A groundbreaking AI application helped pull a hospice-bound patient back from the brink by identifying an unexpected treatment for a rare disease. By analyzing thousands of existing medications for potential side effects that could treat idiopathic multicentric Castleman's disease, researchers discovered a path to remission that human analysis might have missed. This remarkable story highlights AI's potential as a powerful medical tool when used to augment human expertise rather than replace it.
Meanwhile, privacy concerns take center stage as 23andMe secures court approval to auction off customer DNA data despite growing protests. State attorneys general are warning consumers to delete their genetic information before the sale completes, raising fundamental questions about data ownership and personal privacy in our digital economy. Could this case establish a dangerous precedent for how companies handle our most sensitive biological information?
The episode takes a fascinating detour with guest Elizabeth Bieniek, who shares insights from her journey developing WebEx Hologram at Cisco. Her book "Cake on Tuesday" offers 25 lessons for driving innovation within large corporations, distilling years of experience into practical advice for anyone looking to champion new ideas in established organizations. Biennik's approach to creating holographic collaboration technology demonstrates how visionary thinking can thrive even within corporate structures.
We also explore Signal, the encrypted messaging app making headlines for its use by government officials. With features like automatic message deletion and capacity for 1,000-person group chats, this technology raises important questions about security protocols and information preservation within official channels.
From life-saving AI applications to privacy threats, holographic meetings to secure messaging, this episode examines how technology continues to transform our world in both promising and concerning ways. Has a medical breakthrough changed your perspective on AI's potential benefits? We'd love to hear your thoughts!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting across the nation, from the East Coast
to the West, keeping you up todate on technology while
enjoying a little whiskey on theside, with leading-edge topics,
along with special guests tonavigate technology in a
segmented, stylized radioprogram.
The information that will makeyou go mmmm.
Pull up a seat, raise a glasswith our hosts as we spend the
(00:22):
next hour talking abouttechnology for the common person
.
Welcome to Tech Time Radio withNathan Mumm.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Today's content is part of our April Fool's special
.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Welcome to Tech Time Radio with not Nathan Mumm, the
show that makes you go, hmm.
Technology news of the week.
Technology news of the week.
The show is for the everydayperson, talking about technology
, broadcasting across the nationwith insightful segments on
subjects weeks ahead of themainstream media.
We welcome our radio audienceof 35 million listeners to an
(00:57):
hour of insightful technologynews.
I'm not nathan mum, your host,who is a technologist with over
30 years of technologyexperience.
Somehow we got an email fromgood old Nathan that last night
he decided he's going to ournation's capital to work with
Doge.
But you know, hey, we'll findout about that later.
I'm your host, mike Gorday.
(01:19):
I am an award-winning authorand a human behavior expert, and
sitting to my right here is whoare you?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Let me introduce myself, mike.
There you go.
I am Mark.
I am the whiskey connoisseurand, on the side, a technology
expert.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Okay.
We live stream during the showon four of the most popular
platforms, including YouTube,twitch TV, facebook and LinkedIn
.
We encourage you to visit usonline at tech time radiocom and
become a patron supporter atpatrioncom slash tech time radio
.
We're friends from differentbackgrounds but we try to bring
the best technology showpossible weekly for our family,
(02:02):
friends and fans to enjoy.
We're glad to have Mr Somebody,our producer, at the control
panel today.
Welcome everyone.
Let's start today's show.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Now on today's show.
Now on today's show.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Today on Tech Time Radio, we're going to dive
headfirst into the cutting edge,the curious and sometimes the
downright unbelievable in theworld of tech.
On today's show how an AI toolhelped uncover a groundbreaking
(02:54):
treatment for a rare disease.
We'll discuss the controversysurrounding 23andMe's court win
and their unfortunate ability tosell DNA data and what it means
for your privacy signal indepth to see how this chat app
all in the news now and used byus officials to share strategies
and introduce the futuristicmicrochip manicures turning your
nails into qr codes.
In addition, we have ourstandard features, including my
(03:15):
mesmerizing moment technologyfail of the week and possibly a
nathan nugget.
How are we going to do that one?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
all things are possible in the world of media,
or just bash a nugget onnathan's head.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Well, we'll just bash nathan with a nugget for him
ditching us today and of course,we have our pick of the day
whiskey tasting to see if ourselected whiskey gets zero, one
or two thumbs up at the end ofthe show and it looks like from
the spread here it's one ofthose spreads.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yes, it is.
I wasn't here last week and youguys didn't miss me, so I
thought well, maybe if I bringmore whiskey, you guys will love
me.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Is that like whiskey goggles?
Like beer goggles?
Speaker 4 (03:56):
whatever I can do to get your love, mike okay, all
right.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Well, now it's time for the latest headlines in the
world of technology here are ourtop technology stories of the
week.
Welcome to our technologystories of the week, story
number one Reports say that ElonMusk announced on Friday that
last week he sold his socialmedia platform X to his own
(04:24):
artificial intelligence company,xai.
Let's go to Lisa Walker formore on this story.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Elon Musk on Friday announced he has sold his social
media platform X to hisartificial intelligence company,
xai.
The new company is now valuedat $80 billion in an all-stock
transaction.
Musk founded XAI in March 2023to use artificial intelligence
(04:54):
to understand and generatehuman-like text.
At the time, he said thecompany will seek to understand
reality.
Understand reality.
X has around 1,500 employeesand XAI has around 1,000 workers
and is notable for productsincluding Grok, aurora and
Promptal DE.
Back to you guys in the studio.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, I'm not sure how to feel about this right now
.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
This is an odd story.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in late
2022.
He took the company private andrebranded it as X on July 23rd
of 2023.
X has approximately 611 millionmonthly active users globally.
He says that XAI and X'sfutures are intertwined.
(05:42):
This will allow us to build aplatform that doesn't just
reflect the world, but activelyaccelerates human progress.
Musk founded XAI in March of2023 to use artificial
intelligence to understand andgenerate human-like text.
At the time, he said thecompany will seek to understand
reality, according to a post onTwitter.
Well, that's not Twitter,that's X.
(06:04):
In February, investors led byMusk have offered $97.4 billion
to take over OpenAI, theartificial intelligence maker of
ChatGPT.
He says it's time for OpenAI toreturn to the open-source,
safety-focused force for good itonce was.
We will make sure that thathappens.
You think that's?
Speaker 4 (06:23):
why he wants to buy OpenAI.
No, doesn't he have his own AI?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I don't think he wants it.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Maybe he wants an AI that actually works.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Maybe All right.
In response, openai chiefexecutive Sam Altman posted on
Musk's own social media platformX.
No, thank you, but we will buyTwitter for $9.74 billion, if
you want.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Oh, that's a nice discount from what he bought it
for.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
No kidding, in 2015, musk and Altman co-founded the
startup OpenAI as a nonprofitcompany, but the relationship
has chilled since Musk departedthe firm in 2018.
The chat GPT tool debuted inNovember of 2022.
Musk, who is worth $347.7billion, according to Forbes, is
(07:11):
the largest shareholder ofTesla, the electric vehicle
company, and is the CEO ofSpaceX.
So I don't know how.
We all know how I feel about AI.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Yeah, it's just interesting that you know you
own two companies and one ofyour companies buys the other
company.
Is it really a purchase or isit more of a merger?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I kind of feel like he's outsourcing it so that he
can have his AI-generatedreality machine take over for X
and then it can do all thetexting that he normally does.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Right, so it makes sense that he brings the two
together.
Just to say that one sold tothe other is a little strange.
The other one that people aretalking about it's a little
weird that the AI, XAI,purchased X.
Most people thought it wasgoing to be the other way around
, because X is a much biggerplatform than is XAI, which is
just a startup, and that's moreof a support organization.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I don't know.
I have a feeling it has more todo with how X has been being
run into the ground over thelast couple of years.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
That that may be the impetus for buying that, but I'm
not an expert on how thosepeople run their businesses, so
we'll have to do a call intoNathan because he's going to get
really close today to Mr Muskthere, flying over to DC to work
with him.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
All right Story.
Number two Now.
Ai tools helps find life-savingmedicine for a rare disease.
Okay, now, this is somethingthat I think is a great use of
AI.
So set to enter a hospice care.
A patient with idiopathicmulticentric Castleman's disease
is now in remission aftertreatment with medication
(08:46):
predicated as the top treatmentby an AI-guided analysis.
After combing through 4,000existing medications, an
artificial intelligence toolhelped uncover one that saved
the life of a patient withidiopathic multicentric
Castleman's disease.
This rare disease has anespecially poor survival rate
(09:07):
and few treatment options.
The patient could be the firstof many to have their lives
saved by AI prediction systems,which could potentially apply to
other rare conditions.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
So Mike, how did this work?
Did it actually just predictwhat it thought the medicine
would be, or did it actuallydevelop a medicine?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Now, how I understand this works is that it set the
AI to go through all thepharmaceuticals that were
available, find out which oneshad side effects that worked as
a treatment for this similardisease, and then it prescribed
(09:51):
the medications based on theside effects, and the side
effects put it into remission.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Wow, which is a really interesting way of
treating a patient is by usingthe side effects of medication
and that's something that humanpeople trying to do would be
almost impossible to go througheverything of that kind of scope
and size, going through thatsize of data yeah, yeah, this is
(10:19):
one of the reasons.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
This is one of the things that ai should be doing.
It shouldn't be doing AIgirlfriends and it shouldn't be
doing AI therapists, and itshouldn't be doing AI art and AI
writing books.
It should be helping medicalprofessionals toward diseases.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
So it sounds like from your description there it
was humans using it as a tool toa system, versus it trying to
replicate a human function.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, with Musk tryingto understand reality, I guess
you know that is a very good wayof looking at it.
So, detailed in a new paperpublished in the NAJM, a group
led by researchers at thePerelman School of Medicine at
University of Pennsylvania, agroup led by researchers at the
(11:14):
Perelman School of Medicine atUniversity of Pennsylvania.
They used the AI techniquecalled machine learning to
determine that well, I'm notgoing to say that because I
can't pronounce it A monoclonalantibody which is FDA approved
to treat conditions ranging fromarthritis to Crohn's disease,
was the top predicted newtreatment that was likely to
work for IMCD disease?
Was the top predicted newtreatment that was likely to
work for IMCD?
The physician of the patient inthe study, luke Chen MD, a
hematologist in VancouverGeneral Hospital in Vancouver,
bc, decided to try this TNFinhibitor for the first time on
(11:35):
an IMCD patient.
Ooh came from Canada.
Well, that's where the patientwas Nice, Go Canada, go Canada.
The patient in this study wasentering hospice care, but now
he's almost two years intoremission.
This is remarkable not just forthis patient and IMCD, but for
the implications it has for theuse of machine learning to find
(11:57):
treatments the process of usingan existing drug for a purpose
other than its initial intent iscalled drug repurposing.
Many diseases may appear verydifferent in symptoms, prognosis
or even cause, but they couldshare underlying links in the
body, such as comet, geneticmutations or molecular triggers,
and can therefore be treatedwith the same drug.
(12:19):
The AI platform used in thisstudy was built upon pioneering
work by study co-authors ChenyuMa, a research assistant, and
David Kozlicki, an associateprofessor of computer science
and engineering biology at theHuck Institute of Life Sciences,
both of Penn State.
The patient described in thestudy was headed into hospice
(12:41):
care because multiple treatmentshad failed him over time.
Was headed into hospice carebecause multiple treatments had
failed him over time.
While Castleman's disease isrelatively rare about 5,000 are
diagnosed in the US each yearthe findings of the study could
save the lives of many more.
Do you know if they've gonebeyond just one patient at this
time?
Speaker 4 (12:59):
No, no, it doesn't look like it, I'm sure there's
going to be a lot more testing.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
One of the reasons why they were able to do this
was that the patient didn't haveany more options, so they were
allowed to move forward withthis based on that.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Where I find this very interesting is that a lot
of our famous drugs that areused now for a particular
application have been this sideeffect type treatment.
But it's taken a long time tofigure that out.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
type treatment, but it's taken a long time to figure
that out.
Yeah, well, you know it'sinteresting because one of the
things that you notice when yousee folks that are taking
treatments is that you have theprimary treatment pharmaceutical
and then you have anotherpharmaceutical that treats the
symptom or the side effects ofthe first one, and then you have
a third one that treats theside effect of the second one in
(13:45):
the first one, and so you havethis long list of you.
You get people who have a longlist of medications because of
all the side effects, and thenyou have a this drug cocktail
that nobody really knows what'sgoing on.
So very interesting.
Yeah, that's that's pretty cool.
Now, this is where I do find AIto be a boon to our society.
(14:07):
Otherwise, ai just sucks ingeneral.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah, that's kind of what James Riddle was talking
about a few episodes ago.
It can be used for massdestruction, genetic
resequencing.
That can be destructive, andyet there's so many positives
that they can do in diagnosisand treatment exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
All right, let's move on to story number three,
unless you have anything else tosay about ai no, I'm done with
ai.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
I want to go to.
I want to go to data databreaches.
Okay, I miss those.
We haven't talked about thoseyeah.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Well, we warned you not long ago.
We talked about 23andMe beingcaught up in some legal things.
Well, your genetic DNA is goingon sale to the highest bidder.
The company 23andMe has woncourt approval to sell its most
valuable asset your DNA data.
Despite growing concerns overprivacy and security, a US
(15:02):
bankruptcy judge, brian C Walsh,allowed the company to proceed
with an auction, but extendeddeadlines to give creditors more
time to review the sale.
Hopefully that gives peopletime to get their data out of
there.
Well, as part of the saleprocess, 23andme originally set
tight deadlines, requiringpotential buyers to submit final
offers by May 7th.
Nevertheless, walsh ordered atwo-week extension, allowing
(15:25):
creditors more time to assessthe deal before a final decision
.
A lawyer from the US trustee'soffice argued that a neutral
third party should oversee thesale to protect consumer privacy
.
Despite these concerns,23andme's legal team, led by
Grace Hotz, argued that thecompany's privacy policies
already provide enoughprotection.
Meanwhile, state attorneygeneral have warned consumers to
(15:49):
delete their genetic databefore the sale is complete.
This has triggered a rush ofusers trying to remove their
information from 23andMe'swebsite, causing a surge in
traffic, which probably means aslowdown on the website, which
probably means an overloadedresponse time.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Yeah, I'm just wondering I'd love to go back
and read the judge's decisionhow because 23andMe had legally
told the people they would notbe selling that data?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
You know, we've been alive long enough to know that
when people say stuff, youautomatically have to take it
with a grain of or a a wholeshaker of salt.
Right, because people say stuffand then they they do the
complete opposite.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
We see it all the time right, but this has major
legal implications.
This this.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I think this is.
This is a really, really, youknow bad thing, but you know,
you know we talked about this.
We talked about this last year,I think at the beginning,
somewhere around the beginningof last year, when this all
started falling apart for 23 andme, uh, uh, and I think we had
(16:58):
a big conversation between notonly us, but maybe James.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Maybe James was part of that.
Okay, yeah, it just seems theUS is going in a direction of
anti-consumer protection and so,really, if you want, to do
something of this.
I would probably look for aEuropean company, because they
are really pushing with theirsecurity protocols and
protection of your data.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I don't know.
We all know that our data isthe hottest commodity on the
market.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
And we in the US use that as currency versus privacy.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that we've talked about 23
and me having connections tochina, so you know who knows?
Hey guys, hey guys oh what'sthat?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
hey guys, hey hey.
So I'm at a secret bunker.
I'm trying to call in here fortech time radio.
I got a bunch of stuff I I Iwent in to help the government
and they put me in this bunkerand I'm stuck here.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Maybe you should talk to us on Signal.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Oh, we're going to be talking about that coming on up
.
Thanks for I'm going to see ifI can maybe get in for a segment
.
Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
You got to do the whiskey.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Take a cough drop while you're at it.
Okay, thanks guys.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Okay Hopefully it sounded like Nathan.
He never did identify himself.
He didn't identify himself.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, what's up with that, I don't know.
Okay, well, that is our toptechnology stories of the week.
Moving on, we'll have our deepdive in Signal and the texting
app that everyone at the WhiteHouse is using, and our guest,
elizabeth Benick, joins us.
Next segment to talk technologyand holograms.
Buckle up as we drive 88 milesper hour into our next segment.
See you after the commercialbreak.
Speaker 7 (18:44):
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Speaker 3 (19:32):
Welcome back to Tech Time with Not Nathan Mumm.
Our weekly show covers the toptechnology subjects without any
political agenda.
We verify the facts and do itwith a sense of humor, in less
than 60 minutes and, of course,with a little whiskey on the
side.
Today, mark Gregoire, ourwhiskey connoisseur, is back in
our studio here and has ourmonthly tradition.
Mark, explain why we'redrinking a lot of whiskey today.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
We are doing the 2024 Flavor Advent advent calendar
and this is our round four.
So we're using this whiskeyadvent calendar with 24
remarkable whiskeys to use forour year-long blind whiskey
competition to see which one youor nathan like best.
Now come along the ride foronce a month while we uncover
new tastes and train theirsenses to become true
(20:18):
connoisseurs.
Today is round four, wherethey'll choose a winner to move
on to the semifinals.
They disagree.
Generally, I'm the decider, butwith Nathan MIA, I guess I get
to drink the whiskey today, I'mso excited.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Now today, mike, most of our samples are rye whiskeys
.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Now, let's be clear Rye is a whiskey.
Most of our samples are ryewhiskeys.
Now, let's be clear Rye is awhiskey.
There's a huge myth out therethat rye is not a whiskey, which
is also perpetuated by thelyrics in Don McLean's classic
song American Pie.
And them good old boys weredrinking whiskey and rye.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Whiskey and rye.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Now McLean may have said whiskey and rye for poetic
rhyme and lyrical flow.
It sounds more folksy andlyrical than just whiskey.
That's what we have, Mike.
Feel free to take a samplethroughout the show.
Hey guys, hey guys, hey guys.
Oh, so I can't talk a whole lothere I'm working for our secret
government.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I came in here last night and I realized that I'm
the only one here.
Everything's been moved out.
I'm in a bunker.
They gave me the shirt when Icame in here and I'm ready to go
.
They said just stay down hereuntil everything is clear above.
How's the air above this?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
bunker.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Are you wearing a vault jacket?
Well, this is standard issuehere.
Standard issue, standard issue.
So this is where I'm going tohave to become Fall out jacket.
Is that what it is?
I don't know.
So, mark, I can't taste thewhiskey, so you're going to have
to taste the whiskey, becausethey said on my orientation that
I had to go through.
I learned all about Signal, soI'm up to speed on Signal now,
(21:48):
everything that they taught me.
I can't have any alcohol.
Well, on the job right now.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
I'll cover you on that, nathan, no problem, I'm
sure Mark has no problem withthe whiskey.
Okay, great.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
All right, especially today being Rise, I love.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Rise Awesome.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Okay.
Well, why don't we do somethingelse and move on to our feature
segment?
Did you guys taste all yourwhiskey yet?
No we're having a discussionabout where it came from and
about your funky vault.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Okay, well, keep on going, Keep on going, keep on
going, Keep on going.
Mark, tell us a little bit moreabout the whiskey.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Well, that's under the Mark Mumbles when we talk
about the whiskey.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Yeah, get a clue, dude.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
All right.
Well, are you guys now readyfor our feature segment?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, I think I said that a few minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Okay, well, you know what?
Let's get ready for our expertjoining us.
All right, this expert comes tous.
Elizabeth is a pioneer intechnology space, having
startups with Cisco'smulti-billion dollar
collaboration and securitybusiness.
Her expertise lies in buildingand empowering teams that
efficiently navigate internalcorporate workings to operate.
(22:54):
It's like a startup indelivering bleeding edge
products and solution.
Now what if you could enhanceour online social interactions
by migrating to something thatfeels a lot more human?
Wouldn't that be just great?
All right, guess what?
Let's get ready to start ournext segment.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Welcome to Technology Insider.
We get the information directlyfrom the source.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
All right, Elizabeth.
Welcome to our April Fool'sevent.
Hopefully you're enjoying ourfunny group that we have here
today.
But welcome, Nathan's madcap.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
What's that, nathan's ?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
madcap.
Hey, I'm in a bunker right nowworking for the government.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
With a lot of liquor behind you.
You know what?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I'm the only employee here right now employee because
all the rest were let go.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
So you know what?
Hey, are the walls of yourbunker soft by any chance?
They are why.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (23:45):
something to be worried about.
I just wondered do you have ajacket with long arms?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I do have a jacket with long arms.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
All right, that's all .
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I need.
Okay, elizabeth, welcome to theshow.
Where are you joining with usfrom today?
Speaker 8 (23:56):
Hello, gentlemen, thank you for having me.
I am joining from the wonderful, sunny Austin Texas, all right,
and I'm definitely from thisworld of innovation and
disruption, which is why I wasrisky enough to join on April
Fool's.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
There you go, all right.
Well, welcome.
So much to be a part of ourshow.
Now let's talk a little bitabout WebEx, right?
So you're working.
I was scouring the internet andthe dark web since that's I'm
the only person here for theUnited States government now
working here and I did find anarticle that came on up that
talked about WebEx and holograms.
Speaker 8 (24:25):
I had spent quite a bit of time at Cisco.
My focus there was in thecollaboration department looking
at innovation, looking at thefuture of collaboration, what
could be disruptive and whatcould really change the way that
we collaborate today.
That led to really digging intothe world of augmented reality
and ultimately ended up buildingthe WebEx hologram product with
(24:45):
a wonderful, very creative teamthere, and we were kind of like
you in a bunker building it formost of the time.
It was very much in stealthmode for quite a while, but I
can explain what I mean by aholographic system if you'd like
.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, absolutely, because I'm a big Star Trek the
Next Generation fan, right?
So is it like the holodeck roomwhere Picard goes on in there
with Riker and they have thesecrazy stories and everything
that you can talk about for astory plot, or is it something a
little less involved than that?
Speaker 8 (25:16):
Well, I don't want to get into the Star Trek versus
Star Wars whole genre, but I didhave a lot of Jedi counsel in
my original pitch decks for whenwe wanted to create this.
It is along those same lines Ifyou think of a hologram not
fuzzy, blue, green, but actual,real color.
And the thought was right now,if you're talking to somebody on
(25:37):
a video call, you're very awarethat they're in their location
and you're in your location.
There's not a lot of feeling oftogetherness because there's a
screen in between you, you haveequipment and a camera capturing
this.
It's very obvious that you'reseparate.
The whole story behind WebExHologram, what we're trying to
create we were going after afeeling and it was that feeling
(25:58):
of being together in the samespace, sharing the same space.
So if you think of aholographic collaboration as not
getting on a video call in youroffice and talking to somebody
on your screen, but putting on alightweight headset and then
having that person appear infront of you in your physical
space, Okay appear in front ofyou in your physical space In
(26:20):
real color, in full 3D.
So close to Star Trek and StarWars, but trying to get a little
bit more lifelike.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
What inspired you to actually write this book itself.
Speaker 8 (26:31):
It actually came at the end of that project WebEx
Hologram, when handing it off tothe business unit to become a
full-fledged product.
It had been a multi-yearjourney, going from purely the
strategy, looking at what hasthe potential to disrupt
collaboration when should we belooking at, into, well, what
could we build?
Into building those firstprototypes, into getting
(26:52):
customer feedback, and it endedup being a multi-year project.
So when I finally was able tostep back away from that, this
started as a postmortem formyself, really just starting to
think all right, what worked,what didn't.
If I were to do something like Ididn't set out to be an
entrepreneur running a startupinside of a big company, if I
were to do this again, how wouldI do things differently?
(27:14):
And I just kept writing moreand more.
My postmortem started gettingbigger and bigger, basically,
and realizing a lot of theselessons are great for me and my
journey going forward, but thesewould be really useful for
somebody else.
I didn't have a playbook, so Iwrote it to be a playbook for
somebody wanting to reallyimplement disruption inside of a
(27:34):
large corporation.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
All right.
So let me ask you that youdidn't have a playbook by
default.
Was that because your largeorganization didn't have a
playbook by that, Because youguys were kind of cutting edge?
Why was there not a playbook?
I'm just going to kind of askin place first off, and with
that I'll preface that I workedat a large company in the
Redmond area called Microsoftthat I worked with and they had
(27:56):
no playbooks for anything.
I've heard of them and they hadnothing either.
So as we were working there inthe 90s, I mean it was just the
wild, wild, wild west and I'mjust kind of curious if that was
the same thing that you hadhere or what was a little bit on
how your process was for yourplaybook to do this product.
Speaker 8 (28:13):
Yeah, I think every company, every big company I'm
sure you encountered this atMicrosoft big company, I'm sure
you encountered this atMicrosoft.
I've been talking to everybodyin the tech space.
Everybody likes to say thatthey're innovative.
Everybody likes to say thatthey do things in-house and they
build things and they've gotthe most innovative team.
But it's kind of like sayingevery company says we hire the
best and brightest.
I mean, nobody goes out thereand says we hire the bottom of
the barrel.
So when it comes to actualinnovation, and are you
(28:36):
innovative internally?
Everybody has a program, but alot of times those programs
don't actually lead to something.
A lot of times they're siloed,they're separate.
It's innovation theater is kindof the joke.
With my effort, I was inside ofthe engineering organization and
this started as looking fromthat perspective, from inside
(28:57):
out, of what could we do here?
What has the risk of reallyexposing us, not next year, not
a few quarters from now, but 10years from now?
Are we going to be relevant?
So it started from there andnobody had really built anything
internally from the ground upfrom that concept.
Usually it was acquiring someIP or building something
(29:18):
tangentially different to whatwe're currently doing.
So it's smaller innovations, oryou're buying a company.
You're like, well, I wantinnovation, let's go buy this
company, let's do this.
So that was new for us at thetime to do something entirely
from the ground up.
And it started in just smallsteps and I didn't start out day
one being like, hey, I'm goingto build a company inside of a
company.
(29:38):
It started out with hey, let'slook at this area, what can we
do here?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
So let's talk about your book.
Now is it a simple read?
Because you know so, mr Gordayhere on the show, he's written a
book and he can.
He can handle large phoneticwords and in big language
dictionary itself.
Except for one that was on myscript that I couldn't read.
Okay, but for me I need alittle bit more of a simpler
(30:01):
read, so I need something that Ican understand and pick up and
go Tell us a little bit about.
Is it a simple read?
Is it difficult?
What are some of the key points?
And, ideally in your book Cakeon Tuesday, what are you trying
to get across to the readers?
Speaker 8 (30:17):
Sure.
The subtitle of it is Cake onTuesday 25 Lessons to Unlock
Corporate Innovation, and it'sfocused on these 25 lessons
broken into five chunksthroughout the book.
Very simple, read my goal inwriting.
It was something that somebodycould pick up on a flight in New
York and be done by the timethey land in San Francisco,
because we're all busy.
So I was trying to think how doI distill?
(30:39):
The project I was working onwas about eight years.
How do I distill eight years oflearning into something that
somebody could read on a coastto coast flight and make it
really, really simple?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Perfect, perfect, all right.
Now where can we find your book?
I mean, if I need to find, I'msure you can find it at the
largest bookstore on theinternet, but I don't, which
doesn't even sell books anymore,it sells everything else, and,
and, and they have.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
They have every amazon, they have my primary
library oh, is that your primarylibrary every two months they
have.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
They just had a special prime day just last week
again.
So, um, tell us, where can wefind your book?
Is it available in soft copy?
Hard copy, elizabeth, what,what?
Where can we go out and findthis?
Speaker 8 (31:19):
It's available in all the versions.
There's hard copy, paperback,e-book and there's a wonderful
voice talent that did the audioas well, so you can get it on
Google Play or Audible.
You can also get it at Amazon,barnes, noble Target, walmart
pretty much any place you canget a book.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
All right, hey, Nathan.
Yeah, what's up?
I had a question for ElizabethSure go right ahead.
So, for a lot of our listenersout there that are intrigued,
what would be your top coupletakeaways from the book that
they would get by reading thebook?
Speaker 8 (31:47):
Sure, I did really break it down into the journey
of going through WebEx Hologramand in my five sections I
realized in hindsight, lookingback at it, I was really biased
towards the start, becauseanytime you're doing something
new, different, innovative.
The first three sections arelargely about different parts of
starting, going from nothing toconcept, getting that concept
(32:09):
into motion.
How do you add oil and reducefriction to get that moving
forward?
How do you sell it?
All the first three sectionsare all about that.
And then because that's thehardest thing for everybody,
quite frankly and then my fourthsection is largely about once
you've got rolling.
It's titled leading to thebarren middle.
So it's that when everybodyhits the slog in the middle,
(32:30):
when it going gets rough, whenyou're just okay, this isn't how
I expected it to be, it's notso exciting now, how do you get
through that?
And it's focused more on myleadership journey.
So how, as a leader, do youhelp your team get through that?
And the last section isinsights from the rear view
mirror, which really taps intothose lessons that you don't
always get when you're in them,but you see them on the other
side.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
All right, perfect.
All right, elizabeth.
Now where can people get intouch with you outside of our
show?
So we love to let peopleconnect.
We will, of course, be taggingyou on LinkedIn, so where
everybody listens to our show,but where else can they reach
out to you?
If they wanted to maybe haveyou come and talk about your
book, or maybe come and keynotespeak, how would somebody reach
(33:10):
out to you?
Speaker 8 (33:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
You can find me on my website,which is elizabethbiennikcom,
and that's how you can reach outabout speaking engagements and
workshops.
I also post a lot on LinkedInunder my name, elizabeth Biennik
, largely on LinkedIn.
It's around.
I talk a lot about AI and talka lot about tech, and then I
also have a presence onInstagram at Cake on Tuesday,
(33:33):
which is more about the bookitself and leadership.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
All right, you know, elizabeth, we want to thank you
so much for being a part of ourApril Fool's show.
It's a little bit differentthan what we normally have, so
we are all changing positionsand having a great time as we do
.
So, you guys.
Anything else you'd like to askElizabeth?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I'm curious about the tie.
Why cake on Tuesday?
Why cake not every day?
Where did that come from, Mark?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
we all know about your cake thing.
I do.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Okay, here we go.
That's a good question.
Where did you come up with it?
There you go.
What did Mark say?
Speaker 8 (34:02):
It came Tuesday.
I have to give credit to myoperations manager, who was my
right hand.
She was my right hand for overa decade, even before this
project.
It was during that, leadingthrough the barren middle, that
rough part of the project, wewere past that exciting
beginning.
We weren't to our finalconclusion, we were just some of
(34:23):
the phases in the middle.
And we're talking about how dowe motivate the team, how do we
get them excited about somethingwe don't have a huge milestone
to rally around.
And she had the idea ofcreating the Wheel of Fortune
style Wheel of Winning, justputting everybody's name on it,
and at our staff meetings we'dspin it.
Our staff meetings were onTuesday.
If it landed on your name, wewould send you a cake.
We're a global team, so we hadpeople spread all around the
world and a cake would show upat your door later that week.
It's a way to just have fun.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Mark's all excited about that.
He's like, hey, I got to dothat right now.
There you go.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Where's your operations manager working now
and does she have openings?
Speaker 8 (34:54):
She's actually looking for some things right
now, so talk to me after Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
She can come work for the government, because it's
just myself right here now.
There's nobody else workinghere for the government.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
I think we can put that one to bed there.
Cake boy, okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Well, elizabeth, from all of us here at Tech Time
Radio, we really appreciate youjoining the show.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Thanks, elizabeth.
Now that Elizabeth's done forthe cake on Tuesday, nothing's
better than our Mike'smesmerizing moment.
Welcome to Mike's mesmerizingmoment.
What does Mike have to saytoday?
(35:31):
All right, mike, I'm going tobe coming to you from the bunker
here.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Whatever?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
dude.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Oh no, there's a siren that's going on in the
background there.
I gotta be, I gotta be careful,okay here's what we got all
right.
Bill gates said this last weekai can replace teachers and
doctors in the coming years.
Is this something you wouldlike to see?
Did you read the quote that hedid out there?
Speaker 4 (35:55):
so yeah, I didn't, he did he did a big interview he
did a big interview.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Bill gates said that big interview.
Bill Gates said that you knowwhat AI is going to help replace
teachers and doctors becauseyou're not going to have to have
a doctor anymore.
Now, after he said that, I wenton out and I did some grok
searches and some open AIsearches and I found out that I
get the same information from myAI assistant as I get from
WebMD.
Everything that is out thereyou're going to die of.
(36:19):
So I just started putting Ihave this issue.
It looks like you should go seea doctor.
You're going to die, but Iguess he thinks it's going to
change.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Tell us what do you think about this idea?
Well, I have been predictingthis, but if we want to think of
it as a good thing, absolutelynot.
Okay, Because AI cannot replacecertain aspects of the human
element, and it never will, andone of those is the physical
(36:52):
interaction.
Hey, if you have an AI teacher,that's great, but what are you
going to do with students thatdon't really care?
The fact of the matter is isthat, do I think it's going to
happen?
Yeah, I think we're going to dothis whole song and dance about
oh, AI is going to replaceevery job.
We're already seeing it happen.
Ai devalues the humanexperience, AI devalues the
(37:13):
human being in general, andwe're going to bunch, we're
going to turn into the you knowall those guys on the ship in
Wally.
We're going to be fat andfloating around and not see
anything outside of our screen.
So, yeah, I'm not real happyabout that question.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Thanks, Well you know , I was kind of surprised to see
Bill just going out there andput it out there too.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
But you know my question, I guess, would be is
Bill happy about this, or is hejust saying this is probably
what's going to happen?
He was kind of saying that hepredicted this.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
It was kind of in a pro-positive way.
What he was saying is that youknow what, you're not going to
need to have a teacher or adoctor, because you're going to
be able to have all thatinformation and you as an
individual, yourself, can go onout and be able to find that
information.
So once again this goes back toearlier conversations, but
doctors, are practicing medicineright so there are doctors that
stretch the limits andsometimes they're not always
right.
(38:05):
Okay, yeah, there's mistakes asa tool.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
There's mistakes that we make as human beings, but an
AI can't replace the humanbeing.
It can collate knowledge thatthat human being may need, like
the teacher scenario, like theinteresting medical technique
that saved that guy that wetalked about earlier.
It can collate information andgive it to a human, but a human
(38:30):
has to be able to dispense thething.
Well, you know, until Elon getsall of his robots out there and
it takes over and you know,whatever, mike, I think to prove
your point, teachers is a goodexample of this.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
You know we all have that special teacher that really
changed our life.
That won't happen with AI.
Number two you saw during COVIDremote learning.
So it's still live teachers,but remote learning and the
detriment that that brought tothe kids at remote learning.
Now take away the human elementof that and put that by a
machine.
You're going to have.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Now take away the human element of that and put
that by a machine, you're gonnahave even more debt.
All right, okay, mike, thanksfor that mesmerizing moment.
Up next we have this week intechnology, so that would be a
great time, and I wish I couldbe enjoying a little whiskey on
the side, as we're going to bedoing so.
During the break, you'relistening to tech time radio
with nathan mum.
See you guys in a few minutes.
Speaker 6 (39:15):
Hello, my name is Arthur and my life's work is
connecting people with coffee.
Story Coffee is a small batchspecialty coffee company that
uses technology to connectpeople to each product resource,
which allows farmers to unlocktheir economic freedom.
Try our Medium Roast FounderSeries Coffee, which is an
exotic bourbon variety that issmooth, fresh and elegant.
At storycoffeecom that'sS-T-O-R-I coffeecom.
(39:39):
Today you can get your firstbag free when you subscribe at
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That's S-T-O-R-I coffeecom.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
The segment we've been waiting all week for Mark's
Whiskey Mumble.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Yay.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
Well, today is April 1st.
What are we celebrating today?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I don't think it matters.
It's April Fool's Day, ofcourse, but that's not what I'm
celebrating.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Oh, what are you celebrating?
I am celebrating National OneCent Day.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Oh Okay, how is that not an April Fool's joke?
It's not.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
Okay Now, those who forget history are doomed to
failure.
And, keeping this in mind, wecelebrate National One Cent Day.
We honor a major point in theestablishment of the American
currency, even though it's beendiscontinued now.
The story behind begins withBenjamin Franklin, who designed
it, all the way to AbrahamLincoln, who is on it now.
At one point, the coin used tobe called the Flowing Hair
(40:44):
Dollar because of the image ofthe Statue of Liberty on it.
Okay, okay, now another historylesson we should keep in mind.
In the late 1700s, georgeWashington was one of the
largest producers of rye whiskeyat his Mount Vernon distillery.
Yeah, he would have to beFather of the largest producers
of rye whiskey at his MountVernon distillery.
Yeah, he would have to be.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Father of the American country, you know.
I'm probably pretty sure he wasneeding some help there.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
So, like I said, we have a lot of ryes here.
So do you want me to tell youwhat's in each glass, or just
tell you what the four whiskeysare, and you guess?
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Well, you can.
Whatever, this is your bubble.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Well, right now Mike has the shot glass and that's
kind of his leading one.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
That shot glass is my worst.
Here in the bunker, I'm notdrinking, although I just heard
Elon Musk is now going to let mego.
I got a notice that just camethrough here, so I'm going to be
let go here.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Did you get a pink slip?
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Well, he here, so I'm gonna be.
Let go get a pink slip.
Well, he says he's gonna comein and personally meet me.
So I'm excited about that.
So, all right, let's get backto the whiskey here.
Yeah, let's get back to 1928rye whiskey.
Now this distillation is fromfrance, it's a finnish rye
whiskey, so it's 100 proof andbasically it's 60 percent rye,
30 percent exo cavados and 10%blend of Armagnac.
And the Armagnacs are fivedifferent distillations, going
all the way back to 1928.
(42:04):
Nice, that's a very complex one.
In the jam glass, that's thelittle jar jam glass.
That is New York Distilling.
Jaywalk Rye, that's from NewYork.
It's a straight rye whiskey, 68years old, 92 proof.
It's 75% New York rye, 13% corn, 12 malted barley.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
You know what?
There's aliens that live in NewYork.
I just came across my deskright here Military breaking
news.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
All right, in the Glenn glass in front of you is
American metal whiskey.
Oh, distilled in Tennessee.
It's a straight Tennesseewhiskey.
Four to five years, 90 proof,80% corn, 10 malted barley, 10%
rye oh no.
And then in the water glassthat I think Nathan is slightly
liking.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
I think Nathan, might Nathan put your jacket on?
I'll go, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
Yeah, that's the one I like.
Yep, that's Stork House RyeWhiskey that is distilled in
Germany.
It's a straight rye whiskeyfour to five years, 90 proof,
100% German rye Ooh I don't care.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Where did that come from?
Speaker 2 (43:15):
What the heck, Mike?
Well, I kind of like that one,to be honest.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
All of these are pretty good, they're all pretty
good.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I'm having trouble deciding which one.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I like the best.
This is my number one.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
So you still got a little bit more time to come up.
Otherwise I'm going to have totaste them and figure out which
one's the best.
I think that's the best Allright, yeah, you just slammed it
.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
That was really good.
I tasted all of them and thatwas the only one that I could
really slam.
All right, well, do you haveanything else to tell us, mark?
Speaker 4 (43:43):
No, that is it for now, nathan.
Back to the bunker.
Happy coin day, buddy.
Back to your silly, a penny, apenny.
Just think, of a whole penny.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Now, if you collect 50 pennies, do you know how much
?
You have 50, two quarters.
You have two quarters, that'sright.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Oh, that's a good thing, you can do math, that's
very helpful.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
In your vault I really couldn't do math, but
Mark helped me.
Okay, here we go.
I'm reading across the lineright now, United States
governments are secrets postedon WhatsApp, so you can just go
up to WhatsApp right now.
I guess somebody leakedsomething.
They were trying to sendsomething out and, oops, it got
leaked out.
All right.
Well, Whiskey and Technology agreat pairing.
Just like Star Trek episodesand the red shirt ensign that
(44:24):
dies in the first act of all ofthe original series.
Speaker 4 (44:27):
It's about time we got that one in here.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
There we go.
I'm watching some Star Trekreviews right now, and so I'm
going back and watching.
Speaker 7 (44:34):
You mean reruns?
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Well, I call them re-dos because they've been
re-edited.
The episode now is in the HDand it's got everything else in
it.
So it's not really a rerunanymore.
All of a sudden, the Star TrekEnterprise ship now looks like
it's five years old fromtechnology, and I mean it's just
all souped up with lights andeverything that wasn't.
At least that model's a good,okay, continue on.
All right, let's prepare forour technology fail of the week,
(44:57):
presented by elite executiveservices technology experts to
help you out of a technologyfail, we are out of time.
Congratulations, you're afailure.
Speaker 7 (45:09):
Oh, I failed.
Did I yes, did I yes, did I.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
Yes, all right, so can I guess what it is?
What are you going to be?
Speaker 3 (45:18):
it is I'm pretty sure .
Speaker 4 (45:21):
It's from Tech Time Radio's April Fool joke.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
It is Technology failure comes to us from the
White House, as many secretshave been shared On public
social media platforms.
There goes something right nowon Facebook.
Wow, I can't believe that'seven true.
Okay, we're going to talk abouta social media platform Called
Signal.
It's an app that is used byUnited States officials to share
attack plans with media andanybody else, because clearly,
(45:46):
our people did not know how touse a basic app service.
Now this app is used for directmessages and group chats, as
well as phone calls and videocalls.
Just think of all the privateinformation that is stored on
these servers.
Now, it is nice to know thatthis is a nonprofit, so at least
hopefully, it's not going intothe wrong hands.
But let's talk a little bitabout this cool new app.
We've talked about it.
(46:06):
Actually, we talked about it inyear one of Tech Time Radio on
our show about Signal.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Has it been that long ?
Speaker 2 (46:11):
ago it has been that long ago.
It goes back to our firstseason of episodes.
We're in season seven now, soit goes back to our first deal
when we were in our Studio 44.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
All right Now.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Signal uses end-to-end encryption for its
messaging and calling service toprevent any third parties from
viewing conversations content orlistening in on calls.
In other words, messages andcalls sent to Signal are
scrambled and only the senderand recipient of each end will
have the key to decipher them.
Signal's encryption protocol isopen source, meaning that it's
freely available for anyone tointeract with or modify.
(46:45):
That means the encryptionprotocol is used by other
popular chat forms, includingMeta's WhatsApp platform.
Now Signal has features thatare found in other messaging
apps, but it also has theability to host up to 1,000
people on a message at a time,so if you have 1,000 friends, so
you can put the whole.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
So you can add a lot of journalists in there.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
You can put a lot of journalists in there.
You can add them all to yourlist.
You can have up to 1,000 peoplethat you sent to you.
What's really interesting aboutthis is that you can actually
set on the settings to have yourmessage automatically disappear
after a certain amount of time.
I don't want to say that'sillegal to do with the United
States government informationthat you're always supposed to
keep, but if you'd be using thatand it was configured to have
(47:26):
this option enabled and theinformation deleted, I guess you
would just say well, you knowwhat.
I didn't realize that that wasthe settings for the app.
Now government officials haveused Signal for organization
correspondence, such asscheduling sensitive meetings,
but in the Biden administration,people who had permission to
download it on the White Houseissued phones were instructed to
use the app sparingly.
According to a formal nationalsecurity official who served in
(47:49):
the administration the officialwas requested for not anatomy to
speak on these methods,probably because, just like me,
he's hiding in a bunker SaidSignal's most common use is to
notify someone back in the Bidenadministration that they should
then check for classifiedmessage sent through other means
, including our nation's securedemail system.
(48:12):
Probably the idea of having analert that says, hey, you have a
secured email, go check it out.
Would probably be a perfect wayto use this application.
I don't think you should beusing it to send information
back and forth that are reallysensitive because, guess what?
It is not controlled by ournation's government.
It is a nonprofit open sourcecode that's available.
Now, who's behind Signal?
(48:33):
The app originally dated backmore than a decade, when it was
set up by an entrepreneur whogoes by the name of Moxie Marlon
spike.
Yeah, that sounds like a realname no, so the person that even
created this doesn't even wantto know who the real name is,
who was, briefly, head ofproduct security at Twitter
After he sold his mobilesecurity startup for the social
media company, marlon spikemerged to existing open source
(48:55):
apps the red phone encryptedvoice calling app and the
TechSecure Encrypted TextingProgram to create Signal.
Now, according to JohnRatcliffe, as of 2025, signal is
installed by default on thedevices of most CIA employees
and its usage is covered bystandard onboard training, the
same training that I had latelast night.
So here we go my phone righthere is secure with Signal now,
(49:18):
so that's the only way I cancommunicate with anybody outside
of my bunker.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
Oh, that's great, because I don't have Signal on
my phone.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
So that's perfect.
We can't talk anymore.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
This is a good day, All right so we're going to head
out to our last commercialbreak.
When we return, we have ourNathan Nugget and, of course,
our pick of the day.
So sit back, raise a glass.
You're listening to Tech TimeRadio with Nathan Mumm.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
How to see a man about a dog.
It combines darkly comic shortstories, powerful poems and pulp
fiction prose to create aheartbreaking and hilarious
journey readers will not soonforget.
Read how to See a man About aDog.
Collected writings for freewith Kindle.
Unlimited E-book available onKindle.
Print copies available onAmazon.
The book pository and more.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
This is your Nugget of the Week.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
All right, our Nugget of the Week.
You know what?
Who needs a smartphone when youcan have smart nails?
The NFC manicure is the latesttrend to bring manicuring to the
tech world.
Nfc stands for Neo FieldCommunication.
It's an ultra tiny tech chipthat Wait a minute.
I'm getting a little drunk inthis bunker here.
What are you doing?
Don't be messing with me.
(50:26):
I hit this big red button righthere.
What are you even talking?
Speaker 3 (50:29):
about here we go.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
NFE stands for near field communication.
The NFC manicures are thelatest in the nail trending deal
.
You can actually get an NFCchip when you go into your nail
salon, which I know you do, mrGorday, all the time but you can
actually get it so that you canopen up and have it be used as
an NFC chip.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
Yeah, I need to go get a manicure so I can have
this attached to my nail, that'sexactly correct.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Well, they're paper thin, they're weightless and
painless.
The chip allows you to act assimilar QR codes.
There are two types of this NFCnail chip.
One is a microchip that you canencrypt with data, a website or
a Spotify song.
The second type is a blinkinglight that starts shining
whenever your phone is unlocked.
Just think of this I could havemy phone on the table.
(51:16):
You go and unlock it.
All of a sudden my nails lightup and say poo-doo-doo-doo-doo,
just kind of like all the sirensthat are going on here in the
bunker?
Speaker 3 (51:23):
What happens if I break my nail?
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Elon, please don't hurt me.
Don't hurt me.
What was that?
Sorry, what?
Speaker 3 (51:30):
was that.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
What happens when?
Speaker 3 (51:40):
I break.
I think you that stuff go away.
Am I able to access my bankaccounts now?
What's my deal here?
Speaker 2 (51:46):
what's really nice is that these are normally
portable and movable, so even ifyou chip a nail, you'll be able
to take this NFC and put it onyour next nail when you go on in
for your manicure the next time.
Now the chips are getting evensmaller.
They're going to be more andmore.
It looks like this is going tobe more and more.
It looks like this is going tobe the new trend for nails,
especially for putting on aspecial light show.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
I have.
Do you like this new craze?
I have a technical word for it.
What's that?
It's stupid.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
It's stupid, it's stupid.
Oh, come on, your nextgirlfriend's going to be all lit
up with NFC nails.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
If somebody, if I had a date that came in and be like
oh, look at my beautiful nails.
Not only are they beautifully,functionally, but they can open
my phone and light up.
No, I don't need a Disney, youdon't need that.
No, I don't need a Disney lightshow to go with my date.
We're like well.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
You, you don't need that.
No, I don't need a Disney lightshow to go with my day.
Let's move on to our whiskeytasting.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
And now our pick of the day for our whiskey tastings
.
Let's see what bubbles to thetop All right.
Speaker 4 (52:51):
What do we have All right?
So in the shot glass you havethe Bacta 1928 Rye Whiskey $67.
In the jam jar you have NewYork Distilling Jaywalk Rye $45.
In the Glen American MetalWhiskey $45.
And in the Waterglass StorkHouse Rye Whiskey $65.
Speaker 3 (53:16):
I'm a little bothered by this Mark, because I seem to
be enjoying rye a lot more thanI used to.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
So which one's your choice, Mike?
Speaker 3 (53:22):
I'm going to stick with the Bacta 1928.
All right, that seems to be themost.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
This is my the Stork House rye whiskey.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Yes, absolutely All right.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
So I have to decide.
Well, actually the best one isneither one that you guys chose.
It's the one in the jam jarthat Jay walk rye.
But between the two you chosehow is that not how?
Speaker 3 (53:41):
how is our us not to be the best?
Who decided the the whiskeyconnoisseur?
Speaker 4 (53:46):
Now the one that's going to move on has to be one
that you guys chose.
So the one that moves on is theBokta 1928 rye whiskey.
That was my number two choice.
My number three, not far behind, was Stork House Rye Whiskey,
which was Nathan's, and the onethat was just not drinkable, in
my estimation, is the AmericanMetal Whiskey, which is,
(54:08):
interestingly enough, my tastesare more aligned with his taste
than yours.
Your two's were pretty close.
So I like the Jaywalk Rye, justthe one from New York the best.
Your two were both very good,very close.
So I like the Jaywalk rye, justthe one from New York the best.
Your two were both very good,very close.
But, mike, I felt the Bokta ryewith the Cavados and the
Armagnac in there elevated alittle bit.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
It was the most consistent for me.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
Alright, well, guys, delicious, we're just about out
of time.
Welcome to our April Foolsevent.
Did you guys enjoy this?
Speaker 1 (54:39):
No.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
That was fun.
It was fun.
Speaker 4 (54:42):
It was fun for us.
I'm curious how the listenerswill react.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
You know listeners love this crazy stuff.
So I'm coming to you from abunker.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
No, Nathan loves this crazy stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
I'm coming to you from a bunker.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Nathan lives in his own little Star Trek world.
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Star Trek world.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
It needs to be a Star Trek world, not a Trek.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
All right, that's the proper way to say it.
So we have spent time topurposely program to say Star
Trek, star Trek yes.
All right.
Well, you know what, guys,we're about.
Out of time, we want to thankour technology talkback
recording system.
You can always stay connectedby signing up on our website and
(55:24):
staying up to date ontechnology.
We did move our website to anew site.
Bye-bye Host Gator, bye-byeInMotion, or hello InMotion.
So there we go.
You know what From all of ushere at TechTime Radio, remember
the science of tomorrow startswith the technology of today.
We'll see you back next weekwith our normal programming
schedule.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
Bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Thanks for joining us on Tech Time Radio.
We hope that you had a chanceto have that hmm moment today in
technology.
The fun doesn't stop there.
We recommend that you go totechtimeradiocom and join our
fan list for the most importantaspect of staying connected and
winning some really greatmonthly prizes.
We also have a few other waysto stay connected, including
(56:04):
subscribing to our podcast onany podcast service from Apple
to Google and everything inbetween.
We're also on YouTube, so checkus out on youtubecom.
Slash techtimeradio all oneword.
We hope you enjoyed the show asmuch as we did making it for
you From all of us atTechTimeRadio.
Remember mum's the word have asafe and fantastic week.
Broadcasting across the nation, from the East Coast
to the West, keeping you up todate on technology while
enjoying a little whiskey on theside, with leading-edge topics,
along with special guests tonavigate technology in a
segmented, stylized radioprogram.
The information that will makeyou go mmmm.
Pull up a seat, raise a glasswith our hosts as we spend the
(00:22):
next hour talking abouttechnology for the common person
.
Welcome to Tech Time Radio withNathan Mumm.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Today's content is part of our April Fool's special
.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Welcome to Tech Time Radio with not Nathan Mumm, the
show that makes you go, hmm.
Technology news of the week.
Technology news of the week.
The show is for the everydayperson, talking about technology
, broadcasting across the nationwith insightful segments on
subjects weeks ahead of themainstream media.
We welcome our radio audienceof 35 million listeners to an
(00:57):
hour of insightful technologynews.
I'm not nathan mum, your host,who is a technologist with over
30 years of technologyexperience.
Somehow we got an email fromgood old Nathan that last night
he decided he's going to ournation's capital to work with
Doge.
But you know, hey, we'll findout about that later.
I'm your host, mike Gorday.
(01:19):
I am an award-winning authorand a human behavior expert, and
sitting to my right here is whoare you?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Let me introduce myself, mike.
There you go.
I am Mark.
I am the whiskey connoisseurand, on the side, a technology
expert.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Okay.
We live stream during the showon four of the most popular
platforms, including YouTube,twitch TV, facebook and LinkedIn
.
We encourage you to visit usonline at tech time radiocom and
become a patron supporter atpatrioncom slash tech time radio
.
We're friends from differentbackgrounds but we try to bring
the best technology showpossible weekly for our family,
(02:02):
friends and fans to enjoy.
We're glad to have Mr Somebody,our producer, at the control
panel today.
Welcome everyone.
Let's start today's show.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Now on today's show.
Now on today's show.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Today on Tech Time Radio, we're going to dive
headfirst into the cutting edge,the curious and sometimes the
downright unbelievable in theworld of tech.
On today's show how an AI toolhelped uncover a groundbreaking
(02:54):
treatment for a rare disease.
We'll discuss the controversysurrounding 23andMe's court win
and their unfortunate ability tosell DNA data and what it means
for your privacy signal indepth to see how this chat app
all in the news now and used byus officials to share strategies
and introduce the futuristicmicrochip manicures turning your
nails into qr codes.
In addition, we have ourstandard features, including my
(03:15):
mesmerizing moment technologyfail of the week and possibly a
nathan nugget.
How are we going to do that one?
Speaker 4 (03:23):
all things are possible in the world of media,
or just bash a nugget onnathan's head.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Well, we'll just bash nathan with a nugget for him
ditching us today and of course,we have our pick of the day
whiskey tasting to see if ourselected whiskey gets zero, one
or two thumbs up at the end ofthe show and it looks like from
the spread here it's one ofthose spreads.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Yes, it is.
I wasn't here last week and youguys didn't miss me, so I
thought well, maybe if I bringmore whiskey, you guys will love
me.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Is that like whiskey goggles?
Like beer goggles?
Speaker 4 (03:56):
whatever I can do to get your love, mike okay, all
right.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Well, now it's time for the latest headlines in the
world of technology here are ourtop technology stories of the
week.
Welcome to our technologystories of the week, story
number one Reports say that ElonMusk announced on Friday that
last week he sold his socialmedia platform X to his own
(04:24):
artificial intelligence company,xai.
Let's go to Lisa Walker formore on this story.
Speaker 5 (04:32):
Elon Musk on Friday announced he has sold his social
media platform X to hisartificial intelligence company,
xai.
The new company is now valuedat $80 billion in an all-stock
transaction.
Musk founded XAI in March 2023to use artificial intelligence
(04:54):
to understand and generatehuman-like text.
At the time, he said thecompany will seek to understand
reality.
Understand reality.
X has around 1,500 employeesand XAI has around 1,000 workers
and is notable for productsincluding Grok, aurora and
Promptal DE.
Back to you guys in the studio.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah, I'm not sure how to feel about this right now
.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
This is an odd story.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, musk purchased Twitter for $44 billion in late
2022.
He took the company private andrebranded it as X on July 23rd
of 2023.
X has approximately 611 millionmonthly active users globally.
He says that XAI and X'sfutures are intertwined.
(05:42):
This will allow us to build aplatform that doesn't just
reflect the world, but activelyaccelerates human progress.
Musk founded XAI in March of2023 to use artificial
intelligence to understand andgenerate human-like text.
At the time, he said thecompany will seek to understand
reality, according to a post onTwitter.
Well, that's not Twitter,that's X.
(06:04):
In February, investors led byMusk have offered $97.4 billion
to take over OpenAI, theartificial intelligence maker of
ChatGPT.
He says it's time for OpenAI toreturn to the open-source,
safety-focused force for good itonce was.
We will make sure that thathappens.
You think that's?
Speaker 4 (06:23):
why he wants to buy OpenAI.
No, doesn't he have his own AI?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
I don't think he wants it.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Maybe he wants an AI that actually works.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Maybe All right.
In response, openai chiefexecutive Sam Altman posted on
Musk's own social media platformX.
No, thank you, but we will buyTwitter for $9.74 billion, if
you want.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Oh, that's a nice discount from what he bought it
for.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
No kidding, in 2015, musk and Altman co-founded the
startup OpenAI as a nonprofitcompany, but the relationship
has chilled since Musk departedthe firm in 2018.
The chat GPT tool debuted inNovember of 2022.
Musk, who is worth $347.7billion, according to Forbes, is
(07:11):
the largest shareholder ofTesla, the electric vehicle
company, and is the CEO ofSpaceX.
So I don't know how.
We all know how I feel about AI.
Speaker 4 (07:22):
Yeah, it's just interesting that you know you
own two companies and one ofyour companies buys the other
company.
Is it really a purchase or isit more of a merger?
Speaker 3 (07:31):
I kind of feel like he's outsourcing it so that he
can have his AI-generatedreality machine take over for X
and then it can do all thetexting that he normally does.
Speaker 4 (07:42):
Right, so it makes sense that he brings the two
together.
Just to say that one sold tothe other is a little strange.
The other one that people aretalking about it's a little
weird that the AI, XAI,purchased X.
Most people thought it wasgoing to be the other way around
, because X is a much biggerplatform than is XAI, which is
just a startup, and that's moreof a support organization.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I don't know.
I have a feeling it has more todo with how X has been being
run into the ground over thelast couple of years.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
That that may be the impetus for buying that, but I'm
not an expert on how thosepeople run their businesses, so
we'll have to do a call intoNathan because he's going to get
really close today to Mr Muskthere, flying over to DC to work
with him.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
All right Story.
Number two Now.
Ai tools helps find life-savingmedicine for a rare disease.
Okay, now, this is somethingthat I think is a great use of
AI.
So set to enter a hospice care.
A patient with idiopathicmulticentric Castleman's disease
is now in remission aftertreatment with medication
(08:46):
predicated as the top treatmentby an AI-guided analysis.
After combing through 4,000existing medications, an
artificial intelligence toolhelped uncover one that saved
the life of a patient withidiopathic multicentric
Castleman's disease.
This rare disease has anespecially poor survival rate
(09:07):
and few treatment options.
The patient could be the firstof many to have their lives
saved by AI prediction systems,which could potentially apply to
other rare conditions.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
So Mike, how did this work?
Did it actually just predictwhat it thought the medicine
would be, or did it actuallydevelop a medicine?
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Now, how I understand this works is that it set the
AI to go through all thepharmaceuticals that were
available, find out which oneshad side effects that worked as
a treatment for this similardisease, and then it prescribed
(09:51):
the medications based on theside effects, and the side
effects put it into remission.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Wow, which is a really interesting way of
treating a patient is by usingthe side effects of medication
and that's something that humanpeople trying to do would be
almost impossible to go througheverything of that kind of scope
and size, going through thatsize of data yeah, yeah, this is
(10:19):
one of the reasons.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
This is one of the things that ai should be doing.
It shouldn't be doing AIgirlfriends and it shouldn't be
doing AI therapists, and itshouldn't be doing AI art and AI
writing books.
It should be helping medicalprofessionals toward diseases.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
So it sounds like from your description there it
was humans using it as a tool toa system, versus it trying to
replicate a human function.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, yeah.
So you know, with Musk tryingto understand reality, I guess
you know that is a very good wayof looking at it.
So, detailed in a new paperpublished in the NAJM, a group
led by researchers at thePerelman School of Medicine at
University of Pennsylvania, agroup led by researchers at the
(11:14):
Perelman School of Medicine atUniversity of Pennsylvania.
They used the AI techniquecalled machine learning to
determine that well, I'm notgoing to say that because I
can't pronounce it A monoclonalantibody which is FDA approved
to treat conditions ranging fromarthritis to Crohn's disease,
was the top predicted newtreatment that was likely to
work for IMCD disease?
Was the top predicted newtreatment that was likely to
work for IMCD?
The physician of the patient inthe study, luke Chen MD, a
hematologist in VancouverGeneral Hospital in Vancouver,
bc, decided to try this TNFinhibitor for the first time on
(11:35):
an IMCD patient.
Ooh came from Canada.
Well, that's where the patientwas Nice, Go Canada, go Canada.
The patient in this study wasentering hospice care, but now
he's almost two years intoremission.
This is remarkable not just forthis patient and IMCD, but for
the implications it has for theuse of machine learning to find
(11:57):
treatments the process of usingan existing drug for a purpose
other than its initial intent iscalled drug repurposing.
Many diseases may appear verydifferent in symptoms, prognosis
or even cause, but they couldshare underlying links in the
body, such as comet, geneticmutations or molecular triggers,
and can therefore be treatedwith the same drug.
(12:19):
The AI platform used in thisstudy was built upon pioneering
work by study co-authors ChenyuMa, a research assistant, and
David Kozlicki, an associateprofessor of computer science
and engineering biology at theHuck Institute of Life Sciences,
both of Penn State.
The patient described in thestudy was headed into hospice
(12:41):
care because multiple treatmentshad failed him over time.
Was headed into hospice carebecause multiple treatments had
failed him over time.
While Castleman's disease isrelatively rare about 5,000 are
diagnosed in the US each yearthe findings of the study could
save the lives of many more.
Do you know if they've gonebeyond just one patient at this
time?
Speaker 4 (12:59):
No, no, it doesn't look like it, I'm sure there's
going to be a lot more testing.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
One of the reasons why they were able to do this
was that the patient didn't haveany more options, so they were
allowed to move forward withthis based on that.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
Where I find this very interesting is that a lot
of our famous drugs that areused now for a particular
application have been this sideeffect type treatment.
But it's taken a long time tofigure that out.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
type treatment, but it's taken a long time to figure
that out.
Yeah, well, you know it'sinteresting because one of the
things that you notice when yousee folks that are taking
treatments is that you have theprimary treatment pharmaceutical
and then you have anotherpharmaceutical that treats the
symptom or the side effects ofthe first one, and then you have
a third one that treats theside effect of the second one in
(13:45):
the first one, and so you havethis long list of you.
You get people who have a longlist of medications because of
all the side effects, and thenyou have a this drug cocktail
that nobody really knows what'sgoing on.
So very interesting.
Yeah, that's that's pretty cool.
Now, this is where I do find AIto be a boon to our society.
(14:07):
Otherwise, ai just sucks ingeneral.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah, that's kind of what James Riddle was talking
about a few episodes ago.
It can be used for massdestruction, genetic
resequencing.
That can be destructive, andyet there's so many positives
that they can do in diagnosisand treatment exactly.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
All right, let's move on to story number three,
unless you have anything else tosay about ai no, I'm done with
ai.
Speaker 4 (14:32):
I want to go to.
I want to go to data databreaches.
Okay, I miss those.
We haven't talked about thoseyeah.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Well, we warned you not long ago.
We talked about 23andMe beingcaught up in some legal things.
Well, your genetic DNA is goingon sale to the highest bidder.
The company 23andMe has woncourt approval to sell its most
valuable asset your DNA data.
Despite growing concerns overprivacy and security, a US
(15:02):
bankruptcy judge, brian C Walsh,allowed the company to proceed
with an auction, but extendeddeadlines to give creditors more
time to review the sale.
Hopefully that gives peopletime to get their data out of
there.
Well, as part of the saleprocess, 23andme originally set
tight deadlines, requiringpotential buyers to submit final
offers by May 7th.
Nevertheless, walsh ordered atwo-week extension, allowing
(15:25):
creditors more time to assessthe deal before a final decision
.
A lawyer from the US trustee'soffice argued that a neutral
third party should oversee thesale to protect consumer privacy
.
Despite these concerns,23andme's legal team, led by
Grace Hotz, argued that thecompany's privacy policies
already provide enoughprotection.
Meanwhile, state attorneygeneral have warned consumers to
(15:49):
delete their genetic databefore the sale is complete.
This has triggered a rush ofusers trying to remove their
information from 23andMe'swebsite, causing a surge in
traffic, which probably means aslowdown on the website, which
probably means an overloadedresponse time.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Yeah, I'm just wondering I'd love to go back
and read the judge's decisionhow because 23andMe had legally
told the people they would notbe selling that data?
Speaker 3 (16:23):
You know, we've been alive long enough to know that
when people say stuff, youautomatically have to take it
with a grain of or a a wholeshaker of salt.
Right, because people say stuffand then they they do the
complete opposite.
Speaker 4 (16:32):
We see it all the time right, but this has major
legal implications.
This this.
Speaker 3 (16:37):
I think this is.
This is a really, really, youknow bad thing, but you know,
you know we talked about this.
We talked about this last year,I think at the beginning,
somewhere around the beginningof last year, when this all
started falling apart for 23 andme, uh, uh, and I think we had
(16:58):
a big conversation between notonly us, but maybe James.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
Maybe James was part of that.
Okay, yeah, it just seems theUS is going in a direction of
anti-consumer protection and so,really, if you want, to do
something of this.
I would probably look for aEuropean company, because they
are really pushing with theirsecurity protocols and
protection of your data.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I don't know.
We all know that our data isthe hottest commodity on the
market.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
And we in the US use that as currency versus privacy.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, and I'm pretty sure that we've talked about 23
and me having connections tochina, so you know who knows?
Hey guys, hey guys oh what'sthat?
Speaker 2 (17:48):
hey guys, hey hey.
So I'm at a secret bunker.
I'm trying to call in here fortech time radio.
I got a bunch of stuff I I Iwent in to help the government
and they put me in this bunkerand I'm stuck here.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Maybe you should talk to us on Signal.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Oh, we're going to be talking about that coming on up
.
Thanks for I'm going to see ifI can maybe get in for a segment
.
Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (18:12):
You got to do the whiskey.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Take a cough drop while you're at it.
Okay, thanks guys.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Okay Hopefully it sounded like Nathan.
He never did identify himself.
He didn't identify himself.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, what's up with that, I don't know.
Okay, well, that is our toptechnology stories of the week.
Moving on, we'll have our deepdive in Signal and the texting
app that everyone at the WhiteHouse is using, and our guest,
elizabeth Benick, joins us.
Next segment to talk technologyand holograms.
Buckle up as we drive 88 milesper hour into our next segment.
See you after the commercialbreak.
Speaker 7 (18:44):
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(19:08):
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Speaker 3 (19:32):
Welcome back to Tech Time with Not Nathan Mumm.
Our weekly show covers the toptechnology subjects without any
political agenda.
We verify the facts and do itwith a sense of humor, in less
than 60 minutes and, of course,with a little whiskey on the
side.
Today, mark Gregoire, ourwhiskey connoisseur, is back in
our studio here and has ourmonthly tradition.
Mark, explain why we'redrinking a lot of whiskey today.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
We are doing the 2024 Flavor Advent advent calendar
and this is our round four.
So we're using this whiskeyadvent calendar with 24
remarkable whiskeys to use forour year-long blind whiskey
competition to see which one youor nathan like best.
Now come along the ride foronce a month while we uncover
new tastes and train theirsenses to become true
(20:18):
connoisseurs.
Today is round four, wherethey'll choose a winner to move
on to the semifinals.
They disagree.
Generally, I'm the decider, butwith Nathan MIA, I guess I get
to drink the whiskey today, I'mso excited.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Now today, mike, most of our samples are rye whiskeys
.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Now, let's be clear Rye is a whiskey.
Most of our samples are ryewhiskeys.
Now, let's be clear Rye is awhiskey.
There's a huge myth out therethat rye is not a whiskey, which
is also perpetuated by thelyrics in Don McLean's classic
song American Pie.
And them good old boys weredrinking whiskey and rye.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Whiskey and rye.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
Now McLean may have said whiskey and rye for poetic
rhyme and lyrical flow.
It sounds more folksy andlyrical than just whiskey.
That's what we have, Mike.
Feel free to take a samplethroughout the show.
Hey guys, hey guys, hey guys.
Oh, so I can't talk a whole lothere I'm working for our secret
government.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I came in here last night and I realized that I'm
the only one here.
Everything's been moved out.
I'm in a bunker.
They gave me the shirt when Icame in here and I'm ready to go
.
They said just stay down hereuntil everything is clear above.
How's the air above this?
Speaker 3 (21:25):
bunker.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Are you wearing a vault jacket?
Well, this is standard issuehere.
Standard issue, standard issue.
So this is where I'm going tohave to become Fall out jacket.
Is that what it is?
I don't know.
So, mark, I can't taste thewhiskey, so you're going to have
to taste the whiskey, becausethey said on my orientation that
I had to go through.
I learned all about Signal, soI'm up to speed on Signal now,
(21:48):
everything that they taught me.
I can't have any alcohol.
Well, on the job right now.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
I'll cover you on that, nathan, no problem, I'm
sure Mark has no problem withthe whiskey.
Okay, great.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
All right, especially today being Rise, I love.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Rise Awesome.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Okay.
Well, why don't we do somethingelse and move on to our feature
segment?
Did you guys taste all yourwhiskey yet?
No we're having a discussionabout where it came from and
about your funky vault.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
Okay, well, keep on going, Keep on going, keep on
going, Keep on going.
Mark, tell us a little bit moreabout the whiskey.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
Well, that's under the Mark Mumbles when we talk
about the whiskey.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Yeah, get a clue, dude.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
All right.
Well, are you guys now readyfor our feature segment?
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Yeah, I think I said that a few minutes ago.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Okay, well, you know what?
Let's get ready for our expertjoining us.
All right, this expert comes tous.
Elizabeth is a pioneer intechnology space, having
startups with Cisco'smulti-billion dollar
collaboration and securitybusiness.
Her expertise lies in buildingand empowering teams that
efficiently navigate internalcorporate workings to operate.
(22:54):
It's like a startup indelivering bleeding edge
products and solution.
Now what if you could enhanceour online social interactions
by migrating to something thatfeels a lot more human?
Wouldn't that be just great?
All right, guess what?
Let's get ready to start ournext segment.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Welcome to Technology Insider.
We get the information directlyfrom the source.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
All right, Elizabeth.
Welcome to our April Fool'sevent.
Hopefully you're enjoying ourfunny group that we have here
today.
But welcome, Nathan's madcap.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
What's that, nathan's ?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
madcap.
Hey, I'm in a bunker right nowworking for the government.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
With a lot of liquor behind you.
You know what?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
I'm the only employee here right now employee because
all the rest were let go.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
So you know what?
Hey, are the walls of yourbunker soft by any chance?
They are why.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (23:45):
something to be worried about.
I just wondered do you have ajacket with long arms?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I do have a jacket with long arms.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
All right, that's all .
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I need.
Okay, elizabeth, welcome to theshow.
Where are you joining with usfrom today?
Speaker 8 (23:56):
Hello, gentlemen, thank you for having me.
I am joining from the wonderful, sunny Austin Texas, all right,
and I'm definitely from thisworld of innovation and
disruption, which is why I wasrisky enough to join on April
Fool's.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
There you go, all right.
Well, welcome.
So much to be a part of ourshow.
Now let's talk a little bitabout WebEx, right?
So you're working.
I was scouring the internet andthe dark web since that's I'm
the only person here for theUnited States government now
working here and I did find anarticle that came on up that
talked about WebEx and holograms.
Speaker 8 (24:25):
I had spent quite a bit of time at Cisco.
My focus there was in thecollaboration department looking
at innovation, looking at thefuture of collaboration, what
could be disruptive and whatcould really change the way that
we collaborate today.
That led to really digging intothe world of augmented reality
and ultimately ended up buildingthe WebEx hologram product with
(24:45):
a wonderful, very creative teamthere, and we were kind of like
you in a bunker building it formost of the time.
It was very much in stealthmode for quite a while, but I
can explain what I mean by aholographic system if you'd like
.
Speaker 2 (24:59):
Yeah, absolutely, because I'm a big Star Trek the
Next Generation fan, right?
So is it like the holodeck roomwhere Picard goes on in there
with Riker and they have thesecrazy stories and everything
that you can talk about for astory plot, or is it something a
little less involved than that?
Speaker 8 (25:16):
Well, I don't want to get into the Star Trek versus
Star Wars whole genre, but I didhave a lot of Jedi counsel in
my original pitch decks for whenwe wanted to create this.
It is along those same lines Ifyou think of a hologram not
fuzzy, blue, green, but actual,real color.
And the thought was right now,if you're talking to somebody on
(25:37):
a video call, you're very awarethat they're in their location
and you're in your location.
There's not a lot of feeling oftogetherness because there's a
screen in between you, you haveequipment and a camera capturing
this.
It's very obvious that you'reseparate.
The whole story behind WebExHologram, what we're trying to
create we were going after afeeling and it was that feeling
(25:58):
of being together in the samespace, sharing the same space.
So if you think of aholographic collaboration as not
getting on a video call in youroffice and talking to somebody
on your screen, but putting on alightweight headset and then
having that person appear infront of you in your physical
space, Okay appear in front ofyou in your physical space In
(26:20):
real color, in full 3D.
So close to Star Trek and StarWars, but trying to get a little
bit more lifelike.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
What inspired you to actually write this book itself.
Speaker 8 (26:31):
It actually came at the end of that project WebEx
Hologram, when handing it off tothe business unit to become a
full-fledged product.
It had been a multi-yearjourney, going from purely the
strategy, looking at what hasthe potential to disrupt
collaboration when should we belooking at, into, well, what
could we build?
Into building those firstprototypes, into getting
(26:52):
customer feedback, and it endedup being a multi-year project.
So when I finally was able tostep back away from that, this
started as a postmortem formyself, really just starting to
think all right, what worked,what didn't.
If I were to do something like Ididn't set out to be an
entrepreneur running a startupinside of a big company, if I
were to do this again, how wouldI do things differently?
(27:14):
And I just kept writing moreand more.
My postmortem started gettingbigger and bigger, basically,
and realizing a lot of theselessons are great for me and my
journey going forward, but thesewould be really useful for
somebody else.
I didn't have a playbook, so Iwrote it to be a playbook for
somebody wanting to reallyimplement disruption inside of a
(27:34):
large corporation.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
All right.
So let me ask you that youdidn't have a playbook by
default.
Was that because your largeorganization didn't have a
playbook by that, Because youguys were kind of cutting edge?
Why was there not a playbook?
I'm just going to kind of askin place first off, and with
that I'll preface that I workedat a large company in the
Redmond area called Microsoftthat I worked with and they had
(27:56):
no playbooks for anything.
I've heard of them and they hadnothing either.
So as we were working there inthe 90s, I mean it was just the
wild, wild, wild west and I'mjust kind of curious if that was
the same thing that you hadhere or what was a little bit on
how your process was for yourplaybook to do this product.
Speaker 8 (28:13):
Yeah, I think every company, every big company I'm
sure you encountered this atMicrosoft big company, I'm sure
you encountered this atMicrosoft.
I've been talking to everybodyin the tech space.
Everybody likes to say thatthey're innovative.
Everybody likes to say thatthey do things in-house and they
build things and they've gotthe most innovative team.
But it's kind of like sayingevery company says we hire the
best and brightest.
I mean, nobody goes out thereand says we hire the bottom of
the barrel.
So when it comes to actualinnovation, and are you
(28:36):
innovative internally?
Everybody has a program, but alot of times those programs
don't actually lead to something.
A lot of times they're siloed,they're separate.
It's innovation theater is kindof the joke.
With my effort, I was inside ofthe engineering organization and
this started as looking fromthat perspective, from inside
(28:57):
out, of what could we do here?
What has the risk of reallyexposing us, not next year, not
a few quarters from now, but 10years from now?
Are we going to be relevant?
So it started from there andnobody had really built anything
internally from the ground upfrom that concept.
Usually it was acquiring someIP or building something
(29:18):
tangentially different to whatwe're currently doing.
So it's smaller innovations, oryou're buying a company.
You're like, well, I wantinnovation, let's go buy this
company, let's do this.
So that was new for us at thetime to do something entirely
from the ground up.
And it started in just smallsteps and I didn't start out day
one being like, hey, I'm goingto build a company inside of a
company.
(29:38):
It started out with hey, let'slook at this area, what can we
do here?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
So let's talk about your book.
Now is it a simple read?
Because you know so, mr Gordayhere on the show, he's written a
book and he can.
He can handle large phoneticwords and in big language
dictionary itself.
Except for one that was on myscript that I couldn't read.
Okay, but for me I need alittle bit more of a simpler
(30:01):
read, so I need something that Ican understand and pick up and
go Tell us a little bit about.
Is it a simple read?
Is it difficult?
What are some of the key points?
And, ideally in your book Cakeon Tuesday, what are you trying
to get across to the readers?
Speaker 8 (30:17):
Sure.
The subtitle of it is Cake onTuesday 25 Lessons to Unlock
Corporate Innovation, and it'sfocused on these 25 lessons
broken into five chunksthroughout the book.
Very simple, read my goal inwriting.
It was something that somebodycould pick up on a flight in New
York and be done by the timethey land in San Francisco,
because we're all busy.
So I was trying to think how doI distill?
(30:39):
The project I was working onwas about eight years.
How do I distill eight years oflearning into something that
somebody could read on a coastto coast flight and make it
really, really simple?
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Perfect, perfect, all right.
Now where can we find your book?
I mean, if I need to find, I'msure you can find it at the
largest bookstore on theinternet, but I don't, which
doesn't even sell books anymore,it sells everything else, and,
and, and they have.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
They have every amazon, they have my primary
library oh, is that your primarylibrary every two months they
have.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
They just had a special prime day just last week
again.
So, um, tell us, where can wefind your book?
Is it available in soft copy?
Hard copy, elizabeth, what,what?
Where can we go out and findthis?
Speaker 8 (31:19):
It's available in all the versions.
There's hard copy, paperback,e-book and there's a wonderful
voice talent that did the audioas well, so you can get it on
Google Play or Audible.
You can also get it at Amazon,barnes, noble Target, walmart
pretty much any place you canget a book.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
All right, hey, Nathan.
Yeah, what's up?
I had a question for ElizabethSure go right ahead.
So, for a lot of our listenersout there that are intrigued,
what would be your top coupletakeaways from the book that
they would get by reading thebook?
Speaker 8 (31:47):
Sure, I did really break it down into the journey
of going through WebEx Hologramand in my five sections I
realized in hindsight, lookingback at it, I was really biased
towards the start, becauseanytime you're doing something
new, different, innovative.
The first three sections arelargely about different parts of
starting, going from nothing toconcept, getting that concept
(32:09):
into motion.
How do you add oil and reducefriction to get that moving
forward?
How do you sell it?
All the first three sectionsare all about that.
And then because that's thehardest thing for everybody,
quite frankly and then my fourthsection is largely about once
you've got rolling.
It's titled leading to thebarren middle.
So it's that when everybodyhits the slog in the middle,
(32:30):
when it going gets rough, whenyou're just okay, this isn't how
I expected it to be, it's notso exciting now, how do you get
through that?
And it's focused more on myleadership journey.
So how, as a leader, do youhelp your team get through that?
And the last section isinsights from the rear view
mirror, which really taps intothose lessons that you don't
always get when you're in them,but you see them on the other
side.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
All right, perfect.
All right, elizabeth.
Now where can people get intouch with you outside of our
show?
So we love to let peopleconnect.
We will, of course, be taggingyou on LinkedIn, so where
everybody listens to our show,but where else can they reach
out to you?
If they wanted to maybe haveyou come and talk about your
book, or maybe come and keynotespeak, how would somebody reach
(33:10):
out to you?
Speaker 8 (33:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
You can find me on my website,which is elizabethbiennikcom,
and that's how you can reach outabout speaking engagements and
workshops.
I also post a lot on LinkedInunder my name, elizabeth Biennik
, largely on LinkedIn.
It's around.
I talk a lot about AI and talka lot about tech, and then I
also have a presence onInstagram at Cake on Tuesday,
(33:33):
which is more about the bookitself and leadership.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
All right, you know, elizabeth, we want to thank you
so much for being a part of ourApril Fool's show.
It's a little bit differentthan what we normally have, so
we are all changing positionsand having a great time as we do
.
So, you guys.
Anything else you'd like to askElizabeth?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I'm curious about the tie.
Why cake on Tuesday?
Why cake not every day?
Where did that come from, Mark?
Speaker 3 (33:54):
we all know about your cake thing.
I do.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Okay, here we go.
That's a good question.
Where did you come up with it?
There you go.
What did Mark say?
Speaker 8 (34:02):
It came Tuesday.
I have to give credit to myoperations manager, who was my
right hand.
She was my right hand for overa decade, even before this
project.
It was during that, leadingthrough the barren middle, that
rough part of the project, wewere past that exciting
beginning.
We weren't to our finalconclusion, we were just some of
(34:23):
the phases in the middle.
And we're talking about how dowe motivate the team, how do we
get them excited about somethingwe don't have a huge milestone
to rally around.
And she had the idea ofcreating the Wheel of Fortune
style Wheel of Winning, justputting everybody's name on it,
and at our staff meetings we'dspin it.
Our staff meetings were onTuesday.
If it landed on your name, wewould send you a cake.
We're a global team, so we hadpeople spread all around the
world and a cake would show upat your door later that week.
It's a way to just have fun.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
Mark's all excited about that.
He's like, hey, I got to dothat right now.
There you go.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
Where's your operations manager working now
and does she have openings?
Speaker 8 (34:54):
She's actually looking for some things right
now, so talk to me after Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
She can come work for the government, because it's
just myself right here now.
There's nobody else workinghere for the government.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
I think we can put that one to bed there.
Cake boy, okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Well, elizabeth, from all of us here at Tech Time
Radio, we really appreciate youjoining the show.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Thanks, elizabeth.
Now that Elizabeth's done forthe cake on Tuesday, nothing's
better than our Mike'smesmerizing moment.
Welcome to Mike's mesmerizingmoment.
What does Mike have to saytoday?
(35:31):
All right, mike, I'm going tobe coming to you from the bunker
here.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Whatever?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
dude.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Oh no, there's a siren that's going on in the
background there.
I gotta be, I gotta be careful,okay here's what we got all
right.
Bill gates said this last weekai can replace teachers and
doctors in the coming years.
Is this something you wouldlike to see?
Did you read the quote that hedid out there?
Speaker 4 (35:55):
so yeah, I didn't, he did he did a big interview he
did a big interview.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Bill gates said that big interview.
Bill Gates said that you knowwhat AI is going to help replace
teachers and doctors becauseyou're not going to have to have
a doctor anymore.
Now, after he said that, I wenton out and I did some grok
searches and some open AIsearches and I found out that I
get the same information from myAI assistant as I get from
WebMD.
Everything that is out thereyou're going to die of.
(36:19):
So I just started putting Ihave this issue.
It looks like you should go seea doctor.
You're going to die, but Iguess he thinks it's going to
change.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
Tell us what do you think about this idea?
Well, I have been predictingthis, but if we want to think of
it as a good thing, absolutelynot.
Okay, Because AI cannot replacecertain aspects of the human
element, and it never will, andone of those is the physical
(36:52):
interaction.
Hey, if you have an AI teacher,that's great, but what are you
going to do with students thatdon't really care?
The fact of the matter is isthat, do I think it's going to
happen?
Yeah, I think we're going to dothis whole song and dance about
oh, AI is going to replaceevery job.
We're already seeing it happen.
Ai devalues the humanexperience, AI devalues the
(37:13):
human being in general, andwe're going to bunch, we're
going to turn into the you knowall those guys on the ship in
Wally.
We're going to be fat andfloating around and not see
anything outside of our screen.
So, yeah, I'm not real happyabout that question.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Thanks, Well you know , I was kind of surprised to see
Bill just going out there andput it out there too.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
But you know my question, I guess, would be is
Bill happy about this, or is hejust saying this is probably
what's going to happen?
He was kind of saying that hepredicted this.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
It was kind of in a pro-positive way.
What he was saying is that youknow what, you're not going to
need to have a teacher or adoctor, because you're going to
be able to have all thatinformation and you as an
individual, yourself, can go onout and be able to find that
information.
So once again this goes back toearlier conversations, but
doctors, are practicing medicineright so there are doctors that
stretch the limits andsometimes they're not always
right.
(38:05):
Okay, yeah, there's mistakes asa tool.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
There's mistakes that we make as human beings, but an
AI can't replace the humanbeing.
It can collate knowledge thatthat human being may need, like
the teacher scenario, like theinteresting medical technique
that saved that guy that wetalked about earlier.
It can collate information andgive it to a human, but a human
(38:30):
has to be able to dispense thething.
Well, you know, until Elon getsall of his robots out there and
it takes over and you know,whatever, mike, I think to prove
your point, teachers is a goodexample of this.
Speaker 4 (38:42):
You know we all have that special teacher that really
changed our life.
That won't happen with AI.
Number two you saw during COVIDremote learning.
So it's still live teachers,but remote learning and the
detriment that that brought tothe kids at remote learning.
Now take away the human elementof that and put that by a
machine.
You're going to have.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Now take away the human element of that and put
that by a machine, you're gonnahave even more debt.
All right, okay, mike, thanksfor that mesmerizing moment.
Up next we have this week intechnology, so that would be a
great time, and I wish I couldbe enjoying a little whiskey on
the side, as we're going to bedoing so.
During the break, you'relistening to tech time radio
with nathan mum.
See you guys in a few minutes.
Speaker 6 (39:15):
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(39:39):
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Speaker 1 (39:53):
The segment we've been waiting all week for Mark's
Whiskey Mumble.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Yay.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
Well, today is April 1st.
What are we celebrating today?
Speaker 2 (40:08):
I don't think it matters.
It's April Fool's Day, ofcourse, but that's not what I'm
celebrating.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Oh, what are you celebrating?
I am celebrating National OneCent Day.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Oh Okay, how is that not an April Fool's joke?
It's not.
Speaker 4 (40:22):
Okay Now, those who forget history are doomed to
failure.
And, keeping this in mind, wecelebrate National One Cent Day.
We honor a major point in theestablishment of the American
currency, even though it's beendiscontinued now.
The story behind begins withBenjamin Franklin, who designed
it, all the way to AbrahamLincoln, who is on it now.
At one point, the coin used tobe called the Flowing Hair
(40:44):
Dollar because of the image ofthe Statue of Liberty on it.
Okay, okay, now another historylesson we should keep in mind.
In the late 1700s, georgeWashington was one of the
largest producers of rye whiskeyat his Mount Vernon distillery.
Yeah, he would have to beFather of the largest producers
of rye whiskey at his MountVernon distillery.
Yeah, he would have to be.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Father of the American country, you know.
I'm probably pretty sure he wasneeding some help there.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
So, like I said, we have a lot of ryes here.
So do you want me to tell youwhat's in each glass, or just
tell you what the four whiskeysare, and you guess?
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Well, you can.
Whatever, this is your bubble.
Speaker 4 (41:21):
Well, right now Mike has the shot glass and that's
kind of his leading one.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
That shot glass is my worst.
Here in the bunker, I'm notdrinking, although I just heard
Elon Musk is now going to let mego.
I got a notice that just camethrough here, so I'm going to be
let go here.
Speaker 3 (41:36):
Did you get a pink slip?
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Well, he here, so I'm gonna be.
Let go get a pink slip.
Well, he says he's gonna comein and personally meet me.
So I'm excited about that.
So, all right, let's get backto the whiskey here.
Yeah, let's get back to 1928rye whiskey.
Now this distillation is fromfrance, it's a finnish rye
whiskey, so it's 100 proof andbasically it's 60 percent rye,
30 percent exo cavados and 10%blend of Armagnac.
And the Armagnacs are fivedifferent distillations, going
all the way back to 1928.
(42:04):
Nice, that's a very complex one.
In the jam glass, that's thelittle jar jam glass.
That is New York Distilling.
Jaywalk Rye, that's from NewYork.
It's a straight rye whiskey, 68years old, 92 proof.
It's 75% New York rye, 13% corn, 12 malted barley.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
You know what?
There's aliens that live in NewYork.
I just came across my deskright here Military breaking
news.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
All right, in the Glenn glass in front of you is
American metal whiskey.
Oh, distilled in Tennessee.
It's a straight Tennesseewhiskey.
Four to five years, 90 proof,80% corn, 10 malted barley, 10%
rye oh no.
And then in the water glassthat I think Nathan is slightly
liking.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
I think Nathan, might Nathan put your jacket on?
I'll go, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Okay, all right.
Speaker 4 (42:58):
Yeah, that's the one I like.
Yep, that's Stork House RyeWhiskey that is distilled in
Germany.
It's a straight rye whiskeyfour to five years, 90 proof,
100% German rye Ooh I don't care.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Where did that come from?
Speaker 2 (43:15):
What the heck, Mike?
Well, I kind of like that one,to be honest.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
All of these are pretty good, they're all pretty
good.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
I'm having trouble deciding which one.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
I like the best.
This is my number one.
Speaker 4 (43:27):
So you still got a little bit more time to come up.
Otherwise I'm going to have totaste them and figure out which
one's the best.
I think that's the best Allright, yeah, you just slammed it
.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
That was really good.
I tasted all of them and thatwas the only one that I could
really slam.
All right, well, do you haveanything else to tell us, mark?
Speaker 4 (43:43):
No, that is it for now, nathan.
Back to the bunker.
Happy coin day, buddy.
Back to your silly, a penny, apenny.
Just think, of a whole penny.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Now, if you collect 50 pennies, do you know how much
?
You have 50, two quarters.
You have two quarters, that'sright.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Oh, that's a good thing, you can do math, that's
very helpful.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
In your vault I really couldn't do math, but
Mark helped me.
Okay, here we go.
I'm reading across the lineright now, United States
governments are secrets postedon WhatsApp, so you can just go
up to WhatsApp right now.
I guess somebody leakedsomething.
They were trying to sendsomething out and, oops, it got
leaked out.
All right.
Well, Whiskey and Technology agreat pairing.
Just like Star Trek episodesand the red shirt ensign that
(44:24):
dies in the first act of all ofthe original series.
Speaker 4 (44:27):
It's about time we got that one in here.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
There we go.
I'm watching some Star Trekreviews right now, and so I'm
going back and watching.
Speaker 7 (44:34):
You mean reruns?
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Well, I call them re-dos because they've been
re-edited.
The episode now is in the HDand it's got everything else in
it.
So it's not really a rerunanymore.
All of a sudden, the Star TrekEnterprise ship now looks like
it's five years old fromtechnology, and I mean it's just
all souped up with lights andeverything that wasn't.
At least that model's a good,okay, continue on.
All right, let's prepare forour technology fail of the week,
(44:57):
presented by elite executiveservices technology experts to
help you out of a technologyfail, we are out of time.
Congratulations, you're afailure.
Speaker 7 (45:09):
Oh, I failed.
Did I yes, did I yes, did I.
Speaker 4 (45:15):
Yes, all right, so can I guess what it is?
What are you going to be?
Speaker 3 (45:18):
it is I'm pretty sure .
Speaker 4 (45:21):
It's from Tech Time Radio's April Fool joke.
Speaker 2 (45:23):
It is Technology failure comes to us from the
White House, as many secretshave been shared On public
social media platforms.
There goes something right nowon Facebook.
Wow, I can't believe that'seven true.
Okay, we're going to talk abouta social media platform Called
Signal.
It's an app that is used byUnited States officials to share
attack plans with media andanybody else, because clearly,
(45:46):
our people did not know how touse a basic app service.
Now this app is used for directmessages and group chats, as
well as phone calls and videocalls.
Just think of all the privateinformation that is stored on
these servers.
Now, it is nice to know thatthis is a nonprofit, so at least
hopefully, it's not going intothe wrong hands.
But let's talk a little bitabout this cool new app.
We've talked about it.
(46:06):
Actually, we talked about it inyear one of Tech Time Radio on
our show about Signal.
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Has it been that long ?
Speaker 2 (46:11):
ago it has been that long ago.
It goes back to our firstseason of episodes.
We're in season seven now, soit goes back to our first deal
when we were in our Studio 44.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
All right Now.
Speaker 2 (46:23):
Signal uses end-to-end encryption for its
messaging and calling service toprevent any third parties from
viewing conversations content orlistening in on calls.
In other words, messages andcalls sent to Signal are
scrambled and only the senderand recipient of each end will
have the key to decipher them.
Signal's encryption protocol isopen source, meaning that it's
freely available for anyone tointeract with or modify.
(46:45):
That means the encryptionprotocol is used by other
popular chat forms, includingMeta's WhatsApp platform.
Now Signal has features thatare found in other messaging
apps, but it also has theability to host up to 1,000
people on a message at a time,so if you have 1,000 friends, so
you can put the whole.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
So you can add a lot of journalists in there.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
You can put a lot of journalists in there.
You can add them all to yourlist.
You can have up to 1,000 peoplethat you sent to you.
What's really interesting aboutthis is that you can actually
set on the settings to have yourmessage automatically disappear
after a certain amount of time.
I don't want to say that'sillegal to do with the United
States government informationthat you're always supposed to
keep, but if you'd be using thatand it was configured to have
(47:26):
this option enabled and theinformation deleted, I guess you
would just say well, you knowwhat.
I didn't realize that that wasthe settings for the app.
Now government officials haveused Signal for organization
correspondence, such asscheduling sensitive meetings,
but in the Biden administration,people who had permission to
download it on the White Houseissued phones were instructed to
use the app sparingly.
According to a formal nationalsecurity official who served in
(47:49):
the administration the officialwas requested for not anatomy to
speak on these methods,probably because, just like me,
he's hiding in a bunker SaidSignal's most common use is to
notify someone back in the Bidenadministration that they should
then check for classifiedmessage sent through other means
, including our nation's securedemail system.
(48:12):
Probably the idea of having analert that says, hey, you have a
secured email, go check it out.
Would probably be a perfect wayto use this application.
I don't think you should beusing it to send information
back and forth that are reallysensitive because, guess what?
It is not controlled by ournation's government.
It is a nonprofit open sourcecode that's available.
Now, who's behind Signal?
(48:33):
The app originally dated backmore than a decade, when it was
set up by an entrepreneur whogoes by the name of Moxie Marlon
spike.
Yeah, that sounds like a realname no, so the person that even
created this doesn't even wantto know who the real name is,
who was, briefly, head ofproduct security at Twitter
After he sold his mobilesecurity startup for the social
media company, marlon spikemerged to existing open source
(48:55):
apps the red phone encryptedvoice calling app and the
TechSecure Encrypted TextingProgram to create Signal.
Now, according to JohnRatcliffe, as of 2025, signal is
installed by default on thedevices of most CIA employees
and its usage is covered bystandard onboard training, the
same training that I had latelast night.
So here we go my phone righthere is secure with Signal now,
(49:18):
so that's the only way I cancommunicate with anybody outside
of my bunker.
Speaker 4 (49:21):
Oh, that's great, because I don't have Signal on
my phone.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
So that's perfect.
We can't talk anymore.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
This is a good day, All right so we're going to head
out to our last commercialbreak.
When we return, we have ourNathan Nugget and, of course,
our pick of the day.
So sit back, raise a glass.
You're listening to Tech TimeRadio with Nathan Mumm.
Speaker 3 (49:39):
How to see a man about a dog.
It combines darkly comic shortstories, powerful poems and pulp
fiction prose to create aheartbreaking and hilarious
journey readers will not soonforget.
Read how to See a man About aDog.
Collected writings for freewith Kindle.
Unlimited E-book available onKindle.
Print copies available onAmazon.
The book pository and more.
Speaker 1 (50:00):
This is your Nugget of the Week.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
All right, our Nugget of the Week.
You know what?
Who needs a smartphone when youcan have smart nails?
The NFC manicure is the latesttrend to bring manicuring to the
tech world.
Nfc stands for Neo FieldCommunication.
It's an ultra tiny tech chipthat Wait a minute.
I'm getting a little drunk inthis bunker here.
What are you doing?
Don't be messing with me.
(50:26):
I hit this big red button righthere.
What are you even talking?
Speaker 3 (50:29):
about here we go.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
NFE stands for near field communication.
The NFC manicures are thelatest in the nail trending deal
.
You can actually get an NFCchip when you go into your nail
salon, which I know you do, mrGorday, all the time but you can
actually get it so that you canopen up and have it be used as
an NFC chip.
Speaker 3 (50:50):
Yeah, I need to go get a manicure so I can have
this attached to my nail, that'sexactly correct.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Well, they're paper thin, they're weightless and
painless.
The chip allows you to act assimilar QR codes.
There are two types of this NFCnail chip.
One is a microchip that you canencrypt with data, a website or
a Spotify song.
The second type is a blinkinglight that starts shining
whenever your phone is unlocked.
Just think of this I could havemy phone on the table.
(51:16):
You go and unlock it.
All of a sudden my nails lightup and say poo-doo-doo-doo-doo,
just kind of like all the sirensthat are going on here in the
bunker?
Speaker 3 (51:23):
What happens if I break my nail?
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Elon, please don't hurt me.
Don't hurt me.
What was that?
Sorry, what?
Speaker 3 (51:30):
was that.
Speaker 2 (51:40):
What happens when?
Speaker 3 (51:40):
I break.
I think you that stuff go away.
Am I able to access my bankaccounts now?
What's my deal here?
Speaker 2 (51:46):
what's really nice is that these are normally
portable and movable, so even ifyou chip a nail, you'll be able
to take this NFC and put it onyour next nail when you go on in
for your manicure the next time.
Now the chips are getting evensmaller.
They're going to be more andmore.
It looks like this is going tobe more and more.
It looks like this is going tobe the new trend for nails,
especially for putting on aspecial light show.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
I have.
Do you like this new craze?
I have a technical word for it.
What's that?
It's stupid.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
It's stupid, it's stupid.
Oh, come on, your nextgirlfriend's going to be all lit
up with NFC nails.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
If somebody, if I had a date that came in and be like
oh, look at my beautiful nails.
Not only are they beautifully,functionally, but they can open
my phone and light up.
No, I don't need a Disney, youdon't need that.
No, I don't need a Disney lightshow to go with my date.
We're like well.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
You, you don't need that.
No, I don't need a Disney lightshow to go with my day.
Let's move on to our whiskeytasting.
Speaker 1 (52:43):
And now our pick of the day for our whiskey tastings
.
Let's see what bubbles to thetop All right.
Speaker 4 (52:51):
What do we have All right?
So in the shot glass you havethe Bacta 1928 Rye Whiskey $67.
In the jam jar you have NewYork Distilling Jaywalk Rye $45.
In the Glen American MetalWhiskey $45.
And in the Waterglass StorkHouse Rye Whiskey $65.
Speaker 3 (53:16):
I'm a little bothered by this Mark, because I seem to
be enjoying rye a lot more thanI used to.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
So which one's your choice, Mike?
Speaker 3 (53:22):
I'm going to stick with the Bacta 1928.
All right, that seems to be themost.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
This is my the Stork House rye whiskey.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Yes, absolutely All right.
Speaker 4 (53:31):
So I have to decide.
Well, actually the best one isneither one that you guys chose.
It's the one in the jam jarthat Jay walk rye.
But between the two you chosehow is that not how?
Speaker 3 (53:41):
how is our us not to be the best?
Who decided the the whiskeyconnoisseur?
Speaker 4 (53:46):
Now the one that's going to move on has to be one
that you guys chose.
So the one that moves on is theBokta 1928 rye whiskey.
That was my number two choice.
My number three, not far behind, was Stork House Rye Whiskey,
which was Nathan's, and the onethat was just not drinkable, in
my estimation, is the AmericanMetal Whiskey, which is,
(54:08):
interestingly enough, my tastesare more aligned with his taste
than yours.
Your two's were pretty close.
So I like the Jaywalk Rye, justthe one from New York the best.
Your two were both very good,very close.
So I like the Jaywalk rye, justthe one from New York the best.
Your two were both very good,very close.
But, mike, I felt the Bokta ryewith the Cavados and the
Armagnac in there elevated alittle bit.
Speaker 3 (54:29):
It was the most consistent for me.
Speaker 2 (54:32):
Alright, well, guys, delicious, we're just about out
of time.
Welcome to our April Foolsevent.
Did you guys enjoy this?
Speaker 1 (54:39):
No.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
That was fun.
It was fun.
Speaker 4 (54:42):
It was fun for us.
I'm curious how the listenerswill react.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
You know listeners love this crazy stuff.
So I'm coming to you from abunker.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
No, Nathan loves this crazy stuff.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
I'm coming to you from a bunker.
Speaker 3 (54:51):
Nathan lives in his own little Star Trek world.
I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Star Trek world.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
It needs to be a Star Trek world, not a Trek.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
All right, that's the proper way to say it.
So we have spent time topurposely program to say Star
Trek, star Trek yes.
All right.
Well, you know what, guys,we're about.
Out of time, we want to thankour technology talkback
recording system.
You can always stay connectedby signing up on our website and
(55:24):
staying up to date ontechnology.
We did move our website to anew site.
Bye-bye Host Gator, bye-byeInMotion, or hello InMotion.
So there we go.
You know what From all of ushere at TechTime Radio, remember
the science of tomorrow startswith the technology of today.
We'll see you back next weekwith our normal programming
schedule.
Speaker 3 (55:41):
Bye-bye.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
Thanks for joining us on Tech Time Radio.
We hope that you had a chanceto have that hmm moment today in
technology.
The fun doesn't stop there.
We recommend that you go totechtimeradiocom and join our
fan list for the most importantaspect of staying connected and
winning some really greatmonthly prizes.
We also have a few other waysto stay connected, including
(56:04):
subscribing to our podcast onany podcast service from Apple
to Google and everything inbetween.
We're also on YouTube, so checkus out on youtubecom.
Slash techtimeradio all oneword.
We hope you enjoyed the show asmuch as we did making it for
you From all of us atTechTimeRadio.
Remember mum's the word have asafe and fantastic week.
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