Gene Feldman: All right, everybody. Welcome to our next episode of Neon Protocol. We're here with Damon, Ron, and Dan. And of course, I'm Gene. And today we're actually joined with our guest Russ, who in a second I'm gonna let him give it give his nice introduction. but really excited to have him as a guest. He has done an immense amount of work in research and development and AI enterprise scalability. So we're really excited to have him on the call. Or the podcast, I should say, and get a chance to really pick his brain about what's working, what's not, and hopefully help us understand a little bit more of the landscape so we're not going in so much like the blind leading the blind. So Russ, I'll go ahead and turn it over to you. I apologize if it's Rustlin, Russ, but I'll let you go ahead and introduce yourself to us.
Ruslan: thank you Jean for this kind introduction. Happy to be here, colleagues. Share something which I may have in production. So no specific statistics due to policies, a lot of communication style and approach. Because I'm like represent part of my company. But
Gene Feldman: Course.
Ruslan: we do definitely like these let's say like Evolution of software development. We drive partnership. Hey Mark,
Gene Feldman: Yeah, Mark just joined.
Ruslan: yeah. we do this transformation kind of thing. very quick summary about me like 15 years in industry, started as a 3D artist. updated pipeline, go to the research and development and finished right now on a digital and cloud practice. So that's kinda tricky managerial technical position which I obtain and personal passion definitely lies into concept of like metaverses which is for me still exists but maybe we were not pro not ready to introduce to him. But yeah, that's me. I'm very happy to be here and happy to join this conversation.
Gene Feldman: No. Perfect. Thank you so much for joining. Really excuse it, I I don't know which question to start with in all honesty. but let's start with right where you started with the metaverse. So one of one of the big th qu things that we as a committee have really been evangelists of is the metaverse or cyberspace, whatever we want to call it. Like last year, we actually put together this whole immersive timeline of XR trying to determine what would be the new word. You know, of course, now we know spatial computing seems to be what's catching on. But you know, last year we had a lot of response about it. There was a lot of questions of the metaverse. We were kind of, you know, I think all of us were kind of rock stars at the time. And a year later, the evolution seems
Damon: Wait, you mean we're not still rock stars?
Gene Feldman: well in our own mind. We're we're the rock stars. I'm the rock star performing
Damon: okay. All right. Sorry. Keep going.
Gene Feldman: the country fair at the moment. Sorry, sorry for any bands that actually do that. I love you guys. just a joke. but no, where it gets to is
Damon: A joke.
Gene Feldman: you know, AI really took the sales out of it, and you hear about, you know, the metaverse is dead, XR is dead, you know, yet you're watching RP1 just launched their new browser for the met the first browser built for the metaverse. So you're still watching movement. So I guess my question is. Where do you see the metaverse or whatever we wanna call it with the evolution? Is it a standstill? Do we think it's still moving forward? I guess what are your thoughts with it since you kind of brought that question up, brought that idea up?
Ruslan: my personal
Dan Meeks: Yeah.
Ruslan: view of this ecosystem and that's kinda again state to which maybe some hardware was not fully prepared. And you see, like we were on the right stage when we were growing a customer, growing the client, so we pop we We evangelize this. So this was like right now we have very fluent customers in terms of like we measure efficiency of each application, not only like on the product, we measure it from a perspective of a user and its its age, its behaviors, and this means level of adoption. So this is very interesting part for me to measure these effectives which we have on the human body with this education and how long we can stay in this vertical metaverse by using glasses. There are some sessions when you need to be like online for two hours, and that's pretty long, and this is impossible to be used on one same battery. So Firstly, metaverse should arise from the business. So right now we see the amount of different chips, different glasses which be combined to some kind of this spatial metaverse thing like persistent space. I would like to call it like persistent virtual space which is transmitted to real world or virtual concept and full extent. So we are in a very in on the interesting spot of it because we there was a lack of emergence immersions and the lack of convenience and we are going into this direction so we during this period we just raise some consumers which are ready to for this and right now we are We are very interesting spot. I couldn't define like even cu in five years that should be like new concept of the device. So in five years we are going to have one more leap which will be which be usual because for for example like huge brands have its metaverse divisions and this is like one space when we we operate with it. So Digital twin, digital space could be merged together and again this is very interesting spots of automation of level automation. this is
Ron: Okay, I I have a question. I have
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Ron: a question. can you give us some examples of projects you've been involved with and what were these success
Dan Meeks: Well,
Ron: metrics?
Ruslan: yes, the major effect of these metaverses is of course communications and learnings. I can give you results about like training programs which took like more than six
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Ruslan: months. the K result when you try to onboard new person you hire new employee and it's this may takes like half of a year. you have understanding how much time you can compare, for example, like classical workflow, which you heard all the years, with investment in to immersive training. And for us, we consume time. For example, like training which was six months we decrease up to two months to four months of training. So onboarding time decreased from six months to four months. And if you haven't like more than five thousand five thousand heads, like five thousand employees, you save huge amount of time which could be saved and you can on board person c faster. So the K results specifically for business was decreasing onboarding time. of course there was like a knowledge retention. we compared like manuals or reading manuals to immersive trainings, and that was like a thing which influenced engagement and influenced concentration on the trainings. So the knowledge retention we They took the same exam after like a few months after we pass it first time. And again they we have increase in knowledge quality. All this knowledge quality turns into revenue and to effectiveness of each employee. So our metrics are measured against classical processes and we we compare them to like Pixel per dollar or something like this. So we can measure everything specifically which influence like the most of the people in your organization, for example. I hope it answered.
Gene Feldman: Nice. What do you
Dan Meeks: Russ.
Gene Feldman: we're all excited to ask a question.
Dan Meeks: Russ, I was gonna push back a little bit on Russ, I'm gonna push back a little bit on on how you said that it's an interesting interesting time. I'm also finding that there's a maturation of all the supporting technologies, meaning that we're now resultant in a closed environment. So when a business wants to do something, they need to do a complete adoption of an ecosystem. and there's probably no way of getting out of that ecosystem. without great expense. So while wh while you're saying there's all these cool things that are going on, you're having to sign up for stuff that in the past you didn't have to sign up for. and there's a lot of things that you can't turn off like you used to be able to many years ago. So while it's promising and and things are miniaturizing and all the pain points that we have in XR, especially in training, are slowly diminishing. You know, all the little things that people complain about why they won't put on the goggles are slowly going away. We're getting this whole slew of new complaints, such as, you know, all the user data is getting uploaded, even though we have a a data sovereignty policy. All these little things that are just s slowly chipping away, when we went into this game thinking, hey, I bought this thing, I get to hack it, I get to make an awesome solution and then drive a profit. that no longer seems to be the landscape with technology. And And I think you're in Spain, correct, Russ?
Ruslan: Lisbon, Portuguese.
Dan Meeks: Lisbon, okay, sorry. Close enough for an American. so
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Dan Meeks: what I'm getting at is you're you're right in the middle of this huge power struggle between Americans, China, and also the European Union trying to to throw their weight around with how people do technology. So I'm I'm kind of curious how how you navigate all that stuff when you're kind of getting forced to adopt certain ecosystems and they're all their terms and conditions. That come along with it.
Ruslan: Each solution, each ecosystems definitely have huge amount of policies and sometimes we have specific SMEs who help us to conduct business and to comply to specific standardizations, law policies. So general, like we have standards of for cooperating in various environments and various in various conditions and various markets. So we are very flexible in terms of in terms of cooperation. So that's kinda i important part definitely which you have mentioned with this so we always should be flexible and Sometimes solutions are more on consultancy thing than just developing and doing something. So sometimes we challenge just ideas and Definitely not always this has like a commercial benefits, benefits. So a lot of such products should be verified pretty fast, yeah.
Gene Feldman: So based on that, what were you think of your biggest assumptions or your aha moments from that? You know, as you're going through it, was there anything that you know, the lessons learned going, okay, we did it this way, maybe we should have done it this way, or really I guess any background insights you may have from gotten from that?
Ruslan: the most important thing about all of that it's like it should be first of all it's should be convenient and it should be engaging. well the speed of this engagement which you can give in using the technology right now. So a lot of times with res the speed of response right now is the most important thing and the speed how quickly you can consume tokens and show operational excellence. So right now for us this is very crucial. we understand that the SAS is struggling because we each employee becomes much more efficient than it was previously. So right now when we can operate in terms of technology, we see that technology is delivers 1.4 to general velocity of same teams without with and without AI accessories and AI tools at this point. So even in like metaverse concepts, so in game development We see everywhere how hugely we were influenced by this. So we develop new cycles of development. So that's very interesting
Gene Feldman: How interesting.
Ruslan: point, even like on sales of that. Yeah.
Gene Feldman: Yeah. So I think these are the things that people don't often think about when they're trying to do this. Like I often make the joke that a lot of companies have initiated co-pilot and they they've that's their digital transformation box checked off. You know, they na they are now an AI company. You know, it's like the AI ready computers from you know, a couple years ago. And so I find that a lot of people are doing these kind of knee-jerk reactions. They're going to it without Really, I guess, and this where it kind of comes into your RD background, they're not well, I feel not doing the research. They're just hearing these talking points from either news articles or I'm not gonna blame the media, but I will blame the internet. You know, they're hearing these things and then they're walking out with kind of half the knowledge, not understanding the long game of this, you know, like you get into the tokens. You know, I think once people realize that it costs the token or it costs to use AI, that all of a sudden it's different. You know, like what I'm really amazed by right now is how two years ago nobody wanted Bitcoin and mining anywhere near their houses, anywhere near them. And now we just have these giant data centers that everybody wants them around. And so I find that shift in even our thought of how we're looking at the technologies really changing. And that really kinda comes from that research and I guess the insights of looking deep down. If that made sense, I feel like I kind of just really went off a tangent on that one.
Damon: Was there a question in there, Gene?
Gene Feldman: There really wasn't a question. It was more of just the observation that, you know, as we're really watching, you know, this technology come through. And I feel like sometimes, and this is where I really wanted to get in the conversation with, you know, Russ is how important the research piece of this is. We get so excited about the implementation. We get so excited about the coolness of the tool that we're not looking at what are the lessons learned, which is what we're trying to do with this podcast. But really,
Dan Meeks: Thank you.
Gene Feldman: how important is it to have how deep of a working understanding and a knowledge and research do you need to have to be able to start making these decisions and start adjusting the workflow? Cause like you said, you need to create a whole new workflow. You know, I mean, I I was there. You know, a lot of us that were at the beginning of these XR at the XRs, kind of like with AI, there wasn't anybody in front of us. We're just kind of fiddling about, hoping it works. You know, and but it was all based off our research of the past. And so I guess for AI is how value do you, you know, for people getting into this, how valuable is that research to be able to even know which direction to go? Does that make sense? There's my
Ruslan: Do you think that's
Gene Feldman: question, Damon. I don't know if it works, but I'm going with it.
Damon: Russ, what one way of reframing that question to you is w w the peop your customers when they come to you, can you tell have they done any research at all?
Ruslan: So they won't get the children that would be so.
Damon: And if not, how do you even begin to onboard them?
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Ruslan: that's very interesting.
Damon: Or do they just or do they just see your numbers and say, Hey, I
Dan Meeks: I think.
Damon: want those wonderful numbers too and
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Damon: you're stuck trying to educate them before you can actually, you know, engage them.
Ruslan: Yes, there is always like success stories and we the story could begin with multiple directions.
Damon: Sorry. You can pick pick a direction for your own conversational purposes then. Yeah.
Ruslan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand, but such projects could be like a coinvestment. sometimes you understand this and you do this concept together with clients. Sometimes you
Damon: Interesting.
Ruslan: influence on a pre sale. On a pre sale if client have prepared all documents, some requirements, gave you some materials, you can even prototype something and go on pre sale with a prototype, the vision. the design like we can produce like these AI first stage let's say like this is like influence software development lifecycle. This influence like I can come to you with with a vision of what you have gave and do a revision of it. So it will be p a valuable in terms of like alignment of is it what you see or let's say like do the first move and show you but we understand you like this is this is in this is like not like even advantage right now. This is like some flow which appeared this like in in in a year or so. So we it's not enough to be good just consultancy company or have some kind of You should have some advantages like operating with the main vendors and the main players on the market, but only this is like average world of IT services right now at any point.
Mark G: Hey Russ, just to kind of play off that, could you talk about because what I'm hearing is sort of strategies, right? Could you talk a little bit more about that sort of concept of go to market strategies related to XR and AI currently in the market? Could you share a little bit more of that as specific to maybe Europe or your primary customers right now?
Ruslan: trainings, immersive trainings, it's the major approach. we are going with meta. We use mostly the the devices, it's very capable devices. it good it was great for enterprise solutions and it was enough for immersive environments and operations with like on physical processes so. on physical flows. the major thing was here the point of equality and various tests with quality settings, art styles, and again the major point there was still communication how how how much managerial time we can save on trainings with AI and its tools. So that was efficiency and how much cost per task we are received from each tool which we are trying to do. So right now the major strategy of a q big companies might be that we want a personal AI initiatives and AI centers with multiple agents, compliance agents, agents of data intake, so thirty percent of all kinds of operations might be involved in these transformations so there is like a huge amount of processes which which could be augmented.
Gene Feldman: Nice. Now a little side question though, that I'm really curious because with meta you know, using the meta headsets, you know, with Quest for Business going, you know, they're closing it up, what, next year? 2027? What are companies looking to to help manage their headsets now? You know, I know there were some companies that were offering like custom build infrastructures that'll help you manage, but with meta not providing that now, how or how do you think this is gonna impact companies or where can I personal don't you don't need to give me your blueprint of what you guys are doing, but where do you think some people can now start going to help manage the headsets? So we don't have
Ruslan: So it's
Gene Feldman: to go back to side loading and all the nonsense with
Ruslan: Yeah, I understand that side loading may work on a five headsets.
Gene Feldman: When you have two hundred, it's a whole nother ball game. I
Damon: Five old
Ruslan: When when it's like two hundredths and you need to track version control, yeah, it's like variable game which I saw diff where it was like a horrible licensed system. If you want some advanced features you always should mm buy a wrapper on general settings and only after this you have some advanced features which you can contain with like web of whole devices. we have an exit strategy. We had exit strategy with I think one of the companies which we had bought and that we will transfer to them a Brock 6R or something like this. I I don't want to sell or market something, but I've heard about exit strategy which we will use and it was like I assume not next year, in two years. but I should verify this so yeah that will be a question we all wait for quest three quest four but where might be our strategy to jump to PICOS and Picos have are they are less powerful let's say like on 30% less powerful in terms of graphic but in some models which are let's say like mono devices which you can wear and go so but where are we capable to not send our streams to meta servers so we can can do enclosed space with streaming from where those glasses so there are some hidden advantages
Dan Meeks: Okay, great.
Ruslan: which we can use but
Gene Feldman: Nice.
Ruslan: We can s have different ad devices strategy. So we are s we are I personally I'm looking to VR glasses and various types where we can jump to them. So there are multiple
Dan Meeks: Right.
Ruslan: ways where how market could guide us.
Gene Feldman: Nice. Yeah, 'cause I know they're good.
Dan Meeks: Help help this ignorant American a little bit. So when I watch the EU, they're trying to get rid of Microsoft right now. So they they switched over to Libra Office. because on honestly all these SaaS companies, they're they're well, I can go on a whole tangent about them. But but you know, usually I'm at loggerheads with the
Gene Feldman: Ha ha ha.
Dan Meeks: EU. I think they made the right call this time, which is to go towards an open source thing. But my question is, you know, with with all these things that are EU funded because your taxes is so ridiculously high. Why why isn't anybody figuring out how to jailbreak the meta and make their own operating system for the EU? Like like if I had that bag of money, I'd be working on that problem. has anybody ever floated that on your side or do you just go, well, Meta's changed the terms of service again. I guess we're just gonna have to roll with this. Like, are are are there any urges to to kind of be sovereign about the headsets that you actually own that you've bought for for all your projects? Sorry that's a little adversarial, but it's like You guys got the resources to do this, so I'm kinda wondering why that hasn't been done or tried. Some university must be trying it. Anyway.
Ruslan: Yeah, our headquarters is in New York. So I would like to say I fully aligned the view on
Gene Feldman: Ha ha ha.
Dan Meeks: I think I just got my answer there, brother.
Damon: You got your legal response.
Ruslan: Yeah.
Gene Feldman: Fair enough.
Mark G: Insert fine print in the recording.
Ruslan: here
Damon: that was a good one.
Ruslan: are very very modern taxes and yes it is Europe but yeah for example I understand the ecosystem for startups in Europe for any kind of ideas, it's like life on a very hard mode. we can see it in just comparing the strategies. let's say like result of strategies of amount of unicorns which we may see in states and this is like fascinating, like we understand where it goes, so
Dan Meeks: Yeah, the the the trend that I saw over over the past decade is a plucky little company, typically in Italy, will come up with a magical idea and I'm like, Yes, let's make that happen and then they start going down that road and then the bureaucracy starts chipping away at them and then they pursue all these certifications that they gotta get, and before you know it they ran out of money. So
Mark G: Or the or the legality is what takes them out from prior
Dan Meeks: Yeah.
Mark G: licensing agreements and things of that nature, yeah.
Dan Meeks: Which is great. Like sometimes I really admire in the EU that they're they try to really look out for their citizens and look for their well being and I I can understand that approach, you know, for a as an outsider I can I can get my mind into that. But at the same time they kind of hug you to death with with too many rules that you have to follow. And this is an emerging technology where we really don't know how stuff's gonna work out. So, yeah, man, it it's gotta be hard in Europe sometimes, you know, after after you get that first little sip of success.
Ruslan: Yeah, they definitely feel it and they definitely see it in results of improvements and companies and returns and so it is like it is what it is. I cannot add anything here. I don't
Damon: Well once once the
Dan Meeks: Well, I I'll just
Damon: camera stops rolling, maybe
Dan Meeks: finish the argument on I mean there's there's the other side of the coin where, you know, like here in in America, it's it it literally is the Wild West and you know,
Damon: Texas.
Dan Meeks: I end up with a an AI model installed on my computer against my wishes. So, you know, there's there's the other side of that coin. You get to move fast and break things, but sometimes the thing that gets broken is yours. So it I I don't know where the balance is. And that's one of the things I search
Gene Feldman: Well, it's also
Dan Meeks: for.
Gene Feldman: it's also the speed of of the adoption of it, you know, like it always takes me back to, you know, the YouTube incident where all of us whether we listen to YouTube or not, were granted their newest record and we couldn't get rid of it. You know? and so you know, so what I find is that really it comes down to the adoption of it where some countries will adopt to it faster, some won't kind of the geographic region, but where I'm seeing is that the technology is moving so fast, at what point do we put the guardrails on it? Yeah, and I only bring this up because over the past weekend was San Diego Comic Con. for those of you that can see my camera, see my background, understand why that was such a very big deal for me. I'm you know, all the Marvel news came out. We got Ghost Rider. We I mean
Mark G: For those that can't see his camera, he's a real nerd. He's got a lot of stuff in behind him, so God help us.
Gene Feldman: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I have the whole new especially the whole new mask collection from loyal subjects. Love them. So but anyways, so it Comic Con, a place where they love technology. This is the place to take new technology. These are these are the people. Guess what the number one banned item was this year? The metaglasses.
Damon: AR glasses. AR glasses, yeah. Meta specifically.
Gene Feldman: almost every celebrity in front of their booth had no meta glasses. I mean, called out very specifically, very big. You know, and I remember going to a Comic Con when they first came out. I'm like, these are the greatest things in the world. But that's the problem, is that the technology is moving so fast, I think we're having trouble not only keeping up with it, but understanding even where the by the time we're ready for guardrails, it's already out and has been out and the cat's out of the back. If that makes sense. And I think sometimes we're we're running into that issue.
Dan Meeks: And Russland, I'm I wanted your opinion on this because I I I got to go on a trip once and I I work on the military side of things and I and I took an HTC headset and I handed it to an airman and he wouldn't want to put it on. Because well first he thought it was a meta headset, and I'm like, no, different company. But at the same time, he was like, I don't want that thing taking pictures of my eyes. And I'm like, well, this one doesn't have the eye tracking, but anyway, like I kept on giving him answers like Hey man, this one this is the good one. you it's okay, but how how do you how do you work with that on your side where like just as Gene said, you know, there there's all these consequences that have befallen us as the technology matures.
Ruslan: church.
Dan Meeks: How how do you how do you drive a wedge and go, no, it's cool, we got ya, here's why. X, Y, and Z. Walk the dog on that for us, please.
Ruslan: yeah, so very great question about users because we may have absolutely different users, different cultures, different ages, different languages and different business units, and we have like unique materials related to each of them. So we have unique structures of legal, we have unique structures of ethical rules of everything is customed to right now. So that's a that's a good thing that you receive a proper communication and proper results of peace. So It helps you it helps us to create idea of unique agents persistent like which which influence you and act like some kind of personal guidance. But you were right in mentioning like we should have really Tough guard rails and standard standardized security policies with operating with this data. right now we are using specific frameworks to guard like toxicity. we need to understand how we should answer some specific guardrails, specific topics which we are not answering, not communicating. So we when we operate with this ethical part, we are trying to adjust it and adjust it to your proper style and way of communication of a user. But you mentioned that c there could be some cases when People will not try VR or immersive world and we were afraid. w we were scared of it and we do not want to go back. And that's kind of things which are like five percent of users which could experience this. So not every user
Dan Meeks: Not every
Ruslan: could definitely use
Dan Meeks: Do you have alternatives for that that remaining five percent? You know, tablet
Ruslan: Yes.
Dan Meeks: and you know, spatial tracking, for instance. Okay.
Ruslan: and that's a very cool question technically because for me these metaverses are should be experienced by infrastructure which client may have. For example, if you have iPads, we can do this application which will have connection with you via multiplayer and you will be in one space. So for example, like you will be on the one lesson. on one pipeline executing this and you can beat from iPads and you can be from vertical glasses so you're in the one world so you allowing people to use 2D interfaces to handle it in like with UI of VR and with UI of Android phone it could be
Dan Meeks: I don't
Ruslan: iPhone it could be a tablet It depends how to you where you port this device. Sometimes
Dan Meeks: So is a so is it bringing your own device actually a part of your strategy sometimes?
Ruslan: we should be sustainable. If your you may have like if you're a huge company, you may have like multiple type of devices already in your infrastructure, and we should build these places like gamification places with different interfaces through infrastructure which you have. It could be like if you have like all corporations with iPads. We can deliver to iPads, but we say that we start with iPad version like ten, twelve, fourteen, and you could enter these worlds in trainings or immersive lessons from these applications. And this is like distribution of a same s medium of to be present in these virtual spaces. But I fully agree with you that AR glasses I hope this will be the next step devices to full full VR glasses which could be word on your face. And I think as in the beginning we said that not all the brands we allow to put something on our faces. So we could It's pretty hard to put even AR glasses to a person who is not wearing glasses. But for business purposes that could be like a different type of device which we are hoping to use it. Because for me these AR glasses is very interesting product and this is like something which you can use external calculations powers and have to process it like very complex things and ideas which were not possibly previously to send. But yeah.
Damon: Do do you see the the glasses? you're excited about them. Do you see those as key to scaling in enterprise in the future?
Ruslan: Yes, I see that right now, even right now a lot of enterprises have even ecosystems of immersive trainings. And for them it will be very interesting like a new new device to renew the program because even like these devices could live up to physically one, two years. three years after this it should be maintained, renewed or changed. So if adoption could be increased by, for example, like new devices by Qualcomm, it could be interesting for operations to use it. For example, in logistics, on a warehouse logistics. there might be some places when we you could be devices could be updated and maintained in terms of AR glasses immediately like this is could be the quick update solution. in our places it's like heavy instructions, so a lot of compliance, a lot of verifications with visual verifications of quality. But the major thing here be like again involvement with AI and the quality of analysis analyze data which is proceeding. So for me it's example for example if you have construction of a whole plant and data center or whatever and you are just going with CR glasses and we conduct the results which can was achieved through the day or and then compared and added to virtual models. So we we have very powerful thing which we are putting on consum on users. this
Damon: That's right.
Ruslan: again this joining it with AI layers and could be very powerful new instrument for operations. But again we need to put glasses on a person who never were who you who never used to use them. That kind of thing. So
Mark G: Russ, do you sort of see the rise of what I would call when like Google Glass came out, I saw a lot of what I would call HUD-based workflows coming into enterprise. Do you sort of see like a a revival of that coming back with the changes in the the device platforms?
Ruslan: thank you for a question, Mark. In terms of operating with the users with client facing directly, I w there are some possible things how it could be like but again the level of privacy and the level of cooperating in such extent could this is like very maybe too innovative for now. for example, like if you do some recording or something, whereas should be always like even like visual indicator of this cooperation, and you should have consent of a person to operate with
Damon: Right, that's right.
Ruslan: it, to pro to do the client facing thing. Inside of training cooperation, internal operations, operational excellence, use in a warehouse, you you you do not need it. Yeah. Like you you have consent when you work with employees on a specific job which we are assigned. So definitely no one wants to to s to know what the way we're looking how you were taking a shower or something like Y you do not expect this through the glasses which you obtain and but very important point in terms of privacy specifically for a big company. So very like very interesting technology like splat splatting like vertical scans with through with points. where we could pre-train people for specific environments, but again that's not very scalable because I need to scan each space. There are multiple like new cool features which are arising, but again the economy further we could have like Bitcoin for tokens of a yard We do not know how this calculation power will be solved. I hope we will finally invent fusion and finally unlimited energy, but I doubt that we are going to share it easily with everyone.
Gene Feldman: So, Russ, we're at the point now where one of the things that we like to do, first off, thank you for joining us. It's been absolutely incredible. As you can see, we would love to have you back. I think there's going to be more questions for you as we digest the conversation. but it's really a great opportunity to talk to somebody like you that can really offer not only advice but insight onto things that have worked, things that haven't, but also just keeping the seeing the long picture of of where it can go really I think really gives us support in the face of AI taking over everything and XR not getting a lot of love. But one of the things that we like to ask our guests is for a final protocol. So if there's a thought or a piece of advice or something that you think would be important for our listeners to hear, You know, it's one of those things that I think all of us that have been airviewed, we always wish somebody would ask we always have that question we wish somebody would ask us because we have that answer ready to go 'cause we love talking about it. So this is kind of that opportunity. You know, do you would you be willing to share like a final protocol insight, suggestion or advice for anybody that's listening?
Ruslan: the interesting question
Dan Meeks: Mm-hmm.
Ruslan: about this is definitely like adoption for me. feasibility. For me it's effectiveness of what you do. So for me when all this time in R D and different processes related to creation of something new and testing ideas, the amount of rates when your idea fail or your project fails is pretty high because you are testing the water, you're testing like with the limit that it touches and for this thing I just will suggest that even like if something like is successful and you can see results of it which influence let's say like pretty sustainable to your mind to your company to you and let's say to your ideas. That's very important because it sparks and sparks technology it's not a way what everyone wants to go with but this is very exciting and fascinating thing you can choose. So you should love this before you can start to do this. So you see like I understand how much passion was pulled into this position and to things which we do and how much we invest in this world. we I I I I think I recreated more than thousand at least, like different art objects, scales, mini projects, warehouses and Amount of worlds which you create and you understand that and just let's say like fifteen percent of them are feasible and you can do something with them. This is amazing, like this passion of of creation parts inside of Xara metaverses and these w realms, let's call them realms.
Damon: Mm-hmm.
Gene Feldman: Nice. Very nice. I love that. It it seems to be a common
Damon: Thank you. Yeah.
Gene Feldman: thing. You have to love this d to to be in this type of industry. But I love it. Russ, thank you so much for joining. just to let you know that we always w like to make this offer that if you ever want to join as a panel member, if you ever want to come back because you have an update you want to share or maybe you c discovered a new insight or something new that you're like, you know what, this would be really good for everybody to hear. There is always a seat open for you. Just reach out. I never want to send out just random emails or hit over hit you with schedules. So but if you ever want to come back, please let me know. to the rest of the of the Neon Protocol team, thank you guys for joining and taking the time out today. as with everybody, you know, we've got some new things that we're trying to work on to kind of help keep some of the headlines in the news. As well as if you're a listener and you have a story that you would like to share, please feel free to contact us and reach out and we will take a look at it. as well as be sure to click the like, follow, share, help us grow. We're slowly gaining an audience and we would love any support that you would be willing to give, including sponsorship. We'll definitely take sponsorship. we're capitalists here. No, seriously. Thank you guys for joining and happy Tuesday to everybody.
Mark G: Cheers all.
Damon: Happy Tuesday.
Ruslan: Yeah.
Ruslan: thank you Jean for this kind introduction. Happy to be here, colleagues. Share something which I may have in production. So no specific statistics due to policies, a lot of communication style and approach. Because I'm like represent part of my company. But
Gene Feldman: Course.
Ruslan: we do definitely like these let's say like Evolution of software development. We drive partnership. Hey Mark,
Gene Feldman: Yeah, Mark just joined.
Ruslan: yeah. we do this transformation kind of thing. very quick summary about me like 15 years in industry, started as a 3D artist. updated pipeline, go to the research and development and finished right now on a digital and cloud practice. So that's kinda tricky managerial technical position which I obtain and personal passion definitely lies into concept of like metaverses which is for me still exists but maybe we were not pro not ready to introduce to him. But yeah, that's me. I'm very happy to be here and happy to join this conversation.
Gene Feldman: No. Perfect. Thank you so much for joining. Really excuse it, I I don't know which question to start with in all honesty. but let's start with right where you started with the metaverse. So one of one of the big th qu things that we as a committee have really been evangelists of is the metaverse or cyberspace, whatever we want to call it. Like last year, we actually put together this whole immersive timeline of XR trying to determine what would be the new word. You know, of course, now we know spatial computing seems to be what's catching on. But you know, last year we had a lot of response about it. There was a lot of questions of the metaverse. We were kind of, you know, I think all of us were kind of rock stars at the time. And a year later, the evolution seems
Damon: Wait, you mean we're not still rock stars?
Gene Feldman: well in our own mind. We're we're the rock stars. I'm the rock star performing
Damon: okay. All right. Sorry. Keep going.
Gene Feldman: the country fair at the moment. Sorry, sorry for any bands that actually do that. I love you guys. just a joke. but no, where it gets to is
Damon: A joke.
Gene Feldman: you know, AI really took the sales out of it, and you hear about, you know, the metaverse is dead, XR is dead, you know, yet you're watching RP1 just launched their new browser for the met the first browser built for the metaverse. So you're still watching movement. So I guess my question is. Where do you see the metaverse or whatever we wanna call it with the evolution? Is it a standstill? Do we think it's still moving forward? I guess what are your thoughts with it since you kind of brought that question up, brought that idea up?
Ruslan: my personal
Dan Meeks: Yeah.
Ruslan: view of this ecosystem and that's kinda again state to which maybe some hardware was not fully prepared. And you see, like we were on the right stage when we were growing a customer, growing the client, so we pop we We evangelize this. So this was like right now we have very fluent customers in terms of like we measure efficiency of each application, not only like on the product, we measure it from a perspective of a user and its its age, its behaviors, and this means level of adoption. So this is very interesting part for me to measure these effectives which we have on the human body with this education and how long we can stay in this vertical metaverse by using glasses. There are some sessions when you need to be like online for two hours, and that's pretty long, and this is impossible to be used on one same battery. So Firstly, metaverse should arise from the business. So right now we see the amount of different chips, different glasses which be combined to some kind of this spatial metaverse thing like persistent space. I would like to call it like persistent virtual space which is transmitted to real world or virtual concept and full extent. So we are in a very in on the interesting spot of it because we there was a lack of emergence immersions and the lack of convenience and we are going into this direction so we during this period we just raise some consumers which are ready to for this and right now we are We are very interesting spot. I couldn't define like even cu in five years that should be like new concept of the device. So in five years we are going to have one more leap which will be which be usual because for for example like huge brands have its metaverse divisions and this is like one space when we we operate with it. So Digital twin, digital space could be merged together and again this is very interesting spots of automation of level automation. this is
Ron: Okay, I I have a question. I have
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Ron: a question. can you give us some examples of projects you've been involved with and what were these success
Dan Meeks: Well,
Ron: metrics?
Ruslan: yes, the major effect of these metaverses is of course communications and learnings. I can give you results about like training programs which took like more than six
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Ruslan: months. the K result when you try to onboard new person you hire new employee and it's this may takes like half of a year. you have understanding how much time you can compare, for example, like classical workflow, which you heard all the years, with investment in to immersive training. And for us, we consume time. For example, like training which was six months we decrease up to two months to four months of training. So onboarding time decreased from six months to four months. And if you haven't like more than five thousand five thousand heads, like five thousand employees, you save huge amount of time which could be saved and you can on board person c faster. So the K results specifically for business was decreasing onboarding time. of course there was like a knowledge retention. we compared like manuals or reading manuals to immersive trainings, and that was like a thing which influenced engagement and influenced concentration on the trainings. So the knowledge retention we They took the same exam after like a few months after we pass it first time. And again they we have increase in knowledge quality. All this knowledge quality turns into revenue and to effectiveness of each employee. So our metrics are measured against classical processes and we we compare them to like Pixel per dollar or something like this. So we can measure everything specifically which influence like the most of the people in your organization, for example. I hope it answered.
Gene Feldman: Nice. What do you
Dan Meeks: Russ.
Gene Feldman: we're all excited to ask a question.
Dan Meeks: Russ, I was gonna push back a little bit on Russ, I'm gonna push back a little bit on on how you said that it's an interesting interesting time. I'm also finding that there's a maturation of all the supporting technologies, meaning that we're now resultant in a closed environment. So when a business wants to do something, they need to do a complete adoption of an ecosystem. and there's probably no way of getting out of that ecosystem. without great expense. So while wh while you're saying there's all these cool things that are going on, you're having to sign up for stuff that in the past you didn't have to sign up for. and there's a lot of things that you can't turn off like you used to be able to many years ago. So while it's promising and and things are miniaturizing and all the pain points that we have in XR, especially in training, are slowly diminishing. You know, all the little things that people complain about why they won't put on the goggles are slowly going away. We're getting this whole slew of new complaints, such as, you know, all the user data is getting uploaded, even though we have a a data sovereignty policy. All these little things that are just s slowly chipping away, when we went into this game thinking, hey, I bought this thing, I get to hack it, I get to make an awesome solution and then drive a profit. that no longer seems to be the landscape with technology. And And I think you're in Spain, correct, Russ?
Ruslan: Lisbon, Portuguese.
Dan Meeks: Lisbon, okay, sorry. Close enough for an American. so
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Dan Meeks: what I'm getting at is you're you're right in the middle of this huge power struggle between Americans, China, and also the European Union trying to to throw their weight around with how people do technology. So I'm I'm kind of curious how how you navigate all that stuff when you're kind of getting forced to adopt certain ecosystems and they're all their terms and conditions. That come along with it.
Ruslan: Each solution, each ecosystems definitely have huge amount of policies and sometimes we have specific SMEs who help us to conduct business and to comply to specific standardizations, law policies. So general, like we have standards of for cooperating in various environments and various in various conditions and various markets. So we are very flexible in terms of in terms of cooperation. So that's kinda i important part definitely which you have mentioned with this so we always should be flexible and Sometimes solutions are more on consultancy thing than just developing and doing something. So sometimes we challenge just ideas and Definitely not always this has like a commercial benefits, benefits. So a lot of such products should be verified pretty fast, yeah.
Gene Feldman: So based on that, what were you think of your biggest assumptions or your aha moments from that? You know, as you're going through it, was there anything that you know, the lessons learned going, okay, we did it this way, maybe we should have done it this way, or really I guess any background insights you may have from gotten from that?
Ruslan: the most important thing about all of that it's like it should be first of all it's should be convenient and it should be engaging. well the speed of this engagement which you can give in using the technology right now. So a lot of times with res the speed of response right now is the most important thing and the speed how quickly you can consume tokens and show operational excellence. So right now for us this is very crucial. we understand that the SAS is struggling because we each employee becomes much more efficient than it was previously. So right now when we can operate in terms of technology, we see that technology is delivers 1.4 to general velocity of same teams without with and without AI accessories and AI tools at this point. So even in like metaverse concepts, so in game development We see everywhere how hugely we were influenced by this. So we develop new cycles of development. So that's very interesting
Gene Feldman: How interesting.
Ruslan: point, even like on sales of that. Yeah.
Gene Feldman: Yeah. So I think these are the things that people don't often think about when they're trying to do this. Like I often make the joke that a lot of companies have initiated co-pilot and they they've that's their digital transformation box checked off. You know, they na they are now an AI company. You know, it's like the AI ready computers from you know, a couple years ago. And so I find that a lot of people are doing these kind of knee-jerk reactions. They're going to it without Really, I guess, and this where it kind of comes into your RD background, they're not well, I feel not doing the research. They're just hearing these talking points from either news articles or I'm not gonna blame the media, but I will blame the internet. You know, they're hearing these things and then they're walking out with kind of half the knowledge, not understanding the long game of this, you know, like you get into the tokens. You know, I think once people realize that it costs the token or it costs to use AI, that all of a sudden it's different. You know, like what I'm really amazed by right now is how two years ago nobody wanted Bitcoin and mining anywhere near their houses, anywhere near them. And now we just have these giant data centers that everybody wants them around. And so I find that shift in even our thought of how we're looking at the technologies really changing. And that really kinda comes from that research and I guess the insights of looking deep down. If that made sense, I feel like I kind of just really went off a tangent on that one.
Damon: Was there a question in there, Gene?
Gene Feldman: There really wasn't a question. It was more of just the observation that, you know, as we're really watching, you know, this technology come through. And I feel like sometimes, and this is where I really wanted to get in the conversation with, you know, Russ is how important the research piece of this is. We get so excited about the implementation. We get so excited about the coolness of the tool that we're not looking at what are the lessons learned, which is what we're trying to do with this podcast. But really,
Dan Meeks: Thank you.
Gene Feldman: how important is it to have how deep of a working understanding and a knowledge and research do you need to have to be able to start making these decisions and start adjusting the workflow? Cause like you said, you need to create a whole new workflow. You know, I mean, I I was there. You know, a lot of us that were at the beginning of these XR at the XRs, kind of like with AI, there wasn't anybody in front of us. We're just kind of fiddling about, hoping it works. You know, and but it was all based off our research of the past. And so I guess for AI is how value do you, you know, for people getting into this, how valuable is that research to be able to even know which direction to go? Does that make sense? There's my
Ruslan: Do you think that's
Gene Feldman: question, Damon. I don't know if it works, but I'm going with it.
Damon: Russ, what one way of reframing that question to you is w w the peop your customers when they come to you, can you tell have they done any research at all?
Ruslan: So they won't get the children that would be so.
Damon: And if not, how do you even begin to onboard them?
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Ruslan: that's very interesting.
Damon: Or do they just or do they just see your numbers and say, Hey, I
Dan Meeks: I think.
Damon: want those wonderful numbers too and
Gene Feldman: Yeah.
Damon: you're stuck trying to educate them before you can actually, you know, engage them.
Ruslan: Yes, there is always like success stories and we the story could begin with multiple directions.
Damon: Sorry. You can pick pick a direction for your own conversational purposes then. Yeah.
Ruslan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand, but such projects could be like a coinvestment. sometimes you understand this and you do this concept together with clients. Sometimes you
Damon: Interesting.
Ruslan: influence on a pre sale. On a pre sale if client have prepared all documents, some requirements, gave you some materials, you can even prototype something and go on pre sale with a prototype, the vision. the design like we can produce like these AI first stage let's say like this is like influence software development lifecycle. This influence like I can come to you with with a vision of what you have gave and do a revision of it. So it will be p a valuable in terms of like alignment of is it what you see or let's say like do the first move and show you but we understand you like this is this is in this is like not like even advantage right now. This is like some flow which appeared this like in in in a year or so. So we it's not enough to be good just consultancy company or have some kind of You should have some advantages like operating with the main vendors and the main players on the market, but only this is like average world of IT services right now at any point.
Mark G: Hey Russ, just to kind of play off that, could you talk about because what I'm hearing is sort of strategies, right? Could you talk a little bit more about that sort of concept of go to market strategies related to XR and AI currently in the market? Could you share a little bit more of that as specific to maybe Europe or your primary customers right now?
Ruslan: trainings, immersive trainings, it's the major approach. we are going with meta. We use mostly the the devices, it's very capable devices. it good it was great for enterprise solutions and it was enough for immersive environments and operations with like on physical processes so. on physical flows. the major thing was here the point of equality and various tests with quality settings, art styles, and again the major point there was still communication how how how much managerial time we can save on trainings with AI and its tools. So that was efficiency and how much cost per task we are received from each tool which we are trying to do. So right now the major strategy of a q big companies might be that we want a personal AI initiatives and AI centers with multiple agents, compliance agents, agents of data intake, so thirty percent of all kinds of operations might be involved in these transformations so there is like a huge amount of processes which which could be augmented.
Gene Feldman: Nice. Now a little side question though, that I'm really curious because with meta you know, using the meta headsets, you know, with Quest for Business going, you know, they're closing it up, what, next year? 2027? What are companies looking to to help manage their headsets now? You know, I know there were some companies that were offering like custom build infrastructures that'll help you manage, but with meta not providing that now, how or how do you think this is gonna impact companies or where can I personal don't you don't need to give me your blueprint of what you guys are doing, but where do you think some people can now start going to help manage the headsets? So we don't have
Ruslan: So it's
Gene Feldman: to go back to side loading and all the nonsense with
Ruslan: Yeah, I understand that side loading may work on a five headsets.
Gene Feldman: When you have two hundred, it's a whole nother ball game. I
Damon: Five old
Ruslan: When when it's like two hundredths and you need to track version control, yeah, it's like variable game which I saw diff where it was like a horrible licensed system. If you want some advanced features you always should mm buy a wrapper on general settings and only after this you have some advanced features which you can contain with like web of whole devices. we have an exit strategy. We had exit strategy with I think one of the companies which we had bought and that we will transfer to them a Brock 6R or something like this. I I don't want to sell or market something, but I've heard about exit strategy which we will use and it was like I assume not next year, in two years. but I should verify this so yeah that will be a question we all wait for quest three quest four but where might be our strategy to jump to PICOS and Picos have are they are less powerful let's say like on 30% less powerful in terms of graphic but in some models which are let's say like mono devices which you can wear and go so but where are we capable to not send our streams to meta servers so we can can do enclosed space with streaming from where those glasses so there are some hidden advantages
Dan Meeks: Okay, great.
Ruslan: which we can use but
Gene Feldman: Nice.
Ruslan: We can s have different ad devices strategy. So we are s we are I personally I'm looking to VR glasses and various types where we can jump to them. So there are multiple
Dan Meeks: Right.
Ruslan: ways where how market could guide us.
Gene Feldman: Nice. Yeah, 'cause I know they're good.
Dan Meeks: Help help this ignorant American a little bit. So when I watch the EU, they're trying to get rid of Microsoft right now. So they they switched over to Libra Office. because on honestly all these SaaS companies, they're they're well, I can go on a whole tangent about them. But but you know, usually I'm at loggerheads with the
Gene Feldman: Ha ha ha.
Dan Meeks: EU. I think they made the right call this time, which is to go towards an open source thing. But my question is, you know, with with all these things that are EU funded because your taxes is so ridiculously high. Why why isn't anybody figuring out how to jailbreak the meta and make their own operating system for the EU? Like like if I had that bag of money, I'd be working on that problem. has anybody ever floated that on your side or do you just go, well, Meta's changed the terms of service again. I guess we're just gonna have to roll with this. Like, are are are there any urges to to kind of be sovereign about the headsets that you actually own that you've bought for for all your projects? Sorry that's a little adversarial, but it's like You guys got the resources to do this, so I'm kinda wondering why that hasn't been done or tried. Some university must be trying it. Anyway.
Ruslan: Yeah, our headquarters is in New York. So I would like to say I fully aligned the view on
Gene Feldman: Ha ha ha.
Dan Meeks: I think I just got my answer there, brother.
Damon: You got your legal response.
Ruslan: Yeah.
Gene Feldman: Fair enough.
Mark G: Insert fine print in the recording.
Ruslan: here
Damon: that was a good one.
Ruslan: are very very modern taxes and yes it is Europe but yeah for example I understand the ecosystem for startups in Europe for any kind of ideas, it's like life on a very hard mode. we can see it in just comparing the strategies. let's say like result of strategies of amount of unicorns which we may see in states and this is like fascinating, like we understand where it goes, so
Dan Meeks: Yeah, the the the trend that I saw over over the past decade is a plucky little company, typically in Italy, will come up with a magical idea and I'm like, Yes, let's make that happen and then they start going down that road and then the bureaucracy starts chipping away at them and then they pursue all these certifications that they gotta get, and before you know it they ran out of money. So
Mark G: Or the or the legality is what takes them out from prior
Dan Meeks: Yeah.
Mark G: licensing agreements and things of that nature, yeah.
Dan Meeks: Which is great. Like sometimes I really admire in the EU that they're they try to really look out for their citizens and look for their well being and I I can understand that approach, you know, for a as an outsider I can I can get my mind into that. But at the same time they kind of hug you to death with with too many rules that you have to follow. And this is an emerging technology where we really don't know how stuff's gonna work out. So, yeah, man, it it's gotta be hard in Europe sometimes, you know, after after you get that first little sip of success.
Ruslan: Yeah, they definitely feel it and they definitely see it in results of improvements and companies and returns and so it is like it is what it is. I cannot add anything here. I don't
Damon: Well once once the
Dan Meeks: Well, I I'll just
Damon: camera stops rolling, maybe
Dan Meeks: finish the argument on I mean there's there's the other side of the coin where, you know, like here in in America, it's it it literally is the Wild West and you know,
Damon: Texas.
Dan Meeks: I end up with a an AI model installed on my computer against my wishes. So, you know, there's there's the other side of that coin. You get to move fast and break things, but sometimes the thing that gets broken is yours. So it I I don't know where the balance is. And that's one of the things I search
Gene Feldman: Well, it's also
Dan Meeks: for.
Gene Feldman: it's also the speed of of the adoption of it, you know, like it always takes me back to, you know, the YouTube incident where all of us whether we listen to YouTube or not, were granted their newest record and we couldn't get rid of it. You know? and so you know, so what I find is that really it comes down to the adoption of it where some countries will adopt to it faster, some won't kind of the geographic region, but where I'm seeing is that the technology is moving so fast, at what point do we put the guardrails on it? Yeah, and I only bring this up because over the past weekend was San Diego Comic Con. for those of you that can see my camera, see my background, understand why that was such a very big deal for me. I'm you know, all the Marvel news came out. We got Ghost Rider. We I mean
Mark G: For those that can't see his camera, he's a real nerd. He's got a lot of stuff in behind him, so God help us.
Gene Feldman: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I have the whole new especially the whole new mask collection from loyal subjects. Love them. So but anyways, so it Comic Con, a place where they love technology. This is the place to take new technology. These are these are the people. Guess what the number one banned item was this year? The metaglasses.
Damon: AR glasses. AR glasses, yeah. Meta specifically.
Gene Feldman: almost every celebrity in front of their booth had no meta glasses. I mean, called out very specifically, very big. You know, and I remember going to a Comic Con when they first came out. I'm like, these are the greatest things in the world. But that's the problem, is that the technology is moving so fast, I think we're having trouble not only keeping up with it, but understanding even where the by the time we're ready for guardrails, it's already out and has been out and the cat's out of the back. If that makes sense. And I think sometimes we're we're running into that issue.
Dan Meeks: And Russland, I'm I wanted your opinion on this because I I I got to go on a trip once and I I work on the military side of things and I and I took an HTC headset and I handed it to an airman and he wouldn't want to put it on. Because well first he thought it was a meta headset, and I'm like, no, different company. But at the same time, he was like, I don't want that thing taking pictures of my eyes. And I'm like, well, this one doesn't have the eye tracking, but anyway, like I kept on giving him answers like Hey man, this one this is the good one. you it's okay, but how how do you how do you work with that on your side where like just as Gene said, you know, there there's all these consequences that have befallen us as the technology matures.
Ruslan: church.
Dan Meeks: How how do you how do you drive a wedge and go, no, it's cool, we got ya, here's why. X, Y, and Z. Walk the dog on that for us, please.
Ruslan: yeah, so very great question about users because we may have absolutely different users, different cultures, different ages, different languages and different business units, and we have like unique materials related to each of them. So we have unique structures of legal, we have unique structures of ethical rules of everything is customed to right now. So that's a that's a good thing that you receive a proper communication and proper results of peace. So It helps you it helps us to create idea of unique agents persistent like which which influence you and act like some kind of personal guidance. But you were right in mentioning like we should have really Tough guard rails and standard standardized security policies with operating with this data. right now we are using specific frameworks to guard like toxicity. we need to understand how we should answer some specific guardrails, specific topics which we are not answering, not communicating. So we when we operate with this ethical part, we are trying to adjust it and adjust it to your proper style and way of communication of a user. But you mentioned that c there could be some cases when People will not try VR or immersive world and we were afraid. w we were scared of it and we do not want to go back. And that's kind of things which are like five percent of users which could experience this. So not every user
Dan Meeks: Not every
Ruslan: could definitely use
Dan Meeks: Do you have alternatives for that that remaining five percent? You know, tablet
Ruslan: Yes.
Dan Meeks: and you know, spatial tracking, for instance. Okay.
Ruslan: and that's a very cool question technically because for me these metaverses are should be experienced by infrastructure which client may have. For example, if you have iPads, we can do this application which will have connection with you via multiplayer and you will be in one space. So for example, like you will be on the one lesson. on one pipeline executing this and you can beat from iPads and you can be from vertical glasses so you're in the one world so you allowing people to use 2D interfaces to handle it in like with UI of VR and with UI of Android phone it could be
Dan Meeks: I don't
Ruslan: iPhone it could be a tablet It depends how to you where you port this device. Sometimes
Dan Meeks: So is a so is it bringing your own device actually a part of your strategy sometimes?
Ruslan: we should be sustainable. If your you may have like if you're a huge company, you may have like multiple type of devices already in your infrastructure, and we should build these places like gamification places with different interfaces through infrastructure which you have. It could be like if you have like all corporations with iPads. We can deliver to iPads, but we say that we start with iPad version like ten, twelve, fourteen, and you could enter these worlds in trainings or immersive lessons from these applications. And this is like distribution of a same s medium of to be present in these virtual spaces. But I fully agree with you that AR glasses I hope this will be the next step devices to full full VR glasses which could be word on your face. And I think as in the beginning we said that not all the brands we allow to put something on our faces. So we could It's pretty hard to put even AR glasses to a person who is not wearing glasses. But for business purposes that could be like a different type of device which we are hoping to use it. Because for me these AR glasses is very interesting product and this is like something which you can use external calculations powers and have to process it like very complex things and ideas which were not possibly previously to send. But yeah.
Damon: Do do you see the the glasses? you're excited about them. Do you see those as key to scaling in enterprise in the future?
Ruslan: Yes, I see that right now, even right now a lot of enterprises have even ecosystems of immersive trainings. And for them it will be very interesting like a new new device to renew the program because even like these devices could live up to physically one, two years. three years after this it should be maintained, renewed or changed. So if adoption could be increased by, for example, like new devices by Qualcomm, it could be interesting for operations to use it. For example, in logistics, on a warehouse logistics. there might be some places when we you could be devices could be updated and maintained in terms of AR glasses immediately like this is could be the quick update solution. in our places it's like heavy instructions, so a lot of compliance, a lot of verifications with visual verifications of quality. But the major thing here be like again involvement with AI and the quality of analysis analyze data which is proceeding. So for me it's example for example if you have construction of a whole plant and data center or whatever and you are just going with CR glasses and we conduct the results which can was achieved through the day or and then compared and added to virtual models. So we we have very powerful thing which we are putting on consum on users. this
Damon: That's right.
Ruslan: again this joining it with AI layers and could be very powerful new instrument for operations. But again we need to put glasses on a person who never were who you who never used to use them. That kind of thing. So
Mark G: Russ, do you sort of see the rise of what I would call when like Google Glass came out, I saw a lot of what I would call HUD-based workflows coming into enterprise. Do you sort of see like a a revival of that coming back with the changes in the the device platforms?
Ruslan: thank you for a question, Mark. In terms of operating with the users with client facing directly, I w there are some possible things how it could be like but again the level of privacy and the level of cooperating in such extent could this is like very maybe too innovative for now. for example, like if you do some recording or something, whereas should be always like even like visual indicator of this cooperation, and you should have consent of a person to operate with
Damon: Right, that's right.
Ruslan: it, to pro to do the client facing thing. Inside of training cooperation, internal operations, operational excellence, use in a warehouse, you you you do not need it. Yeah. Like you you have consent when you work with employees on a specific job which we are assigned. So definitely no one wants to to s to know what the way we're looking how you were taking a shower or something like Y you do not expect this through the glasses which you obtain and but very important point in terms of privacy specifically for a big company. So very like very interesting technology like splat splatting like vertical scans with through with points. where we could pre-train people for specific environments, but again that's not very scalable because I need to scan each space. There are multiple like new cool features which are arising, but again the economy further we could have like Bitcoin for tokens of a yard We do not know how this calculation power will be solved. I hope we will finally invent fusion and finally unlimited energy, but I doubt that we are going to share it easily with everyone.
Gene Feldman: So, Russ, we're at the point now where one of the things that we like to do, first off, thank you for joining us. It's been absolutely incredible. As you can see, we would love to have you back. I think there's going to be more questions for you as we digest the conversation. but it's really a great opportunity to talk to somebody like you that can really offer not only advice but insight onto things that have worked, things that haven't, but also just keeping the seeing the long picture of of where it can go really I think really gives us support in the face of AI taking over everything and XR not getting a lot of love. But one of the things that we like to ask our guests is for a final protocol. So if there's a thought or a piece of advice or something that you think would be important for our listeners to hear, You know, it's one of those things that I think all of us that have been airviewed, we always wish somebody would ask we always have that question we wish somebody would ask us because we have that answer ready to go 'cause we love talking about it. So this is kind of that opportunity. You know, do you would you be willing to share like a final protocol insight, suggestion or advice for anybody that's listening?
Ruslan: the interesting question
Dan Meeks: Mm-hmm.
Ruslan: about this is definitely like adoption for me. feasibility. For me it's effectiveness of what you do. So for me when all this time in R D and different processes related to creation of something new and testing ideas, the amount of rates when your idea fail or your project fails is pretty high because you are testing the water, you're testing like with the limit that it touches and for this thing I just will suggest that even like if something like is successful and you can see results of it which influence let's say like pretty sustainable to your mind to your company to you and let's say to your ideas. That's very important because it sparks and sparks technology it's not a way what everyone wants to go with but this is very exciting and fascinating thing you can choose. So you should love this before you can start to do this. So you see like I understand how much passion was pulled into this position and to things which we do and how much we invest in this world. we I I I I think I recreated more than thousand at least, like different art objects, scales, mini projects, warehouses and Amount of worlds which you create and you understand that and just let's say like fifteen percent of them are feasible and you can do something with them. This is amazing, like this passion of of creation parts inside of Xara metaverses and these w realms, let's call them realms.
Damon: Mm-hmm.
Gene Feldman: Nice. Very nice. I love that. It it seems to be a common
Damon: Thank you. Yeah.
Gene Feldman: thing. You have to love this d to to be in this type of industry. But I love it. Russ, thank you so much for joining. just to let you know that we always w like to make this offer that if you ever want to join as a panel member, if you ever want to come back because you have an update you want to share or maybe you c discovered a new insight or something new that you're like, you know what, this would be really good for everybody to hear. There is always a seat open for you. Just reach out. I never want to send out just random emails or hit over hit you with schedules. So but if you ever want to come back, please let me know. to the rest of the of the Neon Protocol team, thank you guys for joining and taking the time out today. as with everybody, you know, we've got some new things that we're trying to work on to kind of help keep some of the headlines in the news. As well as if you're a listener and you have a story that you would like to share, please feel free to contact us and reach out and we will take a look at it. as well as be sure to click the like, follow, share, help us grow. We're slowly gaining an audience and we would love any support that you would be willing to give, including sponsorship. We'll definitely take sponsorship. we're capitalists here. No, seriously. Thank you guys for joining and happy Tuesday to everybody.
Mark G: Cheers all.
Damon: Happy Tuesday.
Ruslan: Yeah.
