- Did you know there is tech that can help prevent your home going up in flames? I catch up with Frontline Wildfire Defense’s Harry Statter, founder and CEO, on how their system works
- It’s a purpose-built tablet for aging adults (75 years of age and older) called GrandPad. Joining us is Scott Lien, CEO & Co-Founder of GrandPad, on how this device was designed for this dynamic demographic
- Recorded at the recent AWS Re:Invent conference in Las Vegas, Modulate.AI’s Terry Chen talks with us about how its AI tool can prevent hearing inappropriate or abusive language when playing online multiplayer games
- Thank you to Intel, Visa, and SanDisk
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the ever changing world
of technology? Check it Out can help make some sense
of it all. Breaking down GeekSpeak into street speak. Technology columnist, author,
and TV personality Mark Saltzman covers consumer technology each week
for every listener, Mark tackles the latest news, reviews, and
how toos to help you understand what's hot, what's not
(00:22):
and why.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, everyone, welcome to check it Out. It's episode three
seventy seven. I hope you're all doing well today, and
as I talked about last week on the air, my
thoughts and prayers are with those in southern California affected
by those devastating wildfires. In fact, I know a lot
of tech it Out listeners are in the LA area,
(00:44):
so hope you're able to tune in, and more importantly,
that you're safe in your family as well. My editor
at AARP asked me to write an up to date
article on something I've addressed in the past, which is
on how to preserve your family's paper photos just in
case something like this happens. How do you digitize your memories,
whether you want to do it or services that can
(01:06):
do it for you, and what to look out for
so I'm going to file that piece on Tuesday. For
today's teck it Out, and speaking of wildfires, I'll interview
someone right off the top of the show whose company
has a solution for homeowners and their technology has already
saved seven homes in the LA area. Also on the show,
I'll share more of my top picks from the twenty
(01:26):
twenty five Consumer Electronics Show or CES, which wrapped up
in Las Vegas last week.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I'm going to have on the.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Program today Grand Pad and their tablet for Americans age
seventy five and older, and what's unique there. The company
made a splash at CES last week. In fact, all
of this and more on an all new tech it
out powered by Intel Core Ultra Series two PCs, those
AI powered laptop set. I'll tell you more about shortly,
(01:52):
but let's officially kick off a brand new tech it
out with our first interview. The images of the devastating
wildfires in southern California are difficult to see, so imagine
living through that, people losing their loved ones, their homes
being completely uprooted.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Frontline Wildfire Defense is a company that combines wildfire tracking
software and on site sprinkler hardware that currently protects hundreds
of homes in the LA area, and they claim their
technology has already saved seven homes. For more on Frontline
Wildfire Defense is Harry's Statter, founder and CEO of Frontline.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Thank you for your time, Harry, Thanks Mark.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Thanks for having me, of course, and no doubt you've
been super busy since early January talking about ways to
protect your family and your home.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
But let's just dive right in.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Your company has been around since twenty seventeen, if I'm
not mistaken, What is its mission and tell us about
Frontline's wildfire technology as well.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Yeah, so the company's been around since twenty seventeen. My
background is in a field called landscape ecology. Landscape ecology
is a study of how the built environment interfaces with
natural process and that's really going to focus of Frontline
since it's inception is providing a product that allows families
and homes and communities to live with fire. Our mission
(03:10):
is to protect families, homes, and communities from wildfire disaster.
Wildfire is a very natural processed. The process of wildfire
is embedded in all plant communities across the United States,
and we could safely live with fire.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's a natural thing. But it seems like the frequency
and intensity of natural disasters, including wildfires, seems to be
becoming more and more of an issue. Is that just
perception or is that reality?
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Well, it's a little bit of reality.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Just as a base layer, wildfire is a part of
every plant community. So it's the most efficient way for
plant communities to restore themselves. It regenerates the seed beds,
it reduces competition, it eliminates invasive species, and so just
from a natural perspective, wildfire is embedded in all grasslands
better than shrublands, and force you see about eighty percent
(04:02):
of fires burning and grasslands and shrublands. Now, when you
couple climate and warming trends that are associated with climate,
you more quickly dry out the fuels in these plant communities.
So basically the plants dry out, and when the plants
dry out, they're more susceptible to bigger burns. And so
as we've seen with warmer years that we're experiencing, it
(04:26):
just better enables fires to grow quickly and to spread quickly.
Speaker 6 (04:31):
And then you add on.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
Fire ignitions, whether it be from human caused ignitions or
lightning or utility transmission.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Lines or strong winds as well, doesn't help exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, I teased what your technology does off the top,
but could you elaborate how does your company Frontline help homeowners.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
So we've built a geospatial software platform that detects and
tracks fires in the US and in Canada, and we
track all fires and then we use satellite day, we
use camera data, we use sensor data, we use weather data,
we use fuels data. Really any data that firefighters use
to inform firefighter service.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
We're able to plug in and we use that data.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
To inform an external sprinkler system that's mounted on homes,
on businesses throughout communities to activate and provide firefighter level
protection without the need for firefighter boots on the ground.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So it's like a flavor retardant that covers the exterior
of the property.
Speaker 5 (05:30):
It's actually a mix of water and Class A biodegradable foam,
the same type of Class A bioegradable foam that firefighters
carry on their trucks. You simply don't need a firefighter
there to distribute the foam and provide the protection. So
if you think about where firefighters would occupy the space
on and around your home. That's where we are proactively
wetting the patio furniture, the plant fuels, the front door mats,
(05:55):
the leaves and needles that are collected in the gutters.
When embers, which are the leading cause of structure anission
during a wildfire, when embers land on those materials, they're
simply in a state that's too leet to burn.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I was saying to my wife the other day that
I didn't really understand how fire can spread across a
large roadway, But I guess it's the embers, right, that's
the answer. Like with what's going on in southern California.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Ninety percent of structures ignite from members mark and the
distance at embers travel are really based on the winds
what you mentioned earlier. If you have high intensity winds
that are hurricane force winds, those embers are going to
travel up to twenty four miles outside of a wildfire perimeter.
So it's not necessarily just looking at your backyard. The
(06:40):
threats actually coming from many miles outside of your property,
and with the frontline system, we're able to detect and
track that threat and then activate your system in advance
of the embers. Landing on your home, and so it's
sort of a self defense mechanism for your home.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And so what are homeowners that live within the perimeter
of the fires do now to protect their homes?
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Well, I think what homeowners you're seeing right now is
firefighters are there for protecting lives. They're there to get
people out of harm's way during a wildfire. You probably
here in the background the helicopter and.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I hear sirens. Yeah, are you okay to keep chatting?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I am.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
I'm just outside of the perimeter area right now as
we speak.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
But you know, really the focus from on behalf of
firefighters is saving your life. And Frontline we're focused on
protecting your home, your business, your community, so you don't
have to make a trade off on evacuating and protecting
your nest.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We are chatting with Harry Statter. He's founder and CEO
of Frontline Wildfire Defense. Harry is a fire mitigation expert
and veteran landscape ecologist who has spent his career thinking
about how homes can exist within the threat of wildfires.
Companies Integrated Wildfire Protection System combines wildfire tracking software and
on site sprinkler hardware. Essentially, the Frontline system soaks the
(08:00):
outside surface of a home with water and what Harry
calls class a firefighting foam to reduce the chance of
ignition from embers. Harry, what steps would you suggest to
take now if you need to evacuate? What are the
news stations getting right and what are they getting wrong?
Speaker 5 (08:16):
If you're asked to evacuate, gather up your go bag,
pack up the car, and leave. You're being instructed to
evacuate because you're in imminent danger.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
The stuff that's in your home is just stuff.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
It may be important to you, but ultimately it's less
important than not surviving a wildfire. What we focused on
a frontline is to not have a person have to
make that trade off, right, to have a person not
feel as though they need.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
To it's one or the other, not respect Yeah.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
It's not one or the other.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
They can safely evacuate and they could have their home
self defend itself in the wildfire, so you know they're
not making that trick.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I didn't know if it was a dumb question
to ask you if your technology encourages people to stay
inside because it's being protected.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
By that foam and water and all that. But no,
the answer is still leave.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
The answer still leave.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Okay, the insurance industry that's been in the news quite
a bit over the last week or so that they're
renegging on policies because they're just getting hit with tens
of billions of dollars. Is this going to increase? Do
you think the premiums for everyone across the board or
in certain states?
Speaker 5 (09:20):
You know, it's unclear exactly what's going to occur in
regards to insurance. The current insurance market is it's not stable.
The insurers have been in some cases providing policies that
ultimately don't have protection.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
And so you know, with.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Frontline, you know we're able to also stabilize the insurance
market because we could provide that protection that insurers need
for their assets and simultaneously provide the protection you know,
people need for their homes, or for their businesses, or
for their communities. No one wants to actually collect on
their insurance policy, and so Frontline provides a sense of
protection so they don't have to collect on their insurance.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Polls fin for those listening in the US and in Canada,
they want to learn more about Frontline.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Where do they go and how do they get going.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Go to our website brought my wildfire dot com. You'll
learn about the product. You'll see about product effectiveness. You
can get more information from the.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Website frontline wildfire dot com. Harry, thank you so much
for your time. Harry Statter, founder and CEO of Frontline,
has been our guest again. No doubt you've been super
busy helping to spread the word on what you can
do preventatively proactively when this happens again, not if, but
when wildfires run rampant again.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
So thank you for carving out some time to chat.
Appreciate it well, Mark.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
My heart goes out to everyone else being affected by
the wildfires, but just know that there is a there's
a solution.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Thanks again, Hey, I wanted to give a shout out
to Intel. The company launched their new Intel Core Ultra
two hundred S series processor family that scales AIPC capabilities
to desktop platforms, and it ushered in the first enthusiast
desk top aipcs. These new computers significantly cut power usage
while retaining outstanding gaming performance. The result is a cooler
(11:08):
and quieter user experience. It actually delivers up to fifty
percent faster performance in AI creator applications.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Very cool. More is at Intel dot Com.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
When we return, we catch up with Grandpad, not Granddad,
so stick with us.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 7 (11:24):
Listen to check it out whenever you want to find
the check it Out podcast? Did I too, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Welcome back everyone you're listening to check it out. Not
all tablets are created equal. Grandpad, for instance, is purpose
built for aging adults and with the company's vision and
mission to live in a world where no one is
lonely or isolated. Joining us to tell us all about
Grandpad is Scott Lean. He's CEO and co founder of
(12:01):
the company with the same name. Welcome to the show, Scott.
Good to chat with you.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Great to be with you, Mark.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Why don't we dive right in. Let's hear all about
grand Pad.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Yeah. Grandpad is a purpose built solution. It's a tablet
based solution, but it's the hardware, the software, and the
service specifically designed for this awesome group of super seniors,
those over the age of seventy five who we love
so much, those people that are frustrated with technology. They're
frustrated because we society have been forcing them to use
(12:29):
technology that wasn't designed for them. Our average age of
our users is eighty five. Our oldest so far was
a beautiful lady from Charlotte, North Carolina named pster Ford,
one hundred and sixteen years old. So technology designed just
for this group of super seniors.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Wow, one hundred and sixteen. But the average age is
eighty five. Really interesting. So that kind of answers my
next question about who it's for, because whether you like
the word seniors or aging adults, retirees and not everybody's retired.
By the way, I was going to ask you, what
makes this different? So grand had is designed for older folks,
So how would that be different than exactly compared to
(13:06):
say an iPad or another tablet.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
What we learned is we socide have been forcing people
to use products like, you know, typical smartphones that were
really designed by thirty year olds for thirty year olds.
So we said, what if we started from scratch and
imagined what would super seniors those over the age of
seventy five want. But we quickly learned is me and
all my product designers and engineers none of us had
(13:29):
ever been ninety before. We didn't know what it's like
to have the unique physical and cognitive needs of a
nine year old. So instead of us guessing and coming
up with the wrong solution, we have this awesome group
of grand advisors. There are employees, all of them are
in their eighties and nineties, hundreds. My oldest employee so far, Elmer,
was one hundred and six. And they're the designers of
(13:50):
the product. They're designing for themselves, and me and my
whole team of engineers and so on, we're just the
hands of builds. What they want, really the unique difference,
and what that means is all the things that frustrate
super seniors have been removed. So it starts with the
box and the packaging. Right, we've all bought things that
(14:12):
the store electronicsity to come home and it's in that
plastic climbshell and you need a knife and a hammer
and scissors to get it open. Not only is that frustrating,
but it's dangerous for seniors right. Their many are on
blood Thinner's warfare. If they cut their finger, it can
be catastrophic. So we designed an easy to open box.
Then the tablet, nice eight inch tablet, easy to see,
big icons, clear colors, no small fonts, even the connectivity,
(14:36):
so the service. We discovered that in the US it's
more than fifty percent of super seniors do not have
access to reliable Wi Fi. They either don't have it,
it doesn't work in their whole out of the password,
so we included built in LT and twenty four x
seven customer service. So we really rethought everything based on
the unique needs of this awesome user group.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
All right, just to unpack some of these feature it's
easy to get going the box.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
The packaging is simple.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It's an eight inch tablet with and I've had a
chance to play around with it over the holidays, and yeah,
I'm really impressive. Big icons, lots of color, simple to
navigate using your fingertips, and I also liked that it
came pre charged with a case.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
And as you mentioned, if you don't have.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Wi Fi, out of the box, it's got you called
it LTE, so that's cellular connectivity and it'll work anywhere
in the US, doesn't matter what city or state you're in.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
That's exactly right, And you hit an important point. It's
all pre set up or pre configured. When you get it,
it's already set up and configured for you and the family.
There's an important piece. There's always a family administrator, and
that could be you the senior, or you might designate
that to your fifty year old son or daughter right
and they can invite people into the we call it
(15:49):
the circle of trust or the circle of care. Only
the people that you trust in, your family, friends, neighbors,
they get invited in and they're the only people that
can share photo with you and communicate with you. So
we by default keep all the bad guys locked down.
It's like a walled garden where we're able to increase
communication with your family, but keep the bad guys out.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I also like that when it was delivered to my home,
I got a phone call from someone at your company
who said her name, and she said, you just want
to confirm that the tablet was delivered at such and
such time, like down to the minute, And it was
actually her name and photo inside the tablet as well
under the help area if you wanted to chat with
her at any time.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And I thought, poor woman's not.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Going to sleep with twenty four to seven support. But
I'm sure that you have lots of help. I don't
know how you do that at scale, but that kind
of level of detail. You know that personal attention was
really impressive right out of the box.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, well, we're already at scale. We've already reached more
than a million people in the last ten years. We
figured out how to do that in a very efficient way.
Of course, we use technology behind the scenes, but we
have a large team of customer care folks that answer
the phone twenty four by seven. We actually call me
her experience because we want to create a delightful experience.
And they're always there and they're always available. But the
(17:06):
key thing is that's part of the service. So many
companies try to they you know, call avoidance, and they
view customer support as a bad thing. We view it
as a great thing. If our customers want to contact
us and talk to us and ask us a question
and give us a suggestion, of course we want to
answer the phone and be there for him. The other
thing we've done is we've designed out we call them
(17:26):
poof points, all the points of frustration, so that like
I can't figure out how to turn this thing on,
I can't figure out how to do this. Like if
we see a design issue, we design it away get
rid of it, so people aren't frustrated and then they
don't call us.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, got it.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And again, to be clear, you actually call the person
through the tablet. I don't want to imply that you
need a phone in order to chat with someone with
the tablet in your hand. It's actually all together, which
is really cool. It also comes with a convenient charging doc.
I noticed you don't have to plug it in. You know, again,
if those who have dexterity challenges, you don't need to
try to find the USB C cable and fit it
(18:01):
in your hands, maybe.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Shaking a little bit.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
So I love that you just lay the grand Pad
onto this doc and it will start charging immediately.
Speaker 8 (18:09):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
We're more on the grand Pad tablet when we return
on teck it Out.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I want to follow Mark Google Mark with a C
and Saltzman with a Z breaking down geeks beak into streetspeak.
This is check it out to check it out with
(18:35):
technology columnist, author, and TV personality Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Welcome back to teck it Out. We are chatting with
Scott Lean. He's the CEO and co founder of a
company called grand Pad. That's the name of the tablet
as well with charging doc out of the box.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
So it's an eight inch tablet.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
As you mentioned, it's got icons that you can tap
that are large right out of the box, and you've
got those different sections. Before the break, I was talking
about dexterity challenge that many aging adults have. Things we
take for granted, like just plugging in a USB cable
into the bottom of an iPad may be easy for
most people, but for someone seventy five eighty five, ninety five,
that can be tough, especially if they've got you know, Parkinson's.
(19:14):
I like, how with the grand Pad tablet, you just
lean it up against this dock and it starts charging wirelessly.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
That was intentional, no doubt.
Speaker 8 (19:22):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Someone who was in their nineties had eyesight issues and tremors.
He said, Okay, kind of a standard tablet plug this
USB c cord and it was impossible for them. Yeah,
just the documentation, you can set it in. It's wireless charging.
But there's another important aspect of that. We design the
docuing station so that when you're doing a video call
with mom or dad, it's at the perfect angle for
(19:43):
them to see and hear and you can see them.
We've all done video calls that someone they're holding it,
you're kind of seeing their side of their head.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Or up their nostrils.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Right. It's nice not only for the family, but our
grandpad is used often in a medical healthcare tolet health
situation can see the patient, the patient can see and
hear the doctor. And maybe you've noticed maark front facing
speaker is a sound channel. It's the loudest tablet and
we've actually tuned the sound to the frequency the hearing
(20:12):
of the average ad earl. So they of course hear
music and play games, but most importantly they can see
and hear their grandchildren and.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
They don't have to hold the tablet in order to
engage in a video call. That's another thing that could
be difficult to do. Speaking of which I wanted to
ask you, since this is radio or an audio podcast,
if you can just describe the interface a little bit.
It would be familiar to those who have ever used
a phone or a tablet in that you use your
fingertips to swipe. But there are again large icons on
the mainscreen and they're divided into sections, right like if
(20:40):
you want to go on the internet, you even have
like bookmarked pages like AARP for example.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
It's what we call a linear scrollable interface. So instead
of like a standard tablet where you have a whole
bunch of icons and there's multiple pages of them and
they can move around and they're small, these are all
laid out just very naturally. And we also call it
triple redundancies. So each icon on is colored, it's large,
there's a word there, and there's a picture. So we
have many users have severe eyesight issues, macular degeneration, they're
(21:09):
able tostly navigate and see the icons. It's a consistent
user interface. So we all use different apps. You know,
Facebook is different than Uber, is different than the Amazon app.
They all have different navigation. All of this is we
developed all the software so there's a consistent user interface
the way you navigate. The average age of our users
(21:29):
is eighty five. Might have someone not only are they
not a person that's used technology their whole life, but
they might have some cognitive challenges. So having a really
easy to navigate interface that's always clear and laid out
is really important.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So my mom, incidentaly, is turning eighty five in January
this month, and so I would be I guess the
administrator that would be connected to her grand pad tablet.
And then what would that app let me do as
the administrator? For example, can I add photos onto her
tab even if I'm not with her physically you can yep.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So the Companion app a free download you can put
on your iPhone or Android phone. Us the administrator have
the admin rights, and you can turn things on and
off for your mom. So you might say, she really
doesn't want to be on the Internet anymore. You can
turn off that Internet button so she can't surf around
the Internet and potentially get scammed. I just wanted her
(22:24):
to be able to share photos and do video calls
of the grandkids, so you control those things. You then
absolutely you can snap photos or you can share out
of your library of photos on your smartphone. And then
your mom and everyone else who you've invited into that
family circle of care, they see it. So Mom or
Dad see it on their grandpad tablet, the rest of
(22:45):
the family sees it on the Companion app. And then
you can comment. The family can comment on the photos.
Grandma and Grandpa can comment. They can type a comment,
or they can leave a voice comment. So it's all
about creating family connection. Our whole design and we're really
a design company. That's what we're all about is simplicity
is the ultimate form of sophistication, Leonardo, he said at first, Yeah,
(23:10):
Steve Jobs was off given credit for that quote, but
it was Da Vinci that said at first. And so
we just obsess about how you can take something fairly
complicated and hard to do on some platforms and really
make it simple. And sharing photos with Grahama and Grandpa's
an example. They see that picture, they want to comment, oh,
that's such a cute picture of the kids that Halloween.
They just tap a button and they leave a voice.
(23:32):
It's a voice audio recording, and then now the whole
family can hear that voice recording of Mom, Dad, Gramma,
our Grandpa.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Before we wrap up, tell us about the AI feature
that's baked into the tablet as well.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
We've been working on AI for a long time. I
think AI got hot and popular for everyone else, but
two years ago we've been working on a long time
of how we can use this really powerful tool, sophisticated tool,
but do it in a really simple and enjoyable way.
You know, our mission is to improve the lives super seniors.
So we have an AI assistant called Grandy and it's
(24:04):
a beautiful, wise old owl metaphor, and you can chat
with Grandy via a voice interface and we've actually built
a safety layer around that, so it's very thoughtful and
careful about how it communicates, and it's really friendly. And
you can maybe take someone who's ninety and has some
cognitive and memory challenges. They have someone that they can
(24:26):
talk with and even if I ask the same question repeatedly,
Grandy is infinitely patient. The seniors love it. It's a
great chatbot that they can speak to in a very
natural way. We're seeing three x the usage with this
age group on Grandpad.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And then finally, Scott, how much does Grandpad cost? Because
I do know the service again connected to it the
cellular platform and where can we learn more about it?
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Yeah, so we encourage you to come to our website
grandpad dot net. You'll see right on there our eight
hundred numbers, big and bold. We love to get phone
calls from folks. You can attend a free webinar that
really teaches you about all the features and the different options.
For those that prefer you can go on Amazon. We've
got a number of different plans and options to buy.
But it comes out around sixty five dollars a month,
(25:11):
but that includes the hardware. You don't have to buy
the hardware upfront. It's just a service, a monthly service.
Not only does it include the twenty four by seven
customer support which is extremely valuable to everyone, but includes
that four G or cellular data as well. We also
have music. You know, I pay ten bucks to Spotify
and twelve bucks for this and that. All those were included,
(25:32):
and all the apps you don't have to pay to
download app. So it's really a great value and can
really transform the lives of seniors and make it easy
and safe for families to say connected.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So grandpad dot net to learn more, as well as
Amazon dot com.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Scott great to chat with you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I hope it continues to be a success well into
twenty twenty five. As you're servicing the super senior community.
I love that all the best.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Great thanks for having me on Mark, and I always
end with one special request. All of us have time
as our drive around, just reach out and call the
super senior in your life. Might be mom, dad, grandma,
or grandpa or neighbor. You'll mean the world to them. Sadly,
there's so much loneliness and isolation with this age group,
just a simple phone call can transform their life.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Love that, Thank you, Scott more Check it Out. Coming
right up after this breaking down geek speaking into street speak.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Check it Out hosted by Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Welcome back to tech it Out.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
We cover cybersecurity a lot on this program and how
you can best protect yourself in the digital age, even
if you're not super tech savvy. One part of the
solution is securely shopping online, and so I'm thrilled about
my partnership with Visa on tech it Out as they've
made some significant investments in fraud prevention over the past
five years, as much as ten billion dollars Yes that's billion,
(27:01):
with the b to support Visa's brand promise to protect
the financial information of individuals and businesses. Zero liability means
peace of mind when you shop online using your Visa card.
There can be no half measures when it comes to cybersecurity,
which is why the company takes an aggressive and multi
layered approach to combating the rising threat of malicious software
(27:21):
and other threats by well funded and global criminal enterprises.
Read more about Visa and how securing the world's payments
is priority one at Visa dot com slash Security. That's
Visa dot Com slash Security.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
All right.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I know a lot of my listeners are gamers, and
many of you are parents of gamers, and there's one
sort of sensitive area, and that is, even if you
are not buying games that are rated M for mature,
for example, when it comes to online games, many of you,
I'm sure are concerned about chatting with others and the
toxic behavior that sometimes often let's say, takes place in
(28:00):
online matches.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Well tech to the rescue. I'm here with Terry Chen.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
He's COO of a company called Modulate, and they've developed
a tool in partnership with AWS. This tool is called
talxmod txmod and Terry's going to share with us what
it's all about. Very nice of you to take the
time of your very busy day to chat with me,
So thank you first of all.
Speaker 8 (28:20):
Yeah, absolutely, Mark, excited to be here.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
So let's dive right in talsmod. What is it?
Speaker 9 (28:26):
Yeah, So, as you know, in gaming, things can get
really heated, especially in competitive spaces, and so there's really
a fine line between good natured trash talk and really
toxic behavior.
Speaker 8 (28:39):
That needs to be moderated.
Speaker 9 (28:41):
And so what talxmod does is it can really escalate
good or bad behavior within games in the voice chat space,
so that games can really help to enforce their code
of conducts.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Can you explain what you mean by escalate? I mean,
is it like a filter if you will, or it's
using AI to detect profanity or abusive comments and then
it's flagged.
Speaker 9 (29:07):
Yeah, So while we don't do any sort of muting
or anything, it's all being surfaced to our platform, which
moderators can then use to take action, whether it's like
a warning or a strike, or just some feedback for
the player. But it's it's really interesting because we actually
can tell the difference between like a yeah and a few.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
And even if it is an FU, if it's said in.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
A joking kind of way among friends, then I'm sure
the game company the publishers don't want to having to
put some safeguards in place when it's like amicable, it's
just sort of fun. So the AI has to be
really good, I guess, to determine the difference between a
friendly sort of job or something that is demeaning.
Speaker 8 (29:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (29:48):
Absolutely, So many really cool educases, like for example, a
player being really humble and kind of demeaning their own play,
or even like communities that use a lot of proclaimed
language in a really positive way.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So this sits on top of the chatting platform with
obviously the consent of the game developer. Let's say, I
don't know, like a Fortnite or a Minecraft, if you will.
Nobody can install this on their own, right. This is
something that's done on the platform level exactly.
Speaker 9 (30:13):
The game developers or the platforms use our service and
thus they integrated into their software, and then the players
accept the Code of Conduct and the EULA and.
Speaker 8 (30:23):
Are thus able to use talkspod.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
The ULAW is the terms of conditions right, Yeah, of.
Speaker 8 (30:27):
Course it's the end User license agreement.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Yeah, there you go, end User license agreement. We are
chatting with Terry Chen.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
He's with modulate dot AI is the call to action
in order to learn more about Talxmond.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Where are you at in?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
This technology is a very early stages. Is it like
proof of concept or is it actually being used by
game companies right now?
Speaker 8 (30:46):
Yeah? Great question.
Speaker 9 (30:47):
We actually are live in games like Call of Duty
as well as rec Room, rock Stars, Grand Theft Auto Online.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
These are huge brands that's amazing.
Speaker 9 (30:58):
Yeah, we're really excited to help them make their communities
more fun and really strike out truly toxic behavior while
making a lot of room for all of the great
trash talk that goes on.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, it is part of the fun for sure. Let's
say Call of Duty, six Black Ops or whatever. There
is someone that's abusive, they're bullying somebody and.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It gets escalated.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
So Activision, the company behind the game, they would know
that it's a particular player. They would see like their
handle or their online ID, and then they would get
a warning or.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Something like that. That's up to them what they do
with it.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Your tool just identifies something that's inappropriate.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
Exactly.
Speaker 9 (31:35):
We're very strict with our data and so we actually
don't know which players are which, but Activision themselves will
be able to identify which player has said what and it.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Doesn't slow down the game because that would be a
huge concern for gamers who play competitively online.
Speaker 9 (31:49):
Nope, we actually run in the cloud. So shout out
to AWS. They do great things and it's exciting to
partner with them. And also our CE and our CTO
Mike and Carter are fantastic innovators who make it all
possible through a company culture and through great innovations with
(32:11):
AWS to make it run very efficiently.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Well, that was going to be my next and last
question was what's the AWS partnership all about? So you're
leveraging their cloud technologies, so it's running on their servers,
so really fast and reliable.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Terry, you said you're from Boston.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
How big is the team and are you all localized
there or is it spread out?
Speaker 9 (32:30):
We're mostly in Boston. We have our headquarters there. We're
about fifty people right now and we're scaling. So always
interested in talking to people who might be interested in
working on this space, and you can find us at
our website.
Speaker 8 (32:44):
Modulate dot ai all.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right, Modulate dot ai helping game companies clean up toxic
behavior with machine learning based tools, and in particular we've
been chatting about talsmod txmod if you want to look
it up at modulate dot Ai.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Terry thinks. So much for your time. Hope you have
a great rest of AWS reinvent.
Speaker 8 (33:02):
Thank you, Mark, it's been great.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
A few highlights from the twenty twenty five Consumer Electronics Show.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
When we return on teck it out stay.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
With us follow March Seltzman on.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Before I share a few other highlights from the twenty
twenty five Consumer Electronics Show, which we started to chat
about last weekend. I wanted to give a shout out
to Intel. If you're in the market to buy a
new PC. There's never been a more exciting time thanks
to extremely powerful devices, AI powered devices, in fact, longer
battery life than we've ever seen before, countless designs like
(33:46):
touch and convertibles that can turn into a tablet by
bending the screen back, stunning O lead displays, and super
thin and light form factors. As usual, Intel is leading
the pack now with its new Intel Core Ultra PCs
series two laptops that are powering portable PCs across more
than twenty computer manufacturers. They can deliver much more performance,
(34:09):
up to eighty percent more for gaming compared to last
year's machines, yet amazingly, they consume up to fifty percent
less power to do so. Now available, these new Intel
Core Ultra laptops are branded with a two hundred V
series naming convention, which you can learn more about at
Intel dot com slash AIPC. That's Intel dot com slash AIPC.
(34:32):
So last week on Tech it out. I shared some
of my favorite gadgets from the CES show in Vegas.
The Asus ZenBook A fourteen. Speaking of laptops with up
to thirty two hours of battery life, I talked about
LG's Transparent TV, which is pretty wild. The SanDisk Creator
iPhone SSD, or solid state drive that magnetically attaches to
(34:56):
the back of an iPhone and it can store up
to two terabytes of store George, which is insane perfect
for content creators on the go. But let me share
a few more, including the robo rock ceros Z seventy.
This is the first robotic vacuum and mop hybrid with
a retractable arm that extends out of the top when needed.
If the ceros Z seventy's AI powered camera detects an
(35:19):
object in its path, like an errant sock or kleenex.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Lying in the middle of the room, it can literally.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Extend a small robotic arm, pick it up and drive
it over to where it should be, like a hamper
for the sock or a trash bin for the tissue.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
No word yet on when that'll be available, but it's
the roboock ceros Z seventy. How about a coffee machine
you never need to refill. While air to water machines
or atmospheric water generators aren't new, they convert water vapor
in the air into drinking water. Carapod that's Kara will
not only be the least expensive home unit at under
(35:55):
six hundred dollars, it's also the world's first countertop device
that can brew you a coffee as well. In other words,
it's a self relfilling coffee machine. The company Cara Water
says it can produce up to three point two liters
of drinking water per day, which is enough for eighteen
cups of coffee or seven bottles of water. Cara Pod
is coming soon and will be available in black, white,
(36:16):
and beige. Next up iPads are great.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
For the indoors.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
If you want to read an ebook though by the
pool or watch a midday movie out on a backyard deck,
it's virtually impossible to see the screen Instead. TCL showed
off its next gen Next Paper eleven plus. This is
a tablet that's super thin. It's an eleven and a
half inch Android tablet with tcl's next Paper four point
zero display. It's an anti glare matte screen that still
(36:43):
yields amazing color, brightness and sharpness in any environment. Now
here's where it gets cool. With the press of a
button on the side of the tablet, the next paper
eleven plus goes into a gray scale e ink mode
for reading ebooks. It actually transforms in front of your eyes,
so then it looks like real ink on paper. It's
black and whiter grayscale. In other words, you can bring
(37:05):
it outside and it's got extended battery life as well.
It'll be out in the first half of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
And let's end off on something pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
The land aircraft carrier so a Chinese automaker called xpen AROWHD.
They garnered a lot of buzz at cs for its
concept car that is part ev or electric vehicle, part
flying car. It might be best described as an electric
minivan that launches a large foldable passenger drone.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Out of the back.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
So after you drive to your destination in this six
wheeled extended range mothership vehicle as they call it, two
people can then climb into the EV tool or electric
vertical takeoff and landing drone to soar the friendly skies
for I don't know, an afternoon of sightseeing the company.
Expend Erohd said production and deliveries will start sometime in
(37:54):
twenty twenty six in China. First, I'll believe it when
I see it. Yes, one day we will have flight cars.
But this seems a little too ambitious, and even the
video is a computer generated one, so you got to
be a little suspect there. If you want to see
more about CES and read my articles, just google my name,
Mark Saltzman, mar C SA L, TZMA N and the
(38:16):
words CES or Consumer Electronics Show and you'll see my
articles and videos from the big conference which just wrapped up. Well, Hey,
I hope you enjoyed this week's teck It Out Show.
Again a shout out to Intel as well as Visa
and Western Digital for.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Your support on this program.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Thank you to our guests Frontline, Wildfire, Grand Pat and Modulate.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
AI.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Hope you enjoyed it. Please stay safe if you're in
the LA area or anywhere affected by those wildfires in
southern California. Take care and I look forward to catching
up with you next weekend for another brand new episode
of Tack It Out with four new guests and topics.
So looking forward to chatting with you then, all the best, everyone,
signing off for tack it Out a buy for now
Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the ever changing world
of technology? Check it Out can help make some sense
of it all. Breaking down GeekSpeak into street speak. Technology columnist, author,
and TV personality Mark Saltzman covers consumer technology each week
for every listener, Mark tackles the latest news, reviews, and
how toos to help you understand what's hot, what's not
(00:22):
and why.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, everyone, welcome to check it Out. It's episode three
seventy seven. I hope you're all doing well today, and
as I talked about last week on the air, my
thoughts and prayers are with those in southern California affected
by those devastating wildfires. In fact, I know a lot
of tech it Out listeners are in the LA area,
(00:44):
so hope you're able to tune in, and more importantly,
that you're safe in your family as well. My editor
at AARP asked me to write an up to date
article on something I've addressed in the past, which is
on how to preserve your family's paper photos just in
case something like this happens. How do you digitize your memories,
whether you want to do it or services that can
(01:06):
do it for you, and what to look out for
so I'm going to file that piece on Tuesday. For
today's teck it Out, and speaking of wildfires, I'll interview
someone right off the top of the show whose company
has a solution for homeowners and their technology has already
saved seven homes in the LA area. Also on the show,
I'll share more of my top picks from the twenty
(01:26):
twenty five Consumer Electronics Show or CES, which wrapped up
in Las Vegas last week.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
I'm going to have on the.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Program today Grand Pad and their tablet for Americans age
seventy five and older, and what's unique there. The company
made a splash at CES last week. In fact, all
of this and more on an all new tech it
out powered by Intel Core Ultra Series two PCs, those
AI powered laptop set. I'll tell you more about shortly,
(01:52):
but let's officially kick off a brand new tech it
out with our first interview. The images of the devastating
wildfires in southern California are difficult to see, so imagine
living through that, people losing their loved ones, their homes
being completely uprooted.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
It's heartbreaking.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
Well.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Frontline Wildfire Defense is a company that combines wildfire tracking
software and on site sprinkler hardware that currently protects hundreds
of homes in the LA area, and they claim their
technology has already saved seven homes. For more on Frontline
Wildfire Defense is Harry's Statter, founder and CEO of Frontline.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Thank you for your time, Harry, Thanks Mark.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Thanks for having me, of course, and no doubt you've
been super busy since early January talking about ways to
protect your family and your home.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
But let's just dive right in.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Your company has been around since twenty seventeen, if I'm
not mistaken, What is its mission and tell us about
Frontline's wildfire technology as well.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
Yeah, so the company's been around since twenty seventeen. My
background is in a field called landscape ecology. Landscape ecology
is a study of how the built environment interfaces with
natural process and that's really going to focus of Frontline
since it's inception is providing a product that allows families
and homes and communities to live with fire. Our mission
(03:10):
is to protect families, homes, and communities from wildfire disaster.
Wildfire is a very natural processed. The process of wildfire
is embedded in all plant communities across the United States,
and we could safely live with fire.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's a natural thing. But it seems like the frequency
and intensity of natural disasters, including wildfires, seems to be
becoming more and more of an issue. Is that just
perception or is that reality?
Speaker 6 (03:36):
Well, it's a little bit of reality.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
Just as a base layer, wildfire is a part of
every plant community. So it's the most efficient way for
plant communities to restore themselves. It regenerates the seed beds,
it reduces competition, it eliminates invasive species, and so just
from a natural perspective, wildfire is embedded in all grasslands
better than shrublands, and force you see about eighty percent
(04:02):
of fires burning and grasslands and shrublands. Now, when you
couple climate and warming trends that are associated with climate,
you more quickly dry out the fuels in these plant communities.
So basically the plants dry out, and when the plants
dry out, they're more susceptible to bigger burns. And so
as we've seen with warmer years that we're experiencing, it
(04:26):
just better enables fires to grow quickly and to spread quickly.
Speaker 6 (04:31):
And then you add on.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
Fire ignitions, whether it be from human caused ignitions or
lightning or utility transmission.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Lines or strong winds as well, doesn't help exactly.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, I teased what your technology does off the top,
but could you elaborate how does your company Frontline help homeowners.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
So we've built a geospatial software platform that detects and
tracks fires in the US and in Canada, and we
track all fires and then we use satellite day, we
use camera data, we use sensor data, we use weather data,
we use fuels data. Really any data that firefighters use
to inform firefighter service.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
We're able to plug in and we use that data.
Speaker 5 (05:13):
To inform an external sprinkler system that's mounted on homes,
on businesses throughout communities to activate and provide firefighter level
protection without the need for firefighter boots on the ground.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So it's like a flavor retardant that covers the exterior
of the property.
Speaker 5 (05:30):
It's actually a mix of water and Class A biodegradable foam,
the same type of Class A bioegradable foam that firefighters
carry on their trucks. You simply don't need a firefighter
there to distribute the foam and provide the protection. So
if you think about where firefighters would occupy the space
on and around your home. That's where we are proactively
wetting the patio furniture, the plant fuels, the front door mats,
(05:55):
the leaves and needles that are collected in the gutters.
When embers, which are the leading cause of structure anission
during a wildfire, when embers land on those materials, they're
simply in a state that's too leet to burn.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Interesting.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
I was saying to my wife the other day that
I didn't really understand how fire can spread across a
large roadway, But I guess it's the embers, right, that's
the answer. Like with what's going on in southern California.
Speaker 5 (06:20):
Ninety percent of structures ignite from members mark and the
distance at embers travel are really based on the winds
what you mentioned earlier. If you have high intensity winds
that are hurricane force winds, those embers are going to
travel up to twenty four miles outside of a wildfire perimeter.
So it's not necessarily just looking at your backyard. The
(06:40):
threats actually coming from many miles outside of your property,
and with the frontline system, we're able to detect and
track that threat and then activate your system in advance
of the embers. Landing on your home, and so it's
sort of a self defense mechanism for your home.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And so what are homeowners that live within the perimeter
of the fires do now to protect their homes?
Speaker 5 (07:01):
Well, I think what homeowners you're seeing right now is
firefighters are there for protecting lives. They're there to get
people out of harm's way during a wildfire. You probably
here in the background the helicopter and.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
I hear sirens. Yeah, are you okay to keep chatting?
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I am.
Speaker 6 (07:18):
I'm just outside of the perimeter area right now as
we speak.
Speaker 5 (07:21):
But you know, really the focus from on behalf of
firefighters is saving your life. And Frontline we're focused on
protecting your home, your business, your community, so you don't
have to make a trade off on evacuating and protecting
your nest.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
We are chatting with Harry Statter. He's founder and CEO
of Frontline Wildfire Defense. Harry is a fire mitigation expert
and veteran landscape ecologist who has spent his career thinking
about how homes can exist within the threat of wildfires.
Companies Integrated Wildfire Protection System combines wildfire tracking software and
on site sprinkler hardware. Essentially, the Frontline system soaks the
(08:00):
outside surface of a home with water and what Harry
calls class a firefighting foam to reduce the chance of
ignition from embers. Harry, what steps would you suggest to
take now if you need to evacuate? What are the
news stations getting right and what are they getting wrong?
Speaker 5 (08:16):
If you're asked to evacuate, gather up your go bag,
pack up the car, and leave. You're being instructed to
evacuate because you're in imminent danger.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
The stuff that's in your home is just stuff.
Speaker 5 (08:29):
It may be important to you, but ultimately it's less
important than not surviving a wildfire. What we focused on
a frontline is to not have a person have to
make that trade off, right, to have a person not
feel as though they need.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
To it's one or the other, not respect Yeah.
Speaker 6 (08:46):
It's not one or the other.
Speaker 5 (08:47):
They can safely evacuate and they could have their home
self defend itself in the wildfire, so you know they're
not making that trick.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, I didn't know if it was a dumb question
to ask you if your technology encourages people to stay
inside because it's being protected.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
By that foam and water and all that. But no,
the answer is still leave.
Speaker 6 (09:04):
The answer still leave.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Okay, the insurance industry that's been in the news quite
a bit over the last week or so that they're
renegging on policies because they're just getting hit with tens
of billions of dollars. Is this going to increase? Do
you think the premiums for everyone across the board or
in certain states?
Speaker 5 (09:20):
You know, it's unclear exactly what's going to occur in
regards to insurance. The current insurance market is it's not stable.
The insurers have been in some cases providing policies that
ultimately don't have protection.
Speaker 6 (09:36):
And so you know, with.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
Frontline, you know we're able to also stabilize the insurance
market because we could provide that protection that insurers need
for their assets and simultaneously provide the protection you know,
people need for their homes, or for their businesses, or
for their communities. No one wants to actually collect on
their insurance policy, and so Frontline provides a sense of
protection so they don't have to collect on their insurance.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Polls fin for those listening in the US and in Canada,
they want to learn more about Frontline.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Where do they go and how do they get going.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
Go to our website brought my wildfire dot com. You'll
learn about the product. You'll see about product effectiveness. You
can get more information from the.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Website frontline wildfire dot com. Harry, thank you so much
for your time. Harry Statter, founder and CEO of Frontline,
has been our guest again. No doubt you've been super
busy helping to spread the word on what you can
do preventatively proactively when this happens again, not if, but
when wildfires run rampant again.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
So thank you for carving out some time to chat.
Appreciate it well, Mark.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 5 (10:38):
My heart goes out to everyone else being affected by
the wildfires, but just know that there is a there's
a solution.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Thanks again, Hey, I wanted to give a shout out
to Intel. The company launched their new Intel Core Ultra
two hundred S series processor family that scales AIPC capabilities
to desktop platforms, and it ushered in the first enthusiast
desk top aipcs. These new computers significantly cut power usage
while retaining outstanding gaming performance. The result is a cooler
(11:08):
and quieter user experience. It actually delivers up to fifty
percent faster performance in AI creator applications.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Very cool. More is at Intel dot Com.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
When we return, we catch up with Grandpad, not Granddad,
so stick with us.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 7 (11:24):
Listen to check it out whenever you want to find
the check it Out podcast? Did I too, or wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Welcome back everyone you're listening to check it out. Not
all tablets are created equal. Grandpad, for instance, is purpose
built for aging adults and with the company's vision and
mission to live in a world where no one is
lonely or isolated. Joining us to tell us all about
Grandpad is Scott Lean. He's CEO and co founder of
(12:01):
the company with the same name. Welcome to the show, Scott.
Good to chat with you.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Great to be with you, Mark.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Why don't we dive right in. Let's hear all about
grand Pad.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
Yeah. Grandpad is a purpose built solution. It's a tablet
based solution, but it's the hardware, the software, and the
service specifically designed for this awesome group of super seniors,
those over the age of seventy five who we love
so much, those people that are frustrated with technology. They're
frustrated because we society have been forcing them to use
(12:29):
technology that wasn't designed for them. Our average age of
our users is eighty five. Our oldest so far was
a beautiful lady from Charlotte, North Carolina named pster Ford,
one hundred and sixteen years old. So technology designed just
for this group of super seniors.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Wow, one hundred and sixteen. But the average age is
eighty five. Really interesting. So that kind of answers my
next question about who it's for, because whether you like
the word seniors or aging adults, retirees and not everybody's retired.
By the way, I was going to ask you, what
makes this different? So grand had is designed for older folks,
So how would that be different than exactly compared to
(13:06):
say an iPad or another tablet.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
What we learned is we socide have been forcing people
to use products like, you know, typical smartphones that were
really designed by thirty year olds for thirty year olds.
So we said, what if we started from scratch and
imagined what would super seniors those over the age of
seventy five want. But we quickly learned is me and
all my product designers and engineers none of us had
(13:29):
ever been ninety before. We didn't know what it's like
to have the unique physical and cognitive needs of a
nine year old. So instead of us guessing and coming
up with the wrong solution, we have this awesome group
of grand advisors. There are employees, all of them are
in their eighties and nineties, hundreds. My oldest employee so far, Elmer,
was one hundred and six. And they're the designers of
(13:50):
the product. They're designing for themselves, and me and my
whole team of engineers and so on, we're just the
hands of builds. What they want, really the unique difference,
and what that means is all the things that frustrate
super seniors have been removed. So it starts with the
box and the packaging. Right, we've all bought things that
(14:12):
the store electronicsity to come home and it's in that
plastic climbshell and you need a knife and a hammer
and scissors to get it open. Not only is that frustrating,
but it's dangerous for seniors right. Their many are on
blood Thinner's warfare. If they cut their finger, it can
be catastrophic. So we designed an easy to open box.
Then the tablet, nice eight inch tablet, easy to see,
big icons, clear colors, no small fonts, even the connectivity,
(14:36):
so the service. We discovered that in the US it's
more than fifty percent of super seniors do not have
access to reliable Wi Fi. They either don't have it,
it doesn't work in their whole out of the password,
so we included built in LT and twenty four x
seven customer service. So we really rethought everything based on
the unique needs of this awesome user group.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
All right, just to unpack some of these feature it's
easy to get going the box.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
The packaging is simple.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It's an eight inch tablet with and I've had a
chance to play around with it over the holidays, and yeah,
I'm really impressive. Big icons, lots of color, simple to
navigate using your fingertips, and I also liked that it
came pre charged with a case.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
And as you mentioned, if you don't have.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Wi Fi, out of the box, it's got you called
it LTE, so that's cellular connectivity and it'll work anywhere
in the US, doesn't matter what city or state you're in.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
That's exactly right, And you hit an important point. It's
all pre set up or pre configured. When you get it,
it's already set up and configured for you and the family.
There's an important piece. There's always a family administrator, and
that could be you the senior, or you might designate
that to your fifty year old son or daughter right
and they can invite people into the we call it
(15:49):
the circle of trust or the circle of care. Only
the people that you trust in, your family, friends, neighbors,
they get invited in and they're the only people that
can share photo with you and communicate with you. So
we by default keep all the bad guys locked down.
It's like a walled garden where we're able to increase
communication with your family, but keep the bad guys out.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I also like that when it was delivered to my home,
I got a phone call from someone at your company
who said her name, and she said, you just want
to confirm that the tablet was delivered at such and
such time, like down to the minute, And it was
actually her name and photo inside the tablet as well
under the help area if you wanted to chat with
her at any time.
Speaker 3 (16:32):
And I thought, poor woman's not.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Going to sleep with twenty four to seven support. But
I'm sure that you have lots of help. I don't
know how you do that at scale, but that kind
of level of detail. You know that personal attention was
really impressive right out of the box.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Yeah, well, we're already at scale. We've already reached more
than a million people in the last ten years. We
figured out how to do that in a very efficient way.
Of course, we use technology behind the scenes, but we
have a large team of customer care folks that answer
the phone twenty four by seven. We actually call me
her experience because we want to create a delightful experience.
And they're always there and they're always available. But the
(17:06):
key thing is that's part of the service. So many
companies try to they you know, call avoidance, and they
view customer support as a bad thing. We view it
as a great thing. If our customers want to contact
us and talk to us and ask us a question
and give us a suggestion, of course we want to
answer the phone and be there for him. The other
thing we've done is we've designed out we call them
(17:26):
poof points, all the points of frustration, so that like
I can't figure out how to turn this thing on,
I can't figure out how to do this. Like if
we see a design issue, we design it away get
rid of it, so people aren't frustrated and then they
don't call us.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Yeah, got it.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
And again, to be clear, you actually call the person
through the tablet. I don't want to imply that you
need a phone in order to chat with someone with
the tablet in your hand. It's actually all together, which
is really cool. It also comes with a convenient charging doc.
I noticed you don't have to plug it in. You know, again,
if those who have dexterity challenges, you don't need to
try to find the USB C cable and fit it
(18:01):
in your hands, maybe.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Shaking a little bit.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
So I love that you just lay the grand Pad
onto this doc and it will start charging immediately.
Speaker 8 (18:09):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
We're more on the grand Pad tablet when we return
on teck it Out.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I want to follow Mark Google Mark with a C
and Saltzman with a Z breaking down geeks beak into streetspeak.
This is check it out to check it out with
(18:35):
technology columnist, author, and TV personality Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Welcome back to teck it Out. We are chatting with
Scott Lean. He's the CEO and co founder of a
company called grand Pad. That's the name of the tablet
as well with charging doc out of the box.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
So it's an eight inch tablet.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
As you mentioned, it's got icons that you can tap
that are large right out of the box, and you've
got those different sections. Before the break, I was talking
about dexterity challenge that many aging adults have. Things we
take for granted, like just plugging in a USB cable
into the bottom of an iPad may be easy for
most people, but for someone seventy five eighty five, ninety five,
that can be tough, especially if they've got you know, Parkinson's.
(19:14):
I like, how with the grand Pad tablet, you just
lean it up against this dock and it starts charging wirelessly.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
That was intentional, no doubt.
Speaker 8 (19:22):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Someone who was in their nineties had eyesight issues and tremors.
He said, Okay, kind of a standard tablet plug this
USB c cord and it was impossible for them. Yeah,
just the documentation, you can set it in. It's wireless charging.
But there's another important aspect of that. We design the
docuing station so that when you're doing a video call
with mom or dad, it's at the perfect angle for
(19:43):
them to see and hear and you can see them.
We've all done video calls that someone they're holding it,
you're kind of seeing their side of their head.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
Or up their nostrils.
Speaker 4 (19:51):
Right. It's nice not only for the family, but our
grandpad is used often in a medical healthcare tolet health
situation can see the patient, the patient can see and
hear the doctor. And maybe you've noticed maark front facing
speaker is a sound channel. It's the loudest tablet and
we've actually tuned the sound to the frequency the hearing
(20:12):
of the average ad earl. So they of course hear
music and play games, but most importantly they can see
and hear their grandchildren and.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
They don't have to hold the tablet in order to
engage in a video call. That's another thing that could
be difficult to do. Speaking of which I wanted to
ask you, since this is radio or an audio podcast,
if you can just describe the interface a little bit.
It would be familiar to those who have ever used
a phone or a tablet in that you use your
fingertips to swipe. But there are again large icons on
the mainscreen and they're divided into sections, right like if
(20:40):
you want to go on the internet, you even have
like bookmarked pages like AARP for example.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
It's what we call a linear scrollable interface. So instead
of like a standard tablet where you have a whole
bunch of icons and there's multiple pages of them and
they can move around and they're small, these are all
laid out just very naturally. And we also call it
triple redundancies. So each icon on is colored, it's large,
there's a word there, and there's a picture. So we
have many users have severe eyesight issues, macular degeneration, they're
(21:09):
able tostly navigate and see the icons. It's a consistent
user interface. So we all use different apps. You know,
Facebook is different than Uber, is different than the Amazon app.
They all have different navigation. All of this is we
developed all the software so there's a consistent user interface
the way you navigate. The average age of our users
(21:29):
is eighty five. Might have someone not only are they
not a person that's used technology their whole life, but
they might have some cognitive challenges. So having a really
easy to navigate interface that's always clear and laid out
is really important.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So my mom, incidentaly, is turning eighty five in January
this month, and so I would be I guess the
administrator that would be connected to her grand pad tablet.
And then what would that app let me do as
the administrator? For example, can I add photos onto her
tab even if I'm not with her physically you can yep.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
So the Companion app a free download you can put
on your iPhone or Android phone. Us the administrator have
the admin rights, and you can turn things on and
off for your mom. So you might say, she really
doesn't want to be on the Internet anymore. You can
turn off that Internet button so she can't surf around
the Internet and potentially get scammed. I just wanted her
(22:24):
to be able to share photos and do video calls
of the grandkids, so you control those things. You then
absolutely you can snap photos or you can share out
of your library of photos on your smartphone. And then
your mom and everyone else who you've invited into that
family circle of care, they see it. So Mom or
Dad see it on their grandpad tablet, the rest of
(22:45):
the family sees it on the Companion app. And then
you can comment. The family can comment on the photos.
Grandma and Grandpa can comment. They can type a comment,
or they can leave a voice comment. So it's all
about creating family connection. Our whole design and we're really
a design company. That's what we're all about is simplicity
is the ultimate form of sophistication, Leonardo, he said at first, Yeah,
(23:10):
Steve Jobs was off given credit for that quote, but
it was Da Vinci that said at first. And so
we just obsess about how you can take something fairly
complicated and hard to do on some platforms and really
make it simple. And sharing photos with Grahama and Grandpa's
an example. They see that picture, they want to comment, oh,
that's such a cute picture of the kids that Halloween.
They just tap a button and they leave a voice.
(23:32):
It's a voice audio recording, and then now the whole
family can hear that voice recording of Mom, Dad, Gramma,
our Grandpa.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Before we wrap up, tell us about the AI feature
that's baked into the tablet as well.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
We've been working on AI for a long time. I
think AI got hot and popular for everyone else, but
two years ago we've been working on a long time
of how we can use this really powerful tool, sophisticated tool,
but do it in a really simple and enjoyable way.
You know, our mission is to improve the lives super seniors.
So we have an AI assistant called Grandy and it's
(24:04):
a beautiful, wise old owl metaphor, and you can chat
with Grandy via a voice interface and we've actually built
a safety layer around that, so it's very thoughtful and
careful about how it communicates, and it's really friendly. And
you can maybe take someone who's ninety and has some
cognitive and memory challenges. They have someone that they can
(24:26):
talk with and even if I ask the same question repeatedly,
Grandy is infinitely patient. The seniors love it. It's a
great chatbot that they can speak to in a very
natural way. We're seeing three x the usage with this
age group on Grandpad.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
And then finally, Scott, how much does Grandpad cost? Because
I do know the service again connected to it the
cellular platform and where can we learn more about it?
Speaker 4 (24:50):
Yeah, so we encourage you to come to our website
grandpad dot net. You'll see right on there our eight
hundred numbers, big and bold. We love to get phone
calls from folks. You can attend a free webinar that
really teaches you about all the features and the different options.
For those that prefer you can go on Amazon. We've
got a number of different plans and options to buy.
But it comes out around sixty five dollars a month,
(25:11):
but that includes the hardware. You don't have to buy
the hardware upfront. It's just a service, a monthly service.
Not only does it include the twenty four by seven
customer support which is extremely valuable to everyone, but includes
that four G or cellular data as well. We also
have music. You know, I pay ten bucks to Spotify
and twelve bucks for this and that. All those were included,
(25:32):
and all the apps you don't have to pay to
download app. So it's really a great value and can
really transform the lives of seniors and make it easy
and safe for families to say connected.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
So grandpad dot net to learn more, as well as
Amazon dot com.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Scott great to chat with you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
I hope it continues to be a success well into
twenty twenty five. As you're servicing the super senior community.
I love that all the best.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Great thanks for having me on Mark, and I always
end with one special request. All of us have time
as our drive around, just reach out and call the
super senior in your life. Might be mom, dad, grandma,
or grandpa or neighbor. You'll mean the world to them. Sadly,
there's so much loneliness and isolation with this age group,
just a simple phone call can transform their life.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
Love that, Thank you, Scott more Check it Out. Coming
right up after this breaking down geek speaking into street speak.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Check it Out hosted by Mark Saltzman.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Welcome back to tech it Out.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
We cover cybersecurity a lot on this program and how
you can best protect yourself in the digital age, even
if you're not super tech savvy. One part of the
solution is securely shopping online, and so I'm thrilled about
my partnership with Visa on tech it Out as they've
made some significant investments in fraud prevention over the past
five years, as much as ten billion dollars Yes that's billion,
(27:01):
with the b to support Visa's brand promise to protect
the financial information of individuals and businesses. Zero liability means
peace of mind when you shop online using your Visa card.
There can be no half measures when it comes to cybersecurity,
which is why the company takes an aggressive and multi
layered approach to combating the rising threat of malicious software
(27:21):
and other threats by well funded and global criminal enterprises.
Read more about Visa and how securing the world's payments
is priority one at Visa dot com slash Security. That's
Visa dot Com slash Security.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
All right.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
I know a lot of my listeners are gamers, and
many of you are parents of gamers, and there's one
sort of sensitive area, and that is, even if you
are not buying games that are rated M for mature,
for example, when it comes to online games, many of you,
I'm sure are concerned about chatting with others and the
toxic behavior that sometimes often let's say, takes place in
(28:00):
online matches.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Well tech to the rescue. I'm here with Terry Chen.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
He's COO of a company called Modulate, and they've developed
a tool in partnership with AWS. This tool is called
talxmod txmod and Terry's going to share with us what
it's all about. Very nice of you to take the
time of your very busy day to chat with me,
So thank you first of all.
Speaker 8 (28:20):
Yeah, absolutely, Mark, excited to be here.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
So let's dive right in talsmod. What is it?
Speaker 9 (28:26):
Yeah, So, as you know, in gaming, things can get
really heated, especially in competitive spaces, and so there's really
a fine line between good natured trash talk and really
toxic behavior.
Speaker 8 (28:39):
That needs to be moderated.
Speaker 9 (28:41):
And so what talxmod does is it can really escalate
good or bad behavior within games in the voice chat space,
so that games can really help to enforce their code
of conducts.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Can you explain what you mean by escalate? I mean,
is it like a filter if you will, or it's
using AI to detect profanity or abusive comments and then
it's flagged.
Speaker 9 (29:07):
Yeah, So while we don't do any sort of muting
or anything, it's all being surfaced to our platform, which
moderators can then use to take action, whether it's like
a warning or a strike, or just some feedback for
the player. But it's it's really interesting because we actually
can tell the difference between like a yeah and a few.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
And even if it is an FU, if it's said in.
Speaker 2 (29:31):
A joking kind of way among friends, then I'm sure
the game company the publishers don't want to having to
put some safeguards in place when it's like amicable, it's
just sort of fun. So the AI has to be
really good, I guess, to determine the difference between a
friendly sort of job or something that is demeaning.
Speaker 8 (29:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (29:48):
Absolutely, So many really cool educases, like for example, a
player being really humble and kind of demeaning their own play,
or even like communities that use a lot of proclaimed
language in a really positive way.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So this sits on top of the chatting platform with
obviously the consent of the game developer. Let's say, I
don't know, like a Fortnite or a Minecraft, if you will.
Nobody can install this on their own, right. This is
something that's done on the platform level exactly.
Speaker 9 (30:13):
The game developers or the platforms use our service and
thus they integrated into their software, and then the players
accept the Code of Conduct and the EULA and.
Speaker 8 (30:23):
Are thus able to use talkspod.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
The ULAW is the terms of conditions right, Yeah, of.
Speaker 8 (30:27):
Course it's the end User license agreement.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Yeah, there you go, end User license agreement. We are
chatting with Terry Chen.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
He's with modulate dot AI is the call to action
in order to learn more about Talxmond.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Where are you at in?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
This technology is a very early stages. Is it like
proof of concept or is it actually being used by
game companies right now?
Speaker 8 (30:46):
Yeah? Great question.
Speaker 9 (30:47):
We actually are live in games like Call of Duty
as well as rec Room, rock Stars, Grand Theft Auto Online.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
These are huge brands that's amazing.
Speaker 9 (30:58):
Yeah, we're really excited to help them make their communities
more fun and really strike out truly toxic behavior while
making a lot of room for all of the great
trash talk that goes on.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Yeah, it is part of the fun for sure. Let's
say Call of Duty, six Black Ops or whatever. There
is someone that's abusive, they're bullying somebody and.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
It gets escalated.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
So Activision, the company behind the game, they would know
that it's a particular player. They would see like their
handle or their online ID, and then they would get
a warning or.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
Something like that. That's up to them what they do
with it.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Your tool just identifies something that's inappropriate.
Speaker 8 (31:34):
Exactly.
Speaker 9 (31:35):
We're very strict with our data and so we actually
don't know which players are which, but Activision themselves will
be able to identify which player has said what and it.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Doesn't slow down the game because that would be a
huge concern for gamers who play competitively online.
Speaker 9 (31:49):
Nope, we actually run in the cloud. So shout out
to AWS. They do great things and it's exciting to
partner with them. And also our CE and our CTO
Mike and Carter are fantastic innovators who make it all
possible through a company culture and through great innovations with
(32:11):
AWS to make it run very efficiently.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Well, that was going to be my next and last
question was what's the AWS partnership all about? So you're
leveraging their cloud technologies, so it's running on their servers,
so really fast and reliable.
Speaker 3 (32:25):
Terry, you said you're from Boston.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
How big is the team and are you all localized
there or is it spread out?
Speaker 9 (32:30):
We're mostly in Boston. We have our headquarters there. We're
about fifty people right now and we're scaling. So always
interested in talking to people who might be interested in
working on this space, and you can find us at
our website.
Speaker 8 (32:44):
Modulate dot ai all.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Right, Modulate dot ai helping game companies clean up toxic
behavior with machine learning based tools, and in particular we've
been chatting about talsmod txmod if you want to look
it up at modulate dot Ai.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Terry thinks. So much for your time. Hope you have
a great rest of AWS reinvent.
Speaker 8 (33:02):
Thank you, Mark, it's been great.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
A few highlights from the twenty twenty five Consumer Electronics Show.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
When we return on teck it out stay.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
With us follow March Seltzman on.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Before I share a few other highlights from the twenty
twenty five Consumer Electronics Show, which we started to chat
about last weekend. I wanted to give a shout out
to Intel. If you're in the market to buy a
new PC. There's never been a more exciting time thanks
to extremely powerful devices, AI powered devices, in fact, longer
battery life than we've ever seen before, countless designs like
(33:46):
touch and convertibles that can turn into a tablet by
bending the screen back, stunning O lead displays, and super
thin and light form factors. As usual, Intel is leading
the pack now with its new Intel Core Ultra PCs
series two laptops that are powering portable PCs across more
than twenty computer manufacturers. They can deliver much more performance,
(34:09):
up to eighty percent more for gaming compared to last
year's machines, yet amazingly, they consume up to fifty percent
less power to do so. Now available, these new Intel
Core Ultra laptops are branded with a two hundred V
series naming convention, which you can learn more about at
Intel dot com slash AIPC. That's Intel dot com slash AIPC.
(34:32):
So last week on Tech it out. I shared some
of my favorite gadgets from the CES show in Vegas.
The Asus ZenBook A fourteen. Speaking of laptops with up
to thirty two hours of battery life, I talked about
LG's Transparent TV, which is pretty wild. The SanDisk Creator
iPhone SSD, or solid state drive that magnetically attaches to
(34:56):
the back of an iPhone and it can store up
to two terabytes of store George, which is insane perfect
for content creators on the go. But let me share
a few more, including the robo rock ceros Z seventy.
This is the first robotic vacuum and mop hybrid with
a retractable arm that extends out of the top when needed.
If the ceros Z seventy's AI powered camera detects an
(35:19):
object in its path, like an errant sock or kleenex.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Lying in the middle of the room, it can literally.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
Extend a small robotic arm, pick it up and drive
it over to where it should be, like a hamper
for the sock or a trash bin for the tissue.
Speaker 3 (35:33):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
No word yet on when that'll be available, but it's
the roboock ceros Z seventy. How about a coffee machine
you never need to refill. While air to water machines
or atmospheric water generators aren't new, they convert water vapor
in the air into drinking water. Carapod that's Kara will
not only be the least expensive home unit at under
(35:55):
six hundred dollars, it's also the world's first countertop device
that can brew you a coffee as well. In other words,
it's a self relfilling coffee machine. The company Cara Water
says it can produce up to three point two liters
of drinking water per day, which is enough for eighteen
cups of coffee or seven bottles of water. Cara Pod
is coming soon and will be available in black, white,
(36:16):
and beige. Next up iPads are great.
Speaker 3 (36:19):
For the indoors.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
If you want to read an ebook though by the
pool or watch a midday movie out on a backyard deck,
it's virtually impossible to see the screen Instead. TCL showed
off its next gen Next Paper eleven plus. This is
a tablet that's super thin. It's an eleven and a
half inch Android tablet with tcl's next Paper four point
zero display. It's an anti glare matte screen that still
(36:43):
yields amazing color, brightness and sharpness in any environment. Now
here's where it gets cool. With the press of a
button on the side of the tablet, the next paper
eleven plus goes into a gray scale e ink mode
for reading ebooks. It actually transforms in front of your eyes,
so then it looks like real ink on paper. It's
black and whiter grayscale. In other words, you can bring
(37:05):
it outside and it's got extended battery life as well.
It'll be out in the first half of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
And let's end off on something pretty wild.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
The land aircraft carrier so a Chinese automaker called xpen AROWHD.
They garnered a lot of buzz at cs for its
concept car that is part ev or electric vehicle, part
flying car. It might be best described as an electric
minivan that launches a large foldable passenger drone.
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Out of the back.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
So after you drive to your destination in this six
wheeled extended range mothership vehicle as they call it, two
people can then climb into the EV tool or electric
vertical takeoff and landing drone to soar the friendly skies
for I don't know, an afternoon of sightseeing the company.
Expend Erohd said production and deliveries will start sometime in
(37:54):
twenty twenty six in China. First, I'll believe it when
I see it. Yes, one day we will have flight cars.
But this seems a little too ambitious, and even the
video is a computer generated one, so you got to
be a little suspect there. If you want to see
more about CES and read my articles, just google my name,
Mark Saltzman, mar C SA L, TZMA N and the
(38:16):
words CES or Consumer Electronics Show and you'll see my
articles and videos from the big conference which just wrapped up. Well, Hey,
I hope you enjoyed this week's teck It Out Show.
Again a shout out to Intel as well as Visa
and Western Digital for.
Speaker 3 (38:32):
Your support on this program.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
Thank you to our guests Frontline, Wildfire, Grand Pat and Modulate.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
AI.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Hope you enjoyed it. Please stay safe if you're in
the LA area or anywhere affected by those wildfires in
southern California. Take care and I look forward to catching
up with you next weekend for another brand new episode
of Tack It Out with four new guests and topics.
So looking forward to chatting with you then, all the best, everyone,
signing off for tack it Out a buy for now
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