This Week in Enterprise Tech 555, Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Lou Maresca (00:00):
On this week in Enterprise Sick, Mr. Brian Chi and Mr. K Flank and are back on the show today. Now, today we're gonna explore the White House's new national cyber workforce and education strategy. We're gonna delve into how it intends to solve cybersecurity skills, crisis. Plus, we're diving into the world of spatial computing with Michael Hoffman's, c e o of i q xr. We'll be unpacking the vast potential of extended reality in the role of transformative devices like Apple's Vision Pro and how its unique platform can revolutionize the industry. You definitely should miss it. It's quiet on the set

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This. This is twit Twit.

Lou Maresca (00:48):
This is twt. This week, enterprise Tech, episode 5 55 recorded August 4th, 2023. AR and VR grow up into xr. This episode of this week in Enterprise Tech is brought to you by an optica. Reduce the complexities of protecting your workloads and applications in a multi-cloud environment. An optica provides comprehensive cloud workload protection integrated with a p i security to protect the entire application lifecycle. Learn more about panoptix app Pan optica.app, and by bit Warden. Get the open source password manager that can help you stay safe online. Get started with a free teams or an enterprise plan, or get started for free across all devices as an individual user. Bit warden.com/twi and by duo protect against breaches with a leading access management suite, providing strong multi-layered defenses to allow only legitimate users in. For any organization concerned about being breached and in need of a solution, fast Duo quickly enables strong security and improves user productivity. Visit css.co/twit today for free trial.

(02:04)
Welcome to twit this week at Enterprise Tech, the show that is dedicated to you, the enterprise professional, the IT pro, and that geek who just wants to know how this world's connected. I'm your host, Louis Burki, your guys with the big world of the enterprise. You know what, I can't got you by myself. I need to actually bring in the professionals and the experts, and I'm gonna start with our very Mr. Curtis Franklin, he's principal analyst at I'm Dia and he's the man who knows everything and has the pulse of everything on the enterprise. Curtis, you're uh, you're heading to Sin City pretty soon, aren't you?

Curtis Franklin (02:33):
Um, in less than 48 hours. I will be heading out, uh, going out for Black Hat and Defcon, have a full dance card at each. Uh, looking forward to seeing all the people, hearing all the reports from researchers, the, uh, travel and living in a convection oven. Not quite so much, but, uh, it's gonna be worthwhile. I am going to be just social media ing the dickens out of it. Um, and in preparation for that, I've got a new article out on omnia.com and it's a little bit special because it's free. I'll have more details for everyone at the end of the show.

Lou Maresca (03:16):
Fantastic. Looking forward to it. Well, folks, we also have to welcome back on our own. Mr. Brian Chi Berts. How are you feeling, my friend? How are you doing?

Curtis Franklin (03:25):
Um, it's the third week of Covid. I am still not a happy camper, but I'm not quite coughing up a lung anymore, so

Lou Maresca (03:36):
It's good. Good. That's a good thing. Good. Are you able to get out at all? You're getting, maybe get some, uh, sun?

Curtis Franklin (03:41):
No, we are isol. No, we are isolating. Um, we do not want to wish this disease on anyone. So I hear you. My wife and I are both isolating. We're doing, you know, Instacart, grocery deliveries and the whole nine yards. And even after I, I test negative, I'm probably gonna be wearing a mask for a little while.

Lou Maresca (04:02):
I hear you. Have you been, uh, you know, keeping yourself busy with watching stuff, reading stuff, anything special?

Curtis Franklin (04:07):
I've been doing a lot of, um, shall we say sleeping

Lou Maresca (04:13):
<laugh>? I hear that. I hear that.

Curtis Franklin (04:16):
Yeah.

Lou Maresca (04:18):
Well get some rest. Hopefully, uh, this thing will, you'll be able to kick it pretty soon, so, 'cause it's, uh, it's been a while, so

Curtis Franklin (04:24):
Well mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Lou Maresca (04:25):
Well, speaking of kicking it, we need to kick it forward because we got a lot of stuff to talk about here this week. Today we're gonna explore the White House's new national cyber workforce education strategy. We'll delve into just how it intends to actually solve cybersecurity skills crisis, the role of community colleges, and the emphasis on public and private partnerships as well. Plus, we'll be diving into the world of spatial computing with Michael Hoffman, c e o of I Q X R, and he'll be unpacking the, pretty much the potential of extended reality and the role of transformative devices like Apple's Vision Pro and how this unique platform could revolutionize the industry. So lots to talk about there. So definitely stick around. Plus also, remember, if this is your first time watching, try and listening to our show, good show page right now to support the show and subscribe at twit tv slash twit.

(05:11)
Also, remember, we also, you can also support the show by joining Club Twit as well. It's a members only ad free podcast service with access to all of our podcasts and special events. And of course, the exclusive access to the Discord server as well. And that's only $7 a month. So go started over at twit tv slash club twit. Thank you for the support. Well, it's been a very busy week in the enterprise, so like we always do, let's go ahead and jump into this week's news blips in the groundbreaking advancement scientists at the Department of Energy Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have introduced a new technique for recognizing denial of service attacks. The detection rate has improved by a whopping 90% compared to the traditional methods. The researchers dismissed conventional threshold based mechanisms, which can be easily deceived or trigger false alarms. Instead, they focus on analyzing the entropy or disorder of the network at traffic, as per the researchers during a denial of service attack, entropy rates at the target and source clash significantly. The formula using this technique nailed 99% of attacks. Uh, during that test, the team also replaced a conventional Shannon entropy calculation with salus entropy, which proved hundreds of times more adept at discerning genuine network surges from malicious attacks. This automated lightweight solution doesn't need intense human oversight or significant computing power, differentiating it from AI-based solutions, which require substantial training data. Now, as the five G and IOT landscapes proliferate, the innovation and this specific innovation can be key in thwarting increasingly prevalent cyber attacks.

Curtis Franklin (06:48):
Well, just when you thought it was safe to assume that all hackers and hacktivists were up to no good. Along comes cult of the dead cow with news that they're releasing an application framework designed to boost privacy. In a story on dark reading, the group says that Veli is intended to be an open source peer-to-peer mobile first networked application framework. According to the project's website, Veli allows anyone to build a distributed private app and allows users to opt out of data collection and online tracking this all in an effort to pro prioritize user experience, privacy and safety. Now, a cult of the Dead Cow claims that it built ved because although the internet began as an open realm of possibility, it has instead become commercialized with no viable options in terms of how to opt out of things like cookies. Ved is similar to I P F Ss and Tor, but it's creators claim that it's faster and is designed from the ground up for privacy.

(07:56)
Now it's also originally written in Rust, which is a language that is being used by more and more teams for its privacy and security properties. <inaudible> uses strong encryption and features nodes that can run on Linux, Mac, windows, Androids, iOS, and through web assembly in browser. The official launch of the framework will occur at DEFCON 31 on August 11th, 9:00 AM Pacific. For those interested in such things where the group says that they're going to break the internet and perhaps put it back together in what they believe to be an improved version, I'm planning to be there at the unveiling and I'll report back to Twy on what this launch actually features.

(08:48)
Well, I've been making all kinds of noise about AI should be treated more as a tool, and this and this Eng gadget story comes up and really just kind of punctuates that for me with an AI tool that can help you fill in the blanks in Photoshop. The idea is you want, sometimes you have an image that's been cropped down or maybe someone's zoomed in a little too much, but you need it, you know, much bigger. So like in the, in the, um, images that you see in the, in the story, someone had a zoomed in image of that arch of flowers or whatever, but they wanted a wider view of the entire beach. Well, previously it's been a lot of, you know, Photoshop, you know, tinkering and so forth, which is also requires a lot of talent and more than a little bit of time.

(09:40)
So what they wanna be able to do is just be able to easily stretch that out. 'cause that's probably one of the number one things that a lot of, um, Photoshop experts do for things like ads or modifying stock images just a little bit to make it fit into the theme of the ad better. And I'm looking forward to seeing this because I think AI is gonna be one of those tools that is gonna make a dramatic difference in how we do things. Um, not necessarily taking over jobs, but at least helping us do our jobs better. So that's what I'm kind of hoping and I'm, I'm very glad that Gadget did this and, um, you know, we'll, we'll see what happens. 'cause I'm not the best Photoshop person in the world, but there's a lot of times I end up, oh, it doesn't fit. I needed to do this or that, or that or this. And I'm looking forward to this tool. I don't know about you guys.

Lou Maresca (10:40):
In the face of two significant cybersecurity threats, US officials are working double time to secure the nations networks. The White House is currently surging for a suspected malware planted by Chinese hackers believed to deeply rooted in critical American IT systems, controlling water supplies, power grids, and military communications. Now, this register article talks a little bit about the fact that the Chinese cyber crew dubbed bolt typhoon is suspected of having more widespread intrusions that previously estimated creating a potential ticking time bomb. Meanwhile, a US Air Force engineer was reported to have compromised military communication security by taking home sensitive government equipment worth $90,000. This unfortunate blunder providing the engineer detailed view of the Arnold Air Force base communication system has sparked an investigation involving the Pentagon, the Air Force, and F B I. Now, this incident adds to the mounting cybersecurity concerns in the military sector after a national Guardsman who was actually recently detained for leaking classified Pentagon documents.

(11:43)
The Biden administration assures its diligence defending critical infrastructure from such threats. But it sounds like the government needs to take some of its own medicine when it comes to ensuring their leaders have some cybersecurity expertise. We'll have to see if they do so well, folks, that does it for the blips. Next up the bites, but before we get to the bites, we have to take a really great sponsor of this weekend enterprise tech, and that's panoptix. Now in the rapidly evolving landscape of cloud security. Cisco panoptix is at the forefront, revolutionizing the way you manage your microservices and workloads. And with a unified and simplified approach to managing the security of a cloud native application over the entire lifecycle, PANOPTIX simplifies cloud native security by reducing tools, vendors, and complexity. I'm meticulously evaluating them from security threats and vulnerabilities. Panoptix ensures your applications remain secure and resilient.

(12:35)
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(13:47)
Well, folks, it's time for the News Bites. Now in a bid to actually tackle the ongoing cyber skills crisis, we know there's a crisis out there. The White House has unveiled a detailed national cyber workforce and education strategy. Now, through, through this it may not provide immediate solutions, but industry experts believe that the plan could address skills shortage in the long run and pave the way for future cybersecurity professionals. Now, this 60 page strategy, it's kind of a hefty one, is building on the national security strategy. Announced earlier this year, pushes for closer public private sector collaboration in developing the cyber workforce. It emphasizes fostering digital literacy, foundational cyber skills, and which is really important, obviously, and ongoing access to educational resources. Now the document urges federal agencies, departments, and industry to make training materials readily available for upskilling and re-skilling. It also encourages skills-based hiring practices, viewing community colleges as a rich source of cyber talent.

(14:48)
Furthermore, also promotes increased diversity inclusion hiring practices. The strategy is seen as aspirational by Karen Walsh. She's a cybersecurity compliance expert at Allegro Solutions, who argues it requires significant investment at the K through 12 level. Meanwhile, candy Alexander, president of I S S A considers the plan as a visionary and, uh, it also, particularly appreciating its emphasis on public education, incorporating the, uh, the actual incorporation of cybersecurity in K through 12 curriculums as well. And the push for solid public-private partnership. The strategy also supports the bolstering cyber education, which is important for both from the very low ends, the the grade schools all the way to the advanced degree programs. Document advises employers and industry groups and other other section contribute to the creation and the delivery of cyber education and training programs. And many professionals think the creation of this strategy is a significant step forward. And they acknowledge that the cyber workforce short shortfall actually, according to the research, there's over 410,000 cyber security professionals in the United States. It's quite substantial. Now I wanna bring my co back in because this is a really interesting strategy. Now, Curtis, the, the new strategy here places a really a strong emphasis on public and private collaboration. How significant do you think this approach is for tackling the cyber skill crisis? And will it run into any challenges, do you think?

Curtis Franklin (16:12):
Well, I think it's critical, and furthermore, there are a lot of organizations that are involved in training people for cybersecurity who also think it's critical. Uh, I had a briefing this week with, uh, a company, um, InfoSec that has long had training and they are entering into partnerships with companies that basically are in the, uh, train to hire, um, getting ready to actually work model. Uh, and they're gonna be announcing much more about that next week at Black Hat. But basically it recognizes a couple of things. One, that there is this vast gulf between the number of cybersecurity professionals that are needed and the number that exist. Uh, number two, it recognizes that lots and lots, we won't say all, but many of the people who come out of even a four-year degree in cybersecurity don't have the day-to-day practical skills that an employer needs them to have when they hit the ground.

(17:27)
Um, this is a similar problem to the one that's existed in computer science roughly forever. I mean, when I was in a computer science degree program back at the dawn of time, companies were talking about the fact that they needed to train computer science graduates for six months to a year before they became really useful productive developers. And that hasn't changed. Um, you can talk about why to your're blue in the face, but it's a problem that's existed in many different areas for a long time. So I think that focusing on the partnerships, focusing on getting individuals practical skills and also allowing for the possibility that people can come from disciplines outside of academic computer security, uh, is, is I, you know, all of these are important and all of these are being looked at very seriously. And frankly, I'm a fan of each and every one.

Lou Maresca (18:39):
And Brian, the, the document mentions almost a paradigm shift towards, like Curtis mentioned, skills-based hiring as obviously pure academic. How can this really impact the industry? What do you think the pros and cons to this approach are?

Curtis Franklin (18:51):
Well, I I think it's a very short-sighted, um, view of the world. Um, when I was chief computer scientist for G S A Office of Information Security, I got to brief at the director level, um, and a director level would be like a two or three star Admiral General. And the idea was I was trying to push through for, during the Clinton administration for them to expand their tax incentive program. So what a lot of people didn't know is that if you are a subchapter S corporation or higher back during the Clinton administration, you could take two years of admin, um, amortization off, um, scientific equipment, shall we say, which is also IT equipment. And then in the third year, take a significant write off by donating that to, um, Carnegie One Research Institute. What I was pushing for is, gee, that's all fine and good.

(19:50)
Four year universities teach in theory critical thinking. We want the people able to invent new technology. We want the next, um, variation of a e s to come out of the universities. That's where it's probably gonna come from, right? But we also need to support the community colleges, the, the institutions whose mandate is to teach you methodology. I had a great, uh, conversation with a pool guy, uh, swimming pools and, um, I said, you know, you need to ground that, that railing. And he goes, yeah, well if you know about that, why don't you do it yourself? He goes, you don't understand. I know why you do it. You know how to do it. So the Biden administration emphasizing K through 12 is great. That's going to bias us, um, skillsets maybe a decade in the future. I think it needs to be all of the above.

(20:48)
We need K through 12 so we could prime the pump for the community colleges and four year universities. And I really and truly think one of the best and least expensive ways of doing it are tax incentives. Um, get corporations of all, all kinds to donate newer equipment and software and so forth to not only research one institutions, but also K through 12 and also, um, community colleges so that the resources are there to teach with. And a tax incentive isn't that costly and is something that administration can do very, very easily. I mean, Bubba did one, you know, the Clinton administration did one that lasted quite a few years. And, um, as a result, my lab at the University of Hawaii got all kinds of equipment donated that were very, very new and went a long way toward teaching my ivory tower students a balance with the real world.

Lou Maresca (21:57):
That's great. That's great. Well, I wanna, I wanna highlight one specific thing, Curtis. I want to, I wanna highlight this thing because I think it's interesting that it's part of the strategy. The fact that they're obviously not only talking about pulling from more resources like community colleges and other places, but also highlighting the fact that the strategy is increasing diversity inclusion in the hierarchy p hiring practices as well. Um, you know, obviously this is happening a lot around the industry, but how do you think this is will impact more on the security side of things, the cybersecurity side of things?

Curtis Franklin (22:29):
Well, I have long said that there are practical benefits to having a diverse cybersecurity team. One of those is that one, the greatest failing of a cybersecurity team is the failure of imagination. When you hear someone say, in essence, we never imagined that an attacker would try to do x and to the extent that everyone on a cybersecurity team comes from the same background and looks the same and shares the same worldview, the chance of having blind spots increases. So I think that by having diverse teams, you reduce the chances for those blind spots to come back and bite you. So I think that that is tremendously valuable. Uh, I think that you also have the opportunity to get creativity and problem solving from different angles, different approaches. So for me, the diversity issue is not one that just is a feel good thing. Um, it's something that has practical benefit and all cybersecurity teams should have this as a goal in building the human makeup of their team.

Lou Maresca (23:59):
Right, right. Chiri, one thing I wanted to call out here, which I thought actually was really interesting is the fact that it's talked a little bit about the need for cybersecurity inclusion into a grade school curriculum Now. How, how early do you think this type of education needs to go?

Curtis Franklin (24:15):
I think cybersecurity training, or at least indoctrination needs to happen the second you put a kid in front of a computer. Um, it's not so much I'm going to be teaching them about Diffy Hellman and a e s encryption and things like that. No, that's too early for that. But it isn't too early to teach them not to put passwords on post-it notes. It's not too early to teach them about what a strong password is. You know, if the kid in grade school has been introduced and has been using say, two-factor authentication for the bulk of his primary school time, this is not gonna be an issue when he goes into the workforce. It's going to be something he's had or she has had for a long time and they're not going to care. Um, we have to do a sea change, um, before things really and truly start working. At least that, that's kind of my opinion. I can't tell you how many senior management within the Department of Defense or within academia absolutely threw hissy fits at me when I forced, um, biometric authentication, uh, for key equipment and so forth. But that's not gonna happen if someone's had it since grade school. Right,

Lou Maresca (25:46):
Right. I agree. Well definitely have to see how this helps. Um, I'm, I'm hoping it will. I, you know, I hope we move things forward. I think it, I think a lot of, a lot of companies are seeing the writing on the wall. They know that they're gonna need to start educate, upskill, uh, and reskill people, uh, to make sure they keep up with the times. And I think this is definitely a good, a good sign of the times that they're starting to post these type of strategies. So we'll hopefully see, hopefully see if, uh, if this will make it done or not. Well folks, that does it for the bites. Next up, we have my favorite part of the show. We actually get to, we're gonna a guest to drop some knowledge on the TWI ride. But before we do, we do have to thank another great sponsor of this week in Enterprise Tech.

(26:23)
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Michael Hoffman (29:07):
Thank you. It is so exciting to be here. I'm looking forward to it.

Lou Maresca (29:11):
Yeah, we're excited as well. There's some interesting topics to come, but before we we get to that stuff, we, we wanna hear about an interesting journey. 'cause I think you've had a great journey and our audience is a large spectrum of experiences, whether they're entry level all the way up to the CTOs and CEOs of the world. And you know, people love to hear the journey through tech. What, what, what actually brought you to I IQ xr?

Michael Hoffman (29:32):
Yes, I mean, my journey started very early. Uh, started coding at 11, uh, turned into a career starting in high school already. Um, thought I was gonna be a neurosurgeon, but I got too good at software too fast and <laugh>, it kind of pivoted right around that time. Um, I've been building, um, platforms my whole career starting, you know, around 22 years old. Did a little bit of embedded systems for that, which I, I ironically, it's like I touched upon every part of the, uh, digital transformation I OT software, interested in neurology, which led to an interest in, uh, machine learning and ai. Um, I also was interested in three D as early as 16. Um, but, but the pivot was into platform. I just really liked building really clean platforms that solved real business problems. And, and that led to a nice series of, uh, me kind of being the, the world's first at a very, uh, various things like, uh, the first network attack storage that could handle robotic jukeboxes that would load the disk for you.

(30:32)
And I made it all look like, uh, one coherent disc drive. Um, that journey led through, um, ascend at Nike, which gave me an introduction to what it means to be at a big company and think enterprise and think brand and think big, um, which was a really good foundation for the rest of my career. Um, which also then led to, to Google. And then ultimately it led to this super, super secret project at Microsoft. Um, I was already in Microsoft to, to bring lean startup to Microsoft. Um, when Satya got promoted, that team got reconfigured and dissolved. Uh, so I'm, I took advantage of that two months they gave you to, to find a new place to land. And the one that caught my attention while the two that caught my attention were the i o team, uh, which, which was right up my, my my wheelhouse.

(31:17)
But the other was a super secret project that was so secret, only a thousand people at Microsoft even knew it existed. And they couldn't even tell me. I just had to take it on faith. And I did, uh, because that's the way I roll. Um, and, and day one I walked to my desk, they say, this is your desk and there's this weird, um, motorcycle, three feet from my desk with all the plastic removed. And it's like, what in the world? What did I get myself into? Um, and they put this Frankenstein device on my head and say, Hey, take a look at this. And that Frankenstein device put all that plastic on that motorcycle that was three feet from my desk. And it's like, oh, oh, <laugh>, I think I'm at the right place. <laugh> <laugh>. Very cool. Very cool. Now, how long after Microsoft did you, did you move over to I Q X R?

(32:04)
So I was, um, on the Microsoft team, um, almost two years. Um, I caught wind that they were starting to, um, stand up what they called the at in the early days. They called it the HoloLens Agency, um, um, early access partner. I forget exactly what the acronym stood for harp. Um, and it became the Microsoft Mixed Reality, uh, partnership program. And, um, and when I, when I heard that that was starting to form, um, through the Bisra team, I just raised my hand. I said, I wanna be part of that. I'm a startup guy. I'm gonna start one of those eight companies. And sure enough, they agreed to that. I was, I was one of, I was the only one that wasn't an established company. A lot of them were already dabbling in vr. Uh, and so those were, you know, pretty safe betts.

(32:48)
But they took a bet on me and, and I built this company called Object Theory after that first, you know, I, I guess so about 18 months there. Um, and so for the next five years we were building for enterprise. Like, we, um, did a lot of, um, good press pushes. So we had good visibility and we were driven a hundred percent by inbound and word of mouth. Uh, and we did amazing projects for, I mean, you name it, Ford Motor L'Oreal, Stryker Medical Zimmer Biome at British Petroleum. I mean, most of them were recognizable brand names, and if they weren't, they were probably billion dollar companies that you may not have heard of. But, but we learned so much about where the value was and, you know, committed to what the unique differentiating value of mixed reality is. And, and so that, that education, um, was invaluable.

(33:33)
The challenge was, as most of us in this industry know, is that it went dark again. You know, HoloLens two was delayed, then HoloLens two had some interesting challenges and nobody else was, you know, basically coming yet to market. And, and so there's this void that made it really hard to be a small agency in this industry, right? So I, I basically made the hard decision to, to, uh, go, go back to Microsoft, is what I ended up doing. And I, um, had the fortune to, to be on the mixed reality toolkit team, um, which was at the epicenter of anyone trying to build for this space. And so for the next two years, I helped that team turn mixed sure, um, M R T K toolkit into something that was a little bit more aligned with what enterprise needed. We did a lot of outreach to, to understand where it was strong, where it was weak.

(34:20)
And that two year journey, um, was great until the layoffs and, and I was actually, um, part, part of those layoffs. Um, my team was dissolved in part because it was misunderstood and was open source, and nobody quite knew that I actually took my job seriously and made it the key underpinnings of pretty much everything we were doing that I thought that was my job. Um, but because it was open source, it wasn't necessarily understood and wasn't seen as the thing that really, you know, was, was an important part of this industry. And, you know, Microsoft was making some changes in, in how they thought about this industry as well. And, you know, I don't, I don't look backwards. I don't look forward. And so, um, I was looking at opportunities and a handful were on my plate. Um, and one of them was mesmerized and mesmerized caught my attention. And, uh, the rest is history. I, I, I, every single day, I think my lucky stars that I made that choice over Qualcomm and a bunch of others, um, it really felt to me like it was a good fit for my capabilities and where the market is.

Lou Maresca (35:19):
That's great. Great. Well, I wanna get a little bit into spatial computing. 'cause I think that, you know, I, like you said, I think things tended to go a little dark, a little bit dormant for a while, and then of course Apple came out with their vision pro and it reci the industry or maybe even created some more skeptics out there. Maybe, maybe go into a little bit of what you think, you know, some of the influence are to move into spatial computing. Like what are, what are, what are industries using it for? What are you seeing in the commercial space? Like what is the most, uh, influential use cases that you're seeing out

Michael Hoffman (35:51):
There? Yeah, well first of all, I'm glad you're using the term spatial computing. I, I, I chose it a little while ago that that was probably the best term for everything that's happening. Uh, it's like a real word that people can, or a real phrase that people can understand. It gets away from all the acronym wars that are happening. Uh, so thank you for doing that. Um, so yeah, so one of the things that, um, to, to frame that question, you know, one of the things that I think is really important is being committed to what is the actual differentiating value of these emerging devices? 'cause if you don't take that into consideration, you're just creating shiny objects, you're just, you know, creating wow factor, of course everybody gets excited. It's brand new technology, like what new brand new technology do most of us geeks not get excited about.

(36:31)
And even, you know, people who are trying to solve real problems. Um, and, and so we had this, you know, list. And that list was things like you can for the first time actually understand the true size and scale of things. And there were interrelationships of space and you can see invisible data and things that don't exist yet, like a product that's under development, the, the addition to a building that hasn't, doesn't exist yet. And so those kinds of framing are, are the things that guide everything we do. The other obviously is alignment to the physical world. What can you do when you can align to the physical world? What can you do when you understand the actual structure of the space around you? Um, you know, what do you, you know, what are, what are the opportunities around you can now directly manipulate your, your, the things that are being shown to you by your computer, you know, with your hands.

(37:19)
Um, and so that, that actually, if you, if you look at the list of things that are lighting up, you'll notice that they are the ones that light up those very unique differentiating, um, factors. Um, the big things are everything in education. Um, skills training, especially hard skills training. It's a physical thing to learn how to manipulate something, right? So for you to now be able to be guided, you know, we did a handful at object theory where we're literally showing hands coming in and exactly how to turn things in, exactly what you should be doing. And we had like air airline executives at the trade show in Frankfurt were doing the actual repair on a hundred thousand dollars business class seat that a technician would have to do if the food tray broke or if the armrest broke. And, and they were just coming out of there grinning, blown away.

(38:07)
Like, I cannot believe I, as a industry executive was able to do that. And it was just such a clear sign of how this technology is transformative, that, that a individual with zero training can do things that would never have been possible before without training. So, so that's one task guidance. The others are, um, uh, in other forms of education of course, but the others are premium selling. The, the better storytelling around the product you're trying to sell, let people try out the thing that they're gonna buy. Um, like operating room, uh, surgeons are be able to try out their operating room, which is something we did for Stryker, where you literally can stand in the operating room you want to buy or the operating room suite you wanna buy and, and optimize the design. And the design goes back to their cad. And like for real, like that it, from, as you change it, it goes back to the cad and then that becomes truth for what actually gets delivered.

(38:56)
Um, obviously entertainment, storytelling, I don't think I have to go into that anymore. That is certainly one area that clearly immersive technologies in general are, are going to light up. Um, and surgery is another one. The human bodies three-dimensional nature. Anything around the planning, the discussing, the actual act of doing surgery is ripe for, for this. I've heard so many stories around, I understood more what that tumor was all about before I went in there and I was able to do a better job at, you know, at resolving, um, the, that situation in surgery. Uh, better insights, the more efficient, um, I could go on and on. But those are, you know, some of the big ones. Um, architecture, engineering, construction, obviously they're building big things. You can, you stand in the thing that you're gonna build.

Lou Maresca (39:42):
So I'm curious about, 'cause there's seems to be, you know, all of this stuff obviously sounds amazing. In fact, in our back channel everyone's like, wow, that's really cool. That seems awesome. Um, I, you know, obviously really cool use cases and scenarios. The one thing I'm curious about, it seems like there seems to be a lot of limiting factors in the industry today only because these devices are not cheap. Uh, there's not a lot of, um, you know, software or services that are really available for them. And if you wanna go build something, the toolkits and the services that are available to you are not industrial strength. They're not, you know, they're not commercialized or, you know, high security or, you know, um, high availability, that kind of thing. And so there's, there's lots of problems that kind of come, come along with it. And it seems like there needs to be things built around it in order to really make it more, um, approachable by even smaller or medium sized businesses. So what are you seeing happen in the industry that's maybe taking that into a different direction?

Michael Hoffman (40:38):
Yeah, well, I mean, you, you described 100% exactly why I Q X R exists. <laugh>, like literally that's good. Like that's practically the, the, you know, the business plan itself sheet of why we should exist. Um, like one of the things that we came out of this long journey is understanding what all those things are, but understanding the limits and also understanding which ones cannot be in the way if you just navigate it carefully, but also to just chip away at them. Right? And, and you know, some of the things you mentioned are, you know, the challenge, which is it's fine to do a p ooc or production without thinking about end-to-end security without thinking about, oh, when that technician goes on that aircraft to fix that problem, they're not, probably not gonna have reliable internet. Well, how do you solve for all those things?

(41:23)
Well, you still need the content to be managed in the cloud, but you need it somehow to get on the device before the technician walks on the plane. And when the technician walks on the plane, everything should still work regardless of how their connection is. So, you know, one of the things that we're, um, trying to do, and you touched on a lot of the things that are a challenge, is to actually make sure that all that plumbing exists. So that every, I mean, right now every software publisher on the planet that's trying to be in this industry is basically writing a lot of the same plumbing for themselves because it doesn't exist yet. And so one of the things that we wanna do is bring some of these basic foundational platform capabilities to, to market, but we also know we can't boil the ocean alone.

(42:03)
So we are gonna be like, a big part of what we're doing is starting to form partnerships with other best in class providers and make sure it all interplays and works really well together. And furthermore, if it's not based on open standards, everybody has to choose like, is this the right, uh, you know, tool chain and metaverse? Yeah, I use metaverse loosely, but you know, the right tool chain and environment to deploy all of my content. And because the other big challenges, the content creation is so expensive and requires so much expertise. So another area where we believe that there's, uh, tons of opportunities, what are all the ways in which you can use, um, a AI and spatial computing, um, knowledge to make the crater flow much easier to approach by mere mortals that aren't experts in Maya aren't experts in three d modeling and blender and aren't experts in sound design.

(42:58)
All the things aren't experts in the new emerging ways that you have to interact with things so that you have the feedback that something's happening over here where you can't see it. Well, that requires somebody to understand you should have feedback to make sure somebody knows something is happening over here. And we wanna make sure that all of those capabilities are just kind of air and water, the things that you just have available to you so that you don't have to build all that what, so you can contract down the thing you are good at, right? I'm good at surgery and all I want to be able to do is use all these great legal blocks to build something that actually solves my surgery problem. Um, so on the devices side of the equation, um, I'm glad you mentioned Apple Vision probe. 'cause I believe it is genuinely the first device that actually solves the vast majority of the, of the missing pieces from a device perspective.

(43:44)
Um, the biggest thing that they've solved for is, um, the visual fidelity of what you're seeing and the ability to readily switch between full vr, which is one end of the spectrum of spatial computing to full just see your real world and that at the other end. And it can be any blend in between those two where there's, it's absolutely 100% created fabricated environment to, all I'm seeing is one little menu in my real world. And, and you know, obviously there's still plenty of steps to go. Um, and one more thing I'd like to touch upon is price. Yes. Yeah. These devices are expensive. Everybody goes to price as the first thing or field of view as the second thing. That is the reason why none of this is lighting up. And that in my, those are red herrings. I mean, for business in particular, if, if you solve a real business problem, like people buy a hundred thousand r computers if it solves a business problem, right?

(44:39)
So if it's solving a real business problem at a price point that actually delivers enough value, it is not gonna be the reason you don't buy it. That's true. The reason you don't buy it is because there literally is no software that actually solves the problem that you have <laugh>, right? Right. So the, the industry needs to have the Lego blocks that it takes to solve the actual problem you have and then the right, the right, um, customers that need these technologies will absolutely buy the device and they'll live with the limitations of the device. Like wearing it all day probably is still not an option. It eventually will be, but a huge gamut of the possible things you can solve for. It doesn't matter if you can't wear it all day long. Right? And so that, you know, one of our objectives is to unblock these things a little bit at a time over the next 10 years to, as the devices and the various barriers, uh, are, are shed that we have made everything that's humanly possible easier to adopt in that journey.

Lou Maresca (45:38):
Makes sense. Makes sense. I do wanna talk a little bit about the evolution, but, but we, before we do, I, we do have to thank another great sponsor of this week in enterprise tech. And of course that's Duo Duo protects against breaches with a leading access management suite. Strong multi-layer defenses and innovative capabilities only allow legitimate users in and keep those bad actors out. Now for any organization concerned about being breached, that needs protection Fast Duo quickly enables strong security while also improving user productivity. Duo prevents unauthorized access with multi-layered defenses and modern capabilities that really thwart sophisticated malicious access attempts. They also increase authentication requirements in real time when risk rises. DUO enables high productivity by only requiring authentication when needed. Enabling Swift Easy and secure access with DUO also provides an all-in-one solution for Strong M F a passwordless single sign-on and Trusted endpoint Verification duo helps you implement zero trust principles by also verifying users and their devices. Start your free trial and sign up today at css.co/twi. That's css.co/wt and we thank DUO for their sport of this week and enterprise tech. Well folks, we've been talking with Michael Hoffman, co-founder, c e o of I Q X R, about spatial computing and really the advancements there, but I wanna bring my coss back in 'cause they have a lot to talk about here as well in this, in this area. Uh, Bert you wanna go first?

Curtis Franklin (47:21):
Well, first off, I wanna say I just reread Ready Player one, <laugh>, and this is sounding like Oasis version 0.5. You know, we need the tools to build the tools Yeah. And AI is gonna help the tools work better, but anyway, yep. The real question is, we, we've been talking about AR and VR forever, you know, I got to see the Boeing folks when they're using VR to work on cable harnesses for Boeing products, which is an ungodly complicated process and insanely expensive if you goof. So VR was a great fit there. But you're starting to coin a term. XR is xr, AR and VR grown up?

Michael Hoffman (48:12):
Yeah, I mean that's a really interesting question. There's several competing like spectrum terms, right? There's xr, there's immersive, there's spatial computing, there's mr, and it, it's really confusing for everybody. Um, I, I think growing up is kind of the right way to put it. Um, you know, any of us that are really close to to this industry have pretty much predicted that there's gonna be a convergence of the two ends of the spectrum where there's vr, fully immersive where you can't see the real world at all at one end. And then ar which started at things like, you know, iPad, iPhone doing AR just like this, and then devices like, um, you know, HoloLens and uh, magic Leap, which lets you see the entire real world, but it puts holograms in it. And, and what, what the interesting thing is, is something like the Apple Vision Pro in particular, it is fully both ends of the spectrum and you just get to choose where you're at in that spectrum or the software gets to choose where you're at.

(49:05)
And so we need terms that are more about that entire spectrum. And X XR was for a long time my favorite. I adopted mixed reality because it was a Microsoft, uh, promoted term and, and I was at Microsoft. Um, but, um, I think for me, and I'm glad that Apple adopted it, the, the right term that is very much like XR is spatial computing. 'cause it even includes things that aren't the wearable on your device. It's the idea that I understand spatially the environment around me. I understand what objects are my space and that doesn't even have anything to do with the wearable that's on your head. So I, so I like the term facial and I think all of these are a maturing of this industry X XR included. Um, because the, the unique terms that are describing everything, that is one easy thing to come outta your mouth, that actually means all of these things that are happening. And then you don't want to pigeonhole to just VR or pigeonhole to just ar ar.

Curtis Franklin (49:59):
Yeah. And you know, I'm actually starting to see more and more of the, let's call it the base tools, the primitive, the primitives starting to appear. Um, I did a lot of work with field Ecology, um, and one of the projects we tried to do was actually even before the treble helmet. And the idea was to have something that would know what we're looking at, so that if say we're in a valley, we could overlay rainfall gradients so we could figure out what's going on. So here's the point I'm trying to make. We're starting to see tools, like there's some apps out there. You point your camera at a leaf and it'll tell you what's wrong with it and what species it is. Are we rebuilding? Are we finally building the tools so that we can have the promise of Neil Stevenson's snow crash and, um, ready player one, uh, with the Oasis? Are, are we getting close? Am I gonna see it before I kick the bucket? <laugh>?

Michael Hoffman (51:04):
I, I think, I think the answer is yes. Um, the, the advances in AI and spatial computing are, are, are both accelerating a a as we've all been witnessing. And I do believe that the intersection of AI and spatial computing I is going to be ripe with just a crazy amount of innovation and crazy amount of opening up of possibilities. Um, on the AI side, the AI can do things like, oh, there is a fracture on the airplane that you're looking at right now, and you should probably know about it. You know, or there's the drone flight that, you know, this is where spatial computing is the right term because there you could do a drone flight that is looking at, um, you know, a pipeline and, and letting you know, and then a person at the, um, at the main office can then basically replay or even be seen with binocular vision, even, you know, what that drone saw and like verify it and, and you can just go on and on.

(51:56)
So I, I do absolutely believe that we're heading to a world where these devices, um, in our lifetimes will be something you wear all the time because they've been turned into nice, you know, classy looking glasses that happen to have most of the tech actually happening on the telephone pole down the street and, uh, or, or the thing in your pocket. Um, and it will make it possible for you to, um, effectively have better senses, see things that don't exist, uh, have like almost like super intelligence because it's tied to all these AI advancements, uh, in the cloud that are making it possible for you to effectively have access to more information, to see things that you may not see, to have that AI give you advice to do things that you may not have thought to do. And all of that is emerging in our lifetimes.

(52:41)
And, and, and I'm excited that to be at the epicenter of this convergence of, of all the sensor data that's available from IOT and all the advancements in ai, and then of course all the advancements in spatial computing and be right at the epicenter of helping, you know, big enterprise companies and other organizations understand how to make this a reality and turn it into something that actually benefits us instead of is just the art of the possible. And, and, you know, we are emerging outta the art of the possible and I'm really excited about that.

Curtis Franklin (53:10):
You know, you're talking about all of the possibilities here, and I know that especially in the AR and VR side, um, we had the, the case where it was first introduced as a consumer technology and it it was too expensive, too slow, too much of everything. And then it became a business technology where there are, you know, as Brian pointed out at Boeing, very serious uses in manufacturing and maintenance. Um, the first time I tried a virtual reality helmet was actually at an SS a P conference where you got to walk through massive data sets. So as you are looking at, at what you are doing at your company, do you see it being led by consumer technology and consumer applications that will then bring the enterprise with IT or being led by enterprise applications that may help drive the price low enough so that the consumers will become interested?

Michael Hoffman (54:26):
Yeah. Yeah, really good question. I, uh, my personal lens is that almost all emerging technologies start off solving business problems because it's usually too clunky and too expensive and has too many limits for it to actually be interesting to the consumer market. Um, I certainly believe that's true in this, these emerging industries as well. Um, certainly on the spatial side, I think AI is probably a little more balanced. Um, but, but on the spatial computing side, yes, there were attempts to, to C V R as as an entertainment device. Uh, and a lot of talk was about entertainment and even Microsoft thought initially these merging technologies would be more entertainment focused. But the reality is, um, business if, and like I was saying earlier, if you're solving a real business problem, these technologies will be purchased and deployed. And that can be at scale, maybe millions of units.

(55:14)
Uh, it just, the software right now isn't, isn't there yet, but I absolutely believe this will be commercial enterprise driven and then that will get the numbers up, that will get us past some of the device limitations, and then the consumers will come and the, all the developer chain and creator tool chains will have matured and it's gonna be easier and easier and easier to create content. Um, I think it'll be a fast follow for consumer On the entertainment side, entertainment is such a huge industry. You can almost argue it's really the devices will be used by companies as an enterprise use case to deliver entertainment value to their clients, which isn't actually necessarily a consumer play. It's a, it's a business play to meet a need of that consumers have, which is to be entertained. We all want to be entertained and I am right there with 'em.

(56:00)
I want to be entertained with all these emerging technologies. And so from that perspective, that will be the one way in which I do see these becoming a consumer device before it's gonna help you learn how to do that perfect, you know, uh, recipe that you might, might require nuance, but you don't know about the nuance and it tells you, you know, it actually guides you through the nuance. Like I, I just got a fancy, um, uh, press, uh, uh, espresso press and it takes a lot of skill and I'm like watching YouTube videos all over the place. And my, I was thinking like, man, if there's a spatial version of all these YouTube videos that were telling me exactly how to do this, I probably would've figured it out by now. Um, and that's way later because you're not gonna buy one for that. You would buy one potentially because it entertains you really well. So I do see entertainment as being the one consumer, um, outlier right now. And the rest is largely gonna light up in industry. And we are, you know, we are committed to solving anywhere the, the need and desire is we're planning on helping, um, accelerate that, uh, process of making those kinds of experiences?

Curtis Franklin (57:06):
Well, because it's my area. I've got to ask, as a new enterprise interface for computing, um, how much do you see this as being a security challenge? I mean, we have yet to see technology that criminals haven't tried to exploit for their own purposes. Um, how seriously are you taking security as an issue at this point? And are there things that potential customers need to be thinking about on the security side before they dive in in full?

Michael Hoffman (57:52):
Yeah, it's a really good question and I certainly see security in through two different lenses, um, from that, um, just technological lens. Absolutely it has, well, it certainly has all the same security challenges as, as any existing the device has, like, you know, your phone in your pocket and your pc and all of the same potential security concerns around, uh, easy to guess passwords. Um, I, I am not aware of too many additional security threats that are specific to these devices other than on these waveguide devices. You can, from a distance, be able to see what the person is seeing, if you have the right savviness on creating, you know, detectors that can detect that, that probably is the one area where I do believe that, that you will have a security challenge. The other one is we're gonna start talking to our computers and people can eavesdrop on their conversations.

(58:41)
You know, it's hard to eavesdrop on somebody typing a password. It's a lot easier to eavesdrop on somebody, um, to doing it through voice. Um, obviously things like retina scanning will help with things like that. So there's some minor additional security threats, but it certainly will adopt all the same security threats of, uh, of prior devices. Um, AI and spatial have one other kind of security threat, which is these things are tapping to a deeper part of our psyche. Like I have never in my life wanted to think my computer, and when I use, you know, things like chat g p t, it gives me a good enough answer so many times that I'm like, literally start typing the words, thank you. And I realize, wait a minute, this is a computer, why am I thinking it? But it's, but it's, it's a deeper part of your psyche where you think your brain actually is interacting with a different kind of modality where it thinks it's a person and it tr and you can build trust through it, thinking it's a person. And the same for spatial computing. I think that there will be a lot of interesting security challenges just around taking advantage of the fact that you have better accessibility to person's psyche with these new technologies, and therefore we're gonna need a lot more governance and controls to make sure that, that it, that nefarious actors are, aren't easily able to manipulate us. And this is a challenge that I believe is going to emerge an entire new area of security that isn't necessarily about the technology, but it's about psychology.

Lou Maresca (01:00:03):
Such interesting stuff. I, I think we could talk about for hours here, but unfortunately time flies when you're having fun. Mikey Michael, thank you so much for being here. Unfortunately, we're running a little low on time. I did wanna give you a chance to maybe tell our vast audience a little bit more about I Q xr, maybe how they can get started and how they get in, like into the tools, open source, that kind of thing.

Michael Hoffman (01:00:20):
Yeah, yeah. So, um, so I I Q X R, um, was founded just four months ago, but we're part of a or larger organization called the Mesmerize Group. And, and it's, it's on the order of 150 people that supports us. A lot of it is, um, there to support us on the AI side and on the, you know, consulting side and, and, and engagement side of the equation on the creative side. So we have a lot of support and we're growing really fast. Um, so we're early, but I, I am absolutely committed to only building things that actually solve real problems. So I need to talk to a lot of people. So if any of you want to, you know, reach out to us and, and help us understand what your needs are, help us understand, you know, what, what would unlock things for you, man, we really want that and need that.

(01:01:03)
In fact, it's gonna be a big part of my early mission at, at the company. Um, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn at, you know, in slash mt. Hoffman, Michael, Theodore Hoffman. I go by Hoff, but uh, I actually do have a name Michael. Um, and then, uh, info@iqxr.com. Um, feel free to reach there. That goes straight into mine. My two co-founders awesome, uh, Allie and House, um, who co-founded this with me and we're part of the journey all the way back to Object theory. Um, we are the ones that get it, that info@iqxr.com. So that's coming straight to us. Uh, don't think it's gonna go through, you know, all kinds of, you know, gatekeepers. Um, so please, please reach out to us. We want to hear, uh, what your needs are. We're committed to open source, we're committed to open standards. We want to give away as much as we can.

(01:01:51)
And while still figuring out ways to make money, we believe that's the only way to unlock this industry is to, to get away from the wall garden metaverses that we have today. That's not the future. The future is the web and everything is gonna be based on, you know, the, the evolution and emergence of new web standards that are really Web three D. So we're committed to trying to figure out what that all looks like and making sure web three D world space is, is how we get there and want to be your partner and lighting up everything in world space. Uh, regardless of what your actual, uh, use case and need is. We want to know about it.

Lou Maresca (01:02:28):
Fantastic. Well folks, you have done it. Again, you've sat through another out of the best thing enterprise and IT podcast in the universe you've seen by today's show, of course. So definitely tune your pod catcher to ttw. I wanna thank everyone who makes this so possible, especially to my wonderful co-host starting the writing own Mr. Brian Chi. Brian, I really hope you feel better soon. Get your some more rest there. Anything you wanna plug or pitch before we sign off?

Curtis Franklin (01:02:52):
Um, I wanna hear from our viewers, what do you folks want to listen to and watch? Hoff was a great, great one because we've had people asking for quite a long time. They wanted more on AR and vr. Now here you go. Um, we're gonna try and keep the threads going. I don't always manage, but I keep trying. But I want to hear from you. What do you wanna see? What do you want to interact with? And the best way to do that is prob well one with Twitter. I'm a D V N E T L A b advance net lab on Twitter. I'm also Bert spelled c h e e b e r t at twit tv. You're also welcome to use twit at twit tv and that hits all the hosts. We'd love to hear from you. Hit us with questions, hit us with suggestions for shows. Hit us with suggestions for threads. Take care and be safe.

Lou Maresca (01:03:53):
You too, as well. Cheaper. Well, folks, also, I also thank Mr. Curtis Franklin. Curtis, you teased us with some stuff in the beginning that's coming out for you. Can you give us a bit more?

Curtis Franklin (01:04:04):
Sure. Uh, I've got a piece that I've published on amia.com. Now, most of the time the stuff on omnia.com is available to our subscribers who, uh, pay frankly a lot of money for it. But this article is one of the ones that we're, I've made sure we're releasing free. I'm pointing to it on Twitter, on LinkedIn, uh, I'll have it on, um, Facebook, all of the social media. It's about shadow ai. You know, a a decade ago we were all talking about Shadow it, where people were bringing in, uh, cloud applications that their IT departments didn't know about. Well, these days with generative AI and especially large language model everywhere, most companies have AI in use within their corporate walls, whether they have policies about it and whether they know it or not. So my point is that you better have a policy, you better be thinking about it. And this article talks about why and which policies you wanna look at. So follow me on Twitter. I'm KG four GWA mastodon KG four gwa@mastodon.sdf.org. I'm on LinkedIn, Curtis Franklin, Facebook the same way. And you can always find me hanging around dark reading on the Omnia tab. So, uh, look me up. If you need to send me a message, I'll make sure you have the link. Would love to have people read this and to tell me what they think about this whole concept of Shadow ai.

Lou Maresca (01:05:48):
Thank you Curtis. Well folks, I also have to thank you as well. You're the person who drops in each and every week to watch and to listen to our show to get your enterprise goodness. We wanna make it easy for you to get your enterprise in IT News. So go to our show page right now, that's TWIT tv slash twit that you'll have all of our amazing back episodes. Of course all the show notes in the coast information and the links of the stories, but that we do during the show. But more importantly there next to those videos, you'll get those Health help. Subscribe and download Alexa, there they are. Get the short, get the video of your choice. Get the audio vision version or your video version of your choice. Listen on any one of your devices or any one of your podcast applications 'cause we're on all of them.

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(01:07:49)
And after you subscribe I want you to impress your friends, your family members, and your coworkers with the gift of twit because we have a lot of fun tech topics and and discussions on this show and I guarantee they will find it fun and interesting as well. So have them subscribe and if you already subscribed, listen, we do this show live that's right at 1:30 PM Pacific Time. You can go to live twit tv there. You'll find all the streams that you can choose from there. In fact, there's some new ones that I just saw there as well. You can come see how the pizza's made all the behind the scenes, of course the fun that we have before and after the show. So definitely check out the live stream. Of course, if you're gonna watch the live stream, we have our infamous twit live channel as well.

(01:08:25)
And you can get to that by just going to IRC twit tv and it'll log you right in there. A lot of amazing characters in there each and every week. They keep us on our toes, they give us some show topics and conversations during the show, of course are show titles. They're very pithy and and imaginative and appreciate all their creativity in there. So thank you guys for being here every week. We love our chat room, that's IRC at twit tv. Now I want you to definitely hit me up, whether it's direct message on LinkedIn, I'm Lou m m over there, of course I'm on Threads. I'm L M P M there 'cause it could couldn't get uh, L M M unfortunately there. Of course I'm also lm at Twit Social on Mastodon and of course Louis Mosque on LinkedIn. So please hit me up on one of those because I love hearing from you about the show.

(01:09:06)
Things we should do. I got some really great um, uh, questions this past week on some show topics that we should cover around the enterprise. So really great, keep keeping 'em coming 'cause I love hearing from all of you. Of course you wanna talk a little bit about Microsoft as well, what I do during my normal work week. You can check out developers.microsoft.com, there it is slash office. You can check out the latest, greatest ways to customize your office solution to get it more productive for you. And I can tell you one thing, if you have Microsoft 365 and you have Excel, pop that open right now, check out the automate tab because that'll change your world. You can actually record things that you're doing in Excel, play them back, actually automate them in power, automate, connect up different services, you name it, and run them on a schedule with triggers, whatever you wanna do.

(01:09:50)
It really creates some powerful, uh, integration. So definitely check that out at developers.microsoft.com/office. I wanna thank everyone who makes this show possible, especially to Leo and Lisa. They continue to support this week at Enterprise Tech each and every week. We couldn't do this show without them, so thank you for all the support over the years. Of course, thank you to all the staff and engineers on twit as well. And of course, thank you to Mr. Brian Chi. He's not only our co-host, but he's also our tireless producer as well. That's right. He's continually doing this over each and every week. He does all the bookings and the plannings for the show really couldn't do without him. So thank you she for all your support. And of course, before we sign out, we also have to thank our editor for today, Mr. Victor. He's gonna make us look good after the fact and cut out all of my mistakes. So thank you Mr. Victor. Of course, our TD for today, the talented Mr. Ant Pruitt. And how are you my friend? What's, what's coming up for you into it this week?

Ant Pruitt (01:10:43):
Excuse me Mr. Lu. I need to try to catch my breath because what Mr. Hoffman was bringing today. Good lord, that was a lot of information Shees. Good show. Uh, actually as the Club tour community manager, I am getting ready for an event at the time of this recording. We'll be doing our live photo critique. So if you're part of Club Twit, you can check that out and hop into the Discord and I'm gonna pick apart your photos and I promise I'll be somewhat kind. Just kidding. Just kidding. Check us out. <laugh>

Lou Maresca (01:11:17):
<laugh>. Now I was gonna submit, but then I heard Victor says he's gonna submit, so I'm just gonna let him uh, take the beating

Scott Wilkinson (01:11:23):
<laugh>.

Ant Pruitt (01:11:23):
Well, yeah, Mr. Victor, if you got something in there and I gotta call you out, I'm gonna call you out, brother <laugh>.

Lou Maresca (01:11:29):
Sounds good, sounds good. Looking forward to it. Thank you, Han. Well, until next time, I'm Luis Mariska just reminding you, if you wanna know what's going on in the enterprise, just keep quiet.

Scott Wilkinson (01:11:40):
Hey there. Scott Wilkinson here. In case you hadn't heard, home Theater Geeks is Back. Each week I bring you the latest audio, video news, tips and tricks to get the most out of your AV system product reviews and more you can enjoy Home Theater Geeks only if you're a member of Club Twit, which costs seven bucks a month. Or you can subscribe to Home Theater Geeks by itself for only 2 99 a month. I hope you'll join me for a weekly dose of home theater. Gee.