Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is a podcast from wor NowMore of the War Saturday Morning Show and
Larry Mente, welcome back. Haveyou heard of the portal? It's a
fascinating idea. There are several ofthem around the world and there are plans
for more. The portal is anart sculpture that connects people around the globe
(00:21):
through a video screen. One isin the plaza next to the Flat Iron
Building in Manhattan and there's a videostream in the sculpture so you can see
in real time a live feed fromanother portal in Dublin, Ireland, and
they can see back here. Exceptthat people started doing inappropriate things in the
(00:42):
feed and the feed had to beshut down. Is it going back up
and if so when? For thatand other questions, let's talk with Joe
Callahan, director of the Portals Organizationand CEO of Sansar, a virtual reality
company. Hi Joe, thank youso much for doing this. Let's start
(01:02):
with your company, Sansar. WhatSansar does and how did you get involved
with the Portal project. So,Sansar is an immersive, photo realistic metaverse
company. We were spun out ofLinden Labs many years ago and we're a
global operating entity with thousands of worldsand hundreds of thousands of users. It's
(01:26):
a fully immersive social media gaming platformthat is all metaverse powered and it is
quite entertaining. And how did youget involved with the portal project? So
I like to say that the universebrought it to me. I've been involved
with video communications for a very longtime, and when I was exposed to
it many months ago, I reachedout and built a deep relationship with the
(01:51):
other founders, traveled to Lithuania whoexperienced the portal directly, and then became
part of the team as a directorand a technology contributor and just getting my
shoulder on the plow, believing inthe humanitarian mission of connecting our world in
such a time of need. Whendid you get word that the portal connecting
(02:13):
New York and Dublin had to beshut down? So they brought that to
our attention after a few of theinappropriate actions occurred on both sides that we
immediately mobilized our teams and then wemade the decision that we would bring the
portals down and initiate some advanced technologythat we have currently tested, and we
(02:37):
will be deploying shortly to relaunch theportals. When you say shortly, how
long do you know in a matterof days? Okay. I love your
idea. It's a great idea connectingthe people of the world through art and
technology. But people are going todo appropriate things. People are going to
be people like I guess there wasmooning and flashing and worse. I guess.
(03:00):
The question is how did you notsee this coming? So we anticipated
that the human behavior would ultimately tenditself to from inappropriate activity. We didn't
anticipate it that it would be thisrapid. We've had portals operating between Lithuania
and Poland for some time and wehave not had any issues. So I
(03:21):
think the excitement around the project broughtso many people to it that we were
exposed to such a mass population thatthe fraction of the fraction of the percentage
that behaved in the manner that theyhave. We just need processes and procedures
with our partners to ensure that theinappropriateness is minimized or eliminated. We're talking
(03:42):
with Joe Callahan, director of thePortals Organization and CEO of SANSAR. Do
you have a commitment now from thepeople in New York and Dublin that they're
still committed to the project. We'reall navigating collectively as a unit to ensure
the positive aspect of the portals andto address any of these minor concerns you
(04:03):
were talking about a process are comingup with the ways to stop this from
happening. Again, what are youlooking at right now? So well,
there's two components, both the physicalcomponents of ambassadors to shepherd to shepherd activity
in the proximity, then that's anon scalable long term security aspects. But
the technology that we are deploying isadvanced technology and AI inside the cameras to
(04:30):
sense in real time the activity andthen to blur the screens and produce warnings
and alarms to a ventit. That'sfascinating. Do you have anybody that monitors
what's happening on the portals? Theportals get routed through environments for monitoring the
video, but we don't record thedata or record the video. So from
(04:53):
a scalability standpoint, based on thenumber of portals that we are anticipating the
pulling in our schedule, that's notsomething that is going to address this long
term requirement. But what we willbe doing is deploying the AI as we're
seeing it everywhere in our world today, and it makes perfect sense to apply
it here, and the AI willprevent the inappropriateness from being aired from portal
(05:16):
to portal. I don't know ifyou've heard about this woman, this woman
named Ava Louise, who's getting alot of publicity because she flashed the portal
and she is claiming and she's beenin the New York Post and I've looked
at She's in newspapers around the world. She's claiming, I shut down the
portal. Is that true? Thatis not true. It's great. You
(05:40):
know, we love the fact thatthe entire world is now approaching being aware
of the portals. And people arepeople, and people will claim things that
they've done. But you know,the actions were taken in a way that
we collectively, with our part inthrough this whole process, made a decision
(06:02):
to take the portals down and todeploy the technology for which was already in
development, to prevent it in thefuture. You know, you just touched
on something I wanted to bring up. It is the fact that you were
getting so much publicity right now.I will admit to you, I didn't
know about the portal. I knowabout it now. I know everybody in
New York and Dublin knows about itnow, and I would imagine everybody wants
(06:26):
to go see what this is allabout. So in a way, it's
an enormous silver lining. I mean, I don't think you could have bought
this kind of publicity. I'm sureyou're aware of that. We have anticipated
this, recognizing the impact that theportals had when we launched the portals in
(06:46):
Lithuania and in Poland, that oncewe launched them in Dublin, Ireland and
New York City, that it wasonly a matter of weeks until the entire
planet was aware of our humanitarian initiativehere with connecting us all as one.
No, I get that. Butdid you realize it was going to be
(07:10):
because of this? Yes, ohyou did. We realized it was good.
Well, we realized that it wasgoing to because the fact, not
from a negative press standpoint. Werealized that it was going to be because
of the excitement. Yeah, I'mnot sure experience. Have you experienced the
portal? Have you experienced the portallyyet? No? I didn't even know
what it was until this story.As I was saying, I don't think
most people knew what it was inthe New York area unless they're going by
(07:33):
that that area in Manhattan knew whatit was until now. I think.
I think you're going to get alot of traffic now, So we I
mean we, I think the trafficwill continue to increase, and the more
awareness and the locations that will soonto be announced elsewhere on the planet,
it'll just continue to spread viraling.Absolutely. Yeah, And what's the vision
for this? Take me into thefuture of the portal. The portal is
(07:56):
not just a portal about connecting twocities, you know. The portal is
a portal's network, and it's aboutconnecting the network of mankind. And the
structure is that the portals will rotateon a minute by minute basis from city
to city around the world. Andbecause of the fact that there is no
audio, you know, so there'sno barrier of communication between and so as
(08:16):
humans, we can see one anotherwithout any labels, without any prejudice,
without any judgment, and we caninteract with one another globally on a real
time basis and try and bring somegood and some peace in a time where
it's so desperately needed. Oh,that was wonderfully said. I'm going to
end with that. Thank you somuch, sir for your time. No,
(08:39):
it is absolutely my pleasure, andwe'll see you in a portal soon.
Absolutely, I'm going. Joe Callahan, director of the Portals Organization and
CEO of Sansar. This has beena podcast from WR
This is a podcast from wor NowMore of the War Saturday Morning Show and
Larry Mente, welcome back. Haveyou heard of the portal? It's a
fascinating idea. There are several ofthem around the world and there are plans
for more. The portal is anart sculpture that connects people around the globe
(00:21):
through a video screen. One isin the plaza next to the Flat Iron
Building in Manhattan and there's a videostream in the sculpture so you can see
in real time a live feed fromanother portal in Dublin, Ireland, and
they can see back here. Exceptthat people started doing inappropriate things in the
(00:42):
feed and the feed had to beshut down. Is it going back up
and if so when? For thatand other questions, let's talk with Joe
Callahan, director of the Portals Organizationand CEO of Sansar, a virtual reality
company. Hi Joe, thank youso much for doing this. Let's start
(01:02):
with your company, Sansar. WhatSansar does and how did you get involved
with the Portal project. So,Sansar is an immersive, photo realistic metaverse
company. We were spun out ofLinden Labs many years ago and we're a
global operating entity with thousands of worldsand hundreds of thousands of users. It's
(01:26):
a fully immersive social media gaming platformthat is all metaverse powered and it is
quite entertaining. And how did youget involved with the portal project? So
I like to say that the universebrought it to me. I've been involved
with video communications for a very longtime, and when I was exposed to
it many months ago, I reachedout and built a deep relationship with the
(01:51):
other founders, traveled to Lithuania whoexperienced the portal directly, and then became
part of the team as a directorand a technology contributor and just getting my
shoulder on the plow, believing inthe humanitarian mission of connecting our world in
such a time of need. Whendid you get word that the portal connecting
(02:13):
New York and Dublin had to beshut down? So they brought that to
our attention after a few of theinappropriate actions occurred on both sides that we
immediately mobilized our teams and then wemade the decision that we would bring the
portals down and initiate some advanced technologythat we have currently tested, and we
(02:37):
will be deploying shortly to relaunch theportals. When you say shortly, how
long do you know in a matterof days? Okay. I love your
idea. It's a great idea connectingthe people of the world through art and
technology. But people are going todo appropriate things. People are going to
be people like I guess there wasmooning and flashing and worse. I guess.
(03:00):
The question is how did you notsee this coming? So we anticipated
that the human behavior would ultimately tenditself to from inappropriate activity. We didn't
anticipate it that it would be thisrapid. We've had portals operating between Lithuania
and Poland for some time and wehave not had any issues. So I
(03:21):
think the excitement around the project broughtso many people to it that we were
exposed to such a mass population thatthe fraction of the fraction of the percentage
that behaved in the manner that theyhave. We just need processes and procedures
with our partners to ensure that theinappropriateness is minimized or eliminated. We're talking
(03:42):
with Joe Callahan, director of thePortals Organization and CEO of SANSAR. Do
you have a commitment now from thepeople in New York and Dublin that they're
still committed to the project. We'reall navigating collectively as a unit to ensure
the positive aspect of the portals andto address any of these minor concerns you
(04:03):
were talking about a process are comingup with the ways to stop this from
happening. Again, what are youlooking at right now? So well,
there's two components, both the physicalcomponents of ambassadors to shepherd to shepherd activity
in the proximity, then that's anon scalable long term security aspects. But
the technology that we are deploying isadvanced technology and AI inside the cameras to
(04:30):
sense in real time the activity andthen to blur the screens and produce warnings
and alarms to a ventit. That'sfascinating. Do you have anybody that monitors
what's happening on the portals? Theportals get routed through environments for monitoring the
video, but we don't record thedata or record the video. So from
(04:53):
a scalability standpoint, based on thenumber of portals that we are anticipating the
pulling in our schedule, that's notsomething that is going to address this long
term requirement. But what we willbe doing is deploying the AI as we're
seeing it everywhere in our world today, and it makes perfect sense to apply
it here, and the AI willprevent the inappropriateness from being aired from portal
(05:16):
to portal. I don't know ifyou've heard about this woman, this woman
named Ava Louise, who's getting alot of publicity because she flashed the portal
and she is claiming and she's beenin the New York Post and I've looked
at She's in newspapers around the world. She's claiming, I shut down the
portal. Is that true? Thatis not true. It's great. You
(05:40):
know, we love the fact thatthe entire world is now approaching being aware
of the portals. And people arepeople, and people will claim things that
they've done. But you know,the actions were taken in a way that
we collectively, with our part inthrough this whole process, made a decision
(06:02):
to take the portals down and todeploy the technology for which was already in
development, to prevent it in thefuture. You know, you just touched
on something I wanted to bring up. It is the fact that you were
getting so much publicity right now.I will admit to you, I didn't
know about the portal. I knowabout it now. I know everybody in
New York and Dublin knows about itnow, and I would imagine everybody wants
(06:26):
to go see what this is allabout. So in a way, it's
an enormous silver lining. I mean, I don't think you could have bought
this kind of publicity. I'm sureyou're aware of that. We have anticipated
this, recognizing the impact that theportals had when we launched the portals in
(06:46):
Lithuania and in Poland, that oncewe launched them in Dublin, Ireland and
New York City, that it wasonly a matter of weeks until the entire
planet was aware of our humanitarian initiativehere with connecting us all as one.
No, I get that. Butdid you realize it was going to be
(07:10):
because of this? Yes, ohyou did. We realized it was good.
Well, we realized that it wasgoing to because the fact, not
from a negative press standpoint. Werealized that it was going to be because
of the excitement. Yeah, I'mnot sure experience. Have you experienced the
portal? Have you experienced the portallyyet? No? I didn't even know
what it was until this story.As I was saying, I don't think
most people knew what it was inthe New York area unless they're going by
(07:33):
that that area in Manhattan knew whatit was until now. I think.
I think you're going to get alot of traffic now, So we I
mean we, I think the trafficwill continue to increase, and the more
awareness and the locations that will soonto be announced elsewhere on the planet,
it'll just continue to spread viraling.Absolutely. Yeah, And what's the vision
for this? Take me into thefuture of the portal. The portal is
(07:56):
not just a portal about connecting twocities, you know. The portal is
a portal's network, and it's aboutconnecting the network of mankind. And the
structure is that the portals will rotateon a minute by minute basis from city
to city around the world. Andbecause of the fact that there is no
audio, you know, so there'sno barrier of communication between and so as
(08:16):
humans, we can see one anotherwithout any labels, without any prejudice,
without any judgment, and we caninteract with one another globally on a real
time basis and try and bring somegood and some peace in a time where
it's so desperately needed. Oh,that was wonderfully said. I'm going to
end with that. Thank you somuch, sir for your time. No,
(08:39):
it is absolutely my pleasure, andwe'll see you in a portal soon.
Absolutely, I'm going. Joe Callahan, director of the Portals Organization and
CEO of Sansar. This has beena podcast from WR
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.