how much storage space was left, and it could even 0:26:50.160 --> 0:26:53.480 dynamically manage it. So if you started getting close to 0:26:53.520 --> 0:26:56.280 your limit, Remember you've got that forty gigabyte limit. Let's 0:26:56.280 --> 0:26:58.359 say you start getting close to that. These days, it 0:26:58.359 --> 0:27:00.639 wouldn't take long at all because games are so huge. 0:27:00.840 --> 0:27:03.520 But let's talk about two thousand three, two thousand four. 0:27:03.840 --> 0:27:06.520 You start getting close to that forty gigabyte limit, well, 0:27:06.680 --> 0:27:10.359 the Phantom would end up deleting older games that you 0:27:10.400 --> 0:27:13.520 had not played in a long time, but the service 0:27:13.560 --> 0:27:16.119 would keep track of which games you had purchased, so 0:27:16.240 --> 0:27:17.960 if you ever decided you wanted to go back and 0:27:18.000 --> 0:27:21.200 play an old title, then you could download it again 0:27:21.280 --> 0:27:24.680 for free because you had already purchased it previously, so 0:27:24.720 --> 0:27:26.479 there'd be a record of the fact that you had 0:27:26.480 --> 0:27:27.879 bought it before and you wouldn't have to buy it 0:27:27.880 --> 0:27:31.239 a second time. Now, in many ways, this is how 0:27:31.320 --> 0:27:35.880 subscription services like Xbox Gold memberships work today. The business 0:27:35.920 --> 0:27:39.919 plan sounded actually pretty solid. It was very innovative for 0:27:39.920 --> 0:27:43.440 its time. There'd be incentive for gamers to subscribe month 0:27:43.480 --> 0:27:46.879 after month because they could get access to the games 0:27:47.000 --> 0:27:50.400 within the library, as well as a chance to buy 0:27:50.760 --> 0:27:54.320 other brand new games, possibly at a discount because you're 0:27:54.320 --> 0:27:57.360 not buying them the physical media, although now we know 0:27:58.000 --> 0:28:00.440 that doesn't always work out that way. You don't always 0:28:00.440 --> 0:28:03.119 get a discount just because you're not buying, you know, 0:28:03.200 --> 0:28:06.240 a disk. It can be just as expensive or sometimes 0:28:06.240 --> 0:28:09.320 more expensive to buy the digital version, which is infuriating 0:28:09.320 --> 0:28:11.320 for a lot of people. There were also hints that 0:28:11.400 --> 0:28:14.679 game titles could come out a little earlier, so you 0:28:14.680 --> 0:28:17.879 could get them much quicker than you would if you 0:28:17.880 --> 0:28:19.320 were to have to go to the store. There was 0:28:19.359 --> 0:28:22.439 no danger of them selling out. You didn't have to 0:28:22.440 --> 0:28:26.000 worry about pre registering for a game and hoping that 0:28:26.080 --> 0:28:29.200 the the local game stop or whatever game store you 0:28:29.200 --> 0:28:32.240 would go to would have enough copies on launch day. 0:28:32.320 --> 0:28:35.439 You could just download it, so there were definitely, you know, 0:28:35.520 --> 0:28:39.040 reasons that a gamer might be interested in this. Although 0:28:39.480 --> 0:28:42.320 the thought of having to pay an ongoing subscription service 0:28:42.320 --> 0:28:44.400 to keep using a video game console that you had 0:28:44.400 --> 0:28:47.040 already purchased rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. 0:28:47.080 --> 0:28:51.680 It was an idea that maybe wasn't quite ready yet. 0:28:53.160 --> 0:28:56.960 So on the business side it sounded fantastic because you 0:28:57.000 --> 0:28:59.920 would have a company that would have an incoming stead 0:29:00.160 --> 0:29:04.120 flow of revenue because it's not just selling a console 0:29:04.280 --> 0:29:07.240 once to a customer. It's selling a console and then 0:29:07.240 --> 0:29:11.520 offering a subscription service and then getting a monthly subscription 0:29:11.600 --> 0:29:15.240 fee from that customer, and then you put that across 0:29:15.360 --> 0:29:19.480 thousands of customers. That's an incredible revenue stream and it's 0:29:19.520 --> 0:29:22.840 obviously one that works for a lot of game developers 0:29:22.880 --> 0:29:26.200 today and game consoles today. But at the time, again 0:29:26.440 --> 0:29:31.360 it was a pretty uh radical idea. Now, on top 0:29:31.400 --> 0:29:35.240 of that, using a proprietary approach for games distributions solved 0:29:35.280 --> 0:29:38.640 another problem the company would otherwise encounter. So this is 0:29:38.640 --> 0:29:42.760 another reason for that virtual Private Games network. The Phantom was, 0:29:42.880 --> 0:29:46.480 as I said, essentially a PC connected to a television, 0:29:46.880 --> 0:29:51.440 so without any sort of proprietary overlay, nothing would necessarily 0:29:51.440 --> 0:29:55.600 stop gamers from downloading games from other sources outside of 0:29:55.640 --> 0:29:58.000 Infinium Labs. If you could just log into the Internet 0:29:58.080 --> 0:30:01.160 and maybe go into a Torrent site, if you had 0:30:01.160 --> 0:30:04.200 a bit Torrent installed on your Phantom, you could end 0:30:04.280 --> 0:30:07.280 up pirate in games if you wanted to. But by 0:30:07.320 --> 0:30:11.200 having that proprietary layer on top that was encoding games 0:30:11.200 --> 0:30:14.880 in a way that only in Phinium Labs machines would run, 0:30:15.560 --> 0:30:18.440 then you didn't have to worry so much. You know, 0:30:18.520 --> 0:30:21.240 people couldn't just take their their Phantom and make it 0:30:21.280 --> 0:30:23.640 do anything. They were limited in what they could do 0:30:23.680 --> 0:30:27.560 with it. So it's a kind of a special purpose PC, uh, 0:30:27.680 --> 0:30:30.200 or at least you could reduce the number of people 0:30:30.240 --> 0:30:32.280 who are using it to pirate games. I mean, someone 0:30:32.480 --> 0:30:34.680 is always going to find a way to hack hardware 0:30:34.680 --> 0:30:37.080 and make it do something it wasn't intended to do, 0:30:37.440 --> 0:30:40.520 especially if it started off as a PC. That makes 0:30:40.560 --> 0:30:44.120 it easier if you know what you're doing. Now. All 0:30:44.160 --> 0:30:46.640 of this was met with some skepticism, though again I 0:30:46.640 --> 0:30:48.880 have to stress that we've seen these sort of things 0:30:48.880 --> 0:30:51.280 pan out in the long run with stuff like Steam 0:30:51.360 --> 0:30:53.880 and various video game console markets. But at the time 0:30:53.960 --> 0:30:56.880 it seems so ambitious and so sudden and out of 0:30:56.920 --> 0:30:59.280 the blue that a lot of people were worried that 0:30:59.360 --> 0:31:01.640 this was too good to be true. And you know 0:31:01.680 --> 0:31:04.920 how the rest of that saying goes well. Athenium Labs 0:31:04.960 --> 0:31:07.240 had made some big promises, including a desire to get 0:31:07.240 --> 0:31:09.239 a product on the market in time for the two 0:31:09.280 --> 0:31:12.960 thousand three holiday season. That time came and went, and 0:31:13.000 --> 0:31:14.800 the company had no consoles to show for it, but 0:31:14.840 --> 0:31:16.400 they said, don't worry, it's going to come out in 0:31:16.480 --> 0:31:19.880 holiday season two thousand four. That time came and went 0:31:19.960 --> 0:31:23.200 as well, and still no console. They did show it 0:31:23.240 --> 0:31:25.640 off a couple of times at different at different trade events. 0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:27.880 Like I said, but at least in some cases it 0:31:27.960 --> 0:31:30.680 turned out that it wasn't really a console that people 0:31:30.720 --> 0:31:33.920 were seeing, just the concept of what the console would be. 0:31:35.160 --> 0:31:39.840 Even before Infinium Labs had slipped that two thousand four 0:31:39.880 --> 0:31:42.560 holiday dates, some people were really suspicious of what was 0:31:42.600 --> 0:31:46.200 going on behind the scenes, which included some folks who 0:31:46.320 --> 0:31:50.280 wrote for hard O c P. That's an online magazine 0:31:50.280 --> 0:31:53.360 that caters to PC owners. You can find tons of 0:31:53.440 --> 0:31:55.800 articles and reviews about all sorts of things over there, 0:31:55.840 --> 0:32:00.440 including a pretty tough investigation into Infinium Labs and Timothy 0:32:00.520 --> 0:32:05.840 Roberts in particular. All Right, So it's September two thousand three, 0:32:06.040 --> 0:32:09.600 a Wednesday, as it turns out, and an article goes 0:32:09.680 --> 0:32:13.080 up on hard O c P News titled behind the 0:32:13.120 --> 0:32:16.640 Infinium Phantom Console, and it takes a really hard look 0:32:16.680 --> 0:32:20.080 at Timothy Roberts's past as well as the claims made 0:32:20.080 --> 0:32:23.800 by Infinium Labs. The article argued that Roberts had a 0:32:23.880 --> 0:32:28.080 history of starting companies that ultimately failed, while raising millions 0:32:28.120 --> 0:32:31.160 of dollars in investment money in the process. So the 0:32:31.240 --> 0:32:34.560 article alleged that Infinium Labs as of September two thousand three, 0:32:34.560 --> 0:32:38.280 had raised at least twenty five million dollars in venture 0:32:38.400 --> 0:32:41.080 capital and had nothing to show for it. Now, I 0:32:41.160 --> 0:32:44.840 might be inferring too much here, but even in the 0:32:44.920 --> 0:32:47.560 opening of this article, to me, it sounds like they're 0:32:47.600 --> 0:32:52.080 at least hinting that perhaps these business ventures weren't meant 0:32:52.160 --> 0:32:55.480 in sincerity. In other words, there might not have ever 0:32:55.520 --> 0:32:59.280 been an intent to actually have a working business there. Again, 0:32:59.480 --> 0:33:04.520 this is my interpretation. The article does not say this outright. Instead, 0:33:04.960 --> 0:33:07.480 it just seems like there's a hint that maybe there's 0:33:07.520 --> 0:33:11.120 some sort of scam shady business stuff going on, and 0:33:11.400 --> 0:33:14.520 it sounds a lot like the main plot behind the Producers, 0:33:14.560 --> 0:33:16.360 Like if you raise a lot of money for a 0:33:16.400 --> 0:33:20.280 business and that business ultimately fails, you never have any profits. 0:33:20.320 --> 0:33:23.720 You have to worry about paying out to shareholders. If 0:33:23.720 --> 0:33:27.000 the business didn't profit, then you have nothing to pay 0:33:27.080 --> 0:33:30.160 So what what? Who cares if you just have to 0:33:30.280 --> 0:33:35.280 have bought a few cases of incredibly expensive wine in 0:33:35.320 --> 0:33:38.200 the process. But this may be putting words into hard 0:33:38.240 --> 0:33:41.960 o CPS figurative mouth. At least in that first section, 0:33:41.960 --> 0:33:44.880 there are no outright accusations that Roberts was running any 0:33:44.880 --> 0:33:48.600 sort of scam. But the article continues with a breakdown 0:33:48.680 --> 0:33:52.280 of what the phantom console is supposed to have, essentially 0:33:52.400 --> 0:33:55.200 running that same press release I read earlier, but pointed 0:33:55.200 --> 0:33:57.520 out that at least to that point, the only images 0:33:57.600 --> 0:34:00.480 that had been seen outside the company were three D 0:34:00.640 --> 0:34:04.600 renderings and not actual photographs of a working device. Later 0:34:04.640 --> 0:34:07.440 we would get photos and videos of a device that 0:34:07.480 --> 0:34:09.960 appeared to be working, but at this time there were 0:34:10.120 --> 0:34:13.680 there were no such images available. Next, the article laid 0:34:13.719 --> 0:34:16.320 out the places that Roberts had worked over the previous 0:34:16.400 --> 0:34:21.120 eight years. He had held eight different CEO or director 0:34:21.200 --> 0:34:25.400 level positions in those eight years. According to his own website, 0:34:25.680 --> 0:34:29.759 they included two other companies when Force LLC and med 0:34:29.840 --> 0:34:34.880 Higher LLC that we're operating operating concurrently within Phinium Labs. So, 0:34:34.920 --> 0:34:37.719 according to his website, he was a director on one 0:34:37.840 --> 0:34:41.680 Force LLC and med Hire LLC while simultaneously serving as 0:34:41.719 --> 0:34:45.440 the CEO of Infinium Now. The writers at hard O 0:34:45.600 --> 0:34:49.400 c P took time to contact med Hire LLLC to 0:34:49.520 --> 0:34:52.840 check in on Roberts's history. The article states that a 0:34:52.880 --> 0:34:57.480 woman who was identified as Laura Roberts picked up the 0:34:57.520 --> 0:35:02.759 phone and indicated that Laura Roberts different person, uh, and 0:35:02.880 --> 0:35:06.680 Timothy Roberts's mother was in fact the director of med 0:35:06.760 --> 0:35:11.120 Higher lll C, and that Timothy, while being her son, 0:35:11.320 --> 0:35:16.920 was not a director. Later this same Laura Roberts said, oh, no, no, no, 0:35:16.960 --> 0:35:20.879 Timothy Roberts is a co director, but I don't have 0:35:21.040 --> 0:35:24.680 any contact information for him. I don't have a phone 0:35:24.760 --> 0:35:28.479 number or an email address or anything. And when they said, 0:35:28.840 --> 0:35:31.759 isn't it strange that you work for a company but 0:35:31.840 --> 0:35:34.640 you don't have any contact information for one of the 0:35:34.719 --> 0:35:37.799 supposed directors of this company, and her response was he 0:35:37.920 --> 0:35:41.560 changes phones a lot, which also seems a little weird. 0:35:42.080 --> 0:35:46.000 They also tried contacting when Juan Force ll C. And 0:35:46.000 --> 0:35:48.880 they found out that Timothy's brother, Peter, was the executive 0:35:48.960 --> 0:35:51.440 vice president of that company. So there's a lot of 0:35:51.480 --> 0:35:54.879 family business going on here. The piece then talks about 0:35:54.960 --> 0:35:58.480 Roberts's time at Big and Interira, which I've already covered here, 0:35:58.480 --> 0:36:00.120 so I'm not going to go back over it. The 0:36:00.160 --> 0:36:02.400 section framed Roberts as someone who had been involved in 0:36:02.440 --> 0:36:06.279 several remarkable failures, including ones that earned a reputation for 0:36:06.360 --> 0:36:11.000 lavish spending before the coffers ran dry. Next, the article 0:36:11.040 --> 0:36:15.080 turned attention towards the headquarters for the company itself. It 0:36:15.160 --> 0:36:18.680 showed that the register information listing had Infinium Labs as 0:36:18.760 --> 0:36:22.799 address noted as fifty three eighty Gulf of Mexico Drive 0:36:22.920 --> 0:36:26.840 and Longboat Key, Florida. The magazine hired a photographer to 0:36:26.880 --> 0:36:29.040 go to the address to get pictures of the location, 0:36:29.080 --> 0:36:31.640 and what they got back where photos of a small 0:36:31.719 --> 0:36:35.719 strip mall that had one open office space that had 0:36:35.800 --> 0:36:39.359 inside of it a single desk with a telephone on it. 0:36:39.960 --> 0:36:42.319 There were other small businesses at that address, but they 0:36:42.320 --> 0:36:44.840 were all identified that none of them were Infinium Labs. 0:36:45.280 --> 0:36:48.200 Six months later, the magazine had tried again, sending another 0:36:48.239 --> 0:36:51.520 photographer out to that same location. Again, there was no 0:36:51.600 --> 0:36:55.600 evidence of an office operated by Infinium Labs there. They 0:36:55.640 --> 0:36:59.080 decided to inquire at a nearby mailboxes, etcetera that was 0:36:59.200 --> 0:37:02.120 part of this area, and they found that the mail 0:37:02.239 --> 0:37:04.680 that was being sent to Infinium Labs was going to 0:37:04.760 --> 0:37:08.200 a p O box at mailboxes, etcetera, and that the 0:37:08.239 --> 0:37:11.759 company did not appear to operate any physical space at 0:37:11.840 --> 0:37:16.479 that particular address. Curiouser and curious er. Well, a story 0:37:16.520 --> 0:37:19.520 gets even more weird, But before I jump into any 0:37:19.520 --> 0:37:22.120 more of it, let's take another quick break to thank 0:37:22.120 --> 0:37:32.640 our sponsor. Back to the story so hard, OCP reaches 0:37:32.680 --> 0:37:36.240 out to Timothy Roberts to get his response, and Robert 0:37:36.280 --> 0:37:39.560 said that things were just getting started over at Infinium Labs, 0:37:39.840 --> 0:37:42.359 and he admitted that there was no physical office yet, 0:37:42.560 --> 0:37:44.520 but that it was on its way and they were 0:37:44.560 --> 0:37:47.720 just trying to, you know, get everything in order. Now 0:37:48.960 --> 0:37:51.120 you could be really generous and say, all right, I 0:37:51.160 --> 0:37:54.160 believe you, but considering that the company was going to 0:37:54.239 --> 0:37:56.520 have to go into production soon to get units out 0:37:56.560 --> 0:38:00.160 by the holiday season. That was kind of tough off 0:38:00.239 --> 0:38:04.439 right hard. O CP was really skeptical because that time 0:38:04.520 --> 0:38:06.319 was coming up quickly, and if they didn't have a 0:38:06.320 --> 0:38:09.280 physical space, how are they going to actually build these 0:38:09.320 --> 0:38:12.040 consoles that supposedly we're going to be on sale in 0:38:12.080 --> 0:38:15.880 time for the holidays. They even followed up by sending 0:38:15.920 --> 0:38:21.400 a volunteer to a different address. Athenium Labs Corporation announced 0:38:21.400 --> 0:38:24.840 it was moving into a new headquarters building at eighteen 0:38:24.960 --> 0:38:29.480 nineteen Main Street, Suite eight hundred in Sarasota, Florida, and 0:38:29.520 --> 0:38:31.840 the volunteer said that when she went to the building, 0:38:32.120 --> 0:38:35.600 she looked at the directory and saw no companies listed 0:38:35.719 --> 0:38:38.000 for the eighth floor at all. There was an eighth floor, 0:38:38.040 --> 0:38:39.960 so at least there's that, but there was no one 0:38:40.000 --> 0:38:42.480 listed for it. So she took an elevator ride on 0:38:42.640 --> 0:38:44.080 up to the eighth floor, and then she said it 0:38:44.120 --> 0:38:47.359 was a ghost town. There was there's no occupation on 0:38:47.400 --> 0:38:50.960 that floor. Now near the end of the article, you 0:38:51.000 --> 0:38:53.359 get to a pretty tough paragraph. I'm going to quote it. 0:38:54.239 --> 0:38:59.280 The facts speak for themselves. Company closures, bankruptcy, investors losing 0:38:59.320 --> 0:39:02.880 millions of dollars, and current director positions where the company 0:39:02.960 --> 0:39:06.120 isn't even sure he works for them and cannot find 0:39:06.160 --> 0:39:09.759 his email address or telephone number. Mr Roberts has been 0:39:09.760 --> 0:39:13.880 involved with one successful business venture in eight years, according 0:39:13.920 --> 0:39:16.799 to his own resume. He followed that one up with 0:39:16.880 --> 0:39:20.719 several bankrupt and failed businesses. It's been documented by other 0:39:20.800 --> 0:39:24.880 sources that millions and millions of dollars were burned through 0:39:25.000 --> 0:39:28.360 in the last six years. We think that it's possible 0:39:28.520 --> 0:39:33.239 that the same fate could very possibly befall in Phenium Labs. Now. 0:39:33.280 --> 0:39:37.120 The response from Infenium Labs was just as harsh. The 0:39:37.200 --> 0:39:39.960 company complained and said that they were going to file 0:39:40.080 --> 0:39:43.759 a lawsuit against hard O CP in Florida, saying that 0:39:44.360 --> 0:39:49.080 they had made these UH these unsubstantiated claims and accusations 0:39:49.080 --> 0:39:52.640 against the company and therefore had hurt the company's UH 0:39:52.880 --> 0:39:56.399 chances of raising money and getting investment, and therefore if 0:39:56.440 --> 0:40:00.319 they failed, it would be because of criticism them like 0:40:00.440 --> 0:40:04.280 the kind from heart O CP. Heart O CP responded 0:40:04.280 --> 0:40:09.240 by filing a lawsuit for a declatory judgment and saying 0:40:09.239 --> 0:40:12.600 that they didn't do anything wrong from a judge. So 0:40:12.640 --> 0:40:15.439 the judge decided that he would hear the case and 0:40:15.719 --> 0:40:18.880 said that in Penium Labs would need to present information 0:40:18.880 --> 0:40:23.719 about the company's business in Texas because they reportedly had 0:40:23.760 --> 0:40:27.600 an office located in Texas. They would also have to 0:40:27.800 --> 0:40:32.120 provide information about their investors board minute meetings from around 0:40:32.160 --> 0:40:34.000 the time that the article was published, in order to 0:40:34.040 --> 0:40:37.600 indicate whether the company was, as they had claimed, much 0:40:37.640 --> 0:40:41.279 further along than the article had indicated, and also other 0:40:41.320 --> 0:40:45.880 information such as Timothy Roberts's own personal income tax records. 0:40:46.320 --> 0:40:50.600 And Phenium Labs failed to acquiesce to those demands, and 0:40:50.719 --> 0:40:54.640 ultimately the company would settle out of court, reportedly paying 0:40:54.760 --> 0:40:58.400 hard O c p Fifty thou dollars in the process. 0:40:59.200 --> 0:41:02.040 Now in two thousands four, despite having nothing to show 0:41:02.080 --> 0:41:05.480 for itself other than this prototype that had been demonstrated, 0:41:05.520 --> 0:41:09.280 a couple of trade show events and Phenium Labs went public. 0:41:09.360 --> 0:41:11.520 They went from a privately held company to a publicly 0:41:11.520 --> 0:41:16.240 traded company. Timothy Roberts owned a whole lot of shares 0:41:16.280 --> 0:41:19.960 of stock, and by two thousand five things were looking 0:41:20.280 --> 0:41:24.800 particularly shady over at Infinium Labs. Remember they had missed 0:41:24.880 --> 0:41:28.760 two ship dates already with the phantom console. Well, Roberts 0:41:29.040 --> 0:41:32.280 decided to step down as CEO. He still had millions 0:41:32.280 --> 0:41:34.640 of dollars worth of stocks at the time, and he 0:41:34.680 --> 0:41:37.640 did something that got the attention of the US government. 0:41:38.000 --> 0:41:41.840 He hired a stock promoter to send out a facts 0:41:41.960 --> 0:41:45.640 blast to potential investors with claims that the company was 0:41:45.680 --> 0:41:48.640 on the verge of releasing the phantom console and then 0:41:48.640 --> 0:41:50.640 the value of the company was set to blast off 0:41:50.640 --> 0:41:54.400 into the stratosphere. So at the time, this was a 0:41:54.440 --> 0:41:59.120 penny stock, meaning super cheap stocks for in phinium labs. 0:41:59.120 --> 0:42:02.120 But with penn stocks, even the increase of just a 0:42:02.160 --> 0:42:05.799 couple of cents can mean a huge profit if you 0:42:05.840 --> 0:42:09.640 own a ton of stocks. So, as it turns out, 0:42:09.840 --> 0:42:13.200 it look like Timothy Roberts was trying to drive up 0:42:13.640 --> 0:42:17.680 the stock price before he sold off his own stock. 0:42:18.400 --> 0:42:21.160 Roberts was ready to unload it once that price goes up, 0:42:21.200 --> 0:42:24.480 and that's called a pump and dump scheme. You do 0:42:24.600 --> 0:42:26.960 something to artificially pump up the value of a stock 0:42:27.200 --> 0:42:30.640 before you sell off your supply. When the dust settles 0:42:30.880 --> 0:42:33.600 and people see that the hype was just hype, the 0:42:33.640 --> 0:42:36.080 price comes back down, but by then you're already moving 0:42:36.120 --> 0:42:38.960 on to your next gig. Right, Well, that's what the 0:42:39.200 --> 0:42:42.680 sec said Timothy Roberts had done that he had effectively 0:42:42.760 --> 0:42:46.720 run a pump and dump scam using Infinium Labs, and 0:42:46.960 --> 0:42:50.399 the SEC IS the Security Exchange Commission, that they were 0:42:50.440 --> 0:42:54.280 not happy and they had some serious concerns now Roberts 0:42:54.320 --> 0:42:57.960 would end up getting off relatively easy all things considered. 0:42:58.320 --> 0:43:01.600 He was ultimately hit with a thirty thousand dollar fine 0:43:01.719 --> 0:43:04.880 after he reached a settlement with the SEC and as 0:43:04.920 --> 0:43:08.120 part of that settlement, he also agreed to not be 0:43:08.320 --> 0:43:11.839 an officer or director of a publicly traded company for 0:43:11.960 --> 0:43:14.719 five years, and he was supposed to stop playing with 0:43:14.719 --> 0:43:19.280 penny stocks too. Back to Infinium Labs, the company changed 0:43:19.280 --> 0:43:22.480 its name to Phantom Entertainment, and by two thousand six 0:43:22.840 --> 0:43:26.239 they had kind of quietly ended all promotion and discussion 0:43:26.280 --> 0:43:30.840 of this console that never ever materialized. Instead, the company 0:43:30.880 --> 0:43:33.720 decided it was going to pivot and release a gaming 0:43:33.719 --> 0:43:37.200 mouse and keyboard, which sounded a lot like the lapboard 0:43:37.200 --> 0:43:39.520 that was originally going to be part of the Phantom 0:43:39.560 --> 0:43:43.960 console hardware. In September two thousand six, they said this 0:43:44.040 --> 0:43:47.440 lapboard was going to start hitting store shelves in November 0:43:47.480 --> 0:43:50.480 two thousand six. In reality, it would take two more 0:43:50.560 --> 0:43:53.880 years before the Lapboard was actually available towards the second 0:43:53.880 --> 0:43:57.920 half of two thousand eight. In two thousand seven, Ours 0:43:57.920 --> 0:44:02.120 Technica wrote another piece about the company, detailing its many problems, 0:44:02.160 --> 0:44:05.200 including how the headquarters had bounced around from Florida to 0:44:05.280 --> 0:44:08.480 Washington State to New York and was supposedly going to 0:44:08.520 --> 0:44:13.040 move back into Florida. The article's author, Nate Anderson, detailed 0:44:13.040 --> 0:44:16.440 the many problems the company had with various creditors and 0:44:16.480 --> 0:44:20.160 its strategy of issuing more stock when it needed cash, 0:44:20.680 --> 0:44:23.600 and it did this a lot with companies like Merrill 0:44:23.680 --> 0:44:27.520 Lynch or the Motley Fool or Center Point Property, and 0:44:27.600 --> 0:44:30.560 on three occasions by issuing stock to members of the 0:44:30.560 --> 0:44:35.799 Bishara family that had leveled three different lawsuits against the company. Now, 0:44:35.840 --> 0:44:38.879 this did not exactly paint the picture of a legitimate corporation. 0:44:39.080 --> 0:44:41.799 According to Anderson, by two thousand seven, the company had 0:44:41.840 --> 0:44:45.240 been operating at a net loss of more than seventy 0:44:45.360 --> 0:44:52.799 three million dollars. Yikes. When the Lapboard finally did come out, 0:44:53.200 --> 0:44:56.600 it ended up getting really lackluster reviews. A quick jump 0:44:56.680 --> 0:45:00.640 over to the Phantom Entertainment website shows that, amazingly enough, 0:45:01.600 --> 0:45:04.239 it still exists. I don't know if the company does, 0:45:04.239 --> 0:45:06.680 but the website still up. It hasn't been updated since 0:45:06.719 --> 0:45:09.440 two thousand eleven, but it is still there. As for 0:45:09.480 --> 0:45:12.520 Timothy Roberts, why has that scamp been up to since 0:45:12.520 --> 0:45:15.720 his departure from Athenium Labs. Well, in two thousand seven, 0:45:15.719 --> 0:45:18.960 he founded a company called Games Streamer, or at least 0:45:18.960 --> 0:45:22.040 that's when the company's press release says it was founded 0:45:22.120 --> 0:45:24.400 was two thousand seven. The actual existence of the company 0:45:24.440 --> 0:45:28.120 wasn't revealed until two thousand nine, so whether it had 0:45:28.120 --> 0:45:31.280 existed for two years secretly or not, who's to say. 0:45:31.440 --> 0:45:34.840 Now Roberts had listed himself as the CEO and CTO 0:45:35.160 --> 0:45:39.560 and president and CEO B on the company profile. This 0:45:39.600 --> 0:45:42.040 was a privately held company, however, so there was no 0:45:42.080 --> 0:45:44.200 conflict with this agreement that he had made with the 0:45:44.360 --> 0:45:47.319 SEC a few years earlier, because that only applied to 0:45:47.400 --> 0:45:50.759 publicly traded companies. It was also based in Tampa, and 0:45:50.760 --> 0:45:53.440 it was supposed to be a leading innovator in digital 0:45:53.440 --> 0:45:57.719 distribution and streaming solution for games. Now, Roberts wouldn't stay 0:45:57.760 --> 0:46:00.520 there for very long. In two thousand ten, and he 0:46:00.719 --> 0:46:04.000 and a guy named Terence F. Taylor, the CFO of 0:46:04.080 --> 0:46:08.200 game Streamer resigned to start a new company together. This 0:46:08.360 --> 0:46:12.239 was originally going to be a company called Platforms with 0:46:12.280 --> 0:46:15.040 a Z at the end, and it was a digital 0:46:15.080 --> 0:46:19.000 distribution company. But we can't leave game Streamer that quickly, 0:46:19.040 --> 0:46:22.080 you see. The company would end up suing both Roberts 0:46:22.120 --> 0:46:24.839 and Taylor. They claimed that both of them had tried 0:46:24.880 --> 0:46:30.320 to secure trade secrets belonging to game Streamers for themselves. Essentially, 0:46:30.800 --> 0:46:35.280 the allegation was that Timothy Roberts had registered domain names 0:46:35.360 --> 0:46:39.360 and trademarks under his own name rather than under the 0:46:39.520 --> 0:46:42.560 game Streamers company name, and that he then planned on 0:46:42.640 --> 0:46:45.560 using those same ideas in a business that would compete 0:46:45.560 --> 0:46:49.719 directly with game Streamers. The company also accused Roberts of 0:46:49.800 --> 0:46:52.920 threatening them, saying that he was going to reveal confidential 0:46:52.960 --> 0:46:56.480 company information that would ultimately harm the business. Now, Taylor 0:46:56.520 --> 0:47:01.000 and Roberts countersued Game Streamers. They alleged, among other things, 0:47:01.200 --> 0:47:03.799 that they were both being fired for game Streams because 0:47:03.800 --> 0:47:07.600 they refused to convert to Seventh day adventist. I am 0:47:07.640 --> 0:47:11.000 not making any of that up. Ultimately, those lawsuits would 0:47:11.000 --> 0:47:13.000 all settle out of court in two thousand eleven. But 0:47:13.200 --> 0:47:16.560 our story ain't over. Yet, folks, Roberts and Taylor would 0:47:16.600 --> 0:47:19.080 launch another business in two thousand eleven, and it was 0:47:19.120 --> 0:47:23.040 called Sevtira. It was billed as a cloud computing company 0:47:23.200 --> 0:47:26.440 and its name was a combination of Savas. Remember that 0:47:26.600 --> 0:47:30.200 was the first company Roberts had worked with, and in Tira, 0:47:30.360 --> 0:47:32.719 which was that big failed company had worked with, Which 0:47:32.760 --> 0:47:34.680 makes me wonder if Roberts was running out of ideas 0:47:34.719 --> 0:47:37.480 at this point to combine two names of previous businesses 0:47:37.480 --> 0:47:40.800 into a third one. At its height, Savtira had a 0:47:40.880 --> 0:47:45.560 valuation of five hundred million dollars. But here's the problem, 0:47:45.600 --> 0:47:50.400 it was actually worthless. In fact, Sevtira had to declare 0:47:50.480 --> 0:47:54.040 bankruptcy in two thousand twelve and it went into Chapter eleven, 0:47:54.239 --> 0:47:57.160 but then was forced into Chapter seven, which means it 0:47:57.239 --> 0:48:01.640 was liquidated. A judge ordered all assets liquidated to pay 0:48:01.680 --> 0:48:05.360 off creditors. Robertson Taylor had been selling stock certificates for 0:48:05.360 --> 0:48:08.880 a company that simply could not conduct business as was claimed. 0:48:09.360 --> 0:48:12.120 And this wasn't just bad news to wealthy investors who 0:48:12.120 --> 0:48:15.799 were out of a big wad of cash. Savtira's employees 0:48:16.000 --> 0:48:18.680 suffered as well. There were real people who had been 0:48:18.719 --> 0:48:20.800 working for a company under the belief that it was 0:48:20.840 --> 0:48:24.600 a legitimate business, but their paychecks stopped as the company 0:48:24.680 --> 0:48:27.200 ran out of cash, and toward the end, the company's 0:48:27.200 --> 0:48:30.279 bank account was at negative five thousand dollars before they 0:48:30.280 --> 0:48:34.160 were able to secure at two fifty thousand dollar alone. Allegedly, 0:48:34.239 --> 0:48:36.200 a good amount of that loan would end up going 0:48:36.239 --> 0:48:39.520 to some personal expenses that roberts had accumulated, rather than 0:48:39.560 --> 0:48:44.560 to actually pay off creditors of the company. According to prosecutors, 0:48:44.840 --> 0:48:46.520 because yes, of course this is going to end in 0:48:46.560 --> 0:48:51.040 another court case. It was all based on false revenue projections. 0:48:51.080 --> 0:48:53.600 That's what the value, the perceived value of this company 0:48:53.680 --> 0:48:57.880 was hinging upon. Robertson Taylor would be arrested on charges 0:48:57.880 --> 0:49:02.680 that they committed wire fraud. Roberts pled guilty or pleaded guilty, 0:49:02.760 --> 0:49:05.520 and his sentencing was scheduled to happen in two thousand seventeen, 0:49:05.920 --> 0:49:08.439 though as of the recording of this podcast, that still 0:49:08.440 --> 0:49:11.520 hasn't happened. It may happen sometime in mid March last 0:49:11.560 --> 0:49:15.800 I heard uh. He faces up to twenty years in prison. 0:49:16.120 --> 0:49:20.440 His buddy, Terrence Taylor, also pleaded guilty to wire fraud charges, 0:49:20.719 --> 0:49:24.240 and he was recently sentenced to five years in prison 0:49:24.320 --> 0:49:27.560 back in December two thousand seventeen. Now there's a lot 0:49:27.600 --> 0:49:30.439 more I could say about Roberts. For example, he also 0:49:30.560 --> 0:49:33.920 led a company called hashing Space, which is a bitcoin 0:49:34.080 --> 0:49:39.000 minor hosting service. Terrence Taylor was CFO over there too, 0:49:39.200 --> 0:49:42.640 but after the Feds served a six count indictment against 0:49:42.719 --> 0:49:45.680 the two guys, they both stepped down from that company. 0:49:45.920 --> 0:49:51.280 Hashing Space continued on buying out Roberts's ownership of the company. Anyway, 0:49:51.840 --> 0:49:55.160 that's the story of Timothy Roberts and the Phantom Console, 0:49:55.520 --> 0:49:59.560 and I want a cookie. I do not know to 0:49:59.680 --> 0:50:03.640 this whether another Phantom Console was ever sincerely going to 0:50:03.680 --> 0:50:06.640 be built, or if in fact it was just a 0:50:06.719 --> 0:50:09.840 shell so that Timothy Roberts could raise a lot of 0:50:09.880 --> 0:50:13.680 money from investors and then spend it however he liked. 0:50:14.239 --> 0:50:16.759 I don't know the answer to that. There are a 0:50:16.800 --> 0:50:18.880 lot of indications that show that there were at least 0:50:19.080 --> 0:50:22.839 some cursory attempts to create some hardware. And I'm sure 0:50:22.880 --> 0:50:26.080 people who are working for the Phantom are for Infinium 0:50:26.160 --> 0:50:29.200 Labs and then later Phantom Entertainment believed in their heart 0:50:29.200 --> 0:50:31.279 of hearts that they were working on a product that 0:50:31.440 --> 0:50:35.080 was going to go to market, but whether it was 0:50:35.120 --> 0:50:38.520 a sincere attempt or just a hoax from the beginning, 0:50:39.160 --> 0:50:42.720 the fact remains it never went anywhere and it became 0:50:42.800 --> 0:50:44.880 kind of the laughing stock. It was one of those 0:50:45.280 --> 0:50:48.640 things that was held up as not just something that 0:50:48.760 --> 0:50:51.239 to ridicule, but something to show as an example of 0:50:51.280 --> 0:50:54.880 what can happen with vapor wear. So an incredible story 0:50:55.600 --> 0:50:58.600 and uh, maybe we'll follow up on this later on 0:50:58.760 --> 0:51:01.520 and talk more out some of the fallout and also 0:51:01.560 --> 0:51:03.319 some of the things that have happened in the wake 0:51:03.960 --> 0:51:07.640 of the Phantom console that brought some of those ideas 0:51:07.640 --> 0:51:10.920 to life. Like I said, while those ideas were way 0:51:10.960 --> 0:51:13.360 ahead of their time, they are ones that have found 0:51:13.360 --> 0:51:17.200 their ways into various game platforms today, whether it's PC 0:51:17.280 --> 0:51:22.520 based stuff like Steam or it's video game consoles. We've 0:51:22.560 --> 0:51:27.480 seen those concepts worked into video gaming. So there were 0:51:27.520 --> 0:51:32.120 some really good ideas there. If they had been executed properly, 0:51:32.239 --> 0:51:35.240 maybe the landscape of gaming would be very different today. 0:51:35.239 --> 0:51:39.719 Maybe in Phinium Labs would be the valve of today 0:51:39.760 --> 0:51:44.040 where they'd be the dominant player in PC gaming distribution, 0:51:44.640 --> 0:51:49.560 But as it stands, not so much. And that's it. 0:51:49.719 --> 0:51:53.399 I hope you guys enjoyed the Phantom Zone and got 0:51:53.440 --> 0:51:57.839 to learn some stuff about a game console that we're 0:51:57.840 --> 0:52:00.480 still not sure exactly how far along it odd, if 0:52:00.520 --> 0:52:04.160 at all. And really it's an idea that was ahead 0:52:04.160 --> 0:52:06.239 of its time. The question is would it have been 0:52:06.320 --> 0:52:11.120 achievable back then with the technologies that were available or 0:52:11.200 --> 0:52:14.040 was it just something that was too ambitious And if 0:52:14.040 --> 0:52:16.680 they had waited maybe ten years, it would have been fine. 0:52:17.000 --> 0:52:19.680 Who's to say. If you guys have any suggestions for 0:52:19.719 --> 0:52:21.920 future episodes of tech Stuff, reach out to me on 0:52:21.960 --> 0:52:25.120 Facebook or Twitter. We use the handle text stuff hsw 0:52:25.440 --> 0:52:27.319 Let us know if you like this playlist. If you did, 0:52:27.360 --> 0:52:29.520 maybe I'll make up some more of them and we 0:52:29.560 --> 0:52:32.239 can have a few more weeks where we send out 0:52:32.239 --> 0:52:34.839 a playlist of different episodes that have a theme to them. 0:52:34.960 --> 0:52:36.840 Or if you have any specific themes you would like, 0:52:36.920 --> 0:52:40.839 like the history of big companies or a video game 0:52:41.000 --> 0:52:43.719 centric playlist, or whatever it may be, let me know 0:52:44.040 --> 0:52:46.319 and we'll see what we can do and I'll talk 0:52:46.360 --> 0:52:54.480 to you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I 0:52:54.560 --> 0:52:58.080 Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, 0:52:58.400 --> 0:53:01.560 visit the i Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever 0:53:01.640 --> 0:53:03.160 you listen to your favorite shows.